Captains of the Civil War Part 12

Rosecrans, like many another man who succeeds halfway up, failed at the top. He ordered an immediate general retreat which would have changed the hard-won Confederate victory into a Federal rout.

But Thomas, with admirable judgment and iron nerve, stood fast till he had s.h.i.+elded all the others clear. From this time on both armies knew him as the "Rock of Chickamauga."

The unexpected defeat of Chickamauga roused Was.h.i.+ngton to immediate, and this time most sensible, action. Grant was given supreme command over the whole strategic area. Thomas superseded Rosecrans. Sherman came down with the Army of the Tennessee. And Hooker railed through from Virginia with two good veteran corps. Meanwhile the Richmond Government was more foolish than the Was.h.i.+ngton was wise; for it let Davis mismanage the strategy without any reference to Lee. Bragg also made a capital mistake by sending Longstreet off to Knoxville with more than a third of his command just before Grant's final advance.

The result was that Bragg found himself with only thirty thousand men at Chattanooga when Grant closed in with sixty thousand, and that Longstreet was useless at Knoxville, which was entirely dependent on Chattanooga. Whoever won decisively at Chattanooga could have Knoxville too. Davis, as the highest authority, and Bragg, as the most responsible subordinate, ensured their own defeat.

Chattanooga was the key to the whole strategic area of the upper Tennessee; for it was the best road, rail, and river junction between the lower Mississippi and the Atlantic ports of the South. It had been held for some time by a Federal garrison which had made it fairly strong. But toward the end of October it was short of supplies; and Hooker had to fight Longstreet at Wauhatchie in the Lookout Valley before it could be revictualed. When Hooker, Thomas, and Sherman were there together under Grant in November it was of course perfectly safe; and the problem changed from defense to attack. The question was how to drive Bragg from his commanding positions on Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain. The woods and hills offered concealment to the attack in some places. But Lookout Mountain was a splendid observation post, twenty-two hundred feet high and crested with columns of rock. The Ridge was three miles east, the Mountain three miles south, of Cameron Hill, which stood just west of Chattanooga, commanding the bridge of boats that crossed the Tennessee.

The battle, fought with great determination on both sides, lasted three days--the twenty-third, twenty-fourth, and twenty-fifth of November. Sherman made the flank attack on Missionary Ridge from the north and Thomas the frontal attack from the west. Hooker attacked the western flank of Lookout Mountain.

Thomas did the first day's fighting, which was all preliminary work, by advancing a good mile, taking the Confederate lines on the lower slopes of the Ridge, and changing their defensive features to face the Ridge instead of Chattanooga.

At two the next morning Giles Smith's brigade dropped down the Tennessee in boats and surprised the extreme north pickets placed by Bragg at the mouth of the South Chickamauga to cover the right of the Ridge. By noon Sherman's men were over the Tennessee ready to cooperate with Thomas. Sherman had hidden his camp among the hills on the other side so well that his movements could not be observed, even from the commanding height of Lookout Mountain. The night surprise of Bragg's pickets and the drizzling rain of the morning prevented the Confederates from hearing or seeing anything of Sherman's attack in the early afternoon; so he found himself on the northern flank of Missionary Ridge before Bragg's main body knew what he was doing. When the Confederates did attack it was too late; and the twenty-fourth ended with Sherman entrenched against the flank on even higher ground than Thomas held against the center.

Sherman's cavalry had meanwhile moved round the flank, on the lower level and much farther off, to cut Bragg's right rear connection with Chickamauga Station, whence the rails ran east to Cleveland, Knoxville, and Virginia.

Hooker's work this second day was to feel the Confederate force on Lookout Mountain while keeping the touch with Thomas, who kept the touch with Sherman. Mists hid his earlier maneuvers. He closed in successfully, handled his men to admiration, and gained more ground than either he or Grant had expected. Having succeeded so well he changed his demonstration into a regular attack, which became known as the "Battle above the Clouds." Step by step he fought his way up, over breastworks and rifle pits, felled trees and bowlders, through ravines and gullies, till the vanguard reached the giant palisades of rock which ramparted the top. The roar of battle was most distinctly heard four miles away, on Orchard k.n.o.b, where Grant and Thomas were anxiously waiting. But nothing could be seen until a sudden breeze blew the clouds aside just as the long blue lines charged home and the broken gray retreated. Then, from thirty thousand watching Federals, went up a cheer that even cannon could not silence.

At midnight Grant sent a word of encouragement to Burnside at Knoxville.

He then wrote his orders for what he now hoped would be a completely victorious attack. The twenty-fifth of November broke beautifully clear, and the whole scene of action remained in full view all day long. Fearful of being cut off from their main body on Missionary Ridge the Confederates had left Lookout Mountain under cover of the dark. But by destroying the bridges across the Chattanooga River, which ran through the valley between the Mountain and the Ridge, they delayed Hooker till late that afternoon, thus saving their left from an even worse disaster than the one that overtook their center and their right.

Sherman had desperate work against their right, as Bragg ma.s.sed every available gun and man to meet him. This ma.s.sing, however, was just what Grant wanted; for he now expected Hooker to appear on the other flank, which Bragg would either have to give up in despair or strengthen at the expense of the center, which Thomas was ready to charge. But with Hooker not appearing, and Sherman barely holding his own, Grant slipped Thomas from the leash. The two centers then met hand to hand. But there was no withstanding the Federal charge. Back went the Confederates, turning to bay at their second line of defense. Here again they were overborne by well-led superior numbers and soon put to flight. Sheridan, of whom we shall hear again in '64, took up the pursuit. Bragg lost all control of his men. Stores, guns, and even rifles were abandoned. Thousands of prisoners were taken; and most of the others were scattered in flight. The battle, the whole campaign, and even the war in the Tennessee sector, were won.

Vicksburg meant that the trans-Mississippi South would thenceforth wither like a severed branch. Chattanooga meant that the Union forces had at last laid the age to the root of the tree.

CHAPTER VIII

GETTYSBURG: 1863

On the fifth of May we left Lee victorious in Virginia; but with his indispensable lieutenant, Stonewall Jackson, mortally wounded.

Though thoroughly defeated at Chancellorsville, Hooker soon recovered control of the Army of the Potomac and prepared to dispute Lee's right of way. Lee faced a difficult, perhaps an insoluble, problem.

Longstreet urged him to relieve the local pressure on Vicksburg by concentrating every available man in eastern Tennessee, not only withdrawing Johnston's force from Grant's rear but also depleting the Confederates in Virginia for the same purpose. Then, combining these armies from east and west with the one already there under Bragg, the united Confederates were to crush Rosecrans in their immediate front and make Cincinnati their great objective. Lee, however, dared not risk the loss of his Virginian bases in the meantime; and so he decided on a vigorous counter-attack, right into Pennsylvania, hoping that, if successful, this would produce a greater effect than any corresponding victory could possibly produce elsewhere.

On the ninth of June a cavalry combat round Brandy Station, in the heart of Virginia, made Hooker's staff feel certain that Lee was again going up the Valley and on to Maryland. At one time, for want of supplies, Lee had to spread out his front along a line running eighty miles northwest from Fredericksburg to Strasburg.

Hooker, on the keen alert, implored the Government to let him attack the three Confederate corps in detail. Success against one at least was certain. Lincoln understood this perfectly. But the nerves of his colleagues were again on edge; and no argument could persuade them to adopt the best of all possible schemes of defense by destroying the enemy's means of destroying them. They insisted on the usual s.h.i.+eld theory of pa.s.sive defense, and ordered Hooker to keep between Lee and Was.h.i.+ngton whatever might happen. This absurd maneuver was of course attended with all the usual evil results at the time.

Equally of course, it afterwards drew down the wrath of the wiseacre public on their own representatives. But wiseacre publics never stop to think that many a government is forced to do foolish and even suicidal things in war simply because it represents the ignorance and folly, as well as the wisdom, of all who have the vote.

Yet both the loyal public and its Government had some good reasons to doubt Hooker's ability, even apart from his recent defeat; and Lincoln, wisest of all--except in applying strategy to problems he could not fully understand--felt almost certain that Hooker's character contained at least the seeds of failure in supreme command.

"He talks to me like a father," said Hooker, on reading the letter Lincoln wrote when appointing him Burnside's successor. This remarkable letter, dated January 26, 1863, though printed many times, is worth reading again:

I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of course I have done this upon what appears to me to be sufficient reasons, and yet I think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and skillful soldier, which, of course, I like.

I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession, in which you are right. You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable, if not an indispensable, quality. You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm; but I think that during General Burnside's command of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition, and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did a great wrong to the country and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer. I have heard, in such way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the army and the Government needed a Dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command.

Only those generals who gain successes can set up dictators.h.i.+ps.

What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictators.h.i.+p. The Government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticizing their commander and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall a.s.sist you as far as I can to put it down. Neither you nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it. And now, beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward, and give us victories.

Then came Chancellorsville, doubts at Was.h.i.+ngton, interference by Stanton, ill-judged orders from Halleck, and some not very judicious rejoinders from Hooker himself, who became rather peevish, to Lincoln's alarm. So when, on the twenty-seventh of June, Hooker tendered his resignation, it was promptly accepted. With Lee in Pennsylvania there was no time for discussion: only for finding some one to trust.

Lee, as usual, had divined the political forces working on the Union armies from Was.h.i.+ngton and had maneuvered with a combination of skill and daring that exactly met the situation. Throwing his left forward (under Ewell) in the Shenandoah Valley he had driven Milroy out of Winchester on the fourteenth of June and next day secured a foothold across the Potomac. Then the rest of his army followed. It was so much stretched out (to facilitate its food supply) that Lincoln again wished to strike it at any vulnerable spot. But the Cabinet in general (and Stanton in particular) were still determined that the Union army should be their pa.s.sive s.h.i.+eld, not their active sword. On the twenty-fourth Ewell was already beginning to semicircle Gettysburg from the c.u.mberland Valley. On the twenty-eighth, the day on which Meade succeeded Hooker in the Federal command, the Confederate semicircle, now formed by Lee's whole army, stretched from Chambersburg on the west, through Carlisle on the north, to York on the east; while the ma.s.sed Federals were still in Maryland, near Middletown and Frederick, thirty miles south of Gettysburg, and only forty miles northwest of nervous Was.h.i.+ngton.

Hooker's successor, George G. Meade, was the fifth defender of Was.h.i.+ngton within the last ten months. Luckily for the Union, Meade was a sound, though not a great, commander, and his hands were fairly free. Luckily again, he was succeeded in command of the Fifth Corps by George Sykes, the excellent leader of those magnificent regulars who fought so well at Antietam and Second Mana.s.sas. The change from interference to control was made only just in time at Was.h.i.+ngton; for three days after Meade's free hand began to feel its way along the threatened front the armies met upon the unexpected battlefield of Gettysburg.

Lee in Pennsylvania was in the midst of a very hostile population and facing superior forces which he could only defeat in one of two difficult ways: either by a sudden, bewildering, and unexpected attack, like Jackson's and his own at Chancellorsville, or by an impregnable defense on ground that also favored a victorious counter-attack and the subsequent crus.h.i.+ng pursuit. But there was no Jackson now; and the nature of the country did not favor the bewildering of Federals who were fighting at home under excellent generals well served by a competent staff and well screened by cavalry.

So the "fog of war" was quite as dense round Lee's headquarters as it was round Meade's on the first of July, when Lee found that his chosen point of concentration near Gettysburg was already occupied by Buford's cavalry, with infantry and some artillery in support.

The surprise--and no very great surprise--was mutual. The Federals were found where they could stand on their defense in a very strong position if the rest of their army could come up in time. And Lee's only advantage was that, having already ordered concentration round the same position, he had a few hours' start of Meade in getting there.

Each commander had intended to make the other one attack if possible; and Meade of course knew that Lee, with inferior numbers and vastly inferior supplies, could not afford to stay long among gathering enemies in the hostile North without decisive action. The Confederates must either fight or retreat without fighting, and make their choice very soon. So, when the two armies met at Gettysburg, Lee was practically forced to risk an immediate action or begin a retreat that might have ruined Confederate morale.

Gettysburg is one of those battles about which men will always differ. The numbers present, the behavior of subordinates, the tactics employed, were, and still are, subjects of dispute. Above all, there is the vexed question of what Lee should or should not have done. We have little s.p.a.ce to spare for any such discussions.

We can only refer inquirers to the original evidence (some of which is most conflicting) and give the gist of what seems to be indubitable fact. The numbers were a good seventy thousand Confederates against about eighty thousand Federals. But these are the approximate grand totals; and it must be remembered that the Confederates, having the start, were in superior numbers during the first two days.

On each side there was an aggrieved and aggrieving subordinate general, Sickles on the Federal side, Longstreet on the other.

But Sickles was by far the less important of the two. In tactics the Federals displayed great judgment, skill, and resolution. The Northern people called Gettysburg a soldiers' battle; and so, in many ways, it was; for there was heroic work among the rank and file on both sides. But it most emphatically was not a soldiers'

battle in the sense of its having been won more by the rank and file than by the generals in high command; for never did so many Federal chiefs show to such great advantage. No less than five commanded in succession between morning and midnight on the first day, each meeting the crisis till the next senior came up. They were Buford, Reynolds, Howard, Hanc.o.c.k, Meade. Hunt also excelled in command of the artillery; and this in spite of much misorganization of that arm at Was.h.i.+ngton. Warren was not only a good commander of the engineers but a good all-round general, as he showed by seizing, on his own initiative, the Little Round Top, without which the left flank could never have been held.

Finally, there is the great vexed question of what Lee should or should not have done. First, it seems clear that (like Farragut and unlike Grant and Jackson) he lacked the ruthless power of making every subordinate bend or break in every time of crisis: otherwise he would have bent or broken Longstreet. Next, it may have been that he was not then at his best. Concludingly, it may be granted to armchair (and even other) critics that if everything had been something else the results might not have been the same.

Lee, having invaded the North by marching northeast under cover of the mountains and wheeling southeast to concentrate at Gettysburg, found Buford's cavalry suddenly resisting him, as they formed the northwest outpost of Meade's army, which was itself concentrating round Pipe Creek, near Taneytown in Maryland, fifteen miles southeast.

Gettysburg was a meeting place of many important roads. It stood at the western end of a branch line connecting with all the eastern rails. And it occupied a strong strategic point in the vitally important triangle formed by Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Was.h.i.+ngton.

Thus, like a magnet, it drew the contending armies to what they knew would prove a field decisive of the whole campaign.

The Federal line, as finally held on the third of July, was nearly five miles long. The front faced west and was nearly three miles long. The flanks, thrown back at right angles, faced north and south. Near the north end of the front stood Cemetery Hill, near the south the Devil's Den, a maze of gigantic bowlders. Along the front the ground was mostly ridged, and even the lower ground about the center was a rise from which a gradual slope went down to the valley that rose again to the opposite heights of Seminary Ridge, where Lee had his headquarters only a mile away. The so-called hills were no more than hillocks, the ridges were low, and most slopes were those of a rolling country. But the general contour of the ground, the swelling hillocks on the flanks (Culp's Hill on the right, the Round Tops on the left) and the broad glacis up which attackers must advance against the center, all combined to make the position very strong indeed when held by even or superior numbers.

The first day's fight began when A. P. Hill's Confederates, with Longstreet's following, closed in on Gettysburg from the west to meet Ewell's, who were coming down from the north. Buford's Federal cavalry resisted Hill's advanced brigades successfully till Reynolds had brought the First Corps forward in support and ordered the two other nearest corps to follow at the double quick. Reynolds was killed early in the day; but not before his well trained eye had taken in the situation at a glance and his sure judgment had half committed both armies to that famous field.

The full commitment came shortly after, when Meade sent Hanc.o.c.k forward to command the three corps and Buford's cavalry in their attempt to stem the Confederate advance. Howard was then the senior general on the field, having taken over from Doubleday, who had succeeded Reynolds. But he at once agreed that such a strong position should be held and that Hanc.o.c.k should proceed to rectify the lines.

This was no easy task; for Ewell's Confederates had meanwhile come down from the north and driven in the Federal flank on the already hard-pressed front. The front thereupon gave way and fell back in confusion. But Hanc.o.c.k's masterly work was quickly done and the Federal line was reestablished so well that the Confederates paused in their attack and waited for the morrow.

The Confederates had got as good as they gave, much to their disgust.

Archer, one of their best brigadiers, felt particularly sore when most of his men were rounded up by Meredith's "Iron Brigade." When Doubleday saw his old West Point friend a prisoner he shook hands cordially, saying, "Well, Archer, I _am_ glad to see you!" But Archer answered, "Well, I'm not so glad to see _you_--not by a d.a.m.ned sight!" The fact was that the excellent Federal defense had come as a very unpleasing surprise upon the rather too c.o.c.ksure Confederates. Buford's cavalry and Reynolds's infantry had staunchly withstood superior numbers; while Lieutenant Bayard Wilkeson actually held back a Confederate division for some time with the guns of Battery G, Fourth U. S. Artillery. This heroic youth, only nineteen years of age, kept his men in action, though they were suffering terrible losses, till two converging batteries brought him down.

He was well matched by a veteran of over seventy, John Burns, an old soldier, whom the sound of battle drew from his little home like the trumpet-call to arms. In his swallow-tailed, bra.s.s-b.u.t.toned, old-fas.h.i.+oned coatee, Burns seemed a very comic sight to the nearest boys in blue until they found he really meant to join them and that he knew a thing or two of war. "Which way are the rebels?"

he asked, "and where are our troops? I know how to fight--I've fit before." So he did; and he fought to good purpose till wounded three times.

Late in the evening Meade arrived and inspected the lines by moonlight.

Having ordered every remaining man to hasten forward he faced the second day with well-founded anxiety lest Lee's full strength should break through before his own last men were up. His right was not safe against surprise by the Confederates who slept at the foot of Culp's Hill, and his left was in imminent danger from Longstreet's corps. But on the second day Longstreet marked his disagreement with Lee's plans by delaying his attack till Warren, with admirable judgment, had ordered the Round Tops to be seized at the double quick and held to the last extremity. Then, after wasting enough time for this to be done, Longstreet attacked and was repulsed; though his men fought very well. Meanwhile Ewell, whose attack against the right was to synchronize with Longstreet's against the left, was delayed by Longstreet till the afternoon, when he carried Culp's Hill.

This was the only Confederate success; for Early failed to carry Cemetery Hill, the adjoining high ground, which formed the right center, and the rest of the Federal line remained intact; though not without desperate struggles.

The third was the decisive day; and on it Meade rose to the height of his unappreciated skill. This was the first great battle in which all the chief Federals worked so well together and the first in which the commander-in-chief used reserves with such excellent effect, throwing them in at exactly the right moment and at the proper place. But these indispensable qualities were not of the kind that the public wanted to acclaim, or, indeed, of the kind that they could understand.

Meade was determined to clear his flanks. So he began at dawn to attack Ewell on Culp's Hill and kept on doggedly till, after four hours of strenuous fighting, he had driven him off. By this time Meade saw that Lee was not going to press home any serious attack against the Round Tops and Devil's Den on the left. So the main interest of the whole battle s.h.i.+fted to the center of the field, where Lee was ma.s.sing for a final charge. The idea had been to synchronize three cooperating movements against Meade's whole position. His left was to have been held by a demonstration in force by Longstreet against the Devil's Den and Round Tops, while Ewell held Culp's Hill, which seemed to be at his mercy, and which would flank any Federal retreat. At the same time Meade's center was to have been rushed by Pickett's fresh division supported by three attached brigades. But though the central force was ready before nine o'clock it never stepped off till three; so great was Longstreet's delay in ordering Pickett's advance. Meanwhile the Federals had made Culp's Hill quite safe against Ewell. So all depended now on the one last desperate a.s.sault against the Federal center.

This immortal a.s.sault is known as Pickett's Charge because it was made by Pickett's division of Longstreet's corps supported by three brigades from Hill's--Wilc.o.x's, Perry's, and Pettigrew's. The whole formed a ma.s.s of about ten thousand men. If they broke the Federal line in two, then every supporting Confederate was to follow, while the rest turned the flanks. If they failed, then the battle must be lost.

Hour after hour pa.s.sed by. But it was not till well past one that Longstreet opened fire with a hundred and forty guns. Hunt had seventy-seven ready to reply. But after firing for half an hour he ceased, wis.h.i.+ng to reserve his ammunition for use against the charging infantry. This encouraged the Confederate gunners, who thought they had silenced him. They then continued for some time, preparing the way for the charge, but firing too high and doing little execution against the Federal infantry, who were lying down, mostly under cover. Hunt's guns were more exposed and formed better targets; so some of them suffered severely: none more than those of Battery A, Fourth U.S. Artillery. This gallant battery had three of its limbers blown up and replaced. Wheels were also smashed to pieces and guns put out of action, till only a single gun, with men enough to handle it, was left with only a single officer. This heroic young lieutenant, Alonzo H. Cus.h.i.+ng (brother to the naval Cus.h.i.+ng who destroyed the _Albemarle_), then ran his gun up to the fence and fired his last round through it into Pickett's men as he himself fell dead.