“I don’t doubt your people’s bravery for a second. But with their control of the land and sea, the Confederates can put a siege perimeter around them and starve them out. Even the bravest people can’t fight starvation.”
Burnside drained the cup of coffee and rum.
“Let me evacuate the women and children and anybody else who either can’t or doesn’t want to fight for the city. That’ll leave five to seven thousand men. We can put in enough rations to feed them for sixty days. I will supply them with arms and ammunition from my company’s stock. We’ll bleed the Confederates who try to get into the city, the same as Lyon’s men did in St. Louis. I know you want the rifle factories relocated here, but you’re already backlogged with the work you have restoring the Springfield Armory and the Colt Works. We’d be taking my company out of production for months, with no good result. Allow my company to continue in production for the local defense of Providence and I promise you we will use the weapons to best effect.”
Sherman poured more coffee and rum. He got up and paced around the office. “I won’t order you to evacuate the city if you’ll raise at least five thousand men to defend it, and if you’ll promise to put in enough arms and victuals before the Confederates cut you off from resupply. If your men prove to be as committed as you, I believe you can make the Confederates pay dearly to take the city. I might even me able to gather enough men here to strike them from the rear if they become bogged down in street fighting. They’ll poke their snouts in a trap that we can spring on them!”
“Then Providence will be defended!” vowed Burnside.
29
Covington Kentucky, December 10, 1861
Robert E. Lee looked down on Cincinnati from the heights above Covington, Kentucky. Swirls of vapor eddied up out of the Ohio. The river was still warm at this time of early winter, while the air was chilled by an early frost. Hazy sunlight passing through the vapor cast dancing shadows on the ripples of the slow-moving river.
Dick Taylor, Lee’s adjutant, observed the river too. The current of war is moving so much faster than the current of this river!
“The war’s moving fast isn’t it,” Taylor commented. “In just a couple weeks it’s shifted two hundred miles from the Wabash to the Ohio.”
“It was that rickety bridge that you and Bragg built to bypass Terre Haute that got us here,” replied Lee with a smile. “I thought we were going to shake that track into the Wabash when we passed, but by some miracle it has held.”
“Bragg’s a crusty old jackass,” said Taylor, “but he’s a first rate railroad bridge engineer. A first rate general too, I might add, even if hard on the men.”
Lee, knowing that Taylor was one of the very few people who got on well with Bragg, interpreted “crusty old jackass” to be a term of endearment.
“He’s a thorough man,” Lee replied. “He’ll keep an eye on Grant while we take care of business here. And he’s got Stoneballs with him. I would like to have Stoneballs here, but with his wounds it is best that he should recuperate on a quiet front. If Grant does take a notion to go on the offensive he’ll encourage Bragg to be aggressive on the counterattack. Grant might just do it too, given the mastery of railroad logistics he demonstrated at The Salient.”
“The railroads and telegraphs have speeded the tempo of war for sure,” interjected 26-year-old Major Porter Alexander, commanding the more than two hundred guns emplaced on the Kentucky ridges. “My artillery battalions got here from the Philadelphia front in less than two weeks, and that was on the roundabout route through Chattanooga, Nashville, and Louisville. We’ve reinforced them with heavy guns from the forts at Mobile and New Orleans. Couldn’t have done any of that without the railroads.”
“McClellan saw what railroads could accomplish when he was sent by our government to observe the Crimean War,” explained Lee. “He took that lesson to heart when he planned our mobilization for this war. He called upon the railroads to move our men from the training camps to the battlefields and overwhelm the Rebels before they had time to organize their defenses. That’s what we’ve been trying to do with these rapid movements — bring superior forces to bear at our points of attack before the Rebels have time to react.”
Lee sighed and rubbed his beard. “Unfortunately the Rebels have learned the tactic. Grant and Sherman used it to good effect in concentrating their defenses during the Battle of the Salient. Schofield’s mastered it too, and has used it here at Cincinnati. If the Rebels keep replacing their weak commanders with strong ones we will see a lot more of it. We will have to run faster and faster to stay a step ahead of them.”
“McClellan stayed a step ahead of them in New England,” said Taylor. “A masterful deception!”
“Masterful it was!” exclaimed Lee. “I only wish I were half so clever as Mac. And I just might be when Stoneballs gets off his sore tail and returns to enlighten me with his strategic genius. But in the meantime we’ll have to make do as best we can between ourselves.”
“Don’t underestimate yourself,” Taylor replied. “You took five divisions out of the line and moved them here in a week. I know you hated to give up the Salient, but Cincinnati will be worth many times more to us than those cornfields in the Wabash Valley.”
“ I had no choice,” replied Lee. “We must take Cincinnati away from those people. Schofield is transiting Ormsby Mitchel’s men through it. He’s trying to cut in behind Harney’s line and force us out of Indiana. If the Rebels get to New Albany they’ll put their guns up on the high ground and make Louisville untenable. The only way we can stop Mitchel from getting past Madison is to occupy his base here. Louisville must be defended here.”
Lee sighed. “Try explaining that necessity to the people, though. They’re madder than a wet hen in a crocus sack with me for giving up the gains that cost us the lives of so many of our best men. ‘Evacuating Lee’ — that’s what the papers have taken to calling me.”
Taylor guffawed. “Well, now, if newspapermen knew as much about war as they think they know, then they’d be the generals, wouldn’t they? Pay no attention. You’ll be their conquering hero again when you enter Cincinnati.”
Lee looked across the river and into the city again.
“I won’t be a conquering hero, Dick. It will be the men who do the fighting who deserve that honor. Taking Cincinnati is going to be hard on them, especially coming so soon after the fighting in the Salient. Logan’s and Cleburne’s divisions lost half their men. I would have liked to take them out of the line to rest them for the winter so we’d have them fresh for next year’s offensives. But they’re the knife edge of this army. If the Rebels don’t comply with our ultimatum to evacuate Cincinnati, and I have little reason to believe that they will, then I’ll have to engage them in another hard battle without rest or refit. They’ll take the city, but they’ll be worn down to nubs in house-to-house fighting like our men were in St. Louis. We are fortunate that your Louisiana men got here in time to help them.”
“Why are you so certain the Rebels will refuse your ultimatum?” asked Alexander.
“Because they’ll refer the question to Mr. Lincoln and he’s a lawyer,” answered Lee. “The first thing he’ll think of is precedence. If he pulls his army out of Cincinnati the Free Staters will expect him to evacuate all other cities that come within range of our guns, including Philadelphia. He’ll be telling his people that sparing their cities is more important than preserving their independence. It’s the same calculation I’d make if the Free Staters were trying to fight their way through Virginia. No matter how much it pained me, I wouldn’t accept an ultimatum to evacuate Alexandria or Fredericksburg or even Richmond. I’d fight for them house to house.”