Anna Ella Carroll is not a widely known figure in American history, but if you dig deep enough into certain areas her name does come up, along with some claims for accomplishments during the Civil War that might seem outlandish to some.  And yet there is some basis for much of it, although much of that basis cannot be supported as far as she and her advocates would like.  This essay is one man’s attempt to provide some clarity on one particular claim that is made on her behalf, and for which she lobbied hard after the Civil War to get recognition and monetary compensation.

Miss Carroll was born and raised in a prominent Maryland Eastern Shore political family; her father was a Governor of the state in the early 1830s, and her great-grandfather was Charles Carrol of Carrolton, Secretary to the Second Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence.  She did write a number of pamphlets on presidential war powers (which have led some to give her credit for inspiring the Emancipation Proclamation; we take no position on that claim here.). 

Our interest here, however, is in her claim to have come up with the plan to use the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, instead of the Mississippi River, as avenues of invasion of the Confederacy—in essence then, to have authored the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign.  This claim is founded upon a meeting which Carroll had with Charles Scott, a riverboat pilot, during a trip she took west in the fall of 1861, followed by a November 30 interview with Assistant Secretary of War Thomas A. Scott.  It has largely (and effectively) been answered by Kenneth P. Williams, in [KPW].  Here we will outline the basis for the claim, largely from [AEC] and [C], then discuss the refutation, with direct references to the material used in [KPW].  The article [L] is also useful in understanding this controversy.

The notion that the Mississippi River would be used as a major avenue of invasion of the Confederacy is based on Gen. Winfield Scott’s “Anaconda Plan,” first outlined in a May 3, 1861, letter to Maj. Gen. George McClellan, then serving as Ohio’s commander of militia [OR1].  The crux of Anna Ella Carroll’s claim is that her interview with Charles Scott indicated a number of reasons to prefer the Tennessee or Cumberland Rivers, and she claimed to have conveyed this information to Assistant Secretary of War Thomas A. Scott in November of 1861.  However, as Prof. Williams points out [KPW], due to the seizure of Paducah, Kentucky on Sept. 6, 1861, by troops under the overall command of Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, it appears that the Tennessee was being considered as an invasion route two months before Carroll’s meeting with Thomas Scott.  Shortly thereafter (Oct. 12, 1861), the U.S.S. Conestoga, a “timberclad” gunboat under the command of Lt. Seth Ledyard Phelps, made a reconnaissance of Fort Henry, situated on the Tennessee River [ORN].  Williams asserts that these actions indicated a movement away from the Mississippi as the preferred avenue of invasion.

In addition, on November 20, 1861---10 days before Carroll's interview with Scott---Col. Charles Whittlesey, serving as an Engineering Officer in Cincinnati, wrote to Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck, commanding the Department of the Missouri, about using the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers as avenues of invasion into the Confederacy [OR4].  According to E.B. Long, writing in [L], as early as September 5, 1861, Maj. Gen. John C. Fremont, commanding the Department of the West (which became the Department of the Missouri when Fremont was replaced by Halleck in November), was considering a thrust up the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, in order "to enter the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi."  At about the same time, Col. (later, Major General) Lew Wallace, as he recalled when writing his Autobiography [L, WA], had a meeting with his immediate superior, Brig. Gen. C.F. Smith, in which Smith pointed out the Tennessee and Cumberland as fruitful avenues of advance.

The big problem for Carroll's clains is that everyone had maps, and those with military training---or even a decent amount of common sense---could see that the Tennessee and Cumberland were like a pair of daggers aimed at the Confederacy's vitals [L].

However, it is entirely likely that Carroll’s meeting with Thomas Scott was the means by which the Tennessee/Cumberland route of invasion was conveyed to President Lincoln.  Carroll’s error, in her postwar efforts to seek compensation for her efforts, seems to lie in assuming that Grant’s February strike up the Tennessee and Cumberland was directed from Washington.  The record is very clear that the impetus came from Grant and Foote [OR2], and the authorization came from Halleck [OR3].  Carroll appears to have assumed that the fact that the advance followed the course she had suggested to Ass’t Sec’y of War Thomas Scott meant that Lincoln had ordered it, thus the credit was hers.  In fact, he had not; the attack was conceived by Foote and Grant, then ordered by Halleck.

Miss Carroll might well deserve credit for much that supported the Lincoln Administration in 1861—62.  The advance along the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers is not any part of that. 

Bibliography

[AEC] Anna Ella Carroll, “Plan of the Tennessee Campaign,” North American Review, vol. 142, no. 353, 1886, pp. 342—347. 

[C] Janet L. Coryell, “Anna Ella Carroll and the Historians,” Civil War History, vol. 35, no. 2, 1989, pp. 120—137.

[CS] Charles M. Scott, The Origins of the Tennessee Campaign, Terre Haute, 1889. 

[KPW] Kenneth P. Williams, “The Tennessee River Campaign and Anna Ella Carroll,” Indiana Magazine of History, vol. 46, no. 3, 1950, pp. 221—248.

[L]  E.B. Long, "Anna Ella Carroll, Exaggerated Heroine?", Civil War Times Illustrated, July, 1975.

[OR1] Official Records, Series 1, Vol. LI, Part 1, pp. 369—370.

[OR2] Official Records, Series 1, Vol. VII, pp. 120-121.

[OR3] Official Records, Series 1, Vol. VII, p.121.

[OR4] Official Records, Series 1, Vol. VII, p.440.

[ORN] Official Records (Navies), Series 1, Vol. XXII, p. 371.

[WA] Lew Wallace, Autobiography, Vol. 1, p. 340.