Confederate Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston hoped to reverse a series of Rebel losses in the Western Theater by surprising Union Brig. Gen. U.S. Grant’s forces near Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River.
Grant had easily defeated some of Johnston’s subordinates at Fort Donelson and Fort Henry. Nashville had fallen without a whimper to Union Gen. Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio.
Johnston, a Texan, was regarded as one of the best, field commanders active in the U.S. Army when he resigned and joined the CSA. He was held in even higher regard than Robert E. Lee, particularly by his U.S. Military Academy classmate and friend, Jefferson Davis, who had given him an impossible mission.
Appointed a full general in August 1861, Johnston assumed command of Department No. 2 (the Western Department) the following month. He was placed in direct command of what was initially called the Army of Central Kentucky.
Davis had assigned his friend to defend a line from the Appalachian mountains across the Mississippi River to the Kansas territory. He had, at first, only 20,000 poorly (or often non) equipped, inexperienced soldiers.
While Johnston was trying to form an army, another U.S. Army veteran, William J. Hardee, was ordered to gather a brigade of Arkansas troops. Episcopal Bishop Leonidas Polk, a U.S. Military Academy graduate, joined theater No. 2 as a lieutenant general. With a force of 5,000 men, Polk seized the town of Columbus, Ky on Sept. 3, 1861. On Nov. 7, 1861, Polk defeated Grant at Belmont, Mo. It was Grant’s first action in command.