Granbury's Texas Brigade: Diehard Western Confederates

10 Camp Life

128 chapter ten CAMP LIFE In early 1864, the instatement of Hiram Granbury and Joseph Johnston to command the Texas Brigade and the Army of Tennessee provided a major boost for the Confederate war effort. The morale of the western forces of the Confederacy might have dissipated without these charismatic leaders in command. From the perspective of the historian, even though Johnston did not perform well as an army commander, the men in the ranks adored him, and that fact in itself prolonged the Confederate war effort by keeping men in the field. This phenomenon further illustrates the primacy of a localized perspective when understanding the morale of the men in the western Confederate armies. The rise of Granbury to command of the brigade and the leadership he displayed also helped increase the devotion of the Texans to the Confederate cause. While the Confederacy crumbled around them, Granbury’s Texans went forward heartened. In spite of the waning fortunes of the Confederacy as a whole, New Year’s Day, 1864 dawned with hope for the Confederate Army of Tennessee . Their new commander, General Joseph Johnston, had renewed the spirits of the weary soldiers. Despite their prospects, the end of the war remained uppermost in the minds of many of the soldiers in this western army. “In comes a new year and no prospect of peace,” wrote Private Benjamin Seaton of the 10th Texas Infantry on January 1, “O that peace may be made before the end of the present year may close.”1 129 camp life At the highest levels of Confederate command, Jefferson Davis had confronted a hard task in finding a new commander for the Army of Tennessee . Hardee had made it clear that he did not want the responsibility of commanding the army permanently, and circumstances had forced Davis to search for another replacement.2 The only suitable candidate had been General Joseph E. Johnston. The appointment of Johnston proved the last desperate option for Jefferson Davis. A bitter feud existed between Davis and Johnston that had begun when the Confederate Congress commissioned Johnston a full general, but fourth on a list of five in order of rank in the old U.S. Army. Johnston believed himself entitled to the numberone spot, due to his staff ranking.3 Davis wrote Johnston in December, advising him of the general condition of the Army of Tennessee prior to his arrival. He informed him that the army remained relatively well supplied and had plenty of ammunition and artillery on hand. He also mistakenly informed him that the army possessed high spirits despite the earlier defeat. Under these circumstances, he expected Johnston to take the offensive at the earliest possible opportunity . On December 27, Johnston reached Dalton and assumed command the next day, replacing Hardee. When he arrived, he encountered little that resembled what Davis had described. Johnston quickly saw that he had his work cut out for him.4 As Johnston helped to make the Army of Tennessee an effective fighting force and raise its morale, just to the north of Dalton the division of Major General Patrick Cleburne attended to business as usual. Bragg had posted Cleburne’s Division six miles north of Dalton, near Tunnel Hill. This distance allowed the Irishman to keep his division somewhat separate from the decay that attended the rest of the army. Experience made Cleburne a stickler for drill, and though the rest of the army fell into poor condition, he kept his men attending to discipline regularly. He conducted classes on military matters for his brigade commanders, who in turn instructed their regimental commanders, and so on down to the men in the ranks.5 Colonel Hiram Granbury’s Texas Brigade made its camp on Tunnel Hill with the rest of the division. The Texans fashioned an elaborate camp that contained all the comforts of good winter quarters. For some, shelter consisted of dug-out ditches with pine boughs for cover. For others, winter quarters were log huts replete with fireplaces, bunks, and shelves. Some Texans even created chim- Granbury’s Texas Brigade 130 neys from barrels with the bottoms knocked out. Lieutenant Robert M. Collins of the 6th, 10th & 15th Texas Dismounted Cavalry noted that “in our winter quarters there was as great a variety of architecture as there is to be found in any city or town in the country.”6 Many of the men excavated rectangular pits in...