Part 15 (1/2)
”Our people are oppressed and pursued as beasts of the forest; the government must come to their relief.”
Buell replied, keeping the word of promise to the ear, but, with his ambition fixed on a different campaign, gradually but doggedly broke it to the hope. When, a month later, he acknowledged that his preparations and intent were to move against Nashville, the President wrote him:
”Of the two, I would rather have a point on the railroad south of c.u.mberland Gap than Nashville. _First_, because it cuts a great artery of the enemy's communication which Nashville does not; and, _secondly_, because it is in the midst of loyal people, who would rally around it, while Nashville is not.... But my distress is that our friends in East Tennessee are being hanged and driven to despair, and even now, I fear, are thinking of taking rebel arms for the sake of personal protection.
In this we lose the most valuable stake we have in the South.”
McClellan's comment amounted to a severe censure, and this was quickly followed by an almost positive command to ”advance on eastern Tennessee at once.” Again Buell promised compliance, only, however, again to report in a few weeks his conviction ”that an advance into East Tennessee is impracticable at this time on any scale which would be sufficient.” It is difficult to speculate upon the advantages lost by this unwillingness of a commander to obey instructions. To say nothing of the strategical value of East Tennessee to the Union, the fidelity of its people is shown in the reports sent to the Confederate government that ”the whole country is now in a state of rebellion”; that ”civil war has broken out in East Tennessee”; and that ”they look for the reestablishment of the Federal authority in the South with as much confidence as the Jews look for the coming of the Messiah.”
Henry W. Halleck, born in 1815, graduated from West Point in 1839, who, after distinguished service in the Mexican war, had been brevetted captain of Engineers, but soon afterward resigned from the army to pursue the practice of law in San Francisco, was, perhaps, the best professionally equipped officer among the number of those called by General Scott in the summer of 1861 to a.s.sume important command in the Union army. It is probable that Scott intended he should succeed himself as general-in-chief; but when he reached Was.h.i.+ngton the autumn was already late, and because of Fremont's conspicuous failure it seemed necessary to send Halleck to the Department of the Missouri, which, as reconst.i.tuted, was made to include, in addition to several northwestern States, Missouri and Arkansas, and so much of Kentucky as lay west of the c.u.mberland River. This change of department lines indicates the beginning of what soon became a dominant feature of military operations; namely, that instead of the vast regions lying west of the Mississippi, the great river itself, and the country lying immediately adjacent to it on either side, became the third princ.i.p.al field of strategy and action, under the necessity of opening and holding it as a great military and commercial highway.
While the intention of the government to open the Mississippi River by a powerful expedition received additional emphasis through Halleck's appointment, that general found no immediate means adequate to the task when he a.s.sumed command at St. Louis. Fremont's regime had left the whole department in the most deplorable confusion. Halleck reported that he had no army, but, rather, a military rabble to command and for some weeks devoted himself with energy and success to bringing order out of the chaos left him by his predecessor. A large element of his difficulty lay in the fact that the population of the whole State was tainted with disloyalty to a degree which rendered Missouri less a factor in the larger questions of general army operations, than from the beginning to the end of the war a local district of bitter and relentless factional hatred and guerrilla or, as the term was constantly employed, ”bushwhacking” warfare, intensified and kept alive by annual roving Confederate incursions from Arkansas and the Indian Territory in desultory summer campaigns.
XIX
Lincoln Directs Cooperation--Halleck and Buell--Ulysses S.
Grant--Grant's Demonstration--Victory at Mill River--Fort Henry--Fort Donelson--Buell's Tardiness--Halleck's Activity--Victory of Pea Ridge--Halleck Receives General Command--Pittsburg Landing--Island No.
10--Halleck's Corinth Campaign--Halleck's Mistakes
Toward the end of December, 1861, the prospects of the administration became very gloomy. McClellan had indeed organized a formidable army at Was.h.i.+ngton, but it had done nothing to efface the memory of the Bull Run defeat. On the contrary, a practical blockade of the Potomac by rebel batteries on the Virginia sh.o.r.e, and another small but irritating defeat at Ball's Bluff, greatly heightened public impatience. The necessary surrender of Mason and Slidell to England was exceedingly unpalatable.
Government expenditures had risen to $2,000,000 a day, and a financial crisis was imminent. Buell would not move into East Tennessee, and Halleck seemed powerless in Missouri. Added to this, McClellan's illness completed a stagnation of military affairs both east and west. Congress was clamoring for results, and its joint Committee on the Conduct of the War was pus.h.i.+ng a searching inquiry into the causes of previous defeats.
To remove this inertia, President Lincoln directed specific questions to the Western commanders. ”Are General Buell and yourself in concert?” he telegraphed Halleck on December 31. And next day he wrote:
”I am very anxious that, in case of General Buell's moving toward Nashville, the enemy shall not be greatly reinforced, and I think there is danger he will be from Columbus. It seems to me that a real or feigned attack on Columbus from up-river at the same time would either prevent this, or compensate for it by throwing Columbus into our hands.”
Similar questions also went to Buell, and their replies showed that no concert, arrangement, or plans existed, and that Halleck was not ready to cooperate. The correspondence started by the President's inquiry for the first time clearly brought out an estimate of the Confederate strength opposed to a southward movement in the West. Since the Confederate invasion of Kentucky on September 4, the rebels had so strongly fortified Columbus on the Mississippi River that it came to be called the ”Gibraltar of the West,” and now had a garrison of twenty thousand to hold it; while General Buckner was supposed to have a force of forty thousand at Bowling Green on the railroad between Louisville and Nashville. For more than a month Buell and Halleck had been aware that a joint river and land expedition southward up the Tennessee or the c.u.mberland River, which would outflank both positions and cause their evacuation, was practicable with but little opposition. Yet neither Buell nor Halleck had exchanged a word about it, or made the slightest preparation to begin it; each being busy in his own field, and with his own plans. Even now, when the President had started the subject, Halleck replied that it would be bad strategy for himself to move against Columbus, or Buell against Bowling Green; but he had nothing to say about a Tennessee River expedition, or cooperation with Buell to effect it, except by indirectly complaining that to withdraw troops from Missouri would risk the loss of that State.
The President, however, was no longer satisfied with indecision and excuses, and telegraphed to Buell on January 7:
”Please name as early a day as you safely can on or before which you can be ready to move southward in concert with Major-General Halleck. Delay is ruining us, and it is indispensable for me to have something definite. I send a like despatch to Major-General Halleck.”
To this Buell made no direct reply, while Halleck answered that he had asked Buell to designate a date for a demonstration, and explained two days later: ”I can make, with the gunboats and available troops, a pretty formidable demonstration, but no real attack.” In point of fact, Halleck had on the previous day, January 6, written to Brigadier-General U.S. Grant: ”I wish you to make a demonstration in force”: and he added full details, to which Grant responded on January 8: ”Your instructions of the sixth were received this morning, and immediate preparations made for carrying them out”; also adding details on his part.
Ulysses S. Grant was born on April 27, 1822, was graduated from West Point in 1843, and brevetted captain for gallant conduct in the Mexican War; but resigned from the army and was engaged with his father in a leather store at Galena, Illinois, when the Civil War broke out.
Employed by the governor of Illinois a few weeks at Springfield to a.s.sist in organizing militia regiments under the President's first call, Grant wrote a letter to the War Department at Was.h.i.+ngton tendering his services, and saying: ”I feel myself competent to command a regiment, if the President in his judgment should see fit to intrust one to me.” For some reason, never explained, this letter remained unanswered, though the department was then and afterward in constant need of educated and experienced officers. A few weeks later, however, Governor Yates commissioned him colonel of one of the Illinois three years' regiments.
From that time until the end of 1861, Grant, by constant and specially meritorious service, rose in rank to brigadier-general and to the command of the important post of Cairo, Illinois, having meanwhile, on November 7, won the battle of Belmont on the Missouri sh.o.r.e opposite Columbus.
The ”demonstration'” ordered by Halleck was probably intended only as a pa.s.sing show of activity; but it was executed by Grant, though under strict orders to ”avoid a battle,” with a degree of promptness and earnestness that drew after it momentous consequences. He pushed a strong reconnaissance by eight thousand men within a mile or two of Columbus, and sent three gunboats up the Tennessee River, which drew the fire of Fort Henry. The results of the combined expedition convinced Grant that a real movement in that direction was practicable, and he hastened to St. Louis to lay his plan personally before Halleck. At first that general would scarcely listen to it; but, returning to Cairo, Grant urged it again and again, and the rapidly changing military conditions soon caused Halleck to realize its importance.
Within a few days, several items of interesting information reached Halleck: that General Thomas, in eastern Kentucky, had won a victory over the rebel General Zollicoffer, capturing his fortified camp on c.u.mberland River, annihilating his army of over ten regiments, and fully exposing c.u.mberland Gap; that the Confederates were about to throw strong reinforcements into Columbus; that seven formidable Union ironclad river gunboats were ready for service; and that a rise of fourteen feet had taken place in the Tennessee River, greatly weakening the rebel batteries on that stream and the c.u.mberland. The advantages on the one hand, and the dangers on the other, which these reports indicated, moved Halleck to a sudden decision. When Grant, on January 28, telegraphed him: ”With permission, I will take Fort Henry on the Tennessee, and establish and hold a large camp there,” Halleck responded on the thirtieth: ”Make your preparations to take and hold Fort Henry.”
It would appear that Grant's preparations were already quite complete when he received written instructions by mail on February 1, for on the next day he started fifteen thousand men on transports, and on February 4 himself followed with seven gunboats under command of Commodore Foote.
Two days later, Grant had the satisfaction of sending a double message in return: ”Fort Henry is ours.... I shall take and destroy Fort Donelson on the eighth.”
Fort Henry had been an easy victory. The rebel commander, convinced that he could not defend the place, had early that morning sent away his garrison of three thousand on a retreat to Fort Donelson, and simply held out during a two hours' bombardment until they could escape capture. To take Fort Donelson was a more serious enterprise. That stronghold, lying twelve miles away on the c.u.mberland River, was a much larger work, with a garrison of six thousand, and armed with seventeen heavy and forty-eight field guns. If Grant could have marched immediately to an attack of the combined garrisons, there would have been a chance of quick success. But the high water presented unlooked-for obstacles, and nearly a week elapsed before his army began stretching itself cautiously around the three miles of Donelson's intrenchments. During this delay, the conditions became greatly changed.
When the Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston received news that Fort Henry had fallen, he held a council at Bowling Green with his subordinate generals Hardee and Beauregard, and seeing that the Union success would, if not immediately counteracted, render both Nashville and Columbus untenable, resolved, to use his own language, ”To defend Nashville at Donelson.”
An immediate retreat was begun from Bowling Green to Nashville, and heavy reinforcements were ordered to the garrison of Fort Donelson. It happened, therefore, that when Grant was ready to begin his a.s.sault the Confederate garrison with its reinforcements outnumbered his entire army. To increase the discouragement, the attack by gunboats on the c.u.mberland River on the afternoon of February 14 was repulsed, seriously damaging two of them, and a heavy sortie from the fort threw the right of Grant's investing line into disorder. Fortunately, General Halleck at St. Louis strained all his energies to send reinforcements, and these arrived in time to restore Grant's advantage in numbers.