Crucible of Command

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by William C. Davis


  Grant was a neat smoker. Despite his careless dress, no remnants of cigar ash soiled his uniform though he smoked almost constantly. Onlookers found that rather than appearing stimulated by tobacco, he puffed a Havana with “the listless, absorbed and satisfied air of an opium smoker.” Smoking calmed him, which accounts for his using cigars at a faster rate during action than otherwise. He smoked during his meeting with Pemberton, and again when he rode into captured Vicksburg, leading one Confederate editor to declare that “a little stage effect is admirable in great captains.”71 Grant leaned slightly forward when he walked, and with a quick step if on business. When not immediately occupied, his sharp blue eyes still surveyed his surroundings constantly.72 There was even less affectation in his dress than in Lee’s, just a round brimmed hat and a simple private’s blouse with his insignia of rank on the shoulders. One observer thought he made a “far less pretentious appearance than many a second lieutenant.” If anything, some suspected that his dress was intentionally “a trifle, perhaps, negligée, as a man of his celebrity can very well afford that it should be.” Dark brown hair, with now a few slivers of gray showing, crowned a brow that even admirers thought suggested “no unusual apparent capacity.” He spoke in clipped sentences using words economically, and those to the point and without flourish, leading a New York correspondent to remark that “Gen. Grant has the substantial without the showy.”73

  Now he had Vicksburg, which was substantial indeed. Like Lee’s defeat at Gettysburg, however, its significance was misrated then and later. In tandem with the fall of Port Hudson, it certainly opened the Mississippi’s full length to Union traffic, and effectively closed any Confederate door to Texas, Arkansas, and west Louisiana. By this time, however, those distant regions had already stopped providing more than a trickle of men or materiel to the war effort east of the river, and Confederates essentially lost use of most of the Mississippi after the fall of New Orleans. Now the Union could move thousands of men quickly north or south as needed, and begin using the Mississippi’s tributaries as highways farther into the Southern heartland, but to Grant the most significant achievement was taking 30,000 rebel soldiers, 50,000 rifles, and more than 170 cannon out of the war. By paroling them on the spot rather than convoying them to Northern prisons first, he left his river transports immediately available for his own use, either to go south to aid Banks at Port Hudson, or to return to Tennessee to go after Johnston.74 He could also assume that thousands would leave the parole camps and go home. In either case, unable to serve again until exchanged, they would be an unproductive burden to the Confederate government and their own communities that had to feed them. In fact, two weeks after the surrender Grant saw that most of the parolees had already deserted the camps and gone home. Exchanged or not, he expected that many would never return to their regiments.75

  He presumed he would not remain long in Vicksburg. “I do not expect to be still much however whilst the war lasts,” he told Julia.76 In fact, he had been impatient for months, chafing at the time his efforts took, and at the outspoken peace party at home that would retard his efforts. “My confidance in taking Vicksburg is not unshaken,” he wrote Julia back in mid-February, but he worried that some of the people at home seemed miserly with their moral support. “They are behaving scandalously,” he said of the anti-war Democrats called Copperheads in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, who encouraged soldiers to desert. “I want to see the Administration commence a war upon these people,” he fumed, believing the disloyal press ought to be suppressed and the most vocal agitators confined until the end of the war.77 Yet he drew a line at taking any such action himself without government sanction. When Hurlbut banned the anti-war Chicago Times from his department, Grant agreed that it was deserved, averring that several other Northern newspapers merited the same treatment, but since Washington did not suppress them everywhere, he doubted the propriety of doing it in his command alone and instructed Hurlbut to rescind his order.78 He was ever mindful of the subordination of the military to the civil authority, and the Constitution.

  Yet he could be provoked. Just as he decried what he regarded as the disloyal press, he ignored critics who thought he was too long at the task of taking Vicksburg. “I have no idea of being driven to do a desperate or foolish act by the howlings of the press,” he told his father the previous April. “There is no one less disturbed by them than myself.”79 Still, he banished a New York Herald reporter from his army in April for attacking Sherman and that same month ordered the arrest of a correspondent from the Associated Press for writing a dispatch giving away the location of a battery designed to protect the lower end of one of the waterways bypassing Vicksburg. The next day, still in a mood, he ordered the suppression of all newspapers in Memphis for giving away his movements, and the arrest of one editor who published the plan to move via New Carthage and Grand Gulf. Grant suspected an engineer officer, an “incoragibly gassy man,” of being the source, and was almost angry enough to arrest him first and look for supporting evidence afterward, but soon cooled.80

  More important issues now held him at Vicksburg. Grant found hundreds of slaves freed by the fall of the city. At the beginning of the year when contrabands flocked to his lines, he had asked Halleck, “What will I do with surplus Negroes?” He employed as many as he could with the army, and sent several hundred others to Cincinnati to see them better cared for, as well as to relieve the pressure on his own resources.81 A few weeks before Vicksburg’s fall he wrote one of his few letters to date to Lincoln outlining his efforts to bring system and humanity to the treatment of the contrabands, asking the president to consider executive action to establish uniform policy for dealing with the freedmen.82 Now he found a new host of them on his hands. “I want the negroes all to understand that they are free men,” he directed. If any wanted to leave with their paroled masters, they could go, and might even do some good by telling others at home how the Yankees had come to free them. As for black males who remained, he was not at first ready to enlist them in the army, though black regiments were already in service elsewhere; but before the end of the month he began the enlistments, and soon found the new black regiments easier to discipline than many white units.

  “This, with the emancipation of the negro, is the heaviest blow yet given the Confederacy,” he told Lincoln in August. He sent cavalry into the country with recruiting officers to bring in black males who wanted to enlist. “I would do this whether arming the negro seemed to me a wise policy or not,” he said, because it was an order, but in this instance he obeyed with enthusiasm. “By arming the negro we have added a powerful ally,” he wrote the president. “They will make good soldiers and taking them from the enemy weaken him in the same proportion they strengthen us.” He favored pushing the policy to raise enough to garrison all of the South that should fall into their hands, as well as to help in occupying more.83 At first he envisioned using them for garrison duty to free white regiments for the field, but looking at the record of the few black units in combat thus far in his department, he attested that “all that have been tried have fought bravely.”84 Three of his corps commanders favored enlisting and arming blacks, and Grant had already told Halleck that he would carry out any policy directed by proper authority. Meanwhile, he put Confederate general Richard Taylor, commanding in west Louisiana, on notice that he expected captured black soldiers to receive the same treatment as white prisoners. Grant felt no more favor for a policy of retaliation than Lee, but should the Confederacy execute black soldiers taken prisoner, he warned Taylor that “I will accept the issue,” and act accordingly.85

  This harmonized with his evolving attitude toward the issue that had the nation at odds. “Slavery is already dead and cannot be resurrected,” he told Washburne at the end of August. He doubted that it could be protected even if North and South made a peace with the right to own slaves guaranteed. “I was never an Abolitionist,” he told the congressman, “[n]ot even what could be called anti slavery, but I try to judge farely & ho
nestly and it become patent to my mind early in the rebellion that the North & South could never live at peace with each other except as one nation, and that without Slavery.” Anxious as he was for peace, he made it plain that he would not accept any settlement that did not settle slavery first and forever.86

  Looking beyond the new units that Mississippi’s black men might provide, Grant thought about Union recruiting policy. Seeing that 300,000 new recruits were to be raised by conscription if necessary, two-thirds of them to form new regiments, Grant appealed personally to Lincoln to use the draftees to fill the gaps in veteran units instead, and made his case in dollars and cents. The veterans in the older regiments were seasoned soldiers even better than those of the professional Regular Army. “A recruit added to them would become an old soldier, from the very contact,” Grant argued. Moreover, the existing regiments already had their officers and equipment, and adding a new recruit to them would cost only the man’s pay and allowances. Creating new regiments, on the other hand, required new officers and the replication of all that equipment, as well as months of training that, from his personal observation, usually depleted a regiment by a third through sickness before it saw an enemy. “Taken in an economic view,” he concluded, “one drafted man in an old regiment is worth three in a new one.”87

  Left unsaid was Grant’s preference to wage his campaigns with veteran units rather than new ones, and he had another move in mind a fortnight after Pemberton’s surrender. For some time now he had believed the next goal should be Mobile, Alabama, a target entirely consonant with his vision of this war from the beginning. Operating from Mobile, Union forces could move up the Alabama and Tombigbee Rivers to Meridian and Montgomery and beyond. Control of those streams, combined with the conquered Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers and the Gulf coast, reduced all of Mississippi, two-thirds of Alabama, all of western Tennessee and eastern Louisiana virtually to an island, accessible to the rest of the Confederacy only via a slim sixty-mile-wide doorway between the headwaters of the Alabama and the lower reaches of the Tennessee. Any Confederates remaining on that island must evacuate through that door or live off the land and risk being starved into submission. More than ten thousand square miles of Confederate soil and resources would fall to the Union, making Vicksburg pale in significance.

  Throughout July and most of August he pressed the idea, even though it was outside his department, and offered to loan an army corps to General Banks in New Orleans for the task should he undertake it.88 Banks, however, preferred to move up the Red River in western Louisiana and into Texas. His motives were mixed, one of them in large part being the lure of a great quantity of cotton there for the taking. Moreover, French forces had recently invaded and virtually taken over Mexico, and Lincoln felt the need of a strong Union presence in Texas to discourage France from carrying its adventuring north of the Rio Grande, or allying with the Confederacy. Early in August Lincoln himself made that case to Grant, who immediately yielded the point, even though the territory that would fall under Union control if his Mobile plan succeeded, added to his conquest of the Mississippi, would render French intervention in Texas meaningless, for any aid from there would have to traverse nearly five hundred miles of Union-held territory just to reach Confederate lines in eastern Alabama.89 As always, Grant observed the line of authority between commander-in-chief and a general in the field, and never questioned the president.

  Moreover, he had cause to be grateful to Lincoln. Meade’s failure to pursue Lee vigorously squandered a golden opportunity in the president’s mind, and though Lincoln cooled, and declined Meade’s offer to resign, the subject of replacing him in command of the Army of the Potomac stuck with Stanton, who suggested to Halleck and probably Lincoln that Grant be brought east to take over. At last the seemingly inevitable was in play, the Union striking first to bring its paladin to counter the Confederate champion. By July 18 a rumor got into the press that Grant would replace Meade.90 Almost immediately, both Halleck and Charles Dana energetically stressed to Stanton that being ordered east would more sadden than satisfy the Union’s most successful general, whereupon Stanton immediately shelved the idea. Grant, who may have known nothing about it as yet, felt immensely relieved when Dana told him. He understood the dynamics of command culture and the necessity of a harmonious senior officer corps to successful operations, having struggled to protect his own against McClernand’s malicious influence. He was already seeing the effects of expelling that discordant element and replacing him with Ord at the head of the XIII Corps. “The change is better than 10 000 reinforcements,” he told Dana. Now there was harmony throughout the top command of his army, though he realized that the XIII Corps had been governed so long by a spirit of ambition and insubordination that some of its generals might resent Ord. Grant was prepared to make changes in Ord’s subordinate commanders until the malcontents were quiet or gone.91 Grant recognized that Meade’s army already had able officers with long experience in that body. “My going could do no possible good,” he said. “To import a commander to place over them certainly could produce no good,” perhaps just exchanging one problem for another. Though he would never refuse an order, he would have objected vehemently to being sent east. “I can do more with this army than it would be possible for me to do with any other,” he believed. He knew the soldiers in his army would do what he asked. “I know the exact capacity of every General,” he added, and where and how to place each for maximum benefit, which was to him “a matter of no small importance.”92 Lincoln could have insisted, and Grant would have gone, but he felt thankful that he did not have to deal with that now. Still, the seed was planted.

  If he was not to go east, and with his Mobile plan dead, there remained a real question of what he should do next. Just the day after Vicksburg’s surrender Grant asked Halleck for any instructions, and whether he was to cooperate with other department commanders in any grand scheme, or follow his own judgment.93 After nearly two months of inactivity, Grant left Vicksburg on August 31 for what he expected to be a short trip to New Orleans to meet with Banks and discuss how he could help with the planned expedition into Texas.94 He arrived two days later and was soon abed at the St. Charles Hotel when awakened by men singing in the street outside. Friends and admirers had come to serenade him, and though the only speech he made was an apology for not making one, he rose and dressed to shake hands with many.95 The next evening Banks held a grand levee in Grant’s honor at his headquarters, where most of loyal New Orleans turned out to see the hero of Vicksburg.96 On the morrow he joined Banks in reviewing a corps, and was given a horse so strong and unruly that it took two men to hold him for Grant to mount. He handled the animal well through the review, but while they rode back to the city a carriage accidentally bumped the horse and sent it shying in panic. Incredibly, Grant stayed in the saddle, but the animal fell over on his right leg and side, severely bruising him from knee to chest, fortunately breaking no bones.

  The next day found him bedridden in severe pain, unable to be carried to a boat to return to Vicksburg or even to write letters. Julia was not with him but several of his staff were, probably including Lagow, who had been there since July and had become overfond of liquor. On one of those trying days, possibly the day of the accident, confined to bed, frustrated at his inactivity, uncomfortable in the summer heat, Grant took the first drink, perhaps to ease his pain. Too many followed, and soon enough he was thoroughly drunk, though after that one event he passed the remainder of his convalescent time in Now Orleans soberly.97 He spent ten days in bed before able to be carried to the wharf to board a steamboat for Vicksburg, meanwhile trying to carry on necessary correspondence by dictation.98 Back at Vicksburg on September 16, he sent for Julia, who soon came to nurse him, and perhaps watch that he did not get to a bottle again. Nine days after his return, and twenty days since the accident, he stood again with the aid of crutches, though still weak.99

  It was just in time. Five days earlier Rosecrans suffered humiliating defeat at
Chickamauga, he and his army rushing in a panic back to Chattanooga. Within a few days Grant sent off most of his army under Sherman toward Chattanooga, keeping just enough men to hold the Mississippi from Vicksburg to Banks’s lines above Baton Rouge. Even then he thought wistfully of what he could accomplish if he had enough men to move against Mobile. As it was, he was staying behind to guard territory rather than following his desire to go out and conquer more.100 Then on October 9 came instructions from Stanton that he should go to Cairo to await orders. When he arrived further orders sent him to Indianapolis.101 Accompanied by Julia, Grant took a train from Cairo to Indianapolis and found none other than Secretary of War Stanton waiting for him. On October 18 they rode to Louisville, and en route Stanton revealed to Grant that he was holding a draft general order by Lincoln relieving Rosecrans of command of the Army of the Cumberland, and merging the Departments of the Cumberland, the Ohio, and the Tennessee into the newly created Military Division of the Mississippi. The command was Grant’s if he would take it.102

  He accepted immediately. Given the choice of retaining Rosecrans with the Army of the Cumberland or relieving him in favor of Major General George H. Thomas, Grant asserted the immediate necessity of replacing Rosecrans, whom he said would not obey orders. Stanton went ahead and issued the general order, and Grant sent off an order relieving Rosecrans and installing Thomas. Then in their discussion Stanton informed him of the Union objective in eastern Tennessee. The region hosted the Confederacy’s only direct east-west rail line, held abundant natural resources for manufacturing, produced considerable staple crops, and was home to one of the largest concentrations of Southerners loyal to the Union. Burnside had been sent to take Knoxville at the upper end of the Tennessee Valley with a small army, and Rosecrans was to hold Chattanooga at the lower end, between them forcing the Confederate Army of Tennessee out of the state and protecting all those resources. Instead, Burnside took root at Knoxville and Bragg shattered Rosecrans at Chickamauga, and now had him almost surrounded and under siege at Chattanooga, with no more than two weeks’ supply of rations.

 

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