From Fort Henry to Corinth

by M. F. Force

Halleck was sedate, deliberate, cautious. He had written a book on strategy and logistics, and his attention appeared sometimes to be distracted from the actual conditions under which the present military operations were to be conducted by his retrospective reference to the rules which he had announced. Grant, under his extremely quiet demeanor, was full of restless activity. His purpose seemed to be to strike and overcome the enemy without waiting; to use whatever seemed the best means at hand; ready at all times to change for better means if they could be found; but never to cease striking. Halleck was worried by being jogged to new enterprises, but heartily supported them when once begun. C.F. Smith had a brusque manner, but a warm heart. He was direct and honest as a child. He seemed impetuous, but his outburst was a rush of controlled power. He was a thorough soldier, an enthusiast in his profession, the soul of honor, the type of discipline. His commanding officer was to him embodied law; it would have been impossible for him to conceive that his duty and subordination could in any way be affected by the fact that his pupil in the Military Academy had become his commander.

General Grant, being commander of the Military District of Western Tennessee, with limits undefined, sent General C.F. Smith from Fort Donelson, fifty miles up the river to Clarksville, to take possession of the place and the railway bridge over the river there. General Grant wrote to General Cullum, advising him of this movement and proposing the capture of Nashville, but adding he was ready for any move the General Commanding might direct. On the 24th he wrote to General Cullum, General Halleck's chief of staff, that he had sent four regiments to Clarksville, and would send no more till he heard from General Halleck. Next day he wrote that the head of Buell's column had reached Nashville, and he would go there on the receipt of the next mail, unless it should contain some orders preventing him. He went to Nashville on the 27th, and returned to Fort Donelson next day. In his absence there was, among some of the troops about Fort Donelson, fresh from civil life and restive under the inactivity and restraint of a winter camp, some disorder and insubordination. There was, moreover, some marauding in which officers participated. General Grant, on his return, published orders repressing such practices, arrested the guilty parties and sent the arrested officers to St. Louis to report to General Halleck.

On March 1st General Halleck sent to General Grant, from St. Louis, an order directing the course of immediate operations: "Transports will be sent to you as soon as possible to move your column up the Tennessee River. The main object of this expedition will be to destroy the railroad bridge over Bear Creek, near Eastport, Miss., and also the connections at Corinth, Jackson, and Humboldt. It is thought best that these objects should be attempted in the order named. Strong detachments of cavalry and light artillery, supported by infantry, may, by rapid movements, reach these points from the river without very serious opposition. Avoid any general engagement with strong forces. It will be better to retreat than to risk a general battle. This should be strongly impressed upon the officers sent with the expedition from the river. General C.F. Smith, or some very discreet officer, should be selected for such commands. Having accomplished these objects, or such of them as may be practicable, you will return to Danville and move on Paris.... Competent officers should be left to command the garrisons of Forts Henry and Donelson in your absence...." General Grant received the order on March 2d, and repaired at once to Fort Henry. On the 4th the forces at Fort Donelson marched across to the Tennessee, where they were speedily joined by Sherman's division and other reinforcements coming by boat up the river.

On March 2d General Halleck, having received an anonymous letter reflecting on General Grant, telegraphed to General McClellan, the General-in-Chief, at Washington: "I have had no communication with General Grant for more than a week. He left his command without my authority, and went to Nashville. His army seems to be as much demoralized by the victory of Fort Donelson as was that of the Potomac by the defeat of Bull Run. It is hard to censure a successful general immediately after a victory, but I think he richly deserves it. I can get no reports, no returns, no information of any kind from him. Satisfied with his victory, he sits down and enjoys it without any regard to the future. I am worn out and tired by this neglect and inefficiency. C.F. Smith is almost the only officer equal to the emergency." Next day McClellan answered by telegraph: "The future success of our cause demands that proceedings such as General Grant's should at once be checked. Generals must observe discipline as well as private soldiers. Do not hesitate to arrest him at once if the good of the service requires it, and place C.F. Smith in command. You are at liberty to regard this as a positive order, if it will smooth your way." On the 4th General Halleck telegraphed to Grant: "You will place Major-General C.F. Smith in command of expedition, and remain yourself at Fort Henry. Why do you not obey my orders to report strength and position of your command?" Grant replied next day: "Troops will be sent under command of Major-General Smith, as directed. I had prepared a different plan, intending General Smith to command the forces which should go to Paris and Humboldt, while I would command the expedition upon Eastport, Corinth, and Jackson in person.... I am not aware of ever having disobeyed any order from your headquarters—certainly never intended such a thing. I have reported almost daily the condition of my command, and reported every position occupied...." An interchange of telegrams of substantially the same tenor, General Halleck's gradually losing their asperity, lasted a week longer. On March 10th, the day before the President, by War Order No. 3, relieved General McClellan from the supreme command of the armies, General L. Thomas, Adjutant-General of the Army, wrote to General Halleck: "It has been reported that, soon after the battle of Fort Donelson, Brigadier-General Grant left his command without leave. By direction of the President, the Secretary of War directs you to ascertain and report whether General Grant left his command at any time without proper authority, and if so, for how long; whether he has made to you proper reports and returns of his forces; whether he has committed any acts which were unauthorized or not in accordance with military subordination or propriety, and if so, what?" On the 13th Halleck telegraphed to Grant, who had asked to be relieved if his course was not satisfactory, or until he could be set right: "You cannot be relieved from your command. There is no good reason for it. I am certain that all which the authorities at Washington ask is, that you enforce discipline and punish the disorderly.... Instead of relieving you, I wish you, as soon as your new army is in the field, to assume the immediate command and lead it on to new victories." To this Grant replied next day: "After your letter enclosing copy of an anonymous letter upon which severe censure was based, I felt as though it would be impossible for me to serve longer without a court of inquiry. Your telegram of yesterday, however, places such a different phase upon my position that I will again assume command, and give every effort to the success of our cause. Under the worst circumstances I would do the same." On the 15th General Halleck replied to the Adjutant-General of the Army, fully exonerating General Grant. General C.F. Smith felt keenly the injustice done to Grant, and gladly relinquished command of the expedition when Grant assumed it.

Meanwhile the army with its stores had been gathering on a fleet of boats between Fort Henry and the railroad bridge. To the three divisions of Fort Donelson, First, Second, and Third, commanded by C.F. Smith, McClernand, and Lewis Wallace, were added a fourth, commanded by Brigadier-General S.A. Hurlbut, and a fifth by Brigadier-General W. T. Sherman. While C.F. Smith commanded the expedition, his division was commanded by W.H.L. Wallace, who had been promoted to brigadier-general. The steamer Golden State, with one-half of the Fortieth Illinois, reached Savannah, on the right bank of the river, on March 5th. The Forty-sixth Ohio arrived the next day. Behind these was the fleet of more than eighty steamboats, carrying the five divisions and convoyed by three gunboats, a vast procession extending miles along the winding river, each boat with its pillar of smoke by day, and of fire by night. The fleet began arriving at Savannah on the 11th, and lined both shores of the river. Lewis Wallace's division sent a party to the railroad west of the river, striking it at Purdy, tearing up a portion, but doing no permanent injury, and returned. On the 14th, General Smith sent Sherman's division up the river to strike the railroad near Eastport. Rain fell in torrents, roads melted into mud, and small streams rose with dangerous rapidity. The expedition, arrested by an unfordable torrent, returned just in time to reach the landing by wading through water waist-deep. The boats left in the night of the 15th, and stopped at Pittsburg Landing, on the west bank of the river, about nine miles above Savannah. Hurlbut's division was already on boats at this landing, having been ordered thither by General C.F. Smith on the evening of the 14th.

The first step in the programme laid down in General Halleck's order of March 1st, the destruction of the railroad near Eastport, had failed, and events had now required a material change in the programme. General Buell on March 3d telegraphed to Halleck: "What can I do to aid your operations against Columbus?" Halleck, replying next day that Columbus was evacuated and destroyed, added: "Why not come to the Tennessee and operate with me to cut Johnston's line with Memphis, Randolph, and New Madrid.... Estimated strength of enemy at New Madrid, Randolph and Memphis is fifty thousand. It is of vital importance to separate them from Johnston's army. Come over to Savannah or Florence, and we can do it. We can then operate on Decatur or Memphis, or both, as may appear best." Buell rejoined on the 5th: "The thing I think of vital importance is that you seize and hold the bridge at Florence in force." On the 6th Halleck telegraphed: "News down the Tennessee that Beauregard has twenty thousand men at Corinth, and is rapidly fortifying it. Smith will probably not be strong enough to attack it. It is a great misfortune to lose that point. I shall reinforce Smith as rapidly as possible. If you can send a division by water around into the Tennessee, it would require only a small amount of transportation to do it." To this Buell telegraphed on the 9th, insisting on his suggestions made on the 5th. Halleck dispatched on the 10th: "My forces are moving up the Tennessee River as rapidly as we can obtain transportation. Florence was the point originally designated, but, on account of the enemy's forces at Corinth and Humboldt, it is deemed best to land at Savannah and establish a depot. The transportation will serve as ferries. The selection is left to C.F. Smith, who commands the advance.... You do not say whether we are to expect any reinforcements from Nashville." On the same day Buell telegraphed: "... The establishment of your force on this side of the river, as high up as possible, is evidently judicious.... I can join you almost, if not quite as soon, by water, in better condition and with greater security to your operations and mine. I believe you cannot be too promptly nor too strongly established on the Tennessee. I shall advance in a very few days, as soon as our transportation is ready." On the 11th the President issued War Order No. 3. "Major-General McClellan, having personally taken the field at the head of the Army of the Potomac, until otherwise ordered, he is relieved from the command of the other military departments, he retaining command of the Department of the Potomac.

"Ordered further, that the two departments now under the respective commands of Generals Halleck and Hunter, together with so much of that, under General Buell, as lies west of a north and south line indefinitely drawn through Knoxville, Tennessee, be consolidated and designated the Department of the Mississippi; and that, until otherwise ordered, Major-General Halleck have command of said department." Immediately upon the receipt of this order, General Halleck ordered Buell to march his army to Savannah. The forces of the Confederacy were gathering at Corinth; the forces of Halleck and Buell were massing at Savannah. Instead of a hurried dash by a flying column, to tear up a section of railway as ancillary to a real movement elsewhere, the programme now contemplated a struggle by armies for the retention or for the destruction of a strategic point deemed almost vital to the Confederacy.

About the close of February, General Beauregard sent a field-battery, supported by two regiments of infantry, to occupy the river-bluff at Pittsburg Landing, twenty-three miles northwest from Corinth, and nine miles above Savannah. Lieutenant-Commander Gwin, who was stationed at Savannah with two gunboats, the Tyler and the Lexington, proceeded to Pittsburg Landing, on March 1st, and, after a brisk skirmish, silenced the battery and drove it and its supports away. General C.F. Smith, in pursuance of the authority given him by General Halleck, selected this as the point of assembly of the army.

Lick Creek, above the landing, and Snake Creek, below it, empty into the river about three miles apart, the landing being nearer the mouth of Snake Creek. Lick Creek, rising in a swamp, flows eleven miles nearly northeast to the river. Snake Creek flows nearly east to the river. Owl Creek flows nearly parallel to Lick Creek, at a distance from it varying from three to five miles, and empties into Snake Creek something more than a mile from its mouth. The land enclosed between these creeks and the river is a rolling plateau from eighty to a hundred feet above the river-level. The riverfront of this plateau is cut by sundry sloughs and ravines, which were at that time overflowed by back-water. One of these deep ravines, running back at right angles to the river, is immediately above the bluff at the landing. About a mile back from the river, and about a mile above the landing, is a swell in the ground, not marked enough to be called a ridge. From this higher ground extend the head ravines of Oak Creek,[1] a rivulet or brook flowing to the west, passing within a few hundred yards of Shiloh Church, and then turning to the northwest and flowing into Owl Creek. In the reports of Sherman's division this rivulet is treated as the main branch of Owl Creek, and called by that name. From the same rising ground, ravines, wet only after a rain, extend east and southeast to Lick Creek. From the same position extend the head ravines of Brier Creek,[1]a deep ravine with little water, which flows almost due north and empties into Snake Creek a little below the mouth of Owl Creek. The three principal creeks, Lick, Snake, and Owl, flow through swampy valleys, bordered by abrupt bluffs. Oak Creek, from the neighborhood of Shiloh Church to its mouth, flows through a miry bottom bordered by banks of less height. The land was for the most part covered with timber, partly with dense undergrowth; in places were perhaps a dozen open fields containing about eighty acres each. A road, lying far enough back from the river to avoid the sloughs, led from the landing to Hamburg Landing, about six miles above. Another road from the landing crossed Brier Creek and Snake Creek just above their junction, and continued down the river to Crump's Landing. The road to Corinth forked near the landing, one branch of it passing by Shiloh Church, the other keeping nearer to the river, but both reuniting five or six miles out. The position selected thus, gave ample room to camp an army, was absolutely protected on the sides of the river, Snake Creek, and Owl Creek, while from its south face a ridge gave open way to Corinth. The open way to Corinth was also an open way from Corinth to the landing. This accessible front could easily have been turned into a strong defence, by taking advantage of the rolling ground, felling timber, and throwing up slight earthworks. But the army had many things yet to learn, and the use of field fortification was one of them.

[1] The names Oak Creek and Brier Creek are obtained from Colonel Charles Whittlesey, who made a study of the field every day for two weeks succeeding the battle.