v1.1.3 / chapter 57 of 93 / 01 sep 11 / greg goebel / public domain
* The disaster at Chickamauga Creek put the mighty Union war machine into high gear to rescue the Federals trapped in Chattanooga; Braxton Bragg and the Confederate Army of the Tennessee soon found the tables turning heavily against them. In the meantime, the rebel defenders of Charleston, South Carolina, continued to invent imaginative ways to annoy the blockading Yankee naval force. To the north, in Virginia, Robert E. Lee conducted a quick and inconclusive offensive campaign against Union General Meade, while in the transmississippi, Confederate raiders harassed superior Federal forces.
* The determination of the Confederates to fight the Yankees by any and all means possible was illustrated by the defenders of Charleston, who did their best to make up for in ingenuity what they lacked in resources. One example of such ingenuity was the DAVID, a small cigar-shaped vessel with a steam engine and a crew of four, carrying a spar torpedo. The DAVID wasn't quite a submarine: it could ride low in the water but not completely submerge, and in modern terms it was really a primitive "torpedo boat". It had been built under the overall direction of General Beauregard.
The DAVID rode so low in the water as to be a threat to its own sailors. During an early attempt to attack the Federal blockaders, the DAVID was swamped by a passing steamer and went down with three of her crew. The DAVID was recovered for another attempt, which was performed on the night of 5 October 1863.
The DAVID crept up to the Union flagship NEW IRONSIDES in the dark. When an ensign on watch challenged them, they shot him dead with a scattergun and then detonated the spar torpedo below the warship's waterline. The water thrown up by the explosion doused the DAVID's steam engine, and the four crewmen were forced to abandon ship when they came under rifle and grapeshot fire. Two of the crewmen were captured, including the captain. The other two crewmen managed to regain control of the little vessel and returned her to her moorings under her own power. The two men who were captured were sent North in chains to stand trial for using such a fiendish weapon. The Federals decided against taking any special action against them, and they were eventually sent back home on a prisoner exchange. The only effect of the torpedo blast on the NEW IRONSIDES was a few leaky seams. The ship steamed a short distance up the South Carolina coast for repairs at Port Royal, and then quickly returned to service.
Two months later, the Yankees themselves did what the Confederates had failed to do: they sank a US Navy ironclad. On 6 December, the monitor USS WEEHAWKEN, sitting low in the water with an extra load of heavy ammunition, was swamped when the changing tide swept over her. The vessel plunged to the bottom so fast that 31 men went down with her.
Blockade duty was wretchedly uncomfortable and dull, but Union sailors could do without the excitement of sneaky Confederate torpedo-boats and deadly accidents. Other DAVIDS were apparently built later and performed attacks on Union ships, and work on several more was begun but not completed. The DAVIDs never did the Union Navy any serious harm, but they manage to keep Federal lookouts edgy and nervous at night, quick to see any floating plank as a possible threat.
* Although the Union Navy was having its troubles, the Confederate Navy was having its difficulties at the time as well. At the end of October the raider CSS GEORGIA, previously the fast steamer JAPAN, put into Cherbourg harbor in France. Its cruise had proven disappointing, with the raider seizing only nine Yankee vessels -- enough to have made obtaining the ship worthwhile, but the cruise had reduced it to a dysfunctional wreck.
It wasn't just physical damage, either, with discipline among the crew breaking down as well, resulting in continuous fights among them and a spirit of mutiny. The GEORGIA would be restored to operating condition, but it would never capture another Yankee ship, instead being eventually sold off to a British firm for use as a blockade runner -- to ironically be taken as a prize itself.
* The Yankees holed up in Chattanooga, as well as the Yankee officials who were moving heaven and earth to relieve them, might have been less anxious if they had known more about the condition of the rebels in the towering ridges around the town. The besiegers were in as bad or worse shape as the Yankees in the town below, having little to eat and suffering from lack of clothing as the weather got colder. Their victory at Chickamauga Creek had bought the rebel soldiers little more than misery. Their morale plunged.
The poor morale was reflected in the quarrels of their leaders. Braxton Bragg's Army of the Tennessee had never been noted for the harmony of its leadership, but the failure of Bragg to exploit the rebel victory at Chickamauga Creek led to unprecedented antagonism and the exit of a number of senior officers from his command.
Bragg, to no surprise, touched off the quarrel himself. Two days after the battle of Chickamauga Creek, Bragg sent stiff messages to Polk, Hindman, and Hill demanding explanations of why they had failed to carry out his orders in battle. All the bitter feelings between Bragg and his chief lieutenants boiled over immediately. The three generals appealed to Longstreet on 26 September to help them in their feud with Bragg. Longstreet had the most clout and, as a detached officer who normally reported to Lee, could be seen as disinterested. He wrote Confederate War Secretary Seddon: "I am convinced that nothing but the hand of God can save us or help us as long as we have our present commander."
Longstreet's intervention did little more than antagonize Bragg. Both Polk and Hindman were relieved of command by Bragg at the end of September. As a parting shot, Polk wrote a letter to Jefferson Davis, bitterly criticizing Bragg. Bedford Forrest left as well, but instead of being fired, he quit. The root cause was the friction between Forrest and Wheeler. On 28 September, Forrest had received a terse order from Bragg ordering Forrest to turn his men over to Wheeler's command. Forrest was given no explanation. Though he did as ordered, he also wrote a flaming protest to Bragg.
The trouble was smoothed over, with Bragg explaining that Forrest's cavalry would be returned in a short time. Forrest went on leave to visit his wife, who he not seen for well over a year. However, while on leave, Forrest got wind of an order that placed Wheeler in charge of all cavalry in the Confederate Army of the Tennessee. That meant, at least as Forrest interpreted it, that Wheeler had now taken permanent possession of all of Forrest's men.
The intense but normally understated Forrest journeyed back to Bragg's headquarters in a mighty rage, stormed into Bragg's tent, and ranted: "I have stood by your meanness as long as I intend to! You have played the part of a damned scoundrel, and are a coward, and if you were any part of a man I would slap your jaws and force you to resent it! You may as well not issue any more orders to me, for I will not obey them ... and I say to you that if you ever try to interfere with me or cross my path it will be at the peril of your life!"
Bragg let him go unhindered, more in spite of Forrest's abuse than because of it. Bragg was too hard-headed to be much moved by such talk, even though Forrest was not a man to make idle threats. Forrest was a great warrior but not really a soldier at all as a military professional defined the term, and so Bragg was tolerant of Forrest's lack of discipline. The likes of Polk, Hindman, and Hill were supposed to be professionals, and Bragg held them to higher standards.
* The chaos at the head of the Confederate Army of the Tennessee caused considerable unease in Richmond. The situation was so clearly out of control that Jefferson Davis felt personally obligated to travel to Tennessee and sort things out, leaving Richmond on 6 October. There was nothing in Jefferson Davis' personality that suggested he had any competence as a peacemaker, but things had gone to the point where he couldn't make things much worse, either. He arrived on 9 October and sat everyone down in a meeting, where they traded complaints about each other and bickered.
That approach proving an obvious bust, Davis then decided to talk to the generals individually. His loyalty to Bragg was strong, but he realized that even if the antagonism towards Bragg was completely unjust, the fact remained that none of Bragg's lieutenants felt the man was fit to be their leader.
The big problem was to find a replacement. Davis had no great respect for Bragg's quarrelsome lieutenants and did not regard them as suitable commanders of an army. He sounded out Longstreet for the assignment, but Longstreet turned down the offer, suggesting Joe Johnston as an alternative. Davis regarded Johnston as defeatist and was not happy with the idea, but there were no other qualified candidates. The only other general with the stature to command the Army of the Tennessee was Beauregard, and Davis had no high opinion of him, either. There was nothing to do but retain Bragg. All Davis did in the end was confirm removal of D.H. Hill from Bragg's command. Hill was sent back east, likely to his relief.
These unpleasant matters attended to, Davis then conducted a presidential inspection of Bragg's army and conferred with Bragg on future plans. Bragg told Davis that he was confident of eventually starving the Federals out of Chattanooga. Davis found this attitude unaggressive, and Bragg quickly countered with a plan to shuttle more troops from the East and take the offensive. This scheme had actually been suggested to Bragg by a letter from Beauregard that had arrived a few days earlier. Beauregard stressed in the letter that Bragg should not drop any hint to Bragg that he, Beauregard, had anything to do with the scheme, since Davis would very likely reject it out of hand if he knew who the real author was. Davis was sympathetic to the plan but felt he could not deplete Lee of any more troops; the idea went nowhere.
Longstreet also proposed offensive operations, if on a limited scale, to make sure that the Federal supply lines to Chattanooga were solidly cut and stayed cut. The resupply of Rosecrans' trapped army was largely an engineering problem; Longstreet knew that if the Yankees were not always competent in all the skills of warfighting, they were almost superhuman when it came to feats of military engineering, and that was the sort of problem they were guaranteed to solve. Bragg weakly agreed with Longstreet's opinions on the matter.
* Davis addressed the troops of the Army of the Tennessee on 14 October, doing his best to encourage them. He left on 17 October on his special train, swinging through the South towards Mobile, Alabama, to inspect the defenses there.
With time on his hands while the train made its way from stop to stop, Davis sorted out the particulars of some of the problems that had fallen into his lap while at Bragg's headquarters. On 23 October, he wired Bragg and Johnston to arrange the assignment of General Hardee to the command Polk had vacated in the Army of the Tennessee, while Polk took Hardee's place at the recruiting and training center at Demopolis, Alabama.
On 25 October, Davis met with Bedford Forrest, and much to Forrest's satisfaction Davis sent a recommendation for promotion of Forrest to major general to the Confederate Congress; assigned Forrest to his own command in northern Mississippi; and arranged for the transfer of two battalions of Forrest's cavalry and an artillery battery from the Army of the Tennessee. That was a small command for a major general, but now Forrest had greater authority, and he not only knew how to make the best use of the resources he had, he was also ingenious at finding new resources where none seemed to be available.
Davis continued on his tour, visiting Charleston, South Carolina. His visit seemed to some a good opportunity to mend fences with General Beauregard, but Davis was neither inclined to nor skillful at fence-mending. Instead, the Confederate president stepped on Beauregard's toes, leaving the general angry and indignant. Beauregard melodramatically wrote a friend: "I fear I shall not have charity enough to forgive him." Even when the survival of the Confederacy depended on cooperation, Davis could not yield to his pride.
Davis returned to Richmond on 8 November. Other than the unfortunate friction at Charleston, it had been a very useful trip. He had seemed unusually relaxed, and spoke well and enthusiastically at his various stops. Now he was back at the seat of government, with all the pressures of the war fully focused on him once more.
* While Bragg and his generals quarreled, the Union was funneling reinforcements and supplies towards Chattanooga. By the first of October, the transfer of XI and XII Corps from the Army of the Potomac was well underway. More reinforcements were coming. On 23 September, Grant had wired Sherman to depart the Vicksburg area with two divisions for the relief of Chattanooga, and to pick up a third division that MacPherson had sent to Helena.
Sherman had been idle, a condition that the exciteable general was not really built to like, and the movement would have been welcome except for a personal tragedy, the death of his nine-year-old son Willy from typhoid as Sherman was planning the move. He told his wife: "With Willy dies in me all real ambition." Sherman went on with his duties in a state of black depression, setting his troops in motion on foot or by railroad towards Corinth. On 11 October, he took a train with his staff and a battalion of troops towards Corinth, only to be attacked at a fortified way-station at a place named Collierville by rebel cavalry under James Chalmers.
Chalmers had 3,000 men and Sherman only had a fifth that number, but Sherman managed to stall for time by discussing terms of surrender with Chalmers. Reinforcements arrived and drove the Confederates off. The Yankees had got the worst of it, with over a hundred casualties to half that for the rebels; the raiders had even taken Sherman's favorite horse and one of his uniforms. The loss was slight in the bigger picture of things, and simply having seen some action did much to snap Sherman of out his funk.
Sherman reached Eastport on the Tennessee River on 19 October. By this time, he had acquired two more divisions from Hurlbut in Memphis, for a total of five. At Eastport, the superlative Union logistics machine provided him with transports loaded with supplies and guarded by two of Porter's gunboats. The vessels gave Sherman a reliable means of transport and support, but he had also been instructed to rebuild the Memphis and Charleston railroad across northern Mississippi and Alabama. This effort would delay the arrival of Sherman and his 17,000 men at Stephenson, Alabama to early November, but Sherman threw himself into the project.
He had another agenda in the railroad project. The days when Sherman showed every due consideration for rebel property were completely over. In mid-September, Halleck had asked Sherman for his ideas on the conduct of the war, and replied in such detail that he apologized to Halleck for "so long a letter". The long letter had concluded: "I would make this war as severe as possible, and show no symptoms of tiring until the South begs for mercy ... The South has done her worst, and now is the time to pile in our blows thick and fast."
Sherman told his troops as they built the railroad line to live off the land. They did so enthusiastically. Sherman hoped that the foraging would render the land so barren that rebel raiders would have no means of sustenance passing through it. In fact, Sherman halfway entertained the idea of marching his army back and forth through the region until there was nothing left to steal or destroy.
* This was all very well -- at least from Sherman's point of view -- but the real focus of Federal worries in the West was Chattanooga. Rosecrans' morale was shaky and the position of his army in Chattanooga was about the same. From the high point of Lookout Mountain, rebel artillery could easily bombard relief columns trying to move into the town by rail, river, or road. Other rebel forces held the Tennessee River more directly. The only path that was still open was a convoluted road 30 miles (48 kilometers) long that circled north around Chattanooga, finally ending up on the Tennessee to the east of the town. The road was poor at best, in some places nothing but a trail over jagged precipices, and there was no forage for the mules. The route was muddy and dangerous, and so inhospitable that thousands of mules died trying to make the trip over it. The road was inadequate for supplying a full army. Worse, it would not be able to support evacuation of that army if it came to that.
On 2 October, Joe Wheeler and his 4,000 rebel cavalrymen, including those grudgingly loaned by Forrest, descended on a Federal wagon train on its way down the road. The Confederates destroyed 300 wagons and killed all the mules. Federal troopers moved in on him, inflicting over a thousand casualties before Wheeler took the survivors back over the Tennessee on 9 October. The raid had been costly and Wheeler didn't want to try it again any time soon, but by killing so many Yankee mules, he had done much to render the Union defense of Chattanooga even more tenuous.
Cold and hunger ground down the defenders, but the citizens of the town were worse off. They had no more food than the soldiers, and the Federals had torn down houses to built fortifications and provide firewood, leaving the people to seek refuge in a few stone buildings and in pathetic shanties. Most eventually fled the town. It took a hard-hearted soldier not to pity them. A Union officer encountered some of them on the road, "exposed to the beatings of the storms, wet and shivering with cold. I have seen much of misery consequent upon this war, but never before in so distressing a form as this."
* Although Charles Dana personally liked Rosecrans, Dana was becoming
frustrated by the general's indecisiveness. Rosecrans had been dealt a
terrible emotional blow at Chickamauga Creek and was not showing signs of
rallying. He was also engaged in a hunt for scapegoats, relieving McCook and
Crittenden of command for fleeing the field at Chickamauga Creek, ignoring
the fact that he had done the same himself. The two generals would later be
exonerated by a board of inquiry. Dana wired Secretary Stanton:
THE PRACTICAL INCAPACITY OF THE COMMANDING GENERAL IS ASTONISHING
AND IT OFTEN SEEMS DIFFICULT TO BELIEVE HIM OF SOUND MIND.
On 27 September, Dana suggested that Rosecrans be sacked, and later suggested
that Thomas would be an excellent choice for a replacement. Rosecrans' chief
of staff, Brigadier General James Garfield, was also discreetly telling
people such as reporters and Treasury Secretary Chase how Rosecrans had fled
the field at Chickamauga Creek, leaving Thomas to fend for himself, with
Garfield present to lend a hand. That was a grossly self-serving version of
the facts -- Garfield had essentially volunteered to go back to the fight so
that Rosecrans could go to Chattanooga to organize a defense -- but there
were many in Washington who were inclined to believe it. Lincoln described
Rosecrans as acting "confused and stunned, like a duck hit on the head."
When the President began to mock a general, it was a good sign that patience
was running out.
* On 16 October, the War Department ordered General Grant, still hobbling on crutches after his nasty fall in New Orleans, to proceed to Louisville, Kentucky, where he would meet "an officer of the War Department with your orders and instructions. You will take with you your staff, etc., for immediate operations in the field."
No further explanation was provided. Grant went upriver by steamboat to Cairo, Illinois, and then went by train to Louisville by way of Indianapolis. War Secretary Stanton got on board in Indianapolis, introducing himself to Grant's staff surgeon under the mistaken impression that the Army doctor was Grant. It was a typical mistake: nobody ever thought the shabby and unimpressive Grant looked much like a general.
What Stanton had to tell Grant more than made up for such a small blunder. Although Grant had been in the shadow over the past few months, one of the bright linings of the disaster at Chickamauga Creek was that the self-defeating command confusions in the Union Army were now being resolved. Grant was now being granted full authority over the Union Armies of the Tennessee, the Ohio, and the Cumberland, giving him control over the entire military machine in the West, except for Banks' domain in Louisiana. The days when different Federal generals would move when each damn well felt like it were coming to an end.
Sherman was to replace Grant in command of the Army of the Tennessee. Although the President was unhappy with Burnside for his failure to come to the aid of Rosecrans, for the time being he was left in command of the Army of the Ohio.
The immediate issue was what to do with Rosecrans. Grant's orders gave him the option of dismissing Rosecrans and replacing him with Pap Thomas. Grant had never got along well with Rosecrans, and agreed to the dismissal immediately.
On hearing reports from Charles Dana that Rosecrans meant to pull out of
Chattanooga that evening, Stanton sent out messengers to find Grant that
night, and presented the general with Dana's reports. Grant promptly sent a
telegram to Rosecrans indicating that he was relieved of command and that
Thomas should take his place, and then sent a telegram to Thomas telling him
to hold on "at all hazards". Thomas replied, characteristically and
sincerely:
WE WILL HOLD THE TOWN TILL WE STARVE.
Grant left Louisville on 20 October, arriving in Stephenson by way of
Nashville the next afternoon. There he met with Rosecrans, who was on his
way out towards his home in Ohio after leaving Chattanooga quietly so as not
to cause a stir. Rosecrans denied reports that he intended to leave and told
Grant of his plans to lift the siege. The two men had little liking for each
other, but they were both determined to work for a common cause, and the
short meeting was cordial. Rosecrans made a number of suggestions that Grant
judged "excellent", and then went back to Ohio. Rosecrans would soon be sent
to Missouri to replace John Schofield, who was proving out of his depth
there; Schofield would end up under Sherman's command.
* Grant arrived in Chattanooga on horseback on 23 October, with his crutches still strapped to his saddle. Matters seemed dismal, with soldiers catching and eating dogs and whatever else they could get their hands on, while the Confederates stared down the besieged Yankees from the heights around the city. The Federals in the town were also outnumbered, with 45,000 men to Bragg's 70,000, though that didn't take into account the reinforcements under Hooker at Bridgeport and those under Sherman then moving eastward.
Despite the difficulties, the mood at headquarters was positive. Thomas had done wonders in creating a sense of order, and plans for lifting the siege had been drafted by the chief engineer of the Army of the Cumberland, Brigadier General William F. "Baldy" Smith, even before the exit of Rosecrans. Smith had originally been an officer of the Army of the Potomac but had been shipped west because of his quarrelsomeness. However, Smith was a competent military engineer, and Grant was impressed by his plans. Grant simply added his now-considerable authority to the effort. When Grant took a hand in things, they got done.
Just west of Chattanooga, the Tennessee flows through a southerly hairpin turn, looping around to form "Moccasin Point" on one side, and brushing the northern end of Lookout Mountain on the other. It then loops north again around Raccoon Mountain. There was a road from Bridgeport, Alabama that crossed the Tennessee at a place named Kelley's Ferry; cut through a pass named Cummings Gap in Raccoon Mountain; crossed the Tennessee again at a place named Brown's Ferry; cut across the top of Moccasin Point; and then led into Chattanooga over a pontoon bridge. It offered a straightforward route into the town to keep it supplied and reinforced.
The only problem was that the rebels were in the way. Smith's plan envisioned an attack by Hooker's force under cover of darkness northward along the east slope of Raccoon Mountain, while a combat team from the Army of the Cumberland floated silently downstream in pontoon boats to overwhelm Confederate pickets at Brown's Ferry. Once the team was in place, they would use their pontoon boats to throw up a bridge, and a larger force would cross the river to help clean out the rebels in the area. The pontoon boats and elements of the bridge were already under construction.
Grant gave the formal go-ahead, ordering the plan to be put into effect immediately. In the dark hours of the morning of 27 October, 1,500 Federals floated quietly downstream in 60 pontoon floats on the Tennessee's strong current. They overwhelmed the Confederate pickets at Brown's Ferry, set up a defensive perimeter, and started setting up the pontoon bridge. The Confederate brigade holding the area tried to throw the Yankees out when the sun came up, but was driven off. The Federals only suffered 38 casualties in the operation, including six killed. The pontoon bridge was completed by midmorning and reinforcements from Chattanooga began to pour across. Hooker was also advancing from the south with two divisions, having left two other divisions along the route to ensure security. The rebel brigade prudently skedaddled back to their own lines.
Hooker and his two divisions arrived at Kelley's Ford the next day, 28 October, and Western and Eastern soldiers greeted each other enthusiastically. Unfortunately the geniality would not last, with rivalries between informal Westerners and the tightly-drilled Easterners leading over the next few weeks to jeers and the occasional scuffle.
That was just human nature and was of little importance. Grant wired
Halleck:
THE QUESTION OF SUPPLIES MAY NOW BE REGARDED AS SETTLED.
IF THE REBELS GIVE US ONE WEEK MORE TIME I THINK ALL
DANGER OF LOSING TERRITORY NOW HELD BY US WILL HAVE PASSED
AWAY, AND PREPARATIONS MAY COMMENCE FOR OFFENSIVE OPERATIONS.
* Grant was getting a little ahead of himself, but not by much. One of the
divisions that Hooker had left behind to guard his rear, under Brigadier
General John W. Geary -- as noted much earlier, the first mayor of San
Francisco and a territorial governor of Kansas -- had deployed at Wauhatchie,
down the valley between Raccoon and Lookout Mountains and roughly facing
Cummings Gap.
Longstreet had been delayed in his plans to cut the Union supply line to Chattanooga by foul weather, and the Federals had beaten him to the punch. Longstreet still had fight in him, and decided to attack Geary's division that night. Fighting broke out about midnight, with a division of about 4,000 rebels attacking about 5,000 Federals. The odds were somewhat long and Longstreet had hoped to have a second division available for the assault, but typically Bragg had countermanded the marching orders for the second division without telling Longstreet.
Hooker, alarmed by the commotion to the south, dispatched one the two divisions with him, under General Carl Schurz, to go to Geary's assistance. Hooker was prudent but overreacting. Even though there was a full moon and clear skies, night attacks without means of battlefield illumination are very troublesome and dangerous, often involving a fair amount of shooting at one's own folks. The Federals were in defensive positions and all they had to do was sit tight and shoot at anything moving about in front of them: the odds were good the target was an enemy.
The Confederates, in contrast, had difficulty even figuring out which way they were going. Their confusion was apparently aggravated when about 200 fear-crazed mules from Geary's division broke loose in the shooting and the dark and noisily stampeded towards the rebels, who thought they were being attacked by cavalry and stampeded in turn. With the arrival of Schurz with his division, the Confederates found themselves being hammered, and decided they'd had enough. By about 04:00 AM, they had all left the field of battle.
Later on, an Ohio soldier would immortalize the battle with a parody of Lord
Tennyson titled CHARGE OF THE MULE BRIGADE, which in part went as follows:
"Forward, the Mule Brigade;
Charge for the rebs!" they neighed.
Straight for the Georgia troops
Broke the two hundred.
It is another interesting comment on human nature that something as
desperate, painful, nasty, miserable, and ugly as warfare can be a source of
comedy. The story about the mules may have been somewhat exaggerated after
the fact, but it is true that the quartermaster with ultimate authority over
the mules did write Grant: "I respectfully request that the mules, for their
gallantry in this action, may have conferred on them the brevet rank of
horses."
* In fact, the whole relief operation left the Federals generally in very good humor. They had suffered about 450 casualties and inflicted about twice that many, including a good haul of prisoners. General John Geary was not celebrating, however, since one of the dead was his own son, shot while commanding a battery of artillery.
The relief effort was completed at precisely the right time, since the Yankee soldiers in Chattanooga had just completely run out of food. On 30 October, a little steamboat that had been put together by Hooker's engineers at Bridgeport, appropriately christened the CHATTANOOGA, docked at Kelley's Ford, towing two barges with 40,000 rations and forage for such horses and mules as were still alive. The new supply route was called the "Cracker Line" in honor of the supplies of hardtack that flowed over it, and could support both the Army of the Cumberland and the reinforcements now available to help them spring out of their encirclement. The cry went up: "Full rations, boys! Three cheers for the Cracker Line!"
The depression that had gripped the hungry soldiers in Chattanooga began to fade. Their situation still remained difficult. There was no way to provide all the supplies needed using the river route. The Union logistical machine went to work creating a rail network that could flood the town with everything needed.
* Although Longstreet's corps had been detached from the Army of Northern Virginia, that didn't mean that Lee had lost any of his aggressiveness. When he learned that two corps had been detached from the Army of the Potomac and sent to help relieve Chattanooga, he knew that he had better odds than he had before, or was likely to have again, and decided to attack.
On 9 October, Lee moved out, with his two corps commanded by A.P. Hill and Dick Ewell. The Confederates moved westward up the Rapidan to flank the Yankees, and reached Culpeper on 11 October. Lee's rheumatism was so bad that he had to ride a wagon instead of his horse Traveler, though the pain slackened enough to allow him to properly ride into Culpeper. Meade's headquarters had been in Culpeper, but the Federals had pulled out without a fight. Lee had once tried to trap John Pope in the vee defined by the confluence of the Rapidan and the Rappahannock, and Meade was wise to that game.
Jeb Stuart was on the move with two cavalry divisions, one under Wade Hampton and the other under Fitzhugh Lee, screening the movements of the Army of Northern Virginia and probing of the Federals. Stuart, still smarting from the humiliation of being reprimanded by Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg for his extended disappearance, was extremely careful to stay in touch with his commander and give him regular reports. Lee was appreciative, but also had to reply: "It is not necessary to send so many messages. I think these two young gentlemen make eight messengers sent me by General Stuart."
Stuart had another score to settle. On reaching Brandy Station, where he had been humiliated by Federal troopers in the spring, he found a rearguard of Yankee cavalry and drove them off the field. It wasn't much of a battle and the Union men were leaving anyway, but it gave him a little satisfaction.
The Confederacy was experiencing a similar revival of spirits. Lee was marching north in Virginia, the Federals were cowering in Chattanooga, Union General Gillmore was smashing his head against Charleston, and Banks had been driven off with his tail between his legs at Sabine Pass. Possibly Confederate valor could prevail after all.
However, Robert E. Lee always had a sense of proportion. This was illustrated in a small way at Culpeper, where a shrill matron of the town denounced several young women for having the brazenness to attend band performances put on by Union General John Sedgwick, where they flirted with Sedgwick's officers. "Is this true?!" Lee demanded of the young women. They were speechless in fear. He then turned mild: "I know General Sedgwick very well. It is just like him to be so kindly and considerate, and to have his band there to entertain them. So, young ladies, if the music is good, go and hear it as often as you can, and enjoy yourselves. You will find that General Sedgwick will have none but agreeable gentlemen about him."
The sense of proportion applied to larger matters. Simply moving north wasn't a real accomplishment. He had to inflict a decisive defeat on the Army of the Potomac and do it soon, since the odds against the Army of Northern Virginia would continue to get worse.
Lee moved quickly, hoping to cut off Meade and force a battle on him. Meade seemed to be only a few steps ahead, with rebel advance units encountering abandoned Federal camps where fires were still burning and a litter of hastily discarded kit covered the ground. The Army of the Potomac was moving in a body up along the line of the Orange & Alexandria Railroad and staying just out of Lee's reach.
* Meade, though not an aggressive commander, was not easily rattled either, generally displaying an extraordinary level of calm when people were shooting at him. Fleeing in haste from an enemy force that he knew he substantially outnumbered was not really in character. The problem was that Meade wasn't entirely sure of his authority and the capability of his army.
The President had been prodding Halleck to push Meade onto the offensive, and Halleck did so until Meade was at his wit's end. Meade had always remained above the political intrigues that had so plagued earlier commanders of the Army of the Potomac. This was no pose, since he honestly hated such games, and his political neutrality was one of the main reasons he was now in command. Still, he was now taking a canister of politics full in the face. It was no real surprise, since he had clearly foreseen what was going to happen the night he was awakened to be given his promotion, but that didn't make him like it any better.
Meade was uncertain of the support of his superiors, and worse he was uncertain of the condition of his force. The Army of the Potomac had been badly mauled at Gettysburg and Meade had little confidence in many of his corps commanders. He was in such a distracted and abusive mood that his staff tried to avoid dealing with him. However, as Meade cautiously withdrew ahead of Lee's troops, he did so in much better order than the hastily evacuated camps suggested. He was giving Lee no opportunity to catch him unaware, and in fact was hoping that Lee would stumble.
That is exactly what happened on 14 October, at Bristoe Station. A.P. Hill spotted what he thought was the rearguard of the Army of the Potomac in front of him. In his excitement, Hill ordered General Henry Heth to attack with his division, with assurances that other forces would move forward in support. Heth only managed to bring two of his four brigades up to the fight. As they moved forward, some of the men thought they saw the gleam of bayonets off to their right front. Hill told them to keep on going and that the threat would be attended to.
In reality, the threat consisted of the entire Union II Corps under General Governeur Warren. Warren's engineering experience had allowed him to use the terrain to set a murderously effective trap, and Heth's two brigades were simply slaughtered when they advanced into the crossfire. The Confederates crumbled, and the Yankees sortied out to complete the rout, taking guns and colors.
The rebels lost 1,400 killed and wounded, along with 450 prisoners, to only 300 Federal casualties. It was a staggering defeat, and Hill was soundly criticized in the ranks for his rashness. Lee himself was restrained, realizing that Hill had done him so many great services that he had to be forgiven a few mistakes, even serious mistakes that cost many men their lives. The morning after the battle, Hill escorted Lee in an inspection over the battlefield, with the dead still littering the ground. Lee's only comment was mild, but it certainly gave Hill no exoneration: "Well, well, General. Bury these poor men, and let us say no more about it."
* Lee hoped to catch up with Meade and fight him on the old Bull Run battlefield, where the Confederates had done well twice before: surely a Third Manassas would end in a rebel victory. However, Meade was of the same opinion and kept right on going north along the railroad line. He finally came to rest in between Centerville and Chantilly, where the terrain was well-suited to defense. Meade's men immediately began to dig in. They never needed much encouragement to set up defenses, and they did it professionally and very rapidly.
Meade had now changed the logic of the battle. Lee had to fight on ground of Meade's own choosing, or withdraw. The Confederates could not remain where they were for long since their supply line was long and tenuous, all the more so because the Federals had burned most of the major bridges as they withdrew north. Rebel soldiers who fondly remembered the rich haul of Yankee loot they had taken at Manassas during their last visit there had expected more treasure from the current campaign, but Meade's troops had left nothing behind of any great value, and the land itself was a wasteland after years of war, with fields covered with weeds. There was nothing there to sustain the Army of Northern Virginia. A torrential rain fell on 16 October, and Lee decided to withdraw in the mud, completing the destruction of the rail line as he pulled out. Meade stayed where he was, only sending out his cavalry in pursuit.
Jeb Stuart was covering the Confederate withdrawal. On 20 October, Stuart saw an opportunity to lure the Federal cavalry into a trap at a place named Buckland Mills. Fitzhugh Lee suggested to Stuart that he fall back in front of the Union troopers so Fitz Lee could catch them by surprise in the flank. The Yankees, of Judson Kilpatrick's cavalry division, fell for the bait. Fitz Lee's attack threw them into confusion and Stuart's withdrawal quickly reversed itself into a charge that completed the rout.
The "Buckland Races" cost the Federals about 1,250 cavalrymen to a loss of about 400 Confederates, many of whom were only lightly injured. It helped avenge the humiliation at Bristoe Station. In fact, on the whole the campaign gave the rebels some cause for satisfaction. They had bullied a force larger than their own, inflicting about as many casualties as they had taken. Lee could not have been so satisfied. He had not caused serious injury to a force that was backed up by much more certain resources over the long run, and since the Federals could make good their losses much more easily than he could trading casualties man for man was a losing game for the Confederacy.
* By 20 October, the Army of Northern Virginia was back behind the Rappahannock, forward of their previous position on the Rapidan. Union General Haupt's railroad workers had their hands full restoring the wrecked rail line, and it wasn't until the end of the month that the Army of the Potomac was facing the rebels again. However, the campaigning in Northern Virginia wasn't quite over for the year.
* Confederate General Sterling Price might have been forced to yield the northern two-thirds of Arkansas to the Federals, but that did not mean he intended to be completely meek about it. 0n 22 September, Price had sent Colonel Jo Shelby on a cavalry raid north to Missouri with 600 men to raise hell in the Federal rear.
Shelby was a showy cavalryman like Jeb Stuart, but he was more businesslike. He crossed the state line into Missouri in early October, and on 4 October captured 400 Union cavalry who had holed up in a fortified courthouse in the town of Neosho. The Yankees tried to put up a fight, but they couldn't stand up to Shelby's artillery. Shelby then led his column north towards Jefferson City in hopes of at least temporarily seizing the state capital, while sending out raiding parties to cut telegraph lines, burn bridges, and generally create confusion, in the meantime picking up volunteers and loot.
Within a week, the Federals were fully aroused and Shelby knew that taking Jefferson City was out of the question. He instead headed west to elude his pursuers, though he was nearly caught by Union columns near Arrow Rock on 13 October. Shelby had half his men dismount and fight for time while the other half broke through the Federal line. With the Yankees in confusion due to the breakthrough, the other half mounted up and got away as well.
The two columns fled south separately to confuse the Federals, with the rebels laying ambushes to teach the Union men a little caution. Shelby crossed into Arkansas on 19 October, and the Confederate columns joined up again the next day. They were back in camp in southern Arkansas by 3 November. It had been a spectacular raid, covering about 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers), inflicting over 1,100 casualties on the Federals, and seizing or destroying large quantities of supplies. Shelby had lost about 150 men himself, but had been joined by 800 recruits during the course of the raid. He was made a brigadier general for his efforts.
* William Quantrill had also done well for himself against the Federals. In late September, he organized his 400 men to ride for winter quarters in Texas, and in fact Quantrill's column passed Shelby's by a distance of a few miles, with the two groups going in opposite directions.
Quantrill learned that there were three companies of Yankees holding down an Arkansas outpost named Fort Baxter and decided to see if he could take the place. While the fighting was going on, Quantrill learned that a Federal column was approaching, and split off his forces to attack it.
The column consisted of a hundred men escorting General James Blunt, who was now district commander and was moving to Fort Baxter to take up residence. Blunt mistakenly assumed the line of horsemen waiting for him up the road were an honor guard sent from Fort Baxter to greet him, and the attack by Quantrill's men was a complete shock. Blunt managed to escape by hard riding, but of his guard 79 were killed. Quantrill's men took no prisoners. The rebels called off the fight for the fort after inflicting 19 casualties there, in contrast to total casualties of 6 for the rebels. Quantrill, pleased with himself, took his men down to Texas.
However satisfying it might have been to Sterling Price to bushwhack the Yankees, by design or accident, the strategic situation in Arkansas was completely unchanged; the Federals were far stronger and there was no reasonable prospect of dislodging them. In fact Price's superior, General Theophilus Holmes, was becoming so nervous about Nathaniel Banks' movements to the south that Holmes was performing further consolidations to deal with the threat, pulling Price and his troops out of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, on 25 October.
