War of Secession (1861-1864) - Part Three
(
Taken from “The House Divided” by Henry Harrison, Letterman Press 2001)
As spring arrived, Grant continued his advance into Confederate Kentucky. Linking up with the Sherman’s brigade advancing from the west, the commander of the Western Theatre could call on over 50,000 men. Opposing him was Johnston’s 25,000 strong rebel forces. Despite his best efforts, surprisingly few Kentuckians were willing to join the Confederate cause; leaving entire munitions caravans rushed north untouched [1]. As such Johnston’s army struggled to hold on and at the Battle of Fayetteville were soundly thrashed by Grant’s overwhelming fire and manpower, allowing Lexington to fall on March 1st. More limited but equally disasterous engagements took place on March 19th at Wilmore and then on April 9th at Lancaster. Regardless, Johnston proved an able commander and his fighting withdrawals at least ensured a slow pace to the Union advance. By the end of April some 12,000 reinforcements mainly in the form of Arkansas and Mississippi volunteers arrived in the area. Johnston had intended for them to be used as part of a defensive line along the important tributary of Green River, however on April 30th, Grant struck again. Outside the town of Eubank the Union Army of the Ohio had its greatest success to date as unprepared and inexperienced Confederates fled in disarray following only limited fighting.
(
Taken from “Lincoln’s War” by William Peterson, Smith & Jones 1991)
Amidst these heated arguments the President and General McDowell could at least agree on one thing: Washington must hold. As the summer of 1862 began with Kentucky seemingly secure and the blockade of Confederate ports holding strong, the capitol’s precarious position was the main threat to the Union war effort. Its loss would be a massive blow to Northern morale, particularly in light of the steadily increasing body count. As such on April 25th the fateful contingency plan, Order 87b, was agreed to in Cabinet, effectively chaining 35,000 soldiers to the defence of the District of Columbia, come what may.
(
Taken from “From Sumter to Akron; the Battles of the Secession War” by Nathan Adel, Letterman Press, 2005)
Following the destruction of CSS Georgia off Mobile Bay on June 25th, the Gulf of Mexico was firmly under Union control. Admiral Farragut, as part of the Anaconda Plan now moved his attention to seizing the mouth of the Mississippi River, and the largest city of the Confederacy, New Orleans. Two days after the sinking of the Georgia, Farragut’s mortar boats began their bombardment of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, which overlooked Breton Sound, the entrance to New Orleans…
…Panic swept the city early on the morning of July 1st as the recently commissioned USS New Ironsides unleashed the first battery directly onto New Orleans, bombarding the dockland defences hastily set up in the past week. The bombardment, although designed as little more than a shock tactic, set off one of the city’s primary magazines at St. Bernard Park, igniting thousands of tons of black powder and taking 13 cannon with it. Major-General Lovell, commanding the Confederate defenders wavered and considered giving up the city to avoid bloodshed [2]. A meeting later in the day saw local politicians and Captain La Fontaine, commander of the CSN’s Gulf contingent and a New Orleans native, aggressively oppose their superior, who backed down. On July 3rd CSS Alabama and several smaller ironclad gunboats undergoing repairs (several were even still under construction) to be prepared as ad-hoc floating batteries against any possible amphibious landings.
(
Taken from “The British Diplomatic Service 1815-1936” by R.A. Jones, CUP 1973)
Lord Lyons returned from yet another heated meeting with the Secretary of State on the 17th. The British Ambassador was left sheepish at Seward’s revelation that British Diplomats were transporting Confederate communiqués abroad via the New Orleans consulate. Lyons had been aware of the matter and attempted to explain Britain’s delicate relation to Southern cotton meant some form of ‘civility’ should be expected. At this Seward grew angry and according to Lyons’ diary “burst into one of his all too common rages when dealing with an issue of great emotional importance to him”, he attacked what he saw as Britain’s cynical playing of the two sides for its own gain “’yes’, he said ‘you favour neither side, you hate both and snipe us when it suits’!”. Later in the week Seward sent a letter to Russell and Thouvenel, the French Foreign Minister via the United States’ respective ambassadors. The now infamous “Declaration of Intention” continued Seward’s blunt criticism of the European Powers [3]. Charles Adams, the Union representative in London was aghast on seeing the document calling it a “declaration of war against the entirety of Europe”. The Declaration was a major blow to the Union’s foreign diplomacy, alienating a favourable Emperor Napoleon, meanwhile in Westminster, Russell and Palmerston considered their options.
(
Taken from “Encyclopaedia of Naval Warfare” by T. Sheridan & A. P. Wilson, Sentinel Publications 1983)
BRETON SOUND, BATTLE OF (July 17th 1862): An engagement between Admiral Farragut’s Gulf Squadron of the United States Navy and the land and naval defences of New Orleans, under the joint command of Major-General Lovell and Captain La Fontaine of the Confederate Army and Navy respectively. Farragut’s objective was the seizure of several islands and forts along the Breton Sound a sandbank overlooking New Orleans harbour as a first step to storm the city or to encourage the defenders to surrender. The attack was rushed forward due to political pressure from President Lincoln. Union men-o-war sailed directly into the Sound, hoping to storm the string of redoubts with marines, however the presence of CSS Alabama and several smaller ironclads caused the loss of four Union ships of the line, USS Baltimore, USS New York, USS Pennsylvania and USS New Ironsides, the latter two were augmented with iron covering, however much of it had not been correctly strapped to the hull to ensure faster speeds. Landings were made however none were successful (Fort St. Philip was briefly held). Alongside four warships, over 4,000 Union sailors and marines were killed, captured or injured. Confederate losses included a river monitor and 700 casualties, mainly amongst the redoubt defenders.
(
Taken from “From Sumter to Akron; the Battles of the Secession War” by Nathan Adel, Letterman Press, 2005)
By July Grant’s Army of the Ohio had crossed into Tennessee following a vicious defence at Cumberland Falls had been overcome on the 1st. By this point General Grant was becoming overconfident, his enemy although tenacious, was incapable of holding a position for more than several days. At the same time the tepid nature of the Maryland campaign made the Western Theatre and Grant’s seemingly unstoppable march south the cause celebre of the Northern press, with presents and letters of appreciation flooding the US Army post office at Lexington. He was sure that the liberation of Knoxville and the whole of Eastern Tennessee, the hub of Unionist sympathies in the Deep South, was only a matter of weeks away. As such he made the much criticised move to split his force, sending Sherman’s brigade further west to occupy Bowling Green and Nashville, confident his 40,000 strong Army would easily brush aside Johnston once more.
With the exception of several preliminary skirmishes to ascertain the position and size of Johnston’s force (reduced to under 20,000 strong by this point), Grant effectively marched down the narrow high road toward Knoxville in parade formation, an act of psychological warfare designed to impress the locals who were not universally pro-Union. Eventually after no major incident, Grant discovered Johnston dug in at Caryville on the 7th, a small village wedged between Fork Mountain and the swamplands of Mossy Spring. It was the perfect defensive position for the Confederate’s numerically inferior forces but even with over a week’s preparation, Grant’s by now battle-hardened troops launched a terrible assault on the Confederate trenches, using the scattered scrub and uneven terrain for cover. Despite several close-run attacks, Johnston held on the 7th and the 8th, with both sides suffering heavily for it. Grant quickly became agitated by the enemy’s resistance and on the 9th ordered a massive assault, sending all but a skeleton rearguard to charge Johnston’s lines. Row after row of bluecoats fell to musket fire but slowly the rebels were forced back into Caryville itself. Then in the afternoon, to Grant’s horror along the eastern road to the rear of his lines, the vanguard of a second Confederate army penetrated his weakened pickets. Under the command of General Nathan Forrest over 15,000 cavalry and mounted infantry recently raised in the Carolinas stormed into the flank of the Union lines, causing chaos. Within an hour Grant’s forces were in head-long retreat down the same narrow road they came. Of the initial 40,000 men three days previous, less than 20,000 escaped Caryville, many of them killed or captured by Forrest’s raiders, who harried Grant for two days back over the Kentucky border. A week later on the 16th, Sherman would be repulsed at Bowling Green before returning north. This series of events is widely seen as the beginning of Forrest’s epic ‘March to the Water’.
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[1] The Union had similar problems in the state in OTL, until they brought in conscription of course.
[2] Lovell ended up doing just that in OTL to vicious criticism, ruining his career
[3] Seward was a mercurial man. There’s no Trent Affair ITTL, so his aggressive diplomacy is more highlighted by historians. Ironically here Anglo-Union relations are much better but so are Anglo-Confederate relations.
o ) but more directly from the fabulous if defunct Mundus Exardesco by CSL_GG (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=198117&pp=20&page=22) plus plenty of original net trawling on my part.
