by Bruce Catton
Grant’s writing usually is very clear, but in this case it is uncommonly opaque and it obviously reflects confused thinking. In one breath Grant says that he could not have been better prepared if he had known precisely when and how Johnston was going to hit him; in the next he confesses that he had misinterpreted all of the omens and that Johnston had deceived him. He had anticipated an attack, but he had not anticipated the kind of attack that was actually made. That the attack failed and that the Union army was able to win a victory the next day apparently was all that mattered; but the talk about “surprise” obviously rubbed him where he was raw.
His reaction was mild compared to that of Sherman. Sherman’s case was a good deal tougher. He had been in immediate command at the front and had refused to admit that a Confederate offensive was impending, and his contemptuous “Take your damn regiment back to Ohio. There is no enemy nearer than Corinth” was a revealing remark that could not be explained away. In his fury at the Reid dispatch Sherman hit back with a vigor that put his own costly misappraisal of enemy intentions entirely out of his mind.
To his brother, Senator John Sherman, Sherman wrote that the worst complaints were “made by people who ran away and had to excuse their cowardice by charging bad management on the part of leaders,” and he noted that the two runaway Ohio regiments which were being so stoutly defended by homestate officials had done almost no fighting; one had lost seven men, the other, nine. A few days later he wrote furiously:
The scoundrels who fled their ranks and left about half of their number to do their work have succeeded in establishing their story of surprise, stuck with bayonets and swords in their tents, and all that stuff. They were surprised, astonished and disgusted at the utter want of respect for life on the part of the Confederates, whom they have been taught to regard as inferior to them, and were surprised to see them approach with banners fluttering, bayonets glistening and lines dressed on the center. It was a beautiful and dreadful sight and I was prepared for and freely overlooked the fact that many wilted and fled, but gradually recovering rejoined our ranks. But those who did not recover, their astonishment has to cast about for a legitimate excuse; and the cheapest one was to accuse their officers, and strange to say this story is believed before ours who fought two whole days.
For two days they hung about the river bank filling the ears of newspaper reporters with their tales of horrid surprise, regiments all cut up, they the only survivors and to our utter amazement we find it settling down as history.
More soberly, he wrote shortly after this:
All I know is we had our entire front covered by pickets, intermediate guards & grand guards and I had my command in line of battle well situated long before we had seen an infantry soldier of the enemy.… Nor was Prentiss surprised … all his men were drawn up in line of battle before the enemy was seen in columns of attack.25
Inevitably, times being as they were, the attack on Grant moved no more than a few millimeters before it picked up, embroidered and disseminated the charge that Grant had been drunk. To this charge, the officers who had been with Grant during the battle reacted with immediate fury.
Captain Rowley wrote to a friend in Chicago: “As to the story that he (Grant) was intoxicated at the battle of Pittsburg. I have only to say that the man who fabricated that story is an infamous liar. And you are at liberty to say to that man that I say so.” To Congressman Washburne, Rowley went into a little more detail:
… A word with reference to the Thousand and one stories that are afloat with reference to Gen. Grant. suffice it to say they have the same foundation as did those that were circulated after the Battle of Donelson and no more. It is sufficient to say that Gen. Halleck is now here and the conduct of the battle and all the details meet his entire approbation. And the stories in circulation have their origin in the efforts of Cowardly hounds who “stampeded” and now would be glad to turn public attention from themselves, and direct it elsewhere. Together with the eagerness of Newspaper Correspondents to get “items.” I who was on the field know that had it not been for the almost superhuman efforts of the Gen. added to the assistance he had from his officers we would have been forced to Record a defeat instead of one of the most Brilliant victories that was ever won on any field.
Colonel J. E. Smith of the 45th Illinois, another of the Galena men serving with this army, wrote Washburne that the army had undoubtedly been surprised—“it was worse, we were astonished”—but he believed that this was more the fault of the division commanders than of Grant. He added: “I see also that Grant is severely censured by the public for drunkenness got up no doubt by those who are jealous of him. There is no foundation for the report.” Colonel Jacob Ammen of Buell’s army, who had seen Grant at Savannah on the afternoon before the battle and at Pittsburg Landing late on the afternoon of the first day’s fighting, recorded in his diary on April 8: “Note—I am satisfied General Grant was not under the influence of liquor, either of the times I saw him.”26
Congressman Washburne was convinced. He was hearing from friends and fellow-townsmen in whom he had faith, and he presently rose in the House of Representatives to uphold Grant’s record. He spoke, he said, to defend “the general who has recently fought the bloodiest and hardest battle ever fought on this continent, and won one of the most brilliant victories.… Though but 40 years old, he has been oftener under fire, and been in more battles, than any other man living on this continent excepting Scott.” Grant had not been surprised, Washburne insisted, and while complaint was made that he was downstream at Savannah, ten miles from his army, when the battle began, that was his proper place, given the situation as it existed that weekend. He had started for the field within five minutes of the moment the first firing was heard, reached it promptly, and immediately assumed active and effective command, “evincing, in his dispositions, the genius of the greatest commanders.” And as to the other question: “There is no more temperate man in the army than General Grant. He never indulges in the use of intoxicating liquors at all. He is an example of courage, honor, fortitude, activity, temperance and modesty, for he is as modest as he is brave and incorruptible.… It has well been said, that ‘Falsehood will travel from Maine to Georgia while Truth is putting on its boots.’”27
When Washburne rose to speak for a protégé he pulled out all of the stops, and the speech unquestionably helped Grant’s cause. Shortly after it was delivered, Washburne got a letter of thanks:
HON. E. B. WASHBURNE
DEAR SIR
It is with a feeling of deep interest and pleasure that I have just perused a document from you in defence of my husband—It is indeed gratifying to know that he finds in you so true a friend and one who manifests such a ready willingness to exonerate him from the malicious and unfounded slanders of the press.
Your noble and generous remarks in behalf of Mr. Grant were timely made and bearing as they do the impress of truth cannot fail of having a salutary influence.
It is evident that you appreciate the motive that prompted him to challenge the dangers and horrors of the battle field when first our glorious government was assailed by domestic foes.
In conclusion permit me to thank you for your bold and gallant effort to right the public mind in regard to a matter in which I feel so great a personal interest.
Yours truly and respectfully,
Your friend,
JULIA D. GRANT.28
Grant rode out the storm, but for a time the waters were rough. As good an appraiser of public opinion as Joseph Medill of the Chicago Tribune would warn Washburne, six weeks after the battle:
There is no whistling fornenst the wind. The army are fornenst you in relation to Grant. It was a most reprehensible surprise followed by an awful slaughter. Our cause was put in terrible peril. Want of foresight, circumspection, prudence and generalship are all charged upon the wretched man. But we need not dispute about it. I admire your pertinacity and steadfastness in behalf of your friend, but I fear he is played out. The sol
diers are down on him.29
Medill overstated the case. It is always hard to say just what an army had on its mind at any given moment, especially when that army has been out of existence for the better part of a century, but a careful study of the available indicators of army morale does not show any especial feeling against Grant, on the part of the soldiers, in the period immediately after Shiloh. After all, Shiloh had been a victory—damnably expensive, but nevertheless a victory—and as they buckled down to camp routine in the days following the battle the men came to feel that they had done a great thing. Before, they had been a conglomeration of separate regiments; now they were an army, and an army that was beginning to be very proud of itself. This army would never feel that it owed a great deal to any general. It would not develop, for anyone, the kind of rapturous adoration which the Army of the Potomac would bestow on General McClellan; nor would it ever feel the intense, bitter dislike and distrust which the Potomac Army would feel for McDowell and Burnside. Here, taking its characteristic shape in the camps above Pittsburg Landing, was the Army of the Tennessee, which would presently come to believe that it could never be beaten. It did not acquire that belief under a general in whom it had no confidence.
Certainly Grant’s standing with his superiors was not greatly impaired by Shiloh, the best barometer in this being the attitude of Halleck himself. One of this officer’s distinguishing traits was his everlasting readiness to place blame upon a subordinate in a case wherein much heat had been developed; but to the War Department he gave Grant full exoneration, as far as Reid’s story of shameful surprise was concerned. Halleck being what he was, his verdict can be taken as final on this point. Writing to Secretary Stanton on June 15, more than two months after the battle, Halleck asserted that “the impression which at one time seems to have been received by the Department that our forces were surprised in the morning of the 6th is erroneous. I am satisfied from a patient and careful inquiry and investigation that all our troops were notified of the enemy’s approach some time before the battle commenced.”30
Grant himself believed that the army had been properly placed west of the river and that he had been right in maintaining his headquarters at Savannah; he felt that the charge of panicky surprise was unjustified, and he was bitter about the accusations of personal misconduct; and he summed up his case in a letter which he wrote to Washburne on May 14. This letter reads as follows:
The great number of attacks made upon me by the press of the Country is my apology for not writing to you oftener, not desiring to give any contradiction to them myself.—You have interested yourself so much as my friend that should I say anything it would probably be made use of in my behalf. I would scorn being my own defender against such attacks except through the record which has been kept of all my official acts and which can be examined at Washington at any time.
To say that I have not been distressed at these attacks upon me would be false, for I have a father, mother, wife & children who read them and are distressed by them and I necessarily share with them in it. Then too all subject to my orders read these charges and it is calculated to weaken their confidence in me and weaken my ability to render efficient service in our present cause. One thing I will assure you of however: I can not be driven from rendering the best service within my ability to suppress the present rebellion, and when it is over retiring to the same quiet it, the rebellion, found me enjoying.
Notoriety has no charms for me and could I render the same services that I hope it has been my fortune to render our just cause, without being known in the matter, it would be infinately prefferable to me.
Those people who expect a field of battle to be maintained, for a whole day, with about 30,000 troops, most of them entirely raw, against 70,000, as was the case at Pittsburg Landing, whilst waiting for reinforcements to come up, without loss of life, know little of War. To have left the field of Pittsburg for the enemy to occupy until our force was sufficient to have gained a bloodless victory would have been to left the Tennessee to become a second Potomac.—There was nothing left for me but to occupy the West bank of the Tennessee and to hold it at all hazards. It would have set this war back six months to have failed and would have caused the necessity of raising, as it were, a new Army.
Looking back at the past I cannot see for the life of me any important point that could be corrected.—Many persons who have visited the different fields of battle may have gone away displeased because they were not permitted to carry off horses, fire arms, or other valuables as trophies. But they are no patriots who would base their enmity on such grounds. Such I assure you are the grounds of many bitter words that have been said against me by persons who at this day would not know me by sight yet profess to speak from a personal acquaintance.
I am sorry to write such a letter, infinately sorry that there should be grounds for it. My own justification does not demand it, but you, a friend, are entitled to know my feelings. As a friend I would be pleased to give you a record, weekly at furthest, of all that transpires in that portion of the army that I am, or may be, connected with, but not to make public use of.31
When he wrote this letter Grant was still laboring under the delusion that Johnston and Beauregard had brought a much larger army than his own to the field. He had had time, however, to go over the battle and the campaign in his mind, to reflect on all of the might-have-beens, and to review his own actions in the light of knowledge he did not have when the actions were taken; and his considered judgment was expressed in the flat statement: “I cannot see for the life of me any important point that could be corrected.” This, of course, was simply a firmer way of saying what he had already written to the Cincinnati editor—that “we could not have been better prepared” if the enemy had given advance notice of the time and place of the attack. Years later, when he wrote his Memoirs, Grant did not repeat this assertion, but he did not retreat from it either. Military critics might make of it what they would: he had said his say and he would let it ride.32
This was supremely characteristic. Shiloh had been fought, it had been won, and then and always Grant’s idea was to get on with the war without wasting time on the backward glance or on a long counting of the cost. What had been gained might have been gained more cheaply, but it was what had been gained that really mattered.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Unpronounceable Man
After Shiloh the war moved very slowly. Halleck was on hand and in full control, and men who looked at him had different opinions. To an irreverent newspaper correspondent, he seemed like some “oleaginous Methodist parson dressed in regimentals with a wide, stiff-brimmed, black felt hat sticking on the back of his head at an acute angle from the ground”; the reporter felt that the man neither looked like a soldier nor rode like one, and considered that the General’s face was “large, tabular and Teutonic.” A young staff officer who had just reached Pittsburg Landing gave a more favorable picture: “His green eyes made you feel as he talks along that there is something strong behind them. He is a handsome man in face and form. His mouth is small but very determined in looks.… As he sits talking you fancy that he is one of those who thinks all the while.”1 The nickname, “Old Brains,” sent its shadow in front of him, given added point by the impressive victories which had been won by armies in his department. With Halleck on the spot, there would be no repetition of the errors that had preceded Shiloh.
Halleck was extremely cautious, and it appeared that he would at all costs avoid mistakes. This army which was beginning a new offensive would think constantly about its own defense, and every camp would be deeply entrenched, down to the position of the last platoon. The army would go south with gelatinous majesty, as if it were conducting a moving siege, burrowing its way with a ripple of earthworks always going on ahead. Beauregard’s Confederate Army, badly mangled and far under strength (although swollen by incompetent intelligence reporting to several times its actual size) would be distrusted and feared but would not be regarded as the tr
ue objective of the campaign.2 That objective would be the Mississippi town of Corinth, the “strategic site” which had obsessed high command thinking ever since the capture of Fort Donelson, and the enemy to be conquered would be the Southern landscape itself, with its railroad lines, its bridges and its towns and its roads, rather than the Confederate Army. Whatever happened, Corinth was going to be taken, and if the taking of it took a long time—well, there was a great deal of time to spare, because the Federal Government, rich in men and equipment and the munitions of war, was rich also in hours and days and weeks and could spend them to the limit.
It took time to get the offensive started, because army organization had to be perfected. Grant’s troops undeniably needed pulling together and much additional drill, the shattering impact of Shiloh having descended on a force that was still in its formative stage. There were many new troops on hand, too, Buell’s and John Pope’s beside Grant’s, and Halleck must make one army out of three separate ones. All in all, he commanded more than one hundred thousand soldiers in the wooded camp-sites above the river. Not even McClellan had more men to maneuver in the field.
