Chapter 19: A Bold Stroke

Feb 19, 1862

It was snowing lightly when we boarded our train for St. Louis. Despite the snow and pre-dawn hour, there were nearly as many people there to see us off as there had been to greet us upon our return four months ago. I couldn’t believe how much we had accomplished in these last four months, especially during the winter.

Feb 20

Our arrival near St. Louis went mostly unnoticed, mainly because we had built a spur from the main track to the fort and left the main track a few miles before reaching St. Louis. I was flabbergasted when we got to the fort. Scott just grinned knowingly at me as my mouth hung open in shock. “Not counting the men you just arrived with, we have fifty-three thousand troops,” he said calmly. “Two thirds are Southern boys, and they have verified all the information you sent about munitions plants and the like. Lincoln has stopped the sale and export of all arms, ammunition, niter, and black powder.”

The downside was that we didn’t have nearly enough horses for everyone, despite all the buyers we had canvassing nearly every state still in the Union. I hadn’t planned on anything with nearly this many soldiers. It took three days for Scott and me to reach an agreement on a revised version of my plan. The new plan was riskier in many ways, but I decided that this was the time, if ever there was one, to test everyone’s theory about my luck, and I actually felt that we could pull it off.

We sent a messenger to Gus. While not getting directly involved, his latest batch of recruits were to provide us with a decoy, freezing those Confederate troops stationed along the Mississippi. Scott and the fifty-three thousand men he led would effectively freeze any Confederate troops in the east. My troops would strike through the heart of Mississippi. Counting Gus’ troops, our troops would advance on three separate fronts.

Gus’ remaining troops would steam down the Mississippi on twenty steamboats, making sure they were seen as they sailed beyond St. Louis. They would use canvas draped from the upper two decks to shield them from view, making it look like we were trying to hide something. They were hiding something, the fact that there were far fewer troops aboard the boats than each boat could carry.

They would use lumber turned on a lathe and painted black, set up to look like even more cannons than our other boats carried. They would be draped with canvas to help with the charade. Four fake cannons on each side of the boat, two fore, and two aft on both the lower deck and uppermost deck would help make the boats appear to be formidable warships, augmenting the two real cannons on each side of the boat. They were to spend two days in Memphis, purchasing supplies as if they were embarking on a lengthy campaign.

Even though Tennessee had rejoined the Union, just like in every other state, not everyone in the state was happy about the decision. The Memphis waterfront would be an ideal place for a pro-secession zealot to watch for Union troop movements. They would surely have some way to communicate what they saw, probably via coded telegraph messages.

When Gus left Memphis, they were to steam away in the night, returning to the north. We told Gus that, if he felt the troops were trained well enough, and if they had enough troops available, they could continue south to attack towns and plantations along the river north of Vicksburg. If he did, he was to take Sioux scouts to warn of Confederate troops coming towards them.

At least Annabelle’s unintentional help would still assist us. Some of our latest recruits from Mississippi told of a buildup of troops in the major ports along the Mississippi River.

I would lead ten thousand men who would take the railroad from Columbus, Kentucky, to Jackson, Tennessee. We would leave the train there and ride west as if headed for Memphis. We hoped that the Confederate spies would assume that we were moving cavalry to reinforce the infantry that would arrive via steamboat, trying to hide the fact that the two groups would be uniting.

Scott led his infantry, using every steamboat we had available and conscripting many more. They sailed to Louisville where they took trains to Lexington.

Mar 10

It was finally time to put my part of our plan into action. After a final night with my wives, I led our troops aboard the steamboats that had returned from Louisville, wondering what we’d do with so many steamboats after the war.

I never realized what a pain in the posterior it would be to arrange rail transportation for ten thousand men, their horses, mules, and supplies. I felt sorry for Scott. Finally, though, everything was in readiness, and we left, headed for Jackson. When we arrived, we spent much of the day unloading from the train and getting everything ready to leave town. Leaving late in the afternoon, we headed southwest towards Memphis. We camped for the night about ten miles outside of town.

Mar 12 - 15

In the morning, we changed course, headed southeast for Mississippi. Pushing ourselves, we reached the area around Corinth two days later. Late that night, I led two platoons of Sioux warriors into town. Two more platoons moved to guard the railroad and the main road from the east and to sabotage the telegraph line; three platoons did the same to the south, and two to the west.

Mar 16

I was surprised at how few Confederate troops there were in town. We had expected more than a thousand and found barely a hundred. Later in the morning, I learned that our ruse had worked extremely well, and most of the troops left yesterday via the railroad for Vicksburg.

Annabelle, who chose to accompany us, stared incredulously at me. “Yes, I tricked you,” I told her. “I feel bad that I made you fear for the life of your daughter and then used that fear, but I would do the same thing again and again to have a re-united country,” I explained. “I’m also sorry for all the worry I caused you, thinking that you might be found out,” I added.

“I’m not here to spy on you,” she retorted angrily.

“If I thought you were, you wouldn’t be here,” I replied. “Even though my children are much younger, I still know that I would do anything to save them, including risking my own life. I assumed you felt the same way about your daughter.

“I also know exactly what you did and didn’t say in your telegram. I made sure that every telegraph operator within a day’s ride of Libertyville knew who you were and what you looked like. After you sent the telegram to Vicksburg, the operator sent it to me, too. I know that you only told your daughter how dangerous it would be in the South if no truce were reached before spring, begging her to leave immediately for Libertyville.

“I assumed that the telegraph operator in Vicksburg would warn the Confederate commander, who would assume that you learned something from being around us, and that your daughter would warn her closest friends, who would warn their closest friends, and so on, until everyone in town knew of your concern for her. The commander would see everyone worried, increasing his belief that an attack in the spring was imminent,” I explained.

I stood uncomfortably as she glared at me for half a minute. “I believe that my initial impression of you was more wrong than correct,” she finally said as she continued to glare at me appraisingly. “I could see that your men admired and trusted you. I thought it was because you freed so many of the men who had previously been slaves. I felt that you dressed as you did to encourage the Indians to fight with you.

“Since then, I’ve learned that Negroes, whites, and Indians all trust and admire you because you treat them honestly and with respect. You unselfishly share the vast wealth that seems simply to fall into your lap.

“I learned that you have grown into a leadership role you neither asked for nor wanted, feeling that you were not experienced enough to lead. I, myself, wondered if your youth and inexperience would eventually be a problem.

“Now, I find in you a level of comprehension, cunning, and deviousness that leaves me wondering how much of what I thought about you previously might have been a projected persona,” she commented thoughtfully.

“I will leave the final decision to you,” I chuckled, turning to see that things were being done the way I hoped.

Scouts reported in from north, east, south, and west, seeing no troops in any direction. The telegraph wires and poles were down, and they were sabotaging the wires farther from town the same way our troops did around New Orleans.

The railroads were sabotaged the way we planned. Three miles east and west of town, they tore up six lengths of rails. The rails were laid on their sides with each end elevated on a stack of logs. The logs were stacked just high enough that, when the thirty-foot rails sagged in the middle, they cleared the ground by only a few inches.

A large pile of coal was poured over the center of the rails, ignited, and allowed to burn. It was nowhere near hot enough to melt the rails, but the heat was enough to cause the rails to be permanently warped. They would have to be replaced. Reusing them would leave wider gaps between the rails, causing a train to go off the rails and crash.

Trestles over creeks were mined. Our weaponsmiths had suggested using an old flintlock to ignite a fuse. When the wheels of the train passed over the hammer of the flintlock, it would cause the flint to strike and the powder in the pan to ignite. The powder would ignite a short, varnished fuse leading to a tarred firkin of black powder buried right alongside the rail or hidden among the trestles.

The explosion would send the engine or other cars careening off the rails, causing the cars to pile up behind it. Aside from the destruction of the train, it would take a long time to clean up the wreck and repair the rails and trestles enough for the track to be usable again. It would also eliminate another confederate asset, that train.

Mar 18

By dawn, all our troops were in town except for scouts and those assigned to raid surrounding plantations. Poor Annabelle had her hands full running around trying to calm and reassure the citizens. When they found out who she was, nearly everyone recalled her articles about our raids along the Mississippi and remembered that we hadn’t hurt any citizens. That helped calm them significantly.

We shackled the Confederate troops and loaded them onto one of the two trains already in town when we arrived. This was a small town with little in the way of valuables. We gathered up all the soldiers’ weapons and their supply of powder and ammunition. Eight pieces of field artillery were loaded onto flatcars. The more than six hundred slaves we freed from town and the surrounding plantations eagerly boarded the train north to freedom, and the train’s crew was forced to take the train north under guard. They would go to Columbus, Kentucky, where our boats were waiting to load prisoners, freed slaves, weapons, and any cargo or valuables that we looted.

Another train arrived from the south while we were there, intending to change to the westbound tracks with a load of guns and gunpowder from the new powder mills and arsenals in Meridian and Columbus, Mississippi. The train had to stop because of a fallen tree on the rails. When they saw our rifles and the captured cannons aimed at them, the troops aboard surrendered. We added their cargo, along with the troops intended to guard the train, to the train that was leaving for the north.

Using the other two captured trains, complete with added boxcars and passenger cars, we left for Gum Pond with two thousand of us aboard. The rest of our troops had left earlier in the day since they had to ride their horses. This train wasn’t part of our original plan but taking it would give us more mobility and allow us to reach our next destination sooner. I doubted that it would take more than a few hours before someone from Corinth managed to get word out about our attack and our presence. I hoped that enough people in Corinth heard us talking about Vicksburg that they would convince Confederate troops that Vicksburg was our goal.

Three hours after we left Corinth, we pulled into the station at Gum Pond. Being a small town, there were no troops in town, and the Sioux scouts and troops that had arrived in town prior to our arrival had already captured the train station and telegraph office. Other troops were dispatched to the south to sabotage the telegraph, scout for enemy troops, and warn us about any trains headed north.

One more train arrived late in the afternoon, carrying food and other non-military supplies. We combined it with the train that was waiting in town when we arrived, sending the cargo north to our awaiting boats in Columbus, Kentucky. We had trained forty men to operate a train before we left St. Louis. That night, two of them hopped aboard to take the train of captured cargo and freed slaves north to Columbus, hoping they didn’t run into Confederate soldiers before reaching Tennessee. There were more than enough volunteers among the slaves we freed to stoke the engine with coal.

Mar 19

With the extra trains, we now managed to take half of our troops aboard the trains. Trying to keep the troops from becoming too tired, the troops who rode the train yesterday rode horses today.

Five hours after departing, those of us on the trains neared Meridian. Here we let our Sioux scouts out to sabotage and guard the railroads to the west and south, as well as to cut the telegraph. There was no railroad to the east. If a freight train approached, they would allow it through. If a troop train approached, they would destroy a trestle over one of the many streams, wrecking the train. Giving my troops time to get into place, I waited until late afternoon to make our entrance into town.

Upon arrival, I got off the train nonchalantly, walking over to the nearest soldier. “I need to talk to your commander. We’re supposed to pick up all the powder you can spare and head for Vicksburg to help defend it. We heard Union troops are heading down the Mississippi again,” I told him.

“Yeah, they’ve raided all along the river to Vicksburg, and attacked the city twice this week. We sent all but a hundred of our men to help,” he replied. Two attacks on Vicksburg were news to me. I hoped Gus knew what he was doing. By now, nearly a hundred of my men, all white, had also gotten off the train. They were stretching as if tired of being cooped up on the train. Every one of them had his rifle slung over his shoulder in case he needed it.

Once I was introduced to Captain Albrecht, I suggested his surrender. “I have five thousand troops aboard those two trains. Many of them are Sioux warriors. If you surrender peacefully, I will keep them under control. If your men fight, well, there’s no telling what the Sioux may do to your surviving troops and the people in town once their blood lust is aroused,” I told them.

Once again, the misconceptions about Indians worked in my favor. The blood drained from the captain’s face. “Do you promise to keep them under control?” he asked.

“They didn’t kill anyone in Vicksburg, Natchez, or Baton Rouge,” I replied, letting him know who we were.

“You’re Jim?” he gasped in surprise.

I assured him that I was, and we went to give his troops the news. Once his men were disarmed, I reattached my feather in my hair. We raided the town, and while my troops stood guard, townspeople and Confederate troops loaded the powder, weapons, and ammunition onto one of the trains that was already there waiting to be loaded. While we did that, other of my troops raided plantations in the area. Yet another group assured that the tracks to the south and west were guarded and mined, and that the telegraph was sabotaged.

Three trains arrived before we left, bringing raw materials meant to be used making black powder. We filled any empty space on the three trains with stuff we looted. Right before leaving town, we set off explosions in the new factory, destroying the two walls facing away from town, and collapsing much of the rest of the building. Doing that allowed us to destroy the factory without doing much damage to other nearby buildings, although numerous windows broke. The scouts guarding the railroads into town made sure each flintlock mine was set and hurried back.

Up until now, I had considered continuing our raid to Mobile, one of the main Confederate ports, and the location of another new munition factory. Now, though, I felt that would be a disastrous decision. Instead, I decided to settle for what we had already accomplished, and to return to St. Louis.

Mar 20

Heading north, we had to travel slowly. A lone engine preceded the rest of our trains, making sure the tracks were safe. They had to stop frequently to disarm the mines we had set along the tracks. On the way south, we had marked a tree on each side of the tracks half a mile before each mine. Once our trains were beyond each of our mines, we rearmed it.

Halfway back to Gum Pond, we began meeting our scouting parties that were guarding the mines we left along the railroad. As per our previous agreement, we painted a large white L on both sides of the engine, as well as on the sides of several coaches. They reported that the second half of our troops had successfully captured the town of Columbus, Mississippi. The raid destroyed the munitions plant there, and they sent back ten trains loaded with loot and more than twelve thousand freed slaves from the city and surrounding plantations.

Mar 21

Twenty-nine hours later, I sat in the otherwise empty coach of our train in Columbus Kentucky, looking out of the window at the scene before me, absolutely stunned. I couldn’t believe we made it back. I couldn’t believe that our raid had been wildly successful. I especially couldn’t believe that we hadn’t lost a single man.

When I finally broke out of my stupor, Annabelle was approaching me, shaking her head in disbelief. “Only you could come up with a plan so bold and so crazy that nobody would suspect until it was too late.”

I watched for three days as a constant stream of boats arrived, loaded, and steamed north again. Fortunately, it only took a single day to reach St. Louis and another to return. Finally, it was my turn. I boarded the last boat, looked back at the dock and out across the city, still unable to believe that we had pulled it off. With a final salute to the city, I stepped aboard.

I hoped everyone else was successful. Since learning that Gus attacked Vicksburg with his green troops, I said a prayer for their safety every morning and evening. By that evening, I was back at Fort Savage. On the trip back to St. Louis, we met steamboats still heading to pick up our troops and I waved them off, sending them back to St. Louis. Our boat would pass close enough that someone with a more accurate arm than me could throw a note wrapped in a piece of coal over to their boat telling them that we were the last of the troops. When I debarked, I didn’t even have time to greet my wives before a messenger shoved a report into my hands.

While not all good, the news was far better than I had any right to hope. Gus’ troops did raid towns and plantations along the Mississippi River north of Vicksburg and were quite successful. The Union had eight new ironclad steamships they hoped to use to control traffic on the Mississippi. They knew they needed to capture the now heavily defended city of Vicksburg. Otherwise, the Confederate artillery would fire on their boats. Given the marked increase in artillery there, even the new iron sided boats would be severely damaged or sunk.

Comprehending the importance of Vicksburg, The Confederates had sent thousands of troops there and had built earthen breastworks to defend the city. Still, Annabelle’s daughter and hundreds of other families had already abandoned the city and headed for Libertyville.

Realizing that they would have to lay siege to the city to capture it, the general in charge of the Union troops sent for Gus, asking for his assistance. Their five hundred Sioux warriors terrorized the Confederate troops each night, killing or capturing pickets and scouts.

After a week, the main body of Union troops feigned an attack from the north, using artillery against the fake target. That night, as the cannons continued to fire on the Confederate positions, the Sioux warriors captured a section of the breastworks on the southeast, and five thousand Union troops flooded into the breach.

The fighting was fierce in the trenches when the Confederates realized Union troops were among them, but that realization came far too late. By then, Union troops controlled two-thirds of the trenches and more Union troops flooded into the city.

The battle in town raged all night, mainly hand-to-hand fighting. Using bows, the Sioux warriors assisted from hiding places in town. Others took the high ground and used the Enfield rifles against targets backlit by the flickering flames of fires started by the Union artillery barrage.

By morning, most resistance had ceased, although, even with their officers dead or captured, a few Confederate soldiers continued fighting. Finally, they released one of the two surviving captured Confederate officers. He stopped the fighting, and the surviving Confederate troops were loaded aboard one of the steamboats docked there and sent north to a prisoner of war camp where they would probably be exchanged for Union troops who had been captured.