The Confederate Union War

by Alan Sewell

  “Yes, sir, and they are fighting well. The Confederate attacks on this front are failing. We will not give up the position that Wallace gave his life to hold.”

  From what Grant could see McClernand was not making an idle boast. McClernand had chosen his line with military professionalism, about two hundred yards to the east of the railroad line. His men were fighting behind whatever cover they could find in the trees and little rises of ground, and behind occasional barns. The few who had tried to dig trenches had not had much success as the water filled them up immediately, although here and there a few preferred to stand waist-deep in water-filled holes rather than expose their entire bodies to fire. Other men lacking cover were firing while standing upright.

  Grant had a superb view of the waning fight. As at the other points on the line, he could tell that the Confederates were getting the worst of it. Only sporadic bursts of smoke spit from their rifles at long intervals. They were either short of ammunition or it was soaked through and would no longer fire. Their men moved slowly, on the point of exhaustion, after slogging through miles of ankle-deep mud. Their lines were thinning as men were killed and wounded and had to be carried away from the firing line by able-bodied men. They didn’t seem able to replace these losses with men moving up from the rear. As their lines thinned they began moving back in groups here and there so as to distance themselves from the Rebels’ fire.

  Grant lifted his cap from his head, still throbbing from the blow received outside Springfield, and tried to wipe off the wetness of rain and sweat that could not evaporate in the steaming humidity. The clouds were breaking up now. For the first time in three days Grant felt a light rush of cooler drier wind on his neck. It was gone in an instant, but the fresh humidity-clearing breeze was sufficient to lift his spirits. So did the look of determination in the men manning the fronts and still firing occasional long shots at the retreating Confederates. He began to feel confident for the first time since the battle opened.

  “I do believe we’ll hold ‘em here,” he said confidently to McClernand. He wondered whether he should order McClernand to press an attack against the Confederates. After considering it for a moment he decided there was little to be gained. The Confederates were falling back rapidly enough on their own. McClernand had lost at least half his men in the fight and was in no condition to pursue them. Grant thought he might have better luck attacking with the divisions of Curtis and Prentice operating along the Peoria and Oquawka railroad that ran horizontally across the Confederates northern flank. He saluted McClernand and rode back into Urbana to gather his staff and requisition a train for a ride up to the northern flank.

  We have defeated this Confederate attack and now we will see what we can do to punish them as they retreat. I hope McDowell is having success on his side of the front.

  Battle of the Wabash October 4-5, Grant counterattacks with the divisions of Prentiss and Curtiss, pulled out of the line facing Lee and redeployed by rail to stem the breach to the northeast. The Confederates, marching overland, are slowed by the mud sufficiently to allow Grant time to make the movement.

  21

  Terre Haute, Indiana, October 6, 1861

  Major General of Volunteers Cump Sherman guided his horse carefully around the twisted bodies, many still writhing, in the mud. The moans and cries of the wounded touched even his war-hardened heart.

  Anybody who fancies the ‘glory of war’ from the comfort of his parlor should walk among the pitiful dead and wounded here. Those who see it with their own eyes will want no more of war!

  Until now most of the dead and wounded had been Confederates. However as Sherman rode closer to Terre Haute he observed that here and there the Confederates had been able to turn their lines around and make determined stands against Mitchel’s counterpunch from the east. He passed one of those places where nearly a hundred Free State men, identified by their yellow overcoats, lay fallen in front of a tree line in between farms about a mile outside of Terre Haute. About thirty were dead, the rest moaning where they had fallen, some with hastily-tied tourniquets inexpertly applied by their comrades.

  We’ve got to get some professional doctors into our army. If we don’t, we’re going to have more men dying of infected wounds than killed outright.

  However, the Confederates had accomplished nothing more than to delay the onslaught of Mitchel’s army. Sherman had helped Mitchel organize his arriving men into a formation resembling a tightly clenched fist. They had smashed through Confederate General Pemberton’s division laying siege to Terre Haute, wrecking two of its brigades while shoving the other two south and out of the battle.

  Sherman paused for a moment to observe some Free State men and captured Confederates loading the wounded of both sides into wagons heading into Terre Haute. His curiosity was aroused by a wounded Free Stater and a wounded Confederate sitting under a tree while waiting their turn for a wagon. The two had a flask of whiskey to dull their pain, and how they were dulling it good and proper! The two were singing “Oh, Susannah” out of key with improvised stanzas of impolite words.

  “What a pair we have here!” remarked Sherman.

  “Johnny’s my brother,” said the Confederate, too far gone to remember to salute an officer. “Damn fool ran over me with his horse. Imagine that --- getting stampeded by your own brother during a battle!”

  “Shoulda gotten yourself outa the way, you gourdhead!” said the brother wearing the Free State uniform. He turned to Sherman. “Brother Billy isn’t the brightest candle in the window, if you know what I mean. He proved that by voting for Douglas and throwing his sorry ass in with the Confeds!”

  “He’s not the only one,” said Sherman. “I voted for Douglas then had a change of heart after the Partisan War started. I’m glad I did now. Otherwise I would have found myself fighting against my own brother. Where you boys from?”

  “Evansville!” they both shouted together.

  “Doesn’t surprise me that a town on the Ohio River would be divided,” said Sherman. “I expect there are a lot of brothers, sons, and fathers, fighting on both sides.”

  “What’re you gonna do with us pris’ners?” asked the Confederate.

  “You’ll be exchanged,” answered Sherman. Your side captured one of our divisions in Illinois, so I expect there’ll be a man-for-man swap when the battle’s over.”

  “What if’n I don’t want to go back to the Confederates?”

  “Nobody’s going to make you go. We’ll parole you and you can stay on our side of the lines until the war’s finished if that’s what you want.”

  The boys took another swig of whiskey and started singing again.

  Sherman looked at his escorting sergeant. “Never thought I’d see Johnny Reb and Billy Union singing a duet together on a battlefield! Guess if you live long enough you see just about everything.”

  Cump rode on towards Terre Haute, thinking of how he would advise General Mitchel when he got there.

  With the Terre Haute garrison relieved I can advise Mitchel to wheel his men to the south and complete the wrecking of Pemberton’s other two brigades. Or I can ask him to wheel north up the east bank of the Wabash and roughly handle Kirby Smith’s division that is trapped on our side. Or I can advise him to cross the Wabash and try to cuff of the entire Confederate salient. If he can do that we’ll bag all of Stoneballs Jackson’s divisions. We’ll turn the Confederates’ plan to encircle us against them!

  The sun was out now, drying the ground with help from a brisk dry wind. Sherman saw smoke on the horizon and heard crashes of rifle volleys intermingled with the deeper boom of cannons. The firing was coming from the other side of town a mile or more away, but even at this distance he could hear occasional bullets whizzing overhead. Either the Free Staters or the Confederates, perhaps both, were firing high. He hoped that none were firing just high enough to cause their bullets to arc down on him.

  He spurred his horse on faster to get into Terre Haute and see first hand what the situation was.
As he neared the outskirts of town he encountered more Free State walking wounded. Other Free Staters guarded Confederate prisoners, wounded and unwounded, from Pemberton’s busted division.

  When Sherman entered the town he could see that “Terre Haute” was a misnomer. The town was actually low-lying with much of it flooded to the depth of a foot or more from the still-rising Wabash. Perhaps the flood had helped Loomis’ division hold the town by making good use of the upper floors of its buildings as firing points against the Confederates who were unable to dig positions in the gooey mud. Sherman saw that the Free State soldiers posted in the upper floors had wasted not a moment in stripping off their shirts and sunning themselves on the balconies and roofs when the clouds opened for the sun. The sun was still strong enough to set the waterlogged roofs and balconies steaming.

  Sherman located Mitchel’s headquarters in a tent set up in an elevated area of the courtyard of the Wabash Hotel, one of the few buildings in town that had been high enough to escape the flood.

  “It’ll be alright if you make your headquarters inside the hotel,” said Sherman as he greeted Mitchel. “You can send the bill to Uncle Abe!”

  “I didn’t think it would be right for me to sleep in a hotel,” answered Mitchel. “There’s barely enough room in town to quarter Loomis’ men, so my men will have to sleep wherever they can, which will likely be in the mud. I thought it better to reserve the hotel rooms for the wounded. They need dry rooms more than we do”

  “Well done,” said Sherman. Mitchel is a good officer. Most officers would have looked to their own comfort before thinking of the wounded. Mitchel knows that it is better to earn the men’s loyalty by sharing their hardships than to let them see him looking after his own comfort. I will expect great things to come from his command.

  “Where is Loomis?” Sherman asked.

  “On the West Side, right by the river. I asked him to see if he can get some men across the railroad bridge to hold open a crossing on the west bank. I was thinking of your idea to cross the Wabash and cut the Confederate salient off at its base.”

  “Excellent!” said Cump. “Let’s go see how he is faring.”

  Sherman and Mitchel set out to find Loomis on horseback. Their horses sloshed through a slurry of mud and water. Sherman noticed that the overhead fire coming from the Confederate-held side of the river had ceased. They found Loomis a full block back from the river, the rising water having chased him and the Confederates on the other side far enough back to end their cross-river skirmishing.

  Sherman greeted Loomis. “You fought your men well in holding out until relieved. If Terre Haute had fallen the Confederates would have poured in from the Illinois side and bulled their way through to Indianapolis. I’m glad you didn’t let them buffalo you into surrendering.”

  “They tried,” answered Loomis. “They sent parleys over almost every hour under flag of truce. Kept threatening us with ‘dreadful consequences’ if we didn’t surrender. I finally told them that I’d open fire if they didn’t call it off.”

  “They knew you were commanding troops in battle for the first time and were trying to scare you,” said Sherman. “That’s what a lot of war is about: trying to scare the enemy into surrendering so you won’t have to fight him. The Confederates have learned that you don’t scare easily. They’ll respect you from here on out. Maybe they’ll be the ones who decide in the next battle that it’s better to retreat than fight you.”

  Mitchel had borrowed a spyglass from Loomis’ staff officer. “The Confederates are pulling back from their side of the river. They’re disappearing into those woods on the far ridgeline.”

  “That’s the convent at St. Mary’s,” said Loomis. “If they’ve pulled back that far, then they’ve given up any hope of breaking into Terre Haute from the west, not that they had much chance anyway with the river on the boom.”

  Cump scanned the western horizon, his hand above his eyes to block out the brilliant sunshine now streaming down from a nearly cloudless sky. The sea of mud between the Wabash and the high ground at St. Mary’s did not give him much hope of moving his men across the river to cut off Lee’s army at the base of its salient. The Confederates could observe the river from the ridges on the far side and pound any men crossing the muddy flats with artillery. Sherman could not see any reasonable chance of sneaking an army across the river to surprise them the way the Free Staters had been surprised at the opening of the battle.

  Cump spoke to Loomis. “As soon as the water starts going down I’d like you to move a couple companies across the river to guard the bridge from that approach. I don’t want the Confederates sneaking back in to burn it. Otherwise hold your men in place and keep them on alert. Kirby Smith’s division is still loose on our side of the river, so don’t let him catch you by surprise if they decide to whip back around and attack from the north or east.”

  Sherman turned and spoke to Mitchel.

  “We won’t be able to effect a large envelopment of Lee’s army over there in Illinois. But we can make it hot for Kirby Smith who’s strung out his division on our side of the river. Let’s go kick him in the pants before the water goes down enough to get his men back to the other side.”

  Battle of the Wabash October 5-6: Counterattack by Mitchel/Sherman’s Ohio corps and Schofield’s division relieves the Free State garrison at Terre Haute, then captures Kirby Smith’s division and two brigades of Pemberton’s. In Illinois Stoneballs Jackson charges across the bridge over the Sangamon and infiltrates back into Confederate lines after being shot in the rear by the Rebels and hit with “friendly fire” from his own men.

  22

  Lee’s Headquarters, Mattoon, Illinois, October 7, 1861

  The blue wave of Lee’s offensive receded. The map on the table of Lee’s rail car headquarters at Mattoon, Illinois showed its recession all too plainly. Having failed to take the rail junction at Urbana, Stoneballs Jackson’s mobile divisions were unable to advance any further west to encircle Grant’s army, nor to bypass it by marching north towards Chicago.

  After recognizing the failure of the enveloping movement Lee had tried to break Grant’s line with frontal assaults by his holding divisions. But he had called those off as soon as it became apparent that Grant had left enough men in the line to successfully defend it.

  “It was the rain and the mud that foiled us,” said Lee’s adjutant, Brigadier General Richard Taylor, trying to raise Lee’s spirits.

  “General Grant also had something to do with it,” answered a weary Lee. “He used his interior lines of communication along the railroads skillfully. He got his men into position to block our envelopment while leaving sufficient forces in the line to defeat our frontal attacks. We must give Grant his due for generalship, especially in recognizing the value of railroads in defeating cross-country attacks. We must learn to use his tactics against him when we meet him again.”

  “The ground will be dry enough to renew the attack in a week,” said Taylor looking at the map. “By then we’ll be clearing rail traffic through the Terre Haute bypass. We’ll be able to move our fresh follow-on regiments into position to renew the offensive. The salient we’ve driven into the Rebel lines will allow us to attack towards the north, east, or west. Perhaps we should attempt an eastward envelopment of the Rebels’ Indiana Army this time.”

  Lee put his finger on the map. “The salient is deep, but useless without a railroad to supply it. The Rebels know we must reach the junctions at Urbana and Lafayette to gain access to the railroads we will need to continue the advance toward Chicago or to attempt another envelopment to the west or east. The Rebels understand our intentions and have positioned their forces to block us.”

  Lee placed his fingers on the wood-carved division tokens at the top of the salient.

  “Our first echelon divisions are fought out and need rest and refit. I understand your point about the second echelon divisions coming into the line to reinforce them. We may use these new divisions for local attacks to impro
ve our tactical positions. But I will not commit them to a renewal of the strategic offensive, at least not now. The Rebels have brought their own fresh reserve armies up to the line, so we will have no greater numerical advantage with these second echelon reinforcements than without them.”

  “Then are these the best possible dispositions of our second echelon divisions?” asked Taylor. “They appear to be needlessly strong for defense of the ground we have gained, yet you believe them to be not strong enough to continue with the offensive.”

  “I’m thinking towards renewing the offensive later this year or early next,” answered Lee. “To do that we will need experienced and strong divisions. Our divisions are most definitely experienced by now, but some were roughly handled --- those of Logan, Cleburne, McCulloch, Hindman, and the two brigades that are left of Pemberton’s.

  “I want to pull these battered divisions out of the line and move them down to Louisiana and southern Mississippi for reconstitution. They’ll be refitted close to our procurement areas, rested in a mild winter, and made ready to renew the strategic offensive --- maybe in the Trans-Mississippi, or perhaps against Cincinnati. The second echelon divisions coming into the line will prevent the Rebels from taking back any of the ground we have gained while the first echelon divisions are taken out for rest and refit.”

  “A sound plan,” agreed Dick Taylor, “when considered in the strategic context you placed it in.”

  Lee’s anxiety waned as he discussed his ideas with Taylor. He had feared that the great two-state battle would be seen as a defeat even if he managed to hold on to the gains of territory in Illinois and Indiana. The commitment of sixteen divisions and nearly a quarter million men had come to very much less than what had been expected.

  All that could be said for the Illinois Salient was that it had broken Grant’s Wabash, Toledo, and Great Western railroad line for twenty miles between Williamsport, Indiana and Danville Illinois. The Free Staters had sealed the salient off and based a new defensive line along the Peoria and Oquawka forty miles to the north. The new route was as awkward as its name, but it was a railroad, whereas Lee had none at all leading into the salient from the south or leading out of it to the north.