“He’s not the only one,” said Sherman. “I voted for Douglas then had a change of heart after the Partisan War started. I’m glad I did now. Otherwise I would have found myself fighting against my own brother. Where you boys from?”
“Evansville!” they both shouted together.
“Doesn’t surprise me that a town on the Ohio River would be divided,” said Sherman. “I expect there are a lot of brothers, sons, and fathers, fighting on both sides.”
“What’re you gonna do with us pris’ners?” asked the Confederate.
“You’ll be exchanged,” answered Sherman. Your side captured one of our divisions in Illinois, so I expect there’ll be a man-for-man swap when the battle’s over.”
“What if’n I don’t want to go back to the Confederates?”
“Nobody’s going to make you go. We’ll parole you and you can stay on our side of the lines until the war’s finished if that’s what you want.”
The boys took another swig of whiskey and started singing again.
Sherman looked at his escorting sergeant. “Never thought I’d see Johnny Reb and Billy Union singing a duet together on a battlefield! Guess if you live long enough you see just about everything.”
Cump rode on towards Terre Haute, thinking of how he would advise General Mitchel when he got there.
With the Terre Haute garrison relieved I can advise Mitchel to turn his men south and complete the wrecking of Pemberton’s other two brigades. Or I can ask him to move north up the east bank of the Wabash and roughly handle Kirby Smith’s division that is trapped on our side. Or I can advise him to cross the Wabash and try to cuff of the entire Confederate salient. If he can do that we’ll bag all of Stoneballs Jackson’s divisions. We’ll turn the Confederates’ plan to encircle us against them!
The sun was out now, drying the ground with help from a brisk dry wind. Sherman saw smoke on the horizon and heard crashes of rifle volleys intermingled with the deeper boom of cannons. The firing was coming from the other side of town a mile or more away, but even at this distance he could hear occasional bullets whizzing overhead. Either the Free Staters or the Confederates, perhaps both, were firing high. He hoped that none were firing just high enough to cause their bullets to arc down on him.
He spurred his horse on faster to get into Terre Haute and see first hand what the situation was. As he neared the outskirts of town he encountered more Free State walking wounded. Other Free Staters guarded Confederate prisoners, wounded and unwounded, from Pemberton’s busted division.
When Sherman entered the town he could see that “Terre Haute” was a misnomer. The town was actually lowlying with much of it flooded to the depth of a foot or more from the still-rising Wabash. Perhaps the flood had helped Loomis’ division hold the town by making good use of the upper floors of its buildings as firing points against the Confederates who were unable to dig positions in the gooey mud. Sherman saw that the Free State soldiers posted in the upper floors had wasted not a moment in stripping off their shirts and sunning themselves on the balconies and roofs when the clouds opened for the sun. The sun was still strong enough to set the waterlogged roofs and balconies steaming.
Sherman located Mitchel’s headquarters in a tent set up in an elevated area of the courtyard of the Wabash Hotel, one of the few buildings in town that had been high enough to escape the flood.
“It’ll be alright if you make your headquarters inside the hotel,” said Sherman as he greeted Mitchel. “You can send the bill to Uncle Abe!”
“I didn’t think it would be right for me to sleep in a hotel,” answered Mitchel. “There’s barely enough room in town to quarter Loomis’ men, so my men will have to sleep wherever they can, which will likely be in the mud. I thought it better to reserve the hotel rooms for the wounded. They need dry rooms more than we do”
“Well done,” said Sherman. Mitchel is a good officer. Most officers would have looked to their own comfort before thinking of the wounded. Mitchel knows that it is better to earn the men’s loyalty by sharing their hardships than to let them see him looking after his own comfort. I will expect great things to come from his command.
“Where is Loomis?” Sherman asked.
“On the West Side, right by the river. I asked him to see if he can get some men across the railroad bridge to hold open a crossing on the west bank. I was thinking of your idea to cross the Wabash and cut the Confederate salient off at its base.”
“Excellent!” said Cump. “Let’s go see how he is faring.”
Sherman and Mitchel set out to find Loomis on horseback. Their horses sloshed through a slurry of mud and water. Sherman noticed that the overhead fire coming from the Confederate-held side of the river had ceased. They found Loomis a full block back from the river, the rising water having chased him and the Confederates on the other side far enough back to end their cross-river skirmishing.
Sherman greeted Loomis. “You fought your men well in holding out until relieved. If Terre Haute had fallen the Confederates would have poured in from the Illinois side and bulled their way through to Indianapolis. I’m glad you didn’t let them buffalo you into surrendering.”
“They tried,” answered Loomis. “They sent parleys over almost every hour under flag of truce. Kept threatening us with ‘dreadful consequences’ if we didn’t surrender. I finally told them that I’d open fire if they didn’t call it off.”
“They knew you were commanding troops in battle for the first time and were trying to scare you,” said Sherman. “That’s what a lot of war is about: trying to scare the enemy into surrendering so you won’t have to fight him. The Confederates have learned that you don’t scare easily. They’ll respect you from here on out. Maybe they’ll be the ones who decide in the next battle that it’s better to retreat than fight you.”
Mitchel had borrowed a spyglass from Loomis’ staff officer. “The Confederates are pulling back from their side of the river. They’re disappearing into those woods on the far ridgeline.”
“That’s the convent at St. Mary’s,” said Loomis. “If they’ve pulled back that far, then they’ve given up any hope of breaking into Terre Haute from the west, not that they had much chance anyway with the river on the boom.”
Cump scanned the western horizon, his hand above his eyes to block out the brilliant sunshine now streaming down from a nearly cloudless sky. The sea of mud between the Wabash and the high ground at St. Mary’s did not give him much hope of moving his men across the river to cut off Lee’s army at the base of its salient. The Confederates could observe the river from the ridges on the far side and pound any men crossing the muddy flats with artillery. Sherman could not see any reasonable chance of sneaking an army across the river to surprise them the way the Free Staters had been surprised at the opening of the battle.
Cump spoke to Loomis. “As soon as the water starts going down I’d like you to move a couple companies across the river to guard the bridge from that approach. I don’t want the Confederates sneaking back in to burn it. Otherwise hold your men in place and keep them on alert. Kirby Smith’s division is still loose on our side of the river, so don’t let him catch you by surprise if they decide to whip back around and attack from the north or east.”
Sherman turned and spoke to Mitchel.
“We won’t be able to effect a large envelopment of Lee’s army over there in Illinois. But we can make it hot for Kirby Smith who’s strung out his division on our side of the river. Let’s go kick him in the pants before the water goes down enough to get his men back to the other side.”
Battle of the Wabash October 5–6: Counterattack by Mitchel/Sherman’s Ohio corps and Schofield’s division relieves the Free State garrison at Terre Haute, then captures Kirby Smith’s division and two brigades of Pemberton’s. In Illinois Stoneballs Jackson charges across the bridge over the Sangamon and infiltrates back into Confederate lines after being shot in the rear by the Rebels and hit with “friendly fire” from his own men.