The most serious losses were the twenty-four thousand men captured in Kirby Smith’s and Pemberton’s divisions by the Rebel counterattack through Terre Haute and then north up the Wabash. Perhaps he would eventually get these men back in prisoner exchanges, but that had not been discussed with the Rebels. He could not count on those men until the specifics of prisoner exchanges were negotiated.
Lee added in the ten thousand men who had died of camp disease and accidents on his front during the past ninety days and concluded that he had lost about twenty five percent of his men. However, he realized that even these severe losses would be made good by the continuous mobilization of men throughout the Confederate Union that McClellan had planned at the outset of the war. He calculated that his losses were about equal to the number of men being inducted into the state militias and the National Army every month by McClellan’s mobilization plan. Incredibly, the Confederate armies would soon be stronger numerically than they had been before the battle commenced!
Our manpower is not unlimited, but we can stand to fight many more battles as severe as this one without diminishing the number of men we can keep in the field. McClellan’s genius has been to recognize the augmentation that a well planned mobilization adds to our effort.
Of course we will have to show much better results if we expect to maintain the people’s morale sufficiently to encourage them to voluntarily enlist. Another defeat might dampen their enthusiasm for volunteering and force the President to call upon conscription to fill the depleted ranks. We must not let it come to that. Forced conscription ordered by the national government would put us on the short road to defeat. It would cause as much of a rebellion by our own States Rights people as the rebellion of the Free Staters.
Lee estimated that the Rebels, despite their small losses of territory, were going to claim, with justification, tactical and strategic victories. The Confederates had come nowhere near destroying any significant portion of the Free State armies, while losing heavily of their own. The Free Staters had also replaced their losses with the reserve armies coming in from Chicago and Ohio. More importantly, they had gained the experience and the confidence that comes from waging a successful defensive battle.
Grant has out-generalled me, and he knows it. He will not be afraid to fight me in the future and neither will his men. The Rebels have learned many important lessons. In the future they are not likely to leave any portion of their front unguarded. They have demoted their poorly performing officers and promoted those who fought well. They will only become tougher as this war progresses. That does not mean that opportunities to exploit their weaknesses will not be found in the future. But I have lost my opportunity to close out the Rebellion in the Northwest with a quick, decisive victory. Perhaps McClellan will fare better in New England.
And now I have to guard the small gains I have made. A salient is difficult to defend, especially so since there are no railroads or hard surface roads to keep the men supplied. I will have to set the men to work building them before the late autumn rains and early winter snows make it an endless sea of mud. And I must fortify this salient strongly enough to hold it against attacks from all sides.
My most urgent need of all is to clear the southbound return loop of my railroad supply route. Unless I get these stalled trains moving my men will succumb to malnutrition as surely as they would fall from enemy bullets. Bragg has convinced me to authorize the removal of fifteen miles of track between Mattoon and Urbana so that his engineers can re-lay it as the bypass route around the west side of Terre Haute. Removing that track is an admission that a northward advance against Grant’s line is no longer possible. Bragg’s railroad bypass must succeed as our alternate route of communications.
“Is Bragg really going to be able to deliver on that railroad bypass around Terre Haute?” asked Lee.
Taylor laughed uproariously at Lee’s unabashed skepticism. “Yes, sir, I think he’ll do it. He’s dragooned what’s left of Pemberton’s division to build the approach on the east bank, and he’s got all of Van Dorn’s and Hardee’s divisions working on the west bank. Our men don’t like that. They think the Rebels we captured from Pope’s division should be doing the work.”
Lee smiled for the first time. “Ah, well, I don’t think we’d better try to put the Rebels to work right away. They’d treat our men the same and I doubt that we’d get a lick of work out of them anyways. The sooner we can exchange them and get them off our hands the better. How are our men doing? Are they making a stable roadbed? How about that bridge over the Wabash?”
“The roadbed’s coming along fine,” Taylor assured him. “Bragg tried corduroying it with tree trunks a couple different ways. He’s developed a method that supports the rails without giving them a lot of wiggle room. As for the bridge over the Wabash, he really doesn’t want me to tell you….”
Lee raised his eyebrows. “Go ahead. As long as he gets me a bridge that can carry a train I don’t care how he does it!”
“What he did, was, he laid the track all the way to the river. Then he took a couple of locomotives, ran up the boilers to full pressure, and told the engineer to jam the throttle valve open and jump out. He sent the locomotives careening down the track and into the river. They’re breaking up the current and collecting the drifting sand around them. When they’re settled, which should be tomorrow, Bragg’s going to run the new track on top of them and then connect it on across to the railroad running down to Vincennes. Bragg’s promised that he’ll court martial himself for destroying railroad property.”
Lee threw his head back and laughed louder than he had in years — both in relief that the bypass railroad was being built successfully and at the spectacle of Bragg conducting his own court martial. He slapped Taylor on the shoulder.
“Dick, I am going to have to go lie down and rest for a while. If I hear any more good news today it might just kill me!”
Lee walked out of his railcar and across the station to the inn. Taylor noted that he walked with a jaunty sprint, the likes of which he had not seen in Lee since the offensive stalled.
For the first time in a week that seemed more like seven years Lee felt as if he could enjoy a real rest without being burdened with the cares of a battle in progress. He stretched out on the bed and fell into a deep sleep as soon as he closed his eyes. He was still sleeping five hours later when there came a knock on his door. It was Dick Taylor.
“Get down here and look what the cat drug in!” shouted Taylor. Lee groggily followed Taylor downstairs. Sure enough, there in the common area was Stoneballs Jackson! He was sipping a coffee with his left hand while standing up with crutches under his arms to support him.
Lee rushed forward and clasped Stoneballs’ outstretched right hand. “You might of let me known you were coming!”
“I didn’t let the surgeon know I was leaving,” replied Stoneballs. “I left the field hospital before Old Doc Sawbones got any more ideas about cutting on me.”
“Where were you hit?”
“Our men shot me in the legs when I was coming in to our lines. They assumed that anybody galloping toward them in the dark must be a Rebel. They hit me once in each leg, but the bullets ricocheted off my sword and my Lefaucheux. Left a devil of a bruise on my hip and my thigh, but no serious damage. It was the Damnrebels who got me. One of them shot me in the ‘blind cheeks’ while I was bolting across their lines. They must be short of military rifles because I got shot with a seat full of buckshot while I was standing up in the saddle.”