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Chapter 83 Leading the Charge
Chapter 83 Leading the Charge
"Even if the Union manages to quell the Confederacy, the underlying issue of slavery shall still remain. No victory shall ever be complete if this immoral institution is to continue another day."- Fredrick Douglas 1862
"The newspapers tell of the glory of war, if only they could see the carnage that lies within it."- Clara Barton 1862
"When our state was born, it was created by the plantations for the plantations. The Dixies didn't give a damn about our humanity and treated us like cattle and property, only existing to serve their every desire. Well I tell you that the days of servitude are over. We are in control of our own destiny. The Bahamas shall be what it was meant to be, a state created by the people, for the people."- Inauguration speech of Governor Atticus Harris 1869
Kentucky: Having fully tested and proven Polk's ineptitude at martial command the previous year, Lieutenant General Grant was ready to begin the full liberation of Kentucky. Unlike his counterparts, Grant chose to continue operations well into winter in order to not lose an edge in the fight and continue to force fatigue onto Polk's army so that their morale would be much lower than the Union forces in a full battle. With Union scouting companies having conducted a full check on Polk's movements and locations, Grant began his campaign in full on February 23rd with a three-pronged assault on Polk's forces. The main bases for the Union contingent were located at Lexington, Princeton, and London Kentucky; where a North, West, and East corps respectively wound put pressure on Polk's forces. Thanks to the competence of Grant's subordinates such as Major General George Meade, the Union army was able to force Polk back on all fronts with thousands of Kentucky citizens showing their support of the Union by launching revolts to tire the Confederates so that they would retreat with the arrival of the Union army. The main turning point in the campaign was in early April where thanks to operations in North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee, supplies towards Kentucky kept on getting diverted with only a minimal amount reaching Polk's forces in the theater and reinforcements dropping with each week. The change in priorities for Montgomery allowed Grant to pick up the pace and pursue Polk with endless vigor and little rest, something not possible if it weren't for the high morale of those under Grant's command. The penultimate climax of the Kentucky theater was the Battle of Bowling Green from May 5th-15th where The Army of the Ohio was able to group up and surround Polk within the city thanks to Union cavalry controlling the roads and the army of engineers putting up roadblocks and railblocks to prevent an escape. Grant ordered two full charges into the city on May 13th which while not resulting in the capture of Bowling Green, decimated a good portion of Polk's men with the intention to wear them out so that a siege could be prevented. On May 15th, Lieutenant General Leonidas Polk realized that all hope was lost and personally marched out onto the field with a flag of surrender for his forces. With Polk singing an unconditional surrender to Grant, the Battle of Bowling Green was finished with the Army of Kentucky having suffered over 14,000 casualties with the rest of the forces captured while Grant's Army of the Ohio suffered a near 13,000 casualties. With Kentucky being liberated, Grant was free to march down south to aid Sherman at Summer, where Grant would become known as the Conqueror of Nashville.
Battle of Bowling Green
Kansas: The first four months of the year within Kansas provided no action as heavy snowstorms bogged down all movement for both sides of the fighting. With the exception of partisan fighting both camps had chosen to set up winter quarters with the "Siege of Topeka" having been abandoned again for another time. With the front being stalled due to the weather, hundreds of Confederate bushwackers traveled east to join Missouri partisans, or go down south to reinforce Confederate positions in Arkansas. For the population of Kansas it seemed that the stalemate would continue, then everything changed. On April 20th Union reinforcements would enter into the territory for the first time in the war as Lieutenant General Stephen Kearney was finally able to reach the Kansas plains with a total of 35,000 reinforcements from both Oregon and the uppermidwest states of Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin. The presence of the Union troops (which included 7,000 cavalry) would turn the tide of the theater as swashbucker gangs were mowed down entirely in the path of the Yankee onslaught with few daring to attack the regiments beyond some minor hit-and-runs and skirmishes. On May 18th the Siege of Topeka finally ended as Union cavalry under Colonel Jared Wilson took the Confederate camp by surprise, capturing over 300 prisoners and inflicting 38 casualties with 17 in return. With the Confederate presence gone, Topeka was now secure for the rest of the war with the town made the headquarters of the Union Western department and the new official capitol of the Kansas territory. After arriving in the town Kearney would stop to take stock of his supplies and rest his troops for the beginning of the summer campaign. For Governor Quantrill it was a nightmare come true with only Confederate Sequoyah down to the South to provide for a supply route. During the time of the Union advance Quantrill's call for aid had only been met with a single Arkansas regiment along with a Cherokee brigade from Seqouyah. To beat the Yankees back at this point would be nothing short of a miracle.
Arkansas: In late march with the Northern Mississippi drying up to provide for a stable supply line, General Rosecrans began his campaign into the Arkansas countryside. With his troops having remained stationary for the previous year, Rosecrans' army was more than ready to fight with now 60,000 troops who were well rested and having obtained a continuous amount of supplies from the east. Meanwhile the Arkansas militia numbered only 30,000 with most of the troops being old veterans or recruits due to the state's soldier population having already headed east. What made the situation worse for the defenders was the lack of supplies for some units due to again a shift of priorities to the east of the Mississippi while some state's refused to equip regiments outside of their borders, something that was allowed thanks to the decentralized nature of the Confederacy with its emphasis on slave's rights. Another natural advantage for the Union was the presence of 30 ironclad river monitors that were constructed during the winter while Arkansas had only 7 ironclad riverboats with 15 other types of ships, the state's lack of warships being due to the lack of fighting since the War of 1812.
From April-June the First Rosecrans expedition was a huge success with the Union forces finding victories on nearly all fronts, particularly with the Battles of Jonesboro, Fayetteville, and Fort Smith which had resulted in massive Union victories. The main Confederate victory during this campaign was the Battle of Jacksonville where a majority of the state militia along with reinforcements from the nearby gulf states of Alabama and Mississippi, banded together under the leadership of P.G.T Beauregard to block Rosecran's entrance into an invasion of Little Rock, the state government having already fled to Hot Springs Arkansas. The Battle of Jackson took place on May 16th-17th and was a Pyrrhic victory for the Confederacy thanks to the savage fighting of the Arkansas companies and the tactical decisions by Beauregard to focus a full charge into the exposed left flank of the Union forces with a half hour bombardment which was then followed by a Confederate infantry charge with the cavalry bringing up the rear. However it was not without its costs as with the 25,000 troops who went into battle, 15,000 suffered casualties or were taken prisoner while Rosecrans' 33,000 force only suffered 13,000 in comparison. At the same time with the land warfare, the Union monitors had managed to take control of the upper Mississippi with each mile being taken by force and over 2/3rds of engagements with Confederate river forces ending in victories, allowing a greater supply chain and tightening the noose on the south. By the beginning of summer Rosecrans' was on the Arkansas river and would be able to launch an invasion of Seqouyah or take Little Rock. However to the surprise of Beauregard, Rosecrans' ordered a full halt and began to draw lines within the north. The main reason being due to a direct order by President Lincoln which ordered the Army of the Mississippi to wait for a breakthrough in Tennessee, upon which the Vicksburg campaign would begin.
Louisiana: Since the beginning of the war Louisiana had been spared from the horrors of the fighting as the state was surrounded by fellow Confederate compatriots with Texas on its border to the West. However this did not mean that the Bayou state did not suffer completely as the Anaconda blockade provided numerous disastrous effects for what was once the pride of the south and the center of trade in the gulf. Only informal trade with Texas and the usage of Galveston as a middleman for many Louisiana businesses prevented a total economic collapse, President Juan Seguin having been unable to take any action on the matter as his attention was focused entirely on Mexico. With Arkansas holding up for the most part and the heaviest fighting near the Appalachians, it appeared that the war might never come for Louisiana. However the beginning of the Mississippi river campaign to cut the Confederacy in half changed all that with the Union Navy and Marines planning to take the initiative and take full control of the river before the end of the year. The city of New Orleans was known as the jewel of the Gulf for several decades with its economic prowress only being topped by New York and Boston on the East coast. Nearly everything that came through the Deep South ended up in New Orleans with several trade routes to Latin America. Besides the obvious strategic importance in the war, the capture of New Orleans was necessary for economic purposes so that the United States could once more resume its trade with their South American and Caribbean clients. Plans were drawn up for its capture and in early April an expedition was launched from the Potomac shipyards with an invasion force of 30 ships and 10 transports with ten regiments of marines and soldiers to follow. However this invasion force was unlike any other for the Union had an ace up their sleeve that they would unveil in New Orleans, for during the winter of 1861 five of the Union Navy's first ironclad ships would be produced with five of the monitor-class ironclads making their presence with the USS Monitor, USS Virginia, USS Avenger, USS John Paul Jones, and USS Seahawk. The following New Orleans campaign from May 1st-8th would revolutionize naval warfare as the Monitors provided the vanguard for the Union fleet and utterly decimated Forts Jackson and Phillip with the River Defense fleet having 9 of their 14 ships sunken by the ironclads alone. Thanks to the ironclads the Union fleet under Vice Admiral David Farragut were able to launch a rapid blitzkrieg with New Orleans itself being captured without a single shot thanks to the presence of 30 naval ships and the rapid deployment of Marines to the city. With New Orleans captured the already lumbering Confederate economy became crippled as a majority of their limited trade was now gone and predictions soon came with fear of the Mississippi being lost before the end of the year. With the city captured Colonel George McClellan was appointed as its occupier while Vice Admiral Farragut got to work on coordinating with Generals Grant and Hooker to entirely cut the Confederacy in half. Meanwhile in Washington representatives of the Naval department met in numerous meeting with Lincoln to try and move a case of conducting numerous future amphibious assaults on the Confederacy to launch numerous invasions into the South through the Atlantic and Gulf.
Capture of New Orleans (Left) The USS Monitor and USS Virginia working together to destroy the Confederate river fleet
Bahamas: Since the start of the war the Bahamas had been under a virtual state of siege with the Anaconda blockade around the archipelago. While some areas of the Confederacy, most notably Florida, were able to bypass the blockade with little effort and make sure what precious foreign supplies there were reached the south, the Bahamas was not so as the chain of islands were on their own with Union ships surrounding every major island and very few, if any, Confederate ships leaving port. In hindsight the secession of the Bahamas was a huge strategic error on the part of the Dixie islanders as Virginia was New Orleans and Charleston were the only Southern ports that could provide for a decent Navy, though had nowhere near the capacity to match the production of the northern shipyard's such as New York and Boston while a large majority of the American Navy had remained loyal to the Union. The Bahamas themselves were vastly underdeveloped in comparison to even newer states such as Wisconsin, while what little of an economy they had was decimated by the blockade. Most of the archipelago was not suitable for farming and what little arable land they had was dedicated to plantations with sugar being the biggest cash crop. Southerners were in constant fear of a Haitian style revolt as the Slaves outnumbered them 4 to 1 and with a good number of the manpower already being sent to the mainland, the white civilians would be overwhelmed by any sort of revolt. In order to compensate citizen militias were formed and any form of dissent was met with brutality as 1,136 slaves died in 1861 alone for the crime of disorder and dissent. It was not a matter of if the Union would invade, but when to the locals. That was precisely the situation that would come in April of 1862.
Up until the spring of 1862, no attempts had been actively made for an invasion of the Bahamas and relatively few plans had been drawn up. The concept of amphibious warfare was a new one for the United States and the few times they had done it in the past were at Tripoli, the liberation of Quebec, and the previous conquest of the Bahamas. The first two situations were attacks on coastal cities and not a chain of islands, while the last one was hardly a full invasion as the island were barely populated by the British save a small garrison of a few hundred troops. Besides the inexperience that the American military had in this type of endevour, the Union simply had to direct far more resources to the stabilization of the lines in important theaters such as North Carolina and Kentucky while regiments were being drawn all around the country to put down any form of dissent that could possibly lead to secession. There just simply wasn't any open opportunities for an invasion, until the second year of the war that is. With the fronts more or less secure at the end of winter and the Union blockade having been set in place, Abraham Lincoln gave the green light for the invasion of the Bahamas. While a victory there would not have much strategic value, it would be an immense psychological victory as the Union would be able to conquer a Confederate state which had fully seceded unlike both Virginia and Kentucky whose governments were loyal to the Union and had only splinter territories full of southern sympathizers. On February 18th, 1862, Lincoln ordered the full mobilization of the United States Marine Corps with Colonel John Harris commanding two whole regiments of Marines who had been on reserve up til this point. Up until now the Marines had a reputation as solely sailor soldiers with their duties onboard ships and were viewed as a waste of resources by the Army. With the Anaconda blockade being enacted and the entirety of the major offensives being on land, the Marines had little to do but train til this point. Soon they would get their time to shine as John Harris left with his two marine regiments along with 3 regiments of Massachusetts troops to make their way towards the Bahamas and reclaim its star for the Union.
In order to hide the upcoming invasion, newly-promoted Vice Admiral Farragut ordered a flotilla of Union ships to escort six transports to Charleston on March 25th where an invasion would appear to take place. In reality the transports were manned by a skeleton crew and the ships only meant to distract the Confederates by making them believe the true target of the Union intentions. The Union "invasion" force was intercepted on the 25th 35 miles off the coast of Charleston where Confederate frigates were able to sink two of the skeleton transports along with heavily damaging a Union frigate. The battle appeared in Southern newspapers a victory to show that the mighty Union Navy could be beaten back in the same manner that the Italians had stopped the Ottoman horde. All the while they were unaware of what was truly to come. On April 12th portmasters at the Bahamian capitol of Nassau spotted the Union invasion force moving in to take the city. Taskforce Sloat (named after the Commodore who had conquered the island for the United States in the Oregon War) was made up of 5 ships of the line, 12 frigates, and 16 schooners along with 3 transports for the two marine regiments and the single Army one. With little time to prepare the state's main port was bombarded by a rapid succession of canon fire with six of the ten Bahamian ships being destroyed in port while three were sunk at sea with only one escaping. The Union Navy in return suffered four ships with varying amounts of damage, but no sunken vessels. Rowboats were then laid out with Marines landing in a force of 2,000 in the first wave, storming the beachfront and rushing to take the capitol. The subsequent land portion of the Battle of Nassau would be a mixed one as while the city was heavily fortified in a scene reminiscent of the French Revolution, most of the defenders were old men and young boys, with the able bodied men having died on the docks or gone to the mainland. After a supply of logistics were set up and both cavalry and artillery forces arriving on the scene, the Marines were able to smash through the defenses at ease and inflict heavy casualties on the opposition. The tide of the battle turned in total victory for the Union when a gunsmith slave named Atticus upon seeing the presence of the blue Yankees, killed his master and stole the arms to give them to his fellow slaves, starting the first successful slave revolt in American history. The man who would later be known in Civil Rights as Atticus Harris (his surname taken in honor of John Harris and the Marines) was a well-known figure among the slave community for leading slave crews on the docks and being a source of heavy labor for the activity that would take place there, committing numerous feats of strength that would in part inspire the legend of John Henry. While whites regarded Atticus as a diligent hard worker, in his private life the man hated the white community of Nassau with a passion thanks to the constant abuse he suffered by his master and his forced separation from his wife and child in an auction in 1856. Having heard numerous times of Lincoln's crusade for the end of slavery and seeing the Marines as his only chance for freedom, Atticus spontaneously formed his own army and thanks to his connection among the dock slaves, had a private army of over 1,000 slaves that were ready to commit revenge for the atrocities that they had suffered all their lives. Around 4:15 P.M Marines were surprised to find black slaves attacking Confederate defensive positions around the city with hundreds of slaves joining to fight alongisde the Union forces after their masters were either killed in battle or their homes having contact by Marines, with the slaves then promptly leaving. By the time Marines were able to reach the capitol at dusk, they were surprised to find that the building had been captured by the rebel slaves, with Atticus himself walking down the steps of the capitol with Governor David Prescott, the man having been thoroughly beaten and his clothes soaked in his own piss. The aftermath of the Battle of Nassau was a total Union victory with the capitol and the state's only city having been captured in a single day with only 318 marines and soldiers killed along with 284 wounded. In contrast the Confederate casualties were severe with 11,456 whites killed and over 2,000 wounded. The high amount of Bahamian civilians and soldiers dead has been attributed by historians to not be due to the actions of the Marines, but rather due to the Nassau Uprising with the slaves having taken out their anger on their masters. While not totally bloody on paper, the effects of the battle were enormous in terms of the Bahama's population as Nassau held half of the state's white population with 30,000 residents and the citizens killed effectively reduced the white population by 1/5th. By the end of the civil war only 23,952 Bahamian whites would still be alive and present in the island's. The group in turn being heavily outnumbered ten to one by the black population with the freed slave population reporting to 245,475 by the 1865 Census.
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Union Marines storming Nassau (Left) The Nassau uprising (Right)
Over the course of the next month a island hopping campaign would continue with the Marines copying their landings and liberating the archipelago one by one. All in all the Marines only suffered another 400 casualties while the white population further diminished with over 9,000 deaths, the combination of the two in large part thanks to the efforts of the rebel slaves who now styled themselves under Atticus' command as the Bahamian People's Army (BPA) who worked together with the Marines in securing the island and promoting the uprising of the slave population against the white establishment. On May 10th the Bahama's were declared to be pacified in totality with John Harris sending a telegram to Abraham Lincoln that the state of the Bahamas was part of the Union once more. While a momentous occasion for the Civil War, it was one that was met with mixed reactions by the North and sheer horror by the South for what had been done, the pandora's box of slavery was opened. Up until that point while slavery was a large factor in the formation of the civil war, most generally agreed that the main issue at fault was state's rights, the North pushing the issue to the side while a majority of the Dixie population preferring to fight for the cause of their freedom rather than the ownership of blacks. Now not only had a Confederate state been taken, but it's slave population rose up and overthrew their white masters in entirety, the worst possible nightmare for the south come true since the Haitian revolution. Technically the Bahamas were still a slave state as there never was an executive order by President Lincoln or a law passed by congress which banned slavery in the state. This was not a fact that the Union soldiers wanted to enforce on the Bahamas as the self-liberated blacks would not go back to bondage without a bloody and brutal fight. So severe was the hostility against the prospect of a return to slavery, that John Harris had to name Atticus as provisional governor and proclaim that the slaves of the Bahamas were free from slavery, else he would face a riot in Nassau. All across the Confederacy a frenzy erupted as numerous slave revolts commenced with the inspiration of the Nassau uprising while thousands of slaves escaped towards Union lines. Thousands of Confederate troops had to be directed southward to quell the uprisings while mass hysteria overtook the slave-owning population with multiple hate crimes directed towards their slaves. The Confederate congress within Montgomery was in a panic over the situation with Toombs vowing that the institution of slavery would be protected at any costs. While the North was more or less stable, a new round of discussion over the topic of slavery commenced with mass disorder in several cities such as New York and Philadelphia over the prospect of abolition with some dozens of hate crimes towards blacks occurring across the country. The loyalist slave states began to fear for their prospects of retaining slavery and the prospect of a future revolt, with multiple congressmen from states such as Virginia, Missouri, and Kentucky demanding that John Harris be court-martialed for his actions and martial law be implemented over the Bahamas. Thankfully Abraham Lincoln did no such thing and allowed the situation in the Bahamas to commence while redirecting focus on other theaters of the war such as the situation in Kentucky. However privately the President knew he had to solve the situation soon as abolitionists such as Fredrick Douglas rose in their complaints of inaction on the slavery issue while the border state's congressmen were demanding an amendment to fix what Douglas had failed at. The time to act was now, or else the Civil War would be lost not on the battlefield, but at the homefront.
Post Civil War picture of Atticus Harris prior to his inauguration as the first black Governor in the United States. Today Harris is well revered among the American Black community for his leadership in the Nassau Uprising and role in reconstruction. Bahamians in particular are fond of Atticus as the "Father of the Bahamas".
"Even if the Union manages to quell the Confederacy, the underlying issue of slavery shall still remain. No victory shall ever be complete if this immoral institution is to continue another day."- Fredrick Douglas 1862
"The newspapers tell of the glory of war, if only they could see the carnage that lies within it."- Clara Barton 1862
"When our state was born, it was created by the plantations for the plantations. The Dixies didn't give a damn about our humanity and treated us like cattle and property, only existing to serve their every desire. Well I tell you that the days of servitude are over. We are in control of our own destiny. The Bahamas shall be what it was meant to be, a state created by the people, for the people."- Inauguration speech of Governor Atticus Harris 1869
Kentucky: Having fully tested and proven Polk's ineptitude at martial command the previous year, Lieutenant General Grant was ready to begin the full liberation of Kentucky. Unlike his counterparts, Grant chose to continue operations well into winter in order to not lose an edge in the fight and continue to force fatigue onto Polk's army so that their morale would be much lower than the Union forces in a full battle. With Union scouting companies having conducted a full check on Polk's movements and locations, Grant began his campaign in full on February 23rd with a three-pronged assault on Polk's forces. The main bases for the Union contingent were located at Lexington, Princeton, and London Kentucky; where a North, West, and East corps respectively wound put pressure on Polk's forces. Thanks to the competence of Grant's subordinates such as Major General George Meade, the Union army was able to force Polk back on all fronts with thousands of Kentucky citizens showing their support of the Union by launching revolts to tire the Confederates so that they would retreat with the arrival of the Union army. The main turning point in the campaign was in early April where thanks to operations in North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee, supplies towards Kentucky kept on getting diverted with only a minimal amount reaching Polk's forces in the theater and reinforcements dropping with each week. The change in priorities for Montgomery allowed Grant to pick up the pace and pursue Polk with endless vigor and little rest, something not possible if it weren't for the high morale of those under Grant's command. The penultimate climax of the Kentucky theater was the Battle of Bowling Green from May 5th-15th where The Army of the Ohio was able to group up and surround Polk within the city thanks to Union cavalry controlling the roads and the army of engineers putting up roadblocks and railblocks to prevent an escape. Grant ordered two full charges into the city on May 13th which while not resulting in the capture of Bowling Green, decimated a good portion of Polk's men with the intention to wear them out so that a siege could be prevented. On May 15th, Lieutenant General Leonidas Polk realized that all hope was lost and personally marched out onto the field with a flag of surrender for his forces. With Polk singing an unconditional surrender to Grant, the Battle of Bowling Green was finished with the Army of Kentucky having suffered over 14,000 casualties with the rest of the forces captured while Grant's Army of the Ohio suffered a near 13,000 casualties. With Kentucky being liberated, Grant was free to march down south to aid Sherman at Summer, where Grant would become known as the Conqueror of Nashville.
Battle of Bowling Green
Kansas: The first four months of the year within Kansas provided no action as heavy snowstorms bogged down all movement for both sides of the fighting. With the exception of partisan fighting both camps had chosen to set up winter quarters with the "Siege of Topeka" having been abandoned again for another time. With the front being stalled due to the weather, hundreds of Confederate bushwackers traveled east to join Missouri partisans, or go down south to reinforce Confederate positions in Arkansas. For the population of Kansas it seemed that the stalemate would continue, then everything changed. On April 20th Union reinforcements would enter into the territory for the first time in the war as Lieutenant General Stephen Kearney was finally able to reach the Kansas plains with a total of 35,000 reinforcements from both Oregon and the uppermidwest states of Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin. The presence of the Union troops (which included 7,000 cavalry) would turn the tide of the theater as swashbucker gangs were mowed down entirely in the path of the Yankee onslaught with few daring to attack the regiments beyond some minor hit-and-runs and skirmishes. On May 18th the Siege of Topeka finally ended as Union cavalry under Colonel Jared Wilson took the Confederate camp by surprise, capturing over 300 prisoners and inflicting 38 casualties with 17 in return. With the Confederate presence gone, Topeka was now secure for the rest of the war with the town made the headquarters of the Union Western department and the new official capitol of the Kansas territory. After arriving in the town Kearney would stop to take stock of his supplies and rest his troops for the beginning of the summer campaign. For Governor Quantrill it was a nightmare come true with only Confederate Sequoyah down to the South to provide for a supply route. During the time of the Union advance Quantrill's call for aid had only been met with a single Arkansas regiment along with a Cherokee brigade from Seqouyah. To beat the Yankees back at this point would be nothing short of a miracle.
Arkansas: In late march with the Northern Mississippi drying up to provide for a stable supply line, General Rosecrans began his campaign into the Arkansas countryside. With his troops having remained stationary for the previous year, Rosecrans' army was more than ready to fight with now 60,000 troops who were well rested and having obtained a continuous amount of supplies from the east. Meanwhile the Arkansas militia numbered only 30,000 with most of the troops being old veterans or recruits due to the state's soldier population having already headed east. What made the situation worse for the defenders was the lack of supplies for some units due to again a shift of priorities to the east of the Mississippi while some state's refused to equip regiments outside of their borders, something that was allowed thanks to the decentralized nature of the Confederacy with its emphasis on slave's rights. Another natural advantage for the Union was the presence of 30 ironclad river monitors that were constructed during the winter while Arkansas had only 7 ironclad riverboats with 15 other types of ships, the state's lack of warships being due to the lack of fighting since the War of 1812.
From April-June the First Rosecrans expedition was a huge success with the Union forces finding victories on nearly all fronts, particularly with the Battles of Jonesboro, Fayetteville, and Fort Smith which had resulted in massive Union victories. The main Confederate victory during this campaign was the Battle of Jacksonville where a majority of the state militia along with reinforcements from the nearby gulf states of Alabama and Mississippi, banded together under the leadership of P.G.T Beauregard to block Rosecran's entrance into an invasion of Little Rock, the state government having already fled to Hot Springs Arkansas. The Battle of Jackson took place on May 16th-17th and was a Pyrrhic victory for the Confederacy thanks to the savage fighting of the Arkansas companies and the tactical decisions by Beauregard to focus a full charge into the exposed left flank of the Union forces with a half hour bombardment which was then followed by a Confederate infantry charge with the cavalry bringing up the rear. However it was not without its costs as with the 25,000 troops who went into battle, 15,000 suffered casualties or were taken prisoner while Rosecrans' 33,000 force only suffered 13,000 in comparison. At the same time with the land warfare, the Union monitors had managed to take control of the upper Mississippi with each mile being taken by force and over 2/3rds of engagements with Confederate river forces ending in victories, allowing a greater supply chain and tightening the noose on the south. By the beginning of summer Rosecrans' was on the Arkansas river and would be able to launch an invasion of Seqouyah or take Little Rock. However to the surprise of Beauregard, Rosecrans' ordered a full halt and began to draw lines within the north. The main reason being due to a direct order by President Lincoln which ordered the Army of the Mississippi to wait for a breakthrough in Tennessee, upon which the Vicksburg campaign would begin.
Louisiana: Since the beginning of the war Louisiana had been spared from the horrors of the fighting as the state was surrounded by fellow Confederate compatriots with Texas on its border to the West. However this did not mean that the Bayou state did not suffer completely as the Anaconda blockade provided numerous disastrous effects for what was once the pride of the south and the center of trade in the gulf. Only informal trade with Texas and the usage of Galveston as a middleman for many Louisiana businesses prevented a total economic collapse, President Juan Seguin having been unable to take any action on the matter as his attention was focused entirely on Mexico. With Arkansas holding up for the most part and the heaviest fighting near the Appalachians, it appeared that the war might never come for Louisiana. However the beginning of the Mississippi river campaign to cut the Confederacy in half changed all that with the Union Navy and Marines planning to take the initiative and take full control of the river before the end of the year. The city of New Orleans was known as the jewel of the Gulf for several decades with its economic prowress only being topped by New York and Boston on the East coast. Nearly everything that came through the Deep South ended up in New Orleans with several trade routes to Latin America. Besides the obvious strategic importance in the war, the capture of New Orleans was necessary for economic purposes so that the United States could once more resume its trade with their South American and Caribbean clients. Plans were drawn up for its capture and in early April an expedition was launched from the Potomac shipyards with an invasion force of 30 ships and 10 transports with ten regiments of marines and soldiers to follow. However this invasion force was unlike any other for the Union had an ace up their sleeve that they would unveil in New Orleans, for during the winter of 1861 five of the Union Navy's first ironclad ships would be produced with five of the monitor-class ironclads making their presence with the USS Monitor, USS Virginia, USS Avenger, USS John Paul Jones, and USS Seahawk. The following New Orleans campaign from May 1st-8th would revolutionize naval warfare as the Monitors provided the vanguard for the Union fleet and utterly decimated Forts Jackson and Phillip with the River Defense fleet having 9 of their 14 ships sunken by the ironclads alone. Thanks to the ironclads the Union fleet under Vice Admiral David Farragut were able to launch a rapid blitzkrieg with New Orleans itself being captured without a single shot thanks to the presence of 30 naval ships and the rapid deployment of Marines to the city. With New Orleans captured the already lumbering Confederate economy became crippled as a majority of their limited trade was now gone and predictions soon came with fear of the Mississippi being lost before the end of the year. With the city captured Colonel George McClellan was appointed as its occupier while Vice Admiral Farragut got to work on coordinating with Generals Grant and Hooker to entirely cut the Confederacy in half. Meanwhile in Washington representatives of the Naval department met in numerous meeting with Lincoln to try and move a case of conducting numerous future amphibious assaults on the Confederacy to launch numerous invasions into the South through the Atlantic and Gulf.
Capture of New Orleans (Left) The USS Monitor and USS Virginia working together to destroy the Confederate river fleet
Bahamas: Since the start of the war the Bahamas had been under a virtual state of siege with the Anaconda blockade around the archipelago. While some areas of the Confederacy, most notably Florida, were able to bypass the blockade with little effort and make sure what precious foreign supplies there were reached the south, the Bahamas was not so as the chain of islands were on their own with Union ships surrounding every major island and very few, if any, Confederate ships leaving port. In hindsight the secession of the Bahamas was a huge strategic error on the part of the Dixie islanders as Virginia was New Orleans and Charleston were the only Southern ports that could provide for a decent Navy, though had nowhere near the capacity to match the production of the northern shipyard's such as New York and Boston while a large majority of the American Navy had remained loyal to the Union. The Bahamas themselves were vastly underdeveloped in comparison to even newer states such as Wisconsin, while what little of an economy they had was decimated by the blockade. Most of the archipelago was not suitable for farming and what little arable land they had was dedicated to plantations with sugar being the biggest cash crop. Southerners were in constant fear of a Haitian style revolt as the Slaves outnumbered them 4 to 1 and with a good number of the manpower already being sent to the mainland, the white civilians would be overwhelmed by any sort of revolt. In order to compensate citizen militias were formed and any form of dissent was met with brutality as 1,136 slaves died in 1861 alone for the crime of disorder and dissent. It was not a matter of if the Union would invade, but when to the locals. That was precisely the situation that would come in April of 1862.
Up until the spring of 1862, no attempts had been actively made for an invasion of the Bahamas and relatively few plans had been drawn up. The concept of amphibious warfare was a new one for the United States and the few times they had done it in the past were at Tripoli, the liberation of Quebec, and the previous conquest of the Bahamas. The first two situations were attacks on coastal cities and not a chain of islands, while the last one was hardly a full invasion as the island were barely populated by the British save a small garrison of a few hundred troops. Besides the inexperience that the American military had in this type of endevour, the Union simply had to direct far more resources to the stabilization of the lines in important theaters such as North Carolina and Kentucky while regiments were being drawn all around the country to put down any form of dissent that could possibly lead to secession. There just simply wasn't any open opportunities for an invasion, until the second year of the war that is. With the fronts more or less secure at the end of winter and the Union blockade having been set in place, Abraham Lincoln gave the green light for the invasion of the Bahamas. While a victory there would not have much strategic value, it would be an immense psychological victory as the Union would be able to conquer a Confederate state which had fully seceded unlike both Virginia and Kentucky whose governments were loyal to the Union and had only splinter territories full of southern sympathizers. On February 18th, 1862, Lincoln ordered the full mobilization of the United States Marine Corps with Colonel John Harris commanding two whole regiments of Marines who had been on reserve up til this point. Up until now the Marines had a reputation as solely sailor soldiers with their duties onboard ships and were viewed as a waste of resources by the Army. With the Anaconda blockade being enacted and the entirety of the major offensives being on land, the Marines had little to do but train til this point. Soon they would get their time to shine as John Harris left with his two marine regiments along with 3 regiments of Massachusetts troops to make their way towards the Bahamas and reclaim its star for the Union.
In order to hide the upcoming invasion, newly-promoted Vice Admiral Farragut ordered a flotilla of Union ships to escort six transports to Charleston on March 25th where an invasion would appear to take place. In reality the transports were manned by a skeleton crew and the ships only meant to distract the Confederates by making them believe the true target of the Union intentions. The Union "invasion" force was intercepted on the 25th 35 miles off the coast of Charleston where Confederate frigates were able to sink two of the skeleton transports along with heavily damaging a Union frigate. The battle appeared in Southern newspapers a victory to show that the mighty Union Navy could be beaten back in the same manner that the Italians had stopped the Ottoman horde. All the while they were unaware of what was truly to come. On April 12th portmasters at the Bahamian capitol of Nassau spotted the Union invasion force moving in to take the city. Taskforce Sloat (named after the Commodore who had conquered the island for the United States in the Oregon War) was made up of 5 ships of the line, 12 frigates, and 16 schooners along with 3 transports for the two marine regiments and the single Army one. With little time to prepare the state's main port was bombarded by a rapid succession of canon fire with six of the ten Bahamian ships being destroyed in port while three were sunk at sea with only one escaping. The Union Navy in return suffered four ships with varying amounts of damage, but no sunken vessels. Rowboats were then laid out with Marines landing in a force of 2,000 in the first wave, storming the beachfront and rushing to take the capitol. The subsequent land portion of the Battle of Nassau would be a mixed one as while the city was heavily fortified in a scene reminiscent of the French Revolution, most of the defenders were old men and young boys, with the able bodied men having died on the docks or gone to the mainland. After a supply of logistics were set up and both cavalry and artillery forces arriving on the scene, the Marines were able to smash through the defenses at ease and inflict heavy casualties on the opposition. The tide of the battle turned in total victory for the Union when a gunsmith slave named Atticus upon seeing the presence of the blue Yankees, killed his master and stole the arms to give them to his fellow slaves, starting the first successful slave revolt in American history. The man who would later be known in Civil Rights as Atticus Harris (his surname taken in honor of John Harris and the Marines) was a well-known figure among the slave community for leading slave crews on the docks and being a source of heavy labor for the activity that would take place there, committing numerous feats of strength that would in part inspire the legend of John Henry. While whites regarded Atticus as a diligent hard worker, in his private life the man hated the white community of Nassau with a passion thanks to the constant abuse he suffered by his master and his forced separation from his wife and child in an auction in 1856. Having heard numerous times of Lincoln's crusade for the end of slavery and seeing the Marines as his only chance for freedom, Atticus spontaneously formed his own army and thanks to his connection among the dock slaves, had a private army of over 1,000 slaves that were ready to commit revenge for the atrocities that they had suffered all their lives. Around 4:15 P.M Marines were surprised to find black slaves attacking Confederate defensive positions around the city with hundreds of slaves joining to fight alongisde the Union forces after their masters were either killed in battle or their homes having contact by Marines, with the slaves then promptly leaving. By the time Marines were able to reach the capitol at dusk, they were surprised to find that the building had been captured by the rebel slaves, with Atticus himself walking down the steps of the capitol with Governor David Prescott, the man having been thoroughly beaten and his clothes soaked in his own piss. The aftermath of the Battle of Nassau was a total Union victory with the capitol and the state's only city having been captured in a single day with only 318 marines and soldiers killed along with 284 wounded. In contrast the Confederate casualties were severe with 11,456 whites killed and over 2,000 wounded. The high amount of Bahamian civilians and soldiers dead has been attributed by historians to not be due to the actions of the Marines, but rather due to the Nassau Uprising with the slaves having taken out their anger on their masters. While not totally bloody on paper, the effects of the battle were enormous in terms of the Bahama's population as Nassau held half of the state's white population with 30,000 residents and the citizens killed effectively reduced the white population by 1/5th. By the end of the civil war only 23,952 Bahamian whites would still be alive and present in the island's. The group in turn being heavily outnumbered ten to one by the black population with the freed slave population reporting to 245,475 by the 1865 Census.
View attachment 326252Union Marines storming Nassau (Left) The Nassau uprising (Right)
Over the course of the next month a island hopping campaign would continue with the Marines copying their landings and liberating the archipelago one by one. All in all the Marines only suffered another 400 casualties while the white population further diminished with over 9,000 deaths, the combination of the two in large part thanks to the efforts of the rebel slaves who now styled themselves under Atticus' command as the Bahamian People's Army (BPA) who worked together with the Marines in securing the island and promoting the uprising of the slave population against the white establishment. On May 10th the Bahama's were declared to be pacified in totality with John Harris sending a telegram to Abraham Lincoln that the state of the Bahamas was part of the Union once more. While a momentous occasion for the Civil War, it was one that was met with mixed reactions by the North and sheer horror by the South for what had been done, the pandora's box of slavery was opened. Up until that point while slavery was a large factor in the formation of the civil war, most generally agreed that the main issue at fault was state's rights, the North pushing the issue to the side while a majority of the Dixie population preferring to fight for the cause of their freedom rather than the ownership of blacks. Now not only had a Confederate state been taken, but it's slave population rose up and overthrew their white masters in entirety, the worst possible nightmare for the south come true since the Haitian revolution. Technically the Bahamas were still a slave state as there never was an executive order by President Lincoln or a law passed by congress which banned slavery in the state. This was not a fact that the Union soldiers wanted to enforce on the Bahamas as the self-liberated blacks would not go back to bondage without a bloody and brutal fight. So severe was the hostility against the prospect of a return to slavery, that John Harris had to name Atticus as provisional governor and proclaim that the slaves of the Bahamas were free from slavery, else he would face a riot in Nassau. All across the Confederacy a frenzy erupted as numerous slave revolts commenced with the inspiration of the Nassau uprising while thousands of slaves escaped towards Union lines. Thousands of Confederate troops had to be directed southward to quell the uprisings while mass hysteria overtook the slave-owning population with multiple hate crimes directed towards their slaves. The Confederate congress within Montgomery was in a panic over the situation with Toombs vowing that the institution of slavery would be protected at any costs. While the North was more or less stable, a new round of discussion over the topic of slavery commenced with mass disorder in several cities such as New York and Philadelphia over the prospect of abolition with some dozens of hate crimes towards blacks occurring across the country. The loyalist slave states began to fear for their prospects of retaining slavery and the prospect of a future revolt, with multiple congressmen from states such as Virginia, Missouri, and Kentucky demanding that John Harris be court-martialed for his actions and martial law be implemented over the Bahamas. Thankfully Abraham Lincoln did no such thing and allowed the situation in the Bahamas to commence while redirecting focus on other theaters of the war such as the situation in Kentucky. However privately the President knew he had to solve the situation soon as abolitionists such as Fredrick Douglas rose in their complaints of inaction on the slavery issue while the border state's congressmen were demanding an amendment to fix what Douglas had failed at. The time to act was now, or else the Civil War would be lost not on the battlefield, but at the homefront.
Post Civil War picture of Atticus Harris prior to his inauguration as the first black Governor in the United States. Today Harris is well revered among the American Black community for his leadership in the Nassau Uprising and role in reconstruction. Bahamians in particular are fond of Atticus as the "Father of the Bahamas".
- Kaiser Chris
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