Whatever Sherman’s observations were, his interest in Pittsburg greatly increased when Lieutenant Gwin gave him the full details of the March 1st affair. When the naval officer mentioned that Pittsburg was the usual landing place for the people going to Corinth, Mississippi, Sherman decided that Federal occupation of the point might be very useful.
Sending word back to General Smith about the desirability of posting a force at the Landing, General Sherman continued on up the river until he reached Eastport. Observing Confederate gun positions through his glasses, as well as troop movements, the general ordered his force to drop back down to Yellow Creek, several miles above the town.44
At 7:00 p.m. on the 14th, the Fifth Division began its disembarkation at the mouth of Yellow Creek. The plan was that part of the Fifth Ohio Cavalry, under Major E. G. Ricker, was to move overland to a point near Burnsville, Mississippi, on the Memphis and Charleston Railroad and cut the track there. The infantry and artillery was to follow on the 15th, and was to capture and destroy the Confederate railroad repair facilities in Burnsville.
The cavalry left about 11:00 p.m., amidst a heavy rainfall. About 3:00 a.m., Colonel Hicks’ First Brigade moved out along the route the cavalry had taken. By 4:00 a.m., Colonel David Stuart’s Second Brigade was unloaded and heading inland, while the two remaining brigades followed at daylight.
Almost immediately everything began going wrong for the Federals. The landscape was already very soggy from the heavy rainfall, and, instead of slacking off, the downpour merely increased. The temperature was below the freezing point, and horses and men alike were soon soaked through and through with icy water. The rain finally did stop for awhile, but then it began to snow. The soldiers were not only cold and miserable, but also had only the vaguest idea of what the expedition was all about.
About four and a half miles out from the landing point, the excursion was stopped by a badly flooded unnamed stream. Colonel Hicks and his men tried to put a temporary bridge across it at the shallowest point, but with little success. Then Major Ricker’s cavalry showed up on the opposite side of the target, forcing them to turn back. Using the very unstable Hicks’ bridge, the cavalry managed to rejoin the main body. The water was rising all around the little army, and General Sherman decided to return to the transports.
Half drowned and half frozen, the soldiers walked through three feet deep water to reach the boats. The guns of the Sixth Indiana Battery had to be disassembled and carried back to the transports piece by piece, so deep was the water. Finally by a little past noon, the whole division basked in the security and comparative warmth of the river steamers.45
Undismayed by the whole messy business, Sherman decided to try another landing at a point somewhere closer to Eastport, in the hope of finding higher and dryer land. The gunboats and transports moved on up the river to the mouth of Indian Creek, but the whole shore was submerged by high water. Try as he might, Sherman could find no suitable place to land.
Finally late in the afternoon of the 15th, Sherman decided to try and land at Pittsburg, but upon reaching that point he found General Hurlbut and part of the Fourth Division waiting off shore in their transports. During the night “Cump” steamed down to Savannah to report to General Smith. Having seen the river steadily rise, Smith under-stood why the expedition had failed, and he decided to try a new tact. Sherman was ordered to return to Pittsburg with his division and disembark there. Smith also issued orders for General Hurlbut to land there also. The army commander was to shortly follow in a few days, and then an advance could be made toward the enemy.46
Accompanied by Lieutenant Colonel McPherson, Sherman moved over to Pittsburg and began preparations to execute the railroad cutting order with his division. With the troops disembarked at the Landing, Sherman, McPherson, and a few harried staff officers rode out to Bethel, Tennessee, about three miles away. The 16th was Sunday, but there was to be little rest for Sherman and his busy staff. As soon as he returned from his personal reconnaissance to Bethel, Sherman decided to send a stronger party out to determine the local enemy strength, and if possible cut the railroad.
The Fifth Ohio Cavalry, now sturdy veterans of the soggy Eastport expedition, was again given the task of railroad bursting. About 6:00 Sunday evening, the regiment, under Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Heath, set out, to be followed about six hours later by Sherman’s First Infantry Brigade, now led by its newly arrived colonel, John McDowell, brother of the ill-fated General Irvin McDowell of Manassas fame.47 For some reason Sherman was counting on the Confederates being completely asleep. His orders were not to pick a fight with any large enemy force, and he was reluctant to take any big chances until more troops arrived.
The other brigades were supposed to follow McDowell’s men, but the movement was canceled when the cavalry returned with a report that the Confederates were out in force across the proposed line of advance. At a cost of four wounded, Colonel Heath engaged Confederate pickets on the Corinth Road, capturing two enlisted men. Colonel Heath’s report, coming on top of a Sunday patrol report of enemy troop movements in the area, convinced Sherman that the element of surprise was completely gone. Sherman ordered the infantry and cavalry back to the Landing area, and there directed the whole division to encamp.
On Monday, Hurlbut’s division disembarked and also encamped in the Landing area.48 Meanwhile another Union force had landed near Sherman. This was the Third Division under the Indiana-born author-general, Lew Wallace. When the army arrived at Savannah on the 13th, Smith after securing the William Cherry House as headquarters, went over to the steamer John J. Roe, Wallace’s head quarters. Entering his subordinate’s cabin, General Smith quickly got down to business, explaining that he wanted the Third Division to occupy Crump’s Landing and cut the Mo bile and Ohio Railroad some fifteen miles distant. When the conference was over Smith walked out of the cabin, starting to enter the small boat or yawl that had brought him to the Roe. It was dark, and the white-haired general slipped, badly skinning one of his shins. General Wallace urged him to stay on the Roe and have the in jury tended to, but clenching his teeth against the pain, Smith groaned, “No—too much business.” The boat crew rowed him away, and the two men never met again, for the slight in jury to the white haired general would eventually prove fatal.49
Within a couple of hours the Third Division was steaming toward Crump’s Landing, and by midnight most of the division was safely landed. On the following day, Thursday, General Wallace sent the Third Battalion of the Fifth Ohio Cavalry, under Major Charles Hayes, to cut the railroad. By 10:00 a.m., the fast moving cavalry reached the railroad bridge at Beach Creek, between Bethel and Brown Station. Setting to work with great enthusiasm, the Ohioans promptly demolished the fifty foot span, plus an additional fifty foot section of track on each side of the swollen creek.
A small party of Confederate cavalry showed up during the destruction work, but the Ohioans quickly chased them away, taking two prisoners in the process. This work completed, the battalion returned to Crump’s, where they promptly went into camp along with the rest of the division.50 Seemingly by a process of gravitational at traction, the Army of the Tennessee was gradually collecting near Corinth, Mississippi.
Alarmed by the news of Wallace’s and Sherman’s landings, the local Confederate commanders began massing their own rather pitiful strength in the Purdy-Corinth area. If the Federals chose to move out in force from the landings, the Southerners would have to fight. Fortunately for the Confederates, Halleck’s orders to avoid a general engagement kept the Union army immobilized.51
Meanwhile the command of the expeditionary force changed hands. On Monday, March 17, General Grant arrived by steamer to assume command of the scattered Army of the Tennessee. Grant decided that although Savannah was useful as a headquarters, it would be better to move the main army to Pittsburg to expedite an advance on Corinth, once Buell’s army showed up.52 In part Grant’s decision to concentrate at Pittsburg was prompted by Sherman’s championing of the position
. Impressed with the position for its strategic location, Sherman claimed that “the ground itself admits of easy defense by a small command, and yet affords admirable camping ground for a hundred thousand men.”53
About twenty-two miles by road from Corinth, Sherman’s choice of a camp spot was indeed excellent for defensive purposes. The place formed a broad uneven triangle, or funnel, which gradually widened from the base at the landing. Bounded on the east by the Tennessee River, the position was bordered on the northwest by Snake Creek and its branch, Owl Creek, and on the south by Lick Creek and its branch, Locust Grove Creek, as well as by a fairly sharp ravine, through which part of the creek ran. The various creeks and the resulting marshy land were a perfect protection against a flanking assault. An enemy army attacking Pittsburg Landing would have to push straight in and attempt to advance along the interior sides of the creeks in the funnel. The highest ground of the camp area was a ridge lying north of Locust Grove Creek and extending on toward the west. The extreme point of the ridge was about two hundred feet above the river at normal flood stage, and a number of Owl Creek branches zigzagged through the slopes of this ridge. Tilghman Creek was the most important of these branches, and it dissected the camp area into two main plateaus. The ground tended to be heavily wooded and uneven, except for a number of plowed cotton fields and several peach orchards.
There were several roads in the camping area, mostly running at angles roughly parallel to the Landing, making it difficult for an attacking army to maintain its communications. One was the Hamburg-Savannah or River Road, which led from Crump’s Landing six miles downstream to a bridge across Snake Creek and on over to the eastern end of the ridge north of Locust Grove Creek, where it forked with the Purdy-Hamburg Road. The latter came in from Purdy by a bridge over Owl Creek, swung on in a slight southeasterly direction, crossed Lick Creek, and finally wound up in Hamburg, Tennessee. Pittsburg Landing was actually located about two-thirds of a mile below the mouth of Snake Creek. Two main roads led from the Landing, one of these, the Eastern Corinth Road, swung inland to where it joined the Bark Road, while the other ran in a more westerly direction, but parallel to the Eastern Corinth Road, and was naturally called the Western Corinth Road. Numerous other little paths and roads, including one abandoned washed out wagon trail, crisscrossed the area. There were country market roads, and they were in generally poor condition. Near the fork of the Western Corinth-Purdy Roads stood a little wooden church, the Shiloh Methodist Episcopal Church, which would give its name to the coming struggle at this peaceful place.54
Excepting the church, the only buildings in the camp area were a handful of simple farm structures and some sort of wooden house or store at the top of the Landing. The pattern of life in the area was exclusively rural. The climate tended to be rather humid, with an annual rainfall of more than fifty inches. Thick underbrush covered much of the area, and there was a good deal of second growth timber. Just down from the Landing there was a collection of large Indian mounds, which many of Grant’s soldiers undoubtedly explored. The area was originally discovered by Colonel Joseph Hardin, but the Landing was named for Pitts, or Pittser Tucker, one of three brothers who built a small store at the point many years before the war.55
Following his arrival, Grant spent his time dealing with routine administrative matters, but made no effort to alter the development of the army at Pittsburg. He did write to Halleck that while it was difficult to form any idea of the exact strength of the Confederates, he felt satisfied “that they do not number 40,000 armed effective men at this time.”56 Grant went on in the same message to tell Halleck that he would visit Crump’s and Pittsburg on Wednesday, and he would make any needed changes in the dis positions of the various units.57
Grant contemplated a quick thrust at the railroads around Corinth, but additional orders from Halleck to avoid a battle prevented any such movement.58 Grant ordered Smith to assume personal command of the army at Pittsburg, but since that officer was ill, it was necessary for General Sherman to actually continue to be incharge. McClernand was senior to Sherman, but he was embroiled in a dispute with General Smith over seniority, and Grant preferred to keep him in Savannah for the present.59 For the moment at least the Army of the Tennessee was quietly camped in the Crump-Pittsburg-Savannah area, reasonably content, waiting for its fellow, the Army of the Ohio, to show up before resuming the advance.
Don Carlos Buell’s command pulled out of Nashville on March 16 and 17. The army moved steadily, but with no particular haste. Buell saw no need for hurrying, since all the information he had from Halleck and Grant contained no hint of possible danger to the Army of the Tennessee. His soldiers were in good shape, and Buell meant to keep them that way. On March 20, the army was forced to camp after reaching the Duck River and finding the bridge at Columbia destroyed by retreating Confederate cavalry. After a week of repairing the structure, General Nelson’s division finally crossed the river on March 29. Buell’s plan was for the army, or at least the advance element, Nelson’s division, to reach Savannah on April 7 and then cross on over to Pittsburg Landing by way of waiting steamers.
On April 1, Nelson’s division marched fourteen miles, and on the following day made sixteen. On April 3, the division passed through Waynesboro, Tennessee, for a total of fifteen miles. On the following day the troops moved only ten and one-half miles because of bad roads. Finally on Saturday the division reached Savannah about noon, after having covered nine and one-half miles that day.60
With Grant at Savannah and Buell slowly moving forward to join him, what of the other forces under Halleck’s command? For as of March 11, Halleck had been promoted to command the new Department of the Mississippi. This consisted of the old Department of the Missouri and part of the Department of the Ohio. For better or for worse, Halleck became supreme commander in the Western theater. Hereafter he could answer directly to President Lincoln and Stanton without having any responsibility to McClellan. The new arrangement also meant that Buell would have to take orders from the New Yorker.
The capture of New Madrid freed General John Pope’s army for a push at the Confederate position at Island No. 10.61 Soon that position would be besieged by Pope’s army and a supporting naval force under Acting Rear Admiral David Porter, effectively pinning down a small but potentially valuable Confederate army. General Halleck seemed blessed with success. His armies had overrun a third of Tennessee and were threatening Northern Mississippi. Just a little more pressure and the Confederacy might collapse in the West.
Chapter 5
The Armies Gather
THE PRINCIPLE OF CONCENTRATION of force is one of the oldest in military history. General Johnston had been forced to violate this principle in attempting to defend southern Kentucky and Tennessee, but after the fall of Fort Donelson the Southern high command rapidly began moving toward the idea of massing all available forces for one showdown attack to save the Mississippi Valley. It is impossible to say who first conceived of the idea of an all out concentration into one army in the region, but as early as February 15, Major General Braxton Bragg, writing from Mobile, Alabama, suggested to the Richmond authorities that the time had come to mass all that the South had for the struggle. In his reply three days later, Confederate Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin maintained that the administration was contemplating an abandonment of the sea coast in order to defend the Tennessee line.1
Generals Johnston and Beauregard were both in favor of such a move, and in the week following the loss of Fort Donelson, the appropriate orders for such a concentration were given. Beauregard started operations by sending a confidential letter to the governors of Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and Louisiana, in which he proposed a plan of strategic concentration. Each state was to send from five to ten thousand armed troops as quickly as possible, while Major General Earl Van Dorn’s army in Arkansas was to cross over and link up that body of men with General Beauregard’s command. General Bragg’s troops were to come up from Pensacola and Mobile, while Major G
eneral Mansfield Lovell, commanding at New Orleans, was to send as many troops as possible.2
The various governors’ responses tended to be rather apathetic, but T. O. Moore of Louisiana did begin a vigorous campaign to raise 90-day units for General Beauregard’s use. Lack of weapons and trained personnel greatly handicapped the effort, but the governor did manage to forward two battalions and one regiment, all infantry, to the Creole’s army when it finally moved to Corinth, Mississippi.
Mustered in on March 6, the Crescent Regiment (Twenty-fourth Louisiana), the Orleans Guards (Thirteenth Battalion), and the Confederate Guard Response Battalion (Twelfth Louisiana Infantry Battalion) were headed north on the New Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern almost as soon as they were formally sworn in.3 Troops from General Lovell’s command also en trained for Beauregard’s temporary camp at Jackson, Tennessee. Indeed, Louisiana was very seriously weakened by the transfer of most of the best units from the state.
One of the regiments involved in this movement was the later famous Fourth Louisiana Infantry. Strung out on coastal guard duty from Berwick Bay, Louisiana, to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, the Fourth was suddenly ordered to assemble in New Orleans, where the regiment boarded a train at 3:00 p.m. on February 25. The railroad tracks northward toward Camp Moore, Louisiana, were brightly lit up with bonfires, and crowds of civilians screamed and cheered as the train passed.
About 8:00 a.m. the following morning, the troop train halted at Canton, Mississippi, where the soldiers were told to change trains. Pausing only a few minutes to eat breakfast in town, the boys in gray dined on butter, syrup, biscuits as hard as cannon balls, and potato coffee. Within a few minutes the troops climbed on board passenger cars of the Mississippi Central Railroad, which were to carry them on to Jackson, Tennessee, where the Confederates arrived about 3:00 p.m., Thursday, February 27.4
Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862 Page 10
