THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
While neither in itself--perhaps not the combination of the two--was
final and conclusive, the beginning of the end of the Confederacy may
be dated from the loss of Vicksburg and the simultaneous retreat from
Gettysburg. For these two disasters made all classes consider more
deeply, both their inducing causes and the final results that must
follow a succession of such crushing blows.
There can be little doubt that a complete victory at Gettysburg,
vigorously followed up, would have ended the war; and the
generally-accepted belief in the South was that the exhaustive defeat
was proportionately bad. The war had been going on two years and a
half. Every device had been used to put the whole numerical strength of
the country into the field and to utilize its every resource. The South
had succeeded to a degree that stupefied the outside world and
astonished even herself. But the effort had exhausted, and left her
unfit to renew it. Over and again the armies of the East and West had
been re-enforced, reorganized and re-equipped--and ever came the heavy,
relentless blows of the seemingly-exhaustless power, struggled against
so vainly. The South had inflicted heavy loss in men, material and
prestige; but she wasted her strength in these blows, while unhappily
she could not make them effective by quick repetition.
The people, too, had lost their early faith in the Government. They had
submitted to the most stringent levy of conscription and impressment
ever imposed upon a nation. They had willingly left their fields to
grow weeds, their children to run wild and perhaps to starve; they had
cheerfully divided their last supplies of food with the Government, and
had gone to the front steadily and hopefully. But now they could not
fail to see that, in some points at least, there had been gross
mismanagement. The food for which their families were pinched and
almost starved, did not come to the armies. Vast stores of provision
and supplies were blocked on the roads, while speculators' ventures
passed over them. This, the soldiers in the trench and the laborer at
the anvil saw equally.
They saw, too, that the Government was divided against itself; for the
worse than weak Congress--which had formerly been as a nose of wax in
Mr. Davis' fingers--had now turned dead against him. With the stolid
obstinacy of stupidity it now refused to see any good in any measure,
or in any man, approved by the Executive.
Under the leadership of Mr. Foote--who wasted the precious time of
Congress in windy personal diatribes against Mr. Davis and his
"pets"--nothing was done to combine and strengthen the rapidly
sundering elements of Confederate strength. Long debates on General
Pemberton; weighty disquisitions on such grave subjects as the number
of pounds of pork on hand when Vicksburg was surrendered; and violent
attacks on the whole _past_ course of the administration, occupied
the minds of those lawgivers. But at this time there was no single
measure originated that proposed to stop the troubles in the future.
Therefore, the people lost confidence in the divided Government; and
losing it began to distrust themselves. Suffering so for it, they could
not fail to know the terrible strain to which the country had been
subjected. They knew that her resources in men and material had been
taxed to the limit; that there was no fresh supply of either upon which
to draw. This was the forlorn view that greeted them when they looked
within. And outside, fresh armies faced and threatened them on every
side--increased rather than diminished, and better armed and provided
than ever before.
This state of things was too patent not to be seen by the plainest men;
and seeing it, those became dispirited who never had doubted before.
And this time, the gloom did not lift; it became a settled and dogged
conviction that we were fighting the good fight almost against hope.
Not that this prevented the army and the people from working still,
with every nerve strained to its utmost tension; but they worked
without the cheery hopefulness of the past.
Fate seemed against them. Had they been Turks they would have said: "It
is _kismet_! Allah is great!" As they were only staunch patriots, they
reasoned: "It is fearful odds--but we _may_ win." And so solemnly,
gloomily--but none the less determined--the South again prepared for
the scarcely doubtful strife.
The stringent addenda to the Conscription law--that had come too
late--were put into force. All men that could possibly be spared--and
whom the trickery of influence could not relieve--were sent to the
front; and their places in the Government were filled by the aged, the
disabled, and by women. In the Government departments of Richmond--and
in their branches further South--the first ladies of the land took
position as clerks--driven to it by stress of circumstances. And now as
ever--whether in the arsenals, the factories, or the accountant's
desk--the women of the South performed their labor faithfully,
earnestly and well. Those men who could not possibly be spared, were
formed into companies for local defense; were regularly drilled,
mustered into service, and became in fact regular soldiers, simply
detailed to perform other work. When the wild notes of the alarm bell
sent their frequent peals over Richmond, and warned of an approaching
raid--armorer, butcher and clerk threw down hammer and knife and pen,
and seized their muskets to hasten to the rendezvous. Even the
shopkeepers and speculators, who seemed conscription-proof, were
mustered into some sort of form; driven to make at least a show of
resistance to the raid, by which they would suffer more than any
others. But it was only a show; and so much more attention was paid in
these organizations to filling of the commissary wagon than of the
cartridge-box, that the camps of such "melish," in the woods around
Richmond, were converted more into a picnic than a defense.
Supplies of war material, of clothing, and of arms, had now become as
scarce as men. The constant drain had to be supplied from
manufactories, worked under great difficulties; and these now were
almost paralyzed by the necessity for their operatives at the front.
Old supplies of iron, coal and ore had been worked up; and obtaining
and utilizing fresh ones demanded an amount of labor that could not be
spared. The blockade had now become thoroughly effective; and, except a
rare venture at some unlooked-for spot upon the coast, no vessel was
expected to come safely through the network of ships. Blankets and
shoes had almost completely given out; and a large proportion of the
army went barefoot and wrapped in rugs given by the ladies of the
cities, who cut up their carpets for that purpose.
Yet, in view of all this privation; with a keen sense of their own
sacrifices and a growing conviction that they were made in vain, the
army kept up in tone and spirits. There was no intention or desire to
yield, as long as a blow could be struck for the cause; and the veteran
and the "new issue"--as the new conscripts were called in derision of
the currency--alike determined to work on as steadily, if not so
cheerily, as before.
And still Congress wrangled on with Government and within itself; still
Mr. Foote blew clouds of vituperative gas at President and Cabinet;
still Mr. Davis retained, in council and field, the men he had chosen.
And daily he grew more unpopular with the people, who, disagreeing with
him, still held him in awe, while they despised the Congress. Even in
this strait, the old delusion about the collapse of Federal finance
occasionally came up for hopeful discussion; and, from time to time,
Mr. Benjamin would put out a feeler about recognition from governments
that remembered us less than had we really been behind the great wall
of China.
After Gettysburg and Vicksburg, came a lull in the heavier operations
of the war. But raids of the enemy's cavalry were organized and sent to
penetrate the interior South, in every direction. To meet them were
only home guards and the militia; with sometimes a detachment of
cavalry, hastily brought up from a distant point. This latter branch of
service, as well as light artillery, now began to give way. The fearful
strain upon both, in forced and distant marches, added to the wearing
campaigns over the Potomac, had used up the breed of horses in the
South. Those remaining were broken down by hard work and half feed; so
that one-half the cavalry was dismounted--belonging to "Company Q" the
men called it--and the rest was scarcely available for a rapid march,
or a very heavy shock.
But the cavalry of the enemy had increased wonderfully in drill,
discipline and general efficiency. Armed with the best weapons, mounted
upon choice horses, composed of picked men and officered by the boldest
spirits in the North, Federal cavalry now began to be the most potent
arm of their service. Men sadly recalled the pleasant days when the
brilliant squadrons of Hampton, or Fitz Lee--the flower of the South,
mounted on its best blood stock--dashed laughingly down upon three
times their force, only to see them break and scatter; while many of
their number rolled over the plain, by the acts of their own steeds
rather than of hostile sabers. Even much later, when the men were
ragged and badly armed, and the horses were gaunt from famine, they
still could meet the improving horsemen of the enemy and come off
victors--as witness the battles of the Fords. But now the Yankees had
learned to fight--and more incomprehensible still to the Reb, they had
learned to ride! They were superior in numbers, equipment, and--to be
honest--in discipline; and could no longer be met with any certainty of
success. It was a bitter thing for the Golden Horse Shoe Knights; but
like many ugly things about this time, it was true. So the Yankee
raids--aimed as a finality for Richmond, but ever failing approach to
their object--still managed to do incalculable mischief. They drove off
the few remaining cattle, stole and destroyed the hoarded mite of the
widowed and unprotected--burned barns--destroyed farming utensils; and,
worse than all, they demoralized the people and kept them in constant
dread.
As a counter-irritant, and to teach the enemy a lesson, General Morgan,
early in July, started on a raid into the Northwest. With 2,000 men and
a light battery, he passed through Kentucky and on to the river,
leaving a line of conquest and destruction behind him--here scattering
a regiment of the enemy--there demoralizing a home guard; and, at the
river, fighting infantry and a gunboat, and forcing his way across into
Indiana. Great was the scare in the West, at this first taste the fine
fruits of raiding. Troops were telegraphed, engines flew up and down
the roads as if possessed; and in short, home guards, and other troops,
were collected to the number of nearly 30,000 men.
Evading pursuit, and scattering the detached bands he met, Morgan
crossed the Ohio line--tearing up roads, cutting telegraphs, and
inflicting much damage and inconceivable panic--until he reached within
five miles of Cincinnati. Of course, with his merely nominal force, he
could make no attempt on the city; so, after fourteen days of unresting
raiding--his command pressed, worn out and broken down--he headed for
the river once more. A small portion of the command had already
crossed, when the pursuing force came up. Morgan made heavy fight, but
his men were outnumbered and exhausted. A few, following him, cut their
way through the enemy and fled along the north bank of the Ohio. The
pursuit was fierce and hot; the flight determined, fertile in
expedients, but hopeless in an enemy's country, raised to follow the
cry. He was captured, with most of his staff and all of his command
that was left--save the few hundred who had crossed the river and
escaped into the mountains of Virginia.
Then for four months--until he dug his way out of his dungeon with a
small knife--John Morgan was locked up as a common felon, starved,
insulted and treated with brutality, the recital of which sickens--even
having his head shaved! There was no excuse ever attempted; no pretense
that he was a guerrilla. It was done simply to glut spite and to make a
dreaded enemy feel his captors' power.
Meantime General Bragg, at Tullahoma, faced by Rosecrans and flanked by
Burnside's "Army of the Cumberland," was forced to fall back to
Chattanooga. Rosecrans pressed him hard, with the intent of carrying
out that pet scheme of the North, forcing his army down through Georgia
and riddling the Cotton States. It is inessential here to recount the
details of these movements. Rosecrans had a heavy and compact force;
ours was weak and scattered, and Bragg's urgent appeal for men met the
invariable answer, there were none to send. For the same
reason--insufficient force--Buckner was forced to abandon Knoxville;
and a few weeks later Cumberland Gap, the key-position to East
Tennessee and Georgia, was surrendered!
At this critical juncture the loss of that position could scarcely be
exaggerated; and the public indignantly demanded of Government why it
had been lost. The War Department shifted the responsibility, and
declared that no reason existed; that the place was provisioned and
impregnable, and that the responsibility rested alone with the officer
in command, who was now a prisoner with his whole force.
This hardly satisfied the public clamor; and so ill-omened a
commencement augured badly for the success of the campaign for
position, in which both armies were now manoeuvring. The real details
of these preliminary movements are scarcely clear to this day. General
Bragg's friends declare that he forced Rosecrans to the position; his
enemies, that Rosecrans first out-generaled him and then laid himself
open to destruction, while Bragg took no advantage of the situation.
However this may be, we know that on the morning of the 19th September,
'63, the battle of Chickamauga was commenced by the enemy in a series
of obstinate division engagements, rather than in a general battle;
Bragg's object being to gain the Chattanooga road in the enemy's rear,
and his to prevent it. The fighting was heavy, stubborn and fierce, and
its brunt was borne by Walker, Hood and Cleburne. Night fell on an
undecided field, where neither had advantage; and the enemy perhaps had
suffered more heavily than we.
All that night he worked hard to strengthen his position; and our
attack--which was to have commenced just at dawn--was delayed from some
misapprehension of orders. At length Breckinridge and Cleburne opened
the fight, and then it raged with desperate, bloody obstinacy, until
late afternoon. At that time the Confederate right had been repulsed;
but Longstreet's left had driven the enemy before it. Then the whole
southern line reformed; moving with steady, resistless sweep upon the
confident enemy. He fought obstinately--wavered--rallied--then broke
again and fled toward Chattanooga. The rout was complete and the enemy
so demoralized that Longstreet--feeling that he could be crushed while
panic-struck--ordered Wheeler to intercept his flight. It was stated
that Longstreet's order was countermanded by General Bragg;
but--whatever the reason--there was no pursuit!
The fruits of the hard-won victory were 8,000 prisoners, 50 pieces of
artillery, near 20,000 muskets--_plus_ a loss of life barren of
results. For, instead of crushing the enemy and completely relieving
the state and the Georgia frontier, the failure to press Rosecrans at
the moment left him free communication with his rear and full time to
recuperate. Instead of pressing on, General Bragg took position on
Missionary Ridge; and criticism of the hour declared that he thus
invested the Federals in the town, which--by a rapid advance--might
already have been his, without a fight.
It is neither the intent, nor within the scope of these papers--even
did their author possess the ability for it--to enter into detailed
criticism of military events; far less to reopen those acrimonious
partisanships, so bootless at the time and worse than useless now. But,
to comprehend the state of public feeling at the South, it is essential
to have the plain data, upon which it was based; and to have plainly
stated the causes to which popular opinion ascribed certain results.
After Chickamauga, there was very general--and seemingly not
causeless--discontent. The eternal policy of massing great armies, at
any sacrifice; fighting terrible battles; and then failing to close the
grasp upon their fruits--apparently already in hand--had worn public
patience so threadbare, that it refused to regard Chickamauga as
anything more than another of those aimless killings, which had so
often drenched the West, to no avail.
Strong and open expression was made of the popular wish for General
Bragg's removal; but Mr. Davis refused--as ever--to hear the people's
voice, in a matter of policy. He retained General Bragg, and the people
held him responsible for what they claimed was the result--Lookout
Mountain!
_Fas est ab hoste doceri._ Public clamor at the North declared that
loss of command should reward Rosecrans for loss of the battle; and, in
mid-October, he was superseded by General Grant.
Like all popular heroes of the war, Grant had become noted, rather
through hard-hitting than strategic combination. His zenith was mounted
on the capture of Vicksburg; a project which northern generals
denounced as bad soldiership and possible of success, only through an
enemy's weakness. At this time, he was certainly not in high estimation
of his own army, because of dogged disregard of loss in useless
assaults; and it will be recalled that General McClernand was
court-martialed for his declaration that he "could not be expected to
furnish brains for the whole army!" The estimate of Grant's compeers is
not refuted by any evidence in the War Department that, from Shiloh to
Appomattox, he ever made one combination stamped by mark of any
soldiership, higher than courage and bull-dog tenacity. Even scouting
the generally-accepted idea, in the army of Vicksburg and later in that
of Chattanooga--that McPherson provided plans and details of his
campaigns; and dismissing McClernand's costly taunt as mere
epigram--this was the accepted estimate of General Grant's tactical
power.
But he inaugurated his command at Chattanooga with boldness and vigor.
He concentrated 25,000 troops in the town; opened his communications;
and then--to prevent any possible movement flanking him out of
them--boldly took the initiative.
Meantime, Longstreet had been detached by General Bragg, for that
badly-provided, badly-digested and wholly ill-starred expedition to
Knoxville; one which seemed to prove that the history of misfortune was
ever to repeat itself, in impracticable diversions at precisely the
wrong time. For, even had this corps not been badly equipped and
rationed, while almost wholly lacking in transportation, it certainly
depleted a daily-weakening army, in the face of one already double its
numbers and daily increasing.
On November 18th--spite of management that forced him to subsist on
precarious captures--Longstreet reached the enemy's advanced lines, at
Knoxville; drove him into the city and completely isolated him from
communication. Capitulation was a mere matter of time; but disastrous
news from the main army drove the Confederate to the alternative of
assault, or retreat. Choosing the former, he made it with the same
desperate gallantry displayed at Gettysburg, or Corinth; illustrated by
brilliant, but unavailing, personal prowess. The strength of the
enemy's works--and openness of approach, with wire netting interlaced
among the stumps of the new clearing, was too much for the southern
soldiers. Several times they reached the works, fighting hand-to-hand;
but finally Longstreet fell back, in good order and carrying his
subsistence. He chose his own line of retreat, too; and with such good
judgment as to be within reach of any new combination of Bragg--from
whom he was now cut off--or, failing that, to keep his rear open
through Virginia, to Lee's army.
Meantime, Grant massed troops in Chattanooga, sufficient in his judgment
to crush Bragg; and, learning of the latter's detachment of Longstreet's
corps, determined to strike early and hard. On the 25th he attacked with
his whole force, in two grand columns under Thomas, Sherman and Hooker.
The little southern army of less than forty thousand was judiciously
posted; having advantage of being attacked. The terrible shock of the
double attack was successfully repulsed on the right by Hardee, on the
left by Buckner. Broken, reeling--shattered--he was hurled back, only
to form again with splendid courage. Once more checked and driven back,
after desperate fighting on both sides, the Federals made a third advance
with steady, dogged valor. Then constancy was rewarded; they broke the
Confederate center; swung it in disorder upon the wings; and, holding
the ground so hotly won, had the key to the position.
Still the day was not wholly lost to the South, had her men not given
way to causeless panic. Left and right followed center--lost all order
and fell back almost in flight. Then the scattered and demoralized army
was saved from utter ruin, only by the admirable manner in which
Cleburne covered that rout-like retreat, day after day; finally beating
back Thomas' advance so heavily that pursuit was abandoned.
Missionary Ridge cost the South near 8,000 men; all the Chickamauga
artillery and more; and the coveted key-position to the situation. But
it cost, besides, what could even less be spared; some slight abatement
in the popular confidence in our troops, under all trials heretofore.
Reasoning from their dislike to General Bragg, people and press
declared that the men had been badly handled through the whole
campaign; yet--so inured were they to the ragged boys fighting
successfully both the enemy and our own errors--there came general bad
augury from the panic of Missionary Ridge.
Mr. Davis had visited Bragg's army, after the howl that went up on his
failure to press Rosecrans. On his return, the President appeared
satisfied and hopeful; he authorized statement that the delay after
Chickamauga was simply strategic; and the impression went abroad that
Bragg and he had affected combinations now, which would leave Grant
only the choice between retreat and destruction.
If these tactics meant the detaching of Longstreet--said thoughtful
critics--then are combination and suicide convertible terms!
Neither was public feeling much cheered by the aspect of the war in
Virginia. Lee and Meade coquetted for position, without definite
result; the former--weakened by Longstreet's absence--striving to slip
between Meade and Washington; the latter aiming to flank and mass
behind Lee, on one of the three favorite routes to Richmond. The fall
and winter wore away with these desultory movements; producing many a
sharp skirmish, but nothing more resultful. These offered _motif_ for
display of dash and military tact on both sides; that at Kelly's Ford,
on the Rapidan--where the Federals caught the Confederates
unprepared--showing the hardest hitting with advantage on the Union
side. The compliment was exchanged, by a decisive southern success at
Germania Ford; but the resultless fighting dispirited and demoralized
the people, while it only harassed and weakened the army. Both looked
to the great shock to come; forces for which were gathering, perhaps
unseen and unheard, yet felt by that morbid prescience which comes in
the supreme crises of life.
The trans-Mississippi was now absolutely cut off from participation
in the action of the eastern Confederacy; almost equally so from
communication with it. Still that section held its own, in the warfare
peculiar to her people and their situation. Quick concentrations;
sharp, bloody fights--skirmishes in extent, but battles in exhibition
of pluck and endurance--were of constant occurrence. Kirby Smith--become
almost a dictator through failure of communication--administered his
department with skill, judgment and moderation. Husbanding his internal
resources, he even established--in the few accessible ports, defiant of
blockade--a system of foreign supply; and "Kirby Smithdom"--as it came
to be called--was, at this time, the best provisioned and prepared of
the torn and stricken sections of the Confederacy.
Note has been made of the improvement of Federal cavalry; and of their
raids, that struck terror and dismay among the people. During the
winter of '63-'64, Averill penetrated the heart of Virginia, scattering
destruction in his path; and, though he retired before cavalry sent to
pursue him--he even shot his horses as they gave out, in the forced
flight--his expedition had accomplished its object. It had proved that
no point of harassed territory was safe from Federal devastation; that
the overtaxed and waning strength of the South was insufficient to
protect them now!
Gradually--very gradually--this blight of doubt and dissatisfaction
began to affect the army; and--while it was no longer possible to fill
their places by new levies--some of the men already at the front began
to skulk, and even to desert.
Though still uncondoned, the crime of these was roughly urged upon
them; for imagination brought to the ears of all, the shriek of the
distant wife, insulted by the light of her burning roof and turned
starving and half-clothed, into the snowy midnight! And all the more
honor was it to the steadfast that they held out--dogged but
willing--to the bitter end; fighting as man had not fought before--not
only against their enemy--not only against their own natural
impulses--but against hope, as well!
For the mass of that grand, tattered and worn army never faltered; and
only their enduring patriotism--backed as it was by selfless energy of
their home people--availed to make up for the lost opportunities of the
Government!
In Congress was vacillation, discord, vacuity; while the people were
goaded to the absurd charge, that some of its members were traitors!
But the great diplomat has graven the truth, that an error may be worse
than a crime; and the errors of the Confederate Congress--from _alpha_
to _omega_--were born of weakness and feeble grasp on the prompt
occasions of a great strife, like this which so submerged their
littleness.
It is in some sort at the door of Congress that the head of the
government, harassed by overwork, distracted by diverse trifles--each
one too vital to entrust to feeble subordinates; buffeted by the
gathering surge without and dragged down by the angry undertow within,
lost his influence, and with it his power to save!
The beginning of the end had come upon the South. Her stoutest and
bravest hearts still,
"Like muffled drums, were beating
Funeral marches to the grave!"