Crucible of Command

by William C. Davis

  In fact, in heavy fighting on October 3 the Confederates pushed Rosecrans back into the defenses around Corinth and only nightfall kept them from pressing their advantage. Rosey himself conducted an erratic defense, planning well, then issuing contradictory orders and failing to maintain control. But he was not in bad shape. With the line working again, he sent Grant telegrams that his men had not fought well, but by midnight he believed he could hold the next day if attacked.102 Grant still was not certain that this was not just a heavy demonstration to pin down Rosecrans, while the Confederates slipped away to move against Bolivar. Suddenly he realized that if the Confederates did that they would meet Hurlbut on the road and might overwhelm him. He wired Rosecrans that if Van Dorn fell back he must follow closely to prevent disaster for Hurlbut, admonishing “don’t neglect this warning.”103

  He need not have worried. Van Dorn reopened his cannonade before dawn, but his renewed attack was tardy and ill coordinated. Rebel brigades hammered the Federal defenses, and in one or two places drove into town before being repulsed. There was heavy fighting until about one in the afternoon when the Confederate attack lost its energy, and a few hours later Van Dorn began a retreat eastward just as McPherson reached Corinth. Rosecrans wired Grant that they were badly beaten and promised to launch a pursuit in the morning.104 “Push the enemy to the wall,” Grant responded, hoping to pin Van Dorn against the Hatchie River a dozen miles west and bag his whole army, looking, as always, for the complete victory.105 More urgent messages followed, warning Rosecrans that “if you do not bag the most of them it will be your fault.”106 Hurlbut and a detachment under Ord encountered the Confederates first on October 5, but could not prevent them from crossing the river to continue their retreat toward Holly Springs, Mississippi, fifty miles west of Corinth.107

  The next day Grant again pressed Rosey to “capture and destroy the Rebel army to the utmost of your power,” but by October 7 he concluded that the opportunity was gone.108 Hurlbut and McPherson were almost out of rations and encumbered with wounded from the Hatchie fight, Grant had no more reinforcements in his department to send, and the enemy seemed to be moving faster than Rosecrans. Grant’s forces were spread out across southwest Tennessee and northern Mississippi, getting farther from their bases of supply and the railroads they were protecting, leaving them increasingly exposed should the Confederates mount a counterstroke. Reluctantly, Grant ordered all of his forces to return to their bases. When Rosecrans objected, arguing that he could still take Van Dorn, Grant took his demurrer seriously enough to suspend the order pending Halleck’s response to an appeal for reinforcements. Throughout October 8 he wavered on continuing the pursuit. Three times he ordered Rosecrans to fall back, believing that even if partially successful, Rosecrans would be drawn so far from his base that “disaster would follow in the end.” Even then, however, he held open the option of taking command in person and pressing on as far as possible if Halleck wished.109 A day later, hearing nothing from Halleck, Grant ordered Rosecrans’s return to Corinth a last time.

  Iuka fit the now-established mold for Grant the commander. Faced with a challenge, he seized the initiative and planned his offensive carefully, relying again on concentration of forces and convergence on the enemy from different points of the compass. He willingly altered his arrangement on the advice of the officer on the scene, and thought ahead to capitalize on success. Delays and miscommunication, and a freak atmospheric anomaly, disrupted his designs, but he improvised on the spot, though for the first time he did not command on the field after circumstances took the battle out of his hands and left it to Rosecrans before Grant arrived. “I had no more to do with troops under Gen. Ord than I had with those under Rosecrans,” he said in assessing his role, “but gave the orders to both.” And those orders were precise. Indeed, Grant was frustrated now with Hillyer, for often when he asked the aide to draft an order for him, the captain begged off by saying that no one could put things in so concise a form as Grant himself without possibility of misinterpretation.110 He had planned to bag Price’s whole command, but circumstances foiled his hopes. Still, he blamed no one.111

  Corinth was a departure. Grant left the initiative to the enemy. He had little choice until he knew Van Dorn’s target, remembering now to think about what the enemy might do. Grant had over 45,000 in his department, but they covered a front 130 miles wide. Concentrating against Van Dorn risked exposing vital points if he misjudged the Confederate goal. Once he settled on Corinth, Grant still wondered if the real objective was Bolivar, perhaps because that is where he might have struck. A blow there could cut railroads, isolate Corinth, disrupt communications, put Memphis at hazard, and possibly force the evacuation of Corinth. When Van Dorn appeared there, Grant trusted Rosecrans to conduct his defense and spent his time forwarding reinforcements. If he erred, it was in those forces being too far away and counting on rail to get them to Corinth on short notice. With the battle over, his expectation of an immediate pursuit overlooked how disorganized even a victorious army could be. At Shiloh he had Buell’s fresh divisions to commence pursuit at once; Rosecrans did not. Grant was still learning the practical capabilities of an army before, during, and after action. If he broke his own rule of relying on the judgment of the commander on the spot when he ordered the pursuit stopped, Grant respected his judgment enough to reconsider the decision.112

  His appraisal of the result of the two battles was that the moral gains from the victories might outweigh the benefit of capturing Price’s army, as he continued to fail to grasp the depth of Confederate resolve to resist. Optimistic as ever, he told his sister Mary in mid-October that “we now have such an advantage over the rebels that there should be but little more hard fighting.”113 He believed his role in ending the war was to “move south” again. Before the end of the month he framed the outline of a campaign to take Vicksburg.114

  10

  “WHAT HAVE WE TO LIVE FOR IF NOT VICTORIES?”

  LATE IN THE fall of 1862 a Springfield, Illinois, editor noted that while Grant’s initials had been associated with Uncle Sam or United States, “they have lately been discovered, however, to mean ‘Unconditional Surrender.’” He thought that “‘Unconditional Surrender’ Grant is a very good man to send after the rebels in Mississippi.”1 That was precisely what he wanted to do if only petty distractions did not beset him. For all the challenges of manning and maintaining his army, Robert E. Lee never had to cope with the political, economic, interpersonal, and command rivalry headaches that constantly distracted Grant.

  The twenty-year friendship with Rosecrans was gone. On October 7 Rawlins issued on Grant’s behalf a congratulatory order commending his army on the victory, but Rosey responded by protesting that the order seemed to hint that there might be jealousy between their commands.2 Soon enough Grant learned that members of Rosecrans’s staff actually did encourage feeling against him, and Rawlins heard that Rosecrans was trying to take all of the credit for Iuka and Corinth. Worse, unspecified “insinuations” were coming out of Rosecrans’s headquarters suggesting that Grant was drinking at Iuka.3 The culprit was William D. Bickham of the Cincinnati Commercial, which had often been critical of Grant. An aide to Rosecrans in western Virginia in 1861, Bickham stayed with Rosecrans’s headquarters writing such glowing pieces that other correspondents branded him a “puffer” for Rosey.4 His account of the fight at Corinth mentioned Grant only once, implying that victory would have been complete but for Grant halting the pursuit, and gave all credit to Rosey.5 His attack on one division’s performance led to threats that impelled him to flee the army temporarily.6 Meanwhile, someone else seized on Bickham’s reports to resurrect the charges of drunkenness in a forged letter to Washington.7

  “For Heaven’s sake do something,” Rawlins’s informant appealed, believing that Rosecrans angled for Grant’s command, which was true.8 Grant may not have thought so, but what he did hear coming from Rosey’s staff did not dispose him well when that general accused him of giving preferent
ial treatment to other portions of his army. Grant denied that vigorously, and then scolded Rosecrans for ignoring military protocol and communicating directly with Washington rather than going through him. “You regard your command [as] giving privileges held by others commanding geographical divisions,” he wrote. “This is a mistake.” Immediately backing down, Rosey protested that Grant “had no truer friend no more loyal subordinate,” and blamed any misunderstandings on “mischief makers winesellers & mouse catching politicians.”9 Grant was not to be put off. Staff leaks and Bickham’s articles encouraged jealousies between their armies detrimental to morale and cooperation, he charged, but Rosecrans blamed all such jealousies on Grant and his staff. “After this declaration I am free to say that if you do not meet me frankly with a declaration that you are satisfied,” he wrote on October 21, “I shall consider my power to be useful in this Department ended.”10

  That was a conclusion Grant had already reached. The next day he wrote his final report on Iuka. On September 20 he sent a brief account to Washington stating that “I cannot speak too highly of the energy & skill displayed by Genl Rosecrans.”11 Now in this fuller report, drafted over several days by Rawlins but surely amended and approved by Grant, he might have been expected to be hard on Rosecrans. Grant was certainly human, and there were no effusions in this full report, no “cannot speak too highly,” yet he was fair if restrained. He acknowledged Rosecrans’s part in the campaign, without implying criticism, expressed “some disappointment” at his being late to reach the field, and offered explanations on Rosecrans’s behalf for upsetting Grant’s original plan.12 If the report said rather less than Rosey deserved for his command’s actions, it said more than he deserved after his recent behavior. That same day Rosecrans complained to Halleck and asked for a change of assignment, which Halleck granted the next day. In notifying Rosey of the change, Grant added that “I predict an important command where in the course of events we may cooperate,” and he was right.13 Buell had been a disappointment, and Halleck now ordered Rosecrans to assume command of the Army of the Cumberland.

  Grant was relieved to be rid of him. “It is a great annoyance to gain rank and command enough to attract public attention,” he told Ord. “I have found it so and would now really prefer some little command where public attention would not be attracted towards me.”14 If he must be in the public eye, he wanted himself and his command to be fairly represented, and not as Bickham and Rosecrans’s other supporters depicted them in the papers. “I have no objection to that [or] any other Gen. being made a hero of by the press,” he wrote Washburne, “but I do not want to see it at the expense of a meritorious portion of the Army.”15

  Still, Rosey was a minor irritant. Not so McClernand. He wanted to be president, and being subordinate to a successful general was not a fast track. McClernand criticized Grant in letters to Lincoln. In July he tried to get reassigned to the Army of the Potomac, but denied that he visited the president in person and pushed a plan to raise his own army in Illinois to lead personally against Vicksburg, beyond Grant’s authority. In his anxiety for aggressive movement, Lincoln unwisely approved, but gave Halleck some authority over the new regiments so that Grant would have first crack at those he might need himself. Confused, Grant asked if he was to remain idle while McClernand raised and led his expedition. With McClernand apparently an independent authority inside Grant’s department, was Sherman to be the same, or would he still report to him?16 Halleck tried to reassure Grant that he commanded all forces in his department, but the “misterious rumors” Grant was hearing left him unsettled.17

  It did not help that Halleck gave no guidance. What he did do was to reconstitute Grant’s command into a new Department of the Tennessee, including Cairo, Forts Henry and Donelson, all of Kentucky and Tennessee west of the Tennessee River, and as much of north Mississippi as was in his hands.18 Yet he told—or knew—nothing of the plans of General Samuel Curtis commanding the Department of the Missouri, or of Rosecrans in his new incumbency. Grant grasped, even if they did not, that they needed coordination among them for best results. Shortly after the fight at Corinth he had a rough total of 97,000 men of all arms spread through his department from Corinth to Memphis, and all the way back to Cairo.19 Its force was blunted by not being concentrated, and he could not concentrate it without exposing a line of communications more than a hundred miles long. Doubting that he could resume offensive operations until reinforced, he proposed to shift his Corinth forces west to Grand Junction on the Mississippi Central Railroad, about fifty miles east of Memphis. With a small reinforcement. exclusive of McClernand, he would move down that railroad to Holly Springs, Mississippi, then on to Oxford, then Grenada. There he could isolate or destroy rebel gunboats sheltering on the upper Yazoo River, something he had in mind at least since September. Then he would keep moving south with Vicksburg in his sights. Grant suggested that the task would be easier if both sides of the Mississippi were under one unified command. He did not mention McClernand.20

  With no demurrer from Halleck, Grant started units forward, rebuilding railroad and telegraph lines as they advanced, and hinting to McPherson that they might “go far south.”21 By November 4 he had about 31,000 men rendezvousing at Lagrange just west of Grand Junction. He intended for Sherman to move south from Memphis as a distraction, but postponed that when Halleck notified him that 20,000 reinforcements were coming. Again he asked for news of a rumored movement by Curtis toward the river, “so as to make the whole cooperate.” Until he knew the whole picture in that theater, he could only make independent moves. Much as he liked that independence, he understood that he was part of a larger team. As for the reported 30,000 Confederates at Holly Springs, he believed he could “handle that number without gloves.”22 Indeed, “I have not the slightest apprehension of a reverse from present appearances,” he told Halleck.23 The Grant confidence and optimism remained undimmed.

  Grant stayed at Lagrange almost to the end of November, long enough for Julia to come join him for a time.24 His hope for a speedy move south was postponed by news that Curtis had sent a dozen regiments east to Memphis on their way to Grenada. He wanted Sherman to stay in Memphis to absorb them before the two columns started south, and meanwhile commenced a buildup of supplies, intending to keep at lease a million rations on hand. Otherwise, he intended that they would live off the land, taking whatever food and livestock they needed, but paying with vouchers that farmers could redeem at the end of the war.25 Grant remained conscious of the need to deal fairly with civilians, for fear of alienating them. He threatened officers with serious consequences and enlisted men with death should they plunder private homes and property.26 When regiments looted local stores Grant fined them to recompense the owners, punished the men involved, and dismissed their officers.27 Meanwhile, he dealt with local cotton planters. Those deemed loyal he permitted to take their bales to Memphis for sale, while he simply seized for the government the cotton of disloyal or suspected growers.28

  He also had to handle the fugitive slaves coming into his lines, now in wagonloads, presenting ever greater demands on his commissary. His solution to the growing problem was the innovative idea of commissioning a superintendent of contrabands to establish residence camps for the blacks, then find them jobs picking confiscated cotton in local fields under military oversight. Soon they were earning a little money, living securely and eating well, and making a contribution to the Union war effort. This was no social reform. Nothing suggests that Grant had yet developed any more discomfort with slavery than before the war, but by now he had encountered the real face of slavery far more extensively. As his attitudes toward Mexicans and Indians revealed, he felt sympathy for nonwhite peoples crushed by western progress. Moreover, Lincoln’s announcement of a Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation the past September, and the promise of its going into effect on January 1, 1863, meant that tens—even hundreds—of thousands more slaves would be emancipating themselves by fleeing to Union lines.

  He mu
st be prepared to deal with them, if only to keep the human inflow from slowing the progress of his army. Grant knew from his own experience that blacks would work if motivated. If whites saw them willingly working as free men, in time black males might be accepted as soldiers should the Union need them. Once a man carried a rifle for his country, citizenship and even the ballot might follow. Organizing employment for these fugitives could have far-reaching effects. But that was Grant thinking out loud as he spoke with the man he made superintendent. This was purely a field expedient to deal with an immediate problem, but it was the sort of solution typical of Grant: direct, speedy, and aimed toward productive gain. “I was dealing with no incompetent,” concluded the new superintendent after Grant explained his idea, “but a man capable of handling large issues.”29 Sensitive to the fact that slaves behind Union lines would remain slaves after promulgation of the Emancipation Proclamation, Grant directed that no slaves were to be lured away from their masters or forced into government service.30 Loyal planters, or those not taking sides, must not be alienated.

  As his army gradually grew Grant addressed matters of organization yet again, tried to make it more effective in action by securing arms of a uniform caliber throughout, and revised his staff to suit his needs. Appointing Rawlins both adjutant and chief of staff, he increased it to seventeen officers including specialized chiefs of cavalry, artillery, engineers, telegraph services, military railroads, ordnance, subsistence, quartermaster, medical, and topographical engineers or map making.31 He also dealt with the inevitable empire builder, in this case the superintendent of telegraphs in the department, a man so imperious that he objected to any instructions from Grant and referred everything to his superior in the telegraph office in Washington. Worse, the man allowed paid commercial dispatches to occupy the army’s line when Grant needed it for military communications. Grant was patient for some days, trying to work with the recalcitrant fellow, but again when nothing else seemed to break the impasse, he dealt with it directly by arresting him. When the superintendent of the military telegraph in Washington instructed his operators to take orders from no one but himself, Grant fired an angry response calling him “insolent” and thereafter ignored him, protesting that he had “neither the time nor the inclination” to waste effort better spent on more important matters.32