The Army of the Tennessee was a Union army in the Western Theater of the American Civil War, named for the Tennessee River. A 2005 study of the army states that it "was present at most of the great battles that became turning points of the war—Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, and Atlanta" and "won the decisive battles in the decisive theater of the war."Woodworth, Victory, p. ix.
It appears that the term "Army of the Tennessee" was first used within the Union Army in March 1862, to describe Union forces perhaps more properly described as the "Army of West Tennessee"; these were the troops under the command of Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the Union's District of West Tennessee.Eicher, Commands, pp. 856–857; McPherson, Battle Cry, p. 512. This article also covers Grant's 1861–1862 commands – the District of Southeast Missouri and the District of Cairo – because the troops Grant led in the Battle of Belmont and the Henry-Donelson campaign during that period became the nucleus of the Army of the Tennessee.Woodworth, Victory, p. x. In April 1862, Grant's troops survived a severe test in the bloody Battle of Shiloh. Then, during six months marked by discouragement and anxiety for Grant, his army first joined with two other Union armies to prosecute the relatively bloodless Siege of Corinth and then strained to hold Union positions in Tennessee and Mississippi. In October 1862, Grant's command was reconfigured and elevated to departmental status, as the Department of the Tennessee; the title of his command was thus officially aligned with that of his army.McPherson, Battle Cry, p. 512; Woodworth, Victory, p. x. Grant commanded these forces until after his critically important victory at Vicksburg on July 4, 1863. Grant was then tasked with command of the Military Division of the Mississippi, overseeing this army and additional Union armies.
Under succeeding generals, starting with William Tecumseh Sherman, the army marched and fought from the Chattanooga campaign, through the Relief of Knoxville, the Meridian Campaign, the Atlanta campaign, the March to the Sea, the Carolinas campaign, and to the end of the war and disbandment. In 1867, apparently speaking of the Atlanta campaign, General Sherman said that the Army of the Tennessee was "never checked—always victorious; so rapid in motion—so eager to strike; it deserved its name of the 'Whip-lash,' swung from one flank to the other, as danger called, night or day, sunshine or storm."NYT: General Sherman's November 13, 1867 Address to the Society of the Army of the Tennessee; see Lewis, Sherman, p. 381.
History History remembers the Army of the Tennessee as one of the most important Union armies during the Civil War, an army intimately associated with the Union's two most celebrated generals, Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman.Woodworth, Victory, p. ix; Flood, Friendship, pp. 4–6. It is thus rather ironic that frequent military reorganizations and looseness of usage during the war itself make it difficult to pinpoint the exact date at which this army formally came into existence. It should suffice to note that the "nucleus [of troops] around which was to gather the... Army of the Tennessee" first took shape in 1861–1862, while Grant was headquartered at Cairo, Illinois.Rawlins, Address, pp. 27–28. Those troops continued under Grant in his next command, the distinct District of West Tennessee; they were then sometimes, and perhaps most appropriately, called the "Army of West Tennessee."That usage appears, for example, in reports filed by various Union officers after the April 1862 Battle of Shiloh (Official Records (OR) I, v. 10/1, pp. 165, 203, 240, 277, 280, 282, 284, 286–287) and can be found as late as October 1862 (Report of Brig. Gen. Thomas A. Davies, October 18, 1862, OR I, v. 17/1, p. 251). During the period September 28 – December 9, 1862, there was also a Confederate Army of West Tennessee, organized from the Confederate Army of the West and commanded by Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn. Confederate authorities ruled that "the name and function of this army [were] improper," and Van Dorn's forces were merged into the Army of Mississippi. See Eicher, Commands, p. 892. However, army correspondence began using the term "Army of the Tennessee" in March 1862; that term soon became commonplace and naturally lived on when Grant's command was elevated to departmental status in October 1862, as the Department of the Tennessee.Eicher, Commands, p. 857; see Halleck to Pope, March 21, 1862, OR I, v. 8, p. 629 ("I am preparing additional re-enforcements for the Army of the Tennessee"); Phisterer, Statistical Record, p. 54 (Grant's forces fought at Shiloh (April 1862) as "the Army of the District of Western Tennessee" and "became the Army of the Tennessee upon the [post-Shiloh] concentration of troops at Pittsburg Landing"); McPherson, Battle Cry, p. 512; Woodworth, Victory, p. x. During the course of the war, elements of the Army of the Tennessee performed many tasks, and the army evolved with the addition and subtraction of many units. It is not feasible to chronicle every such development here, even at the corps level. Rather, this article traces the main thrust of the army's development and its most memorable activities. At any given time, substantial numbers of troops were engaged in activities not discussed here. For example, in April 1863, less than half of Grant's departmental strength was directly engaged in the Vicksburg Campaign.See Departmental returns for April 30, 1863, OR I, v. 24/3, p. 249.
Cairo and the Battle of Belmont
In September 1861, Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, then subordinate to Maj. Gen. John Fremont in the Union's Western Department, assumed command of the District of Southeast Missouri; Grant established his headquarters at the strategic river port of Cairo, Illinois on the border with southeast Missouri and northern Kentucky.Eicher, Commands, p. 264; Grant, Memoirs, p. 174. One of Grant's wartime aides, John A. Rawlins, later stated that "[f]rom this time... commenced the growth and organization of the Army of the Tennessee."John A. Rawlins, Address, Proceedings of the Society of the Army of the Tennessee. Just days later, prompted by Confederate occupation of Columbus, Kentucky, on the Mississippi River, Grant led a small force to seize Paducah, Kentucky, where the Tennessee River joins the Ohio River; Grant thus forestalled a Confederate effort to occupy the strategically important town. Paducah promptly became a separate Union command under Brig. Gen. Charles F. Smith, who soon occupied Smithland, Kentucky, at the junction of the Cumberland River and the Ohio.Smith, Grant, pp. 118–121.
According to Rawlins, the "first affair dignified by the name of a battle" for any of Grant's forces occurred at Fredericktown, Missouri, where some of Grant's troops helped defeat Confederate forces under M. Jeff Thompson.Rawlins, Address, p. 27; Conger, U.S. Grant, pp. 75–76. Grant's own first engagement came on November 7 at Belmont, Missouri, a Mississippi River landing opposite Columbus, Kentucky. Grant, accompanied by Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, moved a force of approximately 3,000 to Belmont by water, cut his way into the Confederate camps there, and then had to fight his way back out to regain his transports. Grant's casualties in this first battle totaled about 500; Confederate casualties were similar. While Grant had suffered a repulse, he won favorable press coverage.Smith, Grant, pp. 124–132. This battle, reports Rawlins, "confirmed General Grant in his views" that he should "give battle" whenever "he had what he thought a sufficient number of men."Rawlins, Address, pp. 28–29. Also in November, John Fremont lost his command at St. Louis, to be replaced by Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, whose command was designated the Department of the Missouri.Smith, Grant, p. 134; Ballard, Grant, pp. 26–27.
Henry-Donelson Campaign
On December 20, Grant's command was reconfigured to include C.F. Smith's and renamed the District of Cairo (also headquartered at Cairo, Illinois).See Special Orders, No. 78, HQ, Dept. of the Missouri, December 20, 1861, OR I, v. 52/1, p. 201; Grant, Memoirs, p. 189. It appears that Grant formally assumed this new command as of December 23, 1861. See Eicher, Commands, p. 264; General Orders No. 22, HQ, Dist. of Cairo, December 23, 1861, Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, 3:330. From that perch, in February 1862, Grant led the Union campaign against Fort Henry, on the Tennessee River, and Fort Donelson, on the Cumberland River.For detailed discussion of the Henry-Donelson campaign, see Woodworth, Victory, pp. 65–120. His troops for this campaign eventually numbered approximately 27,000 men, divided into three divisions commanded, respectively, by John McClernand (1st Division), C.F. Smith (2nd), and Brig. Gen. Lewis Wallace (3rd).Grant, Memoirs, p. 213; Woodworth, Victory, pp. 72, 86.
Grant initially moved up the Tennessee River (southward) to Fort Henry with only two divisions, McClernand's and Smith's. On February 6, even before he could organize his force for attack, the fort surrendered to U.S. Navy Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote, commander of the Western Flotilla.Engle, Heartland, pp. 53–59. Several days later, in winter conditions, most of Grant's two divisions marched overland to attack the more formidable Fort Donelson, situated on the Cumberland River but only away from Fort Henry.Engle, Heartland, pp. 62–63. Additional Union regiments arrived at Fort Donelson by water; these were formed into the new 3rd Division under Lew Wallace.Engle, Heartland, p. 70; Wallace, Autobiography, 1: 387–389. The Battle of Fort Donelson began on February 13 and, after sharp fighting, concluded on February 16 with the unconditional surrender of the remaining Confederate garrison of approximately 15,000.Engle, Heartland, pp. 68–81.
Although it would still be a month before the term "Army of the Tennessee" came into use, the three divisions that served under Grant in the Henry-Donelson campaign were the nucleus of that famous army and had now won an important victory that foreshadowed its later successes.Eicher, Commands, p. 857; Woodworth, Victory, p. x. One historian describes their accomplishments in the Henry-Donelson campaign as the "first significant Union triumph in the war"; its fruits included breaking the Confederacy's western line of defense, securing Kentucky to the Union, and opening the South, especially Tennessee, to invasion.Smith, Grant, p. 165. Another historian notes that Grant's troops "had performed prodigies of valor and endurance during the campaign" and had learned from it that "hard fighting would bring success."Woodworth, Victory, pp. 119–120. As a result of the campaign's conspicuous success, Grant, McClernand, Smith, and Wallace were all promoted to the rank of major general of volunteers.See Eicher, Commands, p. 773; Grant, Memoirs, p. 214. Grant in particular became a national celebrity—"Unconditional Surrender" Grant—for his refusal to allow any other terms of surrender.Smith, Grant, pp. 165–166.
Shiloh and the Siege of Corinth