Crucible of Command

by William C. Davis

  Those were frustrating weeks. He learned that his son Robert was leaving university to enlist. “As I have done all in the matter that seems proper & right, I must now leave the rest in the hands of our merciful God,” he told Mary. “I hope our son will do his duty and make a good soldier.”15 He feared for his wife, too, for an enemy advance might pass Rooney’s White House plantation on the Pamunkey, where Mary was staying. He advised her to move, thinking the Yankees would persecute her for his sake. Respectable officers might protect her, but he doubted they could control their men, many of them foreign born and, in Lee’s view, rabble.16

  On April 4 Lee confessed that “all are anxious & expectant,” and he still had no sure feeling of McClellan’s intentions, or Johnston’s. If the enemy used gunboats to move up the York and Pamunkey on one side, or the James on the other, or both, they could land heavy forces between Magruder and Richmond and cut him off. The next line of defense would then be the Chickahominy River, which flowed from Mechanicsville five miles north of Richmond, southeasterly nearly forty miles to empty into the James several miles above Williamsburg. That made the Chickahominy an obvious line of defense, and Lee was the first to see it, but when he advised Magruder, then holding Williamsburg, to prepare to occupy that line if necessary, Magruder read Lee’s words as an order.17 For the first time, his habit of writing avuncular suggestions rather than orders began to trouble him. Years later Lee said that “I am no great friend to adjectives,” but now he used too many, at the expense of precision.18 Meanwhile, Johnston used too few. Lee saw the president’s mounting anxiety when the commander of his army refused to communicate, which only made Davis pester him more with requests. Soon the president began visiting the army after it shifted to the peninsula, which made Johnston more uncommunicative. There was a lesson there in how to manage a chief executive properly. Lee learned it while watching the dissolution of the relationship between the president and Johnston.

  McClellan timidly took root at Yorktown until the end of April, giving Johnston time to get his army to the scene. He stood only three days before pulling back to Williamsburg to fight a delaying action before withdrawing once more, until by the end of May he had his army on the south bank of the Chickahominy, just as Lee had forecast. Through it all Lee had little to do but continue his futile efforts to facilitate communication.19 Elsewhere he promoted operations that slowed McClellan’s glacial advance even more. He coordinated three brigades in western Virginia, a brigade at Fredericksburg, a division not far away, and a division in the Shenandoah under Jackson to prevent remaining Federals in northern Virginia from reinforcing McClellan or moving on Richmond from the north. Johnston was their commander, too, but he had little time for them, and Lee stepped into the vacuum. Even before Lee got involved, Jackson attacked a force three times his strength at Kernstown on March 23, sending a shiver through the North. Seeing that, Lee brought those scattered forces together in a strategic concentration under Jackson. This led to a series of battles at McDowell, Front Royal, and Winchester by late May that panicked the Union and firmly pinned Union forces in place. While Jackson planned the campaign, Lee was the architect of the concentration, just as he had orchestrated Johnston’s move to join Beauregard a year before.20

  In Richmond itself Lee organized battalions for local defense, and struggled to keep ammunition and reinforcements rolling to Johnston’s army.21 Seeing the twelve-month enlistments of scores of regiments drawing near expiration, even in the face of the desperate need for more manpower created by McClellan’s invasion, Lee concluded that a drastic remedy was needed. Under his direction a staff member composed proposed legislation making all able-bodied white males between the ages of eighteen and forty-five subject to national conscription, meanwhile extending by two years all current enlistments. The bill was a radical rejection of local rights and a dramatic expansion of national power, yet when Lee showed it to the president, Davis approved. He had it molded into a bill to go before Congress, where it was all but eviscerated.22 Lee also dealt with events beyond the Old Dominion, especially Johnston’s efforts to build an army at Corinth. Lee watched events there carefully, empathizing with Johnston in the challenge he faced in bringing together an army to stop Grant. Still, Lee felt hopeful in late March. Johnston’s forces were almost united, while Grant and Buell were many miles apart. He urged Johnston to strike Grant before Buell could join him. He must keep the enemy divided.23 By April 7 Lee knew that Johnston had struck the day before and all looked promising. Then came news of another disaster at the hands of a man he only indistinctly recalled from Mexico.

  Grant had told Julia he thought Fort Donelson would fall on February 16, and so it did. There is every reason to believe that he meant his threat to advance immediately on Fort Donelson. The bluff worked as Buckner, himself dazed by the failure of the breakout attempt, felt irresolute enough to fear that Grant might back his threat. For his part, Grant needed that bluff. He had improvised the Fort Donelson operation almost on the spot after taking Fort Henry, though he probably always had such a contingency in mind. He had the means at hand, command of the Cumberland approach, and momentum after Henry’s fall, but he had to move quickly before Halleck’s feet got chilly. His conduct of the operation was hardly flawless, though his strategic concept, mirroring the action at Fort Henry and even Belmont, had the merit of simplicity and concentration of force. A reconnaissance report a month earlier warned that gunboats steaming upriver against the water batteries would be at a disadvantage, but Grant pushed it anyhow in spite of Foote’s last-minute hesitance. A second miscalculation came when the Confederates made their breakout attack. Once more he focused too little on what the foe might do, so unconcerned that he was with Foote when the breakout struck. Grant’s genius lay in his reaction to the unexpected.

  Grant may have had more than just a halt to the immediate fighting in mind when he dismissed making terms or conditions. Back in October 1861 Polk wrote to him seeking an exchange of prisoners. Grant at first declined, arguing that he had no authority to approve an exchange, and referred the matter to Frémont, adding that “I recognize no Southern Confederacy myself.”24 Apparently headquarters approved, for in the weeks following the battle of Belmont exchanges took place.25 Prisoners gave their parole not to fight again until officially exchanged for an equal number from the other side. To date, the largest surrender came the previous September at Lexington, Missouri, when Confederates captured about 3,000 Yankees and released them the next day. Buckner had every reason to expect the same terms, but to Grant that meant 12,000 or more rebels would go to Johnston in Bowling Green, and in a few weeks he could be fighting them again. If he sent them north to prison war camps being hastily erected, then even if eventually exchanged, they would be out of the war and his way much longer.

  As Grant sent his prisoners north and cared for his casualties, the battle in his rear continued. Kountz expanded his campaign of libels, accusing Grant of entertaining a prostitute in his hotel room, gambling with government money, and being publicly drunk on several occasions, including one when he had to climb stairs on all fours. “He can do me no harm,” Grant told Julia the very day of the surrender. “He is known as a venimous man and is without friends or influence.”26 A few days after Donelson’s fall Grant’s chief engineer, Lieutenant Colonel James B. McPherson, advised him that “you will not be troubled any more by Kountz,” who finally resigned March 13 and for the time being ceased to be a problem.27

  Kountz might be neutralized, but not Halleck. The very day that Grant invested Fort Donelson, Halleck wired Buell to ask if he would come take Grant’s command himself, offering to shift Grant to the Tennessee River line to remove the difficulty of him being senior to Buell.28 Two days later Halleck paved the way for that by assigning Grant to the newly designated “Military District of West Tennessee,” an amorphous command roughly covering the territory between the Cumberland and the Mississippi Rivers. This would be what Halleck called the “center column” in a reorganizati
on of his department, and he intended to assume the direction of that column himself, relegating Grant to chief subordinate. Grant’s promotion to major general on February 19, to date from three days earlier and Donelson’s surrender, presented no obstacle to Halleck, since he would still command by seniority. It would be the best of two worlds. Halleck could capitalize on any success Grant achieved as his own, while should Grant fail, Halleck could leave the blame with him.29 Grant knew nothing of this, of course. When he learned of the promotion he notified Julia at once, and asked “is father afraid yet that I will not be able to sustain myself?” It was as close to “I told you so, Jesse” as he ever came.30

  Halleck then struck on a theme he pursued for the next fortnight. He complained on February 16 to McClellan that he had received “no communication” from Grant for the past three days, even though in the same letter he included details that came from the very communications he claimed not to have received.31 When Grant telegraphed word of Donelson’s fall, Halleck sent no response. In fact, he never sent a word of congratulation, though in St. Louis Halleck was jubilant, declaring that Grant had performed very well indeed. Instead, on February 17 Halleck sent a telegram to Lincoln all but ordering the president to place him in overall command of the region “in return for Forts Henry and Donelson.”32 He spoke of how a bolder enemy “could have crushed me at Fort Donelson,” and complimented a subordinate for keeping Confederates from reinforcing Floyd, or else “I should have failed before Fort Donelson.” Halleck claimed credit for sending reinforcements that only reached Grant too late for the fight, and though he praised Smith’s counterattack, he made no mention that it was Grant who ordered it.33

  Entirely unaware of this, Grant moved up the Cumberland to take Clarksville, and proposed to take Nashville itself in less than ten days if Halleck wished.34 The next day Halleck notified Washington, “have taken Clarksville,” without saying who took it.35 In the next few weeks Johnston evacuated his army from Bowling Green and withdrew below the Cumberland, abandoning Nashville, the first Confederate state capital to fall to the Union. Halleck was a flurry of activity, boasting that he would “split secession in twain” in a month.36 Then McClellan asked him for a statement of troop strength throughout the department, and Halleck found the club to beat Grant, or so he thought. He complained that Grant sent him none.

  Grant optimistically overestimated the effect of his victories and thought there would be “one hard battle more to fight,” but that it ought to be “easy sailing” after that.37 Perhaps that is why he picked up a dropped Confederate pistol from the field at Donelson, his only souvenir of the battle. There might not be many more opportunities.38 He wanted to move again quickly but no orders came.39 “I do not know what work General Halleck intends me to do next,” he told Sherman on February 25, but feared delay. He had the enemy off balance and wanted to keep them running.40 “These terrible battles are very good things to read about for persons who loose no friends but I am decidedly in favor of having as little of it as possible,” he wrote Julia. “The way to avoid it is to push forward as vigorously as possible.”41 He went to Nashville briefly to see Buell, now occupying the city, but hoped for orders any moment.42 “I want to remain in the field and be actively employed,” he wrote his wife, and avowed he would serve in any capacity so long as he could fight the rebellion.43 He still regarded Halleck as “one of the greatest men of the age,” but confessed on March 1 that he craved an independent command where he would not be under the thumb of another.44

  That very day he received orders to move to Corinth, Mississippi, to disrupt Confederate rail lines. Two days later Halleck told McClellan he had heard nothing from Grant for more than a week, that he went to Nashville without permission, and that satisfied with his victory at Donelson, he “sits down and enjoys it without any regard to the future.”45 McClellan authorized Halleck to arrest him at once and give his army to Smith.46 The next day Halleck ordered Grant to relinquish command and return to Fort Henry, demanding to know “why do you not obey my orders to report strength.” Grant was stunned.47 He protested that he communicated almost daily with Halleck’s adjutant, whom he logically assumed passed the information on.48 Halleck fired back that he repeatedly sent requests for reports, though none survive. Grant in fact had heard nothing from Halleck until March 1.

  Meanwhile, Halleck cryptically told McClellan of a rumor that after Fort Donelson Grant had fallen back on “his former bad habits.”49 The coincidence of this with Kountz’s accusations is suggestive, especially since Halleck himself released Kountz from arrest within days of telling McClellan.50 Yet virtually all references to Grant drinking during his old army days emerged only after 1862 and his rise to celebrity. Nothing suggests he had such a reputation in the old army, yet Halleck’s reference to “former bad habits” assumed that McClellan would know what he meant without being explicitly told. If Grant had such repute, Halleck could have heard of it, since he served on the Pacific Coast at the same time, but McClellan did not. Moreover, the rumor said the “bad habits” occurred after the fall of Fort Donelson, while Kountz’s allegations—and a few others clearly derived from him—all related to supposed events in 1861.

  Grant had been at Fort Donelson without interruption since its fall, except for two days going to Nashville and back, so unless Halleck twisted Kountz’s allegations, any rumor had to come from there, but no evidence survives and Halleck never repeated the charge.

  Grant received the order to hand over to Smith while his father was visiting him to borrow money, something of a reversal. Thus Jesse witnessed the fulfillment of his prophesy that ’Lys would not be able to sustain himself in command. Jesse’s smug claims of prescience added sting to Halleck’s barb. “I feel myself worse used by my own family than by strangers,” Grant told Julia in that day’s letter. “I do not think father, of his own accord, would do me injustice yet I believe he is influanced, and always may be, to my prejudice.” Grant confessed his foul humor. He was to be left behind with a small garrison while one of his subordinates moved south. “It may be all right,” he told her in his gloom, “but I dont now see it.”51 Not for the first time, Grant’s health reflected his spirits. He retained a bad head cold going back almost to the beginning of February, and by early March it had settled into his chest, probably a bronchitis to which he was prone most of his life. He also suffered severe and long-lasting headaches, and one appeared in early March. Only by willpower did he perform any duties.52

  Two days later Grant asked to be relieved of duty and reassigned somewhere outside Halleck’s department.53 While waiting for action on his request, he sent telegrams or letters to Halleck once and often twice a day, making certain he would not be accused again of failing to communicate. Beyond his view, much had happened in the past three weeks. The twin victories electrified a Northern press and public hungry for good news. The first reports appeared in the papers on February 17, and a day later Grant’s name was prominently in the headlines. Then the ball really began rolling with publication of his “unconditional surrender” response.54 Soon a rumor appeared that Grant had cornered Johnston’s retiring army at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and once again he demanded unconditional surrender.55 Headlines hailed Donelson as “the Great Victory of the War.” Meanwhile, fleeting press suggestions accused McClellan, Halleck, and Buell of stealing credit for Grant’s victories, hitting print on the same day that news leaked that Halleck might replace Grant for unspecified “bad conduct at Fort Donelson and elsewhere.”56

  None of that suited Halleck’s purpose, and the men and officers of the Fort Donelson army made their displeasure known both in memorials to him and in quoted conversations with reporters.57 Meanwhile, Confederates evacuated Columbus, Halleck’s other subordinates won a victory at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, on March 8, which forced Confederates out of Missouri, and John Pope was even then moving against the next Mississippi bastions at New Madrid and Island Number 10. Thanks to Grant the Confederates gave up Kentucky, evacuated Nashville, an
d by March 10 were virtually out of the western half of Tennessee except for Memphis and a few fortified bluffs on the east bank of the Mississippi. Then Halleck suddenly lost interest in continuing his campaign against Grant. It was better, perhaps, to have Grant where he could keep an eye on him. Should he win more victories, some of the luster would still go to Halleck. If Grant lost, he could also shoulder the blame. On March 10 Halleck tersely informed Grant that reinforcements would be coming for the army on the Tennessee River, and that he should assume command again.58 Notifying Smith of Halleck’s change of mind, Grant confided that “I think it exceedingly doubtful whether I shall accept,” and if he did it would not be before Smith had an opportunity to successfully complete the mission himself.59 One way or the other, he did not expect to be at Fort Henry much longer.60 However, by the end of the day when he wrote to Julia he had changed his mind and told her he would take the command. “Your husband will never disgrace you,” he told her. “We all volunteered to be killed, if needs be,” and all personal feelings ought to be shunted aside.61 “We have such an inside track of the enemy that by following up our success we can go anywhere.”62