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a war of egos the dogs of detraction Richmond correspondent George Bagby, whose news and gossip column appeared in the Charleston Mercury under the pen name “Hermes,” had done his research. Even before General Braxton Bragg, commanding the Confederate Army of the Mississippi, arrived in Richmond on Saturday, October 25, 1862, Bagby had uncovered a confidential source that positively debunked the story that had propelled the general to national prominence during the Mexican War. At the Battle of Buena Vista, on February 23, 1847, the American infantry collapsed at a critical moment, leaving Bragg’s battery alone to face an enemy charge. As reported by the press at the time, the battery braced as General Zachary Taylor rode up and shouted, “A little more grape, Captain Bragg!” The story soon became a part of American lore. According to Bagby, the scene was a fraud. A reliable source had related to him that the battery was in fact withdrawing, not standing firm, as Taylor rode up and cried out, “What the —— are your guns worth if we lose the battle?” “How curiously reputations are made,” Hermes concluded. Bagby later retracted the story and half-apologized by stating that Bragg’s personal courage was never in doubt, although he could not resist a concluding jab—“his capacity is another thing.” Given Bragg’s failure in the recent Kentucky Campaign, the entire Richmond press corps (the “dogs of detraction,” as Bragg referred to them) joined in the denunciation, openly predicting his removal from command.1 President Je≠erson Davis, who had summoned Bragg, cordially received him and, according to Bagby, the general appeared “in high spirits.” Following breakfast, Davis and Bragg engaged in a six-hour private session at the War Department, the old four-story Mechanics Institute on Franklin Street. On 2 battle of stones river Monday February 27, the general stole away for a few moments to meet with his brother Thomas Bragg. Thomas found him “well & in good spirits,” and he believed the president to be “entirely satisfied” with the handing of the late campaign, despite its disappointing outcome. The next day John Jones, a perceptive clerk in the War Department, detecting that the tide had changed in Bragg’s favor, jotted in his journal, “Gen. Bragg is here, but will not probably be deprived of his command.”2 Jones was correct, much to the chagrin of Bragg’s enemies—and they were many. The general’s problems did in fact not start in the West, but only a few blocks away, in the halls of the Confederate Congress. Kentucky politicians, such as Senator Henry C. Burnette and Congressman George B. Hodge, angry over the abandonment of their state, expressed opposition, as did Tennessee Senator Gustavus A. Henry. Due to Bragg’s perceived close ties to the president (the two had in fact not been cordial prior to the war), some politicians, such as Tennessee Congressman Henry S. Foote, a Davis antagonist long before the war, attacked the general as an extension of the administration. Alabama Senator William L. Yancey, who had a son in Bragg’s army, joined the anti-administration/anti-Bragg bloc, as did South Carolina Senator Robert Barnwell Rhett, who denounced the Kentucky Campaign as an “egregious failure.” South Carolina Senator James L. Orr likewise disparaged the army commander. How this easterner drifted into the anti-Bragg camp was a story in itself. Back in the summer of 1862, shortly after Bragg assumed command of the army, a rumor floated that he had had a soldier shot for stealing a chicken. The tale, totally baseless, made its way to Orr, who believed it and thereafter became a staunch critic. Texas Senator William C. Oldham had never even met the general and held no animus, but he had opposed the invasion of Kentucky. Texas Senator Louis T. Wigfall openly lobbied for Bragg’s removal.3 The present hue and cry contrasted dramatically from the scene four months earlier, when Bragg received command of an army wasting away at Tupelo, Mississippi. A series of early defeats at Mill Springs, Pea Ridge, Fort Donelson, Island No. 10, and New Orleans had resulted in huge territorial losses—the state of Kentucky, the Tennessee Valley, the entire Mississippi River (with the exception of a gap between Port Hudson, Louisiana, and Vicksburg, Mississippi), and much of Arkansas. Fears mounted for Vicksburg, and the governor of Arkansas, Henry Rector, feeling that his state had been abandoned, threatened to pull out of the Confederacy. Bragg...

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