v1.1.2 / chapter 63 of 93 / 01 oct 09 / greg goebel / public domain
* By early spring of 1864, the war was beginning to stir again, and this time it was going to stir with a vengeance. Ulysses Grant came to Washington to receive his promotion to lieutenant general, giving him command over all the Union armies, and those who knew him realized that he was going to make use of all those armies to an extent they had not been used before.
Now that Grant was in the East, command in the West fell to Sherman, who was just as certain to pursue a hard war. The two generals met briefly in Cincinnati to discuss strategy, planning simultaneous offensives in both East and West to overwhelm the Confederacy.
Meanwhile, down in Louisiana, Nathaniel Banks was planning a campaign of his own, a drive up the Red River to Shreveport that would open the gates to Texas. This was strictly a sideshow effort, and for the moment the Union was not ready to apply major pressure to the rebels. Under the circumstances, the Confederacy could spare some resources to deal with internal pressures, such as backwoods Southern Unionists who defied the secessionist government.
* Following the relief of Chattanooga, Grant had spent the winter months on a circuit through his department. As mentioned, he visited Burnside in Knoxville, then traveled to Lexington and Louisville, and finally returned to Nashville. Although it was a very constructive trip, with Grant tightening up the management of his war machine along the way, it also had certain aspects of a vacation. He liked to travel, particularly when he was greeted with such enthusiasm wherever he went.
Not long after his arrival back in Nashville, he received word that one of his children was dangerously ill, so he went to rejoin his family in Saint Louis. When he reached Saint Louis he found to his relief that the illness had passed, and to add to his sense of well-being, the citizens of the city praised and honored him at every opportunity. Not a bad situation for a man who had been generally written off as a drunken stumblebum only a few years earlier.
His star was by no means done rising. Ever since the beginning of the war, Lincoln had wanted a general who really wanted and was able to close with the rebels and pound them into the ropes. Ulysses S. Grant seemed to be the answer, and to make sure that Grant would be able to rise above the tangled rivalries of the US Army, the President proposed that Grant be elevated to the rank of lieutenant general. That would make Grant's formal authority unarguable on any reasonable basis. That might not stop the rivalries, but it would drive them underground.
However, it literally took an act of Congress to give Grant three stars, since the rank of lieutenant general was obsolete. George Washington had held it for a short time, and Winfield Scott had held it by brevet. There were voices in Congress that didn't like the idea of promoting Grant to such an extraordinary rank, and in fact the idea had been promoted by the general's fans in Congress a short time earlier, only to be voted down.
Democrats were not enthusiastic about Grant. He had voted for Buchanan, a Democrat, in 1856, but had recently made statements to the effect that slavery was dead beyond all hope of revival. Good Democrats were committed to a return to the status quo even if it was a hallucination at that late date.
Other voices nitpicked at the idea. James A. Garfield, now a Congressman from Ohio, pointed out that the President could elevate any major general to General-In-Chief, which would serve much the same function as promoting him to lieutenant general. There were also advocates for Grant who worried that giving him such high rank would end up chaining him to a desk in Washington when he was needed in the field.
An underlying problem was that to promote an officer in such an extraordinary way was to basically make him a future presidential candidate, even though Grant was a political blank. Grant was appalled at the idea of running for political office, suggesting with what would turn out to be great foresight that if he were to become president, it would be "highly unfortunate for myself, if not for the country." He wrote a friend: "I infinitely prefer my present position to that of any civil office within the gift of the people." He expressed only the desire that he might someday be the mayor of his hometown, Galena, Illinois.
Lincoln himself had been worried that promoting Grant might make him a rival in the upcoming election, or at the very least would distract the general with nagging political ambitions, but various informants passed on Grant's denials of any interest in politics up to the President. Lincoln was relieved.
Another person who wanted Grant to be a lieutenant general was Illinois Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, Grant's political patron and a power in Congress. Furthermore, even some of the Radical members of Congress who criticized Lincoln for his "weakness" were interested in promoting Grant. Grant wanted to crush the Confederacy, which was exactly what the Radicals wanted, and they also wanted trim back the meddling of the administration in the direction of combat operations. Actually, Lincoln himself would have been perfectly happy to stop meddling with his generals. He had never really wanted that responsibility, he had only been forced into it because of the lack of vision or capability in the other generals he had relied on. Grant looked like the kind of man who could do the job without the President looking over his shoulder any more than necessary.
On 26 February 1864, the measure passed. Lincoln signed it into law on 29 February, and on 1 March Grant was appointed lieutenant general. The Senate confirmed the promotion the next day, and on 3 March Grant was sent instructions to report to Washington DC, where he would receive his promotion and take charge of the entire US Army effort across the land.
* Grant arrived in Washington on Tuesday, 8 March, accompanied by his 13-year-old son Fred. Through some bureaucratic bungle, nobody was there to meet him at the train station, and he made his way with his son to Williard's Hotel on his own. The desk clerk at the hotel was used to generals and high officials passing through, and businesslike and cool to the pair. The strange general wasn't much to look at, one bystander describing him having "rather a scrubby look", with the appearance of a man "who did, or once did, take a little too much to drink." The clerk said he didn't have much available and could only offer a small room. The visitor accepted this with no fuss or concern.
And then the stranger signed in: "U.S. Grant & Son -- Galena, Illinois". The desk clerk read the signature, his eyes got wide, and his businesslike coolness to the guests disappeared. He signed the two into Parlor 6, the hotel's most prestigious accommodations, where the President had stayed on his arrival to Washington a few years earlier. The clerk rang the bell for the bellhops loudly, and the buzz began to spread through the lobby of the hotel and beyond: "The General Grant is here!"
Grant checked into the room and then went to the dining room, holding Fred by the hand, possibly as much to reassure himself as his son. They did manage to get a table and order a meal, but then the general was recognized and the buzz went back up. There was a commotion, with someone calling out: "Three cheers for Lieutenant General Grant!" Grant got up, bowed uncomfortably, and the crowd then least allowed the two to finish his meal. However, as he tried to leave, a Pennsylvania congressmen grabbed on to him and introduced him to everyone. When Grant got back to his room, he found a message asking him to come to the White House. He left immediately.
That was something of a blunder, since Lincoln held receptions at the White House on Tuesday evenings. When Grant arrived, he was escorted into the East Room and made his way through the crowd to the President. Lincoln shook his hand, saying: "I'm glad to see you, General."
The crowd had been expecting him. The result was another semi-comical mob scene, with Grant standing up on a sofa in response to demands that he show himself, and cheers for the general. Gideon Welles, never quick to see the humor in things, called it all "rowdy and unseemly", and Grant seemed to agree, finally making his escape "flushed, heated, and perspiring" into a smaller room, where he conferred with the President and War Secretary Stanton.
Lincoln told Grant that he would be awarded his rank tomorrow at the White House, and the President suggested a few short comments for him to say, since the general was "perhaps not so much accustomed to public speaking as I am." Lincoln offered a few remarks to help downplay rivalries with other generals and get off on the right foot with the Army of the Potomac. This done, Grant went back to Willard's, no doubt wondering if he had made a bad decision in coming out East.
Those who did see Grant weren't sure what to make of him. He was such an ordinary, unrefined man, not very communicative or inspiring, certainly not sociable. One woman commented: "He walked through a crowd as though solitary."
* Grant went to the White House the next day, 9 March, with his son Fred, as well as his chief of staff and mother hen, Brigadier General John Rawlins, who had followed him East. The ceremony to award Grant the rank of lieutenant general began at 1:00 PM, with the President making the award and his cabinet, General Halleck, and a few other dignitaries in attendance.
Grant then read a very brief acceptance speech. The little speech did not include any of the remarks that Lincoln had recommended, but the President was unbothered by such a small matter. The two men had a short discussion after the ceremony. Grant asked the President what was expected of him, and the President said he wanted Richmond taken. Lincoln added that Grant's predecessors "had not been fortunate in their efforts in that direction." -- and asked Grant if he thought he was up to the job. Grant said he could if he had the troops, and the President said they would be forthcoming.
* Grant was now empowered to a level beyond that of any of his predecessors. Not only did he have extraordinary rank that gave him clear authority over any military rivals, but he was also designated General-in-Chief. Halleck had held this title, and given that Grant's history with Halleck was just as spotty as that of any other general who'd had to deal with Halleck, Grant might have had reason to fear Halleck's animosity. However, Halleck voluntarily resigned from his position as General-in-Chief, to stay on as Army Chief of Staff, responsible for keeping the military bureaucracy running. This was actually a mutually agreeable arrangement. Halleck had never really been much one for fighting battles, but he was a good administrator. Sherman had told Grant: "Halleck is better qualified than you to stand the buffets of intrigue and policy." Grant would fight the battles while Halleck did the paperwork, and both would be happy.
Grant also held a card just as important as his formal authority, in the shape of the President's confidence in him. Lincoln seemed willing to back him and not interfere in his plans any more than necessary. Grant clearly was with the program, and for once Lincoln felt he could actually trust a general to do the job himself. Those around the President noticed that he seemed generally relieved and relaxed after Grant took charge.
After the short discussion with the President, Grant was taken by Secretary Stanton to Mathew Brady's studio to have an official picture taken. It was late in the afternoon by that time, and to get better light, Brady sent an assistant to the roof to pull back the shade from the skylight. Unfortunately the assistant tripped and his feet went through the skylight, the heavy thick glass falling only a step away from Grant. The shards could have killed Grant, but he simply glanced up, assessed the situation, and then returned to his normal imperturbable self. Stanton, just as characteristically, became very agitated. He pulled the photographer aside and said: "Not of word of this, Brady, not a word! You must never breathe a word of what happened here today ... It would be impossible to convince the people that this was not an attempt at assassination!"
* Grant, having survived having his picture taken, then took the train down to Meade's headquarters at Brandy Station to discuss the new order with Meade. Grant arrived shortly after nightfall, and was received with a band and an honor guard of Zouaves. The reception was polite and proper, but there was an undercurrent of suspicion. He was an outsider, a Westerner, and certainly no proper gentleman as were many of the aristocratic officers of the Army of the Potomac. There were also the rumors of his fondness for the bottle, though that was nothing greatly unusual among Union officers in either the East or the West.
To an extent, the suspicion was mutual. As the story goes, when Grant first rode up to the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac, he took in the honor guards in fancy Zouave uniforms, the grand standards flying over the tents, the comforts available to the staff, and asked if Imperial Caesar lived anywhere near. More importantly, the past history of the Army of the Potomac also gave Grant cause to wonder if they could fight, and if they weren't just a little too used to being beaten.
The meeting with Meade turned out to be very profitable, however. Grant had known Meade in the Mexican War, if not very well, and had doubts about him. Grant had proposed to the President, Secretary Stanton, and General Halleck back in December that Meade be replaced by Sherman or Baldy Smith. The powers-that-be had liked the idea of replacing the unaggressive Meade with Smith, but, as would prove fortunate for the Union cause, it hadn't happened.
On close inspection, Meade proved much more satisfactory than he had seemed at a distance. Meade began by saying that if Grant wanted to replace him, then he, Meade, would loyally serve in any capacity that Grant thought suitable. Grant was pleased by this humility. He responded that Meade was fine where he was and would retain his position as commander of the Army of the Potomac. Grant set up his headquarters in a brick dwelling near Culpeper Court House, where he provided overall management for the half-million-plus men in the US Army, while Meade attended to the business of running the daily affairs of the Army of the Potomac.
To be sure, Grant would accompany the Army of the Potomac on its campaigns, which meant that although Meade would nominally have the same level of authority as before, in fact Grant would always be present, a superior authority that Meade would have to defer to. Meade understood and accepted this and was pleased that Grant had been so considerate, though the arrangement would lead to frictions in the future.
* Grant left Brandy Station on Friday, 11 March, to return to Washington. There was a banquet planned at the White House in his honor for Saturday, but Grant told the President that he needed to go back West immediately to touch base with Sherman in Cincinnati. Sherman would take command there as soon as the wheels turned to issue the proper orders and Grant, who had left without seeing him, wanted to make sure they were playing the same tune, East and West. Lincoln tried to encourage Grant to stay, but the general replied that though he appreciated the honor, time was "very important", and added: "And really, Mr. Lincoln, I have had enough of this show business." Grant left that evening.
He was back in Washington on 23 March and went out to the field to take charge. Grant quickly learned that if the Army of the Potomac had an unfortunate tradition of losing, it wasn't for any lack of spirit or skill on the part of the soldiers. He wrote Halleck: "The Army of the Potomac is in splendid condition and evidently feels like whipping somebody; I feel much better with this command than I did before seeing it."
Grant still had concerns. The soldiers had learned little respect for any general, except one: Robert E. Lee. He had beaten them so many times, run circles around Union generals, that the Army of the Potomac regarded him as superhuman. This attitude frustrated Grant to no end. He had got where he was by refusing to be intimidated by any of his opponents, and he wasn't about to be intimidated by Robert E. Lee either. Grant wanted nothing more than to show the men that Lee was no demigod: he was a man like the rest, and he could be defeated.
* As far as the Army of the Potomac went, the soldiers were no longer easily impressed, and Grant did little to try to impress them, riding by so fast that few could even get a good look at him while his staff labored to keep up. The troops knew that Grant was from the West and had never fought against a real general like Robert E. Lee. Nobody wanted Napoleons or expected miracles any more, anyway. General John Sedgwick recorded that Grant gave an impression of good "common sense", though Sedgwick also expressed doubts that anyone could get things on track, saying "the truth is that we are on the wrong road to take Richmond."
One general who knew Grant thoroughly was on the other side of the lines. James Longstreet had been a groom at Grant's wedding and understood him very well. Although many of Longstreet's fellow officers believed that Grant would be sent running away with his tail between his legs as so many Union generals in the past, Longstreet warned them: "That man will fight us every day and every hour till the end of the war."
The Federal war machine built up huge stockpiles of supplies for a big push, and the level of preparation ramped up day by day. Infantry was drilled, with plenty of shooting practice. The generals had become aware that in the chaos of battle many men badly fumbled the relatively complicated procedure of loading and firing a muzzle-loader. It was not unusual to find a musket lying on the field of battle with multiple loads rammed down its barrel, the owner having reloaded several times without realizing he had failed to shoot. Artillerists learned to ride up to a site, dismantle and reassemble their cannon in minutes, and then pack them up again to repeat the drill elsewhere.
The soldiers of the Army of the Potomac found that people who had been taken off of combat duty were being returned to the fighting ranks in numbers. One teamster who had been pressed back into the infantry marched with his fellow soldiers past a wagon train. A mule brayed in his direction, and the fellow replied: "You needn't laugh at me. You may well be in the ranks yourself before Grant is through with this army."
Grant was winding down military operations in peripheral theaters to scrape up more men, and in fact was even looting the defenses of Washington to obtain troops for his offensive. The Washington fortifications were manned by "heavy artillery" regiments, which were very big, with up to 1,800 men, trained to use rifle or cannon as needed. Like all garrison troops they had acquired many comforts to make life easier, and the frontline soldiers were delighted to see the "heavies" snatched up and put into harm's way. Cavalry units that were short on horses or otherwise regarded as superfluous were given rifles and knapsacks and sent into the ranks.
Such rough handling of the status quo impressed the old soldiers, and even those who were now reluctantly learning the life of a footsoldier had to admit that Grant clearly meant business, particularly since removal of most of the "heavies" from Washington left the city poorly garrisoned to resist a Confederate incursion. Grant, as always, was much more concerned about the harm he could do the enemy instead of the harm the enemy could do to him, and what was much more remarkable, he had converted Lincoln and, by implication, Lincoln's people to that point of view.
There were limits to how much Grant could shake things up, of course. He had proposed retiring or otherwise sacking over a hundred rear-area generals to allow him to promote more deserving field officers and assist in his efforts to loot troops from these commands, but generals often had protectors in Congress and state legislatures. With an election coming up, Lincoln had no desire to make unnecessary enemies, and only a few of the generals were put aside.
* More specific changes were being made as well. General Alfred Pleasonton had been replaced as head of cavalry of the Army of the Potomac by Phil Sheridan, who arrived quickly in Grant's wake, giving up command of an infantry division under Thomas. Pleasonton went West to Missouri. His exit was followed by that of Judson Kilpatrick, who transferred to Sherman's command. Sheridan did not suffer fools gladly and Kilpatrick would have better opportunities elsewhere.
Sheridan had not been a cavalryman, but he quickly learned the job. He began to institute procedures that had been lacking in the old times. The troopers were ordered to groom their horses an hour a day, and they were supervised closely to ensure they did a good job of it. They were also issued new Spencer seven-shot lever-action repeater carbines. Sheridan intended to make the cavalry a heavy-hitting force and spared little effort to whip the men into shape.
Another change was very unpopular: the five corps of the Army of the Potomac were consolidated into three. Grant had little to do with this, Meade having decided well before the arrival of Grant that a smaller number of bigger corps would be more manageable, and would also incidentally allow him to dislodge a few corps commanders who he found inadequate. I Corps and III Corps, which had been badly cut up at Gettysburg and were still understrength, were liquidated, their divisions being shuffled around to the other corps as seemed wise. This made sense, but the soldiers who were sent into other commands were unhappy about it.
Secretary Stanton pressured Meade to also figure out a way to get rid of General John Sedgwick, who had not hesitated to speak his mind to the War Department when he felt something didn't make much sense. Sedgwick's criticisms were measured, but in good bureaucratic style Stanton had no tolerance to be told things he didn't want to hear, and wanted Sedgwick out. Meade, not exactly timid in his opinions either and understandably reluctant to discard one of his best corps commanders, fought Stanton over the matter, but finally caved in and arranged for the transfer of Sedgwick to the command of Union forces in the Shenandoah Valley. At the last minute, Lincoln intervened and appointed General Franz Sigel to the Valley command instead. Sedgwick stayed in command of VI Corps. This would prove unlucky for him.
General Winfield Scott Hancock was in command of II Corps. He had returned to duty that past winter after convalescing from the wound he had taken at Gettysburg. He was still bothered by the wound and was not quite the man he had been, but he was still idolized and respected by the troops.
General Governeur Kemble Warren was now in charge of V Corps, replacing crusty old General George Sykes, one of the generals Meade regarded as inadequate. Warren was a bit of a gamble as a corps commander. Although he was incredibly brave under fire, had proven his value at the Battle of Gettysburg and the non-battle at Mine Run, and had filled in as commander of II Corps in Hancock's absence, he was also fussy, tending toward what in later age would be called "micro-management". He had great problems delegating authority and tended to ignore orders he disagreed with.
In addition, Grant had control over IX Corps, under command of amiable, bumbling General Ambrose Burnside. IX Corps featured a full division of black troops, who went wild with excitement when they were marched through Washington to be reviewed by the President. Since Burnside technically outranked Meade, IX Corps was not part of the Army of the Potomac; Burnside reported directly to Grant.
* Grant had proposed to abandon attempts to take Richmond. Grant wanted to move south of Richmond, seize Raleigh, North Carolina, and then move on Wilmington. Northern Virginia was Robert E. Lee's own backyard, and the Confederates knew every option the land offered for defense. Grant wanted to make Lee fight on ground of Grant's own choosing. Once in Washington, Grant soon found out that giving up on Richmond was simply not possible. With a presidential election coming, abandoning the field to the rebels in northern Virginia would look too much like a setback or even an outright defeat. The cry of "ON TO RICHMOND!" still carried a lot of weight.
* After returning to Vicksburg from his campaign against Meridian on 29 February, General William Tecumseh Sherman found a message from Grant waiting for him. Grant instructed Sherman to provide 10,000 troops and logistical support for Nathaniel Banks in New Orleans as assistance for the Union drive up the Red River, and then return to Chattanooga in preparation for the long-awaited advance to Atlanta. Sherman decided to go to New Orleans and confer with Banks directly, and left immediately on the fast steamship DIANA. He arrived in New Orleans two days later, on 2 March 1864, and went to work with Banks, arranging for reinforcements to arrive by mid-month.
Banks was feeling very optimistic about his prospects in the coming operation. He was also happy because on 22 February a reconstructed Louisiana had elected Michael Hahn, an immigrant from Bavaria, governor of the state as per President Lincoln's "Ten Percent" plan. This seemed like a vindication of Lincoln's efforts, but it hardly made the Radicals in Congress happy. Although Banks had banned slavery from Louisiana by decree, the new state constitution was ambiguous on the rights of free black people. The ambiguity was deliberate, Banks and Hahn having had to struggle very hard to prevent the state constitution from specifically stating that black men would not be given the right to vote. Still, it all seemed like a step in the right direction, and even as Sherman was arriving in New Orleans, a similar exercise was taking place in Arkansas, with a new state government -- which constitutionally banned slavery and secession -- in place before the end of March.
All this was of no great concern to Sherman, who had no use at all for politics and politicians, and seemed to have deeply mixed feelings about democracy in general. Banks wanted Sherman to stay on to attend Hahn's inauguration on 5 March, but there was a war on and Sherman wanted to get back to fighting it, not waste more time on nonsense. He got back on the DIANA on 3 March and arrived in Vicksburg on 6 March, dropping off a short time to give McPherson instructions, and then started back upriver on the DIANA for Memphis, where he would then take ground transportation to Chattanooga.
On 8 March, the DIANA was hailed by a steamer going downstream that had a courier on board, a captain from Grant's staff, with an important message for Sherman from Grant. The message was dated 4 March. Grant told Sherman of his promotion and his transfer back East, and thanked both Sherman and McPherson for their role in that success. Of course, reading between the lines, Sherman was almost certain to be given command in the West.
Sherman was pleased to hear of the promotion of his friend and superior, but was very worried that once Grant got back East, he would become entangled in ruinous political intrigues. Sherman was a restless man, and the more he thought about Grant in Washington, the less he liked the idea. On 10 March, Sherman sat down in his cabin on board the DIANA and penned a response to Grant. Sherman downplayed the assistance he and McPherson had given in Grant's success, pointing out that it was Grant's character that won the day at Belmont and Donelson, since neither Sherman nor McPherson were in any position then to have had any influence.
Sherman then said Grant was his own beacon: "Until you had won Donelson, I confess I was almost cowed by the terrible array of anarchical elements that presented themselves at every point; but that victory admitted the ray of light that I have followed ever since." He then emotionally pleaded with Grant not to go East: "For God's sake and your country's sake, come out of Washington! I foretold to General Halleck, before he left, the inevitable result for him, and I now exhort you to come out West."
Sherman arrived in Memphis on 11 March. On 14 March, he received a message with Grant requesting a conference in Nashville on the 17th. When the two generals met, Grant indicated that he would be leading the Union armies in Virginia personally, and Sherman would have command in the West. Grant was such a celebrity that the two men didn't get the time to talk strategy, with continuous interruptions, and so Sherman decided to accompany Grant on his return trip as far as Cincinnati. They tried to talk on the train, but there was too much noisy clatter. They were not able to have a real discussion until they checked into a hotel room in Cincinnati. A sentry was posted at the door and the two generals spread out maps to consider the situation.
The fundamental strategy was simple, so simple that it should have been done at the outset: hammer the Confederacy in both the East and the West at the same time, which in practice meant simultaneous drives on Richmond and Atlanta. Sherman described the scene several decades later: "Yonder began the campaign. He was to go for Lee and I was to go for Joe Johnston. That was his plan."
* Richmond was in turn nagging Joe Johnston to attack Sherman. Braxton Bragg wrote Johnston to encourage him to throw Federal plans into confusion by advancing north into central Tennessee or Kentucky, much as Bragg had done in 1862. Johnston was to be supported in this effort by Polk and by James Longstreet's two divisions, still wintering in the mountains.
Johnston was skeptical. There is a military proverb that if you are in the enemy's rear, he's in yours, and Johnston felt such a movement would be suicidal. Bragg had pulled it off, to be sure, but the Federals in front of him had been nowhere near as strong, confident, experienced, and well-led as they were now. Johnston also lacked mules, horses, and all types of supplies needed to take the offensive. The idea that Longstreet's threadbare command was in any position to help was highly questionable.
Johnston's plan was to strengthen his defenses in the mountainous terrain he held and then deliver a counterstroke when the opportunity presented itself. This was prudent, particularly since Johnston was an outstanding defensive fighter, but the idea didn't go over well in Richmond. The leadership soon decided to order Longstreet to return to Virginia, and Johnston correctly interpreted this as a vote of no confidence. In fact, the only reason Richmond didn't relieve Johnston of command was because they could not think of anyone who could replace him.
* The Federal plan to move up the Red River in Louisiana towards Shreveport was driven from the top. It was one of those schemes for which many plausible-sounding reasons were advanced in the beginning, and which would seem a little less well-thought-out later when the recriminations were flying back and forth.
After the fall of Vicksburg, Halleck had decided on the basis of his own concepts of strategy that Texas was a logical next target for Federal conquest. Halleck had convinced the President it was a good idea as well. Lincoln felt it was important to seize Texas to prevent Napoleon III from meddling in the American conflict from Mexico, which was for the moment a French colony.
After some discussion, the blueprint for the campaign was laid out as a drive on Shreveport in West Louisiana, up the Red River. Shreveport seemed to fit the checklist qualifying it as a strategic objective: it was the temporary capitol of Confederate Louisiana; Edmund Kirby Smith had his headquarters there, from where he nominally controlled all rebel forces in the trans-Mississippi; it was a big rebel supply depot; and was a gateway into Texas.
Banks was not happy about the assignment at first, since he felt Texas was a vast wasteland and he would obtain much more military glory by seizing Mobile. However, on considering the matter, he become more enthusiastic, going so far as to write Halleck that "the occupation of Shreveport will be to the country west of the Mississippi what that of Chattanooga is to the east."
One factor that had made Banks more enthusiastic was the prospect of capturing large stockpiles of Confederate cotton, which would make the campaign financially self-supporting. Although trying to do business while conducting military operations is asking for trouble, Banks did have a precedent, since his earlier campaign up the Teche had resulted in profitable spoils. A Red River campaign promised to be much more profitable.
Still, it is hard to see in hindsight how the country west of the Mississippi was particularly relevant to winning the war. The Federal seizure of the full length of the Mississippi had largely cut off the trans-Mississippi from the rest of the Confederacy, with the isolation enforced by an ever-growing fleet of Federal river gunboats. These gunboats not only blocked any serious movement of troops or supplies across the Mississippi, but many were of such shallow draft that it was said they could "steam on a heavy dew", allowing them to raid far up tributary rivers, ensuring solid Federal control over the region.
The Confederate forces in the Trans-Mississippi were weak, scattered, and could have no real influence on the war. The Union had to allocate resources to deal with the Confederates there, of course, but a lack of resources was never really a problem for the Union war effort, and with the Mississippi effectively blockaded, the Confederacy cut off from the forces, food, and material of the region. The war was going to be determined in the heart of the Confederacy, and moving up the Red River instead of falling on Mobile was in hindsight a clear mistake.
The reality was that substantial resources were committed to the Red River campaign. Sherman's 10,000 men arrived, commanded by Major General A.J. Smith. Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter was to provide naval support with a river fleet of 22 gunboats, including 13 ironclads, along with 40 transports and supply vessels. Major General Frederick Steele was to perform a supporting thrust from Arkansas with another 15,000 men. This gave Banks a total of 40,000 to 50,000 men.
* Franklin moved with his five divisions out from New Orleans on 13 March, retracing the route of the earlier campaign up the Teche a year earlier. Smith's three divisions moved out of Vicksburg on transports on 10 March, turning west into the confluence of the Red and the Mississippi, and then south on the Atchafalaya, to arrive at Simsport, Louisiana, on 12 March, to then march in the direction of Alexandria, 60 miles (100 kilometers) up the Red.
The year before the Confederates had abandoned Fort De Russy, about halfway up the Red to Alexandria, in the face of a Union advance. This time the rebels decided to defend it. On 14 March Smith's men, supported by Porter's gunboats, overwhelmed the fort, capturing 300 rebels at the cost of 38 Yankees killed or wounded. Smith's troops then thoroughly demolished the place to ensure that the rebels would never make use of it again. They were very competent at this sort of wreckage, having had plenty of practice during the campaign against Meridian, Mississippi. In fact, they had continued the practice all along their march, beginning with Simsport, leaving behind little more than blackened chimneys, "Sherman Monuments", where houses once stood.
The destruction was generally indiscriminate, justified when anyone gave a damn about justification by the belief that rebels didn't deserve any better. In fact, the locals had been mostly Unionist in sentiment up to this time, though the brutality of Smith's men no doubt gave them serious doubts about their allegiances. A reporter from Saint Louis, observing the destruction, felt that unless such practices were discouraged the entire Union Army would degenerate into a "band of cutthroats and robbers." However, "Sherman's gorillas", as they called themselves, would continue this entertainment through the entire Red River campaign with few regrets. Wars involve a breakdown in the normal rules of doing things, and those who fight them often seem to drop their normal inhibitions with little hesitation.
The "gorillas" were still fighters though, good ones. On 21 March, six regiments of Smith's men, plus a brigade of Franklin's cavalry that had ridden ahead of the main column, were on a reconnaissance in force upstream of Alexandria when they fell on a rebel cavalry regiment at Henderson's Hill in darkness, rain, and hail. The Yankees captured the entire regiment.
Banks arrived in Alexandria on 24 March, just in time for Smith's men to parade the captives for him. Franklin's column had been bogged down in bad weather and mud, but his five divisions came straggling in the next day, 25 March.
Banks had reason to be very satisfied with the progress of things. He had massed an overwhelmingly superior army, supported by a powerful river fleet, and Smith's troops also had two neat little victories to their credit. However, the next day, 26 March, Banks received a message from Grant, sent from Nashville and dated 15 March. Grant, now Banks' superior officer, stated that if Banks wasn't confident of taking Shreveport by the end of April, he was to return Smith and his three divisions by the middle of that month. If he was successful, he was to leave occupation of the newly conquered territory to Steele and return to New Orleans to prepare for a march on Mobile.
This must have made Banks feel a little uneasy, but he felt he could finish his campaign on the accelerated schedule and decided to go on. He immediately sent off his cavalry, to be followed by the infantry two days later, on 28 march. He stayed in Alexandria to help direct a state election on 1 April, and then followed his troops on the evening of 2 April.
* The Federal war effort was the real threat to the survival of the Confederacy, but there was also the matter of internal dissent. Southern Unionists were never really more than an annoyance, but they could be a very big annoyance. One band of dissenters from backwoodsy Jones County in southern Mississippi became legendary, with exaggerated tales that they proclaimed the county's independence from the Confederacy as the "Republic of Jones".
The whole thing began with a Unionist shoemaker from Jones County named Newton Knight, who had been drafted into the Confederate Army. He made no secret of his contempt for the rebellion, and instead of trying to whip him into line the authorities decided to let him remain at home and serve as a hospital orderly.
Knight grew no fonder of the rebellion. When Confederate authorities confiscated his mother's horse, he deserted into the swamps and forests, where he met up with another deserter named Jaspar Collins. By mid-1863 their band was up to about 20 men, and they were making a serious nuisance of themselves. The group bushwhacked Confederate officials and also helped support poor Unionist families in the area, sometimes robbing well-off secessionists in neighboring counties and distributing the loot. They operated out of a cave they called the "Devil's Den" on an island in the Leaf River.
By early 1864, Jones County was a thoroughly lawless place, where killings were common and the authorities were unable to keep order. General Leonidas Polk, in command of the Department of the Gulf, offered the deserters amnesty, but Knight and his men continued their attacks. In March 1864, Polk ordered Colonel Henry Maury to take a well-armed detachment of Confederate soldiers into Jones County and clean out the insurgents. Maury and his men knew that chasing a gang of bushwhackers through the swamps and scrub was going to be difficult, but they set themselves to the task, flushing out Knight's men when they could find them, and hanging those they did not shoot. Maury's troops became somewhat overenthusiastic, in one case hanging a man they believed to be Newton Knight only to find out from papers on the corpse that he was actually Ben Knight, Newton's cousin, home on leave from the Confederate Army.
Knight's band did in fact suffer badly from the campaign, though the casualties were by no means one-sided. On 26 April 1864, for example, Knight's men ambushed rebel cavalry and killed 15 men. The local population was also strongly sympathetic to Knight's band; Colonel Maury brought in 44 bloodhounds, and all but two were poisoned by the citizenry. In the end, however, Knight was wounded and forced to retreat with the survivors of the band into the most impenetrable reaches of Jones County. He survived the war without being captured for his rebellion against the rebellion.
