plantation hands into disciplined soldiers and I was surprised at the
promptness of the transformation. A contraband who made his way into the
camp from the old plantation with the vague idea that he was going to
secure freedom was often in appearance but an unpromising specimen out
of which to make a soldier. He did not know how to hold himself upright
or to look the other man in the face. His gait was shambly, his
perceptions dull. It was difficult for him either to hear clearly, or to
understand when heard, the word of instruction or command. When,
however, the plantation rags had been disposed of and (possibly after a
souse in the Mississippi) the contraband had been put into the blue
uniform and had had the gun placed on his shoulder, he developed at once
from a "chattel" to a man. He was still, for a time at least, clumsy and
shambly. The understanding of the word of command did not come at once
and his individual action, if by any chance he should be left to act
alone, was, as a rule, less intelligent, less to be depended upon, than
that of the white man. But he stood up straight in the garb of manhood,
looked you fairly in the face, showed by his expression that he was
anxious for the privilege of fighting for freedom and for citizenship,
and in Louisiana, and throughout the whole territory of the War, every
black regiment that came into engagement showed that it could be
depended upon. Before the War was closed, some two hundred thousand
negroes had been brought into the ranks of the Federal army and their
service constituted a very valuable factor in the final outcome of the
campaigns. A battle like that at Milliken's Bend, Mississippi,
inconsiderable in regard to the numbers engaged, was of distinctive
importance in showing what the black man was able and willing to do when
brought under fire for the first time. A coloured regiment made up of
men who only a few weeks before had been plantation hands, had been left
on a point of the river to be picked up by an expected transport. The
regiment was attacked by a Confederate force of double or treble the
number, the Southerners believing that there would be no difficulty in
driving into the river this group of recent slaves. On the first volley,
practically all of the officers (who were white) were struck down and
the loss with the troops was also very heavy. The negroes, who had but
made a beginning with their education as soldiers, appeared, however,
not to have learned anything about the conditions for surrender and they
simply fought on until no one was left standing. The percentage of loss
to the numbers engaged was the heaviest of any action in the War. The
Southerners, in their contempt for the possibility of negroes doing any
real fighting, had in their rushing attack exposed themselves much and
had themselves suffered seriously. When, in April, 1865, after the
forcing back of Lee's lines, the hour came, so long waited for and so
fiercely fought for, to take possession of Richmond, there was a certain
poetic justice in allowing the negro division, commanded by General
Weitzel, to head the column of advance.
Through 1862, and later, we find much correspondence from Lincoln in
regard to the punishment of deserters. The army penalty for desertion
when the lines were in front of the enemy, was death. Lincoln found it
very difficult, however, to approve of a sentence of death for any
soldier. Again and again he writes, instructing the general in the field
to withhold the execution until he, Lincoln, had had an opportunity of
passing upon the case. There is a long series of instances in which,
sometimes upon application from the mother, but more frequently through
the personal impression gained by himself of the character of the
delinquent, Lincoln decided to pardon youngsters who had, in his
judgment, simply failed to realise their full responsibility as
soldiers. Not a few of these men, permitted to resume their arms, gained
distinction later for loyal service.
In December, 1862, Jefferson Davis issued an order which naturally
attracted some attention, directing that General Benjamin F. Butler,
when captured, should be "reserved for execution." Butler never fell
into the hands of the Confederates and it is probable that if he had
been taken prisoner, the order would have remained an empty threat. From
Lincoln came the necessary rejoinder that a Confederate officer of equal
rank would be held as hostage for the safety of any Northern general
who, as prisoner, might not be protected under the rules of war.
Lincoln's correspondence during 1862, a year which was in many ways the
most discouraging of the sad years of the war, shows how much he had to
endure in the matter of pressure of unrequested advice and of undesired
counsel from all kinds of voluntary advisers and active-minded citizens,
all of whom believed that their views were important, if not essential,
for the salvation of the state. In September, 1862, Lincoln writes to a
friend:
"I am approached with the most opposite opinions expressed on the part
of religious men, each of whom is equally certain that he represents the
divine will."
To one of these delegations of ministers, Lincoln gave a response which
while homely in its language must have presented to his callers a vivid
picture of the burdens that were being carried by the leader of the
state:
"Gentlemen," he said, "suppose all the property you possess were in
gold, and you had placed it in the hands of Blondin to carry across
the Niagara River on a rope. With slow, cautious, steady steps he
walks the rope, bearing your all. Would you shake the cable and keep
shouting to him, 'Blondin, stand up a little straighter! Blondin,
stoop a little more; go a little faster; lean more to the south! Now
lean a little more to north! Would that be your behaviour in such an
emergency? No, you would hold your breath, every one of you, as well
as your tongues. You would keep your hands off until he was safe on
the other side."
Another delegation, which had been urging some months in advance of what
Lincoln believed to be the fitting time for the issuing of the
Proclamation of Emancipation, called asking that there should be no
further delay in the action. One of the ministers, as he was retiring,
turned and said to Lincoln: "What you have said to us, Mr. President,
compels me to say to you in reply that it is a message to you from our
Divine Master, through me, commanding you, sir, to open the doors of
bondage, that the slave may go free!" Lincoln replied: "That may be,
sir, for I have studied this question by night and by day, for weeks
and for months, but if it is, as you say, a message from your Divine
Master, is it not odd that the only channel He could send it by was that
roundabout route through the wicked city of Chicago?"
Another version of the story omits the reference to Chicago, and makes
Lincoln's words:
"I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable
that God would reveal His will to others on a point so connected with my
duty, it might be supposed He would reveal it directly to me....
Whatever shall appear to be God's will, I will do."
In September, 1862, General Lee carried his army into Maryland,
threatening Baltimore and Washington. It is probable that the purpose of
this invasion was more political than military. The Confederate
correspondence shows that Davis was at the time hopeful of securing the
intervention of Great Britain and France, and it was natural to assume
that the prospects of such intervention would be furthered if it could
be shown that the Southern army, instead of being engaged in the defence
of its own capital, was actually threatening Washington and was possibly
strong enough to advance farther north.
General Pope had, as a result of his defeat at the second Bull Run, in
July, 1862, lost the confidence of the President and of the country. The
defeat alone would not necessarily have undermined his reputation, which
had been that of an effective soldier. He had, however, the fatal
quality, too common with active Americans, of talking too much, whether
in speech or in the written word, of promising things that did not come
off, and of emphasising his high opinion of his own capacity. Under the
pressure of the new peril indicated by the presence of Lee's troops
within a few miles of the capital, Lincoln put to one side his own grave
doubts in regard to the effectiveness and trustworthiness of McClellan
and gave McClellan one further opportunity to prove his ability as a
soldier. The personal reflections and aspersions against his
Commander-in-chief of which McClellan had been guilty, weighed with
Lincoln not at all; the President's sole thought was at this time, as
always, how with the material available could the country best be
served.
McClellan had his chance (and to few men is it given to have more than
one great opportunity) and again he threw it away. His army was stronger
than that of Lee and he had the advantage of position and (for the
first time against this particular antagonist) of nearness to his base
of supplies. Lee had been compelled to divide his army in order to get
it promptly into position on the north side of the Potomac. McClellan's
tardiness sacrificed Harper's Ferry (which, on September 15th, was
actually surrounded by Lee's advance) with the loss of twelve thousand
prisoners. Through an exceptional piece of good fortune, there came into
McClellan's hands a despatch showing the actual position of the
different divisions of Lee's army and giving evidence that the two wings
were so far separated that they could not be brought together within
twenty-four hours. The history now makes clear that for twenty-four
hours McClellan had the safety of Lee's army in his hands, but those
precious hours were spent by McClellan in "getting ready," that is to
say, in vacillating.
Finally, there came the trifling success at South Mountain and the drawn
battle of Antietam. Lee's army was permitted to recross the Potomac with
all its trains and even with the captured prisoners, and McClellan lay
waiting through the weeks for something to turn up.
A letter written by Lincoln on the 13th of October shows a wonderfully
accurate understanding of military conditions, and throws light also
upon the character and the methods of thought of the two men:
"Are you not overcautious when you assume that you cannot do what
the enemy is constantly doing? Should you not claim to be at least
his equal in prowess, and act upon the claim? As I understand, you
telegraphed General Halleck that you cannot subsist your army at
Winchester unless the railroad from Harper's Ferry to that point be
put in working order. But the enemy does now subsist his army at
Winchester, at a distance nearly twice as great as you would have to
do, without the railroad last named. He now waggons from Culpeper
Court House, which is just about twice as far as you would have to
do from Harper's Ferry. He is certainly not more than half as well
provided with waggons as you are.... Again, one of the standard
maxims of war, as you know, is to 'operate upon the enemy's
communications without exposing your own.' You seem to act as if
this applies against you, but cannot apply it in your favour. Change
positions with the enemy, and think you not he would break your
communication with Richmond in twenty-four hours?... You are now
nearer Richmond than the enemy is by the route you can and he must
take. Why can you not reach there before him, unless you admit that
he is more than your equal on a march? His route is the arc of a
circle, while yours is the chord. The roads are as good on your side
as on his ... If he should move northward, I would follow him
closely, holding his communications. If he should prevent our
seizing his communications and move towards Richmond, I would press
closely to him, fight him, if a favourable opportunity should
present, and at least try to beat him to Richmond on the inside
track. I say 'Try'; if we never try, we shall never succeed.... If
we cannot beat him when he bears the wastage of coming to us, we
never can when we bear the wastage of going to him.... As we must
beat him somewhere or fail finally, we can do it, if at all, easier
near to us than far away.... It is all easy if our troops march as
well as the enemy, and it is unmanly to say that they cannot do it."
The patience of Lincoln and that of the country behind Lincoln were at
last exhausted. McClellan was ordered to report to his home in New
Jersey and the General who had come to the front with such flourish of
trumpets and had undertaken to dictate a national policy at a time when
he was not able to keep his own army in position, retires from the
history of the War.
The responsibility again comes to the weary Commander-in-chief of
finding a leader who could lead, in whom the troops and the country
would have confidence, and who could be trusted to do his simple duty as
a general in the field without confusing his military responsibilities
with political scheming. The choice first fell upon Burnside. Burnside
was neither ambitious nor self-confident. He was a good division
general, but he doubted his ability for the general command. Burnside
loyally accepts the task, does the best that was within his power and,
pitted against a commander who was very much his superior in general
capacity as well as in military skill, he fails. Once more has the
President on his hands the serious problem of finding the right man.
This time the commission was given to General Joseph Hooker. With the
later records before us, it is easy to point out that this selection
also was a blunder. There were better men in the group of
major-generals. Reynolds, Meade, or Hancock would doubtless have made
more effective use of the power of the army of the Potomac, but in
January, 1863, the relative characters and abilities of these generals
were not so easily to be determined. Lincoln's letter to Hooker was
noteworthy, not only in the indication that it gives of Hooker's
character but as an example of the President's width of view and of his
method of coming into the right relation with men. He writes:
"You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable if not an
indispensable quality.... I think, however, that during General
Burnside's command of the army, you have taken counsel of your
ambition and have thwarted him as much as you could, in which you
did a great wrong to the country and to a most meritorious and
honourable brother officer. I have heard of your recently saying
that both the army and the government needed a dictator. Of course
it was not for this but in spite of it that I have given you the
command. Only those generals who gain success can set up as
dictators. What I now ask of you is military success and I will risk
the dictatorship. The government will support you to the best of its
ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do
for all its commanders.... Beware of rashness, but with energy and
sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories."
Hooker, like Burnside, undoubtedly did the best that he could. He was a
loyal patriot and had shown himself a good division commander. It is
probable, however, that the limit of his ability as a general in the
field was the management of an army corps; he seems to have been
confused in the attempt to direct the movements of the larger body. At
Chancellorsville, he was clearly outwitted by his opponents, Lee and
Jackson. The men of the army of the Potomac fought steadily as always
but with the discouraging feeling that the soldiers on the other side of
the line had the advantage of better brain power behind them. It is
humiliating to read in the life of Jackson the reply given by him to Lee
when Lee questioned the safety of the famous march planned by Jackson
across the front of the Federal line. Said Lee: "There are several
points along the line of your proposed march at which your column could
be taken in flank with disastrous results." "But, General Lee," replies
Jackson, "we must surely in planning any military movements take into
account the personality of the leaders to whom we are opposed."
VII
THE THIRD AND CRUCIAL YEAR OF THE WAR
Chancellorsville was fought and lost, and again, under political
pressure from Richmond rather than with any hope of advantage on simple
military lines, Lee leads his army to an invasion of the North. For this
there were at the time several apparent advantages; the army of the
Potomac had been twice beaten and, while by no means demoralised, was
discouraged and no longer had faith in its commander. There was much
inevitable disappointment throughout the North that, so far from making
progress in the attempt to restore the authority of the government, the
national troops were on the defensive but a few miles from the national
capital. The Confederate correspondence from London and from Paris gave
fresh hopes for the long expected intervention.
Lee's army was cleverly withdrawn from Hooker's front and was carried
through western Maryland into Pennsylvania by the old line of the
Shenandoah Valley and across the Potomac at Falling Waters. Hooker
reports to Lincoln under date of June 4th that the army or an army is
still in his front on the line of the Rappahannock, Lincoln writes to
Hooker under date of June 5th, "We have report that Lee's army is moving
westward and that a large portion of it is already to the west of the
Blue Ridge. The 'bull' [Lee's army] is across the fence and it surely
ought to be possible to worry him." On June 14th, Lincoln writes again,
reporting to Hooker that Lee with the body of his troops is approaching
the Potomac at a point forty miles away from the line of the
entrenchments on the Rappahannock. "The animal [Lee's army] is extended
over a line of forty miles. It must be very slim somewhere. Can you not
cut it?" The phrases are not in military form but they give evidence of
sound military judgment. Hooker was unable to grasp the opportunity, and
realising this himself, he asked to be relieved. The troublesome and
anxious honour of the command of the army now falls upon General Meade.
He takes over the responsibility at a time when Lee's army is already
safely across the Potomac and advancing northward, apparently towards
Philadelphia. His troops are more or less scattered and no definite
plan of campaign appears to have been formulated. The events of the next
three weeks constitute possibly the best known portion of the War. Meade
shows good energy in breaking up his encampment along the Rappahannock
and getting his column on to the road northward. Fortunately, the army
of the Potomac for once has the advantage of the interior line so that
Meade is able to place his army in a position that protects at once
Washington on the south-west, Baltimore on the east, and Philadelphia on
the north-east. We can, however, picture to ourselves the anxiety that
must have rested upon the Commander-in-chief in Washington during the
weeks of the campaign and during the three days of the great battle
which was fought on Northern soil and miles to the north of the Northern
capital. If, on that critical third day of July, the Federal lines had
been broken and the army disorganised, there was nothing that could
prevent the national capital from coming into the control of Lee's army.
The surrender of Washington meant the intervention of France and
England, meant the failure of the attempt to preserve the nation's
existence, meant that Abraham Lincoln would go down to history as the
last President of the United States, the President under whose
leadership the national history had come to a close. But the Federal
lines were not broken. The third day of Gettysburg made clear that with
equality of position and with substantial equality in numbers there was
no better fighting material in the army of the grey than in the army of
the blue. The advance of Pickett's division to the crest of Cemetery
Ridge marked the high tide of the Confederate cause. Longstreet's men
were not able to prevail against the sturdy defence of Hancock's second
corps and when, on the Fourth of July, Lee's army took up its line of
retreat to the Potomac, leaving behind it thousands of dead and wounded,
the calm judgment of Lee and his associates must have made clear to them
that the cause of the Confederacy was lost. The army of Northern
Virginia had shattered itself against the defences of the North, and
there was for Lee no reserve line. For a long series of months to come,
Lee, magnificent engineer officer that he was, and with a sturdy
persistency which withstood all disaster, was able to maintain defensive
lines in the Wilderness, at Cold Harbor, and in front of Petersburg, but
as his brigades crumbled away under the persistent and unceasing attacks
of the army of the Potomac, he must have realised long before the day
of Appomattox that his task was impossible. What Gettysburg decided in
the East was confirmed with equal emphasis by the fall of Vicksburg in
the West. On the Fourth of July, 1863, the day on which Lee, defeated
and discouraged, was taking his shattered army out of Pennsylvania,
General Grant was placing the Stars and Stripes over the earthworks of
Vicksburg. The Mississippi was now under the control of the Federalists
from its source to the mouth, and that portion of the Confederacy lying
to the west of the river was cut off so that from this territory no
further co-operation of importance could be rendered to the armies
either of Johnston or of Lee.
Lincoln writes to Grant after the fall of Vicksburg giving, with his
word of congratulation, the admission that he (Lincoln) had doubted the
wisdom or the practicability of Grant's movement to the south of
Vicksburg and inland to Jackson. "You were right," said Lincoln, "and I
was wrong."
On the 19th of November, 1863, comes the Gettysburg address, so eloquent
in its simplicity. It is probable that no speaker in recorded history
ever succeeded in putting into so few words so much feeling, such
suggestive thought, and such high idealism. The speech is one that
children can understand and that the greatest minds must admire.
[Illustration:
FACSIMILE OF GETTYSBURG ADDRESS.
Address delivered at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that
nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long
endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come
to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for
those who here gave their lives that their nation might live. It is
altogether fitting and proper that we should this.
But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we
cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who
struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add
or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say
here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the
living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they
who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us
to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that
from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for
which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here
highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that
this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that
government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not
perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863]