PROMOTED MAJOR-GENERAL OF VOLUNTEERS--UNOCCUPIED TERRITORY--ADVANCE UPON
NASHVILLE--SITUATION OF THE TROOPS--CONFEDERATE RETREAT--RELIEVED OF THE
COMMAND--RESTORED TO THE COMMAND--GENERAL SMITH.
The news of the fall of Fort Donelson caused great delight all over the
North. At the South, particularly in Richmond, the effect was
correspondingly depressing. I was promptly promoted to the grade of
Major-General of Volunteers, and confirmed by the Senate. All three of
my division commanders were promoted to the same grade and the colonels
who commanded brigades were made brigadier-generals in the volunteer
service. My chief, who was in St. Louis, telegraphed his
congratulations to General Hunter in Kansas for the services he had
rendered in securing the fall of Fort Donelson by sending reinforcements
so rapidly. To Washington he telegraphed that the victory was due to
General C. F. Smith; "promote him," he said, "and the whole country will
applaud." On the 19th there was published at St. Louis a formal order
thanking Flag-officer Foote and myself, and the forces under our
command, for the victories on the Tennessee and the Cumberland. I
received no other recognition whatever from General Halleck. But
General Cullum, his chief of staff, who was at Cairo, wrote me a warm
congratulatory letter on his own behalf. I approved of General Smith's
promotion highly, as I did all the promotions that were made.
My opinion was and still is that immediately after the fall of Fort
Donelson the way was opened to the National forces all over the
South-west without much resistance. If one general who would have taken
the responsibility had been in command of all the troops west of the
Alleghanies, he could have marched to Chattanooga, Corinth, Memphis and
Vicksburg with the troops we then had, and as volunteering was going on
rapidly over the North there would soon have been force enough at all
these centres to operate offensively against any body of the enemy that
might be found near them. Rapid movements and the acquisition of
rebellious territory would have promoted volunteering, so that
reinforcements could have been had as fast as transportation could have
been obtained to carry them to their destination. On the other hand
there were tens of thousands of strong able-bodied young men still at
their homes in the South-western States, who had not gone into the
Confederate army in February, 1862, and who had no particular desire to
go. If our lines had been extended to protect their homes, many of them
never would have gone. Providence ruled differently. Time was given
the enemy to collect armies and fortify his new positions; and twice
afterwards he came near forcing his north-western front up to the Ohio
River.
I promptly informed the department commander of our success at Fort
Donelson and that the way was open now to Clarksville and Nashville; and
that unless I received orders to the contrary I should take Clarksville
on the 21st and Nashville about the 1st of March. Both these places are
on the Cumberland River above Fort Donelson. As I heard nothing from
headquarters on the subject, General C. F. Smith was sent to Clarksville
at the time designated and found the place evacuated. The capture of
forts Henry and Donelson had broken the line the enemy had taken from
Columbus to Bowling Green, and it was known that he was falling back
from the eastern point of this line and that Buell was following, or at
least advancing. I should have sent troops to Nashville at the time I
sent to Clarksville, but my transportation was limited and there were
many prisoners to be forwarded north.
None of the reinforcements from Buell's army arrived until the 24th of
February. Then General Nelson came up, with orders to report to me with
two brigades, he having sent one brigade to Cairo. I knew General Buell
was advancing on Nashville from the north, and I was advised by scouts
that the rebels were leaving that place, and trying to get out all the
supplies they could. Nashville was, at that time, one of the best
provisioned posts in the South. I had no use for reinforcements now,
and thinking Buell would like to have his troops again, I ordered Nelson
to proceed to Nashville without debarking at Fort Donelson. I sent a
gunboat also as a convoy. The Cumberland River was very high at the
time; the railroad bridge at Nashville had been burned, and all river
craft had been destroyed, or would be before the enemy left. Nashville
is on the west bank of the Cumberland, and Buell was approaching from
the east. I thought the steamers carrying Nelson's division would be
useful in ferrying the balance of Buell's forces across. I ordered
Nelson to put himself in communication with Buell as soon as possible,
and if he found him more than two days off from Nashville to return
below the city and await orders. Buell, however, had already arrived in
person at Edgefield, opposite Nashville, and Mitchell's division of his
command reached there the same day. Nelson immediately took possession
of the city.
After Nelson had gone and before I had learned of Buell's arrival, I
sent word to department headquarters that I should go to Nashville
myself on the 28th if I received no orders to the contrary. Hearing
nothing, I went as I had informed my superior officer I would do. On
arriving at Clarksville I saw a fleet of steamers at the shore--the same
that had taken Nelson's division--and troops going aboard. I landed and
called on the commanding officer, General C. F. Smith. As soon as he
saw me he showed an order he had just received from Buell in these
words:
NASHVILLE, February 25, 1862.
GENERAL C. F. SMITH, Commanding U. S. Forces, Clarksville.
GENERAL:--The landing of a portion of our troops, contrary to my
intentions, on the south side of the river has compelled me to hold this
side at every hazard. If the enemy should assume the offensive, and I
am assured by reliable persons that in view of my position such is his
intention, my force present is altogether inadequate, consisting of only
15,000 men. I have to request you, therefore, to come forward with all
the available force under your command. So important do I consider the
occasion that I think it necessary to give this communication all the
force of orders, and I send four boats, the Diana, Woodford, John Rain,
and Autocrat, to bring you up. In five or six days my force will
probably be sufficient to relieve you.
Very respectfully, your ob't srv't, D. C. BUELL, Brigadier-General
Comd'g.
P. S.--The steamers will leave here at 12 o'clock to-night.
General Smith said this order was nonsense. But I told him it was
better to obey it. The General replied, "of course I must obey," and
said his men were embarking as fast as they could. I went on up to
Nashville and inspected the position taken by Nelson's troops. I did
not see Buell during the day, and wrote him a note saying that I had
been in Nashville since early morning and had hoped to meet him. On my
return to the boat we met. His troops were still east of the river, and
the steamers that had carried Nelson's division up were mostly at
Clarksville to bring Smith's division. I said to General Buell my
information was that the enemy was retreating as fast as possible.
General Buell said there was fighting going on then only ten or twelve
miles away. I said: "Quite probably; Nashville contained valuable
stores of arms, ammunition and provisions, and the enemy is probably
trying to carry away all he can. The fighting is doubtless with the
rear-guard who are trying to protect the trains they are getting away
with." Buell spoke very positively of the danger Nashville was in of an
attack from the enemy. I said, in the absence of positive information,
I believed my information was correct. He responded that he "knew."
"Well," I said, "I do not know; but as I came by Clarksville General
Smith's troops were embarking to join you."
Smith's troops were returned the same day. The enemy were trying to get
away from Nashville and not to return to it.
At this time General Albert Sidney Johnston commanded all the
Confederate troops west of the Alleghany Mountains, with the exception
of those in the extreme south. On the National side the forces
confronting him were divided into, at first three, then four separate
departments. Johnston had greatly the advantage in having supreme
command over all troops that could possibly be brought to bear upon one
point, while the forces similarly situated on the National side, divided
into independent commands, could not be brought into harmonious action
except by orders from Washington.
At the beginning of 1862 Johnston's troops east of the Mississippi
occupied a line extending from Columbus, on his left, to Mill Springs,
on his right. As we have seen, Columbus, both banks of the Tennessee
River, the west bank of the Cumberland and Bowling Green, all were
strongly fortified. Mill Springs was intrenched. The National troops
occupied no territory south of the Ohio, except three small garrisons
along its bank and a force thrown out from Louisville to confront that
at Bowling Green. Johnston's strength was no doubt numerically inferior
to that of the National troops; but this was compensated for by the
advantage of being sole commander of all the Confederate forces at the
West, and of operating in a country where his friends would take care of
his rear without any detail of soldiers. But when General George H.
Thomas moved upon the enemy at Mill Springs and totally routed him,
inflicting a loss of some 300 killed and wounded, and forts Henry and
Heiman fell into the hands of the National forces, with their armaments
and about 100 prisoners, those losses seemed to dishearten the
Confederate commander so much that he immediately commenced a retreat
from Bowling Green on Nashville. He reached this latter place on the
14th of February, while Donelson was still besieged. Buell followed
with a portion of the Army of the Ohio, but he had to march and did not
reach the east bank of the Cumberland opposite Nashville until the 24th
of the month, and then with only one division of his army.
The bridge at Nashville had been destroyed and all boats removed or
disabled, so that a small garrison could have held the place against any
National troops that could have been brought against it within ten days
after the arrival of the force from Bowling Green. Johnston seemed to
lie quietly at Nashville to await the result at Fort Donelson, on which
he had staked the possession of most of the territory embraced in the
States of Kentucky and Tennessee. It is true, the two generals senior
in rank at Fort Donelson were sending him encouraging dispatches, even
claiming great Confederate victories up to the night of the 16th when
they must have been preparing for their individual escape. Johnston made
a fatal mistake in intrusting so important a command to Floyd, who he
must have known was no soldier even if he possessed the elements of one.
Pillow's presence as second was also a mistake. If these officers had
been forced upon him and designated for that particular command, then he
should have left Nashville with a small garrison under a trusty officer,
and with the remainder of his force gone to Donelson himself. If he had
been captured the result could not have been worse than it was.
Johnston's heart failed him upon the first advance of National troops.
He wrote to Richmond on the 8th of February, "I think the gunboats of
the enemy will probably take Fort Donelson without the necessity of
employing their land force in cooperation." After the fall of that
place he abandoned Nashville and Chattanooga without an effort to save
either, and fell back into northern Mississippi, where, six weeks later,
he was destined to end his career.
From the time of leaving Cairo I was singularly unfortunate in not
receiving dispatches from General Halleck. The order of the 10th of
February directing me to fortify Fort Henry strongly, particularly to
the land side, and saying that intrenching tools had been sent for that
purpose, reached me after Donelson was invested. I received nothing
direct which indicated that the department commander knew we were in
possession of Donelson. I was reporting regularly to the chief of
staff, who had been sent to Cairo, soon after the troops left there, to
receive all reports from the front and to telegraph the substance to the
St. Louis headquarters. Cairo was at the southern end of the telegraph
wire. Another line was started at once from Cairo to Paducah and
Smithland, at the mouths of the Tennessee and Cumberland respectively.
My dispatches were all sent to Cairo by boat, but many of those
addressed to me were sent to the operator at the end of the advancing
wire and he failed to forward them. This operator afterwards proved to
be a rebel; he deserted his post after a short time and went south
taking his dispatches with him. A telegram from General McClellan to me
of February 16th, the day of the surrender, directing me to report in
full the situation, was not received at my headquarters until the 3d of
March.
On the 2d of March I received orders dated March 1st to move my command
back to Fort Henry, leaving only a small garrison at Donelson. From
Fort Henry expeditions were to be sent against Eastport, Mississippi,
and Paris, Tennessee. We started from Donelson on the 4th, and the same
day I was back on the Tennessee River. On March 4th I also received the
following dispatch from General Halleck:
MAJ.-GEN. U. S. GRANT, Fort Henry:
You will place Maj.-Gen. C. F. Smith in command of expedition, and
remain yourself at Fort Henry. Why do you not obey my orders to report
strength and positions of your command?
H. W. HALLECK, Major-General.
I was surprised. This was the first intimation I had received that
General Halleck had called for information as to the strength of my
command. On the 6th he wrote to me again. "Your going to Nashville
without authority, and when your presence with your troops was of the
utmost importance, was a matter of very serious complaint at Washington,
so much so that I was advised to arrest you on your return." This was
the first I knew of his objecting to my going to Nashville. That place
was not beyond the limits of my command, which, it had been expressly
declared in orders, were "not defined." Nashville is west of the
Cumberland River, and I had sent troops that had reported to me for duty
to occupy the place. I turned over the command as directed and then
replied to General Halleck courteously, but asked to be relieved from
further duty under him.
Later I learned that General Halleck had been calling lustily for more
troops, promising that he would do something important if he could only
be sufficiently reinforced. McClellan asked him what force he then had.
Halleck telegraphed me to supply the information so far as my command
was concerned, but I received none of his dispatches. At last Halleck
reported to Washington that he had repeatedly ordered me to give the
strength of my force, but could get nothing out of me; that I had gone
to Nashville, beyond the limits of my command, without his authority,
and that my army was more demoralized by victory than the army at Bull
Run had been by defeat. General McClellan, on this information, ordered
that I should be relieved from duty and that an investigation should be
made into any charges against me. He even authorized my arrest. Thus
in less than two weeks after the victory at Donelson, the two leading
generals in the army were in correspondence as to what disposition
should be made of me, and in less than three weeks I was virtually in
arrest and without a command.
On the 13th of March I was restored to command, and on the 17th Halleck
sent me a copy of an order from the War Department which stated that
accounts of my misbehavior had reached Washington and directed him to
investigate and report the facts. He forwarded also a copy of a
detailed dispatch from himself to Washington entirely exonerating me;
but he did not inform me that it was his own reports that had created
all the trouble. On the contrary, he wrote to me, "Instead of relieving
you, I wish you, as soon as your new army is in the field, to assume
immediate command, and lead it to new victories." In consequence I felt
very grateful to him, and supposed it was his interposition that had set
me right with the government. I never knew the truth until General
Badeau unearthed the facts in his researches for his history of my
campaigns.
General Halleck unquestionably deemed General C. F. Smith a much fitter
officer for the command of all the forces in the military district than
I was, and, to render him available for such command, desired his
promotion to antedate mine and those of the other division commanders.
It is probable that the general opinion was that Smith's long services
in the army and distinguished deeds rendered him the more proper person
for such command. Indeed I was rather inclined to this opinion myself
at that time, and would have served as faithfully under Smith as he had
done under me. But this did not justify the dispatches which General
Halleck sent to Washington, or his subsequent concealment of them from
me when pretending to explain the action of my superiors.
On receipt of the order restoring me to command I proceeded to Savannah
on the Tennessee, to which point my troops had advanced. General Smith
was delighted to see me and was unhesitating in his denunciation of the
treatment I had received. He was on a sick bed at the time, from which
he never came away alive. His death was a severe loss to our western
army. His personal courage was unquestioned, his judgment and
professional acquirements were unsurpassed, and he had the confidence
of those he commanded as well as of those over him.