THE GREAT CIVIL WAR
I HAVE no doubt that some of the young folks who read this book will
want to hear the story of the great war that was spoken of in the last
chapter. Some of the boys will, at any rate. The girls do not care so
much about war, and I am glad of this, for I think the world would be
much better off if there were no wars.
Well, I suppose I shall have to tell the boys something about it. The
girls can skip it, if they wish. To tell the whole story of our Civil
War would take a book five times as large as this, so all I can do is to
draw a sort of outline map of it. A civil war, you should know, means a
war within a nation, where part of a people fight against the other
part. A war between two nations is called a foreign war.
When our Civil War broke out we had thirty-three states--we have more
than forty-five to-day. Eleven of these states tried to leave the Union
and twenty-two remained, so that the Union states were two to one
against the non-Union. But the Union states had more than twice the
people and had ten times the wealth, so that, as you may see, the war
was a one-sided affair. It was nearly all fought in the South, whose
people suffered greatly for their attempt to leave the Union. Many of
them lost all they had and became very poor.
There were three fields or regions in which this war took place. One of
these was a narrow region, lying between Washington and Richmond, the
two capital cities. But small as it was, here the greatest battles were
fought. Both sides were fighting fiercely to save their capitals.
The second region of the war was in the West. This was a vast region,
extending from Kentucky and Missouri down to the Gulf of Mexico. Here
there were many long, weary marches and much hard fighting and great
loss of life. The third region was on the ocean and rivers, where
iron-clad ships first met in battle, and where some famous combats took
place.
Over these three regions a million and more of men struggled for years,
fighting with rifle and cannon, with sword and bayonet, killing and
wounding one another and causing no end of misery in all parts of the
land. For the people at home suffered as much as the men on the
battle-field, and many mothers and sisters were heartbroken when word
came to them that their dear sons or brothers had been shot down on the
field of blood. War is the most terrible thing upon the earth, though
men try to make it look like a pleasant show with their banners and
trumpets and drums.
As soon as the news of the war came there was a great coming and going
of soldiers, and beating of drums, and fluttering of banners, and making
of speeches, and thousands marched away, some to Washington and some to
Richmond, and many more to the strongholds of the West. Mothers wept as
they bade good-by to their sons, whom they might never see again. And
many of the soldier-boys had sad hearts under their brave faces. Soon
hundreds of these poor fellows were falling dead and wounded on fields
of battle, and then their people at home had good reason to weep and
mourn.
I have told you about the battle of Bull Run, south of Washington, the
first great battle of the war. Here the Southern army gained the
victory, and the people of the South were full of joy. But Congress now
called for half a million of men and voted half a billion of dollars.
Both sides saw that they had a great war before them.
Bull Run was the only severe battle in 1861, but in 1862 both the North
and the South had large armies, and there was much hard fighting in the
East and the West.
I must tell you first of the fighting in Virginia. General George B.
McClellan was in command of the Union army there. He led it down close
to Richmond, which he hoped to capture. There was a sharp fight at a
place called Fair Oaks, where General Joseph Johnston, the Confederate
general, was wounded. General Robert E. Lee took his place. They could
not have picked out a better man, for he proved himself to be one of the
greatest soldiers of modern times.
The Confederates had another fine general named Thomas J. Jackson. He
was called "Stonewall" Jackson, because, in the battle of Bull Run, some
one had said:
"Look at Jackson! There he stands like a stone wall!"
General Lee and Stonewall Jackson were not the men to keep quiet. In a
short time they drove McClellan back after a hard fight lasting a whole
week, and then made a sudden march to the north. Here was another Union
army, on the old battle-field of Bull Run. A dreadful battle followed;
men fell by thousands; in the end the Union army was defeated and forced
back towards Washington.
General Lee knew that he could not take Washington, so he marched away
north, waded his men across the Potomac River, and entered the state of
Maryland. This was a slave state, and he hoped many of the people would
join his army. But the farmers of Maryland loved the Union too well for
that, so General Lee got very few of them in his ranks.
Then he went west, followed by General McClellan, and at a place called
Antietam the two armies met; and there was fought the bloodiest battle
of the war. They kept at it all day long and neither side seemed beaten.
But that night General Lee and his men waded back across the Potomac
into Virginia, leaving McClellan master of the field. There was one more
terrible battle in Virginia that year, in which General Burnside, who
after McClellan commanded the Union army, tried to take the city of
Fredericksburg, but was defeated and his men driven back with a dreadful
loss of life.
Both armies now rested until the spring of 1863, and then another
desperate battle was fought. General Hooker had taken General Burnside's
place, and thought he also must fight a battle, but he did not dare to
try Fredericksburg as Burnside had done, so he marched up the river and
crossed it into a rough and wild country known as the Wilderness.
General Lee hurried there to meet him and the two armies came together
at a place called Chancellorsville. They fought in the wild woods, where
the trees in some places were so thick that the men could not see one
another. But Stonewall Jackson marched to the left through the woods
and made a sudden attack on the right wing of the Union army.
This part of the army was taken by surprise and driven back. Hooker's
men fought all that day and the next, but they could not recover from
their surprise and loss, and in the end they had to cross the river back
again. General Lee had won another great victory. But Stonewall Jackson
was wounded and soon died, and Lee would rather have lost the battle
than to lose this famous general.
Do you not think the North had a right to feel very much out of heart by
this time? The war had gone on for two years, and the Union army had
been defeated in all the great battles fought in Virginia. The only
victory won was that at Antietam in Maryland. They had been beaten at
the two battles of Bull Run, the seven days' fight at Richmond, and the
battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, while the battle of
Antietam had been won with great loss of life.
But there was soon to be a victory that would make up for more than one
defeat. Shortly after the fight at Chancellorsville General Lee broke
camp and marched north with the greatest speed. The Union army followed
as fast as they could march, for there was danger of Baltimore or even
Philadelphia being taken. Both armies kept on until they reached the
town of Gettysburg, in the south of Pennsylvania. Here was fought the
greatest battle of the war. It lasted for three days, the 1st, 2d and 3d
of July, 1863.
The loss of life on both sides was dreadful. But the Confederates lost
the most men and lost the battle besides. They tried in vain to break
through the Union lines, and in the end they were forced to retreat. On
the 4th of July General Lee sadly began his backward march, and the
telegraph wires carried all through the North the tidings of a great
victory. This was the turning point in the war. Six months before,
President Lincoln had proclaimed the freedom of the slaves, and the
armies were now fighting to make his word good. Negroes after this were
taken into the Union ranks, that they might help in the fight for their
own liberty.
I wish to say just here that the people of the North bore the defeats in
Virginia better than you would think. They had good reason to, for while
they had been losing battles in the East they had been winning battles
in the West. So one helped to make up for the other. If you will follow
me now to the West we will see what was taking place there.
The North did not have to change its generals as often in the West as in
the East, for it soon found a good one; and it was wise enough to hold
on to him. This was General Ulysses S. Grant, who is now honored as one
of the greatest generals of the world's history.
Grant was only a captain at first. Then he was made a colonel, and was
soon raised to the rank of general. He met the Confederates first at
Belmont, Missouri. Here he was defeated, and had to take his men aboard
river-boats to get them away. That was his first and nearly his last
defeat.
The Confederates had built two strong forts in Kentucky which they named
Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. General Grant marched against them with an
army and Commodore Foote steamed against them with a fleet of iron-clad
steamboats. Fort Henry was taken by the fleet before Grant could get to
it. Then he marched across country to Fort Donelson, on the Cumberland
River. He attacked this fort so fiercely that the Confederates tried to
get out of it but did not succeed. Then they proposed to surrender, and
asked him what terms he would give them.
"No terms except an immediate and unconditional surrender," he said. "I
propose to move immediately on your works."
This settled the matter. They surrendered--fifteen thousand in all.
After that many said that U. S. Grant stood for "Unconditional
Surrender" Grant.
I cannot tell you about all the fights that took place in the West, but
there was a terrible battle at a place called Pittsburg Landing, which
lasted two days, and in which Grant came very near being defeated. There
was a severe one at Murfreesboro on the last day of the year, and
another three days afterwards. Grant was not there, but Bragg, the
Confederate General, was defeated.
The Confederates had an important stronghold on the Mississippi River at
the city of Vicksburg, where they had many forts and a large number of
cannon. General Sherman tried to capture these forts but was driven
back. Then General Grant tried it and found it a very hard task.
The country was all swamp and creeks which no army could get through, so
Grant at last marched south on the other side of the river, and then
crossed over and marched north again. He had to fight every step of his
way, and to live on the food his men could carry, for he had cut loose
from the North. But he soon reached the city and began a long siege. The
Confederates held out until all their food was gone, and until they had
eaten up nearly all their horses and mules. Then they surrendered.
Twenty-seven thousand men were taken prisoners.
This took place on the 4th of July, 1863, the same day that General Lee
marched away from the field at Gettysburg. That was one of the greatest
Fourths of July this country had ever seen, for with it the last chance
of the South was lost. General Lee had lost many thousands of his hardy
veterans, men whom he could never replace. And in the fighting around
Vicksburg and the capture of that city nearly fifty thousand more fell
on the battle-field or were taken prisoners. It was a loss which the
leaders of the Southern army bitterly felt. Fighting kept on for two
years more, but they would have been wiser to give up then and save all
the death and misery that came to them afterwards.