GENERAL

ith panic gripping the citizens of the virtually undefended city, General Lew Wallace of Indiana stepped in and took charge at the request of the Union W high command. In a week, through a combination of energy, organizational skill, personal charisma, political connections, and sheer hard work, Wallace constructed a defense that turned back the invaders. Charles Whittlesey, one of Wallace’s brigade commanders at Shiloh who served with him in , commented: “Gen. Wallace infused his own energy into every department of the service.” It was a magnificent achieve­ ment, against all odds, and it ultimately prevented a Confederate attack. Because there was no pitched battle, however, the defense of Cincinnati has been relegated to the file of forgotten events, and Wallace has never received the credit he so richly deserved.

Wallace, who commanded the Third later in the battle that led to the surrender For a variety o f reasons Wallace and his Division in Major General Ulysses S. of Fort Donelson, and also to his status as men did not arrive on the battlefield until Grant’s army at the battles of Fort Donel­ one o f the most prominent officers from late on April 6. Though Wallace fought son and Shiloh, was one of the most Indiana, a state that had wholeheartedly bravely on April 7, aiding materially in the prominent generals in the western theater supported the Union. Wallace was with effort that forced the Confederate retreat, of war at this point. A citizen-soldier, he Grant in the advance up the Tennessee his late arrival the day before gave rise to had risen from colonel of the Eleventh In­ River in the spring of 1862. On April 6, the controversy over his march that still diana Volunteer Infantry in the summer of when the Confederates attacked the main rages today. 1861 to major general in March 1862. His body of the army camped in the vicinity of In late June, Wallace, still in divi­ rise was due in part to the military skills he a small chapel named Shiloh, Wallace’s di­ sion command, took a leave of absence. demonstrated as a regimental colonel and vision was miles away at Crump’s Landing. Contrary to popular history, Grant did not get rid of Wallace after Shiloh; Wallace left and chose to stay away. He was disgrun­ tled and disgusted with the Army o f the Tennessee’s new task, seizing and securing territory in western Tennessee rather than fighting Confederates. Wallace had signed up to fight, not hold railroads, so he left and went first to Washington, D .C., hop­ ing to use his personal prestige and politi­ cal connections to get a new command, a fighting command, but he failed to do so. He returned to Indiana and was on his way to rejoin his division in Grant’s army when the Confederates seized the initiative in the West. In early June, after the capture o f the Confederate garrison town o f Corinth, Mississippi, the Union commander in the West, Major General , A map indicates the position of Union and Confederate armies as of September 5 , 1862. ordered Major General Cincinnati, Ohio, is located near the top, middle portion o f the map. Union armies are marked to move east with 45,000 men through in blue and Confederate forces are marked in red. Mississippi and Alabama and take the

6 | TRACES | Spring 2010