Grant Moves South (21 page)

Halleck added that he had reinforced Grant with eight regiments of infantry and that several more regiments and three batteries of field artillery were under orders to join him, and he concluded: “I will send down every man I can spare.”
³³

To Buell, Halleck telegraphed: “I have ordered an advance of our troops on Fort Henry and Dover. It will be made immediately.” And to Grant he wired: “Make your preparations to take and hold Fort Henry. I will send you written instructions by mail.”

These instructions, dated January 30, spelled it out:

You will immediately prepare to send forward to Fort Henry, on the Tennessee river, all your available forces from Smithland, Paducah, Fort Holt, Bird's Point, etc. Sufficient garrisons must be left to hold these places against an attack from Columbus.

Warning Grant that the roads were bad, Halleck directed that troops and supplies be moved by boat, under naval convoy. Fort Henry was to be “taken and held at all hazards”; Grant should land troops below the fort and cut the roads that led over to Fort Donelson, on the Cumberland, so as to make it impossible for the Fort Henry garrison to retreat. He should also send cavalry forward to break the railroad; the railroad bridges over the two rivers “should be rendered impassable but not destroyed.” (The Union forces might need these bridges later.) Three companies of artillery were being sent down to join Grant's command.
³⁴

To Buell, who had been saying that he could not make an offensive move unless Halleck helped him, and to whom no promises of help had been vouchsafed, all of this was a bit surprising. He telegraphed Halleck: “Please let me know your plan and force and the time etc.” Halleck replied that the movement “to take and hold Fort Henry and cut railroad” had already been ordered, that some fifteen
thousand men would be involved, and that he would notify Buell by telegraph of the day of investment or attack. Buell, beginning to realize that it was he, and not Halleck, who would be playing second fiddle in the coming offensive, sent back the query:

Do you consider active cooperation essential to your success, because in that case it would be necessary for each to know what the other has to do. It would be several days before I could seriously engage the enemy, and your operation ought not to fail.

There was only a moderate amount of clarification in Halleck's reply:

Co-operation at present not essential. Fort Henry has been reinforced, but where from I have not learned. The roads are in such horrible condition as to render movements almost impossible on land.… Write me your plans and I will try to assist you.
³⁵

Grant, meanwhile, got busy. On receipt of Halleck's telegram he replied:

I am quietly making preparations for a move, without as yet having created a suspicion that a movement is to be made. Awaiting your instructions, which we expect in the morning, I have not made definite plans as to my movements, but expect to start Sunday evening, taking 15,000 men.

The movement would be made by water as far as practicable, and Grant would take either McClernand or Smith “to command after my return.”
³⁶

The last five words are significant, for they highlight the fact that this expedition—which was soon to become one of the most consequential of the entire war—was still being thought of as an affair of strictly limited objectives. This seems to have been because none of the Federal officers involved—unless it may have been C. F. Smith—had at this date a really clear idea of the Confederate defenses on the two rivers.

Fort Henry guarded the Tennessee: all of the Unionists knew
about that, and Foote and Smith had discerned that it was vulnerable. At Dover, on the Cumberland, twelve miles to the east, the Confederates had Fort Donelson, which was well laid out on high ground and which, if properly manned, was a much stronger place; and about Donelson the Union commanders appear to have known very little. It did not figure greatly in their planning. C. F. Smith wrote that is was “called Fort Gavock, or Fort McGavock, or something else.”
³⁷
Halleck's orders to Grant did not mention it, except to provide that Grant should block the road to Dover so as to keep the people in Fort Henry from getting away: Halleck appears to have confused Dover with Clarksville, thirty miles upstream. In his messages to Buell Halleck sometimes spoke of Fort Henry and sometimes of “Fort Henry and Dover,” the clear implication being that Fort Henry was the important objective and that whatever sort of works the Confederates might have at Dover would stand or fall with the fort on the Tennessee. And now Grant was writing that he would come back to Cairo once Fort Henry was taken, leaving a subordinate to hold the place.

But all of these limitations would vanish very quickly. The important fact was that the movement had been entrusted to the one soldier in all the West to whom limited objectives were least acceptable.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Between the Rivers

Halleck's order to go ahead and take Fort Henry hit Grant's headquarters with galvanic effect. Colonel Emerson, who had the story from Rawlins, said that staff officers stopped work at their desks “as suddenly as if a one hundred pound bomb had landed in their midst.” Rawlins kicked over a couple of chairs and pounded the walls with his fists. Other officers threw their hats in the air and kicked them as they came down. Grant looked on, amused, and at last suggested that they really did not need to make so much noise that Bishop Polk would hear it, down at Columbus. Then all hands got down to work.
¹

Grant's first step was to write to Smith. He did this immediately after getting Halleck's telegram, before the receipt of the written orders, and he told Smith that “on Monday next”—that is, on February 3—he would move with fifteen thousand men to seize the Confederate fort. Smith was to take a brigade from Paducah and all of the men who were stationed at Smithland except for the 52nd Illinois and one battalion which Smith was to designate. His men were to carry two days' rations and forty rounds of ammunition; the boats from Cairo would issue a fresh supply at the place of debarkation. “Very little preparation is necessary for this move,” Grant wrote. “If possible the troops and community should be kept from knowing anything of the design. I am well aware, however, that this caution is entirely unnecessary to you.”
²

On February 1, having been notified by Halleck that his requisitions for horses, mules, wagons and the like could not be filled, but that the usual supply trains could be dispensed with inasmuch as the troops would not be moving far from their steamers, Grant wrote orders for McClernand; McClernand was to hold his troops ready to move on the following evening, taking all camp and garrison equipment, issuing three days' rations and forage and limiting
his transportation to four teams to a regiment. While the expedition was away General E. A. Paine—the same with whom Smith had had so much trouble at Paducah—was to be left in temporary command at Cairo, where he would have eight regiments of infantry, six companies of cavalry, two companies of artillery, and the sick of the entire command. Rawlins got off revised instructions to Smith; he was to take all the troops he had, leaving only enough to hold Paducah and Smithland in case of a sudden raid by the Confederates. Grant sent to Halleck a summary of his dispositions. Then, apparently suspecting that Beauregard (who was highly respected by the Federal commanders) might be about to replace General Polk at Columbus, Grant warned: “More troops should be here soon if a change of commander is expected at Columbus.”
³

Grant's orders for the expedition sought to guard against the Volunteer vices of straggling and looting which had helped spoil the battle plan at Belmont. No firing of guns was to be permitted, except on order. There was to be no plundering of civilian or captured military property. Company officers were to keep their men in camp, there must be roll calls every evening and morning, and all absentees were to be reported to regimental commanders. Company commanders were to take especial pains to see that rations were not wasted. Regimental commanders would be held strictly accountable for the actions of their regiments, and commanders would be made responsible for the behavior of the individual companies.

To Buell, at Louisville, the whole business began to be disturbing. Halleck told him that “it is only proposed to take and occupy Fort Henry and Dover, and if possible cut the railroad from Columbus to Bowling Green.” Then Halleck went on to make sage suggestions:

Keep me informed of your forces and plans, and I will endeavor to assist you as much as possible. If we take Fort Henry and concentrate all available forces there, troops must be withdrawn either from Bowling Green or Columbus to protect the railroads. If the former, you can advance; if the latter, we can take New Madrid [a Missouri town on the Mississippi some miles below Columbus; the Confederates had troops there and
were building fortifications, with powerful batteries on Island Number Ten in a bend of the Mississippi a little way upstream] and cut off the river communications with Columbus. But it will take some time to get troops ready to advance far south of Fort Henry.

All of this jarred Buell into belated thought for the East Tennessee expedition, which he had so long been resisting. To George Thomas, at Somerset, a hundred miles east of Louisville, Buell on February 2 sent a slightly frantic message:

What now is the condition of roads? How soon could you march, and how long do you suppose it would take you to reach Knoxville? Are your supplies accumulating in sufficient quantity for a start? How is the road in advance likely to be affected by the passage of successive trains? What dependence can you place in supplies along it, particularly forage? Do you hear of any organization of a force there? Where is Crittenden? Are the fugitives getting together again? What progress has been made in improving the road to Somerset? Please answer at once.

It was too late now. Inexorably, the weight of effort in the West was going to move up the Tennessee and the Cumberland rivers, and, although this was what Buell had been urging, he himself was being edged toward the sidelines. Buell was a good man and he had missed the boat, and by now there was very little he could do about it. He did his best; on February 3 he wrote earnestly to Halleck, setting forth his ideas:

The destruction of bridges on the Tennessee and Cumberland by gunboats I believe to be feasible. The gunboats can at this stage of the water run past the batteries at night without great risk. This accomplished, the taking and holding Fort Henry and Dover would be comparatively easy. Without that I fear the force you name could not hold both points. It will not do to be driven away.

He warned Halleck that Confederate reinforcements to the extent of ten thousand men from Bowling Green (not to mention such troops as Beauregard might be bringing from Virginia) would probably be appearing at Fort Henry.

From Grant, on the same day, Halleck got a message: “Will be off up the Tennessee at 6 o'clock. Command, 23 regiments in all.”
⁴

… The thing had been talked about for months. President Lincoln and General McClellan had urged a drive into East Tennessee, Buell and Halleck had been discussing the possibilities of a smash at the Confederate center, a great many days had been lost—and, at last, a job had been given to a man who was ready to move. Grant's troops were going aboard the transports at Cairo and at Paducah, Foote's gunboats were paddling heavily against the current, and the dismemberment of the Southern Confederacy was about to begin; while Halleck and Buell were sending messages to one another about co-operation, about demonstrations, about the chances that this general or that might gain especial advantages out of a victory. What nobody could quite grasp was the fact that the important decisions were going to be made in the field. The war was beginning to move and the man who could not move with it might be left behind.

Messages continued to go back and forth. On February 5 Halleck wrote to tell Buell that his column was moving up the Tennessee, and he asked plaintively: “Can't you make a diversion in our favor by threatening Bowling Green?” This jarred Buell, who had been assured a few days earlier that his co-operation was not needed, and he replied sharply:

My position does not admit of diversion. My moves must be real ones, and I shall move at once unless I am restrained by orders concerning other plans. Progress will be slow for me. Must repair the railroad as we advance. It will probably be twelve days before we can be in front of Bowling Green.

To make Buell more unhappy, McClellan urged him to make demonstrations and told him to help Halleck if he possibly could. Buell told him what he had told Halleck—that he could not make demonstrations (“My moves must be in earnest”) and he explained that Bowling Green was tough: it lay behind a river and it was strongly fortified, and the Rebels had obstructed the forty miles of roads Buell's troops would have to cover. He added piously that he hoped “General Halleck has weighed his work well,” and Halleck
notified McClellan that Fort Henry was being heavily reinforced and said: “Unless I get more forces I may fail to take it, but the attack must help General Buell to move forces forward.” McClellan asked Buell if, in view of everything, it might not be well to make the advance up the rivers “the main line of operations,” and Buell replied that the idea was sound but that the whole venture was hazardous; Halleck, he complained, had begun the move “without appreciation—preparative or concert.” Halleck confessed that this was true, but pleaded that he had been under great pressure. “I had no idea of commencing the movement before the 15th or 20th instant till I received General McClellan's telegram about the reinforcement sent to Tennessee or Kentucky with Beauregard.” McClellan toyed with the idea of having Buell go down in person to take charge of the move.
⁵