THE PATH OF GLORY
Jefferson Davis had created the most compact and terrible engine of war
set in motion since Napoleon founded the Empire of France. It had been
done under conditions of incredible difficulty, but it had been done.
The smashing of McClellan's army brought to the North the painful
realization of this fact. Abraham Lincoln must call for another half
million soldiers and no man could foresee the end.
Davis had begun in April, 1861, without an arsenal, laboratory or powder
mill of any capacity, and with no foundry or rolling mill for iron
except the little Tredegar works in Richmond.
He had supplied them.
Harassed by an army of half a million men in blue led by able generals
and throttled by a cable of steel which the navy had drawn about his
coast line, he had done this work and at the same time held his own
defiantly and successfully. Crippled by a depreciated currency,
assaulted daily by a powerful conspiracy of sore-head politicians and
quarreling generals, strangled by a blockade that deprived him of nearly
all means of foreign aid--he had still succeeded in raising the needed
money. Unable to use the labor of slaves except in the unskilled work of
farms, hampered by lack of transportation even of food for the army,
with no stock of war material on hand,--steel, copper, leather or iron
with which to build his establishments--yet with quiet persistence he
set himself to solve these problems and succeeded.
He had created, apparently out of nothing, foundries and rolling mills
at Selma, Richmond, Atlanta and Macon, smelting works at Petersburg, a
chemical laboratory at Charlotte, a powder mill superior to any of the
United States and unsurpassed by any in Europe,--a mighty chain of
arsenals, armories, and laboratories equal in their capacity and
appointments to the best of those in the North, stretching link by link
from Virginia to Alabama.
He established artificial niter beds at Richmond, Columbus, Charleston,
Savannah, Mobile and Selma of sufficient capacity to supply the niter
needed in the powder mills.
Mines for iron, lead and copper were opened and operated. Manufactories
for the production of sulphuric and nitric acid were established and
successfully operated.
Minor articles were supplied by devices hitherto unheard of in the
equipment of armies. Leather was scarce and its supply impossible in the
quantities demanded.
Knapsacks were abolished and haversacks of cloth made by patriotic women
with their needles took their places. The scant supply of leather was
divided between the makers of shoes for the soldiers and saddles and
harness for the horses. Shoes for the soldiers were the prime necessity.
To save leather the waist and cartridge-box belts were made of heavy
cotton cloth stitched in three or four thicknesses. Bridle reins were
made of cotton in the same way. Cartridge boxes were finally made
thus--with a single piece of leather for the flap. Even saddle skirts
for the cavalry were made of heavy cotton strongly stitched.
Men to work the meager tanneries were exempt from military services and
transportation for hides and leather supplies was free.
A fishery was established on the Cape Fear River in North Carolina from
which oil was manufactured. Every wayside blacksmith shop was utilized
as a government factory for the production of horseshoes for the
cavalry.
To meet the demands for articles of prime necessity which could not be
made in the South, a line of blockade runners was established between
the port of Wilmington, North Carolina, and Bermuda. Vessels capable of
storing in their hold six hundred bales of cotton were purchased in
England and put into this service. They were long, low, narrow craft
built for speed. They could show their heels to any ship of the United
States Navy. Painted a pale grayish-blue color, and lying low on the
water they were sighted with difficulty in the day and they carried no
lights at night. The moment one was trapped and sunk by the blockading
fleet, another was ready to take her place.
Depots and stores were established and drawn on by these fleet ships
both at Nassau and Havana.
By the fall of 1862, through the port of Wilmington, from the arsenals
at Richmond and Fayetteville, and from the victorious fields of Manassas
and the Seven Days' Battle around Richmond, sufficient arms had been
obtained to equip two hundred thousand soldiers and supply their
batteries with serviceable artillery.
On April 16, 1862, Davis asked of his Congress that every white man in
the South between the ages of 18 and 35 be called to the colors and all
short term volunteer contracts annulled. The law was promptly passed in
spite of the conspirators who fought him at every turn. Camps of
instruction were established in every State, and a commandant sent from
Richmond to take charge of the new levies.
Solidity was thus given to the military system of the Confederacy and
its organization centralized and freed from the bickerings of State
politicians.
With her loins thus girded for the conflict the South entered the second
phase of the war--the path of glory from the shattered army of McClellan
on the James to Hooker's crushed and bleeding lines at Chancellorsville.
The fiercest clamor for the removal of McClellan from his command swept
the North. The position of the Northern General was one of peculiar
weakness politically. He was an avowed Democrat. His head had been
turned by flattery and he had at one time dallied with the idea of
deposing Abraham Lincoln by the assumption of a military dictatorship.
Lincoln knew this. The demand for his removal would have swayed a
President of less balance.
Lincoln refused to deprive McClellan of his command but yielded
sufficiently to the clamor of the radicals of his own party to appoint
John Pope of the Western army to the command of a new division of troops
designed to advance on Richmond.
The generals under McClellan who did not agree with his slow methods
were detached with their men and assigned to service under Pope.
McClellan did not hesitate to denounce Pope as an upstart and a braggart
who had won his position by the lowest tricks of the demagogue. He
declared that the new commander was a military impostor, a tool of the
radical wing of the Republican party, a man who mistook brutality in
warfare for power and sought to increase the horrors of war by arming
slaves, legalizing plunder and making the people of the South
irreconcilable to a restored Union by atrocities whose memory could
never be effaced.
Pope's first acts on assuming command did much to justify McClellan's
savage criticism. He issued a bombastic address to his army which
brought tears to Lincoln's eyes and roars of laughter from Little Mac's
loyal friends.
He issued a series of silly general orders making war on the
noncombatant population of Virginia within his line. If citizens refused
to take an oath of allegiance which he prescribed they were to be driven
from their homes and if they dared to return, were to be arrested and
treated as spies.
His soldiers were given license to plunder. Houses were robbed and
cattle shot in the fields. Against these practices McClellan had set his
face with grim resolution. He fought only organized armies. He protected
the aged, and all noncombatants. It was not surprising, therefore, when
Lincoln ordered him to march his army to the support of Pope, McClellan
was in no hurry to get there.
Pope had boldly advanced across the Rappahannock and a portion of his
army had reached Culpeper Court House. He had determined to make good
the proclamation with which he had assumed command.
In this remarkable document he said:
"By special assignment of the President of the United States, I have
assumed command of this army. I have come to you from the West where we
have always seen the backs of our enemies--from an army whose business
it has been to seek the adversary and to beat him when found, whose
policy has been attack not defense. Let us study the probable lines of
retreat of our opponents and leave ours to take care of themselves. Let
us look before us and not behind."
While his eyes were steadily fixed before him Jackson, moving with the
stealthy tread of a tiger, slipped in behind his advance guard, sprang
on it and tore his lines to pieces before he could move reënforcements
to their rescue.
When his reënforcements reached the ground Jackson had just finished
burying the dead, picking up the valuable arms left on the field and
sending his prisoners to the rear.
Before Pope could lead his fresh men to an attack the vanguard of Lee's
army was in sight and the general who had just issued his flaming
proclamation took to his heels and fled across the Rappahannock where he
called frantically for the divisions of McClellan's army which had not
yet joined him.
While Lee threatened Pope's front by repeated feints at different points
along the river, he dispatched Jackson's corps of twenty-five thousand
"foot cavalry" on a wide flanking movement through the Blue Ridge to
turn the Federal right, destroy his stores at Manassas Junction and
attack him in the rear before his reënforcements could arrive.
With swiftness Jackson executed the brilliant movement. Within
twenty-four hours his men had made the wide swing through the low
mountain ranges and crouched between Pope's army and the Federal
Capital. To a man of less courage and coolness this position would have
been one of tragic danger. Should Pope suddenly turn from Lee's
pretended attacks and spring on Jackson he might be crushed between two
columns. Franklin and Sumner's corps were at Alexandria to reënforce his
lines.
Jackson had marched into the jaws of death and yet he not only showed no
fear, he made a complete circuit of Pope's army, struck his storehouses
at Manassas Junction and captured them before the Federal Commander
dreamed that an army was in his rear. Eight pieces of artillery and
three hundred prisoners were among the spoils. Fifty thousand pounds of
bacon, a thousand barrels of beef, two thousand barrels of pork, two
thousand barrels of flour, and vast quantities of quartermaster's stores
also fell into his hands.
Jackson took what he could transport and burned the rest.
Pope rushed now in frantic haste to destroy Jackson before Lee's army
could reach him.
Jackson was too quick for the eloquent commander. He slipped past his
opponent and took a strong position west of the turnpike from Warrenton
where he could easily unite with Longstreet's advancing corps.
Pope attempted to turn Jackson's left with a division of his army and
the wily Southerner fell on his moving columns with sudden savage
energy, fought until nine o'clock at night and drove him back with heavy
loss.
When Pope moved to the attack next day at two o'clock Longstreet had
reached Jackson's side. The attack failed and his men fell back through
pools of blood. The Federal Commander was still sending pompous messages
to Washington announcing his marvelous achievements while his army had
steadily retreated from Culpeper Court House beyond the Rappahannock,
back to Manassas where the first battle of the war was fought.
At dawn on August 30, the high spirited troops of the South were under
arms standing with clinched muskets within a few hundred yards of the
pickets of Pope. Their far flung battle line stretched for five miles
from Sudley Springs on the left to the Warrenton road and on obliquely
to the southwest.
The artillery opened the action and for eight hours the heavens shook
with its roar. At three o'clock in the afternoon Pope determined to hurl
the flower of his army against Jackson's corps and smash it. His first
division pressed forward and engaged the Confederates at close
quarters. A fierce and bloody conflict followed, Jackson's troops
refusing to yield an inch. The Federal Commander brought up two reserve
lines to support the first but before they could be of any use,
Longstreet's artillery was planted to rake them with a murderous fire
and they fell back in confusion.
As the reserves retreated Jackson ordered his men to charge and at the
same moment Longstreet hurled his division against the Federal center,
and the whole Confederate army with piercing yell leaped forward and
swept the field as far as the eye could reach.
No sublimer pageant of blood and flame and smoke and shrouded Death ever
moved across the earth than that which Lee now witnessed from the
hilltop on which he stood. For five miles across the Manassas plains the
gray waves rolled, their polished bayonets gleaming in the blazing sun.
They swept through the open fields, now lost a moment in the woods, now
flashing again in the open. They paused and the artillery dashed to the
front, spread their guns in line and roared their call of death to the
struggling, fleeing, demoralized army. Another shout and the charging
hosts swept on again to a new point of vantage from which to fire.
Through clouds of smoke and dust the red tongues of flame from a hundred
big-mouthed guns flashed and faded and flashed again.
The charging men slipped on the wet grass where the dead lay thickest.
Waves of white curling smoke rose above the tree-tops and hung in dense
clouds over the field lighted by the red glare of the sinking sun.
The relief corps could be seen dashing on, with stretchers and
ambulances following in the wake of the victorious army.
The hum and roar of the vast field of carnage came now on the ears of
the listener--the groans of the wounded and the despairing cry of the
dying. And still the living waves of gray-tipped steel rolled on in
relentless sweep.
Again the fleeing Federal soldiers choked the waters of Bull Run. Masses
of struggling fugitives were pushed from the banks into the water and
pressed down. Here and there a wounded man clung to the branch of an
overhanging tree until exhausted and sank to rise no more.
The meadows were trampled and red. Hundreds of weak and tired men were
ridden down by cavalry and crushed by artillery. On and on rushed the
remorseless machine of the Confederacy, crushing, killing, scarring,
piling the dead in heaps.
It was ten o'clock that night before the army of Lee halted and Pope's
exhausted lines fell into the trenches around Centreville for a few
hours' respite. At dawn Jackson was struggling with his tired victorious
division to again turn Pope's flank, get into his rear and cut off his
retreat.
A cold and drenching rainstorm delayed his march and the rabble that was
once Pope's army succeeded in getting into the defenses of Washington.
Davis' army took seven thousand prisoners and picked up more than two
thousand wounded soldiers whom their boastful commander had left on the
field to die. Thirty pieces of artillery and twenty thousand small arms
fell into Lee's hands.
Pope's losses since Jackson first struck his advance guard at Culpeper
Court House had been more than twenty thousand men and his army had been
driven into Washington so utterly demoralized it was unfit for further
service until reorganized under an abler man.
For the moment the North was stunned by the blow. Deceived by Pope's
loud dispatches claiming victory for the first two days it was
impossible to realize that his shattered and broken army was cowering
and bleeding under the shadow of the Federal Capitol.
Even on the night of August thirtieth, with his men lying exhausted at
Centreville where they had dropped at ten o'clock when Lee's army had
mercifully halted, poor Pope continued to send his marvelous messages to
the War Department.
He reported to Halleck:
"The enemy is badly whipped, and we shall do well enough. Do not be
uneasy. We will hold our own here. We have delayed the enemy as long as
possible without losing the army. We have damaged him heavily, and I
think the army entitled to the gratitude of the country."
To this childish twaddle Halleck replied:
"My dear General, you have done nobly!"
Abraham Lincoln, however, realized the truth quickly. He removed Pope
and in spite of the threat of his Cabinet to resign called McClellan to
reorganize the dispirited army.
The North was in no mood to listen to the bombastic defense of General
Pope. They were stunned by the sudden sweep of the Confederate army from
the gates of Richmond on June first, to the defenses at Washington
within sixty days with the loss of twenty thousand men under McClellan
and twenty thousand more under Pope.
The armies of the Union had now been driven back to the point from which
they had started on July 16, 1861. It had been necessary to withdraw
Burnside's army from eastern North Carolina and the forces of the Union
from western Virginia. The war had been transferred to the suburbs of
Washington and the Northern people who had confidently expected
McClellan to be in Richmond in June were now trembling for the safety of
Pennsylvania and Maryland, to say nothing of the possibility of
Confederate occupation of the Capital.
An aggressive movement of all the forces of the South under Lee in the
East and Bragg and Johnston in the West was ordered.
In spite of the fact that Lee's army could not be properly shod--the
supply of army shoes being inadequate and the lack of shoe factories a
defect the Confederacy had yet been unable to remedy, the Southern
Commander threw his army of barefooted veterans across the Potomac and
boldly invaded Maryland on September the fifth.
The appearance of Stonewall Jackson on his entrance into Frederick City,
Maryland, was described by a Northern war correspondent in graphic
terms:
"Old Stonewall was the observed of all observers. He was dressed in the
coarsest kind of homespun, seedy, and dirty at that. He wore an old hat
which any Northern beggar would consider an insult to have offered him.
In his general appearance he was in no respect to be distinguished from
the mongrel barefoot crew who followed his fortunes. I had heard much of
the decayed appearance of rebel soldiers,--but such a looking crowd!
Ireland in her worst straits could present no parallel, and yet they
glory in their shame!"
Lee's army was now fifty miles north of Washington, within striking
distance of Baltimore. His strategy had completely puzzled the War
Department of the Federal Government. McClellan was equally puzzled.
Lincoln and his Cabinet believed Lee's movement into Maryland a feint to
draw the army from the defense of the Capital, and, when this was
accomplished, by a sudden swoop the Southern Commander would turn and
capture the city.
While McClellan was thus halting in tragic indecision one of the
unforeseen accidents of war occurred which put him in possession of
Lee's plan of campaign and should have led to the annihilation of the
Southern army. A copy of the order directing the movement of the
Confederates from Frederick, Maryland, was thrown to the ground by a
petulant officer to whom it was directed. It fell into the hands of a
Federal soldier who hurried to McClellan's headquarters with the fateful
document.
Jackson's corps had been sent on one of his famous "foot cavalry"
expeditions to sweep the Federal garrison from Martinsburg, surround and
capture Harper's Ferry. McClellan at once moved a division of his army
to crush the small command Lee had stationed at South Mountain to guard
Jackson's movement.
McClellan threw his men against this little division of the Confederates
and attempted to force his way to the relief of Harper's Ferry. The
battle raged with fury until nine o'clock at night. Their purpose
accomplished Lee withdrew them to his new position at Sharpsburg to
await the advent of Jackson.
The "foot cavalry" had surrounded Harper's Ferry, assaulted it at dawn
and in two hours the garrison surrendered. Thirteen thousand prisoners
with their rifles and seventy-three pieces of artillery fell into
Jackson's hands. Leaving General A. P. Hill to receive the final
surrender of the troops Jackson set out at once for Sharpsburg to join
his army with Lee's.
The Southern Commander had but forty thousand men with which to meet
McClellan's ninety thousand, but at sunrise on September seventeenth,
his batteries opened fire and the bloodiest struggle of the Civil War
began. Through the long hours of this eventful day the lines of blue and
gray charged and counter-charged across the scarlet field. When darkness
fell neither side had yielded. The dead lay in ghastly heaps and the
long pitiful wail of the wounded rose to Heaven.
Lee had lost two thousand killed and six thousand wounded. McClellan had
lost more than twelve thousand. His army was so terribly shattered by
the bloody work, he did not renew the struggle on the following day. Lee
waited until night for his assault and learning that reënforcements were
on the way to join McClellan's command withdrew across the Potomac.
It was a day later before Lee's movements were sufficiently clear for
McClellan to claim a victory.
On September nineteenth, he telegraphed Washington:
"I do not know if the enemy is falling back or recrossing the river. We
may safely claim the victory as ours."
Abraham Lincoln hastened to take advantage of McClellan's claim to issue
his Emancipation Proclamation. And yet so utter had been the failure of
his general to cope with Lee and Jackson, the President of the United
States relieved McClellan of his command.
While Lee's invasion had failed of the larger purpose, its moral effect
on the North had been tremendous. He carried back into Virginia fourteen
thousand prisoners, eighty pieces of artillery and invaluable equipment
for his army.
In the meantime the Western army under Bragg had invaded Kentucky,
sweeping to the gates of Cincinnati and Louisville and retiring with
more than five thousand prisoners, five thousand small arms and ten
pieces of artillery.
The gain in territory by the invasion of Maryland and Kentucky had been
nothing but the moral effect of these movements had been far reaching.
The daring valor of the small Confederate armies fighting against
overwhelming odds had stirred the imagination of the world. In the west
they had carried their triumphant battle flag from Chattanooga to
Cincinnati, and although forced to retire, had shown the world that the
conquest at the southwestern territory was a gigantic task which was yet
to be seriously undertaken.
The London _Times_, commenting on these campaigns, declared:
"Whatever may be the fate of the new nationality or its subsequent
claims to the respect of mankind, it will assuredly begin its career
with a reputation for genius and valor which the most famous nations may
envy."
On McClellan's fall he was succeeded by General Burnside who found a
magnificently trained army of veteran soldiers at his command. It was
now divided into three grand divisions of two corps each, commanded by
three generals of tried and proven ability, Sumner, Hooker and Franklin.
Burnside quickly formed and began the execution of an advance against
Richmond. He moved his army rapidly down the left bank of the
Rappahannock River to Fredericksburg, and ordered pontoon bridges to
cross the stream. His army could thus defend Washington while moving in
force on the Confederate Capital.
When Burnside led his one hundred and thirteen thousand men across the
river and occupied the town of Fredericksburg, Lee and Jackson were
ready to receive him. Lee had entrenched on the line of crescent-shaped
hills behind the town.
When the new Northern Commander threw his army, with its bands playing
and its thousand flags flying, against these hills on the morning of
December 13, 1862, he plunged headlong and blindfolded into a death
trap.
Charge after charge was repulsed with unparalleled slaughter. Lee's guns
were planted to cross fire on each charging line of blue. Burnside's
men were mowed down in thousands until their sublime valor won the
praise and the pity of their foe.
When night at last drew the veil over the awful scene the shattered
masses of the charging army were huddled under the shelter of the houses
in Fredericksburg leaving the field piled high with the dead and the
wounded. The wounded were freezing to death in the pitiless cold.
Burnside had lost thirteen thousand men--the flower of his troops--the
bravest men the North had ever sent into battle.
Jackson's keen eye was quick to see the shambles into which this
demoralized army had been pushed. The river behind them could be crossed
only on a narrow pontoon bridge. A swift and merciless night attack
would either drive the bleeding lines into the freezing river,
annihilate or capture the whole army. He urged Lee to this attack. Lee
demurred. He could not know the extent of the enemy's losses. It was
inconceivable to the Southern Commander that Burnside with his one
hundred and thirteen thousand picked soldiers, could be repulsed with
such slight losses to the South. Only a small part of the army under his
command had been active in the battle and their losses were
insignificant in comparison with the records of former struggles.
Burnside would renew the attack with redoubled vigor. He refused to move
his men from their entrenchments into the open field where they would be
exposed to the batteries beyond the river.
Jackson turned his somber blue eyes on Lee:
"Send my corps into Fredericksburg alone to-night. Hold the hills with
the rest of the army. I'll do the work."
"You cannot distinguish friend from foe, General Jackson--"
"I'll strip my men to the waist and tie white bands around their right
arms."
"In this freezing cold?"
"They'll obey my orders, General Lee--"
"It's too horrible--"
"It's war, sir," was Jackson's reply. "War means fighting--fighting to
kill, to destroy--fighting with tooth and nail--"
Lee shook his head. He refused to take the risk. Jackson returned to his
headquarters with heavy heart. His chief of medical staff was busy
preparing bandages for his men. He had been sure of Lee's consent. He
countermanded the order and Burnside's army was saved from annihilation.
When the sun rose next morning half his men were safely across the
river--and the remainder quickly followed.
Again the North was stunned. Another wave of horror swept its homes as
the lists of the dead and wounded were printed.
Burnside resigned his command and "Fighting" Joe Hooker was placed at
the head of the Northern troops. Since June first, Lee and Jackson had
destroyed four blue armies and driven their commanders from the
field,--McClellan twice, John Pope and now Burnside.
The political effects of these brilliant achievements of Davis' army had
been paralyzing on the administration of Lincoln. The Proclamation of
Emancipation which he had issued immediately after the bloody battle in
Maryland had not only fallen flat in the North, it had created a
reaction against his policies and the conduct of the war. The November
elections had gone against him and his party had been all but wiped out.
The Democrats in New York had reversed a majority of one hundred and
seven thousand against them in 1860 and swept the State, electing their
entire ticket. The administration was defeated in New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.
The voters of the North not only condemned the administration for
declaring the slaves free, but they assaulted the war policy of their
Government with savage fury. They condemned the wholesale arrest of
thousands of citizens for their political opinions and arraigned the
Government for its incompetence in conducting the military operations of
an army of more than twice the numbers of the triumphant South.
The Emancipation Proclamation and the victories of Davis' army had not
only divided and demoralized the North, they had solidified Southern
opinion.
Even Alexander H. Stephens, the Vice-President of the Confederacy, who
had been a thorn in the flesh of Davis from the beginning in his
advocacy of foolish and impossible measures of compromise now took his
position for war to the death. In a fiery speech in North Carolina
following Lincoln's proclamation Stephens said:
"As for any reconstruction of the Union--such a thing is
impossible--such an idea must not be tolerated for an instant.
Reconstruction would not end the war, but would produce a more horrible
war than that in which we are now engaged. The only terms on which we
can obtain permanent peace is final and complete separation from the
North. Rather than submit to anything short of that, let us resolve to
die as men worthy of freedom."
A few days after the defeat of Burnside's army at Fredericksburg the
South was thrilled by the feat of General McGruder in Galveston harbor.
The daring Confederate Commander had seized two little steamers and
fitted them up as gun boats by piling cotton on their sides for
bulwarks. With these two rafts of cotton coöperating on the water, his
infantry waded out into the waters of Galveston Bay and attacked the
Federal fleet with their bare hands.
When the smoke of battle lifted the city of Galveston was in Confederate
hands, the fleet had been smashed and scattered and the port opened to
commerce. Commodore Renshaw had blown up his flag ship to prevent her
falling into McGruder's hands and gone down with her. The garrison
surrendered.
Jackson had invented a "foot cavalry." McGruder had supplemented it by a
"foot navy."
At Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on the same day General Bragg had engaged
the army of Rosecrans and fought one of the bloodiest engagements of the
war. Its net results were in favor of the Confederacy in spite of the
fact that he permitted Rosecrans to move into Murfreesboro. The Northern
army had lost nine thousand men, killed and wounded, and Bragg carried
from the field six thousand Federal prisoners, thirty pieces of
artillery, sixty thousand stand of small arms, ambulances, mules, horses
and an enormous amount of valuable stores.
His own losses had been great but far less than those he inflicted on
Rosecrans. He had lost one thousand two hundred and ninety-two killed,
seven thousand nine hundred and forty-five wounded and one thousand
twenty-seven missing.
At Charleston a fleet of iron-clads on the model of the _Monitor_ had
been crushed by the batteries and driven back to sea with heavy loss.
The _Keokuk_ was left a stranded wreck in the harbor.
A second attack on Vicksburg had failed under Sherman. A third attack by
Grant had been repulsed. Farragut's attack on Port Hudson had failed
with the loss of the _Richmond_.
The Federal Government now put forth its grandest effort to crush at a
blow the apparently invincible army of Davis' still lying in its
trenches on the heights behind Fredericksburg.
Hooker's army was raised to an effective force of one hundred and thirty
thousand and his artillery increased to four hundred guns. Lee had been
compelled to detach Longstreet's corps, comprising nearly a third of his
army for service in North Carolina. The force under his command was
barely fifty thousand.
So great was the superiority of the Northern army Hooker divided his
forces for an enveloping movement, each wing of his being still greater
than the whole force under Lee.
Sedgwick's corps crossed the river below Fredericksburg and began a
flanking movement from the south while Hooker threw the main body across
the Rappahannock at three fords seven miles above.
On April thirtieth, he issued an address to his men. His forces were all
safely across the river without firing a shot. He had Lee's little army
caught in a trap between his two grand divisions.
In his proclamation he boldly announced:
"The operations of the last three days have determined that our enemy
must ingloriously fly, or come out from behind their defenses and give
us battle on our own ground, where certain destruction awaits him."
His enemy was not slow in coming out from behind his defenses. With
quick decision Lee divided his little army by planting ten thousand men
under Early on Marye's Heights to stop Sedgwick's division and moved
swiftly with the remainder to meet Hooker in the dense woods of the
Wilderness near Chancellorsville.
With consummate daring and the strategy of genius he again divided his
army. He detached Jackson's corps and sent his "foot cavalry" on a swift
wide detour of twenty-odd miles to swing around Hooker's right and
strike him in the flank while he pretended an attack in force on his
front.
It was nearly sundown when Jackson's tired but eager men saw from the
hill top their unsuspecting foe quietly cooking their evening meal.
When the battle clouds lifted at the end of three days of carnage,
Hooker's army of one hundred and thirty thousand men had been cut to
pieces and flung back across the Rappahannock, leaving seventeen
thousand killed and wounded on the field.
In the face of his crushing defeat Hooker issued another address to his
army.
He boldly announced from his safe retreat beyond the banks of the river:
"The Major-General commanding tenders to the army his congratulations on
its achievements of the last seven days. If it has not accomplished all
that was expected the reasons are well known to the army. It is
sufficient to say, that they were of a character not to be foreseen or
prevented by human sagacity or resources.
"In withdrawing from the south bank of the Rappahannock before
delivering a general battle to our adversaries, the army has given
renewed evidence of its confidence in itself and its fidelity to the
principles it represents.
"Profoundly loyal and conscious of its strength, the Army of the Potomac
will give or decline battle whenever its interests or honor may command
it.
"By the celerity and secrecy of our movements, our advance and passage
of the river was undisputed, and on our withdrawal not a rebel dared to
follow us. The events of the last week may well cause the heart of every
officer and soldier of the army to swell with pride!"
The heart of the North quickly swelled with such pride that the
President was forced to remove General Hooker and appoint General George
Meade to his command.
While the South was celebrating the wonderful achievement of their now
invincible army, Lee's greatest general lay dying at a little farm house
a few miles from the scene of his immortal achievement. Jackson had been
accidentally wounded by a volley from his own men fired by his orders.
His wound was not supposed to be fatal and arrangements were made for
his removal to Richmond when he was suddenly stricken with pneumonia and
rapidly sank. He lifted his eyes to his physician and calmly said:
"If I live, it will be for the best--and if I die, it will be for the
best; God knows and directs all things for the best."
His last moments were marked with expressions of his abiding faith in
the wisdom and love of the God he had faithfully served.
Yet his spirit was still on the field of battle. In the delirium which
preceded death his voice rang in sharp command:
"Tell Major Hawkes to send forward provisions to the men!"
His head sank and a smile lighted his rugged face. In low tender tones
be gasped his last words on earth:
"Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees."
So passed the greatest military genius our race has produced--the man
who never met defeat. His loss was mourned not only by the South but by
the world. His death extinguished a light on the shores of Time.
The leading London paper said of him:
"That mixture of daring and judgment which is the mark of heaven-born
generals distinguished him beyond any man of his age. The blows he
struck at the enemy were as terrible and decisive as those of Bonaparte
himself."
Thousands followed him in sorrow to the grave. The South was bathed in
tears.
Lee realized that he had lost his right arm and yet, undaunted, he
marshaled his legions and girded his loins for an invasion of Northern
soil.