Over my bed in college hung a drawing made by a member of the Class
of 1837. (Not a classmate of mine.) It showed a college youth of the
time, quite wabbly from too great association with John Barleycorn. He
was pointing his brace of pistols at a monkey perched on the foot of
his bed. Underneath the picture were the words: “If you’re a _monkey_,
you’re in a devilish fix. If you’re _not_ a monkey, _I’m_ in a devilish
fix.” Just whether or not it was a real monkey I never knew, but there
was no mistaking the fix. The more closely we study the Civil War, the
more we find that we were in a _terrible_ fix. And the more we get
away from it, the more we hate to look the fix in the face, especially
because the fix was our own fault. Today the World War is so close
to us that it screens the errors and calamities of our Civil War. We
forget too often that in the early sixties we endured the most awful
catastrophe this country has ever seen--a thing far more bloody man
for man than what we went through in the World War. But maybe it’s a
healthy thing to look at our Civil fix now, as the doctor studies past
epidemics in order to prevent future horrors to mankind. A picture
of the year before that war is full of so many fixes--so many pieces
of indulgence in artificial stimulation and neglect that they’d fill
a book. But here are two. In 1860 just before we were rushed into the
struggle, a bill was introduced into Congress to abolish the Navy, on
the ground that we’d never have any more war. Fortunately it failed
of passage. But the only legislation for the army that year was the
appointment of a committee to look into West Point and an authorization
to increase the sugar and coffee ration of the soldier. And all this,
while the tension between the North and South was about to snap. A
school and a drink, while blood and flame were in sight. And there
was no fire department to quench the raging blaze. A hose in Oregon,
a nozzle in Florida, horses in Arizona and an engine nowhere! And
suddenly Sumter’s guns cracked out and set the nation on fire. We
began to seethe and mill around. The President was caught in the furor
and had to exercise his war powers. Later when Congress met, it made
the entire set-up for the war in less than four weeks. Less than four
weeks! Why you couldn’t do that with a new factory, much less a police
department. And here we were with a massive business undertaking that
meant life and death to the whole country. Of course, the legislation
teemed with mistakes, which we paid for extravagantly and are still
paying for. The men called out weren’t soldiers any more than they
could be lawyers, managers and operators without practice and education.
The thirty thousand collected for Bull Run were, in the mind of
the North, going to march right through to New Orleans. And people
came out from nearby towns to watch, from a very safe distance, the
battle--congressmen in carriages, women in barouches, sutlers in
wagons and reporters in tree-tops. They would behold this battle
that was going to bag these rebels and drive them into the Gulf of
Mexico. The spectators having comfortable and uncomfortable seats,
the engagement after some delay started. Tyler was slow in getting
into position and Hunter’s brigade rested for refreshments by the
waters of Bull Run a bit too long. After a time the Southern masked
batteries began to have their telling effect. Lines were formed slowly
and badly under fire. Many did not know the use of their muskets.
Those in the rear were almost as deadly to friend as foe. Too many
officers were killed or wounded in trying to get their men forward.
The green troops finally mistook a regiment of Confederates for their
own and received a murderous fire. Then the rout began. One regiment
fled and then another. The untrained men stampeded across the field
toward Washington. The eager observers scaled down the trees faster
than they had climbed them. Barouches, carriages and wagons wheeled
about and clattered away with much dust, turmoil and crowding. A
vehicle overturned and blocked the main road, adding to the panic. The
retreating recruits in their excitement fired mostly into the air,
fortunately for those about them. Some officers sought to rally their
men, here and there, but in vain. The majority rushed across fields,
over lanes and pushed through jammed roads in their hurry to get away.
And thus the first northern force evaporated.
Haste, haste everywhere. Haste in forming a force--haste in
legislation--haste in getting away. Men who would otherwise have been
staunch and vigorous--men who were naturally brave--were hurried into a
life-and-death-position they had no chance to fill. The size of the two
forces had been about equal, but the South had had the advantage of six
months’ training, whereas the North had used mostly eight-day wonders.
And this decided jump of the Confederacy on us--their planning--their
foresight--their business arrangements had meant the turn of the tide
against the Union.
And it was so all through 1861. We had five other battles in that
year, all of which we lost in the same way and for the same cause,
except one. Drainesville--have you ever heard of it? That was all
we had to show for the whole year’s effort--a tiny battle having no
influence on cutting the war shorter. And in that time we had killed
and wounded three thousand three hundred seventy-one men and spent four
hundred nineteen million dollars--all to no purpose--sheer waste. In
fact worse than waste, because the setbacks had paralyzed our efforts.
Then came the mismanagement of the second and part of the third year
of the war. While the Union was organizing as a loose Confederacy, the
Confederacy was organizing as a close Union. The southern government
keenly abandoned states’ rights for their army shortly after they had
begun to fight for states’ rights as a national policy. The northern
government inanely took up states’ rights for their army immediately
after they had begun to fight against states’ rights as a national
possibility. Both were inconsistent, but the South was inconsistent
wisely. It did away with voluntary enlistments and the power of
independent states to appoint officers and to offer whole units--and
vested the control in its President. It made a unified army. It then
enacted the first proper draft law in any English-speaking country--a
thing which was afterwards the greatest single stroke of efficiency
for America in the World War. On the other hand, the Union persisted in
lopsided volunteering and gave away to the governors absolute authority
to create organizations and appoint the officers over them. And Mr.
Lincoln had to receive these irregular lots and do the best he could
with them. He was powerless at the head of this great organization to
have control over the selection of his employees. And the way they were
selected didn’t help much either. Political favorites, farmers, clerks,
ward bosses and men about town, were given command of regiments and
battalions, when they knew nothing about the technique, tactics or art
of their undertaking--nothing about the real business of their jobs.
Professional qualifications had little to do with their selection.
Influence, popularity, deference, obligation and even pity put them in
their positions. Why, one officer was elected a captain of a company
because he had the most children and needed the money. Others were made
colonels or majors for just as sensible reasons, while three hundred
and eight trained officers were overlooked and kept in small positions
throughout the war. Would we put plumbers or carpenters over our sick
in the hospital? We did worse. We put them over well men, fine bodies,
whose lives depended upon knowledge and experience against the awful
things they had to face. For the camp and bivouac are even more deadly
than the battlefield under untrained leaders. In more ways than one our
hurried management caused the lengthening of the horror into four long
years of unnecessary slaughter.
At the top, the North had a President and Secretary of War,
distinguished members of the bar, but utterly unfamiliar with the
technique and art of ending a war as quickly as possible. The country’s
policies had placed them in this unfair position. There was no active
general-in-chief of the armies. The Secretary of the Treasury was given
the task of making an organization plan. Other members of the cabinet
and bureau chiefs were given similar military problems. A group called
the Second Aulic Council debated, fussed and mostly collapsed into
grand meddling. It was the old story of a large cumbersome committee
getting nowhere--a committee that rarely understood the vital needs
of the occasion. So it was not surprising that the most ineffective
soldier with military education was finally chosen as General-in-Chief,
General Halleck. And he added to the confusion. Generals in the field
didn’t know where they stood. They were promised troops that never
arrived and shorn of troops they had with them. Their plans, by mail,
telegraph or personal travel had to be approved in Washington before
they could proceed. Often the opportunity passed before the veto or
approval arrived. During his campaigns, McClellan received hundreds of
telegrams, letters and courier packets a week, counseling one thing and
then another--and often contradictory. He could not change his base,
make a new plan, operate in a new place or go enthusiastically forward
without first having his proposals crunch through the slow grinding
mill of Washington. Commanders grew to be more fearful of the District
of Columbia than the enemy. For it’s hard to fight to your back and
front at the same time. And your back happens to give you more creeps.
In a little over two years the main army of the East had in succession
as commanders McDowell, McClellan, Pope, McClellan, Burnside, Hooker
and Meade. In the whirlpool of mismanagement, heads fell fast. And
subordinate generals notoriously feared most being placed in command of
the Army of the Potomac. Certainly the whole fault couldn’t lie with
six different commanders. With the same system--or lack of it--sixteen
would probably have failed. Certainly _one_ could have been wisely
selected who could have gone on, if properly backed up. The answer lies
in the Confederacy. There, a single trained and experienced man picked
a trained commander and placed him over better trained and organized
troops than the North had. He was held on whether he won or lost and
became more capable as he proceeded. This sample of management and
organization, always a few steps ahead of the North is why the South
held off the Union against odds of three to one for four staggering
years. That is what was done while the Yankee was paying millions in
bounties for recruits, uselessly wasting his men, undergoing draft
riots and enduring one of the ablest _mis_managements our country has
seen. The lack of any action before the war--any wakefulness from
our deep sleep--any use of ordinary sense plunged us into the waste
of wastes and told the world ever since that we were the incompetent
of incompetents. And for all this the North paid nearly ten billion
dollars. And how we spent lives. Why, we were in such a rush at the
beginning that we sent in three hundred thousand men without even
examining them physically. Think of what that meant in mortality. We
fed our manhood like babes into the burning cauldron of Moloch, all
because we sat and waited with no idea of a preventive in those years
and months before the war. Experts, foreign and domestic, agree that if
we had had a trained force in the East in December 1860, of not more
than twenty-five thousand, the war could not have lasted over three
months, with a maximum of a thousand casualties. As it was in the North
alone we threw away three hundred sixty thousand lives. With the South
counted we filled prodigally way over a half million graves. No, we
don’t care to snuff things out at the source. We prefer to dam them at
the mouth. We do that with crime. Why not do it with war?
_IX_