The pro – Union newspaper, the Memphis Evening Bulletin, had only been publishing for a few weeks when the Civil War broke out. Editor Ralphael Semmes was hoping to build circulation with a series of articles investigating corruption surrounding Tennessee's Democratic Senator Andrew Johnson. Then, abruptly, Semmes was replaced by his business partner James Brewster Bingham, and the paper began supporting Johnson. The reason for the sudden editorial shift could be explained in two words – Andrew Johnson.
The 51 year old Democrat Andrew Johnson (above) was the only senator from a succeed state to remain in Washington after the war broke out. That made him a favorite of Republican President Lincoln. And first among the favors bestowed upon Johnson was the sudden retirement of Ralphael Semmes. The biggest problem was that Johnson's term in the senate was set to expire in January of 1863, which would limit his usefulness. Before that happened, Nashville and Memphis were captured by Federal troops and in November of 1862, Johnson was named Tennessee's Military Governor. To further assist Johnson, Lincoln even exempted Tennessee from the Emancipation Proclamation.
But if he was to be effective at helping Lincoln hold the states together (above) Andrew Johnson needed to broaden his own base of support. And this was one of the reasons editor James Bingham decided on 10 June, 1863, that the Memphis Evening Standard would be one of the first newspapers to publish Illinois Democrat Major General John Alexander McClerand's General Order Number 72 – his version of the failed federal assaults of 22 May. Bingham thought he was doing McClernand a political favor. In fact he was laying down the fuse to a bomb that would blow up McClernand's political dreams.
It was General Francis “Frank” Preston Blair junior who ignited that fuse. And Lincoln needed the powerful Blair family much more than he needed Andrew Johnson. Newspaper owner Francis Preston Blair (above) had helped Lincoln win the Republican nomination in 1860. His eldest son Montgomery Blair was Lincoln's Postmaster General. Together with younger brother Frank, they had delivered Missouri solidly into the Union camp at the very outset of the war.
By the summer of 1863 General Frank Blair (above) was commander of the 2nd division in William Tecumseh Sherman's XVth Corps, which was pressing the northern flank of Vicksburg. And on Tuesday, 16 June, 1863, Blair finally read McClernand's tortured version of the assault on the Railroad Redoubt as published by the Memphis Evening Standard. McClernand claimed not only to have captured the redoubt, he added, “...assistance was asked for...(which) would have probably insured success.”
McClernand's account made it seem Grant and the rest of the Union army had abandoned the XIII corps on the edge of victory. But General Blair knew McClernand had not captured the redoubt. He knew McClernand's men had barely dented its defenses. And Blair was fully aware of his own men's sacrifices in supporting the already failed XIII corps assault. The Missourian immediately stormed off to Sherman's headquarters with a copy of the newspaper clenched in his tightly balled fist.
Sherman was just as outraged as his subordinate, but he wisely and somewhat uncharacteristically let his temper cool until Wednesday, 17 June, before dispatching the newspaper up the chain of command to General Grant. And in a display of political legerdemain Sherman rarely possessed, he now pretended to doubt McClernand “ever published such an order officially to his corps. I know too well that the brave and intelligent soldiers and officers who compose that corps will not be humbugged by such....vain-glory and hypocrisy.”
That evening an almost carbon copy of Sherman's letter, this one allegedly written by XVII corps commander Major General James Birdseye McPherson (above), was delivered to Grant's headquarters. “I cannot help arriving at the conclusion,” wrote McPherson, that McClernand's offending missive, “...was written more to influence public sentiment....with the magnificent strategy, superior tactics, and brilliant deeds of [McClernand]...” McPherson then went on to add, “It little becomes Major General McClernand to complain of want of cooperation on the part of other Corps... when 1218 men of my command...fell... If General McClernand’s assaulting columns, were not immediately supported...it most assuredly was his own fault.”
Two letters, representing two thirds of his command staff, had now been filed, both questioning the motives and accuracy of McClernand's public version of events. Grant (above) immediately forwarded a copy of the Memphis Standard's article to General McClernand, along with a short note. “Enclosed I send you what purports to be your congratulatory address to the XIII Army Corps. I would respectfully ask if it is a true copy. If it is not a correct copy, furnish me one by bearer, as required both by regulations and existing orders of the Department.”
McClernand replied immediately, and claimed to be blindsided. “The newspaper slip is a correct copy of my congratulatory order, No 72. I am prepared to maintain its statements. I regret that my adjutant did not send you a copy promptly, as he ought, and I thought he had.”
Whether the letters protesting General McClernand's boasting were ghost written or not was now beside the point. Months ago, Grant (above) had ordered all communications within the Army of the Tennessee must be presented to his headquarters before they were published by the corps commanders, and no orders were to be released to the public except by Army headquarters. And with the army now stationary outside of Vicksburg, with Grant's star supreme in the west, with permission to fire McClernand from General-in-Chief Henry Hallack, still in his pocket, and having maneuvered McClernand into a written admission he had violated orders, Grant was now ready to act.
About 1:00a.m. on Thursday, 18 June, 1863, Grant signed the order. “Major General John A. McClernand is hereby relieved of command of the XIII corps. He will proceed to any point he may select in the state of Illinois and report by letter to Headquarters of the Army – meaning Army of the Tennessee - for orders.”
The words were those of Grant's chief of staff, Major John Aaron Rawlings (above). Rawlings then gave the order to the 25 year old Inspector General of the Army, Lieutenant Colonel James Harrison Wilson, with instructions to deliver it first thing in the morning.
An historian has described the young James Wilson (above) as “....ambitious, impatient, outspoken...(and) a stranger to humility and self-doubt”. In short, a younger version of McClernand. A West Point graduate, Wilson had briefly been an acolyte of General McClernand, but only used him to finagle his own way onto Grant's staff. And Wilson urged that he be allowed to deliver the message immediately. Rawlings was a stickler for protocol and offered half- hearted resistance. But he also despised McClernand, and finally released the vengeful Wilson into the night.
The colonel arrived at XIII corps headquarters about 3:00 a.m. Thursday morning, accompanied by a provost marshal and a squad of soldiers. He was told McClernand was asleep, but insisted the orderly awaken the general.
It must have been obvious to McClernand that he was in some trouble, because he took the time to put on his dress uniform. He received Wilson in his office, the room illuminated by a pair of tall candles and his sheathed sword symbolically lying across the table. Wilson saluted and informed McClernand, “General I have an important order for you which I am directed to deliver into your hands.”
Wilson handed the envelope to McClernand, who dismissively tossed it unopened onto the desk. Wilson then added, ”I was to be certain you had read the order in my presence, that you understand it, and that you signify your immediate obedience to it.”
Troubled by Wilson's tone, McClernand put on his reading glasses, opened the order, and read it. The shock was immediate. Obviously it had never occurred to him that he was about to loose his command.
And McClernand could not help but notice the second half of the order actually named his successor to command of the XIIIth Corps - Major General Edward Otho Cresap (O.C.) Ord. He had been recovering from a head wound, but the inclusion of his appointment made it clear Grant was not acting on an impulse.
McClernand blurted out, “Well, sir! I am relieved!” Then seeing the smile on Wilson's face, McClernand said, “By God, sir, we are both relieved.!” McClernand then sat, and pugnaciously announced that he “very much doubted the authority of General Grant to relieve a general officer appointed by the President.” It might have been a telling point in a legal debate. In the reality of the moment it was meaningless.
Later that morning McClernand expanded his opinion in writing. He told Grant, “Having been appointed by the President to command...under a definite act of Congress, I might justly challenge your authority...but forbear to do so at present.” Clearly over the intervening hours, it had been explained to McClernand that Grant would not have acted if he did not already hold all the cards. Grant ignored the latest missive, but did now respond to McClernand's General Order Number 72, saying it contained “...so many inaccuracies that to correct it...would require the rewriting of most of it. It is pretentious and egotistical..."
Then, since technically he was now in Mississippi illegally, Major General John Alexander McClerand rode through the stream of reinforcements pouring into the Vicksburg lines, and boarded one of the steamboats returning nearly empty to Memphis and points north.
By Wednesday 23 June – 4 days later – and from Illinois - McClernand sent a telegram to his doppelganger, President Abraham Lincoln. “I have been relieved for an omission of my adjutant. Hear me.” But it turned out that at the moment, with a 45,000 man rebel army invading the the state of Pennsylvania, not even Lincoln, the ultimate politician, was interested in anything else that John McClernand had to say.
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