Portraits of Conflict: A Photographic History of Alabama in the Civil War

5. Defending the Heart of Dixie

Chapter  In the early summer of , the military situation in the western Confederacy was bleak. One Union army of nearly , under Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was preparing to advance deeper into Mississippi—its goal,Vicksburg and with it control over the mighty river.Another Union army of more than , under Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell was already marching through northern Alabama toward Chattanooga, possession of which would open Georgia to invasion. For Alabama Confederates , the outcome of these two operations was of particular concern, for failure to halt them risked exposing their native state—the“Heart of Dixie”— to invasion and conquest.In  and  the geography of war in the West formed a destructive arc around Alabama; titanic battles occurred in northern Mississippi, Middle Tennessee (and beyond into Kentucky), and northern Georgia. The Alabamians who participated in these campaigns won fewer laurels than their counterparts in the Army of Northern Virginia, yet their perseverance in combat helped temporarily spare their homeland the depredations of hard war. Confronting the dual Yankee invasion was an array of small Confederate armies and detachments spread over a wide front from East Tennessee to central Mississippi.Alabamians composed a significant portion of this manpower: at least two dozen regiments of infantry, nine batteries of artillery, and three regiments of cavalry.By this time they had also gained a nickname—“Yellowhammers”—after the common flicker that would become the state bird in . The principal fighting force in the area was the Army of Mississippi under Gen. Braxton Bragg. Though disliked by soldiers for his rigid sense of discipline and by officers for his irascible personality, Bragg was an able strategist who understood the principle of offense. Beginning in June, he dramatically turned the military tide by implementing one of the most ambitious Confederate operations of the entire war. Leaving a sizeable contingent to contain Grant, Bragg concentrated the bulk of his forces, in all about , men (including ,Alabamians), in the eastern half of Tennessee, where his army crossed in two columns into Kentucky in midSeptember . These unexpected movements forced  Defending the Heart of Dixie Buell to cancel his ponderous drive on Chattanooga and pursue the Rebels north. Bragg’s promising invasion, however, soon bogged down as the commander brooded over what to do, especially after Kentuckians refused to rally around the Confederate banner.After several weeks of cautious maneuvering in central Kentucky, the opposing forces clashed in the bizarre Battle of Perryville.Incorrectly concluding that a Union army approaching from the west was a feint, Bragg kept his main body, including most of his Alabama regiments , farther north at Frankfort, the state’s capital. Thus, a mere , Confederates faced an imposing adversary of , Federals.Nevertheless,it was the Rebels who, on the afternoon of  October, initiated the main action at Perryville.While the st and rd Alabama Cavalry distracted Union forces due west of the town, three infantry divisions attacked from the northern outskirts,slashing into the Union left wing.Advancing as part of the Rebel left,the rd and thAlabama Infantry Regiments were heading into their first major military engagement. Fighting in a brigade commanded by Brig. Gen. S. A. M. Wood, the rd Alabama helped storm a key Union position at Dixville Crossroads.Determined to hold the junction, these Yellowhammers gamely stood their ground until sunset, delivering numerous volleys into nearby Union lines before finally falling back under the weight of enemy counterattacks.Out of  men engaged, the regiment sustained  casualties. Just to the south, the th Alabama (of Col.Samuel Powell’s brigade) participated in a fierce supporting attack. One observer noted that the Alabamians went into battle “yelling like fiends broke loose from pandemonium.”1 Caught inYankee crossfire, the th withdrew with the rest of its brigade under cover of darkness. Happily for the Confederates, many Union formations sat idle during the contest; an acoustic shadow left them unaware that combat was raging only a few miles away. But Perryville was hardly the decisive battle Bragg desired, instead marking an anticlimax to the whole invasion. Logistically unable to stay in Kentucky, the Rebel army retreated back to Middle Tennessee. While Bragg’s invasion of Kentucky unfolded, those Alabama regiments assigned to protect northern Mississippi participated in the oftenforgotten battles of Iuka and Corinth. The Confed erate commanders in the area—Maj.Gens.EarlVan Dorn and Sterling Price—sought to destroy Grant’s occupation forces,now depleted...