I have a question about the state of the former CSA cities that the western union armies captured on their way to Atlanta like Vicksburg. Were they in any form garrisoned by US troops? For exampel, after Vicksburg the union army moved to Chattanoga and Vicksburg could have been recaptured easily if it was not guarded. Did the union have troops to spare for guard duty?
Questions about cities like Vicksburg during the ACW
- Thread starter mattep74
- Start date
See Bradley R. Clampitt, Occupied Vicksburg , p. 105:
Occupied Vicksburg
During the Civil War, Vicksburg, Mississippi, assumed almost mythic importance in the minds of Americans: northerners and southerners, soldier and civilian. The city occupied a strategic and commanding position atop rocky cliffs above the Mississippi River, from which it controlled the great...
books.google.com
Yes, in fact the need for garrisons was something that weighed a lot on Grant's and Sherman's minds. Because the re-union was one of the major objectives of the war. Loss of retaken ground was politically unacceptable and in some cases militarily unacceptable. Historically, the Union IV Corps stayed behind in the Virginian Peninsula captured during McClellan's Peninsula Campaign, Ulysses S. Grant left Stephen Hurlbut's XVI Corps as a garrison force in West Tennessee and William Rosecrans even created a Reserve Corps to guard Nashville and the railroads. To directly answer your question, Chattanooga was manned with a force of 2,484 men present for duty; Middle Tennessee had was garrisoned by the XX Corps' Fourth Division (at Nashville) and a mixture of brigade and division sized units spread out; Vicksburg had 11,873 men present for duty and West Tennessee had quite a force to defend itself. So yes, the Union had troops to defend the territories captured.
I would note that Grant and Sherman were aware of the need for garrisons to protect their lines of communication. Grant's was the man who came up with the "Strategy of Deep Raiding", but this strategy was more famously implemented by Sherman. Grant had intended to use this strategy in North Carolina to isolate Virginia but politics restrained him from doing so. Instead, Sherman would have the chance to implement it. After capturing Atlanta, the need to garrison lines of communications would have shrunken Sherman's army to that of Hood's. Fortunately, since Hood ran off to Tennessee to get obliterated at Franklin and Nashville, Sherman could march to the sea and later the Carolinas without the need to garrison his supply lines.
