v1.1.2 / chapter 38 of 93 / 01 oct 09 / greg goebel / public domain
* The end of 1862 was not a quiet time for the Union Army in the West. John Hunt Morgan, Nathan Bedford Forrest, and Earl Van Dorn performed daring raids deep into the Federal rear, and Grant's push on Vicksburg came to frustration. The Union Navy also received a setback when the MONITOR was lost at sea, but many new ironclads were on the way to replace her.
* While Braxton Bragg consolidated his rebel army in Murfreesboro and William Rosecrans accumulated supplies for a Federal offensive from Nashville, the war in Tennessee was not idle, thanks to the energetic efforts of John Hunt Morgan and Nathan Bedford Forrest.
On 6 December, Morgan moved to attack the Federal garrison at Hartsville, 35 miles (56 kilometers) northeast of Nashville. The Yankees there were protecting Rosecrans' vital rail lifeline to Louisville. Morgan led six infantry regiments and one cavalry regiment across the snow and the icy Cumberland river. Morgan was hoping to catch the Union men by surprise at sunup, but the river crossing led to delays and the Federals were waiting. Morgan's men pressed the attack anyway, their charges finally crowding the Yankees up "like sheep in a pen". After an hour and a half of fighting, the Federal commander, Colonel Absolom B. Moore, surrendered his 1,800 men. Morgan's soldiers torched everything they could not carry off and marched their captives back to Murfreesboro.
Jefferson Davis was pleased by this, but his dissatisfaction with the conduct of the war in Tennessee and along the Mississippi was growing. In fact, Davis regarded the situation so critical that he performed a personal inspection, arriving in Murfreesboro on 10 December. He ordered Braxton Bragg to send a 9,000-man division to reinforce Vicksburg. When Bragg protested that he would almost certainly be defeated if he lost more men, Davis replied that he would have to stand as best he could and then withdraw over the Tennessee river. Losing central Tennessee to the Yankees would be a major setback, but losing Vicksburg would be a strategic catastrophe. The division marched off.
There was some ceremony to the visit. Before he left on 13 December, Davis awarded Morgan the rank of brigadier general as a reward for his victory at Hartsville. Morgan, in fact, was on top of the world at the moment: not only had he been made a general, but he was in love. During the summer, when the Federals were still occupying Murfreesboro, a 17-year-old citizen of the town had overheard Yankee officers speaking ill of Morgan and had jumped sharply to the defense of his good name. One of the Federals demanded her name, and she proudly replied: "It's Mattie Ready now, but by the grace of God one day I hope to call myself the wife of John Morgan!"
The story got back to the widower Morgan, and not too surprisingly he looked up the girl. He found her "pretty as she was patriotic" and proposed to her. They were married on 14 December by Bishop-General Polk, and the ceremony was an occasion for celebration among Confederate troops and the enthusiastically pro-rebel citizens of Murfreesboro. There was so much celebration, in fact, that the discipline of the Confederate Army of Tennessee unraveled a bit. According to a story that made the rounds at the time, a new recruit was given a dollar and told to go buy food and drink from the sutler. He came back with 90 cents worth of whiskey and 10 cents worth of food, and was chewed out for buying so much food.
Some of Morgan's men worried that their commander was overly distracted by the company of his new wife. "They say we are a love-sick couple," Mattie wrote shortly after the wedding. However, the next week he took them raiding again north into Kentucky, striking fear into the Yankees and in general raising hell. He and his men got back to their starting point in early January after having taken almost 2,000 prisoners, burned two major railroad trestles and four bridges, and destroyed almost two million dollars of Federal supplies, at minimal cost to the raiding party.
* While all this was happening Rosecrans remained on the defensive, despite loud complaints from Washington. In response to War Department prods, he replied that he wanted to "lull [the rebels] into security", then "press them solidly", and "endeavor to make an end to them." His superiors were tired of delays and rationalizations. On 4 December, Rosecrans received a message from Halleck:
BEGIN QUOTE:
The President is very impatient at your long stay in Nashville. The favorable season for your campaign will soon be over. You give Bragg time to supply himself by plundering the country your army should have occupied. Twice have I asked to designate someone to command your army. If you remain one more week at Nashville, I cannot prevent your removal.
END QUOTE
Rosecrans replied blandly: "I need no other stimulus to make me do my duty than the knowledge of what it is. To threats of removal or the like I must be permitted to say that I am insensible." Fighting Rosey would move when he damn well thought he was ready to move.
* In the meantime, on 10 December, Forrest received orders from Bragg instructing him to "throw his command rapidly over the Tennessee River and precipitate it upon the enemy's lines, break up railroads, burn bridges, destroy depots, capture hospitals and guards, and harass him generally."
Bragg's general idea, conceived in response to a request by General Pemberton in Vicksburg, was to cripple Grant's ability to conduct offensive movements into northern Mississippi. The orders were music to Forrest's ears, and he left immediately with 2,100 men, mostly new recruits armed with homely weapons such as flintlocks and shotguns. He took his men across the Tennessee to the town of Clifton on 14 December using two flatboats he had constructed, and then flooded the boats in a nearby creek to hide them.
The crossing was observed by the Federals, and on 15 December Grant was told of it in a telegram from the commander of the Federal garrison in Jackson, Tennessee. Grant, not normally much impressed by the Confederates, regarded Forrest as extremely dangerous and in a position to do the Union cause enormous harm. As it turned out, Grant was not exaggerating the threat.
* Spurred by the mysterious activities of his rival, General McClernand, Grant had been as aggressive as he could in the winter weather. By early December, Federal advance forces had reached the town of Oxford, Mississippi, 40 miles (64 kilometers) south of the Tennessee border.
Grant was not actually moving on Vicksburg, however. The land offensive was intended to provide backup and diversion for an amphibious assault down the Mississippi. David Porter's fleet was to transport some 30,000 men under the command of General Sherman and land at a place called Chicksaw Bluffs, up the Yazoo river north of Vicksburg. The bluffs were steep and would be a difficult prospect if they were adequately defended, but Grant hoped he would keep the Confederates distracted, allowing Sherman and his men to make their landing and then fall on Vicksburg.
Porter sent a small fleet of three ironclads and two lightly-armored "tinclads" down the Mississippi in early December to clear out Confederate fortifications and obstructions that might impede the stream of transports carrying Sherman's men. The rebel defense of the waters was in charge of Isaac Brown, skipper of the now-lost ARKANSAS. As resourceful in defense as he had been in offense, he improvised torpedoes out of big whiskey jugs filled with gunpowder and fuzed with an artillery primers, anchored an arm's length below the surface of the muddy water.
Confederate torpedoes were not noted for their reliability, but despite the improvised nature of Brown's torpedoes, they proved effective. On 12 December, while the little Union fleet moved up the Yazoo, firing on rebel positions on the banks and fishing the deadly whiskey bottles out of the river, the ironclad CAIRO hit one and sank in eight minutes, leaving only the tops of her twin smokestacks sticking out of the water. Lieutenant Commander T.O. Selfridge, the ship's captain, got his men out efficiently, and there were no casualties. The four remaining ships ended their work and went back downstream to the mouth of the Yazoo, where Porter, just having arrived from Memphis, was waiting for them. Selfridge, apprehensive about his commanding officer's reaction to loss of one of his ships, requested a court of inquiry. Porter merely replied: "Court! I have no time to order courts! I can't blame an officer who puts his ship close to the enemy. Is there any other vessel you would like to have?"
For whatever Porter's other faults, he was absolutely no bureaucrat and was determined to get things done. Selfridge, likely astonished by this reaction, wasn't quick enough to reply before Porter turned to the captain standing on the bridge: "Breese, make out Selfridge's orders to the CONESTOGA." Despite the loss, the Federals accomplished their objective: the river had been cleared for the attack on Vicksburg.
* The rebels were determined to hold the city. Davis had, as noted, sent substantial reinforcements from Murfreesboro to assist in its defense. Davis himself arrived at Vicksburg in the company of Joe Johnston on 19 December. On 21 December, the two men took a train to Grenada, 60 miles (96 kilometers) south of Oxford, where Pemberton was in command of his forces in the field. There the bickering between Davis and Johnston flared up again. Pemberton wanted to fight a defensive battle, building Vicksburg into an impregnable fortress, and Davis agreed. Johnston, in contrast, favored a war of offense, taking on the Federals and defeating them in the field. Johnston and Davis left with their disagreement unresolved, and the strategy for the defense of the region remained uncertain.
Pemberton had not been thinking in entirely defensive terms, however. Even before the arrival of his two superiors, he had ordered General Van Dorn to strike into the rear of Grant's army at Holly Springs, the main supply depot supporting Federal advance into Mississippi. Van Dorn, always enthusiastic, rode off with his men in search of the glory that had so far evaded him. He left his base at Grenada, Mississippi, on 18 December, moving north with 3,500 cavalrymen.
Grant was overextended, vulnerable to attacks on his supply line, and well aware of the weakness. He sent warnings to his commanders to be prepared for surprise attacks. Unfortunately, the Union commander at Holly Springs was Colonel Robert Murphy, who had so quickly given up at Iuka three months before. Van Dorn's troopers stormed into Holly Springs on the morning of 20 December, achieving complete surprise. Most of the 1,500-man garrison surrendered without firing a shot, though an Illinois cavalry regiment boldly fought their way out. Van Dorn's men had a party with all the loot, and burned supplies worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. They missed the opportunity of capturing Julia Dent Grant, General Grant's wife, who had left Holly Springs to join her husband in Oxford the day before.
* Forrest was having equally good luck. On 18 December, his men encountered a force of Yankees under Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll, who fell back to the town of Lexington, Tennessee, and fought it out with the rebels attacking from their front. Suddenly, Forrest's troopers appeared from all sides and swept down on the Union men, capturing Colonel Ingersoll and 150 of his men, while the rest scattered west towards Jackson, Tennessee, 25 miles (40 kilometers) away.
Forrest knew the defeated men would carry wild stories of Confederate strength to Jackson with them. He quickly encircled the town, his men making dramatic demonstrations, pounding on drums, and in general acting as loud and aggressive as possible. The reason for the show was because the rebels were outnumbered four to one and Forrest knew they had no chance of taking the place by brute force. The ruse worked. Intimidated by all the commotion, the commander at Jackson, Brigadier General Jeremiah Sullivan, braced for a last-ditch defense. The noisy demonstrations increased all day during 19 December, but at dawn on the 20th, the sun came up to show no rebels in the vicinity. Sullivan realized he had been tricked and set off east after Forrest.
Or so he thought; in reality, Sullivan had been conned again. Forrest had left a false trail and was actually moving north. He never believed in fighting battles except on his own terms, his real objective was to cut Federal communications, and his men did the job enthusiastically. They destroyed the Mobile & Ohio rail line between Jackson and Union City, near the Kentucky border, by tearing up track, wrecking culverts, burning ties and bridges, snatching up Union outposts, and in general doing enough damage to leave the rail line out of operation for years. Taking a break on Christmas day, Forrest reported back to Bragg that he had killed or captured 1,300 Federals at a cost of only 22 men, indicated his satisfaction with his troopers, and promised that "as soon as rested a little you will hear from me in another quarter."
* Under attack by Van Dorn and Forrest's fast-moving raiders, Grant's plans were coming unraveled. With Holly Springs in ashes he had no supplies to continue his offensive, and with the rail lifeline north to Kentucky unstrung, he couldn't get any more supplies either. He would have to fall back to Memphis.
Grant typically thought more about what harm he could do to the enemy than about what harm they could do to him, and if Van Dorn and Forrest were in his rear, that meant he was in theirs as well: he could catch both of them and put them out of business for good. Orders went out to Federal units in north Mississippi and west Tennessee, putting them in motion to search out and bag the rebels, with Grant making his intentions clear: "I want those fellows caught, if possible."
There were other tasks to take care of. He ordered Colonel Robert Murphy dismissed from the service for his "cowardly and disgraceful conduct at Holly Springs." Much more important was getting word to General Sherman that the amphibious assault on Vicksburg could hope for no support from Grant's forces and should be called off. With telegraph and rail lines cut, all Grant could do was dispatch a courier to Memphis and hope the rider got there in time.
* Sherman had in fact departed downstream with three divisions from Memphis on 19 December. On the 21st, while loading up another division at Helena, Arkansas, he received reports that rebel cavalry had captured Holly Springs, but since he lacked details or confirmation, he continued on course with his plan.
If the breakdown in communications was an inconvenience to Sherman, it was a bigger one to General McClernand. Still up in Springfield, Illinois, he had been nagging Washington for three weeks to be granted the authority to take to field with the forces he had raised. After a personal message to the President, he was informed that orders were on the way, designating him as commander of Grant's XIII Corps. McClernand was distressed, taken somewhat by surprise at finding himself still under Grant's command. He was still more angry and distressed when the orders that Grant were to send him didn't show up. Grant had actually been punctual in cutting the orders and sending them out, but Forrest had been even more efficient in cutting Grant's telegraph lines, and the orders went nowhere.
In any case, Sherman's expedition proceeded downstream. There were over fifty transports in the Union fleet, escorted by three river ironclads, two wooden gunboats, and a pair of rams. They would join the four gunboats already at the scene. On Christmas day, 25 December 1862, Sherman put a brigade on shore about ten miles (16 kilometers) north of the mouth of the Yazoo at a place called Milliken's Bend to wreck a section of railroad. The next day, the fleet proceeded ten miles (16 kilometers) up the Yazoo itself, soldiers alert on the decks for sharpshooters, to make a landing at a place called Johnson's Farm, north of Vicksburg, another ten miles away.
* The soldiers came ashore to find the swampy country dark, confusing, and intimidating. They would have found it even more sinister if they knew that the Confederates had plenty of advance warning of their arrival, and were busy building up their defenses.
Before the war, a planter had installed his own private telegraph line along
the west bank of the Mississippi, running over 40 miles (64 kilometers) along
Vicksburg on the opposite shore. The rebels had an observation post at the
northern terminal, and at about midnight on Christmas eve, a soldier named
Philip Hall, who was manning the Vicksburg end of the line, got a telegram:
GREAT GOD, PHIL, EIGHTY-ONE GUNBOATS AND
TRANSPORTS HAVE PASSED HERE TONIGHT.
Hall managed with considerable difficulty to get to Vicksburg across the
river, where he found the commander of the city's defenses, Major General
Martin Luther Smith, at a Christmas Eve ball in the home of a local
physician. On receiving the news, Smith paled and shouted out: "The party
is at an end!" At the time Smith had only about 6,000 men, but with advance
warning by the time the Federals had landed he had managed to get 6,000 more
men from Jackson, Mississippi. 13,000 more were on the way.
On 27 December, Confederate resistance began to materialize. Rebel sharpshooters began to pick off Union soldiers, including Brigadier General M.L. Smith, one of Sherman's division commanders, who took a bullet in the hip, putting him out of the fight. When Commander William Gwin took his ironclad BENTON to blast rebels out of their hiding places in the woods, the ship ended up trapped in a narrow stretch of water where it could not evade the fire of an enemy battery on the bluffs above them. The BENTON was hit at least thirty times, with three of the shots going through gunports to tear up the crew badly. Gwin, who refused to take cover, was mortally wounded by a solid shot that tore away his right arm and much of his chest.
The casualties added to the disorientation of the soldiers on the ground. Johnson's Farm was nothing more than a clearing in the middle of swampy woods, surrounded by three bayous. Getting tens of thousands of soldiers organized for an attack on the bluffs to the south where the rebel defenders lurked was an exercise in confusion. A bridge was built across the wrong bayou and companies got separated from their regiments. If Sherman had been expecting to surprise the rebels, he had failed. The men spent all of 27 and 28 December in disorganization and delay, and tentative probes on the 28th towards the bluffs to the south of the bayou flatlands drew heavy Confederate artillery fire. The rebels, under the command of Brigadier General Stephen D. Lee, were wide awake and ready for trouble.
* It wasn't until Monday, 29 December, that the attack got underway, or more accurately tried to get underway. Sherman had wanted all four divisions to make a simultaneous attack on the bluffs, but between the confused terrain, their own disorganization, and rebel fire only a single brigade managed to get across Chicksaw Bayou and make contact with the enemy.
The brigade was under Frank Blair JR, no longer officially a Missouri Congressman, now instead a brigadier general under Sherman. The Union men advanced boldly and quickly only to find themselves in a savage crossfire that cut down hundreds. One regiment made it all the way to the edge of the bluffs, but the Federals could advance no further under the rain of fire from the rebels above them. Some of the defenders simply loaded their rifles and held them out vertically to fire directly down on the mass of Union men below. Such Federal soldiers as survived this punishment only found shelter by digging themselves directly into the bluff.
They remained pinned down until nightfall, and then managed to trickle back "one at a time", as Sherman put it. He concluded, realistically: "Our loss had been pretty heavy, and we accomplished nothing, and had inflicted little loss on the enemy." The Federals had lost almost 1,800 men, the Confederates a little more than 200.
* Sherman was not going to give up easily. He had commented before ordering the disastrous charge on the bluff: "We will lose 5,000 men before we take Vicksburg, and we may as well lose them here as anywhere else." He decided to load one of his divisions on transports and take them up the Yazoo to perform a diversionary attack at a place called Haines' Bluff. The civilian captains of the steamship transports were by this time wishing they hadn't signed on for the job, and Sherman had to place armed guards on them to motivate them to stay at their posts.
Porter, always energetic, was supportive, even going so far as to suggest that one of the Ellett rams be sent ahead to clear out any Confederate torpedoes that might be in their way: "I propose to send her ahead and explode them. If we lose her, it does not matter much." 19-year-old Colonel Charles R. Ellett, son of the late creator of the ram fleet and now its commander in his place, was less casual about the idea of losing one of the rams; he proposed rigging the ram with a long boom fitted with improvised minesweeping tackle, and Porter agreed. The minesweeper and the transports set out in the moonlight on the night of 31 December. The sound of their attack was to signal another assault on the bluffs by the three divisions remaining downstream.
It never happened. At about 04:00 AM on New Year's Day, Sherman got a note from the expedition explaining they were completely fogbound and could go no further. Sherman then assessed his situation. There was no trace of Grant; Sherman could hear the sounds of trains arriving at Vicksburg, almost certainly bringing in Confederate reinforcements; and the rain was beginning to come down heavily.
This last condition was particularly discouraging, since Sherman had noticed high-water marks on trees "ten feet above our heads". It was time to quit. He loaded his men up on the transports and went back down the Yazoo. Porter invited Sherman on board his flagship. Sherman came there, wet and depressed, stating: "I've lost 1,700 men, and those infernal reporters will publish all over the country their ridiculous stories of Sherman being whipped."
Porter was unimpressed: "Tcha! That's nothing; simply an episode of the war. You'll lose 17,000 before the war is over and think nothing of it. We'll have Vicksburg yet, before we die. Steward! Bring some punch!" This good-natured, callous, and completely sensible remark helped calm the exciteable Sherman down enough for Porter to give him more bad news: McClernand was on a ship anchored at the mouth of the Yazoo and waiting to see him.
McClernand was there to finally assert command. He also relayed the news of Grant's withdrawal, and Sherman concluded that it was probably a good thing that their expedition up the Yazoo had failed, thinking that "we might have found ourselves in a worse trap, when General Pemberton was at full liberty to turn his whole force against us." On 3 January 1863, the fleet steamed back up the Mississippi to Milliken's Bend, where Sherman formally handed over command to McClernand the next day. Sherman wrote his wife: "Well, we have been to Vicksburg, and it was too much for us and we have backed out."
Confederate papers began to speak of Vicksburg as the "Gibraltar of the
West". Pemberton confidently wired Richmond:
VICKSBURG IS DAILY GROWING STRONGER. WE INTEND TO HOLD IT.
* While Sherman was floundering on the Yazoo, Grant was having frustrations of his own. There had been one bright spot on 21 December, when Van Dorn and his men, riding north from the ruin he had left at Holly Springs, moved on a small Union outpost just south of the Tennessee border at a place named Davis Mill. There were fewer than 300 Yankees there, under the command of a Colonel W.H. Morgan, assigned to protect a vital railroad trestle over the Wolf River. While Van Dorn outnumbered the Federals over ten to one, Colonel Morgan was no pushover. He had his men fortify an old sawmill with railroad ties and bales of cotton, and built a nearby Indian mound into a moated earthwork. Both strongpoints were well sited and gave clear and supporting fields of fire on the railroad approaches.
Around noon that day, Van Dorn's men attacked the small band of Federals but were quickly driven off. After two hours of exchanging pot-shots with the Union men, with the fire too intense to allow the rebels to even get close to the trestle, much less torch it, Van Dorn sent a courier under a flag of truce over to the Yankee defenses to demand their surrender. Morgan, unimpressed by Confederate efforts to that time, gave them a polite no. Their bluff called, the rebels withdrew, leaving behind about 70 casualties. Colonel Morgan lost three men.
Van Dorn was not greatly discouraged by this small defeat. His men had done plenty of damage to the rail line, and failing to destroy the trestle was not a major omission. The raiders moved north across the Tennessee line, continuing their destruction of the rail system and any other resources useful to the Federals, then ran back south of the border on 23 December. On the 25th they made contact with a Federal column but escaped largely unharmed, and on the 28th they were back in Grenada. The raid had been a pleasant and profitable adventure, and Van Dorn's reputation among the Mississippians soared.
* To the north, Bedford Forrest was having an adventure of his own. After resting in Union City on Christmas Day, he paroled his prisoners, most of whom reported back to their own command with interesting "intelligence" they'd overheard from their guards. Of course, the conversations had been theatrics orchestrated by Forrest to give the Yankees the idea that Braxton Bragg's army was close in the tracks of the raiders. Forrest and his men then departed southeast, tearing up more track and causing trouble.
By 28 December, Forrest's work was more or less complete. Now the problem was to get away from the Union forces that were assembling around him. Characteristically, Forrest devised his escape plan in terms of attack. He decided to move into the center of the converging Federal columns, hit them as opportunity presented, and then escape leaving the enemy in chaos and confusion. While ice-cold rain pelted the men in their saddles, they turned south instead of east.
Forrest's fearsome reputation, which he did everything to encourage, helped him a great deal. The Federal commander in Columbus, Kentucky, Brigadier General Thomas A. Davies, had been so alarmed by the presence of Forrest in Union City, only 10 miles (16 kilometers) away, and the wild stories provided by paroled Union soldiers of an invading rebel army, that he ordered the $13 million in supplies in Columbus loaded on steamboats so it could be removed. He also had his garrisons in New Madrid and Island Number Ten spike their guns and throw their powder in the river. Similarly, 250 miles (400 kilometers) downstream from Columbus in Memphis, rumors that Forrest and his men were coming to liberate the city from the Federals put the pro-Confederate citizenry in such a state of excitement that the Union commander of the garrison there, Major General Stephen A. Hurlbut, was forced to site artillery at strategic locations in the city to maintain control.
Grant feared Forrest but was not buffaloed by him. Grant was closely
monitoring and encouraging the movement of three Federal columns, one from
Corinth, one from Fort Henry, and one consisting of Jeremiah Sullivan and two
of his brigades, who had managed to pick up Forrest's trail. Sullivan wired
Grant on 29 December:
I HAVE FORREST IN A TIGHT PLACE. MY TROOPS ARE MOVING ON
HIM FROM THREE DIRECTIONS AND I HOPE WITH SUCCESS.
On 30 December, Forrest and his troopers paused and hid to discreetly watch
Sullivan's lead brigade march by. The next day, 31 December, Forrest
encountered Sullivan's other brigade blocking his way and, after sending four
companies back to provide warning if the lead Federal brigade doubled back,
began hammering away at the Federals with artillery about mid-morning. By
about 1:00 PM, the rebels had captured three guns and 18 wagonloads of
ammunition. White flags were showing along the Federal line; Forrest sent a
messenger across to demand that the Union men surrender. Unfortunately,
Sullivan's lead brigade then attacked him from the rear. As it turned out,
the four companies Forrest had sent back for protection against such a
possibility had gone up the wrong road.
It was unlike Forrest to be surprised, but it was totally unlike him to be panicked, and he sent his men forward and back in sharp attacks, stalling the Federals and allowing the raiders to escape. Legend has it that when one of his officers cried out to him in a dither: "What shall we do?! What shall we do?!" -- Forrest shouted back: "Break in half and charge both ways!" Whatever the actual facts, the "Battle of Parker's Crossroads", as it was later memorialized, ended with Forrest's men giving the Yankees the slip -- though the raiders had to leave all the loot they had seized that morning, along with three guns of their own. 300 rebels were also taken prisoner; they had been fighting on foot and their mounts had been scattered when the shooting began.
Sullivan was elated, reporting to Grant that "a good cavalry regiment" could easily go out and sweep up the disorganized rebels. Unfortunately, the Federals didn't have one on hand that was equal to Forrest's men, and the rebels got back to Clifton the next day, raised the sunken flatboats, and escaped across the Tennessee into safe territory.
Forrest had gone behind Federal lines less than three weeks before, leading men with poor weapons and little experience. When they returned, they had the best equipment the US Army could provide and had done the Federals $3 million in damage, inflicted casualties (including parolees) equal to their own number, kept ten times that many Yankees running in circles, captured or destroyed ten guns, and seized 10,000 rifles and a million rounds of ammunition. All this was incidental to their primary mission, which was thoroughly destroying Grant's rail communications from the town of Jackson up to the Kentucky border. They were now an elite. They would acquire a name along with their reputation: Forrest's Old Brigade.
* By this time, Grant's forces in Mississippi, their supplies destroyed and supply lines cut, were already backtracking to where they had come from. The Mississippians crowed at the retreating Yankees, until Grant decided to solve the problem of providing food for his men by simply taking it away from the locals. He sent out "all the wagons we had, under proper escort, to collect and bring in all supplies of forage and food" from the surrounding countryside. The good citizens of the state of Mississippi did not find this so amusing. In response to their protests, Grant responded with unarguable logic that "it could not be expected that men, with arms in their hands, would starve in the midst of plenty."
"Plenty" is what it was. Grant had expected to obtain only the barest subsistence by this tactic, but the wagons returned full of good things to eat. His soldiers had plenty of experience in quietly obtaining food that happened to be nearby, and with the blessing of the high command they didn't even need to be quiet about it. Besides his aggressiveness, Grant had another great virtue as a leader. He learned from his experience, in this case finding out that "we could have subsisted off the country for two months instead of two weeks." He pocketed the lesson for future use.
* The USS MONITOR, after the attempt to bombard Richmond back in May, had spent most of the rest of the year peacefully patrolling the lower James, though it had steamed to Washington for repairs in October. Many visitors, including the President, dropped by to visit and were shown the dents in the turret caused by the late and unlamented CSS VIRGINIA.
In late December, however, Union intelligence indicated the Confederates were building an ironclad to help smash the Federal fleet around the blockade-runner port of Wilmington, North Carolina. The MONITOR was ordered south to meet the threat. On 29 December, the MONITOR went to sea, under tow by the paddle-wheel steamer RHODE ISLAND. The first day of the voyage was pleasant, with calm seas, but on the next day, 30 December, the weather grew rougher and by evening had become a violent storm.
Water poured into the MONITOR's turret and down her blower tubes. The commander of the vessel, Captain Bankhead, signaled the RHODE ISLAND to stop so the ironclad could ride out the storm. The seas continued to rise, however, and though the crew started a pump to get rid of the water, it kept rising inside until it threatened the engine room. Bankhead ordered a red lantern raised to alert the RHODE ISLAND of the emergency; cut the tow rope, and dropped anchor in hopes of bringing the ironclad bow-first into the weather. The waves were by this time 30 feet (9 meters) high, and the crew of the RHODE ISLAND wondered if the ironclad had gone under the waves for good. The captain of the RHODE ISLAND launched two lifeboats to help, but as they were launched the tow rope became snarled in one of the paddle wheels, immobilizing the steamer.
The RHODE ISLAND drifted towards the MONITOR, smashing into one of the lifeboats between the two ships as they passed each other and damaging it. The other lifeboat, under the command of Master's Mate Rodney Brown of the RHODE ISLAND, managed to make it to the ironclad. The ship's deck was now under water. A few of the ship's crew managed to make it to the lifeboat, though others were swept away by the storm. The RHODE ISLAND was by now a half mile away. The lifeboat left to unload survivors, while Bankhead organized a bucket brigade to try to empty out the MONITOR. It was a hopeless effort, but it kept his men from panicking and might buy a few precious seconds of time.
Brown came back for a second load of men. The second trip was a greater nightmare than the first, with the ironclad's crewmen simply disappearing into the waves and the wind. Brown went back for a third load. Rising on a wave, he saw the red lantern in front of him. On the next wave, it had disappeared. The MONITOR had gone to the bottom 10 miles (16 kilometers) off Cape Hatteras. Sixteen men were lost in the tragedy, and many more would have been lost had it not been for the reckless courage of Master's Mate Brown and his sailors. Unfortunately, by the time the ship had gone down the RHODE ISLAND had drifted off into the dark, leaving Brown and his men stranded on the sea. They were rescued by a schooner the next day.
The loss of the MONITOR was not good news for the North, but it was not a serious blow. The Union was building new and, for the most part, better ironclads in an aggressive naval construction program that the South could not begin to match.
