Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-two--The Plan of the War, and
Strength of the Armies--General M‘Clellan--The General
Movement, January 27th, 1862--The brilliant Western
Campaign--Removal of M‘Clellan--The _Monitor_--Battle
of Fredericksburg--Vallandigham and Seymour--The
_Alabama_--President Lincoln declines all Foreign Mediation.
The year 1861 had been devoted rather to preparation for war than to
war itself; for every day brought home to the North the certainty that
the struggle would be tremendous--that large armies must fight over
thousands of miles--and that to conquer, men must go forth not by
thousands, but by hundreds of thousands, and endure such privations,
such extremes of climate, as are little known in European warfare.
But by the 1st Dec., 1861, 640,000 had been enrolled. The leading
features of the plan of war were an entire blockade of the rebel coast,
the military control of the border Slave States, the recovery of the
Mississippi river, which is the key of the continent, and, finally, the
destruction of the rebel army in Virginia, which continually threatened
the North, and the conquest of Richmond, the rebel capital. General
M‘Clellan had in the army of the Potomac, which occupied Washington and
adjacent places, more than 200,000 men, well armed and disciplined. In
Kentucky, General Buell had over 100,000. The rebel force opposed to
General M‘Clellan was estimated at 175,000, but is now known to have
been much less. General M‘Clellan made little use of the spy-service,
and apparently cared very little to know what was going on in the
enemy’s camp--an indifference which before long led him into several
extraordinary and ridiculous blunders. As Commander-in-Chief, General
M‘Clellan had control over Halleck, Commander of the Department of the
West, while General Burnside commanded in North Carolina, and Sherman
in South Carolina.
But though General M‘Clellan had, as he himself said, a “real army,
magnificent in material, admirable in discipline, excellently equipped
and armed, and well officered,” and though his forces, were double
those of the enemy, he seemed to be possessed by a strange apathy,
which, at the time, was at first taken for prudence, but which is
perhaps now to be more truthfully explained by the fact that this
former friend of Jefferson Davis, and ardent admirer of Southern
institutions, was at heart little inclined to inflict great injury on
the enemy, and was looking forward to playing the _rôle_ which has
led so many American politicians to their ruin--of being the great
conciliator between the North and South. Through the autumn and winter
of 1861-62, he did literally nothing beyond writing letters to the
President, in which he gave suggestions as to the manner in which the
country should be governed, and asked for more troops. All the pomp
and style of a grand generalissimo were carefully observed by him;
his personal camp equipage required twenty-four horses to draw it--a
marvellous contrast to the rough and ready General Grant, who started
on his vigorous campaign against Vicksburg with only a clean shirt
and a tooth-brush. Before long, notwithstanding the very remarkable
personal popularity of General M‘Clellan, the country began to murmur
at his slowness; and while the President was urging and imploring him
to do something, the malcontents through the North began to blame the
Administration for these delays. It was said to be doing all in its
power to crush M‘Clellan, to keep him from advancing, and to protract
the war for its own political purposes.
[Illustration: GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT.]
Weary with the delay, President Lincoln (January 27th, 1862) issued a
war order, to the effect that, on the 22nd February, 1862, there should
be a general movement of all the land and naval forces against the
enemy, and that all commanders should be held to strict responsibility
for the execution of this duty. In every quarter, save that of the army
of the Potomac, this was at once productive of energetic movements,
hard fighting, and splendid Union victories. On the 6th November,
General U. S. Grant had already taken Belmont, which was the first step
in his military career, and on January 10th, Colonel Garfield defeated
Humphrey Marshall at Middle Creek, Kentucky, while on January 19th,
General G. H. Thomas gained a victory at Mill Spring over the rebel
General Zollikoffer. The rebel positions in Tennessee and Kentucky
were protected by Forts Henry and Donelson. In concert with General
Grant, Commodore Foote took Fort Henry, while General Grant attacked
Fort Donelson. After several days’ fighting, General Buckner, in
command, demanded of General Grant an armistice, in which to settle
terms of surrender. To this General Grant replied, “No terms except
unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to
move immediately on your works.” General Buckner, with 15,000 men,
at once yielded. From this note, General U. S. Grant obtained the
name of “Unconditional Surrender Grant.” These successes obliged the
rebels to leave Kentucky, and Tennessee was thus accessible to the
Federal forces. On the 15th February, General Mitchell, of General
Buell’s army, reached Bowling Green, executing a march of forty miles
in twenty-eight hours and a-half, performing, meanwhile, incredible
feats in scaling a frozen steep pathway, a position of great strength,
and in bridging a river. On the 24th February, the Union troops seized
on Nashville, and on February 8th, Roanoke Island, North Carolina,
with all its defences, was captured by General Burnside and Admiral
Goldsborough. In March and April, Newbern, Fort Pulaski, and Fort
Mason were taken from the rebels. On the 6th, 7th, and 8th of March
was fought the great battle of Pea Ridge, in Arkansas, by Generals
Curtis and Sigel, who had drawn General Price thither from Missouri.
In this terrible and hard-contested battle the Confederates employed a
large body of Indians, who, however, not only scalped and shamefully
mutilated Federal troops, but also the rebels themselves. On the 7th
April, General Pope took the strong position, Island No. 10, in the
Mississippi, capturing with it 5000 prisoners and over 100 heavy siege
guns. These great and rapid victories startled the rebels, who had been
taught that the Northern foe was beneath contempt. They saw that Grant
and Buell were rapidly gaining the entire south-west. They gathered
together as large an army as possible, under General Albert S. Johnson
and Beauregard, and the opposing forces fought, April 6th, the battle
of Shiloh. Beauregard, with great sagacity, attacked General Grant with
overwhelming force before Buell could come up. “The first day of the
battle was in favour of the rebels, but night brought Buell, and the
morrow victory, to the Union army.” The shattered rebel army retreated
into their strong works at Corinth, but “leaving the victors almost as
badly punished as themselves.” General Halleck now assumed command of
the Western army, succeeding General Hunter. On the 30th May, Halleck
took Corinth, capturing immense quantities of stores and a line of
fortifications fifteen miles long, but was so dilatory in his attack
that General Beauregard escaped, and transferred his army to aid the
rebels in the East. For these magnificent victories, President Lincoln
published a thanksgiving proclamation.
But while these fierce battles and great victories went on in the
West, and commanders and men became alike inured to hardship and hard
fighting, the splendid army of the Potomac had done nothing beyond
digging endless and useless trenches, in which thousands found their
graves. The tangled and wearisome correspondence which for months
passed between President Lincoln and General M‘Clellan is one of the
most painful episodes of the war. The President urged action. General
M‘Clellan answered with excuses for inaction, with many calls for more
men, and with repartees. At one time, when clamorous for more troops,
he admitted that he had over 38,000 men absent on furlough--which
accounted for his personal popularity with his soldiers. “He wrote
more despatches, and General Grant fewer, than any General of the
war.” Meanwhile, he was building up a political party for himself in
the army, and among the Northern malcontents, who thought it wrong
to coerce the South. When positively ordered to march, or to seize
different points, he replied with protests and plans of his own. After
the battle of Antietam, September 16th, 1862, President Lincoln again
urged M‘Clellan to follow the retreating Confederates, and advance on
Richmond. “A most extraordinary correspondence ensued, in which the
President set forth with great clearness the conditions of the military
problem, and the advantages that would attend a prompt movement by
interior lines towards the rebel capital.” In this correspondence,
Lincoln displays not only the greatest patience under the most
tormenting contradictions, but also shows a military genius and a clear
intelligence of what should be done which indicate the greatness and
versatility of his mind. He was, to the very last, kind to M‘Clellan,
and never seems to have suspected that the General “whose inactivity
was to some extent attributable to an indisposition to inflict great
injury upon the rebels,” was scheming to succeed him in his office, and
intriguing with rebel sympathisers. When at last the country would no
longer endure the ever-writing, never-fighting General, he removed him
from command (November 7th, 1862), and appointed General Burnside in
his place. “This whole campaign,” says Arnold, “illustrates Lincoln’s
patience, forbearance, fidelity to, and kindness for, M‘Clellan. His
misfortunes, disastrous as they were to the country, did not induce the
President to abandon him. Indeed, it was a very difficult and painful
thing for him ever to give up a person in misfortune, even when those
misfortunes resulted from a man’s own misconduct.” But though he spoke
kindly of General M‘Clellan, Mr. Lincoln could not refrain from gently
satirising the dilatory commander. Once he remarked that he would “very
much like to borrow the army any day when General M‘Clellan did not
happen to be _using it_, to see if he could not do something with it.”
On the 9th March, an incident occurred which forms the beginning of
a new era in naval warfare. The rebels had taken possession of the
steam frigate _Merrimac_ at Norfolk, and covered her with iron armour.
Sailing down the James river, she destroyed the frigates _Cumberland_
and _Congress_, and was about to attack the _Minnesota_, when, by
strange chance, “there came up the bay a low, turtle-like nondescript
object, bearing two heavy guns, with which she attacked the _Merrimac_
and saved the fleet.” This was the _Monitor_, built by the celebrated
engineer Ericsson.
There were many in the South, during the war, who schemed, or at least
talked over, the assassination of President Lincoln. On one occasion,
when he learned from a newspaper that a conspiracy of several hundred
men was forming in Richmond for the purpose of taking his life, he
smiled and said, “Even if true, I do not see what the rebels would gain
by killing me.... Everything would go on just the same. Soon after I
was nominated, I began to receive letters threatening my life. The
first one or two made me a little uncomfortable, but I came at length
to look for a regular instalment of this kind of correspondence in
every week’s mail. Oh! there is nothing like getting _used_ to things.”
General Burnside, who accepted with reluctance the command of the army
(November 8th, 1862), was a manly and honourable soldier, but not more
fortunate than his predecessor. Owing to a want of proper understanding
and action between himself and Generals Halleck, Meigs, and Franklin,
the battle of Fredericksburg, begun on the 11th December, 1862, was
finally fought on the 15th January, the Union army being defeated with
a loss of 12,000 men. The spirit of insubordination, of delay, and of
ill-fortune which attended M‘Clellan, seemed to have descended as a
heritage on the army of the Potomac.
On May 3rd, 1861, President Lincoln had, in an order addressed to the
Commander of the Forces on the Florida coast, suspended the writ of
_habeas corpus_. The right to do so was given him by the Constitution;
and in time of war, when the very foundations of society and life
itself are threatened, common sense dictates that spies, traitors,
and enemies may be imprisoned by military power. _Inter arma silent
leges_--law must yield in war. But that large party in the North,
which did not believe that anything was legal which coerced the
Confederacy, was furious. On the 27th May, 1861, General Cadwalader, by
the authority of the President, refused to obey a writ issued by Judge
Taney--“the Judge who pronounced the Dred-Scott decision, the greatest
crime in the judicial annals of the Republic”--for the release of a
rebel prisoner in Fort M’Henry. The Chief Justice declared that the
President could not suspend the writ, which was a virtual declaration
that it was illegal to put a stop to the proceedings of the thousands
of traitors in the North, many of whom, like the Mayor of New York,
were in high office. In July, 1862, Attorney-General Black declared
that the President had the right to arrest aiders of the rebellion,
and to suspend the writ of _habeas corpus_ in such cases. It was by
virtue of this suspension that the rebel legislators of Maryland had
been arrested, and the secession of the state prevented (September
16th, 1862). The newspapers opposed to Mr. Lincoln attacked the
suspension of the writ with great fierceness. But such attacks never
ruffled the President. On one occasion, when the Copperhead press was
more stormy than usual, he said it reminded him of two newly-arrived
Irish emigrants who one night were terribly alarmed by a grand chorus
of bull-frogs. They advanced to discover the “inimy,” but could not
find him, until at last one exclaimed, “And sure, Jamie, I belave it’s
just nothing but a _naise_” (noise). Arrests continued to be made;
among them was that of Clement L. Vallandigham, a member of Congress
from Ohio, who, in a political canvass of his district, bitterly
abused the Administration, and called on his leaders to resist the
execution of the law ordering the arrest of persons aiding the enemy.
For this he was properly arrested by General Burnside (May 4th, 1863),
and, having been tried, was sentenced to imprisonment; but President
Lincoln modified his sentence by directing that he should be sent
within the rebel lines, and not be allowed to return to the United
States till after the close of the war. This trial and sentence created
great excitement, and by many Vallandigham was regarded as a martyr.
A large meeting of these rebel sympathisers was held in Albany, at
which Seymour, the Governor of New York, presided, when the conduct of
President Lincoln was denounced as establishing military _despotism_.
At this meeting, the Democratic or Copperhead party of New York, while
nominally professing a desire to preserve the Union, took the most
effectual means to destroy it by condemning the right of the President
to punish its enemies. These resolutions having been sent to President
Lincoln, he replied by a letter in which he discussed at length, and in
a clear and forcible style, the constitutional provision for suspension
of the writ, and its application to the circumstances then existing.
Many such meetings were held, condemning the Emancipation Proclamation
and the sentence of Vallandigham. Great complaint was made that the
President did not act on his own responsibility in these arrests, but
left them to the discretion of military commanders. In answer, the
President issued a proclamation meeting the objections. At the next
state election, Mr. Vallandigham was the Democratic candidate for
Governor, but was defeated by a majority of 100,000.
The year 1862 did not, any more than 1861, pass without foreign
difficulties. Mr. Adams, the American minister in London, had
remonstrated with the British Government to stop the fitting out of
rebel privateers in English ports. These cruisers, chief among which
were the _Alabama_, _Florida_, and _Georgia_, avoiding armed ships,
devoted themselves to robbing and destroying defenceless merchantmen.
The _Alabama_ was commanded by a Captain Semmes, who, while in the
service of the United States, had written a book in which he vigorously
attacked, as wicked and piratical, the system of privateering, being
one of the first to oppose that which he afterwards practised. Three
weeks before the “290,” afterwards the _Alabama_ escaped from the
yard of the Messrs. Laird at Birkenhead (July, 1862), the British
Government was notified of the character of the vessel, and warned that
it would be held responsible for whatever damage it might inflict on
American commerce. The _Alabama_, however, escaped, the result being
incalculable mischief, which again bore evil fruit in later days.
In the same year the Emperor of the French made an offer of mediation
between the Federal and Confederate Governments, intimating that
separation was “an extreme which could no longer be avoided.” The
President, in an able reply (February 6th, 1863), pointed out the
great recaptures of territory from the Confederates which had taken
place--that what remained was held in close blockade, and very properly
rejected the proposition that the United States should confer on
terms of equality with armed rebels. He also showed that several of
the states which had rebelled had already returned to the Union. This
despatch put an end to all proposals of foreign intervention, and was
of great use in clearly setting forth to the partisans of the Union the
unflinching and determined character of their Government, and of the
man who was its Executive head.