WHILE GENERAL U. S. GRANT battled the Southerners for Fort Donelson, General Henry W. Halleck remained in St. Louis, anxiously worrying over his subordinate and frantically trying to scrounge up some help for him. To aid Grant, Halleck appealed to General Don Carlos Buell for some kind of demonstration against Bowling Green to divert the Southerners’ attention from Fort Donelson. To General George McClellan Halleck sent an urgent plea for reinforcements.1 But on February 16, General Halleck’s worries changed to joy as he received word that Fort Donelson had fallen.2 The Union elements in St. Louis went mad with joy at the news, and Halleck, for getting his lawyer’s dignity, joined right in.
Puffing vigorously on a cigar, Halleck ordered a clerk to distribute two dozen baskets of champagne for the crowd that gathered outside his headquarters at the Planter’s House. The general told the clerk to “give public notice that I shall suspect the loyalty of any male resident of St. Louis who can be found sober enough to walk or speak within the next half hour.”3
With his military ability publicly vindicated by the victories in Tennessee, Halleck launched a strong onslaught for a promotion. “Make Buell, Grant and Pope major-generals of volunteers,” he wrote to General McClellan, “and give me command in the West. I ask this in return for Forts Henry and Donelson.”4 Although General McClellan failed to grant Halleck’s re quest for sole command in the West, Halleck was not discouraged, and he began preparations for new offensive moves in his theater. On February 18, Halleck began corresponding with his subordinate, General John Pope, about the feasibility of an offensive down the Mississippi River. Within a few days the somewhat out spoken Pope was moving south ward with a strong army-navy force, investing the Confederate strong hold of New Madrid, Missouri, on March 1.5
For several days after the surrender of Fort Donelson, Grant was busy with the usual post-battle loose ends. There were wounded to be taken care of and prisoners to be moved northward.
Promoted to major general of volunteers for his victory, Grant busily managed affairs at Henry and Donelson while endeavoring to persuade Halleck to launch some sort of new offensive in the direction of Clarksville and Nashville, Tennessee. Grant seemed to think that Halleck was warmly in favor of a vigorous push southward,6 but actually, though unknown to himself, relations with headquarters at St. Louis were slowly deteriorating. Grant began discussing the question of an offensive with the wounded naval officer, Foote. The naval commander was all for pushing on to Nashville, and actually began making preparations with his subordinate officers when General Halleck telegraphed Grant not to let the gun boats advance be yond Clarksville.7
On Sunday, February 23, General Halleck suddenly changed his mind and decided to let Foote and Grant go on up the Cumberland River to Nashville, possibly as a means of aiding General Buell, or perhaps to deprive the latter of all the credit for taking the city.8What ever his motives were, Halleck changed his mind again on Tuesday upon learning that Buell was al most in the city.9
Unfortunately for the cause of Union high echelon unity, there was a bad communications foul-up between Grant and Halleck, because of the great distance involved and the comparative inexperience of their respective staffs. On Monday, Grant had directed Brigadier General William Nelson’s division (of Buell’s army, but ordered to reinforce Grant for the Donelson campaign) to proceed by transport and occupy Nashville.10 Buell, who had reached Edgefield, on the opposite side of the river from Nashville, was furious at General Nelson’s arrival, fearing that General Albert Sidney Johnston might wheel around from Murfreesboro and assault the isolated division before the rest of the army could be ferried over. Buell requested Brigadier General C. F. Smith’s division to come to Nashville at once as insurance against an at tack by Johnston, and Grant, who had not yet received Halleck’s Tuesday order rescinding the Sunday Cumberland advance order, sent Smith to Nashville on the 26th, and then went there himself to confer with Buell.11
Back in St. Louis Halleck was becoming increasingly frustrated over a persistent lack of information from Tennessee. He demanded of General George Cullum, commanding at Cairo, as to “who sent Smith’s division to Nashville?” He continued:
I ordered them across to the Tennessee, where they are wanted immediately. Order them back. What is the reason that no one down there can obey my orders? Send all spare transports to General Grant up the Tennessee.12
Cullum forwarded Halleck’s message to Grant, who immediately ordered most of his troops back to Fort Henry.13 On March 3, Halleck learned from Cullum that Grant had “just re turned from Nashville,” on February 28.14
Halleck promptly blew up, writing McClellan that he had had no communications with Grant for more than a week. Charging that Grant had absented himself from his command without authority, going on a pertinacious trip to Nashville, Halleck, from the vantage point of his comfortable headquarters in St. Louis, claimed that Grant’s army “seems to be as much de moralized by the victory of Fort Donelson as was that of the Potomac by the defeat of Bull Run.”15
Halleck went on to make his famous stab in the back:
It is hard to censure a successful general immediately after a victory, but I think he richly deserves it. I can get no returns, nor reports, no information of any kind from him. Satisfied with his victory, he sits down and enjoys it without any regard to the future. I am worn-out and tired with this neglect and inefficiency. C. F. Smith is almost the only officer equal to the urgency.16
Receiving Halleck’s bitter missive, Grant’s old comrade from Regular Army days, McClellan,17 re plied to Halleck:
The future success of our cause demands that proceedings such as Grant’s should at once be checked. Generals must observe discipline as well as private soldiers. Do not hesitate to arrest him at once if the good of the service requires it, and place C.F. Smith in command. You are at liberty to regard this as a positive order if it will smooth your way.18
By the following morning, March 4, Halleck had another bee for McClellan’s ears. He informed his superior that a rumor had reached headquarters to the effect that General Grant was drinking heavily, and that this accounted for “his neglect of my often repeated orders.”19 Going on to ex plain that he did not consider it advisable to arrest Grant just yet, Halleck wound up by saying he had placed General C. F. Smith in charge of the proposed expedition up the Tennessee.20
Confused by the whole matter, Grant wrote to Halleck in a desperate attempt to find out what was wrong. He could not understand why he was under a black cloud. For several days the ink flowed freely between the two men, with Grant increasingly convinced that he had enemies on Halleck’s staff who were trying to sabotage him.21
Halleck, either satisfied that Grant was repentant or innocent, finally shelved the whole matter, although Grant did not immediately resume command of the Tennessee River expedition. The plan for the project started on March 1, when Halleck ordered Grant to send Smith up the river and wreck Confederate communications at Eastport and Corinth, Mississippi, and Jackson and Humboldt, Tennessee. The expedition was more in the form of a raid than an invasion, and Grant was directed not to pick a fight with anything he could not handle.22
Five days later General Halleck changed the directive for the expedition slightly, saying the army should “encamp at Savannah [Tennessee] unless threatened by superior numbers.”23
On March 6, Brigadier General William T. Sherman, in command at Paducah, Kentucky, notified Halleck that he had learned of the presence of a “large force of rebels … collected at Eastport … and also at Corinth.” Sherman went on to tell Halleck that the Confederate force was “estimated at 20,000; engaged fortifying at both places.”24 On the basis of this information Halleck decided that Sherman’s command should link up with General Smith’s column for the Tennessee expedition.25
The expeditionary force formed up in the vicinity of Fort Henry. There were to be five divisions: Sherman’s, McClernand’s, Lew Wallace’s, C. F. Smith’s, and a brand new one under Brigadier General Stephen A. Hurlbut.
A political appointee, the South Carolina-born Hurlbut had been President Lincoln’s special emissary to Charleston during the crisis at that place the year before.26 Forty-six years old, Hurlbut was the son of a Massachusetts-born Unitarian minister who married a Charleston girl and made his home at that place. As a youth Hurlbut studied law and was admitted to the bar. During one of the in terminable Seminole up risings in Florida he served as adjutant of a South Carolina regiment of volunteers. In 1845, he immigrated to Belvidere, Illinois, where he eventually joined the Re publican Party. Serving as a member of the state legislature when the war broke out, he was appointed brigadier general of volunteers on June 14, 1861. A rather corrupt man, Hurlbut also had a deep fondness for the whiskey bottle, which does not seem how ever to have handicapped his military duties.27 Of about average height, Hurlbut had dark gray eyes, a short nose, a florid complexion, and close cropped chest nut hair.28