Civil War Armies in 1862

When reading up on official histories of Shiloh, one gets the impression that both U.S. Grant and A.S. Johnston were in command of great armies. One reads of the brigades, divisions, and corps and it is easy to build a picture of that organization with an eye on our modern military. We share titles and ranks and indeed there are some former volunteer regiments, national guard formations that can trace some of their lineage to the Civil War and the Spanish American War.

Easier still to envision that the regiments and brigades were organized and trained as whole organizations where brigade and division commanders were men of note and experience. Since WWII, we have lived in a nation where a large standing army was the norm, not the rule. This army is professional in character, all volunteer until the Vietnam conflict, and made up of men from all over the fifty states who trained as specialists in war.

The Civil War armies were of a vastly different character, more akin in make up to our current National Guard formations where men served with other men from the same geographic location and then only served in time of war. They were not professional at this early stage, only the experience of time would make them the soldiers who marched and fought each other at Gettysburg in June of 1863.

To understand Shiloh as a campaign and battle, we need to look at the character of these formations, how they were formed, and how they trained.


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A.S. Johnston or P.G.T. Buearegard, who was to blame part II

In the military, it is the commanding officer who bears both the responsibility for victory and the blame for defeat. A subordinate's actions can bring credit not only on themselves but on the one who sanctions their actions.

In the two accounts of the actions taken before and during the final act of the campaign now called the Shiloh Campaign, Buearegard and the younger William Johnston lay out the strategic situation prior to the fall of Forts Donelson and Henry and the ultimate decision to risk all and initiate a preemptive strike on the gathering federal army.

When the capture of Fort Henry separated Tennessee into two distinct theaters of war, General Johnston assigned the district west of the Tennessee River to General Beauregard, who had been sent to him for duty. This officer had suddenly acquired a high reputation by the battle of Bull Run, and General Johnston naturally intrusted him with a large discretion. He sent him with instructions to concentrate all available forces near Corinth, a movement previously begun. pg. 616 Serial: The Century; a popular quarterly Volume 0029 Issue 4 (Feb 1885)
Title: Battles and Leaders of the Civil War: Albert Sidney Johnston and the Shiloh Campaign. By His Son [pp. 614-629]
Author: Johnston, Wm. Preston

Though Johnston acknowledges that Beauregard had already begun to gather the available forces in his district in Corinth, he either neglects to give Beauregard credit for foresight or puts the situation in the correct light.

Beauregard, on the other hand, saw it a little differently.

February 16th, in answer to a dispatch of mine, asking if any direct orders had been issued to General Polk with regard to the troops at and around Columbus, Colonel Mackall, A.A. G., sent me this telegram: . You must do as your judgment dictates. No orders for your troops have issued from here. And General Johnston, in another telegram, dated February 18th, said: You must now act as seems best to you. The separation of our armies is now complete. pg. 9 Serial: The North American Review Volume 0142 Issue 350 (January 1886)
Title: The Shiloh Campaign, Part I [pp. 1-25]
Author: Beauregard, G. P. T.

Given free reign with the severing of Johnston's department into two halves, Beauregard attempts to show that it was his own initiative and not Johnston's directive to dispose of his forces accordingly. Although one can easily relate to the natural inclination to defend oneself or claim credit, both men play a duplicitous game with the facts.

If indeed it is Johnston's authority and ultimate responsibility to claim credit or endure blame for the actions of his lieutenants, then the younger Johnston can hardly claim credit for gathering Buearegard's district in Corinth and yet blame him for the abandonment of Columbus, Tennessee.

His own plan was to defend Columbus to the last extremity with a reduced garrison, and withdraw Polk and his army for active movements. Beauregard made the mistake, however, of evacuating Columbus, and making his defense of the Mississippi River at Island Number Ten, which proved untenable and soon surrendered with a garrison of 6ooo or 7000 men. pg. 616

Or, was it this way?

I was then at Jackson, Tennessee, where Colonel Jordan, my chief of staff, had just arrived, after an inspection tour at Columbus. His report, coupled with that of Captain Harris, my chief engineer, about the exaggerated extension of the lines there, the defective location of the works, and the faulty organization of the troops, strengthened my own opinion as to the inability of Columbus to withstand a serious attack, and rendered more imperative still the necessity of its early evacuation. General Polk, who had considered the situation in a different light, and who believed in the defensive capacity of the place, was at first averse to the movement. He changed his mind, however, upon my showing him the saliency of Fort Columbus and the weak points of its construction, and cheerfully carried out my instructions, when, on the 19th of February, the War Department having given its consent to the evacuation, he was ordered to prepare for it without delay. pg. 10

If Beauregard is to be believed, it was his own suggestion, with approval of the Confederate War Department, of the saliency of his opinion to abandon Columbus and concentrate then at Island no. 10. Yet, he could hardly have acted without Johnston's consent and approval, though in command of General Polk, he himself was under command of Johnston. William Johnston attempts to deftly ignore his father's acquiescence in allowing Beauregard to abandon Columbus and blame him for what became a lynch pin in the eventual loss of Island no. 10 in the end. If it was his responsibility to accept the acclaim of a right decision, it was also his to accept the blame for a wrong one, regardless of whose idea it was.

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A.S. Johnston or P.G.T Buearegard, who's to blame pt. 1

Long after the guns fall silent a war of a different sort wages. Death is not guarantor of protection from blame and the living take sides, often regardless of their wartime affiliation to pen excuses and treatises cataloging their hindsight and deflecting or laying blame where appropriate.

In researching for a timeline of events leading up to the April 6th attack by the Army of Mississippi, A.S. Johnston commanding on U.S. Grant's encamped Army of the Tennessee at Pittsburg Landing, I found two articles, one in New Century Magazine from 1885 describing the Shiloh campaign from the Confederate point of view, one written by A.S. Johnston's son, William P. Johnston defending his father's legacy and decisions leading up to the battle and his subsequent death on the field and one from American Review in 1886 in response by Johnston's second in command P.G.T. Beauregard.

The turn of the year in the western department of the Confederacy began with a shaky start. Grant had been surprised at Belmont but managed to recover his camp when Confederates under Leonidas Polk began ransacking his camp, allowing Grant to counterattack and then successfully debark his forces onto waiting river boats unmolested.

In his own article, Beauregard states the situation thusly:

General Buell's command was then at Bacon Creek, on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, not farther than forty miles from Bowling Green, and consisted of fully seventy-five thousand men. General Grant was near Cairo, and had twenty thousand men with him, ready to move either against Fort Henry or Fort Donelson, as might best serve his purpose. General Pope commanded not less than thirty thousand men, in the State of Missouri, and was, just then, seriously threatening General Polk's position.

With only 47,000 men of all arms and scattered about both Kentucky and Tennessee, Johnston had a problem. Numerically inferior and spread out over a large department, holding two rivers open and keeping union forces guessing, there was little room for loss.

Enter Ulysses Simpson Grant, his command strengthened after the Belmont debacle, and begins moving on Fort Henry.

William Johnston, lays out the strategic situation in the following light:

There has been much discussion as to who originated the movement up the Tennessee River. Grant made it, and it made Grant. It was obvious enough to all the leaders on both sides. Great efforts were made to guard against it, but the popular fatuity and apathy prevented adequate preparations. It was only one of a number of possible and equally fatal movements, which could not have been properly met and resisted except by a larger force than was to be had.

Beauregard, is a little more succinct:
Pressing upon Johnston that in his judgement, Forts Henry and Donelson could be saved by a concentration of available forces to prevent Grant's victory by fiat, he should ...

...concentrate at once all our available troops upon Henry and Donelson, and thus force General Grant to give us battle there, with every chance of success in our favor, and hardly any hope by him of obtaining assistance elsewhere. The adoption, I said, and above all the vigorous execution of such a plan, would not only restore to us the full control of the Tennessee, but insure likewise the possession of the Cumberland, and eventually secure a much better position to our troops as to the defense of Nashville.

To further jab at Johnston's son and propose himself as having been in the right, he adds:

My views were not adopted. General Johnston agreed to their correctness, in a strategic point of view, but feared that a failure to defeat General Grant, as proposed, would jeopardize the security of our positions at other points, and might possibly cause our forces to be crushed between Grant and Buell.

In the end, Fort Henry fell without a shot fired and Johnston, carrying what of the national stores had been kept in Bowling Green as could be carried, retired to Nashville.

Fort Donelson in turn is also lost as are a significant number of its defenders.

Relating this, William Johnston sates:

At midnight of February 15/16 General Johnston received a telegram announcing a great victory at Donelson, and before daylight information that it would be surrendered. His last troops were then arriving at Nashville from Bowling Green. His first words were: I must save this army. He at once determined to abandon the line of the Cumberland, and concentrate all available forces at Corinth, Mississippi, for a renewed struggle.

Or, was it Beauregard?

was then determined, that Fort Henry having fallen, and Fort Donelson not being tenable, preparations should at once be made for the removal of the army of Bowling Green to Nashville; that the troops at Clarksville would cross over to the south of the Cumberland, leaving behind them a force sufficient to protect the manufactories and other property established there by the government; that from Nashville, should any further retrograde movement become necessary, it would be made to Stevenson, and thence according to circumstances.

Absent is any mention of Corinth. An omission in his zeal to the younger Johnston's crime of omission (Beauregard is barely mentioned at all) or a taking of historical license by the surviving second in command?

We'll see more in coming posts.

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Confederate History Month, a racist’s dream come true?

I listened to a portion of a local radio talk show where callers were pontificating over the evils of the newly elected Republican Governor's declaration of April as Confederate History Month. I listened as several callers attempted to espouse pro or anti sentiments and in general showed their total ignorance of this period of our history. But, with little emphasis on critical thinking being taught in schools in favor of Politically Correct history, I can't but cease to wonder at how little the vast majority really understands of where we have come. It does not help that anyone can label a political enemy as a racist if they do not espouse a certain level of liberal ideology. The term itself has become the broadly stroked brush of enmity by which we stifle debate or impugn someone's character.

Hence, any discussion of the Civil War and the Confederacy in general devolves into harsh and superficial epithets and I fear much of what people know today is colored by the demonization of one race or people in the effort to artificially prop up another.

I listened to callers who berated even Robert E. Lee for not freeing the slaves he inherited from his Father-in-law George Washington Parke Custis whose will stipulated manumission of the slaves living on his Arlington plantation; Lee chose to pay off his father-in-law's debts by hiring his slaves out. To this caller, Nathan Bedford Forrest was the most despicable human being who ever lived for his actions during the war and after in the formation of the KKK. The problem I had with these callers was their self assuredness in their feeble understanding of history and the view of our ancestors. Personally, Forrest was a ruthless man and Lee was misguided in his allegiance to Virginia, but I will also admit that these are statements from today using today's standards and knowledge of how history played out. To paint them both as racists simply because they owned slaves and fought for the south is to oversimplify and ignore the whole of northern public opinion that little differed from their own: that the black race was inferior to the white race.

That is not the historian's purpose, to paint the past with the brush of today but to paint it with the brush of yesterday and bring full meaning and understanding of where we are today by the road we have travelled. It would take a war and the grudging enlistment of black regiments to begin to sway northern opinion toward recognition of the negro race as deserving of equal treatment under the law.

Truth be told, any but the most radical abolitionist of the 1840's through 1865 would be considered as acceptable today and John Brown only notable for his having failed to lead a servile insurrection. The Great Emancipator himself in private and in public statements did not believe the negro could live in harmony with the predominant white population nor would they be suitable for fighting in the army. On several occasions he dismissed commissions from free northern blacks offering their services in raising all black regiments to fight. Lincoln supported an enterprise to colonize freedmen in Haiti, an effort that ended in failure and brought down on his head the almost universal condemnation of black newspapers and orators alike. Northern public opinion was little different than in the south save that they believed that the south should be deprived of her slaves. Few even of the New England states where blacks could enter into the professions allowed him to vote or to testify against a white. That the north held opinions of the black race little different from their southern counterparts is little portrayed in our history books but is information easily found if one bothers to look.

Do I support Confederate History Month? Do I care? Not really. I can't oppose it seeing that we allow for and even throw money at Black History Month, Women's History Month, Hispanic History Month … I'm personally lobbying for Dutch-German History Month as I feel I am underrepresented in the pantheon of me-to ethnic recognition. To paint this month as inherently racist is to practice poor critical thinking when we look at the gender and racial motivated months previously mentioned. Is not Black History Month racist? Only if one really wants to be fair about their opposition to Confederate History Month must they in the same breath admit that these other ethnic months too must be racist in their raising up of one group over and above another in their focus. It is the focus that is the critical point, not their content. To know why the southern states have a Confederate History Month is to also acknowledge the same need for a Black, Hispanic, or Women's history month. It is a call for balance, one that is sorely lacking in much discourse when race is involved and our poor history at treating the colored race.

One look at the first paragraph of the following Wikipedia page on this and a look at the discussions tab is all one needs to understand the issues: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_History_Month

That the original author of the post misrepresented the purpose for the month by including a statement from Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephen's proclamation regarding the ratification of the Confederate States of America's constitution as "… especially designed to celebrate … a new government . . . founded upon exactly the opposite idea [from that of the United States in 1776]; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."

Nowhere in the proclamation or in any such state designations is this statement alluded to or the purpose for the recognition, but that mattered little to the person who started the information page. It was instead meant to harbor ill will and frankly a gross misappropriation of the historical record to front a claim of racism as the motivator.

Back to the radio show, some callers expressed their opinion that Virginia was doing this because there was a black man in the White House and as a protest against his election. With no proof and all hyperbole the discussion went on without any mention (at least of the part I heard, the host is usually good at reading the text of this stuff prior to opening up for calls so I can assume the audience had a full hearing of what the proclamation said) because it was Confederate therefore it was racist. That, is what rankles me the most: the misuse of our history and the view of the past with our standards of the day. The one caller who made the most sense was someone who asked why we had all of these special months to begin with; are we not all Americans? Shouldn't we instead have an American History Month?

In reading what Fredrick Douglass spoke in his orations or wrote in his newspaper and the writings of other clergymen and laymen about the need for the negro race to shoulder the burden of fighting in the war and then proving once and for all that there was no difference between the races in ability, for gaining the rights of suffrage in all of the states, and rejecting the Haiti and Nigerian colonization schemes it becomes clear that these men saw themselves as Americans, born in the land and deserving the same rights as the whites.

Do I believe that Confederate History Month is a celebration of racism? Only in so much as Black History Month is racist. Is the Confederacy a racist experiment in governance? Only so much as the whole of US history up to that time was. Is the celebration of Confederate leaders and their contribution to southern history racist? Only so much as recognition of Malcom X and Dr. Martin Luther King's contribution to black history is racist. I use the simple to make the point. In actuality the latter two are ethnocentric and not racist per the classical definition. But, to label someone ethnocentric just doesn't carry the same political and social power that the label racist does, yet to engage the critical thinking one has to admit that both center on one race to the exclusion or subjugation of the other. One cannot support the goals of Black History Month without supporting the same reasoning behind the other. If Confederate History Month is racist then so is Black History Month for both form exclusive ethnocentric paradigms of celebration and focus: to wit – to celebrate the contributions of Black/Confederate personages that make up a critical part of American/Southern History.

We should probably hold to a truer definition of racism before throwing that term around so handily today. The Reverend Jesse Jackson is famously quoted as saying that a black man cannot be a racist for he lacks the power to carry it out. That statement says it all about the use of the term today and its total lack of thought and simple stupidity that one can say no more about it. Yet, it is the common thought prevailing today, and that is just sad.

The Alamo accounts

I have been reading Eyewitness to the Alamo and coming to the conclusion that the history we have of wars and battles has to rely on reports and eyewitness accounts of what the participant experienced. Cross checking other witnesses and the official reports are all that a historian can rely upon to reconstruct an engagement. How often is the eyewitness covering for himself or someone else? How often is the report motivated by a desire to extol the virtues of the honored dead over revealing the truth of human frailty?

The Alamo is a mystery because the survivors did not see most of the combat and had obvious interest in not revealing anything that might dishonor the dead. The other witnesses were the enemies of the defenders and had motivation to extol their own prowess and righteousness of their cause and the villainy of the rebellious elements.

The timing of the accounts also bears upon the content and the thesis behind the story. This can be seen in the changing narrative given over a forty year period of Susana Dickinson, wife of Lt. Dickinson who died in the Alamo and who was found hiding in an inner room in one of the mission apartments. Her story changed in certain ways given the period of time that spanned her recorded testimony. Certain names changed here or there, some of the events changed or were dropped. But, her thesis never changed: all of the defenders died for God and country and none but one man asked for quarter. Hers and the slave of Travis and two local women are the only non-combatant testimonies we have. Did her husband really come in one last time, declare the enemy had breached the walls and bid her adieu, brandish his sword and charge back out into the fray? No other testimony is present to corroborate the actions of the defenders during the battle save for recollections of the Mexican participants who claim to have seen certain corpses of Travis and Bowie and alternately of Crocket who either died fighting or died by execution.

The Mexican accounts also range over the decades and were usually printed second or third hand thus leaving much to question of their validity and accuracy. The official reports give low casualty estimates and latter reports give overly high estimates. Some accounts had as thesis the evilness of Santa Anna in a bid to keep him in prison and others even to the heroism of the Texians. Did Crocket really die fighting as Dickinson swears or was he executed as other accounts state? Did 60 men attempt to escape after the breaching of the walls as some Mexican accounts state or did only one man ask for quarter? We will never know, for the Alamo is a symbol and that symbol was a rallying cry steeped in emotion. Why would not Santa Anna quarter to rebels and insurgents who were rebelling against the official government of Mexico? Much has been made of his refusal to give quarter and based on the account and when it was given that refusal was seen in the light of eventual Texan victory.

We will never know what really happened in the Alamo from the Texian point of view for no one who saw it lived to give an account. The enemy accounts are the only ones we have and they are suspect, just as suspect as the civilian accounts of the aftermath.

The Alamo

I don't stray very far from WWII or Civil War history in my studying/research, but my wife and I are on vacation this week in San Antonio and of course we had to go to the Alamo. Time and development have not been kind on this significant location. Now, it is an old Mission and no building can survive the ware of time with grace, but this one has had only limited preservation given the significance of the legend and place some of the names hold in our lexicon of heros.

The chapel ediface is the only real part of the Alamo that still stands, other buildings have been re-created and turned into museum space, but of all that still stands it is the most recognizable as an old mission church.

Because the site is run by the Daughters of the Texas Revolution, I was given a renewed appreciation of the NPS run civil war battle sites. The museum portion did lay out the events that lead up to the siege and fall of the Alamo garrison. The story sticks to what is generally accepted as indesputed fact. The Alamo was garrisoned by at least 147 men (could have been as many as 300 but due to the militia nature of its primary defenders there are records to account for only the 147 known), was besieged and was attacked and its defenders wiped out to a man.

From just a casual observer, one would wonder that anyone besides Jim Bowie, William Travis, and Davey Crocket were the only ones present and of those Davey Crocket must have been the most important. The DTR does little to speak to historical realities but instead would rather feed the sense that Crocket was the saving grace and saint of the whole episode. While Crocket was a personage of fame in his own time, he looms larger than the role he actually played in the battle. This then brings to bear an uncomfortable situation for an historian. We need heroes, they remind us that regular people can do or participate in extrodinary deeds. But, is Crocket really the hero of the Alamo? I like John Wayne, but his version and vision of Crocket loomed large in his making of The Alamo. The heroic death where he blows himself and a handful of Mexican soldiers with him, the story of attacks beaten off at incredible odds before they finally overrun the defenses is a fiction. Yet, how many, myself included until I undertook independant study, have this very series of events as our understanding of what really happened?

In the shrine, the now covered ediface of the chapel, are a few personal items on display belonging to Travis and a few other officers as well as Crocket. Yet, by far the Crocket memorabilia and artifacts are the mainstay of the display. In the gift shop John Wayne's face emblazons many curios. Wayne has probably done more for Davey Crocket than Fess Parker and probably more for the DTR and the Alamo than anyone.

I did pick up Bill Groneman's "Eyewitness to the Alamo" at the Tower of the America's gift shop and read through Paul Hutton's forward to the book. I studied under Hutton at UNM and remember his relating how he began recieving hate mail after writing an article defending the Pena diary description relating that Crocket was one of a number of survivors who surrendered and were executed after the battle. I'm curious to read this book as Groneman is on the opposite side of the debate as to how credible the Pena diary is.

So, again, the delimma. Should people know the truth even though it challenges a myth and legend? How much should that myth be allowed to stay because it does speak to our need to see something good and noble about our history?

Shiloh campaign

Any understanding of the battle of Shiloh must first start with the strategic situation in Tennessee in early 1862. For this, I turn to the man named second in command to Albert Sidney Johnston, the hero of Fort Sumter, P.G.T. Beauregard. In an article written for the New Century Magazine, Beauregard relates how he came to be transferred to the west and his role in the Shiloh campaign. At times self serving in his own praise (a malady all prominent generals seem to share when attempting to explain their role in history) Beauregard was in a position to know the greater strategic plans of Johnston and, as he over and over states, to suggest alternate plans.

Early in 1862, the battle of Mill Springs, Kentucky which ended in the defeat of George B Crittenden and death of Confederate general Felix Zollicoffer ended an early attempt to secure Kentucky for the Confederacy and left open middle Tennessee to federal incursion. As Beauregard prepared to accept his new command, that of all of the troops then located in Columbus, Tennessee, he faced a force under federal general Don Carlos Buell of (an exaggeration) 75,000 men then 40 miles outside of Bowling Green, Kentucky. General U.S. Grant had 20,000 men at Cairo, Illinois poised to move on Forts Henry and Donelson, and a force of 30,000 men under Pope in southern Missouri. In all, including such troops as present in middle and southern Missouri under General Henry W. Halleck, about 125,000 federals threatening the department of the west. Opposing them are 45,000 Confederates distributed as follows: 14,000 with A.S. Johnston at Bowling Green, Kentucky; 5,500 at Forts Henry and Donelson, 8,000 in Clarskville, Tennessee; and 15,000 in West Tennessee and Kentucky under General Leonidas Polk. Spread out and under supplied/equipped the Confederates in Tennessee and Kentucky were holding a line hundreds of miles long and split between holding the river ways open and protecting Nashville's intersecting lines of railroad connections to other points south and west.

Of immediate danger to the whole of the positions in Tennessee was the river line of forts protecting the river communications on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers meaning the fall of either the impossibility of holding on to both Bowling Green, Kentucky and Columbus, Tennessee. Failure to hold on to those forts would mean the abandonment of all of Tennessee to the federals and another defeat for the confederacy in the west. According to Beauregard, Grant's little force of 20,000 threatened the whole of the Confederate positions by his moves towards Fort Henry. Soon, Forts Henry and Donelson would fall. Beauregard attempted to persuade Johnston to abandon Bowling Green and tighten up the defenses on the forts instead of waiting to see if Grant could take them, by which evidence it was clear that he would given the poor state of both forts defensive measures and positions. Of course, Beauregard is writing this some twenty years after the war and without Johnston to rebut his claims. Hindsight is always 20/20.

The human story in war

Warfare is about human endurance. Politics and politicians/statesmen start wars and decide when to stop them. The civil war was started by politicians and sectional fervor in the South after Lincoln is elected. Had Lincoln lost, the war would not have started in 1860, perhaps it would have waited another decade or more before the sections could no longer stand to treat with one another civilly. If war did not come in 1860, when? Like a divorce that is not healed of its underlying causes, the sectional conflict was inevitable without intervention. Yet, was the war the intervening salve that eventually brought us together? Was war as William T. Sherman and Thomas J. Jackson envisioned, wrote about, and practiced also inevitable?

In his treatise on the Civil War as practiced by both of these men, ? studied how the war turned from targeting armies or territory/capitals to targeting societies and civilians. It was about killing every man, woman, and child who practiced for and gave aid to the underlying ideology that both men fought against. Soldiers were the tools in the hands of the master craftsman; the battles only the medium by which the artists did their work. Both of them a hero to their people. Both men practiced in the military art of moving men on the field of battle, though both not without their faults or their failings. But, when the general is through devising the grand scheme and the men step off in line of battle, it is then just a contest of humanity. Shiloh, with its grand scheme of Johnson's to annihilate Grant or Wallace's tardy entrance the story is of men and their response to pressure and death.

Johnson's plan of attack is almost flawless and Grant's army almost dumb with stupidity, born of the politics of Halleck and his dislike for Grant and Grant's surprising funk on returning to command. The least experienced troops, those cobbled together from garrisons throughout Missouri, Illinois, and Northern Tennessee are moved to Pittsburg Landing first, and like those who are first in an elevator crowd towards the back while the experienced brigades, those who saw battle at Fort Donelson and elsewhere are the last to arrive or are encamped five miles away at Crump's Landing. This is Shakespearean tragedy waiting for the plot to move. The first men to meet the onrush of Johnson's Confederates are green and untested, those of General Prentiss and Sherman. Both men acquit themselves well that day, April 6^th, 1862, but it is the rank and file in the regiments whom the story of Shiloh is built upon. The men who stood in line and fired at their enemy though they are outnumbered by gross numbers.

As Americans we value efforts of grand heroics and the life or death struggle against odds. The landing at Omaha beach, the airborne drops behind German lines in Normandy, the charge of Pickett's and Pettigrew's division at Gettysburg, and the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava; these stories of war and struggle belie our preoccupation and admiration of men at war and the struggle to obey orders where certain death seems the only outcome. Prentiss' division makes a hurried and forlorn stand in front of their camps but they are overrun by superior numbers. Many run, many stand to their colors and die or are captured. The Confederates, too, march and charge into the guns and though they have the surprise and numbers on their side, they press their attacks despite being exhausted by three days of marching and anticipation of the attack. Was it Johnson's determined leadership and planning that bore these regiments and brigades forward or each individual soldier's determination to press onward despite threat of death. Did Grant's presence mean the difference of failure on the first day or was it the determination of his army to not be forced into the Tennessee?

It is clear that the Confederate attack faltered after Johnson's death; his omni-presence on the field of battle, directing his brigades, gave the individual soldier a confidence to press onward, hence the psychological power of a storied leader. Even poor troops can be inspired to feats above their training if they have the confidence to perform. It is also clear that the arrival of Buell's advance division shored up Grant's flagging line as darkness fell on the 6^th, but the Confederate attack had already flagged after the delay caused by Prentiss' division in the Hornet's Nest. The green troops, remnants of the regiments who broke in front of their camps but under the determined leadership of solid officers held until surrounded and buying Grant's army time. This is human drama in war, the sudden turn of events or the quick reversal in the story of the play. The story we have of Shiloh, like all stories where thousands of men take part, will never be fully known and will be even lesser known as time goes by. The Historian looks for these stories now, as those written by Grant, Sherman, Wallace, and other generals have already been tapped. There are thousands of stories written by the participants in letters and diary entries that sit in collections and wait for someone to find them, to fill in another part of the story of Shiloh to completion.

When fiction meets fact

I have a choice that I am struggling with. In my fictional narrative, I have the 6^th Mississippi attacking the 25^th Missouri across a marsh and up a hill. This didn't happen, and yet somehow I put the two together thinking that it had happened, which then seemed to blend well with my storyline, having two characters meet at opposite ends of the firing line. They were to meet later in the story after the battle had ended and it all seemed to fit. Accept that it doesn't fit. This bothers me, as I've striven to portray a truthful rendering of the battle. There are those in the writing community who think that the story is far more important than the historical facts. In a narrative sense, this has some merit. For a novel, the story is what sells the book. A bad story goes nowhere. A good story sells the next novel. It has to be readable and memorable and therein lies where the fiction writer spins their tale using history as the backdrop but taking license where it suits the purpose.

I have taken license where it did not suit my purpose to do so and now I have to decide to correct it or make major changes to the storyline. The average reader will never know, but the historian or the reenactor or civil war buff will know or easily correct the error. I hate when I find inaccuracies in popular media, movies especially. What role does truth play in the writer's art? Some would say that they make their own truth by how they write or weave the story. But, as a historian I'm not so inclined to be cavalier about history or the record and factual events. So, it remains, alter the story to bring things more in line with what did happen or keep the sanctity of the narrative bent to my own will. And, back to the dilemma. How much to change?

In the real battle, the 6^th Mississippi ran up against an Ohio Regiment, the 54^th Ohio who had formed line in front of their camp on the brow of the hill upon which their camp was ensconced. Only the gallant 54^th Ohio in my story is instead the 25^th Missouri. The 25^th did make several stands before being broken on the outskirts of their camp and both resisted the Confederate onslaught bravely if not forlornly. So, some would say, what is the difference in the change in regiment number if the story is compelling? Is it not the story of human beings struggling with one another in combat that is the most important thing? There is another option, correct the error and re-write the sections containing the problem. I don't know if the re-write will take anything out of the story, but it will take changing whole sections to conform to the new narrative. Change the regiment involved and much of the back story must also be changed. Keep the characters in the same regiments but not have them meet under the circumstances already narrated. Or, chalk it up as a problem and hope it does not hurt the reputation of the book or the writer when those who do know point out the issue. One writes for themselves and for the story. The story demands certain things and so does the writer. Yet, History also demands something of me; the truth. The truth to a writer or even a historical fiction writer is oftentimes a nuisance. Or, there is the truth of the story as one envisions it and the truth of events being written about. How one deals with it will mean success of failure in a larger sense.

36th Indiana regiment

Continuing my look at the history of the regiments who played such a role of fiction in my novel, They Met at Shiloh, I take a look today at the 36^th Indiana Volunteers, a three year regiment. Mustered into federal service on the 16^th of September, 1861 under the command of Colonel William Grose, the regiment had what can be termed a fairly typical start in life. Writing 20 years after the war, Grose published an account of the regiment's participation in the war and leaving an account of the regiments and his own career in the western theater.

In my novel, a handful of survivors from the splintered 25^th Missouri attach themselves to the 36^th Indiana and continue the fight at Shiloh. Although this happenstance is fictional, it does to some degree describe the very real occurrence of many men at Shiloh who found themselves dethatched from their regiment and fought on with complete strangers. Civil war companies were extended families, and one can relate to being in the midst of strangers or rivals at sporting events to understand the psychology of feeling strength and courage in the midst of familiarity. It is easy to read about the thousands of fugitives who cowered under the embankment at Pittsburg Landing on the first day of the battle and wonder at the problem officers had in rounding these men up to go and fight. Many were alone or with one or two others that they knew closely and chose to keep to the safety of the river. Strange officers, strange men and no connections to either meant that soldiers did not take to being thrown together with others they did not know or trust to face combat. This is not a phenomenon of past warfare, stories of the ineffectiveness of the scattered D-Day parachute drops in Normandy tell of men fighting amongst strangers lost the finely honed edge they would have had if they were amidst their buddies. So, the men of the 25^th Missouri find themselves added to a company of the 36^th Indiana and with men who have not seen combat of this intensity before.

The 36^th Indiana, after being mustered into service found themselves in Kentucky under the tutelage of brigade commander Jacob Ammen of the 24^th Ohio and assigned to Buell's Army of the Ohio. Assigned to the 10^th Brigade, 4^th Division under General Nelson, the regiment did little but march and move camp until Buell moved on Nashville, Tennessee and the 6^th Ohio and 36^th Indiana being the first federal regiments to enter the city, with the addition of the 24^th Ohio would become common brigade units with one another throughout the rest of the war, seeing common action at Shiloh, Stones River, Chickamauga, and Nashville to name a few. As I have noted in this blog, it was not uncommon for units to be shuffled around and brigade organizations to be created and broken apart depending on the need.

On the 28^th of March, 1862, Buell's army begins to work its way along the Tennessee river to make its juncture with Grant's army at Pittsburg Landing. The 10^th brigade would encamp at Savannah, Tennessee on April 5^th, an easy day's march 8 miles from Grant. It would be here that, on Sunday April 6^th, they would begin their march not knowing that Grant had been attacked. The 10^th Brigade made the march in three hours after receiving orders around 1 pm to make their way parallel to the river and the 36^th Indiana was ferried across by boat, marching up Pittsburg Landing by 4 pm just as the Confederates where making their last attempt to drive Grant into the Tennessee. In Grose' own words:

The Regiment was formed front to the southwest. Grant,
Buell and Nelson were all there between the Regiment and the house, standing in a group. About this time, 4 o'clock, King, of Company G, of Union county, had both legs torn off, and a scout, or some attache of General Grant's command, had his head torn off and fell from his horse dead, close in front of the Regiment. These death scenes caused the men in the line near thereto to curve by a step or two back, but upon hearing the Colonel call out. ' Straighten up that line." it was as promptly done as though the Regiment had been on drill or dress parade. When the Regiment was aligned, General Buell stepped to the Colonel and asked if he was ready, The response being in the affirmative, the General then said, "Do you see that Battery (Captain Stone's) forward of the Regiment about one hundred and fifty yards upon an eminence, firing and falling back by alternate sections:'" "Yes." " Please move forward and sustain it if you can,'' said the General. The order was "Load"; then "Left oblique, march." This was the first time in battle for the 36th. As the Regiment ascended to the left of the Battery, then a little behind the summit, the enemy was advancing up on the other side in two lines. It was intended by the Colonel, at the proper time, as he could see, to give the command. "Fire at will, fire": but as soon as the opposing forces began to see each other they began the firing without command. After three or four rounds the enemy fell back, re-formed and came again. The 36th, in the interval, had time to prepare and be ready, As the enemy advanced the word went along the line, "Boys. fire low." As soon as the enemy was in sight the firing again commenced and after a few well-directed volleys the enemy again fell back. It was then dusk and firing ceased generally for the night. (chapter 3, pg 103-104 Story of the Marches, Battles and Incidents of the 36^th Indiana Regiment by William Grose)

And that was the baptism of fire for this green regiment who played a part in stemming the confederate tide on the first day of battle. This is of course the attack by Confederate Colonel Chalmers brigade of Mississippi regiments as they closed in on the landing, marching parallel to the river and threatening to cut Grant off from the river landing.

The history that can never be known

At the Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center, built on the remains of Battery Robinette – the only remaining earth work of what used to be the defense works occupied by both Confederate and Union infantry before and after Shiloh, there is a bronze relief of Union soldiers maneuvering in line. The image of a soldier running with musket at right shoulder shift reminded me of my reenacting days.

It also got me to thinking. Even as the participants, north and south, entered their waxing years many concluded that the war could never fully be known by those who did not live through it, both civilian and military. Even the memory of the war caused events and facts to meld into gloried fiction or wishful truth. The horror of the war faded into dark memory thankfully forgotten or tucked away deep into sub-conscious. The war was retold in the heroic vein and not in the grotesque as it had been experienced. Meanings were sought to quell the realization that battlefields were mere slaughter pens were men acted brutishly and killed in wanton abandon. Meanings were needed, for the fear that the war was nothing but the expression of decades of hate filled emotion loosed upon one another was too sickening to behold. Yet, they were left with only the memory, as if in slow motion, of what had become. Did the south gain anything by the experience? Did the north? Did anyone? Southern independence was nullified and the strength of the federal government grew. One nation was created from separate states. But the bloodshed was copious and the graveyards filled with diseased corpses.

The historian today cannot grasp what is only left in two dimensions. Reenacting can add a curious third dimension, but only as if vaguely seen in a mirror. Moments, as at the 135h Gettysburg reenactment of Picket's Charge for example, are just momentary glimpses of what might have been. Even in the photographs of the event there is an air of surrealism, they do not capture the widest scope of the eye and the tactile feel of the ground or the July sun. They are two dimensional. Only the memory can conjure them up again in three dimensions and even then only in clips. Trying to describe the event is something akin to trying to describe the war en toto. We can take dead animals and shoot them with mini balls and see the type of destruction can be wrought on flesh and bone. We can do this also with grape and canister. We can take separate parts of the experience and recreate them but we can never fully understand them, even academically. Thousands of us gathered in Pennsylvania in 1998 to commemorate Gettysburg, some say up to 25,000 civilian and military reenactors and there may have been more or less for no one took an accurate count. All of these people, including myself, were after something and I guarantee not all of us found it. We call them magic moments and they come and go at the least expected time. It could be the camaraderie of camp, the morning fog as it blankets a field covered in tents, the battle line being formed under fire, or the standing of sentry duty. Everyone paid to be there and for different reasons.

Like a participant, I am left trying to describe something that others did not participate in. Even those that did find it hard to recollect to one another what it was like. Yet, there is something missing. The dimension is not full and it never will be full. The fear of death. The discharge of musketry and cannonade do not bring death with them on the reenactment field. They only bring sound, hollow booming that carry no projectiles. We can only stand in line and flop down in pretend agony. We do not experience the fear, only the action of fighting. In that, no one who has not experienced war cannot know of it beyond the academic. We read and read voraciously what others have collected in research or read that penned by the survivors of the war and can only see what they saw in this inadequate dimension of fact and word picture.

My own novel, They Met at Shiloh, is an inadequate picture of the battle of Shiloh as I was able to envision it through my characters. Description can cause the mind to graphically put scenes and people together into a whole panorama but it lacks the truthfulness of experience. Only those who were there can truly know Shiloh. Only those who were there can truly know the 135^th of Gettysburg. It came and it went, just like the real battle and it left the participants with scattered images of what they experienced. I remember the camp of the 12^th Connecticut, the unit we fell in with, and the long procession of Confederate brigades tramping down our road prior to the start of the first day of the reenactment battles. The procession went on for over an hour. Jackson's column at Chancellorsville stretched on for about 10 miles along a narrow track and some witnesses attest that it took six hours for the entire column to pass by from start to finish as Jackson made his famous flanking march. I remember standing to as the first day battle unfolded around us, marching through the Confederate camps to get to our starting point while thousands of others started the battle. We stood and watched as other brigades executed their part in the script before we were called to recreate Schimmelpfenning's division arriving late on the first day of battle. We wanted to get into the fight, but thousands upon thousands of the people that we portrayed wanted only for the war to be over, for victory for their side to end the hostilities. They did what they did because it was supposed to happen and not because they wanted to be there.

The civil war fascinates us still because it occurred here. Yet, we are different from the Europeans who would sooner forget that twice there was bloodshed for nothing more than the want of power. Yet even there, WWII reenactor groups gather to "play war" even in the former Soviet Union. There is a strong need to know, and to know more than can be read in a book. The need to experience something of the reasons why. I think that is why I wrote They Met at Shiloh. I needed to experience more than I could through reenacting or reading. I needed to see what it would do to fictional characters who put into life practice what I had learned of the war and of battle, Shiloh in particular. Perhaps it is only in the mind's eye that we can move one step closer to that third dimension of knowledge.

What was Pickett's charge like? Noisy, grandiose, awe inspiring, and hot. We occupied a spot to the left of the "Bloody Angle", next to Lt. Cushing's Battery A, 4^th US light artillery. For an hour we baked under the cloudless sky while the artillery duel took place. Yet, any attempt to describe the emergence of the Confederates from the tree line and their advance across the Hagerstown Pike and into our waiting line would, as Lt. Frank Haskell wrote after the real battle, "would be weak". This photograph is perhaps the closest one can come to seeing some glimpse of what was the reenactment of Pickett's Charge. Yet, it is a "weak" reminder of the real thing, and especially the reason we were there. http://www.gettysburg.com/livinghistory/pastpics/1998/07059809.htm

Petersburg, circa 2008

I was able to visit the Petersburg National Battlefield Park on my recent trip to VA and I was impressed that so much of the earthworks had survived the post war era. Erosion has rounded out the edges of the batteries and trenches, the Crater is visible still and though mostly filled in stands as a testament to the uniqueness of the gambit and as a reminder of the sacrifice of both the USCT regiments and the white volunteer regiments who were slaughtered in the deep hole that trapped them.

Again, Petersburg is a battlefield bereft of monuments or other visual markers save for the grassy mounds of earth that trace the driving tour. Nine months of daily warfare are encapsulated in the now quiet pastureland. Areas of tall grass mark where entrenchments used to exist but were plowed under by post war occupants. Cannon, that obsequious marker to be found on most civil war battlefields mark some areas or actually re-occupy old forts.

One of the few monuments to sit on the field marks the spot where the 1^st Main Heavy Artillery vainly charged Colquitt's Salient early on in the siege and suffered for their obstinacy. The marker, a ways down a walking trail takes one through the second line of entrenchments and rifle pits (when one knows that they existed, every undulation in the ground suddenly heightens the perception that it could have been part of the picket line) takes one from Fort Steadman to a spot perpendicular to the future Union entrenched line on a bee line to the Confederate fort where today sit a few cannon marking Colquitt's Salient. You walk over ground that was bloodied by the men from the 1^st Maine who died or received wounds one for every foot of ground that covered the distance towards the fort they never reached, about 200 yards of open space. The monument lists the names of those who died or died of wounds a few days later and for a battle that saw much death and misery, is a singular testament of the bravery required to charge alone. Markers along the way describe what you are seeing and would have been seeing during the battle or soon after (often with period photographs) and I found that nice, especially since little of the period surroundings survive to this day.

The Fort Steadman/Colquitt's Salient area is one of the few surviving no-man's-land that you can actually walk with a clear view of the opposite line, the forest having re-claimed other areas of the park. You can stand at the apex of Colquitt's and look at the earthworks of Fort Steadman and the intervening ground and try to envision what it would have been like to live day in and day out in the forts or on the picket line. Cannon trace the embrasures of Fort Steadman today. I was struck by how small each fort really was. These surviving earthworks were untouched by man and have sat mute for these tens of decades. The trenches that once held the abitis logs are still visible and indeed offer formidable defense against a frontal attack by a wary and on guard garrison. The trenches still make the fort walls at Steadman eight feet high and one can stand at the parapet and see the guns at Colquitt's easily, the lines being close enough for rifle fire to easily pick off targets. It is also hard to imagine the countryside as it was then. Everything is green and lush today, but from photographs one can see that all was a dirty brown and bark/wood colored: this was what they saw every day. In the book, Mother, May You Never See the Sights I've Seen, a unit history of the 57^th Massachusetts Veteran Volunteers during the last campaign of the war speaks of stints on and off of the line and endless parades and inspections when off the line. These men lived this life through heat of summer and cold of winter, in huts and tents, crowded in trenches or hugging the earth on the picket line and ever mindful of snipers. Standing between the forts in silence, brings to mind the inability to imagine it even after reading so many accounts.

I also ran into a fellow reenactor who was manning a section of line at the base of Battery 9, a trench dug and revited with logs as it would have been during the siege and occupied by two very hot Federals who came out of their shade to talk to anyone who wondered down. http://www.appomattoxtours.com/ We shared some of the same experiences at a few events where his group, the Skulker's Mess and my unit the 23^rd NY, both members of Dom DalBello's Army of the Pacific. It was nice to talk to a fellow hardcore reenactor and someone whose knowledge of the area and battle far surpassed my own (I hadn't time to read up on the battle before visiting, a must for anyone who wants to experience a battlefield). John Marler is his name and someone who has obviously put a lot of himself in allowing others to experience the history of the area.

My main interest in Petersburg was research for a novel/screenplay on the role of the USCT regiments who were there from the beginning of the battle to its end. Writing about history is one thing, and doing it with fiction gives one the freedom to extrapolate on experience, sight and sound, and emotion that is often missed or unavailable when writing non-fiction. But seeing the landscape, its undulations and surroundings gives fodder to the minds eye of a writer. I wanted to see what those USCT regiments saw as they took on Battery 8 and 9 early in the battle.

I do not get the opportunity to wander the battlefields much, living in New Mexico keeps the history that I love out of arms reach. But standing on mute fields is still a treat.

1st and 2nd Manassas battlefields

It has been several weeks since I've been able to add an entry to this blog. I was in Tyson's Corner, VA for a week of training that covered two consecutive weekends (when I normally have time to write) but they were not totally wasted weekends as I was able to finally visit the Manassas battlefield. The First Manassas battlefield park is pristine with a large part of the field preserved as it was after the battle. Many of the houses have been recreated that sit atop key landmarks and a nice walking tour follows the battles progress. Few monuments dot the landscape, however, save for artillery pieces demarking positions of the Washington Artillery and Sykes Batteries opposite them on Henry House Hill. There are little sign posts marking where so-in-so died, but otherwise the field is open, leaving one to imagine the battalions as they arrayed themselves opposite one another.

I was struck by how cleanly the battlefield was preserved and how close the opposing sides were to one another. A field of perhaps 250 yards from the cannon of the Washington Artillery to Sykes batteries with a rolling valley in between, the high ground where death was easily meted out by the cannoneers and one could see that these were small and inexperienced armies who faced one another. I had read many accounts of the battle but was not prepared for the awful grandeur of the layout of the land. These early soldiers stood almost toe to toe, the cannon lines alone would have been enough to deter veteran soldiers from dashing into that deadly valley to charge the opposite line, but charge they did.

What I found unique about First Manassas was the clearly visible size of the field from all points. If you have ever been to Shiloh, or another battlefield you get the idea that thousands upon thousands, tens of thousands of troops were involved and at the point where you might find yourself standing was only a small portion of the whole, a short act in the larger drama. The First Manassas battlefield does not leave you with this feeling of confusion. You can see where most of the action of that day took place save for the crossing of Bull Run and Poplar Ford.

Second Manassas, on the other hand, leaves you with just that feeling of bewilderment. Unfortunately, not much of the action that took place a year later is pristine compared to the area around the Henry House Hill. Here, one has to drive (or walk, but in my case it was getting late and I wanted to see as much as possible before sun down). Signs point to what you would have been looking at had one hundred and sixty years of progress not marred the battlescape. The primary preservation has been done on T.J. Jackson's line in the railroad cut that extends for more than a mile paralleling the Manassas/Sudley road before curving off to the south west. All that is left is a tiny strip of land, overgrown with trees and hemmed in by modern houses of this line that Union General John Pope failed to break. Deer inhabit the railroad cut now. The area of breakthrough, the wide cut in the railroad bed is now gone and at the time of my visit was being cleared of trees for a preservation effort. I remember standing in the fading sunlight wondering what it was I was supposed to be seeing there as we stopped along the tour map.

One can walk the entire length of the remnants of the railroad cut, and in places it is still quite deep. All along this line fighting occurred and deadly fighting for the Federals as their piecemeal attacks probed and sought for a weak point. I did have one mission, however, and that was to make it to the site of the Brawner farm fight between King's brigade and the Stonewall brigade. But, here the field is unkempt and not even a well marked trail was supposed to have existed leading one into the Brawner farm area were the Iron Brigade earned another laurel and the fighting of Second Manassas kicked off. I wanted to stand in the twilight, between the two brigades and see what those men had seen. There is a well groomed field to the left of the Warrenton Turnpike where King's brigade was executing a forced march when they ran into the Confederates. Having read several accounts of this brutal and long fight, was intrigued about the land. As a writer, I've always been interested in how the geography of a place adds to its character. The hill opposite the Brawner farm house is marked where the 1^st US artillery unlimbered to support the Iron Brigade and a feint trail leads down the hill and towards a line of trees that mark the course of Young's Branch. But, on the other side of the little stream it is all tall grass and no trail. I waded through chest high grass to make it to the Confederate line but was unable to continue for very far due to fallen trees and bushes. It was difficult, although easy to see minus the grass where the Confederate line stood some four hundred yards from the railroad cut and the Iron Brigade's line around the Brawner farm buildings. The buildings are gone and but for the unkempt nature of the area I did not find were they had stood. But I did stand, in the twilight, where the two forces stood and traded blows for more than an hour, a feat knowing how outnumbered the Federals were. For one who writes fiction, seeing is believing. It is easy to get the idea when reading modern historical accounts of the battles to get the idea that men fought and marched over flat terrain. The hill where the 1^st US Artillery was situated towers over the Brawner farm field and over the Confederate position opposite. But for the modern trees lining Young's Branch, it is a wonder that King's Brigade was able to stand at all for as long as they did. The Confederate line in the opposite field was also heavily treed during the battle and the fight took place up the slope leading to the Confederate line in front of the Brawner house. You can read about these things, but they make more sense when you stand on the same ground.

It is a pity that, save for this one little section of battlefield, there is not much preserved of the fields. Trees obscure fields of fire and you have to dig back into memory to conjure up what it looked like back then. Few if any post war markers or even cannon mark the Second Manassas fields. Encroachment by both the forest and modernity force you to use your mind's eye to encompass what happened here.

24th Ohio before Shiloh

Reading battle accounts and narratives give us the overall view of how a battle went. Thankfully, the trend has been to give both the general view and that from the ranks. Thanks to collections of letters and memoirs these narratives are rich with detail and anecdote. Reading the after action reports from the Army Official Records of the War of Rebellion give some interesting insight into those in command. The difficulty in choosing an individual unit to write about is that there is not always a lot of information about that unit. I chose the 24th Ohio as one of the units in my novel because it represented an interesting role in the second day of battle and, as I was born in Ohio myself, I wanted to vicariously experience what a possible ancestor of mine might have gone through in volunteering.

Like many regiments from Ohio after they mustered in, the 24th found itself in West Virginia and its first engagement at Cheat Mountain. Like many regiments raised in the early months of the war, the 24th found itself brigaded with many regiments who'd not been in an engagement before. The battle experienced at Cheat Mountain in West Virginia bears some interesting scrutiny.

A search through the correspondence in the official records reveals the importance of the Cheat Mountain pass as both Confederate and Federal messages refer to this pass and its passing of control between the two sides and a controversy in the confederate command about who was to have built fortifications at the pass to hold it. Subsequent to losing the pass, there was an inquiry into the battle and General Garnett's and Colonel Pegram's role in the loss. In a report advanced by Colonel William C. Scott of the 44th Virginia Infantry who was criticized for not coming to Pegram's aid, Scott had been ordered to occupy a defensive position on the Buckhannon road and defend it to the last man. While Scott was following his orders, Pegram was being forced out of his position on the Rich Mountain pass and the whole of the Confederate position commanded by Garnette fell apart. A full description of the campaign can be found here: http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/battle-rich-mountain.htm.

The 24th Ohio would meet Scott's Virginians a few days later after the Rich Mountain fight on Cheat Mountain, where again Scott was criticized for not having fortified his position there. Having no entrenching implements and having executed a forced march the night of the Rich Mountain fight, Scott's brigade was in little condition to face the federals.

What is interesting about this early war episode is the number of future generals who participated, namely George B. McLellan, William S. Rosecrans, and John C. Pegram. Mclellan would be promoted upstairs, as it where, to replace the ailing and disfavored hero of the War with Mexico, Winfield Scott. Rosecrans would be promted to Brigadier General and Pegram and would be captured and later paroled. Garnett would die leading his brigade against the federal center at Gettysburg as part of Pickett's division and Pegram would be promoted to Brigadier General and served almost to the end of the war. Pegram held a variety of command and staff positions, commanded a division of Forrest's Cavalry Corps at Chickamauga, an infantry brigade in Early's corps and was wounded at the Battle of the Wilderness and finally killed in 1865 days before the war ended at Hatcher's Run.

In the course of their occupation of the Cheat Mountain pass, the 24th Ohio would face off against another future civil war notable, that of Robert E. Lee, dispatched by Richmond to attempt to recover the lost ground in West Virginia to notable failure. The 24th Ohio would stay on Cheat Mountain until ordered west in November, 1861 to be added to Buell's Army of the Ohio where they then enter into the drama of the battle of Shiloh.

5th Texas Artilery at Shiloh

(inset of Marshall T. Polk)In my novel, I placed a central character in the fictitious unit, the 5th Texas Artillery. Early on in my research I looked for units who participated in key points in the battle. As far as I can determine, the 5th Texas did not participate at Shiloh. In my story, the 5th Texas was amalgamated with a Tennessee battery under Captain Marshall T. Polk, a west point graduate of the class of 1852 and given the task of whipping the Texas volunteers into shape, drawing upon his regular army experience. Though Polk figures only as a minor character in the story, it does allow for delving into a uniquely Confederate habit of referring to its artilery batteries.

Though most state raised units were given a designation based upon the order by which they were raised, the state affiliations of Confederate artillery units are extremely hard to track even in the official records as they are almost always referred to by their commanding officer at the time. So, the Tennesseans who made up "Polk's Battery" are traceable in the records from the time they were raised until the battle of Shiloh, then it becomes harder as Captain Polk, who lost a leg at Shiloh, drops from the record until showing up on a command roster dated May 20th, 1863 as a Lt. Col. in charge of Leonidas Polk's Artillery Corps. What became of his battery is absent from the record, although from the roster there are two Tennessee Artillery units Scott's and Carne's batteries. From the following link, I learned what did become of "Polk's Battery".
http://www.tngenweb.org/civilwar/csaart/polk.html

Although, from other records and reports it is not stated that Capt. Polk was ever captured, he did lose his leg and the battery was disbanded with many of its men being consolidated with Carne's battery after the battle of Shiloh and back in Corinth, Mississippi.

25th Missouri before and after Shiloh

In my soon to be printed novel, They Met at Shiloh, I chose to relate the experiences of the 25thMissouri Volunteers through the eyes of fictional characters who shared a mess. The original 13th Missouri was composed of mostly ethnic Germans and recruiting for the new 25th also included a large Germanic contingent. Studying the history of the 13th/25th revealed a good deal about the practices of paroling prisoners and the consequences of taking an oath to never raise arms against the opposition.

As was stated in the previous post, there were legality questions regarding the agreement entered into by Fremont and Price and the War Department's GO no.29 compelling those who had not been paroled to rejoin their units along with those who had been duly exchanged, officers listed in the following dispatch:

Whereas, Maj. Gen. John C. Frémont, commanding the U.S. forces in Missouri, by letter dated Warsaw, October 21, 1861, authorized Quin Morton, esq., to confer with Maj. Gen. Sterling Price, commanding the Missouri State Guard, in reference to exchange of prisoners; and whereas, General Price has agreed with said Morton upon terms of such exchange as follows, to wit:
First. The exchange shall be effected grade for grade, or two officers of a lower grade as an equivalent in rank for one of a higher grade; the exchange to embrace prisoners on parole as also those held in custody.
Second. The parties released both officers and privates shall be furnished with a certificate of release and of safe conduct to the headquarters of their respective armies or of their division, the officers with their usual side-arms, camp equipage and property and the privates with their personal property.
Third. The prisoners taken by the U.S. forces at Camp Jackson in Saint Louis County on the 10th day of May, 1861, are embraced in this exchange with the express understanding that General Price reiterates the protest(*) of the officers and men then made against the legality of their capture and the exaction of parole when released.
Fourth. Brig. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis or the officer commanding at Benton Barracks in Saint Louis County is hereby authorized and required to issue the certificates above referred to to the officers and privates of the State forces herein named and also to such other officers and non-commissioned officers and privates taken prisoners at Camp Jackson to the number of 530 as may be named to him by Col. David H. Armstrong, Col. Samuel B. Churchill, Col. J. Richard Barrett and D. Robert Barclay, esq., or either of them, and the said Col. David H. Armstrong, Col. Samuel B. Churchill, Col. J. Richard Barrett and D. Robert Barclay, esq., or either of them are hereby authorized and required to issue such certificates to the U.S. officers and privates herein named and also to such other officers, non-commissioned officers and privates taken prisoners at Lexington, Mo., to the number of 530 as may be named to them or either of them by Quin Morton, esq., or such other person as may be named in his place or stead by the commanding officer at Benton Barracks aforesaid.
Fifth. The persons herein named for exchange not connected with the military shall be furnished as hereinbefore provided with certificates of safe conduct to their respective homes:
Now therefore in pursuance of the foregoing stipulations it is hereby agreed by and between Quin Morton, esq., acting for and in behalf of Maj. Gen. John C. Frémont and Maj. Gen. Sterling Price that exchanges be made as follows, to wit:
Brig. Gen. Daniel M. Frost, First Military District, Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Col. 'James A. Mulligan, of the Twenty-third Illinois Volunteers, acting at Lexington as brigadier-general.
Col. John S. Bowen, Second Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Col. Everett Peabody, Thirteenth Regiment Missouri Volunteers.
Maj. R. S. Voorhis, judge-advocate and assistant adjutant-general, First Brigade, Missouri Volunteer Militia, First Military District, for Maj. Charles E. Moore, Twenty-third Illinois Regiment.
Maj. Henry W. Williams, quartermaster, First Brigade, First Military District, Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Maj. Robert T. Van Horn, Kansas City Battalion.
Maj. N. Wall, commissary, First Brigade, First Military District, Missouri Volunteer Militia, and Capt. William C. Buchanan, adjutant, First Regiment, First Military District, Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Lieut. Col. James Quirk, Twenty-third Illinois Regiment.
Maj. John J. Anderson, paymaster, First Brigade, First Military District, Missouri Volunteer Militia, and Maj. James R. Shaler, Second Regiment, First Military District, Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Col. Robert White, Fourteenth Regiment Missouri Volunteers.
Maj. Clark Kennerly, Southwest Battalion Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Capt. M. Gleason, and Capt. Robert Adams, of Twenty-third Illinois Regiment.
Capt. Alex. J.P. Garesché, judge-advocate, First Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Capt. S. A. Simison, Company D, Twenty-third Illinois Regiment.
Capt. Martin Burke, Company A, First Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Capt. D. P. Moriarty, Company F, Twenty-third Illinois Regiment.
Capt. Philip Coyne, Company D, First Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Capt. Charles Coffey, Company H, Twenty-third Illinois Regiment.
Capt. William H. Frazier, Company F, First Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Capt. James J. Fitzgerald, Company I, Twenty-third Illinois Regiment.
Capt. George W. Wert, Company G, First Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Capt. Daniel Quirk, Company K, Twenty-third Illinois Regiment.
Capt. George W. Thatcher, Company H, First Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Capt. F. C. Nichols, Company A, Thirteenth Missouri Regiment.
Capt. B. Newton Hart, Company I, First Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Capt. Joseph Schmitz, Company B, Thirteenth Missouri Regiment.
Capt. Charles Longueman, Company K, Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Capt. J. W. Robinson, Company C, Thirteenth Missouri Regiment.
Capt. Arthur J. Magenis, quartermaster, Second Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Capt. E. C. Thomas, Company D, Thirteenth Missouri Regiment.
Capt. William B. Hazeltine, Engineer Corps, Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Capt. S.S. Eveans, Company E, Thirteenth Missouri Regiment.
Capt. Hugh A. Garland, Company F, Missouri Volunteer Militia, Second Regiment, for Capt. George B. Hoge, Company F, Thirteenth Missouri Regiment.
Capt. J. T. Shackleford, Company H, Second Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Capt. H. Dill, Company H, Thirteenth Missouri Regiment.
Capt. James George, Company --, Second Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia., for Capt. G. H. Rumbaugh, Company C, of cavalry attached to Thirteenth Missouri Regiment.
Capt. Overton W. Barret, Company B, Missouri Volunteer Militia, Second Regiment, for Capt. Richard Ridgell, Company [D], Fourteenth Missouri Regiment.
Capt. Radford, of Radford's battery, for Capt. G. M. Mitchell, First Illinois Cavalry.
First Lieut. E. F. Byrne, Company D, First Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for First Lieut. James F. Cosgrove, adjutant, Twenty-third Illinois.
First Lieut. Stephen McBride, Company F, First Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for First Lieut. L. Collins, Company F, Twenty-third Illinois.
First Lieut. John M. Hennessey, Company H, First Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for First Lieut. T. Hickey, Company H, Twenty-third Illinois Regiment.
First Lieut. Thomas Keith, Company I, First Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for First Lieut. James H. Lane, Company K, Twenty-third Illinois Regiment.
First Lieut. Louis T. Kretschmar, Company K, First Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for First Lieut. John H. Millar, Company D, Kansas City Battalion.
First Lieut. William H. Finny, Engineer Corps. Second Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for First Lieut. C. A. Wade, Company C, Thirteenth Missouri Regiment.
First Lieut. R. B. Clark, Company H, Second Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for First Lieut. W. H. P. Norris, Company D, Thirteenth Missouri Regiment.
First Lieut. J. M. Douglas, Company C, Second Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, and First Lieut. John Vaughan, of Colonel Elliott's Missouri State Guard, for Capt. F. L. Parker, Company K, of Colonel Eads' regiment.
First Lieut. R. H. Harrington, Company E, Second Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for First Lieut. W. Perkins, Company E, Thirteenth Missouri Regiment.
First Lieut. P. R. Hutchinson, Company G, Second Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for First Lieut. S. M. Penfield, Company H, Thirteenth Missouri Regiment.
First Lieut. J. S. Burdett, Company H, Second Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for First Lieut. O. P. Newberry, Company I, Thirteenth Missouri Regiment.
First Lieut. David Walker, Company I, Second Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for First Lieut. Fred. Klingler, Company C, Kansas City Battalion.
First Lieutenant Miller, Radford's battery, for First Lieut. William S. Marshall, First Illinois Cavalry.
First Lieut. Henry Guibor, Missouri Light Battery, for First Lieut. I. Skillman, First Illinois Cavalry.
Second Lieut. Henry B. Belt, Company A, First Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Second Lieut. Edward S. Murray, Company B, Twenty-third Illinois Regiment.
Second Lieut. John Henderson, Company F, First Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Second Lieut. E. P. Trego, Company--, Fourteenth Missouri Volunteers.
Second Lieut. William M. Mooney, Company H, First Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Second Lieut. Thomas Hogen, Company [D], Fourteenth Missouri.
Second Lieut. Robert Finney, Company I, First Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Second Lieut. P. J. McDermott, Company A, Twenty-third Illinois.
Second Lieut. A. W. Hopton, Company K, First Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Second Lieut. P. O'Kane, Company F, Twenty-third Illinois.
Second Lieut. Charles Perrine, Engineer Corps, Second Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Second Lieutenant Wallace, Company G, Twenty-third Illinois.
Second Lieut. A. C. Howard, Company C, Second Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Second Lieut. J. B. Hawley, Company F, Thirteenth Missouri.
Second Lieut. Henry Jenkins, Company D, Second Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Second Lieut. Owen Cunningham, Company K, Twenty-third Illinois.
Second Lieut. Alton Long, jr., Company E, Second Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia., for Second Lieut. James E. Hudson, Company D, Twenty-third Illinois.
Second Lieut. Joseph Dean, Company H, Second Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Second Lieut. D. C. S. Kelley, Company G, Twenty-third Illinois.
Second Lieut. -- Morton, Radford's battery, Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Second Lieut. C. W. Graff, Company--, Thirteenth Missouri.
Second Lieut. W. P. Barlow, Missouri Light Battery, for Second Lieut. H. Fette, Fourteenth Missouri.
Second Lieut. Ed. Blennerhassett, Company B, Second Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Second Lieut. P. Higgins, Company C, Twenty-third Illinois.
Third Lieut. James Shields, Company D, First Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Lieut. Edwin Moore, Company C, Sixteenth Missouri.
Third Lieut. John Bullock, Company H, First Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Lieut. George F. Tannant, Company [A], First Illinois Cavalry.
Third Lieut. J. J. Ledue, First Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Lieut. William A. Murray, First Illinois Cavalry.
Third Lieut. John M. Gilkerson, Engineer Corps, Second Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Lieut. Albert Rayburn, First Illinois Cavalry.
Third Lieut. J.V. Smith, Company C, Second Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Lieut. Morgan Blair, First Illinois Cavalry.
Third Lieut. R. M. Duffy, Company D, Second Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Lieut. James B. Dent, First Illinois Cavalry.
Third Lieut. W. C. Potter, Company F, Second Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Lieut. John C. Parks, First Illinois Cavalry.
Third Lieut. Andrew J. Hum, Company G, Second Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Lieut. S. L. M. Proctor, First Illinois Cavairy.
Third Lieut. D. F. Samuel, Company H, Second Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Lieut. Casper Yost, First Illinois Cavalry.
Third Lieut. Charles E. Southard, Company I, Second Regiment Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Lieut. P. S. Whitaker, attached to Twenty-third Illinois.
Third Lieutenant Ryan, Radford's battery, Missouri Volunteer Militia, for Lieut. Neal Bohanan, Fourteenth Missouri.
Third Lieut. ---- McGill, of S. W. Battalion, for Lieut. Charles Rippin, Company E, Fourteenth Missouri.
Private Henry N. Rosser, for Stuart S. Allen, Company K, Twenty-third Illinois.
Private Michael McCarty, for John Gilman, Company C, Twentythird Illinois.
Orderly Sergt. W. A. Davison, Radford's battery, for P. McGinnis, Company I, Twenty-third Illinois.
Sergeant Murphy, of Radford's battery, for S. H. Tourtellotte, Company D, Twenty-third Illinois.
Sergeant Fox, of Radford's battery, for Louis Yates, Company E, Twenty-third Illinois.
Sergeant Ryan, of Radford's battery, for James Quinn, Company A, Twenty-third Illinois.
Capt. Samuel Whiting, of Missouri State Guard, and Capt. William F. Bond, of Missouri State Guard, Adair County, for Lieut. Col. H. M. Day, First Illinois Cavalry.
Capt. H. A. Parmalee, taken at Camp Jackson, for Capt. Henry Erode, Company E, Fourteenth Missouri.
Capt. J. Thomas Whitfield, arrested in Jackson County, for Capt. John McNulta, First Illinois Cavalry.
Captain Caldwell, arrested in Lewis County, for Capt. W. Applegate, Grover's command.
The names of the privates to be exchanged are to be furnished without delay at Saint Louis; those taken at Camp Jackson to Brigadier-General Curtis or the commanding officer at Benton Barracks, and those taken at Lexington to Col. D. H. Armstrong or some other of his associates named in this agreement and the certificates hereinbefore referred to are to be issued according to the lists so furnished without delay.
Should the names of any of the officers or non-commissioned officers taken at Camp Jackson be omitted in the foregoing list and Col. D. H. Armstrong or either of his associates desire their exchange Brigadier-General Curtis or the officer commanding at Benton Barracks will on application make such exchange for any officer or non-commissioned officer captured by the State forces according to rank as hereinbefore stipulated.
This done and agreed to at Neosho, Mo., this 26th day of October, 1861.
QUIN MORTON,
Acting in behalf of and by authority of
Maj. Gen. J. C. Frémont, Commanding U. S. Forces.
STERLING PRICE,
Major-General, Commanding Missouri State Guard.

This "exchange" of prisoners acted upon by Mjr General Fremont was not the first time his actions drew the War Department's ire. Previously, Fremont had also declared that all slaves within the department of the West were to be considered contraband and emancipated. This negotiation between a member of a defunct organization (Missouri Home Guard) and without official Confederate sanction to exchange members of the MHG who were in violation of marshal law for prisoners captured in line of duty rankled many. Price's interest in these MHG members was clear, to continue to build his own forces for the reclaiming of Missouri from Federal control. Fremont, no doubt, saw it as a means to recover his tarnished image of which this stunt only hastened his removal from command.

From the following two dispatches, we learn a little more about the predicament of the men of the old 13th Missouri:

Major-General HALLECK:
It has been reported at this office that certain men in the Thirteenth Missouri Volunteers who were taken prisoners at Lexington and released on parole have been forced into the Twenty-fifth Missouri Volunteers. Some of these men were taken prisoners at Shiloh and bayoneted on the spot; others are said to be liable to similar treatment. Please investigate this matter. Have the paroled men relieved from duty and furloughed until discharged. Call upon their officers for reports.
By order of the Secretary of War:
L. THOMAS,
Adjutant-General.
-----
HDQRS. TWENTY-FIFTH REGIMENT MISSOURI VOLUNTEERS,
In Camp near Corinth, July 18, 1862.
ASSISTANT ADJUTANT-GENERAL,
Headquarters Department of the Mississippi, Corinth.
SIR: I have the honor to transmit a list(*) herewith of the non-com-missioned officers and privates of the Twenty-fifth Regiment Missouri Volunteers who were taken prisoners at Lexington with remarks set against their names to show how they stand in regard to exchanges. I have recommended the discharge of some inasmuch as I find they did not intend to re-enter the service after being disbanded by order of General Frémont but felt themselves compelled to do so under the orders of the War Department and of Colonel Peabody. These orders it is understood are considered illegal by the department headquarters and the men are supposed to be entitled to their discharges. It will promote the efficiency of the regiment if the subjects of exchange and discharges can be soon passed upon.
I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
CHESTER HARDING, JR.,
Colonel, Commanding Twenty-fifth Missouri Volunteers.

In a later communication (reference beginning of previous post), Col. Harding spells out the circumstances his men dealt with prior to Shiloh and after:

...Many of the men came back for no other reason than that they supposed these orders could and would be enforced against them. In a few instances men were taken from home by actual force and compelled to serve. Of both these classes there were those who had been and those who had not been exchanged. The ranks of the regiment were filled by recruiting and every company had more or less new recruits who then enlisted for the first time as well as more or less of the old regiment. At the battle of Shiloh (as was reported among and believed by the men)some of our wounded were recognized by the enemy as having been paroled and were bayoneted on the spot. This report the officers believe to be untrue but it has created uneasiness in the ranks. Some of the later addressed a memorial to General Halleck upon the subject and also brought the matter before the War Department. I transmit herewith an official copy of a letter of instructions from the Adjutant-General to General Halleck to which I respectfully refer.(*) I also inclose lists(+) as follows: first, names of paroled prisoners unexchanged who claim discharges; second, names of noncommissioned officers and privates who were mustered out, released from parole and afterward unwillingly rejoined in consequence of force or of the orders above referred to and who now claim discharges; third, names of paroled prisoners unexchanged who desire to be exchanged and to continue in service; fourth, names of others who have their exchanges and rejoined voluntarily. These desire a recognition of the validity of the certificates given to the Lexington prisoners--one(++) is inclosed; all the rest are similar to it. I respectfully ask early action in the premises. Discussion of these topics among the men cannot but lower the morale of the regiment, and although no instances of insubordination have as yet occurred I feel that the present condition of things cannot long continue.
I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
CHESTER HARDING, JR.,
Colonel Twenty-fifth Missouri Volunteers.

One often reads of green troops in battle and their inexperience in combat to explain the reasons for their breaking under pressure as the 25th Missouri did. Yet, despite the unit's rocky history they stood up to enormous pressure in the early morning hours of April 6th when obviously outnumbered and finally broke after the whole of Prentiss' line was flanked at their camps. Though the reports of men being bayoneted was false as stated by Col. Harding, it is clear that many of its men were under compulsion.

Saga of the 13th Missouri Vols

HDQRS. TWENTY-FIFTH REGIMENT MISSOURI VOLUNTEERS,
In Camp near Corinth, July 24, 1862.

Maj. J. A. RAWLINS, Asst. Adjt. Gen., District of West Tennessee.
SIR: I have the honor to address you for the purpose of calling the attention of the commanding general to the condition of the Twenty-fifth Regiment Missouri Volunteers in the command of which I have been since the 4th instant. September 20, 1861, the regiment was surrendered at Lexington, Mo., and in a short time thereafter was released upon parole. In October General Frémont then in command of the department ordered it to be disbanded and the men to be mustered out of service. The order was carried into effect October 26, 1861. Afterward an arrangement was made by Generals Frémont and Price whereby the Camp Jackson prisoners on parole were to be exchanged as far as their numbers reached for an equal number of Lexington prisoners. Under this arrangement a part of the officers and men of this regiment (then known as the Thirteenth Missouri Volunteers) received their release from parole but many still remained under their obligation. In February, 1862, the War Department issued a special order (No. 29) by which the muster-out was cancelled and the officers and men were required to report to regimental headquarters for duty. Col. Everett Peabody who then commanded the regiment thereupon published his order to the effect that those who failed to report would be treated as deserters.

Regimental histories of civil war units are often just as intriguing as reading about the battles in which they took part. As I was working on They Met at Shiloh, I puzzled over why I could not find much information in the Official Records for the 25th Missouri previous to the battle of Shiloh. It was only after having written my drafts and in editing that I discovered that the 25th hadn't participated in the Ft. Donelson campaign as I had previously supposed. While other regiments were freezing in the siege lines around Ft. Donelson, another drama was playing out.

Days after the defeat at Wilson's Creek and scattering of Nathaniel Lyon's federal forces in Missouri, Major General Sterling Price, in command of the Missouri Home Guard - forces sympathetic to the Confederacy and nominally counted as part of the rebellion but nonetheless representative of a neutral state marched triumphantly through Springfield Missouri unopposed on September 11th, 1861 and his van stopped on the outskirts of Lexington, Missouri for the night to await the arrival of the rest of Price's force.


Major General Nathaniel Lyon
The confederate force that overwhelmed Lyon at Wilson's Creek was smaller as it progressed into Missouri as the Arkansas troops under General Ben McColluch leaving Price with a substantial force. Facing them were several thousand determined yet hopelessly out gunned federals under Colonel James Mulligan in command of a brigade (the 23rd Illinois Infantry) of Irish, Mulligan himself Irish, marched from Jefferson City, Missouri, and once determining where Price was headed entered Lexington and began preparing for its defense. Here he was joined by a regiment of Illinois Cavalry (1st Illinois) and several hundred home guard. Colonel Everett Peabody, marching from Kansas City, Missouri, brought in his 13th Missouri Volunteers to add to the defense of this strategic and important city. 2,800 men to oppose Price's 10,000. The results were inevitable.

Colonel James A. Mulligan, cmdr 23rd Ill
Though Mulligan gave Price a few days pause and bought enough time to allow Major General Fremont to cobble together sufficient force to oppose Price, the 2,800 men minus those lost during the three days of fighting were surrendered on September 20th, 1861. It would be here that the drama would begin for the hapless members of the 13th Missouri and 1st Illinois Volunteers. Public outrage over the twin defeats of Wilson's Creek and of Lexington would see Fremont cashiered and Henry W. Halleck taking command of the Western Theater of operations. But, before Fremont left, he brokered an exchange of prisoners as alluded to in the above communication.
Mjr General Sterling Price
The problem with the negotiations for prisoner exchange was that Price held no Confederate commission and was not legally holding those captured at Lexington prisoner and Fremont, for his part, was holding men captured at Camp Jackson, Missouri Home Guard units encamped in St. Louis and prepared to take the federal arsenal were not legally prisoners of war but arrested. Due to the anomalies official Washington did not take a kindly view of the exchanges. Those men taken at Lexington were paroled on the field after taking an oath to not take up arms against the Confederacy unless duly paroled and to these men it was a serious oath taken and given in honor. Further, due to the paroles and oaths taken by these regiments General Fremont ordered they be disbanded and discharged from duty until properly paroled. So, men of the 13th Missouri headed for home and were not expecting to re-enter the service. The following extract from the Official Records aptly demonstrates how these oaths were taken:

Mjr General John C. Fremont

BENTON BARRACKS, April 5, 1862.
Major-General HALLECK.
RESPECTED SIR: We the undersigned respectfully solicit your attention for a few moments in regard to this article concerning the First Illinois Cavalry Volunteers, we having been compelled to come back into the service and that too under false pretenses; and we ask why all the members of the above regiment are not compelled to return if any part of them are? We do respect the oath which circumstances compelled us to take when we were taken prisoners at Lexington and there surrendered our arms to General Price of the Confederate Army. We there took a solemn oath before God and man that we would not take up arms against the Southern Confederacy. We consider it our duty to stand by that oath and if we do take up arms again we will have to answer for a sin which we are compelled to commit, and moreover we do not think that an exchange will relieve us from that oath. We cannot think that oath null and void; we would be happy to think so but we do not. The officers of this regiment can return to the service with a clear conscience as they did not take an oath but were released on parole of honor and have been exchanged. We wish to do what is right and we will do that come what will. We hope to hear from you soon.
BENJAMIN F. BROWN,
President.
M. B. SMITH,
Secretary of Meeting

What compelled these men to rejoin their regiments was General Order no. 29 canceling the discharges and, in some instances, forcing the men at point of the bayonet into rejoining their regiments. In the case of the old 13th Missouri, not all of the men had been exchanged in the Price/Fremont exchange and therefore still remained under their oaths. The GO no. 29 forced all men mustered into federal service back into their units regardless of the circumstances as evidenced in the above entry. Hence, while these men were being rounded up and reporting for duty in February, 1862 the battle for Fort Donelson was being fought and won. By March and April, the 25th Missouri, reconstituted from the cadre of the old 13th and mostly new recruits, was encamped with other green regiments of Prentiss's division awaiting their date with destiny.


Mjr General Bengamin Prentiss