A Special Providence

[Director]

coz1 - Combat operations have ceased for the winter. This was one of the 'house rules' I adopted - no campaigning November to February. The AI doesn't have to play by this rule and I am allowed to shift troops to defend, just not to advance.

The North will be getting some combat enhancements, and I'll be talking about those as we go. Some time back I traded with Prussia and got breechloaders... In real life, Colonel Ripley dominated the Bureau of Ordinance; brilliant, eccentric, a diva of ego and a man who brooked no infringement on his domain. Lincoln, Colt and many others pushed for adoption of breechloaders and repeaters, at least in limited form, and Ripley refused. He DID manage to produce and procure all the rifle-muskets the Union could use, which speaks well of his abilities otherwise.

Lincoln clearly sees that something is amiss, but we should not assume he is guessing correctly. Abe Lincoln was one of the most successful trial lawyers of his time, and you don't get to be that good without a head for research and an eye for character.

TheExecuter - I think I'd enjoy a weaker central government myself, but I can't make any promises about the changes in store for the Union. To combat the Confederacy the federal government is going to have to have power, and most governmental power is money. I've seen it said that before the war the government never spent more than $100 per day, and afterwards it never spent less than $1000 per day. Those figures may not be accurate, but they do provide an idea of the size of the change.

Lincoln once compared suspending habeas corpus to cutting off a limb to preserve the life of a patient. Unquestionably the Civil War did enormous damage to the pre-War concepts of the American Republic, but... being honest here... less might well have been fatal. Might as well blame the Southern leaders who bolted, taking their Congressmen out and opening up all sorts of things for the new Republican majority to get into.

'Bloody Crucible' and 'Roll Call' by Nosworthy both deal in detail with the different instructional manuals in use in this period. The sitting down (or lying down) to reload is part of the zouave (chasseur a pied) methods developed by Napoleon III's army. Rapid evolutions and extensive use of skirmishers are part of the same. Other officers made do with older texts, or whatever books they could find. By the middle of 1862 the armies were pretty proficient in drill, at least enough that they could move and fight. Grant says he found he could move a body of men around pretty much as he pleased and so quit worrying about how they got there... pretty typical Grant.

As Clausewitz said, 'In war everything is simple, but accomplishing the simplest thing is very difficult.'

Fulcrumvale - Lincoln suspects something is amiss but is more concerned with motivations - can this man be trusted, and is he on the Union side? If those answers are yes, Lincoln is unlikely to push too hard. He has a lot of other things to do...

Vann the Red - I do sometimes get a bit 'purple' in me prose and I depend upon you fellows to let me know when it goes too far. But... yeah, that second post was fun to write and even fun to read afterwards. I wouldn't want to read a whole novel of it, though.

Have fun on your trip and if you get a chance to see Lewis, say hello.

phargle - thank you sir. The old man can still sometimes get up and dance. Instead of spending several posts on international issues and the like I decided to talk mostly about the effect of winter on the armies and the 'home front'.

The language draws some of its power from descriptive words but more from repetitions, the 'it was cold, it was very cold, it was as cold...' sort of thing, coupled with long lists of descriptors. I haven't had the chance to play with this sort of word usage in this AAR because both the narrative and history-book sections have been (by design) tightly focused. It was fun to let off the brakes a little.

Lincoln was very successful as an attorney; some of the most important cases of railroad law were won by him. He believed in thorough preparation and everyone who knew him well said he was exceptionally smart. He did enjoy playing the country bumpkin, and tripped up more than one opponent who underestimated him. During his first term he ran political rings around Seward, Chase and the prominent Rebuplican Congressmen, several of whom were thought to be among the most cunning politicians of their day. The Union really lucked out with Lincoln, I think.

One interesting piece of alt-hist fiction (can't remember the story name) swaps Lincoln and Davis (since both were born in Kentucky and both their families moved several times). The CSA does better in that tale under Lincoln.

It has been a long time since I read Guns of the South, so I don't remember the role Lincoln plays in it. I remember alternately liking and hating the story, about typical for me and Turtledove.

 

[phargle]

It has been a long time since I read Guns of the South, so I don't remember the role Lincoln plays in it. I remember alternately liking and hating the story, about typical for me and Turtledove.

Lincoln is only peripherally in the story as a bitter man - it is rather the role of advanced firearms and the offer of them to Lee that I was noting.

 

[robou]

So Makhearne is going to war then? Will he be leading the outfit personally?But Lincoln seems to be cracking somewhat, he seems to have lost some of his flare and charm, but I can't begin to imagine the stress and strain his situation must put on a man of age. The second post I found especially grim, and it described well just how a war affects people at home, but things seems better and more organised in the North, yet more resiliant in the south. The new year looks to be bloody...

 

[Director]

phargle - well, I can't remember if the tech-trade with Prussia for breechloaders was pre-Civil War, but I think it was. In THIS timeline the South has less advanced weapons but they have plenty of them. AND they started enlisting slaves...

robou - you know, I thought about that. There is clearly a moment where Lincoln could have said that, but says something like training instead. So... we will see.

1863 is going to be frightful. I can tell you both sides were losing entire divisions... I went through my game notes last night and was just appalled.

 

[Director]

With the celebrations of the New Year of 1863 and the suspension of campaigning by the armies came important changes in the political and social contexts of the war. General Lee was recalled to Richmond for consultations with Secretary of War Jefferson Davis. The Secretary was willing to trust Lee and rely on his judgment in ways that he could not depend upon his other, more politically active, generals. But to the press and to the public at large it seemed that Lee was being reprimanded for a failure. The conquest of the state of North Carolina was apparently of no consequence if a single city remained in Union hands.

General William Harney was recalled from his command of the Army of the Ohio to give testimony before the Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War. The Radical Republicans might have been reduced in power by their association with the abortive coup in Massachusetts, but their determination to see the war prosecuted to the fullest remained. Harney’s birthplace in Tennessee and lifelong association with Democratic administrations would have made him an object of scrutiny in any case. His handling of the campaign in western Virginia and the presence of Confederate cavalry in Ohio and Pennsylvania opened him to accusations just short of treason. Aged, irascible and unused to close critical oversight, General Harney ended the affair by submitting his resignation, escaping arrest and court-martial only because Lincoln and Halleck did not want the witch-hunt to become more wide-spread.

For the command in Ohio the President and General-in-Chief chose to pass over Harney’s brigadiers, who were thought to be too closely associated with his failures to warrant promotion. Instead, the position would go to a bold young man who had proven himself capable in the military and political spheres of New England. Promoted once when Irvin McDowell departed for the Army of the Potomac, now Joseph Hooker would be brevetted to a Major-General’s stars. To Ohio he would take a determination to fight, which Lincoln valued, and a considerable number of fresh regiments of Massachusetts volunteers, which Lincoln hoped would show that the region was now solidly committed to the war, and to the Union.

With the public and the Radical members of his own party calling for an immediate march on Richmond, with Democratic sentiment in favor of ‘re-Union by peace, not War’, and with his generals complaining of their lack of men and equipment of all sorts, Lincoln could do little more than endure the buffeting of political cross-winds. But he did attempt to push his reluctant commanders into motion by sending out an order requiring them to submit plans for some action against the enemy, no matter how small, with the deadline for action set for Washington’s birthday, on the 22nd of February. McDowell replied with a lengthy list of shortages and deficiencies, ending with a gloomy appraisal of the condition of Virginia’s roads in winter and an inflated estimation of the forces to his front. Notably lacking was any proposal for action. The Army of the Ohio was under the temporary command of General Sumner, a bluff old soldier of the pre-war Army but no friend of General Harney. Sumner might have been willing to try something but his subordinates were uniformly opposed, and Sumner himself was soon bed-ridden. The winter along the Ohio River would be occupied chiefly in training, and in the suppression of Confederate raids.

Farther west, matters were somewhat different. In Texas, even the brutal winter of 1863 was much reduced in its effects. The situation in regard to troops and supplies was different also, for the tiny armies scattered across Kansas and New Mexico benefitted from a solid core of regular soldiers, officered by the tough Indian-fighters of the old Infantry and Dragoons. Men like John Orfield and Gideon White, the latter newly arrived with his Creoles from California, were accustomed to the harsh privations of life on the frontier, and to the necessity of making-do with what was on hand. They needed no trains of railroad cars, or columns of men in the tens of thousands, and they needed little urging from Washington to set themselves in motion. Orfield quickly established himself in old Albuquerque and began probing to the east, while General White led his dusty Creole dragoons against the Indian tribes of Sequoyah, who had lately declared for the Confederacy.

In St Louis, Don Carlos Buell found his forces greatly augmented but their responsibilities doubled, or perhaps tripled. He was to maintain control of St Louis and establish Federal control of southern and western Missouri, while simultaneously preparing to invade Arkansas and open the Mississippi River to Federal navigation. Of his various tasks the first and the last were the most critical. Ownership of St Louis in large part meant control of the lower Ohio and upper Mississippi Rivers, essential for the rapid movement of men and supplies in the region. To that end, Buell was required to maintain a sizeable garrison at the Barracks and to fortify the city and various points along the rivers, including the sodden plain at Cairo, the jutting southernmost point of Illinois where the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers meet. Pacifying southern and western Missouri first meant the Confederate forces had to be chased back across the border into Arkansas; only then could the brigands, bushwhackers and partisans of the irregular forces contained. Control of so large an area required the deployment of large numbers of men in small detachments, which were vulnerable to being overrun by Confederate raids. Concentrating men in response to those raids left the irregulars free to raid and burn and destroy, offering Buell a strategic quandary that was not open to an immediate solution. Most of his attention and resources would perforce be focused on Missouri for the upcoming year at least.

Opening the Mississippi River for navigation was another high-priority goal, for the farmers of the middle western states of Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio depended on the river to take their crops to market and to bring up from New Orleans the necessities and luxuries of their lives. The new railroads connecting Chicago with Cleveland, Albany, Pittsburg, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore were able to shoulder some of the burden, but for capacity and cost they could not replace the steamboats of the great rivers, nor did the railroads yet run to every town and farm along the rivers. The Confederacy had not been idle in this political struggle for the affections of the heartland. Early proclamations had offered to open the river for navigation ‘without tolls’ if peace were made. The Democratic constituencies of the lower halves of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio were offered the prospect of their own confederation if they would break also from the Yankee government in Washington. And, to point out that the velvet glove held a fist as well as a welcoming hand, frowning fortifications fronted the riverbanks at Columbus, Kentucky and Helena, Arkansas.

General Buell may have had little time for contemplation of a grand campaign down the Mississippi, but he was well served by two capable subordinates. One was General Fitz-John Porter, a New Hampshire native, a career Army man and a veteran of the Mexican War who had graduated from West Point in 1847, a year before George McClellan and Thomas Jackson. To the squalid camp at Cairo, Porter had brought efficiency and discipline, and the volunteers had responded with enthusiasm. The other was Commander John Rodgers, son of the famous Commodore of the War of 1812 and now acclaimed in his own right for his captaincy of the steam sloop Huron in the relief of San Francisco. Detailed to carry news of the success of the operation to Washington, Rodgers had found himself lionized, promoted to full captain, and transferred to St Louis. There he was to supervise the creation of a squadron of iron-plated riverboats, with which to win control of the river and defeat the Confederate forts. Naval constructors John Lenthall and Samuel Pook were responsible for drawing up the plans, and St Louis engineer James Eads won the contract by promising speedy construction times. While Rodgers was kept busy adapting existing riverboats into warships armed with a few cannon and lightly-clad in ½” boiler iron, Eads was taking over the marine railways of Mound City and hiring every available man.

Mound City was a little town a few miles east of Cairo on the last broad reach of the Ohio River. There the high bank sloped gently down into the water, an ideal circumstance for a shipyard. And indeed a shipyard had been built there; the bank was bricked and cobblestoned, inset at regular intervals with rails very like a railroad. On these, cradles would run, powered by steam-driven winches. A steamboat could ease up to the bank, over a waiting cradle, and then the power of steam would lift the entire boat hundreds of feet up the slope, so that carpenters and mechanics could work on every part of it without getting wet. Riverboats could be constructed in such a fashion also, but not many had been; Mound City had hoped to benefit from the growth of its neighbor Cairo, but for various reasons that river town had languished instead of prospering and Mound City had likewise been bypassed by fortune.

To this town now came an army of workmen, railway cars of machines and materials, steamboats laden with coal and lumber and ironwork from Pittsburgh. Steam-powered saws roared, trip-hammers pounded and foremen bawled orders, and as if by magic frames and planks and engines seemed to assemble themselves, suspended in midair over the flat plain at the head of the bank. These, like their sisters built at Carondelet outside St Louis, were unlovely craft: boxy and scow-like in the hull as a riverboat, but without the latter’s elegant trim and airy grace. These would crouch upon the water, pushing through it with bull-dog noses, cannon bared at the enemy like iron fangs. They were not beautiful, but these ironclads were relatively inexpensive, easy to build, quick to get into service and, with their flat armor plates and bristling cannon, would easily subdue a more conventional foe.

Eads had contracted to build eight, plus another four of even shallower draft to be outfitted with a turret of his own design. All of the original eight, plus two more converted from scow-like workboats, were finished on or about the one hundred days specified in his bid. In every sense this was a triumph of American improvisation and industrial potential. At Eads’ suggestion these were named for American naval heroes of the Revolution and War of 1812: John Paul Jones, Decatur/I], Perry, Porter, Biddle, Hull, Truxtun, MacDonough, Bainbridge, Lawrence. The four river monitors would be named Ozark, Ouachita, Osage and Neosho, but their completion would be delayed as much as a year by difficulties with squeezing so much weight onto so shallow a displacement.

Nonetheless, by the winter of the first year of the war, Captain Rodgers had assembled a prodigious armada on the western waters, and Fitz-John Porter was anxious to put it – and his army – to use.

The river ironclad USS Truxtun, with three sisterships, somewhere south of Cairo​

 

[phargle]

I'm also eager to see that fleet put to use. The application of naval power is, in the actual games, my favorite thing in all of Paradox's products.

I also am amused by your New Mexico forays, posting as I am from New Mexico!

 

[TheExecuter]

Nice 'toy' boats, Director! I really must read up on the craft used in the actual Mississippi campaign...

Sounds like Lincoln is chomping at the bit for action...but I doubt rushing into it will have the success rate he desires!

Hooker in Ohio? Good heavens...what will the local ladies think?



TheExecuter

 

[unmerged(59737)]

A toast to the 1863 Mississippi campaign, come spring. Somehow, the presence of a POV character makes it highly doubtful that it will be easy or bloodless.

 

[Director]

phargle - I'm a long-time fan of seapower (er... riverpower? bayoupower? ) and I enjoy playing with the boats. But I'd rank the naval aspects of Paradox games at the bottom of the things they do well.

Since there are no desert terrain effects in Victoria, and no weather, launching the invasion of Texas from Oklahoma and New Mexico just made good sense. Plus, that was the quickest way to get some of my troops back in action after the California and Oregon business.

Is it true the state motto is 'So far from God, so near to Texas?' I know it is for Arkansas, where I'm originally from.

TheExecuter - I recently had occasion to visit Cairo and Mound City, including the sloping bank and the remains of the old marine railway that hauled riverboats in and out of the water. Fascinating, in the way that ruins always are.

The river ironclads were pretty amazing. Steamboats on the western rivers were wide, shallow and had very fragile, flexible hulls, so packing armor and cannon on them required great ingenuity. Plus they were built at amazing speed, for relatively little money. And they were effective in supporting the troops and controlling the rivers. The Union built approximately 20 of the ironclads (including 3 monitors and 4 double-turreted monitors) and could easily have built that many more had they been needed. Compare this with the Confederate Navy, that sometimes had to wait a year or longer for cannon or iron plate to complete their vessels...

Lincoln's 'February order' is factual. The only result of it was Grant's campaign against Forts Henry and Donelson on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. So except for a few changes of names, my previous post is mostly factual.

Hooker is indeed in Ohio... with Sherman. We shall see how THAT turns out.

Fulcrumvale - FitzJohn Porter is going up the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers first, but the purpose of it all is to force Polk out of Columbus, KY and open the path down the Mississippi. Porter is in for a few surprises... as are the rebels...

If the Confederacy can't defend Richmond and hold the Mississippi River, it is done for. If the Union has free navigation of the waters, a lot of the unrest in the mid-west will quiet down, and the Confederates would soon find themselves trying to defend every place on a river, creek or bayou, which is impossible. Controlling the Mississippi is VITAL for both sides.

 

[robou]

Ah, the Union doing what it does best; making something from nothing both quickly and effciently. With the support of this fleet, I'm sure Porter will be most highly supported by the fleet, even if on the actual map it doesn't exist But anyway, the story is more interesting this way. Where too first? Island 10 would be my guess, but who knows. Where is Polk at the moment, because if he is in Colombus, I suppose that is the priority to be thrown out. And any campaign down the Mississippi will be hugely supported, as it was, if Farragut repeats the attack on New Orelans.

 

[phargle]

phargle - I'm a long-time fan of seapower (er... riverpower? bayoupower? ) and I enjoy playing with the boats. But I'd rank the naval aspects of Paradox games at the bottom of the things they do well.

Since there are no desert terrain effects in Victoria, and no weather, launching the invasion of Texas from Oklahoma and New Mexico just made good sense. Plus, that was the quickest way to get some of my troops back in action after the California and Oregon business.

Is it true the state motto is 'So far from God, so near to Texas?' I know it is for Arkansas, where I'm originally from.

I'd play nothing but HoI2 if the game were more diverse. The ship aspects are so much fun. Vicky is probably second-best for sea power, and I love the progression but think the game falls down by making it hard to get - and then too easy to skip - monitors and ironclads. But getting my first protected cruiser is always a delight.

EU3 is fun for naval power because of the capturing of ships. I dig that too.

New Mexico is the land of enchantment (land of entrapment to some. . . not to me), and we are darned close to Texas. Heck, the eastern half of the state is all white ranchers and oil men, so it might as well be Texas. ;-) But Texas has grown on me, especially since I live next to the Texas part of Texas, not the crappified, citified, so-called Texas of Houstin-Dallas-Austin. Basically, we're both snuggling with that dog, but you're resting your head on the backside over in Arkansas.

 

[coz1]

Not resting this winter for the Union. The south had better hope they can get some like instruments or the blockade will remain and the river will belong to the Union. I particularly enjoyed McDowell's petulent letter saying everything BUT what Lincoln desired. That ought to keep him around...NOT!

 

[merrick]

Here come the turtles! Nice picture, by the way. Is it original or did you lift it from a game?

Porter and the turtles have a tough ask, though, particularly if Buell can't spare significant land forces. By my count Memphis is still in Rebel hands - and getting there means taking on Polk's "Gibraltar" at Columbus. Also there has been no landing at New Orleans this war (unless Lincoln still has it up his sleeve). It's a long way from Cairo to the Gulf - and holding half the river doesn't help the Midwest at all.
Alternatively, the ironclads could just be to secure control of the Ohio - but that's boring.

Hooker in Ohio, facing Beauregard? I foresee fireworks when the snow melts.

 

[Director]

robou - 'What first' will be answered in the next post, coming up in just a few moments. The Union is well-equipped to fight what Russel Weigley coined 'The American Way of War', the use of overwhelming material superiority in pursuit of total victory.

No attack on New Orleans so far, but you can be sure it is in the planning stages for the Union.

phargle - I bought HoI and HoI2 and never played either, largely because I don't care for what I've read about how they handle naval combat. I agree with you that the window for ironclads is too brief, but realistically they were only around for 25 years before morphing into steam-driven, ocean-going, turret-equipped battleships.

My secret? I love naming my ships. I even do that when I play GalCiv...

Once the Civil War is over I suspect the Union will have need of a modern fleet. *whistles innocently*

I grew up on Texas jokes, since Arkansas was the nonly non-Texan school in the old SouthWest Conference.

coz1 - true, but I'm actually relating an event that happened at a different time. Grant's move on Forts Henry and Donelson occurred in February, so I think I'm entitled.

The issue - as always - is who to replace McDowell with. But as the army grows some of the junior officers will begin to show some fire and talent. If McDowell can't move forward he may find himself in Minnesota instead.

merrick - the pic is actually from the artwork for the game 'Ironclads', no relation to the old Yaquinto version or to my computer adaptation. The reviews on it have been unpromising, but the art is cool.

There is more than one way to turn Polk out of Columbus. The next two installments should help shed some light on that.

 

[Director]

General Don Carlos Buell found himself fully occupied with the pacification of Missouri. Nevertheless, the Presidential instruction had been imperative: some forward movement was to take place before the 22nd of February. Fortunately, two of his subordinates had a plan, or rather two of them, both taking advantage of Federal control of Paducah and, by extension, the Ohio River east of Cairo. Nathaniel Lyons wanted to combine his division with Porter’s corps at Cairo and march them west to invest Polk’s fortifications at Columbus on the Mississippi River. Porter’s strategic conception was more indirect, using riverboats to ascend the Tennessee River south of Paducah in a great arc, with the object of destroying the bridges on the direct railroad line from Richmond to Polk’s fortress at Columbus. Moving up the Tennessee River by boat, the Federal army would be spared the rigors of an overland march in winter and would face only a single fort and a small detachment of troops. Polk had gathered twenty thousand men to the defense of Columbus, ringing it with entrenchments and more than one hundred cannon. Buell doubted a siege could be maintained in the harsh weather, and thought more men would be needed to reduce Columbus than he could spare. Thus he gave his grudging approval to Porter’s ‘giant raid’, but not before cautioning Porter and Lyon against being cut off.

Despite the rim of ice at its edges, the Tennessee River was too wide and fast-flowing to freeze over. Still, the riverboats had to crunch through crusts of ice to approach the landings, and the soldiers onboard took turns huddling by the boilers to stay warm. The stopover at Paducah was brief, no longer than Lyon’s men needed to slip aboard the riverboats, and the squadron immediately set out upriver, rounding the bend into the high and fast-running Tennessee. Porter had hoped his movement would remain a surprise, and in this he was mistaken; Confederate sympathizers and partisans had sent messages to General Polk as soon as Porter’s men broke camp. But Rodgers, now a commodore by courtesy, had sent three ships to bombard Columbus and two more to scout the approaches to the Cumberland River. These feints did help confuse the issue, but by the time the Union gunboats had swung their prows into the dark waters of the Tennessee, Polk had correctly deduced that the Federal armada was aimed at the forts on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers.

Despite their rising from sources a thousand miles apart, the lay of the land is such that the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers run more or less steadily towards each other, the Tennessee tending northwest and the Cumberland almost due west. Near the border of Kentucky and Tennessee the rivers run parallel for more than a hundred miles, separated only by a narrow neck of high ground ten to twenty miles across. The significant man-made improvements with military implications were the railroad lines, which may generally be thought of as forming a large, lop-sided triangle, connecting Memphis, Bowling Green, Nashville and Decatur, Alabama, with an extended line to Columbus on the Mississippi River. Memphis and Nashville were among the larger cities of the Confederacy, and formed the supply depots for the defense of Tennessee. Polk’s troops were strung like beads along the rivers and railroads, with concentrations at Columbus, the river forts and Clarksville, Bowling Green and Nashville. This thin cordon was deceptively weak, for a threat at any point would bring a concentration of troops along the railroad line. So long as the railroad remained usable, the entire army could, in Napoleonic fashion, rapidly form on the flanks and rear of an enemy thrust. It was a good plan, but its weaknesses were two-fold. Local forces had to hold out long enough to be relieved, and the railroad had to remain open.

Map of the Tennessee/Kentucky theater from Memphis to Bowling Green​

Before Polk’s invasion, Confederate engineers had sited two forts on the Tennessee side of the line, but with Kentucky’s neutrality for a shield, construction had proceeded slowly. After his advance to Columbus, Polk had been occupied with ever-more-elaborate extensions of its defenses, and little of the available force or material was available for the forts upriver. If it was too late to make substantial improvements to the fortifications, however, it was not too late to move men to their support. With a boldness that vindicated Davis’ faith in him, the Bishop-turned-General fired off a series of orders and requests to accomplish just that.

First, a strong body of infantry and cavalry drawn from his Columbus redoubt would make a dash at Paducah. Polk did not think the Federals would be foolish enough to remove the garrison, but believed a strong feint might compel the Yankees to return to its support. Second, he ordered Hardee’s little army at Bowling Green to send a detachment down to join Nathan Bedford Forrest’s cavalry regiment at Clarksville. Nashville was technically not in Polk’s area of responsibility, but he sent a wire there as well. Brigadier General Isham Harris had little more than two brigades to hold the fortifications around the capital city, but he sent a brigade under former vice-president Henry Wise up the railroad to Clarksville. With Gideon Pillow’s men at the forts warned to be on the lookout, Polk had exhausted his immediate means of response.

In the gray hour of dawn, the Federal transports nosed through the ice to the frozen bank and Porter’s men debarked. The chosen landing site was a few miles below Fort Harris, which was sited to have a clear view of two miles or more down the river. In the meanwhile, Commodore Rodgers intended to push his gunboats close to the enemy and suppress the fire from the fort while the infantry advanced. Fort Harris lay low enough to water level that the gunboats would not expose their thin upper decks if they got close enough. Just how close that would be remained to be seen. Despite having to negotiate a patch of frozen swamp before the infantry could close through the woods around the fort, Porter was confident they would need only a few hours to make the march. Rodgers was determined to give them that time.

General Gideon Pillow was a veteran of the Mexican War, a volunteer general who had an unsavory reputation among his peers for glory-hunting and playing politics. Giving him command of the two river forts had seemed an elegant solution, for it was a post prestigious enough to appeal to his vanity, a position unlikely to need a better officer, and far enough from headquarters that his superiors did not often have to see him. Unfortunately, the war had come not to Columbus but to Pillow’s little command, perhaps six thousand men divided between Fort Harris and Fort Polk. The General had ridden over to examine the defenses at Fort Harris, situated on the Tennessee River and the likeliest place for the blow to fall, and was in consultation with the fort’s commander when the Federal squadron first made its presence known.

Later accounts differed as to whether the lookout’s shout preceded the boom of the opening shot from the fleet, but everyone remembered the scream of the first shell as it sailed over their heads and into the woods beyond, to explode in a gout of dirt, leaves and splinters. Quickly enough the fort’s defenders sprang to their cannon and returned fire. The fort’s thick earthen walls would provide some protection from hostile shot and shell, but there was nothing overhead to shield the artillerymen from shells bursting overhead. Their dozen cannon were a mixed lot, centered around a pair of 6.4” rifles of relatively recent vintage and another pair of 8” Dahlgren smoothbores from the naval base at Norfolk, Virginia. The rest of the guns were 32 and 24 pounders, considered large guns until recently. It remained to be seen how effective they would be against the Union flotilla.

The garrison had lacked the gunpowder to do much live practice with the guns, but their officers had meticulously marked, ranged and sighted the landmarks along the long, straight stretch of river to the north. They were gratified but not especially surprised to land a hit on the leading boat with their third shot; the men cheered as it blurred true to the target and groaned in disappointment as the 32-pound iron ball caromed off the sloped front armor of the casemate and dropped into the river. The gunboats came on, engines pounding out a slow advance against the fast-running current, firing deliberately and keeping their armored fronts toward the fort. The boats had been armed with a variety of weapons: 32-pounder naval guns, other 32-pounders bored and sleeved into rifles of dubious worth, 42-pounder Army rifles and a handful of 8” Dahlgrens. The flagship Decatur, larger by half than the rest, sported two 9” and two 8” Dahlgrens in her four front ports; her greater size and advanced position made her the logical target of choice for the Confederate gunners. During the long, slow approach she was hit a dozen times, but seemed impervious to damage.

Not so the fort and its gunners. As they closed within a half-mile the gunboats switched to short-fused shell. Spherical Dahlgren and bullet-shaped rifle shells whacked into the earthworks at an increasing rate; many did not explode, and the ones that did mostly spent their energy throwing dirt. But in quick succession two came whistling though the gun embrasures, one mangling the crew of a Dahlgren and the other flipping a 32-pounder into the air where it hung whirling for a long moment before crashing down in the wooden barracks. Still the gunboats drew nearer, gigantic black reptiles shrouded in coal smoke, white dragons' breath with cores of red flame marking the gunshots. Now the shells were detonating overhead as well as in the river wall and in the trees behind, an unending boom and roar and whistle and crash. But the Confederate gunners stuck to their task, and as the boats drew within a quarter-mile their efforts told at last. In rapid succession a shell detonated against the pilothouse of the Truxtun, sending her reeling out of line to slam into the opposite bank. Another entered the open gunport of the Decatur, whipping past the startled gun crew to rip open the top of a boiler. Had it exploded, her captain asserted afterwards, the boat ‘would surely have been destroyed’. The damage was quite bad enough; live steam and coal smoke filled the casemate, the engines lost power and the flagship drifted down the river, uncontrollable, while men sought relief from the scalding steam in the icy river water. The third was a shot from a Confederate Dahlgren that punched through the weaker armor of Hull’s side, killing three and wounding as many more but doing no damage to her equipment.

Despite these successes, the fury of the close-ranged gunfire was too great. With dismounted cannon before them, every building in the fort ablaze, the flagpole shot through and the artillerists dead, wounded or in flight, the fort could not be held. Reluctantly the commander sent word for a white flag to be displayed, allowing only enough time for the infantry to escape the rifle pits in the woods to the east. By the time a small boat had landed and a Navy lieutenant had accepted the surrender, Pillow and the infantry were gone, marching east over the road to Fort Polk.

Despite his chagrin at seeing the Navy gather the laurels of victory, FitzJohn Porter was determined to gather in the fruits of victory. Lyon’s brigade was put on the eastern road immediately, with the remainder of Porter’s troops sorting out the Confederate dead and wounded, putting out the fires and scavenging any equipment they could save. Commodore Rodgers had sought permission to exploit the victory by raiding up the Tennessee with his remaining gunboats, a rampage that quickly reached as far as the shoals at Florence, Alabama. Most importantly, the vital railroad bridge and telegraph lines across the Tennessee were severed, leaving Polk at Columbus unaware of the scope of the disaster and unable to move in support without abandoning both Columbus and Memphis.

Now, with the communications between the eastern and western divisions of his army cut, Polk could only hope the concentration he had already set in motion would be enough to stem the Federal tide.

 

[robou]

Polk made good preparations, but they obviously did not take into account Ironclads The damage too them is a blow, but having taken the fort by themselves in a matter of hours, it is an impressive record. Of course, they could not have stopped Pillow and the infantry getting away, and that is the weakness of the naval power. Now I fear that, not only will the defenders of Fort Polk know what is coming, but they will be in much larger numbers than before. It will come to a siege I think. I am guessing by their position and commanders, that Forts Harris and Polk and IRL Forts Henry and Donelson?

 

[coz1]

Fun naval assault, Director. The bots took a beating but turned out the saving grace. Pillow didn't know what hit him...literally. Looks like the gambit worked.

 

[TheExecuter]

Sparkling initial success. How far to go is now the question. For the longer the operation goes on, the higher the chances of a successful rebel counter...Let's hope the Federals have enough force to support their success.

TheExecuter

 

[unmerged(59737)]

Ft. Pillow may have surrendered easily, but the failure to intercept the reinforcement of Ft. Polk will almost certainly come back to haunt the Union forces in the region.

 

[Amric]

Love the map, D....I have to agree....the Union has a gap....and it just might prove.....unpleasant...