v1.1.3 / chapter 61 of 93 / 01 sep 11 / greg goebel / public domain
* Early 1864 saw Confederate officials becoming increasingly aware of the South's difficult circumstances. Jefferson Davis managed to obtain approval from the Confederate Congress for suspension of habeas corpus to help deal with the disloyal, as well as an extension of the draft to pull in more able-bodied men. Despite the fact that both these measures were clearly necessary, they still led to loud howls of protest.
In the north, Abraham Lincoln began to pay more attention to the issue of his renomination by the Republican Party for a second term in the White House. He faced a potential rival in Treasury Secretary Chase, but managed to persuade Chase to shelve his presidential ambitions for the moment.
In the West, William Tecumseh Sherman decided to descend on northern Mississippi in a campaign to inflict as much damage to the region as possible in hopes of eliminating the threat to his rear from Confederate guerrillas. The campaign was a success, with Meridian, Mississippi sacked and reduced to ashes. However, A cavalry column under Sooy Smith that was supposed to assist Sherman tangled with Bedford Forrest and got the worst of it, with the Yankees chased back to Tennessee in disorder by a rebel force half their size. The defeat, though humiliating, did no major damage to the Union cause, but it greatly enhanced the reputation of Bedford Forrest in both the South and the North.
* The war had a wearying effect on both sides, but the South, much weaker in all material respects than the North, was finding circumstances much more desperate. The will to fight remained, but Confederate leadership was finding their options increasingly limited.
On 3 February 1864, Jefferson Davis requested a suspension of the right of habeas corpus, allowing the Confederate government to deal summarily with those spreading unrest and treason behind the lines. There had been suspensions of due process in the Confederacy before on a specific and localized basis, particularly to deal with rebellion among the hill folk, but what Davis wanted was something more far-reaching.
It was a testimony to the exaggerated high-mindedness of the Confederacy that the Union had suspended such rights of due process years before. Many Confederate sympathizers and other people regarded as being of doubtful loyalty had been thrown into Federal prisons without formal charges, much less a trial and conviction. To the Confederacy that was sheer tyranny, exactly what they expected of a "despot" like Lincoln and beneath the dignity of proud Southerners. It was a measure of the difficulties faced by Davis that he was forced to resort to similar measures. Desertion, he explained to the Confederate Congress, had depleted the ranks of the South's armies. Collaboration with Federal forces was common along the front lines, there were spies everywhere, and the loathsome Ben Butler was rumored to be plotting a slave uprising.
That was somewhat overstating the facts. True, the collaboration was a fact of life, but in some ways it was as big a nuisance to the Union as the Confederacy, and the South also obtained some benefits from it. There was certainly no Union plan for a slave uprising, which almost everyone knew would be an indiscriminate bloodbath for both white and black; only the wildest of Northern abolitionists would have been in favor of the idea. Of course, as far as Southerners were concerned, Butler was the devil himself, and could be expected to come up with diabolical schemes.
Still, given the extent of the emergency faced by the Confederacy, any practical government would have long before resorted to extraordinary means to deal with the crisis, at least on a temporary basis. The problem was that there was a fundamental streak of pointedly impractical idealism in the Confederacy, and the howls of protest were loud and pained. Vice-President Alexander Stephens was one of the leading opponents, some time later saying to a Confederate senator concerning Davis: "My hostility and wrath (and I have enough of it to burst ten thousand bottles) is not against him or any man or men, but against the thing -- the measures, and the policy which I see is leading us to despotism."
What was the point of the Confederacy, people like Stephens asked, if it abandoned the principles on which it was based in order to survive? Confederate Congressman Henry S. Foote of Mississippi ranted against the measure in session, blasting Davis and demanding investigations of the defeat at Vicksburg, the defeat at Chattanooga, and anything else that he could find to pick up and throw. He was wasting his breath; Foote had the mentality of a little dog who liked to bark, and most of his fellow congressmen regarded him as such. On 15 February, the Congress granted a six-month suspension of habeas corpus.
* That didn't put a stop to the howling, with the chorus taken up by the states and their governors. On 10 March, Georgia governor Joseph E. Brown would deliver a speech to the Georgia state legislature, suggesting that the Confederacy was a failure and should be dissolved, with the states then entering into discussion with the Federal authorities on rejoining the Union. Brown was very careful on how he phrased matters, rhetorically implying that the Union would rejoin Georgia instead of the reverse. His fellow Georgian, Alex Stephens, concurred, and in fact had advised Brown in the construction of the address.
There seems to have been less to this exercise than met the eye. The speech was apparently just propaganda, intended to work on war-weariness in the North and influence the elections to take place there in the fall. However, if it was such a ploy it backfired, with the general impression of Southerners being that it was an exercise in near treason, or at least an exercise in sowing confusion that could only harm the Confederate cause. The Georgia state legislature promptly passed a resolution affirming the state's loyalty to the Confederacy and the war effort.
Whatever they had been trying to achieve, the antagonism of Brown and Stephens to Davis was obvious and extreme. As one observer of Brown put it, in detail: "Whenever you meet a growling, complaining, sore-headed man, hostile to the government and denunciatory of its measures and policy, or a croaking, despondent dyspeptic who sees no hope for the country, but, whipped himself, is trying to make everybody else feel as badly as himself, there you will invariably find a friend, admirer, and defender of Governor Brown."
As for Stephens, critics charged with plenty of justification that he "had long ago vaulted into the hysterical." When an acquaintance suggested to Stephens that his dislike of Jefferson Davis had gone beyond the bounds of reasonable, Stephens replied, effectively confirming the charge: "I have regarded him as a man of good intentions, weak and vacillating, petulant, peevish, obstinate but not firm. Am now beginning to doubt his good intentions."
North Carolina Governor Zebulon Vance was another one of the complainers, though his complaints were more specific, mostly concerning slights to North Carolina officers in promotions and assignments. Vance grew so obnoxious that in late March Jefferson Davis would try to break off their correspondence. It wouldn't work. Vance had complaints: by God, they were going to be made, and they were damn well going to be heard.
* As far as the immediate issue of the suspension of habeas corpus, Davis had known perfectly well such a measure would not be popular, but he did what he had to do. There were still limits on what he would dare to try.
In early January, General Pat Cleburne of the Confederate Army of the Tennessee, wintering in Dalton, Georgia, passed a letter around to his fellow generals with a bold suggestion. Cleburne stated as an assumption, a good one, that slavery was unlikely to survive the war even if the Confederacy won. If that was the case, why not offer slaves freedom and enlist them to fight for the rebel cause? As he put it, such an action "would remove forever all selfish taint from our cause and place independence above every question of property."
Cleburne had been born in Ireland and had no deep sympathy for slavery. He apparently did not understand the depths to which his colleagues were attached to the institution, and was surprised to find his proposal furiously condemned. One officer wrote a friend, calling the idea a "monstrous proposition ... revolting to Southern sentiment, Southern pride, and Southern honor." Johnston, in his gentle way, suggested to Cleburne that he drop the matter, and Cleburne, recognizing that he was too far out on a limb, did so without protest.
Unfortunately, one of the officers who read the letter forwarded it to Richmond, where the reaction was just as horrified. Johnston received instructions from Secretary of War Seddon, speaking on behalf of Davis, that the letter be completely suppressed and any discussion of it forbidden lest it inspire "discouragement, distraction, and dissension".
And so it was done. The letter remained a secret for decades, until a copy was found among the posthumous papers of a staff officer. Ironically, Jefferson Davis almost certainly knew that Cleburne was right. Davis had no deep attachment to slavery himself, and if the rebel claim that the Confederacy's struggle was strictly for self-determination and had absolutely nothing to with slavery was so much humbug for many Southerners, it was truth for Davis. However, unlike Cleburne, Jefferson Davis understood clearly how his people felt about the matter. As stubborn as Davis was, he knew that attempting to push through such a proposition was not only futile, it would cause immense damage to the cause.
That left few other good options for increasing the ranks of the Confederate States Army. All Davis could propose to the Confederate Congress was that industrial exemptions to the draft be reduced; that substitution be abolished, it never having been any more than a nuisance anyway; that the enlistments of those in the ranks be extended indefinitely; and that the age limits be extended to the ages of 17 and 50. There was plenty of screaming over this measure, too, but it was passed on 17 February 1864, the last day of the congressional session. Davis was pleased that the measure passed, but not pleased with the fact that it had been required. Drafting older men was unpleasant but tolerable, but as far as extending the draft to the young went, Davis felt he was being forced to "grind the seed corn of the nation." If the Confederacy's youth were thrown down the mouth of the cannon, who would there be left to run the nation even if it won independence?
* Davis also attended to other, less painful, matters of state. Since his Attorney General, Thomas H. Watts, had given up his post in December to become governor of Alabama, Davis appointed George Davis of North Carolina in his place, with the new appointee taking office in early January. The position was not very important and there was no dispute over the matter.
Before the Confederate Congress adjourned on 17 February, the body had authorized Davis to appoint a sixth full general, and the Confederate president promptly awarded the rank to Kirby Smith. That was as all had planned, since the elevation in rank was judged necessary to give Smith the authority he needed to conduct the war in the Transmississippi.
The action was praised by almost everyone. One notable exception was Lieutenant General Longstreet, who had been technically ranked ahead of Smith on seniority. Longstreet was far from the touchiest of the South's generals, but he wasn't made of stone either. His unhappy misadventures in Tennessee and the miserable winter he and his men were enduring in the mountains had discouraged him, all the more so because his difficult situation had been imposed on him against his judgement. He considered resigning, but decided against it. He had fought long and hard, and he could not simply walk away from his obligations and his men over a point of pride.
One last decision did lead to controversy. On 22 February, Davis summoned General Lee to Richmond for consultation. On arrival, Lee was informed by the president that he wished to elevate Braxton Bragg to the position of "Commander in Chief of the Confederate Armies". Lee had occupied this same post almost two years earlier, and he knew perfectly well that despite the grand title, all it really amounted to was making General Bragg a military adviser to the president. Bragg had been at loose ends in Richmond since his dismissal from command of the Army of the Tennessee, and the Confederacy might as well make good use of him.
Davis's personal loyalty to Bragg did not blind the president to the fact that Bragg's efforts in the field had been characterized by a tendency to "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory", as well as a disastrous talent for demoralizing his troops and provoking quarrels with his lieutenants -- but Bragg was a thorough military professional with a good grasp of strategy and logistics, and his deficiencies would not matter very much in an advisory position. Lee blessed the appointment, and on 24 February Davis announced it. There were howls of protest from the papers, some of them claiming that Davis had promoted a loser like Bragg just to spite for the critics, with few noticing that the position carried little real authority. Davis as usual remained largely indifferent to the criticisms. The whole thing amounted to little more than a tempest in a teacup; there was a long list of other things to worry about, after all.
* The extreme distress of the Confederate cause was apparent to Robert E. Lee, as he watched his troops starve and suffer in the winter weather. He complained to a staff officer that Joe Johnston was getting full rations while those of his men were being cut, and proposed exchanging cotton for meat to keep his men fed. Of course Lee realized that the cotton would end up in the hands of the Yankees, who were really the only buyers ultimately available, but he felt there was no other choice.
Despite the hardships, Lee remained as aggressive as ever. He had written Davis early in February about plans for taking offensive action. He felt that Longstreet could move into Kentucky, or be returned to Lee's command to permit offensive operations against Washington. However, these were seen as limited operations, intended only to keep the Federals off balance, there being little likelihood of inflicting a decisive defeat on them. Unlike the South, the North's military resources seemed inexhaustible, and as time went on, Yankee skills at warfighting became sharper.
The only hope for salvation was that the North would go to the polls in November to elect a new president. Although the burden of war was nowhere near as great on the North as it was on the South, it was still heavy, and the authoritarian actions of Abraham Lincoln and his people had offended many citizens. If the Confederacy could hold out, denying the Federals victories and giving them a good bloodying when the opportunity presented itself, there was a chance that Lincoln would be voted out and an antiwar candidate voted in. It was a slim hope, but it was the only one there was.
* There was certainly no sign that Lincoln was weakening in his determination to suppress the rebellion. On 1 February 1864, he issued an order calling for the draft of 500,000 more men for three years of service, with the measure to go into effect on 10 March; and after that he would ask for 200,000 more. The new blood was required to make up combat losses over the past year, as well as by the fact that many of the army's old-timers were reaching the end of their enlistment terms.
The Confederacy's slender hope that Lincoln would not remain in power much longer was bolstered somewhat by the fact that his nomination by the Republican party for a second term in office was by no means assured. In the first place, all eight previous presidents since Andrew Jackson had only served one term, making a second term a break with general tradition. In the second place, although there was a broad public assumption among the Republican faithful that Lincoln would be nominated, there was still a great deal of low-key grumbling that somebody better was needed, somebody who would push a really hard war. Judge David Davis, Lincoln's campaign manager in 1860, commented privately: "The politicians in and out of Congress, it is believed, would put Mr. Lincoln aside if they dared."
The lurking discontent crystallized around a group of politicians led by Senator Samuel C. Pomeroy of Kansas, whose darling was Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase. In early February 1864 they sent out a letter to potential supporters, detailing the deficiencies of Lincoln and suggesting that Chase would be a better president.
The letter was supposed to be confidential, but there was no way such a message could be sent to so many people and be kept a secret. On 6 February, the President's old friend Ward Lamon wrote from New York that a banker acquaintance had informed him of a letter that Lamon described to the President as "a most scurrilous and abominable pamphlet about you, your administration, and the succession." Lincoln was actually sent copies of the "Pomeroy Circular", as it was called, by several people. The President's secretary, John Nicolay, simply filed them, since Lincoln had made it clear that he did not wish to read them. Lincoln proclaimed he did not want to know about plots to nominate Chase for the presidency: "I am entirely indifferent to his [Chase's] success or failure in these schemes, so long as does his duty as head of the Treasury Department."
Lincoln was less casual about the matter than he let on. Navy Secretary Gideon Welles wrote in his diary that the Pomeroy Circular would be "more dangerous in its recoil than in its projectile", and Lincoln was perfectly willing to sit quiet for the moment, letting Secretary Chase accumulate rope to hang himself with. Chase was an intelligent and hard-working man, but he saw things in black and white, with himself on the side of the angels. Such an attitude was likely to lead to a fall.
The rope began to tighten around Chase's neck after 20 February, when the Pomeroy Circular was finally leaked to the newspapers and became widespread public knowledge. Chase was compelled to write his boss a letter proclaiming that he had no knowledge of or complicity in the scheme, and hinted that he would resign if Lincoln wished it so. Lincoln did not wish it so, since if Chase left the administration, he would be free to campaign for the presidency without constraint. The President responded with a short message saying that he had read Chase's letter, but would have to defer a good answer until he had the time to do a proper job of it. Lincoln apparently felt that Chase hadn't yet accumulated all the necessary rope.
In the meantime, Lincoln had supporters of his own that could make life uncomfortable for Chase. Frank Blair had left his corps in Chattanooga, temporarily hanging up his uniform as a major general to return to the House as a congressman from Missouri in early January. In early February, Blair had stood up in front of the House to blast in broad terms those who were working to undermine Lincoln and his war policy. On 27 February, Blair followed up his first shot with a specific attack on Secretary Chase himself, accusing him of intrigues, stating that under his direction the Treasury Department had become "profligate" and tainted by the "frauds and corruptions of its agents". Blair further suggested that these disreputable agents were probably now working to help put Chase into the White House. Such accusations hurt the sanctimonious Chase, all the more so because there was some truth in them. While Secretary Chase was not corrupt, many of his agents in the field had taken advantage of the hot money available in the shady cotton trade; there was no way it could have been otherwise.
On 29 February, Lincoln finally replied to Chase, saying that he placed no blame on Chase for the Pomeroy Circular, while making it clear between the lines that Chase's pretense of innocence in the matter was not believable. As far as the secretary's resignation went, the President saw no reason for such a measure. Lincoln's reply got Chase off the hook, but at the same time Chase was painfully aware that it contained no hint of any "respect or esteem".
Chase's window of opportunity had slid shut for the time being anyway. As Secretary Welles had predicted, the publication of the Pomeroy Circular had led to a backlash, with the friends of Lincoln rallying to push for his nomination. By 29 February, when the President replied to Chase, the Republican organizations of 14 states, including Chase's home state of Ohio, had endorsed Lincoln as the nominee of the party in the convention that would meet in June.
Chase promptly wrote a letter to a supporter of his presidential ambitions that "no further consideration be given my name", and the letter was printed in the papers. Astute readers noticed that the document was carefully phrased, as if Chase had closed the door but not locked it, waiting for a knock to come at the proper time. THE NEW YORK HERALD commented in an editorial: "The Salmon is a queer fish, very wary, often appearing to avoid the bait just before gulping it down."
* While Lincoln considered reelection, Union General Ulysses Grant was considering what he could do to crush the Confederacy once and for all. In mid-December, Grant had sent Charles Dana to Washington to present some ideas for strategies to senior Federal officials. After consultations, Dana replied that Lincoln, Stanton, and Halleck had rejected Grant's proposals for various reasons, but Dana added that the President said any further ideas were welcome.
In January, Grant had written Halleck a letter outlining the possibilities for future campaigns. In the West, Grant proposed to send Sherman out of Vicksburg to destroy the vital rail center at Meridian, Mississippi, generally raise hell in the state, and then fall on Mobile, Alabama.
Sherman had been lobbying Grant since mid-December for such an operation. Sherman didn't like leaving his men idle over the winter, and Confederate guerrillas had been active along the Mississippi, taking pot-shots at steamboats. Sherman feared that if the guerrillas were not suppressed, they would soon form up bands and fall on Federal garrisons in the region. Sherman intended to deal with the problem by simply spreading so much destruction through the region that guerrillas would have no means of subsistence, while teaching them fear of Union power. He put it bluntly:
BEGIN QUOTE:
To secure the safety of the navigation of the Mississippi River, I would slay millions. On that point, I am not only insane, but mad ... I think I would see one or two quick blows that will astonish the natives of the South and will convince them that, though to stand behind a big cottonwood and shoot at a passing boat is good sport and safe, it may still reach and kill their friends and families hundreds of miles off. For every bullet shot at a steamboat, I would shoot a thousand 30-pounder Parrotts into even helpless towns on Red, Ouachita, Yazoo, or wherever a boat can float or soldier march.
END QUOTE
Once Mobile was secure, Sherman would then shift to Chattanooga and lead his army towards Atlanta, while MacPherson led another force from Mobile to capture Montgomery, the state capitol of Alabama.
* Confederate General Polk had two divisions at Demopolis, Mississippi, to oppose Sherman's incursion into the state, and so Sherman proposed performing this massive "raid" with four divisions to keep Polk at bay. To prevent Johnston from sending forces west from Georgia to help Polk, Sherman suggested that Pap Thomas threaten Dalton, keeping Johnston on the defensive.
The only wild card was Bedford Forrest, now building up his command in northern Mississippi. Although Forrest only had about 3,500 men of uncertain quality, neither Grant nor Sherman underestimated him. As one Federal put it, Forrest was "constantly doing the unexpected at all times and places." Sherman suggested that General W. Sooy Smith, in charge of all cavalry in the Army of the Tennessee, take a force of about 7,000 troopers from West Tennessee, deal with Forrest, and then link up with Sherman to help complete the destruction of Northern Mississippi.
Grant gave Sherman the go-ahead, though as always some changes in plans were required. The Administration was still interested in using Nathaniel Banks and his army to move up the Red River and penetrate Texas, and so a combined move on Mobile was out of the question. Sherman's idea for a punitive expedition into northern Mississippi was still on, however, and by 1 February Sherman had massed four divisions in Vicksburg. He completed his preparations and moved out on 3 February 1864.
In the meantime, Polk had shifted his forces in anticipation of the invasion, setting up headquarters in Meridian and deploying two divisions around Jackson to the west. Sherman was actually very pleased at Polk's redeployment, since the Federal intruders greatly outnumbered the rebel forces; now Sherman could engage the Confederates after a relatively short march. Sherman's force, divided into two columns, moved fast, seizing Jackson on 7 February and capturing a Confederate pontoon bridge intact. The only thing the rebels could do was fall back in disarray. Although the Federals had marched through Jackson and burned it twice previously, they set the torch to it a third time just for good measure.
However, the Confederates almost got lucky on the evening of 12 February. By that time, the Federal advance was now only about 30 miles (48 kilometers) from Meridian. Sherman decided to spend the night at a local house, assigning a regiment to guard the area, but there was a mixup and the regimental commander decided to rejoin the column moving eastward. Sherman was awakened by gunfire to find rebel cavalry swarming about. Learning of the absence of the guard regiment, he sent a courier off at a dash to catch up with the regiment and tell it to come back on the double, and organized his staff for a fight. Fortunately, the Confederate troopers didn't know Sherman was there and were only interested in capturing a few Yankee wagons. Before the townspeople could tell them that a much bigger prize was near at hand, the guard regiment came back and drove the rebels off.
Sherman's men marched into Meridian at mid-afternoon on 14 February. Polk was gone, having left with the rear-guard that morning by rail, after removing everything of value that they could pick up and carry off. Sherman was furious that Polk had got away. Sooy Smith's cavalry was supposed to have left Collierville, Tennessee, just east of Memphis, on 1 February, and linked up with Sherman's main force a few days earlier; far-ranging Union cavalry should have been able to cut rebel lines of communication and made the withdrawal of the Confederates far more difficult. However, Sherman had no idea where Sooy Smith and his men were or what they had been doing. Sherman in essence sighed, gave his men a day of rest, and then set them to thoroughly wrecking Meridian. He later reported:
BEGIN QUOTE:
For five days, 10,000 men worked hard and with a will in that work of destruction, with axes, crowbars, sledges, clawbars, and with fire, and I have no hesitation in announcing the work well done. Meridian, with its depots, store-houses, arsenal, hospitals, offices, hotels, and cantonments, no longer exists.
END QUOTE
Other troops ranged from town to totally uproot the railroad network in the vicinity, burning bridges and destroying culverts. They made "Sherman bowties", heating rails on bonfires of crossties and then wrapping them around trees.
Sherman impatiently waited for word from Sooy Smith. Once Smith arrived with his troopers, the combined force would then advance on Selma, Alabama, to the east. But there was no sign of them. Sherman commented: "It will be a novel thing in war if infantry has to await the motions of cavalry."
* The motions of the cavalry had not gone in any way that either Sherman or Smith had predicted. The first problem had been simple logistics. Smith had been supposed to leave Collierville on 1 February, but delays in the arrival of a vital brigade of 2,000 troopers led to a series of postponements, and Smith and his 7,000 cavalry didn't actually depart until 11 February.
On 18 February, Smith and his men finally reached their initial objective of Okolona, Mississippi, on the Mobile & Ohio (M&O) Railroad, where the troopers spent two days ripping up tracks and doing the best they could to break the line. Despite the fact that they had encountered no serious opposition, Smith was still far behind schedule. He was also trying to cope with lapses of discipline in his troops, particularly in the misconduct of stragglers who ranged over the countryside, stealing what they could ride off with and burning what they couldn't. Smith gave orders that any Federal trooper caught engaged in such activities should be shot immediately, but in a battle campaign the distinction between needful and needless destruction can be hard to determine, and few soldiers are eager to kill their fellow soldiers.
Smith also found himself bogged down with escaped slaves who flocked to the Yankees as their saviors. He had encouraged this at first as a means of undermining the local economy, but soon he had 3,000 blacks on his hands and had no idea of what to do with them. The runaways added to the chaos by doing a little looting and burning of their own.
In short, Smith found his worries piling up on each other, aggravating the tension from his most significant worry: Bedford Forrest. Sherman had emphasized to Smith that Forrest was certain to attack, and attack with everything he had. Smith was a competent regular army officer and was not lulled into complacency by the fact that Forrest hadn't showed yet. Obviously, Forrest was preparing a trap and would fall on him at any moment.
* Smith had the jitters, but his assessment of Forrest was deadly accurate. Forrest had received intelligence on Sherman's movement out of Vicksburg at the beginning of the month, but with only 3,500 men Forrest had to leave the job of dealing with such a large force of Yankees to General Polk -- though as it turned out, even Polk wasn't able to do very much.
When Sooy Smith left Collierville on 11 February, Forrest quickly got word of the movement, along with intelligence on its size. The situation had possibilities, though Forrest didn't simply pitch into the Federal troopers. He was a fighter all through, but he was always a smart fighter. Slugging it out toe-to-toe with a force twice the size of his own would be stupid, and he could think of better ways.
Forrest led his troopers out of his base at Panola in northwest Mississippi on a track paralleling the Federal march. He had his four thin brigades spread out to get intelligence on Smith's movements and intentions. When Smith's troopers started smashing the M&O railroad, Forrest correctly determined that Smith would move down the M&O to Meridian and link up with Sherman. Now that Forrest knew what the plans of the Yankees were, he could devise counterplans of his own.
He sent a brigade under the command of his 26-year-old brother, Colonel Jeffrey Forrest, to West Point, south of Okolona on the M&O, as bait for the Yankees, and then set up his other three brigades a few miles to the south where the Federals could be encircled and destroyed, their numbers and mobility neutralized by swampy terrain.
On 19 February, Smith had received some warning of Forrest's presence from an Indiana trooper who had been captured by the rebels but had escaped. The trooper estimated Forrest's numbers as greater than Smith. Smith was now completely unnerved. Smith's men did make contact with Jeffrey Forrest's brigade on 20 February. The rebels pulled out to lure the Yankees south into the trap. The Federals seemed to jump at the bait, but though there was fighting on the morning of 21 February, Bedford Forrest quickly realized that it was just a feint. Smith had decided to withdraw, performing a rearguard action to keep the Confederates off balance.
Forrest never stayed surprised for very long. If the Yankees were skedaddling, they were off-balance, and he could chase them and keep them off balance. If they settled into a good defensive position they would stop him cold, but if he moved fast he could make sure they never had the chance. He ordered his troopers into pursuit. On coming up to the firing line where the rear-guard skirmish was in progress, Forrest saw one of his own men doing some skedaddling, having thrown away his gun and lost his hat in his panic to get away from being shot at. Forest leapt off his horse, rushed up to the man, threw him to the ground, picked up a piece of brush, and as one witness reported later gave the fainthearted trooper "one of the worst thrashings I have ever seen a human being get."
The thrashing clearly caused a great deal of pain but not much real injury to the man, since once Forrest was finished with the beating, he yanked the man to his feet and shoved him back towards the fighting, saying: "Now, God damn you, go back to the front and fight! You might as well get killed there as here, for if you ever run away again you'll not get off so easy!" The trooper did as he was told, and the story became famous, even becoming the subject of an illustration in HARPER'S WEEKLY titled "Forrest Breaking In A Conscript."
The rebels pursued Smith's rearguard north through West Point. A few miles north of the town, the Federals took a stand on an easily defended ridge, Forrest sent a regiment around to flank the Yankees out of their position and attacked with the rest. He led from the front, shouting out: "Come on, boys!" -- using inspiration to motivate them, seeming, as one of them put it, like a piece of powerful steam machinery rather than a man. They chased the Yankees off and continued their pursuit, setting up camp that evening at a site abandoned by the Federals just in front of them, conveniently stocked with rations and forage. The next morning, 22 February, they began the chase again.
Smith could not get out of reach of the rebels, and they pressed him mercilessly. The Federals made a stand north of Okolona that morning. On arriving to inspect the situation, one of Forrest's brigade commanders said that the Yankees were preparing to charge. Forrest replied: "Then we will charge them." They drove the Union soldiers out of their position in a panic, capturing five guns.
The Federals had organized another stand a few miles to the north at Ivey's Hill. These soldiers stood and fought better, with one volley putting a ball through Jeffrey Forrest's throat. Bedford Forrest rode up to his brother's still form to find him dead, knelt there silently for a moment, and then threw his men into a fierce hand-to-hand fight in which he personally killed three Yankees. The Federals broke again, to form up yet another rearguard defense up the road. This effort failed as had the rest, but then Forrest decided to call it quits. His horses were exhausted and he was almost out of ammunition; he had to be satisfied with sending the Yankees back to where they had come from with their tails between their legs.
* Smith didn't stop running until he reached Memphis on 26 February. He had lost only 388 men of his command, but his horses were broken down and his men were deeply humiliated. Forrest's casualties were lighter, only about 144 men, and he had given his green recruits the irreplaceable taste of what it felt like to win battles. They would go on to win more of them under their stone-hard, tireless, savage, and brilliant commander.
Forest neither was nor tried to be a pleasant man, and not all of his troops admired him. High-born Southerners in his command in particular disliked him, even looking down on him, in a mad hypocrisy, for having been a slave trader before the war. One aristocratic Mississippian who had to take orders from Forrest wrote in his diary:
BEGIN QUOTE:
I must express my distaste to being commanded by a man with no pretensions of gentility -- a negro trader, gambler -- an ambitious man, careless of the lives of his men so long as preferment be en prospectu. Forrest may be, and no doubt is, the best cavalry officer in the West, but I object to a tyrannical, hot-headed vulgarian's commanding me.
END QUOTE
Such complaints made no difference at all. What counted as far as the Confederacy was concerned was that Forrest was one of the best fighters they had. His reputation continued to grow, with both sides now referring to him as "the Wizard of the Saddle".
* Sherman had finally given up waiting for Smith on 20 February, abandoning the plan to march on Selma. Sherman led his troops west out of Meridian, taking a different route than the one they had taken to get there to ensure more destruction. They crossed the Pearl River and went into camp north of Jackson, Mississippi, on 26 February. Sherman still had hopes that Sooy Smith might show up to permit additional campaigning, but finally decided to go back to Vicksburg on 29 February, his troops following their general a few days later.
Things hadn't gone quite as planned, but Sherman had good reasons to think the campaign a success. His objective had been to wreak havoc on Mississippi to help secure his rear, and that had been done with every reason to believe it had the desired effect. On the day he returned to Vicksburg, he wrote Halleck that he had "made a swath of destruction fifty miles broad across the State of Mississippi that the present generation will not forget." He added that he had collected "some 500 prisoners, a good many refugee families, and about ten miles of negroes."
Appalled Confederate officers inspecting the devastation Sherman had left behind could only admit that his estimates of the damage were no hollow boast. There were no resources left in the area to support a rebel force of any size, and Sherman believed he could now reduce the garrisons there so the troops could be put to use elsewhere.
The biggest fly in the pie was Sooy Smith's lamentable performance, but Sherman wasn't too surprised, having earlier suspected that Smith was too unsure of himself to take on a tornado like Bedford Forrest. Sherman still indicated his displeasure to Smith, tongue-lashing him for "allowing General Forrest to head him off and defeat him with an inferior force."
There was nothing more to be done about it for the moment. As long as Forrest was moving and breathing he was a threat, and if Sooy Smith wasn't up to the job of putting him in his place, Sherman didn't know who he had who was. Still, Smith's failure had prevented Sherman from giving rough treatment to Alabama, but Sherman did take satisfaction from the fact that he had "scared the bishop [General Polk] out of his senses."
* Indeed he had. Polk had been given his first taste of the jitters in late January, when Union Rear Admiral Farragut had shown up in the Gulf outside of Mobile Bay with a powerful fleet. Mobile was the Confederacy's last major port available on the Gulf Coast, and it was the most important piece of real estate in Polk's department.
The presence of the Union Navy strongly suggested that the Federals were preparing to seize Mobile, which would have been a major blow to the Confederacy. In reality, Farragut's action was a feint. He would remain there for about a month, scouting out the area for the time when he would come back in earnest. When Sherman began his march from Vicksburg, Polk had every reason to fear that the hammer was about to fall on Mobile, and screamed to Richmond for reinforcements. The only possible source was Joe Johnston's Army of the Tennessee, holding their position around Dalton in North Georgia, and Richmond ordered Johnston to send troops immediately.
Johnston protested that if he weakened his force, the Federal army to the north would destroy the remainder and seize Atlanta, which would be as big or bigger a catastrophe to the Confederacy as the loss of Mobile. Richmond likely expected Johnston would balk -- he so often did -- but there was enough sense in what he was saying to make the Confederate War Department hesitate.
Finally, on 16 February, Johnston received orders to send Hardee's corps to Demopolis. After four days of planning, Hardee and his men boarded trains in Dalton that dropped them in Demopolis the next day. They promptly re-boarded them to go back to Dalton, since Sherman had already left Meridian and was headed back west. The troops riding the rickety trains must have complained loudly about the ancient military game of "hurry up and wait", since they were rushed back to Dalton with even more urgency than they had been sent out. Johnston's fears seemed to have come true, since the Federals were moving against him.
* There was less to Federal aggressiveness in Georgia than met the eye. On 14 February, Union General George "Pap" Thomas had been ordered to make "a formidable reconnaissance" that would hopefully drive Johnston out of Dalton, giving the Federals a good jumping-off position for a drive on Atlanta when spring arrived. Old Slow Trot took his time and didn't get moving until 22 February, and by that time Hardee's men were moving up into positions to block Federal moves through the North Georgia ridges.
The two forces made contact here and there, and Thomas found the passage blocked. He called off the campaign on 26 February and pulled back to winter quarters at Ringgold, Georgia. The Federals had lost 345 men and the whole affair did not go over well with the Northern public but, like Farragut outside Mobile Bay, Thomas found the exercise valuable as preparation for the time they came back in earnest.
The Confederates had lost only 167 men and were in high spirits at having driven back a superior force. To be sure, the Federal offensive was far from whole-hearted, but the result was still encouraging to troops that had been driven in panic from Missionary Ridge only a few months before. In fact, they were so enthusiastic that Johnston passed down a reprimand to his artillery officers to observe better fire discipline: the gunners had been enjoying themselves so much that they were blasting off shots just for the fun of it.
* In the meantime, Polk was moving back into what was left of Meridian. The desolation of the city and its surroundings was all but complete, with destitute families searching for what food and shelter they could find in the burned landscape. From a strictly military point of view, the real catastrophe was the thorough destruction of the rail system in and around Meridian, which badly disrupted train traffic through the region. Polk was determined to rebuild the network. He called in President Samuel Tate of the Memphis & Charleston Railroad, giving him extraordinary authority to requisition whatever was needed to do the job.
Tate was fully the equal of the remarkable engineers in the ranks of the Union Army. Within weeks, he had reconnected the rails north and south through Mississippi. It took him a little more time to reconnect the rails east and west through the state, but the job was done, an outstanding achievement considering the minimal resources available for the job.
The Confederates could not possibly replace the locomotives and rolling stock smashed and burned by Sherman's troops, nor do much to help the dispossessed inhabitants of the region, and so Sherman still had reason to be satisfied with his work. In fact, he had notions about repeating the performance on a larger scale elsewhere. He made no secret of this, sending a message to one of his subordinates outlining his ideas, and passing a copy on to his brother John Sherman in the US Senate so that it could be published for everyone, particularly Confederates, to read.
General Sherman began by saying that although he was unconcerned with the "political nonsense of slave rights, States rights, freedom of conscience, freedom of the press, and such other trash as have deluded the Southern people into war, anarchy, bloodshed, and the foulest crimes that have disgraced any time or any people," he was not willing to tolerate the act of rebellion itself: "If they want eternal war, well and good; we accept the issue, and will dispossess them and put our friends in their places." He then emphasized that time was running out, had run out, for the rebels:
BEGIN QUOTE:
Three years ago, by a little reflection and patience, they could have had a hundred years of peace and prosperity, but they preferred war; very well. Last year they could have saved their slaves, but now it is too late. All the powers on earth cannot return to them their slaves, any more than their dead grandfathers. Next year their lands will be taken; for in war we can take them, and rightfully, too, and in another year they may beg for their lives.
END QUOTE
He told his brother John, taking the tone of a god of war: "Read to them this letter, and let them use it so as to prepare them for my coming."
