A River Unvexed: A History and Tour Guide of the Campaign for the Mississippi River

By Jim Miles

The first comprehensive account of the entire campaign for the Mississippi River, beginning with the conquests of Memphis and New Orleans and concluding with Grant's strategies for the siege of Vicksburg. Included are driving tours of the battlefields and important sites.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cumberland House Publishing
• Release date: Oct 1, 1999
• ISBN: 9781620452035

Jim Miles

Jim Miles is author of seven books of the Civil War Explorer Series (Fields of Glory, To the Sea, Piercing the Heartland, Paths to Victory, A River Unvexed, Forged in Fire and The Storm Tide), as well as Civil War Sites in Georgia. Five books were featured by the History Book Club, and he has been historical adviser to several History Channel shows. He has written two different books titled Weird Georgia and seven books about Georgia ghosts: Civil War Ghosts of North Georgia, Civil War Ghosts of Atlanta, Civil War Ghosts of Central Georgia and Savannah, Haunted North Georgia, Haunted Central Georgia, Haunted South Georgia and Mysteries of Georgia's Military Bases: Ghosts, UFOs, and Bigfoot. He has a bachelor's degree in history and a master's of education degree from Georgia Southwestern State University in Americus. He taught high school American history for thirty-one years. Over a span of forty years, Jim has logged tens of thousands of miles exploring every nook and cranny in Georgia, as well as Civil War sites throughout the country. He lives in Warner Robins, Georgia, with his wife, Earline.

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The Upper River

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Map 2: From Paducah to Memphis.

CHAPTER 1

Opening Moves in the Contest for the Mississippi

The struggle for control of the Mississippi River began soon after Fort Sumter was bombarded. On April 24, 1861, Illinois Gov. Richard Yates sent state militia to seize Little Egypt, an area in the south of the state that included the town of Cairo, where the Illinois Central Railroad ended and the Mississippi and Ohio rivers converged. This region, situated farther south than Richmond, Virginia, was home to many Southern sympathizers.

When western governors met in Cleveland that spring, they requested that President Abraham Lincoln establish a special regional department and concentrate resources to secure the Mississippi.

Gen. -in-Chief and Brevet Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott was a lone voice early in the conflict with his prediction of a long struggle rather than the short war that most people expected. Early in May, Lincoln received from Scott what became popularly known as the Anaconda Plan, which was expected to squeeze the life out of the Confederacy much like the action of the South American reptile with its victims. It combined a blockade of the Southern coast to prevent imported materiel from reaching the rebellious states, with the holding of the Ohio River and an amphibious drive down the Mississippi to cut the Confederacy in half. Based on experience gained in the war with Mexico, Scott expected the Confederacy, which would be economically strangled by these maneuvers, to surrender without requiring costly, large-scale land combat in the interior of the South. If the Rebels did not capitulate, this plan would allow them to be defeated in detail.

The first version of Scott’s plan, submitted on May 1, would be initiated in early November. In the interval the North would train an army, build gunboats, and establish quartermaster depots. It would be a waterborne effort, with gunboats supporting the infantry and Confederate batteries and forts being flanked by water and land forces. Small garrisons would be left to protect important points; and after New Orleans was secured, the forts at the mouth of the Mississippi would be reduced and Scott’s force would be united with the blockading squadron in the Gulf of Mexico.

Scott was anxious to begin fighting his way down the Mississippi River. Believing that a fleet of ironclad warships was essential for this task, he requisitioned a million-dollar appropriation from Congress for that purpose.

Although the history of the campaign for the Mississippi River is usually traced from Columbus, Kentucky, the fate of an all-important portion of the river, bordered on the west by Missouri, was in serious doubt in the first months of the war. Missouri’s role in the Civil War is often ignored, but it was extremely important in the early days of the conflict. With 1.2 million residents, Missouri had a greater population than any Confederate state except Virginia. If she entered the war for the South, Kentucky might follow her lead. In Rebel hands, Missouri would block Union access to western Kentucky, imperil southern Illinois, and control a vital stretch of the Mississippi and the important junction with the Ohio River.

Sentiment for secession was much greater in Missouri than in Kentucky, but many of her citizens were practical. If slave owners supported the South, they could lose their slaves in the aftermath of a Union victory, and such a stand would imperil business opportunities with the North. There were also many German immigrants in the state who strongly opposed slavery.

Missouri’s governor, Claiborne Fox Jackson, openly supported secession and called for a convention to take the state out of the Union, but his plans were dashed when a Unionist majority was elected. Those delegates voted for Missouri to remain neutral in the conflict.

The Union General Who Owned Slaves e9781620452035_img_9632.gif Francis P. Blair

Francis Blair, whose brother Montgomery was Abraham Lincoln’s postmaster general and whose influential father, for whom he was named, offered Robert E. Lee command of Union armies, was born on February 19, 1821, in Lexington, Kentucky. He attended school in Washington, D.C., where he wrote for his father’s newspaper, the Globe, and graduated from Princeton University, then studied law at Transylvania University in Kentucky and settled in Missouri to enter practice with Montgomery in St. Louis in 1842. Blair enlisted in the army during the war with Mexico and served as attorney general of the New Mexico Territory. He served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, once as a Free-Soiler and then as a Republican; and although he owned servants, Blair fought the extension of slavery into the territories.

Blair worked tirelessly to prevent Secessionists from seizing control of Missouri, and he raised seven regiments for the Union. An early supporter of Lincoln, Blair left Congress with the rank of brigadier in August 1862 and made major general that November. He led a brigade, division, and corps during steady service at Chickasaw Bayou, Arkansas Post, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, the Atlanta campaign, and the March to the Sea. Although a military amateur, Blair was often commended by his good friends William Sherman and U. S. Grant.

Blair spent his entire fortune serving the Union, and at the end of the Civil War he was penniless. After a brief stint as a Mississippi cotton planter, he returned to politics but was forced to become a Democrat because of his opposition to the Radical Republicans and their demands for harsh treatment of the South. Two appointments to government positions by President Andrew Johnson were rejected by the Senate. Blair was Horatio Seymour’s vice presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket in 1868 that lost heavily to Republican slate led by U. S. Grant. He served briefly in the U.S. Senate before his death on July 8, 1875. He is buried in St. Louis’s Bellefontaine Cemetery. e9781620452035_img_9632.gif

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[NICOLAY AND HAY, ABRAHAM LINCOLN]

Dissatisfied with the idea of mere neutrality, Missouri Cong. Francis P. Blair demanded Federal troops to defend a large U.S. arsenal in St. Louis. In April Capt. James H. Stokes of Chicago removed 10,000 muskets and munitions to Illinois. In May Blair pieced together a 7, 000-man Home Guards unit to counter the Missouri State Militia, which was dominated by Secessionists. When 700 militiamen camped outside St. Louis, Blair was convinced they were plotting to seize the arsenal. Disguised as a woman, Blair toured the camp and satisfied himself that conquest was indeed their intention. Returning with the Home Guards, commanded by Capt. Nathaniel Lyon, on May 10 Blair surrounded the militia, which immediately capitulated.

Parading the captives through the city turned out to be a mistake. Many of the guards were Germans, who were distrusted and hated by the Secessionist residents. Rowdy crowds began throwing rocks, and the guards responded with rifle fire. The resultant riot lasted several days and caused the deaths of 40 civilians, but this unfortunate affair developed into an unexpected victory for Blair and the North. Frightened by the armed immigrants, 3,000 Secessionists fled St. Louis, thereby ensuring the city’s loyalty to the Union.

Flushed with success, Blair occupied the state capital, Jefferson City, on June 17. In a series of skirmishes, he drove Governor Jackson and his militia commander, Brig. Gen. Sterling Price, into Missouri’s interior. A new state government was formed, with Hamilton Gamble as its Unionist governor. In a battle at Carthage in early July, Southern forces stopped a Union advance led by Brig. Gen. Franz Sigel. Price then combined his troops with Brig. Gen. Benjamin McCulloch’s Confederates and marched against now Brig. Gen. Lyon. At Wilson’s Creek on August 10, 16,000 Rebels defeated Lyon’s 6, 000 Yankees, killing Lyon and forcing a Union retreat.

On July 25 Lincoln had dispatched Maj. Gen. John C. Frémont, a hero of the American West and the Republican party’s first presidential candidate, who had many connections in Missouri, to command the region and keep the state in the Union. Frémont, who believed that whoever possessed the Mississippi River held the country by the heart, set about organizing a large army with which he planned to sweep down the river, protected by a fleet of gunboats.

It soon became obvious that Frémont had lost touch with reality. Ensconced in a three-story mansion in St. Louis that served as his headquarters, he surrounded himself with a personal bodyguard of 300 unusually tall and broad soldiers. Frémont organized a festive assembly of foreign advisers, men seemingly assembled from every principality in Europe who sported colorful uniforms replete with feathers and gold braid. He bestowed exotic titles on these officers that would perhaps have been more recognizable in Liechtenstein than in St. Louis. One congressman called the gaggle "a gang of robber scoundrels, and an officer said it would have been easier to obtain an audience with the Russian czar than with Frémont.

U. S. Grant described Frémont’s mental condition accurately with this account: He sat in a full uniform with his maps before him. When you went in he would point out one line or another in a mysterious manner. . . . You left without the least idea of what he meant or what he wanted you to do.

Before he could descend the Mississippi, Frémont had to secure Missouri. He declared martial law in the state, decided that men in revolt should be summarily executed, and took it upon himself to end slavery Lincoln and the Congress feared that these drastic decrees would lead loyal slave owners and many Missouri fence sitters to support the Confederacy. The president politely asked Frémont to rescind the slave decree; but when the general refused, Lincoln made it an order.

While this comic opera was being played out, Lyon was defeated and Sterling Price was rampaging in northern Missouri without effective opposition from Frémont. With a force of 10,000, he surrounded 4,000 Federals at Lexington, who surrendered after a nine-day siege in mid-September. The North was shocked, and Frémont was blamed for the debacle. He reacted to the criticism by arresting a newspaper editor in St. Louis. To redeem his tarnished honor, Frémont led 50,000 men to reoccupy Lexington, but he arrived after Price had departed. Throughout October Frémont ineffectively continued to chase Price.

In addition to Frémont’s military ineptitude, there were rumors of widespread graft in his department. After extensive consultations with his cabinet, Lincoln concluded that Frémont had been deluded by wicked, designing men and that he had absolutely no military capacity. On October 24 he sent orders relieving Frémont via Maj. Gen. David Hunter. Although Frémont had closed his camp to prevent the expected orders from being served, Hunter met with him on November 2.

The people of Kentucky had voted Unionist in several recent elections, but they also desired to remain neutral in this North-South conflict. The geography of their state made this impossible. Confederate and Federal forces desperately wanted to occupy several strategic positions in the state: Columbus, which commanded the Mississippi from a high bluff; Paducah, at the confluence of the Ohio and Tennessee; and Smithland, where the Cumberland flows into the Ohio. Both sides delayed action because of concern that any incursion would propel Kentucky into their opponent’s camp.

Old Pap e9781620452035_img_9632.gif Sterling Price

Born in Virginia on September 20, 1809, Sterling Price attended Hampden-Sydney College, then studied law. Moving to Missouri in 1831, he was a farmer/lawyer who spent six years in the state legislature and one term in the U.S. House of Representatives before resigning to fight in the Mexican War. Price rose to brigadier general, became the military governor of the New Mexico Territory, and won the governorship of Missouri in the mid-1850s.

Price opposed slavery and met with Francis P. Blair and Nathaniel Lyon in May 1861 in an effort to avert hostilities in Missouri. Feeling that conflict was inevitable, he sided with the Secessionists. Price commanded the Missouri Militia; with Ben McCulloch he defeated Lyon at Wilson’s Creek, then captured 4,000 Federals at Lexington. He cooperated with McCulloch under the direction of Earl Van Dorn, but they lost the battle of Pea Ridge. Entering Confederate service as a major general, Price was transferred east of the Mississippi but did not arrive in time for Shiloh. He participated in the Corinth campaign under P. G. T. Beauregard, captured a huge supply depot at luka, and was forced to join with Van Dorn again for the failed strike at Corinth in the fall of 1862. Price commanded a corps under Van Dorn and John Pemberton in opposing U. S. Grant’s overland campaign, then was sent back to the Trans-Mississippi.

Price’s offensive against Helena on July 4,1863, was bloodily repulsed. In command of the Department of Arkansas, he was forced to give up Little Rock, but in 1864 he helped stop Frederick Steele’s invasion of Arkansas at Camden. Placed in charge of cavalry, Price threw the Federal West into an uproar with a raid into Missouri that fall.

When the war ended, Price fled to Mexico, returning home in 1866. He died penniless on September 29, 1868, and is buried in St. Louis’s Bellefontaine Cemetery. e9781620452035_img_9632.gif

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[NICOLAY AND HAY, ABRAHAM LINCOLN]

After surrendering Fort Sumter and returning to the North a hero, Brig. Gen. Robert Anderson was sent on May 28 to control his native Kentucky for the Union. Poor health resulted in his replacement by William T. Sherman, his second in command, on October 8. Sherman was relieved on November 9 for fearing invasion from every quarter and declaring that 200,000 troops would be required to conquer the Mississippi Valley.

At the same time that Frémont and Sherman were being relieved of duty, Winfield Scott tendered his resignation, citing infirmities of age and conflicts with younger, aggressively ambitious generals. Lincoln filled his position with Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan.

The Pathfinder e9781620452035_img_9632.gif John Charles Frémont

Born in Savannah, Georgia, on January 21, 1813, the daring but temperamental John C. Frémont was expelled from Charleston College in 1831, then taught math aboard the sloop of war Natchez. He developed important connections and wrangled an appointment to the army topographical engineers, an unusual assignment for someone not educated at West Point, and moved his career inland. Frémont met the daughter of powerful Sen. Thomas Hart, Jessie, a noted writer, and married her in 1841 against her father’s wishes. Frémont is best known for leading scouting expeditions through the American West, which led to his nickname, the Pathfinder, and for his role in seizing California at the outbreak of the war with Mexico. He clashed with Stephen W. Kearney, who arrived from Washington, D.C., to organize a local government, and was court-martialed for mutiny and insubordination. Frémont resigned in March 1848 rather than suffer the disgrace of being dismissed.

Upon his return to civilian life, gold was discovered on Frémont’s property in California, and he became a wealthy man. Turning to politics, he served as California’s first senator and in 1856 was the Republican party’s first presidential candidate. His showing was respectable, losing the popular vote 1.4 million to James Buchanan’s 1.9 million. His electoral vote was 114 to 174.

When the Civil War erupted, Abraham Lincoln appointed Frémont a major general in May 1861, more for political reasons than for any military aptitude. He commanded the Department of the West with headquarters in St. Louis. Frémont disturbed the administration by declaring martial law in his district and abolishing slavery. He refused to revoke those policies until Lincoln ordered it. In a ridiculous display, his wife traveled to Washington, D.C., demanded an audience with Lincoln, and angrily denounced his treatment of her husband. Frémont had improperly spent a great deal of money in his department, and he was accused of not supporting his generals in the field, which led to defeat at Wilson’s Creek and an embarrassing surrender of 4,000 men at Lexington. U. S. Grant frankly thought he had taken leave of his senses. When Lincoln replaced him, Frémont closed his camp; it was only through subterfuge that the orders were delivered.

Given a second chance in the Shenandoah Valley, Frémont was destroyed by Stonewall Jackson at Cross Keys in the spring of 1862. He then refused to command a corps underJohn Pope, a former subordinate whom he despised; and he resigned in 1864 when nominated for the presidency by a collection of War Democrats, Radical Repubticans, and Missouri’s German population, a move meant to embarrass Lincoln. A deal was apparently struck with the president, for the conservative postmaster general, Montgomery Blair, was removed and Fremont quit the race, explaining publicly that his candidacy would probably have allowed George B. McClellan to win the election.

Following the war, Fremont lost his fortune through bad investments and subsisted on his gifted wife’s income. He was territorial governor of Arizona between 1878 and 1887 and died in New York City on July 13, 1890, where he is buried in Rockland Cemetery. e9781620452035_img_9632.gif

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[LESLIE’S ILLUSTRATED]

McClellan moved quickly to reorganize the troublesome West. The Department of the Missouri, including Missouri, Arkansas, and Kentucky west of the Cumberland River, was offered to Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck on November 19, and the rest of Kentucky and Tennessee was given to Don Carlos Buell on November 15. McClellan created an immediate problem by granting the two men, each of whom desired command of the entire region, equal authority, subordinate only to him, thus ruling out any cooperation in the West. The generals were to hold Missouri and Kentucky, while Halleck concentrated on the Mississippi River and Buell attempted to win East Tennessee, one of the president’s pet projects. Buell, from Louisville, wanted to drive down the railroad through Bowling Green to Nashville, while Halleck, headquartered in St. Louis, followed the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers to the same objective. Halleck, however, declared that the movement cannot be done.

While the army was experiencing considerable trouble in getting itself organized in the West, the navy was taking decisive action that laid the foundation for its part in this vast undertaking.

Saving the U.S. Arsenal in St. Louis

U.S. arsenals that were seized in the seceded Southern states provided numerous arms for the new Confederate military forces. A convention in Missouri had rejected secession, but the arsenal in St. Louis containing 60,000 weapons and large quantities of munitions and other equipment was thought to be in grave danger of capture by pro-Southern troops. Secessionists surrounded the building, and batteries had been established on the Mississippi River levee upstream and downstream from the arsenal.

During the spring of 1861, Secretary of War Simon Cameron authorized Illinois Gov. Richard Yates to draw 10,000 rifles from the St. Louis arsenal to arm his new recruits. When Capt. James H. Stokes traveled to Missouri to secure the weapons, he encountered an immense mob of what Capt. Nathaniel Lyon estimated to be 1,000 spies. Lyon doubted that the muskets could be removed without the action being observed, and then Secessionist militia would emplace guns on high ground that commanded the arsenal, but he agreed that the materiel had to be moved now or it would fall into Rebel hands.

On April 25 the Federals learned that Missouri’s governor, who sided with the Confederacy, had sent for 2,000 of his soldiers to travel from Jefferson City to besiege the arsenal. Stokes immediately telegraphed Alton for the steamer City of Alton to arrive at the arsenal landing around midnight. While awaiting the riverboat, 700 soldiers began preparing boxes of muskets, which weighed 300 pounds each, for transfer.

To occupy the Southern sympathizers, Lyon had 500 ancient flintlock muskets, which had been sent to the arsenal for conversion to percussion cap use, openly loaded aboard another steamer. Most of the men surrounding the arsenal stormed aboard that ship and seized the weapons, then began a wild celebration of their success. Those who remained outside the facility were rounded up and locked in the guardhouse.

When the Alton arrived at 11:00 P.M., the 10,000 rifles were quickly loaded aboard; boxes were slid down planks from windows to the deck of the boat. Stokes then urged Lyon to transfer all the equipment in the arsenal, as this might be his final opportunity. Lyon consented, and another 10,000 rifles, 500 new carbines, 500 revolvers, 110,000 musket rounds, several cannon, and other materiel were loaded. All that remained were 7,000 rifles that would arm the loyal militia Lyon was organizing in St. Louis.

The Alton cast off at 2:00 A.M., but it would not budge an inch. Many boxes of weapons had been piled around the engines to protect them against the Southern batteries, but they placed such a great weight upon the bow that the transport was grounded on a rock. Workers quickly shifted 200 boxes to the stern, which allowed the boat to float free. The only remaining obstacle was one Southern battery.

What if we are attacked? the captain of the vessel inquired.

Then we will fight, replied Stokes.

What if we are overpowered? the captain persisted.

Run her to the deepest part of the river and sink her, was the answer.

I will do it,the captain promised, but there was no need for such drastic action.

The transport reached the levee at Alton at five in the morning, but Stokes still feared that the Secessionists would follow and confiscate the arms at the dock. He rang the fire bell frantically, attracting the citizens. After hearing Stokess explanation of the emergency, men, women, and children wrestled the cargo up the levee to the railroad and loaded it aboard cars, which were soon off to safety in Springfield. e9781620452035_img_9632.gif

Comdr. John Rodgers was first placed in charge of the western naval effort. His orders were to blockade the rivers and cooperate with army operations. Rodgers’s initial problem was a lack of trained sailors and officers, who shunned inland duty for the glory of salt water work on the blockaders that soon were cruising the Confederate coast. In the beginning, at least, his crews would be made up of sailors and soldiers commanded by navy officers.

The Man Responsible for the Mississippi Squadron e9781620452035_img_9632.gif John Rodgers

Born in Maryland in 1812, John Rodgers joined the navy in 1828. He served in the Pacific and was commander of the Flag when the Civil War started. Sent to command on western waters on May 16, 1861, he lasted only until August 26, when John Frémont engineered his removal. During those few months Rodgers commissioned the first three Union gunboats in the West, the timberclads Tyler, Lexington, and Conestoga, and initiated the building of the seven Eads ironclads.

Transferred east, Rodgers had a distinguished Civil War career. He was an aide to Samuel DuPont during the Port Royal, South Carolina, expedition in late 1861, then commanded the ironclads Galena and Weehawken. On the latter he quickly battered and captured the Confederate ironclad Atlanta. After the Weehawken was sunk by a torpedo at Charleston, Rodgers was given command of the monster ironclad Dictator. He made rear admiral after the war and died in 1881. e9781620452035_img_9632.gif

To begin his efforts, Rodgers bought three flat-bottomed passenger-freight sidewheel steamboats in Cincinnati, a total of 1,167 tons, for $62,000 in June 1861. An additional $41, 000 was spent converting them for military use. Their upper superstructures were removed, and boilers and machinery were lowered into the hold for protection against cannon shot. The frames and decks were strengthened with heavy timbers to support the extra weight of cannon, and high bulwarks of 5-inch-thick oak were built. Gunports were cut to house 8-inch and 32-pounder cannon, which gave bite to these ships. The gun crews were protected against rifle fire but remained vulnerable to artillery.

These boats, which gained early fame in western waters as the timberclads, were the Tyler (180 feet by 45 feet in dimensions, 575 tons in weight), capable of making 10 knots, and armed with six 8-inch Dahlgren smoothbores and one 32-pounder; the Lexington (177 feet by 36 feet in size, weighing 448 tons), with a speed of 7 knots, and mounting four 8-inchers and two 32-pounders; and the Conestoga, which despite her 572 tons was a swift ship capable of 14 knots against the current, and was equipped with four 32-pounders.

Although the Federal government would soon be glad to have the gunboats, Rodgers was rebuked for the expenditures, which had not been approved in advance. He faced additional problems finding crews and pilots, who could work on civilian ships for a great deal more money than the military could pay and with less hazardous duty. Low water delayed delivery, but the timberclads arrived at Cairo in late August.

Rodgers’s initial operation was the capture of riverboats involved in trading with the enemy. Some vessels boldly traveled between Confederate-occupied Memphis and Federal-controlled St. Louis. On August 22 the Lexington seized a Confederate steamer. On September 4 it attacked Rebel shore batteries and later in the month covered the Union seizures of Paducah and Smithland.

It was obvious that traditional navy vessels, with their deep draft and easily fouled propellers, could not navigate on the treacherous western waters. Flat-bottomed boats propelled by paddle wheels and plated with iron as Winfield Scott desired were necessary to seize and control these rivers.

The ships were soon designed by naval architects. The first plan, by John Lenthall, proposed boats 170 feet long and 28 feet in the beam, which would draw 9 feet of water. They would weigh 436 tons and carry four 8-inch guns. Those plans were extensively revised by Samuel M. Pook, who developed gunboats shaped like turtles (which popularized one nickname for the vessels, Pook’s Turtles). They would be wooden ships, broad in the beam, with a sloping, armored casemate covering a gundeck. The silhouette would be broken only by a single stern paddle-wheel box, an oversized pilot house, and two large smokestacks. The navy estimated it would need 12 to 20 of these gunboats to besiege the western streams. Scott had reported that in the region there were 400 steamships idled by the disruption in trade caused by the war. They constituted a ready-made fleet of troop and supply transports.

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The city-class ironclads under construction at Carondelet, near St. Louis. [BATTLES AND LEADERS]

The time required to produce these ships delayed the beginning of amphibious operations to secure the western rivers, which included not only the Mississippi but also the Tennessee and Cumberland and other important tributaries south of the Ohio River, such as the Arkansas, White, Yazoo, and Red, until early 1862.

Bids were let across the Midwest, Great Lakes, and East, but James B. Eads of St. Louis, a rich, self-educated civil engineer who had designed and built a series of Mississippi River salvage boats and may have been the foremost expert on the river, had important government connections that ensured he received the lucrative job. Immediately following Fort Sumter, Eads was summoned to Washington by his friend Atty. Gen. Edward Bates to meet Navy Sec. Gideon Welles and Capt. Gustavus V Fox, soon to be Welles’s assistant secretary The contracts were let on April 29 and opened on August 5. Eads, who bid the best price ($89,600 each) and time for completion (by October 10—in just 65 days), promised to complete seven ironclads, which would be named for river cities: St. Louis (later to be the Baron De Kalb), Carondelet, Cairo, Pittsburg[h], Cincinnati, Mound City, and Louisville. The contract stipulated that Eads would forfeit money for each day the ships were late in being delivered, a rare provision.

The gunboats (175 feet long, 51.5 feet in the beam, and 512 tons in weight) were flat bottomed and drew only 6 feet of water. Atop the deck was an 8-foot-high casemate measuring 150 feet by 50 feet, with a 45-degree slope on the bow and stern and 35 degrees on the sides. Two and one-half inches of rolled iron—75 tons per ship (with another 47 tons added later to remedy deficiencies discovered in battle)-protected the bow and sides abreast of the engine compartment, and an inadequate 1.5 inches covered the vulnerable wheelhouse, which made a tempting target with its 60-foot-long, 18-foot-high dimensions. Divided into 15 watertight compartments, the ships had twin chimneys 44 inches in diameter and 25 feet high and a set of five boilers, each 24 feet long, that provided steam power for two engines. The vessels, which were to make 9 knots downstream and 5 against the current, were powered by a single 22-foot-diameter stern paddle wheel protected by the rear casemate. Each ship would have a complement of 251 men. Officers had quarters aft, while crewmen stretched hammocks in the gundeck.

The Man Who Built the Turtles e9781620452035_img_9632.gif James Buchanan Eads

Born in Indiana in 1820, James Eads was the foremost expert on navigating the tricky western waters. His knowledge had been gained from removing treacherous snags from the river, and he had developed a series of snagboats and a diving bell for that purpose. When the Union needed ironclad gunboats to open the numerous rivers of the region, Eads won the contract and produced seven in record time. In 1862 they were instrumental in capturing Fort Henry, preventing the Confederates from evacuating Fort Donelson, allowing John Pope to trap the Confederates at Island Number 10, and helping destroy the Confederate ram fleet at Memphis. The gunboats supported U. S. Grant’s attempts to capture Vicksburg, escorting troop transports and supply ships and fighting at Arkansas Post, Fort Pemberton, Grand Gulf, and during the siege of Vicksburg. Several participated in the siege of Mobile in 1864 and 1865.

Eads continued to develop new ironclads that incorporated revolutionary concepts in armor and turrets. Some were successful; others were not. He worked on other river projects following the Civil War, concentrating on bridges. The Eads Bridge, spanning the Mississippi at St. Louis, stands today as a monument to his construction genius. Eads died in 1887 and is buried in St. Louis. e9781620452035_img_9632.gif

The boats were pierced for three bow gunports, four on the port and starboard, and two in the stern. They were armed with an assortment of 8-and 9-inch Dahlgren smoothbores, 10-inch smoothbores, 30-pounder Parrott rifles, 32-pounder smoothbores, and 42-, 50-, 64-, and 100-pounder rifles, for a total of 91 heavy guns, 13 on each vessel.

Eads set to work feverishly, subcontracting parts of the work across the entire region and keeping in touch with his suppliers via telegraph. C. B. Boynton later wrote that telegraph lines between St. Louis and Pittsburgh and Cincinnati were occupied frequently for hours in transmitting instructions.

Four ships were built at Carondelet near St. Louis, and the rest were laid down at Mound City, near Cairo. Machinery, including 35 boilers and 14 engines, was manufactured in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, and 13 sawmills in Kentucky, Ohio, and Illinois, employing 800 men, provided the white oak, procured from seven states, needed for the hulls. Six hundred tons of iron were rolled in Ohio and Kentucky to a thickness of 2.5 inches in sections 8 to 13 feet long and 13 inches wide. This armor was tested with Parrott rifles fired at close range. A fleet of barges delivered material to work sites. Within two weeks, 4, 000 men were laboring on some portion of the project, with work continuing night and day and on Sundays.

There were numerous delays and cost overruns during construction, due mainly to design changes and late government payments. Each ship ultimately cost $101,000. Eads exhausted his personal funds on the project, then borrowed from friends before the government completed payment the following year. The first boat off the ways, the St. Louis, was quickly followed by the others in December and January, and the fleet was commissioned on January 16, 1862. In a feat never before equaled in military contracts, Eads had delivered 5,000 tons of revolutionary vessels in 100 days.

On September 20 Frémont purchased a St. Louis ferryboat, the New Era, for $20,000. For $40,000 Eads converted it into a large armored vessel, the Essex, which mounted 5 to 12 guns. The 400-ton gunboat was 159 feet long and 47 feet in the beam and could make 5.5 knots with its center paddle wheel. It was originally converted into a timberclad, but 3 inches of iron were added to the casemate in December. The Essex had the advantage of a lower projecting pilot house, which rose to a height of only 3.5 feet. It carried a crew of 134.

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One of James Eads’s Turtle Ironclads, the Cincinnati (Baron De Kalb). [Battles AND LEADERS]

Before these ships were completed, Frémont gave Eads a contract to convert one of his snagboats (Submarine Number 7) into an ironclad at St. Louis. Named the Benton, it was the largest, most powerful ship in the western fleet. It was 202 feet long and 91 feet in the beam. Its catamaran design was planked over and strengthened into one continuous hull, and a sloping rectangular wooden casemate, plated with 3.5 inches of iron on the bow and sides and thinner plate on the stern and wheelhouse, was constructed. The Benton was armed with 16 guns, including seven 32-pounders, seven 42-pounders, and two 9-inchers. It weighed 633 tons and could make 5.5 knots. The ship, crewed by 164 men, frequently served as the flagship of the Mississippi fleet in 1862 and 1863.

These western vessels, captained by professional naval officers, had crews that were a curious combination of riverboat hands, eastern sea dogs, and Great Lakes sailors. Comdr. Henry Walke of the Carondelet wrote that there were just enough men-o’-war’s men to leaven the lump with naval discipline. Originally operated by the army but commanded by the navy, the ships were transferred to navy control on October 1, 1862.

The ships formed the backbone of the Union western fleet, which quickly and effectively cleared the Mississippi River of Confederate shipping. In short order they secured the navigable portions of the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers and penetrated downriver from Cairo to Vicksburg, Mississippi, where they would be invaluable in supporting army operations against that citadel. The ships were, in effect, mobile artillery platforms mounting the heaviest cannon in the theater.

By the end of 1861, the Federals could count 45 steamboats on the upper Mississippi, a total of 19,500 tons mounting 143 guns. Frémont had also ordered 38 smaller armored ships built to accommodate a single 17, 500-pound, 13-inch mortar for use in subduing Confederate fortifications.

Eads suggested Cairo, Illinois, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio, as a base for the Western Gunboat Flotilla, which was also known as the Mississippi Squadron. From this point the mouth of the Ohio could be defended, Confederate shipping could be interdicted, and preparations could be made for the descent of the Mississippi. Fort Defiance, defended by 30-pounders, was constructed at the point where the rivers converge.

In 1860 Cairo’s population was 2,200, but by September 1861 it had mushroomed to 8, 000, increased first with sailors idled by the war and then by soldiers training at Fort Defiance and Camp Smith—men from Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Both groups contributed to the establishment of a healthy red light district. Cairo soon earned a well-deserved reputation as a hell-raising town that kept the provost marshal busy. The soldiers came to loathe the locality, which was hot, humid, and ridden with disease. Pumps could not control the frequent flooding that turned the streets into a vast quagmire.

Fort Holt was a Union fort built on the Kentucky shore opposite Cairo to defend the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. [HARPER’S WEEKLY]

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A bustling navy yard was soon in operation, staffed with the largest concentration of shipwrights, carpenters, and mechanics to be found in the West. The work was carried out afloat, aboard a collection of wharfboats, old steamers, and flatboats. Most of the operation was moved a few miles up the Ohio to Mound City, where the government purchased ten acres of land that was usually inundated.

While the foundation for this formidable western fleet was being laid, Frémont engineered the relief of Rodgers. The official reason was that the vessels were not being produced quickly enough, but in reality Rodgers had gotton wind of the extensive financial irregularities in Frémont’s department. Twelve million dollars was spent, with little record of who received it. Rodgers was transferred to the blue-water navy, where he earned a solid reputation among the blockaders and captured the Confederate ironclad Atlanta while commanding the monitor Weehawken.

Rodgers’s replacement was Capt. Andrew Hull Foote, a religious man with 40 years’ naval service who was noted for preaching to his assembled crew on deck. His orders from Secretary Welles were to cooperate fully and freely with the army. Foote actively recruited seasoned naval veterans for his new command and assembled a scratch team of naval experts for construction and repair work at Cairo. Foote initially encountered problems in the West over his rank, which only equaled that of an army colonel. Every newly minted brigadier attempted to order this veteran seaman around. To remedy this unfortunate situation, Foote was made a flag officer. In the early engagements Foote would complement U. S. Grant’s tactics of striking quickly and aggressively. Eads thought that Foote, generally an agreeable fellow, turned savage and demonical in combat or when angered. He was blunt and resolute.

The Gunboat Commodore e9781620452035_img_9632.gif Andrew Hull Foote

Andrew Foote, born in New Haven, Connecticut, on September 12, 1806, briefly attended West Point before leaving to become a midshipman in 1822. He fought slavers, pirates, and the Chinese, where his courage was particularly noted when he led a party of sailors in a successful assault that captured fortifications defending Canton in the 1856 Arrow War. Foote was an evangelical Christian who preached to his assembled crews on deck, and he meticulously enforced American antislave-trading laws off Africa on the Perry. He wrote a book about the experience, Africa and the American Flag, in which he condemned slavery as a matured villainy of the world. Foote was also a prohibitionist, making the Cumberland the first dry ship in the U.S. Navy.

Foote was running the Brooklyn Naval Yard when the Civil War began. Given command of the Upper Mississippi River, he used the Eads ironclads to capture Fort Henry on the Tennessee River before U. S. Grant’s forces arrived. Steaming up the Cumberland River to Fort Donelson, his gunboats were badly repulsed, although their presence forced the Confederates to surrender rather than escape. During the battle, Foote suffered a painful foot wound that refused to heal. His aggressive cooperation with Grant secured the first Federal victories in the West.

The battering his lightly armored ironclads received in their first two encounters prompted Foote to be hesitant when encountering Confederate fortifications. He waited for Columbus to be evacuated, then initiated a desultory bombardment of Island Number 10, much to John Pope’s disgust. Henry Walke ran the Carondelet past Southern batteries and enabled Pope to capture the entire garrison. Foote had begun a similar bombardment of Fort Pillow when he requested relief for reasons of health.

Foote was voted the Thanks of Congress and promoted to rear admiral for his accomplishments along the Mississippi. He commanded a navy bureau for a year while convalescing, then received the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron despite his physical condition. Foote died in New York City while traveling to his new command on June 26,1863, a week before Vicksburg surrendered, a campaign which he helped initiate. e9781620452035_img_9632.gif

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[HARPER’S WEEKLY]

Predictable in the hurried construction of unique vessels, there were problems in these craft that had to be corrected. Two major deficiencies that were to plague the fleet for the duration of the war were poor speed, making it difficult to fight the current, and poor maneuverability. Another concern was the lack of armor, which only covered the engine area and the bow, because in combat the boats were expected to be facing enemy batteries.

When the Benton was completed, Foote asked Eads to bring it downstream. The river was falling rapidly when he started south in December, and the massive ironclad grounded hard 35 miles south of St. Louis. After an all-night struggle, the vessel was dragged off by the use of six 11-inch hawsers. One broke and whipped into the Benton’s skipper, Capt. John A. Winslow, cutting deeply into his arm. The accident ended Winslow’s inland naval career; but, after recovering, he was placed with the deep-water navy where, as commander of the Kearsarge, he sank the notorious Confederate raider Alabama in a famed duel off the coast of France. Taking delivery of the Benton, Foote commented, she is almost too slow, but concluded that the ship was plenty fast enough to fight with.

Leonidas K. Polk resigned his commission in the U.S. Army only six months after graduating from West Point to enter another calling: the ministry. He served the Episcopal church throughout the South and became a bishop. After the Civil War started, Polk visited his old friend, President Jefferson Davis, who had been a class behind him at the military academy, in Richmond in June 1861. He walked away with the rank of major general and command of Department Number 2, which included the Mississippi Valley, Arkansas, Missouri, and the western portions of Tennessee and Mississippi. On July 27, from his headquarters in Memphis, Polk dispatched Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow with 6, 000 men to seize New Madrid on the Missouri side of the Mississippi at the western border of Tennessee and Kentucky. Polk hoped that reinforcements would ultimately allow him to seize Columbus and Cape Girardeau, situated on a high bluff north of Columbus on the west bank of the Mississippi just 100 miles south of St. Louis. That position would give the Confederacy control of Cairo.

Polk had watched the situation in Kentucky deteriorate throughout the summer. Union gunboats seized Southern ships, and there were Northern incursions of Missouri. When a Federal force destroyed a ferryboat at Columbus, whose citizens had petitioned the Confederacy for help, and occupied Belmont, Missouri, directly across the river, Polk decided to move. Pillow had repeatedly urged the seizure of the lofty bluffs at Columbus, and Polk determined to act on that advice. He left Memphis for New Madrid, and on September 4 he authorized Pillow to march his 15, 000-man force north into Kentucky and seize Columbus, ending that state’s neutrality. Polk might have been prescient, for the Federals were preparing their own coup de main.

Frémont’s greatest accomplishment of the Civil War was placing U. S. Grant in command of Union troops then concentrating at Cairo. He thought Grant’s iron will and dogged persistence would make him an outstanding officer. The 39-year-old Grant, who had been forced to resign from the regular army seven years earlier, had experienced difficulty in finding a position. When the war started, he was in Galena, Illinois, where he organized a company of men. He took them to Springfield, where Gov. Richard Yates placed him in charge of state troops. Grant quickly produced order out of a chaotic situation but was unable to obtain a regular commission. He met with Nathaniel Lyon and Frank Blair, but they could offer no help; and McClellan, several years Grant’s junior, would not see him.

Grant finally accepted command of the mutinous 21st Illinois from Yates. With fair discipline, he tamed the regiment in a few days, then spent some time wandering across Missouri chasing phantom Confederate forces and elusive guerrillas. When Illinois received four brigadier general positions to fill, Yates and Rep. Elihu Washburne chose Grant for one slot. Frémont then called Grant to St. Louis from Jefferson City on August 8 to assign him a military district that included southern Illinois and southeastern Missouri.

The Incompetent Fighting Bishop e9781620452035_img_9632.gif Leonidas Lafayette Polk

Leonidas Polk was born into a prosperous North Carolina family in 1806. He had intended to follow a military career, but only six months after graduation from West Point in 1827, he resigned his commission to enter the ministry. He was soon an Episcopal priest and served throughout the Southwest, becoming the bishop of Louisiana in 1841. Polk’s duties brought him into contact with Jefferson Davis, who had been one year behind him at West Point, and the two men became fast friends.

When the Civil War started, Davis offered Polk the rank of major general and a post in the West, commanding Department Number 2, which stretched along the Mississippi River region from Paducah to the Red River. The bishop accepted the position, then concentrated all his resources to protect the Mississippi at Columbus, ignoring the possibility of being flanked via the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. He repulsed Grant’s attack at Belmont, but the fall of Forts Henry and Donelson required his withdrawal from Columbus. Polk fought in all the momentous battles of the Army of Mississippi (later the Army of Tennessee): Shiloh, Perryville, Stone’s River, Chickamauga, and the Atlanta campaign. While his courage was never questioned, his military aptitude was frequently disparaged. His inability to launch a coordinated attack at Stone’s River may have cost the Confederacy a complete victory. After his failure to attack at Chickamauga, Braxton Bragg threatened to dismiss Polk from command, but Davis’s patronage saved his career. Polk was dispatched to Mississippi during the siege of Chattanooga, but he returned to the Army of Tennessee in time for the Atlanta campaign.

In June 1864, while observing Union movements from Pine Mountain in the company of Joseph Johnston and William Hardee, Polk was fired upon when William Sherman took personal umbrage at their activity and ordered a battery to fire at the distant figures. The portly, dignified churchman refused to hasten to safety, and a shell passed through his chest, killing him instantly.

Polk remained buried in Augusta, Georgia, until 1945, when he was reinterred at Christ Church Cathedral in New Orleans. e9781620452035_img_9632.gif

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[ENGRAVING BY H. G. HALLS]

Fearing for the security of Missouri, Frémont had fortified St. Louis. Grant was to defend Cape Girardeau and Cairo against Confederate attack and prepare to seize Belmont, Columbus, or some other strategic place as soon as possible. Grant occupied Cape Girardeau on August 30 and arrived at Cairo on September 4. On the following day, a scout notified him that the Confederates had seized Columbus.

Alarmed by this development but relieved that Kentucky’s neutrality had been destroyed by enemy action, Grant telegraphed St. Louis to announce that he would steam for Paducah at the confluence of the Ohio and Tennessee rivers that night. He appropriated steamers at Cairo and had 2,000 troops aboard the improvised transports within hours. They departed at midnight and arrived at dawn of September 6, just in time, Grant believed. He was informed that 4, 000 Confederates marching from Columbus were only 10 to 15 miles away, and he reported that the residents, who were pale and frightened by the appearance of Union soldiers, were expecting Rebel troops that day. Grant picketed roads leading south, left two gunboats for support, and returned to Cairo, where approval for taking Paducah had arrived earlier that day. Frémont also authorized Grant to fortify the Kentucky shore opposite Cairo to solidify his hold on the important river junction, which he did, naming the facility Fort Holt. Reinforcements soon arrived from Cape Girardeau, and two days later Grant sent Brig. Gen. C. F. Smith up the Ohio to occupy Smithland at the mouth of the Cumberland.

These moves countered any Confederate gains at Columbus and threatened the Louisville & Nashville Railroad at Bowling Green. The Federals now controlled the entire course of the Ohio River, the northern border of Kentucky, the mouths of the Tennessee and Cumberland, and the Mississippi to Cairo, which secured St. Louis against a waterborne attack.

For several weeks Polk was forced to justify his order to seize Columbus to President Davis and other western officials. All were secretly glad of this development, however, as a withdrawal would have invited disaster; so Polk’s decision was sustained. The move also gave the Confederates an anchor for the western end of their defensive line, which stretched east through Bowling Green to Cumberland Gap.

The bold Confederate action spread panic among midwestern governors. Memphis, Vicksburg, and New Orleans seemed far away, but Columbus was a stone’s throw from Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. The officials even feared a Confederate invasion of the Midwest.

Because Polk had moved first, the Union was able to seize the high moral ground. While deploring this Confederate highhandedness, Federal forces quickly occupied Paducah and Smithland. On September 11 the Kentucky legislature demanded that the Confederates withdraw from Columbus, and one week later it passed an act to create a military force to throw the invaders out, but that was an empty gesture.

Polk spent the next six months fortifying Columbus to the point of invincibility. Confederates and Federals alike referred to the fortress as the Gibraltar of the Mississippi. Polk arrayed 140 heavy cannon in four tiers along the high bluffs—at 40 feet above the water, 85 feet, 97 feet, and atop the bluff at 200 feet. The batteries were protected against naval attack by thick earthworks and connecting trenches and parallels and against land attack by extensive redoubts and abatis. A giant chain, held in place by sturdy trees and a huge anchor, blocked passage on the river. e9781620452035_img_9632.gif

CHAPTER 2

The Battle of Belmont and the Evacuation of Columbus

Albert Sidney Johnston resigned his commission in the U.S. Army and executed a fabled trek from California to Richmond, Virginia. Lauded as the greatest military mind in the country by his old friend President Davis, he was given charge of the Western Department, superceding Leonidas Polk on September 15, 1861, with the rank of full general. Johnston was dismayed by the situation he found. He had barely 23, 000 poorly trained and barely armed soldiers to hold a line that stretched from the Trans-Mississippi to Cumberland Gap on the eastern Kentucky-Tennessee border. Communications and logistics were almost impossible to control across such a vast area. To his horror, Johnston quickly identified five avenues of invasion the Federals could exploit to rupture this long, thinly defended front.

Finding much of his command preoccupied with protecting Memphis and the Mississippi Valley from Columbus, Johnston immediately entrained to inspect Polk’s important position. On September 18 he toured the works and encouraged the recruits. During his visit, a Union gunboat lobbed some shells into the position, and a 64-pounder fell near Johnston and Polk. Johnston’s casual reaction to the danger awed the green soldiers.

Polk requested additional men and arms to reinforce Columbus, and Johnston promised to do what he could. On September 21 Johnston made Polk his right-hand man, with command of a large area. As time passed, the bishop became increasingly convinced that Columbus was the primary target of Union designs in the West.

Little happened along the upper Mississippi after the seizure of Columbus and Paducah in early September. Polk strengthened his citadel while Grant trained his 20, 000 recruits and repeatedly asked Frémont for permission to attack Columbus, which he thought would have been an easy target in the first days following the Confederate occupation. Later he believed its capture would require a large force and a long siege.

Opposite Columbus was Belmont, Missouri, a tiny village of three structures where Polk had set up an observation post that was occupied by an infantry regiment, an artillery battery, and some cavalry. To protect the approaches to Belmont, the forest had been cut along the western shore for a considerable distance and the timber arranged as an extensive abatis.

When Frémont left St. Louis in late October to chase Price, he ordered Grant to feint on Columbus to prevent Polk from reinforcing the Confederates in Missouri. Grant elected to do this by constantly moving back and forward with his forces along both banks of the Mississippi, but without committing to battle. On November 3 Grant sent a regiment into southern Missouri to pursue an estimated 3,000 Southern troops led by partisan M.-Jeff Thompson. On the following day he received a report that Polk was dispatching troops to Price, information that motivated him to launch a large-scale feint against Columbus. Grant ordered Brig. Gen. C. E Smith in Paducah to fake an attack against the Rebel fortress from the east. On November 6 he loaded five regiments consisting of 3,114 men, a six-gun battery, and two companies of cavalry, aboard four transports that were protected by the timberclads Lexington and Tyler and steamed downriver. The force spent the night aboard ship nine miles south of Cairo.

At 2:00 A.M. on November 7, Grant received news, later learned to be false, stating that Polk was concentrating men at Belmont to attack the troops Grant had directed into southern Missouri. He authorized a second regiment to chase Thompson and made a snap decision to attack Belmont in an effort to disrupt the reported Confederate operation.

The Overrated General e9781620452035_img_9632.gif Albert Sidney Johnston

Albert Sidney Johnston was born in Kentucky in 1803 and attended Transylvania University in Lexington before attending West Point, from which he graduated in 1826. He served in the Black Hawk War before resigning from the army in 1834. Two years later, Johnston enlisted as a private in the fight for Texas independence. He soon rose to the rank of brigadier and served as the secretary of war for the Republic of Texas until 1840.

Johnston was a volunteer in the war with Mexico, then rejoined the Regular Army in 1849. In 1855 he commanded the 2nd Cavalry, with such subordinate officers as Robert E. Lee, Joseph Hardee, and George Thomas. He served on the Texas frontier until 1856 and a year later led the expedition against the Mormons. Breveted a brigadier, Johnston administered the Department of Utah for two years. When the Civil War broke out, he was commanding the Department of the Pacific.

After Johnston made an adventurous journey east to offer his services to the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis made him a full general with command of the Confederate West. He allowed Leonidas Polk to focus myopically on Columbus, while he was distracted at Bowling Green. During his brief tenure, Johnston was unable to hold the initial line, which stretched from the Mississippi River in the West to Cumberland Gap in the East. After Fort Donelson fell, he was convinced by P. G. T. Beauregard to concentrate Southern resources at Corinth for a strike against the Federals advancing down the Tennessee River. Johnston died at Shiloh while personally leading a charge on April 6, 1862. He was buried with great ceremony in New Orleans but was later reinterred in Austin, Texas.

Albert Sidney Johnston is one of the leading martyrs of the Lost Cause school of Confederate history. However, a dispassionate examination of his service reveals a man who was overwhelmed by his responsibilities. e9781620452035_img_9632.gif

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[DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN PORTRAITS]

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Map 3: Action in the Belmont and Columbus vicinity.

In postwar years Grant attempted a rather weak justification of his determination to take the offensive. He claimed that the officers and men were elated at the prospect of a fight, and Grant did not believe he could maintain discipline, or retain [the] confidence of his command if he did not launch an assault.

At 8:00 A.M. Grant landed his troops on the western shore four miles upriver from Belmont in a flourishing cornfield that was shielded from Confederate observation by a belt of trees. Leaving a rear guard of five companies posted in a ravine to protect the transports, Grant quickly formed the soldiers in a line of battle, with heavy skirmishers out front, and advanced.

In response to the Union diversionary movements, Polk had sent Brig. Gen. John P. McGown from Columbus with a large force to scout the eastern bank. They discovered Grant’s landing, but Polk believed it was a feint to cover the primary attack against Columbus. Pillow was ordered across the river with four regiments—2,700 troops—to reinforce the detachment at Belmont, and another regiment of 500 men soon followed; but Polk retained nearly 16, 000 soldiers on the eastern bank to defend Columbus. Pillow formed a line about three miles north of Belmont.

When Grant’s 1, 000 skirmishers, led by Capt. John Seaton, encountered the Confederates at 10:30 A.M., battle was joined. At this point each side had about 3, 000 men on the field. Many of us have seen the sun rise for the last time, Seaton gravely informed his men. If he were to run, the officer continued, he asked them to shoot him so his family would not learn of his dishonor. The Confederates broke the advance of the 7th Iowa, but the 22nd Illinois drove the Rebels back. In a stand-up battle, Grant’s disciplined lines steadily drove the Southerners. They opposed us step by step, Seaton wrote, and tree by tree. In the fierce fighting, Grant’s horse was killed, and he secured another from his staff. After fighting stubbornly for two hours, like veterans, as Grant later praised his opponents, the Confederate line shattered near the camp and the soldiers raced for the shelter of the riverbank.

Elated at having won their first battle, the green Federals picked their way unhindered through the abatis and began to loot the Southern camp. A surprising number of men had lugged their instruments along, and they formed bands and began patriotic tunes, to which the men sang with great enthusiasm.

The Man Who Won the Civil War e9781620452035_img_9632.gif Ulysses Simpson Grant

U. S. Grant, born in April 1822 in Ohio with the name Hiram Ulysses, later decided to keep Ulysses Simpson, which was the name his sponsor used when appointing him to West Point. He was a poor student, graduating 21st of 39 in 1843, but was perhaps the best horseman in the country. As Grant’s luck would have it, there were no cavalry slots available, and in the Mexican War he was a regimental quartermaster. Despite this rear echelon position, Grant managed to find the front often enough to be breveted twice, usually where William J. Hardee, a close West Point friend (Grant’s wife, Juiia, was Hardee’s cousin), was fighting.

Grant could not seem to function in the peacetime army. Stationed in the Pacific Northwest in 1854 without his family, he left the army when warned about excessive drinking by his commanding officer. For the next six years, Grant tried farming, selling real estate, and clerking. All these enterprises failed, and the beginning of the Civil War found him clerking at a store in Galena, Illinois, that was owned by his brothers.

Snubbed by the initial leaders of the Union war effort, his West Point juniors, in June 1861 Grant was appointed colonel of the 21st Illinois and made brigadier in August by Gov. Richard Yates. From headquarters in Cairo, Grant occupied Paducah and Smithville, securing control of the Ohio River, and trained an army for use on the