Chapter III: “on to Richmond.”

General M’Dowell had led the Northern army to a defeat which naturally shook public confidence in his ability to command. A new general was indispensable. When the war broke out, a young man--George B. M’Clellan by name--was resident in Cincinnati, peacefully occupied with the management of a railroad. He was trained at West Point, and had a high reputation for soldiership. Several years before, Mr. Cobden was told by Jefferson Davis that M’Clellan was one of the best generals the country possessed. He was skilful to construct and organize, but his power to direct successfully the movements of great armies engaged in actual warfare was still unproved.

General M’Clellan was appointed to the command of the army a few days after the defeat at Bull Run, and sanguine hopes were entertained that he was about to give the people victory over their enemies. He addressed himself at once to his task. From every State in the North men hastened to his standard. He disciplined them and perfected their equipment for the field. In October he was at the head of two hundred thousand men--the largest army ever yet seen on the American continent.

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The rebel Government, which at first chose for its home the city of Montgomery in Alabama, moved to Richmond so soon as Virginia gave in her reluctant adherence to the secession cause. Richmond, the gay capital of the Old Dominion, sits queen-like upon a lofty plateau, with deep valleys flanking her on east and west, and the James river rushing past far below upon the south--not many miles from the point where the “dissolute” fathers of the colony had established themselves two centuries and a half ago. To Washington the distance is only one hundred and thirty miles. The warring Governments were within a few hours’ journey of each other.

The supreme command of the rebel forces was committed to General Robert E. Lee--one of the greatest of modern soldiers. He was a calm, thoughtful, unpretending man, whose goodness gained for him universal love. He was opposed to secession, but believing, like the rest, that he owed allegiance wholly to his own State, he seceded with Virginia. It was his difficult task to contend nearly always with forces stronger than his own, and to eke out by his own skill and genius the scanty resources of the Confederacy. His consummate ability maintained the war long after all hope of success was gone; and when at length he laid down his arms, even the country against which he had fought was proud of her erring but noble son.

Thomas Jackson--better known as “Stonewall Jackson”--was the most famous of Lee’s generals. In him we have a strange evidence of the influence which slavery exerts upon the best of men. He was of truly heroic mould--brave, generous, devout. His military perception was unerring; his decision swift as lightning. He rose early in the morning to read the Scriptures and pray. He gave a tenth part of his income for religious uses; he taught a Sunday class of negro children; he delivered lectures on the authenticity of Scripture; when he dropped a letter into the post-office, he prayed for a blessing on the person to whom it was addressed. As his soldiers marched past his erect, unmoving figure, to meet the enemy, they saw his lips move, and knew that their leader was praying for them to Him who “covereth the head in the day of battle.” And yet this good man caused his negroes--male and female--to be flogged when he judged that severity needful. And yet he recommended that the South should “take no prisoners”--in other words, that enemies who had ceased to resist should be massacred. To the end of his life he remained of opinion that the rejection of this policy was a mistake. So fatally do the noblest minds become tainted by the associations of slave society.

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During the autumn and early winter of 1861 the weather was unusually fine, and the roads were consequently in excellent condition for the march of an army. The rebel forces were scattered about Virginia--some of them within sight of Washington. Around Richmond it was understood there were few troops. It seemed easy for M’Clellan, with his magnificent army, to trample down any slight resistance which could be offered, and march into the rebel capital. For many weeks the people and the Government waited patiently. They had been too hasty before; they would not again urge their general prematurely into battle. But the months of autumn passed, and no blow was struck. Winter was upon them, and still “all was quiet on the Potomac.” M’Clellan, in a series of brilliant reviews, presented his splendid army to the admiration of his countrymen; but he was not yet ready to fight. The country bore the delay for six months. Then it could be endured no longer, and in January Mr. Lincoln issued a peremptory order that a movement against the enemy should be made. M’Clellan now formed a plan of operations, and by the end of March was ready to begin his work.

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South-eastward from Richmond the James and the York rivers fall into Chesapeake bay at a distance from each other of some twenty miles. The course of the rivers is nearly parallel, and the region between them is known as the Peninsula. M’Clellan conveyed his army down the Potomac, landed at Fortress Monroe, and prepared to march upon Richmond by way of the Peninsula.

Before him lay the little town of Yorktown--where, eighty years before, the War of Independence was closed by the surrender of the English army. Yorktown was held by eleven thousand rebels. M’Clellan had over one hundred thousand well-disciplined men eager for battle. But he deemed it injudicious to assault the place, and preferred to operate in the way of a formal siege. The rebels waited till he was ready to open his batteries--and then quietly marched away.

M’Clellan moved slowly up the Peninsula. In six weeks he was within a few miles of Richmond, and in front of the forces which the rebels had been actively collecting for the defence of their capital. These forces were now so strong that M’Clellan deemed himself outnumbered, and sought the protection of his gunboats on the James river. The emboldened rebels dashed at his retreating ranks. His march to the James river occupied seven days, and on every day there was a battle. Nearly always the Federals had the advantage in the fight. Always after the fight they resumed their retreat. Once they drove back the enemy, inflicting upon him a crushing defeat. Their hopes rose with success, and they demanded to be led back to Richmond. M’Clellan shunned the great enterprise which opened before him, and never rested from his march till he lay in safety, sheltered by the gunboats on the James river. He had lost fifteen thousand men; but the rebels had suffered even more. It was said that the retreat was skilfully conducted, but the American people were in no humour to appreciate the merits of a chief who was great only in flight. Their disappointment was intense. The Southern leaders devoutly announced “undying gratitude to God” for their great success, and looked forward with increasing confidence to their final triumph over an enemy whose assaults it seemed so easy to repulse.

Nor was this the only success which crowned the rebel arms. The most remarkable battle of the war was fought while M’Clellan was preparing for his advance; and it ended in a rebel victory.

At the very beginning of the war the Confederates bethought them of an iron-clad ship of war. They took hold of an old frigate which the Federals had sunk in the James river. They sheathed her in iron plates; they roofed her with iron rails. At her prow, beneath the water-line, they fitted an iron-clad projection, which might be driven into the side of an adversary. They armed her with ten guns of large size.

The mechanical resources of the Confederacy were defective, and this novel structure was eight months in preparation. [Sidenote: 1862 A.D.] One morning in March she steamed slowly down the James river, attended by five small vessels of the ordinary sort. A powerful Northern fleet lay guarding the mouth of the river. The _Virginia_--as the iron-clad had been named--came straight towards the hostile ships. She fired no shot; no man showed himself upon her deck. The Federals assailed her with well-aimed discharges; but the shot bounded harmless from her sides. She steered for the _Cumberland_, into whose timbers she struck her armed prow. A huge cleft opened in the _Cumberland’s_ side, and the gallant ship went down with a hundred men of her crew on board. The _Virginia_ next attacked the Federal ship _Congress_. At a distance of two hundred yards she opened her guns upon this ill-fated vessel. The _Congress_ was aground, and could offer no effective resistance. After sustaining heavy loss, she was forced to surrender. Night approached, and the _Virginia_ drew off, intending to resume her work on the morrow.

Early next morning--a bright Sunday morning--she steamed out, and made for the _Minnesota_--a Federal ship which had been grounded to get beyond her reach. The _Minnesota_ was still aground, and helpless. Beside her, however, as the men on board the _Virginia_ observed, lay a mysterious structure, resembling nothing they had ever seen before. Her deck was scarcely visible above the water, and it supported nothing but an iron turret nine feet high. This was the _Monitor_, designed by Captain Ericsson;--the first of the class of iron-clad turret-ships. By a singular chance she had arrived thus opportunely. The two iron-clads measured their strength in combat, but their shot produced no impression, and after two hours of heavy but ineffective firing, they separated, and the _Virginia_ retired up the James river.

This fight opened a new era in naval warfare. The Washington Government hastened to build turret-ships. All European Governments, perceiving the worthlessness of ships of the old type, proceeded to reconstruct their navies according to the light which the action of the _Virginia_ and the _Monitor_ afforded them.

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The efforts of the North to crush the rebel forces in Virginia had signally failed. But military operations were not confined to Virginia: in this war the battle-field was the continent. Many hundreds of miles from the scene of M’Clellan’s unsuccessful efforts, the banner of the Union was advancing into the revolted territory. The North sought to occupy the Border States, and to repossess the line of the Mississippi, thus severing Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas from the other members of the secession enterprise, and perfecting the blockade which was now effectively maintained on the Atlantic coast. There were troops enough for these vast operations. By the 1st of December 1861, six hundred and forty thousand men had enrolled themselves for the war. The North, thoroughly aroused now, had armed and drilled these enormous hosts. Her foundries worked night and day, moulding cannon and mortars. Her own resources could not produce with sufficient rapidity the gunboats which she needed to assert her supremacy on the western waters, but she obtained help from the building-yards of Europe. All that wealth and energy could do was done. While the Confederates were supinely trusting to the difficulties of the country and the personal prowess of their soldiers, the North massed forces which nothing on the continent could long resist. In the south and west results were achieved not unworthy of these vast preparations.

[Sidenote: 1861 A.D.] During the autumn a strong fleet was sent southward to the Carolina coast. Overcoming with ease the slight resistance which the rebel forts were able to offer, the expedition possessed itself of Port Royal, and thus commanded a large tract of rebel territory. It was a cotton-growing district, worked wholly by slaves. The owners fled, but the slaves remained. The first experiment was made here to prove whether the negro would labour when the lash did not compel, and the results were most encouraging. The negroes worked cheerfully and patiently, and many of them became rich from the easy gains of labour on that rich soil.

In the west the war was pushed vigorously and with success. To General Grant--a strong, tenacious, silent man, destined ere long to be Commander-in-Chief and President--was assigned the work of driving the rebels out of Kentucky and Tennessee. His gunboats ran up the great rivers of these States and took effective part in the battles which were fought. The rebels were forced southward, till in the spring of 1862 the frontier line of rebel territory no longer enclosed Kentucky. Even Tennessee was held with a loosened and uncertain grasp.

[Sidenote: March 1862 A.D.] In Arkansas, beyond the Mississippi, was fought the Battle of Pea Ridge, which stretched over three days, and in which the rebels received a sharp defeat. Henceforth the rebels had no footing in Missouri or in Arkansas.

New Orleans fell in April. Admiral Farragut with a powerful fleet forced his way past the forts and gunboats which composed the insufficient defence of the city. There was no army to resist him. He landed a small party of marines, who pulled down the Secession flag and restored that of the Union. The people looked on silently, while the city passed thus easily away for ever from Confederate rule.

There was gloom in the rebel capital as the tidings of these disasters came in. But the spirit of the people was unbroken, and the Government was encouraged to adopt measures equal to the emergency. A law was enacted which placed at the disposal of the Government every man between eighteen and thirty-five years of age. Enlistment for short terms was discontinued. Henceforth the business of Southern men must be war, and every man must hold himself at his country’s call. This law yielded for a time an adequate supply of soldiers, and ushered in those splendid successes which cherished the delusive hope that the Slave-power was to establish itself as one of the Great Powers of the world.