Dixie Victorious: An Alternate history of the Civil War

by Peter Tsouras

  That morning a stiff and sore Sidney Johnston summoned his subordinates. Again his plan was simple: a simultaneous attack all along the front. “Gentlemen,” he said, “You will not do wrong if you march to the sounds of the heaviest firing and givethem the bayonet.” After Dr Yandell helped him into the saddle, Johnston fixed his lieutenants with a stern look and said, “Tonight we will water our horses in the Mississippi!”44

  The ensuing so-called “Second Battle of Port Gibson” proved to be a onesided affair. Grant emulated his fallen comrades by exposing himself recklessly. The soldiers who fought under his immediate command responded bravely. But Grant was forced to act as corps commander for the leaderless XVII Corps, and because of this need he was unable to keep a tight rein over McClernand’s XIII Corps.

  While it is unlikely—contrary to the charges of his political foes, who point to the fact that as post-war governor of Illinois McClernand seemed quite content to let the southern portion of his state secede to join the Confederate States of America—that McClernand was secretly assisting the Rebels, the facts speak for themselves. During the battle McClernand’s command remained largely inert, apparently quite content to let the remnants of the XVII Corps fight unaided. The only initiative he displayed was in leading his men to be first aboard Porter’s transports when the Army of the Tennessee abandoned its bridgehead on the Mississippi’s eastern shore.

  The ignoble flight of Grant’s army proved decisive in the collapse of the Union war effort. The midwestern anti-war press, led by Matt Halstead, the acid-penned editor of the influential Cincinnati Commercial, demanded Grant’s dismissal. It was Shiloh all over, complete with charges that Grant had again been drunk.

  Perhaps Lincoln would have retained his favorite western general had not another catastrophe occurred in the east. Hooker’s debacle at Chancellors ville elevated Northern anti-war sentiment to a fevered pitch. Lincoln discarded Grant but itfailed to silence his political critics. Worse, in a textbook demonstration of the advantage of interior lines, five Confederate brigades took to the cars to move from Vicksburg to Richmond in early June 1863. Their presence allowed Robert E. Lee to wage a careful campaign of maneuver culminating in the epic Battle of Gettysburg. The sight of Cockrell’s valiant Missouri men charging side by side with Pickett’s Virginians to storm Cemetery Ridge is memorably depicted by the cyclorama at the Richmond National Museum’s Hall of Valor.

  General Johnston did not live to water his horse in the Mississippi. As at Shiloh, he led from the front and this time paid the full price when he fell while directing the last charge against the gallant but futile Union rearguard conducted by Colonel Boomer’s brigade. We have only the not altogether reliable words of his aide, Captain Wickham, that Johnston knew that his army stood on the cusp of a great and decisive victory before he died.45 Certainly anyone seeking more information about Johnston’s death is well advised to visit the Martyr’s Rotunda in our nation’s capital in Richmond.

  The Reality

  Jefferson Davis went to his grave believing that, had his friend Sidney Johnston lived, the South would have won the war. “When Sidney Johnston fell,” Davis plaintively observed, “it was the turning point of our fate; for we had no other to take up his work in the West.”46 How successful Johnston might have been has been a popular speculative topic every since that bloody April at Shiloh. Skeptics point to Johnston’s ponderous, flawed tactical alignment at Shiloh. However, recall that Grant had his Belmont, Lee his botched campaign in West Virginia and again during the Seven Days, Jackson his Kernstown. All of these men learned from experience and it seems reasonable to believe that, had Johnston lived, he too would have improved. Instead, Johnston assigned Doctor Yandell the task of caring for the wounded and subsequently died with a tourniquet in his pocket which, if promptly applied, would have saved him.

  The outline of events in my story follows reality. The details of Cockrell’s dramatic charge are taken from the Battle of Champion Hill. McClernand did in fact put in an amazingly slack performance at that same battle. Pemberton did concentrate a mass of maneuver after the Battle of Port Gibson. Had he employed this force offensively, he well might have caught the XVII Corps in the type of situation I describe. Historian Edwin Bearss speculates that Grant’s impetuous pursuit gave “the Confederate leaders a chance to destroy or maul one of his corps.”47 When I considered this opportunity in my own Vicksburg book I concluded, “if the recent fight at Port Gibson proved anything, it was that the area’s terrain was far better suited to the defense than the attack.”48 Still, an aggressive leader such as Lee, Jackson, or Grant would have hazarded the stroke. With the element of surprise and a numerical advantage of 16,000 versus 11,000, a Confederate success is well within the realm of possibility.

  To make my story plausible required a Confederate leader willing to hazard the stroke. When I first proposed my story to the editor, he replied that Pemberton would never have taken the risk. Indeed, Pemberton’s foolish commitment to defending what he undoubtedly believed to be his sacred trust, namely Vicksburg itself, was key to what actually did take place; he achieved a potential battle-winning concentration at Hankinson’s Ferry and then dispersed it to guard against Grant’s next thrust. So, if not Pemberton then who? Not Lee, who steadily refused to serve in the West, not Joe Johnston, who never saw a position as good as the next one to the rear, therefore a “resurrected” Sidney Johnston.

  What would have been the impact of Grant’s failure at Vicksburg? It is a provocative topic for speculation. Recall three points: in the spring of 1863 the people of the Old Northwest were very unhappy about the stalemate on the Mississippi and weary about casualties among their boys, and here the peace movement was growing; one of the main reasons Lee went north in the fateful summer of 1863 was to relieve pressure at Vicksburg; if the Confederate reserves sent to relieve Pemberton had instead nourished Lee’s invasion, if even the 5,000 men Beauregard could spare had been present at Gettysburg on July 1 or July 2, what might have transpired? Such is history.

  Bibliography

  Arnold, James R., Presidents Under Fire: Commanders in Chief in Victory and Defeat (Orion Books, New York, 1994).

  Arnold, James R., Grant Wins the War. Decision at Vicksburg (John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1997).

  Bearss, Edwin Cole, The Vicksburg Campaign (Morningside, Dayton, OH, 1986).

  Byers, S.H.M., “Some Recollections of Grant,” in Annals of the War Written by Leading Participants North and South (Blue & Grey Press, Edison, NJ, 1996; reprint of 1879 edition).

  Davis, William C., Jefferson Davis: The Man and his Hour (HarperCollins, New York, 1991).

  Grant, U.S., Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant (Da Capo Press, New York, 1982).

  Johnson, Robert, and Buel, Clarence, eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, 4 vols. (Thomas Yoseloff, New York, 1956).

  McDonough, James, and Jones, James, War So Terrible: Sherman and Atlanta (W.W. Norton, New York, 1987).

  Morris, WS., et. al., Thirty-First Regiment Illinois Volunteers (Crossfire Press, Herrin, IL, 1991).

  Oldroyd, Osborn H., A Soldier’s Story of the Siege of Vicksburg (Springfield, IL, 1885).

  Rowland, Dunbar, ed., Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches (Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson, MS, 1923).

  Sword, Wiley, Shiloh: Bloody April (Morningside Bookshop, Dayton, OH, 1988).

  Tucker, Philip Thomas, The South’s Finest: The First Missouri Confederate Brigade from Pea Ridge to Vicksburg (White Mane Publishing, Shippensburg, PA, 1993).

  U.S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 4 series in 70 volumes in 128 books (Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1880–1901).

  Wiley, Bell Irvin, ed., “This Infernal War”: The Confederate Letters of Sgt. Edwin H. Fay (University of Texas Press, Austin, TX, 1958).

  Younger, Edward, ed., Inside the Confederate Government: The Diary of Robe
rt Garlick Hill Kean (Oxford University Press, New York, 1957).

  Notes

  *1.

  W.L. Wickham, “A True Account of the Battle of Shiloh,” in Defeat and Victory: The Triumph of the Confederate States of America (Tredegar Press, Richmond, 1890), p. 43.

  2.

  William Preston Johnston, “Albert Sidney Johnston at Shiloh,” in Johnson and Buel, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, vol. 1, pp. 556–7.

  *3.

  Wickham, “A True Account of the Battle of Shiloh,” in Defeat and Victory, p. 44.

  4.

  Sword, Shiloh: Bloody April, p. 222.

  5.

  Ibid., p. 148.

  6.

  Johnston, “Albert Sidney Johnston at Shiloh,” in Johnson and Buel, Battles and Leaders I, p. 557.

  7.

  Ibid.

  *8.

  D.W Yandell, “Saving General Johnston,” in Defeat and Victory: The Triumph of the Confederate States of America, p. 120.

  9.

  Sword, Shiloh: Bloody April, p. 261.

  10.

  Ibid., p. 263.

  11.

  Johnston, “Albert Sidney Johnston at Shiloh,” in Johnson and Buel, Battles and Leaders I, p. 564.

  12.

  Sword, Shiloh: Bloody April, p. 264.

  13.

  Ibid., p. 266.

  14.

  Grant, Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, p. 185.

  15.

  Sword, Shiloh: Bloody April, p. 270.

  16.

  Johnston, “Albert Sidney Johnston at Shiloh,” in Johnson and Buel, Battles and Leaders I, p. 565.

  *17.

  Wickham, “A True Account of the Battle of Shiloh,” in Defeat and Victory, p. 48.

  18.

  Davis, Jefferson Davis, p. 398.

  19.

  U.S. War Department, War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, ser. I, vol. 10, J. Davis to A.S. Johnston, April 5, 1862, p. 394. Hereafter cited as Official Records.

  *20.

  Yandell, “Saving General Johnston,” in Defeat and Victory, p. 137.

  21.

  Younger, Inside the Confederate Government, p. 28.

  22.

  Rowland, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist, vol. 5, pp. 386–8; Davis to Holmes, December 21, 1862.

  23.

  Wiley, “This Infernal War”, p. 179.

  24.

  For a fuller account of the Arkansas’s amazing exploits see: Arnold, Grant Wins the War.

  *25.

  John Bowen, “An Interview with General Johnston,” Confederate Veteran III:10 (October 1894): p. 281.

  26.

  Grant, Personal Memoirs, p. 252.

  27.

  Arnold, Grant Wins the War, p. 103.

  28.

  Official Records I:24, part 3, p. 815.

  29.

  Ibid., p. 821.

  *30.

  The potential consequences of the Union capture of Vicksburg are well described in Peter Tsouras, If the North Had Won the Civil War (Greenhill Books, London, 1997).

  *31.

  James Richardson, ed., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Confederacy, 1861–1864, vol. 2 (Confederate States Publishing Co., Richmond, 1906), p. 957.

  32.

  Official Records I:24, part 3, p. 823.

  *33.

  The Papers of John C. Taylor, Special Collections, Alderman Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia. Taylor was one of Pemberton’s staff officers and was present at this conference.

  34.

  Byers, “Some Recollections of Grant,” in Annals of the War.

  35.

  Oldroyd, A Soldier’s Story of the Siege of Vicksburg, p. 25.

  36.

  William Candace Thompson, “From Shiloh to Port Gibson,” Civil War Times Illustrated III:6 (October 1964), p. 23.

  37.

  Tucker, The South’s Finest, p. 162.

  38.

  Memoirs, William A. Ruyle papers, Fifth Missouri, Harrisburg Civil War Roundtable Collection, U.S. Military History Institute, Carlisle, PA.

  39.

  Morris, Thirty-First Regiment Illinois Volunteers, pp. 64–5.

  40.

  McDonough and Jones, War So Terrible, p. 229.

  41.

  Official Records I:24, part 3, p. 248; Grant to Sherman, May 3, 1863.

  42.

  Calvin Smith, “‘We Can Hold Our Ground’: Calvin Smith’s diary,” Civil War Times Illustrated 24:2 (April 1985), p. 28.

  43.

  D.W. Yandell, “A Hero’s Last Night,” in Defeat and Victory, p. 346.

  *44.

  Ibid., p. 348.

  *45.

  W.L. Wickham, “With Johnston at Port Gibson: A True Account of the Death of General Albert Sidney Johnston,” in My Adventures in War and Peace (University of Texas Press, Austin, 1884), p. 292. But note that Wickham first mentioned this dramatic incident while embroiled in a close and controversial campaign for Congress in Texas.

  46.

  Sword, Shiloh: Bloody April, p. 436.

  47.

  Bearss, The Campaign for Vicksburg, vol. 2, p. 423.

  48.

  Arnold, Grant Wins the War, p. 120.

  6

  “ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL

  TO VICTORY”

  Stuart’s Cavalry in the

  Gettysburg — Pipe Creek

  Campaigns

  Edward G. Longacre1

  Rector’s Cross Roads, Virginia, night of June 23–24, 1863

  Upon occasion, Major General James Ewell Brown Stuart made conspicuous display of his willingness to share with his men the hardships of field campaigning. Although he had established his headquarters as commander of the Cavalry Division, Army of Northern Virginia, in a comfortable farmhouse on the outskirts of Rector’s Cross Roads, he had chosen to bivouac under an elm tree in the side yard. There he huddled, wrapped in a poncho, despite the steady, wind-driven rain that fell throughout the night of June 23–24, 1863. In the camps they had pitched in the surrounding fields, Stuart’s officers and troopers did their best to emulate their superior’s fortitude.

  The elements notwithstanding, Stuart was sound asleep when, just shy of midnight, his adjutant-general, Major Henry Brainard McClellan, shook him into consciousness. As the cavalry leader arose, rubbing sleep from his eyes, the staff officer handed him a dispatch just received from Robert E. Lee’s headquarters at Berryville, almost 20 miles to the northwest. Stuart noted that the envelope had been opened—McClellan quickly explained he had scanned the contents to determine if they were important enough to warrant awakening his chieftain. Stuart nodded, removed the dispatch, and perused it by the light of a lantern in the staff officer’s hands.2

  At first, he was delighted by what he read. “Marse Robert” appeared to approve in substance a proposal that Stuart had advanced three days earlier and which he had fleshed out in subsequent communiqués to army headquarters: that the greater part of his command advance into enemy territory miles apart from the main army.

  A decision on the matter could not be postponed. Six weeks earlier, following his dramatic victory over the Yankees of Major General Joseph Hooker at Chancellorsville, Lee had begun his second invasion of the country north of the Potomac River. The first, launched the previous September, had ended in a day of horrific carnage outside Sharpsburg, Maryland, after which Lee had returned his battered army to Virginia. The second effort had gotten off to a more favorable start: in mid-June, Lee’s advance had captured several outposts in the lower (i.e., the northern reaches of the) Shenandoah Valley, including the sizable garrison at Winchester. Then, too, on the day Winchester fell, the advance element of Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell’s Second Corps had crossed the Mason-Dixon Line into southern Pennsylvania, occupying the city of Chambersburg. Ewell’s troops were now poised to move on to their next objective, the state capital at Harrisburg, o
n the north bank of the Susquehanna River. Meanwhile, the rest of Lee’s main army—the Third Corps of Lieutenant General A.P Hill, trailed by Lieutenant General James Longstreet’s First Corps—was preparing to quit Virginia and join Ewell in the Keystone State.3

  It was largely due to the exertions of Stuart’s troopers, who for the past two weeks had been screening the exposed right flank of the invasion column, that Robert E. Lee’s northward march had proceeded so quickly and smoothly. As they trotted through Virginia’s Loudoun Valley, Stuart’s men had repeatedly engaged the Union cavalry of Major General Alfred Pleasonton, roving well in advance of Hooker’s main force. At Aldie on June 17, at neighboring Middleburg two days later, and farther west at Upperville on the 21st, the Confederates had blunted almost every attempt by Pleasonton’s overmatched but energetic troopers to penetrate the Blue Ridge Mountains and discern Lee’s position in the Shenandoah Valley. While the cavalries clashed, Hooker, unwilling to commit himself to a full-fledged pursuit until able to determine his enemy’s intentions, held his main body close to his headquarters at Fairfax Station.

  Not until the close of the fighting at Upperville were scouting parties from Brigadier General John Buford’s First Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, able to outflank Stuart, climb the foothills of the Blue Ridge, and sight the bivouacs of Longstreet’s corps. Then and only then—too late to prevent the rest of the Army of Northern Virginia from entering Pennsylvania—did Hooker issue orders for a cautious advance toward the Potomac.4

  Stuart’s men had done their job faithfully and well; they deserved the two-day respite their commander permitted them following Pleasonton’s withdrawal to Aldie on the 22d. Yet their leader was not satisfied to have helped get the invasion off to a promising start; he wished to ensure its long-term success. Thus he sought a strategic, not merely a tactical, role in the balance of the campaign.