[Doug64]

December 10, Saturday

As Sherman’s army nears the fixed defenses of Savannah, Georgia, the opposition grows more serious. On one occasion a persistent Confederate gun begins to bang away at the marchers, and Sherman walks forward in a railroad cut to get a better look. Very soon he sees a white puff of smoke, and, watching close, catches sight of the ball as it rises in its flight, and finding it “coming pretty straight,” he steps a short distance to one side. The 32-pound round shot strikes the ground and rises in its first ricochet, catches a Federal soldier under the right jaw, and literally carries away his head, scattering blood and brains. Sherman wisely concludes to leave, he and his staff riding back up the road a quarter mile.

Five causeways run into the city across the marshes, canals, and flooded rice fields that lie between the Savannah River on Sherman’s left and the Ogeechee River on his right. The Confederates hold fast to the east bank of the Savannah—the South Carolina side—denying the Federals access to that waterway. The Union troops splash forward through the marshes until they reach the city’s defenses, a trench line with earthworks and rifle pits protected by sharpened stakes, lying behind rice fields in which water can be raised or lowered by floodgates. Before this truly formidable barrier, the Federal troops pause and form a siege line in an irregular crescent. They are about four miles from Savannah proper; church bells can be heard when the wind is right. The weather turns cold, and in the swampy terrain the men are rarely dry.


Bad weather continues at Nashville, making any movements hazardous. On other fronts there is skirmishing at Petersburg in front of Fort Holly; Federal scouting from Core Creek to Southwest Creek, North Carolina; a Union expedition until the 21st against Amerinds in central Arizona Territory. Federal troops under George Stoneman move from Knoxville toward east Tennessee and southwestern Virginia, aiming at the Confederate salt works and supply depots.

President Lincoln names Major General William F. Smith and Henry Stanbery as special commissioners to investigate civil and military affairs on and west of the Mississippi.

Copperhead Lambdin P. Milligan and his fellow defendants are found guilty by a military tribunal on multiple charges and will be sentenced to death. They will appeal and have their sentences reduced after the war is over by President Johnson, and have the decision reversed entirely in December 1866 when the Supreme Court rules that military authorities have no power to try a civilian on such charges outside the actual theater of war.

[Doug64]

December 11, Sunday

Sherman’s Federals are busy investing Savannah, although the route north to Charleston is not yet cut off. The lengthy King’s Bridge over the Ogeechee, direct route to Fort McAllister and destroyed by Confederates, has to be rebuilt. In Virginia there are minor operations about Broadway Ferry and the Chowan River. Grant again urges Thomas to attack Hood and Thomas replies that he will as soon as the weather improves at all.

[Doug64]

December 12, Monday

In Washington, President Lincoln continues to wait anxiously, as he has for weeks, for news of the army marching across Georgia. The suspense felt so intensely in the White House is shared by the public as newspapers count the days since Sherman cut the telegraph link to the North and disappeared. Grant, in Virginia facing Lee’s army in stalemate, waits impatiently for his old friend “to come out at salt water,” not unaware that his own career is on the line with Sherman’s. The Navy is hanging off-shore, steaming regularly up the Ogeechee just out of range of the Confederate defenses and hurling signal rockets into the night. There has been no response from Sherman. The fate of Sherman and his army is never far from President Lincoln’s mind. Senator John Sherman of Ohio asks him at a White House meeting if there is word of his brother. “Oh, no,” says Lincoln, “I know the hole he went in at, but I can’t tell you what hole he’ll come out of.” Lincoln’s preoccupation is pervasive; a guest, finding the President ignoring him in a reception line, demands recognition. Lincoln apologizes and says: “I was thinking of a man down south.” On another occasion the President attempts to get a message to Sherman via Colonel A.H. Markland, who is leaving Washington with mail for Sherman’s army. At the White House, Lincoln takes Markland’s hand. “Say to him, for me, ‘God bless him and God bless his army.’ That is as much as I can say and more than I can write.” Markland will remember tears in the President’s eyes.

As for Sherman, he has deployed his forces between the Ogeechee and the Savannah Rivers, facing Savannah’s defenses. “We had again run up against the old familiar parapet, with its deep ditches, canals and bayous full of water,” Sherman will write, “and it looked as though another siege was inevitable.” He is near his goal but he is not safe, for he faces an enemy in place and he has yet to reach the sea and make contact with the US Navy. But he can’t use the Savannah as an avenue to the sea because the Confederates hold both banks in strength. Sherman’s men know they are facing a fight now. One Indiana soldier will recall the gun captain of a nearby embrasure telling him and his comrades to lie low. “He was going to wake up the Johnnys. He fired both of his guns. He woke them up, all right. They replied, knocked the muzzle off the gun next to us, the wheel off the other, blew up the caisson and threw one shell into the muck in front of us which exploded and covered us with about 20 tons of black mud.”

The way down the Ogeechee, moreover, is blocked by Fort McAllister, which stands on the south bank, guns fixed on the river entrance from Ossabaw Sound. Navy vessels have steamed close enough to the fort to draw its fire. Approximately 200 Confederate gunners man the fort, and it indeed appears formidable. Kilpatrick’s cavalrymen have tested the fort and have judged it too strong for the troopers to take. But Major General Oliver O. Howard, the commander of Sherman’s south wing, deems Fort McCallister vulnerable to infantry assault. The one-armed general volunteers to reduce it and sends Brigadier General William B. Hazen’s division forward to launch the assault. This is Sherman’s old outfit; he led it to victory at Shiloh and Vicksburg and he knows what it can do. Sherman tells Hazen that the safety of the whole army and the success of the campaign rests on him.

Inside Savannah, meanwhile, General Hardee is rallying what troops he can muster. His earthworks are strong and studded with artillery, but his men number scarcely 10,000. Beauregard, still in overall command, arrives in Savannah just before Sherman’s troops pull up before the city’s defensive perimeter. Beauregard tells Hardee not to risk capture of his own army, which will be needed if Sherman moves into South Carolina. Instead, Hardee should start building a pontoon bridge to evacuate his men across the mile-wide river to safety.


The Federals capture another Rebel vessel, CSS Resolute, on the Savannah River.

A skirmish erupts on the Amite River, Louisiana. Stoneman’s Federal cavalry plus other troops push ahead from Knoxville and east Tennessee toward southwest Virginia, with a skirmish at Big Creek near Rogersville, Tennessee.

President Lincoln explains to General Edward R.S. Canby, in command in the Gulf area, the government policy in Louisiana, such as getting cotton away from the Confederates, and says “it is a worthy object to again get Louisiana into proper practical relations with the nation....”

President Davis is still casting about for troops to oppose Sherman, without weakening Lee.

[Potemkin]

At the White House, Lincoln takes Markland’s hand. “Say to him, for me, ‘God bless him and God bless his army.’ That is as much as I can say and more than I can write.” Markland will remember tears in the President’s eyes.

Lincoln knew what was at stake during the Civil War. And he know that it could easily have gone either way, especially if there had been a political failure, a failure of the North's will to fight. God bless President Lincoln, God bless General Sherman and God bless General Grant.

[annatar1914]

Lincoln knew what was at stake during the Civil War. And he know that it could easily have gone either way, especially if there had been a political failure, a failure of the North's will to fight. God bless President Lincoln, God bless General Sherman and God bless General Grant.

@Potemkin :

Right is Might. It's amazing how the " cunning of history"/Divine Providence rested on the shoulders of that strange man, President Abraham Lincoln.

[Doug64]

Lincoln knew what was at stake during the Civil War. And he know that it could easily have gone either way, especially if there had been a political failure, a failure of the North's will to fight. God bless President Lincoln, God bless General Sherman and God bless General Grant.

Amen! At this point the war's won, thanks to Lincoln's re-election, but Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman took a huge gamble with Sherman's army--one of the three major Northern armies--to take months off the war and save who knows how many lives.

[Doug64]

December 13, Tuesday

As General Hazen deploys his Federal troops for the attack on Fort McCallister, blocking Sherman’s army from the Navy off the coast, Sherman himself rides to the Cheeves plantation three miles upriver from the fort. He and Howard climb onto a lookout platform built on the roof of the house. Though his field glass, Sherman sees Hazen’s men pause at the edge of a forest. He immediately sends orders to hurry the assault. The sun is rapidly declining, and he is “dreadfully impatient.” At this very moment a steamer with tall black stacks slides into view well below the fort. At last—it is the Navy. A signal flag flashes from the ship’s bow, asking who they are. “General Sherman,” comes the reply from the lookout perch. “Is Fort McCallister taken?” “Not yet, but it will be in a minute!”

Just then there is a roll of fire from the direction of the fort. Sherman watches Hazen’s troops come out of the dark fringe of woods, “lines dressed as on parade, colors flying, and moving forward with a quick steady pace.” Fort McCallister’s big guns open up, belching out dense clouds of smoke that soon envelope the assaulting lines. One color goes down, but is up in a moment. The column, some twenty flags in line, presses on to the main work, but then the head of the column seems to sink down and disappear. General Sherman has been watching them through his field glass with eager anxiety but when this apparent hesitation—“the sign of ruinous repulse if real”—appears, he takes down his glass as if unable to watch the failure. Then the column reappears, still pressing forward, and in another minute has reached and is on the parapet. The fort is theirs.

Sherman is ecstatic. “I’ve got Savannah!” he cries gleefully. He sends an exuberant message to General Slocum: “Take a good big drink, a long breath and then yell like the devil. The fort has been carried at 4:30 p.m., the assault lasting but fifteen minutes.” Then Sherman hurriedly finds a small boat and rows to the fort as night falls, his younger officers at the oars. General Hazen is waiting to report losses of 24 killed and 110 wounded. The Confederate garrison numbered 230 men and suffered 35 casualties.

Later this night, Sherman boards a yawl and sails toward Ossabaw Sound. The yawl pulls alongside a vessel at anchor. Its officers welcome aboard the general for whom they have waited so long, and he scrawls a report to Secretary of War Stanton that ends: “I regard Savannah as already gained.” Major General John G. Foster, commander of the Federal enclave at Port Royal, a mere twenty miles up the coast, is on board a ship nearby and soon gives Sherman good news: A full division of fresh troops awaits him at Port Royal, with mountains of supplies that will begin moving in the morning.


Stoneman’s Union raiders in east Tennessee reach Kingsport, push across the Holston, and defeat remnants of John Hunt Morgan’s old command. Federal expeditions are active from Barrancas, Florida, to Pollard, Alabama; from Morganza to Morgan’s Ferry, Louisiana; and up the White River from Devall’s Bluff, Arkansas. Confederates attack a railroad train near Murfreesboro.


General Thomas at Nashville has informed Halleck in Washington that he has his troops ready to attack Hood as soon as the sleet has melted, for it is now almost impossible to move on the ice-covered ground. But the storm in Tennessee makes little impression on Washington, and the telegrams bombarding Thomas now include threats. Thomas’s calm imperturbability in the face of this pressure is much admired by many of his officers and men. The authorities in Washington, however, see Thomas only as the “Rock of Chickamauga,” an unshakable fighter on defense but lacking the aggressiveness required for the offense. Even Grant succumbs to this view and, his patience running out, orders Thomas’s relief—not by Schofield but by Major General John A. Logan, a bold fighter who served with Grant in the Vicksburg campaign last year. Logan is to leave for Nashville immediately and take over if Thomas hasn’t already attacked.

[Doug64]

December 14, Wednesday

Strategists on both sides have acknowledged the importance of Fort Fisher, twenty miles down the Cape Fear River from Wilmington, North Carolina. Robert E. Lee sent word to the fort’s commander, 29-year-old Colonel William Lamb, that unless his stronghold keeps Wilmington open to blockade runners, the Confederacy cannot sustain Lee’s army in the field. And in Washington, Secretary Welles wrote: “Something must be done to close the entrance to Cape Fear River and port of Wilmington. I have been urging a conjoint attack for months. Could we seize the forts at the entrance of Cape Fear and close the illicit trade, it would be almost as important as the capture of Richmond on the fate of the Rebels.” Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and General in Chief Ulysses S. Grant agreed to Welles’s proposal for a coordinated assault.

Admiral Farragut was offered command of the flotilla, but he declined on the grounds of exhaustion and poor health. The post fell to Farragut’s boastful and ambitious foster brother, David Porter. Although Porter was appointed acting rear admiral in September 1862, his recent career has been less than impressive, featuring a thoroughly undistinguished performance in the Red River Campaign. Porter was the boldest and most experienced naval commander available. Exercising his right to lead the 6,500 Army troops committed to the assault is the contentious and unreliable Major General Benjamin Butler, now head of the military district in which Fort Fisher is located. Butler and Porter are a perfect mismatch; they have cordially disliked each other since the capture of New Orleans. Butler had started it all by asserting tactlessly, though with considerable justification, that Porter’s mortar boat bombardment of the two forts below the city had made no contribution to the surrender of those strongholds, which had given up the fight after New Orleans fell. Now the admiral and the general communicate with each other mainly through intermediaries—a state of affairs that can easily lead to disaster in a campaign.

Of all the Confederate ports, Wilmington has been the most difficult to blockade. This is largely because the Cape Fear River has two large entrances: New Inlet, north of Smith’s Island, and the Western Bar Channel, west of the island. Thus the Federals have had to keep on duty two flotillas, requiring almost twice as many ships as the twenty needed to close off Charleston. Even so, the blockade has been ineffective. In the last nine weeks of this year and the first two of the next, blockade runners dock in Wilmington with 69,000 rifles, 43 cannon, more than four tons of meat, a half million pairs of shoes, about a ton of saltpeter, and three quarters of a ton of lead.

The two entrances to the river are dominated from the mainland by Forts Caswell and Fisher, the former guarding the Western Bar Channel and the latter perched on a bluff overlooking the entrance to New Inlet. Fort Fisher has earthen walls, bolstered with heavy timbers and covered with sod; these ramparts are 25 feet thick at the base, tapering to eight feet at the top, and they average twenty feet in height. The fort’s sea face runs north for more than a mile, then the walls turn west at a right angle and extend almost a half mile overland, nearly reaching the Cape Fear River. In front of this land face, the defenders have constructed a wooden palisade and seeded the ground with hundreds of mines as protection against an infantry assault from the north. The fort boasts 169 artillery pieces, of which 44 are heavy cannon. Separating the gun platforms are thirty thick, mound-like earthen traverses, fifteen feet higher than the parapet; if a direct hit destroys one platform, the adjoining ones will be sheltered by these traverses, some of which are hollowed out to serve as bombproofs and powder magazines. At the southern end of the sea face is the cone-shaped Mound Battery, rising sixty feet above the beach, with its two big guns bearing on New Inlet. A mile farther south, a separate bastion, Battery Buchanan, guards the tip of Confederate Point (formerly named Federal Point). David Porter, for once, doesn’t overstate the challenge he is facing when he claims that only one who has seen Fort Fisher “could form the slightest conception of these works—their magnitude, strength and extent.” But if US Army and Navy forces working together can somehow reduce this stronghold, the much less formidable Fort Caswell will certainly fall, isolating Wilmington.

Benjamin Butler has come up with a peculiar plan for taking Fort Fisher. The general, always excited by flamboyant novelties, has been fascinated by accounts of two ship explosions: A British canal boat that blew up with 75 tons of powder in its hold, and, more recently, a US ordnance vessel that exploded at City Point, east of Richmond. Both blasts destroyed buildings in the vicinity and caused great loss of life. Butler has concluded that an old ship filled with explosives and set off beneath Fisher will have a similar effect—at the very least, opening the walls of the fort to an infantry assault. To everyone’s surprise, Porter, who is known to disdain ideas that he hasn’t originated, agrees that Butler’s notion is an “experiment at least worth trying.” So an ancient, flat-bottomed derelict named the Louisiana is filled to the gunwales with 215 tones of powder and assorted combustibles. This immense floating bomb is to be towed into the shallows off Fort Fisher, where hopefully she will wreak magnificent destruction.


General Sherman reaches the flagship of Admiral John A. Dahlgren, commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. Sailors hang from the yards and cheer as he comes aboard, which delights him. As he shakes hands with the admiral he seems overwhelmed with pleasure—and, perhaps, with relief. He has marched across Georgia and linked up with the Navy. The capture of Savannah is only a matter of time. Sherman strides about talking in his most intense manner, fingers snapping, eyes glowing, clouds of cigar smoke billowing around him. “I’ve got Savannah,” he booms. “It’s in my grip.” When Sherman finally starts back to his troops, a young Navy officer who has been near him on the ship confides that he “felt it a relief and experienced almost an exhaustion after the excitement of his vigorous presence.”


General Thomas tells Washington that Nashville’s carapace of ice has melted and he will attack Hood south of Nashville tomorrow. He calls his officers to his room in Nashville’s St. Cloud Hotel and gives them written orders for a massive, coordinated assault modeled on classic lines. It will begin with a feint on the Federal left, to hold the Confederate right in place. The diversion will be made by James Steedman’s division, which includes the 1st and 2nd Colored Brigades. The main attack will come on the Federal right and it will strike the most vulnerable spot in the Confederate line, the exposed left flank defended by Stewart’s battered corps. This main thrust will be delivered by Andrew J. Smith’s Missouri divisions; by IV Corps under Brigadier General Thomas J. Wood, who has replaced the wounded Stanley; and by a division of cavalry led by Brigadier General Edward Hatch. Schofield’s XXIII Corps will be in reserve, positioned to reinforce the main attack. Wilson’s cavalry will be on the far right to screen the Federal flank and attempt to envelop the Confederates.

Not knowing of any of this, a fuming Grant leaves Petersburg and starts for Nashville himself, via Washington.


In Georgia Federal naval units bombard Forts Rosedew and Beaulieu on the Vernon River for a week. In the Stoneman expedition toward southwest Virginia there is an affair at Bristol, Tennessee. Skirmishes occur on the Germantown Road near Memphis, Tennessee, and in the Cypress Swamp near Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Until January 5th Federals operate in the vicinity of Hermitage Plantation near Morganza, Louisiana. President Davis defers to Lee’s judgment as to whether troops can be spared from Petersburg to operate against Sherman.

[Doug64]

December 15, Thursday

General Grant arrives at Washington on his way to Nashville, when the word finally comes in: The attack at Nashville has started.

During the night heavy fog formed and at 4 am, when bugles sound, the men find themselves groping for position. Thomas checks out of the St. Cloud hotel with luggage packed and mounts his horse under gaslights that shine dimly. He is wearing a new uniform, gold braid faintly gleaming. The air feels warm; when the fog burns off, the day will be sunny.

On the left, Steedman’s three brigades, about 7,600 men with two batteries, move forward into a blinding white mist. “Before six o’clock the brigade was in motion,” Captain Henry V. Freeman of the 12th Colored Troops will recall. “Everyone know it could not go far in that direction without someone getting hurt.” The 12th is made up mainly of former slaves. They haven’t been in combat before; this is their chance to prove themselves. There has been some question of whether men of such background will make good soldiers, but their officers, all white volunteers, have great confidence in them. Steedman orders Freeman and his men to charge just as the fog begins to lift. The Black troops rush up a long hill and overrun the railroad cut that is supposed to help anchor the far right of Cheatham’s line. Then Freeman leads his regiment over a ridge—and into heavy fire. The men nevertheless plunge forward, quickly taking the advance rifle pits and threatening the main Confederate works. There the attack bogs down, but for hours the untried troops make things hot for the defenders. Their “staying qualities,” Freeman will say, “were here well tested.” Steedman stages a second attack about 11 am and keeps pressure on the Confederate right all day.

As designed, this pressure fixes Cheatham in place. It also helps hold Stephen Lee’s entire corps in the center. Lee’s men are threatened on both right and left as the battle develops, but if they move in either direction the Federals can move straight down the Franklin Pike and split Hood’s army in two. Lee does manage to send four brigades to aid Stewart, but the rest of his corps remains in position throughout the fighting, immobilized by Thomas’ well-conceived tactics. That leaves Stewart’s men virtually on their own against the main Union attack.

The movement on the Federal right is delayed by the fog, which finally clears about 9 am. Then the soldiers, looking back toward Nashville, see that they are under the gaze of a large crowd of spectators, most of them evidently Nashville natives and Confederate sympathizers. “All the hills in our rear were black with human beings watching the battle, but silent,” Colonel Isaac R. Sherwood will recall. “No army on the continent ever played on any field to so large and so sullen an audience.” As these critical observers watch, the Federal attack on the right suffers embarrassing delays. Mud makes progress slow; in some spots the infantry is hardly able to waddle forward through the slippery mire. Then the flamboyant Wilson, his horsemen eager to brush back the Confederate cavalry screen and extend the envelopment of Stewart’s flank, finds his troopers stymied by Brigadier General John McArthur’s division of Smith’s corps, which inadvertently has crossed in front of Wilson’s line of advance. The delays enable Hood to shore up his left with the few reserves he possesses—a handful of cavalry and Brigadier General Matthew D. Ector’s infantry brigade, its six regiments depleted to a mere 700 men. At last the Federal advance gains momentum. Wilson, moving forward with about 12,000 men, begins to meet and push back Chalmers’ single division of Confederate cavalry. At the same time Andrew J. Smith, entrusted with delivering the main blow, lurches forward with a like number of infantry and, fording several creeks, approaches Stewart’s strung-out line. The men of Ector’s understrength brigade fire a few rounds but then hastily fall back, as instructed, over a ridge, making a run for the main line and those protective redoubts along the Hillsboro Pike.

While Wilson’s cavalry and Smith’s infantry advance on the Federal far right, the men of Wood’s IV Corps are moving forward slowly in the Federal center. They too started in fog, and when the sun breaks through the men of the center Indiana regiment see on each side “the double line of soldiers gradually dwindling,” until they “seem like a thread of blue yarn, with here and there a patch of red” where the colors appear. Soon Wood’s corps is moving up the northwestern slope of Montgomery Hill, the most advanced part of the Confederate line. Hood has already withdrawn the bulk of his troops from the hill, but a number remain, including some sharpshooters hidden in a fine brick house that tops the rise. The marksmen pepper the advancing Federals until an Ohio battery puts a shell right through a window. Then comes the signal to advance and they start off on a quick-step that soon increases to a run. Bullets whistle as the men pass through an abatis. Then comes the command to “charge with a yell!” Charge they do, shooting, loading, yelling. Then one of the officers of the center Indiana regiment gallops up to the regimental color-bearer, Sergeant John Young, and snatches the staff, the quicker to plant the flag on the Confederate works. The officer puts the spurs to his horse, leaving the regiment behind but taking with him the plucky color-bearer, who doesn’t propose to relinquish the colors but is determined to plant them there himself. The struggle at the Confederate earthworks is so violent that the officer is pulled off his horse, whereupon Sergeant Young again grabs the staff and drives it “into the soft dirt on the top of the rebel works.” The Federal line sweeps over the Confederate trenches, taking both prisoners and guns.

But this is only an advanced Confederate line; the bulk of the troops have withdrawn to another line beyond. Immediately, however, there follows one of those “remarkable occurrences where the rank and file outgeneraled their general.” On reaching the enemy’s works, the men in advance can plainly see another line of entrenchments farther on and to which the routed enemy is fleeing. Nearly every officer in the line gives the command to halt, “but all to no purpose; the men were, using their own language, ‘bound and determined to have the next line’.” On their own, the men of Herr’s brigade hurtle forward, riding their own momentum. They soon come to the edge of an open field from which point, and about 300 yards directly in front, can “be seen a strong line of earthworks, alive with men and bristling with bayonets, interspersed with batteries of artillery.” But the sight doesn’t daunt the attackers. The men in the line seem to cry “Forward!” simultaneously, then rush through the abatis “and over the works, capturing many prisoners, two flags and four pieces of artillery.” This extraordinary charge breaks the center of Stewart’s line, sending Confederates running for the rear. The retreat is quickened when Stewart’s men see another Union column emerging on their flank—Smith’s men striking from the other side. Against a frontal assault alone, Stewart’s thin-stretched line might have been able to rally and hold. But the knowledge that the defense on the far left is swiftly breaking up is too much. With the flank gone, the entire line will inevitably collapse.

On the Confederate left, only the redoubts on Hillsboro Pike stand in the path of the Federal onslaught. From Redoubt No. 1, the strongest of the forts, the Confederate line turns back at a right angle and runs along the pike to Redoubts Nos. 2 and 3. Farther down the pike, well to the rear of the main line, are the uncompleted redoubts, Nos. 4 and 5. It is obvious to Stewart that both Andrew J. Smith’s XVI Corps and Hatch’s cavalry are going to strike the redoubts with overwhelming force. In desperation, Stewart turns to General Edward Walthall’s division, which has been held in reserve. Walthall posts the bulk of his troops behind the stone wall that runs much of the distance between Redoubts Nos. 3 and 4, also sending two batteries of guns, each protected by a company of infantry, to defend the two unfinished redoubts. As the survivors of Ector’s tattered little brigade come in, retreating before the Federal juggernaut, Walthall puts them at the extreme end of the line defending the stone wall. But this still leaves them well short of the last redoubt, which stands like a tiny island soon to be lapped by a sea of blue. His entire defensive line is “stretched to the utmost tension.”

The first stronghold to fall is the unsupported fifth redoubt. Stewart and his men watch helplessly as Hatch’s cavalry surge over a ridge, envelope the fort, then dismount for the attack. No one tells the horsemen to remove their cavalry sabers, and so the troopers are encumbered by the dragging scabbards as they charge in company with a couple of Federal brigades up the hill and toward the parapet. Lieutenant Colonel John H. Stibbs from Iowa, watching from a nearby ridge, first sees enemy gun flashes darting toward the attackers and the Federals disappearing into the smoke. But then he will recall, “we heard a mighty cheer and a moment later we saw the flashes of guns in the opposite direction” as Hatch’s troopers turn the captured cannon on the fleeing Confederates.

Next to come under attack is Redoubt No. 4. In command there is Captain Charles L. Lumsden, a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute and an experienced artilleryman. Lumsden has 100 infantrymen posted in shallow ditches on each side of the redoubt and four guns within the ramparts. His orders are to hold on “as long as you can.” He is determined to do so. Under fire from the captured cannon in Redoubt No. 5, he shifts two of his smoothbore Napoleons to answer, firing the other two at Smith’s corps coming in from the west. It is soon evident that his position is hopeless, but Lumsden fights on, his guns booming, infantry muskets crackling alongside. One of the defenders, Sergeant James R. Maxwell, will recall helping work the guns until only a handful of men are left. At this point, he looks up to see Lumsden himself standing in the redoubt with a charge of canister in his hands, ready to keep on firing. The gunner with the friction primers has fled, however, making it impossible to discharge the Napoleons. Only now does Lumsden admit defeat, calling out: “Take care of yourselves, boys.” With that the survivors, Maxwell included, turn tail and light out down the hill.

As the men in his Federal brigade watch two redoubts fall, Colonel Stibbs will remember, they go wild, shouting that they want to assault one of the strongpoints themselves. “Bring us a fort! Bring us a fort!” they yell as General Smith rides by. The general wheels his horse. “Never mind, I’ll get a fort for you and you won’t have to wait long for it either!” Stibbs’ men swiftly throw their blankets, haversacks, and other heavy equipment on the ground, readying themselves for a headlong charge. Their objective will Redoubt No. 3. General Smith remarks that it looks tough from where he stands, but Stibbs’ brigade commander, Colonel Sylvester Hill, says, “Oh, no, our men will go right up there; nothing can stop them.” Smith tells them to wait until he can coordinate a supporting attack, but within a minute, Hill orders his bugler to sound the charge and the men are on their way. Soon Hill is dead with a bullet through his head. The Federals sweep up a rise to the redoubt while the Confederates, unable to depress their guns low enough to rake the enemy, limber up and race for Redoubt No. 2. Once there, the Confederate artillerists send “a storm of grape and canister” into the Federal ranks. There doesn’t “seem to be ten second intervals between the discharges.” But the charging Federals don’t pause for more than a few moments before charging again and capturing Redoubt No. 2. The troops pour over the earthworks, the Confederates leaving the fort as the Federals get to it.

By 1:30 in the afternoon Stewart’s position along the Hillsboro Pike has become untenable. Wilson’s cavalrymen are ranging unobstructed far in the rear. Schofield’s corps has joined Wood’s and Smith’s in pounding the Confederate defenses. Walthall’s division has been driven back from the stone wall and is breaking up. Four redoubts are gone and now the most important of them all, No. 1, the anchor point that holds Stewart’s line, is under savage fire from two sides. Stewart begins pulling back, hoping to take a new position on the Granny White Peak. Last to withdraw are parts of a Mississippi brigade commanded by Brigadier General Claudius Sears. Extricating the last of his men as two Federal brigades surge over the works, Sears pauses for a final look at the lost redoubt. Just then a solid shot severs his leg.

Despite the intense Federal pressure, the Confederate withdrawal doesn’t degenerate into a rout. A few units panic, but most of the men fall back toward the Granny White Pike. Lee’s troops in the center also move to the rear. Soon Cheatham starts a shift that takes his corps all the way from the right end of the Confederate line to the far left. December darkness is falling swiftly as the men of Hood’s army, fighting to delay the Federals’ pursuit, improvise a new line more than two miles south of their original positions. The Federals slow their advance and then halt, some units going into bivouac. A number of Union officers regret that Thomas doesn’t continue the chase. There is a chance, they think, to crush the Confederates even in the dark. But the rank and file are generally glad for a rest. More than nine hours have passed since the first attacks of the morning.

Although the Confederate troops haven’t fled, they seem to have lost all taste for fighting. Lieutenant Colonel William D. Gale, one of Stewart’s staff officers, watches as streams of soldiers move past him to the rear. To Gale, the men seem utterly lethargic and without interest in battle. “I never witnessed such want of enthusiasm and began to fear for tomorrow, hoping General Hood would retreat during the night.” But Hood is still undaunted. He will fight again. In the darkness he moves about purposefully, preparing his men for a counterattack in the morning. He still anticipates having a chance to hurl back Thomas’s legions, force them to flee, and then follow them into Nashville.

He organizes his new line about two miles back from his original position; it has necessarily tightened, forming a more compact defense than today’s. The new line is less than two miles long. It covers only two of the eight turnpikes—the Granny White on the left and the Franklin on the right—and is anchored at either end by commanding hills. On the left, just west of the Granny White Pike, is the hill that will be known as Shy’s Hill, for the man who will defend it. On the right, just east of the Franklin Pike, is Overton Hill, which many men call Peach Orchard Hill, for its spindly trees. Hood shifts Stewart’s badly battered corps to the center; he moves Cheatham’s relatively fresh corps to the far left to cover Shy’s Hill. Cheatham’s own left bends back in a great arc around the hill to protect the Confederate army’s vulnerable left flank. General Stephen Lee’s corps shifts to the right and fixes on Overton Hill. Hood posts his single cavalry division under General Chalmers at the end of Cheatham’s line. Forrest meanwhile is hurrying back from Murfreesboro with the bulk of the cavalry. It is an exhausting night for the Confederates. Officers and sergeants stand in roadways calling out their unit designations and gathering their men from the stragglers. When the regiments are reassembled and in the new positions, the men start entrenching. Soldiers who fought all day now work all night, and Hood’s troops are approaching the limits of endurance.

This night, Thomas sends a wire to Halleck in Washington and another to his wife in New York reporting the day’s success. The commission in General Logan’s pocket to take over the army won’t be needed. Grant fires off a return wire with perfunctory congratulations and long admonitions not to let Hood escape; telegrams from Lincoln and Stanton echo Grant’s message.


General Sherman returns to his army outside Savannah, Georgia, and orders Generals Slocum and Howard to prepare the troops for an assault on the city. Just as a load of fresh rations comes in from Port Royal Colonel Markland arrives with the mail, to the delight of the troops at the unexpected and long overdue arrival. He delivers the message President Lincoln gave him when he left Washington on the 12th. “I thank the President,” Sherman responds. “Say my army is all right.”

Grant’s aide, Lieutenant, Colonel Orville E. Babcock, also arrives with a message for Sherman from his chief. Sherman rips open the letter outside his headquarters and begins to read. His own aide, Captain Lewis M. Dayton, sees Sherman “make that nervous motion of the left arm which characterized him whenever anything annoyed him, as if he was pushing something away from him.” “Come here, Dayton,” Sherman snaps. Inside his headquarters, the general begins to swear and cries out, “Won’t do it; I won’t do anything of the kind!” The gist of Grant’s message is most unwelcome. He wants Sherman to bring his army to Virginia by ship and join the Army of the Potomac in defeating Robert E. Lee at Petersburg. Grant’s order isn’t without reason, heavy winter rains customarily turn South Carolina’s myriad streams into rushing torrents, the lowlands into swamps, and the roads into sloughs. But Sherman is used to doing the impossible and has counted on continuing his triumphant march into South Carolina, and he is enraged at the thought of being thwarted. Shipping 62,000 men to Virginia will take nearly as long as marching them there, and Sherman knows that the impact of his swath across Georgia will be magnified tenfold if he can lay waste with fire and sword through the state that is the cradle of the rebellion. Why, Grant’s idea doesn’t even envision Sherman’s pausing to pluck the ripe plum of Savannah.

For an hour or more Sherman fumes. Then he takes control of himself. Of course he will obey Grant’s orders, but he will also write impassioned defenses of his Carolina plan. It will take some time to gather ships; while waiting, he will go ahead and capture Savannah. Still, he hesitates to act until his men have corduroyed roads against the coming winter rains and he has brought in siege guns from Port Royal. Savannah’s defenders can make the cost of taking the city very expensive if they choose. A heavy casualty list at the end of his successful march is the last thing Sherman wants. As a trial shot, then, he sends Hardee an ultimatum: Surrender immediately, or the Federal commander will “feel justified in resorting to the harshest measures, and shall make little effort to restrain my army.” Hardee gives him a dignified refusal, expressing distaste for his enemy’s crudeness.

With nothing remaining but to assault, Sherman decides to make one more preliminary move: He will bring Foster’s small division from Port Royal to occupy the Carolina banks of the Savannah River, facing the city. This will “completely surround Savannah on all sides, so as further to excite Hardee’s fears, and in case of success, to capture the whole of his army.” The tricky part is that Foster’s little force will be vulnerable to attack when it moves, since the main Federal army would have to cross the river to come to its rescue. Sherman chooses to go personally to Port Royal to explain just what he wants.


General Butler and his Army transports headed for Fort Fisher arrive off New Inlet, North Carolina. The weather is clear, the sea calm, the temperature balmy—perfect conditions for a landing. But the Navy is nowhere to be seen: an unpromising start for an amphibious operation.

In the east Tennessee-southwestern Virginia Federal expedition skirmishes break out near Abdingdon and Glade Springs, Virginia. Federals carry out an expedition from Fort Monroe to Pagan Creek, Virginia.

General Price has led his starving Confederates across the Indian Territory to Texas, then back to Arkansas. By now, a mere 3,500 men out of his original 12,000 are still with him.

[Doug64]

December 16, Friday

Morning finds the bulk of the Union troops at Nashville, Tennessee, some distance from the new Confederate front, since most of the units bivouacked where darkness caught them. They move up slowly toward Hood’s line over ground churned into gumbo; except for a few cavalry skirmishes, no fighting occurs throughout the long morning. The Federals are deployed in the order of the battle yesterday. James Steedman is placed on the far left, his line curving southward around Overton Hill. To his right is Wood. Andrew J. Smith holds a long stretch in the center; Schofield’s corps has moved to the right of Smith’s corps and is bent around Shy’s Hill. Wilson’s cavalry is to Schofield’s right. Thomas’s plan remains unchanged: to pin down the Confederate right with a demonstration in force and then overwhelm Hood’s left.

In the morning, Federal artillery fixes precisely on the new Confederate positions and opens a devastating fire. A Confederate officer describes the bombardment as unsurpassed “for heaviness, continuance and accuracy.” Confederate gunners try to answer, but their pieces are few and their powder poor. Among Stephen Lee’s guns is a Maryland battery, which moves forward and begins improving its position on a rise, the men dragging rails from a fence 200 yards to the front to erect a crude breastwork. “The enemy, discovering the working party, opened on them with six guns. As they fired by battery, the men were able to continue their work in the intervals of firing, lying down when the Lieutenant, guided by the smoke from the enemy’s guns, directed them.”

The bombardment presages a powerful Federal assault on Overton Hill. Colonel Philip Sidney Post, the feisty brigade commander who spearheaded the attack that captured Montgomery Hill yesterday, believes his men can carry Overton Hill by charging the west side. Wood orders him to try, with the support of Colonel Abel D. Streight’s brigade. Simultaneously, Colonel Charles R. Thompson’s 2nd Colored Brigade is to storm the hill from the east. At 3 pm the men strip “themselves of all encumbrances” and follow Colonel Post into battle up the steep slope only to run into canister and solid shot from the artillery so heavy they are forced to lie down. The Federal batteries open up, signaling a renewal of the attack. Streight’s brigade stands up and charges with Thompson’s Black soldiers at its side. Then, Sergeant Major Hartpence will recall, “the enemy rose and poured into us a fire of grape, canister, shrapnel and musketry so terrific and destructive that we were compelled to fall back with great loss.” Terrain divides the two Black regiments as they charge. They haven’t advanced fifty feet before they run into their own storm of artillery fire. On the far side of the cornfield, as they approach the Confederate main line, the Federals encounter a barrier of sharpened stakes and an abatis beyond it. Despite all the obstacles, some troops manage to reach the Confederate breastworks and mount the rampart. As they do so, however, Colonel Post, in plain view of his troops, is felled by a bullet and severely wounded. His loss breaks the impetus of the Federal charge. At this point the Confederate fire becomes even heavier. For a moment the brigade halts, and then comes the order to fall back. The Federals retreat down the slopes to the foot of Overton Hill. But the failed attack has not been in vain: Its fury has so alarmed Hood that he has pulled Patrick Cleburne’s division—now led by Brigadier General James A. Smith—from a crucial position on Shy’s Hill and sent it off to the right to support Stephen Lee, who needs no help. Lee sends Cleburne’s men back, but too late.

Hood’s problems on his left began this morning when the aggressive Federal cavalryman, Wilson, began to apply pressure with his dismounted troopers, who are armed with repeating carbines. By early afternoon, the troopers have advanced across the Granny White Pike and are threatening the Franklin Pike, the last Confederate line of retreat. Now Hood is paying the price for having detached Forrest and most of the cavalry before the battle. General Chalmers and his remnants of Confederate troopers are trying to hold off Wilson’s men, but the Federals press in on a long, slanting line, squeezing harder and harder against the rear of Shy’s Hill. The Confederates deployed on that hill are, moreover, in a vulnerable position. The defense of the hill had originally been assigned to Ector’s brigade, but during the morning Hood had ordered Ector’s exhausted men off the hill to confront Wilson’s dismounted cavalry to the south. At that time General William Bate’s division of Cheatham’s corps was ordered to hold Shy’s Hill. When Cleburne’s division made its unnecessary shift to the right, Bate’s line was stretched leftward and the defense of the hill fell to Brigadier General Thomas B. Smith’s brigade. With Smith is a Tennessee regiment commanded by a 25-year-old Colonel William M. Shy. Earlier, as Bate climbed the hill that will take the young Shy’s name, he was appalled at the state of its defenses. Ector’s men, working in the dark and nearing exhaustion, had built their breastworks in the wrong place—and constant ferocious Federal barrage made it impossible to change them. The breastworks are so far from the crest that the Confederates can’t cover most of the slope; the approaching enemy will be sheltered from their fire. To make matters worse, the Confederates haven’t built an abatis or other barrier: When attackers come over the crest of the hill, no more than twenty yards from the breastworks, there will be no obstacles to slow them down. The situation is hazardous for the defenders—but the Federals remain ignorant of the enemy’s vulnerability for most of the day, so formidable do the hills loom.

A dull, cold rain had started at noon. The Federals were in position and Wilson was closing his vise, but the main attack against Shy’s Hill on the Federal right doesn’t begin. The afternoon wears on, and behind the Confederate lines Hood is thinking of a counterattack for tomorrow. Finally Wilson grows angry. His gains to the south of Shy’s Hill might come to nothing if the Federals elsewhere fail to attack. his ire is substantially directed toward Schofield, who commands the infantry that faces the hill. Wilson sends his staff officers, one after another, “to Generals Schofield and Thomas with information of our success, accompanied by suggestions that the infantry should attack with vigor.” A junior general—even a hell-for-leather cavalry officer like Wilson—can say only so much. When he captures a message from Hood imploring the Confederate cavalry to “drive the Yankee cavalry from our rear or all is lost,” Wilson sends three officers to Schofield, urging him to attack. When nothing happens, Wilson himself gallops off to find Thomas. As it turns out, Schofield is responsible for the delay. He thinks Shy’s Hill is too formidable to attack without more men, and he wants another division. Thomas, his patience worn thin, has ridden over to Schofield’s position for a meeting. Wilson thus finds them together, on the lee side of a small hill. As he approaches, he can see in the distance his own cavalrymen behind the enemy position. “For God’s sake,” he cries, “order an attack! My men are in Hood’s rear. You can see their guidons fluttering behind that hill.” Thomas raises his glasses to study the hill. At last he says, in response to Schofield’s protests, “The battle must be fought, even if men are killed.”

Meanwhile, General John McArthur, a division commander in Smith’s XVI Corps, is chafing. He holds the position to Schofield’s left, facing Shy’s Hill from the north. McArthur already has asked permission to attack, but Thomas wants the Federal assault to be coordinated. Now, with scarcely an hour of daylight left, McArthur takes strong action. Convinced he can take Shy’s Hill, he sends a firm message to Smith: He will attack unless Smith says no. When he doesn’t receive a negative response, McArthur readies his division. “With orders to the men to fix bayonets, not to fire a shot and neither to halt nor to cheer until they had gained the enemy’s works, the charge was sounded,” Captain Henry Stone will write later. They “moved swiftly down the slope, across the narrow valley and began scrambling up the steep hillside.” Thomas, still conferring with Schofield, watches the attack through his field glasses. He lowers them, glances at Schofield, and says, “General Smith is attacking without waiting for you. Please advance your entire line.”

Faced with a direct order, Schofield sends his units forward so rapidly that much of the action is over before Wilson, galloping madly, can get back to his troopers. Cold rain in their faces, lowering clouds darkening with oncoming night, Schofield’s men start up that steep hill. Soon they are winded, but then they realize with grateful surprise that the hill itself shelters them from enemy fire. Meanwhile, McArthur’s men go crashing forward without wavering or halting when they fall under heavy Confederate fire. As an Iowa colonel, John H. Stibbs, goes through a cornfield he sees that the Confederates have deployed an extensive skirmish line to their front. Off to the right, Schofield’s troops are going up Shy’s Hill from the west. Then Stibbs notices the Confederate skirmishers ahead of him are watching Schofield’s attack on the hill instead of watching their own front. “They did not discover us until we were fairly on them, when they rose in a body and started for cover. With a wild shout my men started in pursuit, the most rapid runners went to the front, and in an instant our line had lost its formation, and we seemed to have become a howling mob. My men were amongst them capturing them right and left. In less time than it takes to tell it, we had captured guns, caissons, colors and prisoners galore.” Smith’s men break the Confederate line just east of Shy’s Hill and pour through the gap. General Thomas, watching through his glasses, grows confused at the sight of Federal soldiers behind the Confederate line. Thomas cries to Smith, “What is the matter, are your men being captured there?” Smith whirls on his commander. “Not by a damn sight! My men are capturing them, those are Rebel prisoners you see.” Later, Smith will say it is the only time he has ever known General Thomas to laugh aloud.

On Shy’s Hill, the Confederates are desperate. They are taking fire from front, left, and rear. The brigade posted against the Federal cavalry, its senior officers shot down, collapses when Wilson’s men appear at its rear. But the Tennesseans and Georgians on the hill hold. Colonel Shy bunches the Tennesseans in a tight formation; they are ready with the bayonet as the Federal troops come over the crest of the hill and make for the breastworks. With men falling all around him, Shy reaches down to pick up a musket from a fallen soldier. As he does so he takes a bullet to the head and is killed. Shortly afterward, the doomed defense breaks; not more than 65 men on the hill escape death or capture. The memorable but hopeless struggle hasn’t staved off disaster, for now Hood’s line is melting away. Beset on both sides, Bate’s people break out of the works and run down the hill toward their right and rear, “in clouds” behind Walthall, which of course forces him to give way and then by brigades the whole line from left to right. All control over them is gone and they flatly refuse to stop, throwing down their guns, every man for himself.

On the Federal far left, at Overton Hill, General Wood’s troops are regrouping on the lower slopes after their failed attack against Stephen Lee’s Confederates. Suddenly Wood’s men hear a great roar erupting at the other end of the Federal line, and they understand what it means—their comrades have broken through. It is “a sea of sound pealing from the right—the measureless roar of thousands of human voices raised in exultant paeans of victory.” It is magnetic, it electrifies the men. The Federals at Overton Hill turn around with hardly a word and charge the lines from which they have just retreated. The Federals overrun Lee’s lines, but the Confederates refuse to be routed. They give ground slowly and in good order. Then Lee looks to his left, in the direction of Shy’s Hill, and sees the collapse rippling toward him. He gallops wildly toward the break, his horse taking fences in all-out stride, and reins up in a churning mob. A color-bearer passes and Lee snatches the standard from the man’s hands and waves it dramatically over his head as his horse wheels. “Rally, men, rally!” he cries hoarsely. “For God’s sake, rally! This is the place for brave men to die!” Somehow he succeeds, stopping enough men to gain control of the situation and prevent a panic from infecting his own corps. Men gather in knots of four or five and he soon has around him three or four other stands of colors. A few pieces of artillery join Lee, and a little drummer boy who beats “the long roll in perfect time.” On the demolished Confederate left, meanwhile, General Reynolds has managed to keep his 1st Arkansas Mounted Rifles intact. He places them in the path of the advancing Federals and thus helps General Cheatham to save what remains of Hood’s left from capture when the last of the friendly troops pass through his ranks, Reynolds starts his brigade down the muddy road toward Franklin and leaves the rearguard to the cavalry.

It is now near dark, and the advancing Federal infantrymen pause as they approach the remnants of Confederate resistance along the escape routes leading south. Most Federal units stop for the night, but the Federal cavalry remain active. Through the darkness come Wilson’s troopers, now remounted and on the gallop. The cavalrymen crash ahead until they run into a stout barricade just west of the Franklin Pike, behind which a rearguard of dismounted cavalry under James Chalmers waits. The rain is turning into sleet as some of the hardest fighting commences. In the darkness the troopers clash hand to hand, with pistol and saber, close and brutal. One of the Federal cavalry regiments is the 12th Tennessee, under Colonel George Spaulding. During the fray Spaulding collides with someone who shouts, “Who are you, anyhow?” Spaulding identifies himself and the other man seizes the reins of his horse, crying, “Well, you are my prisoner, for I am Colonel Ed Rucker, commanding the 12th Tennessee Rebel Cavalry!” Spaulding slashes with his saber and spurs his horse, shouting, “Not by a damned sight!” Just then Captain Joseph C. Boyer of the Federal 12th Tennessee closes with Rucker. Boyer manages to snatch away Rucker’s saber—just a s Rucker seizes his. They fight with exchanged sabers until a pistol shot breaks Rucker’s sword arm and he is compelled to surrender. Sheer numbers finally force the Confederate rearguard to withdraw, and Chalmers’ troopers go south along the now empty road, having seen the last of Hood’s army move to safety while the Union troops mill about. Wilson hears hoofbeats on the road behind him. A heavy figure looms, and he recognizes General Thomas’s voice. In a roar of triumph that Wilson thinks can be heard for a quarter mile, the usually reserved and dignified Thomas cries, “Dang it to hell, Wilson, didn’t I tell you we could lick ‘em, didn’t I tell you we could lick ‘em?”

Later this night, John Bell Hood is sitting alone in his headquarters. A soldier will remember, “He was much agitated and affected, pulling his hair with one hand (he had but one) and crying like his heart would break.” The Battle of Nashville is over. Thomas had some 50,000 to 55,000 Federals on the field and suffered 387 killed, 2,562 wounded, and 112 missing for 3,061. Confederate losses are far less certain; Hood probably had well under 30,000 men, of which about 4,500 were captured. Killed and wounded are possibly 1,500. For a two-day battle of such magnitude, the casualties are remarkably low. The Army of Tennessee is decimated, its effectiveness ended; yet, despite some accounts, it isn’t “destroyed.” A hard core remains capable of defensive fight, but there won’t be the matériel to build up the army again after Nashville.


Sherman’s army is at work getting resupplied from sea, completing its lines and occupation of the area near Savannah. In the city, meanwhile, time is running out. Defense now seems hopeless and looms as a potential waste of troops who might be valuable in the defense of South Carolina. Beauregard returns today for an inspection. Much to his irritation, the pontoon bridge across the Savannah River is unfinished; he gives the engineers a thorough tongue-lashing.


There is a skirmish at Hinesville, Georgia. In the Southwest Virginia Campaign, Stoneman’s Federal cavalry sees action at Marion, and the Union forces capture Wytheville. In Louisiana there is an expedition from Morganza to the Atchafalaya River. In Arkansas a skirmish takes place near Dudley Lake.

[Doug64]

December 17, Saturday

The cavalry of James H. Wilson and some infantry leads the Federal pursuit of Hood from Nashville. Hood manages to concentrate toward Columbia, encamping at Spring Hill. Skirmishing breaks out between the Federals and Hood’s rearguard at Hollow Tree Gap, West Harpeth River, and Franklin. The firm Confederate stand enables the rest of the army to withdraw through Franklin.

Federal troops in southwest Virginia capture and destroy several lead mines and fight skirmishes near Mount Airy and Marion.

President Davis tells Hardee at Savannah, Georgia, that Lee is unable to detach troops from Virginia and that Hardee should make dispositions “needful for the preservation of your Army.”

[Doug64]

December 18, Sunday

Union cavalry in Tennessee pursue Hood as far as Rutherford Creek, north of Columbia, which is found impassable. There is skirmishing at Spring Hill, Tennessee. Both North and South, hearing the news of Nashville, realize that it is a serious blow to Confederate hopes.


Admiral Porter hoves into sight of General Butler’s Army transports waiting off New Inlet, North Carolina. He comes with a flotilla even mightier than the one Farragut brought to New Orleans. There are 150 ships, including the vaunted ironclad New Ironsides, and they mount nearly 600 guns. But the weather, previously perfect for landings, has turned ominous, and Porter advises Butler to take his transports back to Beaufort, 75 miles to the north, to await more favorable conditions.


The only other recorded fight is on Little River in New Madrid County, Missouri.

The Congress of the United States and the President engage in continuing discussions concerning reconstruction of the seceded states. The schism between the Radicals and President Lincoln seems to be increasing.

President Davis writes Secretary of War Seddon that he opposes the plan to abolish conscription and substitute a rigid military organization. The Confederacy, he says, doesn’t have time to experiment.

[Doug64]

December 19, Monday

More skirmishing breaks out at Rutherford and Curtis’ creeks, Tennessee. Federals try unsuccessfully to cross the flooded Rutherford Creek north of Columbia. Hood hopes to be able to halt his retreat at Columbia on the line of the Duck River. Forrest rejoins Hood. In the Shenandoah Valley, both Early and Sheridan have sent troops to the Richmond-Petersburg front. Following Grant’s wishes, Sheridan now detaches A.T.A. Torbert with eight thousand cavalry toward the Virginia Central Railroad and Gordonsville, an expedition which will last until the 23rd with several skirmishes: at Madison Court House, Liberty Mills, and Gordonsville. Confederate defenders manage to hold off the Federals, who withdraw on the 23rd. In the other direction in Virginia, an expedition moves from Kernstown to Lacey’s Springs until the 22nd. In Arkansas these is a skirmish at Rector’s Farm.

At Washington the President issues a call for 300,000 more volunteers to replace casualties.

[Doug64]

December 20, Tuesday

President Davis expresses considerable concern to Beauregard, noting that the enemy is concentrating against Wilmington. He has left the decisions to evacuation Savannah and Charleston to Beauregard.

At Savannah, Georgia, General Beauregard’s tongue-lashing of the engineers laying the pontoon bridge across the Savannah River was so successful that they’ve managed to finish the escape route in only three days. The engineers have used well-caulked rice boats from nearby plantations for pontoons, moored by old guns and cartwheels for anchors, covered with flooring supplies by pulling down the wharves and wooden buildings. In a heavy fog this night, while Sherman is still off arranging Foster’s move and the Federal army lies quiet with orders to initiate no offensive action, Hardee lays down a bombardment to conceal his movement and begins his escape. A detail stays behind to keep the campfires bright, as unit after unit crosses the pontoon bridge into South Carolina.

At least some of the watching Federal troops know what is happening, they can hear them all night moving about and most of them think they might have “cut them off and captured the whole lot of them.” But they’re just as happy that they don’t have to charge the Confederate works. Private Horatio Chapman from Connecticut is in an advanced position. When the Confederate bombardment ends about midnight, he dozes off. Sometime later he awakens with a start. The Confederate lines are silent and a single white flag is in view. He calls his lieutenant and the two go cautiously forward. They find two wounded Confederates under the flag, who tell them, “They’re all gone but us. They pulled out in a hurry.” By dawn the last of the Confederates have crossed. They cut loose the pontoon bridge and let it drift downriver against the shore.


Thomas’s troops, following up Hood’s retreat in Tennessee, construct a floating bridge over Rutherford Creek and push on for Columbia. There they find the bridges destroyed and the enemy across the Duck River. Some skirmishing occurs near Columbia. Federals of Stoneman’s command capture and destroy salt works in and around Saltville, Virginia. In addition, there is an engagement at Poplar Point, North Carolina. A Federal expedition from Cape Girardeau and Dallas, Missouri, to Cherokee Bay, Arkansas, and the St. Francis River will last until January 4th. Small boats from the Union Navy try to clear out torpedoes and mines at Rainbow Bluff, North Carolina, and often engage in skirmishing.

[Doug64]

December 21, Wednesday

Federal troops, finding no opposition, occupy Savannah, Georgia, with John W. Geary’s division of the XX Corps leading the march.

Hood’s suffering Army of Tennessee continues its march southward from Columbia toward Pulaski, Tennessee, leaving a rearguard behind. Thomas’s following force is plagued by weariness and swollen streams.

The Union forces under Stoneman at Saltville, Virginia, begin to retire after their successful raid. A Federal expedition moves out from Memphis to attack the Mobile & Ohio Railroad; there also is a skirmish at Franklin Creek, Mississippi.

The Congress of the United States sets up the new grade of Vice Admiral with Rear Admiral Farragut in mind for the promotion.

[Doug64]

December 22, Thursday

Sherman returns to Savannah from Port Royal to find his troops occupying the city. Hardee’s escape is a great disappointment to Sherman, but he covers it up well in his writings. Historians will criticize Sherman for leaving an escape route open, but, on the other hand, Hardee had been watching carefully and would have evacuated whenever the safety valve was in danger of being closed.

The city is quiet. The Confederates have laid waste to their navy yard and an ironclad is still burning, but everything else is intact. Taken with the city are 250 heavy guns and 31,000 bales of cotton. The Federal troops go to work on the defenses, replenishing their supplies, and reorganizing their army. Meanwhile, Hardee’s retreating Confederates head northward into South Carolina.


Hood’s rearguard and Thomas’s pursuing force skirmish on the Duck River near Columbia, Tennessee. Another skirmish erupts on Franklin Creek, Mississippi.

[Doug64]

December 23, Friday

The Federal fleet from Fort Monroe, intending to attack Fort Fisher near Wilmington, North Carolina, has encountered very heavy seas and storms off Cape Hatteras and has been badly scattered. By now the battered vessels have arrived at the Beaufort rendezvous. Butler sends word that he and his two divisions—6,500 men—will return to the rendezvous point tomorrow night, Christmas Eve, ready to swarm ashore as soon as the Navy opens the way for them.

Porter, however, having warmed to Butler’s bombship idea, now sees little need to postpone its execution until the Army arrives. He tells a fellow officer that when the Louisiana blows, “houses in Wilmington will tumble to the ground and much demoralize the people, and I think if the rebels fight after the explosion they have more in them than I give them credit for.” Porter orders the USS Wilderness, with a skeleton crew, to tow the Louisiana to within 500 yards of the beach just north of the fort. The two ships run through the Stygian night without lights and arrive undetected. Crewmen row to the bombship, where they set clockwork detonators to trigger the explosion at 1:20 am; for good measure, they light a pine fire in a stack of wood in the after cabin. Then they hastily row back to the Wilderness. Porter, expecting a cataclysmic explosion, has ordered his vessels to stand twelve miles off-shore. From there he watches through his telescope in eager anticipation. But the moment for the ultimate explosion comes and goes in deathly silence. The detonators have failed. Now it is left to the wood fire to set off the blast. And it does. At 1:40 am, the Louisiana blows up. But the explosion is a terrible disappointment—not a stupendous roar but a discreet rumble, like the low boom “produced by the discharge of a 100-pounder.” Unfortunately for Porter, about 80 percent of the powder was defective and failed to detonate. An impressive tongue of flame does arise. It quickly turns into a black cloud of dust and smoke that is carried out to sea by the wind. Tremors are experienced at Fort Fisher and much farther away. But the bastion’s great earthworks are undamaged.


At Savannah, Sherman is irritated to learn that a Treasury agent, A.G. Browne, is in the city to claim the cotton left behind by the evacuating Confederates. When Sherman calls Browne in, the agent makes a happy suggestion: Why not offer Lincoln the city for Christmas?


Elsewhere, a skirmish at Warfield’s near Columbia, Tennessee, marks the continuing operations of Hood’s rearguard and Thomas’s pursuing forces. A two-day Federal expedition operates from Baton Rouge to Clinton, Louisiana.

[Doug64]

I hope everyone is having a safe and fun Merry Christmas!

December 24, Saturday

Unfazed by yesterday’s failed attempt to blow up Fort Fisher’s defenses, Admiral Porter decides to press forward with the naval attack, and by 11:30 this morning he has deployed his fleet in a semicircle along the fort’s sea face. The ships begin their bombardment and for five hours hit the fort with everything they have, firing about 10,000 rounds. At dusk, General Butler arrives off Confederate Point with a few transports and blandly explains to Porter that the rest of his force will be arriving tomorrow. The admiral orders a cease fire, insisting that no further bombardment will be necessary. The fort is virtually silenced, he claims; all the Army has to do is walk in and take possession. Porter is eventually persuaded to contribute some shells to cover the landing tomorrow morning.


On Christmas Eve, Lincoln receives the soon-to-be-famous message from General Sherman: “I beg to present to you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with 150 heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about 25,000 bales of cotton.”

On the Tennessee front skirmishing occurs at Lynnville and Richland Creek. In Arkansas Federals scout from Pine Bluff to Richland and a skirmish breaks out near Fort Smith.

President Davis writes General E. Kirby Smith, commanding the Trans-Mississippi Department, that he greatly regrets troops have not been sent east to aid in Tennessee and he again asks for such men.

[Doug64]

December 25, Sunday

At 10:30 am this Christmas Day, the Federal fleet renews its bombardment of Fort Fisher, North Carolina, eventually firing 11,000 rounds that, combined with yesterday’s 10,000, is the heaviest naval bombardment of the war to date. But the range is too long for accuracy, and little damage is done to Fort Fisher’s works. The lesson taught at Charleston—that a well-constructed earthen fort cannot be leveled by cannon—has yet to be fully absorbed. Only two of the stronghold’s guns are knocked off their carriages, and the 23 Confederate casualties are less than half the number suffered by the Federals, even though the fort’s garrison, trying to conserve ammunition, fires only 672 rounds.

After three hours of bombardment, about 2,000 troops under Major General Godfrey Weitzel, second in command to Butler, come ashore above Fort Fisher and begin moving south toward the land face. Weitzel doubts Porter’s boasts that the fort is close to surrender, and his skepticism is well-founded. His men are greeted by intermittent artillery and musket fire. In fact, all seventeen cannon on the fort’s land face are unharmed; their gun crews have merely taken cover in the nearby bombproofs. A daring Federal officer, Lieutenant William H. Walling, sprints across the mine field, scrambles up the parapet, and snatches a Confederate flag from atop the earthworks, returning with it to his lines. But his gallant sally, which will later win him the Congressional Medal of Honor, changes nothing. Pickets taken prisoner by the Federals during the advance tell Weitzel that Confederate General Robert Hoke, with 6,000 reinforcements, have arrived at Wilmington by train and will soon be moving on his rear. This new threat prompts Butler to decide unilaterally to stop the attack. On his orders, the men in blue turn their backs on Fort Fisher at 6 pm and withdraw to the beach, where their small boats wait in the pounding surf. Butler signals Porter his decision and turns his transports north toward Virginia and the safety of Hampton Roads.


Hood’s Army of Tennessee reaches Bainbridge on the Tennessee River. There are skirmishes at Richland Creek, and King’s or Anthony’s Hill or Devil’s Gap, and White’s Station, Tennessee. Other action includes an engagement at Verona, Mississippi, and a skirmish at Rocky Creek Church, Georgia. Price’s Confederate command, still retreating from Missouri, reaches Laynesport, Arkansas.

On Christmas morning, President Lincoln releases the text of the wire he received yesterday from General Sherman gifting him with the city of Savannah, and it sweeps across the country—a gift for a weary nation. At the same time, Sherman receives good news. Grant has reversed himself. He tells Sherman not to leave for Virginia—transporting Sherman’s army to Virginia by steamer would take two months to execute. It would be better after all, Grant has decided, to strike into the Carolinas, “to disorganize the South, and prevent the organization of new armies from their broken fragments.” Sherman intends to deliver the coup de grâce to the Confederacy.

[Doug64]

December 26, Monday

General Butler’s withdrawal from in front of Forth Fisher, North Carolina, was so hasty that about 700 Federal soldiers are left behind. All day today, Admiral Porter covers “those poor devils,” as he calls the abandoned soldiers, with an umbrella of fire.

Hood and the Army of Tennessee begin crossing the Tennessee River at Bainbridge, Tennessee. This virtually ends the campaign, although there is a skirmish at Sugar Creek, Tennessee. Otherwise activity is confined to scouting by Federals in northern Virginia, and an expedition until January 1st against Amerinds in central Arizona Territory.

President Lincoln tells Sherman at Savannah that he had been “anxious if not fearful” when Sherman left Atlanta. He goes on to congratulate Sherman for his victorious campaigns, including the vanquishing of Hood by Thomas at Nashville. With complete satisfaction, Sherman will write of his stay in Savannah: “Here terminated the ‘March to the Sea.’” Surely he has the right to be proud. The army that he left in Tennessee under Thomas, the commander he chose, has destroyed Hood’s army and all but ended the war in the west. And Sherman himself has brought off an epic march. He has confounded the military critics, led his men 275 miles across the Southern heartland, and brought them to Savannah in better condition than when they started. Most important, he has lived up to his aim: He has laid waste to Georgia. “The destruction could hardly have been worse,” one of his men will say, “if Atlanta had been a volcano in eruption and the molten lava had flowed in a stream 60 miles wide and five times as long.” It is a triumph that will become an indelible part of United States legend. But it had not been easy, and no one knows this better than the man who conceived it and carried it out at great risk to his reputation. “Like a man who has walked a narrow plank,” he writes his wife, “I look back and wonder if I really did it.”