BANKS IN COMMAND.
When the campaigns of 1862 were drawing to an end, the government
changed all the commanders and turned to the consideration of new
plans. With President Lincoln, as we have seen, the opening of
the Mississippi had long been a favored scheme. His early experience
had rendered him familiar with the waters, the shores, and the vast
traffic of the great river, and had brought home to him the common
interests and the mutual dependence of the farmers, the traders,
the miners, and the manufacturers of the States bordering upon the
upper Mississippi and the Ohio on the one hand, and of the merchants
and planters of the Gulf on the other. Thus he was fully prepared
to enter warmly into the idea that had taken possession of the
minds and hearts of the people of the Northwest. From a vague
longing this idea had now grown into a deep and settled sentiment.
Indeed in all the West the opening of the Mississippi played a part
that can only be realized by comparing it with the prevailing
sentiment of the East, so early, so long, so loudly expressed in
the cry, "On to Richmond!"
That the President should have been in complete accord with the
popular impulse is hardly to be wondered at by any one that has
followed, with the least attention, the details of his remarkable
career. Moreover, the popular impulse was right. Wars take their
character from the causes that produce them and the people or the
nations by whom they are waged. This was not a contest upon some
petty question involving the fate of a ministry, a dynasty, or even
a monarchy, to be fought out between regular armies upon well-known
plans at the convergence of the roads between two opposing capitals.
The struggle was virtually one between two peoples hitherto united
as one,--between the people of the North, who had taken up arms
for the maintenance and the restoration of the Union, and the people
of the South, who had taken up arms to destroy the Union. Of such
an issue there could be no compromise; to such a contest there
could be no end short of exhaustion. For four long years it was
destined to go on, and at times to rage with a fury almost unexampled
along lines whose length was measured by the thousand miles and
over a battle-ground nearly as large as the continent of Europe.
Looked at merely from the standpoint of strategy, and discarding
all considerations not directly concerning the movements of armies,
true policy might, perhaps, have dictated the concentration of all
available resources in men and material upon the great central
lines of operations, roughly indicated by the mention of Chattanooga
and Atlanta,--the road eventually followed by Sherman in his
triumphant march to the sea. Apart, however, from considerations
strictly tactical, the importance of cutting off the trans-Mississippi
region as a source of supply for the main Confederate armies was
obvious; while from the governments of Europe, of England and France
above all, the pressure was great for cotton, partly, indeed, as
a pretext for interfering in our domestic struggle to their own
advantage, but largely, also, to enable those governments to quiet
the cry of the starving millions of their people.
Instructed, as well as warned, by the events of the previous summer,
the President now resolved on a combined attempt by two strong
columns. On the 21st of October he sent Major-General John A.
McClernand to Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, with confidential orders,
authorizing him to raise troops for an expedition, under his command,
to move against Vicksburg from Cairo or Memphis as a place of
rendezvous, and "to clear the Mississippi River and open navigation
to New Orleans." Perhaps because of the confidence still felt in
Grant by the President himself, although within narrowing limits,
Grant was not to share the fate of McClellan, of Buell, and of so
many others. The secret orders were not made known to him, yet it
was settled that he was to retain the command of his department,
while the principal active operations of the army within its limits
were to be conducted by another. Even for this consideration it
is rather more than likely he was indebted in a great degree to
the exceptional advantage he enjoyed in having at all times at the
seat of government, in the person of Washburne, a strong and devoted
party of one, upon whose assistance the government daily found it
convenient to lean.
A few days later, on the 31st of October, Major-General Nathaniel
P. Banks was sent to New York and Boston, with similar orders, to
collect in New England and New York a force for the co-operating
column from New Orleans. On the 8th of November this was followed
by the formal order of the President assigning Banks to the command
of the Department of the Gulf, including the State of Texas.
This assignment was wholly unexpected by Banks. It was, indeed,
unsought and unsolicited, and the first offer, from the President
himself, came as a surprise. At the close of Pope's campaign, when
the reorganized Army of the Potomac, once more under McClellan,
was in march to meet Lee in Maryland, Banks had been forced, by
injuries received at Cedar Mountain, to give up the command of the
Twelfth Army Corps to the senior division commander, Brigadier-General
A. S. Williams. As soon as this was reported at headquarters,
McClellan created a new organization under the name of the "Defences
of Washington," and placed Banks in command.
For some time after this Banks was unable to leave his room; yet,
within forty-eight hours, a mob of thirty thousand wounded men and
convalescents, who knew not where to go, and of stragglers, who
meant not to go where they were wanted, was cleared out of the
streets of Washington, and pandemonium was at an end. Order was
rather created than restored, since none had existed in any direction.
The Fifth Corps was sent to join the army in the field; within a
fortnight, a full army corps of able-bodied stragglers followed;
the fortifications were completed; ample garrisons of instructed
artillerists were provided. These became "the Heavies" of Grant's
campaigns. Almost another full army corps was organized from the
new regiments. Finally the whole force of the defences, about
equal in numbers to Lee's army, was so disposed that Washington
was absolutely secure. The dispositions for the defence of the
capital and the daily operations of the command were clearly and
constantly made known to the President and Secretary of War as well
as to the General-in-chief. Thus it was that, less than two months
later, in the closing days of October, President Lincoln sent for
Banks and said: "You have let me sleep in peace for the first time
since I came here. I want you to go to Louisiana and do the same
thing there."
On the 9th of November Halleck communicated to Banks the orders of
the President to proceed immediately to New Orleans with the troops
from Baltimore and elsewhere, under Emory, already assembling in
transports at Fort Monroe. An additional force of ten thousand
men, he was told, would be sent to him from Boston and New York as
soon as possible. Though this order was never formally revoked or
modified, yet in fact it was from the first a dead letter, and
Banks, who received it in New York, remained there to complete the
organization and to look after the collection and transport of the
additional force mentioned in Halleck's instructions. Including
the eight regiments of Emory, but not counting four regiments of
infantry and five battalions of cavalry diverted to other fields,
the reinforcements for the Department of the Gulf finally included
thirty-nine regiments of infantry, six batteries of artillery, and
one battalion of cavalry. Of the infantry twenty-one regiments
were composed of officers and men enlisted to serve for nine months.
Even of this brief period many weeks had, in some cases, already
elapsed. To command the brigades and divisions, when organized,
Major-General Christopher C. Auger, and Brigadier-Generals Cuvier
Grover, William Dwight, George L. Andrews, and James Bowen were
ordered to report to Banks.
The work of chartering the immense fleet required to transport this
force, with its material of all kinds, was confided by the government
to Cornelius Vanderbilt, possibly in recognition of his recent
princely gift to the nation of the finest steamship of his fleet,
bearing his own name. This service Vanderbilt performed with his
usual vigor, "laying hands," as he said, "upon every thing that
could float or steam," including, it must be added, more than one
vessel to which it would have been rash to ascribe either of these
qualities.
Before the embarkation each vessel was carefully inspected by a
board of officers, usually composed of the inspector-general or an
officer of his department, an experienced quartermaster, and an
officer of rank and intelligence, who was himself to sail on the
vessel. This last was a new, but, as soon appeared, a very necessary
precaution. When every thing was nearly ready the embarkation
began at New York, and as each vessel was loaded she was sent to
sea with sealed orders directing her master and the commanding
officer of the troops to make the best of their way to Ship Island,
and there await the further instructions of the general commanding.
Ship Island was chosen for the place of meeting because of the
great draught of water of some of the vessels. At the same time
Emory's force, embarking at Hampton Roads, set out under convoy of
the man-of-war _Augusta_, Commander E. G. Parrott, for the same
destination with similar orders.
For three months the _Florida_ had lain at anchor in the harbor at
Mobile, only waiting for a good opportunity to enter upon her
historic career of destruction. Since the 20th of August the
_Alabama_ was known to have been scourging our commerce in the
North Atlantic from the Azores to the Antilles. On the 5th of
December she took a prize off the northern coast of San Domingo.
Relying on the information with which he was freely furnished,
Semmes expected to find the expedition off Galveston about the
middle of January. In the dead of night, "after the midwatch was
set and all was quiet," he meant, in the words of his executive
officer,(1) slowly to approach the transports, "steam among them
with both batteries in action, pouring in a continuous discharge
of shell, and sink them as we went." Fortunately Semmes's information,
though profuse and precise, was not quite accurate, for it brought
him off Galveston on the 13th of January: the wrong port, a month
too late. What might have happened is shown by the ease with which
he then destroyed the _Hatteras_.
To guard against these dangers, it had been the wish of the
government, and was a part of the original plan, that the transports
sailing from New York should be formed in a single fleet and proceed,
under strong convoy, to its destination. However, it soon became
evident that as the rate of sailing of a fleet is governed by that
of its slowest ship, the expedition, thus organized, would be forced
to crawl along the coast at a speed hardly greater than five miles
an hour. This would not only have exposed three ships out of five,
and five regiments out of six, for at least twice the necessary
time to the perils of the sea, increased by having to follow an
inshore track at this inclement season; it would not only have
introduced chances of detention and risks of collision and of
separation, but the peril from the _Alabama_ would have been
augmented in far greater degree than the security afforded by any
naval force the government could just then spare. Therefore, the
slow ships were loaded and sent off first and the faster ones kept
back to the last; then, each making the best of its way to Ship
Island, nearly all came in together. Thus, when the _North Star_,
bearing the flag of the commanding general and sailing from New
York on the 4th of December, arrived in the early morning of the
13th at Ship Island, nearly the whole fleet lay at anchor or in
the offing; and as soon as a hasty inspection could be completed
and fresh orders given, the expedition got under way for New Orleans.
The larger vessels, however, like the _Atlantic, Baltic_, and
_Ericsson_ being unable to cross the bar, lay at anchor at Ship
Island until they could be lightened.
Truly grand as was the spectacle afforded by the black hulls and
white sails of this great concourse of ships at anchor, in the
broad roadstead, yet a grander sight still was reserved for the
next day, a lovely Sunday, as all these steamers in line ahead,
the _North Star_ leading, flags flying, bands playing, the decks
blue with the soldiers of the Union, majestically made their way
up the Mississippi. Most of those on board looked for the first
time, with mingled emotions, over the pleasant lowlands of Louisiana,
and all were amused at the mad antics of the pageant-loving negroes,
crowding and capering on the levee as plantation after plantation
was passed. So closely had the secret been kept that, until the
transports got under way from Ship Island for the purpose, probably
not more than three or four officers, if so many, of all the force
really knew its destination. Nor was it until the two generals
met at New Orleans that Butler learned that Banks was to relieve
him.
On the 15th of December Banks took the command of the Department
of the Gulf, although the formal orders were not issued until the
17th. The officers of the department, as well as of the personal
staff of General Butler, were relieved from duty and permitted to
accompany him to the North. The new staff of the department included
Lieutenant-Colonel Richard B. Irwin, Assistant Adjutant-General;
Lieutenant-Colonel William S. Abert, Assistant Inspector-General;
Major G. Norman Lieber, Judge-Advocate; Colonel Samuel B. Holabird,
Chief Quartermaster; Colonel Edward G. Beckwith, Chief Commissary
of Subsistence; Surgeon Richard H. Alexander, Medical Director;
Major David C. Houston, Chief Engineer; Captain Henry L. Abbot,
Chief of Topographical Engineers; First-Lieutenant Richard M. Hill,
Chief of Ordnance; Captain Richard Arnold, Chief of Artillery;
Captain William W. Rowley, Chief Signal Officer.
Banks's orders from the government were to go up the Mississippi
and open the river, in co-operation with McClernand's expedition
against Vicksburg. "As the ranking general of the Southwest,"
Halleck's orders proceeded, "you are authorized to assume control
of any military forces from the upper Mississippi which may come
within your command. The line of the division between your department
and that of Major-General Grant is, therefore, left undecided for
the present, and you will exercise superior authority as far north
as you may ascend the river. The President regards the opening of
the Mississippi river as the first and most important of all our
military and naval operations, and it is hoped that you will not
lose a moment in accomplishing it."
Immediately on assuming command Banks ordered Grover to take all
the troops that were in condition for service at once to Baton
Rouge, under the protection of the fleet, and there disembark and
go into camp. Augur was specially charged with the arrangements
for the despatch of the troops from New Orleans. Before starting
they were carefully inspected, and all that were found to be affected
with disease of a contagious or infectious character were sent
ashore and isolated.
On the morning of the 16th the advance of Grover's expedition got
under way, under convoy of a detachment of Farragut's fleet, led
by Alden in the _Richmond_. Grover took with him about 4,500 men,
but when all were assembled at Baton Rouge there were twelve
regiments, three batteries, and two troops of cavalry. The
Confederates, who were in very small force, promptly evacuated
Baton Rouge, and Grover landed and occupied the place on the 17th
of December. After sending off the last of the troops, Augur went
up and took command. The lines constructed by Paine in August were
occupied and strengthened, and all arrangements promptly made for
the defence in view of an attack, such as might not unnaturally be
looked for from Port Hudson, whose garrison then numbered more than
12,000 effectives. The two places are but a long day's march apart.
Since the occupation in August, the Confederate forces at Port
Hudson had been commanded by Brigadier-General William N. R. Beall.
On the 28th of December, however, he was relieved by Major-General
Frank Gardner, who retained the command thenceforward until the
end. While the war lasted, Baton Rouge continued to be held by
the Union forces without opposition or even serious menace.
An attempt to occupy Galveston was less fortunate. This movement
was ordered by Banks a few days after his arrival at New Orleans,
apparently under the pressure of continued importunity from Andrew
J. Hamilton, and in furtherance of the policy that had led the
government to send him with the expedition, nominally as a
brigadier-general, but under a special commission from the President
that named him as military governor of Texas. On the 21st of
December, three companies, D, G, and I, of the 42d Massachusetts,
under Colonel Isaac S. Burrell, were sent from New Orleans without
disembarking from the little _Saxon_, on which they had made the
journey from New York. With them went Holcomb's 2d Vermont battery,
leaving their horses to follow ten days later on the _Cambria_,
with the horses and men of troops A and B of the Texas cavalry.
Protected by the flotilla under Commander W. B. Renshaw, comprising
his own vessel, the _Westfield_, the gunboats _Harriet Lane_,
Commander J. M. Wainwright; _Clifton_, Commander Richard L. Law;
_Owasco_, Lieutenant Henry Wilson; and _Sachem_, Acting-Master Amos
Johnson; and the schooner _Corypheus_, Acting-Master Spears, Burrell
landed unopposed at Kuhn's Wharf on the 24th, and took nominal
possession of the town in accordance with his instructions. These
were indeed rather vague, as befitted the shadowy nature of the
objects to be accomplished. "The situation of the people of
Galveston," wrote General Banks, "makes it expedient to send a
small force there for the purpose of their protection, and also to
afford such facilities as may be possible for recruiting soldiers
for the military service of the United States." Burrell was
cautioned not to involve himself in such difficulty as to endanger
the safety of his command, and it was rather broadly hinted that
he was not to take orders from General Hamilton. In reality,
Burrell's small force occupied only the long wharf, protected by
barricades at the shore end, and seaward by the thirty-two guns of
the fleet, lying at anchor within 300 yards.
Magruder, who had been barely a month in command of the Confederate
forces in Texas, had given his first attention to the defenceless
condition of the coast, menaced as it was by the blockading fleet,
and thus it happened that Burrell's three companies, performing
their maiden service on picket between wind and water, found
themselves confronted by the two brigades of Scurry and Sibley,
Cook's regiment of heavy artillery, and Wilson's light battery,
with twenty-eight guns, and two armed steamboats, having their
vulnerable parts protected by cotton bales.
Long before dawn on the 1st of January, 1863, under cover of a
heavy artillery fire, the position of the 42d Massachusetts was
assaulted by two storming parties of 300 and 500 men respectively,
led by Colonels Green, Bagby, and Cook, the remainder of the troops
being formed under Scurry in support. A brisk fight followed, but
the defenders had the concentrated fire of the fleet to protect
them; the scaling ladders proved too short to reach the wharf, and
as day began to break, the baffled assailants were about to draw
off, when, suddenly, the Confederate gunboats appeared on the scene
and in a few moments turned the defeat into a signal victory. The
_Neptune_ was disabled and sunk by the _Harriet Lane_, the _Harriet
Lane_ was boarded and captured by the _Bayou City_, the _Westfield_
ran aground and was blown up by her gallant commander, and soon
the white flag floated from the masts of all the Union fleet.
Wainwright and Wilson had been killed; Renshaw, with his executive
officer, Zimmermann, and his chief engineer, Green, had perished
with the ship. The survivors were given three hours to consider
terms.
When Burrell saw the flag of truce from the fleet, he too showed
the white flag and surrendered to the commander of the Confederate
troops. The Confederates ceased firing on him as soon as they
perceived his signal, but the navy, observing that the fire on
shore went on for some time, notwithstanding the naval truce,
thought it had been violated; accordingly the _Clifton, Owasco,
Sachem_, and _Corypheus_ put out to sea, preceded by the army
transport steamers _Saxon_ and _Mary A. Boardman_. On the latter
vessel were the military governor of Texas, with his staff, and
the men and guns of Holcomb's battery.
The Confederates lost 26 killed and 117 wounded; the Union troops
5 killed and 15 wounded, and all the survivors (probably about 250
in number) were made prisoners save the adjutant, Lieutenant Charles
A. Davis, who had been sent off to communicate with the fleet.
The navy lost 29 killed, 31 wounded, and 92 captured. So ended
this inauspicious New Year's day.
The transports made the best of their way to New Orleans with the
news. The _Cambria_, with the Texas cavalry and the horses of the
2d Vermont battery, arrived in the offing on the evening of the 2d
of January. For two days a strong wind and high sea rendered
fruitless all efforts to communicate with the shore; then learning
the truth, the troops at once returned to New Orleans.
Orders had been left with the guard ship at Pilot Town to send the
transport steamers, _Charles Osgood_ and _Shetucket_, with the
remainder of the 42d, directly to Galveston. It was now necessary
to change these orders, and to do it promptly. The bad news reached
headquarters early in the afternoon of the 3d January: "Stop every
thing going to Galveston," was at once telegraphed to the Pass.
(1) "Cruise and Combats of the _Alabama_," by her Executive Officer,
John Mackintosh Kell.--"Century War Book," vol. iv., p. 603.