"THE LAND OF DARKNESS AND THE SHADOW OF DEATH."
It is essential to a clear understanding of the events, directly
preceding the fall of the Confederacy, to pause here and glance at the
means with which that result was so long delayed, but at last so fully
accomplished.
From official northern sources, we learn that General Grant crossed the
Rapidan with three corps, averaging over 47,000 men. Therefore, he must
have fought the battles of the Wilderness with at least 140,000 men. At
that time the total strength of General Lee's morning report did not
show 46,000 men for duty. Between the Wilderness and Spottsylvania,
Grant was re-enforced to the extent of near 48,000 picked men; and
again at Cold Harbor with near 45,000 more. Northern figures admit an
aggregate of 97,000 _re-enforcement_ between the Rapidan and the James!
In that time, Lee, by the junction of Breckinridge and all the
fragments of brigades he could collect, received less than 16,000
re-enforcement; and even the junction with Beauregard scarcely swelled
his total additions over 20,000.
Grant's army, too, was composed of the picked veterans of the
North--for his Government had accepted large numbers of hundred-day men
for local and garrison duty, that all the seasoned troops might be sent
him. Yet with an aggregate force of 234,000 men, opposed to a total of
less than 63,000, General Grant failed signally in the plan, or plans
of his campaign--losing in twenty-six days, and nine heavy fights and
several skirmishes, _seven men for one of General Lee's_!
Can any candid thinker analyze these results and then believe Grant a
strategist--a great soldier--anything but a pertinacious fighter? Can
one realize that anything but most obstinate bungling could have swung
such an army round in a complete circle--at a loss of over one-half of
its numbers--to a point it could have reached in twenty-four hours,
without any loss whatever? For the soldiers of the North, in this
disastrous series of blunders, fought with constancy and courage.
Beaten day after day by unfailing troops in strong works, they ever
came again straight at those impregnable positions, against which
obstinate stolidity, or blind rage for blood, drove them to the
slaughter. Hancock's men especially seemed to catch inspiration from
their chivalric leader. Broken and beaten at the Wilderness--decimated
at Spottsylvania, they still were first in the deadly hail of Cold
Harbor--breaking our line and holding it for a moment. Sedgwick and
Warren, too--though the victim of unjust prejudice, if not of
conspiracy--managed their corps with signal ability, in those ceaseless
killings into which Grant's "strategy" sent them.
Nor was the immense superiority of numbers already shown, all. For this
main advance--like every other of General Grant's--had co-operating
columns all around it. Add to the men under his immediate command,
those of the adjunct forces under his inspiration--Butler, 35,000,
Hunter, 28,000 and Sigel, 10,000--and there foots up a grand total of
307,000 men!
We may, therefore, consider that General Lee, in the summer campaign of
1864, kept at bay and nullified the attack of 307,000 men with scarcely
one-fifth their number; not exceeding 63,000![1]
[1] Some time after the notes were made, from which these figures
are condensed, two articles on Grant's campaign appeared in
print--one in the New York "_World_," the other, by Mr. Hugh
Pleasants, in "_The Land We Love_" magazine. Writing from
diametrically opposite standpoints, with data gathered from
opposing sources, Mr. Pleasants and the "_World_" very nearly
agree in their figuring; and it was gratifying to this author to
find that both corroborated the above estimates to within very
inconsiderable numbers. Later historical papers have not
materially changed them; save, perhaps, some southern claims
still further to reduce Lee's army.
While Grant was engaged in his pertinacious failures to flank Lee,
General Sheridan--whose fame as a cavalry leader was already in the
mouths of men in such pet names as "Little Phil" and "Cavalry
Sheridan"--made a raid of considerable proportions toward Richmond.
Flanking Lee upon the right, he proceeded over the North and South
Anna, damaging the railroads at Beaver Dam and Ashland stations. Thence
he moved toward Richmond, but was met at Yellow Tavern by General
Stuart with a small body of his cavalry and a hastily-collected force
of infantry. A sharp engagement resulted in forcing the enemy off; when
he passed down the James to Turkey Island, where he joined Butler's
forces.
But the fight had one result far more serious to the South--the death
of General J. E. B. Stuart--the gallant and popular leader of
Confederate cavalry; so ill to be spared in those days of watchful
suspense to come, when General Lee keenly felt the loss of "the eyes of
the army."
During the whole fight the sharp and continuous rattle of carbines,
broken by the clear boom of field artillery, was distinctly heard in
Richmond; and her defenseless women were long uncertain what the result
would be. They knew nothing of the force that was attacking, nor of
that which was defending their homes; every man was away save the aged
and maimed--and the tortures of doubt and suspense were added to the
accustomed strain of watching the end of the fight. When the news came
there was deep thankfulness; but it was solemn and shadowed from the
sorrow that craped the victory.
Meantime, General Sigel had threatened the Valley with a heavy force;
but, in mid-May he had been met by General Breckinridge and was
defeated with such loss of men and munitions, that he retreated
precipitately across the Shenandoah. The co-operation of Sigel was
virtually at an end.
But the more important co-operation had been equally unsuccessful.
Simultaneously with Grant's passage of the Rapidan, General Butler,
with an army of 35,000 men and a fleet of iron-clads, double-enders,
gunboats and transports sufficient for a war with England, sailed up
the James. This force was intended to proceed direct to Richmond, or to
march into undefended Petersburg, as the case might seem best to
warrant. The land forces disembarked at Bermuda Hundred and, after
fortifying heavily on the line of Howlett's House, made serious
demonstrations direct on Drewry's Bluff. Butler supposed that, the
defenses being entirely uncovered by the drain of men for Lee's army,
he could carry them with ease. In this hope he relied much upon the
powerful aid of the fleet; but Admiral Lee, ascending in a
double-ender, lost his pioneer-boat, the "Commodore Jones" and very
nearly his own flag-ship, by a torpedo, opposite Signal Station. This
stopped the advance of the fleet, as the river was supposed to be sown
with torpedoes.
Nowise daunted, General Butler--like the true knight and chivalrous
leader his entire career proves him to be--drew his line closer round
the coveted stronghold. But on the 16th of May, Beauregard sallied out
and struck the hero of New Orleans so suddenly and so sharply that he
drove him, with heavy loss and utter demoralization, clear from his
advanced lines to Bermuda Hundred. Only the miscarriage of a part of
the plan, entrusted to a subordinate general, saved Butler's army from
complete destruction.
As it was, he there remained "bottled up," until Grant's peculiar
strategy had swung him round to Petersburg; and then the "bottle-imp"
was released.
Seeing himself thus foiled on every hand--his magnificent plans utterly
crushed, and his immense numbers unavailing--Grant struck into new
combinations. Hunter had already penetrated into West Virginia as far
as Staunton; and hounding on his men with the savagery of the
bloodhound, was pushing on for Lynchburg and the railroad lines of
supply adjacent to it. Grant at once detached Sheridan with a heavy
force, to operate against the lines from Gordonsville and
Charlottesville.
Simultaneously he, himself, was to strike a resistless blow at
Petersburg; and thus with every avenue of supply cut off, the leaguered
Capital must soon--from very weakness--drop into eager hands stretched
out to grasp her.
On the 16th and 17th June, there were sharp and heavily-supported
attacks upon portions of the Confederate line before Petersburg. The
expectation evidently was to drive them in by sheer weight; for it was
known only that part of Lee's forces had crossed the river, and the
line was one of immense extent--requiring three times his whole force
to man it effectively.
But, as ever before, General Grant underrated his enemy; and, as ever
before, his cherished theory of giving six lives for one to gain his
point failed. Both attacks were heavily repulsed. Still holding to that
theory, however, Grant attacked the whole Confederate front at dawn of
the 18th. Driven back with heavy slaughter, the men were again sent in.
Four times that day they rallied and came well up to the works; and
four times they were sent back reeling and bleeding. Even Grant's
obstinacy could not drive them again into certain destruction; and the
assault on Petersburg had failed utterly, at the cost of 14,000 men for
the experiment.
On that same day, Hunter was driven back from an assault on Lynchburg,
and sent in disgraceful rout through West Virginia.
Hampton, too, had done his share as ever in the long war. He had caught
Sheridan at Trevellian's Station, and compelled him to retreat and
entirely abandon his part of Grant's new programme; and a little later
he came upon Kautz and Wilson--in a railroad raid below Petersburg--and
defeated them disastrously, capturing their trains, artillery and a
large proportion of their men.
Thus, by July, these rough and repeated lessons had taught even General
Grant that hammering with flesh and blood upon earthworks was too
costly; that barn-burning and railroad-tearing cavalry were not
effectual to reduce the city that had so laughed to scorn his brilliant
tactics of the left flank!
A more disgusted, if not a wiser man, he sat down and fortified for a
regular siege; as fully convinced as ever that the blood of the
soldiers was the seed of the war; as fixed in his theory that he could
spare seven lives for one and gradually by this fearful "swapping, with
boot," reduce the capital he had failed to win by soldierly methods or
skillful combination.
And the southern people felt that was the test to be applied to them
now. Bayonet and steel, rapine and torch had failed; but now the
process of _pulverizing_ was to come. "Southern blood!" was General
Grant's war-cry--"Southern blood by the drop, if it take rivers of
ours. Southern lives by the score--and we can well pay for them with
the hundred!"
And, looking the alternative squarely in the face, the southern people
for the last time girded their loins for the shock; feeling they could
do what men might and when they could no longer do--they could die!
Once more the tide of battle had rolled away from Richmond; but it
surged up, redder and rougher, against her sister city. And staunch
little Petersburg braced herself to meet its advancing waves--ever
offering to them her dauntless breast and ever riding above them,
breathless but victorious. Old men with one foot in the grave--boys
with one foot scarce out of the cradle, stood side by side, with the
bronzed veterans of Lee's hundred fights. Women sat quiet, the shells
of Grant's civilized warfare tearing through their houses and through
the hospitals. And fearless for themselves, they worked steadily on,
nursing the wounded and the sick; giving from their daily-decreasing
store with self-forgetfulness; encouraging the weak by their presence
and their courage.
But not alone the fierce sounds immediately around them claimed the
attention of the people of the Capital. From North Georgia came the
hoarse echo of renewed strife; and they felt, in sober truth, more
immediate anxiety for the result there than at their own doors. Inured
to danger and made familiar with its near approach, the people of
Virginia looked calmly forward to the most fearful shock of battle, if
it was nothing more. They knew the crushing force of Grant's numbers,
but the danger was tangible and they could see a possible issue out of
it, through blood and sacrifice. But they knew and felt that Atlanta
was the back door to Richmond. Let the enemy once enter that and divide
the spinal column of the Confederacy, and what hope was there! For a
brief space the maimed and dying body might writhe with final strength;
the quivering arms strike fierce, spasmodic blows; but no nourishment
could come--the end must be death--and death from inanition!
The people knew and felt this fully. They were perfectly aware that,
should Atlanta fall and the enemy penetrate to our rear lines of
communication, the cause was lost. We might make a fierce resistance
for the moment; but without supplies, all organized plan must cease.
And the wildest hope indulged in that event was the possibility of a
detached and guerrilla warfare that would make the country untenable.
Therefore, every eye was turned toward Dalton, where Johnston's little
army now was--every ear was strained to catch the first echo of the
thunder about to roll so ominously among the Georgia mountains.
Upon General Grant's elevation to the chief command, General W. T.
Sherman had been left in charge in the West. Not discouraged by the
failure of Grant's quadruple advance, two months before, Sherman
divided his army--like that operating on the Rapidan--into three corps.
Thomas, leading the center, or direct advance; Schofield, the left on
the North-east, and McPherson the right on the South-west--he moved
upon Dalton, almost simultaneously with Grant's passage of the Rapidan.
And like Grant, he essayed a flank movement; but with far different
result.
There was another point of similarity--the great disparity of numbers.
Sherman could not have had in all, far short of 80,000 men; while
Johnston's greatest exertions could not collect at Dalton an effective
force of 35,000. Many of these, too, were local troops and raw levies,
green and undisciplined; while Sherman's forces were the flower of the
western army.
Such were the points of similarity; but there was one great difference
known to the Confederate leaders and people. Sherman would use every
advantage of strategy and combination, rather than attempt the
sledge-hammer style of attack developed by Grant. And there was more to
be dreaded from his quiet and cautious approach--with its accompanying
care for human life, that would preserve his army--than from any direct
assault, however vigorous. This was proved at the very outset; for his
advance on Dalton was a piece of military tact that--unlike Grant's at
the Wilderness--was founded upon sound calculation. McPherson was
thrown so far round to the South-west as seriously to threaten
Johnston's communications; and by the 8th of June, the latter was
forced to evacuate Dalton and retire down Resaca Valley toward the line
of the Etowah river.
This movement was accomplished with quiet and perfect ease; keeping
ever a steady front to the enemy, pressing rapidly on.
Feeling that the fate of the whole cause was now vested in the little
army left him to defend the great key--Atlanta--Johnston was great
enough to resist the opportunities for glorious battle; to give up,
without a struggle--which could only entail resultless waste of
men--the rich tracts so valuable to us; to offer himself to the
condemnation of unthinking censure--all to insure the safety of that
vital organ of Confederate life.
On the 14th June, the enemy pressed heavily against temporary works in
Resaca Valley and was twice repulsed, with heavy loss. Then Johnston
turned upon him and gained a decisive advantage--driving him two miles.
On the two succeeding days, his attempts amounted to scarcely more than
skirmishes; and on the third our troops resumed, unmolested, their
retreat along the line of the Etowah. By the end of the month Johnston
had taken up a strong position, with his center resting upon Kenesaw
Mountain; while the enemy had thrown up works, at some points nearer
even than those at Petersburg.
At dawn on the 27th, Sherman attacked along the whole line, directing
his main strength to Kenesaw Mountain. He was repulsed decisively on
both flanks and with especial slaughter in the center; losing over
3,500 men. Next day Cleburne's division defeated McPherson's corps in a
severe fight, inflicting even heavier loss than it had sustained at
Kenesaw Mountain. But these fights--while retarding the enemy's advance
and causing him a loss three times our own--were all nullified by
Sherman's effective use of that flanking process, so strangely misused
by his rival in Virginia. Those movements were but those of pawns upon
the board; while the serious check to Johnston at Dalton--the flank
movement upon his right--was repeated here. On the 4th of July he was
flanked out of his mountain fastnesses and was falling back upon
Atlanta.
There is no stronger proof of the hold General Johnston had upon the
masses of the people and of their respectful confidence in his great
ability, than their reception of this news. They had watched his long
retreat almost without a fight; had seen the enemy penetrate almost to
the heart of Georgia, occupying rich tracts of our most productive
land, just ready for the harvest; and finally had heard him thundering
at the very gates of Atlanta--to enter which they felt were death to
us. And yet the people never murmured at their general, nor at the army
he commanded. There was an unshaken conviction that he was doing his
best; that his best was _the_ best. But the Government had not
forgotten nor forgiven General Johnston; and for wholly inexplicable
reasons, he was summarily transferred from his command and replaced by
General Hood, on the 18th of July.
People could not see the ground for Johnston's removal; for he had
followed the very same line that had earned General Lee the wildest
enthusiasm of the people, even while it gave him almost supreme control
of the military power of the Confederacy. Lee had fallen back to his
proper base--so had Johnston. The former had faced far greater odds and
had inflicted far heavier punishment upon the enemy; but the latter had
contended against strategic ability rather than blind force--against
human sagacity rather than brute courage. And if Johnston had inflicted
less damage, his wise abstinence from battle had saved many lives,
invaluable now; and in the end he had placed his army in almost
impregnable works around the great prize he was to guard. Foreseeing
the result of his opponent's strategy, he had nullified it by seeking
the position into which he would finally have been forced.
So far, the Virginia and the Georgia campaigns had been markedly
similar in conduct and result. Both armies, driven by overwhelming
numbers, had drawn their lines around their last strongholds; and there
kept their enemy at bay. And had General Johnston been allowed to reap
the reward of his clear foresight and patient abstinence--who can tell
but the festering Lazarus might yet have risen whole, and defied the
vast wealth of aggression hurled against it?
The universal and outspoken disgust of the people at the removal of
Johnston, was in no sense referable to their objection to his
successor. General Hood had forced their highest admiration, and bought
their warmest wishes, with his brilliant courageous and his
freely-offered blood. They knew him to be dauntless, chivalrous and
beloved by his men; and, even if untried in a great command, they were
willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. His first movements,
too--seemingly so brilliant and dashing, compared to the more steady
but resultful ones of Johnston--produced a thrill of pride and hope
with all the people, save the thoughtful few, who felt we could not
afford now to buy glory and victory unless it tended to the one
result--safety.
On the 20th July Hood assumed the offensive. He struck the enemy's
right heavily and with success; repeating the blow upon his extreme
left, on the 22d. The advantage on both days was with the Confederates;
they drove the enemy from his works, captured several thousand
prisoners, and killed and wounded over 3,000 men. But there was no
solid gain in these fights; and, the enemy shifting his line after them
further to the east, there was another furious battle on the 28th day
of July.
In this Hood was less successful, losing heavily and gaining little or
no ground. The results of the fights at Atlanta were briefly these:
Hood had broken the long and sagacious defensive course; the people
were perhaps inspirited at the cost of over 4,000 invaluable men; and
the enemy was taught that we were too weak to drive him from his line,
or even to make any solid impression on him.
Feeling this--and secure in a line of communication with his
base--Sherman sat doggedly and grimly down before Atlanta. He felt he
could wait.
But the end came, before even the Federal leader could have expected.
After the fights at Atlanta, Hood feared the cutting of his
communications. He was fearful, lest the system that had forced
Johnston from Dalton and Kenesaw Mountain might be made available
against him here; and the very means he had adopted to prevent it
precipitated the disaster. He divided his forces into two distinct
armies--sending one, under Lieutenant-General Hardee, to Jonesboro,
twenty-two miles away!
Sherman, aware of the movement--which had in fact resulted from his
threatening of Hood's flank--forced his superior numbers wedge-like
into the gap, and effectually separated the wings. Then he struck in
detail. Hardee, at Jonesboro, failed to make any impression upon him on
the 1st of September, while Hood--weakened and unable to check his
movements on the left--was forced, on the 31st August, to decide upon
the evacuation of Atlanta!
This fatal movement was accomplished on the evening of the 1st of
September, without further loss; but the key to the Confederate
cause--the sole barrier to the onward sweep of Sherman to the
ocean--was in his hands at last!
There may have been causes operating on General Hood that were not
known to the people; for the results and their motive was shrouded in
silence. His dispatch announcing the fall of the most important point
was very brief; stating in a few lines that Hardee, having failed
against the enemy at Jonesboro, while he could not oppose his flank
movement at Atlanta, he had given up that city. Even later--when
General Hood published his report of the Atlanta campaign--he differs
in essential points from General Johnston, and neither his theories nor
their carrying out are made comprehensible to the public.
There was a terrible shock to the people of the South in the fall of
Atlanta. They knew its importance so fully that its loss was the more
keenly felt. There came sudden revulsion from the hope that had begun
once again to throb in the public pulse. The loud murmurs that had
arisen after other defeats were wanting now; but a sullen and
increasing gloom seemed to settle over the majority of the people. It
was as though they were stunned by the violence of the shock and felt
already its paralyzing influence. It was in vain that a ten days' truce
was granted by the victorious enemy, during which Mr. Davis visited the
army and spoke brave words of future victory. The people had now lost
all faith in Mr. Davis and his methods; and they sullenly refused to
accept the happy auguries of victory he drew from crushing defeat. Even
the army itself--while still doggedly determined to strike its hardest
to the bitter end--began to feel that it was fighting against hope.
And in that ten days' truce there was little chance for those worn and
wasted battalions to recuperate. There were no fresh men to send to
their aid; few, indeed, were the supplies that could be forwarded them.
But they looked into the darkness ahead steadily and calmly; they might
not see their path in it, but they were ready to march without the
path. And even as they watched and waited, so at Petersburg and
Richmond a small but sleepless David watched the grim Goliath,
stretched in its huge bulk before their gates. Ceaselessly the trains
flashed back and forth over the iron link between those two cities--now
Siamese-twinned with a vital bond of endurance and endeavor.
Petersburg, sitting defiant in her circle of fire, worked grimly,
ceaselessly--with what hope she might! and Richmond worked for her,
feeling that every drop of blood she lost was from her own veins as
well.
And so for many weary months the deadly strain went on; and the twin
cities--stretched upon the rack--bore the torture as their past
training had taught the world they must--nobly and well!