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General William Nelson was called "Bull", a nickname arising from his 6'4", 300 pound frame. He had been a US naval officer for twenty one years when President Lincoln called upon him to organize volunteers in Kentucky for a force to be used to try and liberate eastern Tennessee, a favorite cause of the president's. Nelson raised 10,000 men and was named a general in the volunteer army. He had been charged with the defense of Louisville before the arrival of General Buell's army alleviated the crisis.
General Jefferson C. Davis, no relation to the CSA president, was from Indiana. He had joined the army as a private in time for the Mexican War and had received an officer's commission at the end of that conflict in recognition of his merit. He was at Fort Sumter when it was bombarded, had participated in the battle at Pea Ridge and had been promoted to Brigadier General at the end of 1861. During the Corinth campaign he became ill and had to go home to recover. When General Bragg's force was threatening Ohio, Davis got out of his sick bed and took command of the Cincinnati Home Guard which rallied to the defense of Louisville.
Nelson was still recovering from the thigh wound he had received at the clash with General Kirby Smith's troops at Richmond, Kentucky. When he arrived to take command of the Louisville troops, he dismissed Davis who was deeply offended by the idea of a general of volunteers pushing around a regular army officer. Davis had a friend and ally in Indiana governor Oliver P. Morton, who also had a dispute going with Nelson dating to his handling of Indiana volunteers during the Richmond battle. Morton traveled to Louisville to meet with Davis and together they went to confront Nelson.
They found Nelson in the lobby of the Galt House hotel which Buell was using as his headquarters. Soon a loud, emotion charged argument was underway. Davis demanded an apology for his earlier treatment and Nelson called him an "insolent puppy." At that Davis challenged Nelson to a duel and flipped his calling card in Nelson's face. The beefy Nelson responded with a back handed slap which sent Davis sprawling. Nelson then asked Morton if he wanted a piece of him as well. When Morton declined, Nelson left and headed upstairs to see Buell.
Davis went around the lobby asking to borrow a gun, obtaining a pistol from a captain. He charged up the stairs after Nelson who was standing just outside of the door to Buell's room. At a range of eight feet he called out to Nelson, took aim and pulled the trigger.
Bulls eye.....or Bull's chest to be precise. Nelson took one step, turned back toward Buell's door, and then collapsed. He died 30 minutes later.
The shot had brought Buell out of his room. He saw what had happened and ordered the arrest of Davis, but while this was taking place, a messenger arrived from the War Department with orders for Buell. He was being replaced and was to turn over his command to General George Thomas.
The order was three days old and had been issued by Secretary Stanton with President Lincoln's approval. It had been conditional, the courier instructed not to deliver it if upon arrival, he learned that Buell had fought a battle or at least was in pursuit of Bragg's army.
The timing was all wrong for this decision. For one thing the grateful citizens of Louisville and some Ohio communities across the river, were hailing Buell as their savior. The Congressmen from these areas quickly rallied around Buell and began to wire Lincoln asking for his reconsideration. What saved Buell's command was a wire not from any politician, but one from General Thomas:
Quote:
LOUISVILLE, KY., September 29, 1862-11.45 a.m.
Major General HALLECK, General-in Chief:
Colonel McKibbin handed me your dispatch, placing me in command of the Department of the Tennessee. General Buell's preparations have been completed to move against the enemy, and I therefore respectfully ask that he may be retained in command. My position is very embarrassing, not being as well informed as I should be as the commander of this army and on the assumption of such a responsibility.
Halleck saw the sense of this and took the message to Lincoln and Stanton. They saw it as a way out of what had become a problem. The orders were canceled, Buell retained command. For the moment.
The rapid firing/rehiring of Buell seemed to make him forget all about the murder which had taken place outside of his door that morning. He sent a wire to Halleck recommending an investigation, but nothing ever came of this. A Louisville civil jury indicted Davis for murder, but this proceeding bogged down in a jurisdictional dispute with the army and nothing ever came of this beyond Davis being arrested and released on bail. In need of competent officers, Davis was returned to his duties by the army and everyone seemed to agree to pretend that nothing had happened.
General William "Bull" Nelson...hard target to miss.
In keeping with his big thinking character, General Earl Van Dorn explained to General Sterling Price that the campaign he had planned was for clearing west Tennessee of all Federals.
Van Dorn's previous efforts at reconquest had both ended with stumbles out of the starting gate. The region wide triumph Van Dorn now had in mind would have to start with the recapture of Corinth. Van Dorn had marched east to meet Price marching west after his escape from Iuka. When they met at Ripley Mississippi the combined army was 22,000 strong. Van Dorn was aware that Rosecrans force was divided, 15,000 defending Corinth, another 8,000 posted at Jacinto and Burnsville to the SE. A surprise, slashing attack should overwhelm Rosecrans before the others could arrive to save him.
Van Dorn decided on a feint due north as though the objective was the Federal reserve force under General Hulbert which occupied Bolivar, NW of Corinth. 150 years ago today found them arriving at Pocahontas, thirty miles from Ripley, but instead of continuing north to Bolivar, the army swung SE and descended upon Corinth, twenty miles distant.
Van Dorn had hoped to keep his approach clandestine and spring a surprise attack on General Rosecrans, but the Federal cavalry was out and they detected the approach. There would be no surprise. Worse for Van Dorn was that his feint toward Bolivar had achieved an unintended effect. Rosecrans thought that he would have to march to Hulbert's aid, and in preparation had called in his detached 8000 to take over the occupation of Corinth. Thus, instead of Van Dorn's 22,000 attacking 15,000 Federals, there would actually be a 1000 more defenders than attackers.
Back when General Halleck had commanded the glacial velocity conquest of Corinth, he had 120,000 men in three different armies at hand. They had constructed an immense set of defensive works around the town, expanding the already large defensive line that General Beauregard's troops had built. Now that those huge armies had scattered, Rosecrans had way more entrenchments to defend than he had defenders to man the posts. His solution was to abandon those outer works and construct an entirely new set of fortifications on a reduced scale closer to the city. He had his men occupy the forward entrenchments with orders to blunt the first rebel thrust from there, and then fall back to the new line.
With the element of surprise no longer intact, Van Dorn took his time bringing up his force and studying the Federal dispositions. He would devote a day to preparation and attack on the 3rd.
General Earl Van Dorn's plan of attack against Corinth featured a double envelopment. A demonstration attack would take place on General Rosecran's left. When the Federals rushed troops to that threatened sector, then the main attack would go in on the Union right.
It worked but not quite as planned. At 10 am the action got underway with three rebel divisions striking the two Federal divisions which formed Rosecrans' left and center. When four regiments were pulled to meet the threat on the far left, it opened a gap between the two Union divisions and through this the Confederates drove around 1:30 pm. Fortunately for Rosecrans, this breakthrough took place at the old, outer entrenchments and before it could be exploited, the Federals pulled back to their more recently constructed lines, meaning the Confederates would have to launch another assault in search of a breakthrough.
Van Dorn was prepared to do just that and he was undone by a series of orders gone wrong. He pulled a brigade from his left to shore up the assault on the right, but this unmasked a previously unseen Federal brigade to the front. Van Dorn sent word that a replacement brigade would fill the gap, but this was misunderstood and the original brigade returned to the position. When their replacements arrived and the confusion was sorted out, it was starting to get dark and Van Dorn deemed it too late for further offensive operations that day. Still unaware that the enemy outnumbered him, Van Dorn thought that one more vigorous thrust would settle matters and he went to bed resolving to finish off Rosecrans in the morning.
General Van Dorn was full of confidence and determination 150 years ago this morning. There would be no complicated double envelopment or feints today, Van Dorn had decided that what was needed was fury and elan. He would mass his artillery as close to the front as he could, blast the federals into atoms and send in his infantry in a straight forward, overwhelming assault.
The bombardment began just before dawn and continued for hours, making for a great fireworks display, but not inflicting critical damage on General Rosecrans' entrenched men. At 10 am the attack went forward and was met by a storm of fire from Union guns which were supposed to have been knocked out by the barrage.
The rebels were knocked back on both flanks, but as they did the day before, they punched a hole through the center of the Union lines, a brigade advancing all the way into the town of Corinth where house to house fighting erupted. Unsupported on their flanks, the rebels were forced to turn around and fight their way back out of town.
The climax of the battle came in the struggle for Battery Robinette which anchored the left side of the Union center. For two hours Van Dorn sent attack after attack against the three gun bastion, and all were driven back with appalling losses. Checked left, right and center, Van Dorn recognized that the day was lost and gave orders for his men who were already falling back, to retreat.
It had been a savage fight, neither side giving ground unless overwhelmed. Van Dorn had 4,233 casualties, almost 20 % of his force. Rosecrans suffered 2,520 losses.
Rosecrans was praised by Grant for his successful defense, and later blasted by Grant in his memoirs for waiting until the next day to launch any sort of pursuit.
As for Earl Van Dorn, this was the third consecutive failure which had begun with prime magnitude plans. His reconquest of western Tennessee died in Mississippi, just as his retaking of New Orleans got no closer than Baton Rogue and his reconquest of Missouri flamed out in Arkansas. President Davis had seen enough of Van Dorn's campaigns and he was removed from command, replaced by General Pemberton. Van Dorn would be returned to cavalry service where in two months he would finally achieve a victory.
After a pursuit of three months and more than 250 miles of marching, 150 years ago today General Buell thought that he at last had brought General Bragg's army to bay outside Perryville, Kentucky.
Buell had waited, despite the serial pressure from Washington, until he had his army assembled before going after Bragg. 77,000 strong, Buell's army was a patchwork affair. His own Army of Ohio troops were veterans, albeit ones who had done a great deal more marching than fighting, save the participation of two divisions on the second day at Shiloh. Another third were veterans on loan from Grant's Army of the Tennessee, the remainder were untested, under trained militia units who had been recruited locally for the defense of Ohio.
Buell was also short on competent senior commanders. Two of the best available in the immediate area had been Generals Nelson and Jefferson C. Davis, but of course the latter having shot the former to death outside Buell's hotel room had disqualified them from command positions. Buell had to make do with the personnel on hand, and he appointed three Corps commanders based on rank. Incredibly, one of these positions went to C.C. Gilbert on the basis of his being a major general. He actually wasn't, he was a captain who had been recommended for promotion by Ohio Department commander General Wright, who had no specific familiarity with Gilbert. The promotion was "pending the approval of the president", which never came, but before that was made known, Gilbert was thought to be a major general, and in keeping with his lofty rank, given a Corps to command. Fortunately for Gilbert his Corps contained a division commanded by a hyper aggressive, rising star in the west, Brigadier Phillip Sheridan.
Buell decided on a feint toward Frankfort, still occupied by General Kirby Smith's army, and then a converging strike against Bragg to the SE, wherever he might be cornered. Buell concentrated most of the inexperienced troops in a 22,000 man force under General Sill, and they were sent off on October 2nd to attract and hold Kirby Smith's attention at Frankfort. The main force marched on different roads to contract upon Bragg from the north, west and south.
Bragg's army might have been brought to bay at Perryville, if Buell's feint against Frankfort had not been so successful. Bragg, somewhat at a loss as to what to do next after Buell had beaten him to Louisville, decided to behave as though his Kentucky campaign had been a success. He left his army in the hands of Bishop Polk, instructing him to send half of it to Harroldsburg in anticipation of a concentration there with Smith's army, and traveled to Frankfort to participate in the swearing in ceremony of the sham Confederate governor Bragg had appointed. The ersatz executve took the oath at noon, and was a few minutes into his acceptance speech when it was disrupted by the sound of artillery, too near for comfort.
That turned out to be the advance elements of Sill's feint and it was sufficient to persuade Bragg that Buell's major effort would be against Frankfort. Orders flew out to Polk to strike this force in its flank and rear...using only the half of Bragg's army not already sent away.
On the scene, Generals Polk and Hardee were receiving alarming reports of an army converging from three directions, not on Frankfort, but on them. Hardee wrote a letter to Bragg explaining the situation and begging him to order a full concentration to meet this threat, but Bragg remained steadfast in his belief that Frankfort was the main target. Nevertheless, he left the aborted political ceremony and returned to take personal command of the 16,000 troops outside Perryville. He was completely unaware that Buell had 55,000 troops forming an arc around his position.
At the same time Buell was convinced that Bragg's entire army was on the scene, thus he delayed attacking until he could get everyone in position.
The sun went down on two badly confused army commanders.
The upper portion of this map shows the convergence on Perryville and feint toward Frankfort.
Perhaps the most confusing battle of the war was fought 150 years ago today.
Both commanders were working under false assumptions. General Buell believed that he had General Bragg's entire army across from him, Bragg in turn believed that he was facing but a small detachment from Buell's army with the main body moving on Frankfort, which the rebels were evacuating.
Unknown to Buell, there were hardly any Confederate troops facing his center and right wings, Bragg's 16,000 were all concentrated against the Union left defended by General Alexander McCook's 1st Corps, 13,000 strong. Because he thought that there were so many more opponents present, Buell decided to delay his attack until the 9th. This decision may have partly been a consequence of Buell's personal condition. That morning he had been thrown from his horse and had the wind knocked out of him. He was still functional but in obvious distress the rest of the day and rather than riding around seeing to his dispositions, he remained close to his headquarters. Of his 55,000 present, only about 22,000 of Buell's men would be engaged this day.
Bragg decided to hit McCook's Corps in the flank. General Hardee's division would hold their attention to the front while Bishop Polk's men struck the Union far left. The attack was successful at first, pushing McCook's surprised soldiers back about a mile.
In the Union center, the ersatz major general, C.C. Gilbert had sent General Sheridan's division forward to secure the one area in the region which featured water for the Federal troops. Sheridan had been told by Gilbert not to bring on a general engagement, Buell's attack would not take place until tomorrow. Sheridan was far more aggressive than his orders allowed, and in that there was only light opposition in front of him, he pushed into what he thought was the Confederate center, but was actually the left flank of the attacking army. Frustrated by the orders to avoid a general engagement, while simultaneously receiving pleas from McCook for help on his right flank, Sheridan moved his guns to his left and began a bombardment of the rebel left who thanks to their advance, were now exposing their left flank to Sheridan's men, who in Bragg's mind, were not even near the field of battle.
The confusion was amplified by the day being a hot, dry, windless one. The smoke hung over the fighting and undisturbed by a breeze, got thicker and thicker. The darkness which resulted tended to wash the color out of the landscape, and the clothing of the people occupying it. The dust kicked up by the charges and counter charges soon had everyone covered in a grayish layering.
Illustrating the muddled nature of things are two incidents, both involving Bishop Polk. A brigade from Gilbert's Corps in the center had been sent to help McCook on the Federal left. The commander spotted an officer seated on a horse observing the movements and he rode over to receive instructions. "I have come to your assistance with my brigade" the officer shouted. "There must be some mistake about this" came the reply from a surprised General Polk "You are my prisoner."
Later it was Polk's turn to be the victim of the same practical joke. As the light was fading and the fury of the battle declining, Polk spotted what he took to be rebel troops firing from an angle at his men. He rode over to the offending soldiers and demanded to know the meaning of this outrage. Their colonel replied, "I don't think there can be any mistake, I'm sure they are the enemy." Polk demanded his name and unit, and upon learning that he was trying to issue orders to an Indiana regiment, Polk decided to bluff his way through. He yelled at the Colonel that he would see to it that he was cashiered and he rode up and down the Yankee line ordering them to cease fire. Then he turned his horse and slowly began to ride away, expecting a bullet between the shoulder blades at any second. His act worked, he rode away unmolested.
Sheridan's surprise presence was enough to slow Polk's attack long enough for the Union left to be stabilized and reinforced. Bragg was under the impression that he was winning a great victory, but in the early evening he finally became aware that he was facing 55,000, not just the 13,000 of McCook's command.
For his part, Buell was not even aware any sort of battle was taking place until 4 pm. As had happened at Iuka, an acustical shadow prevented the sounds of the fighting from reaching him. About the same time that Bragg was realizing that he had bitten off way more than he could chew, Buell was recognizing that he had wasted the day and an excellent opportunity to destroy a portion of Bragg's army.
Darkness ended the fighting with the Union left pushed back a mile, a sufficient gain to allow Bragg to pretend that he had a victory. The reality was that evening the "victor" had little on his mind apart from escaping the imbalanced numbers he was facing. At a late evening officer's call, it was agreed that they should fall back and consolidate themselves with General Kirby Smith's army, and the other half of Bragg's army, at Harrodsburg. That night they pulled out, leaving the battlefield to Buell, who used that to claim a victory for the north.
In truth no one won. Buell had 4275 casualties, 19% of those actually engaged in the fight, Bragg suffered 3400 losses, or 21 % of those who fought. Buell had blown an opportunity to deal Bragg a severe blow, Bragg had attacked under completely false assumptions. It was a blunder of a battle which accomplished nothing beyond inflating the casualty lists.
Ultimately Bragg made it appear to be a Union victory because two days later, after a prolonged conference with Kirby Smith, the two generals would agree to abandon the Heartland campaign and retreat to eastern Tennessee, their dreams of making Kentucky the 12th Confederate State forever frustrated.
Perryville
Last edited by Grandstander; 10-07-2012 at 06:31 PM..
The absence of recent posts in this thread is indicative of the absence of any critical events in the Civil War during these weeks.
Generals Bragg and Smith were still retreating from Kentucky, General Buell was mounting a sluggish pursuit, all the while under constant pressure from Washington to increase his vigor and velocity.
President Lincoln, Secretary Stanton and General in Chief Halleck were equally frustrated in the East, unable to get General McClellan to move his army away from the Antietam battlefield area and go after General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. From October 9th through the 14th, General Stuart had taken his rebel cavalry for another ride completely around the stagnant Union army. He destroyed some property, captured 500 horses, wrecked a couple of trains, but did no damage to the Union cause beyond the embarrassment of its inability to stop Stuart. What the raid did accomplish was the further inflation of Stuart's romantic reputation, which may have been his major goal.
The president had written to Mac asking why the Union cavalry wasn't riding around the rebel army..obviously such a thing could be done, Stuart kept proving it. McClellan replied that his cavalry horses were too fatigued to be launching any sort of major activity against the Confederates. Lincoln replied asking Mac what, if anything, had the horses been doing which would have fatigued them since Antietam? Mac didn't reply to this sarcasm, but there was no Union cavalry raid, so that is how Lincoln knew the answer.
While there were no major engagements since Perryville, and there would be none until December, the war managed to remain bloody with small skirmishes and actions on a nearly daily basis. In addtion to Stuart's activity in Maryland and Pennsylvania, Generals Morgan and Stuart were ranging across Kentucky and Tennessee respectively, the former striking at Lexington, the latter harassing the Union garrison at Nashville.
A small Union force advanced from Missouri to Yellville, Arkansas on the 12th, and was met by some hastily organized militia. Inclusive fighting with light casualties resulted. Near Bardstown, Kentucky on the 20th a rebel raiding party captured two different wagon trains supplying Buell's army.
In all these events there was fighting and fighting means dying. Five lost here, twenty lost there, fifty captured here.....unimpressive attrition when held to the light of Shiloh or Antietam, but continual enough to account for 15-20 % of the battle losses.
I find that there is an element of added pathos to these deaths in the fringe theaters of the war. A Union soldier who went down defending Little Round Top at Gettysburg may easily be associated with having given his life while advancing the cause. A soldier who never saw battle, gets captured while serving as a sentry at a railroad bridge in Southern Missouri, and then dies some miserable malnutrition related death while in captivity....well, that was his war. That was his life.
Some things of note begin happening again on the 22nd of this month, I shall see you then.
In the Spanish American War's first engagement, the battle of Las Guasimas, General Joseph Wheeler, the 62 year old commander of the US cavalry yelled in his excitement..."Let's go boys, we got the damn Yankees on the run!"
Wheeler had remained a physical marvel into his sixties, even if the mind wasn't quite as sharp as it once was. 150 years ago today he was a 26 year old Colonel leading his recently triumphant men into an occupation of Loudon, Kentucky.
Wheeler had emerged as the hero of Generals Bragg and Smith's retreat. The rebel cavalry attached to Bragg's army was weak in numbers because two thirds were detached under Generals Morgan and Forrest, and they were both far distant on raiding missions. Wheeler had turned in a dazzling performance, again and again checking superior numbers of Federal horsemen while Bragg got his lumbering wagon train to safety. The caravan was heavy with the booty and captured weapons of the campaign, as well as still dragging around those 10,000 extra rifles for the Kentucky recruits who never materialized. Thus the retreat was slow, it could go no faster than the wagons. That it got away untouched was primarily due to Wheeler's energies and boldness.
The two commanding generals from the muddled fight at Perryville were both concerned with their immediate personal futures. In the case of General Buell, he had already given way to a case of terminal fatalism. Frustrated by Wheeler's efforts, he wrote to Washington and announced that he was calling off the chase. His men were exhausted he explained, Bragg was retreating toward his supply center while the Union was advancing away from theirs, and both were doing it through a barren part of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee. Buell did not think he could keep his men supplied well enough to mount a speedy pursuit, so he opted for no pursuit at all. He told Washington that he was perfectly prepared if they wished to replace him as commander of the army.
Naturally this was met with severe disappointment in Washington, not the part about replacing Buell, rather about the termination of the pursuit. President Lincoln had become very excited by the possibilities. Bragg and Smith were retreating through eastern Tennessee and this region had long been a pet interest of Lincoln's. He very much wanted to liberate the loyal citizens of that area, and also to sieze and sever the South's longest and most important railway, the line which ran from Norfolk in the east to Chatanooga in the west. Lincoln felt that following Bragg and Smith into eastern Tennessee would also serve to at last bring that area under the Federal flag. When Buell's message announcing that he was folding his hand arrived, the president was gravely depressed. The decision to fire Buell had already been made once, there were now plenty of grounds for revisiting that determination.
Bragg in the meantime was doing all within his power to radiate the illusion of leading his army back from a highly successful raid, for that was how he was marketing his conquest of Kentucky campaign now that it had failed. If it was just a raid all along, then Bragg did quite well, bringing home all sorts of goodies, his army still intact. Bragg was very annoyed that for some reason, Lee's failed raid into Maryland was being hailed as a success, while his more successful "raid" into Kentucky was drawing the fire of critics in Richmond. In his report to President Davis Bragg wrote:
Quote:
Though compelled to yield to largely superior numbers and fortuitous circumstances, a portion of the valuable territory from which we had driven the enemy, the fruits of the campaign were very large and have had a most important bearing upon our subsequent military operations here and elsewhere.
In fairness to Bragg he had accomplished more with his Kentucky campaign than Lee had with his Maryland adventure, but neither movement had done anything more than to slow down the steady advance of the Union armies, the South was no closer to freedom than it was when the two invasions were launched.
Relationships were being severed 150 years ago today.
General Kirby Smith's army had arrived back where they had started near the Cumberland Gap. Smith was in a furious mood because several days earlier he had arrived with his completely exhausted men only to find an order waiting for him from General Bragg, commanding him to march at once for Knoxville and a new campaign which Bragg had in mind to retake middle Tennessee.
Smith was down to 6000 effectives thanks to casualties and straggling on the return march, but nevertheless immediately complied with his orders and sent half of his men to Knoxville, only to discover that Bragg had already departed. Smith was fed up with Bragg by now and decided on a divorce from their joint operations. He wrote to Bragg announcing that he had "..resumed command of my department" and was going to devote his efforts to getting his army back into shape and protecting eastern Tennessee. That "...my department.." phrase was telling because it meant that Smith was stating that he was no longer seeing himself as a subordinate of Bragg's, his cooperation had been ad hoc, just for the Kentucky invasion.
The reason that Bragg wasn't on hand to greet Smith in Knoxville was that the day before he was summoned to Richmond to meet with President Davis. The subject of the meeting was not disclosed, but Bragg suspected that he was about to be cashiered. Smith wasn't the only rebel officer who had soured on Bragg, reports from Bishop Polk and General Hardee had made their way to Richmond and neither had anything flattering to say about Bragg and his Kentucky campaign. Both hinted that they would welcome a replacement.
The unsurprising second sacking of General Buell also took place on this day, a wire from the War Department arriving which stated :
Quote:
GENERAL: The President directs that on the presentation of this order you will turn over your command to Maj. Gen. W. S. Rosecrans, and repair to Indianapolis, Ind., reporting from that place to the Adjutant-General of the Army for further orders.Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
H. W. HALLECK,
General-in. Chief.
Buell had been expecting this, knowing that his calling off the pursuit of Bragg and Smith into eastern Tennessee was going to be received very poorly by his bosses, especially the president. This time there was no gallant General Thomas to refuse the command and defend Buell, General Rosecrans accepted his appointment, one which he had been wanting for a long time and felt he certainly deserved.
As for Buell, he was ordered to Indianapolis where he hoped to be given another command. Instead he was kept parked there doing nothing. General Grant made an effort to help him, offering Buell a brigade command in his army, which Buell refused because he outranked Generals Sherman and Canby, and now would be serving under them. Seeing that as beneath his dignity, he instead resigned from the army in May of 1864 and became the president of a mining concern. Annoyed by what he perceived as Buell's ingratitude, Grant heaped a great deal of abuse on Buell in his memoirs.
150 years ago today, five and a half weeks after the battle of Antietam, General George McClellan finally returned the Army of the Potomac to Virginia soil. It had been five and a half weeks of urgings from the president, the secretary of war and the general in chief of the army. It had been five and a half weeks of Mac being slammed in the Republican controlled press who had seized upon the phrase "All quiet on the Potomac" as an all purpose put down of McClellan's absence of aggression. It had been five and a half weeks of General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia refitting, collecting stragglers, reorganizing and training replacements. It had featured General Stuart staging another ride around the Federal army, showing once more that he held the Union cavalry to be of no account.
When asked about the cavalry raid by a passenger on a steam ship on which Lincoln was traveling, the president once more relied on a story, but this time one with an unmistakably blunt message for Mac.
Quote:
"When I was a boy we used to play a game, three times round and out. Stuart has been round him twice; if he goes round him once more, gentlemen, McClellan will be out!"
To make sure that McClellan was put on notice, Lincoln wrote to him:
Quote:
You may remember my speaking to you of what I called your over cautiousness? Are you not over cautious when you assume that you cannot do what the enemy is doing? Should you not claim to be at least his equal in prowess, and act upon the claim?
Lincoln went on to say that he did not care if McClellan took the inside overland track toward Richmond, or approached it once more by water...just so long as he got moving in the direction of Lee's army and forced a fight. Lincoln urged, but did not order, the overland route. He argued that no matter how the Army of the Potomac approached Richmond, eventually they would have to fight the rebel army, so why not fight it where it was?
But now..at last....Mac was back in the arena. Lee's army was stationed around Winchester, and in fact on this day the Army of the Potomac was closer to Richmond then was the Army of Northern Virginia. This did not escape Lincoln's notice and he came to a decision. He wrote to McClellan, pointed out that a rapid march would enjoy the advantage of a head start, and urged Mac to capitalize on the situation immediately.
While Lincoln had been speaking somewhat tongue in cheek about the "three times round and out" basis for relieving McClellan, he was perfectly serious about this test he had handed Little Mac. Lincoln had decided that if Lee was able to maneuver his army so as to impose it between Richmond and McClellan, Mac would get the sack.
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