v1.1.2 / chapter 18 of 93 / 01 oct 09 / greg goebel / public domain
* As McClellan's army closed in on Richmond in the spring of 1862, it seemed like the war was reaching its final phases, but then Federal plans began to unravel as Confederate General Stonewall Jackson conducted a brilliant campaign in the Shenandoah Valley that did much to throw Union leadership into confusion. In the West, Union General Henry Halleck finally managed to seize Corinth, Mississippi, after a glacially slow advance, but Beauregard's army escaped easily, remaining an obstacle to the Union drive down the Mississippi river. The war was not going to be over as quickly as almost everyone had thought.
* While General McClellan and the Army of the Potomac were moving up the James River peninsula, events were in motion far to the northwest that would greatly affect McClellan's plans. After marching as ordered over the Blue Ridge Mountains into the Shenandoah Valley to assist Stonewall Jackson, Dick Ewell and his men made camp near Stonewall Jackson's army at Conrad's Store. The next morning, 1 May 1862, Ewell and his men woke up to find that Jackson and his infantry had moved out into the mist and rain. Most of Jackson's cavalry had remained behind with Ewell.
Over the next few days, Jackson led his force east out of the valley over miserable muddy roads. On 4 May, they arrived at a train stop on the east side of the Blue Ridge mountains, where the men expected they would loaded on trains and sent to Richmond to help fight McClellan. The troops did get on trains, but the trains took them back to the Shenandoah Valley. They arrived that day at the town of Staunton, near the extreme southern end of the valley, with their commander actually wearing a new regulation uniform. The whole muddy march had been simply a deception to confuse the Federals.
Jackson and his men were greeted ecstatically by the townspeople, who were threatened with occupation by Fremont's forces, in the form of General Robert Milroy and his troops. Jackson hoped that by combining with General Edward Johnson's force and moving swiftly he would be able to surprise and overwhelm Milroy, but Milroy's scouts were alert, and the Union force fell back to the town of McDowell, where Milroy was reinforced by 1,500 men under Brigadier General Robert Schenk.
Milroy was still outnumbered, with 5,000 men to Jackson's 8,000. Instead of waiting to be crushed, on 8 May he hit Jackson first. Milroy inflicted about 500 casualties on the rebels while suffering about half that number himself, but he failed to intimidate Jackson and his men. Knowing that Jackson would defeat him in the next round, Milroy withdrew with his command to the north, setting fire to the forests behind him so that the Confederates would have to advance through choking clouds of sparks and smoke.
Jackson attempted to pursue Milroy anyway, but quickly gave up the chase.
The mountain roads were bad, and Jackson's only immediate objective had been
to drive off Fremont's forces. That had been done, and Jackson telegraphed
Richmond on the 9th:
GOD BLESSED OUR ARMS WITH VICTORY AT MCDOWELL YESTERDAY.
This seemingly good news was not greeted with much enthusiasm. At the time,
Richmond was distracted by more immediate concerns, mainly but not limited to
the prospect of being captured by the Union, and when the details of the
battle became known the lopsided casualties helped increase doubts about
Jackson's connection to reality. Jackson was not a person given to doubting
his own judgement and believed he had a perfectly realistic grasp of the
facts. He had correctly assessed Fremont as a timid and inept general and
had effectively taken him off the playing board. Now Jackson could deal
undisturbed with his real target, Union General Nathaniel Banks and his men.
The key to Jackson's operation was geography. The Shenandoah Valley sat between the Blue Ridge mountains on the east and the Alleghenies on the west. In its center was Massanutton Mountain, running about 80 miles (128 kilometers) from Staunton in the south up the length of the Valley to Winchester, the main Federal supply base just south of Harper's Ferry. Massanutton Mountain was flanked on both sides by a number of small towns:
A road that was passable in wet weather ran across Massanutton Mountain between New Market and Luray. Jackson could advance north or south along either side of the mountain and then shuttle east or west across this road to strike or escape an enemy force. As a bonus, the Shenandoah River, which flowed northwards up the valley to the Potomac, split in two at the south end of Massanutton Mountain, with a North Fork running alongside the western side of the mountain and a South Fork running alongside the eastern side, rejoining again near Port Republic. If Jackson wanted to flee, he could simply cut a few bridges to block pursuit. The trick to this game was speed, and on 13 May Jackson passed out strict orders on march discipline that would push his men to the limit.
* While Jackson was driving out Milroy to the southwest, Dick Ewell waited impatiently with his men and Jackson's cavalry at Conrad's Store. Jackson sent Ewell messages almost every day, but told him no more than to keep Banks immobilized and stay at Conrad's Store. It didn't take many days of this sort of treatment before the exciteable Ewell finally snapped. He said to James Walker, one of his regimental commanders: "Colonel, did it ever occur to you that General Jackson is crazy?!"
Walker had been one of Jackson's students at VMI and had clashed with him at the time. However, even though Jackson had been known as "Tom Fool" at VMI, Walker cautiously reassured Ewell that he did "not suppose that he is really crazy." Ewell was not encouraged. "I tell you, sir, he is as crazy as a March hare! He has gone away, I don't know where, and left me here with instructions to stay until he returns! I tell you, sir, he is crazy, and I will just march my division away from here! I do not mean to have it cut to pieces at the behest of a crazy man!"
On 11 May, Ewell got a message from Jackson saying that "with the help of divine Providence", he had captured much of Milroy's wagon train. Ewell cried out in exasperation: "What has Providence to do with Milroy's wagon train?!" Two days later he wrote his niece: "I have spent two weeks of the most unhappy I can remember. I have a bad headache, what with the bother and folly of things. As an Irishman would say, 'I'm kilt entirely.'"
Finally things began to come together for Ewell. On 17 May, he learned that Union General Shields' division had crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains to join McDowell at Fredericksburg. Ewell had been given orders by Johnston to block such a move, but Ewell was not certain that he should obey under the circumstances, and the next day he rode past Harrisonburg to confer with Jackson. With Shields gone, Ewell knew that he could combine his forces with Jackson's and crush Banks. To do so would be to disobey Johnston's orders, but Ewell smelled a victory and was willing to put himself and his forces under Jackson's command. Jackson covered Ewell's insubordination by accepting all responsibility and putting it in writing. Ewell, encouraged, returned to Conrad's Store to get his men ready to move out.
* Banks had no suspicion that trouble was brewing. After Shields left with his division, Banks had been forced to abandon his move south through the Valley and concentrate his forces at the northern end, particularly in the town of Strasburg. As the Union soldiers retreated, every doorway seemed to be full of "jeering men and sneering women" and all the dogs barked at them. The region was hostile and, aside from its natural grandeur, not all that pleasant to begin with. A Union chaplain described Strasburg as the "dirtiest, nastiest, meanest, poorest, most shiftless town I have yet seen in all the shiftless, poor, mean, nasty, dirty towns of this beautiful valley." Demoralization began to set in.
Banks organized his 9,000 men in a triangle that straddled the north end of Massanutton Mountain, with 1,500 at Winchester, 1,000 at Front Royal, and 6,500 at Strasburg. Their disposition was useful for dealing with the guerrilla attacks that had been annoying the Federals since they moved into the Valley, but left them fragmented, easy for any serious force to isolate and destroy by parts. This was obvious to some of the professional military men in Banks' army. One of the brigade commanders, Colonel George H. Gordon, who had attended West Point with Jackson, tried to persuade Banks to fall back to Winchester where he could conduct a consolidated defense and had an open line of retreat. Banks wouldn't hear of it.
Banks was a person of substance. He had started out as a boy working in a Massachusetts textile mill, and had through his interest in politics and hard work become a Congressman from that state, serving ten terms in the House and becoming House Speaker, as well as being elected governor of Massachusetts three times. He also became the president of the Illinois Central Railroad, achieving all these distinctions by the age of 46.
Unfortunately, even Banks had admitted before the war that he was "not acquainted with the details of military matters, and personally have no pride in them." He was ambitious, however, and had accepted military command in the hopes of obtaining politically valuable glory. He was dedicated to his duties and indeed made a fine-looking soldier, but he was unqualified for doing much more than reviewing parades, and he refused to delegate authority to the professional military men under him who could actually fight battles.
* By 20 May, Jackson and his command were camped out south of New Market, reinforced by one of Ewell's three brigades. This was a brigade of Louisianans, as it turned out, who danced polkas with each other after they had completed their march, accompanied by their regimental bands, to the astonishment of Jackson's men and the irritation of the stern Jackson. Ewell, with his remaining two brigades, was on the other side of the mountain at Luray.
The Confederates seemed ready to fight, except that morning Ewell's contradictory chain of command became a problem again. Joe Johnston specifically ordered him to move out and follow Shields; Ewell sent a courier to Jackson, saying that the order would have to be obeyed unless Jackson could get Davis to countermand it. Jackson immediately sent off a request to General Lee in Richmond to have the order dropped.
The commander of the Louisianan Brigade, Brigadier General Richard Taylor, son of Zachary Taylor and Jefferson Davis's brother-in-law, asked Jackson for instructions for the next day's march. Jackson replied simply that it would begin at dawn. When Taylor pressed Jackson for the direction in which they would march, Jackson replied with equal simplicity that he would show them the way.
The next morning Jackson, having received the news that Davis had indeed countermanded Johnston's order, marched northward with his and Ewell's men. A mile north of New Market, Jackson turned his men onto the road across Massanutton Mountain. Taylor was perfectly baffled by this, since he had just led his men over it. The trick was that Banks would be equally baffled. Jackson, having massed forces to the west of Massanutton Mountain, would not be expected to be attacking to the east of it, and Jackson had his cavalry busy in front of Strasburg to keep Banks from catching on.
Once Jackson linked up with Ewell, the Confederates would have 17,000 men to overwhelm the 1,000-man Federal garrison at Front Royal. Banks would be left dangling, with his entrenchments on the wrong side of the enemy and his line of retreat over the Blue Ridge cut off. The Federals would then only have the options of being overwhelmed by superior numbers or being destroyed as they retreated up towards Harper's Ferry. Ewell understood all this clearly and began to acquire a new appreciation of Jackson.
On 22 May, Jackson halted his men just far south enough of Front Royal to keep the Yankees from getting wind of them. The next morning he sent cavalry around the town in order to cut rail and telegraph lines. Having learned that the Federal garrison was the Union 1st Maryland regiment, Ewell sent the Confederate 1st Maryland forward to lead the attack, and contact was made about 2:00 PM. The Union commander, Colonel John R. Kenly, at first thought the attack was just a guerrilla raid, but quickly found out that he was facing something far more serious. The Federals fought hard, but it became immediately obvious that they were going to be encircled. They withdrew across a narrow bridge and set it on fire behind them. The rebels were able to put out the flames and get about 250 cavalry across, who kept the Federals busy until the rebel infantry caught up. The Union 1st Maryland then ceased to exist, with over 900 of the original men 1,000 killed or captured. Colonel Kenly was badly wounded. The Confederates lost less than 50 men.
* While Jackson was moving to cut off Banks, Banks remained convinced that Jackson still intended to attack him from the front at Strasburg. This belief was strongly reinforced by the energetic activities of Jackson's cavalry, which was doing its best to keep the Yankees confused and doing a good job of it.
After the news arrived that the Front Royal garrison had been overrun, Banks
at first believed that the attack was by a large guerrilla force and wired
Washington for reinforcements. He was told troops would be sent and to hold
his ground. The next morning, better informed, Banks believed that instead
of a guerrilla force, it had been Ewell operating on his own. Banks wired the
War Department:
JACKSON IS STILL ON OUR FRONT. WE SHALL STAND FIRM.
He finally realized that Jackson was not where he was expected to be:
Jackson was actually moving behind him along with Ewell. Banks went mentally
numb, insisting on holding his ground while Colonel Gordon urged him to pull
out before it was too late. Banks wouldn't hear of it: "By God, sir! I
will not retreat!" Gordon suddenly realized that Banks was afraid of the
public humiliation he would suffer if forced to retreat, and told the
general: "This, sir, is not a military reason to occupy a false position."
Gordon went back to his camp and immediately got his men packing. Not long
afterward, the order was issued for everyone to pull out.
* In the meantime, Jackson was considering what to do next. He was in Front Royal, Banks was in Strasburg, and Jackson wondered if he should he attack the Yankees directly or try to cut them off at Winchester. The next morning he put his men in motion towards Winchester.
The march did not start out well. The rebels slogged through spring storms that poured down snow, rain, and hail, bogging down their advance in mud. In the meantime Banks, his shock having turned to fear, was making excellent time down paved roads. The rebels collided with the rear of the Federal column twice, but these clashes yielded loot in the form of whiskey, food, horses, and other valuables, distracting the pursuing Confederates from their main task of destroying the Yankees. Jackson pushed his men as hard as he could. As night fell, he rode with the advance cavalry, only to be confronted by flashes of gunfire from the Federal rear guard. "Charge them! Charge them!" Jackson shouted. A second volley scattered the cavalrymen, leaving Jackson by himself in the middle of the road.
He was furious, crying out at them: "Shameful! Did you see anybody struck, sir? Did you see anybody struck? Surely they need not have run, at least until they were hurt." The cavalrymen came back, red-faced, and went forward to push back the Yankees.
Banks managed to make it through Kernstown, with Jackson close behind him. Jackson pushed his soldiers as hard as he could, but the men were exhausted. Jackson was forced to relent and gave them a few hours' sleep. He got them up at 4:00 in the morning -- 24 May 1862 -- to continue the pursuit, and caught up with Banks just south of Winchester.
Banks was so confident he could stop Jackson there that he had taken a hot bath and got a good night's sleep. Once more, his confidence was misplaced. There were two ridges below Winchester, and Banks made the mistake of trying to hold the second one, leaving only a thin line of troops on the first. Jackson drove off the troops, set up guns on the ridge to engage the Federals, and organized his infantry for an assault.
Jackson went first to Richard Taylor and his Louisianans. They had been ordered to remain silent lest they give away their position, but as Jackson passed they pulled off their hats in respect for the man who many had once thought crazy but now realized, crazy or not, could win battles. Jackson removed his beaten-up cap in reply, rode up to Taylor, and asked: "General, can your brigade charge a battery?"
"It can try."
"Very good. It must do so then. Move it forward."
Taylor's rank was commonly attributed, with plenty of good reason, to his family connections. He had a gentleman's education from Yale as fitted his social stature, but no formal military qualifications whatsoever, and in fact he would be described by one of his soldiers as usually a "quiet, unassuming little fellow." These characteristics were completely misleading. Unlike Banks, Taylor was a natural-born fighter, combat command fitted him like a glove, and when the going got rough he was anything but quiet.
Taylor moved his men up to the firing. When his soldiers came under bombardment, they began to weave, causing Taylor to scream at them: "What the HELL are you dodging for?! If there is any more of it, you will be halted under this fire for an hour!" Taylor suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Jackson. "I am afraid you are a wicked fellow," he said simply, and then rode off; even Jackson, not particularly noted for his concern over the well-being of his men, found Taylor too harsh.
The Louisianans advanced towards the Yankee positions on the left, with the Stonewall Brigade in the center, and Ewell's remaining brigade on the right. The rebels advanced in a picturebook line as the Federals fired on them, not firing a shot, until about halfway across the field Taylor shouted out in a loud and stirring voice the order to charge. The Confederates surged forward. 16,000 rebels fell on 7,000 Federals; the Union positions crumbled and the Yankees ran, fleeing through Winchester with excited rebels behind them.
Jackson cried out: "Order forward the whole line! The battle's won!" He waved his hat excitedly over his head. "Very good! Now let's holler!" The men screamed the rebel yell. When a staff officer tried to get Jackson out of the line of fire, the general replied: "Go back and tell the whole army to press forward to the Potomac!"
The Potomac was 36 miles (58 kilometers) away, and Jackson did not have his cavalry in place. He tried to organize a pursuit, but everyone was dead tired, and if the loot they had found pursuing Banks' column had been distracting, what the Federals left behind in Winchester was irresistible. One awestruck rebel described it in detail: "Brand new officers' uniforms, sashes, swords, boots, coats of mail, india rubber blankets, coats and boots, oranges, lemons, figs, dates, oysters, brandies, wines and liquors, the choicest hams and dried meats and sausages, all the contents of a large city clothing establishment and miscellaneous grocery and confectionary." From that time on, Nathaniel Banks was known to the rebels as "Commissary" Banks.
Jackson had suffered about 400 casualties, while inflicting over 3,000 on the Yankees, most taken prisoner. Along with the rich haul supplies, Jackson had seized two rifled guns and 9,300 small arms. He and his men received a heroes' welcome in Winchester. Jackson wrote his wife: "I do not remember having ever seen such rejoicing."
Meanwhile, up the road, the rout of Banks' men was complete, even without pursuit. Banks tried to rally his soldiers: "Stop, men! Don't you love your country?!" One of his men answered: "Yes, by God! And I'm trying to get back to it just as fast as I can!" It took Banks's demoralized men about 14 hours to escape across the Potomac, where they collapsed with relief at having escaped total destruction. Banks said: "There were never more grateful hearts."
* If the intent of the Valley offensive was to distract Washington's attention, it succeeded. General Shields and his men had completed their march and linked up with McDowell and his men. The combined force was on the way to reinforce McClellan when the news arrived of the disaster at Front Royal. They were ordered to countermarch immediately to strike back at Jackson.
Lincoln, having no great confidence in the ability of his generals to follow orders, sent Treasury Secretary Chase to McDowell's headquarters to see that they were executed as directed. McDowell of course obeyed the order, but replied that he was "entirely beyond helping distance of General Banks," and felt that such a move "throws us all back, and from Richmond north we shall have large masses paralyzed." McDowell was absolutely correct, but he didn't give the orders. Lincoln thanked him for his obedience and ignored his advice: "Put in all the speed you can."
Shields' men led the way, in bad temper. One of them wrote: "I trust the Recording Angel was too occupied to make a note of the language used in Shields's division when we learned, with mingled feelings of rage and mortification, that we were to return to the valley by forced marches."
President Lincoln did have good reasons to chase after Jackson. Although Jackson's force was a tangible threat to Washington and the city was in a panic, Lincoln was less concerned about the threat presented by the rebels and more concerned about being a threat to them. Jackson was deep inside Federal-dominated territory and ringed by superior Union forces. He could and should be swallowed up whole.
McDowell's force was one part of the trap. Fremont represented a second part. He was holed up in the Alleghenies, north of the town of McDowell, where his General Milroy had clashed with Jackson only a few weeks earlier. Lincoln ordered Fremont to advance to Harrisonburg, 30 miles (48 kilometers) away and 80 miles (129 kilometers) in Jackson's rear. Together, the two forces could seal off Jackson's force and destroy it, but it had to be done fast. Lincoln emphasized the point: "Put the utmost speed into it. Do not lose a minute." Fremont replied immediately that he would move out at once.
The orders given, there was nothing more for Lincoln but wait and see. He had plenty of other problems to deal with. Banks' beaten army was at rest on the north shore of the Potomac above Harper's Ferry. While Banks was keeping up a bold front, it was obvious he was no obstacle to Jackson, and panic was spreading through the North. Secretary Stanton wired state governors for militia, trains were taken over to get troops to Washington, and the recruiting offices were re-opened.
All this was not such a bad thing. If Jackson's lightning offensive had accomplished its goal of throwing the plodding but seemingly irresistible Federal war machine off balance, it also had shaken up Union complacency and given Lincoln a better appreciation of what needed to be done to win the war. Rebel forces must be destroyed -- not just Jackson's, all of them. As long as they survived, so did the Confederacy.
Unfortunately, Lincoln did not have good tools for the job. On 27 May, he got a wire from Fremont that reported the general was nowhere near where the President thought he was supposed to be. Further inquiry revealed that Fremont was moving towards Strasburg, at the northern end of the valley, not Harrisonburg. Fremont felt he had reason for discretion and was exercising it. The roads between Franklin and Harrisonburg had been blocked by Jackson's engineers; these roads were bad to begin with; and Fremont's troops were suffering from lack of supplies and equipment.
In fact, they were in frightful shape, without decent clothes, shoes, equipment, weapons, ammunition, food, and with many men on the sicklist. Lincoln was infuriated and sent a sharp message to Fremont, but all he got in response was a hurt-sounding reply. The damage had been done. Fremont might still reach Strasburg in time, but he would never get to Harrisonburg fast enough. However, Jackson appeared to be near Harper's Ferry, and if Fremont and McDowell moved fast, they could catch him.
* Jackson was actually at Charles Town, 7 miles (11 kilometers) south of Harper's Ferry. He found out about the pincer movement against him on 28 May and displayed absolutely no excitement over it. That day, he ordered his troops to resume their regulated four hours of daily military drill, and continued demonstrations against Harper's Ferry to keep the Federals off balance.
In the meantime, he was preparing to send his 2,300 prisoners south to be held for exchange with Confederate prisoners, along with a double column of wagons 8 miles (13 kilometers) long that carried 9,000 rifles, medical supplies, and other badly-needed war materials captured from Banks. On 30 May, Jackson learned that Fremont was a day's march from Strasburg, McDowell was a day's march from Front Royal, and Banks was receiving reinforcements and preparing to move back over the Potomac in force.
Jackson still seemed unconcerned, even though his officers were on the edge of panic, and took a nap. When he woke up, he told one of his staff officers, Colonel Boteler: "I want you to go to Richmond for me; I must have reinforcements. You can explain to them down there what the situation is here." Boteler agreed to go, but replied that he wasn't sure of what the situation was. Jackson elaborated:
BEGIN QUOTE:
McDowell and Fremont are probably aiming to effect a junction at Strasburg, so as to cut us off from the upper Valley, and are both nearer to it than we are. Consequently, no time is to be lost. You can say to them in Richmond that I'll send on the prisoners, secure most if not all of the captured property, and with God's blessing will be able to baffle the enemy's plans here with my present force, but that it will have to be increased as soon thereafter as possible.
You may tell them, too, that if my command can be gotten up to 40,000 men a movement may be made ... which will soon raise the siege of Richmond and transfer this campaign from the banks of the Potomac to those of the Susquehanna.
END QUOTE
Jackson was thinking about setting traps, not escaping them. He then took the train south from Charles Town to Winchester, continuing his nap as the train rattled down the tracks, only to be awakened by a Confederate courier on horseback, who flagged down the train to give Jackson a message. Jackson read the message, tore it up, and continued his nap.
What the message had told him was that Shields had surprised the rebel garrison at Front Royal. When Jackson got to Winchester, he discovered that its colonel had fled at the first sign of the enemy, leaving his men and stockpiles of equipment behind to the Yankees. Fortunately, the senior captain remaining took charge, set fire to the stockpiles, and led the regiment to safety. Jackson interview the colonel that night: "How many men did you have killed?"
"None."
"How many men wounded?"
"None."
"Do you call that much of a fight?" He had the colonel arrested. Now Shields was blocking one of Jackson's escape routes, and Fremont was moving to block the other by occupying Strasburg.
The danger was not as great as it seemed, if indeed Jackson thought there was any danger at all, since he regarded his adversaries with indifference lower than contempt. The evidence supported this judgement. Fremont was moving slowly, complaining of bad roads and terrible weather, and told Lincoln he believed Jackson's had 60,000 men. Lincoln sharply and correctly replied that they numbered no more than 20,000, and probably closer to 15,000. Shields had stopped in Front Royal to wait for reinforcements, and Banks was still so shaken he didn't even attempt to join in the pursuit. Given how rattled Banks' men were, they probably wouldn't have been combat-effective anyway.
The next morning, 31 May, the long Confederate wagon train set out on the road to Strasburg, followed by the Federal prisoners, and then the main body of troops. The Stonewall Brigade, which had been demonstrating south of Harper's Ferry to baffle the Yankees, distantly brought up the rear, with orders to try to march directly over the mountains if the roads were blocked by the enemy. By dusk, the head of the rebel column had entered Strasburg to find the road still open. The Confederates settled there for the night to prepare to move fast and fight hard the next day. By midnight, the Stonewall Brigade had cleared Winchester, dropping in their tracks after a brutal march of 35 miles (56 kilometers). The Federals moved slowly while the rebels moved quickly, and the prospect of catching them was slipping away rapidly.
* General Henry Halleck had hope to move quickly with his offensive into Mississippi against Corinth, but it was not in Halleck's nature to do anything very decisively. His anxieties soon began to get the better of him. The Confederates were in Corinth in numbers, and the numbers seemed to get bigger every time he thought about them.
On 3 May he wired Washington to optimistically say his army would be "before Corinth tomorrow." John Pope moved ahead swiftly, reaching the next day a position 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) from Corinth that he felt was easily defensible, as long as he had support. That was as far as he got. Don Carlos Buell was moving slowly and could not protect Pope's flank, and before long Pope was forced to pull back under Confederate attacks. Beauregard sent his soldiers against the Yankees with a stirring speech: "Soldiers, can the result be doubtful? Shall we not drive back into Tennessee the presumptuous mercenaries collected for our subjugation?" He sounded oddly as if he had been studying the rhetoric of McClellan.
The weather turned wet and the roads turned to muck. Halleck reported that he would invest Corinth "in a few days". Secretary of War Stanton did not fail to notice the fact that "tomorrow" had turned into "a few days". He was far too used to hearing such things.
Halleck's fear grew to the extent that his men dug in for four hours each evening, followed by six hours of sleep, to wake up at dawn to repel potential attacks. Rebel deserters came through the lines and spoke of a massive troop buildup. In mid-May, pickets were reporting the arrival of trains in Corinth, greeted by "immense cheering". Estimates of Confederate strength grew to 200,000 men. The weather began to turn dry and hot, and the soldiers in their wool uniforms began to curse Halleck as they dug in every night. Some of Halleck's generals, including Pope, Thomas, and Sherman, grew exasperated. Grant was particularly frustrated. When he proposed a swift flanking movement into Corinth to Halleck, Grant was "silenced so quickly that I felt that possibly I had suggested an unmilitary movement."
The Federals moved slowly, but they still moved. By 28 May, the three components of Halleck's army were entrenched within range of the Confederate defenses, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) from where they had started a month before, and began their attacks on Beauregard's lines.
* Halleck seemed not to have wondered why, if the Confederates were so powerful, they allowed him to move so close unmolested. Had he done so he might have questioned the stories the rebel deserters were feeding him. In reality, many of these "deserters" had been sent out personally by Beauregard, after being carefully briefed with misinformation to feed the Yankees. Just to be on the safe side, Beauregard carefully leaked "plans" for an advance through his ranks, so that real deserters proved almost as misleading. Beauregard might have had an overblown opinion of his own abilities, but he was certainly far from inept.
Beauregard was using the time generously given him by Halleck to dig in and dig in deep. Unlike the Federals, the rebels didn't have shovel new earthworks every night. Confederate losses at Shiloh had been made good by the arrival of Van Dorn and Price with their forces, and Beauregard hoped that he might be able to maintain an effective defense or even take on an exposed segment of Halleck's army.
It was a slim hope at best. Corinth was a dismal place, something like Cairo to the north where the Federals had spent such a miserable time, but worse. The town had foul drinking water, inadequate facilities for supporting the large numbers of soldiers there, and only about 50,000 men were healthy enough to conduct its defense. The attacks against Pope early in the month inflicted no great damage except on Halleck's nerves, and renewed assaults when Pope moved forward again proved no more useful.
Beauregard had to face reality. He was hopelessly outnumbered, with an army full of sick men, in a place incapable of supporting them during a siege. On 25 May, with Halleck closing slowly in, Beauregard called a council of war with his generals. Bragg, Breckinridge, Hardee, Polk, Price, and Van Dorn were in attendance. Hardee read a statement outlining the army's options, concluding that the only thing they could do was try to fall south along their rail lifeline and hope the Yankees would let them get away. The proposal was reluctantly passed.
Beauregard was undoubtedly disappointed, but he began plans for withdrawal with his usual energy. On 28 May, the Federals men began bombarding the Confederate lines and probing for weak points. It was now time to go. While heavy equipment and the sick and wounded were evacuated by rail, the able-bodied men were issued three day's rations and ordered to prepare to attack. Only the top officers and those with a need-to-know were aware they were really getting ready to pull out. Meticulous plans were laid for removing the rest of the army as quickly as possible. As the Confederate rear guard withdrew, they were to destroy all the roadsigns to help confuse Federal pursuit.
The news of a planned assault against an overwhelming Federal force led a few
faint-hearted rebels to desert. This served Beauregard's purposes as well,
since the reports provided by these deserters put Halleck on the defensive.
Meanwhile, on the next day, 29 May, Beauregard's soldiers were told the
truth. They reacted with considerable relief, as well as ingenuity of their
own, throwing together Quaker cannons and scarecrow soldiers. In fact, they
found the game of deception good fun. A band played loudly up and down the
lines. As darkness fell and soldiers began to leave, drummer boys kept
countless fires burning from stockpiles of sticks left alongside them, while
a train shuttled back and forth through town, blowing its whistle and getting
loud cheers from a detachment of the loudest men Beauregard's officers could
find. At 01:20 AM, Pope wired Halleck:
THE ENEMY IS REINFORCING HEAVILY BY TRAINS IN MY FRONT AND ON
MY LEFT. THE CARS ARE RUNNING CONSTANTLY AND THE CHEERING IS
IMMENSE EVERY TIME THEY UNLOAD IN FRONT OF ME. I HAVE NO
DOUBT FROM ALL APPEARANCES THAT I SHALL BE ATTACKED IN HEAVY
FORCE AT DAYLIGHT.
Halleck's army went on alert and braced for the shock. Nothing happened.
About 4:00 AM, everything went dead quiet. Then at daybreak, the town beyond
the Confederate entrenchments rocked with loud explosions that threw up
billowing clouds of black smoke. Pope's men probed the enemy defenses and
found them deserted, except for grinning dummies and other deceptions left
behind.
* Halleck belatedly ordered Pope to pursue the fleeing Confederates, which he did enthusiastically, but with little result. However, Beauregard had made a fool out of Halleck, and so Halleck was desperate to save face with his superiors. This led to misunderstandings of Pope's dispatches that gave Halleck the false impression that Pope was scoring major victories. Halleck reported to the War Department that 10,000 rebels and large stores of equipment had been captured, leading Secretary Stanton to reply: "The whole land will soon ring with applause at the achievement of your gallant army and its able and victorious commander."
Halleck certainly felt pleased at that, having had almost bloodlessly seized a major strategic objective. Nobody else was as much impressed, certainly not his own generals. The newspapers had a field day when the details became known, revealing the overblown claims as nonsense. Fortunately for Halleck, the papers blamed John Pope for the falsehoods, and Halleck, not very surprisingly, did nothing to correct them.
