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6 Secession at Shiloh: Mississippi’s Convention Delegates and Their State’s Defense January 9, 1861, was a momentous day for the one hundred men gathered at the state house in Jackson, Mississippi. They were delegates to the Mississippi secession convention and were about to make a fateful decision, not just for their state but also for themselves. Some were wealthy planters who owned large plantations along the Mississippi River; they knew full well that secession would lead to war and war would lead to closed markets at best and total destruction at worst. While dedicated Mississippians, they were still unenthusiastic about secession. Termed “cooperationists,” they tried to delay disunion. Others were more adamant about immediate secession, and they carried the day. The final vote was a dominating 84-percent majority for leaving the Union, and there was an immediate feeling of consequence when the deed was done. While casting his vote, James L. Alcorn explained that “the die is cast—the Rubicon is crossed—and I enlist myself with the army that goes to Rome. I vote for the ordinance.”1 The delegates must have understood the significance of their action, but few realized the extent to which they would be personally involved. Most who were of military age, and a few who were not, opted to join the newly established military ranks during the excitement of secession and war, but the extent to which they would be called on to suffer and perhaps die was probably not foremost in their minds. It has often been noted that the signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 were potentially signing their death warrants; the same could be said of the Mississippi delegates in Jackson. For some, their action would literally consign them to death. Others would suffer terrifying wounds or imprisonment. Most would be economically and socially dispossessed. Their state would be devastated. It was a serious decision to make.2 Although a third of the delegates were too old to serve in the ranks (many still equipped companies from their locales or sent sons to the war effort), there were numerous delegates to the secession convention in the Confederate 100 Secession at Shiloh army by April 1862. During the initial year of the war, these delegates experienced only limited exposure to the war. There was some suffering, to be sure. The first delegate died in September 1861, but it was not on a battlefield or even in the army. And others were removed from Mississippi to defend other parts of the Confederacy. At least fifteen of the delegates, primarily those who first joined up and were sent to the Virginia front, served in the Eastern Theater eventually under Robert E. Lee. That was a long way from home.3 But the war began to come closer to Mississippi in February 1862, when a Union army under Ulysses S. Grant won impressive victories at Forts Henry and Donelson in northwestern Tennessee. That was uncomfortably close to Mississippi itself, and the fighting also caused the first delegate to die in action . Francis Marion Rogers of Monroe County, a wealthy lawyer, planter, and judge, was a captain in the 14th Mississippi Infantry, and he died defending Fort Donelson on February 15. At least four others, in addition to Rogers, had been at Fort Donelson and were either wounded or were now in Northern prison camps. But then, the news became much worse. Multiple Union armies began to trek southward toward Mississippi, intent on capturing the vital Confederate railroad crossing at Corinth in the northeastern corner of the state. The war was about to hit Mississippi itself.4 At least eleven delegates were a part of the army assembling at Corinth under General Albert Sidney Johnston, who soon advanced across the state line into Tennessee to attack Grant’s army at Pittsburg Landing. He hoped to destroy that army before another Federal force under Don Carlos Buell arrived on the scene. In effect, Johnston was trying to defend Corinth, its railroads, the state of Mississippi, and the Mississippi Valley as a whole by going on the offensive. The result was the climactic Battle of Shiloh, fought on April 6 and 7, 1862.5 Of the eleven former delegates at Corinth, ten saw action at Shiloh. The eleventh, lawyer and future Confederate brigadier general Samuel Benton of Marshall County, was detached from his regiment, the 9th Mississippi, in order to form a new unit in the interior of the state. He left Corinth...

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