SOME MORE FRATRICIDAL STRIFE.
The effort to open the Mississippi from the north was seconded by an
expedition from the south, in which Captain David G. Farragut,
commanding a fleet of forty vessels, co-operated with General Benjamin
F. Butler, with the capture of New Orleans as the object.
Mortar-boats covered with green branches for the purpose of fooling the
enemy, as no one could tell at any distance at all whether these were or
were not olive-branches, steamed up the river and bombarded Forts
Jackson and St. Philip till the stunned catfish rose to the surface of
the water to inquire, "Why all this?" and turned their pallid stomachs
toward the soft Southern zenith. Sixteen thousand eight hundred shells
were thrown into the two forts, but that did not capture New Orleans.
Farragut now decided to run his fleet past the defences, and, desperate
as the chances were, he started on April 24. A big cable stretched
across the river suggested the idea that there was a hostile feeling
among the New Orleans people. Five rafts and armed steamers met him,
and the iron-plated ram Manassas extended to him a cordial welcome to a
wide wet grave with a southern exposure.
Farragut cut through the cable about three o'clock in the morning,
practically destroyed the Confederate fleet, and steamed up to the city,
which was at his mercy.
The forts, now threatened in the rear by Butler's army, surrendered, and
Farragut went up to Baton Rouge and took possession of it. General
Butler's occupation at New Orleans has been variously commented upon by
both friend and foe, but we are only able to learn from this and the
entire record of the war, in fact, that it is better to avoid
hostilities unless one is ready to accept the unpleasant features of
combat. The author, when a boy, learned this after he had acquired the
unpleasant features resulting from combat which the artist has cleverly
shown on opposite page.
General Butler said he found it almost impossible to avoid giving
offence to the foe, and finally he gave it up in despair.
The French are said to be the politest people on the face of the earth,
but no German will admit it; and though the Germans are known to have
big, warm, hospitable hearts, since the Franco-Prussian war you couldn't
get a Frenchman to admit this.
In February Burnside captured Roanoke Island, and the coast of North
Carolina fell into the hands of the Union army. Port Royal became the
base of operations against Florida, and at the close of the year 1862
every city on the Atlantic coast except Charleston, Wilmington, and
Savannah was held by the Union army.
[Illustration: UNPLEASANT FEATURES RESULTING FROM COMBAT.]
The Merrimac iron-clad, which had made much trouble for the Union
shipping for some time, steamed into Hampton Roads on the 8th of March.
Hampton Roads is not the Champs-Elysées of the South, but a long wet
stretch of track east of Virginia,--the Midway Plaisance of the Salted
Sea. The Merrimac steered for the Cumberland, rammed her, and the
Cumberland sunk like a stove-lid, with all on board. The captain of the
Congress, warned by the fate of the Cumberland, ran his vessel on shore
and tried to conceal her behind the tall grass, but the Merrimac
followed and shelled her till she surrendered.
The Merrimac then went back to Norfolk, where she boarded,
night having come on apace. In the morning she aimed to clear
out the balance of the Union fleet. That night, however, the
Monitor, a flat little craft with a revolving tower, invented by Captain
Ericsson, arrived, and in the morning when the Merrimac started in on
her day's work of devastation, beginning with the Minnesota, the
insignificant-looking Monitor slid up to the iron monster and gave her
two one-hundred-and-sixty-six-and-three-quarter-pound solid shot.
The Merrimac replied with a style of broadside that generally sunk her
adversary, but the balls rolled off the low flat deck and fell with a
solemn plunk in the moaning sea, or broke in fragments and lay on the
forward deck like the shells of antique eggs on the floor of the House
of Parliament after a Home Rule argument.
Five times the Merrimac tried to ram the little spitz-pup of the navy,
but her huge iron beak rode up over the slippery deck of the enemy, and
when the big vessel looked over her sides to see its wreck, she
discovered that the Monitor was right side up and ready for more.
The Confederate vessel gave it up at last, and went back to Norfolk
defeated, her career suddenly closed by the timely genius of the able
Scandinavian.
The Peninsular campaign was principally addressed toward the capture of
Richmond. One hundred thousand men were massed at Fort Monroe April 4,
and marched slowly toward Yorktown, where five thousand Confederates
under General Magruder stopped the great army under McClellan.
After a month's siege, and just as McClellan was about to shoot at the
town, the garrison took its valise and went away.
On the 5th of May occurred the battle of Williamsburg, between the
forces under "Fighting Joe" Hooker and General Johnston. It lasted nine
hours, and ended in the routing of the Confederates and their pursuit by
Hooker to within seven miles of Richmond. This caused the adjournment of
the Confederate Congress.
But Johnston prevented the junction of McDowell and McClellan after the
capture of Hanover Court-House, and Stonewall Jackson, reinforced by
Ewell, scared the Union forces almost to death. They crossed the
Potomac, having marched thirty-five miles per day. Washington was
getting too hot now to hold people who could get away.
It was hard to say which capital had been scared the worst.
The Governors of the Northern States were asked to send militia to
defend the capital, and the front door of the White House was locked
every night after ten o'clock.
But finally the Union generals, instead of calling for more troops, got
after General Jackson, and he fled from the Shenandoah Valley, burning
the bridges behind him. It is said that as he and his staff were about
to cross their last bridge they saw a mounted gun on the opposite side,
manned by a Union artilleryman. Jackson rode up and in clarion tones
called out, "Who told you to put that gun there, sir? Bring it over
here, sir, and mount it, and report at head-quarters this evening, sir!"
The artilleryman unlimbered the gun, and while he was placing it General
Jackson and staff crossed over and joined the army.
One cannot be too careful, during a war, in the matter of obedience to
orders. We should always know as nearly as possible whether our orders
come from the proper authority or not.
No one can help admiring this dashing officer's tour in the Shenandoah
Valley, where he kept three major-generals and sixty thousand troops
awake nights with fifteen thousand men, saved Richmond, scared
Washington into fits, and prevented the union of McClellan's and
McDowell's forces. Had there been more such men, and a little more
confidence in the great volume of typographical errors called
Confederate money, the lovely character who pens these lines might have
had a different tale to tell.
May 31 and June 1 occurred the battle of Fair Oaks, where McClellan's
men floundering in the mud of the Chickahominy swamps were pounced upon
by General Johnston, who was wounded the first day. On the following
day, as a result of this accident, Johnston's men were repulsed in
disorder.
General Robert E. Lee, who was now in command of the Confederate forces,
desired to make his army even more offensive than it had been, and on
June 12 General Stuart led off with his cavalry, made the entire circuit
of the Union army, saw how it looked from behind, and returned to
Richmond, much improved in health, having had several meals of victuals
while absent.
Hooker now marched to where he could see the dome of the court-house at
Richmond, but just then McClellan heard that Jackson had been seen in
the neighborhood of Hanover Court-House, and so decided to change his
base. General McClellan was a man of great refinement, and would never
use the same base over a week at a time.
He had hardly got the base changed when Lee fell upon his flank at
Mechanicsville, June 26, and the Seven Days' battle followed. The Union
troops fought and fell back, fought and fell back, until Malvern Hill
was reached, where, worn with marching, choked with dust, and broken
down by the heat, to which they were unaccustomed, they made their last
stand, July 1. Here Lee got such a reception that he did not insist on
going any farther.
But the Union army was cooped up on the James River. The siege of
Richmond had been abandoned, and the North felt blue and discouraged.
Three hundred thousand more men were called for, and it seemed that, as
in the South, "the cradle and the grave were to be robbed" for more
troops.
Lee now decided to take Washington and butcher Congress to make a Roman
holiday. General Pope met the Confederates August 26, and while Lee and
Jackson were separated could have whipped the latter had the Army of the
Potomac reinforced him as it should, but, full of malaria and foot-sore
with marching, it did not reach him in time, and Pope had to fight the
entire Confederate army on that historic ground covered with so many
unpleasant memories and other things, called Bull Run.
For the second time the worn and wilted Union army was glad to get back
to Washington, where the President was, and where beer was only five
cents per glass.
Oh, how sad everything seemed at that time to the North, and how high
cotton cloth was! The bride who hastily married her dear one and bade
him good-by as the bugle called him to the war, pointed with pride to
her cotton clothes as a mark of wealth; and the middle classes were only
too glad to have a little cotton mixed with their woollen clothes.
[Illustration: WHERE BEER WAS ONLY FIVE CENTS PER GLASS.]
Lee invaded Maryland, and McClellan, restored to command of the Army of
the Potomac, followed him, and found a copy of his order of march, which
revealed the fact that only a portion of the army was before him. So,
overtaking the Confederates at South Mountain, he was ready for a
victory, but waited one day; and in the mountains Lee got his troops
united again, while Jackson also returned. The Union troops had over
eighty thousand in their ranks, and nothing could have been more
thoughtful or genteel than to wait for the Confederates to get as many
together as possible, otherwise the battle might have been brief and
unsatisfactory to the tax-payer or newspaper subscriber, who of course
wants his money's worth when he pays for a battle.
[Illustration: WANTS HIS MONEY'S WORTH WHEN HE PAYS FOR A BATTLE.]
The battle of Antietam was a very fierce one, and undecisive, yet it
saved Washington from an invasion by the Confederates, who would have
done a good deal of trading there, no doubt, entirely on credit, thus
injuring business very much and loading down Washington merchants with
book accounts, which, added to what they had charged already to members
of Congress, would have made times in Washington extremely dull.
General McClellan, having impressed the country with the idea that he
was a good bridge-builder, but a little too dilatory in the matter of
carnage, was succeeded by General Burnside.
[Illustration: STILL DROPPING IN OCCASIONALLY FROM THE BACK DISTRICTS.]
President Lincoln had written the Proclamation of Emancipation to the
slaves in July, but waited for a victory before publishing it. Bull Run
as a victory was not up to his standard; so when Lee was driven from
Maryland the document was issued by which all slaves in the United
States became free; and, although thirty-one years have passed at this
writing, they are still dropping in occasionally from the back districts
to inquire about the truth of the report.