THE DELIVERANCE
From the moment Davis placed Lee in the saddle order slowly emerged from
chaotic conditions and the first rays of light began to illumine the
fortunes of the Confederacy.
Modest and unassuming in his personality, he demonstrated from the first
his skill as an organizer and his power in the conception and execution
of far-reaching strategy.
From the moment he breathed his spirit into the army he made it a rapid,
compact, accurate and terrible engine of war. The contemptible assault
of the Richmond _Examiner_ fell harmless from the armor of his genius.
Davis was bitterly denounced for his favoritism in passing G. W. Smith
and appointing Governor Letcher's pet. He was accused of playing a game
of low politics to make "a spawn of West Point" the next Governor of
Virginia. But events moved with a pace too swift to give the yellow
journals or the demagogues time to get their breath.
Lee had sent Jackson into the Valley of the Shenandoah to make a
diversion which might hold the armies moving on the Capital from the
west and at the same time puzzle McDowell at Fredericksburg.
Lee, Jackson and Davis were three men who worked in perfect harmony from
the moment they met in their first council of war at the White House of
the Confederacy. So perfect was Lee's confidence in Jackson, he was
sent into the Valley unhampered by instructions which would interfere
with the execution of any movement his genius might suggest.
Left thus to his own initiative, Jackson conceived the most brilliant
series of engagements in the history of modern war. He determined to use
his infantry by forced marches to cover in a day the ground usually made
by cavalry and fall on the armies of his opponents one by one before
they could form a juncture.
On May 23, by a swift, silent march of his little army of fifteen
thousand men, he took Banks completely by surprise, crushed and captured
his advance guard at Fort Royal, struck him in the flank and drove him
back into Strassburg, through Winchester, and hurled his shattered army
in confusion and panic across the Potomac on its Washington base.
Desperate alarm swept the Capital of the Union. Stanton, the Secretary
of War, issued a frantic appeal to the Governors of the Northern States
for militia to defend Washington. Panic reigned in the cities of the
North. Governors and mayors issued the most urgent appeals for
enlistments.
Fremont was ordered to move with all possible haste and form a juncture
with a division of McDowell's army and cut off Jackson's line of
retreat.
The wily Confederate General wheeled suddenly and rushed on Fremont
before Shields could reach him. On June 8, at Cross Keys, he crushed
Fremont, turned with sudden eagle swoop and defeated Shields at Port
Republic.
Washington believed that Jackson commanded an enormous army, and that
the National Capital was in danger of his invading host. The defeated
armies of Milroy, Banks, Fremont and Shields were all drawn in to defend
the city.
In this campaign of a few weeks Jackson had marched his infantry six
hundred miles, fought four pitched battles and seven minor engagements.
He had defeated four armies, each greater than his own, captured seven
pieces of artillery, ten thousand stands of arms, four thousand
prisoners and enormous stores of provisions and ammunition. It required
a train of wagons twelve miles long to transport his treasures--every
pound of which he saved for his Government.
He was never surprised, never defeated, never lost a train or an
organized piece of his army, put out of commission sixty thousand
Northern soldiers under four distinguished generals and in obedience to
Lee's command was now sweeping through the mountain passes to the relief
of Richmond.
While Jackson was thus moving to join his forces with Lee, Washington
was shivering in fear of his attack.
On the day Jackson was scheduled to fall on the flank of McClellan's
besieging army Lee moved his men to the assault. The first battle which
Johnston had joined at Seven Pines had only checked McClellan's advance.
The Grand Army of the Potomac still lay on its original lines, and
McClellan had used every day in strengthening his entrenchments. Lee had
built defensive works to enable a part of his army to defend the city
while he should throw the flower of his gray soldiers on his enemy in a
desperate flank assault in coöperation with Jackson.
On the arrival of his triumphant lieutenant from the Shenandoah Valley
Lee suddenly sprang on McClellan with the leap of a lion. The Northern
Commander fought with terrible courage, amazed and uneasy over the
discovery that Jackson had suddenly appeared on his flank.
Within thirty-six hours McClellan's right wing was crushed and in
retreat. Within seven days Lee drove his Grand Army of more than a
hundred thousand men from the gates of Richmond thirty-five miles and
hurled them on the banks of the James at Harrison's Landing under the
shelter of the Federal gunboats.
Instead of marching in triumph through the streets of the Confederate
Capital, McClellan congratulated himself and his Government on his good
fortune in saving his army from annihilation. His broken columns had
reached a place of safety after a series of defeats which had
demoralized his command and resulted in the loss of ten thousand
prisoners and ten thousand more in killed and wounded. He had been
compelled to abandon or burn stores valued at millions. The South had
captured thirty-five thousand stand of arms and fifty-two pieces of
artillery.
Lee in his report modestly expressed his disappointment that greater
results had not been achieved.
"Under ordinary circumstances," he wrote, "the Federal army should have
been destroyed. Its escape was due to causes already stated. Prominent
among them was the want of correct and timely information. The first,
attributable chiefly to the character of the country, enabled General
McClellan skillfully to conceal his retreat and to add much to the
obstructions with which nature had beset the way of our pursuing column.
But regret that more was not accomplished gives way to gratitude to the
Sovereign Ruler of the Universe for the results achieved."
Jackson, the grim soldier, whose habit was to pray all night before
battle, wrote with the fervor of the religious enthusiast.
"Undying gratitude is due to God for this great victory--by which
despondency increases in the North, hope brightens in the South and the
Capital of Virginia and the Confederacy is saved."
A wave of exultation swept the South--while Death stalked through the
streets of Richmond.
Instead of the tramp of victorious hosts, their bayonets glittering in
the sunlight, which Socola had confidently expected, he watched from the
windows of the Department of State the interminable lines of ambulances
bearing the wounded from the fields of McClellan's seven-days' battle.
The darkened room on Church Hill was opened. Miss Van Lew had watched
the glass rattle under the thunder of McClellan's guns, and then with
sinking heart heard their roar fade in the distance until only the
rumble of the ambulances through the streets told that he had been
there. She burned the flag. It was too dangerous a piece of bunting to
risk in her house now. It would be many weary months before she would
need another.
Through every hour of the day and night since Lee sprang on McClellan,
those never-ending lines of ambulances had wound their way through the
streets. Every store and every home and every public building had been
converted into a hospital. The counters of trade were moved aside and
through the plate glass along the crowded streets could be seen the long
rows of pallets on which the mangled bodies of the wounded lay. Every
home set aside at least one room for the wounded boys of the South.
The heart-rending cries of the men from the wagons as they jolted over
the cobble stones rose day and night--a sad, weird requiem of agony,
half-groan, half-chant, to which the ear of pity could never grow
indifferent.
Death was the one figure now with which every man, woman and child was
familiar. The rattle of the dead-wagons could be heard at every turn.
They piled them high, these uncoffined bodies of the brave, and hurried
them under the burning sun to the trenches outside the city. They piled
them in long heaps to await the slow work of the tired grave-diggers.
The frail board coffins in which they were placed at last would often
burst from the swelling corpse. The air was filled with poisonous odors.
The hospitals were jammed with swollen, disfigured bodies of the wounded
and the dying. Gangrene and erysipelas did their work each hour in the
weltering heat of mid-summer.
But the South received her dead and mangled boys with a majesty of grief
that gave no cry to the ear of the world. Mothers lifted their eyes from
the faces of their dead and firmly spoke the words of resignation:
"Thy will, O Lord, be done!"
Her houses were filled with the wounded, the dying and the dead, but
Richmond lifted up her head. The fields about her were covered with
imperishable glory.
The Confederacy had won immortality.
The women of the South resolved to wear no mourning for their dead.
Their boys had laid their lives a joyous offering on their country's
altar. They would make no cry.
Johnston had lost six thousand and eighty-four men, dead, wounded and
missing at Seven Pines, and Lee had lost seventeen thousand five hundred
and eighty-three in seven days of continuous battle. But the South was
thrilled with the joy of a great deliverance.
Jefferson Davis in his address to the army expressed the universal
feeling of his people:
"Richmond, July 5, 1862.
"_To the Army of Eastern Virginia_:
"_Soldiers_:
"I congratulate you upon the series of brilliant victories which,
under the favor of Divine Providence, you have lately won; and as
President of the Confederate States, hereby tender to you the
thanks of the country, whose just cause you have so skillfuly and
heroically saved.
"Ten days ago an invading army, vastly superior to yours in numbers
and the material of war, closely beleaguered your Capital and
vauntingly proclaimed our speedy conquest. You marched to attack
the enemy in his entrenchments. With well-directed movements and
death-defying valor you charged upon him in his strong positions,
drove him from field to field over a distance of more than
thirty-five miles, and, despite his reënforcements, compelled him
to seek safety under the cover of his gunboats, where he now lies
cowering before the army so lately despised and threatened with
utter subjugation.
"The fortitude with which you have borne trial and privation, the
gallantry with which you have entered into each successive battle,
must have been witnessed to be fully appreciated. A grateful people
will not fail to recognize you and to bear you in loved remembrance.
Well may it be said of you that you have 'done enough for glory,'
but duty to a suffering country and to the cause of Constitutional
liberty claims for you yet further effort. Let it be your pride to
relax in nothing which can promote your future efficiency; your one
great object being to drive the invader from your soil, and, carrying
your standards beyond the outer borders of the Confederacy, to wring
from an unscrupulous foe the recognition of your birthright and
independence."
Within the year from the fatal victory at Bull Run the South had through
bitterness, tears and defeat at last found herself. Under the firm and
wise leadership of Davis, her disasters had been repaired and her army
brought to the highest standard of efficiency.
At the head of her armies now stood Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
Their fame filled the world. In the west, Braxton Bragg, a brilliant and
efficient commander, was marshaling his army to drive the Union lines
into Kentucky.
From the depths of despair the South rose to the heights of daring
assurance. For the moment the junta of politicians led by Senator Barton
were compelled to halt in their assaults on the President. The people of
the South had forgotten the issue of the date on Joseph E. Johnston's
commission as general.
With characteristic foolhardiness, however, Barton determined that they
should not forget it. He opened a series of bitter attacks on Davis for
the appalling lack of management which had permitted McClellan to save
what was left of his army. He boldly proclaimed the amazing doctrine
that the wounding of Johnston at Seven Pines was an irreparable disaster
to the South.
"Had Johnston remained in command," he loudly contended, "there can be
no doubt that he would have annihilated or captured McClellan's whole
army and ended the war."
On this platform he gave a banquet to General Johnston on the occasion
of his departure from Richmond for his new command in the west. The
Senator determined to hold his faction together for future assaults.
Lee's record was yet too recent to permit the politicians to surrender
without a fight.
The banquet was to be a love feast at which all factions opposed to
Davis should be united behind the banner of Johnston. Henry S. Foote had
quarreled with William L. Yancey. These two fire-eaters were
enthusiastic partisans of his General.
Major Barbour, Johnston's chief quartermaster, presided at the head of
the banquet table in Old Tom Griffin's place on Main Street. Foote was
seated on his right, Governor Milledge T. Bonham of South Carolina next.
Then came Gustavus W. Smith, whose hatred of Davis was implacable for
daring to advance Robert E. Lee over his head. Next sat John U. Daniel,
the editor of Richmond's yellow journal, the _Examiner_. Daniel's arm
was in a sling. He had been by Johnston's side when wounded at Seven
Pines.
At the other end of the table sat Major Moore, the assistant
quartermaster, and by his side on the left, General Joseph E. Johnston,
full of wounds in the flesh and grievances of soul. On his right was
John B. Floyd of Fort Donelson fame whom Davis had relieved of his
command. And next William L. Yancey, the matchless orator of secession,
whose hatred of Davis was greater than this old hatred of Abolition.
The feast was such as only Tom Griffin knew how to prepare.
Johnston as usual was grave and taciturn, still suffering from his
unhealed wound. Yancey and Foote, the reconciled friends who had shaken
hands in a common cause, were the life of the party.
Daniel, the editor of the organ of the Soreheads and Irreconcilables,
was even more taciturn than his beloved Chief. General Bonham sang a
love song. Yancey and Foote vied with each other in the brilliancy of
their wit.
When the banquet had lasted for two hours, Yancey turned to Old Tom
Griffin and said:
"Fresh glasses now and bumpers of champagne!"
When the glasses were filled the Alabama orator lifted his glass.
"This toast is to be drunk standing, gentlemen!"
Every man save Johnston sprang to his feet. Yancey looked straight into
the eye of the General and shouted:
"Gentlemen! We drink to the health of the only man who can save the
Southern Confederacy--General Joseph E. Johnston!"
The glasses were emptied and a shout of applause rang from every
banqueter save one. The General had not yet touched his glass.
Without rising, Johnston lifted his eyes and said in grave tones:
"Mr. Yancey, the man you describe is now in the field--his name is
Robert E. Lee. I drink to his health."
Yancey's quick wit answered in a flash:
"I can only reply to you, sir, as the Speaker of the House of Burgesses
did to General Washington--'Your modesty is only equaled by your
valor!'"
Johnston's tribute to Lee was genuine, and yet nursing his grudge
against the President with malignant intensity he left for the west,
encouraging his friends to fight the Chieftain of the Confederacy with
tooth and nail and that to the last ditch.