GRANT WINS THE RIVER WAR: 1863
We have seen already how the River War of '62 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 thelawyer 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 atleast 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 Januarysloughs 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 wereat 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 be at 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, theHartford, 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. TheHartfordherself took the ground for a critical moment. But, with her own screw going ahead and that of theAlbatrossgoing astern, she drew clear and won through. Not so, however, the other five ships. Only theHartfordandAlbatrossreached the Red River. Yet even this was of great importance, asit 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 first 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, and 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 flagshipBenton. 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 alongsideor 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-fivethousand. 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 byhis 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 eventhe 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; andGrant's men all believed they had now found the looked-for 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 thewhole 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 coöperation 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 coöperation. 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 might-have-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 morethan 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 hisfull 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 sap-roller (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 burrowedtill 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 flotillagrew 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 seventy-five 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 verywisely 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-scarredHartfordafter 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 byhis 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 feltit 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 morefoolish 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 fromdefense 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 Braggat the mouth of the South Chickamauga to cover the right of the Ridge. By noon Sherman's men were over the Tennessee ready to coöperate 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 toadmiration, 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, whichran 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.
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 sohe 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 publicsnever 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 twenty-seventh 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 southof 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 acompetent 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 whichmen 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 Federalchiefs 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 andwheeling 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 hillswere 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 reëstablished 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, Iamglad to see you!" But Archer answered, "Well, I'm not so glad to seeyou—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 gunsof 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 well-founded 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'splans 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. Sohe 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 coöperating 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 brigadesfrom 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 navalCushing who destroyed theAlbemarle), 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 tidalwave, 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.