13
Wabash River, Indiana, October 1, 1861
From his horse on the west bank ridgeline Stoneballs Jackson watched his men surging across the Wabash. He had organized the tallest into a “human chain” across the river, their arms interlocked. They were placed so as to catch any of the shorter men who slipped on the muddy bottom while crossing upstream.
Stoneballs watched one man get swept off his feet by the current. Frozen with fear, the footloose man latched on to one of the tall men downstream and showed no sign of moving. Stoneballs laughed when the tall fellow finally lost patience, unlocked his arm, and punched the terrorized man in the nose. That got him moving toward the other side as fast as he could by grabbing each tall man’s shoulders then sidling on to the next.
But most of the men were crossing without incident. The cavalrymen forded on their horses. The infantry threw their guns and equipment into the boats being towed across the river by ropes held by the men on the other side. The men seemed cheerful as they climbed out of the river on the other bank. The cold wind and chilling drizzle of yesterday had passed. Now the sun, still strong at this early autumn season, shone through. Though only mid-morning, it was already a brilliantly sunny day of low humidity. The sun steamed the men’s uniforms as they dried. Some took off their shirts. They frolicked with the joy of a victorious army on the march. Stoneballs could hear their laughter echoing across the river.
Yesterday’s storm has blown over. I hope it’s the last one until we get Grant’s army encircled. After that it won’t matter. We’ll be able to use the railroads to advance on Chicago in good weather or bad. The railroads will make this a war of rapid maneuver such as the world has never seen!
Stoneballs shifted his gaze to the engineers laying a pontoon bridge across two dozen requisitioned boats anchored in the river a hundred yards upstream. The bridge was being laid at every angle except straight and level as it bobbed up and down over the uneven decks of the different sized boats. The flooring was a makeshift construction of barn sidings braced by fence posts taken from the surrounding farms. A frugal man, Stoneballs sighed as he contemplated the disbursements the government would be making to the farmers to compensate them for their demolished outbuildings and confiscated boats.
This crossing was exactly the sort of thing that Stoneballs excelled at. Any other commander would have insisted on crossing the Wabash with purpose-built pontoons of uniform size. Accumulating those would have delayed the offensive for months, probably into next year. And their delivery surely would have alerted the enemy that an attack was coming. Stoneballs saw himself as the chief organizer of simplicity. He had told his engineers to use whatever materials were at hand to get his men across. The bridge they were improvising was far from elegant but it would suffice.
At any rate this crossing would be gone and forgotten in a few days. The half-dozen other improvised crossings across the five-mile breakthrough front on the Wabash would be forgotten as well, because if all went as planned they would no longer be needed. Once Terre Haute fell to the south and Urbana fell to the northwest the offensive would align itself on the railroads and erupt with its full force across the Northwestern prairies.
General Lee was right about the Free State Republicans not expecting us to attack here. They did an admirable job of anchoring their lines along the east-west railroads in Illinois and Indiana, but they neglected to bolt the back door across this stretch of river that connects those lines from south to north. They compounded their error by failing to take any action against the deep bulge in the line that ‘Blackjack’ Logan drove through to Paris during the Partisan War. They let us hold that town and use it as a railhead to move our men in close.
Stoneballs looked back over his shoulder. He saw the smoke from dozens of troop trains backed up from Paris to the west side of Edgar County. To speed the concentration, the rail traffic into the Wabash Front was one-way. Every train in the Mississippi Valley was unloading men and supplies in Edgar and Coles counties. By the time the Free State Republicans realized an attack was surging across the Wabash, Stoneball’s corps of five divisions would be rolling up Grant’s line in Illinois from east-to-west, Pemberton’s division would have encircled and cut off Terre Haute, and Kirby Smith’s big division would be rolling up McDowell’s line in Indiana from west-to-east. The follow-on divisions still staging in the Lower Mississippi Valley would provide enough density in the line to prevent Grant or McDowell from breaking the encirclement. Then it would be off to the races to Chicago, Indianapolis, and Fort Wayne.
Maintaining the momentum of our attack will depend on our seizing the rail junctions held by the Rebels. The junctions at Urbana, Decatur, Springfield, and Jacksonville will open the doors to Chicago. The junction at Terre Haute opens the door to Indianapolis to the east and also provides the return loop of our supply and reinforcement route to the south. I hope Pemberton’s men are up to the task of seizing Terre Haute no later than tomorrow afternoon.
Stoneballs returned his gaze to the front. Through his spyglass he saw that his mounted men had occupied the high ground on the ridgeline a quarter mile past the river and were starting to wheel to the north. They were screening the infantry climbing ashore on the bank below them. These men were forming up into regiments as they emerged from the river. The regiments were being formed up into brigades and the brigades into divisions. The mobile corps of the Confederate Army of the Northwest was taking shape before his eyes.
This northernmost crossing was reserved for the assembly of John Logan’s division of Illinois men. Being familiar with the land behind Grant’s front, Logan’s men were assigned to lead the four following divisions of Patrick Cleburne, Ben McCulloch, Earl Van Dorn, and William Hardee in the envelopment of Grant’s army all the way west to the Illinois River. To get in Grant’s rear they would have to re-cross the Wabash further north between Williamsport and Lafayette and break the Toledo, Wabash, and Great Western railroad.
As commander of the mobile enveloping force, Jackson intended to ride at the head of an independent reconnaissance battalion of three hundred Illinois cavalrymen handpicked by John Logan. Stoneballs would drive this vanguard to the Illinois River to complete the envelopment as quickly as possible. General Lee wouldn’t approve of him riding that far forward, but what Lee didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
For a moment Stoneballs became apprehensive. He and Lee and planned this operation to include Jeb Stuarts’ Cavalry. Lee had told him at the last moment that Stuart’s command had been allocated to another operation and would not be available. Stoneballs suspected that “other operation” would be a renewal of the assault on Philadelphia.
Was it wise for us to have divided our forces into two major offensives? Shouldn’t we have concentrated all their best men for this one decisive blow in the West? Stoneballs recovered his confidence. Logan’s men are Illinoisans. They know the country better than Stuart’s men. They will get me to the Illinois River.
Stoneballs heard again the low booming sound coming in on the wind from the northwest. The sound had been intermittent due to the shifting winds. It was General Lee’s bombardment of Grant’s line from the south. Stoneballs didn’t expect it to do much damage against Grant’s expertly entrenched lines, but it was surely commanding the Rebels attention and perhaps causing them to waste ammunition on return fire.