[Doug64]

January 30, Saturday

Major General William S. Rosecrans supersedes Major General John M. Schofield in command of the Federal Department of the Missouri and Major General Frederick Steele assumes full command of the Department of Arkansas.

Action includes skirmishing at Chickamauga Creek, Georgia; Windsor, North Carolina; Medley, West Virginia; and a Union scout from Culpeper to Madison Court House, Virginia. In Arkansas Federals scout for five days from Batesville to near Searcy Landing.

[Doug64]

January 31, Sunday

President Lincoln tells General Banks in New Orleans that he is “at liberty to adopt any rule which shall admit to vote any unquestionably loyal free state men and none others. And yet I do wish they would all take the oath.”

Troops fight an engagement at Smithfield, where Federals threaten Virginia from south of the James. A Union reconnaissance probes near Madison Court House; another from Maryville, Tennessee, to Quallatown, North Carolina, lasts until February 7th.

[Doug64]

February 1864

Despite a seeming stalemate, a nasty war is developing further. This is the increase of small patrols, guerrilla activities, desperate forays, and sniping at river vessels. The blockade squeezes its garrote relentlessly around the Southern coastline. Politically, in the North, as the conventions and election draw nearer, the mutterings of various groups from peace advocates to Radical Republicans increase. Lincoln’s government is trying to think clearly of reconstruction, one of the imperatives of the apparent forthcoming victory and the present occupation of Confederate territory. Davis’ government concentrates on fathering enough strength to defend its shrinking core of territory, to hold its people, and somehow to rouse languishing hopes. Events will pick up a little in the weeks to come, but it will be spring before the armies once more march en masse. In the meantime the occasional ennui of nations at war has temporarily taken control of both peoples.

February 1, Monday

President Lincoln, acting under the congressional conscription act, orders that 500,000 men be drafted on March 10th to serve for three years or for the duration of the war. Further, the President orders Secretary of War Stanton to send a transport to Ile á Vache on the coast of San Domingo to bring back Black colonists who desire to return. The decision reflects further frustration in Lincoln’s plans for colonization of Blacks. The US House passes a measure reviving the rank of lieutenant general, after some debate. Congress obviously has General Grant in mind for the promotion.

Confederate troops under Pickett move from Kinston toward New Berne, North Carolina, in an effort to recapture the important Federal base. Fighting along Batchelder’s Creek marks the beginning of the attack. Brigadier General I.N. Palmer withdraws portions of his command to the inner defenses, which the Confederates don’t assault. About midnight Pickett begins to withdraw.

Today—the date set for W. Sooy Smith’s cavalry to begin their nearly 250-mile ride from Collierville, Tennessee, southeast to Okolona, then down the Mobile & Ohio railroad to Meridian, Mississippi, wrecking and burning as they go—the last of the appointed elements of the infantry prong of Sherman’s raid arrive at Vicksburg.

Throughout most of February Federals fire sporadically on Fort Sumter. In Virginia a skirmish flares at Bristoe Station, and an army gunboat sinks near Smithfield during an abortive Federal expedition. Another skirmish breaks out at Waldron, Arkansas. A number of Union scouts and reconnaissance get under way. These include four days of operations around Madisonville to Franklinton, Louisiana; a month-long expedition in the Indian Territory; a week of scouting in White and Putnam counties, Tennessee; and an expedition from Knoxville to Flat Creek, Tennessee; all are by Union forces. Until June 30th Federal troops operate against Amerinds in the Humbolt Military District of California.

[Doug64]

February 2, Tuesday

W. Sooy Smith writes to Sherman that the 2,000-man brigade from Union City, nearly one third of his intended cavalry force, is being delayed by floods and washouts all along the way. “Exceedingly chagrined,” he informs the army commander that he thinks it “easiest, best, and most promising” to postpone his departure from Memphis until the brigade’s arrival brings his column up to the strength assured him beforehand. He still feels “eager to pitch into [Forrest],” he says, “but I know that it is not your desire to ‘send a boy to the mill’.”

Confederate navy men in small boats capture the US gunboat Underwriter in the Neuse River near New Berne, North Carolina, but are forced to set fire to her and flee. Near Beaufort, North Carolina, fighting occurs at Gale’s Creek, Bogue Sound Blockhouse, and Newport Barracks, as Federals draw in their defenses. No further attack is made by Confederates either at New Berne or Beaufort.

Skirmishes take place in Tennessee near La Grange, scene of much small action; in Alabama at Whitesburg; in Virginia at Strasburg; and in Missouri on Halcom Island. Brigadier General George A. Custer’s Federal cavalry remains active, primarily in Albemarle County, Virginia. Off Charleston the Federal fleet destroys a British blockade runner. In Chattanooga 129 Confederate deserters take the oath of allegiance to the United States.

[Doug64]

February 3, Wednesday

At Vicksburg, General Sherman has spent the last two days making certain that everything is in order for his march on Meridian, which will necessarily be made without a base of supplies, and assessing the latest intelligence from spies beyond the lines. Polk by now has shifted his headquarters westward across the Tombigbee, from Demopolis to Meridian, and has posted his two divisions at Canton and Brandon, under Loring and Sam French, twenty miles north and twelve miles east of Jackson, while his cavalry, under Stephen Lee, is patroling the region between the Pearl and the Big Black. Far from alarmed by this, Sherman is pleased to find his adversaries nearer than he had supposed; they number barely half his strength, with 28 guns opposing 67 in the blue column, and the sooner he comes to grips with them, the sooner they will be disposed of as a possible deterrent to his eastward progress and the destruction of everything of value in his path. Intending to move light, without tents or baggage, even for corps commanders or himself, he has prescribed a minimum of equipment—“The expedition is one of celerity, and all things must tend to that”—but, even so, the twenty-day supply of such essentials as hardtack, salt, and coffee, together with ammunition and medical stores, require a 1,000-wagon train.

Today, having assured himself that all is as he has required, Sherman passes the order that puts his four divisions in motion for the Big Black River, one third of the way to Jackson, which in turn is one third of the way to Meridian, where W. Sooy Smith is to join him for the march on Selma, another hundred miles along the railroad he plans to follow all the way. The march is in two columns, a corps in each, and so rapid that by nightfall both are over the river, trains and all, covering mile after eastward mile of ground for which they fought last May, while headed in the opposite direction. Now as then, the weather is bright, the roads firm, and the soldiers in high spirits.

One of the people that quickly learns that Sherman is moving is General Forrest. His training of his new, less than reliable troops has been in progress for barely a month when he receives words at his headquarters, north of Panola, that Sherman is on the march from Vicksburg, 150 miles to the south, evidently intending to strike at Meridian and possibly also at Selma or Mobile.

Polk also quickly learns of Sherman’s approach, but his concerns encompass more than Meridian, or even Demopolis and Selma, but also Mobile, a far greater prize than any of the others in his care. His fears for the Confederacy’s only remaining Gulf port east of the Mississippi has been enlarged since late January when Farragut—who has just returned from a New York holiday, taken while the Hartford was being refitted in the Brooklyn Navy Yard—appeared before the place with a squadron of multigunned warships, evidently intending to launch another of his all-out attacks, not one of which has ever failed with him on hand to see that it is pressed to the required extremity. In point of fact, the admiral is only there to heighten Polk’s fears for the loss of the port and to discourage him from drawing reinforcements from its garrison when Sherman begins his march. There is no need to attack; he accomplishes his purpose mearly by his month-long presence outside the bay, and gains in the process much valuable information which he intends to put to substantial use for his planned return, not for a feint or diversion, but in earnest. As a result, now that Sherman has set out from Vicksburg, Polk is convinced that his goal is Mobile and that what is intended is a combined assault, by land and water, designed to remove that vital port from the list of the South’s assets in continuing its struggle to maintain its national existence. Outnumbered two to one, or worse, the bishop calls loudly on Richmond for assistance, and Richmond passes his appeal to Johnston, the only possible source of reinforcements in a hurry.

Johnston, since his arrival at Dalton after replacing General Bragg as commander of the Army of Tennessee a month ago, has had his own work cut out for him. His army depends on supply by rail—specifically, the Western & Atlantic Railroad from Atlanta. The area around Dalton has few farms; it is a mountainous, river-laced wilderness. And Johnston doesn’t have the authority to seize control of his lifeline. The State of Georgia owns the Western & Atlantic; because of mismanagement and the shortage of rolling stock, a single trainload of supplies sometimes takes up to 36 hours to move over the 85-mile run from Atlanta to Dalton.

But Johnston has faced problems bigger than logistics. When he took command, he found a demoralized army of about 43,000 men. The army had been so shattered by the losses at Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge that soldiers were deserting by the thousands. The lack of manpower was so desperate that just a few days after Johnston’s arrival in Dalton one of his most respected commanders, Major General Patrick Cleburne, submitted a startling proposal signed by thirteen of his brigade and regimental officers. In order to gain thousands of new recruits, Cleburne suggested, the Confederacy ought to enlist slaves as soldiers and reward them with emancipation. The very idea shocked Johnston and most of his subordinate generals. One officer, apparently with an eye to discrediting Cleburne, forwarded a copy of the proposal to the government at Richmond. President Davis thereupon so effectively suppressed all traces of Cleburne’s document that it won’t surface again until 1890.

Johnston brings impressive credentials to the difficulties of his new command, but his advantage is that he looks and acts like a leader. He is in his mid-50s, compactly built, with a gray goatee and closely cropped side whiskers. His quiet good manners and his jaunty appearance have made an immediate impression on the troops. To deal with the problem of desertions, Johnston adopts a carrot-and-stick approach. He proclaims a general amnesty for deserters who agree to return to the ranks, and to help prevent further unauthorized absences he starts a program of furloughs that enables every man to go home for a brief period. But Johnston also makes terrible examples of incorrigible offenders: He stands them up at the foot of freshly dug graves and has them shot in front of the entire army. Johnston also watches out for his soldiers’ welfare. He somehow manages to provide shoes, extra food, and a ration of whiskey and tobacco twice a week for the troops; in turn they idolize him, referring to him reverently as “Old Joe.”

Johnston organizes his seven infantry divisions into two corps. One is led by Lieutenant General William J. Hardee, the veteran commander who, at 48, has been rejuvenated by a recent marriage to a delicate Alabama beauty who is young enough to be his daughter. The other corps goes to a new arrival—the celebrated and badly crippled John Bell Hood, whose left arm was shattered at Gettysburg and whose right leg was lost at Chickamauga. Hood joins Johnston this month fresh from a long convalescence in Richmond, where he was lionized and promoted—at the age of 32—to lieutenant general. Johnston and his corps commanders put the army through intensive and sometimes innovative training. Patrick Cleburne has a log cabin built and conducts classes in tactics there for his brigade commanders, who instruct regimental officers, who in turn teach company commanders. Johnston’s cavalry chief, Major General Joe Wheeler, drills his horsemen in the art of charging an infantry line: He lines up dummies made of old clothes stuffed with straw and then has his troopers charge at full speed, sabers held high, all the while under fire from blank cartridges. Together with Hardee and Hood, Johnston repeatedly reviews the army on parade. Hundreds of spectators ride up from Atlanta to watch these parades and to witness exciting sham battles that pit division against division.

In a light action at Liverpool Heights on the Yazoo River, Federal gunboats silence enemy batteries. In Louisiana a Union expedition operates from Brashear City through the 6th; and on the Kanawha River of West Virginia, Confederates capture the steamer Levi.

President Davis calls the attention of the Confederate Congress to the fact that “discontent, disaffection, and disloyalty” are often manifested among those who “have enjoyed quiet and safety at home.” He recommends suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeus corpus as a “sharp remedy” but one necessary to combat the evils of spying, desertion, associating with the enemy, and disloyal gatherings and activities.

[Doug64]

February 4, Thursday

Action occurs at Moorefield, West Virginia; Columbia, Louisiana; and Hot Springs, Mountain Fork, and Rolling Prairie, Arkansas. A five-day Federal expedition moves from Helen up the White River in Arkansas.

[Doug64]

February 5, Friday

In Virginia action includes a skirmish near Aldie and another affair at Winchester. In Missouri action includes a skirmish near Cape Girardeau and a thirteen-day Federal scout from Houston into Arkansas. Also in Arkansas a skirmish occurs on Crooked Creek. Federal Brigadier General Truman Seymour, ordered to move from Hilton Head, South Carolina, to Jacksonville, Florida, and proceed inland, immediately gets the expedition underway.

[Doug64]

February 6, Saturday

Skirmishing becomes heavier as Sherman’s men advance from Vicksburg through last year’s battlefields. As Polk’s Confederates fall back before the invaders, fighting breaks out at Liverpool Heights, Champion’s Hill, Edward’s Ferry, and near Bolton Depot in what will become the Meridian Campaign. Tonight they camp near Clinton, within a dozen miles of Jackson, the Mississippi capital; the cooperating column under William Sooy Smith departs Memphis.

Union foragers fight a skirmish at Bolivar, Tennessee; and a skirmish also breaks out at Hillsborough, Mississippi. On the Rapidan in Virginia Federal forces cross the river at Morton’s Ford and run into trouble. Pinned down by Confederate fire, they withdraw north of the river at night. In North Carolina a skirmish takes place near Newport Barracks, not far from New Berne. On the Virginia Peninsula a three-day Federal expedition from Yorktown toward Richmond involves skirmishes at Bottom’s Bridge and near Baltimore Store. The raid, ordered by General Butler, is intended to release prisoners in Richmond. In Missouri Federals scout for five days in the Sni Hills. In the Charleston Harbor area Federals send an expedition to John’s and James islands.

Acts which the Confederate Congress approve include a ban on the importation of luxuries and the circulation of US paper money. No cotton, tobacco, naval stores, sugar, molasses, or rice can leave ports unless the government receives half the total tonnage.

[Doug64]

February 7, Sunday

So far, the only resistance Sherman has encountered in his march through Mississippi has been from small bands of cavalry; Lee has been trying to slow thei advance, and thus gain time for the two Confederate divisions to concentrate beyond the Pearl and there dispute a crossing. But Sherman sees through the design. Refusing to be delayed, he brushes the horsemen aside with his guns and keeps his veterans slogging with such speed that Lee has no opportunity to destroy the pontoons of a large bridge, thrown across the river just beyond Jackson, before the Federals march in today. Twice already, in the past nine months, the torch has been put to this unfortunate town; now Sherman re-re-burns it, meanwhile pressing on for an uncontested crossing of the Pearl. Loring and French are in retreat by now, on opposite sides of the river—the former scuttling northward and the latter to the east, back to the places they advanced from—having failed to get together in time to challenge the invaders at the only point where the terrain gave them a chance to prevail against the odds.

Frustrated in his attempts to take Charleston, last December General Gillmore suggested that his Department of the South be assigned another, more promising coastal expedition. The general proposed to ship a portion of the troops at Charleston to northern Florida, where they would impose a pro-Federal government. Confederate opposition is expected to be light, and the Lincoln administration has given the go-ahead. Now Brigadier General Truman Seymour’s 7,000-man division lands at Jacksonville on the Florida coast and prepares to march west into the interior to engage the Confederates.

Other action includes an affair at Waccomo Neck, North Carolina; at the mouth of Caney Bayou, Texas; and a skirmish at Vidalia, Louisiana.

President Davis tells Lee that Federals are “in force” at Bottom’s Bridge on the Chickahominy, that General Pickett has just returned from an unsuccessful foray to New Berne, North Carolina, and that two of Pickett’s brigades will come to Richmond. The city’s home guards are called out in response to considerable apprehension over the reported approach of Federals. It soon proves an unnecessary alarm.

[Doug64]

February 8, Monday

The 2,000-man brigade from Union City finally arrives at Memphis, a week after W. Sooy Smith’s cavalry were supposed to begin their ride to Meridian, and Smith finds their horses so worn out by their exertions that he feels obliges to give them a two-day rest.

Federals and Confederates skirmish at Ten-Mile Run, near Camp Finegan, as the Florida expedition advances from Jacksonville. Fighting also occurs at Barboursville, Kentucky; Ringgold, Georgia; near Maryville, Tennessee; and at Donaldsonville, Louisiana.

[Doug64]

February 9, Tuesday

Laboriously tunneling their way out of Libby Prison in Richmond, 109 Federal officers, including raider A.D. Streight, make their escape. Eventually 59 will reach the Federal lines, 48 will be recaptured, and two drown. The largest and most sensational escape of the war, it is engineered and led by Colonel Thomas E. Rose of Pennsylvania.

In the Meridian Campaign, Sherman’s men skirmish at Coldwater Ferry, near Morton, and near Senatobia while other Federals occupy Yazoo City, Mississippi. In less than a week, Sherman has not only covered better than half the distance between Vicksburg and Meridian; he has also scattered his opposition so effectively that now there is nothing between him and his initial objective except one badly rattled gray division, in flight from the four blue ones in its rear. He presses on, spurred by fear that he will be late for his rendezvous with Smith, who is due to reach Meridian tomorrow, after ten days on the road. The march is in a single column now, to provide a more compact defense against Lee’s still-probing cavalry.

Union troops moving westward from Jacksonville skirmish near Point Washington. Another Federal expedition proceeds from Fernandina up the Nassau River, Florida.

Union troops carry out a reconnaissance in force on John’s Island near Charleston, but are forced to withdraw hastily on the 11th. Elsewhere, action includes a Union reconnaissance toward Swansborough, North Carolina; skirmishing in Hardin County, Tennessee; at New River, Louisiana; and at Morgan’s Mill on Spring River, at Tomahawk Gap, and in White County, Arkansas.

Major General John M. Schofield, former commander in Missouri, supersedes Major General John G. Foster in command of the Federal Department of the Ohio.

Before attending one of the largest White House levees of the season, President Lincoln has several photographs taken, including the one that will eventually be used on the $5 bill.

[Doug64]

February 10, Wednesday

Six horses and ponies die in a fire in the White House stables in Washington. The President tries to get the animals out, but to no avail.

The Florida expedition captures Confederate war matériel as it advances from Jacksonville toward Lake City. On the south fork of the St. Mary’s River a skirmish is fought at Barber’s Ford, and Federals capture Camp Cooper. Sherman’s Meridian campaigners skirmish at Hillsborough and Morton, Mississippi. other fighting occurs at Pocahontas and Lake Village, Arkansas.

Confederate raider Florida comes out at Brest, France, after being laid up since August, and evades the watching USS Kearsarge. Two blockade runners are destroyed by USS Florida off Masonborough Inlet, North Carolina.

[Doug64]

February 11, Thursday

President Davis tells General Joseph E. Johnston that the Federal advance in Missisippi “should be met before he reaches the Gulf and establishes a base to which supplies and reinforcements may be sent by sea.” Though the plans call for nothing so ambitious, Sherman is moving upon Meridian, Mississippi. General W. Sooy Smith’s column from Memphis is finally moving beyond Collierville, Tennessee. He will “push on ahead with all energy,” he declares in a dispatch to Sherman, reporting that his men and their mounts are “in splendid condition” for the rigorous march. In a companion message to Grant, however, Smith sounds less ebullient. Earlier he had informed the department commander that his troopers were “well in hand, well provided with everything, and eager for the work,” but now he confesses that the last-minute delay caused by the Union City brigade’s troubles reaching Memphis—already prolonging his departure one day beyond the ten he was to have spent riding the 230 miles to Meridian—has been “so long and so vexatious that I have worried myself into a state of morbid anxiety, and fear that I will be entirely too late to perform my part of the work.”

Still at his headquarters fifty miles to the south, General Forrest decides to make Smith’s column his concern, determined to prevent a junction of Smith and Sherman, though even the smaller of the two has twice his strength and is infinitely superior in experience and equipment.

An affair occurs at Raiford’s Plantation, near Byhalia, Mississippi. The other Federal expedition, in Florida, fights a skirmish at Lake City. Fighting also breaks out near Madisonville, Louisiana, and there is a Union descent on Lamar, Texas. Confederate raiders under Major H.W. Gilmor attacks the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad near Kearneysville, West Virginia, throwing a train off the tracks and robbing the crew and passengers.

[Doug64]

February 12, Friday

With Sherman’s advance toward Meridian, Mississippi, while McPherson pauses for a day of destructive work on the railroad around Morton, Hurlbut makes such good time that by sundown he has passed through Decatur, northeast of Newton Station, and is less than thirty miles from Meridian. Sherman decides to wait there for McPherson, who is expected within a couple of hours. Detaching a regiment from Hurlbut’s rear to serve as a guard, he and his staff unsaddle their horses in the yard of a house where an aide has arranged for supper; after which the general lies down on a bed to get some sleep. He is awakened by shouts and shots, and looks out of a window to find butternut cavalry “dashing about in a cloud of dust, firing their pistols.” It develops that the colonel of the regiment detached to guard him, mistaking a front-riding group of staff officers for the head of McPherson’s column, had considered himself relieved and pushed on eastward in an attempt to overtake his division before dark. When Sherman learns what has happened, he sends an aide to order the regiment back on the double, while he himself prepares to retire with his companions to a corncrib for a blockhouse-style defense. Fortunately for him, the rebel troopers are giving their attention to some straggler wagons, never suspecting the larger prize, and before the townspeople can call it to their attention the red-faced colonel returns on the run and drives them off, delivering the army commander from the gravest personal danger he has experienced since his near-capture at Colliersville, four months ago yesterday. Presently McPherson does in fact come up, and Sherman goes back to bed for a full night’s sleep. There is an affair at Wall Hill and a skirmish at Holly Springs.

In Missouri fighting occurs near California House and at Macon; and in Arkansas at Caddo Gap. A nine-day Union expedition operates from Batesville, Arkansas.

[Doug64]

February 13, Saturday

Troops of the Florida expedition who set out to destroy Confederate supply bases skirmish for two days at Pease Creek. In the Meridian Campaign fighting flares between Chunky Creek and Meridian and at Wyatt, as Sherman’s men near the important Mississippi point. Other action includes fighting in Fentress County, Tennessee, a Federal scout near Knoxville, and a two-day Federal expedition from Helena up the Saint Francis River of Arkansas.

[Doug64]

February 14, Sunday

Another two days of hard marching brings the head of Sherman’s blue column into Meridian, Mississippi, by midafternoon. General Polk had left by rail with the last of his troops this morning, retiring beyond the Tombigbee to Demopolis. After pleading in vain for reinforcements, he had concerned himself with the removal of an estimated $12,000,000 (2021 $263,418,095) in military property, south to Mobile or east to Selma, together with the rolling stock of the three railroads; so that when Sherman marches in on Valentine’s Day he finds the warehouses yawning empty and the tracks deserted in all four directions. Furious at the loss, he puts the blame on W. Sooy Smith, who should have arrived four days ago, in time to prevent the removal of the spoils, but who has neither come himself nor sent a courier to account for his departure from the schedule he agreed to, three weeks ago at Memphis.

Even though W. Sooy Smith’s wing of the Meridian Campaign is traversing, southeast of Colliersville, what one of his lietuenants calls a “rough, hopeless, Godforsaken” country, despoiled by nearly two years of contention and hardhanded occupation, his spirits rise in the early stages of his march, partly because the tension of waiting has finally been relieved and partly because his prediction that Forrest will “show fight between the Coldwater and the Tallahatchie” is not borne out. He crosses the former stream near Holly Springs on the 12th and the latter at New Albany today—simultaneously, though he doesn’t know it, with Sherman’s arrival in Meridian. By now the the column is badly strung out, however, and he is obliged to call a halt wile the rear elements catch up.

At Ringgold, Georgia, General Thomas receives peremptory orders to make a “formidable reconnaissance” of General Johnston’s position.

In Florida an offshoot of the main Northern expedition captures Gainsville and fights a skirmish. Elsewhere the action erupts near Larkins.

[Doug64]

February 15, Monday

President Davis now wonders if Sherman’s column, which he thought was headed for Mobile, is instead marching toward Montgomery, Alabama. In fact, Sherman has not gone beyond Meridian, Mississippi. Some of his troops skirmish at Marion Station.

From Vicksburg a small expedition to Grand Gulf ranges until March 6th. Skirmishes break out in West Virginia at Laurel Creek in Wayne County and in Arkansas at Saline River. In Missouri an affair takes place near Charleston. Until the 23rd, another Federal expedition in Florida makes its way from Fernandina to Woodstock and King’s Ferry Mills.

[Doug64]

February 16, Tuesday

President Davis, still concerned over supplies of food and other matériel to the armies, solicits suggestions to remedy defects in the logistical arrangements.

Determined to make the most of the situation in Meridan as he finds it—for though the military property has been hauled away, the facilities are still there, and there is civilian property in abundance—Sherman has given his men a well-earned day of rest, then distributes the tools he brought along to assure the efficient accomplishment of the object of his raid. For the next five days 10,000 men will work “hard and with a will in that work of destruction, with axes, crowbars, sledges, clawbars, and with fire.” While the rest of the soldiers in the two corps are attending to the railroads—Hurlbut north and east of town, McPherson south and west, burning trestles, smashing culverts, and warping rails over bonfires fed by crossties—Sherman keeps peering through the smoke for some sign of W. Sooy Smith and his 7,000 troopers, who are to lead the march on Selma as soon as the present demolition work is finished. But there is none. “It will be a novel thing in war,” he complains testily, between puffs on a cigar, “if infantry has to await the motions of cavalry.” There is fighting at Lauderdale Springs, Mississippi.

On the opposite side of the line, General Johnston has protested General Polk’s request for reinforcements for all he’s worth. In the first place, he doesn’t believe the proposed reinforcements can reach Polk in time to head off Sherman; and what is more, he is convinced that any substantial reduction of his already outnumbered force, which is being required to maintain a position that has “neither intrinsic strength nor strategic advantage,” will not only expose Atlanta to capture by the blue mass in his front, but will also be likely to result in the destruction of what will remain of the army charged with its defense. This chilling presentation to the government of a choice between losing one or the other of two of its principle cities has had the effect of delaying, though not forestalling, a peremptory order requiring the immediate detachment of Hardee’s corps to Polk for the purpose of covering Mobile.

Elsewhere there is an affair at Fairfield, North Carolina; a skirmish at Indian Bay and Caddo Gap, Arkansas. Some minor Federal probings and ship and shore operations, including bombardment of Fort Powell, take place until late March around Mobile, aggravating the Confederate fear of an attack. In Washington Territory, through the 23rd Federal troops campaign against Amerinds from Fort Walla Walla to the Snake River. Two blockade runners are halted near Wilmington, North Carolina. Pet is captured by the blockaders and Spunky chased ashore and destroyed.

[Doug64]

February 17, Wednesday

An even stranger Confederate craft than the cigar-shaped torpedo boat that sent the New Ironsides into port for repairs now threatens the Federal blockaders. This is the hand-cranked, experimental submarine H. L. Hunley. During trial runs, the Hunley has sunk several times, taking the lives of at least 32 crewmen; the vessel has been called “the peripatetic coffin.” Tonight, bearing a torpedo on a bow spar, the Hunley—barely visible in the full moonlight—pushes toward the wooden sloop-of-war Housatonic, on blockade duty outside Charleston Harbor. At about 9 pm, the Housatonic’s acting master suddenly notices a rippling on the water and then spots the submarine herself. He gives the alarm, but the Hunley is so close that the Housatonic’s guns can’t be brought to bear. The little vessel presses on through rifle fire to ram the gunboat with her torpedo. There is a tremendous explosion; the entire stern of the Housatonic disintegrates, and as the crew scramble into boats, the ship goes to the bottom. The Hunley, true to her nickname, also goes down, taking Lieutenant George E. Dixon and his six-man crew to their graves. Although the daring attack sends consternation through the blockading fleet, the perils of such pioneer submarines make them still ineffective instruments of warfare.

Skirmishing erupts near Pontotoc, Mississippi, part of the Meridian Campaign, and in the Houlka Swamp near Houston. In Arkansas there are skirmishes at Black’s Mill and Horse Head Creek. A two-day Federal scout from Warrenton, Virginia, involves skirmishing near Piedmont. A Union expedition moves from Motley’s Ford, Tennessee, to Murphy, North Carolina.

An act of the Confederate Congress suspends the privilege of the writ of habeus corpus until August 2nd to meet resistance to the conscription law and other disloyal activities. Suspension is restricted to arrests made under authority of the President and the Secretary of War. President Davis arranges to send reinforcements from J.E. Johnston’s army in north Georgia to Polk, believed to be threatened in Mississippi by a Federal move to the Gulf.

The first Confederate Congress adjourns its fourth session amid overt discontent with the Davis administration and the progress of the war.

[Doug64]

February 18, Thursday

Sherman’s force at Meridian, Mississippi, still disrupts Confederate railroads and supply depots. Fighting breaks out, with a skirmish at Aberdeen, near Okolona, in the northern part of Mississippi, in conjunction with the Federal column cooperating with Sherman from Memphis. The column under W. Sooy Smith reaches Okolona. Smith’s schedule requires a march rate of about 25 miles a day, but in this first week he hasn’t averaged half that, despite the fact that he has encountered no opposition more formidable than a “rabble of State troops” near Pontotoc, which he brushed aside with ease, and has spent little time on the destructive work that is so much a part of his assignment.

This last is because, so far, all Smith has run across worth destroying are a few outlying barns and gins. Now that he is astride the M&O, however, the opportunity for such labor is considerably enlarged: so mush so, indeed, that from Okolona to West Point, a distance of about thirty miles, his troopers spend more time ripping up track and setting fires than they do in the saddle. “During two days,” a brigade commander will later write, “the sky was red with the flames of burning corn and cotton.” The sky is red with more flames than these; for the blue horsemen—especially those who are off on their own, as stragglers and outriders; “bummers,” they will be called a bit later in the conflict—don’t neglect the chance to scorch the holdings of secessionists in their path. What is more, a Federal colonel adds, slaves on the plantations roundabout, “driven wild with the infection, set the torch to mansion houses, stables, cotton gins, and quarters,” and “came en masse to join our column, leaving only fire and absolute destruction behind them.” Smith, for one, is “deeply pained” to find his command “disgraced by incendiarism of the most shocking kind. I have ordered the first man caught in the act to be shot,” he notifies Grierson, “and I have offered $500 reward for his detection.” As for the Blacks, though he has encouraged them to join him as a means of increasing the disruption of the region and decreasing its future contribution to the Confederate war effort, he now has some 3,000 of them on his hands and is finding them a severe encumbrance to his so-called “flying column,” just at a time when he seems likely to have to move his fastest. Despite his relief that Forrest has failed to “show fight” in the early stages of the march, it has begun to occur to him that the Tennessean might be postponing his attack until he reaches a position where he can concentrate a larger force, and “where we would be to some extent jaded and farther from home.”

General Forrest and his Confederate cavalry have paralleled Smith’s march by shifting from Panola to Starkville. Outnumbered 2 to 1, Forrest cannot risk an all-out attack in open country, nor can he lie in wait for the invaders until he knows where they are headed and what route they will take to get there. They might, for example, cross the Tombigbee east of Tupelo for a link-up with Sherman at Demopolis or Selma, leaving the greybacks crouched in a useless ambush far behind, or they might turn abruptly southwest and make for Jackson, passing in the rear of the butternut column hurrying eastward. So Forrest bides his time and awaits developments, keeping his four undersized brigades spread out to counter an advance from any of several directions.

Other action is recorded at Mifflin, Maryville, and Sevierville, Tennessee; Ringgold, Georgia; and near the headwaters of the Piney in Missouri. A two-day Federal scout operates from Ooltewah, Tennessee, to Burke’s and Ellidge’s Mills, Georgia.

President Lincoln writes Governor John A. Andrew of Massachusetts that if “it be really true that Massachusetts wishes to afford a permanent home within her borders, for all, or even a large number of colored persons who will come to her, I shall be only too glad to know it....” The President also issues a proclamation lifting the blockade of Brownsville, Texas, thereby allowing normal trade, but of course no commerce in military articles.