FALL AND WINTER CAMPAIGNS AT THE WEST AND SOUTH
The climatic conditions of the disputed country south and west were
excellent for campaigning during the autumn, and tolerable during most
of the winter. As neither side was satisfied with the results achieved
in that quarter during the spring and summer of 1862, both were
disposed to carry on the war with vigor during the autumn of that year
and the winter following.
On the third of October, while Buell and Bragg were confronting each
other near Louisville, Van Dorn, who had been heavily reinforced from
Missouri, undertook to carry out Bragg's orders, for the capture of
Corinth and the reconquest of western Tennessee and Kentucky. He
advanced upon Corinth in force and assailed Rosecrans, who held the
immediate command of that place, upon lines chosen by the Federal
commander, three miles in front of the main defenses.
It was a rich prize that the Confederate commander battled for, and
right manfully did he strive to gain it. Corinth at that time was
a depot of supplies of unusual consequence, and besides that, its
conquest would mean the complete breaking of Grant's long and difficult
line of defense.
During the first day of terrific fighting, Van Dorn succeeded in
driving Rosecrans back to the refuge of the town's fortifications. On
the next morning he assailed the works with extraordinary vigor and
determination. His men suffered terribly from the cannon and musketry
fire of a protected enemy at short range, but they succeeded at last in
breaking the defenses and forcing their way into the town where they
fought inch by inch through the streets. For a time it seemed certain
that they must succeed not only in carrying the town and capturing
the stores that had been collected there, but also in compelling the
surrender of the defending force, twenty thousand strong, with the
multitude of large guns mounted upon the works. But reinforcements
came to Rosecrans's aid at the critical moment and turned the tide of
battle just in time to prevent a great disaster to the Federals. The
Confederates were driven back and after a heavy loss, never accurately
reported, they retreated from the place.
Grant had ordered Rosecrans, should this occur, to pursue with all his
force and crush the Confederate column completely. Rosecrans delayed
even the beginning of pursuit from noon, when the retreat began, until
the morning of the next day and then, by a mistake in the road taken,
lost even the little chance left to him of effective pursuit.
Grant was sorely displeased with this loss of an opportunity which
had been purchased at cost of so severe a battle, and at his request
Rosecrans was removed to another field. He was sent in fact, after a
brief time, to succeed Buell, whose failure to do greater damage to
Bragg met with condemnation at Washington.
The Confederate authorities were equally displeased with their general,
Van Dorn, and soon afterwards he was superseded in command by General
John C. Pemberton.
Pemberton was a Pennsylvanian by birth, who had married at the South.
He was a special, personal favorite of President Davis. He had never
commanded an army or conducted a battle in his life, yet Mr. Davis had
rapidly promoted him all the way from colonel to lieutenant general,
over the heads and to the great discouragement of colonels, brigadiers
and major generals who had won high distinction upon hotly contested
Confederate battlefields. And now, when the Federal forces were firmly
established on the far Southern line of the Memphis and Charleston
railroad, and when the very greatest generalship was obviously and
peremptorily needed to save the Confederate cause in the South and
West, the Richmond authorities selected this favorite, who had done no
fighting, commanded no armies and manifested no military ability, to
take control of Confederate defense at the most critical point of all.
The result was quite what might have been expected. Pemberton was
badly defeated every time he gave battle and it was he who surrendered
Vicksburg and the Mississippi river on the fourth of July after a
brave but incapable defense. The history of that belongs to a later
chapter. And even after this extraordinary demonstration of his
unfitness and incapacity, and at a time when very many at the South
seriously--though unjustly--suspected him of having deliberately
betrayed their cause, Mr. Davis appointed this man to a post which
seemed at least to give him authority to control General Lee himself.
This latter appointment was so quickly and so hotly resented by an army
that well nigh worshiped Lee, that Mr. Davis wisely modified it before
it had time to provoke a protest that might have savored of mutiny.
When Rosecrans superseded Buell, on October 30, 1862, the Federal army
was in process of concentration at and near Bowling Green. Within a few
days the concentration was complete, and Rosecrans was ready for active
campaigning with a great army, inspirited by recent successes, strongly
reinforced, effectively reorganized and full of hopeful determination.
But in what direction to advance was an unsettled problem. Rosecrans
was strongly urged from Washington to move at once into East Tennessee,
threatening Chattanooga and giving encouragement to the Unionists in
that quarter. But Nashville was in serious danger. It had been held
by a comparatively meager garrison during the Perryville campaign,
against a strong Confederate force under Breckinridge, and there was
more than a chance that Breckinridge might now capture the position
unless Negley, with the two divisions under his command there, could be
promptly supported. The importance of Nashville to the Federal armies
as a secondary base of supplies was very great. Whether Rosecrans
should campaign to the east, west or south, his need of depots at
Nashville must be imperative.
While he was pondering the question of an objective, Bragg settled it
for him. The Confederate general had retired from Kentucky rather of
his own choice than under compulsion. He had suffered no disaster. At
Perryville indeed he had had the best of the fighting for a large part
of the day, and he had retired in the night rather with the purpose of
giving battle again at some more favorable point than with intent to
avoid battle with an enemy in strongly superior force. That enemy had
not seen fit to follow and press him, and so there had been no further
trial of conclusions. The Confederates had indeed failed to capture
Louisville and establish themselves on the Ohio, but they had met with
so much success not only in the various actions fought but also in
demonstrating their ability to advance or retreat at will, that they
came out of the campaign feeling themselves, in effect, victors. They
were full of spirit and eagerly ready for further campaigning.
With his army in this mood and with a secure base behind him at
Chattanooga, Bragg promptly moved upon Murfreesboro, with manifest
intent to join Breckinridge and carry Nashville with a rush, if
Rosecrans should fail to succor that strategic key to the situation.
Murfreesboro lies on the Nashville and Chattanooga railroad, a scant
forty miles southeast of Nashville. The country between is open and so
completely unobstructed by physical features of difficulty, that the
railroad shows scarcely a curve in its course between the two points.
In view of Bragg's advance there was but one course open to Rosecrans.
He must strengthen the defenses of Nashville and concentrate there for
defensive and offensive operations.
He promptly threw a strong force into Nashville and soon his entire
army was concentrated there, except such detachments--and these were
large--as were employed in rebuilding the railroad between Louisville
and Nashville, which the Confederates had destroyed, and those other
and still larger detachments which were necessary to defend that
vitally important line of communication against the ceaseless activity
of Forrest and Morgan, who were making themselves destructively
ubiquitous.
Rosecrans's activity was such that he succeeded in rendering Nashville
secure before Bragg could carry out his purpose of assailing that
stronghold. Still Bragg did not despair of his purpose. He sent
peremptory orders to the forces around Corinth, either to send him
strong reinforcements or to carry on such a campaign in their own
districts as should compel Rosecrans to weaken himself at Nashville by
sending heavy reinforcements to the west.
Meanwhile Bragg fortified himself at Murfreesboro, establishing
his lines along and across Stone river--a little, easily fordable
stream--about two miles in front of the town.
Rosecrans decided to assail him there, and to that end advanced with
47,000 men. His march began on the twenty-sixth of December, and by
the thirtieth he was in position to assail his enemy with an effective
force of 43,700 men. His plan of battle was to throw forward his left
wing in force, envelope his enemy's right and crumple up his lines
by pushing into action a ceaseless stream of fresh troops, wheeling
his divisions to the right as they should be successively brought into
action.
But Bragg was also an officer of great energy and activity, and he had
under his command a force nearly if not quite equal to that of his foe.
He was at disadvantage during Rosecrans's sudden and unexpected advance
from Nashville, from the fact that he had sent away his cavalry under
Wheeler, Forrest, and Morgan to assail Rosecrans's communications at
a time when that general was not expected to take the initiative in a
winter campaign in the field. But now that Rosecrans was in his front,
and obviously intending immediate battle, Bragg in his turn determined
to assume the aggressive and himself bring on the action. His plan was
absolutely identical with that of Rosecrans, namely to push forward his
left wing, envelope and crush his enemy's right and by successive right
wheels to destroy his foe or drive him into retreat. Thus Rosecrans
intended to begin the battle at one end of the line while Bragg meant
to begin it at the other.
Each of course massed his forces at the point where he purposed to make
his first assault, and each thus weakened his line at the point which
his enemy was planning to assail.
As a consequence the initiatory advantage must of necessity lie with
the force that should succeed in making itself the first aggressor,
bringing on the battle before the other was ready and striking the
other's weakest wing with his own strongest divisions.
That advantage fell to Bragg as a reward for his alertness in striking
as soon as possible after dawn on the last day of the year. He had so
extended his left as completely to overlap Rosecrans's right and he
fell upon it in flank with resistless impetuosity. The force defending
it was quickly crushed and the Confederates, advancing with enthusiasm,
bent back the next division encountered, and after some strenuous
fighting, forced it to retire upon a new line which Rosecrans had
hastily established at right angles to that of the morning.
The fighting continued with desperate determination and great slaughter
on both sides until nightfall. The advantage was conspicuously with
the Confederates, though there was no decisive victory won. Rosecrans
had held his position indeed, upon a part of his line, and had not
been either destroyed or forced into retreat. But the Confederates had
driven him from one half or more of the ground that he had held at the
beginning of the battle, had captured twenty-eight of his guns and
large numbers of prisoners, while their cavalry had marched entirely
around him and fallen upon his communications in a way that very
seriously threatened him with an isolation that must have involved his
destruction.
Rosecrans had been badly worsted in battle, but he was not yet
beaten. His army was not demoralized, and his own determination was
not impaired. He took account of his ammunition, sent detachments to
protect his communications, and resolved to hold his position and renew
the battle on the following day, either as the assailant of his enemy
or as the assaulted, as circumstances might determine.
But the next day was passed in inaction on both sides, and it was not
until the second of January, 1863, that the battle was renewed. Even
then it was renewed only in part and obviously with no disposition on
either side to bring on a general engagement. Nevertheless there was
very bloody fighting on the part of the detachments engaged, in which
the Confederate general, Breckinridge, becoming involved and being
subjected to a concentrated artillery fire at short range, lost nearly
two thousand men.
Two days later and after desultory fighting, General Bragg abandoned
his position at Murfreesboro and retired to Duck river, where he
fortified. He reported his losses in this battle--which is variously
known as Murfreesboro, and Stone river--at 10,000 men, and declared
that he had taken 6,000 prisoners. He had also captured thirty guns
and lost three. On the other hand, General Rosecrans reported a loss
of 8,778 in killed and wounded, and about 2,800 in prisoners lost
to the enemy--a total of somewhat less than 11,000. The two reports
are hopelessly at variance and irreconcilable, as to the number of
prisoners taken, as was usually the case with the reports of battle
losses at that period of the war. They were usually inaccurate and
never trustworthy, as every historian who has honestly tried to find
out the truth has learned to his annoyance.
But whatever the exact losses were on either side, they were far
greater than were those of many more famous battles, and about as great
as those of the battles commonly accounted as of superior proportions.
Thus the loss admitted by the Confederates at Murfreesboro out of a
force of about 35,000 or 40,000 men, was nearly twice that which Lee,
with a force of 68,000, suffered at Fredericksburg; while the admitted
Federal loss at Murfreesboro, where the army numbered 43,700 men, was
very nearly as great as that sustained by Burnside's army of 120,000
at Fredericksburg, including the fearful slaughter in the six terrible
assaults upon Marye's Heights.
Obviously the battle of Murfreesboro must be accounted one of the
bloodiest struggles of the war, as well as one of the most heroically
contested on both sides. Its indecisiveness has been very interestingly
summed up by General Van Horne in his "History of the Army of the
Cumberland" as follows:
Neither army commander had fully executed his plan of battle,
although General Bragg had approached very nearly the completion
of his. He had turned a flank of the National army, bent back the
right to the rear of the center, but had failed to turn its left
or reach its rear, and hence had not gained the extreme advantages
which he had anticipated in assuming the offensive and [which he]
had seemingly attained at the grand crisis of the battle. He had
assaulted boldly and persistently from first to last, but had
completely exhausted his army without gaining a decisive victory.
General Rosecrans had fought a battle radically different from the
one he had proposed for himself. Instead of turning the right of
the Confederate army and taking its center in reverse, according
to his plan, he had been forced into the most emphatic straits in
maintaining the defensive from flank to flank. Both commanders had
lost heavily; General Bragg by continuous assaults with massed
forces, and General Rosecrans by resistance at each point to
superior numbers, and by frequent recessions under the guns of
the enemy.... A battle whose emergencies of offense and defense
involves the use of all reserves, must necessarily be a bloody one.
It is seldom that an engagement of such dimensions has left two
commanding generals so much in doubt as to the course that either
would adopt, and hence each determined to await developments, and
each was ignorant of the purpose of the other. Of the two General
Bragg was the more hopeful.
In the end, as we have seen, both armies fell back and fortified, and
campaigning ended in the southwest for that season.
Other events of that winter may be briefly summarized.
Mr. Lincoln's emancipation proclamation became effective on the first
of January.
The Confederate Congress passed a second conscription bill in
February extending age limits both ways and putting practically every
able-bodied white man in the South into the army.
The Federal Congress, on the third of March, authorized the suspension
of the writ of habeas corpus, thus virtually establishing martial law
throughout the North.
A Confederate loan of $3,000,000 was promptly subscribed for in Europe.
On the seventh of April the fleet off Charleston assailed the defenses
of that city, but was beaten off with the loss of one ironclad, the
monitor, Keokuk, sunk.