Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The war which had taken a distinctly less civil turn with the recent attempt to burn down Charleston with incendiary shells from the Swamp Angel, and the cold blooded murder of 185 male residents of Lawrence, Kansas by Quantrill's gangsters, took another step in this new direction 150 years ago today.
It was the Union retaliation for the attack on Lawrence and it came in the form of General Order Number Eleven issued by General Thomas Ewing, Jr.. It was known that the bulk of Quantrill's force had been recruited from the four western Missouri counties which bordered Kansas. It was known that when they wished to escape pursuing Federal forces, the rebel bushwhackers would simply melt back into the civil population where people refused to betray them out of loyalty, or fear of the consequences if caught.
Unable to distinguish the raiders from any other farmers and laborers in the district, Ewing's solution was to empty the district entirely. General Order # 11 expelled all residents of the four counties who lived more than one mile from one of the four largest towns. If you lived in the affected area and wished to remain as a loyal citizen, you were required to report to the army, swear an oath of loyalty, and then you would be permitted to live in the military base.
President Lincoln approved of the measure provided that only the military be involved in enforcing it, Lincoln had nightmares about Redleg and Jayhawker vigilantes using the order as an excuse for widespread murder. Either these Northern bushwhackers didn't get the message, or didn't care, for the order had hardly been issued before they were in the saddle hunting for victims. It wasn't only the vigilantes behaving in an excessive manner, the troops sent to enforce the order were told not to engage in looting or other depredations, just to evict the residents. This order was also widely ignored and fires were soon burning across the four counties, with columns of blue coated soldiers marching away with all of the property and farm animals they had been able to steal.
The goal had not been just a demonstration of cruelty, it had been to remove the base of operations which supported the rebel partisans. In this it failed. Quantrill and his men found that there was plenty of food to be found on the abandoned farms, and plenty of new hideouts to use among those dwellings not burned to the ground. There was no appreciable reduction in the partisan raiding activity. The measure was rescinded the following November and the refugees allowed to return to what was left, if anything, of their homes and farms.
What was produced was a strong and enduring hatred of government planted in the hearts of the evicted. For decades after the war they would be the ones sheltering and supplying the outlaw gangs which formed from the remnants of Qunatrill's and Bloody Bill Anderson's commands.
Contemporary Engraving of Redleg Vigilantes Enforcing General Order # 11.
Forty feet long and four feet wide, made from a ship's boiler, it held a crew of eight. It had two water tight hatches and a pair of ballast tanks which could be flooded or emptied by the crew. It was driven through the water by a propeller attached to a crankshaft worked by seven of the eight men aboard. It was built by private enterprise in Mobile, Alabama, and seized by the Confederate government when it arrived in Charleston Harbor in early August.
This was the H.L. Hunley, not the CSS Hunley because it was never officially commissioned as a rebel warship. It was a unique vessel, designed to operate completely submerged, delivering a torpedo at the end of an extended forward spar and slinking away unseen beneath the waves. The vessel was the latest hope for breaking the blockade via technical advancement.
150 years ago today it killed the first of twenty one men who would die either in trial runs or on its only combat mission. It was under the command of Lieutenant John A. Payne and featured an all volunteer crew. Setting out for a surface run with the hatches open, Payne accidentally stepped on the lever which controlled the diving planes, sending the submarine down under the water where it flooded and sank. Payne and one other crew member escaped, five men were drowned.
It was salvaged by the Confederates and work continued on perfecting its operations. It would not be ready for a second test until October.
Fate kept placing General Simon Buckner in situations where his destiny was tied to men he did not respect and situations he could not remedy. It had been Buckner who had been compelled to surrender Fort Donleson to General Grant when the political generals, Floyd and Pillow, opted to escape and leave him holding the bag.
Exchanged, Buckner first served with General Bragg during the invasion of Kentucky which had ended with nothing accomplished and Buckner learning to loath Bragg. He was then made commander of the Gulf Department, and later transferred to command the eastern Tennessee force when Kirby Smith opted to go west rather than continue as a subordinate of Bragg's. Shortly after Buckner assumed command, his army was attached to Bragg's Army of Tennessee, albeit removed in distance with Bragg at Chattanooga and Buckner with 11,000 at Knoxville.
The situation of Buckner's front had been a static one. Buckner did not have sufficient men to launch an offense, and his opponent, General Burnside with the Army of the Ohio, had been compelled to send one of his two corps to reinforce Grant's army when it was besieging Vicksburg, keeping it from offensive movements as well.
Now that missing corps was back, in late August Burnside began advancing against Knoxville. Buckner called for help, but Bragg was coping with a suddenly reanimated General Rosecrans who just the day before had gotten his Army of the Cumberland across the Tennessee River and was closing in on Chattanooga. Buckner fortified the Cumberland Gap, the direct approach to Knoxville, and hoped for the best against double his numbers.
Instead of the direct approach, Burnside feinted against the northern entrance of the gap and sent the rest of his command on a 40 mile flanking march to the southern end. To avoid being corked in, Buckner was forced to abandon Knoxville and retreat. 150 years ago today the Union flag was raised above the Knoxville courthouse once more. Possession of the city was less critical than was possession of the railroad which ran through it, the one line which directly linked northern Virginia and the west. Now all rebel rail traffic on the east/west axis would have to detour far south, below the mountains at Atlanta, before heading north once more. That included the planned movement of General Longstreet and two divisions from his corps to reinforce Bragg.
With Knoxville gone and Rosecrans getting closer, Bragg ordered Buckner to abandon eastern Tennessee and bring his men to reinforce the main army at Chattanooga. Buckner requested a delay while he tried to extract 2300 of his men who were still trapped in the gap by Burnside's men. Bragg denied permission and Buckner had to leave the men to their own fate, which was eventual capture on September 9th. Buckner's prevailing hatred of Bragg was now intensified.
150 years ago today General Braxton Bragg was granted the addition of another sub commander who detested him. Bragg already had Bishop Polk as his senior subordinate, or insubordinate as the case may have been. General Hardee had been transferred but the departure of his animosity for Bragg was more than compensated for by the arrival of General Buckner whose detesting of Bragg went back to the Kentucky campaign of the previous year. Also on hand was General D.H. Hill who as yet had not developed a reason to hate Bragg, but had been sent west because of his inability to get along with either Stonewall Jackson or General Longstreet. Hill would eventually join in the Bragg hating club.
As General Rosecrans was completing the crossing of the Tennessee River with the Army of the Cumberland and advancing on Chattanooga, President Davis became alarmed and decided to reinforce Bragg not merely to the extent of being able to hold off Rosecrans, but enough to take the offense himself and drive the Yankees back out of Georgia. First Davis had ordered General Buckner's 11,000 east Tennessee force to become attached to the Army of the Tennessee. Buckner of course had done all that he could in the past to get away from serving with Bragg. Next Davis targeted his old nemesis General Joseph Johnston, reducing his already feeble Mississippi army by detaching General John Breckinridge and his division and sending it to Chattanooga. Breckinridge was still smarting from Bragg's blaming the failure of the Kentucky campaign on Breckinridge's late arrival. So one more Bragg hater was added to the existing ranks of Bragg's deputies.
In Richmond, General Longstreet was lobbying to save the planned movement of his troops to the west. Longstreet very much desired getting away from General Lee after the loss at Gettysburg where Lee had ignored all of Longstreet's advice about fighting a defensive battle. He had hoped for an independent army command, but was willing to settle for serving under Bragg. When General Burnside captured Knoxville and the east/west railway link between Virginia and the west, Lee lobbied to cancel the planned movement on the grounds that now Longstreet would be unable to reach Chattanooga in time to accomplish anything. Longstreet argued that he could still make it by taking trains south to Atlanta and switching to the lines which ran from there to Chattanooga. Davis approved and Longstreet's movement would begin on the 5th.
Since the Yazoo River binge rumor incident in early June, General Grant had gotten out from under the suspicions about his alleged periods of intoxication. Getting rid of General McClernand had been a factor and Grant's triumph at Vicksburg was not the achievement of a drunk.
Now an accident brought it all back. Grant had traveled to New Orleans to confer with General Banks about possible campaigns in Texas and against Mobile. Banks put on the proper airs and staged a review of two of his divisions for his guest. Then there was a formal reception where alcohol was provided.
On the ride back from this event, a train whistle blowing startled Grant's horse and it reared and threw him. Grant landed hard enough to black out for a short time, and the horse landed on his left leg, damaging it enough so as to keep him on crutches for the next six weeks.
And the gossip was back. Some who attended the reception, including Banks, later stated that Grant had heavily imbibed while there. Others insisted that he was completely sober the entire time. Banks of course stood to ascend to supreme command in the west if Grant was removed, and Banks was a politician, so his testimony must be filtered through those concerns.
While searching for something else a few years ago, I came across some excerpts from "Diary of an Enlisted Man" (published in 1910) by Lawrence Van Alstyne, a Union soldier from Connecticut who was serving with Banks' army at this time. In his September 4th entry he wrote that he was disappointed that his duties kept him from being able to watch the above mentioned review, but he did at least get to see General Grant. Alstyne was outside the reception area when Grant and the other officers emerged and he watched as the officers mounted. Then he mentioned that a horse was led out for General Grant, and that it was so nervous and excited that it required two men to hold it steady while Grant mounted.
That certainly suggests that a high strung horse was to blame for the fall rather than Grant being too sloshed to stay in the saddle.
Today was the final day of what had been a sustained bombardment of Fort Sumter and Battery Wagner in Charleston Harbor. Since August 26th more than 10,000 projectiles had been fired at the targets with a special concentration of 3000 shots on Wagner in the final two days. Sumter already lay in ruins, a sortie by six Monitors on the 1st of the month had pounded the fort without a shot being fired in reply.
The third attempt to assault Wagner was scheduled to be launched at dawn on the 8th, the culmination of General Gilmore's two month old siege which had cost the Federals nearly 2400 casualties and an enormous amount of money.
But Gilmore's opponent, General Beauregard, sensed the timing of the operation perfectly. 150 years ago tonight a flotilla of rowboats evacuated the garrison from Wagner and Morris Island, accomplished with such stealth that it was not detected until the Union attack the next morning stepped out for their advance and were greeted with no opposition.
Taking possession of Wagner, or what was left of it, Gilmore announced that this completed the army's obligations to the campaign and that the rest was up to Admiral Dahlgren. With Wagner gone and Sumter rendered impotent, the fleet could now steam into the harbor and shell the city into submission. Dahlgren, however, was not convinced that Sumter was indeed harmless. He insisted as a pre condition to entering the harbor, that Sumter be occupied by Union troops.
Gilmore thought Dahlgren an alarmist, stating that he would send a force to take possession that night, but that they would "..find no more than a corporal's guard."
Thirty rowboats full of Union troops pushed out after darkness into a well planned ambush by Beauregard. When they were a half mile from Sumter rockets were fired from the shore illuminating the flotilla and batteries on James and Sullivan Islands caught them in a crossfire. The force rowed for Sumter, the nearest shelter from the metal storm, where they were met by 300 rebels who mowed them down as they landed. The portion of the flotilla which had not yet landed, turned about and fled to their starting point. The Federal force of 500 had suffered 113 losses, the rebels...none, not a single casualty.
Dahlgren interpreted this failure as a validation of his caution and refused to venture into the harbor. Gilmore had carried out his primary duty of capturing Morris Island, and now was pressed to think of what to do next. In the absence of an original idea, Gilmore decided to resume the bombardment on Sumter.
Charleston remained secure.
Well Pounded Battery Wagner At Last In Federal Control
The Confederate repulse of General Gilmore's attempt to take Fort Sumter which resulted in a 113-0 exchange of casualties, might have been the most lopsided victory of the war for the rebels....except 150 years ago today it was surpassed.
When General Grant had met with General Banks to discuss upcoming strategy in the west, the former had urged that Mobile be the next target of Union conquest. Banks had his cap set on an expedition against Texas and in this he enjoyed the backing of President Lincoln. The concern of the president was Mexico where the French puppet Maximilian, had replaced President Benito Juarez in a mid summer coup. France had been sympathetic to the South all along and had been restrained from intervention only by the unwillingness of British cooperation. Lincoln feared that with Maximilian in charge, an alliance would we forged with the South which while seemingly Confederate-Mexico, was actually Confederate-France. Lincoln thought it was important to seize portions of Texas and establish a force on the border to discourage such ambitions.
Banks planned an expedition up the Red River through Louisiana and into Texas, but this had to be shelved when an especially dry summer had left the river too low to support the draft of the Federal gunboats. So instead Banks decided to use the Sabine River as his entrance point, entering at its mouth on the Gulf of Mexico. This egress was guarded by a small redoubt, glorified as Fort Griffin and defended by the 46 members of the 1st heavy Texas Artillery commanded by Lieutenant Richard W. Dowling They manned six guns. Banks believed that this bastion could be swept aside with little effort and he dispatched General William B. Franklin with a 5000 man force and four gunboats to reduce it. From there Banks would march overland to take Galveston and points beyond.
150 years ago today Franklin's force entered the river, the 18 transports worth of soldiers held back while the four gunboats under Lieutenant Frederick Crocker went forward to turn Fort Griffin into ruins with the 36 heavy pieces which the fleet mounted. In early afternoon the engagement began.
It took only 30 minutes for the US Navy to be utterly routed. The Texas artillerymen fired with speed and accuracy, puncturing the boiler of one gunboat leaving it powerless, and shooting the rudder off another, forcing another to run aground directly under the fort's guns. Unable to escape, both ships surrendered rather than be pounded to pieces while unable to move. The other two ships turned about and fled to avoid the same fate, dumping extra weight to speed their departure which included the 200,000 rations which were to feed the soldiers once ashore. Over 350 Federal sailors were taken prisoners, six of them had been killed.
Rebel casualties....zero.
With his half his naval arm depleted and rations gone, Franklin and his expeditionary force were compelled to return to New Orleans.
Banks the politician immediately set about to make sure that everyone knew it was entirely the navy's fault. He also claimed to have been against the Sabine route all along and that his preference had been to wait until the Red River was high enough to launch the invasion from that point. He began re-planning.
Dowling, a pre war saloon keeper, became an enormous Confederate and Texas hero, the 46 men standing off 5000 plus four gunboats was the Alamo with a happy ending. Dowling receiving medals and a personal letter of commendation from President Davis. His statue may be found today in a Houston park. You will also find a Dowling Street and a public school named for him. Dowling survived the war but died of yellow fever just two years after its conclusion.
The Battle of Sabine Pass
Commemorative Poster...Dowling featured upper left.
Chattanooga...the capture of which had eluded the Federals going back to General Mitchell's aborted campaign and the ill fated Andrews raid, the rail center which was nearly in Union hands before General Bragg's Kentucky campaign disrupted the northern advance...Chattanooga 150 years ago today was entered and occupied by General Rosecrans' troops without firing a shot.
This was the product once more of Bragg being outmaneuvered rather than outfought. The Army of the Cumberland, after another of those long pauses which characterized all of Rosecrans campaigns, crossed the Tennessee River to the west of the city and turned east in a position to strike Bragg's left flank. As before, Rosecrans skillfully moved his army in coordinated steps with his three Corps each taking different routes to confuse their opponents. When the marching was completed, General Crittendon's Corps was facing the city directly across from Lookout Mountain, Generals Thomas and McCook with their Corps were now to the SW of Bragg and positioned to move against his left flank and rear.
With his supply lines threatened and the enemy maneuvering behind him, Bragg had no choice but to evacuate Chattanooga, which he did on the 8th, falling back to Layfayette, Georgia. Bursting with confidence following this second bloodless victory over Bragg, Rosecrans persuaded himself that the enemy was in full retreat and for once he abandoned his usual caution and ordered the wings of his force to pursue.
This was a huge error on Rosecrans' part. Bragg was not retreating, rather his army was being steadily increased in size as the troops ordered by President Davis began collecting in northern Georgia. Rosecrans did not know that the two armies were now of approximately equal size, and did not know that General Longstreet with two divisions from his Corps was on its way via a roundabout rail route through Atlanta.
Worse for Rosecrans was the disposition of his forces relative to the local geography. When he had previously employed simultaneous moves through multiple gaps in the mountains, those gaps had been fairly near one another so that they were within a short march of supporting distance. This would not be the case in the present pursuit of the Army of the Tennessee. Three great barriers, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge and Pigeon Mountain, all running on a SW axis, divided the Army of the Cumberland from the rebels and the gaps were 40 miles apart. When they next emerged from these gaps, they would be isolated and subject to attack in detail by superior numbers if Bragg could get his army into proper position.
Which is what Bragg was planning to do....if he could just for once get his sub commanders to obey orders.
Unaware that General Bragg's army was not in retreat as assumed, but close by at LaFayette, Georgia, General Rosecrans continued with his uncharacteristically aggressive pursuit, this despite a warning from General Thomas, one of his Corps commanders. Thomas pointed out that the army was widely dispersed and the elements were not in position to support one another should any of them come under attack.
Rosecrans was unimpressed and his orders were for all units to continue their advance. General McCook was to cross Lookout Mountain at Winston's Gap and press on toward Resaca. General Crittenden was to move due south out of Chattanooga to keep pressure on the "retreating" rebels. Thomas was ordered to advance against LaFayette and dislodge any rear guard elements which might still be there.
Of course those rear guard elements were actually the Army of the Tennessee in its entirety and exactly the sort of opportunity for destroying the Army of the Cumberland in detail which he sought, was now falling into Bragg's lap. 150 years ago today he ordered Bishop Polk to dispatch a division to enter McLemore's Cove from the NE and trap any Yankees found there. General Hill was to dispatch a division to block the enemy from the front while Polk's men sealed them in from the rear.
In this case those Yankees were the lead division of Thomas' Corps under General James Negley, 4600 men strong and some twelve miles in front of Thomas' supporting divisions. Negley entered the cove through the gap and advanced to Davis Crossroads where he encountered rebel skirmishers and also received word that a large Confederate force appeared to be operating on his left. That was General Hindman's division from Polk's Corps. Negley decided to halt his advance until he could get a clearer picture of the opposition which was forming. Late that day Bragg dispatched another division from General Buckner's Corps to reinforce Hindman. The rebels in the immediate area now outnumbered Negley by three to one. All that was required for the Union division to be cut off and destroyed was Hill's division attacking from the front to drive Negley into a cul de sac from which he could not escape.
Hill, who until this point had not made a personal enemy out of Bragg, now proceeded to join the animosity festival by deciding on his own to call off his attack. Claiming that he arrived too late in the day (around 5 pm) to commence operations, and that the roads had to be cleared of obstructions before an attack could go forward, he put his men into camp for the night. With no coordinated attack from the front, Hindmand decided that something must have gone wrong and he cautiously held back his force. Negley's men passed the night unmolested.
There seems little need to describe Bragg's reaction when he received the news that no attacks were being made. He furiously ordered the attacks to go forward the next morning.
Caution To The Winds..Thomas' Corps Enters McClemore's Cove With The Nearest Support 20 Miles Away
Last edited by Grandstander; 09-09-2013 at 05:46 PM..
An infuriated Braxton Bragg made it absolutely clear that the attack on the Union force in McLemore's Cove must go forward this morning 150 years ago today. The day before three rebel divisions were in a position to trap and destroy the single Federal division from General Thomas' Corps and that unit was still in the Cove. The attack did indeed go forward as Bragg ordered, but by now Thomas' second division under General Baird had arrived, and alerted to the danger the two divisions set up a defensive posture which easily repulsed the first assault.
While General Hindman was regrouping for a second attempt, the Federals staged a withdrawal through Steven's Gap and thus escaped the trap. Bragg was beside himself with fury and would later order the arrest of General Hindman for disobeying orders, although it is hard to see why Hindman was any more at fault than was General Hill.
Despite the near disaster, General Rosecrans would spend another day refusing to believe anything but what he had assumed all along, that Bragg was in retreat and now was the time for an aggressive pursuit. He insisted to Thomas that he had encountered nothing more than a rear guard action and ordered his Corps to continue their advances, still widely separated from one another.
What was accomplished was that Hindman and Bragg made each other's Ugly List, Bragg's now featuring this newcomer along with Bishop Polk, General Breckinridge and General Buckner.
McLemore's Cove: Front and Flank The Rebels Had Em Bagged...and Let Em Get Away
General D.H. Hill...He Didn't Attack
General Thomas Hindman...Neither Did He
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
