Chapter 5: A Take of Two Cities

The voting over, the Union forces began their siege of Mobile in earnest. At dawn, the guns roared out. First, they attacked the walls. When Confederate artillery fired back, one third of the Union batteries engaged in counter-battery fire. Another third attacked the lines of trenches before the walls.

Two monitors sailed from the fleet to fire upon the sea-front at short range.

On the third morning, Union infantry charged the lines outside the walls. The Union holding those lines meant that the troops holding them were subject to plunging fire from the walls. It also meant, however that there was only one – although very difficult – barrier between the Union army and the city.

Walls are all very well for a fortress, but a city has to have many roads in and out. The roads of Mobile were guarded by heavy gates, but both sides realized that they were weak points. At noon, the Union troops ate dinner. That morning many Union guns were moved to new locations. At noon, they stopped firing, presumably to allow their crews to eat.

At precisely one o’clock, by artillery-officer watches which had all been set at the same time that morning, many guns fired explosive shells at each gate on the east side of the river. More guns followed them immediately. Then waves of infantry charged the gates from the trenches near the walls. Other waves set out from further away. Some of the garrison drove back the Union attack. Those were immediately attacked by canister from reloaded Union artillery.

Two gates were taken by the rush. Each of those gates was the goal of a Union cavalry regiment. Riding so close to the walls, those regiments suffered grievous losses, but the survivors were inside the walls. Half rode deeper, shooting at any Confederate troops trying to get to the gate to stop the break-through. Half dismounted and climbed up to the top of the wall from inside.

Within minutes, the walls near those gates were flying Union flags. More and more troops were pouring through the gates.

The next cavalry regiments took fewer losses. For each gate, the second regiment to pass through it had a bridge assigned. The upstream one managed to cross the bridge and take up a position on the west bank. The other had farther to ride and a more enterprising Confederate colonel to oppose. They held the eastern end of the bridge, but the Confederates held the western end. Within minutes, the western end had a Confederate brigade dug in and another coming to support it.

As Union soldiers poured in the two gates, Union forces in the city east of the river began to match the Confederate forces. Brigade commanders had been told to use their initiative, and many did. One brigade took a third gate from the rear, and the soldiers who poured through that gate already had their orders. With Union forces on both sides of the wall and coming down the walkway on the top, the wall fell under the control of the Army of the Savannah. Some Confederates fought to their deaths in the streets; some surrendered; some made for the bridges which might or might not be in Union hands. Fleeing soldiers on bridges without a Union force on at least the east end interfered with Confederate officers trying to bring their units to fight the Yankees for the east side of the city.

On the wall were semi-independent forts. Those held out longest. Before dusk, though, Butler could report that most of his section of the city was in Union hands. The one bridgehead in the west was lost when the troops there ran out of ammunition and retreated across the bridge. The confederates, by then, had no stomach for a charge across a bridge to take a little more territory briefly.

Artillerymen worked all night, and batteries were set up near the river. Some buildings were torn down to provide materials for breastworks. These provided minor protection, since they had to be low enough for the cannon to shoot over. Still, the powder could be kept behind them, and that ended one worry.

The river was narrow enough that the Confederates defending the bridge were in range of canister. When they put up their own parapets, cannonballs knocked them down and hurled the stones used among the infantry.

Grant wrote Butler that the latter should let him know when Confederate artillery turned up opposing his. Butler did, and almost immediately Grant’s troops stormed the gates west of the river. They broke through some of them, and the city was taken.

The generals gave the cavalry two days to regroup and refit. Then they sent them north to clear out the land around Montgomery. Butler’s – or Warren’s – cavalry would work south and east of Montgomery, and those from the Army of the Mississippi would work north and west of the city.

No longer was there any pretext that the – present – capital of the Confederacy was not the next target. They filled the prisoner camp that Grant had ordered Butler to build. Butler assigned the provisional division – now down below 9,000 men – the task of guarding it. Warren suspected that Grant had chosen the army of the Savannah for that duty because he thought that it was more fitted to colored troops. There was no complaint about Butler assigning this duty to the only white enlisted men under his command, and – after the breakthrough in East Mobile -- Warren had expected none.

The force which Warren had claimed was as good as any mounted infantry in the world would now have to function as cavalry. Their most important assignment was to hunt down any Confederate cavalry in their area and force those troops back into the city. Killing or capturing them would also be acceptable.

They should also drive any planters or farm-owners away and confiscate their food so it could not feed the city. Third, they were to capture any Confederate leadership sneaking out of the city after the siege tightened. Warren thought that the other cavalry force was more likely to bag any Confederate politicians. He thought that fleeing west to Texas a better strategy than fleeing east to Florida. While the rebels held some other territory, these were the only major areas beyond Federal control.

When his scouts found a major plantation about five miles east of Montgomery, Warren investigated it for himself. He needed a headquarters that the city’s garrison wouldn’t threaten and that every messenger could reach.

When he reached the plantation, it seemed remarkably suited for his purposes. The house and barns were large.

When he rode up to the porch, he was met by a negress who told him he couldn’t come in.

“Well,” he said when he’d stepped through the door, “I am in. Who is in charge here?”

“Mistress Taylor.”

“Ask her if she could come talk with me.”

“Anna Taylor,” a white woman told him. “We don’t allow Yankees in here.”

“Well, ma’am, there is this thing called a war going on. That means that soldiers do what they have to do, and the people without guns don’t get what they want. Is this your place?”

“It belongs to my husband, but you Yankees have stolen him and locked him up.

“Well, we are taking the place, your livestock, and your slaves. I will give you a receipt, and maybe you can get something at the end of the war. Who is in charge ‘cept you?”

There was one overseer. By the time they had listed the slaves, there were 43 of them. Under the “20 nigger” rule, that entitled another overseer to draft exemption. Apparently, Mrs. Taylor was a patriotic Confederate.

Officers of white regiments had clerks to write for them. Very few of the ex-slaves could write, and they had to even promote some illiterates to sergeant. Warren wrote his own receipt. He wrote two copies. He and Mrs. Taylor both signed both, and the overseer witnessed both signatures. He gave one copy to Mrs. Taylor, and filed the other away.

“Now, ma’m, I’m going to ask both of you to leave. Take what you can carry. Head east. Montgomery is crowded already, and they will soon be under siege. They won’t welcome two more mouths to feed.” All that was true, but he also feared that the overseer would be drafted for the defense of Montgomery.

“You’re only going to let me take what will fit in the carriage? Mrs. Taylor exclaimed.

“No. Well, you can pack the carriage, but I have just given you a receipt for the livestock. We are taking the horses for military use. You also may not take any slaves with you.”

“You don’t know what you are asking. They will come for me. My people love me.”

“Didn’t say they couldn’t come after you. But you can’t take them with you.”

It took another hour for the two to actually walk away. Several of the slave women actually exchanged hugs with Mrs. Taylor. Warren noticed that nobody hugged the overseer. Then he copied one two more lists of the slaves as the overseer and Mrs. Taylor had named them. He found several colored women in the kitchen.

“I’m General Warren,” he said. “How do you summon all the hands?” The older woman who seemed to be in charge led him to a porch and a gong hanging there. “Field hands and house servants, too,” he said. She rang the gong, hard.

Colored people gathered in the yard below the porch. He was conscious of others on the porch.

“Thank you for coming to listen to me,” he said. “I’m General Sam Warren, United States Army of the Savannah. Right now, I’m in charge of this place. I ask you to stay here until I have rung the gong again and listen to me.

I ask this instead of telling you because right now, you are all free.” There was a good deal of shouting and clapping although Sam knew that many had already heard the news from the troopers. “Really, you have been free since January of last year – nearly two years. President Lincoln proclaimed it, and the government enforced it. Not everyone around here likes the government or obeyed President Lincoln. What would have happened to you if, being free like I said, you had left this place last month and gone for a walk?”

There were comments and a few of the males made signs of a hanging.

“That’s right. So, if you want to leave here, nobody in a blue coat will try to stop you. Some of the planters and overseers of other plantations probably will. So, remember that. On the other hand, being free means that if somebody wants you to work, they have to pay you. I want the people who work in the kitchen to stay, and I will pay them to do the kitchen work. I want some people who look after the horses to look after those horses and others. I have to pay them.

“Anyone who wants something of you has to pay you; you don’t want to do it, and you don’t have to. Then, though, they won’t pay you.”

He looked all around. His troops were clearer that he was saying that they had to pay for sex than the plantation women were. So be it.

“Lieutenants Baron and Jefferies here want to hear your stories. Please stick around until they have taken them down.”

He went into the house without hitting the gong. Someday, the Taylors would be charged with keeping slaves after they were officially freed. The siege of Montgomery took precedence, but gathering evidence was still necessary.

Warren sent out bands – much smaller than a troop – each under an officer to push planters out of their homes, to give the same receipts, and to take records of the length of time each slave had been held. The officer made sure that the slaves knew that any report of Confederate activity would be rewarded if it checked out.

Most of the plantations were not occupied. What the newly freed people would do with them wasn’t the Union’s worry. All the horses and mules were taken to headquarters, and most of the cattle, pigs, and chickens were eaten.

The woman whom he had met when he entered the place was Tilley, she had been housekeeper, and he kept her on. He took the best bedroom as befitted the general; he and Tilley assigned the others to his staff. The overseer’s house was assigned to the guard detail.

Confederate cavalry probed their area, but the Army of the Savannah was better armed and often better mounted. After the first 2 days, those probes decreased.

“You want a woman, Masta Gen’l?” Tilley asked one night. She seemed to have decided that ‘General’ was his first name. He didn’t know how to answer her. God! Did he want a woman! On the other hand, his soldiers couldn’t have a woman unless she was willing, and he had sentenced rapists to hang. If Tillie wasn’t offering herself, and she neither spoke that way nor appealed to him, then a woman she offered was not going to be given a choice. He ended up going into his room without giving an answer.

He came awake when the door creaked open. His carbine was against the wall near the door, and his revolver was not much closer. If an enemy can get close enough to a sleeping general so that general needs a personal weapon, he is lost.

“I’se Mame,” a woman’s voice said. He could see a vague shape in the dark. A dress fluttered up and then dropped to the floor.