General Grant and the Rewriting of History by Frank P. Varney

Author:Frank P. Varney [Varney, Frank P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, Civil War Period (1850-1877), Military
ISBN: 9781611211191
Google: SrzgAwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Savas Beatie
Published: 2013-07-19T03:35:43+00:00

His men were certainly not critical. They were convinced that Rosecrans was the man who could lead them to victory. A letter from an orderly sergeant in the 88th Illinois commented, “If General Rosecrans is not called upon to meet an overwhelming force, we have no fears of disaster. No commander in all the Union army to-day stands ahead of him, in . . . capacity, heroism, and fertility of resources.”30

The Context

It is important to recognize the context within which Rosecrans operated. On December 13, Ambrose Burnside’s Army of the Potomac took dreadful casualties in a failed assault at Fredericksburg, Virginia. On December 20, Van Dorn struck Grant’s supply depot at Holly Springs, capturing 1,500 men, destroying $1.5 million worth of supplies, burning a new hospital, all of which caused Grant to abort his move toward Vicksburg. Grant did not inform Sherman of his withdrawal, however, and the latter—leading Grant’s advance elements—was dealt a bloody repulse in his attack at Chickasaw Bluffs. At the same time, Confederate cavalryman Nathan Bedford Forrest raided into West Tennessee and captured 2,500 men and 10 guns. On the very day Rosecrans compelled Braxton Bragg to withdraw from Murfreesboro, a Confederate surprise attack seized Galveston, Texas. The Peace Democrats were ascendant in several states, and the Union cause seemingly hung by a thread. With Federal forces reeling on all fronts, there was much riding on Rosecrans’s campaign.31

Grant and Lincoln disagreed as to whether Stones River was a victory; very few historians give Rosecrans any credit at all, but the facts speak for themselves. Rosecrans inflicted more casualties in killed and wounded than he took (according to most sources; some have the casualties fairly even); he held the field; and he thwarted Bragg’s advance on Nashville—the Army of Tennessee retreated past the point from which it had started the campaign. What more need he have done? Others disagreed with Grant, as well. Secretary of War Stanton, who for months had been enormously uncooperative as Rosecrans tried to get his army into fighting trim, in the flush of victory promised that “there is nothing you can ask within my power to grant to yourself or your heroic command that will not be cheerfully given.” (He would renege on that promise within weeks.) Rosecrans was also the recipient of resolutions of thanks from the legislatures of Ohio and Indiana, from the St. Louis Board of Common Council, and from both Houses of Congress. Lincoln sent him a letter personally thanking him. The President said that Stones River came at a moment of crisis; in the midst of potential disaster, Rosecrans had produced a victory.32

Revisiting the Historiography

Was that victory a product of good fortune, won in spite of Rosecrans’s shortcomings?

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