POPULAR DELUSIONS IN THE EARLY STAGES OF THE WAR--A FEW CONFLICTS AND
SACRIFICES NOT SUFFICIENT--MORE POSITIVE RECOGNITION OF MR. DAVIS'
VIEWS--HIS CANDID AND PROPHETIC ANNOUNCEMENTS--MILITARY REFORMS--
CONSCRIPTION LAW OF THE CONFEDERACY--THE PRESIDENT'S VIEWS AND COURSE
AS TO THIS LAW--HIS CONSISTENT REGARD FOR CIVIL LIBERTY AND OPPOSITION
TO CENTRALIZATION--RECOMMENDS CONSCRIPTION--BENEFICIAL RESULTS OF THE
LAW--GENERAL LEE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, "UNDER THE PRESIDENT"--NATURE OF
THE APPOINTMENT--FALSE IMPRESSIONS CORRECTED--MR. DAVIS' CONFIDENCE IN
LEE, DESPITE POPULAR CENSURE OF THE LATTER--CHANGES IN THE CABINET--
MR. BENJAMIN'S MANAGEMENT OF THE WAR OFFICE--DIFFICULTIES OF THAT
POSITION--THE CHARGE OF FAVORITISM AGAINST MR. DAVIS IN THE SELECTION
OF HIS CABINET--HIS PERSONAL RELATIONS WITH THE VARIOUS MEMBERS OF HIS
CABINET--ACTIVITY IN MILITARY OPERATIONS--THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI--
BATTLE OF ELK HORN--OPERATIONS EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI--GENERALS
SIDNEY JOHNSTON AND BEAUREGARD--ISLAND NO. 10--CONCENTRATION OF TROOPS
BY THE CONFEDERATE AUTHORITIES--FAVORABLE SITUATION--SHILOH--A
DISAPPOINTMENT--DEATH OF SIDNEY JOHNSTON--TRIBUTE OF PRESIDENT
DAVIS--POPULAR VERDICT UPON THE BATTLE OF SHILOH--GENERALS BEAUREGARD,
BRAGG, AND POLK ON THE BATTLE--THE PRESIDENT AGAIN CHARGED WITH
"INJUSTICE" TO BEAUREGARD--THE CHARGE ANSWERED--FALL OF NEW
ORLEANS--NAVAL BATTLE IN HAMPTON ROADS--NAVAL SUCCESSES OF THE ENEMY.
We have briefly indicated the causes which now elevated the Southern
people to a more intelligent appreciation of the nature and necessities of
the struggle in which they were engaged. There was reason for the
congratulation which President Davis experienced at the unmistakable
evidences of the awakening of the public mind to the stern duties which,
from the beginning, he had sedulously inculcated.
The progress of the war had already developed the existence of numerous
errors upon both sides, and had exploded many cherished theories having
possession of the popular mind of each section, with reference to the
power, resources, and spirit of its antagonist. Both parties had entered
into the contest with the firm conviction of certain triumph, and with the
purpose to make the struggle as short as possible. The war-cry of the
North was "Let it be short, sharp, and decisive;" and they appealed to
their numbers, wealth, and sectional hatred, as elements of superiority,
which would inevitably end the war in their favor in a few months. The
South was equally disposed to a speedy conclusion. With the masses of the
South and the majority of their advisers, the predominant idea and
aspiration was to teach the enemy, by prompt and heavy blows, the
impossibility of successful invasion, and thus shorten the period of
bloodshed. Thus both, from a necessity which neither was able to avoid,
began with gigantic preparations, hoping, by a few mighty conflicts of
arms, and one lavish sacrifice of life and treasure, to bring to prompt
arbitrament an issue which was the growth of a century.
But the aroused spirit of sectional strife was not to be appeased by a
single holocaust. The American people, a youthful giant, totally
uneducated in the experience of war, having never yet tested their
strength and dimensions, would not consent that the game of empire should
be decided by a single dramatic _denouement_, a Waterloo, a Solferino, or
Sadowa. Manassas had been the bitter but beneficent chastisement of the
North, and the reproof was accepted with that wonderful elasticity, which
afterwards amazed the world with its manifestations after the most
disheartening failures. A rebuke no less signal waited upon the South, and
its correcting influence immediately exhibited a temper which was the
temporary salvation of the Confederacy, and the inspiration to a series of
campaigns among the most memorable in the annals of warfare.
With the inauguration of the permanent government came not only renewed
resolution in the prosecution of the war, but a more positive recognition
and adoption of the views of President Davis. We have elsewhere described
the antagonism between those views and the theory of the leaders at
Montgomery, shared by the press and people of the South, which derided any
other hypothesis than a six-months' war, with the certainty of
independence. Whatever weight may be accredited to the statements which we
have made in demonstration of Mr. Davis' conviction, that the war would be
one of unexampled magnitude and long duration; whatever may be the
rational inference from his opposition to a military system contemplating
a war lasting six or twelve months; whatever the credence extended to his
own subsequent declarations of the difficulties preventing the complete
preparation for the emergency, which he contemplated,[44] at least there
was no room for misconception of his expectations as to the war in its
future stages.
Congratulating the Confederate Congress upon the auspicious awakening of
the popular mind from dangerous delusions, even through the hard
experience of adversity, he admonishes Congress and the country to
prepare for a "_war lasting through a term of years_." But a few weeks
later and he invited the Legislature of Virginia to contemplate a possible
duration of the war for twenty years upon the soil of that State. In all
his declarations, public and private, was evidenced the adherence to that
original conviction of a struggle long, bloody, and exhaustive, and with
varying fortune, which had prompted the heroic assurance, at his first
inauguration at Montgomery, of an "inflexible" pursuit of the object of
independence.
President Davis sufficiently exposed, in his first message to the new
Congress, the evil consequences of the pernicious military system under
which the war had thus far been conducted. Indeed, its evils were
apparent, and the country responded to the urgent appeals of the President
for a more efficient organization of the armies of the Confederacy--one
that should insure a force sufficient to meet the present exigency and to
provide for future defense. It was with considerable reluctance that he
finally recommended the adoption of the act of conscription.
Constitutional scruples were at least debatable, but there could be no
question as to the appearance of bad faith by the Government, with the
patriotic volunteers, who had responded at the first call to arms, and who
were now compelled to remain in the field, by a law adopted, just as their
term of service was expiring. Yet this was the class necessarily
constituting the majority of those who would be subject to the operation
of the law, as they were a majority, or an approximate majority, of the
arms-bearing population.
To one so peculiarly jealous of encroachments by the central power upon
the privileges of the States, the proposition had additional objections.
Mr. Davis had hoped to avoid the necessity of a measure, so much after the
manner of military despotism, and sought to take advantage of the
patriotic ardor exhibited upon the first rush to arms, by inducing
enlistments for the war. Especially distasteful was a resort to compulsion
into the ranks, in a war the success of which necessarily depended upon
the voluntary and patriotic aid of the people, while the enemy, without
difficulty, raised a half million of men for their schemes of conquest.
Second to the object of independence only, the controlling aspiration of
President Davis was, that the war might not terminate in the destruction
of civil liberty. With evident pride, he proclaimed the honorable fact
that, "through all the necessities of an unequal struggle, there has been
no act on our part to impair personal liberty or the freedom of speech, of
thought, or of the press."[45] His consistent regard for civil liberty was
preserved even in instances where additions to the executive authority
would result. The rôle of Louis Quatorze, of Frankenstein, or of Cæsar,
presented no attractions to the republican executive, whose position and
authority were, themselves, a protest against the exercise of arbitrary
and ungranted powers.
It is a striking evidence of the contempt for consistency, manifested by
Mr. Davis' assailants, that these virtues, so commendable in the executive
of a free people, should then have actually constituted the ground of
accusation, by those who subsequently charged him with an ambition to
unite in himself all the departments of the Government. There arose, at
this time, a demagogical demand for a "Dictator"--that morbid aspiration
characteristic of men of weak nerve and deficient fortitude, which vainly
seeks to make Government more powerful for good purposes, by removing all
restraints upon its power to do evil.
Emphatic in the assertion of the authority conferred by the Constitution
upon his position, President Davis was no less persistent in his refusal
to countenance the investiture of himself with dictatorial powers.
But the stern and pressing exigencies of the times outweighed
considerations of even the gravest import, and induced a resort to that
measure which the President had hoped to avoid, but upon which now
depended the salvation of the country. In accordance with the
recommendation of the President, Congress, on the 16th of April, 1862,
adopted the conscription law, which was thenceforward, with many material
modifications rendered necessary by circumstances, the basis of the
military system of the Confederacy. This law placed at the disposal of the
President, during the war, every citizen not belonging to a class
exempted, between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five, thus annulling all
contracts made with volunteers for short terms. By this act, the States
surrendered their control over such of their citizens as came within the
terms of the act, and in each State were located camps of instruction, for
the reception and training of conscripts. There were other features of the
conscription law, having in view an increased solidity and harmony of the
army organization.
It is impossible to overestimate the immediate benefits realized to the
Confederacy from this legislation. The incipient disorganization of the
army, consequent upon the numerous furloughs granted to such of the men as
would reënlist for the war, was instantly checked; large additions were
made to commands already in the field, and the discipline and general
frame-work of the army greatly improved.
Second in importance to the adoption of the act of conscription only,
among the accessions of strength to the military system of the Confederacy
at this period, was the appointment of General Lee to the general command
of the armies, "under the direction of the President."[46]
The nature of the position thus assigned to one whom the concurrent
criticism of his age pronounces the most eminent of American commanders,
has been much misunderstood, and with its discussion has been associated
much injurious misrepresentation of President Davis.
General Lee, after the failure of his campaign in North-western Virginia,
in the autumn of 1861, became the object of a vast amount of disparaging
criticism. His case was, indeed, in marked coincidence with that of Sidney
Johnston. Both were distinguished in the Federal service; previous to the
war they were generally conceded to be the ablest officers of that
service; both were known to have been the classmates of Jefferson Davis
and his intimate friends. In their first campaigns, both were adjudged, by
the hot and impulsive temper of the time, to have committed gross and
signal failure. Neither had many apologists. Johnston was declared an
imbecile--a mere martinet, without any of the qualities of true
generalship; and Lee was pronounced incompetent for higher duties than the
clerical performances of the War Office.
President Davis alone remained firm in behalf of these two men, whom a few
months sufficed to triumphantly vindicate. What nobler vindication should
he himself claim than that, through his firmness and discernment, was
given the needed opportunity to the three great soldiers--Lee, Sidney
Johnston, and Stonewall Jackson--who, above all others, have illustrated
American warfare.[47]
It has been erroneously supposed and asserted, that General Lee was
assigned the position of commanding general at the special instance of
Congress, and in obedience to the proclaimed will of the people. Whatever
may have been the concurrence of the Confederate Congress in the selection
made by President Davis of Lee for that position, there is no ground for
the hypothesis that the Southern people welcomed this promotion of General
Lee as an assurance of good fortune in the future conduct of the war.
Indeed, the act of Congress, creating the office of commanding general,
was adopted at the special suggestion of the President, who immediately
assigned Lee to the discharge of its duties. Congress designed General Lee
to be Minister of War, and, with a view to the promotion of that purpose,
repealed a provision which deprived of his rank in the army, a general
assigned to the control of the War Office. But President Davis clearly
understood the broad and palpable distinction, between the talents
requisite for successful administration of that department of the
Government, and the genius of a great soldier. He had too just an
appreciation of the high military qualities of Lee, to consent to their
virtual entombment in a civil position. In accordance with these
suggestions, the President obtained the adoption of the necessary
legislation, and conferred upon General Lee the control and supervision of
the purely military affairs and operations of the war administration. Thus
it was neither in compliance with the action of Congress, nor in deference
to the popular will, that President Davis selected an appropriate sphere
for the genius of Lee, where it "soon dawned upon the admiration of
mankind, and retained its effulgence undimmed to the last."[48]
The terms of the order assigning General Lee to duty, "under the direction
of the President," have been construed to signify, that it was not
designed that he should exercise those appropriate functions which
obviously appertain to the position of commanding-general. It has been
argued that the President thus created Lee a sort of "chief of staff," or
ornamental attaché of his military household, with a purely complimentary
and meaningless title. The selections made by Mr. Davis, of Lee first,
and, subsequently, of Bragg, as incumbents of the position, sufficiently
repel this absurd conclusion. It is true that the President did not
delegate to these officers his constitutional functions as
commander-in-chief, but to assist and advise him, in the discharge of
those arduous and laborious functions, required no ordinary skill and
experience. The well-known confidence, reposed by the President in
General Lee, may accurately measure the influence of the latter, upon the
Confederate military administration.
In the progress of those events, which have thus far engrossed our
attention, notable changes had occurred in the cabinet. Early in the
summer of 1861, Mr. Toombs had surrendered the portfolio of State, and Mr.
Hunter, a former United States Senator from Virginia, whose name was
prominently associated with the political history of the Union for more
than twenty years, was placed at the head of the Confederate
administration. During the ensuing winter, Mr. Hunter retired from the
cabinet, and was transferred to the Confederate Senate.
Mr. Benjamin, originally Attorney-General, had been temporarily assigned
to the War Department, upon the resignation of Mr. Walker, who was the
first incumbent. The connection of Mr. Benjamin with the War Office
continued for several months, when he was transferred to the Department of
State, where he remained until the overthrow of the Confederacy. The
period of his administration of the War Department measures an important
space in the history of the Confederacy. It was a period marked by
numerous, consecutive, and appalling disasters, and, as has been already
seen, Mr. Benjamin did not escape the penalty of official position during
a season of public calamity. We have glanced briefly at the question of
his official responsibility, not with a view of his vindication, though we
have denied the justice of the unlimited reproach, which pursued both
himself and Secretary Mallory, long after even the pretext had
disappeared.
The censure of Mr. Benjamin was based upon the assumption that he was
responsible for reverses, which a more skillful and attentive management
would have avoided. Yet the facts establish the declaration of Mr. Davis
that those reverses were unavoidable. They, indeed, simply foreshadowed
the fact, which the country soon after realized, of the immense
disadvantage of the Confederate forces in all cases where the naval
facilities of the enemy could be made available. Can it be successfully
maintained that another in the place of Mr. Benjamin would have prevented
the fall of Forts Henry and Donelson, of Roanoke Island, of Newbern, of
Memphis, of Island No. 10, and of New Orleans? General Randolph, the
successor of Mr. Benjamin, is universally conceded to have made a
competent secretary of war during his brief term; yet will it be
maintained that had General Randolph, instead of Mr. Benjamin, been the
successor of Mr. Walker, that all, or any of those disasters would have
been prevented?
Mr. Benjamin can hardly be deemed less fortunate than his successors.
Messrs. Randolph and Breckinridge were, perhaps, fortunate in the brief
period of their responsibility, or they, too, might have shared the public
censure so freely lavished upon Messrs. Walker, Benjamin, and Seddon.
Perhaps no more thankless position was ever assumed by an official than
the management of the War Department of the Confederate States. The
difficult problem propounded by Themistocles--"to make a small state a
great one"--was of easy solution, compared to that presented the luckless
incumbent of an office, in which the abundance of responsibilities and
embarrassments was commensurate only with the poverty of resources with
which to meet them. To create an army from a population of between five
and six millions, able to successfully cope with an adversary supported by
a home population of twenty-five millions, aided by the inexhaustible
reserves of Europe; with blockaded ports, a newly-organized Government,
and a country of limited manufacturing means; to match in the material of
war the wealthiest and most productive nation in the world; to maintain
the strength and efficiency of an army decimated by its own unnumbered
victories, and from a population depleted by successive conscriptions, was
the encouraging task devolving upon President Davis and his Secretary of
War. It is, at least, reasonable to doubt whether even the genius of
Napoleon, or of Carnot, was ever summoned to such an enterprise.
No allegation was made more freely and persistently against Mr. Davis than
that of favoritism. At times he was represented as a merciless,
inexorable, capricious master, who would tolerate neither intelligence nor
independence in his subordinates, who were required to be the subservient
agents of his will. Again, he was declared an imbecile puppet in the hands
of Mr. Benjamin, who, with an amazing protean adaptability, assumed the
character of Richelieu, Mazarin, Wolsey, or Jeffreys, as might meet the
convenience of the censors. At all times, however, the public was urged to
believe Mr. Davis was engaged in devising rewards for unworthy favorites,
who, while obsequious to his whims, insolent in the enjoyment of his
bounty, and secure under the executive ægis, were surely carrying the
cause to perdition.
This allegation of favoritism was assumed to have a conspicuous
illustration in the case of Mr. Benjamin, for whom the President retained
his partiality even after he had been censured by Congress, and when his
unpopularity was not to be concealed. The same motive was affirmed,
however, in the selection of his other advisers; and to obviate the
necessity of detail hereafter, we will dispose of this subject at once.
Despite the persistent assertion to the contrary, the fact is
indisputable, that, in the selection of no single member of his cabinet,
did Jefferson Davis make use of the opportunity to reward either a friend
or a partisan. In no case did personal favor even remotely influence his
choice, save in the appointment of Mr. Seddon as Secretary of War--an
appointment made with the universal acclaim of the public and the
newspapers. James A. Seddon and Jefferson Davis were, indeed, friends of
twenty years' standing; but, besides, Mr. Seddon was recommended not more
by the confidence of the President, than by the unlimited confidence of
the country in his intellect, integrity, and patriotism.
Personal details are frequently not to be denied an important historical
bearing, and the motives of Mr. Davis, in the choice of his cabinet, claim
no insignificant page in his official history. We have briefly adverted
elsewhere to some of these considerations.
When the Confederate cabinet was organized at Montgomery, Robert Toombs
was placed at its head; yet between Davis and Toombs there had not been
close intimacy, hardly mutual confidence--certainly nothing like ardent
friendship. But Mr. Toombs represented an overwhelming majority of the
people of Georgia, the wealthiest and largest State of the Confederacy at
that period, as determined at their last election. He was peculiarly the
representative public man of Georgia; the most prominent citizen of his
State, repeatedly selected for its highest honors, and then a reputed
statesman. When Mr. Toombs resigned, his successor was Mr. Hunter, who had
served with Mr. Davis in the Senate, and in whose qualifications the
President had confidence. They had both been friends of Mr. Calhoun, and
disciples of his political school. Political accord by no means signifies
personal intimacy, and while Mr. Hunter has many admirers, and was greatly
respected in Virginia and in the Senate, he has not been generally
accredited with marked sympathetic tendencies.
Mr. Benjamin was originally made Attorney-General, because of his high
legal reputation, and because Louisiana was entitled to a representative
in the cabinet, but not because of personal considerations, since his
relations with Mr. Davis were neither intimate nor cordial. The partiality
of the President for Mr. Benjamin was, indeed, an after-thought--the
result of observation of his wonderful mental resources, his unequal
capacity for labor and zealous devotion to the cause.
Mr. Mallory was recommended for the Navy Department by his previous
experience. There had been mutual kind feeling between himself and Mr.
Davis as Senators, but nothing like close association. Mr. Davis had never
seen Mr. Walker until he was appointed Secretary of War, in accordance
with the emphatic choice of Alabama. General Randolph was appointed solely
in consequence of Mr. Davis' convictions of his fitness. Previous to the
war General Randolph was undistinguished, save in Virginia, where his fine
capacity and exalted worth were becomingly appreciated. General
Breckinridge, the last Confederate Secretary of War, was sufficiently
recommended by his talents and position. Mr. Memminger was made Secretary
of the Treasury, not as the friend of Mr. Davis, but as the choice of
South Carolina. With Mr. Trenholm, his successor, the President had no
personal acquaintance, until he became a member of the cabinet. Mr. Davis,
the last Attorney-General, was originally neither a personal friend nor a
party associate of the President; nor was Mr. Watts, his predecessor.
With the favorable response of Congress and the people to the vigorous and
timely suggestions of the President, began a more spirited prosecution of
the war, though the season of peril was not yet tided over, nor the
current of adversity exhausted. Already there were numerous indications of
the increased scale, and enlarged theatre of operations, which the war now
demanded.
At the conclusion of active operations in the Trans-Mississippi district,
in the autumn of 1861, the State forces of Missouri, still retaining their
separate organization, under General Price, and the Confederate forces of
McCulloch, were located south of Springfield, near the Arkansas line. An
unfortunate phase of the Southern conduct of the war in this quarter, and
one from which arose no little apprehension, was the apparently
irreconcilable difference between Generals Price and McCulloch. With a
view to secure the indispensable element of harmony, President Davis,
during the winter, appointed Major-General Earl Van Dorn, an able and
gallant officer, to the supreme command of military operations in the
Trans-Mississippi department. General Van Dorn was a favorite with the
President, and his services had already been of a character to justify the
high expectations, indulged not less by himself than by the public, of
fortunate results of the unanimity, at last secured in a quarter where its
absence had been severely felt.
The result of the enemy's movements, begun early in January, 1862, was the
retreat of the weak column of Price to the Boston Mountains, in Arkansas,
where McCulloch was encamped. This junction of the two commands did not
result in coöperation until the arrival of General Van Dorn, early in
March. With a vigor characteristic of this officer's career, Van Dorn
advanced against the enemy, advantageously posted, and with numbers
superior to his own force. The result was the battle of Elk Horn, a
brilliant but fruitless engagement, in which the Southern commander, in
consequence of the want of discipline among his soldiers, and partially
through the effects of those earlier dissensions with which he had no
connection, failed to realize the ends at which he aimed.[49]
Elk Horn was probably the most considerable engagement, in point of the
numbers engaged, fought during the war, west of the Mississippi.
Unimportant in its bearing upon the general character of the war, it was a
decided check upon the aspiration of the Confederate Government to recover
Missouri, and to give its authority a solid establishment in the
Trans-Mississippi region. This was afterward the least important theatre
of the war, though subsequent events there were by no means unworthy of
record. Even at this early stage, the war was rapidly tending to a
concentration of the energies of both parties, upon the more vital points
of conflict in Virginia, and the central zone of the Confederacy. A few
weeks later Generals Van Dorn and Price, with the major portion of the
Trans-Mississippi army, were transferred to the scene of operations east
of the great river.
General Albert Sidney Johnston, after his retreat from Nashville,
consequent upon the fall of Fort Donelson, paused at Murfreesboro',
Tennessee, for a sufficient period to receive accessions to his force,
which increased it to the neighborhood of twenty thousand men. These
accessions were portions of the command lately operating in South-eastern
Kentucky, and remnants of the forces lately defending Fort Donelson.
General Beauregard, having evacuated Columbus, which, in common with the
other posts of the former Confederate line of defense in Kentucky and
Tennessee, became untenable with the loss of the Tennessee and Cumberland
Rivers, concentrated his forces at Corinth, in the northern part of
Mississippi.
The evacuation of Columbus did not necessarily give the enemy control of
the Mississippi above Memphis. A strong position was taken by the
Confederate forces at Island No. 10, forty-five miles below Columbus.
Considerable anticipation was indulged by the Southern public, of a
successful stand at this point for the control of the Mississippi. It was,
however, captured by the enemy; and in the loss of two thousand men and
important material of war by its surrender, the Confederacy sustained
another severe blow, and the Federal Secretary of the Navy justly
congratulated the North, upon a "triumph not the less appreciated because
it was protracted and finally bloodless."
The retirement of the forces of General Albert Sidney Johnston south of
the Tennessee River, and the location of General Beauregard's command at
Corinth, readily suggested the practicability of a coöperation, by those
two commanders, for the defense of the valley of the Mississippi, and the
extensive railroad system, of which Corinth is the centre. With the
approbation of President Davis, a concentration of troops, from various
quarters, ensued, and, about the first of April, an admirable army of
forty thousand men was assembled in the neighborhood of Corinth, and upon
the railroads leading to that point. There was no situation during the war
more assuring of good fortune to the Confederates, than that presented in
Northern Mississippi in the early days of April, 1862. President Davis
indulged the highest anticipations from this grand combination of forces
which he so cordially approved. He confidently expected a victory from the
Western army, led by that officer whose capacity he trusted above all
others, which should more than compensate for the heavy losses of the
previous campaign. General Johnston was no less hopeful of the situation.
The conjuncture was indeed rare in its opportunities. The exposed
situation of General Grant, whose command lay upon the west bank of the
Tennessee River, with a most remarkable want of appreciation of its
precarious position by its commander, and a total absence of provision for
its safety, invited an immediate attack by the Confederate commander,
before the Federal column could be reinforced by Buell, then making rapid
marches from Nashville.
The incidents of the battle of Shiloh are familiar to the world. It
constitutes, perhaps, the most melancholy of that series of "lost
opportunities" in the Confederate conduct of the war, upon which history
will dwell with sad interest. The first day's victory promised fruits the
most brilliant and enduring. The action of the second day can only be
construed as a Confederate disaster. Such was the sentiment of the South,
and such must be the verdict of history.
Shiloh was, perhaps, the sorest disappointment experienced by the South,
until the loss of Vicksburg, and the defeat of Gettysburg threatened the
approaching climacteric of the Confederacy. The public grief at the death
of General Johnston was tinged with remorse, for the unmerited censure
with which the popular voice, encouraged by the press, had previously
assailed him. Not until his death did the South appreciate the worth of
this great soldier. Never, perhaps, had there been a more sublime instance
of self-abnegation than was displayed by Sidney Johnston.
All through the autumn and winter of 1861 he had maintained his perilous
position in Kentucky, confronted by forces quadruple his own, and yet
assailed by an impatient and ignorant public, for not essaying invasion,
with a force which subsequent events proved inadequate for defense. But
not even the hideous array of facts following the reverses of February
secured his vindication; still he was assailed by an unreasoning public,
instigated by a carping, partisan press. He was ridiculed as
incompetent--as one who had traversed the curriculum of West Point, only
to become educated in the frippery of military etiquette. For the first
time, President Davis was charged with a desire to reward favorites, even
at the risk of the public welfare, as illustrated by his retention in high
command, of one whom actual trial had proven incapable, and undeserving of
his previous reputation.
But President Davis, happily for his own fame, not less than for the fame
of this illustrious victim of popular clamor, was unmoved by the censures
of the public, and the invectives of the newspapers. He did not permit the
confidence which, upon deliberate judgment, and upon a long and intimate
acquaintance, he had reposed in General Johnston, to be shaken, and
sternly repelled the clamor against him, as he afterwards did in the case
of Lee, and even of Stonewall Jackson. His habitual reply to importunate
petitions for the removal of Johnston was: "If Sidney Johnston is
incompetent to command an army, then the Confederacy has no general fit
for that position."
Humanity rejoices in no attribute more noble than the capacity for warm
and enduring friendship; and there is nothing more exalted in the
character of Jefferson Davis than his devotion to his friends. At all
times as true as steel to those for whom he professes attachment, he
knows no cold medium, cherishes no feeling of indifference, but his nature
kindles responsively to the warmth in the bosom of others. A like
enthusiasm towards himself has usually been the reward of his heroic
constancy. In Sidney Johnston there was that touching union of chivalric
generosity and tender sympathy, which peculiarly qualified him for
fellowship with Jefferson Davis. Such friendship, as that which united
them, rises to the sublimity of the noblest virtue, and presents a
spectacle honorable to human nature.
President Davis commemorated the death of General Johnston in a
communication to Congress, and in terms of touching and appropriate
feeling. Said he:
"But an all-wise Creator has been pleased, while vouchsafing to us His
countenance in battle, to afflict us with a severe dispensation, to
which we must bow in humble submission. The last, long, lingering hope
has disappeared, and it is but too true that General Albert Sidney
Johnston is no more. My long and close friendship with this departed
chieftain and patriot forbid me to trust myself in giving vent to the
feelings, which this intelligence has evoked. Without doing injustice
to the living, it may safely be said that our loss is irreparable.
Among the shining hosts of the great and good who now cluster around
the banner of our country, there exists no purer spirit, no more
heroic soul, than that of the illustrious man whose death I join you
in lamenting. In his death he has illustrated the character for which,
through life, he was conspicuous--that of singleness of purpose and
devotion to duty with his whole energies. Bent on obtaining the
victory which he deemed essential to his country's cause, he rode on
to the accomplishment of his object, forgetful of self, while his very
life-blood was fast ebbing away. His last breath cheered his comrades
on to victory. The last sound he heard was their shout of victory. His
last thought was his country, and long and deeply will his country
mourn his loss."
The battle of Shiloh was an incident of the war justifying more than a
passing notice. Never since Manassas, and never upon any subsequent
occasion, had the Confederacy an opportunity so abundant in promise. The
utmost exertions of the Government had been employed to make the Western
army competent for the great enterprise proposed by its commander. The
situation of Grant's army absolutely courted the tremendous blow with
which Johnston sought its destruction, a result which, in all human
calculation, he would have achieved had his life been spared. At the
moment of his death a peerless victory was already won; the heavy masses
of Grant were swept from their positions; before nightfall his last
reserve had been broken, and his army lay, a cowering, shrunken, defeated
rabble, upon the banks of the Tennessee. That, at such a moment, the army
should have been recalled from pursuit, especially when it was known that
a powerful reinforcement, ample to enable the enemy to restore his
fortunes, was hastening, by forced marches, to the scene, must ever remain
a source of profound amazement.
It was the story of Manassas repeated, but with a far more mournful
significance. It was not the failure to gather the fruits of the most
complete victory of the war, nor the irreparable loss of Sidney Johnston,
which filled the cup of the public sorrow. Superadded to these was the
alarming discovery that the second great army of the Confederacy, in the
death of its commander, was deprived of the genius which alone had been
proven capable of its successful direction. Johnston had no worthy
successor, and the Western army discovered no leader capable of
conducting it to the goal which its splendid valor deserved.
A very perceptible diminution of what had hitherto been unlimited
confidence, not only in the genius, but even in the good fortune of
Beauregard, was the result of his declared failure at Shiloh. Not even his
distinguished services, subsequently, were sufficient to entirely efface
that unfortunate record. Military blunders, perhaps the most excusable of
human errors, are those which popular criticism is the least disposed to
extenuate. The reputation of the soldier, so sacred to himself, and which
should be so jealously guarded by his country, is often mercilessly
mutilated by that public, upon whose gratitude and indulgence he should
have an unlimited demand. We shall not undertake to establish the justice
of the public verdict, which has been unanimous, that the course of
General Beauregard involved, at least, an "extraordinary abandonment of a
great victory." It only remains to state the material from which a candid
and intelligent estimate is to be reached.
General Beauregard has explained his course, in terms which, it is to be
presumed, were at least satisfactory to himself. His official report says:
"Darkness was close at hand; officers and men were exhausted by a combat
of over twelve hours without food, and jaded by the march of the preceding
day through mud and water."
General Bragg, who conspicuously shared the laurels of the first day's
action, has recorded a memorable protest against the course adopted at its
close. Says General Bragg ... "It was now probably past four o'clock, the
descending sun warning us to press our advantage and finish the work
before night should compel us to desist. Fairly in motion, these commands
again, with a common head and a common purpose, swept all before them.
Neither battery nor battalion could withstand their onslaught. Passing
through camp after camp, rich in military spoils of every kind, the enemy
was driven headlong from every position, and thrown in confused masses
upon the river bank, behind his heavy artillery, and under cover of his
gunboats at the landing. He had left nearly the whole of his light
artillery in our hands."... _The enemy had fallen back in much confusion,
and was crowded, in unorganized masses, upon the river bank, vainly
striving to cross._ They were covered by a battery of heavy guns, well
served, and their two gunboats, now poured a heavy fire upon our supposed
position, for we were entirely hid by the forest. _Their fire, though
terrific in sound, and producing some consternation at first, did us no
damage, as the shells all passed over, and exploded far beyond our
position...._ The sun was about disappearing, so that little time was left
us to finish the glorious work of the day.... Our troops, greatly
exhausted by twelve hours' incessant fighting, without food, _mostly
responded to the order with alacrity, and the movement commenced with
every prospect of success.... Just at this time, an order was received
from, the commanding general to withdraw the forces beyond the enemy's
fire._
The testimony of General Polk, also a distinguished participant in the
battle, was concurrent with that of General Bragg, and no less emphatic in
its suggestions. In his report is to be found the following passage:
"The troops under my command were joined by those of Generals Bragg
and Breckinridge, and my fourth brigade, under General Cheatham, from
the right. The field was clear. The rest of the forces of the enemy
were driven to the river and under its bank. We had one hour or more
of daylight still left; were within from one hundred and fifty to four
hundred yards of the enemy's position, and nothing seemed wanting to
complete the most brilliant victory of the war, but to press forward
and make a vigorous assault on the demoralized remnant of his forces.
"At this juncture his gunboats dropped down the river, near the
landing, where his troops were collected, and opened a tremendous
cannonade of shot and shell over the bank, in the direction from which
our forces were approaching. The height of the plain on which we were,
above the level of the water, was about one hundred feet, so that it
was necessary to give great elevation to his guns, to enable him to
fire over the bank. The consequence was that shot could take effect
only at points remote from the river's edge. They were comparatively
harmless to our troops nearest the bank, and became increasingly so to
us as we drew near the enemy and placed him between us and his boats.
"Here the impression arose that our forces were waging an unequal
contest--that they were exhausted, and suffering from a murderous
fire, and by an order from the commanding general they were withdrawn
from the field."
President Davis could only share the universal dissatisfaction with the
unfortunate termination of the battle of Shiloh. A conclusive evidence of
his forbearance and justice is seen in the fact, that he did not avail
himself of the opportunity to displace an officer, toward whom he was
charged with entertaining such bitter and implacable animosity, when
public sentiment would, in all probability, have approved the expediency
of that step. But General Beauregard was in no danger of mean resentment
from President Davis, who so frequently braved the anger of the public
against its distinguished servants. General Beauregard retained the
control of the Western army, without interference from the executive, and
within a few weeks, by the successful execution of his admirable retreat
from Corinth, which he justly declared "equivalent to a brilliant
victory," did much to repair his damaged reputation.[50] So eminent, in
its perfection and success, was the retreat of Beauregard with his little
army from the front of Halleck, who had more than one hundred thousand
men, that a portion of the Northern press admitted that while Shiloh made
Grant ridiculous, Corinth made a corpse of Halleck's military reputation.
As yet there had been no compensating advantage gained by the Confederacy
to repair the disasters sustained in the early part of the year. Indeed,
the train of reverses had hardly been more than temporarily interrupted,
when a calamity hardly less serious than the loss of Tennessee happened in
the loss of New Orleans, the largest, most populous, and most wealthy city
of the Confederacy. This event was speedily followed by the calamitous
results which were to be expected. It was the virtual destruction of
Confederate rule in Louisiana. It cut off the available routes to Texas,
so inestimable in its importance as a source of grain and cattle; gave
the enemy a base of operations against the entire gulf region, and was
altogether disheartening to the South.[51]
Some time previous to the fall of New Orleans, which occurred in the
latter days of April, the Confederacy had made its most serious effort to
dispute the hitherto absolute naval supremacy of the North. On the 8th of
March, 1862, occurred the famous naval engagement in Hampton Roads,
between the Confederate iron-clad Virginia, and the Federal Monitor. Ever
since the summer of 1861, the Navy Department had been preparing, at
Gosport Navy-yard, a formidable naval contrivance--a shot-proof,
iron-plated steam battery. The result of the experiment was a success,
which did much to relieve the Navy Department of undeserved reproach, and
to produce a revolution in theories relating to naval science and
architecture all over the world.
About this period the activity of the naval forces of the enemy was
rewarded by additional successes. The towns of Newborn, Washington, and
other places of less note in North Carolina, were captured by naval
expeditions in conjunction with detachments from the army of General
Burnside. The successes of the Burnside expedition, which had been
prepared by the North with such large expectations, were by no means
inconsiderable; but they were soon lost sight of in the presence of the
more absorbing operations in the interior. The naval resistance of the
South had thus far necessarily been feeble. In the subsequent progress of
the war, except in rare instances, it disappeared altogether as an element
in the calculation of means of defense.
The vulnerability of the South upon the sea-coast, and along the lines of
her navigable rivers, measured the extent of the good fortune of the
enemy. The North was shortly to yield a reluctant recognition of the
comparatively insignificant influence of its long train of triumphs in the
promotion of subjugation. Upon the soil of Virginia--classic in its
memories of contests for freedom, the chosen battle-ground of the
Confederacy--was soon to be shed the effulgence of the proudest
achievements of Southern genius and valor--a radiance as splendid as ever
shone upon the blazing crest of war.