1863 IN THE EAST

Throughout the first half of 1863 Grant slowly tightened the noose around Vicksburg. Moving down the west bank of the Mississippi and crossing below Vicksburg, Grant won clear victories at Port Gibson (May 1), Raymond (May 12), Jackson (May 14), Champion’s Hill (May 16), and Big Black River (May 17). On May 18 Grant began his siege of Vicksburg itself, and for six weeks the Federals isolated Gen. John C. Pemberton and his Vicksburg defenders. Confederate soldiers inside the besieged city eventually found it necessary to eat rats, mules and grass in an effort to stay alive.

With escape hopeless, Pemberton on July 4 surrendered Vicksburg. Not only did Grant capture an entire Southern army of 30,000 men, but the mighty Mississippi, from Minnesota to the Gulf, lay in Federal hands. The North had severed Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, and most of Louisiana from the Confederacy.

As Grant was accepting the surrender of Vicksburg, Gen. Rosecrans and his Federal army of 60,000 men were pushing forward in middle Tennessee. Rosecrans forced Bragg’s army of 47,000 Confederates out of Tullahoma and across the Tennessee River. The Federals slowly began to envelop the key city of Chattanooga. Bragg, in fear of being flanked, retreated into Georgia. Rosecrans seized the strategic rail center, then started in quest of Bragg’s army.

This brought on the desperate battle of Chickamauga (September 19-20). On the first day Bragg attacked but failed to break Rosecrans’s line. That night Gen. James Longstreet arrived from Lee’s army with fresh Confederate troops. Bragg renewed the attack the following morning. After several hours of intense fighting, the Confederates pierced the Federal lines. Rosecrans’s right flank, and the general himself, retreated in disorder to Chattanooga. But the Federal left held fast until darkness ended the conflict.

Confederate troops at Chickamauga tried desperately to rout the Federal army, but a determined stand by blueclad soldiers under Virginia-born George H. Thomas, the “Rock of Chickamauga,” prevented a complete collapse.

George H. Thomas.

In the two-day battle of Chickamauga, 35,000 men were killed, wounded, or captured. Bragg’s victory, while complete, became hollowwhen he failed to pursue the broken and beaten Federal army. The Federals were able to reorganize and prepare for a new campaign. Grant soon arrived at Chattanooga and took command of all Federal operations in the West. Bragg’s Confederates took positions on the major hills overlooking the city.

From November 23 to 25, the Federals made a series of attacks on Lookout Mountain, Orchard Knob, and Missionary Ridge. In the end, and for the first time, Southern soldiers ran in mass panic from a field. Half-starved Confederate soldiers continued their retreat all the way to Dalton, Ga. Bragg was finished as a field commander.

On the night of March 8, dapper John S. Mosby and his Confederate partisan rangers attacked Fairfax Court House, Va., only a few miles from Washington. The most important item bagged at Fairfax by the Confederates was the garrison commander, Gen. Edwin Stoughton, who was captured while asleep in bed.

John S. Mosby (the hatless figure fourth from left), pictured with some of his partisan rangers. The “Gray Ghost” weighed only 125 pounds.

From April 29 until May 8, Federal cavalry under Gen. George Stoneman cut a swath of destruction through Virginia almost to Richmond itself. Yet Stoneman’s absence from the Army of the Potomac helped Lee win perhaps his greatest victory. Late in April, Gen. Joseph Hooker started southward toward Richmond with an army of 133,000 soldiers. His line of march was through a mass of thick woods and dense undergrowth known as the Wilderness. There “Stonewall” Jackson delivered a surprise flank attack at a road junction called Chancellorsville.

Intense fighting lasted three days and extended from Chancellorsville ten miles eastward to Fredericksburg. Hooker suffered 17,000 losses. Soon the defeated Federal army was limping up familiar roads toward Washington.

Over 12,800 Confederate soldiers were killed or wounded at Chancellorsville. Yet the hardest blow of all was the death of Jackson. Accidentally shot by his own men, Jackson died of complications on May 10.

Lee’s army soon started on a second invasion of the North. Four reasons prompted this thrust: (1) Southern hopes that Lee might capturean important city such as Harrisburg, Baltimore or Washington, relieve the pressure on Vicksburg in the West, and possibly effect a victorious peace; (2) the hope too that a great victory on Northern soil might cause England to offer mediation in the war; (3) the desire to transfer the war from ravaged Virginia; and (4) the need to acquire supplies for Confederate soldiers.

With his army at a peak strength of 75,000 men, Lee crossed the Potomac in mid-June. Lincoln soon replaced Hooker with a Pennsylvanian, Gen. George G. Meade. By the end of June the 90,000-man Federal army was moving northward from Maryland into Pennsylvania in search of the Confederates, who had turned southward in search of supplies. Advancing from opposite directions, these two mighty forces collided at Gettysburg, Pa.

For three days (July 1-3) Lee delivered one attack after another. The climax of the battle came on the afternoon of July 3. Gen. George Pickett’s 15,000 men charged across an open field against the center of the Federal line. Pickett’s assault failed, with 50% casualties, and the battle ended with this attack. Over 43,000 men were killed, wounded, or listed as missing at Gettysburg. The Army of the Potomac had won its first clear-cut victory. Coupled with the fall of Vicksburg on July 4, this defeat brought Southern morale to a new low.

Lee retreated to Virginia. Both armies took strong positions on opposite banks of the Rapidan River and awaited possible movements by one another. Cavalry engagements and infantry skirmishes occupied most of the remainder of that year.

George G. Meade (4th from right) and some of his officers at their winter headquarters in Virginia. Note the barrel used as a chimney for one of the winter huts.

In 1864 the Federal war machine moved into high gear. The two men most responsible were Abraham Lincoln, who on March 9 named U. S. Grant as supreme army commander, and Grant himself, who made immediate preparations to strangle the Confederacy.

Grant’s master plan was simple: Attack. Federal forces would attack simultaneously at all points and apply constant pressure on the ever-weakening Southern states. The Confederacy, Grant reasoned, could not withstand such a continual onslaught.

Grant went east to campaign with the Army of the Potomac. Gen. Sherman took over command of the western forces. Federal drives in both East and West would henceforth proceed from one consistent strategy. While these two generals mapped out details for their joint offensive, a third Federal force met defeat in one of the fiascos of the war. On March 14 Gen. Nathaniel Banks, 40,000 troops, and 50 ships started up the Red River. Their objectives were to gain control of Louisiana and East Texas, to counteract threats from the Emperor Maximilian in Mexico, and to seize large stores of cotton. The expedition was a failure in every respect.

To make matters worse for the North, Nathan Bedford Forrest and his Confederate horsemen stormed Fort Pillow, Tenn., on April 12 and killed most of the Negro troops garrisoned there. Sherman dispatched all available cavalry to rid the West once and for all of the elusive Forrest. The result was the June 10 battle of Brice’s Cross Roads, Miss., in which Forrest won his greatest victory.

In spite of the activities of such Confederate horsemen as Forrest, Morgan, Mosby, and Stuart, Grant and Sherman went ahead with their grand offensives. The main Confederate defenses extended from northwestern Georgia along the eastern edge of the mountains to Winchester, Va., thence southeastward across Virginia through Fredericksburg and Richmond. Early in May both Grant and Sherman struck southward. Sherman, leading over 100,000 veterans, marched toward the key city of Atlanta. Grant, with an Army of the Potomac that numbered 118,000 men, retraced Hooker’s steps through the Wilderness in a new “On to Richmond” drive.

The going proved rough and costly for both generals. Opposing Sherman were Gen. Joseph Johnston and a reorganized Army of Tennessee. Johnston realized that his 53,000 ill-equipped soldiers were no match for a stand-up fight with Sherman’s massed divisions. The Confederate commander therefore resorted to delaying actions and defensive battles while Sherman tried flanking movements and sharp probes in an effort to trap Johnston.

In the Federal siege lines around Atlanta, “Cump” Sherman (legs crossed, leaning against a Parrott gun) and his aides posed for this photograph.

By mid-July Sherman had forced Johnston into the trenches of Atlanta. On July 18 President Davis replaced Johnston with Gen. John B. Hood, who, although minus a leg and the use of an arm, had a reputation as a hard fighter. Hood quickly lived up to that reputation. On July 20, two days after assuming command, Hood attacked Sherman along Peachtree Creek. The Southerners were repulsed. Two days later Hood attacked again in East Atlanta. Again the Confederates were hurled back with heavy losses. Hood then strengthened his defenses around Atlanta, and Sherman tightened his siege.

Meanwhile, Grant in Virginia had met with a similar stalemate—and at a more terrible cost. Grant encountered no opposition as he started through the Wilderness toward Lee and Richmond. But as the Federal army crept through the tangled undergrowth, Lee’s 60,000 Confederates struck suddenly and viciously. Two days (May 5-6) of savage fighting occurred in which Grant met a bloody checkmate.

Yet Grant did not retreat as other generals before him had done. Instead he unfolded his new and radical policy of hammering at Lee while edging closer to Richmond. Grant knew that Lee could not replace his losses, for Southern manpower was all but exhausted. On the other hand, Grant could draw on the vast manpower of the north. With Grant the Civil War was to be a fight to the finish.

Bitter fighting in the “Bloody Angle” at Spotsylvania was typical of the action in the six-week Wilderness Campaign of 1864.

The Army of the Potomac pushed stubbornly toward Richmond. Lee tried desperately to block it, winning victories at Spotsylvania (May 12), North Anna (May 23), and Cold Harbor (June 3). In the last-named engagement, over 7,200 Federals fell in less than twenty minutes of fighting. While Lee contested Grant’s moves, another and makeshift Confederate force under Gen. Beauregard repelled a Federal stab (May 15-19) at Richmond and Petersburg by Gen. Benjamin Butler.

Grant recognized that he could not take Richmond by direct approach. He shifted his army around the city and moved on Petersburg, a rail junction and important link in the Confederate chain of defenses. Lee at first was unaware of Grant’s plans to attack Petersburg. But Beauregard successfully beat back the initial Federal thrusts, thus forcing Grant to begin what became a nine-month siege of Petersburg. Many probes were made of Lee’s defenses. The most spectacular of these occurred on July 30 and is known as the Battle of the Crater.

Coal miners in the 48th Pennsylvania Infantry dug a long tunnel under the Confederate earthworks. Their plan was to explode 8,000 pounds of black powder, blast a mighty gap in the Confederate defenses, and then to use the resulting confusion for a large-scale Federal attack.

The explosion and confusion came off as planned. But the Federal assault failed. Grant resumed his tight siege. In the fighting from the Wilderness to Petersburg, the Federal army had suffered 60,000 casualties—more men than were in Lee’s whole army. Yet Grant knew, as did many Confederates, that Lee was now pinned down. The well-equipped and well-fed Federal army could afford to wait.

The July 30, 1864, mine explosion, as seen from the Federal lines. Newspaper correspondent Alfred A. Waud made this sketch.

Other related actions took place in Virginia. On May 11, Gen. Philip Sheridan’s cavalry clashed with “Jeb” Stuart’s horsemen a few miles north of Richmond at Yellow Tavern. Sheridan’s men were driven back. Yet this battle cost the Confederacy the colorful Stuart, mortally wounded while leading his troops.

On May 15 the Confederates scored another victory in the Shenandoah Valley. Gen. Franz Siegel and 8,000 Federal horsemen advanced up the Valley as far as New Market. There they encountered a hastily assembled Confederate force less than half the size of Siegel’s division. The highlight of the battle was the successful charge of 225 youthful cadets from the Virginia Military Institute. Siegel’s force suffered an embarrassing defeat and fled down the Valley.

Both Lee and Grant recognized the importance of control of the Valley. Yet neither could afford to dislodge his army from Petersburg. Grant therefore organized a separate force under Gen. David Hunterwith orders to move into the Valley and “to eat up Virginia clear and clean as far as [you] can go, so that crows flying over it for the balance of this season will have to carry their provender with them.”

To oppose Hunter, Lee rushed westward a small Confederate army under Gen. Jubal Early. Hunter burned and looted his way as far as Lynchburg before Early sent them scurrying over the mountains. Early then decided to make an invasion of his own. Sweeping down the Valley, he crossed the Potomac and moved to the outskirts of Washington. Yet “Jubal’s Raid” (July 4-20) failed when Early decided not to attack the Northern capital.

Grant resolved that no such threat to Washington would again occur. He dispatched a large Federal army under Sheridan into the Valley. Early, woefully outnumbered, nevertheless put up stiff resistance. Only after victories at Winchester (September 19), Fisher’s Hill (September 22), and Cedar Creek (October 19) could Sheridan declare the Valley once and for all cleared of Confederate forces.

In Georgia at this time, Sherman was also meeting with success. Federal victories at Ezra Church (July 28) and Jonesboro (August 31-September 1) compelled Hood to evacuate Atlanta. Sherman occupied the city on September 2. The fall of Atlanta was a valuable assist to Lincoln in his reelection to the presidency that autumn.

The railroad yards and ruins of Atlanta, photographed shortly after the fall of the city.

Sherman felt strongly that the war had to be carried to the Southern people themselves before the Confederacy would collapse. He therefore laid plans to slash through the very heart of the South. The campaign that followed is known as the “March to the Sea.”

Sherman first sent part of his army under Gen. Thomas back to Tennessee to watch Hood, whose Confederates had moved northward in an effort to force Sherman from Georgia. With Thomas blocking Hood, Sherman on November 16 left Atlanta in flames and started toward the Georgia coast with 68,000 veteran fighters. Sherman met little opposition during his advance, and on December 22 he telegraphed Lincoln: “I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with 150 heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about 25,000 bales of cotton.”

Kentucky-born John B. Hood first gained fame as commander of a Texas infantry brigade. He was an excellent division or corps commander, but unsuited for the leadership of an army.

Meanwhile, Hood’s strategy in Tennessee backfired tragically. At Franklin, Tenn., on November 30, Hood hurled his army against a part of Thomas’s force under Gen. John M. Schofield. Hood’s assaults cost 6,000 Confederates, including 5 generals and 53 regimental colonels. Two weeks later, Thomas’s troops all but destroyed Hood’s army when the Confederates made repeated assaults at Nashville.

Sherman’s strategy had cut the Confederacy in two. Although Grant was then no closer to Richmond than McClellan had been two years earlier, all that remained of the Confederacy were Virginia, the Carolinas, and isolated areas of the Trans-Mississippi.

Fort Darling, a Confederate defense overlooking the James River at Drewry’s Bluff. In the left foreground can be seen one of the bombproof shelters used by defenders.

After a month’s rest at Savannah, Sherman on February 1 started northward to strike through the Carolinas and join Grant in Virginia for the final blow against Lee. Sherman’s major opposition was the remnant of the Army of Tennessee, which had been placed again under the command of Gen. Joseph Johnston.

Johnston could offer but feeble resistance to Sherman. Federal troops occupied Charleston and were in Columbia when the latter was gutted by fire. On March 10 Sherman’s forces seized Fayetteville in central North Carolina, brushed back part of Johnston’s army six days later at Averysboro, and successfully withstood a Confederate attack at Bentonville (March 19-21).

Meanwhile, Grant had been mustering his forces for a grand drive against Lee’s weak defenses. Throughout the long siege of Petersburg Grant had slowly extended his lines farther to the south and west. Lee had no choice but to stretch his own meager defenses accordingly. Soon the Southern defenses were dangerously overextended.

This was the situation which Grant had sought. On April 1 he attacked Lee at Five Forks, sixteen miles southwest of Petersburg. The Confederate line bent and then broke. That night the Army of Northern Virginia abandoned the Richmond-Petersburg trenches and slowly moved westward in retreat. At the same time President Davis transferred the Confederate capital to Danville near the North Carolina border, Lee’s major hope was to rendezvous at Danville with Johnston’s army, then falling back in the face of Sherman’s advance. Together, Lee speculated, he and Johnston might be able to defeat first Sherman and then Grant.

This April, 1865, photograph shows the gutted business district of Richmond. The prominent building in the center was the Confederate capitol.

The dream quickly faded. As Lee’s army plodded westward, Grant’s divisions snipped at its heels at Amelia Court House (April4-5), Sailor’s Creek (April 6), High Bridge (April 7), and Farmville (April 7). On April 8, near Appomattox Court House, Lee found the way blocked by massed infantry and cavalry under Sheridan. The Confederates were surrounded. On Palm Sunday, April 9, Lee surrendered to Grant. Three days later, 28,000 Confederates in the Army of Northern Virginia stacked their muskets before silent lines of Federal soldiers.

Lee’s surrender left Johnston with no place to go. On April 26, near Durham, N. C., the Army of Tennessee laid down its arms before Sherman’s forces. With the surrender of isolated forces in the Trans-Mississippi West on May 4, 11, and 26, the most costly war in American history came to an end.

The imposing farmhouse of Wilmer McLean was the site of Lee’s surrender to Grant.

In contrast, Johnston surrendered to Sherman in the small frame cottage of James Bennett.

THE CIVIL WAR1861-1865Compiled and drawn by Caroline Gray HolcombSEPT. 1963High-resolution Map

THE CIVIL WAR1861-1865Compiled and drawn by Caroline Gray HolcombSEPT. 1963

High-resolution Map

(Students should also consult bibliographies in the above works for additional readings.)

Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery is one of the larger depositories for Confederate dead. This 1865 photograph shows the wooden slabs then used for headstones.

More Americans died in the Civil War than in all of America’s other wars combined. From the French and Indian wars of the 1750’s through the hostilities in Korea in the 1950’s (with the exception of the Civil War), 606,000 American soldiers died in the line of duty. In the Civil War alone, over 618,000 men perished in four years of fighting.

The North lost 360,022 soldiers. Of that number, 67,058 were killed in action, while 43,012 later died of battle wounds. A total of 275,175 Federals received wounds while fighting.

Accurate records do not exist for the Confederate side. The total number of Southern soldiers killed was approximately 258,000. About 94,000 were killed or fatally wounded in battle. No figures exist for the number of Confederates who were wounded in action.

Lord Alfred Tennyson’s famous poem, “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” tells of the assault of a British cavalry unit in the Crimean War. In its charge the Light Brigade sustained 37% losses. Yet at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863, the 1st Minnesota Infantry lost 82% of its strength in that day’s fighting. At Antietam the 1st Texas suffered 82% casualties in a few hours of combat. The 27th Tennessee had 54% losses at Shiloh; six months later, the same regiment lost 53% of its remaining strength at the battle of Perryville. In all during the Civil War, no less than 63 Federal and 52 Confederate regiments lost over 50% of their strengthin a single engagement.

After a battle it was not always possible to bury the dead. Here bleached bones mark the spots where soldiers died in the fighting at Gaines’s Mill.

Other statistics of the Civil War give an equally horrible picture. Over 400,000 soldiers died of sickness and disease. For every man killed in battle, two men died behind the lines from such maladies as smallpox, measles, pneumonia, and intestinal disorders. It is a sad fact that almost as many Federal soldiers (57,265) died of dysentery and diarrhea as were killed outright on the battlefield (67,058). Since conditions in Confederate armies were worse, the number of Southern deaths from sickness was probably higher.

Field hospitals, such as this one established near Mechanicsville in June, 1862, could usually be found near the battlefield. The man in the center foreground is a doctor examining the leg wound of a soldier.

Naval affairs were among the most critical problems facing each side in 1861. The Federal navy was woefully small and widely scattered. Moreover, the Confederate seacoast extended 3,500 miles from the Chesapeake Bay to the Mexican border. It contained hundreds of inlets, bays, and river openings. Not even a drastically enlarged Federal navy could patrol so vast a region.

Lincoln and his Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, soon devised an effective plan. The North would weaken the Confederacy by blockading its chief ports—Norfolk, New Bern, Wilmington, Beaufort, Charleston, Savannah, Pensacola, Mobile, New Orleans, and Galveston.

A former Hartford, Conn., newspaper editor, Sec. of the Navy Gideon Welles was one of the more industrious and loyal members of Lincoln’s cabinet.

His Confederate counterpart, Stephen R. Mallory of Florida, was one of only two men who remained in Davis’s cabinet throughout the war.

Lincoln accordingly proclaimed a blockade shortly after war began. Several months passed before Federal Squadrons could begin to enforce this blockade. Yet the Federal ring of ships became increasingly stronger as the war progressed. As a result, Federal forces were able to peck away at Southern coastal defenses.

In 1861 Union amphibious forces captured Fort Hatteras, N. C., and Port Royal, S. C. During the next year Roanoke Island, N. C., New Bern, N. C., Fort Pulaski, Ga., Fort Macon, N. C., New Orleans, La., and Pensacola, Fla., fell into Federal hands in that order. The Confederates rallied in 1863 and managed to hold their remaining coastal works, particularly Charleston, S. C.

Northern fleets continued to apply pressure all along the Southern coast. Two engagements marked the effectiveness of coastal attacks. On August 5, 1864, Admiral David Farragut—the greatest naval figure produced by the war—led his Federal squadron into mine-infested Mobile Bay with the battle cry: “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” Farragut so neutralized this last Confederate port on the Gulf of Mexico that its surrender was an anticlimax. Then, five months later, on January 15, 1865, Federal forces stormed and captured Fort Fisher, N. C., the last great Southern defense on the Atlantic coast.

David G. Farragut’s exploits in the Civil War made him the first man in American naval history elevated to the rank of full admiral.

Federal navies also saw much service on the Mississippi River. A wide assortment of Federal vessels campaigned against such Confederate strongholds as Memphis, Tenn., and Vicksburg, Miss. Some were little more than steamboats converted into warships by means of steel plating and deck guns. Others were sailing craft, with high decks and tall masts. One new type of gunboat made its appearance on the Mississippi: the steel ram. Designed by a civilian engineer, Charles Ellet, Jr., this little ship had great speed and maneuverability. Its principal weapon was a heavy prow, which was used to sink a ship by striking it broadside.

Ellet’s steam rams had no guns and little beauty, but by their speed they opened the Mississippi past Memphis for Federal movements.

The Confederacy was born without a navy. Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory was never able to develop a fleet that could contest the ever-increasing Federal navy. Lack of funds, lack of shipbuilding facilities, and effective Northern diplomacy overseas restricted Confederate efforts to privateers, to blockade-running, and for the most part, to undertakings by individual ships.

Most of the twenty Confederate raiders achieved a measure of fame and success before they were destroyed. For example, the C.S.S.Florida, under Capt. John Newland Maffitt, captured thirty-four ships beforeshe herself was seized in Brazil in 1864. The English-builtAlabama, commanded by Capt. Raphael Semmes, compiled a more remarkable record. In two years on the high seas, theAlabamatook sixty-two prizes. On June 19, 1864, however, this Confederate vessel went to the bottom off the coast of France after an historic duel with the U.S.S.Kearsage. Captain James I. Waddell’s steam raider, theShenandoah, roamed the Pacific Ocean in quest of Federal game. Her crew bagged forty ships, including eight seized two months after the war on land had ended. On November 6, 1865, theShenandoahfurled its Confederate colors in Liverpool, England.

In their famous battle, theAlabama(right) andKearsagecircled and fired for an hour at a range of 900 yards. TheAlabamasank after many direct hits.

The most famous Civil War contest between ships occurred March 9, 1862, in Hampton Roads, Va. The Confederates had raised from the bottom of Norfolk harbor the Federal warship,Merrimac. John Mercer Brooke and John L. Porter had then converted the craft into an ironclad vessel which the Confederates rechristened theVirginia. Sloping iron plates four inches thick protected her decks. The ironclad carried a battering ram weighing 1,500 pounds, plus ten guns. On March 8 theVirginiasteamed into Hampton Roads. She easily destroyed two wooden Federal warships and ran a third aground.

TheMonitor(left) was the creation of Swedish-born John Ericsson, who had difficulty in selling his strange vessel to the Federal navy. The re-christenedMerrimac(right) carried more guns, but so difficult was the ship to maneuver that it required 30 minutes to turn it around.

On the following day, however, the North came forward with a revolutionary weapon of its own. This was theMonitor, so weird-lookinga craft that sailors referred to it as a “tin can on a shingle.” The three-hour battle between theMonitorand theVirginiawas a draw. Neither ship could pierce the plating of the other. Yet this indecisive battle caused a revolution in naval craft, for it foreshadowed the day when wooden ships would be obsolete.

Two months later, trapped in Hampton Roads, theVirginiawas run aground and destroyed. In December, 1862, theMonitorwent down in an Atlantic storm near the North Carolina coast.

The Confederates made several notable innovations in the field of naval warfare.

One was an ironclad ram that had the appearance and characteristics of a monster. This was theArkansas, which the Confederates somehow put together in the summer of 1862 to combat Federal ships on the Mississippi. Constructed of wood, railroad rails, wire, and bits and pieces of iron collected from all over the South, theArkansasscattered several Federal gunboats, created panic on the Mississippi, and managed to survive a heavy Federal bombardment near Vicksburg.

At Baton Rouge, however, the ironclad’s engines failed. The ram’s commander, Lieutenant H. K. Stevens, ordered the helpless ship destroyed. TheArkansasenjoyed only one month of action; yet Federal Admiral David Farragut called the end of theArkansas“one of the happiest moments of my life.”

The Confederacy also had the first submarine of modern design. Built in 1863 at Mobile, theH. L. Hunleywas named for its inventor. In the process of its trial runs, the thirty-five-foot vessel sank four times and drowned as many crews. Nevertheless, theHunleywas borne overland to Charleston, S. C., to campaign against a fleet of Federal blockaders. On the night of February 17, 1864, the little submarine torpedoed and sank the Federal warship,Housatonic. But theHunleyand its fifth crew of seven men perished in the explosion.

This Official U. S. Navy photograph shows the Confederate torpedo boatDavidaground in Charleston harbor. Semi-submersible, theDavidis often called a submarine.

In addition to the submarine, Confederates also developed the water mine and the torpedo boat. The latter was a small vessel, propelled by a steam engine. It drifted along the surface of the water and attacked enemy ships with a torpedo suspended from a long spar. The first of these torpedo boats, theDavid, appeared inCharleston harbor early in October, 1863, and seriously damaged the blockading warship,New Ironsides.

But such innovations could not overcome the constant and painful pressure of large Federal fleets all along the Southern coast. So vital were the navies to the Northern war effort, James G. Randall wrote, “that Union victory without the naval contribution seems inconceivable.”

Young boys known as “Powder Monkeys” served on almost every warship in the Civil War. This little sailor stands on the deck of the U.S.S.New Hampshire.

What the nations of Europe did—or did not do—were matters of constant and vital concern to both North and South during the Civil War. President Davis and other Confederate officials hoped earnestly that England, and possibly France as well, would recognize the independence of the Southern nation and grant it much-needed aid. President Lincoln and the Federal authorities were just as desirous that European powers should not intervene in the American struggle. Thus, starting in 1861, both sides began a determined tug-of-war to woo the statesmen of Europe to their respective cause.

James Mason and John Slidell were both former U. S. senators. Mason chewed tobacco arduously and could be crude in manner.

Slidell spoke French fluently and had married into Louisiana Creole aristocracy.

The first major international incident occurred in the autumn of 1861 and is known as the “Trent Affair”. Two Confederate commissioners, James M. Mason and John Slidell, were sent to plead the South’s cause at London and Paris, respectively. The agents were en route on the British mail steamer,Trent, when, on November 8, a Federal warship, theSan Jacinto, stopped the British vessel on the high seas. Mason and Slidell were removed from theTrentand imprisoned at Fort Warren in Boston.

Northern officials were unprepared for the storm of indignation that came from England. TheSan Jacinto, it was pointed out, had violated English neutrality by intercepting theTrent. Equally outrageous to the British was the fact that theSan Jacintohad fired two warning shots across theTrent’sbow. This was equivalent to firing at the British flag; as such, it constituted an act of war against England.

Fortunately for the North, Lincoln and his Secretary of State, William H. Seward, were able to resolve the incident with a minimum of ill feelings. Apologies were dispatched to London. Mason and Slidell were released from prison and allowed to continue their overseas journey without further Federal interference.

Only five feet, four inches tall, William H. Seward nevertheless became the most powerful and respected member of Lincoln’s cabinet.

In addition to Mason and Slidell, the Confederacy utilized a number of foreign agents. Most of these commissioners pursued a policy of “King Cotton diplomacy”—that is, promising England and France large quantities of the popular staple in return for official recognition of, and active aid to, the Southern Confederacy. When the demand for American cotton dropped sharply in Europe, this approach failed.

Southern agents Henry Hotze, Edwin DeLeon, and James D. Bulloch then tried new strategy. They wrote extensively about the close ties in business and society between the English aristocracy and the great Southern planters, a lower tariff on foreign-made goods if the Confederacy triumphed in the war, and a more active European participation in American commerce.

The nations in Europe had other reasons for wishing to assist the Southern cause. The Federal blockade prevented English goods from reaching eager Southern markets. Many persons abroad looked on the Civil War as a struggle of the South for the right of self-determination. On the other hand, the British middle and working classes detested slavery. After Lincoln’s Emancipation, most Europeans believed that the North was waging a great struggle for freedom.

Judah P. Benjamin of Louisiana served successively as Confederate Attorney General, Secretary of War, and Secretary of State.

Although the South tried desperately to gain much-needed European support, it was largely unsuccessful. British and French shipbuilders did sell several vessels to the Confederate government. Yet thisaid dropped to a thin trickle following Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Spectacular Federal victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg forever doomed the South’s hopes for foreign aid.

Charles Francis Adams was the son of the 6th President of the U. S. In 1860 his affiliation with the Whig Party prevented him from receiving a post in Lincoln’s cabinet.

The one man who unquestionably did most to keep Europe neutral during the Civil War was the American minister to England, Charles Francis Adams. He skillfully thwarted the efforts of Confederate emissaries, expounded the North’s cause with vigor and tact, and let it be known at opportune times that assistance to the Confederacy could occasion war with the United States. Adams fought a host of Southern agents around the diplomatic tables of Europe. “When all the facts are considered,” one author has stated, “it must be admitted that the character and ability of Charles Francis Adams were as valuable as Union military victories in contributing to ultimate success in the war.”

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