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Andrew Johnson's Challenges As Military Governor Of State Discussed

Source: The Greeneville Sun
by Staff
Date: 2008-04-12

Greeneville's Andrew Johnson served as military governor of Tennessee during the Civil War, faced military logistical and transportation challenges during the Union army's occupation of Nashville.
 
This was the focus of a March 18 lecture at Tusculum College that was part of the continuing 2008 bicentennial celebration of Johnson's life.
 
Myron "Jack" Smith, director of libraries at Tusculum College and the author, compiler or editor of dozens of reference volumes, described the logistical and strategic challenges facing Johnson and other federal leaders in Tennessee during the Civil Wwr.
 
Johnson, whose political career began by holding local offices held while he was a Greeneville tailor, was governor of Tennessee a few years prior to the Civil War, and a U.S. senator from Tennessee from 1857-1862.
 
Smith noted that Johnson had refused to resign from the U.S. Senate, even though Tennessee had seceded from the United States and joined the Confederacy, being the only senator from the South not to resign from the Senate.
 
(Johnson, a Democrat, in 1864 was elected vice president of the United States , running on "National Union" ticket with Abraham Lincoln, a Republican. Lincoln was assassinated in April, 186, only a month after the strt of his second term, making Johnson president of the United States through the difficult Reconstruction years of 1865-186. -- Eds.)
 
A Natural Choice
 
Smith said Johnson was a natural choice to oversee the state of Tennessee after the federals took over Middle Tennessee, noting that he was the first Civil War military governor appointed in the nation.
 
Smith's lecture explored various phases of Johnson's career as military governor, and some of the cast of historical characters, well-known and otherwise, with whom he worked and interacted in that period.
 
The Tennessee and Cumberland River bastions were lost by the Confederacy to General Grant's federals between Feb. 4 and 16 in 1862. Smith said the Confederates evacuated Middle Tennessee and moved to Corinth, Mississippi and Island No. 10.
 
Governor Isham G. Harris, a supporter of the Confederacy, had left Nashville for Memphis along with many Nashville citizens who feared the Federal occupation.
 
Smith said Lincoln gave Johnson broad powers as military governor. He said the former Greenevillian, upon reaching Nashville to begin his duties, was greeted by Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell, who shared Johnson's hopes (ultimately failed ones) that the populace would embrace the occupying Dederals.
 
Johnson was also appointed a brigadier general of volunteers, with authority to raise a "home guard" for defense of Nashville against Confederate incursions.
 
Johnson resided in Nashville, near the capitol building, which he fortified with cannons soon after his arrival, Smith said. The cannons never had to be used in actual conflict, though they were fired in practice, according to Smith.
 
Their presence around the capitol building led to a local nickname being applied to it: "Fort Andrew Johnson," he said.
 
Nashville Was Noisy Place
 
Andrew Johnson's world in Nashville was a noisy one, as described by Smith.
 
At both his residence and at "Fort Andrew Johnson," the military governor could daily hear the steamboats on the river, sounding their loud whistles and horns and giving forth music from calliopes, Tusculum Collge's librarian said.
 
There were trains as well, also sounding whistles, plus the clatter of street traffic including wagons, horses, buggies and other vehicles.
 
Smith said that the level of noise would be "hard to imagine today."
 
He said the steamboats that added noise to Johnson's world were of vital importance to the Federals because they conveyed goods as well as human beings in traffic with the North, and were cheaper to operate than were railroads.
 
Steamboats, though, were vulnerable to cannonballs and heavily dependent upon river "stages," varying the river's depth, to determine when and where they could travel. At differing stages a river might be high in one area and virtually dry in the same area at another time and stage.
 
Smith said steamboat companies operated independently of one another, making coordination efforts nearly impossible, though Brigadier General Lewis B. Parsons was named Quartermaster General River Transport Czar in 1862 with authority to attempt to make steamboat companies work together harmoniously.
 
He said one key personnel change during Johnson's tenure brought Johnson relief from the stresses he experienced in dealing with Gen. Buell.
 
On Oct. 30, 1862, Buell was succeeded by Maj. Gen. William S. "Old Rosy" Rosecrans, an Ohioan who stood 6-foot, 3-inch and impressed Johnson positively when he arrived at the Nashville Army headquarters on High Street two weeks after his appointment.
 
Smith said, "Johnson saw 'Old Rosy' as Nashville's savior and thereafter, except for an occasional spat on matters such as points of internal security, the two worked well together," Smith said.
 
He went on, "Rosecrans, an engineer by training, was appalled at the damages the Confederates had inflicted upon Nashville's rail network, and within a few days of his arrival made the decision to rely upon the Cumberland River as his principal transportation artery to the North."
 
Mosquito Flotilla's Operations
 
Responsibility for keeping the Mississippi and its tributaries safe for waterborne Union logistics fell to "the gunboat navy of Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter," Smith said.
 
He said Capt. Alexander Pennock, at Cairo, Ill., was charged with oversight of a "Mosquito Flotilla" of light gunboats to patrol the Cumberland, Ohio and Tennessee rivers, Smith said. Pennock's active oversight was "nominal," Smith said, in that he was also busy supplying, maintaining, and handling shipbuilding and repair for the entire Mississippi Squadron, along with other duties.
 
Smith said most real leadership of the Mosquito Flotilla under Pennock's supervision fell to 28-year-old Lt. Cmdr. Le Roy Fitch, an expert in use of boat howitzers. He was ordered to offer convoy to Federal steamers, support Army operations, inhibit Southern commercial activity, stop unauthorized river crossings, battle irregulars, and essentially provide a river version of what today would be seen as a Coast Guard-type operation, Smith said.
 
By mid-November, he said, the level of the water in the Cumberland had risen sufficiently to allow the three-vessel "Mosquito Flotilla" of Lt. Cmdr. Fitch to enter the river.
 
Fitch created a convoy system that escorted weekly steamboat runs from Smithland, Ky., to Nashville, frustrating Confederates who previously were able to essentially fire with impunity upon river vessels during low-stage runs.
 
Smith recounted a prayer of that period written by a pro-Confederate parson: "Oh Lord, let the rain descend to fructify the earth and swell the rivers, but Oh Lord, do not raise the Cumberland sufficient to bring upon us those damn Yankee gunboats!"
 
Smith was introduced by George Collins, director of museum programs and studies at Tusculum College. Collins is heavily involved in the 2008 year-long celebration of the Andrew Johnson bicentennial.