l incoln’s s hadow 55
Union control over the Mississippi in summer 1863, Grant and other
generals wanted to use the available forces to attack Mobile, Alabama,
and open another front into the Confederate heartland. Lincoln instead
demanded that General Nathaniel Banks, commanding in New Orleans
and occupied Louisiana, launch an attack toward Texas via the Red
River in northwestern Louisiana. Lincoln wanted to show the fl ag as
close to the French occupation as possible, yet a move into distant East
Texas made little geopolitical sense. In any event, Banks botched the
campaign, small Union landings along the Texas coast were poorly
handled and failed to impress the French, and as a result the more
important Mobile campaign did not get under way until mid-1864.
At times, Lincoln strayed into the direct management of military
operations, with unfortunate results. In spring 1862, the redoubtable
Confederate commander Stonewall Jackson led a small army down the
Shenandoah Valley, posing a possible threat to Washington. Total
Union forces in the area far outnumbered Jackson’s men, but the
northern troops were divided into at least three separate commands. As
a further complication, the Union troops approached the Valley from
diff erent directions and had poor direct communications with each
other, while Jackson had the advantages of interior lines and intimate
acquaintance with the terrain. Rather than appoint a single overall fi eld
commander and combine the Union detachments into a single pow-
erful army, Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton tried to direct
their movements via telegraph in a vain attempt to trap Jackson between
them. He proved far too adroit, defeating each opposing force in turn.
The effects were far-reaching: troops that might have reinforced
McClellan on the main drive up the Peninsula were instead directed to
the Valley, while Jackson himself slipped away to join Lee outside Rich-
mond where together they threw back McClellan’s hosts. Although
Lincoln learned from the experience that he could not manage fi eld
campaigns from the capital, he still intervened occasionally to push
generals to launch attacks that would have been foolhardy.
What looked simple on a map at the White House was far more
difficult and perhaps impossible for the soldiers actually doing the
fi ghting. Both the East Tennessee expedition in 1861 and the attempt to
synchronize the movement of widely separated units during the 1862
Valley campaign foundered in mud that made movement of large