v1.1.3 / chapter 74 of 93 / 01 sep 11 / greg goebel / public domain
* While Grant smashed his army against Lee's in northern Virginia and Sherman maneuvered against Johnston in north Georgia, the Union was also trying to deal with a raid by John Morgan into Kentucky. Morgan's raid turned out to be a fiasco that did more harm than good for the Confederate cause.
Morgan's reputation had declined to the point where the Federals weren't too surprised at the failure of his raid, but Bedford Forrest couldn't be dismissed so lightly. Sherman sent a force under Sam Sturgis into northern Mississippi to put Forrest down, but Forrest turned the tables on them at Brice's Crossroads, all but routing the Federals and sending them off in humiliation.
On the high seas, the Union Navy finally caught up with the raider CSS ALABAMA, under the command of Raphael Semmes. The USS KEARSARGE slugged it out with the ALABAMA off the coast of France and sent the raider to the bottom. It was an encouraging victory for the Union cause at a time when everything else seemed to be grinding down in frustration.
* Sherman's offensive into northern Georgia was heavily dependent on his railroad lifeline through middle Tennessee, and its security was never far from his mind. In mid-June he had written his wife: "Thus far we have been well supplied, and I hope it will continue, though I expect to hear every day of Forrest breaking into Tennessee from some quarter. John Morgan is in Kentucky, but I attach little importance to him or his raid. Forrest is a more dangerous man."
Morgan was in fact in Kentucky. He had been chafing to get back to his home state, but circumstances and orders had forced him to remain in western Virginia to fight the Yankees there. As if in answer to his prayers, Morgan received intelligence that the Union commander of the District of Kentucky, Brigadier General Stephen Burbridge, was assembling about 5,000 men for another drive west into Virginia, to be supported by a second column of 1,200 under Burbridge's lieutenant, Brigadier General Edward Hobson. Morgan decided that the best way to disrupt Burbridge's plans was hit first. Once Burbridge began his march, there would be few Federals left behind in Kentucky to oppose a raid, and Morgan would be able to strike where he pleased and lead the Yankees on another merry chase. Morgan left on 31 May 1864, summarily informing Richmond of his decision; there was little the authorities could do but belatedly agree to it.
Morgan reached the town of Mount Sterling in Kentucky bluegrass country on the morning of 8 June, announcing his presence with the capture of a garrison of about 380 Yankees and their valuable supplies. His force consisted of about 2,700 men, about a third of them new recruits without mounts or gear. Morgan intended to obtain the necessary horses, weapons, and equipment from the Federals, but many of the recruits had more independent ideas of how to get what they needed. After all, any healthy man of secessionist sympathies who wasn't in the Confederate States Army at that late date was more likely than not a shirker or thief. There was a general spree of looting and strongarm robbery at Mount Sterling; some of the more hardened cases even pulled their pistols on women to take their jewelry. At one time many Kentuckians had welcomed Confederate raiders, but the rebels had now worn their welcome out.
Morgan and his officers tried to stop the robberies, but it was hopeless. He was particularly appalled when a group of townspeople approached him to complain that one of his colonels had given them an order to hand over $72,000 in gold and bills from a local bank, with the order indicating that the town would be torched if the demand wasn't met. The colonel in question was present, and the order was quickly determined to be a forgery. The description of the person who had used the order to take the money matched that of a German surgeon named Goode, who had prudently vanished. He was later rumored to be living well back in Germany.
However embarrassing this was to Morgan, he was deep in Union territory on a raid and had no time to sort things out. He mounted up the men who had horses and led them off towards Lexington, Kentucky, only 30 miles (48 kilometers) away, leaving behind 800 men lacking mounts to dispose of the Federal stores the raiders had captured.
* Morgan had accomplished great things in the past with his boldness, but there's a dangerously fine line between boldness and rashness. Things had started to go badly wrong at Mount Sterling, and they showed no signs of getting better.
Morgan's calculation that a raid into Kentucky would force Burbridge to give up his march towards Virginia did prove correct; what Morgan had not figured on was the lethal speed with which Burbridge reacted. Burbridge's men fell on Mount Sterling at dawn on 9 June, shooting or capturing about 350 of the 800 rebels there. Some of the defenders, hung over from their entertainments the day before, were shot before they could even get out of bed.
Morgan was on the road to Lexington when he got the bad news. He considered turning around and taking Burbridge on but, on realizing that the Union force outnumbered his own, thought the better of it. He took his mounted men and those who had managed to escape from Mount Sterling on towards Lexington, camped on the outskirts of the city, and rode in on the morning of 10 June.
The rebels captured a large stockpile of supplies and enough horses to ensure that Morgan's entire force was properly mounted. Once more, his men also helped themselves to whatever they could rob from the townspeople. This time even some of his old-time veterans joined in, encouraged by the example of the newcomers. The local papers reported: "Though the stay of Morgan's command in Lexington was brief, embracing but a few hours, he made good use of his time -- as many empty shelves and pockets will testify." The raiders robbed another bank, this time using revolvers instead of a forged note, and made off with $10,000.
That afternoon, after learning that there was a garrison of 500 Yankees and a stockpile of stores in Cynthiana, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) to the southeast, he put his men on the road again. Some were so drunk they had to be thrown into wagons to sleep it off. The rebels arrived in Cynthiana the next morning, 11 June, and demanded the garrison's surrender. The Federals refused, and a nasty house-to-house fight followed in which Morgan's men ended up burning down most of the town. The Yankees finally gave up, but then Morgan's lookouts reported a Union column approaching. It was General Hobson with his 1,200 men, in pursuit of the Confederates. Morgan's force, which greatly outnumbered Hobson's, quickly encircled the Federals and forced them to surrender as well. This was a great satisfaction to Morgan, since Hobson had captured about half of Morgan's command during the raid above the Ohio in July 1863, with the captives including two of Morgan's brothers.
Morgan did not hang on to his winnings for long. That evening, his scouts informed him that Burbridge was moving up with his column. Between losses and sending out detachments, Morgan only had about 1,400 men to Burbridge's 5,000, but Morgan, encouraged by the day's successes, felt confident, telling his officers that he would fight Burbridge in the morning. There were protests that Burbridge was too strong and that ammunition was running low. The rebels had captured a large amount of ammunition, but it was for Yankee Springfield rifles and would not fit their British Enfield rifles. Morgan told one of the officers: "It is my order that you hold your position at all hazard. We can whip him with empty guns." It is unlikely that those who had doubts as to Morgan's wisdom were much reassured by this declaration, but it is certainly likely it convinced them that they might as well stop complaining and shut up.
Burbridge attacked at dawn on 12 June. Morgan's men held out stubbornly until they ran out of ammunition, and then the defense collapsed. One of the Confederates reported later: "Our whole command was forced back into the streets of the town, routed and demoralized. The confusion was indescribable ... There was much shooting, swearing, and yelling. Some from sheer mortification were crying." Morgan tried to organize an orderly withdrawal but his command was disintegrating, and soon it was everyone for themselves. Many were shot down or captured by the Yankees. Morgan evaded capture and managed to make it back to Virginia before June was out, but he had lost half his men.
He tried to put a good face on things, reporting that he had disrupted Burbridge's plans and destroyed large quantities of Federal supplies, but his superiors were unimpressed. Northern newspapers made much of the bad behavior of Morgan's men and gloated over the thorough whipping dished out to the raiders, which was all the harder for Richmond to swallow because the expedition hadn't been authorized in the first place. It was Morgan's last big gamble, and he had lost badly.
* Morgan's raid into Kentucky ended up hurting the Confederacy more than the Union and did little to interfere with the Federal war effort. Sherman knew better than to expect Forrest to be so inept, and had taken measures to deal with him and his raiders. After the Fort Pillow incident, Sherman replaced the commander of the District of West Tennessee, Major General Stephen Hurlbut, with Major General Cadwallader C. Washburn, brother of Grant's political guardian angel, Congressman Elihu B. Washburn. General Washburn had proven aggressive at Vicksburg and Sherman believed he would do a better job than Hurlbut in dealing with Forrest.
Sherman also appointed Brigadier General Samuel D. Sturgis as Washburn's chief of cavalry. Sturgis had been in many battles in both West and East and was regarded as aggressive, though to that time his most memorable contribution to the history of the war was his comment that he didn't "care for John Pope one pinch of owl dung." However, he had energetically pursued Forrest into northern Mississippi during the last Confederate raid into West Tennessee in April, only giving up when supplies ran out.
At the beginning of the northern Georgia campaign, Sherman instructed Washburn to organize an expedition into northern Mississippi under the command of Sturgis to at least distract and hopefully destroy Forrest and his command. Washburn took two weeks to organize the effort. He provided Sturgis with a force of 8,300 men, consisting of a division of infantry under Colonel William L. McMillen, and a division of cavalry under Brigadier General Benjamin Grierson, who had led the raid through Mississippi during the Vicksburg campaign. The force was equipped with 22 guns and 250 wagons with provisions for 20 days, and Grierson's troopers had the latest repeating rifles. One of McMillen's three brigades was composed of black soldiers, who were burning for revenge for the Fort Pillow massacre.
Sturgis's force set out from Collierville on 1 June, but the next day they ran into the rains that were making Sherman's men miserable in Georgia, slowing movement to a crawl. On 8 June, the column reached Ripley, Mississippi, where Sturgis had given up his pursuit of Forrest back in April.
Sturgis was discouraged by the slogging through the mud, feeling that with each day of delay the rebels were becoming stronger and more dangerous. He had already dispatched a detachment of cavalry to cut the Mobile & Ohio railroad at Rienzi, just south of Corinth, to hinder the movements of enemy troops. Sturgis considered turning back, but McMillen suggested it would be a humiliation to go back to Memphis without having met the enemy. Sturgis wavered, and finally decided to press on. Sturgis needn't have worried about facing overwhelming rebel forces, since Polk had gone east with the bulk of his troops; in fact, Sturgis outnumbered the rebels in front of him by about two to one. The only problem was that the rebels had Forrest, who rarely missed any tricks.
* Sherman's belief that Forrest was about to fall on his railroad lifeline was perfectly accurate, since Forrest had left Tupelo, Mississippi, on 1 June with 2,200 cavalrymen and six guns on precisely such a raid. However, Forrest had only got as far as northern Alabama when a message from the department commander, General Stephen Lee, caught up with him on 3 June, informing him of the Federal incursion and ordering him to return immediately.
Forrest was back in Tupelo on 5 June, where he conferred with Stephen Lee. The M&O railroad ran north to south through potential Federal targets: Corinth, Rienzi, Rucker, Baldwin, Guntown, and then Tupelo. Lee indicated that Forrest should move to a location between Corinth and Tupelo in order to meet possible motions of the Federals, drawing them into the state to lengthen their supply lines before taking them on. Lee wisely gave Forrest plenty of discretion to do as he thought best, while Lee scraped up more troops.
Forrest had 4,300 men available to him in three brigades. The largest was Colonel Tyree Bell's brigade, with 2,800 men, while the other two brigades, under Colonels Hylan Lyon and Edmund Rucker, had about 750 men each. Bell and his brigade were sent to Rienzi, where they drove off the detachment that Sturgis had dispatched to cut the M&O. The other two brigades went to Boonville, accompanied by two four-gun batteries under Captain John Morton, which was all the artillery Forrest had available to him.
When Sturgis arrived in Ripley on 8 June, Forrest finally had a precise idea of where the Federals were and where they were going. A single ten mile (16 kilometer) road connected Ripley to Guntown on the M&O; it was called the "Wire Road" because a telegraph line had once run along it. If the Yankees were going to advance, it would have to be along the Wire Road.
Forrest received 500 more men that day, part of a brigade under the command of William A. Johnson, bringing the total force available to fight Sturgis to 4,800 men. Forrest was still entirely outnumbered but he knew the area well, having grown up in Ripley, and judged that the terrain would help negate the numerical advantage of the Federals.
Sturgis moved out of Ripley on the Wire Road on 9 June, halting that evening about halfway to Guntown at a farm owned by a man named Stubbs. Forrest then sent out orders for his forces to converge on the Wire Road ahead of the current Federal position, with the assault focusing on the area around an intersection named Brice's Crossroads. The Confederates moved out in the dark hours of the morning. Forrest rode in the advance with personal escort company and Lyon's brigade. Colonel Rucker rode with them, his brigade following.
As the sun rose on 10 June, Forrest explained his thinking to Rucker: "I know they greatly outnumber the troops I have on hand, but the road along which they will march is narrow and muddy; they will make slow progress. The country is densely wooded and the undergrowth so heavy that when we strike them they will not know how few men we have."
The roads were muddy for the rebels as well, and they would have to move quickly over long distances to achieve their convergence. Forrest had considered this, too: "Their cavalry will move out ahead of their infantry, and should reach the crossroads three hours in advance. As soon as the fight opens they will send back to have the infantry hurried in. It is going to be as hot as hell, and coming on the run for five or six miles, their infantry will be so tired out that we will ride right over them." He concluded by telling Rucker: "I want everything to move up as soon as possible. I will go ahead with Lyon and the escort and open the fight."
* Sturgis had in fact sent Grierson's cavalry on ahead that morning, giving the infantry a little additional time in camp to dry out their clothes. At about 10:00 AM, a rider came back from Grierson stating his troopers were under heavy attack and that help was needed.
Sturgis decided to ride up the road to see what was going on, after giving orders for McMillen to step up his march. Sturgis found the wagon train following the cavalry snarled and bogged down in mud and flooded-out bottom land; he arrived at Brice's Crossroads about noon to find a confused fight in progress. Some of Grierson's brigade commanders were completely discouraged and wanted to skedaddle, but Grierson himself was confident, telling Sturgis that his troopers had already driven off three charges by the Confederates, inflicting severe losses on them in the process. Grierson wasn't sure how much longer he could hold out under the circumstances, however. Sturgis sent back orders to McMillen to tell him to move up as rapidly as possible.
In fact, the confusion was entirely one-sided. All three of the "charges" that Grierson had "driven off" were noisy feints, with such of Forrest's troops as had managed to get to the fight rushing forward in a great show and then fading back immediately on contact. Forrest wasn't going to really attack until he thought the time was right, and the only severe losses Grierson was inflicting was on his ammunition supply. He was all but out of ammunition at about 01:00 PM, when McMillen arrived with his lead brigade to find, as he put it later, "everything going to the devil as fast as it possibly could." Grierson and his cavalry retired from the field while McMillen moved up his other two brigades as fast as possible. It was truly "hot as hell" that day and men collapsed on the march in the burning Mississippi sun, the others arriving on the field exhausted.
All of Forrest's men had now come up. There was a short lull in the fighting while he arranged an attack, a real one this time. He told the men with him: "Get up, men. I have ordered Bell to charge on the left. When you hear the guns, and you hear the bugle, every man must charge, and we will give them hell." They hit the Federals hard, but however disorganized or winded the Yankees were, most of these troops were used to fighting, and in fact one group performed a countercharge that threw back their attackers and almost broke Forrest's assault. Forrest kept up the pressure, praising and threatening and cursing his men, and at about 4:00 PM he got them all to make one big, coordinated push that finally cracked the Union defense.
McMillen's men began to fade off the field of battle in a disorganized mob, creating a panic and a traffic jam on the narrow road. Forrest's troops kept up the "skeer", as he called it, following so closely that the Federals could not organize an effective defense, or even burn their wagons. Forrest told the men in the lead to keep on going hard, not bothering to pick up prisoners. The Federals could be swept up by troops in the rear.
The chase went on into the night. Sturgis retreated back to Stubbs' farm, completely unstrung. At about midnight, Colonel Edward Bouton, the commander of McMillen's brigade of black soldiers, met with Sturgis. Bouton's troops had been guarding the wagon train during the fight, hadn't suffered as badly as the other two brigades, and still had fight in them. Bouton wanted to organize a defense, but Sturgis had no fight left in him. Bouton pleaded with him: "General, for God's sake, don't let us give up so!" Sturgis replied, numbly: "What can we do?"
Forrest gave his men a few hours to eat, tend to their mounts, and get a short rest, but had them on the road again in the dark hours of the morning. When the sun came up, they ran into a rear guard set up by the Federals just outside of Ripley, but the Confederates simply brushed it aside. The Yankees put up even less of a fight in Ripley itself, Forrest reporting later: "From this place, the enemy offered no organized resistance, but retreated in the most complete disorder, throwing away guns, clothing, and everything calculated to impede his flight."
The Federals fled so rapidly that Forrest, leading Bell and his brigade, wasn't fast enough to loop around and cut them off up the road. The Yankees escaped, and that evening, 11 June, Forrest called off the chase to give his men some rest and a chance to pick prisoners and abandoned equipment. Sturgis and the survivors of the battle kept right on running, reaching Collierville on the morning of 12 June, the journey back proving much faster than the journey out. Fortunately for the Federals, the roads had dried. The soldiers were loaded onto a train that would take them back to Memphis. They were exhausted, many almost too sore to move, and had suffered a humiliation they would never forget.
Forrest had lost about 492 men killed and wounded, not that much better than the 617 Yankees similarly shot down and in fact worse relative to the smaller size of the rebel force, but he had also collected more than 1,600 prisoners, not to mention 18 guns, 176 wagons, and large amounts of stores.
Sturgis insisted that he had been heavily outnumbered, and a board of inquiry cleared him of accusations that he had been drunk. In fact, though the battle of Brice's Crossroads was another thorough Federal defeat, it had a shining silver lining: Sturgis had kept Forrest off of the Union supply line in central Tennessee. If the way in which it had been done was much less than satisfactory, it had still been done. This did Sturgis no good: he wouldn't be given a command again for the rest of the war.
Forrest still remained a threat. Failing to defeat him in battle, Sherman ordered the Federal commander in North Alabama to burn to the ground any towns in that area that Forrest used as jumping-off points for raids into Tennessee. Sherman knew that such measures could hinder but not stop Forrest. A.J. Smith's three divisions were now returning to Sherman's fold after their misadventures up the Red River. Sherman had considered pulling them into his battle in north Georgia or sending them against Mobile, but now he decided to send them against Forrest. Sherman wrote Washington: "I will order them to make up a force and go out and follow Forrest to the death, if it costs 10,000 lives and breaks the Treasury. There will never be peace in Tennessee till Forrest is dead."
* After terrorizing Union shipping in the Caribbean, Raphael Semmes decided to take his vessel, the CSS ALABAMA, south to Brazil to see how the hunting was there. The US Navy was continually growing in strength, and he could not stay in one place too long.
The hunting was good. In three months, the ALABAMA seized 15 more prizes, and then the US Navy forced Semmes to move on again. He crossed the Atlantic to make port in Cape Town, South Africa, by chance seizing a Yankee bark in international waters just outside the port when he arrived. The ALABAMA spent six weeks in Cape Town, occasionally taking to sea to search for prey. He then cruised across the southern edge of the Indian Ocean and then into the South China Sea, seizing six Yankee vessels in the area by the end of 1863. Other Yankee merchantmen holed up in ports for safety, and Semmes decided to return to Cape Town, steaming across the northern edge of the Indian Ocean. He only found a single Yankee vessel during that return trip.
In Cape Town, Semmes was discouraged by newspapers reporting military reverses the Confederacy had suffered. Still, he did not give up the campaign, and took the ALABAMA north to Europe where he could refit the badly weathered raider. He seized two ships on the way north and anchored at Cherbourg on 10 June 1864. Semmes requested to put his ship in drydock there, but the authorities turned him down. Cherbourg was reserved for the French Navy, and Napoleon III could not be reached for the moment to grant a waiver. Semmes stayed at anchor and waited, feeling sure the Emperor would be sympathetic.
The news of the arrival of the ALABAMA in France made headlines. On 12 June, the American Minister in Paris sent a telegram to the Netherlands to alert Captain John A. Winslow of the US Navy steam sloop KEARSARGE, at anchor off the Dutch coast. Winslow, a North Carolinan who had stayed with the Union, immediately recalled his crew from shore leave and steamed south. He had been a shipmate of Semmes in the Mexican War and did not underestimate him, but he knew the KEARSARGE could defeat the ALABAMA in an even fight.
Both ships were of similar size and configuration, but the KEARSARGE mounted two 11 inch (28 centimeter) Dahlgrens on pivots on the ship's centerline. These two guns were substantially more formidable than the 110 pounder (50 kilogram) Blakely and the 8 inch (20 centimeter) smoothbore that were Semmes' main armament, and in all the KEARSARGE could hit the ALABAMA with about a third more metal than the ALABAMA could throw back. The KEARSARGE was also in peak condition, having only left dry dock two months before, and had a highly trained crew. The run-down ALABAMA's crew was mostly a set of mercenaries from all over who Semmes called "precious rascals". They were always getting into trouble in ports and jumping ship, though Semmes felt confident in them.
The KEARSARGE arrived at Cherbourg on 14 June. Semmes immediately decided to challenge the newcomer, even though he knew that the Yankee warship had the edge. He sent a message to US consul proposing a duel between the two vessels, set the crew to getting the ALABAMA in the best shape possible, handed the ship's gold and valuables over to a Confederate agent for safekeeping, and notified the French authorities that there would be a naval action outside their port.
At 09:45 AM on Sunday, 19 June 1864, the ALABAMA raised anchor and headed for the sea. A French ironclad, the COURONNE, accompanied the rebel warship in order to ensure that the fighting took place in neutral waters. A large audience had gathered on the shore, some of them waving Confederate flags, and a band on a vessel played DIXIE.
On sighting the ALABAMA, Winslow took the KEARSARGE farther out to sea to ensure that there would be no unintentional violations of French neutrality in the heat of battle. Semmes gave his men a pep talk, and the two warships closed.
The ALABAMA fired first, but Winslow took the KEARSARGE in to closer range before responding. As the two warships closed, they turned to get an advantage on each other, and the battle took place while the vessels steamed in circles. The ALABAMA scored hits on the KEARSARGE, but though an early shot injured the gun crew of the Union ship's aft Dahlgren gun, many of the raider's shells were duds, one embedding itself harmlessly in the KEARSARGE's sternpost, and solid shot did little damage. The ALABAMA's powder was old and weak, and the KEARSARGE had a layer of chain armor around her hull. The KEARSARGE's Dahlgrens were much more effective than the ALABAMA's cannons, smashing through gun crews and splintering gear, leaving the ALABAMA's decks covered with the dead and wounded. The two ships went through six full circles, with the ALABAMA accumulating damage.
In the middle of the seventh circle, Semmes knew the ALABAMA could not take much more punishment and decided to head for shore. However, the boilers were out and the ship was full of holes: the game was over. The Confederate flag went down, the white flag went up, and Semmes gave the order to abandon ship. Winslow, suspecting a trick, had his men fire another broadside while the rebels were still trying to raise the white flag.
The ALABAMA went under the waves at 12:24 PM. Winslow ordered his crew to assist the rebel survivors in the water, but all but two of the KEARSARGE's boats had been damaged, and the ALABAMA had only been able to provide a single dinghy for its crew. Winslow knew he could not save all the survivors; he called on an English yacht, the DEERHOUND, that had been observing the battle at a safe distance to help: "For God's sake, do what you can to save them." A boat from the DEERHOUND picked up the officers of the ALABAMA. Semmes was hidden under a tarpaulin, and when the Federals asked where he was, they were told that he had drowned. Semmes and Kell ended up in Southampton, along with other members of the crew that had been rescued by the English.
Winslow took the KEARSARGE into Cherbourg, where he paroled his prisoners, and then went to Paris, where he was played up as a hero. The fight had cost him two men wounded and one man mortally injured, while Semmes had lost 43 men, about half of them killed by cannon fire or drowned. Headlines in the Union press praised Winslow, and on President Lincoln's recommendation Congress promoted him to commodore. Winslow sent the President a section of the ALABAMA's sternpost, with a dud shell still embedded in it.
Semmes was treated as a honored guest in England. He used the ship's gold, left in Cherbourg, to pay off his crew and the next of kin of those killed. He was made a rear admiral by the Confederacy and offered another chance to command a raider, but the loss of the ALABAMA had taken away his enthusiasm for the game. Eventually made his way back to the Confederacy, where he was put in charge of the gunboats defending Richmond.
