Worthy Opponents by Edward Longacre

Author:Edward Longacre
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Inc.
Published: 2010-04-03T16:00:00+00:00

Sherman’s troops destroying Jackson, Miss.

The only item of interest that Sherman left out of his report was that in advancing on Jackson he had engaged for the first time Joseph E. Johnston, who, nominally at least, had commanded the forces defending the town. It had been an uneven contest from start to finish, one Johnston could not possibly have won. But there would be more confrontations to come, and not all would end with the premature departure of one of the antagonists.

By 2:00 P.M. on the fourteenth, the supplies removed from Jackson were on their way to Canton, and the defenders north of town, who had done a remarkable job of holding off McPherson’s corps, were disengaging and falling back. Johnston called in Gregg’s, Walker’s, and Colquitt’s troops and led them five miles north of town along a road he believed would enable him to join forces with Pemberton. The latter, whose troops Johnston estimated at thirty-two thousand (in actuality, he had ten thousand fewer), had concentrated at Edwards’s Station on the railroad east of Vicksburg. As soon as they were beyond pursuit by McPherson or Sherman, Johnston sent a dispatch to Pemberton, informing him of what had transpired at Jackson, explaining that a large enemy force—perhaps half of Grant’s army—occupied the place, and opining that “it would decide the campaign to beat it.” He desired Pemberton to join him and help him inflict “a heavy blow upon the enemy.” But Johnston failed to receive a prompt reply, which worried him. Time was fast slipping away; Pemberton and he needed to unite before Grant managed to block them.27

The next day Johnston led his meager force to Calhoun Station, fourteen miles north of Jackson. He received there a dispatch from Pemberton—but not in answer to his of the previous day—stating that he intended to march from Edwards’s Station in a southwesterly direction in hopes of coming in behind Grant’s main force and cutting its line of communications. In making this move, however, Pemberton was seeking a phantom objective, for Grant had already taken steps to cut his own line of supply. He wished his troops to live off the country and thus be independent of a base the enemy could attack in hopes of duplicating Van Dorn’s success.

Pemberton’s message was disheartening, for it told Johnston that his subordinate was moving away from, not toward, a junction of forces. Johnston rushed a courier toward Edwards’s Station with a message urging Pemberton to march, instead, to Clinton, where they could link. This was substantially the same advice he had given Pemberton late on the thirteenth, upon arriving in Jackson. Hopeful that the second order had done the trick, Johnston remained at Calhoun throughout the sixteenth, giving the troops under him, who were exhausted from marching and fighting, essential rest.

That afternoon he received Pemberton’s reply to his communiqué of the thirteenth. Now his subordinate indicated a willingness to move in Johnston’s direction although disliking the idea of straying from Vicksburg, which only one week

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.