Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

South Texas, 1864–1867 429
a year earlier. Pile found conditions at Brazos Santiago far from satisfactory and
blamed his predecessor in command, the colonel of the 91st Illinois. The previous
ordnance officer, Pile reported, had been “inefficient and negligent. In this he took
pattern from the Comdg Officer of these Forces. The whole command except the
62d USCI (just arrived) being without discipline . . . and performing their duties
very inefficiently.” The garrison lacked a shallow-draft boat for travel along the
coast; its horses were “broken down and diseased,” left behind by the expedition
that had seized the island a year earlier; hospital patients lay in tents that were often
blown down and shredded by squalls from the Gulf of Mexico; the commissary
officer sold Army beef to civilians; the quartermaster provided passage to New
Orleans on government steamers for civilians who paid in gold. Pile set to work at
once to clean house. 9
He ought to have known better than to expect that any supplies he requested,
such as lumber to build a windbreak for the hospital tents, would come at once to
a backwater outpost like Brazos Santiago. After a month on the island, Pile asked
for another infantry regiment to replace the 91st Illinois and additions of cavalry
and heavy artillery to his command. “If I had 500 cavalry I could inflict material
damage” on the Confederates at Brownsville, he wrote to Department of the Gulf
headquarters in New Orleans. “Is it desired that I do anything on the mainland? I
would like to take a command to Brownsville, if it is the intention of the military
authorities to occupy this coast; if not, I desire to be transferred to another command.”
Pile’s letter passed on to even higher headquarters, the Military Division
of West Mississippi. There, Maj. Gen. Edward R. S. Canby remarked that “the
first duty of an officer is to do the best he can with the means at his command, and
not to ask to be relieved because his superior officers may find it impracticable or
inexpedient to increase his resources.” 10
Despite Canby’s rebuke, Pile received a few things he had asked for. On 26
November, in one of the consolidations that befell understrength Louisiana regiments,
the enlisted men of the 95th merged with those of the 87th. The new organization
at first received the number 81, until word arrived that there was already a
regiment of that number. Since the consolidation had left the number 87 vacant, the
new regiment became the 87th USCI (New). Slow communications and conflicting
regional authorities ensured that such confusion occurred repeatedly throughout
the war. The decision to discharge nearly three-quarters of the officers of the old
87th and 95th, retaining only fourteen of the forty-eight, seemed to confirm Pile’s
assessment of their aptitude. Late in December, the 91st Illinois left Brazos Santiago
for New Orleans, trading places with the 34th Indiana. 11
Pile got another of his wishes in February 1865, when he received orders to
join General Canby’s expedition against Mobile. Arriving in New Orleans, he requested
the assignment of two regiments to the expedition: the 81st USCI, which
9 OR, ser. 1, vol. 41, pt. 4, pp. 448–49, 676 (“broken down”); Brig Gen W. A. Pile to Maj G. B.
Drake, 28 Nov 1864 (“inefficient and”), Entry 5515, Mil Div of West Mississippi, Letters Received
(LR), pt. 1, Geographical Divs and Depts, Record Group (RG) 393, Rcds of U.S. Army Continental
Cmds, National Archives (NA).
10 OR, ser. 1, vol. 41, pt. 4, pp. 767–68.
11 Dyer, Compendium, pp. 1085, 1133, 1737; Official Army Register of the Volunteer Force of
the United States Army, 8 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Adjutant General’s Office, 1867), 8: 267–68, 276