Michigan-Illinois Canal and the Civil War

[william the wie]

The Michigan-Illinois Canal later replaced by the Sewer and Vessels, which in turn was replaced by the current Illinois Seaway is the least expensive way and usually the fastest way to get food stuffs and other bulk items to and from the east coast and Great Lakes into or out of the Mississippi-Missouri-Ohio barge network. Since it was the obvious choke point for the north why is it so rarely mentioned in lo the many alternative histories of the Civil War?

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

The Michigan-Illinois Canal later replaced by the Sewer and Vessels, which in turn was replaced by the current Illinois Seaway is the least expensive way and usually the fastest way to get food stuffs and other bulk items to and from the east coast and Great Lakes into or out of the Mississippi-Missouri-Ohio barge network. Since it was the obvious choke point for the north why is it so rarely mentioned in lo the many alternative histories of the Civil War?

Don't Trust Any Originality From Academia

Why is it never mentioned that the Republicans, being just like the GreedHead parasites they are today, started the Civil War in order to free the slaves for cheap anti-union labor up North? They soon found out that the Africans weren't good enough workers to make a profit off if allowed to run free and wild.

 

[william the wie]

Good question

 

[Picaro]

The Michigan-Illinois Canal later replaced by the Sewer and Vessels, which in turn was replaced by the current Illinois Seaway is the least expensive way and usually the fastest way to get food stuffs and other bulk items to and from the east coast and Great Lakes into or out of the Mississippi-Missouri-Ohio barge network. Since it was the obvious choke point for the north why is it so rarely mentioned in lo the many alternative histories of the Civil War?

Didn't know southern forces ever got close enough to threaten it. Railroads would have taken up any delays on it in any case. they weren't shipping much from the south during the war, were they? St Louis had more than enough arms to shut off and blockade anything north of it.

Anaconda Plan - Wikipedia


The Navy Department, however, remained committed to the idea of opening the Mississippi. The department, in the person of Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus Vasa Fox, early decided that New Orleans could be captured by a naval expedition from the Gulf of Mexico, and then all other towns bordering the river would fall rather than face bombardment.[10] The task of taking New Orleans was entrusted to Captain (later Admiral) David Glasgow Farragut, who followed his own plans for the battle; running his fleet past the forts that defended the city from the south on the night of April 24, 1862, he forced the city to surrender.[11] After repairing his ships from the damage they had suffered while passing the forts, he sent them up the river, where they successively sought and obtained the surrender of Baton Rouge and Natchez. The string of easy conquests came to an end at Vicksburg, Mississippi, however, as the Confederate position there occupied bluffs high enough to render them impregnable to the naval gunnery of the day.

Following the loss of Island No. 10 shortly before Farragut took New Orleans, the Confederates had abandoned Memphis, Tennessee, leaving only a small rear guard to conduct a delaying operation. In early June, this was swept aside by the gunboats of the Western Gunboat Flotilla (soon thereafter to be transformed into the Mississippi River Squadron) and a collection of War Department rams, and the Mississippi was open down to Vicksburg. Thus that city became the only point on the river not in Federal hands.[12]

Again, the Army under Halleck did not grasp the opportunity that was provided. He failed to send even a small body of troops to aid the ships, and soon Farragut was forced by falling water levels to withdraw his deep-draft vessels to the vicinity of New Orleans.[13] The Army did not attempt to take Vicksburg until November, and then it was under the leadership of Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, after Halleck had been called to Washington to replace McClellan as General-in-Chief.[14]

By the time that Grant became commander in the West, the Confederate Army had been able to fortify Vicksburg and Port Hudson, Louisiana, 130 miles (210 km) to the south measured along roads, somewhat longer on the river. This stretch, which included the confluence of the Red River with the Mississippi, became the last contact between the eastern Confederacy and the Trans-Mississippi. Having no doubt of its importance, the government of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Richmond strengthened both positions. Command at Vicksburg in particular passed from Brig. Gen. Martin L. Smith to Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn to Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton; the size of the defending army increased in step with the advancing rank of its commander.[15]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_Plan#cite_note-15

Siege of Vicksburg - Wikipedia

Can't find much of a Confederate Navy threat in the Miss. No mention of it here.

 

[william the wie]

The south wasn't shipping much but all of the states along the Ohio were

 

[Picaro]

The south wasn't shipping much but all of the states along the Ohio were

Kentucky and Missouri were neutral; the South relied almost entirely on forts, and it took few gunboats to blockade the Mississippi and Ohio junction.

The River War

In the summer of 1861, Commander John Rodgers was sent west to lead the Union river flotilla, which at that point contained most of its firepower in three converted paddle-wheel steamers. While awaiting the completion of new ironclad, “City Class” gunboats, Rodgers put his lean force to work. Choosing Cairo, Illinois, at the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, as a base of operations, he launched water-borne reconnaissance missions to the north and east, following the borders of Kentucky and Missouri. According to citizen accounts, this projection of power played a substantial role in keeping the two neutral states from throwing in their lot with the Confederacy.

A trio of Confederate forts kept Rodgers and his “Mississippi Squadron” from pushing further south that summer—the wooden gunboats were an impressive sight but could not be expected to go toe-to-toe with Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River, Fort Henry on the Tennessee, or Columbus on the Mississippi. The potential for offensive operations had to wait for the new year, when the City Classers would be ready. In the meantime, the Confederates continued to entrench and reinforce. At the end of August, Rodgers was redeployed to the east in favor of Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote, a stern old salt under instructions to bring coax obstinate infantry commander John Fremont into forward movement.

While liaising with the infantry, Foote formed a relationship with one of Fremont’s subordinates: General Ulysses S. Grant. On November 6, 1861, Foote committed several of his transport ferries as well as two of his three gunboats to supporting Grant’s 3,000-man attack on Belmont, Missouri, just across the river from the fortress at Columbus. Grant won acclaim from the press for the ensuing battle, though he was driven back by Confederate reinforcements, and the Mississippi Squadron won respect from Grant, who escaped capture or death when the transport Belle Memphis turned back and ran out a plank to evacuate him under fire.

This experience was surely a visceral demonstration of the capabilities of combined arms tactics—the military concept of harmonizing disparate weapons and equipment to multiply their effect on the battlefield. At the Battle of Belmont, the movement ability and heavy firepower of the riverboats was used to multiply the ground-taking capability of the infantry. In February of 1862, the Mississippi Squadron now reinforced by the completed City Classers, Foote and Grant were moved to attempt their previous operation on a larger scale.

The South didn't have much to fight with; the fortifications had to suffice, and they fell relatively rapidly.

 

[whitehall]

Maybe foreign amateur historians have a different view of the South during the Civil War. The South may have won a few battles because of the strategic knowledge of leaders like R.E. Lee and Thomas Jackson who attended West Point along side of the North's future generals. The South never had the industrial capability to defeat the North even though Northern generals didn't seem to have the will to fight. The best the South could hope for was a treaty. It took a drunk who didn't give a damn about honor and justice and a psychotic yankee general to bring the South to it's knees. A freaking canal in the Great Lakes and the Mississippi didn't even enter into the equation.

 

[william the wie]

A) I'm a southerner so I do know that the textile mills acted as bunkers during the battle of Columbus, GA.
B) Jackson and Lee are not usually quoted favorably by non-southerners, Forrest and Longstreet are.

 

[whitehall]

Columbus Ga. was defended by a rag tag bunch of Southern kids and old men and wounded soldiers that numbered an exaggerated 3,000 against Northern pillager Wilson's 20,000 on Easter Sunday before the surrender.