Battle of Arkansas Post (Fort Hindman)
Lately, I have been shifting my gaze east of the river and focusing on the war in the Western Theater. I’ve been exploring broad Union/Confederate strategies in the region, and I was struck by just how damaging one particular strategy proved to be for the Confederate cause.
15,000 at Henry and Donelson. Perhaps as many as 7,000 at Island No. 10. 5,000 at Arkansas Post. 31,000 in Vicksburg and another 6,000 from Port Hudson. In summation, roughly 64,000 Confederate soldiers were captured in river fortresses in the Western Theater. These soldiers were not killed or wounded on the battlefield but captured en masse, and while they may have endured perilous and miserable sieges, they failed to inflict anywhere near comparable casualties on Federal forces. While some of these men were paroled and exchanged, their exchange simply freed just as many Union soldiers. The Confederate strategy to invest large numbers of men in river fortresses to guard vital waterways proved to be a disastrous policy.
Siege of Vicksburg
On the surface, it seemed logical to fortify rivers such as the Tennessee, Cumberland and of course the mighty Mississippi. Unlike the Eastern Theater where most rivers flowed from west to east (the James, Rapidan, Rappahannock, Potomac, etc.), the majority of the rivers in the Western Theater flowed from north to south, towards the Gulf. Thus, whereas rivers proved to be an indispensable defensive barrier for Confederates in the East, they were a glaring weakness in the West. These rivers were essentially aquatic highways headed straight into the heart of the Confederacy. The Mississippi River of course bisected the fledgling, would-be nation. The Tennessee cut through its namesake state and into northern Alabama. The Cumberland was a direct route to Nashville, one of the few vital industrial cities in the South. The rivers were sure to be used by the Federals as avenues of invasion, and the Confederates had a huge interest in preventing Union control of these waterways.
The answer was to build forts to protect these vital rivers. As esteemed historian Fletcher Pratt highlights, the chief architect of this strategy was President Jefferson Davis himself, who imagined powerful fortifications, aided with naval and mobile land elements, stolidly defending these waterways south. It is important to realize that the forts that fell in 1862-’63 to such disastrous consequences for the Rebels were in fact intended to be a secondary line of defense. In 1861, Davis and other Western commanders, especially Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and Leonidas Polk, were focused on the construction of a defensive line stretching from Missouri through Kentucky. Of course, Kentucky’s neutrality (soon to be violated by Polk) and the Confederate defeat at Mill Springs made this defensive line untenable, so it was the secondary line of works along the Mississippi, Tennessee and Cumberland that soon found themselves besieged.
Early Union successes against Forts Henry and Donelson and Island No. 10 (which opened up the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers and led to the fall of Memphis, respectively), should have warned the Confederacy that their river fortifications were far from impregnable, and indeed could prove to be veritable infantry traps. Yet the Confederacy continued to rely on such river fortresses to protect the Mississippi, and while Vicksburg and Port Hudson may have lasted longer and fared better than Forts Henry and Donelson, their fall came at an even higher, unbearable price.
Federal gunships under fire at Port Hudson
Approximately 64,000 troops were captured in these river fortresses alone. One was to wonder what impact the 15,000 men from Henry and Donelson may have made at Shiloh? Or how the 31,000 prisoners from Vicksburg may have aided Joseph Johnston or Braxton Bragg or John Bell Hood? It seems clear that the loss of so many Confederate soldiers, a large number lost early in the contest, must have seriously crippled Confederate strategic options later on in the war. Were there better ways to utilize these 64,000 men in defense of the Southern waterways other than to huddle them up in river fortifications? What are your thoughts?
Zac Cowsert received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in History and Political Science from Centenary College of Louisiana, a small liberal-arts college in Shreveport. He is currently a graduate student at West Virginia University focusing in U.S. History and the American Civil War. His studies and research often explore the Trans-Mississippi Theater. ©
Further Reading and Sources:
Arkansas Post. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture.
Fletcher Pratt. Civil War on Western Waters. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1956.
Steven E. Woodworth. Decision in the Heartland: The Civil War in the West. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011.
There surely must have been a better way. Isn’t one of the principles of strong fortifications that theoretically they can be defended with a small number of men? Were some of these strongholds simply overmanned, or did their construction in the first place aim for the effect of massive and impregnable appearance rather than efficient function? (I recall reading that on numerous occasions in other theaters General Beauregard ordered the reconstruction of fortifications to use smaller numbers effectively, so it seems that construction engineers commonly chose impressive size over troop economy.) Since limited manpower was one of the South’s greatest vulnerabilities, these large losses represented irreparable blows to their hope for success.
This subject is of personal interest to me as my great-great-grandfather, Lt. J. J. White of the 39th Mississippi, was captured at Port Hudson when it fell in July 1863, and languished for the rest of the War at Johnson’s Island. Please keep us informed as your research progresses!
I have read several places that conventional wisdom of the day was that you had to have a 4-1 advantage of cannons to take one fort. This proved in error, largely I seem to remember, because the 4-1 rule came about with sailing ships, not taking steam into consideration i.e. you can go against a current or wind. The Union had overwhelming advantage in terms of naval power, add to that, it has to be harder to hit a moving ship, than it is a stationary fort. You can also bypass a river fort, if for now, you can’t take it. But based on what the Confederacy had to work with, I can see why they thought the forts might hold the Union. Hindsight being 20/20, we know they place far too much faith in those forts.
I suspect there were a wide variety of reasons for the failure of these river fortresses. For one, there was the larger failure of the South of logistics. Massive river fortresses depend on having adequate supplies and the will to hold out longer than the enemy. This was a serious problem, as the South never bothered to actually provision said river monstrosities. It would have been better, given the logistical weaknesses of the South as a whole, to focus on smaller defenses in mostly impregnable locations that could have tied down much larger amounts of Union troops which would be vulnerable to countersieges and counterattacks rather than massive defenses that just ate up supplies quickly and led to large prisoner’s of war totals rotting in Northern prisons. But what do I know? I’m not a military genius like Jefferson Davis, after all.
So what alternative do you propose?
Should the forts have not been built? If they were not built, how would you have kept the Mississippi River open to Confederate use from late ’61 to mid-’63? What would have prevented the destruction of the vital Memphis & Charleston RR bridge over the Tennessee River many months before it was? Or kept the Union navy out of Nashville?
Perhaps the forts should have been built, but supported by a mobile inland. That is exactly what Davis intended when the system was started. Johnston caused a disaster by not making sure the Donaldson army operated in the field, under one commander. Davis created another disaster by stating his Mississippi objectives such that Pemberton thought he had been ordered to defend Vicksburg, rather than keep his army in being.
Of course the main problem was the South’s lack of manpower and weapons so that enough mobile armies, of sufficient size, could be fielded at one time so that the river forts could be protected while the inland campaigns were fought. Specifically, there were not enough troops to defend Vicksburg, cover Vicksburg, cover Port Hudson, and support Bragg in middle Tennessee AND defend Charleston and supply Lee.
In a way, you are repeating the old question of what strategy should the South have used to fight the war. The answer always seems to come back to the lack of resources in the South — they just could not meet all the advances the North was able to mount. And if the North had had a competent commander-in-chief, this disparity should have ended the war in 1863.
I think you’re absolutely right. Davis really intended a comprehensive, layered defensive approach, with Missouri-Kentucky the first line, Tennessee the second and lots of mobile forces, land and sea it support. I think it’s a solid concept on paper, but in reality it failed. The CS never had much of a chance in challenging Union naval power on the river (naval support gone) and the Missouri–Kentucky line failed quick (first defensive line gone). Thus the CSA was left with a secondary line of forts and mobile infantry forces.
You note leadership problems, and I agree wholeheartedly. The CSA in the West really struggled to find effective, aggressive leaders. I think Vicksburg is a fascinating example; Davis may be to blame for Pemberton’s actions, but he had the right idea with J. Johnston. While Pemberton was trapped inside Vicksburg with 31,000 men, Joseph Johnston had a force of 23,000 men outside Vicksburg preparing to raise the siege. Since Grant only had 50,000 men, the Confederacy actually had a slight numerical advantage around May! While coordination between Johnston and Pemberton would have been difficult, it was necessary. As Davis noted at the time, “We cannot hope for numerical equality and time will probably increase the disparity.” Davis proved right, but Johnston failed to act. So perhaps, with better, more aggressive commanders, the strategy would have worked. I still think the Confederacy was committing far too many men to these defensive positions (essentially trapping them in a corner).
Yes, and Joe Johnston warned Pemberton about that very point: Whatever happens, do not let your large force get trapped in Vicksburg. But Pemberton as well as others, including Jefferson Davis, could not stand the idea of giving up key locations in favor of saving their army to fight another day and preserve the possibility of later recapturing lost territory.