In chapter 34, expanding on the liberation of East Tennessee
Finally, on February 17th, Bragg returned to Tennessee, all his officers bickering and throwing the blame for the failure around. Unfortunately for them, this took them into the very heart of Unionism in the state, to the midst of a population that resented the Confederacy and cheered the recent Federal triumph. The oppression of the pro-Union population by the Confederate authorities had been swift and ruthless, the Breckinridge regime, either by action or inaction, allowing soldiers and guerrillas to freely terrorize those who resisted the government. But harsh methods were rather unsuccessful, and incidents of bridge burning, sabotage and even murder continued. "The whole country is now in a state of rebellion", a Confederate colonel reported, while a member of Bragg's staff said in despair that East Tennessee was "more difficult to operate in than the country of an acknowledged enemy." Historian Bruce Levine estimates that the East Tennessee dissidents forced Richmond to keep four to five thousand men in the area just to prevent open insurrection.
These were the temperament and loyalty of the people of East Tennessee when Bragg's battered army arrived following its shellacking at Lexington and White Lilly around March. The Unionist population of Knoxville received the weary Confederates with hisses and glares, and when Bragg called on them to give his men food and rest no one came forward. Worse than mere rudeness, there were reports that several Unionists planned an insurrection to deliver the city to Thomas' pursuing bluejackets. An irate Bragg, true to character, reacted by requisitioning goods from the struggling civilians and cracking down on all suspected Unionism, actions that could hardly have won the hearts and minds of the city's population. When in just a few days news came of Thomas' imminent arrival, Bragg ordered everything of military value torched and fled to Chattanooga.
On April, Union forces entered the city, the dashing bluejackets putting down the fires and offering food and blankets, and, more importantly, deliverance from rebel rule. Colonel Foster reported from Knoxville that “Men, women, and children rushed to the streets". The women “shouting, ‘Glory! Glory!’ ‘The Lord be praised!’ ‘Our Savior’s come!’", the men "huzzahed and yelled like madmen, and in their profusion of greetings I was almost pulled from my horse", and throughout the city "the streets resounded with yells, and cheers for the ‘Union’ and ‘Lincoln.’" General Joseph J. Reynolds was amazed when a group of Unionists, hidden in the mountains from the rebel authorities, saw his forces and “joined our column, expressing the greatest delight at our coming, and at beholding again what they emphatically called ‘our flag.’"
By the end of the month, Chattanooga was also in peril of falling into Yankee hands. Union cavalry units had raided behind Bragg's position, threatening to cut him off from his lifeline to Atlanta, and the in-fighting had gotten even worse. Confessing the campaign "a great disaster", Bragg nonetheless focused more on his struggle against his commanders. Rumors of his imminent removal circulated freely, and in Richmond only the influence of Secretary of War Davis managed to convince Breckinridge to keep Bragg for the moment, if only just until a suitable replacement had been found. The President hoped that Bragg could hold onto Chattanooga until the new commander arrived, but a panicky Bragg decided to evacuate the city. "What does he fight battles for?", questioned a furious Forrest, while a Confederate official asked in despair "When will the calamities end!"
Expanding on the Arkansas situation on Chapter 41
The failures in Georgia and South Carolina exasperated Lincoln, but the President could at least take some solace in the successes found in Arkansas. That state had been basically left undefended after most of its troops had been transferred towards the east to resist Grant's campaigns against Corinth and then Vicksburg. The situation was so critical that the governor threatened to secede. Arkansas was, the governor declared, "lost, abandoned, subjugated . . . not Arkansas as she entered the confederate government." If help wasn't fore-coming, Arkansas wouldn't remain in the Confederacy waiting until it was "desolated as a wilderness". The governor was not exaggerating, for the route to Little Rock was practically open, Samuel R. Curtis' small force advancing to the capital. Only guerrilla combat, that saw the use of Native American troops by both sides, slowed the Union in its march.
To prevent the fall of another Confederate state capital, Breckenridge appointed the diminutive Thomas C. Hindman, a "dynamo only five feet tall". To aid Hindman, Breckinridge suspended the writ of habeas corpus and allowed him to declare martial law, in order to enforce the draft and thus scrape together an Army. Although the morale and readiness of the resulting force was suspect, and the methods employed aroused "howls of protest", Hindman did succeed in getting together more than 20,000 men. Hindman managed to stop Curtis' campaign for the time being in December 1862, though his force was then turned away by the abolitionist Kansan James G. Blunt at the Missouri border. That Hindman had not accomplished more concrete results led to Secretary of War Jefferson Davis recommending his replacement, pointing to his old friend Theophilus Holmes. Since the General did not impress Breckinridge with his performance at the Nine Days, Hindman remained in command.
The situation in Arkansas seemed to stabilize for the time being, until things started to unravel in the spring of 1863. The critical situation in Vicksburg made Breckinridge order Hindman to send reinforcements to A.S. Johnston, in the hopes of saving the citadel. If Vicksburg fell, Secretary Davis wired Hindman, the enemy "will be then free to concentrate his forces against your Dept.", and even if Hindman did "all that human power can effect, it is not to be expected that you could make either long or successful resistance." To fulfill Breckinridge's orders, Hindman once again acted ruthlessly, executing draft dodgers and forcibly pressing men into service, which created a motley crew of guerrillas, conscripts and militiamen. But when the force found that they would be marched out of Arkansas, they revolted, many declaring openly that they would never leave their state and many others deserting. The governor encouraged this resistance, defiantly telling Breckinridge that Arkansas' soldiers "do not enter the service to maintain the Southern Confederacy alone, but also to protect their property and defend their homes and families".
A brief attempt at enforcement through a declaration of martial law bore no results, and when Hindman finally forced a contingent out of the state the force just melted. The attempt to strongarm Arkansas had backfired enormously, with the soldiers fatally demoralized and all influential Confederates in both Arkansas and Missouri clamoring for Hindman's removal. One bitterly said that Breckinridge was someone "who stubbornly refuses to hear or regard the universal voice of the people.” With Arkansas at the brink of secession, Breckinridge had no choice but to remove Hindman and, at the end, only a few regiments ever joined Johnston's command - just in time, tragically enough, to end up trapped in Vicksburg, where they would surrender to Grant. When the new commander, Sterling Price, reached Little Rock, he found a demoralized and undisciplined Army.
Such an Army was of little use to its commanders, but Price, obsessed with the idea of liberating Missouri from Yankee rule and badly overestimating the strength of the department, decided to take a gamble. The failed attempt to retake Maryland with the help of rebel rioters in Baltimore inspired him to attempt to retake Missouri with the help of St. Louis Copperheads. Marching north with over 10,000 men and hoping that thousands more would flock to his banner, Price seemed to be under the belief that he was leading an occupation force instead of a brief raid. As his force slowly advanced, many guerrillas did indeed join his ranks. But the leisure pace allowed the local Union commander, John M. Schofield, to gather the dispersed militia and troops, and take measures against the seditious rumors that circulated in St. Louis. By the time Price's army reached St. Louis, the city was in a firm Union grip, and the awaited for insurrection didn't happen. It's dubious that it would have materialized anyway, since the ill-conceived expedition had probably misjudged the pro-Confederate sentiment. An attack against the forts only resulted in horrific losses, the fact that Black militia took part only adding insult to injury, and resulting in the battle being known as the "Fort Saratoga of the West". Price finally retreated, his army melting away as guerrillas vanished into the countryside and deserters left by the thousands. But this would not be the last Missouri had seen of him.
This defeat led the road to Little Rock open. Leading "a multiracial force of white, black, and Indian regiments", General Blunt encroached the capital and then captured it in September, 1863. As in Mississippi, this precipitated the collapse of slavery and civil authority, as guerrillas proliferated and Black people flocked to the centers of Yankee control by the thousands. Since Arkansas was still under rebel control when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, as the blue troops advanced they brought freedom to all the bondspeople they found. When masters fled, the enslaved quickly appropriated the lands for themselves, but even when the planters remained they found that their previous authority had evaporated. The enslaved were "completely demoralised—They are practically free—going, coming, and working when they please", despaired a master who had taken the loyalty oath in the hopes of keeping his human chattel. This did not work, as the arriving Bureaus forced him to sign contracts with the laborers. Sometimes, masters were instead violently forced out by the new freedmen, who asserted the abolition of slavery by seizing the plantations and everything in it for themselves, often with the tacit or express approval of the Union authorities.
With three quarters of the state now under Union control, a joyful Lincoln ordered his agents to start the Reconstruction of the state, appointing a military governor to rule over the occupied territories. Union control was often tenuous due to guerrilla activity, but the Confederates would never retake the state. A forlorn Breckinridge, for his part, appointed Kirby-Smith as commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department, informing him through Secretary Davis that he had "full authority . . . to administer to the wants of Your Dept., civil as well as military". The General now was "the head of a semi-independent fiefdom with quasi-dictatorial powers". In the estimation of James McPherson, "Kirby Smith rather than Breckinridge became commander in chief of the Trans-Mississippi theater. For the next two years “Kirby Smith’s Confederacy” fought its own war pretty much independently of what was happening elsewhere."
