Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862

by Edward Cunningham

  While Lew Wallace’s cavalry was being chased by the Southerners, General Grant was launching a little operation of his own. For some days, Union gunboats had been busy reconnoitering and occasionally bombarding Confederate positions near and in Eastport, Mississippi. On Monday, Grant directed General Sherman to carry out a reconnaissance in strength in the vicinity of the little Mississippi town. Two 12-pound howitzers from Captain Emil Munch’s First Minnesota Battery were loaded on board the steamers Empress and Tecumseh. One hundred and fifty men of the Fifth Ohio Cavalry, under Major Elridge Ricker, and detachments from the Fifty-seventh and Seventy-seventh Ohio Infantry Regiments also climbed on board the transports. General Sherman was eager to be off, but his orders were to wait for the gunboat Cairo to show up as escort. Finally about midnight, the tardy warship commanded by Lieutenant Nathaniel Bryant arrived. It was so late that Sherman decided to wait until daylight to jump off.2

  About 6:00 a.m. Tuesday, the five vessels finally pulled out, the transports cautiously steaming about three hundred yards behind the Lexington, Tyler, and Cairo. About 1:00 p.m., the Cairo commenced shelling a suspected Confederate battery just above the mouth of Indian Creek. There was no return fire or any sign of activity whatever, so the expedition proceeded on up to Eastport. The Lexington and Tyler opened fire with their 8-inch and 32-pounders on the Confederate fortifications at that point. Then the Cairo joined in with her powerful battery of six 32-pounders, four 42-pound rifles, and three 8-inchers. Exploding shells gouged holes in the breastworks without eliciting any kind of reply. Finally it was obvious that the Southerners had abandoned the town.3

  Sherman immediately ordered Colonel Jesse Hildebrand to disembark with the troops. The Union soldiers were quickly landed and the men deployed and moved into Eastport. Not a human being was in sight. Every man, woman, and child was gone, fled from the cannon fire. Many of the buildings were badly damaged by the effects of the bombardment, and some of Grant’s soldiers noticed food and dinnerware still on the tables in several houses. Colonel Hildebrand led his force through the town and then out along the road to Iuka, Mississippi. A few hundred yards along the road, however, the Ohioans spotted a small Confederate patrol. The invaders quickly deployed for action, but the Southerners galloped off without firing to report the news of the Union landing.

  While Colonel Hildebrand was carrying out his little reconnaissance, Sherman proceeded by transport on up to Chickasaw. Some soldiers of the Fifty-seventh Ohio were landed, but they could find no Confederates to fight. A little disgusted by the lack of resistance, General Sherman quickly ordered the landing party back to the transports and dropped back to Eastport, where he picked up Colonel Hildebrand and his force. On the whole, it was a pretty frustrating expedition, but at least it showed that the Southerners were not planning to hold either Eastport or Chickasaw. Perhaps Generals Grant and Sherman idly speculated as to where the Southern garrisons had gone, but if so, they did not seem to be worried by this minor proof of a possible build-up at Corinth.4

  When General Sherman reported to General Grant that there were no Confederate troops in the area, the Union army commander began to think of the possibility of landing an expeditionary force near Eastport and striking inland to destroy the railroad tracks running into Corinth. Such a raid could wreck the Confederate transportation system without violating Henry Halleck’s orders to avoid a battle. To discover the feasibility of such a mission, General Grant dispatched his trusted unofficial chief of staff, Colonel J. D. Webster, to personally look into the matter. On Thursday morning Webster boarded the Tyler for a personal reconnaissance up to the Eastport-Chickasaw area.

  Returning to Savannah that afternoon, Colonel Webster reported to General Grant that the prospects for a sneak raid were not good. It was his contention that unless the Confederates were completely asleep, and it did not seem likely, an expedition to cut the Memphis and Charleston Railroad would have to fight its way through and back to accomplish its mission. Grant dropped the project. The Union army would not strike until Generals Halleck and Buell arrived. Presumably this would be only a matter of days. Telegraphic communications were already established between Savannah and Buell’s army, and Nelson’s division was expected in Savannah on Saturday.5

  General Grant’s only news of the enemy was from an occasional deserter. He did know they were massing at Corinth, but the natural assumption was that General Johnston was preparing to defend that place. Estimates of the Confederate strength varied from seventy-five to eighty thousand men.6 Camp rumor at Pittsburg put the Southerners’ strength at from forty-four thousand to eighty thousand men.7

  Actually both camp rumor and General Grant’s lowest estimate to General Halleck were about correct. The Confederate field army collected at Corinth and the nearby towns numbered about forty-one thousand effective troops. General Beauregard’s official returns showed the army which marched out of Corinth on Thursday and Friday numbered 40,335 officers and men. There were 9,136 men in the First Army Corps, 13,589 in the Second Corps, 6,789 men in the Third Corps, with 6,439 in the Reserve Corps.8

  Most of the Confederate army at Corinth, Mississippi, was completely green. Colonel George Maney’s First Tennessee Infantry, actually only a battalion of five companies, had perhaps the most sophisticated experience of any Confederate outfit. Organized in May 1861, the regiment participated in General Robert E. Lee’s Great Mountain campaign in Virginia in September. There had been no big battles, but the Tennesseans had drawn blood in a number of sanguinary skirmishes.9 Colonel William B. Bate’s Second Tennessee Infantry Regiment (Second Confederate Regiment, Walker’s Legion) was mustered into the Confederate army in early May 1861. The regiment had been under Union gun fire at Aquia Creek, Virginia, on June 1,1861.10 Later in the month, a large number of the personnel of the regiment participated in an expedition down the Rappahannock River, resulting in the capture of the Federal vessels Saint Nicholas, Halifax, and Mary of Virginia. At First Manassas, the Second Tennessee was under fire, although not actively engaged. Lieutenant Colonel Calvin Venable’s Fifth Tennessee Infantry had seen a small amount of action at New Madrid, Missouri, in early March 1862.11 Five of General Johnston’s regiments had been blooded at the Battle of Fishing Creek, Kentucky. These were the Fifteenth Mississippi, Sixteenth Alabama, and Nineteenth, Twentieth, and Twenty-eighth Tennessee.12 The largest group of Confederate veterans came from the Belmont action. Colonel J. Knox Walker’s Second Tennessee, along with the Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fifteenth, and One hundred and fifty-fourth Senior Tennessee had helped repulse Grant in this action. The latter unit was an old militia regiment dating back to 1854. When first organized in that year, the unit was designated Tennessee Militia 154. When Tennessee dropped the old militia system in 1859, members of the regiment took out a charter of incorporation from the state legislature which enabled them to retain their old number. Since it was the oldest Tennessee regiment in the Confederate army, Colonel Preston Smith asked for and received permission to use the word “Senior” in its official title.13 The Thirteenth Arkansas and Eleventh Louisiana were also veterans of the desperate little Missouri battle. These were the only Confederate regiments with any kind of combat experience.

  A few individual members of other regiments had taken part in raids or picket fights in Kentucky, Missouri, and Florida. Of the seventy-nine regiments and battalions in General Johnston’s Army of the Mississippi, fourteen possessed at least some kind of combat experience. Personnel-wise, about fourteen per cent of the Confederate infantry could be classified as veterans. Several Confederate artillery batteries had also been engaged at Belmont or Fishing Creek, while about one-third of the Confederate cavalry were veterans of Sacramento, Kentucky, Fort Donelson, or scattered skirmishes in the region.

  Thirty of General Grant’s regiments at Pittsburg Landing were veterans of the bloody Fort Donelson campaign: the Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Eleventh, Twelfth, Seventeenth, Eighteenth, Twentieth, Twenty-ninth, Thirty-second, Forty-first, Forty-fifth, Forty-si
xth, Forty-eighth, Fiftieth, Fifty-seventh, and Fifty-eighth Illinois; the Second, Twelfth, and Fourteenth Iowa; the Twenty-fifth, Thirty-first, and Forty-fourth Indiana; the Seventeenth and Twenty-fifth Kentucky; and the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Missouri. The Seventh Iowa had been not only in that action, but had won laurels at Belmont as well. The Third Iowa Infantry had taken part in the Battle of Blue Mills Landing, Missouri, on September 17, 1861, losing ninety-six casualties.14 The Twenty-fifth Missouri had no battle stars on its flag, but most of the officers and enlisted men had fought in the siege at Lexington, Missouri, in September 1861.15 The Seventeenth Illinois had fought not only at Donelson, but at Frederickstown, Missouri, where it suffered twenty-one killed or wounded in a fight with Confederate cavalry on October 21, 1861.16 Several other infantry regiments had participated in skirmishes or picket fights in Missouri or Kentucky, but basically only thirty-two out of sixty-two infantry regiments at Pittsburg Landing had combat experience, or about one infantryman out of every two. About one-half of General Grant’s batteries were also combat veterans, while the majority of his cavalry had been under fire at Fort Donelson or in skirmishes throughout the department. And of Grant’s eleven infantry regiments stationed at Crump’s Landing, seven were veterans of Donelson, and one, the Eleventh Indiana, had participated in numerous engagements in western Virginia as well as Fort Donelson.

  Interms of experienced troops, General U. S. Grant possessed a considerable edge over his Southern opponents. The exact size of the Union army at Pittsburg Landing has been given as a variety of figures. General Grant claimed he had thirty-three thousand effectives on the morning of April 6, 1862, but actually his command was considerably larger.17 Grant’s returns for April 5 show that he had 37, 331 present for duty at Pittsburg. This figure included only about one-half of his field batteries. It included the Sixteenth Iowa Infantry, which was still on board a steamer tied up at the Landing.18 But General Grant un wittingly omitted a number of infantry units which arrived at Pittsburg late Saturday night, April 5, 1862, or early Sunday morning. These units included the Fifteenth Michigan, Eighteenth Wisconsin, Fifteenth Iowa, and Twenty-third Missouri.19

  General Grant’s figures also excluded the newly arrived eight companies of the Eleventh Illinois Cavalry, the Fifth and Eighth Ohio Batteries, Batteries H and L, First Illinois Light Artillery, and B and F of the Second Illinois. The four infantry regiments were newly organized and in good shape physically, and they must have averaged at least eight hundred effectives per unit. The cavalry and batteries would have added at least a thou sand more to the to tal, making a grand figure of about forty-two thousand effectives,20 in addition to Lew Wallace’s command, which numbered 7, 564 effectives.21 On April 6, General Grant also had at his disposal the brand new Fourteenth Wisconsin Infantry and the Forty-third Illinois Infantry, as well as detachments from several other units at Savannah.22

  Excluding the Savannah garrison and Lew Wallace’s command, Generals U. S. Grant and A. S. Johnston were just about evenly matched. Naturally the arrival of either Don Carlos Buell’s or Earl Van Dorn’s command would have completely changed the physical ratio.

  As April opened, the Confederate army stood poised at Corinth, Mississippi. On Tuesday, April 1, General Johnston ordered the army to make preparations for an advance within twenty-four hours.23

  For some reason, the army did not move out on the following day, and preparations were not fully carried out in most units. But sometime during Wednesday, Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest brought the Confederate command the news that General Buell was rapidly approaching Grant’s base at Savannah.24

  Even while General Johnston was mulling over the news of Buell’s movement, Brigadier General B. F. Cheatham, commanding at Bethel Station, sent an urgent dispatch to General Polk saying that part of the Union army was advancing toward Bethel. About 10:00 p.m., Polk forwarded the dispatch on to General Beauregard, who believing the enemy’s force was divided, sent it on to General Johnston with the recommendation, “Now is the moment to advance, and strike the enemy at Pittsburg Landing.”25 Colonel Thomas Jordan, Adjutant General of the Army of the Mississippi, personally delivered the message, and after a few minutes discussion, General Johnston gave his authorization for the offensive.26 General Johnston immediately wired President Jefferson Davis of the decision to attack, saying, “General Buell is in motion, 30,000 strong, rapidly from Columbia…to Savannah.” General Johnston went on to say that with 40,000 men, he was going “forward to offer battle near Pittsburg.”27

  To General Beauregard, General A. S. Johnston assigned the task of preparing the orders to advance. Colonel Jordan was ordered to draw up a brief notice to the corps commanders. By 1:40 a.m. Thursday morning Generals Hardee, Polk, and Bragg were all notified.28 It was General Beauregard’s idea, and General Johnston undoubtedly supported it, to cover most of the twenty-two mile march on Thursday and assault General Grant on Friday, April 4.29

  Pittsburg Landing was about twenty-five miles from Corinth, while Generals Sherman’s and Prentiss’ divisions were encamped about twenty-two miles away. But many of General Johnston’s units were scattered around Northern Mississippi. Cheatham’s Division was at Bethel, with part of its troops scattered as far as Purdy.30 More of the army was located in Burnsville or scattered out in camps around Corinth. To get these scattered commands in motion to ward Pittsburg Landing was a much more frustrating and difficult task than General Beauregard or Johnston at first anticipated. A year later in the war the Confederate army could have made such a concentration and march in one day, but in April 1862, the Southerners simply lacked the necessary experience. The initial Friday at tack was very quickly if un officially canceled, and the target date moved up to Saturday.

  The army was to move along two narrow country roads toward Pittsburg Landing, the Ridge and Monterey roads. Both of these roads were connected together by other country roads in several places before they converged about five miles from the Landing. The Confederate army was to concentrate at Mickey’s farmhouse, which lay about five miles from Shiloh Church. Cheatham’s Division from Bethel was to join with Polk’s Corps on the line of march, while Breckinridge’s Corps would link up at Mickey’s.31

  It was a fairly simple plan of approach, but everything went wrong. General Hardee’s Corps was to proceed first along the Ridge Road, followed by General Polk; but through some mix-up, the Bishop’s troops and wagons became entangled in the streets of Corinth, blocking General Hardee’s efforts to march out of town. It was well into Thursday afternoon before the tail end of the Third Corps finally weaved its way out of Corinth. Hardee’s men bivouacked on the Ridge Road midway to Mickey’s, not reaching the farmhouse until late in the morning. The Second Corps did even worse. Most of General Bragg’s men were fairly well trained, but the North Carolina-born commander was inexperienced in conducting a large scale troop movement in the field. By noon Friday, the Second Corps was only at Monterey, Tennessee, only a little over half way to the rendezvous. The Reserve Corps only pulled out of Burnsville, Mississippi, at 3:00 a.m. Friday morning.32

  Inexperienced commanders and faulty staff work had ruined any possibility of a Friday attack. Finally, around 5:00 p.m. April 4, General Johnston met with Generals Bragg and Beauregard in a conference at Monterey. The attack was reset for Saturday morning, April 5.33 General Albert S. Johnston’s concern over the slowness of the movement was intense, but he remained rather quiet during the day. In speaking to a staff officer, he allowed his emotions to show for a moment when he said he was going “to hit Grant, and hit him hard.”34

  All of the senior officers in the Confederate army were still confident of victory, although General Beauregard did express one foreboding thought. He remarked, “In the struggle tomorrow we shall be fighting men of our own blood, Western men, who understand the use of firearms. The struggle will be a desperate one.”35

  General Johnston was accompanied by a numerous staff, many of whom lacked professional knowledge. It included Captain H.
P. Brewster, Captain Nathaniel Wickliffe, Captain Theodore O’Hara, acting inspector general; Lieutenant George Baylor, and Lieutenant Thomas Jack, aide-de-camp; Colonel William Preston, acting as a volunteer aide, as did Major D. M. Hayden; Major Albert Smith, and Captain W. L. Wickham. General Johnston was also accompanied by a number of civilian aides, including Governor Isham Harris of Tennessee, Edward W. Munford, and Calhoun Benham. General Beauregard included on his staff Colonel Thomas Jordan, Captain Clifton H. Smith, and Lieutenant John M. Otley of the adjutant general’s department. Major George W. Brent assisted General Beauregard as acting inspector general. Colonel R. B. Lee was in charge of assisting with commissary problems. General Beauregard’s aide-de-camps were Lieutenant Colonel S. W. Ferguson, Lieutenant A. R. Chisolm, Colonel Jacob Thompson (former Secretary of the Interior), Major Numa Augustin, Major H. E. Peyton, Captain Albert Ferry, and Captain B. B. Waddell. Thomas Jordan and S. N. Ferguson, and a few others, had professional military backgrounds, but for the most part, the members of the two staffs were just beginning to learn about the business of war.