The Civil War in the West Tour
Destination: Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana
Duration; 8 Days
ITINERARY:
Arrival Day: This afternoon we will gather at our tour hotel in Tulsa Oklahoma. Tonight we will have a get-acquainted dinner before beginning the tour the next day.
Day 1: This morning we will make an early departure from our tour hotel and drive to Springfield, Missouri, and to the Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield where we will have a late morning tour. http://www.nps.gov/wicr/ The battle of Wilson’s Creek also known as the Battle of Oak Hills was fought on August 10, 1861 just after the first battle at Bull Run in Virginia, and was fought between Union forces commanded of Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon and Confederate troops commanded by Brigadier General Ben McCulloch, and Missouri State Guardsmen commanded by Major General Sterling Price, near Springfield, Missouri.
The Battle of Wilson’s Creek was not only the first major battle of the Civil War west of the Mississippi River, it also the first taste of battle for thirty officers who would become future major and brigadier generals in both armies. The victory at Wilson’s Creek allowed the Confederates to gain temporary control of southwestern Missouri until late October when a rump secession convention was convened by Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson in Neosho where an ordinance of secession was passed. All said, Missouri ended up with two state governments making it the only state to have seceded from the Union, while at the same time remaining under firm Union control. After our tour we will visit General Sweeny’s Museum, (www.civilwarmuseum.com) then travel to our Springfield, Missouri hotel for the night.
Day 2: This morning we will depart our tour hotel in Springfield and travel across the Arkansas state line to the Pea Ridge National Military Park (a/k/a Elkhorn Tavern) where we will have a morning battlefield tour. (www.nps.gov/peri/) After a rousing victory at Pea Ridge, federal forces pressed the advantage, driving deeper into northern Arkansas pushing all Confederates that remained in their path deeper into the interior of the state. A significant blow to the Confederate cause occurred after Pea Ridge when most of their regular army in Arkansas was removed and sent across the Mississippi River to augment Beauregard was consolidating near Shiloh Church, at Pittsburg Landing in southern Tennessee. This left the Confederates to rebuild an army to continue the fight in Arkansas. This job fell to Major General Thomas Hindman who immediately began to impress an army by issuing a series of highly unpopular, but what turned out to be effective military decrees utilizing conscription and martial law. The price of this policy was an outcry from the citizenry and political opponents which ultimately became too much to for Hindman to overcome, causing him to be relieved from his command of the
Trans-Mississippi District. Convinced that his new command in northwestern Arkansas offered him an opportunity to redeem himself, Hindman immediately began an offensive hoping this move would be the catalyst for a second Confederate invasion of Missouri.
All of this came to a head on December 7, 1862 near the small community of Prairie Grove, Arkansas but it didn’t work out as Hindman had envisioned, as a campaign that started off with so much promise for the Confederates ended at Prairie Grove on December 29th and Hindman was driven out of northwest Arkansas permanently. During the fighting at Prairie Grove Federal forces suffered 1,251 casualties and Confederate forces suffered 1,317 casualties. But the pure numbers did not tell the entire story. The defeat at Prairie Grove took a particularly hard toll on Confederate morale after squandering so many of the soldiers Hindman had forcibly conscripted during and after the campaign. Though history recalls this battle a tactical draw, most historians agree that Prairie Grove was a strategic victory for the Federals mostly because they remained in possession of the battlefield when the fighting ended, and because the Confederates had basically lost their position in northwest Arkansas. The Prairie Grove State Park is nationally known as one of the most intact Civil War battlefields in existence. Active efforts are underway to acquire additional land for the park and preserve its integrity. After our tour of the Prairie Grove Battlefield, we will depart for Little Rock where we will spend the night. We will have dinner enroute. (www.arkansasstateparks.com/prairiegrovebattlefield)
Day 3: This morning we will arise early for our visit to the “Old State House Museum” in Little Rock. (www.oldstatehouse.com) This building was used as the State Capitol of Arkansas from 1836 to 1911, and was the site of the Arkansas secession convention. When the Confederates fled in 1863, Federal troops moved into Little Rock, and this building served as the seat of the federal occupation government until the war ended. The museum’s collection includes various Confederate battle flags, and considerable records and artifacts relating to the secession of Arkansas. After our visit to the museum, we will drive to Memphis, Tennessee and a mid afternoon tour of Fort Pillow.
Fort Pillow: By April 1864, Union troops had garrisoned Fort Pillow, an old earthen fortification originally been built by the Confederates and later improved by Union troops. Standing on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River about forty river miles north of Memphis, Fort Pillow was home to a Federal garrison that numbered 295 white Tennessee troops and 262 U.S. Colored Troops, all commanded by Major Lionel F. Booth.
On April 12, 1864, Confederate Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest attacked the 295 white Tennessee U.S. soldiers and 262 U.S. Colored soldiers who were garrisoning Fort Pillow with a division of his cavalrymen numbering approximately 2,500 during which Major Lionel F. Booth who had been commanding the U.S. troops was killed. When Major William F. Bradford asked Forrest for terms of surrender Bradford was given twenty minutes. When Bradford refused to surrender the Confederates attacked once again and soon had overrun the fort, causing the Union troops to flee down the bluff to the river where they ran into a deadly crossfire. In all, only 62 of the U.S. Colored Troops survived the massacre prompting historians since to accuse Forrest of purposely killing the black troops, a legacy that Forrest carries to this day. Upon leaving the fort that evening the Confederates had gained little tactical advantage from the attack. (www.stateparks.com/fort_pillow.html) After our tour we will have dinner and travel to our Memphis Hotel for the night.
Day 4: This morning we will depart our tour hotel in Memphis and travel to Holly Springs Mississippi for a town tour. (www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1863/january/holly-springs-mississippi.htm) By the fall of 1862, the Civil War was in its second year, but even in the face of all the pro-secession hype many people in the south had become keenly aware that the eventual outcome of the war was not going to lead to southern independence. Scores of irreplaceable lives had been lost In Arkansas, Tennessee and most recently Mississippi, and even the most optimistic Southerner could see little strategic gain or purpose in continuing the fight. The loss at Pea Ridge had ended any credible Confederate presence west of the Mississippi River, and losses at Shiloh and Corinth had greatly depleted Southern resources and manpower. Major General John Pemberton was already withdrawing his exhausted forces, retreating further south to protect the last remaining Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River at Vicksburg. If Vicksburg fell it would divide the Confederacy and leave Grant’s Federal troops in complete control of the strategically crucial Mississippi River, a most important economic artery and virtually the entire center of the continent.
The flamboyant Earl Van Dorn had commanded the Confederate disasters at Pea Ridge and Corinth, and now, after surviving a court of inquiry for on charges of misconduct, including drunkenness, and being relieved of his command of the Trans-Mississippi Department, he was now back in the command and ready to prove his detractors wrong. But Van Dorn was like so many of the Confederate generals who had talked big, but simply had failed to live up to expectations. Now, possessed with an insatiable desire for personal glory and desperation to reclaim his reputation Van Dorn was once again, ready to defend the honor of he South, this time in northern Mississippi. The raid on Holly Springs that Van Dorn was to lead was intended to strike against Grant’s supply depot at Holly Springs, a move that many historians have argued was the turning point of the Confederate war effort in Mississippi.
The raid on Holly Springs had immediate and far-reaching repercussions for Grant’s campaign against Vicksburg, as Van Dorn’s raiders has succeeded in destroying his most important supply depot, and had thoroughly ravaged the countryside for what little else remained. Temporarily yielding the initiative, Grant withdrew to Memphis, and Van Dorn, long known to be a handsome, trim, elegant lady’s man (known by some as a dandy) would be killed by an irate husband at his headquarters at Springhill, Tennessee on May 7, 1863.
After our tour of Holly Springs we will drive to Iuka, Mississippi for a late morning tour. (www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1862/october/battle-iuka-mississippi.htm) By the fall of 1862, Sterling Price once again found himself in command of a Confederate Army. This time it was the Confederate Army of the West which arrived on September 19 in Iuka, a small Mississippi town near the Tennessee border. Acting on orders from Braxton Bragg, Price had just driven parts of Major General William S. Rosecrans’ Federal army from the town believing they were planning to move into middle Tennessee to reinforce Major General Don Carlos Buell's Army of the Ohio, which was garrisoned in Nashville.
As Rosecrans's army marched into Iuka they could see the Confederates fleeing from the area, to which Rosecrans ordered a pursuit, but the overgrown terrain prevented closure upon the Confederate rear guard. It has long been argued that had Rosecrans covered the Fulton Road on his march to Iuka as he had been ordered to do, he would likely have destroyed or captured Price's army preventing it from joining up with Van Dorn to mount an attack on Corinth in October. While Rosecrans was officially exonerated by Grant, his decision not to follow orders ultimately caused Grant to have concern about Rosecrans's abilities and leadership, and led to his downfall. Lincoln’s immediate assessment of Rosecrans’ performance was much less generous than Grant’s.
After lunch we will travel to the Shiloh National Military Park for a four hour afternoon tour of the Shiloh Battlefield. (www.nps.gov/shil/) Although the Confederate Army of Tennessee was not officially so designated until November 1862, it really came into existence when General Albert Sidney Johnston and his subordinate Pierre Gustave Toutant (P.T.G.) Beauregard began assembling an army of 42,000 men at Corinth, Mississippi in March 1862 for its first major battle at Pittsburg Landing near Shiloh Church which was fought on April 6 and 7, 1862. This preceded Antietam in Maryland by about 6 months. Up until this time the Civil War had not really taken an ugly turn in that many still talked of the glories of going to war. But after this battle novelist George Washington Cable remarked “New Orleans never laughed again during the war.” At Shiloh, the common soldier on both sides tasted the carnage that would only get worse, as the real wages of war touched so many families in both the North and South.
Shiloh would be the first great bloody battle of the Civil War. The number of casualties on both side of the battle were staggering; Federal forces sustained 1,754 men killed, and another 8,408 were wounded, while yet another 2,885 were captured; the Confederates sustained 1,723 killed, 8,012 wounded, and listed 959 as missing. While he sustained enormous losses in the battle Grant’s victory was decisive. In fact, it is quite possible that this great battle literally saved Grant’s career. The downside to Grant’s performance it Shiloh was that when Beauregard realized it was over and broke off the fight early in the afternoon of April 7, he began to withdraw in the direction of Corinth, and Grant made no effort to pursue the battle fatigued Confederates. This failure is likely what saved the Confederate Army of Tennessee to fight another day. Without doubt, had this battle been fought in 1864, Grant would have pursued and likely destroyed the fleeing Confederates, considering how the thoughts about fighting the war had changed over time. Jefferson Davis was furious with Beauregard’s poor performance at Shiloh and fired him, elevating Braxton Bragg to command the primary Confederate army in the west. After our tour of the battlefield we will drive to Corinth and our hotel for the night.
Day 5: This morning we will begin the day with a tour of Corinth. After it had broken the siege of Corinth immediately after the battle at Shiloh earlier that spring, the Union army built earthen works on inner and intermediate lines to protect the rail center. Now, the fighting had concluded at Iuka and Sterling Price moved his Army of the West, first to Baldwyn, then on to Ripley, Mississippi, where it joined forces with Earl Van Dorn's Army of West Tennessee. Since Van Dorn ranked Price he took command of the combined forces which numbered about 22,000 men. After consolidating the Confederates marched from Ripley to Pocahontas on October 1, and then southeast in the direction of Corinth, intending to seize the rail center, and open the way for a Confederate incursion into Middle Tennessee. As the Confederates approached the town, the detachment of Federals in the town, numbering about 23,000 scurried in to occupy the outer line of the works. By 10:00 a.m. on October 3 the Confederates had come within about 3 miles of the town and began occupying the existing works not already containing Union soldiers.
As the flow of the ensuing battle began to give the advantage to the Federals, the Confederate line broke and the charging Federals drove the fleeing Rebels into a general retreat in the direction of Chewalla, Tennessee. As he watched the Rebels running away in front of him Rosecrans called off the chase, deciding to wait until first light the next day. This would turn out to be a decision that would pose significant costs to the Union effort, as well as Rosecrans personally. While he finally defeated Van Dorn on October 5 at Hatchie Bridge in Tennessee, Rosecrans’ failure to pursue the fleeing Confederates forfeited another great opportunity to destroy the Confederate army, and possibly either kill or capture Van Dorn. This lapse in judgment was only one of Rosecrans’ failures to aggressively pursue battlefield advantages that were driving Lincoln crazy, and which would ultimately result in his being relieved of command by Grant. After our tour we will have lunch and begin our drive to Baldwyn, Mississippi and Brice’s Crossroads where we will have an afternoon tour. (www.nps.gov/brcr/)
Brices’ Crossroads: By the summer of 1863 William Tecumseh Sherman was tenderly supporting very fragile supply and communication lines through Tennessee, having been subjected to constant raids by Nathan Bedford Forrest’s cavalry. In an effort to fix the problem Sherman sent Brigadier General Samuel Sturgis and about 8,500 of his Federal cavalry into northern Mississippi and Alabama with orders to kill Forrest and shore up the federal supply lines. As far as Sturgis was concerned, this was much easier ordered that done.
With considerable doubt about his ability to carry out his mission, Sturgis left Memphis on June 1. While Sturgis did everything in his power to make his departure as low key as possible, it was most certainly not unnoticed. As Sturgis was riding out of Memphis a dispatch went out from Lieutenant General Stephen D. Lee warning Forrest of Sturgis’ movement in his direction, and informing him that he would join up with Forrest at Okolona, Mississippi, but that it would be difficult for him to get there before he encountered Sturgis. Considering the fact that Forrest was likely to have to deal with the immediate threat by himself, Lee told his cavalry commander to deal with Sturgis however he saw fit.
Already on the move in Tennessee, Forrest sent a division of his cavalry towards Tupelo, Mississippi, a small town located in Lee County, about 15 miles south of Brice's Crossroads. When he first saw Sturgis Forrest was badly outnumbered, a condition hardly new to the Confederate cavalryman, who was, as always, very confident, and decided to challenge Sturgis immediately and not wait for Lee. Forrest was well aware that Federal cavalry usually moved three or four hours ahead of its infantry, so he decided to attack the cavalry, then ambush the infantry as it responded to the aid of the horsemen; theorizing that by the time the arrived, likely on the quick time, the federal infantrymen would be too fatigued by the heat and the march to do much good. Once engaged, Forrest planned to drive the infantrymen along with what remained of the cavalry up against the creek to the west. With the plan firmly conceived in his head, Forrest split his cavalrymen and sent them to two nearby towns with orders to standby.
The fighting began at the crossroads at about 9:45 a.m. on June 10 as one of Forrest’s brigades engaged the first elements of Sturgis’ cavalry. As balance of the Federal cavalry engaged, Forrest sent the remainder of his cavalry into the fight. At first the Federals were driven back by Forrest’s counter-attack, but when Sturgis saw what was happening, he called up his infantry which soon began to force Forrest’s cavalrymen to give ground.
Just after noon Forrest’s 2nd Tennessee Cavalry hit the bridge across the Tishomingo Creek which caused great confusion and panic among the Federals. Realizing what was happening, Sturgis ordered an immediate retreat. As far as Forrest was concerned, the federal retreat was just pouring blood on the water as the Rebel cavalry commander turned up the heat resulting in a bottleneck at the bridge. Soon, Sturgis’ orderly retreat had turned into a rout as men dropped their weapons and made a mad dash in the direction of Memphis with the Rebels in hot pursuit. In all, this massive retreat carried across six counties before the Confederates simply wore out from the chase and stopped.
In all, the Confederates suffered 492 casualties, and the Union sustained 2,164 (including 1,500 prisoners). Forrest captured huge supplies of arms, artillery, and ammunition as well as plenty of stores. Sturgis demoted and sent into exile to the far West. After the battle, the Union Army again accused Forrest of massacring black soldiers, but this never held up as subsequent prisoner exchanges gave evidence of to the contrary. After our tour we will depart for Jackson for the night.
Day 6: This morning we will visit the Old Mississippi Capitol building which is now a museum and the site of the Mississippi Secession Convention in January 1861. This was also the seat of the Mississippi Confederate State Government until May of 1863. In October 1864 the building became the Confederate military headquarters. (mdah.state.ms.us/new_museum/index.html)
After our morning in Jackson and after lunch we will drive to Vicksburg and an afternoon tour of the battlefield. Since mid-October 1862, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant had made several attempts to take Vicksburg; first at Chickasaw Bluffs, then during the Yazoo Pass Expedition, Steele's Bayou Expedition. In the spring of 1863 he prepared his troops to cross the Mississippi River south of Vicksburg and attack the city from the south and east, but Confederate batteries at Port Hudson, south of Vicksburg had prevented Grant from establishing transportation and communication lines with federal forces in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, cutting off naval support for the attack. Finally, Grant asked Rear Admiral David D. Porter if he could get past the Confederate batteries at Vicksburg, could he ferry Grant’s troops to the east bank in preparation for their attack. In attacking from the south Grant would face two Confederate forces, one commanded by Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton at Vicksburg and the other commanded by General Joseph E. Johnston was at Jackson.
On the night of April 16 Porter moved 12 of his vessels quietly past the Vicksburg batteries. Encouraged by minor losses on his first try, Porter then ran a large supply flotilla past the Vicksburg batteries on the night of April 22nd as Sherman began to move along the Yazoo River northeast of Vicksburg. As McClernand and McPherson massed their corps near Hard Times, Louisiana on the 29th Porter opened fire on the Confederate batteries at Grand Gulf, Mississippi, just 33 miles southwest of Vicksburg, mostly to see if the area was suitable for landing Union troops, a position he found to be too well fortified.
On May 1st the first engagement of the invasion of Vicksburg occurred at Port Gibson, Louisiana, catching Pemberton’s 40,000 man army widely scattered and unable to defend Port Gibson. As a result the Confederates were easily defeated, and Pemberton withdrew back into Vicksburg.
During the siege that ensued Pemberton's 20,000-man garrison was decimated by disease and starvation, and the city's residents were forced to seek refuge in the caves in the surrounding hillsides, as hunger and daily bombardments by federal artillery on land, and gunboats on the river finally forced Pemberton into surrender on July 3rd. When Pemberton ask for terms of surrender Grant demanded the immediate and unconditional surrender of the garrison. Once surrendered, Grant paroled most of the Confederates remaining, to his eventual chagrin as many of these same men soon would appear to oppose him at Chattanooga. While Pemberton's surrender had ended the Vicksburg Campaign, the amount of time consumed by the siege had allowed Johnston time to raise a 31,000 man force in Jackson, and as the Confederates were being paroled on July 4th, Sherman attacked Johnston in Jackson resulting in the commencement of a siege of the Mississippi Capitol there as well. At the conclusion of our tour at Vicksburg, we will drive south to Grand Gulf Military Park near Port Gibson. (http://www.grandgulfpark.state.ms.us/grandgulfpark.html)
After our visit to Grand Gulf Military Park we will depart Vicksburg for Shreveport. Upon our arrival in Shreveport we will check in at the El Dorado Hotel and Casino where we will spend the night. (http://hollywoodshreveport.casinocity.com)
Day 7: This morning we will attend a re-enactment of the Battle at Pleasant Hill, near Pleasant Hill, Louisiana. We will begin our day with an early breakfast at the American Legion building in Pleasant Hill. At 10:00 a.m. we will attend a parade of re-enactors in downtown Pleasant Hill, then on your own, walk casually through the re-enactor’s camps and have lunch at the many vendor sites around the battlefield. At 2:00 p.m. will be the re-enactment and the remainder of the day will be on your own around the c amp sites and battleground. At some point during the afternoon we will visit a private collection of battlefield artifacts which are being preserved at a private residence. Tonight we will attend a dance in the camps. If you are in period costume you may participate, if you are not you may watch. It is up to you. (www.sabineparish.com/fest/battle.asp)
Day 8: This morning will begin the final day of the tour. We will again arise early for breakfast at the American Legion building at Pleasant Hill. At 10:00 a.m. we will attend a church service in the camps, then after the service a mail call. After the mail call we will depart for our return to Tulsa, Oklahoma. While enroute we will visit the Old Washington Historic State Park. This park contains the building that served as the Confederate State Capitol of Arkansas from 1864 to 1865, and features a 19th century museum village. After some time on our own in the park and museum we will resume our journey back to Tulsa. (www.historicwashingtonstatepark.com)
Tour Ends.
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