22
Lee’s Headquarters, Mattoon, Illinois, October 7, 1861
The blue wave of Lee’s offensive receded. The map on the table of Lee’s rail car headquarters at Mattoon, Illinois showed its recession all too plainly. Having failed to take the rail junction at Urbana, Stoneballs Jackson’s mobile divisions were unable to advance any further west to encircle Grant’s army, nor to bypass it by marching north towards Chicago.
After recognizing the failure of the enveloping movement Lee had tried to break Grant’s line with frontal assaults by his holding divisions. But he had called those off as soon as it became apparent that Grant had left enough men in the line to successfully defend it.
“It was the rain and the mud that foiled us,” said Lee’s adjutant, Brigadier General Richard Taylor, trying to raise Lee’s spirits.
“General Grant also had something to do with it,” answered a weary Lee. “He used his interior lines of communication along the railroads skillfully. He got his men into position to block our envelopment while leaving sufficient forces in the line to defeat our frontal attacks. We must give Grant his due for generalship, especially in recognizing the value of railroads in defeating cross-country attacks. We must learn to use his tactics against him when we meet him again.”
“The ground will be dry enough to renew the attack in a week,” said Taylor looking at the map. “By then we’ll be clearing rail traffic through the Terre Haute bypass. We’ll be able to move our fresh follow-on regiments into position to renew the offensive. The salient we’ve driven into the Rebel lines will allow us to attack towards the north, east, or west. Perhaps we should attempt an eastward envelopment of the Rebels’ Indiana Army this time.”
Lee put his finger on the map. “The salient is deep, but useless without a railroad to supply it. The Rebels know we must reach the junctions at Urbana and Lafayette to gain access to the railroads we will need to continue the advance toward Chicago or to attempt another envelopment to the west or east. The Rebels understand our intentions and have positioned their forces to block us.”
Lee placed his fingers on the wood-carved division tokens at the top of the salient.
“Our first echelon divisions are fought out and need rest and refit. I understand your point about the second echelon divisions coming into the line to reinforce them. We may use these new divisions for local attacks to improve our tactical positions. But I will not commit them to a renewal of the strategic offensive, at least not now. The Rebels have brought their own fresh reserve armies up to the line, so we will have no greater numerical advantage with these second echelon reinforcements than without them.”
“Then are these the best possible dispositions of our second echelon divisions?” asked Taylor. “They appear to be needlessly strong for defense of the ground we have gained, yet you believe them to be not strong enough to continue with the offensive.”
“I’m thinking towards renewing the offensive later this year or early next,” answered Lee. “To do that we will need experienced and strong divisions. Our divisions are most definitely experienced by now, but some were roughly handled — those of Logan, Cleburne, McCulloch, Hindman, and the two brigades that are left of Pemberton’s.
“I want to pull these battered divisions out of the line and move them down to Louisiana and southern Mississippi for reconstitution. They’ll be refitted close to our procurement areas, rested in a mild winter, and made ready to renew the strategic offensive — maybe in the Trans-Mississippi, or perhaps against Cincinnati. The second echelon divisions coming into the line will prevent the Rebels from taking back any of the ground we have gained while the first echelon divisions are taken out for rest and refit.”
“A sound plan,” agreed Dick Taylor, “when considered in the strategic context you placed it in.”
Lee’s anxiety waned as he discussed his ideas with Taylor. He had feared that the great two-state battle would be seen as a defeat even if he managed to hold on to the gains of territory in Illinois and Indiana. The commitment of sixteen divisions and nearly a quarter million men had come to very much less than what had been expected.
All that could be said for the Illinois Salient was that it had broken Grant’s Wabash, Toledo, and Great Western railroad line for twenty miles between Williamsport, Indiana and Danville Illinois. The Free Staters had sealed the salient off and based a new defensive line along the Peoria and Oquawka forty miles to the north. The new route was as awkward as its name, but it was a railroad, whereas Lee had none at all leading into the salient from the south or leading out of it to the north.
The offensive in Indiana had gained some ground too, but at an even higher cost. The gains had come during the early stage of the battle when McDowell had been precipitate in pulling his divisions on the southeastern flank back toward Indianapolis.
Phil Sheridan’s division, left alone to defend against the attacks of Confederate generals John and George Crittenden, had been forced to give ground to prevent being outflanked. Sheridan had fallen back across the line of the Indianapolis and Cincinnati Railroad, breaking the direct link between the cities, and losing the county seat towns of Shelbyville, Greensburg, Vernon, and Madison. The loss of the rail junction at Shelbyville undermined the defense of Indianapolis, while the loss of the busy river port at Madison uncovered Cincinnati’s western approaches.
But the counterattack by Mitchel’s Army of Ohio to the north had inflicted a shattering blow on the Confederates in the final days of the battle. Kirby Smith’s big division, balked by the mud and torrential rains, had been stopped by John Schofield’s improvised defense on the high ground east of the river. It had been trapped in the Free State vise as Mitchel’s fresh division relieving Terre Haute turned northward. Unable to find cover on the waterlogged floodplain or get back across the flooded Wabash, Kirby Smith surrendered his strong division. Pemberton’s division, smashed by the unexpected attack into its rear as Mitchel fought his way into Terre Haute, also lost two of its four brigades.
Although details were hard to come by, it appeared that the devastating Rebel counterattack had been organized by none other than William Tecumseh Sherman, whom Lee had asked to command the Confederate Union’s field armies in the Northwest.
Has it only been four months since I met Sherman at the Louisiana Military Institute and offered him command of this army? At the time he declined my offer he said that he could not bear to fight for either side, but obviously something has caused him to change his mind on that score.
The ferocity of Sherman’s counterattack had nearly unhinged Lee for the first time in his illustrious career. He had been in a state of near depression, estimating from the first panicky reports by his division commanders that the losses on his and Harney’s fronts had exceeded seventy thousand. The casualty he had been most concerned about was Stoneballs Jackson. Stoneballs and his men had gone missing behind the Rebel lines for most of the battle. This morning a messenger from Stoneballs’ command had arrived to report that they had crashed through the Rebel lines at Springfield after dark, but that in the running fight that followed, Stoneballs had been shot several times. He was laid up in a hospital in Carlinville.
Thank God my ‘strong right arm’ has returned safely to our lines.
Lee was further relieved by updated reports showing that the initial casualty counts had come down considerably as dog-tired and lightly wounded men picked themselves up out of the mud and made their way back to their units. He estimated that the return of the fatigued stragglers and lightly wounded would lower the final casualty count to around forty thousand. Of those, between four and five thousand had been killed outright, and about twice as many mortally wounded or wounded so severely that they would have to be discharged from service.