magnificent army thrown away a series of positions, writes to Lincoln
that he (Lincoln) "had sacrificed the army." In another letter,
McClellan lays down the laws of a national policy with a completeness
and a dictatorial utterance such as would hardly have been justified if
he had succeeded through his own military genius in bringing the War to
a close, but which, coming from a defeated general, was ridiculous
enough. Lincoln's correspondence with McClellan brings out the infinite
patience of the President, and his desire to make sure that before
putting the General to one side as a vainglorious incompetent, he had
been allowed the fullest possible test. Lincoln passes over without
reference and apparently without thought the long series of impertinent
impersonalities of McClellan. In this correspondence, as in all his
correspondence, the great captain showed himself absolutely devoted to
the cause he had in mind. Early in the year, months before the
Peninsular campaign, when McClellan had had the army in camp for a
series of months without expressing the least intention of action,
Lincoln had in talking with the Secretary of War used the expression:
"If General McClellan does not want to use the army just now, I
would like to borrow it for a while." That was as far as the
Commander-in-chief ever went in criticism of the General in the field.
While operations in Virginia, conducted by a vacillating and
vainglorious engineer officer, gave little encouragement, something was
being done to advance the cause of the Union in the West. In 1862, a
young man named Grant, who had returned to the army and who had been
trusted with the command of a few brigades, captured Fort Donelson and
thus opened the Tennessee River to the advance of the army southward.
The capture of Fort Donelson was rendered possible by the use of mortars
and was the first occasion in the war in which mortars had been brought
to bear. I chanced to come into touch with the record of the preparation
of the mortars that were supplied to Grant's army at Cairo. Sometime in
the nineties I was sojourning with the late Abram S. Hewitt at his home
in Ringwood, New Jersey. I noticed, in looking out from the piazza, a
mortar, properly mounted on a mortar-bed and encompassed by some yards
of a great chain, placed on the slope overlooking the little valley
below, as if to protect the house. I asked my host what was the history
of this piece of ordnance. "Well," he said, "the chain you might have
some personal interest in. It is a part of the chain your great-uncle
Israel placed across the river at West Point for the purpose of blocking
or at least of checking the passage of the British vessels. The chain
was forged here in the Ringwood foundry and I have secured a part of it
as a memento. The mortar was given to me by President Lincoln, as also
was the mortar-bed." This report naturally brought out the further
question as to the grounds for the gift. "I made this mortar-bed," said
Hewitt, "together with some others, and Lincoln was good enough to say
that I had in this work rendered a service to the State. It was in
December, 1861, when the expedition against Fort Donelson and Fort Henry
was being organised at Fort Cairo under the leadership of General Grant.
Grant reported that the field-pieces at his command would not be
effective against the earthworks that were to be shelled and made
requisition for mortars." The mortar I may explain to my unmilitary
readers is a short carronade of large bore and with a comparatively
short range. The mortar with a heavy charge throws its missile at a
sharp angle upwards, so that, instead of attempting to go through an
earthwork, it is thrown into the enclosure. The recoil from a mortar is
very heavy, necessitating the construction of a foundation called a
mortar-bed which is not only solid but which possesses a certain amount
of elasticity through which the shock of the recoil is absorbed. It is
only through the use of such a bed that a mortar can be fired from the
deck of a vessel. Without such, protection, the shock would smash
through the deck and might send the craft to the bottom.
The Ordnance Department reported to the Secretary of War and the
Secretary to Lincoln that mortars were on hand but that no mortar-beds
were available. It was one of the many cases in which the unpreparedness
of the government had left a serious gap in the equipment. The further
report was given to Lincoln that two or three months' time would be
required to manufacture the thirty mortar-beds that were needed. A delay
of any such period would have blocked the entire purpose of Grant's
expedition. In his perplexity, Lincoln remembered that in his famous
visit to New York two years before, he had been introduced to Mr.
Hewitt, "a well-known iron merchant," as "a man who does things."
Lincoln telegraphed to Hewitt asking if Hewitt could make thirty
mortar-beds and how long it would take. Hewitt told me that the message
reached him on a Saturday evening at the house of a friend. He wired an
acknowledgment with the word that he would send a report on the
following day. Sunday morning he looked up the ordnance officer of New
York for the purpose of ascertaining where the pattern mortar-bed was
kept. "It was rather important, Major," said Hewitt to me, "that I
should have an opportunity of examining this pattern for I had never
seen a mortar-bed in my life, but this of course I did not admit to the
ordnance officer." The pattern required was, it seemed, in the armory
at Springfield. Hewitt wired to Lincoln asking that the bed should be
forwarded by the night boat to him in New York. Hewitt and his men met
the boat, secured the pattern bed, and gave some hours to puzzling over
the construction. At noon on Monday, Hewitt wired to Lincoln that he
could make thirty mortar-beds in thirty days. In another hour he
received by wire instructions from Lincoln to go ahead. In twenty-eight
days he had the thirty mortar-beds in readiness; and Tom Scott, who had
at the time, very fortunately for the country, taken charge of the
military transportation, had provided thirty flat-cars for the transit
of the mortar-beds to Cairo. The train was addressed to "U.S. Grant,
Cairo," and each car contained a notification, painted in white on a
black ground, "not to be switched on the penalty of death." That train
got through and as other portions of the equipment had also been
delayed, the mortars were not so very late. Six schooners, each equipped
with a mortar, were hurried up the river to support the attack of the
army on Fort Donelson. A first assault had been made and had failed. The
field artillery was, as Grant had anticipated, ineffective against the
earthworks, while the fire of the Confederate infantry, protected by
their works, had proved most severe. The instant, however, that from
behind a point on the river below the fort shells were thrown from the
schooners into the inner circle of the fortifications, the Confederate
commander, Floyd, recognised that the fort was untenable. He slipped
away that night leaving his junior, General Buckner, to make terms with
Grant, and those terms were "unconditional surrender," which were later
so frequently connected with the initials of U.S.G.
Buckner's name comes again into history in a pleasant fashion. Years
after the War, when General Grant had, through the rascality of a Wall
Street "pirate," lost his entire savings, Buckner, himself a poor man,
wrote begging Grant to accept as a loan, "to be repaid at his
convenience," a check enclosed for one thousand dollars. Other friends
came to the rescue of Grant, and through the earnings of his own pen, he
was before his death able to make good all indebtedness and to leave a
competency to his widow. The check sent by Buckner was not used, but the
prompt friendliness was something not to be forgotten.
Hewitt's mortar-beds were used again a few weeks later for the capture
of Island Number Ten and they also proved serviceable, used in the same
fashion from the decks of schooners, in the capture of Forts Jackson and
St. Philip which blocked the river below New Orleans. It was only
through the fire from these schooners, which were moored behind a point
on the river below the forts, that it was possible to reach the inner
circle of the works.
I asked Hewitt whether he had seen Lincoln after this matter of the
mortar-beds. "Yes," said Hewitt, "I saw him a year later and Lincoln's
action was characteristic. I was in Washington and thought it was proper
to call and pay my respects. I was told on reaching the White House that
it was late in the day and that the waiting-room was very full and that
I probably should not be reached. 'Well,' I said, 'in that case, I will
simply ask you to take in my card.' No sooner had the card been
delivered than the door of the study opened and Lincoln appeared
reaching out both hands. 'Where is Mr. Hewitt?' he said; 'I want to see,
I want to thank, the man who does things.' I sat with him for a time, a
little nervous in connection with the number of people who were waiting
outside, but Lincoln would not let me go. Finally he asked, 'What are
you in Washington for?' 'Well, Mr. Lincoln,' said I, 'I have some
business here. I want to get paid for those mortar-beds.' 'What?' said
Lincoln, 'you have not yet got what the nation owes you? That is
disgraceful.' He rang the bell violently and sent an aid for Secretary
Stanton and when the Secretary appeared, he was questioned rather
sharply. 'How about Mr. Hewitt's bill against the War Department? Why
does he have to wait for his money?' 'Well, Mr. Lincoln,' said Stanton,
'the order for those mortar-beds was given rather irregularly. It never
passed through the War Department and consequently the account when
rendered could not receive the approval of any ordnance officer, and
until so approved could not be paid by the Treasury.' 'If,' said
Lincoln, 'I should write on that account an order to have it paid, do
you suppose the Secretary of the Treasury would pay it?' 'I suppose that
he would,' said Stanton. The account was sent for and Lincoln wrote at
the bottom: 'Pay this bill now. A. Lincoln.' 'Now, Mr. Stanton,' said
Lincoln, 'Mr. Hewitt has been very badly treated in this matter and I
want you to take a little pains to see that he gets his money. I am
going to ask you to go over to the Treasury with Mr. Hewitt and to get
the proper signatures on this account so that Mr. Hewitt can carry a
draft with him back to New York.' Stanton, rather reluctantly, accepted
the instruction and," said Hewitt, "he walked with me through the
various departments of the Treasury until the final signature had been
placed on the bill and I was able to exchange this for a Treasury
warrant. I should," said Hewitt, "have been much pleased to retain the
bill with that signature of Lincoln beneath the words, 'Pay this now.'
"Towards the end of the War," he continued, "when there was no further
requirement for mortars, I wrote to Mr. Lincoln and asked whether I
might buy a mortar with its bed. Lincoln replied promptly that he had
directed the Ordnance Department to send me mortar and bed with 'the
compliments of the administration.' I am puzzled to think," said Hewitt,
"how that particular item in the accounts of the Ordnance Department was
ever adjusted, but I am very glad to have this reminiscence of the War
and of the President."
Lincoln's relations with McClellan have already been touched upon. There
would not be space in this paper to refer in detail to the action taken
by Lincoln with other army commanders East and West. The problem that
confronted the Commander-in-chief of selecting the right leaders for
this or that undertaking, and of promoting the men who gave evidence of
the greater capacity that was required for the larger armies that were
being placed in the field, was one of no little difficulty. The reader
of history, looking back to-day, with the advantage of the full record
of the careers of the various generals, is tempted to indulge in easy
criticism of the blunders made by the President. Why did the President
put up so long with the vaingloriousness and ineffectiveness of
McClellan? Why should he have accepted even for one brief and
unfortunate campaign the service of an incompetent like Pope? Why was a
slow-minded closet-student like Halleck permitted to fritter away in the
long-drawn-out operations against Corinth the advantage of position and
of force that had been secured by the army of the West? Why was a
political trickster like Butler, with no army experience, or a
well-meaning politician like Banks with still less capacity for the
management of troops, permitted to retain responsibilities in the field,
making blunders that involved waste of life and of resources and the
loss of campaigns? Why were not the real men like Sherman, Grant,
Thomas, McPherson, Sheridan, and others brought more promptly into the
important positions? Why was the army of the South permitted during the
first two years of the War to have so large an advantage in skilled and
enterprising leadership? A little reflection will show how unjust is the
criticism implied through such questions. We know of the incapacity of
the generals who failed and of the effectiveness of those who succeeded,
only through the results of the campaigns themselves. Lincoln could only
study the men as he came to know about them and he experimented first
with one and then with another, doing what seemed to be practicable to
secure a natural selection and the survival of the fittest. Such
watchful supervision and painstaking experimenting was carried out with
infinite patience and with an increasing knowledge both of the
requirements and of the men fitted to fill the requirements.
We must also recall that, Commander-in-chief as he was, Lincoln was not
free to exercise without restriction his own increasingly valuable
judgment in the appointment of the generals. It was necessary to give
consideration to the opinion of the country, that is to say, to the
individual judgments of the citizens whose loyal co-operation was
absolutely essential for the support of the nation's cause. These
opinions of the citizens were expressed sometimes through the appeals of
earnestly loyal governors like Andrew of Massachusetts, or Curtin of
Pennsylvania, and sometimes through the articles of a strenuous editor
like Greeley, whose influence and support it was, of course, all
important to retain. Greeley's absolute ignorance of military conditions
did not prevent him from emphasising with the President and the public
his very decided conclusions in regard to the selection of men and the
conduct of campaigns. In this all-perplexing problem of the shaping of
campaigns, Lincoln had to consider the responsibilities of
representative government. The task would, of course, have been much
easier if he had had power as an autocrat to act on his own decisions
simply. The appointment of Butler and Banks was thought to be necessary
for the purpose of meeting the views of the loyal citizens of so
important a State as Massachusetts, and other appointments, the results
of which were more or less unfortunate, may in like manner be traced to
causes or influences outside of a military or army policy.
General Frank V. Greene, in a paper on Lincoln as Commander-in-chief,
writes in regard to his capacity as a leader as follows:
"As time goes on, Lincoln's fame looms ever larger and larger. Great
statesman, astute politician, clear thinker, classic writer, master of
men, kindly, lovable man,--these are his titles. To these must be
added--military leader. Had he failed in that quality, the others would
have been forgotten. Had peace been made on any terms but those of the
surrender of the insurgent forces and the restoration of the Union,
Lincoln's career would have been a colossal failure and the Emancipation
Proclamation a subject of ridicule. The prime essential was military
success. Lincoln gained it. Judged in the retrospect of nearly half a
century, with his every written word now in print and with all the facts
of the period brought out and placed in proper perspective by the
endless studies, discussions, and arguments of the intervening years, it
becomes clear that, first and last and at all times during his
Presidency, in military affairs his was not only the guiding but the
controlling hand."
It is interesting, as the War progressed, to trace the development of
Lincoln's own military judgment. He was always modest in regard to
matters in which his experience was limited, and during the first twelve
months in Washington, he had comparatively little to say in regard to
the planning or even the supervision of campaigns. His letters, however,
to McClellan and his later correspondence with Burnside, with Hooker,
and with other commanders give evidence of a steadily developing
intelligence in regard to larger military movements. History has shown
that Lincoln's judgment in regard to the essential purpose of a
campaign, and the best methods for carrying out such purpose, was in a
large number of cases decidedly sounder than that of the general in the
field. When he emphasised with McClellan that the true objective was the
Confederate army in the field and not the city of Richmond, he laid down
a principle which seems to us elementary but to which McClellan had been
persistently blinded. Lincoln writes to Hooker: "We have word that the
head of Lee's army is near Martinsburg in the Shenandoah Valley while
you report that you have a substantial force still opposed to you on the
Rappahannock. It appears, therefore that the line must be forty miles
long. The animal is evidently very slim somewhere and it ought to be
possible for you to cut it at some point." Hooker had the same
information but did not draw the same inference.
Apart from Lincoln's work in selecting, and in large measure in
directing, the generals, he had a further important relation with the
army as a whole. We are familiar with the term "the man behind the
gun." It is a truism to say that the gun has little value whether for
offence or for defence unless the man behind it possesses the right kind
of spirit which will infuse and guide his purpose and his action with
the gun. For the long years of the War, the Commander-in-chief was the
man behind all the guns in the field. The men in the front came to have
a realising sense of the infinite patience, the persistent hopefulness,
the steadiness of spirit, the devoted watchfulness of the great captain
in Washington. It was through the spirit of Lincoln that the spirit in
the ranks was preserved during the long months of discouragement and the
many defeats and retreats. The final advance of Grant which ended at
Appomattox, and the triumphant march of Sherman which culminated in the
surrender at Goldsborough of the last of the armies of the Confederacy,
were the results of the inspiration, given alike to soldier and to
general, from the patient and devoted soul of the nation's leader.
In March, 1862, Lincoln received the news of the victory won at Pea
Ridge, in Arkansas, by Curtis and Sigel, a battle which had lasted three
days. The first day was a defeat and our troops were forced back; the
fighting of the second resulted in what might be called a drawn battle;
but on the third, our army broke its way through the enclosing lines,
bringing the heavier loss to the Confederates, and regained its base.
This battle was in a sense typical of much of the fighting of the War.
It was one of a long series of fights which continued for more than one
day. The history of the War presents many instances of battles that
lasted two days, three days, four days, and in one case seven days. It
was difficult to convince the American soldier, on either side of the
line, that he was beaten. The general might lose his head, but the
soldiers, in the larger number of cases, went on fighting until, with a
new leader or with more intelligent dispositions on the part of the
original leader, a first disaster had been repaired. There is no example
in modern history of fighting of such stubborn character, or it is
fairer to say, there was no example until the Russo-Japanese War in
Manchuria. The record shows that European armies, when outgeneralled or
outmanoeuvred, had the habit of retiring from the field, sometimes in
good order, more frequently in a state of demoralisation. The American
soldier fought the thing out because he thought the thing out. The
patience and persistence of the soldier in the field was characteristic
of, and, it may fairly be claimed, was in part due to, the patience and
persistence of the great leader in Washington.
VI
THE DARK DAYS OF 1862
The dark days of 1862 were in April brightened by the all-important news
that Admiral Farragut had succeeded in bringing the Federal fleet, or at
least the leading vessels in this fleet, past the batteries of Forts St.
Philip and Jackson on the Mississippi, and had compelled the surrender
of New Orleans. The opening of the Mississippi River had naturally been
included among the most essential things to be accomplished in the
campaign for the restoration of the national authority. It was of first
importance that the States of the North-west and the enormous contiguous
territory which depended upon the Mississippi for its water connection
with the outer world should not be cut off from the Gulf. The prophecy
was in fact made more than once that in case the States of the South had
succeeded in establishing their independence, there would have come into
existence on the continent not two confederacies, but probably four. The
communities on the Pacific Coast would naturally have been tempted to
set up for themselves, and a similar course might also naturally have
been followed by the great States of the North-west whose interests were
so closely bound up with the waterways running southward. It was
essential that no effort should be spared to bring the loyal States of
the West into control of the line of the Mississippi. More than twelve
months was still required after the capture of New Orleans on the first
of May, 1862, before the surrender of Vicksburg to Grant and of Port
Hudson to Banks removed the final barriers to the Federal control of the
great river. The occupation of the river by the Federals was of
importance in more ways than one. The States to the west of the
river--Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas--were for the first two years of
the War important sources of supplies for the food of the Confederate
army. Corn on the cob or in bags was brought across the river by boats,
while the herds of live cattle were made to swim the stream, and were
then most frequently marched across country to the commissary depots of
the several armies. After the fall of Port Hudson, the connection for
such supplies was practically stopped; although I may recall that even
as late as 1864, the command to which I was attached had the
opportunity of stopping the swimming across the Mississippi of a herd of
cattle that was in transit for the army of General Joe Johnston.
In April, 1862, just after the receipt by Lincoln of the disappointing
news of the first repulse at Vicksburg, he finds time to write a little
autograph note to a boy, "Master Crocker," with thanks for a present of
a white rabbit that the youngster had sent to the President with the
suggestion that perhaps the President had a boy who would be pleased
with it.
During the early part of 1862, Lincoln is giving renewed thought to the
great problem of emancipation. He becomes more and more convinced that
the success of the War calls for definite action on the part of the
administration in the matter of slavery. He was, as before pointed out,
anxious, not only as a matter of justice to loyal citizens, but on the
ground of the importance of retaining for the national cause the support
of the Border States, to act in such manner that the loyal citizens of
these States should be exposed to a minimum loss and to the smallest
possible risk of disaffection. In July, 1862, Lincoln formulated a
proposition for compensated emancipation. It was his idea that the
nation should make payment of an appraised value in freeing the slaves
that were in the ownership of citizens who had remained loyal to the
government. It was his belief that the funds required would be more than
offset by the result in furthering the progress of the War. The daily
expenditure of the government was at the time averaging about a million
and a half dollars a day, and in 1864 it reached two million dollars a
day. If the War could be shortened a few months, a sufficient amount of
money would be saved to offset a very substantial payment to loyal
citizens for the property rights in their slaves.
The men of the Border States were, however, still too bound to the
institution of slavery to be prepared to give their assent to any such
plan. Congress was, naturally, not ready to give support to such a
policy unless it could be made clear that it was satisfactory to the
people most concerned. The result of the unwise stubbornness in this
matter of the loyal citizens of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and
Maryland was that they were finally obliged to surrender without
compensation the property control in their slaves. When the plan for
compensated emancipation had failed, Lincoln decided that the time had
come for unconditional emancipation. In July, 1862, he prepares the
first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. It was his judgment, which
was shared by the majority of his Cabinet, that the issue of the
proclamation should, however, be deferred until after some substantial
victory by the armies of the North. It was undesirable to give to such a
step the character of an utterance of despair or even of discouragement.
It seemed evident, however, that the War had brought the country to the
point at which slavery, the essential cause of the cleavage between the
States, must be removed. The bringing to an end of the national
responsibility for slavery would consolidate national opinion throughout
the States of the North and would also strengthen the hands of the
friends of the Union in England where the charge had repeatedly been
made that the North was fighting, not against slavery or for freedom of
any kind, but for domination. The proclamation was held until after the
battle of Antietam in September, 1862, and was then issued to take
effect on the first of January, 1863. It did produce the hoped-for
results. The cause of the North was now placed on a consistent
foundation. It was made clear that when the fight for nationality had
reached a successful termination, there was to be no further national
responsibility for the great crime against civilisation. The management
of the contrabands, who were from week to week making their way into the
lines of the Northern armies, was simplified. There was no further
question of holding coloured men subject to the possible claim of a
possibly loyal master. The work of organising coloured troops, which had
begun in Massachusetts some months earlier in the year, was now pressed
forward with some measure of efficiency. Boston sent to the front the
54th and 55th Massachusetts regiments composed of coloured troops and
led by such men as Shaw and Hallowell. The first South Carolina coloured
regiment was raised and placed under the command of Colonel Higginson.