The History of the Confederate War, Its Causes and Its Conduct. Volume 2 of 2. Eggleston George Cary

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      Bragg's army consisted of five divisions of infantry with artillery and cavalry. Buell had five divisions in front and three others within almost instant call, while he could depend upon being still further reinforced from Louisville, whither a still further part of Grant's army had been sent. But the nature of the country in which Bragg lay, and the uncertainty of his intentions forbade an attack upon him there.

      Buell decided at last that his adversary's objective was Nashville, and on the thirtieth of August he gave orders for a retreat toward that place by way of Murfreesboro. At Murfreesboro he made no pause, as by that time Bragg's movement had developed his purpose to go into Kentucky and make a hurried advance upon Louisville, striking that city before Buell could come to its defense. Buell therefore abandoned his march towards Nashville and pushed his column northward by hurried marches, in the hope that he might beat Bragg in the race for the Ohio river, or failing in that, might be in time to fall upon his adversary's rear before he could establish himself in Louisville's defenses. He left a small garrison to hold Nashville but pushed forward in all haste with his main army, in retreat upon Louisville.

      His retreat was embarrassed at every step. Bragg had forces ahead of him who destroyed bridges, tore up tracks, captured important supply depots, and in one case, at Mumfordsville, compelled the surrender – September 17 – of a fortified town with its garrison, upon which Buell had somewhat depended for a reinforcement.

      At first Buell had left Thomas at Nashville, to defend that city, but his own need of strength became so pressing that he called upon that able officer to join him with the greater part of the troops that had been left at Nashville.

      What Bragg's campaign really meant, and what he hoped to accomplish by it may best be shown by his own orders and dispatches. On August eleventh, soon after he had established himself at Chattanooga, he sent instructions to General Van Dorn who was confronting Grant at Corinth in which he said: "It is very desirable to press the enemy closely in West Tennessee. We learn their forces there are being rapidly reduced, and when our movements become known, it is certain they must throw forces into middle Tennessee and Kentucky, or lose those regions. If you hold them in check, we are sure of success here; but should they reinforce here so as to defy us, then you may redeem west Tennessee and probably aid us by crushing the enemy's rear."

      On August 27, just as his army was got into vigorous motion, General Bragg wrote to Van Dorn again as follows: "We move from here immediately – later by some days than expected; but in time, we hope, for a successful campaign. Buell has certainly fallen back from the Memphis and Charleston railroad, and will probably not make a stand this side of Nashville, if there. He is now fortifying that place. General E. K. Smith, reinforced by two brigades from this army, has turned Cumberland Gap and is now marching on Lexington, Kentucky. General Morgan (Yankee) is thus cut off from all supplies. General Humphrey Marshall is to enter eastern Kentucky from western Virginia. We shall thus have Buell pretty well disposed of. Sherman and Rosecrans, we leave to you and Price, satisfied you can dispose of them, and we confidently hope to meet you upon the Ohio."

      Two days later, on August 29, Bragg telegraphed Price, saying: "Buell's force is in full retreat upon Nashville, destroying their stores. Watch Rosecrans and prevent a junction. Or, if he escapes, you follow him closely."

      It will be seen from these dispatches that Bragg had no real thought of advancing upon Nashville, as Buell at first believed that he intended to do. His campaign was boldly planned for a larger conquest farther north, which, if he had been successful, would have left Nashville an easy prey to a strong detachment, if indeed it had failed to succumb to isolation and fall by its own weight.

      In these brief communications we have a complete revelation of Bragg's plans and purposes – a complete setting forth of his hopes. Stripped of military technicalities his purpose was to push his army towards Louisville in advance of Buell's retreat; to strike and destroy the Federal general's line of railroad communication between Nashville and Louisville, at points north of Buell's march, thus impeding and delaying the Federal retreat and in Forrest's phrase "getting there first with the most men" —there meaning Louisville on the Ohio river.

      In aid of this plan he had cut off the Federal general, Morgan, at Cumberland Gap, rendering his force useless for any aggressive purpose and incapable of joining Buell anywhere. He had ordered strong forces into eastern Kentucky, to hold there all the Federals in that quarter, to threaten Cincinnati and perhaps to compel the detachment of a considerable force from the garrison at Louisville for the defense of the Ohio city. He depended upon Price and Van Dorn so to occupy Grant's badly depleted army in western Tennessee and northern Mississippi as to prevent it from moving to Buell's assistance, or should it so move, he expected his very energetic lieutenants to cripple it by a prompt pursuit and by vigorous blows struck upon its rear, in the meanwhile overrunning and reconquering the region lost in western Tennessee and Kentucky.

      This was without doubt one of the most brilliantly planned operations of the entire war on either side. It looked to no less an achievement than the undoing of all that had been done by Grant and Buell and Thomas, the reconquest of all the region lost and the establishment of the Confederate lines upon the Ohio river for both offensive and defensive operations during the next year and the years to follow.

      The one defect of the plan was that the Confederates had not force enough to carry it to success, except by some happy accident, and happy accidents were far less likely to happen in the autumn of 1862 than they had been a year earlier when troops were raw, generals totally inexperienced and the problems of war wholly unsolved even in their primary processes.

      Bragg's force was considerably less than that which Buell had under his immediate command. Lee was at that time carrying on his tremendous campaigns in Virginia and Maryland so that no troops could be spared from that quarter to reinforce Bragg's undertaking. Price and Van Dorn had quite all they could do to hold their own against Grant at Corinth and Sherman at Memphis. It is true that Grant had been "stripped to the skin," as he expressed it, by calls upon him to reinforce Buell and to spare division after division for the army that was contending against Lee and doubtfully defending the Federal capital. But on the other hand Price and Van Dorn had been stripped equally bare to furnish Bragg with the troops with whom he was invading Kentucky.

      And while Bragg was thus marching into his enemy's country with a force only about three fifths as numerous as that of his adversary and with no prospect of important reinforcement from any quarter, Buell was retreating upon a city strongly held, whose garrison would furnish an instant and a very strong reinforcement, while the mere threat of Bragg's advance was inducing the hurrying of multitudes of fresh troops from all the northwestern states, to the menaced cities of Cincinnati and Louisville. For it was clearly seen in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, and even in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, that should Bragg succeed in establishing himself on the Ohio river the states north of that stream must become the ravaged and trampled theater of the next year's campaign, with a Confederate invading force swelled by enlistments from Kentucky and Tennessee to enormous proportions and reinforced by the fifty or sixty thousand Southern veterans whom the conquest of the Ohio by Bragg would instantly release from defensive work farther south. In brief, if Bragg could have captured and held Louisville by defeating Buell, it was morally certain that the Confederates would have been able, during the following spring, to invade the Northwest with an effective force of tremendous proportions. For Kentucky and Tennessee would in that case have become wholly Confederate, and the whole South would have joined in an effort to make decisive use of such an opportunity to end the war in triumph. Tens of thousands of seasoned troops employed during the summer of 1862 in garrisoning towns and protecting railroad lines would in that case have been set free to aid in an aggressive movement north of the Ohio. With the Confederates established at Louisville and holding the Ohio river as their line, there would have been no choice but for Grant to withdraw from Mississippi, West Tennessee and Kentucky, thus setting free not only the 30,000 or 50,000 men confronting his present position, but also the garrisons and armies about Vicksburg and along СКАЧАТЬ