Abington lecturer pens book on clash of Confederate generals
For Penn State Abington History Lecturer Jeffery Prushankin, studying Civil War history, especially battles in the oft-ignored Trans-Mississippi region, was a natural. Always interested in military history, the Philadelphia-area native’s mother is from Louisiana, and he has ancestors who fought there on both sides during the Civil War.
"There has always been the notion that the war was won and lost in the East between Washington (D.C.) and Richmond, and on battlefields such as Gettysburg and Antietam. You can find 100 books on Gettysburg for every article on something that occurred in Louisiana,” said Prushankin, who lives in Blue Bell. “The battles and leaders in the West across the Mississippi River have mostly been thought of as minor players."
If not for poor communication and bad blood between two key military figures in the State of Louisiana, however, historians may still be talking about great Confederate victories there, said Prushankin, a lecturer at Penn State Abington since 2001. While focusing on the Trans-Mississippi’s place in the Civil War, Prushankin’s research took an interesting twist when he began to uncover details of the relationship between Confederate generals Edmund Kirby Smith and Richard Taylor. Prushankin reveals the details of this antagonistic relationship in his new book, "A Crisis in Confederate Command: Edmund Kirby Smith, Richard Taylor and the Army of the Trans-Mississippi" (LSU Press).
To read more about the relationship between Smith and Taylor, the effects of the Trans-Mississippi battles, and other details of Jeffrey Prushankin's book, go to www.abington.psu.edu/alumni and click on the "Lion Tracks" link.
Smith received his commission as the military commander of the Confederate Army in the Trans-Mississippi region in 1863. From that time forward, Taylor, a key military figure in Louisiana, reported to Smith. The two men came from very different backgrounds—Smith was an old school “West Pointer” whose strategies were often by-the-book and defensive in nature; Taylor, the wealthy son of former U.S. President Zachary Taylor, was a highly intellectual military strategist who graduated from Yale, and who wanted to take the battle to the Union Army. He was also a politician and the brother-in-law of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
"It was almost as if Smith had an inferiority complex. He seemed to think he was raised to be a brilliant figure in military history, and he was always out there striving for glory," said Prushankin, who studied many letters written by the two men for this research. He noted that Smith learned much of his battle strategy in Virginia early in the war while serving under General Joseph E. Johnston, a general who tended to be overly cautious. Taylor also spent the early part of the war in Virginia, but he saw service under General Stonewall Jackson, who was much more aggressive on the battlefield.
"Taylor had covert plans approved by the Confederate War Department to try to recapture New Orleans, and the two men were working at cross-purposes almost from the beginning," said Prushankin.
According to Prushankin, many times when Taylor tried to take an aggressive approach against Union forces, Smith would send troops elsewhere to fight. This not only reduced Taylor’s troop strength far below what was needed to reach his objective, but Smith’s heavy-handedness also sparked hostilities between the generals. Further complicating matters was an order from Smith to execute slaves who were fighting for the Union. Taylor refused and after Smith filed a protest with Richmond, the Confederate government wound up siding with Taylor.
The nastiness in the relationship between the two men reached its pinnacle during the Union’s Red River Campaign in the spring of 1864. In an effort to capture the Confederate stronghold at Shreveport, Louisiana, the Union sent a joint Army and Navy force of over 30,000 north along the Red River and another 10,000 troops south from Arkansas. Smith ordered Taylor to have his troops fall back to Shreveport, but as Taylor watched Union soldiers wreak havoc in his home state, he saw an opportunity for a pre-emptive strike south of Shreveport in the town of Mansfield. Taylor disobeyed Smith’s orders and sent his army of just 8,800 into battle, winning at Mansfield and driving Union troops south. After another battle at Pleasant Hill, Taylor’s force had the Union Army and Navy pinned in at Alexandria. This is where things between the generals turned really ugly.
"Instead of finishing them (Union forces) off, Smith—who clearly was not happy with Taylor—led two-thirds of Taylor’s Army away to fight in Arkansas, where Union soldiers were already in retreat,” Prushankin explained. “By the time Smith sent Taylor's troops back to Louisiana, Union forces had already escaped. If those 30,000 soldiers don’t get sent to Sherman, maybe he doesn’t capture Atlanta as easily and maybe Lincoln’s re-election is in jeopardy."
After this, Taylor wrote several letters—some to Confederate authorities, others to Smith himself—questioning Smith’s intelligence and challenging his manhood. Smith had Taylor arrested, but eventually released him on order of the Confederate Congress, which went on to promote Taylor and leave Smith to "stew in his own juices."
Aside from speculating what the impact of a great victory along the Red River may have done to the outcome of the Civil War—Prushankin ventures a guess that it would have been more of a psychological blow to the Union and northern citizens than anything else—the other burning issue is, "who acted more poorly, Smith or Taylor?"
"Although Taylor’s memoirs attack Smith personally and professionally, Smith, to his credit, doesn’t get down in the dirt with Taylor," said Prushankin. "The fact that Taylor’s strategies may have been more successful doesn’t excuse his behavior in disregarding orders. It’s something with which you have to grapple, both in regard to the Civil War and in regard to leadership issues today."
