THE RIVER WAR: 1862
The military front stretched east and west across the border States
from the Mississippi Valley to the sea. This immense and fluctuating
front, under its various and often changed commanders, was never a
well coördinated whole. The Alleghany Mountains divided the eastern
or Virginian wing from the western or "River" wing. Yet there was
always more or less connection between these two main parts, and
the fortunes of one naturally affected those of the other. Most
eyes, both at home and abroad, were fixed on the Virginian wing,
where the Confederate capital stood little more than a hundred
miles from Washington, where the greatest rival armies fought,
and where decisive victory was bound to have the most momentous
consequences. But the River wing was hardly less important; for
there the Union Government actually hoped to reach these three
supreme objectives in this one campaign: the absolute possession of
the border States, the undisputed right of way along the Mississippi
from Cairo to the Gulf, and the triumphant invasion of the lower
South in conjunction with the final conquest of Virginia.
We have seen already how the Union navy, aided by the army, won
its way up the Mississippi from the Gulf to Baton Rouge, but failed
to secure a single point beyond. We shall now see how the Union
army, aided by the navy, won its way down the Mississippi from
Cairo to Memphis, and fairly attained the first objective--the
possession of the border States; but how it also failed from the
north, as the others had failed from the south, to gain a footing
on the crucial stretch between Vicksburg and Port Hudson. One more
year was required to win the Mississippi; two more to invade the
lower South; three to conquer Virginia.
Just after the fall of Fort Sumter the Union Government had the
foresight to warn James B. Eads, the well-known builder of Mississippi
jetties, that they would probably draw upon his "thorough knowledge
of our Western rivers and the use of steam on them." But it was
not till August that they gave him the contract for the regular
gunboat flotilla; and it was not till the following year that his
vessels began their work. In the meantime the armies were asking for
all sorts of transport and protective craft. So the first flotilla on
Mississippi waters started under the War (not the Navy) Department,
though manned under the executive orders of Commander John Rodgers,
U. S. N., who bought three river steamers at Cincinnati, lowered
their engines, strengthened their frames, protected their decks,
and changed them into gunboats.
The first phase of the clash in this land of navigable rivers had
ended, as we have seen already, with the taking of Boonville on
the Missouri by that staunch and daring Union regular, General
Nathaniel Lyon, on June 17, 1861. Boonville was a stunning blow
to secession in those parts. Confederate hopes, however, again
rose high when the news of Bull Run came through. At this time
General John C. Frémont was taking command of all the Union forces
in the "Western Department," which included Illinois and everything
between the Mississippi and the Rockies. Frémont's command, however,
was short and full of trouble. Round his headquarters at St. Louis
the Confederate colors were flaunted in his face. His requisitions
for arms and money were not met at Washington. Union regiments
marched in without proper equipment and with next to no supplies.
There were boards of inquiry on his contracts. There were endless
cross-purposes between him and Washington. And early in November he
was transferred to West Virginia just as he was about to attack with
what seemed to him every prospect of success. He had not succeeded.
But he had done good work in fortifying St. Louis; in ordering
gunboats, tugs, and mortar-boats; in producing some kind of system
out of utter confusion; in trusting good men like Lyon; and in
sending the then unknown Ulysses Grant to take command at Cairo,
the excellent strategic base where the Ohio joins the Mississippi.
The most determined fighting that took place during Frémont's command
was brought on by Lyon, who attacked Ben McCulloch at Wilson's Creek,
in southwest Missouri, on the tenth of August. Though McCulloch had
ten thousand, against not much over five, Lyon was so set on driving
the Confederates away from such an important lead-bearing region
that he risked an attack, hoping by surprise, skillful maneuvers,
and the help of his regulars to shake the enemy's hold, even if
he could not thoroughly defeat him. Disheartened by his repeated
failure to get reinforcements, and very anxious about the fate
of his flanking column under Sigel, whose attack from the rear
was defeated, he expressed his forebodings to his staff. But the
light of battle shone bright as ever in his eyes; he was killed
leading a magnificent charge; and when, after his death, his little
army drew off in good order, the Confederates, by their own account,
"were glad to see him go."
On the twentieth of September the Confederates under Sterling Price
won a barren victory by taking Lexington, Missouri, where Colonel
James Mulligan made a gallant defense. That was the last Confederate
foothold on the Missouri; and it could not be maintained.
In October, Anderson, who had never recovered from the strain of
defending Fort Sumter, turned over to Sherman the very troublesome
Kentucky command. Sherman pointed out to the visiting Secretary of
War, Simon Cameron, that while McClellan had a hundred thousand
men for a front of a hundred miles in Virginia, and Frémont had
sixty thousand for about the same distance, he (Sherman) had been
given only eighteen thousand to guard the link between them, although
this link stretched out three hundred miles. Sherman then asked for
sixty thousand men at once; and said two hundred thousand would
be needed later on. "Good God!" said Cameron, "where are they to
come from?" Come they had to, as Sherman foresaw. Cameron made
trouble at Washington by calling Sherman's words "insane"; and
Sherman's "insanity" became a stumbling-block that took a long time
to remove.
Grant, in command at Cairo, began his career as a general by cleverly
forestalling the enemy at Paducah, where the Tennessee flows into the
Ohio. Then, on the seventh of November, he closed the first confused
campaign on the Mississippi by attacking Belmont, Missouri, twenty
miles downstream from Cairo, in order to prevent the Confederates at
Columbus, Kentucky, right opposite, from sending reinforcements to
Sterling Price in Arkansas. There was a stiff fight, in which the
Union gunboats did good work. Grant handled his soldiers equally
well; and the Union objective was fully attained.
Halleck, the Federal Commander-in-Chief for the river campaign
of '62, fixed his headquarters at St. Louis. From this main base
his right wing had rails as far as Rolla, whence the mail road
went on southwest, straight across Missouri. At Lebanon, near the
middle of the State, General Samuel R. Curtis was concentrating,
before advancing still farther southwest against the Confederates
whom he eventually fought at Pea Ridge. From St. Louis there was
good river, rail, and road connection south to Halleck's center in
the neighborhood of Cairo, where General Ulysses S. Grant had his
chief field base, at the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio. A
little farther east Grant had another excellent position at Paducah,
beside the junction of the Ohio and the Tennessee. Naval forces
were of course indispensable for this amphibious campaign; and in
Flag-Officer Andrew Hull Foote the Western Flotilla had a commander
able to coöperate with the best of his military colleagues. Halleck's
left--a semi-independent command--was based on the Ohio, stretched
clear across Kentucky, and was commanded by a good organizer and
disciplinarian, General Don Carlos Buell, whose own position at
Munfordville was not only near the middle of the State but about
midway between the important railway junctions of Louisville and
Nashville.
Henry W. Halleck was a middle-aged, commonplace, and very cautious
general, who faithfully plodded through the war without defeat or
victory. He looked so long before he leaped that he never leaped at
all--not even on retreating enemies. Good for the regular office-work
routine, he was like a hen with ducklings for this river war, in
which Curtis, Grant, Buell, and his naval colleague Foote, were
all his betters on the fighting line.
His opponent, Albert Sidney Johnston, was also middle-aged, being
fifty-nine; but quite fit for active service. Johnston had had
a picturesque career, both in and out of the army; and many on
both sides thought him likely to prove the greatest leader of the
war. He was, however, a less formidable opponent than Northerners
were apt to think. He was not a consummate genius like Lee. He had
inferior numbers and resources; and the Confederate Government
interfered with him. Yet they did have the good sense to put both
sides of the Mississippi under his unified command, including not
only Kentucky and Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas, but the whole
of the crucial stretch from Vicksburg to Port Hudson. In this they
were wiser than the Federal Government with Halleck's command,
which was neither so extensive nor so completely unified.
Johnston took post in his own front line at Bowling Green, Kentucky,
not far south of Buell's position at Munfordville. He was very
anxious to keep a hold on Kentucky and Missouri, along the southern
frontiers of which his forces were arrayed. His extreme right was
thrown northward under General Marshall to Prestonburg, near the
border of West Virginia, in the dangerous neighborhood of many
Union mountain folk. His southern outpost on the right was also
in the same kind of danger at Cumberland Gap, a strategic pass
into the Alleghanies at a point where Kentucky, Tennessee, and
Virginia meet. Halfway west from there, to Bowling Green the
Confederates hoped to hold the Cumberland near Logan's Cross Roads
and Mill Springs. Westwards from Bowling Green Johnston's line held
positions at Fort Donelson on the Cumberland, Fort Henry on the
Tennessee, and Columbus on the Mississippi. All his Trans-Mississippi
troops were under the command of the enthusiastic Earl Van Dorn,
who hoped to end his spring campaign in triumph at St. Louis.
The fighting began in January at the northeastern end of the line,
where the Union Government, chiefly for political reasons, was
particularly anxious to strengthen the Unionists that lived all
down the western Alleghanies and so were a thorn in the side of
the solid South beyond. On the tenth Colonel James A. Garfield, a
future President, attacked and defeated Marshall near Prestonburg
and occupied the line of Middle Creek. The Confederates, half starved,
half clad, ill armed, slightly outnumbered, and with no advantage
except their position, fought well, but unavailingly. Only some
three thousand men were engaged on both sides put together. Yet
the result was important because it meant that the Confederates
had lost their hold on the eastern end of Kentucky, which was now
in unrestricted touch with West Virginia.
Within eight days a greater Union commander, General G. H. Thomas,
emerged as the victor of a much bigger battle at Mill Springs and
Logan's Cross Roads on the upper Cumberland, ninety miles due east
of Bowling Green. The victory was complete, and Thomas's name was
made. Thomas, indeed, was known already as a man whose stentorian
orders had to be obeyed; and a clever young Confederate prisoner
used this reputation as his excuse for getting beaten: "We were doing
pretty good fighting till old man Thomas rose up in his stirrups,
and we heard him holler out: 'Attention, Creation! By kingdoms,
right wheel!' Then we knew you had us."
There were only about four thousand men a side. But in itself, and
in conjunction with Garfield's little victory at Prestonburg, the
battle of Logan's Cross Roads was important as raising the Federal
morale, as breaking through Johnston's right, and as opening the road
into eastern Tennessee. Short supplies and almost impassable roads,
however, prevented a further advance. One brigade was therefore
detached against Cumberland Gap, while the rest joined Buell's
command, which was engaged in organizing, drilling hard, and keeping
an eye on Johnston.
In February the scene of action changed to Johnston's left center,
where Forts Donelson and Henry were blocking the Federal advance
up the Cumberland and the Tennessee.
On the fourth, Flag-Officer Foote, with seven gunboats, of which
four were ironclads, led the way up the Tennessee, against Fort
Henry. That day the furious current was dashing driftwood in whirling
masses against the flotilla, which had all it could do to keep
station, even with double anchors down and full steam up. Next
morning a new danger appeared in the shape of what looked like a
school of dead porpoises. These were Confederate torpedoes, washed
from their moorings. As it was now broad daylight they were all
successfully avoided; and the crews felt as if they had won the
first round.
The sixth of February dawned clear, with just sufficient breeze to
blow the smoke away. The flotilla steamed up the swollen Tennessee
between the silent, densely wooded banks. Not a sound was heard
ashore until, just after noon, Fort Henry came into view and answered
the flagship's signal shot with a crashing discharge of all its
big guns. Then the fire waxed hot and heavy on both sides, the
gunboats knocking geyser-spouts of earth about the fort, and the
fort knocking gigantic splinters out of the gunboats. The _Essex_
ironclad was doing very well when a big shot crashed into her middle
boiler, which immediately burst like a shell, scalding the nearest
men to death, burning others, and sending the rest flying overboard
or aft. With both pilots dead and Commander W. D. Porter badly
scalded, the _Essex_ was drifting out of action when the word went
round that Fort Henry had surrendered: and there, sure enough,
were the Confederate colors coming down. Instantly Porter rallied
for the moment, called for three cheers, and fell back exhausted
at the third.
The Confederate General Tilghman surrendered to Foote with less
than a hundred men, all the rest, over twenty-five hundred, having
started towards Fort Donelson before the flag came down. The Western
Flotilla had won the day alone. But it was the fear of Grant's
approaching army that hurried the escaping garrison. An hour after
the surrender Grant rode in and took command. That night victors
and vanquished were dining together when a fussy staff officer came
in to tell Grant that he could not find the Confederate reports.
On this Captain Jesse Taylor, the chief Confederate staff officer,
replied that he had destroyed them. The angry Federal then turned
on him with the question, "Don't you know you've laid yourself
open to punishment?" and was storming along, when Grant quietly
broke in: "I should be very much surprised and mortified if one
of my subordinate officers should allow information which he could
destroy to fall into the hands of the enemy."
The surrender of Fort Henry, coming so soon after Prestonburg and
Logan's Cross Roads, caused great rejoicing in the loyal North. The
victory, effective in itself, was completed by sending the ironclad
_Carondelet_ several miles upstream to destroy the Memphis-Ohio
railway bridge, thus cutting the shortest line from Bowling Green to
the Mississippi. But the action, in which the army took no part,
was only a preliminary skirmish compared with the joint attack of
the fleet and army on Fort Donelson. Fort Donelson was of great
strategic importance. If it held fast, and the Federals were defeated,
then Johnston's line would probably hold from Bowling Green to
Columbus, and the rails, roads, and rivers would remain Confederate
in western Tennessee. If, on the other hand, Fort Donelson fell,
and more especially if its garrison surrendered, then Johnston's
line would have to be withdrawn at once, lest the same fate should
overtake the outflanked remains of it. Both sides understood this
perfectly well; and all concerned looked anxiously to see how the
new Federal commander, General Grant, would face the crisis.
Ulysses Simpson Grant came of sturdy New England stock, being eighth
in descent from Matthew Grant, who landed in 1630 and was Surveyor
of Connecticut for over forty years. Grant's mother was one of
the Simpsons who had been Pennsylvanians for several generations.
His family was therefore as racy of the North as Lee's was of the
South. His great-grandfather and great-granduncle, Noah and Solomon
Grant, held British commissions during the final French-and-Indian
or Seven Years' War (1756-63) when both were killed in the same
campaign. His grandfather Noah served all through the Revolutionary
War. Financial reverses and the death of his grandmother broke up
the family; and his father, Jesse Grant, was given the kindest
of homes by Judge Tod of Ohio. Jesse, being as independent as he
was grateful, turned his energies into the first business at hand,
which happened to be a tannery at Deerfield owned by the father of
that wild enthusiast John Brown. A great reader, an able contributor
to the Western press, and a most public-spirited citizen, Jesse
Grant was a good father to his famous son, who was born on April
27, 1822, at Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio. Young Grant
hated the tannery, but delighted in everything connected with horses;
so he looked after the teams. One day, after swapping horses many
miles from home, he found himself driving a terrified bolter that
he only just managed to stop on the edge of a big embankment. His
grown-up companion, who had no stomach for any more, then changed
into a safe freight wagon. But Ulysses, tying his bandanna over
the runaway's eyes, stuck to the post of danger.
After passing through West Point without any special distinction,
except that he came out first in horsemanship, Grant was disappointed
at not receiving the cavalry commission which he would have greatly
preferred to the infantry one he was given instead. Years later,
when already a rising general, he vainly yearned for a cavalry
brigade. Otherwise he had curiously little taste for military life;
though at West Point he thought the two finest men in the world
were Captain C. F. Smith, the splendidly smart Commandant, and,
even more, that magnificently handsome giant, Winfield Scott, who
came down to inspect the cadets. Some years after having served
with credit all through the Mexican War (when, like Lee, he learnt
so much about so many future friends and foes) he left the army,
not to return till he and Sherman had seen Blair and Lyon take
Camp Jackson. After wisely declining to reënter the service under
the patronage of General John Pope, who was full of self-importance
about his acquaintance with the Union leaders of Illinois, Grant
wrote to the Adjutant-General at Washington offering to command
a regiment. Like Sherman, he felt much more diffident about the
rise from ex-captain of regulars to colonel commanding a battalion
than some mere civilians felt about commanding brigades or directing
the strategy of armies. He has himself recorded his horror of sole
responsibility as he approached what might have been a little
battlefield on which his own battalion would have been pitted against
a Southern one commanded by a Colonel Harris. "My heart kept getting
higher and higher until it felt as though it was in my throat. I
would have given anything then to have been back in Illinois; but
I had not the moral courage to halt and consider what to do. When
we reached a point from which the valley below was in full view
... the troops were gone. My heart resumed its place. It occurred
to me at once that Harris had been as much afraid of me as I had
been of him. This was a view of the question I never forgot."
Grant's latent powers developed rapidly. Starting with a good stock
of military knowledge he soon added to it in every way he could. He
had the insight of genius. Above all, he had an indomitable will
both in carrying out practicable plans in spite of every obstacle
and in ruthlessly dismissing every one who failed. Not tall, not
handsome, in no way striking at first sight, he looked the leader
born only by reason of his square jaw, keen eye, and determined
expression. Lincoln's conclusive answer to a deputation asking
for Grant's removal simply was, "he fights." And, when mounted on
his splendid charger Cincinnati, Grant even looked what he was--"a
first-class fighting man."
Grant marched straight across the narrow neck of land between the
forts, which were only twelve miles apart. Foote of course had
to go round by the Ohio--fifteen times as far. His vanguard, the
dauntless _Carondelet_, now commanded by Henry Walke, arrived on
the twelfth and fired the first shots at the fort, which stood on
a bluff more than a hundred feet high and mounted fifteen heavy
guns in three tiers of fire. Grant's infantry was already in position
round the Confederate entrenchments; and when his soldiers heard
the naval guns they first gave three rousing cheers and then began
firing hard, lest the sailors should get ahead of them again. Birge's
sharpshooters, the snipers of those days, were particularly keen.
They never drilled as a battalion, but simply assembled in bunches
for orders, when Birge would ask: "Canteens full? Biscuits for
all day?" After which he would sing out: "All right, boys, hunt
your holes"; and off they would go to stalk the enemy with their
long-range rifles.
Early next morning Grant sent word to Walke that he was establishing
the rest of his batteries and that he was ready to take advantage
of any diversion which the _Carondelet_ could make in his favor.
Walke then fired hard for two hours under cover of a wooded point.
The fort fired back equally hard; but with little effect except
for one big solid shot which stove in a casemate, knocked down a
dozen men, burst the steam heater, and bounded about the engine
room "like a wild beast pursuing its prey." Forty minutes later
the _Carondelet_ was again in action, firing hard till dark. Late
that night Foote arrived with the rest of the flotilla.
The fourteenth was another naval day. Foote's flotilla advanced
gallantly, the four ironclads leading in line abreast, the two
wooden gunboats half a mile astern. The ironclads closed in to less
than a quarter-mile and hung on like bulldogs till the Confederates
in the lowest battery were driven from their guns. But the plunging
fire from the big guns on the bluff crashed down with ever increasing
effect. Davits were smashed like matches, boats knocked into kindling
wood, armor dented, started, ripped, stripped, and sent splashing
overboard as if by strokes of lightning. Before the decks could
be re-sanded there was so much blood on them that the gun crews
could hardly work for slipping. Presently the _Pittsburgh_ swung
round, ran foul of the _Carondelet_, and dropped downstream. The
pilot of the _St. Louis_ was killed, and Foote, who stood beside
him, wounded. The wheel-ropes of the _St. Louis_, like those of
the _Louisville_, were shot away. The whole flotilla then retired,
still firing hard; and the Confederates wired a victory to Richmond.
Both sides now redoubled their efforts; for Donelson was a great
prize and the forces engaged were second only to those at Bull Run.
Afloat and ashore, all ranks and ratings on both sides together,
there were fifty thousand men present at the investment from first
to last. The Confederates began with about twenty thousand, Grant
with fifteen thousand. But Grant had twenty-seven thousand fit for
duty at the end, in spite of all his losses. He was fortunate in
his chief staff officer, the devoted and capable John A. Rawlins,
afterwards a general and Secretary of War. Two of his divisional
commanders, Lew Wallace and, still more, C. F. Smith, the old Commandant
of Cadets, were also first-rate. But the third, McClernand, here
began to follow those distorting ideas which led to his dismissal
later on. The three chief Confederates ranked in reverse order
of efficiency: Floyd first and worst, cantankerous Pillow next,
and Buckner best though last.
The Federal prospect was anything but bright on the evening of
the fourteenth. Foote had just been repulsed; while McClernand had
fought a silly little battle on his own account the day before,
to the delight of the Confederates and the grievous annoyance of
Grant. The fifteenth dawned on a scene of midwinter discomfort
in the Federal lines, where most of the rawest men had neither
great-coats nor blankets, having thrown them away during the short
march from Fort Henry, regardless of the fact that they would have
to bivouac at Donelson. Thus it was in no happy frame of mind that
Grant slithered across the frozen mud to see what Foote proposed;
and, when Foote explained that the gunboats would take ten days for
indispensable repairs, Grant resigned himself to the very unwelcome
idea of going through the long-drawn horrors of a regular winter
siege.
But, to his intense surprise, the enemy saved him the trouble. At
first, when they had a slight preponderance of numbers, they stood
fast and let Grant invest them. Now that he had the preponderance
they tried to cut their way out by the southern road, upstream, where
McClernand's division stood guard. As Grant came ashore from his
interview with Foote an aide met him with the news that McClernand
had been badly beaten and that the enemy was breaking out. Grant
set spurs to his horse and galloped the four muddy miles to his
left, where that admirable soldier, C. F. Smith, was as cool and
wary as ever, harassing the enemy's new rear by threatening an
assault, but keeping his division safe for whatever future use
Grant wanted. Wallace had also done the right thing, pressing the
enemy on his own front and sending a brigade to relieve the pressure
on McClernand. These two generals were in conversation during a lull
in the battle when Grant rode up, calmly returned their salutes,
attentively listened to their reports, and then, instead of trying
the Halleckian expedient of digging in farther back before the enemy
could make a second rush, quietly said: "Gentlemen, the position
on the right must be retaken."
Grant knew that Floyd was no soldier and that Pillow was a
stumbling-block. He read the enemy's mind like an open book and
made up his own at once by the flash of intuition which told him
that their men were mostly as much demoralized by finding their
first attempt at escape more than half a failure as even McClernand's
were by being driven back. He decided to use Smith's fresh division
for an assault in rear, while McClernand's, stiffened by Wallace's,
should re-form and hold fast. Before leaving the excited officers and
men, who were talking in groups without thinking of their exhausted
ammunition, he called out cheerily "Fill your cartridge boxes quick,
and get into line. The enemy is trying to escape and he must not
be permitted to do so." McClernand's division, excellent men, but
not yet disciplined soldiers, responded at once to the touch of a
master hand; and as Grant rode off to Smith's he had the satisfaction
of seeing the defenseless groups melt, change, and harden into
well-armed lines.
Smith, ready at all points, had only to slip his own division from
the leash. Buckner, who was to have covered the Confederate escape,
was also ready with the guns of Fort Donelson and the rifles of
defenses that "looked too thick for a rabbit to get through." Smith,
knowing his unseasoned men would need the example of a commander
they could actually see, rode out in front of his center as if
at a formal review. "I was nearly scared to death," said one of
his followers, "but I saw the old man's white moustache over his
shoulder, and so I went on." As the line neared the Confederate
abatis a sudden gust of fire seemed to strike it numb. In an instant
Smith had his cap on the point of his sword. Then, rising in his
stirrups to his full gigantic height, he shouted in stentorian
tones: "No flinching now, my lads! Here--this way in! Come on!"
In, through, and out the other side they went, Smith riding ahead,
holding his sword and cap aloft, and seeming to bear a charmed life
amid that hail of bullets. Up the slope he rode, the Confederates
retiring before him, till, unscathed, he reached the deadly crest,
where the Union colors waved defiance and the Union troops stood
fast.
Floyd, being under special indictment at Washington for misconduct
as Secretary of War, was so anxious to escape that he turned over
the command to Pillow, who declined it in favor of Buckner. That
night Floyd and Pillow made off with all the river steamers; Forrest's
cavalry floundered past McClernand's exposed flank, which rested on
a shallow backwater; and Buckner was left with over twelve thousand
men to make what terms he could. Next morning, the sixteenth, he wrote
to Grant proposing the appointment of commissioners to agree upon
terms of surrender. But Grant had made up his mind that compromise
was out of place in civil war and that absolute defeat or victory
were the only alternatives. So he instantly wrote back the famous
letter which quickly earned him the appropriate nickname--suggested
by his own initials--of Unconditional Surrender Grant.
Hd Qrs., Army in the Field
Camp near Donelson Feb'y 16th 1882
Gen. S. B. Buckner,
Confed. Army.
Sir: Yours of this date proposing armistice, and appointment of
Commissioners to settle terms of capitulation is just received.
No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be
accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works
I am, Sir, very respectfully,
Your obt. sert.,
U. S. GRANT
Brig. Gen.
Grant and Buckner were old army friends; so their personal talk
was very pleasant at the little tavern where Buckner and his staff
had just breakfasted off corn bread and coffee, which was all the
Confederate stores afforded.
Donelson at once became, like Grant, a name to conjure with. The
fact that the Union had at last won a fight in which the numbers
neared, and the losses much exceeded, those at Bull Run itself, the
further fact that this victory made a fatal breach in the defiant
Southern line beyond the Alleghanies, and the delight of discovering
another, and this time a genuine, hero in "Unconditional Surrender
Grant," all combined to set the loyal North aflame with satisfaction,
pride, and joyful expectation. Great things were expected in Virginia,
where the invasion had not yet begun. Great things were expected
in the Gulf, where Farragut had not yet tried the Mississippi.
And great things were expected to result from Donelson itself,
whence the Union forces were to press on south till they met other
Union forces pressing north. The river campaign was then to end
in a blaze of glory.
Donelson did have important results. Johnston, who had already
abandoned Bowling Green for Nashville, had now to abandon Nashville,
with most of its great and very sorely needed stores, as well as
the rest of Tennessee, and take up a new position along the rails
that ran from Memphis to Chattanooga, whence they forked northeast
to Richmond and Washington and southeast to Charleston and Savannah.
Columbus was also abandoned, and the only points left to the
Confederates anywhere near the old line were Island Number Ten in
the Mississippi and the Boston Mountains in Arkansas.
But the triumphant Union advance from the north did not take place
in '62. Grant was for pushing south as fast as possible to attack the
Confederates before they had time to defend their great railway junction
at Corinth. But Halleck was too cautious; and misunderstandings,
coupled with division of command, did the rest. Halleck was the
senior general in the West. But the three, and afterwards four,
departments into which the West was divided were never properly
brought under a single command. Then telegrams went wrong at the
wire-end advancing southwardly from Cairo, the end Grant had to
use. A wire from McClellan on the sixteenth of February was not
delivered till the third of March. Next day Grant was thunderstruck
at receiving this from Halleck: "Place 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?" And
so it went on till McClellan authorized Halleck to place Grant
under arrest for insubordination. Then the operator at the wire-end
suddenly deserted, taking a sheaf of dispatches with him. He was
a clever Confederate.
Explanations followed; and on the seventeenth of March Grant rejoined
his army, which was assembling round Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee,
near the future battlefield of Shiloh, and some twenty miles northeast
of Corinth.
Meanwhile Van Dorn and Sterling Price, thinking it was now or never
for Missouri, decided to attack Curtis. They had fifteen against
ten thousand men, and hoped to crush Curtis utterly by catching
him between two fires. But on the seventh of March the Federal left
beat off the flanking attack of McCulloch and McIntosh, both of
whom were killed. The right, furiously assailed by the Confederate
Missourians under Van Dorn and Price, fared badly and was pressed
back. Yet on the eighth Curtis emerged victorious on the hard-fought
field that bears the double name of Elkhorn Tavern and Pea Ridge.
This battle in the northwest corner of Arkansas settled the fate
of Missouri.
A month later the final attack was made on Island Number Ten. Foote's
flotilla had been at work there as early as the middle of March,
when the strong Confederate batteries on the island and east shore
bluffs were bombarded by ironclads and mortarboats. Then the Union
General John Pope took post at New Madrid, eight miles below the
island, on the west shore, which the Confederates had to evacuate
when he cut their line of communications farther south. They now
held only the island and the east shore opposite, with no line
of retreat except the Mississippi, because the land line on the
east shore was blocked by swamps and flanked by the Union armies
in western Tennessee.
On the night of the fourth of April the _Carondelet_ started to
cut this last line south. She was swathed in hawsers and chain
cables. Her decks were packed tight with every sort of gear that
would break the force of plunging shot; and a big barge, laden
with coal and rammed hay, was lashed to her port side to protect
her magazine. Twenty-three picked Illinoisian sharpshooters went
aboard; while pistols, muskets, cutlasses, boarding-pikes, and hand
grenades were placed ready for instant use. The escape-pipe was
led aft into the wheel-house, so as to deaden the noise; and hose
was attached to the boilers ready to scald any Confederates that
tried to board. Then, through the heart of a terrific thunderstorm,
and amid a furious cannonade, the _Carondelet_ ran the desperate
gauntlet at full speed and arrived at New Madrid by midnight.
The Confederates were now cut off both above and below; for the
position of Island Number Ten was at the lower point of a V-shaped
bend in the Mississippi, with Federal forces at the two upper points.
But the Federal troops could not close on the Confederates without
crossing over to the east bank; and their transports could not run
the gauntlet like the ironclads. So the Engineer Regiment of the West
cut out a water road connecting the two upper points of the V. This
admirable feat of emergency field engineering was effected by sawing
through three miles of heavy timber to the nearest bayou, whence a
channel was cleared down to New Madrid. Then the transports went
through in perfect safety and took Pope's advanced guard aboard. The
ironclad _Pittsburg_ had come down, through another thunderstorm,
this same morning of the seventh; and when the island garrison
saw their position completely cut off they surrendered to Foote.
Next day Pope's men cut off the greater part of the Confederates
on the mainland. Thus fell the last point near Johnston's original
line along the southern borders of Missouri and Kentucky.
Just before it fell Johnston made a desperate counterattack from
his new line at Corinth, in northwest Mississippi, against Grant's
encroaching force at Shiloh, fifteen miles northeast, on the Tennessee
River.
Writing "A. S. Johnston, 3d April, 62, _en avant_" on his pocket
map of Tennessee, the Confederate leader, anguished by the bitter
criticism with which his unavoidable retreat had been assailed, cast
the die for an immediate attack on Grant before slow Halleck reinforced
or ready Buell joined him. Johnston's lieutenants, Beauregard and
Bragg, had obtained ten days for reorganization; and their commands
were as ready as raw forces could be made in an extreme emergency.
They hoped to be joined by Van Dorn, whose beaten army was working
east from Pea Ridge. But on the second they heard that Buell was
approaching Grant from Nashville; and on the third Johnston's advanced
guard began to move off. Van Dorn arrived too late.
The march, which it was hoped to complete on the fourth, was not
completed till the fifth. The roads were ankle-deep in clinging
mud, the country densely wooded and full of bogs and marshes. The
forty thousand men were not yet seasoned; and, though full of
enthusiasm, they neither knew nor had time to learn march discipline.
Moreover, Johnston allowed his own proper plan of attacking in
columns of corps to be changed by Beauregard into a three-line
attack, each line being formed by one complete corps. This meant
certain and perhaps disastrous confusion. For in an attack by columns
of corps the firing line would always be reinforced by successive
lines of the same corps; while attacking by lines of corps meant
that the leading corps would first be mixed up with the second,
and then both with the third.
In the meantime Grant was busier with his own pressing problems
of organization for an advance than with any idea of resisting
attack. He lacked the prevision of Winfield Scott and Lee, both of
whom expected from the first that the war would last for years. His
own expectation up to this had been that the South would collapse
after the first smashing blow, and that its western armies were
now about to be dealt such a blow. He was not unmindful of all
precautions; for he knew the Confederates were stirring on his
front. Yet he went downstream to Savannah without making sure that
his army was really safe at Shiloh.
Pittsburg Landing was at the base of the Shiloh position. But the
point at which, by the original orders, Buell was to join was Savannah,
nine miles north along the Tennessee. So Grant had to keep in touch
with both. He had not ignored the advantage of entrenching. But
the best line for entrenching was too far from good water; and
he thought he chose the lesser of two evils when he devoted the
time that might have been used for digging to drilling instead. His
army was raw as an army; many of the men were still rawer recruits;
and, as usual, the recruiting authorities had sent him several
brand-new battalions, which knew nothing at all, instead of sending
the same men as reinforcements to older battalions that could "learn
'em how." Grant's total effectives at first were only thirty-three
thousand. This made the odds five to four in favor of Johnston's
attack. But the rejoining of Lew Wallace's division, the great
reinforcement by Buell's troops, and the two ironclad gunboats
on the river, raised Grant's final effective grand total to sixty
thousand. The combined grand totals therefore reached a hundred
thousand--double the totals at Donelson and far exceeding those
at Bull Run.
After a horrible week of cold and wet the sun set clear and calm
on Saturday, the eve of battle. The woods were alive with forty
thousand Confederates all ready for their supreme attack on the
thirty-three thousand Federals on their immediate four-mile front.
Grant's front ran, facing south, between Owl and Lick Creeks, two
tributaries that joined the Tennessee on either side of Pittsburg
Landing. Buell's advance division, under Nelson, was just across the
Tennessee. But Grant was in no hurry to get it over. His reassuring
wire that night to Halleck said: "The main force of the enemy is at
Corinth. I have scarcely the faintest idea of an attack (general
one) being made upon us." But the skirmishing farther south on Friday
had warned Grant, as well as Sherman and the vigilant Prentiss,
that Johnston might be trying a reconnaissance in force--the very
thing that Beauregard wished the Confederates to do.
Long before the beautiful dawn of Sunday, the fateful sixth of
April, Prentiss had thrown out from the center a battalion which
presently met and drove in the vanguard of the first Confederate
line of assault. The Confederate center soon came up, overwhelmed
this advanced battalion, and burst like a storm on the whole of
Prentiss's division. Then, above the swelling roar of multitudinous
musketry, rose the thunder of the first big guns. "Note the hour,
please, gentlemen," said Johnston; and a member of his staff wrote
down: "5:14 A.M."
Johnston's admirable plan was, first, to drive Grant's left clear
of Lick Creek, then drive it clear of Pittsburg Landing, where the
two Federal ironclads were guarding the ferry. This, combined with
a determined general assault on the rest of Grant's line, would huddle
the retreating Federals into the cramped angle between Owl Creek and
the Tennessee and force them to surrender. But there were three
great obstacles to this: Sherman on the right, the "Hornet's Nest"
in the center, and the gunboats at the Landing. Worse still for the
Confederates, Buell was now too close at hand. Three days earlier
Johnston had wired from Corinth to the Government at Richmond:
"Hope engagement before Buell can form junction." But the troubles
of the march had lost him one whole priceless day.
The Confederate attack was splendidly gallant and at first pushed
home regardless of loss. The ground was confusing to both sides:
a bewilderment of ups and downs, of underbrush, woods, fields,
and clumps of trees, criss-cross paths, small creeks, ravines,
and swamps, without a single commanding height or any outstanding
features except the two big creeks, the river, and the Pittsburg
Landing.
At the first signs of a big battle Grant hurried to the field,
first sending a note to Buell, whom he was to have met at Savannah,
then touching at Crump's Landing on the way, to see Lew Wallace
and make sure whether this, and not the Pittsburg Landing, was the
point of attack. Arrived on the field of Shiloh, calm and determined
as ever, he was reassured by finding how well Sherman was holding
his raw troops in hand at the extremely important point of Shiloh
itself, next to Owl Creek.
But elsewhere the prospect was not encouraging, though the men
got under arms very fast and most of them fought very well. The
eager gray lines kept pressing on like the rising tide of an angry
sea, dashing in fury against all obstructing fronts and swirling
round the disconnecting flanks. The blue lines, for the most part,
resisted till the swift gray tide threatened to cut them off. Half
of Prentiss's remaining men were in fact cut off that afternoon and
forced to surrender with their chief, whose conduct, like their
own, was worthy of all praise. Back and still back the blue lines
went before the encroaching gray, each losing heavily by sheer hard
fighting at the front and streams of stragglers running towards
the rear.
Sherman, like others, gave ground, but still held his men together,
except for the stragglers he could not control. In the center C.
F. Smith's division, with Hurlbut's in support, and all that was
left of Prentiss's, defended themselves so desperately that their
enemies called their position the Hornet's Nest. Here the fight
swayed back and forth for hours, with ghastly losses on both sides.
C. F. Smith himself was on his deathbed at Savannah. But he heard
the roar of battle. His excellent successor, W. H. L. Wallace,
was killed; and battalions, brigades, and even divisions, soon
became inextricably mixed together. There was now the same confusion
on the Confederate side, where Johnston was wounded by a bullet
from the Hornet's Nest. It was not in itself a mortal wound. But,
knowing how vital this point was, he went on encouraging his men
till, falling from the saddle, he was carried back to die.
Grant still felt confident; though he had seen the worst in the rear
as well as the best at the front. Two of his brand-new battalions,
the very men who afterwards fought like heroes, when they had learned
the soldier's work, now ran like hares. "During the day," says Grant,
"I rode back as far as the river and met General Buell, who had
just arrived. There probably were as many as four or five thousand
stragglers lying under cover of the river bluff, panic-stricken. As
we left the boat Buell's attention was attracted by these men. I
saw him berating them and trying to shame them into joining their
regiments. He even threatened them with shells from the gunboats
nearby. But all to no effect. Most of these men afterward proved
themselves as gallant as any of those who saved the battle from
which they had deserted."
By half-past five, after twelve hours' fighting, Grant at last
succeeded in forming a new and shorter line, a mile behind that
morning's front, but without any dangerous gaps. There were three
reorganized divisions--Sherman's, McClernand's, and Hurlbut's, one
fresh division under Nelson, and a strong land battery of over
twenty field guns helping the two ironclad gunboats in the defense
of Pittsburg Landing. The Confederate effectives, reduced by heavy
losses and by as many stragglers as the Federals, were now faced
by five thousand fresh men on guard at the Landing. Beauregard,
who had succeeded Johnston, then stopped the battle for the day,
with the idea of retiring next morning to Corinth. But, before
his orders reached it, his battle-worn right made a desperate,
fruitless, and costly attack on the immensely strengthened Landing.
That night the rain came down in torrents; and the Confederates
sought shelter in the tents the Federals had abandoned. They found
little rest there, being harassed all through the bleak dark by
the big shells that the gunboats threw among them.
At dawn Grant, now reinforced by twenty-five thousand fresh men under
Buell and Lew Wallace, took the offensive. Beauregard, hopelessly
outnumbered and without a single fresh man, retired on Corinth,
magnificently covered by Bragg's rearguard, which held the Federals
back for hours near the crucial point of Shiloh Church.
Shiloh was the fiercest battle ever fought in the River War. The
losses were over ten thousand a side in killed and wounded; while a
thousand Confederates and three thousand Federals were captured. It
was a Confederate failure; but hardly the kind of victory the Federals
needed just then, before the consummate triumph of Farragut at New
Orleans. It brought together Federal forces that the Confederates
could not possibly withstand, even on their new line east from Memphis.
But it did not raise the Federal, or depress the Confederate, morale.
Four days after the battle Halleck arrived at Pittsburg Landing
and took command of the combined armies. He was soon reinforced
by Pope; whereupon he divided the whole into right and left wings,
center, and reserve, each under its own commander. Grant was made
second in command of the whole. But, as Halleck dealt directly
with his other immediate subordinates, Grant simply became the
fifth wheel of the Halleckian slow-coach, which, after twenty days
of preparation, began, with most elaborate precautions, its crawl
toward Corinth.
Grant's position became so nearly unbearable that he applied more
than once for transfer to some other place. But this was refused.
So he strove to do his impossible duty till the middle of July,
when his punishment for Shiloh was completed by his promotion to
command a depleted remnant of Halleck's Grand Army. It is not by
any means the least of Grant's claims to real greatness that, as
a leader, he was able to survive his most searching trials: the
surprise at Shiloh, the misunderstandings and arrest that followed
Shiloh, the slur of being made a fifth-wheel second-in-command,
the demoralizing strain of that "most anxious period of the war"
when his depleted forces were thrown back on the defensive, and
the eight discouraging months of Sisyphean offensive which preceded
his triumph at Vicksburg. No one who has not been in the heart of
things with fighting fleets or armies can realize what it means
to all ranks when there is, or even is supposed to be, "something
wrong" with the living pivot on which the whole force turns. And
only those who have been behind the scenes of war's all-testing
drama can understand what it means for even an imagined "failure"
to "come back."
Corinth was of immense importance to both sides, as it commanded
the rails not only east and west, from the Tennessee to Memphis,
but north and south, from the Ohio to New Orleans and Mobile. Though
New Orleans was taken by Farragut on the twenty-fifth of April, the
rails between Vicksburg and Port Hudson remained in Confederate
hands till next year; while Mobile remained so till the year after
that.
Beauregard collected all the troops he could at Corinth. Yet, even
with Van Dorn's and other reinforcements, he had only sixty thousand
effectives against Halleck's double numbers. Moreover, the loss of
three States and many battles had so shaken the Confederate forces
that they stood no chance whatever against Halleck's double numbers
in the open. All the same, Halleck burrowed slowly forward like a
mole, entrenching every night as if the respective strengths and
victories had been reversed.
After advancing nearly a mile a day Halleck closed in on Corinth.
He was so deeply entrenched that no one could tell from appearances
which side was besieging the other. Towards the end of May many
Federal railwaymen reported that empty trains could be heard running
into Corinth and full trains running out. But, as the Confederates
greeted each arriving "empty" with tremendous cheers, Halleck felt
sure that Beauregard was being greatly reinforced. The Confederate
bluff worked to admiration. On the twenty-sixth Beauregard issued
orders for complete evacuation on the twenty-ninth. On the thirtieth
Halleck drew up his whole grand army ready for a desperate defense
against an enemy that had already gone a full day's march away.
In the meantime the Federal flotilla had been fighting its way
down the Mississippi, under (the invalided) Foote's very capable
successor, Flag-Officer Charles Henry Davis. The Confederates had
very few naval men on the river, but many of their Mississippi
skippers were game to the death. They rammed Federal vessels on
the tenth of May at Fort Pillow, eighty miles above Memphis. Eight
of their fighting craft were strongly built and heavily armored,
though very deficient in speed. The Federal flotilla was very well
manned by first-class naval ratings, and was reinforced early in
June by seven fast new rams, commanded by their designer, Colonel
Charles Ellet, a famous civil engineer.
At sunrise on the lovely sixth of June the Federal flotilla, having
overcome the Confederate posts farther north and being joined by
Ellet's rams, lay near Memphis. The Confederates came upstream to
the attack, expecting to ram the gunboats in the stern as they
had at Fort Pillow. But Ellet suddenly darted down on the eight
Confederate ironclads, caught one of them on the broadside, sank
her, and disabled two others. The action then became general. The
overmatched Confederates kept up a losing battle for more than an
hour, in full view of many thousands of ardent Southerners ashore.
The scene, at its height, was appalling. The smoke, belching black
from the funnels and white from the guns, made a suffocating pall
overhead; while the dark, squat, hideous ironclad hulls seemed to
have risen from a submarine inferno to stab each other with livid
tongues of flame--so deadly close the two flotillas fought. When
the awful hour was over the Confederates were not only defeated but
destroyed; and a wail went up from the thousands of their anguished
friends, as if the very shores were mourning.
For the next month Grant held the command at Memphis. Then, on
the eleventh of July, Halleck was recalled to Washington as
General-in-Chief of the whole army; while Pope was transferred to
Virginia. The Federal invasion of Virginia under that "Young Napoleon,"
McClellan, had not been a success against Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
Nor did it improve with Pope at the front and Halleck in the rear,
as we shall presently see; though Halleck had declared that Pope's
operations at Island Number Ten were destined to immortal fame, and
Pope himself admitted his own greatness in sundry proclamations
to the world.
The campaign now entered its second phase. The Virginian wing (of
the whole front reaching from the Mississippi to the sea) was checked
this summer; and was to remain more or less checked for many a long
day. The river wing, under the general direction of Halleck, had
also reached its limit for '62 about the same time, after having
conquered Kentucky and western Tennessee as well as the Mississippi
down to Memphis.
This river wing was now depleted of some excellent troops and again
divided into quite separate commands. Buell commanded the Army
of the Ohio. Grant commanded his own Army of the Tennessee and
Rosecrans's Army of the Mississippi. Buell's scene of action lay
between the tributary streams--Ohio, Cumberland, and Tennessee--with
Chattanooga as his ultimate objective. Grant's scene of action
lay along the southward rails and Mississippi, with Vicksburg as
his ultimate objective.
[Illustration: Civil War Campaigns of 1862]
The Confederates were of course set on recovering complete control
of the line of Southern rails that made direct connections between
the Mississippi Valley and the sea: crossing the western tributaries
of the St. Francis and White Rivers; then running east from Memphis,
through Grand Junction, Corinth, and Iuka, to Chattanooga; thence
forking off northeast, through Knoxville, to Washington, Richmond,
and Norfolk; and southeast to Charleston and Savannah. Confederate
attention had originally been fixed on Corinth and Chattanooga.
But General O. M. Mitchel's abortive raid, just after Shiloh, had
also drawn it to the part between. The Federals therefore found
their enemy alert at every point.
Braxton Bragg, Beauregard's successor and Buell's opponent, basing
himself on Chattanooga, tried to drive his line of Confederate
reconquest through the heart of Tennessee and thence through
mid-Kentucky, with the Ohio as his ultimate objective. His colleagues
near the Mississippi, Van Dorn and Sterling Price, meanwhile tried
to effect the reconquest of the Memphis-Corinth rails that Grant
and Rosecrans were holding.
All main offensives, on both sides, ultimately failed in this latter
half of the river campaign of '62. So nothing but the bare fact
that they were attempted needs any notice here.
In August, about the time that Lee and Jackson were maneuvering
in Virginia to bring on the Second Bull Run, Price and Bragg began
their respective advances against Grant and Buell. Buell was at
Murfreesboro, defending Nashville. Bragg, screened by the hills of
eastern Tennessee, made for the Ohio at Louisville and Cincinnati.
Pivoting on his left he wheeled his whole army round and raced for
Louisville. Buell enjoyed the advantage of rails over roads and
of interior lines as well. But Bragg had stolen several marches
on him at the start and he only won by a head.
The Union Government, now thoroughly alarmed, sent Thomas to supersede
Buell. But Thomas declined to take over the command, and on the
eighth of October Buell fought Bragg at Perryville. There was no
tactical defeat or victory; but Bragg retired on Chattanooga. The
Government now urged Buell to enter east Tennessee. He protested
that lack of transport and supplies made such a move impossible.
William S. Rosecrans then replaced him. Buell was never employed
again. He certainly failed fully to appreciate the legitimate bearing
of statesmanship on strategy; but, for all that, he was an excellent
organizer and a good commander.
In the meantime Grant had been experiencing his "most anxious period
of the war." During this anxious period, which lasted from July to
October, Rosecrans defeated Price at Iuka. This happened on the
nineteenth of September. Van Dorn then joined Price and returned
to the attack but was defeated by Rosecrans at Corinth on the fourth
of October. The Confederates, who had come near victory on the
third, retired in safety, because Grant still lacked the means of
resuming the offensive.
As soon as he had the means Grant marched his army south for Vicksburg.
There were three converging forces: Grant's from Grand Junction,
Sherman's from Memphis, and a smaller one from Helena in Arkansas.
But the Confederate General, J. C. Pemberton, who had replaced Van
Dorn, escaped the trap they tried to set for him. He was strongly
entrenched on the south side of the Tallahatchie, north of Oxford,
on the Mississippi Central rails. While Grant and Sherman converged
on his front, the force from Helena rounded his rear and cut the
rails. But the damage was quickly repaired; and Pemberton retired
south toward Vicksburg before Grant and Sherman could close and
make him fight.
Then Grant tried again. This time Sherman advanced on board of
Mississippi steamers, with the idea of meeting the Union expedition
coming up from New Orleans. But Van Dorn cut Grant's long line
of land communications at Holly Springs, forcing Grant back for
supplies and leaving Sherman, who had made his way up the Yazoo,
completely isolated. Grant fared well enough, so far as food was
concerned; for he found such abundant supplies that he at once
perceived the possibility of living on the country without troubling
about a northern base. He spent Christmas and New Year at Holly
Springs, and then moved back to Memphis.
In the meantime Sherman's separated force had come to grief. On the
twenty-ninth of December its attempt to carry the Chickasaw Bluffs,
just north of Vicksburg, was completely frustrated by Pemberton; for
Sherman could not deploy into line on the few causeways that stood
above the flooded ground.
On the eleventh of January this first campaign along the Mississippi
was ended by the capture of Arkansas Post. McClernand was the senior
there. But Sherman did the work ashore as D. D. Porter did afloat.
Meanwhile Bragg had brought the campaign to a close among the eastern
tributaries by a daring, though abortive, march on Nashville. Rosecrans,
now commanding the army of the Cumberland, stopped and defeated him
at Stone's River on New Year's Eve.
The "War in the West," that is, in those parts of the Southwest
which lay beyond the navigable tributaries of the Mississippi system,
was even more futile at the time and absolutely null in the end.
Its scene of action, which practically consisted of inland Texas,
New Mexico, and Arizona, was not in itself important enough to be
a great determining factor in the actual clash of arms. But Texas
supplied many good men to the Southern ranks; and the Southern
commissariat missed the Texan cattle after the fall of Vicksburg
in '63. New Mexico might also have been a good deal more important
than it actually was if it could have been made the base of a real,
instead of an abortive, invasion of California, the El Dorado of
Confederate finance.
We have already seen what happened on February 15, 1861, when General
Twiggs handed over to the State authorities all the army posts in
Texas. On the first of the following August Captain John R. Baylor,
who had been forming a little Confederate army under pretext of a
big buffalo hunt, proclaimed himself Governor of New Mexico (south
of 34°) and established his capital at Mesilla. In the meantime the
Confederate Government itself had appointed General H. H. Sibley
to the command of a brigade for the conquest of all New Mexico.
Not ten thousand men were engaged in this campaign, Federals and
Confederates, whites and Indians, all together; but a decisive
Confederate success might have been pregnant of future victories
farther west. Some Indians fought on one side, some on the other;
and some of the wilder tribes, delighted to see the encroaching
whites at loggerheads, gave trouble to both.
On February 21, 1862, Sibley defeated Colonel E. R. S. Canby at
Valverde near Fort Craig. But his further advance was hindered
by the barrenness of the country, by the complete destruction of
all Union stores likely to fall into his hands, and by the fact
that he was between two Federal forts when the battle ended. On
the twenty-eighth of March there was a desperate fight in Apache
Cañon. Both sides claimed the victory. But the Confederates lost
more men as well as the whole of their supply and ammunition train.
After this Sibley began a retreat which ended in May at San Antonio.
His route was marked by bleaching skeletons for many a long day; and
from this time forward the conquest of California became nothing
but a dream.
The "War in the West" was a mere twig on the Trans-Mississippi
branch; and when the fall of Vicksburg severed the branch from the
tree the twig simply withered away.
The sword that ultimately severed branch and twig was firmly held
by Union hands before the year was out; and this notwithstanding
all the Union failures in the last six months. Grant and Porter
from above, Banks and Farragut from below, had already massed forces
strong enough to make the Mississippi a Union river from source to
sea, in spite of all Confederates from Vicksburg to Port Hudson.