Young and off to war
Seventeen and a soldier
On November 6, 1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States. A benefactor of a deeply divided Democrat Party, Lincoln won the election and swept the new Republican Party into power despite his name not appearing on the ballot in ten of the southern states. On December 20 South Carolina voted to secede from the Union. By February 1, 1861 seven more states had voted to leave the United States with only Delaware rejecting secession. Ultimately a total of sixteen states and the Arizona Territory voted on the issue of secession with a total of twelve approving and three more supporting secession at least in part with soldiers, supplies, and moral support.
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Mississippi had voted to leave the Union on January 9, 1861. Most of the state upon hearing the news responded with jubilant celebration but not all. There were some areas in the state much less celebratory and some outright opposed to the idea. In the northern section of the state encompassing the more rugged and hilly geography, support for secession was divided. There were also Unionists in Tippah County that remained loyal to the Federal government. Also the slave population in the area was less than one-third as that of whites. In 1860 the slave population of Tippah County was 28.1 percent. Not a lot when compared with the large plantation regions such as Washington County with a slave population of over 92 percent. So for those individuals whose motivation for secession was the preservation of slavery, few souls of such sentiment resided in Tippah County as compared to the more fertile planes in the mid, southern, and western Delta parts of the state where the ratio was substantially higher. As previously stated, many inhabitants in Mississippi at the time were Yeoman farmers and had little need for or financial resources to maintain a slave labor force. Such was the case of John Henry Coker.
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The Gathering Clouds of War
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By April of ‘61 Mississippians as yet undecided on the issue of secession began to awaken to unfolding events. On April 12 Confederate forces under Brigadier General P.G.T. Beauregard had fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor in response to the garrison commander’s refusal to abandon the fort. Three days later President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers from state militias to put down the rebellion. In May Lincoln issued another call, this time for 42,000 volunteers under Federal enlistment to the central government. With what was seen as a self-evident constitutional right to secede from a voluntary union and subsequent military action justified to secure its territorial integrity, the South was highly alarmed at Lincoln’s response of raising a standing army in Federal service. Then came the first large battle of the war in July at Manassas junction in Virginia which produced a stunning and embarrassing defeat for the Federal Army. This had an electrifying effect on many young men of the South. Many rushed off to join armies already in the field for fear of missing out on the adventure military life was thought sure to offer. Southern patriotism was on full display as men left homes from Maryland to California to join the military units of their respective native states. For John Henry and Albert, both farmers, life was still filled with the mundane task associated with tending the land from which they made their living. All that was about to change as the war began moving closer to home. In Missouri the war became more active with two more Southern victories. The Battle of Wilson’s Creek in August so soon after the Battle of Manassas in Virginia, stirred the martial spirit of many young Southern men inducing many to enlist as they were afraid the war would end soon and they’d miss their opportunity at glory; an ambition of high praise in the Victorian era. However, the movements of the Confederacy’s “Fighting Bishop” Major General Leonidas Polk and the law of unintended consequences seems to be the catalysts that resulted in a robust recruiting effort in Mississippi.
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On the 3rd of September Polk moved to occupy Columbus, Kentucky, a move which had taken that state’s neutrality off the table. Seven days later Major General Albert Sydney Johnston was made supreme commander of all Armies in the Western Theater and was subsequently faced with the less than ideal situation created by Polk as Union forces began major repositioning and forward movement in Kentucky as well as Missouri in response to his moves. Grant crossed the Ohio River and occupied several key positions, Louisville, Covington, and Paducah, while Sherman moved south and encamped in Elizabethtown and Nolin.
Johnston swung into action and issued Special Order No. 151 establishing a defensive line across the entire State of Kentucky from Columbus in the west to the Cumberland Gap in the east. Johnston’s forces were hopelessly insufficient for the task and he immediately sent an urgent request to Governor Pettus of Mississippi for 10,000 volunteers for twelve months or the duration of the war. In response, villages, towns, cities, and large plantation regions began raising independent companies. By early October the first companies that would ultimately constitute the 3rd Mississippi Battalion began to materialize. First came the “McNair Rifles” of Pike County followed closely by the “Tippah Highlanders” of Tippah County.
This photo of the Richmond Grays just prior to the outbreak of hostilities captures the jubilant and adventurous spirit of the Confederate soldier at the beginning of the war. Only the most pessimistic visionary could foresee what lay ahead.
Mustering In
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Why John Henry did not enlist with the company raised in his home county is open to conjecture. Perhaps at this time of year he was still busy with the annual chores that were life and death to the farmer? When you consider that nearly all participants in the war, North and South, thought it’d be a brief affair, it makes total sense that a man would want to leave his farm in good condition awaiting his return after a short time away. Or, the closest town centers to John Henry and Albert’s homes were New Albany and Pontotoc, both in Pontotoc County. Maybe John Henry was more familiar with friends and associates in Pontotoc rather than Tippah? Regardless of how or why, on December 10, 1861, after a journey of some 100 miles from their homes in Tippah County to the town of Grenada, Mississippi, my second great grandfather John Henry Coker along with his companion, my third great Uncle Albert Coker, enlisted for service in the Confederate Army. Their unit, “The Mississippi Volunteers of Pontotoc County” was mustered into service as Company G, of the soon to be formed 3rd Mississippi Battalion on December 14, 1861. The Coker boys had determined to see the war. Both were teenage boys. They didn’t own slaves and I can only imagine at their age we’re utterly indifferent to the matter. They were too young to be called up as part of the Militia so they were not obligated to serve. Neither were they drafted as they enlisted in December of ‘61 and the draft was not enacted till April of ‘62. Therefore they did not serve by compulsion. They volunteered.
Johnston had chosen Grenada as a Camp of Instruction for the Confederate Army because it was open to river traffic as it was the furthermost navigable point on the Yalobusha River, and the fact the town boasted the junction of the Mississippi Central Railroad and the Mississippi and Tennessee Railroad. Both were laid in 5 gauge track which was most predominant in the South enabling easy transport and redirection of traffic across multiple rail lines. For these reasons, Grenada became a site of major activity early on. Trains rolled through town round the clock as bodies of troops came and went as the defense of the Confederacy’s western theater began to take shape.
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The day after Christmas, Hardcastle’s battalion was divided. Three companies headed to the developing front in Kentucky while four companies headed to Louisiana. John Henry and Albert’s company was among those that boarded a train bound for New Orleans to join in defense of that city as well as engage in recruiting duty. Their train lumbered south on the tracks out of Grenada, rolling through Jackson, and eventually arriving at their destination. The distance of over 350 miles by rail to the bustling city of New Orleans must have been quite an adventure and a series of first experiences for the Coker boys, once farmers now soldiers.
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Another event which may have added impetus to their “personal mobilization” had occurred back on November 7 with another refresh of Southern patriotism as Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant in his first command on the field of battle was met and bested by Polk at Belmont, Missouri just across the Mississippi river from Columbus. The battle was a small affair by later standards but received much publicity as yet another “Bull Run” and example of Southern dominance in the test of arms. For young men seeking adventure and glory, the newspaper accounts and local talk of far off battles and great victories would have been tempting for sure. Whatever their reasoning, both boys were in the army now and bound to its fate and the determinate will of its commander, General Albert Sydney Johnston.
