Dee Brown on the Civil War Page 2
Admiral Porter then had been appointed commander of the Mississippi gunboat squadron, while General Grant came down from the north with a land army. They hammered away through 1862, but Vicksburg seemed impregnable. Bogged down in the muddy bottomlands west of the Confederacy’s Gibraltar, Grant spent the winter laying plans for an 1863 campaign that would either win the war in the west or lose an army.
He believed that his only chance for taking Vicksburg was to move his army behind the city, on the east, but previous efforts to do this had failed because of the strength of the defending armies. But if he could create a diversion in eastern Mississippi to draw off potential reinforcements, if he could cut the rail line to Vicksburg to interrupt supplies and thus throw the Confederates off balance for a few days, he felt that it might be possible to move troops across the Mississippi River and in behind Vicksburg before the defenders could recover.
During 1862 Grierson’s cavalry had more than once made a favorable impression upon General Grant, and on February 13 he sent a message from Lake Providence, Louisiana, to General Stephen A. Hurlbut, commanding the Sixteenth Army Corps, headquarters in Memphis: “It seems to me that Grierson, with about five hundred picked men, might succeed in making his way south, and cut the railroad east of Jackson, Miss. The undertaking would be a hazardous one, but it would pay well if carried out. I do not direct that this shall be done, but leave it for a volunteer enterprise.”*6
Grierson’s cavalry was busy during this time pursuing guerillas and partisan rangers in Tennessee, but Grant meanwhile continued to develop his plan for a diversionary cavalry raid to precede his land movement against Vicksburg. He sent another message to Hurlbut on March 9: “I look upon Grierson as being much better qualified to command this expedition than either Lee or Mizner. I do not dictate, however, who shall be sent. The date when the expedition should start will depend upon movements here. You will be informed of the exact time for them to start.”7
The exact time was at dawn, April 17; the orders as given on April 10 by General Hurlbut to General William Sooy Smith at La Grange were to “strike out by way of Pontotoc, breaking off right and left, cutting both roads, destroying the wires, burning provisions, and doing all the mischief they can, while one regiment ranges straight down to Selma or Meridian, breaking the east and west road thoroughly, and swinging back through Alabama.”8
Grierson was on furlough in Illinois that week, but Hurlbut telegraphed him to return to La Grange immediately.9 On April 15 Hurlbut forwarded the final orders to General Smith: “If Grierson does not arrive in time, Hatch will take command. The details must be left discretionary.”10 General Smith was pleased with that last sentence. “Swinging back through Alabama” might not be so easy, with Nathan Bedford Forrest operating somewhere in the north of that state.
On the afternoon of the 16th, orders for the raid went out to the companies; they were to be ready to march at three o’clock the following morning. Grierson was still missing. He arrived on the midnight train from Memphis* with three hours to spare, but a conference with Sooy Smith delayed the brigade’s departure until dawn.
III
Professional cavalrymen always maintained that two years were required to produce a seasoned trooper. The men of the First Brigade were approaching that point of perfection, along with some thousands of other Union cavalrymen of both the eastern and western theaters of the war. In these past two years the Union cavalry had played a sorry role, the butt of every infantryman’s joke: “Nobody ever saw a dead cavalryman. If you want to have a good time, jine the cavalree!” The exploits of Confederate cavalrymen—Jeb Stuart and John Mosby in the east, the daring raids of Nathan Bedford Forrest and John Hunt Morgan in the west—were known to every blue-bloused trooper. The northern newspapers and the New York picture weeklies had recorded the exploits of these southern beau sabreurs until they were in a sense heroes to the envious Yankees.
For want of a dashing leader among themselves, the Union cavalrymen in the west particularly admired Forrest, the eccentric rebel who never bothered to learn the simplest military commands, not even the manual of arms, but whose skillful cavalry maneuvers had upset a dozen well-laid battle plans, even those of so shrewd a general as Grant.
One reason given for the superiority of Confederate over Union cavalry was that in the South the lack of good highways had forced southerners to ride from boyhood, while in the north a generation of young men had been riding in wheeled vehicles. This may have been true in the east, but not in the west. Farm boys of Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa also were horsemen by necessity, but unlike many of their southern opponents, in civilian life they had borne the tedious burden of caring for the animals after plowing behind them all day. Young westerners who knew horses seemed to have little desire to assume the added responsibility of taking one of them to war. Many of them chose infantry service instead.
Certainly the social prestige attached to horsemen, the beau sabreur image so prevalent in the Confederacy, was unknown in the west. But even if the western Yankees did not regard cavaliers as aristocrats, before the war was a year old they were more than a little envious of the abilities of the “chivalric knights” who kept dashing up from the South to ride rings around them.11
Southern cavalry horses were also superior to northern horses, largely because southerners were fond of racing. Almost every southern town had its track, and the sport had developed a superior stock of blooded, fleet-footed animals. In the north, muscular and slow-moving draft horses were the preferred breeds, racing being almost unknown above the Mason and Dixon line.12
When the war began there were only seven mounted troops in the regular United States Army. General Winfield Scott, the aging commander, gave as his opinion early in 1861 that cavalry had been outmoded by modern warfare. Improvements in rifled cannon, he was convinced, would render the duties of the cavalry unimportant and secondary. War Department plans, influenced by Scott, limited the regular army’s cavalry requirements for prosecuting the Civil War to six regular regiments. And when Lincoln made his call for volunteers, the states were advised to accept very few cavalrymen.
Federal War Department policies continued to operate against development of effective cavalry forces until General George B. McClellan took command, and even he had to arrange almost secretly with the state governors for the organization of a few companies of mounted troops. Such regiments were often misused, separated into mere squads and used for messenger service or as escort troops.
In its original secondary role, the Union cavalry naturally suffered from a deficiency of equipment, and for this reason many western regiments were inactive for several months following their organization. At Camp McClellan, near Davenport, Iowa, efforts were made to convert cavalry volunteers to infantry service, creating so much dissension that the governor of the state had to visit the camp and reassure the men. At the same time, Senator James Harlan of Iowa urged the War Department to authorize the raising of more cavalry regiments in the west. Harlan told the Secretary of War that in his opinion the best cavalry could be made of western men, who were accustomed to riding and the care of horses.13
Late in the summer of 1861, after reaching Camp Butler near Springfield, Captain Forbes of the Seventh Illinois said in one of his letters to his mother: “Our men have drawn their socks, two pairs each, very good material, two pairs of flannel drawers, the inevitable red shirt, and a blue fatigue coat. Tomorrow we expect to draw pants, blue shirts, boots and overcoats. We have not yet drawn our saddles, but shall reach them soon.” He continued: “We have not drilled on horse yet, for the reason we have no saddles. We have daily foot drills, however, and shall soon be furnished in full.”14
The captain’s optimism about forthcoming equipment faded soon afterward, and if he and his men had not brought their own mounts to camp they would have had none for drilling. “Our horses stand it pretty well. A few of them take colds, but nothing serious. I ride the Babcock horse, and William McCausland rides the Weasel. My hors
e pleases me well and is learning to follow me like a dog.”
Private Stephen Alfred Forbes, Company B, Seventh Illinois Cavalry. In later years Stephen said that this photograph, made soon after his enlistment, revealed his early lack of military bearing.
Captain Henry Clinton Forbes, Company B, Seventh Illinois Cavalry. The letters and diaries of Captain Forbes and his brother, Stephen, are an important source of information about Grierson’s raid.
Colonel Benjamin Henry Grierson. General Sherman called his raid “the most brilliant expedition of the war.”
He added somewhat proudly: “I have obtained one of the Cavalry saddles as a special favor in return for lending my horse to one of the officers, so I look quite war-like when mounted.” The cavalry saddle was of course the McClellan, adopted through recommendations made by the general in 1860, a modification of the Mexican, or Texas tree. Some of the earlier models were covered with rawhide, and as one Union officer complained, when this covering split, the seat became very uncomfortable for the rider.
Weeks later Captain Forbes’s young brother, Stephen, a private in the Seventh Illinois, was writing home on the same subject: “I expect you would laugh to see me in my uniform, especially the red shirt and close little cap, but we are clothed very comfortably, however, as we have immense overcoats which cover us from the tops of our heads nearly to our ankles and heavy boots that reach above our knees. Our saddles and arms we have not received.”15
Fortunately, the saddle shortage was relieved before the regiment moved down to Bird’s Point, Missouri, below Cairo, to act as land support for the mortarboat battles around Island Number Ten. However, as Stephen recorded in his diary, November 20, 1861, the men of the Seventh Illinois were “situated in an enemy’s country with a prospect of a battle close at hand without arms enough to post guards, but we soon hope to receive all our arms for the entire regiment, as the colonel received a letter from Secretary Cameron stating that one thousand sabers and pistols were on the way to us from New York.”16
Although pistols and sabers were issued sometime during the next three months, Captain Forbes reported in February, 1862, that carbines were still lacking. He added: “Perhaps you hear occasional rumors of the disbanding of the cavalry, etc.—it’s the fashion you know. Well, as far as we are concerned, we expect to be retained while Illinois has a regiment of cavalry in the field. So don’t expect us home until ‘going to war on horseback’ is at a greater discount than now.” He appended a message to the younger members of the family:
Tell them I’ve got a hat with three black feathers in it and a gold eagle and cross sabers on it; that my boots come up over my knees and when I go out looking for a “Secesh” I buckle a saber around me with a big black belt, and another one with two big pistols in it that I can shoot eleven times and hit a man at 200 steps. Tell them I’ve got a great big stable with most a hundred horses in it, and as many men that live in little cloth houses, and eat bread and beef like everything, and when I want them to get on their horses and go and hunt “secesh” I tell the bugler to blow his bugle, and they all come out in a long row. Then I say “Attention!” and they all keep still,—then I say “Dress!” and they straighten out the row so it looks nice,—then I say “Draw saber!” and they pull their swords right out and put their hands at their right sides,—then I say “Fours right—March! Guide Left!” and away we go, sometimes walking, sometimes trotting, sometimes galloping like everything.17
As the war lengthened, the saber as a weapon became a controversial subject among cavalrymen. When the Spencer repeating carbine was issued, some eastern regiments abandoned the saber altogether, and it was a common joke among the troopers that their sabers had lopped off more of their own horses’ ears than enemy heads. One reason for its unpopularity in the east may have been that eastern regiments were first equipped with the long, straight Prussian-type saber, an awkward weapon indeed, while most of the western regiments received the newly manufactured light, curved American blade which could be attached to the end of a carbine to form a bayonet.18
At any rate, Captain Forbes and other western cavalrymen favored the saber, and it was used throughout the war by most western regiments. “My great dependence for cavalry is in the sabers,” he said. “The carbines do good execution when the men can dismount and fire deliberately, as also the pistols, but for hand-to-hand work, it is the terror and thunder of the charge, the bristle and blows of the saberers that is mainly decisive.”19
Cavalry pistols used during the Civil War included both the old powder and ball models and the new model army revolvers equipped for metallic self-exploding cartridges. In addition to pistols, one or two eastern regiments were armed with lances for a time, but these weapons were never used in the west, and the eastern lancers soon found them unsuited to the heavily wooded battlegrounds of Virginia. The outmoded lances were finally discarded in the east during the spring of 1863, about the time Colonel Grierson was starting his raid into Mississippi.
Grierson’s cavalrymen, posing with their mounts, were unaware that the photographer was a Confederate secret service agent, Andrew D. Lytle. What use the Confederates made of this picture is not known. Several photographs of the raiders were made by Lytle.
Union soldiers destroying railroad tracks in Confederate territory by heating the rails over burning ties, then bending them.
In March, 1862, the Seventh Illinois volunteers received their Sharp’s carbines, breechloaders of single mechanism and easily carried, but requiring paper cartridges and percussion caps. They had to be recharged for each shot, and released an annoying amount of smoke when fired. Later some squadrons were furnished Spencer carbines with rifled magazines, carrying six metallic cartridges in a tube in the stock. A seventh cartridge could be kept in position in the barrel. Some cavalrymen refused to carry the Spencer, however, after a few of the stocks exploded suddenly—the result of the pointed bullet of one cartridge striking too hard upon the cap of one lying before it in the tube.20
Private Stephen Forbes wrote on March 13 that he had “just been out target-shooting with my gay little Sharp’s carbine which will shoot half a mile and kill a man.” A few day later he felt that he was sufficiently equipped for battle and volunteered eagerly for a scouting expedition below Bird’s Point: “Clapping my saddle upon my horse, buckling on my saber, and slinging my carbine, I put half a dozen hard crackers in my pocket and announced myself ready for the ride.”
As weapons and equipment become more plentiful, the volunteer troopers made up for the long shortages by acquiring an excess of articles which they considered necessary for their comfort and convenience. No strict regulations applied to personal baggage, and horses were frequently laden to the breaking point with heavy tents, knapsacks packed with gifts from friends and families, and haversacks filled with rations. In addition to the saber and its four-foot metal scabbard, the unseasoned cavalryman usually carried on his person with his pistol and carbine a box of cartridges, a box of percussion caps, a tin canteen for water, and a tin coffee cup. Fastened to the saddle might be a saddlebag filled with extra clothing and toilet articles, a heavy leather halter, an iron picket pin with a long lariat for tethering the horse, usually two horseshoes with extra nails, a currycomb with horse brush, a set of gun tools and material for the care of arms, a rubber blanket or poncho, a pair of woolen blankets, and an extra blouse.
And as in almost every war, an armored bulletproof vest made its appearance, manufactured privately and sold by the artful sutlers who peddled trinkets and tobacco around the cavalry camps. “It was a vest of blue cloth, cut in military style, with two plates of steel, formed to fit the body and fastened between the cloth and the lining, so as to cover the front of the wearer from the neck to the waist. Samples of the plates were exhibited in the camps, with deep marks upon them where bullets had failed to penetrate.”21 This fraudulent device added another eight or ten pounds to the already overburdened mount.
“Fully equipped for the field, the
green cavalryman was a fearful and wonderful object,” said an Iowa veteran:
Mounted upon his charger, in the midst of all the paraphernalia and adornments of war, a moving arsenal and military depot, he must have struck surprise, if not terror, into the minds of his enemies. … When he was on foot he moved with a great clapping and clanking of his arms and accouterments, and so constrained by the many bands crossing his body that any rapid motion was absurdly impossible. … When the rider was in the saddle, begirt with all his magazine, it was easy to imagine him protected from any ordinary assault. His properties rose before and behind him like fortifications, and those strung over his shoulders covered well his flanks. To the uninitiated it was a mystery how the rider got into the saddle; how he could rise to a sufficient height and how then descend upon the seat was the problem. The irreverent infantry said it was done with the aid of a derrick, or by first climbing to the top of a high fence or the fork of a tree.22
One or two campaigns and a few forced marches, however, quickly brought a change in the trooper’s equipage. The men riding with Grierson’s brigade in April, 1863, had long ago learned what was necessary for existence and what was not. Such excess baggage as armored vests, extra lariats, and picket-pins had been conveniently lost, and the standard pair of blankets had given way to a single one, with two men sleeping together. They had learned the fine art of packing a horse so lightly that the carbine was the heaviest part of the load.
Colonel Grierson’s special equipment as leader of the raid, for example, consisted of an ordinary Colton’s pocket map of the state of Mississippi and a small compass, both of which he carried inside his blouse with a jew’s-harp that he probably used more often than either the map or the compass. Grierson also possessed a report made by a Mississippian loyal to the Union. No name was signed to the document but Grierson had received it in January, and among his military papers for that month is a mysterious receipt for fifty dollars paid to one Vernon Jonican. This report described routes by which a cavalry column might move through Mississippi, locations of well-stocked plantations, Confederate warehouses, the varying loyalties of the people in different sections of the state, the probable presence of guerillas, the geography of the country, and the distances between towns.23