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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Captains of the Civil War, by Wood
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+Title: Captains of the Civil War, A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray
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+Author: William Wood
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+May, 2001  [Etext #2649]
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Captains of the Civil War, by Wood
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+THIS BOOK, VOLUME 31 IN THE CHRONICLES OF AMERICA SERIES, ALLEN
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+THIS BOOK, VOLUME 31 IN THE CHRONICLES OF AMERICA SERIES, ALLEN
+JOHNSON, EDITOR, WAS DONATED TO PROJECT GUTENBERG BY THE JAMES J.
+KELLY LIBRARY OF ST. GREGORY'S UNIVERSITY; THANKS TO ALEV AKMAN.
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+Scanned by Dianne Bean.
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+
+CAPTAINS OF THE CIVIL WAR
+
+A CHRONICLE OF THE BLUE AND THE GRAY
+
+BY WILLIAM WOOD
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+Sixty years ago today the guns that thundered round Fort Sumter
+began the third and greatest modern civil war fought by
+English-speaking people. This war was quite as full of politics
+as were the other two--the War of the American Revolution and
+that of Puritan and Cavalier. But, though the present Chronicle
+never ignores the vital correlations between statesmen and
+commanders, it is a book of warriors, through and through.
+
+I gratefully acknowledge the indispensable assistance of Colonel
+G. J. Fiebeger, a West Point expert, and of Dr. Allen Johnson,
+chief editor of the series and Professor of American History at
+Yale.
+
+WILLIAM WOOD,
+
+Late Colonel commanding 8th Royal Rifles, and Officer-in-charge,
+Canadian Special Mission Overseas.
+
+QUEBEC, April 18, 1921, CONTENTS
+
+I. THE CLASH: 1861
+
+II. THE COMBATANTS
+
+III. THE NAVAL WAR: 1862
+
+IV. THE RIVER WAR: 1861
+
+V. LINCOLN: WAR STATESMAN
+
+VI. LEE AND JACKSON: 1862-3
+
+VII. GRANT WINS THE RIVER WAR: 1863 VIII. GETTYSBURG: 1863
+
+IX. FARRAGUT AND THE NAVY: 1863-4
+
+X. GRANT ATTACKS THE FRONT: 1864
+
+XI. SHERMAN DESTROYS THE BASE: 1864
+
+XII. THE END: 1865
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+
+CAPTAINS OF THE CIVIL WAR
+
+CHAPTER I. THE CLASH: 1861
+
+States which claimed a sovereign right to secede from the Union
+naturally claimed the corresponding right to resume possession of
+all the land they had ceded to that Union's Government for the
+use of its naval and military posts. So South Carolina, after
+leading the way to secession on December 20,1860, at once began
+to work for the retrocession of the forts defending her famous
+cotton port of Charleston. These defenses, being of vital
+consequence to both sides, were soon to attract the strained
+attention of the whole country.
+
+There were three minor forts: Castle Pinckney, dozing away, in
+charge of a solitary sergeant, on an island less than a mile from
+the city; Fort Moultrie, feebly garrisoned and completely at the
+mercy of attackers on its landward side; and Fort Johnson over on
+James Island. Lastly, there was the world-renowned Fort Sumter,
+which then stood, unfinished and ungarrisoned, on a little islet
+beside the main ship channel, at the entrance to the harbor, and
+facing Fort Moultrie just a mile away. The proper war garrison of
+all the forts should have been over a thousand men. The actual
+garrison--including officers, band, and the Castle Pinckney
+sergeant--was less than a hundred. It was, however, loyal to the
+Union; and its commandant, Major Robert Anderson, though born in
+the slave-owning State of Kentucky, was determined to fight.
+
+The situation, here as elsewhere, was complicated by Floyd,
+President Buchanan's Secretary of War, soon to be forced out of
+office on a charge of misapplying public funds. Floyd, as an
+ardent Southerner, was using the last lax days of the Buchanan
+Government to get the army posts ready for capitulation whenever
+secession should have become an accomplished fact. He urged on
+construction, repairs, and armament at Charleston, while refusing
+to strengthen the garrison, in order, as he said, not to provoke
+Carolina. Moreover, in November he had replaced old Colonel
+Gardner, a Northern veteran of "1812," by Anderson the
+Southerner, in whom he hoped to find a good capitulator. But this
+time Floyd was wrong.
+
+The day after Christmas Anderson's little garrison at Fort
+Moultrie slipped over to Fort Sumter under cover of the dark,
+quietly removed Floyd's workmen, who were mostly Baltimore
+Secessionists, and began to prepare for. defense. Next morning
+Charleston was furious and began to prepare for attack. The South
+Carolina authorities at once took formal possession of Pinckney
+and Moultrie; and three days later seized the United States
+Arsenal in Charleston itself. Ten days later again, on January 9,
+1861, the Star of the West, a merchant vessel coming in with
+reinforcements and supplies for Anderson, was fired on and forced
+to turn back. Anderson, who had expected a man-of-war, would not
+fire in her defense, partly because he still hoped there might
+yet be peace.
+
+While Charleston stood at gaze and Anderson at bay the ferment of
+secession was working fast in Florida, where another tiny
+garrison was all the Union had to hold its own. This garrison,
+under two loyal young lieutenants, Slemmer and Gilman, occupied
+Barrancas Barracks in Pensacola Bay. Late at night on the eighth
+of January (the day before the Star of the West was fired on at
+Charleston) some twenty Secessionists came to seize the old
+Spanish Fort San Carlos, where, up to that time, the powder had
+been kept. This fort, though lying close beside the barracks, had
+always been unoccupied; so the Secessionists looked forward to an
+easy capture. But, to their dismay, an unexpected guard
+challenged them, and, not getting the proper password in reply,
+dispersed them with the first shots of the Civil War.
+
+Commodore Armstrong sat idle at the Pensacola Navy Yard,
+distracted between the Union and secession. On the ninth Slemmer
+received orders from Winfield Scott, General-in-Chief at
+Washington, to use all means in defense of Union property. Next
+morning Slemmer and his fifty faithful men were landed on Santa
+Rosa Island, just one mile across the bay, where the dilapidated
+old Fort Pickens stood forlorn. Two days later the Commodore
+surrendered the Navy Yard, the Stars and Stripes were lowered,
+and everything ashore fell into the enemy's hands. There was no
+flagstaff at Fort Pickens; but the Union colors were at once hung
+out over the northwest bastion, in full view of the shore, while
+the Supply and Wyandotte, the only naval vessels in the bay, and
+both commanded by loyal men, mastheaded extra colors and stood
+clear. Five days afterwards they had to sail for New York; and
+Slemmer, whose total garrison had been raised to eighty by the
+addition of thirty sailors, was left to hold Fort Pickens if he
+could.
+
+He had already been summoned to surrender by Colonel Chase and
+Captain Farrand, who had left the United States Army and Navy for
+the service of the South. Chase, like many another Southern
+officer, was stirred to his inmost depths by his own change of
+allegiance. "I have come," he said, "to ask of you young
+officers, officers of the same army in which I have spent the
+best and happiest years of my life, the surrender of this fort;
+and fearing that I might not be able to say it as I ought, and
+also to have it in proper form, I have put it in writing and will
+read it." He then began to read. But his eyes filled with tears,
+and, stamping his foot, he said: "I can't read it. Here, Farrand,
+you read it." Farrand, however, pleading that his eyes were weak,
+handed the paper to the younger Union officer, saying, "Here,
+Gilman, you have good eyes, please read it." Slemmer refused to
+surrender and held out till reinforced in April, by which time
+the war had begun in earnest. Fort Pickens was never taken. On
+the contrary, it supported the bombardment of the Confederate
+longshore positions the next New Year (1869.) and witnessed the
+burning and evacuation of Pensacola the following ninth of May.
+
+While Charleston and Pensacola were fanning the flames of
+secession the wildfire was running round the Gulf, catching well
+throughout Louisiana, where the Governor ordered the state
+militia to seize every place belonging to the Union, and striking
+inland till it reached the farthest army posts in Texas. In all
+Louisiana the Union Government had only forty men. These occupied
+the Arsenal at Baton Rouge under Major Haskins. Haskins was
+loyal. But when five hundred state militiamen surrounded him, and
+his old brother-officer, the future Confederate General Bragg,
+persuaded him that the Union was really at an end, to all intents
+and purposes, and when he found no orders, no support, and not
+even any guidance from the Government at Washington, he
+surrendered with the honors of war and left by boat for St. Louis
+in Missouri.
+
+There was then in Louisiana another Union officer; but made of
+sterner stuff. This was Colonel W. T. Sherman, Superintendent of
+the State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy at
+Alexandria, up the Red River. He was much respected by all the
+state authorities, and was carefully watching over the two young
+sons of another future Confederate leader, General Beauregard.
+William Tecumseh Sherman had retired from the Army without seeing
+any war service, unlike Haskins, who was a one-armed veteran of
+the Mexican campaign. But Sherman was determined to stand by the
+Union, come what might. Yet he was equally determined to wind up
+the affairs of the State Academy so as to hand them over in
+perfect order. A few days after the seizure of the Arsenal, and
+before the formal secession of the State, he wrote to the
+Governor:
+
+"Sir: As I occupy a quasi-military position under the laws of the
+State, I deem it proper to acquaint you that I accepted such
+position when Louisiana was a State of the Union, and when the
+motto of this seminary was inserted in marble over the main door:
+"By the liberality of the General Government of the United
+States. The Union--esto perpetua." Recent events foreshadow a
+great change, and it becomes all men to choose .... I beg you to
+take immediate steps to relieve me as superintendent, the moment
+the State determines to secede, for on no earthly account will I
+do any act or think any thought hostile to, or in defiance of,
+the old Government of the United States."
+
+Then, to the lasting credit of all concerned, the future
+political enemies parted as the best of personal friends. Sherman
+left everything in perfect order, accounted for every cent of the
+funds, and received the heartiest thanks and best wishes of all
+the governing officials, who embodied the following sentence in
+their final resolution of April 1, 1861: "They cannot fail to
+appreciate the manliness of character which has always marked the
+actions of Colonel Sherman." Long before this Louisiana had
+seceded, and Sherman had gone north to Lancaster, Ohio, where he
+arrived about the time of Lincoln's inauguration.
+
+Meanwhile, on the eighteenth of February, the greatest of all
+surrenders had taken place in Texas, where nineteen army posts
+were handed over to the State by General Twiggs. San Antonio was
+swarming with Secessionist rangers. Unionist companies were
+marching up and down. The Federal garrison was leaving the town
+on parole, with the band playing Union airs and Union colors
+flying. The whole place was at sixes and sevens, and anything
+might have happened.
+
+In the midst of this confusion the colonel commanding the Second
+Regiment of United States Cavalry arrived from Fort Mason. He was
+on his way to Washington, where Winfield Scott, the veteran
+General-in-Chief, was anxiously waiting to see him; for this
+colonel was no ordinary man. He had been Scott's Chief of Staff
+in Mexico, where he had twice won promotion for service in the
+field. He had been a model Superintendent at West Point and an
+exceedingly good officer of engineers before he left them, on
+promotion, for the cavalry. Very tall and handsome, magnificently
+fit in body and in mind, genial but of commanding presence, this
+flower of Southern chivalry was not only every inch a soldier but
+a leader born and bred. Though still unknown to public fame he
+was the one man to whom the most insightful leaders of both sides
+turned, and rightly turned; for this was Robert Lee, Lee of
+Virginia, soon to become one of the very few really great
+commanders of the world.
+
+As Lee came up to the hotel at San Antonio he was warmly greeted
+by Mrs. Barrow, the anxious wife of the confidential clerk to
+Major Vinton, the staunch Union officer in charge of the pay and
+quartermaster services. "Who are those men?" he asked, pointing
+to the rangers, who wore red flannel shoulder straps. "They are
+McCulloch's," she answered; "General Twiggs surrendered
+everything, to the State this morning." Years after, when she and
+her husband and Vinton had suffered for one side and Lee had
+suffered for the other, she wrote her recollection of that
+memorable day in these few, telling words: "I shall never forget
+his look of astonishment, as, with his lips trembling and his
+eyes full of tears, he exclaimed, 'Has it come so soon as this?'
+In a short time I saw him crossing the plaza on his way to
+headquarters and noticed particularly that he was in citizen's
+dress. He returned at night and shut himself into his room, which
+was over mine; and I heard his footsteps through the night, and
+sometimes the murmur of his voice, as if he was praying. He
+remained at the hotel a week and in conversations declared that
+the position he held was a neutral one."
+
+Three other Union witnesses show how Lee agonized over the
+fateful decision he was being forced to make. Captain R. M.
+Potter says: "I have seldom seen a more distressed man. He said,
+'When I get to Virginia I think the world will have one soldier
+less. I shall resign and go to planting corn.'" Colonel Albert G.
+Brackett says: "Lee was filled with sorrow at the condition of
+affairs, and, in a letter to me, deploring the war in which we
+were about to engage, made use of these words: 'I fear the
+liberties of our country will be buried in the tomb of a great
+nation.'" Colonel Charles Anderson, quoting Lee's final words in
+Texas, carries us to the point of parting: "I still think my
+loyalty to Virginia ought to take precedence over that which is
+due to the Federal Government; and I shall so report myself in
+Washington. If Virginia stands by the old Union, so will I. But
+if she secedes (though I do not believe in secession as a
+constitutional right, nor that there is sufficient cause for
+revolution) then I will still follow my native State with my
+sword, and, if need be, with my life. I know you think and feel
+very differently. But I can't help it. These are my principles;
+and I must follow them."
+
+Lee reached Washington on the first of March. Lincoln, delivering
+his Inaugural on the fourth, brought the country one step nearer
+war by showing the neutrals how impossible it was to reconcile
+his, principles as President of the whole United States with
+those of Jefferson Davis as President of the seceding parts. "The
+power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess
+the property and places belonging to the government." Three days
+later the provisional Confederate Congress at Montgomery in
+Alabama passed an Army Act authorizing the enlistment of one
+hundred thousand men for one year's service. Nine days later
+again, having adopted a Constitution in the meantime, this
+Congress passed a Navy Act, authorizing the purchase or
+construction of ten little gunboats.
+
+In April the main storm center went whirling back to Charleston,
+where Sherman's old friend Beauregard commanded the forces that
+encircled Sumter. Sumter, still unfinished, had been designed for
+a garrison of six hundred and fifty combatant men. It now
+contained exactly sixty-five. It was to have been provisioned for
+six months. The actual supplies could not be made to last beyond
+two weeks. Both sides knew that Anderson's gallant little
+garrison must be starved out by the fifteenth. But the excited
+Carolinians would not wait, because they feared that the arrival
+of reinforcements might balk them of their easy prey. On the
+eleventh Beauregard, acting under orders from the Confederate
+Government, sent in a summons to surrender. Anderson refused. At
+a quarter to one the next morning the summons was repeated, as
+pilots had meanwhile reported a Federal vessel approaching the
+harbor. Anderson again refused and again admitted that he would
+be starved out on the fifteenth. Thereupon Beauregard's aides
+declared immediate surrender the only possible alternative to a
+bombardment and signed a note at 3:20 A.M. giving Anderson formal
+warning that fire would be opened in an hour.
+
+Fort Sumter stood about half a mile inside the harbor mouth,
+fully exposed to the converging fire of four relatively powerful
+batteries, three about a mile away, the fourth nearly twice as
+far. At the northern side of the harbor mouth stood Fort
+Moultrie; at the southern stood the batteries on Cummings Point;
+and almost due west of Sumter stood Fort Johnson. Near Moultrie
+was a four-gun floating battery with an iron shield. A mile
+northwest of Moultrie, farther up the harbor, stood the Mount
+Pleasant battery, nearly two miles off from Sumter. At half-past
+four, in the first faint light of a gray morning, a sudden spurt
+of flame shot out from Fort Johnson, the dull roar of a mortar
+floated through the misty air, and the big shell--the first shot
+of the real war--soared up at a steep angle, its course
+distinctly marked by its burning fuse, and then plunged down on
+Sumter. It was a capital shot, right on the center of the target,
+and was followed by an admirable burst. Then all the converging
+batteries opened full; while the whole population of perfervid
+Charleston rushed out of doors to throng their beautiful East
+Battery, a flagstone marine parade three miles in from Sumter, of
+which and of the attacking batteries it had a perfect view.
+
+But Sumter remained as silent as the grave. Anderson decided not
+to return the fire till it was broad daylight. In the meantime
+all ranks went to breakfast, which consisted entirely of water
+and salt pork. Then the gun crews went to action stations and
+fired back steadily with solid shot. The ironclad battery was an
+exasperating target; for the shot bounced off it like dried peas.
+Moultrie seemed more vulnerable. But appearances were deceptive;
+for it was thoroughly quilted with bales of cotton, which the
+solid shot simply rammed into an impenetrable mass. Wishing to
+save his men, in which he was quite successful, Anderson had
+forbidden the use of the shell-guns, which were mounted on the
+upper works and therefore more exposed. Shell fire would have
+burst the bales and set the cotton flaming. This was so evident
+that Sergeant Carmody, unable to stand such futile practice any
+longer, quietly stole up to the loaded guns and fired them in
+succession. The aim lacked final correction; and the result was
+small, except that Moultrie, thinking itself in danger,
+concentrated all its efforts on silencing these guns. The
+silencing seemed most effective; for Carmody could not reload
+alone, and so his first shots were his last.
+
+At nightfall Sumter ceased fire while the Confederates kept on
+slowly till daylight. Next morning the officers' quarters were
+set on fire by red-hot shot. Immediately the Confederates
+redoubled their efforts. Inside Sumter the fire was creeping
+towards the magazine, the door of which was shut only just in
+time. Then the flagstaff was shot down. Anderson ran his colors
+up again, but the situation was rapidly becoming impossible. Most
+of the worn-out men were fighting the flames while a few were
+firing at long intervals to show they would not yet give in. This
+excited the generous admiration of the enemy, who cheered the
+gallantry of Sumter while sneering at the caution of the Union
+fleet outside. The fact was, however, that this so-called fleet
+was a mere assemblage of vessels quite unable to fight the
+Charleston batteries and without the slightest chance of saving
+Sumter.
+
+Having done his best for the honor of the flag, though not a man
+was killed within the walls, Anderson surrendered in the
+afternoon. Charleston went wild with joy; but applauded the
+generosity of Beauregard's chivalrous terms. Next day, Sunday the
+fourteenth, Anderson's little garrison saluted the Stars and
+Stripes with fifty guns, and then, with colors flying, marched
+down on board a transport to the strains of Yankee Doodle.
+
+Strange to say, after being four years in Confederate hands,
+Sumter was recaptured by the Union forces on the anniversary of
+its surrender. It was often bombarded, though never taken, in the
+meantime.
+
+The fall of Sumter not only fired all Union loyalty but made
+Confederates eager for the fray. The very next day Lincoln called
+for 75,000 three-month volunteers. Two days later Confederate
+letters of marque were issued to any privateers that would prey
+on Union shipping. Two days later again Lincoln declared a
+blockade of every port from South Carolina round to Texas. Eight
+days afterwards he extended it to North Carolina and Virginia.
+
+But in the meantime Lincoln had been himself marooned in
+Washington. On the nineteenth of April, the day he declared his
+first blockade, the Sixth Massachusetts were attacked by a mob in
+Baltimore, through which the direct rails ran from North to
+South. Baltimore was full of secession, and the bloodshed roused
+its fury. Maryland was a border slave State out of which the
+District of Columbia was carved. Virginia had just seceded. So
+when the would-be Confederates of Maryland, led by the Mayor of
+Baltimore, began tearing up rails, burning bridges, and cutting
+the wires, the Union Government found itself enisled in a hostile
+sea. Its own forces abandoned the Arsenal at Harper's Ferry and
+the Navy Yard at Norfolk. The work of demolition at Harper's
+Ferry had to be bungled off in haste, owing to shortness of time
+and lack of means. The demolition of Norfolk was better done, and
+the ships were sunk at anchor. But many valuable stores fell into
+enemy hands at both these Virginian outposts of the Federal
+forces. Through six long days of dire suspense not a ship, not a
+train, came into Washington. At last, on the twentyfifth, the
+Seventh New York got through, having come south by boat with the
+Eighth Massachusetts, landed at Annapolis, and commandeered a
+train to run over relaid rails. With them came the news that all
+the loyal North was up, that the Seventh had marched through
+miles of cheering patriots in New York, and that these two fine
+regiments were only the vanguard of a host.
+
+But just a week before Lincoln experienced this inexpressible
+relief he lost, and his enemy won, a single officer, who,
+according to Winfield Scott, was alone worth more than fifty
+thousand veteran men. On the seventeenth of April Virginia voted
+for secession. On the eighteenth Lee had a long confidential
+interview with his old chief, Winfield Scott. On the twentieth he
+resigned, writing privately to Scott at the same time: "My
+resignation would have been presented at once but for the
+struggle it has cost me to separate myself from a service to
+which I have devoted the best years of my life. During the whole
+of that time I have experienced nothing but kindness from my
+superiors and a most cordial friendship from my comrades. I shall
+carry to the grave the most grateful recollections of your kind
+consideration, and your name and fame shall always be dear to me.
+Save in the defense of my native State I never desire again to
+draw my sword."
+
+The three great motives which finally determined his momentous
+course of action were: first, his aversion from taking any part
+in coercing the home folks of Virginia; secondly, his belief in
+State rights, tempered though it was by admiration for the Union;
+and thirdly, his clear perception that war was now inevitable,
+and that defeat for the South would inevitably mean a violent
+change of all the ways of Southern life, above all, a change
+imposed by force from outside, instead of the gradual change he
+wished to see effected from within. He was opposed to slavery;
+and both his own and his wife's slaves had long been free. Like
+his famous lieutenant, Stonewall Jackson, he was particularly
+kind to the blacks; none of whom ever wanted to leave, once they
+had been domiciled at Arlington, the estate that came to him
+through his wife, Mary Custis, great-granddaughter of Martha
+Washington. But, like Lincoln before the war, he wished
+emancipation to come from the slave States themselves, as in time
+it must have come, with due regard for compensation.
+
+On the twenty-third of this eventful April Lee was given the
+chief command of all Virginia's forces. Three days later "Joe"
+Johnston took command of the Virginians at Richmond. One day
+later again "Stonewall" Jackson took command at Harper's Ferry.
+Johnston played a great and noble part throughout the war; and we
+shall meet him again and again, down to the very end. But Jackson
+claims our first attention here.
+
+Like all the great leaders on both sides Jackson had been an
+officer of regulars. He was, however, in many ways unlike the
+army type. He disliked society amusements, was awkward, shy,
+reserved, and apparently recluse. Moderately tall, with large
+hands and feet, stiff in his movements, ungainly in the saddle,
+he was a mere nobody in public estimation when the war broke out.
+A few brother-officers had seen his consummate skill and bravery
+as a subaltern in Mexico; and still fewer close acquaintances had
+seen his sterling qualities at Lexington, where, for ten years,
+he had been a professor at the Virginia Military Institute. But
+these few were the only ones who were not surprised when this
+recluse of peace suddenly became a very thunderbolt of
+war--Puritan in soul, Cavalier in daring: a Cromwell come to life
+again.
+
+Harper's Ferry was a strategic point in northern Virginia. It was
+the gate to the Shenandoah Valley as well as the point where the
+Baltimore and Ohio Railroad crossed the Potomac some sixty miles
+northwest of Washington. Harper's Ferry was known by name to
+North and South through John Brown's raid two years before. It
+was now coveted by Virginia for its Arsenal as well as for its
+command of road, rail, and water routes. The plan to raid it was
+arranged at Richmond on the sixteenth of April. But when the
+raiders reached it on the eighteenth they found it abandoned and
+its Arsenal in flames. The machine shops, however, were saved, as
+well as the metal parts of twenty thousand stand of arms. Then
+the Virginia militiamen and volunteers streamed in, to the number
+of over four thousand. They were a mere conglomeration of
+semi-independent units, mostly composed of raw recruits under
+officers who themselves knew next to nothing. As usual with such
+fledgling troops there was no end to the fuss and feathers among
+the members of the busybody staffs, who were numerous enough to
+manage an army but clumsy enough to spoil a platoon. It was said,
+and not without good reason, that there was as much gold lace at
+Harper's Ferry, when the sun was shining, as at a grand review in
+Paris.
+
+Into this gaudy assemblage rode Thomas Jonathan Jackson, mounted
+on Little Sorrel, a horse as unpretentious as himself, and
+dressed in his faded old blue professor's uniform without one
+gleam of gold. He had only two staff officers, both dressed as
+plainly as himself. He was not a major-general, nor even a
+brigadier; just a colonel. He held no trumpeting reviews. He made
+no flowery speeches. He didn't even swear. The armed mob at
+Harper's Ferry felt that they would lose caste on Sunday
+afternoons under a commandant like this. Their feelings were
+still more outraged when they heard that every officer above the
+rank of captain was to lose his higher rank, and that all new
+reappointments were to be made on military merit and direct from
+Richmond. Companies accustomed to elect their officers according
+to the whim of the moment eagerly joined the higher officers in
+passing adverse resolutions. But authorities who were unanimous
+for Lee were not to be shaken by such absurdities in face of a
+serious war. And when the froth had been blown off the top, and
+the dregs drained out of the bottom, the solid mass between, who
+really were sound patriots, settled down to work.
+
+There was seven hours' drill every day except Sunday; no light
+task for a mere armed mob groping its ignorant way, however
+zealously, towards the organized efficiency of a real army. The
+companies had to be formed into workable battalions, the
+battalions into brigades. There was a deplorable lack of cavalry,
+artillery, engineers, commissariat, transport, medical services,
+and, above all, staff. Armament was bad; other munitions were
+worse. There would have been no chance whatever of holding
+Harper's Ferry unless the Northern conglomeration had been even
+less like a fighting army than the Southern was.
+
+Harper's Ferry was not only important in itself but still more
+important for what it covered: the wonderfully fruitful
+Shenandoah Valley, running southwest a hundred and forty miles to
+the neighborhood of Lexington, with an average width of only
+twenty-four. Bounded on the west by the Alleghanies and on the
+east by the long Blue Ridge this valley was a regular covered way
+by which the Northern invaders might approach, cut Virginia in
+two (for West Virginia was then a part of the State) and, after
+devastating the valley itself (thus destroying half the foodbase
+of Virginia) attack eastern Virginia through whichever gaps might
+serve the purpose best. More than this, the only direct line from
+Richmond to the Mississippi ran just below the southwest end of
+the valley, while a network of roads radiated from Winchester
+near the northeast end, thirty miles southwest of Harper's Ferry.
+
+Throughout the month of May Jackson went on working his men into
+shape and watching the enemy, three thousand strong, at
+Chambersburg, forty-five miles north of Harper's Ferry, and
+twelve thousand strong farther north still. One day he made a
+magnificent capture of rolling stock on the twenty-seven miles of
+double track that centered in Harper's Ferry. This greatly
+hampered the accumulation of coal at Washington besides helping
+the railroads of the South. Destroying the line was out of the
+question, because it ran through West Virginia and Maryland, both
+of which he hoped to see on the Confederate side. He was himself
+a West Virginian, born at Clarksburg; and it grieved him greatly
+when West Virginia stood by the Union.
+
+Apart from this he did nothing spectacular. The rest was all just
+sheer hard work. He kept his own counsel so carefully that no one
+knew anything about what he would do if the enemy advanced. Even
+the officers of outposts were forbidden to notice or mention his
+arrival or departure on his constant tours of inspection, lest a
+longer look than usual at any point might let an awkward
+inference be drawn. He was the sternest of disciplinarians when
+the good of the service required it. But no one knew better that
+the finest discipline springs from self-sacrifice willingly made
+for a worthy cause; and no one was readier to help all ranks
+along toward real efficiency in the kindest possible way when he
+saw they were doing their best.
+
+At the end of May Johnston took over the command of the
+increasing force at Harper's Ferry, while Jackson was given the
+First Shenandoah Brigade, a unit soon, like himself, to be raised
+by service into fame.
+
+
+On the first and third of May Virginia issued calls for more men;
+and on the third Lincoln, who quite understood the signs of the
+times, called for men whose term of service would be three years
+and not three months.
+
+Just a week later Missouri was saved for the Union by the daring
+skill of two determined leaders, Francis P. Blair, a Member of
+Congress who became a good major-general, and Captain Nathaniel
+Lyon, an excellent soldier, who commanded the little garrison of
+regulars at St. Louis. When Lincoln called upon Governor
+Claiborne Jackson to supply Missouri's quota of three-month
+volunteers the Governor denounced the proposed coercion as
+"illegal, unconstitutional, revolutionary, inhuman, and
+diabolical"; and thereafter did his best to make Missouri join
+the South. But Blair and Lyon were too quick for him. Blair
+organized the Home Guards, whom Lyon armed from the arsenal. Lyon
+then sent all the surplus arms and stores across the river into
+Illinois, while he occupied the most commanding position near the
+arsenal with his own troops, thus forestalling the Confederates,
+under Brigadier-General D. M. Frost, who was now forced to
+establish Camp Jackson in a far less favorable place. So
+vigorously had Blair and Lyon worked that they had armed
+thousands while Frost had only armed hundreds. But when Frost
+received siege guns and mortars from farther south Lyon felt the
+time had come for action.
+
+Lyon was a born leader, though Grant and Sherman (then in St.
+Louis as junior ex-officers, quite unknown to fame) were almost
+the only men, apart from Blair, to see any signs of preeminence
+in this fiery little redheaded, weather-beaten captain, who kept
+dashing about the arsenal, with his pockets full of papers,
+making sure of every detail connected with the handful of
+regulars and the thousands of Home Guards.
+
+On the ninth of May Lyon borrowed an old dress from Blair's
+mother-in-law, completing the disguise with a thickly veiled
+sunbonnet, and drove through Camp Jackson. That night he and
+Blair attended a council of war, at which, overcoming all
+opposition, answering all objections, and making all
+arrangements, they laid their plans for the morrow. When Lyon's
+seven thousand surrounded Frost's seven hundred the Confederates
+surrendered at discretion and were marched as prisoners through
+St. Louis. There were many Southern sympathizers among the crowds
+in the streets; one of them fired a pistol; and the Home Guards
+fired back, killing several women and children by mistake. This
+unfortunate incident hardened many neutrals and even Unionists
+against the Union forces; so much so that Sterling Price, a
+Unionist and former governor, became a Confederate general, whose
+field for recruiting round Jefferson City on the Missouri
+promised a good crop of enemies to the Union cause.
+
+Lyon and Blair wished to march against Price immediately and
+smash every hostile force while still in the act of forming. But
+General Harney, who commanded the Department of the West,
+returned to St. Louis the day after the shooting and made peace
+instead of war with Price. By the end of the month, however,
+Lincoln removed Harney and promoted Lyon in his place; whereupon
+Price and Governor Jackson at once prepared to fight. Then sundry
+neutrals, of the gabbling kind who think talk enough will settle
+anything, induced the implacables to meet in St. Louis. The
+conference was ended by Lyon's declaration that he would see
+every Missourian under the sod before he would take any orders
+from the State about any Federal matter, however small. "This,"
+he said in conclusion, "means war." And it did.
+
+Again a single week sufficed for the striking of the blow. The
+conference was held on the eleventh of June. On the fourteenth
+Lyon reached Jefferson City only to find that the Governor had
+decamped for Boonville, still higher up the Missouri. Here, on
+the seventeenth, Lyon attacked him with greatly superior numbers
+and skill, defeated him utterly, and sent him flying south with
+only a few hundred followers left. Boonville was, in itself, a
+very small affair indeed. But it had immense results. Lyon had
+seized the best strategic point of rail and river junction on the
+Mississippi by holding St. Louis. He had also secured supremacy
+in arms, munitions, and morale. By turning the Governor out of
+Jefferson City, the State capital, he had deprived the
+Confederates of the prestige and convenience of an acknowledged
+headquarters. Now, by defeating him at Boonville and driving his
+forces south in headlong flight he had practically made the whole
+Missouri River a Federal line of communication as well as a
+barrier between would-be Confederates to the north and south of
+it. More than this, the possession of Boonville struck a fatal
+blow at Confederate recruiting and organization throughout the
+whole of that strategic area; for Boonville was the center to
+which pro-Southern Missourians were flocking. The tide of battle
+was to go against the Federals at Wilson's Creek in the southwest
+of the State, and even at Lexington on the Missouri, as we shall
+presently see; but this was only the breaking of the last
+Confederate waves. As a State, Missouri was lost to the South
+already.
+
+In Kentucky, the next border State, opinions were likewise
+divided; and Kentuckians fought each other with help from both
+sides. Anderson, of Fort Sumter fame, was appointed to the
+Kentucky command in May. But here the crisis did not occur for
+months, while a border campaign was already being fought in West
+Virginia.
+
+West Virginia, which became a separate State during the war, was
+strongly Federal, like eastern Tennessee. These Federal parts of
+two Confederate States formed a wedge dangerous to the whole
+South, especially to Virginia and the Carolinas. Each side
+therefore tried to control this area itself. The Federals, under
+McClellan, of whom we shall soon hear more, had two lines of
+invasion into West Virginia, both based on the Ohio. The northern
+converged by rail, from Wheeling and Parkersburg, on Grafton, the
+only junction in West Virginia. The southern ran up the Great
+Kanawha, with good navigation to Charleston and water enough for
+small craft on to Gauley Bridge, which was the strategic point.
+
+In May the Confederates cut the line near Grafton. As this broke
+direct communication between the West and Washington, McClellan
+sent forces from which two flying columns, three thousand strong,
+converged on Philippi, fifteen miles south of Grafton, and
+surprised a thousand Confederates. These thereupon retired, with
+little loss, to Beverly, thirty miles farther south still. Here
+there was a combat at Rich Mountain on the eleventh of July. The
+Confederates again retreated, losing General Garnett in a
+skirmish the following day. This ended McClellan's own campaign
+in West Virginia. But the Kanawha campaign, which lasted till
+November, had only just begun, with Rosecrans as successor to
+McClellan (who had been recalled to Washington for very high
+command) and with General Jacob D. Cox leading the force against
+Gauley. The Confederates did all they could to keep their
+precarious foothold. They sent political chiefs, like Henry A.
+Wise, ex-Governor of Virginia, and John B. Floyd, the late
+Federal Secretary of War, both of whom were now Confederate
+brigadiers. They even sent Lee himself in general commend. But,
+confronted by superior forces in a difficult and thoroughly
+hostile country, they at last retired east of the Alleghanies,
+which thenceforth became the frontier of two warring States.
+
+The campaign in West Virginia was a foregone conclusion. It was
+not marked by any real battles; and there was no scope for
+exceptional skill of the higher kind on either side. But it made
+McClellan's bubble reputation.
+
+McClellan was an ex-captain of United States Engineers who had
+done very well at West Point, had distinguished himself in
+Mexico, had represented the American army with the Allies in the
+Crimea, had written a good official report on his observations
+there, had become manager of a big railroad after leaving the
+service, and had so impressed people with his ability and modesty
+on the outbreak of war that his appointment to the chief command
+in West Virginia was hailed with the utmost satisfaction. Then
+came the two affairs at Philippi and Rich Mountain, the first of
+which was planned and carried out by other men, while the second
+was, if anything, spoiled by himself; for here, as afterwards on
+a vastly greater scene of action, he failed to strike home at the
+critical moment.
+
+Yet though he failed in arms he won by proclamations; so much so,
+in fact, that WORDS NOT DEEDs might well have been his motto. He
+began with a bombastic address to the inhabitants and ended with
+another to his troops, whom he congratulated on having
+"annihilated two armies, commanded by educated and experienced
+soldiers, intrenched in mountain fastnesses fortified at their
+leisure."
+
+It disastrously happened that the Union public were hungering for
+heroes at this particular time and that Union journalists were
+itching to write one up to the top of their bent. So all
+McClellan's tinsel was counted out for gold before an avaricious
+mob of undiscriminating readers; and when, at the height of the
+publicity campaign, the Government wanted to retrieve Bull Run
+they turned to the ''Man of Destiny" who had been given the
+noisiest advertisement as the "Young Napoleon of the West."
+McClellan had many good qualities for organization, and even some
+for strategy. An excited press and public, however, would not
+acclaim him for what he was but for what he most decidedly was
+not.
+
+
+Meanwhile, before McClellan went to Washington and Lee to West
+Virginia, the main Union army had been disastrously defeated by
+the main Confederate army at Bull Run, on that vital ground which
+lay between the rival capitals.
+
+In April Lincoln had called for three-month volunteers. In May
+the term of service for new enlistments was three years. In June
+the military chiefs at Washington were vainly doing all that
+military men could do to make something like the beginnings of an
+army out of the conglomerating mass. Winfield Scott, the veteran
+General-in-Chief, rightly revered by the whole service as a most
+experienced, farsighted, and practical man, was ably assisted by
+W. T. Sherman and Irvin McDowell. But civilian interference
+ruined all. Even Lincoln had not yet learned the quintessential
+difference between that civil control by which the fighting
+services are so rightly made the real servants of the whole
+people and that civilian interference which is very much the same
+as if a landlubber owning, a ship should grab the wheel
+repeatedly in the middle of a storm. Simon Cameron, then
+Secretary of War, was good enough as a party politician, but all
+thumbs when fumbling with the armies in the field. The other
+members of the Cabinet had war nostrums of their own; and every
+politician with a pull did what he could to use it. Behind all
+these surged a clamorous press and an excited people, both
+patriotic and well meaning; but both wholly ignorant of war, and
+therefore generating a public opinion that forced the not
+unwilling Government to order an armed mob "on to Richmond"
+before it had the slightest chance of learning how to be an army.
+
+The Congress that met on the Fourth of July voted five hundred
+thousand men and two hundred and fifty million dollars. This
+showed that the greatness of the war was beginning to be seen.
+But the men, the money, and the Glorious Fourth were so blurred
+together in the public mind that the distinction between a vote
+in Congress and its effect upon some future battlefield was never
+realized. The result was a new access of zeal for driving
+McDowell "on to Richmond." Making the best of a bad business,
+Scott had already begun his preparations for the premature
+advance.
+
+By the end of May Confederate pickets had been in sight of
+Washington, while McDowell, crossing the Potomac, was faced by
+his friend of old West Point and Mexican days, General
+Beauregard, fresh from the capture of Fort Sumter. By the
+beginning of July General Patterson, a veteran of "1812" and
+Mexico, was in command up the Potomac near Harper's Ferry. He was
+opposed by "Joe" Johnston, who had taken over that Confederate
+command from "Stonewall" Jackson. Down the Potomac and Chesapeake
+Bay there was nothing to oppose the Union navy. General Benjamin
+Butler, threatening Richmond in flank, along the lower
+Chesapeake, was watched by the Confederates Huger and Magruder.
+Meanwhile, as eve have seen already, the West Virginian campaign
+was in full swing, with superior Federal forces under McClellan.
+
+Thus the general situation in July was that the whole of
+northeastern Virginia was faced by a semicircle of superior
+forces which began at the Kanawha River, ran northeast to
+Grafton, then northeast to Cumberland, then along the Potomac to
+Chesapeake Bay and on to Fortress Monroe. From the Kanawha to
+Grafton there were only roads. From Grafton to Cumberland there
+was rail as well. From Cumberland to Washington there were road,
+rail, river, and canal. From Washington to Fortress Monroe there
+was water fit for any fleet. The Union armies along this
+semicircle were not only twice as numerous as the Confederates
+facing them but they were backed by a sea-power, both naval and
+mercantile, which the Confederates could not begin to challenge,
+much less overcome. Lee was the military adviser to the
+Confederate Government at Richmond as Scott then was to the Union
+Government at Washington.
+
+Such was the central scene of action, where the first great
+battle of the war was fought. The Union forces were based on the
+Potomac from Washington to Harper's Ferry. The Confederates faced
+them from Bull Run to Winchester, which points were nearly sixty
+miles apart by road and rail. The Union forces were fifty
+thousand strong, the Confederate thirty-three thousand. The Union
+problem was how to keep "Joe" Johnston in the Winchester position
+by threatening or actually making an invasion of the Shenandoah
+Valley with Patterson's superior force, while McDowell's superior
+force attacked or turned Beauregard's position at Bull Run. The
+Confederate problem was how to give Patterson the slip and reach
+Bull Run in time to meet McDowell with an equal force. The
+Confederates had the advantage of interior lines both here and in
+the semicircle as a whole, though the Union forces enjoyed in
+general much better means of transportation. The Confederates
+enjoyed better control from government headquarters, where the
+Cabinet mostly had the sense to trust in Lee. Scott, on the other
+hand, was tied down by orders to defend Washington by purely
+defensive means as well as by the "on to Richmond" march.
+Patterson was therefore obliged to watch the Federal back door at
+Harper's Ferry as well as the Confederate side doors up the
+Shenandoah : an impossible task, on exterior lines, with the kind
+of force he had. The civilian chiefs at Washington did not see
+that the best of all defense was to destroy the enemy's means of
+destroying THEM, and that his greatest force of fighting MEN, not
+any particular PLACE, should always be their main objective.
+
+On the fourteenth of June Johnston had destroyed everything
+useful to the enemy at Harper's Ferry and retired to Winchester.
+On the twentieth Jackson's brigade marched on Martinsburg to
+destroy the workshops of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway and to
+support the three hundred troopers under J. E. B. Stuart, who was
+so soon to be the greatest of cavalry commanders on the
+Confederate side. Unknown at twenty-nine, killed at thirty-one,
+"Jeb" Stuart was a Virginian ex-officer of United States
+Dragoons, trained in frontier fighting, and the perfect type of
+what a cavalry commander should be: tall, handsome, splendidly
+supple and strong, hawk-eyed and lion-hearted, quick, bold,
+determined, and inspiring, yet always full of knowledge and
+precaution too; indefatigable at all times, and so persistent in
+carrying out a plan that the enemy could no more shake him off
+than they could escape their shadows.
+
+On the second of July the first brush took place at Falling
+Waters, five miles south of the Potomac, where Jackson came into
+touch with Patterson's advanced guard. As Jackson withdrew his
+handful of Virginian infantry the Federal cavalry came clattering
+down the turnpike and were met by a single shot from a
+Confederate gun that smashed the head of their column and sent
+the others flying. Meanwhile Stuart, who had been reconnoitering,
+came upon a company of Federal infantry resting in a field.
+Galloping among them suddenly he shouted, "Throw down your arms
+or you are all dead men!" Whereupon they all threw down their
+arms; and his troopers led them off. Patterson, badly served by
+his very raw staff, reported Jackson's little vanguard as being
+precisely ten times stronger than it was. He pushed out
+cautiously to right and left; and when he tried to engage again
+he found that Jackson had withdrawn. Falling Waters was
+microscopically small as a fight. But it served to raise
+Confederate morale and depress the Federals correspondingly.
+
+Patterson occupied Martinsburg,while Johnston, drawn up in line
+of battle, awaited his further advance four days before retiring.
+Then, with his fourteen thousand, Patterson advanced again, stood
+irresolute under distracting orders from the Government in
+Washington, and finally went to Charlestown on the seventeenth of
+July--almost back to Harper's Ferry. Johnston, with his eleven
+thousand, now stood fast at Winchester, fifteen miles southwest,
+while Stuart, like a living screen, moved to and fro between
+them.
+
+Meanwhile McDowell's thirty-six thousand had marched past the
+President with bands playing and colors flying amid a scene of
+great enthusiasm. The press campaign was at its height; so was
+the speechifying; and ninety-nine people out of. every hundred
+thought Beauregard's twenty-two thousand at Bull Run would be
+defeated in a way that would be sure to make the South give in.
+McDowell had between two and three thousand regulars: viz., seven
+troops of cavalry, nine batteries of artillery, eight companies
+of infantry, and a little battalion of marines. Then there was
+the immense paper army voted on the Glorious Fourth. And here,
+for the general public to admire, was a collection of armed and
+uniformed men that members of Congress and writers in the press
+united in calling one of the best armies the world had ever seen.
+Moreover, the publicity campaign was kept up unflaggingly till
+the very clash of arms began. Reporters marched along and sent
+off reams of copy. Congressmen, and even ladies, graced the
+occasion in every way they could. "The various regiments were
+brilliantly uniformed according to the aesthetic taste of peace,"
+wrote General Fry, then an officer on McDowell's staff, and
+"during the nineteenth and twentieth the bivouacs at Centreville,
+almost within cannon range of the enemy, were thronged with
+visitors, official and unofficial, who came in carriages from
+Washington, were under no military restraint, and passed to and
+fro among the troops as they pleased, giving the scene the
+appearance of a monster military picnic."
+
+Had McDowell been able to attack on either of these two days he
+must have won. But previous Governments had never given the army
+the means of making proper surveys; so here, within a day's march
+of the Federal capital, the maps were worthless for military use.
+Information had to be gleaned by reconnaissance; and
+reconnaissance takes time, especially without trustworthy guides,
+sufficient cavalry, and a proper staff. Moreover, the army was
+all parts and no whole, through no fault of McDowell's or of his
+military chiefs. The three-month volunteers, whose term of
+service was nearly over, had not learned their drill as
+individuals before being herded into companies, battalions, and
+brigades, of course becoming more and more inefficient as the
+units grew more and more complex. Of the still more essential
+discipline they naturally knew still less. There was no lack of
+courage; for these were the same breed of men as those with whom
+Washington had won immortal fame, the same as those with whom
+both Grant and Lee were yet to win it. But, as Napoleon used to
+say, mere men are not the same as soldiers. Nor are armed mobs
+the same as armies.
+
+The short march to the front was both confused and demoralizing.
+No American officer had ever had the chance even of seeing, much
+less handling, thirty-six thousand men under arms. This force was
+followed by an immense and unwieldy train of supplies, manned by
+wholly undisciplined civilian drivers; while other, and quite
+superfluous, civilians clogged every movement and made confusion
+worse confounded. "The march," says Sherman, who commanded a
+brigade, "demonstrated little save the general laxity of
+discipline; for, with all my personal efforts, I could not
+prevent the men from straggling for water, blackberries, or
+anything on the way they fancied." In the whole of the first long
+summer's day, the sixteenth of July, the army only marched six
+miles; and it took the better part of the seventeenth to herd its
+stragglers back again. "I wished them, " says McDowell, "to go to
+Centreville the second day [only another six miles out] but the
+men were footweary, not so much by the distance marched as by the
+time they had been on foot." That observant private, Warren Lee
+Goss, has told us how hard it is to soldier suddenly. "My canteen
+banged against my bayonet; both tin cup and bayonet badly
+interfered with the butt of my musket, while my cartridge-box and
+haversack were constantly flopping up and down--the whole
+jangling like loose harness and chains on a runaway horse." The
+weather was hot. The roads were dusty. And many a man threw away
+parts of his kit for which he suffered later on. There was food
+in superabundance. But, with that unwieldy and grossly
+undisciplined supply-and-transport service, the men and their
+food never came together at the proper time.
+
+Early on the eighteenth McDowell, whose own work was excellent
+all through, pushed forward a brigade against Blackburn's Ford,
+toward the Confederate right, in order to distract attention from
+the real objective, which was to be the turning of the left. The
+Confederate outposts fell back beyond the ford. The Federal
+brigade followed on; when suddenly sharp volleys took it in front
+and flank. The opposing brigade, under Longstreet (of whom we
+shall often hear again), had lain concealed and sprung its trap
+quite neatly. Most of the Federals behaved extremely well under
+these untoward circumstances. But one whole battery and another
+whole battalion, whose term of service expired that afternoon,
+were officially reported as having "moved to the rear to the
+sound of the enemy's cannon." Thereafter, as military units, they
+simply ceased to exist.
+
+At one o'clock in the morning of this same day Johnston received
+a telegram at Winchester, from Richmond, warning him that
+McDowell was advancing on Bull Run, with the evident intention of
+seizing Manassas Junction, which would cut the Confederate rail
+communication with the Shenandoah Valley and so prevent all
+chance of immediate concentration at Bull Run. Johnston saw that
+the hour had come. It could not have come before, as Lee and the
+rest had foreseen; because an earlier concentration at Bull Run
+would have drawn the two superior Federal forces together on the
+selfsame spot. There was still some risk about giving Patterson
+the slip. True, his three-month special-constable array was
+semi-mutinous already; and its term of service had only a few
+more days to run. True, also, that the men had cause for
+grievance. They were all without pay, and some of them were
+reported as being still "without pants." But, despite such
+drawbacks, a resolute attack by Patterson's fourteen thousand
+could have at least held fast Johnston's eleven thousand, who
+were mostly little better off in military ways. Patterson,
+however, suffered from distracting orders, and that was his
+undoing. Johnston, admirably screened by Stuart, drew quietly
+away, leaving his sick at Winchester and raising the spirits of
+his whole command by telling them that Beauregard was in danger
+and that they were to "make a forced march to save the country."
+
+Straining every nerve they stepped out gallantly and covered mile
+after mile till they reached the Shenandoah, forded it, and
+crossed the Blue Ridge at Ashby's Gap. But lack of training and
+march discipline told increasingly against them. "The
+discouragement of that day's march," said Johnston, "is
+indescribable. Frequent and unreasonable delays caused so slow a
+rate of marching as to make me despair of joining General
+Beauregard in time to aid him." Even the First Brigade, with all
+the advantages of leading the march and of having learnt the
+rudiments of drill and discipline, was exhausted by a day's work
+that it could have romped through later on. Jackson himself stood
+guard alone till dawn while all his soldiers slept.
+
+As Jackson's men marched down to take the train at Piedmont,
+Stuart gayly trotted past, having left Patterson still in
+ignorance that Johnston's force had gone. By four in the
+afternoon of the nineteenth Jackson was detraining at Manassas.
+But, as we shall presently see, it was nearly two whole days
+before the last of Johnston's brigades arrived, just in time for
+the crisis of the battle. When Johnston had joined Beauregard
+their united effective total was thirty thousand men. There had
+been a wastage of three thousand. McDowell also had no more than
+thirty thousand effectives present on the twenty-first; for he
+left one division at Centreville and lost the rest by straggling
+and by the way in which the battery and battalion already
+mentioned had "claimed their discharge" at Blackburn's Ford.
+Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth, while, sorely against
+his will, the Federals were having their "monster military
+picnic" at Centreville, he was reconnoitering his constantly
+increasing enemy under the greatest difficulties, with his
+ill-trained staff, bad maps, and lack of proper guides.
+
+Lee had chosen six miles of Bull Run as a good defensive
+position. But Beauregard intended to attack, hoping to profit by
+the Federal disjointedness. Consequently none of the eight fords
+were strongly defended except at Union Mills on the extreme right
+and the Stone Bridge on the extreme left, where the turnpike from
+Centreville to Warrenton crossed the Run. Bull Run itself was a
+considerable obstacle, having fairly high banks and running along
+the Confederate front like the ditch of a fortress. Three miles
+in rear stood Manassas Junction on a moderate plateau intersected
+by several creeks. The most important of these creeks, Young's
+Branch, joined Bull Run on the extreme left, near the Stone
+Bridge and Warrenton turnpike, after flowing through the little
+valley between the Henry Hill and Matthews Hill. Three miles in
+front, across Bull Run, stood Centreville, the Federal camp and
+field base during the battle.
+
+Sunday, July 21, 1861, was a beautiful midsummer day. Both armies
+were stirring soon after dawn. But a miscarriage of orders
+delayed the Confederate offensive so much that the initiative of
+attack passed to the Federals, who advanced against the Stone
+Bridge shortly after six. This attack, however, though made by a
+whole division against a single small brigade, was immediately
+recognized as a mere feint when, two hours later, Evans,
+commanding the Confederate brigade, saw dense clouds of dust
+rising above the woods on his left front, where the road crossed
+Sudley Springs, nearly two miles beyond his own left. Perceiving
+that this new development must be a regular attempt to turn the
+whole Confederate left by crossing Bull Run, he sent back word to
+Beauregard, posted some men to hold the Stone Bridge, and marched
+the rest to crown the Matthews Hill, facing Sudley Springs a mile
+away. Meanwhile four of "Joe" Johnston's five Shenandoah
+brigades--Bee's, Bartow's, Bonham's, and Jackson's--had been
+coming over from the right reserve to strengthen Evans at the
+Bridge. As the great Federal turning movement developed against
+the Confederate left these brigades followed Evans and were
+themselves followed by other troops, till the real battle raged
+not along Bull Run but across the Matthews Hill and Henry Hill.
+
+Forming the new front at right angles to the old, so as to attack
+and defend the Confederate left on the Matthews and Henry Hills,
+caused much confusion on both sides; but more on the Federal, as
+the Confederates knew the ground better. By eleven Bee had
+reached Evans and sent word back to hurry Bartow on. But the
+Federals, having double numbers and a great preponderance in
+guns, soon drove the Confederates off the Matthews Hill. As the
+Confederates recrossed Young's Branch and climbed the Henry Hill
+the regular artillery of the Federals limbered up smartly,
+galloped across the Matthews Hill, and from its nearer slope
+plied the retreating Confederates on the opposite slope with
+admirably served shell. Under this fire the raw Confederates ran
+in confusion, while their uncovered guns galloped back to find a
+new position. "Curse them for deserting the guns," snapped
+Imboden, whose battery came face to face with Jackson's brigade.
+"I'll support you," said Jackson, "unlimber right here." At the
+same time, half-past eleven, Bee galloped up on his foaming
+charger, saying, "General, they're beating us back." "Then, Sir,"
+said Jackson, "we'll give them the bayonet"; and his lips shut
+tight as a vice.
+
+Bee then went back behind the Henry Hill, where his broken
+brigade was trying to rally, and, pointing toward the crest with
+his sword, shouted in a voice of thunder: "Rally behind the
+Virginians! Look! There's Jackson standing like a stone wall!"
+From that one cry of battle Stonewall Jackson got his name.
+
+While the rest of the Shenandoahs were rallying, in rear of
+Jackson, Beauregard and Johnston came up, followed by two
+batteries. Miles behind them, all the men that could be spared
+from the fords were coming too. But the Federals on the Matthews
+Hill were still in more than double numbers; and they enjoyed the
+priceless advantage of having some regulars among them. If the
+Federal division at the Stone Bridge had only pushed home its
+attack at this favorable moment the Confederates must have been
+defeated. But the division again fumbled about to little purpose;
+and for the second time McDowell's admirable plan was spoilt.
+
+It was now past noon on that sweltering midsummer day; and there
+was a welcome lull for the rallying Confederates while the
+Federals were coming down the Matthews Hill, struggling across
+the swamps and thickets of Young's Branch, and climbing the Henry
+Hill. Within another hour the opposing forces were at close grips
+again, and the Federals, flushed with success and steadied by the
+regulars, seemed certain to succeed.
+
+Imboden has vividly described his meeting Jackson at this time.
+"The fight was just then hot enough to make him feel well. His
+eyes fairly blazed. He had a way of throwing up his left hand
+with the open palm towards the person he was addressing; and, as
+he told me to go, he made this gesture. The air was full of
+flying missiles, and as he spoke he jerked down his hand, and I
+saw that blood was streaming from it. I exclaimed, 'General, you
+are wounded.' 'Only a scratch--a mere scratch,' he replied; and,
+binding it hastily with a handkerchief, he galloped away along
+his line."
+
+Five hundred yards apart the opposing cannon thundered, while the
+musketry of the long lines of infantry swelled the deafening
+roar. Suddenly two Federal batteries of regulars dashed forward
+to even shorter range, covered by two battalions on their flank.
+But the gaudy Zouaves of the outer battalion lost formation in
+their advance; whereupon "Jeb" Stuart, with only a hundred and
+fifty horsemen, swooped down and smashed them to pieces by a
+daring charge. Then, just as the scattered white turbans went
+wildly bobbing about, into the midst of the inner battalion, out
+rushed the Thirty-third Virginians, straight at the guns. The
+battery officers held their fire, uncertain in the smoke whether
+the newcomers were friend or foe, till a deadly volley struck
+home at less than eighty yards. Down went the gunners to a man;
+down went the teams to a horse; and off ran the Zouaves and the
+other supporting battalion, helter-skelter for the rear.
+
+But other Federals were still full of fight and in superior
+numbers. They came on with great gallantry, considering they were
+raw troops who were now without the comfort of the guns. Once
+more a Federal victory seemed secure; and if the infantry had
+only pressed on (not piecemeal, by disjoined battalions, but by
+brigades) without letting the Confederates recover from one blow
+before another struck them, the day would have certainly been
+theirs. Moreover, they would have inflicted not simply a defeat
+but a severe disaster on their enemy, who would have been caught
+in flank by the troops at the Stone Bridge; for these troops,
+however dilatory, must have known what to do with a broken and
+flying Confederate flank right under their very eyes. Premonitory
+symptoms of such a flight were not wanting. Confederate wounded,
+stragglers, and skulkers were making for the rear; and the
+rallied brigades were again in disorder, with Bee and Bartow, two
+first-rate brigadiers, just killed, and other seniors wounded.
+Another ominous sign was the limbering up of Confederate guns to
+cover the expected retreat from the Henry Hill.
+
+But on its reverse slope lay Jackson's Shenandoahs, three
+thousand strong, and by far the best drilled and disciplined
+brigade that either side had yet produced apart, of course, from
+regulars. Jackson had ridden up and down before them, calm as
+they had ever seen him on parade, quietly saying, "Steady, men,
+steady! All's well." In this way he had held them straining at
+the leash for hours. Now, at last, their time had come. Riding
+out to the center of his line he gave his final orders: "Reserve
+your fire till they come within fifty yards. Then fire and give
+them the bayonet; and yell like furies when you charge!" Five
+minutes later, as the triumphant Federals topped the crest, the
+long gray line rose up, stood fast, fired one crashing
+point-blank volley, and immediately charged home with the first
+of those wild, high rebel yells that rang throughout the war. The
+stricken and astounded Federal front caved in, turned round, and
+fled. At the same instant the last of the Shenandoahs--Kirby
+Smith's brigade, detrained just in the nick of time--charged the
+wavering flank. Then, like the first quiver of an avalanche, a
+tremor shook the whole massed Federals one moment on that fatal
+hill: the next, like a loosened cliff, they began the landslide
+down.
+
+There, in the valley, along Young's Branch, McDowell established
+his last line of battle, based on the firm rock of the regulars.
+But by this time the Confederates had brought up troops from the
+whole length of their line; the balance of numbers was at last in
+their favor; and nothing could stay the Federal recoil. Lack of
+drill and discipline soon changed this recoil into a disorderly
+retreat. There was no panic; but most of the military units
+"dissolved into a mere mob whose heart was set on getting back to
+Washington in any way left '''Open. The regulars and a few formed
+bodies in reserve did their best to stem the stream. But all in
+vain.
+
+One mile short of Centreville there was a sudden upset and
+consequent block on the bridge across Cub Run. Then the stream of
+men retreating, mixed with clogging masses of panic-struck
+civilians, became a torrent.
+
+
+Bull Run was only a special-constable affair on a gigantic scale.
+The losses were comparatively small--3553 killed and wounded on
+both sides put together: not ten per cent of the less than forty
+thousand who actually fought. Moreover, the side that won the
+battle lost the war. And yet Bull Run had many points of very
+great importance. In spite of all shortcomings it showed the good
+quality of the troops engaged: if not as soldiers, at all events
+as men. It proved that the war, unlike the battle, would not be
+fought by special constables, some of whom first fired their
+rifles when their target was firing back at them. It brought one
+great leader--Stonewall Jackson--into fame. Above all, it
+profoundly affected the popular points of view, both North and
+South. In the South there was undue elation, followed by the
+absurd belief that one Southerner could beat two Northerners any
+day and that the North would now back down en masse, as its army
+had from the Henry Hill. A dangerous slackening of military
+preparation was the unavoidable result. In the North, on the
+other hand, a good many people began to see the difference
+between armed mobs and armies; and the thorough Unionists, led by
+the wise and steadfast Lincoln, braced themselves for real war.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE COMBATANTS
+
+No map can show the exact dividing line between the actual
+combatants of North and South. Eleven States seceded: Virginia,
+the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee,
+Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas. But the mountain folk of western
+Virginia and eastern Tennessee were strong Unionists; and West
+Virginia became a State while the war was being fought. On the
+other hand, the four border States, though officially Federal
+under stress of circumstances, were divided against themselves.
+In Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and Kansas, many citizens took
+the Southern side. Maryland would have gone with the South if it
+had not been for the presence of overwhelming Northern sea-power
+and the absence of any good land frontier of her own. Kentucky
+remained neutral for several months. Missouri was saved for the
+Union by those two resourceful and determined men, Lyon and
+Blair. Kansas, though preponderantly Unionist, had many
+Confederates along its southern boundary. On the whole the Union
+gained greatly throughout the borderlands as the war went on; and
+the remaining Confederate hold on the border people was more than
+counterbalanced by the Federal hold on those in the western parts
+of old Virginia and the eastern parts of Tennessee. Among the
+small seafaring population along the Southern coast there were
+also some strongly Union men.
+
+Counting out Northern Confederates and Southern Federals as
+canceling each other, so far as effective fighting was concerned
+a comparison made between the North and South along the line of
+actual secession reveals the one real advantage the South enjoyed
+all through--an overwhelming party in favor of the war. When once
+the die was cast there was certainly not a tenth of the Southern
+whites who did not belong to the war party; and the peace party
+always had to hold its tongue. The Southerners formed simpler and
+far more homogeneous communities of the old long-settled stock,
+and were more inclined to act together when once their feelings
+were profoundly stirred.
+
+The Northern communities, on the other hand, being far more
+complex and far less homogeneous, were plagued with peace parties
+that grew like human weeds, clogging the springs of action
+everywhere. There were immigrants new to the country and
+therefore not inclined to take risks for a cause they had not
+learned to make their own. There were also naturalized, and even
+American-born, aliens, aliens in speech, race, thought, and every
+way of life. Then there were the oppositionists of different
+kinds, who would not support any war government, however like a
+perfect coalition it might be. Among these were some Northerners
+who did business with the South, especially the men who financed
+the cotton and tobacco crops. Others, again, were those
+loose-tongued folk who think any vexed question can be settled by
+unlimited talk. Next came those "defeatist" cranks who always
+think their own side must be wrong, and who are of no more
+practical use than the out-and-out "pacifists" who think
+everybody wrong except themselves. Finally, there were those
+slippery folk who try to evade all public duty, especially when
+it smacks of danger. These skulkers flourish best in large and
+complex populations, where they may even masquerade as patriots
+of the kind so well described by Lincoln when he said how often
+he had noticed that the men who were loudest in proclaiming their
+readiness to shed their last drop of blood were generally the
+most careful not to shed the first.
+
+Many of these fustian heroes formed the mushroom secret societies
+that played their vile extravaganza right under the shadow of the
+real tragedy of war. Worse still, not content with the
+abracadabra of their silly oaths, the busybody members made all
+the mischief they could during Lincoln's last election. Worst of
+all, they not only tried their hands at political assassination
+in the North but they lured many a gallant Confederate to his
+death by promising to rise in their might for a "Free Northwest"
+the moment the Southern troopers should appear. Needless to say,
+not a single one of the whole bombastic band of cowards stirred a
+finger to help the Confederate troopers who rode to their doom on
+Morgan's Raid through Indiana and Ohio. The peace party wore a
+copper as a badge, and so came to be known as "Copperheads," much
+to the disgust of its more inflated members, who called
+themselves the Sons of Liberty. The war party, with a better
+appreciation of how names and things should be connected, used
+their own descriptive "Copperhead" in its appropriate meaning of
+a poisonous snake in the grass behind.
+
+The Indians would have preferred neutrality between the two kinds
+of inevitably dispossessing whites. But neutrality was impossible
+in what was then the Far West. Not ten thousand Indians fought
+for both sides put together. On the whole they fought well as
+skirmishers, though they rarely withstood shell fire, even when
+their cover was good and their casualties small.
+
+The ten times more numerous negroes were naturally a much more
+serious factor. The North encouraged the employment of colored
+labor corps and even colored soldiers, especially after
+Emancipation. But the vast majority of negroes, whether slave or
+free, either preferred or put up with their Southern masters,
+whom they generally served faithfully enough either in military
+labor corps or on the old plantations. As the colored population
+of the South was three and a half millions this general fidelity
+was of great importance to the forces in the field.
+
+The total population of the United States in 1861 was about
+thirty-one and a half millions. Of this total twenty-two and a
+half belonged to the North and nine to the South. The grand total
+odds were therefore five against two. The odds against the South
+rise to four against one if the blacks are left out. There were
+twenty-two million whites in the North against five and a half in
+the South. But to reach the real fighting odds of three to one we
+must also eliminate the peace parties, large in the North, small
+in the South. If we take a tenth off the Southern whites and a
+third off the Northern grand total we shall get the approximate
+war-party odds of three to one; for these subtractions leave
+fifteen millions in the North against only five in the South.
+
+This gives the statistical key to the startling contrasts which
+were so often noted by foreign correspondents at the time, and
+which are still so puzzling in the absence of the key. The whole
+normal life of the South was visibly changed by the war. But in
+the North the inquiring foreigner could find, on one hand, the
+most steadfast loyalty and heroic sacrifice, both in the Northern
+armies and among their folks at home, while on the other he could
+find a wholly different kind of life flaunting its most shameless
+features in his face. The theaters were crowded. Profiteers
+abounded, taking their pleasures with ravenous greed; for the
+best of their blood-money would end with the war. Everywhere
+there was the same fundamental difference between the patriots
+who carried on the war and the parasites who hindered them. Of
+course the two-thirds who made up the war party were not all
+saints or even perfect patriots. Nor was the other third composed
+exclusively of wanton sinners. There were, for instance, the
+genuine settlers whom the Union Government encouraged to occupy
+the West, beyond the actual reach of war. But the distinction
+still remains.
+
+Though sorely hampered, the Union Government did, on the whole,
+succeed in turning the vast and varied resources of the North
+against the much smaller and less varied resources of the South.
+The North held the machinery of national government, though with
+the loss of a good quarter of the engineers. In agriculture of,
+all kinds both North and South were very strong for purposes of
+peace. Each had food in superabundance. But the trading strength
+of the South lay in cotton and tobacco, neither of which could be
+turned into money without going north or to sea. In finance the
+North was overwhelmingly strong by comparison, more especially
+because Northern sea-power shut off the South from all its
+foreign markets. In manufactures the South could not compare at
+all.
+
+Northern factories alone could not supply the armies. But finance
+and factories together could. The Southern soldier looked to the
+battlefield and the raiding of a base for supplying many of his
+most pressing needs in arms, equipment, clothing, and even food--
+for Southern transport suffered from many disabilities. Fierce
+wolfish cries would mingle with the rebel yell in battle when the
+two sides closed. "You've got to leave your rations!"--"Come out
+of them clothes!"--"Take off them boots, Yank!"--"Come on, blue
+bellies, we want them blankets!"
+
+It was the same in almost every kind of goods. The South made
+next to none for herself and had to import from the North or
+overseas. The North could buy silk for balloons. The South could
+not. The Southern women gave in their whole supply of silk for
+the big balloon that was lost during the Seven Days' Battle in
+the second year of the war. The Southern soldiers never forgave
+what they considered the ungallant trick of the Northerners who
+took this many-hued balloon from a steamer stranded on a bar at
+low tide down near the mouth of the James. Thus fell the last
+silk dress, a queer tribute to Northern seapower! Northern
+seapower also cut off nearly everything the sick and wounded
+needed; which raised the death rate of the Southern forces far
+beyond the corresponding death rate in the North. Again,
+preserved rations were almost unknown in the South. But they were
+plentiful throughout the Northern armies: far too plentiful,
+indeed, for the taste of the men, who got "fed up" on the
+dessicated vegetables and concentrated milk which they
+rechristened "desecrated vegetables" and "consecrated milk."
+
+There is the same tale to tell about transport and munitions.
+Outside the Tredegar Iron Works at Richmond the only places where
+Southern cannon could be made were Charlotte in North Carolina,
+Atlanta and Macon in Georgia, and Selma in Alabama. The North had
+many places, each with superior plant, besides which the oversea
+munition world was far more at the service of the open-ported
+North than of the close-blockaded South. What sea-power meant in
+this respect may be estimated from the fact that out of the more
+than three-quarters of a million rifles bought by the North in
+the first fourteen months of the war all but a beggarly thirty
+thousand came from overseas.
+
+Transport was done by road, rail, sea, and inland waters. Other
+things being equal, a hundred tons could be moved by water as
+easily as ten by rail or one by road. Now, the North not only
+enjoyed enormous advantages in sea-power, both mercantile and
+naval, but in road, rail, canal, and river transport too. The
+road transport that affected both sides most was chiefly in the
+South, because most maneuvering took place there. "Have you been
+through Virginia?--Yes, in several places" is a witticism that
+might be applied to many another State where muddy sloughs
+abounded. In horses, mules, and vehicles the richer North wore
+out the poorer and blockaded South. Both sides sent troops,
+munitions, and supplies by rail whenever they could; and here, as
+a glance at the map will show, the North greatly surpassed the
+South in mileage, strategic disposition, and every other way.
+
+The South had only one through line from the Atlantic to the
+Mississippi; and this ran across that Northern salient which
+threatened the South from the southwestern Alleghanies. The other
+rails all had the strategic defect of not being convenient for
+rapid concentration by land; for most of the Southern rails were
+laid with a view to getting surplus cotton and tobacco overseas.
+The strategic gap at Petersburg was due to a very different
+cause; for there, in order to keep its local transfers, the town
+refused to let the most important Virginian lines connect.
+
+Taking sea-power in its fullest sense, to include all naval and
+mercantile parts on both salt and fresh water, we can quite
+understand how it helped the nautical North to get the
+strangle-hold on the landsman's South. The great bulk of the
+whole external trade of the South was done by shipping. But,
+though the South was strong in exportable goods, it was very weak
+in ships. It owned comparatively few of the vessels that carried
+its rice, cotton, and tobacco crops to market and brought back
+made goods in return. Yankees, Britishers, and Bluenoses (as Nova
+Scotian craft were called) did most of the oversea
+transportation.
+
+Moreover, the North was vastly stronger than the South on all the
+inland waters that were not "Secesh" from end to end. The map
+shows how Northern sea-power could not only divide the South in
+two but almost enisle the eastern part as well. Holding the
+Mississippi would effect the division, while holding the Ohio
+would make the eastern part a peninsula, with the upper end of
+the isthmus safe in Northern hands between Pittsburgh, the great
+coal and iron inland port, and Philadelphia, the great seaport,
+less than three hundred miles away. The same isthmus narrows to
+less than two hundred miles between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg (on
+the Susquehanna River); and its whole line is almost equally safe
+in Northern hands. A little farther south, along the disputed
+borderlands, it narrows to less than one hundred miles, . from
+Pittsburgh to Cumberland (on the Potomac canal). Even this is not
+the narrowest part of the isthmus, which is less than seventy
+miles across from Cumberland to Brownsville (on the Monongahela)
+and less than fifty from Cumberland to the Ohiopyle Falls (on the
+Youghiogheny). These last distances are measured between places
+that are only fit for minor navigation. But even small craft had
+an enormous advantage over road and rail together when bulky
+stores were moved. So Northern sea-power could make its
+controlling influence felt in one continuous line all round the
+eastern South, except for fifty miles where small craft were
+concerned and for two hundred miles in the case of larger
+vessels. These two hundred miles of land were those between the
+Ohio River port of Wheeling and the Navy Yard at Washington.
+
+Nor was this virtual enislement the only advantage to be won. For
+while the strong right arm of Union sea-power, facing northward
+from the Gulf, could hold the coast, and its sinewy left could
+hold the Mississippi, the supple left fingers could feel their
+way along the tributary streams until the clutching hand had got
+its grip on the whole of the Ohio, Cumberland, Tennessee,
+Missouri, Arkansas, and Red rivers. This meant that the North
+would not only enjoy the vast advantages of transport by water
+over transport by land but that it would cause the best lines of
+invasion to be opened up as well.
+
+Of course the South had some sea-power of her own. Nine-tenths of
+the United States Navy stood by the Union. But, with the
+remaining tenth and some foreign help, the South managed to
+contrive the makeshift parts of what might have become a navy if
+the North had only let it grow. The North, however, did not let
+it grow.
+
+The regular navy of the United States, though very small to start
+with, was always strong enough to keep the command of the sea and
+to prevent the makeshift Southern parts of a navy from ever
+becoming a whole. Privateers took out letters of marque to prey
+on Northern shipping. But privateering soon withered off, because
+prizes could not be run through the blockade in sufficient
+numbers to make it pay; and no prize would be recognized except
+in a Southern port. Raiders did better and for a much longer
+time. The Shenandoah was burning Northern whalers in Bering Sea
+at the end of the war. The Sumter and the Florida cut a wide
+swath under instructions which "left much to discretion and more
+to the torch." The famous Alabama only succumbed to the U.S.S.
+Kearsarge after sinking the Hatteras man-of-war and raiding
+seventy other vessels. Yet still the South, in spite of her
+ironclads, raiders, and rams, in spite of her river craft, of the
+home ships or foreigners that ran the blockade, and of all her
+other efforts, was a landsman's country that could make no real
+headway against the native seapower of the North.
+
+Perhaps the worst of all the disabilities under which the
+abortive Southern navy suffered was lubberly administration and
+gross civilian interference. The Administration actually refused
+to buy the beginnings of a ready-made sea-going fleet when it had
+the offer of ten British East Indiamen specially built for rapid
+conversion into men-of-war. Forty thousand bales of cotton would
+have bought the lot. The Mississippi record was even worse. Five
+conflicting authorities divided the undefined and overlapping
+responsibilities between them: the Confederate Government, the
+State governments, the army, the navy, and the Mississippi
+skippers. A typical result may be seen in the fate of the
+fourteen "rams" which were absurdly mishandled by fourteen
+independent civilian skippers with two civilian commodores. This
+"River Defense Fleet" was "backed by the whole Missouri
+delegation" at Richmond, and blessed by the Confederate Secretary
+of War, Judah P. Benjamin, that very clever lawyer-politician and
+eversmiling Jew. Six of the fourteen "rams" were lost, with sheer
+futility, at New Orleans in April, '62; the rest at Memphis the
+following June.
+
+As a matter of fact the Confederate navy never had but one real
+man-of-war, the famous Merrimac; and she was a mere razee, cut
+down for a special purpose, and too feebly engined to keep the
+sea. Even the equally famous Alabama was only a raider, never
+meant for action with a fleet. Over three hundred officers left
+the United States Navy for the South; but, as in the case of the
+Army, they were followed by very few men. The total personnel of
+the regular Confederate navy never exceeded four thousand at any
+one time. The irregular forces afloat often did gallant, and
+sometimes even skillful, service in little isolated ways. But
+when massed together they were always at sixes and sevens; and
+they could never do more than make the best of a very bad
+business indeed. The Secretary of the Confederate navy, Stephen
+R. Mallory, was not to blame. He was one of the very few
+civilians who understood and tried to follow any naval principles
+at all. He had done good work as chairman of the Naval Committee
+in the Senate before the war, and had learnt a good deal more
+than his Northern rival, Gideon Welles. He often saw what should
+have been done. But men and means were lacking.
+
+Men and means were also lacking in the naval North at the time
+the war began. But the small regular navy was invincible against
+next to none; and it enjoyed many means of expansion denied to
+the South.
+
+On the outbreak of hostilities the United States Navy had ninety
+ships and about nine thousand men--all ranks and ratings (with
+marines) included. The age of steam had come. But fifty vessels
+had no steam at all. Of the rest one was on the Lakes, five were
+quite unserviceable, and thirty-four were scattered about the
+world without the slightest thought of how to mobilize a fleet at
+home. The age of ironclads had begun already overseas. But in his
+report to Congress on July 4, 1861, Gideon Welles, Secretary of
+the Navy, only made some wholly non-committal observations in
+ponderous "officialese." In August he appointed a committee which
+began its report in September with the sage remark that "Opinions
+differ amongst naval and scientific men as to the policy of
+adopting the iron armament for ships-of-war." In December Welles
+transmitted this report to Congress with the still sager remark
+that "The subject of iron armature for ships is one of great
+general interest, not only to the navy and country, but is
+engaging the attention of the civilized world." Such was the
+higher administrative preparation for the ironclad battle of the
+following year.
+
+It was the same in everything. The people had taken no interest
+in the navy and Congress had faithfully represented them by
+denying the service all chance of preparing for war till after
+war had broken out. Then there was the usual hurry and horrible
+waste. Fortunately for all concerned, Gideon Welles, after vainly
+groping about the administrative maze for the first five months,
+called Gustavus V. Fox to his assistance. Fox had been a naval
+officer of exceptional promise, who had left the service to go
+into business, who had a natural turn for administration, and who
+now made an almost ideal Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He was,
+indeed, far more than this; for, in most essentials, he acted
+throughout the war as a regular Chief of Staff.
+
+One of the greatest troubles was the glut of senior officers who
+were too old and the alarming dearth of juniors fit for immediate
+work afloat. It was only after the disaster at Bull Run that
+Congress authorized the formation of a Promotion Board to see
+what could be done to clear the active list and make it really a
+list of officers fit for active service. Up to this time there
+had been no system of retiring men for inefficiency or age. An
+officer who did not retire of his own accord simply went on
+rising automatically till he died. The president of this board
+had himself turned sixty. But he was the thoroughly efficient
+David Glasgow Farragut, a man who was to do greater things afloat
+than even Fox could do ashore. How badly active officers were
+wanted may be inferred from the fact that before the appointment
+of Farragut's promotion board the total number of regular
+officers remaining in the navy was only 1457. Intensive training
+was tried at the Naval Academy. Yet 7500 volunteer officers had
+to be used before the war was over. These came mostly from the
+merchant service and were generally brave, capable, first-rate
+men. But a nautical is not the same as a naval training; and the
+dearth of good professional naval officers was felt to the end.
+The number of enlisted seamen authorized by Congress rose from
+7600 to 51,500. But the very greatest difficulty was found in
+"keeping up to strength," even with the most lavish use of
+bounties.
+
+The number of vessels in the navy kept on growing all through. Of
+course not nearly all of them were regular men-of-war or even
+fighting craft "fit to go foreign." At the end of the first year
+there were 264 in commission; at the end of the second, 427; at
+the end of the third, 588; and at the end of the fourth, 671.
+
+Bearing this in mind, and remembering the many other Northern
+odds, one might easily imagine that the Southern armies fought
+only with the courage of despair. Yet such was not the case. This
+was no ordinary war, to be ended by a treaty in which compromise
+would play its part. There could be only two alternatives: either
+the South would win her independence or the North would have to
+beat her into complete submission. Under the circumstances the
+united South would win whenever the divided North thought that
+complete subjugation would cost more than it was worth. The great
+aim of the South was, therefore, not to conquer the North but
+simply to sicken the North of trying to conquer her. "Let us
+alone and we'll let you alone" was her insinuating argument; and
+this, as she knew very well, was echoed by many people in the
+North. Thus, as regards her own objective, she began with hopes
+that the Northern peace party never quite let die.
+
+Then, so far as her patriotic feelings were concerned, the South
+was not fighting for any one point at issue--not even for
+slavery, because only a small minority held slaves--but for her
+whole way of life, which, rightly or wrongly, she wanted to live
+in her own Southern way; and she passionately resented the
+invasion of her soil. This gave her army a very high morale,
+which, in its turn, inclined her soldiers the better to
+appreciate their real or imagined advantages over the Northern
+hosts. First, they and their enemies both knew that they enjoyed
+the three real advantages of fighting at home under magnificent
+leaders and with interior lines. Robert Lee and Stonewall Jackson
+stood head and shoulders above any Northern leaders till Grant
+and Sherman rose to greatness during the latter half of the war.
+Lee himself was never surpassed; and he, like Jackson and several
+more, made the best use of home surroundings and of interior
+lines. Anybody can appreciate the prime advantage of interior
+lines by imagining two armies of equal strength operating against
+each other under perfectly equal conditions except that one has
+to move round the circumference of a circle while the other moves
+to meet it along the shorter lines inside. The army moving round
+the circumference is said to be operating on exterior lines,
+while the army moving from point to point of the circumference by
+the straighter, and therefore shorter, lines inside is said to be
+operating on interior lines. In more homely language the straight
+road beats the crooked one. In plain slang, it's best to have the
+inside track.
+
+Of course there is a reverse to all this. If the roads, rails,
+and waterways are better around the circle than inside it, then
+the odds may be turned the other way; and this happens most often
+when the forces on the exterior lines are the better provided
+with sea-power. Again, if the exterior forces are so much
+stronger than the interior forces that these latter dare not
+leave any strategic point open in case the enemy breaks through,
+then it is evident that the interior forces will suffer all the
+disadvantages of being surrounded, divided, worn out, and
+defeated.
+
+This happened at last to the South, and was one of the four
+advantages she lost. Another was the hope of foreign
+intervention, which died hard in Southern hearts, but which was
+already moribund halfway through the war. A third was the hope of
+dissension in the North, a hope which often ran high till
+Lincoln's reelection in November, '64, and one which only died
+out completely with the surrender of Lee. The fourth was the
+unfounded belief that Southerners were the better fighting men.
+They certainly had an advantage at first in having a larger
+proportion of men accustomed to horses and arms and inured to
+life in the open. But, other things being equal, there was
+nothing to choose between the two sides, so far as natural
+fighting values were concerned.
+
+Practically all the Southern "military males" passed into the
+ranks; and a military male eventually meant any one who could
+march to the front or do non-combatant service with an army, from
+boys in their teens to men in their sixties. Conscription came
+after one year; and with very few exemptions, such as the clergy,
+Quakers, many doctors, newspaper editors, and "indispensable"
+civil servants. Lee used to express his regret that all the
+greatest strategists were tied to their editorial chairs. But
+sterner feelings were aroused against that recalcitrant State
+Governor, Joseph Brown of Georgia, who declared eight thousand of
+his civil servants to be totally exempt. From first to last,
+conscripts and volunteers, nearly a million men were enrolled:
+equaling one-fifth of the entire war-party white population of
+the seceding States.
+
+All branches of the service suffered from a constant lack of arms
+and munitions. As with the ships for the navy so with munitions
+for the army, the South did not exploit the European markets
+while her ports were still half open and her credit good,
+Jefferson Davis was spotlessly honest, an able bureaucrat, and
+full of undying zeal. But, though an old West Pointer, he was
+neither a foresightful organizer nor fit to exercise any of the
+executive power which he held as the constitutional
+commander-in-chief by land and sea. He ordered rifles by the
+thousand instead of by the hundred thousand; and he actually told
+his Cabinet that if he could only take one wing while Lee took
+the other they would surely beat the North. Worse still, he and
+his politicians kept the commissariat under civilian orders and
+full of civilian interference, even at the front, which, in this
+respect, was always a house divided against itself.
+
+
+The little regular army of '61, only sixteen thousand strong,
+stood by the Union almost to a man; though a quarter of the
+officers went over to the South. Yet the enlisted man was
+despised even by the common loafers who would not fight if they
+could help it. "Why don't you come in?" asked a zealous lady at a
+distribution of patriotic gifts, "aren't you one of our heroes?"
+"No, ma'am," answered the soldier, "I'm only a regular."
+
+The question of command was often a very vexed one; and many
+mistakes were made before the final answers came. The most
+significant of all emergent facts was this: that though the
+officers who had been regulars before the war did not form a
+hundredth part of all who held commissions during it, yet these
+old regulars alone supplied every successful high commander,
+Federal and Confederate alike, both afloat and ashore.
+
+The North had four times as many whites as the South; it used
+more blacks as soldiers; and the complete grand total of all the
+men who joined its forces during the war reached two millions and
+three-quarters. But this gives a quite misleading idea of the
+real odds in favor of the North, especially the odds available in
+battle. A third of the Northern people belonged to the peace
+party and furnished no recruits at all till after conscription
+came in. The late introduction of conscription, the abominable
+substitution clause, and the prevalence of bounty-jumping
+combined to reduce both the quantity and quality of the recruits
+obtained by money or compulsion. The Northerners that did fight
+were generally fighting in the South, among a very hostile
+population, which, while it made the Southern lines of
+communication perfectly safe, threatened those of the North at
+every point and thus obliged the Northern armies to leave more
+and more men behind to guard the communications that each advance
+made longer still. Finally, the South generally published the
+numbers of only its actual combatants, while the Northern returns
+always included every man drawing pay, whether a combatant or
+not. On the whole, the North had more than double numbers, even
+if compared with a Southern total that includes noncombatants.
+But it should be remembered that a Northern army fighting in the
+heart of the South, and therefore having to guard every mile of
+the way back home, could not meet a Southern one with equal
+strength in battle unless it had left the North with fully twice
+as many.
+
+Conscription came a year later (1863) in the North than in the
+South and was vitiated by a substitution clause. The fact that a
+man could buy himself out of danger made some patriots call it "a
+rich man's war and a poor man's fight." And the further fact that
+substitutes generally became regular bounty-jumpers, who joined
+and deserted at will, over and over again, went far to increase
+the disgust of those who really served. Frank Wilkeson's
+"Recollections of a Private Soldier in the Army of the Potomac"
+is a true voice from the ranks when he explains "how the resort
+to volunteering, the unprincipled dodge of cowardly politicians,
+ground up the choicest seedcorn of the nation; how it consumed
+the young, the patriotic, the intelligent, the generous, and the
+brave; and how it wasted the best moral, social, and political
+elements of the Republic, leaving the cowards, shirkers,
+egotists, and moneymakers to stay at home and procreate their
+kind."
+
+That is to say, it was so arranged that the fogy-witted lived,
+while the lion-hearted died.
+
+The organization of the vast numbers enrolled was excellent
+whenever experts were given a free hand. But this free hand was
+rare. One vital point only needs special notice here: the
+wastefulness of raising new regiments when the old ones were
+withering away for want of reinforcements. A new local regiment
+made a better "story" in the press; and new and superfluous
+regiments meant new and superfluous colonels, mostly of the
+speechifying kind. So it often happened that the State
+authorities felt obliged to humor zealots set on raising those
+brand-new regiments which doubled their own difficulties by
+having to learn their lesson alone, halved the efficiency of the
+old regiments they should have reinforced, and harassed the
+commanders and staff by increasing the number of units that were
+of different and ever-changing efficiency and strength. It was a
+system of making and breaking all through.
+
+
+The end came when Northern sea-power had strangled the Southern
+resources and the unified Northern armies had worn out the
+fighting force. Of the single million soldiers raised by the
+South only two hundred thousand remained in arms, half starved,
+half clad, with the scantiest of munitions, and without reserves
+of any kind. Meanwhile the Northern hosts had risen to a million
+in the field, well fed, well clothed, well armed, abundantly
+provided with munitions, and at last well disciplined under the
+unified command of that great leader, Grant. Moreover, behind
+this million stood another million fit to bear arms and
+obtainable at will from the two millions of enrolled reserves.
+
+The cost of the war was stupendous. But the losses of war are not
+to be measured in money. The real loss was the loss of a million
+men, on both sides put together, for these men who died were of
+the nation's best.
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE NAVAL WAR: 1862
+
+Bull Run had riveted attention on the land between the opposing
+capitals and on the armies fighting there. Very few people were
+thinking of the navies and the sea. And yet it was at sea, and
+not on land, that the Union had a force against which the
+Confederates could never prevail, a force which gradually cut
+them off from the whole world's base of war supplies, a force
+which enabled the Union armies to get and keep the strangle-hold
+which did the South to death.
+
+The blockade declared in April was no empty threat. The sails of
+Federal frigates, still more the sinister black hulls of the new
+steam men-of-war, meant that the South was fast becoming a land
+besieged, with every outwork accessible by water exposed to
+sudden attack and almost certain capture by any good amphibious
+force of soldiers and sailors combined.
+
+Sea-power kept the North in affluence while it starved the South.
+Sea-power held Maryland in its relentless grip and did more than
+land-power to keep her in the Union. Sea-power was the chief
+factor in saving Washington. Seapower enabled the North to hold
+such points of vantage as Fortress Monroe right on the flank of
+the South. And sea-power likewise enabled the North to take or
+retake other points of similar importance: for instance, Hatteras
+Island.
+
+In a couple of days at the end of August, 1861, the Confederate
+forts at Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina, were compelled to
+surrender to a joint naval and military expedition under
+Flag-Officer Stringham and Major-General B. F. Butler. The
+immediate result, besides the capture of seven hundred men, was
+the control of the best entrance to North Carolina waters, which
+entailed the stoppage of many oversea supplies for the
+Confederate army. The ulterior result was the securing of a base
+from which a further invasion could be made with great advantage.
+
+
+The naval campaign of the following year was truly epoch-making;
+for the duel between the Monitor and Merrimac in Hampton Roads on
+March 9, 1862, was the first action ever fought between ironclad
+steam men-of-war.
+
+Eleven months earlier the Federal Government had suddenly
+abandoned the Norfolk Navy Yard; though their strongest garrison
+was at Fortress Monroe, only twelve miles north along a waterway
+which was under the absolute control of their navy, and though
+the Confederates', had nothing but an inadequate little untrained
+force on the spot. Among the spoils of war falling into
+Confederate hands were twelve hundred guns and the Merrimac, a
+forty-gun steam frigate. The Merrimac, though fired and scuttled
+by the Federals, was hove up, cut down, plated over, and renamed
+the Virginia. (History, however, knows her only as the Merrimac.)
+John L. Porter, Naval Constructor to the Confederate States, had
+made a model of an ironclad at Pittsburgh fifteen years before;
+and he now applied this model to the rebuilding of the Merrimac.
+He first cut down everything above the water line, except the gun
+deck, which he converted into a regular citadel with flat top,
+sides sloping at thirty-five degrees, and ends stopping short of
+the ship's own ends by seventy feet fore and aft. The effect,
+therefore, was that of an ironclad citadel built on the midships
+of a submerged frigate's hull. The four-inch iron plating of the
+citadel knuckled over the wooden sides two feet under water. The
+engines, which the South had no means of replacing, were the old
+ones which had been condemned before being sunk. A four-foot
+castiron ram was clamped on to the bow. Ten guns were mounted:
+six nine-inch smooth-bores, with two six-inch and two seven-inch
+rifles. Commodore Franklin Buchanan took command and had
+magnificent professional officers under him. But the crew, three
+hundred strong, were mostly landsmen; for, as in the case of the
+Army, the men of the Navy nearly all took sides with the North,
+and the South had very few seamen of any other kind.
+
+To oppose the Merrimac the dilatory North contracted with John
+Ericsson the Swede, who had to build the Monitor much smaller
+than the Merrimac owing to pressure of time. He enjoyed, however,
+enormous advantages in every other respect, owing to the vastly
+superior resources of the North in marine engineering,
+armor-plating, and all other points of naval construction. The
+Monitor was launched at New York on January 30, 1869., the
+hundredth day after the laying of her keel-plate. Her length over
+all was 172 feet, her beam was 41, and her draught only 10--less
+than half the draught of the Merrimac. Her whole crew numbered
+only 58; but every single one was a trained professional naval
+seaman who had volunteered for dangerous service under Captain
+John L. Worden. She was not a good sea boat; and she nearly
+foundered on her way down from New York to Fortress Monroe. Her
+underwater hull was shipshape enough; but her superstructure--a
+round iron tower resting on a very low deck--was not.
+Contemptuous eyewitnesses described her very well as looking like
+a tin can on a shingle or a cheesebox on a raft. She carried only
+two guns, eleven-inchers, both mounted inside her turret, which
+revolved by machinery; but their 180-pound shot were far more
+powerful than any aboard the Merrimac. In maneuvering the Monitor
+enjoyed an immense advantage, with her light draft, strong
+engines, and well-protected screws and rudder.
+
+On the eighth of March, a lovely spring day, the Merrimac made
+her trial trip by going into action with her wheezy old engines,
+lubberly crew, and the guns she had never yet fired. She shoveled
+along at only five knots; but the Confederate garrisons cheered
+her to the echo. Seven miles north she came upon the astonished
+fifty-gun Congress and thirty-gun Cumberland swinging drowsily at
+anchor off Newport News, with their boats alongside and the men's
+wash drying in the rigging. Yet the surprised frigates opened
+fire at twelve hundred yards and were joined by the shore
+batteries, all converging on the Merrimac, from whose iron sides
+the shot glanced up without doing more than hammer her hard and
+start a few rivets. Closing in at top speed--barely six
+knots--the Merrimac gave the Congress a broadside before ramming
+the Cumberland and opening a hole "wide enough to drive in a
+horse and cart." Backing clear and turning the after-pivot gun,
+the Merrimac then got in three raking shells against the
+Congress, which grounded when trying to escape. Meanwhile the
+Cumberland was listing over and rapidly filling, though she kept
+up the fight to the very last gasp. When she sank with a roar her
+topmasts still showed above water and her colors waved defiance.
+An hour later the terribly mauled Congress surrendered; whereupon
+her crew was rescued and she was set on fire. By this time
+various smaller craft on both sides had joined the fray. But the
+big Minnesota still remained, though aground and apparently at
+the mercy of the Merrimac. The great draught of the Merrimac and
+the setting in of the ebb tide, however, made the Confederates
+draw off for the night.
+
+Next morning they saw the "tin can on the shingle" between them
+and their prey. The Monitor and Merrimac then began their
+epoch-making fight. The patchwork engines of the deep-draught
+Merrimac made her as unhandy as if she had been water-logged,
+while the light-draught Monitor could not only play round her
+when close-to but maneuver all over the surrounding shallows as
+well. The Merrimac put her last ounce of steam into an attempt to
+ram her agile opponent. But a touch of the Monitor's helm swung
+her round just in time to make the blow perfectly harmless. The
+Merrimac simply barged into her, grated harshly against her iron
+side, and sheered off beaten. The firing was furious and mostly
+at pointblank range. Once the Monitor fired while the sides were
+actually touching. The concussion was so tremendous that all the
+Merrimac's gun-crews aft were struck down flat, with bleeding
+ears and noses. But in spite of this her boarders were called
+away; whereupon every man who could handle cutlass and revolver
+made ready and stood by. The Monitor, however, dropped astern too
+quickly; and the wallowing Merrimac had no chance of catching
+her. The fight had lasted all through that calm spring morning
+when the Monitor steamed off, across the shallows, still keeping
+carefully between the Merrimac and Minnesota. It was a drawn
+battle. But the effect was that of a Northern victory; for the
+Merrimac was balked of her easy prey, and the North gained time
+to outbuild the South completely.
+
+Outbuilding the South of course meant tightening the "anaconda"
+system of blockade, in the entangling coils of which the South
+was caught already. Three thousand miles of Southern coastline
+was, however, more than the North could blockade or even watch to
+its own satisfaction all at once. Fogs, storms, and clever ruses
+played their part on behalf of those who ran the blockade,
+especially during the first two years; and it was almost more
+than human nature could stand to keep forever on the extreme
+alert, day after dreary day, through the deadly boredom of a long
+blockade. Like caged eagles the crews passed many a weary week of
+dull monotony without the chance of swooping on a chase. "Smoke
+ho!" would be called from the main-topgallant cross-tree. "Where
+away?" would be called back from the deck. "Up the river,
+Sir!"--and there it would stay, the very mark of hope deferred.
+Occasionally a cotton ship would make a dash, with lights out on
+a dark night, or through a dense fog, when her smoke might
+sometimes be conned from the tops. Occasionally, too, a foreigner
+would try to run in, and not seldom succeed, because only the
+fastest vessels tried to run the blockade after the first few
+months. But the general experience was one of utter boredom
+rarely relieved by a stroke of good luck.
+
+The South could not break the blockade. But the North could
+tighten it, and did so repeatedly, not only at sea but by
+establishing strong strategic centers of its own along the
+Southern coast. We have seen already how Hatteras Island was
+taken in '61, five weeks after Bull Run. Within another three
+weeks Ship Island was also taken, to the great disadvantage of
+the Gulf ports and the corresponding advantage of the Federal
+fleet blockading them; for Ship Island commanded the coastwise
+channels between Mobile and New Orleans, the two great scenes of
+Farragut's success. Then, on the seventh of November, the day
+that Grant began his triumphant career by dealing the
+Confederates a shrewd strategic blow at Belmont in Missouri,
+South Carolina suffered a worse defeat at Port Royal (where she
+lost Forts Beauregard and Walker) than North Carolina had
+suffered at Hatteras Island. Admiral S. F. Du Pont managed the
+naval part of the Port Royal expedition with consummate skill,
+especially the fine fleet action off Hilton Head against the
+Southern ships and forts. He was ably seconded by General Thomas
+West Sherman, commanding the troops.
+
+North Carolina's turn soon came again, when she lost Roanoke
+Island (and with it the command of Albemarle Sound) on February
+8, 1862; and when she also had Pamlico Sound shut against her by
+a joint expedition that struck down her defenses as far inland as
+Newbern on the fourteenth of March. Then came the turn of
+Georgia, where Fort Pulaski, the outpost of Savannah, fell to the
+Federals on the eleventh of April. Within another month Florida
+was even more hardly hit when the pressure of the Union fleet and
+army on Virginia compelled the South to use. as reinforcements
+the garrison that had held Pensacola since the beginning of the
+war.
+
+These were all severe blows to the Southern cause. But they were
+nothing to the one which immediately followed.
+
+The idea of an attack on New Orleans had been conceived in June,
+'61, by Commander (afterwards Admiral) D.D. Porter, of the U.S.S.
+Powhatan, when he was helping to blockade the Mississippi. The
+Navy Department had begun thinking over the same idea in
+September and had worked out a definite scheme. New Orleans was
+of immense strategic importance, as being the link between the
+sea and river systems of the war. The mass of people and their
+politicians, on both sides, absurdly thought of New Orleans as
+the objective of a land invasion from the north. Happily for the
+Union cause, Gustavus Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, knew
+better and persuaded his civilian chief, Gideon Welles, that this
+was work for a joint expedition, with the navy first, the army
+second. The navy could take New Orleans. The army would have to
+hold it.
+
+The squadron destined for this enterprise was commanded by David
+Glasgow Farragut, who arrived at Ship Island on February 20,
+1862, in the Hartford, the famous man-of-war that carried his
+flag in triumph to the end. Unlike Lee and Jackson, Grant and
+Sherman, the other four great leaders in the Civil War, Farragut
+was not an American whose ancestors on both sides had come from
+the British Isles. Like Lee, however, he was of very ancient
+lineage, one of his ancestors, Don Pedro Farragut, having held a
+high command under the King of Aragon in the Moorish wars of the
+thirteenth century. Farragut's father was a pure-blooded
+Spaniard, born under the British flag in Minorca in 1755. Half
+Spanish, half Southern by descent, Farragut was wholly Southern
+by family environment. His mother, Elizabeth Shine, was a native
+of North Carolina. He spent his early boyhood in New Orleans.
+Both his first and second wives came from Virginia; and he made
+his home at Norfolk. On the outbreak of the war, however, he
+immediately went North and applied for employment with the Union
+fleet.
+
+Farragut was the oldest of the five great leaders, being now
+sixty years of age, while Lee was fifty-five, Sherman forty-two,
+Grant forty, and Jackson thirty-eight. He was, however, fit as an
+athlete in training, able to turn a handspring on his birthday
+and to hold his own in swordsmanship against any of his officers.
+Of middle height, strong build, and rather plain features, he did
+not attract attention in a crowd. But his alert and upright
+carriage, keenly interested look, and genial smile impressed all
+who ever knew him with a sense of native kindliness and power.
+Though far too great a master of the art of war to interfere with
+his subordinates he always took care to understand their duties
+from their own points of view so that he could control every part
+of the complex naval instruments of war--human and material
+alike--with a sure and inspiring touch. His one weakness as a
+leader was his generous inclination to give subordinates the
+chance of distinguishing themselves when they could have done
+more useful service in a less conspicuous position.
+
+Farragut's base at Ship Island was about a hundred miles east
+from the Confederate Forts Jackson and St. Philip. These forts
+guarded the entrance to the Mississippi. Ninety miles above them
+stood New Orleans, to which they gave protection and from which
+they drew all their supplies. The result of a conference at
+Washington was an order from Welles to "reduce the defenses which
+guard the approaches to New Orleans." But Farragut's own
+infinitely better plan was to run past the forts and take New
+Orleans first. By doing this he would save the extra loss
+required for reducing the forts and would take the weak defenses
+of New Orleans entirely by surprise. Then, when New Orleans fell,
+the forts, cut off from all supplies, would have to surrender
+without the firing of another shot. Everything depended on
+whether Farragut could run past without too much loss. Profoundly
+versed in all the factors of the problem, he foresaw that his
+solution would prove right, while Washington's would as certainly
+be wrong. So, taking the utmost advantage of all the freedom that
+his general instructions allowed, he followed a course in which
+anything short of complete success would mean the ruin of his
+whole career.
+
+The forts were strong, had ninety guns that would bear once
+fleet, and were well placed, one on each side of the river. But
+they suffered from all the disadvantages of fixed defenses
+opposed by a mobile enemy, and their own mobile auxiliaries were
+far from being satisfactory. The best of the "River Defense
+Fleet," including several rams, had been ordered up to Memphis,
+so sure was the Confederate Government that the attack would come
+from the north. Two home-made ironclads were failures. The
+Louisiana's engines were not ready in time; and her captain
+refused to be towed into the position near the boom where he
+could do the enemy most harm. The Mississippi, a mere floating
+house, built by ordinary carpenters, never reached the forts at
+all and was burnt by her own men at New Orleans.
+
+Farragut felt sure of his fleet. He had four splendid new
+men-of-war that formed a homogeneous squadron, four other sizable
+warships, and nine new gunboats. All spars and rigging that could
+be dispensed with were taken down; all hulls camouflaged with
+Mississippi mud; and all decks whitened for handiness at night. A
+weak point, however, was the presence of mortar-boats that would
+have been better out of the way altogether. These boats had been
+sent to bombard the forts,which, according to the plan preferred
+by the Government, were to be taken before New Orleans was
+attacked. In other words, the Government wished to cut off the
+branches first; while Farragut wished to cut down the tree
+itself, knowing the branches must fall with the trunk.
+
+On the eighteenth of April the mortar-boats began heaving shells
+at the forts. But, after six days of bombardment, the forts were
+nowhere near the point of surrendering, and the supply of shells
+had begun to run low.
+
+Meanwhile the squadron had been busy preparing for the great
+ordeal. The first task was to break the boom across the river.
+This boom was placed so as to hold the ships under the fire of
+the forts; and the four-knot spring current was so strong that
+the eight-knot ships could not make way enough against it to cut
+clear through with certainty. Moreover, the middle of the boom
+was filled in by eight big schooners, chained together, with
+their masts and rigging dragging astern so as to form a most
+awkward entanglement. Farragut's fleet captain, Henry H. Bell,
+taking two gunboats, Itasca and Pinola, under Lieutenants
+Caldwell and Crosby, slipped the chains of one schooner;
+whereupon this schooner and the Itasca swung back and grounded
+under fire of the forts. The Pinola gallantly stood by, helping
+Itasca clear. Then Caldwell, with splendid audacity and skill,
+steamed up through the narrow gap, turned round, put on the
+Itasca's utmost speed, and, with the current in his favor,
+charged full tilt against the chains that still held fast. For
+one breathless moment the little Itasca seemed lost. Her bows
+rose clear out, as, quivering from stem to stern, she was
+suddenly brought up short from top speed to nothing. But, in
+another fateful minute, with a rending crash, the two nearest
+schooners gave way and swept back like a gate, while the Itasca
+herself shot clear and came down in triumph to the fleet.
+
+The passage was made on the twenty-fourth, in line-ahead (that
+is, one after another) because Farragut found the opening
+narrower than he thought it should be for two columns abreast, at
+night, under fire, and against the spring current. Owing to the
+configuration of the channel the starboard column had to weigh
+first, which gave the lead to the 500-ton gunboat Cayuga. This
+was the one weak point, because the leading vessel, drawing most
+fire, should have been the strongest. The fault was Farragut's;
+for his heart got the better of his head when it came to placing
+Captain Theodorus Bailey, his dauntless second-in-command, on
+board a vessel fit to lead the starboard column. He could not
+bear to obscure any captain's chances of distinction by putting
+another captain over him. So Bailey was sent to the best vessel
+commanded by a lieutenant.
+
+The Cayuga's navigating officer, finding that the guns of the
+forts were all trained on midstream, edged in towards Fort St.
+Philip. His masts were shot to pieces, but his hull drew clear
+without great damage. "Then," he says, "I looked back for some of
+our vessels; and my heart jumped up into my mouth when I found I
+could not see a single one. I thought they must all have been
+sunk by the forts." But not a ship had gone down. The three big
+ones of the starboard column--Pensacola, Mississippi, and
+Oneida--closed with the fort (so that the gunners on both sides
+exchanged jeers of defiance) and kept up a furious fire till the
+lighter craft astern slipped past safely and joined the Cayuga
+above.
+
+Meanwhile the Cayuga had been attacked by a mob of Mississippi
+steamers, six of which belonged to the original fourteen blessed
+with their precious independence by Secretary Benjamin, "backed
+by the whole Missouri Delegation." So when the rest of the
+Federal light craft came up, "all sorts of things happened" in a
+general free fight. There was no lack of Confederate courage; but
+an utter absence of concerted action and of the simplest kind of
+naval skill, except on the part of the two vessels commanded by
+ex-officers of the United States Navy. The Federal light craft
+cut their way through their unorganized opponents as easily as a
+battalion of regulars could cut through a mob throwing stones.
+But the only two Confederate naval officers got clear of the
+scrimmage and did all that skill could do with their makeshift
+little craft against the Federal fleet. Kennon singled out the
+Varuna (the only one of Farragut's vessels that was not a real
+man-of-war), raked her stern with the two guns of his own much
+inferior vessel, the Governor Moore, and rammed her into a
+sinking condition. Warley flew at bigger game with his little
+ram, the Manassas, trying three of the large men-of-war, one
+after another, as they came upstream. The Pensacola eluded him by
+a knowing turn of her helm that roused his warmest admiration.
+The Mississippi caught the blow glancingly on her quarter and got
+off with little damage. The Brooklyn was taken fair and square
+amidships; but, though her planking was crushed in, she sprang no
+serious leak and went on with the fight. The wretched little
+Confederate engines had not been able to drive the ram home.
+
+The Brooklyn was the flagship Hartford's next-astern and the
+Richmond's next-ahead, these three forming the main body of
+Farragut's own port column, which followed hard on the heels of
+the starboard one, so hard, indeed, that there were only twenty
+minutes between the first shot fired by the forts at the Cayuga
+and the first shot fired by the Hartford at the forts. Besides
+the forts there was the Louisiana floating battery that helped to
+swell the storm of shot and shell; and down the river came a
+fire-raft gallantly towed by a tug. The Hartford sheered off,
+over towards Fort St. Philip, under whose guns she took ground by
+the head while the raft closed in and set her ablaze. Instantly
+the hands on fire duty sprang to their work. But the flames
+rushed in through the ports; and the men were forced a step back.
+Farragut at once called out: "Don't flinch from the fire, boys.
+There's a hotter fire than that for those who don't do their
+duty!" Whereupon they plied their hoses to such good effect that
+the fire was soon got under control. Farragut calmly resumed his
+walk up and down the poop, while the gunners blew the gallant
+little tug to bits and smashed the raft in pieces. Then he stood
+keenly watching the Hartford back clear, gather way, and take the
+lead upstream again. Every now and then he looked at the pocket
+compass that hung from his watch chain; though, for the most
+part, he tried to scan a scene of action lit only by the flashes
+of the guns. The air was dense and very still; so the smoke of
+guns and funnels hung like a pall over both the combatants while
+the desperate fight went on.
+
+At last the fleet fought through and reached the clearer
+atmosphere above the forts; all but the last three gunboats,
+which were driven back by the fire. Then Farragut immediately
+sent word to General Benjamin F. Butler that the troops could be
+brought up by the bayous that ran parallel to the river out of
+range of the forts. But the General, having taken in the
+situation at a glance from a transport just below the scene of
+action, had begun to collect his men at Sable Island, twelve
+miles behind Fort St. Philip, long before Farragut's messenger
+could reach him by way of the Quarantine Bayou. From Sable Island
+the troops were taken by the transports to a point on the
+Mississippi five miles above Fort St. Philip.
+
+After a well-earned rest the whole fleet moved up to New Orleans
+on the twenty-fifth, turning the city's lines five miles
+downstream without the loss of a man, for the simple reason that
+these had been built only to resist an army, and so lay with
+flanks entirely open to a fleet. General Lovell (the able
+commander who had so often warned the Confederate Government of
+the danger from the sea) at once evacuated the defenseless city.
+The best of the younger men were away with the armies. The best
+of the older men were too few for the storm. And so pandemonium
+broke loose. Burning boats, blazing cotton, and a howling mob
+greeted Farragut's arrival. But after the forts (now completely
+cut off from their base) had surrendered on the twenty-eighth a
+landing party from the fleet soon brought the mob to its senses
+by planting howitzers in the streets and lowering the Confederate
+colors over the city hall. On the first of May a garrison of
+Federal troops took charge of New Orleans and kept it till the
+war was over.
+
+
+New Orleans was a most pregnant Federal victory; for it
+established a Union base at the great strategic point where
+sea-power and land-power could meet most effectively in
+Mississippi waters.
+
+But it was followed by a perfect anti-climax; for the Federal
+Government, having planned a naval concentration at Vicksburg,
+determined to put the plan in operation; though all the naval and
+military means concerned made such a plan impossible of execution
+in 1862. Amphibious forces--fleets and armies combined--were
+essential. There was no use in parading up and down the river,
+however triumphantly, so long as the force employed could only
+hold the part of the channel within actual range of its guns. The
+Confederates could be driven off the Mississippi at any given
+point. But there was nothing to prevent them from coming back
+again when once the ships had passed. An army to seize and hold
+strategic points ashore was absolutely indispensable. Then, and
+only then, Farragut's long line of communication with his base at
+New Orleans would be safe, and the land in which the Mississippi
+was the principal highway could itself be conquered.
+
+"If the Mississippi expedition from Cairo shall not have
+descended the river, you will take advantage of the panic to push
+a strong force up the river to take all their defenses in rear."
+These were the orders Farragut had to obey if he succeeded in
+taking New Orleans. They were soon reinforced by this reminder:
+"The only anxiety we feel is to know if you have followed up your
+instructions and pushed a strong force up the river to meet the
+Western flotilla." Farragut therefore felt bound to obey and do
+all that could be done to carry on a quite impossible campaign.
+So, with a useless landing party of only fifteen hundred troops,
+he pushed up to Vicksburg, four hundred miles above New Orleans.
+The nearest Federal army had been halted by the Confederate
+defenses above Memphis, another four hundred higher still.
+
+There were several reasons why Farragut should not have gone up.
+His big ships would certainly be stranded if he went up and
+waited for the army to come down; moreover, when stranded, these
+ships would be captured while waiting, because both banks were
+swarming with vastly outnumbering Confederate troops. Then, such
+a disaster would more than offset the triumph of New Orleans by
+still further depressing Federal morale at a time when the
+Federal arms were doing none too well near Washington. Finally,
+all the force that was being worse than wasted up the Mississippi
+might have been turned against Mobile, which, at that time, was
+much weaker than the defenses Farragut had already overcome. But
+the people of the North were clamorous for more victories along
+the line to which the press had drawn their gaze. So the
+Government ordered the fleet to carry on this impossible
+campaign.
+
+Farragut did his best. Within a month of passing the forts he had
+not only captured New Orleans and repaired the many serious
+damages suffered by his fleet but had captured Baton Rouge, and
+taken even his biggest ships to Vicksburg, five hundred miles
+from the Gulf, against a continuous current, and right through
+the heart of a hostile land. Finding that there were thirty
+thousand Confederates in, near, or within a day of Vicksburg he
+and General Thomas Williams agreed that nothing could be done
+with the fifteen hundred troops which formed the only landing
+party. Sickness and casualties had reduced the ships' companies;
+so there were not even a few seamen to spare as reinforcements
+for these fifteen hundred soldiers, whom Butler had sent, under
+Williams, with the fleet. Then Farragut turned back, his stores
+running dangerously short owing to the enormous difficulties of
+keeping open his long, precarious line of communications. "I
+arrived in New Orleans with five or six days' provisions and one
+anchor, and am now trying to procure others . . . . Fighting is
+nothing to the evils of the river--getting on shore, running foul
+of one another, losing anchors, etc." In a confidential letter
+home he is still more outspoken. "They will keep us in this river
+till the vessels break down and all the little reputation we have
+made has evaporated. The Government appears to think that we can
+do anything. They expect, me to navigate the Mississippi nine
+hundred miles in the face of batteries, ironclad rams, etc.; and
+yet with all the ironclad vessels they have North they could not
+get to Norfolk or Richmond."
+
+Back from Washington came still more urgent orders to join the
+Mississippi flotilla which was coming down to Vicksburg from the
+north under Flag Officer Charles H. Davis. So once more the fleet
+worked its laboriously wasteful way up to Vicksburg, where it
+passed the forts with the help of Porter's flotilla of
+mortar-boats on the twenty-eighth of June and joined Davis on the
+first of July. There, in useless danger, the joint forces lay
+till the fifteenth, the day on which Grant's own "most anxious
+period of the war" began on the Memphis-Corinth line, four
+hundred miles above.
+
+Farragut, getting very anxious about the shoaling of the water,
+was then preparing to run down when he heard firing in the Yazoo,
+a tributary that joined the Mississippi four miles higher up.
+This came from a fight between one of his reconnoitering
+gunboats, the Carondelet, and the Arkansas, an ironclad
+Confederate ram that would have been very dangerous indeed if her
+miserable engines had been able to give her any speed. She was
+beating the Carondelet, but getting her smoke-stack so badly
+holed that her speed dropped down to one knot, which scarcely
+gave her steerage way and made her unable to ram. Firing hard she
+ran the gauntlet of both fleets and took refuge under the
+Vicksburg bluffs, whence she might run out and ram the Union
+vessels below. Farragut therefore ran down himself, hoping to
+smash her by successive broadsides in passing. But the
+difficulties of the passage wasted the daylight, so that he had
+to run by at night. She therefore survived his attack, and went
+downstream to join the Confederates against Baton Rouge. But her
+engines gave way before she got there; and she had to be blown
+up.
+
+Farragut was back at New Orleans before the end of July. On the
+fifth of August the Confederates made their attack on Baton
+Rouge; but were beaten back by the Union garrison aided by three
+of Farragut's gunboats and two larger vessels from Davis's
+command. The losses were not very severe on either side; but the
+Union lost a leader of really magnificent promise in its
+commanding general, Thomas Williams, a great-hearted, cool-headed
+man and most accomplished officer. The garrison of Baton Rouge,
+being too small and sickly and exposed, was withdrawn to New
+Orleans a few days later.
+
+Then Farragut at last returned to the Gulf blockade. Davis went
+back up the river, where he was succeeded by D.D. Porter in
+October. And the Confederates, warned of what was coming, made
+Port Hudson and Vicksburg as strong as they could. Vicksburg was
+now the only point they held on the Mississippi where there were
+rails on both sides; and the Red River, flowing in from the West
+between Vicksburg and Port Hudson, was the only good line of
+communication connecting them with Texas, whence so much of their
+meat was obtained.
+
+For three months Farragut directed the Gulf blockade from
+Pensacola, where, on the day of his arrival, the twentieth of
+August, he was the first American to hoist an admiral's flag. The
+rank of rear-admiral in the United States Navy had been created
+on the previous sixteenth of July; and Farragut was the senior of
+the first three officers upon whom it was conferred.
+
+Farragut became the ranking admiral just when the United States
+Navy was having its hardest struggle to do its fivefold duty
+well. There was commerce protection on the high seas, blockade
+along the coast, cooperation with the army on salt water and on
+fresh, and of course the destruction of the nascent Confederate
+forces afloat. But perhaps a knottier problem than any part of
+its combatant duty was how to manage, in the very midst of war,
+that rapid expansion of its own strength for which no government
+had let it prepare in time of peace. During this year the number
+of vessels in commission grew from 264 to 427. Yet such a form of
+expansion was much simpler than that of the enlisted men; and the
+expansion of even the most highly trained enlisted personnel was
+very much simpler than the corresponding expansion of the
+officers. Happily for the United States Navy it started with a
+long lead over its enemy. More happily still it could expand with
+the help of greatly superior resources. Most happily of all, the
+sevenfold expansion that was effected before the war was over
+could be made under leaders like Farragut: leaders, that is, who,
+though in mere numbers they were no more, in proportion to their
+whole service, than the flag as mere material is to a man-of-war,
+were yet, as is the flag, the living symbol of a people's soul.
+
+Commerce protection on the high seas was an exceedingly harassing
+affair. A few swift raiders, having the initiative, enjoyed great
+advantages over a far larger number of defending vessels. Every
+daring raid was trumpeted round the world, bringing down
+unmeasured, and often unmerited, blame on the defense. The most
+successful vigilance would, on the other hand, pass by unheeded.
+The Union navy lacked the means of patrolling the sea lanes of
+commerce over millions and millions of desolate square miles.
+Consequently the war-risk insurance rose to a prohibitive height
+on vessels flying the Stars and Stripes; and, as a further
+result, enormous transfers were made to other flags. The
+incessant calls for recruits, afloat and ashore, and to some
+extent the lure of the western lands, also robbed the merchant
+service of its men. Thus, one way and another, the glory of the
+old merchant marine departed with the Civil War.
+
+Blockade was more to the point than any attempt to patrol the sea
+lanes. Yet it was even more harassing; for it involved three
+distinct though closely correlated kinds of operation: not only
+the seizure, in conjunction with the army, of enemy ports, and
+the patrolling of an enemy coastline three thousand miles long,
+but also the patrolling of those oversea ports from which most
+contraband came. This oversea patrol was the most effective,
+because it went straight to the source of trouble. But it
+required extraordinary vigilance, because it had to be conducted
+from beyond the three-mile limit, and with the greatest care for
+all the rights of neutrals.
+
+By mid-November Farragut was back at New Orleans. A month later
+General Banks arrived with reinforcements. He superseded General
+Butler and was under orders to cooperate with McClernand, Grant's
+second-in-command, who was to come down the Mississippi from
+Cairo. But the proposed meeting of the two armies never took
+place. Banks remained south of Port Hudson, McClernand far north
+of Vicksburg; for, as we shall see in the next chapter, Sherman's
+attempt to take Vicksburg from the North failed on the
+twenty-ninth of December.
+
+The naval and river campaigns of '62 thus ended in disappointment
+for the Union. And, on New Year's Day, Galveston, which Farragut
+had occupied in October without a fight and which was lightly
+garrisoned by three hundred soldiers, fell into Confederate hands
+under most exasperating circumstances. After the captain and
+first lieutenant of the U.S.S. Harriet Lane had been shot by the
+riflemen aboard two cotton-clad steamers the next officer tamely
+surrendered. Commander Renshaw, who was in charge of the
+blockade, amply redeemed the honor of the Navy by refusing to
+surrender the Westfield, in spite of the odds against him, and by
+blowing her up instead. But when he died at the post of duty the
+remaining Union vessels escaped; and the blockade was raised for
+a week.
+
+After that Commodore H.H. Bell, one of Farragut's best men,
+closed in with a grip which never let go. Yet even Bell suffered
+a reverse when he sent the U.S.S. Hatteras to overhaul a strange
+vessel that lured her off some fifteen miles and sank her in a
+thirteen-minute fight. This stranger was the Alabama, then just
+beginning her famous or notorious career. Nor were these the only
+Union troubles in the Gulf during the first three weeks of the
+new year. Commander J.N. Matt ran the Florida out of Mobile,
+right through the squadron that had been specially strengthened
+to deal with her; and the shore defenses of the Sabine Pass, like
+those of Galveston, fell into Confederate hands again, to remain
+there till the war was over.
+
+In spite of all failures, however, Farragut still had the upper
+hand along the Gulf, and up the Mississippi as far as New
+Orleans, without which admirable base the River War of '69. could
+never have prepared the way for Grant's magnificent victory in
+the River War of '63.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE RIVER WAR: 1862
+
+The military front stretched east and west across the border
+States from the Mississippi Valley to the sea. This immense and
+fluctuating front, under its various and often changed
+commanders, was never a well coordinated whole. The Alleghany
+Mountains divided the eastern or Virginian wing from the western
+or "River" wing. Yet there was always more or less connection
+between these two main parts, and the fortunes of one naturally
+affected those of the other. Most eyes, both at home and abroad,
+were fixed on the Virginian wing, where the Confederate capital
+stood little more than a hundred miles from Washington, where the
+greatest rival armies fought, and where decisive victory was
+bound to have the most momentous consequences. But the River wing
+was hardly less important; for there the Union Government
+actually hoped to reach these three supreme objectives in this
+one campaign: the absolute possession of the border States, the
+undisputed right of way along the Mississippi from Cairo to the
+Gulf, and the triumphant invasion of the lower South in
+conjunction with the final conquest of Virginia.
+
+We have seen already how the Union navy, aided by the army, won
+its way up the Mississippi from the Gulf to Baton Rouge, but
+failed to secure a single point beyond. We shall now see how the
+Union army, aided by the navy, won its way down the Mississippi
+from Cairo to Memphis, and fairly attained the first
+objective--the possession of the border States; but how it also
+failed from the north, as the others had failed from the south,
+to gain a footing on the crucial stretch between Vicksburg and
+Port Hudson. One more year was required to win the Mississippi;
+two more to invade the lower South; three to conquer Virginia.
+
+
+Just after the fall of Fort Sumter the Union Government had the
+foresight to warn James B. Eads, the well-known builder of
+Mississippi jetties, that they would probably draw upon his
+"thorough knowledge of our Western rivers and the use of steam on
+them." But it was not till August that they gave him the contract
+for the regular gunboat flotilla; and it was not till the
+following year that his vessels began their work. In the meantime
+the armies were asking for all sorts of transport and protective
+craft. So the first flotilla on Mississippi waters started under
+the War (not the Navy) Department, though manned under the
+executive orders of Commander John Rodgers, U. S. N., who bought
+three river steamers at Cincinnati, lowered their engines,
+strengthened their frames, protected their decks, and changed
+them into gunboats.
+
+The first phase of the clash in this land of navigable rivers had
+ended, as we have seen already, with the taking of Boonville on
+the Missouri by that staunch and daring Union regular, General
+Nathaniel Lyon, on June 17, 1861. Boonville was a stunning blow
+to secession in those parts. Confederate hopes, however, again
+rose high when the news of Bull Run came through. At this time
+General John C. Fremont was taking command of all the Union
+forces in the "Western Department," which included Illinois and
+everything between the Mississippi and the Rockies. Fremont's
+command, however, was short and full of trouble. Round his
+headquarters at St. Louis the Confederate colors were flaunted in
+his face. His requisitions for arms and money were not met at
+Washington. Union regiments marched in without proper equipment
+and with next to no supplies. There were boards of inquiry on his
+contracts. There were endless cross-purposes between him and
+Washington. And early in November he was transferred to West
+Virginia just as he was about to attack with what seemed to him
+every prospect of success. He had not succeeded. But he had done
+good work in fortifying St. Louis; in ordering gunboats, tugs,
+and mortar-boats; in producing some kind of system out of utter
+confusion,; in trusting good men like Lyon; and in sending the
+then unknown Ulysses Grant to take command at Cairo, the
+excellent strategic base where the Ohio joins the Mississippi.
+
+The most determined fighting that took place during Fremont's
+command was brought on by Lyon, who attacked Ben McCulloch at
+Wilson's Creek, in southwest Missouri, on the tenth of August.
+Though McCulloch had ten thousand, against not much over five,
+Lyon was so set on driving the Confederates away from such an
+important lead-bearing region that he risked an attack, hoping by
+surprise, skillful maneuvers, and the help of his regulars to
+shake the enemy's hold, even if he could not thoroughly defeat
+him. Disheartened by his repeated failure to get reinforcements,
+and very anxious about the fate of his flanking column under
+Sigel, whose attack from the rear was defeated, he expressed his
+forebodings to his staff. But the light of battle shone bright as
+ever in his eyes; he was killed leading a magnificent charge; and
+when, after his death, his little army drew off in good order,
+the Confederates, by their own account, "were glad to see him
+go."
+
+On the twentieth of September the Confederates under Sterling
+Price won a barren victory by taking Lexington, Missouri, where
+Colonel James Mulligan made a gallant defense. That was the last
+Confederate foothold on the Missouri; and it could not be
+maintained.
+
+In October, Anderson, who had never recovered from the strain of
+defending Fort Sumter, turned over to Sherman the very
+troublesome Kentucky command. Sherman pointed out to the visiting
+Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, that while McClellan had a
+hundred thousand men for a front of a hundred miles in Virginia,
+and Fremont had sixty thousand for about the same distance, he
+(Sherman) had been given only eighteen thousand to guard the link
+between them, although this link stretched out three hundred
+miles. Sherman then asked for sixty thousand men at once; and
+said two hundred thousand would be needed later on. "Good God!"
+said Cameron, "where are they to come from?" Come they had to, as
+Sherman foresaw. Cameron made trouble at Washington by calling
+Sherman's words "insane"; and Sherman's "insanity" became a
+stumbling-block that took a long time to remove.
+
+Grant, in command at Cairo, began his career as a general by
+cleverly forestalling the enemy at Paducah, where the Tennessee
+flows into the Ohio. Then, on the seventh of November, he closed
+the first confused campaign on the Mississippi by attacking
+Belmont, Missouri, twenty miles downstream from Cairo, in order
+to prevent the Confederates at Columbus, Kentucky, right
+opposite, from sending reinforcements to Sterling Price in
+Arkansas. There was a stiff fight, in which the Union gunboats
+did good work. Grant handled his soldiers equally well; and the
+Union objective was fully attained.
+
+
+Halleck, the Federal Commander-in-Chief for the river campaign of
+'62, fixed his headquarters at St. Louis. From this main base his
+right wing had rails as far as Rolla, whence the mail road went
+on southwest, straight across Missouri. At Lebanon, near the
+middle of the State, General Samuel R. Curtis was concentrating,
+before advancing still farther southwest against the Confederates
+whom he eventually fought at Pea Ridge. From St. Louis there was
+good river, rail, and road connection south to Halleck's center
+in the neighborhood of Cairo, where General Ulysses S. Grant had
+his chief field base, at the junction of the Mississippi and
+Ohio. A little farther east Grant had another excellent position
+at Paducah, beside the junction of the Ohio and the Tennessee.
+Naval forces were of course indispensable for this amphibious
+campaign; and in Flag-Officer Andrew Hull Foote the Western
+Flotilla had a commander able to cooperate with the best of his
+military colleagues. Halleck's left--a semi-independent
+command--was based on the Ohio, stretched clear across Kentucky,
+and was commanded by a good organizer and disciplinarian, General
+Don Carlos Buell, whose own position at Munfordville was not only
+near the middle of the State but about midway between the
+important railway junctions of Louisville and Nashville.
+
+Henry W. Halleck was a middle-aged, commonplace, and very
+cautious general, who faithfully plodded through the war without
+defeat or victory. He looked so long before he leaped that he
+never leaped at all--not even on retreating enemies. Good for the
+regular officework routine, he was like a hen with ducklings for
+this river war, in which Curtis, Grant, Buell, and his naval
+colleague Foote, were all his betters on the fighting line.
+
+His opponent, Albert Sidney Johnston, was also middle-aged, being
+fifty-nine; but quite fit for active service. Johnston had had a
+picturesque career, both in and out of the army; and many on both
+sides thought him likely to prove the greatest leader of the war.
+He was, however, a less formidable opponent than Northerners were
+apt to think. He was not a consummate genius like Lee. He had
+inferior numbers and resources; and the Confederate Government
+interfered with him. Yet they did have the good sense to put both
+sides of the Mississippi under his unified command, including not
+only Kentucky and Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas, but the whole
+of the crucial stretch from Vicksburg to Port Hudson. In this
+they were wiser than the Federal Government with Halleck's
+command, which was neither so extensive nor so completely
+unified.
+
+Johnston took post in his own front line at Bowling Green,
+Kentucky, not far south of Buell's position at Munfordville. He
+was very anxious to keep a hold on Kentucky and Missouri, along
+the southern frontiers of which his forces were arrayed. His
+extreme right was thrown northward under General Marshall to
+Prestonburg, near the border of West Virginia, in the dangerous
+neighborhood of many Union mountain folk. His southern outpost on
+the right was also in the same kind of danger at Cumberland Gap,
+a strategic pass into the Alleghanies at a point where Kentucky,
+Tennessee, and Virginia meet. Halfway west from there, to Bowling
+Green the Confederates hoped to hold the Cumberland near Logan's
+Cross Roads and Mill Springs. Westwards from Bowling Green
+Johnston's line held positions at Fort Donelson on the
+Cumberland, Fort Henry on the Tennessee, and Columbus on the
+Mississippi. All his Trans-Mississippi troops were under the
+command of the enthusiastic Earl Van Dorn, who hoped to end his
+spring campaign in triumph at St. Louis.
+
+
+The fighting began in January at the northeastern end of the
+line, where the Union Government, chiefly for political reasons,
+was particularly anxious to strengthen the Unionists that lived
+all down the western Alleghanies and so were a thorn in the side
+of the solid South beyond. On the tenth Colonel James A.
+Garfield, a future President, attacked and defeated Marshall near
+Prestonburg and occupied the line of Middle Creek. The
+Confederates, half starved, half clad, ill armed, slightly
+outnumbered, and with no advantage except their position, fought
+well, but unavailingly. Only some three thousand men were engaged
+on both sides put together. Yet the result was important because
+it meant that the Confederates had lost their hold on the eastern
+end of Kentucky, which was now in unrestricted touch with West
+Virginia.
+
+Within eight days a greater Union commander, General G.H. Thomas,
+emerged as the victor of a much bigger battle at Mill Springs and
+Logan's Cross Roads on the upper Cumberland, ninety miles due
+east of Bowling Green. The victory was complete, and Thomas's
+name was made. Thomas, indeed, was known already as a man whose
+stentorian orders had to be obeyed; and a clever young
+Confederate prisoner used this reputation as his excuse for
+getting beaten: "We were doing pretty good fighting till old man
+Thomas rose up in his stirrups, and we heard him holler out:
+'Attention, Creation! By kingdoms, right wheel!' Then we knew you
+had us."
+
+There were only about four thousand men a side. But in itself,
+and in conjunction with Garfield's little victory at Prestonburg,
+the battle of Logan's Cross Roads was important as raising the
+Federal morale, as breaking through Johnston's right, and as
+opening the road into eastern Tennessee. Short supplies and
+almost impassable roads, however, prevented a further advance.
+One brigade was therefore detached against Cumberland Gap, while
+the rest joined Buell's command, which was engaged in organizing,
+drilling hard, and keeping an eye on Johnston.
+
+In February the scene of action changed to Johnston's left
+center, where Forts Donelson and Henry were blocking the Federal
+advance up the Cumberland and the Tennessee.
+
+On the fourth, Flag-Officer Foote, with seven gunboats, of which
+four were ironclads, led the way up the Tennessee, against Fort
+Henry. That day the furious current was dashing driftwood in
+whirling masses against the flotilla, which had all it could do
+to keep station, even with double anchors down and full steam up.
+Next morning a new danger appeared in the shape of what looked
+like a school of dead porpoises. These were Confederate
+torpedoes, washed from their moorings. As it was now broad
+daylight they were all successfully avoided; and the crews felt
+as if they had won the first round.
+
+The sixth of February dawned clear, with just sufficient breeze
+to blow the smoke away. The flotilla steamed up the swollen
+Tennessee between the silent, densely wooded banks. Not a sound
+was heard ashore until, just after noon, Fort Henry came into
+view and answered the flagship's signal shot with a crashing
+discharge of all its big guns. Then the fire waxed hot and heavy
+on both sides, the gunboats knocking geyser-spouts of earth about
+the fort, and the fort knocking gigantic splinters out of the
+gunboats. The Essex ironclad was doing very well when a big shot
+crashed into her middle boiler, which immediately burst like a
+shell, scalding the nearest men to death, burning others, and
+sending the rest flying overboard or aft. With both pilots dead
+and Commander W.D. Porter badly scalded, the Essex was drifting
+out of action when the word went round that Fort Henry had
+surrendered: and there, sure enough, were the Confederate colors
+coming down. Instantly Porter rallied for the moment, called for
+three cheers, and fell back exhausted at the third.
+
+The Confederate General Tilghman surrendered to Foote with less
+than a hundred men, all the rest, over twenty-five hundred,
+having started towards Fort Donelson before the flag came down.
+The Western Flotilla had won the day alone. But it was the fear
+of Grant's approaching army that hurried the escaping garrison.
+An hour after the surrender Grant rode in and took command. That
+night victors and vanquished were dining together when a fussy
+staff officer came in to tell Grant that he could not find the
+Confederate reports. On this Captain Jesse Taylor, the chief
+Confederate staff officer, replied that he had destroyed them.
+The angry Federal then turned on him with the question, "Don't
+you know you've laid yourself open to punishment?" and was
+storming along, when Grant quietly broke in: "I should be very
+much surprised and mortified if one of my subordinate officers
+should allow information which he could destroy to fall into the
+hands of the enemy."
+
+The surrender of Fort Henry, coming so soon after Prestonburg and
+Logan's Cross Roads, caused great rejoicing in the loyal North.
+The victory, effective in itself, was completed by sending the
+ironclad Carondelet several miles upstream to destroy the
+Memphis-Ohio railway bridge, thus cutting the shortest line from
+Bowling Green to the Mississippi. But the action, in which the
+army took no part, was only a preliminary skirmish compared with
+the joint attack of the fleet and army on Fort Donelson. Fort
+Donelson was of great strategic importance. If it held fast, and
+the Federals were defeated, then Johnston's line would probably
+hold from Bowling Green to Columbus, and the rails, roads, and
+rivers would remain Confederate in western Tennessee. If, on the
+other hand, Fort Donelson fell, and more especially if its
+garrison surrendered, then Johnston's line would have to be
+withdrawn at once, lest the same fate should overtake the
+outflanked remains of it. Both sides understood this perfectly
+well; and all concerned looked anxiously to see how the new
+Federal commander, General Grant, would face the crisis.
+
+
+Ulysses Simpson Grant came of sturdy New England stock, being
+eighth in descent from Matthew Grant, who landed in 1630 and was
+Surveyor of Connecticut for over forty years. Grant's mother was
+one of the Simpsons who had been Pennsylvanians for several
+generations. His family was therefore as racy of the North as
+Lee's was of the South. His great-grandfather and
+great-granduncle, Noah and Solomon Grant, held British
+commissions during the final French-and-Indian or Seven Years'
+War (1756-63) when both were killed in the same campaign. His
+grandfather Noah served all through the Revolutionary War.
+Financial reverses and the death of his grandmother broke up the
+family; and his father, Jesse Grant, was given the kindest of
+homes by Judge Tod of Ohio. Jesse, being as independent as he was
+grateful, turned his energies into the first business at hand,
+which happened to be a tannery at Deerfield owned by the father
+of that wild enthusiast John Brown. A great reader, an able
+contributor to the Western press, and a most public-spirited
+citizen, Jesse Grant was a good father to his famous son, who was
+born on April 27, 1822, at Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio.
+Young Grant hated the tannery, but delighted in everything
+connected with horses; so he looked after the teams. One day,
+after swapping horses many miles from home, he found himself
+driving a terrified bolter that he only just managed to stop on
+the edge of a big embankment. His grown-up companion, who had no
+stomach for any more, then changed into a safe freight wagon. But
+Ulysses, tying his bandanna over the runaway's eyes, stuck to the
+post of danger.
+
+After passing through West Point without any special distinction,
+except that he came out first in horsemanship, Grant was
+disappointed at not receiving the cavalry commission which he
+would have greatly preferred to the infantry one he was given
+instead. Years later, when already a rising general, he vainly
+yearned for a cavalry brigade. Otherwise he had curiously little
+taste for military life; though at West Point he thought the two
+finest men in the world were Captain C.F. Smith, the splendidly
+smart Commandant, and, even more, that magnificently handsome
+giant, Winfield Scott, who came down to inspect the cadets. Some
+years after having served with credit all through the Mexican War
+(when, like Lee, he learnt so much about so many future friends
+and foes) he left the army, not to return till he and Sherman had
+seen Blair and Lyon take Camp Jackson. After wisely declining to
+reenter the service under the patronage of General John Pope, who
+was full of self-importance about his acquaintance with the Union
+leaders of Illinois, Grant wrote to the Adjutant-General at
+Washington offering to command a regiment. Like Sherman, he felt
+much more diffident about the rise from ex-captain of regulars to
+colonel commanding a battalion than some mere civilians felt
+about commanding brigades or directing the strategy of armies. He
+has himself recorded his horror of sole responsibility as he
+approached what might have been a little battlefield on which his
+own battalion would have been pitted against a Southern one
+commanded by a Colonel Harris. "My heart kept getting higher and
+higher until it felt as though it was in my throat. I would have
+given anything then to have been back in Illinois; but I had not
+the moral courage to halt and consider what to do. When we
+reached a point from which the valley below was in full view . .
+. the troops were gone. My heart resumed its place. It occurred
+to me at once that Harris had been as much afraid of me as I had
+been of him: This was a view of the question I never forgot."
+
+Grant's latent powers developed rapidly. Starting with a good
+stock of military knowledge he soon added to it in every way he
+could. He had the insight of genius. Above all, he had an
+indomitable will both in carrying out practicable plans in spite
+of every obstacle and in ruthlessly dismissing every one who
+failed. Not tall, not handsome, in no way striking at first
+sight, he looked the leader born only by reason of his square
+jaw, keen eye, and determined expression. Lincoln's conclusive
+answer to a deputation asking for Grant's removal simply was, "he
+fights." And, when mounted on his splendid charger Cincinnati,
+Grant even looked what he was--"a first-class fighting man."
+
+
+Grant marched straight across the narrow neck of land between the
+forts, which were only twelve miles apart. Foote of course had to
+go round by the Ohio--fifteen times as far. His vanguard, the
+dauntless Carondelet, now commanded by Henry Walke, arrived on
+the twelfth and fired the first shots at the fort, which stood on
+a bluff more than a hundred feet high and mounted fifteen heavy
+guns in three tiers of fire. Grant's infantry was already in
+position round the Confederate entrenchments; and when his
+soldiers heard the naval guns they first gave three rousing
+cheers and then began firing hard, lest the sailors should get
+ahead of them again. Birge's sharpshooters, the snipers of those
+days, were particularly keen. They never drilled as a battalion,
+but simply assembled in bunches for orders, when Birge would ask:
+"Canteens full? Biscuits for all day?" After which he would sing
+out: "All right, boys, hunt your holes"; and off they would go to
+stalk the enemy with their long-range rifles.
+
+Early next morning Grant sent word to Walke that he was
+establishing the rest of his batteries and that he was ready to
+take advantage of any diversion which the Carondelet could make
+in his favor. Walke then fired hard for two hours under cover of
+a wooded point. The fort fired back equally hard; but with little
+effect except for one big solid shot which stove in a casemate,
+knocked down a dozen men, burst the steam heater, and bounded
+about the engine room "like a wild beast pursuing its prey."
+Forty minutes later the Carondelet was again in action, firing
+hard till dark. Late that night Foote arrived with the rest of
+the flotilla.
+
+The fourteenth was another naval day. Foote's flotilla advanced
+gallantly, the four ironclads leading in line abreast, the two
+wooden gunboats half a mile astern. The ironclads closed in to
+less than a quarter-mile and hung on like bulldogs till the
+Confederates in the lowest battery were driven from their guns.
+But the plunging fire from the big guns on the bluff crashed down
+with ever increasing effect. Davits were smashed like matches,
+boats knocked into kindling wood, armor dented, started, ripped,
+stripped, and sent splashing overboard as if by strokes of
+lightning. Before the decks could be resanded there was so much
+blood on them that the gun crews could hardly work for slipping.
+Presently the Pittsburgh swung round, ran foul of the Carondelet,
+and dropped downstream. The pilot of the St. Louis was killed,
+and Foote, who stood beside him, wounded. The wheel-ropes of the
+St. Louis, like those of the Louisville, were shot away. The
+whole flotilla then retired, still firing hard; and the
+Confederates wired a victory to Richmond.
+
+Both sides now redoubled their efforts; for Donelson was a great
+prize and the forces engaged were second only to those at Bull
+Run. Afloat and ashore, all ranks and ratings on both sides
+together, there were fifty thousand men present at the investment
+from first to last. The Confederates began with about twenty
+thousand, Grant with fifteen thousand. But Grant had twenty-seven
+thousand fit for duty at the end, in spite of all his losses. He
+was fortunate in his chief staff officer, the devoted and capable
+John A. Rawlins, afterwards a general and Secretary of War. Two
+of his divisional commanders, Lew Wallace and, still more, C.F.
+Smith, the old Commandant of Cadets, were also first-rate. But
+the third, McClernand, here began to follow those distorting
+ideas which led to his dismissal later on. The three chief
+Confederates ranked in reverse order of efficiency: Floyd first
+and worst, cantankerous Pillow next, and Buckner best though
+last.
+
+The Federal prospect was anything but bright on the evening of
+the fourteenth. Foote had just been repulsed; while McClernand
+had fought a silly little battle on his own account the day
+before, to the delight of the Confederates and the grievous
+annoyance of Grant. The fifteenth dawned on a scene of midwinter
+discomfort in the Federal lines, where most of the rawest men had
+neither great-coats nor blankets, having thrown them away during
+the short march from Fort Henry, regardless of the fact that they
+would have to bivouac at Donelson. Thus it was in no happy frame
+of mind that Grant slithered across the frozen mud to see what
+Foote proposed; and, when Foote explained that the gunboats would
+take ten days for indispensable repairs, Grant resigned himself
+to the very unwelcome idea of going through the long-drawn
+horrors of a regular winter siege.
+
+But, to his intense surprise, the enemy saved him the trouble. At
+first, when they had a slight preponderance of numbers, they
+stood fast and let Grant invest them. Now that he had the
+preponderance they tried to cut their way out by the southern
+road, upstream, where McClernand's division stood guard. As Grant
+came ashore from his interview with Foote an aide met him with
+the news that McClernand had been badly beaten and that the enemy
+was breaking out. Grant set spurs to his horse and galloped the
+four muddy miles to his left, where that admirable soldier, C.F.
+Smith, was as cool and wary as ever, harassing the enemy's new
+rear by threatening an assault, but keeping his division safe for
+whatever future use Grant wanted. Wallace had also done the right
+thing, pressing the enemy on his own front and sending a brigade
+to relieve the pressure on McClernand. These two generals were in
+conversation during a lull in the battle when Grant rode up,
+calmly returned their salutes, attentively listened to their
+reports, and then, instead of trying the Halleckian expedient of
+digging in farther back before the enemy could make a second
+rush, quietly said: "Gentlemen, the position on the right must be
+retaken."
+
+Grant knew that Floyd was no soldier and that Pillow was a
+stumbling-block. He read the enemy's mind like an open book and
+made up his own at once by the flash of intuition which told him
+that their men were mostly as much demoralized by finding their
+first attempt at escape more than half a failure as even
+McClernand's were by being driven back. He decided to use Smith's
+fresh division for an assault in rear, while McClernand's,
+stiffened by Wallace's, should re-form and hold fast. Before
+leaving the excited officers and men, who were talking in groups
+without thinking of their exhausted ammunition, he called out
+cheerily "Fill your cartridge boxes quick, and get into line. The
+enemy is trying to escape and he must not be permitted to do so."
+McClernand's division, excellent men, but not yet disciplined
+soldiers, responded at once to the touch of a master hand; and as
+Grant rode off to Smith's he had the satisfaction of seeing the
+defenseless groups melt, change, and harden into well-armed
+lines.
+
+Smith, ready at all points, had only to slip his own division
+from the leash. Buckner, who was to have covered the Confederate
+escape, was also ready with the guns of Fort Donelson and the
+rifles of defenses that "looked too thick for a rabbit to get
+through." Smith, knowing his unseasoned men would need the
+example of a commander they could actually see, rode out in front
+of his center as if at a formal review. "I was nearly scared to
+death," said one of his followers, "but I saw the old man's white
+moustache over his shoulder, and so I went on." As the line
+neared the Confederate abatis a sudden gust of fire seemed to
+strike it numb. In an instant Smith had his cap on the point of
+his sword. Then, rising in his stirrups to his full gigantic
+height, he shouted in stentorian tones: "No flinching now, my
+lads! Here--this way in! Come on!" In, through, and out the other
+side they went, Smith riding ahead, holding his sword and cap
+aloft, and seeming to bear a charmed life amid that hail of
+bullets. Up the slope he rode, the Confederates retiring before
+him, till, unscathed, he reached the deadly crest, where the
+Union colors waved defiance and the Union troops stood fast.
+
+Floyd, being under special indictment at Washington for
+misconduct as Secretary of War, was so anxious to escape that he
+turned over the command to Pillow, who declined it in favor of
+Buckner. That night Floyd and Pillow made off with all the river
+steamers; Forrest's cavalry floundered past McClernand's exposed
+flank, which rested on a shallow backwater; and Buckner was left
+with over twelve thousand men to make what terms he could. Next
+morning, the sixteenth, he wrote to Grant proposing the
+appointment of commissioners to agree upon terms of surrender.
+But Grant had made up his mind that compromise was out of place
+in civil war and that absolute defeat or victory were the only
+alternatives. So he instantly wrote back the famous letter which
+quickly earned him the appropriate nickname--suggested by his own
+initials--of Unconditional Surrender Grant.
+
+
+                 Hd Qrs., Army in the Field
+                 Camp near Donelson Feb'y 18th 1882
+
+Gen. S.B. Buckner, 
+  Confed. Army.
+
+Sir: Yours of this date proposing armistice, and appointment of
+Commissioners to settle terms of capitulation is just received.
+No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be
+accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works
+
+    I am, Sir, very respectfully,
+                Your obt. sert.,
+                   U.S. GRANT
+                       Brig. Gen.
+
+Grant and Buckner were old army friends; so their personal talk
+was very pleasant at the little tavern where Buckner and his
+staff had just breakfasted off corn bread and coffee, which was
+all the Confederate stores afforded.
+
+Donelson at once became, like Grant, a name to conjure with. The
+fact that the Union had at last won a fight in which the numbers
+neared, and the losses much exceeded, those at Bull Run itself,
+the further fact that this victory made a fatal breach in the
+defiant Southern line beyond the Alleghanies, and the delight of
+discovering another, and this time a genuine, hero in
+"Unconditional Surrender Grant," all combined to set the loyal
+North aflame with satisfaction, pride, and joyful expectation.
+Great things were expected in Virginia, where the invasion had
+not yet begun. Great things were expected in the Gulf, where
+Farragut had not yet tried the Mississippi. And great things were
+expected to result from Donelson itself, whence the Union forces
+were to press on south till they met other Union forces pressing
+north. The river campaign was then to end in a blaze of glory.
+
+Donelson did have important results. Johnston, who had already
+abandoned Bowling Green for Nashville, had now to abandon
+Nashville, with most of its great and very sorely needed stores,
+as well as the rest of Tennessee, and take up a new position
+along the rails that ran from Memphis to Chattanooga, whence they
+forked northeast to Richmond and Washington and southeast to
+Charleston and Savannah. Columbus was also abandoned, and the
+only points left to the Confederates anywhere near the old line
+were Island Number Ten in the Mississippi and the Boston
+Mountains in Arkansas.
+
+But the triumphant Union advance from the north did not take
+place in '62. Grant was for pushing south as fast as possible to
+attack the Confederates before they had time to defend their
+great railway junction at Corinth. But Halleck was too cautious;
+and misunderstandings, coupled with division of command, did the
+rest. Halleck was the senior general in the West. But the three,
+and afterwards four, departments into which the West was divided
+were never properly brought under a single command. Then
+telegrams went wrong at the wire-end advancing southwardly from
+Cairo, the end Grant had to use. A wire from McClellan on the
+sixteenth of February was not delivered till the third of March.
+Next day Grant was thunderstruck at receiving this from Halleck:
+"Place C.F. Smith in command of expedition and remain yourself at
+Fort Henry. Why do you not obey my orders to report strength and
+positions of your command?" And so it went on till McClellan
+authorized Halleck to place Grant under arrest for
+insubordination. Then the operator at the wire-end suddenly
+deserted, taking a sheaf of dispatches with him. He was a clever
+Confederate.
+
+Explanations followed; and on the seventeenth of March Grant
+rejoined his army, which was assembling round Pittsburg Landing
+on the Tennessee, near the future battlefield of Shiloh, and some
+twenty miles northeast of Corinth.
+
+Meanwhile Van Dorn and Sterling Price, thinking it was now or
+never for Missouri, decided to attack Curtis. They had fifteen
+against ten thousand men, and hoped to crush Curtis utterly by
+catching him between two fires. But on the seventh of March the
+Federal left beat off the flanking attack of McCulloch and
+McIntosh, both of whom were killed. The right, furiously assailed
+by the Confederate Missourians under Van Dorn and Price, fared
+badly and was pressed back. Yet on the eighth Curtis emerged
+victorious on the hard-fought field that bears the double name of
+Elkhorn Tavern and Pea Ridge. This battle in the northwest corner
+of Arkansas settled the fate of Missouri.
+
+A month later the final attack was made on Island Number Ten.
+Foote's flotilla had been at work there as early as the middle of
+March, when the strong Confederate batteries on the island and
+east shore bluffs were bombarded by ironclads and mortarboats.
+Then the Union General John Pope took post at New Madrid, eight
+miles below the island, on the west shore, which the Confederates
+had to evacuate when he cut their line of communications farther
+south. They now held only the island and the east shore opposite,
+with no line of retreat except the Mississippi, because the land
+line on the east shore was blocked by swamps and flanked by the
+Union armies in western Tennessee.
+
+On the night of the fourth of April the Carondelet started to cut
+this last line south. She was swathed in hawsers and chain
+cables. Her decks were packed tight with every sort of gear that
+would break the force of plunging shot; and a big barge, laden
+with coal and rammed hay, was lashed to her port side to protect
+her magazine. Twenty-three picked Illinoisian sharpshooters went
+aboard; while pistols, muskets, cutlasses, boarding-pikes, and
+hand grenades were placed ready for instant use. The escape-pipe
+was led aft into the wheel-house, so as to deaden the noise; and
+hose was attached to the boilers ready to scald any Confederates
+that tried to board. Then, through the heart of a terrific
+thunderstorm, and amid a furious cannonade, the Carondelet ran
+the desperate gauntlet at full speed and arrived at New Madrid by
+midnight.
+
+The Confederates were now cut off both above and below; for the
+position of Island Number Ten was at the lower point of a
+V-shaped bend in the Mississippi, with Federal forces at the two
+upper points. But the Federal troops could not close on the
+Confederates without crossing over to the east bank; and their
+transports could not run the gauntlet like the ironclads. So the
+Engineer Regiment of the West cut out a water road connecting the
+two upper points of the V. This admirable feat of emergency field
+engineering was effected by sawing through three miles of heavy
+timber to the nearest bayou, whence a channel was cleared down to
+New Madrid. Then the transports went through in perfect safety
+and took Pope's advanced guard aboard. The ironclad Pittsburg had
+come down, through another thunderstorm, this same morning of the
+seventh; and when the island garrison saw their position
+completely cut off they surrendered to Foote. Next day Pope's men
+cut off the greater part of the Confederates on the mainland.
+Thus fell the last point near Johnston's original line along the
+southern borders of Missouri and Kentucky. Just before it fell
+Johnston made a desperate counterattack from his new line at
+Corinth, in northwest Mississippi, against Grant's encroaching
+force at Shiloh, fifteen miles northeast, on the Tennessee River.
+
+Writing "A. S. Johnston, 3d April, 62, en avant" on his pocket
+map of Tennessee, the Confederate leader, anguished by the bitter
+criticism with which his unavoidable retreat had been assailed,
+cast the die for an immediate attack on Grant before slow Halleck
+reinforced or ready Buell joined him. Johnston's lieutenants,
+Beauregard and Bragg, had obtained ten days for reorganization;
+and their commands were as ready as raw forces could be made in
+an extreme emergency. They hoped to be joined by Van Dorn, whose
+beaten army was working east from Pea Ridge. But on the second
+they heard that Buell was approaching Grant from Nashville; and
+on the third Johnston's advanced guard began to move off. Van
+Dorn arrived too late.
+
+The march, which it was hoped to complete on the fourth, was not
+completed till the fifth. The roads were ankle-deep in clinging
+mud, the country densely wooded and full of bogs and marshes. The
+forty thousand men were not yet seasoned; and, though full of
+enthusiasm, they neither knew nor had time to learn march
+discipline. Moreover, Johnston allowed his own proper plan of
+attacking in columns of corps to be changed by Beauregard into a
+three-line attack, each line being formed by one complete corps.
+This meant certain and perhaps disastrous confusion. For in an
+attack by columns of corps the firing line would always be
+reinforced by successive lines of the same corps; while attacking
+by lines of corps meant that the leading corps would first be
+mixed up with the second, and then both with the third.
+
+In the meantime Grant was busier with his own pressing problems
+of organization for an advance than with any idea of resisting
+attack. He lacked the prevision of Winfield Scott and Lee, both
+of whom expected from the first that the war would last for
+years. His own expectation up to this had been that the South
+would collapse after the first smashing blow, and that its
+western armies were now about to be dealt such a blow. He was not
+unmindful of all precautions; for he knew the Confederates were
+stirring on his front. Yet he went downstream to Savannah without
+making sure that his army was really safe at Shiloh.
+
+Pittsburg Landing was at the base of the Shiloh position. But the
+point at which, by the original orders, Buell was to join was
+Savannah, nine miles north along the Tennessee. So Grant had to
+keep in touch with both. He had not ignored the advantage of
+entrenching. But the best line for entrenching was too far from
+good water; and he thought he chose the lesser of two evils when
+he devoted the time that might have been used for digging to
+drilling instead. His army was raw as an army; many of the men
+were still rawer recruits; and, as usual, the recruiting
+authorities had sent him several brand-new battalions, which knew
+nothing at all, instead of sending the same men as reinforcements
+to older battalions that could "learn 'em how." Grant's total
+effectives at first were only thirty-three thousand. This made
+the odds five to four in favor of Johnston's attack. But the
+rejoining of Lew Wallace's division, the great reinforcement by
+Buell's troops, and the two ironclad gunboats on the river,
+raised Grant's final effective grand total to sixty thousand. The
+combined grand totals therefore reached a hundred
+thousand--double the totals at Donelson and far exceeding those
+at Bull Run.
+
+After a horrible week of cold and wet the sun set clear and calm
+on Saturday, the eve of battle. The woods were alive with forty
+thousand Confederates all ready for their supreme attack on the
+thirty-three thousand Federals on their immediate four-mile
+front. Grant's front ran, facing south, between Owl and Lick
+Creeks, two tributaries that joined the Tennessee on either side
+of Pittsburg Landing. Buell's advance division, under Nelson, was
+just across the Tennessee. But Grant was in no hurry to get it
+over. His reassuring wire that night to Halleck said: "The main
+force of the enemy is at Corinth. I have scarcely the faintest
+idea of an attack (general one) being made upon us." But the
+skirmishing farther south on Friday had warned Grant, as well as
+Sherman and the vigilant Prentiss, that Johnston might be trying
+a reconnaissance in force--the very thing that Beauregard wished
+the Confederates to do.
+
+Long before the beautiful dawn of Sunday, the fateful sixth of
+April, Prentiss had thrown out from the center a battalion which
+presently met and drove in the vanguard of the first Confederate
+line of assault. The Confederate center soon came up, overwhelmed
+this advanced battalion, and burst like a storm on the whole of
+Prentiss's division. Then, above the swelling roar of
+multitudinous musketry, rose the thunder of the first big guns.
+"Note the hour, please, gentlemen," said Johnston; and a member
+of his staff wrote down: "5:14 A.M."
+
+Johnston's admirable plan was, first, to drive Grant's left clear
+of Lick Creek, then drive it clear of Pittsburg Landing, where
+the two Federal ironclads were guarding the ferry. This, combined
+with a determined general assault on the rest of Grant's line,
+would huddle the retreating Federals into the cramped angle
+between Owl Creek and the Tennessee and force them to surrender.
+But there were three great obstacles to this: Sherman on the
+right, the "Hornet's Nest" in the center, and the gunboats at the
+Landing. Worse still for the Confederates, Buell was now too
+close at hand. Three days earlier Johnston had wired from Corinth
+to the Government at Richmond: "Hope engagement before Buell can
+form junction." But the troubles of the march had lost him one
+whole priceless day.
+
+The Confederate attack was splendidly gallant and at first pushed
+home regardless of loss. The ground was confusing to both sides:
+a bewilderment of ups and downs, of underbrush, woods, fields,
+and clumps of trees, criss-cross paths, small creeks, ravines,
+and swamps, without a single commanding height or any outstanding
+features except the two big creeks, the river, and the Pittsburg
+Landing.
+
+At the first signs of a big battle Grant hurried to the field,
+first sending a note to Buell, whom he was to have met at
+Savannah, then touching at Crump's Landing on the way, to see Lew
+Wallace and make sure whether this, and not the Pittsburg
+Landing, was the point of attack. Arrived on the field of Shiloh,
+calm and determined as ever, he was reassured by finding how well
+Sherman was holding his raw troops in hand at the extremely
+important point of Shiloh itself, next to Owl Creek.
+
+But elsewhere the prospect was not encouraging, though the men
+got under arms very fast and most of them fought very well. The
+eager gray lines kept pressing on like the rising tide of an
+angry sea, dashing in fury against all obstructing fronts and
+swirling round the disconnecting flanks. The blue lines, for the
+most part, resisted till the swift gray tide threatened to cut
+them off. Half of Prentiss's remaining men were in fact cut off
+that afternoon and forced to surrender with their chief, whose
+conduct, like their own, was worthy of all praise. Back and still
+back the blue lines went before the encroaching gray, each losing
+heavily by sheer hard fighting at the front and streams of
+stragglers running towards the rear.
+
+Sherman, like others, gave ground, but still held his men
+together, except for the stragglers he could not control. In the
+center C.F. Smith's division, with Hurlbut's in support, and all
+that was left of Prentiss's, defended themselves so desperately
+that their enemies called their position the Hornet's Nest. Here
+the fight swayed back and forth for hours, with ghastly losses on
+both sides. C.F. Smith himself was on his deathbed at Savannah.
+But he heard the roar of battle. His excellent successor, W.H.L.
+Wallace, was killed; and battalions, brigades, and even
+divisions, soon became inextricably mixed together. There was now
+the same confusion on the Confederate side, where Johnston was
+wounded by a bullet from the Hornet's Nest. It was not in itself
+a mortal wound. But, knowing how vital this point was, he went on
+encouraging his men till, falling from the saddle, he was carried
+back to die.
+
+Grant still felt confident; though he had seen the worst in the
+rear as well as the best at the front. Two of his brand-new
+battalions, the very men who afterwards fought like heroes, when
+they had learned the soldier's work, now ran like hares. "During
+the day," says Grant, "I rode back as far as the river and met
+General Buell, who had just arrived. There probably were as many
+as four or five thousand stragglers lying under cover of the
+river bluff, panic-stricken. As we left the boat Buell's
+attention was attracted by these men. I saw him berating them and
+trying to shame them into joining their regiments. He even
+threatened them with shells from the gunboats nearby. But all to
+no effect. Most of these men afterward proved themselves as
+gallant as any of those who saved the battle from which they had
+deserted."
+
+By half-past five, after twelve hours' fighting, Grant at last
+succeeded in forming a new and shorter line, a mile behind that
+morning's front, but without any dangerous gaps. There were three
+reorganized divisions--Sherman's, McClernand's, and Hurlbut's,
+one fresh division under Nelson, and a strong land battery of
+over twenty field guns helping the two ironclad gunboats in the
+defense of Pittsburg Landing. The Confederate effectives, reduced
+by heavy losses and by as many stragglers as the Federals, were
+now faced by five thousand fresh men on guard at the Landing.
+Beauregard, who had succeeded Johnston, then stopped the battle
+for the day, with the idea of retiring next morning to Corinth.
+But, before his orders reached it, his battleworn right made a
+desperate, fruitless, and costly attack on the immensely
+strengthened Landing.
+
+That night the rain came down in torrents; and the Confederates
+sought shelter in the tents the Federals had abandoned. They
+found little rest there, being harassed all through the bleak
+dark by the big shells that the gunboats threw among them.
+
+At dawn Grant, now reinforced by twenty-five thousand fresh men
+under Buell and Lew Wallace, took the offensive. Beauregard,
+hopelessly outnumbered and without a single fresh man, retired on
+Corinth, magnificently covered by Bragg's rearguard, which held
+the Federals back for hours near the crucial point of Shiloh
+Church.
+
+Shiloh was the fiercest battle ever fought in the River War. The
+losses were over ten thousand a side in killed and wounded; while
+a thousand Confederates and three thousand Federals were
+captured. It was a Confederate failure; but hardly the kind of
+victory the Federals needed just then, before the consummate
+triumph of Farragut at New Orleans. It brought together Federal
+forces that the Confederates could not possibly withstand, even
+on their new line east from Memphis. But it did not raise the
+Federal, or depress the Confederate, morale.
+
+
+Four days after the battle Halleck arrived at Pittsburg Landing
+and took command of the combined armies. He was soon reinforced
+by Pope; whereupon he divided the whole into right and left
+wings, center, and reserve, each under its own commander. Grant
+was made second in command of the whole. But, as Halleck dealt
+directly with his other immediate subordinates, Grant simply
+became the fifth wheel of the Halleckian slowcoach, which, after
+twenty days of preparation, began, with most elaborate
+precautions, its crawl toward Corinth.
+
+Grant's position became so nearly unbearable that he applied more
+than once for transfer to some other place. But this was refused.
+So he strove to do his impossible duty till the middle of July,
+when his punishment for Shiloh was completed by his promotion to
+command a depleted remnant of Halleck's Grand Army. It is not by
+any means the least of Grant's claims to real greatness that, as
+a leader, he was able to survive his most searching trials: the
+surprise at Shiloh, the misunderstandings and arrest that
+followed Shiloh, the slur of being made a fifth-wheel
+second-in-command, the demoralizing strain of that "most anxious
+period of the war" when his depleted forces were thrown back on
+the defensive, and the eight discouraging months of Sisyphean
+offensive which preceded his triumph at Vicksburg. No one who has
+not been in the heart of things with fighting fleets or armies
+can realize what it means to all ranks when there is, or even is
+supposed to be, "something wrong" with the living pivot on which
+the whole force turns. And only those who have been behind the
+scenes of war's all-testing drama can understand what it means
+for even an imagined "failure" to "come back."
+
+Corinth was of immense importance to both sides, as it commanded
+the rails not only east and west, from the Tennessee to Memphis,
+but north and south, from the Ohio to New Orleans and Mobile.
+Though New Orleans was taken by Farragut on the twenty-fifth of
+April, the rails between Vicksburg and Port Hudson remained in
+Confederate hands till next year; while Mobile remained so till
+the year after that.
+
+Beauregard collected all the troops he could at Corinth. Yet,
+even with Van Dorn's and other reinforcements, he had only sixty
+thousand effectives against Halleck's double numbers. Moreover,
+the loss of three States and many battles had so shaken the
+Confederate forces that they stood no chance whatever against
+Halleck's double numbers in the open. All the same, Halleck
+burrowed slowly forward like a mole, entrenching every night as
+if the respective strengths and victories had been reversed.
+
+After advancing nearly a mile a day Halleck closed in on Corinth.
+He was so deeply entrenched that no one could tell from
+appearances which side was besieging the other. Towards the end
+of May many Federal railwaymen reported that empty trains could
+be heard running into Corinth and full trains running out. But,
+as the Confederates greeted each arriving "empty" with tremendous
+Cheers, Halleck felt sure that Beauregard was being greatly
+reinforced. The Confederate bluff worked to admiration. On the
+twenty-sixth Beauregard issued orders for complete evacuation on
+the twenty-ninth. On the thirtieth Halleck drew up his whole
+grand army ready for a desperate defense against an enemy that
+had already gone a full day's march away.
+
+In the meantime the Federal flotilla had been fighting its way
+down the Mississippi, under (the invalided) Foote's very capable
+successor, Flag-Officer Charles Henry Davis. The Confederates had
+very few naval men on the river, but many of their Mississippi
+skippers were game to the death. They rammed Federal vessels on
+the tenth of May at Fort Pillow, eighty miles above Memphis.
+Eight of their fighting craft were strongly built and heavily
+armored, though very deficient in speed. The Federal flotilla was
+very well manned by first-class naval ratings, and was reinforced
+early in June by seven fast new rams, commanded by their
+designer, Colonel Charles Ellet, a famous civil engineer.
+
+At sunrise on the lovely sixth of June the Federal flotilla,
+having overcome the Confederate posts farther north and being
+joined by Ellet's rams, lay near Memphis. The Confederates came
+upstream to the attack, expecting to ram the gunboats in the
+stern as they had at Fort Pillow. But Ellet suddenly darted down
+on the eight Confederate ironclads, caught one of them on the
+broadside, sank her, and disabled two others. The action then
+became general. The overmatched Confederates kept up a losing
+battle for more than an hour, in full view of many thousands of
+ardent Southerners ashore. The scene, at its height, was
+appalling. The smoke, belching black from the funnels and white
+from the guns, made a suffocating pall overhead; while the dark,
+squat, hideous ironclad hulls seemed to have risen from a
+submarine inferno to stab each other with livid tongues of
+flame--so deadly close the two flotillas fought. When the awful
+hour was over the Confederates were not only defeated but
+destroyed; and a wail went up from the thousands of their
+anguished friends, as if the very shores were mourning.
+
+
+For the next month Grant held the command at Memphis. Then, on
+the eleventh of July, Halleck was recalled to Washington as
+General-in-Chief of the whole army; while Pope was transferred to
+Virginia. The Federal invasion of Virginia under that "Young
+Napoleon," McClellan, had not been a success against Lee and
+Stonewall Jackson. Nor did it improve with Pope at the front and
+Halleck in the rear, as we shall presently see; though Halleck
+had declared that Pope's operations at Island Number Ten were
+destined to immortal fame, and Pope himself admitted his own
+greatness in sundry proclamations to the world.
+
+The campaign now entered its second phase. The Virginian wing (of
+the whole front reaching from the Mississippi to the sea) was
+checked this summer; and was to remain more or less checked for
+many a long day. The river wing, under the general direction of
+Halleck, had also reached its limit for '62 about the same time,
+after having conquered Kentucky and western Tennessee as well as
+the Mississippi down to Memphis.
+
+This river wing was now depleted of some excellent troops and
+again divided into quite separate commands. Buell commanded the
+Army of the Ohio. Grant commanded his own Army of the Tennessee
+and Rosecrans's Army of the Mississippi. Buell's scene of action
+lay between the tributary streams--Ohio, Cumberland, and
+Tennessee--with Chattanooga as his ultimate objective. Grant's
+scene of action lay along the southward rails and Mississippi,
+with Vicksburg as his ultimate objective.
+
+The Confederates were of course set on recovering complete
+control of the line of Southern rails that made direct
+connections between the Mississippi Valley and the sea: crossing
+the western tributaries of the St. Francis and White Rivers; then
+running east from Memphis, through Grand Junction, Corinth, and
+Iuka, to Chattanooga; thence forking off northeast, through
+Knoxville, to Washington, Richmond, and Norfolk; and southeast to
+Charleston and Savannah. Confederate attention had originally
+been fixed on Corinth and Chattanooga. But General O. M.
+Mitchel's abortive raid, just after Shiloh, had also drawn it to
+the part between. The Federals therefore found their enemy alert
+at every point.
+
+Braxton Bragg, Beauregard's successor and Buell's opponent,
+basing himself on Chattanooga, tried to drive his line of
+Confederate reconquest through the heart of Tennessee and thence
+through mid-Kentucky, with the Ohio as his ultimate objective.
+His colleagues near the Mississippi, Van Dorn and Sterling Price,
+meanwhile tried to effect the reconquest of the Memphis-Corinth
+rails that Grant and Rosecrans were holding.
+
+All main offensives, on both sides, ultimately failed in this
+latter half of the river campaign of '62. So nothing but the bare
+fact that they were attempted needs any notice here.
+
+In August, about the time that Lee and Jackson were maneuvering
+in Virginia to bring on the Second Bull Run, Price and Bragg
+began their respective advances against Grant and Buell. Buell
+was at Murfreesboro, defending Nashville. Bragg, screened by the
+hills of eastern Tennessee, made for the Ohio at Louisville and
+Cincinnati. Pivoting on his left he wheeled his whole army round
+and raced for Louisville. Buell enjoyed the advantage of rails
+over roads and of interior lines as well. But Bragg had stolen
+several marches on him at the start and he only won by a head.
+
+The Union Government, now thoroughly alarmed, sent Thomas to
+supersede Buell. But Thomas declined to take over the command,
+and on the eighth of October Buell fought Bragg at Perryville.
+There was no tactical defeat or victory; but Bragg retired on
+Chattanooga. The Government now urged Buell to enter east
+Tennessee. He protested that lack of transport and supplies made
+such a move impossible. William S. Rosecrans then replaced him.
+Buell was never employed again. He certainly failed fully to
+appreciate the legitimate bearing of statesmanship on strategy;
+but, for all that, he was an excellent organizer and a good
+commander.
+
+In the meantime Grant had been experiencing his "most anxious
+period of the war." During this anxious period, which lasted from
+July to October, Rosecrans defeated Price at Iuka. This happened
+on the nineteenth of September. Van Dorn then joined Price and
+returned to the attack but was defeated by Rosecrans at Corinth
+on the fourth of October. The Confederates, who had come near
+victory on the third, retired in safety, because Grant still
+lacked the means of resuming the offensive.
+
+As soon as he had the means Grant marched his army south for
+Vicksburg. There were three converging forces: Grant's from Grand
+Junction, Sherman's from Memphis, and a smaller one from Helena
+in Arkansas. But the Confederate General, J.C. Pemberton, who had
+replaced Van Dorn, escaped the trap they tried to set for him. He
+was strongly entrenched on the south side of the Tallahatchie,
+north of Oxford, on the Mississippi Central rails. While Grant
+and Sherman converged on his front, the force from Helena rounded
+his rear and cut the rails. But the damage was quickly repaired;
+and Pemberton retired south toward Vicksburg before Grant and
+Sherman could close and make him fight.
+
+Then Grant tried again. This time Sherman advanced on board of
+Mississippi steamers, with the idea of meeting the Union
+expedition coming up from New Orleans. But Van Dorn cut Grant's
+long line of land communications at Holly Springs, forcing Grant
+back for supplies and leaving Sherman, who had made his way up
+the Yazoo, completely isolated. Grant fared well enough, so far
+as food was concerned; for he found such abundant supplies that
+he at once perceived the possibility of living on the country
+without troubling about a northern base. He spent Christmas and
+New Year at Holly Springs, and then moved back to Memphis.
+
+In the meantime Sherman's separated force had come to grief. On
+the twenty-ninth of December its attempt to carry the Chickasaw
+Bluffs, just north of Vicksburg, was completely frustrated by
+Pemberton; for Sherman could not deploy into line on the few
+causeways that stood above the flooded ground.
+
+On the eleventh of January this first campaign along the
+Mississippi was ended by the capture of Arkansas Post. McClernand
+was the senior there. But Sherman did the work ashore as D. D.
+Porter did afloat.
+
+Meanwhile Bragg had brought the campaign to a close among the
+eastern tributaries by a daring, though abortive, march on
+Nashville. Rosecrans, now commanding the army of the Cumberland,
+stopped and defeated him at Stone's River on New Year's Eve.
+
+
+The "War in the West," that is, in those parts of the Southwest
+which lay beyond the navigable tributaries of the Mississippi
+system, was even more futile at the time and absolutely null in
+the end. Its scene of action, which practically consisted of
+inland Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, was not in itself
+important enough to be a great determining factor in the actual
+clash of arms. But Texas supplied many good men to the Southern
+ranks; and the Southern commissariat missed the Texan cattle
+after the fall of Vicksburg in '63. New Mexico might also have
+been a good deal more important than it actually was if it could
+have been made the base of a real, instead of an abortive,
+invasion of California, the El Dorado of Confederate finance.
+
+We have already seen what happened on February 15, 1861, when
+General Twiggs handed over to the State authorities all the army
+posts in Texas. On the first of the following August Captain John
+R. Baylor, who had been forming a little Confederate army under
+pretext of a big buffalo hunt, proclaimed himself Governor of New
+Mexico (south of 34 degrees) and established his capital at
+Mesilla. In the meantime the Confederate Government itself had
+appointed General H.H. Sibley to the command of a brigade for the
+conquest of all New Mexico. Not ten thousand men were engaged in
+this campaign, Federals and Confederates, whites and Indians, all
+together; but a decisive Confederate success might have been
+pregnant of future victories farther west. Some Indians fought on
+one side, some on the other; and some of the wilder tribes,
+delighted to see the encroaching whites at loggerheads, gave
+trouble to both.
+
+On February 21, 1862, Sibley defeated Colonel E.R.S. Canby at
+Valverde near Fort Craig. But his further advance was hindered by
+the barrenness of the country, by the complete destruction of all
+Union stores likely to fall into his hands, and by the fact that
+he was between two Federal forts when the battle ended. On the
+twentyeighth of March there was a desperate fight in Apache
+Canon. Both sides claimed the victory. But the Confederates lost
+more men as well as the whole of their supply and ammunition
+train. After this Sibley began a retreat which ended in May at
+San Antonio. His route was marked by bleaching skeletons for many
+a long day; and from this time forward the conquest of California
+became nothing but a dream.
+
+
+The "War in the West" was a mere twig on the Trans-Mississippi
+branch; and when the fall of Vicksburg severed the branch from
+the tree the twig simply withered away.
+
+
+The sword that ultimately severed branch and twig was firmly held
+by Union hands before the year was out; and this notwithstanding
+all the Union failures in the last six months. Grant and Porter
+from above, Banks and Farragut from below, had already massed
+forces strong enough to make the Mississippi a Union river from
+source to sea, in spite of all Confederates from Vicksburg to
+Port Hudson.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. LINCOLN: WAR STATESMAN
+
+Lincoln was one of those men who require some mighty crisis to
+call their genius forth. Though more successful than Grant in
+ordinary life, he was never regarded as a national figure in law
+or poli tics till he had passed his fiftieth year. He had no
+advantages of birth; though he came of a sturdy old English stock
+that emigrated from Norfolk to Massachusetts in the seventeenth
+century, and though his mother seems to have been, both in
+tellectually and otherwise, above the general run of the
+Kentuckians among whom he was born in 1809. His educational
+advantages were still less. Yet he soon found his true amities in
+books, as afterwards in life, not among the clever, smart, or
+sentimental, but among the simple and the great. He read and
+reread Shakespeare and the Bible, not because they were the
+merely proper things to read but because his spirit was akin to
+theirs. This meant that he never was a bookworm. Words were
+things of life to him; and, for that reason, his own words live.
+
+He had no artificial graces to soften the uncouth appearance of
+his huge, gaunt six-foot-four of powerful bone and muscle. But he
+had the native dignity of straightforward manhood; and, though a
+champion competitor in feats of strength, his opinion was always
+sought as that of an impartial umpire, even in cases affecting
+himself. He "played the game" in his frontier home as he
+afterwards played the greater game of life-or-death at
+Washington. His rough-hewn, strong-featured face, shaped by his
+kindly humor to the finer ends of power, was lit by a steady gaze
+that saw yet looked beyond, till the immediate parts of the
+subject appeared in due relation to the whole. Like many another
+man who sees farther and feels more deeply than the rest, and who
+has the saving grace of humor, he knew what yearning melancholy
+was; yet kept the springs of action tense and strong. Firm as a
+rock on essentials he was extremely tolerant about all minor
+differences. His policy was to live and let live whenever that
+was possible. The preservation of the Union was his
+master-passion, and he was ready for any honorable compromise
+that left the Union safe. Himself a teetotaller, he silenced a
+temperance delegation whose members were accusing Grant of
+drunkenness by saying he should like to send some of his other
+generals a keg of the same whisky if it would only make them
+fight.
+
+When he took arms against the sea of troubles that awaited him at
+Washington he had dire need of all his calm tolerance and
+strength. To add to his burdens, he was beset by far more than
+the usual horde of officeseekers. These men were doubly ravenous
+because their party was so new to power. They were peculiarly
+hard to place with due regard for all the elements within the
+coalition. And each appointment needed most discriminating care,
+lest a traitor to the Union might creep in. While the guns were
+thundering against Fort Sumter, and afterwards, when the Union
+Government was marooned in Washington itself, the vestibules,
+stairways, ante-rooms, and offices were clogged with eager
+applicants for every kind of civil service job. And then, when
+this vast human flood subsided, the "interviewing" stream began
+to flow and went on swelling to the bitter end. These war-time
+interviewers claimed most of Lincoln's personal attention just
+when he had the least to spare. But he would deny no one the
+chance of receiving presidential aid or comfort and he gladly
+suffered many fools for the chance of relieving the sad or
+serious others. Add to all this the ceaseless work of helping to
+form public opinion, of counteracting enemy propaganda, of
+shaping Union policy under ever-changing circumstances, of
+carrying it out by coalition means, and of exercising civil
+control over such vast armed forces as no American had hitherto
+imagined: add these extra burdens, and we can begin to realize
+what Lincoln had to do as the chief war statesman of the North.
+
+A sound public opinion is the best embattlement of any home
+front. So Lincoln set out to help in forming it. War on a
+national scale was something entirely new to both sides, and
+especially unwelcome to many people in the North, though the
+really loyal North was up at Lincoln's call. Then came Bull Run;
+and Lincoln's renewed determination, so well expressed in
+Whitman's words: "The President, recovering himself, begins that
+very night--sternly, rapidly sets about the task of reorganizing
+his forces, and placing himself in positions for future and surer
+work. If there was nothing else of Abraham Lincoln for history to
+stamp him with, it is enough to send him with his wreath to the
+memory of all future time, that he endured that hour, that day,
+bitterer than gall--indeed a crucifixion day--that it did not
+conquer him that he unflinchingly stemmed it, and resolved to
+lift himself and the Union out of it."
+
+Bull Run was only the beginning of troubles. There were many more
+rocks ahead in the stormy sea of public opinion. The peace party
+was always ready to lure the ship of state out of its true course
+by using false lights, even when certain to bring about a
+universal wreck in which the "pacifists" would suffer with the
+rest. But dissensions within the war party were worse, especially
+when caused by action in the field. Fremont's dismissal in
+November, '61, caused great dissatisfaction among three kinds of
+people: those who thought him a great general because he knew how
+to pose as one and really had some streaks of great ability,
+those who were fattening on the army contracts he let out with
+such a lavish hand, and those who hailed him as the liberator of
+the slaves because he went unwarrantably far beyond what was then
+politically wise or even possible. He was the first Unionist
+commander to enter the Northern Cave of Adullam, already infested
+with Copperhead snakes.
+
+There he was joined by McClellan exactly a year later; and there
+the peace-at-current-prices party continued to nurse and cry
+their grievances till the war was over. McClellan's dismissal was
+a matter of dire necessity because victory was impossible under
+his command. But he was a dangerous reinforcement to the
+Adullamites; for many of the loyal public had been fooled by his
+proclamations, the press had written him up to the skies as the
+Young Napoleon, and the great mass of the rank and file still
+believed in him. He took the kindly interest in camp comforts
+that goes to the soldier's heart; and he really did know how to
+organize. Add his power of passing off tinsel promises for golden
+deeds, and it can be well understood how great was the danger of
+dismissing him before his defects had become so apparent to the
+mass of people as to have turned opinion decisively against him.
+We shall presently meet him in his relation to Lincoln during the
+Virginian campaign, and later on in his relation to Lee. Here we
+may leave him with the reminder that he was the Democratic
+candidate for President in '64, that he was still a mortal danger
+to the Union, even though he had rejected the actual wording of
+his party's peace plank.
+
+The turn of the tide at the fighting front came in '63; but not
+at the home front, where public opinion of the most vocal kind
+was stirred to its dregs by the enforcement of the draft. The
+dime song books of the Copperhead parts of New York expressed in
+rude rhymes very much the same sort of apprehension that was
+voiced by the official opposition in the Presidential campaign of
+'64.
+
+Abram Lincoln, what yer 'bout? 
+Stop this war, for it's played out.
+
+Another rhyme, called "The Beauties of Conscription," was a more
+decorous expression of such public opinion.
+
+And this, the "People's Sovereignty,"
+Before a despot humbled!
+. . . .
+Well have they cashed old Lincoln's drafts,
+Hurrah for the Conscription!
+. . . .
+Is not this war--this MURDER--for
+The negro, nolens volens?
+
+So, carrying out their ideas to the same sort of logical
+conclusion, the New York mob of '63 not only burnt every
+recruiting office they found undefended but burnt the negro
+orphan asylum and killed all the negroes they could lay their
+hands on.
+
+Public opinion did veer round a little with the rising tide of
+victory in the winter of '63 and '64. But, incredible as it may
+seem to those who think the home front must always reflect the
+fighting front, the nadir of public opinion in the North was
+reached in the summer of '64, when every expert knew that the
+resources of the South were nearing exhaustion and that the
+forces of the North could certainly wear out Lee's dwindling army
+even if they could not beat it. The trumpet gave no uncertain
+sound from Lincoln's lips. "In this purpose to save the country
+and its liberties no class of people seem so nearly unanimous as
+the soldiers in the field and the sailors afloat. Do they not
+have the hardest of it? Who should quail while they do not?" But
+the mere excellence of a vast fighting front means a certain loss
+of the nobler qualities in the home front, from which so many of
+the staunchest are withdrawn. And then warweariness breeds
+doubts, doubts breed fears, and fears breed the spirit of
+surrender.
+
+There seemed to be more Copperheads in the conglomerate
+opposition than Unionists ready to withstand them. The sinister
+figure of Vallandigham loomed large in Ohio, where he openly
+denounced the war in such disloyal terms that the military
+authorities arrested him. An opposition committee, backed by the
+snakes in the grass of the secret societies, at once wrote to
+Lincoln demanding release. Lincoln thereupon offered release if
+the committee would sign a declaration that, since rebellion
+existed, and since the armed forces of the United States were the
+constitutional means of suppressing rebellion, each member of the
+committee would support the war till rebellion was put down. The
+committee refused to sign. More people then began to see the
+self-contradictions of the opposition, and most of those "plain
+people" to whom Lincoln consciously appealed were touched to the
+heart by his pathetic question: "Must I shoot the simpleminded
+soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of the
+wily agitator who induces him to desert?"
+
+But there was still defection on the Union side, and among many
+"plain people" too; for Horace Greeley, the best-known Union
+editor, lost his nerve and ran away. And Greeley was not the only
+Union journalist who helped, sometimes unwittingly, to pervert
+public opinion. The "writing up" of McClellan for what he was
+not, though rather hysterical, was at least well meant. But the
+reporters who "wrote down" General Cox, because he would not make
+them members of his staff in West Virginia, disgraced their
+profession. The lies about Sherman's "insanity" and Grant's
+"intoxication" were shamelessly excused on the plea that they
+made "good stories." Sherman's insanity, as we have seen already,
+existed only in the disordered imagination of blabbing old Simon
+Cameron. Grant, at the time these stories were published, was
+strictly temperate.
+
+Amid all the hindrances--and encouragements, for the Union press
+generally did noble service in the Union cause--of an uncensored
+press, and all the complexities of public opinion, Lincoln kept
+his head and heart set firmly on the one supreme objective of the
+Union. He foresaw from the first that if all the States came
+through the war United, then all the reforms for which the war
+was fought would follow; but that if any particular reform was
+itself made the supreme objective, then it, and with it all the
+other reforms, would fail, because only part of the Union
+strength would be involved, whereas the whole was needed.
+Moreover, he clearly foresaw the absolute nature of a great civil
+war. Foreign wars may well, and often do, end in some sort of
+compromise, especially when the home life of the opponents can go
+on as before. But a great civil war cannot end in compromise
+because it radically changes the home life of one side or the
+other. Davis stood for "Independence or extermination"; Lincoln
+simply for the Union, which, in his clear prevision, meant all
+that the body politic could need for a new and better life. He
+accepted the word "enemy" as descriptive of a passing phase. He
+would not accept such phraseology as Meade's, "driving the
+invader from our soil." "Will our generals," he complained,
+"never get that idea out of their heads? The whole country is our
+soil."
+
+He was a life-long advocate of Emancipation, first, with
+compensation, now as part of the price to be paid for rebellion.
+Emancipation, however, depended on the Union, not the Union on
+it. His Proclamation was ready in the summer of '62. But to
+publish it in the midst of defeat would make it look like an act
+of despair. In September, when the Confederates had to recross
+the Potomac after Antietam, the Proclamation was given to the
+world. Its first effect was greater abroad than at home; for now
+no foreign government could say, and rightly say, that the war,
+not being fought on account of slavery, might leave that issue
+still unsettled. This was a most important point in Lincoln's
+foreign policy, a policy which had been haunted by the fear of
+recognition for the South or the possibility of war with either
+the French or British, or even both together.
+
+Lincoln's Cabinet was composed of two factions, one headed by
+Seward, the Secretary of State, the other by Chase, the Secretary
+of the Treasury. Both the fighting services were under War
+Democrats: the Army under Stanton, the Navy under Welles. All
+these ministers began by thinking that Lincoln had the least
+ability among them. Seward and Welles presently learnt better.
+Stanton's exclamation at Lincoln's death speaks for itself "Now
+he belongs to the ages!" But Chase never believed that Lincoln
+could even be his equal. Chase and the Treasury were a thorn in
+the side of the Government; Chase because it was his nature, the
+Treasury because its notes fell to thirty-nine cents in the
+dollar during the summer of '64. Welles, hard-working and
+upright, was guided by an expert assistant. Stanton, equally
+upright and equally hardworking, made many mistakes. And yet,
+when all is said and done, Stanton was a really able patriot who
+worked his hardest for what seemed to him the best.
+
+Such were the four chief men in that Cabinet with which Lincoln
+carried out his Union policy and over which he towered in what
+became transcendent statesmanship--the head, the heart, the
+genius of the war. He never, for one moment, changed his course,
+but kept it fixed upon the Union, no matter what the winds and
+tides, the currents and cross-currents were. Thus, while so many
+lesser minds were busy with flotsam and jetsam of the
+controversial storm, his own serener soul was already beyond the
+far horizon, voyaging toward the one sure haven for the Ship of
+State.
+
+
+But Lincoln was more than the principal civilian war statesman:
+he was the constitutional Commander-in-Chief of all the Union
+forces, afloat and ashore. He was responsible not only for
+raising, supplying, and controlling them, but for their actual
+command by men who, in the eyes of the law, were simply his own
+lieutenants. The problem of exercising civil control without
+practicing civilian interference, always and everywhere hard, and
+especially hard in a civil war, was particularly hard in his
+case, in view of public opinion, the press, his own war policy,
+and the composition of his Cabinet. His solution was by no means
+perfect; but the wonder is that he reached it so well in spite of
+such perverting factors. He began with the mere armed mob that
+fought the First Bull Run beset with interference. He ended with
+Farragut, Grant, and Sherman, combined in one great scheme of
+strategy that included Mobile, Virginia, and the lower South, and
+that, while under full civil control, was mostly free from
+interference with its naval and military work--except at the
+fussy hands of Stanton.
+
+The fundamental difference between civil control, which is the
+very breath of freedom, and civilian interference, which means
+the death of all efficiency, can be quite simply illustrated by
+supposing the proverbial Ship of State to be a fighting
+man-of-war. The People are the owners, with all an owner's
+rights; while their chosen Government is their agent, with all an
+agent's delegated power. The fighting Services, as the word
+itself so properly implies, are simply the People's servants,
+though they take their orders from the Government. So far, so
+good, within the limits of civil control, under which, and which
+alone, any national resources--in men, money, or material--can
+lawfully be turned to warlike ends. But when the ship is fitting
+out, still more when she is out at sea, and most of all when she
+is fighting, then she should be handled only by her expert
+captain with his expert crew. Civilian interference begins the
+moment any inexpert outsider takes the captain's place; and this
+interference is no less disastrous when the outsider remains at
+home than when he is on the actual spot.
+
+Lincoln and Stanton were out of their element in the strategic
+fight with Lee and Stonewall Jackson, as the next chapter
+abundantly proves. But they will bear, and more than bear,
+comparison with Davis and Benjamin, their own special "opposite
+numbers." Benjamin, when Confederate Secretary of War in '62,
+nearly drove Jackson out of the service by ordering him to follow
+the advice of some disgruntled subordinates who objected to being
+moved about for strategic reasons which they could not
+understand. To make matters worse, Benjamin sent this precious
+order direct to Jackson without even informing his immediate
+superior, "Joe" Johnston, or even Lee himself. Thus discipline,
+the very soul of armies, was attacked from above and beneath by
+the man who should have been its chief upholder. Luckily for the
+South things were smoothed over, and Benjamin learnt something he
+should have known at first. Davis had none of Lincoln's
+diffidence about his own capacity for directing the strategy of
+armies. He had passed through West Point and commanded a
+battalion in Mexico without finding out that his fitness stopped
+there. He interfered with Lee and Jackson, sometimes to almost a
+disabling extent. He forced his enmity on "Joe" Johnston and
+superseded him at the very worst time in the final campaign. He
+interfered more than ever just when Lee most required a free
+hand. And when he did make Lee a real Commander-in-Chief the
+Southern cause had been lost already. Lincoln's war statesmanship
+grew with the war. Davis remained as he was.
+
+Lincoln had to meet the difficulties that always occur when
+professionals and amateurs are serving together. How much
+Lincoln, Stanton, professionals, and amateurs had to do with the
+system that was evolved under great stress is far too complex for
+discussion here. Suffice it to say this: Lincoln's clear insight
+and openness of mind enabled him to see the universal truth,
+that, other things being equal, the trained and expert
+professional must excel the untrained and inexpert amateur. But
+other things are never precisely equal; and a war in which the
+whole mass-manhood is concerned brings in a host of amateurs.
+Lincoln was as devoid of prejudice against the regular officers
+as he was against any other class of men; and he was ready to try
+and try again to find a satisfactory commander among them, in
+spite of many failures. The plan of campaign proposed by General
+Winfield Scott (and ultimately carried out in a modified form)
+was dubbed by wiseacre public men the "Anaconda policy"; witlings
+derided it, and the people were too impatient for anything except
+"On to Richmond!" Scott, unable to take the field at seventyfive,
+had no second-in-command. Halleck was a very poor substitute
+later on. In the meantime McDowell was chosen and generously
+helped by Lincoln and Stanton. But after Bull Run the very people
+whose impatience made victory impossible howled him down.
+
+Then the choice fell on McClellan, whose notorious campaign fills
+much of our next chapter. There we shall see how refractory
+circumstances, Stanton's waywardness among them, forced Lincoln
+to go beyond the limits of civil control. Here we need only note
+McClellan's personal relations with the President. Instead of
+summoning him to the White House Lincoln often called at
+McClellan's for discussion. McClellan presently began to treat
+Lincoln's questions as intrusions, and one day sent down word
+that he was too tired to see the President. Lincoln had told a
+friend that he would hold McClellan's stirrups for the sake of
+victory. But he could not abdicate in favor of McClellan or any
+one else.
+
+It was none of Lincoln's business to be an actual
+Commander-in-Chief. Yet night after weary night he sat up
+studying the science and art of war, groping his untutored way
+toward those general principles and essential human facts which
+his native genius enabled him to reach, but never quite
+understanding--how could he?--their practical application to the
+field of strategy. His supremely good common sense saved him from
+going beyond his depth whenever he could help it. His Military
+Orders were forced upon him by the extreme pressure of impatient
+public opinion. He told Grant "he did not know but they were all
+wrong, and he did know that some of them were."
+
+McClellan was not the only failure in Virginia. Burnside and
+Hooker also failed against Lee and Jackson. All three suffered
+from civilian interference as well as from their own defects. At
+last, in the third year of the war, a victor appeared in Meade, a
+good, but by no means great, commander. In the fourth year
+Lincoln gave the chief command to Grant, whom he had carefully
+watched and wisely supported through all the ups and downs of the
+river campaigns.
+
+Grant's account of his first conference alone with Lincoln is
+eloquent of Lincoln's wise war statesmanship
+
+"He stated that he had never professed to be a military man or to
+know how campaigns should be conducted, and never wanted to
+interfere in them . . . . All he wanted was some one who would
+take the responsibility and act, and call on him for all the
+assistance needed, pledging himself to use all the power of the
+government in rendering such assistance . . . . He pointed out on
+the map two streams which empty into the Potomac, and suggested
+that the army might be moved on boats and landed between the
+mouths of these streams. We would then have the Potomac to bring
+our supplies and the tributaries would protect our flanks while
+we moved out. I listened respectfully, but did not suggest that
+the same streams would protect Lee's flanks while he was shutting
+us up. I did not communicate my plans to the President; nor did I
+to the Secretary of War or to General Halleck."
+
+Trust begot trust; and some months later Grant showed war
+statesmanship of the same magnificent kind. McClellan had become
+the Democratic candidate for President, to the wellfounded alarm
+of all who put the Union first. In June, when Grant and Lee were
+at grips round Richmond, Lincoin was invited to a public meeting
+got up in honor of Grant with only a flimsy disguise of the
+ominous fact that Grant, and not Lincoln, might be the Union
+choice. Lincoln sagaciously wrote back: "It is impossible for me
+to attend. I approve nevertheless of whatever may tend to
+strengthen and sustain General Grant and the noble armies now
+under his command. He and his brave soldiers are now in the midst
+of their great trial, and I trust that at your meeting you will
+so shape your good words that they may turn to men and guns,
+moving to his and their support." The danger to the Union of
+taking Grant away from the front moved Lincoln deeply all through
+that anxious summer of '64, though he never thought Grant would
+leave the front with his work half done. In August an officious
+editor told Lincoln that he ought to take a good long rest.
+Lincoln, however, was determined to stand by his own post of duty
+and find out from Grant, through their common friend, John Eaton,
+what Grant's own views of such ideas were. This is Eaton's
+account of how Grant took it:
+
+"We had been talking very quietly. But Grant's reply came in an
+instant and with a violence for which I was not prepared. He
+brought his clenched fists down hard on the strap arms of his
+camp chair. 'They can't do it. They can't compel me to do it.'
+Emphatic gesture was not a strong point with Grant. 'Have you
+said this to the President?' 'No,' said Grant, 'I have not
+thought it worth while to assure the President of my opinion. I
+consider it as important for the cause that he should be elected
+as that the army should be successful in the field.'"
+
+When Eaton brought back his report Lincoln simply said, "I told
+you they could not get him to run till he had closed out the
+rebellion."
+
+On the twenty-third of this same gloomy August, lightened only by
+the taking of Mobile, Lincoln asked his Cabinet if they would
+endorse a memorandum without reading it. They all immediately
+signed. After his reelection in November he read it out: "This
+morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable
+that this Administration will not be reelected. Then it will be
+my duty to so cooperate with the President-elect as to save the
+Union between the election and the inauguration, as he will have
+secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save
+it afterwards." He added that he would have asked McClellan to
+throw his whole influence into getting enough recruits to finish
+the war before the fourth of March. "And McClellan," was Seward's
+comment, "would have said 'Yes, yes,' and then done nothing."
+
+Lincoln's reelection was helped by Farragut's victory in August,
+Sherman's in September, and Sheridan's raid through the
+Shenandoah Valley in October. But it was also helped by that
+strange, vivifying touch which passes, no one knows how, from the
+man who best embodies a supremely patriotic cause to the masses
+of his fellow patriots, and then, at some great crisis, when they
+scale heights which he has long since trod, comes back in flood
+and carries him to power.
+
+Lincoln stories were abroad; the true were eclipsing the false;
+and all the true ones gained him increasing credit. Naval
+reformers, and many others too, enjoyed the homely wit with which
+he closed the first conference about such a startlingly novel
+craft as the plans for the Monitor promised: "Well, Gentlemen,
+all I have to say is what the girl said when she put her foot
+into the stocking: 'It strikes me there's something in it.'" The
+army enjoyed the joke against the three-month captain whom
+Sherman threatened to shoot if he went home without leave. The
+same day Lincoln, visiting the camp, was harangued by this
+prospective deserter in presence of many another man disheartened
+by Bull Run. "Mr. President: this morning I spoke to Colonel
+Sherman and he threatened to shoot me, Sir!" Lincoln looked the
+two men over, and then, in a stage whisper every listener could
+hear, said: "Well, if I were you, and he threatened to shoot me,
+I wouldn't trust him; for I'm sure he'd do it." Both Services
+were not only pleased with the "rise" Lincoln took out of a too
+inquisitive politician but were much reassured by its model
+discretion. This importunate politician so badgered Lincoln about
+the real destination of McClellan's transports that Lincoln at
+last promised to tell everything he could if the politician would
+promise not to repeat it. Then, after swearing the utmost
+secrecy, the politician got the news: "They are going to sea."
+
+The whole home front as well as the Services were touched to the
+heart by tales of Lincoln's kindness in his many interviews with
+the warbereaved; and letters like these spoke for themselves to
+every patriot in the land:
+
+                          Executive Mansion, November 21, 1864.
+
+Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Massachusetts.
+
+Dear Madam: I have been shown in the files of the War Department
+a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are
+the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of
+battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine
+which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so
+overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the
+consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they
+died to save. I pray that our heavenly Father may assuage the
+anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished
+memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be
+yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of
+freedom.
+
+         Yours very sincerely and respectfully,
+                             Abraham Lincoln.
+
+
+Nor did the Lincoln touch stop there. It even began to make its
+quietly persuasive way among the finer spirits of the South from
+the very day on which the Second Inaugural closed with words
+which were the noblest consummation of the prophecy made in the
+First. This was the prophecy: "The mystic chords of memory,
+stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every
+living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet
+swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they
+will be, by the better angels of our nature." And this the
+consummation "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with
+firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us
+strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's
+wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for
+his widow and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish
+a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. LEE AND JACKSON: 1862-3
+
+Most Southerners remained spellbound by the glamour of Bull Run
+till the hard, sharp truths of '62 began to rouse them from their
+flattering dream. They fondly hoped, and even half believed, that
+if another Northern army dared to invade Virginia it would
+certainly fail against their entrenchments at Bull Run. If, so
+ran the argument, the North failed in the open field it must fail
+still worse against a fortified position.
+
+The Southern generals vainly urged their Government to put forth
+its utmost strength at once, before the more complex and less
+united North had time to recover and begin anew. They asked for
+sixty thousand men at Bull Run, to be used for a vigorous
+counterstroke at Washington. They pointed out the absurdity of
+misusing the Bull Run (or Manassas) position as a mere shield,
+fixed to one spot, instead of making it the hilt of a sword
+thrust straight at the heart of the North. Robert E. Lee, now a
+full general in the Confederate Army and adviser to the
+President, grasped the whole situation from the first and urged
+the right solution in the official way. Stonewall Jackson, still
+a junior general, was in full accord with Lee, as we know from
+the confidential interview (at the end of October, '61) between
+him and his divisional commander, General G. W. Smith, who made
+it public many years later. The gist of Jackson's argument was
+this: "McClellan won't come out this year with his army of
+recruits. We ought to invade now, not wait to be invaded later
+on. If Davis would concentrate every man who can be spared from
+all other points and let us invade before winter sets in, then
+McClellan's recruits couldn't stand against us in the field.--Let
+us cross the upper Potomac, occupy Baltimore, and, holding
+Maryland, cut the communications of Washington, force the Federal
+Government out of it, beat McClellan if he attacks, destroy
+industrial plants liable to be turned to warlike ends, cut the
+big commercial lines of communication, close the coal mines,
+seize the neck of land between Pittsburg and Lake Erie, live on
+the country by requisition, and show the North what it would cost
+to conquer the South." On asking Smith if he agreed, Smith
+answered: "I will tell you a secret; for I am sure it won't be
+divulged. These views were rejected by the Government during the
+conference at Fairfax Court House at the beginning of the month."
+Jackson thereupon shook Smith's hand, saying, "I am sorry, very
+sorry," and, mounting Little Sorrel without another word, rode
+sadly away.
+
+Jefferson Davis probably, and some of his Cabinet possibly,
+understood what Lee, "Joe" Johnston, Beauregard, Smith, and
+Jackson so strongly urged. But they feared the outcry that would
+assuredly be raised by people in districts denuded of troops for
+the grand concentration elsewhere. So they remained passive when
+they should have been active, and, trying to strengthen each
+separate part, fatally weakened the whole.
+
+Meanwhile the North was collecting the different elements of
+warlike force and changing its Secretary of War. Cameron was
+superseded by Stanton on the fifteenth of January. Twelve days
+later Lincoln issued the first of those military orders which, as
+we have just seen, he afterwards told Grant that the impatience
+of the loyal North compelled him to issue, though he knew some
+were certainly, and all were possibly, wrong. This first order
+was one of the certainly wrong. McClellan's unready masses were
+to begin an unlimited mud march through the early spring. roads
+of Virginia on the twenty-second of February, in honor of
+Washington's birthday. A reconnoitering staff officer reported
+the roads as being in their proper places; but he guessed the
+bottom had fallen out. So McClellan was granted some delay.
+
+His grand total was now over two hundred thousand men. The
+Confederate grand total was estimated at a hundred and fifteen
+thousand by the civilian detectives whom the Federal Government
+employed to serve in place of an expert intelligence staff. The
+detective estimate was sixty-five thousand men out. The real
+Confederate strength at this time was only fifty thousand. There
+was little chance of getting true estimates in any other way, as
+the Federal Government had no adequate cavalry. Most of the few
+cavalry McClellan commanded were as yet a mere collection of men
+and horses, quite unfit for reconnoitering and testing an enemy's
+force.
+
+McClellan's own plan, formed on the supposition that the
+Confederates held the Bull Run position with at least a hundred
+thousand men, involved the transfer of a hundred and fifty
+thousand Federals by sea from Washington to Fortress Monroe, on
+the historic peninsula between the York and James rivers. Then,
+using these rivers as lines of communication, his army would take
+Richmond in flank. Lincoln's objection to this plan was based on
+the very significant argument that while the Federal army was
+being transported piecemeal to Fortress Monroe the Confederates
+might take Washington by a sudden dash from their base at
+Centreville, only thirty miles off. This was a valid objection;
+for Washington was not only the Federal Headquarters but the very
+emblem of the Union cause--a sort of living Stars and
+Stripes--and Washington lost might well be understood to mean
+almost the same as if the Ship of State had struck her colors.
+
+On the ninth of March the immediate anxiety about Washington was
+relieved. That day came news that the Monitor had checkmated the
+Merrimac in Hampton Roads and that "Joe" Johnston had withdrawn
+his forces from the Bull Run position and had retired behind the
+Rappahannock to Culpeper. On the tenth McClellan began a
+reconnoitering pursuit of Johnston from Washington. Having found
+burnt bridges and other signs of decisive retirement, he at last
+persuaded the reluctant Lincoln to sanction the Peninsula
+Campaign. On the seventeenth his army began embarking for
+Fortress Monroe, ten thousand men at a time, that being all the
+transports could carry. For a week the movement of troops went on
+successfully; while the Confederates could not make out what was
+happening along the coast. Everything also seemed quite safe,
+from the Federal point of view, in the Shenandoah Valley, where
+General Banks commanded. And both there and along the Potomac the
+Federals were in apparently overwhelming strength; even though
+the detectives doing duty as staff officers still kept on
+doubling the numbers of all the Confederates under arms.
+
+Suddenly, on the twenty-third, a fight at Kernstown in the
+Shenandoah Valley gave a serious shock to the victorious
+Federals, not only there but all over the semicircle of invasion,
+from West Virginia round by the Potomac and down to Fortress
+Monroe. The fighting on both sides was magnificent. Yet Kernstown
+itself was a very small affair. Little more than ten thousand men
+had been in action: seven thousand Federals under Shields against
+half as many Confederates under Stonewall Jackson. The point is
+that Jackson's attack, though unsuccessful, was very
+disconcerting elsewhere. From Kernstown the area of disturbance
+spread like wildfire till the tactical victory of seven thousand
+Federals had spoilt the strategy of thirty times as many. Shields
+reported: "I set to work during the night to bring together all
+the troops within my reach. I sent an express after Williams's
+division, requesting the rear brigade, about twenty miles
+distant, to march all night and join me in the morning. I swept
+the posts in rear of almost all their guards, hurrying them
+forward by forced marches, to be with me at daylight." Banks, now
+on his way to Washington, halted in alarm at Harper's Ferry.
+McClellan, perceiving that Jackson's little force was more than a
+mere corps of observation, approved Banks and added: "As soon as
+you are strong enough push Jackson hard and drive him well beyond
+Strasburg," that is, west of the Massanuttons, where Fremont
+could close in and finish him. Lincoln had already been thinking
+of transferring nine thousand men from McClellan to Fremont.
+Kernstown decided it; so off they went to West Virginia. Still
+fearing an attack on Washington, Lincoln halted McDowell's army
+corps, thirty-seven thousand strong, on the march overland to
+join McClellan on the Peninsula, and kept them stuck fast round
+Centreville, near Bull Run. And so McClellan's Peninsular force
+was suddenly reduced by forty-six thousand men.
+
+April was a month of maneuvers and suspense. By the end of it
+McClellan, based on Fortress Monroe, had accumulated a hundred
+and ten thousand men. The Confederates on the Peninsula, holding
+Yorktown, numbered fifty thousand. McClellan sadly missed
+McDowell, whose corps was to have taken the fort at Gloucester
+Point that prevented the Federal gunboats from turning the
+enemy's lines at Yorktown. McDowell moved south to
+Fredericksburg, leaving a small force near Manassas Junction to
+connect him with the garrison of Washington. The Confederates
+could spare only twelve thousand men to watch him. Meanwhile
+Banks occupied the Shenandoah Valley, having twenty thousand men
+at Harrisonburg and smaller forces at several points all round,
+from southwest to northeast, each designed to form part of the
+net that was soon to catch Jackson. Beyond Banks stood Fremont's
+force in West Virginia, also ready to close in. Jackson's
+complete grand total was less than that of Banks's own main body.
+Yet, with one eye on Richmond, he lay in wait at Swift Run Gap,
+crouching for a tiger-spring at Banks. Virginia was semicircled
+by superior forces. But everywhere inside the semicircle the
+Confederate parts all formed one strategic whole; while the
+Federal parts outside did not. Moreover, the South had already
+decided to call up every available man; thus forestalling the
+North by more than ten months on the vital issue of conscription.
+
+In May the preliminary clash of arms began on the Peninsula. The
+Confederates evacuated the Yorktown lines on the third. On the
+fifth McClellan's advanced guard fought its way past
+Williamsburg. On the seventh he began changing his base from
+Fortress Monroe to White House on the Pamunkey. Here on the
+sixteenth he was within twenty miles of Richmond, while all the
+seaways behind him were safe in Union hands. The fate not only of
+Richmond but of the whole South seemed trembling in the scales.
+The Northern armies had cleared the Mississippi down to Memphis.
+The Northern navy had taken New Orleans, the greatest Southern
+port. And now the Northern hosts were striking at the Southern
+capital. McClellan with double numbers from the east, McDowell
+with treble numbers from the north, and the Union navy, with more
+than fourfold strength on all the navigable waters, were closing
+in. The Confederate Government had even decided to take the
+extreme step of evacuating Richmond, hoping to prolong the
+struggle elsewhere. The official records had been packed. Davis
+had made all arrangements for the flight of his family. And from
+Drewry's Bluff, eight miles south of Richmond, the masts of the
+foremost Federal vessels could be seen coming up the James,
+where, on the eleventh, the Merrimac, having grounded, had been
+destroyed by her own commander.
+
+But the General Assembly of Virginia, passionately seconded by
+the City Council, petitioned the Government to stand its ground
+"till not a stone was left upon another." Every man in Richmond
+who could do a hand's turn and who was not already in arms
+marched out to complete the defenses of the James at Drewry's
+Bluff. Senators, bankers, bondmen and free, merchants, laborers,
+and ministers of all religions, dug earthworks, hauled cannon,
+piled ammunition, or worked, wet to the waist, at the big boom
+that was to stop the ships and hold them under fire. The
+Government had changed its mind. Richmond was to be held to the
+last extremity. And the Southern women were as willing as the
+men.
+
+In the midst of all this turmoil Lee calmly reviewed the
+situation. He saw that the Federal gunboats coming up the James
+were acting alone, as the disconnected vanguard of what should
+have been a joint advance, and that no army was yet moving to
+support them. He knew McClellan and Banks and read them like a
+book. He also knew Jackson, and decided to use him again in the
+Shenandoah Valley as a menace to Washington. Writing to him on
+the sixteenth of May, the very day McClellan reached White House,
+only twenty miles from Richmond, he said: "Whatever movement you
+make against Banks, do it speedily, and, if successful, drive him
+back towards the Potomac, and create the impression, as far as
+possible, that you design threatening that line." Moreover, out
+of his own scanty forces, he sent Jackson two excellent brigades.
+Thus, while the great Federal civilians who knew nothing
+practical of war were all agog about Richmond, a single point at
+one end of the semicircle, the great Confederate strategist was
+forging a thunderbolt to relieve the pressure on it by striking
+the Federal center so as to threaten Washington. The fundamental
+idea was a Fabian defensive at Richmond, a vigorous offensive in
+the Valley, to produce Federal dispersion between these points
+and Washington; then rapid concentration against McClellan on the
+Chickahominy.
+
+The unsupported Federal gunboats were stopped and turned back at
+the boom near Drewry's Bluff. McClellan, bent on besieging
+Richmond in due form, crawled cautiously about the intervening
+swamps of the oozy Chickahominy. McDowell, who could not advance
+alone, remained at Fredericksburg. Shields stood behind him, near
+Catlett's Station, to keep another eye on nervous Washington.
+
+
+In the meantime Stonewall Jackson, still in the Shenandoah, had
+fought no battles since his tactical defeat at Kernstown on the
+twenty-third of March had proved such a pregnant strategic
+victory elsewhere. But late in April he had a letter from Lee,
+telling of the general situation and suggesting an attack on
+Banks. Banks, however, still had twenty thousand men at
+Harrisonburg, with twenty-five thousand more in or within call of
+the Valley. Jackson's complete grand total was less than eighteen
+thousand. The odds against him therefore exceeded five against
+two; and direct attack was out of the question. But he now began
+his maneuvers anew and on a bolder scale than ever. He had upset
+the Federal strategy at Kernstown, when there were less than
+eight thousand Confederates in the Valley. What might he not do
+with ten thousand more? His wonderful Valley Campaign, famous
+forever in the history of war, gives us the answer.
+
+He had five advantages over Banks. First, his own expert
+knowledge and genius for war, backed by a dauntless character.
+Banks was a very able man who had worked his way up from factory
+hand to Speaker of the House of Representatives and Governor of
+Massachusetts. But he had neither the knowledge, genius, nor
+character required for high command; and he owed his present
+position more to his ardor as a politician than to his ability as
+a general. Jackson's second advantage was his own and his army's
+knowledge of the country for which they naturally fought with a
+loving zeal which no invaders could equal. The third advantage
+was in having Turner Ashby's cavalry. These were horsemen born
+and bred, who could make their way across country as easily as
+the "footy" Federals could along the road. In answer to a
+peremptory order a Federal cavalry commander could only explain:
+"I can't catch them. They leap fences and walls like deer.
+Neither our men nor our horses are so trained." The fourth
+advantage was in discipline. Jackson habitually spared his men
+more than his officers, and his officers more than himself,
+whenever indulgence was possible. But when discipline had to be
+sternly maintained he, maintained it sternly, throughout all
+ranks, knowing that the flower of discipline is selfsacrifice,
+from the senior general down, and that the root is due
+subordination, from the junior private up. After the Conscription
+Act had come into force a few companies, who were time-expired as
+volunteers, threw down their arms and told their colonel they
+wouldn't serve another day. On hearing this officially Jackson
+asked: "Why does Colonel Grigsby refer to me to learn how to deal
+with mutineers? He should shoot them where they stand." The rest
+of the regiment was then paraded with loaded arms, facing the
+mutineers, who were given the choice of complete submission or
+instant death. They chose submission. That was the last mutiny
+under Stonewall Jackson. Both sides suffered from straggling, the
+Confederates as much as the Federals. But Confederate stragglers
+rejoined the better of the two; and in downright desertion the
+Federals were the worse, simply because their own peace party was
+by far the stronger. The final advantage brings us back to
+strategy, on which the whole campaign was turning. Lee and
+Jackson worked the Confederates together. Lincoln and Stanton
+worked the Federals apart.
+
+On the last of April Jackson slipped away from Swift Run Gap
+while Ewell quietly took his place and Ashby blinded Banks by
+driving the Federal cavalry back on Harrisonburg. Jackson's men
+were thoroughly puzzled and disheartened when they had to leave
+the Valley in full possession of the enemy while they ploughed
+through seas of mud towards Richmond. What was the matter? Were
+they off to Richmond? No; for they presently wheeled round. "Old
+Jack's crazy, sure, this time." Even one of his staff officers
+thought so himself, and put it on paper, to his own confusion
+afterwards. The rain came down in driving sheets. The roads
+became mere drains for the oozing woods. Wheels stuck fast; and
+Jackson was seen heaving his hardest with an exhausted gun team.
+But still the march went on--slosh, slosh, squelch; they slogged
+it through. CLOSE UP, MEN!--CLOSE UP IN REAR!--CLOSE UP, THERE,
+CLOSE UP!
+
+On the fourth of May Jackson got word from Edward Johnson,
+commanding his detached brigade near Staunton, that Milroy,
+commanding Fremont's advanced guard, was coming on from West
+Virginia. Jackson at once seized the chance of smashing Milroy by
+railing in to Staunton before Banks or Fremont could interfere.
+This would have been suicidal against a great commander with a
+well-trained force. But Banks, grossly exaggerating Jackson's
+numbers, was already marching north to the railhead at New
+Market, where he would be nearer his friends if Jackson swooped
+down. Detraining at Staunton the Confederates picketed the whole
+neighborhood to stop news getting out before they made their dash
+against Milroy. On the seventh they moved off. The cadets of the
+Virginia Military Institute, where Jackson had been a professor
+for so many years, had just joined to gain some experience of the
+real thing, and as they stepped out in their smart uniforms, with
+all the exactness of parade-ground drill, they formed a marked
+contrast to the gaunt soldiers of the Valley, half fed, half
+clad, but wholly eager for the fray.
+
+That night Milroy got together all the men he could collect at
+McDowell, a little village just beyond the Valley and on the road
+to Gauley Bridge in West Virginia. He sent posthaste for
+reinforcements. But Fremont's men were divided too far west,
+fearing nothing from the Valley, while Banks's were thinking of a
+concentration too far north.
+
+In the afternoon of the eighth, Milroy attacked Jackson with
+great determination and much skill. But after a stern encounter,
+in which the outnumbered Federals fought very well indeed, the
+Confederates won a decisive victory. The numbers actually
+engaged--twenty-five hundred Federals against four thousand
+Confederates--were even smaller than at Kernstown. But this time
+the Confederates won the tactical victory on the spot as well as
+the strategic victory all over the Valley; and the news cheered
+Richmond at what, as we have seen already, was its very darkest
+hour. The night of the battle Jackson sent out strong working
+parties to destroy all bridges and culverts and to block all
+roads by which Fremont could reach the Valley. In some places
+bowlders were rolled down from the hills. In one the trees were
+felled athwart the path for a mile. A week later Jackson was back
+in the Valley at Lebanon Springs, while Fremont was blocked off
+from Banks, who was now distractedly groping for safety and news.
+
+The following day, the famous sixteenth, we regain touch with
+Lee, who, as mentioned already, then wrote to Jackson about
+attacking Banks in order to threaten Washington. This dire day at
+Richmond, the day McClellan reached White House, was also the one
+appointed by the Southern Government as a day of intercession for
+God's blessing on the Southern arms. None kept it more fervently,
+even in beleaguered Richmond, than pious Jackson in the Valley.
+Then, like a giant refreshed, he rose for swift and silent
+marches and also sudden hammer-strokes at Banks.
+
+Confident that all would now go well, Washington thought nothing
+of the little skirmish at McDowell, because it apparently
+disturbed nothing beyond the Shenandoah Valley. The news from
+everywhere else was good; and Federals were jubilant. So were the
+civilian strategists, particularly Stanton, who, though tied to
+his desk as Secretary of War, was busy wire-pulling Banks's men
+about the Valley. Stanton ordered Banks to take post at Strasburg
+and to hold the bridges at Front Royal with two detached
+battalions. This masterpiece of bungling put the Federals at
+Front Royal in the air, endangered their communications north to
+Winchester, and therefore menaced the Valley line toward
+Washington. But Banks said nothing; and Stanton would have
+snubbed him if he had.
+
+On the twenty-third of May a thousand Federals under Colonel
+Kenly were sweltering in the first hot weather of the year at
+Stanton's indefensible position of Front Royal when suddenly a
+long gray line of skirmishers emerged from the woods, the
+Confederate bugles rang out, and Jackson's battle line appeared.
+Then came a crashing volley, which drove in the Federal pickets
+for their lives. Colonel Kenly did his best. But he was
+outflanked and forced back in confusion. A squadron of New York
+cavalry came to the rescue; but were themselves outflanked and
+helpless on the road against the Virginian horsemen, who could
+ride across country. Kenly had just made a second stand, when
+down came the Virginians, led by Colonel Flournoy at racing speed
+over fence and ditch, scattering the Federal cavalry like chaff
+before the wind and smashing into the Federal infantry. Two
+hundred and fifty really efficient cavalry took two guns
+(complete with limbers, men, and horses), killed and wounded a
+hundred and fifty-four of their opponents, and captured six
+hundred prisoners as well--and all with a loss to themselves of
+only eleven killed and fifteen wounded.
+
+Ashby's cavalry, several hundreds strong, pushed on and out to
+the flanks, cutting the wires, destroying bridges, and blocking
+the roads against reinforcements from beyond the Valley. Three
+hours after the attack a dispatchrider dashed up to Banks's
+headquarters at Strasburg. But Banks refused to move, saying,
+when pressed by his staff to make a strategic retreat on
+Winchester, "By God, sir, I will not retreat! We have more to
+fear from the opinions of our friends than from the bayonets of
+our enemies!" The Cabinet backed him up next day by actually
+proposing to reinforce him at Strasburg with troops from
+Washington and Baltimore. Nevertheless he was forced to fly for
+his life to Winchester. His stores at Strasburg had to be
+abandoned. His long train of wagons was checked on the way, with
+considerable loss. And some of his cavalry, caught on the road by
+horsemen who could ride across country, were smashed to pieces.
+
+Jackson pressed on relentlessly to Winchester with every one who
+could march like "foot cavalry," as his Valley men came to be
+called. On the twenty-fifth, the third day of unremitting action,
+he carried the Winchester heights and drove Banks through the
+town. Only the Second Massachusetts, which had already
+distinguished itself during the retreat, preserved its formation.
+Ten thousand Confederate bayonets glittered in the morning sun.
+The long gray lines swept forward. The piercing rebel yell rose
+high. And the people, wild with joy, rushed out of doors to urge
+the victors on.
+
+By the twenty-sixth, the first day on which Stanton's
+reinforcements from Baltimore and Washington could possibly have
+fought at Strasburg, the Confederates had reached Martinsburg,
+fifty miles beyond it. Banks had already crossed the Potomac,
+farther on still. The newsboys of the North were crying, DEFEAT
+OF GENERAL BANKS! WASHINGTON IN DANGER! Thirteen Governors were
+calling for special State militia, for which a million men were
+volunteering, spare troops were hurrying to Harper's Ferry, a
+reserve corps was being formed at Washington, the Federal
+Government was assuming control of all the railroad lines, and
+McClellan was being warned that he must either take Richmond at
+once or come back to save the capital. Nor did the strategic
+disturbance stop even there; for the Washington authorities
+ordered McDowell's force at Fredericksburg to the Valley just as
+it was coming into touch with McClellan.
+
+On the twenty-eighth Jackson might have taken Harper's Ferry. But
+the storm was gathering round him. A great strategist directing
+the Federal forces could have concentrated fifty thousand men, by
+sunset on the first of June, against Jackson's Army of the
+Valley, which could not possibly have mustered one-third of such
+a number. McDowell arrived that night at Front Royal. He had
+vainly protested against the false strategy imposed by the
+Government from Washington, and he was not a free agent now. Yet,
+even so, his force was at least a menace to Jackson, who had only
+two chances of getting away to aid in the. defeat of McClellan
+and the saving of Richmond. One was to outmarch the converging
+Federals, gain interior lines along the Valley, and defeat them
+there in detail. The other was to march into friendly Maryland,
+trusting to her Southern sentiments for help and reinforcements.
+He decided on the Valley route and marched straight in between
+his enemies.
+
+His fortnight's work, from the nineteenth of May to the first of
+June, inclusive, is worth summing up. In these fourteen days he
+had marched 170 miles, routed 12,500 men, threatened an invasion
+of the North, drawn McDowell off from Fredericksburg, taken or
+destroyed all Federal stores at Front Royal, Winchester, and
+Martinsburg, and brought off safely a convoy seven miles long.
+Moreover, he had done all this with the loss of only six hundred,
+though sixty thousand enemies lay on three sides of his own
+sixteen thousand men.
+
+His remaining problem was harder still. It was how to mystify,
+tire out, check short, and then immobilize the converging
+Federals long enough to let him slip secretly away in time to
+help Johnston and Lee against McClellan. Jackson, like his
+enemies, moved through what has been well called the Fog of
+War--that inevitable uncertainty through which all commanders
+must find their way. But none of his enemies equaled him in
+knowledge, genius, or character for war.
+
+The first week in June saw desperate marches in the Valley, with
+the outnumbering Federals hotfoot on the trail of Jackson, who
+turned to bay one moment and at the next was off again. On the
+sixth the Federals got home against his rear guard. It began to
+waver, and Ashby ordered the infantry to charge. As he gave the
+order his horse fell dead. In a flash he was up, waving his sword
+and shouting: "Charge, for God's sake, charge!" The Confederate
+line swept forward gallantly. But, just as it left the wood,
+Ashby was shot through the heart. His men avenged him. Yet none
+could fill his place as a born leader of irregular light horse.
+
+Next morning the hounds were hot upon the scent again: Shields
+and Fremont converging on Jackson, whom they would run to earth
+somewhere north of Staunton. But on the eighth and ninth Jackson
+turned sharply and bit back, first at Fremont close to Cross
+Keys, then at Shields near Port Republic. Each was caught alone,
+just before their point of junction, and each was defeated in
+detail as well.
+
+Fully to appreciate Jackson's strategy we must compare the
+strategical and tactical numbers concerned throughout this short
+but momentous Valley Campaign. The strategic numbers are those at
+the disposal of the commander within the theater of operations.
+The tactical numbers are those actually present on the field of
+battle, whether engaged or not. At McDowell the Federals had
+30,000 in strategic strength against 17,000 Confederates; yet the
+Confederates got 6000 on to the field of battle against no more
+than 2500. At Winchester the Federal strategic strength was
+60,000 against 16,000; yet the Confederate tactical strength was
+every man of the 16,000 against 7500--only one-eighth of Banks's
+grand total. At Cross Keys the strategic strengths were 23,000
+Federals against 13,000 Confederates; yet 12,750 Federals were
+beaten by 8000 Confederates. Finally, at Port Republic, the
+Federals, with a strategic strength of 22,000 against the
+Confederate 12,700, could only bring a tactical strength of 4500
+to bear on 6000 Confederates. The grand aggregate of these four
+remarkable actions is well worth adding up. It comes to this in
+strategic strength: 135,000 Federals against 58,700 Confederates.
+Yet in tactical strength the odds are reversed; for they come to
+this: 36,000 Confederates against only 27,250 Federals. Therefore
+Stonewall Jackson, with strategic odds of nearly seven to three
+against him, managed to fight with tactical odds of four to three
+in his favor.
+
+
+While Jackson was fighting in the Valley the Confederates at
+Richmond were watching the nightly glow of Federal camp fires.
+McClellan had 30,000 men north of the Chickahominy, waiting for
+McDowell to come back from his enterprise against Jackson, and
+75,000 south of it. What could the 65,000 Confederates do, except
+hold fast to their lines? TO RICHMOND 4 1/2 MILES: so read the
+sign-post at the Mechanicsville bridge, and there stood the
+nearest Federal picket. Johnston and Lee knew, however, that
+McClellan's alarmist detectives swore to a Confederate army three
+times its actual strength at this time; and there was reason to
+hope that the consequent moral ascendancy would help the shock of
+an attack suddenly made on one of McClellan's two wings while the
+flooded Chickahominy flowed between them and its oozy swamps
+bewildered his staff.
+
+Hearing that McDowell need not be feared, Johnston attacked at
+daylight on the thirty-first of May. The battle of Seven Pines
+(known also as Fair Oaks) was not unlike Shiloh. The Federals
+were taken by surprise on the first day and only succeeded in
+holding their own by hard fighting and with a good deal of loss.
+A mistake was made by the Confederate division told off for the
+attack on the key to the Federal front (an attack which, if
+completely successful, would have split the Federals in two) and
+the main bodies were engaged before this fatal error could be
+rectified. So the surprised Federals gradually recovered from the
+first shock and began to feel and use their hitherto unrealized
+strength. On the second day (the first of June) Johnston, who had
+been severely wounded, was plainly defeated and compelled to fall
+back on Richmond again.
+
+On the morrow of this defeat Lee was appointed to "the immediate
+command of the armies in eastern Virginia and North Carolina."
+Davis was not war statesman enough to make him Commander-in-Chief
+till '65--four years too late. Johnston did not reappear till he
+tried to relieve Vicksburg from the determined attacks of Grant
+in '63.
+
+The twelfth of June will be remembered forever in the annals of
+cavalry for Stuart's first great ride round McClellan's host.
+With twelve hundred troopers and two horse artillery guns he
+stole out beyond the western flank of the Federals and reached
+Taylorsville that evening, twenty-two miles north of Richmond.
+Next day he rode right in among the Federal posts in rear,
+discovering that McClellan's right stretched little north of the
+Chickahominy, that it was not fortified, and that it did not rest
+on any strong natural feature, such as a swampy stream. This was
+exactly the information Lee required. So far, so good. The
+Federals met with up to this time had simply been ridden down.
+But now the whole country was alarmed and McClellan had forces
+out to cut Stuart off on his return, while General Cooke
+(Stuart's father-inlaw) began to pursue him from Hanover Court
+House.
+
+Then Stuart took the boldest step of all, deciding to go clear
+round the rest of the Federal army. At Tunstall's Station on the
+York River Railroad he routed the guard, tore up the track,
+destroyed the stores and wagons, cut the wires, burnt the bridge,
+and replenished his supplies. Thence southeast, by the
+Williamsburg road, his column marched under a full summer moon,
+the people running out of doors, wild with joy at his daring. At
+sunrise he reached the Chickahominy, only to find it flooded,
+full of timber, and spanned by nothing better than a broken
+bridge. But, using the materials of a warehouse to make a
+footway, the troopers crossed in single file, leading their
+chargers, which swam. Waving his hand to the Federals, who had
+just arrived too late, Stuart pushed on the remaining thirty-five
+miles to Richmond, rounding the Federal flank within range of
+Federal gunboats on the James.
+
+This magnificent raid not only procured in three days information
+that McClellan's civilian detectives could not have procured in
+three years but raised Confederate morale and depressed the
+Federals correspondingly. Moreover, it drove the first nail into
+McClellan's coffin. For in October, just after another Stuart
+raid, the following curious incident occurred on board the Martha
+Washington when Lincoln was returning from an Alexandria review
+which had cheered him up considerably, coming, as it did, after
+Lee had failed in Maryland. By way of answering the very
+pertinent question--"Mr. President, how about McClellan?"-
+-Lincoln simply drew a ring on the deck, quietly adding: "When I
+was a boy we used to play a game called 'Three times round and
+out.' Stuart has been round McClellan twice. The third time
+McClellan will be out."
+
+Stuart rode ahead of his troopers, straight to Lee, who
+immediately wrote to Jackson suggesting that the Army of the
+Valley, while keeping the Federals alarmed to the last about an
+attack on the line of the Potomac, might secretly slip away and
+join a combined attack on McClellan. Jackson, who had of course
+foreseen this, was ready with every blind known to the art of
+war. Even his staff and generals knew nothing of their
+destination. The first move was so secret that the enemy never
+suspected anything till it was too late, while friends thought
+there was to be another surprise in the Valley. The second move
+led various people to suspect a march on Washington--no bad news
+to leak out; and nothing but misleading items did leak out. The
+Army of the Valley moved within a charmed circle of cavalry which
+prevented any one from going forward, ahead of the advance, and
+swept before it all stragglers through whom the news might leak
+out by the rear. On the twenty-third of June, only eight days
+after Stuart had reported his raid to Lee, Jackson attended Lee's
+conference at the same place, Richmond. The Valley Army was then
+on its thirty-mile march from Frederick's Hall to Ashland, where
+it arrived on the twenty-fifth, fifteen miles north.
+
+McClellan had over a hundred thousand men. Lee had less than
+ninety thousand, even after Jackson had joined him. To attack
+McClellan's strongly fortified front, with its almost impregnable
+flanks, would have been suicide. But McClellan's farther right,
+commanded by that excellent officer, FitzJohn Porter, lay north
+of the Chickahominy, with its own right open for junction with
+McDowell. So Lee, knowing McClellan and the state of this Federal
+right, decided on the twenty-fourth to attack Porter and threaten
+McClellan's communications not only with McDowell to the north
+but with White House, the Federal base twenty miles northeast.
+This was an exceedingly bold move, first, because McClellan had
+plenty of men to take Richmond during Lee's march north,
+secondly, because it meant the convergence of separate forces on
+the field of battle (Jackson being at Ashland, fifteen miles from
+Richmond) and, thirdly, because the Confederates were inferior in
+armament and in supplies of all kinds as well as in actual
+numbers. Magruder, who had held the Yorktown lines so cleverly
+with such inferior forces, was to hold Richmond (on both sides of
+the James) with thirty-five thousand men against McClellan's
+seventy-five thousand, while Lee and Jackson converged on
+Porter's twenty-five thousand with over fifty thousand.
+
+Then followed the famous Seven Days, beginning on the
+twenty-sixth of June near the signpost at the Mechanicsville
+bridge--TO RICHMOND 4 1/2 MILES--and ending at Harrison's Landing
+on the second of July. On the twenty-sixth the attack was made
+with consummate strategic skill. But it was marred by bad staff
+work, by the great obstructions in Jackson's path, and by A.P.
+Hill's premature attack with ten thousand men against Porter's
+admirable front at Beaver Dam Creek. Hill's men moved down their
+own side of the little valley in dense masses till every gun and
+rifle on Porter's side was suddenly unmasked. No scythe could
+have mowed the leading Confederates better. Two thousand went
+down in the first few minutes, and the rest at once retreated.
+
+Porter fell back on Gaines's Mill, where, after being reinforced,
+he took up a strong position on the twentyseventh. Again there
+was failure in combining the attack. Jackson found obstructions
+that even he could not overcome quickly enough. Hill attacked
+again with the utmost gallantry, wave after wave of Confederates
+rushing forward only to melt away before the concentrated fire of
+Porter's reinforced command.
+
+But at last the Confederates--though checked and roughly
+handled--converged under Lee's own eye; and an inferno of shot
+and shell loosened and shook the steadfast Federal defense. Lee
+and Jackson, though far apart, gave the word for the final charge
+at almost the same moment. As Jackson's army suddenly burst into
+view and swept forward to the assault the joyful news was shouted
+down the ranks: "The Valley men are here!" Thereupon Lee's men
+took up the double-quick with "Stonewall Jackson! Jackson!
+Jackson!" as their battle cry. The Federals fought right
+valiantly till their key-point suddenly gave way, smashed in by
+weight of numbers; for Lee had brought into action half as many
+again as Porter had, even with his reinforcements. On the
+gallantly defended hill the long blue lines rocked, reeled, and
+broke to right and left all but the steadfast regulars, whose
+infantry fell back in perfect order, whose cavalry made a
+desperate though futile attempt to stay the rout by charging one
+against twenty, and whose four magnificent batteries, splendidly
+served to the very last round, retired unbroken with the loss of
+only two guns. Then the Confederate colors waved in triumph on
+the hard-won crest against the crimson of the setting sun.
+
+The victorious Confederates spent the twentyeighth and
+twenty-ninth in finding the way to McClellan's new base. His
+absolute control of all the waterways had enabled him to change
+his base from White House on the Pamunkey to Harrison's Landing
+on the James. When the Confederates discovered his line of
+retreat by the Quaker Road they pressed in to cut it. On the
+thirtieth there was severe fighting in White Oak Swamp and on
+Frayser's Farm. But the Federals passed through, and made a fine
+stand on Malvern Hill next day. Finally, when they turned at bay
+on the Evelington Heights, which covered Harrison's Landing, they
+convinced their pursuers that it would be fatal to attack again;
+for now Northern sea-power was visibly present in flotillas of
+gunboats, which made the flanks as hopelessly strong as the
+front.
+
+McClellan therefore remained safely behind his entrenchments,
+with the navy in support. He had to his own credit the strategic
+success of having foiled Lee by a clever change of base; and to
+the credit of his army stood some first-rate fighting besides
+some tactical success, especially at Malvern Hill. Nevertheless
+the second invasion of Virginia was plainly a failure; though by
+no means a glaring disaster, like the first invasion at Bull Run.
+
+McClellan, again reinforced, still professed his readiness to
+take Richmond under conditions that suited himself. But the most
+promising Northern force now seemed to be Pope's Army of
+Virginia, coming down from the line of the Potomac, forty-seven
+thousand strong, composed of excellent material, and heralded by
+proclamations which even McClellan could never excel. John Pope,
+Halleck's hero of Island Number Ten, came from the West to show
+the East how to fight. "I presume that I have been called here to
+lead you against the enemy, and that speedily. I hear constantly
+of taking strong positions and holding them--of lines of retreat
+and bases of supplies. Let us discard such ideas. Let us study
+the probable line of retreat of our opponents, and leave our own
+to take care of themselves." His Army of Virginia contained
+Fremont's (now Sigel's) corps, as well as those of Banks and
+McDowell--all experts in the art of "chasing Jackson."
+
+Jackson was soon ready to be chased again. The Confederate
+strength had been reduced by the Seven Days and not made good by
+reinforcement; so Lee could spare Jackson only twenty-four
+thousand men with whom to meet the almost double numbers under
+Pope. But Jackson's men had the better morale, not only on
+account of their previous service but because of their rage to
+beat Pope, who, unlike other Northerners, was enforcing the
+harshest rules of war. His lieutenant, General von Steinwehr,
+went further, not only seizing prominent civilians as hostages
+(to be shot whenever he chose to draw his own distinctions
+between Confederate soldiers and guerillas) but giving his German
+subordinates a liberty that some of them knew well how to turn
+into license. This, of course, was most exceptional; for nearly
+all Northerners made war like gentlemen. Unhappily, those who did
+not were bad enough and numerous enough to infuriate the South.
+
+Halleck, who had now become chief military adviser to the Union
+Government, was as cautious as McClellan and had so little
+discernment that he thought Pope a better general than Grant.
+Lincoln, Stanton, and Halleck put their heads together; and an
+order soon followed which had the effect of relieving the
+pressure on Richmond and giving the initiative to Lee. Halleck
+ordered McClellan to withdraw from Harrison's Landing, take his
+Army of the Potomac round by sea to Aquia Creek, and join Pope on
+the Rappahannock--an operation requiring the whole month of
+August to complete.
+
+Lee lost no time. His first move was to get Pope's advanced
+troops defeated by Jackson, who brought more than double numbers
+against Banks at Cedar Run on the ninth of August. The Federals
+fought magnificently, nine against twenty thousand men. After the
+battle Jackson marched across the Rapidan, and Halleck wisely
+forbade Pope from following him, even though the first of
+Burnside's men (now the advanced guard of McClellan's army) had
+arrived at Aquia and were marching overland to Pope. Then
+followed some anxious days at Federal Headquarters. Jackson
+vanished; and Pope's cavalry, numerous as it was, wore itself out
+trying to find the clue. MeClellan was still busy moving his men
+from Harrison's Landing to Fortress Monroe, whence detachments
+kept sailing to Aquia. What would Lee do now?
+
+On the thirteenth he began entraining Longstreet's troops for
+Gordonsville. On the fifteenth he conferred with his generals.
+And on the seventeenth, from the lookout on Clark's Mountain, he
+saw Pope's unsuspecting army camped round Slaughter Mountain
+within fifteen miles of the united Confederates. Halleck had just
+given Pope the fatal order to "fight like the devil" till
+McClellan came up. Pope was full of confidence. And there he lay,
+in a bad strategic and worse tactical position, and with slightly
+inferior numbers, just within reach of Jackson and Lee. Pope was,
+however, saved from immediate disaster by an oversight on the
+part of Stuart. In ordering Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry brigade to
+rendezvous at Verdierville that night Stuart forgot to make the
+order urgent and the missing brigade came in late. Stuart,
+anxious to see the enemy's position for himself, rode out and was
+nearly taken prisoner. His dispatch-box fell into Pope's hands,
+with a memorandum of Jackson's reinforcements. Jackson was for
+attacking next day in any case and groaned aloud when Lee decided
+not to, owing to the failure of cavalry combination in front and
+the belated supplies in the rear. Pope retired safely on the
+eighteenth, and on the nineteenth a thick haze hid his rear from
+Lee's lookout,
+
+Lee was now in a very difficult position, apparently face to face
+with what would soon be the joint forces of Pope, McClellan, and
+probably another corps from Washington: the whole well fed, well
+armed, and certainly more than twice as strong as the united
+Confederates. But Jackson and Stuart multiplied their forces by
+skillful maneuvers and mystifying raids, and presently Stuart had
+his revenge for the affront he had suffered on the seventeenth.
+On the tempestuous night of the twentysecond he captured Pope's
+dispatches. On the twentyfourth, at Jefferson, Lee and Jackson
+discussed the situation with these dispatches before them. Dr.
+Hunter McGuire, the Confederate staff-surgeon, noticed that
+Jackson was unusually animated, drawing curves in the sand with
+the toe of his boot while Lee nodded assent. Perhaps it was
+Jackson who suggested the strategic idea of that wonderful last
+week in August. However that may have been, Lee alone was
+responsible for its adoption and superior direction.
+
+With a marvelous insight into the characters of his opponents, a
+consummate knowledge of the science and art of war, and--quite as
+important--an exact appreciation of the risks worth running, Lee
+actually divided his 55,000 men in face of Pope's 80,000, of
+20,000 more at Washington and Aquia, and of 50,000 available
+reinforcements. Then, by the well-deserved results obtained, he
+became one of the extremely few really great commanders of all
+time.
+
+The "bookish theorick" who, with all the facts before him, revels
+in the fond delights of retrospective prophecy, will never
+understand how Lee succeeded in this enterprise, except by sheer
+good luck. Only those who themselves have groped their perilous
+way through the dense, distorting fog of war can understand the
+application of that knowledge, genius, and character for war
+which so rarely unite in one man.
+
+Lee sent Jackson north, to march at utmost speed under cover of
+the Bull Run Mountains, to cross them at Thoroughfare Gap, and to
+cut Pope's line at Manassas, where the enormous Federal field
+base had been established. Unknown to Pope, Longstreet then
+slipped into Jackson's place, so as to keep Pope in play till the
+raid on Manassas and threat against Washington would draw him
+northeast, away from McClellan at Aquia. The final move of this
+profound, though very daring, plan was to take advantage of the
+Federal distractions and consequent dispersions so as to effect a
+junction on the field of battle against a conquerable force.
+
+Jackson moved off by the first gray streak of dawn on the
+twenty-fifth, and that day made good the six-and-twenty miles to
+Salem Church. Screened by Stuart's cavalry, and marching through
+a country of devoted friends on such an errand as a commonplace
+general would never suspect, Jackson stole this march on Pope in
+perfect safety. The next day's march was far more dangerous.
+Roused while the stars were shining the men moved off in even
+greater wonder as to their destination. But when the first flush
+of dawn revealed the Bull Run Mountains, with the wellknown
+Thoroughfare Gap straight to their front, they at once divined
+their part of Lee's stupendous plan: a giant raid on Manassas,
+the Federal base of superabundant supplies. The news ran down the
+miles of men, and with it the thrill that presaged victory. Mile
+after mile was gained, almost in dead silence, except for the
+clank of harness, the rumble of wheels, the running beat of
+hoofs, and that long, low, ceaselessly rippling sound of
+multitudinous men's feet. Hungry, ill-clad, and worn to their
+last spare ounce, the gaunt gray ranks strained forward, slipped
+from their leash at last and almost in sight of their prey. So
+far they were undiscovered. But the Gap was only ten miles by
+airline from Pope's extreme right, and the tell-tale cloud of
+dust, floating down the mountain side above them, must soon be
+sighted, signaled, noted, and attended to. Only speed, the speed
+of "foot-cavalry," could now prevail, and not a man must be an
+inch behind. CLOSE UP, MEN, CLOSE UP!--CLOSE UP THERE IN
+REAR!--CLOSE UP! CLOSE UP!
+
+By noon the head of the column had already crossed those same
+communications which Pope had told his army to disregard in favor
+of the much more interesting enemy line of retreat. Little did he
+think that the man he had come to chase was about to burn the
+bridge at Bristoe Station and thus cut the line between the
+Federal front at Warrenton and the Federal base at Manassas. All
+went well with Jackson, except that some news escaped to
+Washington and Warrenton sooner than he expected. A Federal train
+dashed on to Washington before the rails could be torn up. The
+next two trains were both derailed and wrecked. But the fourth
+put all brakes down and speeded back to Warrenton. Jackson
+quickly took up a very strong position on the north side of Broad
+Run, behind the burnt railway bridge, and sent Stuart's troopers
+with two battalions of "foot-cavalry" to raid the base at
+Manassas, replenish the exhausted Confederate supplies, and do
+the northward scouting.
+
+The situation of the rival armies on the night of the
+twentyseventh forms one of the curiosities of war. Jackson was
+concentrating round Manassas Junction. Lee was following
+Jackson's line of march, but was still beyond Thoroughfare Gap.
+Between them stood part of Pope's army, the whole of which
+occupied an irregular quadrilateral formed by lines joining the
+following points: Warrenton Junction, Bristoe Station,
+Gainesville, and Thoroughfare Gap. Thirty miles northeast were
+the twenty thousand Federals who joined Pope too late. Thirty
+miles southeast the rear of McClellan's forces were still massing
+at Aquia. In Pope's opinion Jackson was clearly trapped and Lee
+cut off.
+
+But when Pope began to close his cumbrous net the following day
+Jackson had disappeared again. Orders and counter-orders
+thereupon succeeded each other in bewildering confusion.
+McClellan could be left out: and a very good thing too, thought
+Pope, who wanted the victory all to himself, and whose own army
+greatly outnumbered Lee's and Jackson's put together. But
+Washington was nervous again; it contained the reinforcements;
+and it had suddenly become indispensable to Pope as an immediate
+base of supplies now that the base at Manassas had been so
+completely destroyed. Pope's troops therefore mostly drew east
+during the twentyeighth, forming by nightfall a long irregular
+line, facing west, with its right beyond Centreville and its
+extreme left held by Banks's mauled divisions south of Catlett's
+Station. Meanwhile Jackson had slipped into place in the curve of
+Bull Run, facing southeast, with his left near Stone Bridge, his
+back to Sudley Springs, and his right open to junction with Lee,
+who was waiting for daylight to force the Gap against the single
+division left there on guard.
+
+During the afternoon, while Jackson's tired men were lying sound
+asleep in their ranks, Jackson himself was roused to see captured
+orders which showed that some Federals were crossing his front.
+Reading these orders to his divisional commanders he immediately
+ordered one to attack and another to support. If the Federals
+concerned were exposing an unguarded flank they should be
+attacked at a disadvantage. If they were screening larger forces
+trying to join the reinforcements from Washington or Aquia, then
+they should be attacked so as to distract Pope's attention and
+draw him on before the Federal union became complete, though not
+before Lee had reached the new Bull Run position the following
+day. The attack was consequently made from the woods around
+Groveton not too long before dark. It resulted in a desperate
+frontal fight, neither side knowing what the other had in its
+rear or on its flanks. Again the Federals were outnumbered:
+twenty-eight against forty-five hundred men in action. But again
+they fought with the utmost resolution and drew off in good
+order. The strategic advantage, however, was wholly Confederate;
+for Pope, who thought Jackson must now be falling back to the
+Gap, at once began confusedly trying to concentrate for pursuit
+on the twenty-ninth--the very thing that suited Lee and Jackson
+best.
+
+Early that morning the two-days' Battle of Second Manassas (or
+Second Bull Run) began with Pope's absurd attempt to pursue an
+army drawn up in line of battle. Moreover, Jackson's position was
+not only strong in itself but well adapted for giving attackers a
+shattering surprise. The left rested on Bull Run at Sudley Ford.
+The center occupied the edge of the flat-topped Stony Ridge. A
+quarter-mile in front of it, and some way lower down, were the
+embankments and cuttings of an unfinished railroad. On the right
+was Stuart's Hill, where Lee was to join by sending Longstreet
+in. The approaches in rear were hidden from the eyes of an enemy
+in front. The cuttings and embankments made excellent field works
+for the defense. And the forward edge of the Ridge was wooded
+enough to let counter-attackers mass under cover and then run
+down to surprise the attackers by manning the cuttings and
+embankments.
+
+Sigel's Germans, supported by the splendid Pennsylvanians under
+Reynolds, advanced from the Henry Hill to hold Jackson till Pope
+could come up and finish him. The numbers were about even, with
+slight odds in favor of Jackson. But the shock was delivered
+piecemeal. Each part was roughly handled and driven back in
+disorder. And by the time Reynolds had come to the front Lee's
+advanced guard was arriving. Then eighteen thousand Federals
+marched in from Centreville under Reno, Kearny, and "fighting Joe
+Hooker," of whom we shall hear again. Pope came up in person with
+the rest of his available command, rode along his line, and
+explained the situation as founded on his ignorance and colored
+by his fancy. At this very moment Longstreet came up on Jackson's
+right. Reynolds went into action against what he thought was
+Jackson's extended right but what was really Longstreet's left.
+Meanwhile the Centreville troops attacked near Bull Run. But that
+dashing commander, Philip Kearny, was held up by Jackson's
+concentrated guns; so Hooker and Reno advanced alone, straight
+for the railroad line. The Confederates behind it poured in a
+tremendous hail of bullets, and the long dry grass caught fire.
+But nothing stopped Hooker till bayonets were crossed on the
+rails and the Confederate line was broken. Then the Confederate
+reserves charged in and drove the Federals back. No sooner was
+this seen than, with a burst of cheering, another blue line
+surged forward. Again the Confederate front was broken, but again
+their reserves drove back the Federals. And so the fight went on,
+with stroke and counterstroke, till, at a quarter past five,
+twelve hours after Pope's first men had started from the Henry
+Hill, his thirty thousand attackers found themselves unable to
+break through.
+
+Pope wished to make one more effort to round up Jackson's
+supposedly open right. But Porter quite properly sent back word
+that it was far too strong for his own ten thousand. In reply
+Pope angrily ordered an immediate attack. But it was now too
+dark, and the battle ended for the day.
+
+Strangely enough, Lee was also having trouble with his
+subordinate on the same flank at the same time, but with this
+difference, that Porter was right while Longstreet was wrong. Lee
+saw his chance of rolling up Pope's left and ordered Longstreet
+to do it. But, after reconnoitering the ground, Longstreet came
+back to say the chance was "not inviting." Again Lee ordered an
+attack. But Longstreet wasted time, looking for needlessly
+favorable ground till long after dark. Meanwhile the Federals
+were also feeling their way forward over the same ground to get
+into a good flanking position for next day's battle. So the two
+sides met; and it was past midnight when Longstreet settled down.
+Lee wanted a sword thrust. Longstreet gave a pin prick. We shall
+meet Longstreet again, in the same character of obstructive
+subordinate, at Gettysburg. But he was, for the most part, a very
+good officer indeed; and the South, with its scanty supply of
+trained leaders, could not afford to make changes like the North.
+The fault, too, was partly Lee's; for his one weak point with
+good but wayward subordinates was a tendency to let his sensitive
+consideration for their feelings overcome his sterner insight
+into their defects.
+
+At noon on the fatal thirtieth of August, Pope, selfdeluded and
+self-sufficient as before, dismayed his best officers by ordering
+his sixty-five thousand men to be "immediately thrown forward in
+pursuit of the enemy, "whose own fifty thousand were now far
+readier than on the previous day.
+
+Then the dense blue masses marched to their doom. Twenty thousand
+bayonets shone together from Groveton to Bull Run. Forty thousand
+more supported them on the slopes in rear, while every Federal
+gun thundered forth protectingly from the heights behind. The
+Confederate batteries were pointed out as the objective of
+attack. Not one glint of steel appeared between these batteries
+and the glittering Federal host. To the men in the ranks and to
+Pope himself victory seemed assured. But no sooner had that brave
+array come within rifle range of the deserted railroad line than,
+high and clear, the Confederate bugles called along the hidden
+edges of the flat-topped Ridge; when instantly the great gray
+host broke cover, ran forward as one man, and held the whole
+embankment with a line of fire and steel.
+
+A shock of sheer amazement ran through the Federal mass. Then,
+knightly as any hero of romance, a mounted officer rode out
+alone, in front of the center, and, with his sword held high,
+continued leading the advance, which itself went on undaunted.
+The Confederate flank batteries crossed their fire on this
+devoted center. Bayonets flashed out of line in hundreds as their
+owners fell. Colors were cut down, raised high, cut down again.
+But still that gallant horse and man went on, unswerving and
+untouched. Even the sweeping volleys spared them both, though
+now, as the Federals closed, these volleys cut down more men than
+the cross-fire of the guns. At last the unscathed hero waved his
+sword and rode straight up the deadly embankment, followed by the
+charging line. "Don't kill him! Don't kill him!" shouted the
+admiring Confederates as his splendid figure stood, one glorious
+moment, on the top. The next, both horse and man sank wounded,
+and were at once put under cover by their generous foes.
+
+For thirty-five dire minutes the fight raged face to face. One
+Federal color rose, fell, and rose again as fast as living hands
+could take it from the dead. Over a hundred men lay round it when
+the few survivors drew back to re-form. Pope fed his front line
+with reserves, who advanced with the same undaunted gallantry,
+but also with the same result. As if to make this same result
+more sure he never tried to win by one combined assault, wave
+after crashing wave, without allowing the defense to get its
+second wind; but let each unit taste defeat before the next came
+on. Federal bravery remained. But Federal morale was rapidly
+disintegrating under the palpable errors of Pope. Misguided,
+misled, and mishandled, the blue lines still fought on till four,
+by which time every corps, division, and brigade had failed
+entirely.
+
+Then, at the perfect moment and in the perfect way, Lee's
+counterstroke was made: the beaten Federals being assailed in
+flank as well as front by every sword, gun, bayonet, and bullet
+that could possibly be brought to bear. Only the batteries
+remained on the ridge, firing furiously till the Federals were
+driven out of range. The infantry and cavalry were sent in--wave
+after wave of them, without respite, till the last had hurled
+destruction on the foe.
+
+As at the First Bull Run, so here, the regulars fell back in good
+order, fighting to the very end. But the rest of Pope's Army of
+Virginia was no longer an organized unit. Even strong
+reinforcements could do nothing for it now. On the second of
+September, three days after the battle, its arrival at
+Washington, heralded by thousands of weary stragglers, threw the
+whole Union into gloom.
+
+
+The first counter-invasion naturally followed. Southern hopes ran
+high. Bragg's invasion of Kentucky seemed to be succeeding at
+this time. The trans-Mississippi line still held at Vicksburg and
+Port Hudson. Richmond had been saved. Washington was menaced. And
+most people on both sides thought so much more of the land than
+of the sea that the Federal victories along the coast and up the
+Mississippi were half forgotten for the time being; and so was
+the strangling blockade. Lee, of course, saw the situation as a
+whole; and, as a whole, it was far from bright. But though the
+counter-invasion was now a year too late it seemed worth making.
+Maryland was full of Southern sympathizers; and campaigning there
+would give Virginia a chance to recuperate, while also preventing
+the North from recovering too quickly from its last reverse. Thus
+it was with great expectations that the Confederates crossed the
+Potomac singing "Maryland, my Maryland!"
+
+But Maryland did not respond to this appeal. The women, it is
+true, were mostly Southern to the core and ready to serve the
+Confederate cause in every way they could. But the men,
+reflecting more, knew they were in the grip of Northern seapower.
+Nor could they fail to notice the vast difference between the
+warlike resources of the North and South. Northern armies had
+been marching through for many months, well fed, well armed, and
+superabundantly supplied. The Confederates, on the other hand,
+were fewer in numbers, half starved, in ragged clothing, less
+well armed, and far less abundantly supplied in every way. A
+Northerner who fell sick could generally count on the best of
+medical care, not to mention a profusion of medical comforts. But
+the blockade kept medicines and surgical instruments out of the
+Southern ports; and the South could make few of her own. So, to
+be very sick or badly wounded meant almost a sentence of death in
+the South. Eighteen months of war had disillusioned Maryland. The
+expected reinforcements never came.
+
+Lee had again divided his army in the hope of snatching victory
+by means of better strategy. On the thirteenth of September
+Jackson was bombarding the Federals at Harper's Ferry, Longstreet
+was at Hagerstown, and Stuart was holding the gaps of South
+Mountain.
+
+The same day McClellan, whose whole army was at Frederick,
+received a copy of Lee's orders. They had been wrapped round
+three cigars and lost by a careless Confederate staff officer.
+Had McClellan forced the gaps immediately, maneuvered with
+reasonable skill, and struck home with every available man, he
+might have annihilated Lee. But he let the thirteenth pass
+quietly; and when he did take the passes on the fourteenth it
+cost him a good deal, as the Confederate infantry had reinforced
+Stuart. On the fifteenth Jackson took Harper's Ferry. On the
+sixteenth he joined Lee at Antietam. And on the seventeenth, when
+the remaining availables had also joined Lee, McClellan made up
+his mind to attack. "Ask me for anything but time," said the real
+Napoleon. The "Young Napoleon" did not even need the asking.
+
+Antietam (so called from the Antietam Creek) or Sharpsburg (so
+called from the Confederate headquarters there) was one of the
+biggest battles of the Civil War; and it might possibly have been
+the most momentous. But, as things turned out, it was in itself
+an indecisive action, spoilt for the Federals, first, by
+McClellan's hesitating strategy, and then by his failure to press
+the attack home at all costs, with every available man, in an
+unbroken succession of assaults. He had over 80,000 men with 275
+guns against barely 40,000 with 194 guns of inferior strength.
+But though the Federals fought with magnificent devotion, and
+though the losses were very serious on both sides, the tactical
+result was a mutual checkmate. The strategic result, however, was
+a Confederate defeat; for, with his few worn veterans, Lee had no
+chance whatever of keeping his precarious hold on a neutral
+Maryland.
+
+October was a quiet month, each side reorganizing without much
+interference from the other, except for Stuart's second raid
+round the whole embattled army of McClellan. This time Stuart
+took nearly two thousand men and four horse artillery guns.
+Crossing the Potomac at McCoy's Ford on the tenth he reached
+Chambersburg that night, destroyed the Federal stores, took all
+the prisoners he wanted, cut the wires, obstructed the rails, and
+went on with hundreds of Federal horses. Next day he circled the
+Federal rear toward Gettysburg, turned south through Emmitsburg,
+and crossed McClellan's line of communications with Washington at
+Hyattstown early on the twelfth. By this time the Federal cavalry
+were riding themselves to exhaustion in vain pursuit; while many
+other forces were trying to close in and cut him off. But he
+reached the mouth of the Monocacy and crossed White's Ford in
+safety, fighting off all interference. The information he brought
+back was of priceless value. Lee now learned that McClellan was
+not falling back on Washington but being reinforced from there,
+and that consequently no new Peninsula Campaign was to be feared
+at present. This alone was worth the effort, risk, and negligible
+loss. Stuart had marched a hundred and twenty-six miles on the
+Federal side of the Potomac--eighty of them without a single
+halt; and he had been fifty-six hours inside the Federal lines,
+mostly within four riding hours of McClellan's own headquarters.
+
+This second stinging raid roused the loyal North to fury; and by
+November a new invasion of Virginia was in full swing on the old
+ground, with McClellan at Warrenton, Lee at Culpeper, and Jackson
+in the Valley.
+
+But McClellan's own last chance had gone. Late at night on the
+seventh he was sitting alone in his tent, writing to his wife,
+when Burnside asked if he could come in with General C.P.
+Buckingham, the confidential staff officer to the War Department.
+After some forced conversation Buckingham handed McClellan a
+paper ordering his supersession by Burnside. McClellan simply
+said: "Well, Burnside, I turn the command over to you." The
+eighth and ninth were spent in handing over; and on the tenth
+McClellan made his official farewell. Next day he was entraining
+at Warrenton Junction when the men, among whom he was immensely
+popular, broke ranks and swarmed round his car, cursing the
+Government and swearing they would follow no one but their "Old
+Commander." McClellan, with all his faults in the field, was a
+good organizer, an extremely able engineer, a very brave soldier,
+a very sympathetic comrade in arms, and a regular father to his
+men, whose personal interests were always his first care. The
+moment was critical. McClellan, had he chosen, might have
+imitated the Roman generals who led the revolts of Praetorian
+Guards. But he stepped out on the front platform of the car, held
+up his hand, and, amid tense silence, asked the men to "stand by
+General Burnside as you have stood by me." The car they had
+uncoupled to prevent his departure was run up and coupled again;
+and then, amid cheers of mournful farewell, they let him go.
+
+General Ambrose E. Burnside was expected to smash Lee, take
+Richmond, and end the war at once. He was a good subordinate, but
+quite unfit for supreme command, which he accepted only under
+protest. Moreover, he was not supported as he should have been by
+the War Department, nor even by the Headquarter Staff. While
+changing his position from Warrenton to Fredericksburg he was
+hampered by avoidable delays. So when he reached Falmouth he
+found Lee had forestalled him on the opposing heights of
+Fredericksburg itself.
+
+The disastrous thirteenth of December was dull, calm, and misty.
+But presently the sun shone down with unwonted warmth; the mists
+rolled up like curtains; and there stood 200,000 men, arrayed in
+order of battle: 80,000 Confederates awaiting the onslaught of
+120,000 Federals.
+
+On came the solid masses of the Federals, eighty thousand strong,
+with forty in support, amid the thunder of five hundred attacking
+and defending guns. The sunlight played upon the rising tide of
+Federal bayonets as on sea currents when they turn inshore. The
+colors waved proudly as ever; and to the outward eye the attack
+seemed almost strong enough to drive the stern and silent gray
+Confederates clear off the crest. But the indispensable morale
+was wanting. For this was the end of a long campaign, full of
+drawn battles and terrible defeats. Burnside was an unpopular
+substitute for McClellan; he was not in any way a great
+commander; and he was acting under pressure against his own best
+judgment. His army knew or felt all this; and he knew they knew
+or felt it. The Federals, for all their glorious courage, felt,
+when the two fronts met at Fredericksburg, that they were no more
+than sacrificial pawns in the grim game of war. After much
+useless slaughter they reeled back beaten. But they could and did
+retire in safety, skillfully "staffed" by their leaders and close
+to their unconquerable sea.
+
+Lee could make no counterstroke. The Confederate Government had
+not dared to let him occupy the far better position on the line
+of the North Anna, from which a vigorous counterstroke might have
+almost annihilated a beaten attacker, who would have been exposed
+on both flanks, beyond the sure protection of the sea. Thus fear
+of an outcry against "abandoning" the country between
+Fredericksburg and the North Anna caused the Southern politicians
+to lose their chance at home. But without a decisive victory they
+could not hope for foreign intervention. So losing their chance
+at home made them lose it abroad as well.
+
+Burnside was dazed by his defeat and the appalling loss of life
+in vain. But after five weeks of most discouraging inaction he
+tried to surprise Lee by crossing the Rappahannock several miles
+higher up. On the twentieth and twenty-first of that miserable
+January the Federal army ploughed its dreary way through sloughs
+of gluey mud under torrents of chilling rain. Then, when the pace
+had slackened to a funereal crawl, and the absurdly little chance
+of surprising Lee had vanished altogether, this despairing "Mud
+March" came to its wretched end. Four days later Burnside was
+superseded by one of his own subordinates, General Joseph Hooker,
+known to all ranks as "Fighting Joe Hooker."
+
+
+Fredericksburg, the spell of relaxing winter quarters beside the
+fatal Rappahannock, and then the fatal "Mud March," combined to
+lower Federal morale. Yet the mass of the men, being composed of
+fine human material, quickly recovered under "Fighting Joe
+Hooker," who knew what discipline meant. Numbers and discipline
+tell. But disciplined numbers were not the only or even the
+greatest menace to the South. For here, as farther west, the
+Confederate Government was beginning to be foolish just as the
+Federal Government showed signs of growing wise. Lincoln and
+Stanton were giving Joe Hooker a fairly free hand just when Davis
+and Seddon (his makeshift minister of war) were using Confederate
+forces as puppets to be pulled about by Cabinet strings from
+Richmond. Here again (as later on at Chattanooga) Longstreet was
+sent away on a useless errand just when he was needed most by
+Lee. Good soldier though he was in many ways he was no such man
+as Stonewall Jackson; and, in this one year, he failed his
+seniors thrice.
+
+It is true enough that the April situation of 1863 might well
+shake governmental nerves; for Richmond was being menaced from
+three points north, southeast, and south: Fredericksburg due
+north, Suffolk southeast, Newbern south. Newbern in North
+Carolina was a long way off. But its possession by an active
+enemy threatened the rail connection from Richmond south to
+Wilmington, Charleston, and Savannah, the only three Atlantic
+ports through which the South could get supplies from overseas.
+Suffolk was nearer. It covered the landward side of Norfolk,
+which, with Fortress Monroe, might become the base of a new
+Peninsula Campaign. But Fredericksburg was nearest; nearest to
+Richmond, nearest to Washington, nearest to the main Southern
+force; and not only nearest but strongest, in every way strongest
+and most to be feared. "Fighting Joe Hooker" was there, with a
+hundred and thirty thousand men, already stirring for the spring
+campaign that was to wipe out memories of Fredericksburg, make
+short work of Lee, and end the war at Richmond.
+
+Yet Longstreet cheerfully marched off, pleased with his new
+command, to see what he could do to soothe the Government by
+winning laurels for himself at Suffolk. On the seventeenth, just
+two weeks before the supreme test came on Lee's weakened army at
+Chancellorsville, Longstreet reported to Seddon that Suffolk
+would cost three thousand men, if taken by assault, or three
+days' heavy firing if subdued by bombardment. Shrinking from such
+expenditure of life or ammunition, Davis, Seddon, and Longstreet
+fell back on a siege, which, preventing all junction with Lee,
+might well have cost the ruin of their cause.
+
+Lee and Jackson then prepared to make the best of a bad business
+along the Rappahannock, and to snatch victory once more, if
+possible, from the very jaws of death. The prospect was grimmer
+than before. Hooker was a better fighter than McClellan and wiser
+than Burnside or Pope. Moreover, after two years of war, the
+Union Government had at last found out that civilian detectives
+knew less about armies than expert staff officers know, and that
+cavalry which was something more than mere men on horses could
+collect a little information too. Hooker knew Lee's strength as
+well as his own. So he decided to hold Lee fast with one part of
+the big Federal army, turn his flank with another, and cut his
+line of supply and retreat with Stoneman's ten thousand sabers as
+well. The respective grand totals were 130,000 Federals against
+62,000 Confederates.
+
+So far, so good; so very good indeed that Hooker and his staff
+were as nearly free from care on May Day as headquarter men can
+ever be in the midst of vital operations. Hooker had just reason
+to be proud of the Army of the Potomac and of his own work in
+reviving it. He had, indeed, issued one bombastic order of the
+day in which he called it "the finest on the planet." But even
+this might be excused in view of the popular call for encouraging
+words. What was more to the point was the reestablishment of
+Federal morale, which had been terribly shaken after the great
+Mud March. Hooker's sworn evidence (as given in the official
+"Report of Committee on the Conduct of the War") speaks for
+itself: "The moment I was placed in command I caused a return to
+be made of the absentees of the army, and found the number to be
+2922 commissioned officers and 81,964 non-commissioned officers
+and privates. They were scattered all over the country, and the
+majority were absent from causes unknown."
+
+On the twenty-eighth of April Stuart saw the redisciplined
+Federals in motion far up the Rappahannock, while next day
+Jackson saw others laying pontoons thirty miles lower down, just
+on the seaward side of Fredericksburg. Lee took this news with
+genial calm, remarking to the aide: "Well, I heard firing and was
+beginning to think it was time some of your lazy young fellows
+were coming to tell me what it was about. Tell your good general
+he knows what to do with the enemy just as well as I do." On the
+thirtieth it became quite clear that Hooker was bent on turning
+Lee's left and that he had divided his army to do so. Jackson
+wished to attack Sedgwick's 35,000 Federals still on the plains
+of Fredericksburg. But Lee convinced him that the better way
+would be to hold these men with 10,000 Confederates in the
+fortified position on the confronting heights while the remaining
+52,000 should try to catch Hooker himself between the jaws of a
+trap in the forest round Chancellorsville, where the Federal
+masses would be far more likely to get out of hand. It was an
+extremely daring maneuver to be setting this trap when Sedgwick
+had enough men to storm the heights of Fredericksburg, when
+Stoneman was on the line of communication with the south, and
+when Hooker himself, with superior numbers, was gaining Lee's
+rear. But Lee had Jackson as his lieutenant, not Longstreet, as
+he was to have at Gettysburg.
+
+Hooker's movements were rapid, well arranged, and admirably
+executed up to the evening of the first of May, when, finding
+those of the enemy very puzzling among the dense woods, he chose
+the worst of three alternatives. The first and best, an immediate
+counter-attack, would have kept up his army's morale and, if well
+executed, revealed his own greater strength. The second, a
+continued advance till he reached clearer ground, might have
+succeeded or not. The third and worst was to stand on his
+defense, a plan which, however sound in other places, was fatal
+here, because it not only depressed the spirits of his army but
+gave two men of genius the initiative against him in a country
+where they were at home and he was not. The absence of ten
+thousand cavalry baffled his efforts to get trustworthy
+information on the ground, while the dense woods baffled his
+balloons from above. On the second of May he still thought the
+initiative was his, that the Confederates were retreating, and
+that his own jaws were closing on them instead of theirs on him.
+
+Meanwhile, owing to miscalculations of the space that had to be
+held in force, his right was not only thrown forward too far but
+presented a flank in the air. This was the flank round which
+Stonewall Jackson maneuvered with such consummate skill that it
+was taken on three sides and rolled up in fatal confusion. Its
+commander, the very capable General O.O. Howard, who perceived
+the mistake he could not correct, tried hard to stay the rout.
+But, as his whole reserve had been withdrawn by Hooker to join an
+attack elsewhere, his lines simply melted away. The three days'
+battle that followed (ending on the fifth of May) was bravely
+fought by the bewildered Federals. Yet all in vain. Hooker was
+caught like a bull in a net; and the more he struggled the worse
+it became. At 6 P.M.. on the second the cunning trap was sprung
+when a single Confederate bugle rang out. Instantly other bugles
+repeated the call at regular intervals through miles of forest.
+Then, high and clear on the silent air of that calm May evening,
+the rebel yell rose like the baying of innumerable hounds, hot on
+the scent of their quarry, with Jackson leading on. Nothing could
+stop the eager gray lines, wave after wave of them pressing
+through the woods; not even the gallant fifty guns that fought
+with desperation in defense of Hazel Grove, where Hooker was
+rallying his men.
+
+For two days more the tide of battle ebbed and flowed; but always
+against the Federals in the end, till, broken, bewildered, and
+disheartened, they retired as best they could. Lee was unable to
+pursue. Longstreet's men were still missing; and so were many
+supplies that should have been forwarded from Richmond. There the
+Government clung to the fond belief that this mere victory had
+won the war, and that pursuit was useless. Thus Lee's last chance
+of crushing the invaders was taken from him by his friends.
+
+At the same time the Southern cause suffered another irreparable
+loss; but in this case at the purely accidental hands of Southern
+men. Jackson's staff, suddenly emerging from a thicket as the
+first night closed in, was mistaken for Federal cavalry and shot
+down. Jackson himself was badly wounded in three places and
+carried from the field. He never heard the rebel yell again. Next
+Sunday, when the staff-surgeon told him that he could not
+possibly live through the night, he simply answered: "Very good,
+very good; it is all right." Presently he asked Major Pendleton
+what chaplain was preaching at headquarters. "Mr. Lacy, sir; and
+the whole army is praying for you." "Thank God," said Jackson,
+"they are very kind to me." A little later, rousing himself as if
+from sleep, he called out: "Order A.P. Hill to prepare for
+action! Pass the infantry to the front! Tell Major Hawks--" There
+his strength failed him. But after a pause he said quietly, "Let
+us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees."
+And with these words he died.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. GRANT WINS THE RIVER WAR: 1863
+
+We have seen already how the River War of '89 ended in a double
+failure of the Federal advance on Vicksburg: how Grant and
+Sherman, aided by the flanking force from Helena in Arkansas,
+failed to catch Pemberton along the Tallahatchie; and then how
+Sherman alone, moving down the Mississippi, was defeated by
+Pemberton at Chickasaw Bayou, just outside of Vicksburg.
+
+Leaving Memphis for good, Grant took command in the field again
+on the thirtieth of January. His army was strung out along
+seventy miles of the Mississippi just north of Vicksburg, so hard
+was it to find enough firm ground. The first important move was
+made when, in Grant's own words, "the entire Army of the
+Tennessee was transferred to the neighborhood of Vicksburg and
+landed on the opposite or western bank of the river at Milliken's
+Bend."
+
+Grant, everywhere in touch with Admiral D. D. Porter's fleet and
+plentifully supplied with water transport of all kinds, thus
+commanded the peninsula or tongue of low land-round which the
+mighty river took its course in the form of an elongated U right
+opposite Vicksburg. His farthest north base was still at Cairo;
+and the whole line of the Mississippi above him was effectively
+held by Union forces afloat and ashore. Four hundred miles south
+lay Farragut and Banks, preparing for an attack on Port Hudson
+and intent on making junction with the Union forces above.
+
+Two bad generals stood very much in Grant's way, one on either
+side of him in rank--McClernand, his own second-in-command, and
+Banks, his only senior in the Mississippi area. McClernand
+presently found rope enough to hang himself. Our old friend
+Banks, who had not yet learnt the elements of war, though
+schooled by Stonewall Jackson, never got beyond Port Hudson, and
+so could not spoil Grant's command in addition to his own.
+Fortunately, besides Sherman and other professional soldiers of
+quite exceptional ability, Grant had three of the best generals
+who ever came from civil life: Logan, Blair, and Crocker. Logan
+shed all the vices, while keeping all the virtues, of the lawyer
+when he took up arms. Blair knew how to be one man as an
+ambitious politician and another as a general in the field.
+Crocker was in consumption, but determined to die in his boots
+and do his military best for the Union service first. The
+personnel of the army was mostly excellent all through. The men
+were both hardy and handy as a rule, being to a large extent
+farmers, teamsters, railroad and steamboat men, well fitted to
+meet the emergencies of the severe and intricate Vicksburg
+campaign.
+
+Throughout this campaign the army and navy of the Union worked
+together as a single amphibious force. Grant's own words are no
+mere compliment, but the sober statement of a fact. "The navy,
+under Porter, was all it could be during the entire campaign.
+Without its assistance the campaign could not have been
+successfully made with twice the number of men engaged. It could
+not have been made at all, in the way it was, with any number of
+men, without such assistance. The most perfect harmony reigned
+between the two arms of the Service. There never was a request
+made, that I am aware of, either of the Flag-Officer or any of
+his subordinates, that was not promptly complied with." And what
+is true of Porter is at least as true of Farragut, who was the
+greater man and the senior of every one afloat.
+
+Grant could take Vicksburg only by reaching good ground, and the
+only good ground was below and in rear of the fortress. There was
+no foothold for his army on the east bank of the Mississippi
+anywhere between Memphis and Vicksburg. This meant that he must
+either start afresh from Memphis and try again to push overland
+by rail or cross the swampy peninsula in front of him and circle
+round his enemy. A retirement on Memphis, no matter how wise,
+would look like another great Union defeat and consequently lower
+a public morale which, depressed enough by Fredericksburg, was
+being kept down by the constant naval reverses that opened '63.
+Circling the front was therefore very much to be preferred from
+the political point of view. On the other hand, it was beset by
+many alarming difficulties; for it meant starting from the
+flooded Mississippi and working through the waterlogged lowlands,
+across the peninsula, till a foothold could be seized on the
+eastern bank below Vicksburg. Moreover, this circling attack,
+though feasible, might depress the morale of the troops by the
+way. Burnside's disastrous "Mud March" through the January
+sloughs of Virginia, made in the vain hope of outflanking Lee,
+had lowered the morale of the army almost as much as
+Fredericksburg itself had lowered the morale of the people.
+
+Through the depth of winter the army toiled "in ineffectual
+efforts," says Grant, "to reach high land above Vicksburg from
+which we could operate against that stronghold, and in making
+artificial waterways through which a fleet might pass, avoiding
+the batteries to the south of the town, in case the other efforts
+should fail." A wetter winter had never been known. The whole
+complicated network of bends and bayous, of creeks, streams,
+runs, and tributary rivers, was overflowing the few slimy trails
+through the spongy forest and threatening the neglected levees
+which still held back the encroaching waters. There was nothing
+to do, however, but to keep the men busy and the enemy confused
+by trying first one line and then another for two weary months.
+By April, writes Grant, "the waters of the Mississippi having
+receded sufficiently to make it possible to march an army across
+the peninsula opposite Vicksburg, I determined to adopt this
+course, and moved my advance to a point below the town."
+
+Meanwhile, far below, Farragut and Banks were at work round Port
+Hudson: Farragut to good effect; Banks as usual. On the
+fourteenth of March Farragut started up the river with seven
+men-of-war and wanted the troops to make a demonstration against
+Port Hudson from the rear while the fleet worked its way past the
+front. But, just as Farragut was weighing anchor, Banks, who had
+had ample time for preparation, sent word to say he was still
+five miles from Port Hudson. "He'd as well beat New Orleans,"
+muttered Farragut, "for all the good he's doing us."
+
+Six of the vessels were lashed together in pairs, the heavier
+ones next the enemy, the lighter ones secured well aft so as to
+mask the fewest guns. This arrangement also gave each pair the
+advantage of having twin screws. Farragut's flagship, the
+Hartford, leading the line-ahead, suffered least from the dense
+smoke on that damp, calm, moonless night. But the others were
+soon groping blindly up the tortuous channel. The Hartford
+herself took the ground for a critical moment. But, with her own
+screw going ahead and that of the Albatross going astern, she
+drew clear and won through. Not so, however, the other five
+ships. Only the Hartford and Albatross reached the Red River. Yet
+even this was of great importance, as it completely cut off Port
+Hudson from all chance of relief. Farragut went on up the
+Mississippi to see Grant, destroying all riverside stores on the
+way. Grant was delighted, and, in the absence of Porter, who was
+up the Yazoo, sent Farragut an Ellet ram and some sorely needed
+coal.
+
+Grant's seventh (and frst successful) effort to get a foothold
+(from which to carry out one of the boldest and most brilliant
+operations recorded in the history of war) began with a naval
+operation on the sixteenth of April, when Porter ran past the
+Vicksburg batteries by night. Though Porter had the four-knot
+current in his favor he needed all his skill and moral courage to
+take a regular flotilla round the elongated U made by the
+Mississippi at Vicksburg, with such a bend as to keep vessels
+under more or less distant fire for five miles, aid under much
+closer fire for nearly nine. At the bend the vessels could be
+caught end-on. For nearly five miles after that they were subject
+to a plunging fire. Porter led the way on board the flagship
+Benton. He had seven ironclads, of which three were larger
+vessels and four were gunboats built by Eads, a naval constructor
+with orignal ideas and great executive ability. One ram and three
+transports followed. Coal barges were lashed alongside or taken
+in tow. Some of these were lost and one transport was sunk. But
+the rest got through, though not unscathed. It seemed like a
+miracle to the tense spectators that any flotilla should survive
+this dash down a river of death flowing through a furnace. But
+the ironclads, magnificently handled, stood up to their work
+unflinchingly, fired back with regulated vigor, and took their
+terrific pounding without one vital wound.
+
+Porter presently relieved Farragut, who went back to New Orleans.
+From this time, till after the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson,
+Porter commanded three flotillas, each with a base of its own:
+first, a flotilla remaining north of Vicksburg for work on the
+Yazoo; secondly, the main body between Vicksburg and Grand Gulf;
+thirdly, the Red River flotilla. This combined naval force
+commanded all lines of communication north, south, and west of
+Vicksburg, thus enabling Grant to concentrate entirely against
+the eastern side.
+
+On the thirtieth of April Grant landed with twenty thousand men
+at Bruinsburg, on the east side of the Mississippi, about sixty
+miles below Vicksburg. A week later Sherman reinforced him to
+thirty-three thousand. Before the fall of Vicksburg his total
+strength reached seventy-five thousand. The Confederate total
+also fluctuated; but not so much. There were about sixty thousand
+Confederates in the whole strategic area between Vicksburg and
+Jackson (fifty miles east) when Grant made his first daring move,
+and about the same when Vicksburg surrendered. The scene of
+action was almost triangular; for it lay between the three lines
+joining Jackson, Haynes's Bluff, Rodney, and Jackson again. The
+respective lengths of these straight lines are forty, fifty, and
+seventy miles. But roundabout ways by land and water multiplied
+these distances, and much fighting and many obstacles vastly
+increased Grant's difficulties.
+
+An army, however, that had managed to reach Bruinsburg from the
+north and west was assuredly fit for more hard work of any kind;
+while a commander who had, left a safe base above Vicksburg and
+landed below, to live on (as well as in) an enemy country till
+victory should give him a new land line to the north, must, in
+view of the resultant triumph, be counted among the master-minds
+of war. Grant's marvelous skill in massing, dividing, forwarding,
+and concentrating his forces over a hundred miles of intricate
+passages between Milliken's Bend and Bruinsburg was only excelled
+by his consummate genius in carrying out this daring operation,
+forcing his way through his enemies, into full possession of
+interior lines, between their great garrison of Vicksburg and
+their field army from Jackson. He had to create two fronts in
+spite of his doubled enemy and live on that enemy's country
+without any land base of his own.
+
+Grant knew the country was quite able to support his army if he
+could only control enough of it. Bread, beef, and mutton would be
+almost unobtainable. But chickens, turkeys, and ducks were
+abundant, while hard-tack would do instead of bread.
+Bird-and-biscuit of course became unpopular; and after weeks of
+it Grant was not surprised to hear a soldier mutter "hard-tack"
+loudly enough for others to take up the cry. By this time,
+however, he luckily knew that the bread ration was about to be
+resumed; and when he told the men they cheered as only men on
+service can men to whom battles are rare events but rations the
+very stuff of daily existence. Coffee, bacon, beef, and mutton
+came next in popular favor when full rations were renewed. So
+when the Northern land line was reopened towards the end of the
+siege, and friends came into camp with presents from home, they
+found, to their amazement, that even the tenderest spring chicken
+was loathsome to their boys in blue.
+
+Grant set to work immediately on landing. His first objective was
+Grand Gulf, which he wanted as a field base for further advance.
+But in order to get it he had to drive away the enemy from Port
+Gibson, which was by no means easy, even with superior numbers,
+because the whole country thereabouts was so densely wooded and
+so intricately watered that concerted movements could only be
+made along the few and conspicuous roads. On the first of May,
+however, the Confederates were driven off before their
+reinforcements could arrive. McClernand bungled brigades and
+divisions out of mutual support. But Grant personally put things
+right again.
+
+By the third of May the bridge burnt by the enemy had been
+repaired and Grant's men were crossing to press them back on
+Vicksburg, so as to clear Grand Gulf. Grant's supply train
+(raised by impressing every horse, mule, ox, and wheeled thing in
+the neighborhood) looked more like comic opera than war. Fine
+private carriages, piled high with ammunition, and sometimes
+drawn by mules with straw collars and rope lines, went side by
+side with the longest plantation wagons drawn by many oxen, or
+with a two-wheeled cart drawn by a thoroughbred horse.
+
+Before any more actions could be fought news came through that
+the Federals in Virginia had been terribly beaten by Lee, who was
+now expected to invade the North. The South was triumphant; so
+much so, indeed, that its Government thought the war itself had
+now been won. But Lincoln, Grant, and Lee knew better.
+
+Swiftly, silently, and with a sure strategic touch, Grant marched
+northeast on Jackson, to make his rear secure before he turned on
+Vicksburg. On the twelfth he won at Raymond and on the fourteenth
+at Jackson itself. Here he turned back west again. On the
+sixteenth he won the stubborn fight of Champion's Hill, on the
+seventeenth he won again at Big Black River, and on the
+eighteenth he appeared before the lines of Vicksburg. With the
+prestige of five victories in twenty days, and with the momentum
+acquired in the process, he then tried to carry the lines by
+assault on the spot. But the attack of the nineteenth failed, as
+did its renewal on the twenty-second. Next day both sides settled
+down to a six weeks' siege.
+
+The failure of the two assaults was recognized by friend and foe
+as being a mere check; and Grant's men all believed they had now
+found the lookedfor leader. So they had. Like Lee and Stonewall
+Jackson in Virginia, Grant, with as yet inferior numbers (but
+with the immense advantage of sea-power), had seized, held, and
+acted on interior lines so ably that his forty-three thousand men
+had out-maneuvered and out-fought the sixty thousand of the
+enemy, beating them in detail on ground of their own besides
+inflicting a threefold loss. Grant lost little over four
+thousand. The Confederates lost nearly twelve thousand, half of
+whom were captured.
+
+The only real trouble, besides the failure to carry the lines by
+assault, was with the two bad generals, McClernand and Banks.
+McClernand had promulgated an order praising his own. corps to
+the skies and conveying the idea that he and it had won the
+battles. Moreover, he hinted that he had succeeded in the assault
+while the others had failed. This was especially offensive
+because Grant, at McClernand's urgent request, had sent
+reinforcements from other corps to confirm a success that he
+found nonexistent on the spot, except in McClernand's own words.
+To crown this, McClernand had sent his official order, with all
+its misleading statements, to be published in the Northern press;
+and the whole army was now supplied with the papers containing
+it. So gross a breach of discipline could not go unpunished; and
+McClernand was sent back to Springfield in disgrace.
+
+Banks, unfortunately, was senior to Grant and of course
+independent of Farragut; so he could safely vex them both--Grant,
+by spoiling the plan of concerting the attacks on Port Hudson and
+Vicksburg in May; Farragut, by continual failure in cooperation
+and by leaving big guns exposed to capture on the west bank. But
+things turned out well, after all. The guns were saved by the
+naval vessels that beat off a Confederate attack on
+Donaldsonville; and Grant's army was saved from coming under
+Banks's command by Banks's own egregious failure in cooperation.
+This failure thus became a blessing in disguise: a disguise too
+good for Halleck, whose reprimand from Washington on the
+twenty-third of May shows what dangers lurked beneath the
+mighthave-been. "The Government is exceedingly disappointed that
+you and General Grant are not acting in conjunction. It thought
+to secure that object by authorizing you to assume the entire
+command as soon as you and General Grant could unite."
+
+In the end the Confederates suffered much more than the Federals
+from civilian interference; for the orders of their Government
+came through in time to confuse a situation that was already bad
+and growing worse. Between Porter afloat and Grant ashore
+Vicksburg was doomed unless "Joe" Johnston came west with
+sufficient force to relieve it in time. Johnston did come early
+enough, but not in sufficient force; so the next best thing was
+to destroy all stores, abandon Vicksburg, and save the garrison.
+The Government, however, sent positive orders to hold Vicksburg
+to the very last gasp. Johnston had meanwhile sent Pemberton (the
+Vicksburg commander) orders to combine with him in free
+maneuvering for an attack in the field. But Pemberton's own idea
+was to await Grant on the Big Black River, where, with Johnston's
+help, he thought he could beat him. Then followed hesitation, a
+futile attempt to harmonize the three incompatible schemes; and
+presently the, division of the Confederates into separated
+armies, driven apart by Grant, whose own army soon dug itself in
+between them and quickly grew stronger than both.
+
+Grant's lines, facing both opponents, from Haynes's Bluff to
+Warrenton, were fifteen miles long, which gave him one man per
+foot when his full strength was reached Pemberton's were only
+seven; and his position was strong. both towards the river, where
+the bluffs rose two hundred feet, and on the landward side, where
+the slopes were sharp and well fortified. Grant closed in,
+however, and pressed the bombardment home. Except for six 32-
+pounders and a battery of big naval guns he had nothing but field
+artillery. Yet the abundance of ammunition, the closeness of the
+range, and the support of his many excellent snipers, soon gave
+him the upper hand. Six hundred yards was the farthest the lines
+were apart. In some places they nearly touched.
+
+All ranks worked hard, especially at engineering, in which there
+was such a dearth of officers that Grant ordered every West
+Pointer to do his turn with the sappers and miners as well as his
+other duty. This brought forth a respectful protest from the
+enormously fat Chief Commissary, who said he could only be used
+as a saproller (the big roller sappers shove protectingly before
+them when snipers get their range). The real sap-rollers came to
+grief when an ingenious Confederate stuffed port-fires with
+turpentined cotton and shot them into rollers only a few yards
+off. But after this the Federals kept their rollers wet; and
+sapped and burrowed till the big mine was fully charged and safe
+from the Confederate countermine, which had missed its mark.
+
+While trying to blow each other up the men on both sides
+exchanged amenities and chaff like the best of friends. Each side
+sold its papers to the other; and the wall-paper newsprint of
+Vicksburg made a good war souvenir for both. There was a steady
+demand for Federal bread and Confederate tobacco. When market
+time was over the Confederates would heave down hand-grenades,
+which agile Federals, good at baseball, would heave uphill again
+before they exploded. And woe to the man whose head appeared out
+of hours; for snipers were always on the watch, especially that
+prince of snipers, Lieutenant H.C. Foster, renowned as "Coonskin"
+from the cap he wore. A wonderful stalker and dead shot he was a
+terror to exposed Confederates at all times; but more
+particularly towards the end, when (their front artillery having
+been silenced by Grant's guns) Coonskin built a log tower,
+armored with railway iron, from which he picked off men who were
+safe from ordinary fire.
+
+On the twenty-first of June Pemberton planned an escape across
+the Mississippi and built some rough boats. But Grant heard of
+this; the flotilla grew more watchful still; and before any
+attempt at escape could be made the great mine was fired on the
+twenty-fifth. The whole top of the hill was blown off, and with
+it some men who came down alive on the Federal side. Among these
+was an unwounded but terrified colored man, who, on being asked
+how high he had gone, said, "Dunno, Massa, but t'ink 'bout t'ree
+mile." An immense crater was formed. But there was no practicable
+breach; so the assault was deferred. A second mine was exploded
+on the first of July. But again there was no assault; for Grant
+had decided to wait till several huge mines could be exploded
+simultaneously. In the meantime an intercepted dispatch warned
+him that Johnston would try to help Pemberton to cut his way out.
+But by the time the second mine was exploded Pemberton was
+sounding his generals about the chances of getting their own
+thirty thousand to join Johnston's thirty thousand against
+Grant's seventyfive thousand. The generals said No. Negotiations
+then began.
+
+On the third of July Grant met Pemberton under the "Vicksburg
+Oak," which, though quite a small tree, furnished
+souvenir-hunters with many cords of sacred wood in after years.
+Grant very wisely allowed surrender on parole, which somewhat
+depleted Confederate ranks in the future by the number of men
+who, returning to their homes, afterwards refused to come back
+when the exchange of prisoners would have permitted them to do
+so.
+
+That was a great week of Federal victory--the week including the
+third, fourth, and eighth of July. On the third Lee was defeated
+at Gettysburg. On the now doubly "Glorious Fourth" Vicksburg
+surrendered and the last Confederate attack was repulsed at
+Helena in Arkansas. On the eighth Port Hudson surrendered. With
+this the whole Mississippi fell into Federal hands for good. On
+the first of August Farragut left New Orleans for New York in the
+battle-scarred Hartford after turning over the Mississippi
+command to Porter's separate care.
+
+
+Meanwhile the Confederates in Tennessee, weakened by reinforcing
+Johnston against Grant, had been obliged to retire on
+Chattanooga. To cover this retirement and make what diversion he
+could, Bragg sent John H. Morgan with twenty-five hundred cavalry
+to raid Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio. Perplexing the outnumbering
+Federals by his daring, "Our Jack Morgan" crossed the Ohio at
+Brandenburg, rode northeast through Indiana, wheeled south at
+Hamilton, Ohio, rode through the suburbs of Cincinnati, reached
+Buffington Island on the border of West Virginia, and then, hotly
+pursued by ever-increasing forces, made northeast toward
+Pennsylvania. On the twenty-sixth of July he surrendered near New
+Lisbon with less than four hundred men left.
+
+The Confederate main body passed the summer vainly trying to stem
+the advance of the Army of the Cumberland, with which Rosecrans
+and Thomas skillfully maneuvered Bragg farther and farther south
+till they had forced him into and out of Chattanooga. In the
+meantime Burnside's Army of the Ohio cleared eastern Tennessee
+and settled down in Knoxville.
+
+But in the middle of September Longstreet came to Bragg's rescue;
+and a desperate battle was fought at Chickamauga on the
+nineteenth and twentieth. The Confederates had seventy thousand
+men against fifty-six thousand Federals: odds of five to four.
+They were determined to win at any price; and it cost them
+eighteen thousand men, killed, wounded, and missing; which was
+two thousand more than the Federals lost. But they felt it was
+now or never as they turned to bay with, for once, superior
+numbers. As usual, too, they coveted Federal supplies. "Come on,
+boys, and charge!" yelled an encouraging sergeant, "they have
+cheese in their haversacks!" Yet the pride of the soldier stood
+higher than hunger. General D.H. Hill stooped to cheer a very
+badly wounded man. "What's your regiment?" asked Hill. "Fifth
+Confederate, New Orleans, and a damned good regiment it is," came
+the ready answer.
+
+Rosecrans, like many another man who succeeds halfway up, failed
+at the top. He ordered an immediate general retreat which would
+have changed the hard-won Confederate victory into a Federal
+rout. But Thomas, with admirable judgment and iron nerve, stood
+fast till he had shielded all the others clear. From this time on
+both armies knew him as the "Rock of Chickamauga."
+
+The unexpected defeat of Chickamauga roused Washington to
+immediate, and this time most sensible, action. Grant was given
+supreme command over the whole strategic area. Thomas superseded
+Rosecrans. Sherman came down with the Army of the Tennessee. And
+Hooker railed through from Virginia with two good veteran corps.
+Meanwhile the Richmond Government was more foolish than the
+Washington was wise; for it let Davis mismanage the strategy
+without any reference to Lee. Bragg also made a capital mistake
+by sending Longstreet off to Knoxville with more than a third of
+his command just before Grant's final advance. The result was
+that Bragg found himself with only thirty thousand men at
+Chattanooga when Grant closed in with sixty thousand, and that
+Longstreet was useless at Knoxville, which was entirely dependent
+on Chattanooga. Whoever won decisively at Chattanooga could have
+Knoxville too. Davis, as the highest authority, and Bragg, as the
+most responsible subordinate, ensured their own defeat.
+
+Chattanooga was the key to the whole strategic area of the upper
+Tennessee; for it was the best road, rail, and river junction
+between the lower Mississippi and the Atlantic ports of the
+South. It had been held for some time by a Federal garrison which
+had made it fairly strong. But toward the end of October it was
+short of supplies; and Hooker had to fight Longstreet at
+Wauhatchie in the Lookout Valley before it could be revictualed.
+When Hooker, Thomas, and Sherman were there together under Grant
+in November it was of course perfectly safe; and the problem
+changed from defense to attack. The question was how to drive
+Bragg from his commanding positions on Missionary Ridge and
+Lookout Mountain. The woods and hills offered concealment to the
+attack in some places. But Lookout Mountain was a splendid
+observation post, twenty-two hundred feet high and crested with
+columns of rock. The Ridge was three miles east, the Mountain
+three miles south, of Cameron Hill, which stood just west of
+Chattanooga, commanding the bridge of boats that crossed the
+Tennessee.
+
+The battle, fought with great determination on both sides, lasted
+three days--the twenty-third, twenty-fourth, and twenty-fifth of
+November. Sherman made the flank attack on Missionary Ridge from
+the north and Thomas the frontal attack from the west. Hooker
+attacked the western flank of Lookout Mountain.
+
+Thomas did the first day's fighting, which was all preliminary
+work, by advancing a good mile, taking the Confederate lines on
+the lower slopes of the Ridge, and changing their defensive
+features to face the Ridge instead of Chattanooga.
+
+At two the next morning Giles Smith's brigade dropped down the
+Tennessee in boats and surprised the extreme north pickets placed
+by Bragg at the mouth of the South Chickamauga to cover the right
+of the Ridge. By noon Sherman's men were over the Tennessee ready
+to cooperate with Thomas. Sherman had hidden his camp among the
+hills on the other side so well that his movements could not be
+observed, even from the commanding height of Lookout Mountain.
+The night surprise of Bragg's pickets and the drizzling rain of
+the morning prevented the Confederates from hearing or seeing
+anything of Sherman's attack in the early afternoon; so he found
+himself on the northern flank of Missionary Ridge before Bragg's
+main body knew what he was doing. When the Confederates did
+attack it was too late; and the twenty-fourth ended with Sherman
+entrenched against the flank on even higher ground than Thomas
+held against the center. Sherman's cavalry had meanwhile moved
+round the flank, on the lower level and much farther off, to cut
+Bragg's right rear connection with Chickamauga Station, whence
+the rails ran east to Cleveland, Knoxville, and Virginia.
+
+Hooker's work this second day was to feel the Confederate force
+on Lookout Mountain while keeping the touch with Thomas, who kept
+the touch with Sherman. Mists hid his earlier maneuvers. He
+closed in successfully, handled his men to admiration, and gained
+more ground than either he or Grant had expected. Having
+succeeded so well he changed his demonstration into a regular
+attack, which became known as the "Battle above the Clouds." Step
+by step he fought his way up, over breastworks and rifle pits,
+felled trees and bowlders, through ravines and gullies, till the
+vanguard reached the giant palisades of rock which ramparted the
+top. The roar of battle was most distinctly heard four miles
+away, on Orchard Knob, where Grant and Thomas were anxiously
+waiting. But nothing could be seen until a sudden breeze blew the
+clouds aside just as the long blue lines charged home and the
+broken gray retreated. Then, from thirty thousand watching
+Federals, went up a cheer that even cannon could not silence.
+
+At midnight Grant sent a word of encouragement to Burnside at
+Knoxville. He then wrote his orders for what he now hoped would
+be a completely victorious attack. The twenty-fifth of November
+broke beautifully clear, and the whole scene of action remained
+in full view all day long. Fearful of being cut off from their
+main body on Missionary Ridge the Confederates had left Lookout
+Mountain under cover of the dark. But by destroying the bridges
+across the. Chattanooga River, which ran through the valley
+between the Mountain and the Ridge, they delayed Hooker till late
+that afternoon, thus saving their left from an even worse
+disaster than the one that overtook their center and their right.
+
+Sherman had desperate work against their right, as Bragg massed
+every available gun and man to meet him. This massing, however,
+was just what Grant wanted; for he now expected Hooker to appear
+on the other flank, which Bragg would either have to give up in
+despair or strengthen at the expense of the center, which Thomas
+was ready to charge. But with Hooker not appearing, and Sherman
+barely holding his own, Grant slipped Thomas from the leash. The
+two centers then met hand to hand. But there was no withstanding
+the Federal charge. Back went the Confederates, turning to bay at
+their second line of defense. Here again they were overborne by
+well-led superior numbers and soon put to flight. Sheridan, of
+whom we shall hear again in '64, took up the pursuit. Bragg lost
+all control of his men. Stores, guns, and even rifles were
+abandoned. Thousands of prisoners were taken; and most of the
+others were scattered in flight. The battle, the whole campaign,
+and even the war in the Tennessee sector, were won.
+
+Vicksburg meant that the trans-Mississippi South would
+thenceforth wither like a severed branch. Chattanooga meant that
+the Union forces had at last laid the age to the root of the
+tree.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. GETTYSBURG: 1863
+
+On the fifth of May we left Lee victorious in Virginia; but with
+his indispensable lieutenant, Stonewall Jackson, mortally
+wounded.
+
+Though thoroughly defeated at Chancellorsville, Hooker soon
+recovered control of the Army of the Potomac and prepared to
+dispute Lee's right of way. Lee faced a difficult, perhaps an
+insoluble, problem. Longstreet urged him to relieve the local
+pressure on Vicksburg by concentrating every available man in
+eastern Tennessee, not only withdrawing Johnston's force from
+Grant's rear but also depleting the Confederates in Virginia for
+the same purpose. Then, combining these armies from east and west
+with the one already there under Bragg, the united Confederates
+were to crush Rosecrans in their immediate front and make
+Cincinnati their great objective. Lee, however, dared not risk
+the loss of his Virginian bases in the meantime; and so he
+decided on a vigorous counter-attack, right into Pennsylvania,
+hoping that, if successful, this would . produce a greater effect
+than any corresponding victory could possibly produce elsewhere.
+
+On the ninth of June a cavalry combat round Brandy Station, in
+the heart of Virginia, made Hooker's staff feel certain that Lee
+was again going up the Valley and on to Maryland. At one time,
+for want of supplies, Lee had to spread out his front along a
+line running eighty miles northwest from Fredericksburg to
+Strasburg. Hooker, on the keen alert, implored the Government to
+let him attack the three Confederate corps in detail. Success
+against one at least was certain. Lincoln understood this
+perfectly. But the nerves of his colleagues were again on edge;
+and no argument could persuade them to adopt the best of all
+possible schemes of defense by destroying the enemy's means of
+destroying them. They insisted on the usual shield theory of
+passive defense, and ordered Hooker to keep between Lee and
+Washington whatever might happen. This absurd maneuver was of
+course attended with all the usual evil results at the time.
+Equally of course, it afterwards drew down the wrath of the
+wiseacre public on their own representatives. But wiseacre
+publics never stop to think that many a government is forced to
+do foolish and even suicidal things in war simply because it
+represents the ignorance and folly, as well as the wisdom, of all
+who have the vote.
+
+Yet both the loyal public and its Government had some good
+reasons to doubt Hooker's ability, even apart from his recent
+defeat; and Lincoln, wisest of all--except in applying strategy
+to problems he could not fully understand--felt almost certain
+that Hooker's character contained at least the seeds of failure
+in supreme command. "He talks to me like a father," said Hooker,
+on reading the letter Lincoln wrote when appointing him
+Burnside's successor. This remarkable letter, dated January 26,
+1863, though printed many times, is worth reading again:
+
+"I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of
+course I have done this upon what appears to me to be sufficient
+reasons, and yet I think it best for you to know that there are
+some things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you.
+I believe you to be a brave and skillful soldier, which, of
+course, I like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your
+profession, in which you are right. You have confidence in
+yourself, which is a valuable, if not an indispensable, quality.
+You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good
+rather than harm; but I think that during General Burnside's
+command of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition, and
+thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did a great wrong
+to the country and to a most meritorious and honorable brother
+officer. I have heard, in such way as to believe it, of your
+recently saying that both the army and the Government needed a
+Dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that
+I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain
+successes can set up dictatorships. What I now ask of you is
+military success, and I will risk the dictatorship. The
+Government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which
+is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all
+commanders. I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to
+infuse into the army, of criticizing their commander and
+withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall
+assist you as far as I can to put it down. Neither you nor
+Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good out of an
+army while such a spirit prevails in it. And now, beware of
+rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward, and
+give us victories."
+
+Then came Chancellorsville, doubts at Washington, interference by
+Stanton, ill-judged orders from Halleck, and some not very
+judicious rejoinders from Hooker himself, who became rather
+peevish, to Lincoln's alarm. So when, on the twentyseventh of
+June, Hooker tendered his resignation, it was promptly accepted.
+With Lee in Pennsylvania there was no time for discussion: only
+for finding some one to trust.
+
+Lee, as usual, had divined the political forces working on the
+Union armies from Washington and had maneuvered with a
+combination of skill and daring that exactly met the situation.
+Throwing his left forward (under Ewell) in the Shenandoah Valley
+he had driven Milroy out of Winchester on the fourteenth of June
+and next day secured a foothold across the Potomac. Then the rest
+of his army followed. It was so much stretched out (to facilitate
+its food supply) that Lincoln again wished to strike it at any
+vulnerable spot. But the Cabinet in general (and Stanton in
+particular) were still determined that the Union army should be
+their passive shield, not their active sword. On the
+twenty-fourth Ewell was already beginning to semicircle
+Gettysburg from the Cumberland Valley. On the twenty-eighth, the
+day on which Meade succeeded Hooker in the Federal command, the
+Confederate semicircle, now formed by Lee's whole army, stretched
+from Chambersburg on the west, through Carlisle on the north, to
+York on the east; while the massed Federals were still in
+Maryland, near Middletown and Frederick, thirty miles south of
+Gettysburg, and only forty miles northwest of nervous Washington.
+
+Hooker's successor, George G. Meade, was the fifth defender of
+Washington within the last ten months. Luckily for the Union,
+Meade was a sound, though not a great, commander, and his hands
+were fairly free. Luckily again, he was succeeded in command of
+the Fifth Corps by George Sykes, the excellent leader of those
+magnificent regulars who fought so well at Antietam and Second
+Manassas. The change from interference to control was made only
+just in time at Washington; for three days after Meade's free
+hand began to feel its way along the threatened front the armies
+met upon the unexpected battlefield of Gettysburg.
+
+Lee in Pennsylvania was in the midst of a very hostile population
+and facing superior forces which he could only defeat in one of
+two difficult ways: either by a sudden, bewildering, and
+unexpected attack, like Jackson's and his own at
+Chancellorsville, or by an impregnable defense on ground that
+also favored a victorious counter-attack and the subsequent
+crushing pursuit. But there was no Jackson now; and the nature of
+the country did not favor the bewildering of Federals who were
+fighting at home under excellent generals well served by a
+competent staff and well screened by cavalry. So the "fog of war"
+was quite as dense round Lee's headquarters as it was round
+Meade's on the first of July, when Lee found that his chosen
+point of concentration near Gettysburg was already occupied by
+Buford's cavalry, with infantry and some artillery in support.
+The surprise--and no very great surprise--was mutual. The
+Federals were found where they could stand on their defense in a
+very strong position if the rest of their army could come up in
+time. And Lee's only advantage was that, having already ordered
+concentration round the same position, he had a few hours' start
+of Meade in getting there.
+
+Each commander had intended to make the other one attack if
+possible; and Meade of course knew that Lee, with inferior
+numbers and vastly inferior supplies, could not afford to stay
+long among gathering enemies in the hostile North without
+decisive action. The Confederates must either fight or retreat
+without fighting, and make their choice very soon. So, when the
+two armies met at Gettysburg, Lee was practically forced to risk
+an immediate action or begin a retreat that might have ruined
+Confederate morale.
+
+Gettysburg is one of those battles about which men will always
+differ. The numbers present, the behavior of subordinates, the
+tactics employed, were, and still are, subjects of dispute. Above
+all, there is the vexed question of what Lee should or should not
+have done. We have little space to spare for any such
+discussions. We can only refer inquirers to the original evidence
+(some of which is most conflicting) and give the gist of what
+seems to be indubitable fact. The numbers were a good seventy
+thousand Confederates against about eighty thousand Federals. But
+these are the approximate grand totals; and it must be remembered
+that the Confederates, having the start, were in superior numbers
+during the first two days. On each side there was an aggrieved
+and aggrieving subordinate general, Sickles on the Federal side,
+Longstreet on the other. But Sickles was by far the less
+important of the two. In tactics the Federals displayed great
+judgment, skill, and resolution. The Northern people called
+Gettysburg a soldiers' battle; and so, in many ways, it was; for
+there was heroic work among the rank and file on both sides. But
+it most emphatically was not a soldiers' battle in the sense of
+its having been won more by the rank and file than by the
+generals in high command; for never did so many Federal chiefs
+show to such great advantage. No less than five commanded in
+succession between morning and midnight on the first day, each
+meeting the crisis till the next senior came up. They were
+Buford, Reynolds, Howard, Hancock, Meade. Hunt also excelled in
+command of the artillery; and this in spite of much
+misorganization of that arm at Washington. Warren was not only a
+good commander of the engineers but a good all-round general, as
+he showed by seizing, on his own initiative, the Little Round
+Top, without which the left flank could never have been held.
+
+Finally, there is the great vexed question of what Lee should or
+should not have done. First, it seems clear that (like Farragut
+and unlike Grant and Jackson) he lacked the ruthless power of
+making every subordinate bend or break in every time of crisis:
+otherwise he would have bent or broken Longstreet. Next, it may
+have been that he was not then at his best. Concludingly, it may
+be granted to armchair (and even other) critics that if
+everything had been something else the results might not have
+been the same.
+
+
+Lee, having invaded the North by marching northeast under cover
+of the mountains and wheeling southeast to concentrate at
+Gettysburg, found Buford's cavalry suddenly resisting him, as
+they formed the northwest outpost of Meade's army, which was
+itself concentrating round Pipe Creek, near Taneytown in
+Maryland, fifteen miles southeast. Gettysburg was a meeting place
+of many important roads. It stood at the western end of a branch
+line connecting with all the eastern rails. And it occupied a
+strong strategic point in the vitally important triangle formed
+by Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Washington. Thus, like a magnet,
+it drew the contending armies to what they knew would prove a
+field decisive of the whole campaign.
+
+The Federal line, as finally held on the third of July, was
+nearly five miles long. The front faced west and was nearly three
+miles long. The flanks, thrown back at right angles, faced north
+and south. Near the north end of the front stood Cemetery Hill,
+near the south the Devil's Den, a maze of gigantic bowlders.
+Along the front the ground was mostly ridged, and even the lower
+ground about the center was a rise from which a gradual slope
+went down to the valley that rose again to the opposite heights
+of Seminary Ridge, where Lee had his headquarters only a mile
+away. The so-called hills were no more than hillocks, the ridges
+were low, and most slopes were those of a rolling country. But
+the general contour of the ground, the swelling hillocks on the
+flanks (Culp's Hill on the right, the Round Tops on the left) and
+the broad glacis up which attackers must advance against the
+center, all combined to make the position very strong indeed when
+held by even or superior numbers.
+
+The first day's fight began when A.P. Hill's Confederates, with
+Longstreet's following, closed in on Gettysburg from the west to
+meet Ewell's, who were coming down from the north. Buford's
+Federal cavalry resisted Hill's advanced brigades successfully
+till Reynolds had brought the First Corps forward in support and
+ordered the two other nearest corps to follow at the double
+quick. Reynolds was killed early in the day; but not before his
+well trained eye had taken in the situation at a glance and his
+sure judgment had half committed both armies to that famous
+field.
+
+The full commitment came shortly after, when Meade sent Hancock
+forward to command the three corps and Buford's cavalry in their
+attempt to stem the Confederate advance. Howard was then the
+senior general on the field, having taken over from Doubleday,
+who had succeeded Reynolds. But he at once agreed that such a
+strong position should be held and that Hancock should proceed to
+rectify the lines. This was no easy task; for Ewell's
+Confederates had meanwhile come down from the north and driven in
+the Federal flank on the already hard-pressed front. The front
+thereupon gave way and fell back in confusion. But Hancock's
+masterly work was quickly done and the Federal line was
+reestablished so well that the Confederates paused in their
+attack and waited for the morrow.
+
+The Confederates had got as good as they gave, much to their
+disgust. Archer, one of their best brigadiers, felt particularly
+sore when most of his men were rounded up by Meredith's "Iron
+Brigade." When Doubleday saw his old West Point friend a prisoner
+he shook hands cordially, saying, "Well, Archer, I AM glad to see
+you!" But Archer answered, "Well, I'm not so glad to see YOU--not
+by a damned sight!" The fact was that the excellent Federal
+defense had come as a very unpleasing surprise upon the rather
+too cocksure Confederates. Buford's cavalry and Reynolds's
+infantry had staunchly withstood superior numbers; while
+Lieutenant Bayard Wilkeson actually held back a Confederate
+division for some time with the guns of Battery G, Fourth U. S.
+Artillery. This heroic youth, only nineteen years of age, kept
+his men in action, though they were suffering terrible losses,
+till two converging batteries brought him down.
+
+He was well matched by a veteran of over seventy, John Burns, an
+old soldier, whom the sound of battle drew from his little home
+like the trumpet-call to arms. In his swallow-tailed,
+brass-buttoned, old-fashioned coatee, Burns seemed a very comic
+sight to the nearest boys in blue until they found he really
+meant to join them and that he knew a thing or two of war. "Which
+way are the rebels?" he asked, "and where are our troops? I know
+how to fight--I've fit before." So he did; and he fought to good
+purpose till wounded three times.
+
+Late in the evening Meade arrived and inspected the lines by
+moonlight. Having ordered every remaining man to hasten forward
+he faced the second day with wellfounded anxiety lest Lee's full
+strength should break through before his own last men were up.
+His right was not safe against surprise by the Confederates who
+slept at the foot of Culp's Hill, and his left was in imminent
+danger from Longstreet's corps. But on the second day Longstreet
+marked his disagreement with Lee's plans by delaying his attack
+till Warren, with admirable judgment, had ordered the Round Tops
+to be seized at the double quick and held to the last extremity.
+Then, after wasting enough time for this to be done, Longstreet
+attacked and was repulsed; though his men fought very well.
+Meanwhile Ewell, whose attack against the right was to
+synchronize with Longstreet's against the left, was delayed by
+Longstreet till the afternoon, when he carried Culp's Hill.
+
+This was the only Confederate success; for Early failed to carry
+Cemetery Hill, the adjoining high ground, which formed the right
+center, and the rest of the Federal line remained intact; though
+not without desperate struggles.
+
+The third was the decisive day; and on it Meade rose to the
+height of his unappreciated skill. This was the first great
+battle in which all the chief Federals worked so well together
+and the first in which the commander-in-chief used reserves with
+such excellent effect, throwing them in at exactly the right
+moment and at the proper place. But these indispensable qualities
+were not of the kind that the public wanted to acclaim, or,
+indeed, of the kind that they could understand.
+
+Meade was determined to clear his flanks. So he began at dawn to
+attack Ewell on Culp's Hill and kept on doggedly till, after four
+hours of strenuous fighting, he had driven him off. By this time
+Meade saw that Lee was not going to press home any serious attack
+against the Round Tops and Devil's Den on the left. So the main
+interest of the whole battle shifted to the center of the field,
+where Lee was massing for a final charge. The idea had been to
+synchronize three cooperating movements against Meade's whole
+position. His left was to have been held by a demonstration in
+force by Longstreet against the Devil's Den and Round Tops, while
+Ewell held Culp's Hill, which seemed to be at his mercy, and
+which would flank any Federal retreat. At the same time Meade's
+center was to have been rushed by Pickett's fresh division
+supported by three attached brigades. But though the central
+force was ready before nine o'clock it never stepped off till
+three; so great was Longstreet's delay in ordering Pickett's
+advance. Meanwhile the Federals had made Culp's Hill quite safe
+against Ewell. So all depended now on the one last desperate
+assault against the Federal center.
+
+This immortal assault is known as Pickett's Charge because it was
+made by Pickett's division of Longstreet's corps supported by
+three brigades from Hill's--Wilcox's, Perry's, and Pettigrew's.
+The whole formed a mass of about ten thousand men. If they broke
+the Federal line in two, then every supporting Confederate was to
+follow, while the rest turned the flanks. If they failed, then
+the battle must be lost.
+
+Hour after hour passed by. But it was not till well past one that
+Longstreet opened fire with a hundred and forty guns. Hunt had
+seventy-seven ready to reply. But after firing for half an hour
+he ceased, wishing to reserve his ammunition for use against the
+charging infantry. This encouraged the Confederate gunners, who
+thought they had silenced him. They then continued for some time,
+preparing the way for the charge, but firing too high and doing
+little execution against the Federal infantry, who were lying
+down, mostly under cover. Hunt's guns were more exposed and
+formed better targets; so some of them suffered severely: none
+more than those of Battery A, Fourth U.S. Artillery. This gallant
+battery had three of its limbers blown up and replaced. Wheels
+were also smashed to pieces and guns put out of action, till only
+a single gun, with men enough to handle it, was left with only a
+single officer. This heroic young lieutenant, Alonzo H. Cushing
+(brother to the naval Cushing who destroyed the Albemarle), then
+ran his gun up to the fence and fired his last round through it
+into Pickett's men as he himself fell dead.
+
+Pickett advanced at three o'clock, to the breathless admiration
+of both friend and foe. He had a mile of open ground to cover.
+But his three lines marched forward as steadily and blithely as
+if the occasion was a gala one and they were on parade. The
+Confederate bombardment ceased. The Federal guns and rifles held
+their fire. Fate hung in silence on those gallant lines of gray.
+Then the Federal skirmishers down in the valley began fitfully
+firing; and the waiting masses on the Federal slopes began to
+watch more intently still. "Here they come! Here comes the
+infantry!" The blue ranks stirred a little as the men felt their
+cartridge boxes and the sockets of their bayonets. The calm
+warnings of the officers could be heard all down the line of
+Gibbon's magnificent division, which stood straight in Pickett's
+path. "Steady, men, steady! Don't fire yet!"
+
+For a very few, tense minutes Pickett's division disappeared in
+an undulation of the ground. Then, at less than point-blank
+range, it seemed to spring out of the very earth, no longer in
+three lines but one solid mass of rushing gray, cresting, like a
+tidal wave, to break in fury on the shore. Instantly, as if in
+answer to a single word, Hunt's guns and Gibbon's rifles crashed
+out together, and shot, shell, canister, and bullet cut gaping
+wounds deep into the dense gray ranks. Still, the wave broke;
+and, from its storm-blown top, one furious tongue surged over the
+breastwork and through the hedge of bayonets. It came from
+Armistead's brigade of stark Virginians. He led it on; and, with
+a few score men, reached the highwater mark of that last spring
+tide.
+
+When he fell the tide of battle turned; turned everywhere upon
+that stricken field; turned throughout the whole campaign; turned
+even in the war itself.
+
+As Pickett's men fell back they were swept by scythe-like fire
+from every gun and rifle that could mow them down. Not a single
+mounted officer remained; and of all the brave array that Pickett
+led three-fourths fell killed or wounded. The other fourth
+returned undaunted still, but only as the wreckage of a storm.
+
+Lee's loss exceeded forty per cent of his command. Meade's loss
+fell short of thirty. But Meade was quite unable to pursue at
+once when Lee retired on the evening of the fourth. The opposing
+cavalry, under Pleasonton and Stuart respectively, had fought a
+flanking battle of their own, but without decisive result. So Lee
+could screen his retreat to the Potomac, where, however, his
+whole supply train might have been cut off if its escort under
+the steadfast Imboden had not been reinforced by every teamster
+who could pull a trigger.
+
+
+Gettysburg and Vicksburg, coming together, of course raised the
+wildest expectations among the general public, expectations which
+found an unworthy welcome at Government headquarters, where
+Halleck wrote to Meade on the fourteenth: "The escape of Lee's
+army has created great dissatisfaction in the mind of the
+President." Meade at once replied: "The censure is, in my
+judgment, so undeserved that I most respectfully ask to be
+immediately relieved from the command of this army." Wiser
+counsels thereupon prevailed.
+
+Lee and Meade maneuvered over the old Virginian scenes of action,
+each trying to outflank the other, and each being hampered by
+having to send reinforcements to their friends in Tennessee,
+where, as we have seen already, Bragg and Rosecrans were now
+maneuvering in front of Chattanooga. In October (after the
+Confederate victory of Chickamauga) Meade foiled Lee's attempt to
+bring on a Third Manassas. The campaign closed at Mine Run, where
+Lee repulsed Meade's attempted surprise in a three-day action,
+which began on the twenty-sixth of November, the morrow of
+Grant's three days at Chattanooga.
+
+
+From this time forward the South was like a beleaguered city,
+certain to fall if not relieved, unless, indeed, the hearts of
+those who swayed the Northern vote should fail them at the next
+election.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. FARRAGUT AND THE NAVY: 1863-4
+
+The Navy's task in '63 was complicated by the many foreign
+vessels that ran only between two neutral ports but broke bulk
+into blockade-runners at their own port of destination. For
+instance, a neutral vessel, with neutral crew and cargo, would
+leave a port in Europe for a neutral port in America, say, Nassau
+in the Bahamas or Matamoras on the Rio Grande. She could not be
+touched of course at either port or anywhere inside the
+three-mile limit. But international law accepted the doctrine of
+continuous voyage, by which contraband could be taken anywhere on
+the high seas, provided, of course, that the blockader could
+prove his case. If, for example, there were ten times as many
+goods going into Matamoras as could possibly be used through that
+port by Mexico, then the presumption was that nine-tenths were
+contraband. Presumption becoming proof by further evidence, the
+doctrine of continuous voyage could be used in favor of the
+blockaders who stopped the contraband at sea between the neutral
+ports. The blockade therefore required a double line of
+operation: one, the old line along' the Southern coast, the
+other, the new line out at sea, and preferably just beyond the
+three-mile limit outside the original port of departure, so as to
+kill the evil at its source. Nassau and Matamoras gave the coast
+blockade plenty of harassing work; Nassau because it was "handy
+to" the Atlantic ports, Matamoras because it was at the mouth of
+the Rio Grande, over the shoals of which the Union warships could
+not go to prevent contraband crossing into Texas, thence up to
+the Red River, down to the Mississippi (between the Confederate
+strongholds of Vicksburg and Port Hudson) and on to any other
+part of the South. But what may be called the highseas blockade
+was no less harassing, complicated as it was by the work of
+Confederate raiders.
+
+The coast blockade of '63 was marked by two notable ship duels
+and three fights round Charleston, then, as always, a great storm
+center of the wax. At the end of January two Confederate gunboats
+under Commodore Ingraham attacked the blockading flotilla of
+Charleston, forced the Mercedita to surrender, badly mauled the
+Keystone State, and damaged the Quaker City. But, though some
+foreign consuls and all Charleston thought the blockade had been
+raised for the time being, it was only bent, not broken.
+
+At the end of February the Union monitor Montauk destroyed the
+Confederate privateer Nashville near Fort McAllister on the
+Ogeechee River in Georgia. In April nine Union monitors steamed
+in to test the strength of Charleston; but, as they got back more
+than they could give, Admiral Du Pont wisely decided not to try
+the fight-to-a-finish he had meant to make next morning. Wassaw
+Sound in Georgia was the scene of a desperate duel on the
+seventeenth of June, when the Union monitor Weehawken captured
+the old blockade-runner Fingal, which had been converted into the
+new Confederate ram Atlanta. The third week in August witnessed
+another bombardment of Charleston, this time on a larger scale,
+for a longer time, and by military as well as naval means. But
+Charleston remained defiant and unconquered both this year and
+the next.
+
+Confederate raiders were at work along the trade routes of the
+world in '63, doing much harm by capture and destruction, and
+even more by shaking the security of the American mercantile
+marine. American crews were hard to get when so many hands were
+wanted for other war work; and American vessels were increasingly
+apt to seek the safety of a neutral flag.
+
+Slowly, and with much perverse interference to overcome in the
+course of its harassing duties, the Union navy was getting the
+strangle-hold that killed the sea-girt South. By '64 the North
+had secured this strangle-hold; and nothing but foreign
+intervention or the political death of the Northern War Party
+could possibly shake it off. The South was feeling its practical
+enislement as never before. The strong right arm of the Union
+navy held it fast at every point but three--Wilmington,
+Charleston, and Mobile; and round these three the stern
+blockaders grew stronger every day. The Sabine Pass and Galveston
+also remained in Southern hands; and the border town of Matamoras
+still imported contraband. But these other three points were
+closely watched; and the greatly lessened contraband that did get
+through them now only served the western South, which had been
+completely severed from the eastern South by the fall of
+Vicksburg and Port Hudson. The left arm of the Union navy now
+held the whole line of the Mississippi, while the gripping hand
+held all the tributary streams--Ohio, Cumberland, and
+Tennessee--from which the Union armies were to invade, divide,
+and devastate the eastern South this year.
+
+
+Several Southern raiders were still at large in '64. But the most
+famous or notorious three have each their own year of glory. The
+Florida belongs to '63, the Shenandoah to '65. So the one great
+raiding story we have now to tell is that of the Alabama, the
+greatest of them all.
+
+The Alabama was a beautiful thousand-ton wooden barkentine, built
+by the Lairds at Birkenhead in '62, with standing rigging of
+wire, a single screw driven by two horizontal three-hundred horse
+power engines, coal room for three hundred and fifty tons, eight
+good guns, the heaviest a hundred-pound rifle, and a maximum crew
+of one hundred and forty-nine--all ranks and ratings--under
+Captain Raphael Semmes, late U.S.N. Semmes was not only a very
+able officer but an accomplished lawyer, well posted on
+belligerent and neutral rights at sea.
+
+For nearly two years the Alabama roved the oceans of the Old
+World and the New, taking sixty-six Union vessels valued at seven
+million dollars, spreading the terror of her name among all the
+merchantmen that flew the Stars and Stripes, and infuriating the
+Navy by the wonderful way in which she contrived to escape every
+trap it set for her. She was designed for speed rather than for
+fighting, and, with her great spread of canvas, could sometimes
+work large areas under sail. But, even so, her runs, captures,
+and escapes formed a series of adventures that no mere luck could
+have possibly performed with a fluctuating foreign crew commanded
+by ex-officers of the Navy. Her wanderings took her through
+nearly a hundred degrees of latitude, from the coast of Scotland
+to St. Paul Island, south of the Indian Ocean, also through more
+than two hundred degrees of longitude, from the Gulf of Mexico to
+the China Sea. She captured "Yankees" within one day's steaming
+of the New York Navy Yard as well as in the Straits of Sunda.
+West of the Azores and off the coast of Brazil her captures came
+so thick and fast that they might have almost been a flock of
+.sheep run down there by a wolf. Finally, to fill the cup of
+wrath against her, she had sunk a blockader off the coast of
+Texas, given the slip to a Union manof-war at the Cape of Good
+Hope, and kept the Navy guessing her unanswered riddles for two
+whole years.
+
+Imagine, then, the keen elation with which all hands aboard the
+U.S.S. Kearsarge heard at their berth off Flushing that the
+Alabama was in port at Cherbourg on the Channel coast of France,
+only one day's sail southwest! And there she was when the
+Kearsarge came to anchor; and every Northern eye was turned to
+see the ship of which the world had heard so much. The Kearsarges
+hardly dared to hope that there would be a fight; for they had
+the stronger vessel, and now the faster one as well. The Alabama
+had been built for speed; but she had knocked about so much
+without a proper overhaul that her copper sheathing was in rags,
+while she was more or less strained. in nearly every other part.
+The Kearsarge, on the other hand, was in good order, with
+mantlets of chain cable protecting her vitals, with one-third
+greater horse power, with fourteen more men in her crew, and with
+two big pivot guns throwing eleven inch shells with great force
+at short ranges. Moreover, the Kearsarge, with her superior speed
+and stronger hull, could choose the range and risk close
+quarters,. The Alabamas were also keen to estimate respective
+strengths. But the French authorities naturally kept the two
+ships pretty far apart; so the Alabamas never saw the chain
+mantlets which the Kearsarges had cleverly hidden under a
+covering of wood that appeared to be flush with the hull.
+
+The Kearsarges had a second and still more elating surprise when
+they heard the Alabama was coming out to fight. Semmes was
+apparently anxious to show that his raider could be as gallant in
+fighting a man-of-war as she was effective in sinking merchant
+vessels; so he wrote his challenge to the Confederate Consul at
+Cherbourg, who passed it on to the U. S. Consul, who handed it to
+Captain Winslow, commanding the Kearsarge. Still, four days
+passed without the Alabama; and the Kearsarges were giving up
+hope, when, suddenly, on Sunday morning, the nineteenth of June,
+just as they had rigged church and fallen in for prayers, out
+came the Alabama. The Kearsarge thereupon drew off, so that the
+Alabama could not easily escape to neutral waters if the duel
+went against her. Cherbourg, of course, was all agog to see the
+fight; and many thousands of people, some from as far as Paris,
+watched every move. An English yacht, the Deerhound, kept an
+offing of about a mile, ready to rescue survivors from a watery
+grave. Its owner, with his wife and family, had intended to stay
+ashore and go to church. But, when they heard the Alabama was
+really going out, he put the question to the vote around the
+breakfast-table, whereupon it was carried unanimously that the
+Deerhound should go too.
+
+When the deck-officer of the Kearsarge sang out, "Alabama!"
+Captain Winslow put down his prayerbook, seized his
+speaking-trumpet, and turned to gain a proper offing, while the
+drum beat to general quarters and the ship was cleared for
+action, with pivot-guns to starboard. The weather was fine, with
+a slight haze, little sea, and a light west breeze. Having drawn
+the Alabama far enough to sea, the Kearsarge turned toward her
+again, showing the starboard bow. When at a mile the Alabama
+fired her hundred-pounder. For nearly the whole hour this famous
+duel lasted the ships continued fighting in the same way--
+starboard to starboard, round and round a circle from half to a
+quarter mile across. Each captain stood on the horse-block
+abreast the mizzen-mast to direct the fight. Semmes presently
+called to his executive officer: "Mr. Kell, use solid shot! Our
+shell strike the enemy's side and fall into the water" (after
+bounding off the iron mantlets Winslow had so cleverly
+concealed). The Kearsarge's gunnery was magnificent, especially
+from the after-pivot, which Quartermaster William Smith fired
+with deadly aim, even when three of his gun's crew had been
+wounded by a shell. These three, strange to say, were the only
+casualties that occurred aboard the Kearsarge. But at sea the
+stronger side usually suffers much less and the weaker much more
+than on land. The Alabama lost forty: killed, drowned, and
+wounded.
+
+The Kearsarges soon saw how the fight was going and began to
+cheer each first-rate shot. "That's a good one! Now we have her!
+Give her another like the last!" The big eleven-inchers got home
+repeatedly as the range decreased; so much so that Semmes ordered
+Kell to keep the Alabama headed for the coast the next time the
+circling brought her bow that way. This would bring her port side
+into action, which was just what Semmes wanted now, because she
+had a dangerous list to starboard, where the water was pouring
+through the shot-holes. Kell changed her course with perfect
+skill, righting the helm, hoisting the head-sails, hauling the
+fore-trysail-sheet well aft, and pivoting to port for a broadside
+delivered almost as quickly as if there had not been a change at
+all. But at this moment the engineer came up to say the water had
+put his fires out and that the ship was sinking. At the same time
+a strange thing happened. An early shot from the Kearsarge had
+carried away the Alabama's colors; and now the Alabama's own last
+broadside actually announced her own defeat by "breaking out" the
+special Stars and Stripes that Window had run up his mizzenmast
+on purpose to break out in case of victory. A cannon ball had
+twitched the cord that held the flag rolled up "in stops."
+
+Semmes sent his one remaining boat to announce his surrender;
+threw his sword into the sea; and jumped in with the survivors.
+The Deerhound, on authority from Winslow, had already closed in
+to the rescue, followed by two French pilot boats and two from
+the Kearsarge; when suddenly the Alabama, rearing like a stricken
+horse, plunged to her doom.
+
+
+Long before the Alabama's end the Navy had been preparing for the
+finishing blows against the Southern ports. Farragut had returned
+to New Orleans in January, '64, hoping for immediate action. But
+vexatious delays at Washington postponed his great attack till
+August, when he crowned his whole career by his master-stroke
+against Mobile. Grant was equally annoyed by this absurd delay,
+which was caused by the eccentric, and therefore entirely
+wasteful, Red River Expedition of '64, an expedition we shall
+ignore otherwise than by pointing out, in this and the succeeding
+chapters, that it not only postponed the overdue attack on Mobile
+but spoilt Sherman's grand strategy as well as Farragut's and
+Grant's. Banks commanded it. But by this time even he had learnt
+enough of war to know that it was a totally false move. So he
+boldly protested against it. But Halleck's orders, dictated by
+the Government, were positive. So there was nothing for it but to
+suffer a well-deserved defeat while trying to kill the dead and
+withering branches of Confederate power beyond the Mississippi,
+in order to "show the flag in Texas" and say "hands off!" to
+Mexico and France in the least effective way of all.
+
+During this delay the Confederate ram Albemarle came down the
+Roanoke River, hoping to break through the local blockade in
+Albemarle Sound and so give North Carolina an outlet to the sea.
+Two attempts against Newbern, which closed the way out to Pamlico
+Sound, had failed; but now (the fifth of May) great hopes were
+set upon the Albemarle. At first she seemed impregnable; and the
+Federal shot and shell glanced harmlessly off her iron sides. But
+presently Commander Roe of the Sassacus (a light-draft,
+pair-paddle, double-ender gunboat) getting at right angles to
+her, ordered his engineer to stuff the fires with oiled waste and
+keep the throttle open. "ALL HANDS, LIE DOWN!" shouted Roe, as
+the throbbing engines drove his vessel to the charge. Then came
+an earthquake shock: the Sassacus crashed her bronze beak into
+the Albemarle's side. Both vessels were disabled; a shell from
+the Albemarle burst the boilers of the Sassacus, scalding the
+engineers. But the rest fought off the attempt made by the
+Albemarles to board. Presently the furious opponents drifted
+apart; and the Albemarle, unable to face her other enemies, took
+refuge upstream. There, on the twenty-seventh of October, she was
+heroically attacked and sunk by Lieutenant W.B. Cushing, U.S.N.,
+with a spar torpedo projecting from a little steam launch.
+Cushing himself swam off through a hail of bullets, worked his
+way through the woods, seized a skiff belonging to one of the
+enemy's outposts, and reached the flagship half dead but wholly
+triumphant.
+
+
+Between the Albemarle's two fights Farragut took Mobile after a
+magnificent action on the fifth of of August. There were
+batteries ashore, torpedoes across the channel, the Tennessee ram
+and other Confederate vessels waiting on the flank: three kinds
+of danger to the Union fleet if one false movement had been made.
+But Farragut's touch was sure. He sent his ironclads through next
+to the batteries, which were only really dangerous on one side.
+This protected the wooden ships against the batteries and the
+ironclads against the torpedoes; for the Confederates had to
+leave part of the fairway clear in order to use it themselves.
+Through this narrow channel the four strongly armored monitors
+led the desperate way, a little ahead and to starboard of the
+wooden vessels, which followed in pairs, each pair lashed
+together, with the stronger on the starboard side, next to Fort
+Morgan.
+
+The Confederates in Fort Morgan, and in the small and distant
+Fort Powell on the other side, hardly reached a thousand men.
+Their force afloat was also comparatively small: the ironclad ram
+Tennessee and three side-wheeler gunboats. But the great strength
+of their position and the many dangers to a hostile fleet
+combined to make Farragut's attack a very serious operation, even
+with his four monitors, eight screw sloops, and four smaller
+vessels. The Union army, which took no part in this great attack,
+was over five thousand strong, and lost only seven men in the
+land bombardment later on.
+
+Farragut crossed the bar in the Hartford at ten past six in the
+morning with the young flood tide and a westerly breeze to blow
+the smoke against Fort Morgan. All his ships ran up the Stars and
+Stripes not only at the peak, as usual, but at each mast-head as
+well. Farragut himself at first took post in the port main
+rigging. But as the smoke of battle rose around him he climbed
+higher and higher till he got close under the maintop, where a
+seaman, sent up by Captain Drayton, lashed him on securely.
+
+All went well amid the furious cannonade till the monitor
+Tecumseh, taking the wrong side of the channel buoy in her
+anxiety to ram the Tennessee, ran over the torpedoes, was
+horribly holed by the explosion, and plunged headforemost to the
+bottom, her screw madly whirling in the air. Nor was this the
+worst; for the Tecumseh's mistake had thrown the other monitors
+out of their proper lineahead, athwart the wooden ships, which
+began to slow and swing about in some confusion. The Confederates
+redoubled their fire. Ahead lay the fatal torpedoes. For a moment
+Farragut could not decide whether to risk an advance at all costs
+or to turn back beaten. He was a very devout as well as a most
+determined man; and his simple prayer, "O God, shall I go on?"
+seemed answered by the echo of his soul, "Go on!" So on he went,
+not in unreflecting exaltation, but in exaltation based on
+knowledge and on skill. Like Cromwell, he might well have said,
+"Trust in the Lord and keep your powder dry!" For he had done all
+that naval foresight could have done to ensure success. And now,
+in one lightning flash of genius, he reviewed the situation. He
+knew the torpedoes of his day were often unreliable, that they
+exploded only on a special kind of shock, that those which did
+explode could not be replaced in action, that they were all fixed
+to their own spots, and that if one ship was blown up her
+next-astern would get through safely.
+
+The Brooklyn, his next-ahead, was in his way. So he ordered the
+flagship Hartford and her lashedtogether consort, the
+double-ender Metacomet, to use, the one her screw, the other her
+paddles, in opposite directions, till he had cleared the
+Brooklyn's stern. As he, drew clear and headed for the
+danger-channel a shoutwent up from the Brooklyn's deck--"'ware
+torpedoes!" But Farragut, his mind made up, instantly roared
+back--"Damn the torpedoes!" Then, turning to the Hartford's and
+Metacomet's decks, he called his orders down: "Four bells!
+Captain Drayton, go ahead! Captain Jouett, full speed!" In answer
+to the order of "four bells" the engines worked their very utmost
+and the two vessels dashed ahead. Torpedoes knocked against the
+bottom and some of the primers actually snapped. But nothing
+exploded; and Farragut won through.
+
+Inside the harbor the Tennessee fought hard against the
+overwhelming Union fleet. But her lowpowered engines gave her no
+chance at quick maneuvers. Three vessels rammed her in
+succession; and she was forced to surrender.
+
+After this purely naval victory on the fifth of August, General
+Granger's troops invested Fort Morgan, which, becoming the target
+of an irresistible converging fire from both land and sea on the
+twenty-second, surrendered on the twenty-third.
+
+The next objective of a joint expedition was Fort Fisher, which
+stood at the end of a long, low tongue of land between the sea
+and Cape Fear River. Fort Fisher guarded the entrance to
+Wilmington in North Carolina, the port, above all others, from
+which the Confederate armies drew their oversea supplies. Lee
+wrote to Colonel Lamb, its commandant, saying that he could not
+subsist if it was taken. Lamb had less than two thousand men in
+the fort; but there were six thousand more forming an army of
+support outside. The Confederates, however, had no naval force to
+speak of, while the Union fleet, commanded by Admiral Porter, was
+the largest that had ever yet assembled under the Stars and
+Stripes. There were nearly sixty fighting vessels of all kinds,
+including five new ironclads and the three finest new frigates.
+The guns that were carried exceeded six hundred.
+
+There was also a mine ship, the old Louisiana, stuffed
+chock-a-block with powder to blow in the side of the fort. The
+Washington wiseacres set great store on this new mine of theirs.
+It was, of course, to end the war. But naval and military experts
+on the spot were more than doubtful. On the night of the
+twenty-third of December the Louisiana was safely worked in near
+the fort by brave Commander Rhind, who fired the slow match and
+escaped unhurt with his devoted crew of volunteers. A tremendous
+explosion followed. But, as there was nothing to drive the force
+of it against the walls, it simply resulted in an enormous flurry
+of water, mud, sand, earth, and bits of flaming wreckage.
+
+Next morning the fleet bombarded with such success as to silence
+many of the guns opposed to them. But on Christmas Day General
+Weitzel reported that an assault would fail; whereupon General
+Butler concurred and retreated, much to the rage of the fleet,
+which thought quite otherwise.
+
+In a few days General Terry arrived with the same white troops
+reinforced by two small colored brigades, making a total of eight
+thousand men. To these Porter, strongly reinforced, added a naval
+brigade, two thousand strong, that volunteered to storm the sea
+face of Fort Fisher. These gallant men had only cutlasses and
+pistols--except the four hundred marines, who carried bayonets
+and rifles. They were a scratch lot, from the soldier's point of
+view, never having been landed together as a single unit till
+called upon to assault the most dangerous features of the fort.
+Yet, though they were repulsed with considerable loss, they
+greatly helped to win the day by obliging the defenders to divide
+their forces. As Terry's army was, by itself, four or five times
+stronger than Lamb's entire command the military stormers
+succeeded in fighting their way through every line of defense and
+compelling a surrender. They did exceedingly well. But their rear
+was safe, because Bragg had withdrawn the supporting army for
+service elsewhere; while, in their front, the enemy defenses had
+been almost torn out by the roots in many places under the
+terrific converging fire of six hundred naval guns for three
+successive days.
+
+When Fort Fisher surrendered on the fifteenth of January (1865)
+the exhausted South had only one good port and one good raider
+left: Charleston and the Shenandoah.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. GRANT ATTACKS THE FRONT: 1864
+
+On March 9, 1864, at the Executive Mansion, and in the presence
+of all the Cabinet Ministers, Lincoln handed Grant the
+Lieutenant-General's commission which made him Commander-in-Chief
+of all the Union armies--a commission such as no one else had
+held since Washington. On April 9, 1865, Grant received the
+surrender of Lee at Appomattox; and the four years war was ended
+by a thirteen months campaign.
+
+
+Victor of the River War in '63, Grant moved his headquarters from
+Chattanooga to Nashville soon before Christmas. He then expected
+not only to lead the river armies against Atlanta in '64 but, at
+the same time, to send another army against Mobile, where it
+could act in conjunction with the naval forces under Farragut's
+command.
+
+He consequently made a midwinter tour of inspection: southeast to
+Chattanooga, northeast to Knoxville and Cumberland Gap, northwest
+to Lexington and Louisville, thence south, straight back to
+Nashville. This satisfied him that his main positions were
+properly taken and held, and that a well-concerted drive would
+clear his own strategic area of all but Forrest's elusive
+cavalry.
+
+It was the hardest winter known for many years. The sticky clay
+roads round Cumberland Gap had been churned by wheels and pitted
+by innumerable feet throughout the autumn rains. Now they were
+frozen solid and horribly encumbered by debris mixed up with
+thousands upon thousands of perished mules and horses. Grant
+regretted this terrible wastage of animals as much in a personal
+as in a military way; for, like nearly all great men, his
+sympathies were broad enough to make him compassionate toward
+every kind of sentient life. No Arab ever loved his horse better
+than Grant loved his splfndid charger Cincinnati, the worthy
+counterpart of Traveler, Lee's magnificent gray.
+
+Summoned to Washington in March, Grant, after one scrutinizing
+look at the political world, then and there made up his steadfast
+mind that no commander-in-chief could ever carry out his own
+plans from any distant point; for, even in his fourth year of the
+war, civilian interference was still being practiced in defiance
+of naval and military facts and needs, and of some very serious
+dangers.
+
+Lincoln stood wisely for civil control. But even he could not
+resist the perverting pressure in favor of the disastrous Red
+River Expedition, against which even Banks protested. Public and
+Government alike desired to give the French fair warning that the
+establishment of an imperial Mexico, especially by means of
+foreign intervention, was regarded as a semi-hostile act. There
+were two entirely different ways in which this warning could be
+given: one completely effective without being provocative, the
+other provocative without being in the very least degree
+effective. The only effective way was to win the war; and the
+best way to win the war was to strike straight at the heart of
+the South with all the Union forces. The most ineffective way was
+to withdraw Union forces from the heart of the war, send them off
+at a wasteful tangent, misuse them in eccentric operations just
+where they would give most offense to the French, and then expose
+them to what, at best, could only be a detrimental victory, and
+to what would much more likely be defeat, if not disaster.
+
+Yet, to Grant's and Farragut's and every other soldier's and
+sailor's disgust, this worst way of all was chosen; and Banks's
+forty thousand sorely needed veterans were sent to their double
+defeat at Sabine Cross Roads and Pleasant Hill on the eighth and
+ninth of April, while Porter's invaluable fleet and the no less
+indispensable transports were nearly lost altogether owing to the
+long-foretold fall of the dangerous Red River. The one success of
+this whole disastrous affair was the admirable work of Colonel
+Joseph Bailey, who dammed the water up just in time to let the
+rapidly stranding vessels slide into safety through a very narrow
+sluice.
+
+Even the Red River lesson was thrown away on Stanton, whose
+interference continued to the bitter end, except when checked by
+Lincoln or countered by Grant and Sherman in the field. When
+Grant was starting on his tour of inspection he found that
+Stanton had forbidden all War Department operators to let
+commanding generals use the official cipher except when in
+communication with himself. There were to be no secrets at the
+front between the commanding generals, even on matters of
+immediate life and death, unless they were first approved by
+Stanton at his leisure. The fact that the enemy could use
+unciphered messages was nothing in his autocratic eyes. Nor did
+it prick his conscience to change the wording in ways that
+bewildered his own side and served the enemy's turn.
+
+When Grant took the cipher Stanton ordered the operator to be
+dismissed. Grant thereupon shouldered the responsibility, saying
+that Stanton would have to punish him if any one was punished.
+Then Stanton gave in. Grant saw through him clearly. "Mr. Stanton
+never questioned his own authority to command, unless resisted.
+He felt no hesitation in assuming the functions of the Executive
+or in acting without advising with him . . . . He was very timid,
+and it was impossible for him to avoid interfering with the
+armies covering the capital when it was sought to defend it by an
+offensive movement against the army defending the Confederate
+capital. The enemy would not have been in danger if Mr. Stanton
+had been in the field."
+
+Stanton was unteachable. He never learnt where control ended and
+disabling interference began. In the very critical month of
+August, '64, he interfered with Hunter to such an extent that
+this patriotic general had to tell Grant "he was so embarrassed
+with orders from Washington that he had lost all trace of the
+enemy." Nor was that the end of Stanton's interference with the
+operations in the Shenandoah Valley. Lincoln's own cipher letter
+to Grant on the third of August shows what both these great men
+had to suffer from the weak link in the chain between them.
+
+"I have seen your despatch in which you say, 'I want Sheridan put
+in command of all the troops in the field, with instructions to
+put himself south of the enemy, and follow him to the death.
+Wherever the enemy goes, let our troops go also.' This, I think,
+is exactly right, as to how our forces should move. But please
+look over the despatches you may have received from here, even
+since you made that order, and discover, if you can, that there
+is any idea in the head of any one here of "putting our army
+SOUTH of the enemy," or of 'following him to the DEATH' in any
+direction. I repeat to you it will neither be done or attempted
+unless you watch it every day, and hour, and force it.'
+
+The experts of the loyal North were partly comforted by knowing
+that Davis and his ministers had interfered with Jackson, that
+during the present campaign they made a crucial mistake about
+Johnston, and that they failed to give Lee the supreme command
+until it was too late. But no Southern Secretary went quite so
+far as Stanton, who actually falsified Grant's order to Sheridan
+at the crisis of the Valley campaign in October. Here are Grant's
+own words: "This order had to go through Washington, where it was
+intercepted; and when Sheridan received what purported to be a
+statement of what I wanted him to do it was something entirely
+different."
+
+Nor was Stanton the only responsible civilian to interfere with
+Grant. There was no government press censorship--perhaps, in this
+peculiar war, there could not be one. So the only safety was
+unceasing care, even in cases vouched for by civilians of high
+official standing. When Grant was beginning the great campaign of
+'64 the Honorable Elihu B. Washburne, afterwards United States
+Minister to France, introduced one Swinton as the prospective
+historian of the war. On this understanding Swinton accompanied
+the army. One night Grant gave verbal orders to the staff officer
+on duty. Three days later these orders appeared in a Richmond
+paper. Shortly afterwards, in the midst of the Wilderness battle,
+Swinton was found eavesdropping behind a stump during a midnight
+conference at headquarters. Sent off with a serious warning, he
+next appeared, in another place, as a prisoner condemned to death
+for spying. Grant, satisfied that he was not bent on getting news
+for the enemy in particular, but only for the press in general,
+released and expelled him with such a warning this time that he
+never once came back.
+
+
+The Union forces at the front were about twice the corresponding
+forces of the South: Sherman, who commanded the river armies
+after Grant's transfer to Virginia, says: "I always estimated my
+force at about double, and could afford to lose two to one
+without disturbing our relative proportion." In Virginia the Army
+of the Potomac under Meade and the new Army of the James under
+Butler, both under Grant's immediate command, totaled over a
+hundred and fifty thousand men against the ninety thousand under
+Lee. These odds of five to three remained the same when a hundred
+and ten thousand Federals went into winter quarters against
+sixtysix thousand Confederates at Petersburg. But, when the naval
+odds of more than ten to one in favor of the North are added in,
+the general odds of two to one are reached on this as well as
+other scenes of action. In reserves the odds were very much
+greater; for while the South was getting down to its last
+available man the North began the following year with nearly one
+million in the forces and two millions on the registered reserve.
+Thus, even supposing that half the reserves were unfit for active
+service, the man-power odds against the South were these: two to
+one in arms at the beginning of the great campaign, five to one
+at the end of it, and ten to one if the fit reserves were all
+included. The odds in transportation by land, and very much more
+so by water, were even greater at corresponding times; while the
+odds in all the other resources which could be turned to warlike
+ends were greater still.
+
+The Southern situation, therefore, was not encouraging from the
+naval and military point of view. The border States had long been
+lost, then the trans-Mississippi; and now the whole river lea was
+held as a base by the North. Only five States remained effective:
+Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia. These formed an
+irregular oblong of about two hundred thousand square miles
+between the Appalachians and the sea. There were a good eight
+hundred Confederate miles from the Shenandoah Valley to Mobile.
+But the three hundred miles across the oblong, even in its widest
+part, were everywhere threatened and in some places held by the
+North. The whole coast was more closely blockaded than ever; and
+only three ports remained with their defenses still in Southern
+hands: Wilmington, Charleston, and Mobile. Alabama was threatened
+by land and sea from the lower Mississippi and the Gulf. Georgia,
+was threatened by Sherman's main body in southeastern Tennessee.
+The Carolinas were in less immediate danger. But they were
+menaced both from the mountains and the sea; and if the Union
+forces conquered Virginia and Georgia, then the Carolinas were
+certain to be ground into subjugation between Grant's victorious
+forces on the north and Sherman's on the south.
+
+Grant fixed his own headquarters with the Army of the Potomac at
+Culpeper Court House, north of the Rapidan. Lee's Army of
+Northern Virginia, was at Orange Court House, over twenty miles
+south. Grant, taking his own headquarters as the center, regarded
+Butler's Army of the James as the left wing, which could unite
+with the center round Richmond and Petersburg. The long right
+wing ran through the whole of West Virginia, Kentucky, and
+Tennessee, clear away to Memphis, with its own headquarters at
+Chattanooga. There Sherman faced Johnston, who occupied a strong
+position at Dalton, over thirty miles southeast. The great
+objectives were, of course, the two main Southern armies under
+Lee and Johnston, with Richmond and Atlanta as the chief
+positions to be gained.
+
+All other Union forces were regarded as attacking the South from
+the rear. Wherever coast garrisons could help to tighten the
+blockade or seriously distract Confederate attention they were
+left to do so. Wherever they could not they were either depleted
+for the front or sent there bodily. The principal Union field
+force attacking from the rear was to have been formed by Banks's
+forty thousand veterans in conjunction with Farragut's fleet
+against Mobile. But the Red River Expedition spoilt that
+combination in the spring and postponed it till August, when
+Farragut did nearly all the fighting, and the cooperating army
+was far too late to produce the distracting effect that Grant had
+originally planned.
+
+General Franz Sigel was sent to the upper Shenandoah Valley, both
+to guard that approach on Washington and to destroy the resources
+on which Lee's army so greatly relied. General George Crook was
+given a mounted column to operate from southern West Virginia
+against the line of rails running toward Tennessee through the
+lower end of the Valley.
+
+The most notable new general was Philip H. Sheridan, whom Grant
+selected for the cavalry command. Sheridan was thirty-three, two
+years older than his Southern rival, Stuart, and, like him, a
+young regular officer who rose to well-earned fame the moment his
+first great chance occurred.
+
+Sherman we have met from the very beginning of the war and
+followed throughout its course. He was continually rising to more
+and more responsible command; but it was only now that he became
+the virtual Commander-in-Chief of all the river armies and the
+chosen cooperator with Grant on a universal scale. He was of the
+old original stock, his first American ancestors having emigrated
+from England in 1634. An old regular, with special knowledge of
+the South, and in the fullness of his powers at the age of
+forty-four, he had developed with the war till there was no
+position which he could not fill to the best advantage of the
+service.
+
+Grant fixed the fourth of May for the combined advance of all the
+converging forces of invasion. There were two weak points where
+the Union armies failed: one in the farthest south, where, as we
+have so often seen, Banks could not attack Mobile owing to his
+absence at Red River; the other in the farthest north, where
+Sigel was badly beaten and replaced by Hunter. Here, after much
+disabling interference at the hands of Stanton, Hunter was
+succeeded by Sheridan, whom Grant himself directed with
+consummate skill. There were also two Confederate thorns in the
+Federal side: Forrest's cavalry in Sherman's rear, Mosby's
+cavalry in Grant's. Forrest roved about the river area, snapping
+up small garrisons, cutting communications, and doing a good deal
+of damage right up to the Ohio. Mosby, with a much smaller but
+equally efficient force, actually raided to and fro in Grant's
+immediate rear; and on one occasion nearly captured Grant himself
+just on the eve of the opening move. As Grant's unguarded special
+train from Washington pulled up at Warrenton Junction, where
+there was only one Union official, Mosby's men had just crossed
+the track in pursuit of some Federal cavalry.
+
+But neither these two Confederate thorns in the side nor the more
+serious Federal failures could stop the general advance. Nor yet
+could Butler's lack of success on the James. Butler had seized
+and fortified. an exceedingly strong defensive position at
+Bermuda Hundred on a peninsula, with navigable water on both
+flanks and in rear, and a very narrow neck of land in front. The
+only trouble was that it was as hard for him to surmount the
+Confederate front across the same narrow neck as it was for the
+enemy to surmount his own. He was, in fact, bottled up, with the
+cork in the enemy's hands. He did send out cavalry from Suffolk
+to cut the rails south of Petersburg. But no permanent damage was
+done there. Petersburg itself, which at that time was almost
+defenseless, was-not . taken. And in the middle of the month
+Beauregard attacked Butler so vigorously as to make the Army of
+the James rather a passive than an active force till it was
+presently, absorbed by Grant when he arrived before Richmond in
+June.
+
+Grant felt perfect confidence only in four prime elements of
+victory: first, in his ability to wear Lee down by sheer
+attrition if other means failed; next, in his own magnificent
+army; then in Sherman's; and lastly in Sheridan's cavalry. His
+supply and transport services were nearly perfect, even in his
+own most critical eyes. "There never was a corps better organized
+than was the quartermaster's corps with the Army of the Potomac
+in 1864." His field engineering and his signal service were also
+exceedingly good. At every halt the army threw up earth and
+timber entrenchments with wonderful rapidity and skill. At the
+same time the telegraph and signal corps was busy laying
+insulated wires by means of reels on muleback. Parallel lines
+would be led to the rear of each brigade till quite clear, when
+their ends would be joined by a wire at right angles, from which
+headquarters could communicate with every unit at the front.
+Sherman's army was equally efficient, and Sheridan's cavalry soon
+proved that sweeping raids could be carried out by one side as
+well as by the other.
+
+Crossing the Rapidan at the Germanna Ford, Grant marched south
+through the Wilderness on the fifth of May. The Wilderness was
+densely wooded; the roads were few and bad; the clearings rare
+and too small for large units. When Lee attacked from the west
+and Grant turned to face him the fighting soon became desperate,
+close, and somewhat confused. Neither side gained any substantial
+advantage on the first day. Next morning Grant, preparing to
+attack at five, was forestalled by Lee, who wished to keep him at
+arm's length till Longstreet came up on the southern flank. Again
+the opposing armies closed and fought with the greatest
+determination for over an hour, when the Confederates fell back
+in some confusion. Then Longstreet arrived and restored the
+battle till he was severely wounded. After this Lee took command
+of his right, or southern, wing and kept up the fight all day.
+Meanwhile Sheridan had countered the Confederate cavalry under
+Stuart, which had been trying to swing round the same southern
+flank. The main bodies of infantry swayed back and forth till
+dark, with the woods and breastworks on fire in several places,
+and many of the wounded smothering in the smoke.
+
+On the seventh reassuring news came in from Sherman and Butler,
+Sheridan drove off the Confederate cavalry at Todd's Tavern, and
+the southward march continued. As Grant and Meade rode south that
+evening, past Hancock's corps, and the men saw they were heading
+straight for Richmond, there was such a burst of cheering that
+the Confederates, thinking it meant a night attack, deluged the
+intervening woods with a heavy barrage till they found out their
+mistake.
+
+The race for Richmond continued on the eighth, each army trying
+to get south of the other without exposing itself to a flank
+attack. Grant had sent his wagon trains farther east, to move
+south on parallel roads and keep those nearest Lee quite clear
+for fighting. This movement at first led Lee to suspect a Federal
+retirement on Fredericksburg, which caused him to send
+Longstreet's corps south to Spotsylvania. The woods being on
+fire, and the men unable to bivouac, the whole corps pushed on to
+Spotsylvania, thus forestalling Grant, who had intended to get
+there first himself.
+
+This brought on another tremendous battle in the bush. Lee formed
+a semicircle, facing north, round Spotsylvania, in a supreme
+effort to stem, if not throw back, Grant's most determined
+advance. Grant, on the other hand, indomitably pressed home wave
+after wave of attack till the evening of the twelfth. The morning
+of that desperate day was foggy; and the attack was delayed. The
+Federal objective was a commanding salient, jutting out from the
+Confederate center, and now weakened by the removal of guns
+overnight to follow the apparent Federal move toward the south.
+The gray sentries, peering through the dripping woods, suddenly
+found them astir. Then wave after wave of densely massed blue
+dashed to the assault, swarming up and over on both sides,
+regardless of losses, and fighting hand to hand with a fury that
+earned this famous salient the name of Bloody Angle. Back and
+still back went the outnumbered gray, many of whom were
+surrounded by the swirling currents of inpouring blue. But
+presently Lee himself came up, and would have led his
+reinforcements to the charge if a pleading shout of "General Lee
+to the rear!" had not induced him to desist. Every spare
+Confederate rushed to the rescue. From right and left and rear
+the gray streams came, impetuous and strong, united in one main
+current and dashed against the blue. There, in the Bloody Angle,
+the battle raged with everincreasing fury until the rising tide
+of strife, bursting its narrow bounds, carried the blue attackers
+back to where they came from. But they were hardly clear of that
+appalling slope before they reformed, presented an undaunted
+front once more, and then drew off with stinging resistance to
+the very last.
+
+After five days of much rain and little fighting Grant made his
+final effort on the eighteenth. This was meant to be a great
+surprise. Two corps changed position under cover of the night and
+sprang their trap at four in the morning. But Lee was again
+before them, ready and resolute as ever. Thirty guns converged
+their withering fire on the big blue masses and seemed to burn
+them off the field. These masses never closed, as they had done
+six days before; and when they fell back beaten the fortnight's
+battle in the Wilderness was done.
+
+During it there had been two operations that gave Grant better
+satisfaction: Sheridan's raid and Sherman's advance. As large
+bodies of cavalry could not maneuver in the bush Grant had sent
+Sheridan off on his Richmond Raid ten days before. Striking south
+near Spotsylvania, Sheridan's ten thousand horsemen rounded Lee's
+right, cut the rails on either side of Beaver Dam Station,
+destroyed this important depot on the Virginia Central Railroad,
+and then made straight for Richmond. Stuart followed hard, made
+an exhausting sweep round Sheridan's flank, and faced him on the
+eleventh at Yellow Tavern, six miles north of Richmond. Here the
+tired and outnumbered Confederates made a desperate attempt to
+stem Sheridan's advance. But Stuart, the hero of his own men, and
+the admiration of his generous foes, was mortally wounded; and
+his thinner lines, overlapped and outweighed, gave ground and
+drew off. Richmond had no garrison to resist a determined attack.
+But Sheridan, knowing he could not hold it and having better work
+to do, pushed on southeast to Haxall's Landing, where he could
+draw much-needed supplies from Butler, just across the James.
+With the enemy aggressive and alert all round him, he built a
+bridge under fire across the Chickahominy, struck north for the
+Army of the Potomac, and reported his return to Grant at
+Chesterfield Station--halfway back to Spotsylvania--on his
+seventeenth day out.
+
+In the course of this great raid Sheridan had drawn off the
+Confederate cavalry; fought four successful actions; released
+hundreds of Union prisoners and taken as many himself; cut rails
+and wires to such an extent that Lee could only communicate with
+Richmond by messenger; destroyed enormous quantities of the most
+vitally needed enemy stores, especially food and medical
+supplies; and, by penetrating the outer defenses of Richmond,
+raised Federal prestige to a higher plane at a most important
+juncture.
+
+Meanwhile Sherman, whose own main body included a hundred
+thousand men, had started from Chattanooga at the same time as
+Grant from Culpeper Court House. In Grant's opinion "Johnston,
+with Atlanta, was of less importance only because the capture of
+Johnston and his army would not produce so immediate and decisive
+a result in closing the rebellion as would the possession of
+Richmond, Lee, and his army." Sherman's organization, supply and
+transport, engineers, staff, and army generally were excellent.
+So skillful, indeed, were his railway engineers that a disgusted
+Confederate raider called out to a demolition party: "Better save
+your powder, boys. What's the good of blowing up this one when
+Sherman brings duplicate tunnels along?"
+
+Sherman had double Johnston's numbers in the field. But Johnston,
+as a supremely skillful Fabian, was a most worthy opponent for
+this campaign, when the Confederate object was to gain time and
+sicken the North of the war by falling back from one strongly
+prepared position to another, inflicting as much loss as possible
+on the attackers, and forcing them to stretch their line of
+communication to the breaking point among a hostile population.
+Two of Sherman's best divisions were still floundering about with
+the rest of the Red River Expedition. So he had to modify his
+original plan, which would have taken him much sooner to Atlanta
+and given him the support of a simultaneous attack on Mobile by a
+cooperating joint expedition. But he was ready to the minute, all
+the same.
+
+Dalton, Johnston's first stronghold, was cleverly turned by
+McPherson's right flank march; where upon Johnston fell back on
+Resaca. Here, on the upon the fifteenth of May, the armies fought
+hard for some hours. But Sherman again outflanked the fortified
+enemy, who retired to Kingston. Then, after Sherman had made a
+four days' halt to accumulate supplies, the advance was resumed,
+against determined opposition and with a good deal of hard
+fighting for a week in the neighborhood of New Hope Church. The
+result of the usual outflanking movements was that Johnston had
+to evacuate Allatoona on the fourth of June. Sherman at once
+turned it into his advanced field base; while Johnston fell back
+on another strong and wellprepared position at Kenesaw Mountain.
+
+Grant, favored in a general way by Sherman and in a special way
+by Sheridan, had meanwhile enjoyed a third advantage, this time
+on his own immediate front, through the sickness of Lee, who
+could not take personal command during the last ten days of May.
+On the twenty-first half of Grant's army marched south while half
+stood threatening Lee, in order to give their friends a start
+toward Richmond. This move was so well staffed and screened that
+perhaps Lee could not have seen his chance quite soon enough in
+any case. But when he did learn what had happened even his calm
+self-control gave way to the exceeding bitter cry: "We must
+strike them! We must never let them pass us again!" On the
+thirtieth he was horrified at getting from Beauregard (who was
+then between Richmond and Petersburg) a telegram which showed
+that the Confederate Government was busy with the circumlocution
+office in Richmond while the enemy was thundering at the gate.
+"War Department must determine when and what troops to order from
+here." Lee immediately answered: "If you cannot determine what
+troops you can spare, the Department cannot. The result of your
+delay will be disaster. Butler's troops will be with Grant
+tomorrow." Lee also telegraphed direct to Davis for immediate
+reinforcements, which arrived only just in time for the terrific
+battle of Cold Harbor.
+
+With these three advantages, in addition to the other odds in his
+favor, Grant seemed to have found the tide of fortune at the
+flood in the latter part of May. But he had many troubles of his
+own. No sooner had half his army been badly defeated on the
+eighteenth than news came that Sigel was in full retreat instead
+of cutting off supplies from Lee. Then came news of Butler's
+retreat from Drewry's Bluff, close in to Richmond. Nor was this
+all; for it was only now that definite news of the Red River
+Expedition arrived to confirm Grant's worst suspicions and ruin
+his second plan of helping Farragut to take Mobile. But, as was
+his wont, Grant at once took steps to meet the crisis. He ordered
+Hunter to replace Sigel and go south--straight into the heart of
+the Valley, asked the navy to move his own base down the
+Rappahannock from Fredericksburg to Port Royal, and then himself
+marched on toward Richmond, where Lee was desperately trying to
+concentrate for battle.
+
+The two armies were now drawing all available force together
+round the strategic center of Cold Harbor, only nine miles east
+of Richmond. On the thirty-first Sheridan drove out the enemy
+detachments there, and was himself about to retire before much
+superior reinforcements when he got Grant's order to hold his
+ground at any cost. Nightfall prevented a general assault till
+the next morning, when Sheridan managed to stand fast till
+Wright's whole corps came up and the enemy at once desisted. But
+elsewhere the Confederates did what they could to stave the
+Federals off from advantageous ground on that day and the next.
+The day after--the fateful third of June--the two sides closed in
+death-grips at Cold Harbor.
+
+On this, the thirtieth day of Grant's campaign of stern attrition
+and would-be-smashing hammerstrokes at Lee, these were his orders
+for attack: "The moment it becomes certain that an assault cannot
+succeed, suspend the offensive. But when one does succeed, push
+it vigorously, and, if necessary, pile in troops at the
+successful point from wherever they can be taken." The trouble
+was that Grant was two days late in carrying on the battle so
+well begun by Sheridan, that Warren's corps was two miles off and
+entirely disconnected, and that the three remaining corps formed
+three parts and no whole when the stress of action came.
+
+At dawn Meade's Army of the Potomac (less Warren's corps) began
+to take post for the grand attack that some, more sanguine than
+reflecting, hoped would win the war. When it was light the guns
+burst out in furious defiance, each side's artillery trying to
+beat the other's down before the crisis of the infantry assault.
+There was no maneuvering. Each one of Meade's three corps-
+-Hancock's, Wright's, and Smith's (brought over from Butler's
+command)--marched straight to its front. This led them apart, on
+diverging lines, and so exposed their flanks as well as their
+fronts to enemy fire. But though each corps thought its neighbor
+wrong to uncover its flanks, and the true cause was not
+discovered till compass bearings were afterwards compared, yet
+each went on undaunted, gaining momentum with every step, and
+gathering itself together for the final charge.
+
+Then, surging like great storm-blown waves, the blue lines broke
+against Lee's iron front. In every gallant case there was the
+same wild cresting of the wave, the same terrific crash, the same
+adventurous tongues of blue that darted up as far as they could
+go alive, the same anguishing recession from the fatal mark, and
+the same agonizing wreckage left behind. In Hancock's corps the
+crisis passed in just eight minutes. But in those eight dire
+minutes eight colonels died while leading their regiments on to a
+foredoomed defeat. One of these eight, James P. McMahon of New
+York, alone among his dauntless fellows, actually reached the
+Confederate lines, and, catching the colors from their stricken
+bearer, waved them one moment above the parapet before he fell.
+
+Flesh and blood could do no more. Under the withering fire and
+crossfire of Lee's unshaken front the beaten corps went back,
+re-formed, and waited. They had not long to wait; for Grant was
+set on swinging his three hammers for three more blows at least.
+So again the three assaults were separately made on the one
+impregnable front; and again the waves receded, leaving a second
+mass of agonizing wreckage with the first. Yet even this was not
+enough for Grant, who once more renewed his orders. These orders
+quickly ran their usual course, from the army to the different
+corps, from each corps to its own divisions, and from divisions
+to brigades. But not a single unit stirred. From the generals to
+the "thinking bayonets" every soldier knew the limit had been
+reached. Officially the order was obeyed by a front-line fire of
+musketry, as well as by the staunch artillery, which again gave
+its infantry the comfort of the guns. But that was all.
+
+Thus ended the battle of Cold Harbor, the last pitched battle on
+Virginian soil. Grant reported it in three short sentences; and
+afterwards referred to it in these other three. "I have always
+regretted that the last assault [i.e., the whole battle of the
+third of June] was ever made. No advantage whatever was gained to
+compensate for the heavy loss. Indeed, the advantages, other than
+those of relative losses, were on the Confederate side." Even
+these, however, were also on the Confederate side, as Grant lost
+nearly thirteen thousand, while Lee lost less than eighteen
+hundred. Cold Harbor undoubtedly lowered Union morale, both at
+the front and all through the loyal North. It encouraged the
+Peace Party, revived Confederate hopes, and shook the army's
+faith in Grant's commandership. Martin McMahon, a Union general,
+writing many years after the event, of which he was a most
+competent witness, said: "It was the dreary, dismal, bloody,
+ineffective close of the lieutenant-general's first campaign with
+the Army of the Potomac."
+
+
+Cold Harbor caused a change of plan. Reporting two days later
+Grant said: "I now find, after thirty days of trial, the enemy
+deems it of the first importance to run no risks with the armies
+they now have. Without a greater sacrifice of human life than I
+am willing to make all cannot be accomplished that I had designed
+outside of the city [of Richmond]. I have therefore resolved upon
+the following plan," which, in one word, involved a complete
+change from a series of pitched battles to a long-drawn open
+siege.
+
+The battles lasted thirty days, the siege three hundred.
+Therefore, from this time on for the next ten months, Lee had to
+keep his living shield between Grant's main body and the last
+great stronghold of the fighting South, while the rising tide of
+Northern force, commanding all the sea and an ever-increasing
+portion of the land, beat ceaselessly against his front and
+flanks, threw out destroying arms against his ever-diminishing
+sources of supply, and wore the starving shield itself down to
+the very bone.
+
+Grant's losses--forty thousand killed and wounded--were all made
+good by immediate reinforcement; as was his other human wastage
+from sickness, straggling, and desertion: made good, that is, in
+the quantities required to wear out Lee, whose thinning ranks
+could never be renewed; but not made good in quality; for many of
+the best were dead. The wastage of material is hardly worth
+considering on the Northern side; for it could always be made
+good, superabundantly good. But the corresponding wastage on the
+Southern side was unrenewed and unrenewable. Food, clothing,
+munitions, medical stores--it was all the same for all the
+Southern armies: desperate expedients, slow starvation, death.
+
+Consternation reigned at Richmond on the twelfth of June, the day
+the fitful firing ceased around Cold Harbor. There was danger in
+the Valley, where Hunter had won success at Staunton, and where
+Crook's and Averell's Union troops were expected to arrive from
+West Virginia. Sheridan, too, was off on a twenty-day raid. He
+cut the Virginia Central rails at Trevilian, did much other
+damage between Richmond and the Valley, and, toward the end of
+June, rejoined Grant, who had reached the James nearly a
+fortnight before. Always trying to overlap Lee's extending right,
+Grant closed in on Petersburg with the Army of the Potomac while
+the Army of the James held fast against Richmond. This part of
+the front then remained comparatively quiet till the end of July.
+
+But the beleaguered Confederates made one last sortie out of the
+Valley and straight against Washington. At the beginning of July
+the Valley was uncovered owing to the roundabout flank march that
+Hunter was forced to make back to his base for ammunition. The
+enterprising Jubal Early took advantage of this with some veteran
+troops and made straight for Washington. On the ninth Lew Wallace
+succeeded in delaying him for one day at the Monocacy by an
+admirably planned defense most gallantly carried out with greatly
+inferior numbers and far less veteran men. This gave time for
+reinforcements to pour into Washington; so that on the twelfth,
+Early, finding the works alive with men, had to retreat even
+faster than he came.
+
+In the meantime Grant's extreme right wing was steadily pressing
+the invasion of Georgia, where we left Sherman and Johnston face
+to face at Kenesaw in June. Here again the beleaguered
+Confederates had been making desperate raids or sorties, trying
+to cut Sherman off from his base in Tennessee and keep back the
+Federal forces in other parts of the river area. "Our Jack
+Morgan," whom we left as a prisoner of war after his Ohio raid of
+'63, had escaped in November, fought Crook and Averell for
+Saltville and Wytheville in May, and then, leaving southwest
+Virginia, had raided Kentucky and taken Lexington, but been
+defeated at Cynthiana and driven back by overwhelming numbers
+till he again entered southwest Virginia on the twentieth of
+June. Forrest raided northeastern Mississippi, badly defeated
+Sturgis at Brice's Cross Roads in June, but was himself defeated
+by A.J. Smith at Tupelo in July.
+
+Meanwhile Sherman had been tapping Johnston's fifty miles of
+entrenchments for three weeks of rainy June weather, hoping to
+find a suitable place into which he could drive a wedge of
+attack. On the twenty-seventh he tried to carry the Kene saw
+lines by assault, but failed at every point, with a loss of
+twenty-five hundred--three times what Johnston lost.
+
+By a well-combined series of maneuvers Sherman then forced
+Johnston to fall back or be hopelessly outflanked. Johnston, with
+equal skill, crossed the Chattahoochee under cover of the
+strongly fortified bridgehead which he had built unknown to
+Sherman. But Sherman, with his double numbers, could always hold
+Johnston with one-half in front while turning his flank with the
+other. So even the Chattahoochee was safely crossed on the
+seventeenth of July and the final move against Atlanta was begun.
+That same night Johnston's magnificent skill was thrown to the
+winds by Davis, who had ordered the bold and skillful but far too
+headlong John B. Hood to take command and "fight."
+
+Five days later Hood fought the battle of Atlanta. Just as
+Sherman was closing in to entrench for a siege Hood attacked his
+extreme left flank with the utmost resolution, driving it in and
+completely enveloping it. But Sherman was not to be caught.
+Knowing that only a part of Hood's army could be sent to this
+attack while the rest held the lines of Atlanta, Sherman left
+McPherson's veteran Army of the Tennessee to do the actual
+fighting, supported, of course, by the movement of troops on
+their engaged right. McPherson was killed. Logan ably replaced
+him and won a hard-fought day. Hood's loss was well over eight
+thousand; Sherman's considerably less than half.
+
+On the twenty-eighth Hood attacked the extreme right, now
+commanded by General O.O. Howard in succession to McPherson,
+whose Army of the Tennessee again did most distinguished service,
+especially Logan's Fifteenth Corps near Ezra Church. The
+Confederates were again defeated with the heavier loss. After
+this the siege continued all through the month of August.
+
+While Hood was trying to keep Sherman off Atlanta Grant was
+trying to make a breach at Petersburg. Grant gave Meade "minute
+orders on the 24th [of July] how I wanted the assault conducted,"
+and Meade elaborated the actual plan with admirable skill except
+in one particular that of the generals concerned. Burnside was
+ordered to use his corps for the assault, and he chose Ledlie's
+division to lead. The mine was on an enormous scale, designed to
+hold eight tons of powder, though it was only charged with four,
+and was approached by a gallery five hundred feet long. On the
+twentyninth Grant brought every available man into proper support
+of Burnside, whose other three divisions were to form the
+immediate support of Ledlie's grand forlorn hope.
+
+In the early morning of the thirtieth the mine blew up with an
+earthquaking shock; the enemy round it ran helterskelter to the
+rear; a crater like that of a volcano was formed; and a hundred
+and sixty pieces of artillery opened a furious fire on every
+square inch near it. Ledlie's division rushed forward and
+occupied the crater. But there the whole maneuver stopped short;
+for everything hinged on Ledlie's movements; and Ledlie was
+hiding, well out of danger, instead of "carrying on." After a
+pause Confederate reinforcements came up and drove the leaderless
+division back. "The effort," said Grant, "was a stupendous
+failure"; and it cost him nearly four thousand men, mostly
+captured.
+
+August was a sad month for the loyal North. It was then, as we
+have seen, that Lincoln had to warn Grant about the way in which
+his orders were being falsified in Washington. It was then that
+Sherman asked for reinforcements, so as to be up to strength
+before and after the taking of Atlanta. And it was then that
+Halleck warned Grant to be ready to send some of his best men
+north if there should be serious resistance to the draft. Nor was
+this all. Thurlow Weed, the great election agent, told Lincoln
+that the Government would be defeated; which meant, of course,
+that the compromised and compromising Peace Party would probably
+be at the helm in time to wreck the Union. With so many of the
+best men dead or at the front the whole tone of political society
+had been considerably lowered--to the corresponding advantage of
+all those meaner elements that fish in troubled waters when the
+dregs are well stirred up. There were sinister signs in the big
+cities, in the press, and in financial circles. The Union dollar
+once sank to thirty-nine cents. To make matters worse, there was
+a good deal of well-founded discontent among the selfsacrificing
+loyalists, both at the home and fighting fronts, because the
+Government apparently allowed disloyal and evasive citizens to
+live as parasites on the Union's body politic. The blood tax and
+money tax alike fell far too heavily on the patriots; while many
+a parasite grew rich in unshamed safety.
+
+Mobile was won in August. But the people's eyes were mostly fixed
+upon the land. So a much greater effect was produced by Sherman's
+laconic dispatch of the second of September announcing the fall
+of Atlanta. The Confederates, despairing of holding it to any
+good purpose, had blown up everything they could not move and
+then retreated. This thrilling news heartened the whole loyal
+North, and, as Lincoln at once sent word to Sherman, "entitled
+those who had participated to the applause and thanks of the
+nation." Grant fired a salute of shotted guns from every battery
+bearing on the enemy, who were correspondingly depressed. For
+every one could now see that if the Union put forth its full
+strength the shrunken forces of the South could not prevent the
+Northern vice from crushing them to death.
+
+September also saw the turning of the tide on the still more
+conspicuous scene of action in Virginia. Grant had sent Sheridan
+to the Valley, and had just completed a tour of personal
+inspection there, when Sheridan, finding Early's Confederates
+divided, swooped down on the exposed main body at Opequan Creek
+and won a brilliant victory which raised the hopes of the loyal
+North a good deal higher still.
+
+Exactly a month later, on the nineteenth of October, Early made a
+desperate attempt to turn the tables on the Federals in the
+Valley by attacking them suddenly, on their exposed left flank,
+while Sheridan was absent at Washington. (We must remember that
+Grant had to concert action personally with his sub-commanders,
+as his orders were so often "queered" when seen at Washington by
+autocratic Stanton and bureaucratic Halleck.) The troops attacked
+broke up and were driven in on their supports in wild confusion.
+Then the supports gave way; and a Confederate victory seemed to
+be assured.
+
+But Sheridan was on his way. He had left the scene of his
+previous victory at Opequan Creek, near Winchester, and was now
+riding to the rescue of his army at Cedar Creek, twenty miles
+south. "Sheridan's Ride," so widely known in song and story, was
+enough to shake the nerves of any but a very fit commander. The
+flotsam and jetsam of defeat swirled round him as he rode. Yet,
+with unerring eye, he picked out the few that could influence the
+rest and set them at work to rally, reform, and return. Inspired
+by his example many a straggler who had run for miles presently
+"found himself" again and got back in time to redeem his
+reputation.
+
+Arriving on the field Sheridan discovered those two splendid
+leaders, Custer and Getty, holding off the victorious
+Confederates from what otherwise seemed an easy prey. His
+presence encouraged the formed defense, restored confidence among
+the rest near by, and stiffened resistance so much that hasty
+entrenchments were successfully made and still more successfully
+held. The first rush having been stopped, Sheridan turned the
+lull that ensued into a triumphal progress by riding bareheaded
+along his whole line, so that all his men might feel themselves
+once more under his personal command. Cheer upon cheer greeted
+him as his gallant charger carried him past; and when the
+astonished enemy were themselves attacked they broke in
+irretrievable defeat.
+
+This crowning victory of the long-drawn Valley campaigns, coming
+with cumulative force after those of Mobile, Atlanta, and Opequan
+Creek, did more to turn the critical election than all the
+speeches in the North. The fittest at the home front judged by
+deeds, not words, agreeing therein with Rutherford B. Hayes (a
+future President, now one of Sheridan's generals) who said: "Any
+officer fit for duty who at this crisis would abandon his post to
+electioneer for a seat in Congress, ought to be scalped."
+
+The devastation of everything in the Valley that might be useful
+to Lee's army completed the Union victory in arms; while
+Lincoln's own triumph in November completed it in politics and
+raised his party to the highest plane of statesmanship in war.
+
+From this time till the early spring the battle of the giants in
+Virginia calmed down to the minor moves and clashes that mark a
+period of winter quarters; while the scene of more stirring
+action shifts once more to Georgia and Tennessee.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. SHERMAN DESTROYS THE BASE: 1864
+
+Sherman made Atlanta his field headquarters for September and
+October, changing it entirely from a Southern city to a Northern
+camp. The whole population was removed, every one being given the
+choice of going north or south. In his own words, Sherman "had
+seen Memphis, Vicksburg, Natchez, and New Orleans, all captured
+from the enemy, and each at once garrisoned by a full division,
+if not more; so that success was actually crippling our armies in
+the field by detachments to guard and protect the interests of a
+hostile population." In reporting to Washington he said: "If the
+people raise a howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will
+answer that war is war, and not popularity seeking. If they want
+peace, they and their relatives must stop the war." He also
+excluded the swarms of demoralizing camp-followers that had
+clogged him elsewhere. One licensed sutler was allowed for each
+of his three armies, and no more. Atlanta thus became a perfect
+Union stronghold fixed in the flank of the South.
+
+The balance of losses in action, from May to September, was
+heavily against the South: nearly nine to four. The actual
+numbers did not greatly differ: thirty-two thousand Federals to
+thirty-five thousand Confederates. (And in killed and wounded the
+Federals lost many more than the Confederates. It was the
+thirteen thousand captured Confederates that redressed the
+balance.) But, since Sherman had twice as many in his total as
+the Confederates had in theirs, the odds in relative loss were
+nine to four in his favor. The balance of loss from disease was
+also heavily against the Confedates, who as usual suffered from
+dearth of medical stores. The losses in present and prospective
+food supplies were even more in Sherman's favor; for his
+devastations had begun. Yet Jefferson Davis was bound that Hood
+should "fight"; and Hood was nothing loth. 
+
+Davis went about denouncing Johnston for his magnificent Fabian
+defense; and added insult to injury by coupling the name of this
+very able soldier and quite incorruptible man with that of Joseph
+E. Brown, Governor of Georgia, who, though a violent
+Secessionist, opposed all proper unification of effort, and
+exempted eight thousand State employees from conscription as
+civilian "indispensables." Then, when Sherman approached, Brown
+ran away with all the food and furniture he could stuff into his
+own special train; though he left behind him all arms,
+ammunition, and other warlike stores, besides the confidential
+documents belonging to the State.
+
+Brown had also weakened Hood's army by withdrawing the State
+troops to gather in the harvest and store it where Sherman
+afterwards used what he wanted and destroyed the rest. Yet Hood
+kept operating in Sherman's rear, admirably seconded by Forrest's
+and Wheeler's raiding cavalry. Late in October Forrest performed
+the remarkable feat of taking a flotilla with cavalry. He
+suddenly swooped down on the Tennessee near Johnsonville and took
+the gunboat Undine with a couple of transports. Hood had
+meanwhile been busy on Sherman's line of communications, hoping
+at least to immobilize him round Atlanta, and at best to bring
+him back from Georgia for a Federal defeat in Tennessee.
+
+On the fifth of October the last action near Atlanta was fought
+thirty miles northwest, when Hood made a desperate attempt on
+Allatoona with a greatly superior force. Twelve miles off, on
+Kenesaw Mountain, Sherman could see the smoke and hear the sounds
+of battle through the clear, still, autumn air. But as his
+signalers could get no answer from the fort he began to fear that
+Allatoona was already lost, when the signal officer's quick eye
+caught the faintest flutter at one of the fort windows. Presently
+the letters, C - R - S - E - H - E - R, were made out; which
+meant that General John M. Corse, one of the best volunteers
+produced by the war, was holding out. He had hurried over from
+Rome, on a call from Allatoona, and was withstanding more than
+four thousand men with less than two thousand. All morning long
+the Confederates persisted in their attacks, while Sherman's
+relief column was hurrying over from Kenesaw. Early in the
+afternoon the fire slackened and ceased before this column
+arrived. But Sherman's renewed fears were soon allayed. For
+Corse, after losing more than a third of his men, had repulsed
+the enemy alone, inflicting on them an even greater loss in
+proportion to their double strength.
+
+Corse was still full of fight, reporting back to Kenesaw that
+though "short a cheek bone and an ear" he was "able to whip all
+hell yet." Sherman thanked the brave defenders in his general
+orders of the seventh for "the handsome defense made at
+Allatoona" and pointed the moral that "garrisons must hold their
+posts to the last minute, sure that the time gained is valuable
+and necessary to their comrades at the front."
+
+The situation at the beginning of November was most peculiar.
+With the whole Gulf coast blockaded and the three great ports in
+Union hands, with the Mississippi a Union stream from source to
+sea, and with Sherman firmly set in the northwest flank of
+Georgia, Hood made the last grand sortie from the beleaguered
+South. It was a desperate adventure to go north against the
+Federal troops in Tennessee, with Kentucky and the line of the
+Ohio as his ultimate objective, when Lincoln had been returned to
+power, when Grant was surely wearing down Lee in Virginia, and
+when Sherman's preponderance of force was not only assured in
+Georgia but in Tennessee as well. Moreover, Thomas, the "Rock of
+Chickamauga," had been sent back to counter Hood from Grant's and
+Sherman's old headquarters at Nashville on the Cumberland. And
+Thomas was soon to have the usual double numbers; for all the
+Western depots sent him their trained recruits, till, by the end
+of November, his total was over seventy thousand. Hood's forty
+thousand could not be increased or even stopped from dwindling.
+Yet he pushed on, with the consent of Beauregard, who now held
+the general command of all the troops opposed to Sherman.
+
+The next moves were even more peculiar than the first. For while
+Hood hoped to close the breach in Georgia by drawing Sherman
+back, and Sherman expected that when he went on to widen the
+breach he would draw Hood back, what really happened was that
+each advanced on his own new line in opposite directions, Hood
+north through Tennessee, Sherman southeast through Georgia. So
+firm was the grip of the Union on all the navigable waters that
+Hood could only cross the Tennessee somewhere along the shoals.
+He chose a place near Florence, Alabama, got safely over and
+encamped. There, for the moment, we shall leave him and follow
+Sherman to the sea.
+
+
+The region of the Gulf and lower Mississippi being now under the
+assured predominance of Union forces, Grant, with equal wisdom
+and decision, entirely approved of Sherman's plan to cut loose
+from his western base, make a devastating march through the heart
+of fertile Georgia, and join the eastern forces of the North at
+Savannah, where Fort Pulaski was in Union hands and the Union
+navy was, as usual, overwhelmingly strong.
+
+Sherman's March to the Sea at once acquired a popular renown
+which it has never lost. This, however, was chiefly because it
+happened to catch the public eye while nothing else was on the
+stage. For its many admirable features were those about which
+most people know little and care less: well-combined grand
+strategy, perfection in headquarter orders and the incidental
+staff work, excellent march discipline, wonderful coordination
+between the different arms of the Service and with all auxiliary
+branches--especially the commissariat and transport, and, to
+clinch everything, a thoroughness of execution which
+distinguished each unit concerned. As a feat of arms this famous
+march is hardly worth mentioning. There were no battles and no
+such masterly maneuvers as those of the much harder march to
+Atlanta. Nor was the operational problem to be mentioned in the
+same breath with that of the subsequent march through the
+Carolinas. Sherman himself says: "Were I to express my measure of
+the relative importance of the march to the sea, and of that from
+Savannah northward, I would place the former at one, and the
+latter at ten--or the maximum."
+
+The Government was very doubtful and counseled reconsideration.
+But Grant and Sherman, knowing the factors so very much better,
+were sure the problem could easily be solved. Sherman left
+Atlanta on the fifteenth of November and laid siege to Savannah
+on the tenth of December. He utterly destroyed the military value
+of Atlanta and everything else on the way that could be used by
+the armies in the field. Of course, to do this he had to reduce
+civilian supplies to the point at which no surplus remained for
+transport to the front; and civilians naturally suffered. But his
+object was to destroy the Georgian base of supplies without
+inflicting more than incidental hardship on civilians. And this
+object he attained. He cut a swath of devastation sixty miles
+wide all the way to Savannah. Every rail was rooted up, made
+red-hot, and twisted into scrap. Every road and bridge was
+destroyed. Every kind of surplus supplies an army could possibly
+need was burnt or consumed. Civilians were left with enough to
+keep body and soul together, but nothing to send away, even if
+the means of transportation had been left.
+
+Sherman's sixty thousand men were all as fit as his own tall
+sinewy form, which was the very embodiment of expert energy.
+Every weakling had been left behind. Consequently the whole
+veteran force simply romped through this Georgian raid. The main
+body mostly followed the rails, which gangs of soldiers would
+pile on bonfires of sleepers. The mounted men swept up everything
+about the flanks. But nothing escaped the "bummers," who foraged
+for their units every day, starting out empty-handed on foot and
+returning heavily laden on horses or mules or in some kind of
+vehicle. If Atlanta had been a volcano in eruption, and the
+molten lava had flowed to Savannah in a stream sixty miles wide
+and five times as long, the destruction could hardly have been
+worse, except, of course, that civilians were left enough to keep
+them alive, and that, with a few inevitable exceptions, they were
+not ill treated.
+
+The fighting hardly disturbed the daily routine. Sherman was
+never in danger; though wiseacre Washington, supposing that he
+ought to be, used to pester Lincoln, who always replied: "Grant
+says the men are safe with Sherman, and that if they can't get
+out where they want to, they can crawl back by the hole they went
+in at." This seemed to allay anxiety; though the truth was that
+Sherman's real safety lay in going ahead to the Union sea, not in
+retracing his steps over the devastated line of his advance.
+
+On approaching Savannah a mounted officer was blown up by a land
+torpedo, his horse killed, and himself badly lacerated. Sherman
+at once sent his prisoners ahead to dig up the other torpedoes or
+get blown up by those they failed to find. No more explosions
+took place. Savannah itself was strongly entrenched and further
+defended by Fort McAllister. Against this fort Sherman detached
+his own old Shiloh division of the Fifteenth Corps, now under the
+very capable command of General William B. Hazen. As the day wore
+on Sherman became very impatient, watching for Hazen's attack,
+when a black object went gliding up the Ogeechee River toward the
+fort. Presently a man-of-war appeared flying the Stars and
+Stripes and signaling, "Who are you?" On getting the answer,
+"General Sherman", she asked, "Is Fort McAllister taken?" and
+immediately received the cheering assurance, "No; but it will be
+in a minute." Then, just as the signal flags ceased waving,
+Hazen's straight blue lines broke cover, advanced, charged
+through the hail of shot, shell, and rifle bullets, rushed the
+defenses, and stood triumphant on the top.
+
+Before midnight Sherman was writing his dispatches on board the
+U.S.S. Dandelion and examining those received from Grant. He
+learned now, from Grant's of the third (ten days before), that
+Thomas was facing Hood round Nashville and that the Government,
+and even Grant, were getting very impatient with Thomas for not
+striking hard and at once. A week later the Confederate general,
+Hardee, managed to evacuate Savannah before his one remaining
+line of retreat had been cut off. He was a thorough soldier. But
+men and means and time were lacking; and the civil population
+hoped to save all that was not considered warlike stores. Thus
+immense supplies fell into Sherman's hands. Savannah was of
+course placed under martial law. But as the wax was now nearing
+its inevitable end, and the citizens were thoroughly
+"subjugated," those who wished to remain were allowed to do so.
+Only two hundred left, going to Charleston under a flag of truce.
+
+The following official announcement reached Lincoln on Christmas
+Eve.
+
+                 Savannah, Georgia, December 22, 1864. 
+
+To His Excellency President Lincoln, 
+         Washington, D. C.
+
+I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah,
+with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition,
+also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton.
+          W. T. Sherman, Major-General.
+
+
+In the meantime Hood's desperate sortie had struck north as far
+as Franklin, Tennessee. Here, on the last of November, General
+John Schofield, commanding the advanced part of Thomas's army,
+gallantly withstood a furious attack. On this the closing day of
+a lingering Indian summer the massed Confederates charged with
+the piercing rebel yell, and charged again; re-formed under cover
+of the dense pall of stationary smoke; and returned to the charge
+again and again. Many a leader met his death right against the
+very breastworks. Another would instantly spring forward, only to
+fall in his turn. Thirteen times the gaunt gray lines rushed
+madly through the battle smoke and lost their front ranks against
+the withering fire before the autumn night closed in. Schofield
+then fell back on Brentwood, halfway on the twenty miles to
+Nashville. He had lost over two thousand men. But Hood had lost
+three times as many; and Hood's were irreplaceable except by a
+very few local recruits.
+
+Hood now concentrated every available man for his final attack on
+Thomas, who had odds of twenty thousand in his favor. Hood
+marched his thirty-five thousand up to Nashville, where he
+actually invested the fifty-five thousand Federals. By this time
+even Grant was so annoyed at what seemed to him unreasoning delay
+that he sent Logan to take command at once and "fight." But on
+the fifteenth of December Thomas came out of his works and fought
+Hood with determined skill all day. Having gained a decisive
+advantage already he pressed it home to the very utmost on the
+morrow, breaking through Hood's shaken lines, enveloping whole
+units with converging fire, and taking prisoners in mass. After a
+last wild effort Hood's beaten army fled, having lost fifteen
+thousand men, five times as much as Thomas.
+
+The battle of Nashville came nearer than any other to being a
+really annihilating victory. Out of the forty thousand men Hood
+had at first in Tennessee not half escaped; and of the remainder
+not nearly half were ever seen in arms again. As an organized
+force his army simply disappeared. The few thousands saved from
+the wreckage of the storm found their painful way east to join
+all that was left for the last stand against the overwhelming
+forces of the North.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. THE END: 1865
+
+By '65 the Southern cause was lost. There was nothing to hope for
+from abroad. Neither was there anything to hope for at home, now
+that Lincoln and the Union Government had been returned to power.
+From the very first the disparity of resources was so great that
+the South had never had a chance alone except against a disunited
+North. Now that the North could bring its full strength to bear
+against the worn-out South the only question remaining to be
+settled in the field was simply one of time. Yet Davis, with his
+indomitable will, would never yield so long as any Confederates
+would remain in arms. And men like Lee would never willingly give
+up the fight so long as those they served required them.
+Therefore the war went on until the Southern armies failed
+through sheer exhaustion.
+
+The North had nearly a million men by land and sea. The South had
+perhaps two hundred thousand. The North could count on a million
+recruits out of the whole reserve of twice as many. The South had
+no reserves at all. The total odds were therefore five to one
+without reserves and ten to one if these came in.
+
+The scene of action, for all decisive purposes, had shrunk again,
+and now included nothing beyond Virginia and the Carolinas; and
+even there the Union forces had impregnable bases of attack. When
+Wilmington fell in January the only port still left in Southern
+hands was Charleston; and that was close-blockaded. Fighting
+Confederates still remained in the lower South. But victories
+like Olustee, Florida, barren in '64, could not avail them now,
+even if they had the troops to win them. The lower South was now
+as much isolated as the trans-Mississippi. Between its blockaded
+and garrisoned coast on one side and its sixty-mile swath of
+devastation through the heart of Georgia on the other it might as
+well have been a shipless island. The same was true of all
+Confederate places beyond Virginia and the Carolinas. The last
+shots were fired in Texas near the middle of May. But they were
+as futile against the course of events as was the final act of
+war committed by the Confederate raider Shenandoah at the end of
+June, when she sank the whaling fleet, far off in the lone
+Pacific.
+
+For the last two months of the four-years' war Davis made Lee
+Commander-in-Chief. Lee at once restored Johnston to his rightful
+place. These two great soldiers then did what could be done to
+stave off Grant and Sherman. Lee's and Johnston's problem was of
+course insoluble. For each was facing an army which was alone a
+match for both. The only chance of prolonging anything more than
+a mere guerilla war was to join forces in southwest Virginia,
+where the only line of rails was safe from capture for the
+moment. But this meant eluding Grant and Sherman; and these two
+leaders would never let a plain chance slip. They took good care
+that all Confederate forces outside the central scene of action
+were kept busy with their own defense. They also closed in enough
+men from the west to prevent Lee and Johnston escaping by the
+mountains. Then, with the help of the navy, having cut off every
+means of escape--north, south, east, and west--they themselves
+closed in for the death-grip.
+
+By the first of February Sherman was on his way north through the
+Carolinas with sixty thousand picked men, drawing in
+reinforcements as he advanced against Johnston's dwindling forty
+thousand, until the thousands that faced each other at the end in
+April were ninety and thirty respectively. On the ninth of
+February (the day Lee became Commander-in-Chief) Sherman was
+crossing the rails between Charleston and Augusta, of course
+destroying them. A week later he was doing the same at Columbia
+in the middle of South Carolina. By this time his old antagonist,
+Johnston, had assumed command; so that he had to reckon with the
+chances of a battle, as on his way against Atlanta, and not only
+with the troubles of devastating an undefended base, as on his
+march to the sea. The difficulties of hard marching through an
+enemy country full of natural and artificial obstacles were also
+much greater here than in Georgia. How well these difficulties
+could be surmounted by a veteran army may be realized from a
+recorded instance which, though it occurred elsewhere, was yet
+entirely typical. In forty days an infantry division of eight
+thousand men repaired a hundred miles of rail and built a hundred
+and eighty-two bridges.
+
+Sherman took a month to advance from Columbia in the middle of
+South Carolina to Bentonville in the middle of North Carolina.
+Here Johnston stood his ground; and a battle was fought from the
+nineteenth to the twenty-first of March. Had Sherman known at the
+time that his own numbers were, as he afterwards reported,
+"vastly superior," he might have crushed Johnston then and there.
+But, as it was, he ably supported the exposed flank that Johnston
+so skillfully attacked, won the battle, inflicted losses a good
+deal larger than his own, and gained his ulterior objective as
+well as if there had not been a fight at all. This objective was
+the concentration of his whole army round Goldsboro by the
+twenty-fifth. At Goldsboro he held the strategic center of North
+Carolina, being at the junction whence the rails ran east to
+Newbern (which had long been in Union hands), west to meet the
+only rails by which Lee's army might for a time escape, and north
+(a hundred and fifty miles) to Grant's besieging host at
+Petersburg. Sherman's record is one of which his men might well
+be proud. In fifty days from Savannah he had made a winter march
+through four hundred and twenty-five miles of mud, had captured
+three cities, destroyed four railways, drained the Confederate
+resources, increased his own, and half closed on Lee and Johnston
+the vice which he and Grant could soon close altogether.
+Nevertheless Grant records that "one of the most anxious periods
+was the last few weeks before Petersburg"; for he was haunted by
+the fear that Lee's army, now nearing the last extremity of
+famine, might risk all on railing off southwest to Danville, the
+one line left. Lee, consummate now as when victorious before,
+masked his movements wonderfully well till the early morning of
+the twenty-fifth of March, when he suddenly made a furious attack
+where the lines were very near together. For some hours he held a
+salient in the Federal position. But he was presently driven back
+with loss; and his intention to escape stood plainly revealed.
+
+The same day Sherman railed down to Newbern over the line
+repaired by that indefatigable and most accomplished engineer,
+Colonel W. W. Wright, took ship for City Point, Virginia, and met
+Lincoln, Grant, and Admiral Porter there on the twenty-seventh
+and twenty-eighth. Grant explained to Lincoln that Sheridan was
+crossing the James just below them, to cut the rails running
+south from Petersburg and then, by forced marches, to cut those
+running southwest from Richmond, Lee's last possible line of
+escape. Grant added that the final crisis was very near and that
+his only anxiety was lest Lee might escape before Sheridan cut
+the Richmond line southwest to Danville. Lincoln said he hoped
+the war would end at once and with no more bloodshed. Grant and
+Sherman, however, could not guarantee that Davis might not force
+Lee and Johnston to one last desperate fight. Lincoln added that
+all he wanted after the surrender was to get the Confederates
+back to their civil life and make them good contented citizens.
+As for Davis: well, there once was a man who, having taken the
+pledge, was asked if he wouldn't let his host put just a drop of
+brandy in the lemonade. His answer was: "See here, if you do it
+unbeknownst, I won't object." From the way that Lincoln told this
+story Grant and Sherman both inferred that he would be glad to
+see Davis disembarrass the reunited States of his annoying
+presence.
+
+This twenty-eighth of March saw the last farewells between the
+President and his naval and military lieutenants at the front.
+Admiral Porter immediately wrote down a full account of the
+conversations, from which, together with Grant's and Sherman's
+strong corroboration, we know that Lincoln entirely approved of
+the terms which Grant gave Lee, and that he would have approved
+quite as heartily of those which Sherman gave to Johnston.
+
+Next morning the final race, pursuit, defeat, and victory began.
+Grant marched all his spare, men west to cut Lee off completely.
+He left enough to hold his lines at Petersburg, in case Lee
+should remain; and he arranged with Sherman for a combined
+movement, to begin on the tenth of April, in case Johnston and
+Lee should try to join each other. But he felt fairly confident
+that he could run Lee down while Sherman tackled Johnston.
+
+On the first of April Sheridan won a hard fight at Five Forks,
+southwest of Petersburg. On Sunday (the second) Lee left
+Petersburg for good, sending word to Richmond. That morning Davis
+rose from his place in church and the clergyman quietly told the
+congregation that there would be no evening service. On Monday
+morning Grant rode into Petersburg, and saw the Confederate
+rearguard clubbed together round the bridge. "I had not the
+heart," said Grant, "to turn the artillery upon such a mass of
+defeated and fleeing men, and I hoped to capture them soon." On
+Tuesday Grant closed his orders to Sherman with the words, "Rebel
+armies are now the only strategic points to strike at," and
+himself pressed on relentlessly.
+
+Late next afternoon a horseman in full Confederate uniform
+suddenly broke cover from the enemy side of a dense wood and
+dashed straight at the headquarter staff. The escort made as if
+to seize him. But a staff officer called out, "How d'ye do,
+Campbell?" This famous scout then took a wad of tobacco out of
+his mouth, a roll of tinfoil out of the wad, and a piece of
+tissue paper out of the tinfoil. When Grant read Sheridan's
+report ending "I wish you were here" (that is, at Jetersville,
+halfway between Petersburg and Appomattox), he immediately got
+off his black pony, mounted Cincinnati, and rode the twenty miles
+at speed, to learn that Lee was heading due west for Farmville,
+less than thirty miles from Appomattox.
+
+On Thursday the sixth, Lee, closely beset in flank and rear, lost
+seven thousand men at Sailor's Creek, mostly as prisoners. The
+heroes of this fight were six hundred Federals, who, having gone
+to blow up High Bridge on the Appomattox, found their retreat cut
+off by the whole Confederate advanced guard. Under Colonel
+Francis Washburn, Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry, and Colonel
+Theodore Read, of General Ord's staff, this dauntless six hundred
+charged again and again until, their leaders killed and most of
+the others dead or wounded, the rest surrendered. They had gained
+their object by holding up Lee's column long enough to let its
+wagon. train be raided.
+
+Grant, now feeling that his hold on Lee could not be shaken off,
+wrote him a letter on Friday afternoon, saying: "The results of
+the last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further
+resistance." That night Lee replied asking what terms Grant
+proposed to offer. Next morning Grant wrote again to propose a
+meeting, and Lee answered to say he was willing to treat for
+peace. Grant at once informed him that the only subject for
+discussion was the surrender of the army. That evening Federal
+cavalry under General George A. Custer raided Appomattox Station,
+five miles southwest of the Court House, and held up four trains.
+A few hours later, early on Sunday, the famous ninth of April,
+1865, Lee's advanced guard was astounded to find its way disputed
+so far west. It attacked with desperation, hoping to break
+through what seemed to be a cavalry screen before the infantry
+came up; but when Lee's main body joined in, only to find a solid
+mass of Federal infantry straight across its one way out, Lee at
+once sent forward a white flag.
+
+Grant, overwrought with anxiety, had been suffering from an
+excruciating headache all night long. But the moment he opened
+Lee's note, offering to discuss surrender, he felt as well as
+ever, and instantly wrote back to say he was ready. Pushing
+rapidly on he met Lee at McLean's private residence near
+Appomattox Court House. There was a remarkable contrast between
+the appearance of the two commanders. Grant, only forty-three,
+and without a tinge of gray in his brown hair, took an inch or
+two off his medium height by stooping keenly forward, and had
+nothing in his shabby private's uniform to show his rank except
+the three-starred shoulder-straps. When the main business was
+over, and he had time to notice details, he apologized to Lee,
+explaining that the extreme rapidity of his movements had carried
+him far ahead of his baggage. Lee's aide-de-camp, Colonel Charles
+Marshall, afterwards explained that when the Confederates had
+been obliged to reduce themselves simply to what they stood in,
+each officer had naturally put on his best. Hence Lee's
+magnificent appearance in a brand-new general's uniform with the
+jeweled sword of honor that Virginia had given him. Well over six
+feet tall, straight as an arrow in spite of his fifty-eight years
+and snow-white, war-grown beard, still extremely handsome, and
+full of equal dignity and charm, he looked, from head to foot,
+the perfect leader of devoted men.
+
+Grant, holding out his hand in cordial greeting, began the
+conversation by saying: "I met you once before, General Lee,
+while we were serving in Mexico . . . . I have always remembered
+your appearance, and I think I should have recognized you
+anywhere." After some other personal talk Lee said: "I suppose,
+General Grant, that the object of our present meeting is fully
+understood. I asked to see you in order to ascertain on what
+terms you would receive the surrender of my army." Grant answered
+that officers and men were to be paroled and disqualified from
+serving again till properly exchanged, and that all warlike and
+other stores were to be treated as captured. Lee bowed assent,
+said that was what he had expected, and presently suggested that
+Grant should commit the terms to writing on the spot. When Grant
+got to the end of the terms already discussed his eye fell on
+Lee's splendid sword of honor, and he immediately added the
+sentence: "This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers,
+nor their private horses or baggage." When Lee read over the
+draft he flushed slightly on coming to this generous proviso and
+gratefully said: "This will have a very happy effect upon my
+army." Grant then asked him if he had any suggestions to make;
+whereupon he said that the mounted Confederates, unlike the
+Federals, owned their horses. Before he had time to ask a favor
+Grant said that as these horses would be invaluable for men
+returning to civil life they could all be taken home after full
+proof of ownership. Lee again flushed and gratefully replied:
+"This will have the best possible effect upon the men. It will be
+very gratifying and do much toward conciliating our people."
+
+While the documents were being written out for signature Grant
+introduced the generals and staff officers to Lee. Then Lee once
+more led the conversation back to business by saying he wished to
+return his prisoners to Grant at the earliest possible moment
+because he had nothing more for them to eat. "I have, indeed,
+nothing for my own men," he added. They had been living on the
+scantiest supply of parched corn for several days; and this
+famine fare, combined with their utter lack of all other
+supplies--especially medicine and clothing--was wearing them away
+faster than any "war of attrition" in the open field. After
+heartily agreeing that the prisoners should immediately return
+Grant said: "I will take steps at once to have your army supplied
+with rations. Suppose I send over twenty-five thousand; do you
+think that will be a sufficient supply?" "I think it will be
+ample," said Lee, who, after a pause, added: "and it will be a
+great relief, I assure you."
+
+Then Lee rose, shook Grant warmly by the hand, bowed to the
+others, and left the room. As he appeared on the porch all the
+Union officers in the grounds rose respectfully and saluted him.
+While the Confederate orderly was bridling the horses Lee stood
+alone, gazing in unutterable grief across the valley to where the
+remnant of his army lay. Then, as he mounted Traveler, every
+Union officer followed Grant's noble example by standing
+bareheaded till horse and rider had disappeared from view.
+
+Grant next sent off the news to Washington and, true to his
+sterling worth, immediately stopped the salutes which some of his
+enthusiastic soldiers were already beginning to fire. "The war is
+over," he told his staff, "the rebels are our countrymen again,
+and the best sign of rejoicing after the victory will be to
+abstain from all demonstrations in the field."
+
+In the meantime Lee had returned to his own lines, along which he
+now rode for the last time. The reserve with which he had steeled
+his heart during the surrender gave way completely when he came
+to bid his men farewell. After a few simple words, advising his
+devoted veterans to become good citizens of their reunited
+country, the tears could no longer be kept back. Then, as he rode
+slowly on, from the remnant of one old regiment to another, the
+men broke ranks, and, mostly silent with emotion, pressed round
+their loved commander, to take his hand, to touch his sword, or
+fondly stroke his splendid gray horse, Traveler, the same that
+had so often carried him victorious through the hard-fought day.
+
+
+North and South had scarcely grasped the full significance of
+Lee's surrender, when, only five days later, Lincoln was
+assassinated. "It would be impossible for me," said Grant, "to
+describe the feeling that overcame me at the news. I knew his
+goodness of heart, and above all his desire to see all the people
+of the United States enter again upon the full privileges of
+citizenship with equality among all. I felt that reconstruction
+had been set back, no telling how far." "Of all the men I ever
+met," said Sherman, "he seemed to possess more of the elements of
+greatness, combined with goodness, than any other."
+
+On the very day of the assassination Sherman had written to
+Johnston offering the same terms Grant had given Lee and Lincoln
+had most heartily approved. Three days later, on the seventeenth,
+just as Sherman was entering the train for his meeting with
+Johnston, the operator handed him a telegram announcing the
+assassination. Enjoining secrecy till he returned, Sherman took
+the telegram with him and showed it to Johnston, whom he watched
+intently. "The perspiration came out on his forehead," Sherman
+wrote, "and he did not attempt to conceal his distress. He
+denounced the act as a disgrace to the age and hoped I did not
+charge it to the Confederate Government. I told him I could not
+believe that he or General Lee or the officers of the Confederate
+army could possibly be privy to acts of assassination." When
+Sherman got back to Raleigh he published the news in general
+orders, and experienced the supreme satisfaction of finding that
+not one man in all that mournful army had to be restrained from a
+single act of revenge.
+
+After much misunderstanding with Washington now in lesser hands,
+the surrender of Johnston's and the other Confederate armies was
+effected. Each body of troops laid down its arms and quietly
+dispersed. One day the bugles called, the camp fires burned, and
+comrades were together in the ranks. The next, like morning
+mists, they disappeared, thenceforth to be remembered and admired
+only as the heroes of a hopeless cause.
+
+
+It was a very different scene through which their rivals marched
+into lasting fame with all the pride, pomp, and circumstance of
+war. On the twenty-third and twenty-fourth of May, in perfect
+weather, and in the stirring presence of a loyal, vast,
+enthusiastic throng, the Union armies were reviewed in
+Washington. For over six full hours each day the troops marched
+past--the very flower of those who had come back victorious. The
+route was flagged from end to end with Stars and Stripes, and
+banked with friends of each and every regiment there. Between
+these banks, and to the sound of thrilling martial music, the
+long blue column flowed--a living stream of men whose bayonets
+made its surface flash like burnished silver under the glorious
+sun.
+
+
+Then, when the pageantry was finished, and the volunteers that
+formed the vast bulk of those magnificent Federal armies had
+again become American civilians in thought and word and deed,
+these steadfast men, whose arms had saved the Union in the field,
+were first in peace as they had been in war: first in the
+reconstruction of their country's interrupted life, first in
+recognizing all that was best in the splendid fighters with whom
+they had crossed swords, and first--incomparably first--in
+keeping one and indivisible the reunited home land of both North
+and South.
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+Thousands of books have been written about the Civil War; and
+more about the armies than about the navies and the civil
+interests together. Yet, even about the armies, there are very
+few that give a just idea of how every part of the war was
+correlated with every other part and with the very complex whole;
+while fewer still give any idea of how closely the navies were
+correlated with the armies throughout the long amphibious
+campaigns.
+
+The only works mentioned here are either those containing the
+original evidence or those written by experts directly from the
+original evidence. And of course there are a good many works
+belonging to both these classes for which no room can be found in
+a bibliography so very brief as the present one must be.
+
+"The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records
+of the Union and Confederate Armies", 128 vols. (1880-1901), and
+"Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War
+of the Rebellion", 28 vols. (1894-), form two magnificent
+collections of original evidence published by the United States
+Government. But they have some gaps which nothing else can fill.
+"Battles and Leaders of the Civil War"(1887-89), written by
+competent witnesses on both sides, gives the gist of the story in
+four volumes (published afterwards in eight). "The Rebellion
+Record", 12 vols. (1862-68), edited by Frank Moore, forms an
+interesting collection of non-official documents. "The Story of
+the Civil War", 4 vols. (1895-1913), begun by J.C. Ropes, and
+continued by W.R. Livermore, is an historical work of real value.
+"Larned's Literature of American History" contains an excellent
+bibliography; but it needs supplementing by bibliographies of the
+present century. Inquiring readers should consult the
+bibliographies in volumes 20 and 21 (by J.K. Hosmer) in the
+American Nation series.
+
+There are many works of a more special kind that deserve
+particular attention. General E.P. Alexander's "Military Memoirs
+of a Confederate" (1907), the "Transactions of the Military
+Historical Society of Massachusetts", Major John Bigelow's "The
+Campaign of Chancellorsville" (1910), and J.D. Cox's "Military
+Reminiscences", 2 vols. (1900), are admirable specimens of this
+very extensive class.
+
+The two greatest generals on the Northern side have written their
+own memoirs, and written them exceedingly well: "Personal Memoirs
+of U.S. Grant", 2 vols. (1885-86), and "Memoirs of General W.T.
+Sherman", 2 vols. (1886). But the two greatest on the Southern
+side wrote nothing themselves; and no one else has written a
+really great life of that very great commander, Robert Lee.
+Fitzhugh Lee's enthusiastic sketch of his uncle, "General Lee"
+(1894), is one of the several second-rate books on the subject.
+Colonel G.F.R. Henderson's "Stonewall Jackson and the American
+Civil War", 2 vols. (1898), is, on the other hand, among the best
+of war biographies. Henderson's strategical study of the Valley
+Campaign is a masterpiece. Two good works of very different kinds
+are: "A History of the Civil War in the United States" (1905), by
+W. Birkbeck Wood and Major J.E. Edmonds, and "A History of the
+United States f from the Compromise of 1850", 8 vols.
+(1893-1919), by James Ford Rhodes. The first is military, the
+second political. Mr. Rhodes has also written a single volume
+"History of the Civil War" (1917). "American Campaigns" by Major
+M.F. Steele, issued under the supervision of the War Department
+(1909), deals chiefly with the military operations of the Civil
+War.
+
+The naval side of this, as of all other wars, has been far too
+much neglected. But that great historian of sea-power, Admiral
+Mahan, has told the best of the story in his "Admiral Farragut"
+(1892).
+
+An interesting contemporary account of the war will be found in
+the five volumes of Appleton's "American Annual Cyclopoedia" for
+the years from 1861 to 1865. B.J. Lossing's "Pictorial History of
+the Civil War", 3 vols. (1866-69), and Harper's "Pictorial
+History of the Rebellion", 2 vols. (1868), give graphic pictures
+of military life as seen by contemporaries. Personal
+reminiscences of the war, of varying merit, have multiplied
+rapidly in recent years. These are appraised for the unwary
+reader in the bibliographies already mentioned. Frank Wilkeson's
+"Recollections of a Private Soldier in the Army of the Potomac"
+(1887), George C. Eggleston's "A Rebel's Recollections" (1905),
+and Mrs. Mary B. Chestnut's "Diary from Dixie" (1905) are among
+the best of these personal recollections.
+
+The political and diplomatic history has been dealt with already
+in the two preceding Chronicles. "Abraham Lincoln: a History", by
+John G. Nicolay and John Hay, in ten volumes (1890), and "The
+Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln", in twelve volumes (1905),
+form the quarry from which all true accounts of his war
+statesmanship must be built up. Lord Charnwood's "Abraham
+Lincoln" (1917) is an admirable summary. To these titles should
+be added Gideon Welles's "Diary", 3 vols. (1911), and, on the
+Confederate side, Jefferson Davis's "The Rise and Fall of the
+Confederate Government", 2 vols. (1881), and Alexander H.
+Stephens's "A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the
+States", 2 vols. (1870). The best life of Jefferson Davis is that
+by William E. Dodd in the "American Crisis Biographies" (1907).
+W. H. Russell's "My Diary North and South" (1863) records the
+impressions of an intelligent foreign observer.
+
+The present Chronicle is based entirely on the original evidence,
+with the convenient use only of such works as have themselves
+been written by qualified experts directly from the original
+evidence.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Captains of the Civil War, by Wood
+
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