and the news of the glorious victory at New Orleans reached Washington
simultaneously with that of the signing of the treaty. The war had
been so distasteful to the people of New England that Massachusetts
and Connecticut had passed laws directly antagonistic to those of
the United States, and hostilities between the Federal and State
governments were feared, which, perhaps, were only averted by the
ending of the war. The issues leading to the war of 1812 were left
unsettled by the treaty, but England never again attempted to interfere
with American shipping.
SECOND WAR WITH BARBARY STATES.—Immediately on the close of the
war of 1812, the Algerians, supposing that the American navy was
badly crippled, began again their depredations on American commerce.
Commodore Decatur was sent to the Mediterranean with a squadron, and
once more gave them an American drubbing. June 17, 1815, he destroyed
two Algerine vessels; June 28, in front of the city of Algiers, he
demanded the release of all American prisoners, indemnification for all
property destroyed, and a relinquishment of all claims for tribute from
the United States. The Dey quickly assented to the terms, and signed a
treaty of peace. Tunis, Tripoli, and Morocco were likewise brought to
terms, the United States thus taking the lead of all the other powers
in its determination to break up the piracy of the Barbary States.
MEXICAN WAR.—The Republic of Texas became, by its own request and by
Act of Congress, one of the United States July 4, 1845. Mexico prepared
for war; the United States took measures to protect the new State.
March 8, 1846, General Zachary Taylor marched with fifteen hundred men
to a point on the Rio Grande opposite Matamoras, where he erected Fort
Brown.
[Illustration: SCHOOLSHIP SARATOGA.]
To the secretary of war, William L. Marcy, and to General Winfield
Scott was due the plan of campaign, the battles of which, like
instantaneous flashes of victory from the beginning of the war until
its close, illumine the pages of American history. Then, as now,
Congress was slow to respond to the needs of the military branch of the
government.
April 24, 1846, hostilities began. General Taylor advanced into Mexico
and, May 8, won the brilliant victory of Palo Alto, and again, the next
day, the battle of Resaca de la Palma. Taylor’s force was less than
one third the number of the enemy, whose loss was one thousand. These
two battles crushed the flower of Santa Anna’s army. Taylor returned
to the relief of Fort Brown, where the brave garrison had sustained a
cannonade for 168 hours. September 24, Monterey and its garrison of
nine thousand men were taken by General Taylor with six thousand.
February 23, 1847, Taylor gained the glorious victory of Buena Vista,
in which the Mexican loss was 2000, the American, 714. At times the
Mexicans were within a few yards of Bragg’s guns. “A little more
grape, Captain Bragg,” was Taylor’s celebrated order, the execution
of which decided the day. The American loss was severe in officers.
Taylor’s force, depleted by more than two thirds, which had been
sent to reinforce General Scott, was barely forty-five hundred; the
Mexican troops numbered twenty thousand. Captain Fremont, assisted
by Commodores Sloat and Stockton, had subjugated California; General
Kearney and Colonel Doniphan, Northern Mexico. Doniphan defeated the
Mexicans at Bracito, December 25, 1846, and at Sacramento, February
8, 1847, and took possession of Chihuahua, a city of forty thousand
inhabitants, and marched to join General Wool at Saltillo, March 22.
Early in January, 1847, General Scott reached the mouth of the Rio
Grande, where he awaited the eight thousand troops sent by General
Taylor. This raised his force to twelve thousand. These were landed at
Sacrificios. The Americans debarked just below Vera Cruz between sunset
and ten o’clock on the night of March 8 without a single accident.
With wonderful skill the investiture of Vera Cruz and the castle of
St. John de Ulloa was completed. On March 22 the Governor of Vera Cruz
was summoned to surrender. Day and night the mortar batteries played
upon the city, the fleet ably assisting; and on the 29th the stars and
stripes floated above the walls of city and fortress. The Americans
lost but two officers and a few soldiers. April 18, the magnificent
victory at Cerro Gordo, where three thousand Mexicans were captured,
was won; April 19, Jalapa was taken; April 22, Pecote, the strongest of
Mexican forts, was captured; and May 15, Puebla surrendered to General
Worth. Ten thousand prisoners, seven hundred cannon, ten thousand
stands of arms, and thirty thousand shot and shells were captured
within two months. When the army entered Puebla it numbered but
forty-five hundred.
Reinforcements reaching him, Scott set out from Puebla to the valley of
Mexico on August 7. August 20, the heights of Contreras were assailed
and taken, and the battle of Churubusco—with nine thousand Americans
against thirty thousand Mexicans—was fought and won. September 8,
Molino del Rey was taken; September 13, the heights of Chapultepec.
The Mexicans fled from the capital, and the victorious American army
marched in and took possession of the city, September 14, 1847. Here
Scott and his noble warriors rested until the treaty was concluded at
Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848, and peace was proclaimed, July 4,
by President Polk. Guadalupe Hidalgo, New Mexico, and California were
ceded to the United States, $15,000,000 paid to Mexico, and the debts
due from Mexico to American citizens were assumed by the United States.
THE CIVIL WAR.—It is not here the place to rehearse or to discuss
the causes which led to America’s Civil War, a war perhaps the most
stupendous recorded in history. Looking backward, after the bloody
foot-prints have been well nigh obliterated by the growth of a
generation, we can see that the trend of human progress, the political
problems confronting the federated States, in the solution of which
were evolved elements of discord, the inherited antagonism between
the Puritans of the North and the Cavaliers of the South, all
combined to make the conflict inevitable. For more than a decade of
years grievances had been growing and rumblings were heard, like the
imprisoned fires beneath the surface of the earth, until the election
of Abraham Lincoln as President, pledged to a policy believed to be
inimical to the South, caused the outburst of the volcano, whose fierce
fires and molten lava for four years spread desolation over the land.
[Illustration: ROBERT E. LEE AT CHAPULTEPEC.]
Time and milder judgment have very nearly smoothed away the wrinkles
of discord, and the close of the century finds the nation a reunited
people, whose new compact is written in the life-blood of her sons on
the battlefields of the recent war with Spain.
December 20, 1860, South Carolina; January 9, 1861, Mississippi;
January 10, Florida; January 11, Alabama; January 18, Georgia; January
23, Louisiana, and February 1, Texas, one by one asserted their
supposed right to withdraw from the federal compact, and enacted
ordinances of secession in their several state conventions. Each State,
as it took action, claimed and possessed itself of all government
property, forts, guns, ammunition, within its borders, and armed its
militia for garrison duty. A convention of delegates from the seceded
States, held February 4, 1861, at Montgomery, Alabama, organized a new
federation, to be known as the Confederate States of America, chose
Jefferson Davis President and Alexander Stephens Vice-President, and
set the whole machinery of a provisional government in working order.
July 20, Richmond became the capital of the Southern Confederacy.
Virginia seceded April 17; Arkansas, May 6; North Carolina, May 20, and
Tennessee, June 8. Kentucky declared neutrality.
Lincoln, upon assuming the executive chair, March 4, 1861, found the
treasury depleted, the army of only sixteen thousand men scattered in
the West, and many of its best officers already with the Confederacy.
The navy had been sadly neglected by Congress, partly because this
branch of the service had been steadily antagonized by the West, so
that at the beginning of the war, both as to vessels and armament, it
was by no means in a condition for active service. As in the army, some
of its most valuable officers had espoused the cause of their native
States, and the South Atlantic and Gulf ports, being in possession
of the new federation, left the United States vessels no place of
refuge. With unlimited means at command, the Union navy increased the
number of its vessels to 588—75 of them ironclads—with 4443 guns
and 30,000 men, before the end of 1862. Torpedoes and steel rams were
first used during this war, and monitors, just invented, were used
by the United States. With a nucleus of 10 vessels, around which to
build its navy, the Confederacy had, by November, raised the number to
34. Until the blockade became effective, “cotton was king;” for, in
October, 1861, the Nashville, running out with a heavy consignment,
brought back into Charleston in exchange a cargo worth $3,000,000.
Vessel after vessel was bought from English shipbuilders, among them
the celebrated Alabama, which, in the fourteen months of her service,
captured sixty-nine prizes, and destroyed ten million dollars’ worth of
merchandise. The armored ram Stonewall was bought in France.
April 12, 1861, Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor, was forced to
surrender to the Confederates, and the first shot at the old flag
ushered in the long, bitter struggle.
Troops were called for by Lincoln. Lieutenant-General Scott, the
veteran hero of Mexico, was in command of the army. In three months,
three hundred thousand men were in the field. One hundred thousand had
swarmed to the Confederate ranks. General McClellan was sent to the
front and, after the resignation of Scott in the latter part of the
year, was made commander of the army.
July 21, the battle of Bull Run was fought. The Union troops were
disastrously routed and retreated in confusion to Washington. The army
did little more during this year.
[Illustration: CASTLE WILLIAM. MILITARY PRISON, GOVERNOR’S ISLAND, NEW
YORK HARBOR.]
April 21, after setting fire to and destroying the Navy Yard and ships,
Norfolk was evacuated by the Union forces. The frigate Merrimac, which
had been sunk, was raised by the Confederates, plated with iron,
renamed “Virginia,” and became the scourge of the shipping off the
Virginia coast.
The navy, as is usual, and because of its very organization, got in its
effective work much earlier than did the army, and the seizure of the
forts and ports on the coast of the seceded States began at once. Fort
Hatteras was taken August 29; Port Royal, in South Carolina, November
7. November 7 a naval officer, by overhauling an English mail steamer
and taking off Messrs. Mason and Slidell, who had been appointed
commissioners of the Confederate States to France and England, very
nearly caused a complication with the latter power. Mr. Seward’s
diplomacy settled the incident amicably, and the commissioners were
allowed to proceed upon their mission, which, however, proved futile.
By the close of the year, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, at first
doubtful, were securely in the Union, though many of their citizens
were in the Southern army.
1862.—February 6, General Grant, commanding the army of the Tennessee,
with the assistance of Commodore Foote and his gunboats, captured Fort
Henry, on the Tennessee River, and, on the 16th, Fort Donelson on the
Cumberland. The Federal forces had reached the number of four hundred
and fifty thousand, of which McClellan had two hundred thousand.
May 23, at Front Royal, and May 25, at Winchester, “Stonewall” Jackson
defeated the Union troops and forced them across the Potomac. Banks,
Fremont, and McDowell, concentrating their forces, bore down on
Jackson, who slipped through their lines, and, on June 9, defeated
Shields at Fort Republic.
The cry of the Northern press was, “On to Richmond,” and McClellan
endeavored to obey the command. He had arrived not far from the city,
between the York and James rivers, when he was defeated in the bloody
battle of Seven Pines, May 31 and June 1. The Confederate General
Johnston was wounded, and General Lee was assigned to the command of
the army of Northern Virginia, which he retained until the end.
The Seven Days’ battles, from June 25 to July 1, were fought at fearful
cost to the Confederates; nevertheless, “it was a glorious victory,”
and the siege of Richmond was raised. Lee advanced toward Washington,
met the armies of Banks and Pope, and defeated them in the second
battle of Bull Run, August 29 and 30, and at Chantilly, September 1
and 2, forcing Pope’s army to retreat to Washington. The clamor in the
South had been, “On to Washington.” Lee crossed the Potomac at Harper’s
Ferry and took twelve thousand prisoners. McClellan, who had been
recalled, met the Confederates at Sharpsburg (Antietam), September 17,
and fought a battle with undecisive results. Each side lost about ten
thousand men, and Lee returned.
The Union army under Burnside, who had superseded McClellan, met a
fearful repulse at Fredericksburg, December 13, with a loss of fourteen
thousand. The Confederate loss was five thousand.
December 31, January 1 and 2, was fought the terrible battle of
Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where Bragg’s force was 35,000, and his loss
in killed, wounded, and missing, 10,466. Rosecrans’s force was 43,400,
and his loss 12,595.
March 8, the Virginia attacked the Union fleet at Fortress Monroe and
destroyed the Cumberland and the Congress. The next day, the Monitor
attacked the Virginia, and, after five hours’ fighting, succeeded
in disabling her so that she returned to Norfolk. The Virginia was
destroyed by the Confederates before evacuating Norfolk, May 10.
Admiral Farragut, with a fleet of 45 vessels, entered the Mississippi
and bombarded the forts of St. Philip and Jackson. Despising the fear
of mines and torpedoes, he continued on his course, defeating the
Confederate fleet, and, together with General Butler, entered New
Orleans April 25. During this year the navy, with the assistance of
land forces, had retaken all important ports on the Virginia, North
Carolina, and Georgia coasts, seriously interfering with the blockade
running, upon which the Confederacy depended for its foreign supplies.
The year 1862 closed with no advantage having been gained on either
side.
[Illustration: GENERALS ROBERT E. LEE AND STONEWALL JACKSON.]
1863.—On January 1, Lincoln issued the threatened Emancipation
Proclamation. This destroyed the last hope of the Confederacy for
recognition by England. No event of importance occurred before the
middle of spring, when Hooker, who had relieved Burnside, made
another advance upon Richmond, and was routed by Lee and Jackson at
Chancellorsville, May 2, and on the 5th was forced across the Rapidan
with a loss of seventeen thousand. The Confederate loss was less than
five thousand. In Jackson’s death the Confederacy received a blow, the
consequences of which may never be estimated.
Lee’s army again crossed the Potomac for an invasion of the North.
The Union forces, under Meade, marched in an almost parallel line
with Lee’s through Maryland into Pennsylvania. They met and fought
at Gettysburg, July 1, 2, and 3, one of the decisive battles of the
world’s history. Lee was forced to again retire beyond the river. The
Union could well afford the loss of twenty-three thousand men, but
Lee’s loss of twenty thousand of the choice troops of his army was
irreparable.
In the meantime, Grant had been sent to open the Mississippi, and after
a six weeks’ siege, on July 4, Vicksburg, with nearly thirty thousand
prisoners and vast quantities of stores, fell into his hands. These two
almost simultaneous victories greatly encouraged the North, and formed
the turning point in the history of the war. July 9, Banks’s victory
at Port Hudson accomplished the desired possession of the Mississippi
River.
Bragg, who had been sorely pressed by Rosecrans, made a stand at
Chickamauga, defeating the Union General Rosecrans, September 19 and
20, and forcing him to retreat to Chattanooga, where he was besieged by
Bragg. Grant, with Sherman, coming to his aid, the battles of Lookout
Mountain and Missionary Ridge were fought, November 23 and 25, and
Bragg was driven back into Georgia.
The Federal navy was gradually taking possession of the whole coast,
and Charleston was tightly blockaded. In March the Confederate ship
Nashville was sunk in the entrance of the Savannah River.
During this year both governments were forced to resort to
conscription. Lincoln ordered a draft, and, in July, a three days’ riot
in consequence prevailed in New York, during which two million dollars’
worth of property was destroyed.
1864.—In March, Grant was put in command of the whole Union army, the
grade of lieutenant-general having been revived in his behalf. He left
Sherman in command, repaired to Washington, and, May 3, started on the
third campaign against Richmond, with a force of one hundred and forty
thousand. Sherman, with one hundred thousand, was to march to Atlanta.
The whole strength of the Union army at this time was about seven
hundred thousand. Grant had spent some weeks in formulating his plans
of campaigns, from the main features of which he never deviated. The
Union had at last found the man, and at the same time had acquired the
wisdom to leave the conduct of the war to his judgment; proving, also,
that “there is no war on record that has not given its man to the world
or shaped the destiny of some other.”
Crossing the Rapidan, Grant encountered the Confederates, and the
fighting, on the 5th, 6th, and 7th, of the battles of the Wilderness,
was terrific, but the result undecisive. At Spottsylvania he fought
from the 8th to the 18th with fearful loss. June 1, he was repulsed at
Cold Harbor, and again on the 3d, and fighting, more or less desultory,
continued in that vicinity until the 12th. Since the opening of the
campaign, the Union army had lost sixty thousand men; the Confederate
thirty thousand. Grant moved on Petersburg and began the siege which
lasted from June until the next April. The western part of Virginia had
seceded from the eastern portion, and, June 20, was admitted into the
United States.
[Illustration: GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT.]
To divert Grant, and, if possible, to raise the siege of Petersburg,
in July, Lee sent General Early to threaten Washington and Baltimore,
which he accomplished without, however, affecting Grant’s position.
Returning laden with spoils, Early turned, and driving back the
Federal troops invaded Pennsylvania, burning Chambersburg, and came
back again bringing vast quantities of supplies. Sheridan was sent to
dispose of Early and to ravage the valley. At Winchester, he met and
defeated Early in a very severe fight on October 20, almost destroying
the force under that general’s command. Sherman set out for Chattanooga
on May 7, marching towards Atlanta. At Dalton he met General Johnston’s
army of fifty thousand men. Johnston’s masterly retreat from Dalton to
Atlanta is unrivaled in military history. He made a stand from May 25
to June 4 at Dallas, but, being outflanked, was obliged to fall back.
The next stand was made at Great Kenesaw, on June 22, when he repulsed
the Federals. On the 27th, Sherman made a powerful assault, but was
again repulsed with a loss of four thousand, Johnston’s loss being
four hundred; but, again outflanked. Johnston was forced across the
Chattahoochie, and July 10 found the Confederate army entrenched in
Atlanta.
Johnston’s retreating tactics caused the people to clamor for a
“fighting leader,” and Davis, in transferring the command from
Johnston at such a crucial time, committed a grave error. Johnston was
superseded by General Hood, whose chief ambition was to fight, which,
in this case, was a great mistake in judgment. On the 20th, 22d, and
28th of July, Hood assaulted the lines of the besiegers, only to be
repulsed again and again. In these fights more men were lost than
during Johnston’s long, skillful retreat. An injudicious movement
by Hood separated his command, obliging him to evacuate Atlanta, of
which Sherman, on September 2, took possession. In its advance on
Atlanta, the Union army had lost thirty thousand men. Hood saved his
army and made his way towards Nashville, hoping to divert Sherman from
Georgia. At Franklin, November 30, he met General Schofield, and drove
him back to Nashville, from whence General Thomas made a sortie, and
fell upon Hood’s troops, December 15, completely routing them. In the
two fights, Hood lost in killed, wounded, and captured over eleven
thousand. With the remnant he escaped into Alabama, and these finally
reached Johnston, participated in his last fight with Sherman, and were
surrendered at Raleigh with the troops of their old commander.
November 14, Sherman burned Atlanta, cut all telegraph lines and began
his “March to the Sea,” ravaging, devastating, and utterly destroying
everything in his reach. He was opposed by the Confederate cavalry,
which successfully defended the cities of Macon and Augusta, upon which
the Confederacy mainly depended for the manufacture of munitions of
war. Sherman entered Savannah on December 22, the advance having cost
him only 567 men killed and wounded.
[Illustration: SHERMAN’S MARCH TO THE SEA.]
On June 19, the celebrated sea fight between the Kearsarge and the
Alabama took place off Cherbourg, France. The Alabama was sunk after
a five hours’ fight. Admiral Semmes was rescued by the Deerhound,
belonging to an English gentleman, and thus saved from capture. August
5, Commodore Farragut, overcoming the Confederate ram Tennessee and the
gunboats, sailed into Mobile Bay, commanding his fleet from the maintop
of his flagship.
1865.—The opening of the campaign of 1865 found Grant’s army still
before Petersburg. On April 2, he ordered an attack along his whole
line, which had been so lengthened that the lines of Lee’s depleted
army were very thin. The Confederates were driven back with heavy loss.
Lee telegraphed to Davis: “My lines are broken in three places; we can
hold Petersburg no longer. Richmond must be evacuated this evening.”
That night Admiral Semmes, in obedience to orders, destroyed the
Confederate fleet in the James River. Richmond was in the possession of
the Union forces the next day, and on April 4 Lincoln held a reception
in Davis’s vacated mansion. Lee attempted to break through Grant’s
lines at Appomattox, but closely pursued by Sheridan, and finding
further retreat impossible, he surrendered with about twenty-six
thousand men on the 9th of April.
Grant’s magnanimous terms were worthy of his fame. The troops were
paroled on condition of promise not to take up arms until exchanged.
The officers were permitted to keep baggage and side arms, and all were
to retain their horses, as, Grant said, “they would be needed in the
crops.”
[Illustration: LEE’S SURRENDER AT APPOMATTOX.]
Turning northward from Savannah, Sherman continued his march and
reached Fayetteville, North Carolina. Wilmington had been captured
early in the year by a land and naval force. Johnston had been
reinforced by the garrison which had been forced to evacuate Charleston
and the remnant of Hood’s army, and had several severe fights, with no
decisive results, with Sherman, who entered Raleigh; and here, on April
26, Johnston’s army surrendered on the same terms given by Grant.
December 31 and January 1 Fort Fisher was captured, and on January 12
Wilmington was entered by the Federals; February 18, Charleston was
captured.