Gen McClellan Ambles Toward Richmond; Gen Johnston Counterattacks at Shiloh

It was a bloody two-day affair. The Bat­tle of Shiloh result­ed in close to 24,000 deaths, worse than the entire Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War.

By Gary Far­row, Danville Ver­mont His­tor­i­cal Society

The Ver­mont Brigade joins McClellan’s sleepy Penin­su­lar Cam­paign, while sound and fury rages in the West.

North Star April 12, 1862

Impor­tant News

The news from the Potomac Army is of much interest…and the future move­ments will be watched with anx­i­ety, as the whole Ver­mont Brigade is in the col­umn which marched from Fortress Mon­roe to York­town. The lat­ter piece is besieged and our troops are now engaged in that operation. 

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Fortress Mon­roe, locat­ed in Hamp­ton Roads, Vir­ginia, at the mouth of Chesa­peake Bay was a Fed­er­al out­post in a Con­fed­er­ate state, thanks to the pres­ence of the US Navy. It had been the site of an extra­or­di­nary coin­ci­dence almost a year before. Back in 1619 the first Africans had been brought there by a Dutch ship to be used as slaves at the colony in Jamestown. Almost 250 years lat­er, the fort was the first to receive fugi­tive slaves who escaped the Con­fed­er­ate Army by row­ing across the James River.

In the spring of 1862, prod­ded by a frus­trat­ed US Con­gress, Gen McClel­lan had des­ig­nat­ed Fort Mon­roe as the jump­ing off point for his Penin­su­lar Cam­paign to take Rich­mond, capi­tol of the Con­fed­er­a­cy. The General’s land force num­bered well over 100,000. Water trans­ports had brought many troops to the Fortress, includ­ing Vermont’s 5000. It’s like­ly this was the first time that many of these farm boys had ever seen a black man.

The Ver­mont Brigade had been formed the last fall at the sug­ges­tion of Brigadier Gen­er­al William “Baldy” Smith, who was born in St. Albans and had grad­u­at­ed as an engi­neer from West Point in 1845. Accord­ing to George Parson’s book, Put the Ver­mon­ters Ahead: The First Ver­mont Brigade in the Civ­il War, “They would even­tu­al­ly be known as some of the best fight­ers and would have the high­est loss of life among the more than 200 brigades in the Fed­er­al Army.”

The first com­man­der of the state’s unit was Brigadier Gen­er­al William T. H. Brooks, a tough old vet­er­an of the Semi­nole Indi­an War back in the 1840’s; he also sub­se­quent­ly served in the War with Mex­i­co. A firm dis­ci­pli­nar­i­an, his cus­tom was to be at the front with his troops dur­ing bat­tle. The Ver­mon­ters were lucky to have a strong and expe­ri­enced leader at the begin­ning of the war “because there were few well trained offi­cers to lead those cit­i­zen sol­diers.” Many of these offi­cers through­out the army were mere­ly polit­i­cal appointments.

When the Fed­er­al troops arrived at York­town, Gen­er­al McClel­lan chose to do one of the things that he did best. He waited.

North Star April 19, 1862

The Bat­tle of Pittsburg

…It has been called the great­est bat­tle ever fought on this con­ti­nent. In some respects, this is undoubt­ed­ly true. Nev­er were two large and well appoint­ed armies brought into con­flict on Amer­i­can soil. Sev­en­ty five or a hun­dred [thou­sands of] troops on each side, is the esti­mat­ed aggre­gate num­ber engaged, both com­mand­ed by the best Gen­er­als. On the Fed­er­al side was Grant, Buell, Pren­tiss… The rebels were com­mand­ed by … Beau­re­gard, Sid­ney A John­ston, Bragg and Polk who assem­bled with their forces in South­west Ten­nessee and North­ern Mis­sis­sip­pi, to there fight a great bat­tle for the val­ley of the low­er Mississippi.

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After the fall of Forts Hen­ry and Donel­son, Gen Albert Sid­ney John­ston, him­self a West Point grad­u­ate, had to give up the Con­fed­er­ate occu­pa­tion of Ken­tucky and por­tions of West and Cen­tral Ten­nessee. The encounter, which is bet­ter known today as the bat­tle of Shiloh named after a small chapel at the site of the con­flict, was a strate­gic coun­ter­at­tack by John­ston against Grant for con­trol of the low­er Mis­sis­sip­pi Valley.

This is a pho­to of the restored Shiloh chapel.

One part of the con­fronta­tion at Shiloh would become an icon­ic sym­bol of Civ­il War fight­ing, much like Pickett’s charge at Get­tys­burg. It was a 600 yard bat­tle line, defend­ed by North­ern forces, called the Hornet’s Nest; so named by the Con­fed­er­ates because the num­ber of bul­lets whistling through the area sound­ed like angry swarms of those vicious insects. How­ev­er, before Hornet’s Nest began, Gen­er­al John­ston suc­cess­ful­ly attacked the bat­tle line’s right flank. After he returned from the front, while sur­vey­ing the hos­til­i­ties from a small peach orchard not far from Shiloh chapel, a bul­let tore through one of his femoral arter­ies. Hav­ing sent his per­son­al physi­cian to care for some cap­tured Fed­er­al troops, no one on his staff knew how to apply a tourni­quet. John­ston quick­ly bled out and was gone.

Con­fed­er­ate Gen­er­al Albert Syd­ney John­ston killed at the bat­tle of Shiloh.

Gen­er­al Beau­re­gard assumed com­mand and launched no less than eight sep­a­rate attacks into the Hornet’s Nest. Some his­to­ri­ans sug­gest that the Con­fed­er­ates amassed the largest con­cen­tra­tion of artillery ever on the North Amer­i­can con­ti­nent against this entrenched posi­tion. How­ev­er, ulti­mate­ly suf­fer­ing yet anoth­er defeat, the South­ern army at Shiloh was repelled all the way back to Corinth, Mis­sis­sip­pi. When the car­nage was totaled for both sides, the two day total was over 23,000 men, almost the num­ber of Amer­i­can mil­i­tary lost through­out the entire Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War.

North Star April 19, 1862

Gen Hal­leck in Command

Spe­cial despatch­es from Wash­ing­ton state that Gen­er­al Hal­leck had tak­en com­mand of Pitts­burg Landing,

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This was after the actu­al bat­tle and the vic­to­ry was seen as Grant’s. No doubt this cre­at­ed more ten­sion between Hal­leck and his under­ling, the one nick­named “Uncon­di­tion­al Surrender.”

North Star April 19, 1862

Walton’s Mont­pe­lier Jour­nal says a pri­vate let­ter received in that place from a mem­ber of the 2d Ver­mont Bat­tery, dat­ed March 20, states they arrived at Ship Island, after a voy­age of thir­ty two days, from Boston. The Island is low and sandy, sev­en miles long and one mile wide, no grass and but a few trees. The weath­er was fine and warm as a Sep­tem­ber day in Vermont.

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The Con­fed­er­ates had evac­u­at­ed before Fed­er­al forces arrived. Occu­pa­tion of the island helped to secure strate­gic con­trol over the Louisiana’s mouth of the Mis­sis­sip­pi Riv­er and Alabama’s Mobile Bay.

North Star April 26, 1862

Ver­mon­ters in Battle

The Ver­mont troops have had a severe skir­mish at a place called War­wick Creek. We pub­lish in full the detailed account fur­nished by the N.Y. Her­ald. From this, it will be seen, that the sol­diers who ford­ed the creek were mis­tak­en as to the depth of water, and from this mis­take, they expe­ri­enced great trou­ble. But even this obsta­cle did not daunt their courage — They pushed bold­ly on, gained the oppo­site shore and charged upon the ene­my with fear­ful effect, and retreat­ing when met by a large supe­ri­or force… Through­out the whole engage­ment they showed indomitable pluck and courage. Give the Ver­mont troops any­thing like an equal chance, and they will win the day.

We regret the loss of life, and still the larg­er num­ber who were wound­ed on this occasion…Already we notice quite a num­ber had arrived at the New Eng­land Sol­diers Aid Asso­ci­a­tion in New York City, where they are prop­er­ly cared for; and from there they will be tak­en to the Marine Hos­pi­tal, in Burling­ton, which is being made ready for their reception.

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This inci­dent was col­lat­er­al to Gen McClellan’s ini­tial stand-off at Yorktown.

The New Eng­land Sol­diers Aid Asso­ci­a­tion was a pri­vate phil­an­thropic insti­tu­tion that pro­vid­ed hos­pi­tal care to ser­vice­men. Lat­er in 1862, the gov­ern­ment assumed respon­si­bil­i­ty for tak­ing care of active duty sol­diers and for­bade pri­vate orga­ni­za­tions from doing so. The Asso­ci­a­tion went on take care of patients dis­charged from the service.

 

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