The Volunteer and Conscript Bureau under Brigadier General Gideon Pillow was empowered to hunt absentees and march them back to duty at gunpoint. If nothing else, this would give Pillow something to do. Owner of one of the wealthiest estates in Tennessee, called the “Clifton Palace,” Pillow was a near cartoon of arrogance and ineptitude. As a major general in Mexico he’d fought with gusto but took credit for battles he did not win and was rumored to be so unwitting that he dug a trench on the wrong side of a parapet.
Grant considered him a buffoon, and in fact it was Pillow’s presence at Fort Donelson that convinced Grant to storm it and win his first great victory of the war. Grant had known Pillow in Mexico and “judged that with any force, no matter how small, I could march up to within gunshot of any entrenchments he was given to hold.” As Grant menaced the fort, Pillow abandoned his men, among them Walter Rorer and the men of the 20th Mississippi, and made an ignominious escape by boat at night. Grant joked to his prisoners, “If I had captured him, I would have turned him loose. I would rather have him in command of you fellows than as a prisoner.”
Source:
Jenkins, Sally, and John Stauffer. “The Hounds.” The State of Jones: The Small Southern County That Seceded from the Confederacy. Anchor Books, 2010. 129-30. Print.
Further Reading:
No comments, yet...