A World on Fire_ Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - Amanda Foreman [149]
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By mid-May, Beauregard’s Army of the Mississippi had swelled to around 70,000 Confederates. But he was facing a massive new entity called the Army of the West, which had 120,000 soldiers. The Union general leading this army was Henry Halleck, the second most senior general after McClellan. Known as “Old Brains” for his treatise on military theory, Halleck had taken charge after Shiloh as the senior general, and had combined the three Federal forces under Buell, Grant, and Pope. Although Halleck was moving slowly toward Corinth, Mississippi, Beauregard did not think that the time available would allow him to prepare any better for the Federals’ arrival. But he understood the city’s importance to the South. “If defeated here,” he wrote to Jefferson Davis after the army had retreated to Corinth from Shiloh, “we lose the whole Mississippi Valley and probably our cause.”24 But given the choice between railroads and men, Beauregard chose the latter. His chief concern now was to save his army.
Halleck arrived at the outskirts of Corinth on May 26. The pickets in Watson’s regiments traded jokes and insults with their Northern counterparts. “We were glad to hear they had an abundance of coffee,” wrote Watson, “as we trusted that it would fall into our hands.” In just a few more days, Corinth would be completely surrounded, and no more supplies would reach Beauregard’s wilting army. On the twenty-ninth, Watson was on a picket duty when his squad was late returning and became lost in the darkness. “We therefore concluded to seek out a quiet, snug place in the woods and lie down till daylight.” The next morning they awoke to an unnatural silence. Walking back to camp, they discovered it was empty. During the night Beauregard had succeeded in evacuating his entire army. It was one of the greatest military maneuvers of the war. Like most of the rank and file, Watson had been utterly ignorant of Beauregard’s elaborate plans to deceive Halleck.
Watson and his men headed off in the direction of Corinth. There they found the railroad and walked along its broken track. Every now and then they came across large groups of Confederate deserters. These were mostly volunteers from Bragg’s division—Tennessee men whose main concern now was to protect their farms and families from looting soldiers. Watson did not blame them. He, too, wished to return home to New Orleans. The Queen’s proclamation of neutrality meant that the new conscription law did not apply to him. “I now considered that I had faithfully fulfilled my engagement to the Confederate States, and trusted they would do the same by me.”25
General Halleck’s soldiers marched into Corinth on May 30 only to find a filthy ghost town. The general was furious at being denied his great battle, but “most of the men and officers were glad of it,” wrote Robert Neve of the 5th Kentucky Volunteers. The Englishman wrangled a pass into town and went scavenging around the defensive works, kicking over discarded treasures and occasionally finding something interesting, like a bowie knife. “I also found a note directed to General Halleck. It said: ‘If you think there is no HELL or here-after, follow us. Yours, Blythe’s Regiment, Mississippi Volunteers.’ ”26
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The peaceful capture of Corinth did not result in the praise Henry Halleck had expected. Indeed, quite the reverse. The Chicago Tribune sneered at his “barren triumph” and called it “tantamount to a defeat.”27 Newspapers across several states followed suit. The acrimony