v1.1.2 / chapter 25 of 93 / 01 oct 09 / greg goebel / public domain
* In the aftermath of the Federal defeat in front of Richmond, the Union military found itself in a state of transition. John Pope tried to get his Army of Virginia into fighting shape, though the clumsiness and arrogance with which he did so won him few friends. Henry Halleck, now in charge of the Union Army, was confronted with the problem of what to do with McClellan's Army of the Potomac, stranded on the James.
Halleck's departure from the West at least put Ulysses Grant back in command of Federal forces in the region, though his divisions were scattered widely and at the end of tenuous supply lines. In the meantime, the rebels, following up the efforts that seemed to be shifting the war in their favor, bloodied and humiliated David Farragut on the Mississippi north of Vicksburg with a home-grown ironclad named the ARKANSAS, helping persuade Farragut to return his fleet downriver to New Orleans.
President Lincoln's resolve to fight the war was not weakened by these setbacks. In fact, he decided that further pursuit of the war required an emancipation proclamation. Secretary of State Seward agreed, but suggested that it would have more effect if it followed a military victory. The President decided to be patient. In the meantime, he signed legislation to expand the Federal government's powers of taxation and encourage settlement of the Far West.
* While McClellan's Army of the Potomac was settling down to a muddy and sullen idleness at Harrison's Landing, John Pope was trying to weld his Army of Virginia into an effective striking force. It was not an easy job and Pope was not doing it well. The separate commands he had inherited were burdened with traditions of defeat and a lack of confidence in their leaders -- Banks, Fremont, and McDowell. At least the imperious Fremont wasn't around to trouble Pope; Fremont had taken offense reporting to a general who was technically his inferior in rank and had submitted his resignation. It was accepted, and Fremont finally disappeared from the military scene. He was replaced by Franz Sigel, who was transferred from Curtis's army west of the Mississippi. It was hoped that the many German-Americans in Fremont's old command would find Sigel more to their liking.
That was really a minor matter. Pope's major concern was the morale of his troops. In an attempt to deal with that problem, Pope began his command of the Army of Virginia by issuing a ringing address titled "To the Officers and Soldiers of the Army of Virginia", and which ran in part:
BEGIN QUOTE:
Let us understand each other. I have come to you from the West, where we have always seen the backs of our enemies, from an army whose business it has been to seek the adversary and to beat him when he was found; whose policy has been attack and not defense ... I presume that I have been called here to pursue the same system and to lead you against the enemy. It is my purpose to do so, and that speedily.
END QUOTE
This went on in more of the same vein, blasting the defensive mentality "so much in vogue among you." Whatever Pope's intentions, the speech was a complete disaster. One of his brigadiers called it "windy and insolent", and the men began to call their new leader the "Five-Cent Pope". Pope would later claim the speech was written by Secretary Stanton, which is plausible, though Pope was never known for his truthfulness. However, in a sense the fact that Pope made such a claim was a demonstration of ignorance. Making such a misjudgement on his own was bad; blindly trusting the judgement of Secretary Stanton in such matters was worse, since Stanton's means of dealing with those around him were only too often limited to shrill bullying or transparent double-dealing, not exactly the stuff of inspiring leadership.
Pope wasn't making any friends elsewhere in the US Army, either. His loud criticisms of McClellan had offended many in the Army of the Potomac. Fitz-John Porter openly called Pope an "ass", and expected Pope's leadership would produce a disaster. In short, Pope was getting off to a bad start. When he issued messages signed "Headquarters in the Saddle", jokes began to circulate that suggested Pope had a certain confusion between his headquarters and his hindquarters. That Pope had not noticed the obvious double meaning in the signature suggested that things were not likely to get better in the future.
* The Confederates had an even lower opinion of Pope. His address and the jokes made the rounds on the other side of the battle lines as well, but the rebels had more serious reasons to dislike him. He had been brought East to fight a harder war, and had been issuing a stream of orders to demonstrate his ferocity. Citizens in occupied territory were to be held accountable for the actions of guerrilla fighters. If guerrillas were captured, not only were they to be executed, but all who assisted them were to be executed as well. If Federal soldiers were fired on from a house, that house would be burned and its inhabitants arrested. Citizens in occupied territories were to take a loyalty oath to the US government, and if they violated that oath, they were to be shot. Those who refused to take the oath were to be sent over Confederate lines, and treated as spies if they returned. Finally, the US Army was free to confiscate any supplies it required when operating in secessionist territory.
It was characteristic of Pope to make such statements, and also characteristic of him that they were overblown. In reality, most Union soldiers were not particularly eager to line up civilians and shoot them, and the harshest measures outlined in Pope's orders were not in general obeyed. However, soldiers in occupied territories are usually not highly inclined to respect the property rights of their unwilling and usually sullen hosts. Federals soldiers were no exception and had been light-fingered in the past, but with what amounted to official approval, the thievery and looting ramped up with a vengeance.
Pope's rhetoric infuriated Southerners. Jefferson Davis told the Confederate Congress that Pope's statements were a clear indication of the ruthlessness of their enemy, and said that the Confederacy could resist only by "employing against our foe every energy and every resource at our disposal." General Lee contemptuously called Pope a "miscreant", as if he was simply a noisy, obnoxious drunk who needed to be thrown in jail.
* Pope did move quickly. On 12 July, he ordered Nathaniel Banks and his corps to Culpeper Court House, a rail stop to the west of Fredericksburg. This move threatened the important rail junction at Gordonsville, 27 miles (43 kilometers) to the south. Banks then ordered his cavalry under Brigadier General John P. Hatch to destroy railroad tracks in the area.
Lee learned of the move the day it took place. The next morning, 13 July, he considered the risks of pulling troops out of the defense of Richmond, judged McClellan not likely to do anything for the moment, and ordered Stonewall Jackson to Gordonsville with two divisions, his own and Dick Ewell's. A frantic search for railway cars followed. On 16 July, Jackson's 18,000 men piled on to 18 trains, and by the 19th they were in place around Gordonsville.
The Federal cavalry had moved very slowly; Hatch had taken a few days to organize and obtain supplies, and by the time he was ready to move he found himself blocked by a "Stonewall", with a large number of Confederate troops looking forward to a fight. The raid was called off and Hatch was sacked, to be replaced by a tough, competent Indian fighter, Brigadier General John Buford. Hatch's muddled performance and continued idleness of McClellan gave Lee further encouragement. While Jackson's force was too small to take on the Federals on its own, on 27 July Lee ordered A.P. Hill to take his "Light Division", so called because of its mobility, and join Jackson. Knowing Jackson's tendency to leave his colleagues in the dark and Hill's notorious bad temper, Lee wrote Jackson to tactfully encourage him to be cooperative with Hill.
Unsurprisingly, Lee's suggestion made little impression on Jackson, who had a zealot's absolute inability to be considerate of others even when it was in his own best interests to be so. The same message memorably ordered: "I want Pope to be suppressed." Jackson almost certainly saw this in big bold letters, and events built up steam towards a violent collision.
* While the Federal fleet sat on the Mississippi north of Vicksburg, the Confederacy considered what to do about it. Although the Federals had no hope of taking Vicksburg, they still sat on the river, challenging the rebels by their presence.
One man took up their challenge: 45-year-old Lieutenant Isaac Newton Brown of the Confederate States Navy. He had been ordered in late May to take command of the unfinished ironclad ARKANSAS, sitting docked at Greenwood up the Yazoo River, where she had been towed before the fall of Memphis. He was to complete construction of the vessel and then take her to war. What he found was a "mere hull", with engines in pieces, and guns without carriages. A scow carrying a load of railroad iron to be used for armor was lying sunk nearby.
Brown had good reason to be discouraged, but he lit into the job with a whirlwind of energy. He raised the scow to get the iron, had the ARKANSAS towed downstream to Yazoo City where there were better facilities, and commandeered every resource he could get his hands on to get the ship ready for battle. He powered machinery with the hoisting engine of a handy steamship, and brought in rural blacksmiths to work the iron while 200 carpenters worked on the vessel itself. The carriages for the ten guns were a problem, since nothing like them had ever been built in Mississippi, but they were provided on contract from "two gentlemen of Jackson" who ran a wagon factory.
The ARKANSAS was as ready as she could be by 12 July. Brown spent two days organizing a crew, including men from the wooden rams that had been lost at Memphis and volunteers from the infantry, and on 14 July they went down the Yazoo to pay a social call to the US Navy. The ironclad made good progress that day, getting close enough to the Federal fleet to hear the Yankees engaged in gunnery practice, but then it was discovered that steam had got into the powder in the forward magazine. Brown tied up at a sawmill, had his men spread the powder on tarps in the sun, and by constant shaking and turning they managed to get it dry by the time the sun went down. They packed what they could into the aft magazine and continued on their way. Brown had reports of 37 enemy warships in front of Vicksburg. He wanted to hit them at dawn.
The night's journey did not go smoothly. The vessel's two engines had a tendency to seize, one at a time, and throw the ship into the bank. This happened before dawn, and the crew had to work hard to get her afloat again. While they were working at this, one of the lieutenants went ashore to get information from a nearby plantation. All he found there, however, was an old slave woman who wouldn't tell him anyone had even been there. He was annoyed: "They have but just left. The beds are yet warm."
"Don't know about that. And if I did, I wouldn't tell you."
"Do you take me for a Yankee? Don't you see I wear a gray coat?"
"Certainly you's a Yankee. Our folks ain't got none of them gunboats."
It took an hour to refloat the ironclad. The sun was up by the time she entered Old River, a ten mile (16 kilometer) long spur of the Mississippi. Lookouts spotted three ships ahead: the Union ironclad CARONDOLET, ironically commanded by Henry Walke, a friend and messmate of Brown's from the old Navy, and the wooden vessels TYLER and QUEEN OF THE WEST, which had been sent upriver to investigate reports that the Confederates were building a warship on the Yazoo. They were about to receive convincing confirmation.
Brown ordered the men to battle stations. He stood exposed, directly over the bow guns, as the ARKANSAS steamed forward while the gunners, stripped to the waist, stood at their pieces. The Federals were startled by the sudden appearance of the Confederate monster. The QUEEN OF THE WEST, which was one of the fast unarmed Ellett rams, prudently turned and ran, while the CARONDOLET and the TYLER stayed on course, intending to fire their bow guns and then turn downstream and fight with their stern guns. Their captains hoped the sound of cannon fire would alert the fleet downstream.
The two Yankee gunboats fired at the rebel ironclad, missed, and turned around to escape, but the ARKANSAS was too fast. She closed on the CARONDOLET and began to fire shells into the gunboat's exposed stern, damaging the ship severely. The CARONDOLET's return fire glanced off the ARKANSAS' prow, doing no damage except to a seaman who stuck his head out of a gunport to see what was going on and had it immediately blown off. A lieutenant ordered one of the sailors to throw the body overboard to keep it from demoralizing the other men, but the fellow replied: "Oh, I can't do it, sir! It's my brother!"
Brown, who was still exposed above the ship's bow, was wounded himself a moment later. He felt a blow to his head and thought himself killed, until he took a handful of clotted blood from the wound and saw no bits of brain mixed in. Reassured, he remained at his post to direct the fight, but the TYLER had intervened to protect the CARONDOLET, and Federal riflemen peppered the ARKANSAS. Brown was wounded again in the head, this time with a bullet. He was take below decks to lie with the dead and wounded. When he came to, he got up and went back topside again.
As the three ships approached the Mississippi, Brown closed on the CARONDOLET to ram her and finish her off, but the Federal ironclad ran into the bank, taking itself out of the fight. Brown directed his fury towards the TYLER, which was steaming as fast as she could down the Mississippi. The sailors on board the Union fleet downriver had indeed heard the firing, but they simply thought their comrades were shelling snipers. As the wooden gunboat approached with the ARKANSAS behind her, one officer said: "There comes the TYLER with a prize."
Every vessel of the fleet had its steam down and no guns were loaded. Suddenly the ARKANSAS was among them, a "forest of masts and smokestacks", as Brown put it. He noticed the Ellett rams were anchored behind the bigger ships and told his pilot: "Brady, shave that line of men-of-war as close as you can, so that the rams will not have room to gather headway and strike us." The ARKANSAS began to hammer the Yankee ships, with the gunners, as Brown put it, "firing rapidly to every point of the circumference, without the fear of hitting a friend or missing an enemy". Despite the surprise, the Federal sailors reacted swiftly, and Brown later said: "I had the most lively realization of having steamed into a real volcano."
Shot smashed through her armor twice, laying out gun crews, and her smokestack was riddled, reducing her boiler pressure. The engine room became a sweltering oven and the black gang had to be relieved every 15 minutes. Brown said: "The shock of the missiles striking our sides was literally continuous." Despite this punishment, the ARKANSAS continued the fight, moving downstream through the anchored warships. When a ram tried to block the ship's exit, Brown ordered it rammed in turn, and the ARKANSAS then slammed a shell into the wooden ship's boiler, causing a satisfactory explosion of steam. The rebel ironclad cruised out of the battle unpursued.
When the ARKANSAS approached Vicksburg, a crowd assembled on a bluff to greet her with cheers and tossing of hats, but when the ironclad came closer they fell silent. The vessel looked like a floating slaughterhouse. She had taken a severe beating in her passage through the Yankee ships, and 30 of her men were dead or wounded. The Federals had taken about 60 casualties; one vessel was disabled and almost all of them had been hit, many by their own crossfire.
Farragut had been sleeping late that morning, and when the shooting started he had gone above decks to watch the battle in his nightshirt and in very bad humor. When it was over, he went back down below decks, muttering angrily: "Damnable neglect, or worse, somewhere!" When he came back up in uniform, he was even madder. He had made up his mind to immediately run the fleet past Vicksburg in broad daylight and blast the upstart ARKANSAS to fragments, but his staff managed to beg him for a little delay: at least they should have time to wash the blood off their decks.
Farragut still ordered his ships to make the run at sunset. Not only was he still angry, he was worried that the Confederate ironclad might go downstream and destroy the BROOKLYN, the two gunboats, and the mortar schooners that had not made the run upriver. He ordered all the guns to be loaded with solid shot and even had the heaviest anchor he could find hung from a yardarm so that it could be dropped on the ARKANSAS to punch through her decks. Davis's ships were to remain behind and give covering fire.
The ships went by single-file, but in the twilight the ARKANSAS was almost invisible except for the flash of her guns. The Confederates, sensibly predicting that the Federals would retaliate, had moved the ironclad after sundown. The firing was confused and neither side scored many hits, except for the HARTFORD, which slammed an 11 inch (28 centimeter) shot through the rebel vessel's armor. Farragut made the passage south with about two dozen casualties, less than he suffered going north. He was still determined to destroy the ARKANSAS. In the morning he sent a message to ask Davis to join in a combined daylight attack, but Davis refused. Farragut kept at him, and on 21 July Davis agreed to send the ironclad ESSEX, with Commander Porter in charge, downstream with the ram QUEEN OF THE WEST. The gunboat could pin down the ARKANSAS while the ram sent her to the bottom.
It didn't work. Lieutenant Brown swung his ship out in the river to present her prow to her attackers. The ram struck only a glancing blow, while the ARKANSAS and the ESSEX hammered at each other at point-blank range. Porter said later: "We could distinctly hear the groans of her wounded." Then the Vicksburg shore batteries got into the fight and the two Yankee vessels had to quit and go back upstream. The ESSEX had been hit 42 times and the QUEEN OF THE WEST had been riddled, but neither ship suffered serious casualties or damage. The ARKANSAS lost about a dozen men.
By this time Farragut felt he'd had enough. Fuel was a problem, the sick list was long and getting longer in the Mississippi heat, and the river was falling so much that he worried about being stranded. A letter from Secretary Welles, written before the ARKANSAS had made its appearance, arrived to instruct Farragut to "go down the river at discretion." Farragut judged it discreet to do so immediately, dropping off General Thomas Williams and his men at Baton Rouge along with the ESSEX and two wooden gunboats, and then proceeded to New Orleans to refit his ships for blockade duty along the Gulf Coast. Davis left the same day, to take his ironclads to join General Curtis, who had finally arrived in Helena, Arkansas.
Gideon Welles was infuriated when he heard the story. Welles wrote Farragut: "It is an absolute necessity that the neglect or apparent neglect of the squadron should be wiped out by the destruction of the ARKANSAS." Welles later wrote that the whole fiasco was "the most disreputable naval affair of the war". However, if somebody was going to do any "wiping out", it wouldn't be Farragut. He was back downriver and had no intention of going back up any time soon. It was all very well and good for cabinet secretaries back in Washington to sulk and demand the moon, but Farragut was always eager for a fight, and if he thought the situation was impossible it almost certainly was. Farragut had no doubt of it; he stayed put.
The Confederates were as elated as Welles was frustrated. A home-built ironclad had taken on a huge Federal fleet, bloodied it, and seemingly had single-handedly lifted the river siege of Vicksburg, though Farragut would have likely left in any case. A bold stroke against a superior enemy seemed to make all the difference, and with other bold strokes elsewhere the future for the Confederacy was beginning to appear much brighter than it had been only a month or two earlier.
* The reversals of fortune in a war that had seemed almost won had, as noted, pushed Lincoln not towards defeatism but to the conclusion that more severe measures were necessary. That meant, above all, emancipation.
The US Congress was already taking action, debating a "Second Confiscation Act" to follow the original Confiscation Act of August 1861, which the President would sign it into law on 17 July. The new Confiscation Act was much less hesitant than the first, authorizing the seizure of all assets of rebel officials and officers, not just their slaves. Rebels would be disenfranchised; slaves that fell into Federal authority whose masters were in rebellion against the United States would be automatically freed; and that the President should make provisions for the voluntary relocation of them in "some tropical country beyond the limits of the United States."
To cap it all, the act specified that "the President of the United States is authorized to employ as many persons of African descent as he may deem necessary and proper for the suppression of this rebellion, and for this purpose he may organize and use them in such manner as he may judge best for the public welfare." In other words, it authorized a measure that was one of the worst nightmares of Southerners: the arming of their slaves to fight the Confederacy.
Despite the strong language, there was less to this than met the eye. Enforcement was not defined, and even President Lincoln felt that Congress was exceeding its authority in freeing a slave. He agreed to the law under the clarification that the slaves in question were war captives and legally Federal property. Nothing was said about the slaves in the border states, and the legality of slavery remained formally intact. The law was still a major political blow to the teetering structure of slavery. Property rights that were revocable on the basis of the owner's political sympathies were weak, and using freed slaves to suppress the rebellion was implicitly setting slavery against itself. No one in power who gave their legal assent to such a law could believe that there could be any return to the status quo before the war.
Lincoln certainly did not. On 12 July, he had talked to border state congressmen at the White House to promote his views on compensated emancipation:
BEGIN QUOTE:
If the war continue long, as it must, if the object be not sooner attained, the institution in your states will be extinguished by mere friction and abrasion -- by the mere incidents of war. It will be gone, and you will have nothing valuable in lieu of it.
END QUOTE
He tried to reassure them that no drastic measures were intended: "I do not speak of emancipation at once, but of a decision at once to emancipate gradually." It was as futile as before. Of the 28 border state men, only eight went along, while the others raised objection after objection. In doing so, they failed to realize, so much like McClellan in a different circumstance, that instead of stopping the game they were simply dealing themselves out of it. The logic of war almost forced the Union to take action against slavery, and the attempts by proslavery congressmen to simply brush off the issue gave the cards to their antislavery colleagues, many of whom thought Lincoln's talk of gradual and compensated emancipation weak and contemptible.
On 13 July, Lincoln attended a funeral. The Stantons had lost a newborn, and the President went to the ceremony in a carriage with Secretaries Welles and Seward. The President clearly had something on his mind, and spoke earnestly on the propriety of emancipation as a "military necessity absolutely essential for the salvation of the Union, that we must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued." The two men were somewhat startled by this unexpected change in thinking and gave cautious answers, but clearly something had hold of Lincoln's mind and wasn't about to let go.
On 22 July, the President assembled his cabinet and read to them an emancipation proclamation, to be implemented immediately. Welles and Seward had expected something of this sort, and it was now the turn of the other cabinet secretaries to be shocked. They sorted out their opinions. Chase and Stanton wanted something stronger, Bates liked it as it was, Welles wanted something weaker, and Blair and Smith didn't want it at all, at least not before the elections in the fall. Finally Seward spoke, approving of the proclamation but questioning that the time was right for it. He reasoned that in the face of the defeats the Union cause had so recently suffered, "it will be considered our last shriek on the retreat." Seward recommended that it be postponed until the North had won a battlefield victory. Lincoln had not thought of this, and considered it. He then agreed, and put the proclamation aside. It would be retrieved when a military victory opened the door for it.
* It took Major General Henry Halleck about two weeks to tie up loose ends in his far-flung Western department, and he did not arrive in Washington until 23 July 1862. Once there, he immediately left for Harrison's Landing to confer with George McClellan. McClellan had not been informed of the change in command when the decision had been made, and only learned about it in a newspaper article on 20 July. He was offended and with very good reason. He wrote his wife: "In all these things, the President and those around him have acted so as to make the matter as offensive as possible. He has not shown the slightest gentlemanly or friendly feeling, and I cannot regard him in any respect as my friend."
McClellan was discouraged and restless. He had recently entertained in his camp Fernando Wood, just elected mayor of New York City and a conniving Southern sympathizer. The two men had talked politics. Wood suggested that McClellan consider the Presidency, and in response McClellan wrote a letter outlining his political views. However, McClellan had the sense to run the letter past one of his generals, William F. "Baldy" Smith. Smith took one look at it and replied in shock that "it looks like treason" and it would lead to disaster if it were ever published. Certainly handing such a document to a shifty fellow like Wood amounted to political suicide. McClellan destroyed the letter, but his enemies in Washington were perfectly aware that Wood had paid him a visit and could imagine its significance.
In any case, when Halleck arrived he and McClellan managed to keep from going at each other's throats. McClellan had a low opinion of his new superior, as did most people who had to deal with Halleck. McClellan later remarked: "I do not think he ever had a correct military idea from beginning to end."
McClellan still managed to keep from stepping on Halleck's toes. Indeed, McClellan was full of grand offensive plans for another drive on Richmond, but since Robert E. Lee so monstrously outnumbered him, with 200,000 troops according to Pinkerton, massive reinforcements were needed. Halleck responded that no more than 20,000 men were available, and if that were not enough to do the job the Army of the Potomac would have to be withdrawn from the Peninsula. If they couldn't do anything, what was the point of keeping them there? Somewhat startled by this obvious logic -- Halleck clearly did have at least a few correct military ideas in his head -- McClellan excused himself to confer with his corps commanders, and in the morning said he felt he could give it a try with that number of men.
Halleck returned to Washington, only to find a telegram waiting for him. The message had apparently been sent immediately after his departure, and related how enemy reinforcements were "pouring into Richmond". Another 20,000 men would be required. Halleck was flabbergasted and went to the President, who hardly blinked. He told Halleck that if the Army of the Potomac was given 100,000 men, McClellan would be delighted and promise to be in Richmond the next day. The next day would come, McClellan would report that the enemy had 400,000 men and ask for 100,000 more reinforcements.
Halleck considered this, and came to another logical conclusion that McClellan hadn't thought of. If the grand reports of rebel strength that McClellan was continuously citing were true, then leaving Pope's and McClellan's armies separate was inviting destruction in detail. Better to combine them immediately. On 29 July, Halleck ordered every steamer in Baltimore to proceed to the James, and on 30 July he ordered McClellan to evacuate his sick and wounded "in order to enable you to move in any direction." McClellan was very suspicious, and with good cause. Halleck had already made up his mind to withdraw the Army of the Potomac from the James.
* After a month's sullen idleness, McClellan's army was going into motion again. In what direction was very uncertain, all the more so because of the impression the man in charge, Henry Halleck, made on those around him.
There was nothing very impressive in Halleck's appearance. He was flabby, slouchy, rumpled, goggle-eyed, almost always grumpy, and lacking in energy. He had an unnerving tendency to address people while staring at some point in space over their shoulder, and a mannerism of slowly rubbing his elbows while he was lost in thought, a habit that exasperated Navy Secretary Gideon Welles. Welles had occasions to work with Halleck, but always went away wondering what had been accomplished. Welles wrote that Halleck had "a scholarly intellect and, I suppose, some military acquirements, but his mind is heavy and irresolute." Andrew Foote, who knew Halleck only too well from the river campaigns out West, told Welles bluntly that Halleck was a "military imbecile" who might just make a "good clerk". Into the hands of this man had been entrusted the direction of the entire US Army.
* There was one person who had some reason to be pleased for the change: Ulysses S. Grant. Halleck had been sniping at him again in early July, and then on the 11th ordered him to report to Corinth from Memphis. It took Grant three days to get there, and then somewhat to his relief he found that instead of being raked over the coals on some pretext he had been, as the senior general in the region, more or less restored to his original command. Specifically, he was in command of his own army, with elements under Sherman at Memphis and McClernand at Jackson, Tennessee; Pope's divisions, now under Rosecrans, arrayed around Iuka, Mississippi; and a number of other units scattered around the department.
It was not an entirely satisfactory situation. The problem wasn't a lack of manpower. Even after detaching a division to help Samuel Curtis in Helena, Arkansas, Grant had 75,000 men left. The problem was that those men were, for the moment, very vulnerable. The summer had been hot and dry, and the Tennessee River had dried up to the point where it could not be used for supply. There were few rail lines. Most of lines had been torn up, and those that were not were only too easily cut by guerrillas and Confederate cavalry raiders. Earl Van Dorn's mobile force at Holly Springs represented a distinct threat. While Van Dorn had managed to assemble only about 35,000 men, less than half of Grant's, he was not at the end of a long supply line and could strike at will at any of Grant's separated forces.
Furthermore, Grant was perfectly aware that he had obtained his command by default. There had simply been no one else available to take the job. The position had even been offered to poor old Ethan Allen Hitchcock, but he had sensibly refused. Grant later wrote: "I became a department commander because no one was assigned to that position over me." Authority granted on such a tenuous basis could easily be withdrawn.
Grant was again biding his time, remaining uncomfortably on the defensive. He sensibly made sure that he was in touch with his field commanders and that his men were dug in so that the rebels wouldn't surprise him as they had at Shiloh. Despite Grant's preparations for trouble, he still described the time later as "the most anxious period of the war."
* If the Union War effort seemed to be going nowhere fast in the summer of 1862, on July 1 1862 President Lincoln took a major step towards ensuring steady financial support for the war by signing the "Revenue Act of 1862" into law. It followed up another tax act passed in 1861 that had laid the groundwork for the 1862 law, though the earlier act hadn't brought in much revenue.
In sum, the Federal government taxed liquor, tobacco, playing cards, expensive luxury items, and a list of other items; set license fees for a wide range of professions, though the clergy was exempted; and created corporate and personal income taxes. The whole thing had a modern taste to it. Businesses with a net value of less than $600 were exempt from corporate taxes. The income tax was on a progressive scale in which the first $600 of income was exempt; 3% was levied on additional revenue up to $10,000; and 5% was taken for everything over $10,000. There was an inheritance tax, with the first $1,000 being exempt.
A Bureau of Internal Revenue was set up to administer the tax, and overall the scheme proved a great success, at least from the Federal government's point of view, providing a major portion of the funding for the war effort without being a oppressive burden to the North. Most of the taxes would go away after the war, with the national income tax eliminated in 1872 and the Supreme Court then ruling income tax unconstitutional, at least under some circumstances, in 1895. It would take the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, passed in 1913, to clarify the government's ability to reimpose national income taxes.
Modern libertarians regard the Revenue Act of 1862 as evidence of the overbearing nature of the Lincoln Administration and the acceleration of central government control over American society; but on the other side of the coin, the act demonstrated a certain managerial competence. Although the South remained a fury on the battlefield, the Confederate government was absolutely no match for the Lincoln Administration in taking care of the nuts and bolts of running a government. There was only so much Southern fighting spirit and skill could do to compensate for the organizational, financial, and material weakness of the Confederacy.
* As if to rub in Union capability, on 1 July, the same day President Lincoln put his signature on the Revenue Act of 1862, he also signed the "Pacific Railroad Act" into law. Quarreling between Northern and Southern legislators in Congress over the route of a transcontinental railroad had prevented the Federal government from moving forward on the issue, but with Southerners absent from Congress the obstacles had disappeared. The Pacific Railroad Act specified government land grants and funding to support the construction of a railroad from Omaha, Nebraska, to San Francisco, California. Construction would begin in the next year, with the "golden spike" driven to complete the rail line in 1869.
The next day, 2 July 1862, Mr. Lincoln followed signed the "Morrill Bill" into law, which granted every state a block of public land for each of the state's senators and congressmen, with the land to be used to site facilities for "agricultural and mechanical" education. It was the basis for the "agricultural and mechanical" or "aggie" colleges now common in the United States. The Morrill Bill complemented the "Homestead Act" passed some weeks earlier, on 20 May 1862, which gave away 160 acres (64 hectares) of public land in the Western territories to any citizen who occupied and improved the land for five years. The Homestead Act would prove a massive boost to westward expansion.
In fact, the Union was booming, with industry running at full steam and farm output not only supporting the citizenry, but stocking the tables of Europe as well. There had been crop failures across the Atlantic and food was in short supply; that meant that considerations in Britain and France of helping the South for the sake of Southern cotton were strongly balanced by the fear of antagonizing the North and putting shipments of grain and meat at risk. While the Confederacy strained under the weight of the war, the Union charged forward like a powerful locomotive -- everywhere, it seems, except on the battlefield.
