River of Blood (Shiloh Series Book 4)

by Phillip Bryant

  Bragg’s aide-de-camp, Josiah Johnston, was thumbing through crumpled and folded reports as fast as he could, bending over his camp desk in agitation. Two other lieutenants and a captain stayed out of the way, hoping to avoid any attention to themselves.

  Braxton Bragg was a fellow one either hated or disliked, and there was little to separate the two negatives. That he was in command at all was by virtue of one man and one man alone. Jefferson C. Davis, president of the Confederacy, was a longtime friend of the general: by that one relationship alone did Bragg maintain his lofty position, though just barely. No one loved the man, especially not his army.

  Bragg didn’t care what others thought of him as long as they kept their mouths shut and their letter-writing pens still. Unfortunately for him, neither was the case. But Bragg did have one thing in his favor: he was brilliant in his own mind, and by pluck and luck and a shade of brilliance that managed to slip through and mold events, he had kept his army intact and the Federal armies on their toes. Perryville had not been his choice nor his finest hour, but the enemy had been unequal to the task of destroying his army and had let him slip back into Tennessee to command another day.

  “What does Wheeler report?” Bragg asked, shifting his request.

  Johnston pulled several papers out of the pile and quickly scanned the contents, then turned from his desk to address his chief.

  “Enemy has advanced along the Murfreesboro pike and taken the bridge here, with at least a division of infantry moving along. They are also advancing along the Nolansville pike and the Nashville pike in heavy columns. Where they will all converge is not known.”

  Johnston finished reading, then added, “Rosecrans could be trying to slip between us and Atlanta by moving on Manchester and cutting us off.”

  “We have to keep Hardee spread out along the Triune, La Vergne, and Franklin lines until we know where the enemy will concentrate. That leaves us very little room to operate or decide what he is going to do.” Bragg sighed. His stomach had just started to cooperate after months of almost debilitating dyspepsia, and this was not going to make matters any better.

  “Has Nashville been heavily garrisoned?” Bragg asked.

  “The enemy has abandoned all of his camps around the city, but there’s still a strong garrison in place covering the rail lines and the river. The enemy does seem to have thrown most of his army toward us.”

  “Move Breckenridge to cover the direct approach to Murfreesboro and the fords across Stone’s River. Polk will fall in on his left between the river and the Wilkinson pike. Hardee will fall back and extend the line once we know where the enemy is concentrating.”

  Bragg paused, laid a hand on his stomach, and blew through his lips, a pained expression following. After a moment he resumed his dictation, along with his pacing. “Cleburne will form behind Breckenridge on the north side of Stone’s River.”

  He stopped again and frowned. “Is he moving his entire army, or is this a feint? Is Rosecrans going to try to slip behind us and cut the Nashville rail line and get between us and Atlanta?” Bragg looked to his aide, waiting.

  Having just offered this very idea, Johnston shook his head a little. “I think it is too early to commit, sir. I think we keep General Wood’s brigade and Wheeler’s cavalry along the Triune, La Vergne, and Franklin lines and General Pegram’s cavalry on the Lebanon pike. The bulk of the army here can still move south on the Nolansville and Franklin pikes if the enemy move on Triune is a feint.”

  Bragg nodded in agreement. “He has the larger force—estimates three times our own numbers. We fall back on Murfreesboro and protect the line to Nolansville at all hazards. Order the corps to begin moving baggage and trains to the rear. Start them for Nolansville. We will begin to form along this line here parallel to the Nolansville pike and the railroad and wait.”

  Bragg brushed the papers Johnston had painstakingly ordered out of the way to clear the map they lay on top of, scattering some on the floor.

  “And if Rosecrans intends to give battle?” Johnston said with irritation as he surveyed the mess Bragg had just made of his reports.

  “I intend to give it first!” Bragg replied sharply and jabbed a finger upon the map.

  Resuming his pacing, he said, “We draw him down and spread him out, keeping a firm base. We hold on the Murfreesboro pike and keep our own army well disposed to protect the line south, but we bloody his nose a bit in this countryside. It is better suited to hiding our own inferiority than for Napoleonic operations.”

  Bragg halted by the window and waved out at the landscape of dead-looking cedar trees thickly crowding the farmhouse. He smiled, satisfied. “Rosecrans likes to spread his army out and keep them in good sight. He’s going to be shy of just nosing his way into the unknown—Iuka taught him to be careful of that.”

  “What of the other commanders? What do they think?” Johnston asked as he retrieved his reports from the floor.

  “Hardee is for attacking, Breckenridge is for attacking, Polk is for waiting to see what Rosecrans does.” Bragg grimaced as he said the latter’s name. “But Polk is never for attacking unless he sees the advantage.”

  “There have been those whispers . . .” Johnston started.

  “I know, I’ve heard them. Don’t think I’ve not! They sound an awful lot like Polk’s doing—even communications to the president himself, all with the view to supplant me!” Bragg pounded his right fist into his left palm with a smack. “Ever since Perryville and our retreat from Kentucky, Polk has been engineering his own little coup.”

  The general wagged a finger in the air. “I have no thoughts of seeking to be reassigned, and it is for this moment that I’ve been given command of an army. I will bloody Rosecrans’s nose once he shows himself.” Bragg halted once more and grimaced, laying a hand on his stomach. For another moment he froze there as if letting something pass.

  “Yes, sir.” Johnston waited, pencil in hand, having finally gotten his reports in order. He knew his chief had been feeling poorly lately.

  The doctors called it dyspepsia, a condition of the stomach and intestines that felt like a prolonged bout of gas, one that seldom went away no matter what he ate or how much he attempted to relieve the pain. It had been getting worse as the campaign went on into Kentucky, but he’d been looking forward to a winter’s quiet and rest.

  “Tell Wheeler to fall back along the Nashville pike and be prepared to come down the Wilkinson pike on our left flank,” Bragg said, reversing what Johnston had suggested only moments before as if he’d never considered it. “We’ll have Wharton’s cavalry on the right flank and leave Pegram’s cavalry where it is on the right as well. Once we develop Rosecrans, Wheeler will strike out for his rear and cause havoc!”

  Bragg smiled at the thought and looked pleased at his brilliance. “Rosecrans doesn’t know how to use cavalry. He’s kept them spread out, and he’ll use them to protect his trains instead of striking our rear. If we had both Wheeler and Forrest operating in his rear, we could really do something!”

  Bragg winced again. Johnston nodded and dropped his pencil to the notepad, waiting for the pain to subside and Bragg to continue. The subject of General Nathan Bedford Forrest had been a difficult one of late and had only increased his chief’s persecution complex.

  After Bragg was forced out of Kentucky after Perryville, the Confederate War Department wanted to distract Union forces in Tennessee. Forrest’s and then General John Hunt Morgan’s cavalry brigades were detached from Bragg and sent on raids deep into the enemy rear to peel off some of Rosecrans’s army and keep him bottled in Nashville. Bragg had fought against the plan, but in the end it was not his decision.

  “What about Breckenridge’s division?” Johnston asked, breaking the long silence. “If Rosecrans intends to attack Murfreesboro, his division is spread out between the river and the Lebanon pike.”

  Bragg turned sharply at the sound of Breckenridge’s name and huffed, taking two strides toward Johnston’s desk and gloweri
ng at the map.

  John C. Breckenridge, former governor of Kentucky, was a political general, and but for his usefulness in recruiting Kentucky volunteers for the Confederacy, Bragg despised the man. Braxton Bragg was a general’s general, and that meant that to be in his good graces you were either like Nathan Bedford Forrest and you earned your laurels, or you were a West Point man and were granted them by association with men like himself. Breckenridge was neither.

  “He’s always had the admiration of his men,” Johnston added quickly.

  “But he’s in Polk’s pocket, and for that I wouldn’t trust him beyond simple orders.” Bragg fumed. “We leave him in front of the town but move Hardee’s other division if Rosecrans decides to move on our left.”

  “Polk’s corps is in the best position to oppose Rosecrans if he pushes down the Nashville pike,” Johnston stated with a furtive glance at Bragg. The Nashville pike ran parallel to Stone’s River on its south side, connecting with the Franklin pike file miles to the east. Polk’s corps had been spread out in the countryside for weeks, encamped and awaiting word to establish winter quarters.

  Bragg snorted. “Call Polk the ‘fighting bishop,’ do they? He’s the letter-writing, backstabbing, newspaper-tattling cowardly bishop!”

  Johnston nodded in silence. He’d heard all this before.

  “You know what Polk’s problem is? He can’t keep his mouth shut! You can think what you want of a man, of me; just keep it to your damn self!”

  Leonidas Polk had been a Presbyterian bishop before the war and a West Point graduate with Mexican War experience, just as Bragg and Hardee. The rumors and disquiet since Perryville were of Polk’s doing, Bragg thought, and the newspaper criticism of the campaign had his stamp all over it.

  “Sir, if you leave Breckenridge in front of Murfreesboro, once Hardee completes his retreat you either have to divide his command or concentrate him all on the north side of the river.” Johnston waved at the map. “Polk can’t extend farther south if Rosecrans does make Murfreesboro his target.”

  “Hmmmph,” Bragg grunted. He stroked his chin. “have Hardee bring Wood’s brigade and the rest of Cleburne’s division to the north side until we know what Rosecrans is going to do. Hardee does what he’s told and doesn’t get in the way. He’s a good West Point man—hasn’t participated in Polk’s games!”

  “So, sir, we are a little in limbo,” Johnston stated flatly. “Rosecrans has to make his move soon as he keeps inching closer to the town.”

  It was going to bother Bragg all day—where was Rosecrans headed? He had a large, well-provisioned army, and he was marching in the worst weather in the worst time of year in Tennessee. Forrest’s and Morgan’s raiding wasn’t accomplishing its goal of keeping the Federals in Nashville. Why? What were they trying to do?

  Giving another huff and slapping his hand loudly upon his side, Bragg went back to Johnston’s desk and bent over the map. He looked at the roads leading into Murfreesboro and the lines of advance from Nashville.

  “Hardee is picketing all these approaches,” Bragg said as he drew his right hand over the dots on the map for Triune and La Vergne, “and Breckenridge and Polk are here around the town, but we have the river and all this uneven countryside between them.”

  This latter fact brought Bragg upright with a grunt. “I’m not going to let Rosecrans brush me aside, nor am I going to fall back on Nolansville without a fight.”

  “Should we consider another withdrawal?” Johnston asked, a little scandalized by the admission. “These five roads made holding Murfreesboro important as long as Rosecrans stayed in Nashville, but shouldn’t we defend regardless?”

  “No, no, I’m not saying we surrender Murfreesboro, but I’m not going to destroy my army or get outmaneuvered either,” Bragg replied sharply. “We lose Murfreesboro and we threaten Chattanooga and then Atlanta. I’m not looking to retreat again, I’m looking to strike first!”

  “Rosecrans hasn’t lacked for giving us opportunities to go on the offensive. He’s just been lucky so far,” Johnston stated flatly.

  Bragg snorted. “Hmmph; well, I’m no Sterling Price or Earl Van Dorn! If I’m going to strike, I’m going to do Rosecrans in! Price has aggression but lacks sense, and Van Dorn just lacks sense entirely. Rosecrans was lucky at Corinth. Damn Van Dorn!” With Van Dorn’s failure, Bragg now faced a larger army in Nashville than he might have.

  Bragg turned back to the window and stood with his hands behind his back.

  The weather had been disagreeable all day, rain and cold with thick fog in the morning. A column of marching soldiers was passing up the Franklin pike toward Murfreesboro, and they looked cold and miserable. A fire in the room kept him warm, almost too warm.

  “Now that the Christmas revelry is over with, inform the division commanders to prepare to strike tents and be ready to move at a moment’s notice. We will not be going into winter camp just yet.”

  There would be more cold, uncomfortable nights and days ahead. Fortunately, Bragg thought, he had a nice fire to warm himself by.

  * * *

  Twenty miles’ hard march away, astride the now choked Nashville and Murfreesboro pikes, another well-warmed drawing room was soon to be the former HQ of William Stark Rosecrans. General Rosecrans was himself poring over a map, a well-drawn but poorly detailed map of the roads, railroads, rivers, and towns that separated him from his prize of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. An engineer by training, Rosecrans not only saw the lines of the approximate positions of Bragg’s forces but of the possibilities for Murfreesboro after he sent Bragg packing. Ever the forward thinker, he waxed on to his aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Colonel Julius Garesche, about what he would do with Murfreesboro in a few days’ time.

  “Bragg will fall back or hopefully choose to fall back rather than risk us slipping around his left flank.” He paused and looked puzzled for a moment. “What’s McCook’s progress? He’s supposed to be pressing down the Nolansville pike aggressively; where has he got?”

  “McCook’s reports have him several miles still from Triune. He says fog has delayed his progress this morning and the enemy is harassing his flanks,” Garesche replied dryly. He was busily knocking the ash out of his pipe against the palm of his hand. His chief liked to wax philosophic about anything, and one had to be prepared to carry on conversation as if in a salon in Paris. He’d already committed the reports to memory. He was seated at his desk facing Rosecrans and waiting for the next query.

  “Fog? Flanks? The entire army is pushing toward the enemy, and he’s worried about fog? If McCook doesn’t push aggressively, Bragg won’t have to guess where we are headed; he’ll know and be waiting for us.”

  Rosecrans looked again at the roads. It was all a question of roads and deception: which road would he take? Which route would the army push down? Which route was a feint? Thoughts of McCook flustered him, and he blew out a noise of frustration.

  “Is the general not aware that he’s the linchpin? If he doesn’t press the enemy hard and then fan down the Wilkinson pike after Triune, Bragg will not have to guess where we’re concentrating.”

  Garesche shook his head, knowing that his general did not want an answer to the question.

  “Once we get into Murfreesboro,” Rosecrans continued, “we pull in all the rolling stock we can and fill it with supplies—hell, we even build a fort around the rail lines for protection—and we have the perfect springboard for moving our armies down this line here, through Chattanooga and on to Atlanta. Once they lose Atlanta, they lose all of their western supply lines. If General Grant can invest Vicksburg, the whole of the western Confederacy will be cut off.”

  Rosecrans stepped back from the desk and folded his arms, nodding in appreciation of his own genius.

  “Yes, sir,” replied Garesche absently.

  “McCook is still miles away from Triune?” Rosecrans asked again. “What of Thomas and Crittenden?”

  “General Critteneden reports that his lead brigades are in front of La Vergne on th
e west side of Stewart’s Creek, so about ten miles from Murfreesboro now. They’ve had running fights with Wheeler’s cavalry all day. Thomas is keeping in line with Crittenden’s progress and is at a point fifteen miles from Murfreesboro on the Franklin pike, but McCook’s corps is still almost twenty miles away here.”

  Garesche leaned over toward the map on the table and pointed. Lighting his pipe, he drew several deep draughts and blew out, settling down to an occasional puff to keep the bowl lit.

  “Press McCook to get his columns moving; he’s falling behind the other corps and spoiling the plans. Hardee’s forces can be caught if he moves quickly enough! He’s stationed himself behind Stewart’s Creek all along this line here—he can’t be that mobile. But if McCook doesn’t press him soon, Hardee will just fall back without trouble.”

  “Sir, the bridges over Stewart’s Creek are being stiffly defended, and if any one of them is destroyed, the whole timetable will be off. We saved one bridge so far before the enemy could destroy it, but Crittenden has already encountered problems here before La Vergne, and the enemy has the high ground and artillery and infantry. Their cavalry is moving pretty fluidly across country.”

  “Garesche, damn the cavalry! Cavalry can’t hold territory, and they scamper off when you show force. McCook and Crittenden need to show force!”

  Rosecrans drew his right hand into a fist to emphasize the point. “Murfreesboro can be taken without a fight if we keep Bragg guessing as to where we are headed. We can be in Murfreesboro tomorrow if McCook presses boldly forward. Bragg will do what he’s supposed to do, and Crittenden can march into it on the morrow.”

  “Retreat?” Garesche asked blithely. His general and friend liked to hear himself talk and liked even more to play the superior intellect. Garesche liked to feed it.

  “Yes, retreat! He’s got an army moving down on him, and though he has the superior position and more men, he’s not in a position to sacrifice his army after the bloodying we gave him at Perryville. No, he has to retreat, and that is why McCook has to get his corps pushing forward, fog or enemy notwithstanding. McCook has to press forward!”