The volunteers who composed the armies of the Potomac and Northern
Virginia were real soldiers now, inured to war, and desperate in their
determination to do its work without faltering or failure. This
fact--this change in the temper and _morale_ of the men on either
side--had greatly simplified the tasks set for Grant and Lee to solve.
They knew their men. They knew that those men would stand against
anything, endure slaughter without flinching, hardship without
complaining, and make desperate endeavor without shrinking. The two
armies had become what they had not been earlier in the contest,
_perfect instruments of war_, that could be relied upon as confidently
as the machinist relies upon his engine scheduled to make so many
revolutions per minute at a given rate of horse-power, and with the
precision of science itself.--_George Cary Eggleston, in "The History
of the Confederate War."_
After the battle of Gettysburg, Lee started for the Potomac, which he
crossed with some difficulty, but with little interruption from the
Federals, above Harper's Ferry, on July 14, 1863. The thwarted invader of
Pennsylvania wished to get to the plains of Virginia as quickly as
possible, but the Shenandoah was found to be impassable. Meade, in the
mean time, had crossed the Potomac east of the Blue Ridge and seized the
principal outlets from the lower part of the Valley. Lee, therefore, was
compelled to continue his retreat up the Shenandoah until Longstreet, sent
in advance with part of his command, had so blocked the Federal pursuit
that most of the Confederate army was able to emerge through Chester Gap
and move to Culpeper Court House. Ewell marched through Thornton's Gap and
by the 4th of August practically the whole Army of Northern Virginia was
south of the Rapidan, prepared to dispute the crossing of that river. But
Meade, continuing his flank pursuit, halted at Culpeper Court House,
deeming it imprudent to attempt the Rapidan in the face of the strongly
entrenched Confederates. In the entire movement there had been no fighting
except a few cavalry skirmishes and no serious loss on either side.
On the 9th of September, Lee sent Longstreet and his corps to assist Bragg
in the great conflict that was seen to be inevitable around Chattanooga.
In spite of reduced strength, Lee proceeded to assume a threatening
attitude toward Meade, and in October and early November there were
several small but severe engagements as the Confederate leader attempted
to turn Meade's flank and force him back to the old line of Bull Run. On
the 7th of November, Sedgwick made a brilliant capture of the redoubts on
the Rappahannock, and Lee returned once more to his old position on the
south side of the Rapidan. This lay between Barnett's Ford, near Orange
Court House (Lee's headquarters), and Morton's Ford, twenty miles below.
Its right was also protected by entrenchments along the course of Mine
Run. Against these, in the last days of November, Meade sent French,
Sedgwick, and Warren. It was found impossible to carry the Confederate
position, and on December 1st the Federal troops were ordered to recross
the Rapidan. In this short campaign the Union lost sixteen hundred men and
the Confederacy half that number. With the exception of an unsuccessful
cavalry raid against Richmond, in February, nothing disturbed the
existence of the two armies until the coming of Grant.
In the early months of 1864, the Army of the Potomac lay between the
Rapidan and the Rappahannock, most of it in the vicinity of Culpeper Court
House, although some of the troops were guarding the railroad to
Washington as far as Bristoe Station, close to Manassas Junction. On the
south side of the Rapidan, the Army of Northern Virginia was, as has been
seen, securely entrenched. The Confederates' ranks were thin and their
supplies were scarce; but the valiant spirit which had characterized the
Southern hosts in former battles still burned fiercely within their
breasts, presaging many desperate battles before the heel of the invader
should tread upon their cherished capital, Richmond, and their loved
cause, the Confederacy.
Within the camp religious services had been held for weeks in succession,
resulting in the conversion of large numbers of the soldiers. General Lee
was a religious man. The influence of the awakening among the men in the
army during this revival was manifest after the war was over, when the
soldiers had gone back to civil life, under conditions most trying and
severe. To this spiritual frame of mind may be credited, perhaps, some of
the remarkable feats accomplished in subsequent battles by the Confederate
army.
On February 29, 1864, the United States Congress passed law reviving the
grade of lieutenant-general, the title being intended for Grant, who was
made general-in-chief of the armies of the United States. Grant had come
from his victorious battle-grounds in the West, and all eyes turned to him
as the chieftain who should lead the Union army to success. On the 9th of
March he received his commission. He now planned the final great double
movement of the war. Taking control of the whole campaign against Lee, but
leaving the Army of the Potomac under Meade's direct command, he chose the
strongest of his corps commanders, W. T. Sherman, for the head of affairs
in the West. Grant's immediate objects were to defeat Lee's army and to
capture Richmond, the latter to be accomplished by General Butler and the
Army of the James; Sherman's object was to crush Johnston, to seize that
important railroad center, Atlanta, Georgia, and, with Banks' assistance,
to open a way between the Atlantic coast and Mobile, on the Gulf, thus
dividing the Confederacy north and south, as the conquest of the
Mississippi had parted it east and west. It was believed that if either or
both of these campaigns were successful, the downfall of the Confederacy
would be assured.
On a recommendation of General Meade's, the Army of the Potomac was
reorganized into three corps instead of the previous five. The Second,
Fifth, and Sixth corps were retained, absorbing the First and Third.
Hancock was in command of the Second; Warren, the Fifth; and Sedgwick, the
Sixth. Sheridan was at the head of the cavalry. The Ninth Corps acted as a
separate army under Burnside, and was now protecting the Orange and
Alexandria Railroad. As soon as Meade had crossed the Rapidan, Burnside
was ordered to move promptly, and he reached the battlefield of the
Wilderness on the morning of May 6th. On May 24th his corps was assigned
to the Army of the Potomac. The Union forces, including the Ninth Corps,
numbered about one hundred and eighteen thousand men.
The Army of Northern Virginia consisted of three corps of infantry, the
First under Longstreet, the Second under Ewell, and the Third under A. P.
Hill, and a cavalry corps commanded by Stuart. A notable fact in the
organization of the Confederate army was the few changes made in
commanders. The total forces under Lee were about sixty-two thousand.
After assuming command, Grant established his headquarters at Culpeper
Court House, whence he visited Washington once a week to consult with
President Lincoln and the Secretary of War. He was given full authority,
however, as to men and movements, and worked out a plan of campaign which
resulted in a series of battles in Virginia unparalleled in history. The
first of these was precipitated in a dense forest, a wilderness, from
which the battle takes its name.
Grant decided on a general advance of the Army of the Potomac upon Lee,
and early on the morning of May 4th the movement began by crossing the
Rapidan at several fords below Lee's entrenched position, and moving by
his right flank. The crossing was effected successfully, the line of march
taking part of the Federal troops over a scene of defeat in the previous
spring. One year before, the magnificent Army of the Potomac, just from a
long winter's rest in the encampment at Falmouth on the north bank of the
Rappahannock, had met the legions of the South in deadly combat on the
battlefield of Chancellorsville. And now Grant was leading the same army,
whose ranks had been freshened by new recruits from the North, through the
same field of war.
By eight o'clock on the morning of the 4th the various rumors as to the
Federal army's crossing the Rapidan received by Lee were fully confirmed,
and at once he prepared to set his own army in motion for the Wilderness,
and to throw himself across the path of his foe. Two days before he had
gathered his corps and division commanders around him at the signal
station on Clark's Mountain, a considerable eminence south of the Rapidan,
near Robertson's Ford. Here he expressed the opinion that Grant would
cross at the lower fords, as he did, but nevertheless Longstreet was kept
at Gordonsville in case the Federals should move by the Confederate left.
The day was oppressively hot, and the troops suffered greatly from thirst
as they plodded along the forest aisles through the jungle-like region.
The Wilderness was a maze of trees, underbrush, and ragged foliage.
Low-limbed pines, scrub-oaks, hazels, and chinkapins interlaced their
branches on the sides of rough country roads that lead through this
labyrinth of desolation. The weary troops looked upon the heavy tangles of
fallen timber and dense undergrowth with a sense of isolation. Only the
sounds of the birds in the trees, the rustling of the leaves, and the
passing of the army relieved the heavy pall of solitude that bore upon the
senses of the Federal host.
The forces of the Northern army advanced into the vast no-man's land by
the roads leading from the fords. In the afternoon, Hancock was resting at
Chancellorsville, while Warren posted his corps near the Wilderness
Tavern, in which General Grant established his headquarters. Sedgwick's
corps had followed in the track of Warren's veterans, but was ordered to
halt near the river crossing, or a little south of it. The cavalry, as
much as was not covering the rear wagon trains, was stationed near
Chancellorsville and the Wilderness Tavern. That night the men from the
North lay in bivouac with little fear of being attacked in this wilderness
of waste, where military maneuvers would be very difficult.
Two roads--the old Orange turnpike and the Orange plank road--enter the
Wilderness from the southwest. Along these the Confederates moved from
their entrenched position to oppose the advancing hosts of the North.
Ewell took the old turnpike and Hill the plank road. Longstreet was
hastening from Gordonsville. The troops of Longstreet, on the one side,
and of Burnside, on the other, arrived on the field after exhausting
forced marches.
The locality in which the Federal army found itself on the 5th of May was
not one that any commander would choose for a battle-ground. Lee was more
familiar with its terrible features than was his opponent, but this gave
him little or no advantage. Grant, having decided to move by the
Confederate right flank, could only hope to pass through the desolate
region and reach more open country before the inevitable clash would come.
But this was not to be. General Humphreys, who was Meade's chief of staff,
says in his "Virginia Campaign of 1864 and 1865": "So far as I know, no
great battle ever took place before on such ground. But little of the
combatants could be seen, and its progress was known to the senses chiefly
by the rising and falling sounds of a vast musketry fire that continually
swept along the lines of battle, many miles in length, sounds which at
times approached to the sublime."
As Ewell, moving along the old turnpike on the morning of May 5th, came
near the Germanna Ford road, Warren's corps was marching down the latter
on its way to Parker's store, the destination assigned it by the orders of
the day. This meeting precipitated the battle of the Wilderness.
Meade learned the position of Ewell's advance division and ordered an
attack. The Confederates were driven back a mile or two, but, re-forming
and reënforced, the tide of battle was turned the other way. Sedgwick's
marching orders were sending him to the Wilderness Tavern on the turnpike.
He was on his way when the battle began, and he now turned to the right
from the Germanna Ford road and formed several of his divisions on
Warren's right. The presence of Hill on the plank road became known to
Meade and Grant, about eight in the morning. Hancock, at Chancellorsville,
was too far away to check him, so Getty's division of Sedgwick's corps, on
its way to the right, was sent over the Brock road to its junction with
the plank road for the purpose of driving Hill back, if possible, beyond
Parker's store.
Warren and Sedgwick began to entrench themselves when they realized that
Ewell had effectively blocked their progress. Getty, at the junction of
the Brock and the Orange plank roads, was likewise throwing up breastworks
as fast as he could. Hancock, coming down the Brock road from
Chancellorsville, reached him at two in the afternoon and found two of A.
P. Hill's divisions in front. After waiting to finish his breastworks,
Getty, a little after four o'clock, started, with Hancock supporting him,
to carry out his orders to drive Hill back. Hancock says: "The fighting
became very fierce at once. The lines of battle were exceedingly close,
the musketry continuous and deadly along the entire line.... The battle
raged with great severity and obstinacy until about 8 P.M. without decided
advantage to either party." Here, on the Federal left, and in this
desperate engagement, General Alexander Hays, one of Hancock's brigade
commanders, was shot through the head and killed.
The afternoon had worn away with heavy skirmishing on the right. About
five o'clock Meade made another attempt on Ewell's forces. Both lines were
well entrenched, but the Confederate artillery enfiladed the Federal
positions. It was after dark when General Seymour of Sedgwick's corps
finally withdrew his brigade, with heavy loss in killed and wounded.
When the battle roar had ceased, the rank and file of the Confederate
soldiers learned with sorrow of the death of one of the most dashing
brigade leaders in Ewell's corps, General John M. Jones. This fighting was
the preliminary struggle for position in the formation of the battle-lines
of the two armies, to secure the final hold for the death grapple. The
contestants were without advantage on either side when the sanguinary
day's work was finished.
Both armies had constructed breastworks and were entrenched very close to
each other, front to front, gathered and poised for a deadly spring. Early
on the morning of May 6th Hancock was reënforced by Burnside, and Hill by
Longstreet.
Grant issued orders, through Meade, for a general attack by Sedgwick,
Warren, and Hancock along the entire line, at five o'clock on the morning
of the 6th. Fifteen minutes before five the Confederates opened fire on
Sedgwick's right, and soon the battle was raging along the whole five-mile
front. It became a hand-to-hand contest. The Federals advanced with great
difficulty. The combatants came upon each other but a few paces apart.
Soldiers on one side became hopelessly mixed with those of the other.
Artillery played but little part in the battle of the Wilderness. The
cavalry of the two armies had one indecisive engagement on the 5th. The
next day both Custer and Gregg repulsed Hampton and Fitzhugh Lee in two
separate encounters, but Sheridan was unable to follow up the advantage.
He had been entrusted with the care of the wagon trains and dared not take
his cavalry too far from them. The battle was chiefly one of musketry.
Volley upon volley was poured out unceasingly; screaming bullets mingled
with terrific yells in the dense woods. The noise became deafening, and
the wounded and dying lying on the ground among the trees made a scene of
indescribable horror. Living men rushed in to take the places of those
who had fallen. The missiles cut branches from the trees, and saplings
were mowed down as grass in a meadow is cut by a scythe. Bloody remnants
of uniforms, blue and gray, hung as weird and uncanny decorations from
remaining branches.
The story of the Federal right during the morning is easily told.
Persistently and often as he tried, Warren could make no impression on the
strongly entrenched Ewell--nor could Sedgwick, who was trying equally hard
with Wright's division of his corps. But with Hancock on the left, in his
entrenchments on the Brock road, it was different. The gallant and heroic
charges here have elicited praise and admiration from friend and foe
alike. At first, Hill was forced back in disorder, and driven in confusion
a mile and a half from his line. The Confederates seemed on the verge of
panic and rout. From the rear of the troops in gray came the beloved
leader of the Southern host, General Lee. He was astride his favorite
battle-horse, and his face was set in lines of determination. Though the
crisis of the battle for the Confederates had arrived, Lee's voice was
calm and soft as he commanded, "Follow me," and then urged his charger
toward the bristling front of the Federal lines. The Confederate ranks
were electrified by the brave example of their commander. A ragged veteran
who had followed Lee through many campaigns, leaped forward and caught the
bridle-rein of the horse. "We won't go on until you go back," cried the
devoted warrior. Instantly the Confederate ranks resounded with the cry,
"Lee to the rear! Lee to the rear!" and the great general went back to
safety while his soldiers again took up the gage of battle and plunged
into the smoke and death-laden storm. But Lee, by his personal presence,
and the arrival of Longstreet, had restored order and courage in the
ranks, and their original position was soon regained.
The pursuit of the Confederates through the dense forest had caused
confusion and disorganization in Hancock's corps. That cohesion and
strength in a battle-line of soldiers, where the men can "feel the touch,"
shoulder to shoulder, was wanting, and the usual form and regular
alignment was broken. It was two hours before the lines were re-formed.
That short time had been well utilized by the Confederates. Gregg's eight
hundred Texans made a desperate charge through the thicket of the pine
against Webb's brigade of Hancock's corps, cutting through the growth, and
wildly shouting amid the crash and roar of the battle. Half of their
number were left on the field, but the blow had effectually checked the
Federal advance.
While the battle was raging Grant's general demeanor was imperturbable. He
remained with Meade nearly the whole day at headquarters at the Lacy
house. He sat upon a stump most of the time, or at the foot of a tree,
leaning against its trunk, whittling sticks with his pocket-knife and
smoking big black cigars--twenty during the day. He received reports of
the progress of the battle and gave orders without the least evidence of
excitement or emotion. "His orders," said one of his staff, "were given
with a spur," implying instant action. On one occasion, when an officer,
in great excitement, brought him the report of Hancock's misfortune and
expressed apprehension as to Lee's purpose, Grant exclaimed with some
warmth: "Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing what Lee is going to do. Go
back to your command and try to think what we are going to do ourselves."
Several brigades of Longstreet's troops, though weary from their forced
march, were sent on a flanking movement against Hancock's left, which
demoralized Mott's division and caused it to fall back three-quarters of a
mile. Longstreet now advanced with the rest of his corps. The dashing
leader, while riding with Generals Kershaw and Jenkins at the head of
Jenkins' brigade on the right of the Southern battle array, was screened
by the tangled thickets from the view of his own troops, flushed with the
success of brilliant flank movement. Suddenly the passing column was seen
indistinctly through an opening and a volley burst forth and struck the
officers. When the smoke lifted Longstreet and Jenkins were down--the
former seriously wounded, and the latter killed outright. As at
Chancellorsville a year before and on the same battle-ground, a great
captain of the Confederacy was shot down by his own men, and by accident,
at the crisis of a battle. Jackson lingered several days after
Chancellorsville, while Longstreet recovered and lived to fight for the
Confederacy till the surrender at Appomattox. General Wadsworth, of
Hancock's corps, was mortally wounded during the day, while making a
daring assault on the Confederate works, at the head of his men.
During the afternoon, the Confederate attack upon Hancock's and Burnside's
forces, which constituted nearly half the entire army, was so severe that
the Federal lines began to give way. The combatants swayed back and forth;
the Confederates seized the Federal breastworks repeatedly, only to be
repulsed again and again. Once, the Southern colors were placed on the
Union battlements. A fire in the forest, which had been burning for hours,
and in which, it is estimated, about two hundred of the Federal wounded
perished, was communicated to the timber entrenchments, the heat and smoke
driving into the faces of the men on the Union side, and compelling them
in some places to abandon the works. Hancock made a gallant and heroic
effort to re-form his lines and push the attack, and, as he rode along the
lines, his inspiring presence elicited cheer upon cheer from the men, but
the troops had exhausted their ammunition, the wagons were in the rear,
and as night was approaching, further attack was abandoned. The contest
ended on the lines where it began.
Later in the evening consternation swept the Federal camp when heavy
firing was heard in the direction of Sedgwick's corps, on the right. The
report was current that the entire Sixth Corps had been attacked and
broken. What had happened was a surprise attack by the Confederates,
commanded by General John B. Gordon, on Sedgwick's right flank, Generals
Seymour and Shaler with six hundred men being captured. When a message was
received from Sedgwick that the Sixth Corps was safe in an entirely new
line, there was great rejoicing in the Union camp.
Thus ended the two days' fighting of the battle of the Wilderness, one of
the greatest struggles in history. It was Grant's first experience in the
East, and his trial measure of arms with his great antagonist, General
Lee. The latter returned to his entrenchments and the Federals remained in
their position. The first clash had been undecisive. While Grant had been
defeated in his plan to pass around Lee, yet he had made a new record for
the Army of the Potomac, and he was not turned from his purpose of putting
himself between the Army of Northern Virginia and the capital of the
Confederacy. During the two days' engagement, there were ten hours of
actual fighting, with a loss in killed and wounded of about seventeen
thousand Union and nearly twelve thousand Confederates, nearly three
thousand men sacrificed each hour. It is the belief of some military
writers that Lee deliberately chose the Wilderness as a battle-ground, as
it would effectually conceal great inferiority of force, but if this be so
he seems to have come to share the unanimous opinions of the generals of
both sides that its difficulties were unsurmountable, and within his
entrenchments he awaited further attack. It did not come.
The next night, May 7th, Grant's march by the Confederate right flank was
resumed, but only to be blocked again by the dogged determination of the
tenacious antagonist, a few miles beyond, at Spotsylvania. Lee again
anticipated Grant's move. It is not strange that the minds of these two
men moved along the same lines in military strategy, when we remember they
were both military experts of the highest order, and were now working out
the same problem. The results obtained by each are told in the story of
the battle of Spotsylvania.
[Illustration: LEE'S MEN]
The faces of the veterans in this photograph of 1864 reflect more forcibly
than volumes of historical essays, the privations and the courage of the
ragged veterans in gray who faced Grant, with Lee as their leader. They
did not know that their struggle had already become unavailing; that no
amount of perseverance and devotion could make headway against the
resources, determination, and discipline of the Northern armies, now that
they had become concentrated and wielded by a master of men like Grant.
But Grant was as yet little more than a name to the armies of the East.
His successes had been won on Western fields--Donelson, Vicksburg,
Chattanooga. It was not yet known that the Army of the Potomac under the
new general-in-chief was to prove irresistible. So these faces reflect
perfect confidence.
[Illustration: CONFEDERATE SOLDIERS IN VIRGINIA, 1864