The fort began its return at seven o’clock. All the officers and men,

including the engineers, had been divided into three reliefs of two

hours each, and the forty-three workmen yet remaining all volunteered

for duty. It was, however, an absurdly meagre force to work such a

number of guns and to be pitted against the surrounding batteries,

manned by more than six thousand men. The number of cartridges was so

reduced by the middle of the day, though the six needles available

were kept steadily at work in making cartridge-bags, that the firing

had to slacken and be confined to the six guns bearing toward Moultrie

and the batteries on the west end of Sullivan’s Island. The mortar

fire had become very accurate, so that, when the 13-inch shells

“came down in a vertical direction and buried themselves in the

parade-ground, their explosion shook the fort like an earthquake.”[201]

The horizontal fire also grew in accuracy, and Anderson, to save his

men, withdrew them from the barbette guns and used those of the lower

tiers only. Unfortunately, these were of too light a caliber to be

effective against the Morris Island batteries, the shot rebounding

without effect from the face of the iron-clad battery there, as well

as from the floating iron-clad battery moored behind the sea-wall

at Sullivan’s Island. The withdrawal of the men from the heavier

battery could only be justified by the already foregone result, and no

doubt this was in Anderson’s mind. The garrison was reduced to pork

and water, and, however willing, it could not with such meagre food

withstand the strain of the heavy labor of working the guns; to add

to the difficulties, the guns, strange to say, were not provided with

breech-sights, and these had to be improvised with notched sticks.[202]

The shells from the batteries set fire to the barracks three times

during the day, and the precision of the vertical fire was such that

the four 8-inch and one 10-inch columbiad, planted in the parade, could

not be used. Half the shells fired from the seventeen mortars engaged

came within, or exploded above, the parapet of the fort, and only

about ten buried themselves in the soft earth of the parade without

exploding. Two of the barbette guns were struck by the fire from

Moultrie, which also damaged greatly the roof of the barracks and the

stair towers. None of the shot came through. The day closed stormy and

with a high tide, without any material damage to the strength of the

fort. Throughout the night the Confederate batteries threw shell every

ten or fifteen minutes. The garrison was occupied until midnight in

making cartridge-bags, for which all the extra clothing was cut up and

all the coarse paper and extra hospital sheets used.[203]

At daylight, April 13th, all the batteries again opened, and the new

twelve-pounder Blakely rifle, which had arrived but four days before

from abroad,[204] caused the wounding of a sergeant and three men by

the fragments thrown off from the interior of the wall by its deep

penetration. An engineer employed was severely wounded by a fragment of

shell. Hot shot now became frequent, and at nine o’clock the officers’

quarters were set afire. As it was evident the fire would soon surround

the magazine, every one not at the guns was employed to get out powder;

but only fifty barrels could be removed to the casements, when it

became necessary from the spread of the flames to close the magazine.

The whole range of the officers’ quarters was soon in flames, and the

clouds of smoke and cinders sent into the casements set on fire many

of the men’s beds and boxes, making the retention of the powder so

dangerous that all but five barrels were thrown into the sea.[205]

By eleven o’clock the fire and smoke were driven by the wind in such

masses into the point where the men had taken refuge that suffocation

appeared imminent. “The roaring and crackling of the flames, the dense

masses of whirling smoke, the bursting of the enemy’s shells, and our

own, which were exploding in the burning rooms, the crashing of the

shot and the sound of masonry falling in every direction made the fort

a pandemonium.... There was a tower at each angle of the fort. One of

these, containing great quantities of shells, ... was almost completely

shattered by successive explosions. The massive wooden gates, studded

with iron nails, were burned, and the wall built behind them was now

a heap of débris, so that the main entrance was wide open for an

assaulting party.”[206]

But however great the apparent damage and the discomfort and danger

while the fire lasted, the firing could have been resumed “as soon as

the walls cooled sufficiently to open the magazines, and then, having

blown down the wall projecting above the parapet, so as to get rid of

the flying bricks, and built up the main gates with stones and rubbish,

the fort would actually have been in a more defensible condition than

when the action commenced.”[207]

But want of men, want of food, and want of powder together made a

_force majeure_ against which further strife was useless; and when,

about 1 P.M., the flag-staff was shot away, though the flag was at once

flown from an improvised staff, a boat was sent from the commanding

officer at Morris Island, bringing Colonel (Ex-Senator) Wigfall and a

companion bearing a white flag, to inquire if the fort had surrendered.

Being allowed entrance, Major Anderson was sought for, and Wigfall,

using Beauregard’s name, offered Anderson his own terms. Wigfall

exhibited a white handkerchief from the parapet, and this being

noticed brought from Beauregard himself Colonel Chesnut, Colonel Roger

A. Pryor, Colonel William Porcher Miles, and Captain Lee, followed

soon by Beauregard’s adjutant-general, Jones, Ex-Governor Manning, and

Colonel Alston. It transpired that Wigfall had not seen Beauregard

for two days, and that his visit was wholly unauthorized. The proper

authorities, however, being now at hand, arrangements were concluded

at 7 P.M., Anderson surrendering (after some correspondence), with

permission to salute the flag as it was hauled down, to march out with

colors flying and drums beating and with arms and private baggage.[208]

Noticing the disappearance of the colors, a flag of truce was sent

in from the squadron outside, and arrangements made for carrying the

garrison north. Next morning, Sunday, April 14th, with a salute of

fifty guns, the flag was finally hauled down. It had been Anderson’s

intention to fire a hundred guns, but a lamentable accident occurred in

the premature discharge of one, by which one man was killed, another

mortally wounded, and four others seriously injured. This accident

delayed the departure until 4 P.M., when the little company of some

eighty men, accompanied by the forty laborers,[209] marched out of the

gate with their flags flying and drums beating. The steamer _Isabel_

carried Anderson and his men to the _Baltic_, and at nightfall they

were on their way north.

April 15th, the day after the surrender, the President issued his

proclamation calling “forth the militia of the several states of the

Union” to the number of seventy-five thousand men, in order to suppress

“combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of

judicial proceedings or by the powers vested in the marshals by law,”

and “to cause the laws to be duly executed.” Congress was called to

convene July 4th. An immediate effect of the proclamation was the

secession of Virginia, April 17th, the conservative elements of the

state convention, although in the majority, being overwhelmed by the

enthusiasm and impetus of the secession attack. Another prompt result

was the formation of the northwestern counties into what is now West

Virginia.

Fox’s expedition, however abortive in a physical sense, did much more

than attempt to succor Sumter; it was the instrument through which

the fort was held to the accomplishment of the fateful mistake of the

Confederacy in striking the first blow. It prevented the voluntary

yielding of the fort, and was an exhibition of the intention of the

government to hold its own. It was thus elemental in its effects. Had

Anderson withdrawn and hauled down his flag without a shot from the

South, it would have been for the Federal government to strike the

first blow of war; and its call for men would have met with a different

response to that which came from the electric impulse which the firing

upon the flag caused to vibrate through the North. This expectation

was the basis of Lincoln’s determination. Almost alone, unmovable by

Cabinet or War Department, he saw with the certainty of the seer what

holding Sumter meant, and continued on the unchangeable way which from

the first he had taken. In his letter of sympathy to Fox, May 1st, he

said: “You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would

be advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort Sumter, even if

it should fail, and it is no small consolation now to feel that our

anticipation is justified by the result.”[210]

The enthusiastic response of the North to the proclamation was witness

to the truth of Lincoln’s view, as well as to the North’s determination

that the offended dignity of the Union should be avenged, its

strongholds regained, its boundaries made intact, and that the United

States be proved to be a nation. It was for this the Union fought;

the freeing of the blacks was but a natural and necessary incident.

The assault upon Sumter was the knife driven by the hand of the South

itself into the vitals of slavery.

SYNOPSIS OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS, CHIEFLY MILITARY, BETWEEN THE

BOMBARDMENT OF FORT SUMTER, 1861, AND THE BATTLE OF THE _MONITOR_ AND

THE _MERRIMAC_, 1862

1861. President Lincoln calls for seventy-five thousand militia

to suppress the rebellion of the Southern States. Secession of

Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and North Carolina. Formal division of

Western Virginia from Virginia. The Massachusetts militia attacked

in Baltimore. The Congress of the Confederate States assembles at

Montgomery and is later transferred to Richmond. The first battle

of Bull Run results in a Federal repulse. Battle of Wilson’s Creek.

Repulse of the Federals at Ball’s Bluff. McClellan succeeds Scott as

commander-in-chief of the Federal armies. The Federals gain possession

of Port Royal. The Confederate commissioners, Mason and Slidell, are

intercepted on the British steamer _Trent_.

1862. Surrender of the Confederate commissioners, Mason and Slidell, to

the British government. The Federals capture Roanoke Island. Fort Henry

and Fort Donelson surrender to General Grant. Federal victory at Pea

Ridge. Engagement between the _Monitor_ and the _Merrimac_. The French

declare war against Mexico.

XVI

THE BATTLE OF THE _MONITOR_ AND THE _MERRIMAC_

I

A PRELUDE TO THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN OF APRIL TO JUNE, 1862

_By James Kendall Hosmer_

Obviously the capture of Richmond was the proper objective in the

offensive campaign in the East for which McClellan had been so long

preparing. The selection of that city by the Confederacy for the seat

of government caused all its interests to centre there; the maintenance

of its capital, moreover, was essential to the good standing of the

Confederacy before Europe, recognition from which was so earnestly

desired. If the North could capture Richmond, quite possibly nothing

more would be necessary to crush the South. The protection of

Washington, too, could not be left at all in doubt. Should that city be

lost to the Union, England and France might justly feel that the cause

of the North was hopeless, and no longer refrain from intervention.

Before Washington, McClellan and Johnston faced each other throughout

the fall of 1861, the latter having, in October, a force of 41,000,

which later grew to 57,337.[211] Under Johnston at the end of the

year were three subordinates--Jackson, in the Valley of Virginia;

Beauregard, about Leesburg, near the Potomac; and Holmes, below

Washington, about Acquia Creek, where Confederate batteries closed

the Potomac. McClellan had fully twice as many men, an army well

disciplined and equipped, devoted to their leader, and of fine

_morale_. Why could the army not be used? Because the general always

imagined before him a host of enemies that greatly outnumbered his own,

and insisted on more men and a more perfect training before setting

out. Meantime he grew cavalier in his treatment of his superiors. The

venerable Scott, who now retired at seventy-five, had his last days

embittered by the scant courtesy of the new commander, and even the

President was slighted. “I will hold McClellan’s horse for him if he

will only win us victories,” said Lincoln, with good-natured patience.

In December, McClellan fell ill, and all was in doubt. With the new

year, 1862, prospects brightened for the Union. The great successes in

the West and South, ending with the capture of New Orleans, brought

cheer; at last the army of the Potomac was in motion.

In March, Johnston withdrew southward; and McClellan, his command

now restricted to the “Army of the Potomac,” as he had baptized his

splendid creation, was ready for the long-delayed advance. Lincoln,

whose good sense when applied to warfare often, though not always,

struck true, earnestly desired that Richmond should be approached by

a direct southward movement, Washington being covered, while at the

same time Richmond was threatened. But McClellan judged it better to

proceed by the Chesapeake, landing at the end of the peninsula running

up between the York and James rivers, and marching against Richmond

from the east. Much could be said in favor of this route: troops and

supplies could be carried by water to the neighborhood of Richmond

without fatigue or danger. Yet the President yielded reluctantly,

fearing danger to Washington, laying it down as fundamental that the

capital must be protected by forty thousand men.

The Peninsular campaign had a dramatic prelude. A necessary condition

was a command of the waters, which was secured in early March by an

event that startled the world. Among the many disadvantages under

which the South labored in her struggle with the North was a painful

lack, as compared with her opponent, of factories, machine-shops,

ship-yards, and skilled labor; yet determination and ingenuity brought

about several wonderful fighting contrivances, of which the most

remarkable was the _Virginia_. The hull of the _Merrimac_, a frigate

of thirty-five hundred tons and forty guns, one of the most formidable

vessels of the old navy, partly burned and afterward sunk at the

evacuation of Norfolk by the Federals in April, 1861, was raised,

and found to be sound enough for further use. Good heads, among whom

John M. Brooke, manager of the Tredegar Iron Works at Richmond, was

prominent, fitted to the hull a casemate, or box, pierced for cannon,

and heavily plated with iron--the first effective armored ship. There

was a frank farewell to masts, sails, and other former appliances for

motion and management. The winds were superseded by steam, applied

for the first time in naval warfare, not as auxiliary, but as the

sole motive-power. One appliance of the _Virginia_ was, however, not

a new invention, but a revival of a fighting arm common in the days

of Salamis and Actium--a ram, projecting from the prow like that of

an ancient galley.[212] The craft was cumbrous, hard to steer, and

provided with engines far too weak for her immense weight, but she had

marvellous defensive power and was fast enough to approach and destroy

any resisting sailing-ship.

[Illustration: HAMPTON ROADS]

On March 8th, from the direction of Norfolk, the _Virginia_, a mass

low-lying upon the water, suddenly appeared before the astonished eyes

of the Federal onlookers in Hampton Roads.[213] Five stately wooden

frigates lay at anchor off Hampton, and they gallantly discharged their

broadsides at this strange assailant, but the balls glanced harmless

from her impenetrable back. She turned and pierced the _Cumberland_

with her ram, sending the frigate to the bottom; then she assailed

the _Congress_, which presently went up in flames; the brave crews as

helpless as if their means of defence were bows and arrows. Mistress of

the situation, with three more frigates--_Minnesota_, _Roanoke_, and

_St. Lawrence_--aground on the shoals or offering a futile defiance,

the _Virginia_ then withdrew for the day; she was certain of her prey

and could afford to wait for a few hours, meanwhile making some changes

which would render her more effective. Vivid terror overspread the

North as the news was despatched in the evening; and it was nowhere

greater than in the cabinet-room at the White House, where Lincoln

anxiously studied upon means to meet the exigency; and Stanton, pacing

the room “like a caged lion,” predicted she would come up the Potomac

and shell Washington.[214]

On the forenoon of March 9th, doing all things deliberately, as one

that has no reason to hasten, the _Virginia_ again appeared and moved

toward the _Minnesota_, aground and apparently certain to become a

helpless victim. Suddenly in the path appeared a little craft scarcely

one-fourth the size of the _Virginia_, “a cheese-box on a raft,” as

it will go down in history, the _Monitor_, an iron-clad of another

pattern. This vessel, undertaken as an experiment, and completed in

one hundred days, was due to the genius and indomitable zeal of John

Ericsson, its designer. That it should have arrived from New York at

this moment is one of the fateful accidents of history. A multitude

beheld the encounter, from the ships close at hand, from the shores

near and far. The superior size and armament of the _Virginia_ were

neutralized by her unwieldiness and depth of draught. The _Monitor_,

more active, and passing everywhere over shoal or through channel,

could elude or strike as she chose. Neither had much power to harm the

other; each crew behind its shield manœuvred and fired for the most

part uninjured. Worden, commander of the _Monitor_, in his pilot-house

at the bow, built of iron bars log-cabin fashion, received in the face,

as he peered through the interstice, the blinding fire and smoke from

a shell that struck within a few inches, but he escaped death. The

casualties on the _Virginia_ were few. On the morning of that day both

North and South believed that the Confederacy was about to control the

sea. The anticipation, whether hope or fear, vanished in the smoke of

that day’s battle. With it, too, passed away the traditional beauty and

romance of the old sea-service--the oakribbed and white-winged navies,

whose dominion had been so long and picturesque, at last and forever

gave way to steel and steam.[215]

II

THE BATTLE DESCRIBED BY CAPTAIN WORDEN AND LIEUTENANT GREENE OF THE

_MONITOR_

_By Lucius E. Chittenden_

Some weeks after the historic battle between the _Monitor_ and the

_Merrimac_ in Hampton Roads, on March 9, 1862, the former vessel came

to the Washington navy-yard unchanged, in the same condition as when

she discharged her parting shot at the _Merrimac_. There she lay until

her heroic commander had so far recovered from his injuries as to be

able to rejoin his vessel. All leaves of absence had been revoked,

the absentees had returned and were ready to welcome their captain.

President Lincoln, Captain Fox, and a limited number of Captain

Worden’s personal friends had been invited to his informal reception.

Lieutenant Greene received the President and the guests. He was a boy

in years--not too young to volunteer, however, when volunteers were

scarce, and to fight the _Merrimac_ during the last half of the battle,

after the captain was disabled.

The President and the other guests stood on the deck, near the turret.

The men were formed in lines, with their officers a little in advance,

when Captain Worden ascended the gangway. The heavy guns in the

navy-yard began firing the customary salute when he stepped upon the

deck. One side of his face was permanently blackened by the powder shot

into it from the muzzle of a cannon carrying a shell of one hundred

pounds weight, discharged less than twenty yards away. The President

advanced to welcome him, and introduced him to the few strangers

present. The officers and men passed in review and were dismissed. Then

there was a scene worth witnessing. The old tars swarmed around their

loved captain, they grasped his hand, crowded to touch him, thanked God

for his recovery and return, and invoked blessings upon his head in the

name of all the saints in the calendar. He called them by their names,

had a pleasant word for each of them, and for a few moments we looked

upon an exhibition of a species of affection that could only have been

the product of a common danger.

When order was restored the President gave a brief sketch of Captain

Worden’s career. Commodore Paulding had been the first, Captain Worden

the second officer of the navy, he said, to give an unqualified opinion

in favor of armored vessels. Their opinions had been influential with

him and with the Board of Construction. Captain Worden had volunteered

to take command of the _Monitor_, at the risk of his life and

reputation, before her keel was laid. He had watched her construction,

and his energy had made it possible to send her to sea in time to

arrest the destructive operations of the _Merrimac_. What he had done

with a new crew, and a vessel of novel construction, we all know. He,

the President, cordially acknowledged his indebtedness to Captain

Worden, and he hoped the whole country would unite in the feeling of

obligation. The debt was a heavy one, and would not be repudiated when

its nature was understood. The details of the first battle between

iron-clads would interest every one. At the request of Captain Fox,

Captain Worden had consented to give an account of his voyage from New

York to Hampton Roads, and of what had afterward happened there on

board the _Monitor_.

In an easy, conversational manner, without any effort at display,

Captain Worden told the story, of which the following is the substance:

“I suppose,” he began, “that every one knows that we left New York

Harbor in some haste. We had information that the _Merrimac_ was nearly

completed, and if we were to fight her on her first appearance we must

be on the ground. The _Monitor_ had been hurried from the laying of her

keel. Her engines were new, and her machinery did not move smoothly.

Never was a vessel launched that so much needed trial-trips to test her

machinery and get her crew accustomed to their novel duties. We went

to sea practically without them. No part of the vessel was finished;

there was one omission that was serious, and came very near causing her

failure and the loss of many lives. In heavy weather it was intended

that her hatches and all her openings should be closed and battened

down. In that case all the men would be below, and would have to depend

upon artificial ventilation. Our machinery for that purpose proved

wholly inadequate.

“We were in a heavy gale of wind as soon as we passed Sandy Hook. The

vessel behaved splendidly. The seas rolled over her, and we found

her the most comfortable vessel we had ever seen, except for the

ventilation, which gave us more trouble than I have time to tell you

about. We had to run into port and anchor on account of the weather,

and, as you know, it was two o’clock in the morning of Sunday before we

were alongside the _Minnesota_. Captain Van Brunt gave us an account

of Saturday’s experience. He was very glad to make our acquaintance,

and notified us that we must be prepared to receive the _Merrimac_ at

daylight. We had had a very hard trip down the coast, and officers

and men were weary and sleepy. But when informed that our fight would

probably open at daylight, and that the _Monitor_ must be put in order,

every man went to his post with a cheer. That night there was no sleep

on board the _Monitor_.

“In the gray of the early morning we saw a vessel approaching which our

friends on the _Minnesota_ said was the _Merrimac_. Our fastenings

were cast off, our machinery started, and we moved out to meet her

half-way. We had come a long way to fight her, and did not intend to

lose our opportunity.

“Before showing you over the vessel, let me say that there were three

possible points of weakness in the _Monitor_, two of which might have

been guarded against in her construction if there had been more time to

perfect her plans. One of them was in the turret, which, as you see,

is constructed of eight plates of inch iron--on the side of the ports,

nine--set on end so as to break joints, and firmly bolted together,

making a hollow cylinder eight inches thick. It rests on a metal ring

on a vertical shaft, which is revolved by power from the boilers. If

a projectile struck the turret at an acute angle, it was expected

to glance off without doing damage. But what would happen if it was

fired in a straight line to the centre of the turret, which in that

case would receive the whole force of the blow? It might break off the

bolt-heads on the interior, which, flying across, would kill the men

at the guns; it might disarrange the revolving mechanism, and then we

would be wholly disabled.

“I laid the _Monitor_ close alongside the _Merrimac_, and gave her a

shot. She returned our compliment by a shell, weighing one hundred

and fifty pounds, fired when we were close together, which struck the

turret so squarely that it received the whole force. Here you see the

scar, two and a half inches deep in the wrought iron, a perfect mould

of the shell. If anything could test the turret, it was that shot.

It did not start a rivet-head or a nut! It stunned the two men who

were nearest where the ball struck, and that was all. I touched the

lever--the turret revolved as smoothly as before. The turret had stood

the test; I could mark that point of weakness off my list forever.

“You notice that the deck is joined to the side of the hull by a right

angle, at what sailors call the ‘plank-shear.’ If a projectile struck

that angle, what would happen? It would not be deflected; its whole

force would be expended there. It might open a seam in the hull below

the water-line, or pierce the wooden hull, and sink us. Here was our

second point of weakness.

“I had decided how I would fight her in advance. I would keep the

_Monitor_ moving in a circle, just large enough to give time for

loading the guns. At the point where the circle impinged upon the

_Merrimac_ our guns should be fired, and loaded while we were moving

around the circuit. Evidently the _Merrimac_ would return the

compliment every time. At our second exchange of shots, she returning

six or eight to our two, another of her large shells struck our

‘plank-shear’ at its angle, and tore up one of the deck-plates, as you

see. The shell had struck what I believed to be the weakest point in

the _Monitor_. We had already learned that the _Merrimac_ swarmed with

sharpshooters, for their bullets were constantly spattering against

our turret and our deck. If a man showed himself on deck he would draw

their fire. But I did not much consider the sharpshooters. It was my

duty to investigate the effects of that shot. I ordered one of the

pendulums to be hauled aside, and, crawling out of the port, walked

to the side, laid down upon my chest, and examined it thoroughly. The

hull was uninjured, except for a few splinters in the wood. I walked

back and crawled into the turret--the bullets were falling on the iron

deck all about me as thick as hailstones in a storm. None struck me, I

suppose because the vessel was moving--and at the angle, and when I was

lying on the deck, my body made a small mark difficult to hit. We gave

them two more guns, and then I told the men, what was true, that the

_Merrimac_ could not sink us if we let her pound us for a month. The

men cheered; the knowledge put new life into all.

“We had more exchanges, and then the _Merrimac_ tried new tactics.

She endeavored to ram us, to run us down. Once she struck us about

amidships with her iron ram. Here you see its mark. It gave us a shock,

pushed us around, and that was all the harm. But the movement placed

our sides together. I gave her two guns, which I think lodged in her

side, for, from my lookout crack, I could not see that either shot

rebounded. Ours being the smaller vessel, and more easily handled, I

had no difficulty in avoiding her ram. I ran around her several times,

planting our shot in what seemed to be the most vulnerable places.

In this way, reserving my fire until I got the range and the mark, I

planted two more shots almost in the very spot I had hit when she tried

to ram us. Those shots must have been effective, for they were followed

by a shower of bars of iron.

“The third weak spot was our pilot-house. You see that it is built a

little more than three feet above the deck, of bars of iron, ten by

twelve inches square, built up like a log-house, bolted with very large

bolts at the corners where the bars interlock. The pilot stands upon a

platform below, his head and shoulders in the pilot-house. The upper

tier of bars is separated from the second by an open space of an inch,

through which the pilot may look out at every point of the compass.

The pilot-house, as you see, is a four-square mass of iron, provided

with no means of deflecting a ball. I expected trouble from it, and

I was not disappointed. Until my accident happened, as we approached

the enemy I stood in the pilot-house and gave the signals. Lieutenant

Greene fired the guns, and Engineer Stimers, here, revolved the turret.

“I was below the deck when the corner of the pilot-house was first

struck by a shot or a shell. It either burst or was broken, and no

harm was done. A short time after I had given the signal, and, with my

eye close against the lookout crack, was watching the effect of our

shot, when something happened to me--my part in the fight was ended.

Lieutenant Greene, who fought the _Merrimac_ until she had no longer

stomach for fighting, will tell you the rest of the story.”

Can it be possible that this beardless boy fought one of the historic

battles of the world? This was the thought of every one as the modest,

diffident young Greene was half pushed forward into the circle.

“I cannot add much to the Captain’s story,” he began. “He had cut out

the work for us, and we had only to follow his pattern. I kept the

_Monitor_ either moving around the circle or around the enemy, and

endeavored to place our shots as near her amidships as possible where

Captain Worden believed he had already broken through her armor. We

knew that she could not sink us, and I thought I would keep right on

pounding her as long as she would stand it. There is really nothing

new to be added to Captain Worden’s account. We could strike her

wherever we chose; weary as they must have been, our men were full of

enthusiasm, and I do not think we wasted a shot. Once we ran out of the

circle for a moment to adjust a piece of machinery, and I learn that

some of our friends feared that we were drawing out of the fight. The

_Merrimac_ took the opportunity to start for Norfolk. As soon as our

machinery was adjusted we followed her, and got near enough to give

her a parting shot. But I was not familiar with the locality; there

might be torpedoes planted in the channel, and I did not wish to take

any risk of losing our vessel, so I came back to the company of our

friends. But except that we were, all of us, tired and hungry when

we came back to the _Minnesota_ at half-past 12 P.M., the _Monitor_

was just as well prepared to fight as she was at eight o’clock in the

morning when she fired the first gun.”

We were then shown the injury to the pilot-house. The mark of the ball

was plain upon the two upper bars, the principal impact being upon the

lower of the two. This huge bar was broken in the middle, but held

firmly at either end. The farther it was pressed in, the stronger

was the resistance on the exterior. On the inside the fracture in the

bar was half an inch wide. Captain Worden’s eye was very near to the

lookout crack, so that when the gun was discharged the shock of the

ball knocked him senseless, while the mass of flame filled one side of

his face with coarse grains of powder. He remained insensible for some

hours.

“Have you heard what Captain Worden’s first inquiry was when he

recovered his senses after the general shock to his system?” asked

Captain Fox of the President.

“I think I have,” replied Mr. Lincoln, “but it is worth relating to

these gentlemen.”

“His question was,” said Captain Fox, “‘Have I saved the _Minnesota_?’

“‘Yes, and whipped the _Merrimac_!’ some one answered.

“‘Then,’ said Captain Worden, ‘I don’t care what becomes of me.’”

“Mr. President,” said Captain Fox, “not much of the history to which we

have listened is new to me. I saw this battle from eight o’clock until

mid-day. There was one marvel in it which has not been mentioned--the

splendid handling of the _Monitor_ throughout the battle. The first

bold advance of this diminutive vessel against a giant like the

_Merrimac_ was superlatively grand. She seemed inspired by Nelson’s

order at Trafalgar: ‘He will make no mistake who lays his vessel

alongside the enemy.’ One would have thought the _Monitor_ a living

thing. No man was visible. You saw her moving around that circle,

delivering her fire invariably at the point of contact, and heard the

crash of the missile against her enemy’s armor above the thunder of her

guns, on the bank where we stood. It was indescribably grand!

“Now,” he continued, “standing here on the deck of this battle-scarred

vessel, the first genuine iron-clad--the victor in the first fight

of iron-clads--let me make a confession and perform an act of simple

justice. I never fully believed in armored vessels until I saw this

battle. I know all the facts which united to give us the _Monitor_. I

withhold no credit from Captain Ericsson, her inventor, but I know that

the country is principally indebted for the construction of this vessel

to President Lincoln, and for the success of her trial to Captain

Worden, her commander.”

XVII

FARRAGUT’S CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS (1862)

WITH SOME NOTES ON THE BLOCKADE

While the West in 1861–62 was alive with marching armies and the sound

of strife, the East had been experiencing its share of activity by

land and sea, and the navy must first engage us. The blockade became

steadily more effective as new ships, purchased, chartered, or built

for the purpose, gathered at the various rendezvous. Hatteras Inlet and

Port Royal, seized in the fall of 1861,[216] became bases for coast

and inland expeditions which narrowed the Confederate hold on the

shore of the Atlantic. In January, 1862, a fleet and army, braving the

mid-winter storms which were more formidable than human opposition,

entered by Hatteras Inlet, in order to dominate more completely the

North Carolina sounds. The fortifications on Roanoke Island, lying

between Albemarle and Pamlico sounds, were easily captured, February

8th. New-Berne and other towns were soon after occupied, and the inlets

and river-mouths so occupied and threatened that the outlets to the

sea became for the Confederates few and perilous. This successful

course was interrupted during the Virginia campaign of the summer; the

troops were to a large extent withdrawn to places where reinforcements

were demanded. The Roanoke Island expedition is noteworthy, among

other reasons, for bringing to the front Ambrose E. Burnside, its

commander,[217] a brave and well-intentioned patriot, quite inadequate,

however, for large responsibilities, which later came upon him.

During these same weeks forces farther south were equally busy in

expeditions from Port Royal. Fort Pulaski, the strong work which

commanded the approaches to Savannah, a post environed by swamps and

watercourses, and therefore difficult of access, succumbed rather to

the engineering skill than to the bravery of its assailants, April

11, 1862; therefore, most of the littoral of Georgia, in addition to

that of North and South Carolina, was in Federal hands.[218] These

conquests were presently supplemented by the occupation of the Atlantic

ports of Florida. On the Gulf side, the retention of Fort Pickens by

Union forces from the beginning had put Pensacola Harbor under Federal

control. The blockade, at first deemed impracticable, within a year of

its establishment was throttling the foreign commerce which was vital

to the Confederacy. On the Atlantic scarcely any important ports were

left except Charleston and Wilmington; and before the thresholds of

these places lay, night and day, the fierce and watchful war-dogs of

the Union.[219] Nevertheless, up to April, 1862, the Gulf ports of

Mobile, New Orleans, Galveston, and Matagorda still remained to the

Confederacy. How long could these maintain themselves?

This swift and easy repossession of the southern coastline by the

Union, however important, lacked the wholesale excitement of great and

bloody battles, and was a game little appreciated. But in the midst of

it came an incident dramatic and startling in the highest degree, its

hero being a naval officer, David Glasgow Farragut, son of a Spaniard

from the island of Minorca, who had married a girl of Scotch strain

and settled in the Tennessee mountains. After the birth of David the

family removed to Louisiana, the father receiving a naval command.

David as a boy of thirteen was on the _Essex_ at Valparaiso, in 1814,

in her famous fight against the _Phœbe_ and _Cherub_. He had done

good service on the seas and in port for almost fifty years, but his

opportunity did not come until he was sixty years old.[220]

[Illustration: THE MISSISSIPPI BELOW NEW ORLEANS]

The need of seizing New Orleans, if practicable, was obvious: the

place commanded the lower Mississippi, and was the most populous and

important city of the Confederacy. The government, therefore, early

gave thought to its capture, assigning for that end a land force

of eighteen thousand men, under General Benjamin F. Butler, and a

powerful fleet. It was recognized that the navy must play the larger

part in the operations: eighty-two ships, therefore, were assigned

to the West Gulf Squadron, ranging from tugs, mortar-schooners, and

chartered ferry-boats to the most powerful man-of-war which the nation

owned.[221] To command this great fleet was chosen Farragut, whose

force and capacity had been recognized, especially by Welles, Secretary

of the Navy.[222] He hoisted his flag on the _Hartford_, a wooden ship

of nineteen hundred tons and twenty-four guns, and February 2, 1862,

sailed southward from Hampton Roads to Ship Island, midway between the

mouth of the Mississippi and Mobile, the rendezvous for the army and

squadron.

Farragut’s ships were all of wood; and, although steam in great part

was the motive-power, sails were not superseded. Even as Farragut was

concentrating in the Gulf, an event, to be described presently, took

place in Hampton Roads which revolutionized naval warfare. But the

enterprises in the Gulf were well started, and some triumphs still

remained for the old-fashioned sailor and the old-fashioned ship.[223]

In March the fleet managed to cross the bar and enter the Mississippi,

a feat of no small difficulty in the case of the heavier vessels.

The _Colorado_ was left outside, the _Pensacola_ was dragged by her

consorts through a foot of mud, and the _Mississippi_ was scarcely

less embarrassed. At last the squadron of attack was for the most

part within the branches of the river; at the head of the passes they

stripped like gladiators for a final struggle, and proceeded to attack

the main obstructions twenty miles above. Farragut had seventeen ships

for the attack, mounting one hundred and fifty guns, besides twenty

mortar-schooners, with six attendant gunboats, under Commodore David D.

Porter.

Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, well manned and equipped, guarded

the river on the west and east. An enormous chain, supported on

anchored hulks, stretched across the half-mile of current to hold

any approaching hostile vessels at a point where the fire of the

forts could converge. Above the forts, a formidable flotilla of craft

variously armed with rams and guns, some heaped with pitch-pine knots

to serve as fire-ships, stood ready to take part.[224]

[Illustration: FORTS OF THE MISSISSIPPI]

Unless this boom could be broken the ships could not ascend. Farragut

ordered two gunboats to this dangerous task. Stealing up at night,

they accomplished it. On the night of April 23d, the ships advanced,

a column led by the _Cayuga_ following the eastern bank; Farragut

himself, in the _Hartford_, led the column which was to pass close

to Fort Jackson. Now came a rare blending of the splendid and the

terrible. The night was calm, with starlight and a waning moon; but

in the fiercer flashings of the combat the world seemed on fire. In

arcs rising far toward the zenith the shells of the mortars mounted

and fell; broadsides thundered; from barbette and casemate rolled an

incessant reply. Suddenly above the flashes of guns came a steady

glare: fire-ships, their pitch-pine cargoes all ablaze, swept into the

midst of the struggling fleet. The attacking lines became confused in

the volumes of smoke settling down upon the stream. In the blinding

vapor friend could scarcely be told from foe. The captain of the

Confederate _Governor Moore_, finding that the bow of his own ship

interfered with the aim of his gun, coolly blew the bow to pieces

with a discharge, then through the shattered opening renewed the

battle. A Confederate tug pluckily pushed a fire-raft directly upon

the _Hartford_. The tug and its crew disappeared and the _Hartford_

ran aground; the sailors, undaunted, stuck to their work; the ship was

pulled off by her own engines, while a deluge from the pumps put out

the fire. For an hour and a half the roar and the flashings continued;

as the dawn came, the battle was hushed. Three Federal gunboats had

been driven back and one sunk, but the main fleet was above the

forts. The ships in general were scarred and battered in the night’s

encounter, but little harmed, and Farragut made ready at once to go on

his way.[225]

The passing of the forts made certain the fall of New Orleans. The

small Confederate army under General Mansfield Lovell was at once

withdrawn and the city left to its fate. Farragut appeared before it,

after passing rapidly up the intervening seventy miles, at noon, April

25th. The population of one hundred and fifty thousand souls, seething

with natural mortification and passion, lay under the broadsides of the

fleet, and, after one outburst, in which a mob trampled on the United

States flag, they sullenly submitted. With all possible expedition,

the forts having given up, the land forces ascended the river and, on

May 1st, took possession.[226] Farragut soon ascended the river to

Vicksburg with a large part of his fleet.

SYNOPSIS OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS, CHIEFLY MILITARY, BETWEEN FARRAGUT’S

CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS, 1862, AND THE BATTLES OF GETTYSBURG AND

VICKSBURG, 1863

1862. Battle of Shiloh. Capture of Island No. 10. Battle of Seven

Pines and Fair Oaks. “Seven Days’ Battle” between the armies of

McClellan and Lee before Richmond. Repulse of the Confederates at

Malvern Hill, and a constant succession of battles. Halleck appointed

Federal commander-in-chief. Confederate victory at Cedar Mountain.

Second battle of Bull Run and defeat of the Federals. Battle of South

Mountain. Battle of Antietam Creek. Proclamation of Emancipation. The

Confederate cavalry under General Stuart makes a successful raid into

Pennsylvania. Burnside succeeds McClellan as commander of the Army of

the Potomac. Battle of Fredericksburg and repulse of the Federals.

1863. Definite abolition of slavery in the rebellious states. Hooker

commands Army of the Potomac. West Virginia admitted (by proclamation)

into the Union. Confederate victory at Chancellorsville. General Grant

invests Vicksburg. Lee occupies Winchester, crosses the Potomac, and

enters Pennsylvania. Meade appointed commander of the Army of the

Potomac. Battle of Gettysburg, July 1–3. Fall of Vicksburg, July 4th.

XVIII

VICKSBURG (JANUARY–JULY, 1863)

In the American Civil War, 1861–65, the capture of Vicksburg, on

the Mississippi, cut the Confederacy in two, and the battle of

Gettysburg proved a Confederate invasion of the North impossible.

Out of the many great battles of that war it is historically

essential that these two should be emphasized.

After Fort Sumter was fired upon, April 12, 1861, the relative

efficiency of the South and the unpreparedness of the North were

soon illustrated in the battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861. In

the East, where the main objective point of the Northern attack

was Richmond, there followed McClellan’s organization of the

Army of the Potomac. In the West were Halleck and Buell, with

headquarters at St. Louis and Louisville, and the main end in

view in the Western campaign was the control of the Mississippi.

February, 1862, brought Northern successes in the Western campaign

in Grant’s capture of Forts Henry and Donelson, followed by

Shiloh, Corinth, and Memphis, which opened the Mississippi to

Vicksburg. At the same time Farragut’s fleet in the South captured

New Orleans, a victory which, like the effect of the blockade

throughout the war, was a weighty demonstration of the influence

of sea power upon history. After Farragut had cleared the lower

river, it was practically Vicksburg alone which remained to unite

the eastern and western territory of the Confederacy. But in the

East there had been a series of Northern disasters, culminating in

Chancellorsville.--EDITOR.

When the defeated Federals recrossed the Rappahannock, May 5, 1863,

after Chancellorsville, the fortunes of the North were at the lowest

ebb. Then came the turning of the tide, and in an unexpected quarter.

General Grant had shot up into fame through his capture of Fort

Donelson, early in 1862, but had done little thereafter to confirm his

reputation. Though in responsible command in northern Mississippi and

southwestern Tennessee, the few successes there which the country

could appreciate went to the credit of his subordinate, Rosecrans. The

world remembered his shiftlessness before the war, and began to believe

that his success had been accidental. All things considered, it is

strange that Grant had been kept in place. The pressure for his removal

had been great everywhere, but his superiors stood by him faithfully,

though Lincoln’s persistence was maintained in the midst of misgivings.

In the fall of 1862, Grant, in command of fifty thousand men, purposed

to continue the advance southward through Mississippi, flanking

Vicksburg, which then must certainly fall. His supplies must come over

the Memphis & Charleston road and the two weak and disabled lines of

railroad, the Mississippi Central and the Mobile & Ohio. To guard one

hundred and fifty miles of railroad in a hostile country the army must

necessarily be scattered, as every bridge, culvert, and station needed

a detail. From Washington came unwise interference; but he moved on

with vigor. As winter approached, he pushed into Mississippi toward

Jackson. If that place could be seized, Vicksburg, fifty miles west,

must become untenable, and to this end Grant desired to unite his whole

force. He was overruled, and the troops divided: while he marched on

Jackson, Sherman, with thirty-two thousand, was to proceed down the

river from Memphis. Grant’s hope was that he and Sherman, both near

Vicksburg, and supporting each other, might act in concert.

Complete failure attended this beginning. Forrest, operating in a

friendly country, tore up the railroads in Grant’s rear for scores of

miles, capturing his detachments and working destruction. On December

20th, also, Van Dorn, now a cavalry leader, surprised Holly Springs,

Grant’s main depot in northern Mississippi, carrying off and burning

stores to the amount of $1,500,000.[227] Grant’s movement southward

became impossible: the army stood stripped and helpless, saving

itself only by living off the country, an experience rough at the

time, but out of which, later, came benefit.[228] Co-operation with

Sherman could no longer be thought of. Nor could news of the disaster

be sent to Sherman, who, following his orders, punctually embarked

and steamed down to the mouth of the Yazoo; this he entered, and on

December 29th, believing that the garrison of Vicksburg had been drawn

off to meet Grant, he flung his divisions against the Confederate

lines at Chickasaw Bayou, with a loss of eighteen hundred men and no

compensating advantage.[229]

The difficulty and disaster in the Mississippi campaign were increased

by a measure which strikingly reveals the effect in war of political

pressure at the capital. At the outbreak of the war, John A. McClernand

was a member of Congress from Illinois, and later commanded a division

at Donelson and Shiloh. Returning to Washington, he stood out as a

War Democrat, a representative of a class whose adherence to the

administration was greatly strained by the Emancipation Proclamation,

and whose loyalty Lincoln felt it was almost vital to preserve. When,

therefore, he laid before Lincoln a scheme[230] to raise by his own

influence a large force in the West, over which he was to have military

command, with the intention of taking Vicksburg, Lincoln and Stanton

yielded, the sequel showing that McClernand was a soldier of little

merit....

McClernand went West, and kept his promise by mustering into the

service, chiefly through his personal influence, some thirty regiments,

a welcome recruitment in those dark days. With this new army McClernand

appeared at the mouth of the Yazoo just at the moment when Sherman

emerged from the swamps with his crestfallen divisions. McClernand

assumed command, Sherman subsiding into a subordinate place; but he had

influence enough with his new superior to persuade him to proceed at

once to an attack upon Arkansas Post, not far away.[231] This measure

proved successful, the place capitulating January 11, 1863, with five

thousand men and seventeen guns. Though the victory was due in great

part to the navy, Sherman alone in the army having rendered conspicuous

service, yet before the country the credit went to McClernand,

nominally the commander, giving him an undeserved prestige which made

the situation worse.

Grant often found Halleck very trying; but in the present exigency the

superior stood stoutly by him, and probably saved to him his position.

The military sense of the general-in-chief saw clearly the folly of

a divided command, and he enlightened the President, who made Grant

major-general in command of operations on the Mississippi, McClernand

being put at the head of a corps. January 30th, therefore, Grant,

suppressing a scheme entertained by McClernand for a campaign in

Arkansas, set to work to solve the problem of opening the great river.

Probably few generals have ever encountered a situation more difficult,

or one in which military precedents helped so little. The fortress

occupied a height commanding on the north and west, along the river,

swampy bottom-lands, at the moment largely submerged or threaded with

channels. These lowlands were much overgrown with canebrake and forest;

roads there were almost none, the plantations established within the

area being approached most conveniently by boats. But it was from

the north and west, apparently, that Vicksburg must be assailed, for

the region south of the city appeared quite beyond reach, since the

batteries closed the river, which seemed the sole means of approach for

Northern forces. The surest approach to the stronghold was from the

east; but there Grant had tried and failed; public sentiment would not

sustain another movement from that side. There was nothing for it but

to try by the north and west, and Grant grappled with the problem.

Besides the natural obstacles, he had to take account of his own

forces, and the strength and character of his adversary. In November,

1862, Johnston, not yet recovered from the wounds received at Fair

Oaks in May, was ordered to assume command in the West, taking the

troops of Kirby Smith, Bragg, and the army defending the Mississippi.

The latter force, up to that time under Van Dorn, was transferred to

John C. Pemberton, of an old Pennsylvania family, before and after

the war a citizen of Philadelphia. Though a Northerner, he had the

entire confidence of both Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee. His

record in the old army was good; he was made lieutenant-general by the

Confederacy, and received most weighty responsibilities. He served

bravely and faithfully the cause he had espoused; though outclassed in

his campaign, he did not lack ability. Pemberton commanded some fifty

thousand men, comprising not only the garrison of Vicksburg, but also

that of Port Hudson and detachments posted in northern Mississippi. On

the watch at such a point as Jackson, the state capital, he could, on

short notice, concentrate his scattered command to meet whatever danger

might threaten.

Against this alert adversary Grant could now oppose about an equal

number of men, comprised in four corps--the Thirteenth (McClernand),

Fifteenth (Sherman), Sixteenth (Hurlbut), Seventeenth (McPherson).

Hurlbut was of necessity retained at and near Memphis, to preserve

communications and hold western Tennessee; the three other corps

could take the field with about forty-three thousand. Among Grant’s

lieutenants, two were soldiers of the best quality--Sherman and James

B. McPherson, the latter a young officer of engineers, who during the

preceding months had been coming rapidly to the front.[232] Besides the

army, Grant had a powerful auxiliary in the fleet, which now numbered

seventy craft, large and small, manned by fifty-five hundred sailors

and commanded by David D. Porter, an indefatigable chief.

Grant at the outset could, of course, have no fixed plan. Throughout

February and March his operations were tentative; and though the

country murmured at his “inactivity,” never did general or army do

harder work. Might not Vicksburg perhaps be isolated on the west, and

a way be found beyond the reach of its cannon to that vantage-ground

south of it which seemed so inaccessible? Straightway the army tried,

with spade, pick, and axe, to complete the cut-off which Williams had

begun the previous summer; also to open a tortuous and embarrassed

passage far round through Lake Providence and the Tensas and Washita

rivers. Might not some insufficiently guarded approach be found through

the Yazoo bottom[233] to Haines’ Bluff, the height dominating Vicksburg

from the northeast, which Sherman had sought to seize at Chickasaw

Bayou? Straightway there were enterprises seldom attempted in war.[234]

The levee at Yazoo Pass was cut, far up the river, so that the swollen

Mississippi flooded the wide region below. Through the crevasse plunged

gunboat and transport, to engage in amphibious warfare; soldiers

wading in the mire or swimming the bayous; divisions struggling to

_terra firma_, only to find that Pemberton was there before them

behind unassailable parapets; gunboats wedged in ditches, unable to

turn, with hostile axemen blocking both advance and retreat by felling

trees across the channel; Porter sheltering himself from sharpshooters

within a section of broken smokestack and meditating the blowing-up of

his boats; Sherman now paddling in a canoe, now riding bareback, now

joining the men of a rescue-party in a double-quick--all in cypress

forests draped with funereal moss, as if Death had made ready for a

calamity that seemed certain.

April came, and nothing had been accomplished on the north or west. To

try again from the east meant summary removal for the commander. Was

an attack from the south, after all, out of the question, as all his

lieutenants urged? Grant resolved to try; the river-bank to the west

was so far dried that the passage of a column through the swamp-roads

became possible. Porter was willing to attempt to run the batteries,

though sure that, if once below, he could never return. The night of

April 16th was one of wild excitements. The fleet was discovered as

soon as it got under way, and conflagrations, blazing right and left,

clearly revealed it as it swept down the stream. The Confederate fire

could not be concentrated,[235] and hence the injury was small to the

armored craft; and even the transports in their company, protected

only by baled hay or cotton, escaped with one exception. A few days

later transports and barges again passed down.[236] The column, toiling

along the swampy road, was met, when at last it reached a point well

below the town, by an abundance of supplies and ample means for placing

it on the other bank. April 29th, Grand Gulf, the southern outpost

of Vicksburg, was cannonaded, with ten thousand men on transports at

hand for an assault, if the chance came. High on its bluff, it defied

the bombardment, as the main citadel had done. Then it was that Grant

turned to his last resource.

It requires attention to comprehend how a plan so audacious as that now

adopted could succeed. First, the watchful Pemberton was bewildered

and misled as to the point of attack. About the time the batteries

were run, Grierson, an Illinois officer, starting with seventeen

hundred cavalry from La Grange, Tennessee, raided completely through

Mississippi, from north to south, so skilfully creating an impression

of large numbers, so effectively wrecking railroads and threatening

incursion now here and now there, that the back-country was thrown into

a panic, and Pemberton thought an attack in force from that direction

possible. Following close upon Grierson’s raid, Sherman demonstrated

with such noise and parade north of the city that Pemberton sent

troops to meet a possible assault there. Meantime, the Thirteenth and

Seventeenth corps were ferried rapidly across the river below Grand

Gulf, and, a footing on the upland having been obtained unopposed,

Grant stood fairly on the left bank. He now sent word to Halleck that

he felt this battle was more than half won.[237]

[Illustration: SIEGE OF VICKSBURG]

The event proved that Grant was not oversanguine. An easy victory

at Port Gibson, over a brave but inferior force, gave him Grand

Gulf. Joined now by Sherman, he plunged with his three corps into

the interior, cutting loose from his river base, and also from his

hampering connection with Washington. The previous fall he had

learned to live off the country. Two more easy victories, at Raymond

and Jackson, gave him the state capital, and placed him, fully

concentrated, between the armies of Pemberton and Johnston. The number

of his foes was swelling fast--from Port Hudson, from South Carolina,

from Tennessee; but Grant did not let slip his advantage. Johnston,

not yet recovered from his Fair Oaks wound, was not at his best.

Pemberton, confused by an adversary who could do so unmilitary a thing

as to throw away his base, vacillated and blundered. A heavy battle at

Champion’s Hill, May 16th, in which the completeness of Grant’s victory

was prevented by the bad conduct of McClernand, nevertheless resulted

in Pemberton’s precipitate flight. Next day the Federals seized the

crossing of the Big Black River, after which all the outposts of

Vicksburg, from Haines’ Bluff southward, fell without further fighting,

and Pemberton, with the army that remained to him, was shut up within

the works. The Federals held all outside, looking down from those

heights, which for so long had seemed to them impregnable, upon the

great river open to the north. Supplies and reinforcements could now

come unhindered and were already pouring in. The fall of Vicksburg was

certain....

The siege once begun, the fortress was doomed without recourse.

Pemberton, to be sure, did not lose heart, and drove back the repeated

Federal assaults with skill and courage. Johnston, from the rear,

mustered men as he could, tried to concert with the besieged army a

project of escape, and at last advanced to attack. But within the

city supplies soon failed, and outside no resources were at hand for

the city’s succor. Johnston’s request for twenty thousand men, lying

idle in Arkansas had been slighted;[238] there was no other source of

supply. Kirby Smith and Dick Taylor attempted a diversion on the west

bank of the river; and still later, at Helena, Arkansas, a desperate

push was made to afford relief. It was all in vain. The North, made

cheerful by long-delayed success, poured forth to Grant out of its

abundance both men and means. His army was in size nearly doubled;

food and munitions abounded. The starving defenders were inexorably

encircled by nearly three times their number of well-supplied and

triumphant foes. Grant’s assaults, bold and bloody though they were,

had little effect in bringing about the result; the close investment

would have sufficed.[239] On July 4th came the unconditional surrender.

The Confederate losses before the surrender were fully 10,000; now

29,491, became prisoners, while in the fortress were 170 cannon

and 50,000 small arms. Grant’s loss during the whole campaign was

9362.[240]

To this triumph, a week later, was added the fall of Port Hudson,[241]

which, with a depleted garrison, held out stubbornly for six weeks

against the Federals. N. P. Banks, who after his tragical Virginia

experiences succeeded, in December, 1862, Butler in Louisiana, was set,

as in the valley, to meet a difficult situation with inadequate means.

With an army of little more than thirty thousand, in part nine-months

men, he was expected to hold New Orleans and such of Louisiana as

had been conquered, and also to co-operate with Grant in opening the

Mississippi. When his garrisons had been placed he had scarcely fifteen

thousand men left for service in the field, a number exceeded at first

by the Port Hudson defenders, strongly placed and well commanded. West

of the river, moreover, was still another force under an old adversary

in the Shenandoah country--Dick Taylor, a general well-endowed and

trained in the best school. That Banks, though active, had no brilliant

success was not at all strange; yet Halleck found fault. He could not

extend a hand to Grant; but, risking his communications--risking,

indeed, the possession of New Orleans--he concentrated at Port Hudson,

which fortress, after a six weeks’ siege, marked by two spirited

assaults, he brought to great distress. Its fate was sealed by the fall

of Vicksburg--Gardner, the commander, on July 9th, surrendering the

post with more than six thousand men and fifty-one guns.

The capture of Vicksburg and Port Hudson was a success such as had

not been achieved before during our Civil War, and was not paralleled

afterward until Appomattox. In military history there are few

achievements which equal it; and the magnitude of the captures of men

and resources is no more remarkable than are the unfailing courage of

the soldiers and the genius and vigor of the general.[242]

XIX

GETTYSBURG, JULY 1–3, 1863

In the Eastern field of operations in the American Civil War,

McClellan’s organization of the Army of the Potomac had given him

a well-disciplined force, with which he was facing General Joseph

Johnston at the opening of 1862. But the Peninsular Campaign which

McClellan entered upon early in the year, with the bloody fighting

at Fair Oaks in May, and the Seven Days’ Battles in May and June,

resulted in the withdrawal of the Northern forces. There followed

Pope’s defeat near Bull Run. The forward movement was a failure.

The Northern forces, only four miles from Richmond in June, were

practically defending Washington in September. The desperate battle

of Antietam checked Lee’s movement into Maryland, but was not

decisive. Burnside’s costly defeat at Fredericksburg in December

closed a gloomy year in the East, which to many seemed to show

that the South could more than hold its own. The new year brought

a renewal of disaster to the Northern arms in Hooker’s defeat in

the hard-fought battle of Chancellorsville. But the tide was to be

turned by one of the crucial events of military history, which was

close at hand.--EDITOR.

The fall of Vicksburg, though a terrible blow to the South, was not

a sudden one: to all intelligent eyes it had for some weeks been

impending; but that Lee could be defeated seemed a thing impossible.

Because so long unconquered, it had come to be accepted that he was

unconquerable.

Hooker soon recovered from the daze into which he had been thrown at

Chancellorsville. His confidence in himself was not broken by his

misfortune. Instead of, like Burnside, manfully shouldering most of

the responsibility of his failure, Hooker vehemently accused his

lieutenants of misconduct, and faced the new situation with as much

resolution as if he had the prestige of a victor. The Army of the

Potomac, never down in heart except for a moment, plucked up courage

forthwith and girded itself for new encounters.

The South, meanwhile, was still rejoicing over Chancellorsville, for

the cloud on the southwestern horizon was at first no bigger than a

man’s hand. Longstreet joined Lee from Suffolk with two divisions,

swelling the Army of Northern Virginia to eighty thousand or more.

Never before had it been so numerous, so well appointed, or in such

good heart. The numerical advantage which the Federals had heretofore

enjoyed was at this time nearly gone, because thousands of enlistments

expired which could not immediately be made good; volunteering had

nearly ceased, and the new schemes for recruiting were not yet

effective.

Lee took the initiative early in June,[243] full of the sense of the

advantage to be gained from a campaign on Northern soil. War-worn

Virginia was to receive a respite; Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York,

as well as Washington, might be terrorized, and perhaps captured.

If only the good-fortune so far enjoyed would continue, the Union’s

military strength might be completely wrecked, hesitating Europe won

over to recognition, and the cause of the South made secure.

With these fine and not at all extravagant anticipations, Lee put

in motion his three great corps under the lieutenant-generals Ewell

(Jackson’s successor), Longstreet, and A. P. Hill. Longstreet was ill

at ease. Vicksburg, now in great danger, he thought could only be saved

by reinforcing Bragg and advancing rapidly on Cincinnati, in which

case Grant might be drawn north. Notwithstanding Longstreet’s urgency,

Lee persisted.[244] Ewell, pouring suddenly down the Shenandoah

Valley, “gobbled up,” as Lincoln put it, Milroy and his whole command

of some four thousand, June 13th, and presently from Maryland invaded

Pennsylvania. Longstreet was close behind: while the head of Ewell’s

column had been nearing the Potomac, A. P. Hill, who had remained at

Fredericksburg to watch Hooker, as yet inactive on Stafford Heights,

broke camp and followed northwestward. Ewell seized Chambersburg a few

days later, then appeared at Carlisle, and even shook Harrisburg with

his cannon. The North had, indeed, cause for alarm; the farmers of the

invaded region were in a panic. “Emergency men,” enlisted for three

months, gathered from New York, Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania

to the threatened points. The great coast cities were face to face with

a menace hitherto unexperienced. Were they really about to be sacked?

What was to be done?

There was no indecision either at Washington or in the Army of the

Potomac. Lincoln’s horse-sense, sometimes tripping, but oftener

adequate to deal with unparalleled burdens, homely, terse, and unerring

in its expression, was at its best in these days. To Hooker, meditating

movements along and across the Rappahannock, he wrote: “I would not

take any risk of being entangled upon the river like an ox jumped half

over a fence, and liable to be torn by dogs in front and rear without a

fair chance to gore one way or kick the other.”[245] And again: “If the

head of Lee’s army is at Martinsburg (near the Potomac), and the tail

of it on the plank-road between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville,

the animal must be very slim somewhere. Could you not break him?” “Fret

him and fret him,” was the President’s injunction to Hooker, regarding

the advance of Lee. Well-poised, good-humored, constant, Lincoln gave

no counsel to Hooker in these days that was not sound.

Indeed, at this time, Hooker needed little admonition. Alert and

resourceful, he no sooner detected the movement of Lee than he

suggested an advance upon Richmond, which was thus left unguarded.

Lee, of course, had contemplated the possibility of such a move, and,

with a nod toward Washington, had joked about “swapping queens.” The

idea, which Hooker did not press, being disapproved, Hooker, turning

toward Lee, proceeded to “fret him and fret him,” his conduct comparing

well with his brilliant management at the opening of the campaign

of Chancellorsville. The cavalry, greatly improved by him, under

Pleasonton, with divisions commanded by Buford, Duffie, and Gregg,

was serviceable as never before, matching well the troopers of Stuart

at Brandy Station, Aldie, and Middleburg. Screened on his left flank

by his cavalry, as, on the other hand, Lee was screened by a similar

body on his right, Hooker marched in columns parallel to those of his

foe and farther east, yet always interposing between the enemy and

Washington. As June drew to its end the Confederate advance was near

Harrisburg, but the Federals were not caught napping. Hooker stood at

Frederick, in Maryland, his corps stretched on either hand to cover

Washington and Baltimore, touching hands one with the other, and all

confronting the foe.

* * * * *

Lee’s previous campaign had shown with what disregard of military rules

he could act, a recklessness up to this time justified by good luck and

the ineptitude of his adversaries. Still contemptuous of risks, he made

just here an audacious move which was to result unfortunately.[246]

He ordered, or perhaps suffered, Stuart, whom as he drew toward the

Potomac he had held close on his right flank, to undertake with the

cavalry a raid around the Federal army, after the precedents of the

Peninsular and Second Bull Run campaigns. Casting loose from his chief,

June 25th, Stuart sallied out eastward and penetrated close to the

neighborhood of Washington. He did no harm beyond making a few small

captures and causing a useless scare; on the other hand, he suffered

terrible fatigue, his exhausted men falling asleep almost by squadrons

in their saddles. He could get no news from his friends, nor could he

find Ewell’s corps, which he had hoped to meet. Quite worn out with

hardship, he did not become available to Lee until the late afternoon

of July 2d. A critical battle might have had a different issue[247]

had the Confederate cavalry been in its proper place. It was almost a

chance, through a scout of Longstreet’s, that Lee, at Chambersburg, all

uncertain of the Federal movement, heard at last that his enemy was

close at hand and threatening his communications. At once he withdrew

Ewell southward, so that he might face the danger with his three

divisions together.

Meantime a most critical change came about in the camp of his foes.

Hooker, on ill terms with Halleck, and engaged in controversy with him

over Halleck’s refusal to authorize the withdrawal of the garrison of

Harper’s Ferry, rather petulantly asked to be relieved of command, and

the President complied at once. Such promptness was to be expected.

Hooker had been doing well; but he had done just as well before

Chancellorsville; he was generally distrusted; his best subordinates

were outspoken as to his lamentable record. The unsparing critic of

Burnside had now to take his own medicine. A battle with Lee could not

be ventured upon under a commander who could not keep on good terms

with the administration, had there been nothing else. It was perilous

swapping of horses in the midst of the stream, but Lincoln was forced

to do it. Some cried out for the restoration of McClellan, and others

for that of Frémont. The appointment fell to George Gordon Meade,

commander of the Fifth Corps, who, with soldierly dignity, obeyed

orders, assuming the burden June 28th, with a pledge to do his best.

Meade, a West-Pointer of 1835,[248] was a man of ripe experience,

thoroughly trained in war. He had first risen leading a brigade of

the Pennsylvania reserves at Mechanicsville, just a year earlier.

The good name then won he confirmed at Antietam, and still more at

Fredericksburg. He was tall and spare, with an eagle face which no one

that saw it can forget, a perfect horseman, and, though irascible,

possessed of strong and manly character. In that momentous hour the

best men were doubtful on what footing they stood. When Lincoln’s

messenger, with a solemn countenance, handed to Meade the appointment,

he took it to be an order for his arrest. Placed in command, he

hesitated not a moment, building his strategy upon the foundation laid

by his predecessor.

Meade had with him in the field seven corps of infantry: the First,

commanded temporarily by Doubleday; the Second, by Hancock, recently

promoted; the Third, by Sickles; the Fifth, his own corps, now turned

over to Sykes; the Sixth, Sedgwick, fortunately not displaced, though

so unjustly censured for his noble work on May 3d; the Eleventh,

Howard; and the Twelfth, Slocum. The excellent cavalry divisions were

under Buford, Kilpatrick, and Gregg; and in the lower places capable

young officers--Custer, Merritt, Farnsworth, Devin, Gamble--were

pushing into notice. Of field-guns there were three hundred and forty.

It was a fault of the Union organization that corps, divisions, and

brigades were too small, bringing about, among other evils, too large

a number of general and staff officers.[249] The Confederates here

were wiser. Lee faced Meade’s seven corps with but three, and two

hundred and ninety-three guns; but each Confederate corps was nearly or

quite twice as large as a Union corps; divisions and brigades were in

the same relative proportion. The Army of the Potomac numbered 88,289

effectives; the Army of Northern Virginia, 75,000.[250]

[Illustration: POSITION OF FEDERAL AND CONFEDERATE ARMIES, JUNE 30, 1863

(Federal: hollow bars, Confederate: solid bars)]

Meade at once chose and caused to be surveyed a position on Pipe

Creek, just south of the Maryland line, as a field suitable to be held

should the enemy come that way. He marched, however, northwestward

cautiously, his corps in touch but spread wide apart, ready for battle

and protecting as ever the capital and cities of the coast.[251] His

especial reliance in this hour of need was John F. Reynolds, hand in

hand with whom he had proceeded in his career from the day when, as

fellow-brigadiers, they repulsed A. P. Hill at Beaver Dam Creek. This

man he trusted completely and loved much. He warmly approved Hooker’s

action in committing to Reynolds the left wing nearest the enemy, made

up of the First, Third, and Eleventh corps. This made Reynolds second

in command. Meade, commander-in-chief, retained the centre and right.

So the armies hovered, each uncertain of the other’s exact whereabouts,

during the last days of June.

[Illustration: OPENING OF BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG, JULY 1, 8 A.M.]

On July 1st, though Stuart for the moment was out of the campaign, the

Federal cavalry was on hand. Buford’s division, thrown out from the

Federal left, moved well forward north of the town of Gettysburg, and

were met by Heth’s division of Hill’s corps, marching forward, it is

said, with no more hostile purpose at the time than that of getting

shoes.[252] Buford held his line valiantly, being presently joined by

Reynolds. The two, from the cupola of the seminary near by, studied the

prospect hurriedly. A stand must be made then and there, and the First

Corps, close at hand, was presently in support of the bold horsemen,

who, dismounted, were with their carbines blocking the advance of the

hostile infantry.

The most irreparable and lamentable loss of the entire battle now

occurred at the very outset. Reynolds fell dead at the front, leaving

the left divisions without a leader in the most critical hour. Heth’s

advance was roughly handled; one brigade was mostly captured, Doubleday

nodding, with a pleasant “Good-morning, I am glad to see you,” to its

commander, his old West Point chum Archer, as the latter was passed to

the rear among the prisoners.[253] There were still other captures and

much fighting; but Ewell was fast arriving by the roads from the north;

and although Howard, with the Eleventh Corps, came up from the south at

the same time, the heavier Confederate battalions could not be held.

Barlow, thrown out far forward into Ewell’s path, was at once badly

wounded, whereupon his division was repulsed. The Eleventh Corps in

general gave way before Ewell’s rush, rolling back disordered through

the town, where large numbers were captured. Fortunately, on the high

crest of Cemetery Hill, Howard had stationed in reserve the division

of Steinwehr. What broken brigades and regiments, fleeing through the

town, could reach this point were forthwith rallied and reorganized.

Thus, at mid-day of July 1st, things were hopeful for Lee. The First

Corps, its flank exposed by the retirement of the Eleventh Corps, fell

back fighting through Gettysburg to Cemetery Hill during the afternoon.

Lee swept the Federals from the town and the fields and ridges beyond.

Had Ewell stormed Cemetery Hill at once, Lee might have won a great

success.

One of the first marks of a capacity for leadership is the power to

choose men, and Meade now showed this conspicuously. He had lost

Reynolds, his main dependence, a loss that no doubt affected greatly

the fortunes of the first day’s battle; he replaced Reynolds with a

young officer whom it was necessary to push over the heads of several

seniors; but a better selection could not have been made. Of the

splendid captains whom the long agony of the Army of the Potomac was

slowly evolving, probably the best as an all-round soldier was Winfield

Scott Hancock. Since his West Point training, finished in 1844,[254] he

had had wide and thorough military experience, climbing laboriously

from colonel to corps commander, winning out from each grade to the

next higher through faithful and able service. He could deal with

figures; was diligent over papers and office drudgery; he was a patient

drill-master--all these, and at the same time so dashing and magnetic

in the field that he early earned the title “The Superb.”[255] His

vigor, moreover, was tempered by judgment.

[Illustration: BEGINNING OF INFANTRY ENGAGEMENT, JULY 1, 10 A.M.]

Hancock it was whom Meade now sent forward from Taneytown, thirteen

miles away, when he was anxiously gathering in his host, to lead the

hard-pressed left wing; he was to judge whether the position should be

held, as Reynolds had thought, or a retirement attempted toward the

surveyed lines of Pipe Creek. The apparition on Cemetery Hill, just

before four o’clock, July 1st, of Hancock upon his sweating charger,

was equal to a reinforcement by an army corps. Fugitives halted;

fragments of formations were welded into proper battle-lines. In the

respite given by Ewell, so ill-timed for Lee, the shattered First and

Eleventh corps found breathing-space and plucked up heart. At six

o’clock they were joined by the Twelfth Corps, that of the steadfast

Slocum. Hancock, now feeling that there were troops enough for the

present, and resolute leaders, galloped back to report to his chief.

Upon his report Meade concentrated everything toward Cemetery Hill,

the troops plodding through the moonlit night. Meade himself reached

the field an hour past midnight, gaunt and hollow-eyed through want

of sleep,[256] but clear in mind and stout of heart. At dawn of July

2d the Second Corps, at the head of which Gibbon had taken Hancock’s

place, and the Third Corps, Sickles, were at hand. At noon arrived

the Fifth, and soon after the Sixth, Sedgwick having marched his men

thirty-four miles in eighteen hours.

Two parallel ridges, their crests separated by an interval of not quite

a mile, extend at Gettysburg north and south. The more westerly of

these, called, from the Lutheran College there, Seminary Ridge, was the

scene of the first attack on July 1st, but on the second day became

the main Confederate position. The eastern ridge, terminated at its

northern end by the town cemetery, close to which Howard so fortunately

stationed Steinwehr on the first day, became the Federal stronghold.

Cemetery Ridge was really shaped like a fishhook, its line curving

eastward to the abrupt and wooded Culp’s Hill, the barb of the hook. At

the curve the ridge was steep and rough with ledges and bowlders; as it

ran southward its height diminished until, after a mile or so, it rose

again into two marked elevations--Round Top, six hundred feet high,

with a spur, Little Round Top, just north.

[Illustration: POSITION, JULY 1, 3 P.M.]

On the morning of July 2d the Federals lay along this ridge in

order as follows: at the extreme right, on Culp’s Hill (the fishhook’s

barb), the Twelfth Corps, Slocum; at the bend, near the cemetery, the

Eleventh Corps, Howard, reinforced from other bodies; on their left

the First, now under Newton, and the Second, Gibbon. The First and

Second corps formed, as it were, the shank of the hook, which the

Third, Sickles, was expected to prolong. The Fifth, on arriving, took

place behind the Third; and the Sixth, when it appeared from the east,

helped to make secure the trains and sent aid elsewhere. The convex

formation presently proved to be of incalculable value, enabling Meade

to strengthen rapidly any threatened point. Fronting their foe, the

Confederates lay in a parallel concave line, Ewell close at the curve

and in the town, and A. P. Hill on Seminary Ridge; this line Longstreet

prolonged southward, his right flank opposed to Round Top. The concave

formation was an embarrassment to Lee--no reinforcements could reach

threatened points without making a wide circuit.

[Illustration: FIRST CORPS, SEMINARY RIDGE, 3.30 P.M., JULY 1, 1863

(From a print of the time)]

When Meade, supposing that Sickles had prolonged with the Third Corps

the southward-stretching line, reviewed the field, he found the Third

Corps thrown out far in advance, to the Emmittsburg road, which here

passed along a dominating ridge; the break in the continuity of his

line filled the general with alarm, but it was too late to change.

Whether or not Sickles blundered will not be argued here. Meade

condemned; other good authorities have approved, among them Sheridan,

who regarded as just Sickles’ claim that the line marked out by Meade

was untenable.[257]

What happened here will presently be told.

Lee, too, was out of harmony with Longstreet, his well-tried second;

and the first matter in dispute was the expediency of fighting at all

at Gettysburg. When Longstreet, coming from Chambersburg, took in the

situation, he urged upon Lee, bent upon his battle, a turning of

the Federal left as better strategy, by which the Confederates might

interpose between Meade and Washington and compel Meade to make the

attack. Longstreet held Lee to be perfect in defensive warfare; on

the offensive, however, he thought him “over-combative” and liable to

rashness.[258] Lee rejected the advice with a touch of irritation; and

when Longstreet, acquiescing, made a second suggestion--namely, for a

tactical turning of the Federal left instead of a direct assault--Lee

pronounced for the assault in a manner so peremptory that Longstreet

could say no more. From first to last at Gettysburg, Longstreet was ill

at ease, in spite of which his blows fell like those from the hammer of

a war-god. The friends of Lee have denounced him for a sluggishness and

insubordination that, as they claim, lost for them the battle.[259] His

defence of himself is earnest and pathetic, of great weight as coming

from one of the most able and manful figures on either side in the

Civil War.

Of Longstreet’s three divisions, only one, that of McLaws, was on hand

with all its brigades on the forenoon of July 2d. At noon arrived Law,

completing Hood’s division. Pickett’s division was still behind; but

in mid-afternoon, without waiting for him, Longstreet attacked--Hood,

with all possible energy, striking Sickles in his far-advanced position

and working dangerously around his flank toward the Round Tops.

Longstreet’s generals, Hood and afterward Law (Hood falling wounded in

the first attack), though men of courage and dash, assaulted only after

having filed written protests, feeling sure that the position could

be easily turned and gained with little fighting. But Lee had been

peremptory, and no choice was left.[260]

[Illustration: POSITION, JULY 2, 2.30 P.M.]

Gouverneur K. Warren, then chief-engineer of the Army of the Potomac,

despatched by Meade to the left during the afternoon, found the Round

Tops undefended. They were plainly the key to the Federal position,

offering points which, if seized by the enemy, would make possible an

enfilading of the Federal line. Troops of the Twelfth Corps, at first

stationed there, had been withdrawn and their places not supplied.

There was not a moment to lose. Even as he stood, Warren beheld in

the opposite woods the gleam of arms from Longstreet’s swift advance.

Leaping down from ledge to ledge, he met a brigade of the Fifth Corps,

just arrived and marching to the aid of Sickles. These he diverted to

the eyrie he had so lately left; a battery, too, was dragged up over

the rocks, and none too soon. At that very moment the men of Hood

charged out of the valley, and the height was held only by the most

obstinate combat.

From the valley, meantime, came up a tumult of arms which, as the sun

threw its rays aslant, spread wider and louder. Longstreet and A. P.

Hill threw in upon the Third Corps every man available; while, on the

other hand, Meade poured in to its support division after division from

the Fifth, and at last from the Second and Twelfth.[261] About six

o’clock Sickles fell wounded; by sunset his line was everywhere forced

back, though not in rout. By dusk the Confederates had mastered all

resistance in the valley. But the line once reached which Meade had

originally designed, running north from Little Round Top to Cemetery

Ridge, retreat went no farther. That line was not crossed by foot of

foe. When night fell the Round Tops were held firmly, while troops from

the Sixth Corps guarded the Union left. Nearer the centre stood the

Third and Fifth, much shattered but still defiant. In a way, what had

happened was but a rectification of Meade’s line: the Confederates,

indeed, had won ground, but the losses they had inflicted were no more

appalling than those they had received.

Meantime, fighting no less determined and sanguinary had taken place at

the cemetery and Culp’s Hill. Lee’s plan contemplated a simultaneous

attack at the north and south; but Ewell, at the north, was late in

his advance, and the intended effect of distracting the Federals was

wellnigh lost. The Louisiana brigade dashed itself in vain against

the height just above the town. The Stonewall division fared better;

for, the Federal defenders being for the most part withdrawn, they

seized intrenchments on Culp’s Hill, penetrating far--for Meade a most

critical advance, since they came within thirty rods of the Baltimore

turnpike, where lay his trains and reserve ammunition. The South has

always believed that, had Stonewall Jackson been there, the Federal

rear would have been reached, and rout and capture made certain.

For both sides it had been a day of terrible experiences, and for the

Federals the outlook was perhaps more gloomy than for their foes. On

each flank the Confederates had gained an advantage, and Lee probably

felt a hopefulness which the circumstances did not really justify.

Meade gathered his generals at midnight in council. It was in a

little room, but ten or twelve feet square, a group dust-covered and

sweat-stained, the strong faces sternly earnest. Some sat on the bed;

some stood; Warren, wounded, stretched out on the floor, was overcome

by sleep. There was no vote but to fight it out on the morrow. In this

Meade acquiesced, carefully planning for a retreat, however, should the

need arise. To Gibbon, commanding the Second Corps, placed between the

wings, he said: “Your turn will come to-morrow. To-day he has struck

the flanks; next, it will be the centre.”[262]

Lee was drawn on by the success of the first day to fight again on the

second; his success on the second induced him to try for the third

time; but he had exhausted his good-fortune. At earliest dawn of July

3, 1863, began a wrestle for the possession of Culp’s Hill, Ewell

heavily reinforcing the Stonewall division which had won footing there

the night before, and the Twelfth Corps as stubbornly struggling for

the ground it had lost. It was a fight of six hours, in which the

extreme northern wings of the two armies only were concerned. The

Federals won, at a heavy sacrifice of life.

[Illustration: POSITION, JULY 3, IN THE EARLY AFTERNOON]

Elsewhere the armies rested, an ominous silence at last reigning on the

trampled and bloody field under the mid-day sun. Meade and his soldiers

knew that it portended danger, and with a sure intuition the army chief

was watching with especial care the centre, as yet unassailed. On the

Confederate side, the unhappy Longstreet, at odds with his chief as

to the wisdom of the campaign from the start, and disapproving both

its strategy and tactics, was now in deeper gloom than ever. Lee had

determined to assault the Federal centre, and by a cruel turn of fate

the blow must be struck by the reluctant Longstreet. Of the three great

Confederate corps, it was only in Longstreet’s that a force remained

as yet unwrung by the fearful agonies of the last two days. Pickett’s

division, solidly Virginian, and in the eyes of Lee a Tenth Legion in

its valor, as yet had done nothing, and was to bear the brunt of the

attack. “What troops do you design for the assault?” Longstreet had

asked. Lee, having indicated Pickett’s division of five thousand, with

auxiliary divisions, making an entire number in the charging column of

fifteen thousand, the Georgian burst out: “I have been a soldier from

the ground up. I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples,

by squads, companies, regiments, armies, and should know as well as any

one what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men

ever arrayed for battle can take that position.”[263]

But Lee was unmoved. Confident of success, he despatched Stuart,

arrived at last after his raid, so long and futile, around beyond

the Federal right. When the Union centre should be broken and Meade

thrown into retreat, Stuart was to seize its only practicable route for

retreat, the Baltimore pike, and make the defeat decisive.

Meade, meantime, had managed warily and well. At his centre stood

Hancock, his best lieutenant. There were massed the First and Second

corps, with reserve troops at hand ready to pour in at the word, with

batteries bearing upon front and flank, every approach guarded, every

man and horse on the alert. The provost guards, and in the rear of all

a regiment of cavalry, formed in line behind, had orders to shoot any

faint-hearts who, in the crisis, should turn from the foe to flee.[264]

At one o’clock two signal-guns were heard on Seminary Ridge, upon which

followed a terrible cannonade, appalling but only slightly harmful, for

the waiting ranks found cover from the missiles. Feeling sure that

this was a prelude to something more serious, the Federal chief relaxed

his fire to spare his ammunition. It was understood on the other side

that the Federal guns were silenced; and that moment having been

appointed as the time for the onset, Pickett inquired of Longstreet if

he should go forward. Longstreet, convinced that the charge must fail,

made no reply, though the question was repeated. “I shall go forward,”

said Pickett, to which his general bowed his head. Instantly was heard

the footbeat of the fifteen thousand, and the heavy-hearted Longstreet,

mounting his horse, rode out to behold the sacrifice. He has recorded

that the column passed him down the slope high-hearted, buoyant,

hopeful, Pickett riding gracefully, like a holiday soldier, with cap

set jauntily on his long, auburn locks.[265]

The silence of the Federal guns had been for a purpose. As Pickett’s

men appeared there was a sudden reopening of their tumult; a deadly

sequence from round-shot to canister, and thence to the Minié-balls of

the infantry. The defenders now saw before them, as they peered through

the battle smoke from their shelter, a solid wedge of men, the division

of Pickett, flanked by masses on the right and left commanded by

Pettigrew and Wilcox. The column approached, and visibly melted away.

Of Pickett’s commanders of brigades every one went down, and their men

lay literally in heaps beside them.

“A thousand fell where Kemper led;

A thousand died where Garnett bled;

In blinding flame and strangling smoke

The remnant through the batteries broke,

And crossed the line with Armistead.”

A hundred or so, led by Armistead, his cap held aloft on his

sword-point, actually penetrated the Federal line and reached the

“clump of trees” just beyond, holding for a few moments a battery.

Pettigrew and Trimble, just north, struggled also for a footing. But

the foothold was only for a moment; on front and flank the Federals

converged, and the tide rolled slowly and heavily rearward. For the

South all hope of victory was gone.

[Illustration: ATTACK OF PICKETT’S AND ANDERSON’S DIVISION

(From a print of the time)]

As the broken and diminished multitude fell back to Seminary Ridge,

Lee rode out to meet them. He was alone, his staff being all absent,

in that supreme moment, on desperate errands. His face was calm and

resolute, his voice confident but sympathetic as he exclaimed, “It

was all my fault; now help me to do what I can to save what is left.”

It casts a light on his character that even in that hour he chided a

young officer near for chastising his horse: “Don’t whip him, captain.

I’ve got just such another foolish horse myself, and whipping does no

good.”[266] Longstreet declares Lee said again that night, about the

bivouac-fire: “It was all my fault. You ought not to have made that

last attack”; and that still again Lee wrote to him at a later time,

“If I had only taken your advice, even on the 3d, and moved around the

Federal left, how different all might have been!”[267]

Longstreet also records that he fully expected a counter-stroke

at once, and looked to his batteries, only to find the ammunition

exhausted; but they were his only reliance for defence. The Federal

cavalry, at that moment attacking his right, occupied troops who might

otherwise have been brought to the centre.

Should there have been a counter-stroke? Hancock, lying wounded almost

to death in an ambulance, reasoned that, because he had been struck by

a tenpenny nail, the Confederate ammunition must be exhausted; he had

strength to dictate an approval if the charge should be ordered.[268]

Lincoln always felt that it should have been made, and lamented that

he did not go to Gettysburg himself and push matters on the field, as

the crisis required.[269] We can surmise what Grant would have done had

he instead of Meade, as the sun lowered, looked across the valley from

Cemetery Ridge. But the case may be put strongly for Meade: with his

best lieutenants dead or wounded, worn out himself, whom else could he

trust? And, in the disorder of his line, how could he tell how far his

own army had been shattered in the desperate fights, or what was Lee’s

condition? It was only prudent to let well enough alone. Nevertheless,

a little of such imprudence as his adversary was constantly showing

might perhaps have led to Lee’s complete destruction.[270] During the

three fearful days the Federals had lost 3155 killed, 14,529 wounded,

5365 missing--a total of about 23,000; the Confederates, 3903 killed,

18,735 wounded, 5425 missing--a total of about 28,000.[271]

As it was, Lee stood defiantly on Seminary Ridge full twenty-four hours

longer. Then, gathering his army about him, and calling in the cavalry

which, during Pickett’s charge, was receiving severe punishment on its

own account at the hands of Gregg and his division, he slowly withdrew.

Practically undisturbed, he crossed the Potomac, followed with great

deliberation by the army that had conquered but failed to crush.

Lincoln’s disappointment was never greater than over the lame outcome

of Gettysburg. “We had them within our grasp,” he cried. “We had only

to stretch forth our hands and they were ours, and nothing I could say

or do could make the army move. Our army held the War in the hollow of

their hand and they would not close it.” The honor that fell to Meade

for his splendid service was deserved. While the criticism was violent

he asked to be relieved. But the better nature of the North made itself

evident at last, and he was retained. It was felt that he had served

his country most nobly, and, though possibly falling short of the

highest, deserved to be forever cherished among the immortals.

SYNOPSIS OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS, CHIEFLY MILITARY, BETWEEN THE BATTLES

OF GETTYSBURG AND VICKSBURG, 1863, AND APPOMATTOX, 1865

1863. Surrender of Port Hudson. Conscription riots in New York. The

Confederate cavalry leader, General Morgan, makes a raid into Indiana.

Confederate victory at Chickamauga. Federal victories of Chattanooga,

Lookout Mountain, and Missionary Ridge. Admission of Nevada into the

Union. The Archduke Maximilian, of Austria, lands at Vera Cruz and

assumes the crown of Mexico, with the support of French troops.

1864. The Red River expedition. Grant supersedes Halleck as

commander-in-chief of the Federal armies. Storming of Fort Pillow

by the Confederates. General Sherman begins his march on Atlanta.

Battle of the Wilderness. Battle of Spottsylvania Court-house. Second

battle of Cold Harbor. Siege of Petersburg. Sinking of the Confederate

cruiser _Alabama_ by the _Kearsarge_. Confederate raid into Maryland

and Pennsylvania. Federal naval victory of Mobile Bay. The Federals

occupy Atlanta. Battle of Winchester and Cedar Creek. Abraham Lincoln

re-elected President. Federal occupation of Savannah.

1865. The Federals capture Fort Fisher. General Sherman occupies

Charleston. Organization of the Freedmen’s Bureau. Battle of Five

Forks. Occupation of Petersburg and Richmond by the Federals, April

3rd. Surrender of General Lee at Appomattox Court-House, April 9th.

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, April 14th. Andrew Johnson succeeds

to the Presidency. Capture of Jefferson Davis in Georgia. End of

the Civil War. Proclamation of amnesty. The Thirteenth Amendment,

abolishing slavery in the United States, becomes a part of the

Constitution.

XX

THE LAST SCENE--APPOMATTOX, 1865

When, on the night of the 8th of April, 1865, the cavalry corps of the

Army of the Potomac reached the two or three little houses that made

up the settlement at Appomattox Depot--the station on the South-side

Railroad that connects Appomattox Court-house with the travelling

world--it must have been nearly or quite dark. At about nine o’clock

or half-past, while standing near the door of one of the houses, it

occurred to me that it might be well to try and get a clearer idea of

our immediate surroundings, as it was not impossible that we might have

hot work here or near here before the next day fairly dawned upon us.

My “striker” had just left me with instructions to have my horse fed,

groomed, and saddled before daylight. As he turned to go he paused and

put this question, “Do you think, Colonel, that we’ll get General Lee’s

army to-morrow?”

“I don’t know,” was my reply; “but we will have some savage fighting if

we don’t.”

As the sturdy young soldier said “Good-night, sir,” and walked away, I

knew that if the enlisted men of our army could forecast the coming of

the end so plainly, there was little hope of the escape of the Army of

Northern Virginia.

I walked up the road a short distance, and looked carefully about me

to take my bearings. It was a mild spring night, with a cloudy sky,

and the soft, mellow smell of earthiness in the atmosphere that not

infrequently portends rain. If rain came, then it might retard the

arrival of our infantry, which I knew General Sheridan was most anxious

should reach us at the earliest possible moment. A short distance from

where I stood was the encampment of our headquarters escort, with

its orderlies, grooms, officers’ servants, and horses. Just beyond

it could be seen the dying camp-fires of a cavalry regiment, lying

close in to cavalry corps headquarters. This regiment was in charge

of between six and eight hundred prisoners, who had fallen into our

hands just at dark, as Generals Custer and Devin, at the head of their

respective cavalry commands, had charged into the station and captured

four railway trains of commissariat supplies, which had been sent here

to await the arrival of the Confederate army, together with twenty-six

pieces of artillery. For a few moments the artillery had greatly

surprised and astonished us, for its presence was entirely unexpected,

and as it suddenly opened on the charging columns of cavalry it looked

for a short time as though we might have all unwittingly fallen upon a

division of infantry. However, it turned out otherwise. Our cavalry,

after the first recoil, boldly charged in among the batteries, and the

gunners, being without adequate support, sensibly surrendered. The

whole affair was for us a most gratifying termination of a long day’s

ride, as it must have proved later on a bitter disappointment to the

weary and hungry Confederates pressing forward from Petersburg and

Richmond in the vain hope of escape from the Federal troops, who were

straining every nerve to overtake them and compel a surrender. To-night

the cavalry corps was in their front and squarely across the road to

Lynchburg, and it was reasonably certain, should our infantry get up

in time on the morrow, that the almost ceaseless marching and fighting

of the last ten days were to attain their legitimate result in the

capitulation of General Lee’s army.

As I stood there in the dark thinking over the work of the twelve

preceding days, it was borne in upon me with startling emphasis

that to-morrow’s sun would rise big with the fate of the Southern

Confederacy.

[Illustration: MAP OF THE APPOMATTOX CAMPAIGN]

Just before daylight on the morning of the 9th of April, I sat down

to a cup of coffee, but had hardly begun to drink it when I heard

the ominous sound of a scattering skirmish fire, apparently in the

direction of Appomattox Court-house. Hastily swallowing what remained

of the coffee, I reported to General Sheridan, who directed me to go

to the front at once. Springing into the saddle, I galloped up the

road, my heart being greatly lightened by a glimpse of two or three

infantrymen standing near a camp-fire close by the depot--convincing

proof that our hoped-for reinforcements were within supporting distance.

It was barely daylight as I sped along, but before I reached the

cavalry brigade of Colonel C. H. Smith, that held the main road

between Appomattox Court-house and Lynchburg, a distance of about two

miles northeast from Appomattox Depot, the enemy had advanced to the

attack, and the battle had opened. When ordered into position late the

preceding night, Colonel Smith had felt his way in the dark as closely

as possible to Appomattox Court-house, and at or near midnight had

halted on a ridge, on which he had thrown up a breastwork of rails.

This he occupied by dismounting his brigade, and also with a section

of horse-artillery, at the same time protecting both his flanks by a

small mounted force. As the enemy advanced to the attack in the dim

light of early dawn he could not see the led horses of our cavalry,

which had been sent well to the rear, and was evidently at a loss to

determine what was in his front. The result was that after the first

attack he fell back to get his artillery in position, and to form a

strong assaulting column against what must have seemed to him a line

of infantry. This was most fortunate for us, for by the time he again

advanced in full force, and compelled the dismounted cavalry to slowly

fall back by weight of numbers, our infantry was hurrying forward from

Appomattox Depot (which place it had reached at four o’clock in the

morning), and we had gained many precious minutes. At this time most

of our cavalry was fighting dismounted, stubbornly retiring. But the

Confederates at last realized that there was nothing but a brigade

of dismounted cavalry and a few batteries of horse-artillery in their

immediate front, and pushed forward grimly and determinedly, driving

the dismounted troopers slowly ahead of them.

I had gone to the left of the road, and was in a piece of woods with

some of our cavalrymen (who by this time had been ordered to fall back

to their horses and give place to our infantry, which was then coming

up), when a couple of rounds of canister tore through the branches just

over my head. Riding back to the edge of the woods in the direction

from which the shots came, I found myself within long pistol range of

a section of a battery of light artillery. It was in position near a

country road that came out of another piece of woods about two hundred

yards in its rear, and was pouring a rapid fire into the woods from

which I had just emerged. As I sat on my horse quietly watching it from

behind a rail fence, the lieutenant commanding the pieces saw me, and,

riding out for a hundred yards or more toward where I was, proceeded to

cover me with his revolver. We fired together--a miss on both sides.

The second shot was uncomfortably close, so far as I was concerned,

but as I took deliberate aim for the third shot I became aware that

in some way his pistol was disabled; for using both hands and all his

strength I saw that he could not cock it. I had him covered, and had

he turned I think I should have fired. He did nothing of the sort.

Apparently accepting his fate, he laid his revolver across the pommel

of his saddle, fronted me quietly and coolly, and looked me steadily in

the face. The whole thing had been something in the nature of a duel,

and I felt that to fire under the circumstances savored too much of

murder. Besides, I knew that at a word from him the guns would have

been trained on me where I sat. He, too, seemed to appreciate the fact

that it was an individual fight, and manfully and gallantly forbore

to call for aid; so, lowering and uncocking my pistol, I replaced it

in my holster, and shook my fist at him, which action he cordially

reciprocated, and then, turning away, I rode back into the woods.

About this time the enemy’s artillery ceased firing, and I again

rode rapidly to the edge of the woods, just in time to see the guns

limber up and retire down the wood road from which they had come. The

lieutenant in command saw me and stopped. We simultaneously uncovered,

waved our hats to each other, and bowed. I have always thought he was

one of the bravest men I ever faced.

I rode back again, passing through our infantry line, intending to go

to the left and find the cavalry, which I knew would be on the flank

somewhere. Suddenly I became conscious that firing had ceased along the

whole line.

I had not ridden more than a hundred yards when I heard some one

calling my name. Turning, I saw one of the headquarters aides, who came

galloping up, stating that he had been hunting for me for the last

fifteen minutes, and that General Sheridan wished me to report to him

at once. I followed him rapidly to the right on the wood path in the

direction from which he had come.

As soon as I could get abreast of him I asked if he knew what the

general wanted me for.

Turning in his saddle, with his eyes fairly ablaze, he said: “Why,

don’t you know? A white flag.”

All I could say was, “Really?”

He answered by a nod; and then we leaned toward each other and shook

hands; but nothing else was said.

A few moments more and we were out of the woods in the open fields. I

saw the long line of battle of the Fifth Army Corps halted, the men

standing at rest, the standards being held butt on earth, and the

flags floating out languidly on the spring breeze. As we passed them

I noticed that the officers had generally grouped themselves in front

of the centre of their regiments, sword in hand, and were conversing

in low tones. The men were leaning wearily on their rifles, in the

position of parade rest. All were anxiously looking to the front, in

the direction toward which the enemy’s line had withdrawn, for the

Confederates had fallen back into a little swale or valley beyond

Appomattox Court-house, and were not then visible from this part of our

line.

We soon came up to General Sheridan and his staff. They were

dismounted, sitting on the grass by the side of a broad country road

that led to the Court-house. This was about one or two hundred yards

distant, and, as we afterward found, consisted of the court-house, a

small tavern, and eight or ten houses, all situated on this same road

or street.

Conversation was carried on in a low tone, and I was told of the

blunder of one of the Confederate regiments in firing on the general

and staff after the flag of truce had been accepted. I also heard that

General Lee was then up at the little village awaiting the arrival of

General Grant, to whom he had sent a note, through General Sheridan,

requesting a meeting to arrange terms of surrender. Colonel Newhall, of

our headquarters staff, had been despatched in search of General Grant,

and might be expected up at almost any moment.

It was, perhaps, something more than an hour and a half later, to the

best of my recollection, that General Grant, accompanied by Colonel

Newhall, and followed by his staff, came rapidly riding up to where

we were standing by the side of the road, for we had all risen at

his approach. When within a few yards of us he drew rein, and halted

in front of General Sheridan, acknowledged our salute, and then,

leaning slightly forward in his saddle, said, in his usual quiet tone,

“Good-morning, Sheridan; how are you?”

“First-rate, thank you, General,” was the reply. “How are you?”

General Grant nodded in return, and said, “Is General Lee up there?”

indicating the court-house by a glance.

“Yes,” was the response, “he’s there.” And then followed something

about the Confederate Army, but I did not clearly catch the import of

the sentence.

“Very well, then,” said General Grant. “Let’s go up.”

General Sheridan, together with a few selected officers of his staff,

mounted and joined General Grant and staff. Together they rode to Mr.

McLean’s house, a plain two-story brick residence in the village, to

which General Lee had already repaired, and where he was known to be

awaiting General Grant’s arrival. Dismounting at the gate, the whole

party crossed the yard, and the senior officers present went up onto

the porch which protected the front of the house. It extended nearly

across the entire house and was railed in, except where five or six

steps led up the centre opposite the front door, which was flanked by

two small wooden benches, placed close against the house on either side

of the entrance. The door opened into a hall that ran the entire length

of the house, and on either side of it was a single room with a window

in each end of it, and two doors, one at the front and one at the rear

of each of the rooms, opening on the hall. The room to the left, as you

entered, was the parlor, and it was in this room that General Lee was

awaiting General Grant’s arrival.

As General Grant stepped onto the porch he was met by Colonel Babcock,

of his staff, who had in the morning been sent forward with a message

to General Lee. He had found him resting at the side of the road, and

had accompanied him to Mr. McLean’s house.

General Grant went into the house, accompanied by General Rawlins,

his chief of staff; General Seth Williams, his adjutant-general;

General Rufus Ingalls, his quarter-master-general; and his two

aides, General Horace Porter and Lieutenant-Colonel Babcock. After a

little time General Sheridan; General M. R. Morgan, General Grant’s

chief commissary; Lieutenant-Colonel Ely Parker, his military

secretary; Lieutenant-Colonel T. S. Bowers, one of his assistant

adjutant-generals; and Captain Robert T. Lincoln and Adam Badeau,

aides-de-camp, went into the house at General Grant’s express

invitation, sent out, I believe, through Colonel Babcock, who came

to the hall-door for the purpose, and they were, I was afterward

told, formally presented to General Lee. After a lapse of a few more

minutes quite a number of these officers, including General Sheridan,

came out into the hall and onto the porch, leaving General Grant and

General Lee, Generals Rawlins, Ingalls, Seth Williams, and Porter, and

Lieutenant-Colonels Babcock, Ely Parker, and Bowers, together with

Colonel Marshall, of General Lee’s staff, in the room, while the terms

of the surrender were finally agreed upon and formally signed. These

were the only officers, therefore, who were actually present at the

official surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia.

After quite a length of time Colonel Babcock came to the door again,

opened it, and glanced out. As he did so he placed his forage-cap

on one finger, twirled it around, and nodded to us all, as much as

to say, “It’s all settled,” and said something in a low tone to

General Sheridan. Then they, accompanied by General E. O. C. Ord, the

commanding-general of the Army of the James, who had just ridden up

to the house, entered the house together, the hall-door partly closed

again after them, leaving quite a number of us staff-officers upon the

porch.

While the conference between Generals Grant and Lee was still in

progress, Generals Merritt and Custer, of the Cavalry Corps, and

several of the infantry generals, together with the rest of General

Sheridan’s staff-officers, came into the yard, and some of them came up

on the porch. Colonel Babcock came out once more, and General Merritt

went back to the room with him at his request; but most, if not all,

of the infantry generals left us and went back to their respective

commands while the conference was still in progress and before it ended.

Just to the right of the house, as we faced it on entering, stood a

soldierly looking orderly in a tattered gray uniform, holding three

horses--one a fairly well-bred-looking gray, in good heart, though

thin in flesh, which, from the accoutrements, I concluded belonged to

General Lee; the others, a thoroughbred bay and a fairly good brown,

were undoubtedly those of the staff-officer who had accompanied General

Lee and of the orderly himself. He was evidently a sensible soldier,

too, for as he held the bridles he baited the animals on the young

grass, and they ate as though they needed all they had a chance to pick

up.

I cannot say exactly how long the conference between Generals Grant

and Lee lasted, but after quite a while, certainly more than two

hours, I became aware from the movement of chairs within that it was

about to break up. I had been sitting on the top step of the porch,

writing in my field note-book, but I closed it at once, and, stepping

back on the porch, leaned against the railing nearly opposite and

to the left of the door, and expectantly waited. As I did so the

inner door slowly opened, and General Lee stood before me. As he

paused for a few seconds, framed in by the doorway, ere he slowly

and deliberately stepped out upon the porch, I took my first and

last look at the great Confederate chieftain. This is what I saw: A

finely formed man, apparently about sixty years of age, well above the

average height, with a clear, ruddy complexion--just then suffused

by a deep-crimson flush that, rising from his neck, overspread his

face and even slightly tinged his broad forehead, which, bronzed

where it had been exposed to the weather, was clear and beautifully

white where it had been shielded by his hat--deep-brown eyes, a firm

but well-shaped Roman nose, abundant gray hair, silky and fine in

texture, with a full gray beard and mustache, neatly trimmed and

not over-long, but which, nevertheless, almost completely concealed

his mouth. A splendid uniform of Confederate gray cloth, that had

evidently seen but little service, was closely buttoned about him and

fitted him to perfection. An exquisitely mounted sword, attached to a

gold-embroidered Russia-leather belt, trailed loosely on the floor at

his side, and in his right hand he carried a broad-brimmed, soft, gray

felt hat, encircled by a golden cord, while in his left he held a pair

of buckskin gauntlets. Booted and spurred, still vigorous and erect,

he stood bareheaded, looking out of the open doorway, sad-faced and

weary--a soldier and a gentleman, bearing himself in defeat with an

all-unconscious dignity that sat well upon him.

The moment the open door revealed the Confederate commander, each

officer present sprang to his feet, and as General Lee stepped out

onto the porch every hand was raised in military salute. Placing his

hat on his head, he mechanically but courteously returned it, and

slowly crossed the porch to the head of the steps leading down to the

yard, meanwhile keeping his eyes intently fixed in the direction of

the little valley over beyond the Court-house in which his army lay.

Here he paused and slowly drew on his gauntlets, smiting his gloved

hands into each other several times after doing so, evidently utterly

oblivious of his surroundings. Then, apparently recalling his thoughts,

he glanced deliberately right and left, and, not seeing his horse, he

called, in a hoarse, half-choked voice, “Orderly! Orderly!”

“Here, General, here!” was the quick response. The alert young soldier

was holding the general’s horse near the side of the house. He had

taken out the bit, slipped the bridle over the horse’s neck, and the

wiry gray was eagerly grazing on the fresh young grass about him.

Descending the steps, the general passed to the left of the house and

stood in front of his horse’s head while he was being bridled. As the

orderly was buckling the throat-latch, the general reached up and drew

the fore-lock out from under the brow-band, parted and smoothed it,

and then gently patted the gray charger’s forehead in an absent-minded

way, as one who loves horses but whose thoughts are far away might all

unwittingly do. Then, as the orderly stepped aside, he caught up the

bridle-reins in his left hand, and, seizing the pommel of the saddle

with the same hand, he caught up the slack of the reins in his right

hand, and placing it on the cantle he put his foot in the stirrup and

swung himself slowly and wearily, but nevertheless firmly, into the

saddle (the old dragoon mount), letting his right hand rest for an

instant or two on the pommel as he settled into his seat, and as he did

so there broke unguardedly from his lips a long, low, deep sigh, almost

a groan in its intensity, while the flush on his neck and face seemed,

if possible, to take on a little deeper hue.