Grant, before Shiloh

By late February, 1862 General Grant was a newly minted Major General without a command. In a foreshadowing of what would happen along the banks of the Tennessee river in April, Grant's tiny command of 27,000 investing Fort Donelson was surprised in an early morning breakout attempt by the bottled up Confederates. Through the incompetence of the Confederate command, the wildly successful smashing of McLernand's division of which the brunt of the attack fell upon, Confederate General Floyd who decided to turn and try to route the next division in line instead of moving his charges down the now open road to Nashville. The brunt of this attack fell upon General Lew Wallace's 3^rd Division.

W.E. Woodward's biography of Grant states that Grant was called by Flag Officer Foote's flagship for a conference owing to being then unable to get about easily due to a wound. This happenstance took Grant away from the scene of the sudden attack by the Confederates, an unfortunate coincidence that would have consequences later. The early morning parley with Foote brings a most uncomfortable consequence for Grant. His visit is hard to account for how much time he spent and why he did not hear the battle raging no more than three miles away on his right. That he did not hear it is attested by other witnesses on board Foote's flagship. What has been questioned is how much time he spent there. The other being why was he not informed of the attack right away. Grant's own staff should have known where he was, but Grant's detractors later said he spent half the day lounging in Foote's state room smoking cigars and drinking. Woodward states that this rumor was indefensible given Foote's high degree of prohibition against any intoxicant on any vessel of his command. Still, the time is unaccounted for and in his official report of the action Wallace states that he did not see Grant until well after 3pm once the Confederate attack upon his division had been stopped.

In the world of military politics and with a commanding officer, Major General Henry W. Halleck, establishing a severe dislike of the ramshackle Grant, it is not too hard to imagine that Wallace's report, which Grant would have eventually seen, did not paint his participation in the battle in too favorable of a light. That Grant did reverse the morning's misfortune notwithstanding, a cloud was hanging over his generalship. If he cast blame upon Wallace is not known, but it was entered into the official record of the battle and Grant himself makes mention of his whereabouts that morning in his own official account of the action but fails to clarify how long he was in conference with Foote. Aside from reports from Lt. Col McPherson, the army's chief engineer, Flag Officer Foote, and General McLernand, Wallace's report is the only one that makes mention of Grant's presence at all on the battlefield.

With the surrender of Fort Donelson on the 16^th, Grant falls afoul of Halleck when he takes a trip to Nashville to confer with Buell whose entrance into the Tennessee state capital crowned an extraordinarily bad month for the Confederacy. Halleck, fed up with his upstart general and feeling somewhat threatened by his sudden rise to national acclaim fires off several complaints to General McClellan, in command at this time of all the military forces for the Union, requesting permission to relieve Grant of command for his unauthorized absence. Short of arresting Grant, Halleck does the next best thing, leaving him dawdling about Donelson with nothing to do and no troops to command. For two weeks Halleck leaves him there to stew until giving him orders to rejoin his command on the banks of the Tennessee at Pittsburg Landing and Crump's Landing. Once there, Grant remains in a funk until the battle.

Woodward's biography draws comparisons from the Grant that we know and love who eventually rose to the highest rank in the US military, a post once held by Washington, and the Grant who commanded the Army of the Tennessee in April, 1862 and states that Grant is off of his game. Establishing his command post eight miles downriver at Savannah and shuttling back and forth every day, Grant does not stay on the field with his army and remains quasi out of touch with the dispositions that General Smith, given command of the army in place of Grant by Halleck, made of the army. A further fall from a horse a few days before the battle leaves him in constant pain and unable to ride a horse for very long. His own statements notwithstanding as to why he tarried in Savannah as long as he did, Grant's behavior during this episode is out of character and suspect. It is easy, then to speculate and imagine that the mystery of the unwritten order to Wallace at Crump's Landing was indeed to join the right flank of Sherman's division and not, as the second order later in the day was, to march by the river road to Pittsburg Landing. Speculation only, as no court of inquiry was convened that would have opened up much more evidence in either support or condemnation of Wallace officially.