Fig. 5ADMIRAL D. G. FARRAGUTPhotograph by Brady.
ADMIRAL D. G. FARRAGUTPhotograph by Brady.
Farragut's base at Ship Island was about a hundred miles east from the Confederate Forts Jackson and St. Philip. These forts guarded the entrance to the Mississippi. Ninety miles above them stood New Orleans, to which they gave protection and from which they drew all their supplies. The result of a conference at Washington was an order from Welles to "reduce the defenses which guard the approaches to New Orleans." But Farragut's own infinitely better plan was to run past the forts and take New Orleans first. By doing this he would save the extra loss required for reducing the forts and would take the weak defenses of New Orleans entirely by surprise. Then, when New Orleans fell, the forts, cut off from all supplies, would have to surrender without the firing of another shot. Everything depended on whether Farragut could run past without too much loss. Profoundly versed in all the factors of the problem,he foresaw that his solution would prove right, while Washington's would as certainly be wrong. So, taking the utmost advantage of all the freedom that his general instructions allowed, he followed a course in which anything short of complete success would mean the ruin of his whole career.
The forts were strong, had ninety guns that would bear on the fleet, and were well placed, one on each side of the river. But they suffered from all the disadvantages of fixed defenses opposed by a mobile enemy, and their own mobile auxiliaries were far from being satisfactory. The best of the "River Defense Fleet," including several rams, had been ordered up to Memphis, so sure was the Confederate Government that the attack would come from the north. Two home-made ironclads were failures. TheLouisiana'sengines were not ready in time; and her captain refused to be towed into the position near the boom where he could do the enemy most harm. TheMississippi, a mere floating house, built by ordinary carpenters, never reached the forts at all and was burnt by her own men at New Orleans.
Farragut felt sure of his fleet. He had four splendid new men-of-war that formed a homogeneous squadron, four other sizable warships, and ninenew gunboats. All spars and rigging that could be dispensed with were taken down; all hulls camouflaged with Mississippi mud; and all decks whitened for handiness at night. A weak point, however, was the presence of mortar-boats that would have been better out of the way altogether. These boats had been sent to bombard the forts, which, according to the plan preferred by the Government, were to be taken before New Orleans was attacked. In other words, the Government wished to cut off the branches first; while Farragut wished to cut down the tree itself, knowing the branches must fall with the trunk.
On the eighteenth of April the mortar-boats began heaving shells at the forts. But, after six days of bombardment, the forts were nowhere near the point of surrendering, and the supply of shells had begun to run low.
Meanwhile the squadron had been busy preparing for the great ordeal. The first task was to break the boom across the river. This boom was placed so as to hold the ships under the fire of the forts; and the four-knot spring current was so strong that the eight-knot ships could not make way enough against it to cut clear through with certainty. Moreover, the middle of the boom wasfilled in by eight big schooners, chained together, with their masts and rigging dragging astern so as to form a most awkward entanglement. Farragut's fleet captain, Henry H. Bell, taking two gunboats,ItascaandPinola, under Lieutenants Caldwell and Crosby, slipped the chains of one schooner; whereupon this schooner and theItascaswung back and grounded under fire of the forts. ThePinolagallantly stood by, helpingItascaclear. Then Caldwell, with splendid audacity and skill, steamed up through the narrow gap, turned round, put on theItasca'sutmost speed, and, with the current in his favor, charged full tilt against the chains that still held fast. For one breathless moment the littleItascaseemed lost. Her bows rose clear out, as, quivering from stem to stern, she was suddenly brought up short from top speed to nothing. But, in another fateful minute, with a rending crash, the two nearest schooners gave way and swept back like a gate, while theItascaherself shot clear and came down in triumph to the fleet.
The passage was made on the twenty-fourth, in line-ahead (that is, one after another) because Farragut found the opening narrower than he thought it should be for two columns abreast, at night, under fire, and against the spring current.Owing to the configuration of the channel the starboard column had to weigh first, which gave the lead to the 500-ton gunboatCayuga. This was the one weak point, because the leading vessel, drawing most fire, should have been the strongest. The fault was Farragut's; for his heart got the better of his head when it came to placing Captain Theodorus Bailey, his dauntless second-in-command, on board a vessel fit to lead the starboard column. He could not bear to obscure any captain's chances of distinction by putting another captain over him. So Bailey was sent to the best vessel commanded by a lieutenant.
TheCayuga'snavigating officer, finding that the guns of the forts were all trained on midstream, edged in towards Fort St. Philip. His masts were shot to pieces, but his hull drew clear without great damage. "Then," he says, "I looked back for some of our vessels; and my heart jumped up into my mouth when I found I could not see a single one. I thought they must all have been sunk by the forts." But not a ship had gone down. The three big ones of the starboard column—Pensacola, Mississippi, andOneida—closed with the fort (so that the gunners on both sides exchanged jeers of defiance) and kept up a furious fire till thelighter craft astern slipped past safely and joined theCayugaabove.
Meanwhile theCayugahad been attacked by a mob of Mississippi steamers, six of which belonged to the original fourteen blessed with their precious independence by Secretary Benjamin, "backed by the whole Missouri Delegation." So when the rest of the Federal light craft came up, "all sorts of things happened" in a general free fight. There was no lack of Confederate courage; but an utter absence of concerted action and of the simplest kind of naval skill, except on the part of the two vessels commanded by ex-officers of the United States Navy. The Federal light craft cut their way through their unorganized opponents as easily as a battalion of regulars could cut through a mob throwing stones. But the only two Confederate naval officers got clear of the scrimmage and did all that skill could do with their makeshift little craft against the Federal fleet. Kennon singled out theVaruna(the only one of Farragut's vessels that was not a real man-of-war), raked her stern with the two guns of his own much inferior vessel, theGovernor Moore, and rammed her into a sinking condition. Warley flew at bigger game with his little ram, theManassas, trying three of the large men-of-war, oneafter another, as they came upstream. ThePensacolaeluded him by a knowing turn of her helm that roused his warmest admiration. TheMississippicaught the blow glancingly on her quarter and got off with little damage. TheBrooklynwas taken fair and square amidships; but, though her planking was crushed in, she sprang no serious leak and went on with the fight. The wretched little Confederate engines had not been able to drive the ram home.
TheBrooklynwas the flagshipHartford'snext-astern and theRichmond'snext-ahead, these three forming the main body of Farragut's own port column, which followed hard on the heels of the starboard one, so hard, indeed, that there were only twenty minutes between the first shot fired by the forts at theCayugaand the first shot fired by theHartfordat the forts. Besides the forts there was theLouisianafloating battery that helped to swell the storm of shot and shell; and down the river came a fire-raft gallantly towed by a tug. TheHartfordsheered off, over towards Fort St. Philip, under whose guns she took ground by the head while the raft closed in and set her ablaze. Instantly the hands on fire duty sprang to their work. But the flames rushed in through the ports;and the men were forced a step back. Farragut at once called out: "Don't flinch from the fire, boys. There's a hotter fire than that for those who don't do their duty!" Whereupon they plied their hoses to such good effect that the fire was soon got under control. Farragut calmly resumed his walk up and down the poop, while the gunners blew the gallant little tug to bits and smashed the raft in pieces. Then he stood keenly watching theHartfordback clear, gather way, and take the lead upstream again. Every now and then he looked at the pocket compass that hung from his watch chain; though, for the most part, he tried to scan a scene of action lit only by the flashes of the guns. The air was dense and very still; so the smoke of guns and funnels hung like a pall over both the combatants while the desperate fight went on.
At last the fleet fought through and reached the clearer atmosphere above the forts; all but the last three gunboats, which were driven back by the fire. Then Farragut immediately sent word to General Benjamin F. Butler that the troops could be brought up by the bayous that ran parallel to the river out of range of the forts. But the General, having taken in the situation at a glance from atransport just below the scene of action, had begun to collect his men at Sable Island, twelve miles behind Fort St. Philip, long before Farragut's messenger could reach him by way of the Quarantine Bayou. From Sable Island the troops were taken by the transports to a point on the Mississippi five miles above Fort St. Philip.
After a well-earned rest the whole fleet moved up to New Orleans on the twenty-fifth, turning the city's lines five miles downstream without the loss of a man, for the simple reason that these had been built only to resist an army, and so lay with flanks entirely open to a fleet. General Lovell (the able commander who had so often warned the Confederate Government of the danger from the sea) at once evacuated the defenseless city. The best of the younger men were away with the armies. The best of the older men were too few for the storm. And so pandemonium broke loose. Burning boats, blazing cotton, and a howling mob greeted Farragut's arrival. But after the forts (now completely cut off from their base) had surrendered on the twenty-eighth a landing party from the fleet soon brought the mob to its senses by planting howitzers in the streets and lowering the Confederate colors over the city hall. On the first of May a garrisonof Federal troops took charge of New Orleans and kept it till the war was over.
New Orleans was a most pregnant Federal victory; for it established a Union base at the great strategic point where sea-power and land-power could meet most effectively in Mississippi waters.
But it was followed by a perfect anti-climax; for the Federal Government, having planned a naval concentration at Vicksburg, determined to put the plan in operation; though all the naval and military means concerned made such a plan impossible of execution in 1862. Amphibious forces—fleets and armies combined—were essential. There was no use in parading up and down the river, however triumphantly, so long as the force employed could only hold the part of the channel within actual range of its guns. The Confederates could be driven off the Mississippi at any given point. But there was nothing to prevent them from coming back again when once the ships had passed. An army to seize and hold strategic points ashore was absolutely indispensable. Then, and only then, Farragut's long line of communication with his base at New Orleans would be safe, and the land in which theMississippi was the principal highway could itself be conquered.
"If the Mississippi expedition from Cairo shall not have descended the river, you will take advantage of the panic to push a strong force up the river to take all their defenses in rear." These were the orders Farragut had to obey if he succeeded in taking New Orleans. They were soon reinforced by this reminder: "The only anxiety we feel is to know if you have followed up your instructions and pushed a strong force up the river to meet the Western flotilla." Farragut therefore felt bound to obey and do all that could be done to carry on a quite impossible campaign. So, with a useless landing party of only fifteen hundred troops, he pushed up to Vicksburg, four hundred miles above New Orleans. The nearest Federal army had been halted by the Confederate defenses above Memphis, another four hundred higher still.
There were several reasons why Farragut should not have gone up. His big ships would certainly be stranded if he went up and waited for the army to come down; moreover, when stranded, these ships would be captured while waiting, because both banks were swarming with vastly outnumbering Confederate troops. Then, such a disasterwould more than offset the triumph of New Orleans by still further depressing Federal morale at a time when the Federal arms were doing none too well near Washington. Finally, all the force that was being worse than wasted up the Mississippi might have been turned against Mobile, which, at that time, was much weaker than the defenses Farragut had already overcome. But the people of the North were clamorous for more victories along the line to which the press had drawn their gaze. So the Government ordered the fleet to carry on this impossible campaign.
Farragut did his best. Within a month of passing the forts he had not only captured New Orleans and repaired the many serious damages suffered by his fleet but had captured Baton Rouge, and taken even his biggest ships to Vicksburg, five hundred miles from the Gulf, against a continuous current, and right through the heart of a hostile land. Finding that there were thirty thousand Confederates in, near, or within a day of Vicksburg he and General Thomas Williams agreed that nothing could be done with the fifteen hundred troops which formed the only landing party. Sickness and casualties had reduced the ships' companies; so there were not even a few seamen to spare as reinforcementsfor these fifteen hundred soldiers, whom Butler had sent, under Williams, with the fleet. Then Farragut turned back, his stores running dangerously short owing to the enormous difficulties of keeping open his long, precarious line of communications. "I arrived in New Orleans with five or six days' provisions and one anchor, and am now trying to procure others.... Fighting is nothing to the evils of the river—getting on shore, running foul of one another, losing anchors, etc." In a confidential letter home he is still more outspoken. "They will keep us in this river till the vessels break down and all the little reputation we have made has evaporated. The Government appears to think that we can do anything. They expect me to navigate the Mississippi nine hundred miles in the face of batteries, ironclad rams, etc.; and yet with all the ironclad vessels they have North they could not get to Norfolk or Richmond."
Back from Washington came still more urgent orders to join the Mississippi flotilla which was coming down to Vicksburg from the north under Flag Officer Charles H. Davis. So once more the fleet worked its laboriously wasteful way up to Vicksburg, where it passed the forts with the help of Porter's flotilla of mortar-boats on thetwenty-eighth of June and joined Davis on the first of July. There, in useless danger, the joint forces lay till the fifteenth, the day on which Grant's own "most anxious period of the war" began on the Memphis-Corinth line, four hundred miles above.
Farragut, getting very anxious about the shoaling of the water, was then preparing to run down when he heard firing in the Yazoo, a tributary that joined the Mississippi four miles higher up. This came from a fight between one of his reconnoitering gunboats, theCarondelet, and theArkansas, an ironclad Confederate ram that would have been very dangerous indeed if her miserable engines had been able to give her any speed. She was beating theCarondelet, but getting her smoke-stack so badly holed that her speed dropped down to one knot, which scarcely gave her steerage way and made her unable to ram. Firing hard she ran the gauntlet of both fleets and took refuge under the Vicksburg bluffs, whence she might run out and ram the Union vessels below. Farragut therefore ran down himself, hoping to smash her by successive broadsides in passing. But the difficulties of the passage wasted the daylight, so that he had to run by at night. She therefore survived his attack,and went downstream to join the Confederates against Baton Rouge. But her engines gave way before she got there; and she had to be blown up.
Farragut was back at New Orleans before the end of July. On the fifth of August the Confederates made their attack on Baton Rouge; but were beaten back by the Union garrison aided by three of Farragut's gunboats and two larger vessels from Davis's command. The losses were not very severe on either side; but the Union lost a leader of really magnificent promise in its commanding general, Thomas Williams, a great-hearted, cool-headed man and most accomplished officer. The garrison of Baton Rouge, being too small and sickly and exposed, was withdrawn to New Orleans a few days later.
Then Farragut at last returned to the Gulf blockade. Davis went back up the river, where he was succeeded by D. D. Porter in October. And the Confederates, warned of what was coming, made Port Hudson and Vicksburg as strong as they could. Vicksburg was now the only point they held on the Mississippi where there were rails on both sides; and the Red River, flowing in from the West between Vicksburg and Port Hudson, was the only good line of communication connectingthem with Texas, whence so much of their meat was obtained.
For three months Farragut directed the Gulf blockade from Pensacola, where, on the day of his arrival, the twentieth of August, he was the first American to hoist an admiral's flag. The rank of rear-admiral in the United States Navy had been created on the previous sixteenth of July; and Farragut was the senior of the first three officers upon whom it was conferred.
Farragut became the ranking admiral just when the United States Navy was having its hardest struggle to do its fivefold duty well. There was commerce protection on the high seas, blockade along the coast, coöperation with the army on salt water and on fresh, and of course the destruction of the nascent Confederate forces afloat. But perhaps a knottier problem than any part of its combatant duty was how to manage, in the very midst of war, that rapid expansion of its own strength for which no government had let it prepare in time of peace. During this year the number of vessels in commission grew from 264 to 427. Yet such a form of expansion was much simpler than that of the enlisted men; and the expansion of even the most highly trained enlisted personnelwas very much simpler than the corresponding expansion of the officers. Happily for the United States Navy it started with a long lead over its enemy. More happily still it could expand with the help of greatly superior resources. Most happily of all, the sevenfold expansion that was effected before the war was over could be made under leaders like Farragut: leaders, that is, who, though in mere numbers they were no more, in proportion to their whole service, than the flag as mere material is to a man-of-war, were yet, as is the flag, the living symbol of a people's soul.
Commerce protection on the high seas was an exceedingly harassing affair. A few swift raiders, having the initiative, enjoyed great advantages over a far larger number of defending vessels. Every daring raid was trumpeted round the world, bringing down unmeasured, and often unmerited, blame on the defense. The most successful vigilance would, on the other hand, pass by unheeded. The Union navy lacked the means of patrolling the sea lanes of commerce over millions and millions of desolate square miles. Consequently the war-risk insurance rose to a prohibitive height on vessels flying the Stars and Stripes; and, as a further result, enormous transfers were made toother flags. The incessant calls for recruits, afloat and ashore, and to some extent the lure of the western lands, also robbed the merchant service of its men. Thus, one way and another, the glory of the old merchant marine departed with the Civil War.
Blockade was more to the point than any attempt to patrol the sea lanes. Yet it was even more harassing; for it involved three distinct though closely correlated kinds of operation: not only the seizure, in conjunction with the army, of enemy ports, and the patrolling of an enemy coastline three thousand miles long, but also the patrolling of those oversea ports from which most contraband came. This oversea patrol was the most effective, because it went straight to the source of trouble. But it required extraordinary vigilance, because it had to be conducted from beyond the three-mile limit, and with the greatest care for all the rights of neutrals.
By mid-November Farragut was back at New Orleans. A month later General Banks arrived with reinforcements. He superseded General Butler and was under orders to coöperate with McClernand, Grant's second-in-command, who was to come down the Mississippi from Cairo. Butthe proposed meeting of the two armies never took place. Banks remained south of Port Hudson, McClernand far north of Vicksburg; for, as we shall see in the next chapter, Sherman's attempt to take Vicksburg from the North failed on the twenty-ninth of December.
The naval and river campaigns of '62 thus ended in disappointment for the Union. And, on New Year's Day, Galveston, which Farragut had occupied in October without a fight and which was lightly garrisoned by three hundred soldiers, fell into Confederate hands under most exasperating circumstances. After the captain and first lieutenant of the U.S.S.Harriet Lanehad been shot by the riflemen aboard two cotton-clad steamers the next officer tamely surrendered. Commander Renshaw, who was in charge of the blockade, amply redeemed the honor of the Navy by refusing to surrender theWestfield, in spite of the odds against him, and by blowing her up instead. But when he died at the post of duty the remaining Union vessels escaped; and the blockade was raised for a week.
After that Commodore H. H. Bell, one of Farragut's best men, closed in with a grip which never let go. Yet even Bell suffered a reverse when hesent the U.S.S.Hatterasto overhaul a strange vessel that lured her off some fifteen miles and sank her in a thirteen-minute fight. This stranger was theAlabama, then just beginning her famous or notorious career. Nor were these the only Union troubles in the Gulf during the first three weeks of the new year. Commander J. N. Matt ran theFloridaout of Mobile, right through the squadron that had been specially strengthened to deal with her; and the shore defenses of the Sabine Pass, like those of Galveston, fell into Confederate hands again, to remain there till the war was over.
In spite of all failures, however, Farragut still had the upper hand along the Gulf, and up the Mississippi as far as New Orleans, without which admirable base the River War of '62 could never have prepared the way for Grant's magnificent victory in the River War of '63.
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 objectivesin 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 gunboatflotilla; 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. Unionregiments 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 thenasked 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 wenton 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 faithfullyplodded 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 particularlyanxious 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 schoolof 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. TheEssexironclad 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, theEssexwas 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 ironcladCarondeletseveral miles upstream to destroy the Memphis-Ohio railway bridge, thuscutting 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'swas 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 hisbandanna 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 diffidentabout 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 leaderborn 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 dauntlessCarondelet, 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 theCarondeletcould 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 theCarondeletwas 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 thePittsburghswung round, ran foul of theCarondelet, and dropped downstream. The pilot of theSt. Louiswas killed, and Foote, who stood beside him, wounded. The wheel-ropes of theSt. Louis, like those of theLouisville, 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 slightpreponderance 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 atonce 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 centeras 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 hecould. 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 FieldCamp 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. GRANTBrig. 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 toCharleston 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 arrestfor 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, whenthe 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 theCarondeletstarted 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 afurious cannonade, theCarondeletran 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 ironcladPittsburghad 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 Shilohposition. 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. Thewoods 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 commandingheight 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 hardfighting 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 thebattle 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.