Status - John Baer - 40th Indiana Regiment - Wood's Division
Buell by this time has all of his divisions at Nashville and is contemplating his next advance. He sees several opportunities but remains cautious, processing captured supplies at Nashville, and repairing railroads and bridges before beginning another move.
Further west, Halleck has determined that the Confederate lines stretch from Decatur, AL west to New Madrid, MO (which is under attack and believed soon to be captured). Halleck is determined to attack the center of this line; he will reach it by moving almost all his forces southward on the Tennessee River to the Savannah, TN area. General C.F. Smith commands this advancing force.
Smith is in command due to Halleck's dissatisfaction with General Grant. Halleck complains of being unable to get Grant to report his position or troop deployments, and cannot thereby report those to higher commands. General McLellan tells Halleck that he can remove or arrest Grant if needed. Grant claims to have sent messages daily but they do not reach Halleck. Halleck suspects that Grant has returned to drinking - as Grant had been forced out of the army several years before for excessive drinking.
Whatever the actual case regarding Grant, by the 10th all is resolved and he is ordered to continue moving troops up the Tennessee to Savannah, and also to prepare to take command soon of the advance currently in progress. General Sherman also has moved up the Tennessee, in command of a division.
Halleck has asked Buell to combine both armies on the Tennessee. Replying on the 10th, Buell will not yet commit regarding further movements.
Monitor vs. C.S.S. Virginia
At Hampton Roads, VA, near Norfolk, wooden Union ships had been attacked on March 9th by an iron-plated Confederate ship, CSS Virginia. Virginia was the captured US ship Merrimack, renamed after being made an ironclad. The wooden ships were defenseless as the iron ship was not harmed by their cannonballs. Three of the wooden US Navy ships are sunk or gravely damaged.
The unusually shaped ironclad USS Monitor (described as "a cheese box on a raft") arrived that evening, and fought the Virginia to a draw the next day. After the battle, the Virginia was no longer able to threaten the Union's wooden ships again, and was later destroyed so that it would not be captured by Union forces in the Peninsula Campaign.
Although the original Monitor capsized at sea later in the war, the ship design was successful, and many more of these ships were built both during the Civil War and after. Ships designated as "monitors" remained in service up until World War II.
More Information:
- Iron Dawn, the Monitor, the Merrimack, and the Civil War Sea Battle that Changed History, Richard Snow, 2016, 367 pages.
- Link: War Operations, see Volume X, Chapter XXII, Part II, Correspondence, pp. 15-28
- The Civil War Day by Day, John S. Bowman, Ed. pp.61-62
NEXT POST: MARCH 14TH
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