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The Army of the Shenandoah and The Army of the Valley spent the day in motion, the former advancing, the latter retreating.
General Sheridan had his force up at 6 am and on the road toward Fisher's Hill, twenty miles to the south. At noon the last of General Early's men, having marched through the night and next morning, arrived at the hill and began filling up the prepared positions.
The good news for Early was that the hill was a very strong defensive position. On the far right, the steepest side, it towered over the North Fork of the Shenandoah River, leaving little room for an attacking force to assemble and advance. On the left it bumped up against Little North Mountain, creating the same problem. There was open ground to the front featuring Tom's Creek which ran across the base of the north side of the hill and created another obstruction. Best of all, the hill provided a commanding view of any opponent below, making all moves known to the rebels.
With enough men, the hill was nearly assault proof.
And that was the bad news for Early. His battle losses at Winchester had reduced him to fewer than 10,000 soldiers, not enough to effectively cover the four mile front the hill presented. In the previous month, when the two generals had played cat and mouse, advancing and retreating, Sheridan had never ventured further south than Fisher's Hill, that had always been Early's last and best strong point in the northern Valley. He was now hoping that Sheridan would still find it too intimidating to try and storm.
Sheridan's forward elements began arriving around sunset, too late for any combat that day.
This day was devoted to reconnaissance and preparation on the part of the Army of the Shenandoah. General Sheridan ruled out a frontal assault against the fortified hill as too costly. That left the flanks, and all notions of attacking the Confederate right were dismissed immediately. A force trying to assault that end of the line would have to march in full view of the enemy, cross the Shenandoah River under artillery fire and reassemble in the small amount of space between the riverbank and the start of the steep hill.
On the rebel left, things did not offer much more hope. Where Fisher's Hill ended, there was but a tiny amount of flatland before the land rose once more forming Little North Mountain. And as with the rebel right, any attacking force on this flank would also be seen long before they could reach their positions.
There is controversy and dispute over who came up with the idea for what they eventually did. Sheridan's memoirs credit no one other than himself, but the other officers at the meeting recall that it was General Crook who first suggested marching his army around Little North Mountain, coming over it in the left rear of the rebel army, and surprising it that way. Crook was already upset with Sheridan for having under credited him for his role in the victory at Winchester, a slight which hurt all the more for the two of them having been extremely close friends before the war.
Regardless of who thought up the idea, it was accepted as the plan. The Corps of General Wright and Emory would make a noisy all day demonstration against the hill, as though a frontal attack was being formed. Once Crook hit the rebel left, the others would advance as the Confederate line crumbled. Enhancing the operation, General Torbert's cavalry would be sent on an even longer march around Little North Mountain to get astride General Early's escape route. Sheridan did not just want to beat Early, he wanted to bag the entire Army of the Valley and put it out of business for good.
The flank march would be a long and difficult one, Crook's men having to swing well north first to avoid having the movement detected, then march around and back over the rise. Hopefully they would reach their jump off position with still enough light left to fully rout the opposition. After dark, 150 years ago today, they quietly pulled themselves from the line and began the lengthy march.
Unwittingly, Early's disposition of troops were made as though in cooperation with Sheridan's plan. He placed a full division on his right where a single brigade and battery could have held up an entire Corps trying to cross the river and climb the steep side there. He extended his line with the divisions of generals Gordon, Pegram and Ramseur, but ran out of divisions before the line reached the far left. To guard that all he had left were remnants of three cavalry regiments which were dismounted and distributed thinly on that sector of the hill.
Major General George Crook..Comin' 'Round The Mountain When He Comes
At sunrise 150 years ago this morning the Confederates on Fisher's Hill found themselves overlooking a great deal of furious activity by their enemies below. The Corps of generals Emory and Wright were on the move. Units marched back and forth, artillery batteries thundered by as if in a terrific hurry to get somewhere, bugle calls and drums sounded, wagons were rolled toward the rear, skirmishers were advanced, messengers rode about.
It was all charade, designed to radiate the appearance of an imminent frontal assault on the rebel position, and it worked quite well. General Early's attention remained fixed to his front, no disposition to reinforce his flanks was made.
While the show as being staged, General Crook and his command were struggling to make their way around and over Little North Mountain. It took them most of the day, the height was rocky and cut by ravines, but at 4 pm they arrived in position on the far left of the rebel line which was guarded by dismounted cavalry.
The men coming over the mountain were the much abused, frequently defeated veterans of the original Union Valley army. Under Fremont they had been embarrassed by Stonewall Jackson. Under Sigel they had been driven from the field by Breckinridge, under Hunter they had run from any confrontation with Early. But under Crook they had enjoyed their first taste of victory in a major fight three days earlier at Winchester. Now at Fisher's Hill the Federal's hopes were pinned on them and they did not disappoint.
The rebel cavalrymen were shocked when Crook and his 5500 troops came storming in on their left and rear. They put up only a token fight before fleeing, unhinging the rebel line west to east as they went. As soon as the noise from Crook's attack was heard, the Union Corps below the hill began their advance and in very short order, the Confederate line gave way completely and for the second time in three days, these proud veterans found themselves running for their lives.
The attack had been executed exactly as planned, and had worked exactly as planned, with one exception. General Torbert and the Federal cavalry was supposed to have ridden around Little North Mountain, and then used the Luray Gap through Massanutten Mountain to get into the rear and block the retreat of Early's men. Inexplicably, Torbert, upon encountering a token force guarding the gap, made a few unspirited attacks and then gave up, putting his men into camp for the night.
The consequence was that the survivors of the Fisher's Hill fight were able to make their escape south....far to the south. After Fisher's Hill, the geography of the Valley is such that no natural east/west defensive barriers existed until you reached New Market, fifty miles to the south. The Corps of Wright and Emory pursued Early's fleeing army as far as Woodstock, and then let it go.
It was a complete strategic and tactical victory for Sheridan. Early had lost 14 guns and another 1200 casualties he could not afford to lose, while the rout had cost Sheridan but 550 men. The Army of the Valley had now been pushed back 100 miles south of the Potomac and would never again be in a position to threaten Maryland, Pennsylvania nor the national capitol.
The way was clear now for the next step in General Grant's program for the Valley. Sheridan was to slowly retreat back down the Valley, (The Valley slopes downward as it goes north) destroying everything there that could contribute to the Confederate war effort. There would be no rebels there to stop them as they burned barns, factories, mills and seized or destroyed all crops and foodstuffs.
Fisher's Hill...Textbook Attack By Sheridan
Rebel Prisoners (seated) Under Guard After Fisher's Hill Battle
Twice before Confederate president Jefferson Davis had made the journey west to referee brawls which had erupted among the high command of the Army of Tennessee. On each of those occasions Davis had sided with General Braxton Bragg over his alienated Corps commanders, and left the situation as it stood.
150 years ago today Davis arrived at Palmetto, Georgia. The purpose of this trip was the same as the others, only the identities of the quarreling officers had changed. General Hood placed 50% of the blame for the loss of Atlanta on the lack of martial spirit among the western army members, and 50% on General Hardee who Hood thought could have won all of the fights outside of Atlanta had he only been more aggressive. Hardee of course reversed this outlook and blamed Hood's hyper aggression for throwing away 20,000 men with his furious but futile attacks on entrenched Federals. Hood had taken a "him or me" stance, Hardee had applied for a transfer to anywhere but under Hood's supervision.
Hood and his army were camped at Palmetto after a 25 mile move to the west. It had taken the rebel president five days to complete the journey from Richmond, this due to the loss of Atlanta where all of the deep south railroads had converged. Davis had to travel part way by rail, transfer to a wagon where tracks had been destroyed, reboard another train, another wagon etc.
Davis gave a hearing to the complaining generals and came up with a solution which pleased all concerned. Hardee would be transferred to Charleston and take over General Beauregard's old department, General Cheatham would replace Hardee as a Corps commander. Hood would be retained in charge of the Army of Tennessee, but then Davis repeated another trick he had used to get rid of a general he did not like.
Back when the first Bragg vs his subordinates dust up had taken place, Davis had taken the opportunity to promote General Johnston to the empty title of over all theater commander in the west. Johnston had been roundly ignored by both Bragg and Pemberton who presumably were under his command. Johnston had never been given enough troops to accomplish anything on his own. Thus Davis had parked Johnston far from Richmond and out of his hair, with no real authority to accomplish anything...and he hadn't.
Ever since Beauregard had been brought north to deal with General Butler's invading army, he had been chaffing as a subordinate of General Lee, and complaining to Davis about it. Beauregard was a full general, the same rank as Lee, and felt entitled to command of an army. Davis, who detested Beauregard only slightly less than he did Johnston, now removed that thorn from his toe by appointing the Creole over all commander in the west with supposed authority over Bragg and General Taylor's command in East Louisiana and Alabama. (Taylor had been promoted to Lt. General and been given charge in the SW as a result of his spectacular performance in driving back General Banks' Red River expedition.) Beauregard would have no troops of his own, just two widely scattered armies under his theoretical command. He was told that he could assume command of either army if he was on the scene, but also told to stay in Montgomery to provide central direction. If the war was a game of Monopoly, Beauregard had just landed on "Free Parking."
So, Davis had employed the same solution he had used previously, even though he had not gotten the results he had wanted the first time he tried it.
Having gotten the command problem resolved, Davis now turned his attention to strategy. Hood had a plan which was quite Earl Van Dornish in scope and ambition. Hood would use his army to march north, swing east toward the Chattanooga/Atlanta railway and destroy it, thus cutting General Sherman's supply line. This would force Sherman to retreat to Chattanooga, followed by Hood who upon reaching Tennessee, would be reinforced by 20,000 new recruits in that state. Against that swollen force, Sherman and the Federals would be driven completely out of Tennessee, after which Hood would then transfer his army to the east and there, combined with General Lee, would destroy General Grant and the Army of the Potomac...which would force the North to sue for peace on any terms they could get. The plan ended there, Hood apparently would rest his troops before going on to conquer Europe.
It is a testament to how desperate the South's situation had become that Davis not only didn't laugh Hood out of the room, he gave his approval.
After two days of consultations with Hood, Davis then boarded another train to continue his tour of the west. All through this western trip, Davis had taken numerous opportunities to make speeches at the stops along the way in an attempt to buck up sagging morale. The loss of Atlanta meant nothing Davis assured his audiences, why it had been a blessing in disguise because it now had freed Hood's army to maneuver, no longer tied to a specific piece of geography. Never had the military situation been more advantageous and all that was needed to make Southern independence a certainty was for the people to sustain their spirits and willingness to fight.
Davis was not an idiot, he was aware of the realities and the thin ice on which the Confederacy now stood. Above all Davis was a man of duty and he felt that duty called for him to never give up, never admit weakness or defeat, never stop doing all that he could to promote the cause. He was certainly aware that Hood's plan was based on a series of pie in the sky improbabilities, but at least it was a plan, some course of action which showed the South was still fighting.
General Hood was not the only rebel officer thinking of grandiose plans for restoring the South's fortune. West of the Mississippi was "Kirby Smithdom", the domain of General Kirby Smith which was getting smaller and less relevant with each passing day of the war. After having been the man in overall charge when General Taylor defeated General Banks' Red River Campaign, Smith was rewarded by having Taylor's troops transferred out of his department because they were needed to defend Alabama and those portions of Louisiana and Mississippi which were not already under Federal control. Trying to get an army across the Mississippi River which was patrolled continuously by Union gunboats, was a hit and miss operation and Taylor's progress had been slow. Once across, they would be under the newly created department headed by General Beauregard.
Smith was left with about 7500 "real" soldiers and he had been forced to take a page from Nathan Forrest's recruiting techniques, emptying stockades of rebels serving time for criminal offenses or breaches of military discipline. He also sent a force to try and round up as many deserters as could be caught where they had gone to hide in The Nations, the tract of land devoted to the five tribes displaced by the removal. Through these means he was able to create a force about 12,000 strong with 14 artillery pieces. The army was poorly supplied, poorly clothed, poorly armed, and one cannot suppose those shirkers dragooned back into service contributed much to morale.
These troops he placed under the command of General Sterling Price who was informed that his mission was to retake Missouri for the Confederacy. Since this was not something 12,000 men were likely to be able to do, reliance was also being placed on Missouri rebels flocking to the Stars and Bars once Price had liberated them from Yankee occupation. Smith and Price were counting on an additional 6000 men via that means. They would be disappointed.
Price divided his men into three divisions, appointed commanders and set off at the end of August on his Don Quixote style mission. A quarter of the men didn't even have arms, the plan was to equip them as they went using captured materials. On the 13th of September they crossed from Arkansas into Missouri, the first time a regular rebel army reappeared there since 1862. His progress was slowed by serial encounters with the thousands of pro Union Missouri militia. No state in the Union had as many armed and organized civilians as Missouri, a product of the serial partisan warfare which had made life there miserable for the past three years. Consequently, ambush and skirmishing was a daily affair and the Missouri locals had plenty of experience in those areas. Two weeks after entering the state, Price at last encountered regular army opposition.
These were the 1500 men who garrisoned Fort Davidson near Pilot Knob Missouri. 150 years ago today Price arrived before the fort and demanded its surrender. General Thomas Ewing Jr., commanding the fort, declined. Price then devoted the rest of the daylight hours to a series of piecemeal assaults, all of which were repulsed with much rebel bloodshed. Darkness brought an end to the fighting.
That night, while Price was having his men construct scaling ladders for another go the next day, Ewing convened a council of war and it was agreed that an evacuation would be needed. Using great stealth, Ewing managed to extract his entire force and much of his stores without being detected. They marched north, leaving behind a slow burning match in their powder room. It went off with a terrific roar around 3:30 in the morning, but Price didn't feel that this was worth investigating until daylight.
When he did move in he found his prey had escaped and there was nothing of value left behind. It had cost Price 1500 casualties to win this hollow prize while Ewing has suffered just 184 losses. Losing ten percent of his army with nothing to show for it was not a very good start to a campaign which was supposed to sweep through the state and retake St. Louis. As a consequence of this time and life wasting exercise, Price scaled down his ambitions and decided to not make an attempt against St. Louis, rather he would next target Jefferson City, the state capitol.
After a month of relatively quiet siege conditions, General Grant was back to his program of extending his lines further south and further west, the ultimate goal being to cut General Lee's supply lines. As with Grant's previous attempts at this, to draw the rebels away from the intended target to the south, an assault was launched north of the James River.
This time it was not General Hancock's battered 2nd Corps doing the attacking, instead Grant gave the job to General Butler's Corps who 150 years ago today used the same crossing point at Deep Bottom and advanced on the rebel defensive works. Hancock had twice attacked the Confederate left without achieving positive results, so Butler determined to strike the rebel right and center. Targeted were three forts, Harrison, Gregg and Gilmer.
The attempt to take Fort Gregg was repulsed despite the heroism shown by the US colored troops who were used. Sergeant Christian Fleetwood was awarded the Medal of Honor for seizing his regiment's fallen colors and rallying his men after the white officers had been killed or put out of action by wounds. Gilmer also held, but General Edward Ord's division overwhelmed the defenders of Fort Harrison, sending the rebels fleeing toward a secondary line of defenses. This success caused Lee to do precisely what Grant had been hoping. To try and retake the fort, 10,000 men were shifted north of the James.
This set up the conditions for an attack by General Warren's Corps at the south end of the line the following day. Warren was targeting the Boydton Plank Road, used by the rebels to complete the delivery of supplies from the point where the railroad had been destroyed. The price of this distraction had been about 3400 casualties from Butler's Corps. They had inflicted around 2000 on the rebels. Despite losing more men, the battle was a tactical and strategic victory for Grant. Harrison would remain in Union hands, withstanding Lee's counter attack the next day.
Battle of New Market Heights..Or Third Deep Bottom
While General Butler's Corps was keeping the rebels busy north of the James River and successfully drawing Confederates from the Petersburg trenches, General Warren's Corps struck at the far right of the defenses with the goal of seizing the Boydton Plank Road. Defending against this assault was the Corps of General Hill, minus one division which General Lee had dispatched to assist in retaking Fort Harrison.
150 years ago today the Yankees managed to overrun Fort Archer at the extreme end of the Confederate line, alarming Hill and Lee to the point where the just dispatched division was recalled to meet the threat materializing on the rebel right. A late afternoon counter attack by Hill stabilized the situation and the fighting ended at dark.
Over the next two days Warren and Hill attacked and counter attacked one another without progress being made by either side. On the second of October, Warren was reinforced by a division from the 9th Corps and Hill went over to the defensive.
It had been a partial success, the rebel line was lengthened, two forts had been lost, but the Boydton Plank Road remained in Confederate control. Called the Battle of Peeble's Farm, it had cost General Grant 2900 casualties to Lee's 1300.
It might be worth noting that this fight, which few could identify or describe, produced nearly the exact number of casualties as did the war's first major battle at Bull Run. That is what Grant had turned the war in Virginia into, an ongoing series of fights which were on the same scale as First Manassas, but given the scope of the slaughter taking place in this campaign, went without any special notice.
Fort Archer Falls To The Federals..Artist Depiction
This rebel ran a spy network at the opening of the war and had been credited by President Davis with providing information which greatly aided the South's first victory at Bull Run. An intimate of US senators, congressmen, newspaper publishers and high ranking military officers, the spy moved effortlessly through Washington society, gathering intelligence and sending it south via a network of messengers.
This was Rose O’Neal Greenhow, 47 years of age when the war began, she had been born in Maryland and later raised in the District by an aunt after her parents died. She had married Dr. Robert Greenhow, a Virginian who was also a lawyer and worked for the state department, which meant a life of travel for the couple. They had four daughters who married into prominent families. Robert was killed in an accident in San Francisco in 1854 and Rose returned to Washington where she was a distinguished society matron.
A close personal friend of Senator John C. Calhoun, Rose's sympathies were always with the South, but she kept them concealed, setting her up as the spy no one would suspect. For a time this worked, but then her luck ran out when someone who suspected everyone for a living, Alan J. Pinkerton, penetrated the spy ring and identified Rose as the leading agent. She was arrested in August and held in custody for five months, then released but banished to the South. She shipped out on a blockade runner to Europe where she worked to try and influence England and France into recognizing the Confederacy. She wrote an account of her espionage career which was published in England and became a best seller.
150 years ago today we find Rose, carrying diplomatic dispatches from Confederate agents in Europe, trying to run the blockade once more, this time to enter the Confederacy. The ship on which she sailed, the Condor, attempted to try and sneak into Wilmington, the last deep water port on the Atlantic still in rebel hands. It was detected and chased by the USS gunboat the Niphon, running aground as it tried to enter the Cape Fear River.
Rose was carrying 2000 dollars in gold, her earnings from her book, sewed inside her clothes. She boarded a rowboat and attempted to escape by that means. The seas were rough and a wave swamped the small boat, dumping its passengers overboard. Weighed down by the gold, Rose drowned, her body washing ashore near Wilmington.
Mrs. Greenhow was given a formal military funeral there. Her marker reads "Mrs. Rose O'Neal Greenhow. A Bearer of Dispatches to the Confederate Government."
There was a 1990 made for the tube flick called "The Rose and the Jackal" starring Madolyn Smith Osborne as Rose and Christopher Reeve as Allan Pinkerton, but it was highly fictionalized and centered on, what else, a love story between Pinkerton and Rose, which of course never actually happened. It was a Ted Turner production, one of several really bad Civil War themed flicks his station produced.
General Hood had outlined his long range plan for winning the war to President Davis when they had met at Palmetto, Georgia the previous week. Step number one was to force the retreat of General Sherman's army by destroying his supply line, the stretch of the Western & Atlantic Railroad which connected Atlanta to the main Union supply base in Chattanooga.
Ob September 29th, Hood's army, now about 40,000 strong, crossed the Chattahoochee River on pontoons, marched north and then swung east to strike, 150 years ago today, at Big Shanty Station. (You may recall Big Shanty as the station where the Andrews Raiders had stolen the rebel locomotive while the crew was at breakfast.) There was a 175 man Federal garrison guarding Big Shanty and they were captured without a fight by General Stewart's Corps. Turning north, Stewart's men then swept up the next station at Acworth, along with its 250 man garrison. Stewart's troops then set to work wrecking the 24 miles of track between these stations.
While that was taking place, General French's Division was moving further north to attack Allatoona Station where there was a large Union supply depot. They arrived on the 5th of October, but unlike Big Shanty and Acworth, Allatoona had a substantial garrison of 2000 men and a commander, General John M. Corse who wasn't the sort to surrender to a bluff. He declined French's demand for capitulation and arranged his men in three prepared redoubts.
French had about 3300 men in his division and he assaulted the Federal position, capturing the two smaller redoubts, but at 1:30 pm, with the third bastion still holding out, word was received from the Confederate cavalry that large numbers of Union infantry were approaching from the south. Having lost 900 men in his assaults, French decided to call off further attacks and retreat to the west. Before departing the rebels attempted to set fire to one of the captured storehouses which contained over a million rations, but due to wet weather and inferior matches, no blaze was able to be started.
Allatoona was saved at the cost of 700 casualties for Corse's men.
And as it developed, the intelligence about Sherman's approaching infantry was false. Sherman would indeed come out of Atlanta to deal with the raiders, but would not depart until the 7th.
The plan had been to force General Sherman to retreat by destroying his supply line running back to Chattanooga. Having wrecked a 24 mile stretch, General Hood then waited for Sherman's retreat to begin.
Sherman did indeed leave Atlanta, but not in retreat. Instead 150 years ago today the men in blue came boiling out of the city in pursuit of Hood who shifted his force 30 miles to the west to avoid contact. Since this was clearly no retreat on Sherman's part, Hood retroactively changed his plan so that now he was "luring" Sherman north as opposed to following him as he fell back toward Chattanooga.
On this same day 1000 miles to the NE, General Lee mounted a two division strength assault to try and recapture Fort Harrison which had been lost to General Butler's troops when they made the most recent of General Grant's diversionary attacks near Deep Bottom across the James River. Defending the Union position was the 10th Corps under General Birney.
The attack was successful in driving in the Union cavalry which was guarding the flanks, but the assault against the infantry in the main line was repulsed with relative ease. The Federals suffered around 450 casualties, the attacking rebels lost 700 men, among them was General John Gregg who had seen service in all the major battles in the western theater, and had been transferred east after being wounded at Chickamagua. At the time of his death he had been leading the Texas Brigade, Hood's old command. There is a Gregg County in Texas, named for the fallen hero.
The result of the battle was no result, Fort Harrison remained in Union hands and Lee had to continue to rely on defensive works which were closer to Richmond than Lee found comfortable. It went in the books as the Battle of Darbytown, it could also have been called Deep Bottom Four.
General John Gregg
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