THE BATTLES IN THE WILDERNESS.
After the exhausting Gettysburg campaign, Carleton was obliged to rest
some weeks. So far as his letter-book shows, he did not engage in war
correspondence again until the opening of the next year, when he
entered upon his fourth hundred of letters, and began a tour of
observation through the border States. Traversing those between the
Ohio River and the Lakes, besides Missouri and Kansas, he kept the
_Journal_ readers well informed of the state of sentiment, and showed
the preparations made to pursue the war. At the last of April, we find
him in Washington preparing his readers for the great events of the
Wilderness, in letters which clearly describe the prospective "valley
of decision." The grandest sight, that week, in the city, was the
marching of Burnside's veteran corps, in which were not only the
bronzed white heroes, following their own torn and pierced
battle-flags, but also regiments of black patriots, slaves but a few
months before, but now no longer sons of the Dark Continent, but of
the Land of Hope and Opportunity. From slavery they had been redeemed
in the Free Republic. Unpaid sons of toil once, but free men now, they
were marching with steady step to certain victory or to certain death,
for at that moment came the sickening details of the massacre of Fort
Pillow. On the balcony of the hotel, standing beside the handsome
Burnside, was the tall and pale man who, having given them freedom,
now recognized them as soldiers. As they halted by the roadside and
read the accounts of massacre, their white teeth clenched, and oaths,
not altogether profane, were sworn for vengeance.
Out from the broad avenues of the nation's capital, and away from the
sight of the marble dome, the great army and its faithful historians
moved from sight, to the bloodiest contests of war. No more splendid
pageants in the fields, but close, hard, unromantic destruction in the
woods and among trenches and craters! One mind now directed all the
movements of the many armies of the Union, making all the forces at
the control of the nation into one mighty trip-hammer, for the
crushing of Slavery's conspiracy against Liberty.
General Grant recognized in Carleton his old friend whom he first met
in Cairo, and whom he had invited to take a nail-keg for a seat.
Having established his reputation for absolute truthfulness, Carleton
won not only Grant's personal friendship, but obtained a pass signed
"U. S. Grant," which was good in all the military departments of the
country, with transportation on all government trains and steamers. In
hours of relaxation, Carleton was probably as familiar with Grant as
was any officer on the general's own staff. Carleton profoundly
honored and believed in Grant as a trained, regular army officer who
could cut loose from European traditions and methods, and fight in the
way required in Virginia in 1864 and 1865. Further, Grant wanted the
Army of the Potomac to destroy Lee's army without the aid of, or
reinforcement from, Western troops.
Carleton comprehended the magnitude of the coming campaign, in which
were centred the hopes of eighteen millions of Americans. In his
eyes it was the most stupendous campaign of modern times. "It is not
the movement of one army merely, but of three great armies, to crush
out treason, to preserve the institutions of freedom, and consolidate
ourselves into a nation." Butler and Smith were to advance from the
Chesapeake, the armies of the South and West were in time to march
northward in Lee's rear, while from the West and North were to come
fresh hosts to consummate the grand combination.
Carleton's foresight had shown him that, in this campaign, an
assistant for himself would be absolutely necessary; for, in one
respect, Grant's advance was unique. Instead of, as heretofore, the
Union army's having its rear in close contact with the North, and all
the lines and methods of communication being open, the soldiers and
the correspondents were to advance into the Wilderness, and cut
themselves off from the railway, the telegraph, and even the ordinary
means of communication by horse, wheel, and boat. Carleton, at short
notice to the young man, chose for his assistant his nephew, Edmund
Carleton, now a veteran surgeon and physician in New York, but then in
the freshness and fullness of youth, health, and strength. Alert and
vigorous, fertile in resource, courageous and persevering, young
Carleton became the fleet messenger of the great war correspondent. He
assisted to gather news, and soon learned the art of winning the
soldier's heart, and of extracting, from officers and privates, scraps
and items of intelligence. Even as the hunter becomes expert in noting
and interpreting signs in air and on earth which yield him spoil, so
young Carleton, trained by his uncle, quickly learned how to secure
news, and to make a "beat." He kept himself well supplied to the
extent of his ability with tobacco,--always welcome to the veterans,
for which some "would almost sell their souls;" and with newspapers,
for which officers would often give what was worth more than
gold,--items of information, from which letters could be distilled,
and on which prophecies could be based. Very appropriately, Carleton
dedicates his fourth book on the war, "Freedom Triumphant," to his
fleet messenger.
Carleton's first letter in the last long campaign is dated May 4,
1864, from Brandy Station. There four corps were assembled: the
Second, Hancock's; the Fifth, Warren's; the Sixth, Sedgwick's; the
Ninth, Burnside's. With Sheridan's riders, these made a great city of
tents. The cavalry was not the cavalry of Scott's day, but was in its
potency a new arm of the service. From this time forth, the
Confederate authorities, by neglecting this arm of their service,
furnished one chief cause of final failure, while those in Washington
steadily increased in generous recognition of the power of union of
man and horse. In equal ability of brute and rider to endure fatigue,
the Union cavalryman under Sheridan was a veritable centaur.
While the great army lay waiting and expectant at Brandy Station, it
was significant to Carleton when the swift-riding orderlies suddenly
left headquarters carrying sealed packages to the corps commanders.
First began the tramping of the cavalry. Next followed the movement of
two divisions of the Fifth Corps. All night long was heard the rumble
of artillery. Carleton wrote: "Peering from my window upon the shadowy
landscape at midnight, I saw the glimmering of thousands of
camp-fires, over all the plain. Hillside, valley, nook, and dell,
threw up its flickering light. Long trains of white canvas wagons
disappeared in the distant gloom.
"At three A. M., the reveille, the roll of innumerable drums, and the
blow of bugles sounded, and as morning brightened, dark masses of
armed men stood in long line. With the first beams of the sun peering
over the landscape, they moved from the hills. Disjointed parts were
welded together, regiments became brigades, brigades grew into
divisions, and divisions became corps. The sunlight flashed from a
hundred thousand bayonets and sabres." Thus in a few hours a great
city of male inhabitants, numbering over the tenth of a million,
disappeared. By night-time, in a rapid march, Grant was in
headquarters in a deserted house near the Germania Ford. There
Carleton noticed the general's simple style of living. Unostentatious
in all his habits, he smoked constantly, often whittling a stick while
thinking, and wasting no words. Grant had stolen a march upon Lee, and
was as near Richmond as were the Confederates, who must attack him in
flank and retard him if possible. Knowing every road and bridle-path
in the Wilderness, Lee, having drawn all the resources of the
Confederacy east of Georgia into his lines, had gathered an army the
largest and the most complete he had yet commanded. He must now cut up
Grant's host; or, if unable to do so, even without defeat, must begin
a march which meant some American Saint Helena as its end.
The campaign which followed in that densely wooded part of Virginia, a
few miles west of the former battle-field of Chancellorsville, had not
been paralleled for hardship during the whole war. In the ten days
succeeding May 4th, when the army broke camp at Culpeper and Brandy
Station, there had been a march of eighteen miles, the crossing of the
Rapidan with hard fighting on May 5th, and on the 6th, the great
battle in the Wilderness, among the trees from which the foe could
hardly be distinguished. On the 7th, there was fighting all along the
line, with the night march after Spottsylvania, and on Sunday, the
8th, under the burning sun, a sharp fight by the Fifth Corps. On the
9th, another terrific battle followed, in which three corps were
engaged, one of them, the Sixth, losing its noble commander,
Sedgwick, with a score or two of able officers. On the 10th, in the
afternoon, a pitched battle was fought all along the line, lasting
until midnight, in which all the corps were engaged. On Wednesday, the
11th, skirmishing and picket firing formed the order of the day along
the whole front. On Thursday, the 12th, at daybreak, the Second Corps
began its attack, capturing twenty-three guns and several thousand
prisoners. Sunday, the 13th, was a time of rain, hard work, hunger,
and fatigue. In a word, within twelve days there had been four great
pitched battles, with heavy fighting, mainly in the woods, and hard
pounding on both sides, with many thousands of dead and wounded.
During the war Carleton had seen no such fighting, suffering,
patience, determination. General Grant freely admitted that the
fighting had been without a parallel during the war. There was little
work done by the artillery. Swords and bayonets were but ornaments or
emblems. Only lead had the potency of death in it. Even the cavalry
dismounted, sought cover, shooting each other out of position with
their carbines. Bullets, which do the killing, were the fixed forces.
In war it is musketry that kills, and it was a question which side
could stand murder the longest.
At the end of the Wilderness episodes, Carleton, after first answering
those critics far in the rear, who, to all the noble tenacity of Grant
and his army, queried "_Cui bono_" wrote: "I confidently expect that
he [Grant] will accomplish what he has undertaken, because he is
determined, has tenacity of purpose, measures his adversary at his
true value, expects hard fighting, and prepares for it." It was trying
almost to discouragement, to this brave, honest, patient seeker after
truth, to find with what chaff and husk of imaginary news,
manufactured in Washington and elsewhere, the editors of newspapers
had to satisfy the hungry souls of the waiting ones at home.
In one of the engagements, when our right wing had been forced by the
Confederates; when the loud rebel yells were heard so near that the
teamsters of the Sixth Corps were frightened into a panic, and,
cutting the traces, ran so far and wide that it was two days before
they were got together again; when, to many army officers, it seemed
the day had been lost,--as lost it had been, save for the stubborn
valor of the Sixth Corps; when many a face blanched, Carleton looked
at Grant. There was the modern Silent One, tranquil amid the waves of
battle. Sitting quietly, with perfect poise, eyes on the ground, and
steadily smoking, he whittled a stick, neither flesh nor spirit
quailing. "He himself knew what he would do." And he did wait, and, in
waiting, won. Carleton's faith in Grant, strong from the first, was
now as a mountain, unshakable.