Longstreet's other plan

Lt. Gen. James Longstreet

A lot of ink has been spilt over the decades on Gen. James Longstreet and the Gettysburg campaign. Believing that they were just fighting defensive battles, Longstreet was opposed to the attacks on July 2 and 3. He wanted to find a defensive position and let the Federals attack them. Frequently lost in the discussion is the fact that Longstreet did not even really want to be on this campaign.

Following Chancellorsville, Confederate Army of Northern Virginia commander Robert E. Lee sought to once again invade the North. He had many reasons, including a dwindling supply of foodstuffs and wanting to pull the enemy army out of Virginia. A Confederate victory on Northern soil might just galvanize the beginning peace party in the North to press for an end to the war. Elsewhere in the Confederacy, the primary Confederate army of the western theater was locked in a siege at Vicksburg, Mississippi. There were some who believed that a portion of the Army of Northern Virginia should be detached and sent to help defeat the Federal forces.

Longstreet was one of those who wanted to ship a portion of the Virginia army west. Writing in the Philadelphia Weekly Times in 1897, Longstreet recalled visiting the Secretary of War James Seddon as he passed through Richmond following his assignment in the Suffolk area. Seddon asked Longstreet his views on the matter of sending part of the ANV west. “I replied that there was a better plan, in my judgement, for relieving Vicksburg than by direct assault upon Grant. I proposed that the army then concentrating at Jackson, Mississippi, be moved swiftly to Tullahoma, where General Bragg was located with a fine army, confronting an army of about equal strength under General Rosecrans, and that at the same time two divisions of my corps be hurried forward to the same point. The simultaneous arrival of these reinforcements would give us a grand army at Tullahoma. With this army General Johnston might speedily crush Rosecrans, and that he should then turn his force towards the north, and with his splendid army march through Tennessee and Kentucky, and threaten the invasion of Ohio.”

When Longstreet met with Lee, “I laid it before him with the freedom justified by our close personal and official relations. . . . We discussed it over and over, and I discovered that his main objection to it was that it would, if adopted, force him to divide his army. He left no room to doubt, however, that he believed the idea of an offensive campaign was not only important, but necessary.”[1]

Longstreet brings up the same argument in 1896 when he pens his autobiography, From Manassas to Appomattox.[2]

Why not reinforce Pemberton in Vicksburg? “Grant seems to be a fighting man, and seems to be determined to fight. Pemberton seems not to be a fighting man. . . the fewer troops he has the better,” Longstreet wrote Wigfall on May 13, 1863.[3]

Historians are mixed on Longstreet’s motivation. Freeman speculates that “It is impossible to say how far his ambition influenced his proposal or to what extent his plan stirred his ambition. Perhaps he dreamed of supplanting Bragg and of winning the decisive victory.”[4] Piston found Longstreet’s proposal “strategically sound,” but questioned his motives. Did Longstreet wish to replace Bragg? Johnston out-ranked Bragg. Maybe Longstreet still preferred serving under Joseph E. Johnston. Piston goes on to agree with Jones and Connelly who wrote that Longstreet was a part of the “western concentration bloc.” This group of men feared that the industries in East Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama were susceptible to Federal attacks and Bragg should be reinforced by portions of Lee’s army. Longstreet actually wrote Texas Senator Louis T. Wigfall about such a proposal in February 1863 concerning this concentration of troops.[5] Wert argues that Longstreet was not a member of that “western concentration bloc.” He bases this assertion on the letter that Longstreet wrote Wigfall on May 13, 1863. Longstreet told the senator that if a forward movement was ordered, “we can spare nothing from this army to re-enforce in the West.” Instead, the Army of Northern Virginia should be reinforced. “If we could cross the Potomac with one hundred & fifty thousand men, I think we could demand Lincoln to declare his purpose. . . . When I agreed with the Secy & yourself about sending troops west I was under the impression that we would be obliged to remain on the defensive here. But the prospect of an advance changes the aspect of affairs to us entirely.”[6]

Would the proposal of a combination of men and commanders in central Tennessee have reaped the benefits that Longstreet proposed? Maybe. The plan of Lee moving north certainly did not work to the best advantage of the Confederates.

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[1] The Annals of War written by Leading Participants North and South, 416-17.

[2] 330-31.

[3] Wert, General James Longstreet, 245.

[4] Freeman, R.E. Lee, 3:20.

[5] Piston, Lee’s Tarnished Lieutenant, 42, 44.

[6] Wert, General James Longstreet, 244-45.

The other first shots of the war.

   Everyone is familiar with the bombardment of Fort Sumter in April 1861.  Confederate forces demanded the return of the property, and Federal forces declined. After word arrived that the Federals were going to reinforce the fort, Confederate forces, on April 12, opened fire. After a thirty-six-hour bombardment, Federal forces surrendered a smoking, partially burned-out fort. This event is widely heralded as the first shot of the war.

   However, what if the war actually started three months earlier, in January 1861?

Fort Barrancas (Florida Memory)

   January 8, 1861 - If Charleston Harbor was ablaze with excitement in March and April 1861, Pensacola Harbor was on fire. There were three forts in Pensacola. All three, Fort Pickens, Fort McRae, and Fort Barrancas, were unoccupied. There was a company of forty-six men at nearby Barrancas. After conferring with Commodore James Armstrong at the nearby naval yard, who promised no help, Lt. Adam Slemmer moved his men into Fort Barrancas, put the guns into working order, established a guard, and on the night of January 8, raised the draw bridge. “About midnight on the eighth a group of men approached the fort and failing to answer when challenged, were fired upon by the guard. The alarm was sounded as the group retreated in the darkness. . . Slemmer doubled the guard and they waited through the night to see if another attempt would be made to take possession of the fort.” The following day Slemmer began to move his small command from Fort Barrancas to Fort Pickens. Florida passed its ordinance of secession the following day.[1]

   January 9, 1861 - Major Robert Anderson’s forces at Fort Sumter were on short on men. When Anderson abandoned Fort Moultrie in Charleston Harbor on the evening of December 26, 1860, and moved to Fort Sumter, he had eighty men under his command. Seeking to reinforce the Fort Sumter garrison, Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott secretly boarded 200 Federal soldiers into the Star of the West. Except, it was not a secret. The Star of the West left New York Harbor on the evening of January 5. Newspapers, both North and South, were starting to carry the news the following day. Waiting for the day to get light enough to enter the harbor and head to the fort, the Star of the West was spotted by a patrol boat that alerted a masked battery on shore. The battery was manned by cadets from the Citadel. They fired several shots, two hitting the vessel. Gunners at Fort Moultrie aimed their pieces as the Star of the West came into sight, firing a few rounds but doing no damage. With no signal from Fort Sumter, and an unknown vessel heading swiftly in their direction, the Star of the West broke off and headed back out to sea and back to New York.[2]  

Marker in Vicksburg (HMdb)

   January 13, 1861 – Named for its owner, the A.O. Tyler started life as a 180-foot-long, three-side-wheeled packet steamboat that plied the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. With the secession of states bordering the Mississippi River, orders went out to gain control of the waterway to “prevent any hostile expedition from the Northern States descending the river.” Part of the Jackson Artillery was ordered to Vicksburg, and permission given to call out local militia companies. One account says that on the night of January 13 (or maybe January 11), the A.O. Tyler, heading south from Cincinnati, was fired upon, stopped, and searched. It was then allowed to continue on. Another account states that a blank charge was used and had not the A.O. Tyler stopped, a live round would have been used next. Later, the A.O. Tyler was purchased by the Federals and used as a river gunboat.[3]  

   These are just three accounts. There are undoubtedly more waiting to be discovered.

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[1] Taylor, Discovering the Civil War in Florida, 27-28; Coleman and Coleman, Guardians of the Gulf, 39.

[2] Detzer, Allegiance, 152-59.

[3] Rowland, Military History of Mississippi, 35-6; The Louisville Daily Courier, January 21, 1861.

Chemical Warfare and the Howlett Line

   In the minds of many, the War of the 1860s was a stand-up fight. Early on, armies met each other on a field of battle, duking it out until one side quit the field. That system of warfare had existed for millennia. Later, the war moved into the trenches. However, it was still a traditional fight.

   On both sides of the conflict, people, usually citizens, often proposed chemical warfare to their respective governments as a means to bring the conflict to a speedy end. There were proposals to pack artillery shells with phosphorus and hydrogen cyanide, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, and hydrogen chloride. Stink bombs (or stinkpots) were frequently proposed as an effective, and non-lethal way of driving soldiers out of their fortifications.

   Probably the only such weapons developed and used successfully during the war were incendiary devices commonly known as “Greek Fire.” “Greek Fire” was nothing new. It was possibly being used by the Byzantine Empire in the mid-7^th century. They sprayed it on enemy vessels, setting them on fire.  “Greek Fire” is often described as “a fluid or solid substance that would ignite spontaneously (or upon being lit), burn on or under water, engage objects in flame, and resist being extinguished by conventional means.” There are of course many stories of “Greek Fire” being used against the civilian populations of Vicksburg, Mississippi and Charleston, South Carolina.[1] 

Fort Brady (Library of Congress) 

   There is at least one account of some form of “Greek Fire” being used against the defenders of Richmond and Petersburg, and even under the personal watch of Federal general U. S. Grant. On November 24, 1864, Grant, with fellow generals George C. Meade and Benjamin F. Butler, gathered at Fort Brady on the James River to observe a demonstration of liquid fire. The concoction was the scheme of Alfred Berney, a New Jersey citizen. Berney had been trying to persuade the Federal government to invest in his schemes. He had approached the Navy about equipping the USS Monitor with chemicals and a pump to spray fire on the CSS Virginia. While no contract for the pump was issued, the Navy agreed to supply some of their ships at Hampton Roads with the concoction. Some of these were used on Confederate positions at Yorktown on April 30, 1862, but the results were mixed. It was some of Berney’s shells that were fired into the city of Charleston later in the war.[2]

   In a test before Grant, Meade, and Butler arrived, writing from Fort Brady, Capt. H. H. Pierce, 1^st Connecticut Artillery, made the following report on November 19, 1864:

   “Birney was here to try a few shots at the house near the rebel battery that fires at Dutch Gap… distance 1,500 yards. Used two common shells to get the range. Struck the chimney the first time, and made a perceptible hole in the roof the second time. Then loaded with one of his shells, which went a trickle over, owing to the greater weight, and struck in the water without bursting. Tried another, which passed in at the front door, struck the chimney on the opposite side, burst, and completely filled the building with burning liquid. Just as the fire began to appear through the roof [we] sent another shell, which burst like the previous one and in an instant almost the whole house was wrapped in flames; the most beautiful site you ever saw…”[3]

   That was just a test. The real demonstration came a few days later. The New York Daily Herald reported that during a demonstration on November 24, “Five frame houses, distance near a mile, were successively fired and burned to the ground.” Also reported was the destruction of a magazine containing shells.[4]

   Did Confederate forces make any mention of the incendiary shells? That is hard to say, given the loss of Confederate records. The New York Daily Tribune article goes on to say that on November 26, Confederate artillery opened fire on the Federal position. The Confederates “poured the shell very lively for near two hours into Fort Brady.” Nothing really coincides with the account in the Official Records, although there is an account of an engagement on the morning of November 29.[5] The Confederate position was along the Howlett Line, and under the command of Maj. Gen. George Picket. Maybe more research can produce a Confederate account of the events.

   If you are interested in learning more about Chemical Weapons and the War, check out Guy R. Hasegawa’s Villainous Compounds: Chemical Weapons & the American Civil War (2015). It appears to be the only book on the subject.

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[1] Hasegawa, Villainous Compounds, 7.

[2] Hasegawa, Villainous Compounds, 17-18.

[3] Official Records, Vol. 42, 3:664-665.

[4] New York Daily Herald, December 1, 1864.

[5] Official Records Vol. 42, 3:1231.

McClung’s Tennessee Battery

 Many times, people ask where I get ideas. And to be honest, many of my ideas are connected. That first book on the 37^th North Carolina led to my books on the battle of Hanover Court House, Watauga County and the Civil War, Charlotte and the Civil War, the book on the Branch-Lane brigade, Feeding the Army of Northern Virginia, and in an indirect way, my history of the 58^th North Carolina Troops.

 But at other times, I come across little tidbits that make me just wonder what people or regiments or events get left out of the historical narrative. A few days ago, I acquired the two-volume Broadfoot reprint of Lindsley’s Military Annals of Tennessee. These two volumes provide brief glimpses of Confederate regiments from Tennessee. When finally tracking down McClung’s Battery, listed as Company A, First Tennessee Light Artillery, we simply get that Company A was under Capt. H. L. W. McClung. (870) A few pages over is a list of officers (877). But unlike other infantry and cavalry regiments and artillery batteries, there is no history of McClung’s command.

Crute, in his Units of the Confederate States Army, goes into a little more detail. The battery was organized in the fall of 1861 in Knoxville, Tennessee. It was involved in the battles of Fishing Creek and Shiloh, and then in the summer of 1862, was stationed at Vicksburg, then Port Hudson, then East Tennessee. In April 1864, it was sent with no guns to Saltville, Virginia (I’m not sure why they didn’t have guns). In August 1864, it was re-armed, only to lose its guns at the battle of Morristown, Tennessee, on October 28, 1864. The seventeen men who were left were transferred to Captain Lynch’s Battery and disbanded in April 1865. (317)

McClung's Battery, Shiloh (NPS)

The rangers at Shiloh NMP wrote a facebook post about the battery, and on another site on Barr’s Battery, the editors wrote a piece on McClung’s Battery. This is the most extensive piece written so far, about four pages. The battery was known as the Caswell Artillery. In December 1861, they were reported to have two-six pounders and two 12-pounder cannons. They were not really involved in the battle of Mill Springs, Kentucky, in January 1862, but were forced to abandon their cannon on the retreat. By the time of the battle of Shiloh, they were re-armed, and two pieces were in action on April 7^th. In May, the battery was attached to Statham’s brigade, Breckinridge’s corps. The battery was soon in Vicksburg, and in August, was ordered to Port Hudson. By this time, they apparently had rifled cannons. A month later, the command was in Holly Springs, Mississippi. 

By December 1862, the battery was in East Tennessee – David’s brigade, Heth’s Division. For the rest of the war, they bounced around between various posts – Loudon, Carter’s Depot, Zollicoffer. They were engaged at the battle of Carter’s Depot in September 1863, where they lost the carriages to their guns. In November, they were reported as having no cannons. They were sent to Saltville, Virginia, shortly thereafter. It does not appear that they were re-armed until August 1864, when it was reported they had four pieces of artillery. In an engagement at Morristown, Tennessee, in October 1864, most of the battery was captured. The seventeen who escaped were assigned to Lynch’s Battery. The battery was disbanded in April 1865 at Christiansburg, Virginia.

Several months ago, I was exploring Captain Hugh McClung’s service record. He was court martialed in 1863. Many courts martial records were lost at the end of the war, but parts of McClung’s survive. There were six charges against him – violating the 14^th, 36^th, 39^th (twice), 45^th articles of war, and  “Conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline.” Many of these charges concerned falsifying muster rolls, “misapplying an artillery horse,” drunkenness while on duty, and permitting his men to break into a train car. McClung pled not guilty. The court found him not guilt on most of the charges, but he was guilty of trading artillery horses at Corinth in May 1862;  “Habitually failing to restrain his men from trespassing and depredating private property”; and, “Habitually drawing and appropriating to his own use, rations belonging to his men…” The court found him guilty. His punishment was to “forfeit all pay due him from the Confederate States, and that he be dismissed from the service.” However, when Major General Simon B. Buckner reviewed the case, he disagreed, finding that the charges were “utterly unfounded… the offences of the accused were rather those of omission than commission.” Buckner recommended mercy. The general added that during the attack on Knoxville, McClung, there under arrest, “offered to serve in any capacity.” Buckner believed that “Such conduct was worthy of a good soldier, and merits leniency.” Buckner remitted the findings of the court and ordered McClung to report to his battery. McClung would go on to be captured at the battle of Morristown and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner at Johnson’s Island.

Can I say that this will be my next regimental history? No, I can’t. But I find the story intriguing and the credible information in the greater realms of Confederate histography lacking. Now you know how projects come to me.