By J. J. Bowen

Note: John Joseph Bowen (Joe; 1839–1912) enlisted as a private in the 1st Company of Richmond Howitzers in April 1861. Originally organized by Thomas Jefferson’s grandson, George Wythe Randolph (1818–1867), in November 1859 to assist in the capture of John Brown at Harper’s Ferry, the 1st Company after its muster into Confederate service accompanied the Army of Northern Virginia through all its major engagements. The 1st Company was still with Lee during his retreat to Appomattox, although its commander, Captain Edward S. McCarthy (d. 1864), was killed at the Battle of Cold Harbor. After the war Joe Bowen entered business and eventually settled in Portland, Oregon.

THE STRATEGY
OF ROBERT E. LEE

By J. J. Bowen

Formerly Member of the First Company
of Richmond Howitzers

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK
THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY
1914

CONTENTS

PART I
THE FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR

CHAPTER
I	BULL RUN
II	WHY THE CONFEDERATES DID NOT TAKE WASHINGTON
III	BULL RUN IN RICHMOND
IV	BEAUREGARD’S PLAN
V	THE QUARREL ABOUT JOHNSTON’S RANK
VI	“WITHIN HEARING OF THE ENEMY’S GUNS”
VII	THE RELATIONS BETWEEN DAVIS AND LEE
VIII	MANASSAS TO SEVEN PINES

PART II
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1862

I	SEVEN DAYS
II	SECOND MANASSAS
III	SHARPSBURG (ANTIETAM)
IV	FREDERICKSBURG

PART III
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1863

I	CHANCELLORSVILLE
II	GETTYSBURG
III	GETTYSBURG

PART IV
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1864

I	FROM THE RAPIDAN TO THE JAMES
II	THE SIEGE OF RICHMOND
III	THE RETREAT

PART I

THE FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR

THE STRATEGY OF ROBERT E. LEE

CHAPTER I

BULL RUN

According to the authorities, both armies were ready to run, but McDowell’s got the start.

The Confederate army comprised many old, well-drilled organizations,—such as the Washington Artillery, of New Orleans; the 1st regiment, from Richmond, and many others,—while the Federal army was the regular U.S. army in its artillery,—a very important feature,—and it comprised also some regular cavalry and infantry.

Infantry, other than the regular, was made up of the three-month men, who were fairly well trained. It is true they were raw as far as actual fighting was concerned, but the same may be said of the regular army at the present time.

If the Confederate army was ready to run, there was no indication of it on the front; men were chasing shells for relics and went at a double quick, when the order came, to the fight on the left.

Beauregard says:

It was a point made at the time at the North that just as the Confederate troops were about to break and flee the Federal troops anticipated them by doing so, being struck into this precipitation by the arrival upon their flank of the Shenandoah forces, . . . errors that have been repeated by a number of writers and by an ambitious but superficial French author. The battle of Manassas was like any other battle, progression and development from the deliberate counter-employment of the military resources in hand, affected by incidents as always, but of a kind very different from those referred to. My line of battle, which twice had not only resisted the enemy’s attacks, but had taken the offensive and driven him back in disorder, was becoming momentarily stronger from the arrival, at last, of the reinforcements provided for; and if the enemy had remained on the field till the arrival of Ewell and Holmes, they would have been so strongly outflanked that many who escaped would have been destroyed or captured.

There is abundant evidence of the fact that both armies fought well.

From Beauregard’s report of the battle:

It was now between half past two and three o’clock; a scorching sun increased the oppression of the troops exhausted from incessant fighting,—many of them having been engaged since morning.

Fearing lest the Federal offensive should secure too firm a grip, and knowing the fatal result that might spring from any grave infraction of my line, I determined to make another effort for the recovery of the plateau, and ordered a charge of the entire line of battle, including the reserves, which at this crisis I myself led into action.

The movement was made in such keeping and dash that the whole plateau was swept clear of the enemy, . . . leaving in our possession the most of Ricketts’ and Griffin’s batteries, the men of which were mostly shot down where they bravely stood by their guns.

Bee and Bartow, who met the initial attack, were both killed, and their four regiments lost 658 men. They were driven back half a mile, but recovered it and fought steadily all day.

Captain J. B. Fry, assistant adjutant general on McDowell’s staff, says:

On the plateau Beauregard says the disadvantage of his smooth bore guns was reduced by shortness of range.

The short range was due to the Federal advance, and the several struggles for the plateau were at close quarters and gallant on both sides.

No matter how well troops fight, they are sure to be beaten if badly handled by their officers, and that was the trouble with the Federal army.

Longstreet says:

Had a prompt, energetic general been in command when, on the 20th, his order of battle was settled upon, the division under Tyler would have been deployed in front of Stone Bridge as soon after nightfall as darkness could veil the march, and the divisions under Hunter and Heintzelman, following, would have been stretched along the lateral roads in bivouac so as to be prepared to cross Sudley’s Ford and put in a good day’s work on the morrow.

McDowell’s army posted as it should have been, a march at daylight would have brought the column to the Henry House before seven o’clock, dislodged Evans, busied with Tyler’s display at the bridge without a chance to fight, and brought the three divisions united in gallant style a long the turnpike,with little burning of powder. Thus prepared and organized, the compact battle order of 20,000 men would have been a fearful array against Beauregard’s fragmentary left, and by the events as they passed would have assured McDowell of victory hours before Kirby Smith and Elzey, of the Army of the Shenandoah, arrived upon the field.

Instead of this disposition the turning column had to march twelve miles, starting at midnight. This was a pretty trying prelude to an all day’s fight under a July sun.

Captain Fry, McDowell’s chief of staff, says:

He (McDowell) reached the scene of the a ctual conflict somewhat earlier than Beauregard, and seeing the enemy driven across the valley of Young’s Branch, and behind the Warrenton turnpike, at once sent a swift courier to Tyler with orders to press the attack at Stone Bridge.

Tyler acknowledged he received this order at eleven o’clock. It was Tyler’s division upon which McDowell relied for the decisive fighting of the day.

He knew the march of the turning column would be fatiguing, and when by a sturdy fight it had cleared the turnpike for the advance of Tyler’s division, it had in fact done more than its fair share of the work. But Tyler did not attempt to force the passage of Stone Bridge, which after eight o’clock was defended by only four companies of infantry, though he admitted that by the plan of battle, when Hunter and Heintzelman had attacked the enemy in the vicinity of the bridge, he was to force the passage of Bull Run at that point, and attack the enemy in flank.

Soon after McDowell’s arrival at the front Burnside rode up to him and said his brigade had borne the battle, that it was out of ammunition, and that he wanted permission to withdraw, refit, and fill cartridge boxes. McDowell, in the excitement of the occasion, gave reluctant consent, ad the brigade, which certainly had done nobly, marched to the rear, stacked arms, and took no further part in the fight.

The batteries of Ricketts and Griffin, by their fine discipline, wonderful daring, and matchless skill, were the prime features in the fight. The battle was not lost till they were lost. When in their advanced position, just after the infantry supports had been driven in over the slope, a fatal mistake occurred. A regiment came out of the woods on Griffin’s right, and as he was in the act of opening upon it with canister he was deterred by the assurance of Major Barry, chief of artillery, that it was a regiment sent by Heintzelman to support the battery. A moment more, and the doubtful regiment proved its identity by a deadly volley, and, as Griffin states in his report, every cannoneer was cut down, and a large number of horses killed, leaving the battery (which was without support except in name) perfectly helpless. The effect upon Ricketts was equally fatal. He, desperately wounded, and Ramsey, his lieutenant, killed, lay in the wreck of the battery.

After the arrival of Howard’s brigade, McDowell, for the last time, pressed up the slope to the plateau, forced back the Confederate line, and regained possession of the Henry and Robinson Houses, and of the lost batteries.

But there were no longer cannoneers to man or horses to move the guns that had done so much. By the arrival upon this part of the field of his own reserves and Kirby Smith’s brigade of Johnston’s army, about half past three, Beauregard extended his left to outflank McDowell’s shattered, shortened and disconnected lines, and the Federals left the field about half past four.

Until then they had fought wonderfully well for raw troops. There were no fresh forces on the field to support or encourage them, and the men seemed to be seized simultaneously by the conviction that it was no use to do anything more, and they might as well start home.

McDowell’s defeat was due to his faulty disposition on the night of the 20th, the failure of Tyler to force the crossing at Stone Bridge, and Major Barry’s mistake. The raw troops were not to blame for any of these things. After the battle some of the commands lost cohesion, and the men drifted to Washington where their camps were located.

For this they may be censured, but not for the real disaster,—the loss of the battle. Any troops would have lost it under the circumstances.

CHAPTER II

WHY THE CONFEDERATES DID NOT TAKE WASHINGTON

IT is needless to say there was great rejoicing in Richmond over the victory; but the city was already a military camp, and there was a mingled feeling of disappointment among the soldiers who had not been in the battle for fear the war had ended without glory for them.

Furloughs were granted lavishly; the city was full of officers from the army, and much discussion of the battle ensued. At first it was considered a complete and decisive victory, and Beauregard was hailed as the young Napoleon. It was not long, however, before it dawned on the ingenious mind of some one that Washington ought to have been captured, and this illusion spread until it is probably the accepted opinion of the world to-day.

General Upton, in his plea for a regular army of large proportions, says that Washington was saved from capture by the “indecision of a band of insurgents.” It would be difficult, however, to establish indecision where there was no diversity of opinion, and it is easy to show there was none. Longstreet, in his “Manassas to Appomattox,” written long after the event, appears to have caught the infection also.

He says:

Beauregard’s mistake was in failing to ride promptly after his five o’clock order and handling his column while in action. As events actually occurred, he would have been in overwhelming numbers against McDowell’s reserve and supply depot. His adversary, so taken by surprise, would not have been difficult to conquer.

. . . Supplies of subsistence, ammunition, and forage, passed as we marched through the enemy’s camp toward Centerville, seemed ample to carry the Confederate army on to Washington. . . .

. . Through the abandoned camps of the Federals we found their pots and kettles over the fire, with food cooking; quarters of beef hanging on the trees, and wagons by the roadside loaded, some with bread and general provisions, others with ammunition. When within artillery range of the retreating column passing through Centerville, the infantry was deployed on the side of the road, under cover of the forest, so as to give room for the batteries ordered into action to open, Bonham’s brigade on the left, the others on the right.

As the guns were about to open there came a message that the enemy, instead of being in precipitate retreat, was marching around to attack the Confederate right. With this report came orders, or reports of orders, for the brigades to return to their positions behind the Run. I denounced the report as absurd, claimed to know a retreat such as was before me, and ordered that the batteries open fire, when Major Whiting, of General Johnston’s staff, rising in his stirrups, said, “In the name of General Johnston, I order that the batteries shall not open.” I enquired, “Did General Johnston send you to communicate that order?” Whiting replied, “No; but I take the responsibility to give it.” I claimed the privilege of responsibility under the circumstances, and when in the act of renewing the order to fire, General Bonham rode to my side and asked that the batteries should not open. As the ranking officer present, this settled the question. By that time, too, it was near night.

I do not know what Longstreet saw, but our battery was the battery attached to Bonham’s brigade. We did not get anywhere near Centerville, saw no retreating column, and no pots and kettles, provisions nor wagons.

The infantry was faced to the right because it was rumored the enemy was on that flank; but the battery remained in column in the road. After a wait of short duration we returned to our position behind the Run.

But even if the attack had been made, the probabilities are that it would have failed, for Captain Fry says that McDowell had at Centerville Miles’s division, Richardson’s brigade, three regiments of Runyon’s division, and Hunt’s, Tidball’s, Ayres’, and Green’s regular batteries, and one or two fragments of batteries, making in all about twenty guns.

If, as Longstreet says in speaking about the battle on the left, “before the loss of his artillery he (McDowell) was the Samson of the fight,” it is tolerably clear that he would have met a warm reception at Centerville.

Then the idea of relying on what could be picked up on the road in the way of supplies and ammunition is absurd.

Captain Fry says that one reason McDowell decided m the retreat from Centerville was that he was short of provisions.

Johnston says in his report of the battle:

At twenty minutes before five, when the retreat of the enemy toward Centerville began, I sent orders to Brigadier General Bonham by Lieutenant Colonel Lay of his staff, who happened to be with me, to march with his own and Longstreet’s brigade (which were nearest Bull Run and the stone bridge) by the quickest route to the turnpike, and form them across it to intercept the retreat of the Federal troops.

But he found so little appearance of rout in those troops as to make the execution of his instructions seem impracticable, so the two brigades returned to their camps.

Davis says:

He (Beauregard) stated that because of false alarms which reached him he had ordered the troops referred to (Elzey’s and Early’s) from the left to the right of our line, so as to be in position to repel the reported movement of the enemy against that flank.

So that instead of Beauregard’s riding with his five-o’clock order, he was busy with his dispositions to repel the reported advance of the enemy on his right flank.

Nor was there any subsequent intention of advancing on Washington.

General Johnston says:

Having left the field after ten o’clock and ridden in the dark slowly, it was about half past eleven when I found the President and General Beauregard together in the latter’s headquarters at Manassas. We three conversed an hour or more without referring to pursuit or advance on Washington. . . .

And one conference he, the President, had with me that day (the 22d) proved conclusively that he had no thought of sending an army against Washington, for in it he offered me the command in West Virginia.

Mr. Davis says:

On the night of the 22d I had a second conference with Generals Johnston and Beauregard. All the revelations of the day were of the most satisfactory character as to the completeness of the victory. . . .

. . . The generals, like myself, were all content with what had been done. I propounded to them the enquiry as to what it was practicable to do. Both generals opposed an advance, alleging unpreparedness and the certainty of resistance, not only from troops at Washington, but from Patterson’s army.

Davis concludes: “Thus it was, and so far as I know, for the reasons stated above, that an advance to the south bank of the Potomac was not contemplated as the immediate sequence of the victory at Manassas.”

And so a sufficient answer to the question “Why the Confederates did not take Washington?” is “Because they never thought of it.” It was not in the program. That is a good and sufficient reason, as cities are not captured unintentionally.

Another reason is that it was impregnable to any force the Confederates could bring against it.

Cameron telegraphed to New York:

Our works on the south bank of the Potomac are impregnable, being well manned with reinforcements. The capital is safe.

The capture of Washington was not even discussed in the army at that time, nor for that matter at any subsequent time.

CHAPTER III

BULL RUN IN RICHMOND

WHILE Manassas, or Bull Run, was a Confederate victory, it was a blessing in disguise to the North. Out of it came the quarrels between Davis, Johnston, and Beauregard,—sores that never healed,—and as those generals were the popular heroes, of whom much was expected but never realized, and as they were retained in the service until the end and were always balky horses, it is clear that the effect was most disastrous.

In addition to the balky and sometimes insubordinate conduct of Johnston and Beauregard in the field they had their adherents in Congress, and these gave the administration no end of trouble. In fact the battle of Bull Run inaugurated a conflict in Richmond that contributed not a little to the downfall of the Confederacy.

The first manifestation of trouble was over the absurd , idea that Washington could have been captured; and as it was not captured, somebody blundered.

It surely could not be Beauregard, the young Napoleon, nor Johnston who came, like Blücher, to his aid; so it must be Davis, who arrived on the field just as the battle ended, and in time to restrain the impetuous generals.

Mr. Davis says:

When the smoke of battle had lifted from the field of Manassas, and the rejoicing over the victory had spread over the land and spent its exuberance, some who, like Job’s warhorse, “sniffed the battle from afar,” but in whom the likeness there ceased, censoriously asked why the fruits of the victory had not been gathered by the capture of Washington.

Then some indiscreet friends of the generals commanding in that battle, instead of the easier task of justification, chose the harder one of exculpation for the inferred failure. This ill-advised zeal, combined, perhaps, with malice against me, induced the allegation that the President had prevented the generals from making an immediate and vigorous pursuit of the routed enemy. This, as the other stories had been, was left to the correction which time, it was hoped, would bring; the sooner, because it was expected to be refuted by the reports of the commanding generals with whom I had conferred on that subject immediately after the battle. After considerable time had elapsed, it was reported to me that a member of Congress, who had served on that occasion as a volunteer aid to General Beauregard, had stated in the House of Representatives that I had prevented the pursuit of the enemy after his defeat at Manassas.

This gave to the rumor such official character and dignity as seemed to me to entitle it to notice not heretofore given. Wherefore I addressed General Johnston the following inquiry, which, though restricted to the allegation, was of such a tenor as left it to his option to state all the facts connected with the slander, if he should choose to do me that justice, or should see the public interest involved in the correction, which, as stated in my letter to him, was that which gave it, in my estimation, its claim to consideration, and had caused me to address him on the subject:

RICHMOND, VA., NOVEMBER3, 1861.

GENERAL J. E. JOHNSTON,
Commanding Department of the Potomac.

SIR: Reports have been and are being widely circulated that I prevented General Beauregard from pursuing the enemy after the battle of Manassas, and had subsequently restrained him from advancing upon Washington city.

Though such statements may have been made merely for my injury, and in that view might be postponed to a more convenient season, they have served to create distrust, to excite disappointment, and must embarrass the administration in its further efforts to reinforce the armies of the Potomac, and generally to provide for the public defense. For these public considerations I call upon you, as the commanding general, and as a party to all the conferences held by me on July 21st and 22d, to say whether I obstructed the pursuit of the enemy after the victory of Manassas, or have ever objected to an advance or other active operations which it was feasible for the army to undertake.

Very respectfully yours, &c.,

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

HEADQUARTERS, CENTERVILLE,
November 10, 1861.

To HIS EXCELLENCY,
The President.

SIR: I have the honor to receive your letter of the 3d instant, in which you call upon me as the commanding general, and as a party to all the conferences held by you on the 21st and 22d of July, to say whether you obstructed the pursuit after the victory of Manassas, or have ever objected to an advance or other active operations which it was feasible for the army to undertake.

To the first question I reply, No; the pursuit was “obstructed” by the enemy’s troops at Centerville, as I have stated in my official report. In that report I have also said why no advance was made upon the enemy’s capital, as follows: The apparent freshness of the United States troops at Centerville, which checked our pursuit; the strong forces occupying the works near Georgetown, Arlington, and Alexandria; the certainty, too, that General Patterson, if needed, would reach Washington with his army of more than thirty thousand men sooner than we could; and the condition and inadequate means of the army in ammunition, provisions, and transportation prevented any serious thought of advance upon the capital.

To the second inquiry I reply that it has never been feasible for the army to advance farther than it has done to the line of Fairfax C. H., with its advanced posts at Munson’s and Mason’s Hills. After a conference at Fairfax C. H. with the three senior general officers you announced it to be impracticable to give the army the strength which those officers considered necessary to enable it to assume the offensive. Upon which I drew it back to its present position.

Most respectfully,
Your obt. svt.,
J. E. JOHNSTON.

It will be seen that Johnston admits that Davis did not hold him back from Washington immediately after Bull Run, but that several months afterward he refused to give him the men to capture that city,—and hence it was not captured.

Davis wrote to Beauregard:

RICHMOND, VA., OCTOBER 30, 1861.

GENERAL BEAUREGARD, Manassas, Va.

SIR: Yesterday my attention was called to various newspaper publications, purporting to have been sent from Manassas, and to be a synopsis of your report of the battle of July 21st last, in which it is represented that you have been overruled by me in your plan for a battle with the enemy, south of the Potomac, for the capture of Baltimore and Washington, and the liberation of Maryland. I inquired for your long expected report, and to-day it has been submitted for my inspection.

With much surprise I find that the newspaper statements were sustained by the text of the report. I was surprised, because if we differ in opinion as to the measures and purposes of contemplated campaigns, such facts could have no proper place in the report of a battle; further, because it seemed to be an attempt to exalt yourself at my expense; and, especially, because no such plan as that described was submitted to me. . . .

Very respectfully yours,
JEFFERSON DAVIS.

CHAPTER IV

BEAUREGARD’S PLAN

BEAUREGARD’S report was:

GEN’L S. COOPER,
Adjutant and Inspector General, Richmond.

. . . I proposed that General Johnston should unite, as soon as possible, the bulk of the Army of the Shenandoah with that of the Potomac, then under my command, leaving only sufficient force to garrison his strong works at Winchester, and to guard the five defensive passes of the Blue Ridge, and thus hold Patterson in check At the same time General Holmes was to march hither with all his command not essential for the defense of the position at Acquia Creek. These junctions having been, made at Manassas, an immediate impetuous attack of our combined armies upon McDowell was to follow, as soon as he approached my advanced position in and around Fairfax C. H., with the inevitable result, as I submitted, of his complete defeat and the destruction and capture of his army. Tins accomplished, the Army of the Shenandoah, under General Johnston, increased with a part of my forces and rejoined, as he returned, by the detachments left to hold the mountain passes, was to march back rapidly into the Valley, fall upon and crush Patterson with a superior force, wheresoever he might be found.

This, I confidently intimated, could be done within fifteen days after General Johnston should march from Winchester to Manassas. Meanwhile I was to occupy the enemy’s works on this side of the Potomac, if, as I anticipated, he had been so routed as to enable me to enter them with him; or if not, to retire again for a time within the line of Bull Run with my main force.

Patterson having been virtually destroyed, then General Johnston would reinforce General Garnett sufficiently to make him superior to General McClellan, his opponent, and able to defeat that officer.

This done, General Garnett was to form an immediate junction with General Johnston, who was forthwith to cross the Potomac into Maryland with his whole force, rouse the people as he advanced to the recovery of their political rights and the defense of their homes and families from an offensive invader, and then march to the investment of Washington, in the rear, while I resumed the offensive in front.

This plan of operation, you are aware, was not acceptable at the time, from considerations which appeared so weighty as more than to counterbalance the proposed advantages.

He says nothing in his report of being restrained from capturing Washington as an immediate sequence of the battle of Manassas, but wanted everybody to know that he could have captured it before the battle, and that, as Davis failed to avail himself of his plan, Washington and Baltimore were not captured; and Maryland was not liberated.

It will be seen that both generals magnanimously admit that Davis did not restrain them from capturing Washington immediately after the battle; but they both (would have captured it, one before and the other after the battle, if Davis had in one case approved of an absurd plan, and in the other provided troops that he could not arm.

Beauregard refused to make any change in his report, so Congress did it,—that is, left out the “plan.”

Beauregard’s plan may appear to the military critics involved and complicated, but with the coöperation of the enemy it would have been perfectly practical. Patterson would have obligingly allowed Johnston to detach a part of his 11,000 men to hold Winchester and the five passes of the Blue Ridge, and then, with the remainder of his army, join Beauregard at Manassas. He would not have molested the little detachments at Winchester and the mountain passes.

The “immediate and impetuous” attack on McDowell would certainly not have been objectionable to that officer, and no doubt he would have delighted in the “complete defeat and the destruction and capture of his army.”

Then General Johnston would have been received on his return to the Valley with open arms by his old friend Patterson, who would have been “crushed” on schedule time. Being “virtually destroyed,” he would not have objected—in fact could not—to the reinforcement of Garnett and the destruction of McClellan, though at that time Garnett was in rapid retreat before McClellan, and was a few days later killed and his small force dispersed. McClellan beaten and disposed of, Garnett’s junction with Johnston would have been easy, and the crossing of the Potomac by the combined armies, a pleasant excursion.

Once in Maryland the hunger for political rights would have been different from what it was when we tried it in 1862 and 1863, and the brave Marylanders, to oblige Beauregard, would have sung “Maryland, My Maryland,” while Johnston invested Washington in rear, and Beauregard in front.

Thus the Federal armies would have been disposed of, Washington and Baltimore captured, Maryland liberated, and Beauregard another and greater Napoleon.

Elaborate and complicated plans on schedule time never had any terrors for Beauregard.

Before the battle of Manassas he suggested that Johnston should leave the railroad thirty-five miles from Manassas, and fall on McDowell’s rear, while he, on hearing his guns, would attack in front.

The result would have been as Johnston says:

McDowell would have disposed of me in two hours and could then have turned his attention to Beauregard, who would have been coming up.

CHAPTER V

THE QUARREL ABOUT JOHNSTON’S RANK

THE armies of Johnston and Beauregard were combined after the battle, and Johnston was in command, but things did not run smoothly between the generals, nor between them and the Richmond authorities. Only three days after the battle Johnston wrote to the War Department:

Lieutenant Colonel Maury reported to me this morning as assistant adjutant general, being assigned to that place by General Lee. I had already selected Major Rhett . . . and can admit the power of no officer of the army to annul my order on the subject, nor can I admit the claim of any officer to the command of the forces, being myself the ranking general of the Confederate army.

Davis indorsed this letter “Insubordinate,” and the quarrel over Johnston’s rank ensued.

In one of his lengthy letters he says:

The effect of the course pursued is this: It transfers me from the position of first in rank to that of fourth. . . . It is plain that this is a blow aimed at me alone. . . . It seeks to tarnish my fame, as a soldier and as a man, earned by more than thirty years of laborious and perilous service. I had but this, the scars of many wounds all honestly taken in my front and in the front of battle, and my father’s Revolutionary sword. It was delivered to me from his venerable hand, without a stain of dishonor. The blade is still unblemished, etc., etc.

Davis replied:

I have just received and read your letter of the 12th inst. The language is, as you say, unusual, its arguments and statements utterly one-sided, and its insinuations as unfounded as they are unbecoming.

Beauregard gave almost as much trouble.

Differences led, as Mrs. Davis says in her “Memoirs,” “to an estrangement between Beauregard and the authorities at Richmond, which apparently widened as the war progressed.”

Both generals were spoiled by the battle.

The administration was already unpopular. Mr, Hunter, of Virginia, quit the cabinet for fear, his enemies said, that identification with the administration might jeopardize his chances for the next presidential term.

Beauregard loomed up also as presidential “timber.”

CHAPTER VI

“WITHIN HEARING OF THE ENEMY’S GUNS”

BEAUREGARD wrote to the editor of the Richmond Whig:

CENTERVILLE, VA.,

(Within hearing of the enemy’s guns),

November 3, 1861.

To THE EDITOR: My attention has been called to an unfortunate controversy now going on relative to the publication of a synopsis of my report of the battle of Manassas. None can regret more than I do this publication, which was made without my knowledge or authority. The President is the sole judge of when and what parts of the reports of a commanding officer should be made public. I, individually, do not object to delaying its publication as long as the War Department should think it necessary or proper for the success of our cause. Meanwhile, I entreat my friends not to trouble themselves about refuting the slanders and calumnies aimed at me. Alcibiades on a certain occasion resorted to a singular method to occupy the minds of his traducers; let, then, that synopsis answer the same purpose for me in this instance.

If certain minds cannot understand the difference between patriotism, the highest civic virtue, and office seeking, the lowest civic occupation, I pity them from the bottom of my heart.. Suffice it to say that I prefer the respect and esteem of my countrymen to the admiration and envy of the world. I hope for the sake of our cause and country to be able, with the assistance of a kind Providence, to answer my calumniators with new victories over our natural enemies; but I have nothing to ask of the country, the Government, nor my friends, except to afford me all the aid they can in the great struggle we are now engaged upon.

I am not and never expect to be a candidate for any civic office in the gift of the people or the Executive. The acme of my ambition is, after having cast my mite in the defense of our sacred cause, and assisted to the best of my ability in securing our rights and independence as a nation, to retire to private life (my means permitting), never again to leave my home unless to fight anew the battles of my country.

Respectfully Your most obedient servant,
G. T. BEAUREGARD.

“Within hearing of the enemy’s guns” is a good” second to Pope’s “Headquarters in the saddle.”

Mrs. Davis says:

Now for the first time there appeared to be an organized party in opposition to the administration.

This might have been weakened by daily social intercourse and, habituated as we were to giving numerous entertainments of an official character, we should gladly have kept up the custom; but during every entertainment, without exception, either the death of a relation was announced to a guest, or a disaster to the Confederacy was telegraphed to the President. He was a nervous dyspeptic by habit . . . He said he could do either one duty or the other, give entertainments or administer the Government, and he fancied he was expected to perform the latter service in preference! And so we ceased to entertain except at formal receptions, or informal dinners and breakfasts given to as many as Mr. Davis’s health permitted us to invite. In the evening he was too exhausted to receive visitors.

The Examiner sent forth a wail of regret over the parsimony of the administration. It touched feelingly upon the deprivation of the young people of Richmond in not being received in the evening, the assumption of ̴superior dignity of the satraps,” etc., etc.

This became a fierce growl as it contemplated the awful contingency of the “President’s getting rich on his savings.” . . . So, little by little, Congress became alienated, or at least a large portion of them, with a few of the military men.

The President let the conviction gnaw at his vitals in silence. He used to say with a sigh: “If we succeed, we shall hear nothing of the malcontents; if we do not, then I shall be held accountable by the majority of friends as well as of foes. I will do my best, and God will give me strength to bear whatever comes to me.”

An historian, speaking of Davis, says:

His temperament was obstinate and domineering.

He soon made all branches of the Government subservient to his will, although there were both a Congress and a Supreme Court. He was the State.

And this unfortunate disposition alienated from him some of the ablest men of the South, men who were ardent supporters of the independence of their section, and whose self-sacrificing spirit could not be challenged.

The general impression that Davis was to blame for the alienation of some of the ablest men, including Beauregard and Johnston, and that he was “domineering and obstinate,” has no foundation in fact.

To the contrary, he was most considerate of the feelings of those with whom he was associated in the Government, and with the generals in the field, as the correspondence between them abundantly demonstrates.

CHAPTER VII

THE RELATIONS BETWEEN DAVIS AND LEE

MANASSAS TO SEVEN PINES

COLONEL MOSBY, in his “Stuart’s Cavalry in the Gettysburg Campaign,” says:

I dined with General Lee at his headquarters, near Petersburg, about six weeks before the surrender. He told me then that he had been opposed to General Johnston’s withdrawing to the Peninsula, and had written to him while he was on the Rapidan, advising him to move back toward the Potomac. He thought that if he had done this, McClellan would have been recalled to the defense of Washington.

Thus early in the game did Lee realize that the only hope of Confederate success lay in keeping the army out of the last ditch, and that the only way in which that could be done was to threaten Washington.

But Johnston did not heed Lee’s advice.

His usual mania for retreat had seized him, though McClellan was hibernating, torpid, and had no thought of molesting him.

Davis became alarmed at the loss of guns and subsistence stores in case of a hasty retreat.

RICHMOND, VA., February 28, 1862.

GENERAL J. E. JOHNSTON: . . . The heavy guns at Manassas and Evansport, needed elsewhere, and reported to be useless in their present position, would necessarily be abandoned in a hasty retreat. I regret that you find it impossible to move them.

The subsistence stores should, when removed, be placed in position to answer your future wants.

. . . I need not urge on your consideration the value to our country of arms and munitions of war; you know the difficulty with which we have obtained our small supply; that to furnish heavy artillery to advanced posts we have exhausted the supplies here which were designed for the armament of the city defenses. Whatever can be, should be done to avoid the loss of these guns.

. . . Recent disasters have depressed the weak, and are depriving us of the aid of the wavering. Traitors show the tendencies heretofore concealed, and the selfish grow clamorous for local and personal interests. At such an hour the wisdom of the trained and the steadiness of the brave possess a double value. The military paradox that impossibilities must be rendered possible had never better occasion for its application. . . .

Very truly and respectfully yours,

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

He writes again on the 6th urging him to save the ordnance stores, etc.

Johnston began to extricate the troops from winter quarters on the 7th, and after much confusion got them on the retreat on the 9th.

On the 10th of March, Davis, unadvised of Johnston’s retreat, telegraphed to him:

Further assurance given me this day that you shall be promptly reinforced, so as to enable you to maintain your position and resume first policy when the roads will permit.

The first policy was to be aggressive.

Davis and McClellan thought the roads were not good enough for an advance, but Johnston thought they would do very well for a retreat.

Davis received no official notice of the retreat until the 15th.

He writes to Johnston under that date:

. . . It is true I have had many and alarming reports of great destruction of ammunition, camp equipage, and provisions, indicating precipitate retreat; but having heard of no cause for such a sudden movement, I was at a loss to believe it.

General Early, speaking of the needless loss due to a hurried and foolish retreat, says:

A very large amount of stores and provisions had been abandoned for want of transportation, and among the stores was a very large quantity of clothing, blankets, etc., which had been provided by the States south of Virginia for their own troops. . . .

The loss of stores at this point, and at White Plains, on the Manassas Gap railroad, where a large amount of meat had been salted and stored, was a very serious one to us.. . .

Johnston halted on the south bank of the Rappahannock in a position of great strength.

Early in April McClellan and his army of about 100,000 men landed on the lower peninsula. Johnston moved down to Yorktown and the line of the Warwick river to opposite him. But, as usual, he promptly advised a retreat.

RICHMOND, VA, May 1, 1862.

GENERAL J. E. JOHNSTON,
Yorktown, Va.

Accepting your conclusion that you must soon retire, arrangements are commenced for the abandonment of the Navy Yard, and the removal of public property both from Norfolk and this Peninsula.

Your announcement to-day that you would withdraw tomorrow night takes us by surprise, and must involve enormous losses, including unfinished gun-boats. Will the safety of your army allow more time?

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

But Johnston did not value gunboats as McClellan did, and withdrew his army from the lines of the Warwick river on the night of the 3d.

He checked McClellan’s advance at Williamsburg; then fell back on Richmond.

Lee, who was military adviser to the President, wrote to Jackson, who was in command in the Shenandoah Valley:

I cannot pretend at this distance to direct operations depending on circumstances unknown to me, and requiring the exercise of direction and judgment as to time and execution.

Jackson replied:

Now, it appears to me, is the golden opportunity for striking a blow. Until I hear from you I will watch an opportunity for attacking one exposed point.

Lee could not furnish, the reinforcements that Jackson intimated he would like, but he gave him a free hand in the Valley.

On the 8th of May Jackson defeated Milroy and Schenk at McDowell.

On the 17th of May Lincoln ordered McDowell at Fredericksburg to march to McClellan, and ordered McClellan to extend his right accordingly. On the 23d of May he visited McDowell to perfect arrangements for this march.

That same day, the 23d, Jackson defeated Banks at Front Royal.

The next day, the 24th, Lincoln countermanded his order for McDowell’s march, and ordered him to send 20,000 men to capture Jackson.

On Sunday, the 25th, at daybreak Jackson routed Banks at Winchester, and chased him across the Potomac.

Banks wrote:

There never were more grateful hearts in the same number of men than when midday of the 26th we stood on the opposite shore.

Lincoln and Stanton were now dreadfully alarmed for the safety of Washington.

Stanton telegraphed to the governors of the States:

Intelligence from various quarters leaves no doubt that the enemy in great force are marching on Washington. You will please organize and forward immediately all the militia and volunteer force in your State.

Lincoln seized the railroad; even the New York Seventh was brought out.

He dispatched to McClellan:

I think the time is near when you must either attack Richmond, or give up the job and come to the defense of Washington.

Stanton wrote:

Our condition is one of considerable danger, as we are stripped to supply the Army of the Potomac and now have the enemy here.

So that Jackson, with 17,000 men, gave Washington its first scare and prevented 30,000 men in the Valley, and 40,000 at Fredericksburg, from reinforcing McClellan.

Mr. Davis says:

Seeing no preparation for keeping the enemy at a distance, and kept in ignorance of any plan for such " purpose, I sent for General R. E. Lee, then at Richmond in general charge of army operations, and told him why and how I was dissatisfied with the condition of affairs.

Lee called on Johnston, and said Johnston proposed to attack McClellan on the next Thursday; but he did not. On the 31st of May, Johnston did attack. Assuming that high water in the Chickahominy would wash McClellan’s bridges away and in no way interfere with the movements of his own army, he attacked the left of McClellan’s army that was on the Richmond side of the swamp.

The result was exactly the reverse of his expectations. McClellan’s bridges were not washed away, and here is what General Rhodes says of his advance over one of the creeks he had to cross:

The progress of the brigade was delayed by the washing away of the bridges, which forced the men to wade in water waist deep, and a large number were entirely submerged. . . .

The ground was covered with thick undergrowth, and the soil very marshy. It was with great difficulty that either horses or men could get over it, guided as they were only by the firing in front. Only five companies of the 5th Alabama emerged from the woods under a heavy fire of artillery and musketry.

Johnston had some success, captured some guns and prisoners, but with a loss of 7000 of the best soldiers the Confederacy ever had.

The battle of Fair Oaks, or Seven Pines, was a mistake in conception and a botch in execution. The enemy was comfortably entrenched, while our men had to flounder through swamps and tangled underbrush.

Davis was as helpless as a child. On the 3d of June he wrote to Mrs. Davis:

If the Mississippi troops lying in camp when not retreating under Beauregard were at home, they would probably keep a section of the river free for our use, and closed against Yankee gunboats.

It is hard to see incompetency losing opportunity, and wasting hard gotten means, but harder still to bear is the knowledge that there is no available remedy.

The West Point fetish was strong in the army.

---

PART II

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1862

CHAPTER I

SEVEN DAYS

ON June I, 1862, Lee was placed in command of the army, Johnston having been wounded in his battle of Seven Pines (Fair Oaks).

Davis says:

Our army was in line in front of Richmond, but without intrenchments. General Lee immediately constructed earthworks. They were necessarily feeble because of our deficiency in tools. It seemed to be the intention of the enemy to assail Richmond by regular approaches, which our numerical inferiority and want of proper utensils made it improbable that we should be able to resist.

The day after General Lee assumed command, I was riding out to the army and I found him in a house in consultation with a number of his general officers. Their tone was despondent, and one especially pointed out the inevitable consequences of the enemy’s advance by throwing out boyaux and constructing successive parallels.

I think it will be admitted that when Lee took command of the army in the backyards of Richmond prospects were far from flattering.

Besides fighting the battle of Bull Run and a few minor engagements terminating with the ill-conceived and badly executed battle of Seven Pines, the army had done nothing but retreat. Disasters in the southwest were only relieved by an occasional dispatch from Beauregard announcing a “brilliant retreat.” If Lee remained in his intrenchments the city would be McClellan’s by gradual approaches and big guns.

In Napoleon’s famous “Supper of Beaucaire,” his first literary work of ability, he writes as follows:

It is an axiom of military science that the army which remains behind its intrenchments is beaten; experience and theory agree on this point.

As the brilliant idea of abandoning Richmond had not occurred to Lee, his only alternative was to seize the initiative. He would call Jackson from the Valley; but before doing this he would give Washington a scare. He sent two brigades to reinforce Jackson, ordering him at the same time to move quickly to Ashland, then down the north bank of the Chickahominy. The news as to the reinforcement reached Washington and Mc Clellan about the same time. Lincoln withheld troops from McClellan for the defense of Washington, and McClellan thought Lee had more men than he had any use for.

On the 26th Lee, after leaving 30,000 men under Magruder for the defense of Richmond, crossed the Chickahominy at the upper bridges. A. P. Hill attacked the enemy at Beaver Dam,–McClellan’s extreme right,–and was repulsed with considerable loss; but on the next day, the 27th, Lee beat McClellan in the great battle of Gaines’s Mill.

Longstreet says:

It was a little after 2 p.m. when A. P. Hill put all his force into action and pressed his battle with a great zeal and courage, but he was alone. . . .

Speaking of the final charge after sunset, which swept the Federal line from the field, Longstreet says:

The position was too strong to doubt that it was only the thinning fire as the battle progressed that made it assailable; besides, the repulse of A. P. Hill’s repeated, desperate assaults forcibly testified to the fact. It was, nevertheless, a splendid charge, by peerless soldiers.

Five thousand prisoners were turned over to General Lee’s provost guard, a number of batteries and many thousand small arms to the Ordnance Department by my command.

The Confederate commanders, except A. P. Hill, claimed credit for the first breach in General Porter’s lines, but the solid ranks of prisoners delivered to the general provost guard, and the several batteries captured and turned over to the Ordnance Department, show the breach to have been made by the columns of Anderson, Pickett, and Hood’s two regiments.

The troops of the gallant A. P. Hill, that did as much and as effective fighting as any, received little of the credit properly due them. It was their long and steady fight that thinned the Federal ranks and caused them so to foul their guns that they were out of order when the final struggle came. . . .

McClellan dispatched to the Secretary of War from Savage station:

I now know the full history of the day. On this side of the river (the right bank) we repulsed several strong attacks; on the left bank our men did all that men could do, all that soldiers could accomplish, but they were overwhelmed by vastly superior numbers, even after I brought my last reserves into action. The loss on both sides is terrible. . . . The sad remnants of my men behave as men. . . . I have lost this battle because my force was too small. . . . I feel too earnestly to-night. I have seen too many dead and wounded comrades to feel otherwise than that the government has not sustained this army. If you do not do so now, the game is lost. If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you nor to any other person in Washington. You have done your best to sacrifice this army.

Lincoln replied:

Save your army at all events; will send reinforcements as fast as we can. . . . If you have had a drawn battle or a repulse, it is the price we pay for the enemy’s not being in Washington. We protected Washington and the enemy concentrated on you. Had we stripped Washington he would have been upon us before the troops could have gotten to you. 12.20 a.m., June 28.

Joe Johnston wrote to Beauregard, August 4, 1862:

I am not sure you are right in regarding the success of McClellan’s “strategic movement” as evidence of skill. It seems to me to be due rather to our having lost two days immediately after the principal fight, that of Friday (Gaines’s Mill, June 27) and many hours afterward, especially on Tuesday (Malvern Hill, July 1). I was told that the action on that day commenced about 6 o’clock p.m., but one and one-half or two miles from the field of Monday’s engagement. It is said, too, that a large portion of our army was idle on each of those days.

The battle of Malvern Hill (Tuesday) was but fifteen or twenty miles from the middle of McClellan’s position on the Chickahominy. The result of that action terminated the pursuit. It seems to me the “partial results” were due to a want of the “bulldog tenacity” you give us credit for.

If the enemy had been pressed vigorously on Saturday and Sunday (January 28–29), he must have been ruined, could never have fixed himself securely on James river. He left his position on the Chickahominy without our knowledge, because the wide interval by which he escaped was not observed by cavalry as it should have been. . . . I must confess that the advantages gained by what is termed the Seven Days’ fighting are not very evident to me.

Lee explains in the following report why McClellan escaped. The reason would occur to any one who knows the Chickahominy country. Johnston ought to have known it after his disastrous experience at Seven Pines.

Lee in his report said:

Under ordinary circumstances the Federal army should have been destroyed. Its escape was due to the causes already stated. Prominent among these is the want of correct and timely information. This fact, attributable chiefly to the character of the country, enabled General McClellan skillfully to conceal his retreat, and to add much to the obstructions with which nature had beset the way of our pursuing column.

Lee did not know after the battle of Gaines’s Mill whether McClellan would fall back on his base on the Pamunkey or whether he would seek a new one on the James, or, in fact, whether he would retreat at all or not.

McClellan held the country in his rear. It was wooded and swampy, and with a strong rear-guard he easily masked his movements. His gunboats also commanded the James river.

Johnston appears to have thought there was no fighting except at Gaines’s Mill, Frazier’s Farm, and Malvern Hill, whereas it was a continuous fight all the way.

General Franklin says:

My experience during the period generally known as the “Seven Days” was with the Sixth and Second corps. During the whole time between June 26 and July 2 there was not a night in which the men did not march almost continually, nor a day on which there was not a fight.

Major General McCall, who was taken prisoner, in his report of the battle of Frazier’s Farm, says:

Soon after this a most determined charge was made on Randol’s battery by a full brigade advancing in wedge shape, without order, but in perfect recklessness. Somewhat similiar charges had been previously made on Cooper’s and Kern’s batteries by single regiments without success, they having recoiled before the storm of canister hurled against them. A like result was anticipated in Randol’s battery, and the 4th regiment was requested not to fire until the battery had done with them. Its gallant commander did not doubt his ability to repel the attack, and his guns did indeed mow down the advancing host, but still the gaps were closed and the enemy came in on a run to the very muzzles of the guns.

It was a perfect torrent of men, and they were in his battery before the guns could be removed, and the enemy, rushing past, drove the greater part of the 4th regiment before them. I had ridden into the regiment and endeavored to check them, but with only partial success.

But General Johnston thought he ought to have been reinstated in command when he recovered from his wound.

Mrs. Davis says:

Upon General Johnston’s recovery from the wound he received at Seven Pines he had been assigned, on November 24, 1862, to the command of a geographical department, including the States of Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina. Mrs. Johnston and I were very intimate friends, and the day before his departure I went to see them. General Johnston seemed ill and dispirited. In answer to a hope expressed by me that he would have a brilliant campaign, he said, “I might, if I had Lee’s chances with the Army of Northern Virginia,” from which I inferred he was very averse to leaving Virginia.

Lord Wolseley published a friendly criticism of Lee in Macmillan’s Magazine, upon which a Northern writer in the Century Magazine of June, 1887, comments. In will serve to show that Lee’s reputation has suffered more at the hands of his friends than at those of his foes.

The comment is as follows:

. . . . Lord Wolseley has cultivated the belief that Lee’s strategy and tactics were always “everything that could be desired up to the moment of victory, but there his action seemed to stop abruptly.” True, the Confederates were not Titans. They seemed never to be wound up for more than a week or more of hard marching on scant rations, followed by two or three days of continuous battle, usually against superior numbers, which left them at the end without fresh reserves. After a terrible and exhausting victory a longing for rest seemed to overcome them. General Lee could not furnish physical strength to his men from his own sinews, but he did know how to fight them to a shadow and then how to keep them going on something that from the other side of the line looked like very thin hope. Once, as Lord Wolseley recollects, but with vagueness as to its events, there were seven days of continuous fighting near Richmond. Lee, with sublime daring, dashed his columns time and again upon McClellan’s superior but separated forces. His losses were frightful, but the bravery and energy displayed by his troops were tremendous. . . .

Longstreet says:

Passing in critical review the events of the campaign, they fail to display a flaw as it was projected by the Confederate chief.

McClellan is criticised for not attacking Magruder.

Davis says:

I pointed out to him (Lee) that our force and intrenched line between that left wing (of the Union Army) and Richmond was too weak for a protracted resistance, and if McClellan was the man I took him for . . . as soon as he found that the bulk of our army was on the north side of the Chickahominy, he would not stop to try conclusions there, but would immediately move upon his objective point, the city of Richmond.

Lee replied:

If you will hold him as long as you can at the intrenchments and then fall back on the detached works around the city, I will be upon the enemy’s heels before he gets there.

Lee had evidently considered an attack on Magruder and was prepared for it.

Lieut. Col. G. F. R. Henderson, in his “Life of Stonewall Jackson,” says:

McClellan forgot that in war it is impossible for a general to be absolutely certain. It is sufficient, according to Napoleon, if the odds in his favor are three to two; and if he cannot discover from the attitude of his enemy what the odds are, he is unfitted for supreme command.

The “attitude” that Lee was in the habit of assuming was the very thing that impressed his enemy with the idea that his army was about twice as large as it really was.

If Napoleon could determine the strength of his enemy by his “attitude,” it is clear that he had no Lees to deal with.

Then Napoleon was never in the Chickahominy swamp.

Moreover, in reporting to the Directory, he habitually underestimated his own forces, and exaggerated those of the enemy,—just as McClellan did.

McClellan erred in overestimating the strength of Lee’s army. Whether he ought to have known it or not depends, not on any cut and dried rule of Napoleon’s, but on conditions and environments.

When he heard that Lee had sent troops North, he telegraphed to the President:

If 10,000 or 15,000 men have left Richmond to reinforce Jackson, it illustrates their strength and confidence.

This interpretation was certainly more probable than any other, and generals, like other people, must base their policy on probabilities rather than improbabilities.

The Confederacy was young and fresh at that time, and troops were coming up from the South. McClellan had no means of determining how many were coming, and Allan Pinkerton, McClellan’s chief of secret service, estimated Lee’s army at 180,000 men.

If McClellan had divined that Lee, instead of sending troops to the Valley to reinforce Jackson, was calling Jackson to Richmond to reinforce himself, he would have been little less than a seer.

Lee took command of the army on the 1st of June. Mr. Davis says the tone of the general officers was despondent.

McClellan’s splendid army of 100,000 men was in sight of Richmond. On July 2 that army had been driven to Harrison’s Landing, and was under shelter of its gunboats.

When Lee assumed the offensive he should have had, according to Napoleon’s figures of three to two, 150,000 men. Instead he had 80,000.

Lee said in his report:

The siege of Richmond was raised, and the object of a campaign, which had been prosecuted after months of preparation at an enormous expenditure of men and money, completely frustrated.

More than 10,000 prisoners, including officers of high rank, 52 pieces of artillery, and upward of 35,000 stands of small arms were captured. The stores and supplies of every description that fell into our hands were great in amount and volume, but small in comparison with those destroyed by the enemy.

Davis wrote to Mrs. Davis on the 6th of July:

. . . Our success has been so remarkable that we should be grateful. . . .

“Our success” was not accomplished without heavy loss and a bad repulse at Malvern Hill. That position was one of extraordinary strength. The flanks rested on ground that was impregnable and defended by gunboats. The front was accessible only by narrow roads through swamps and woods, and the hill itself offered positions for all McClellan’s powerful artillery, including his siege guns.

The only excuse for the attack is that no opportunity for striking a defeated and retreating enemy should be neglected.

But contrast the conditions when Lee assumed command with those one month afterward, and “our success” was not only “remarkable” but well-nigh miraculous.

Of the soldiers of the Army of the Potomac, General Franklin says:

They had been soldiers less than a year, yet their conduct could not have been more soldierly had they seen ten years of service. No such material for soldiers was ever in the field before. . . .

The same can be said of the Army of Northern Virginia. Both armies were composed of the best fighting material of their respective sections.

Both armies were at their best.

Lincoln called for 300,000 three years’ men.

Seward explained that reinforcements were necessary to follow up the “recent successes of the Federal arms.”

But the Northern people soon found that McClellan had been defeated and driven to the shelter of his gun-boats on the James.

There was a panic in Wall Street and gloom everywhere.

CHAPTER II

SECOND MANASSAS

LEE had disposed of one puzzle only to be confronted by another, and while he was considering it the army, after its floundering campaign in the woods and swamps of the Peninsula, got a few days of needed rest.

Looking down the river he saw McClellan, with 90,000 men, only a day’s march from Richmond. He was safe there with his gunboats, and said, it is reported, that “there ought to be a gunboat in every family.”

Looking north he saw the bloodthirsty Pope, with 43,000 men, occupying the line of the Rappahannock river, threatening the railroad at Gordonsville.

McClellan at Harrison’s Landing was calling for reinforcements to resume the offensive, and Pope issued the following order of the day, which was calculated to scare Lee or any other man:

July 14.

I have come to you from the west, where we have always seen the backs of our enemies; from an army whose business it has been to seek the adversary and to beat him when he was found. . . . I presume I have been called here to pursue the same course and to lead you against the enemy. It is my purpose to do so, and that speedily. . . . I desire you to dismiss from your minds certain phrases which I am sorry to find so much in vogue with you. I hear constantly of “taking strong positions and holding them,” of “lines of retreat,” and of “bases of supplies.” Let us discard such ideas. The strongest position a soldier should desire to occupy is one from which he can most easily advance against the enemy. Let us study the probable lines of retreat of our opponent and leave our own to take care of themselves.

Let us look before us and not behind. Success and glory arc in the advance; disaster and shame lurk in the rear.

The army narrowly escaped a spanking.

Lee now had a problem on hand that would have taxed the ability of Napoleon. If he remained at Richmond it meant a siege by an army of at least 150,000 men, and Lee did not like sieges. He did not fancy the defensive, so there was nothing to do but take the initiative against Pope.

He thought the move would threaten Washington and draw McClellan away from Richmond. Accordingly, on the 13th of July he ordered Jackson with his own and Ewell’s division to Gordonsville. Then he sent A. P. Hill and his division, and ordered Jackson to move on the enemy, while he remained with Longstreet’s corps, Hill’s and Anderson’s divisions of infantry, and Stuart’s cavalry, to watch McClellan, who still had 90,000 men in a day’s march of Richmond.

Jackson’s move had the desired effect. On the 3d of August Halleck telegraphed to McClellan:

It is determined to withdraw your army from the Peninsula to Acquia Creek. You will take immediate action to this effect.

McClellan sent this telegram in reply to General Halleck:

Your telegram has caused me the greatest pain I ever experienced, for I am convinced that the order to withdraw this army to Acquia Creek will prove disastrous to our cause. I fear it will be a fatal blow. . . .

This army is now in excellent discipline and condition. . . . With the assistance of our gunboats I consider our communication as now secure. . . . Here, directly in front of this army, is the heart of the rebellion. It is here that all our resources should be collected to strike the blow which will determine the fate of the nation. All points of secondary importance ought to be abandoned, and every available man brought here; a decided victory here and the military strength of the rebellion is crushed. It matters not what partial reverses we may meet elsewhere. Here is the true defense of Washington. It is here on the banks of the James that the fate of the Union should be decided. . . . I entreat that this order be rescinded.

Halleck’s reply was:

The order of the withdrawal will not be rescinded. You will be expected to execute it with all possible promptness.

On the 5th of August, Hooker drove the Confederate detachments from Malvern Hill, and McClellan wired to Halleck from that point:

This is a very advantageous position to cover an advance on Richmond, and only fourteen and three-quarter miles distant, and I feel confident that with reinforcements I could march this army there in five days.

Halleck promptly replied to this communication:

I have no reinforcements to send you.

On the 9th of August Jackson defeated Banks at Cedar Run. Banks being largely reinforced, Jackson, after resting on the field two days and sending his accustomed dispatch, “God blessed our army with another victory,” fell back on Gordonsville.

Halleck, fearing that Pope and Burnside would be destroyed and Washington captured, wired to McClellan:

There must be no further delay in your movements. That which has already occurred was entirely unexpected and must be satisfactorily explained.

On the 13th of August Lee ordered Longstreet and two brigades under Hood to Gordonsville, and he himself followed on the 15th.

This left about 30,000 troops in Richmond, while McClellan had 81,000 at Harrison’s Landing.

Halleck telegraphed to McClellan that the enemy was fighting Pope, and that it was necessary to get troops in front of Washington as soon as possible. McClellan went to Fortress Monroe to beg Halleck to allow him to relieve Pope by attacking Richmond. Halleck answered at 1.40 a.m., August 14: “There is no change of plans! You will send up your troops as rapidly as possible,” and then went to bed.

Lee, becoming convinced that he had nothing to fear from McClellan, ordered Stuart with the greater part of his cavalry and R. H. Anderson with his division to join him at Gordonsville. The divisions of D. H. Hill and McLaws followed, but they were not in time to participate in the operations against Pope.

On the 24th of August McClellan reported at Acquia Creek.

Lee started Jackson with 25,000 men on the 25th of August on a forced march to the rear of Pope’s army. He took nothing but ammunition wagons, marched twenty-five miles the first day to Salem, passed through White Plains, Thoroughfare Gap, and Gainesville, and on the morning of the 26th was at Bristow Station on the Orange and Alexandria railroad.

He was now between Pope and Washington. He captured two railroad trains at Bristow, and an eight-gun battery, horses, provisions, and Pope’s depot of supplies at Manassas. As his men had scant rations on the march, Pope’s good things were highly appreciated.

On the afternoon of the same day Lee followed Jackson with Longstreet’s command, less one division left on the Rappahannock.

On the 27th McClellan reported at Alexandria.

That night Pope ordered the concentration of his army a t Manassas. In his order to McDowell he said: “If you will move promptly and rapidly, we will bag the whole crowd.”

But Jackson, not wishing to be bagged, moved to a position near Bull Run, and hid in an old railroad cut and the woods, to await the arrival of Longstreet, who was hurrying to his aid.

Pope thought Jackson was in a bad fix and would run away as soon as he could. He put his columns in motion to catch him, and their marches and countermarches puzzled Jackson and led to the battle of the 28th.

Of it Longstreet says:

As King’s division of McDowell’s corps was marching by (on the road to Centerville) Jackson thought to come out from his lurking-place to learn the meaning of the march. The direction of the move again impressed him that Pope was retreating, and that his escape to the north side of Bull Run would put his army in a position of safety before Lee could join him.

It was late, the sun had set, but Jackson was moved to prompt action, as the only means of holding Pope for Lee’s arrival. He was in plain view of the white smoke of the rifles of my infantry as they climbed over the Bull Run mountains, seven miles away, and in hearing of our artillery as the boom of the big guns, resounding along the rock-faced cliffs, gathered volume to offer salutations and greetings for the union of comrades and commands. He changed the front of his right division, and, noting the movement of Siegel’s troops along the Newmarket road, called out Ewell with his brigades under Lawton and Trimble, and in addition to the artillery of these commands used the horse artillery of Pelham. As formed, the new line was broadside against the turnpike, its left a little way from Groveton.

The ground upon which the action occurred had been passed an hour before by the division commander, General Hatch, who saw no indication of the presence of a foe. As the division marched, the column was made up of the brigades of Hatch, Gibbon, Doubleday, and Patrick. The action fell against the brigade commanded by General Gibbon, who, taking it for a cavalry annoyance to cover retreat, opened against it, and essayed aggressive fight, till he found himself engaged against a formidable force of infantry and artillery. He was assisted by part of Doubleday’s brigade, and asked for other assistance, which failed to reach him till night came and ended the contest. His fight was desperate and courageous against odds, but he held it and his line till dark. . . . General Doubleday joined the fight with his brigade, and reported his loss nearly half the troops engaged. General Gibbon called it “a surprise.” And well he might, after his division commander had just passed over the route and failed to find any indication of the lurking foe. General Jackson reported, “The conflict here was firm and sanguinary.” He failed to give his number lost, but acknowledges his severe loss in the division commanders, General Ewell losing a leg, and Taliaferro severely wounded. During the night the Federal commander reported to his subordinates that McDowell had “ intercepted the retreat of Jackson,” and ordered concentration of the army against him; whereas it was, of course, Jackson who had intercepted McDowell’s march. He seems to have been under the impression that he was about to capture Jackson, and inclined to lead his subordinates to the same opinion.

Of the time, Major Edward Pye reported: “We were sent forward toward evening to pursue the enemy, who were said to be retreating. Found the enemy, but did not see them retreat. A deadly fire from three sides welcomed and drove us back.”

Jackson was asleep in a fence comer, having been up all the previous night, when the scouts reported the march of King’s column. He sprang up and ran for his horse, buckling his sword on as he went and shouting hurried orders for the attack to his aids. He thought Pope was trying to give Lee the slip as he did on the Rapidan.

Pope, afraid that Jackson would escape, ordered Siegel to attack early on the morning of the 29th and bring him to a stand.

From Hill’s report:

The enemy prepared for a last and determined attempt. Their serried masses, overwhelming superiority of numbers, and bold bearing made the chances of victory to tremble in the balance; my own division exhausted by seven hours of unremitted fighting, hardly one round of ammunition per man remaining, and weakened in all things except its unconquerable spirit.

Casting about for help, fortunately it was here reported to me that the brigades of Generals Lawton and Early were nearby, and, sending to them, they promptly moved to my front at the most opportune moment, and this last charge met the disastrous fate that had befallen those preceding.

Jackson’s fight was desperate against heavy odds. Longstreet arrived and was in position by noon, and Lee desired him to turn the Federal left and so relieve the heavy pressure against Jackson. But Longstreet was balky and advised a reconnaissance.

When his troops fell back from the reconnaissance, it looked like a retreat. On the morning of the 30th Pope wired to Washington that “the enemy was retreating to the mountains.” He reported:

General Hooker estimates the loss of the enemy as at least two to one, and General Kearney as at least three to one.

He did not know that Longstreet had come up. That afternoon he attacked in heavy force, but the battle of Second Manassas ended in his defeat.

That night he, and not Jackson, was retreating.

Franklin says that when he reached the Warrenton turnpike, about six o’clock, he found it “filled with fleeing men, artillery, and wagons, all leaving the field in a panic. It was a scene of terrible confusion.

General Porter wrote to General McClellan as follows:

I was whipped, as was the whole army, badly. . . . I have had no dinner nor supper to-day, and no chance for any tomorrow.

August 29, 1862, 2:30 p.m.

What news from direction of Manassas? What news generally?

A. LINCOLN.

This was to McClellan, who had no news, but plenty of advice.

August 29, 1862, 2.45 p.m.

I am clear that one of two courses should be adopted: first, to concentrate all our available forces to open communication with Pope; second, to leave Pope to get out of his scrape and at once use all our means to make the capital perfectly safe. . . .

GEO. B. MCCLELLAN,
Major General.

CENTERVILLE, August 31, 1862.

Our troops are all here and in position, though much used up and worn out. . . . I should like to know whether you feel secure about Washington, should this army be destroyed.

JNO. POPE,
Major General.

Halleck writes to McClellan:

I think you had better place Sumner’s corps as it arrives near the fortification and particularly at the Chain-bridge. . . . Use Tyler’s and Cox’s brigades and the new troops for the same purpose, if you need them.

Rhodes says:

McClellan did not “regard Washington as safe against the rebels.” “If I can quietly slip over there,” he said, in a letter to his wife, “I will send your silver off.”

. . . In view of the  great danger to Washington,  the general-in-chief asked Dix at Fort Monroe to send as rapidly as possible to the capital as large a part of the remainder of Keyes’s corps as could be spared, and ‘ urged Burnside to hasten forward his troops.

A number of gunboats were ordered up the river, and anchored at different points in proximity to the city, and a war steamer was brought to the Navy Yard.

All the clerks and employees of the civil departments and all employees in the public buildings were called to arms for the defense of the capital. The sale of spirituous liquors at retail within the District of Columbia was prohibited. Excitement and alarm held undisputed sway.

I know of no adverse criticism of Lee in this campaign. Even Longstreet is complimentary. He says:

Jackson’s march to Bristow and Manassas Junction was hazardous, or seemed so, but in view of his peculiar talent for such work (the captured dispatch of General Pope giving information of his affairs) and Lee’s skill, it seemed the only way open for progressive maneuver. The strength of the move lay in the time it gave us to make issue before all the Army of the Potomac could unite with the army of General Pope. His (Lee’s) game of hide and seek about Bull Run, Centerville, and Manassas Plains was grand.

Lee’s original plan was to catch Pope napping on the Rapidan; but Pope was informed of it by a captured letter from Lee to Stuart, and immediately fell back be-hind the Rappahannock.

Lee was looking on from Clark’s mountain, and said to Longstreet: “General, we little thought the enemy would turn his back upon us thus early in the campaign.”

Lee crossed the Rapidan and tried to pass the Rappahannock to fall upon Pope before he could receive reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, but Pope’s artillery, heavy rains, and a high river prevented him.

In the sparring along the Rappahannock Pope did very well, but Lee’s unconventional strategy and Jackson’s queer antics decided the campaign against him.

There is much of the usual cheap criticism of Pope,—what he ought to have done, and so on. No doubt he would have done those things if he had known as much as the critics knew, after the event, regarding Lee’s intentions and movements. It was highly probable that Jackson had made a raid on Manassas similar to that made by Stuart around McClellan’s army at Richmond, and was retiring.

Rhodes says, referring to Lee:

An ordinary general might have been satisfied with the capture of stores and the alarm created in Washington. . . .

So thought Pope. He made his disposition on that probability, rather than on the improbability that Jack-son had gone into hiding to wait for Lee.

When he sent his dispatch of the 30th he was still of the opinion that Jackson was retreating.

Longstreet says:

He was misled by reports of his officers and others to believe that the Confederates were in retreat, and planned his movements upon false premises.

In generalship Pope probably did as well as any man would have done under the peculiar circumstances of the campaign, and as for dislodging the Army of Northern Virginia from position, Grant failed to do that at Spottsylvania and Cold Harbor, though he had greater odds in his favor than Pope had.

Lee captured 30 guns, many thousand small arms, 7,000 prisoners, and 2,000 wounded, besides Jackson’s captures at Manassas and Bristow.

Pope’s aggregate on the 28th was 70,000 men; Lee’s, 49,000. Pope’s losses were 15,000 men, and Lee’s, 10,000.

Lee was now where he had advised Johnston to stay,—in position to threaten Washington. But it cost him about 30,000 men to get there. Add the 7,000 that Johnston lost at Seven Pines and the ordnance, clothes, and stores of subsistence lost by his retreats, and the conclusion is inevitable that he blundered in not trying, at any rate, to follow Lee’s advice.

CHAPTER III

SHARPSBURG (ANTIETAM)

LONGSTREET says it was Lee’s “deliberate and urgent advice to President Davis to join him and be prepared to make a proposal for peace and independence from the head of a conquering army.” This is one of Longstreet’s many dreams.

So far from wishing Davis to join him Lee wrote to him as follows:

HEADQUARTERS NEAR FREDERICKTOWN, MD.,
September 9, 1862.

His EXCELLENCY, PRESIDENT DAVIS.

MR. PRESIDENT: I have just received your letter of the 7th instant, from Rapidan, informing me of your intention to come on to Leesburg. While I should feel the greatest satisfaction in having an interview with you and in consulting you upon all subjects of interest, I cannot but feel great uneasiness for your safety, should you undertake to reach me. You will not only encounter the hardships and fatigues of a very disagreeable journey, but also run the risk of capture by the enemy.

I send my aide-de-camp. Major Taylor, back to explain to you the difficulties and dangers of the journey, which I cannot recommend you to undertake. I am endeavoring to break up the line through Leesburg, which is no longer safe, and turn everything off from Culpeper Court House toward Winchester.

. . . I must therefore advise you do not make an attempt that I cannot but regard as hazardous.

I have the honor to be, with high respect, your obedient servant,

R. E. LEE,
General.

Davis abandoned the idea of going to Lee before he received his letter. Lee’s real reason for the campaign he states clearly in the following letter, and his account of the condition of the army proves that he did not expect to achieve Confederate independence.

HEADQUARTERS, ALEXANDRIA AND LEESBURG ROAD,
NEAR DRAINESVILLE, September 3, 1862.

HIS EXCELLENCY, PRESIDENT DAVIS.

MR. PRESIDENT: . . . After the enemy had disappeared from the vicinity of Fairfax Court House and taken the road to Alexandria and Washington, I did not think it would be advantageous to follow him farther. I had no intention of attacking him in his fortifications and am not prepared to invest them. If I possessed the necessary munitions, I should be unable to supply provisions for the troops. I therefore determined, while threatening the approaches to Washington, to draw the troops into Loudoun, where forage and some provisions can be procured, menace their possession of the Shenandoah Valley, and, if found practicable, to cross into Maryland. The purpose, if discovered, will have the effect of carrying the enemy north of the Potomac, and if prevented will not result in much evil.

The army is not properly equipped for an invasion of the enemy’s territory. It lacks much of the material of war, is feeble in transportation, the animals being much reduced, and the men are poorly provided with clothing and in thousands of instances are destitute of shoes. Still, we cannot afford to be idle, and, though weaker than our opponents in men and military equipment, must endeavor to harass if we cannot destroy them. I am aware that the movement is attended with much risk, yet I do not consider success impossible, and shall endeavor to guard it from loss. As long as the army of the enemy is employed on this frontier I have no fears for the safety of Richmond.

. . . What occasions most concern is the fear of getting out of ammunition. I beg you will instruct the Ordnance Department to spare no pains in manufacturing a sufficient amount of the best kind. . . . If the Quartermaster’s Department can furnish any shoes, it would be the greatest relief. We have entered upon September, and the nights are becoming cool.

I have the honor to be, with high respect, your obedient servant,

R. E. LEE,
General.

There is not a word in this letter referring to the probability or possibility of conquering Confederate independence, or of any definite end other than to harass the enemy and keep him on the northern frontier.

It had cost Lee dearly to get his army out of the last ditch at Richmond, and if he remained idle it would be but a little time before the Army of the Potomac would be trying to put him back in it.

Longstreet says:

Riding together before we reached Frederick, the sound of artillery fire came from the direction of Point of Rocks and Harper’s Ferry, from which General Lee inferred that the enemy was concentrating forces from the Valley, for defense of Harper’s Ferry, and proposed to me to organize forces to surround and capture the works and garrison. I thought it a venture not worth the game, and suggested, as we were in the enemy’s country and presence, that he would be advised of any move that we made in a few hours after it was set on foot; that the Union army, though beaten, was not disorganized; that we knew a number of their officers who could put it in order and march against us, if they found us exposed, and make serious trouble before the capture could be accomplished; that our men were worn by very severe and protracted service and in need of repose; that as long as we had them in hand we were masters of the situation, but dispersed into many fragments our strength must be greatly reduced. As the subject was not continued, I supposed that it was a mere expression of passing thought until the day after we reached Frederick, upon going over to headquarters, I found the front of the general’s tent closed and tied. Upon inquiring of a member of the staff, I was told that he was inside with General Jackson. As I had not been called, I turned to go away, when General Lee, recognizing my voice, called me in. The plan had been arranged. . . .

According to Longstreet, the capture of Harper’s Ferry was optional and ought not to have been attempted.

The following reasons will explain why it was necessary.

Lee wrote to Davis from Frederick, September 9:

I shall move in the direction I originally intended, toward Hagerstown and Chambersburg, for the purpose of opening communication through the Valley in order to procure sufficient supplies of flour.

Both Long and Taylor of Lee’s staff say that when he got to Frederick he thought Harper’s Ferry had been abandoned, as it should have been. As it was still garrisoned by 11,000 men, it was not safe to leave it on his new line of communication, and that is, of course, sufficient reason, even if there had been no other, for taking it.

Longstreet says that in the Gettysburg campaign it was left alone. But it was not exactly left alone.

Early’s operations cleared the Valley of the enemy, and the garrison at Harper’s Ferry crossed over to Maryland Heights.

Colonel Mosby says:

. . . One benefit of Stuart’s crossing at Seneca was that it practically eliminated French’s corps in the campaign, and put it on the defensive, to guard the line of the Potomac and the rear of Meade’s army. It had been the garrison,—11,000,—at Harper’s Ferry, but, when that place was abandoned, it was added to Meade’s command. But Stuart’s appearance created such a sensation that Meade sent 4,000 men to guard the canal and 7,000 were kept at Frederick. They were no more help to Meade in the battle than if they had stayed above the clouds on Maryland Heights. . . .

Early’s operations moved the garrison to the Maryland side, and Stuart’s put it on guard in Meade’s rear.

Longstreet says:

All the Confederates had to do was to hold the army in hand and draw the enemy to a good field. . . . The Confederates, if held in hand and refreshed a little, could have made their grandest success.

There is no reason why the success would have been any “grander” than the success at Manassas. The same reason that Lee gives for not following Pope would have been even stronger for not following McClellan, for his line of communication would have been longer and in fact impossible.

Then Lee had no such good reason for fighting at Antietam or on Longstreet’s “good field” as he had for fighting Second Manassas, where he fought to break up the combination against Richmond.

Longstreet says:

If the Southern army had been carefully held in hand, refreshed by easy marches and comfortable supplies, the proclamation (of emancipation) could not have found its place in history.

On the other hand, the Southern President would have been in Maryland at the head of his army, with his manifesto of peace and independence.

If the army had been held in hand it would hardly have done more in Maryland with 60,000 men than it did at Richmond with 80,000, and that was a victory at Gaines’s Mill and a repulse at Malvern Hill.

As for the proclamation, Lincoln repeatedly declared it was a war measure pure and simple, and designed exclusively to weaken the South and strengthen the North, so that it would have been more necessary in defeat than in victory.

It is true Lincoln was holding the proclamation for a victory; but a repetition of Gaines’s Mill and Malvern Hill would hardly have prevented him from issuing it, especially as he claimed a victory at Malvern Hill.

When McClellan became possessed of the “lost order” acquainting him with Lee’s plans,—the scattering of his columns to capture Harper’s Ferry and to oppose his approach,—he dispatched to Mr. Lincoln:

HEADQUARTERS, FREDERICK,
Sept. 13, 1862, 12 m.
(Received 2.35 a.m., Sept. 14.)

To THE PRESIDENT: I have the whole rebel force in front of me, but am confident and no time shall be lost. I have a difficult task to perform, but with God’s blessing will accomplish it. I think Lee has made a gross mistake, and that he will be severely punished for it. The army is in motion as rapidly as possible. I hope for a great success, if the plans of the rebels remain unchanged. We have possession of Catactin. I have all the plans of the rebels, and will catch them in their own trap, if my men are equal to the emergency. I now feel that I can count on them as of old. All forces of Pennsylvania should be placed to cooperate at Chambersburg. My respects to Mrs. Lincoln. Received most enthusiastically by the ladies. Will send you trophies. All well and with God’s blessing will accomplish it.

GEO. B. MCCLELLAN.

This must have been very comforting in view of the state of the public mind in the North.

Rhodes says:

The feeling in the North approached consternation. That Lee should threaten Washington and Baltimore, then Harrisburg and Philadelphia, while Bragg threatened Louisville and Cincinnati, was piling up a menace that shook the nerves of the coolest men.

. . . The dispatches from Governor Curtin at Harrisburg manifest concern for that capital; he called out 50,000 militia for the defense of the State. The words which came from Philadelphia were such as the citizens of a wealthy city utter in time of panic.

S. H. Gay wrote from New York city: “There is the deepest anxiety here, and a most ominous state of affairs.”

Though McClellan telegraphed to Lincoln on the 13th, “ The army is in motion as rapidly as possible,” and “I have all the plans of the rebels and will catch them in their own trap,” he did not progress very rapidly. Lee sent D. H. Hill to the mountain gaps, and McClellan had to fight to get through.

On the 17th, however, he did catch the rebels in their own trap.

Colonel Douglass, aide-de-camp on Jackson’s staff, gives the following account of the battle:

. . . The first onset, early on the morning of the 17th, told what the day would be. The impatient Hooker, with the divisions of Meade, Doubleday, and Ricketts, struck the first blow, and Jackson’s old division caught it and struck back again. Between such foes the battle soon waxed hot. Step by step and marking each step with dead, the thin Confederate line was pushed back to the wood around the Dunker church. Here Lawton, Starke (commanding in place of Jones, already wounded), and D. H. Hill, with part of his division, engaged Meade. And now in turn the Federals halted and fell back, and left their dead by the Dunker church. Next Mansfield entered the fight, and beat with resistless might on Jackson’s people. The battle here grew angry and bloody. Starke was killed, Lawton wounded, and nearly all their general and field officers had fallen; the sullen Confederate line again fell back, killing Mansfield and wounding Hooker, Crawford, and Hartsuff.

And now D. H. Hill led in the rest of his division; Hood also took part to the right and left, front and rear, of the Dunker church. The Federal line was again driven back, while artillery added its din to the incessant rattle of musketry. Then Sumner, with the fresh division of Sedgwick, re-formed the Federal line and renewed the offensive. Hood was driven back, and Hill partly; the Dunker Church was passed, the field south of it entered, and the Confederate left turned. Just then McLaws, hurrying from Harper’s Ferry, came upon the field, and hurled his men against the victorious Sedgwick. He drove Sedgwick back into the Dunker wood, and beyond it, into the open ground. Farther to our right the pendulum of battle had been swinging to and fro, with D. H. Hill and R. H. Anderson hammering away at French and Richardson, until the sunken road became historic as “Bloody Lane.” Richardson was mortally wounded, and Hancock assumed command of his division.

For a while there was a lull in the storm. It was early in the day, but hours are fearfully long in battle. About noon Franklin, with Slocum and W. F. Smith, marched upon the field to join the unequal contest. Smith tried his luck and was repulsed. Sumner then ordered a halt. Jackson’s fight was over, and a strange silence reigned around Dunker Church.

General Lee had not visited the left that day. As usual he trusted to Jackson to fight his own battle, and work out salvation in his own way. How well he did it, against the ablest and fiercest of McClellan’s lieutenants, history has told.

During all this time Longstreet, stripped of his troops,—sent to the help of Jackson,—held the right almost alone, with his eye on the center. He was now called into active work on his own front, for there were no unfought troops in Lee’s army at Sharpsburg; every soldier on that field tasted battle.

General Burnside, with his corps of fourteen thou-sand men, had been lying all day beyond the bridge which now bears his name. Ordered to cross at eight o’clock, he managed to get over at one, and by three was ready to advance. He moved against the hill which D. R. Jones held with his little division of 2500 men. Longstreet was watching this advance. Jackson was at General Lee’s headquarters on a knoll in rear of Sharpsburg. A. P. Hill was coming, but had not arrived, and it was apparent that Burnside must be stayed, if at all, with artillery.

I saw Burnside’s heavy line move up the hill, and the earth seemed to tremble beneath their tread. It was a splendid and fearful sight, but for them to beat back Jones’s feeble line was scarcely war. The artillery tore, but did not stay them. They pressed forward until Sharpsburg was uncovered, and Lee’s line of retreat was at their mercy. But then, just then, A. P. Hill, picturesque in his red battleshirt, with three of his brigades, 2500 men, who had marched that day seventeen miles from Harper’s Ferry and had waded the Potomac, appeared upon the scene. Tired and footsore, the men forgot their woes in that supreme moment, and, with no breathing time, braced themselves to meet the coming shock. They met it and stayed it. The blue line staggered and hesitated, and, hesitating, was lost. At the critical moment A. P. Hill was always at his strongest. Quickly advancing his battle-flags, his line moved forward, Jones’s troops rallied on him, and in the din of musketry and artillery, on either flank the Federals broke over the field. Hill did not wait for his other brigades, but held the vantage gained until Burnside was driven back to the Antietam and under the shelter of heavy guns. The day was done. Again A. P. Hill, as at Manassas, Harper’s Ferry, and elsewhere, had struck with the right hand of Mars. No wonder that both Lee and Jackson, when, in the delirium of their last moments on earth, they stood again to battle, saw the form of A. P. Hill leading his column on; but it is a wonder and a shame that the grave of this valiant Virginian in Hollywood cemetery has not a stone to mark it and keep it from oblivion.

The battle at Sharpsburg was the result of unforeseen circumstances and not of deliberate purpose. It was one of the bloodiest of the war, and a defeat for both armies. The prestige of the day was with Lee, but when on the night of the 18th he recrossed into Virginia, although, as the Comte de Paris says, he left not a single trophy of his nocturnal retreat in the hands of the enemy, he left the prestige of the result with McClellan.

From Lee’s report of the battle:

This great battle was fought by less than 40,000 men on our side, all of whom had undergone the greatest labor and hardship in the field and on the march. Nothing could surpass the determined valor with which they met the large army of the enemy, fully supplied and equipped, and the result reflects the highest credit on the officers and men.

Lee carried 60,000 men to Maryland; McClellan, 67,000. In addition to McClellan’s army there were 12,000 men at Harper’s Ferry.

It will be seen that Lee was short 20,000 men at Antietam. They had been lost in the engagements at South Mountain, Crampton’s Gap, Maryland Heights, and on the long marches, which were continuous and distressing.

From General McLaws’s report:

The entire command was very much fatigued. The brigades of Generals Kershaw and Barksdale had been engaged on Maryland Heights on the 12th, 13th, and 14th, and on the 15th had been marched from the Heights to the line of battle, up the Valley, formed to oppose that of the enemy below Crampton’s Gap. Those of Generals Cobb, Semmes, and Mahone (Colonel Parsham) had been engaged and badly crippled at Crampton’s Gap, and all the others had been guarding important points under very trying circumstances.

A large number had no provisions, and a great portion had not had time nor opportunity to cook what they had. All the troops had been without sleep the previous night, except while waiting in line for the wagon trains to pass over the pontoon bridge at Harper’s Ferry.

McClellan lost 11,657 men, and Lee’s loss, including the fighting at the mountain gaps and Harper’s Ferry, was about 12,000.

Lee captured at Harper’s Ferry 11,000 infantry, three companies of cavalry, six companies of artillery, forty-nine pieces of artillery, twenty-four mountain howitzers, and 11,000 small arms.

So far as the battle itself is concerned, there is nothing but favorable criticism of Lee’s generalship.

Nearly all critics agree with Rhodes, who says:

While Lee’s strategy and in some measure his tactics have been censured by Longstreet, the layman will be prone to agree with Allen that the conduct of the battle of Antietam itself by Lee and his principal subordinates seems absolutely above criticism. . . .

From “Ropes’ Civil War”: “Of General Lee’s management of the battle there is nothing but praise to be said. . . .”

McClellan has been censured for not renewing the attack on the 18th. He says in his report:

The night, however, brought grave responsibilities—whether to renew the attack on the 18th, or to defer it, even with the risk of the enemy’s retirement, was the question before me. After a night of anxious deliberation and a full and careful survey of the situation and condition of our army, the strength and position of the enemy, I concluded that the success of an attack on the 18th was uncertain.

At that moment,—Virginia lost, Washington men-aced, Maryland invaded,—the national cause could afford no risk of defeat. One battle lost and almost all would have been lost. Lee’s army might then have marched, as it pleased, on Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, or New York.

But other reasons influenced him too. It was the bloodiest one-day fight of the war, and his army and his nerves were badly shaken. He says:

The troops generally were greatly overcome by the fatigue and exhaustion of the severe and continuous fighting on the 17th. They required rest and refreshment. One division of Sumner’s and all Hooker’s corps on the right had, after fighting most valiantly for several hours, been overpowered by numbers, driven back in great disorder, and much scattered, so that they were for the time somewhat demoralized.

Some of the new troops on the left, although many of them fought well during the battle and are entitled to great credit, were, at the close of the action, driven back and their morale impaired.

On the morning of the 18th General Burnside requested that another division be sent to assist him in holding his position on the far side of the Antietam, giving the impression that if he were attacked again that morning he would not be able to make a very vigorous resistance. . . .

McClellan’s discretion contrasts strongly with Lee’s recklessness in fighting 87,000 men with less than 40,000 tired ones, and in standing all day on the 18th in line of battle.

The diary of Gideon Wells says that at the cabinet meeting June 17, 1863, Lincoln spoke of a poem mythologically describing McClellan as a monkey fighting the rebellion in the shape of a serpent. The joke was that McClellan kept calling for “more tail—more tail,” which Jupiter furnished.

Palfrey says of McClellan:

When the Confederacy was young and fresh and rich, and its armies were numerous, he fought a good, wary, damaging, respectable fight against it.

But Jupiter gave to Grant “more tail” than he gave to McClellan.

If Malvern Hill was a Federal victory, then Antietam was a Confederate victory. At Malvern Hill McClellan commanded the invading army—at Antietam Lee commanded it. Lee’s repulse at Malvern Hill was not more decided than McClellan’s at Antietam, nor was it as bloody.

McClellan retreated in disorder on the night of the battle, and subsequently by the back door water route to Washington. Lee remained in line the day after the battle, and then retired in order to Virginia. As usual, Longstreet alleges that failure of the campaign was due to the fact that Lee did not take his advice, and Lee’s worshipers discover a mare’s nest to account for it.

One of them, who was on his staff, says:

What a fatality was there for General Lee! What an advantage to the Federal commander to be instantly made aware of the division of his adversary’s army, the wide separation of his columns, and to have the detail of his plan laid bare. There is no parallel to it in history.

There is nothing to show that the “lost order” accelerated McClellan’s advance. General Pleasonton, who made the first battle, that at Turner’s Pass on the 14th, had not heard of it.

Anyhow it cuts no figure in the results of the campaign. Under the most favorable circumstances Lee could only have driven McClellan from Longstreet’s “good field.”

His loss would have been as great, or greater, than it was at Antietam, and he would have been too weak to push him from the strong positions in his rear and lay siege to Washington. In fact if he had not lost a man he could not have laid siege to Washington, for he was not equipped nor provisioned for it.

The trouble with Lee’s worshipers is that they are always making excuses for his failure to accomplish impossibilities foreign to his strategy. At Antietam it is the “lost order”; at Gettysburg, Stuart.

The world takes no heed of their excuses, and so the failures which originated in their minds are largely responsible for erroneous historical estimates of Lee.

Lee was not a provincial Southerner. He had been in the United States army all his life, and his home was at Washington. He realized from the first what he had to contend with. He knew that his resources in men and material would not enable him to conquer independence on northern soil. Therefore his only alternative was to prolong the war until the North should get tired of it; and to prolong it, it was necessary to keep the Army of the Potomac as far away from Richmond as possible, and the only way in which that could be done was to threaten Washington. All his strategy, involving desperate movements and battles, was designed to accomplish this one object and nothing more. His correspondence, the condition of the army, and the conduct of his campaigns show conclusively the singleness of his purpose.

The same staff officer says:

It looks as if the good Lord had ordained that we should not succeed. . . .

To me it is as if He who controls the destinies of men and of nations had said: You people of the South shall be sorely tried; but the blame is not yours, and therefore to you shall fall the honors,—genius, skill, courage, fortitude, endurance, readiness for self-sacrifice, prowess in battle, and victory against great odds. But this great experiment to demonstrate man’s capacity for self-government, with its cornerstone of universal freedom, must continue with undivided front, and therefore I decree to the other side determination, persistency, numbers, unlimited resources, and ultimate success. . . .

Here we have the “good Lord” as umpire of the game. He slaps the North on the back and awards the gate money, and then bestows the usual taffy on the South.

It does seem that if the “good Lord” had had any-thing to do with the war He would have been at least as merciful as are the umpires in the prize ring, and would have stopped it before any one was killed.

Out of puffery, quackery, cant, and hypocrisy grows the absurdity that the practical, common-sense, dollar-worshiping people of the North squandered billions of dollars on the “man’s capacity for self-government” humbuggery and negro emancipation.

Man had been demonstrating his capacity, or rather his incapacity, for self-government ever since the man with the arquebus shot a hole in the knight’s armor; otherwise there would have been no war.

Then there was a parallel to the “lost order” episode, except in the matter of result. At Antietam they were nil, while at Metaurus in 207 B.C. they decided the fate of the world.

Creasy says:

. . . Meanwhile Hasdrubal had raised the siege of Placentia, and was advancing toward Ariminum on the Adriatic, and driving before him the Roman army under Porcius. Nor when the Consul Livius had come up, and united the second and third armies of the North, could he make head against the invaders. The Romans still fell back before Hasdrubal, beyond Ariminum, beyond the Metaurus, and as far as the little town of Sena, to the southeast of that river. Hasdrubal was not unrnindful of the necessity of acting in concert with his brother. He sent messengers to Hannibal to announce his march, and to propose that they should unite their armies in South Umbria, and then wheel around against Rome. Those messengers traversed the quarter part of Italy in safety; but, when close to the object of their mission, were captured by a Roman detachment; and Hasdrubal’s letter, detailing his whole plan of the campaign, was laid, not in his brother’s hands, but in those of the comrnande~ of the Roman armies of the South. Nero saw at once the full importance of the crisis. The two sons of Hamilcar were now within two hundred miles of each other, and if Rome was to be saved, the brothers must never meet alive. . . .

This letter enabled Nero to destroy Hasdrubal and his army in the battle of Metaurus.

Creasy says:

. . . In the true spirit of that savage brutality which deformed the Roman national character, Nero ordered Hasdrubal’s head to be flung in his brother’s camp. Eleven years had passed since Hannibal had gazed on those features.

The sons of Hamilcar had then planned their system of warfare against Rome, which they had brought so nearly to successful accomplishment. Year after year had Hannibal been struggling in Italy, in the hopes of one day hailing the arrival of him whom he had left in Spain, and of seeing his brother’s eye flash with affection and pride at the junction of their irresistible hosts. He now saw that eye glazed in death, and in the agony of his heart the great Carthaginian groaned aloud that he recognized his country’s destiny.

CHAPTER IV

FREDERICKSBURG

IN December, 1862, Lee’s army of 78,000 men was in winter quarters at Fredericksburg, and Burnside’s, of 113,000, at Falmouth on the opposite side of the Rappahannock river. Burnside’s position was a false one from which to launch an “On to Richmond&#