398 



JOHNSTON, JOSEPH EGGLESTON. 



the river would have been higher and he would 

 have received a re-enforcement of 8,000 men, 

 who without his knowledge were on their way 

 to him from the south. 



On the 12th of November Gen. Johnston re- 

 ported for duty at the War Office in Richmond, 

 and on the 24th he was assigned to a command 

 in the Mississippi valley, including the forces 

 under Gens. Bragg, Pemberton, and Kirby Smith. 

 Here he repeated his advice to concentrate forces, 

 and form a large army in order to attack the 

 army under Gen. Grant ; but again his advice was 

 unheeded. He proposed that the force near Lit- 

 tle Rock, Ark., commanded by Gen. Holmes, 

 which was not confronted by an enemy, should 

 be brought across the Mississippi and united with 

 that under Gen. Pemberton, while Bragg's should 

 be held within co-operating distance, and that 

 Grant should be vigorously attacked. " As our 

 troops are now distributed," he added, " Vicks- 

 burg is in danger." During the winter and spring 

 there were various movements in Gen. Johnston's 

 department, with none of which was he intimate- 

 ly connected, because of the scattered condition 

 of his forces. The principal events were the bat- 

 tle of Murf reesborough or Stone river (Dec. 31 

 and Jan. 2), fought by Gen. Bragg against Gen. 

 Rosecrans, which is generally considered a drawn 

 battle, though Rosecrans was left in possession 

 of the field ; the movements of Grant toward 

 Vicksburg ; the ascent of the Mississippi by Na- 

 tional war vessels, which ran past the Confed- 

 erate batteries, and the descent of ironclad gun- 

 boats. When Grant had crossed to the west side 

 of the Mississippi, marched south as far as 

 Bruinsburg, and recrossed to the east side in 

 order to attack Vicksburg in the rear, Gen. 

 Johnston (then in Tennessee) received orders from 

 Richmond, May 9, to go at once to Mississippi 

 and take chief command there. He says : ' I 

 had been prevented, by the orders of the Admin- 

 istration, from giving my personal attention to 

 military affairs in Mississippi at any time since 

 the 22d of January." He set out at once, and 

 arrived at Jackson in the evening of the 13th, 

 finding there about 12,000 men subject to his 

 orders. He telegraphed to his Government that 

 he was too late, but would do what he could. 

 Grant's army, which had brushed away a small 

 Confederate force at Raymond, advanced prompt- 

 ly on Jackson, reaching that place on the 14th, 

 and attacking Johnston's. The latter, with a loss 

 of about 800 men, mostly prisoners, evacuated 

 the city, after burning most of his supplies. 

 Grant destroyed the factories and a portion of the 

 railroad, and then turned westward, fought Pem- 

 berton at Champion Hills and at the Big Black 

 river, and drove him within the defenses of 

 Vicksburg. Johnston had sent orders to Pem- 

 berton to abandon the defense of Vicksburg, 

 and save his army, but Pemberton replied, May 

 18: "On the receipt of your communication, I im- 

 mediately assembled a council of war. . . . The 

 opinion was unanimously expressed that it was 

 impossible to withdraw the army from this posi- 

 tion with such morale and material as to be of 



further use to the Confederacy I have decided 



to hold Vicksburg as long as possible, with the 

 firm hope that the Government may yet be able 

 to assist me in keeping this obstruction to the 

 enemy's free navigation of the Mississippi river. 



I still conceive it to be the most important point 

 in the Confederacy." Gen. Johnston wrote in 

 reply : " I am trying to gather a force which may 

 relieve you. Hold out." By the 3d of June he 

 had received re-enforcements to the extent of, 

 perhaps, 15,000 men, but he made no direct 

 movement to relieve Vicksburg, for which he 

 gives these reasons : 



My forces, not equal to a third of the Federal army, 

 were almost without artillery and field transportation, 

 and deficient in ammunition for all army ; and could 

 not, therefore, have been moved, with any hope of 

 success, against that powerful army, already protected 

 by lines of counter and circumvallation. All the 

 supplies that had been collected in the department 

 were, of course, with the troops in Vicksburg and 

 Port Hudson. The troops coming from the east, by 

 railroad, had brought neither artillery nor wagons. 

 Frequent drafts upon the country had so much re- 

 duced the number of horses and mules that it was not 

 until near the end of June that artillery and wagons, 

 and draught-animals enough for them, could be pro- 

 cured, generally from long distances most of the 

 artillery and wagons from Georgia. Some twelve 

 pieces, found without carriages, were mounted on 

 such as could be made in Canton. There was no 

 want of provision and forage in the department, but 

 they were still to be collected; and we had small 

 means of collecting them, and none of transporting 

 them with a moving army. 



Many telegrams passed between him and the 

 War Department.he being urged to attack Grant's 

 army at all hazards, not to let Vicksburg be lost 

 without a struggle ; replying that he could not at- 

 tack with any prospect of success unless he first 

 received large re-enforcements, and being told 

 that it was impossible to give them to him. At 

 length, about the 1st of July, he put his forces 

 in motion toward the besieged city, but it fell 

 on the 4th, and Pemberton's entire army became 

 prisoners. A few days later Port Hudson also 

 fell, and the Mississippi was then completely 

 open to the National forces. Johnston then fell 

 back to Jackson. A large force, under Gen. 

 Sherman, advanced against him there, and in the 

 night of the 16th he abandoned the place, mov- 

 ing eastward. On the 22d, at his own request, he 

 was relieved from further command of the De- 

 partment of Tennessee. In reply to the criti- 

 cisms of Mr. Davis and Gen. Pemberton, which 

 threw upon him the blame for the loss of Vicks- 

 burg, Gen. Johnston sums up a long argument : 

 Without reference to the military value of the 

 place, the army should not have been exposed to in- 

 vestment in it; for the capture of the place was the 

 certain result of a siege. After investment, surrender 

 was a mere question of time : there could be no reason- 

 able hope of relief. As the Confederate Government 

 had been unable to prevent a siege, it was certain that 

 it could not break one. As the capture of the place 

 could not be prevented, the army should have oeen 

 saved by leading it away. If 1 and the re-enforcements 

 sent from Beauregard's department had been ordered 

 to Mississippi in April, in time to join Gen. Pemberton's 

 army, I could have directed the Confederate forces, 

 and would have been responsible for events; but, by 

 hesitating to transfer troops and send a new com- 

 mander until too late, the Administration made itself 

 and Gen. Pemberton responsible for consequences, 

 and those consequences were the ruin of our aitiiirs in 

 Tennessee as well as in Mississippi. 



Ten days after the fall of Vicksburg, Mr. Davis 

 wrote a long letter to Gen. Johnston, in which he 

 accused him of insubordination and mismanage- 

 ment, to which the general replied at equal 



