The U.S. Army Campaigns of the Civil War

1862 

The Civil War 

 Western 

Theater

in 

the
CMH Pub 75–7

Cover: Illustration based on Battle of Shiloh, c. 1888, depicting the fight at the 

Hornet’s Nest, by Thure de Thulstrup (Library of Congress) 
by

Charles R. Bowery Jr.

Center of Military History

United States Army

Washington, D.C., 2014

1862

The Civil War 

 Western 

Theater

in 

the

5

Introduction

Although over one hundred fifty years have passed since the 

start of the American Civil War, that titanic conflict continues to 

matter. The forces unleashed by that war were immensely destructive because of the significant issues involved: the existence of the 

Union, the end of slavery, and the very future of the nation. The 

war remains our most contentious, and our bloodiest, with over 

six hundred thousand killed in the course of the four-year struggle. 

Most civil wars do not spring up overnight, and the American 

Civil War was no exception. The seeds of the conflict were sown 

in the earliest days of the republic’s founding, primarily over the 

existence of slavery and the slave trade. Although no conflict can 

begin without the conscious decisions of those engaged in the 

debates at that moment, in the end, there was simply no way to 

paper over the division of the country into two camps: one that 

was dominated by slavery and the other that sought first to limit 

its spread and then to abolish it. Our nation was indeed “half slave 

and half free,” and that could not stand. 

Regardless of the factors tearing the nation asunder, the 

soldiers on each side of the struggle went to war for personal 

reasons: looking for adventure, being caught up in the passions 

and emotions of their peers, believing in the Union, favoring 

states’ rights, or even justifying the simple schoolyard dynamic 

of being convinced that they were “worth” three of the soldiers 

on the other side. Nor can we overlook the factor that some went 

to war to prove their manhood. This has been, and continues 

to be, a key dynamic in understanding combat and the profession of arms. Soldiers join for many reasons but often stay in the 

fight because of their comrades and because they do not want to 

seem like cowards. Sometimes issues of national impact shrink 

to nothing in the intensely personal world of cannon shell and 

minié ball.

Whatever the reasons, the struggle was long and costly and 

only culminated with the conquest of the rebellious Confederacy, 
6 

the preservation of the Union, and the end of slavery. These 

campaign pamphlets on the American Civil War, prepared in 

commemoration of our national sacrifices, seek to remember 

that war and honor those in the United States Army who died to 

preserve the Union and free the slaves as well as to tell the story of 

those American soldiers who fought for the Confederacy despite 

the inherently flawed nature of their cause. The Civil War was our 

greatest struggle and continues to deserve our deep study and 

contemplation.

 RICHARD W. STEWART

 Chief Historian
7

The Civil War in the

Western Theater, 1862

The contest for the Western Theater in 1862 was monumental in scope and importance. Containing an area of about 

230,000 square miles—roughly the size of France—the Western 

Theater extended from the Appalachian Mountains in the east 

to the Mississippi River in the west, and from the Ohio River 

in the north to the Gulf of Mexico in the south. Seven states—

Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, eastern 

Louisiana, and western Florida—lay within its boundaries. 

The region was vital to the Confederacy. Not only was it rich 

in human and agricultural resources, but it also contained the 

Confederacy’s largest city (New Orleans, Louisiana), important 

ports (New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama), and critical industrial 

and railroad centers (Nashville and Chattanooga, Tennessee, 

and Atlanta, Georgia). Home to the mighty Mississippi River, 

towns such as Memphis, Tennessee; Vicksburg, Mississippi; and 

Port Hudson and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, controlled a water 

transportation system that was the lifeblood of both the South 

and the Midwest. Last but not least, the region served as the 

geographical bridge that linked the eastern Confederate states 

with the Trans-Mississippi West, home to the Confederate 

states of Arkansas, Texas, and western Louisiana, and to 

Missouri, which Southerners still hoped to seize. In short, the 

Confederacy could not survive unless it controlled the Western 

Theater. Conversely, the Federal government could not prevail 

unless it conquered the region (Map 1).
Mississippi R

Mississippi R

Missouri R

Tennessee R

C u mberland R

Ohio R

Arkansas R

Red R

Red R

S abine R

Gulf of Mexic o

Ship Island

Fort Henry

Island No. 10 Fort Donelson

Fort Pillow

Fort Leavenworth

Knoxville

Chattanooga

Atlanta

Selma

Mobile

Pensacola

Holly Springs

Memphis

Vicksburg

New Orleans

Port Hudson

St. Joseph

St. Louis

Cincinnati

Louisville

Lexington

Columbus

New Madrid

Cairo

Bowling Green

Corinth

MONTGOMERY

TALLAHASSEE

BATON ROUGE

JACKSON

NASHVILLE

INDIANAPOLIS

LITTLE ROCK

FRANKFORT

MISSOURI

GEORGIA

ILLINOIS

INDIANA

OHI O

F L O RID A

TEXA S

KENTUCK Y

TENNESSEE

ALABAMA

L O UISIANA

MISSISSIPPI

ARKANSAS

KANSAS INDIAN TERRI T O R Y

1862

WESTERN THEATER

0 100 200

Miles

Map 1
9

Strategic Setting

The Mississippi River had figured prominently in the North’s 

strategic planning from the outset of the war. In May 1861, thenGeneral in Chief of the U.S. Army Winfield Scott had drafted the 

so-called Anaconda Plan. Scott had proposed that the Federal 

armed forces squeeze the life out of the Confederacy by blockading the Southern coastline and launching an amphibious thrust 

down the Mississippi. He had argued that his plan would end the 

war with minimal bloodshed, conveniently ignoring the fact that it 

would take years for the North to build a sufficient navy. President 

Abraham Lincoln thought the Anaconda Plan had merit, but he 

knew that the Army would have to play a far more active role than 

Scott had envisioned—especially in Kentucky and Missouri—

where Unionist and secessionist forces were already maneuvering 

for power.

Lincoln was determined not only to keep the two crucial 

border states in the Union, but to rescue eastern Tennessee. 

One senator, Andrew Johnson, and one congressman, Horace 

Maynard, from that region remained in Washington to represent their Unionist supporters. In July 1861, following the Union 

defeat at Bull Run, Virginia, Lincoln sketched out a strategy for the 

Western Theater that involved securing Missouri and launching a 

two-pronged offensive from Cairo, Illinois, to Memphis, and from 

Cincinnati, Ohio, into eastern Tennessee.

On 4 August, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, the Army of the 

Potomac’s new commander, presented his own strategic plan for 

the West that accorded with Lincoln’s wishes yet proved more elaborate. He recommended a grand campaign involving two western 

armies—one based in Kentucky and the other in Missouri. The first 

army would divide into two columns in order to capture eastern 

Tennessee and Nashville. They would reunite at Chattanooga and 

proceed to Atlanta and then Montgomery, Alabama. After gaining 

control of Missouri, the second army would launch an amphibious 

expedition down the Mississippi River and seize New Orleans. All 

that remained was for the president to find generals willing and 

able to put these ambitious plans into action. 

In the meantime, Confederate President Jefferson Davis 

sought to demonstrate the viability of his new nation. This meant 

protecting the territory, populace, and economic infrastructure—

above all, slaves—of the eleven Confederate states. To do this, 
10 

Davis adopted a strategy of territorial defense, stationing forces 

at critical points along the perimeter of the Confederacy. In the 

West, this involved occupying a defensive cordon across southern 

Kentucky, stretching eastward from Columbus on the Mississippi 

River to Bowling Green, and from there to the Cumberland Gap 

on the border with Tennessee and Virginia. The Confederates also 

built fortifications along the Mississippi at Island Number 10; New 

Madrid, Missouri; Fort Pillow, Tennessee; Memphis; Vicksburg; 

and Port Hudson; and on the Gulf Coast at Mobile and Pensacola, 

Florida. Davis chose an old friend, General Albert Sidney Johnston, 

to command the Confederate forces in the West. Johnston established his headquarters at Bowling Green and assembled a 34,000-

man force to defend the approaches to Nashville. 

Johnston’s opponent in Kentucky was a fellow native of the 

Bluegrass State, Brig. Gen. Robert Anderson of Fort Sumter fame. 

Lincoln had appointed Anderson commander of the Department 

of Kentucky on 28 May 1861. Following the Federals’ entry into 

the state in early September, Lincoln urged Anderson to move 

against the Confederates, but the general refused on the grounds 

that he lacked the resources. On 7 October, Lincoln replaced 

Anderson with his second-in-command, Brig. Gen. William T. 

Sherman. General Sherman 

proved no more aggressive than 

Anderson, reporting that his 

45,000-man force was too inexperienced and disorganized to 

mount a successful campaign. 

The responsibilities of high 

command soon overwhelmed 

Sherman. At one point, he 

informed the secretary of war 

that he needed at least two 

hundred thousand troops to 

mount offensive operations, 

prompting one Northern newspaper to declare him “insane.” 

Sherman lasted barely a 

month before Lincoln directed 

the new general in chief of the 

U.S. Army, General McClellan, 

to replace him with Brig. Gen. 

General A. S. Johnston 

(Library of Congress)
11

Don Carlos Buell. McClellan instructed Buell to make capturing 

Knoxville, in eastern Tennessee, his top priority—not only to 

liberate the Unionists there, but also to cut the railroad linking 

Virginia to the Volunteer State. McClellan left the expedition to 

Buell’s discretion, and the latter replied that he could not supply his 

army with a logistical pipeline that ran through two hundred miles 

of mountainous wilderness. Instead, Buell proposed that he launch 

the main assault on Nashville and make a diversionary attack on 

Knoxville—a proposal that neither Lincoln nor McClellan found 

satisfactory.

The president and the general in chief not only had to contend 

with the stalemate in Kentucky, but they also had to deal with the 

crisis in Missouri stemming from Maj. Gen. John C. Frémont’s 

incompetence. In September, Lincoln had to revoke Frémont’s 

unauthorized proclamation freeing all slaves in Missouri; the 

general had since allowed his department to slide into a condition bordering on anarchy. On 4 November, Lincoln replaced the 

“Great Pathfinder” with Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, an experienced staff officer whose reputation as a military scholar had 

earned him the nickname “Old Brains.” Assuming command of 

the Department of Missouri on 19 November, Halleck immeGeneral Sherman 

(Library of Congress)

General Buell

(Library of Congress)
12 

diately declared martial law. From his headquarters in St. Louis, 

he began to ferret out corruption and incompetence. The cleanup 

effort would occupy him for several months.

The divided Union command structure contributed to the 

difficulties in developing a coherent strategy. Halleck’s geographic 

department included Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, and the sliver 

of Kentucky west of the Cumberland River. Buell’s command, 

the Department of the Ohio, included Ohio, Indiana, and all of 

Kentucky east of the Cumberland River. Buell had proposed 

that Halleck support his offensive by sending a strong force into 

western Kentucky, and he refused to move until he received such 

assistance. The truth was that neither Buell’s nor Halleck’s forces 

were ready to launch offensive operations, but both men were slow 

to admit this to McClellan.

Halleck’s most aggressive subordinate, Brig. Gen. Ulysses 

S. Grant, had already attempted to establish a forward base on 

the Mississippi and failed. Grant was a U.S. Military Academy 

graduate and a Mexican War veteran who had left the Army in 

1854 amid allegations of alcoholism. The outbreak of the Civil War 

found him working in his father’s leather goods shop in Galena, 

Illinois. In June 1861, Grant accepted Illinois Governor Richard 

General Halleck 

(Library of Congress)

General Grant 

(Library of Congress)
13

Yates’ offer of a colonelcy in the state volunteers and command 

of the 21st Illinois Infantry. On 7 November 1861, Grant led a 

division-size force in a minor action at Belmont, Missouri, just 

across the Mississippi from Columbus, Kentucky. Although forced 

to withdraw from the battlefield, he displayed two traits that would 

stand him in good stead throughout the war: clear thinking and 

coolness under fire.

In December 1861, while Buell and Halleck prepared to 

strike from the north, Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler opened a 

southern front by occupying Ship Island, Mississippi, a narrow 

strip of land about sixty miles southeast of the Mississippi River. 

Butler considered several possible objectives from Alabama to 

Texas, including New Orleans. But he would need at least three 

months to accumulate troops and supplies before he could launch 

an expedition.

In January 1862, while Butler prepared for his upcoming 

campaign, Grant proposed to Halleck that he bypass the Mississippi 

River and launch an amphibious expedition up the Tennessee River 

to capture Fort Henry, using it as a springboard for a deeper thrust 

into Southern territory. Grant noted that the offensive “would 

have a moral effect on our troops” and that it would outflank the 

Confederates at Columbus, forcing the defenders to abandon 

their stronghold on the Mississippi. Halleck gave his approval, 

having already presented a similar plan to McClellan. While Grant 

gathered the necessary troops and supplies, Buell at last yielded to 

Lincoln’s and McClellan’s entreaties for action. 

 

Operations

Opening Guns in the West

As the New Year opened, Buell ordered his 1st Division 

commander, Virginia native Brig. Gen. George H. Thomas, to 

attack Confederate forces under Brig. Gen. Felix K. Zollicoffer 

along the Cumberland River near Mill Springs in southeastern 

Kentucky (Map 2). Meanwhile, a second Union force commanded 

by Brig. Gen. William “Bull” Nelson occupied nearby Prestonsburg, 

Kentucky. The Confederate commander in the area, Brig. Gen. 

Humphrey Marshall, was attempting to establish Confederate 

government there but could make little headway. Marshall’s efforts 

soon drew a Federal expeditionary force of 3,000 men under a 
Map 2

NEW MADRID 3–14 Mar

ISLAND N0. 10 4–8 Apr

FORT PILLOW 14 Apr–4 Jun

MEMPHIS 6 Jun

SHILOH 6–7 Apr

CORINTH 28–30 May

FORT HENRY 6 Feb

FORT DONELSON 14–16 Feb

Tennessee R

Cumberland R

Tennessee R

Duck R

Bear Cr

Mississippi R

Mississippi R

Ohio R

Memphis & Charleston RR

Memphis & Ohio RR

Nashvil le & D ecatur RR

Pittsburg Landing

Fort Randolph

Commerce

Columbus

Cairo

Union City

Paris

Grand Junction

Bolivar

Ripley

Purdy Savannah

Hamburg

Iuka

Tuscumbia

Pulaski

Columbia

Franklin

T

Tupelo

Jackson

Florence

Decat

Paducah

Bow

ST. LOUIS

MISSOURI

ILLINOIS INDIAN

KENTUCKY

ALABAM A 

MISSISSIPPI

ARKANSAS

Battle

AREAS OF OPERATIONS

January–June 1862

KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE

0 50 

Miles
to Cincinnati

MILL SPRINGS 19 Jan

Tennessee R

Sequatchie R

Ohio R

Ohio R

Gre e n R

Cumberland R

Kentucky R

Cumberland Gap

Nashville & Chattanooga RR

East Tennessee & Georgia RR

Louisville & Nashville RR

Georgia Central RR

Munfordville

Bardstown

Perryville

Harrodsburg Richmond

Camp Dick

Robinson

Rome

Huntsville

Shelbyville

Triune

Carthage

Stevenson

Clinton

Morristown

Somerset

Barbourville

London

Maysville

ur

Murfreesboro

Knoxville

ling Green

Lexington

LOUISVILLE

FRANKFORT

NASHVILLE

CHAT TANOOGA

NA

TENNESSE E

GEORGI A

NORTH

CAROLINA

VIRGINIA
16 

future U.S. president, Col. James A. Garfield. On 10 January 1862, 

Garfield defeated Marshall at Middle Creek. Buoyed by his victory, 

Garfield continued toward the Cumberland Gap with the intention 

of cutting the railroad line that linked Knoxville with Virginia. 

Alerted to the Federals’ approach, Zollicoffer established a 

defensive position near Mill Springs, protecting the Cumberland 

Gap. Thomas marched his division to Somerset, Kentucky, where 

he maneuvered Zollicoffer out of a strong position and forced 

him to retreat south of the Cumberland River. In the meantime, 

Maj. Gen. George B. Crittenden arrived to take command of the 

Confederate force. On 19 January, the two forces fought the Battle 

of Mill Springs. The battle involved roughly four thousand troops 

on each side and resulted in about seven hundred total casualties. The Union force won a narrow victory at Mill Springs, and 

the Confederates lost Zollicoffer, who was killed after blundering 

into the Federal lines at dusk. Poor roads and the onset of winter 

weather prevented Thomas from capturing the Cumberland Gap 

and liberating the eastern Tennessee Unionists.

Following hard on the heels of the Union Army’s successful 

operations in eastern Kentucky, Grant launched his campaign to 

capture Fort Henry in order to puncture the Confederate defensive cordon across southern 

Kentucky and open the Deep 

South to invasion. The Federal 

offensive marked the start of a 

joint Army-Navy partnership 

that would play a crucial role in 

Union victory in the West.

The naval commander 

in this operation was Flag 

Officer Andrew H. Foote, who 

led a flotilla of thirteen steam 

transports, four ironclads, and 

two timberclad gunboats. His 

transports ferried 17,000 of 

Grant’s infantrymen up the 

Tennessee River from Paducah, 

Kentucky, and landed them 

downstream from Fort Henry 

on 5 February. Heavy rainfall 

caused the river to rise rapidly, 

General Thomas 

(Library of Congress)
17

flooding the interior of the fort and compelling the defenders to 

evacuate, but not before they damaged one of the Federal vessels. 

Grant entered the fort on 6 February and captured a handful 

of Confederates, including the commander, Brig. Gen. Lloyd 

Tilghman. The Tennessee River now lay open to Federal navigation all the way to northern Alabama.

Grant’s next objective was Fort Donelson on the Cumberland 

River about fifteen miles to the east. Fort Donelson guarded 

the river approach to Nashville and was a far more formidable 

fortification than Fort Henry. On 5 February, the Fort Henry 

garrison arrived there, raising the number of defenders to 13,000 

Confederates under Brig. Gen. John B. Floyd. Grant led his four 

divisions overland to Donelson, while Foote’s flotilla moved up 

the Cumberland River to engage the water batteries. After a sharp 

artillery duel on 14 February, Foote’s battered gunboats had to turn 

back. Early the next morning, the Confederates launched a sortie 

and succeeded in opening the road to Nashville, but they delayed 

their escape and enabled Grant to close the gap with a series of 

counterattacks. Under suspicion by the Federals for his actions as 

secretary of war during the prewar secession crisis, General Floyd 

feared retribution, and he and his second-in-command, Brig. Gen. 

Gideon J. Pillow, abandoned the fort rather than surrender. Col. 

Nathan Bedford Forrest likewise escaped with his cavalry. The task 

of surrendering the Fort Donelson garrison thus fell to Brig. Gen. 

Simon Bolivar Buckner. In answer to Buckner’s request for terms, 

Grant gave his immortal reply: “No terms except immediate and 

unconditional surrender can be accepted.”

Buckner surrendered to Grant on 16 February, and with the 

fall of Forts Henry and Donelson, the Confederate western defensive perimeter collapsed on itself. Outflanked, Johnston evacuated 

Bowling Green and fell back to Nashville. Deciding that he lacked 

the strength to oppose General Buell’s Army of the Ohio, Johnston 

withdrew the bulk of his force to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on 

17–18 February, leaving Floyd’s Virginia brigade to hold the state 

capital. Floyd abandoned Nashville on 23 February and moved 

southeast to Chattanooga while Johnston headed to Corinth via 

Huntsville, Decatur, and Tuscumbia, Alabama. On 25 February, 

Buell’s army marched unopposed into Nashville, making it the 

first Confederate state capital to fall into Federal hands. In the 

meantime, Maj. Gen. Leonidas Polk evacuated the “Gibraltar of the 

West” at Columbus, leaving Island Number 10, New Madrid, and 
18 

Fort Pillow as the remaining 

Confederate defenses on the 

central Mississippi. 

As February 1862 came 

to a close, Jefferson Davis 

lamented to his old friend 

General Johnston: “We are 

deficient in arms, wanting 

in discipline, and inferior in 

numbers. Private arms must 

supply the first want, time 

and the presence of an enemy, 

with diligence on the part of 

commanders, will remove the 

second, and public confidence 

will overcome the third.” It 

thus fell to General Johnston 

to gather his scattered forces 

and defend the Confederate 

heartland against invasion.

The Confederate Strategy of Concentration

The string of disastrous defeats in Kentucky and Tennessee 

demonstrated to President Davis the folly of the perimeter defense 

strategy. There simply was too much territory for the available 

manpower to defend. Worse yet, the geography of the region 

conspired against the defenders, with navigable river systems 

reaching deep into the heartland. At a meeting in Richmond 

in mid-February, Davis and his advisers decided on a new strategic approach, that of concentrating forces powerful enough 

to strike back at Federal invasions. Confederate Secretary of 

War Judah P. Benjamin drafted the appropriate orders in Davis’ 

name and passed them on to the department commanders. In a 

letter to Maj. Gen. Braxton Bragg, the commander at Pensacola, 

Benjamin wrote, “The heavy blow which has been inflicted on 

us by the recent operations in Kentucky and Tennessee renders 

necessary a change in our whole plan of campaign.” Bragg’s 

forces would evacuate the fortifications along the Gulf Coast 

due to “the necessity of abandoning the seaboard in order to 

defend the Tennessee line, which is vital to our safety.” In his 

General Polk 

(Ohio State University)
19

orders to Maj. Gen. Mansfield Lovell, the commander of the 

garrison at New Orleans, Benjamin wrote, “We must dismiss all 

ideas of scattering our forces in defense of unimportant points 

and concentrate them at vital lines.” This was a clear acknowledgment that the Confederacy did not have the resources to 

defend every square mile of its territory. Instead, Southern 

armies would have to exploit the advantages of interior lines 

and existing rail systems, trading space for time and seeking 

opportunities to launch counteroffensives against the Union 

invaders.

The formulation of Confederate strategy was complicated 

by internal dissension, particularly in eastern Tennessee. When 

Maj. Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith took command of the Army of 

East Tennessee at Knoxville in March 1862, he soon discovered 

that the local populace stood largely against him. In a report 

to General Samuel Cooper, the Confederate adjutant general, 

Smith said that he found eastern Tennessee to be “an enemy’s 

country, and the people, where removed from the immediate 

presence and fear of Confederate troops, in open rebellion.” Most 

of the thirty-two counties that comprised Smith’s command 

were pro-Union, and opposition strengthened when the spring 

elections put Unionists into 

many local government 

offices. In response, Smith 

declared martial law and 

suspended the writ of habeas 

corpus on 8 April. These 

measures, combined with the 

passage of the Confederate 

Conscription Act on 16 April, 

triggered an exodus of military-age males to Kentucky. 

Only the local suspension of 

conscription prevented the 

situation from worsening. 

Union commanders proved 

no more successful than their 

Confederate counterparts in 

asserting control over fractious eastern Tennessee. 

In March 1862, President 

General Smith (Library of Congress)
20 

Lincoln appointed longtime eastern Tennessee resident Andrew 

Johnson as military governor of the state with the rank of brigadier general, but this move proved controversial. Believing 

that “treason must be made odious and traitors punished and 

impoverished,” Johnson took a hard line toward secessionists. 

Whether a less confrontational approach might have been more 

successful remains an open question, but Johnson’s vindictive 

policies alienated large numbers of moderate Tennesseans.

Clearing the Middle Mississippi: Island Number 10 

to Memphis

The fall of Columbus provided Halleck with an opportunity to retake the central section of the Mississippi River. The 

first step in this operation was the capture of Island Number 10, 

so-called because it was the tenth island south of the confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers at Cairo, Illinois. 

Commanding a sharp bend in the Mississippi, Island Number 

10 served as a formidable choke point, bristling with over fifty 

pieces of artillery and several thousand troops. The island’s 

defenses formed an integrated network with batteries at nearby 

New Madrid and along the Tennessee side of the river.

Brig. Gen. John Pope had 

the task of reducing Island 

Number 10. He began his 

expedition in late February, 

gathering a force of 12,000 

infantry and cavalry on the 

Missouri shore near New 

Madrid. The town surrendered 

without a fight on 13 March as 

the defenders evacuated their 

fortifications. Pope’s force, 

christened the Army of the 

Mississippi, grew to 18,000 

men but was stranded on the 

west bank of the river without 

Foote’s Western Flotilla to ferry 

it to the Tennessee side. Foote 

could not run his vessels past 

the island’s batteries without 

the risk of heavy loss, so he and 

General Pope (Library of Congress)
21

Pope decided to bypass Island Number 10 entirely. Using flooded 

bottomlands on the Missouri side of the river, they dredged a 

canal—dubbed the New Madrid Channel—twelve miles downstream and beyond reach of the island batteries. Foote managed to 

pass enough boats through this channel to ferry Pope’s army to the 

east bank on 7 April. Two Federal ironclads, the USS Carondelet 

and the USS Pittsburg, also ran past the island to provide fire 

support for the impending assault. The gunboats’ accurate fire 

soon silenced the batteries on the Tennessee shore. Pope then cut 

off the garrison’s line of retreat, resulting in the surrender of some 

four thousand Confederates on 8 April. The successful expedition 

against Island Number 10 chipped away at Confederate control 

of the Mississippi and boosted Pope’s career. Soon afterward, he 

received a promotion to major general and an army command in 

Virginia.

The next Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi was 

Fort Pillow, a forty-gun bastion located on the Tennessee side of 

the river about fifty miles north of Memphis. Foote’s naval force 

arrived opposite the fort on 14 April and began a bombardment 

that lasted for several weeks. On 9 May, Flag Officer Charles H. 

Davis replaced the ailing Foote as commander of the Western 

Flotilla. The next day, Confederate vessels of Flag Officer James 

E. Montgomery’s River Defense Fleet attacked the Federals near 

Fort Pillow. The Southern rams surprised two of Davis’ ironclads and grounded them before withdrawing beyond range of 

the remaining Union flotilla. This proved to be a minor setback 

for the Federals, as work crews soon raised and repaired the 

damaged gunboats. Advancing Union forces under General 

Halleck compelled the Confederates to evacuate Fort Pillow 

on 4 June, and Davis’ flotilla took possession of the fort on the 

following day.

Davis soon found his naval force augmented by the U.S. 

Ram Fleet—seven civilian steamers converted into ram ships 

under the command of an enterprising civil engineer-turnedArmy officer, Col. Charles Ellet Jr. Davis and Ellet attacked the 

River Defense Fleet at Memphis on 6 June, destroying seven of 

the eight Confederate vessels engaged and forcing the defenders 

to evacuate the city. Ellet was severely wounded during the 

battle and died of blood poisoning two weeks later; however, the 

Federals had regained control of the Mississippi River all the way 

to Vicksburg.
22 

The Battle of Shiloh

As events were unfolding in eastern Tennessee and along 

the Mississippi River, a decisive engagement occurred along the 

banks of the Tennessee River in southwestern Tennessee. After 

having broken through the Confederates’ perimeter defenses in 

southern Kentucky and northern Tennessee, Grant and Buell, 

both now major generals, moved to join forces for a thrust into 

the Deep South. By April 1862, Grant’s Army of the Tennessee and 

Buell’s Army of the Ohio were converging on Pittsburg Landing, 

Tennessee, about twenty miles north of the important rail junction 

at Corinth, Mississippi. Seeking to implement the new concentration strategy, Johnston arrived at Corinth and hurried to collect a 

sizable force before Grant and Buell could combine. In addition to 

the soldiers under his immediate command, Johnston was joined 

by the troops under Bragg, Polk, and Maj. Gen. William J. Hardee, 

amounting to 45,000 officers and men—the largest Confederate 

field army yet formed in the Western Theater. Johnston named his 

expanded force the Army of the Mississippi.

The bulk of Grant’s army camped on a rough, triangular 

plateau at Pittsburg Landing on the west bank of the Tennessee 

River. The surrounding terrain consisted of dense forests interspersed with small farms and steep ravines. Grant established his 

headquarters seven miles to the north at the Cherry mansion in 

Savannah. Appointed by Grant as camp commandant, Sherman 

(now a major general) established his headquarters near a 

one-room log church called Shiloh, an Old Testament place 

name meaning “peaceful.” The five divisions of the Army of the 

Tennessee at Pittsburg Landing numbered roughly forty thousand 

soldiers. A sixth division totaling 7,500 men was camped near 

Grant’s headquarters.

During preparations for the move on Corinth, Grant had 

received a letter from General Halleck containing some serious 

allegations. Among them were accusations that Grant had failed 

to prevent widespread plundering at Fort Donelson, had made 

an unauthorized trip to Nashville, and had neglected to send 

Halleck regular reports. On 24 March, Grant had fired off a reply, 

assuring his superior that he had done all he could to prevent 

plundering at Donelson and that he had traveled to Nashville 

solely to confer with General Buell. Grant had then noted that 

he had sent Halleck daily reports, whereas during the two 

weeks since the fall of Donelson, he had not received one word 
23

of instruction from Halleck. He had then blamed “designing 

enemies” for spreading false reports about his conduct. In the 

end, Halleck chose to ignore the accusations, for he realized that 

Grant was far too valuable to shelve over mere rumors. 

On 2 April, General Johnston issued Special Order 8, outlining 

the Confederate march to Pittsburg Landing and the subsequent 

attack. Because most of his troops had little or no combat experience, Johnston planned to keep large-unit battle maneuvers to an 

absolute minimum. His first two corps, under Hardee and Bragg, 

would attack in successive lines of battle, one behind the other. 

Polk’s corps and Brig. Gen. John C. Breckinridge’s small Reserve 

Corps would follow in column of brigades to reinforce Hardee 

and Bragg as needed. Johnston intended for his army to attack the 

Federal left flank anchored on the Tennessee River, drive it from 

its base of operations at the landing to the banks of Owl Creek, 

and then destroy it. At first glance, the plan appeared sound, yet 

it failed to take into account the broken terrain over which the 

assault would occur—a difficulty compounded by the fact that the 

Confederate high command had no reliable maps of the area.

The Confederate march to Shiloh began on 3 April, with 

Johnston expecting to attack two days later. But heavy rains 

compelled him to postpone the assault until Sunday, 6 April. As 

they neared Pittsburg Landing, Confederate skirmishers collided 

with Federal pickets, giving Union commanders ample warning of 

an attack, but they chose to disregard it. Mindful of his reputation 

for skittishness, Sherman did not wish to appear as an alarmist. 

When one of his regimental commanders, Col. Jesse J. Appler of 

the 53d Ohio, reported that a “line of men in butternut clothes” 

had opened fire in his sector, Sherman sent him the following 

reply: “Take your damned regiment back to Ohio. There are no 

rebels closer than Corinth.” In fact, they were a good deal closer 

than that. On the night of 5–6 April, Hardee’s men slept on their 

arms less than two miles south of Sherman’s camps.

The Battle of Shiloh began before dawn on Sunday, 6 April. 

Col. Everett Peabody, who commanded a brigade in Brig. Gen. 

Benjamin M. Prentiss’ division, sent a skirmish line of the 

25th Missouri Infantry into the Fraley cotton field in search 

of Confederates. The Union skirmishers encountered the 

3d Alabama Battalion on picket duty, and a firefight ensued. 

Around 0630, Hardee’s mile-long line of battle emerged from 

the tree line and began pushing back the Missourians. The skir-
S TU AR T

S H E R M A N

McARTHUR

W. H. L. WALLACE (-)

McCL ERNAND

HURLBUT (-)

M c C L E R N A N D

HURLBUT

SHERMAN

L. WALLACE

P R E N T I S S

GRANT

NELSON

B R A G G ( - )

B R A G G ( - )

B R E C K I N R I D G E

B R E C K I N R I D G E

B R A G G

P O L K

H A R D E E

H

A

R

D

E E

JOHNST O N

Snake Creek

T e n n e s s e e R i v e r

Owl Creek

to Crump

to Savannah

to Purdy

to Corinth

to Hamburg

D i a m o n d 

I s l a n d

Pi t t sb urg La n d ing

Hornet’s Nest

Shiloh

 Church

Union Position, Morning

Confederate Position, Morning

Confederate Attack

Union Position, Evening

Confederate Position, Evening

6 April 1862

BAT TLE OF SHILOH

0 1000 2000 

Yards

ELE V A TION IN FEE T

0 400 450 500 550 600 and Above

Map 3
25

mishers were soon joined by 

the rest of Peabody’s brigade, 

and the Federals conducted a 

fighting retreat to their camps 

(Map 3). 

Hearing the opening 

shots of the battle, Johnston 

mounted his horse. “Tonight 

we will water our horses in the 

Tennessee River,” he told his 

staff, and then rode out to find 

his army’s right flank. Johnston 

had decided to forgo overall 

direction of the battle in favor 

of leading the Confederate 

assault on the right, where he 

believed his direct intervention 

would have the greatest impact. 

He entrusted deployment of 

the reserves to his second in 

command, General Pierre G. T. 

Beauregard, who remained in 

the rear on the Corinth Road. 

Sherman’s and Prentiss’ divisions bore the brunt of the 

Confederate onslaught. Caught by surprise, most Federals abandoned their camps without a fight and fled north. Some of the men 

fought bravely but were overwhelmed by superior numbers. Among 

the Union casualties was Colonel Peabody, who was wounded three 

times before the fourth bullet killed him around 0900.

The Confederate attack soon bogged down as units lost 

cohesion advancing across broken terrain and as soldiers broke 

ranks to loot the Union camps. In the bivouac of the 18th Wisconsin 

Infantry, General Johnston encountered a lieutenant loaded down 

with spoils. “None of that, sir,” Johnston roared, “we are not here 

for plunder.” Seeing the mortification on the young officer’s face, 

Johnston picked up a battered tin cup. “Let this be my share of the 

spoils today,” the general told the lieutenant, and then continued 

on his way.

With the rout of Prentiss’ division, the triumphant 

Confederates appeared to have an open path to Pittsburg Landing. 

But reports of a Union division beyond the Confederate right 

General Beauregard 

(National Archives)
26 

flank induced General Johnston to order a halt while he shifted 

two brigades to the extreme right. The Union “division” proved to 

be an isolated brigade commanded by Col. David Stuart—hardly a 

threat to the Confederate assault but an unexpected obstacle nonetheless. In any event, the Confederates waited for the brigades of 

Brig. Gens. James R. Chalmers and John K. Jackson to march into 

position and attack. They easily drove back Stuart, but the delay 

enabled the Federals elsewhere on the battlefield to rally. 

On the Union right, Sherman recovered from his nasty 

surprise and conducted a stout defense of the ridgeline around 

Shiloh Church. He deployed his two remaining brigades in a 

V-shaped line, augmented by artillery, and held four Confederate 

brigades at bay for almost two hours. Once again, superior 

Confederate numbers overwhelmed the Federal defenders. 

Sherman’s troops slowly fell back to the Crossroads—the intersection of the Corinth-Pittsburg and Hamburg-Purdy roads—where 

Maj. Gen. John A. McClernand’s division formed on Sherman’s left 

to bolster the Union center.

On the Union left, the divisions of Brig. Gens. Stephen A. 

Hurlbut and W. H. L. Wallace marched from their camps near 

Pittsburg Landing and deployed along a narrow wagon trace 

bordering the Bell and Duncan fields, a path that became known 

as the Sunken Road. Wallace went into position on the right to 

support Sherman and McClernand, while Hurlbut attempted 

to buttress Stuart’s brigade on the left. The road passed through 

a thicket of oak trees and underbrush that soldiers dubbed the 

Hornet’s Nest because of the incessant whiz of bullets and shrapnel. 

The remnant of Prentiss’ division fell back to this point and formed 

a salient between Wallace and Hurlbut.

Starting at 1200, Bragg launched no fewer than eight frontal 

assaults against the Hornet’s Nest. Col. Randall L. Gibson’s 

Louisiana brigade alone attacked four times into the dense thickets 

and lost one-third of its strength. While Bragg hammered away at 

the Hornet’s Nest, General Johnston led four Confederate brigades 

in an assault on Brig. Gen. John McArthur’s brigade anchoring 

the Federal left flank. Although the Southerners drove McArthur 

back, their success proved costly. About 1415, while following the 

Confederate line of battle, General Johnston received a wound 

in the right leg. At first he seemed unaware of the injury, but the 

bullet had severed an artery, and he soon bled to death—a possible 
27

victim of friendly fire. With the loss of Johnston’s leadership, the 

Confederate advance on the right sputtered out. 

The Federals manning the Sunken Road position managed 

to hold out until late afternoon, when the collapse of Union forces 

on either flank left them isolated. As the rest of the Federal line fell 

back, the Confederates surrounded the Hornet’s Nest salient and 

captured over two thousand Union soldiers, including General 

Prentiss. General Wallace was mortally wounded while trying 

to escape. But the desperate stand at the Hornet’s Nest bought 

precious time for Grant—who had arrived at Pittsburg Landing 

about 0900—to cobble together a strong defensive line on the high 

ground around the landing. Sherman held the right of the new 

line, McClernand anchored the center, and the remnants of several 

Union units manned the left. Grant buttressed the line with over 

fifty pieces of artillery, as well as the big guns of the timberclads 

USS Lexington and USS Tyler anchored nearby.

General Beauregard, meanwhile, learned of Johnston’s death 

and assumed command of the Army of the Mississippi. At nightfall 

Beauregard called a halt to the Confederate offensive, confident 

that he could finish off Grant’s army in the morning. This decision 

spurred a postwar debate over the “lost opportunity at Shiloh.” 

Johnston’s advocates maintained that he would have pressed the 

attack against Grant’s final line and won the battle. In making 

their case, they conveniently ignored the strength of Grant’s 

position and the arrival of reinforcements at Pittsburg Landing, 

including General Nelson’s division of Buell’s army and Maj. Gen. 

Lew Wallace’s division of Grant’s army. Johnston’s apologists also 

failed to take into account the grit and determination of the Union 

commander. That night, Sherman found Grant standing under 

a large oak tree, holding a lantern and smoking an ever-present 

cigar. “Well, Grant, we’ve had the devil’s own day,” Sherman said. 

“Yes,” Grant replied between puffs. “Lick ‘em tomorrow though.”

Although most soldiers in Grant’s army remained on the 

battlefield, several thousand of their comrades fled to Pittsburg 

Landing and cowered along the bluffs. One of Buell’s men, Pvt. 

Ebenezer Hannaford of the 6th Ohio Infantry, described the 

chaotic scene that greeted him as his transport drew up alongside 

the landing:

Wagons, teams, and led horses, quartermaster’s stores of every 

description, bales of forage, caissons—all of the paraphernalia 
28 

of a magnificently appointed army—were scattered in promiscuous disorder along the bluff side . . . thousands of panicstricken wretches swarmed from the river’s edge . . . , a mob in 

uniform. . . . Men were there in every stage of partial uniform 

and equipment; many were hatless and coatless, and but few 

retained their muskets and their accouterments complete. Some 

stood wringing their hands, and rending the air with cries and 

lamentations, while others in the dumb agony of fear, cowered 

behind the object that was nearest them in the direction of the 

enemy. . . . There was a rush for the boat when we neared the 

landing, and some wading out breast deep into the stream, were 

kept off only at the point of a bayonet. 

 

During the night, a heavy rain drenched both the combatants 

and the battlefield. Grant ordered the gunboats on the Tennessee 

River to maintain a steady bombardment of the Confederates; 

many of the shells burst in the no-man’s-land separating the two 

armies, where hundreds of the wounded still lay, adding to their 

misery. The Confederates, meanwhile, huddled inside the tents 

abandoned by the Federals earlier that day. 

Thanks to the arrival of reinforcements, Grant could shift 

to the offensive on 7 April. Both he and Buell launched dawn 

attacks. General Lew Wallace’s fresh division led the way on the 

Union right flank, closely followed by the bloodied divisions of 

Sherman, McClernand, and Hurlbut in the center. Buell’s Army of 

the Ohio—with General Nelson’s division in the lead—advanced 

on the left, driving south from Pittsburg Landing and reaching 

the Sarah Bell cotton field before the attack stalled in the face of 

heavy Confederate musketry and artillery fire. Sherman’s and 

McClernand’s divisions reached the Crossroads by midday, where 

a fierce Confederate counterattack across Water Oak Pond and 

Woolf ’s Field succeeded in driving the Federals back a short 

distance. But the Union troops soon rallied and, thanks to their 

numerical superiority, resumed the advance. Realizing that he was 

heavily outnumbered, Beauregard deployed General Breckinridge’s 

corps as a blocking force to enable the main body of his army to 

withdraw down the Corinth Road. Breckinridge held his position 

until 1700, when he joined the retreat. The Federals followed the 

Confederates a short distance before halting for the night.

On the morning of 8 April, Grant sent Sherman on a reconnaissance-in-force to determine if any Confederates remained in 
29

the area. Sherman led two of his brigades and two battalions of 

cavalry, and he was soon joined by Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Wood’s 

division of Buell’s army. Sherman’s advance collided with a small 

force of Confederate cavalry under the command of Colonel 

Forrest at a clearing known as Fallen Timbers. Forrest ordered 

a charge to halt the Federal pursuit. During the melee, Sherman 

was almost captured, and Forrest was severely wounded but made 

a daring escape after being surrounded. Following the charge, 

Forrest’s cavalry fell back, and Sherman reported to Grant that the 

Southerners were retreating toward Corinth.

The Battle of Shiloh was over, but more than three thousand 

Union and Confederate dead had to be buried. The Federals 

suffered over thirteen thousand casualties (about 20 percent of 

the 65,000 engaged) and the Confederates almost eleven thousand 

(roughly 25 percent of 45,000 engaged)—including General 

Johnston, the only Confederate army commander to be killed 

in action. Shiloh’s casualty count exceeded that of all previous 

American wars combined. The carnage shocked Northerners and 

Southerners alike, shattering any lingering illusions that the war 

would be a relatively bloodless affair. 

The Northern press portrayed Shiloh as a senseless bloodbath, with some reporters alleging that the attacking Confederates 

had bayoneted Union soldiers while they were still in their tents. 

Grant bore much of the blame for the so-called debacle. His critics 

accused him of being unprepared for the Confederate onslaught, 

and some of them spread malicious rumors that he had been 

drunk during the battle. Letters urging Grant’s removal flooded the 

White House, but President Lincoln stood by the much-maligned 

general: “I can’t spare this man; he fights.” 

Grant’s standing dipped further still when Halleck arrived at 

Pittsburg Landing a few days after the battle and assumed personal 

command of both his and Buell’s armies. In doing so, Halleck relegated Grant to second-in-command, a meaningless position since 

he no longer led troops in the field. Halleck also added General 

Pope’s Army of the Mississippi to his force, which now numbered 

over one hundred thousand officers and men—roughly double the 

size of Beauregard’s army. Even so, Halleck was determined not 

to be caught by surprise while on the march to Corinth, ordering 

his troops to fortify their camps at the end of each day. The evercautious Halleck moved at a snail’s pace, taking four weeks to 

advance just twenty miles.
30

In the meantime, Beauregard and his generals decided that 

Halleck’s army group was simply too large to defeat. Worse yet, the 

water supply at Corinth had become contaminated, and the thousands of sick and wounded overwhelmed the local inhabitants’ 

ability to care for them. Beauregard therefore decided to evacuate 

the rail junction, and on 29 May, he departed with the Army of 

the Mississippi for Tupelo about fifty miles to the south. Halleck 

occupied Corinth the following day.

The Lower Mississippi: New Orleans, Vicksburg, Baton

Rouge, and Port Hudson

While Grant invaded the Confederate heartland from the 

north, other Federal forces had mobilized to attack it from the south 

via the Gulf of Mexico. The first major target was New Orleans, the 

Confederacy’s largest city and its premier seaport. In February 1862, 

the War Department had appointed General Butler commander of the 

Department of the Gulf with the mission of capturing New Orleans 

with a joint Army-Navy force. Butler was a Massachusetts political 

general whose status as a leading War Democrat made him a valuable 

ally of the Lincoln administration. Although Butler was a relative 

novice as an Army officer, his naval counterpart, Flag Officer David 

G. Farragut, was a seasoned 

professional with over fifty years 

of service. Farragut commanded 

the Western Gulf Blockading 

Squadron, which consisted of 

forty-three vessels, including 

his flagship, the USS Hartford, 

and twenty mortar schooners 

commanded by his stepbrother, 

Cdr. David D. Porter. By April, 

Butler had assembled more than 

fifteen thousand troops at Ship 

Island for the attack on New 

Orleans (Map 4).

General Lovell commanded 

the Confederate garrison that 

defended the Crescent City. 

While Butler gathered his force 

on Ship Island, Lovell declared 

martial law, collected whatever 

General Butler 

(Library of Congress)
FORT DONELSON 14–16 Feb

FORT HENRY 6 Feb

NEW MADRID 3–14 Mar

ISLAND N0. 10 4–8 Apr

FORT PILLOW 14 Apr–4 Jun

FORT ST. PHILIP FORT JACKSON 18–28 Apr

MEMPHIS 6 Jun SHILOH 6–7 Apr

CORINTH 28–30 May

NEW ORLEANS 26 Apr

VICKSBURG May-July

BATON ROUGE 5–6 Aug

Mississippi R

Mississippi R

Mississippi R

Tennessee R

Cumberland R

Pearl R

Alabama R

Arkansas R

Red R

Yazoo R

Big Black R

White R

Gulf of Mexic o

Arkansas Post

Ship Island

Columbus

Cairo Paducah

Grenada

Decatur Helena

Monroe

Yazoo City

Port Hudson

Camp Moore

Alexandria

Tuscumbia

Tupelo

Grand Junction

Pensacola

Selma

Mobile

Holly Springs

Meridian

Natchez

JACKSON

NASHVILLE

LITTLE ROCK

MISSOURI

F LORIDA

KENTUCK Y

TENNESSE E

ALABAM A

L OUISIANA

MISSISSIPPI

ARKANSAS

Battle

February–August 1862

MISSISSIPPI OPERATIONS

0 50 100

Miles

Map 4
32 

supplies he could obtain from Baton Rouge, the state capital, and 

saw most of his manpower siphoned off by General Johnston’s troop 

buildup prior to Shiloh. By April, Lovell’s force had dwindled to 

just three Confederate regiments and a few thousand state militia 

troops.

On 18 April, ten days after the conclusion of the Battle of Shiloh, 

Farragut deployed his mortar boat flotilla with the intention of 

reducing Forts Jackson and St. Philip, the two bastions that guarded 

the Mississippi about sixty miles south of New Orleans. Commander 

Porter’s twenty 13-inch mortars hammered the forts with 227-pound 

projectiles for five days but failed to silence the Confederate artillery. 

Farragut, meanwhile, grew impatient and decided to risk running 

his ships between the forts. On the night of 23–24 April, Farragut 

succeeded in getting seventeen of his vessels safely past the strongpoints, and then he defeated the Confederate River Defense Fleet, 

which included ten gunboats and the ironclad CSS Louisiana. 

The naval battles of New Orleans and Memphis destroyed 

most of the Confederacy’s naval power on the western rivers. The 

Confederates lost all fourteen of their rams, twenty of twenty-five 

gunboats, and six of seven ironclads either built or under construction. Henceforth, the Confederates would have to rely almost exclusively on shore batteries to challenge Union control of the waterways.

Realizing that his motley force was no match for the Union 

armada, Lovell evacuated the city on 24 April. His troops boarded 

trains and then rode eighty miles north to Camp Moore, sixty 

miles northeast of Baton Rouge. On 25 April, Farragut’s ships 

anchored along New Orleans’ waterfront, and on the next day, a 

detachment of marines entered the city. Butler’s infantry marched 

into New Orleans on 1 May. Both the Crescent City and the lower 

Mississippi were now in Union hands.

The Federals’ next objective was Vicksburg, the secondlargest city in Mississippi and a major trading center perched 

on a high bluff about 280 river miles north of New Orleans. In 

late April, the Confederates stepped up efforts to hold their last 

bastion on the Mississippi. Beauregard sent his engineer, Capt. 

David B. Harris, to begin fortifying the Hill City, providing him 

with slave labor to speed construction. To deal with the threat 

posed by Farragut’s naval squadron, Harris started with the river 

battery system. As work got under way, Brig. Gen. Martin L. 

Smith arrived on 12 May to assume command of the garrison’s 

3,600 men and 18 heavy guns.
33

Six days later, Farragut arrived off Vicksburg with his 

flotilla, carrying a 1,500-man expeditionary force under Brig. 

Gen. Thomas Williams. On 26 May, following Smith’s refusal of 

Farragut’s surrender demand, the Federals began shelling the city, 

and they maintained a sporadic bombardment through mid-June. 

In the meantime, infantry reinforcements arrived doubling the 

size of Williams’ command, and Porter’s mortar boats added their 

firepower to the naval bombardment. On 28 June, Farragut took 

eight of his vessels past Vicksburg’s river batteries to join forces 

with Davis’ Western Flotilla and the U.S. Ram Fleet under Lt. Col. 

Alfred W. Ellet, who had succeeded his late brother Charles as the 

ram ships’ commander.

On the same day that Farragut ran past the Vicksburg 

batteries, Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn, the former commander of 

the Trans-Mississippi District, assumed command of the Hill 

City’s defenses. While conscripted slaves and Confederate soldiers 

labored on the fortifications in the brutal midsummer heat and 

humidity, crews in Yazoo City fifty miles to the northeast worked 

feverishly to complete the ironclad CSS Arkansas. Van Dorn urged 

the vessel’s skipper, Lt. Isaac N. Brown, to attack at once. On 14 

July, the Arkansas left port, and it entered the Mississippi the next 

day. The Confederate ironclad 

caught the Federals by surprise 

and ran straight through the 

Union fleet, firing as it went. 

Although battered by return 

fire, the Arkansas managed to 

reach the docks at Vicksburg.

Despite the presence of 

the Arkansas, the Federal fleet 

still controlled the Mississippi 

River, but General Williams’ 

infantry force was too small 

to capture Vicksburg by direct 

assault. Williams therefore 

put his troops to work digging 

a canal across the peninsula 

at DeSoto Point opposite 

Vicksburg. In the meantime, 

both Halleck and Butler indicated that they had no troops to 

General Van Dorn 

(National Archives)
34 

spare, leading Farragut and Williams to break off the expedition. 

Davis’ Western Flotilla headed north to Helena, Arkansas, while 

Farragut’s fleet sailed south, dropping off Williams’ infantry at 

Baton Rouge before returning to New Orleans. The “Gibraltar of 

the Confederacy” remained in Southern hands.

Once assured of Vicksburg’s safety, Van Dorn determined 

to retake Baton Rouge. He sent Maj. Gen. John Breckinridge’s 

division south to Camp Moore. Illness soon whittled 

Breckinridge’s force from 4,000 to 2,500 effectives, putting him on 

an equal footing with Williams, but on 5 August, the Kentuckian 

launched his offensive anyway. The Confederates initially drove 

back the Federals, and Williams was killed while leading one of 

his regiments. But the Union soldiers rallied, and as Confederate 

casualties mounted, Breckinridge’s attack ground to a halt. 

When his naval support—namely the ironclad Arkansas—failed 

to materialize because of engine trouble, Breckinridge broke 

off the assault and withdrew late that afternoon. The Battle of 

Baton Rouge cost each side about four hundred casualties. On 6 

August, as the Union ironclad USS Essex approached, the crew of 

the Arkansas burned their crippled ship rather than surrender it. 

Shaken by the apparent close call at Baton Rouge and by 

rumors that the Confederates were planning to attack New 

Orleans, Butler withdrew the Union garrison from the state capital 

on 21 August. Van Dorn, however, had no intention of attacking 

New Orleans. Instead, he ordered Breckinridge to Port Hudson, 

250 miles downstream from Vicksburg on the winding Mississippi. 

Situated on top of an eighty-foot bluff, the river batteries at Port 

Hudson enjoyed a notable advantage over their counterparts at 

Vicksburg. Union ships attempting to run past Vicksburg’s guns 

from the north would be moving with the current—thus doubling 

their speed—whereas at Port Hudson, they would have to struggle 

upstream against the current, greatly extending their exposure to 

fire from land-based artillery.

In July 1862, the Confederates had controlled only the 

Mississippi in front of Vicksburg, but the addition of Port Hudson 

enabled them to control 250 miles of the river. This crucial stretch 

included the mouth of the Red River in Louisiana, providing 

the Confederates with an excellent route connecting western 

Louisiana and Texas to the rest of the Confederacy. As for Baton 

Rouge, the Federals returned there in December and occupied it 

for the remainder of the war.
35

New Orleans Under Federal Occupation

By mid-1862, the Union Army occupied middle and western 

Tennessee, northern Mississippi, and southern Louisiana—an area 

roughly the size of the United Kingdom. This meant that Halleck 

and his subordinates had to divert much of their manpower to 

occupation duty. These responsibilities assumed increasing importance as Lincoln and many of his generals came to believe that the 

rebellion could be defeated only by subjugating the Confederacy.

New Orleans ranked as the largest and one of the most important Confederate cities occupied by Union forces during the war. 

General Butler, the Crescent City’s first occupation commander, 

proved adept at balancing military concerns with civic responsibilities, but his harsh suppression of pro-Confederate sentiment 

earned him an unflattering moniker—“Beast.” When a local 

resident tore down the U.S. flag from a Federal building, Butler had 

the man arrested, court-martialed, and hanged for treason. Insults 

of Union troops by the city’s female population compelled Butler 

to issue General Order 28—the so-called Woman’s Order, which 

stated that a woman who spat on or otherwise insulted Federal 

soldiers would be “treated as a woman of the town, plying her 

avocation.” He punished disloyal residents with incarceration on 

Ship Island; by September 1862, the fort held over sixty Southern 

political prisoners. Butler’s draconian policies indicated that he 

was not a man to be trifled with. As a result, peace and stability 

returned to a city that had been seething with unrest and discord 

when he assumed command. By the end of 1862, New Orleans was 

once more a thriving port city, providing a significant source of 

revenue for the Union war effort.

“Perhaps in no other occupied city of the Confederacy,” 

writes historian Earl J. Hess, “did the residents need the Federal 

government so much, yet acknowledged its help so little, as in 

New Orleans.” Because the Department of the Gulf was the only 

functioning government agency there, Butler assumed responsibility for providing the city’s inhabitants with food, sanitation, 

and law and order. He declared martial law shortly after his arrival 

and had his men serve as a police force pending establishment of 

a pro-Union constabulary. Butler also distributed food to needy 

residents and hired civilians to clean streets and rebuild levees. But 

he had little sympathy for the fugitive slaves who entered his lines. 

When one of his subordinates, Brig. Gen. John W. Phelps, began 

recruiting runaway slaves as soldiers, Butler nullified the contro-
36 

versial measure and instead employed former slaves to harvest 

cotton on abandoned plantations.

The general used the Second Confiscation Act to enrich 

the Federal government—and himself—by appropriating the 

property of disloyal residents, thus earning another nickname—

“Spoons”—in recognition of the silverware that allegedly formed 

the bulk of his loot. In a few short years, Butler’s efforts as war 

profiteer enabled him to increase his net worth from $150,000 to 

over $3 million.

The Federals Threaten Chattanooga

In mid-1862, Unionist eastern Tennessee continued to occupy 

a prominent place in Lincoln’s strategic thinking. While Grant’s 

Army of the Tennessee rested at Pittsburg Landing in the aftermath of Shiloh, Halleck ordered Brig. Gen. Ormsby M. Mitchel 

to strike out for Chattanooga with his 7,400-man division. In 

addition to capturing a vital transportation hub, Halleck intended 

for Mitchel’s Chattanooga expedition to protect the eastern flank 

of his own operations and to disrupt Confederate communications 

along the Tennessee-Alabama border (Map 5).

On 11 April, the aggressive Mitchel captured Huntsville, and 

by the end of the month, he had seized over one hundred miles 

of the Nashville and Chattanooga and Memphis and Charleston 

railroads. Mitchel’s achievement earned him a promotion to 

major general, and it gave him an opportunity to accomplish one 

of Lincoln’s most cherished objectives—the liberation of eastern 

Tennessee. On 29 May, Mitchel sent a small expeditionary force 

under Brig. Gen. James S. Negley to capture Chattanooga. When 

Negley reached his objective on 7 June, he conducted a reconnaissance and discovered that the Confederate defenses were too 

strong to carry by direct assault, so he brought up his artillery and 

shelled the city until 1200 of the following day.

The commander of the Confederate Department of East 

Tennessee, General Kirby Smith, arrived at Chattanooga on 8 June 

and immediately concentrated his forces there in expectation of an 

attack, but much to his relief, the Federals withdrew on 10 June and 

returned to Huntsville. Among the units that Smith summoned 

to Chattanooga was Brig. Gen. Carter L. Stevenson’s division 

guarding the Cumberland Gap. On 18 June, Union Brig. Gen. 

George W. Morgan captured the gap following Stevenson’s evacuation. Although Morgan had to abandon the gap in September in 
37

the face of a superior Southern force, the Federal operations in 

eastern Tennessee revealed just how tenuous the Confederates’ 

control of that region was.

The Confederate Offensive of 1862

The Confederacy’s strategic high tide occurred during the 

late summer of 1862. For the first and only time, President Davis 

managed to persuade his principal army commanders—Generals 

Robert E. Lee and Bragg—to act in concert. In the East, General 

Lee used the momentum gained from his victory at Second Bull 

Run to mount his first invasion of the North. On 5 September, the 

Army of Northern Virginia crossed into Maryland. An aggressive 

Federal response—sparked by General McClellan’s return to active 

command and by a Union soldier’s discovery of a copy of Lee’s 

campaign plan—induced Lee to concentrate his scattered forces at 

Sharpsburg in western Maryland. On 17 September, the armies of 

Lee and McClellan fought a battle along Antietam Creek, resulting 

in over twenty-two thousand casualties—the bloodiest day in 

American history. Although a tactical draw, the Battle of Antietam 

was a strategic victory for the North, because it compelled Lee 

to return to Virginia and enabled President Lincoln to issue his 

preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves in 

Confederate territory free as of 1 January 1863.

While Lee’s army marched into Maryland, General Bragg led 

the Army of the Mississippi into Kentucky. President Davis held 

high hopes for the western offensive, which the Confederacy’s 

influential Kentucky bloc had been clamoring for since General 

Johnston’s withdrawal from the Bluegrass State. A native 

Kentuckian himself, Davis counted on Bragg to install a proConfederate government in Kentucky and to bring its considerable resources into the Southern fold. Bragg’s expedition would 

provide the added benefit of sparing Tennessee farms from the 

ravages of war during the fall harvest. Above all, Davis intended 

for the invasions of Maryland and Kentucky to give Confederate 

armies the opportunity “to feed upon the enemy and teach them 

the blessings of peace by making them feel in its most tangible 

form the evils of war.”

Bragg had commanded the Army of the Mississippi since 

June. Davis chose him to replace Beauregard after the latter had 

left the army on unauthorized sick leave. Bragg’s excellent Mexican 
IUKA

19 Sep

SECOND CORINTH

3–4 Oct

DAVIS BRIDGE 5 Oct

Tennessee R

Cumberland R

Tennessee R

Duck R

Bear Cr

Mississippi R

Mississippi R

Ohio R

Memphis & Charleston RR

Memphis & Ohio RR

Nashvi lle & Decatur RR

Pittsburg Landing Shiloh

 Church

Fort Henry Fort Donelson

Island No. 10

Fort Pillow

Fort Randolph

Commerce

Columbus

Cairo

Union City

Paris

Grand Junction

Bolivar

Ripley

Purdy Savannah

Hamburg

Tuscumbia

Pulaski

Columbia

Franklin

Tupelo

New Madrid

Jackson

Florence

Decat

Paducah

Bow

ST. LOUIS

MEMPHIS

MISSOURI

ILLINOIS INDIAN

KENTUCKY

ALABAMA 

MISSISSIPPI

ARKANSAS

Union Movement

Confederate Movement

Battle

29 June–10 October 1862

INVASION OF KENTUCKY

0 50 

Miles

Map 5
to Cincinnati

S M I T H

B R A G

G

28 Aug

13 Aug

MUNFORDVILLE 17 Sep

PERRYVILLE 8 Oct

RICHMOND 28 Aug

B U E L L

5 Sep

24 Sep

29 Jun

Tennessee R

Sequatchie R

Ohio R

Ohio R

Gre e n R

Cumberland R

Kentucky R

Cumberland Gap

Nashville & Chattanooga RR

East Tennessee & Georgia RR

Louisville & Nashville RR

Georgia Central RR

Bardstown

Harrodsburg

Camp Dick

Robinson

Rome

Huntsville

Shelbyville

Triune

Carthage

Stevenson

Clinton

Morristown

Mill Springs

Somerset

London

Maysville

Barbourville

tur

Murfreesboro

Knoxville

wling Green

Lexington

LOUISVILLE

NASHVILLE

CHAT TANOOGA

FRANKFORT

NA

TENNESSE E

GEORGI A

NORTH

CAROLINA

VIRGINIA
40 

War record and standing as a friend and adviser of Davis ensured 

him high rank in the Confederate army—and he soon proved 

that he was more than capable. As the garrison commander at 

Pensacola, Bragg had earned a reputation as a tough disciplinarian 

who could transform raw recruits into first-rate soldiers. His talent 

as drillmaster paid ample dividends at Shiloh, where his troops 

demonstrated that they were among the best in Johnston’s army. 

After Shiloh, Davis rewarded Bragg’s efforts by promoting him to 

full general. 

Bragg spent late June and most of July moving his 30,000-man 

force from Tupelo to Chattanooga by rail, the first long-distance 

transfer of an entire field army during the war. In the meantime, 

he posted garrisons at Tupelo under Maj. Gen. Sterling Price and 

at Vicksburg under General Van Dorn to defend those two important points, instructing them to join him in Kentucky as soon as 

possible. By the end of July, Bragg had concentrated his forces and 

was ready to move northward. His army would travel light, for he 

planned to live off the land.

While Bragg prepared for the invasion of Kentucky, Brig. 

Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest and Col. John Hunt Morgan led 

cavalry raids against Federal outposts in middle Tennessee and 

eastern Kentucky, destroying 

supplies, capturing soldiers 

and horses, and otherwise 

tying down thousands of 

Union troops. Morgan’s raid 

into Kentucky spread panic as 

far afield as Washington, D.C., 

where Lincoln complained to 

Halleck—the general in chief 

of the U.S. Army since 23 

July—about the “stampede” 

in his native state. A Mexican 

War veteran and a Lexington, 

Kentucky, businessman before 

the war, Morgan hoped that his 

three-week excursion would 

arouse prosecessionist enthusiasm in Kentucky. President 

Davis was even more optimistic, expecting Morgan’s raid 

General Bragg (Library of Congress)
41

and Bragg’s “liberation” of the Bluegrass State to generate thousands of Confederate recruits.

On 31 July, Bragg met with Smith at Chattanooga and developed a plan that was as complex as it was ambitious. Not content 

merely to liberate middle Tennessee and eastern Kentucky, Bragg 

intended to drive as far north as the Ohio River. Bragg and Smith 

would move in parallel columns, with Bragg feinting on Nashville 

and then advancing into central Kentucky, while Smith jumped off 

from Knoxville and headed into southeastern Kentucky.

Buell arrived at Huntsville on 29 June with most of his Army 

of the Ohio, joining the intrepid Mitchel. At the time, Bragg’s 

army was in transit from Tupelo, and eastern Tennessee remained 

vulnerable to a combined strike by Generals Buell, Mitchel, and 

Morgan. But Buell refused to act until he had an adequate supply 

line, and the opportunity soon passed. Meanwhile, Morgan bided 

his time at Cumberland Gap and Mitchel resigned in frustration.

Fortunately for the cautious Buell, the absence of a unified 

command structure prevented the Confederate army’s invasion of 

Kentucky from unfolding as a coordinated attack. In any event, it 

is doubtful that Bragg would have been equal to the position of 

supreme commander. To be fair, the North Carolinian boasted a 

wealth of experience from his years in the prewar Regular Army, 

and he had demonstrated unquestioned bravery on the battlefields of the Mexican War. Bragg also possessed considerable skill 

as strategist, logistician, and administrator, but at Shiloh, he had 

displayed a lack of tactical acumen. Worse yet, he was a less than 

inspiring leader whose acerbic manner stemmed in part from a 

variety of physical maladies that made the strain of large-scale 

military operations difficult to endure.

Although Bragg was the senior Confederate officer from the 

Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River, he could not 

issue orders to General Smith, because as a fellow department 

commander, Smith was his equal. Despite public pronouncements to the contrary, Smith refused to act in concert with Bragg, 

instead maintaining direct communications with President Davis 

throughout the summer and even suggesting that Bragg’s line 

of march conform to his. Yet another independent Confederate 

commander, General Marshall, was supposed to cooperate with 

Bragg and Smith, but he too had his own agenda—a grandiose 

plan that involved striking out from western Virginia, capturing 

Maysville, Kentucky, closing the Ohio River, and threatening 
42 

Cincinnati. There was just one problem: Marshall’s 5,000-man 

force was too small for such an expedition.

General Smith was the first Confederate commander to assume 

the offensive, setting out on 13 August and capturing Barbourville, 

Kentucky, five days later. Bragg began his advance on 28 August, 

after notifying Price and Van Dorn that he expected to meet them 

on the Ohio River. From his headquarters at Huntsville, Buell noted 

the advance of the Confederate columns while fending off a flurry 

of dispatches from Halleck urging him to act without further delay. 

Realizing that the Confederates planned to invade Kentucky, Buell 

sent Maj. Gen. William Nelson to Louisville to organize the defense 

of the Bluegrass State. “Bull” Nelson managed to antagonize most of 

his subordinates with his brusque manner—none more so than Brig. 

Gen. Jefferson C. Davis, who shot and killed him over a personal 

insult. Though arrested and indicted for manslaughter, Davis was 

released and returned to duty later that fall.

Although Buell could have captured Chattanooga after Bragg 

and Smith had departed, he deemed protecting Nashville a higher 

priority because it served as his army’s supply base. Thanks to his 

extreme caution, the Confederates held the strategic initiative 

during the early stages of the Kentucky campaign. On 28 August, 

Smith’s newly christened Army of Kentucky routed a Federal force 

composed mainly of raw recruits under the command of Brig. 

Gen. Mahlon D. Manson, at Richmond, Kentucky. The victory 

at Richmond enabled the Confederates to capture Lexington and 

Frankfort, the state capital. As the Army of Kentucky marched into 

Lexington, the Southerners received a hero’s welcome from the 

town’s large pro-Confederate element. Smith’s advancing column 

also cut General Morgan’s supply line, compelling the Federals 

to abandon the Cumberland Gap on 1 September. Two weeks 

later, Bragg captured Munfordville, Kentucky, after accepting the 

surrender of the 4,000-man Union garrison.

In late August, Buell concentrated his army at Murfreesboro in 

middle Tennessee. By early September, he was shadowing Bragg’s 

fast-moving column, passing through Nashville and Bowling 

Green en route to Louisville. At one point, he approached to within 

fifteen miles of Bragg’s army. All the while, Halleck prodded Buell 

to quicken his pace. “I fear that here as elsewhere you move too 

slowly,” Halleck scolded, “and will permit the junction of Bragg 

and Smith before you open your line to Louisville. The immobility 

of your army is most surprising. Bragg in the last two months 
43

has marched four times the distance you have.” Buell nevertheless managed to reach Louisville on 24 September, before Bragg 

could attack the city. His arrival shifted the strategic initiative to 

the Federals.

President Lincoln, meanwhile, had lost all patience with Buell’s 

faintheartedness. He directed Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton 

to replace Buell with Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas, the Army of 

the Ohio’s second-in-command. Reluctant to assume command on 

the eve of battle, Thomas urged Halleck to rescind the order, noting 

that Buell was preparing to attack Bragg when the dispatch arrived. 

A few days later, Lincoln decided to give Buell another chance and 

canceled the order relieving him of command.

Bragg had to endure his own frustrations. He could not coax 

General Smith into joining him for an assault on Louisville, and 

so far, fewer than three thousand Kentuckians had flocked to the 

Confederate colors. “I regret to say we are sadly disappointed at 

the want of action by our friends in Kentucky,” Bragg lamented. 

“We have fifteen thousand stand of arms and no one to use them. 

Unless a change occurs soon we must abandon the garden spot of 

Kentucky to its cupidity.”

With Buell’s army ensconced at Louisville, Bragg decided 

to halt his drive on the Ohio River. On 28 September, he left 

the Army of the Mississippi in order to confer with General 

Smith, placing General Polk in temporary command. Bragg 

spent a week away from the army even though he believed that 

a battle was imminent. After meeting with Smith in Lexington, 

he traveled to Frankfort to install Richard Hawes as the 

Confederate governor of Kentucky. On 4 October, he staged an 

elaborate inauguration ceremony but had to cut short the celebration when Union artillery began booming in the distance. 

News soon arrived that the Federals had approached to within 

ten miles of the state capital. That night, Bragg abandoned 

Frankfort and hurried to rejoin the Army of the Mississippi. He 

ordered Smith and Polk to concentrate at Harrodsburg, where 

he established his headquarters on 5 October.

Bragg met with Smith on 6 October, and the two generals 

decided that the Army of Kentucky should protect the 

Confederates’ rich store of supplies in the Bluegrass region 

to the east. On 7 October, Bragg received word from General 

Hardee, the commander of the army’s Left Wing (Bragg had 

divided his army into two corps-size units that he called wings), 
44 

that the Federals were pursuing him so closely that he had to 

deploy at Perryville. Bragg also received conflicting reports 

regarding the location and intent of Buell’s army. Unfortunately 

for Bragg, most of his cavalry was screening the rear of Polk’s 

and Hardee’s columns, leaving him without accurate intelligence of the Federals’ movements. Convinced that Hardee 

faced only a small Union force that could be easily crushed, 

Bragg directed Polk, the commander of the Right Wing, to 

march to Hardee’s assistance. The order came as Polk’s two 

divisions were approaching Harrodsburg; the footsore troops 

simply faced about and retraced their steps toward Perryville. 

Polk’s lead division would not reach its destination until early 

the next morning.

The Federal force bedeviling Hardee was the III Corps 

led by Maj. Gen. Charles C. Gilbert. Recently promoted from 

captain to acting major general, Gilbert became III Corps 

commander largely on the strength of recommendations from 

the two men who had refused the command. Contrary to Bragg’s 

belief, Gilbert’s corps outnumbered the entire Confederate 

force converging on Perryville. During the day, Hardee’s rear 

guard—consisting of Col. Joseph Wheeler’s Confederate 

cavalry—barely fended off the Union cavalry that constituted 

Gilbert’s advance guard.

The Battle of Perryville

The two armies moved into position north and west of 

Perryville, confronting each other along a north-south axis. 

The Confederates had their backs to the town and were facing 

west. Hardee deployed three brigades of Maj. Gen. Simon B. 

Buckner’s division one mile north of Perryville. Buckner’s 

fourth brigade and Brig. Gen. J. Patton Anderson’s division 

arrived that afternoon and deployed on Buckner’s right. About 

midnight, three of the four brigades of Maj. Gen. Benjamin 

F. Cheatham’s division of the Right Wing reached Perryville. 

Polk arrived with Cheatham’s advance, bearing orders from 

Bragg to attack the Federals that morning, but he chose to 

delay the attack in the belief that he was outnumbered. Polk 

was right: the Confederates had almost seventeen thousand 

men at Perryville, while the Union III Corps alone numbered 

twenty-two thousand soldiers, with an additional thirty-three 

thousand Federal troops on the way. 
45

Accompanying Gilbert’s III Corps along the Springfield Pike, 

Buell reached the battlefield on 7 October with the intention of 

attacking the Confederates early the next morning. But the rest of 

his army—Maj. Gen. Alexander M. McCook’s I Corps and Maj. 

Gen. Thomas L. Crittenden’s II Corps—reached the vicinity of 

Perryville too late to meet his timetable. The two corps consisted 

mostly of green troops unaccustomed to hard marching, and 

passing through a drought-stricken region only worsened their 

plight. As a result, the Union columns strayed far from their 

intended route in search of water. Buell therefore rescheduled 

the attack for 9 October to give his exhausted men a day to recuperate. He also issued orders to his subordinates to avoid a general 

engagement on 8 October.

As his army converged on Perryville, Buell was thrown from 

his horse and injured severely enough to prevent him from riding. 

He established his headquarters at the Dorsey house about three 

miles west of Perryville and remained there for the next two days. 

His top priority was to defeat Bragg’s army, but the drought also 

made the Perryville area a valuable objective because of its water 

sources west of town. 

The search for water led to a skirmish along the banks of 

Doctor’s Creek on 8 October. In the early morning darkness, 

soldiers of the 10th Indiana and the 7th Arkansas ventured into 

no-man’s-land and then collided as they scoured the dry creek 

bed for pools of water. The creek meandered through the sector 

occupied by Brig. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan’s division of the Union 

III Corps. Gilbert ordered Sheridan to drive off the Arkansans 

and seize Peters Hill along the Springfield Pike. Sheridan’s 

thirsty soldiers not only captured the hill, but also seized Bull 

Run Creek. Concerned that the Confederates might overrun 

Sheridan’s isolated position, a nervous Gilbert recalled him to 

the main Federal line.

As Bragg rode toward Perryville on the morning of 8 October, 

he became concerned when the noise of battle failed to reach his 

ears. Concern turned to anger when he learned of Polk’s decision 

to postpone the morning assault. Bragg established his headquarters at the Crawford house about one mile northeast of town 

and then conducted a personal reconnaissance of the ground. 

Observing that the Federal left flank appeared to be resting on 

the Mackville Road, he ordered Polk to shift Cheatham’s division 

to the north, across the Chaplin River, and launch an assault 
46

against the Federals’ open left flank. Starting at 1230, Cheatham’s 

artillery subjected the Federals to an intermittent shelling, while 

Confederate cavalry commanded by Col. John A. Wharton drove 

off Union skirmishers across the river from Cheatham’s staging 

area at Walker’s Bend (Map 6). 

Unknown to Bragg, General McCook’s I Corps had arrived 

on the field and was extending Buell’s line northward. When 

Cheatham’s division attacked at 1400, the Confederates struck 

McCook’s position on Open Knob rather than an open flank. 

Cheatham’s brigades attacked from right to left, starting with 

the Tennesseans of Brig. Gen. Daniel S. Donelson’s brigade. 

Donelson’s men were astonished to discover that the hill was 

defended by Brig. Gen. William R. Terrill’s infantry brigade and 

Lt. Charles C. Parsons’ artillery battery of Brig. Gen. James S. 

Jackson’s division. Subjected to a withering crossfire, Donelson’s 

Tennesseans suffered heavy casualties: the 16th Tennessee 

Infantry entered the battle with 370 soldiers and lost 219. During 

the attack, General Jackson was killed; General Terrill assumed 

command of the division.

Polk ordered Brig. Gen. George E. Maney’s brigade to 

Donelson’s support. General Maney’s troops overran Open 

Knob, capturing most of Parsons’ guns and sweeping Terrill’s 

men before them. One of Maney’s soldiers, Pvt. Sam Watkins of 

the 1st Tennessee Infantry, described the combat on this part of 

the field: 

Such obstinate fighting I never had seen before or since. The 

guns were discharged so rapidly that it seemed the earth itself 

was in a volcanic uproar. The iron storm passed through our 

ranks, mangling and tearing men to pieces. The very air seemed 

full of stifling smoke and fire, which seemed the very pit of hell, 

peopled by contending demons. . . . Bayonet thrusts and blows 

from the butts of our guns crashed on all sides. . . . The earth ran 

red with blood. . . . Our men were dead and dying right in the 

very midst of this grand havoc of battle.

From Open Knob, the Confederates next struck Col. John 

C. Starkweather’s brigade of Brig. Gen. Lovell H. Rousseau’s 

division. Drawn up behind Terrill’s position, Starkweather’s 

Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin regiments suddenly 

found themselves exposed as Terrill’s fugitives streamed to the 
HARDEE

B RA GG

POLK

BROWN

CLEBURNE

JOHNSON

LIDDELL

ADAMS

POWELL

JONES

WOOD

STEWART

MANEY

DONELSON

ANDERSON BUC KNE R

CHEATHAM

McCOOK

(I)

GILBER T

(III)

ROUSSEAU

CRIT T ENDEN

(II)

SHERIDAN

MITCHELL

SCHOEPF

GOODING CARLIN

WAGNER

WOOD

VAN CLEVE

SMITH

TERRILL

STARKWEATHER

JACKSON

LYTLE

HARRIS

STEEDMAN

WEBSTER

BUELL

Squire

 Bottom

Russell

Crawford

Sinkhole

Open Knob Chaplin River

Doc to r’s Cr e ek

Bull Run

S p r i n g  e l d P ike

Ma c k v i l l e R o a d

Dixville Crossroads

Lebanon Pike

PERRYVILLE

8 October 1862

BAT TLE OF PERRYVILLE

0 1

Mile

Union Position

Confederate Position

Confederate Attack

Union Retreat

Union Movement

Union Attack

Map 6
48 

rear. General Terrill was mortally wounded while rallying his 

troops on Starkweather’s line and died later that day. About 

1515, Brig. Gen. Alexander P. Stewart’s brigade of Cheatham’s 

division crossed Chaplin River and filed into position between 

Maney’s brigade on the right and Donelson’s brigade on the 

left. Altogether they launched three bloody assaults against 

Starkweather’s position. On the third try the Confederates nearly 

broke through, inducing Starkweather to withdraw his brigade 

to a ridgeline several hundred yards west of Open Knob. The 

three Confederate brigades attacked the new Union position, 

but Starkweather’s men held, and the northern end of Buell’s line 

was saved. Historian Kenneth W. Noe calls the three hours of 

savage fighting here “the high water mark of the Confederacy in 

the western theater.”

The Confederate attacks on the Federal center, meanwhile, 

achieved mixed results. This stemmed in part from the arbitrary 

way in which Bragg chose to modify Polk’s deployment of his army. 

Bragg had intended for his attack to proceed from right to left, 

with Cheatham’s division stepping off first, followed by Buckner’s 

and Anderson’s divisions. To strengthen both the Confederate 

right and center, Bragg split Anderson’s division into two separate 

parts. He placed the brigades of Brig. Gen. Daniel W. Adams and 

Col. Samuel Powell west of Perryville. About a half mile to the 

north, he deployed Anderson’s other two brigades—under Brig. 

Gen. John C. Brown and Col. Thomas M. Jones. Between the two 

segments of Anderson’s division, he deployed three brigades of 

Buckner’s division. Brig. Gen. Sterling A. M. Wood’s brigade of 

Buckner’s division took position between Jones and Cheatham 

on the far right. General Anderson remained with Adams’ and 

Powell’s brigades throughout the battle, in effect relinquishing 

command and control of Brown’s and Jones’ brigades. 

Shortly after 1430, Colonel Jones heard firing off to the north 

and gave the order for his brigade to attack. He did so without 

orders from either Hardee or Anderson and before the brigades 

on his left were ready to step off. Jones’ three Mississippi regiments 

crossed Doctor’s Creek and advanced toward the section of the 

Union line held by General Rousseau’s two remaining brigades 

under Cols. Leonard A. Harris and William H. Lytle, supported by 

Capt. Peter Simonson’s battery. As the Mississippians approached 

a large sinkhole, the Federals suddenly came into view, and the 

combined firepower of Union musketry and artillery drove the 
49

Confederates back with heavy losses. Jones’ troops made repeated 

attempts to enter the sinkhole but were repulsed each time. By 

the end of the day, Jones’ brigade had sustained losses totaling 50 

percent of the unit’s effective strength. 

Following Jones’ withdrawal, General Brown led his three 

regiments toward Harris’ position. Although subjected to intense 

small-arms fire, Brown’s Floridians and Mississippians did not 

have to endure the devastating canister fire of Simonson’s six guns, 

which withdrew because the battery had run low on ammunition 

and had suffered heavy losses in men and horses. Brown’s assault 

ground to a halt just shy of the sinkhole, and the Confederates 

engaged the Federals in a lengthy firefight that depleted both sides’ 

ammunition supplies. Brown succeeded in replenishing his stocks, 

whereas Harris was unable to obtain ammunition for his men.

General Buckner, meanwhile, sent forward Wood’s brigade 

to support Brown’s assault. General Wood was wounded during 

an artillery bombardment, so Col. Mark P. Lowrey of the 32d 

Mississippi assumed command of the brigade. Lowrey led his 

six regiments into the gap between Donelson’s brigade on the 

right and Brown’s brigade on the left. The appearance of Lowrey’s 

Alabamians and Mississippians on his left flank, as well as 

increasing pressure on his right, compelled Colonel Harris to 

withdraw his brigade to safer ground. Brown’s brigade at last 

crossed the sinkhole and occupied Harris’ vacated position. 

Neither Brown nor his second-in-command led the way, for both 

were severely wounded during the firefight.

Rousseau’s southernmost brigade under Colonel Lytle 

formed the right flank of McCook’s I Corps, occupying a ridge 

that overlooked Doctor’s Creek near the Squire Bottom house. 

About 1500, Buckner sent two of his three remaining Confederate 

brigades into action against Lytle. Brig. Gen. Bushrod R. Johnson’s 

brigade was the first to advance, angling to the front and left in 

order to take full advantage of the broken terrain to shield them 

from Federal fire. That same terrain also caused Johnson’s ranks to 

become disorganized, and they began receiving friendly fire from 

a Confederate battery that mistook them for retreating Federals. 

Johnson’s Tennesseans managed to suppress the fire by charging 

the offending battery. Resuming the advance, they halted at a stone 

fence within a few hundred yards of Lytle’s position and hunkered 

down. The Confederates exchanged fire with the Federals and then 

withdrew after exhausting their ammunition.
50 

The second of Buckner’s brigades—Brig. Gen. Patrick R. 

Cleburne’s—subjected Lytle’s brigade to a frontal assault, while 

General Adams’ brigade of Anderson’s division struck Lytle’s right 

flank. The Confederates drove Lytle’s men back to a depression 

behind their position. During the rout Colonel Lytle was wounded 

and captured. As the afternoon wore on, remnants of Rousseau’s 

shattered Union division drifted back to McCook’s headquarters at 

the Russell house, a half mile to the rear.

While the situation deteriorated on the left, the Federal 

center—where Gilbert’s III Corps troops heavily outnumbered the 

Confederates opposing them—offered Buell’s army its best chance 

for victory. But the lack of communication and coordination that 

plagued both sides was on full display here. Buell remained at his 

headquarters throughout 8 October because an “acoustic shadow” 

prevented him from hearing the din of battle just a few miles to 

the east. As a result, he exercised no command and control for 

most of the day, leaving his corps commanders to fight the battle 

as they thought best. While McCook’s I Corps sustained heavy 

attacks along its entire front and was driven back for over a mile, 

Sheridan’s III Corps division stood by on Peters Hill a few hundred 

yards to the south and provided no assistance.

In the meantime, one of Sheridan’s three brigades came under 

attack. Late that afternoon, Powell’s Confederate brigade assaulted 

the Union brigade commanded by Col. Daniel McCook Jr., 

General McCook’s younger brother, inducing Sheridan to request 

assistance from Brig. Gen. Robert B. Mitchell, another of Gilbert’s 

division commanders. Mitchell ordered Col. William P. Carlin’s 

brigade to reinforce Sheridan. Carlin’s four regiments swept 

around Sheridan’s right flank, broke Powell’s line, and chased the 

fleeing Confederates into Perryville. Col. George D. Wagner’s 

brigade of Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Wood’s II Corps division formed 

on Carlin’s right and joined the pursuit. Having driven Powell’s 

men into town, the two Union brigades halted on the outskirts of 

Perryville and awaited further orders.

Not wishing to risk an attack in town against a Confederate 

force of unknown strength, Gilbert ordered Mitchell to withdraw 

Carlin’s brigade to Sheridan’s line. Mitchell was furious: reconnaissance indicated that the Union II and III Corps faced only 

Wheeler’s cavalry and some demoralized infantry, giving the 

Federals an excellent chance of turning Bragg’s left flank and 

cutting off his line of retreat. Instead, Gilbert chose to hold his 
51

ground and do nothing. Mitchell was not far off the mark in his 

assessment. At the very least, a Union assault on Perryville would 

have taken considerable pressure off McCook’s embattled I Corps 

by compelling Bragg to shift troops from his right to his left.

The final stage of the battle occurred at Dixville Crossroads, 

where the Mackville and Benton roads intersected a few miles 

west of Perryville. By sunset elements of five I Corps brigades 

had rallied around the Russell house, which had been converted 

into a Union Army hospital. The Federals were driven there by 

a Confederate pincer movement, consisting of Cheatham’s assault 

from the northeast and Anderson’s and Buckner’s attacks from the 

southeast. Although Starkweather had blunted Cheatham’s attack 

short of the crossroads, Anderson’s and Buckner’s assault maintained its momentum. After Cleburne’s and Adams’ brigades had 

run out of steam, Buckner’s two remaining brigades under Brig. 

Gen. St. John R. Liddell and General Wood took up the advance. 

The Confederates’ initial target was Col. George P. Webster’s 

brigade of Jackson’s I Corps division, which was supported by 

Capt. Samuel J. Harris’ battery. 

Wood’s Alabamians and Mississippians attacked first, and 

Webster’s Indianans and Ohioans repulsed them with heavy losses. 

But the Confederates rallied at the base of the hill and renewed 

the assault. By then, Harris’ battery had run out of ammunition 

and had to withdraw. During the struggle, Webster was mortally 

wounded and died soon afterward. The previous night, Webster 

had sat with Generals Terrill (his fellow brigade commander), 

Jackson (his division commander), and Sheridan, speculating on 

the coming battle. At one point, Terrill assured the group that the 

chances of all four of them dying in battle were slim. Terrill was 

right—Sheridan did survive the Battle of Perryville, but he was the 

only one of the four men who did so. 

Wood’s brigade drove Webster’s troops back toward the crossroads. Starting at 1430, General McCook made repeated requests 

to Sheridan and other III Corps commanders for reinforcements. 

McCook’s appeals rose up the chain of command to Buell. He 

ordered Gilbert, who had spent most of the afternoon at army 

headquarters, to dispatch just two brigades to I Corps’ assistance, 

indicating that he did not credit reports that McCook was locked 

in a life-and-death struggle.

Gilbert first sent Col. Michael Gooding’s brigade of Mitchell’s 

division to Dixville Crossroads. Gooding’s four regiments arrived 
52 

just as Liddell’s Arkansas brigade began its attack at sunset. Around 

this time, General Rousseau reportedly exclaimed, “Will that sun 

never go down!” Gilbert then sent a second III Corps brigade—

Brig. Gen. James B. Steedman’s of Brig. Gen. Albin Schoepf ’s 

division—to McCook’s assistance.

In the fading light, the Arkansans became confused as 

to the identity of the troops in their front and ceased firing. 

General Polk took it upon himself to ride out and verify who the 

soldiers were. He questioned the commanding officer, Lt. Col. 

Squire I. Keith, and learned that he had come face-to-face with 

the 22d Indiana Infantry. Polk managed to bluff his way out of 

the predicament by impersonating a Union officer. He ordered 

the Indiana soldiers to cease fire and then rode back to inform 

Liddell of his discovery. Liddell ordered his men to open fire, 

and the Arkansans poured a series of point-blank volleys into the 

22d Indiana’s ranks, killing Colonel Keith and claiming nearly 

two-thirds of the regiment’s three hundred soldiers as casualties. The survivors streamed to the rear and were soon joined by 

Gooding’s other three regiments. During the rout, the Arkansans 

captured Colonel Gooding and occupied Dixville Crossroads. 

General Steedman’s five regiments were all that stood between 

Liddell’s brigade and Buell’s headquarters. At nightfall the 

Arkansans prepared to advance, but Polk called off the attack 

despite Liddell’s vehement protests.

The Battle of Perryville was over. That night, the medical 

personnel of the two armies attempted to collect and care for 

their wounded. Both sides faced an overwhelming task, and 

they had to rely heavily on the local populace for assistance. The 

Federals suffered over forty-two hundred casualties—the losses 

falling most heavily on McCook’s battered I Corps, which lost 

almost one-third of its personnel—and yet they amounted to 

less than 10 percent of the Army of the Ohio’s total strength. The 

Confederates sustained thirty-four hundred casualties, 20 percent 

of Bragg’s force at Perryville. According to Private Watkins of 

the 1st Tennessee, the battlefield “presented a strange scene. The 

dead, dying, and wounded of both Armies, Confederate and 

Federal, were blended in inextricable confusion. . . . It was like 

the Englishman’s grog—‘alf and ‘alf . . . no battle fought during 

the whole war equaled it for stubborn resistance. In fact, it was 

the hardest battle of the war.” A lieutenant in the 59th Illinois 

returned to Dixville Crossroads—the scene of some of the battle’s 
53

deadliest fighting—in search of wounded comrades. It seemed 

to him that “there were not ten square feet of ground on which 

there were not one and sometimes two or three dead men lying.” 

The lieutenant found a comrade who had been wounded in the 

hip, gave him a drink of water, and then watched him die a few 

minutes later.

Though hard-fought by both sides, the Battle of Perryville 

proved to be indecisive. Bragg could claim a tactical victory, 

but he also realized that this success had gained him little and 

had come at a terrible cost. That evening, he learned that Buell’s 

entire army was at Perryville and that he was heavily outnumbered. Although several of his subordinates urged him to attack 

the next morning, Bragg knew that retreat was his only viable 

option. The lukewarm response of Kentuckians to his proclamations convinced him that nothing more could be gained by 

remaining in the Bluegrass State, and with winter approaching, 

it was time to return to Tennessee. On the night of 8–9 October, 

Bragg’s army set out for Harrodsburg and joined General Smith’s 

Army of Kentucky there on 10 October. The two Confederate 

armies headed south, drawing supplies at Camp Dick Robinson 

and then marching to the Cumberland Gap, arriving on 18 

October. By the time Bragg’s weary veterans reached Knoxville 

a few days later, most of the men were famished and in rags. 

Buell, for his part, was unaware that his army had fought a 

major battle at Perryville until it was over. Keenly aware of his 

numerical superiority, he was eager to attack the Confederates 

the next morning but soon learned that Bragg’s army was on 

the march. He maintained a show of pursuit with an occasional 

skirmish to keep the Confederate columns moving. Once 

certain that Bragg was abandoning Kentucky, Buell led his army 

to Nashville, contrary to Lincoln’s desire that he pursue Bragg 

into eastern Tennessee. Buell justified his decision by asserting 

that the Tennessee state capital was undoubtedly Bragg’s next 

objective.

The Battles of Iuka and Second Corinth

While the Maryland and Kentucky campaigns were under 

way, General Price led his Confederate Army of the West from 

Tupelo toward Nashville. In obedience to Bragg’s orders, Price 

was threatening middle Tennessee to prevent General Grant—

the commanding general in western Tennessee following 
54 

Halleck’s promotion to general in chief of the U.S. Army—

from reinforcing Buell’s army. On 14 September, Price’s force 

captured Iuka, Mississippi, rescuing a supply depot the Union 

garrison had set aflame before evacuating the railroad town and 

falling back to Corinth twenty-three miles to the northwest. 

Price requested General Van Dorn to join him at Iuka with his 

command. Their objectives were to distract Grant by cutting 

his lines of communication and, if possible, march north to join 

Bragg in Kentucky. 

Grant responded swiftly to Price’s threat. Despite the loss of 

troops to Buell’s Army of the Ohio, Grant still commanded a sizable 

force, though it was widely scattered guarding railroads and supply 

depots. Along with his Army of the Tennessee, he retained the 

Union Army of the Mississippi under General Pope’s replacement, 

Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans. In the fall of 1862, Grant’s army 

group numbered about fifty thousand officers and men. 

On 16 September, Grant sent two assault columns to Iuka. Maj. 

Gen. Edward O. C. Ord’s eight thousand troops from the Army of 

the Tennessee approached from the northwest, while Rosecrans’ 

nine thousand soldiers from the Army of the Mississippi advanced 

from the southwest. Grant accompanied Ord’s column but exercised 

little tactical control over the two 

widely separated forces. About 

1630 on 19 September, Price 

attacked Rosecrans’ column one 

mile south of town and drove 

back the advance a few hundred 

yards before the Union line 

stabilized. After a short but sharp 

battle involving twenty-eight 

hundred Federals and thirtytwo hundred Confederates, 

Price broke off the engagement 

and retreated toward a junction 

with Van Dorn. An acoustic 

shadow caused by a strong north 

wind prevented Grant and Ord 

from hearing the noise of battle 

just a few miles to the south, so 

the northern column played no 

part in the fighting. The Battle of 

General Rosecrans 

(Library of Congress)
55

Iuka cost the Federals 790 casualties compared to the Confederates’ 

525. Whereas Price ultimately failed to join Bragg or hinder Buell’s 

pursuit, Grant also failed to prevent Price’s junction with Van Dorn 

and their combined attack on Corinth.

After the Battle of Iuka, the Federals resumed their occupation duties in northern Mississippi and western Tennessee. 

Grant established his headquarters at Jackson, Tennessee, while 

Rosecrans returned to Corinth and Ord to Bolivar, Tennessee. 

Sherman, meanwhile, served as the military governor of Memphis. 

Grant once more dispersed his forces in order to guard supply 

depots and lines of communication. At Corinth Rosecrans had 

about twenty thousand troops. They used an elaborate system of 

field fortifications that consisted of an outer ring of earthworks the 

Confederates had dug after the Battle of Shiloh and an inner ring 

of entrenchments the Federals had built that included a half-dozen 

artillery redoubts.

On 28 September, Van Dorn and Price combined their forces 

at Ripley, Mississippi, about thirty miles southwest of Corinth. 

Van Dorn assumed command of the 22,000-man force and named 

it the Army of West Tennessee. Price retained command of his 

“army,” calling it Price’s corps. Van Dorn set his sights on Corinth 

in the belief that it had never been more vulnerable. Although this 

was true, Rosecrans’ force alone equaled the Confederates, and the 

fortifications at Corinth were formidable. 

On 3 October, Van Dorn’s army struck the Union outer works 

and slowly drove back the defenders in fierce, close-quarters 

fighting amid stifling heat and humidity. By nightfall, the Federals 

had withdrawn to the inner ring of works. On 4 October, another 

sweltering day, Van Dorn opened with an early morning artillery 

bombardment. Price’s two divisions then attacked from the north. 

On the Confederate left, Brig. Gen. Louis Hébert’s division, led 

by Brig. Gen. Martin E. Green, captured Battery Powell after a 

desperate struggle, opening a quarter-mile gap in the Union line. 

But the Federals launched a fierce counterattack that the exhausted 

Confederates could not repulse, and by 1145, the fort was once 

more in Union hands.

In the center, Brig. Gen. Dabney H. Maury’s division 

assaulted Battery Robinett in what proved to be the day’s heaviest 

fighting. The deadly fire of the fort’s three 20-pounder Parrott 

rifled cannons stopped Brig. Gen. Charles W. Phifer’s brigade cold. 

Brig. Gen. John C. Moore’s brigade struck next, with the 2d Texas 
56 

Infantry attacking on the Confederate right. The commander of 

the 2d Texas, Col. William P. Rogers, was killed within a few yards 

of the bastion along with fifteen of his men. Although Moore’s 

Confederates overran the fort, a Federal counterattack drove them 

off in vicious hand-to-hand combat. 

Col. William H. Moore’s brigade of Hébert’s division, meanwhile, dashed into Corinth, joined by elements of Generals Phifer’s 

and Moore’s brigades. Fighting block-by-block, they swept toward 

the railroad depot in the center of town. Federal forces under 

Brig. Gen. David S. Stanley halted the Confederate advance at the 

Tishomingo Hotel near the depot. Colonel Moore was mortally 

wounded as the fighting raged around the two buildings. While 

the 17th Iowa Infantry fired down on the Confederates from 

a ridge on the north side of town, the 5th Minnesota Infantry 

unleashed several devastating volleys into their faces. The Federals 

then drove the Southerners out of Corinth, while enfilading fire 

from Battery Robinett hastened their retreat. On the Confederate 

right, General Lovell’s division stood by as the assault unfolded 

and took no part in the action.

Confederate dead at Battery Robinett, Corinth 

(The Photographic History of the Civil War)
57

The second Battle of Corinth was over. It had cost Rosecrans 

about twenty-five hundred casualties and Van Dorn over forty-two 

hundred killed, wounded, and captured. By late afternoon, Van 

Dorn’s army was in full flight. Rosecrans waited until the morning 

of 5 October to begin his pursuit. In the meantime, a Federal force 

under General Ord marched east from Bolivar to assist Rosecrans. 

A few miles above the Tennessee border, elements of Maj. Gen. 

Stephen A. Hurlbut’s Union division intercepted Price’s column 

just west of Davis Bridge on the Hatchie River. The Federals drove 

the Confederates back across the bridge, but Van Dorn’s scouts 

found another crossing point, and the Confederates made their 

escape that night. The Union force at Davis Bridge suffered 560 

casualties; among the wounded was General Ord, who turned 

over command to General Hurlbut; the Confederates sustained 

about 500 casualties. Following the battle, Van Dorn led his army 

to Holly Springs, Mississippi, having failed in his bid to recapture 

Corinth. Worse yet, he left Bragg unsupported in Kentucky and 

enabled Grant to shift to the offensive in Mississippi.

One General Fired, Another Under Fire

During and after the Kentucky campaign, General Buell’s 

support in Washington steadily eroded. The process began with 

Buell’s failure to liberate eastern Tennessee in the summer of 

1862 and continued with the deliberate pace of his march into 

Kentucky, which cost him General Halleck’s favor. The bloody 

indecisiveness of Perryville, followed by Buell’s halfhearted 

pursuit of Bragg, finally exhausted the president’s patience. 

On 24 October, Lincoln relieved Buell from command, and he 

redesignated the Army of the Ohio as the XIV Army Corps.

Buell’s replacement was General Rosecrans. A true original 

in an army filled with eccentric generals, Rosecrans was a devout 

Catholic who kept a priest on his personal staff. A workaholic, 

he routinely drove much younger staff officers to exhaustion. 

Hailed by many of his contemporaries as the war’s only true 

military genius, Rosecrans was a skilled strategist and a superb 

organizer. He also had a knack for making himself popular with 

his men; hence his nickname—“Old Rosy.” In the heat of battle, 

Rosecrans could be an inspirational figure, riding into the thick 

of the fight and urging his men on; but he could also lose his 

temper or become agitated. The loss of self-control sometimes 

led him to make poor decisions at critical moments. Despite 
58 

his flaws, Rosecrans would place an indelible stamp on his new 

command, which he designated the Army of the Cumberland.

For the South, the outcome of Bragg’s Kentucky campaign 

came as a bitter disappointment. The Confederacy’s strategic high tide had generated thousands of casualties but had 

failed to improve its fortunes. Summoned to Richmond by 

Davis to report on the Kentucky expedition, Bragg briefed 

the Confederate president and defended his conduct of the 

campaign, well aware that he had numerous critics both inside 

and outside the army. Davis informed Bragg that Polk and other 

subordinates accused him of incompetence and were calling 

for his removal. Believing that Bragg was not the incompetent 

his detractors claimed he was, Davis decided to leave him in 

command. In maintaining the status quo, however, Davis failed 

to address the rift that had developed between Bragg and his 

generals—a rift that would only worsen over time.

After a brief stay at Knoxville, Bragg moved both his and 

Smith’s armies to Murfreesboro. With Davis’ authorization, 

he consolidated the Army of Kentucky with the Army of the 

Mississippi and designated his new command the Army of 

Tennessee, which numbered about forty-five thousand men. 

Bragg appointed Generals Smith, 

Polk, and Hardee—three of his 

chief detractors—as his corps 

commanders; they also received 

promotions to the newly created 

rank of lieutenant general. Smith, 

however, refused to serve under 

Bragg and was soon transferred 

elsewhere. Bragg established a 

separate mounted arm for his 

army, and he named Brig. Gen. 

Joseph Wheeler as his chief of 

cavalry.

On 24 November, President 

Davis appointed General Joseph 

E. Johnston as the commander 

of the Department of the West, a 

sprawling territorial command 

that included Tennessee, Alabama, 

Mississippi, and eastern Louisiana. 

General J. E. Johnston 

(National Archives)
59

Johnston had recently returned 

to duty after being severely 

wounded in the Battle of Seven 

Pines six months earlier. The 

two main field armies within his 

department were Bragg’s Army of 

Tennessee and Lt. Gen. John C. 

Pemberton’s Army of Mississippi. 

In December, Pemberton’s army 

numbered fewer than thirty-five 

thousand men. He stationed twothirds of his troops in northern 

Mississippi and placed the 

remainder at Vicksburg and Port 

Hudson. 

Grant Moves on Vicksburg

As Johnston settled into 

his new assignment, General Grant made preparations for his 

next campaign. The objective was Vicksburg, the last great 

Confederate bastion on the Mississippi River. He had 17,000 

men at Corinth, 7,000 at Memphis, and 24,000 dispersed from 

Mississippi to Illinois. To free veteran troops for the drive on 

Vicksburg, he used new regiments for garrison duty. In early 

November, Grant began advancing toward Grand Junction, 

Tennessee, where the Mississippi Central and the Memphis 

and Charleston Railroads intersected. He arrived there on 8 

November and detailed work crews to rebuild the railroad. 

Within a few days, repairs had progressed far enough to enable 

him to begin accumulating troops and supplies there (Map 7).

Grant left Grand Junction in late November, advancing southward along the railroad and repairing the track as he went. He 

halted at Holly Springs long enough to establish a forward supply 

base there and then reached Oxford by early December. To this 

point, Pemberton had seen fit to fall back without a fight, refusing 

to risk a general engagement so far from Vicksburg. But Grant’s 

success came at a price. As the Federals pushed farther and farther 

south, their supply line grew ever longer, requiring more and more 

troop detachments to repair and guard the railroad. In December, 

two Confederate cavalry raids exposed the vulnerability of Grant’s 

supply line, which now stretched almost two hundred miles.

General Pemberton 

(Library of Congress)
GRANT

SHERMAN

SHERMAN

McCLERNAND

2 Dec

ARKANSAS POST 9–11 Jan

HOLLY SPRINGS 20 Dec

CHICKASAW BAYOU 29 Dec

Mississippi R

Mississippi R

Pearl R

Arkansas R

Red R

Yazoo R

Yalobusha R

Big Black R

Tallahatchie R

Southern Mississippi RR

Mobile & Ohio RR

Mississippi Central RR

Memphis & Charleston RR

Milliken’s Bend

Corinth

Oxford

Grand Junction

Grenada

Helena

Lake Providence

Monroe

DeSoto

Port Hudson

La Grange Memphis

Vicksburg Meridian

Natchez

BATON ROUGE

JACKSON

LITTLE ROCK

TENNESSEE

L O U ISIAN A

MISSISSIPPI

ARKANSAS

Union Movement

Confederate Retreat

Battle

26 November 1862–11 January 1863

MISSISSIPPI OPERATIONS

0 75 

Miles

Map 7
61

On 20 December, General Van Dorn attacked the Federal 

depot at Holly Springs, destroying a large stockpile of supplies 

and capturing fifteen hundred Union prisoners, while Forrest 

tore up railroads in western Tennessee. These operations led 

Grant to make two crucial decisions. First, he decided to cease 

relying on the railroad as his lifeline and have his army live off 

the land instead. Second, Grant shifted his operational focus 

from the Confederate heartland to the Mississippi River. He 

had already entrusted Sherman, his favorite subordinate, with 

a river-borne expedition to capture Vicksburg in the belief that 

a two-pronged offensive would overwhelm the Confederates. 

After the Holly Springs raid, Grant held his army along the 

Yalobusha River line near Grenada to keep Pemberton occupied 

while Sherman launched his attack on Vicksburg.

Grant’s decision to place Sherman in command of the 

operation stemmed from his desire to deny General McClernand 

a long-coveted independent command. A political general 

and an influential War Democrat from Lincoln’s home state of 

Illinois, McClernand had met with the president in October 

and obtained permission to raise a force to open the Mississippi 

River. Determined to keep the ambitious McClernand firmly 

under control, Grant secured 

Halleck’s permission to press 

McClernand’s new regiments 

into service as part of Sherman’s 

expeditionary force. When 

McClernand caught wind of 

the expedition, he hurried 

south from Springfield, Illinois, 

in order to assume command. 

But he was too late.

Sherman’s expedition left 

Memphis on 20 December 

and picked up an additional 

division at Helena, Arkansas. 

The convoy consisted of sixty 

transports with a gunboat escort 

from R. Adm. David D. Porter’s 

Mississippi River Squadron. 

On the day after Christmas, the 

Federals reached their destinaGeneral McClernand 

(Library of Congress)
62 

tion about ten miles north of Vicksburg, near the point where 

Chickasaw Bayou flowed into the Yazoo River. Over the next two 

days, Sherman’s four divisions numbering thirty thousand men 

went ashore. They found the Confederates dug in along Walnut 

Hills. Led by Brig. Gen. Stephen D. Lee, the defenders were growing 

stronger by the hour. On Christmas Eve, General Pemberton had 

begun sending Lee reinforcements from the Yalobusha River line, 

and when he reached Vicksburg on 26 December, he sent the bulk 

of the Vicksburg garrison as well, raising the total of Lee’s force to 

fifteen thousand. 

Sherman launched the assault at 1200 on 29 December, and 

it was a disaster from the start. Although the Federals outnumbered the Confederates by two-to-one, Sherman managed to 

deploy just six of his ten brigades, and only four became fully 

engaged. The Battle of Chickasaw Bayou cost the Federals 

roughly eighteen hundred casualties. The Confederates, in 

contrast, lost 187 men and denied Sherman a lodgment within 

reach of Vicksburg.

A furious McClernand met Sherman’s convoy while it 

was returning to Memphis. By virtue of seniority and Lincoln’s 

authorization of his independent river campaign, McClernand 

assumed command of Sherman’s expeditionary force and named 

it the Army of the Mississippi. Acting on Sherman’s suggestion, 

he launched an expedition up the Arkansas River, capturing 

Arkansas Post on 11 January 1863. McClernand intended to 

continue upriver and seize Little Rock, but Grant recalled him 

to Memphis. McClernand appealed to Washington for support. 

Halleck instead authorized Grant to absorb McClernand’s 

“army” into the Army of the Tennessee and remove the political general if he saw fit; Grant chose to let him command 

the XIII Corps. In the meantime, Grant moved his headquarters to Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana, fifteen miles northwest of 

Vicksburg, indicating that the Mississippi River would be the 

focus of his operations in 1863.

The Battle of Stones River

While Grant and Sherman maneuvered unsuccessfully 

against Vicksburg, General Rosecrans had spent his first two 

months as commander of the Army of the Cumberland restoring 

his soldiers’ damaged morale. Many men had not been paid in 

months, there were shortages of food and other supplies, and 
63

desertion was rife. An able administrator, Rosecrans ensured 

that his troops received their pay on time and were well supplied, 

and he took steps to see that they were properly trained. He also 

reorganized the army into three wings, or corps: the Right Wing 

under General McCook, the Center under General Thomas, and 

the Left Wing under General Crittenden. Each wing consisted 

of three divisions. Rosecrans appointed General Stanley as his 

cavalry commander in the hope that Stanley could infuse the 

army’s mounted division with some of the hard-hitting aggressiveness that his former infantry division had displayed at 

Corinth. In late December, the Army of the Cumberland totaled 

over fifty-five thousand troops. 

A portion of Bragg’s army was deployed at Triune about 

ten miles south of Nashville, while the remainder camped at 

Murfreesboro about thirty miles to the southeast. Following 

General Smith’s departure, Bragg decided to organize his army 

into two infantry corps—Polk’s corps, which consisted of two divisions, and Hardee’s corps with three divisions. General Wheeler 

commanded the army’s four cavalry brigades. During a visit to 

the army a few weeks earlier, President Davis had directed Bragg 

to transfer General Stevenson’s 7,500-man division to Vicksburg, 

reducing the Army of Tennessee’s numerical strength to roughly 

38,000.

On 26 December, as Sherman was debarking at Chickasaw 

Bayou, the Army of the Cumberland marched out of Nashville 

toward Murfreesboro, with the Confederates at Triune retreating 

before them. Rosecrans was embarking on a winter campaign 

because President Lincoln desperately wanted a victory to offset 

the Union debacle at Fredericksburg, Virginia, earlier that month, 

and to add credibility to the enactment of the Emancipation 

Proclamation on New Year’s Day 1863. Halleck put the matter to 

Rosecrans bluntly: “The Government demands action, and if you 

cannot respond to that demand some one else will be tried.”

The Federals marched through incessant rain and sleet—

the three wings advancing on parallel routes while the lead 

elements skirmished with Wheeler’s cavalry. On 30 December, 

Rosecrans found Bragg’s army drawn up about three miles west 

of Murfreesboro. By dusk he had maneuvered the Army of 

the Cumberland into position along a four-mile line. McCook 

anchored the right, with the divisions of Brig. Gens. Richard W. 

Johnson, Davis (since returned to active duty), and Sheridan 
64 

deployed from south to north. Thomas held the center, with 

General Negley’s division on the front line and General Rousseau’s 

division in reserve. On the left, Crittenden covered the army’s 

line of communication—the Nashville Pike and the Nashville and 

Chattanooga Railroad—with the divisions of Brig. Gens. John M. 

Palmer, Thomas J. Wood, and Horatio P. Van Cleve, and his wing 

extended Rosecrans’ line northward to Stones River (Map 8). 

On the Confederate side, Bragg’s army was deployed in two lines, 

defending the northern and western approaches into Murfreesboro. 

The two divisions of Hardee’s corps under Maj. Gens. John C. 

Breckinridge and Patrick R. Cleburne held the right of Bragg’s line east 

of Stones River. On the west side of the river, Hardee’s third division 

under Maj. Gen. John P. McCown anchored the left flank, while Polk’s 

N E G L E Y

VAN CLEVE

R OUSSEAU

D A V I S

W O O D

S H E R I D A N

M c C

O

O

K

T H O M A

S

JOHNSON

C R I T T E N D E N

PA L M E R

ROSECRAN S

B R E C K I N R I D G E

W I T H E R S

C H E A T H A M

P

O

L

K

H A R D E

C

E

L E B U R N E

M c C O W N

B R A G G

Overall Creek

West Fork of Stones R

to Chattanooga

Round Forest

F ra n k l i n R o a d

L eb an o n Pi ke

N as hv i l l e P ik e

W i l k i nso n P ik e

N as h v i l le an d C h a t t a n o o ga R R

MURFREESBORO

Union Position

Confederate Position

Confederate Attack

MORNING

31 December 1862

BAT TLE OF STONES RIVER

0 5 10

Miles

Map 8
65

corps held the center, with Maj. Gen. Jones M. Withers’ division in 

front and General Cheatham’s division in support.

Both Rosecrans and Bragg planned to attack on 31 December, 

and each intended to strike the other’s right flank. Under Rosecrans’ 

plan, the Union Center and Left Wing would begin crossing Stones 

River at 0700 and attack about an hour later. Bragg, meanwhile, 

ordered Cleburne’s division to move to the left that night in order to 

join McCown’s division in a dawn assault, to be followed by Polk’s 

two divisions in close succession. The Confederate line would thus 

execute a giant right wheel, driving the Federal right flank against 

the river and folding up Rosecrans’ line like a jackknife. 

As it developed, Bragg struck first. Shortly after 0600, 

McCown’s and Cleburne’s divisions attacked the Federal right 

along the Franklin Road. The Confederate onslaught caught the 

troops of Johnson’s division cooking and eating breakfast. Most of 

them panicked and fled northward, with the Southerners taking 

more than two thousand prisoners. Cleburne’s division then 

slammed into Davis’ division, which briefly held until McCown 

turned the Federals’ open right flank. In just over an hour, the 

Confederates had routed two of McCook’s three divisions. As at 

Perryville, the unfortunate McCook had to bear the brunt of a 

ferocious Southern assault.

At 0730, Withers’ and Cheatham’s divisions of Polk’s corps 

advanced across a cotton field and struck Sheridan’s division, 

whose commander had the foresight to wake his men early in order 

to prepare for a dawn attack. Withers and Cheatham launched 

repeated assaults on Sheridan’s center and right flank and were 

repulsed each time. But the rout of Davis’ division enabled the 

Confederates to sweep around Sheridan’s right flank and into the 

rear. Assaulted on three sides, Sheridan’s division fell back fighting 

to a point north of Wilkinson Pike, where a thicket of cedar trees 

and an outcropping of large rocks provided some natural cover. 

Sheridan deployed his troops on the right of Negley’s division. The 

new Federal line was V-shaped, with Negley forming the angle. 

Rosecrans and his staff were back at the Nashville Pike when 

they heard musketry to the south. At first they paid it no mind, 

but reports from McCook indicated a catastrophe on the army’s 

right flank. Rosecrans immediately canceled the attack on the left 

and recalled the units that had already crossed the river. He then 

sent Rousseau’s, Wood’s, and Van Cleve’s divisions to the front and, 

with his staff, rode there as well. With Col. John Beatty’s brigade 
66 

leading the way, Rousseau’s division advanced into “a cedar thicket 

so dense,” recalled Beatty, “as to render it impossible to see the 

length of a regiment.” As Beatty’s troops formed on Sheridan’s right 

flank, Rousseau ordered the colonel to hold his position “until hell 

freezes over.” 

Five Confederate brigades launched piecemeal assaults 

through the dense woods, and Southern batteries pounded 

the Union position with artillery fire, but the Federals held. 

Private Watkins of the 1st Tennessee Infantry was among those 

wounded in the fighting amid the cedars. He could not recall 

ever seeing “more dead men and horses and captured cannon, all 

jumbled together, than that scene of blood and carnage . . . on the 

[Wilkinson] pike.” All three of Sheridan’s brigade commanders 

lay dead or dying, and almost one-third of his men were casualties. Survivors of the fight nicknamed that bloody ground the 

“Slaughter Pen.”

As Negley’s and Sheridan’s men began to run out of ammunition, the Confederates turned Rousseau’s right flank and caused 

the troops of that division to break to the rear across open fields 

between the cedars and the Nashville Pike. Nearly surrounded, 

Negley and Sheridan ordered their men to fall back, and the 

three Union divisions rallied along the pike. Rosecrans was in 

the thick of it, helping to rally Rousseau’s division and directing 

Van Cleve’s division to deploy on the Union right.

Realizing that the new line needed time to coalesce along 

the Nashville Pike, Rosecrans decided to send the army’s regular 

brigade forward to keep the Confederates occupied. The brigade 

commander, Lt. Col. Oliver L. Shepherd, led his 1,400 soldiers 

of the 15th, 16th, 18th, and 19th U.S. Infantry regiments to 

Negley’s old position, where they met the Confederate line of 

battle. Although heavily outnumbered, the regulars stood their 

ground and bought the Federals on the pike the time they needed 

to form their line. But the cost was severe: during the brief but 

bloody fight, nearly one-half of the regular brigade was killed, 

wounded, or captured.

The Confederates emerged from the cedars around 1200 

and ventured into the fields. McCown’s division advanced toward 

the Union center, closely followed by Cleburne’s division, which 

attacked the Federal right. Massed Union batteries poured a 

devastating combination of shell, spherical case, and canister 

into McCown’s ranks, driving the survivors back into the woods. 
67

After twenty minutes of close-quarters combat, Cleburne’s men 

shoved back Van Cleve’s division, only to reel before a counterattack that Van Cleve launched a short time later. During the 

fighting, General Van Cleve was severely wounded, and Col. 

Samuel Beatty assumed command of the division. At 1500, 

General Hardee ordered his exhausted troops to halt for the day. 

He later explained that “it would have been folly, not valor” to 

continue attacking the Federals’ strong Nashville Pike line. 

Starting at 1130, the Confederates made repeated assaults 

on the Union left, the only part of Rosecrans’ line that remained 

in its original position. The key to the Nashville Pike line was 

a four-acre cedar brake known as the Round Forest. Straddling 

the pike and the railroad, the Round Forest stood on a slight 

elevation and thus commanded the surrounding countryside. 

Should it fall, the rest of the Federal line would become untenable. Col. William B. Hazen’s brigade held the Round Forest, 

supported by the other two brigades of Palmer’s division. As 

the day wore on, the clump of cedars earned a new nickname: 

“Hell’s Half Acre.”

General Chalmers’ Mississippi brigade launched the first 

assault against the Round Forest position, advancing across 

a cotton field into a hailstorm of lead—the noise so deafening 

that some of Chalmers’ dazed men stuffed cotton into their ears. 

Hazen’s troops easily repulsed the Mississippians. During the 

attack, Chalmers’ brigade lost a third of its strength, including 

General Chalmers, who was wounded in the head. As soon as 

Chalmers’ terrified survivors had passed through their ranks, 

Donelson’s Tennessee brigade stepped off next. The Tennesseans 

suffered even heavier casualties than their Mississippi comrades: 

the 8th Tennessee Infantry took 474 men into the battle and lost 

306—a casualty rate of 65 percent. The losses included the regiment’s commanding officer, Col. William L. Moore, who was 

killed in action. 

After the repulse of Chalmers and Donelson, it should have 

been evident to the senior leaders of the Army of Tennessee that 

piecemeal assaults on the Round Forest salient were doomed to 

failure. But such was not the case. As he had done at Perryville, 

Bragg chose to remain far to the rear during the fighting. 

Because of an erroneous report of a large Federal force north 

of town, Bragg held Breckinridge’s five-brigade division on the 

east side of the river throughout the morning. Only at 1400 did 
68 

Breckinridge’s fresh brigades begin to enter the fight, but General 

Polk deployed them as they arrived—one at a time. Adams’ 

brigade stepped off first, advancing only a short distance before 

being driven back by a “terrible fire,” as one Confederate officer 

described it. Over the next two hours, Polk sent forward three 

more of Breckinridge’s brigades, and each one came streaming 

back after sustaining heavy losses. Colonel Hazen was moved to 

remark on the “dreadful splendor” of the futile assaults.

As Rosecrans rode forward to get a better view of the Round 

Forest fight, a shell decapitated his chief of staff, Lt. Col. Julius P. 

Garesché, spattering the general’s uniform with blood and brains. 

Soon afterward, nightfall brought the fighting to an end. The 

Federals’ Nashville Pike line had held. That evening, Rosecrans 

summoned his commanders to a meeting. Although they failed 

to reach a consensus on whether to fight or fall back, General 

Thomas had no doubt about what to do: “This army does not 

retreat.” Rosecrans agreed and directed his subordinates to fortify 

their positions and “prepare to fight and die here.” 

Bragg and most of his commanders were confident that 

Rosecrans had experienced enough fighting and that he would 

be gone by the next morning. General Wheeler, Bragg’s cavalry 

commander, reported seeing a long wagon train bound for 

Nashville, indicating that a Federal retreat was already under way. 

Although this intelligence seemed to confirm Bragg’s assumptions, 

he was mistaken. Rosecrans was merely sending his wounded men 

and empty wagons back to Nashville—the wagons to be filled with 

supplies and then returned to the front.

The two armies spent a cold and rainy New Year’s Day 1863 

skirmishing and reconnoitering. That afternoon, Van Cleve’s Union 

division of Crittenden’s wing crossed Stones River and occupied a 

ridge that overlooked Polk’s line. On 2 January, Bragg decided to 

drive the Federals off the ridge, and he sent Breckinridge’s division 

back across the river to retake the high ground. Breckinridge 

deemed the charge suicidal and urged Bragg to cancel the attack, 

but the commanding general was adamant. The Kentuckian’s 

reaction was mild compared to that of his brigade commanders—

especially Brig. Gen. Roger W. Hanson, who had to be talked out 

of shooting Bragg.

At 1600, as the gray sky darkened and sleet pelted down, 

Breckinridge ordered his division to advance. On the front line, 

General Hanson led the Orphan Brigade—Breckinridge’s former 
69

command—officially known as the 1st Kentucky Brigade. The unit 

had received its nickname because the Bluegrass State still clung to the 

Union, making its soldiers “orphans.” Breckinridge’s men advanced 

rapidly, and after a close-quarters firefight, swept the Federals off the 

ridge; General Hanson fell mortally wounded during the assault. The 

Confederates pursued the Federals down the reverse slope and onto 

the open ground near the river.

General Crittenden, meanwhile, ordered his chief of artillery, 

Capt. John Mendenhall, to open fire with his fifty-seven cannons, 

which were lined up on a bluff across the river. The roar of the 

Union guns shook the ground, and the devastating fire shattered 

the gray ranks. Federal reinforcements then launched a counterattack that recaptured the ridge and sent the Confederates fleeing. 

As Breckinridge rode among the survivors of the Orphan Brigade, 

he exclaimed, “My poor Orphans! My poor Orphans!” In just 

forty-five minutes, Breckinridge’s division had suffered fourteen 

hundred casualties.

The repulse of Breckinridge’s division marked the end of the 

Battle of Stones River (also known as Murfreesboro). The three 

days of fighting cost the Federals 13,249 casualties, while the 

Confederate loss was 10,266. Each side lost roughly one-quarter 

of the troops engaged. On 3 January, Union reinforcements and 

supplies from Nashville reached Rosecrans’ army. That night, Bragg 

evacuated Murfreesboro, and the Federals occupied the town two 

days later. The Confederates had to abandon the rich farming 

region of middle Tennessee to the Federals, who built a fortified 

supply depot at Murfreesboro known as Fortress Rosecrans. The 

225-acre complex remained in operation for the rest of the war. 

After the defeat at Stones River, the Army of Tennessee’s antiBragg faction became even more vocal in its denunciation of the 

commanding general, but neither Davis nor Bragg’s immediate 

superior, General Johnston, would replace him. This meant that 

the army’s senior leaders would spend more time squabbling 

among themselves than fighting the Federals. 

Rosecrans’ victory came on the heels of Union defeats at 

Fredericksburg and Chickasaw Bayou, and as the Emancipation 

Proclamation took effect. As far as President Lincoln was 

concerned, the timing could not have been more fortuitous. 

Months after the battle, Lincoln confessed as much to Rosecrans. 

“I can never forget, whilst I remember anything,” he wrote, “that 

about the end of last year, and the beginning of this, you gave us 
70 

a hard earned victory, which, had there been a defeat instead, the 

nation could scarcely have lived over.”

Analysis

By the close of 1862, the Union was winning the war in the 

Western Theater. Federal forces occupied much of the Confederate 

heartland—western and middle Tennessee, northern Mississippi, 

and eastern Louisiana—including the cities of Memphis, Nashville, 

and New Orleans. General Grant had emerged as the Union 

Army’s most successful general, and General Halleck’s transfer to 

Washington, D.C., left him free to conduct operations as he saw fit. 

Much of Grant’s success stemmed from the effective partnerships 

he had formed with General Sherman and with naval commanders 

such as Foote and Porter. Likewise, President Lincoln had 

supported Grant during the dark days after Shiloh and ensured 

that he had enough men and materiel to conduct his operations. 

On the other hand, Lincoln had to remove General Buell because 

of his reluctance to fight. His replacement, General Rosecrans, 

won a much-needed victory at Stones River, but it remained to be 

seen if he would wage war with sufficient aggressiveness. 

Conversely, the year 1862 was a disastrous one for the 

Confederate forces in the West. The collapse of the unwieldy 

defensive perimeter in Kentucky opened the Southern heartland 

to Union invasion, forcing the senior commander in the West, 

General Albert Sidney Johnston, to adopt a strategy of concentration in order to fight the Federals on roughly equal terms. At 

Shiloh, Perryville, and Stones River, the Confederates struck first 

and succeeded in driving back the Federals, but each time, the 

soldiers in blue ultimately held their ground and compelled the 

Southerners to retreat. The losses that the two armies incurred 

in these battles were costly—but the more populous North could 

bear the burden more readily than the South. A succession of 

bloody battles that had begun so promisingly, only to end in 

defeat, left the Army of Tennessee’s senior leadership bitterly 

divided over General Bragg’s fitness to command, and neither 

President Davis nor the later commander in the West, General 

Joseph E. Johnston, seemed willing to intervene.

But the war in the West was far from over. The Confederates 

still held Vicksburg, Port Hudson, and a 250-mile stretch of the 
71

Mississippi River, as well as Chattanooga and Atlanta, two of the 

South’s largest manufacturing and transportation centers. The 

Army of Tennessee had proved its toughness and tenacity on some 

of the war’s bloodiest battlefields, and Confederate cavalry under 

Forrest, Morgan, and Wheeler had shown that it could ride circles 

around the Union mounted arm. Should the war in the West settle 

into a stalemate, the Confederacy might yet stave off defeat long 

enough to exhaust the North’s will to fight.

The Union, meanwhile, had expanded its war aims—it was 

now fighting to free the South’s slaves and was recruiting freedmen 

to serve in its armed forces. As they pushed deeper into the 

Confederacy, Federal armies began to live off the land, making 

Southern civilians feel “the hard hand of war”—a policy the North 

would apply with increasing severity as the war dragged on. 
72 

The Author

Col. Charles R. Bowery Jr. is a U.S. Army aviation officer, 

currently serving on the Joint Staff. He is a former military 

history instructor at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, and 

a graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 

Fort Leavenworth. Bowery has served as an Apache helicopter 

pilot in Iraq, and commanded an attack helicopter battalion in 

Afghanistan. His publications include Lee and Grant: Profiles in 

Leadership from the Battlefields of Virginia.
73

Further Readings

Ballard, Michael B. Vicksburg: The Campaign That Opened the 

Mississippi. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 

2004.

Cameron, Robert S. Staff Ride Handbook for the Battle of Perryville, 

8 October 1862. Fort Leavenworth: Combat Studies Institute 

Press, 2005. 

Cozzens, Peter. The Darkest Days of the War: The Battles of Iuka 

and Corinth. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 

1997.

Daniel, Larry J. Battle of Stones River: The Forgotten Conflict between 

the Confederate Army of Tennessee and the Union Army of the 

Cumberland. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 

2012.

———. Shiloh: The Battle That Changed the Civil War. New York: 

Simon & Schuster, 1998. 

Engle, Stephen D. Struggle for the Heartland: The Campaigns from 

Fort Henry to Corinth. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 

2001.

Grimsley, Mark, and Steven E. Woodworth. Shiloh: A Battlefield 

Guide. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006.

Hess, Earl J. Banners to the Breeze: The Kentucky Campaign, 

Corinth, and Stones River. Lincoln: University of Nebraska 

Press, 2000. 

———. The Civil War in the West: Victory and Defeat from the 

Appalachians to the Mississippi. Chapel Hill: University of 

North Carolina Press, 2012.

McPherson, James M. War on the Waters: The Union and 

Confederate Navies, 1861–1865. Chapel Hill: University of 

North Carolina Press, 2012.

Noe, Kenneth W. Perryville: This Grand Havoc of Battle. Lexington: 

University Press of Kentucky, 2001.
74

Reed, Rowena. Combined Operations in the Civil War. Annapolis, 

Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1978.

For more information on the U.S. Army in the Civil War, please 

read other titles in the U.S. Army Campaigns of the Civil War 

series published by the U.S. Army Center of Military History.

76 PIN : 103166–000

The

Civil

War Sesquicentennial