Crucible of Command

by William C. Davis

  Grant’s first task would be to reopen a secure supply line for the Army of the Cumberland. He left for Chattanooga on October 21, but even before then gave orders for work to start on repairing a road connecting Chattanooga with Bridgeport, Alabama, on the Tennessee River, unaware that Confederates already commanded a vital river crossing on the road. He also placed Sherman in command of his old Department and Army of the Tennessee, and gave Sherman’s corps to John Logan. Meanwhile, Washington ordered former army commander Hooker to come west with the XI and XII Corps from Meade’s Army of the Potomac.

  Grant reached Chattanooga well after dark on October 23, having to ride more than sixty miles through rain and mud from the railhead at Bridgeport, which inflamed the pain in his leg once more, especially after his horse stumbled on the slippery route and Grant fell to the ground. Directed to Thomas’s headquarters on his arrival, he met a chilly reception. Never garrulous at the best of times, Thomas was taciturn and unwelcoming. Almost six years older than Grant, Thomas finished at West Point before ’Lys entered, and went into the artillery. Hence the two never met until the battle of Monterey in Mexico, if there. Certainly they met at or after the battle of Shiloh, where Thomas commanded a brigade in Buell’s army, and they had occasional interchange in the weeks after Shiloh. There had been no contact between them at all for nearly eighteen months, and though nothing suggests any precise difficulty between them, their relations were and remained strictly professional. Grant may have been wary of Thomas because he was a native Virginian, though nothing suggests he was not wholly loyal to the Union. Thomas had also spent the past year in high command under Rosecrans, and Grant might reasonably fear that Rosey’s conspiratorial and backbiting nature had rubbed off. As for Thomas, he may have considered himself the professional, and resented being placed under Grant. After all, he had spent twenty-one years in the army after leaving West Point, and was a full colonel in 1861 before the war commenced, whereas Grant never rose higher than captain before he resigned. The stiff-necked Thomas certainly heard the rumors about Grant’s heavy drinking, and surely got an earful about Grant from Rosecrans and his staff, while after Shiloh Thomas could have been among those who held Grant responsible for the April 6 surprise.103

  Quickly familiarizing himself with conditions at Chattanooga, Grant found Thomas’s army hungry, tired, and dispirited. On his ride there he had seen all along the way the flotsam of Rosecrans’s hasty retreat, and now he learned that the army was short on ammunition as well as rations, and had no secure route for resupply. Thomas had just started work on a plan to take Brown’s Ferry on the Tennessee a mile west of Chattanooga, and Kelley’s Ferry seven miles beyond, which crossed a loop in the river. If Federals from Chattanooga could drive away the enemy at Brown’s, while Hooker’s advancing column from Nashville could take Kelley’s, a wagon road there offered a good link to Bridgeport, where steamboats could land supplies for the hungry army. Grant the old quartermaster knew that only victory built morale in an army faster than ample rations, warm uniforms in winter, and plenty of ammunition. He approved the plan at once. Brown’s Ferry fell first on October 27, and Kelley’s the next day, and soon supplies began to flow into Chattanooga. Rawlins had no doubt where credit belonged. Great schemes were fine, he wrote the night Brown’s Ferry was taken, but it took “decisiveness and energy in action” to “make military genius.”104 Thomas and Major General William F. Smith were mainly responsible for the plan that opened this so-called cracker line, and even Rosecrans had a hand in it before he left. Yet nothing happened until the coming of Grant, who himself generously credited Thomas with the plan, and simply informed Halleck that “the question of supplies may now be regarded as settled.”105 For some days Grant concentrated on funneling supplies into Chattanooga, watching for Sherman’s arrival, and trying to get an ossified Burnside to do something. Thomas’s army was in no condition for an offensive, but would be soon.106 By the first week of November he turned his attention to taking the initiative.

  Chattanooga sat on the east side of a bend in the Tennessee River, commanded by the imposing height of Lookout Mountain less than two miles south, and by the long north-south range of Missionary Ridge an equal distance to the east. Grant’s first goal was to reopen direct communications with Burnside in Knoxville, just over a hundred miles northeast. As soon as Sherman arrived with his two corps, Grant intended to take Lookout Mountain, which he believed would force the Confederates to fall back from Missionary Ridge and open the road to Knoxville.107 Then he learned that Longstreet and his corps were on their way to strike Burnside, which meant that Bragg’s army in his immediate front was substantially weakened. To capitalize on that unexpected development, he immediately gave Thomas orders on November 7 to attack and take the northern end of Missionary Ridge the next morning, and then move against Bragg’s line of supply and communications back to Georgia. That, he reasoned, would force Longstreet to turn around. His written order to Thomas originally spoke of “if” he took Missionary Ridge, but in its place he inserted “when.” Thomas needed to have the same certainty that Grant felt.108

  Untypically, Grant had no sure idea yet of what the Army of the Cumberland could do, or the depth of its exhaustion. Supplies might be coming in, but they were not yet abundant, and the men were weary and weak from weeks on reduced rations. There were not enough horses to pull artillery and wagons, and many of those still living were emaciated, even dying, from lack of fodder, which the cracker line was not yet bringing in. Pressed heavily by Washington to save Burnside from being cut off or surrounded, he tried to rush Thomas too soon. That night Thomas came to Grant and told him forthrightly that he could not possibly have his army ready for several days, suggesting that they wait for Sherman’s corps, which would be in better condition. Grant yielded and cancelled the attack, but began to have doubts about Thomas from that moment.109 He could hardly forget that in his operations against Vicksburg his army marched and fought for more than a fortnight making three, or even two, days’ rations stretch a week once he crossed the Mississippi. Thomas’s army had been immobile for weeks on not much less, and Grant had to wonder why they could not do what his own veterans had done.

  If he had not already, in that moment Grant apparently decided to depend foremost on Sherman for the heavy lifting thereafter. He hurried his old comrade toward him, intending for one of Hooker’s corps to clear the west side of Lookout Mountain. Then Sherman would move into the valley between Lookout and Missionary Ridge, while Thomas advanced against the northern end of the ridge, which should force Bragg to retire. Grant would then move a force between Bragg and Longstreet, which ought to force the Confederates to withdraw from Knoxville. Grant told Sherman that, once Bragg fell back, “we will determine what is next to be done.” On its face, that “we” seemed to exclude Thomas from the planning.110

  Three days later, on November 14, Grant wrote Julia that “things will culminate here within ten days in great advantages with one or other parties.” He felt confident and easy in his mind about his situation “and find no occation to swear or fret.” The only caveat he admitted was that he might be “failed by any officer in immediate command,” possibly an oblique reference to nascent doubt about Thomas. His own people were working smoothly, though he had few aides with him. Two aides he left at Nashville operated with his authority to ensure that his orders for supplies were obeyed in the full, showing that he was grasping the fuller potential of a staff.111 Grant calculated that he could not make the advance until November 19, the earliest date Sherman could reach him, and notified Halleck that he believed he could have Bragg in retreat two days later.112 Much depended on Burnside’s holding out now that he was besieged by Longstreet. Grant frankly told “Burn” not to abandon that position unless most of his army was destroyed. He declined even to discuss a possible line of retreat, reminding Burnside that his army was not the only one resisting Confederate advances at that moment.113

  By November 18 Grant thought all was nearly ready. “Th
ere will be a big fight here,” he wrote a friend, what he expected to be a “general skeedadle of the enemy,” yet he did not expect overmuch. Another sound defeat ought to end the war, he thought, but added that “unfortunately I am not in a condition to give them that.”114 In fact, it took longer than expected for Sherman to get in position. On November 20 a bluffing Bragg advised Grant to get noncombatants out of the city, implying that he intended to shell or attack the Federals. Grant sent the note to Thomas noting that he thought it a “good joke” that Bragg would hold off an attack until nearly all Union forces were present, and in jest—or bluff—responded that “this I will not do; but I will attack you in your position to-morrow morning.”115 In fact he postponed the attack until November 23, and the frustration told on him. Only Sherman was really fully mobile. Two weeks after having to call off the first assault by Thomas, the Army of the Cumberland still could barely move its cannon, and would have to borrow horses from Sherman to move even one-sixth of its artillery. “I have never felt such restlessness before as I have had at the fixed and immovable condition of the Army of the Cumberland,” Grant complained to Halleck.116 The frustration clearly showed when he received a telegram from a general who protested willingness to lose his entire command if it would relieve the beleaguered Burnside, while actually moving not a muscle. “If you had shown half the willingness to sacrifice yourself and command at the start, [as] you do in your dispatch,” chided Grant, “you might have rendered Burnside material aid.”117

  Bad weather and other contingencies postponed action until the afternoon of November 23, when Grant ordered Thomas forward to drive Confederates from two knolls between Chattanooga and Missionary Ridge, from which he expected to launch his next advance. By this time he had revised his thinking and directed Sherman to cross the Tennessee above Thomas’s left to strike the right flank of Bragg’s line on Missionary Ridge, while Hooker took Lookout Mountain on Bragg’s left. Thomas was to move forward in support of Sherman when he attacked, and the Army of the Cumberland was either to take the enemy rifle pits at the base of the ridge and the ridge itself beyond, or shift left to concentrate with Sherman.118 “A decisive battle will be fought,” Grant wired Halleck after taking the knolls, and he expected it the next day.119 Instead, fog and dwindling ammunition held up Hooker, though he advanced far enough to force Bragg to abandon Lookout Mountain that night, while Sherman got into position in front of the north end of Missionary Ridge, but could not attack before dark.

  Grant’s plan for November 25 was for Sherman to advance against the ridge at daylight, while Hooker pressed forward from Lookout against the southern end. It commenced well but soon slowed. Sherman met tough resistance on the ridge, while Hooker lost time building a bridge to cross a creek before he hit the southern end of the ridge and moved up it to start pressing northward. Grant and Thomas watched the fighting from Orchard Knob, one of the two hills taken two days before, and when Grant detected Confederates atop the ridge shifting north to help stop Sherman, he ordered Thomas to send forward three divisions to take the first line of rifle pits at the foot of the ridge to try to keep Bragg from sending more.

  Thomas’s divisions moved forward and easily gained the line of rifle pits, but they failed to stop there. Either Grant did not clearly indicate to Thomas that he wanted them to halt and only move up the ridge after Hooker appeared moving up on the crest—which is unlikely given Grant’s customary precision in written and oral instructions—or Thomas failed to hear him. Or more likely yet, his division commanders recalled Grant’s order to Thomas of the day before that specifically said they were to “carry the rifle pits and ridge directly in front of them.” Seeing the Army of the Cumberland veterans swarming up the ridge, Grant was puzzled at first, commenting to those with him that he had not ordered this. However, observing their vigor and the ground they were gaining, he decided not to call them back. Once he saw them carry the top, he ordered the entire line forward. Within half an hour Bragg’s army dissolved in retreat.120

  By nightfall Grant sent a wire to Halleck saying that “I believe I am not premature in announcing a complete victory.”121 Indeed he was not. The precipitate retreat of the Confederate army saw thousands left behind, others deserting, and Bragg himself faced with a disgrace that soon required his resignation. The Army of Tennessee would not reform until it came together in north Georgia. It was the most embarrassing defeat suffered by any Confederate army during the war, a consequence of Grant’s planning, his soldiers’ daring and resilience, and Confederate overconfidence in a formidable position they were too weak to hold effectively. With the battlefield still clouded by smoke, Grant began arranging that evening for Sherman and others to relieve Burnside and force Longstreet to withdraw, while he intended to pursue Bragg himself. Two days later he was at Ringgold, Georgia, nearly twenty miles south, but had marched ahead of his supplies and had little choice but to halt and return to Chattanooga.

  “I have no expectation of spending a winter in idleness,” he wrote Julia.122 He could hardly make a winter campaign there in the cold, and suspected Washington wanted him to rest and wait for spring. “I do not feel satisfied though giving the rebels so much time for reorganizing,” he told McPherson. He hoped to move yet again to press the enemy, and if allowed he intended to leave east Tennessee secure and then take Sherman’s army and the white soldiers of McPherson’s corps down the Mississippi to New Orleans, where in January 1864 he would resurrect his plan to take Mobile and fragment the Deep South.123 If he succeeded in that, there would be little left of the Confederacy, and only one important enemy army—Lee’s.

  Inevitability.

  14

  “IF DEFEATED NOTHING WILL BE LEFT US TO LIVE FOR.”

  “I COULD HAVE marched to Atlanta or any other place in the Confederacy,” U. S. Grant told a friend two weeks after the battle of Missionary Ridge. However, the extent of the collapse of Bragg’s army took him somewhat by surprise, with no buildup of supplies for a long offensive.1 The winter and roads in east Tennessee were bad at the best of times, and he preferred not to operate there, yet he wanted his army to stay busy. Hence he planned campaigns farther south, starting with taking Mobile in January, then moving up its rivers to seize all of Alabama and Mississippi, and part of Georgia. Grant still believed this gambit could end the rebellion by spring. Without saying so, he believed that Lee would see this as well, and thought the Confederates would abandon Virginia and North Carolina and move to defend this vital heartland.

  Now he included the Army of the Potomac in his strategic thinking. Halleck told him that “nothing is to be hoped under its present commander,” and he, Stanton, and Lincoln sought Grant’s views for a replacement. He proposed William F. Smith or Sherman and favored Smith slightly, no doubt because he wanted to keep Sherman with him. Meade kept his job in the end, but Grant’s influence was spreading eastward. Hereafter, nothing was likely to happen without his being consulted, and from now on he freely offered advice on what Meade should do.2 Coincidentally, a week after Grant shared his plan of campaign, Washburne introduced in Congress a bill reviving the rank of lieutenant general, with Grant specifically in mind. Grant surely knew of it beforehand, and when he told Washburne on December 12 that “all is well with me” and that “every thing looks bright and favorable in this command,” he could have added that things looked bright for U. S. Grant, as well.3 Only George Washington had held that rank, and Winfield Scott by brevet. The fact that it took congressional action to revive it is a measure of just how the North had come to regard Grant, and what it expected of him.

  Some expected even more. In several midwestern states, the Democratic Party divided between those supporting the war and those committed to peace at any cost. Soon after Grant wrote to Washburne, the chairman of the Ohio branch of the War Democrats asked if they could nominate him for the presidency. That stunned Grant. “The question astonishes me,” he replied. “I do not know of anything I have ever done or said which would indicate that I could be
a candidate for any office.” He politely but firmly declined. They must crush the rebellion first, “and I will be content with whatever credit may then be given me, feeling assured that a just public will award all that is due.” It was his first acknowledgment that he assumed some kind of reward would be coming at war’s end.4

  Yet nothing could subdue the presidential talk for the next few months. Days before the recent battle he was praised for being among the prominent Democrats supporting Lincoln and the war.5 As early as December 11 the Democratic New York Herald mentioned him as a possible competitor when Lincoln sought reelection, then four days later declared that “Grant is the man for the occasion.” In another week he was “the Universally Selected candidate.”6 Some Republicans eyed him as a successor after Lincoln’s second term, and Washburne warned that “certain parties are attempting to make your name a foot ball for the Presidency.”7 Grant stubbornly resolved to stay out of it, which suited a wary Lincoln, watching to see if his general showed signs of becoming a rival. Satisfied by Grant’s demurrers, the president felt easier about Washburne’s proposed promotion. Rawlins advised Grant against the new rank if it meant an office in Washington in place of being with the armies. Press speculation continued, as well as entreaties to step forward, but Grant remarked that all such “very soon finds its way into the waste basket,” since “I already have a pretty big job on my hands.”8

  While the political ferment bubbled, Grant grew increasingly frustrated over east Tennessee. He expected peace and reunion to come soon if they could act quickly against Longstreet, who retreated to Greenville for the winter.9 Burnside needed prompting just to breathe, and even the addition of two divisions did not budge him. On December 9 Major General John G. Foster replaced him in command, but became too ill to launch a campaign. Grant foresaw what he called “the last great battle of the war” in east Tennessee, for if he pushed Longstreet into southwest Virginia and neutralized him there, Lee would be too weak to resist in the spring, and Grant could move against him with Meade.10