John Bell Hood's Charge - A Chickamauga Civil War AU
- Thread starter Pulmonic_Consonant
- Start date
Great to see this back!
On another note, I’ve heard it argued that Richard Taylor could have recaptured New Orleans during the Red River Campaign if he had not been stopped from doing so by Edmund Kirby Smith. More research does need to be done for this, but it would be a really interesting scenario if you ask me, and perfect for this TL.
On another note, I’ve heard it argued that Richard Taylor could have recaptured New Orleans during the Red River Campaign if he had not been stopped from doing so by Edmund Kirby Smith. More research does need to be done for this, but it would be a really interesting scenario if you ask me, and perfect for this TL.
The Far West Campaigns and Command Shakeups
Even as Lincoln's multi-front spring offensive, known among many discontent Union soldiers as 'Lincoln's March Madness', seemed to sputter out, there remained an opportunity in the far west to cripple the Confederate war effort. Union forces had seized control of the Mississippi river and vital port of New Orleans, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two. However, the Trans-Mississippi Department remained a relatively large force, and the river required substantial garrisons along its course to avoid being vulnerable to Confederate capture. Guns, food, and supplies still regularly made their way from Texas to the eastern portion of the Confederacy. Further, rebel forces in Arkansas and Oklahoma had made significant progress against their Union counterparts and were in positions to threaten Memphis and Missouri, respectively. Henry W. Halleck had devised a plan that would secure Union control of the Mississippi, fully separate Texas from the rest of the Confederacy, and severely damage the Trans-Mississippi department by taking control of the Red River valley and Shreveport, the city in which it the department was centered.
The plan involved a combined movement from the Department of the Gulf under Nathaniel P. Banks, the Mississippi Flotilla of the US Navy, and a contingent of men from the Department in Arkansas under General Steele. It was intended to take a number of small forts by surprise and trap the small Confederate force in the Red River valley under Richard Taylor, which would then most likely surrender. It began on March 10th as Major General William B. Franklin, commanding the advance divisions of Banks's Army of the Gulf, began his march from southern Louisiana. However, this campaign would quickly begin to fall apart due to miscommunication and poor timing among the three principal Union forces. The Mississippi Flotilla was halted from entering the Red River by Fort de Russy, which could potentially have been caught by surprise by a land force but spotted the flotilla at great distance and quickly prepared their heavy artillery. Meanwhile, Taylor's force, alerted by the failed attempt by the flotilla to break through, quickly made its way south to deal with a potential advance, clashing with Franklin's divisions along a road a small ways south of Marksville. Franklin's force, outnumbered and caught by surprise, was easily repelled, and continued to suffer enormous damage as it retreated to Mansura. Over the next few days, large contingents of cavalry from the District of Texas would arrive to reinforce Taylor's army as it arrived in Simsport (present-day Simmesport). Meanwhile, the badly battered divisions under Franklin were finally re-united with the rest of the Department of the Gulf under Banks, in a position opposite Taylor on the other bank of the Atchafalaya River.
The Union naval flotilla and Department of the Gulf found themselves unable to support one another, seperated by a few dozen miles of land between their positions which neither found themselves capable of advancing from. Meanwhile, the thrust south from General Steele had provided the Confederate District of Arkansas with a substantial enough degree of numerical superiority to launch a new offensive with the goal of retaking the Arkansas River Valley. Steele would return north in an attempt to re-unite with the smaller force that had been left in defense of the area, but was delayed by a contingent of cavalry from Magruder's Texas District. On March 23, 1864, Major General Sterling Price defeated the Union garrison of Little Rock, re-occupying the city before swinging west and crushing the small forces in De Vall's Bluff and Clarendon. By this point, General Frederick Steele had reached Pine Bluff, and now was in a race to reach Little Rock and retake the city before Price could arrive to reinforce the garrison. Hampered by poor weather and harassed by Confederate cavalry, they arrived south of the city a little over a day after Price, who had quickly set about fortifying it and preparing for a Union assault. Steele instead opted to march Northeast to retake Clarendon, abandoning the Red River Campaign entirely.
Further south, Banks was faring only marginally better. His repeated attempts to assault Confederate lines across the Atchafalaya river were met with high casualties. Unlike Taylor, who was continuing to receive a steady stream of reinforcements from General Magruder, as well as a number of militias drummed up from the newly retaken stretches of Louisiana, Banks was limited by the men currently at his disposal. The forces at his command had also been stripped back somewhat by Grant, who had pulled heavily from the less vital reserves and garrisons of the far west in his attempt to crush Longstreet. Banks, unaware of the extent by which Taylor had been reinforced, launched another attack on the 25th of March which initially saw minor success before a large contingent of Confederate cavalry slammed into Bank's western flank, turning them heavily. It was at this point that Taylor ordered a general advance, crossing the Atchafalaya and dealing significant casualties to the Union lines, which were by now in complete disarray. Banks' men fell into a rout, pursued by Confederate cavalry all the way to Baton Rogue. The vast majority of Banks' command had been captured or killed, with Taylor's force quickly re-occupying vast swathes of southern Louisiana which had been left with few defenders in order to support the move north. It was only with their naval control of the Mississippi river that Union forces were able to prevent a complete Confederate breakthrough. These ironclads, however, did not prevent small points along the river which were relatively undefended from being crossed by small Confederate forces. With Baton Rogue and by extent New Orleans under imminent threat of Confederate assault, reinforcements were sent from the few remaining sizable garrisons in the region- Memphis and Jackson, the latter of which would quickly be re-taken by Joseph E. Johnston's forces outside the city.
It was clear to observers on both sides that the Union position in the far west was in complete disarray. It was also the opinion of many that, while a large part of the blame could be placed on poor communication and coordination between Union commanders, the principal reason for the disastrous failure of the Red River Campaign was that Grant had severely depleted the garrisons and reserves of the region. Combined with his failure to save Sherman's army and the consistent massive losses in his region under his subordinates, his image as the savior that would sweep east and retake the momentum of the war for the Union had begun to fade. Meade, on the other hand, was simply despised. His subordinates, Union high command, Lincoln, his colleagues, and his men had all grown sick of his seemingly endless string of failures in the east, and with the extremely costly, embarrassing failure in Centreville, which had seen thousands of pointless Union casualties and the deaths of dozens of relatively high ranking officers, from major generals to colonels, it had been made abundantly clear he was in need of replacement. The only question was who was the right man for the job. Two of his corps commanders were dead, and the remaining were seen by most as somewhat incompetent. Grant's reputation, while damaged, was still enormous. However, he was drastically needed in the west, both to deal with Longstreet and to clean up the complete disaster in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi. It was with this in mind that the injured Major General George Sykes would be promoted to commander of the Army of the Potomac, under the informal understanding that Grant would take the role upon having cleared up issues in the west. However, due to an infection of one of his wounds, he would be rendered unable to hold the post, and Major General William H. French would assume what was essentially temporary command of a temporary command until either Sykes or Grant were able to take his place.
French, who was unpopular among both his peers and the army at large and possessed a poor track record throughout his military career, as well as generally poor tactical and strategic acumen, found it nearly impossible to get any of his newly subordinate officers to follow orders. They viewed him as an illegitimate and temporary commander from whom orders need not be considered. This would have disastrous effects as Lee easily stole a number of marches on the Army of the Potomac, which found itself completely paralyzed by poor communication and near-insubordinate corps commanders. Lee, eager to take advantage, had moved his left and right flanks around either side of Union forces, attempting to envelop the larger army in an imitation of Cannae. While this movement would ultimately fail, though not without inflicting severe casualties on the Army of the Potomac as it struggled and barely managed to break through Lee's right flank and prevent being separated from Washington. The Army of Northern Virginia managed to temporarily occupy Arlington and Alexandria before being pushed out by the Army of the Potomac, which formed its new position directly across the Potomac river from Washington itself. By this time, Sykes had died of his injuries, and it was clear that Grant was needed in the east. Grant, who had finally cornered Longstreet after weeks of maneuvers and skirmishes around the Tennessee river, was called to take command of the Army of the Potomac in place of William H. French, who had resigned in frustration.
With George Henry Thomas and Sherman both dead, however, he was left with few options as replacements, especially as McPherson had over the winter taken command of the Union army in Nashville. In his place, Grant left John Schofield as commander of the Army of the Tennessee, with John Alexander McClernand, who had recently been restored to command by Lincoln taking command of the first corps, James H. Wilson taking command of the second corps, Benjamin Butler taking command of the third corps, and Don Carlos Buell, recently restored to command, taking command of the fourth corps.
The departure of Grant came as an enormous relief to the Army of Tennessee, which had days before been faced with the immediate threat of attack from Grant. Longstreet gathered his chief subordinates- Daniel Harvey Hill, Patrick Cleburne, and Joseph Wheeler, to discuss a potential offensive against the Union Army of the Tennessee. While they were heavily outnumbered and in a poor position, their confidence was at an extremely high level due to the perceived incompetence of the Union commanders opposite them, who had established reputations as poor leaders and failures who only held high posts out of political considerations or friendships with Grant. This confidence was amplified by the recent performance of Confederate armies in Virginia and the far west. It seemed to many observers on both sides that the Confederacy had once again retaken the initiative, and that with only a few more major victories, the Union would finally decide the war was too costly and call for a ceasefire. It was with this in mind that Longstreet and his officers would begin drawing up their most ambitious, risky, dangerous battle plan yet.
The plan involved a combined movement from the Department of the Gulf under Nathaniel P. Banks, the Mississippi Flotilla of the US Navy, and a contingent of men from the Department in Arkansas under General Steele. It was intended to take a number of small forts by surprise and trap the small Confederate force in the Red River valley under Richard Taylor, which would then most likely surrender. It began on March 10th as Major General William B. Franklin, commanding the advance divisions of Banks's Army of the Gulf, began his march from southern Louisiana. However, this campaign would quickly begin to fall apart due to miscommunication and poor timing among the three principal Union forces. The Mississippi Flotilla was halted from entering the Red River by Fort de Russy, which could potentially have been caught by surprise by a land force but spotted the flotilla at great distance and quickly prepared their heavy artillery. Meanwhile, Taylor's force, alerted by the failed attempt by the flotilla to break through, quickly made its way south to deal with a potential advance, clashing with Franklin's divisions along a road a small ways south of Marksville. Franklin's force, outnumbered and caught by surprise, was easily repelled, and continued to suffer enormous damage as it retreated to Mansura. Over the next few days, large contingents of cavalry from the District of Texas would arrive to reinforce Taylor's army as it arrived in Simsport (present-day Simmesport). Meanwhile, the badly battered divisions under Franklin were finally re-united with the rest of the Department of the Gulf under Banks, in a position opposite Taylor on the other bank of the Atchafalaya River.
The Union naval flotilla and Department of the Gulf found themselves unable to support one another, seperated by a few dozen miles of land between their positions which neither found themselves capable of advancing from. Meanwhile, the thrust south from General Steele had provided the Confederate District of Arkansas with a substantial enough degree of numerical superiority to launch a new offensive with the goal of retaking the Arkansas River Valley. Steele would return north in an attempt to re-unite with the smaller force that had been left in defense of the area, but was delayed by a contingent of cavalry from Magruder's Texas District. On March 23, 1864, Major General Sterling Price defeated the Union garrison of Little Rock, re-occupying the city before swinging west and crushing the small forces in De Vall's Bluff and Clarendon. By this point, General Frederick Steele had reached Pine Bluff, and now was in a race to reach Little Rock and retake the city before Price could arrive to reinforce the garrison. Hampered by poor weather and harassed by Confederate cavalry, they arrived south of the city a little over a day after Price, who had quickly set about fortifying it and preparing for a Union assault. Steele instead opted to march Northeast to retake Clarendon, abandoning the Red River Campaign entirely.
Further south, Banks was faring only marginally better. His repeated attempts to assault Confederate lines across the Atchafalaya river were met with high casualties. Unlike Taylor, who was continuing to receive a steady stream of reinforcements from General Magruder, as well as a number of militias drummed up from the newly retaken stretches of Louisiana, Banks was limited by the men currently at his disposal. The forces at his command had also been stripped back somewhat by Grant, who had pulled heavily from the less vital reserves and garrisons of the far west in his attempt to crush Longstreet. Banks, unaware of the extent by which Taylor had been reinforced, launched another attack on the 25th of March which initially saw minor success before a large contingent of Confederate cavalry slammed into Bank's western flank, turning them heavily. It was at this point that Taylor ordered a general advance, crossing the Atchafalaya and dealing significant casualties to the Union lines, which were by now in complete disarray. Banks' men fell into a rout, pursued by Confederate cavalry all the way to Baton Rogue. The vast majority of Banks' command had been captured or killed, with Taylor's force quickly re-occupying vast swathes of southern Louisiana which had been left with few defenders in order to support the move north. It was only with their naval control of the Mississippi river that Union forces were able to prevent a complete Confederate breakthrough. These ironclads, however, did not prevent small points along the river which were relatively undefended from being crossed by small Confederate forces. With Baton Rogue and by extent New Orleans under imminent threat of Confederate assault, reinforcements were sent from the few remaining sizable garrisons in the region- Memphis and Jackson, the latter of which would quickly be re-taken by Joseph E. Johnston's forces outside the city.
It was clear to observers on both sides that the Union position in the far west was in complete disarray. It was also the opinion of many that, while a large part of the blame could be placed on poor communication and coordination between Union commanders, the principal reason for the disastrous failure of the Red River Campaign was that Grant had severely depleted the garrisons and reserves of the region. Combined with his failure to save Sherman's army and the consistent massive losses in his region under his subordinates, his image as the savior that would sweep east and retake the momentum of the war for the Union had begun to fade. Meade, on the other hand, was simply despised. His subordinates, Union high command, Lincoln, his colleagues, and his men had all grown sick of his seemingly endless string of failures in the east, and with the extremely costly, embarrassing failure in Centreville, which had seen thousands of pointless Union casualties and the deaths of dozens of relatively high ranking officers, from major generals to colonels, it had been made abundantly clear he was in need of replacement. The only question was who was the right man for the job. Two of his corps commanders were dead, and the remaining were seen by most as somewhat incompetent. Grant's reputation, while damaged, was still enormous. However, he was drastically needed in the west, both to deal with Longstreet and to clean up the complete disaster in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi. It was with this in mind that the injured Major General George Sykes would be promoted to commander of the Army of the Potomac, under the informal understanding that Grant would take the role upon having cleared up issues in the west. However, due to an infection of one of his wounds, he would be rendered unable to hold the post, and Major General William H. French would assume what was essentially temporary command of a temporary command until either Sykes or Grant were able to take his place.
French, who was unpopular among both his peers and the army at large and possessed a poor track record throughout his military career, as well as generally poor tactical and strategic acumen, found it nearly impossible to get any of his newly subordinate officers to follow orders. They viewed him as an illegitimate and temporary commander from whom orders need not be considered. This would have disastrous effects as Lee easily stole a number of marches on the Army of the Potomac, which found itself completely paralyzed by poor communication and near-insubordinate corps commanders. Lee, eager to take advantage, had moved his left and right flanks around either side of Union forces, attempting to envelop the larger army in an imitation of Cannae. While this movement would ultimately fail, though not without inflicting severe casualties on the Army of the Potomac as it struggled and barely managed to break through Lee's right flank and prevent being separated from Washington. The Army of Northern Virginia managed to temporarily occupy Arlington and Alexandria before being pushed out by the Army of the Potomac, which formed its new position directly across the Potomac river from Washington itself. By this time, Sykes had died of his injuries, and it was clear that Grant was needed in the east. Grant, who had finally cornered Longstreet after weeks of maneuvers and skirmishes around the Tennessee river, was called to take command of the Army of the Potomac in place of William H. French, who had resigned in frustration.
With George Henry Thomas and Sherman both dead, however, he was left with few options as replacements, especially as McPherson had over the winter taken command of the Union army in Nashville. In his place, Grant left John Schofield as commander of the Army of the Tennessee, with John Alexander McClernand, who had recently been restored to command by Lincoln taking command of the first corps, James H. Wilson taking command of the second corps, Benjamin Butler taking command of the third corps, and Don Carlos Buell, recently restored to command, taking command of the fourth corps.
The departure of Grant came as an enormous relief to the Army of Tennessee, which had days before been faced with the immediate threat of attack from Grant. Longstreet gathered his chief subordinates- Daniel Harvey Hill, Patrick Cleburne, and Joseph Wheeler, to discuss a potential offensive against the Union Army of the Tennessee. While they were heavily outnumbered and in a poor position, their confidence was at an extremely high level due to the perceived incompetence of the Union commanders opposite them, who had established reputations as poor leaders and failures who only held high posts out of political considerations or friendships with Grant. This confidence was amplified by the recent performance of Confederate armies in Virginia and the far west. It seemed to many observers on both sides that the Confederacy had once again retaken the initiative, and that with only a few more major victories, the Union would finally decide the war was too costly and call for a ceasefire. It was with this in mind that Longstreet and his officers would begin drawing up their most ambitious, risky, dangerous battle plan yet.
The Union has has taken a few big punches, but we'll have to see if the Confederate might over-extend themselves. The west being as in flux as it is they might just prevail in spite of themselves.
If you look at Confederate manpower across the majority of their fronts, by this point they're so drained that the kinds of spectacular offensive victories pulled off in IOTL 1862 or ITTL late 1863 are not really possible without a large degree of luck and massive Union incompetence. The only front where they have any kind of numerical superiority is in Louisiana/Mississippi due to the disastrous failure of the Red River Campaign, which turned out far worse for the Union ITTL than IOTL due to the Union not having access to A.J. Smith's 10,000 man contingent of the Army of the Tennesse, which ITTL had been pulled east to bolster Grant's army. They aren't really in much of a position to advance much further, if at all, though, due to the Union navy's Mississippi flotilla. I did a little map to show Confederate and Union positions in the area.
As you can see, the only part of the Mississippi that the Confederate forces were able to completely seize the bank of was the far southwest bank, after the Red River's feeding into the Mississippi. This was really only possible due to the near-complete lack of Union forces in the area after the Red River Campaign, and the areas along the river further north where there are still at least some level of Union defenses remain difficult to approach due to the Union navy.
The Second Battle of Memphis - Action and Effects
After the disastrous Red River Campaign, which saw nearly the entire Union presence in the Trans-Mississippi theater restricted to garrisoning southeastern Louisiana, General Joseph Eggleston Johnson found himself in a powerful position. He had retaken Jackson, the capital of Mississippi and a major transportation hub of the deep south, and proceeded to crush the small Union garrisons across central Mississippi, restricting Union control of the state to the small stretches directly along the Mississippi river. He had initially considered an offensive to retake Vicksburg, but after an initial probing attack on the city revealed the garrison to still be large and willing to fight, and the Union Mississippi flotilla rendering a siege nearly impossible, he begrudgingly marched north.
While it had been his desire to retake Vicksburg and repair his reputation after being blamed for Grant's capture of the city earlier in the war, Johnston was above all a practical man, and realized the opportunity presented by the lack of Union forces across the deep South. Grant had pulled heavily from the garrisons in the region, but it was in the wake of the Red River Campaign that they had become truly anemic and ineffectual, with Banks drawing from across the entire theater in his (perhaps justified) desperation to prevent the fall of New Orleans to Confederate forces. While it was indeed crucial to prevent the enormous port city from falling back into Confederate hands, he had left a number of cities of lesser importance, with the only true exception being Vicksburg, nearly wide open, with the hope that the Mississippi Flotilla would prevent a rebel force from retaking them.
It was a bluff that Johnston would call on April 12, 1864, as his men arrived near the city of Memphis, Tennessee, a critically important city both strategically and symbolically. Aside from New Orleans, it was by far the biggest city in the Confederacy along the Mississippi River, and control of it made passage by Union ships virtually impossible. As long as the Union held New Orleans, it could still move ships through the Gulf into the river, but retaking Memphis would deal a major blow to Union logistics in the theater. It was with that in mind that Johnston would surround the city, aside from the portions cut off by the river, with his overwhelmingly superior force and launch a simultaneous attack from all sides. Poor communication lead to the northern flank advancing far sooner than the rest of the army, causing it to get beaten back by artillery aboard Union gunboats, but with the Confederate center and south advancing soon after, the garrison was pushed further into the city until finally surrendering. Gunboats continued to fire into the previously evacuated city as Confederates swept through before quickly steaming southwards to avoid Confederate artillery counter-fire.
The Second Battle of Memphis was, as expected by both sides, a fairly quick and undramatic victory for the overwhelmingly larger Confederate force. The news of the victory, however, swept across the south like wildfire, with newspapers detailing the "swift and heroic triumph" of Johnston, who, in stark contrast to his overwhelmingly negative press coverage after Vicksburg, was quickly gaining a reputation as a decisive and intelligent commander due to his recapture of nearly all of Mississippi and much of southwestern Tennessee. In the streets of Memphis, he was constantly surrounded by cheering crowds, to the point where he was forced to establish his headquarters outside of the city. While he enjoyed the adoration, privately, he didn't view his recapture of much of the deep south to be overly impressive, as he was under no threat from a major army and consistently faced much smaller, isolated forces. The Northern view was much the same- that Johnston was merely a competent commander who had used the opportunity presented to seize barely defended territory back to the rebels. What the general, as well as both sides of the war did acknowledge, however, was the enormous impact that his movements would have on the Trans-Mississippi Theater.
With Mississippi largely retaken, as well as Memphis and much of southwestern Tennessee back in Confederate hands, General Nathaniel P. Banks was now completely isolated in southern Louisiana. He was outnumbered heavily by the Confederate army to the west, but protected by the Mississippi Flotilla and so safe from direct advances. However, with Johnston now free to move as he pleased, it would be little trouble to completely surround Banks and crush him, retaking New Orleans, the largest city in the Confederacy by an enormous margin, and its principal port. With Memphis and New Orleans both taken, the Mississippi Flotilla would be trapped, as would the Union garrisons along the Mississippi river. From there it would be easy to sweep across the river and re-take it in its entirety, reversing the entire progress of the Union in the Trans-Mississippi theater and allowing the Confederacy to fully draw from the wealth and manpower of Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana.
The mood in the North was accordingly grim. With the repeated failures in Tennessee and Virginia, and the complete meltdown of the western front, it seemed that Lincoln's policy of simultaneous heavy offensives had resulted in disaster. Among the military and general populace, the idea now was that it was best to simply reinforce their gains and stop the Confederate resurgence, wait for the Confederates to run out of manpower bashing their heads against fortified Union positions, and make slow incremental progress. Lincoln, as well as general Grant, abhorred such a plan of action, but understood the political ramifications of continuing to push. This was especially notable due to the elections coming up later in the year, which the Peace Democrats seemed poised to win due to the overwhelming unpopularity of the war in the face of numerous Union defeats.
While Lincoln and Grant weighed the risks and rewards of various future moves against rebel forces, they were both keenly aware that if the war did not shift heavily in the favor of the Union, it would be over in January of 1865, and the Union would be forever torn asunder. They needed to win, and they needed to win soon. The Confederate command saw themselves in a similar rush. Union forces were in a significantly inferior position to the one they had been in only a year prior, but the overwhelming numerical and industrial advantage held by the North meant that they could replace those losses, whereas the Confederates could not. Even some of their most stunning victories could be considered Pyrrhic in nature and they'd paid dearly to push the Union as far back as they had. In their eyes, they needed to deal a heavy enough blow to the Union to force Lincoln out of office, whether by impeachment or by the election of a peace Democrat. It was with this in mind, and in the wake of Johnston's recapture of Memphis, that they agreed to a proposal sent by General Longstreet, who by now was known by many as the Hero of Tennessee, for an offensive against the Union forces under the command of the poorly-viewed John Schofield and his even more poorly-viewed subordinates, with the goal of crushing the remaining Union forces in Tennessee and recapturing Nashville. It was hoped that this would be the final blow to the Union war effort and force them into a surrender before the Confederates could be steamrolled by the North.
While it had been his desire to retake Vicksburg and repair his reputation after being blamed for Grant's capture of the city earlier in the war, Johnston was above all a practical man, and realized the opportunity presented by the lack of Union forces across the deep South. Grant had pulled heavily from the garrisons in the region, but it was in the wake of the Red River Campaign that they had become truly anemic and ineffectual, with Banks drawing from across the entire theater in his (perhaps justified) desperation to prevent the fall of New Orleans to Confederate forces. While it was indeed crucial to prevent the enormous port city from falling back into Confederate hands, he had left a number of cities of lesser importance, with the only true exception being Vicksburg, nearly wide open, with the hope that the Mississippi Flotilla would prevent a rebel force from retaking them.
It was a bluff that Johnston would call on April 12, 1864, as his men arrived near the city of Memphis, Tennessee, a critically important city both strategically and symbolically. Aside from New Orleans, it was by far the biggest city in the Confederacy along the Mississippi River, and control of it made passage by Union ships virtually impossible. As long as the Union held New Orleans, it could still move ships through the Gulf into the river, but retaking Memphis would deal a major blow to Union logistics in the theater. It was with that in mind that Johnston would surround the city, aside from the portions cut off by the river, with his overwhelmingly superior force and launch a simultaneous attack from all sides. Poor communication lead to the northern flank advancing far sooner than the rest of the army, causing it to get beaten back by artillery aboard Union gunboats, but with the Confederate center and south advancing soon after, the garrison was pushed further into the city until finally surrendering. Gunboats continued to fire into the previously evacuated city as Confederates swept through before quickly steaming southwards to avoid Confederate artillery counter-fire.
The Second Battle of Memphis was, as expected by both sides, a fairly quick and undramatic victory for the overwhelmingly larger Confederate force. The news of the victory, however, swept across the south like wildfire, with newspapers detailing the "swift and heroic triumph" of Johnston, who, in stark contrast to his overwhelmingly negative press coverage after Vicksburg, was quickly gaining a reputation as a decisive and intelligent commander due to his recapture of nearly all of Mississippi and much of southwestern Tennessee. In the streets of Memphis, he was constantly surrounded by cheering crowds, to the point where he was forced to establish his headquarters outside of the city. While he enjoyed the adoration, privately, he didn't view his recapture of much of the deep south to be overly impressive, as he was under no threat from a major army and consistently faced much smaller, isolated forces. The Northern view was much the same- that Johnston was merely a competent commander who had used the opportunity presented to seize barely defended territory back to the rebels. What the general, as well as both sides of the war did acknowledge, however, was the enormous impact that his movements would have on the Trans-Mississippi Theater.
With Mississippi largely retaken, as well as Memphis and much of southwestern Tennessee back in Confederate hands, General Nathaniel P. Banks was now completely isolated in southern Louisiana. He was outnumbered heavily by the Confederate army to the west, but protected by the Mississippi Flotilla and so safe from direct advances. However, with Johnston now free to move as he pleased, it would be little trouble to completely surround Banks and crush him, retaking New Orleans, the largest city in the Confederacy by an enormous margin, and its principal port. With Memphis and New Orleans both taken, the Mississippi Flotilla would be trapped, as would the Union garrisons along the Mississippi river. From there it would be easy to sweep across the river and re-take it in its entirety, reversing the entire progress of the Union in the Trans-Mississippi theater and allowing the Confederacy to fully draw from the wealth and manpower of Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana.
The mood in the North was accordingly grim. With the repeated failures in Tennessee and Virginia, and the complete meltdown of the western front, it seemed that Lincoln's policy of simultaneous heavy offensives had resulted in disaster. Among the military and general populace, the idea now was that it was best to simply reinforce their gains and stop the Confederate resurgence, wait for the Confederates to run out of manpower bashing their heads against fortified Union positions, and make slow incremental progress. Lincoln, as well as general Grant, abhorred such a plan of action, but understood the political ramifications of continuing to push. This was especially notable due to the elections coming up later in the year, which the Peace Democrats seemed poised to win due to the overwhelming unpopularity of the war in the face of numerous Union defeats.
While Lincoln and Grant weighed the risks and rewards of various future moves against rebel forces, they were both keenly aware that if the war did not shift heavily in the favor of the Union, it would be over in January of 1865, and the Union would be forever torn asunder. They needed to win, and they needed to win soon. The Confederate command saw themselves in a similar rush. Union forces were in a significantly inferior position to the one they had been in only a year prior, but the overwhelming numerical and industrial advantage held by the North meant that they could replace those losses, whereas the Confederates could not. Even some of their most stunning victories could be considered Pyrrhic in nature and they'd paid dearly to push the Union as far back as they had. In their eyes, they needed to deal a heavy enough blow to the Union to force Lincoln out of office, whether by impeachment or by the election of a peace Democrat. It was with this in mind, and in the wake of Johnston's recapture of Memphis, that they agreed to a proposal sent by General Longstreet, who by now was known by many as the Hero of Tennessee, for an offensive against the Union forces under the command of the poorly-viewed John Schofield and his even more poorly-viewed subordinates, with the goal of crushing the remaining Union forces in Tennessee and recapturing Nashville. It was hoped that this would be the final blow to the Union war effort and force them into a surrender before the Confederates could be steamrolled by the North.
Great to see this back! I just reread the TL to refresh on everything. Looking very forward to what happens next!
Looks like excitement is up ahead for an ATL Battle of Nashville. Let's see how Schofield likes the hot seat that he pushed so hard for IOTL.
Longstreet's Tennessee Campaign - The Second Battle of Florence
The departure of Grant to Virginia would prove to be a decisive moment in the eastern front of the war. His replacement of the incompetent, widely despised William H. French as commander of the Army of the Potomac had taken away Lee's license to do as he pleased in Northern Virginia. It wasn't long after his arrival in the east that the gears of war would begin turning once more, and as Grant and Lee jockeyed for position, clashing in a number of increasingly bloody skirmishes, one of the defining rivalries of the war would be birthed. As great as the influence of his presence in the east would prove to be, his absence in the west also had a profound effect on the theater as the increasingly aggressive and confident Confederate forces under Longstreet and Forrest would begin their most ambitious campaign yet.
It was a possibility, it seemed, which Lieutenant General John Schofield had not anticipated. His camp continued to slowly reinforce in the days after Grant's departure, preparing to surround and eventually assault or starve out the rebel army around Florence. The general emphasis on passiveness he'd gotten in his correspondences from Washington only strengthened his desire to remain put. He had 32,000 men under his command, while Longstreet's army only possessed an estimated 23,000-25,000 men. This was a decisive advantage that made an attack by Longstreet virtually impossible, but was not quite enough for Schofield to feel comfortable attacking fortified Confederate positions in the high ground around Florence.
On the other hand, Longstreet and his generals, once they had been safe in knowing they were not under immediate threat of Union attack, had drawn up an extremely aggressive plan to dislodge Union forces from Tennessee entirely. Initially, it had hinged around a surprise flanking movement to the south, but with Johnston's victory in Memphis, a new opportunity had arrived. The vast majority of commanders on both sides had expected Johnston to then move south and lay siege to New Orleans, the largest city in the Confederacy. Longstreet, believing he could take advantage of this expectation, corresponded with Johnston, who quickly agreed to the plan and secretly marched his army east.
On May 28, 1864, a campaign which would eventually become known to history as the Longstreet's Tennessee campaign would begin as Confederate skirmishers probed the northern Union flank, which was under the command of James H. Wilson, who, expecting a large Confederate attack soon after, quickly requested reinforcements. Schofield granted the request, drawing from the corps under Don Carlos Buell and fortifying that section of the flank. As those forces dug in, a second, much larger Confederate advance began in the south, with Patrick Cleburne's forces emerging from the woods to storm Union lines under the command of John Alexander McClernand, who attempted to concentrate his forces in the center only to have his left and right flanks heavily pushed back and his center threatened with surrounding. He quickly pulled back further, attempting to consolidate his line before the Confederate corps under D.H. Hill suddenly sprung from the south, routing McClernand's command and rolling back a large portion of Union lines before stalling out.
It was at this point that Schofield, now aware that a full-on assault was taking place, began positioning troops to prevent the Confederate advance in the south, successfully repelling a second charge. Confederate cavalry under Wheeler had begun launching attacks on the Union center under Don Carlos Buell, who repeatedly repulsed the smaller Confederate force. Schofield re-oriented the army's overall position over the next few bloody hours of clashing, ceding much of the northern flank in order to box in Confederate forces that had been advancing to the west. With the Confederate advance seeming to sputter out in the face of numerical superiority, Schofield launched a counter-attack on the Confederate center. Due to an issue with communication, General Benjamin Butler would begin his attack much earlier than Buell, getting repelled a number of times before Buell's forces began to assist. Confederate lines slowly fell back under Union pressure before Wilson's reinforced flank suddenly assaulted the Confederate north, sending it reeling before rebel forces once more reached the high ground around Florence and stalled the Union advance.
As Schofield began preparing for a counter-attack on the now exposed Confederate southern flank, a large force under General Joseph E. Johnston emerged from the woods behind the northern flank of the Union army, launching a surprise assault that left the Union rear reeling. Schofield, caught entirely by surprise, wheeled his forces around to stop Johnston, who had stalled out after inflicting enormous casualties to Wilson's corps. The Confederate southern flank, now no longer under threat of being crushed, launched another attack on McClernand's lines, pushing him back before Butler's force swung south to stop their advance. With Butler's movement to stop D.H. Hill in the south, and Buell's corps now highly exposed, Cleburne launched yet another assault on the Union center.
The ensuing chaos would, in many spots, devolve into brutal hand-to-hand combat, as attacks and counter-attacks both stalled out into bloody stalemates and small wooded hills were captured and recaptured. Eventually, as Union forces slowly began to be surrounded by the Confederate forces to the west, north, and west, Schofield realized that his army was in danger of potentially getting annihilated. He disregarded the idea of a retreat southwards, as it would grant him little in the way of long-term safety, and concentrated Union forces in the north, launching a breakthrough attack northwest as Johnston's heavily outnumbered army unsuccessfully attempted to stop them. Johnston's force suffered extremely heavy casualties as Longstreet's army attempted to pursue them. Wheeler's cavalry inflicted heavy damage to the Union rear as it collapsed from an orderly retreat to a complete rout. Panicked Union forces arrived in Savannah, Tennessee, hastily throwing up defenses and managing to repel the then-strung-out Confederate advance.
The Second Battle of Florence was an incredibly costly affair for both sides, to a degree that surpassed even the typical expectation of battles in the Western Theater. Of the Union's roughly 32,000 men at the start of the battle, only 14,000 remained in fighting condition in Savannah after barely escaping the near-destruction of the Union army at the hands of a Confederate pincer attack. Of the Confederates' combined force of 34,000 men at the start of the battle, only 21,000 remained in fighting condition around Savannah after the repeated failed assaults on Union lines and the extremely costly Union breakthrough attack. Johnston's force of 10,000 that had entered the battle had been nearly annihilated during said attack, scraping by afterwards with only 4,000 men remaining. Despite the armies involved being of drastically lower size, there had been more casualties than Chancellorsville. More than 56% of the Union army had been destroyed, while more than 38% of the Confederate army had suffered the same fate.
With the addition of Johnston's force, badly mauled as it was, as well as the numerous catastrophic defeats of various Union forces in the state, the Confederates in the wake of the Second Battle of Florence actually found themselves with a slim numerical advantage of 31,000 Confederates to 28,000 Unionites. This, of course, could easily be mitigated by Union reinforcements in time, while the Confederates struggled to scrape together sizable reinforcements to provide their armies with. Even as Confederate forces around Savannah cheered at their victory, the thought lingering in the back of even the average soldier was clear- how many more victories could the Confederacy pull off before it bled itself to death?
Meanwhile, in the north, dejection was more outright, though by this point the people had almost grown accustomed to brutal, bloody defeats in Tennessee. More than anything, the defeat had proven to many military planners to failure in the doctrine of passivity, which had only really began to set in once more since the days of McClellan, who had warned the military of the danger of reckless offensives. While McClellan, busy running his campaign for president, had seemed to have been proven right by the utter failure of Lincoln's "March Madness" spring offensives, Union forces allowing the Confederates to pull of their surprise pincer movements with their inactivity, as well as Grant's ongoing moderately successful campaigns in Virginia, gave ammunition to the more aggressive planners, who believed the only way to win the war was to leverage the Union's greater population and industrial capacity to crush the Confederates completely. Proponents of both doctrines continued to bitterly feud in Washington as the election grew nearer and McPherson made plans to crush Forrest and save the Union's position in Tennessee, even as Schofield continuously sent telegrams demanding reinforcements or an all-out abandonment of Nashville to relieve Savannah. He was eventually forced to dispatch 8,000 men to assist Schofield, though he had not yet abandoned his plans to destroy the Confederate position in Murfreesboro.
It was a possibility, it seemed, which Lieutenant General John Schofield had not anticipated. His camp continued to slowly reinforce in the days after Grant's departure, preparing to surround and eventually assault or starve out the rebel army around Florence. The general emphasis on passiveness he'd gotten in his correspondences from Washington only strengthened his desire to remain put. He had 32,000 men under his command, while Longstreet's army only possessed an estimated 23,000-25,000 men. This was a decisive advantage that made an attack by Longstreet virtually impossible, but was not quite enough for Schofield to feel comfortable attacking fortified Confederate positions in the high ground around Florence.
On the other hand, Longstreet and his generals, once they had been safe in knowing they were not under immediate threat of Union attack, had drawn up an extremely aggressive plan to dislodge Union forces from Tennessee entirely. Initially, it had hinged around a surprise flanking movement to the south, but with Johnston's victory in Memphis, a new opportunity had arrived. The vast majority of commanders on both sides had expected Johnston to then move south and lay siege to New Orleans, the largest city in the Confederacy. Longstreet, believing he could take advantage of this expectation, corresponded with Johnston, who quickly agreed to the plan and secretly marched his army east.
On May 28, 1864, a campaign which would eventually become known to history as the Longstreet's Tennessee campaign would begin as Confederate skirmishers probed the northern Union flank, which was under the command of James H. Wilson, who, expecting a large Confederate attack soon after, quickly requested reinforcements. Schofield granted the request, drawing from the corps under Don Carlos Buell and fortifying that section of the flank. As those forces dug in, a second, much larger Confederate advance began in the south, with Patrick Cleburne's forces emerging from the woods to storm Union lines under the command of John Alexander McClernand, who attempted to concentrate his forces in the center only to have his left and right flanks heavily pushed back and his center threatened with surrounding. He quickly pulled back further, attempting to consolidate his line before the Confederate corps under D.H. Hill suddenly sprung from the south, routing McClernand's command and rolling back a large portion of Union lines before stalling out.
It was at this point that Schofield, now aware that a full-on assault was taking place, began positioning troops to prevent the Confederate advance in the south, successfully repelling a second charge. Confederate cavalry under Wheeler had begun launching attacks on the Union center under Don Carlos Buell, who repeatedly repulsed the smaller Confederate force. Schofield re-oriented the army's overall position over the next few bloody hours of clashing, ceding much of the northern flank in order to box in Confederate forces that had been advancing to the west. With the Confederate advance seeming to sputter out in the face of numerical superiority, Schofield launched a counter-attack on the Confederate center. Due to an issue with communication, General Benjamin Butler would begin his attack much earlier than Buell, getting repelled a number of times before Buell's forces began to assist. Confederate lines slowly fell back under Union pressure before Wilson's reinforced flank suddenly assaulted the Confederate north, sending it reeling before rebel forces once more reached the high ground around Florence and stalled the Union advance.
As Schofield began preparing for a counter-attack on the now exposed Confederate southern flank, a large force under General Joseph E. Johnston emerged from the woods behind the northern flank of the Union army, launching a surprise assault that left the Union rear reeling. Schofield, caught entirely by surprise, wheeled his forces around to stop Johnston, who had stalled out after inflicting enormous casualties to Wilson's corps. The Confederate southern flank, now no longer under threat of being crushed, launched another attack on McClernand's lines, pushing him back before Butler's force swung south to stop their advance. With Butler's movement to stop D.H. Hill in the south, and Buell's corps now highly exposed, Cleburne launched yet another assault on the Union center.
The ensuing chaos would, in many spots, devolve into brutal hand-to-hand combat, as attacks and counter-attacks both stalled out into bloody stalemates and small wooded hills were captured and recaptured. Eventually, as Union forces slowly began to be surrounded by the Confederate forces to the west, north, and west, Schofield realized that his army was in danger of potentially getting annihilated. He disregarded the idea of a retreat southwards, as it would grant him little in the way of long-term safety, and concentrated Union forces in the north, launching a breakthrough attack northwest as Johnston's heavily outnumbered army unsuccessfully attempted to stop them. Johnston's force suffered extremely heavy casualties as Longstreet's army attempted to pursue them. Wheeler's cavalry inflicted heavy damage to the Union rear as it collapsed from an orderly retreat to a complete rout. Panicked Union forces arrived in Savannah, Tennessee, hastily throwing up defenses and managing to repel the then-strung-out Confederate advance.
The Second Battle of Florence was an incredibly costly affair for both sides, to a degree that surpassed even the typical expectation of battles in the Western Theater. Of the Union's roughly 32,000 men at the start of the battle, only 14,000 remained in fighting condition in Savannah after barely escaping the near-destruction of the Union army at the hands of a Confederate pincer attack. Of the Confederates' combined force of 34,000 men at the start of the battle, only 21,000 remained in fighting condition around Savannah after the repeated failed assaults on Union lines and the extremely costly Union breakthrough attack. Johnston's force of 10,000 that had entered the battle had been nearly annihilated during said attack, scraping by afterwards with only 4,000 men remaining. Despite the armies involved being of drastically lower size, there had been more casualties than Chancellorsville. More than 56% of the Union army had been destroyed, while more than 38% of the Confederate army had suffered the same fate.
With the addition of Johnston's force, badly mauled as it was, as well as the numerous catastrophic defeats of various Union forces in the state, the Confederates in the wake of the Second Battle of Florence actually found themselves with a slim numerical advantage of 31,000 Confederates to 28,000 Unionites. This, of course, could easily be mitigated by Union reinforcements in time, while the Confederates struggled to scrape together sizable reinforcements to provide their armies with. Even as Confederate forces around Savannah cheered at their victory, the thought lingering in the back of even the average soldier was clear- how many more victories could the Confederacy pull off before it bled itself to death?
Meanwhile, in the north, dejection was more outright, though by this point the people had almost grown accustomed to brutal, bloody defeats in Tennessee. More than anything, the defeat had proven to many military planners to failure in the doctrine of passivity, which had only really began to set in once more since the days of McClellan, who had warned the military of the danger of reckless offensives. While McClellan, busy running his campaign for president, had seemed to have been proven right by the utter failure of Lincoln's "March Madness" spring offensives, Union forces allowing the Confederates to pull of their surprise pincer movements with their inactivity, as well as Grant's ongoing moderately successful campaigns in Virginia, gave ammunition to the more aggressive planners, who believed the only way to win the war was to leverage the Union's greater population and industrial capacity to crush the Confederates completely. Proponents of both doctrines continued to bitterly feud in Washington as the election grew nearer and McPherson made plans to crush Forrest and save the Union's position in Tennessee, even as Schofield continuously sent telegrams demanding reinforcements or an all-out abandonment of Nashville to relieve Savannah. He was eventually forced to dispatch 8,000 men to assist Schofield, though he had not yet abandoned his plans to destroy the Confederate position in Murfreesboro.
Unionists or Union soldiers.
My X5 great grandparents home, Cherry Mansion, was Grant's headquarters in Savannah during the battle of Shiloh. X5 great grandmother, who unlike her husband, was a Confederate sympathizer wrote a very sympathetic letter about her visit from General Grant who she described as a perfect gentleman. I suspect they'll be having company again soon.
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