Blockade--Hatteras Inlet--Port Royal Captured--The Trent
Affair--Lincoln Suggests Arbitration--Seward's Despatch--McClellan at
Washington--Army of the Potomac--McClellan's Quarrel with
Scott--Retirement of Scott--Lincoln's Memorandum--"All Quiet on the
Potomac"--Conditions in Kentucky--Cameron's Visit to Sherman--East
Tennessee--Instructions to Buell--Buell's Neglect--Halleck in Missouri
Following the fall of Fort Sumter, the navy of the United States was in
no condition to enforce the blockade from Chesapeake Bay to the Rio
Grande declared by Lincoln's proclamation of April 19. Of the forty-two
vessels then in commission nearly all were on foreign stations. Another
serious cause of weakness was that within a few days after the Sumter
attack one hundred and twenty-four officers of the navy resigned, or
were dismissed for disloyalty, and the number of such was doubled before
the fourth of July. Yet by the strenuous efforts of the department in
fitting out ships that had been laid up, in completing those under
construction, and in extensive purchases and arming of all classes of
vessels that could be put to use, from screw and side-wheel merchant
steamers to ferry-boats and tugs, a legally effective blockade was
established within a period of six months. A considerable number of new
war-ships was also immediately placed under construction. The special
session of Congress created a commission to study the subject of
ironclads, and on its recommendation three experimental vessels of this
class were placed under contract. One of these, completed early in the
following year, rendered a momentous service, hereafter to be mentioned,
and completely revolutionized naval warfare.
Meanwhile, as rapidly as vessels could be gathered and prepared, the
Navy Department organized effective expeditions to operate against
points on the Atlantic coast. On August 29 a small fleet, under command
of Flag Officer Stringham, took possession of Hatteras Inlet, after
silencing the forts the insurgents had erected to guard the entrance,
and captured twenty-five guns and seven hundred prisoners. This success,
achieved without the loss of a man to the Union fleet, was of great
importance, opening, as it did, the way for a succession of victories in
the interior waters of North Carolina early in the following year.
A more formidable expedition, and still greater success soon followed.
Early in November, Captain Du-Pont assembled a fleet of fifty sail,
including transports, before Port Royal Sound. Forming a column of nine
war-ships with a total of one hundred and twelve guns, the line steamed
by the mid-channel between Fort Beauregard to the right, and Fort Walker
to the left, the first of twenty and the second of twenty-three guns,
each ship delivering its fire as it passed the forts. Turning at the
proper point, they again gave broadside after broadside while steaming
out, and so repeated their circular movement. The battle was decided
when, on the third round, the forts failed to respond to the fire of the
ships. When Commander Rodgers carried and planted the Stars and Stripes
on the ramparts, he found them utterly deserted, everything having been
abandoned by the flying garrisons. Further reconnaissance proved that
the panic extended itself over the whole network of sea islands between
Charleston and Savannah, permitting the immediate occupation of the
entire region, and affording a military base for both the navy and the
army of incalculable advantage in the further reduction of the coast.
Another naval exploit, however, almost at the same time, absorbed
greater public attention, and for a while created an intense degree of
excitement and suspense. Ex-Senators J.M. Mason and John Slidell, having
been accredited by the Confederate government as envoys to European
courts, had managed to elude the blockade and reach Havana. Captain
Charles Wilkes, commanding the _San Jacinto_, learning that they were to
take passage for England on the British mail steamer _Trent_,
intercepted that vessel on November 8 near the coast of Cuba, took the
rebel emissaries prisoner by the usual show of force, and brought them
to the United States, but allowed the _Trent_ to proceed on her voyage.
The incident and alleged insult produced as great excitement in England
as in the United States, and the British government began instant and
significant preparations for war for what it hastily assumed to be a
violation of international law and an outrage on the British flag.
Instructions were sent to Lord Lyons, the British minister at
Washington, to demand the release of the prisoners and a suitable
apology; and, if this demand were not complied with within a single
week, to close his legation and return to England.
In the Northern States the capture was greeted with great jubilation.
Captain Wilkes was applauded by the press; his act was officially
approved by the Secretary of the Navy, and the House of Representatives
unanimously passed a resolution thanking him for his "brave, adroit, and
patriotic conduct." While the President and cabinet shared the first
impulses of rejoicing, second thoughts impressed them with the grave
nature of the international question involved, and the serious dilemma
of disavowal or war precipitated by the imperative British demand. It
was fortunate that Secretary Seward and Lord Lyons were close personal
friends, and still more that though British public opinion had strongly
favored the rebellion, the Queen of England entertained the kindliest
feelings for the American government. Under her direction, Prince Albert
instructed the British cabinet to formulate and present the demand in
the most courteous diplomatic language, while, on their part, the
American President and cabinet discussed the affair in a temper of
judicious reserve.
President Lincoln's first desire was to refer the difficulty to friendly
arbitration, and his mood is admirably expressed in the autograph
experimental draft of a despatch suggesting this course.
"The President is unwilling to believe," he wrote, "that her Majesty's
government will press for a categorical answer upon what appears to him
to be only a partial record, in the making up of which he has been
allowed no part. He is reluctant to volunteer his view of the case, with
no assurance that her Majesty's government will consent to hear him; yet
this much he directs me to say, that this government has intended no
affront to the British flag, or to the British nation; nor has it
intended to force into discussion an embarrassing question; all which is
evident by the fact hereby asserted, that the act complained of was done
by the officer without orders from, or expectation of, the government.
But, being done, it was no longer left to us to consider whether we
might not, to avoid a controversy, waive an unimportant though a strict
right; because we, too, as well as Great Britain, have a people justly
jealous of their rights, and in whose presence our government could undo
the act complained of only upon a fair showing that it was wrong, or at
least very questionable. The United States government and people are
still willing to make reparation upon such showing.
"Accordingly, I am instructed by the President to inquire whether her
Majesty's government will hear the United States upon the matter in
question. The President desires, among other things, to bring into view,
and have considered, the existing rebellion in the United States; the
position Great Britain has assumed, including her Majesty's proclamation
in relation thereto; the relation the persons whose seizure is the
subject of complaint bore to the United States, and the object of their
voyage at the time they were seized; the knowledge which the master of
the _Trent_ had of their relation to the United States, and of the
object of their voyage, at the time he received them on board for the
voyage; the place of the seizure; and the precedents and respective
positions assumed in analogous cases between Great Britain and the
United States.
"Upon a submission containing the foregoing facts, with those set forth
in the before-mentioned despatch to your lordship, together with all
other facts which either party may deem material, I am instructed to say
the government of the United States will, if agreed to by her Majesty's
government, go to such friendly arbitration as is usual among nations,
and will abide the award."
The most practised diplomatic pen in Europe could not have written a
more dignified, courteous, or succinct presentation of the case; and
yet, under the necessities of the moment, it was impossible to adopt
this procedure. Upon full discussion, it was decided that war with Great
Britain must be avoided, and Mr. Seward wrote a despatch defending the
course of Captain Wilkes up to the point where he permitted the _Trent_
to proceed on her voyage. It was his further duty to have brought her
before a prize court. Failing in this, he had left the capture
incomplete under rules of international law, and the American government
had thereby lost the right and the legal evidence to establish the
contraband character of the vessel and the persons seized. Under the
circumstances, the prisoners were therefore willingly released. Excited
American feeling was grievously disappointed at the result; but American
good sense readily accommodated itself both to the correctness of the
law expounded by the Secretary of State, and to the public policy that
averted a great international danger; particularly as this decision
forced Great Britain to depart from her own and to adopt the American
traditions respecting this class of neutral rights.
It has already been told how Captain George B. McClellan was suddenly
raised in rank, at the very outset of the war, first to a
major-generalship in the three months' militia, then to the command of
the military department of the Ohio; from that to a major-generalship in
the regular army; and after his successful campaign in West Virginia was
called to Washington and placed in command of the Division of the
Potomac, which comprised all the troops in and around Washington, on
both sides of the river. Called thus to the capital of the nation to
guard it against the results of the disastrous battle of Bull Run, and
to organize a new army for extended offensive operations, the
surrounding conditions naturally suggested to him that in all
likelihood he would play a conspicuous part in the great drama of the
Civil War. His ambition rose eagerly to the prospect. On the day on
which he assumed command, July 27, he wrote to his wife:
"I find myself in a new and strange position here; President, cabinet,
General Scott, and all, deferring to me. By some strange operation of
magic I seem to have become the power of the land."
And three days later:
"They give me my way in everything, full swing and unbounded
confidence.... Who would have thought, when we were married, that I
should so soon be called upon to save my country?"
And still a few days afterward:
"I shall carry this thing _en grande_, and crush the rebels in one
campaign."
From the giddy elevation to which such an imaginary achievement raised
his dreams, there was but one higher step, and his colossal egotism
immediately mounted to occupy it. On August 9, just two weeks after his
arrival in Washington, he wrote:
"I would cheerfully take the dictatorship and agree to lay down my life
when the country is saved;" while in the same letter he adds, with the
most naïve unconsciousness of his hallucination: "I am not spoiled by my
unexpected new position."
Coming to the national capital in the hour of deepest public depression
over the Bull Run defeat, McClellan was welcomed by the President, the
cabinet, and General Scott with sincere friendship, by Congress with a
hopeful eagerness, by the people with enthusiasm, and by Washington
society with adulation. Externally he seemed to justify such a greeting.
He was young, handsome, accomplished, genial and winning in conversation
and manner. He at once manifested great industry and quick decision,
and speedily exhibited a degree of ability in army organization which
was not equaled by any officer during the Civil War. Under his eye the
stream of the new three years' regiments pouring into the city went to
their camps, fell into brigades and divisions, were supplied with
equipments, horses, and batteries, and underwent the routine of drill,
tactics, and reviews, which, without the least apparent noise or
friction, in three months made the Army of the Potomac a perfect
fighting machine of over one hundred and fifty thousand men and more
than two hundred guns.
Recognizing his ability in this work, the government had indeed given
him its full confidence, and permitted him to exercise almost unbounded
authority; which he fully utilized in favoring his personal friends, and
drawing to himself the best resources of the whole country in arms,
supplies, and officers of education and experience. For a while his
outward demeanor indicated respect and gratitude for the promotion and
liberal favors bestowed upon him. But his phenomenal rise was fatal to
his usefulness. The dream that he was to be the sole savior of his
country, announced confidentially to his wife just two weeks after his
arrival in Washington, never again left him so long as he continued in
command. Coupled with this dazzling vision, however, was soon developed
the tormenting twofold hallucination: first, that everybody was
conspiring to thwart him; and, second, that the enemy had from double to
quadruple numbers to defeat him.
For the first month he could not sleep for the nightmare that
Beauregard's demoralized army had by a sudden bound from Manassas seized
the city of Washington. He immediately began a quarrel with General
Scott, which, by the first of November, drove the old hero into
retirement and out of his pathway. The cabinet members who, wittingly or
unwittingly, had encouraged him in this he some weeks later stigmatized
as a set of geese. Seeing that President Lincoln was kind and unassuming
in discussing military questions, McClellan quickly contracted the habit
of expressing contempt for him in his confidential letters; and the
feeling rapidly grew until it reached a mark of open disrespect. The
same trait manifested itself in his making exclusive confidants of only
two or three of his subordinate generals, and ignoring the counsel of
all the others; and when, later on, Congress appointed a standing
committee of leading senators and representatives to examine into the
conduct of the war, he placed himself in a similar attitude respecting
their inquiry and advice.
McClellan's activity and judgment as an army organizer naturally created
great hopes that he would be equally efficient as a commander in the
field. But these hopes were grievously disappointed. To his first great
defect of estimating himself as the sole savior of the country, must at
once be added the second, of his utter inability to form any reasonable
judgment of the strength of the enemy in his front. On September 8, when
the Confederate army at Manassas numbered forty-one thousand, he rated
it at one hundred and thirty thousand. By the end of October that
estimate had risen to one hundred and fifty thousand, to meet which he
asked that his own force should be raised to an aggregate of two hundred
and forty thousand, with a total of effectives of two hundred and eight
thousand, and four hundred and eighty-eight guns. He suggested that to
gather this force all other points should be left on the defensive; that
the Army of the Potomac held the fate of the country in its hands; that
the advance should not be postponed beyond November 25; and that a
single will should direct the plan of accomplishing a crushing defeat of
the rebel army at Manassas.
On the first of November the President, yielding at last to General
Scott's urgent solicitation, issued the orders placing him on the
retired list, and in his stead appointing General McClellan to the
command of all the armies. The administration indulged the expectation
that at last "The Young Napoleon," as the newspapers often called him,
would take advantage of the fine autumn weather, and, by a bold move
with his single will and his immense force, outnumbering the enemy
nearly four to one, would redeem his promise to crush the army at
Manassas and "save the country." But the November days came and went, as
the October days had come and gone. McClellan and his brilliant staff
galloped unceasingly from camp to camp, and review followed review,
while autumn imperceptibly gave place to the cold and storms of winter;
and still there was no sign of forward movement.
Under his own growing impatience, as well as that of the public, the
President, about the first of December, inquired pointedly, in a
memorandum suggesting a plan of campaign, how long it would require to
actually get in motion. McClellan answered: "By December 15,--probably
25"; and put aside the President's suggestion by explaining: "I have now
my mind actively turned toward another plan of campaign that I do not
think at all anticipated by the enemy, nor by many of our own people."
December 25 came, as November 25 had come, and still there was no plan,
no preparation, no movement. Then McClellan fell seriously ill. By a
spontaneous and most natural impulse, the soldiers of the various camps
began the erection of huts to shelter them from snow and storm. In a few
weeks the Army of the Potomac was practically, if not by order, in
winter quarters; and day after day the monotonous telegraphic phrase
"All quiet on the Potomac" was read from Northern newspapers in Northern
homes, until by mere iteration it degenerated from an expression of deep
disappointment to a note of sarcastic criticism.
While so unsatisfactory a condition of affairs existed in the first
great military field east of the Alleghanies, the outlook was quite as
unpromising both in the second--between the Alleghanies and the
Mississippi--and in the third--west of the Mississippi. When the
Confederates, about September 1, 1861, invaded Kentucky, they stationed
General Pillow at the strongly fortified town of Columbus on the
Mississippi River, with about six thousand men; General Buckner at
Bowling Green, on the railroad north of Nashville, with five thousand;
and General Zollicoffer, with six regiments, in eastern Kentucky,
fronting Cumberland Gap. Up to that time there were no Union troops in
Kentucky, except a few regiments of Home Guards. Now, however, the State
legislature called for active help; and General Anderson, exercising
nominal command from Cincinnati, sent Brigadier-General Sherman to
Nashville to confront Buckner, and Brigadier-General Thomas to Camp Dick
Robinson, to confront Zollicoffer.
Neither side was as yet in a condition of force and preparation to take
the aggressive. When, a month later, Anderson, on account of ill health
turned over the command to Sherman, the latter had gathered only about
eighteen thousand men, and was greatly discouraged by the task of
defending three hundred miles of frontier with that small force. In an
interview with Secretary of War Cameron, who called upon him on his
return from Frémont's camp, about the middle of October, he strongly
urged that he needed for immediate defense sixty thousand, and for
ultimate offense "two hundred thousand before we were done." "Great
God!" exclaimed Cameron, "where are they to come from?" Both Sherman's
demand and Cameron's answer were a pertinent comment on McClellan's
policy of collecting the whole military strength of the country at
Washington to fight the one great battle for which he could never get
ready.
Sherman was so distressed by the seeming magnitude of his burden that he
soon asked to be relieved; and when Brigadier-General Buell was sent to
succeed him in command of that part of Kentucky lying east of the
Cumberland River, it was the expectation of the President that he would
devote his main attention and energy to the accomplishment of a specific
object which Mr. Lincoln had very much at heart.
Ever since the days in June, when President Lincoln had presided over
the council of war which discussed and decided upon the Bull Run
campaign, he had devoted every spare moment of his time to the study of
such military books and leading principles of the art of war as would
aid him in solving questions that must necessarily come to himself for
final decision. His acute perceptions, retentive memory, and unusual
power of logic enabled him to make rapid progress in the acquisition of
the fixed and accepted rules on which military writers agree. In this,
as in other sciences, the main difficulty, of course, lies in applying
fixed theories to variable conditions. When, however, we remember that
at the outbreak of hostilities all the great commanders of the Civil War
had experience only as captains and lieutenants, it is not strange that
in speculative military problems the President's mature reasoning powers
should have gained almost as rapidly by observation and criticism as
theirs by practice and experiment. The mastery he attained of the
difficult art, and how intuitively correct was his grasp of military
situations, has been attested since in the enthusiastic admiration of
brilliant technical students, amply fitted by training and intellect to
express an opinion, whose comment does not fall short of declaring Mr.
Lincoln "the ablest strategist of the war."
The President had early discerned what must become the dominating and
decisive lines of advance in gaining and holding military control of the
Southern States. Only two days after the battle of Bull Run, he had
written a memorandum suggesting three principal objects for the army
when reorganized: First, to gather a force to menace Richmond; second, a
movement from Cincinnati upon Cumberland Gap and East Tennessee; third,
an expedition from Cairo against Memphis. In his eyes, the second of
these objectives never lost its importance; and it was in fact
substantially adopted by indirection and by necessity in the closing
periods of the war. The eastern third of the State of Tennessee remained
from the first stubbornly and devotedly loyal to the Union. At an
election on June 8, 1861, the people of twenty-nine counties, by more
than two to one, voted against joining the Confederacy; and the most
rigorous military repression by the orders of Jefferson Davis and
Governor Harris was necessary to prevent a general uprising against the
rebellion.
The sympathy of the President, even more than that of the whole North,
went out warmly to these unfortunate Tennesseeans, and he desired to
convert their mountain fastnesses into an impregnable patriotic
stronghold. Had his advice been followed, it would have completely
severed railroad communication, by way of the Shenandoah valley,
Knoxville, and Chattanooga, between Virginia and the Gulf States,
accomplishing in the winter of 1861 what was not attained until two
years later. Mr. Lincoln urged this in a second memorandum, made late in
September; and seeing that the principal objection to it lay in the long
and difficult line of land transportation, his message to Congress of
December 3, 1861, recommended, as a military measure, the construction
of a railroad to connect Cincinnati, by way of Lexington, Kentucky, with
that mountain region.
A few days after the message, he personally went to the President's room
in the Capitol building, and calling around him a number of leading
senators and representatives, and pointing out on a map before them the
East Tennessee region, said to them in substance:
I am thoroughly convinced that the closing struggle of the war will
occur somewhere in this mountain country. By our superior numbers and
strength we will everywhere drive the rebel armies back from the level
districts lying along the coast, from those lying south of the Ohio
River, and from those lying east of the Mississippi River. Yielding to
our superior force, they will gradually retreat to the more defensible
mountain districts, and make their final stand in that part of the South
where the seven States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia come together. The
population there is overwhelmingly and devotedly loyal to the Union. The
despatches from Brigadier-General Thomas of October 28 and November 5
show that, with four additional good regiments, he is willing to
undertake the campaign and is confident he can take immediate
possession. Once established, the people will rally to his support, and
by building a railroad, over which to forward him regular supplies and
needed reinforcements from time to time, we can hold it against all
attempts to dislodge us, and at the same time menace the enemy in any
one of the States I have named.
While his hearers listened with interest, it was evident that their
minds were still full of the prospect of a great battle in Virginia, the
capture of Richmond, and an early suppression of the rebellion. Railroad
building appeared to them altogether too slow an operation of war. To
show how sagacious was the President's advice, we may anticipate by
recalling that in the following summer General Buell spent as much time,
money, and military strength in his attempted march from Corinth to East
Tennessee as would have amply sufficed to build the line from Lexington
to Knoxville recommended by Mr. Lincoln--the general's effort resulting
only in his being driven back to Louisville; that in 1863, Burnside,
under greater difficulties, made the march and successfully held
Knoxville, even without a railroad, which Thomas with a few regiments
could have accomplished in 1861; and that in the final collapse of the
rebellion, in the spring of 1865, the beaten armies of both Johnston and
Lee attempted to retreat for a last stand to this same mountain region
which Mr. Lincoln pointed out in December, 1861.
Though the President received no encouragement from senators and
representatives in his plan to take possession of East Tennessee, that
object was specially enjoined in the instructions to General Buell when
he was sent to command in Kentucky.
"It so happens that a large majority of the inhabitants of eastern
Tennessee are in favor of the Union; it therefore seems proper that you
should remain on the defensive on the line from Louisville to Nashville,
while you throw the mass of your forces by rapid marches by Cumberland
Gap or Walker's Gap on Knoxville, in order to occupy the railroad at
that point, and thus enable the loyal citizens of eastern Tennessee to
rise, while you at the same time cut off the railway communication
between eastern Virginia and the Mississippi."
Three times within the same month McClellan repeated this injunction to
Buell with additional emphasis. Senator Andrew Johnson and
Representative Horace Maynard telegraphed him from Washington:
"Our people are oppressed and pursued as beasts of the forest; the
government must come to their relief."
Buell replied, keeping the word of promise to the ear, but, with his
ambition fixed on a different campaign, gradually but doggedly broke it
to the hope. When, a month later, he acknowledged that his preparations
and intent were to move against Nashville, the President wrote him:
"Of the two, I would rather have a point on the railroad south of
Cumberland Gap than Nashville. _First_, because it cuts a great artery
of the enemy's communication which Nashville does not; and, _secondly_,
because it is in the midst of loyal people, who would rally around it,
while Nashville is not.... But my distress is that our friends in East
Tennessee are being hanged and driven to despair, and even now, I fear,
are thinking of taking rebel arms for the sake of personal protection.
In this we lose the most valuable stake we have in the South."
McClellan's comment amounted to a severe censure, and this was quickly
followed by an almost positive command to "advance on eastern Tennessee
at once." Again Buell promised compliance, only, however, again to
report in a few weeks his conviction "that an advance into East
Tennessee is impracticable at this time on any scale which would be
sufficient." It is difficult to speculate upon the advantages lost by
this unwillingness of a commander to obey instructions. To say nothing
of the strategical value of East Tennessee to the Union, the fidelity of
its people is shown in the reports sent to the Confederate government
that "the whole country is now in a state of rebellion"; that "civil war
has broken out in East Tennessee"; and that "they look for the
reëstablishment of the Federal authority in the South with as much
confidence as the Jews look for the coming of the Messiah."
Henry W. Halleck, born in 1815, graduated from West Point in 1839, who,
after distinguished service in the Mexican war, had been brevetted
captain of Engineers, but soon afterward resigned from the army to
pursue the practice of law in San Francisco, was, perhaps, the best
professionally equipped officer among the number of those called by
General Scott in the summer of 1861 to assume important command in the
Union army. It is probable that Scott intended he should succeed himself
as general-in-chief; but when he reached Washington the autumn was
already late, and because of Frémont's conspicuous failure it seemed
necessary to send Halleck to the Department of the Missouri, which, as
reconstituted, was made to include, in addition to several northwestern
States, Missouri and Arkansas, and so much of Kentucky as lay west of
the Cumberland River. This change of department lines indicates the
beginning of what soon became a dominant feature of military operations;
namely, that instead of the vast regions lying west of the Mississippi,
the great river itself, and the country lying immediately adjacent to
it on either side, became the third principal field of strategy and
action, under the necessity of opening and holding it as a great
military and commercial highway.
While the intention of the government to open the Mississippi River by a
powerful expedition received additional emphasis through Halleck's
appointment, that general found no immediate means adequate to the task
when he assumed command at St. Louis. Frémont's régime had left the
whole department in the most deplorable confusion. Halleck reported that
he had no army, but, rather, a military rabble to command and for some
weeks devoted himself with energy and success to bringing order out of
the chaos left him by his predecessor. A large element of his difficulty
lay in the fact that the population of the whole State was tainted with
disloyalty to a degree which rendered Missouri less a factor in the
larger questions of general army operations, than from the beginning to
the end of the war a local district of bitter and relentless factional
hatred and guerrilla or, as the term was constantly employed,
"bushwhacking" warfare, intensified and kept alive by annual roving
Confederate incursions from Arkansas and the Indian Territory in
desultory summer campaigns.