Battlefield Wanderings

Hiatus

2011-11-02T12:01:00.003-07:00

I hate to admit it but I think the blog has come to a halt. It was always tough to find time for it with all the other activities of life, but now I've added going back to school to the list so there is even less time for non-essentials.

So I'll keep the blog visible for those who want to see some of the research, travels and book reviews, but realistically I don't think I'll be able to blog much anymore. I still review books for Civil War News and will post those reviews here as well, but that is also an area I'll be cutting back on.

Maybe when I'm done with my MBA in 18 months I'll be able to restart the blog, but I can make no promises there. I'd love to use my MBA in a history related field so maybe that will eventually become a good topic for the blog.

Goodbye for now, I hope to be around again, maybe at the end of the MBA program or maybe sooner. I'll still be around reading others' blogs and keeping up on what's new, just won't have the time to be an active contributor here.

Higginsville, Missouri

2011-09-29T09:41:00.000-07:00

To get to the battle of Lexington you practically have to pass through Higginsville, site of Confederate Memorial state park. This is the site of the Confederate Veterans home. From 1891 to 1950 Confederate veterans could live here and be taken care of. When there were enough veterans living here they had a working farm with dairy. Now it is a serene location with a Confederate cemetery, a chapel and some fishing ponds.

This has to be one of the simplest monuments I've ever seen, a plaque on a large boulder.

In the cemetery though is this impressive monument.

I was there a few days after a state wide flap about the Confederate flag and at that time the prevailing idea with the state park system was that they were not going to fly any flag here. It is appropriate for a Confederate flag to fly over Confederate graves but such common sense was not being followed then. Maybe eventually things smoothed over.

Here is the final veteran who lived here.

This grave actually has some of Quantrill's bones. I met a worker near the chapel who said they thought it was his arm. I don't know if there was any proof there or just a guess. If you search on find a grave you'll see that Quantrill's body was buried in Kentucky, dug up for the family (just to view), then spirited off to Ohio (where he was born), but somehow the skull and other bones made their way to Kansas. The skull eventually went to Ohio and the other bones were buried in Higginsville. A very strange story.

If you had a Confederate relative who lived in Missouri after the war they may have ended up living here at one time. On the park's website is a link to a list of applicants to the home, including their regimental info. You didn't need to have served in a Missouri unit, just have served in a Confederate unit and now being elderly in Missouri.

Battle of Lexington

2011-09-27T09:44:00.000-07:00

The Battle of Lexington in western Missouri is a nice park to visit. Its a state park that's not too far from Kansas City. Both times I've visited the park it was because I was in Kansas City for something else.

At the time the battle itself was a pretty big deal but quickly faded as larger battles came along. In September 1861 Sterling Price led his army into Missouri hoping to reclaim the state for the Confederacy. The town of Lexington on the Missouri River had Confederate sympathies and was garrisoned by a Union brigade. One of the key features of the battle was Anderson House, which has been preserved as part of the park and can be toured. The fighting swirled back and forth to hold the house, primarily because it offered a protected position for infantry fire against the main Union position at the top of the hill.

The other memorable aspect of the battle is that on the third day the Confederates formed a moving defensive position by rolling large hemp bales towards the Union position at the top of the hill. Bit by bit they moved along until close enough to charge the main lines. They weren't able to capture the Union lines there but it was obvious to their commander, Colonel James Mulligan, that their capture was only a matter of time. The Union was surrounded and running low on supplies, particularly water. So they surrendered. The Union lost about 160 of its nearly 3000 men while Confederate losses were only 100 of its 7000 man force.

Price's victory did not amount to too much as Fremont made a big push to drive Price out of Missouri. The weight of numbers forced Price to retreat to southwest Missouri and the Union then regained control of the Missouri River.

Here is a nice modern monument just outside of the visitor's center.

The previously mentioned Anderson House. The damage in the walls would have come from the Union lines. In this picture its best seen on the second floor on the far left.

Here is a close up view showing some of the damage.

Now we're on top of the hill looking at the Union entrenchments. There is a nice walking trail around the loop of entrenchments.

Here you can barely see the Missouri River.

The self guided tour does not have informational plaques at each stop. Instead it has numbered posts and you need the brochure from the visitor's center. While that is a fine way to do tours hopefully one day when they have more money they will put informational posts up instead. This marker was reached without going through the visitor's center so some people might be missing out on the history of the spot. I do not have my sheet available but believe this spot was used as a description of the Confederate attack coming up the relatively steep slope.

A small graveyard on the edge of the Union trenches.

Though from this headstone it is more likely that the soldiers were reburied in the closest national cemetery.

Cleburne's final resting place

2011-09-16T09:14:00.002-07:00

Patrick Cleburne was initially buried at St. John's Episcopal Church near Mount Pleasant, Tennessee. He has commented on the beauty of the place just days before his death at Franklin. After 6 years though it was decided that he should be moved to his adopted hometown of Helena, Arkansas.

He now has a very nice monument that lists some of his better battles. His old headstone was also moved at the time.

Helena cemetery - General Hindman

2011-09-14T09:12:00.001-07:00

The other general from Helena of some importance was Major General Thomas Hindman. He was a captain in the Mexican War, served in Congress on the eve of the Civil War and as a general throughout the war.

He was a friend of Cleburne and the two got into many politically motivated brawls in Helena before the war. Hindman's enemies would start a fight with him and Cleburne would often be there to defend his friend.

Hindman saw service at Shiloh, Prairie Grove, Chickamauga and through the Atlanta campign. After the war he fled to Mexico but returned in 1867. On September 27, 1868 he was assassinated, most likely from an old political grudge but the murderer was never caught. He lived 8 hours after he was shot during which time he forgave all his old enemies including whoever had just shot him.

Helena cemetery

2011-09-12T07:19:00.000-07:00

The Confederate section of the Helena cemetery is quite nice. At the top of the hill is where Cleburne (a future post) is buried and then all around him are the rest of the Confederates. There is also a monument there and magnolia trees all over.

Battle of Helena

2011-09-06T09:08:00.001-07:00

The battle of Helena is one of those battles where the attacker failed because they just couldn't quite execute their plan. In this case it had a lot to do with the Confederates being unable to coordinate attacks and then when things did go their way being uncertain how to follow it up (due to the lack of coordination).

The battle of July 4, 1863 was intended to relieve pressure on Vicksburg, but they did not know that Pemberton had surrendered that very day. A Confederate victory at Helena would have meant very little along the Mississippi River as Grant would have quickly sent men to retake the city. The Confederates also wanted to recapture Helena as it would be a logical base for a campaign against Little Rock, which ended up happening a few months later.

Touring Helena is a little difficult. There was a nice museum downtown that had some Civil War exhibits but there really was no driving tour. I got a map that the staff member drew some directions on, which took us to a marker for Battery C but there seemed to be no way to get on the ridge where the battery actually was. I've since seen some pictures of people by markers on the ridge so apparently things have improved. Maybe back then they did not expect someone wanting to see all of the entrenchments.

During the war Helena was a big deal. Seven Confederate generals came from Helena, the most well known being Patrick Cleburne. My next posts will show the beautiful cemetery in Helena and some of the graves of those generals.

Arkansas Post

2011-09-02T06:17:00.000-07:00

Arkansas Post was first formed in 1686 but the location currently being preserved as a national park is a later incarnation as the Arkansas River has changed its course a few times in the last 325 years. It initially was a trading post between the French and Indians, then later the Spanish controlled Arkansas, then the United States, then the Confederacy and after January 1863 it was firmly under US control once again.

These changes of control are shown in the flag display at the park's visitor's center.
Of course it was always a bit more than just a trading post, it also served a military function.

As a trading post it grew and from 1819-1821 it was the site of the first Arkansas territorial capital. Thus it was a bit of a town. Here is a well, that due to being so close to the river still has water in it.

There are also a few markers telling where some important buildings were during the territorial period. Of course some locations have been reclaimed by the Arkansas River.

It was also at Arkansas Post that the first Christian services were held in Arkansas. This picture also shows the bayou nearby. The Arkansas River used to flow there, now this is more of a backwater area.

Besides being interesting because of its significance in the history of Arkansas and frontier trading there was also a Civil War battle here in January 1863. In the fall of 1862 Union General John McClernand had received permission to raise a large force to take Vicksburg. He thought it would be an independent command but later maneuverings by US Grant and Henry Halleck left Grant in command along the Mississippi River. McClernand would end up with a corps, which is what he would have had if he hadn't made a secret arrangement to have an independent command created. But before Grant arrived to take command of McClernand's force he took the opportunity to attack Arkansas Post. McClernand convinced the navy to come along; which was imperative, otherwise the campaign would have likely gone nowhere. He also had Sherman's corps, in all around 33,000 men. The Confederates had about 5,000 at Arkansas Post, also protected by Fort Hindman.

The Union troops landed on January 9, the navy bombarded on the 10th and on the 11th the army and navy combined to attack the fort. The weight of numbers eventually secured the victory for the Union but not until nearly a 1,000 men were casualties. About 4,800 Confederates surrendered.

When Grant heard about the battle he was furious, thought it was a waste of time and men. But then he heard Sherman had supported the idea and his temper cooled. Was it necessary to take Fort Hindman to take Vicksburg? Probably not, but it did clear a Confederate base from his flanks. Also the capture represented about a fourth of all Confederates in Arkansas, which certainly helped the overall war effort some.

There are some earthworks preserved within the national park with a small walking trail that takes you out to an artillery piece.

Fort Hindman has been reclaimed by the Arkansas River. Here is a drawing of the fort.

I believe the park staffer in the visitor's center said the fort is likely where the tree is growing in the water in the left center of the picture. That might be right, or wrong, but is probably close if it is wrong.

There were also info presented about all of the Union gunboats involved in the attack. As you can see this is nothing more than laminated pages stuck up by thumbtacks but its a good display, even if its not the most costly thing the national park service has ever done.

Travel Channel

2011-08-24T12:49:00.003-07:00

The other day I received a call from a writer from the Travel Channel's website. He is writing an article about visiting Civil War battlefields and interviewed me for it. I don't know if I'm one of twenty sources or one of two but its kinda exciting. I'll be sure to post a link to the article when it appears. At first my wife thought it was for a segment on tv but its actually for their website; which I've recently checked out and there are a ton of articles on there about historic sites, mostly catering to the general tourist but some good info is to be found there.

I also hope to get back to blogging more frequently again. I have a backlog of book reviews to post plus I'm currently going through my collection of photos to make sure I have not neglected any battlefields, and will likely flesh out battlefields I've previously posted about too.

4th Michigan Infantry

2011-05-11T07:01:00.000-07:00

The 4th Michigan Infantry in the Civil War. By Martin N. Bertera and Kim Crawford. Photographs, index, 560 pp., 2010, Michigan State University Press, www.msupress.msu.edu, 517-355-9543, $44.95, cloth.

Sometimes our Civil War reading is so focused on battles and commanders that we forget to think about the inner workings of the regiment, which is what nearly every soldier dealt with. The 4th Michigan Infantry in the Civil War puts the focus back on the regiment. The 4th Michigan did not leave a record of bloody battle after bloody battle. Instead it managed through good luck to miss most of the horrible engagements that reduced regiments into company sized skeletons of their former selves.

The 4th Michigan served in the Army of the Potomac from the beginning at First Manassas up until the beginning of the siege of Petersburg. Not enough men had reenlisted for the unit to continue so the veterans were transferred to the 1st Michigan to complete there service at Appomattox. During that time the regiment was engaged in four battles, Gaines Mill, Malvern Hill, Gettysburg and the Wilderness. Remarkably they lost their commanding officer killed or mortally wounded in three of those fights. At the other battles of the Army of the Potomac though they missed major combat, sometimes acting as a rear guard, being posted to a quiet portion of the line or being part of an uncommitted reserve.

One area the book excels at is discussing the politics of command. While not all officers were politicians they were generally politically connected. At times members of the officer corps did not get along and tried to get others removed from the regiment. This is a somewhat little looked at aspect of volunteer regiments that this book covers quite well.

One failing of the book though is a lack of maps. Often the regiment’s location would be described in great detail but without a map those details do not mean as much. For some battlefields I know well enough or have books of maps so that I could match the text to the map but I much rather prefer books that include their own maps.

All in all this is a very good book. The authors provide a great amount of detail on all aspects of the regiment, from their time in battle, to the relationships between officers and the governor, and on the common soldiers as well. Normally it seems that the best regimental histories focus on regiments that saw a ton of combat or whose service was unique in other respects like geography. This regiment does not meet either attribute but the quality of the writing made this an enjoyable read nonetheless.

Reviewed for Civil War News

A Rebel’s Recollections

2011-05-09T06:59:00.000-07:00

A Rebel’s Recollections. By George Cary Eggleston with a new forward by Randy Bishop. 360 pp., 2010, Pelican Publishing, www.pelicanpub.com, 504-368-1175, $14.95, paper.

A Rebel’s Recollections was originally published in 1875 when George Cary Eggleston compiled a series of essays he had written about his service. Eggleston was a native of Indiana but inherited a plantation in Virginia prior to the war. His service in Virginia allowed him to observe Stonewall Jackson, Robert R. Lee, JEB Stuart among others, and Eggleston provides some insightful commentary of prominent Confederate leaders. The sections that cover the Confederacy’s financial woes and the supply situation are at times humorous but also melancholy.

There is no discussion of battles, nor of marches. Eggleston focused more on what a soldier thought and how he coped with the declining fortunes of the Confederacy than with bullets and gunpowder.

This new reprint is well done, utilizing high quality, clean scans of the original book. The new forward sets the stage for the topics Eggleston will cover, and teases at interesting tidbits that are to come.

Reviewed for Civil War News

Alfred Mathews and my new cousins

2011-05-02T09:52:00.002-07:00

The other day I made an interesting connection through the blog. A fellow researcher had found the grave site of Alfred Edward Mathews, a Civil War artist I've blogged about previously (here, here and here). To refresh your memory I first came across Mathews when studying the 14th Wisconsin at Shiloh. Mathews made a sketch of them capturing a battery and I used him as a source for the event and location (though location was hard to pinpoint). But there were always mysteries with his story, for one thing he shouldn't have been at Shiloh but over the course of years researching this I've come to the conclusion that Mathews was never with his regiment and believe he really was at Shiloh, getting there a few days ahead of his regiment.

Mathews continued in the Western Theater as an artist and his drawings were considered highly accurate by the people who had been there. General Ulysses S. Grant personally commended him for his battle sketches, illustrations, panoramic depictions of the War in the deep South, and topographical work. On August 9th, 1863 Grant wrote Mathews, “I have examined the lithographs of views taken by you of the ‘Siege of Vicksburg,’ and do not hesitate to pronounce them among the most accurate and true to life I have ever seen. They reflect great credit upon you as a delineator of landscape views.” When Mathews later toured the country with his lithographs he carried endorsements from Generals Thomas, Sherman, Logan, Rosecrans, Pope and McPherson, as well as Grant.

The park service has one of his drawings as a plaque in the Stones River national cemetery as he depicted the action of the battle that occurred on that ground. They also sell two of his lithographs in the park store (or at least they did when I last toured Stones River, they may sell more or none now).

I also found it interesting that after the war he toured the West (what the Civil War crowd might call the Far West, Colorado, Wyoming, etc) and did many more sketches. He lived in Colorado for most of the rest of his life until his death in 1874. What I didn't include in my other posts because it wasn't necessary for the story is that his final resting place is a bit uncertain. He was initially buried near where he had been working on a fish hatchery along the Big Thompson River. One story then had the Loveland GAR post moving his remains to a cemetery in that city around 1882, and for some reason his grave is not marked there.

Another story had his remains remaining in the Big Thompson Canyon until 1939 when a highway work crew unearthed his body. For some reason one of the workers took the skull home and returned it later but he could not find the casket so he buried it in the vicinity. One aspect of this story is the claim that his head is one one side of the highway and his body on the other side, though I would imagine the worker would have remembered what side of the highway the body was buried at and would have at least gotten the head on that side of the road.

The 1961 biography I read suggested that the Loveland GAR story was correct as the sources there were from credible men (state politicians and high ranking GAR officers). The author, Nolie Mumey, did not explain why the highway story did not make as much sense instead saying that it was a mystery and either story could be correct. And that's what I believed, that Mathews could be in either place. If thinking critically I guess I'd have to say that the highway story seems more correct to me as why wouldn't the Loveland GAR mark the grave? They were prompted to rebury him because of a story about the sad shape of his original resting place so since they knew who they were going after it would have been easy enough to mark his grave. Its not like they suddenly came upon an unidentified soldier. But I pretty much left the mystery alone.

And then the other day I got an email through the blog (you'll see it in the comments section on one of the posts) from a Susan Kniebes saying that she had found the grave. Over the next few days she sent me more info about the grave, including a picture and GPS coordinates. Susan and her husband Duane are working on with the Colorado Council of Genealogical Societies and the U.S. Geologic Survey to find, GPS pinpoint, and document all of the graves in Colorado. They are covering Larimer County burials. They have also turned this into a book project where they give more background of the individuals and other items of interest in the area. For example Mathews was buried near the old Mont Rose Inn's orchard so they included info about the Mont Rose Inn in their chapter.

After a few days of corresponding with them I asked if they might know more about the Kniebes family. My great great great grandmother was Elizabeth Kniebes. I only have info about her parents and a brother. Duane responded that two Kniebes families came from Zusch, Germany in 1840. One settled in southwest Michigan (his family) and the other went to Wisconsin (which could be mine as the time and location is right). So in a weird twist of fate two cousins separated by several generations ended up in Colorado and both connected with a Civil War soldier and artist that neither has any other connection to.

Duane also informed me that the grave was located in such a spot, and unmarked, that if the land owner decided to build there the grave would be easily destroyed through no fault of the landowner. He would think he was building his garage in a nice spot and never know he had built it over a grave. Which got us started on trying to properly mark Mathews grave.

Of course this raises the issue of where is he really buried. My new cousins are already running with the ball and have contacted the Loveland cemeteries to see if they have records from 1882 indicating Mathews reburial there and have also contacted a historical society that has the GAR posts' records in hopes that maybe something there reveals the truth. Also I'm sure there will be a search of Loveland newspapers from 1882 as it seems like something they would have reported on. If he's already in Loveland then its as simple as getting a headstone from the VA.

If it appears that Mathews is still in Big Thompson Canyon then we can get a headstone for the spot he is now. The landowner has been contacted and apparently is fine with having a Civil War grave on their property. So as long as we can determine Mathews is still there then we can get the VA to provide a headstone.

As far as I know there is little at the canyon site to confirm its Mathews. We know the casket found in 1939 was oak and should be missing a head. But I do not recall reading if Mathews was buried in an oak casket. The 1939 story didn't mention any clothing and we do know generally what Mathews was buried in so that might solve it. But all that involves a lot of digging which might not actually have anything in the hole. And if we find the casket we might only be able to confirm that the head is missing.

One potential source for solving the mystery is that in 1884 the Loveland GAR post ordered one of its members to correspond with Charles Mathews, Alfred's brother in Ohio who was editor of the Ohio Democrat. Perhaps the correspondence is in the GAR post's file or maybe its in a collection in Ohio (private or public). I'm hoping that the GAR files have the info we need. Even if they admit that they could not find him in 1882 it would point to the canyon site as the right spot. Of course if they say they found him but were short of funds for a proper headstone then they probably would indicate where they had buried him.

I imagine this is going to be a lengthy process, chiefly because we first need to confirm where he is really buried but I'll update the progress here from time to time.

A Glorious Army

2011-04-27T10:22:00.002-07:00

A Glorious Army: Robert E. Lee's Triumph 1862-1863
by Jeffry D. Wert

In A Glorious Army Wert traces Lee's command of the Army of Northern Virginia from the Seven Days through Gettysburg. The time when nearly everything went right (until it came crashing down at Gettysburg) for Lee. This is a good recap of the campaigns the army undertook with Lee during that time frame. Wert does a good job of providing details of battles (even down to the regimental level) without getting bogged down in them, and does it all in just under 300 pages of text.

What I especially liked is how Wert brought other historians in the mix. Of course any writer would use them in a book like this but Wert would offer their interpretations right in the text and not just through a footnote. For example he would say "Gary Gallagher said that ....." Sometimes Wert would then disagree or agree and sometimes he would just leave it out there as an example of an interpretation. Having read most of those books at one time or another it was very helpful to get this little reminder of what that author had said about something.

When I read Eastern Theater stuff I sometimes think in the back of my head, "well that's all very nice but the war was won in the West, so while Lee was having great success it doesn't really matter in the end." And while I do still feel that way Wert gave a very convincing argument that Lee's audacity and aggressiveness was the only way the Confederates could hope to win. And he did win a lot and suffered tremendous losses at the same time, but it was his only hope. One thing I am forced to agree with him on, and it happens to be the last line of the book, is "No American army, against such odds and in less than a year, compiled such a record as that of the Army of Northern Virginia, and none altered the direction of a conflict more." Wert is right on that, so maybe I should give the Eastern Theater a little more respect.

Wert makes a good point in the final summary chapter of reminding us that when Lee took over the army the total war effort for the Confederates looked very bleak. To that point the Confederacy had mostly been on the strategic defensive and was losing the war. Lee's aggressiveness changed the course of the war in the Eastern Theater, which prolonged the contest as a whole because of the political aspect of the war. Later many people, participants and historians alike, would say that Lee should have operated on the strategic defensive but there is reason to believe that his offensives is the reason the Confederacy was able to stay in the war that long.

I really enjoyed this book and it slightly changed my opinion of the value of the Eastern Theater. If you wanted a highly detailed account of regimental actions covering those 12 months this is not the book for you. Truthfully I'm not sure anyone has covered all of that in one volume, so the book you want has not yet been written. But Wert's book gives a good overview of that year and also gives enough tactical information for you to get a good grasp of how Lee's army fought. A fine addition to any Civil War library and especially for Eastern Theater students.

Civil War Day by Day

2011-04-25T08:01:00.001-07:00

Civil War Day by Day: An Almanac by EB Long and Barbara Long

I have been reading this classic with my oldest son lately. Every night we settle down and read what happened 150 years ago. By the time we finish my younger son will be joining us for the readings. I got the idea when on the way home from a cub scout meeting on April 5th I decided to tell my son about the battle of Shiloh. But not the detailed minutia of the battle, just a story of farm boys far from home. I told him the story of the night of April 5th, how the Union boys were settled down to sleep, thinking of home, of writing and reading letters, that the next day was Sunday and they'd get a rest from their army "chores." And of the Confederate boys sleeping down the road knowing that their world would change the next day. And both sides wondering if they would be cowards or brave, and that bravery does not mean being scared but sometimes means pushing past what you are afraid of. He really enjoyed the story and when I was done he asked if I had any others. Sure I've got tons. And I also knew there was a book that would keep us informed about every day.

If you don't have this book you have to go get a copy. It is a true classic and you won't be disappointed.

Civil War in the Southwest

2011-04-21T07:13:00.001-07:00

Civil War in the Southwest: Recollections of the Sibley Brigade. Edited by Jerry Thompson

This is an interesting collection of remembrances from seven members of the Sibley Brigade. They were originally published in a small East Texas newspaper, the Overton Sharp Shooter. It is also useful in that for some actions, like the battle of Valverde, there will be a few different viewpoints presented. For Valverde there are five different perspectives given.

It is an interesting read but I would not use it to pinpoint locations or time of day on a battlefield. It seems in every battle the Sibley Brigade thought they were heavily outnumbered but in reality they usually fought at pretty similar strengths.

I wish the editor had made the notations footnotes instead of end notes because his notes were more about background info than being bibliographic in nature. For instance for Valverde the common theme is that the Confederates faced roughly 4 to 1 odds, with Union numbers from 7000 to 8000, actually was 3800 and Confederates from 1400 to 2100, with 1800 being about right. One author claims Union losses of nearly 6000, while it really was about 250. Another says the Union recovered 1000 dead and had 1500 missing (which were lost in the river) while the Confederates captured 700 wounded, with more wounded on the other side of the river. That would put the loss around 3200 that this author was sure of plus the ones on the other side of the river he could only see but not count. By the way Confederate losses were around 180. The author who said the Union lost about 3200 said they buried 185 Confederates there, so he wasn't too far off. Other authors put it at 300 and 235, those two authors also claimed the Union loss at around 500-600. But finding out the rest of the story by flipping to the end notes was a little annoying when footnotes would have been much easier for the reader.

I prefer footnotes for annotating recollections because there is so much to clarify or correct in a 125-150 year old source. End notes are fine for scholarly books as they often are just citations. I do always check them just in case an author has left some interesting nuggets of information there. Some authors use their notes to supplement the story and some stick to just straight citations.

I would definitely recommend this book for anyone wanting to learn more about the 1862 New Mexico Campaign. It will be a great supplement to one of the other scholarly campaign histories.

Decisions at Gettysburg

2011-04-18T07:00:00.001-07:00

Decisions at Gettysburg: The Nineteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Campaign by Matt Spruill

Last Thursday at the Rocky Mountain Civil War Roundtable meeting Matt Spruill talked about his newest book, Decisions at Gettysburg. It was a great talk and having read the book since then it is also a great book. To be fair as a friend of Matt's I have read portions of the manuscript as he's worked on it. So I knew from the moment I got the book it was going to be a great book, but this was the first time I had seen it all put together, especially with the illustrations.

The idea for the book is that its one thing to know what happened at Gettysburg, that is what we all learn first. But it is more important to learn why the events happened as they did. There were many decisions made during the campaign and battle that left us with the Gettysburg we know today. Some of those decisions were more important than others, some had more influence on the direction the battle took than others. One thing Spruill stresses early is that changing the decision does not mean Lee could have won, just that the battle and campaign would have unfolded differently. Some of them might have lead Lee to victory but others might have made Meade's victory even more complete.

For example the first decision of the book is that Lee basically has four options in the summer of 1863. He can simply wait for the Union to regroup and attack him, he can maneuver in Virginia to bring on a battle, he can send send men West which would force him to be on the defensive, or he can launch an invasion of the North. Knowing Lee's character the obvious choice is that he will invade the North but it was a critical decision in that the other ones will not lead to a battle in rural Pennsylvania. The summer battle might then be Third Manassas or Second Chancellorsville, etc.

Another example is Sickles moving forward on the second day. His other option is to stay in position along Cemetery Ridge and Little Round Top. In his mind Sickles has valid reasons for moving forward, (the high ground of Hazel Grove at Chancellorsville that he held, was ordered off of and then was hammered by Confederate artillery probably came to mind as he saw the high ground of the Peach Orchard) but he still made the decision. The difference in flow of battle is that combat would have occurred closer to his other position. Also how would the Confederates have attacked this position? Would they have tried to flank it, or come straight at Sickles, or drive up the Emmittsburg Road like originally planned and hope Sickles doesn't come off the ridge to strike the flank. There likely would be zero mention of The Wheatfield or Peach Orchard, they would just be a wheatfield troops marched through or a peach orchard the Confederate artillery fired from.

An example of a decision that was not critical to the course of the battle is Howard leaving troops in reserve on Cemetery Hill when he first enters the fight on July 1. It was a good decision in that it gave the Union a reserve to fall back on. In an odd way its a good decision because it means less troops later trying to force their way through the congested streets on town when the Union had to retreat from its advanced positions. This is all just a commander doing a good job.

The critical decisions can also be strategic, operational, tactical and organizational. Two of the pre-campaign decisions Spruill discusses are Lee's reorganization of his army (going from two corps to three) and how the Army of the Potomac's artillery was reorganized after Chancellorsville. Both will have an impact on how the battle is fought and if the command structures had been left alone the battle probably would have unfolded differently.

I highly recommend the book to anyone who wants to better understand why things happened at Gettysburg like they did.

Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography

2011-04-13T06:32:00.001-07:00

Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography by Jack Hurst

The whole reason I read this one is because I so enjoyed Hurst's book on the Donelson campaign. Yes I admire Forrest's battlefield skills. I definitely would not have wanted to get on his bad side and seeing how often his fellow officers and soldiers got there I think I would have never wanted to be around him. There is at least anecdotal evidence of him beating soldiers of his command and there is concrete evidence of him killing one of his lieutenants. Definitely not someone you'd pick to be friends with, but if you remained loyal to each other you'd have a solid supporter forever backing you. But woe if you ever crossed him.

Hurst's biography is a good one. I was somewhat amazed in how pro-Forrest he was. The Fort Pillow massacre is not just dismissed out of hand, Hurst spends time with it, puts it in historical perspective but at the end of all of it pretty much lets Forrest off the hook. There is a somewhat similar approach to Forrest's klan activities. He's acknowledged to be a leader and using it to get ex-Confederates the vote in Tennessee, but then dissolving it afterwards. Hurst says that Forrest was too hands off in the invisible society and too busy with railroad projects to know that his dissolution orders were never followed.

I thought Hurst did a good job of offering a balanced picture. Forrest bios tend to either praise his every move or denigrate everything he did. This one picks a middle ground that edges on the praise side. The book was published in 1994 so I wonder if some of the recent books on Fort Pillow might now sway Hurst to be harsher on that chapter of Forrest's career. [As a side note it seems odd to refer to 1994 as a bit dated in historiography.]

Forrest is a fascinating character who achieved much as a general and whose personal life before and after the war was also interesting. Some of our interesting generals seemingly sprang from nowhere and/or faded into oblivion when the guns went silent. Forrest was active and interesting from the get go.

Men of Fire

2011-04-11T06:34:00.000-07:00

Men of Fire: Grant, Forrest, and the Campaign that Decided the Civil War by Jack Hurst

Not all that new, came out in 2007, but I got a copy for Christmas. I was excited to read this as there is not much out on Fort Donelson (that is the campaign Hurst believes decided the war). I think Hurst brings some new interpretations that I'll need to examine in the future.

The biggest is that Halleck was pretty actively trying to replace Grant. And he wasn't being very covert as McClelland discusses one potential replacement with him. Hurst says that Halleck would use his later position as general-in-chief to destroy/hide some of the other evidence. I didn't notice anything new in the tactical aspects but it has been close to a decade since I read Cooling's wonderful book on Fort Donelson. Just a reminder again of how badly the Confederates bungled the breakout attempt and should have been able to escape, but when Floyd and Pillow are your ranking generals its easy to see how things went awry. I'm not sure I'd agree that this campaign was the one that decided the war.

On one hand how does the first major Union effort to invade the heartland become the tipping point for the war? But when the Union is basically able to win battle after battle in the west and hardly ever have a major setback there is no turning point. A turning point is when the war seems to be going one way and then the course changes. That's why Gettysburg is often described as the turning point, which I do not agree with, because Confederate fortunes in the East seem to always be bright and then after Gettysburg they never regain that momentum. They tend to suffer defeat after defeat and lose ground until they are forced to surrender at Appomattox.

But in the West there are only a few times the Confederates gain something positive and its usually followed in quick secession by defeat. They get away from Corinth, slip east to Knoxville and steal a march into Kentucky only to come to grief at Perryville. The campaign as a whole does regain some of Tennessee as the lines eventually end near Murfreesboro but I don't think its a turning point because Union fortunes are about the same post-Perryville. Later Grant is forced to abandon his overland Mississippi campaign but they are soon closer to Vicksburg, just using a different route. Bragg wins at Chickamauga but within a few months his army has been forced farther south again and he has resigned. In that light maybe there is no turning point in the West. The story of the West is pretty much success after success so maybe the opening victory on that path can be called the decisive campaign.

All in all it was a good book, glad I finally was able to add it to my library. If you needed a book on the details of the Donelson campaign I'd probably go with Cooling's but Hurst's book is also a good one to have.

Tennessee and the Civil War Sesquicentennial Series

2011-04-06T10:20:00.003-07:00

The other day I got a letter from the Tennessee Historical Quarterly that during the sesquicentennial they will be republishing some of their Civil War articles as a series of twelve volumes. The first volume is Tennessee in the Civil War and will appear this August. Members of the Tennessee Historical Society get a 33% discount on the volume as long as they preorder by June 30, so of course I've already sent my check in.

Future topics will cover nearly every aspect of the war in Tennessee. Battles of course will make up the bulk of the offerings and I'm especially anxious to see the volumes on Shiloh, Fort Pillow, and Stones River. Since its inception in 1942 the Tennessee Historical Quarterly has published almost 400 articles about the Civil War so there is plenty of prime material to pick from.

Each volume will be $25. The way the letter was worded members might get the 33% discount on each offering, with shipping it will come to $21.50. Or maybe that's just the discount for the first volume, to get you hooked on the series. To quote the email I also received, "THS members get a 33% discount on the $25 retail price -- that's $16.50 a book, a savings of $8.50 – plus $5 shipping & handling for each book, for a total of $21.50 each." Each book could refer to each copy of volume one or each book/volume of the series. In any respect I'm sure I'll end up getting most if not all of the volumes.

To reserve your copy of the first book, Tennessee in the Civil War, send payment before June 30, 2011, to Civil War Series, Tennessee Historical Society, 305 Sixth Ave. North, War Memorial Building, Nashville TN 37243. You can become a member, and get the discount on at least one volume, by going to the THS website

Rise of the Centennial State

2011-03-24T06:36:00.001-07:00

The Rise of the Centennial State: Colorado Territory, 1861-76 by Eugene H. Berwanger
232 pages, 2007, University of Illinois Press, $40

Colorado became a territory under Lincoln achieved statehood at the end of Reconstruction. It fits the Civil War era time frame perfectly although its actual involvement was much less. Colorado's involvement in the war does not get as full a treatment here as I would like, the focus is more on the Indian conflict that raged during this time and continued after the war. I thought the author did a good job of putting the entire Indian conflict in perspective, including the Sand Creek fight. He rates it as a massacre but also explains that the residents even a year later were calling for Indian extermination. While Easterners might have thought the Colorado troops went overboard the locals thought they had done right, even with plenty of hindsight to think otherwise.

One story I always hear in connection with Sand Creek is that it cost Colorado the opportunity to be a state in 1864/1865. That the Eastern press and Federal politicians were so horrified that they shot down attempts in 1864-65 to become a state. The territory was being punished. But Berwanger explains that what killed that attempt to be a state was that Colorado citizens would not grant the vote to blacks. They voted down black suffrage in 1864 and continued to oppose it until 1867 when Congress made black suffrage a fact. There were also factions in the territory that did not want to become a state so it was not until 1876 that everything aligned for it to achieve statehood.

Interestingly, and a story I don't remember ever hearing, is that statehood was pushed through hastily in 1876 to the point that there was not a popular vote for presidential electors and instead Colorado's 3 Electoral College voters were determined by the state legislature. While this was common practice previously most states had changed to popular vote nearly 40 years earlier. Colorado went Republican and the disputed election of 1876 eventually went to Hayes 185-184. But if Colorado had not been a state then 184 votes would have been enough to win the Electoral College and Tilden had those 184. We normally think of the disputed votes in Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana being the reason Hayes was allowed to win but its also interesting to think about what if Colorado's entrance had been delayed just a little longer and those three votes had not been cast. Then Hayes would likely not have been awarded the 20 disputed votes and Tilden would have won 204-165. Or maybe there would have been another batch of disputed votes, maybe the fix was always in.

The rest of the book concerns activities of Colorado that would not interest a Civil War audience, such as political power struggles and railroad building. Overall the book was good. I picked my copy up from the library and I don't think I'd pay $40 for it but cheaper ones can be found online.

Turner Ashby

2011-03-22T13:40:00.001-07:00

The Memoirs Of General Turner Ashby And His Compeers by James Battle Avirett

Originally published in 1867 this book was interesting for more than just the story of Ashby. It was enjoyable to read a book from an unreconstructed rebel so soon after the war. He still had a lot of anger at how things turned out. One of the funny parts was when he complained about how West Virginia had been taken away from Virginia and he hoped that the wrong would soon be corrected.

Ashby was one of the early heroes of the war. Of course the author, Ashby's chaplain during the war, is going to gloss over the imperfections in his subject. At the end you're left wondering how far Ashby would have risen, and maybe he would have gone far. On the other hand though I know from other books that Ashby was not as great as he sounds here. He spent much of his time doing scouting activities that would have been better left to a man of lesser rank. A colonel should not be leading small squad scouts, that is a job for a sergeant or lieutenant, maybe even a captain. A colonel, and for a short time a brigadier general, should concern himself with the unit as a whole; perfect its training and organization.

And there were stories that Ashby's unit was not very disciplined, even the author addresses that to a small degree. But in 1867 that sort of commentary was not very likely, especially for a deceased hero. And especially by a member of his command. If you accept the fact that were will not be much criticism of the title subject than this biography is interesting.

The author goes into much detail about Ashby's personal life and how he lived a chivalric life. One thing I thought odd is there was no mention of a wife. Ashby was 33 when he died so its not like he was so young as to not have married. Its odd just because we normally don't see too many bachelors among Civil War generals.

If you want a biography of Ashby that will point out his strengths and weaknesses this is not it. That is due to the time frame when written which provides its own interesting aspects. Otherwise this is a good book, not a great one, but interesting enough to warrant reading.

Shadow of Shiloh

2011-03-18T07:15:00.002-07:00

Shadow of Shiloh: Major General Lew Wallace in the Civil War by Gail Stephens

This is a great book covering perhaps the most controversial general at Shiloh. I've always felt Wallace got a bad rap for Shiloh, that his march was not the mistake we've mostly always been lead to believe. It seems that the scholarship of the last decade or so has also lifted much of the blame from him and has given him a much fairer verdict. This book continues rehabbing his Shiloh reputation and offers a pretty fair assessment of his entire service.

My favorite aspect of the Shiloh section is when the author recounts an excursion when a group of Shiloh scholars actually hiked Wallace's route. They had the benefit of maps and hard roads (made their hike in the fall rather than in a very wet spring) and they ended up being 15 minutes slower than Wallace. The verdict now has to be that Wallace was not lost, he was just not where Grant thought he might be. Or rather where Grant later said he thought Wallace would be as the author has enough evidence that Grant expected Wallace to show up on Sherman's right that there has to be some reasonable doubt as to what road Grant thought Wallace would take that day. Afterwards Grant and his staff do a good job of making it seem like the River Road was always the only option but Grant might have other motives for making this come out as the historical record.

I have one complaint of the book though, the pages are oversize. So much so that there are two columns of text per page. [At my local library it is actually filed with the oversize books that I normally associate with picture books.] I found that a bit difficult to read and wish the size was a tad smaller. One benefit of the larger size though was that the full page maps were wonderful. I liked the large maps so much that the double columns almost were not too terrible to deal with. But after thinking about it I'd rather have slightly smaller pages that had just one column of text.

The copy I read was from the local library but I will certainly add this book to my personal collection as soon as I can. A must read for any Shiloh scholar.

Lincoln on the Civil War: Selected Speeches

2011-03-16T06:05:00.000-07:00

Lincoln on the Civil War: Selected Speeches

This is a small (127 pages) volume that brings together 9 of Lincoln's speeches. These are generally considered to be his most important speeches (one is more a writing than a speech but you get the idea). The speeches are:

Address to the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838

"House Divided" speech at Springfield, June 16, 1858

Address at Cooper Institute, February 27, 1860

Speech at Independence Hall, February 22, 1861

First Inaugural Address

Emancipation Proclamation

Gettysburg Address

Second Inaugural Address

Speech on Reconstruction, April 11, 1865

There are a ton of collections of Lincoln's speeches and writings. I personally have one of the larger (though not nearly complete) two volume works. I think every Civil War library needs some sort of "Lincoln's Greatest Hits" volume. If you only want a few top hits, then this volume might be enough for you. If you want to have a wider range of speeches and writings than this one is much too skimpy.

Stephen A. Hurlbut

2011-03-14T06:17:00.004-07:00

A Politician Turned General: The Civil War Career of Stephen Augustus Hurlbut by Jeffrey N. Lash

In my continuing quest to learn as much as I can about Shiloh I sought out this book on Hurlbut. I knew that Hurlbut had turned in a pretty good performance at Shiloh, not well enough that people talked of it in awe and thought of giving him better field commands but a pretty solid performance, in fact it seems all the Union division commanders fought well during the battle. He also became the post commander at Memphis and left there due to questionable financial dealings.

I was a little shocked to learn that this was Hurlbut's only real battle experience. His experience prior to Shiloh was in a rear area of Missouri where he saw no combat, just chased the Confederates. I was even more shocked to read how corrupt his administration of Memphis was, and that after basically being chased out of there by rumors he was able to get another post in New Orleans where he did it all again and ended up getting caught and punished.

He was somewhat politically connected in Illinois. I saw somewhat because it seems he lost more elections than he won and angered some Illinois politicians who actually did have some influence during the Civil War era, like Elihu Washburne (Grant's benefactor). His connection to Lincoln was rather flimsy but apparently he had not done anything to anger Lincoln like he had Washburne. Hurlbut constantly ran against Washburne for his US Senate seat even after Washburne was fairly well entrenched in that post, and also was rather negative in his attacks.

He also seems to have been a bit crazy, which might have come from his drinking. One anecdote in the book is of a time Hurlbut showed up at a cavalry camp, challenged one of the best riders to a race and lost his horse in the race. While this might in someway endear a general to his soldiers it is also not normal behavior for a general.

Hurlbut was a native of South Carolina and had just prior to the firing on Fort Sumter had done a diplomatic mission there for Lincoln. It achieved little but realistically at that point nothing would have likely kept South Carolina in check except for surrendering the fort, which was not going to happen. There is some thought that his diplomatic mission failed too because he had allegedly left town with funds for a charitable organization he worked for when he had lived in Charleston 16 years before. After the war he served mostly in foreign diplomatic posts and was one of the founders of the Grand Army of the Republic.

I enjoyed the book. Not every general could be on the battlefield, some needed to govern the territory gained. Hurlbut spent most of his war doing just that, and along the way he may have made a tremendous amount of money for himself through embezzlement. Would I have picked this up without the Shiloh connection? Probably not but I'm glad I did as I read about an aspect of the war I am not very familiar with.

Book reviews

2011-03-11T13:38:00.001-07:00

I've been reading a bunch again lately and will have some book reviews showing up here again starting next week.

Symposium 2011

2011-01-27T21:56:00.003-07:00

I regret to inform you all that there will be no symposium in 2011. Due to a variety of reasons, but primarily financial, the roundtable leadership has decided to cancel the event. It might resume some other year, or maybe it never will, I just don't know.

I do know that I had a great time helping to put on the events. Some years I was more involved than others but despite the hard work it was a great time. I got to meet and talk with many amazing people including some historians whose work I really admire. Made some friendships along the way and generally learned a lot.

In the meantime the roundtable plans to bring in one speaker a year. We went this route in the years before the symposium and that success is what prompted us to dream a little bigger. Maybe the one speaker a year format will expand into two, or maybe it will expand back into the symposium again.

And 2011 was going to be a good year, no need to go into details on who was going to come but I was really excited about the panel. We were going to follow the 150th as best we could and 2011 was going to be an early Eastern Theater focus. Oh well

Yankee Warhorse: A Biography of Major General Peter Osterhaus

2011-01-10T06:53:00.000-07:00

Yankee Warhorse: A Biography of Major General Peter Osterhaus. By Mary Bobbitt Townsend. Illustrated, photographs, maps, bibliography, index, 288 pp., 2010, Missouri, press.umsystem.edu, 888-888-8900, $39.95, cloth.

Peter Osterhaus truly served the Union cause from the beginning to the end. He lead a battalion in the Camp Jackson Affair in St. Louis that started armed conflict in Missouri. He was also present when Edmund Kirby Smith surrendered the Confederate forces of the trans-Mississippi theater to Edward Canby, signing the surrender document. In between he became one of only three German major generals, and the only one given the rank more for battlefield achievements than political considerations. Remarkably though his historical record has been largely ignored. In Yankee Warhorse the general’s great great granddaughter Mary Bobbitt Townsend finally tells the story of this accomplished general.

Osterhaus came to America to escape charges of treason after leading troops in the failed German revolution of 1848. He settled in Illinois and by the start of the Civil War was living in St. Louis. Following the Camp Jackson Affair his battalion fought at Boonville and Wilson’s Creek. At Pea Ridge he admirably commanded a division and helped secure the Union victory. He was then transferred to Grant’s army for the Vicksburg campaign and commanded a division in the battles of Arkansas Post, Port Gibson, Champion Hill and the assaults on Vicksburg on May 19th and 22nd. He was then given the task of defending the Union rear along the Big Black River during the siege.

One of the bright moments of his career happened after one of his lowest personal times. Prior to the Chattanooga campaign he went home to be with his dying wife but arrived too late. After making arrangements for his children he returned to the army in time to take part in the battles of Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge and Ringgold Gap, where he was severely handled by Patrick Cleburne’s division. He continued in divisional command during the campaign for Atlanta and was given command of the Fifteenth Corps in the March to the Sea. He did not march through the Carolinas but was instead sent to Mobile Bay to assist General Canby with that campaign, serving as his chief of staff.

After the war he served as military governor of Mississippi during the early days of Reconstruction. In 1866 he began a diplomatic career for his new country with an appointment to the US Consul at Lyons, France. He had a few more diplomatic posts and eventually moved back to his old hometown of Koblenz, Germany. He died there in 1917 just before his adopted country entered World War I against his home country.

The book is pretty even handed, pointing out Osterhaus’ errors when needed and highlighting his successes too. It does not follow the typical pattern of descendent driven biographies that heap too much praise on success and ignore mistakes. The author is not as critical as some are of Osterhaus’ performance at Port Gibson but handles his mistakes at Ringgold Gap quite well. The maps lack a scale and do not use anything to denote elevation which is quite distracting considering that the terrain was a key aspect of most of Osterhaus’ battles.

Chatfield Story

2011-01-07T06:52:00.001-07:00

The Chatfield Story: Civil War Letters and Diaries of Private Edward L. Chatfield of the 113th Illinois Volunteers. Edited by Terry M. McCarty with Margaret Ann Chatfield McCarty. Illustrated, photographs, maps, bibliography, appendices, index, 564 pp., 2009, Georgetown, Texas, http://www.chatfieldstory.com/, $32.99, softcover.

Chatfield Story covers the history of the 113th Illinois from its formation through the battle of Brice’s Crossroads told through the writings of private Edward Chatfield. Chatfield left behind a wealth of material in letters and diaries and it has been combined here very well. Interspersed between diary entries and letters is plenty of background text by the editors that fills in the gaps and ties all the material together.

Chatfield and the 113th Illinois served along the Mississippi River, first as part of the Union efforts to capture Vicksburg and then later as part of the force garrisoning Memphis. It was while doing this duty that it saw its most combat at the battle of Brice’s Crossroads. At this battle Chatfield was captured and the prodigious writings ceased. Chatfield survived the war and eventually settled out west in Littleton, Colorado. While his wartime service was nothing too beyond the normal Edward Chatfield became a prominent man in Littleton and eventually many different places were named after him.

One of the strengths of the book is that whenever Chatfield mentioned a comrade in his writings the editors listed all they could about that person. While Chatfield is the center of the story the editors did a good job of filling in the story of the regiment.

An interesting benefit of having diaries and letters is comparing Chatfield’s thoughts between the two. There was one time in particular that he complained to his diary about being sick but in his letter home he said he was in perfect health. This self censorship was easily revealed when read with the diary, a fact the editors pointed out as well.

Much of Chatfield’s service was somewhat dreary, including work on Grant’s failed canal during the Vicksburg campaign, but this book is an excellent source on that sort of service as Chatfield wrote often. This book is also a self published work through booksurge but the quality of the work does not make that readily obvious. This is one of the better self published books I’ve ever run across.

Napoleonic War vs Civil War

2011-01-05T11:47:00.000-07:00

Lately I’ve been reading a bunch of Napoleonic War-era stuff. Mostly Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series but also adding in non-fiction books to flesh out campaigns and personalities that interest me.

We often hear of the Civil War being fought with Napoleonic influences and in some cases I do agree, mostly I don’t. In reading though lately there are some things from that era that seem to have disappeared in the roughly 50 years between the wars. Not sure if this is an American versus European thing or if its just a change in warfare over time.

For example I have read accounts of the dead being burned after a battle. Apparently the ground would be too hard for burial trenches and so the dead would be stripped of belongings, including most of their clothes when wanted/needed, piled together and burned. And this was done for both sides, not something that you just did to your enemies but also to your own side. This seems truly strange to me and it might be a cultural difference but I feel pretty confident that this was not done in the Civil War, at least not intentionally.

The extent of looting also seems out of place in the Civil War. I realize that soldiers always have looted the dead, and probably always will. But in the Napoleonic era it there seems to be quasi-sanctioned looting against civilians, and we’re not talking about stealing the chickens from a farmer. If there was a siege, especially if the attackers suffered much, the town was going to be sacked. At Badajoz it took 72 hours to get the army back under control. Cornwell has a line in one novel about how the army stole what could be carried and raped what couldn’t be stolen. Obviously not 100% true but gives a flavor of what the fighting was like. At Vitoria the loot was immense, in modern terms it could have been about £100 million. And this loot did not go straight into the British coffers, although technically forbidden the common soldiers kept some of the loot themselves.

Also it seems that post-war everyone studied the campaigns of Napoleon but it appears to me that Civil War officers would have been better served by studying Wellington. Strategically they both seem to be very good at their craft but tactically I think Wellington was his superior, something that was proven on the only battlefield they faced each other directly, Waterloo. Napoleon used a column formation to attack instead of lines as we are familiar with from the Civil War. Wellington used lines. The key to breaking the column is as simple as pouring as much firepower into the column as possible. The column formation means that only a small percentage of it can fire at the defenders, the front rank and the men along the sides. But if you can put a ton of firepower into that column and make it halt then you’ll win. The British army was apparently one of the better trained armies in how fast they could fire their muskets. The other European nations were not as fast and the column attacks defeated them time after time. But eventually the British got a toehold in Spain-Portugal and proved their might against the columns.

Reading about the Peninsular War has made me want to visit Portugal and Spain, and perhaps some day I will. I’d also love to see Waterloo but am disappointed that the terrain has been much changed, mostly to build a monument. I did have the good fortune to visit London many years ago and went through Wellington’s house. I would definitely do so again now that I know more about the man.

Battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga and the Organizations Engaged - full review

2010-12-01T10:34:00.000-07:00

The Battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga and the Organizations Engaged. By Henry V. Boynton. Edited by Tim Smith. Illustrated, photographs, maps, index, 152 pp., 2010, The University of Tennessee Press, http://www.utpress.org/, 800-621-2736, $34.95, cloth.

Henry V. Boynton should be much more well known than he is. It is due to his efforts that the battlefields of Chickamauga and Chattanooga were preserved by the federal government, the first battlefields to be preserved by the federal government. This lead to the creation of other battlefield parks in the 1890s and has continued to the present day. When the battlefields were preserved one of the first tasks was to create troop movement maps with accompanying text, which then became the basis for the iron interpretive markers on the battlefields.
In his role as the first park historian Boynton wrote quite a bit on Chickamauga and Chattanooga. He wrote an extensive tour of the battlefields with a history of the preservation efforts. He also wrote a book covering the formation of the park for the grand dedication in 1895. These books can still be found in libraries and appear for sale online quite regularly. Boynton also wrote three small books that are much less readily available in libraries or for sale. Timothy B. Smith has collected these three short volumes into one book. He also provides an introduction that places Boynton and these three volumes in their proper historical context. The three volumes are presented as originally published, Smith confined his notes about the books to the introduction.

Two of the books focus on the order of battle. Boynton provides an order of battle showing regimental commanders and then gives a couple paragraphs of text explaining what the division did in the battle. There is a volume for Chickamauga and another for Chattanooga. These give a good overview of the battle. They were also intended to be used with an atlas that was created at the same time. Those maps are not included in this modern book but the University of Tennessee Press has put the maps online at http://utpress.org/chickamaugamaps.
In the third volume in the book Boynton made clear that he considered the entire campaign from August til the end of November as the campaign for Chattanooga. Chickamauga was the first battle fought for control of Chattanooga and the final battle at Missionary Ridge was only to confirm. The other interesting thing about this volume is that Boynton commissioned a topographic model to supplement the text and was intended for professional military study. Three models were built but none apparently had survived.

This is a very useful addition to the study of these battles. These rare volumes can now be owned by anyone. Then being able to pair the text with the maps, available online, makes it an even more worthwhile book.

If you wish to learn more about Boynton’s role in the formation of Chickamauga check out A Chickamauga Memorial: The Establishment of America’s First Civil War National Military Park by Timothy B. Smith

Chickamauga Campaign - full review

2010-11-29T10:32:00.000-07:00

The Chickamauga Campaign. Edited by Steven E. Woodworth. Maps, bibliography, index, 199 pp., 2010, Southern Illinois University Press, http://www.siupress.com/, $24.95, cloth.

Western theater battles often lack the coverage that Eastern theater battles do. This discrepancy will never be erased but lately there has been a surge of Western Theater material. Partially trying to fill this void is the Civil War Campaigns in Heartland series from Southern Illinois University Press. The second volume, covering the Chickamauga campaign, follows on the heels of the wonderful Shiloh volume published last year.

Editor Steven E. Woodworth has assembled eight essays that explore some aspects of the campaign and provoke some critical thinking. The collection of essays focuses more on the Confederate side than the Union side. There are essays on D. H. Hill, Alexander Stewart, James Longstreet, Patrick Cleburne’s night assault, James Negley’s actions on Horseshoe Ridge, the performances of Thomas Crittenden and Alexander McCook, the near battle of McLemore’s Cove and Henry Van Ness Boynton’s shaping of Chickamauga as a national park. Although the collection focuses more on the Confederates it is not a distracting decision especially since the essay on Crittenden and McCook is nearly three times the length of the other essays, so the page count is probably pretty closely divided.

All the essays were good, there did not seem to be a weak one in the collection. There was one conclusion that stuck out as odd and it appeared in two essays. In the DH Hill and Cleburne assault essays the authors were not critical of Bragg restructuring his command in the middle of the battle. Alexander Mendoza said that it was “correct procedure, given Longstreet’s rank and prestige” and John R. Lundberg said “in view of the circumstances, it seems that Bragg made the best possible decision.” Interestingly William G. Robertson’s essay on Longstreet did not comment on if Bragg was right or wrong to restructure his command in the middle of the battle. Since the restructuring had an influence on how the second day of battle was fought it definitely is a topic for discussion and given how much confusion it created it seems odd that no one was critical of the decision.

The two essays on Longstreet and Crittenden and McCook challenge our interpretations of their performances in the battle and campaign. Crittenden comes off better than the historiography has and Longstreet’s reputation suffers a little here.

There are four maps at the front of the book. Although it is nice to have maps these are not the best maps as all troop locations are shown as a horizontal box. On a theater map this is fine but on a battlefield map this makes it appear as if all troops were facing north or south. Some maps from contributor David Powell’s recent “Maps of Chickamauga” would have been better.

The problems with the maps though are easily overlooked though because of what a wonderful collection of essays this is. With two volumes in the Campaigns in Heartland series completed this series is now established as one to pay attention to for all future installments.

Contributors were John R. Lundberg, Alexander Mendoza, David Powell, Ethan S. Rafuse, William G. Robertson, Timothy B. Smith, Lee White, and Steven E. Woodworth.

Review by Nicholas Kurtz

Adams Brigade - full review

2010-11-23T10:23:00.000-07:00

Louisianians in the Western Confederacy: The Adams-Gibson Brigade in the Civil War. By Stuart Salling. Photographs, maps, bibliography, index, 260 pp., 2010, McFarland, http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/, 800-253-2187, $39.95, paper.

Stuart Salling’s book on the Adams-Gibson Brigade of Louisianians follows the brigade as it fought in the Army of Tennessee, participating in all the battles of that army until after Nashville when it was transferred to Mobile Bay rather than being sent to North Carolina. The brigade also served as part of Joe Johnston’s army in Mississippi during the summer of 1863.

The brigade went through many reorganizations but its main elements were banded together in August 1862. The ravages of war reduced the Louisiana regiments to the point that they had to be consolidated together, and sometimes they were able to gain enough recruits to regain their individual status again. Salling does a good job of explaining the plentiful confusing command and structure changes with the regiments of the brigade.

Salling also does a good job of explaining the political infighting between Bragg and his generals. Brigade commander Daniel Adams was a Bragg supporter, in fact he received this brigade to prevent Randall Gibson, a Bragg opponent, from commanding a brigade. Adams and Gibson though appear to have gotten along quite nicely. After Bragg resigned following the battle of Missionary Ridge Adams was one of the many officers who recommended Gibson for a promotion to brigadier general, which he got. Gibson commanded the brigade in all its future actions

One of the strengths of the book is the many photos with detailed captions that supplement the main text. For example in a chapter on battle there will also appear a few photos of men who were killed or wounded or distinguished themselves in some other way during the battle. Especially in the case of casualties these men are not always listed in the main text so the photo captions help to supplement the text in a meaningful way.

The maps are another strength of the book. Usually the first map in a battle chapter will show the entire battlefield and subsequent maps will focus on the area where the Adams-Gibson Brigade fought, with many of these showing the alignment of the regiments within the brigade.

There are a few minor errors in the book. In the battle of Missionary Ridge chapter the 15th Indiana is credited with the capture of the 13th Louisiana’s flag. At the bottom of the page the flag is shown but the caption credits the 15th Illinois with the capture. The main text is right, the capture was made by the 15th Indiana. In the section on the July 22nd battle for Atlanta there is a minor editing error, “Baker and Stovall were deployed in the first line with Gibson and Baker in the second, Gibson behind Stovall and Jones behind Baker.” Clearly it was Gibson and Jones in the second line.

In the description of the fighting around Spanish Fort near Mobile the author says Gibson asked for “Negro troops” and was given them. This is a bit troubling as the author does not make clear if they were soldiers or laborers, the text does make it seem like they were soldiers. I am not well versed on the battles for Mobile Bay but I think if there was a large number of Negro soldiers in the Confederate army there it would be a major story in itself.

This is a worthy addition to any Civil War library, especially for someone who follows the war in the West. This book does a good job of providing enough details about individual soldiers without going overboard like some regimental histories do but at the same time it does a good job focusing on the larger picture of the war.

Review by Nicholas Kurtz

Catching Up

2010-11-22T10:44:00.005-07:00

I'm back now. It took me awhile to figure out what happened with my blogger account. All I could do was sign into comment moderation, not actually moderate comments, just see what was being left. There was no method to leave a note here that I would return, that blogger was preventing me from getting full access. Plus I was pretty busy with other things so it was easy to ignore the errors I received from blogger. But whatever was wrong is fixed now and I can return to blogging 2-3 times a week.

Since we last connected my eldest son has become a Tiger Cub scout and I have joined him as one of the assistant den leaders. I was part of scouts way back when and am glad that my son is in and, more importantly, is enjoying it. I look forward to summer camping trips and teaching a dozen boys life lessons through scouting.

We're also looking for a new house, something with a fourth bedroom as we are seriously contemplating having a third child. But first our house has to sell, so if you're looking for a three bedroom, three bath house in Littleton Colorado let me know.

I also completed and sent to the publisher a manuscript I'm proud of that has the possibility of being part of a larger series. Wish I could share more details on the project but one of my writer/historian friends has passed onto me a reluctance to share information broadly until things are much more concrete. So going forward with the belief that there will be a series here I have started researching the book that would follow. I once again feel optimistic about a book project after my previous foray was quashed by a short sighted man. Its good to have that optimism back and hopefully its not misplaced.

The flow of review books from Civil War News has trickled down, guess there is not as much Western Theater stuff coming out as there was earlier in the year. So during the past month I've picked up Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series which follows Richard Sharpe's career in the British army during the Napoleonic years. Its very enjoyable but I'm not going to become a Napoleonic wars buff.

There were so few Western Theater books that the other day the book review editor at Civil War News sent me an Eastern Theater regimental history. I'm actually struggling with writing that review right now. There are a few things about the book that bother me, and not in a West vs East sense, but in a why is this regiment important sense. Plus there was not a single map at all. But it was a good book, very detailed and ultimately I did enjoy it.

But internally I am grappling with a philosophical question of the point to regimental histories. Should it be that going forward they should only exist for regiments that did something extraordinary or whose service was unique? Or that fill a gap in the historiography? For example the new book on the Louisiana Brigade in the Army of Tennessee fills a gap in that there is not many other Western Theater brigade histories published. Their service was not super unique, obviously every unit was unique aspects to their service but this brigade did not see service too different than other units. By the way its a tremendous book that I have reviewed in brief previously and my full review (that is similar to the review that appeared in Civil War News) will appear on here this week.

I also reviewed a book on the 1st Nebraska, a soldier's diary to be specific. Their service was unique in that they served in Arkansas-Missouri but not with the army that fought at Pea Ridge. They didn't achieve much, very limited combat, as I remember the soldier first fired his musket nearly 2 years into his service. He then was transferred to St Louis as a provost guard and remarked on the ship building being done. A fascinating book that looked at an aspect of the war usually forgotten, both the guard duty aspect and the small expeditions he was part of in Arkansas and Missouri.

The book I got the other day is for the 4th Michigan, a regiment that seemed to miss the bulk of the combat nearly every time. They were either left behind as a guard or served on a part of the battlefield that saw little action. They got into serious combat four times, and lost three colonels in those fights, which is remarkable. It is a good book, and the only drawback is the lack of maps. I will rate it favorably although I will make it clear that the lack of maps hurts, especially when locations are described with much detail. But I can't see the road on the map then enough a tremendous amount of detail does little to show me where they were. I need a map. Anyway despite my favorable feelings for the book I'm struck that by and large the regiment did not do something too unique or special. They suffered at Gaines Mill, Malvern Hill, Gettysburg and the Wilderness. At other battles they saw limited action, suffering casualties one would equate with a skirmish even if it was a large battle. But at other times they were left well to the rear. At both Bull Runs they were left behind as a guard. At Antietam they stayed on the wrong side of the river. At Chancellorsville they were the far Union left. None of these were their fault but they certainly did not see as many fights as other regiments. So is the goal of regimental histories to eventually fill in all the gaps so that every unit in every major army has a regimental history? And in this endeavour the Eastern Theater is well ahead and widens its gap every year.

The symposium went very well once again. My involvement was very small after helping get the panel selected. I thought everyone did a great job getting it done. We've already got our panel for next year and I'll make a formal announcement about that soon as well, would do it right now but it should have its own posting and not be reduced to the end of this post.

finally

2010-11-13T21:49:00.001-07:00

I've been having some problems accessing my blogger account, grief about passwords and settings. But apparently things are now cleared up and I can resume a regular blogging schedule in the near future.

Symposium only six weeks away

2010-08-26T08:45:00.003-07:00

It seems like the Rocky Mountain Civil War symposium has snuck up on me this year. That's mostly because I'm not as involved this year as in previous years, especially last year. I knew my involvement would have to be severely curtailed with a baby at home. Some days it seems that getting anything accomplished at home is a big accomplishment, then other days multi tasking with a baby is a breeze. So I'm glad I don't have any symposium worries to also attend to. I'm sure next year I'll take on a few more tasks for the symposium but it might be awhile til I'm back to my normal workload.

In any case this is going to be a wonderful event that I'm glad to be attending. Although I work at every event (some more than others) I go to hear the speakers. Each year has had quite a good group, and this year is no exception. This year the theme is the making of Ulysses S. Grant as a commander.

There need to be a few battle themed presentations to show the growth of Grant and some of the obstacles he faced. The two battles picked were Shiloh and Vicksburg. Shiloh because it is really Grant's first major battle. Not disrespecting Fort Donelson but Shiloh is a much bigger battle. Vicksburg shows Grant overcoming many obstacles and growing as a leader to achieve one of the more important victories of the war. In my mind the top Shiloh authors are James Lee McDonough, Tim Smith, Larry Daniel and Wiley Sword. There are others of course but if we're looking to secure a major Shiloh historian these are the four I think of first. McDonough and Smith have spoken at previous symposiums and Sword will join them this year. Shiloh is my main interest so having had the opportunity to hear from three of the top Shiloh historians over the past few years is a real treat and hopefully we'll be able to get Daniels out in the future.

A large number of prominent historians have explored Vicksburg, especially recently it seems like Vicksburg is getting its due more and more. I'm excited that John Marszalek will cover this campaign for the symposium. I know Marszalek from his Sherman work but he is also now the Executive Director and Managing Editor of the Ulysses S. Grant Association, taking the reins after the departure of John Y. Simon. I'm sure his intimate access to Grant's papers will allow him to bring a unique perspective on Grant's handling of the campaign. Also Grant's papers have now been put online which is a fabulous researching tool.

Then its important to discuss Grant's work as general-in-chief. The two battle presentations have shown his growth as a commander so its only logical to have a presentation that covers the final year of the war when Grant had an impact on the entire war effort. Gordon C. Rhea seems like a great fit for this as his books covering the the 1864 Virginia Overland campaign are an incredible series, and Grant's impact is covered in each one. I'm not sure who better could fill this role.

At each symposium we have a presentation that doesn't follow the normal pace of battles. At the first event covering the Western Theater through Stones River it was a biography of Alexander Stewart, done by Sam Davis Elliott. Last year the theme was Lee's two Northern invasions and the extra presentation covered the differing methods of preservation utilized at Antietam and Gettysburg, by Tim Smith. This year the extra talk will be about the relationship between Grant and Rawlins by Peter Cozzens, another top notch Western theater historian.

Finally there needs to be an overview of Grant. There are a ton of biographers to pick from but my personal favorite is Brooks Simpson. One of my favorite books is his "Let Us Have Peace" which covers Grant's understanding of the politics of war. It changed my view of Grant as a commander and put me well onto the path that Grant's genius had more to do with winning the war than it being simply a matter of numbers. The first stories many of us read make it out that the Confederacy generally had better generals but that they lost due to the quantity of men the North could muster into service. Now I know that the Union was equal in quality as well, just suffered early in the war when its lesser talented generals faced the best the Confederacy had to offer (think Lee versus Pope at Second Manassas or Jackson in the Valley).

So the final panel consists of Brooks Simpson, Peter Cozzens, Wiley Sword, John Marszalek, and Gordon Rhea. Any one of them individually would be enough to entice me to attend the symposium, but having them all at one event makes this year a must see event (though to be fair there has not been one presentation previously that I did not want to see).

The day will end with a panel discussion and time for books to be signed. As always there will be a book room with a ton of good books and deals. I'll have a blog post showing all of the great books in a week or so. I saw the list the other day and was impressed with the variety of books. There is only one so far I want to get but that's because I already own every other book that will be there.

Tickets will be $50 again, which also includes a continental breakfast and lunch. Click here to order your tickets today. Tickets are selling at double the pace of last year. We're in a pretty big auditorium so I don't anticipate it being a sold out event but you should order your tickets today so that you do not run that risk.

If you have any questions please contact us at RockyMtnCWRT at aol dot com.

Mississippi in the Civil War: The Home Front

2010-08-12T07:22:00.002-07:00

Mississippi in the Civil War: The Home Front. By Timothy B. Smith.

In his latest book Timothy Smith tackles the Mississippi home front during the war. Although several Mississippi battles are mentioned they are only discussed as context for some other topic, this book is not intended to inform about every military engagement in the state during the war. Smith’s intent is to cover the entirety of the Mississippi home front, some aspects of which have never been covered in such depth before.

The first half of the book focuses on the more traditional aspects of Civil War history. Smith starts off with a great chapter on Mississippi’s secession convention and explains how they did much more work than simply removing Mississippi from the Union. The convention then spent much time putting their state on footing as a country, at the time it was not a foregone conclusion that enough states would leave the Union to form a new country. Then they worked to make their state part of the Confederacy. Along the way they took time out to declare the reason they had seceded, firmly stating that it was to protect slavery and not for any other reason.

The next four chapters cover the state’s political system, the military complex that was destroyed, the infrastructure and the economy. These are the more traditional ways of discussing the home front. Smith then follows those with five chapters are areas that have barely been covered in the past. There are chapters on the war’s impact on culture, how women dealt with the war, the experience of blacks transforming from slavery to freedom, the loyal white population and the disloyal white population.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Much of it was new to me as I knew little of the Mississippi home front. One of the things I enjoyed was reading about Governor Charles Clark. Clark was a division commander at Shiloh but leaves that army afterwards and I really hadn't come across much about him. So I was excited to read about his time as governor. He was elected in November 1863 so he only saw a time of disappointment. At one point he made the following speech:

"There may be those who delude themselves with visions of a reconstructed Union and a restored Constitution. If such there be, let them awake from their dreaming! Let the last of our young men die upon the field of battle, and when none are left to wield a blade or uphold a banner, then let our old men, our women and our children, like the remnant of the heroic Pascagoulas, when their braves were slain, join hands together, march into the sea and perish beneath its waters."

So although the war effort was clearly fading quickly in the state he was still trying to do his best to hold it together. I also had to look up Pascagoulas as I've never heard of them before. According to legend, the peace-loving tribe walked single file into the Singing River, now known as the Pascagoula River, because the local Biloxi tribe were planning to attack. Anola, a princess of the Biloxi tribe, was in love with Altama, Chief of the Pascagoula tribe. She was betrothed to a chieftain of her own tribe, but fled with Altama to his people. The spurned and enraged Biloxi chieftain led his Biloxi braves to war against Altama and the neighboring Pascagoula. The Pascagoula swore they would either save the young chieftain and his bride or perish with them. When thrown into battle the Pascagoula were out-numbered and faced with enslavement by the Biloxi tribe or death. With their women and children leading the way, the Pascagoula joined hands and began to chant a song of death as they walked into the river until the last voice was hushed by the dark, engulfing waters. Apparently the Singing River is known throughout the world for its mysterious music. The singing sounds like a swarm of bees in flight and is best heard in late evenings during late summer and autumn. Barely heard at first, the music seems to grow nearer and louder until it sounds as though it comes directly under foot.

Another section I especially enjoyed was the part about the secession convention. They did much more work than simply secede, they had to get Mississippi ready to be its own country (only South Carolina had also seceded at this point, though others quickly joined them). For awhile they really operated more as the legislature as they created various boards to oversee a variety of essential tasks that would hopefully help Mississippi achieve its independence. Once it was clear that there would be a Confederacy these boards would work with the new nation to achieve those goals. They also took the time to explain that the cause of their secession was slavery.

Smith also does a great job explaining the complicated nature of Unionism in the state. Although it was the second state to secede there was quite a bit on Unionism. Some opposed secession on all grounds. Some opposed it until the new Lincoln administration proved it would not compromise on slavery. Some opposed it on practical grounds because they could see that war and/or separation would mean decreased business on the Mississippi River and a wide variety of Mississippians depended on the river trade for their livelihood, from business men to large plantation owners situated along the banks of the river.

In discussing the book with Smith I was pleased to learn that he has recently submitted a manuscript on Corinth. I look forward to that book as not much has been written about Corinth previously. I'll surely review that book too when it comes out.

Guide to Missouri Confederate Units - full review

2010-08-02T10:29:00.002-07:00

Guide to Missouri Confederate Units 1861-1865. By James E. McGhee. Photographs, bibliography, index, 314 pp., 2009, University of Arkansas Press, http://www.uapress.com/, 479-575-7258, $34.95, cloth.

As a student of the Western Theater I often find myself trying to trace the history of Missouri Confederate regiments, which often times quite difficult. The information on National Park Service’s Soldiers and Sailors system is often skimpy. James McGhee has solved this issue with his new book, Guide to Missouri Confederate Units.

For each Missouri Confederate unit McGhee lists its official name plus whatever other designations it may have had, a list of its field officers, a list of company commanders plus where the company was recruited, a bibliography for further research and a narrative of the unit’s service that lists casualty numbers when known.

Generally the information is quite extensive, infantry regiments averaging about five pages of text while artillery batteries garner about two pages. For cavalry regiments there is much more diversity, some units being short lived and only having a page or two of information available while others are as long as the infantry sections. The narratives themselves are well detailed. Instead of saying the regiment fought at Franklin there are details about where in the line they were, what they attacked, how long they fought and the toll the unit suffered in the battle.

I wish the book had a few maps. I would have liked a map of Missouri showing principal towns and county names. Another useful map would have been a theater map so one could find the smaller actions Missouri troops were involved in. The photograph section is very good because the pictures don’t just focus on the generals from Missouri but include men of nearly every rank, from generals down to privates.

The only drawback on the information level is that there is not a section on the Missouri State Guard units. The index does lead you to the various units that came out of each Missouri State Guard Division. McGhee explains in the introduction that he did not include the state guard because it was a state force and not officially mustered into the Confederate service. That is the only drawback I had.

Despite the absence of maps and a section on the Missouri State Guard I would recommend this book. There is no other resource on Missouri’s Confederate units that compares. If you need a reference book for these units there is nothing else that beats it.

This review appeared in the August issue of Civil War News. It only appears online as there are now so many books being reviewed for Civil War News that there is not enough space in the print version for all of them.

Buell's Advance to Pittsburg Landing

2010-07-30T06:30:00.000-07:00

I'm always excited to see the newest issue of Tennessee Historical Quarterly appear in my mailbox. There tends to always be at least one Civil War article, sometimes the whole issue is Civil War themed. Also it seems that the past few years have seen quite a few Shiloh articles. This past Wednesday I received the latest issue and there were two Civil War articles and one of them was Shiloh themed.

Donald A. Clark wrote a pretty good piece on the Army of the Ohio's advance from
Nashville to Savannah, arriving in time to see combat on April 7th, with advance units reaching the Shiloh battlefield as the first day's fight was winding down. The article nearly gives a day by day account of the march across middle Tennessee with highlights from soldiers' diaries and letters. I especially liked this as it now seems like I could retrace Buell's route pretty closely.

There are things I wish the author had expanded on. He says that its now clear that Grant's army would have prevailed in the battle even without the assistance from Buell. I'm not 100% in agreement. I think the second day would have gone for the Union and that the Confederates would have retreated back to Corinth. But I think that it would have taken longer for the Union to reclaim its old camps and while in reality Grant did not use April 8th to make it a horrible disaster for the Confederacy that opportunity likely would not have even been possible if Buell had never arrived.

William "Bull" Nelson comes off quite well in the article, a conclusion I too agree with. If he had lived through the war I think he would have made some nice contributions to the Union cause. Clark has written a biography of Nelson that will be coming out this winter from Southern Illinois University.

I do think though that some of Clark's article was clumsy. When he talked about battle sequences he jumbled them up a bit. The article makes it sound like once the Peach Orchard line collapsed Grant started to bring up the siege guns to anchor a line of artillery near the landing. In reality those siege guns had started moving into position earlier in the morning, they are just too heavy for rapid movement. This might just be an editing oversight, if that paragraph had been moved up a few paragraphs it would be in the right order and make perfect sense.

Clark also revealed more about how much Grant and Buell were communicating with each other, something I had not really given much thought. But Grant sent two officers (presumably with some sort of escort) to find Buell as he marched across the state. Clark refers to one as Grant's best scout, which made me wonder how things might have been different if this scout had been available on the morning of April 6 to lead Lew Wallace into position. That is just one of the little things that perhaps changed part of the battle.

Battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga and the Organizations Engaged

2010-07-28T06:35:00.000-07:00

The Battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga and the Organizations Engaged. By Henry V. Boynton. Edited by Tim Smith.

Henry V. Boynton should be much more well known than he is. It is due to his efforts that the battlefields of Chickamauga and Chattanooga were preserved by the federal government, the first battlefields to be preserved by the federal government. This lead to the creation of other battlefield parks in the 1890s and has continued to the present day. When the battlefields were preserved one of the first tasks was to create troop movement maps with accompanying text, which then became the basis for the iron interpretive markers on the battlefields.

In his role as the first park historian Boynton wrote quite a bit on Chickamauga and Chattanooga. He wrote an extensive tour of the battlefields with a history of the preservation efforts. He also wrote a book covering the formation of the park for the grand dedication in 1895. These books can still be found in libraries and appear for sale online quite regularly. Boynton also wrote three small books that are much less readily available in libraries or for sale. Timothy B. Smith has collected these three short volumes into one book. He also provides an introduction that places Boynton and these three volumes in their proper historical context. The three volumes are presented as originally published, Smith confined his notes about the books to the introduction.

This is a very useful addition to the study of these battles. These rare volumes can now be owned by anyone. Then being able to pair the text with the maps, available online, makes it an even more worthwhile book.

If you wish to learn more about Boynton’s role in the formation of Chickamauga check out A Chickamauga Memorial: The Establishment of America’s First Civil War National Military Park by Timothy B. Smith

The full review will appear here after its publication in Civil War News.

The Chickamauga Campaign

2010-07-26T06:33:00.000-07:00

The Chickamauga Campaign. Edited by Steven E. Woodworth.

Western theater battles often lack the coverage that Eastern theater battles do. This discrepancy will never be erased but lately there has been a surge of Western Theater material. Partially trying to fill this void is the Civil War Campaigns in Heartland series from Southern Illinois University Press. The second volume, covering the Chickamauga campaign, follows on the heels of the wonderful Shiloh volume published last year.

Editor Steven E. Woodworth has assembled eight essays that explore some aspects of the campaign and provoke some critical thinking. The collection of essays focuses more on the Confederate side than the Union side. There are essays on D. H. Hill, Alexander Stewart, James Longstreet, Patrick Cleburne’s night assault, James Negley’s actions on Horseshoe Ridge, the performances of Thomas Crittenden and Alexander McCook, the near battle of McLemore’s Cove and Henry Van Ness Boynton’s shaping of Chickamauga as a national park. Although the collection focuses more on the Confederates it is not a distracting decision especially since the essay on Crittenden and McCook is nearly three times the length of the other essays, so the page count is probably pretty closely divided.

All the essays were good, there did not seem to be a weak one in the collection. There are four maps at the front of the book. Although it is nice to have maps these are not the best maps as all troop locations are shown as a horizontal box. On a theater map this is fine but on a battlefield map this makes it appear as if all troops were facing north or south. Some maps from contributor David Powell’s recent “Maps of Chickamauga” would have been better.

The problems with the maps though are easily overlooked though because of what a wonderful collection of essays this is. With two volumes in the Campaigns in Heartland series completed this series is now established as one to pay attention to for all future installments.

Contributors were John R. Lundberg, Alexander Mendoza, David Powell, Ethan S. Rafuse, William G. Robertson, Timothy B. Smith, Lee White, and Steven E. Woodworth.

The full review will be posted after its publication in Civil War News.

The Ever-Changing Leaders and Organization of the Army of the Potomac

2010-07-23T05:57:00.000-07:00

The Ever-Changing Leaders and Organization of the Army of the Potomac by George S. Maharay

I made a previous post about this book, the author had emailed me trying to sell a copy and made the claim that there were 6 changes in army command and the 8 changes in general-in-chief. He made a big point in the email (and on the back of the book) about saying how many changes there were among the leaders and the organization of the army. The back of the book proclaims 149 changes in leadership and 94 changes in organization.

I thought he was overreaching on both points. Even if we consider McDowell a commander of the Army of the Potomac (he technically wasn't because it wasn't the Army of the Potomac yet but many authors will credit him as the first commander because his army is the basis for the Army of the Potomac) that leaves us with five; McDowell, McClellan, Burnside, Hooker and Meade. And those are truthfully only four changes. But Maharay claims Pope as a commander of the Army of the Potomac, giving him a tenure of "six days or less" as commander. This is obviously wrong. Not to belabor a point but McClellan was not relieved of command in late August 1862, he had many of his men temporarily transferred to Pope's command. And if Pope had won the battle of Second Manassas I'm sure those transfers would have become permanent and McClellan would have been sent home. But he retained command of the army until November 1862. And Pope was never given command of the Army of the Potomac, just over many of its men. There is also the possibility that if the two armies were combined under a victorious Pope that the new army would be called the Army of Virginia (the name of Pope's army, who would the victors choose the name of the army that had been defeated in all of its major battles?)

His logic for the general in chief post is even more convoluted, he claims times when Lincoln was general in chief and times when Lincoln and Halleck held the post jointly. Both are false. There definitely were times when Lincoln did Halleck's job but he was never officially general in chief. I thought his email might have been mostly exaggerated to sell books but he actually says in the text that Lincoln was general in chief.

I think this book had the chance to be great, and some of it is worthwhile. Partly it is his interpretations of things that weaken the book. In the chapter discussing Grant becoming general in chief and electing to keep his headquarters near the Army of the Potomac instead of at a desk in Washington Maharay does a good job of explaining the situation and the decision. Then near the end of the book when recapping all the commanders of the army he writes this one sentence paragraph to close the chapter, "US Grant took to the field with the Army of the Potomac and from March 1864 until the end of the war, the army had two commanders." There were times Meade felt that he wasn't really commanding the army but on paper he was still the commander, his commanding officer just happened to always be very close by. Maharay did a good job explaining that setup the first time it appeared and then made an error the second time around.

The author is really devoted to numbering the changes, closing each chapter with a list of the changes and numbering them. I'm not so sure that his figures of 149 changes in leadership and 94 changes in organization are correct. For example when Burnside replaces McClellan as commander of the army this is counted as two changes, McClellan being relieved and Burnside replacing him. Same thing when McClellan replaces Scott as general in chief, Maharay counts it as two, Scott retiring and McClellan replacing him. This would make me believe that the number of changes is more likely half or two-thirds of the 149 and 94 Maharay claims. The actual number is not something I care about but when the author makes a big deal about numbering them then I feel he should be accurate.

I would have liked to see Maharay expand the book down to the divisional level. The book only focuses on the changes at the corps level and beyond. That's another reason the 149 and 94 changes claim seems way too high. That is a ton of changes for the corps and beyond level. At the most there were eight corps in the army at one moment. I made a chart from Maharay's info and it has 38 men making 49 command changes. This ignores the times that wings were used but those would not add more than a dozen command changes.

The book is self published. I've seen more of these in recent years and being self published doesn't necessarily make it a bad book. What seems to be lacking in them is the extensive review process many other presses put their books through. I know the University of Tennessee Press uses two peer reviewers who only worry about content and not grammar. A self published book could plenty of peer review as well as copy editing, instead though they seem to lack this. This book is a prime example.

A peer reviewer would have seen the issues I listed above and while they might not have been fixed they most likely would have been addressed more. Instead of a one sentence paragraph claiming Grant and Meade were both army commanders, 50 pages after a well reasoned section on the structure, the peer reviewer would have likely pressed Maharay to change that sentence or to enlarge the paragraph and explain why in his opinion Grant can be classified an army commander. I doubt that this book as is would have been published by a university press or one of the other good presses around the country. They might have eventually published the book but it would have looked different than it does now.

I'm glad I got this book through the library and did not spend my own $28 on it. I would not recommend anyone using their own money on this book.

Louisianians in the Western Confederacy: The Adams-Gibson Brigade in the Civil War

2010-07-21T10:24:00.002-07:00

Louisianians in the Western Confederacy: The Adams-Gibson Brigade in the Civil War. By Stuart Salling.

Stuart Salling’s book on the Adams-Gibson Brigade of Louisianians follows the brigade as it fought in the Army of Tennessee, participating in all the battles of that army until after Nashville when it was transferred to Mobile Bay rather than being sent to North Carolina. The brigade also served as part of Joe Johnston’s army in Mississippi during the summer of 1863.

The brigade went through many reorganizations but its main elements were banded together in August 1862. The ravages of war reduced the Louisiana regiments to the point that they had to be consolidated together, and sometimes they were able to gain enough recruits to regain their individual status again. Salling does a good job of explaining the plentiful confusing command and structure changes with the regiments of the brigade.

Salling also does a good job of explaining the political infighting between Bragg and his generals. Brigade commander Daniel Adams was a Bragg supporter, in fact he received this brigade to prevent Randall Gibson, a Bragg opponent, from commanding a brigade. Adams and Gibson though appear to have gotten along quite nicely. After Bragg resigned following the battle of Missionary Ridge Adams was one of the many officers who recommended Gibson for a promotion to brigadier general, which he got. Gibson commanded the brigade in all its future actions

Besides being an interesting story the book is laid out well visually. There are quite a few pictures of the men and officers who served in the brigade. The maps are nice as they show the layout of the regiments within the brigade and also show the entire battlefield as well. Sometimes these sorts of books get so focused on the activities of their small part that they ignore the larger operations, this book tends to do a good job of not getting too focused.

The full review will appear after its publication in Civil War News.

Matthew Archer

2010-07-12T12:14:00.002-07:00

Its taken me awhile to get the time to make this post but nearly two weeks ago my son was born. Matthew Archer joined this world at 2:01 PM on June 30th. He weighed 6 pounds and 7 ounces, and was 18.5 inches long. Things were not 100% normal or easy but when my wife was released three days later we were able to bring Matthew home at the same time so it worked out fine in the end. I took the last week off of work so I could have some bonding time, plus help my wife while she recovered. This week I'm back to work and already missing the little guy. I'm looking forward to this evening when I'll be back home with my two sons and wife.

I could share a ton of pictures but I'll only bother you with three. The first is Matthew when he was just 30 minutes old.

Finally after three days in the NICU our other son was able to hold his brother for the first time. He wasn't allowed in the NICU so the best he got was seeing him once for a minute through a window. He really wanted to see and hold his little brother so once we were cleared to leave the hospital we took a few minutes in the room so big brother could hold little brother. In the last 12 days I think he has worn his big brother shirt on 4-5 of them. He is a protective of his little brother and is going to be a great big brother.

And here is Matthew during his first evening home.

Sorry for the absence of late

2010-06-22T08:44:00.004-07:00

This past month (or two) I have been buckling down on my manuscript. So while I focused on that this blog ended up getting little of my attention. Its amazing how long some of the little things added up time wise on the manuscript. But now its done. All I need to do is print and send.

So hopefully I'll be able to give the blog the time it deserves again. One thing I want to do right off the bat is do some short book reviews. You can see to the right that there is quite a few books that I've read for Civil War News. All of those reviews have been written, I'm just waiting for them to be published in the newspaper and then I'll post the whole review here. In the meantime though I wanted to give a short review of those books on here so that you would not have to wait months to find out if the book is worthwhile. Those short reviews will be the next thing I start putting on here.

And we're in the home stretch for the baby's arrival. They will definitely induce on July 1st if the baby has not arrived by then. At the beginning of June I thought for sure the baby would come before July 1st but now I'm thinking that he is going to be an ornery child and will arrive on July 1st. And long ago we decided on Matthew Archer. We liked Matthew and then my wife decided she would be open to a Civil War connected middle name. So one night I pulled Coddington's Gettysburg off the shelf and read her the order of battle. She liked Archer, for Confederate General James Archer. I wanted Braxton for Braxton Bragg, who I think was not nearly as bad as everyone makes him out. But Archer sounds good and as it turns out Archer is probably best remembered for being the first Confederate general in Lee's army to be captured and it happened on July 1st by the 2nd Wisconsin. So besides having a Civil War connection we will also have a connection to Wisconsin (where all my family is from) might also have a connection to July 1st.

symposium ticket sales

2010-06-02T12:02:00.004-07:00

Tickets for the 2010 Rocky Mountain Civil War symposium are now available for sale on the website. The event is October 2nd at the Community College of Aurora. It promises to be another great event. This year our theme will be Ulysses S. Grant.

Brooks Simpson, author of “Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865,” will provide an overview of Grant the general.

Peter Cozzens, author of many books on Western Theater battles (among others), will talk about the relationship between Grant and Rawlins.

Although Grant led men in battle before Shiloh that battle is his first real test of army command in big battle. Wiley Sword, author of “Shiloh: Bloody April,” will discuss Grant's performance in this battle.

Grant’s Vicksburg Campaign is what really separates him from the rest of the prominent generals. John Marszalek, Executive Director and Managing Editor of the Ulysses S. Grant Association, will cover this complicated campaign. Grant's papers are also now available online.

Gordon Rhea, author “Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26–June 3, 1864,” rounds out the panel with a presentation on Grant as General-in-Chief.

The day will end with a panel discussion and time for books to be signed. As always there will be a book room with a ton of good books and deals.

Tickets will be $50 again, which also includes a continental breakfast and lunch. Last year we also gave away "The New Civil War Handbook" by Mark Hughes free to all attendees.

If you have any questions please contact us at RockyMtnCWRT at aol dot com.

Army of the Potomac

2010-05-21T06:40:00.004-07:00

This week I've had an interesting exchange of emails with an author. He has published a book on the Army of the Potomac and in his email touting his work he talks about the 6 changes in army command and the 8 changes in general-in-chief (as well as the many changes in brigade, division and corps leaders as well as the structure changes).

For whatever reason I decided to respond to him instead of ignoring him and asked him what those changes were. He claimed the army command commanders as McClellan, Pope, McClellan, Burnside, Hooker and Meade. I pointed out that Pope was never in command of the Army of the Potomac and McClellan never was removed from command. His response was citing a letter from McClellan that he felt he was a man without an army. I don't doubt he felt that way but he was never officially removed from command. Of course the author should discuss this incident in the book but he should also make clear that the Army of the Potomac troops serving under Pope were a temporary attachment, although if Pope had won the Battle of Second Manassas it might have been made permanent.

A secondary point if one wanted to quibble is that the changes of McClellan, Pope, McClellan, Burnside, Hooker and Meade is only five changes. The author stated six changes. When I first heard six changes I was pretty sure he was going to include Pope as an army commander. I wondered though if he would call McDowell the first army commander (while technically incorrect most historians have listed him as such) or if he would claim that Grant was really the army commander in 1864-65 as Meade's influence on army movements was severely curtailed.

The changes the author claims for general-in-chief are even more bizarre. I could think of Scott, McClellan, Halleck and Grant. The author claims it as Scott, McClellan, Lincoln, Halleck, Lincoln and Halleck, Lincoln, Lincoln and Halleck, Grant. General-in-chief refers to the senior army officer, Lincoln was not a general and President, he was commander-in-chief. Lincoln was very hands on, Halleck complained that he was really a military advisor implementing the wishes of Lincoln and Stanton. There was a period between McClellan and Halleck that there was no general-in-chief, but to call Lincoln that is an error. The author would need to explain in the text that Lincoln operated without a general-in-chief for awhile. Also I do not remember a time when Halleck was suspended from command as general-in-chief or that Lincoln said "we're now co-general-in-chief."

Was the marketing email simply over stating facts to make the number of changes more impressive? Maybe. I'm worried though that when given a chance to back pedal and explain that he really knew that Pope was not a commander of the Army of the Potomac and that Lincoln was not general-in-chief the author refused and doggedly stuck to his guns that he was right on all counts. It makes me worry that there are similar errors in the other command and structure changes enumerated in the book.

I confirmed through amazon that it is a self-published book, which by itself doesn't set off red flags but one of the benefits of using a publishers is that many others read the book before its published. In this case I think peer review was missing.

Needless to say I will not be buying this book. If my local library happens to get a copy I'll probably look at it but I definitely would not use it as a source until I made an extended effort to confirm anything he said.

***UPDATE 5-25-10***
Enough people have emailed asking for the title, so I'll add it here as well. The book in question is "The Ever-Changing Leaders and Organization of the Army of the Potomac" by George S. Maharay. I have also since requested the book thru ILL, only one copy was listed on worldcat which is probably not a good sign.

Grant's Papers

2010-05-20T07:06:00.000-07:00

The other day while doing research on John Marszalek for the upcoming Rocky Mountain Civil War Symposium I saw a link that the Papers of Ulysses S. Grant are now available online. Marszalek is the head of the Papers after the passing of John Simon a could years ago.

Having the papers online is a fantastic resource. It helped me solve two riddles almost immediately. One was that at Shiloh the first staff member to give Lew Wallace an order was A.S. Baxter. All sources only use his initials, its a small riddle but I wanted to use his full name in a project if possible, and I found it (Algernon). The second riddle was that I had a source that claimed Grant wrote a letter to Alfred Mathews, but I did not know when. The letter appeared in a footnote in the Papers which I would not have had the patience to search for manually but now that the Papers are digitized online it took only a few minutes to solve that riddle.

I'll use it a lot on future research projects. In the past the only copy I knew of locally was a half hour drive downtown. I hardly ever have the time anymore to get there so this is a really helpful resource for me.

To search the collection yourself click here

Sickles at Gettysburg

2010-05-19T06:59:00.001-07:00

Sickles at Gettysburg by James A. Hessler

This is a wonderful book, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Daniel Sickles is someone I've always been fascinated by but had never read a biography about because they all seemed to be too pro-Sickles or too anti-Sickles, there did not seem to be a good even handed biography of him out there. I think Hessler has solved this.

The book focuses on Sickles actions at Gettysburg and how he spent the rest of his life defending those actions. There is of course some discussion of his life before the Civil War, probably most well known for murdering Philip Barton Key, and his military record in the Army of the Potomac prior to Gettysburg. But the bulk of the book concerns all aspects of Sickles' Gettysburg performance. Hessler does side with Meade's side in most of the Sickles-Meade arguments over Sickles' Gettysburg record.

The one area I thought the author could have devoted more attention to was explaining how the battle might have been fought if Sickles had stayed put like Meade wanted. Show exactly where his lines would have been and try to guess how Longstreet would have attacked the Union lines. My thinking has always been that Sickles forced Longstreet to use his men taking a position that did not imperil the main Union lines. Sickles was helped out by other Union units taking Little Round Top so that he was not flanked from that position but if Sickles had not been able to secure Little Round Top if he stayed put then it seems to me his position would have been flanked and a greater calamity fallen on the Union lines than actually did. And my own recollection (and Hessler confirms this) is that Hancock's lines ended well north of Little Round Top (near the present location of Pennsylvania state monument), so did Sickles have enough men to connect to Hancock's left and hold Little Round Top?

I think it would have been about a mile long line if it was straight and since the ground was not level, especially to cover Little Round Top, and the left should be refused at least a bit. Sickles had 10,675 men in the ranks. The men would form in two ranks, and if each man is allotted 18 inches of line (somewhere I remember reading that is about how much front a man occupies) then those men would cover a front of roughly 1.5 miles. Measuring on a park map it looks like the line is roughly 1.3 miles long so allowing for some refusal of the flank and some reserves it appears that Sickles could have covered Little Round Top.

Maybe someone has done a study that breaks down exactly how much front Sickles could have filled on the Meade line and also how Longstreet might have reacted, he certainly would not have assaulted straight up the Emmittsburg Pike. I have not read the study if it has been done, but I'm not a voracious Gettysburg reader so it is quite possible that I have missed such a study.

In any respect this is a great book. I only wish Sickles life was made into a movie. He is a fascinating character and Hessler has provided a pretty fair treatment of him. Buy this book.

Shiloh Maps

2010-05-18T09:06:00.003-07:00

Trailhead Graphics has made a new Shiloh map set. Basically it is the Reed map placed onto the modern topo map that serves as the base for the monument map that Trailhead already makes (and is a valuable tool for wandering a battlefield). There are two maps, one for each day. I saw samples last week at the Rocky Mountain Civil War Round Table meeting and it looks fabulous. The map is supposed to go on sale at the park this week. It does not appear yet on the Trailhead Graphics website and I also did not find it on the Eastern National website. I guess you need to call the park bookshop to order a copy. The visitor's center phone number is (731) 689-5696. You can also contact Trailhead Graphics at trailhead@dim.com or 800 390-5117. I can't wait to own this set.

Chickamauga Maps

2010-05-17T06:44:00.002-07:00

I fear this post might be well behind the times but in case its not, I recently found out that that the University of Tennessee Press has put pdfs copies of the Betts' Chickamauga maps online. These maps were created when the battlefields of Chickamauga and Chattanooga were preserved. Henry Boynton was the first park historian and wrote the official battle history, placed the iron markers you see on the field today and also had troop movement maps created to accompany the text. You can buy these maps in an altered state today at the park, basically one map now has info that originally appeared on 3-4 maps. But now UT Press has put the original 13 maps online here.

They did this in conjunction with the publication of "The Battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga and the Organizations Engaged" by Henry Boynton, edited by Timothy B. Smith. Smith has basically combined three Boytnon books into one volume and provided some other notes on Boynton. I have not held a copy of Smith's version yet, I knew he was working on it but did not realize it was out already. I actually do have Boynton's other books but I would like a modern reprint so I don't have to worry about ruining my 100 year old versions.

Life

2010-05-05T12:02:00.003-07:00

Sorry for the dearth of posts lately. I've been kept busy working on a manuscript that I hope to have finished soon. Plus I've been fine tuning a presentation I'm giving to the Rocky Mountain Civil War Round Table next week.

And of course there is the more important things like trying to get ready for the baby. The doctor intends to induce labor at the end of June so a July 1st birth is quite likely. The nursery is nearly ready. We've been waiting for the crib to arrive, apparently we selected the slowest company in the world, this Saturday it'll be 17 weeks since we ordered it. Then I can hang some pictures and shelves on the walls and get things finished. Last weekend was the baby shower so now most things we need are here. I think all we're really missing is a high chair and we can wait on that for a little while.

Things should clear up next week after the round table presentation. And then hopefully by the end of the month the manuscript will be complete. So once I start to free up times for better posts the baby will come and the blog will be the furthest thing from my mind. I'll try to build up a supply of posts so that there won't be a precipitate drop off here in July.

Thanks for your understanding.

Cleburne: Franklin

2010-04-22T10:16:00.000-07:00

September 1864 was a rough month for Cleburne, professionally and personally. Hood blamed Hardee, and by association Cleburne, for the fall of Atlanta. Govan's loss was hard on Cleburne as those were Arkansas boys he had been with since the beginning of the war. Captain Buck of his staff had been wounded at Jonesboro and was now at a hospital. Chief of staff Major Benham resigned in despair and left for Mexico. His fiancé Sue was suffering from "neuralgia" and was unable to write.

On September 27 Hardee was finally transferred out of the army. Cleburne contemplated asking for a transfer as well and told his staff that he'd rather be an aide to Hardee than command a division in Hood's army. Cheatham was given Hardee's corps. The next day Cleburne went to Hood's headquarters to ask for a two week furlough so that he could go to Mobile and marry Sue. Hood denied the request saying that the campaign season was not yet over.

There was a bright spot that month though as Govan's men returned to the army after a particularly quick prisoner exchange. When President Davis visited the army that month he made a visit to every brigade. As Hood and Davis passed by Govan's brigade they chanted "Johnston! Johnston!"

The army now moved north towards Dalton. During the second week of October Cleburne's men wrecked the railroad with their bare hands. They lacked the proper tools so they just lined up on one side and lifted the whole rail up and were then able to remove the ties. From Dalton they went to Rocky Face Ridge, Lafayette, Alpine, Decatur and reached Tuscumbia on October 31. A pontoon bridge was built to cross the nearly one mile of river and Cleburne's division finally crossed on November 13 and camped at Florence. Cheatham's corps went north through Waynesboro and Cleburne left Mercer's brigade behind to guard the river crossings. On November 20 he set out with the brigades of Govan, Lowrey and Granbury.

On November 22 they passed through Waynesboro. South of Columbia on November 24 Cleburne met Lucius Polk again. Polk's house was across the road from Hood's headquarters. At Polk's chapel Cleburne idly remarked, "It is almost worth dying to rest in so sweet a spot." The next day they occupied Columbia on the Duck River. Across the river Schofield had two corps but Hood had no intention of a direct assault.

On November 29 Hood started his flank movement with Cleburne's division in the lead. By 3 PM Cleburne was near Spring Hill. There was a Union force south of town but Hood was more concerned with blocking Schofield's retreat. Schofield was still near Columbia apparently believing that Hood would assault him directly. Cheatham believed that Hood wanted him to assault Spring Hill and that the turnpike south of town was not his objective. Between 3:30 and 4 PM Cleburne deployed his division in echelon facing west, Lowrey on the right, then Govan and Granbury. Forrest deployed one brigade on Cleburne's right.

At 4 PM the division moved forward and then swung to the right. They quickly drove Bradley's brigade but came under fire from 18 cannon near Spring Hill. Lane's brigade then redeployed from Bradley's left and then came due south at Cleburne but nothing much came of this attack. It was now 5 PM (sunset was at 4:26) and Cheatham began to work at creating a solid line against Spring Hill. Bate's division was currently executing exactly the movement Hood desired, on the turnpike and moving south but at about 6 PM Cheatham ordered Bate to a different position. At 6:17 PM the field was completely dark and a hoped for second attack to be led by Brown was now impossible. The troops went to sleep a quarter mile from the turnpike. That night Schofield's army snuck past the Confederates.

When Hood woke in the morning and found out that the Union had slipped past he was furious. At a meeting of his generals he ranted and blamed them for the mistake. He had good reason to be upset but he also should accept some of the blame himself. From 4-6 the night before his headquarters were close to the front and yet he never ventured out or sent out aides to find out what was happening. There is also evidence that he went to sleep that night knowing that his troops were not in the right position but he did nothing to correct it. When Cleburne found out that Hood held him partly responsible he said to Brown that he would seek an investigation at the first opportunity. At a command conference at Harrison House Hood said that the Confederates should "go over the main works at all hazards." Cleburne replied "I will take the enemy's works or fall in the attempt." Later that day near Winstead Hill Govan noticed that Cleburne seemed more despondent than normal. He tried to engage him in conversation and said, "Well General there will not be many of us that get back to Arkansas." Unsmiling Cleburne responded, "Well Govan if we are to die let us die like men."

Cleburne arranged his brigades in column to the right of the Franklin Turnpike. They waited for about an hour when Cheatham gave the signal to advance at 4 PM. When the division hit the Union salient it turned into a race for the main Union line. Govan and Granbury's brigades pierced the line and Cleburne was soon with them. He was on foot now as two horses had previously been shot from under him. Fifty yards from the Carter cotton gin he was killed instantly when a single bullet entered his heart. Granbury and four other Confederate generals were also killed that day. Late that night the Union left Franklin.

Once Cleburne's body was identified he was taken to Carnton. He was later buried in Rose Hill cemetery in Columbia. Rose Hill though had former slaves, paupers and Yankees buried there too and so it was decided to rebury him at St. John's Chapel. This is the chapel that he had remarked upon the beauty of a week earlier in the presence of Lucius Polk. Finally in April 1870 his body was moved for a final time to Helena, Arkansas.

During Reconstruction he became a larger hero than he was in his lifetime. Veterans recalled with increased clarity his sterling character and devotion to duty. His martyrdom came to represent the martyrdom of the Army of Tennessee.

Cleburne: command squables and Chickamauga

2010-04-21T23:56:00.001-07:00

Due to some foulup with blogger this post did not get published at its appointed time, so it is now a bit out of order, sorry about that.

During the retreat after Stones River the criticisms of Bragg bubbled back up. On January 11th Bragg, after reading the criticisms in newspapers, sent a letter to all division and corps commanders asking their opinion of the retreat and their opinion of him in general. He told them to consult their subordinates and implied that he would resign if he had lost their good opinion. Hardee's corps came down unanimously against Bragg and thought that a change would be in the best interests of the army. Only Jones Withers supported Bragg. Instead of resigning Bragg told Davis that he was a victim of a cabal. While this was going on Polk was in Richmond complaining to Davis about Bragg and so Davis might have easily believed the cabal charge.

In order to get a second opinion on the army, and also perhaps to rid himself of a disgruntled general, Davis sent Joe E Johnston to Tullahoma. On January 27 Johnston met with Polk, Hardee and Bragg. He reported to Davis that there was unrest in the army but Bragg had performed well at Stones River and it would be unfair to remove him now. After Johnston left Bragg wrote his report on Stones River. He gave praise to Polk, Hardee and Cleburne while criticizing Cheatham, Breckinridge and McCown. Hardee thought Bragg's assessment of Cheatham, Breckinridge and McCown was correct but loved the fact that Bragg continued to make the army unrest even worse. Bragg had McCown arrested and Cleburne would serve on that court martial. Cleburne was the judge on the panel and also was one of the chief witnesses. McCown received a six month suspension and afterwards only served in minor posts.

On March 19th Johnston returned to Tullahoma, this time with orders from Davis to take command of the army from Bragg and send Bragg back to Richmond. At first Johnston kept Bragg in Tullahoma as Mrs. Bragg was sick. Then Johnston became ill and needed Bragg around in case Rosecrans' attacked. Eventually Johnston left Bragg's army to serve as theater commander.

In April Polk's report of Stones River came out and commended Cheatham. Bragg was convinced that they were in cahoots and sent a letter to Polk's subordinates asking about an event in the Perryville campaign. Cleburne also received this letter because he had serve with Polk during the Perryville campaign. Cleburne asked Hardee for advice. Hardee told Cleburne not to responded as it seemed that Bragg was just fishing for a court martial which is what Bragg was doing.

Cleburne's division underwent a minor overhaul in May. Johnston was now in Mississippi halfheartedly trying to save Vicksburg. To respond to one of his calls for men Bragg sent Breckinridge with 2 of his 3 brigades. Then Bragg took Bushrod Johnson's brigade from Cleburne and combined it with Breckinridge's remaining brigade into a new division under Stewart. As compensation Cleburne received Churchill's brigade of recently exchanged prisoners, these men had surrendered at Arkansas Post without firing a shot. No other division in the army wanted these men but Cleburne welcomed them to the division. He told them that they would be judged on what they do and not on what happened previously.

Cleburne's division was in the Liberty Gap area but Bragg was not really prepared for a Union advance. On June 24 Liddell's two regiments were unable to hold Liberty Gap against the Union assault. Bragg now had to retreat as Rosecrans conducted a pretty impressive campaign of maneuver. Cleburne's men acted as the army's rear guard for most of this retreat. On July 5th his division crossed the Tennessee River and Hardee turned command of the corps over to Cleburne while Hardee went to Chattanooga to discuss strategy with Bragg. Cleburne's corps went east of Chattanooga and took up a defensive position upriver of the town. This is the area where Bragg thought Rosecrans would cross the river. A week later Hardee was sent west to help Johnston. Cleburne thought he might get corps command on a permanent basis but DH Hill soon arrived to take the position. In late August Rosecrans crossed west of Chattanooga and on September 7 Cleburne led his division south.

Chickamauga

As his division marched south from Chattanooga more changes were being made to its structure. Churchill was transferred to the trans-Mississippi and his brigade was now commanded by Deshler. Liddell's brigade was removed from the division and Liddell soon had his own division. Despite the changes and the retreat esprit de corps was high in the division.

During the retreat Bragg found an opportunity to strike at Rosecrans' scattered army at McLemore's Cove. Hindman was to attack first and Cleburne would support the attack . The morning of the attack went by with no sound from Hindman's area. Bragg and Hill were with Cleburne but waited until noon to order him to attack. Bragg hoped that Hindman would attack if he heard Cleburne's attack. Just as Cleburne's skirmishers were becoming engaged Bragg changed his mind and called off the attack. At 4:30 PM firing was finally heard from Hindman but when Cleburne went forward they found that the Union had escaped from the trap.

On September 19th Cleburne marched north to take part in a new battle. Around sunset his division crossed Chickamauga Creek at Thedford's Ford and marched two miles to the extreme right of the army. In the dark they went into position behind Liddell's division and Liddell urged Cleburne to attack. Cleburne was hesitant to attack because of the late hour, thick woods and unknown terrain. DH Hill arrived and Liddell urged him to order Cleburne to attack, which he then did. Cleburne began his advance at 6 PM with Deshler on the left, then Wood and Polk. The attack was a success at first but Wood, in the center, gave way. Cleburne brought up artillery to within 60 yards of the Union line and Wood was able to resume the advance. Finally at 9 PM the attack was halted.

On September 20 Cleburne was awake at sunrise (about quarter to 6 AM). Hill and Breckinridge joined him for breakfast. At 6:30 AM a courier from Polk arrived with orders for Breckinridge and Cleburne. The orders were for a dawn attack, which time had already passed. Hill was upset that Polk was ignoring the change of command, but actually Bragg had reorganized the army the night before, in part to limit Hill's role. Hill wrote a reply for Polk and the courier left. Polk though soon arrived to find out why there was no dawn attack. Cleburne said that once his men had eaten they would attack. Polk was fine with this explanation and left. He wasn't gone long when Bragg arrived. Bragg was upset that there had been no dawn attack, said the attack should begin as soon as possible and then he too left. It was now 8 AM.

Cleburne got his men ready and made a reconnaissance of the ground. At 9:30 AM Breckinridge could be heard attacking so Cleburne went forward. They attacked the Kelly Field salient and it was pretty much a disaster. Thomas' men had been preparing breastworks most of the night and were able to shuffle fresh men in and out of the front line. Wood and Polk got separated in the attack. Deshler became entangled with Stewart on his left. Cleburne helped sort this mess out and got Stewart to join in the attacks with Deshler. At 11 AM Cleburne ordered Wood and Polk to retreat and had Deshler cover the retreat. Deshler was among the Confederate brigade commanders killed in the battle. At 2 PM Deshler's brigade was finally ordered out, the division had lost about 50%. At 3:30 PM a staff officer told Cleburne to move to the right to attack again. Cleburne had the officer lead him to the spot to attack from. At 5 PM they attacked just as Thomas was pulling out, the evacuation turned into a stampede. The pursuit didn't really get going until the next afternoon and reached Missionary Ridge on the afternoon of the 22nd. On September 24 Bragg made a reconnaissance in force at Chattanooga. Cleburne's division was within 200 yards of the Union trenches when he saw the divisions on either side of him retreat. He wanted to make the attack but without support had no choice but retreat. Cleburne had brought 5115 men into battle at Chickamauga, they lost 1743 killed and wounded. Despite fighting at night they only had 6 missing.

Bragg vs the generals

For the third straight time after a campaign Bragg and his generals turned to infighting rather than preparing to fight the Union. Bragg felt that with a victory he had more leeway to get rid of those he disliked. The first to go was Hindman, who was suspended from command. He also suspended Polk, but Davis said that he'd need to file official charges or let it go. Davis thought this would make Bragg give up on Polk but instead Bragg had Polk arrested. A petition was passed around asking for Bragg's removal from command. Cleburne mainly kept his opinions to himself but he did sign the petition. Davis had to come visit the army to see what all the trouble was and in essence gave Bragg carte blanche to fix the dissent. DH Hill was made the scapegoat. Hill asked for and received Cleburne's support.

In Cleburne's report he praised Polk, Deshler and RQ Mills (Deshler's successor). He made no mention of Wood, positive or negative. The day before Cleburne submitted his report Wood submitted his resignation. It is not known if Cleburne showed Wood the report first or why else Wood might have resigned. Neither ever talked about it.

Cleburne: Atlanta

2010-04-21T10:15:00.000-07:00

The spring campaign in the west began May 8. Cleburne's first action was to reinforce Dug Gap. The situation appeared bleak but Granbury's brigade arrived in time to claim the gap and actually faced very little skirmishing. The next dawn Cleburne sent out pickets to see if the Federals were still there and found out they were gone. It appeared the Dug Gap attack had been a feint but Johnston wasn't sure. The movements of Cleburne's division over the next few days illustrate the difficulty Johnston was having determining Sherman's intentions. The night of May 9 Johnston pulled Cleburne's division out of the gap and sent them to Resaca. After a few hours there Hardee sent Cleburne back to Dug Gap, arriving there at sunset on May 10. The next day at 7 AM he was again on the move towards Resaca.

During the initial part of the Georgia campaign Cleburne's division saw little combat. During the May 14-15 battle of Resaca Cleburne's division was in the center of the lines and saw very little action. Their next movements took them to Adairsville, Kingston and Allatoona. While at Allatoona (May 20-23) Cleburne likely learned of the death of Kit, his youngest half brother. Kit was a lieutenant in the 5th Kentucky and was killed in a skirmish at Dublin, Kentucky on May 10. Twice during the campaign Cleburne was in combat; at Pickett's Mill and Kennesaw Mountain. Both times he turned in sterling efforts.

May 27 found Cleburne at Pickett's Mill. Early in the morning he moved his men to the right, extending the army's flank, by his own initiative. He had been in reserve but now was in the front. Luckily for him this is exactly the spot the Union army would attack. If Cleburne had not moved his division the Union would have struck an open flank but now they ran into one of the better divisions of the army. The fighting centered around a sinkhole while the Union kept probing in the dense woods for the right flank, Cleburne held this line for several hours. At dusk two of Lowrey's regiments, the 33rd Alabama and 8/19th Arkansas, pulled back a few dozen yards to straighten the line. When Cleburne's staff saw this they though it was the beginning of a rout and sent two regiments to bolster the line. This confusion almost lead to a real rout but Cleburne was at the spot and soon straightened everything out.

That night Union soldiers could be heard rustling in the brush. Cleburne's men were not sure what was going on and Cleburne ordered Granbury to send out some pickets to figure it out. Granbury suggested using the whole brigade instead. At 10 PM they fixed bayonets and charged into the woods. There were some Federals there but they ran away after firing a volley and Granbury gathered about 200 prisoners. For the third time (Missionary Ridge and Ringgold Gap) Cleburne had repulsed a numerically superior enemy. Partly this was due to Howard committing his men piecemeal but Cleburne had prepared his position well with good trenches and interior lines to shift men. His brigade commanders also worked well as a team and would reinforce each other without waiting for the orders to be routed through Cleburne.

On June 14 Leonidas Polk was killed by an artillery shell. Johnston appointed Loring, Polk's senior division commander, the new corps commander, apparently Johnston never considered Cleburne. Loring was 10 months Cleburne's senior in rank and was from the same corps. A week later Stewart took permanent command of the corps. He was junior to Cleburne by four months and from Hoods' corps, but he was a West Pointer, had not been anti-Bragg and had not supported Cleburne's emancipation proposal. If Cleburne objected to these command decisions he never said anything about it. That's one of Cleburne's characteristics, he never complained openly about decisions concerning rank.

Sadness again hit Cleburne when his good friend Lucius Polk was wounded on June 15. He was severely wounded in the legs by an artillery shell, the second Polk to be hit by artillery in two days. Polk would resign from the army in July and return to his home near Columbia, Tennessee.

While Cleburne performed well at Kennesaw Mountain on June 27 it was not the sort of battle that needed the incredible to turn the tide for the Confederates. Quite simply Cleburne laid out good earthworks. The Union in his front lost 300 killed and 500 wounded. Cleburne lost just 2 killed and 9 wounded. Sherman listed his losses as 2500, then revised it to 3000 but even that was probably not correct.

Two months of campaigning had reduced his division from 5218 to 3855. Buck later claimed that morale in the army was higher when they reached the Chattahoochee than when it left Dalton. On July 17 Hood replaced Johnston as army commander. Cleburne was upset at Johnston's removal but mostly kept his feelings to himself. He also was not a fan of Hood and thought Hardee should have gotten the promotion instead. When Hood took over the army he needed a new corps commander for his old corps. He turned to Hardee for advice and Hardee selected Cheatham. Cheatham was Cleburne's senior but that had not stopped Hardee from previously advocating for Cleburne. Hardee had been Cleburne's commander for most of his service and it is possible that Hardee wanted to kept Cleburne with him or that Hardee thought Cleburne was best suited at divisional command. One thing that Symonds pointed out was that at command conferences Cleburne never spoke of his own ideas, he would freely give opinions of ideas that other brought forth but he never came up with ideas (with one notable exception).

Cleburne would be involved in two of the battles around Atlanta, at Bald Hill on July 22 and at Jonesboro at the end of August. At Jonesboro he would command a corps for the only time in his career.

The days of retreating were now at an end for the Army of Tennessee, they had run out of real estate and Hood had an aggressive nature. At Bald Hill Cleburne's division would be in its first battle under Hood. They were part of the flanking move on the east side of town. The attack was to begin at dawn but didn't get rolling until 1 PM. It was men of Smith's brigade who killed McPherson in this initial attack. Around 2 PM Govan ran into trouble and Cleburne ordered Lowrey to come up behind Govan to hit the entrenched line. The aide delivering the message noticed a gap forming between Cleburne and Walker and told Lowrey of it. Lowrey moved to fill this gap instead of following Cleburne's orders but when Cleburne was told of Lowrey's decision he approved of it, blind obedience to orders was not Cleburne's style. Govan's men though did push the Union back to Bald Hill and the next attack was coordinated. It appeared that the break through was at hand but after an hour of fighting Cleburne's division withdrew.

The battle had been hard on Cleburne's division. The division lost 1388 men, which exceeded total casualties since the beginning of the campaign in May. Thirty of forty field officers were killed or wounded, including 8 of 15 regimental commanders. James A Smith was badly wounded and turned command of his brigade over to Granbury. Lowrey lost 578 of 1000 men. Hood claimed a victory but the army could not stand many more such victories.

After three days of fury Cleburne's division was withdrawn into Atlanta. Sherman's force disappeared and Hood used the time to reorganize his army. SD Lee had arrived to take over Hood's corps on a permanent basis and Cheatham reverted to division command. Instead of replacing Walker (who had died near McPherson) Hood broke up his division and parceled out the remaining brigades. Cleburne was given Mercer's Georgia brigade, commanded by Colonel Charles Olmstead. Mercer's brigade had been in Savannah until recently and were basically green soldiers. Cleburne also did not think much of Olmstead.

By July 27 it was somewhat clear that Sherman's disappearance did not mean he was retreating, just that he was going to try to flank Atlanta from another direction. That day Cleburne moved to the west and occupied a mile and a half of trenches north of the Augusta Railroad. His 3000 men meant he had about 1 man per yard. Not much happened in this area until late August. On August 30 Hardee was summoned to Atlanta to confer with Hood and Cleburne took over control of the corps while it marched to Jonesboro. Hood told Hardee to take command of Lee's corps and use the two corps to drive the Federals back. Hardee arrived back at Jonesboro a few hours before daylight on August 31. The Federals had about 20,000 men and were well entrenched. Cleburne would get to continue to command Hardee's corps for the time being.

Hardee planned to strike the Union with two prongs, Cleburne attacking first from the south and making a right wheel, driving the Union flank north. When the moment seemed right Lee's corps would join in on Cleburne's right. Due to some confusion Lowrey, commanding Cleburne's division, thought the objective was to drive the Union across the Flint River. Granbury began the assault at 3:30 AM but instead of wheeling right he continued west and drove the Union cavalry across the river. Lowrey would claim that Granbury attacked contrary to orders but two other brigades in the division followed Granbury's example. Brown's division on Lowrey's right attacked correctly but did not fare well as they lacked support and also had an open left flank. Maney now moved to fill the gap on Brown's left but suspended the attack as he asked Cleburne about support. Hardee told Cleburne to call off the attack and while Cleburne's corps was in shambles it was not the whole reason Hardee called an end to the battle. Lee had decided not to wait for Cleburne's attack and had attacked an hour before Cleburne did. This assault was a disaster and was the primary reason Hardee called it all off. Cleburne had not improved his reputation. Some blame could be placed on the divisional commanders, especially Lowrey, but Cleburne had also not communicated a clear battle plan.

That night the Confederate fell back closer to Jonesboro. Lee's corps was sent to near Rough and Ready. The next day, September 1, they could see two Union corps bearing down on their position. For awhile it was not clear if Sherman would attack or be content to place his force between Hardee and Atlanta. At 3 PM Sherman attacked. The Union suffered severe losses, similar to Kennesaw Mountain, but they had too many men for the Confederate to deal with and eventually gained the position. Govan and nearly 600 men of his brigade (nearly the entire brigade) was captured. At dark Sherman ended the attack. If he had continued to attack he might have destroyed Hardee's corps but he had achieved his objective, Atlanta was now untenable. That night Hood abandoned Atlanta.

Cleburne: personality and winter 1864

2010-04-20T10:12:00.000-07:00

Cleburne was a quiet man so there is not too much known of him outside of military events. When he lived in Helena before the war Cleburne had been shy especially around women, this can be partly seen by the facts that he joined the lodge and that his best friends were men of the rough and tumble variety. During December 1862 at Murfreesboro he purposely missed the two biggest social events of the season; John Hunt Morgan's wedding and a Christmas Ball. He stayed at his headquarters west of town at Eagleville.

In the winter of 1863-64, while Walker's copy of the proposal had been enroute to Richmond, Cleburne took his first leave of the war, traveling to Mobile with Hardee. Hardee was getting married and asked Cleburne to be his best man. During the ceremony Cleburne became smitten with the maid of honor, Susan Tarleton. He spent much of his leave with her as the wedding party stayed together. The day before he left he asked her to marry him but she did not give him an answer. She did give him permission to write to her and she promised to write to him. It appears that he wrote her nearly every day, though those letters no longer exist. In early March he could not take the suspense any longer and so decided to travel back to Mobile to convince her to marry him. After three years without any leave he was now taking his second in six weeks. His staff was very amused by his behavior. After five days in Mobile he was able to convince her to marry him and then he returned to the army.

On March 22 the army awoke to 5 inches of snow. In his division Polk's brigade attacked Govan's brigade in a snowball fight. Cleburne got caught up in the excitement and lead Polk's brigade. Unfortunately Govan was able to lead a counter attack and capture Cleburne. He was paroled but was soon captured again. Govan's brigade thought some punishment should be metted out to a parole breaker. After some debate about punishment it was decided that Cleburne would get leniency because this was his first offense. That night he issued a whiskey ration to the division and they spent the rest of the night singing.

Winter Camp 64:

In late February Cleburne's division was sent to stop Sherman's Meridian Expedition but after they had only gotten half way there Sherman turned back to Vicksburg. Cleburne then received word from Johnston that the Union had advanced and captured Cleburne's old camp at Tunnel Hill. On February 25 Cleburne's men attacked and regained their camp. It appears that the Federal reconnaissance was not coordinated with Sherman's campaign, just a lucky coincidence that they attacked camps that the Confederates had evacuated to deal with Sherman.

Also in late February the army got another command shakeup. John Bell Hood arrived to replace Hindman, who was commanding Breckinridge's corps. While many of Cleburne's men thought he might get the promotion Johnston had never really considered him. Johnston had originally asked Davis for permission to create a new corps but even that command was not intended for Cleburne, instead Johnston wanted William Whiting.

That winter Cleburne also formed an officer school. He hosted discussion on the art of war with Polk, Lowrey, Govan and Granbury and encouraged them to do the same with their regimental commanders.

Cleburne: slave proposal

2010-04-19T10:11:00.000-07:00

Cleburne had made the South his home but in many ways he was still an outsider. This would be clearly seen in the winter of 1863-64. That December as the army retreated from Chattanooga Cleburne was putting the finishing touches on a proposal he had been thinking about for some time. Cleburne saw that the Confederacy was losing the numbers game. In many battles the numbers of lost on each side were pretty even but the percentages were not. At some point the Union's manpower advantage would win the war. Seeing this Cleburne proposed the radical idea of enlisting slaves into the Confederate armies.

As early as April 1863 he had asked Liddell if he'd willingly give up slavery if it meant the Confederacy would win its independence and Liddell answered "willingly." That December he sought the advice of three members of his military family. The first was Captain Buck who brought up military objections, such as would they fight, who would lead them. Cleburne thought they would fight for their freedom and the freedom of their families, it was already clear that they could fight as some black regiments had performed well for the Union. As for a leader Cleburne was willing to lead them if no one else would. Cleburne next asked his chief of staff Major Calhoun Benham. Benham was appalled at the thought of black regiments and asked Cleburne for a copy of the proposal so he could prepare a rebuttal. Cleburne wanted an open discussion of the proposal and gladly accepted Benham's request. A few days after Christmas Cleburne asked Captain Thomas Key for his opinion. Key commanded a battery in Cleburne's division and also had been a newspaper editor in Helena before the war. Key thought it was a pipe dream but was not able to persuade Cleburne against it.

Cleburne then decided to gather his regimental and brigade commanders together to discuss it. They supported it pretty enthusiastically (whether some of their support was because of hero worship is nearly impossible to tell) and a clean copy of the proposal was generated for signatures. Govan, Lowrey and John H. Kelly signed as well as many regimental commanders. Polk and Granbury were not present to sign the new copy but expressed their support of the proposal, in all 14 signed the document. Cleburne now decided to take the proposal to the upper army command. He asked Hardee to gather the division and corps commanders together at Johnston's HQ on January 2.

On the night of January 2 most of the Army of Tennessee's generals met at army headquarters in Dalton, Georgia. Most of them did not know at the time that the purpose of the meeting was to hear Cleburne's proposal for using slaves in the Confederate army. Those in attendance at this meeting, besides Cleburne, were Joseph E. Johnston, who had replaced Bragg as commander of the army one week earlier, Hardee, William H.T. Walker, Alexander Stewart, Thomas Hindman, Carter Stevenson, Patton Anderson and William Bate.

After everyone had arrived Johnston asked Hardee to explain why the meeting had been called, even Johnston didn't know. Hardee then simply said that Cleburne had prepared a paper "on an important subject." Cleburne then preceded to read his proposal, about 20 pages. When he finished Hindman was the first to speak, this had been prearranged, and he expressed support for the proposal. Benham was the next and he read his rebuttal. No notes were taken so it is impossible to know what was said but from later writings we know that Bate, Anderson and Walker were strongly against it. Bate called it "hideous and objectionable" and predicted that the army would mutiny at the mere suggestion of enlisting slaves. Anderson said it was "revolting to Southern sentiment, Southern pride and Southern honor." Walker labeled the proposal treason and said that any officer advocating it should be held fully accountable.

Johnston decided that forwarding the proposal to Richmond would cause more trouble than good so he swore everyone to secrecy. Walker though decided that he needed to be the protector of Southern values and was determined that Richmond hear about this. Days later he asked Cleburne for a copy and told him his intent. Cleburne by now knew that the proposal might cause severe trouble for him as there might be others in the government who would deem this treason. A fresh copy was made for Walker, but Cleburne removed the 14 signatures and instead was the only one to sign it. Cleburne was willing to stand by his position no matter the consequences but he decided to protect his subordinates. Walker also tried to get written statements from the proposal's supporters but no one was willing to go on the record with Cleburne. They were however upset that Walker had made himself the defender of Southern values and Hindman wrote him, "I do not choose to admit any inquisitorial rights in you."

Walker at first tried to send the copy to Davis through Johnston but Johnston refused to forward it. Walker was then able to give it to a congressman who would deliver it personally to Davis. When Davis finally got the proposal he wrote to Walker and Johnston that the matter was over and that everyone was sworn to secrecy. Only Benham's copy of the proposal survived the war and it wasn't until 1888 that it saw the light of day again when it was published in a magazine.

For most part secrecy was maintained but there were rumors. Colonel James Nisbet was particularly curious and after pledging to BG Clement H Stevens that he wouldn't tell anyone else Stevens told Nisbet of the proposal. Nisbet thought it was a good idea (it seems that supporters of the proposal tended to be lower in rank, coincidence?). Stevens exploded, calling slavery the reason for the war and said, "If slavery is to be abolished then I take no more interest in our fight." To many Southerners independence without slavery was not worth the fight. That is the point Cleburne missed as an outsider as he thought that independence was worth giving up other things.

Bragg soon became Davis' official military advisor. He was still upset over the various command squabbles he had been involved in. He loved Cleburne's proposal because he thought it discredited Cleburne and his allies, many of whom had been anti-Bragg men. Bragg wrote of them, "they are agitators and should be watched." He also said "we must mark the men."

Cleburne: Chattanooga

2010-04-16T10:10:00.000-07:00

After Chickamauga Cleburne had two brigade vacancies to fill. He picked James A Smith to replace Deshler. Smith was a 1853 West Point graduate. To replace Wood Cleburne picked a man similar to himself, Mark P Lowrey who was an Irish Protestant and had been a company commander in the early days of the war before rising to regimental command. Before the war Lowrey had been a Baptist minister. Lidell's brigade was also returned to Cleburne's division.

The army also needed two new corps commanders. Cleburne seemed the logical choice to replace DH Hill but the position instead went to Breckinridge while the other corps went to Cheatham. Breckinridge and Cheatham were the two most senior officers who had not signed the anti-Bragg petition; they were not Bragg fans just astute enough not to anger him. Cleburne did not publicly complain about the slight but mentioned to Lidell, who was a friend of Bragg, that Breckinridge was "unlucky and inspired no confidence." Lidell said that there was no one else to which Cleburne responded that surely there were other candidates and that "I would rather the command were given to you." Perhaps Cleburne hoped Liddell would say something similar about Cleburne but either Liddell didn’t feel that way or did not understand the ruse (or maybe he understood it too well). Cleburne may have hoped that Liddell would repeat this conversation to Bragg. It appears that Liddell did not tell Bragg and Cleburne began to tell Liddell less and less. That situation Liddell did pick up on and resented it, later complaining about Cleburne in his memoirs. In late October Hardee returned to the army and took over from Cheatham. Cleburne's division was soon transferred into Hardee's corps.

Near midnight on November 22 Bragg ordered Cleburne to take his division to Chickamauga Station and move to Longstreet's aid. He would also take Buckner's division, now temporarily commanded by Bushrod Johnson, along. Cleburne might have noticed that this move would remove the last two division commanders from the army that had signed the petition. By midmorning all but one of Johnson's brigades had departed when Bragg sent a note that no new units should depart, that if part had already left then the rest should follow but no new units. A little later a second courier reported that all troops should return at once. Pretty soon a third courier arrived telling Cleburne to move to Bragg's HQ at once, that he would be the army's reserve.

The next morning, November 24, Bragg had Cleburne send one brigade (Cleburne selected Polk's) to guard the railroad bridge over Chickamauga Creek. That afternoon, after Lookout Mountain fell, Bragg sent Cleburne to Tunnel Hill as Sherman could be seen over there. Cleburne arrived at about 2:30 PM and sent Smith's brigade to take Billy Goat Hill. Sherman gained it before Smith but this was not the hill Sherman really wanted and he wouldn't realize his mistake until the next day. That night Cleburne had breastworks built but sent all but two cannon to the rear. He thought Bragg would retreat but as the night dragged on he became more anxious. He sent an aide to Bragg's HQ but it wasn't until midnight that he found out that Bragg was going to stay, Breckinridge had talked him into it. Cleburne now ordered the artillery back to the front.

Hardee could tell that Cleburne would be hard pressed and so in the morning he sent Joseph Lewis' Orphan Brigade to help Cleburne. At 11 AM Sherman began the attack. During the first assault Smith asked permission to counter attack, which proved quite successful but Smith was badly wounded during it. Hiram Granbury now took command of the brigade. The second attack pierced Cleburne's lines briefly but was repulsed. Instead of falling back to their jump off points the Union dug in close to Cleburne's lines. They were able to pick off many artillerists and Granbury had to press infantry into the artillery service. Cleburne moved Swett's battery to enfilade the Union and was then able to force them back.

For the next assault Sherman committed four divisions. This attack was working quite well and Cleburne called on Alfred Cumming's Georgia Brigade for help. These three regiments plus the 2nd-15th-24th Arkansas charged down the hill at 3:30 PM and drove the Union back. At 5 PM Cleburne sent another charge down the hill but the Union was gone. Soon he received an order from Hardee that he needed to send all available troops to the center. Quickly this order became useless as the center was pierced so Cleburne took command of the three divisions in his area and formed a line to prevent the Union from rolling up the line. In the dark he withdrew all his men.

During the evening of November 25 Cleburne ordered Lowrey to attack in front of Missionary Ridge to clear the Union pickets. While the rest of the army is fleeing Cleburne is attacking, though it is only as a ruse to help the withdrawal of his men. At 10 PM that night Cleburne's force reached East Chickamauga Creek. The bridge was burned but one of Bragg's staff officers ordered Cleburne to ford the river, camp on the opposite bank and march at 4 AM for Ringgold Gap. Cleburne thought that he would lose many men if they had to cross a cold river and then sleep with little protection from the elements so he ignored this order and went into camp where he was. He was risking possible capture if the Union advanced quickly but he thought the move was in the best interests of his men.

Sometime after midnight Cleburne received an order from Bragg to hold Ringgold Gap at all costs so that the wagon trains and artillery could escape. He feared that he did not have enough men to defend the gap and that his division might be destroyed so he had the orders put in writing. The Union advance would outnumber Cleburne 4 to 1; 16,000 to 4,000. Cleburne also sent Captain Irving Buck to Bragg's HQ to get further instructions. At 2:30 AM Cleburne began crossing the river. First he built large fires on the other side so his men would have a chance to dry off and warm up, one veteran said that the fires only helped them get warm but that they appreciated that.

The gap Cleburne would defend was just wide enough for the Western & Atlantic Railroad, a wagon road and a branch of the East Chickamauga Creek. The ridge south of the gap rose abruptly while on the north side it rose much more gradually. The wagon train continued southeast from the gap toward Dalton and crossed the Chickamauga Creek three times in a short distance. These three bridges could very easily lead to the destruction of Bragg's army if Cleburne could not hold the gap.

On the south side of the gap Cleburne placed the 16th Alabama to guard the left flank. In the gap itself there were four lines of infantry with skirmishers in a patch of woods. Three regiments were also kept in reserve near the gap. Two Napoleon cannons, under the command of Lieutenant Richard Goldthwaite, were put near the mouth of the gap and were concealed by branches. Cleburne's remaining force was left at the rear of the gap with orders to watch the right flank. Soon after placing his men, about 8 AM, Cleburne could see Hooker's skirmishers advancing towards the gap. Turning around Cleburne could see, "close in rear of the ridge our immense train was still in full view, struggling through the fords of the creek and the deeply cut roads leading to Dalton, and my division, silent, but cool and ready, was the only barrier between it and the flushed and eager advance of the pursuing Federal army."

The leading Union brigade was Woods's of Osterhaus' division. The Confederates held their fire until the brigade was within 50 yards and then they let loose with cannon fire and infantry volleys. When the smoke cleared the Union survivors were racing to the rear leaving many dead and wounded behind. Williamson's brigade was then ordered to take the ridge on the Confederate right. Creighton's brigade of Geary's division was also ordered to advance on Williamson's left in hopes of turning the Confederate right flank.

On the ridge the Confederates were commanded by Major W.A. Taylor who was soon re-enforced with two companies sent by Colonel Hiram Granbury. Taylor then launched a charge down the ridge that resulted in the capture of 60-100 Federals and the 29th Missouri's colors. Creighton, meanwhile, was making steady progress towards the top. When they arrived there they meet the 1st Arkansas and 7th Texas, dispatched by General Lucius Polk just in time to beat Creighton's men there. These two regiments were enough to drive Creighton's men back down the ridge. Williamson's and Creighton's brigades reformed and assaulted again several times, Creighton was mortally wounded in this action. Geary then pulled Creighton's brigade off the ridge.

While the Confederate right was being assaulted there were also attacks made on the Confederate left and center. The attack on the left was stopped by the 16th Alabama and some other skirmishers lead by James Dulin. The attack on the center first captured some houses near Cleburne's line from which sharpshooters shot at the cannoners. Then the 13th Illinois charged the cannon but were repulsed by canister. Goldthwaite then shelled the houses until they were destroyed. Sometime between noon and 1 PM Hardee notified Cleburne that the trains were a safe distance away and he could now withdraw, which Cleburne soon did. About this same time Grant rode up and told Hooker to discontinue the attack. Cleburne had saved the Army of Tennessee from destruction.

Cleburne: Kentucky campaign and Stones River

2010-04-14T09:03:00.000-07:00

To start the Kentucky campaign Bragg gave two brigades to Kirby Smith, his best two brigades, Preston Smith and Cleburne. Cleburne reported to Kirby Smith on August 7 in Knoxville and was given command of both brigades as a division, command of Cleburne's brigade went to Hill.

Kirby Smith planned to use Stevenson's division to hold the Union at Cumberland Gap and then move into their rear with his other three divisions. Cleburne's division was the first one to march, leaving at dawn on August 14. They covered the 60 miles to Barboursville, Kentucky in 50 hours and were then on the Union supply line. Kirby Smith then abandoned the earlier plan of joining with Bragg in Tennessee and decided to march on Lexington alone.

On the afternoon of August 29 Cleburne's division was at Big Hill, south of Richmond. The Confederate cavalry was in front but soon broke under a Union cavalry attack. Cleburne repulsed this attack, capturing about 30 soldiers. That night he received orders to attack the next morning. In the morning he advanced about 1-2 miles to Mount Zion Church, six miles south of Richmond. He deployed Hill to the right of the pike with Preston Smith behind Hill. At 7:30 AM Kirby Smith arrived and decided to flank the Union with Churchill's division which was coming up. Meanwhile Cleburne's sharpshooters had been skirmishing with the artillery pretty effectively. After an hour Union General Mahlon Dickerson Manson decided to attack first and launched an attack on Cleburne's right flank. Cleburne decided that to do this the Union must have weakened their center so instead of responding to the attack by reinforcing the point of contact he launched an attack of his own on the Union center. He brought Preston Smith up to hold the right while he lead Hill forward. As he passed down the line he saw his friend Lucius Polk being taken to the rear. He stopped to see if Polk was okay and Polk responded that he was only slightly wounded. Cleburne started to reply but a bullet pierced his left cheek, knocked out two teeth and exited through his open mouth, he would later joke that he spat the bullet out. The swelling and bleeding soon prevented him from speaking so he turned command over to Preston Smith, the battle was mostly over when he did this. It ended up being the most complete Confederate victory of the war; 4300 Union soldiers were captured including General Manson. Among the captured supplies were many pair of blue pants which Cleburne's division was soon wearing.

Kirby Smith's part of active campaigning in Kentucky was nearly over, which gave Cleburne some time to heal. Eating and speaking were difficult. Shaving was also difficult and he soon sported a beard, which he kept after the wound completely healed. It also happened to cover the scar quite nicely. In late September Preston Smith and Cleburne's brigades were returned to Bragg's army and Cleburne returned to brigade command. On September 23 he rejoined his brigade at Shelbyville. Bragg ordered him to hold Shelbyville and if pressed to retreat towards Frankfort. On October 1 he retreated towards Frankfort as the Union advanced to within 5 miles of his position. The next day he received orders to join Polk's move towards Harrodsburg, where he would be able to rejoin Hardee's corps (would become part of Buckner's division).

October 8 found Cleburne at Perryville. At this time his brigade numbered about 1000 men, the 13-15 Arkansas was down to 200. At noon he was ordered to support Johnson's brigade northwest of town. Buckner formed his division about 2 PM in column, Johnson in front, then Cleburne and St. John Liddell in the rear. To the right was Cheatham's division and on the left was Patton Anderson. Johnson soon advanced and Cleburne was held in reserve until 4 PM. When Cleburne advanced he found Johnson in a creek bed, Johnson expressed determination to advance again but his men were out of ammunition. Cleburne would attack alone.

Cleburne noticed that the Union line was a bit back from the crest and could not shoot at his advancing men. He put a skirmish line with the colors forward of the main line by about 10 paces. When they crested the hill that line would take the brunt of the fire and Cleburne's brigade could then rush upon the Union before they could reload. This charge succeeded and drove the Union back. After driving them from this position he crossed the Mackville road and stopped in a cornfield. A battery on his left started to enfilade this position, wounding Cleburne in the leg (foot) and killing his horse. Cleburne then advanced on this battery and drove it from the field, ending up 75 yards from the new Union line, with both flanks exposed. Rather than retreat his 800 men held on here resisting counter attacks until Liddell's brigade came up near dusk.

At one point in the fight Confederate artillery had fired on Cleburne's brigade mistaking the blue pants for a Union line. It took a little convincing but the Confederate artillery did stop the bombardment. Symonds says that Cleburne demonstrated more courage than judgment during the campaign but it seems to me that he did use very good judgment at Richmond and Perryville. Cleburne blamed Bragg for the outcome of the campaign.

The army soon retreated to Knoxville, then to Chattanooga and finally to Murfreesboro. During the army reorganization Buckner was transferred to Mobile, opening up a division command in Hardee's corps. Buckner suggested Cleburne and Hardee readily agreed. It was a slightly odd promotion in that Sterling Wood and Bushrod Johnson were both his seniors within the division. Johnson and Wood had performed well in Kentucky; Johnson was also a West Point graduate; and both were native southerners. Cleburne did get the promotion to division command and his promotion to major general became official on December 12. His division consisted of four brigades; Wood, Johnson, Liddell and his old brigade, now under Lucius Polk. It does not appear that Wood or Johnson were upset about Cleburne being promoted over them.

He received other good news that winter. Sometime in November his youngest half brother, Kit, came down from Cincinnati. It is not clear if Pat refused him a position on his staff or if Kit never asked. In any event Kit decided to join Morgan's cavalry and make a name for himself.

Stones River

The night before the attack Cleburne received his orders. His and McCown's divisions would lead the assault, supported by Polk's two divisions. That night his men crossed the cold Stones River and aligned for the attack by using the distant light from Cheatham's division's camps. Cleburne's men did not light any fires of their own so as to not reveal their location. The attack was to be made at dawn, which Cleburne estimated would be at 5 AM. At 4:30 AM he roused his command and arranged his division from left to right as Liddell, Johnson and Polk. Wood was placed in reserve behind Polk. When 5 AM came it wasn't light yet but Hardee sent Cleburne forward anyway. He was to follow McCown but McCown went too far to the left and Cleburne was unable to follow him. Eventually McCown got things back together and came up on Liddell's left.

Cleburne's men were able to knock through line after line and by 9 AM had reached the Wilkinson Turnpike. About this time they had advanced past Cheatham on their right and started to receive enfilading fire on their right. A half hour later the attack got rolling again, partly because McCown and Cleburne were now side by side. Together they presented a 10 brigade front which overlapped the Union right by a half mile. But now there were no Confederate reserves if the attack should falter.

Near the Nashville Pike Cleburne encountered the fifth Federal line. Around 3 PM they cracked this line and briefly held the turnpike, Rosecrans' line of retreat. A fresh Union line came up and drove Cleburne back from the turnpike. Cleburne wanted to attack again but wasn't sure if it was possible. He asked Johnson for advice and he replied that an attack would be "very hazardous." Then Cleburne asked Hardee if he should attack. Hardee knew that if Cleburne was having doubts then it was unwise to attack so he ordered Cleburne to hold his ground.

The next day Bragg ordered Cleburne to make a reconnaissance. Cleburne sent Liddell's brigade in but they soon needed help so he sent Wood in too. By the time Wood got there though Liddell had retreated and Wood found himself outgunned. The fighting cost 100 men from the division. The rest of the day was spent waiting for more orders. The third day, when the fighting kicked up in full force on the Confederate right, Cleburne's brigade saw no combat. On the morning of January 2nd Bragg held a conference and decided to retreat. That afternoon he held another conference asking if the army could stay 24 more hours to bring off the wounded. Cleburne said that he could hold for 24 more hours but most of the other generals said no and so the original plan of retreat remained.

Cleburne: enlistment thru Corinth

2010-04-13T09:01:00.000-07:00

In 1860 Cleburne formed a militia company in Helena that was more a social organization than military. He was elected captain of this company, the Yell Rifles. After the firing on Sumter he took his company to a training camp north of Memphis. Companies were combined and he was elected colonel of the newly formed 1st Arkansas. In Little Rock the state government appointed two generals to handle Arkansas troops, one for the eastern part of state and one for the western part. Thomas Bradley proved to be a poor general and after a disastrous scouting expedition Cleburne placed Bradley under virtual arrest (there was a guard around the general's tent and Cleburne refused to accept any orders from him). Cleburne allowed Bradley to leave the camp if he resigned, which he did and then went to Little Rock to seek a court martial against Cleburne. Bradley though had second thoughts, figuring the court martial would expose his own short comings and so instead turned the whole matter over to Gideon Pillow. Pillow did not want the headache and let the whole matter end quietly.

Jefferson Davis soon put a national commander into Arkansas, William Hardee. Hardee knew of the Bradley situation and so went to the governor first. The governor agreed to have Hardee in command if he would allow the Arkansas troops to vote whether they wanted to be transferred into national service or to serve as home guard only. Hardee reluctantly agreed. Cleburne liked Hardee right from the start and campaigned hard for the men to accept the transfer. 1800 of 3000 men in the camp voted for the transfer but 8 of Cleburne's 10 companies agreed to it. In June the camp was moved to a spot near the Missouri border on the Black River.

While a hard commander Cleburne also cared for his men's well being and came to be liked and respected. He was not just a commander but a leader.

After Polk broke Kentucky's neutrality Albert Sidney Johnston ordered Hardee's force to reinforce Bowling Green. They arrived there in October and Johnston soon made Hardee a division commander, Buckner was the other division commander. Hardee nominated Cleburne, Hindman and RG Shaver to command his three brigades. Cleburne's brigade consisted of the 1st Arkansas, 5th Arkansas, 6th Mississippi and 5th Tennessee.

On February 7, Johnston and Beauregard decided to abandon Bowling Green. March 4, Cleburne received official notification of promotion to brigadier general.

Shiloh

At Shiloh Cleburne commanded a brigade of six regiments and a battery. Three of his regiments had served with him previously; the 1st Arkansas had been redesignated the 15th Arkansas and the 5th Tennessee had also been redesignated the 35th Tennessee, while the 6th Mississippi remained. Cleburne also gained Bate's 2nd Tennessee, 23rd Tennessee, 24th Tennessee and Trigg's Battery. His brigade was one of three brigades in Hardee's "corps". The other two brigades, RG Shaver and Sterling Wood, were under the command of Cleburne's old friend Hindman.

On the march to Shiloh Cleburne's was the first brigade to leave Corinth, starting out about noon on April 3. That evening he took a side road to be near a spring but left no one in his rear to inform anyone else. When he returned to the main road in the morning he found it blocked by Polk's corps. Polk moved aside so Cleburne could pass but much time was lost in this enterprise. Luckily the entire army was behind schedule so Cleburne's problems were not too glaring. By dawn of April 5 Cleburne (and Hardee) were in position but Bragg and Polk were not. Cleburne formed Hardee's left flank and Bate's 2nd Tennessee was the extreme left of the army. On April 5 they had a small skirmish with a Union cavalry patrol, even fired off some artillery, but the Union high command ignored all signs of the Confederate advance.

In the early morning of April 6 Cleburne's attack took him into the swamp along Shiloh branch. The swamp formed a wedge in his lines sending the 6th Mississippi and 23rd Tennessee to the right and the rest of the brigade to the left. Initially he stayed with his right regiments but when their assault sputtered he detoured around the swamp to find the rest of the brigade. In the meantime they had been torn to tatters. Seeing he could do little there he went back around the swamp to his right regiments. While they were vastly depleted he did order another attack which finally pushed the Ohio troops out of the way. This contingent was so depleted that he ordered them to the rear for rest. On his way back to the left he received orders from Hardee (or perhaps saw Hardee directly) to go to the rear and round up stragglers from the captured camps. After a few hours of this proved useless he went off to find his other regiments. The 24th and 35th Tennessee were in the best condition and so he attacked with them and was able to drive the Union back, though this retreat was mostly due to other Union retreats along the line. It appears that at dusk Cleburne was near Cloud Field on the left of the Confederate advance.

For the second day only 800 of 2700 men answered roll call. It is not clear where he fought but appears that he was near the Davis Wheatfield. Late in the day Bragg ordered him to attack, an attack he thought was foolhardy but did anyway. The results were disastrous and he blamed Bragg for the loss, not the last time he would blame Bragg for the army's woes. As he left the field that day only 58 men of his brigade were with him. Nearly every officer in the brigade over the rank of captain was dead or wounded. In hindsight he should have given temporary command of his two right regiments to Hindman on the first day. Hindman would then have been able to coordinate their attacks and perhaps broken that Union line earlier. He could then have devoted all his focus to his other four regiments and perhaps done better with them. His attacks, three frontal charges, lacked creativity but he was hampered by terrain.

When the losses were counted later, after stragglers had reappeared, his losses in killed, wounded and captured amounted to 1043 of 2750, 38%. The 6th Mississippi lost 300 of 425 men, the fourth highest percentage loss by any unit in the entire war. The 15th Arkansas was so depleted that they were consolidated with the 13th Arkansas. Lucius Polk was elected the lieutenant colonel of the 13-15 Arkansas. Polk was a former member of the Yell Rifles, a friend of Cleburne's and also nephew of corps commander Leonidas Polk, the bishop. The commanders of the 2nd Tennessee, William Bate, and 35th Tennessee, Benjamin Hill, were wounded and would return to command. Other vacancies were filled by elections.

Corinth

During April Cleburne decided to have shooting contests and pick the 5 best shots in each company to create sharp shooter companies. In his unique command style he went to each regiment to explain his idea to the men before implementing it. He wasn't shying away from charges he just wanted to better the odds before a charge, especially when it came to dealing with artillery.

While in Corinth he had only one occasion when he met the enemy, May 28 at Farmington. They were out on a patrol when the 35th Tennessee (with Cleburne) ran into a Union division. He rode off to get support and found the 24th Tennessee blocked by a small creek. He chewed out Colonel RD Allison and got the regiment in position but as soon as he left them they ran. He then found the 2nd Tennessee and 48th Tennessee and got them into position but orders then arrived from Hardee reminding him that since he was not to bring on an engagement that he should now withdraw. Afterwards he relieved Allison of command and placed Major Hugh Bratton in command. That night Beauregard decided to evacuate Corinth (the decision had nothing to do with Cleburne's engagement). During the night of May 29-30 the Confederates left Corinth. First they went to Baldwin for a week and then to Tupelo. On June 14 Beauregard took a leave of absence and Bragg took command, but Davis soon made the command change permanent.

Cleburne: before the war

2010-04-12T09:50:00.003-07:00

I ended up catching strep last week so I was unable to make the presentation at the Rocky Mountain Civil War Round Table meeting on last Thursday. I've been moved to May but I'm not 100% positive I can attend that night either, and I think that even if I do I'll do a brand new presentation. The Cleburne presentation was chosen because I could do it last minute but given a month lead time I have another topic I'd like to do and it'd be fresh. So I've decided to post my old Cleburne presentation here over the next few days (so its not one giant post).

When one thinks of Pat Cleburne they probably think of his battle accomplishments. They might know of his slave enlistment proposal and how this damaged his chances at promotion. He was not perfect in battle, as few men could ever claim to be. He made his mistakes and usually learned from them. As far as his slave enlistment proposal is concerned it did damage his reputation but there were other things that kept him from promotions. I regret that this presentation will be mostly a recap of Cleburne's battles because he was a private person and not much about his person life is known.

Before the Civil War:

Pat Cleburne was born March 16, 1828 (have seen some sources claiming 17 March). His father was a doctor and Pat grew up as part of the upper middle class in Ireland. His mother died in the fall of 1829 leaving four children; William age 4, Anne age 3, Patrick 19 months and infant Joseph. His father soon hired a live in housekeeper and nanny who in December 1830 became his new wife. They would have one daughter and three sons over the next 11 years. Isabel was the only mother Pat ever knew. In the summer of 1842 his father died and Pat dropped out of the local boarding school (that also did some military drills) and became an apprentice to a colleague of his father so that he would not be a financial encumbrance to his family.

Over the next two years Pat twice applied for admission to Apothecaries Hall and was rejected. As money became tight due to the potato famine of 1845 Pat was let go as an apprentice. In Feb 1846 he traveled to Apothecaries Hall in hope that a personal visit would work better than a letter. He was rejected again and so joined the army. He joined the 41st Foot which was to be soon sent back to India but the regiment stayed in Ireland as a police force as the famine worsened. Two years later he was appointed to corporal but soon lost his stripes when he failed an inspection. In 1849 the family decided to go to America and Pat volunteered to go first as a scout. He had recently inherited 20 pounds as his birth mother's dowry and was now able to buy a discharge. In July 1849 he was again promoted to corporal but in September 1849 he purchased his discharge.

William, Anne, Joseph and Pat took passage to America in private cabins. Their first stop was in New Orleans (on Christmas Day), then to Cincinnati after which the family separated. Joseph moved to Indiana, William to Milwaukee, Anne was married in Cincinnati and Pat also stayed in Cincinnati.

Pat became a drug store clerk but the next spring he got a job prospect in Helena, Arkansas. The job wasn't his when he left Cincinnati but at his interview he was offered the job. He would manage a drug store for two doctors, Nash and Grant. He was allowed to live above the drugstore with Nash as a roommate and was also paid $50 a month. After a year Nash got married and Cleburne moved in with him as a boarder. In December 1851 Grant decided to sell his share of the store and Cleburne was able to buy him out. In 1852 Cleburne joined the Masons, sponsored by Nash, and quickly became a leader of the lodge. Nash and Cleburne became good friends, Nash helped Cleburne with high society and Cleburne helped Nash in fights. Cleburne had little contact with alcohol in Ireland but once in America found out that he was an angry and mean drunk and so became a teetotaler.

In the winter of 1853 Cleburne decided to move up in Helena society. The standard way to do that was to buy a cotton plantation and slaves but he instead decided to become a lawyer. It does not appear that he reached this decision because of a distaste for slavery but that he just thought he could advance faster and farther as a lawyer. As a frontier state there were many legal fights over land ownership so this was a good choice. In April 1854 he sold off his share of the store and used the money to live off of while he studied for the bar. He made $3000 from the sale and he figured he could live off that for two years which was how long he thought it would take to join the bar.

In the summer of 1854 Cleburne meet Thomas Hindman who he'd have a connection with the rest of his life. Hindman was Cleburne's opposite in nearly every way but they became fast friends. During 1854 the Whig party split over the Kansas-Nebraska act. Cleburne was a Whig but mostly because his friends were Whigs and the best people in Helena tended to be Whigs. In Arkansas former Whigs joined the Know Nothing Party (anti-immigrant party) which pushed Cleburne into the Democratic Party. Hindman happened to be the leader of the Democrats in Helena. In September 1855 Cleburne's social reputation increased when he and Hindman volunteered to stay behind to help doctors when a Yellow Fever epidemic swept Helena. In January 1856 he was accepted to the bar. That spring he and Hindman bought a local newspaper, the Democratic Star and renamed it the States Right Democrat.

Like Nash, Hindman seemed to attract violence. On May 24, 1856 Hindman convinced Cleburne to be his backup when Hindman confronted a rival politician. On the way to a hotel that this man was believed to be staying at the two groups met on the street. A shoot out began, Hindman was wounded and Cleburne was severely wounded, though he did kill one of the assailants. A grand jury later cleared Hindman and Cleburne and their social standing increased.

After the 1856 elections went favorably Cleburne and Hindman ceased publication of their newspaper. Hindman campaigned for Breckinridge in the 1860 election (Bell was the other candidate in Arkansas). Breckinridge won the state. During 1856 the rest of Cleburne's family came over from Ireland and settled in Kentucky. In 1860 the scattered elements of the Cleburne family mirrored the opinions of their states. In January 1861 Pat wrote half brother Robert in Kentucky, "I am with Arkansas in weal or woe."

Cleburne

2010-04-06T07:11:00.003-07:00

This Thursday I'll be giving a presentation on Patrick Cleburne at the Rocky Mountain Civil War Round Table. I'm filling in last minute for another presenter who cannot make it. I gave this presentation about five years ago so hopefully people won't be upset that its a repeat. But I'll change a few things, alter the focus a bit from the first time. I think Cleburne is a fascinating character. So if you're in the area come on by and catch my presentation.

A great day

2010-03-31T10:17:00.003-07:00

Yesterday was a great day, I'd say one of the best days of my life. I'm not sure if I've talked about it much here but my son is not my biological son. But yesterday the court revoked his biological father's rights and allowed me to adopt him. In 6-8 weeks the government will even issue a new birth certificate most likely to make all the necessary name changes easier to make. A six year old doesn't have his name on a lot but there are a variety of things that need to be changed. But its official now, we have court documents to that fact and made the change at school already.

So while there is a new Kurtz man (officially now, he's been using Kurtz for over a year) the most important part here was not the name change. Now if, heaven forbid, something were to happen to my wife I wouldn't also have to worry about losing my son. I'm the only father he's ever known and tearing apart the family would be devastating to both of us. Now we do not have that worry. We are forever joined. Plus now we do not have to deal with the harassment from afar. If we wanted to we would never have to listen to another word out of his mouth. Truthfully we will probably send a picture once a year with a little update but we are legally obligated to do nothing at all.

The best day of my life was the day I got married but yesterday is a very close second. Of course another big day will be coming up near the end of June when we welcome a second baby into the family. I truly have a blessed life.

And FYI, all comments for all posts on this blog are moderated (due to Chinese spammers) so if you feel that no biological father should ever lose his rights, not matter if he asks for it himself or makes no effort to even call his son, don't bother leaving a comment. I'm willing to post comments that question my Civil War research but in this case follow your mother's advice, "if you don't anything nice to say don't say anything at all."

4th Infantry Division

2010-03-26T11:51:00.004-07:00

Yesterday I had to get plates for my new car. Instead of getting the plain old standard plates I got plates for the 4th Infantry Division, based at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs. I thought the plates were more interesting plus it supports our troops. Additionally there is a Civil War connection.

The 4th has four brigades and in each brigade is an infantry battalion, the fourth brigade has two battalions. These infantry battalions trace their history to the Civil War. There are two battalions of the 8 and 12th Infantry Regiments. Both units served with the Army of the Potomac. There is one battalion of the 22nd Infantry Regiment, which actually started its history as the 2nd Battalion of the 13th Regiment. The 13th Regiment's motto is "First at Vicksburg" although it appears that the 2nd battalion spent more of its time in Missouri than in the army under Sherman and Grant.

There are also three squadrons of the 10th Cavalry Regiment, the Buffalo Soldiers, in the division but that's a post war regiment.

Chickamauga

2010-03-24T12:52:00.003-07:00

I've been rereading Glenn Tucker's "Chickamauga: Bloody Battle in the West" for research this past week. Its been awhile since I've read it and this past week has made me realize again how nice a read it is. Oh sure it has its errors and sometimes the order of things is a little odd, but Tucker was a good writer.

Next up I'll read Peter Cozzens' "This Terrible Sound" to flesh out the details and use that as my source material. I read Tucker just to refresh my mind about the flow of the battle. I'll use Cozzens for the meat. Cozzens' book is a good read too, I've read his four western theater battle books and enjoyed them all.

I also have the five Blue & Gray magazines that were recently done on this campaign handy. And then I'll use the new "Maps of Chickamauga" by David Powell to pinpoint any loose details. I noticed that Steven Woodworth has edited a volume of Chickamauga essays that is coming out at the end of April. So hopefully I'll be able to get a copy of that soon too to get another perspective. Truthfully we have a bunch of Chickamauga related literature available right now. Things are looking up.

Then I can really get working on my own Chickamauga project. Hopefully I'll be able to make it as readable as Tucker but have all the facts right too. Luckily I'm not trying to write a whole new battle history, just a smaller project, I don't have the time (or motivation) for that.

Artillery range finder

2010-03-17T10:10:00.002-07:00

I recently started rereading Glenn Tucker's "Chickamauga: Bloody Battle in the West" and was struck by a passage I've obviously read before but did not remember. In telling the story of the Union entrance into Chattanooga in early September 1863 Tucker has a passage about an artillery range finder.

Colonel Smith D. Atkins of the 92nd Illinois Mounted Infantry, of Wilder's Brigade, is near the Tennessee River with two rifled 10 pounders of the 5th Wisconsin Battery. There is a small Confederate fort across the river with a brass gun in the center and two steel guns on its flanks. Atkins asks the battery's lieutenant to fire at the fort and the lieutenant pulls out a "flat piece of brass full of holes of different sizes." He finds the hole that corresponds to a man standing up across the river and thus has the range. The first shot dismantled the brass gun and killed four men. (page 17 in the 1992 Morningside reprint)

The source is a speech Atkins gave in 1907 so his memory could be flawed. I did a google image search and found nothing. Has anyone seen this in a museum anywhere? Can anyone verify if the thing even existed?

I would think that if it existed there would be a ton of these made during the war. Word would quickly spread that the 5th Wisconsin Battery always fired its shots at the proper range. The other batteries would want to know how they did so well. Other commanders would want one for the batteries under their command. Sure men could become proficient at judging ranges with their eyes alone but once the first range finder was made it would be pretty simple to make copies. Then every battery in the service could have a bunch so that if the sharp-eyed officers were wounded or killed the other men could still find the correct range quickly. Of course the range finder would be of little use once smoke obscured the enemy but there would be plenty of times it would come in handy. Plus once you got the first range right then adjustments would be very easy as the enemy advanced or retreated.

Spring Hill

2010-03-10T06:12:00.005-07:00

Truthfully I should have made this post before I started the Franklin series, but somehow I forgot that I had some Spring Hill pictures. Or maybe I was just too focused on Franklin. In any respect Spring Hill is one of those big what-if moments of the war. Hood had outmaneuvered the Union at Columbia and had a chance to put them in a huge bind. If his men could block the Columbia Pike they would put the Union in a tight spot. The Union army would be separated with the Confederate army between them. Of course you could also look at it that the Confederates would now be surrounded, but generally history has looked at this as a lost opportunity for the Confederates.

Instead the Confederates stopped just short of the Columbia Pike, and slept while the Union army slipped by on the pike. The next morning a furious Hood would berate his top commanders. Some believe that these men responded by being too exposed, too aggressive at the battle of Franklin, which lead to six generals being killed. I think Hood deciding he would make a frontal assault on Franklin instead of finding a way around the town and beating the retreating Union army to Nashville was the reason for the high casualties at Franklin. For whatever reason (and there have been tons of explanations offered for why Hood attacked the way he did) for that style of attack that is why the losses were so severe.

Back to Spring Hill, there is some land preserved and much of the area still is rural. That has changed in recent years, in the few years since I started visiting Spring Hill I've seen new buildings go up in the area and can see that it will only get worse. I have little fear of Savannah growing into the view sheds of Shiloh but I am certain that Franklin's growth will mean growth for Spring Hill and we will lose hallowed ground and view sheds.

The main land preserved at Spring Hill is where Forrest's men attacked, followed later in the day by Cleburne.

The view from the above sign. The ridge line is very obvious but this walk is much steeper than it looks. Not extreme steep but it proves the point that you do not really appreciate maps and books until you walk the ground.

And the view back down the hill. There is a walking trail up here with a few stops that help explain the fight up here.

Back in the parking lot is this state historical marker that has one of the best quotes of the war. Forrest speaking to Chalmers after he was repulsed, "They was in there sure enough, wasn't they, Chalmers?" Cleburne's men then arrived and pushed the attack, succeeding until dark ended the fighting.

On the Columbia Pike, and nearly due west of the preserved land seen earlier, is this sign. It helps show how close the Confederates were to cutting the pike. How this would have affected the course of the war can be debated but the earlier fighting is only a half mile away so once Cleburne drove the Union back there was little to stop them from cutting the pike.

This is very similar to a picture at the beginning of this post. I included it here because it shows some of the preservation issues at Spring Hill. At the base of the hill is a new building (I haven't been back since to see what business happens at the building, it might be a grocery store or a warehouse, I don't know) which was not there on my first visit a few years earlier. In the distance is a highway that handles a lot of traffic heading towards the Saturn plant, as well as the general increase in population in the area. Sad to say but I do not think that this view will remain like this for much longer. If this is the view we have in 2039 for the 175th anniversary I would be very surprised, I think there will be more homes and stores cluttering this view by then. I hope I'm wrong.

Kennesaw Mountain

2010-03-09T07:34:00.001-07:00

Once again this is a pre-digital picture post.

Kennesaw Mountain is a tough battle to tour. The preserved land tends to only be the Confederate trenches so you cannot follow the Union attacks much, although in some places there is enough preserved to give you the feel of the final bit of the assault (and at Kennesaw that's almost all you need). Sure I would love if more was preserved but we have to deal with what's left.

On the big Kennesaw Mountain are some Confederate entrenchments that still appear very strong.

But the point here is not how strong the position was but what it protects, and you can get a nice view of hazy Atlanta from here. Clearly the Confederates are running out of ground. There are still places they can make stands and strike at the Union army but it is obvious that there is not much ground to give. If they are to strike back they need to pick their spots in a hurry.

But at Kennesaw Sherman has decided to stop moving around the flank and give battle. He realizes how close he is getting to Atlanta and hopes for a big victory to shorten this campaign. But it will fail.

Most of what is preserved, fighting wise, is the area at Cheatham's Hill. Here some very savage fighting will center along an area known as the Dead Angle. Cheatham and Cleburne had very strong entrenchments and will severely handle the Union assault. 8000 Union soldiers will make the assault and in 90 minutes will lose over 1000 while Confederate casualties were roughly a third of that.

A view from one of the Confederate forts, this one looking right at modern traffic.

This is the view from Cheatham's Hill. This is actually a pretty long open area, and somewhat steep. This would have been very brutal to attack across.

The battlefield park started initially as this Illinois monument placed at the top of the hill, with a small parcel of land around it. Later more land was added and eventually it became the national park we know today.

Some Union soldiers were trapped near the top of the hill, unwilling to retreat across the open ground and unable to go forward. So they dug a mine in hopes of blowing up the trenches, this didn't work but it kept them busy.

Along Cheatham Hill are a few monuments like this to fallen Union soldiers.

The best picture I managed of the entrenchments. Trees and kudzu have made it a bit difficult to see but you can get some feel for it.

To the south of Cheatham Hill is Kolb's Farm, which was fought for about a week earlier. There is very little preserved here, I only included it as an example of what much of the Atlanta area battlefields look like. One small piece of ground is preserved, and traffic buzzes by a short distance away.

Confederate Cemetery at Franklin

2010-03-08T06:53:00.007-07:00

In the spring of 1866 the Confederate dead were reinterred on the McGavock family estate. Their house, Carnton, had been a field hospital during the battle and as discussed in a previous post is now open for paid tours. The cemetery is also open to the public. The dead have been grouped by state and there are individual headstones with as much information as possible for each man.

Each state also has a marker with the number of dead from that state. The state historical society marker lists the internments at 1496 but if you tally the totals from each state marker the total is 1481.

Here are some shots of the cemetery. Its a rather simple design, one big central walkway with burials in lines on either side.

Once I was there and flags for each state were out. I like the look of that too.

On the south side of the Confederate cemetery is the McGavock family cemetery.

Additionally General Johnson Kelly Duncan is buried here. Duncan was born in 1827 in Pennsylvania and graduated 5th in the West Point class of 1849. He resigned in 1855 and did some engineering work in Louisiana. When the war began he became colonel of the 1st Louisiana Regular Artillery but in January 1862 was promoted to brigadier general and put in charge of the lower Mississippi River defenses (Forts Jackson and St. Philip). He was captured when the forts fell and after his exchange became Bragg's chief of staff. He died of malaria in Knoxville on December 18, 1862 and was later buried here.

And now the state markers.

Alabama

Arkansas

Florida

Georgia

Kentucky

Louisiana

Mississippi

Missouri

North Carolina

South Carolina

Tennessee

Texas

The Unknowns

Franklin - Fort Granger

2010-03-05T07:07:00.000-07:00

Fort Granger was built by the Union to control the town of Franklin, and primarily the bridge over the river. It is on a high hill north of the town.

This marker shows a war-time image and helps you figure out where things are today. Its a bit hard because there are a lot more trees today than when the image was created, plus there are modern buildings that obscure the view, but overall there is a good view from here.

On the far right of the picture is Winstead Hill, subject of a post last week. Here is a detail of the war-time image.

And a similar view today (the angle doesn't appear to be 100% the same but its close). You can definitely see the Columbia Pike in the gap between the two hills. The light green area on Winstead Hill would be roughly where the parking lot is to see the markers and monuments on Winstead Hill, most of them are just inside the tree line.

And now a few pictures inside of Fort Granger. Many earthen forts of the time look like this now. You can make out some gun placements but by and large there is not a tremendous amount of information to be gleaned here. The high ground and the walls would have made this a tough fort to take but if an army had really been interested in capturing this fort it would have fallen. Its not strong enough that it would have been impossible to capture.

Franklin - Carnton

2010-03-04T07:30:00.003-07:00

The Carnton plantation was used as a field hospital for the Confederates during the battle. It has been preserved and is well worth visiting. Blood stains can be seen on the floors, I can only imagine how much cleaning was tried before the effort was given up. But this is not just a field hospital, on the day after the battle the bodies of four of the Confederate generals killed during the fighting were laid on Carnton's back porch. The generals were Patrick R. Cleburne, Hiram B. Granbury, John Adams, and Otho F. Strahl.

The back porch.

The front entrance.

Another view of the front, I find the building interesting as architecture alone.

The white building is the summer kitchen.

There are a few other out buildings preserved.

Carnton's garden which is interesting to go through also.

One very big tree, I believe the sign said it was an Osage orange.

Franklin - Collins' Farm

2010-03-03T07:43:00.002-07:00

The far Union left was protected by a natural Osage Orange abatis. Confederate troops belonging to the brigades of Thomas Scott, John Adams and Winfield Featherston attacked here. These brigades belonged to William Loring's division. After being repulsed they fell back to the Collins' Farm where a ravine offered some protection. Again, not much is preserved at Franklin but there is a nice double sided marker here and this small open field gives some sense of what the land here might have looked like as there is a small ravine here. I have no idea if this is the ravine referred to on the marker, it would make sense but I would not be surprised if this was not the ravine either. At least there is not a movie theater on the ground.

Franklin - Cotton Gin

2010-03-02T07:42:00.003-07:00

Some of the heaviest fighting at Franklin occurred where the Columbia Pike intersected the Union entrenchments. The landmark to the west of the road was the Carter House and to the east it was the Cotton Gin. Cleburne's Division mostly made its attacks against the Cotton Gin position. Of course the cotton gin doesn't exist anymore, the battle practically destroyed it and even if it had survived intact it would have likely been town down anyway once its usefulness was over. But the ground has been built on since, because hardly anything on the battlefield resembles 1863. The house in the picture below is roughly where the cotton gin was.

Cleburne's division lost heavily in men and officers. Cleburne and Granbury, a brigade commander, were killed. In all 14 regimental and brigade commanders were casualties. The cream of the Confederate army had been destroyed.

Franklin - Carter House

2010-03-01T08:29:00.006-07:00

Looking south along the Columbia Pike. You can see a post for General Adams. There are posts like these for all of the Confederate generals who were killed at Franklin. They are not in the spots were the men died, although in some cases they are probably pretty close. But Adams' brigade was farther east so he did not die here. On each post is a box that holds info sheets for the general killed. I don't think I've ever seen them all full but I'm sure the inventory constantly varies.

The front of the Carter House. It faced the Columbia Pike, in fact my ankles are probably within inches of the pike when I took this picture.

The back porch and the Columbia Pike can be clearly seen.

This area saw heavy combat in part because there was a gap in the Union entrenchments where the Columbia Pike was. Back from the main line they made a retrenched line to counteract the gap but this was still a weak point in the line. When Wagner's two brigades were routed from their forward line they rushed thru here. The men in the entrenchments had to hold their fire until their comrades cleared away. This also led to the breaking of the line at this point.

As the next several pictures will show the battle raged among the Carter house and its out buildings. Bullet damage was never repaired so it is very easy to see today. You may need to click on the pictures to see the full extent of the damage.

This picture is just so you can see the layout of the buildings that were part of the estate.

Our tour guide said that this tree dated to the battle. I think this tree will not last too much longer, in fact it may have fallen since I was last there.

A modern reproduction of the earthworks, just to show how it was not just a ditch but was braced with wood sides.

And a view towards the museum, and also showing the remains of the original entrenchments.

There are a ton of plaques on the Carter House grounds as there are few other areas on the battlefield that groups could place plaques. For many years this (and Carnton) was the only preserved ground. Since then the country club next to Carnton has been bought and a few other small parcels.

One of the sad stories of the battle is that young Tod Carter was mortally wounded during the attack near his house. His family found him and brought him back into his home where he died a few days later.

This is the room he died in.

As was talked about in the post on the forward line, Emerson Opdycke refused to leave his brigade at the forward position. He could see it was a horrible position but also his brigade had been the rear guard for most of the past day. His men were tired and hungry. They needed a quick meal and as much rest as possible. So he kept marching, finally resting his men just north of the Carter House. When all hell broke loose his men quickly formed up and charged into the mess at the Carter House. I had a relative in the 24th Wisconsin, of Opdycke's Brigade, and while he was dead before this battle I am quite proud that his old regiment helped check the Confederate tide here.

Comments

2010-03-01T08:23:00.002-07:00

I regret I've had to step up the level of comment moderation again. I have started receiving gibberish Chinese comments again (or maybe they really are saying how they love the Civil War, but I bet not). So all comments now need to be reviewed before they are posted, previously if you commented the day the post appeared it was not moderated. Oh well. So if you don't see your comment appear right away that is why. I wish it would let me make a list of safe commentators so that frequent users of the blog would have all their comments appear right away but that is not yet an option (or at least I don't know how to set that as a feature). Thanks for understanding.

Franklin - Union Forward Line

2010-02-26T07:23:00.000-07:00

The most well known Franklin fighting occurs at the Carter House and Cotton Gin, but there are other areas that saw action. Most of these are lost to development. One such area is the Union's forward line.

As the Union army retreated into the defenses around Franklin Wagner's Division formed a defensive line in front of the main entrenchments. Emerson Opdycke thought the order was ridiculous and kept his brigade marching into town, eventually stopping just north of the Carter House. Wagner's two remaining brigades were quickly overwhelmed once the Confederate attack began and were routed. Opdycke's men would pitch into the fight around the Carter House and help turn the tide (which we'll get to in another post). A few days later Wagner would request to be relieved of command.

Basically nothing remains of this forward line. There is a nice marker next to a car wash but that's about it.

Franklin - Winstead Hill

2010-02-25T07:27:00.000-07:00

Winstead Hill is a small park south of Franklin. Hood kept his headquarters here during the battle as it offered a nice view of the valley. It still offers a nice view although there are a ton of buildings in the way now. But you can still see where many of the important parts of the battlefield are from here.

When I first went to Winstead Hill all that was near the parking lot to indicate this was a Civil War park was the cannon and the state historical marker. Since then a monument to Freeman's Battery of Forrest's Cavalry (for an April 10, 1863 engagement) has been placed here.

There is also a marker in the parking lot to explain the history of this piece of ground.

Up the hill is a nice metal relief map that shows important places and gives some background of the battle.

And here is the view from the map. The Columbia Pike can be seen running across the center of the picture towards the left, disappearing at the top of a ridge (which is right where the Cotton Gin and the Carter House are).

A view from the bottom of the hill so you can see that the Columbia Pike is right next to the hill.

And some closeups of the Freeman's Battery monument. Monuments of this design are up at various other parks. I've seen them at Brice's Crossroads and Parker's Crossroads. There might be others I'm forgetting about but those two instantly pop into mind.

Near the relief map are a bunch of other monuments for the generals killed at Franklin, there were six in all.

John Adams

John C. Carter

Otho F. Strahl

States Rights Gist

Hiram Granbury

and Patrick Cleburne

There is also a monument to Cockrell's Missouri Brigade.

This is a very nice park. Its nice that it has a good number of markers and monuments that help explain the battle. Its also nice because it offers good views of the battlefield. One can only imagine how good these views might have been if the battlefield had been preserved in the 1890s but that is long since past. I imagine the visitor's center would have been at Winstead Hill.

Lincoln

2010-02-24T11:19:00.003-07:00

Yesterday at kindergarten my son learned about Lincoln, well truthfully he already knew what the teacher said but this just helped cement it in his mind. They are doing four presidents this month, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt (maybe they should carve those guys on a mountain somewhere).

So during dinner I prodded him for information on Lincoln. At first his descriptions were pretty vague. Lincoln was a president. And Lincoln was a he. This was gonna be rough. But eventually he opened up that Lincoln was president during the Civil War. That before the war he was a lawyer (and that he grew up). He had a beard. He is on the penny. I wondered if the teacher told of his death but I decided against asking what Lincoln did after the Civil War; even if she had told them of his death he might not be able to articulate that there was no "after the war" for Lincoln.

All in all they did a good job of covering the basics. I'm sure he knows nothing of things like Lincoln's Spot Resolution but its kindergarten so the basics are fine.

And I'll be back to a normal blogging schedule tomorrow, starting with some blogs on the battle of Franklin.

Its gonna be a boy!

2010-02-17T10:20:00.002-07:00

Monday we went in for an 18 week ultrasound and the little baby looks very good. They measured all sorts of things and he's running a few days small but that's not a big deal. But the most important thing to come out of it was that the baby is a boy. So now we can focus on picking the name. Plus I can paint the room the appropriate color and once we start buying clothes and things they don't need to be unisex anymore.

The early front runners for name are:
John Paul Braxton
Thomas John
Matthew Archer

But our tastes change daily so the final decision may not have any of those names in it. But it feels good to finally be serious about a name.

Update

2010-02-05T10:45:00.003-07:00

Sorry for the hiatus of late, I've been busy getting bedrooms ready for the expanding family. Our office has been transformed into a bedroom for our son. I'm finally done with that and will move him into it this weekend. Then I will start on turning his old room into the nursery.

With some luck we might find out the gender of the baby next Monday. Then we can start figuring out the name. We've thrown a lot of ideas out there but until we actually know the gender it seems hard to really pick the name. My wife is open to Braxton as a middle name for a boy. I think if the baby comes on July 4th we need to do a patriotic name, like George Ulysses for the twin Union victories of 1863. My wife is not as convinced on that one. If its a girl we've grown fond of Olivia lately but there is still many months for us to change our mind.

When I've had free time lately I've been fine tuning a manuscript. The likelihood of it getting published looks very promising as it will be part of a series from a publisher, but nothing is ever guaranteed. So for the time being I've decided to shelve my plans for using createspace. I got a lot of good feedback from my post. On one end was the advice that my work is good enough for a real publisher, that I've got to just keep working at it and one day the chips will fall into place. On the other end was practical advice on how to go the self publishing route and turn out a product that would look very professional.

An exciting job opportunity in the Civil War community came my way. I'm one of many applicants and the job really won't be open for a little while yet, but I am excited for the opportunity and maybe I'll be lucky enough to get it.

On a sad note I am getting rid of my truck because I need a car that can handle two car seats. I've had that truck 10 or 11 years now (its a 1990) and even took it back to Chickamauga once for a great two week trip camping out. I'm gonna miss the truck but I'm excited that I've already found its replacement, a 2000 Land Rover, and I look forward to getting some Tennessee mud on it in the future.

Maps of First Bull Run

2010-01-21T09:01:00.001-07:00

The Maps of First Bull Run by Bradley M. Gottfried.

Once again a book review that is well behind the time. I think I'm late in doing this review because it is so obvious from the first time you open this book that this is a great book. This is Gottfried's second book in the battlefield atlas series from Savas Beatie (he did Gettysburg first and Dave Powell has added Chickamauga to the series as well).

The basic layout of each book in the series is that there is a full page color map depicting one phase of the battle and the text that describes that map is on the facing page. You can read the book cover to cover or simply use it to enhance another book on the battle that has much fewer maps. I think the series is great and as each book comes out I'll buy it without needing to see it or read reviews first, that's part of the reason why I did not review this book when it came out.

There are 51 maps in this volume, half of which cover the battle directly. Nine cover the preliminary movements and skirmishes, including Blackburn's Ford. A few maps cover the theater situation in the month afterwards and then there are about a dozen maps on Ball's Bluff.

My only complaint, and it is a series wide complaint, is that elevation change is indicated by hash marks and not by topographic lines. I grew up with topo maps so reading them has never been a problem for me. I understand they can clutter a map or be difficult for a portion of the population to read but I personally would prefer them over hash marks. I've seen topo lines used in books where it doesn't clutter the map, so it can be done. I think it would help with study as you would be able to see real elevations (and for those of us who know how to make profiles you could create profiles to show how much of the field could be seen from a particular position). Whenever I study I battle I go to the local USGS office and get the quad sheets so I have a good topographic map.

Anyway, that's my only complaint about the book series. I see no reason not to add this book to your library.

The Complete Gettysburg Guide

2010-01-19T11:00:00.000-07:00

The Complete Gettysburg Guide by J. David Petruzzi. Maps and photography by Steven Stanley.

I am behind the times in reviewing this book, it already has received numerous highly positive reviews, but I’m sure one more won’t be too much in the way.

This is as complete a guide of Gettysburg as I’ve ever seen. What separates it from the other Gettysburg guides is its attention to the periphery. Besides chapters covering the main fighting of July 1-3 there are chapters on the June 26 skirmishes, the cavalry fighting on Brinkerhoff’s Ridge and East Cavalry Field, the fighting at Hunterstown on July 2nd and at Fairfield on July 3rd. But there is also tours of the town of Getysburg, the National Cemetery, Evergreen Cemetery, the various rock carvings around the battlefield and the plentiful hospital sites scattered around the town.

I especially enjoyed the chapters on the National Cemetery and the rock carvings. I loved the amount of detail given to the variety of mistakes in the cemetery. Some of these are simply stone cutters who made misspellings (and not just of soldiers’ names) but some are because the soldier was misidentified when buried. Since then researchers have found that no soldier by that name served in that regiment but that same name was found in a different regiment, or state which meant there are Confederates buried in the National Cemetery. Today that’s not a big deal but before the reconciliation of the 1890s veterans would have been quite upset to know that.

I also enjoyed the rock carving chapter because it looks like it would be a fun tour to do. I knew about some of the carvings but the tour created here has 21 stops and would be a fun extra tour to do next time I’m there, especially finding the dinosaur footprint and fossils with my young son.

The book itself is beautiful. Stanley’s beautiful maps grace nearly every other page. When there isn’t a map there is a great photo as Gettysburg is a very photogenic battlefield (that may sound odd but the right combination of monument and natural beauty creates amazing photos at many battlefields). The text is clear with good directions (giving odometer readings at tenth mile increments and longitude and latitude coordinates for GPS users). I haven’t had the good fortune to field test it yet but the directions are clear and informative so I do not foresee any problems in the field. The page stock is even different than most books, a nice thick page that feels very durable for field use. I’m not sure it’ll survive a rain storm but normal field use should be fine.

I only wish there was a Shiloh version of this book. I am excited to hear that an Antietam version is in the works.

Britton's Lane

2010-01-15T06:42:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I received the new issue of Tennessee Historical Quarterly and the first article is about the battle of Britton's Lane. Britton's Lane is one of the smallest battlefields I have ever visited, on the way there I was sure I was lost but I found the little park. The park is located east of Denmark, Tennessee which is southwest of Jackson (I mention that because Denmark is a very tiny town).

The article actually has little to do with the battle and more about where the battle was fought. The available maps, the reports in the Official Records and the few available letters and diaries are pretty vague on location, basically six miles from Denmark. In the article King Wells Jamison argues that the real location is northeast of Denmark, pretty close to present day Jackson.

And he has some compelling evidence, things like Britton does not appear on the list of Denmark inhabitants, but does appear on a list of inhabitants of District No. 6 and No. 7 of Madison County, which is north of Denmark. And that Shedrick Pipkins, a local man who helped with the dead and wounded, is listed in District No. 7.

But not once does Jamison deal with the fact that there is a preserved park over 8 miles, as the crow flies, to the south. There is a state historical marker there as well as other modern interpretive markers, cannons and monuments (including one to the mass grave on site). He doesn't say one word about the park, not to explain why its wrong or anything else. In fact the preserved land is on a road named Britton Lane.

Jamison's new site has an old lane in nice condition. He has scoured part of the area looking for artifacts that would indicate a battle had taken place there but has not yet found anything besides some slag lead which might indicate that bullets were cast there. Some parts of that proposed location though have been developed so artifacts may have been lost.

I was disappointed with this article. At first I was intrigued by the possibility that the battlefield might be this far wrong. But Jamison's points were not that convincing and he didn't attack the placement of the current park. For one I'd like to see sort of attack on the mass burial site, use ground penetrating radar to determine if there is a mass burial there. If there isn't then some questions creep in. If there is then Jamison needs to explain why its there. Is it from a different battle? Did the men move the dead over 8 miles instead of burying them where they fell? Why would they do that? I thought the article had a good start but when it ended I was left wondering what the point of it all had been.

Those Damned Black Hats!

2010-01-14T06:53:00.001-07:00

Those Damned Black Hats! The Iron Brigade in the Gettysburg Campaign.
By Lance J. Herdegen

I am a fan of the Iron Brigade. I would feel this way if its only significance was a heavy number of Wisconsin regiments but they then ended up being one of the better fighting units of the war. When I heard Iron Brigade historian Lance Herdegen was doing a book focusing on the brigade in the Gettysburg campaign my only question was when I would add this book to my library not if I would. Then last year Herdegen was one of the speakers at the Rocky Mountain Civil War Symposium so I decided to wait until the event to buy the book (helping the event’s sales and also to get it signed).

While the focus of the book is Gettysburg Herdegen also does a good job briefly explaining the activities of the brigade both before and after Gettysburg. The battle of Gettysburg is the meat of the book but it was good to also have coverage of the post war efforts at memoralization and the various battle anniversaries the brigade survivors attended.

And as far as the battle goes expect a ton on the events of July 1st. There is some coverage given to the brigade’s activities on the other days but after July 1st there were too few men left to do much of anything. The brigade went into battle with 1883 men but on the night of July 1st the brigade quartermaster only issued 500 rations. The 2nd Wisconsin lost 77%, the 6th Wisconsin lost 48%, the 7th Wisconsin lost 51%, the 19th Indiana lost 72%, and the 24th Michigan lost 80%. Officially they lost 189 killed, 774 wounded and 249 missing (leaving 671 survivors yet only 500 rations were issued so apparently close to 200 men were separated from the regiment that night.

The book itself was a pretty quick read. It has 33 short chapters, none is more than 15 pages long. So it was quite easy to read a chapter or two during the small batches of free time that I have as a husband and father.

The maps are wonderful (done by Bradley Gottfried of Maps of Gettysburg fame) and plentiful. There are also a good number of pictures of brigade veterans.

Children's book reviews

2010-01-12T09:20:00.003-07:00

The other day while looking for books to use by Barnes and Noble gift card on I happened across some of their children's Civil War titles. Not knowing the quality of the work I instead checked out the books from my local library and have been reading them to my son this past week.

First up he picked the one about Lincoln (he loves Lincoln and John Brown). Abe Lincoln Crosses a Creek: A Tall, Thin Tale by Deborah Hopkinson.

It tells the story of a young Abe crossing a creek with one of his friends. Abe falls in and is saved by his friend. Its an okay story but the narration is odd. The narrator talks to the reader and illustrator as if they are active participants in the story. For instance the narrator explains that we don't really know how Abe's friend saved him, maybe he used a big stick, maybe he was able to reach him with his arms, or maybe something else happened (and even says we don't know if the story is true or not to begin with). So the narrator asks the illustrator to pick one of the methods himself. My son enjoyed it which is my main goal for any bedtime reading. If the story is true or not doesn't matter much here, its not like this event really matters much to how Abe grows up, unless of course he had drowned.

Next we read Civil War Sub: The Mystery of the Hunley by Kate Boehm Jerome.

This was a very good book but probably too long for a six year old. We read it over three nights and it covers the entirety of the Hunley story from its invention to its modern place in a research museum. My impression is that the book came out soon after the sub was opened up for research. The finding of Lt. Dixon's gold coin is mentioned but not much of the findings since then. There was one error that leaped out to me, the Hunley was described as an altered boiler and I'm pretty sure they are now convinced that was not the case. But that is a relatively minor error for a six year old to overcome. He really liked the story and would make guesses about what would happen in the next night's reading.

Then we read From Slave to Soldier by Deborah Hopkinson.

Slave boy Johnny runs away from his master to join the Union army as a teamster. He quickly shows that he is a good teamster, earns the respect of his new comrades and ends the book by receiving his own blue uniform. I'm sure this story happened many times during the war. The book is pretty good, my son was interested the whole time. I think its important to give him a few different view points on the war so he has a fuller grasp of the war. I'm not going to ignore slavery when selecting his books but I also don't demonize the South. The Hunley book was a good one for the bravery of the Southern soldier.

We also read Billy and the Rebel by Deborah Hopkinson. Hopkinson turns out a ton of history themed children's books which have been pretty enjoyable.

Billy lives west of Gettysburg and during that battle has many different encounters with Confederate soldiers. One such encounter is a young boy who wants to desert from the Confederate army. This young Rebel changes into Billy's clothing and stays hidden well enough to avoid detection. This based on a true story, Billy Bayly really did help hid a Confederate deserter and he stayed in Gettysburg after the battle and eventually bought a farm there. The author says she was never able to locate the name of the soldier.

Our final book was Under the Quilt of Night by Deborah Hopkinson (and my least favorite of the books we read).
This one tells the story of a slave family escaping into the North and beyond. The reason I didn't like one as much was that it used the story of quilts on the Underground Railroad. My mother is a quilter and has read some books about the Underground Railroad quilts, and found out that it is all a myth. There is not one piece of real evidence that quilts were used as signals. Also I don't think this story connected with my son as much as he fidgeted more during this one. I think that was also due to the narrative style and not so much because of the topic.

Civil War’s First Blood: Missouri, 1854-1861

2010-01-06T07:04:00.000-07:00

The Civil War’s First Blood: Missouri, 1854-1861
By James Denny and John Bradbury

This book is a wonderfully illustrated introduction to the early fighting in Missouri. The title says it covers the period of 1854 to 1861, otherwise known as Bleeding Kansas but the period before Lincoln’s election is not dealt with in much detail. Mostly it is because the events of those years primarily happen in Kansas while the authors focus on Missouri’s history.

That is one of a few drawbacks that prevent this from being a much better book. My chief complaint is that while the authors included many old Missouri maps these maps were often grainy and not all the details could be seen. They needed to include one large map of Missouri that showed all the important towns and rivers. This could have been an antique map or a modern creation; it just needed to be well labeled and easy to read.

One thing that made me wary was when Albert Sidney Johnston was misspelled Albert Sydney Johnston. If they misspelled the name of one of the more important generals of the early war period it made me wonder the spelling accuracy of all the lesser known individuals who were mentioned.

The final drawback I have with the book is that there were no footnotes. There is a bibliography at the end but no notes. It seems obvious that this book is intended more as an introduction to the conflict but it still could have had footnotes.

Despite those drawbacks this is a very entertaining book. The authors do a good job of explaining the haphazard way Missouri tried to leave the Union. Ultimately the convention that Governor Claiborne Jackson called with hopes that it would declare for secession ended up declaring his administration vacant and appoint a new Union friendly government. The Confederate friendly government mismanaged its first attempts to join the Confederacy and eventually officially succeeded in November 1861, but did so without a legal quorum.

Nearly every corner of Missouri saw organized fighting in 1861. The guerrilla war was heating up but during 1861 there were still small armies facing each other on Missouri battlefields. Sometimes the battles occurred between forces that were only a regiment in size but it was still more organized than the guerrilla fighting that Missouri would become more well known for during the rest of the war. The battles of Wilson’s Creek, Lexington, Athens, Carthage, Boonville, and Belmont are covered quite well, striking a nice balance between excruciating detail and simplistic overview.

In fact that is something the book often does quite well, although it is an overview of the first year of combat in Missouri it provides a good amount of detail. Most battle descriptions offer a good amount of tactical details without becoming tedious. And the sections that deal with the movements of armies, recruiting and other activities also provide a good amount of details. If one good map of Missouri had been provided it would have made these sections even better.

One other thing the book does quite well is providing numerous illustrations. Often these are of the politicians and soldiers being discussed but there are also many period drawings from newspapers and even some modern paintings. Most pages have two such illustrations so the reader sees a wide range of personalities and other images.

Despite a few shortcomings this is a very good book that serves as a good introduction to the first year of the Civil War in Missouri.

This book review also appears in the January 2010 issue of Civil War News

Fun problem

2010-01-04T10:09:00.002-07:00

I have a fun problem, I have a gift card from Barnes and Noble and have no idea what to get. First I visited the store on the off chance they'd have something I couldn't live without, but I didn't see anything there. Then I browsed online and found a few items to consider but right now nothing has jumped to the fore front. In the past I've hardly ever had a problem picking out a new book. This current situation is largely due to my role as a book reviewer for Civil War News.

I might just save the gift card until something comes out that I need, but its hard for me to hold onto gift cards, I want to use them before I forget I have them.

Any advice on a good book that I should buy with my gift card?

Merry Christmas

2009-12-24T10:08:00.001-07:00

Sorry I've been away for the last few weeks. Just got busy with holiday madness, plus I have taken on a second job. I just have not had much spare time this month for much of anything connected with the Civil War. Hopefully things will settle down again after the first of the year.

Happy holidays to all of my friends and readers out there.

createspace

2009-12-01T07:33:00.000-07:00

The other day I received a review copy of “Chatfield Story.” There were a few oddities in how endnotes were done which made me wonder who the publisher was. It turned out to be booksurge, a do it yourself publisher. Booksurge has since become createspace. So that cleared up why there were a few oddities in endnotes (and in a few other minor areas), it was because the author had 100% control over the product and decided that this was the way they wanted to do endnotes. I’m not a huge fan of their endnotes but I’ve seen publishers do even odder things so its not a huge issue. Personally I prefer footnotes but there are nearly as many ways to do notes as there are publishers so I don’t get worked up when publishers don’t use footnotes or do something else odd.

Anyway the book made me curious about createspace. The book itself is wonderfully put together, if the endnotes had been done a little differently I don’t think I would have ever known this was a do it yourself book otherwise.

It prompted me to find out more about createspace because I’ve had my own issues getting my work published. A brief review of my manuscript’s status; the peer review came back positive, suggesting some changes (which have been made) before publishing but not needing another peer review before then. But the head ranger at the one battlefield indicated that he would never allow the book to be sold in his book store, I’ve since found out that basically he blocks all new books on his battle from appearing in his bookstore (unless he published them, which he has not yet done). The other two battlefield parks I’ve worked on have been enthusiastic about the project. I’ve received tremendous support from both and have completed two other manuscripts along the way, only one of the battlefields has yet to be done and only because I have not had the time to get there and put in the leg work needed (and probably won’t now for the foreseeable future).

But that one park ranger scared my first publisher to the point that they decided not to do any of the books, even though they also thought all the projects were worthwhile. I have not sent the manuscripts to any other publishers because they will eventually run into the same road block with the ranger. In my mind it seems like why bothering to send a manuscript off, get good peer reviews and then have it all end when they try to get it sold in the park. So the fact that createspace books have an ISBN number and can be ordered by any book store, and by anyone on amazon made me very interested. Yes, I would like to walk into the battlefield book store and see my book, it probably would also be a great source of sales, but on the other hand I tend to buy few books at battlefield book stores, instead buying them at home online. I support the battlefield stores by buying t-shirts, maps, pins, hats and the like, things that I cannot find online. So maybe not being sold in the battlefield book store is not such a horrible thing.

The tough part of going through createspace will be not having a publisher’s marketing team working with me. I’ll have to do it all myself. I’ll have to do all the marketing myself. As I’ve learned through some publisher’s blogs (Ted Savas’ in particular) the author needs to do a lot of that work anyway, the publishers do what they can but if the author sits back waiting for the sales to roll in they will wait in vain. The publishers do help with some of the major advertising and helping to focus the efforts, but if Savas Beatie published my book I’d probably have to work just as hard to get people to buy it than if I published it myself through createspace.

The financials at createspace do seem pretty good. For example if my book was 350 pages (a reasonably accurate figure) it would cost me $8.50 to print a book, or if I upgraded to the pro plan it would cost $5.05 per book. The pro plan costs $39 per title and if you sell more than a dozen it pays for itself. If I then sold the book for $20 I would get paid $7.50 per sale at the createspace estore, or $3.50 per sale through amazon. On the pro plan those figures jump to $10.95 at createspace and $6.95 at amazon. I don’t really know what royalty figures are at other publishers but from what I’ve heard I don’t think $6.95 is a horrible royalty, although I could be wrong.

So I’m really considering publishing these three books through createspace. They are all not 100% ready to go so I could stagger them a bit, print one every 4-6 months or so, to make sure they are perfect. One other major roadblock doing it this way is that there is no copy editor to check my work, nor is there any peer review. I can accomplish both on my own by sending it to people (and having to pay them as well), its just one more thing that is not done for me. That’s part of the reason I think getting one out every 6 months is a reasonable goal as it allows time for me to get it in the hands of other readers.

Do you all think I’m crazy for going this route? Any advice to give, pro or con about the createspace versus established publisher route?

Shiloh Campaign

2009-11-30T08:50:00.001-07:00

The Shiloh Campaign Edited by Steven E. Woodworth

Eastern theater battles have long been the beneficiaries of essay filled books. Gary Gallagher has edited roughly a dozen of these books. Now the Western theater is getting the same treatment as Steven Woodworth has embarked on a series of books through Southern Illinois University. Each book will be a collection of essays from some of the leading Western theater historians. The first book in “Civil War Campaigns in the Heartland” is The Shiloh Campaign. It is a pretty balanced collection of essays. There are three which focus on the Union, three on the Confederates and two are on battle events that clearly affected both sides.

In the first chapter John R. Lundberg intends to give a recap of Albert Sidney Johnston’s actions in the Shiloh campaign, beginning roughly with the fall of Fort Donelson. Lundberg believes that Johnston has been unfairly criticized for his actions during this time period. Although the essay is good at recapping Johnston’s activities I do not fully agree with his assessment that Johnston had shown a vast improvement in his abilities as a commander. Of course his performance in the Shiloh campaign was better than his performance during the Forts Henry-Donelson campaign, his performance there was below par. So while he was making an improvement he was still not living up to Jefferson Davis’ earlier assessment of his abilities. Lundberg says that Johnston “might conceivably have become as great a field commander as Lee or Jackson.” This seems doubtful given his performance so far. Lundberg is most likely right though when he says “His death at Shiloh lengthened the odds against Confederate success in the West and thus ultimately in the war as a whole.” Of course that is only right because the commanders who replaced Johnston over the next three years did not achieve great results. We’ll never know if Johnston would have done much better.

Stuart’s defense of the Union left is one of the lesser known actions of the battle but it gets covered here by Alexander Mendoza. He does a good job explaining the flow of battle but his times do not coincide with the times listed on the markers and monuments on the field. He credits Stuart with holding his main position til 3 pm, but all the markers say the position was held until 2 pm. If his times are to be believed then Johnston was killed in the rear of Stuart’s position.

Timothy B. Smith provides an excellent essay on the Hornets’ Nest in memory, basically how several key figures have shaped our understanding of the Hornets’ Nest in the context of the battle. The main figure at work here is David W. Reed, first historian of the park , who fought in the Hornets’ Nest with the 12th Iowa. Smith argues, convincingly, that the main fighting occurred on either side of the Hornets’ Nest. While it seemed to those Union defenders that they were holding off repeated charges, they were actually facing a small part of the Confederate army while the rest of the army fought elsewhere. Once the rest of the Union army had retreated to the final line at Pittsburg Landing the Confederates focused more attention on this last pocket of resistance. Smith points out that the final line was essentially finished by 4:30, so there was no need for Prentiss and WHL Wallace to stay in the Hornets’ Nest as long as they did. In other words, since the main fighting was elsewhere and the final defensive line was ready at 4:30 the defense of the Hornets’ Nest cannot be the most important action of the day; and yet due to the efforts of Reed it is considered one of the most important parts of the battle.

Lew Wallace’s march is one of the mysteries of the battle. Wallace was a competent general, who had shown some talent earlier in the war and would later turn in respectable performances. Steven Woodworth tackles Lew Wallace’s march well, as he works through the troubled time line created by non-standardized times between commanders. Woodworth is of the opinion that Wallace’s removal from the army had less to do with the speed of the march and more to do with the lack of urgency displayed when it was made clear to Wallace the dire predicament that the army was in.

Gary D. Joiner does a good of explaining the activities of the two Union gunboats. He also briefly talks about how the gunboats used the slope of Dill Branch to deflect their shots towards the Confederate lines. A greater explanation of this would have been helpful as it seems to me that deflecting shells would not have been any more effective than using a higher gun elevation.

The only old essay used is one by Grady McWhiney in which he attacks Beauregard’s “Complete Victory.” McWhiney argues that the Confederates had a chance to break the final line and that the attack was worth trying. Beauregard however decided against making a final attack, even though he had not seen the position and had no way of knowing if the battle was truly won. That did not stop Beauregard from sending off a telegram to Richmond proclaiming a complete victory, which would come back to haunt him.

Charles D. Grear provided an essay on Confederate soldiers’ reactions to the battle but this covered mostly the same topics that Joseph Allan Frank and George A. Reaves dealt with in Seeing the Elephant: Raw Recruits at the Battle of Shiloh.

The final essay concerns the relationship between Grant and Sherman. Brooks D. Simpson blows a few holes in popular Grant stories from the post-Shiloh time frame. The first being a Lincoln story that he had arranged for Halleck to come to Pittsburg Landing after Shiloh to shield Grant from criticisms, when the facts show that Halleck intended to come to Pittsburg Landing once Buell’s army arrived. The other part of this Lincoln story is that he supposedly said “I can’t spare this man, he fights,” but Simpson points out that immediately after the battle Lincoln did ask Halleck if Grant was negligent. We can infer that Lincoln might not have spared Grant if Halleck had answered yes. The second story to get a more critical look is about Sherman convincing Grant to stay with the army. While Sherman might have given that pep talk Halleck also asked Grant to delay leaving the army, a week later Grant would again command an army. Simpson also reminds us that had Sherman turned against Grant in the aftermath of Shiloh it might have meant the end of Grant’s career as Sherman was very well connected politically. Instead Sherman leaped to defend Grant and might have saved his career.

I have one complaint about the book, there are only three maps in the entire book. There is a general overview map in the introduction and two detailed maps in the Hornets’ Nest chapter. I constantly was referring back to the overview map as I read sections. Not every chapter needed maps but some, such as the essays on Stuart’s fight and Wallace’s march, would have been much better with maps. Then there are minor issues with the book, such as there is no essay on Buell’s forces or coverage of the second day of battle.

This review also appears in the December issue of Civil War News.

Update on Shiloh presentation

2009-11-18T13:06:00.004-07:00

I'm currently working on a presentation for the Rocky Mountain Civil War Round Table in which I'll discuss the fighting around the crossroads at Shiloh. Sherman and McClernand do a masterful job of holding back the many Confederate brigades that are sent against them. I think the fighting here was more important than the better known places like the Sunken Road, but generally the historiography has not ranked it as highly.

To get a better grasp of the fighting I'm reading a ton of official reports. Just now I was reading Major Franklin H. Clack's report of the activities of the Confederate Guard Response Battalion (in Anderson's Brigade). After giving a good account of the capture of a battery he then sums up the rest of the day's action with:

"From this time, sir, until the close of the day I am unable to describe the various localities in which you led us to the attack. We made several other successful charges, being ordered from one part of the field to the other, where our services were most needed."

That really does not help me in placing the unit on the field anywhere else. Oh well. Luckily the placing of one regiment is not a big deal for me, I would have liked to pin point every one but knew going into the project that was impossible.

Big news

2009-11-16T09:34:00.003-07:00

There are times when great news can be shared with just a few words, this is one of those times. My wife is pregnant!!

Its still pretty early, due date will be mid July, but my wife said its okay to spread the news. Its been tough keeping the news quiet as long as I have, which truthfully has not been very long.

I'm super excited. Right now I can't think of the words to describe how excited I am.

Expect a post every so often over the next several months to have some sort of update on her progress.