Chapter One

The Capitals

Richmond, Virginia

To all outward appearances, Southerners had reason to celebrate New Year's Day in 1862. During the previous eight months, the Confederacy had won most of the major land battles: Manassas; Wilson's Creek; Lexington, Missouri; Belmont; and Ball's Bluff. Confederate forces defiantly stood their ground from northern Virginia, through southern Kentucky, to the southwest comer of Missouri. The war had not yet turned vicious; Southern casualties totaled fewer than 5,000. Nor had the Richmond government felt the crushing weight of Northern industry and manpower. Hoped-for British intervention seemed closer than ever with the Federal seizure of two Confederate diplomats, James Mason and John Slidell, aboard the British steamerTrent."King Cotton" diplomacy appeared to be working. More than 80 percent of England's cotton came from the American South, and the mills of England were already reduced to half-time. Although no official dialogue had occurred with Confederate commissioners, informal meetings had been conducted.

Bright sunshine and a springlike breeze warmed the streets of Richmond that New Year's Day. At 11 A.M., President Jefferson Davis hosted the first of what would become annual receptions at the Executive Mansion, the old three-story Brockenbrough house at East Clay and Twelfth Streets. The fifty-three-year-old president was frequently short-tempered, rarely compromising, and often impatient with disagreement. Although he had never fought in a duel, he had come dangerously close to it on no fewer than ten occasions. Davis's military as well as political background caused him to view himself as the emerging nation's war manager, a responsibility he probably could not have avoided even if he so desired. He was commonly seen as cold and aloof, and today proved no exception; several guests considered his cordiality forced and insincere. The wife of Colonel Joseph Davis, the president's nephew, stood in for the First Lady, Mrs. Varina Davis, who was indisposed. For four hours the chief executive, standing at the door of the main drawing room, greeted an uninterrupted line of visitors.

The sanguine veneer soon disintegrated. Even as Davis greeted guests that morning, information had reached the capital that the "Trent Affair" had been defused. The United States had offered a face-saving compromise that proved acceptable to the British. Confederate newspapers continued to carry articles for several days claiming that the British were preparing for war, but the peaceful resolution had dashed all immediate hope for intervention. This fact was not immediately evident to Davis and his Cabinet. John B. Jones, a perceptive clerk in the War Department, saw the situation clearly. He wrote in his diary that evening: "Now we must depend upon our own strong arms and stout hearts for defense."

Both the North and the South mistakenly believed that Great Britain desired to go to war with the United States. In truth, England had much more to lose in a war with the Union than she had to gain by diplomatic recognition of the Confederacy. The reason for the mill slowdown was not a cotton shortage (inventories were at an all-time high in December 1861), but, rather, that the market was already saturated with cloth. The British needed Northern grain far more than raw cotton, which could be purchased in Egypt and India. They were not going to risk their merchant shipping in a prolonged war that could not be won with the United States. For now, however, Davis continued to cling to the illusion of foreign intervention, a naivete that would have far-reaching implications for the Confederacy.

The administration had adopted a policy of territorial defense that called for protecting as much territory as possible. Troops were kept widely scattered rather than concentrated on a few strategic points. This policy was, to a degree, political appeasement, but it went deeper than that. The proverbial tail wagging the dog was foreign intervention. Davis considered it vital that the fledgling nation prove its viability by protecting its territory. To relinquish large chunks of land would send the wrong signal. Even after the flaws of the policy became blatantly apparent, Davis asserted that the gamble had been worth it.

Politicians, the Southern press, and the Davis administration had focused largely on the Virginia front. Popular sentiment dictated that it was there that the war would be won or lost. Ominous clouds soon began to loom, however, over the vast expanse west of the Appalachian Mountains known as the western theater.

A blast of arctic cold soon replaced the unseasonably mild temperatures. Snow blanketed the streets of Richmond on January 14 as Colonel St. John Liddell trudged to the door of the Executive Mansion. A black boy answered and showed him into a room where a lamp hung suspended over a center table. The setting offered Liddell a comfortable respite from his exhausting railroad journey from Bowling Green, Kentucky. Davis shortly entered the room. The two men had been formally introduced six months earlier, although Liddell vaguely remembered Davis from his childhood; they had lived in the same county in Mississippi, and their families were well associated. The colonel handed him a letter from General Albert Sidney Johnston.

Liddell's mission was an attempt by a frustrated Johnston to bypass the War Department and capitalize upon his long friendship with Davis. Their mutual admiration dated back to Transylvania College days in Lexington, Kentucky (Johnston was five years his senior), and to West Point. They subsequently fought Saux Indians together in the Northwest and Mexicans at Monterey. As secretary of war, Davis had appointed Johnston to the coveted position of commander of the 2nd United States Cavalry Regiment. Believing him to be the South's premier general, Davis wrote ecstatically when Johnston later tendered his services to the Confederacy: "I hoped and expected that I had others who would prove generals; but I knew I had one, and that was Sidney Johnston." Johnston's assignment in September 1861 to command the vast Department No. 2, which stretched from the Appalachians to the Ozarks, did not result from mere cronyism. Their prior association was probably not even necessary, the Johnston lobby being formidable. The general's appointment received support from a broad consensus.

The press coverage that preceded Johnston's odyssey from California would ultimately prove to his detriment; it produced exaggerated expectations on the part of both government officials and the populace. Historians' claims that he was overrated, though arguably true, have been influenced by subsequent events; the character flaws that marked his Civil War career were not apparent in the fall of 1861. The issue of whether he was the best selection for Department No. 2 must be seen in the context of "compared with whom." His prewar accomplishments exceeded those of Joseph E. Johnston, P. G. T. Beauregard, and Braxton Bragg.

Among his peers, only Robert E. Lee proved the exception. Although Lee graduated from West Point three years after Johnston and was subordinate to him in the 2nd Cavalry, he was offered top command of the United States Army at the beginning of the war, second only to Winfield Scott. When he declined, the position was offered to Johnston, who similarly refused. Davis subsequently made Lee commander of all the Confederate armies, where he functioned as a presidential chief-of-staff, while Johnston received the actual field command. How different the war might have been had the roles been reversed.

Friendship had not generated favoritism, however, and Johnston's frequent calls for additional troops even encountered occasional resistance. On September 30, 1861, Davis had labeled one of the general's early requests unwarranted. In December, Secretary of War Judah Benjamin insisted that Johnston had underestimated his Bowling Green force by one-half. Such looseness with the figures "made me very uneasy," Benjamin wrote, and the president was "equally at a loss to make out how matters stand." When Johnston attempted to raise troops himself, he was instructed by the War Department to cease.

Davis had not deserted his friend, however. After the early months of the war, few western regiments had been sent to Virginia, and some units en route to that state were diverted to Johnston. During the winter of 1861-62, the administration had even made a minimal effort to send troops from Virginia to the west. In December, Brigadier General John Floyd's brigade of Virginians was ordered to Bowling Green. The reinforcements proved insufficient.

During the fall and winter of 1861, Johnston watched nervously as Federal troop strength in the west far outpaced his forces. His impracticable four-hundred-mile line (east of the Mississippi River), with 57,500 troops, now faced twice that many Federals. Johnston's forces were concentrated in four key locations: 22,000 men under Major General Leonidas Polk at Columbus, Kentucky; 5,000 troops at the Tennessee and Cumberland River forts of Henry and Donelson; 24,500 troops at Bowling Green under Major General William J. Hardee; and 6,000 troops in eastern Kentucky commanded by Major General George Crittenden. Shortly after Liddell's departure from Richmond, Johnston had written Benjamin that he had 19,000 men (though his own reports revealed 4,000 more) to oppose a 75,000-man army under General Don Carlos Buell. The estimate of enemy troop strength was based upon a document stolen from Federal headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky. Indeed, an article had appeared in theRichmond Examiner,taken from theNew York Tribune,that listed regiments and numbers in Kentucky.

Contrary to some modern assertions, Confederate administration officials fully understood Johnston's numerical weakness. Diarist John Jones noted this on January 23, 1862: "Again the Northern papers gave the most extravagant numbers to our army in Kentucky. Some estimates are as high as 150,000. I know, and Mr. Benjamin knows, that Gen. Johnston has not exceeded twenty-nine thousand effective men." Benjamin later conceded that the Bowling Green force had no more than twenty-four thousand effectives. What Davis may not have fully appreciated was the disproportionate numbers that Johnston faced. In a January 6 Cabinet meeting, the president had said that he did not accept the captured Louisville document, and that Buell's strength "could not exceed 45,000 effectives." He thought that the additional troops on the way to Bowling Green, although not giving Johnston parity, would close the numerical gap.

As Davis sat quietly reading Johnston's letter, his features grew pained, even angry. "My God," he erupted to Liddell. "Why did General Johnston send you to me for arms and reinforcements when he must know I have neither? He has plenty of men in Tennessee, and they must have arms of some kind." The brusque and opinionated Liddell, an unlikely emissary, retorted that the troops could come from the army at Manassas, Virginia, which was then not occupied. Davis insisted that Virginians were already angered about the loss of Floyd's brigade to Kentucky. Obstinately persisting, the colonel inquired whether troops could be spared from Charleston, Savannah, Pensacola, or even New Orleans. The president interrupted: "Do you think these places of so little importance that I should strip them of the troops necessary for their defense?" Liddell proved unrelenting, arguing that these locations were not as significant as the heartland of the Confederacy. Unless Johnston held his position, the Mississippi River would be lost and communications severed with the trans-Mississippi. "My God! Why repeat?" Davis again exclaimed, annoyed with Liddell's persistence. The colonel countered that he was simply attempting to make the facts of Kentucky and Tennessee known. The president quieted as Liddell explained Johnston desire that all available troops be concentrated in Kentucky and Virginia to take the offensive. Davis did not disagree, but he claimed that the time was not right. The conversation was cut short, but Davis invited the colonel to have dinner with him the next night.

The president's claim of inadequate troops was not true. There were armed units, but, in keeping with the administration policy of territorial defense, they were widely scattered. At the time of Liddell's visit, 25,000 Confederates (6,800 troops at Pensacola, 9,300 at Mobile, and 8,900 at New Orleans) sat idly on the Gulf Coast, not to mention 4,000 troops in eastern Florida. If Davis had taken advantage of interior lines and acted decisively at this moment (as he would three weeks later), events in the west might have taken a different turn. The subsequent chain of events must be viewed in the light of this mistaken administration policy.

The evening after his first confrontation with Davis, January 15, Liddell found the president more genial. He spoke of his earlier days and carefully avoided the subject of Johnston's dilemma. Liddell attempted to broach the issue, but the expression on the president's face made it apparent that he did not consider the subject appropriate table talk. Showing Liddell to the door at the conclusion of the evening, Dams said: "Tell my friend, General Johnston, that I can do nothing for him. He must rely upon his own resources." The colonel, rapidly coming down with a bronchial infection and a painful cough, found it cold on the streets of Richmond that night.

"We have heard bad news today from Kentucky." Thus began the January 23 diary entry of Thomas Bragg, Confederate attorney general. A dispatch had been received at the War Department via Johnston's headquarters at Bowling Green. Initial information was sketchy and came only from a Northern newspaper -- theLouisville Democratof January 21. A Confederate division under Major General George Crittenden had been routed near Somerset, Kentucky, and Brigadier General Felix Zollicoffer was counted among the slain. Davis immediately canceled his Cabinet meeting for the day. "The President and Sec'y of War keep military matters to themselves -- they have been in conference today. I hope they have been able to devise some means to repair the disaster in Kentucky," Bragg concluded.

A second dispatch arrived at the War Department that evening from Johnston's headquarters. A Crittenden staff officer confirmed the repulse of the division "by superior numbers." The Southerners lost five hundred men, including all of their baggage and artillery, and the division was "in full retreat" southwest toward Nashville.

A stunned populace read the story the next day in the Richmond press. Although there had been other Confederate reversals earlier in the war, at Rich Mountain in western Virginia and at Port Royal, South Carolina, the eastern-Kentucky loss was serious and had far-reaching implications. Johnston's right flank was now uncovered, exposing Cumberland Gap and the east-west rail link connecting Richmond, Virginia, and Memphis, Tennessee. Several poorly armed and widely scattered Confederate regiments protected Cumberland Gap, Knoxville, and Chattanooga, but for all intents and purposes, eastern Tennessee, already crawling with Union partisans, was open to invasion. Indeed, an unconfirmed report (false, as it turned out) stated that 22,000 Federals were advancing on Cumberland Gap against a Southern garrison of 1,500. The road to Nashville also lay exposed to the east.

Johnston clearly understood his difficulty and proposed plugging the breach around Burkesville, Kentucky, about a hundred miles from Nashville. Crittenden's troops would be of no assistance, however, for they were retreating along the south bank of the Cumberland River to Gainesville, Tennessee, eighty miles from Nashville, and the column would not stop until it reached Chesnut Mound, only fifty miles from the state capital. Widespread desertions marred the withdrawal. Johnston urgently warned the War Department that he was about to be overwhelmed: "All of the resources of the Confederacy are now needed for the defense of Tennessee."

"'Old Jeff's' blood is up, and he intends to repair the disaster in Kentucky at any cost whatsoever." That is what George Bagby's confidential sources related to him, as he gathered information in Richmond for his "News & Gossip" column in the CharlestonMercury.In a Cabinet meeting on January 31, Davis expressed concern about the situation and declared that "the place where troops were most needed now was East Tennessee." Nevertheless, by the end of the first week in February, two weeks after Johnston's urgent appeal, no decision had been made regarding reinforcements, and no additional arms had been sent.

Crittenden did not file his report on the Battle of Somerset until mid-February, but increasingly rumors were afoot in the capital. By the end of January, the western press had turned nasty, and the target was Crittenden. Serious allegations concerning the general's state of sobriety during the battle had cropped up. Thomas Bragg confidentially recorded his own concerns: "It is already circulated here that he [Crittenden] is very intemperate and that it was known when he was appointed. I fear it is too true." Bagby conducted his own personal investigation by mixing with the Tennessee congressional delegation. He discovered that fugitives in Knoxville were writing their congressmen that Zollicoffer had protested the attack at Somerset but Crittenden had refused to listen. Charges of treachery also surfaced, since Crittenden's brother Thomas commanded a division in the Federal army. The War Department directed Johnston to initiate an investigation.

Davis's role in the eastern-Kentucky front had been twofold. First, his faulty political/foreign policy had not allowed for timely reinforcements. Second, he failed to recognize the serious leadership gap that existed in the west. Both Zollicoffer and Crittenden were totally unfit for high rank, the former being a political general, and the latter being a known alcoholic who had close family ties to Davis. Additional troops would only be wasted if placed under the same incompetent commanders. Crittenden's later claim that his 4,000 men had engaged 12,000 Federals was untrue. At the actual point of contact in the battle, the two sides had been evenly matched. Somerset had been lost not because of inferior numbers, but because of inferior leadership. This would become a theme often repeated in the west throughout the war.

Zollicoffer was now dead, and as only the third Southern general to be killed in the war, he was a hero. As for Crittenden, the press quickly linked the president to this dishonored general. The anti-administrationMercurycondemned Davis for "selecting a known drunkard for a Major General." Tennessee Senator Landon Haynes and Representative J. D. C. Adkins, a member of the powerful Military Affairs Committee, soon demanded Crittenden's ouster. A court of inquiry was ordered, but for now Davis continued to support his friend.

While Davis fretted over the western theater, certain politicians took more definite action. Shortly after the news of the Somerset defeat, Mississippi Valley congressmen met in conference with the Military Affairs Committee. In their view, the next crisis would be on Johnston's left flank, along the Mississippi River. Somerset had demonstrated that, even though Johnston had unified command in the west, his line was too extended to provide adequate supervision. The general needed help -- a second-in-command. The man they had in mind was the hero of Fort Sumter and Manassas -- General P. G. T. Beauregard.

From Davis's perspective, the flamboyant forty-four-year-old Louisiana general was scheming, contentious, and highly overrated. Although their feud may have had some prewar genesis, it did not grow serious until the months following Manassas. In October 1861, a synopsis of Beauregard's battle report found its way to the antiadministrationRichmond Whig.The report claimed that he had a plan to capture Washington after the victory at Manassas, but that the president had prevented its execution. This was not true, and Davis angrily chastised the general. Instead of responding directly, Beauregard submitted his acid response in theWhigfor publication. Even if the incident alienated some of his political friends, Beauregard maintained powerful contacts, including his father-in-law, Louisiana Senator John Slidell.

In approving the transfer to the west, Davis apparently had mixed motives. He had deep concerns about the Mississippi Valley, and the Louisiana general's name clearly had propaganda value. In a January 31 Cabinet meeting, he spoke of the general's engineering talent, although he left the distinct impression, according to Thomas Bragg, that he did not hold a high opinion of the general. Davis clearly detested the letter-writing Creole and was relieved at the prospect of moving him away from the capital. Some of Beauregard's friends believed that Davis initiated the scheme to exile him to the west. John Jones apparently believed such, for on January 24 he wrote: "Beauregard had been ordered to the West. I knew that doom was upon him."

Virginia Representative Roger Pryor, a Beauregard supporter, approached the general about the prospect of transferring to the west. Pryor related that he had been told by the War Department that Johnston had 40,000 troops in and around Bowling Green and Polk had 30,000 at Columbus. If such a figure was given, either Pryor misunderstood or Benjamin lied. The War Department knew that Johnston had no such force at his disposal. Beauregard eventually accepted the transfer, flattered by the attention and perceiving himself as the savior of the west. Since he was already serving as Joseph E. Johnston's second-in-command in Virginia, the offer (on paper at least) was not a demotion. On February 24, the general boarded a train at Centreville, Virginia, and departed amidst the shouts of his men: "Goodbye, General, God bless you, General."

Davis's one-man reinforcement did nothing to forestall the next Federal move. The congressmen had also been wrong in their projection; the target was not the Mississippi Valley, but the Tennessee Valley. On February 6, a joint Federal land-naval expedition captured Fort Henry, on the Tennessee River. That artery now lay open all the way to Florence, Alabama, where the shoals prevented further ascent. The War Department received the first news of the surrender at noon on February 7. A dispatch via Memphis stated that the fort had fallen after a two-hour struggle, the upriver railroad bridge was in enemy possession, and communications between Bowling Green and Columbus were now severed. Fearful that nearby Fort Donelson was in danger and that his forces would be caught north of the Cumberland River, Johnston withdrew his Bowling Green corps to Nashville.

Reaction throughout the War Department was of shock and dismay as Federal gunboats raided upriver. Jones feared the enemy would get a footing in northern Mississippi and Alabama; Robert G. H. Kean heard of the destruction of government stores at Florence. On February 11, Thomas Bragg wrote: "No news from Tennessee and [to] the South. The enemy have already I think cut off all communications South, crossing the Tennessee below Florence. Well -- it [is] a long road that has no turning."

Faced with twin disasters, Davis belatedly abandoned his policy of dispersed defense and ordered additional troops to Johnston. Despite Benjamin's assurances that heavy reinforcements would be sent to the west, even this move, undertaken on February 8, proved limited in scope. Major General Mansfield Lovell, commanding at New Orleans, was directed to send 5,000 troops to Polk at Columbus. To shore up Johnston's battered right wing, four regiments were ordered from Virginia to eastern Tennessee, and a like number from Major General Braxton Bragg's Gulf Coast department, between Pensacola and Mobile. Johnston's forces at Bowling Green also received 3,600 arms, including 1,200 imported Enfield rifles.

The troops would arrive too late to affect Fort Donelson, the fate of which was now very much in question. Johnston pieced together a force of 21,000 troops under Generals John Floyd, Gideon Pillow, and Simon Buckner for its defense. War Department officials believed the garrison (thought to be 15,000 strong) was being enveloped by 75,000 Federals. "Was ever such [mis]management known before?" John Jones disgustedly wrote. "Who is responsible for it? If Donelson falls, what becomes of the ten or twelve thousand men at Bowling Green?" Administration officials nervously awaited news from Tennessee.

A light rain and sleet tell in Richmond the greater part of February 17, covering the trees with ice. Despite the gloomy weather, initial reports from the west had been uplifting. Confederate forces at Fort Donelson had more than held their own. A Federal gunboat attack on the 14th had been repulsed. The next day, according to one dispatch, Southern forces had succeeded in driving the enemy from its position, inflicting over 1,500 casualties.

At 11:30 that night, officials at the War Department were shocked when a telegraph clicked over the wire from Johnston announcing the fall of Fort Donelson on February 16. Floyd and Pillow had escaped to Nashville with a thousand troops, leaving Buckner to surrender the fort. The Bowling Green corps had safely crossed the Cumberland River.

Depression spread throughout Richmond as the news was read in the morning papers. Few details were known, and Bragg conceded that he had "heard nothing but a thousand rumors." Northern press accounts claimed 15,000 prisoners. War Department insiders remained at a loss as to particulars; theExaminereven denounced the story as a false rumor. Confederate administrative officials obtained a February 17 issue of theNew York Heraldthat confirmed earlier accounts of a mass surrender.

In his weekly column, George Bagby admitted that facts were "very obscure," but, even making allowance for exaggeration, it seemed clear that something of serious proportions had happened. The offices of the War Department, telegraph, and newspapers were so choked with citizens seeking information that Benjamin issued a public circular. In it he claimed that no news had been received other than on Saturday night, February 15, when a telegraph operator had sent a baseless rumor over the wires. No additional information had been received from Nashville, simply because of ice on the wires. The circular was a lie. It did not take long for the truth to emerge, for exhausted refugees from Nashville began arriving in Richmond on the 18th. Bagby's private sleuthing soon uncovered information that government officials had known the truth "as early as Sunday night [February 17]."

Davis received a telegram from Hardee on February 21 (dated the 19th) stating that his corps had withdrawn from Nashville to Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The message came via Atlanta, not Nashville, raising further speculation as to the status of the Tennessee capital. No additional information had been received by the evening of February 21, and Thomas Bragg and others were beginning to believe that initial reports were false, or at least exaggerated. Benjamin claimed that he had no concrete information.

The administration became increasingly concerned about the fate of Nashville. By February 21, the government acknowledged that the Nashville telegraph office had been closed and that the public must draw its own inference. Thomas Bragg feared that the city had probably fallen, a suspicion that was confirmed on February 24. "That the loss of Nashville is mortifying no one can deny but its fate was inevitable after the fall of Fort Donelson," theRichmond Dispatchconcluded.

It began drizzling early in Richmond on February 22, and by midmorning a steady rain fell, attended by a cold wind. Indeed, Davis's inauguration on George Washington's Birthday -- his previous swearing in had been only provisional -- had more the quality of a wake than of a celebration. Just before he left the capital, Davis received confirmation of the extent of the Donelson loss; his worst fears were realized. Confederate forces in Tennessee were reeling back in confusion. Arriving in Washington Square at noon, Davis, who had been ill for weeks, delivered his address on a temporary platform before a statue of George Washington. About five hundred spectators milled about, and the pattering of rain on umbrellas drowned out his voice. A veiled statement in his address noted that the "tide for the moment is against us," but no specifics concerning Donelson were given. The president, according to Jones, appeared "self-poised in the midst of disasters."

Despite outward appearances, the executive branch was privately mortified at the turn of events. A melancholy Davis wrote a friend in New Orleans for solace, although he apparently had second thoughts and never mailed the letter. Vice-President Alexander Stephens, having just recovered from a severe attack of facial neuralgia, plunged into depression. "The Confederacy is lost," he confided to a friend one night as they left Congress.

On February 15, Major General Braxton Bragg, a Davis associate, had written him concerning a change in military strategy. Bragg believed that the policy of dispersal should be abandoned in favor of concentration for a few strategic points. "Kentucky is now the point," he judged. Davis discussed the proposal, virtually identical to the one that Colonel Liddell had presented a month earlier, during a Sunday, February 16, Cabinet meeting. On February 18, Bragg again suggested giving up the seaboard for "the vital point."

Bragg was not being totally selfless, as some historians have suggested. He did not volunteer his entire Gulf Coast corps for this concentration, as popularly believed. Indeed, he suggested that the needed forces not come from his department, but from an abandonment of the Florida interior, Texas, and possibly Missouri and portions of the Atlantic Seaboard. In response to an earlier request to send only four regiments to eastern Tennessee, Bragg had written: "I am not decided to send them." He subsequently did send the troops, but he was not beyond the parochialism that blinded other commanders.

Obviously a drastic policy change was in order, regardless of the political ramifications. Davis had slowly conceded that his policy of territorial defense had failed and, even before Bragg's letter, had contemplated abandoning the seaboard in favor of reinforcing Tennessee. Although still lacking information from Johnston, Benjamin notified Bragg on February 18 that he was to withdraw his forces from Pensacola and Mobile and proceed to Tennessee. On February 21, Davis informed his brother that he was determined to "assemble a sufficient force to beat the enemy in Tennessee, and retrieve our waning fortunes in the West."

The move may have been unprecedented, but its scope was not as great as some historians have suggested. Bragg, the advocate of concentration, decided to retain Mobile and 40 percent of his department's strength, and he sent only 10,000 troops, 7,700 of whom were "present for duty." No troops were ordered from the Atlantic Coast, Texas (where 11,000 men idled away), or Major General Earl Van Dorn's army in Arkansas. Even considering the 5,000 troops previously ordered to Tennessee, Davis still retained 14,000

Excerpted from Shiloh: The Battle That Changed the Civil War by Larry J. Daniel
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