Dixie Victorious: An Alternate history of the Civil War

by Peter Tsouras

  Bibliography

  Barrow, Charles Kelly, et. al., eds., Black Confederates (Pelican Publishing, Gretna, LA, 1995).

  Buck, Irvin A., Cleburne and His Command (Broadfoot Publishing, Wilmington, NC, 1995).

  Grant, U.S., U.S. Grant’s Personal Memoirs (Applegate Publishers, Philadephia, 1874).

  Grooms, Robert M., “Dixie’s Censored Subject: Black Slaveowners,” The Barnes Review, 1997, cited at http://americancivilwar.com/authors/black_slaveowners.htm.

  Jordan, Ervin L., Jr., Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia (University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 1995).

  Joslyn, Mauriel Phillips, ed., A Meteor Shining Brightly: Essays on Maj. Gen. Patrick R. Cleburne (Terrill House, Milledgeville, GA, 1999).

  Oates, Stephen B., With Malice Toward None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln (HarperPerenial, New York, 1994).

  Purdue, Howell and Elizabeth, Pat Cleburne: Confederate General (Hill Jr. College Press, Hillsboro, TX, 1973).

  Rollins, Richard, ed., Black Southerners in Gray: Essays on Afro-Americans in Confederate Armies (Rank and File Publications, Redondo Beach, CA, 1994).

  U.S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 4 series in 70 volumes in 128 books

  (Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1880–1901) (referred to as OR for Official Records).

  Notes

  *1.

  Testimony of General Nathan Bedford Forrest before the Finance Committee of the Confederate States House of Representatives, June 22, 1868, Congressional Record, Vol. 13, p. 1037.

  2.

  Purdue, Pat Cleburne: Confederate General, pp. 268–9.

  3.

  Mark M. Hill, “Concerning the Emancipation of the Slaves,” in Joslyn, A Meteor Shining Brightly: Essays on Maj. Gen. Patrick R. Cleburne, p. 150.

  4.

  Mauriel Phillips Joslyn, “Irish Beginnings,” in Joslyn, ibid., pp. 22–3.

  5.

  Bell Irvin Wiley, in foreword to Buck, Cleburne and His Command, p. 8.

  6.

  When this author related Cleburne’s military experience to a British officer, the latter remarked good-naturedly, “British corporal, American major-general—a proper equivalence.”

  7.

  OR, Ser. I, Vol. LII, pt. 2, pp. 586–92.

  8.

  Ibid.

  9.

  Ibid.

  10.

  Ibid.

  11.

  OR, Ibid., p. 594.

  12.

  OR, Ibid., p. 598.

  13.

  OR, Ibid., p. 599.

  14.

  Cited in Purdue, Pat Cleburne: Confederate General, p. 273.

  *15.

  Walter Herron Taylor, General Lee and His Colored Regiments (University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1906), p. 42.

  16.

  Jordan, Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia (University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1995), p. 195.

  *17.

  Taylor, General Lee and His Colored Regiments, p. 73.

  18.

  Rollins, Black Southerners in Gray, p. 16. “The first Northern officer killed was Major Theodore Winthrop, member of an old, distinguished New England abolitionist family, shot by an unnamed black sniper at Big Bethel. He was a member of the Wythe Rifles of Hampton, Virginia, whose Captain had told him that the ‘Yankees would take you to Cuba and sell you. If you wish to stay with your wife and children, drive them out of Virginia.’”

  *19.

  Judah Benjamin, Diplomacy of the War Years (Tendley and Sons, London, 1879) p. 439.

  20.

  Stephen B. Oates, With Malice Toward None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln, p. 357.

  21.

  Jordan, Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia, p. 237.

  *22.

  Henry Martin Tyler, Black on Black Combat in the Civil War (Applegate Books, Philadelphia, 1993) p. 298.

  23.

  The cartel was the system of prisoner exchange established between the belligerents. Prisoners were exchanged on the basis of man for man of equal rank. Exchanged prisoners were returned to active duty.

  *24.

  Davis, Jefferson, The Southern Emancipation (Bartlett Publishers, Richmond and New York, 1876), p. 274. Major General John Bell Hood was recovering in a Richmond hospital from the loss of his leg at Gettysburg at this time. It had been Davis’s intention to award Hood with the promotion and corps command that he actually gave to Cleburne. Had it not been for the affair of the manifesto, Hood would have commanded the Army of Tennessee. It is anyone’s guess how this aggressive but uncounselable officer would have done with such a critical command.

  *25.

  John Rawlins, My Service With Grant (Winslow House, New York, 1880) p. 334.

  26.

  Grant, U.S.. Grant’s Personal Memoirs, vol. 2, p. 542.

  27.

  Jordan, Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia, p. 244

  *28.

  Richmond Sentinel, March 23, 1864.

  29.

  Rollins, Black Southerners in Gray, p. 5.

  30.

  Jordon, Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia, pp. 246–7.

  *31.

  Patrick R. Cleburne, The Road to Golgotha (Stoddard, Richmond, 1872), p. 95. Cleburne describes his arguments that persuaded Johnston to take the uncharacteristic decision to attack.

  *32.

  Archibald Cummings, The McClellan Dictatorship (Levi and Sons, New York, 1923), pp. 344–9. McClellan had made enough indiscreet comments about the country needing a dictator while he had commanded the Army of the Potomac to have given anyone who cared to examine his character the warning that his ego would attempt to transform the presidency into just such an instrument of power. It took an entirely constitutional bill of impeachment backed by troops of the Regular Army to depose McClellan. He was sent off to Europe with a warning not to come back for ten years.

  *33.

  John T. Towes, Black Capital and the Industrialization of the Confederacy (Hampton Publishers, New York, 1926) p. 333.

  34.

  Grant, Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, vol. 2, p. 345.

  9

  DECISION IN THE WEST

  Turning Point in the Trans-Mississippi Confederacy

  Cyril M. Lagvanec

  Alexandria, Louisiana, May 6, 1864

  From a window on the second floor of the Burgoyne Plantation, Major Forrest Arnondin of the 28th Louisiana Infantry Regiment watched through his binoculars as a spectacle unfolded before him. Down on the Red River, below Alexandria, Commander David Dixon Porter’s Mississippi Squadron of eight ironclads, two tinclads and numerous transports and supply ships, were afire. Periodically one exploded with such fury that the plantation’s windows rattled. Major Arnondin lamented the fact that such a grand pyrotechnic display could not fall on the Fourth of July. Little did the major know that by that date, two months hence, the Confederacy would have much to celebrate. The scuttling of Porter’s squadron marked the scuttling of the Red River campaign and prepared the way for greater endeavors to the north.1

  Many Motivations, Foul and Fair, 1863–64

  The Red River campaign originated in the Federal halls of power the previous year. There existed the overwhelming desire to capture the bales of cotton that were stockpiled along the banks of the river. The accepted estimate was 105,000 bales, worth approximately $35 million. Not only would this windfall benefit the Northern economy in general, and the New England textile mills in particular, but it was hoped that the purchase or seizure of the cotton would beggar the Trans-Mississippi Department and demoralize or corrupt Confederate officials.

  However, more than mere cotton motivated the Federal leadership. There existed a great desire to encourage and succor the supposedly strong Unionist sentiment in Louisiana and Texas. Reconstruction was alrea
dy underway in Louisiana with elections being held, and from Brownsville to Matagorda Bay, the North had secured several lodgments on the Texas coast. In September 1863, the Federals attempted an amphibious invasion at Sabine Pass, but four gunboats and 5,000 infantry were repulsed by the Jeff Davis Guards: 47 men manning seven cannon emplaced in a mudwalled fort. The following month, a corps of Yankees moved across southern Louisiana to reach Texas via the lower Sabine River. This enterprise, too, came to grief at the hands of unexpectedly fierce Rebel resistance. In both cases, it was the rather luckless Brigadier General William B. Franklin leading the Federal forces.

  Other benefits to a campaign up the Red River Valley would be the salutary influence a Union success would have on the French designs in Mexico and the damage that could be done to the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department, especially with the fall of Shreveport, the departmental headquarters and the center of much military production and political activity.

  The plan originated with General-in-Chief, Henry W. Halleck, and he did all in his power to win support for it. President Abraham Lincoln approved of the idea, as did Generals William T. Sherman and Nathaniel P Banks. In fact, the only sustained dissent amongst the Union high command came from Ulysses S. Grant, and his concerns came not from a fear of failure, but rather from a worry that such an effort would divert men and material away from more important theaters. Nevertheless Halleck, after months of preparation, saw all the pieces fall into place. To lead the expedition, Halleck settled upon Banks, and he represented a sound choice for several reasons. A consummate politician, Banks had resigned as the Republican governor of Massachusetts to join the army, and he certainly possessed the skills to encourage further the development of any Unionist sentiment in the region. In addition, as the “Bobbin Boy of Waltham,” Banks enjoyed an intimate connection with the textile mills in his state. He always showed himself to be personally honest, which would help prevent any corruption arising from cotton procurement, and, finally, Banks was no coward. In practically every way, Banks fit Halleck’s bill, save one: Banks was not a particularly good general. Into his hands would pass the command of this most ambitious enterprise.

  As the North made its plans, in the Trans-Mississippi Department the Confederates awaited the spring, which heralded warm weather, rising waters, swarms of mosquitoes and hordes of Yankees. The departmental commander was General Edmund Kirby Smith. A West Pointer and veteran of both the war with Mexico and numerous Indian fights, Kirby Smith stood as the perfect example of the professional soldier faced with the quandaries of divided loyalties. Born in Saint Augustine, Florida, in 1824, Kirby Smith had resigned his commission in the U.S. Army after receiving news of his home state’s secession and after he had seen to the safe evacuation of his command, Company B, 2d United States Cavalry, from Texas. Quickly gaining promotion in the Confederate forces, his martial skills, genius for organization and his deep-seated antipathy towards General Braxton Bragg led to Kirby Smith’s posting to the Trans-Mississippi Department in March of 1863. In 12 months’ time, Kirby Smith reinvigorated the department and brought efficiency, productivity and, in consequence, higher morale to the region. Also, he could call upon some of the finest fighting generals in the Confederate Army, such as the cavalry brigadiers J.O. Shelby of Kentucky and Tom Green of Texas. There was also the fire-eating Richard Taylor of Louisiana. Son of President Zachary Taylor, he was classically educated but a complete novice in the ways of war. He took to it with a will, eventually earned the rank of lieutenant general and always showed himself one of the best infantry commanders of the war. This proved fortuitous for Kirby Smith, for while his men were properly armed and equipped, they would also be heavily outnumbered, and it would require smart, aggressive leadership to overcome such odds.

  The Opening Guns, March 1864

  After much deliberation in the highest echelons of Federal command, Banks began to collect his troops in the New Orleans area. His force comprised two infantry corps, the XVI Corps, under Brigadier General Andrew Jackson Smith and the XIX Corps led by Franklin. Some 11,000 tough Western veterans filled the ranks of the former while 14,000 Easterners made up the latter formation. In addition, Brigadier General Albert L. Lee led a division of nearly 5,000 Federal horsemen divided into four brigades. To all of this, Banks could add 90 artillery pieces and a mammoth wagon train. To escort the army up the Red River, Porter’s Mississippi Squadron of some two dozen warships boasted over 200 cannon.

  However, Banks’s army and Porter’s squadron represented only one half of the Yankee plan. Major General Frederick Steele, with his corps of 11,000 men, prepared in Little Rock for a drive south to Shreveport in conjunction with Banks’s thrust up the Red. However, Steele displayed no enthusiasm for the project. Bad roads, lack of forage and bands of Rebel partisan rangers all threatened to plague his efforts. Steele complained to Grant that he must also first attend to local elections held under the auspices of presidential reconstruction. Without his soldiers at the polls, murder and mayhem were sure to mark the political scene in Arkansas. Eventually Steele offered to mount a demonstration southwards, but Grant, who had replaced Halleck as General-in-Chief, scotched the suggestion and ordered “full cooperation” with Banks. In fairness to Steele, Banks could rely upon the Red River for the transport of his supplies while Steele would have to make do with wagon trains. Banks, however, also faced political concerns. He delayed opening his campaign in order to participate in the inauguration of Louisiana’s Unionist governor, Michael Hahn. Although ready by the beginning of the month, it was not until March 7 that Lee’s cavalry division trotted down the road to Alexandria, and it was not until the 12th that Banks’s infantry began disembarking from river transports at Simmesport, 40 miles southeast of Alexandria.

  The powerful, if ponderous, Federal advance met with an immediate Confederate response. As early as January 4, Kirby Smith predicted such a move when the river rose in the springtime. Nevertheless, he questioned the wisdom of a campaign in the Trans-Mississippi while the “future of our weal or woe” lay in the East. He confided to Taylor “that the enemy cannot be so infatuated as to occupy a large force in this department.” Whatever the level of Yankee infatuation with the Red River Valley, the Rebels prepared to receive the invaders. Kirby Smith ordered the concentration of his forces and Taylor organized a number of magazines which would guarantee the Southerners a steady stream of supplies.

  With the Federals on the march and the Confederates readying to meet them, the Red River campaign began. It opened hopefully for Banks when, on March 14, after a well-planned assault, Union infantry stormed and took Fort De Russy. Located at a sharp bend in the river, its garrison of 300 put up a good fight, but it was over quickly and the Yankee advance upriver continued. A week later Banks enjoyed another success, when, on the night of the 21st, a brigade of infantry and a brigade of cavalry overwhelmed a regiment of Rebel horse at Henderson’s Hill. Normally this would have proven only a minor setback as the department suffered from a surfeit of cavalry. Unfortunately for Taylor, this was his only mounted regiment at the time, and its loss left him blind.

  These early successes provided Banks with great encouragement, but his satisfaction soon faded. Several worries dogged him. The pace of his army could only be described as plodding. On March 20, Lee’s troopers rode into Alexandria, but the infantry did not arrive until the 25th. Banks landed by steamer on the 24th, and two days later received word from Grant that he had until the end of April to complete his conquest of the Red River Valley. After that date, the bulk of the infantry would transfer to the East. An even more pressing concern met Banks when he stepped off his headquarters ship, the Black Hawk. He discovered to his dismay, that Porter and his sailors were every bit as adept at thievery as they were at fighting. Equipped with stencils that read “C.S.A.” and “U.S.N.”, Porter’s men roamed the countryside and marked cotton bales with the first and then with the second. The confiscated cotton would then fetch prize money in Northern courts. Word spread o
f the depredations, and much of the white gold was burned by the Southerners to prevent its capture. Whether Confederate, Unionist, or neutral in sympathies, all suffered at the hands of the sailors, and wags remarked that “C.S.A./U.S.N.” stood for the “Cotton Stealing Association of the United States Navy.”

  The situation horrified Banks. He wanted a much more orderly, efficient and honest collection of the cotton, especially with the idea of cultivating the goodwill of the local population. This was all swiftly slipping away. His protestations and counter-orders fell uselessly into the inter-service gap and, while Porter enriched himself, a major goal of the Red River campaign receded into oblivion. While at Alexandria, Banks attempted to hold elections, but only 300 Unionists bothered to participate, and many of those did so in an effort to protect their bales of cotton.

  Disgusted and despairing of halting the Navy’s plunderings, Banks turned his attention back to the military aspects of the campaign. Spurred by Grant’s communiqué, Banks sent out Lee’s division on March 26. Its destination was Natchitoches, 80 miles northwest of Alexandria, and the last major town upriver before Shreveport. Franklin’s XIX Corps followed and reached the town after some very hard marching. Natchitoches was a pretty and prosperous town and the oldest settlement in the state. The Federals had never reached this far up the Red before, and they met a cold reception. Banks ignored the antagonized populace and kept pushing his army to the northwest.

  It was at Grand Ecore, an inconsequential village four miles upriver from Natchitoches, that Banks faced his first great strategic quandary. Banks’s guide, a river pilot with the impossibly Dickensian name of Wellington W. Withenbury, presented the general with a dilemma. To continue using the river for supplies and communication, and to enjoy the security provided by the guns of Porter’s squadron, the army would have to cross the Red in order to have access to a road that ran along the riverside. This represented a laborious endeavor and Shreveport lay on the western side of the river, so at some point the army would have to recross as it approached the city. To remain on the western side of the Red, Banks would have to follow a road that led inland, relying on his supply train and leaving Porter’s warships behind. In reality, the river road on the west bank began again a few miles above Grand Ecore, but Withenbury was either a Confederate agent or, most likely, he hoped to move the Yankees away from his own cotton stocks. Faced with only these choices, on April 6, Banks directed his army out of Grand Ecore and onto the western trail away from the Red River.