Crucible of Command

by William C. Davis

  Grant still did not suspect Halleck of envy or ill will.11 When Halleck reorganized the army in late April he removed Buell’s army from Grant and left him to command only his own, now dubbed the “Army of the Tennessee,” though as senior subordinate he was still nominally second in command of the combined forces. But Halleck then began issuing orders directly to Grant’s subordinates without going through him, which soon led to speculation that Grant was essentially under arrest. He stood it for ten days, and then on May 11 asked Halleck to restore his full authority or relieve him of duty. Even then he suspected “a studied persistent opposition to me by persons outside the army,” but not Halleck.12 He considered resigning or going to Washington to argue his case. “I sometimes think it almost time to defend myself,” he told Julia, and began speaking again of transfer to another theater of the war. “I have probably done more hard work than any other General officer,” he told her. “I have had my full share of abuse too,” and feared that his useful days with this field army were near an end.13

  By now more than six months of intermittent criticism propelled him to step out of character to write to Washburne, who unbeknownst to Grant was already defending him on the floor of Congress.14 Halleck finally met Grant personally on May 12 and somewhat mollified his subordinate. Meanwhile, Halleck commenced what proved to be a glacial advance toward Corinth. Week after week Grant forecast the next great battle soon, and week after week it came not. He even looked ahead to what he would do after victory in the war, perhaps commanding an occupying force in the South.15 Then the army marched into Corinth at the end of May to find it empty, evacuated while Halleck dawdled.

  Grant hoped for another campaign soon and an important role, preferably clearing west Tennessee of rebels, with his headquarters at Memphis where Julia could join him.16 He wanted a brief furlough to see her, but even Halleck asked him to remain, and Sherman rejoiced. “You could not be quiet at home for a week, when armies were moving,” he told Grant, and no rest would relieve him of the sense of injustice. Sherman was all for going to war with the press once they defeated the enemy, but Grant simply resumed his resolution to stay quiet and wait it out.17

  Confederates surrendered Memphis on June 6. Four days later Halleck restored Grant to full command of his army, and by June 23 Grant did have headquarters in Memphis, and commenced fortifying it as a major supply base for the next campaign. Halleck gave him no instructions for administering a civilian population, so Grant felt his way; however, his chief objective was protecting the railroad leading south into Mississippi for use as a supply line for his next advance. Sensing his strength growing again, he became more assertive with Halleck in pointing out contradictions in his superior’s orders and expecting clarification.18 He also suspended the Memphis Avalanche for publication of critical articles on Union officers and men, despite his inclination not to muzzle even the disloyal press.19 By the summer of 1862, however, he had taken as much as he could stand from editors, especially on the festering issue of slaves.

  When Julia and the children arrived in Memphis on July 1 after a visit with his parents, Grant felt buoyed, but the presence of her old slave nurse loaned by her father reminded him of a problem he confronted. Old Fred Dent’s fortunes had declined and he feared his slaves might be seized and auctioned to satisfy creditors. He sent his youngest daughter a bill of sale for the servants he loaned her to keep them free from attachment. Grant suggested that his wife advise Dent to do the same for the rest of his slaves. She could not keep hers much longer in any event. They were not lawful in Galena, nor welcome in Jesse Grant’s home in Covington, and Grant preferred she not have any slaves with her henceforward, since he doubted they would ever live in a slave state again. Sharing the Dents’ paternalism for their servants, he did not want them sold.20 Julia would keep the nurse with her awhile yet, but within a year she was free.21

  Grant suspected by now that all slaves might not remain such much longer. Runaways flocked to his army when he marched through the country. He found half a dozen black men with the garrison at Fort Donelson, and what he called the “Abolition press” accused him of violating the law by allowing their Unionist owners from Kentucky to reclaim their property.22 In fact, those blacks were free men, and he released them at their own request to return to their homes. “So long as I hold a commission in the Army I have no views of my own to carry out,” he told Washburne. The law was the law, and no officer ought to put his personal views above it. Should Congress pass a statute he could not obey, “I will resign.”23 Grant remained basically indifferent toward slavery. “I have no hobby of my own with regard to the negro, either to effect his freedom or to continue his bondage,” he told his father that August. “If Congress pass any law and the President approves, I am willing to execute it.”24 But he also saw that runaways hurt the Confederates. “Their institution are beginning to have ideas of their own,” he told his sister. Consequently, rather than return runaways to owners, he gave them jobs in his army as cooks, nurses, and teamsters, “thus saving soldiers to carry the musket.” There was the germ of an understanding of what more the slaves might do. “I dont know what is to become of these poor people in the end,” he said, “but it [is] weakning the enemy to take them from them.”25

  Grant’s handling of criticism matured alongside his management of discordant subordinates. It was one thing to arrest Captain Hatch in Cairo, and quite another to confront colonels and generals, but after a year of wearing his stars he did not hesitate. Having seen so many incompetents gain commissions, Grant spoke up even to Lincoln. Napoleon Bonaparte Buford, for instance, had joined Grant at Cairo as colonel of the 27th Illinois. He immediately revealed himself a crank by saying that the war would end with the Union adopting the British form of aristocracy, and that he would be a duke and his family nobility. At Belmont he disobeyed orders and almost lost his regiment, so Grant did not include him on the Henry-Donelson campaign. Still, Buford made brigadier, but when Grant read he might be promoted, he wrote directly to the president, averring that Buford was a “dead weight” who “would scarsely make a respectable Hospital nurse if put in petticoats.”26 Buford did not get the promotion.

  There were worse than buffoons to deal with. Colonel Crafts J. Wright of the 22d Ohio had attended the Military Academy as Jefferson Davis’s roommate, graduating almost last in his class with a compilation of demerits that placed him 204th of 207.27 After leaving the army he had been both an attorney and a newspaper editor, often a volatile combination. He gave Grant trouble from the day he arrived at Cairo. He contested every fine point of military law and authority, then at Shiloh refused to obey orders from a superior whose seniority he questioned, and two days later similarly disobeyed orders to join the pursuit. Maintaining that “he has been the cause of more complaints from his immediate commanders than any six officers of this Command,” Grant arrested him and convened an inquiry that resulted in Wright’s dismissal.28

  At the same time, Grant advanced those who showed promise, particularly Sherman, McPherson, Logan, and others. His judgment sometimes failed him as with Lew Wallace, whose tardiness at Shiloh Grant could not forget, but then Wallace was not a professional soldier, and except for Logan, Grant almost always favored West Pointers.29 The more he saw of one subordinate, however, the more he needed to be on guard. McClernand’s ambition came into the open after Fort Donelson, when his report exaggerated both his division’s performance and his own, even claiming credit for ordering the February 15 counterattack.30 This summer he challenged another general’s authority to pass through an area nominally under his supervision, and Grant firmly dismissed any effort to claim territorial autonomy. “I command all the troops that are within, or that may come within, certain limits,” he wrote back. His subordinates commanded troops, but not territory, and it would remain thus unless higher power overruled him. McClernand bristled, protesting he thought only of the good of the service, but still characterized Grant’s response as “a boast of authority uncalled for,�
�� adding that “my actions . . . have lent luster to your authority.”31 Grant had not yet taken McClernand’s full measure, nor did he know that the politician was still in touch with that useful slanderer Kountz.

  Indeed, there was a risk with politician-subordinates. His most vicious critic after Shiloh was the Cincinnati Gazette. Until the later 1850s one of its owners and editors was that same Crafts J. Wright, and one of its correspondents with his army was Wright’s friend Whitelaw Reid, who wrote a harsh attack on Grant for his conduct of the battle. Reid’s article prompted Jesse Grant to send aggressive defenses to the Gazette’s main competitor, the Cincinnati Commercial. The resultant press controversy embarrassed the general, and he rebuked his father in terms charged by frustration pent up since childhood. Grant refused his father’s suggestions that he write his own defense, and made it clear that he did not want the support of any Cincinnati press.32 Nor did he want Jesse’s. “I would write you many particulars but you are so imprudent that I dare not trust you with them,” he scolded his father. “I have not an enemy in the world who has done me so much injury as you in your efforts in my defence.” He wanted Jesse to stop, pleading “for my sake let me alone.”33

  Happily, Grant was soon rid of a difficult superior. Like Lee, he grasped the interconnected nature of events across the continent, and specifically asked to be telegraphed the latest military news from other points, especially McClellan’s advance on Richmond.34 His first word of Little Mac’s defeat came on July 7 from jubilant secessionists in Memphis, and he doubted the news until Halleck confirmed it the next day.35 Disheartening though it was, Lee’s defeat of McClellan led Lincoln to relieve him as general-in-chief, and on July 11 Halleck got an order to come east immediately. Later that day Halleck ordered Grant to come to Corinth. Grant had been hoping for orders to move south against Vicksburg, Mississippi, two hundred miles downriver.36 With the fall of New Orleans in late April, the batteries on Vicksburg’s bluffs and letter emplacements at Port Hudson, Louisiana, were the only remaining obstacles to Union control of the river, keys to isolating the western third of the Confederacy and severing the flow of men and provisions eastward. It would also complete a water cordon surrounding the Deep South. Resentful at being called east, Halleck tersely told him “this place will be your Head Quarters.” That meant Grant would not be going to Vicksburg. Bringing his family, he reached Corinth on July 15.37 Even then Halleck told him nothing, and two days later Grant still did not know why he was in Corinth. He thought Halleck might be made general-in-chief, and believed it a fine selection, even though “he and I have had several little spats.”38

  Finally, Grant received a special order on July 16 placing him in command of the District of West Tennessee, including his own old Army of the Tennessee at Corinth and John Pope’s smaller Army of the Mississippi then camped a few miles away. Lee’s victories in the Seven Days served notice on the Union that it could be a long war after all, though Grant still did not think so. It frightened Washington into calling Pope east to command an army protecting the capital should Lee move north while McClellan took root on the James. It was a significant move, for it showed that Lincoln and Halleck were willing to shift successful commanders from one theater of the war to another. Pope’s achievements to date had been solid, taking New Madrid and Island Number 10, and thus opening the upper Mississippi down nearly to Memphis. Though Grant’s achievements were inarguably more significant and far-reaching, the idea of sending him east did not arise, no doubt because of lingering doubts thanks to Halleck’s old accusations, and of course because with Halleck gone Grant had a greater command than that awaiting Pope. For the first time a glimmer of inevitability arose. A Confederate chieftain had emerged who could do the seemingly impossible, with whom disparity of numbers meant nothing. Ironically, Lee’s victory boosted Grant’s career by moving Halleck and Pope out of his department. If the war lasted long enough, if Pope should fail, or McClellan fail once more, then Washington might look again to the west. At the moment that could only mean Grant.

  In Pope’s place, Brigadier General William S. Rosecrans commanded. Grant in effect became department commander, reporting directly to Halleck. That meant greater freedom of action, of course, but with fewer resources since, before he left, Halleck sent Buell’s army to eastern Tennessee. Grant’s two armies combined numbered just over 63,000 spread over a wide line covering railroads, and thinning constantly by illness. Despite his numbers, he believed he dare not launch an offensive until reinforced.

  A bright spot was Rosecrans. They knew each other at West Point, where “Rosey” finished high in his class a year ahead of Grant, though their paths never crossed again until May 1862 when Rosecrans arrived to relieve Pope. Rosecrans could be humorless and quick tempered, but Grant liked him. The two conferred frequently, often in person, and Grant especially credited his advice on defenses protecting Corinth. It appeared to be the beginning of a good friendship. Grant soon told Halleck that Rosecrans ought to be promoted to major general, “rank equal to his merit.”39 Still, McClellan had mantled himself in Rosecrans’s success in western Virginia, which left Rosey resentful and suspicious of all superiors.

  After a fortnight in command Grant believed that only about 20,000 Confederates, commanded by Major General Sterling Price, remained in his front at Tupelo forty-five miles south. He proposed to Halleck that he push Price back another fifty miles to Columbus, Mississippi.40 Instead, Halleck chose to weaken his army by ordering divisions east to Buell’s threatened army at Chattanooga.41 As he began sending them, Grant grumbled to his sister that “I am now in a situation where it is impossible for me to do more than to protect my long lines of defence.” Suddenly he thought Corinth too dangerous for his family to remain and packed them off to St. Louis on August 16.42 The details of reinforcing Buell and preparing for action himself wore on him with Julia gone. “It is one constant strain now and has been for a year,” he admitted, yet he saw no hope of getting away to rest and recuperate.43 Two days after Julia left he wished he could be anywhere else “free from annoyance.”44

  By the end of August Grant had shifted three of Rosecrans’s five divisions to Buell, even as reports suggested that Price was about to march on Corinth. Rosecrans had two remaining divisions protecting the Mobile & Ohio Railroad at Iuka, twenty miles east, and Grant soon pulled them to Corinth just in case. He was learning to discount exaggerated reports. “I never believe numbers to be equal to what they are reported,” he had told Halleck.45 By September 11 he expected Price to have 18,000–20,000 approaching Corinth in two days, not far from their actual 16,000.46 As usual, he felt confident. “I am concentrated and strong,” he told Julia, and he expected to repulse the foe. If the rebels did not attack, then he planned an advance of his own.47 As he told Halleck, “stampeding is not my weakness.”48

  Sadly, that resolve was not universal in blue. If not exactly stampeded, McClellan all but cowered behind his defenses at Harrison’s Landing, and Lee read the man well enough to believe he would take his time before moving again. His own army was too battered to risk another assault after the cost at Malvern Hill, so he pulled back to a strong defensive line to rest. They had confounded Little Mac “at least for a season,” he believed, but still he begged friends to pray, trusting that “they will be heard and answered for our distressed country.”49 Thanking “our Heavenly Father for all the mercies He has extended to us,” he was sorry not to have achieved more, but as he told Mary, “God knows what is best for us.”50

  In the ensuing days Lee exchanged prisoners with McClellan and arranged for the return of the wounded, but immediately had to turn his attention to reports that the Union army Pope assembled around Fredericksburg on the Rappahannock to protect Washington was showing signs of movement. By mid-July Lee could not as yet determine if Pope had designs on the Shenandoah Valley and the Virginia Central Railroad at Staunton, or planned a move to strike Richmond from the north, perhaps in tandem with another push up the York-James Peninsula from McC
lellan. “It is difficult to learn the truth until too late to profit by it,” he complained to the president on July 18.51 He sent Stuart’s cavalry north to glean more precise information, and earlier on July 13 sent Jackson with his division and General Richard S. Ewell’s to block Pope if he could, while Lee remained with the army continuing its refitting and reorganization and watching McClellan. It was a risk. Jackson performed miserably during the Seven Days, yet Lee did not forget Stonewall’s brilliant campaign in the Shenandoah in independent command. Moreover, Jackson and his men were better rested now. For the next three weeks he kept pace with Pope, and at first Lee felt he could not risk reinforcing him until he knew Pope’s intentions, and whether or not Jackson saw an opportunity to strike a meaningful blow.52

  Making things more difficult, by July 25 Lee would have risked sending A. P. Hill’s huge division to reinforce Jackson, but Hill was under arrest at the moment, and Lee did not trust the capability of the next senior general in the command. Then on July 27 Lee got word from Stonewall of an opportunity worth the risk, and Lee sent Hill on his way, beefing Jackson’s force to 30,000 or more. “I want Pope to be suppressed,” Lee told him. He also hinted that Jackson relax his obsessive secrecy enough to let his subordinates know his actual plans so they could act more knowledgably. Hill was a temporary loan and he needed him back as soon as possible, for there was always the possibility that a sleeping McClellan might reawaken.53

  Lee had adopted a very personal animus toward Pope by this time, for he had engaged in some acts and reprisals against citizens that outraged Confederates. Pope arrested Virginians who refused to take an oath of allegiance to the United States, allegedly forced others to take it, and allowed men wanting to escape Confederate service to swear oaths not to bear arms against the Union on pain of death. Lee sent a protest to McClellan alerting him that the Confederacy would regard none of those oaths as binding.54 Pope also issued orders promising retaliation on the property of rebel sympathizers, which turned into something of a license for his men to pillage. Lee felt outraged, and took it so personally that when he learned that his nephew Louis Marshall had joined the Union army, he said, “I could forgive the latter for fighting against us, if he had not have joined such a miscreant as Pope.”55