Chapter XV: Introduction (10)

The President and the other guests stood on the deck, near the turret. The men were formed in lines, with their officers a little in advance, when Captain Worden ascended the gangway. The heavy guns in the navy-yard began firing the customary salute when he stepped upon the deck. One side of his face was permanently blackened by the powder shot into it from the muzzle of a cannon carrying a shell of one hundred pounds weight, discharged less than twenty yards away. The President advanced to welcome him, and introduced him to the few strangers present. The officers and men passed in review and were dismissed. Then there was a scene worth witnessing. The old tars swarmed around their loved captain, they grasped his hand, crowded to touch him, thanked God for his recovery and return, and invoked blessings upon his head in the name of all the saints in the calendar. He called them by their names, had a pleasant word for each of them, and for a few moments we looked upon an exhibition of a species of affection that could only have been the product of a common danger.

When order was restored the President gave a brief sketch of Captain Worden’s career. Commodore Paulding had been the first, Captain Worden the second officer of the navy, he said, to give an unqualified opinion in favor of armored vessels. Their opinions had been influential with him and with the Board of Construction. Captain Worden had volunteered to take command of the _Monitor_, at the risk of his life and reputation, before her keel was laid. He had watched her construction, and his energy had made it possible to send her to sea in time to arrest the destructive operations of the _Merrimac_. What he had done with a new crew, and a vessel of novel construction, we all know. He, the President, cordially acknowledged his indebtedness to Captain Worden, and he hoped the whole country would unite in the feeling of obligation. The debt was a heavy one, and would not be repudiated when its nature was understood. The details of the first battle between iron-clads would interest every one. At the request of Captain Fox, Captain Worden had consented to give an account of his voyage from New York to Hampton Roads, and of what had afterward happened there on board the _Monitor_.

In an easy, conversational manner, without any effort at display, Captain Worden told the story, of which the following is the substance:

“I suppose,” he began, “that every one knows that we left New York Harbor in some haste. We had information that the _Merrimac_ was nearly completed, and if we were to fight her on her first appearance we must be on the ground. The _Monitor_ had been hurried from the laying of her keel. Her engines were new, and her machinery did not move smoothly. Never was a vessel launched that so much needed trial-trips to test her machinery and get her crew accustomed to their novel duties. We went to sea practically without them. No part of the vessel was finished; there was one omission that was serious, and came very near causing her failure and the loss of many lives. In heavy weather it was intended that her hatches and all her openings should be closed and battened down. In that case all the men would be below, and would have to depend upon artificial ventilation. Our machinery for that purpose proved wholly inadequate.

“We were in a heavy gale of wind as soon as we passed Sandy Hook. The vessel behaved splendidly. The seas rolled over her, and we found her the most comfortable vessel we had ever seen, except for the ventilation, which gave us more trouble than I have time to tell you about. We had to run into port and anchor on account of the weather, and, as you know, it was two o’clock in the morning of Sunday before we were alongside the _Minnesota_. Captain Van Brunt gave us an account of Saturday’s experience. He was very glad to make our acquaintance, and notified us that we must be prepared to receive the _Merrimac_ at daylight. We had had a very hard trip down the coast, and officers and men were weary and sleepy. But when informed that our fight would probably open at daylight, and that the _Monitor_ must be put in order, every man went to his post with a cheer. That night there was no sleep on board the _Monitor_.

“In the gray of the early morning we saw a vessel approaching which our friends on the _Minnesota_ said was the _Merrimac_. Our fastenings were cast off, our machinery started, and we moved out to meet her half-way. We had come a long way to fight her, and did not intend to lose our opportunity.

“Before showing you over the vessel, let me say that there were three possible points of weakness in the _Monitor_, two of which might have been guarded against in her construction if there had been more time to perfect her plans. One of them was in the turret, which, as you see, is constructed of eight plates of inch iron--on the side of the ports, nine--set on end so as to break joints, and firmly bolted together, making a hollow cylinder eight inches thick. It rests on a metal ring on a vertical shaft, which is revolved by power from the boilers. If a projectile struck the turret at an acute angle, it was expected to glance off without doing damage. But what would happen if it was fired in a straight line to the centre of the turret, which in that case would receive the whole force of the blow? It might break off the bolt-heads on the interior, which, flying across, would kill the men at the guns; it might disarrange the revolving mechanism, and then we would be wholly disabled.

“I laid the _Monitor_ close alongside the _Merrimac_, and gave her a shot. She returned our compliment by a shell, weighing one hundred and fifty pounds, fired when we were close together, which struck the turret so squarely that it received the whole force. Here you see the scar, two and a half inches deep in the wrought iron, a perfect mould of the shell. If anything could test the turret, it was that shot. It did not start a rivet-head or a nut! It stunned the two men who were nearest where the ball struck, and that was all. I touched the lever--the turret revolved as smoothly as before. The turret had stood the test; I could mark that point of weakness off my list forever.

“You notice that the deck is joined to the side of the hull by a right angle, at what sailors call the ‘plank-shear.’ If a projectile struck that angle, what would happen? It would not be deflected; its whole force would be expended there. It might open a seam in the hull below the water-line, or pierce the wooden hull, and sink us. Here was our second point of weakness.

“I had decided how I would fight her in advance. I would keep the _Monitor_ moving in a circle, just large enough to give time for loading the guns. At the point where the circle impinged upon the _Merrimac_ our guns should be fired, and loaded while we were moving around the circuit. Evidently the _Merrimac_ would return the compliment every time. At our second exchange of shots, she returning six or eight to our two, another of her large shells struck our ‘plank-shear’ at its angle, and tore up one of the deck-plates, as you see. The shell had struck what I believed to be the weakest point in the _Monitor_. We had already learned that the _Merrimac_ swarmed with sharpshooters, for their bullets were constantly spattering against our turret and our deck. If a man showed himself on deck he would draw their fire. But I did not much consider the sharpshooters. It was my duty to investigate the effects of that shot. I ordered one of the pendulums to be hauled aside, and, crawling out of the port, walked to the side, laid down upon my chest, and examined it thoroughly. The hull was uninjured, except for a few splinters in the wood. I walked back and crawled into the turret--the bullets were falling on the iron deck all about me as thick as hailstones in a storm. None struck me, I suppose because the vessel was moving--and at the angle, and when I was lying on the deck, my body made a small mark difficult to hit. We gave them two more guns, and then I told the men, what was true, that the _Merrimac_ could not sink us if we let her pound us for a month. The men cheered; the knowledge put new life into all.

“We had more exchanges, and then the _Merrimac_ tried new tactics. She endeavored to ram us, to run us down. Once she struck us about amidships with her iron ram. Here you see its mark. It gave us a shock, pushed us around, and that was all the harm. But the movement placed our sides together. I gave her two guns, which I think lodged in her side, for, from my lookout crack, I could not see that either shot rebounded. Ours being the smaller vessel, and more easily handled, I had no difficulty in avoiding her ram. I ran around her several times, planting our shot in what seemed to be the most vulnerable places. In this way, reserving my fire until I got the range and the mark, I planted two more shots almost in the very spot I had hit when she tried to ram us. Those shots must have been effective, for they were followed by a shower of bars of iron.

“The third weak spot was our pilot-house. You see that it is built a little more than three feet above the deck, of bars of iron, ten by twelve inches square, built up like a log-house, bolted with very large bolts at the corners where the bars interlock. The pilot stands upon a platform below, his head and shoulders in the pilot-house. The upper tier of bars is separated from the second by an open space of an inch, through which the pilot may look out at every point of the compass. The pilot-house, as you see, is a four-square mass of iron, provided with no means of deflecting a ball. I expected trouble from it, and I was not disappointed. Until my accident happened, as we approached the enemy I stood in the pilot-house and gave the signals. Lieutenant Greene fired the guns, and Engineer Stimers, here, revolved the turret.

“I was below the deck when the corner of the pilot-house was first struck by a shot or a shell. It either burst or was broken, and no harm was done. A short time after I had given the signal, and, with my eye close against the lookout crack, was watching the effect of our shot, when something happened to me--my part in the fight was ended. Lieutenant Greene, who fought the _Merrimac_ until she had no longer stomach for fighting, will tell you the rest of the story.”

Can it be possible that this beardless boy fought one of the historic battles of the world? This was the thought of every one as the modest, diffident young Greene was half pushed forward into the circle.

“I cannot add much to the Captain’s story,” he began. “He had cut out the work for us, and we had only to follow his pattern. I kept the _Monitor_ either moving around the circle or around the enemy, and endeavored to place our shots as near her amidships as possible where Captain Worden believed he had already broken through her armor. We knew that she could not sink us, and I thought I would keep right on pounding her as long as she would stand it. There is really nothing new to be added to Captain Worden’s account. We could strike her wherever we chose; weary as they must have been, our men were full of enthusiasm, and I do not think we wasted a shot. Once we ran out of the circle for a moment to adjust a piece of machinery, and I learn that some of our friends feared that we were drawing out of the fight. The _Merrimac_ took the opportunity to start for Norfolk. As soon as our machinery was adjusted we followed her, and got near enough to give her a parting shot. But I was not familiar with the locality; there might be torpedoes planted in the channel, and I did not wish to take any risk of losing our vessel, so I came back to the company of our friends. But except that we were, all of us, tired and hungry when we came back to the _Minnesota_ at half-past 12 P.M., the _Monitor_ was just as well prepared to fight as she was at eight o’clock in the morning when she fired the first gun.”

We were then shown the injury to the pilot-house. The mark of the ball was plain upon the two upper bars, the principal impact being upon the lower of the two. This huge bar was broken in the middle, but held firmly at either end. The farther it was pressed in, the stronger was the resistance on the exterior. On the inside the fracture in the bar was half an inch wide. Captain Worden’s eye was very near to the lookout crack, so that when the gun was discharged the shock of the ball knocked him senseless, while the mass of flame filled one side of his face with coarse grains of powder. He remained insensible for some hours.

“Have you heard what Captain Worden’s first inquiry was when he recovered his senses after the general shock to his system?” asked Captain Fox of the President.

“I think I have,” replied Mr. Lincoln, “but it is worth relating to these gentlemen.”

“His question was,” said Captain Fox, “‘Have I saved the _Minnesota_?’

“‘Yes, and whipped the _Merrimac_!’ some one answered.

“‘Then,’ said Captain Worden, ‘I don’t care what becomes of me.’”

“Mr. President,” said Captain Fox, “not much of the history to which we have listened is new to me. I saw this battle from eight o’clock until mid-day. There was one marvel in it which has not been mentioned--the splendid handling of the _Monitor_ throughout the battle. The first bold advance of this diminutive vessel against a giant like the _Merrimac_ was superlatively grand. She seemed inspired by Nelson’s order at Trafalgar: ‘He will make no mistake who lays his vessel alongside the enemy.’ One would have thought the _Monitor_ a living thing. No man was visible. You saw her moving around that circle, delivering her fire invariably at the point of contact, and heard the crash of the missile against her enemy’s armor above the thunder of her guns, on the bank where we stood. It was indescribably grand!

“Now,” he continued, “standing here on the deck of this battle-scarred vessel, the first genuine iron-clad--the victor in the first fight of iron-clads--let me make a confession and perform an act of simple justice. I never fully believed in armored vessels until I saw this battle. I know all the facts which united to give us the _Monitor_. I withhold no credit from Captain Ericsson, her inventor, but I know that the country is principally indebted for the construction of this vessel to President Lincoln, and for the success of her trial to Captain Worden, her commander.”

XVII

FARRAGUT’S CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS (1862)

WITH SOME NOTES ON THE BLOCKADE

While the West in 1861–62 was alive with marching armies and the sound of strife, the East had been experiencing its share of activity by land and sea, and the navy must first engage us. The blockade became steadily more effective as new ships, purchased, chartered, or built for the purpose, gathered at the various rendezvous. Hatteras Inlet and Port Royal, seized in the fall of 1861,[216] became bases for coast and inland expeditions which narrowed the Confederate hold on the shore of the Atlantic. In January, 1862, a fleet and army, braving the mid-winter storms which were more formidable than human opposition, entered by Hatteras Inlet, in order to dominate more completely the North Carolina sounds. The fortifications on Roanoke Island, lying between Albemarle and Pamlico sounds, were easily captured, February 8th. New-Berne and other towns were soon after occupied, and the inlets and river-mouths so occupied and threatened that the outlets to the sea became for the Confederates few and perilous. This successful course was interrupted during the Virginia campaign of the summer; the troops were to a large extent withdrawn to places where reinforcements were demanded. The Roanoke Island expedition is noteworthy, among other reasons, for bringing to the front Ambrose E. Burnside, its commander,[217] a brave and well-intentioned patriot, quite inadequate, however, for large responsibilities, which later came upon him.

During these same weeks forces farther south were equally busy in expeditions from Port Royal. Fort Pulaski, the strong work which commanded the approaches to Savannah, a post environed by swamps and watercourses, and therefore difficult of access, succumbed rather to the engineering skill than to the bravery of its assailants, April 11, 1862; therefore, most of the littoral of Georgia, in addition to that of North and South Carolina, was in Federal hands.[218] These conquests were presently supplemented by the occupation of the Atlantic ports of Florida. On the Gulf side, the retention of Fort Pickens by Union forces from the beginning had put Pensacola Harbor under Federal control. The blockade, at first deemed impracticable, within a year of its establishment was throttling the foreign commerce which was vital to the Confederacy. On the Atlantic scarcely any important ports were left except Charleston and Wilmington; and before the thresholds of these places lay, night and day, the fierce and watchful war-dogs of the Union.[219] Nevertheless, up to April, 1862, the Gulf ports of Mobile, New Orleans, Galveston, and Matagorda still remained to the Confederacy. How long could these maintain themselves?

This swift and easy repossession of the southern coastline by the Union, however important, lacked the wholesale excitement of great and bloody battles, and was a game little appreciated. But in the midst of it came an incident dramatic and startling in the highest degree, its hero being a naval officer, David Glasgow Farragut, son of a Spaniard from the island of Minorca, who had married a girl of Scotch strain and settled in the Tennessee mountains. After the birth of David the family removed to Louisiana, the father receiving a naval command. David as a boy of thirteen was on the _Essex_ at Valparaiso, in 1814, in her famous fight against the _Phœbe_ and _Cherub_. He had done good service on the seas and in port for almost fifty years, but his opportunity did not come until he was sixty years old.[220]

The need of seizing New Orleans, if practicable, was obvious: the place commanded the lower Mississippi, and was the most populous and important city of the Confederacy. The government, therefore, early gave thought to its capture, assigning for that end a land force of eighteen thousand men, under General Benjamin F. Butler, and a powerful fleet. It was recognized that the navy must play the larger part in the operations: eighty-two ships, therefore, were assigned to the West Gulf Squadron, ranging from tugs, mortar-schooners, and chartered ferry-boats to the most powerful man-of-war which the nation owned.[221] To command this great fleet was chosen Farragut, whose force and capacity had been recognized, especially by Welles, Secretary of the Navy.[222] He hoisted his flag on the _Hartford_, a wooden ship of nineteen hundred tons and twenty-four guns, and February 2, 1862, sailed southward from Hampton Roads to Ship Island, midway between the mouth of the Mississippi and Mobile, the rendezvous for the army and squadron.

Farragut’s ships were all of wood; and, although steam in great part was the motive-power, sails were not superseded. Even as Farragut was concentrating in the Gulf, an event, to be described presently, took place in Hampton Roads which revolutionized naval warfare. But the enterprises in the Gulf were well started, and some triumphs still remained for the old-fashioned sailor and the old-fashioned ship.[223] In March the fleet managed to cross the bar and enter the Mississippi, a feat of no small difficulty in the case of the heavier vessels. The _Colorado_ was left outside, the _Pensacola_ was dragged by her consorts through a foot of mud, and the _Mississippi_ was scarcely less embarrassed. At last the squadron of attack was for the most part within the branches of the river; at the head of the passes they stripped like gladiators for a final struggle, and proceeded to attack the main obstructions twenty miles above. Farragut had seventeen ships for the attack, mounting one hundred and fifty guns, besides twenty mortar-schooners, with six attendant gunboats, under Commodore David D. Porter.

Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, well manned and equipped, guarded the river on the west and east. An enormous chain, supported on anchored hulks, stretched across the half-mile of current to hold any approaching hostile vessels at a point where the fire of the forts could converge. Above the forts, a formidable flotilla of craft variously armed with rams and guns, some heaped with pitch-pine knots to serve as fire-ships, stood ready to take part.[224]

Unless this boom could be broken the ships could not ascend. Farragut ordered two gunboats to this dangerous task. Stealing up at night, they accomplished it. On the night of April 23d, the ships advanced, a column led by the _Cayuga_ following the eastern bank; Farragut himself, in the _Hartford_, led the column which was to pass close to Fort Jackson. Now came a rare blending of the splendid and the terrible. The night was calm, with starlight and a waning moon; but in the fiercer flashings of the combat the world seemed on fire. In arcs rising far toward the zenith the shells of the mortars mounted and fell; broadsides thundered; from barbette and casemate rolled an incessant reply. Suddenly above the flashes of guns came a steady glare: fire-ships, their pitch-pine cargoes all ablaze, swept into the midst of the struggling fleet. The attacking lines became confused in the volumes of smoke settling down upon the stream. In the blinding vapor friend could scarcely be told from foe. The captain of the Confederate _Governor Moore_, finding that the bow of his own ship interfered with the aim of his gun, coolly blew the bow to pieces with a discharge, then through the shattered opening renewed the battle. A Confederate tug pluckily pushed a fire-raft directly upon the _Hartford_. The tug and its crew disappeared and the _Hartford_ ran aground; the sailors, undaunted, stuck to their work; the ship was pulled off by her own engines, while a deluge from the pumps put out the fire. For an hour and a half the roar and the flashings continued; as the dawn came, the battle was hushed. Three Federal gunboats had been driven back and one sunk, but the main fleet was above the forts. The ships in general were scarred and battered in the night’s encounter, but little harmed, and Farragut made ready at once to go on his way.[225]

The passing of the forts made certain the fall of New Orleans. The small Confederate army under General Mansfield Lovell was at once withdrawn and the city left to its fate. Farragut appeared before it, after passing rapidly up the intervening seventy miles, at noon, April 25th. The population of one hundred and fifty thousand souls, seething with natural mortification and passion, lay under the broadsides of the fleet, and, after one outburst, in which a mob trampled on the United States flag, they sullenly submitted. With all possible expedition, the forts having given up, the land forces ascended the river and, on May 1st, took possession.[226] Farragut soon ascended the river to Vicksburg with a large part of his fleet.

SYNOPSIS OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS, CHIEFLY MILITARY, BETWEEN FARRAGUT’S CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS, 1862, AND THE BATTLES OF GETTYSBURG AND VICKSBURG, 1863

1862. Battle of Shiloh. Capture of Island No. 10. Battle of Seven Pines and Fair Oaks. “Seven Days’ Battle” between the armies of McClellan and Lee before Richmond. Repulse of the Confederates at Malvern Hill, and a constant succession of battles. Halleck appointed Federal commander-in-chief. Confederate victory at Cedar Mountain. Second battle of Bull Run and defeat of the Federals. Battle of South Mountain. Battle of Antietam Creek. Proclamation of Emancipation. The Confederate cavalry under General Stuart makes a successful raid into Pennsylvania. Burnside succeeds McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac. Battle of Fredericksburg and repulse of the Federals.

1863. Definite abolition of slavery in the rebellious states. Hooker commands Army of the Potomac. West Virginia admitted (by proclamation) into the Union. Confederate victory at Chancellorsville. General Grant invests Vicksburg. Lee occupies Winchester, crosses the Potomac, and enters Pennsylvania. Meade appointed commander of the Army of the Potomac. Battle of Gettysburg, July 1–3. Fall of Vicksburg, July 4th.

XVIII

VICKSBURG (JANUARY–JULY, 1863)

In the American Civil War, 1861–65, the capture of Vicksburg, on
the Mississippi, cut the Confederacy in two, and the battle of
Gettysburg proved a Confederate invasion of the North impossible.
Out of the many great battles of that war it is historically
essential that these two should be emphasized.

After Fort Sumter was fired upon, April 12, 1861, the relative
efficiency of the South and the unpreparedness of the North were
soon illustrated in the battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861. In
the East, where the main objective point of the Northern attack
was Richmond, there followed McClellan’s organization of the
Army of the Potomac. In the West were Halleck and Buell, with
headquarters at St. Louis and Louisville, and the main end in
view in the Western campaign was the control of the Mississippi.
February, 1862, brought Northern successes in the Western campaign
in Grant’s capture of Forts Henry and Donelson, followed by
Shiloh, Corinth, and Memphis, which opened the Mississippi to
Vicksburg. At the same time Farragut’s fleet in the South captured
New Orleans, a victory which, like the effect of the blockade
throughout the war, was a weighty demonstration of the influence
of sea power upon history. After Farragut had cleared the lower
river, it was practically Vicksburg alone which remained to unite
the eastern and western territory of the Confederacy. But in the
East there had been a series of Northern disasters, culminating in
Chancellorsville.--EDITOR.

When the defeated Federals recrossed the Rappahannock, May 5, 1863, after Chancellorsville, the fortunes of the North were at the lowest ebb. Then came the turning of the tide, and in an unexpected quarter. General Grant had shot up into fame through his capture of Fort Donelson, early in 1862, but had done little thereafter to confirm his reputation. Though in responsible command in northern Mississippi and southwestern Tennessee, the few successes there which the country could appreciate went to the credit of his subordinate, Rosecrans. The world remembered his shiftlessness before the war, and began to believe that his success had been accidental. All things considered, it is strange that Grant had been kept in place. The pressure for his removal had been great everywhere, but his superiors stood by him faithfully, though Lincoln’s persistence was maintained in the midst of misgivings.

In the fall of 1862, Grant, in command of fifty thousand men, purposed to continue the advance southward through Mississippi, flanking Vicksburg, which then must certainly fall. His supplies must come over the Memphis & Charleston road and the two weak and disabled lines of railroad, the Mississippi Central and the Mobile & Ohio. To guard one hundred and fifty miles of railroad in a hostile country the army must necessarily be scattered, as every bridge, culvert, and station needed a detail. From Washington came unwise interference; but he moved on with vigor. As winter approached, he pushed into Mississippi toward Jackson. If that place could be seized, Vicksburg, fifty miles west, must become untenable, and to this end Grant desired to unite his whole force. He was overruled, and the troops divided: while he marched on Jackson, Sherman, with thirty-two thousand, was to proceed down the river from Memphis. Grant’s hope was that he and Sherman, both near Vicksburg, and supporting each other, might act in concert.

Complete failure attended this beginning. Forrest, operating in a friendly country, tore up the railroads in Grant’s rear for scores of miles, capturing his detachments and working destruction. On December 20th, also, Van Dorn, now a cavalry leader, surprised Holly Springs, Grant’s main depot in northern Mississippi, carrying off and burning stores to the amount of $1,500,000.[227] Grant’s movement southward became impossible: the army stood stripped and helpless, saving itself only by living off the country, an experience rough at the time, but out of which, later, came benefit.[228] Co-operation with Sherman could no longer be thought of. Nor could news of the disaster be sent to Sherman, who, following his orders, punctually embarked and steamed down to the mouth of the Yazoo; this he entered, and on December 29th, believing that the garrison of Vicksburg had been drawn off to meet Grant, he flung his divisions against the Confederate lines at Chickasaw Bayou, with a loss of eighteen hundred men and no compensating advantage.[229]

The difficulty and disaster in the Mississippi campaign were increased by a measure which strikingly reveals the effect in war of political pressure at the capital. At the outbreak of the war, John A. McClernand was a member of Congress from Illinois, and later commanded a division at Donelson and Shiloh. Returning to Washington, he stood out as a War Democrat, a representative of a class whose adherence to the administration was greatly strained by the Emancipation Proclamation, and whose loyalty Lincoln felt it was almost vital to preserve. When, therefore, he laid before Lincoln a scheme[230] to raise by his own influence a large force in the West, over which he was to have military command, with the intention of taking Vicksburg, Lincoln and Stanton yielded, the sequel showing that McClernand was a soldier of little merit....

McClernand went West, and kept his promise by mustering into the service, chiefly through his personal influence, some thirty regiments, a welcome recruitment in those dark days. With this new army McClernand appeared at the mouth of the Yazoo just at the moment when Sherman emerged from the swamps with his crestfallen divisions. McClernand assumed command, Sherman subsiding into a subordinate place; but he had influence enough with his new superior to persuade him to proceed at once to an attack upon Arkansas Post, not far away.[231] This measure proved successful, the place capitulating January 11, 1863, with five thousand men and seventeen guns. Though the victory was due in great part to the navy, Sherman alone in the army having rendered conspicuous service, yet before the country the credit went to McClernand, nominally the commander, giving him an undeserved prestige which made the situation worse.

Grant often found Halleck very trying; but in the present exigency the superior stood stoutly by him, and probably saved to him his position. The military sense of the general-in-chief saw clearly the folly of a divided command, and he enlightened the President, who made Grant major-general in command of operations on the Mississippi, McClernand being put at the head of a corps. January 30th, therefore, Grant, suppressing a scheme entertained by McClernand for a campaign in Arkansas, set to work to solve the problem of opening the great river.

Probably few generals have ever encountered a situation more difficult, or one in which military precedents helped so little. The fortress occupied a height commanding on the north and west, along the river, swampy bottom-lands, at the moment largely submerged or threaded with channels. These lowlands were much overgrown with canebrake and forest; roads there were almost none, the plantations established within the area being approached most conveniently by boats. But it was from the north and west, apparently, that Vicksburg must be assailed, for the region south of the city appeared quite beyond reach, since the batteries closed the river, which seemed the sole means of approach for Northern forces. The surest approach to the stronghold was from the east; but there Grant had tried and failed; public sentiment would not sustain another movement from that side. There was nothing for it but to try by the north and west, and Grant grappled with the problem.

Besides the natural obstacles, he had to take account of his own forces, and the strength and character of his adversary. In November, 1862, Johnston, not yet recovered from the wounds received at Fair Oaks in May, was ordered to assume command in the West, taking the troops of Kirby Smith, Bragg, and the army defending the Mississippi. The latter force, up to that time under Van Dorn, was transferred to John C. Pemberton, of an old Pennsylvania family, before and after the war a citizen of Philadelphia. Though a Northerner, he had the entire confidence of both Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee. His record in the old army was good; he was made lieutenant-general by the Confederacy, and received most weighty responsibilities. He served bravely and faithfully the cause he had espoused; though outclassed in his campaign, he did not lack ability. Pemberton commanded some fifty thousand men, comprising not only the garrison of Vicksburg, but also that of Port Hudson and detachments posted in northern Mississippi. On the watch at such a point as Jackson, the state capital, he could, on short notice, concentrate his scattered command to meet whatever danger might threaten.

Against this alert adversary Grant could now oppose about an equal number of men, comprised in four corps--the Thirteenth (McClernand), Fifteenth (Sherman), Sixteenth (Hurlbut), Seventeenth (McPherson). Hurlbut was of necessity retained at and near Memphis, to preserve communications and hold western Tennessee; the three other corps could take the field with about forty-three thousand. Among Grant’s lieutenants, two were soldiers of the best quality--Sherman and James B. McPherson, the latter a young officer of engineers, who during the preceding months had been coming rapidly to the front.[232] Besides the army, Grant had a powerful auxiliary in the fleet, which now numbered seventy craft, large and small, manned by fifty-five hundred sailors and commanded by David D. Porter, an indefatigable chief.

Grant at the outset could, of course, have no fixed plan. Throughout February and March his operations were tentative; and though the country murmured at his “inactivity,” never did general or army do harder work. Might not Vicksburg perhaps be isolated on the west, and a way be found beyond the reach of its cannon to that vantage-ground south of it which seemed so inaccessible? Straightway the army tried, with spade, pick, and axe, to complete the cut-off which Williams had begun the previous summer; also to open a tortuous and embarrassed passage far round through Lake Providence and the Tensas and Washita rivers. Might not some insufficiently guarded approach be found through the Yazoo bottom[233] to Haines’ Bluff, the height dominating Vicksburg from the northeast, which Sherman had sought to seize at Chickasaw Bayou? Straightway there were enterprises seldom attempted in war.[234] The levee at Yazoo Pass was cut, far up the river, so that the swollen Mississippi flooded the wide region below. Through the crevasse plunged gunboat and transport, to engage in amphibious warfare; soldiers wading in the mire or swimming the bayous; divisions struggling to _terra firma_, only to find that Pemberton was there before them behind unassailable parapets; gunboats wedged in ditches, unable to turn, with hostile axemen blocking both advance and retreat by felling trees across the channel; Porter sheltering himself from sharpshooters within a section of broken smokestack and meditating the blowing-up of his boats; Sherman now paddling in a canoe, now riding bareback, now joining the men of a rescue-party in a double-quick--all in cypress forests draped with funereal moss, as if Death had made ready for a calamity that seemed certain.

April came, and nothing had been accomplished on the north or west. To try again from the east meant summary removal for the commander. Was an attack from the south, after all, out of the question, as all his lieutenants urged? Grant resolved to try; the river-bank to the west was so far dried that the passage of a column through the swamp-roads became possible. Porter was willing to attempt to run the batteries, though sure that, if once below, he could never return. The night of April 16th was one of wild excitements. The fleet was discovered as soon as it got under way, and conflagrations, blazing right and left, clearly revealed it as it swept down the stream. The Confederate fire could not be concentrated,[235] and hence the injury was small to the armored craft; and even the transports in their company, protected only by baled hay or cotton, escaped with one exception. A few days later transports and barges again passed down.[236] The column, toiling along the swampy road, was met, when at last it reached a point well below the town, by an abundance of supplies and ample means for placing it on the other bank. April 29th, Grand Gulf, the southern outpost of Vicksburg, was cannonaded, with ten thousand men on transports at hand for an assault, if the chance came. High on its bluff, it defied the bombardment, as the main citadel had done. Then it was that Grant turned to his last resource.

It requires attention to comprehend how a plan so audacious as that now adopted could succeed. First, the watchful Pemberton was bewildered and misled as to the point of attack. About the time the batteries were run, Grierson, an Illinois officer, starting with seventeen hundred cavalry from La Grange, Tennessee, raided completely through Mississippi, from north to south, so skilfully creating an impression of large numbers, so effectively wrecking railroads and threatening incursion now here and now there, that the back-country was thrown into a panic, and Pemberton thought an attack in force from that direction possible. Following close upon Grierson’s raid, Sherman demonstrated with such noise and parade north of the city that Pemberton sent troops to meet a possible assault there. Meantime, the Thirteenth and Seventeenth corps were ferried rapidly across the river below Grand Gulf, and, a footing on the upland having been obtained unopposed, Grant stood fairly on the left bank. He now sent word to Halleck that he felt this battle was more than half won.[237]

The event proved that Grant was not oversanguine. An easy victory at Port Gibson, over a brave but inferior force, gave him Grand Gulf. Joined now by Sherman, he plunged with his three corps into the interior, cutting loose from his river base, and also from his hampering connection with Washington. The previous fall he had learned to live off the country. Two more easy victories, at Raymond and Jackson, gave him the state capital, and placed him, fully concentrated, between the armies of Pemberton and Johnston. The number of his foes was swelling fast--from Port Hudson, from South Carolina, from Tennessee; but Grant did not let slip his advantage. Johnston, not yet recovered from his Fair Oaks wound, was not at his best. Pemberton, confused by an adversary who could do so unmilitary a thing as to throw away his base, vacillated and blundered. A heavy battle at Champion’s Hill, May 16th, in which the completeness of Grant’s victory was prevented by the bad conduct of McClernand, nevertheless resulted in Pemberton’s precipitate flight. Next day the Federals seized the crossing of the Big Black River, after which all the outposts of Vicksburg, from Haines’ Bluff southward, fell without further fighting, and Pemberton, with the army that remained to him, was shut up within the works. The Federals held all outside, looking down from those heights, which for so long had seemed to them impregnable, upon the great river open to the north. Supplies and reinforcements could now come unhindered and were already pouring in. The fall of Vicksburg was certain....

The siege once begun, the fortress was doomed without recourse. Pemberton, to be sure, did not lose heart, and drove back the repeated Federal assaults with skill and courage. Johnston, from the rear, mustered men as he could, tried to concert with the besieged army a project of escape, and at last advanced to attack. But within the city supplies soon failed, and outside no resources were at hand for the city’s succor. Johnston’s request for twenty thousand men, lying idle in Arkansas had been slighted;[238] there was no other source of supply. Kirby Smith and Dick Taylor attempted a diversion on the west bank of the river; and still later, at Helena, Arkansas, a desperate push was made to afford relief. It was all in vain. The North, made cheerful by long-delayed success, poured forth to Grant out of its abundance both men and means. His army was in size nearly doubled; food and munitions abounded. The starving defenders were inexorably encircled by nearly three times their number of well-supplied and triumphant foes. Grant’s assaults, bold and bloody though they were, had little effect in bringing about the result; the close investment would have sufficed.[239] On July 4th came the unconditional surrender. The Confederate losses before the surrender were fully 10,000; now 29,491, became prisoners, while in the fortress were 170 cannon and 50,000 small arms. Grant’s loss during the whole campaign was 9362.[240]

To this triumph, a week later, was added the fall of Port Hudson,[241] which, with a depleted garrison, held out stubbornly for six weeks against the Federals. N. P. Banks, who after his tragical Virginia experiences succeeded, in December, 1862, Butler in Louisiana, was set, as in the valley, to meet a difficult situation with inadequate means. With an army of little more than thirty thousand, in part nine-months men, he was expected to hold New Orleans and such of Louisiana as had been conquered, and also to co-operate with Grant in opening the Mississippi. When his garrisons had been placed he had scarcely fifteen thousand men left for service in the field, a number exceeded at first by the Port Hudson defenders, strongly placed and well commanded. West of the river, moreover, was still another force under an old adversary in the Shenandoah country--Dick Taylor, a general well-endowed and trained in the best school. That Banks, though active, had no brilliant success was not at all strange; yet Halleck found fault. He could not extend a hand to Grant; but, risking his communications--risking, indeed, the possession of New Orleans--he concentrated at Port Hudson, which fortress, after a six weeks’ siege, marked by two spirited assaults, he brought to great distress. Its fate was sealed by the fall of Vicksburg--Gardner, the commander, on July 9th, surrendering the post with more than six thousand men and fifty-one guns.

The capture of Vicksburg and Port Hudson was a success such as had not been achieved before during our Civil War, and was not paralleled afterward until Appomattox. In military history there are few achievements which equal it; and the magnitude of the captures of men and resources is no more remarkable than are the unfailing courage of the soldiers and the genius and vigor of the general.[242]

XIX

GETTYSBURG, JULY 1–3, 1863

In the Eastern field of operations in the American Civil War,
McClellan’s organization of the Army of the Potomac had given him
a well-disciplined force, with which he was facing General Joseph
Johnston at the opening of 1862. But the Peninsular Campaign which
McClellan entered upon early in the year, with the bloody fighting
at Fair Oaks in May, and the Seven Days’ Battles in May and June,
resulted in the withdrawal of the Northern forces. There followed
Pope’s defeat near Bull Run. The forward movement was a failure.
The Northern forces, only four miles from Richmond in June, were
practically defending Washington in September. The desperate battle
of Antietam checked Lee’s movement into Maryland, but was not
decisive. Burnside’s costly defeat at Fredericksburg in December
closed a gloomy year in the East, which to many seemed to show
that the South could more than hold its own. The new year brought
a renewal of disaster to the Northern arms in Hooker’s defeat in
the hard-fought battle of Chancellorsville. But the tide was to be
turned by one of the crucial events of military history, which was
close at hand.--EDITOR.

The fall of Vicksburg, though a terrible blow to the South, was not a sudden one: to all intelligent eyes it had for some weeks been impending; but that Lee could be defeated seemed a thing impossible. Because so long unconquered, it had come to be accepted that he was unconquerable.

Hooker soon recovered from the daze into which he had been thrown at Chancellorsville. His confidence in himself was not broken by his misfortune. Instead of, like Burnside, manfully shouldering most of the responsibility of his failure, Hooker vehemently accused his lieutenants of misconduct, and faced the new situation with as much resolution as if he had the prestige of a victor. The Army of the Potomac, never down in heart except for a moment, plucked up courage forthwith and girded itself for new encounters.

The South, meanwhile, was still rejoicing over Chancellorsville, for the cloud on the southwestern horizon was at first no bigger than a man’s hand. Longstreet joined Lee from Suffolk with two divisions, swelling the Army of Northern Virginia to eighty thousand or more. Never before had it been so numerous, so well appointed, or in such good heart. The numerical advantage which the Federals had heretofore enjoyed was at this time nearly gone, because thousands of enlistments expired which could not immediately be made good; volunteering had nearly ceased, and the new schemes for recruiting were not yet effective.

Lee took the initiative early in June,[243] full of the sense of the advantage to be gained from a campaign on Northern soil. War-worn Virginia was to receive a respite; Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, as well as Washington, might be terrorized, and perhaps captured. If only the good-fortune so far enjoyed would continue, the Union’s military strength might be completely wrecked, hesitating Europe won over to recognition, and the cause of the South made secure.

With these fine and not at all extravagant anticipations, Lee put in motion his three great corps under the lieutenant-generals Ewell (Jackson’s successor), Longstreet, and A. P. Hill. Longstreet was ill at ease. Vicksburg, now in great danger, he thought could only be saved by reinforcing Bragg and advancing rapidly on Cincinnati, in which case Grant might be drawn north. Notwithstanding Longstreet’s urgency, Lee persisted.[244] Ewell, pouring suddenly down the Shenandoah Valley, “gobbled up,” as Lincoln put it, Milroy and his whole command of some four thousand, June 13th, and presently from Maryland invaded Pennsylvania. Longstreet was close behind: while the head of Ewell’s column had been nearing the Potomac, A. P. Hill, who had remained at Fredericksburg to watch Hooker, as yet inactive on Stafford Heights, broke camp and followed northwestward. Ewell seized Chambersburg a few days later, then appeared at Carlisle, and even shook Harrisburg with his cannon. The North had, indeed, cause for alarm; the farmers of the invaded region were in a panic. “Emergency men,” enlisted for three months, gathered from New York, Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania to the threatened points. The great coast cities were face to face with a menace hitherto unexperienced. Were they really about to be sacked? What was to be done?

There was no indecision either at Washington or in the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln’s horse-sense, sometimes tripping, but oftener adequate to deal with unparalleled burdens, homely, terse, and unerring in its expression, was at its best in these days. To Hooker, meditating movements along and across the Rappahannock, he wrote: “I would not take any risk of being entangled upon the river like an ox jumped half over a fence, and liable to be torn by dogs in front and rear without a fair chance to gore one way or kick the other.”[245] And again: “If the head of Lee’s army is at Martinsburg (near the Potomac), and the tail of it on the plank-road between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the animal must be very slim somewhere. Could you not break him?” “Fret him and fret him,” was the President’s injunction to Hooker, regarding the advance of Lee. Well-poised, good-humored, constant, Lincoln gave no counsel to Hooker in these days that was not sound.

Indeed, at this time, Hooker needed little admonition. Alert and resourceful, he no sooner detected the movement of Lee than he suggested an advance upon Richmond, which was thus left unguarded. Lee, of course, had contemplated the possibility of such a move, and, with a nod toward Washington, had joked about “swapping queens.” The idea, which Hooker did not press, being disapproved, Hooker, turning toward Lee, proceeded to “fret him and fret him,” his conduct comparing well with his brilliant management at the opening of the campaign of Chancellorsville. The cavalry, greatly improved by him, under Pleasonton, with divisions commanded by Buford, Duffie, and Gregg, was serviceable as never before, matching well the troopers of Stuart at Brandy Station, Aldie, and Middleburg. Screened on his left flank by his cavalry, as, on the other hand, Lee was screened by a similar body on his right, Hooker marched in columns parallel to those of his foe and farther east, yet always interposing between the enemy and Washington. As June drew to its end the Confederate advance was near Harrisburg, but the Federals were not caught napping. Hooker stood at Frederick, in Maryland, his corps stretched on either hand to cover Washington and Baltimore, touching hands one with the other, and all confronting the foe.

* * * * *

Lee’s previous campaign had shown with what disregard of military rules he could act, a recklessness up to this time justified by good luck and the ineptitude of his adversaries. Still contemptuous of risks, he made just here an audacious move which was to result unfortunately.[246] He ordered, or perhaps suffered, Stuart, whom as he drew toward the Potomac he had held close on his right flank, to undertake with the cavalry a raid around the Federal army, after the precedents of the Peninsular and Second Bull Run campaigns. Casting loose from his chief, June 25th, Stuart sallied out eastward and penetrated close to the neighborhood of Washington. He did no harm beyond making a few small captures and causing a useless scare; on the other hand, he suffered terrible fatigue, his exhausted men falling asleep almost by squadrons in their saddles. He could get no news from his friends, nor could he find Ewell’s corps, which he had hoped to meet. Quite worn out with hardship, he did not become available to Lee until the late afternoon of July 2d. A critical battle might have had a different issue[247] had the Confederate cavalry been in its proper place. It was almost a chance, through a scout of Longstreet’s, that Lee, at Chambersburg, all uncertain of the Federal movement, heard at last that his enemy was close at hand and threatening his communications. At once he withdrew Ewell southward, so that he might face the danger with his three divisions together.

Meantime a most critical change came about in the camp of his foes. Hooker, on ill terms with Halleck, and engaged in controversy with him over Halleck’s refusal to authorize the withdrawal of the garrison of Harper’s Ferry, rather petulantly asked to be relieved of command, and the President complied at once. Such promptness was to be expected. Hooker had been doing well; but he had done just as well before Chancellorsville; he was generally distrusted; his best subordinates were outspoken as to his lamentable record. The unsparing critic of Burnside had now to take his own medicine. A battle with Lee could not be ventured upon under a commander who could not keep on good terms with the administration, had there been nothing else. It was perilous swapping of horses in the midst of the stream, but Lincoln was forced to do it. Some cried out for the restoration of McClellan, and others for that of Frémont. The appointment fell to George Gordon Meade, commander of the Fifth Corps, who, with soldierly dignity, obeyed orders, assuming the burden June 28th, with a pledge to do his best.

Meade, a West-Pointer of 1835,[248] was a man of ripe experience, thoroughly trained in war. He had first risen leading a brigade of the Pennsylvania reserves at Mechanicsville, just a year earlier. The good name then won he confirmed at Antietam, and still more at Fredericksburg. He was tall and spare, with an eagle face which no one that saw it can forget, a perfect horseman, and, though irascible, possessed of strong and manly character. In that momentous hour the best men were doubtful on what footing they stood. When Lincoln’s messenger, with a solemn countenance, handed to Meade the appointment, he took it to be an order for his arrest. Placed in command, he hesitated not a moment, building his strategy upon the foundation laid by his predecessor.