Civil War History - The South & Western TheatersCheck this forum for all South and Western Theater Questions. Included are the Western, Pacific, Trans-Mississippi, & Lower Seaboard and Gulf Approach Theaters.
I have been reading Shermans Forgotten Campaign and in it they say that Ice was a problem on the Mississippi as the Feds were preparing to march on *******n. I used to live in Tallulah and I can not remember ever seeing ice. The Feds had to iron clad the hull below the water line to get Sherman from Memphis to Vicksburg. As for the supplies, well they were already there but ice that far south could have caused really big problems for the Union.
Rick
__________________ "We made a great mistake in the beginning of our struggle.... We appointed all our worst generals to command our armies, and all our best generals to edit the newspapers"
- Robert E. Lee
The Battle Flag of The Madison Light Artillery (Louisiana) MOODY'S BATTERY - 24 Pound Howitzers
Alexander's Battalion
Longstreets Corps
Larry_Cockerham asks about the Middle Tennessee situation in 1864. Tullahoma became the administrative HQ for the occupation forces along the N&C RR. The reason was that Tullahoma is about half-way between Nashville and Chattanooga. The AoT evacuated Tullahoma on July 1, 1863, and the AoftheCumberland arrived same day, Union occupation continued until the end of the war.
DO NOT try to visit the Cowan tunnel in your vehicle because the main line of the CSX RR still runs through the tunnel--that light you see is not the end of the tunnel! You can approach the tunnel entrance on foot or find a trail up the mountain to the air vents which connect the tunnel to the surface.
Clifton is on the Tennessee River in Wayne County, TN and it is 50 miles from Florence so boats unloaded there only if necessity forced them to do so. Clifton was not/is not on a RR. Waterloo was the usual unloading point for goods going up river toward Chattanooga and there was a canal around the shoals for use in low water. This still required loading and unloading all goods. That is why the Tennessee and Alabama RR had been restored from Nashville to Decatur, Ala. for Union use in 1864. The T&A RR gave access to the Memphis&Charleston near Decatur and also connected with the Tennessee River above the shoals, giving free river access to Chattanooga. This was why Forrest targeted Athens and Sulphur Trestle in his 1864 raid into Middle Tennessee.
As to your relative, the 10th U.S. Cav was one of many Union units assigned to defend the RR, most of them serving on this duty only a short time before going back to the front or ****her to the rear to recruit and recuperate. Try With Blood and Fire: Behind Union Lines in Middle Tennessee to get a picture of the utter chaos that existed along the N&C RR during 1864.
Estill Springs is the next town south of Tullahoma along the main line of the Nashville & Chattanooga RR (war-time name, now CSX). It was the site of Camp Harris, a Confederate training camp in 1860-61. Originally the settlement on the railroad was Allisona while Estill Springs was the name of a settlement about 1/2 mile from the railroad crossing of Elk River. Like so many such places, Estill Springs was considered to have "healthy" water and was something of a minor resort.
Because of the rail bridge Confederate units were present at Estill Springs whenever the area was under CS occupation. Without a date it would not be feasible to list all the units which were there at various times.
Just upstream from Allisona/Estill Springs was Bethpage, another river crossing where CS troops were stationed in 1861,62, & 63.
By July 2, 1863, the Army of the Cumberland was in possession of the area and occupation troops stayed there for the rest of the war.
Reb Prof, thanks very much for taking time to share you local knowledge. While I'm quite proud of gg grandpa Cockerham who served in Tullahoma with the 10th TN Cav US and gg grandpa Arnold who served with the 13 TN Cav US, let me not leave the impression that I don't have have southern leanings being the gg grandson of Pvt. Whitfield Monroe Parker of the 63rd VA Inf, Cpl. Elihu Weaver 5th NC Cav CS and of course Pvt. John Calvin Rouse who served vallantly with the 48th VA CS until signing up with the 3rd NC US in Apr 1864 from which he received an honorable discharge at war's end. Southerners all, just different armies.
Because of my my 'dual' heritage, I've been working on a book tracking Cockerham and Parker through their part of the war in Tennessee during 1864. I found that the two armies used much of the same terrain time and time again as well as many of the same structures repeatedly. My interest in geography has caused me to stumble around the hills in south Tennessee and northern Alabama for the past couple of years trying to 'relive' the awesome experience these two men must have experienced. I'm still taking pictures and notes. The Army of Tennessee has been described in numerous books particulary the Tennessee campaign in late 1864. There was much more to their story after a hasty retreat through northern Alabama. I'm working on the trek from Tupelo to *******n to Selma, Demopolis and Montgomery and on to Macon, Milledgeville, Augusta, Columbia, Charlotte, Raleigh, Smithfield and Bentonville. Any suggestions or info on this period would be most appreciated.
As prior posts have mentioned the problem with CSA supplies was infrastructure. If you look at the CSA rail network, it was built to serve the very class Davis was a member of, cotton farmers. The south's major cities were either on the coast, rivers, or connected to them via rail almost without exception. For this reason alone, Davis's neglect of the west is at it kindest, odd. THe Capitols should never have been strategic aims. J.E. Johnston and Lee should have been more focused on protecting the V&T in order to ensure that the portions of the ANV could reinforce or attack in conjunction with the AOT if needed.
Your description of the CSA infrastructure is adequate for Virginia, but not very well on mark for the western front. Those railroads for the most part hadn't been built yet west of the blue ridge and the rivers except when in flood stage and uncrossable were hampered by shoals and sandbars. The mighty Duck River that Hood's Army had to cross to gain access to Franklin is little more than a non-productive trout stream (flat and too warm for trout) except when in flood stage as it was in November and December 1864. The Tennessee and Cumberland rivers were also not very impressive. The shoals around Florence, Alabama made the Tennessee from that point east almost useless for cargo. The Cumberland was not a major stream except at high water. The Federal gunboats that made their way up the Cumberland were rather small craft, tin clads for the most part. These sailors met their match when they encountered a group of Tennessee farmboys armed with their new cannons! They'd been practicing for a couple of weeks and had their aim much improved. Only one railroad in middle Tennessee had been completed just prior to the war, that running from Nashville through the Cowan tunnel to link up with the main line at the Tennessee River near Stevenson, Alabama.
The railroad and tunnel remained under Federal control after late 1863 except for a few friendly visits by N.B. Forrest and his wrecking crew.
Guess I should have also mentioned the Nashville-Decatur railroad, the terminus of which was located adjacent to Ft. Negley in Nashville. This line running south from Nashville to Columbia and Lewisburg to Decatur, Alabama did not seem to function prominently in the war. I need to do more research. The movements through Tennessee by the various armies prior to the "invasion" in 1864 were mostly east-west movements. The Army of Tennessee in the fall-winter 1864 campaign travelled by foot and horse/mule-drawn wagons.
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