Nassau Bacon – from Ohio

 

      “We are eating new beautiful onions from Nassau,” Charles Blackford wrote in June 1864. Blackford was Longstreet’s assistant judge advocate.  Blackford’s letter home about the onions is a little more revealing concerning foodstuffs in the ANV in the spring and summer of 1864. He continues: “With our onions we have bacon cured in Ohio and shipped to Nassau to be sent to us by blockade runners.” It is well known that by 1864, most foodstuffs for the Army of Northern Virginia were coming from Nassau on blockade runners and into the port at Wilmington.[1]

   Almost everyone is familiar with the role of the blockade in supplying the Confederate armies. Agents from various states and the Confederate government worked out trade deals – either cotton, or promises of future cotton – in exchange for munitions of war, medicines, and foodstuffs. These items were then loaded onto ships, making their way to the ports in the Bahamas, largely Nassau. The items were then transferred to shallow-draft blockade runners and steamed into various Southern ports. By 1864, it was really only the port of Wilmington that was still open and supplying Lee’s army in Virginia. 

The Advance, a North Carolina blockade runner.

   “Nassau bacon is a term frequently used during the war. James C. Elliott, 56^th North Carolina, recalled that in 1864 “Our food was miserable—musty meal and rancid Nassau bacon. Our bread was cooked at the wagon yard on canal, west side of Petersburg.”[2] Another Tar Heel reminisced that “old soldiers will all remember Nassau bacon, a very gross, fat, porky substance which ran the blockade at Wilmington and was distributed among Lee’s veterans as bacon.”[3] Moxley Sorrel, also on Longstreet’s staff before being promoted to brigadier general in the fall of 1864, thought that some “bacon from Nassau was coming through the blockade, and it would not be incredible for the blockading fleet to allow it to come through in hope of poisoning us.”[4]

   But what of Blackford’s claim – that his bacon had been cured in Ohio and sent to Nassau? Hamilton Cochran, writing in Blockade Runners of the Confederacy  in 1958, explains how the process worked. Brokers, or “bacon buyers,” would visit hog farms in New York and other states “and offer hog raisers far more per pound for their hams and bacon than the United States government or civilian merchants were offering.” After the brokers bought large quantities of hog meat, it was  “salted and shipped out of New York or Philadelphia to Bermuda or Nassau. . .  Upon arrival in the islands, the hams and bacon were sold at quadruple their cost to agents of the Confederate States Quartermaster Corps, then shipped to hungry soldiers on the firing line.”[5] Eugene R. Dattel notes that at times, the meat shipped out of Boston or New York was sent to Canada first, then on to Bermuda or Nassau. The meat was also sent to Liverpool, unloaded and then reshipped to the Caribbean.  By January 1865, over eight million pounds of meat had arrived in the port of Wilmington alone. “This was extremely good business for Northern farmers whose sons were dying on Southern battlefields,” Dattel notes.[6]

   This round-about way of importing bacon (and other items) produced in the North to feed Confederate armies was not really a secret. Major General W.H.C. Whiting wrote in June 1863 that many of the blockade runners in Wilmington were “mostly filled with Yankee goods.” Whiting arrested the crew of one steamer, the Arabian, which had bypassed Nassau and sailed directly from New York.[7] War Clerk John Jones noted in October 1864 that Beverly Tucker was in Canada, contracting with a New York firm, to trade bacon for cotton “pound for pound.” The Secretary of the War had authorized the negotiations.[8] Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, James Seddon and others all knew about this operation. And it was not just limited to Wilmington. The trade was so heavy in eastern North Carolina and eastern Virginia that in January 1864 the Subsistence Department needed 600 to 800 bales of cotton each week, delivered to Weldon.[9] Writing after the war, Robert Tannahill told former Commissary General Lucius B. Northrop that “there is no telling the amount of supplies we could have gotten from the North in the way of exchange for cotton.”[10]

   Even Northern officials knew of the trade, much of which originated in New York. The American consul at St. George’s Bermuda, wrote to Secretary of State William H. Seward in June 1863: “I beg to apprise you that large quantities of mdse [merchandise] are shipped from N. Yk  [New York] to these islds and transshipped o/board steamers for blockaded ports. There is no doubt that Major Walker who styles himself Confederate States Agent, is receiving goods ex N. Yk by almost every vessel under various marks. A large portion of the goods shipped from here to Wilmington are from N. Yk.”[11] The trade continued, even after the capture of the Cape Fear River and Wilmington. On March 8, 1865, U.S. Grant telegraphed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton that “We have supplies going out by Norfolk to the rebel army stopped, but information received shows that large amounts still go by way of the Blackwater.” In another telegraph, Grant told Stanton that spies or informants in Richmond “send word that Tobacco is being exchanged for Bacon…” Lincoln gave Grant the authority on March 10 to suspend all trade permits and licenses, regardless of whoever issued them, within the state of Virginia, with a few exceptions.[12]

   If you would like to learn more about food and the Confederate Army in Virginia, check out my book, Feeding Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, here.

 

[1] Blackford & Blackford, Letters from Lee's Army, 252.

[2] Elliott,  The Southern Soldier Boy, 26.

[3] Clark, ed., Histories of the Several Regiments and Battalions, 4:53.

[4] Sorrel, Recollections of a Confederate Staff Officer, 281.

[5] Cochran, Blockade Runners of the Confederacy, 47.

[6] Dattel, Cotton and Race in the Making of America, 198.

[7] Jones, A Rebel War Clerk, 1:319, 321.

[8] Jones,  A Rebel War Clerk, 2:290.

[9] OR, Series 1, XLVI, pt. 2, 1104; Goff, Confederate Supply, 167.

[10] quoted in Goff, Confederate Supply, 168.

[11] “American Consular Records-Civil War Period.” Pt. 1, Bermuda Historical Quarterly, 17 (Summer 1961) 66.

[12] Basler, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 8:342-4.

The 3rd Georgia Infantry Commandeer Breckinridge’s Train

   In reading through Jefferson Davis’s papers, there is an interesting discussion regarding a train. It is April 1865. Davis and most of the Confederate cabinet have moved from Greensboro to Charlotte. John C. Breckinridge, Secretary of War, had caught up with Davis in Greensboro. As the group makes its way across the piedmont of North Carolina, Breckinridge is called away to meet with Joseph E. Johnston as Johnston is meeting with William T. Sherman at the Bennett farm outside Durham.

John C. Breckinridge (LOC)

   Davis, who had reached Charlotte on April 18, was anxious for Breckinridge to rejoin him. While Federal cavalry had wrecked most of the railroad around Greensboro and Salisbury, it was still possible to get trains almost to Salisbury. Breckinridge telegraphs Davis from Salisbury on April 20: “We have had great difficulty in reaching this place. The train from Charlotte which was to have met us here had not arrived. No doubt seized by stragglers to convey them to that point. I have telegraphed the commanding officer at Charlotte to send a locomotive and one car without delay. The impressed train should be met before reaching the depot and the ringleaders severely dealt with.” Davis responds: “Train will start for you at midnight with guard.”[1]

   Now, the rest of the story…

   In 1916, W. Frank Marsh was in Charlotte, reading a historical marker that described the last meeting of the Confederate cabinet in the city. Marsh, a member of the 3^rd Georgia infantry, had made it all the way through the war, surrendering at Appomattox Court House. “We were not able to secure transportation back home, so many of us started to walk through Virginia and North Carolina, half starved and some of us almost barefooted. We reached a point past China Grove [Rowan County] coming into Charlotte, some two hundred of us, hungry and sad and a motley lot all bent upon getting back into the country where we had our homes. We came upon a train destined for China Grove to bring back General Breckinridge from there to the conference of the Confederate Congress in Charlotte [the Confederate Congress never met in Charlotte, only the Cabinet], but we took possession of that train and demanded that the conductor take us to Charlotte. He refused and said he was under orders to get General Breckinridge and take him to Charlotte as fast as possible. We insisted and took charge of the train with the result that we told the conductor he could detach the engine and tender and go to China Grove to get the general, who would have to ride upon the woodpile in the tender.”

   “We remained in charge of the cars until the engine came back from China Grove with the General riding in the tender and I guess he was mad, but we hooked onto the cars and were brought in toward Charlotte. Finally, the conductor announced we were in Charlotte, and we all got out of the train only to find that we were not in Charlotte but in a bull pen some half a mile or more from the town and all held prisoners. The home guards had been ordered out in Charlotte and they had us in charge, while they took away our three officers and locked them up in Charlotte for failing to keep the soldiers in subjection instead of letting them confiscate the train.”

   “The next morning we were all released and going into Charlotte found that they had released our officers. Something to eat in those times looked bigger to our eyes than a gold brick. Well, we went down to the railroad station and there we found a train of cars with an engine attached and steam up, ready to go somewhere.”

   “We all rushed on, but the doors were locked and we couldn’t get in, so a lot of us climbed onto the roofs and this broke in the old timber. We found that it was Jeff Davis’ special loaded with Confederate gold and silver, with many kegs of coins aboard and when Jeff Davis found us so determined to get to Georgia he ordered a train made up and we were carried to Chester, S.C., which was as far as the train could go as the bridge had been burned. Those were stirring times and no mistake.”[2]

   There is much to process between these two accounts – trains still running in North Carolina in April 1865, telegraphs still operating, the passage of Lee’s paroled men through North Carolina after Appomattox, a glimpse of the remnants of the Confederate treasury, along with the charming magnanimity of Davis, it is just nice to flesh out the fragments of two communications between Davis and Breckinridge.

  

---

[1] OR, Vol. 47, pt. 3, 814. See also Davis letters, Vol. 11, 553.

[2] The Charlotte Observer, October 20, 1916.

Jefferson Davis v. Stonewall Jackson

   Confederate historiography is rife with accounts of Jefferson Davis’s legendary support of certain commanders, like Braxton Bragg, Leonidas Polk, and Lucius B. Northrop, along with politician Judah P. Benjamin, and his equally legendary feuds with others, like Joseph E. Johnston. Even with Johnston, the fault was more his than that of Davis, as in his correspondence, the President, often exhibits a great deal of grace and aplomb.

   But Davis was not, at least early on, an enthusiast of Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. That might come as a shock, considering that many still celebrate Lee-Jackson Day across the South. Often, Lee is number one, with Jackson a close second in admiration of military skill.

   It appears that Davis and Jackson had never met prior to the spring of 1862. Davis was an 1828 United States Military Academy graduate. During his West Point years, he is described as frequently challenging the academy’s discipline, which includes being involved in the famous Eggnog Riot of Christmas 1826.[1] While serving in the regular army, Davis was court-martialed for insubordination in 1835.[2] Davis resigned from the U.S. Army shortly thereafter. He then became a cotton planter and politician, serving in the U.S. House from 1845-1846. During the Mexican-American War, Davis raised a regiment, for which he served as colonel, and fought at Monterrey and Buena Vista. He then served in the U.S. Senate from 1847 to 1851, as Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce, and then again in the U.S. Senate from 1857 to 1861.

   Jackson was not a politician, nor a planter. He did gain entrance to the United States Military Academy, graduating in 1846, 17^th out of 59^th students. Jackson was also in the Mexican-American War, serving as a second lieutenant in Company K, 1^st United States Artillery. His unit saw action at the Siege of Veracruz, and the battles of Contreras, Chapultepec, and Mexico City. After Mexico, Jackson saw action in Florida battling the Seminoles. Jackson also resigned from the U.S. Army, taking a position of professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy and Instructor of Artillery at the Virginia Military institute.

   Davis, being so intimate with the going-ons of the War Department, would have seen Jackson’s name in the reports and telegraphs that arrived in Richmond after the start of the war. Colonel Thomas J. Jackson took command of the garrison at Harpers Ferry in late April 1861. Robert E. Lee was critical of Jackson for occupying Maryland Heights, undoubtedly relaying the fears of others. Jackson wanted Confederate forces to take the offensive at once. Jackson would next clash with Joseph E. Johnston. While Jackson commanded over 7,000 men at Harper’s Ferry, he had a commission only in Virginia. Johnston, after Virginia joined the Confederacy, was a brigadier general in the Confederate army. When Johnson arrived to assume command of the post at Harper’s Ferry, no one had notified Jackson, who refused to relinquish command. Eventually, Johnston found an endorsement with Lee’s signature on it, and Jackson acquiesced. Jackson then assumed command of all Virginia regiments at Harpers Ferry.[3] Promotion to brigadier general came on June 17, 1861. Jackson went on to become the first icon of the South, earning the sobriquet of Stonewall Jackson at the battle of First Manassas in July 1861. A promotion to major general came in November 1861.

   It was Jackson who came up with the plan for the Romney Campaign. Jackson asked for reinforcements for the campaign and received W.W. Loring’s division. Finding few Federals in Romney, Jackson withdrew his brigade back to Winchester, leaving Loring at Romney. Loring has been described as incompetent and not having the ability to control his already demoralized soldiers. Loring’s officers believed that Jackson’s men were living high (and warm) in Winchester while they suffered through one of the coldest winters on record at Romney. Loring signed and forwarded a petition from eleven of his officers to Richmond asking that Jackson’s orders be overridden and they be allowed to withdraw from Romney. Others wrote to their Congressmen, and with Loring’s approval, Brig. Gen. William B. Taliaferro went to Richmond to plead their case. All of this happened without using the proper chain of command, as Loring believed Jackson would not endorse and forward the letters. Davis sided with Loring and ordered the Secretary of War to telegraph Jackson, ordering him to move Loring’s men. Jackson complied with the orders, then telegraphed, “With such interference in my command I cannot expect to be of much service in the field.” He requested to be assigned back to his old teaching job or allowed to resign.[4]

   Davis considered the Romney Campaign, and Jackson, “utterly incompetent.” It was only through the work of Joseph E. Johnston that the ruffled feathers of Jackson were smoothed and his resignation returned to him.[5] Jackson preferred charges against Loring, charges that Johnston endorsed and forwarded, but the matter was dropped in Richmond. A few days later, Loring was promoted to major general at Davis’s request and sent to the Western Theater.

   A couple of months later, Jackson commanded all the troops in the Shenandoah Valley, with orders from Johnston to prevent Banks from reinforcing McClellan on the Peninsula. The next squabble came with Richard Ewell. Ewell was angry over Jackson’s secrecy, so angry, that Ewell sent one of his brigadier generals, Richard Taylor, to meet with Davis. Taylor just happened to be Davis’s brother-in-law (Davis’s first wife). It was Ewell and Taylor’s request that an officer be sent to the Valley, an officer who outranked Jackson and who could take command. Davis agreed and wanted to send either James Longstreet or Gustavus W. Smith. Davis agreed to send Longstreet as soon as possible and Taylor returned to Ewell with the news. Lee stepped in, and as one historian put it, prevented Davis from “making a truly colossal blunder.” Over the next few weeks, Jackson, with Lee’s encouragement “carried out one of the more brilliant campaigns of military history.”[6]

   The first meeting of Davis and Jackson is thought to have occurred on July 2, 1862, at Lee’s Headquarters near Malvern Hill. Lee was meeting with several of his generals when Davis arrived unannounced. Introductions were made. Dr. Hunter McGuire was an observer at the event, and it was McGuire who informed Jackson who Davis was, although he probably already knew. Woodward writes that Jackson’s “feelings toward Davis, however, were none too cordial, for he had not forgotten the Romney campaign and Davis’s intervention in Loring’s favor during the affair.” Hunter McGuire wrote that Jackson “stood as if a corporal on guard, his head erect, his little fingers touching the seams on his pants, and looked at Davis.” It was Lee who broke the awkward silence. “Why President, don’t you know General Jackson? This is our “Stonewall Jackson.” Davis bowed stiffly, and Jackson saluted. Lee and Davis soon adjourned into another room to talk. Davis and Jackson spoke later that day. Jackson was alone among Lee’s generals to continue to pursue McClellan.[7]

   Davis, Lee, Jackson, and others met in Richmond on July 13, devising the strategy of pursuing John Pope and his army in Northern Virginia. Jackson’s brilliant Second Manassas campaign still did not seem to inspire trust with Davis. When the army was reorganized after the Maryland Campaign, the rank of lieutenant general was created. Davis told Lee that “You have two officers now commanding several divisions and may require more. Please send to me as soon as possible the names of such as you prefer for Lt. General.” Lee could request promotions for Longstreet and Jackson, or Lee could recommend someone else, bypassing Jackson. Woodward believed that Davis was giving Lee “a convenient opportunity for reducing Jackson’s responsibilities.”[8] Lee responded with: “My opinion of the merits of General Jackson have been greatly enhanced during this expedition. He is true, honest, and brave; has a single eye to the good of the service, and spares no exertion to accomplish his object.”[9]

Did Davis, during the war, ever come around to being a supporter of Jackson? Perhaps. Davis was ill during the Chancellorsville campaign. However, like many others, he was concerned over Jackson’s wounding. Varinia Davis wrote that one of the Davis servants (slaves) was sent to the railroad depot where the latest news about Jackson’s health was reported on the arriving trains.[10] It was Davis who sent the first (new) national flag to rest on the casket of Jackson as it arrived in Richmond. In a letter to Lee on May 11, Davis described the event as “a great national calamity.”[11] In the funeral procession, Davis followed near the hearse in a carriage. Later that day, when someone came to the White House to discuss business with Davis, Davis “remained silent for a while and then said, ‘You must excuse me. I am still staggering from a dreadful blow. I cannot think.”[12]

   Is it possible to read more into the attitude of Jackson in meeting with Davis at Malvern Hill in July 1862? Maybe. Jackon was “stiff” around many people. Did Jackson know of Ewell and Taylor’s mission to get him replaced? Maybe. Did Jackson smart from the interference of Loring and his officers after the Romey campaign? Yes. Jackson did resign over the event. A larger question: why did David dislike Jackson so much? Was it disdain because Jackson was not of the social class of Davis and Lee? That is just something to consider.

[1] Cooper, Jefferson Daivs, 33.

[2] Davis, Jefferson Davis, 68-69.

[3] Robertson, Stonewall Jackson, 234-44.

[4] Woodworth, Davis & Lee, 87-88.

[5] Tanner, Stonewall in the Valley, 83, from the diary of Thomas Bragg.

[6] Woodworth, Davis & Lee, 121-22; Parrish, Richard Taylor, 153.

[7] Woodworth, Davis & Lee, 171.

[8] Woodworth, Davis & Lee, 202.

[9] OR, 19, pt.2:643-4.

[10] Davis, Jefferson Davis, 2:382-83.

[11] OR 25, pt. 1:791.

[12] Davis, Jefferson Davis, 2:382-83.

Breckinridge, Lee, Johnston, and the end of the War.

   When the surrender of the two principal Confederate armies is discussed, those conversations focus on two sets of interactions: Robert E. Lee and U.S. Grant at Appomattox and Joseph E. Johnston and William T. Sherman at the Bennett Place. Hovering around the periphery of those discussions is John C. Breckinridge. In the final days, he counselled both Lee and Johnston.

   John C. Breckinridge kind of slips through the cracks of history. While there are scores of biographies on Lee and Johnston, there are only three on Breckinridge. Born in Kentucky, he graduated from Transylvania University, practiced law, and served as an officer in the 3^rd Kentucky Volunteers during the war with Mexico. Breckinridge served two terms as a Kentucky legislator, two terms in the U.S. House, as Vice President of the United States under President James Buchanan, and was serving in the U.S. Senate after his term as Vice President expired. Described as not being a “proponent of secession or of extreme state rights views,” he did run against the Lincoln-Hamlin ticket as a Democrat in 1860.[1]

   Breckinridge might just be the most widely-traveled of Confederate generals. Commissioned as brigadier general in November 1861, he saw service in Kentucky, fought at Shiloh, was promoted to major general in April 1862, was in Vicksburg, Baton Rouge, Port Hudson, and at Murfreesboro. In 1863, he led a division at Jackson, Chickamauga, and a corps at Chattanooga. Breckinridge then moved east, leading the Confederate forces at New Market in May 1864, Cold Harbor, and then back to the Shenandoah Valley to defend it against attacks by Federals, eventually leading a corps under Early’s command during the march on Washington, D.C. In January 1865, Breckinridge became the sixth and last Confederate Secretary of War.

Breckinridge, Lee, and Johnston. (LOC)

   Following the breakthrough of Confederate lines below Petersburg on the morning of April 2, 1865, Richmond was abandoned. Jefferson Davis and the Confederate Cabinet boarded the last train out of Richmond that night, leaving the city a blaze. Breckinridge was not with the group. He rode out of the city early on the morning of April 3. Breckinridge took command of a wagon train moving toward Amelia Court House, having at least one brush with Federal cavalry. In Farmville on the night of April 6 or morning of April 7, Breckinridge found Lee and discussed events, with Lee wishing Breckinridge to deliver a message to President Davis.[2]

   While it is not known what all they discussed, Breckinridge does write Davis on April 8. Amelia Court House was occupied by the Federals on April 5; some 800 Federals had been captured near Rice’s Station on April 6; serious Confederate losses had been sustained-- “High Bridge and other points.” It was Lee’s plan to try and get to North Carolina, Breckinridge wrote. He then outlines the disposition of a few other Confederate commands, like Lomax and Echols. “The straggling has been great, and the situation is not favorable,” Breckinridge concluded. Was surrender something that the two had discussed?[3]

   Breckinridge rode toward the south, escaping Federal troops encircling Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee surrendered on April 9 at Appomattox Court House. On April 11, the day after Davis moved south to North Carolina, Breckinridge arrived in Danville. He set out the following day and reached Davis, meeting with the president at the home of John Wood. It was Breckinridge that brought the official word of Lee’s surrender. That night, Breckinridge met with Joseph E. Johnston.[4]

   According to Johnston, it was his opinion, along with that of P.G.T. Beauregard, that the “Southern Confederacy was overthrown.” Johnston told Breckinridge this and believed that it was Davis’s responsibility to exercise this “power . . . without more delay.” Breckinridge promised to give Johnston the floor to express this view. Johnston was given the opportunity and told the president “that under such circumstances it would be the greatest of human crimes for us to attempt to continue the war.” Davis asked for the views of his cabinet, with Breckinridge, Stephen Mallory, Secretary of the Navy, and John H. Reagan, Postmaster General, concurring. Only Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin held out hope. Davis agreed to allow Johnston to begin talks with Sherman.[5]

   Davis, with the Confederate cabinet, including Breckinridge, set out from Greensboro, heading to Charlotte, on April 15. Breckinridge was with Davis, and, on the following day, learned that Johnston and Sherman had opened talks. Johnston and Sherman began meeting at the Bennett Farm near Durham, and Johnston wanted Breckinridge to help with the negotiations. It was Johnston’s plan (and Davis’s) that the civil departments be surrendered as well. Not reaching a conclusion at the end of the first day, Johnston requested that Breckinridge join him. Breckinridge arrived, along with Reagan, and joined Johnston in drafting a surrender proposal. When Johnston returned to the Bennett Farm, Breckinridge was also there, and it was Johnston’s idea that Breckinridge join the negotiations. Sherman demurred. Breckinridge was one of those civil officials. Johnston reminded Sherman that Breckinridge was also a major general in the Confederate army, and Breckinridge joined in the debate. Eventually, terms were reached on April 18 and sent to various presidents.[6]

   While standing in the yard of the Bennett farm, waiting for copies of the documents to be made, Sherman took Breckinridge aide. Sherman told Breckinridge that “he had better get away, as the feeling of our people, who had as such announced Mr. Lincoln,  of Illinois, duly and properly elected the President of the United States, and yet that he afterward openly rebelled and taken up arms against the Government. He answered me that he surely would give us no more trouble, and intimated that he would speedily leave the country forever.”[7] Of course, Breckinridge would leave the country, heading to Cuba first, then Great Britian and Canada, before a tour through Europe. Upon being assured that he was covered under President Andrew Johnson’s Amnesty Proclamation of December 1868, Breckinridge returned to Kentucky. He died in Kentucky in 1875.

   Breckinridge’s council with Joseph E. Johnston is well documented. While what Breckinridge and Lee discussed in Farmville on April 7 is seemingly lost to history, the pair had met frequently after Breckinridge assumed the office of Secretary of War, including a three-day stint after Breckinridge failed to get the Confederate senate to pass a resolution demanding Davis open negotiations with Lincoln. Historian William C. Davis, in an essay on the roles of Breckinridge, Lee, and John A. Campbell, believes that, at that Farmville meeting,  Breckinridge and Lee possibly outlined what Lee could do if he was cornered and forced to surrender.[8]  

 

---

[1] Davis, The Confederate General, 1:127.

[2] Knight, From Arlington to Appomattox, 494; Davis, Breckinridge, 507.

[3] OR, Vol. 46, pt. 3, 1389.

[4] Davis, Breckinridge, 509.

[5] Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations, 397-99.

[6] Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations, 400-405.

[7] Sherman, Personal memoirs, 2:353-54.

[8] Davis, “Lee, Breckinridge, and Campbell,” in Janney, Petersburg to Appomattox, 155.

Confederate Memphis

   Memphis was both an old city and a new city when the war began. Native Americans, like the Chickasaw and their ancestors, had inhabited the area for centuries. Settlers had built some homes on Fourth Bluff prior to October 1818, when the Chickasaw elders sold more than six million acres of land to the United States. Shelby County, named for Revolutionary War hero and Kentucky governor Col. Isaac Shelby, was established by the Tennessee General Assembly in November 1819. By the time Tennessee left the Union in 1861, Memphis was major port on the Mississippi River. Shelby County had a population of 48,092 people, which included 276 free people of color and 16,953 slaves. This included “bankers and manufacturers, cotton buyers and factors, wholesale grocers and slave traders, doctors and lawyers, editors and railroad presidents.” 22,623 people lived in Memphis alone, making it the thirty-eighth largest city in the United States. Memphis had a fire department, hospital, and city streets paved with cobblestones.[1] 

Memphis, ca.1862, LOC

   When the vote for United States president came in 1860, the men of Memphis cast 2,319 votes for Stephen Douglas, 2,250 votes for John Bell, and a mere 572 ballots for Vice President John C. Breckinridge. The men of Memphis were more inclined at this stage to conditionally support the Union. With the secession of South Carolina in December 1860, the tone of the people in Memphis slowly began to change. Both pro-Union and Secession meetings were held across the city. With the Federal resupply and subsequent Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, followed by Lincoln’s call for volunteers to suppress the rebellion, more and more Memphis citizens supported secession. Tennessee Governor Isham G. Harris called for a meeting of the legislature in Nashville. On May 6, the General Assembly passed a Declaration of Independence. The following day, Harris agreed to a military allegiance between Tennessee and the Confederate government. These actions were ratified by a public vote on June 8.

   Memphis, its port, the most important port in Tennessee, and even more importantly, the railroads, quickly entered the discussion. In August 1861, Confederate Rep. David M. Currin requested $160,000 “for the construction, equipment, and armament of two ironclad gunboats for the defense of the Mississippi River and the city of Memphis.” The bill was signed into law the next day.[2] Prior to the war, from 1844 to 1854, Memphis had a US Naval dock. Several private shipyards still existed along the Mississippi River. Two twin-screw vessels, the Arkansas and the Tennessee, were contracted to John T. Shirley, a local Memphis businessman. He was to deliver the two vessels by December 1861, at a cost of $76,920 each. The ships were to be 165 feet in length, and a draft of no more than 8 feet when loaded. Shirley struggled to find skilled carpenters and shipwrights, and both he and Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory implored district commander Maj. Gen. Leonidas Polk for details of men to help with building the ships. Not having enough experienced hands, Shirley concentrated on building the Arkansas. Lieutenant Henry Kennedy Stevens arrived from Charleston, assigned as the executive officer of the Arkansas, and took charge of the operations.[3]

   Memphis appeared in the campaign plans of several Federal commanders, including George B. McClellan, David G. Farragut, and Abraham Lincoln. McClellan’s tenure as general-in-chief was short lived, although he did approve of a plan of taking New Orleans first, followed by Baton Rouge, the railroad hub at Jackson, Mississippi, and then Mobile, before setting his sights on Memphis. Farragut, a  “firm advocate of combined operations,” submitted a plan to force the Confederates out of their defenses around New Orleans, then proceed up the Mississippi River, taking Baton Rouge, Vicksburg, and then Memphis. After firing McClellan, Lincoln’s strategy was “a joint movement from Cairo to Memphis; and from Cincinnati to East Tennessee.”[4]

   Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, and Nashville fell in February. Governor Harris ordered the General Assembly to convene in Memphis on February 20. Island No. 10 fell in April 1862. Only Fort Pillow remained to protect Memphis. Mallory ordered the Arkansas to New Orleans if she was in danger of capture. To the west, the Confederates lost the battle of Shiloh on April 7, and to the south, the bombardment of New Orleans began on April 18. Four of the Southern flotilla from Fort Pillow made their way to Memphis after the fort was abandoned on May 10, 1862. The Federals knew of the construction of the ironclads at Memphis, and Farragut worried that just one of them could destroy most of his ships and maybe even retake New Orleans. Farragut would not get a crack at Memphis.[5]

   Braxton Bragg ordered the evacuation of Memphis, and by June 4, the earthworks constructed on the river were empty. Only the small naval flotilla remained. On June 6, Federal Commander Charles Davis, with five ironclads and four rams, headed toward Memphis. The Confederate fleet, eight vessels mounting twenty-eight guns, under Capt. Joseph E. Montgomery, was the only force between the Federals and city. In the two-hour-long fight, only one of the Confederate gunboats escaped: the General Van Dorn. Three Confederate vessels were destroyed, and four others fell into Union hands. The Arkansas had been towed up the Yazoo River a month before the battle of Memphis. Historian William N. Still, Jr., believes that had the Arkansas been left in Memphis, she might have been finished in time to take part in the battle. The Tennessee was destroyed the night before the battle of Memphis.[6]

   Mayor Parks surrendered Memphis, and the city was occupied by Col. G.N. Fitch and a brigade of Indiana Infantry. The civic leaders had to swear an oath of allegiance to the Union, and martial law was declared on June 13. Maj. Gen. U.S. Grant was in Memphis by June 23, finding the city in “bad order” and “secessionists governing much in their own way.”  Elections were held, and voters were required to swear the Oath of Allegiance before they could vote; property of pro-Confederate sympathizers was seized to pay for acts of destruction caused by partisans; partisans were “not entitled to the treatment of prisoners of war when caught”; it became a crime to display Confederate symbols; and, men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five had to take the oath or leave the city. Because Memphis was firmly under Federal control, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to the city.[7]

  With local businesses refusing to open, hundreds of merchants from Cincinnati and Louisville arrived with goods, opening new stores. With open roads, this allowed goods to flow into Confederate hands. One observer believed that more than $20 million worth of supplies left Memphis, bound for the Confederate army, during the war. Confederate forces skirmished with their Federal counterparts in Shelby County frequently.  Memphis became a major supply depot for the Federals operating in western Tennessee, northern Mississippi and Alabama. Numerous raids and large-scale operations, both on the Mississippi River and overland, set out from Memphis. The Federals often retreated to the defenses of the city after confrontations with Confederate commander Nathan Bedford Forrest.[8]

   There was some discussion by the Confederate high command of recapturing the city. In October 1862, Jefferson Davis wrote to Maj. Gen. Theophilus H. Holmes with plans to unite Southern forces in the west and drive the Federals out of the area, recapturing Helena, Memphis, and then Nashville.[9] Nothing came of the idea, but on August 21, 1864, Nathan Bedford Forrest rode into Memphis with 1,500 men and two cannons. “I attacked Memphis at four o’clock this morning, driving the enemy to his fortifications,” Forrest wrote later that day. “We killed and captured four hundred, taking their entire camp, with about three hundred horses and mules. Washburn and staff escaped in the darkness of the early morning, Washburn leaving his clothes behind.”[10] “Memphis Captured by Forrest” ran several Northern newspaper headlines. While Forrest failed to capture the three Federal generals in the city and only held the city for a few hours, he did divert the attention and draw resources away from other theaters of the war.[11]

General Washburn leaving his clothes behind. 

   While Memphis was spared the fate of other Southern cities like Atlanta, Columbia, and Richmond, it had one final role to play for history. On April 27, 1865, the boilers on the S.S. Sultana, carrying over 2,200 former Federal prisoners from Andersonville and Cahaba, exploded in the Mississippi River just north of Memphis. It is believed that 1,195 of the 2,200 passengers and crew perished in the explosion and subsequent fire. The loss of the Sultana was the deadliest maritime disaster in United States history. Many of the victims are buried in the Memphis National Cemetery.

    While every other Southern city with a population of over 20,000 people has a history of its wartime years(and in some case, multiple published histories), Memphis apparently does not.

 

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[1] Dowdy, A Brief History of Memphis, 13-24.

[2] Still, Iron Afloat, 16.

[3] Luraghi, A History of the Confederate Navy, 107, 119, 129.

[4] Reed, Combined Operations in the Civil War, 61-62, 66.

[5] Reed, Combined Operations in the Civil War, 198.

[6] Luraghi, A History of the Confederate Navy, 169; Still, Iron Afloat, 62.

[7] Dowdy, A Brief History of Memphis, 13-24.

[8] Dowdy, A Brief History of Memphis, 13-24; Long, Civil War Day-by-Day.

[9] Papers of Jefferson Davis,  8:454-56.

[10] Wyeth, That Devil Forrest, 417.

[11] Daily Ohio Statesman, August 25, 1864; The Times-Democrat, August 28, 1864; New York Daily Herald, August 29, 1864.