Chapter Fifteen The campaign may be said to have begun at the Planters’ House in St. Louis, on a winter night early in 1862. In his room on the second floor, Henry Halleck spread out a large map depicting the western theater of war. Present with General Halleck were Sherman and Brigadier General George W. Cullum, Halleck’s chief of staff. The three were discussing plans for a Federal advance into the Confederacy as soon as preparations were complete and weather permitted. At issue was the point of attack. Cullum drew a line on the map, representing the Rebel defensive position across southern Kentucky and northern Tennessee.
The line stretched eastward from the Mississippi River at Columbus, Kentucky, through Forts Henry and Donelson on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, and on to Bowling Green, Kentucky, north of Nashville on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. “Now,” asked Halleck, “where is the proper place to break it?” Sherman remembered that either he or Cullum replied with a fundamental axiom of military education: “Naturally, the center.” Halleck then drew a line perpendicular to Cullum’s line, and near its center. Halleck’s line almost coincided with the course of the Tennessee River, and he said: “That is the true line of operations.”1
Years later Sherman wrote that he had “always given Halleck the full credit for [the Tennessee River] movement, which was . . . the first real success on our side in the civil war.” Such recognition surely was appropriate, for Halleck, as commander of the Department of the Missouri, did order the attack and would have borne the blame had it failed. Furthermore, as Sherman noted, “most people [then] urged the movement down the Mississippi River,” but Halleck chose to target the Tennessee Valley. However, no Socrates was required to understand the potential advantages of a strike up the Tennessee River, and Halleck was not the only military man who favored the Tennessee.2
Most significant among the others were U. S. Grant, Charles F. Smith and Andrew H. Foote. Grant, the West Point veteran of the Mexican War, who afterward resigned from the army under a cloud of alleged hard drinking, had struggled with little success as a civilian, until getting another chance with the army when the Civil War began. Smith was a highly respected officer from the “Old Army,” distinguished in the war with Mexico; Sherman had held him in high esteem since West Point days, when Smith served as adjutant of the military academy. Flag Officer Foote had been a navy man from his teens. Well into the sixth decade of an adventurous life, he epitomized a crusty old sea dog—except for being a zealous temperance advocate—and commanded the Western Flotilla. All three men favored an advance up the Tennessee, with an attack on Fort Henry, and they wanted to strike at once.3
Acting on Halleck’s orders, Grant and Smith had recently staged a demonstration to deter the Confederates in western Kentucky from shifting forces eastward to oppose an advance by Buell on Cumberland Gap. While Grant’s column marched toward Columbus, Smith’s troops headed south for Fort Henry. Several miles north of the fort, on January 22, Smith boarded the gunboat Lexington for a probing foray against the fort. The gunboat fired several rounds, experiencing only a minimal response from the Rebel artillery before turning back downstream, where Smith rejoined his infantry division. Returning to Paducah, Smith reported to Grant that Fort Henry was highly vulnerable. Positioned on the Tennessee’s east bank, on low ground a few miles south of the Kentucky state line, Fort Henry was dominated by the unfinished Fort Heiman, which stood on a much higher elevation across the river, and well within its artillery range. Also, the Rebels had no naval force with which to contest the Yankee flotilla. Possess Fort Heiman, declared Smith, and the capture of Fort Henry was assured.4
Grant wrote that Smith’s report “confirmed views I had previously held, that the true line of operation was up the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers.” Flag Officer Foote, with whom Grant said he “consulted freely,” offered enthusiastic support for such a campaign. When Grant laid the plan before General Halleck, he claimed that he “was cut short, as if my plan was preposterous.” Grant soon renewed the Fort Henry proposal, seconded by Foote, who telegraphed Halleck advocating an advance up the Tennessee.5
General Halleck never considered the Tennessee River campaign “preposterous.” Writing General-in-Chief of the Army McClellan on January 20, Halleck presented a succinct, convincing, prophetic argument in its favor—an analysis that would be difficult to improve upon. “The idea of moving down the Mississippi by steam is, in my opinion, impracticable, or at least premature. It is not a proper line of operation. . . . A much more feasible plan,” he stated, would be to move up the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. “This would turn Columbus,” a strong point which he declared could not be taken without “a terrible loss of life,” and would also “force the abandonment of Bowling Green.” The enemy at Columbus, unless he quickly retreated, would be “turned, paralyzed, and forced to surrender.” This line of advance, Halleck correctly declared, “is the great central line of the Western theater of war, with the Ohio [River] . . . as the base and two good navigable rivers extending far into the interior of the theater of operations.” Obviously Halleck favored the campaign. The general, wanting full credit for the operation, likely was irked that Grant and Foote were also advocating it.6
Halleck did have some other worries. He had been sick with the measles for more than a week during mid-January. Far worse, major problems continued to plague him throughout Missouri. Thus the general was hesitant—“too much haste will ruin everything,” he had told Lincoln in reference to possible cooperation with Buell—to launch a major offensive on the rivers. Shifting troops across the Mississippi, a likely requirement for an advance in Kentucky, might mean the loss of Missouri. Much of Missouri was chaotic. Rebel guerrillas wreaked destruction, cutting down telegraph poles, tearing up rail lines, burning bridges, buildings and houses and terrorizing loyal Unionists. Further complicating the difficulties were “well mounted and well armed [Union] barbarians,” as Brigadier General John M. Schofield called his German cavalry, who “plunder and rob friends and foes alike.” Declaring them “a burning disgrace to the army and the Union cause,” he finally succeeded in getting five of the most notorious “in irons.”7
The whole disgusting, anarchic scene turned Halleck into an unapologetic advocate of hard war. Writing Thomas Ewing, who responded with sympathetic advice, he claimed “nothing but the severest punishment can prevent the burning of railroad bridges and the great destruction of human life.” The army in Missouri, he declared, “is almost as much in a hostile country as it was when in Mexico.” Halleck was determined “to put down these insurgents and bridge-burners with a strong hand.” He fully expected “a newspaper howl [against him as] a blood-thirsty monster,” but assured Ewing that “it must be done; there is no other remedy.” He ordered that anyone cutting down telegraph poles or damaging rail lines be shot on sight, and “all persons found in disguise as pretended loyal citizens . . . giving information to or communicating with the enemy, will be arrested, tried, condemned, and shot as spies.” In this respect, Halleck added, “the laws of war make no distinction of sex; all are liable to the same penalty.” Missouri, he declared, must remain in the Union, whatever might be necessary to achieve that end. The rigorous, hardhanded war, which came to characterize Sherman’s policy toward Confederate guerrillas when he occupied Memphis and west Tennessee later in 1862, probably stemmed to a degree from what he observed while serving under Halleck in St. Louis.8
Despite the ongoing difficulties in Missouri, Halleck concluded in late January that the time had come to launch the Tennessee River campaign. Grant had continued to prod him. More significant, President Lincoln, irritated by the continued failure of his generals to move against the enemy, issued an order on January 27 “for a general movement of the land and naval forces of the United States against the insurgent forces.” The President designated February 22 (George Washington’s birthday) as the date “for prompt execution of this order,” and he specifically mentioned the armies he expected to advance, including “the army and flotilla at Cairo.” Immediate action definitely seemed in Halleck’s best interest. Advancing on the Tennessee required no cooperation with General Buell, whose Department of the Ohio did not extend westward beyond the Cumberland River. If Halleck’s forces moved before Buell bestirred himself and could achieve success on the Tennessee, Halleck’s chances of gaining overall command in the western theater would be greatly enhanced.9
Two days after the President’s order, Halleck received a wire from General McClellan (which also went to Buell), informing him that information gained from a Rebel deserter revealed that General Beauregard had been ordered to Kentucky, accompanied by fifteen regiments from the Confederate army in Virginia. Beauregard, widely regarded in the Confederacy as the hero of Fort Sumter and Bull Run, whom some Southerners seemed to look upon as a one-man gang, was in fact heading west. But he was not bringing fifteen regiments with him. He was not even bringing one regiment. Nevertheless, if Halleck needed any more persuasion, the rumor that the “Napoleon in Gray” was headed west with Rebel reinforcements did the work. On January 30, Halleck wired Grant: “Make your preparations to take and hold Fort Henry. I will send you written instructions by mail.” He penned his detailed orders the same day.10
THE UNION STRUCK on February 6, attacking Fort Henry with a combined land and water invasion force. Grant commanded about 15,000 men, organized in two divisions, under Charles Smith and John McClernand, an Illinois political general of Democratic persuasion. Disembarking some five or six miles north of the fort, beyond sight and range of the Rebel guns, Grant deployed his troops on both sides of the Tennessee. Smith was to advance on the west bank, seize incomplete and undefended Fort Heiman, bring up his artillery and fire across the river into Fort Henry. McClernand would move south on the east side of the Tennessee, get behind Fort Henry and cut off the Confederate line of retreat to Fort Donelson, lying twelve miles away on the Cumberland. Meanwhile, Foote would open the battle with his gunboats.11
FORT HENRY, FORT DONELSON, SHILOH OPERATIONS AREA
In February 1862, a Union army-navy offensive captured Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. Map by Jim Moon Jr.
Flag Officer Foote had four ironclads, and he advanced them in line abreast. Because only their fronts were well armored, Foote fought the fort head-on, relying on his bow guns. He opened the clash around noon and, as he later wrote his wife, “it was a fearful struggle.” Initially the Confederate gunners scored well, with both sides suffering horrible casualties, as men were burned, ripped and torn apart by the blasts of the powerful artillery pieces. The gritty Foote kept pressing his gunboats closer, regardless of the destructive Rebel fire. Fort Henry was in a desperate situation, with one-third of its fortifications under water from the rising river. Then one of the fort’s two big guns, possessing the longest range and greatest striking power, was accidentally spiked; and the other burst, killing or mangling all of its gunners. Two hours after the battle started, the Confederates surrendered to the navy. They never thought they could hold the fort anyway, and most of the garrison had already made its escape to Fort Donelson.12
Grant’s infantry still were sloshing through the muddy bottoms and, beyond serving as a potential threat to the rear of the bastion, actually played no role in taking the fortification. Andrew Foote’s flotilla had carried the day. Suddenly it was a different war. Fort Henry was like the first domino that, in falling, sets in motion the collapse of an entire row. Writing to his wife, Grant proclaimed that the advance on the Tennessee River gave the Union “such an inside track on the enemy that by following up our success we can go anywhere.” Without a doubt, breaking open the Tennessee River created a vast potential for carrying the war deep into the western Confederacy.13
Advancing up the Tennessee River, and thus paralleling the Mississippi River, proved just as helpful for Yankee strategic goals as moving down the Mississippi itself. In fact, control of the Tennessee was strategically preferable in some ways. The Union forces thereby flanked the Rebel stronghold on the Mississippi at Columbus, Kentucky, as well as severing the east–west transportation corridor of the Memphis, Clarksville & Louisville Railroad, which crossed the Tennessee only seventeen miles south of Fort Henry. The potential for even greater Yankee triumphs loomed ominously in the face of the Confederates. Union troops traveling the Tennessee River could soon threaten the vital Memphis & Charleston Railroad, the possession of which would mean that Confederate forces at Memphis were outflanked. The Rebels’ entire Kentucky–Tennessee defensive position well might collapse under such multiple threats to their lines of communication. Barring a military miracle at Fort Donelson, the Confederates would likely be retreating into northern Mississippi and Alabama.
There would be no miracle. With the fall of Fort Henry, Grant’s troops advanced overland against Fort Donelson, while Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston abandoned Bowling Green, retreating through Nashville to northern Alabama, where he planned to concentrate his forces for a counteroffensive. However, Johnston ordered half of his troops to Fort Donelson in a forlorn hope of maintaining control of the Cumberland River and protecting Nashville from Union occupation. Ten days after the loss of Fort Henry, Fort Donelson also collapsed, following some hard fighting as well as considerable Confederate blundering, in a battle transpiring amid snow and sleet.
General Grant instantly became a Northern hero, popularly known as “Unconditional Surrender” Grant, a nickname stemming from his initials, when he denied any terms to the surrendering garrison and captured 12,000 to 15,000 Rebels. The Union forces thereby opened a second avenue of invasion, via the Cumberland River, into Nashville, which was the greatest storehouse, arsenal and centrally located transportation depot in the western Confederacy. On February 24, Nashville became the first Confederate state capital to fall to the Federals, ensuring the collapse of the entire Rebel defensive line in the region.14
The fall of Forts Henry and Donelson was the turning point of the war in the western theater, and arguably, in all the ramifications, the first turning point of the entire conflict. Historian B. Franklin Cooling well summarized the Union triumphs as “the expedition that broke open the war in the West.” Stemming directly or indirectly from the capture of the forts, a series of Yankee victories followed—most dramatically and significantly at bloody Shiloh—which taken together, left the Confederacy struggling to survive. The wide-ranging military results were enhanced by the moral and political impact of catastrophic Rebel defeats: a deep discouragement in the South and a strengthened confidence in the North. Also, sometimes overlooked, is Basil Liddell Hart’s concise, perceptive observation that the Union campaign not only “unlocked the gate into Tennessee,” but additionally “closed the gate into Kentucky.” The secessionist dream of establishing a northern boundary on the banks of the Ohio perished on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers in the winter of 1862. The Rebels would try to turn back time, notably in the late summer and early fall, when Braxton Bragg and Edmund Kirby-Smith advanced into Kentucky from central and east Tennessee. But they never came close to succeeding.15
FOR WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN, the campaign was the proverbial godsend. It put him back in the war in a big way. While Grant marched the infantry into position to invest Fort Donelson, and Foote confidently steamed up the Cumberland for a river assault on that fort, General Halleck placed Sherman in command of the District of Cairo, headquartered at Paducah, Kentucky, with orders to “send General Grant everything you can spare from Paducah and Smithland.” Halleck knew his man well, for Sherman “was a born quartermaster”—a fact that goes far in explaining why Sherman ultimately became a master strategist. Energetically, Sherman began funneling men, food and all manner of supplies to Grant. Perhaps now another field command for Sherman was no longer out of the question. In fact, the day after the Federals captured Fort Donelson, Halleck wired Sherman that “we must now prepare for a still more important movement” and promised, “You will not be forgotten in this.” As soon as John Sherman heard the good news, he offered his high-strung brother congratulations, and also urged him to “take my advice, be hopeful, cheerful, polite to everybody, even a newspaper reporter.” John thought, “above all things,” that Sherman must “be hopeful and push ahead. Active, bold, prompt, vigorous action,” instructed John, “is now demanded.”16
Sherman, without a doubt, fully realized the significance of what had just occurred on the rivers. He told Ellen that the campaign “is by far the most important event of this sad war,” and soon wrote John, acclaiming “Grant’s victory [as] most extraordinary and brilliant.” He cautioned his enthusiastic younger brother not to infer too much from the triumph, however, stating that “the war is not yet over,” and noting that he had “seen the captured men of Fort Donelson, and . . . [there is] none of them but hates the Yankees.” He told his brother-in-law Charley Ewing, “The Mississippi must be possessed in its whole extent before the rebellion will be crushed.” He was sounding more like the stable, competent Sherman of earlier days.17
Certainly not to be overlooked at this time is the relationship between Sherman and Grant, which began developing during Grant’s investment of Fort Donelson. “During the siege,” wrote Grant, “General Sherman had been sent to Smithland, at the mouth of the Cumberland River, to forward reinforcements and supplies to me. At that time,” continued Grant, “he was my senior in rank and there was no authority of law to assign a junior to command a senior of the same grade.” But clearly impressed by Sherman’s attitude, Grant said “every boat that came up with supplies or reinforcements brought a note of encouragement from Sherman, asking me to call upon him for any assistance he could render and saying that if he could be of service at the front I might send for him and he would waive rank.” Sherman was primed for the cheerful, prompt and vigorous action that his brother had declared “is now demanded.” He was seeking a field command under Grant.18
By March 11, the Department of the Missouri and the western portion of the Department of the Ohio were consolidated into the Department of the Mississippi, with General Halleck assigned to command Buell’s army, as well as his own victorious forces. Unity of command thus was achieved for the western offensive, and Sherman’s star continued to rise. Halleck had already assigned him to command a new infantry division. The drive southward on the Tennessee River from Fort Henry was also under way before Halleck became supreme commander in the West; however, Grant was not leading it, having run afoul of Halleck.19
Back in St. Louis, Halleck had experienced difficulty for several days in obtaining information from Grant. In part, the problem involved sabotage, when a telegraph operator of Rebel sympathies at Fort Henry intercepted several wires. Also, faulty organization of the military telegraph system contributed to the muddle, and the “green eyed monster” made an appearance as well. Jealous of Grant’s recent glory and publicity, Halleck acted irresponsibly. Sherman, who of course was Halleck’s friend, later wrote that the New Yorker “worked himself into a passion.” Sherman thought that he should have exercised more patience.20
But the frustrated Halleck, never impressed by his ordinary-looking subordinate who wore an old slouch hat and habitually chomped on the butt of a cigar, dashed off an intemperate communication to Washington, detailing Grant’s supposed faults, which seemed to be legion. Grant sent him “no returns, no reports, no information of any kind”; he had “left his command” without authority and ventured to Nashville; his army was as much “demoralized” by victory as was the Army of the Potomac by defeat at Bull Run; Grant gave “no regard to the future,” and Halleck was “worn out and tired [of Grant’s] neglect and inefficiency.” The lowest blow came when Halleck referenced a rumor that Grant had “resumed his former bad habits”—a statement which Halleck well knew would be taken to mean that Grant was drinking to excess. Halleck proceeded to place Charles F. Smith in command of the Union troops marshaling at Fort Henry for the grand advance up the Tennessee River. Grant would remain on the sidelines.21
March was hardly a week old when a mighty Union armada, approximately sixty transports strong, loaded with soldiers, horses, armaments and supplies, steamed southward on the Tennessee. Marked by a long, black column of smoke rising above the valley, the line of steamers attracted attention for miles. By March 12, the vessels were docking at Savannah, Tennessee, a pro-Union town of about 600 people located on the east bank of the river, deep in the southern part of the state. The numerous transports drew up on both sides of the crowded stream, while General Smith established his headquarters at a white-brick mansion situated atop the bluff of the river. The owner of the house was William H. Cherry, a staunch Union man.22
Having learned that the Confederates were concentrating their forces at Corinth, Mississippi, General Halleck ordered Smith to break the Rebel rail communications both east and north of that vital crossroads, with the primary objective of destroying “the [Memphis & Charleston] railroad bridge over Bear Creek, near Eastport, Mississippi.” Smith entrusted the Memphis & Charleston assignment to Sherman, of whom he thought highly, and who was the only West Pointer commanding a division, while Lew Wallace was ordered to break the Mobile & Ohio.23
Sherman embarked his division in nineteen steamboats, and moved up the Tennessee on March 14. Along the way he observed Pittsburg Landing, lying on the west bank of the Tennessee about nine miles south of Savannah. He learned from naval officer William Gwin, commanding the gunboat Tyler, that a good road ran southwest from Pittsburg to the railroad junction at Corinth. Pittsburg was the customary landing place for all manner of goods and materials shipped by river to and from Corinth, which lay only twenty miles distant. Gwin also told him that the superior guns of the Tyler and the Lexington had driven some Rebel field pieces from atop the hill at Pittsburg a couple of weeks earlier. Sherman feared that the Confederates might return and occupy the landing in force. Troubled too by the rising Tennessee, which was so swollen from recent rains that Pittsburg was then one of the few elevated points where soldiers could be disembarked, he sent back a request that General Smith deploy troops at Pittsburg in strength while he proceeded with the attempt to break the railroad.24
Cautiously moving up the river until he reached Eastport, Sherman observed Rebel batteries through his field glasses, with at least some infantry support nearby. Thus he “dropped back quietly to the mouth of Yellow River,” a few miles below Eastport, and disembarked his troops at Tyler’s Landing, Mississippi, slightly south of the Tennessee state line. Almost immediately Sherman’s men, advancing southwest toward Burnsville, began bogging down in the mud and rapidly rising water. The tiny creeks cutting across his line of advance toward the railroad had become surging, swirling torrents from the heavy rains. Some of the troopers who were spearheading the advance were unhorsed while attempting to swim their mounts across a rampaging creek. Several of the men were drowned.
An attempt to build a bridge was thwarted by water rising so fast that it covered the timbers which had just been positioned to support it. “The rain was pouring in torrents,” remembered Sherman, and even sleet occasionally mixed with the rain, as the temperature dropped. The Tennessee River, at one period, rose fifteen feet in less than twenty-four hours. Disgusted, Sherman realized that to continue the mission might necessitate bridging every stream between the Tennessee and the railroad, a distance of nineteen miles. Scouts also reported that a Rebel force had been deployed to cover the railroad. Sherman ordered his men back to the boats and wrote “that we had to unharness the artillery-horses, and drag the guns under water through the bayous, to reach the bank of the [Tennessee].” Once more embarking his men, Sherman dropped downriver to Pittsburg Landing. He found that General Smith had ordered forward Stephen A. Hurlbut’s division. Also, Smith instructed Sherman to go ashore with his division, and position it far enough back from the river that still other troops might encamp there.25
Lew Wallace’s expedition fared better than Sherman’s. Moving almost due west from Crump’s Landing, which lay about four miles north of Pittsburg, his men struck the Mobile & Ohio rails at a trestle across Beach Creek. They tore up track for some distance, bending the rails and throwing them into the water. It was not worth the effort because the Confederates repaired the damage the next day. For his part, Sherman did not intend to give up the attempt to break the Memphis & Charleston, but on March 16, he conducted a reconnaissance south and west of Pittsburg Landing, and his findings had a far-reaching impact on subsequent events.26
Sherman made the reconnaissance in company with James Birdseye McPherson, with whom he initially became acquainted while pursuing his brief banking career in New York City. McPherson was a handsome young fellow who graduated first in the West Point class of 1853, and was then serving on Halleck’s staff. He would play an increasingly important role as the war continued. Sherman wrote in his memoirs that he and McPherson moved out about ten miles toward Corinth and, questioning various people, concluded that the Confederates “were bringing large masses of men [by train] from every direction into Corinth.”27
Sherman was “strongly impressed,” as he reported at the time, with the relatively flat and elevated ground stretching approximately 2½ miles southwest from Pittsburg Landing. “The ground itself admits of easy defense by a small command,” he observed, “and yet affords ample camping ground for a hundred thousand men.” He thought “the only drawback” was limited docking space for the transports, especially with the water level so high. Only four or five steamboats could be moored at a time. Pittsburg was a natural defensive position, with the flanks protected on the north and west by Snake Creek and its tributary Owl Creek, and on the southeast by Lick Creek. Any enemy attack would have to come between those deep and swollen streams, through an opening of no more than three miles’ width. Intrinsically formidable, the position, if properly developed, would have been impregnable. Even without entrenchments, and other enhancements, one historian of the campaign wrote, “At Shiloh, terrain was the key feature . . . that turned the tide toward Union victory on the Tennessee. . . . It is quite possible that the Confederates never actually had a chance to win at Shiloh.”28
Regardless of the impressive terrain, Sherman was not recommending, as sometimes assumed, that the entire army be placed at Pittsburg Landing, even if he did note that there was enough room to accommodate 100,000 soldiers. In another report that same day he suggested that Union forces should be stationed also at Hamburg and Tyler’s Landings to the south, as well as Crump’s Landing to the north. Then the Federals, he said, “could move concentrically on Corinth or . . . any other point” along the Memphis & Charleston rails. “To advance on Corinth in force,” he advised, “we should make use of several roads.” Such width of deployment, based upon river communications and gunboat support, would leave the Confederates guessing about the route, or routes, of a Union offensive. The Rebels would also have no clearly defined target against which to concentrate if they did attack. But Grant, recently reinstated to command the expedition, decided to place all the troops at Pittsburg Landing, except for Lew Wallace’s division at Crump’s Landing. Grant thought of moving against Corinth by the most direct route, while Sherman believed the troops would “drag out too long on a single . . . road.”29
Two factors had just combined to restore Grant to command. First, Halleck had backed down from his accusations against the victorious general. Challenged by Secretary of War Stanton, possibly after consultation with Lincoln, to either bring formal charges against Grant or cease making allegations, Halleck quickly reconsidered. He probably realized that attacking a man who had gained important triumphs for the nation, and had become a hero in the North, was not smart politics. Lamely he backpedaled, claiming that Grant had made satisfactory explanations and any problems with the general were inconsequential and in the past.30
Simultaneously with Halleck’s willingness to restore Grant, General Smith had been forced to give up his command. Smith was the victim of what first appeared to be an inconsequential accident. He had slipped and fallen while getting into a rowboat, raking, as he himself described it, “the whole of the right leg—the shin and calf—with the seat.” He noted that “the doctor fears injury to the bone.” It was a painful misstep. The leg became infected, soon grew worse, and finally compelled the general to relinquish command while the buildup at Pittsburg Landing was in process. In about a month, Smith was dead.31
General Smith had been an aggressive commander, remaining eager, as before the attack on Fort Henry, to take the fight to the Rebels. While still in command at Savannah, he had written, “We are chafing like hounds in the leash to move at the enemy just in front but are forbidden by Halleck until the force is about doubled.” Also, Smith had seen no reason for the army to be entrenched. “Our men suppose we have come here to fight,” he said, “and if we begin to spade it will make them think we fear the enemy.” Besides, Smith had boasted, “by God, I want nothing better than to have the Rebels come out and attack us. We can whip them to hell!” General Grant was of like mind with Smith, primed to get at the enemy as soon as possible.32
However, Halleck continued to apply a restraining hand on Grant, as he had on Smith. Halleck did not want any major movement against the Rebels until Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio, marching overland from Nashville, could join forces with the troops under Grant. “Don’t let the enemy draw you into an engagement now,” Halleck ordered. He himself intended to come to Tennessee and “take personal command” for the offensive against the Confederates. Grant thus awaited the arrival of Buell and Halleck, maintained his headquarters at Savannah and looked upon Sherman as an informal field commander at Pittsburg Landing.33
Neither Grant nor Sherman nor any other senior Federal officer seemed concerned that the enemy might advance and attack the Union forces at Pittsburg. They completely misinterpreted the purpose of the Rebel buildup at Corinth, convinced that the Confederates were marshaling their forces to defend the Memphis & Charleston and the Mobile & Ohio crossroads. Nothing more. General Smith had expressed the common viewpoint in his colorful way. The Federals would have to advance on Corinth and “rout the badger out of his hole.” Thus the army at Pittsburg spent its time drilling and training, preparing to take the offensive. Approximately 50 percent of the soldiers had never seen combat.
Since no one in authority worried about an enemy attack, the army’s five divisions were scattered about the tableland without any tactical formation, with no semblance of a defensive line, and with the most inexperienced troops, Sherman’s and Benjamin Prentiss’s divisions, holding the advanced positions. Sherman gave orders that brigades should encamp facing west in order to be in line of battle when called to arms, and also that there should be no more than twenty-two paces between regimental encampments. But his orders were widely disregarded, and Sherman did not correct the situation. Worst of all, neither Sherman nor Grant made adequate provisions for outposting and patrolling that might have unmasked an enemy advance.34
On Thursday, April 3, as the Confederate Army moved out of Corinth, tramping northeast toward Pittsburg Landing and the Union Army, Sherman penned a letter to Ellen. He had not written to her for some time, explaining that he had been “pretty busy” in examining roads and rivers. “We are constantly in the presence of the enemy’s pickets,” he wrote, “but I am satisfied that [the Rebels] will await our coming at Corinth or some point of the [Memphis &] Charleston road.” He noted also that “the weather is now springlike, apples & peaches in blossom and trees beginning to leave. Bluebirds singing and spring weather upon the hillsides.” The next day he wrote his father-in-law, saying that the enemy had “strong Cavalry and Infantry pickets . . . almost to our very camp,” but Sherman brushed these aside, assuring Thomas Ewing that they were “designed simply to carry notice back of an advance in force on our part.”35
Sherman may have been unduly influenced by Grant’s opinion that if the army faced any immediate danger—and Grant stated that he did not think the threat was real—it was Lew Wallace’s division at Crump’s Landing that might be targeted. On April 4, Grant wrote Sherman that he had received information indicating that the Rebels were sending a force to the hamlet of Purdy, “and it may be with a view to attack General Wallace.” Grant said he had ordered W. H. L. Wallace, commanding the Second Division, to reinforce Lew Wallace, “in case of an attack, with his entire division, although I look for nothing of the kind, but it is best to be prepared.” Then he directed Sherman: “Keep a sharp lookout for any movement in that direction,* and should such a thing be attempted, give all the support of your division and General Hurlbut’s if necessary.”36
Sherman responded on April 5, assuring Grant, “I have no doubt that nothing will occur today more than some picket firing. . . . I do not apprehend anything like an attack on our position.” Reassured by Sherman, Grant wrote Halleck, “I have scarcely the faintest idea of an attack (general one) being made upon us, but will be prepared should such a thing take place.”37
....................
STRIKING AT DAWN on April 6, the Confederate Army achieved a complete strategic surprise. In spite of their time-consuming, noise-making advance, the Rebels might even have gained tactical surprise had not Colonel Everett Peabody, a brigade leader in Prentiss’s division, ignored his commander’s ridicule, and sent out a reconnaissance patrol long before daylight. Groping their way in the early morning darkness, the Federals came up against the advancing enemy about a mile out to the south and west. They fought a delaying action for more than an hour, and sent a warning back to Peabody, who immediately mobilized his brigade. General Prentiss was incensed that Peabody sent forth an unauthorized patrol, which, alleged Prentiss, had brought on an engagement. In truth, Peabody’s action prevented Prentiss’s division from being taken by tactical surprise. Also, some soldiers in Sherman’s camps had been stirred awake by the sounds of gunfire to the south. Everett Peabody died that day, and Prentiss became known as a hero of Shiloh, but he never saw fit to commend Peabody and merely listed the colonel as a brigade commander in his official report of the great clash.38
American history had never known anything like the ensuing battle at Pittsburg Landing. For two days, Federals and Confederates—more than 100,000 soldiers in all—waged a desperate, horrible struggle through fields, forests, orchards, ravines, creeks and swamps. At first, a Confederate victory seemed possible. The Rebels enjoyed the advantages of surprise and momentum, while several thousand Yankees fled from the field of conflict. (Sherman claimed in a letter to Ellen that “at least half [of my division] ran away.”) But the Confederate attack did not develop as General Albert Sidney Johnston had envisioned. Confusion and misunderstanding plagued the Confederate high command. Compounding the difficulties was a poor attack formation, in which regiments, brigades and divisions became intermingled, sacrificing command control. The complex terrain presented yet more problems. And General Johnston was killed, generating controversy to this day about what impact his death had on the battle.39
The Union Army, however, weathered the initial shock of the Rebel onslaught. Many Federals fought bravely, effectively, and ultimately triumphantly. Sherman’s faulty analysis of the enemy’s intentions had contributed to the initial Confederate success, but once the battle was joined, no high-ranking Union officer fought better. Sherman made a three-hour stand at Shiloh Church that was immeasurably significant and afterward fought off, in tandem with McClernand’s men, more enemy troops than were attacking the famous Hornets’ Nest, as described in the prologue. When the U.S. forces succeeded in establishing a strong defensive line covering Pittsburg Landing as darkness came on, any chance of a Confederate victory was snuffed out. April 7 again saw fierce fighting, but the Federals had too many men and too much firepower. The forces in blue struck at dawn, drove the Grayclads back across the battlefield and forced them to retreat. The Confederates left a trail littered with equipment thrown away by exhausted soldiers as they tried to lighten their loads, while hard-jolting wagons transported as many of the wounded as possible, miserably piled in upon one another, some of them having lain in the rain all the night before.
On the morning of April 8, Sherman conducted a reconnaissance in force to determine, as Grant instructed, if the Confederates had retreated all the way to Corinth or still remained in the battle area. About five or six miles southwest of Pittsburg Landing, Sherman came upon Rebel cavalry at a place called the Fallen Timbers. Nathan Bedford Forrest, whom Sherman had probably never heard of at the time, commanded about 350 troopers there, drawn up on a ridge to protect the rear of the Confederate Army. Sherman reported that he looked across “a clear field, through which the road passed, and immediately beyond [was] a space of some 200 yards of fallen timber.” Beyond the timber, he could see the enemy cavalry atop the ridge. Deploying two companies of the Seventy-Seventh Ohio as skirmishers, while posting the Fourth Illinois Cavalry on his flanks, Sherman aligned the rest of the Ohio regiment in attack formation a hundred yards behind the skirmishers, and moved toward the Rebels on the ridge.40
Forrest was significantly outnumbered, which Sherman may have guessed but did not know, for he could not see beyond the ridge. As the Federal skirmishers began picking their way through the fallen timbers, Forrest sensed an opening and shouted to his men, “Charge!” He led the way as his horse soldiers thundered toward Sherman’s men. Some of the Union skirmishers panicked and fled; others were blasted by shotguns and pistols as the Southern horsemen rode them down. “The enemy’s cavalry came down boldly to the charge,” as Sherman described the scene, “breaking through the line of skirmishers, when the regiment of infantry, without cause, broke, threw away their muskets and fled.” As the infantry gave way, the Federal cavalry on the flanks also fell into disorder. At once Sherman ordered the rest of Colonel Jesse Hildebrand’s brigade to form a line of battle in the rear, “which was promptly executed,” said Sherman, and “the broken infantry and cavalry rallied on this line.”41
Forrest was so far in advance of his men, and so carried away by the exhilaration of combat, that he galloped into the strong Union line alone. He should have been killed. Yankees swarmed all about, trying to shoot or drag him from his horse. A soldier did manage to place his gun up against Forrest’s hip and fire. The bullet lodged against his spine, although it failed to unhorse him. As Forrest turned to escape, he grabbed an Ohio soldier by the collar, swung the man onto the horse and used him as a shield while he galloped away.
Sherman was amazed. Years later, he recounted how Forrest had ridden very close to him and claimed that if the Rebel had not already emptied his pistols, “my career would have ended right there.” Forrest recuperated at his home in Memphis, returning to duty three weeks later, still carrying the bullet next to his spine. It was neither the first nor the last time “that Devil Forrest,” as Sherman came to call him, cheated death, although perhaps never more spectacularly than at Fallen Timbers. Sherman gathered up his wounded, buried the dead and headed back to his headquarters at Pittsburg Landing.42
Critics later claimed that General Grant should have pursued the retreating Confederates, that he missed a great chance to inflict further damage and possibly destroy the Rebel army. General John McClernand, for example, actually wrote President Lincoln on April 14, claiming that his division, “as usual, has borne or shared in bearing the brunt” of a two-day “terrible battle.” Then he declared that it was “a great mistake” not to pursue the Rebels. After the war, Grant did say that he had wanted to pursue but could not bring himself to give such an order to “men who had fought desperately for two days, lying in the mud and rain whenever not fighting.” Sherman reported that the troops were “fagged out,” by the “hard fighting, exposure, and privation.” In addition to Federal exhaustion, historian Stacy Allen convincingly summarized the “several tactical realities” that would have challenged any attempt at pursuit by the Union Army. Rapid pursuit by cavalry divisions or brigades was impossible, because such organizations did not exist. Any pursuit by infantry would have been greatly hampered by the shortage of horses, as hundreds had been killed and wounded, which meant that moving supplies of all kinds and hauling artillery would have prevented a major effort. Naturally defensive terrain, as demonstrated on a small scale by Sherman’s experience would have provided the Rebels with good opportunities for ambush. Grant was right not to order a pursuit.43
The Battle of Shiloh was over—except for the burying of the dead, the suffering of the wounded, the anguish of those back home who would soon learn of their loved ones killed and maimed and the far-reaching strategic repercussions. The enormous casualties, which approached 24,000, according to historian Thomas Livermore’s calculation, shocked both armies, as well as the nation. Each side counted more than 1,700 dead and 8,000 wounded, with those missing accounting for the remainder. On average in Civil War battles, about 15 percent of the wounded eventually died from their wounds. If that average holds for Shiloh, then a total of nearly 6,000 soldiers died. By far the bloodiest battle to that date, Shiloh presented a terrible preview of all the other major battles of the war that were yet to come. For the first time, men on both sides came to envision a measure of the war’s eventual cost in suffering, death—and treasure.44
The consequences of the great battle cast a long and wide shadow. The strategic results were of greater significance, by far, than the horrendous casualty figures. The U.S. Army at Shiloh had turned back a major Southern counteroffensive, maintaining its position on the line of the Mississippi River, within a few miles of the Memphis & Charleston Railroad. In their bitter defeat on the west bank of the Tennessee, the Confederates surrendered the chance to stop a decisive Union drive, and possibly undo much of what the Yankees had achieved during the winter and early spring campaign. For the Federal Army, the path lay open to split the Confederacy along the Mississippi River, and that, in the long run, meant that the Rebels could never win the war. New Orleans author George Washington Cable dramatically wrote, “The South never smiled again after Shiloh.”
ON APRIL 11, General Halleck arrived at Pittsburg Landing, taking command in person of the Union forces still recovering from the great clash. One of Halleck’s first acts was to order Sherman “again to try to destroy the Memphis & Charleston Road, a thing,” as Sherman wrote Ellen, “I had twice tried and failed.” He embarked at once, on board the transports Tecumseh, certainly an appropriate name, and White Cloud, with a strike force of 100 cavalry and a brigade of infantry. Escorted by the gunboats Tyler and Lexington, he proceeded up the Tennessee about thirty miles to Chickasaw Landing, where the soldiers disembarked on the morning of April 13 and headed inland. This time Sherman was not to be denied. Driving off a Rebel guard estimated to be 150 strong, the Yankee force burned the Memphis & Charleston bridge spanning Bear Creek and, attacking with axes, destroyed about 500 feet of trestle across the swampy approach to the bridge as well as half a mile of telegraph poles. All Confederate railroad communication east of Corinth was severed.45
Sherman said “Halleck was delighted,” because breaking that railroad “had been with him a Chief object.” In his letter of April 14 to Ellen, Sherman enclosed a copy of Halleck’s message to the secretary of war, which praised Sherman for “contributing largely to the glorious victory [at Shiloh],” and recommended that he be promoted to major general of volunteers to date from April 6. Understandably pleased, Sherman also sent a copy of Halleck’s letter to John and declared to Ellen, “so at last I Stand redeemed from the vile slanders of that Cincinnati paper.” He knew that Ellen’s father would be “pleased that I am once more restored to favor,” and instructed: “Give him Halleck’s letter & tell him I broke the Charleston Road.” He could not resist slamming the newsmen. “I am sometimes amused at these newspaper reporters,” he told Ellen, then explaining: “They keep shy of me as I have said that the first one I catch I will hang as a Spy.” Sherman despised reporters, but his comments undoubtedly convey hyperbole. His sense of political reality was very much intact, as evidenced by his warning to an incensed, strongly opinionated Ellen: “For mercy’s sake never speak of McClellan as you write.”46
Ellen had become convinced that McClellan was plotting against the Union generally and Sherman in particular, having withheld the resources Cump had needed in Kentucky. In a letter of April 9, Ellen alleged that McClellan was connected with the Knights of the Golden Circle, a Northern organization in sympathy with the South. Guilty of treason, he planned for “our troops to be killed off by yellow fever when Summer comes on.” Keenly aware that he himself had “committed a fearful mistake in Kentucky,” Sherman thought it “a wonderful instance” that he had gotten an opportunity to recover. He did not believe that McClellan was a man of “malice or intention of wrong,” but the victim of vicious rumors. He told Ellen, “Keep your own Counsel, and let me work for myself on this Line.” Sherman thought it possible that McClellan might yet succeed in a big way, and if he then came to know Ellen’s views, the general might move to “crush me.”47
Sherman’s letters to Ellen, more than those to John or anyone else, convey the deep impact Shiloh made on him, particularly the mental stress he experienced in coping with the sights of suffering and destruction—sickening sights that left an impression far more disturbing and profound than Bull Run. He descriptively wrote of not only the pathetic, mangled bodies of the dead and dying soldiers, but also “the horses! I think we have buried 2,000 since the fight, our own and the Enemy.” He told her of “the wounded [men who] fill houses, tents, steamboats and every conceivable place.” Sherman could “feel the horrid nature of this war,” which “I never Expect . . . to survive.” He expressed a concern about what his older son, Willy, would know and think of him, particularly if indeed he died in the war. Instructing Ellen that she should read all accounts of his campaigns, he told her to “cut out paragraphs with my name for Willy’s future Study—all Slurs you will hide away, and gradually convince yourself that I am as great a soldier as General Greene.” Doubtless he referred to Nathanael Greene of the American Revolution.48
Sherman clearly was pleased to receive a letter from Willy after the battle, and in reply assured him that the message was “a first rate one.” Gathering up several cannon and musket balls and a spur “from the boot of a dead Rebel Captain,” he packed all in a box and addressed them to both Willy and Tom, cautioning the boys that some “have powder and you must keep them away from the fire, else they might burst and kill somebody.” He wanted Ellen to “paste on them a little paper saying they were picked up near my tent on the Battle field of Shiloh.”49
After Shiloh, all the Ewings and Shermans found great satisfaction in Cump’s ascending military stature. Ellen’s mother well expressed the family feelings when she told her daughter, speaking of Willy and Tom, “With what a just pride the dear Boys will always look upon the beautiful mementos of their Father’s heroic bravery and victory at ‘Shiloh.’” Despite the widespread, flattering acclaim Sherman enjoyed after the battle, he again became greatly agitated by newspaper reporters, who criticized Grant and others—above all, with the charge that the army had been caught by surprise on April 6. The trouble really started with Whitelaw Reid’s sensational and mistake-prone account in the Cincinnati Gazette of April 14, which came down hard on Grant and was widely copied, or quoted in part, by many Northern papers.50
Actually, writing under the pen name “Agate,” Reid treated Sherman quite well, presenting him as a hero of Shiloh, “dashing along the line . . . and exposing his own life with the same freedom with which he demanded [the troops] offer of theirs.” Sherman was not moved by Reid’s favorable account of his actions and became particularly angry at the criticism of Grant. (Neither he nor Grant would ever admit the strategic surprise on the morning of April 6.) Sherman’s disdain for “the most contemptible race of men that exist,” as he caustically characterized reporters, appears in many of the letters he penned in subsequent months. Of course Sherman well knew that if Grant was surprised, he himself was also open to the same criticism. That aggravating issue would involve both men in arguments for as long as they lived.51
Possibly neither Grant’s nor Sherman’s careers could have survived an admission of surprise at Shiloh, particularly in view of the unprecedented casualties suffered by the Union Army, as well as the problems recently experienced by both generals. So persistent became the clamor of some Northerners, however, that President Lincoln telegraphed Halleck to check into the matter. When Halleck said the accounts of surprise “are utterly false,” and the heavy casualties attributable to a hard-fighting Rebel army, Lincoln dropped the issue.
Whatever Halleck really thought about surprise, he was not inclined to criticize Grant again. Not after his rebuff from the secretary of war, and not after he himself had restored Grant to command before the battle. Neither was Halleck motivated to find fault with Sherman. He learned truly that no one contributed more to the eventual Union victory than the lean redhead to whom Halleck had given command of a new division shortly before the great clash. Also, Halleck was enjoying a good relationship with Sherman’s powerful family connections, both John Sherman and Thomas Ewing. He certainly was not about to bring their wrath down on himself. Finally, even if the army was surprised, Shiloh ended in triumph for the Union. Victory usually trumps all.52
* Meaning to the west and north, for Purdy lay directly west of Crump’s Landing.
