Part 5: Not Vicksburg
Or: The differing analyses of William Starke Rosecrans
It was supposed to be at Vicksburg. With high bluffs overlooking a U-turn in the Mississippi river, ridges and watercourses protecting just about every land approach route, caverns and crevices to protect civilians and supplies, and a rail link back to the state capitol at Jackson, Vicksburg truly was the ‘Gibraltar of the West’. Should the Yankee invaders manage to capture every other locale of importance along the great river, Vicksburg would stand, and link the Trans-Mississippi to the rest of the Confederacy.
As it turned out, to almost everyone’s surprise on both sides, Vicksburg proved to be a virtual non-entity in the Civil War. Because……
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Timeline U: Autumn, 1862
……Vicksburg was lost before a proper fight could be made for it.
Let’s back up a bit. By the end of July, Albert Sydney Johnston had severely weakened his forces in Mississippi in order to reinforce Beauregard for the heartland campaign. What he was left with was personal command of a corps of 17,000 under Stirling Price, still encamped in Tupelo, plus Van Dorn’s command at Vicksburg, a field strength of about 10,000 men plus a garrison. Opposing him was a great intermingling of two Union forces. William Rosecrans commanded what was still named the Army of the Mississippi, while Charles Smith commanded the Army of the Tennessee in person, plus the district as a whole. Several divisions had been sent eastward to either join Thomas or to garrisons in Kentucky and middle Tennessee. What was left amounted to about 50,000 men if they were all gathered together, but they were largely spread in their own garrisons of various sizes, the two largest at Memphis and Corinth.
Price’s corps was patently not large enough to attack anything except an isolated Yankee garrison. Johnston spent most of his time throughout August launching small cavalry raids and occasional infantry movements in order to deceive the northerners and convince them that he had a far larger army than he in fact did. He also tried to collaborate with partisans and others to continue to disrupt Federal supplies and lines of communication. However, after several months of occupation, and a mix of fair treatment towards civilians and harsh reprisals towards partisans, Smith and Rosecrans were beginning to bring a measure of stability to their occupied land.
Despairing of an offensive move in northern Mississippi, Johnston had authorized Van Dorn to launch attacks of his own at Union positions along the lower Mississippi river. Primarily this consisted of an attempt to capture a Union garrison at Baton Rouge. In conjunction with the ironclad ram CSS Arkansas, Van Dorn led this attack on August 11th. The Union garrison was not battle-tested, but had far superior numbers and the backing of a dozen ships. Three of these were sunk by the Arkansas but she proved very unstable attempting to maneuver in the Mississippi’s heavy currents. Enough fire from the ships was directed inland to disrupt the Confederate advance, and ultimately the garrison held.
Van Dorn soon abandoned the effort and returned with most of his army to Vicksburg. The Arkansas’ engines failed while attempting to steam back upriver, and eventually she was scuttled to prevent being captured. One productive thing Van Dorn did do, however, is establish a small garrison of his own at Port Hudson. Unlike the low-lying Baton Rouge, Port Hudson was effectively Vicksburg in miniature, with high bluffs overlooking a hairpin turn in the river. For the Union’s part, just to add insult to injury, they evacuated Baton Rouge and consolidated in New Orleans a week after winning the battle due to supply issues, seeing no strategic purpose to remaining in the city.
Early in September, Johnston thought he saw an opening to attack a Union garrison. Over the past months, Union reinforcements sent eastward crossed the Tennessee river at Eastport. To protect this crossing point a garrison was established at the town of Iuka numbering only a couple thousand men in one brigade. Johnston directed Price to leave behind one division at Tupelo, and advance with about 10,000 men to take out this force.
Leaving his camps on September 3rd and arriving at Iuka on the 6th, Price did just that. He quickly overwhelmed the garrison and was stopped just shy of encircling and capturing the whole force. As it was, he found himself in possession of a couple hundred prisoners and quite a hefty supply train. Seeing no signs of an immediate Union counterattack, wanting time to move the bulk of the captured supplied farther south, and not wanting to harm his men’s morale with an unnecessary retreat, Price elected to remain in Iuka for a while longer.
When Rosecrans heard of the capture of Iuka, he recognized the opportunity for what it was – Price being isolated and vulnerable – and moved quickly to strike back. He assembled the forces he could at Corinth within a day’s travel, about 18,000 men, and on September 8th started marching east. He planned an envelopment, with half of his force commanded by Edward Ord to demonstrate against Price directly. Rosecrans would personally lead the other half of his force on parallel roads to the south, strike Iuka from behind, cut off Price’s escape routes, and destroy him in detail.
To enable communication between the two wings, Rosecrans had laid out a line of couriers as his column advanced, and kept Ord appraised of his progress. However, while this worked well during the march towards Iuka on the 8th and 9th, it broke down at the most important time on the 10th. Ord thought, fairly based on what messages he had received but in opposition to Rosecrans’ orders and intent, that he was to wait for the sounds of Rosecrans attacking first and only then join in. Due to adverse winds limiting sound propagation, these sounds never reached Ord’s position northwest of Iuka.
As things developed, Rosecrans attacked with his own two divisions utterly isolated from any support from Ord. Price was able to concentrate the large majority of his forces against Rosecrans leaving only a token screen against Ord, and make the numbers for the battle fairly even. The fight started at midafternoon and raged into the evening darkness. Charge and countercharge went on for possession of a Union battery on top of a hill in the center of the Union line. Price’s Missourians, now commanded by Henry Little, were in the thick of things, and it took ferocious fighting from the Union brigade of Joseph Mower to ultimately retain the Union artillery, but the Confederates took control of the hill that had anchored the Union position.
During the night, Price took stock of the numbers against him, and withdrew from Iuka while he could do so safely. Rosecrans was at first incredulous at Ord’s explanation of not hearing the sounds of his attack. But corroboration from Ord’s junior officers was fairly unanimous, and Rosecrans ultimately had to accept the situation. He sent Ord’s fresh wing forward in pursuit of Price, lasting for two days but ultimately held off by Confederate cavalry. Almost a thousand men on both sides were lost in the battle and pursuit. With Price holding onto the captured trains but Rosecrans recapturing and regarrisoning the town, little was gained by either side.
As Price returned to his old camps, Johnston acknowledged the situation. Rosecrans and Smith could concentrate enough forces to outnumber him at almost any location in short order. Had Price had his whole corps present, Iuka would not have turned out substantially differently. Only by concentrating all of the men he had left – Price and Van Dorn together – would the Confederates have the numbers to attempt any campaign of importance. Risks would have to be taken, and whatever Johnston attempted to do, it would have to be done with rapidity.
Johnston ordered Van Dorn to leave the absolute minimal garrisons that he could at Vicksburg and Port Hudson, and join him with his main force near Tupelo. Van Dorn delayed as long as possible, pursuing a number of side projects and in general relishing his independent command. However, by the end of September Johnston had a field army of about 24,000 men assembled in northern Mississippi. Also by this time, Beauregard had fallen back to near Chattanooga. Thomas’ army remained in opposition to him, and it was clear that these two concentrations would face off with each other again in this new front. No new reinforcements from either side were going to be sent from Mississippi, and nothing would be quickly sent the other way either.
On the Union side, Rosecrans was disappointed at not being able to crush Price at Iuka, but expressed satisfaction and praise for most of his subordinates who fought in the battle. Talking with Charles Smith after the battle led to rearranging a few units in the regions’ garrisons, shuffling more rested troops further south. Smith, by this time, was personally located in Memphis. While overseeing the region as a whole, reports show that his focus was starting to make long term plans of descending further down the Mississippi river towards Vicksburg in a combined operation with the fleet. Preliminarily this consisted of stockpiling supplies in Memphis, organizing and training troops specifically for this movement, and getting fleet repairs and upgrades ready. All of this would take some time, and meanwhile Rosecrans was given an increasingly free hand with the current field army operating against Johnston.
On October 3rd, reports began coming from Union cavalry and vedettes that a major Rebel advance was in the works. Johnston was heading north, force unknown but plenty large, destination unknown but heading was vaguely towards Bolivar. Rosecrans and Smith exchanged a few messages before the direct telegraph lines were cut (necessitating a longer route to the north and including ship couriers, adding delay to every message). They agreed to call in all the smaller outposts, and concentrate especially at Memphis and Corinth.
Johnston was indeed launching his attack, risking the fate of the theatre on one decisive battle. He also was intentionally angling straight towards the middle of the mass of Union positions along and near the rail line, so as to deceive the Yankees as to his ultimate objective. He did about as well as could be expected with his preparations. Ultimately, his objective was the rail junction at Corinth, and by marching on the path he was taking he could attack from its comparatively unentrenched northwestern side. Once the Union concentrations were done Johnston would have a couple of thousand men less than Rosecrans – Smith in Memphis had a smaller concentration but he was also supported by the gunboats.
Leaving tiny detachments behind to guard their supplies and a key bridge over the Tuscumbia River, the Confederate army encountered Union outposts around Corinth early on October 8th, Van Dorn’s corps leading the way. Price, with a significantly larger corps, spread out on Van Dorn’s left. Rosecrans, from writings he made later, intended to make a fighting withdrawal from Corinth’s outer defensive line, which had fallen into disrepair and was too long for his forces to occupy anyway, to a shorter line he had selected and improved more recently.
On a swelteringly hot day, Johnston’s advance made irregular but good progress. Rosecrans was not able to put together a continuous defensive line until much too late in the day, due to frequent and unclear orders he sent some of his subordinates. Left largely to their own devices, the junior Union commanders fought bravely, but for the most part ended up being isolated and forced back. Against Price’s front in particular multiple Union brigades were all but routed by midday. The Union left, however, was held by John McArthur’s division, and by keeping close eye on and coordinated control amongst his brigades, McArthur was able to do as Rosecrans had intended, fighting while withdrawing and maintaining a solid defensive line at all times.
Meanwhile, after Price’s attack on the Union right made excellent progress early, as he neared Corinth proper his men reached more open fields dominated by Union artillery. Forward progress was much slower from here, and continually arriving Union reinforcements (called in from camps south and east of town) made good the morning’s losses. This included Benjamin Prentiss’ division reaching the front line around 2:00. He launched a brief counterattack to throw off Price’s advance, and then solidified a line linking up with McArthur. Other scattered Union units generally rallied to this line as the afternoon went on. A final assault by Price, coupled with a few Federal units running out of ammunition, broke this line as sunset neared. Union soldiers retreated from all field positions into Rosecrans’ inner defensive line. However, there was not enough time or enough fresh Confederate units to continue an assault against this line today.
During the night, sacrificing sleep for the purpose, Rosecrans finished establishing this much more organized line anchored on several heavy batteries. Most of the routed units were rallied and arranged in a supporting line. Johnston was relatively pleased at his progress on the 8th, but knew he had to win outright on the 9th as his army could not afford to get dragged down into a long and costly battle. Towards this end, he planned a flanking attack for dawn on the 9th, aiming to get around Rosecrans’ right based on the extent of his final line on the 8th. However, a part of Rosecrans’ preparations during the night involved fronting two brigades under David Stanley to the north, essentially forming a big refused flank just in the rear of his main line, guarding against just such a flanking attack.
Price had his wing moving into position by dawn on the 9th, but order delays and a recalcitrant division commander meant that the attack didn’t go forward until full daylight. By that point Stanley was in position and with rudimentary breastworks in place. Instead of shattering the flank of the Union line, Price’s attack was largely shredded to pieces. It broke the main line in one location a couple hundred yards wide, but the Union supporting line quickly counterattacked and patched things up. A few diversionary attacks Johnston ordered along the rest of his line ultimately came to nothing as well, despite a couple of Union regiments temporarily thrown back in disorder and having to be rallied in the streets of Corinth proper.
His attacks having all been tried and failed by late afternoon, Johnston began to withdraw his army that evening. While a couple individual units started an immediate pursuit, Rosecrans let his men rest after two days of fighting and waited until dawn on the 10th to send his whole army forward. Men in both armies were still exhausted, but Rosecrans had McPherson’s fresh brigade just arrived with which to lead the pursuit.
Meanwhile, he had been in telegraphic communications with Smith at Memphis. Upon hearing news of the main fight unfolding at Corinth, Smith began ordering a mass concentration of Union troops in that direction. Any unit that could reach the beleaguered town within two days was forwarded to Rosecrans directly; these he received during and immediately after the battle, McPherson’s men being the last arrivals. As for other units in the region, Smith quickly organized several columns to start heading south to try to cut off Johnston’s communications and surround him. If that was impossible, then they were to join in the pursuit from wherever they were located. Smith knew the numerical advantage he had, and the bounty of supplies he was sitting on in Memphis. He had let the enemy get away cleanly after Shiloh – failing to pursue a second time was not an option.
One of these columns, Stephen Hurlbut’s division marching from Bolivar, got ahead of Johnston’s preferred line of retreat across the Hatchie River at Davis Bridge. This caused Johnston to split his column, with a division to engage Hurlbut and keep him from advancing farther south, while his main body detoured six miles further south to Crum’s Bridge. Due to a quirk of geography at Davis Bridge, each side of the crossing had excellent defensive terrain and was a killing zone for whoever tried to cross. The Confederates crossed first and were blown apart, whereupon they retreated to the east bank, Hurlbut crossed in pursuit, and was shredded in return. This affair led to almost a thousand casualties on both sides and was otherwise pointless.
Johnston managed to get his army across the river at Crum’s Bridge and Rosecrans continued his pursuit. Both columns in this chase were tiring, but to the Confederates must be added the despair of retreating. Rosecrans, with Smith organizing things in support, kept supply trains moving largely in parallel with his columns and kept the gap between pursuer and pursued small. A fairly steady stream of Rebel stragglers fell into the Union’s ranks each day, heightening morale.
Of much more importance was Smith’s main column, led by the division of Lew Wallace. This force marched straight out of Memphis on a long diagonal aiming to intercept the Rebels further south. By the 12th the head of this column arrived at the Confederate supply depot at Holly Springs and quickly overcame the token garrison there. In retreat they managed only to burn a small amount of their supplies, and Wallace found himself in possession of a massive haul of food, ammunition, and other supplies. Johnston’s army, now being forced-march southward, was left with what supplies they were carrying with them and little more unless they could get many dozens of miles ahead of any Federal pursuit – at least to Grenada to the southwest or Macon to the south.
With almost 4,000 men lost as casualties at Corinth, Johnston had fewer than 20,000 troops remaining, including many lightly wounded, and was losing more to straggling each day. With Rosecrans in immediate pursuit and Wallace leading the flanking column, his Union pursuers now outnumbered him by a 2-to-1 margin that was sure to grow over time. Yet issues of supply meant that Johnston could not turn and fight just anywhere. Choosing to angle southwest and remain in close communication with Vicksburg and other points on the lower Mississippi, the Confederate column reached the rail junction at Grenada on October 15th, with Rosecrans and Wallace’s vanguards having linked up and less than a day behind him. Both pursued and pursuers had a hungry day or two marching through the Mississippi Pine Barrens, but other than that scavenging was rampant and provided fair sustenance for soldiers in the chase.
Hoping to at least buy time, if not discourage further pursuit entirely, Johnston made a stand at Grenada, defending the crossings of the Yalobusha River. Rosecrans’ column tried to force a crossing on the 16th against heavy and well-hidden Confederate opposition and was given a bloody nose. Wallace, however, crossed several miles to Rosecrans’ west against virtually no opposition. When they appeared on the Rebels’ flank on the south bank of the river, the defensive line broke quickly. The physical exhaustion of continued retreat and the rapid failure of the river line led to already low morale collapsing further. While Johnston maintained good order over the core of his army, some units broke utterly, with some thousands of men lost to the winds as either deserters or just giving up and surrendering.
Less than 15,000 troops continued the retreat towards the state capitol of Jackson. Johnston was in communication with the garrisons there and at nearby Vicksburg. These consisted of one skeleton brigade of infantry and the heavy artillery at Vicksburg. While useful in a siege environment, these would not address his army’s lack of numbers making them seeming unable to fight a stand-up battle. Holing up in Vicksburg was an option, but the only defensive line that had so far been planned (with construction not even having started) was a long one that would require double Johnston’s strength to hold.
Against the advice of many of his subordinates, Johnston decided that Vicksburg must be evacuated while there was still time to get its artillery and supplies out. He issued the order on October 18th. Over the next two days, the biggest guns were variously brought via train to Jackson and then sent south, while all supplies that could be sent via wagons were. Some quantity was also floated down the Mississippi river. Two artillery pieces could not be physically gotten out, so were spiked and the barrels dumped into the river. A few other supplies were also destroyed, but the large majority was evacuated safely.
As for the army, Johnston got his men past Jackson and into a new camp around Gallatin by the end of the month. About 12,000 bone-weary men tramped in after him and, finally, had a chance to rest and recuperate. 3,000 stragglers found their way to the camp over the next week. Outposts throughout central Mississippi began trickling in too, and reinforcements from other theatres began arriving as well.
Having been given both Vicksburg and Jackson, the Federals were not about to pursue further immediately. Their march south lasted for hundreds of miles, and while Rosecrans’ and Wallace’s columns remained well organized and well supplied thanks to the bounty of fresh-picked corn from surrounding farms, their men were exhausted as well. The two towns, plus much of the state of Mississippi, were more than enough prize for now.
But on October 22nd, as the Union high command reported their capture of Vicksburg back to a delighted nation, and Smith began organizing garrisons in all the newly claimed territory, the fight for the Mississippi valley was not yet done. Unable to prevent Johnston from having time, finally, to regroup, his army was still a force in being, and likely to be restrengthened in the future. On the river itself, Van Dorn’s seemingly forlorn site at Port Hudson was now the last Confederate bastion overlooking the Mississippi. All of Vicksburg’s heavy artillery was forwarded there, where it effectively closed the waterway to civilian traffic and could punishingly fire down onto any warships attempting to force the position. Johnston was unwilling to retreat any further without cause, and his position near Gallatin would have to be forced before any attempt could even be made at Port Hudson. Meanwhile Confederate engineers began laying out more reasonable defensive lines around the river site should an army be forced to retreat into it.
The “mini” Gibraltar of the West, Port Hudson, would remain unconquered for far longer than the Union surely hoped for as their incredibly successful October came to a close.
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Timeline C: Autumn, 1862
……other defenses stopped the Federals before they ever got close to Vicksburg.
Let’s back up a bit. After sending most of his army to reinforce Beauregard for his invasion of Kentucky, Albert Sydney Johnston was left in and around Crump’s landing with the 17,000 men of Hardee’s corps plus a few scattered outposts. He also commanded Van Dorn’s army based in Vicksburg of about the same strength. No longer available was the Missourian division of Sterling Price now sent back across the great river. Opposing him was an equally scattered Union force commanded by William Rosecrans. Earlier in the summer this amounted to only 35,000 men, but when Buell pulled his force back from Savannah to fight in the Kentucky campaign, he had left another two divisions behind as reinforcements for Rosecrans. The Union commander thus had about 48,000 men available and would surely take the initiative soon.
Rosecrans’ problems, however, were numerous. Much of his army consisted of troops who had never fought in a major battle. They were largely well-trained, but over a third of his men had spent the entire war in a garrison somewhere. Indeed, even now that is where Rosecrans had to keep a large portion of his army, guarding against Rebel partisans and cavalry raids. By autumn, after several months of occupation, and a mix of fair treatment towards civilians and harsh reprisals towards partisans, Rosecrans was beginning to bring a measure of stability to western Tennessee.
Another big problem for Rosecrans was his lack of cavalry. Ceaseless effort on his part managed to increase his mounted arm’s strength but slowly, hampering reconnaissance efforts against the Confederate positions. For example, while Rosecrans knew early that Johnston had weakened his forces to support Beauregard, it was not until specific Confederate units were reported in Kentucky that he knew, by a logical process of elimination, how few men Johnston had remaining in western Tennessee. It was thus only by September that Rosecrans seriously began preparing for a forward movement.
His biggest problem, however, was picking a location to target. Oh, he had enough supplies accumulated to march into the region at will and pick a fight, but beating Johnston in the field would only bring so much material benefit, if he would just then retreat to a stronghold. The city of Memphis, with its population and industry, would be a blow to the Rebels to capture, as would the rail junction at Corinth. These positions, however, were blocked by Confederate positions at Fort Pillow and Crump’s landing respectively. The landing was just a large Confederate encampment, haunted only by the ghosts of Federal troops lost at Shiloh.
Fort Pillow deserves a longer mention however. Sited on the First Chickasaw Bluff overlooking the Mississippi river many miles north of Memphis, its location was first picked by then-colonel Patrick Cleburne in May of 1861. His small fortification was greatly expanded upon by the command of Gideon Pillow. Construction was finished very early in 1862. Pillow’s plan called for three lines of land fortifications to protect the fort, the longest line two miles long designed to be held by 15,000 men and stretching from Cold Creek to the Mississippi River. Confederate engineers examined the position in March and determined that many cannons, in addition to 15,000 infantrymen, would be needed to hold the line, and that neither it nor any shorter line would allow a severely outnumbered garrison to hold safely. The intermediate line might allow 5,000 men to hold the fort but much artillery would still be needed.
Despite all of this, the position was the best in the region for dominating the Mississippi River itself, so investments in the land defenses were made. Slowly but steadily through the spring and summer of 1862 the defenses at Fort Pillow were made more and more imposing. Both the intermediate and outer lines received parapets and moats. The trenches, originally made too deep for men to fire from without half-climbing out and exposing themselves, were made shallower and head-logs were added to protect men standing up while still letting them fire. Trees were cut down even farther out from the trenches than they were originally, crucially including clearing a series of knolls and ridges to the south of the fort that were on equally high ground as it.
On September 26th Johnston visited the fort to examine its defenses and confer with its garrison commander, and was surprised at the imposing nature of the position. Few high commanders had visited the fort, letting engineers and local commanders handle the site’s improvements and directing things via telegram. Devoting a full day to touring the position, Johnston was impressed enough to seriously consider it as a part of his defensive line, not wanting to repeat the mistake he had made with Fort Donelson of leaving an isolated garrison hanging. To do this, however, he would need more men than he had in just Hardee’s corps. He would need to recall Van Dorn from his expedition along the lower Mississippi.
Van Dorn, given another independent command after his failure at Elkhorn Tavern, was trying to do better on his second attempt. His main effort was a strike to capture a Union garrison at Baton Rouge. Working with the ironclad ram CSS Arkansas, Van Dorn’s army arrived outside the city on August 19th. The Union troops were fairly well trained but had not fought in a big battle before this. They were also backed up by a substantial fleet. Numerically Van Dorn had brought his entire mobile force with him and had quite superior numbers.
With these forces he pushed the Union troops out of their prepared positions back towards the river. The Arkansas damaged several Union ships, but proved hard to maneuver and control in the Mississippi’s currents. Enough fire from the Federal fleet gave cover for the garrison, so that even with them ultimately forced back all the way to the river, they were mostly able to escape via transport ships. Van Dorn inflicted a few hundred casualties and captured some prisoners. However, the city itself was largely indefensible against any major Union counterattack, lying low along the waterline and the Arkansas’ engines making her very unreliable. Van Dorn inventoried what captured Union supplies he could, and left a token garrison in the town for show, but ultimately retired. Along the way back to Vicksburg, Van Dorn also established another garrison at Port Hudson, planning to use the much more favorable terrain here to hold against any major Union effort coming out of New Orleans.
Early in September, Johnston urgently ordered Van Dorn to march northward and join him in western Tennessee. Signs were rapidly growing that Rosecrans was going to finally launch an attack southward. Johnston ordered some of his smaller garrisons to be withdrawn or combined into larger garrisons. Defenses around Corinth and Bolivar were beefed up or refurbished, and additional troops were forwarded to Fort Pillow. Cavalry patrols were increased, and raids were unleashed to discern the path of Rosecrans’ advance.
Rosecrans, for his part, had been fending off increasingly strident calls from Washington to launch his campaign. He had been delaying to build up, train, and arm his forces, especially cavalry. He worked hard to make sure as many of his troops as possible had ‘modern’ rifled weapons (still a challenge for all armies, north and south, that weren’t based in Virginia), and assembled other supplies in bases along the Mississippi and Tennessee rivers. As autumn approached, and Buell added two divisions to Rosecrans’ forces before leaving for Kentucky, Rosecrans felt just about ready to initiate his moves. However, he did not appreciate the continued interference from Washington politicians, and a rift began to grow in particular between him and Secretary of War Stanton.
Union reconnaissance had been significant but not perfect. He knew of the concentration of Rebel forces, particularly at Corinth and Bolivar. He also knew that the position at Fort Pillow had been strengthened. However, he was unaware that when Van Dorn was recalled, the large majority of his troops, with him in command, took up position at Fort Pillow, with 15,000 men fully manning its main defensive line. Rosecrans thought that these reinforcements were instead joining with Hardee’s corps spread between the other two sites.
The Union’s plan, based, on this information, called for the main army to march south along the roads of west Tennessee. From an advanced base in Trenton, near where the Mobile and Ohio railroad met with the Memphis and Ohio, Rosecrans would march south through Jackson and on towards Bolivar. If opposed in the field on this march, Rosecrans figured his army of about 35,000 to have a sizeable numerical advantage, so he would fight and win a major battle freeing western Tennessee. If the Rebels instead concentrated at Bolivar against him, Rosecrans would feint against the town before turning west towards an under-defended Fort Pillow. He would send another 5,000 troops via river transport to join him and overwhelm the Fort’s defenders, thus opening the Mississippi down to at least Memphis. If Johnston chose to neither face Rosecrans in the field nor behind Bolivar’s defenses, Rosecrans would overwhelm the small garrison there, make that town his new advanced base, and instead march towards Corinth to force a battle there instead.
Based on the information available, Rosecrans had crafted a good plan involving a mix of strategic maneuver and advantageous fighting. He gathered his forces around Trenton early in September, and on the 14th began marching southward. Slowed by cavalry all the way, Rosecrans forced his army forward at a regulated pace, maintaining the strength of his men while not allowing mere skirmishes to slow his progress. Other than a full day’s delay crossing Middle Creek, Rosecrans reached Jackson without incident on the 17th. He then turned slightly southwest following the roads to Bolivar.
Johnston’s cavalry reported this move, and he quickly shifted the bulk of Hardee’s corps from camps midway between Bolivar and Corinth towards the former town. Rosecrans’ lead elements appeared outside of Bolivar on the 19th, and skirmishing went on throughout the 20th. The actual numbers were slightly better than two to one in Rosecrans’ favor had he chosen to fight for Bolivar, but the Confederates were behind some well laid-out fortifications.
Instead, Rosecrans stuck to his plan. He left one division commanded by David Stanley, plus a few detached regiments from other commands, to demonstrate against Bolivar. With the bulk of his forces, about 27,000 men, he then countermarched north a few miles before turning west on roads towards Brownsville and on towards the great river and Fort Pillow.
Johnston and Hardee were at first deceived by Rosecrans’ decoy. Fighting on the 21st they were very pleased to hold off Union attacks that were pressed less firmly than they might have been. But by the 22nd, Confederate cavalry and partisans reported the movement of Rosecrans’ main column. Rosecrans was within a day’s march of Fort Pillow and far ahead of any immediate relief efforts the Confederates could send. Johnston sent orders to Van Dorn to hold on at all hazards, and if the position should look to be overrun to breakout with as many men as possible. Meanwhile he would try to destroy Stanley’s force and fall upon Rosecrans from the rear, but Van Dorn *must* hold on for a little while.
Van Dorn had his own scouts out and was aware of Rosecrans’ approach. He sent out a few regiments to delay the Federals, forcing them out of route column whenever possible, and greatly delayed Rosecrans’ investiture of the Fort. The Union did not have a solid line established around Fort Pillow until evening of the 24th. Once their line extended north of the fort to the Mississippi river, Rosecrans’ 5,000 reinforcements were able to disembark. The Union gunboats, operating well with the army, shelled the Fort from a distance but did little damage. It would be down to Rosecrans’ now 32,000-strong army to either storm the landward defenses, or starve the defenders into submission.
The latter would not be an option at this time. Partly this was because, as a long-established supply depot, Van Dorn had filling if uninspiring food supplies to last for a month, while access to Cold Creek gave them water. But the main reason was that Johnston, with the bulk of Hardee’s corps, had become a column of relief and was coming to Van Dorn’s aid.
Johnston had alternative routes available with which to march to Fort Pillow, but Stanley blocked the by-far most direct route, and Johnston did not want to leave a sizeable Union force in his rear. Thus, on September 23rd, Johnston’s men came out of their defenses at Bolivar and attacked Stanley’s holding force. Despite being only a decoy, Stanley had 8,000 men with him, enough while fighting on the defensive to put up a good fight against anything less than Hardee’s whole corps. He kept up his part of the plan well, shuffling men along his defensive line, and fighting off the Confederate’s half-hearted attacks on the 23rd. But on the 24th Johnston put in the whole of Hardee’s corps, Cheatham’s Tennessee division leading the attack, and by sheer force of numbers Stanley’s line was overwhelmed.
Stanley was able to make a fighting withdrawal and avoid a full rout, but most of a brigade was sacrificed for the purpose. 1500 Confederate and 2000 Union troops were lost in the Battles of Bolivar, and the net result was that Johnston had an open road to march towards Fort Pillow. He left behind some cavalry to demonstrate against Stanley and ensure that he continued his withdrawal towards Jackson. Meanwhile, Johnston could arrive outside of Fort Pillow within two days. Rosecrans had that long to either storm the defenses, withdraw, or split his forces to maintain a siege while holding Johnston away from the fort.
Rosecrans elected to at least try to take Van Dorn’s position by attack. Having scouted the defensive line, he sent his men forward at dawn on September 25th. His main push came from the south. Union artillery was well emplaced on an irregular set of hills, some of which were at equal elevation to the Confederate defensive lines and could fire on them to good effect. Union infantry, however, took heavy casualties descending and then climbing out of the ravine in front of the Rebel trenches. Despite this, Union attackers reached the defensive line in multiple places, and even took a small section of the entrenchments. Van Dorn shuffled reserve units to the threatened sections, and over the course of the morning’s fighting forced the attackers back, but it had come close.
Meanwhile, a secondary effort was launched from the northeast spearheaded by McClernand’s division. Here the terrain was comparatively smoother, but the Confederate defensive line just as strong. McClernand’s men suffered immensely, but a few brave regiments hung on to a position about thirty yards away from the abatis, sheltered by a slight roll in the ground. McClernand greatly exaggerated this in a message to Rosecrans, describing his assault as successful and calling for reinforcements. Occupied with the southern attack, Rosecrans took McClernand’s message at face value and ordered another wave of men in to support his attack. The supporting wave enjoyed no more success than the first had, taking heavy casualties and not even reaching the advanced position. By early afternoon that section of field was carpeted in Union dead and wounded, with nothing to show for it.
Rosecrans had suffered almost 4,000 casualties in the morning’s assaults, double Van Dorn’s losses, with the large majority coming from McClernand’s folly. Rosecrans was incensed when he looked over that part of the field himself and saw the politician’s mendacity. The two men had a poisoned relationship from that day onward. Rosecrans tried to have McClernand removed from command, but his political connections saved his position for the time being.
Upon hearing of Johnston’s approach, Rosecrans also decided that, while he might have the numbers to both hold a siege line and stave of the Confederates in his rear, it would be risky. He feared suffered another battlefield reverse in such a short time, and preferred to have his men rest and recuperate before making another attempt at either the Fort or facing Johnston in the field.
Rosecrans pulled his army away from Fort Pillow on September 25th. It took some maneuvering and skirmishing to get around Johnston’s field force, but Rosecrans had far superior numbers against him in the field. At the Battle (read: ‘Skirmish’) of Ripley, Rosecrans got a small measure of revenge by savaging an isolated Confederate brigade, and otherwise forcing Johnston to get off of the main roads and let Rosecrans dictate his own movements.
These movements found the Union army encamped, by the end of September, in the small town of Cherryville, along the Memphis and Ohio railroad and on the north bank of Forked Deer River (south fork). From there they were within easy march along good roads to both Trenton back north and Jackson to the east. The campaign could be resumed at Rosecrans’ leisure, either going again for Fort Pillow or making a more serious effort to take Bolivar and Corinth.
Johnston breathed a sigh of relief at holding onto all of his positions, and enjoyed some satisfaction at the heavier casualties he had inflicted on the Union forces. However, it took the recall of Van Dorn to make his force strong enough to accomplish this. Should Rosecrans be reinforced to any significant measure, the Confederates would be hard-pressed in the future.
However, one thing that was made clear was the strength of the defenses at Fort Pillow. Its strength against riverine assault was already an article of faith. Van Dorn had proved that, properly manned, the land defenses could also stand up to attack. And there was good reason to hold on to the position – the Fort’s fall would almost guarantee the loss of Memphis soon afterwards.
So as September rolled into October, Johnston began forwarding the heaviest armaments from Vicksburg northward, by land and river, to be installed at Fort Pillow. The ‘Gibraltar of the West’ would always be a fallback position, but it would remain untested for now. Fort Pillow became the left anchor of Johnston’s Tennessee defensive line, and as long as it stood strong, it allowed the Confederates to hold onto a large portion of that state against any future Union attack.
