Waiting at Corinth
"If defeated at Corinth, we lose the Mississippi Valley and probably our cause."- General P. G. T. Beauregard
HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE MISSISSIPPI,
Jackson, Tenn., March 5, 1862.
“SOLDIERS: I assume this day the command of the Army of the Mississippi, for the defense of our homes and liberties, and to resist the subjugation, spoliation, and dishonor of our people. Our mothers and wives, our sisters and children, expect us to do our duty even to the sacrifice of our lives. Our losses since the commencement of this war in killed, wounded, and prisoners are now about the same as those of the enemy. He must be made to atone for the reverses we have lately experienced. Those reverses, far from disheartening, must nerve us to new deeds of valor and patriotism, and should inspire us with unconquerable determination to drive back our invaders. Should any one in this army be unequal to the task before us, let him transfer his arms and equipment at once to braver, firmer hands, and return to his home. Our cause is as just and sacred as ever animated men to take up arms, and if we are true to it and to ourselves, with the continued protection of the Almighty, we must and shall triumph.”
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G. T. BEAUREGARD,
General, Commanding
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With these words General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard took command of, what up to that time, was the largest Southern Army yet raised during the war. Hero of Fort Sumter and the Battle of Manassas, the aristocratic French Creole from Louisiana had been redirected by the Southern War Department to the Western Theater in an effort to bring order to an increasingly chaotic situation.
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The precipitating event that was the source of the rising chaos was the rapid fall of Fort Henry on the Tennessee River followed closely by Fort Donelson on the Cumberland. These two positions along with the troops pinned down at Island No. 10 had cost the Confederacy some 20,000 soldiers at one of the most critical stages of the war. The earlier movement of Polk into Columbus, Kentucky had provoked a response the Southern Command was not yet prepared for. Once the Union’s department commander, General Henry W. Halleck had ordered his armies forward, they moved forward with rapid result causing a constant reevaluation by Johnston and Beauregard as to what was the best line of defense to protect the Mississippi Valley.
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Beauregard arrived in Corinth on the 16th of February in route to meet Polk in Columbus, Kentucky. Awaiting him there was a telegram from Colonel Mackall of Johnston’s staff informing him of the surrender of Fort Donelson with the cryptic inclusion “do as your judgement dictates”.
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The rapid advance of Union forces in the West had forced Johnston out of his still developing line of defense for fear of being outflanked and cut off from his base of operations further south. As Johnston fell back first from Bowling Green to Nashville, then quitting Tennessee altogether for Alabama, he paused long enough to personally wire Beauregard, now in Jackson, a second time on the 18th the following message:
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Nashville, February 18th, 1862
To General Beauregard, Jackson, Tennessee:
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You must now act as seems best to you.
The separation of our armies is for the present complete.
A. S. Johnston.
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A second correspondence from Johnston on the 21st reiterated that Beauregard was at present on his own and should act accordingly. He swung into action wasting no time. Couriers and telegrams went in all directions across the Deep South for every available command to converge on Corinth, Mississippi. Despite a lingering illness that had been serious at times, in a brilliant flash of activity Beauregard began building the army that would confront the invading Yankees. He sent personal pleas to the governors of Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana for 5,000 men each. He ordered Polk to abandon Columbus and move toward Corinth. He called for Brigadier General Daniel Ruggles to bring his division up from New Orleans and General Braxton Bragg to gather his Corps from Pensacola and Mobile and head north with the others. Word was sent to General Albert Sidney Johnston strongly encouraging him to halt his southeasterly drift and come to Corinth with Hardee’s Corps. Lastly he dispatched a letter to Major General Earl Van Dorn to bring at least 10,000 of his Army of the Trans-Mississippi in Arkansas across the Mississippi River at Memphis and join him in Corinth. All in all, if everything came together, Beauregard had in lightning fashion increased his strength from a beleaguered 15,000 man army in retreat to a 55,000 man army that outnumbered its antagonist and was preparing to strike what he hoped would be the fatal blow of the war.
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A City at War
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Ruggles’ Division arrived at Corinth in late February. Bragg’s forces began arriving on March 6th. Each day the civilian inhabitants of the railroad town could hear the lumbering of rail cars coming and going as they unloaded their human and equine cargo with all the munitions associated with making war. Near ceaseless inbound trains from supply depots in Columbus and Grenada, Mississippi as well as from Tennessee towns such as Union City, Humboldt, Henderson and Jackson puffed their way along the lines pulling rail cars loaded to the ceilings with grain, meal, and other provisions. Steam whistles signaled in the distance at all hours of the day alerting the station master to ready platforms for another load. Soldiers of the Quarter Master’s Corps would have been a constant sight as they struggled with the herculean task of bringing order to chaos that such activity produced. All around the train station, the city was becoming a mammoth military supply depot with horse-drawn artillery, barrel laden wagons, and burgeoning stock cars loaded with hay all shuffling to and fro in the shadow of the Tishomingo Hotel adjacent to the train depot.
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The hotel was a prominent structure in town that sat just off the tracks. Its importance to travelers and business, as Corinth owed its existence to the railroad, necessitated it be close by the steel highway that crossed through the town earning the town’s epithet as the “Cross Roads of the Confederacy”. Within the Tishomingo Hotel was the telegraph office out of which ran the wire connection to other stations along the lines. The local clerk now shared his office with military staff who kept him busy at the telegraph key sending and receiving messages around the clock.
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Into the middle of this activity around the 20th of March rolled a northbound train from New Orleans. Days earlier it had departed the Gulf region headed for the swelling encampment now gathering at Corinth. Among its passengers were the four companies of Hardcastle’s 3rd Mississippi Battalion previously detailed to New Orleans for the defense of that city. One of those companies was Company G and within its ranks stood my great grandfather John Henry Coker and my third great uncle, Albert. Both boys were now 18 years old and must have thought themselves privileged to breathe the rarified air of the adventure they were on.
While General Albert Sidney Johnston was the ranking officer and the commanding general in the Western Theater, The Army of the Mississippi in actuality was the creation of the hero of Fort Sumter and First Manassas, General P. G. T. Beauregard, the aristocratic French Creole from Louisiana.
During the war long distance travel by rail for soldiers was usually done in cars designed for hauling livestock. Such cars were not sealed against the elements and you could freely see from the inside the world around you as the train lumbered down the track. No doubt as the engine’s whistle died out and the train began to slow, first with a jolt, then a drag on the brakes, eventually hauling the giant machine to a dead stop, men were crowding the sides of the stock cars for a glimpse at what lay just beyond in the world outside. As John Henry and Albert lowered themselves down from the car, gaining their footing aside the track, their eyes and ears would have beheld all the sights and sounds of a people at war. Artillery parks held cannon hub to hub awaiting their assigned place in the city’s defenses now under construction. To the east of town topographical engineers were laying out earthworks in a massive semi-circle that would terminate some four miles north of town. Pics, shovels, and axes were busy at work as labor teams of soldier and slave alike threw dirt to the air as redoubts were constructed for gun emplacements. From their vantage point near the depot, they could see the high ground around Corona College less than a mile distant. The female college was a three-story brick Greek Revival structure with a grand portico supported by four giant columns. The impressive building had an ornate cupola atop its roof which provided an elevated observer a panoramic view of the landscape below. Across the gentle slopes the ground was designated to be covered with the tents of Brigadier General John C. Breckenridge’s Reserve Corps. As their eyes scanned the area around them, so too would they have noticed trade shops, blacksmiths, and the occasional sutler tent lined out along the well-traveled thoroughfare connecting the military camps with the civilian businesses in town.
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A Soldier's Life
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Throughout the spring, temperatures in Corinth can plummet sharply or rise dramatically on any given day, but generally speaking the latter end of March holds to around the mid to upper 60s. Such temperatures offered a pleasantness in the weather well suited to a soldier in full marching gear. Being the early stages of the war, many regiments wore the full length frock coat which could be quite warm. Others wore the “round about” or short shell jacket; a uniform that would come into its own as the war dragged on and southern mills had to ration material with the increasingly difficult task of clothing an army with diminishing resources. For now though, several units were suitably equipped and smartly uniformed in frocks cut to the same pre-war pattern as those of the U.S. Army. Surviving photos of soldiers in the 3rd Mississippi Battalion show the men wearing the shell jacket although it’s not known at what stage of the war these photos were taken. Nevertheless, southern soldiers were much better uniformed than previously thought. This was not only true early on but as late as January of 1865 clothing issues from army depots such as Columbus, Georgia turned out an impressive amount of uniform items. Numerous companies sported the French style kepi atop their heads, a stylish favorite among many armies world-wide, and several units marched off to war well-armed. This was certainly true of Hardcastle’s men who were armed with the standard of the day, the Springfield .58 caliber rifle; a fact that may have led to their designation as “Sharpshooters”.
As the men disembarked from the train, their attention would quickly have been captured by First, Second, and Third Sergeants bellowing out commands designed to herd the mass into company formations. Amid the clanking of tin cups swinging from knapsacks, the shuffling of feet, and the ever-present grumbling offered up by those who always think they could do better, soldiers made their way individually and by small groups into their designated places within the larger company. While forming in line, junior officers passed back and forth along the ranks preparing to call roll as Captains likely stood to the front conferring with one another no doubt influenced by the excitement of so much martial activity. Eventually they would have been approached by a staff officer from Major Hardcastle who would have provided direction as to where the four companies were to retire to fill their assigned place in the brigade camp of Brigadier General S.A.M. Wood. The roll was called. After the First Lieutenant was sufficiently satisfied as to a proper accounting, the order was given, “Count, OFF!” as the men responded, “One! – Two! – One! – Two! – One! – Two!” all down the line. Next in a booming voice the familiar command, “By Columns into Four! By the Right Face! MARCH!” a command that instantly produced from a line of men a marching column of men four abreast.
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Stepping off on the left foot, the four companies of roughly four hundred men began their journey to their new home north of town. Filing out past the Tishomingo Hotel the column made a left turn onto Filmore Street marching through the center of town. Emerging from the north side of town the street became Purdy Road arching gently towards the west before bending back in a northeasterly direction. As impressive as their experience would have been up to this point, all paled in comparison to the tent city that began to appear before them as their march continued. The work of engineers had laid out the cantonment for Hardees Corps east of the Purdy Road about 2 miles out of town close to where the road bisected the defensive works now under construction. Vast encampments had turned the open spaces before them white with tented canvas. This would be John Henry and Albert’s home for the foreseeable future.
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Their days would be filled with the rigors of drill prescribed by Major General Braxton Bragg who had assumed the position of drill master of the new Army of the Mississippi now marshalling at Corinth. Bragg had recently arrived from the Gulf Coast with his corps who was some of the best drilled men then in the field owing to Bragg’s non-compromising standard of military bearing, precision, and discipline. In the age of linear warfare, drill was not only essential to victory on the battlefield; it was often a necessary element for mere survival as a unit may have to disengage under intense pressure from the enemy. To the 19th century military tactician, it was discipline that would win the day whereas a lack of discipline would not only lose the day but very possibly lose the army. In addition to Bragg, Major General William J. Hardee, John Henry’s corps commander, was a former instructor of infantry at West Point and author of the 1855 Manual of Tactics that was the most widely used military drill manual on both sides during the war. More than just a military encampment, Corinth would be a “School of the soldier” as young men from all across the South would learn their new trade and their officers would learn how to lead them. This now was the world of John Henry and Albert Coker. Gone were the cares and concerns with the family farm. The scythe and rake had been replaced with the rifle and bayonet. The crowing rooster gave way to the roll of the drum and the high pitch of the fife before sunrise, and their daily routine was now focused on learning the Art of War. This was a soldier’s life in service to the Confederate States of America and the Coker boys were right in the middle of it.
