Campaigns of the Civil War

THE object of the general work here undertaken is to “ bring together for the first time a full and authoritative military history of the suppression of the rebellion.” But the work, at the non-existence of which after the lapse of twenty years surprise is expressed, is elsewhere described as “a strong, vivid, concise, but truly proportioned story of the great salient events.” Of these two definitions, the latter is the one which we should be inclined to adopt for the valuable and undoubtedly reliable volume with which Mr. Nicolay has opened the series.¹ That the private secretary of the beloved and martyred Lincoln should relate that which he undertakes to tell invariably in the vein of the dispassionate chronicler of events — the historian of the future — is hardly to be expected. But that his work supplies a great want and contributes remarkably to a clear understanding of the situation before and during the first scenes of actual warfare there can be no doubt.

In the first three chapters, the manner in which “ the local insurrections of the cotton States became an organized rebellion against the government of the Union ” is clearly and concisely set forth, and the opening scene of the war in Charleston Harbor is vividly described. That, as above intimated, the narrator’s tone is not that of the dispassionate historian of the future is not matter for captious criticism, as such is by no means the rôle which he assumes, but he should, we think, occasionally bear in mind the familiar distich, —

Had the great slave empire established itself, few would now describe the proceedings of the South Carolina commissioners as characterized by “ the decorum and mock solemnity with which children play at kings and queens.” Even the beginnings of our own successful rebellion against the mother country were undoubtedly stigmatized by as contemptuous an epithet as “ a miserable farce of conspiracy ” by those who refused to address “ Mr. Washington ” by the title of General. Moreover, at the present day, few will assert that the slave-holders’ rebellion was without “good” in the sense of “ sufficient ” cause, when considered from the standpoint of those who, in defense of their institution, were forced into the declaration, “ Evil, be thou my good.” That no cause existed so long as the North opposed only the extension of slavery, Lincoln’s own forcible words showed to be a fallacy, when he said, “ The Union cannot permanently endure half slave and half free.” Our author’s tone in this regard rather resembles that in which at that time we all indulged, than that of to-day.

In the second chapter the imbecility and helplessness of Buchanan amid the traitors surrounding him are well portrayed, but we confess to a smile at the idea of Jeff Davis as the wily Vivien, and presumably in the petticoats “ of the period,” practicing the charm “ of woven paces and of waving hands ” around such a Merlin as the Old Public Functionary.

In so detailed a description of the reduction of Sumter as is here given, it would seem that the only loss of life which occurred — that by the final salute to the flag — should not have been ignored, nor, in describing Lincoln’s journey to Washington, the facts, whatever they may have been, which originated the stories of the passage through Baltimore in disguise. In our author’s eulogy on the character of his chief, he has our hearty assent; and that even the historian of the future will agree with us in finding in his career “ much to praise, little to be forgiven,” is also our belief. Whether the accusation of personal ugliness can be regarded as “ an utter mistake ” is a point upon which the opinions of experts may differ. The passage of our troops through Baltimore and the march of the New York Seventh to Washington are forcibly described, but in our author’s estimate of the significance of the death of Ellsworth we can scarcely agree. “ A sensational climax, of deeper import than Sumter and Baltimore,” it does not seem to us. Had any doubts been left as to the existence of the elements of a civil war, the shot fired by Jackson would have hardly removed them. Ellsworth, having captured a town in the enemy’s country, pulled down their flag with his own hand, where later in the war he would unquestionably have detailed an enlisted man. He was shot by a man in whose eyes, rightly or wrongly, that emblem was sacred. The act was murder ; but had the circumstances been reversed, and a rebel officer been sacrificed while pulling down the stars and stripes in captured Washington, the “demon of a hellish purpose” might not have been so evident as prompter of the shot.

In the chapter devoted to Missouri we have a forcible and clear setting forth of Governor Jackson’s complicity with rebellion, his endeavors to carry the State into the Confederacy, his discomfiture by Blair and Lyon, the capture of the rebel Camp Jackson by the regulars and Home Guards, the occupation of Jefferson City, and the “ battle” of Boonville, — a battle which with its casualty returns, stated at two killed on the one side and fifteen on the other, yet marked the salvation of a State to the Union, and did more to hasten the downfall of rebellion than did the “ slaughter-fields ” (to use the German expression) of Fredericksburg or the Wilderness.

The successful attempt of the Unionists of Western Virginia to “ secede from secession ” is the subject of the twelfth chapter. Here McClellan first enters upon the stage, and his own and Rosecrans’ Rich Mountain campaign is described in detail, illustrated with a map, and with its consequences well summed up by the statement that “ this petty skirmish with three hundred rebels and this rout of a little rear-guard closed a campaign, dispersed a rebel army, recovered a disputed State, permanently pushed back the military frontier. They enabled McClellan to send a laconic telegram, which gave such a general impression of professional skill and achievement as to make him the hero of the hour, and which started a train of circumstances that, without further victories, made him general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States.” This telegram is added in a foot-note, and there are few but would imagine from its veni, vidi, vici ring that its author’s impetuous ardor might indeed need restraint, but assuredly never that his inaction would provoke even from the patient Lincoln the quaint accusation that he had “ got the slows.”

Patterson’s campaign, with its disastrous failure to detain Johnston from the field of Bull Run, comes next, and is well described. With all the excuses that can be offered, there seems now no avoidance of the conclusion that Patterson failed in that “ stomach for a fight,” in the stead of which no other qualifications for command can ever serve. That he was dissuaded by his subordinates, knowing well the expectations and indeed the orders of his superior, General Scott, may for a man of sixty-nine be a palliation, but hardly anything more.

Manassas and Bull Run are the closing scenes of so much of the civil war as is regarded as included under the title of The Outbreak of Rebellion, —to which the first volume of this series is devoted. Although this, the initial combat of the war, has caused a greater effusion of ink and been the subject of more descriptions than any other, we can safely say that we have seen none wherein its true proportions, significance, and characteristics are made so clearly to appear as in that here presented. Of its accuracy of military detail we do not undertake to judge, but the impression most forcibly left upon the reader’s mind may be stated to be one of admiration that two armies (if they may be so styled), so utterly ignorant of their business, should have stood up to their work so long and manfully before the panic, which is the inevitable termination of such conflicts, seized either party. Although this panic, which, after the engagement had lasted so long as it did, threatened both combatants, first obtained headway and mastery in the Union ranks, yet how little there was to choose between the two armies in point of value as fighting machines Johnston’s frank confession abundantly shows. " The Confederate army,” he says, “ was more disorganized by victory than that of the United States by defeat. Many left the army not to return ; some hastened home to exhibit their trophies; others left their regiments without ceremony to attend to wounded friends, accompanying them to hospitals in distant towns. Exaggerated ideas of victory prevailing among our troops cost us more men than the Federal army lost by defeat.”

But although we see now its want of significance as indicating any essential difference in the fighting qualities of the soldiers of the two armies, it is not surprising that the fact that the Union forces were routed in their first battle which deserved the name should have been regarded in Europe as a sure precursor of our downfall. Powers with whom the wish was father to the thought were swift to decide that the great republic’s career among nations was ended, and the hour even then at hand when “ o’er its quenched greatness must the shroud be drawn.” Soon, however, as was afterwards generously confessed, their “ shallow judgment they had cause to rue,” until finally, —

In that admiration those who follow the changing fortunes of the arena through the coming volumes of this series will assuredly coincide, and, as Americans, feel an equal pride in the courage, skill, and manhood displayed on both sides.

In the preliminary chapter of the second volume² appear the military mise en scène and battles of more or less importance previous to the reduction of Fort Henry. Wilson’s Creek, Lexington, Pea Ridge, Belmont, are associated with a roll of names then of about equal significance in our ears, but whose difference of ring at the present day may almost be compared to that between gold, silver, and the baser metals. We find Fremont directing and reprimanding Grant; Sigel bringing his artillery into line and deciding the battle of Pea Ridge, but even then evincing that tardiness in obeying orders to march which distinguished him in Virginian campaigns ; Curtis, Ashboth, McClernand, Carr, and a host of names, then famous, now almost forgotten. General Grant’s first actual fighting appears to have been against Pillow at Belmont, which is described as “ an engagement in the simplest form : two forces, equal in number, encountered in parallel lines.” “ At length Pillow gave way,” and his line once broken was unable to rally.”

For his first proposal to attack Fort Henry and break the line from Columbus to Bowling Green, chosen to bar access from the North and as a base for invasion, Grant appears to have been snubbed, as though proposing a military blunder. But on his returning to the charge, backed by Commodore Foote of the gunboat fleet, Halleck gave way, and issued the desired orders. The result amply justified Grant and Foote. Fort Henry was captured with no infantry fighting whatever, falling before the bombardment of the fleet alone.

Fort Donelson, however, proved a very different nut to crack. The lines for in fantry defense were what were afterwards called rifle-pits, drawn with great skill around the fort, itself a bastioned earth-work, and defended eventually by some twenty thousand men. Against these behind their intrenchments were brought about fifteen thousand Union troops, some comparatively “ seasoned,” other regiments so freshly formed “ that they had hardly changed their civil garb for soldier’s uniform before they were hurried to the front,” — into the rough school of bivouac and battle. Without shelter-tents, camp-fires, or supplies (for the fleet had not yet arrived), Grant’s fifteen thousand bivouacked in line of battle, and all the next day made fierce and pertinacious though unsuccessful assaults on the enemy’s intrenched lines. That no horror of the battle-field might be wanting, the wounded were in many cases burned to death by the ignition of leaves and underbrush, although some were saved by the enemy, who sprang over their parapets, after our repulse, for that purpose.

But within the fort there was divided counsel among the hostile chiefs, which division, it cannot be doubted, contributed greatly to their downfall. A determined sortie was at length made, and the way was cleared for a retreat; but the ground was abandoned, and the enemy retired again within his works. Floyd, Pillow, and Buckner seem then to have passed the command from hand to hand, like a lighted shell which each feared to retain, until finally the lastnamed officer, deciding to risk the explosion, gave orders for surrender, and the two former escaped. But Buckners’ bugler, who went out with a proposal for an armistice and commissioners, returned with Grant’s “ unconditional surrender” reply and counter-proposal “ to move on your works immediately.” These “ unchivalrous and ungenerous terms,” as he styled them, Buckner was fain to accept, consoling himself with an allusion to “ yesterday’s brilliant Confederate success ” and to Grant’s “ overwhelming forces.” This “success,” by the way, which undoubtedly was one at the time, being telegraphed to Nashville as a “ glorious victory,” but immediately followed by a surrender, caused such a popular excitement that a deputation actually demanded Johnston’s removal. They were, however, properly answered by Jeff Davis’s declining to make a scapegoat of their best general.

The campaign of New Madrid and Island No. 10, and the victory of fleet and army combined, form the subject of the next chapter.

“ The gathering of the forces,” Union and Confederate, previous to the battle of Shiloh comes next in order. Corinth was now seen to be a strategic point of greatest value to the Confederacy ; and that Grant’s Fort Donelson army should move up the Tennessee, and destroy railroad connections here and at Jackson and Humboldt, without bringing on a general engagement, was Halleck’s original programme. But before issuing the order, he seems to have been led by some anonymous letter, and, so far as appears, without any sufficient cause, to complain of Grant to McClellan in such terms as to elicit from the latter a dispatch authorizing the former’s arrest and the placing of C. F. Smith in command. The latter step only was taken, Smith being given command of the expedition, while Grant was ordered to remain in Fort Henry. He was, however, it is said, soon fully exonerated and reinstated in command ; but it nowhere appears, and it would be interesting to know, upon what charges and evidence, beyond those of an anonymous letter, this action against him was taken. In a fleet of eighty steamboats, each with its pillar of smoke by day and of fire by night, the army then commenced its ascent of the winding Tennessee, though to what promised land these cloudy and fiery columns were guiding them seemed yet uncertain.

As soon as it became evident that the programme must be changed from a hurried dash by a flying column to a struggle between armies, Pittsburg Landing was selected as the point of assembly and base from which the “ on to Corinth ” march should be made, when Grant should be joined by Buell. Before this happened, however, Johnston had joined Beauregard ; the Confederacy were straining every nerve to strengthen his hands for the impending shock of battle, and Lee was urging him to strike before Buell should arrive. And such was his expressed intention, but “ he determined to continue organizing and waiting for Van Dorn as long as that would be safe.” Whether Bragg’s counsel of an attack while our troops were beginning to land was not after all that of wisdom may be a question. Beauregard forbade this, preferring, as he wrote, the “ defensive-offensive ; ” from his use of which term it can hardly surprise us that even after the general advance had commenced he was for abandoning the expedition as a failure, and marching the troops back to Corinth. Johnston, however, took no such counsel as this, but ordered the troops to bivouac and to attack at daylight. The advance had been as yet unsuspected in our lines, and the surprise thought impossible by Beauregard took place on Sunday morning. Of a general attack Grant had on Saturday telegraphed that he had not “the faintest idea.” Our cavalry was shifting camps, and Sherman had just then none to send out to investigate the report that infantry had been seen by the picket line; where, also, as later at Chancellorsville, a sudden and significant charge of rabbits and squirrels had been sustained. On Sunday morning, then, at daylight, the general advance began. Through the swaying, confused, and desperate fighting which filled the long hours until nightfall we can make no attempt to follow our author; suffice it to say that, although not routed, our army was driven through its camps, and our lines were drifting back towards the landing when Buell’s leading brigade pushed up through a mob of fugitives from the field, and went to the support of the frowning line of artillery which held the enemy in check. But the day’s battle was already over. A Confederate success had been gained, but want of discipline prevented its improvement. According to Beauregard, the temptation of rest in the captured camps in their rear was too strong, and the Confederates failed to hold the ground so hardly won. Then they had lost their commander-in-chief, who fell by a shot to which, had his troops been what they afterwards became, he would have had no occasion to expose himself. A Tennessee regiment being reported to him as refusing to fight, Johnston put himself at the head of a brigade, and led in person a successful charge, but only to fall himself by a Parthian shot from our retreating lines. Whether this was one of those rare emergencies in which a commander-in-chief is justified in exposing his own life to arouse enthusiasm or to check a panic may be a question which if decided in the negative leaves room only for the Frenchman’s comment upon the Balaklava charge, “ C’est magnifique ; mais ce n’est pas la guerre.” The result of Monday’s battle, with Beauregard in command in place of Johnston, and with Buell’s reinforcements now in the field, can be easily foreseen. Much stubborn fighting was done, and we are told that Grant in his turn personally led a charge that broke the enemy’s line. The battle was over and Beauregard in orderly and well-conducted retreat by three o’clock. There was no pursuit, a fact of sufficient significance. “ The battle,” says our historian at the close of the chapter, “ sobered both armies. The force at Pittsburg Landing saw rudely dashed aside the expectation of speedy entrance into Corinth. The force at Corinth, that marched out to drive Grant into the river, to scatter Buell’s force in detail and return in triumph to Nashville, was back in the old quarters, foiled, disheartened.”

They must be, indeed, joined to their idol who, after the perusal of General Webb’s succinct, graphic, and impartial presentation of facts which constitute the history of this memorable campaign,³ still cling to their belief that General McClellan was prevented only by interference, political animosity, and want of support from bringing the war to a triumphant conclusion, and attaining for himself a place among the great captains of the age. None can doubt that General Webb, himself an actor in the scenes which he records, seeing now the falsity of the impressions with which he was then heartily in accord, justly claims to be doing but the work of an honest historian in “ recording the sad tale of the want of unity, the want of confidence, the want of coöperation, between the administration and the general commanding the army.” There is something almost pathetic in the appeal which personal friendship and loyalty to a once trusted chief seem almost to wring from him, that General McClellan will even now “vindicate his policy,” and escape the inexorable verdict which history seems about to record. Of the value of the services which he contributed to the national cause, and of his eminent fitness for command up to the moment when, in the writer’s expressive phrase, the armies had “ locked horns,” none can speak in higher terms than does our author. The first chapter does full justice to the unexampled success with which he, in the words of our greatest leader, “organized,equipped, and trained with skill that grand body of troops which for four long years confronted the strongest, best appointed, and most confident army in the South.” Out of the collection of enthusiastic citizen soldiers assembling in this “ people’s cause and people’s war,” he realized his expectations “ in the creation of as noble a body of men as could have been raised the world over,” — an army who “ only prayed that they might be ably led against the enemy.”

The succeeding chapter is devoted to Campaign Plans. The preliminary work of organization being complete, the sword forged, welded, drawn, and in the champion’s hand, the nation and the president expected the attack, which came not, until the latter’s impatience found utterance in the expressive declaration that “ if something was not soon done, the bottom would be out of the whole affair.” But at this critical moment the two leaders, Lincoln and McClellan, were at issue : the former favoring the simple plan of a direct advance on the enemy, then in our front; the latter, by the “ Urbana movement,” proposing to outflank him far on the left, and turn the tables by making the vicinity of Richmond, and not Washington, the theatre of operations. Of these two plans General Webb seems to favor the latter, which, if properly executed, might have been “ the stride of the giant.” But for such a stride Johnston did not propose to wait, and on the day after the president had given way, by evacuating Centreville and retiring to the Rappahannock he quietly checkmated the Urbana plan, and drove McClellan to his dernier ressort — the advance up the Peninsula.

“ If blunders were committed in the advance upon Richmond,” — and of the amount of virtue in this “if” we leave the reader to judge, — the first, in General Webb’s opinion, “ was the failure to divine the existence of the Warwick line at Yorktown.” Having found that line, and recovered from his surprise that Magruder should have objected to his proposed envelopment, in place of breaking the line by a heavy blow at its weakest point, the feasibility of which the gallant Vermont troops amply demonstrated in their unsupported dash, McClellan settled down to a scientific siege of the enemy’s strongest point, Yorktown itself. But the enemy were too shrewd to wait for the final onslaught, and, having effected their object in delaying our progress for more than a month, they abandoned Yorktown and the Warwick line, retreating up the Peninsula through Williamsburg. The battle of Williamsburg, “fought by piecemeal and ending in disappointment,” developed the fighting qualities of Hancock and Hooker, and, had not the commander-in-chief there commenced his unfortunate series of absences from the battle-field, might have proved an important success. As it was, it was not until twelve days had elapsed that the army arrived in front of Richmond. McDowell, so long called for, was at length ordered forward to coöperate in the reduction of the rebel capital, when, as before, the blow about to fall was turned aside by the shrewdness, activity, and military genius of the enemy. Stonewall Jackson, suddenly rushing upon Banks’s weakened column in the Shenandoah Valley, sent that general “whirling” down to the Potomac, and caused a panic which effectually stopped McDowell’s advance and paralyzed the force which was to have joined McClellan “ and fallen like a hammer upon Richmond.” The battle of Fair Oaks was a bloody check, indeed, to our advance, but not a reverse to our arms. After this battle ensued a pause, as though for breath, on both sides, and then, just as McClellan was preparing to resume the offensive, came the crisis and turning-point of the campaign : the masterly reinforcement of Lee by Stonewall Jackson, at the latter’s suggestion, after he had successfully achieved the discomfiture and bewilderment of our troops in the Valley. Thus suddenly was the Army of the Potomac, while pressing towards Richmond, thrown on the defensive, and from this moment the author follows its fortunes in retreat. While the battle of Mechanicsville was certainly a success to our arms, yet as Jackson’s presence was thereby ascertained, though he took no part in the action, McClellan then and there struck his colors, lowered the “ On-to-Richmond ” oriflamme, thus far followed with enthusiasm by his soldiers, and commenced his “ change of base ” to the James. In the next day’s battle of Gaines’s Mill he “ fought an army with one corps,” whose resistance was nevertheless so stubborn that Lee and Jackson both believed and reported that they had encountered the bulk of McClellan’s force. Porter, while desperately resisting overwhelming odds, and calling in vain for assistance, was nerved to his task by the belief, then shared by General Webb, that his brave troops were falling where they stood rather than retreat, “in order that McClellan, with the main army, might break through and take Richmond.” That this might have been done the admissions in Magruder’s report place beyond a doubt. But McClellan did not think that the entrance of the army into Richmond at that time “ was a proper military movement,” wherein our General Webb disagrees with him, and so, we think, will the reader. That the closing battle of Malvern Hill should fairly rank as a Union victory, wherein the loss, panic, and demoralization were upon the rebel side, seems now admitted and corroborated, if need were, by their desperate attempts to find some scapegoat among their own generals. The Union lines were never seriously endangered; few orders were issued by Lee, and the “yell” as a signal for attack proved a signal failure. Thus ended the first advance upon Richmond.

The final chapter is devoted to an able and clear review of the campaign, in which one cannot well avoid reading between the lines General Webb’s opinion that for the distrust with which he was regarded at Washington General McClellan had himself to thank, having never properly appreciated his true relations with the president and commander-in-chief. While suggesting political and partisan motives for the “ crippling of McClellan,” General Webb significantly adds, “The government had the right to suppose that he needed but the opportunity to attack with vigor.” General Webb further credits McClellan with making, from Gaines’s Mill to Malvern Hill, “ one of the most able flank movements ever made in war.” The italics are the author’s, who adds that that which alone saved the army from further disaster was “ the perfection of its organization, which was due to the personal affection entertained for General McClellan by the officers and men of his army.” It is charitable to suppose, with our author, that an unwillingness to sacrifice, even for the good of the whole, any portion of the troops by whom he was thus idolized was the cause of many a failure. Postponing action until he could secure his army from every possible chance of failure, the golden moment of opportunity was missed. It was later in the war that we realized to its full extent the terrible truth conveyed in the Frenchman’s proverb, “ Pour faire une omelette il faut bien casser des œufs.”

S. M. Quincy.