Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Spring 2008 - (Page 27) A map of Alexandria from 1864, indicating where the fire started and prominent buildings consumed in the conflagration. If the burning of Alexandria was the result of a concerted effort, who was responsible? It is fairly easy to dismiss the rumor that Jayhawkers did it. The testimony on both sides was unanimous that the fire started while Union troops were still in control of the town, and it is unlikely that the rag-tag collection of Confederate deserters and Union loyalists would have had the freedom to engage in acts of orchestrated arson. Rather, it would have had to have been a group of men with the discipline and authority to coordinate their actions and move unhindered through the streets of Alexandria. But who could they have been? The order of march out of town may provide a clue. The first to leave was the Thirteenth Army Corps, a unit that had fought at Vicksburg but that had been posted to New Orleans in August ORCHESTRATED ARSON 1863. Next on the road was the Nineteenth Army Corps, Banks’s old command consisting of regiments from New York and New England. The final unit to pull out was the contingent from Sherman’s army under the command of A.J. Smith. They were the men who would have had the opportunity to cause some mischief as the army withdrew. The Union soldiers were already familiar with the concept of a “hard war.” Everyone knows about Sherman’s march through Georgia and the destruction to that state he caused. But many people have never heard of the Meridian expedition, a action that Margie Bearss called “Sherman’s Forgotten Campaign.” (A recently released book has just been published on this campaign: Sherman’s Mississippi Campaign by Buck Foster.) After the fall of Vicksburg, Grant’s large army was broken up: some of it going to New Orleans, some of it staying in Vicksburg, but most of it going to Chattanooga, Tennessee, to bolster sagging Union prospects there after the Battle of Chickamauga. Grant went to Tennessee, and Sherman assumed command of the troops in Vicksburg, his first independent command. Recognizing the importance of the rail junction at Meridian, Mississippi, and the arsenal at Selma, Alabama, Sherman decided to drive due east from Vicksburg through Jackson to Meridian, and from there to Selma, if a large force of Union cavalry from Tennessee were able to link up with him in Meridian. The expedition started out in early February 1864 and made it to Meridian with little or no opposition, destroying property and tearing up track along the way. After Sherman reached Meridian he learned that Nathan Bedford Forrest had routed the Union cavalry from Tennessee at Okolona and he satisfied himself with destroying the railroad for miles in every direction. Sherman then marched back to Vicksburg by a different but parallel route in order to Spring 2008/LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES 27
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.