The Civil War in the West: Victory and Defeat from the Appalachians to the Mississippi

13 Behind the Lines

233 hile Sherman battled his way toward Atlanta, the rear areas of Union occupation in the West were alive with activity. Strategic raids by mounted Confederate forces swept across western Tennessee and western Kentucky, hitting several Union garrisons and resulting in sharp battles at Paducah and a controversial slaughter at Fort Pillow, even before Sherman set out on his campaign for Atlanta. Sherman himself struck out from Vicksburg toward Meridian in an attempt to disrupt the Confederate position in Mississippi and tear up enemy lines of communication as preparation for major campaigning in the spring. After his massive host left Chattanooga, Sherman relied on subordinate commanders to continue applying pressure on Confederate forces in Mississippi to distract them from trying to interfere with his tenuous supply line through Tennessee. The rear areas were by no means calm, or inactive, throughout the year. Meridian During the winter months of 1864, before a firm directive to campaign toward Atlanta had been set, Sherman sought to improve the Union position in Mississippi by tearing up the network of railroads centering on Meridian. Such a move would disrupt Confederate shipment of provisions from the state to their major armies and hamper enemy efforts to move troops westward to threaten the Union occupation of Vicksburg and other Mississippi River towns. By leading a large force of infantry to the city, Sherman hoped to duplicate his success at Jackson the year before and make Meridian inactive as a transportation center for at least six months. If Nathaniel P. Banks could succeed in his drive up the Red River Valley at the same time, the Federals would significantly widen their “domain along the Mississippi River, and thereby set the troops ­hitherto necessary to guard the river free for other military purposes.” Sherman hoped to free up twenty thousand occupation troops for the next campaign, as well as destroy Nathan Bedford Forrest’s command in Mississippi.1 13 } Behind the Lines W 234 Behind the Lines Sherman led four divisions of infantry from Vicksburg while William Sooy Smith brought seven thousand cavalrymen from Memphis. Both columns headed for Meridian, a march of 150 miles for the infantrymen. Sherman left on February 3, 1864, and reached Jackson two days later, occupying the state capital for the third time in the war. By February 9, the Federals were at Morton. Confederate general Leonidas Polk chose not to contest the Union advance. He evacuated Meridian and saved his command. When Sherman occupied the city on February 16, his men began to tear up 115 miles of track in all directions, including sixty-­ one bridges. They captured nineteen locomotives and twenty-­ eight cars. After five days of destruction, the Yankees returned to Vicksburg by March 6. Smith, however, never made contact with Sherman. Forrest stopped him near West Point by February 22, and Smith returned to Memphis with five thousand blacks, one thousand white refugees, and three thousand animals. As one Federal soldier put it, “We left every town that we passed through in ashes.” Sherman later credited the Meridian raid with freeing up the Seventeenth Corps for the Atlanta campaign.2 Paducah and Fort Pillow Soon after turning back Smith from his approach to Meridian, Forrest set out on a raid of his own deep into the Union occupation zone in the West. He led 3,000 mounted troops from Columbus, Mississippi, into western Kentucky to recruit men for the Confederate army. Forrest occupied the town of Paducah on March 25, driving the small Union garrison into a strong fort on the outskirts. Colonel Stephen G. Hicks held Fort Anderson with only 650 men, but he was aided by fire from two gunboats in the Ohio River. At one point, he laid down so much fire on Confederate sharpshooters hidden in buildings that Paducah was set ablaze. Forrest soon broke off the engagement and retreated. Federal commanders shed no tears over the burning of the town, for Paducah was a notorious refuge of Confederate sympathizers . In fact, many Unionists considered the majority of residents in western Tennessee and western Kentucky as “overwhelmingly disloyal.” Stephen A. Hurlbut admitted, “I consider the damage done to Paducah as a proper lesson to that place and its vicinity.”3 What Forrest and his troopers did at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, the next month, however, shocked every Federal soldier in the West. This large Confederate work had been occupied by the Unionists since June 1862; they had reworked its configuration to allow for a small garrison of...