Fallen Timbers

The final brand new spot for us to visit at Shiloh was Fallen Timbers.  After two days of comabt William T. Sherman followed the retreating Confederates with a small brigade.  Mostly this was done to make sure they were not preparing to begin a third day of battle than with thier own plans of bringing on a third day.  Nathan Bedford Forrest led a cavalry charge with only a few hundred men and it stopped the Union pursuit.  Really both sides were content to have the battle over, the Union was in the best shape to pursue as Buell's Army of the Ohio had seen the least combat but Shiloh was unlike anything anyone had ever expereinced so all involved were fine to just have the battle over with.

I had been in this area before back when there was zero signage so its impossible a decade later to know if I was in this spot or something a quarter mile away.  There is now a Civil War Trails marker.  The area was called Fallen Timbers because the trees here had all been cut and were still laying on the ground.  It would appear that the trees are all grown up again so it is difficult to see much of the lay of the ground.  But its a nice spot to wrap up the story of Shiloh so I'm sure it will be a spot I visit again on future visits.

Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography

Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography by Jack Hurst

The whole reason I read this one is because I so enjoyed Hurst's book on the Donelson campaign. Yes I admire Forrest's battlefield skills. I definitely would not have wanted to get on his bad side and seeing how often his fellow officers and soldiers got there I think I would have never wanted to be around him. There is at least anecdotal evidence of him beating soldiers of his command and there is concrete evidence of him killing one of his lieutenants. Definitely not someone you'd pick to be friends with, but if you remained loyal to each other you'd have a solid supporter forever backing you. But woe if you ever crossed him.

Hurst's biography is a good one. I was somewhat amazed in how pro-Forrest he was. The Fort Pillow massacre is not just dismissed out of hand, Hurst spends time with it, puts it in historical perspective but at the end of all of it pretty much lets Forrest off the hook. There is a somewhat similar approach to Forrest's klan activities. He's acknowledged to be a leader and using it to get ex-Confederates the vote in Tennessee, but then dissolving it afterwards. Hurst says that Forrest was too hands off in the invisible society and too busy with railroad projects to know that his dissolution orders were never followed.

I thought Hurst did a good job of offering a balanced picture. Forrest bios tend to either praise his every move or denigrate everything he did. This one picks a middle ground that edges on the praise side. The book was published in 1994 so I wonder if some of the recent books on Fort Pillow might now sway Hurst to be harsher on that chapter of Forrest's career. [As a side note it seems odd to refer to 1994 as a bit dated in historiography.]

Forrest is a fascinating character who achieved much as a general and whose personal life before and after the war was also interesting. Some of our interesting generals seemingly sprang from nowhere and/or faded into oblivion when the guns went silent. Forrest was active and interesting from the get go.

Fort Pillow

My other two posts this week have focused on two of Nathan Bedford Forrest's bright marks, Brice's Crossroads and Johnsonville. Today is one of his worst days, Fort Pillow. In mid March 1864 Forrest led a raid into western Tennessee and Kentucky. They reached Paducah and did considerable damage there. On their way back home they made an attack on Fort Pillow.

The April 12th battle was almost immediately the source of much controversy. For a variety of reasons Forrest seems to have been bent on punishing this Union post. In Andrew Ward's River Run Red he says that many of the white soldiers in Fort Pillow were from west Tennessee, including Confederate deserters. Forrest hated these men, thinking they were traitors to their state. There were also black soldiers in Fort Pillow which also angered the former slave trader. These were the two primary reasons it seems that Forrest wanted to make an example of the Fort Pillow garrison. In one note during the parlay for surrender Forrest said that if Bradford, the Union commander (although Forrest thought it was Booth, but he had been killed earlier), forced the fort to be taken by force Bradford "must take the consequences." This outside of the bounds of normal warfare. There is also evidence that Forrest's men used the truce to reposition their lines which is also outside the normal rules of warfare.

A half hour after the exchange of notes Forrest's men captured the fort. Then the battle changed from a normal fight to a massacre. The Union defenders ran down the bluff towards the river but many were shot in the back by Confederates from the top of the bluff. Some Union troops did stop and fire back so in some sense the charges of massacre are not 100% accurate, yet. The Confederates were still being fired on so it makes sense to fire back. While more men were running than were still fighting this can be excused to some degree. Forrest's defenders would also say that the garrison never took down its flag which indicates to them that they had not stopped fighting yet, but the fort was empty so to me this seems like a silly conclusion. I draw the conclusion that the final charge was such a grand success that the men fled instead of taking down their flag before retreating.

What cannot be excused is that the Confederates then roamed the area hunting down Union soldiers. They burned the post hospital with men still inside. They killed wounded soldiers in the fort and on the bluff. Soldiers who tried to surrender were shot instead. This is much more hideous and cannot be explained away with an argument about whether the flag was still flying. Once the fleeing soldiers stopped firing the Confederates did not stop. Forrest claims that soon after taking the fort his men cut down the flag and that ended the battle.

In Chalmers report he makes an interesting statement:
"The strength of the enemy's force cannot be correctly ascertained, though it was probably about 650 or 700. Of these, 69 wounded were delivered to the enemy's gun-boats next day, after having been paroled. One hundred and sixty-four white men and 40 Negroes were taken prisoners, making an aggregate of 273 prisoners. It is probable as many as half a dozen may have escaped. The remainder of the garrison were killed." Chalmers is saying that the casualties were 377 killed, 69 wounded and 204 captured. That is interesting because the ratios are not what we would expect for a Civil War battle. In a normal battle I'd expect 69 wounded and 204 captured to yield around 20-30 killed. But this battle produced about a dozen times as many. Why? Chalmers gives no reason. Forrest says that many of the fleeing soldiers drowned in the river but even so the number of killed is way out of ratio. I'm sure some will argue with me but I think the casualty figure alone points out that this was not a normal battle and leads me to believe it was a massacre.

The park is off the beaten track, well away from the highway. There is no housing or shopping malls intruding on the park.

Here are some entrenchments from when it was a Confederate fort at the beginning of the war.

This ravine was used by Confederates for protection during their fight with the Union garrison. The sign says there has been soil erosion but judging from the depth of the ravine there must have been a lot of soil erosion.

Its hard to see how deep the ravine is but it is very deep. I don't like heights and I hated going across the bridge.

The fort itself is well preserved. There are too many trees around so you cannot really get a good feel for what the attack was like but the fort does look nice.

And a view of what was the Mississippi River, now its just a back water slough, but this was once the path of the river.

There is a nice museum at the park that tries to walk the fine line between the two competing stories of the battle. It does a pretty good job, as well as can be expected given the tough task they have. One warning though, the museum closes early (I think it closes at 4 pm). The first time I was there I just missed the museum and still had plenty of daylight to tour the fort. The next morning I came back to see the museum.

Johnsonville

I think Johnsonville is one of the more interesting battles of the Civil War. In late October 1864 Forrest was raiding in western Tennessee and Kentucky. Moving south along the west bank Tennessee River he captured several Union steamers and a gunboat. So for a short time Forrest conducted a joint operation, cavalry and navy. He continued up the river to Johnsonville where there was a huge Union supply depot. On November 4th he began placing artillery across the river from the depot. His guns were well placed and he quickly disabled the Union gunboats. The Union feared he'd cross the river so they decided to burn the supplies rather than let him capture them. The fire got out of control and the Confederates fired on the depot to prevent the Union from extinguishing the fire. That night the depot blazed while Forrest withdrew. The next morning he bombarded the depot one last time. The damage has been estimated at 2.2 to 6.7 million dollars.

The battle is actually interpreted at two sites. On the east bank of the Tennessee River is Johnsonville State Historic Area. This is where the depot was. TVA dams have eliminated our ability to walk the actual ground of the depot but there are some earthworks on the higher elevations in the park.

And at the highest point is this museum, which I've never seen open but it must have some Civil War exhibits.

On the west side of the river is Nathan Bedford Forrest State Park.

When my dad and I first visited here we were told by a park ranger that there was nothing to see in the park associated with the battle or Forrest. Yet the cover of the brochure has a picture of a Forrest monument. We were also not told of the second park and museum across the river. But we knew there had to be something on the high ground, so we took a park map and headed down the road towards the Tennessee River Folklife Center. The center is a museum mostly for musseling, which apparently was done quite a bit in this stretch of the river. Outside of the museum we found this marker, and I've included closeups of the river stretch.

There is also a wonderful view of the river and the depot area. The depot would have been primarily in the area that is now a bay of the lake. The high ground at Johnsonville where the earthworks and museum are is on the right of the picture.

And of course there is also the Forrest monument that appears on the brochure.

Obviously there is quite a bit to see in the park, no matter what the ranger told us. I've been back since that initial visit and the folklife center has added Civil War gifts to their giftshop (basically a counter), but they have patches, books, shirts, hats, etc. Its amazing to see how a park that at one time proclaimed there was nothing to see (despite the cover of their brochure) has embraced their history enough to sell gifts to visitors. I wonder if we just got a disgruntled ranger that day or if there has been a swing in park mentality.

Brice's Crossroads

Brice's Crossroads is a great battlefield. When I first visited the park had just been expanded from a small one acre parcel preserved like Tupelo into the battlefield we have today. The visitor's center was very new, I think we were there during its first summer. I know that land has been added since that year but its somewhat hard to tell because the surrounding area is still rural and not a series of strip malls and houses. I've been back a few times since then, I think the battle is interesting and the park is nice to visit. Plus its relatively close to Shiloh so its an easy side trip to make.

Forrest achieved a stunning victory. He used the thick woods to his advantage to hide his inferiority in numbers. He was aggressive. And he also benefited from the heat and the incompetence of General Sturgis. I recently read Grierson's memoirs and he says he urged Sturgis many times to not fight there, to fight somewhere to the rear. But Sturgis did not believe there were many Confederates in front of him or that he'd fight them before Tupelo. Once Sturgis did commit his infantry to the fight at Brice's Crossroads his men had to double time march to the fight and the sweltering heat helped sap their strength. A worn out foe faced a relatively fresh foe.

The lines formed semi circles around the crossroads. When Forrest did break the Union lines they had a small bridge to cross to safety. This choke point quickly became Forrest's next goal and he quickly gained that. The rout was on. Many Union soldiers were captured and the rest continued to flee back to Memphis. Forrest continued to chase them until his men dropped from their saddles asleep. Forrest was outnumbered more than 2 to 1, about 8500 to 3200. He caused casualties of 2600, which included about 1500 men captured, and lost just under 500. He also captured 16 cannon. Sturgis would never hold an important command in the Civil War again. Rumors that he was intoxicated soon spread but apparently those are untrue. Grierson did say that Sturgis campaigned with a significant supply of alcohol but that he was not drunk that day.

As you travel west from the visitor's center in Baldwyn you pass several markers that explain the June 10, 1864 battle. Here are the markers in order as you find them coming west.

Looking back towards the crossroads.

Union perspective of the bridge from the high ground.

Just north of the crossroads is a small cemetery dating to the time of the battle. There are about 90 Confederates buried here. The Union dead were buried on the battlefield but later moved to the Memphis national cemetery.

Here are the NPS' plaques. They are very similar to the ones at Tupelo.

I was last there when I went to see the unveiling of the Tennessee state monument at Shiloh. Unknown to us Brice's Crossroads was unveiling a new monument around that same time. It ended up being a few days after we left but we did get this photo of the monument. It leaves a lot to the imagination but its the best we could do.

Forrest at Rome

The veterans plaza in Myrtle Hill Cemetery also has a nice monument for Nathan Bedford Forrest. In late April 1863 Abel Streight led a raid into northern Alabama with the goal of cutting the railroad between Chattanooga and Atlanta. Instead Streight mainly tried to escape with his life. Forrest was outnumbered roughly 425 to 1600 but he constantly harassed Streight, losing most of the fights but taking the initiative from Streight. Finally on May 3rd Forrest forced Streight to surrender near Rome. The people were very happy that Forrest had saved their town from destruction, although by that point Streight probably was in no position to waste time burning supplies in town, so they erected this monument to him.

About 30 feet from the Forrest monument is this marker detailing the exploits of John H. Wisdom. He lived in Gadsden, AL at the time of the raid. He set off on horseback to alert the towns ahead (the largest being Rome) of Streight's approach. Wisdom did not know that Forrest was close on Streight's rear but he wanted to alert the militia so they could make a defense. He did alert the militia in Rome on May 3rd. Since Streight surrendered that day there was no need to continue riding ahead of the Union raiders.

The other famous incident of the raid is when 15 year old Emma Sansom led Forrest to a ford so that he could continue his pursuit of Streight. Streight burned the bridge over Black Creek near Gadsden, hoping to delay Forrest a few hours. When Forrest arrived he asked at the nearby Sansom house if there was another bridge nearby, Streight had used smoldering coal from the Sansom house to ignite the bridge. Emma told Forrest the nearest bridge was 2 miles away in Gadsden. She then told Forrest she could take him to a spot that cows used to cross the creek. She wanted to saddle her horse but Forrest didn't want to wait and said she could ride on his horse. Emma pointed out the ford and allowed Forrest to continue the pursuit. When Forrest dropped Emma back at home he also gave her the following note:

Hed Quarters in Sadle

May 2,1863

My highest regardes to Miss Emma Sansom for her gallant conduct while my posse was skirmishing with the Federals across Black Creek near Gadsden Alabama.

N.B. Forrest

Brig. GenI. Comding N. Ala.—

There is a monument to Emma in Gadsden but I've never been there, otherwise I'd have a picture here to share.