the leading strategist in that entire host. He knew all the details of
the ground and all the difficulties to be overcome, better than any
other man. He studied them more closely, and with more intelligence
than any other man, not only because it was his duty to do so, but
because he was conscious of the portentous fact now so commonly lost
sight of that the safety and success of the army depended upon the
discovery and adoption of a feasible plan of action. Grant, the
generalissimo, had neither the time nor opportunity to gather the
facts. He was neither an engineer nor strange as it may seem, a close
calculator of the chances.
He necessarily depended upon the Chief Engineer, and the criticism
which was sure to come from others, to gather and sift the data upon
which final action must be based. Thomas was there from the first,
able, methodical and invincible, a great field tactician, but not
specially distinguished for his knowledge of engineering, grand tactics
or strategy. Sherman came afterwards. He was bold, active and
energetic, and had a fine eye for topography. He knew as well as anyone
what could be done and what could not be done by an army, but he came
too late to take part in the original investigations, or to do anything
more than to accept the part assigned to him, and from an examination
of the ground say whether or not he could carry it out. The important
fact is that Smith was, beyond any question, the first mind among them
all for working out just such problems as confronted the leaders of the
Union army at Chattanooga, and that task was by common consent assigned
to him. The responsibility was Grant's. His judgment and resolution
must necessarily decide and execute, but it was Smith's place to gather
the facts and work out the details of one of the most complicated
military problems that was ever presented for solution, and it can
hardly be too much to say that he discharged his task with such
patience, skill and success as to justly entitle himself to be known in
history as the Strategist of Chattanooga. Were his distinguished
associates living, it cannot be doubted they would willingly concede
that honor to him. In their official reports and correspondence at the
time they went far beyond the usual limit to give him praise, and
although Grant finally withdrew his friendship from him, for reasons
which will be given hereafter, he never in the slightest degree
withdrew or modified the praise he had awarded him for his services in
the Chattanooga campaign.
But to return to the details of the plan of operations. It was Smith
who discovered the possibility of turning Bragg's position on
Missionary Ridge, by the Army of the Tennessee. After personal
examination of the lay of the ground he suggested that Sherman's army
coming up from Bridgeport through Lookout Valley should cross to the
north side of the Tennessee by the bridge at Brown's Ferry, and after
passing to the east side of Moccasin Point, under cover of the woods,
to a position opposite the mouth of Chickamauga Creek, should re-cross
the Tennessee River, by a bridge to be thrown under cover of darkness,
and land on the end of Missionary Ridge with the obvious purpose of
marching along the Ridge and rolling up and destroying Bragg's army, or
taking it in reverse and driving it from its line of supply and
retreat. As early as the 8th of November, Mr. Dana, writing to the
Secretary of War, speaks of a reconnaissance made by Thomas, Smith and
Brannan on the north side of the river to a point opposite the mouth of
Citico Creek, near the head of Missionary Ridge, which he thought at
that time "proved Smith's plan of attack impractical." But further
investigation proved that a passage could he made higher up the river,
and when Sherman was taken to the place that had been selected,
examining both the place for the bridge and its approaches, on both
sides of the river, with his usual care, he closed his field glasses
with a snap and turning to Smith said with emphasis: "Baldy, it can be
done!"
And so much of it as referred to the passage of the river was done
without halt or fault, just as it had been planned. Sherman's entire
army, except his rear division that had been cut off by a break in the
Brown's Ferry floating bridge, was brought upon the field just in the
way suggested and by the means which had been provided by General
Smith. I assisted in transferring the troops to the South bank of the
river at the point of crossing, by the use of the river steamer
"Dunbar," which had been put under my command so as to make certain
that a sufficient force should be on the ground in time to cover the
construction of the bridge. The bridge was laid successfully and the
army was transferred without delay. Every stage of the movement pointed
to an onward and victorious march against Bragg's commanding position,
and a complete victory was finally achieved, but much to the surprise
and disappointment of all, it was not attained at the time nor in the
way that had been expected. The prearranged plan, so far as it concerns
Sherman's army, had no other legitimate purpose than to land it on
Bragg's exposed right flank and double him up or drive him from his
regular line of supply and retreat. And there is nothing more certain
than that there was no man in authority on either side who intended the
battle to be fought as it was actually fought, nor who seriously
expected the victory to be won in the way it finally was won by
Thomas's army, and not by Sherman's.
It is here worthy of remark that for nearly a quarter of a century both
Grant and Sherman believed and contended--in fact both died in the
belief--that Sherman's lodgement on the foot-hills at the north end of
Missionary Ridge, and his unsuccessful attack from that place, caused
Bragg to so weaken his center by withdrawing troops from his center and
left, to resist Sherman, that Thomas met with but little resistance
when he advanced to the attack about ten hours later, in obedience to
Grant's personal order. But it has been shown by irrefutable testimony,
and is now conceded, that there is not a word of truth in this
supposition--"that nothing of the kind occurred," and that in face of
all statements and suppositions to the contrary, however natural they
may have seemed at the time, "not a single regiment, nor a single piece
of artillery," not even "a single Confederate soldier was withdrawn
from Thomas's front to Sherman's on the final day of the battle. All
the Confederate reports are clear and specific on that point."
The simple fact is that the plan of operations for Sherman were clear
and perfect, and they were carried out in their initial stage without
fault or accident, but their execution in the final and vital stage was
marred by Sherman himself or by his subordinates, who never reached the
point from which they could strike a fatal blow, or from which they
could have taken possession of Bragg's communications with the rear.
That Sherman was entirely satisfied with Smith's part in carrying out
the plan, is shown beyond dispute by his report, which bears
"willing testimony to the completeness of this whole
business. All the officers charged with the work were present
and manifested a skill which I cannot praise too highly. I
have never beheld any work done so quietly, so well, and I
doubt if the history of war can show a bridge of * * 1350
feet, laid down so noiselessly and well in so short a time. I
attribute it to the genius and intelligence of General
William F. Smith."
The genuineness of this praise is strikingly attested by General Grant,
who almost immediately after the battle again urged the Secretary of
War to give Smith the promotion which he had previously recommended.
Unmistakably referring to the part taken by Smith in making and
carrying out the plans which had yielded such notable results, he
wrote, among other things: "Recent events have entirely satisfied me of
his great capabilities and merits. I hasten to renew the recommendation
and to urge it."
Shortly afterwards Grant followed this letter by another asking for
Smith's assignment to the command of East Tennessee, to succeed the
luckless Burnside, with whom he was dissatisfied, but in so doing he
intimated that it would be agreeable to him if the government should,
in pursuance of a personal suggestion sent to the War Department about
the same time by Mr. Dana, give General Smith even a higher command. It
is now well known that Grant had in mind the command of the Army of the
Potomac, and not only then, but frequently afterwards, assured General
Smith of his support for that great position.
The friendship of Grant, Sherman and Thomas, for Smith, was at that
time genuine and unmistakable. Neither of these great generals had ever
served with him before. He was a comparative stranger to them, and that
he should have come amongst them from the East under a cloud as he did,
and should in less than two months have won such unusual praise and
recommendations is stronger testimony than their words themselves to
the masterful part he had played at Chattanooga, and in recognition of
which the President made haste to promote him again to the rank of
Major General, at that time the highest grade in the service. It is to
be regretted, however, that the vacancy made by his previous
non-confirmation, having long since been filled, and opposition having
arisen on the part of other generals already promoted and confirmed,
the President did not feel justified in dating his new commission back
to the date of his original appointment. The action of the President,
the Secretary of War, who concurred in it, and the Senate which acted
upon it, this time without reference to the military committee, set the
seal of government approval in the most signal manner upon the services
and abilities of General Smith. No subsequent action or criticism can
deprive him of the great praise and unusual honors which were then
bestowed upon him.
But a new and far less fortunate era was about to open upon General
Smith's career. Grant's work in the west had reached its close, and his
extraordinary success had secured for him the full rank of Lieutenant
General, with the command of all the armies of the United States. It at
once became known to me, and to others serving at that time on his
staff; that it was from the first, and till he went east to take charge
of his new duties, Grant's intention to assign Smith to the command of
the Army of the Potomac. He had come to trust his intelligence,--his
judgment and his extraordinary _coup d'oeil_ implicitly, and to regard
him as a strategist of consummate ability. He made no concealment of
his confidence in him, nor of his intentions in his behalf, and there
can be but little doubt that he would have carried those intentions
into effect could he have done so without injustice to others. But it
is also true that after going to the eastern theatre of war and
conferring with the President, Secretary Stanton, General Meade and
General Butler, the Lieutenant General completely changed his mind, not
only as to the proper plan of campaign for the army of the Potomac,
which he had not previously visited or studied, but as to the
disposition to be made of Smith and the other leading generals. In all
this he had the sagacious advice and support of General Rawlins, his
Chief of Staff and doubtless of other influential persons. Exactly why
he did so, or what were the details of the argument which brought him
to his final conclusions, is still one of the most interesting
unsettled questions of the war. The general argument has already been
indicated in the comprehensive language of Rawlins and that was
doubtless strengthened by Mr. Lincoln, whose homely but astute
reasoning convinced him that the better and safer line of operations
was overland against Lee's army wherever it might be encountered, and
not through a widely eccentric movement by water to a secondary base on
the James River and thence against Richmond.
It is also doubtless true that finding Meade, who had shown himself to
be a prudent and safe commander, if not a brilliant one, not only
favorable to the overland route, but deservedly well thought of by the
President, the cabinet and the army, while Smith, on the other hand, if
not openly opposed to this plan of operations, was somewhat persistent
as was his custom, in favoring a campaign from the lower James, or even
from the sounds of North Carolina, Grant reached the conclusion that it
would be better to retain Meade in immediate command of the principal
army, and to place Smith over all the troops that could be mobilized
from Fortress Monroe in Butler's department. Whatever may have been the
open or secret influences at work, or the reasoning based upon the
facts, this was Grant's first decision, but it is to be observed that
the plan as adopted was afterwards fatally modified by permitting
Butler, notwithstanding his partiality for Smith, as shown by his
recent request for his re-assignment to his department, to take the
field in person, with Smith commanding one of his army corps and
Gillmore the other. In other words, Grant was not altogether a free
agent, though the government had ostensibly given him a free hand. Of
course, Smith knew that in any case he could not be permitted to make
all the plans, even if he held the first subordinate command, and it is
always possible that he had not specially endeared himself to the
leading officers of the eastern armies, but there can hardly be a doubt
that he would have given efficient and loyal support to Grant without
reference to the plan of operations which it might be found necessary
to adopt.
Without pausing here to recapitulate the arguments for and against the
line and general plan of operations actually selected by General Grant,
or to consider further his choice of subordinate commanders, it may he
well to call attention to the fact that the organization and
arrangements made by him for the control and co-operation of the forces
in Virginia, are now generally regarded by military critics as having
been nearly as faulty as they could have been. It will he remembered
that Meade, with a competent staff had immediate command of the Army of
the Potomac, but was followed closely wherever he went by General Grant
and his staff. At the same time Burnside, with the Ninth Corps, having
an older commission than Meade, and having been once in command of the
Army of the Potomac, was for reasons which must be regarded as largely
sentimental, permitted to report directly to and receive his orders
directly from Grant, while Butler with two army corps operating at
first at a considerable distance and later in a semi-detached and less
independent manner, made his reports to and received his instructions
directly from Grant's headquarters.
This arrangement, as might have been foreseen, was fatal to coherent
and prompt co-operative action, and the result was properly described
by Grant himself as comparable only to the work of a "balky team." It
was in the nature of things impossible to make either the armies or the
separate army-corps work harmoniously and effectively together. The
orders issued from the different headquarters were necessarily lacking
in uniformity of style and expression, and failed to secure that prompt
and unfailing obedience that in operations extending over so wide and
difficult a field was absolutely essential, and this was entirely
independent of the merits of the different generals or the
peculiarities of their Chiefs of Staff and Adjutants General. The
forces were too great; they were scattered too widely over the field of
operations; the conditions of the roads, the width of the streams and
the broken and wooded features of the battle fields were too various,
and the means of transport and supply were too inadequate to permit of
simultaneous and synchronous movements, even if they had been
intelligently provided for, and the generals had uniformly done their
best to carry them out.
But when it is considered that Grant's own staff, although presided
over by a very able man from civil life, and containing a number of
zealous and experienced officers from both the regular army and the
volunteers, was not organized for the arrangement of the multifarious
details and combinations of the marches and battles of a great
campaign, and indeed under Grant's special instructions made no efforts
to arrange them, it will be apparent that properly co-ordinated
movements could not be counted upon. When it is further considered that
Meade, Burnside, Butler, Hunter and afterwards Sheridan, as well as the
corps commanders, were left almost invariably to work out the details
for themselves, it will be seen that prompt, orderly, simultaneous and
properly co-operating movements on an extended scale, from different
parts of the same theatre of operations, and that properly combined
marches and battle movements were almost impossible. As a fact they
rarely ever took place, and it is not to be wondered at that the best
officers of every grade in the armies operating in Virginia found much
throughout the campaign, from beginning to end, to criticise and
complain of. Nor is it to be thought strange that many of their best
movements were successful rather because of good luck than of good
management, or failed rather because of their defective execution, than
by the enemy's better arrangements or superior generalship, though it
is evident that the Confederates kept their forces better in hand and
operated more in masses than did the Union generals. Their
organizations were simpler and more compact, their generals were better
chosen and better supported. Operating generally on the defensive and
fighting behind breastworks whenever it was possible, it was all the
more necessary to bring overwhelming forces to bear against them, in
order to ensure their final overthrow. In addition to the defective
organization and inefficient staff arrangements which have been
mentioned, neither the Union government nor the Union generals ever
made provisions, or seemed to understand the necessity, for a
sufficient preponderance of force, to neutralize the advantages which
the Confederate armies enjoyed, when fighting on the defensive, or to
render victory over them reasonably certain.
Looking back over the long series of partial victories, vexatious
delays and humiliating failures, and considering the inadequate
organization and defective staff arrangements for which Grant was
mainly responsible, it is evident that the terrible losses in the Union
army in the overland campaign were due quite as frequently to the
latter causes as to incompetency or lack of vigor on the part of the
subordinate commanders. The blind grapplings in the forests of the
Wilderness could not be helped, when both armies were marching through
it, for they could not see each other through the tangled underbrush
till they were almost face to face, but it is now certain that if the
marches of the Union army corps had been properly timed and properly
conducted, they could have reached the open country before the
Confederate corps could have engaged them. But when the senseless
assaults of fortified positions, which occurred in endless succession,
from Spottsylvania Court House to Petersburg are considered, it will be
impossible to find sufficient excuse for them. They were in nearly
every case the direct result of defective staff arrangements and the
lack of proper prevision. In a few instances they were due to positive
incompetency on the part of subordinate commanders, while on several
notable occasions there was a woeful lack of responsible oversight and
supervision on the part of those whose duty it should have been to
exercise both. Before the campaign was half over it had come to be an
axiom among both officers and men that a well-defended rifle trench
could not be carried by a direct attack without the most careful
preparation nor even then without fearful loss. Such undertakings were
far too costly, and far too frequently ended in failure, to justify
them when they could be avoided. But no experience, however frequent or
bloody, no remonstrance however forcible, could eradicate the practice
of resorting to them occasionally. Rawlins was utterly opposed to them
and never failed to inveigh against them but the advice of more than
one trusted and influential staff officer was uniformly in favor of
assaulting fortified positions. The favorite refrain at general
headquarters is said to have been "Smash `em up! Smash `em up!"
It was with special reference to the application of this method of
procedure at Cold Harbor, that General Smith afterwards gave vent to
his indignation in words of the bitterest criticism. It will be
remembered that the entire army confronting the enemy had advanced on
that fatal day in compliance with a general order to attack "all along
the line," which was done in a half-hearted, desultory manner,
foreboding failure and defeat. Not a soul among the generals or in the
fighting line dreamed of success and not a commander from highest to
lowest except Smith and Upton, made any adequate preparation to achieve
it. Officers and men alike felt that they had been ordered to a sure
defeat. Knowing intuitively what awaited them, they wrote their names
on scraps of paper and pinned them to their coats in order that their
bodies might be identified after the slaughter was over. This done they
advanced in long and wavering lines of blue against the enemy's
bristling breastworks and rifle pits, and were mowed down like ripe
grain before the scythe. In almost as short a time as it takes to
recount the useless sacrifice, over twelve thousand Union soldiers were
killed and wounded, without shaking the enemy's position or inflicting
serious injury upon him.
Smith and his gallant corps, did their part bravely in the futile
attack. They were just back from Butler's abortive movement to Bermuda
Hundred, in which by good management on the part of the General, and by
steadiness on the part of the men, they had saved the expedition from a
disgraceful defeat. They were not only hungry and tired, but disgusted
with the incompetency of Butler and his abortive plans. The situation
which confronted them was most discouraging. They were on new and
unknown ground, but they had not yet worn themselves out against Lee's
veterans and therefore they cheerfully took the position assigned them.
Smith with his usual foresight and deliberation made haste to examine
the ground in his front, and by availing himself of the advantages
which his trained eye soon detected he was enabled to direct his main
attack along a sheltering depression against a weak point, where he
reached and broke through the enemy's line. He needed only the prompt
and vigorous support that intelligent prevision and co-operation would
have given, to make his lodgement safe and his victory certain. But as
no one above him seems to have expected victory, no proper provision
was made to ensure it. No supports were at hand. Each corps commander
was looking out for his own front only, and not for his neighbor's. The
Confederates were more wise and more alert, and seeing the danger which
threatened the continuity of their line, made haste to concentrate
their forces against Smith and of course hurled him back with terrible
loss.
Smarting under this unnecessary disaster, and grieving over the useless
loss and suffering of his gallant men, it was but natural that he
should vent his feelings in sharp and caustic denunciation of all who
were in any degree responsible for the blunder. He was especially
outspoken with Grant and Rawlins, whose confidence he had won in the
Chattanooga campaign, and with whom he had since been on terms of the
closest intimacy and friendship. It is but just to note that they did
not at that time appear to consider his criticism as in any sense
directed against them nor did they rebuke or condemn it, but to the
contrary they gave him every assurance of sympathy and approval.