Grant Moves South

by Bruce Catton

There were plenty of rumors about McClernand’s new assignment, but they were rumors and nothing more. All that Grant knew was that he himself was expected to plan and execute a new offensive, with the capture of Vicksburg and the final opening of the river as the objective, and he modeled his campaign on the formula that had been so successful down to date. During the past ten months the Mississippi had been opened from Cairo to a point below Memphis, and this had been done chiefly by an advance inland, parallel to the river but well removed from it. Grant had taken Forts Henry and Donelson, Buell had occupied Nashville, Grant and Buell together had defeated the Confederates at Shiloh, and then Halleck’s combined host had gone on to Corinth, and this had flanked all of the river defenses. Columbus had fallen without a blow, Pope’s success at New Madrid and Island Number Ten had been a clean-up operation rather than a full-fledged campaign, and although there had been a sharp naval battle in the river just above Memphis that city had really fallen because a large Federal army was in its rear. The way to take Vicksburg and open the remainder of the river seemed to call for a continuation of this sort of approach, and so as November began Grant prepared to move south along the line of the Mississippi Central Railroad, sixty or seventy miles east of the Mississippi River itself.

  On November 2, Grant notified Halleck that he was beginning to mass his troops at Grand Junction, halfway between Memphis and Corinth. He would move on to Holly Springs, Mississippi, twenty-five miles to the south, and after that he would push for Grenada, eighty-four miles below Holly Springs. Sherman, at Memphis, was ordered to make a demonstration toward the southeast, to confuse the Rebels. Halleck endorsed the plan, saying “I hope for an active campaign on the Mississippi this fall,” and promising reinforcements; on November 5 Halleck said that twenty thousand new troops would shortly be coming down to join Grant’s command, and he suggested that they might as well go direct to Memphis. On learning this, Grant told Sherman to forget about the planned demonstration; the campaign had not yet got off the ground but it was obviously growing, since Federal troops at New Orleans were planning to make an advance upstream, and it seemed likely now that a contingent from Curtis’s command in Arkansas would cross the river to co-operate with the southward drive from western Tennessee. Sherman had better stay at Memphis for a while, Grant said, and when he was able to assemble two full divisions he could then march down and join Grant’s column. Grant estimated that the Confederates had approximately thirty thousand men somewhere in the neighborhood of Holly Springs, and Grant was not quite ready to tackle so large a group: “I cannot move from here with a force sufficient to handle that number without gloves.” He would wait, therefore, until the picture got a little clearer, and when he moved Sherman would move with him.6

  Grant was assembling a field army of considerable strength. Massed along the railroad he had McPherson, with two divisions, and Hamilton, with three, and for the first time he had a fair allotment of cavalry, which was driving Confederate patrols southward and clearing the way for an advance. The Confederate command picture, meanwhile, had changed. Van Dorn had been blamed for the defeat at Corinth, had been relieved of his command, and had demanded a court of inquiry, which presently would clear him of charges that he had handled his troops incompetently; the Confederate forces in Mississippi now were under Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton; Van Dorn would serve as Pemberton’s chief of cavalry, and no less imposing a figure than General Joseph E. Johnston would soon be coming down with instructions to coordinate Pemberton’s movements with those of Bragg, whose unhappy army was stationed in central Tennessee. Grant believed that as soon as he could bring Sherman and the reinforcements down from Memphis he could push south along the railroad to good effect.

  There were, however, two very serious problems. One of these grew out of the rumors about McClernand. It was an open secret now that he was organizing a large new force north of the Ohio, and although Halleck saw to it that as fast as his fresh regiments were organized they were sent to places in Grant’s department, while McClernand himself stayed in Springfield, it was beginning to be plain that some sort of amphibious movement of major proportions was going to go down the river from Memphis. Grant had planned nothing of the kind. Vicksburg was his objective, and Memphis was in his command, and he had to find out what McClernand was up to. On November 10 Grant sent a message to Halleck: “Am I to understand that I lie still here while an expedition is fitted out from Memphis, or do you want me to push as far south as possible? Am I to have Sherman move subject to my order, or is he and his forces reserved for some special service? Will not more forces be sent here?”

  To this Halleck sent the cryptic but reassuring reply: “You have command of all troops sent to your department and have permission to fight the enemy where you please.”7 Halleck could not tell Grant what was up, but he obviously wanted him to get his campaign developed well enough so that it would take precedence over anything McClernand might be contemplating. As far as Grant was concerned the picture still was very shadowy, but what he could see looked encouraging. On November 14, after he had been given a little additional information, he tried to explain the situation to Sherman.

  Halleck had told him, he said, that in addition to the troops already promised more would come down from Ohio and Kentucky, all to be collected at Memphis. It seemed definite that some sort of combined military and naval expedition would eventually move from Memphis toward Vicksburg, and this, “taken in connection with the mysterious rumors of McClernand’s command, left me in doubt as to what I should do.” But Halleck had told him to keep going—“fight the enemy my own way”—and Grant would act on this direction. Sherman, accordingly, was to assemble his troops and march overland to join Grant’s army somewhere along the Tallahatchie River, which crossed the railroad a little distance south of Holly Springs. If Sherman could move with three divisions, that would be fine; future plans would be developed once all the troops were assembled.8 By the end of November Sherman had made the move, and Grant had his army south of Holly Springs, the troops massed in three wings—Sherman, McPherson and Hamilton. Back home, news of the advance aroused enthusiasm, and the Chicago Tribune, unaware of the behind-the-scenes maneuverings, rejoiced that Grant was no longer tied to Halleck’s leading string: “Gen. Grant is invested with large discretionary powers and we are sure that he will use it wisely. His forward movement is an indication that he means work, and with him work is not bloodless strategy but strategy that leads to hard fighting and decisive results. He is looking for the enemy and when he finds him there will be bloodshed.”9

  Much more tangible than the problem raised by McClernand’s venture was the problem of supplying the advancing army. This at bottom was a matter of the railroads. There still was no direct connection between Grant’s army in northern Mississippi and Memphis, even though Memphis was no more than fifty miles away. Food, ammunition and equipment for the army had to come by boat to far-off Columbus, Kentucky, and from Columbus these supplies had to come to Holly Springs by railroad—a two-hundred-mile haul over a single-tracked line through hostile territory. When he moved south along the line of the Mississippi Central, Grant’s ultimate goal—if he wanted to capture Vicksburg and break the Confederates’ blockade of the river—would be the Mississippi capital, Jackson, two hundred miles to the south, a scant forty-five miles due east of Vicksburg. His army was already dangling at the end of an extremely vulnerable supply line, and its position would get progressively worse as it advanced.

  Chief quartermaster for the army at St. Louis was Robert Allen—the same whom Halleck had once thought of for Grant’s own job; the same, also, who had helped Grant return from California to New York in 1854, when Grant badly needed help—and to Allen, in the middle of November, Grant sent word that he needed at least two hundred freight cars and six locomotives as soon as possible. He had nearly 30,000 men at Holly Springs and he would have from 10,000 to 15,000 more when Sherman reached him; he was keeping a reserve of 100,000 rations on hand, he proposed to
double this as soon as possible, he had 800,000 rations in stock near Grand Junction; and he wanted two solid trainloads of grain brought down for his horses. All in all, the railroad was his lifeline, and Holly Springs was to be his advance base, and it was vital to keep it in good operating condition. Grant supplemented his wire to General Allen by revising his figures upward, notifying Halleck that he wanted twelve locomotives.

  Back from Halleck came a surprising reply. The locomotives could not be had, because “it is not advisable to put railroads in operation south of Memphis. Operations in north Mississippi must be limited to rapid marches upon any collected forces of the enemy, feeding as far as possible upon the country. The enemy must be turned by a movement down the river from Memphis as soon as a sufficient force can be collected.” To Allen, Halleck wrote to the same effect, saying that no cars or engines should be purchased except those needed for the roads already in operation.10

  Considered in the light of what Grant knew at the time, this was nothing less than astounding. All spring and summer, Halleck’s emphasis had always been on repairing and using the railroads. When Grant suggested that the network near the Mississippi border be abandoned Halleck had failed to approve, and Grant had set out, with Halleck’s blessing, on an offensive which was directly dependent on railway transportation. Now he was being told that the railroads were not to be relied on, and his plan of campaign was being turned inside-out. Yet it was hard to get things explained. Grant wrote that he planned to attack Pemberton, that Sherman would be in his force, and that Steele with troops from beyond the Mississippi would cross the river so as to threaten Pemberton’s flank: must this plan be countermanded? Halleck replied simply: “Proposed movements approved. Do not go too far.”11

  Grant moved. The anticipated Confederate resistance along the Tallahatchie River failed to materialize, and Grant got his army to the town of Oxford, thirty miles south of Holly Springs. Pemberton, as far as Grant could learn, had his troops grouped below the Yalobusha River, at Grenada, fifty miles farther on; Grant believed that he himself could go that far, pinning Pemberton in position there, and sending his cavalry under Colonel T. Lyle Dickey off on a swing to the east, to cut the state’s other north-south railroad line at Tupelo and, if possible, to destroy the Confederate munitions plants at the Mississippi industrial city of Columbus. Meanwhile, if there was to be a move down the river from Memphis, he wanted the soldier he most relied on, Sherman, to lead it. Sherman, accordingly, taking one division with him and leaving his other two divisions with Grant, must return to Memphis, assemble the new troops that were gathering there, add to them if possible part of Steele’s force from Arkansas, and (with the Navy’s gunboats for escort) steam down the river to the mouth of the Yazoo, just north of Vicksburg. Then, if Grant kept Pemberton busy at Grenada, Sherman ought to be able to dislodge the Rebel garrison at Vicksburg, and in the end Pemberton and all his troops could be driven off into eastern Mississippi and then brought to battle.12 Grant informed Halleck that heavy rains and flooded rivers had made Mississippi’s roads almost impassable, and that he would be tied pretty closely to the railroad.

  Halleck was dubious, and on December 5 he warned Grant that he probably ought not to try to hold the country south of the Tallahatchie; the troops that were to go down the river from Memphis must be ready to leave by December 20, and Grant’s main purpose now must be to hold the line from Memphis to Corinth as economically as possibly and put all possible weight into the river expedition. Two days later, however, Halleck had a second thought. If Grenada could be taken, the prospect would be different; after all, Grant was to “move your troops as you may deem best to accomplish the great object in view.”

  Hidden beneath all of this there was a challenge to Grant’s capacity for generalship, a challenge as searching as any which the war was to bring him. He had planned and begun a major campaign, Washington had suddenly changed the conditions under which the campaign was to be made; and now, with all of his plans needing revision because of deep political pressures painfully clear in Washington but utterly invisible along the line of the Mississippi Central, Washington was brightly telling him to do as he thought best and to go ahead and win. Six months earlier the same thing had happened to McClellan, in front of Richmond. Protesting bitterly against injustice, McClellan had stressed the military soundness of his own program … and had lost. Now it was Grant’s turn, and he could either butt his head against the wall or adapt his plan to necessity. The real challenge was that he make the best of a bad situation instead of building up a record showing that its badness was not of his making. On December 8, Grant sent Halleck a summary of his plans, dating his dispatch from Oxford, Mississippi:

  General Sherman will command the expedition down the Mississippi. He will have a force of about 40,000 men. Will land above Vicksburg, up the Yazoo, if practicable, and cut the Mississippi Central railroad and the railroad running east from Vicksburg where they cross Black river. I will co-operate from here, my movements depending on those of the enemy. With the large cavalry force now at my command I will be able to have them show themselves at different points on the Tallahatchie and Yalobusha, and where an opportunity occurs make a real attack. After cutting the two railroads General Sherman’s movements to secure the ends desired will necessarily be left to his own judgment. I will occupy this railroad to Coffeeville [a point seventeen miles short of Grenada].

  Back from Halleck came a word of caution, with a veiled warning that the White House might upset Grant’s command arrangements:

  Do not make the Mississippi expedition so large as to endanger West Tennessee. I think 25,000 men, in addition to the forces to be added from Helena, sufficient; but send more if you can spare them. The President may insist upon designating a separate commander; if not, assign such officers as you deem best. Sherman would be my choice as the chief under you.13

  McClernand’s shadow was growing larger. On December 1 he had written to Stanton, explaining that the job he was doing in Illinois was about finished and suggesting that it was nearly time he himself went to Memphis to take command. On December 12, he told Lincoln that he had sent forward fully forty thousand men, forty-nine regiments of infantry and two batteries. There was little to be done at Springfield that could not be left to a good staff man, and it was time to get the Vicksburg expedition moving; “May I not ask therefore to be sent forward immediately?” Halleck, meanwhile, was dragging his feet. His official position was that he knew nothing definite about the President’s plans and that in the absence of specific orders he would let things follow their normal course. General Curtis, in St. Louis, seeing some of his own troops detached for the Vicksburg move, had written to Halleck saying that he would rather like to take charge of this movement himself, and Halleck wrote a smooth answer: “In regard to the proposed expedition down the Mississippi and its commander I can give you no reply. I have been informed that the President has selected a special commander and that instructions have been or will be given to him by the War Department. If so they have not been communicated to me, and until I receive them I shall consider the officer of the highest rank as the commander, whoever he may be.”14 The officer of the highest rank, of course, was Grant.

  McClernand, in fact, was by now on the end of a limb, and Halleck was getting ready to saw it off. Sherman was in Memphis, pulling his troops together. He had brought 7000 men back from the Tallahatchie, and two divisions under A. J. Smith and G. W. Morgan, half of whose men had been sent down by McClernand, were on hand, totaling 14,000 more; as soon as he got the troops from Arkansas—he hoped there would be at least 10,000 of these—he would be ready to move. Grant had his cavalry in motion, striking east to destroy the Mobile and Ohio railroad, and Dodge at Corinth was sending a small force of infantry down to co-operate.15 Unless McClernand reached Memphis very quickly, the big offensive which he had helped to make possible would be moving without him.

  Amid all of this Grant had time to take a meditative look at his own situation.
On December 15, he wrote to his sister a letter breathing quiet confidence; a strangely revealing letter, indicating that the newspaper criticism that had descended on him earlier in the year still hurt him, so that even at the crucial moment of a great campaign he had to think about it and voice a protest. The letter read:

  We are now having wet weather. I have a big army in front of me as well as bad roads. I shall probably give a good account of myself however notwithstanding all obstacles. My plans are all complete for weeks to come and I hope to have them work out just as planned.

  For a conscientious person, and I profess to be one, this is a most slavish life. I may be envied by ambitious persons, but I in turn envy the person who can transact his daily business and retire to a quiet home without a feeling of responsibility for the morrow. Taking my whole department, there are an immense number of lives staked upon my judgment and acts. I am extended now like a peninsula into the enemy’s country, with a large army depending for their daily bread upon keeping open a line of railroad running one hundred and ninety miles through an enemy’s country, or, at least, through territory occupied by a people terribly embittered and hostile to us. With all this I suffer the mortification of seeing myself attacked right and left by people at home professing patriotism and love of country, who never heard the whistle of a hostile bullet. I pity them and a nation dependent upon such for its existence. I am thankful however that, although such people make a great noise, the masses are not like them.16

  If the people of the South were “terribly embittered and hostile,” part of it was due to the way in which the Army of the Tennessee had been behaving. A soldier was writing that all the country along the Tennessee-Mississippi border had been laid waste and made desolate, and said that every vacant house had been burned. Men who marched past the smoking ruins would look at the gaunt, smoke-blackened chimneys and jeer: “There’s another Mississippi headstone.” Foragers would butcher a farmer’s hogs in the owner’s presence, threatening him with bayonets if he protested, and the movement south had hardly begun before Grant found it necessary to rebuke his men for “gross acts of vandalism.” On three successive evenings, he had a notice read to each regiment in his command, warning that the legal penalty for straggling and looting was death and announcing that company and regimental officers would be held accountable for the misdeeds of their men. When parties from the 20th Illinois looted a store in La Grange, Tennessee, Grant figured the damage at more than twelve hundred dollars and ordered the sum deducted from the pay of the regiment’s officers, pro rata; he also had two captains, who had tried to shield the culprits and hide the loot, mustered out of service. Yet all of this did little good. One veteran remarked that “such orders soon got to be a joke with the men, they in a quiet way giving the commanding officers to understand that they did not go down South to protect Confederate property.”17