This Hallowed Ground - Bruce Catton [70]
Writing to his wife, Grant was even more optimistic. He asserted that “ ‘Sesesch’ is now about on its last legs in Tennessee,” and said that he wanted to push on as rapidly as possible to save hard fighting. There would, he felt, be some more fighting, but not too much more: “A big fight may be looked for someplace before a great while which it appears to me will be the last in the west.” He added: “This is all the time supposing that we will be successful which I never doubt for a single moment.”16
He could not move just yet, however. Halleck was being cautious. He saw Corinth as the objective, but he would not attack it until Grant and Buell’s forces had joined, at which time he himself would come down and take active command. Grant was ordered not on any account to bring on a general engagement until all of this took place.
Halleck had finally won what he wanted most — top command in the West. Washington was reshuffling its command setup this spring. McClellan’s reluctance to move against Richmond (despite his statement to Buell that he expected to be there soon after the Federals were in Nashville) had worn the administration’s patience too thin; he was no longer top commander of all the country’s armies but was leader of the Army of the Potomac alone; and as it demoted him the administration gave Halleck control over Buell’s department as well as Halleck’s own. On paper it seemed a logical move, for Halleck’s forces were winning victories as winter ended.
Grant was getting one welcome addition to his command this March, although he did not yet know how welcome it would finally be. William Tecumseh Sherman, who had been funneling troops to him from Paducah, brought an untrained new division up the river and took his post at Pittsburg Landing — took post there just in time to exercise command, for Old Smith had skinned his leg jumping from a steamer to a rowboat, the insignificant hurt had become infected, and he was now hospitalized in Savannah in the fine old mansion that Grant had taken over for headquarters.
The Sherman who took over at Pittsburg Landing was a different sort of man from the nervous, jittery Sherman who had lost his poise and his command in Kentucky. Halleck had not known how to handle Grant — had done his best to drive him clear out of the army — but he had found the right touch with Sherman, and that effervescent soldier’s self-confidence had returned. In Kentucky he had fretted and worried over reports of Confederate activity, fearing that each thrust by a half-organized cavalry patrol betokened an immediate attack in force. Now, holding the advance and peering south from his tent pitched near gaunt Shiloh meeting house a few miles from the landing, Sherman was less than a score of miles away from the main Confederate army, but he was taking no alarm. Confederate skirmishers were infesting his front, but he was calmly reporting that they were simply trying to find out how many Yankees there were around Pittsburg Landing. He was scorning to entrench his command, and Grant was not telling him to entrench, either; there was no need for it — before long Buell’s army would arrive, and then Halleck would come, and they would sweep grandly down and whip the Rebels at Corinth.
Spring was coming on, southern winter was balmy, and a soldier in the newly arrived 11th Iowa doubtless spoke for all of his fellows when he wrote in his diary: “It is warm and dry — it is delightful. There is nothing of importance going on.”17
Chapter Five
A LONG WAR AHEAD
1. Hardtack in an Empty