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it was a long-settled purpose, deliberately carried out. Indeed, it was but part of a general plan early matured in the mind of a person who seems to have been lost sight of by the later generation of great men. It was well known at
General Johnston's headquarters that
General Winfield Scott told
General William Preston, in August, 1861, that his plan was to bisect the
Confederacy by opening and holding the
Mississippi River, and then to divide its eastern half diagonally.
It was now evident that the bisection by the
Mississippi was effectually stopped by
Columbus with its 140 guns.
The diagonal movement must, therefore, be made first; but winter rendered a mountain campaign through
East Tennessee clearly impracticable.
It was, therefore, left to the
Federal commanders to force the position at
Bowling Green at great sacrifice, or to attempt to reduce the forts on the
Tennessee and
Cumberland.
What more natural than that the
Federal commanders, arrested in their advance elsewhere, and seeking a weaker point in the defensive line, should discover it on these interior rivers that marked the second line of advance laid down in
General Scott's original scheme of invasion?
General Sherman gives a picturesque narrative of the origin of this movement in his “Memoirs” (vol.
i., page 220). He says that, in a council between
Generals Halleck,
Cullom, and himself-
General Halleck had a map on his table, with a large pencil in his hand, and asked, “Where is the rebel line?”
Cullom drew the pencil through Bowling Green, Forts Donelson and Henry, and Columbus, Kentucky. “That is their line,” said Halleck.
“Now, where is the proper place to break it?”
And either Cullom or I said, “Naturally, the centre.”
Halleck drew a line perpendicular to the other near its middle, and it coincided nearly with the general course of the Tennessee River, and he said, “That is the true line of operations.”
This occurred more than a month before General Grant began the movement; and, as he was subject to General Halleck's orders, I have always given Halleck the full credit for that movement, which was skillful, successful, and extremely rich in military results; indeed, it was the first real success on our side in the civil war.
General H. V. Boynton, in his volume entitled “
Sherman's historical raid” (Chapter II.), denies the justice of this claim.
He gives the credit to
General Grant; but also shows, from the correspondence of
Buell and
Halleck, that, on the 3d of January,
Buell proposed a combined attack on the centre and flanks of
Johnston's lines.
Buell estimated the
Confederate force at double its actual strength, and concluded his note, “The attack upon the centre should be made by two gunboat expeditions, with, I should say, 20,000 men on the two rivers.”
Boynton also quotes a letter from
Halleck to
McClellan, January 20, 1862, which says:
The idea of moving down the Mississippi by steam is, in my opinion, impracticable, or at least premature.
It is not the proper line of operations, at
