The History of the Confederate War, Its Causes and Its Conduct. Volume 1 of 2

A second defect in this scheme of defense was that the line thus formed was traversed by two rivers, the Tennessee and the Cumberland, both practically navigable by steamboats. It was obvious to ordinary common-sense that should both or either of these rivers at any time fall under control of the enemy, with his multitudinous gunboats and other river craft which could easily be made to carry guns, the western half of the Confederate force must be completely and at once cut off from all but a very roundabout and slow communication with its allies on the east.

Here was a danger which must have presented itself obtrusively to the minds of those who formed and ordered this military arrangement. It is difficult for a military critic in this later day to understand or to conceive upon what principle of scientific warfare such a line was accepted as even tolerably judicious. Its adoption seems in fact to have been determined more by political than by military considerations.

In order to meet the difficulty the Confederates created the two great fortresses – Henry and Donelson – to defend the rivers. These forts were curiously misplaced. They were located one upon the one river, and the other upon the other, at a point near the dividing line between Kentucky and Tennessee. At that point the two rivers run within eleven miles of each other. But a little farther down the streams – that is to say a little farther north – their course brings them within three miles of each other. Here obviously on all accounts was the point at which the defensive works should have been constructed. In that case the two forts would have been within easy supporting distance of each other and neither could have been assailed from the rear. Moreover, we have the authority of no less eminent an engineer than General Beauregard for saying that the ground at this point is well fitted by its natural conformation for purposes of defense, while at the point actually selected for the two fortresses it is peculiarly lacking in that advantage. But the more defensible position was in Kentucky and purely political considerations had weight in determining the choice of the less advantageous point of defense in Tennessee.

The defective character of this line of defense and the mistake underlying its acceptance were strongly emphasized after the overthrow of Zollicoffer at Mill Springs and the pushing forward of General Thomas's forces to more southerly points. This movement placed a threatening force on the right flank of the Confederate line of defense. Nevertheless, the Confederate War Department clung to its mistaken policy. It lived at that time in a fool's paradise in which facts counted for little in comparison with theories, and in which optimism was expected to serve the purpose of guns and brigades and defensive works.

When at the end of January, 1862, the War Department asked General Beauregard to go to that region as second in command under General Albert Sydney Johnston, it confidently assured him that the troops under General Johnston's command exceeded seventy thousand in number. On his arrival there General Beauregard found that in fact these widely and dangerously scattered forces numbered less than forty-five thousand and that the several parts could not possibly be made to support each other. He found also that the strength in fortification, in guns and in men, which should have been concentrated mainly in Forts Henry and Donelson, had been largely wasted at Columbus, a position naturally indefensible or defensible by a small as easily as by a large force. He found that vast quantities of precious stores had been warehoused there in face of the fact that Columbus was the most northerly and the most exposed point on the entire defensive line.

When General Beauregard joined General Johnston and made his study of conditions, he pointed out all these defects in the line and all the dangers they involved. General Beauregard had, since the battle of Manassas, developed an aggressive tendency which he had strangely lacked in the earlier months of his career as a general. He had grown into a real general. He therefore proposed to General Johnston an instant offensive movement.

Here it is important for the reader clearly to understand the situation.

General Polk, commanding the Confederates at Columbus, was threatened by a superior force under General Pope in Missouri, on the other side of the river. General Johnston's position at Bowling Green was threatened by a distinctly superior army under General Buell which lay scarcely more than a two days' march to the north and east. Moreover the position of Bowling Green was already in effect turned by Thomas's advance from eastern Kentucky towards eastern Tennessee. In the meanwhile General Grant, supported by the gunboats, was in possession of Paducah and threatening to advance with 15,000 men for the reduction of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson.

The Confederate forces were scattered beyond all possibility of effective coöperation except by a concentration in advance involving a radical change in the scheme and line of defense. There were at that time about 14,00 °Confederate effectives at Bowling Green; about 5,500 at Forts Henry and Donelson; about 8,000 near Clarksville; and about 15,000 at and near Columbus. Other detached forces at various points swelled the total of the Confederate forces in Kentucky and Tennessee to about 45,000 fighting men.

Grant was threatening the river forts with 15,000 men. Pope had 30,000 men or more in southeast Missouri, threatening Columbus. Buell had a large and rapidly increasing army, numbering from 40,000 to 60,000 men (overestimated by Beauregard at 75,000 or 80,000) at Bacon's Creek, within striking distance, forty miles, of Bowling Green.

It was obviously easy for Pope to occupy Polk at Columbus and for Buell to engage Johnston at Bowling Green with an overwhelming force, while Grant should advance to the assault of Forts Henry and Donelson.

Buell, with his army of 40,000 or 50,000 men, might easily have overwhelmed Johnston's 14,000 at Bowling Green. Pope could have so far engaged Polk at Columbus as to prevent the detachment even of a squad from that quarter for Johnston's reinforcement. Grant in the meanwhile could make his advance with 15,000 men – to be reinforced presently to 27,000 – and the gunboats, against Forts Henry and Donelson, defended as those works were by no more than 5,500 men.

It was Beauregard's urgent advice to withdraw all but garrison forces from Columbus, Bowling Green and Clarksville, and to concentrate an overmastering force for resistance to Grant in front of Fort Donelson.

This plan was in some degree acted upon. That is to say enough men were concentrated at the forts to swell the record of Grant's subsequent capture to about 15,000 men, but not enough to defend the position. The plan might have failed had an attempt been made to execute it in its full scope. Attempted by half measures as it was its failure was clearly foreordained. Grant captured the forts and their defending garrisons and made himself master of the two rivers which, next to the Mississippi, were of most vital importance to both sides. After the forts had fallen the occupation of Nashville was quite a matter of course, and equally so was the necessity of the Confederate evacuation of Kentucky and of practically all of Tennessee.

Presently after being "kept in" by Halleck Grant was restored to command – though still as a mere volunteer officer under censure and still subject to General Halleck's often paralyzing domination. Grant instantly began, after his habit, to plan a further campaign of damage to the enemies of the Union. One opportunity had been denied to him. He sought another.

In the meanwhile his capture of Forts Henry and Donelson had split the Confederate line of defense in two and rendered its further maintenance an utter impossibility. With the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers in Federal possession it was manifestly absurd to think of maintaining a line of defense which those rivers traversed. The success of Grant had completely ended all possibility of coöperation between the eastern and western wings of that defensive line. The forces west of the Tennessee and those east of that river must henceforth act independently and rather hopelessly, or else they must retire to a new line farther south upon which coöperation might be possible.

It was decided to retire. Bowling Green was evacuated and the Federal General Buell instantly occupied it. A little later Nashville was evacuated by the Confederates in behalf of a less exposed position. It was at the same time determined to withdraw from Columbus all the forces assembled there except a garrison sufficient to work the guns, and to defend the point for a time with the aid of Commodore Hollins's gunboats in the Mississippi.

The new line of defense adopted by the Confederates was the Memphis and Charleston railroad, running through southern Tennessee and northern Mississippi, Alabama, etc. This line presented no natural advantages of defense, but it covered the most vitally important railroad communications of the Confederacy. Furthermore it will be observed that this line of defense lies almost exactly midway between the Ohio River and the Gulf of Mexico. In other words, under Grant's energetic aggressiveness, the Federal control had been pushed from the Ohio river nearly half way to the gulf. The process of "splitting the Confederacy in two," was already well advanced at the beginning of the spring of 1862.

It was always the keynote of Grant's policy to "press things," and after his period of suspension from command he began again to carry out that obviously wise policy.

As the dominant thought in General Grant's strategy from beginning to end of the war, he was strongly impressed with the fact that the North was vastly superior to the South in all military resources, and as a man of practical common sense it was his idea that this superiority in men, arms, ammunition, food supplies, and all else that tends to help military endeavor should be insistently and persistently utilized in the breaking of Confederate resistance within the briefest possible time. The ancient thought of divine arbitrament in arms had no place in his mind. The notion was incredible to him that two armies should stand still and do nothing while a David on the one side and a Goliath on the other should make a personal trial of conclusions. He was not lacking in chivalry or sentiment, as abundantly appeared on several conspicuous occasions, but he had besides an all-dominating common sense, and he used it. He fully agreed with the Confederate General Forrest in his definition of strategy as the art of "getting there first with the most men." He did not understand modern warfare to be in any wise akin to a medieval tournament in which equality of opportunity must be sought at all costs. Quite on the contrary he regarded war as a perfectly practical matter of business, to be carried on as such. He clearly saw it to be what it is and always must be, a cruel survival from barbaric times, a measuring of brute strength in that last appeal of humanity, to the arbitrament of arms.

His common sense taught him that whatever of science there might be involved in the conduct of war, its results depended after all upon brute force. It was therefore his plan always to bring to bear all that he possessed of brute force for the solution of the problems at issue, and, wherever he could, to press his adversary with heavier battalions than that adversary could muster.

Having been set free again with permission to resume active warfare, Grant intuitively desired to push forward, pressing his adversary at every point, seizing upon every assailable position and making himself master of every place from which further war could be waged with hope of success.

As we have seen, he had been called back from this program of common sense after his capture of Forts Henry and Donelson, and until March 13 he was not again allowed to do anything whatever or to use his abilities in any manner in the public service.

By making himself master of the two rivers he had completely destroyed the Confederate line and scheme of defense. He had completely cut off that part of the Confederate force which had its headquarters at Bowling Green from that part of it whose chief seat was at Columbus. So complete was this severance, as a glance at a map will show, that General Albert Sydney Johnston sent General Beauregard at once to command the western force as a separate army with specific instructions to act upon his own judgment, bearing in mind that coöperation between the two forces was no longer possible.

It was surely a great strategic victory for Grant thus to break an elaborate line of defense and thus completely to divide an army already inferior to the armies opposing it in numbers, resources and equipments. But this was not all of it. By this division of the Confederate forces Grant was left free to attack either half of the Southern army at will, with overwhelming numbers – for in addition to his own 38,000 men – for his force had been swelled to that strength – he had Buell's much larger force within easy call, to say nothing of Thomas's command, now foot-loose for aggressive campaigning. It is safe to say that had Grant been permitted, he could and would have fallen upon and crushed the Confederates under Johnston, with an absolutely overwhelming army. He could and would have conquered every remaining Confederate stronghold in Tennessee and northern Georgia and Alabama and he could and probably would have made within the first year of the war that "march to the sea," either at Mobile or at Savannah, which was left for Sherman to make years later.

On the other hand, with a strong detachment he could easily have destroyed the long and exceedingly vulnerable line of communication that connected Columbus, Kentucky, with the South.

At Jackson, Tennessee, the Mississippi Central railroad coming up from New Orleans and the Mobile and Ohio line running north from Mobile formed a junction. From that point north to Columbus, there was but one fragile line of single track, earth-ballasted railroad, serving as a connecting link between the South and its excessively advanced western position at Columbus. It is difficult to imagine a line of military communication more vulnerable than this little thread. The country between the Tennessee river and this railroad line was quite open and there was neither fortress nor force, except here and there an easily conquerable picket post to defend the communication. If Grant had been left with a free hand there is no doubt whatever that he would instantly have sent westward a force too small in itself for its detachment to weaken him, but large enough to make itself instantly and completely master of this railroad line. He would thus have cut off all communication between Columbus and the South. He would have made himself quickly master of all the forces and all the supplies and all the ordnance that had been foolishly concentrated at Columbus. He would without a battle have compelled the surrender of that stronghold, with all its preposterously numerous garrison, with all its great guns, and with all of the rich store of supplies and ammunition and other war material collected there.

It was another absurdity of the early war that Grant was forbidden to do any of these things, when the time for their doing was ripe. By orders of his "superior officer" Halleck, Grant was held idle at the forts that he had conquered while this opportunity slipped away. From the sixteenth of February to the thirteenth of March this only general who knew how to do things and how to get things done was condemned to idleness and inaction by the absurd order of a distinctly unfriendly martinet.

In the meantime the Confederates, not being fools, utilized the opportunity given them by this delay, to rescue themselves from their peculiarly perilous position. Johnston withdrew the eastern half of the Confederate army from Bowling Green to the line of the railroad that led from Memphis eastward. Beauregard, in command of the western half of the army which Grant had so completely sundered, clearly saw the situation and promptly retired his forces from Columbus to Corinth, Mississippi, on the line of the Memphis and Charleston railroad at its intersection of the Mobile and Ohio line. He had in the meantime transferred to New Madrid on the Mississippi, and to Island Number 10 in that stream, the best of the ordnance in Columbus, thus providing as effectually as he could for the defense of the great river and for its blockading against Federal gunboats and still more important Federal transports bearing troops and supplies to points below.

Corinth is a little village in the extreme north of Mississippi. It has no pronounced defensive advantages whatsoever. It lies in a region of nearly flat lands with no line of bold hills to protect it and no difficult stream to serve as a base of defense. But it lies upon that line of railroad which the Confederates must defend if they were to preserve their communications between the east and the west at the crossing of the north and south line.

At Corinth the Confederates concentrated all their forces. Against Corinth Grant instantly directed his operations as soon as he was restored to command and permitted by his superior officer to carry on the war for his country upon lines marked out by common-sense.

He moved at once to Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee river. Pittsburg Landing lies about twenty miles north by east of Corinth and between the two there is no considerable stream, no important range of hills, nothing in the shape of physical conformation of the ground that could aid Confederate defense or facilitate Confederate aggression. On the contrary the streams near Pittsburg ministered exclusively to Federal purposes.

When Grant arrived at Pittsburg Landing he found the army encamped about equally upon the eastern and western sides of the river. He instantly and boldly ordered the whole of it to the western or Confederate bank of the stream.

This was a very daring thing to do. For with the Tennessee river behind him and with no means of easily crossing it in retreat, Grant must face the certain surrender of his army in case of an unsuccessful battle in that position. In such an event there could be no alternative. But it was not Grant's habit of mind to look for alternatives. He boldly took the risk as it was his custom to do. He threw his whole army across the river and there waited for the arrival of Buell's stronger force, which had been ordered by Halleck to join him and was marching in very leisurely fashion to do so. The army under Grant's own immediate command numbered now about 38,000 men, increased almost immediately to 45,000. That under Buell which was strolling westward to reinforce him numbered more than 40,000. He thus had prospect of an overwhelming force with which to assail the Confederates at Corinth, where under Beauregard's tireless activity they had succeeded in concentrating about 45,000 or 50,000 men, a large part of this force consisting of raw recruits unorganized, undrilled, undisciplined and extremely ill armed.

Whether Halleck planned this concentration of Grant's and Buell's armies for an advance upon Corinth as his partisans contend, or whether Grant planned it and Halleck merely accepted the plan as others stoutly assert, is a matter of no historical consequence, whatever biographical interest it may have. In either case the purpose of the concentration was to move upon Corinth in irresistible force, overthrow the Confederates there and seize upon the two important lines of railroad which intersect each other at that point. It was at any rate Halleck's purpose to command in this campaign in person. But it was not intended to advance upon Corinth until Grant's and Buell's armies should form a junction, and there was no thought or expectation that the Confederates would themselves assume the offensive. General Halleck planned to leave St. Louis not earlier than April 7, and perhaps several days later, for Pittsburg Landing. In the meanwhile General Grant had posted his army loosely and had thrown up no earthworks in the field. All his procedures indicated that he did not expect to be molested where he lay or to encounter the enemy until he should go in search of him. Indeed, he telegraphed Halleck on the fifth of April, the very day before the battle, saying, "The main force of the enemy is at Corinth, with troops at different points east… I have scarcely the faintest idea of an attack (general one) being made upon us, but will be prepared should such a thing take place."

At the very moment when that dispatch was penned the Confederates with their entire strength were actually on march to assail an enemy who had "scarcely the faintest idea of an attack" being made upon him either then or later. In his memoirs General Grant said:

"When all reinforcements should have arrived I expected to take the initiative by marching on Corinth and had no expectation of needing fortifications… The fact is I regarded the campaign we were engaged in as an offensive one and had no idea that the enemy would leave strong intrenchments to take the initiative when he knew he would be attacked where he was, if he remained."

It had been the purpose of General Johnston to deliver his blow on the morning of the fifth of April, overthrow Grant, and be prepared to fall upon Buell when he should arrive. But matters of detail went so far wrong that the Confederates, advancing from Corinth to attack, did not reach the neighborhood of Shiloh church, where Sherman was posted without fortifications, until nightfall of that day. They bivouacked very near the Federal lines, but strangely enough their presence in force was not discovered by the enemy they purposed to fall upon at daylight. In the meanwhile the head of Buell's column had come up and the rest of it was dangerously near at hand.

The Confederates made their assault with great impetuosity at dawn of April 6. The first that Sherman, who held the advance of Grant's position, knew of the impending battle was when the Confederates forty thousand strong rushed upon his camps and after a brief but stubborn struggle carried them, Sherman being driven back so hurriedly that he left his tents standing and the breakfasts of his men not yet cooked. The first that Grant knew of a tremendous attack of which he had had "scarcely the faintest idea," was when at his headquarters at Savannah several miles down the river he heard the guns at work at Shiloh.

There has been much and angry discussion of the question whether or not Grant and Sherman were "surprised," in the military acceptation of the term, by the Confederate onslaught at Shiloh. The point has little historical importance, but in the light of all the facts since disclosed by the records it is difficult to interpret what happened there otherwise than as a complete surprise, which but for the excellent discipline of the Federal troops and their superb fighting quality might easily have ended in disaster. We have seen that Halleck in St. Louis did not intend to leave for the front, where he expected to command in person, until the next day or even later. We have seen how confident Grant was in his belief that the Confederates intended no general attack either then or later and how he planned himself to take the offensive. It is certain that Grant's forces were not disposed as they would have been if an assault by the enemy had been anticipated. The several advance corps were posted with little or no reference to coöperation between them to resist an enemy assaulting in force. No line of battle had been formed or in any way provided for. Sherman, who was first assailed, was resting quietly in camps which would very certainly have been stripped for action if an attack had been expected. Indeed, Sherman's very latest reports to Grant had expressed the utmost confidence that no attack was in contemplation, and that the Confederates would do nothing more than annoy the pickets. He reported to Grant that they "will not press our pickets far." In brief it is obvious that neither Halleck at St. Louis, nor Grant at Savannah, Tennessee, nor Sherman, holding the front at Shiloh meeting house, anticipated a battle in front of Pittsburg Landing. They expected to fight on the offensive at Corinth when they should be ready to advance, but the thought of having to defend themselves against a Confederate force assailing them at Shiloh seems never to have occurred to them until the Confederates fell upon Sherman's camp with their "yell," for a first warning of their presence.