Captains of the Civil War

W >> William Wood >> Captains of the Civil War


For the last two months of the four-years' war Davis made Lee
Commander-in-Chief. Lee at once restored Johnston to his rightful
place. These two great soldiers then did what could be done to
stave off Grant and Sherman. Lee's and Johnston's problem was of
course insoluble. For each was facing an army which was alone a
match for both. The only chance of prolonging anything more than a
mere guerilla war was to join forces in southwest Virginia, where
the only line of rails was safe from capture for the moment. But this
meant eluding Grant and Sherman; and these two leaders would never
let a plain chance slip. They took good care that all Confederate
forces outside the central scene of action were kept busy with
their own defense. They also closed in enough men from the west
to prevent Lee and Johnston escaping by the mountains. Then, with
the help of the navy, having cut off every means of escape--north,
south, east, and west--they themselves closed in for the death-grip.

By the first of February Sherman was on his way north through the
Carolinas with sixty thousand picked men, drawing in reinforcements
as he advanced against Johnston's dwindling forty thousand, until
the thousands that faced each other at the end in April were ninety
and thirty respectively. On the ninth of February (the day Lee
became Commander-in-Chief) Sherman was crossing the rails between
Charleston and Augusta, of course destroying them. A week later he
was doing the same at Columbia in the middle of South Carolina.
By this time his old antagonist, Johnston, had assumed command;
so that he had to reckon with the chances of a battle, as on his
way against Atlanta, and not only with the troubles of devastating
an undefended base, as on his march to the sea. The difficulties of
hard marching through an enemy country full of natural and artificial
obstacles were also much greater here than in Georgia. How well these
difficulties could be surmounted by a veteran army may be realized
from a recorded instance which, though it occurred elsewhere, was
yet entirely typical. In forty days an infantry division of eight
thousand men repaired a hundred miles of rail and built a hundred
and eighty-two bridges.

Sherman took a month to advance from Columbia in the middle of
South Carolina to Bentonville in the middle of North Carolina.
Here Johnston stood his ground; and a battle was fought from the
nineteenth to the twenty-first of March. Had Sherman known at the
time that his own numbers were, as he afterwards reported, "vastly
superior," he might have crushed Johnston then and there. But,
as it was, he ably supported the exposed flank that Johnston so
skillfully attacked, won the battle, inflicted losses a good deal
larger than his own, and gained his ulterior objective as well
as if there had not been a fight at all. This objective was the
concentration of his whole army round Goldsboro by the twenty-fifth.
At Goldsboro he held the strategic center of North Carolina, being
at the junction whence the rails ran east to Newbern (which had
long been in Union hands), west to meet the only rails by which
Lee's army might for a time escape, and north (a hundred and fifty
miles) to Grant's besieging host at Petersburg. Sherman's record is
one of which his men might well be proud. In fifty days from Savannah
he had made a winter march through four hundred and twenty-five
miles of mud, had captured three cities, destroyed four railways,
drained the Confederate resources, increased his own, and half
closed on Lee and Johnston the vice which he and Grant could soon
close altogether.

Nevertheless Grant records that "one of the most anxious periods
was the last few weeks before Petersburg"; for he was haunted by
the fear that Lee's army, now nearing the last extremity of famine,
might risk all on railing off southwest to Danville, the one line
left. Lee, consummate now as when victorious before, masked his
movements wonderfully well till the early morning of the twenty-fifth
of March, when he suddenly made a furious attack where the lines
were very near together. For some hours he held a salient in the
Federal position. But he was presently driven back with loss; and
his intention to escape stood plainly revealed.

The same day Sherman railed down to Newbern over the line repaired
by that indefatigable and most accomplished engineer, Colonel W. W.
Wright, took ship for City Point, Virginia, and met Lincoln, Grant,
and Admiral Porter there on the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth.
Grant explained to Lincoln that Sheridan was crossing the James
just below them, to cut the rails running south from Petersburg
and then, by forced marches, to cut those running southwest from
Richmond, Lee's last possible line of escape. Grant added that
the final crisis was very near and that his only anxiety was lest
Lee might escape before Sheridan cut the Richmond line southwest to
Danville. Lincoln said he hoped the war would end at once and with
no more bloodshed. Grant and Sherman, however, could not guarantee
that Davis might not force Lee and Johnston to one last desperate
fight. Lincoln added that all he wanted after the surrender was
to get the Confederates back to their civil life and make them
good contented citizens. As for Davis: well, there once was a man
who, having taken the pledge, was asked if he wouldn't let his
host put just a drop of brandy in the lemonade. His answer was:
"See here, if you do it unbeknownst, I won't object." From the
way that Lincoln told this story Grant and Sherman both inferred
that he would be glad to see Davis disembarrass the reunited States
of his annoying presence.

This twenty-eighth of March saw the last farewells between the
President and his naval and military lieutenants at the front.
Admiral Porter immediately wrote down a full account of the
conversations, from which, together with Grant's and Sherman's
strong corroboration, we know that Lincoln entirely approved of
the terms which Grant gave Lee, and that he would have approved
quite as heartily of those which Sherman gave to Johnston.

Next morning the final race, pursuit, defeat, and victory began.
Grant marched all his spare, men west to cut Lee off completely.
He left enough to hold his lines at Petersburg, in case Lee should
remain; and he arranged with Sherman for a combined movement, to
begin on the tenth of April, in case Johnston and Lee should try
to join each other. But he felt fairly confident that he could
run Lee down while Sherman tackled Johnston.

On the first of April Sheridan won a hard fight at Five Forks,
southwest of Petersburg. On Sunday (the second) Lee left Petersburg
for good, sending word to Richmond. That morning Davis rose from
his place in church and the clergyman quietly told the congregation
that there would be no evening service. On Monday morning Grant
rode into Petersburg, and saw the Confederate rearguard clubbed
together round the bridge. "I had not the heart," said Grant, "to
turn the artillery upon such a mass of defeated and fleeing men,
and I hoped to capture them soon." On Tuesday Grant closed his
orders to Sherman with the words, "Rebel armies are now the only
strategic points to strike at," and himself pressed on relentlessly.

Late next afternoon a horseman in full Confederate uniform suddenly
broke cover from the enemy side of a dense wood and dashed straight
at the headquarter staff. The escort made as if to seize him. But
a staff officer called out, "How d'ye do, Campbell?" This famous
scout then took a wad of tobacco out of his mouth, a roll of tinfoil
out of the wad, and a piece of tissue paper out of the tinfoil. When
Grant read Sheridan's report ending "I wish you were here" (that
is, at Jetersville, halfway between Petersburg and Appomattox),
he immediately got off his black pony, mounted Cincinnati, and
rode the twenty miles at speed, to learn that Lee was heading due
west for Farmville, less than thirty miles from Appomattox.

On Thursday the sixth, Lee, closely beset in flank and rear, lost
seven thousand men at Sailor's Creek, mostly as prisoners. The
heroes of this fight were six hundred Federals, who, having gone
to blow up High Bridge on the Appomattox, found their retreat cut
off by the whole Confederate advanced guard. Under Colonel Francis
Washburn, Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry, and Colonel Theodore Read,
of General Ord's staff, this dauntless six hundred charged again
and again until, their leaders killed and most of the others dead
or wounded, the rest surrendered. They had gained their object
by holding up Lee's column long enough to let its wagon train be
raided.

Grant, now feeling that his hold on Lee could not be shaken off,
wrote him a letter on Friday afternoon, saying: "The results of
the last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further
resistance." That night Lee replied asking what terms Grant proposed
to offer. Next morning Grant wrote again to propose a meeting,
and Lee answered to say he was willing to treat for peace. Grant
at once informed him that the only subject for discussion was the
surrender of the army. That evening Federal cavalry under General
George A. Custer raided Appomattox Station, five miles southwest of
the Court House, and held up four trains. A few hours later, early
on Sunday, the famous ninth of April, 1865, Lee's advanced guard was
astounded to find its way disputed so far west. It attacked with
desperation, hoping to break through what seemed to be a cavalry
screen before the infantry came up; but when Lee's main body joined
in, only to find a solid mass of Federal infantry straight across
its one way out, Lee at once sent forward a white flag.

Grant, overwrought with anxiety, had been suffering from an excruciating
headache all night long. But the moment he opened Lee's note, offering
to discuss surrender, he felt as well as ever, and instantly wrote
back to say he was ready. Pushing rapidly on he met Lee at McLean's
private residence near Appomattox Court House. There was a remarkable
contrast between the appearance of the two commanders. Grant, only
forty-three, and without a tinge of gray in his brown hair, took
an inch or two off his medium height by stooping keenly forward,
and had nothing in his shabby private's uniform to show his rank
except the three-starred shoulder-straps. When the main business
was over, and he had time to notice details, he apologized to Lee,
explaining that the extreme rapidity of his movements had carried
him far ahead of his baggage. Lee's aide-de-camp, Colonel Charles
Marshall, afterwards explained that when the Confederates had been
obliged to reduce themselves simply to what they stood in, each
officer had naturally put on his best. Hence Lee's magnificent
appearance in a brand-new general's uniform with the jeweled sword
of honor that Virginia had given him. Well over six feet tall,
straight as an arrow in spite of his fifty-eight years and snow-white,
war-grown beard, still extremely handsome, and full of equal dignity
and charm, he looked, from head to foot, the perfect leader of
devoted men.

Grant, holding out his hand in cordial greeting, began the conversation
by saying: "I met you once before, General Lee, while we were serving
in Mexico.... I have always remembered your appearance, and I think
I should have recognized you anywhere." After some other personal
talk Lee said: "I suppose, General Grant, that the object of our
present meeting is fully understood. I asked to see you in order
to ascertain on what terms you would receive the surrender of my
army." Grant answered that officers and men were to be paroled
and disqualified from serving again till properly exchanged, and
that all warlike and other stores were to be treated as captured.
Lee bowed assent, said that was what he had expected, and presently
suggested that Grant should commit the terms to writing on the
spot. When Grant got to the end of the terms already discussed
his eye fell on Lee's splendid sword of honor, and he immediately
added the sentence: "This will not embrace the side-arms of the
officers, nor their private horses or baggage." When Lee read over
the draft he flushed slightly on coming to this generous proviso
and gratefully said: "This will have a very happy effect upon my
army." Grant then asked him if he had any suggestions to make;
whereupon he said that the mounted Confederates, unlike the Federals,
owned their horses. Before he had time to ask a favor Grant said
that as these horses would be invaluable for men returning to civil
life they could all be taken home after full proof of ownership.
Lee again flushed and gratefully replied: "This will have the best
possible effect upon the men. It will be very gratifying and do
much toward conciliating our people."

While the documents were being written out for signature Grant
introduced the generals and staff officers to Lee. Then Lee once
more led the conversation back to business by saying he wished
to return his prisoners to Grant at the earliest possible moment
because he had nothing more for them to eat. "I have, indeed, nothing
for my own men," he added. They had been living on the scantiest
supply of parched corn for several days; and this famine fare,
combined with their utter lack of all other supplies--especially
medicine and clothing--was wearing them away faster than any "war
of attrition" in the open field. After heartily agreeing that the
prisoners should immediately return Grant said: "I will take steps
at once to have your army supplied with rations. Suppose I send
over twenty-five thousand; do you think that will be a sufficient
supply?" "I think it will be ample," said Lee, who, after a pause,
added: "and it will be a great relief, I assure you."

Then Lee rose, shook Grant warmly by the hand, bowed to the others,
and left the room. As he appeared on the porch all the Union officers
in the grounds rose respectfully and saluted him. While the Confederate
orderly was bridling the horses Lee stood alone, gazing in unutterable
grief across the valley to where the remnant of his army lay. Then,
as he mounted Traveler, every Union officer followed Grant's noble
example by standing bareheaded till horse and rider had disappeared
from view.

Grant next sent off the news to Washington and, true to his sterling
worth, immediately stopped the salutes which some of his enthusiastic
soldiers were already beginning to fire. "The war is over," he
told his staff, "the rebels are our countrymen again, and the best
sign of rejoicing after the victory will be to abstain from all
demonstrations in the field."

In the meantime Lee had returned to his own lines, along which he
now rode for the last time. The reserve with which he had steeled
his heart during the surrender gave way completely when he came
to bid his men farewell. After a few simple words, advising his
devoted veterans to become good citizens of their reunited country,
the tears could no longer be kept back. Then, as he rode slowly
on, from the remnant of one old regiment to another, the men broke
ranks, and, mostly silent with emotion, pressed round their loved
commander, to take his hand, to touch his sword, or fondly stroke
his splendid gray horse, Traveler, the same that had so often carried
him victorious through the hard-fought day.


North and South had scarcely grasped the full significance of Lee's
surrender, when, only five days later, Lincoln was assassinated. "It
would be impossible for me," said Grant, "to describe the feeling
that overcame me at the news. I knew his goodness of heart, and
above all his desire to see all the people of the United States
enter again upon the full privileges of citizenship with equality
among all. I felt that reconstruction had been set back, no telling
how far." "Of all the men I ever met," said Sherman, "he seemed to
possess more of the elements of greatness, combined with goodness,
than any other."

On the very day of the assassination Sherman had written to Johnston
offering the same terms Grant had given Lee and Lincoln had most
heartily approved. Three days later, on the seventeenth, just as
Sherman was entering the train for his meeting with Johnston, the
operator handed him a telegram announcing the assassination. Enjoining
secrecy till he returned, Sherman took the telegram with him and
showed it to Johnston, whom he watched intently. "The perspiration
came out on his forehead," Sherman wrote, "and he did not attempt to
conceal his distress. He denounced the act as a disgrace to the age
and hoped I did not charge it to the Confederate Government. I told
him I could not believe that he or General Lee or the officers of the
Confederate army could possibly be privy to acts of assassination."
When Sherman got back to Raleigh he published the news in general
orders, and experienced the supreme satisfaction of finding that
not one man in all that mournful army had to be restrained from
a single act of revenge.

After much misunderstanding with Washington now in lesser hands,
the surrender of Johnston's and the other Confederate armies was
effected. Each body of troops laid down its arms and quietly dispersed.
One day the bugles called, the camp fires burned, and comrades
were together in the ranks. The next, like morning mists, they
disappeared, thenceforth to be remembered and admired only as the
heroes of a hopeless cause.


It was a very different scene through which their rivals marched
into lasting fame with all the pride, pomp, and circumstance of war.
On the twenty-third and twenty-fourth of May, in perfect weather,
and in the stirring presence of a loyal, vast, enthusiastic throng,
the Union armies were reviewed in Washington. For over six full
hours each day the troops marched past--the very flower of those
who had come back victorious. The route was flagged from end to
end with Stars and Stripes, and banked with friends of each and
every regiment there. Between these banks, and to the sound of
thrilling martial music, the long blue column flowed--a living
stream of men whose bayonets made its surface flash like burnished
silver under the glorious sun.


Then, when the pageantry was finished, and the volunteers that formed
the vast bulk of those magnificent Federal armies had again become
American civilians in thought and word and deed, these steadfast
men, whose arms had saved the Union in the field, were first in
peace as they had been in war: first in the reconstruction of their
country's interrupted life, first in recognizing all that was best
in the splendid fighters with whom they had crossed swords, and
first--incomparably first--in keeping one and indivisible the reunited
home land of both North and South.




BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Thousands of books have been written about the Civil War; and more
about the armies than about the navies and the civil interests
together. Yet, even about the armies, there are very few that give
a just idea of how every part of the war was correlated with every
other part and with the very complex whole; while fewer still give
any idea of how closely the navies were correlated with the armies
throughout the long amphibious campaigns.

The only works mentioned here are either those containing the original
evidence or those written by experts directly from the original
evidence. And of course there are a good many works belonging to
both these classes for which no room can be found in a bibliography
so very brief as the present one must be.

_The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records
of the Union and Confederate Armies_, 128 vols. (1880-1901), and
_Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of
the Rebellion_, 26 vols. (1894-), form two magnificent collections
of original evidence published by the United States Government.
But they have some gaps which nothing else can fill. _Battles and
Leaders of the Civil War_ (1887-89), written by competent witnesses
on both sides, gives the gist of the story in four volumes (published
afterwards in eight). _The Rebellion Record_, 12 vols. (1862-68),
edited by Frank Moore, forms an interesting collection of non-official
documents. _The Story of the Civil War_, 4 vols. (1895-1913), begun by
J. C. Ropes, and continued by W. R. Livermore, is an historical work
of real value. Larned's _Literature of American History_ contains an
excellent bibliography; but it needs supplementing by bibliographies
of the present century. Inquiring readers should consult the
bibliographies in volumes 20 and 21 (by J. K. Hosmer) in the _American
Nation_ series.

There are many works of a more special kind that deserve particular
attention. General E. P. Alexander's _Military Memoirs of a Confederate_
(1907), the _Transactions of the Military Historical Society of
Massachusetts_, Major John Bigelow's _The Campaign of Chancellorsville_
(1910), and J. D. Cox's _Military Reminiscences_, 2 vols. (1900),
are admirable specimens of this very extensive class.

The two greatest generals on the Northern side have written their
own memoirs, and written them exceedingly well: _Personal Memoirs
of U. S. Grant_, 2 vols. (1885-86), and _Memoirs of General W. T.
Sherman_, 2 vols. (1886). But the two greatest on the Southern
side wrote nothing themselves; and no one else has written a really
great life of that very great commander, Robert Lee. Fitzhugh Lee's
enthusiastic sketch of his uncle, _General Lee_ (1894), is one of
the several second-rate books on the subject. Colonel G. F. R.
Henderson's _Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War_, 2 vols.
(1898), is, on the other hand, among the best of war biographies.
Henderson's strategical study of the Valley Campaign is a masterpiece.
Two good works of very different kinds are: _A History of the Civil
War in the United States_ (1905), by W. Birkbeck Wood and Major J.
E. Edmonds, and _A History of the United States from the Compromise
of 1850_, 8 vols. (1893-1919), by James Ford Rhodes. The first
is military, the second political. Mr. Rhodes has also written a
single volume _History of the Civil War_ (1917). _American Campaigns_
by Major M. F. Steele, issued under the supervision of the War
Department (1909), deals chiefly with the military operations of
the Civil War.

The naval side of this, as of all other wars, has been far too
much neglected. But that great historian of sea-power, Admiral
Mahan, has told the best of the story in his _Admiral Farragut_
(1892).

An interesting contemporary account of the war will be found in
the five volumes of Appleton's _American Annual Cyclopoedia_ for
the years from 1861 to 1865. B. J. Lossing's _Pictorial History of
the Civil War_, 3 vols. (1866-69), and Harper's _Pictorial History
of the Rebellion_, 2 vols. (1868), give graphic pictures of military
life as seen by contemporaries. Personal reminiscences of the war,
of varying merit, have multiplied rapidly in recent years. These
are appraised for the unwary reader in the bibliographies already
mentioned. Frank Wilkeson's _Recollections of a Private Soldier in
the Army of the Potomac_ (1887), George C. Eggleston's _A Rebel's
Recollections_ (1905), and Mrs. Mary B. Chestnut's _Diary from
Dixie_ (1905) are among the best of these personal recollections.

The political and diplomatic history has been dealt with already
in the two preceding _Chronicles_. _Abraham Lincoln: a History_,
by John G. Nicolay and John Hay, in ten volumes (1890), and _The
Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln_, in twelve volumes (1905), form
the quarry from which all true accounts of his war statesmanship
must be built up. Lord Charnwood's _Abraham Lincoln_ (1917) is an
admirable summary. To these titles should be added Gideon Welles's
_Diary_, 3 vols. (1911), and, on the Confederate side, Jefferson
Davis's _The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government_, 2 vols.
(1881), and Alexander H. Stephens's _A Constitutional View of the
Late War Between the States_, 2 vols. (1870). The best life of
Jefferson Davis is that by William E. Dodd in the _American Crisis
Biographies_ (1907). W. H. Russell's _My Diary North and South_
(1863) records the impressions of an intelligent foreign observer.

The present _Chronicle_ is based entirely on the original evidence,
with the convenient use only of such works as have themselves been
written by qualified experts directly from the original evidence.




INDEX

Alabama, secedes; in 1864; threatened
_Alabama_, Confederate raider; _Kearsarge_ and; and _Hatteras_
_Albatross_, ship
_Albemarle_, Confederate ram, Cushing destroys
Albemarle Sound, command lost
Alexandria (Louisiana), State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy
Allatoona (Georgia), Johnston evacuates; Corse's defense of
"Anaconda policy"
Anderson, Colonel Charles, quotes Lee
Anderson, Major Robert, commands at Fort Moultrie; at Fort Sumter;
surrender; leaves Fort Sumter; appointed to Kentucky command;
superseded by Sherman
Annapolis, Union troops at
Antietam (Maryland), battle
Apache Canon, fight in
Appomattox Court House (Virginia), Lee's surrender
Appomattox Station, Custer raids
Aquia, McClellan's troops at
Archer, J. T., Confederate brigadier
Arizona, "War in the West"
Arkansas secedes,
_Arkansas_, Confederate ram
Arkansas Post, capture of
Arlington, home of General Lee
Armstrong, Commodore, at Pensacola
Army, Confederate, Act providing for enlistment; at Harper's Ferry;
Jackson and; lack of equipment; advantages; conscription; munitions;
relations with Federals at Vicksburg; Army of Northern Virginia;
unrenewable wastage; number of troops (1865); Lee's farewell to
Army, Federal, enlistments; Congress votes troops and money;
McDowell's; regulars in; number of troops; conscription; organization;
Grant's (1862); Army of the Cumberland; Army of the Mississippi; Army
of the Ohio; well equipped; Army of the Potomac; Army of the Tennessee;
Army of Virginia; relations with Confederates at Vicksburg; Army of the
James; reviewed in Washington
Army Act, Provisional Confederate Congress passes
Ashby, Turner, Confederate cavalry leader; at Harrisonburg; Valley raid;
death
Ashby's Gap, Johnston crosses Blue Ridge at
Ashland (Virginia), Jackson at
Atlanta, Southern cannon made at; Northern objective; battle; Sherman
announces fall of; effect of victory; Sherman's headquarters; last
action near
_Atlanta_, Confederate ram captured by _Weehawken_
Averell, W. D., cavalry leader