THE OCCUPATION OF THE CITY OF MEXICO
The sun shone brightly on the morning of September 14th. Scores of neutral flags floated from the windows on the Calle de Plateros, and in their shade beautiful women gazed curiously on the scene beneath. Gayly dressed groups thronged the balconies, and at the street-corners were scowling, dark-faced men. The street resounded with the heavy tramp of infantry, the rattle of gun-carriages, and the clatter of horses’ hoofs. “Los Yanquies!” was the cry, and every neck was stretched to obtain a glimpse of the six thousand bemired and begrimed soldiers who were marching proudly to the Gran Plaza. But six months before, Winfield Scott had landed on the Mexican coast; since then he had stormed the two strongest places in the country, won four battles in the field against armies double, treble, and quadruple his own, and marched without reverse from Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico; losing fewer men, making fewer mistakes, and creating less devastation, in proportion to his victories, than any invading general of former times.
SYNOPSIS OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS, CHIEFLY
MILITARY, BETWEEN THE CONQUEST OF
MEXICO, 1847, AND THE BOMBARDMENT
OF FORT SUMTER, 1861
1848. Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo between the United States and Mexico. Admission of Wisconsin into the Union. Congress passes an act for the organization of Oregon Territory. Migration of the Mormons to Great Salt Lake. Zachary Taylor elected President. Formation of the Free-Soil party. Discovery of gold in California.
1850. The United States and Great Britain conclude the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty regarding a water route across Central America. On the death of Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore succeeds to the Presidency. New Mexico and Utah are organized as territories, and the “Clay Compromise,” providing for the admission of California as a free state, is adopted. Slavery in the District of Columbia is abolished.
1851. Unsuccessful filibustering expedition, under Lopez, against Cuba. Arrival of Louis Kossuth in the United States.
1852. Franklin Pierce elected President.
1853. Organization of Washington Territory. The Kane Arctic expedition in search of Sir John Franklin.
1854. Repeal of the Missouri Compromise, limiting slave territory in the United States, and passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, making slavery optional in the new territories. The “Ostend Manifesto” recommends the purchase of Cuba by the United States. Passage of the commercial reciprocity treaty between the United States and Canada (abrogated in 1866). Commodore Perry concludes a treaty with Japan.
1855. A Pro-Slavery legislature organizes in Kansas. A Free-State convention draws up the Topeka Constitution. William Walker, with a force of filibusters, invades Nicaragua. Opening of the railway across the Isthmus of Panama.
1856. Civil war in Kansas. James Buchanan elected President.
1857. Victory of the Free-State party at the polls in Kansas. A Pro-Slavery convention draws up the Lecompton Constitution. Dred Scott decision. Mormon rebellion in Utah. Financial panic in the United States and Europe.
1858. Admission of Minnesota into the Union. Kansas rejects the Lecompton Constitution. Senator Douglas debates. Partial establishment of transatlantic telegraphic communication.
1859. Admission of Oregon into the Union. John Brown’s raid into West Virginia. His capture, trial, and execution. Petroleum discovered in the United States. San Juan islands occupied by General Harney.
1860. Abraham Lincoln elected President. Secession of South Carolina. Kansas prohibits slavery within its boundaries. Lewis Cass, Secretary of State, resigns because President Buchanan refused to reinforce Major Anderson at Fort Moultrie, S. C.
1861. Secession of Mississippi, January 9th, followed by Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, and Louisiana. Admission of Kansas into the Union. Jefferson Davis elected president of the Confederate States of America on February 7th. Bombardment of Fort Sumter.
XV
FORT SUMTER, 1861
I
DRIFT TOWARD SOUTHERN NATIONALIZATION (1850–1860)
Seventy-two years after the adoption of the Constitution, called into being to form “a more perfect union,” and eighty-five years after the declaration of independence (a space completely covered by the lives of men still living), a new confederacy of seven Southern states was formed, and the great political fabric, the exemplar and hope of every lover of freedom throughout the world, was apparently hopelessly rent. Of these seven states but two were of the original thirteen—Louisiana and Florida had been purchased by the government of the Union; a war had been fought in behalf of Texas; two states, Alabama and Mississippi, lay within original claims of Georgia, but had been ceded to the Union and organized as Federal territories.
April 11, 1861, found a fully organized separate government established for these seven states, with a determination to form a separate nation, most forcibly expressed by the presence of an army at Charleston, South Carolina, which next day was to open fire upon a feebly manned fort, and thus to begin a terrible civil war. The eight other slave states were in a turmoil of anxiety, leaning toward their sisters of the farther South through the common sympathy which came of slavery, but drawn also to the Union through tradition and appreciation of benefits, and through a realization by a great number of persons that their interests in slavery were much less than those of the states which had already seceded.
The North, in the middle of April, was only emerging from a condition of stupefied amazement at a condition which scarcely any of its statesmen, and practically none of the men of every-day life, had thought possible. It was to this crisis that the country had been brought by the conflicting views of the two great and strongly divided sections of the Union respecting slavery, and by the national aspirations which, however little recognized, were working surely in each section, but upon divergent lines.
* * * * *
The outward manifestations in the history of the separation of the North and the South stand out in strong relief: the Missouri question; the protective tariff and South Carolina nullification; the abolition attacks which wrought the South into a frenzy suicidal in character through its impossible demands upon the North for protection; the action of the Southern statesmen in the question of petitions; the passage of a fugitive-slave law which drove the North itself to nullification; the Kansas-Nebraska act and its outcome of civil war in the former territory; the recognition, in the dicta of the supreme court in the Dred Scott case, of the South’s contention of its constitutional right to carry slavery into the territories, and the stand taken by the North against any further slavery extension. To these visible conflicts were added the unconscious workings of the disruptive forces of a totally distinct social organization. The outward strifes were but the symptoms of a malady in the body politic of the Union which could have but one end, unless the deep, abiding cause, slavery, should be removed.[135]
The president and vice-president of the Southern Confederacy, in their elaborate defences written after the war, have endeavored to rest the cause of the struggle wholly on constitutional questions. Stephens, whose book, not even excepting Calhoun’s utterances, is the ablest exposition of the Southern reading of the Constitution, says: “The struggle or conflict, ... from its rise to its culmination, was between those who, in whatever state they lived, were for maintaining our Federal system as it was established, and those who were for a consolidation of power in the central head.”[136] Jefferson Davis is even more explicit. “The truth remains,” he says, “intact and incontrovertible, that the existence of African servitude was in no wise the cause of the conflict, but only an incident. In the later controversies ... its effect in operating as a lever upon the passions, prejudices, or sympathies of mankind was so potent that it has been spread like a thick cloud over the whole horizon of historic truth.”[137]
This is but begging the question. The constitutional view had its weight for the South in 1860 as it had for New England in the Jefferson-Madison period. Jefferson’s iron domination of the national government during his presidency, a policy hateful to New England, combined with the fear of being overweighted in sectional influence by the western extension through the Louisiana purchase, led to pronounced threats of secession by men of New England, ardently desirous of escaping from what Pickering, one of its most prominent men, termed the Virginian supremacy.[138] Exactly the same arguments were used, mutatis mutandis, later by the South.
As we all know, the movement, which never had any real popular support and which had its last spasm of life in the Hartford Convention at the close of the War of 1812, came to naught. Freed by the fall of Napoleon and the peace with England from the pressure of the upper and nether mill-stones which had so ground to pieces our commerce, a prosperity set in which drowned the sporadic discontent of the previous twenty years. The fears of the Eastern states no longer loomed so high and were as imaginary in fact, and had as slight a basis, as were, in the beginning of the era of discord, those of the South. Could slavery have been otherwise preserved, the extreme decentralizing ideas of the South would have disappeared with equal ease, and Stephens’ causa causans—“the different and directly opposite views as to the nature of the government of the United States, and where, under our system, ultimate sovereign power or paramount authority properly resides,” would have had no more intensity of meaning in 1860 than to-day.
Divergence of constitutional views, like most questions of government, follow the lines of self-interest; Jefferson’s qualms gave way before the great prize of Louisiana; one part of the South was ready in 1832 to go to war on account of a protective tariff; another, Louisiana, was at the same time demanding protection for her special industry. The South thus simply shared in our general human nature, and fought, not for a pure abstraction, as Davis and Stephens, led by Calhoun, would have it, but for the supposed self-interest which its view of the Constitution protected. Its section, its society, could not continue to develop in the Union under the Northern reading of the document, and the irrepressible and certain nationalization, so different from its own tendencies, to which the North as a whole was steadily moving.
Slavery drove the South into opposition to the broad, liberal movement of the age. The French Revolution; the destruction of feudalism by Napoleon; the later popular movements throughout Europe and South America; the liberalizing of Great Britain; the nationalistic ideas of which we have the results in the German empire and the kingdom of Italy, and the strong nationalistic feeling developing in the northern part of the Union itself had but little reflex action in the South because of slavery and the South’s consequent segregation and tendency to a feudalistic nationalization.
II
STATUS OF THE FORTS (OCT. 29, 1860–DEC. 20, 1860)
General Scott, with his memories of 1832, was one of those who appreciated the danger hanging over the country, and, October 29, 1860, he wrote from New York, where he had his headquarters, a letter of great length to the President, which in pompous phrases, conceding the right of secession, and embodying some absurd ideas, such as allowing “the fragments of the great republic to form themselves into new confederacies, probably four,” as a smaller evil than war, gave it as his “solemn conviction” that there was, from his knowledge of the Southern population, “some danger of an early act of rashness preliminary to secession, viz.: the seizure of some or all of the following posts: Forts Jackson and St. Philip on the Mississippi; Morgan below Mobile, all without garrisons; Pickens, McKee at Pensacola, with an insufficient garrison for one; Pulaski, below Savannah, without a garrison; Moultrie and Sumter, Charleston harbor, the former with an insufficient garrison, the latter without any; and Fort Monroe, Hampton Roads, with an insufficient garrison.”
He gave it as his opinion that “all these works should be immediately so garrisoned as to make any attempt to take any one of them by surprise or coup de main ridiculous.” He did not state the number of men needed, but in a supplementary paper the next day (October 30th) said, “There is one (regular) company in Boston, one here (at the Narrows), one at Pittsburg, one at Baton Rouge—in all, five companies only within reach.”[139] These five companies, about two hundred and fifty men, were of course absurdly inadequate to garrison nine such posts, but, had there been a determination in the President’s mind to prevent seizures, enough men could have been brought together to hold the more important points.
For Scott’s statement as to the number available was grossly inaccurate, and but serves to show the parlous state of a war department in which the general-in-chief can either be so misinformed or allow himself to remain in ignorance of vital facts. There were but five points in the farther South of primal importance: the Mississippi, Mobile, Pensacola, Savannah, and Charleston; two hundred men at each would have been ample to hold the positions for the time being, and, being held, reinforcement in any degree would later have been easy. There was a total of 1048 officers and men at the Northern posts,[140] including Leavenworth, Mackinac, Plattsburg, Boston, New York, and Fort Monroe, who could have been drawn upon. There were already 250 men at Charleston, Key West, Pensacola, and Baton Rouge. It is safe to say that a thousand men were available. There were also some eight hundred marines at the navy-yards and barracks[141] who could have been used in such an emergency. The aggregate of the army, June 30, 1860, was 16,006, of which 14,926 were enlisted men; and it was in the power of the President to increase this total aggregate to 18,626.[142] Recruiting was, in fact, actively going on; almost every man at the posts mentioned could, even much after the date of Scott’s paper, have been safely withdrawn for the object mentioned and quickly replaced.
Scott’s inaccurate report gave Buchanan additional reason for the inaction which was his basic thought. He says, in his apologia, that “to have attempted to distribute these five companies in the eight forts of the cotton states and Fortress Monroe in Virginia, would have been a confession of weakness.... It could have had no effect in preventing secession, but must have done much to provoke it.”[143] The first part of this statement would have been true had these five companies been the only force available; the second, on the supposition that the President meant that any attempt with a force reasonably large would have provoked secession, was a short-sighted view. To garrison the forts could not have been more obnoxious than to put them in a state of defence. At any time before the secession of a state they could have been garrisoned without bringing on actual conflict. The statesmen of the South were well aware that an attack upon an armed force of the United States, before secession, must place them irretrievably in the wrong. South Carolina did not secede until December 20th. To resist the sending of troops before this date to any of these forts would have been unqualified treason, and for this no one in the South was prepared. The safety of the secession movement, the extension of sympathy throughout the South, rested very greatly upon strict compliance with the forms of law and with the theories of the Constitution held by that section. At least one ardent secessionist, Judge Longstreet, recognized this when he appealed to South-Carolinians to refrain from any act of war; “let the first shot,” he said, “come from the enemy. Burn that precept into your hearts.”[144] It was impossible that the Southern leaders should place themselves, or allow their people to place them, in the attitude of waging war against the Union while even in their own view their states still remained within it. There was, too, still a very large Union sentiment in the South, though finally swept into the vortex by the principle of going with the state, which would not have been averse to a determined action on the part of the President and might have upheld it, as in 1833. Such vigor would have given this sentiment a working basis, through the evidence that the Federal authority was to be upheld; and it would have caused a pause even in the least thoughtful of the secessionists had they felt that their coast strongholds were to be held and all their ports to be in the hands of the enemy. In the dearth of manufactures in the South, the holding of their ports was an essential to Southern military success. Their closure by blockade was equally an essential to the success of the North. The strategy of the situation was of the clearest and most palpable, and with their coast forts in Union hands warlike action on the part of the South is not conceivable. One can thus understand the importance of spreading the reiterated statements of “intense excitement” and “danger of attack” in the event of reinforcement; statements which, in the circumstances, must be regarded, if the phrase may be used, in the nature of a gigantic and successful “bluff.”
* * * * *
The military property of the United States at Charleston consisted of the armory, covering a few acres, where were stored twenty-two thousand muskets and a considerable number of old, heavy guns, and of three forts named for South-Carolinians of Union-wide fame. The smallest of these, Castle Pinckney, was a round, brick structure, in excellent condition, on a small island directly east of the town and distant from the wharves but half a mile. It completely commanded the town, and had a formidable armament of four forty-two-pounders, fourteen twenty-four-pounders, and four eight-inch sea-coast howitzers. The powder of the arsenal was here stored. The only garrison was an ordnance sergeant, who, with his family, looked after the harbor light which was in the fort.
Almost due east again, and three miles distant, was Fort Moultrie, on the south end of Sullivan’s Island, a low sand-spit forming the north side of the harbor entrance. The work had an area of one and a half acres, and mounted fifty-five guns in barbette. The drifting sands had piled themselves even with the parapet, and the work was in such condition as to be indefensible against a land attack. The whole was but of a piece with the long-continued neglect arising from many years of peace and the optimistic temperament of a people who never believe that war can occur until it is upon them; it was the natural outcome of the almost entire absence of governmental system and forethought of the time. The fort was garrisoned by two companies, comprising sixty-four enlisted men and eight officers, of the First regiment of artillery; the surgeon, band, a hospital steward, and an ordnance sergeant brought the total up to eighty-four.
Almost south of Moultrie was Cummings Point, on Morris Island, forming the southern side of the harbor entrance. Nearly midway between this point and Moultrie, but a half-mile within the line joining them, and distant three and a half miles from the nearest part of the city, was Fort Sumter, begun in 1829, and after thirty-one years not yet finished. Built on a shoal covered at most stages of the tide, it rose directly out of the water, with two tiers of casemates, and surmounted by a third tier of guns in barbette. In plan it was very like the transverse section of the ordinary American house, the apex of the two sides representing the lines of the roof, looking toward Moultrie. It was intended for a garrison of six hundred and fifty men and an armament of one hundred and forty-six guns, of which seventy-eight were on hand.
On a report made in July by Captain J. G. Foster, repairs on Moultrie were begun September 14th, and next day upon Sumter, some two hundred and fifty men being employed. The sand about the walls of Moultrie was removed, a wet ditch dug, a glacis formed, the guardhouse pierced with loop-holes, and the four field-guns placed in position for flank attack.
At the end of October, Captain Foster, foreseeing events, requested the issue of arms to the workmen to protect property, and the Secretary of War approved the issue of forty muskets, if it should meet the concurrence of the commanding officer. Colonel Gardner, in reply, November 5th, doubted the expediency, as most of the laborers were foreigners, indifferent to which side they took, and wisely advised, instead, filling up “at once” the two companies at Moultrie with recruits and sending two companies from Fort Monroe to the two other forts.[145] The requisition was thus held in abeyance, and the muskets remained at the arsenal. When, only two days later, Gardner, urged by the repeated solicitations of his officers, directed the transfer of musket ammunition to Moultrie, the loading of the schooner was objected to by the owner of the wharf, and the military store-keeper, under apparently very inadequate pressure, returned the stores to the arsenal. A permit, given by the mayor of Charleston next day, for the removal was very properly declined by Gardner, on the ground that the city authorities could not control his actions.[146]
The affair, however, cost Gardner his command, by a process described by the Assistant Secretary of State, Trescot: “I received a telegram from Charleston, saying that intense excitement prevailed, ... and that, if the removal was by orders of the Department of War, it ought to be revoked, otherwise collision was inevitable. Knowing the Cabinet were then in session, I went over to the White House.... I took Governor Floyd aside, and he was joined, I think, by Messrs. Cobb and Toucey, and showed them the telegram. Governor Floyd replied, ‘Telegraph back at once; say that you have seen me, that no such orders have been issued, and none such will be issued, under any circumstances.’” Floyd, a day or so later, gave Trescot “his impressions of the folly of Colonel Gardner’s conduct, and his final determination to remove him and supply his place with Major Robert Anderson, in whose discretion, coolness, and judgment he put great confidence. He also determined to send Colonel Ben. Huger to take charge of the arsenal, believing that his high reputation, his close association with many of the most influential people in Charleston, and the fact of his being a Carolinian, would satisfy the state of the intention of the government.”[147]
That Floyd himself was in an uncertain state of mind is shown by his willingness to begin and continue the work upon the forts; that his mental state did not permit logical action is clear from his temper and attitude regarding the transfer of musket ammunition November 7th, though but the week before (October 31st) he had authorized the transfer of the muskets themselves.
Major Fitz-John Porter, of the adjutant-general’s office, later the able and ill-treated general, was sent to Charleston to inspect the conditions. His report, made November 11th, revealed the military inefficiency almost inseparable from a post so neglected and ill-manned, and subject to the lazy peace conditions of the period. He said: “The unguarded state of the fort invites attack, if such design exists, and much discretion and prudence are required on the part of the commander to restore the proper security without exciting a community prompt to misconstrue actions of authority. I think this can be effected by a proper commander without checking in the slightest the progress of the engineer in completing the works of defence.” Major Porter continues with a most significant phrase, “All could have been easily arranged a few weeks since, when the danger was foreseen by the present commander.”[148]
November 15th, Anderson was ordered to the command. A Kentuckian by birth, his wife a Georgian, his views in sympathy with those of General Scott, he appeared to be and, as results proved, was in many respects particularly fitted for the post; by November 23d he was able to report that in two weeks the outer defences of Moultrie would be finished and the guns mounted, and that Sumter was ready for the comfortable accommodation of one company, and, indeed, for the temporary reception of its proper garrison. “This,” he said, “is the key to the entrance to this harbor; its guns command this work [Moultrie] and could drive out its occupants. It should be garrisoned at once.... So important do I consider the holding of Castle Pinckney by the government that I recommend, if the troops asked for cannot be sent at once, that I be authorized to place an engineer detachment [of an officer and thirty workmen] ... to make the repairs needed there.... If my force was not so very small, I would not hesitate to send a detachment at once to garrison that work. Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney must be garrisoned immediately if the government determines to keep command of this harbor.”
Anderson proceeded to give advice which sane judgment and every sentiment of national honor demanded. After mentioning his anxiety to avoid collision with the citizens of South Carolina, he said: “Nothing, however, will be better calculated to prevent bloodshed than our being found in such an attitude that it would be madness and folly to attack us. There is not so much feverish excitement as there was last week, but that there is a settled determination to leave the Union, and obtain possession of this work, is apparent to all.... The clouds are threatening, and the storm may break upon us at any moment. I do, then, most earnestly entreat that a reinforcement be immediately sent to this garrison, and that at least two companies be sent at the same time to Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney.” Anderson also stated his belief that as soon as the people of South Carolina learned that he had demanded reinforcements they would occupy Pinckney and attack Moultrie; and therefore it was vitally important to embark the troops in war steamers and designate them for other duty as a blind.[149] Captain Foster, November 24th, reported the whole of the barbette tier of Sumter ready for its armament and as presenting an excellent appearance of preparation and strength equal to seventy per cent. of its efficiency when finished.[150] He said, November 30th, “I think more troops should have been sent here to guard the forts, and I believe that no serious demonstration on the part of the populace would have met such a course.”[151]
The work on the forts was, of course, well known to the people of Charleston, and that at Moultrie, at least, subject to daily inspection by many visitors. There was still no restriction “upon any intercourse with Charleston, many of whose citizens were temporary residents of Sullivan’s Island. The activity about the fort drew to it a large number of visitors daily, and the position of the garrison and the probable action of the state in regard to the forts were constant subjects of discussion. There was as yet no unfriendly feeling manifested, and the social intercourse between the garrison and their friends in Charleston was uninterrupted. But as the days went on the feeling assumed a more definite shape, and found expression in many ways.... It was openly announced, both to the commanding officer and to his officers, that as soon as the state seceded a demand for the delivery of the forts would be made, and, if resisted, they would be taken.... Meantime, all of the able-bodied men in Charleston were enrolled, military companies were formed everywhere, and drilling went on by night and day, and with the impression among them that they were to attack Fort Moultrie.”[152] November 28th and December 1st, Anderson again pressed for troops or for ships of war in the harbor;[153] but his last request was anticipated in a letter of the same date, when he was informed by the War Department, “from information thought to be reliable, that an attack will not be made on your command, and the Secretary has only to refer to his conversation with you and to caution you that, should his convictions unhappily prove untrue, your actions must be such as to be free from the charge of initiating a collision. If attacked, you are of course expected to defend the trust committed to you to the best of your ability.”[154]
A demand being made by the adjutant of a South Carolina regiment on the engineer officer at Moultrie for a list of his workmen, “as it was desired to enroll the men upon them for military duty,”[155] Anderson asked for instructions. The War Department replied, December 14th, “If the state authorities demand any of Captain Foster’s workmen on the ground of their being enrolled into the service of the state, ... you will, after fully satisfying yourself that the men are subject to enrolment, and have been properly enrolled, ... cause them to be delivered up or suffer them to depart.” Banality could go no further, and Anderson, December 18th, informed the department that, as he understood it, “the South Carolina authorities sought to enroll as a part of their army intended to act against the forces of the United States men who are employed by and in the pay of that government, and could not, as I conceived, be enrolled by South Carolina ‘under the laws of the United States and of the state of South Carolina.’” No answer was vouchsafed to this, and the request was not complied with.
Anderson’s repeated statements of the necessity of the occupancy of Sumter, without which his own position was untenable, led to the despatch of Major Buell, a Kentuckian, and later a major-general of United States volunteers, with verbal instructions, which, however, on Buell’s own motion, and with the thought that Anderson should have written evidence, were reduced, December 11th, to writing. This memorandum is of such importance that it must be given in full.
“You are aware of the great anxiety of the Secretary of War that a collision of the troops with the people of this state shall be avoided, and of his studied determination to pursue a course with reference to the military force and forts in this harbor which shall guard against such a collision. He has therefore carefully abstained from increasing the force at this point, or taking any measures which might add to the present excited state of the public mind, or which would throw any doubt on the confidence he feels that South Carolina will not attempt, by violence, to obtain possession of the public works or interfere with their occupancy. But as the counsels and acts of rash and impulsive persons may possibly disappoint those expectations of the government, he deems it proper that you should be prepared with instructions to meet so unhappy a contingency. He has therefore directed me verbally to give you such instructions. You are carefully to avoid every act which would needlessly tend to provoke aggression; and for that reason you are not without evident and imminent necessity to take up any position which could be construed in the assumption of a hostile attitude. But you are to hold possession of the forts in the harbor, and if attacked you are to defend yourself to the last extremity. The smallness of your force will not permit you, perhaps, to occupy more than one of the three forts, but an attack on, or attempt to take possession of, any one of them will be regarded as an act of hostility, and you may then put your command into either of them which you may deem most proper to increase its power of resistance. You are also authorized to take similar steps whenever you have tangible evidence of a design to proceed to a hostile act.”[156]
These instructions did not come to the President’s knowledge until December 21st, though a despatch from Washington, December 13th, published in the Charleston Courier, announced Major Buell’s visit; when made known to the President, he directed them to be modified, ordering that if “attacked by a force so superior that resistance would, in your judgment, be a useless waste of life, it will be your duty to yield to necessity and make the best terms in your power.”[157]
December 3d, Anderson placed Lieutenant Jefferson C. Davis with thirty men in Castle Pinckney, and began work there. Action upon a request for arms for the workmen at Sumter and Pinckney was deferred by the War Department “for the present,” but Captain Foster going to the arsenal, December 17th, for two gins for hoisting, “to the transmission of which there was no objection,” arranged with the store-keeper that the old order of the Ordnance Department of November 1st, for forty muskets, should be complied with, which was done. “Intense excitement” as usual was reported the next day to have occurred; there was the reiteration of great danger of “violent demonstration” from a military official of the state who called upon Foster, and who stated that Colonel Huger had informed the governor that no arms should be removed. Foster declined to return the arms, stating that he knew nothing of Huger’s pledge, but was willing to refer the matter to Washington. Trescot was informed by telegraph that “not a moment’s time should be lost.” The Secretary of War was aroused in the depths of the night, and the result was a telegraphic order from Floyd himself to “return [the arms] instantly.”[158] The go-between Assistant Secretary of State, so busily engaged with affairs not his own, received from the aide-de-camp of Governor Pickens the telegram: “The Governor says he is glad of your despatch, for otherwise there would have been imminent danger. Earnestly urge that there be no transfer of troops from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter and inform Secretary of War.”[159] Captain Foster, explaining to the War Department, December 20, 1860, says, “when in town to see General Schnierle and allay any excitement relative to the muskets, I found to my surprise that there was no excitement except with a very few who had been active in the matter, and the majority of the gentlemen whom I met had not even heard of it.”[160]
Pickens, the new governor of South Carolina, December 17th, the day after his inauguration, and before the state had passed the ordinance of secession, made a demand on the President for the delivery of Fort Sumter. The letter, drawn in the most offensive terms, and marked “strictly confidential,” urged that all work be stopped and that no more troops be ordered. It continued: “It is not improbable that, under orders from the commandant, or, perhaps, from the commander-in-chief of the army, the alteration and defences of the posts are progressing without the knowledge of yourself or the Secretary of War. The arsenal in the city of Charleston, with the public arms, I am informed, was turned over very properly to the keeping and defence of the state force at the urgent request of the Governor of South Carolina. I would most respectfully, and from a sincere devotion to the public peace, request that you would allow me to send a small force, not exceeding twenty-five men and an officer, to take possession of Fort Sumter immediately, in order to give a feeling of safety to the community.”[161]
The ever-ready Trescot arranged an interview December 20th with the President for the delivery of the letter. The President stated that he would give an answer the next day. In the mean time Trescot, seeing the difficulties to which it led, consulted both Senators Davis and Slidell, who thought the demand “could do nothing but mischief”; and on consultation with two of the South Carolina delegation in Washington, Governor Pickens was advised by telegraph to withdraw the letter, which was done. Trescot’s letter to Governor Pickens, returning that of the latter, after mentioning all that had been done by the executive to refrain from injuring the sensibilities of South Carolina, said: The President’s “course had been violently denounced by the Northern press, and an effort was being made to institute a Congressional investigation. At that moment he could not have gone to the extent of action you desired, and I felt confident that, if forced to answer your letter then, he would have taken such ground as would have prevented his even approaching it hereafter; ... you had all the advantage of knowing the truth, without the disadvantage of having it put on record.... I was also perfectly satisfied that the status of the garrison would not be disturbed.... I have had this morning an interview with Governor Floyd, the Secretary of War; ... while I cannot even here venture into details, which are too confidential to be risked in any way, I am prepared to say ... that nothing will be done which will either do you injury or properly create alarm.”[162]
The President’s painful weakness is but too clear in the fact that he had not only given his confidence so largely to such a man, whose position and attitude he knew, but saw nothing derogatory in such a letter as that of Governor Pickens, and could draft a reply (December 20th) in which, while stating that no authority had been given to Governor Gist to guard the Charleston arsenal, he said: “I deeply regret to observe that you seem entirely to have misapprehended my position, which I supposed had been clearly stated in my message. I have incurred, and shall incur, any reasonable risk ... to prevent a collision.... Hence I have declined for the present to reinforce these forts, relying upon the honor of the South-Carolinians that they will not be assaulted whilst they remain in their present condition; but that commissioners will be sent by the convention to treat with Congress on the subject.”[163]
December 18th the President sent Caleb Cushing with a letter to Governor Pickens, with the idea of inducing the authorities and people of South Carolina to await the action of Congress and the development of opinion in the North as to the recommendation of his message. Governor Pickens told Cushing, December 20th, the day of the passage of the ordinance of secession, that he would make no reply to the letter, and stated “very candidly that there was no hope for the Union, and that, as far as he was concerned, he intended to maintain the separate independence of South Carolina.”[164]
III
THE FORT SUMTER CRISIS (DEC. 2, 1860–JAN. 8, 1861)
The question of the United States forts was now uppermost, and upon the action regarding them hung war or peace. Three commissioners—Robert W. Barnwell, James H. Adams, and James L. Orr—were appointed by South Carolina to lay the ordinance of secession before the President and Congress, and were empowered as agents of the state to treat for the delivery of the forts and other real estate, for the apportionment of the public debt, and for a division of all the property of the United States.[165]
In apprehension of the occupation of Sumter by Anderson, a patrol by two small steamers, the Nina and General Clinch, was established, with orders to prevent such action at all hazards and seize Fort Sumter if it should be attempted. A Lieutenant-Colonel Green was sent to Fort Monroe to observe any movements; and one Norris, at Norfolk, was employed to give information of any action at the Norfolk navy-yard. A committee of prominent men was sent to Fort Sumter, who thoroughly inspected the works and reported upon them.
Meantime, Major Anderson had been preparing, with great caution and foresight, to move his command. For some ten days the officers had been apprised that it was advisable to send the families of the men to the unoccupied barracks on James’ Island, known as Fort Johnson, a mile and a quarter west of Sumter. The work of mounting guns at Sumter had been discontinued for three days, and the elevating-screws and pintle-bolts sent to Moultrie so that the guns should not be used if the South-Carolinians should anticipate his action, and also to give the impression that occupancy of the fort was not designed. All stores and provisions at Fort Moultrie which could be carried, and personal belongings, except what the men could carry in their knapsacks, were loaded as for Fort Johnson in the two small sailing-vessels which were to carry the women and children.
Christmas Day had been fixed for the transfer, but heavy rains prevented. The delay might have had other consequences, for, curiously enough, on the morning of December 26th, Colonel R. B. Rhett, Jr., waited upon the governor, with a private warning letter from Washington to the effect that Anderson was about to seize Sumter, and urged the governor to secure it.[166]
All was made ready on December 26th, and the quartermaster who was to have charge of the little flotilla, loaded with “everything in the household line from boxes and barrels of provisions to cages of canary-birds,” was directed to go to Fort Johnson, but not to land anything. Upon a signal of two guns from Moultrie he was to go to Sumter on the plea that he had to report to Anderson that he could not find accommodations. Five pulling-boats in customary use were available for the transportation of the men. Only one officer had been thus far informed, and the men had no suspicion where they were to go when they fell in at retreat roll-call with packed knapsacks and filled cartridge-boxes, carried at parade under a general standing order. So little was the movement suspected that Captain Doubleday, second in command, came at sunset to Anderson in the midst of the officers to invite the major to tea. He was then informed of Anderson’s intentions, and was directed to have his company in readiness in twenty minutes, an order met by an “eager obedience.” Part of this time was taken in arranging for the safety of Mrs. Doubleday in the village outside of the fort, whither the families of the other officers were also sent. The men were ready promptly, and the first detachment of twenty, led by Anderson himself, marched over the quarter of a mile of sand to the landing-place with the good-fortune of encountering, no one.
Anderson went in the leading boat. Lieutenant Meade, the engineer in charge of the works at Castle Pinckney, had charge of the second, and Captain Doubleday of the third. When half-way across, Doubleday’s boat came unexpectedly in the path of one of the patrol boats, the General Clinch, which was towing a schooner to sea. The men were ordered to take off their coats and cover their muskets. The steamer stopped, but in the twilight, and with the resemblance of the boat and its load of men to the usual parties of workmen, suspicion was not aroused, and the steamer resumed her way without questioning. She had been anxiously watched from Moultrie, and had she interfered would have been fired upon by a thirty-two-pounder, two of which had been loaded with that intent. Captain Foster, with Assistant Surgeon Crawford, a Mr. Moall, four non-commissioned officers, and seven privates, had been left at Moultrie to spike the guns, burn the gun-carriages, and hew down the flag-staff.[167]
On reaching Sumter, the workmen, some hundred and fifty, swarmed to the wharf, some feebly cheering, many angrily demanding the reason for the presence of the soldiers; many of the workmen wore the secession cockade; the malecontents (a number of whom shortly returned to Charleston) quickly gave way before the bayonets of Doubleday’s men, who at once occupied the main entrance and guard-room; sentries were posted and the fort was under military control. Boats were now sent back for Captain Seymour’s company, which arrived without interference, and the whole force, except the few detailed to remain at Moultrie, was in Sumter before eight o’clock, at which hour Anderson wrote the Adjutant-General, reporting that he had “just completed, by the blessing of God, the removal to this fort of all my garrison.... The step which I have taken was, in my opinion, necessary to prevent the effusion of blood.”[168] On the firing of the signal-guns at Moultrie, Lieutenant Hall left the west side of the bay with the two lighters carrying the men’s families and stores, and reached Sumter under sail.
With the help of the engineer’s workmen at Moultrie, the boats were loaded during the night with part of the impedimenta of every sort which had to be left in the first crossing, and reached Sumter in the early dawn. The following day, December 27th, was passed like the preceding night, in transferring ammunition and other stores to Sumter; but a month and a half’s supply of provisions, some fuel, and personal effects had to be left. All the guns at Moultrie were spiked, and the carriages of those bearing on Sumter burned, the smoke from these bearing to Charleston the first indication of what had happened. At fifteen minutes before noon the command and one hundred and fifty workmen were formed in a square near the flag-staff of Sumter; the chaplain offered a prayer expressing gratitude for their safe arrival, and prayed that the flag might never be dishonored, but soon float again over the whole country, a peaceful and prosperous nation. “When the prayer was finished, Major Anderson, who had been kneeling, arose, the battalion presented arms, the band played the national air, and the flag went to the head of the flag-staff, amid the loud and earnest huzzas of the command.”[169]
SERGEANT HART NAILING THE COLORS TO THE FLAG-STAFF, FORT SUMTER
Intense excitement in Charleston was the natural outcome of Anderson’s action, and the morning of the 27th the governor sent his aide-de-camp, Colonel Pettigrew, accompanied by Major Capers, with a peremptory demand that Anderson should return with his garrison to Moultrie, to which Anderson replied, “Make my compliments to the governor and say to him that I decline to accede to his request; I cannot and will not go back.” The governor’s messenger mentioned that when Governor Pickens came into office he found an understanding between his predecessor (Gist) and the President, by which the status in the harbor was to remain unchanged. Anderson stated “that he knew nothing of it; that he could get no information or positive orders from Washington; ... that he had reason to believe that [the state troops] meant to land and attack him from the north; that the desire of the governor to have the matter settled peaceably and without bloodshed was precisely his own object in transferring his command; ... that he did it upon his own responsibility alone,” as safety required it, “and as he had the right to do.” He added that, “In this controversy between the North and the South, my sympathies are entirely with the South,” but that a sense of duty to his trust was first.[170] The immediate result was the occupancy by the state forces, December 27th, of Pinckney and Moultrie; the seizure, December 30th, of the unoccupied barracks known as Fort Johnson, and of the arsenal, with its ordnance and ordnance stores, valued at four hundred thousand dollars.
The news of Anderson’s dramatic, bold, and self-reliant act, one for which the country owes a debt to the memory of this upright and excellent commander, brought consternation to the President and Secretary of War, who learned it through the indefatigable Trescot, who had, on the 26th, arranged for the three commissioners of South Carolina an interview with the President for December 27th, at one o’clock. The news of the morning brought a complete change of circumstances. A telegram to Wigfall was brought by him to the commissioners and to the Secretary of War, who at once went to the commissioners. Trescot was present, and could not believe in an “act not only without orders but in the face of orders.” Floyd at once telegraphed, asking an explanation of the report. “It is not believed, because there is no order for any such movement.” A telegram in reply from Anderson assured him of the truth, and a written report gave as reasons that “many things convinced me that the authorities of the state designed to proceed to a hostile act. Under this impression I could not hesitate that it was my solemn duty to move my command from a fort which we could not have held probably longer than forty-eight or sixty hours to this one where my power of resistance is increased to a very great degree.”[171]
[In January a futile attempt to relieve Fort Sumter was made by sending from New York two hundred troops in an unarmed steamer, The Star of the West, which was fired upon by the secessionists in Fort Moultrie, and, receiving no support from Fort Sumter, returned to New York.]
IV
THE FALL OF FORT SUMTER (APRIL, 1861)
Lamon’s[172] officiousness resulted in giving both to Anderson and to the Confederate authorities an impression that Sumter would surely be evacuated; hence Beauregard, March 26th, wrote to Anderson offering facilities for removal, but asking his word of honor that the fort would be left without any preparation for its destruction or injury. This demand deeply wounded Anderson, and he resented it in a letter of the same date, saying, “If I can only be permitted to leave on the pledge you mention, I shall never, so help me God, leave this fort alive.”[173] Beauregard hastened to state that he had only alluded to the “pledge” on account of the “high source” from which the rumors appeared to come, and made a full amend, which re-established their usual relations.
Anderson had informed Fox that, by placing the command on a short allowance, he could make the provisions last until after April 10th; but not receiving instructions from the War Department that it was desirable to do so, it had not been done.[174] He had already reported, March 31st, that his last barrel of flour had been issued two days before.[175]
Anderson’s little command, as he explained to Washington April 1st, would now face starvation should the daily supply of fresh meat and vegetables, still allowed from Charleston, be cut off. Being in daily expectation, since the return of Colonel Lamon to Washington, of receiving orders to vacate the post, he had, to the great disadvantage of the food supply, kept the engineer laborers as long as he could. He now asked permission to send them from Sumter; but the request, referred to Montgomery April 2d by Beauregard, was refused, unless all the garrison should go.[176]
April 1st an ice-laden schooner bound for Savannah entered Charleston harbor by mistake, and was fired upon by a Morris Island battery. Again the Sumter batteries were manned and a consultation held, at which five of the eight officers declared in favor of opening fire, but no action was taken by Anderson beyond sending an officer to the offending battery, from which word was returned by its commanding officer that he was simply carrying out his orders to fire upon any vessel carrying the United States colors which attempted to enter.
On April 4th Anderson assembled his officers, and for the first time made known to them the orders of January 10th and February 23d, directing him to act strictly on the defensive. As Lieutenant Talbot had just been promoted captain and ordered to Washington, Anderson determined to send by him his despatches. In order to arrange for his departure, Talbot, April 4th, accompanied Lieutenant Snyder, under a white flag, to call the attention of the governor to the fact that the schooner fired upon had not been warned by one of their own vessels, as had been arranged. It developed that the guard-vessel on duty had come in on account of heavy weather, and the commanding officer was consequently dismissed. The request to allow Talbot to proceed brought out the fact that orders had been received from Montgomery not to allow any portion of the garrison to leave the fort unless all should go[177]—which, however, Beauregard construed, for the benefit of Talbot, to apply more particularly to laborers and enlisted men[178]—and also that the following telegram from Commissioner Crawford had reached Charleston April 1st: “I am authorized to say that this government will not undertake to supply Sumter without notice to you. My opinion is that the President has not the courage to execute the order agreed upon in Cabinet for the evacuation of the fort, but that he intends to shift the responsibility upon Major Anderson by suffering him to be starved out. Would it not be well to aid in this by cutting off all supplies?”[179] Beauregard had, the same day, sent the message to the Confederate Secretary of War, with the remark, “Batteries here ready to open Wednesday or Thursday. What instructions?”
CHARLESTON HARBOR
April, 1861
The knowledge of these telegrams called from Anderson, April 5th, a pathetic despatch to the War Department: “I cannot but think Mr. Crawford has misunderstood what he has heard in Washington, as I cannot think the government could abandon, without instructions and without advice, a command which has tried to do all its duty to our country.” He ended a fervent appeal for this act of justice with, “Unless we receive supplies I shall be compelled to stay here without food or to abandon this post very early next week.”[180] “At this time,” says Doubleday, “the seeming indifference of the politicians to our fate made us feel like orphan children of the Republic, deserted by both the State and Federal administration.”[181]
Two days later Anderson received a letter of April 4th from the Secretary of War, informing him of the government’s purpose to send the Fox expedition, and hoping that he would be able to sustain himself until the 11th or 12th.[182] The same day he was informed by the Confederate authorities that the supply of provisions had been stopped, and late that evening that no mails coming or going would be allowed to pass. The fort was to be “completely isolated.” This action was undoubtedly taken at this moment in consequence of a telegram from Washington sent Magrath April 6th, as follows: “Positively determined not to withdraw Anderson. Supplies go immediately, supported by naval force under Stringham if their landing be resisted.” This telegram, signed “A Friend,” was, as later became known, from James E. Harvey, who was about to go as United States minister to Portugal. It was sent to Montgomery, and had its full effect.[183]
Just before the reception of the information regarding the stoppage of mails, Anderson had posted his acknowledgment of the War Department’s letter of the 4th and a report by Foster to the chief-engineer of the army; both letters were opened by the Confederate authorities, and gave full confirmation of the accuracy of the telegram from “A Friend.” Anderson said that “the resumption of work yesterday (Sunday) at various points on Morris Island, and the vigorous prosecution of it this morning, ... shows that they have either received some news from Washington which has put them on the qui vive, or that they have received orders from Montgomery to commence operations here. I fear” that Fox’s attempt “cannot fail to be disastrous to all concerned.... We have not oil enough to keep a light in lanterns for one night. The boats will have therefore to rely at night entirely upon other marks. I ought to have been informed that this expedition was to come. Colonel Lamon’s remark convinced me that the idea merely hinted at to me by Captain Fox would not be carried out. We shall strive to do our duty, though I frankly say that my heart is not in the war which I see is to be thus commenced.”[184]
As shown by despatches which Anderson had no means of sending, and carried north, eight guard-boats and signal-vessels were on duty out far beyond the bar; a fourth gun had been added to the new battery on Sullivan’s Island, which had until the 8th been masked by a house now torn down, and which bore directly upon any boat attempting to land stores on the left bank. There was bread enough to last, using half-rations, until dinner-time Friday (12th). Anderson reported the command in fine spirits. It was evident that a hostile force was expected. The iron-clad floating battery appeared the morning of the 11th at the west end of Sullivan’s Island. Anderson, in ignorance that his own intercepted letter and Harvey’s telegram had given them all they needed to know, said: “Had they been in possession of the information contained in your letter of the 4th instant they could not have made better arrangements than these they have made and are making to thwart the contemplated scheme.”[185]
Chew, who, as mentioned, had been selected as the messenger to carry to Charleston the notice of the President’s intention to attempt to provision Sumter, left Washington Saturday, April 6th, at 6 P.M., in company with Captain Talbot, and reached Charleston forty-eight hours later; finding no action taken against Sumter, he delivered a copy of his memorandum to the governor, who called General Beauregard into the consultation. Captain Talbot’s request to join the garrison at Sumter was referred to Beauregard, and peremptorily refused, Beauregard remarking that the instructions from Montgomery required that no communication whatever should be permitted with Anderson except to convey an order for the evacuation of the fort.[186] The return of the envoys to Washington was much delayed by disarrangement of trains by order of Beauregard, who also held all telegrams from Chew to Lincoln.[187]
Sumter now mounted fifty-nine guns, twenty-seven of the heaviest of which were in barbette (the upper and open tier). In the lowest tier there were also twenty-seven, four of which were forty-two-pounders and the remainder thirty-two’s. The ports of the second (or middle tier), eight feet square, were closed by a three-foot brick wall, laid in cement and backed in twenty-seven of the more exposed by two feet of sand kept in place by planks or barrels. On the parade were one 10-inch and four 8-inch guns, mounted as howitzers, the former to throw shells into Charleston, the latter into the batteries on Cummings Point. The guns bearing upon the three batteries on the west end of Sullivan’s Island were ten thirty-two-pounders; on Fort Moultrie, two forty-three-pounders. Five guns bore upon the mortar battery at Fort Johnson. Seven hundred cartridges had been made up, material of every kind, even the woollen shirts of the men, being used.[188]
Bearing upon Fort Sumter there were on Sullivan’s Island three 8-inch, two thirty-two-pounders, and six twenty-four-pounders in Fort Moultrie; two thirty-two-pounders and two twenty-four-pounders in the new enfilade battery; one 9-inch, two forty-two-pounders, and two thirty-two-pounders at the Point and aboard the floating battery, and six 10-inch mortars; on Morris Island, two forty-two-pounders, one twelve-pounder Blakely rifle, three 8-inch guns, and seven 10-inch mortars; at Fort Johnson, one twenty-four-pounder and four 10-inch mortars; at Mount Pleasant, one 10-inch mortar: a total of twenty-seven guns and eighteen mortars.[189] The latter were particularly to be feared, as mortar fire under the conditions of a fixed target and perfectly established distances is extremely accurate. The interior of the fort was thus as vulnerable as the exterior.
Governor Pickens at once sent to Montgomery a telegram reporting the visit of the President’s messenger. A lengthy discussion ensued in the Confederate Cabinet. Toombs, the Secretary of State, said: “The firing upon that fort will inaugurate a civil war greater than any the world has yet seen; and I do not feel competent to advise you.”[190] In the state of Southern feeling, however, the only thing possible was for Secretary Walker to order Beauregard, April 10th, “If you have no doubt of the authorized character of the agent who communicated to you the intention of the Washington government to supply Sumter by force, you will at once demand its evacuation, and if this is refused proceed, in such manner as you may determine, to reduce it.”[191] Beauregard answered the same day, “The demand will be made to-morrow at twelve o’clock.” To this came reply from Montgomery, “Unless there are special reasons connected with your own condition, it is considered proper that you should make the demand at an earlier date.” Beauregard replied (all these of the same date, the 10th), “The reasons are special for twelve o’clock.”[192] These imperative “reasons” proved to be shortness of powder, then on its way, and which arrived from Augusta, Georgia, that evening,[193] and the placing of a new rifled twelve-pounder.
Shortly after noon, April 11th, a boat bearing a white flag and three officers, the senior being Colonel James Chesnut, recently a United States senator, pushed off from a Charleston wharf and arrived at Sumter at half-past three. The officers being conducted to Anderson, a demand for the evacuation of the work was delivered. The officers of the fort were summoned, and after an hour’s discussion it was determined, without dissent, to refuse the demand, and a written refusal was sent, in which Anderson regretted that his sense of honor and his obligations to his government prevented his compliance.[194] Anderson accompanied the messengers as far as the main gate, where he asked, “Will General Beauregard open his batteries without further notice to me?” Colonel Chesnut replied, “I think not,” adding, “No, I can say to you that he will not, without giving you further notice.” On this Anderson unwisely remarked that he would be starved out anyway in a few days if Beauregard did not batter him to pieces with his guns. Chesnut asked if he might report this to Beauregard. Anderson declined to give it such character, but said it was the fact.[195]
This information, telegraphed to Montgomery, elicited the reply: “Do not desire needlessly to bombard Fort Sumter. If Major Anderson will state the time at which, as indicated by him, he will evacuate, and agree that in the mean time he will not use his guns against us unless ours should be employed against Sumter, you are authorized thus to avoid the effusion of blood. If this or its equivalent be refused, reduce the fort as your judgment decides to be most practicable.”[196]
A second note from Beauregard was presented that night, and after a conference with his officers of three hours, in which the question of food was the main consideration, Anderson replied, “I will, if provided with proper and necessary means of transportation, evacuate Fort Sumter by noon on the 15th instant ... should I not receive prior to that time controlling instructions from my government or additional supplies.” The terms of the reply were considered by the messengers “manifestly futile,” and at 3.20 A.M. of the 12th the following note was handed by Beauregard’s aides, Chesnut and Lee, to Anderson: “By authority of Brigadier-General Beauregard, commanding the provisional forces of the Confederate States, we have the honor to notify you that he will open the fire of his batteries on Fort Sumter in one hour from this time.”[197]
Meantime Fox, intrusted with the general charge of the relief expedition, was sent by the President, March 30th, to New York, with verbal instructions to prepare for the voyage but to make no binding engagements. Not having received the written authority expected, he returned to Washington April 2d, and on the 4th the final decision was reached, and Fox was informed that a messenger would be sent to the authorities at Charleston to notify them of the President’s action. Fox mentioned to the President that he would have but nine days to charter vessels and reach Charleston, six hundred and thirty-two miles distant. He arrived at New York April 5th, bearing an order from General Scott to Lieutenant-Colonel H. L. Scott (son-in-law and aide-de-camp to the general-in-chief), embracing all his wants and directing Colonel Scott to give in his name all necessary instructions. Colonel Scott ridiculed the idea of relief, and his indifference caused the loss of half a day of precious time, besides furnishing recruits who, Fox complained, were “totally unfit” for the service they were sent on.[198]
Fox at once engaged the large steamer Baltic for troops and stores, and, after great difficulty, obtained three tugs, the Uncle Ben, Freeborn, and Yankee, the last fitted to throw hot water. The Pocahontas, Pawnee, and the revenue-cutter Harriet Lane, as already mentioned, were to be a part of the force, which thus, with the Powhatan, included four armed vessels, the last being of considerable power. The Pawnee, Commander Rowan, sailed from Washington the 9th; the Pocahontas, Captain Gillis, from Norfolk the 10th; the Harriet Lane, Captain Faunce, from New York the 8th; the Baltic, Captain Fletcher, the 9th. The Powhatan was already far on her way to Pensacola.
The Baltic arrived at the rendezvous, ten miles east of Charleston bar, at 3 A.M. of the 12th, and found there the Harriet Lane; at six the Pawnee arrived; the Powhatan was not visible. The Baltic, followed by the Harriet Lane, stood in toward the land, where heavy guns were heard and the smoke and shells from the batteries which had opened that morning on Sumter were distinctly visible. Fox stood out to inform Rowan, of the Pawnee. Rowan asked for a pilot, declaring his intention of going in and sharing the fate of his brethren of the army. Fox went aboard the Pawnee and informed him that he would answer for it that the government did not expect such a sacrifice, having settled maturely upon the policy in instructions to Captain Mercer and himself. The Nashville, from New York, and a number of merchant vessels off the bar, gave the appearance of the presence of a large naval fleet.
The weather continued very bad, with a heavy sea. No tugboats had arrived; the tug Freeborn did not leave New York; the Uncle Ben was driven into Wilmington by the gale; the Yankee did not arrive off Charleston bar until April 15th, too late for any service; neither the Pawnee nor the Harriet Lane had boats or men to carry supplies; the Baltic stood out to the rendezvous and signalled all night for the expected Powhatan. The next morning, the 13th, was thick and foggy, with a heavy ground-swell, and the Baltic, feeling her way in, touched on Rattlesnake Shoal, but without damage; a great volume of black smoke was seen from Sumter. No tugboats had yet arrived, and a schooner near by, loaded with ice, was seized and preparations made to load her for entering the following night. Going aboard the Pawnee, Fox now learned that a note from Captain Mercer of the Powhatan mentioned that he had been detached by superior authority and that the ship had gone elsewhere; though Fox had left New York two days later than the Powhatan, he had no intimation of the change. At 2 P.M., April 13th, the Pocahontas arrived, and the squadron, powerless for relief, through the absence of the Powhatan and the tugs, was obliged to witness the progress of the bombardment.[199]
“About 4 A.M. on the twelfth,” says Doubleday, “I was awakened by some one groping about my room in the dark and calling out my name.” This was Anderson, who had come to inform his second in command of the information just received of the intention of the Confederates to open fire an hour later.[200] At 4.30, the Confederates being able to make out the outline of the fort, a gun at Fort Johnson was fired as the signal to open; the first shotted gun was then fired from Morris Island by Edmund Ruffin, an aged secessionist from Virginia, who had long, in pamphlet and speech, advocated separation from the Union. The fire from the batteries at once became general.
The fort began its return at seven o’clock. All the officers and men, including the engineers, had been divided into three reliefs of two hours each, and the forty-three workmen yet remaining all volunteered for duty. It was, however, an absurdly meagre force to work such a number of guns and to be pitted against the surrounding batteries, manned by more than six thousand men. The number of cartridges was so reduced by the middle of the day, though the six needles available were kept steadily at work in making cartridge-bags, that the firing had to slacken and be confined to the six guns bearing toward Moultrie and the batteries on the west end of Sullivan’s Island. The mortar fire had become very accurate, so that, when the 13-inch shells “came down in a vertical direction and buried themselves in the parade-ground, their explosion shook the fort like an earthquake.”[201] The horizontal fire also grew in accuracy, and Anderson, to save his men, withdrew them from the barbette guns and used those of the lower tiers only. Unfortunately, these were of too light a caliber to be effective against the Morris Island batteries, the shot rebounding without effect from the face of the iron-clad battery there, as well as from the floating iron-clad battery moored behind the sea-wall at Sullivan’s Island. The withdrawal of the men from the heavier battery could only be justified by the already foregone result, and no doubt this was in Anderson’s mind. The garrison was reduced to pork and water, and, however willing, it could not with such meagre food withstand the strain of the heavy labor of working the guns; to add to the difficulties, the guns, strange to say, were not provided with breech-sights, and these had to be improvised with notched sticks.[202]
The shells from the batteries set fire to the barracks three times during the day, and the precision of the vertical fire was such that the four 8-inch and one 10-inch columbiad, planted in the parade, could not be used. Half the shells fired from the seventeen mortars engaged came within, or exploded above, the parapet of the fort, and only about ten buried themselves in the soft earth of the parade without exploding. Two of the barbette guns were struck by the fire from Moultrie, which also damaged greatly the roof of the barracks and the stair towers. None of the shot came through. The day closed stormy and with a high tide, without any material damage to the strength of the fort. Throughout the night the Confederate batteries threw shell every ten or fifteen minutes. The garrison was occupied until midnight in making cartridge-bags, for which all the extra clothing was cut up and all the coarse paper and extra hospital sheets used.[203]
At daylight, April 13th, all the batteries again opened, and the new twelve-pounder Blakely rifle, which had arrived but four days before from abroad,[204] caused the wounding of a sergeant and three men by the fragments thrown off from the interior of the wall by its deep penetration. An engineer employed was severely wounded by a fragment of shell. Hot shot now became frequent, and at nine o’clock the officers’ quarters were set afire. As it was evident the fire would soon surround the magazine, every one not at the guns was employed to get out powder; but only fifty barrels could be removed to the casements, when it became necessary from the spread of the flames to close the magazine. The whole range of the officers’ quarters was soon in flames, and the clouds of smoke and cinders sent into the casements set on fire many of the men’s beds and boxes, making the retention of the powder so dangerous that all but five barrels were thrown into the sea.[205]
By eleven o’clock the fire and smoke were driven by the wind in such masses into the point where the men had taken refuge that suffocation appeared imminent. “The roaring and crackling of the flames, the dense masses of whirling smoke, the bursting of the enemy’s shells, and our own, which were exploding in the burning rooms, the crashing of the shot and the sound of masonry falling in every direction made the fort a pandemonium.... There was a tower at each angle of the fort. One of these, containing great quantities of shells, ... was almost completely shattered by successive explosions. The massive wooden gates, studded with iron nails, were burned, and the wall built behind them was now a heap of débris, so that the main entrance was wide open for an assaulting party.”[206]
But however great the apparent damage and the discomfort and danger while the fire lasted, the firing could have been resumed “as soon as the walls cooled sufficiently to open the magazines, and then, having blown down the wall projecting above the parapet, so as to get rid of the flying bricks, and built up the main gates with stones and rubbish, the fort would actually have been in a more defensible condition than when the action commenced.”[207]
But want of men, want of food, and want of powder together made a force majeure against which further strife was useless; and when, about 1 P.M., the flag-staff was shot away, though the flag was at once flown from an improvised staff, a boat was sent from the commanding officer at Morris Island, bringing Colonel (Ex-Senator) Wigfall and a companion bearing a white flag, to inquire if the fort had surrendered.
Being allowed entrance, Major Anderson was sought for, and Wigfall, using Beauregard’s name, offered Anderson his own terms. Wigfall exhibited a white handkerchief from the parapet, and this being noticed brought from Beauregard himself Colonel Chesnut, Colonel Roger A. Pryor, Colonel William Porcher Miles, and Captain Lee, followed soon by Beauregard’s adjutant-general, Jones, Ex-Governor Manning, and Colonel Alston. It transpired that Wigfall had not seen Beauregard for two days, and that his visit was wholly unauthorized. The proper authorities, however, being now at hand, arrangements were concluded at 7 P.M., Anderson surrendering (after some correspondence), with permission to salute the flag as it was hauled down, to march out with colors flying and drums beating and with arms and private baggage.[208]
Noticing the disappearance of the colors, a flag of truce was sent in from the squadron outside, and arrangements made for carrying the garrison north. Next morning, Sunday, April 14th, with a salute of fifty guns, the flag was finally hauled down. It had been Anderson’s intention to fire a hundred guns, but a lamentable accident occurred in the premature discharge of one, by which one man was killed, another mortally wounded, and four others seriously injured. This accident delayed the departure until 4 P.M., when the little company of some eighty men, accompanied by the forty laborers,[209] marched out of the gate with their flags flying and drums beating. The steamer Isabel carried Anderson and his men to the Baltic, and at nightfall they were on their way north.
April 15th, the day after the surrender, the President issued his proclamation calling “forth the militia of the several states of the Union” to the number of seventy-five thousand men, in order to suppress “combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings or by the powers vested in the marshals by law,” and “to cause the laws to be duly executed.” Congress was called to convene July 4th. An immediate effect of the proclamation was the secession of Virginia, April 17th, the conservative elements of the state convention, although in the majority, being overwhelmed by the enthusiasm and impetus of the secession attack. Another prompt result was the formation of the northwestern counties into what is now West Virginia.
Fox’s expedition, however abortive in a physical sense, did much more than attempt to succor Sumter; it was the instrument through which the fort was held to the accomplishment of the fateful mistake of the Confederacy in striking the first blow. It prevented the voluntary yielding of the fort, and was an exhibition of the intention of the government to hold its own. It was thus elemental in its effects. Had Anderson withdrawn and hauled down his flag without a shot from the South, it would have been for the Federal government to strike the first blow of war; and its call for men would have met with a different response to that which came from the electric impulse which the firing upon the flag caused to vibrate through the North. This expectation was the basis of Lincoln’s determination. Almost alone, unmovable by Cabinet or War Department, he saw with the certainty of the seer what holding Sumter meant, and continued on the unchangeable way which from the first he had taken. In his letter of sympathy to Fox, May 1st, he said: “You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort Sumter, even if it should fail, and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified by the result.”[210]
The enthusiastic response of the North to the proclamation was witness to the truth of Lincoln’s view, as well as to the North’s determination that the offended dignity of the Union should be avenged, its strongholds regained, its boundaries made intact, and that the United States be proved to be a nation. It was for this the Union fought; the freeing of the blacks was but a natural and necessary incident. The assault upon Sumter was the knife driven by the hand of the South itself into the vitals of slavery.
SYNOPSIS OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS, CHIEFLY
MILITARY, BETWEEN THE BOMBARDMENT
OF FORT SUMTER, 1861, AND THE BATTLE
OF THE MONITOR AND THE
MERRIMAC, 1862
1861. President Lincoln calls for seventy-five thousand militia to suppress the rebellion of the Southern States. Secession of Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and North Carolina. Formal division of Western Virginia from Virginia. The Massachusetts militia attacked in Baltimore. The Congress of the Confederate States assembles at Montgomery and is later transferred to Richmond. The first battle of Bull Run results in a Federal repulse. Battle of Wilson’s Creek. Repulse of the Federals at Ball’s Bluff. McClellan succeeds Scott as commander-in-chief of the Federal armies. The Federals gain possession of Port Royal. The Confederate commissioners, Mason and Slidell, are intercepted on the British steamer Trent.
1862. Surrender of the Confederate commissioners, Mason and Slidell, to the British government. The Federals capture Roanoke Island. Fort Henry and Fort Donelson surrender to General Grant. Federal victory at Pea Ridge. Engagement between the Monitor and the Merrimac. The French declare war against Mexico.
XVI
THE BATTLE OF THE MONITOR AND THE MERRIMAC
I
A PRELUDE TO THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN OF APRIL TO JUNE, 1862
By James Kendall Hosmer
Obviously the capture of Richmond was the proper objective in the offensive campaign in the East for which McClellan had been so long preparing. The selection of that city by the Confederacy for the seat of government caused all its interests to centre there; the maintenance of its capital, moreover, was essential to the good standing of the Confederacy before Europe, recognition from which was so earnestly desired. If the North could capture Richmond, quite possibly nothing more would be necessary to crush the South. The protection of Washington, too, could not be left at all in doubt. Should that city be lost to the Union, England and France might justly feel that the cause of the North was hopeless, and no longer refrain from intervention.
Before Washington, McClellan and Johnston faced each other throughout the fall of 1861, the latter having, in October, a force of 41,000, which later grew to 57,337.[211] Under Johnston at the end of the year were three subordinates—Jackson, in the Valley of Virginia; Beauregard, about Leesburg, near the Potomac; and Holmes, below Washington, about Acquia Creek, where Confederate batteries closed the Potomac. McClellan had fully twice as many men, an army well disciplined and equipped, devoted to their leader, and of fine morale. Why could the army not be used? Because the general always imagined before him a host of enemies that greatly outnumbered his own, and insisted on more men and a more perfect training before setting out. Meantime he grew cavalier in his treatment of his superiors. The venerable Scott, who now retired at seventy-five, had his last days embittered by the scant courtesy of the new commander, and even the President was slighted. “I will hold McClellan’s horse for him if he will only win us victories,” said Lincoln, with good-natured patience. In December, McClellan fell ill, and all was in doubt. With the new year, 1862, prospects brightened for the Union. The great successes in the West and South, ending with the capture of New Orleans, brought cheer; at last the army of the Potomac was in motion.
In March, Johnston withdrew southward; and McClellan, his command now restricted to the “Army of the Potomac,” as he had baptized his splendid creation, was ready for the long-delayed advance. Lincoln, whose good sense when applied to warfare often, though not always, struck true, earnestly desired that Richmond should be approached by a direct southward movement, Washington being covered, while at the same time Richmond was threatened. But McClellan judged it better to proceed by the Chesapeake, landing at the end of the peninsula running up between the York and James rivers, and marching against Richmond from the east. Much could be said in favor of this route: troops and supplies could be carried by water to the neighborhood of Richmond without fatigue or danger. Yet the President yielded reluctantly, fearing danger to Washington, laying it down as fundamental that the capital must be protected by forty thousand men.
The Peninsular campaign had a dramatic prelude. A necessary condition was a command of the waters, which was secured in early March by an event that startled the world. Among the many disadvantages under which the South labored in her struggle with the North was a painful lack, as compared with her opponent, of factories, machine-shops, ship-yards, and skilled labor; yet determination and ingenuity brought about several wonderful fighting contrivances, of which the most remarkable was the Virginia. The hull of the Merrimac, a frigate of thirty-five hundred tons and forty guns, one of the most formidable vessels of the old navy, partly burned and afterward sunk at the evacuation of Norfolk by the Federals in April, 1861, was raised, and found to be sound enough for further use. Good heads, among whom John M. Brooke, manager of the Tredegar Iron Works at Richmond, was prominent, fitted to the hull a casemate, or box, pierced for cannon, and heavily plated with iron—the first effective armored ship. There was a frank farewell to masts, sails, and other former appliances for motion and management. The winds were superseded by steam, applied for the first time in naval warfare, not as auxiliary, but as the sole motive-power. One appliance of the Virginia was, however, not a new invention, but a revival of a fighting arm common in the days of Salamis and Actium—a ram, projecting from the prow like that of an ancient galley.[212] The craft was cumbrous, hard to steer, and provided with engines far too weak for her immense weight, but she had marvellous defensive power and was fast enough to approach and destroy any resisting sailing-ship.
HAMPTON ROADS
On March 8th, from the direction of Norfolk, the Virginia, a mass low-lying upon the water, suddenly appeared before the astonished eyes of the Federal onlookers in Hampton Roads.[213] Five stately wooden frigates lay at anchor off Hampton, and they gallantly discharged their broadsides at this strange assailant, but the balls glanced harmless from her impenetrable back. She turned and pierced the Cumberland with her ram, sending the frigate to the bottom; then she assailed the Congress, which presently went up in flames; the brave crews as helpless as if their means of defence were bows and arrows. Mistress of the situation, with three more frigates—Minnesota, Roanoke, and St. Lawrence—aground on the shoals or offering a futile defiance, the Virginia then withdrew for the day; she was certain of her prey and could afford to wait for a few hours, meanwhile making some changes which would render her more effective. Vivid terror overspread the North as the news was despatched in the evening; and it was nowhere greater than in the cabinet-room at the White House, where Lincoln anxiously studied upon means to meet the exigency; and Stanton, pacing the room “like a caged lion,” predicted she would come up the Potomac and shell Washington.[214]
On the forenoon of March 9th, doing all things deliberately, as one that has no reason to hasten, the Virginia again appeared and moved toward the Minnesota, aground and apparently certain to become a helpless victim. Suddenly in the path appeared a little craft scarcely one-fourth the size of the Virginia, “a cheese-box on a raft,” as it will go down in history, the Monitor, an iron-clad of another pattern. This vessel, undertaken as an experiment, and completed in one hundred days, was due to the genius and indomitable zeal of John Ericsson, its designer. That it should have arrived from New York at this moment is one of the fateful accidents of history. A multitude beheld the encounter, from the ships close at hand, from the shores near and far. The superior size and armament of the Virginia were neutralized by her unwieldiness and depth of draught. The Monitor, more active, and passing everywhere over shoal or through channel, could elude or strike as she chose. Neither had much power to harm the other; each crew behind its shield manœuvred and fired for the most part uninjured. Worden, commander of the Monitor, in his pilot-house at the bow, built of iron bars log-cabin fashion, received in the face, as he peered through the interstice, the blinding fire and smoke from a shell that struck within a few inches, but he escaped death. The casualties on the Virginia were few. On the morning of that day both North and South believed that the Confederacy was about to control the sea. The anticipation, whether hope or fear, vanished in the smoke of that day’s battle. With it, too, passed away the traditional beauty and romance of the old sea-service—the oakribbed and white-winged navies, whose dominion had been so long and picturesque, at last and forever gave way to steel and steam.[215]
II
THE BATTLE DESCRIBED BY CAPTAIN WORDEN AND LIEUTENANT GREENE OF THE MONITOR
By Lucius E. Chittenden
Some weeks after the historic battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac in Hampton Roads, on March 9, 1862, the former vessel came to the Washington navy-yard unchanged, in the same condition as when she discharged her parting shot at the Merrimac. There she lay until her heroic commander had so far recovered from his injuries as to be able to rejoin his vessel. All leaves of absence had been revoked, the absentees had returned and were ready to welcome their captain. President Lincoln, Captain Fox, and a limited number of Captain Worden’s personal friends had been invited to his informal reception. Lieutenant Greene received the President and the guests. He was a boy in years—not too young to volunteer, however, when volunteers were scarce, and to fight the Merrimac during the last half of the battle, after the captain was disabled.
The President and the other guests stood on the deck, near the turret. The men were formed in lines, with their officers a little in advance, when Captain Worden ascended the gangway. The heavy guns in the navy-yard began firing the customary salute when he stepped upon the deck. One side of his face was permanently blackened by the powder shot into it from the muzzle of a cannon carrying a shell of one hundred pounds weight, discharged less than twenty yards away. The President advanced to welcome him, and introduced him to the few strangers present. The officers and men passed in review and were dismissed. Then there was a scene worth witnessing. The old tars swarmed around their loved captain, they grasped his hand, crowded to touch him, thanked God for his recovery and return, and invoked blessings upon his head in the name of all the saints in the calendar. He called them by their names, had a pleasant word for each of them, and for a few moments we looked upon an exhibition of a species of affection that could only have been the product of a common danger.
When order was restored the President gave a brief sketch of Captain Worden’s career. Commodore Paulding had been the first, Captain Worden the second officer of the navy, he said, to give an unqualified opinion in favor of armored vessels. Their opinions had been influential with him and with the Board of Construction. Captain Worden had volunteered to take command of the Monitor, at the risk of his life and reputation, before her keel was laid. He had watched her construction, and his energy had made it possible to send her to sea in time to arrest the destructive operations of the Merrimac. What he had done with a new crew, and a vessel of novel construction, we all know. He, the President, cordially acknowledged his indebtedness to Captain Worden, and he hoped the whole country would unite in the feeling of obligation. The debt was a heavy one, and would not be repudiated when its nature was understood. The details of the first battle between iron-clads would interest every one. At the request of Captain Fox, Captain Worden had consented to give an account of his voyage from New York to Hampton Roads, and of what had afterward happened there on board the Monitor.
In an easy, conversational manner, without any effort at display, Captain Worden told the story, of which the following is the substance:
“I suppose,” he began, “that every one knows that we left New York Harbor in some haste. We had information that the Merrimac was nearly completed, and if we were to fight her on her first appearance we must be on the ground. The Monitor had been hurried from the laying of her keel. Her engines were new, and her machinery did not move smoothly. Never was a vessel launched that so much needed trial-trips to test her machinery and get her crew accustomed to their novel duties. We went to sea practically without them. No part of the vessel was finished; there was one omission that was serious, and came very near causing her failure and the loss of many lives. In heavy weather it was intended that her hatches and all her openings should be closed and battened down. In that case all the men would be below, and would have to depend upon artificial ventilation. Our machinery for that purpose proved wholly inadequate.
“We were in a heavy gale of wind as soon as we passed Sandy Hook. The vessel behaved splendidly. The seas rolled over her, and we found her the most comfortable vessel we had ever seen, except for the ventilation, which gave us more trouble than I have time to tell you about. We had to run into port and anchor on account of the weather, and, as you know, it was two o’clock in the morning of Sunday before we were alongside the Minnesota. Captain Van Brunt gave us an account of Saturday’s experience. He was very glad to make our acquaintance, and notified us that we must be prepared to receive the Merrimac at daylight. We had had a very hard trip down the coast, and officers and men were weary and sleepy. But when informed that our fight would probably open at daylight, and that the Monitor must be put in order, every man went to his post with a cheer. That night there was no sleep on board the Monitor.
“In the gray of the early morning we saw a vessel approaching which our friends on the Minnesota said was the Merrimac. Our fastenings were cast off, our machinery started, and we moved out to meet her half-way. We had come a long way to fight her, and did not intend to lose our opportunity.
“Before showing you over the vessel, let me say that there were three possible points of weakness in the Monitor, two of which might have been guarded against in her construction if there had been more time to perfect her plans. One of them was in the turret, which, as you see, is constructed of eight plates of inch iron—on the side of the ports, nine—set on end so as to break joints, and firmly bolted together, making a hollow cylinder eight inches thick. It rests on a metal ring on a vertical shaft, which is revolved by power from the boilers. If a projectile struck the turret at an acute angle, it was expected to glance off without doing damage. But what would happen if it was fired in a straight line to the centre of the turret, which in that case would receive the whole force of the blow? It might break off the bolt-heads on the interior, which, flying across, would kill the men at the guns; it might disarrange the revolving mechanism, and then we would be wholly disabled.
“I laid the Monitor close alongside the Merrimac, and gave her a shot. She returned our compliment by a shell, weighing one hundred and fifty pounds, fired when we were close together, which struck the turret so squarely that it received the whole force. Here you see the scar, two and a half inches deep in the wrought iron, a perfect mould of the shell. If anything could test the turret, it was that shot. It did not start a rivet-head or a nut! It stunned the two men who were nearest where the ball struck, and that was all. I touched the lever—the turret revolved as smoothly as before. The turret had stood the test; I could mark that point of weakness off my list forever.
“You notice that the deck is joined to the side of the hull by a right angle, at what sailors call the ‘plank-shear.’ If a projectile struck that angle, what would happen? It would not be deflected; its whole force would be expended there. It might open a seam in the hull below the water-line, or pierce the wooden hull, and sink us. Here was our second point of weakness.
“I had decided how I would fight her in advance. I would keep the Monitor moving in a circle, just large enough to give time for loading the guns. At the point where the circle impinged upon the Merrimac our guns should be fired, and loaded while we were moving around the circuit. Evidently the Merrimac would return the compliment every time. At our second exchange of shots, she returning six or eight to our two, another of her large shells struck our ‘plank-shear’ at its angle, and tore up one of the deck-plates, as you see. The shell had struck what I believed to be the weakest point in the Monitor. We had already learned that the Merrimac swarmed with sharpshooters, for their bullets were constantly spattering against our turret and our deck. If a man showed himself on deck he would draw their fire. But I did not much consider the sharpshooters. It was my duty to investigate the effects of that shot. I ordered one of the pendulums to be hauled aside, and, crawling out of the port, walked to the side, laid down upon my chest, and examined it thoroughly. The hull was uninjured, except for a few splinters in the wood. I walked back and crawled into the turret—the bullets were falling on the iron deck all about me as thick as hailstones in a storm. None struck me, I suppose because the vessel was moving—and at the angle, and when I was lying on the deck, my body made a small mark difficult to hit. We gave them two more guns, and then I told the men, what was true, that the Merrimac could not sink us if we let her pound us for a month. The men cheered; the knowledge put new life into all.
“We had more exchanges, and then the Merrimac tried new tactics. She endeavored to ram us, to run us down. Once she struck us about amidships with her iron ram. Here you see its mark. It gave us a shock, pushed us around, and that was all the harm. But the movement placed our sides together. I gave her two guns, which I think lodged in her side, for, from my lookout crack, I could not see that either shot rebounded. Ours being the smaller vessel, and more easily handled, I had no difficulty in avoiding her ram. I ran around her several times, planting our shot in what seemed to be the most vulnerable places. In this way, reserving my fire until I got the range and the mark, I planted two more shots almost in the very spot I had hit when she tried to ram us. Those shots must have been effective, for they were followed by a shower of bars of iron.
“The third weak spot was our pilot-house. You see that it is built a little more than three feet above the deck, of bars of iron, ten by twelve inches square, built up like a log-house, bolted with very large bolts at the corners where the bars interlock. The pilot stands upon a platform below, his head and shoulders in the pilot-house. The upper tier of bars is separated from the second by an open space of an inch, through which the pilot may look out at every point of the compass. The pilot-house, as you see, is a four-square mass of iron, provided with no means of deflecting a ball. I expected trouble from it, and I was not disappointed. Until my accident happened, as we approached the enemy I stood in the pilot-house and gave the signals. Lieutenant Greene fired the guns, and Engineer Stimers, here, revolved the turret.
“I was below the deck when the corner of the pilot-house was first struck by a shot or a shell. It either burst or was broken, and no harm was done. A short time after I had given the signal, and, with my eye close against the lookout crack, was watching the effect of our shot, when something happened to me—my part in the fight was ended. Lieutenant Greene, who fought the Merrimac until she had no longer stomach for fighting, will tell you the rest of the story.”
Can it be possible that this beardless boy fought one of the historic battles of the world? This was the thought of every one as the modest, diffident young Greene was half pushed forward into the circle.
“I cannot add much to the Captain’s story,” he began. “He had cut out the work for us, and we had only to follow his pattern. I kept the Monitor either moving around the circle or around the enemy, and endeavored to place our shots as near her amidships as possible where Captain Worden believed he had already broken through her armor. We knew that she could not sink us, and I thought I would keep right on pounding her as long as she would stand it. There is really nothing new to be added to Captain Worden’s account. We could strike her wherever we chose; weary as they must have been, our men were full of enthusiasm, and I do not think we wasted a shot. Once we ran out of the circle for a moment to adjust a piece of machinery, and I learn that some of our friends feared that we were drawing out of the fight. The Merrimac took the opportunity to start for Norfolk. As soon as our machinery was adjusted we followed her, and got near enough to give her a parting shot. But I was not familiar with the locality; there might be torpedoes planted in the channel, and I did not wish to take any risk of losing our vessel, so I came back to the company of our friends. But except that we were, all of us, tired and hungry when we came back to the Minnesota at half-past 12 P.M., the Monitor was just as well prepared to fight as she was at eight o’clock in the morning when she fired the first gun.”
We were then shown the injury to the pilot-house. The mark of the ball was plain upon the two upper bars, the principal impact being upon the lower of the two. This huge bar was broken in the middle, but held firmly at either end. The farther it was pressed in, the stronger was the resistance on the exterior. On the inside the fracture in the bar was half an inch wide. Captain Worden’s eye was very near to the lookout crack, so that when the gun was discharged the shock of the ball knocked him senseless, while the mass of flame filled one side of his face with coarse grains of powder. He remained insensible for some hours.
“Have you heard what Captain Worden’s first inquiry was when he recovered his senses after the general shock to his system?” asked Captain Fox of the President.
“I think I have,” replied Mr. Lincoln, “but it is worth relating to these gentlemen.”
“His question was,” said Captain Fox, “‘Have I saved the Minnesota?’
“‘Yes, and whipped the Merrimac!’ some one answered.
“‘Then,’ said Captain Worden, ‘I don’t care what becomes of me.’”
“Mr. President,” said Captain Fox, “not much of the history to which we have listened is new to me. I saw this battle from eight o’clock until mid-day. There was one marvel in it which has not been mentioned—the splendid handling of the Monitor throughout the battle. The first bold advance of this diminutive vessel against a giant like the Merrimac was superlatively grand. She seemed inspired by Nelson’s order at Trafalgar: ‘He will make no mistake who lays his vessel alongside the enemy.’ One would have thought the Monitor a living thing. No man was visible. You saw her moving around that circle, delivering her fire invariably at the point of contact, and heard the crash of the missile against her enemy’s armor above the thunder of her guns, on the bank where we stood. It was indescribably grand!
“Now,” he continued, “standing here on the deck of this battle-scarred vessel, the first genuine iron-clad—the victor in the first fight of iron-clads—let me make a confession and perform an act of simple justice. I never fully believed in armored vessels until I saw this battle. I know all the facts which united to give us the Monitor. I withhold no credit from Captain Ericsson, her inventor, but I know that the country is principally indebted for the construction of this vessel to President Lincoln, and for the success of her trial to Captain Worden, her commander.”
XVII
FARRAGUT’S CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS (1862)
WITH SOME NOTES ON THE BLOCKADE
While the West in 1861–62 was alive with marching armies and the sound of strife, the East had been experiencing its share of activity by land and sea, and the navy must first engage us. The blockade became steadily more effective as new ships, purchased, chartered, or built for the purpose, gathered at the various rendezvous. Hatteras Inlet and Port Royal, seized in the fall of 1861,[216] became bases for coast and inland expeditions which narrowed the Confederate hold on the shore of the Atlantic. In January, 1862, a fleet and army, braving the mid-winter storms which were more formidable than human opposition, entered by Hatteras Inlet, in order to dominate more completely the North Carolina sounds. The fortifications on Roanoke Island, lying between Albemarle and Pamlico sounds, were easily captured, February 8th. New-Berne and other towns were soon after occupied, and the inlets and river-mouths so occupied and threatened that the outlets to the sea became for the Confederates few and perilous. This successful course was interrupted during the Virginia campaign of the summer; the troops were to a large extent withdrawn to places where reinforcements were demanded. The Roanoke Island expedition is noteworthy, among other reasons, for bringing to the front Ambrose E. Burnside, its commander,[217] a brave and well-intentioned patriot, quite inadequate, however, for large responsibilities, which later came upon him.
During these same weeks forces farther south were equally busy in expeditions from Port Royal. Fort Pulaski, the strong work which commanded the approaches to Savannah, a post environed by swamps and watercourses, and therefore difficult of access, succumbed rather to the engineering skill than to the bravery of its assailants, April 11, 1862; therefore, most of the littoral of Georgia, in addition to that of North and South Carolina, was in Federal hands.[218] These conquests were presently supplemented by the occupation of the Atlantic ports of Florida. On the Gulf side, the retention of Fort Pickens by Union forces from the beginning had put Pensacola Harbor under Federal control. The blockade, at first deemed impracticable, within a year of its establishment was throttling the foreign commerce which was vital to the Confederacy. On the Atlantic scarcely any important ports were left except Charleston and Wilmington; and before the thresholds of these places lay, night and day, the fierce and watchful war-dogs of the Union.[219] Nevertheless, up to April, 1862, the Gulf ports of Mobile, New Orleans, Galveston, and Matagorda still remained to the Confederacy. How long could these maintain themselves?
This swift and easy repossession of the southern coastline by the Union, however important, lacked the wholesale excitement of great and bloody battles, and was a game little appreciated. But in the midst of it came an incident dramatic and startling in the highest degree, its hero being a naval officer, David Glasgow Farragut, son of a Spaniard from the island of Minorca, who had married a girl of Scotch strain and settled in the Tennessee mountains. After the birth of David the family removed to Louisiana, the father receiving a naval command. David as a boy of thirteen was on the Essex at Valparaiso, in 1814, in her famous fight against the Phœbe and Cherub. He had done good service on the seas and in port for almost fifty years, but his opportunity did not come until he was sixty years old.[220]
THE MISSISSIPPI BELOW NEW ORLEANS
The need of seizing New Orleans, if practicable, was obvious: the place commanded the lower Mississippi, and was the most populous and important city of the Confederacy. The government, therefore, early gave thought to its capture, assigning for that end a land force of eighteen thousand men, under General Benjamin F. Butler, and a powerful fleet. It was recognized that the navy must play the larger part in the operations: eighty-two ships, therefore, were assigned to the West Gulf Squadron, ranging from tugs, mortar-schooners, and chartered ferry-boats to the most powerful man-of-war which the nation owned.[221] To command this great fleet was chosen Farragut, whose force and capacity had been recognized, especially by Welles, Secretary of the Navy.[222] He hoisted his flag on the Hartford, a wooden ship of nineteen hundred tons and twenty-four guns, and February 2, 1862, sailed southward from Hampton Roads to Ship Island, midway between the mouth of the Mississippi and Mobile, the rendezvous for the army and squadron.
Farragut’s ships were all of wood; and, although steam in great part was the motive-power, sails were not superseded. Even as Farragut was concentrating in the Gulf, an event, to be described presently, took place in Hampton Roads which revolutionized naval warfare. But the enterprises in the Gulf were well started, and some triumphs still remained for the old-fashioned sailor and the old-fashioned ship.[223] In March the fleet managed to cross the bar and enter the Mississippi, a feat of no small difficulty in the case of the heavier vessels. The Colorado was left outside, the Pensacola was dragged by her consorts through a foot of mud, and the Mississippi was scarcely less embarrassed. At last the squadron of attack was for the most part within the branches of the river; at the head of the passes they stripped like gladiators for a final struggle, and proceeded to attack the main obstructions twenty miles above. Farragut had seventeen ships for the attack, mounting one hundred and fifty guns, besides twenty mortar-schooners, with six attendant gunboats, under Commodore David D. Porter.
Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, well manned and equipped, guarded the river on the west and east. An enormous chain, supported on anchored hulks, stretched across the half-mile of current to hold any approaching hostile vessels at a point where the fire of the forts could converge. Above the forts, a formidable flotilla of craft variously armed with rams and guns, some heaped with pitch-pine knots to serve as fire-ships, stood ready to take part.[224]
FORTS OF THE MISSISSIPPI
Unless this boom could be broken the ships could not ascend. Farragut ordered two gunboats to this dangerous task. Stealing up at night, they accomplished it. On the night of April 23d, the ships advanced, a column led by the Cayuga following the eastern bank; Farragut himself, in the Hartford, led the column which was to pass close to Fort Jackson. Now came a rare blending of the splendid and the terrible. The night was calm, with starlight and a waning moon; but in the fiercer flashings of the combat the world seemed on fire. In arcs rising far toward the zenith the shells of the mortars mounted and fell; broadsides thundered; from barbette and casemate rolled an incessant reply. Suddenly above the flashes of guns came a steady glare: fire-ships, their pitch-pine cargoes all ablaze, swept into the midst of the struggling fleet. The attacking lines became confused in the volumes of smoke settling down upon the stream. In the blinding vapor friend could scarcely be told from foe. The captain of the Confederate Governor Moore, finding that the bow of his own ship interfered with the aim of his gun, coolly blew the bow to pieces with a discharge, then through the shattered opening renewed the battle. A Confederate tug pluckily pushed a fire-raft directly upon the Hartford. The tug and its crew disappeared and the Hartford ran aground; the sailors, undaunted, stuck to their work; the ship was pulled off by her own engines, while a deluge from the pumps put out the fire. For an hour and a half the roar and the flashings continued; as the dawn came, the battle was hushed. Three Federal gunboats had been driven back and one sunk, but the main fleet was above the forts. The ships in general were scarred and battered in the night’s encounter, but little harmed, and Farragut made ready at once to go on his way.[225]
The passing of the forts made certain the fall of New Orleans. The small Confederate army under General Mansfield Lovell was at once withdrawn and the city left to its fate. Farragut appeared before it, after passing rapidly up the intervening seventy miles, at noon, April 25th. The population of one hundred and fifty thousand souls, seething with natural mortification and passion, lay under the broadsides of the fleet, and, after one outburst, in which a mob trampled on the United States flag, they sullenly submitted. With all possible expedition, the forts having given up, the land forces ascended the river and, on May 1st, took possession.[226] Farragut soon ascended the river to Vicksburg with a large part of his fleet.
SYNOPSIS OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS, CHIEFLY
MILITARY, BETWEEN FARRAGUT’S CAPTURE
OF NEW ORLEANS, 1862, AND THE
BATTLES OF GETTYSBURG
AND VICKSBURG, 1863
1862. Battle of Shiloh. Capture of Island No. 10. Battle of Seven Pines and Fair Oaks. “Seven Days’ Battle” between the armies of McClellan and Lee before Richmond. Repulse of the Confederates at Malvern Hill, and a constant succession of battles. Halleck appointed Federal commander-in-chief. Confederate victory at Cedar Mountain. Second battle of Bull Run and defeat of the Federals. Battle of South Mountain. Battle of Antietam Creek. Proclamation of Emancipation. The Confederate cavalry under General Stuart makes a successful raid into Pennsylvania. Burnside succeeds McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac. Battle of Fredericksburg and repulse of the Federals.
1863. Definite abolition of slavery in the rebellious states. Hooker commands Army of the Potomac. West Virginia admitted (by proclamation) into the Union. Confederate victory at Chancellorsville. General Grant invests Vicksburg. Lee occupies Winchester, crosses the Potomac, and enters Pennsylvania. Meade appointed commander of the Army of the Potomac. Battle of Gettysburg, July 1–3. Fall of Vicksburg, July 4th.
XVIII
VICKSBURG (JANUARY–JULY, 1863)
In the American Civil War, 1861–65, the capture of Vicksburg, on the Mississippi, cut the Confederacy in two, and the battle of Gettysburg proved a Confederate invasion of the North impossible. Out of the many great battles of that war it is historically essential that these two should be emphasized.
After Fort Sumter was fired upon, April 12, 1861, the relative efficiency of the South and the unpreparedness of the North were soon illustrated in the battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861. In the East, where the main objective point of the Northern attack was Richmond, there followed McClellan’s organization of the Army of the Potomac. In the West were Halleck and Buell, with headquarters at St. Louis and Louisville, and the main end in view in the Western campaign was the control of the Mississippi. February, 1862, brought Northern successes in the Western campaign in Grant’s capture of Forts Henry and Donelson, followed by Shiloh, Corinth, and Memphis, which opened the Mississippi to Vicksburg. At the same time Farragut’s fleet in the South captured New Orleans, a victory which, like the effect of the blockade throughout the war, was a weighty demonstration of the influence of sea power upon history. After Farragut had cleared the lower river, it was practically Vicksburg alone which remained to unite the eastern and western territory of the Confederacy. But in the East there had been a series of Northern disasters, culminating in Chancellorsville.—Editor.
When the defeated Federals recrossed the Rappahannock, May 5, 1863, after Chancellorsville, the fortunes of the North were at the lowest ebb. Then came the turning of the tide, and in an unexpected quarter. General Grant had shot up into fame through his capture of Fort Donelson, early in 1862, but had done little thereafter to confirm his reputation. Though in responsible command in northern Mississippi and southwestern Tennessee, the few successes there which the country could appreciate went to the credit of his subordinate, Rosecrans. The world remembered his shiftlessness before the war, and began to believe that his success had been accidental. All things considered, it is strange that Grant had been kept in place. The pressure for his removal had been great everywhere, but his superiors stood by him faithfully, though Lincoln’s persistence was maintained in the midst of misgivings.
In the fall of 1862, Grant, in command of fifty thousand men, purposed to continue the advance southward through Mississippi, flanking Vicksburg, which then must certainly fall. His supplies must come over the Memphis & Charleston road and the two weak and disabled lines of railroad, the Mississippi Central and the Mobile & Ohio. To guard one hundred and fifty miles of railroad in a hostile country the army must necessarily be scattered, as every bridge, culvert, and station needed a detail. From Washington came unwise interference; but he moved on with vigor. As winter approached, he pushed into Mississippi toward Jackson. If that place could be seized, Vicksburg, fifty miles west, must become untenable, and to this end Grant desired to unite his whole force. He was overruled, and the troops divided: while he marched on Jackson, Sherman, with thirty-two thousand, was to proceed down the river from Memphis. Grant’s hope was that he and Sherman, both near Vicksburg, and supporting each other, might act in concert.
Complete failure attended this beginning. Forrest, operating in a friendly country, tore up the railroads in Grant’s rear for scores of miles, capturing his detachments and working destruction. On December 20th, also, Van Dorn, now a cavalry leader, surprised Holly Springs, Grant’s main depot in northern Mississippi, carrying off and burning stores to the amount of $1,500,000.[227] Grant’s movement southward became impossible: the army stood stripped and helpless, saving itself only by living off the country, an experience rough at the time, but out of which, later, came benefit.[228] Co-operation with Sherman could no longer be thought of. Nor could news of the disaster be sent to Sherman, who, following his orders, punctually embarked and steamed down to the mouth of the Yazoo; this he entered, and on December 29th, believing that the garrison of Vicksburg had been drawn off to meet Grant, he flung his divisions against the Confederate lines at Chickasaw Bayou, with a loss of eighteen hundred men and no compensating advantage.[229]
The difficulty and disaster in the Mississippi campaign were increased by a measure which strikingly reveals the effect in war of political pressure at the capital. At the outbreak of the war, John A. McClernand was a member of Congress from Illinois, and later commanded a division at Donelson and Shiloh. Returning to Washington, he stood out as a War Democrat, a representative of a class whose adherence to the administration was greatly strained by the Emancipation Proclamation, and whose loyalty Lincoln felt it was almost vital to preserve. When, therefore, he laid before Lincoln a scheme[230] to raise by his own influence a large force in the West, over which he was to have military command, with the intention of taking Vicksburg, Lincoln and Stanton yielded, the sequel showing that McClernand was a soldier of little merit....
McClernand went West, and kept his promise by mustering into the service, chiefly through his personal influence, some thirty regiments, a welcome recruitment in those dark days. With this new army McClernand appeared at the mouth of the Yazoo just at the moment when Sherman emerged from the swamps with his crestfallen divisions. McClernand assumed command, Sherman subsiding into a subordinate place; but he had influence enough with his new superior to persuade him to proceed at once to an attack upon Arkansas Post, not far away.[231] This measure proved successful, the place capitulating January 11, 1863, with five thousand men and seventeen guns. Though the victory was due in great part to the navy, Sherman alone in the army having rendered conspicuous service, yet before the country the credit went to McClernand, nominally the commander, giving him an undeserved prestige which made the situation worse.
Grant often found Halleck very trying; but in the present exigency the superior stood stoutly by him, and probably saved to him his position. The military sense of the general-in-chief saw clearly the folly of a divided command, and he enlightened the President, who made Grant major-general in command of operations on the Mississippi, McClernand being put at the head of a corps. January 30th, therefore, Grant, suppressing a scheme entertained by McClernand for a campaign in Arkansas, set to work to solve the problem of opening the great river.
Probably few generals have ever encountered a situation more difficult, or one in which military precedents helped so little. The fortress occupied a height commanding on the north and west, along the river, swampy bottom-lands, at the moment largely submerged or threaded with channels. These lowlands were much overgrown with canebrake and forest; roads there were almost none, the plantations established within the area being approached most conveniently by boats. But it was from the north and west, apparently, that Vicksburg must be assailed, for the region south of the city appeared quite beyond reach, since the batteries closed the river, which seemed the sole means of approach for Northern forces. The surest approach to the stronghold was from the east; but there Grant had tried and failed; public sentiment would not sustain another movement from that side. There was nothing for it but to try by the north and west, and Grant grappled with the problem.
Besides the natural obstacles, he had to take account of his own forces, and the strength and character of his adversary. In November, 1862, Johnston, not yet recovered from the wounds received at Fair Oaks in May, was ordered to assume command in the West, taking the troops of Kirby Smith, Bragg, and the army defending the Mississippi. The latter force, up to that time under Van Dorn, was transferred to John C. Pemberton, of an old Pennsylvania family, before and after the war a citizen of Philadelphia. Though a Northerner, he had the entire confidence of both Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee. His record in the old army was good; he was made lieutenant-general by the Confederacy, and received most weighty responsibilities. He served bravely and faithfully the cause he had espoused; though outclassed in his campaign, he did not lack ability. Pemberton commanded some fifty thousand men, comprising not only the garrison of Vicksburg, but also that of Port Hudson and detachments posted in northern Mississippi. On the watch at such a point as Jackson, the state capital, he could, on short notice, concentrate his scattered command to meet whatever danger might threaten.
Against this alert adversary Grant could now oppose about an equal number of men, comprised in four corps—the Thirteenth (McClernand), Fifteenth (Sherman), Sixteenth (Hurlbut), Seventeenth (McPherson). Hurlbut was of necessity retained at and near Memphis, to preserve communications and hold western Tennessee; the three other corps could take the field with about forty-three thousand. Among Grant’s lieutenants, two were soldiers of the best quality—Sherman and James B. McPherson, the latter a young officer of engineers, who during the preceding months had been coming rapidly to the front.[232] Besides the army, Grant had a powerful auxiliary in the fleet, which now numbered seventy craft, large and small, manned by fifty-five hundred sailors and commanded by David D. Porter, an indefatigable chief.
Grant at the outset could, of course, have no fixed plan. Throughout February and March his operations were tentative; and though the country murmured at his “inactivity,” never did general or army do harder work. Might not Vicksburg perhaps be isolated on the west, and a way be found beyond the reach of its cannon to that vantage-ground south of it which seemed so inaccessible? Straightway the army tried, with spade, pick, and axe, to complete the cut-off which Williams had begun the previous summer; also to open a tortuous and embarrassed passage far round through Lake Providence and the Tensas and Washita rivers. Might not some insufficiently guarded approach be found through the Yazoo bottom[233] to Haines’ Bluff, the height dominating Vicksburg from the northeast, which Sherman had sought to seize at Chickasaw Bayou? Straightway there were enterprises seldom attempted in war.[234] The levee at Yazoo Pass was cut, far up the river, so that the swollen Mississippi flooded the wide region below. Through the crevasse plunged gunboat and transport, to engage in amphibious warfare; soldiers wading in the mire or swimming the bayous; divisions struggling to terra firma, only to find that Pemberton was there before them behind unassailable parapets; gunboats wedged in ditches, unable to turn, with hostile axemen blocking both advance and retreat by felling trees across the channel; Porter sheltering himself from sharpshooters within a section of broken smokestack and meditating the blowing-up of his boats; Sherman now paddling in a canoe, now riding bareback, now joining the men of a rescue-party in a double-quick—all in cypress forests draped with funereal moss, as if Death had made ready for a calamity that seemed certain.
April came, and nothing had been accomplished on the north or west. To try again from the east meant summary removal for the commander. Was an attack from the south, after all, out of the question, as all his lieutenants urged? Grant resolved to try; the river-bank to the west was so far dried that the passage of a column through the swamp-roads became possible. Porter was willing to attempt to run the batteries, though sure that, if once below, he could never return. The night of April 16th was one of wild excitements. The fleet was discovered as soon as it got under way, and conflagrations, blazing right and left, clearly revealed it as it swept down the stream. The Confederate fire could not be concentrated,[235] and hence the injury was small to the armored craft; and even the transports in their company, protected only by baled hay or cotton, escaped with one exception. A few days later transports and barges again passed down.[236] The column, toiling along the swampy road, was met, when at last it reached a point well below the town, by an abundance of supplies and ample means for placing it on the other bank. April 29th, Grand Gulf, the southern outpost of Vicksburg, was cannonaded, with ten thousand men on transports at hand for an assault, if the chance came. High on its bluff, it defied the bombardment, as the main citadel had done. Then it was that Grant turned to his last resource.
It requires attention to comprehend how a plan so audacious as that now adopted could succeed. First, the watchful Pemberton was bewildered and misled as to the point of attack. About the time the batteries were run, Grierson, an Illinois officer, starting with seventeen hundred cavalry from La Grange, Tennessee, raided completely through Mississippi, from north to south, so skilfully creating an impression of large numbers, so effectively wrecking railroads and threatening incursion now here and now there, that the back-country was thrown into a panic, and Pemberton thought an attack in force from that direction possible. Following close upon Grierson’s raid, Sherman demonstrated with such noise and parade north of the city that Pemberton sent troops to meet a possible assault there. Meantime, the Thirteenth and Seventeenth corps were ferried rapidly across the river below Grand Gulf, and, a footing on the upland having been obtained unopposed, Grant stood fairly on the left bank. He now sent word to Halleck that he felt this battle was more than half won.[237]
SIEGE OF VICKSBURG
The event proved that Grant was not oversanguine. An easy victory at Port Gibson, over a brave but inferior force, gave him Grand Gulf. Joined now by Sherman, he plunged with his three corps into the interior, cutting loose from his river base, and also from his hampering connection with Washington. The previous fall he had learned to live off the country. Two more easy victories, at Raymond and Jackson, gave him the state capital, and placed him, fully concentrated, between the armies of Pemberton and Johnston. The number of his foes was swelling fast—from Port Hudson, from South Carolina, from Tennessee; but Grant did not let slip his advantage. Johnston, not yet recovered from his Fair Oaks wound, was not at his best. Pemberton, confused by an adversary who could do so unmilitary a thing as to throw away his base, vacillated and blundered. A heavy battle at Champion’s Hill, May 16th, in which the completeness of Grant’s victory was prevented by the bad conduct of McClernand, nevertheless resulted in Pemberton’s precipitate flight. Next day the Federals seized the crossing of the Big Black River, after which all the outposts of Vicksburg, from Haines’ Bluff southward, fell without further fighting, and Pemberton, with the army that remained to him, was shut up within the works. The Federals held all outside, looking down from those heights, which for so long had seemed to them impregnable, upon the great river open to the north. Supplies and reinforcements could now come unhindered and were already pouring in. The fall of Vicksburg was certain....
The siege once begun, the fortress was doomed without recourse. Pemberton, to be sure, did not lose heart, and drove back the repeated Federal assaults with skill and courage. Johnston, from the rear, mustered men as he could, tried to concert with the besieged army a project of escape, and at last advanced to attack. But within the city supplies soon failed, and outside no resources were at hand for the city’s succor. Johnston’s request for twenty thousand men, lying idle in Arkansas had been slighted;[238] there was no other source of supply. Kirby Smith and Dick Taylor attempted a diversion on the west bank of the river; and still later, at Helena, Arkansas, a desperate push was made to afford relief. It was all in vain. The North, made cheerful by long-delayed success, poured forth to Grant out of its abundance both men and means. His army was in size nearly doubled; food and munitions abounded. The starving defenders were inexorably encircled by nearly three times their number of well-supplied and triumphant foes. Grant’s assaults, bold and bloody though they were, had little effect in bringing about the result; the close investment would have sufficed.[239] On July 4th came the unconditional surrender. The Confederate losses before the surrender were fully 10,000; now 29,491, became prisoners, while in the fortress were 170 cannon and 50,000 small arms. Grant’s loss during the whole campaign was 9362.[240]
To this triumph, a week later, was added the fall of Port Hudson,[241] which, with a depleted garrison, held out stubbornly for six weeks against the Federals. N. P. Banks, who after his tragical Virginia experiences succeeded, in December, 1862, Butler in Louisiana, was set, as in the valley, to meet a difficult situation with inadequate means. With an army of little more than thirty thousand, in part nine-months men, he was expected to hold New Orleans and such of Louisiana as had been conquered, and also to co-operate with Grant in opening the Mississippi. When his garrisons had been placed he had scarcely fifteen thousand men left for service in the field, a number exceeded at first by the Port Hudson defenders, strongly placed and well commanded. West of the river, moreover, was still another force under an old adversary in the Shenandoah country—Dick Taylor, a general well-endowed and trained in the best school. That Banks, though active, had no brilliant success was not at all strange; yet Halleck found fault. He could not extend a hand to Grant; but, risking his communications—risking, indeed, the possession of New Orleans—he concentrated at Port Hudson, which fortress, after a six weeks’ siege, marked by two spirited assaults, he brought to great distress. Its fate was sealed by the fall of Vicksburg—Gardner, the commander, on July 9th, surrendering the post with more than six thousand men and fifty-one guns.
The capture of Vicksburg and Port Hudson was a success such as had not been achieved before during our Civil War, and was not paralleled afterward until Appomattox. In military history there are few achievements which equal it; and the magnitude of the captures of men and resources is no more remarkable than are the unfailing courage of the soldiers and the genius and vigor of the general.[242]
XIX
GETTYSBURG, JULY 1–3, 1863
In the Eastern field of operations in the American Civil War, McClellan’s organization of the Army of the Potomac had given him a well-disciplined force, with which he was facing General Joseph Johnston at the opening of 1862. But the Peninsular Campaign which McClellan entered upon early in the year, with the bloody fighting at Fair Oaks in May, and the Seven Days’ Battles in May and June, resulted in the withdrawal of the Northern forces. There followed Pope’s defeat near Bull Run. The forward movement was a failure. The Northern forces, only four miles from Richmond in June, were practically defending Washington in September. The desperate battle of Antietam checked Lee’s movement into Maryland, but was not decisive. Burnside’s costly defeat at Fredericksburg in December closed a gloomy year in the East, which to many seemed to show that the South could more than hold its own. The new year brought a renewal of disaster to the Northern arms in Hooker’s defeat in the hard-fought battle of Chancellorsville. But the tide was to be turned by one of the crucial events of military history, which was close at hand.—Editor.
The fall of Vicksburg, though a terrible blow to the South, was not a sudden one: to all intelligent eyes it had for some weeks been impending; but that Lee could be defeated seemed a thing impossible. Because so long unconquered, it had come to be accepted that he was unconquerable.
Hooker soon recovered from the daze into which he had been thrown at Chancellorsville. His confidence in himself was not broken by his misfortune. Instead of, like Burnside, manfully shouldering most of the responsibility of his failure, Hooker vehemently accused his lieutenants of misconduct, and faced the new situation with as much resolution as if he had the prestige of a victor. The Army of the Potomac, never down in heart except for a moment, plucked up courage forthwith and girded itself for new encounters.
The South, meanwhile, was still rejoicing over Chancellorsville, for the cloud on the southwestern horizon was at first no bigger than a man’s hand. Longstreet joined Lee from Suffolk with two divisions, swelling the Army of Northern Virginia to eighty thousand or more. Never before had it been so numerous, so well appointed, or in such good heart. The numerical advantage which the Federals had heretofore enjoyed was at this time nearly gone, because thousands of enlistments expired which could not immediately be made good; volunteering had nearly ceased, and the new schemes for recruiting were not yet effective.
Lee took the initiative early in June,[243] full of the sense of the advantage to be gained from a campaign on Northern soil. War-worn Virginia was to receive a respite; Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, as well as Washington, might be terrorized, and perhaps captured. If only the good-fortune so far enjoyed would continue, the Union’s military strength might be completely wrecked, hesitating Europe won over to recognition, and the cause of the South made secure.
With these fine and not at all extravagant anticipations, Lee put in motion his three great corps under the lieutenant-generals Ewell (Jackson’s successor), Longstreet, and A. P. Hill. Longstreet was ill at ease. Vicksburg, now in great danger, he thought could only be saved by reinforcing Bragg and advancing rapidly on Cincinnati, in which case Grant might be drawn north. Notwithstanding Longstreet’s urgency, Lee persisted.[244] Ewell, pouring suddenly down the Shenandoah Valley, “gobbled up,” as Lincoln put it, Milroy and his whole command of some four thousand, June 13th, and presently from Maryland invaded Pennsylvania. Longstreet was close behind: while the head of Ewell’s column had been nearing the Potomac, A. P. Hill, who had remained at Fredericksburg to watch Hooker, as yet inactive on Stafford Heights, broke camp and followed northwestward. Ewell seized Chambersburg a few days later, then appeared at Carlisle, and even shook Harrisburg with his cannon. The North had, indeed, cause for alarm; the farmers of the invaded region were in a panic. “Emergency men,” enlisted for three months, gathered from New York, Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania to the threatened points. The great coast cities were face to face with a menace hitherto unexperienced. Were they really about to be sacked? What was to be done?
There was no indecision either at Washington or in the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln’s horse-sense, sometimes tripping, but oftener adequate to deal with unparalleled burdens, homely, terse, and unerring in its expression, was at its best in these days. To Hooker, meditating movements along and across the Rappahannock, he wrote: “I would not take any risk of being entangled upon the river like an ox jumped half over a fence, and liable to be torn by dogs in front and rear without a fair chance to gore one way or kick the other.”[245] And again: “If the head of Lee’s army is at Martinsburg (near the Potomac), and the tail of it on the plank-road between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the animal must be very slim somewhere. Could you not break him?” “Fret him and fret him,” was the President’s injunction to Hooker, regarding the advance of Lee. Well-poised, good-humored, constant, Lincoln gave no counsel to Hooker in these days that was not sound.
Indeed, at this time, Hooker needed little admonition. Alert and resourceful, he no sooner detected the movement of Lee than he suggested an advance upon Richmond, which was thus left unguarded. Lee, of course, had contemplated the possibility of such a move, and, with a nod toward Washington, had joked about “swapping queens.” The idea, which Hooker did not press, being disapproved, Hooker, turning toward Lee, proceeded to “fret him and fret him,” his conduct comparing well with his brilliant management at the opening of the campaign of Chancellorsville. The cavalry, greatly improved by him, under Pleasonton, with divisions commanded by Buford, Duffie, and Gregg, was serviceable as never before, matching well the troopers of Stuart at Brandy Station, Aldie, and Middleburg. Screened on his left flank by his cavalry, as, on the other hand, Lee was screened by a similar body on his right, Hooker marched in columns parallel to those of his foe and farther east, yet always interposing between the enemy and Washington. As June drew to its end the Confederate advance was near Harrisburg, but the Federals were not caught napping. Hooker stood at Frederick, in Maryland, his corps stretched on either hand to cover Washington and Baltimore, touching hands one with the other, and all confronting the foe.
* * * * *
Lee’s previous campaign had shown with what disregard of military rules he could act, a recklessness up to this time justified by good luck and the ineptitude of his adversaries. Still contemptuous of risks, he made just here an audacious move which was to result unfortunately.[246] He ordered, or perhaps suffered, Stuart, whom as he drew toward the Potomac he had held close on his right flank, to undertake with the cavalry a raid around the Federal army, after the precedents of the Peninsular and Second Bull Run campaigns. Casting loose from his chief, June 25th, Stuart sallied out eastward and penetrated close to the neighborhood of Washington. He did no harm beyond making a few small captures and causing a useless scare; on the other hand, he suffered terrible fatigue, his exhausted men falling asleep almost by squadrons in their saddles. He could get no news from his friends, nor could he find Ewell’s corps, which he had hoped to meet. Quite worn out with hardship, he did not become available to Lee until the late afternoon of July 2d. A critical battle might have had a different issue[247] had the Confederate cavalry been in its proper place. It was almost a chance, through a scout of Longstreet’s, that Lee, at Chambersburg, all uncertain of the Federal movement, heard at last that his enemy was close at hand and threatening his communications. At once he withdrew Ewell southward, so that he might face the danger with his three divisions together.
Meantime a most critical change came about in the camp of his foes. Hooker, on ill terms with Halleck, and engaged in controversy with him over Halleck’s refusal to authorize the withdrawal of the garrison of Harper’s Ferry, rather petulantly asked to be relieved of command, and the President complied at once. Such promptness was to be expected. Hooker had been doing well; but he had done just as well before Chancellorsville; he was generally distrusted; his best subordinates were outspoken as to his lamentable record. The unsparing critic of Burnside had now to take his own medicine. A battle with Lee could not be ventured upon under a commander who could not keep on good terms with the administration, had there been nothing else. It was perilous swapping of horses in the midst of the stream, but Lincoln was forced to do it. Some cried out for the restoration of McClellan, and others for that of Frémont. The appointment fell to George Gordon Meade, commander of the Fifth Corps, who, with soldierly dignity, obeyed orders, assuming the burden June 28th, with a pledge to do his best.
Meade, a West-Pointer of 1835,[248] was a man of ripe experience, thoroughly trained in war. He had first risen leading a brigade of the Pennsylvania reserves at Mechanicsville, just a year earlier. The good name then won he confirmed at Antietam, and still more at Fredericksburg. He was tall and spare, with an eagle face which no one that saw it can forget, a perfect horseman, and, though irascible, possessed of strong and manly character. In that momentous hour the best men were doubtful on what footing they stood. When Lincoln’s messenger, with a solemn countenance, handed to Meade the appointment, he took it to be an order for his arrest. Placed in command, he hesitated not a moment, building his strategy upon the foundation laid by his predecessor.
Meade had with him in the field seven corps of infantry: the First, commanded temporarily by Doubleday; the Second, by Hancock, recently promoted; the Third, by Sickles; the Fifth, his own corps, now turned over to Sykes; the Sixth, Sedgwick, fortunately not displaced, though so unjustly censured for his noble work on May 3d; the Eleventh, Howard; and the Twelfth, Slocum. The excellent cavalry divisions were under Buford, Kilpatrick, and Gregg; and in the lower places capable young officers—Custer, Merritt, Farnsworth, Devin, Gamble—were pushing into notice. Of field-guns there were three hundred and forty. It was a fault of the Union organization that corps, divisions, and brigades were too small, bringing about, among other evils, too large a number of general and staff officers.[249] The Confederates here were wiser. Lee faced Meade’s seven corps with but three, and two hundred and ninety-three guns; but each Confederate corps was nearly or quite twice as large as a Union corps; divisions and brigades were in the same relative proportion. The Army of the Potomac numbered 88,289 effectives; the Army of Northern Virginia, 75,000.[250]
POSITION OF FEDERAL AND CONFEDERATE ARMIES, JUNE 30, 1863
(Federal: hollow bars, Confederate: solid bars)
Meade at once chose and caused to be surveyed a position on Pipe Creek, just south of the Maryland line, as a field suitable to be held should the enemy come that way. He marched, however, northwestward cautiously, his corps in touch but spread wide apart, ready for battle and protecting as ever the capital and cities of the coast.[251] His especial reliance in this hour of need was John F. Reynolds, hand in hand with whom he had proceeded in his career from the day when, as fellow-brigadiers, they repulsed A. P. Hill at Beaver Dam Creek. This man he trusted completely and loved much. He warmly approved Hooker’s action in committing to Reynolds the left wing nearest the enemy, made up of the First, Third, and Eleventh corps. This made Reynolds second in command. Meade, commander-in-chief, retained the centre and right. So the armies hovered, each uncertain of the other’s exact whereabouts, during the last days of June.
OPENING OF BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG, JULY 1, 8 A.M.
On July 1st, though Stuart for the moment was out of the campaign, the Federal cavalry was on hand. Buford’s division, thrown out from the Federal left, moved well forward north of the town of Gettysburg, and were met by Heth’s division of Hill’s corps, marching forward, it is said, with no more hostile purpose at the time than that of getting shoes.[252] Buford held his line valiantly, being presently joined by Reynolds. The two, from the cupola of the seminary near by, studied the prospect hurriedly. A stand must be made then and there, and the First Corps, close at hand, was presently in support of the bold horsemen, who, dismounted, were with their carbines blocking the advance of the hostile infantry.
The most irreparable and lamentable loss of the entire battle now occurred at the very outset. Reynolds fell dead at the front, leaving the left divisions without a leader in the most critical hour. Heth’s advance was roughly handled; one brigade was mostly captured, Doubleday nodding, with a pleasant “Good-morning, I am glad to see you,” to its commander, his old West Point chum Archer, as the latter was passed to the rear among the prisoners.[253] There were still other captures and much fighting; but Ewell was fast arriving by the roads from the north; and although Howard, with the Eleventh Corps, came up from the south at the same time, the heavier Confederate battalions could not be held. Barlow, thrown out far forward into Ewell’s path, was at once badly wounded, whereupon his division was repulsed. The Eleventh Corps in general gave way before Ewell’s rush, rolling back disordered through the town, where large numbers were captured. Fortunately, on the high crest of Cemetery Hill, Howard had stationed in reserve the division of Steinwehr. What broken brigades and regiments, fleeing through the town, could reach this point were forthwith rallied and reorganized. Thus, at mid-day of July 1st, things were hopeful for Lee. The First Corps, its flank exposed by the retirement of the Eleventh Corps, fell back fighting through Gettysburg to Cemetery Hill during the afternoon. Lee swept the Federals from the town and the fields and ridges beyond. Had Ewell stormed Cemetery Hill at once, Lee might have won a great success.
One of the first marks of a capacity for leadership is the power to choose men, and Meade now showed this conspicuously. He had lost Reynolds, his main dependence, a loss that no doubt affected greatly the fortunes of the first day’s battle; he replaced Reynolds with a young officer whom it was necessary to push over the heads of several seniors; but a better selection could not have been made. Of the splendid captains whom the long agony of the Army of the Potomac was slowly evolving, probably the best as an all-round soldier was Winfield Scott Hancock. Since his West Point training, finished in 1844,[254] he had had wide and thorough military experience, climbing laboriously from colonel to corps commander, winning out from each grade to the next higher through faithful and able service. He could deal with figures; was diligent over papers and office drudgery; he was a patient drill-master—all these, and at the same time so dashing and magnetic in the field that he early earned the title “The Superb.”[255] His vigor, moreover, was tempered by judgment.
BEGINNING OF INFANTRY ENGAGEMENT, JULY 1, 10 A.M.
Hancock it was whom Meade now sent forward from Taneytown, thirteen miles away, when he was anxiously gathering in his host, to lead the hard-pressed left wing; he was to judge whether the position should be held, as Reynolds had thought, or a retirement attempted toward the surveyed lines of Pipe Creek. The apparition on Cemetery Hill, just before four o’clock, July 1st, of Hancock upon his sweating charger, was equal to a reinforcement by an army corps. Fugitives halted; fragments of formations were welded into proper battle-lines. In the respite given by Ewell, so ill-timed for Lee, the shattered First and Eleventh corps found breathing-space and plucked up heart. At six o’clock they were joined by the Twelfth Corps, that of the steadfast Slocum. Hancock, now feeling that there were troops enough for the present, and resolute leaders, galloped back to report to his chief. Upon his report Meade concentrated everything toward Cemetery Hill, the troops plodding through the moonlit night. Meade himself reached the field an hour past midnight, gaunt and hollow-eyed through want of sleep,[256] but clear in mind and stout of heart. At dawn of July 2d the Second Corps, at the head of which Gibbon had taken Hancock’s place, and the Third Corps, Sickles, were at hand. At noon arrived the Fifth, and soon after the Sixth, Sedgwick having marched his men thirty-four miles in eighteen hours.
Two parallel ridges, their crests separated by an interval of not quite a mile, extend at Gettysburg north and south. The more westerly of these, called, from the Lutheran College there, Seminary Ridge, was the scene of the first attack on July 1st, but on the second day became the main Confederate position. The eastern ridge, terminated at its northern end by the town cemetery, close to which Howard so fortunately stationed Steinwehr on the first day, became the Federal stronghold. Cemetery Ridge was really shaped like a fishhook, its line curving eastward to the abrupt and wooded Culp’s Hill, the barb of the hook. At the curve the ridge was steep and rough with ledges and bowlders; as it ran southward its height diminished until, after a mile or so, it rose again into two marked elevations—Round Top, six hundred feet high, with a spur, Little Round Top, just north.
POSITION, JULY 1, 3 P.M.
On the morning of July 2d the Federals lay along this ridge in order as follows: at the extreme right, on Culp’s Hill (the fishhook’s barb), the Twelfth Corps, Slocum; at the bend, near the cemetery, the Eleventh Corps, Howard, reinforced from other bodies; on their left the First, now under Newton, and the Second, Gibbon. The First and Second corps formed, as it were, the shank of the hook, which the Third, Sickles, was expected to prolong. The Fifth, on arriving, took place behind the Third; and the Sixth, when it appeared from the east, helped to make secure the trains and sent aid elsewhere. The convex formation presently proved to be of incalculable value, enabling Meade to strengthen rapidly any threatened point. Fronting their foe, the Confederates lay in a parallel concave line, Ewell close at the curve and in the town, and A. P. Hill on Seminary Ridge; this line Longstreet prolonged southward, his right flank opposed to Round Top. The concave formation was an embarrassment to Lee—no reinforcements could reach threatened points without making a wide circuit.
FIRST CORPS, SEMINARY RIDGE, 3.30 P.M., JULY 1, 1863
(From a print of the time)
When Meade, supposing that Sickles had prolonged with the Third Corps the southward-stretching line, reviewed the field, he found the Third Corps thrown out far in advance, to the Emmittsburg road, which here passed along a dominating ridge; the break in the continuity of his line filled the general with alarm, but it was too late to change. Whether or not Sickles blundered will not be argued here. Meade condemned; other good authorities have approved, among them Sheridan, who regarded as just Sickles’ claim that the line marked out by Meade was untenable.[257]
What happened here will presently be told.
Lee, too, was out of harmony with Longstreet, his well-tried second; and the first matter in dispute was the expediency of fighting at all at Gettysburg. When Longstreet, coming from Chambersburg, took in the situation, he urged upon Lee, bent upon his battle, a turning of the Federal left as better strategy, by which the Confederates might interpose between Meade and Washington and compel Meade to make the attack. Longstreet held Lee to be perfect in defensive warfare; on the offensive, however, he thought him “over-combative” and liable to rashness.[258] Lee rejected the advice with a touch of irritation; and when Longstreet, acquiescing, made a second suggestion—namely, for a tactical turning of the Federal left instead of a direct assault—Lee pronounced for the assault in a manner so peremptory that Longstreet could say no more. From first to last at Gettysburg, Longstreet was ill at ease, in spite of which his blows fell like those from the hammer of a war-god. The friends of Lee have denounced him for a sluggishness and insubordination that, as they claim, lost for them the battle.[259] His defence of himself is earnest and pathetic, of great weight as coming from one of the most able and manful figures on either side in the Civil War.
Of Longstreet’s three divisions, only one, that of McLaws, was on hand with all its brigades on the forenoon of July 2d. At noon arrived Law, completing Hood’s division. Pickett’s division was still behind; but in mid-afternoon, without waiting for him, Longstreet attacked—Hood, with all possible energy, striking Sickles in his far-advanced position and working dangerously around his flank toward the Round Tops. Longstreet’s generals, Hood and afterward Law (Hood falling wounded in the first attack), though men of courage and dash, assaulted only after having filed written protests, feeling sure that the position could be easily turned and gained with little fighting. But Lee had been peremptory, and no choice was left.[260]
POSITION, JULY 2, 2.30 P.M.
Gouverneur K. Warren, then chief-engineer of the Army of the Potomac, despatched by Meade to the left during the afternoon, found the Round Tops undefended. They were plainly the key to the Federal position, offering points which, if seized by the enemy, would make possible an enfilading of the Federal line. Troops of the Twelfth Corps, at first stationed there, had been withdrawn and their places not supplied. There was not a moment to lose. Even as he stood, Warren beheld in the opposite woods the gleam of arms from Longstreet’s swift advance. Leaping down from ledge to ledge, he met a brigade of the Fifth Corps, just arrived and marching to the aid of Sickles. These he diverted to the eyrie he had so lately left; a battery, too, was dragged up over the rocks, and none too soon. At that very moment the men of Hood charged out of the valley, and the height was held only by the most obstinate combat.
From the valley, meantime, came up a tumult of arms which, as the sun threw its rays aslant, spread wider and louder. Longstreet and A. P. Hill threw in upon the Third Corps every man available; while, on the other hand, Meade poured in to its support division after division from the Fifth, and at last from the Second and Twelfth.[261] About six o’clock Sickles fell wounded; by sunset his line was everywhere forced back, though not in rout. By dusk the Confederates had mastered all resistance in the valley. But the line once reached which Meade had originally designed, running north from Little Round Top to Cemetery Ridge, retreat went no farther. That line was not crossed by foot of foe. When night fell the Round Tops were held firmly, while troops from the Sixth Corps guarded the Union left. Nearer the centre stood the Third and Fifth, much shattered but still defiant. In a way, what had happened was but a rectification of Meade’s line: the Confederates, indeed, had won ground, but the losses they had inflicted were no more appalling than those they had received.
Meantime, fighting no less determined and sanguinary had taken place at the cemetery and Culp’s Hill. Lee’s plan contemplated a simultaneous attack at the north and south; but Ewell, at the north, was late in his advance, and the intended effect of distracting the Federals was wellnigh lost. The Louisiana brigade dashed itself in vain against the height just above the town. The Stonewall division fared better; for, the Federal defenders being for the most part withdrawn, they seized intrenchments on Culp’s Hill, penetrating far—for Meade a most critical advance, since they came within thirty rods of the Baltimore turnpike, where lay his trains and reserve ammunition. The South has always believed that, had Stonewall Jackson been there, the Federal rear would have been reached, and rout and capture made certain.
For both sides it had been a day of terrible experiences, and for the Federals the outlook was perhaps more gloomy than for their foes. On each flank the Confederates had gained an advantage, and Lee probably felt a hopefulness which the circumstances did not really justify. Meade gathered his generals at midnight in council. It was in a little room, but ten or twelve feet square, a group dust-covered and sweat-stained, the strong faces sternly earnest. Some sat on the bed; some stood; Warren, wounded, stretched out on the floor, was overcome by sleep. There was no vote but to fight it out on the morrow. In this Meade acquiesced, carefully planning for a retreat, however, should the need arise. To Gibbon, commanding the Second Corps, placed between the wings, he said: “Your turn will come to-morrow. To-day he has struck the flanks; next, it will be the centre.”[262]
Lee was drawn on by the success of the first day to fight again on the second; his success on the second induced him to try for the third time; but he had exhausted his good-fortune. At earliest dawn of July 3, 1863, began a wrestle for the possession of Culp’s Hill, Ewell heavily reinforcing the Stonewall division which had won footing there the night before, and the Twelfth Corps as stubbornly struggling for the ground it had lost. It was a fight of six hours, in which the extreme northern wings of the two armies only were concerned. The Federals won, at a heavy sacrifice of life.
POSITION, JULY 3, IN THE EARLY AFTERNOON
Elsewhere the armies rested, an ominous silence at last reigning on the trampled and bloody field under the mid-day sun. Meade and his soldiers knew that it portended danger, and with a sure intuition the army chief was watching with especial care the centre, as yet unassailed. On the Confederate side, the unhappy Longstreet, at odds with his chief as to the wisdom of the campaign from the start, and disapproving both its strategy and tactics, was now in deeper gloom than ever. Lee had determined to assault the Federal centre, and by a cruel turn of fate the blow must be struck by the reluctant Longstreet. Of the three great Confederate corps, it was only in Longstreet’s that a force remained as yet unwrung by the fearful agonies of the last two days. Pickett’s division, solidly Virginian, and in the eyes of Lee a Tenth Legion in its valor, as yet had done nothing, and was to bear the brunt of the attack. “What troops do you design for the assault?” Longstreet had asked. Lee, having indicated Pickett’s division of five thousand, with auxiliary divisions, making an entire number in the charging column of fifteen thousand, the Georgian burst out: “I have been a soldier from the ground up. I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, armies, and should know as well as any one what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men ever arrayed for battle can take that position.”[263]
But Lee was unmoved. Confident of success, he despatched Stuart, arrived at last after his raid, so long and futile, around beyond the Federal right. When the Union centre should be broken and Meade thrown into retreat, Stuart was to seize its only practicable route for retreat, the Baltimore pike, and make the defeat decisive.
Meade, meantime, had managed warily and well. At his centre stood Hancock, his best lieutenant. There were massed the First and Second corps, with reserve troops at hand ready to pour in at the word, with batteries bearing upon front and flank, every approach guarded, every man and horse on the alert. The provost guards, and in the rear of all a regiment of cavalry, formed in line behind, had orders to shoot any faint-hearts who, in the crisis, should turn from the foe to flee.[264] At one o’clock two signal-guns were heard on Seminary Ridge, upon which followed a terrible cannonade, appalling but only slightly harmful, for the waiting ranks found cover from the missiles. Feeling sure that this was a prelude to something more serious, the Federal chief relaxed his fire to spare his ammunition. It was understood on the other side that the Federal guns were silenced; and that moment having been appointed as the time for the onset, Pickett inquired of Longstreet if he should go forward. Longstreet, convinced that the charge must fail, made no reply, though the question was repeated. “I shall go forward,” said Pickett, to which his general bowed his head. Instantly was heard the footbeat of the fifteen thousand, and the heavy-hearted Longstreet, mounting his horse, rode out to behold the sacrifice. He has recorded that the column passed him down the slope high-hearted, buoyant, hopeful, Pickett riding gracefully, like a holiday soldier, with cap set jauntily on his long, auburn locks.[265]
The silence of the Federal guns had been for a purpose. As Pickett’s men appeared there was a sudden reopening of their tumult; a deadly sequence from round-shot to canister, and thence to the Minié-balls of the infantry. The defenders now saw before them, as they peered through the battle smoke from their shelter, a solid wedge of men, the division of Pickett, flanked by masses on the right and left commanded by Pettigrew and Wilcox. The column approached, and visibly melted away. Of Pickett’s commanders of brigades every one went down, and their men lay literally in heaps beside them.
“A thousand fell where Kemper led;
A thousand died where Garnett bled;
In blinding flame and strangling smoke
The remnant through the batteries broke,
And crossed the line with Armistead.”
A hundred or so, led by Armistead, his cap held aloft on his sword-point, actually penetrated the Federal line and reached the “clump of trees” just beyond, holding for a few moments a battery. Pettigrew and Trimble, just north, struggled also for a footing. But the foothold was only for a moment; on front and flank the Federals converged, and the tide rolled slowly and heavily rearward. For the South all hope of victory was gone.
ATTACK OF PICKETT’S AND ANDERSON’S DIVISION
(From a print of the time)
As the broken and diminished multitude fell back to Seminary Ridge, Lee rode out to meet them. He was alone, his staff being all absent, in that supreme moment, on desperate errands. His face was calm and resolute, his voice confident but sympathetic as he exclaimed, “It was all my fault; now help me to do what I can to save what is left.” It casts a light on his character that even in that hour he chided a young officer near for chastising his horse: “Don’t whip him, captain. I’ve got just such another foolish horse myself, and whipping does no good.”[266] Longstreet declares Lee said again that night, about the bivouac-fire: “It was all my fault. You ought not to have made that last attack”; and that still again Lee wrote to him at a later time, “If I had only taken your advice, even on the 3d, and moved around the Federal left, how different all might have been!”[267]
Longstreet also records that he fully expected a counter-stroke at once, and looked to his batteries, only to find the ammunition exhausted; but they were his only reliance for defence. The Federal cavalry, at that moment attacking his right, occupied troops who might otherwise have been brought to the centre.
Should there have been a counter-stroke? Hancock, lying wounded almost to death in an ambulance, reasoned that, because he had been struck by a tenpenny nail, the Confederate ammunition must be exhausted; he had strength to dictate an approval if the charge should be ordered.[268] Lincoln always felt that it should have been made, and lamented that he did not go to Gettysburg himself and push matters on the field, as the crisis required.[269] We can surmise what Grant would have done had he instead of Meade, as the sun lowered, looked across the valley from Cemetery Ridge. But the case may be put strongly for Meade: with his best lieutenants dead or wounded, worn out himself, whom else could he trust? And, in the disorder of his line, how could he tell how far his own army had been shattered in the desperate fights, or what was Lee’s condition? It was only prudent to let well enough alone. Nevertheless, a little of such imprudence as his adversary was constantly showing might perhaps have led to Lee’s complete destruction.[270] During the three fearful days the Federals had lost 3155 killed, 14,529 wounded, 5365 missing—a total of about 23,000; the Confederates, 3903 killed, 18,735 wounded, 5425 missing—a total of about 28,000.[271]
As it was, Lee stood defiantly on Seminary Ridge full twenty-four hours longer. Then, gathering his army about him, and calling in the cavalry which, during Pickett’s charge, was receiving severe punishment on its own account at the hands of Gregg and his division, he slowly withdrew. Practically undisturbed, he crossed the Potomac, followed with great deliberation by the army that had conquered but failed to crush.
Lincoln’s disappointment was never greater than over the lame outcome of Gettysburg. “We had them within our grasp,” he cried. “We had only to stretch forth our hands and they were ours, and nothing I could say or do could make the army move. Our army held the War in the hollow of their hand and they would not close it.” The honor that fell to Meade for his splendid service was deserved. While the criticism was violent he asked to be relieved. But the better nature of the North made itself evident at last, and he was retained. It was felt that he had served his country most nobly, and, though possibly falling short of the highest, deserved to be forever cherished among the immortals.
SYNOPSIS OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS, CHIEFLY
MILITARY, BETWEEN THE BATTLES OF
GETTYSBURG AND VICKSBURG, 1863,
AND APPOMATTOX, 1865
1863. Surrender of Port Hudson. Conscription riots in New York. The Confederate cavalry leader, General Morgan, makes a raid into Indiana. Confederate victory at Chickamauga. Federal victories of Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain, and Missionary Ridge. Admission of Nevada into the Union. The Archduke Maximilian, of Austria, lands at Vera Cruz and assumes the crown of Mexico, with the support of French troops.
1864. The Red River expedition. Grant supersedes Halleck as commander-in-chief of the Federal armies. Storming of Fort Pillow by the Confederates. General Sherman begins his march on Atlanta. Battle of the Wilderness. Battle of Spottsylvania Court-house. Second battle of Cold Harbor. Siege of Petersburg. Sinking of the Confederate cruiser Alabama by the Kearsarge. Confederate raid into Maryland and Pennsylvania. Federal naval victory of Mobile Bay. The Federals occupy Atlanta. Battle of Winchester and Cedar Creek. Abraham Lincoln re-elected President. Federal occupation of Savannah.
1865. The Federals capture Fort Fisher. General Sherman occupies Charleston. Organization of the Freedmen’s Bureau. Battle of Five Forks. Occupation of Petersburg and Richmond by the Federals, April 3rd. Surrender of General Lee at Appomattox Court-House, April 9th. Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, April 14th. Andrew Johnson succeeds to the Presidency. Capture of Jefferson Davis in Georgia. End of the Civil War. Proclamation of amnesty. The Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery in the United States, becomes a part of the Constitution.
XX
THE LAST SCENE—APPOMATTOX, 1865
When, on the night of the 8th of April, 1865, the cavalry corps of the Army of the Potomac reached the two or three little houses that made up the settlement at Appomattox Depot—the station on the South-side Railroad that connects Appomattox Court-house with the travelling world—it must have been nearly or quite dark. At about nine o’clock or half-past, while standing near the door of one of the houses, it occurred to me that it might be well to try and get a clearer idea of our immediate surroundings, as it was not impossible that we might have hot work here or near here before the next day fairly dawned upon us.
My “striker” had just left me with instructions to have my horse fed, groomed, and saddled before daylight. As he turned to go he paused and put this question, “Do you think, Colonel, that we’ll get General Lee’s army to-morrow?”
“I don’t know,” was my reply; “but we will have some savage fighting if we don’t.”
As the sturdy young soldier said “Good-night, sir,” and walked away, I knew that if the enlisted men of our army could forecast the coming of the end so plainly, there was little hope of the escape of the Army of Northern Virginia.
I walked up the road a short distance, and looked carefully about me to take my bearings. It was a mild spring night, with a cloudy sky, and the soft, mellow smell of earthiness in the atmosphere that not infrequently portends rain. If rain came, then it might retard the arrival of our infantry, which I knew General Sheridan was most anxious should reach us at the earliest possible moment. A short distance from where I stood was the encampment of our headquarters escort, with its orderlies, grooms, officers’ servants, and horses. Just beyond it could be seen the dying camp-fires of a cavalry regiment, lying close in to cavalry corps headquarters. This regiment was in charge of between six and eight hundred prisoners, who had fallen into our hands just at dark, as Generals Custer and Devin, at the head of their respective cavalry commands, had charged into the station and captured four railway trains of commissariat supplies, which had been sent here to await the arrival of the Confederate army, together with twenty-six pieces of artillery. For a few moments the artillery had greatly surprised and astonished us, for its presence was entirely unexpected, and as it suddenly opened on the charging columns of cavalry it looked for a short time as though we might have all unwittingly fallen upon a division of infantry. However, it turned out otherwise. Our cavalry, after the first recoil, boldly charged in among the batteries, and the gunners, being without adequate support, sensibly surrendered. The whole affair was for us a most gratifying termination of a long day’s ride, as it must have proved later on a bitter disappointment to the weary and hungry Confederates pressing forward from Petersburg and Richmond in the vain hope of escape from the Federal troops, who were straining every nerve to overtake them and compel a surrender. To-night the cavalry corps was in their front and squarely across the road to Lynchburg, and it was reasonably certain, should our infantry get up in time on the morrow, that the almost ceaseless marching and fighting of the last ten days were to attain their legitimate result in the capitulation of General Lee’s army.
As I stood there in the dark thinking over the work of the twelve preceding days, it was borne in upon me with startling emphasis that to-morrow’s sun would rise big with the fate of the Southern Confederacy.
MAP OF THE APPOMATTOX CAMPAIGN
Just before daylight on the morning of the 9th of April, I sat down to a cup of coffee, but had hardly begun to drink it when I heard the ominous sound of a scattering skirmish fire, apparently in the direction of Appomattox Court-house. Hastily swallowing what remained of the coffee, I reported to General Sheridan, who directed me to go to the front at once. Springing into the saddle, I galloped up the road, my heart being greatly lightened by a glimpse of two or three infantrymen standing near a camp-fire close by the depot—convincing proof that our hoped-for reinforcements were within supporting distance.
It was barely daylight as I sped along, but before I reached the cavalry brigade of Colonel C. H. Smith, that held the main road between Appomattox Court-house and Lynchburg, a distance of about two miles northeast from Appomattox Depot, the enemy had advanced to the attack, and the battle had opened. When ordered into position late the preceding night, Colonel Smith had felt his way in the dark as closely as possible to Appomattox Court-house, and at or near midnight had halted on a ridge, on which he had thrown up a breastwork of rails. This he occupied by dismounting his brigade, and also with a section of horse-artillery, at the same time protecting both his flanks by a small mounted force. As the enemy advanced to the attack in the dim light of early dawn he could not see the led horses of our cavalry, which had been sent well to the rear, and was evidently at a loss to determine what was in his front. The result was that after the first attack he fell back to get his artillery in position, and to form a strong assaulting column against what must have seemed to him a line of infantry. This was most fortunate for us, for by the time he again advanced in full force, and compelled the dismounted cavalry to slowly fall back by weight of numbers, our infantry was hurrying forward from Appomattox Depot (which place it had reached at four o’clock in the morning), and we had gained many precious minutes. At this time most of our cavalry was fighting dismounted, stubbornly retiring. But the Confederates at last realized that there was nothing but a brigade of dismounted cavalry and a few batteries of horse-artillery in their immediate front, and pushed forward grimly and determinedly, driving the dismounted troopers slowly ahead of them.
I had gone to the left of the road, and was in a piece of woods with some of our cavalrymen (who by this time had been ordered to fall back to their horses and give place to our infantry, which was then coming up), when a couple of rounds of canister tore through the branches just over my head. Riding back to the edge of the woods in the direction from which the shots came, I found myself within long pistol range of a section of a battery of light artillery. It was in position near a country road that came out of another piece of woods about two hundred yards in its rear, and was pouring a rapid fire into the woods from which I had just emerged. As I sat on my horse quietly watching it from behind a rail fence, the lieutenant commanding the pieces saw me, and, riding out for a hundred yards or more toward where I was, proceeded to cover me with his revolver. We fired together—a miss on both sides. The second shot was uncomfortably close, so far as I was concerned, but as I took deliberate aim for the third shot I became aware that in some way his pistol was disabled; for using both hands and all his strength I saw that he could not cock it. I had him covered, and had he turned I think I should have fired. He did nothing of the sort. Apparently accepting his fate, he laid his revolver across the pommel of his saddle, fronted me quietly and coolly, and looked me steadily in the face. The whole thing had been something in the nature of a duel, and I felt that to fire under the circumstances savored too much of murder. Besides, I knew that at a word from him the guns would have been trained on me where I sat. He, too, seemed to appreciate the fact that it was an individual fight, and manfully and gallantly forbore to call for aid; so, lowering and uncocking my pistol, I replaced it in my holster, and shook my fist at him, which action he cordially reciprocated, and then, turning away, I rode back into the woods.
About this time the enemy’s artillery ceased firing, and I again rode rapidly to the edge of the woods, just in time to see the guns limber up and retire down the wood road from which they had come. The lieutenant in command saw me and stopped. We simultaneously uncovered, waved our hats to each other, and bowed. I have always thought he was one of the bravest men I ever faced.
I rode back again, passing through our infantry line, intending to go to the left and find the cavalry, which I knew would be on the flank somewhere. Suddenly I became conscious that firing had ceased along the whole line.
I had not ridden more than a hundred yards when I heard some one calling my name. Turning, I saw one of the headquarters aides, who came galloping up, stating that he had been hunting for me for the last fifteen minutes, and that General Sheridan wished me to report to him at once. I followed him rapidly to the right on the wood path in the direction from which he had come.
As soon as I could get abreast of him I asked if he knew what the general wanted me for.
Turning in his saddle, with his eyes fairly ablaze, he said: “Why, don’t you know? A white flag.”
All I could say was, “Really?”
He answered by a nod; and then we leaned toward each other and shook hands; but nothing else was said.
A few moments more and we were out of the woods in the open fields. I saw the long line of battle of the Fifth Army Corps halted, the men standing at rest, the standards being held butt on earth, and the flags floating out languidly on the spring breeze. As we passed them I noticed that the officers had generally grouped themselves in front of the centre of their regiments, sword in hand, and were conversing in low tones. The men were leaning wearily on their rifles, in the position of parade rest. All were anxiously looking to the front, in the direction toward which the enemy’s line had withdrawn, for the Confederates had fallen back into a little swale or valley beyond Appomattox Court-house, and were not then visible from this part of our line.
We soon came up to General Sheridan and his staff. They were dismounted, sitting on the grass by the side of a broad country road that led to the Court-house. This was about one or two hundred yards distant, and, as we afterward found, consisted of the court-house, a small tavern, and eight or ten houses, all situated on this same road or street.
Conversation was carried on in a low tone, and I was told of the blunder of one of the Confederate regiments in firing on the general and staff after the flag of truce had been accepted. I also heard that General Lee was then up at the little village awaiting the arrival of General Grant, to whom he had sent a note, through General Sheridan, requesting a meeting to arrange terms of surrender. Colonel Newhall, of our headquarters staff, had been despatched in search of General Grant, and might be expected up at almost any moment.
It was, perhaps, something more than an hour and a half later, to the best of my recollection, that General Grant, accompanied by Colonel Newhall, and followed by his staff, came rapidly riding up to where we were standing by the side of the road, for we had all risen at his approach. When within a few yards of us he drew rein, and halted in front of General Sheridan, acknowledged our salute, and then, leaning slightly forward in his saddle, said, in his usual quiet tone, “Good-morning, Sheridan; how are you?”
“First-rate, thank you, General,” was the reply. “How are you?”
General Grant nodded in return, and said, “Is General Lee up there?” indicating the court-house by a glance.
“Yes,” was the response, “he’s there.” And then followed something about the Confederate Army, but I did not clearly catch the import of the sentence.
“Very well, then,” said General Grant. “Let’s go up.”
General Sheridan, together with a few selected officers of his staff, mounted and joined General Grant and staff. Together they rode to Mr. McLean’s house, a plain two-story brick residence in the village, to which General Lee had already repaired, and where he was known to be awaiting General Grant’s arrival. Dismounting at the gate, the whole party crossed the yard, and the senior officers present went up onto the porch which protected the front of the house. It extended nearly across the entire house and was railed in, except where five or six steps led up the centre opposite the front door, which was flanked by two small wooden benches, placed close against the house on either side of the entrance. The door opened into a hall that ran the entire length of the house, and on either side of it was a single room with a window in each end of it, and two doors, one at the front and one at the rear of each of the rooms, opening on the hall. The room to the left, as you entered, was the parlor, and it was in this room that General Lee was awaiting General Grant’s arrival.
As General Grant stepped onto the porch he was met by Colonel Babcock, of his staff, who had in the morning been sent forward with a message to General Lee. He had found him resting at the side of the road, and had accompanied him to Mr. McLean’s house.
General Grant went into the house, accompanied by General Rawlins, his chief of staff; General Seth Williams, his adjutant-general; General Rufus Ingalls, his quarter-master-general; and his two aides, General Horace Porter and Lieutenant-Colonel Babcock. After a little time General Sheridan; General M. R. Morgan, General Grant’s chief commissary; Lieutenant-Colonel Ely Parker, his military secretary; Lieutenant-Colonel T. S. Bowers, one of his assistant adjutant-generals; and Captain Robert T. Lincoln and Adam Badeau, aides-de-camp, went into the house at General Grant’s express invitation, sent out, I believe, through Colonel Babcock, who came to the hall-door for the purpose, and they were, I was afterward told, formally presented to General Lee. After a lapse of a few more minutes quite a number of these officers, including General Sheridan, came out into the hall and onto the porch, leaving General Grant and General Lee, Generals Rawlins, Ingalls, Seth Williams, and Porter, and Lieutenant-Colonels Babcock, Ely Parker, and Bowers, together with Colonel Marshall, of General Lee’s staff, in the room, while the terms of the surrender were finally agreed upon and formally signed. These were the only officers, therefore, who were actually present at the official surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia.
After quite a length of time Colonel Babcock came to the door again, opened it, and glanced out. As he did so he placed his forage-cap on one finger, twirled it around, and nodded to us all, as much as to say, “It’s all settled,” and said something in a low tone to General Sheridan. Then they, accompanied by General E. O. C. Ord, the commanding-general of the Army of the James, who had just ridden up to the house, entered the house together, the hall-door partly closed again after them, leaving quite a number of us staff-officers upon the porch.
While the conference between Generals Grant and Lee was still in progress, Generals Merritt and Custer, of the Cavalry Corps, and several of the infantry generals, together with the rest of General Sheridan’s staff-officers, came into the yard, and some of them came up on the porch. Colonel Babcock came out once more, and General Merritt went back to the room with him at his request; but most, if not all, of the infantry generals left us and went back to their respective commands while the conference was still in progress and before it ended.
Just to the right of the house, as we faced it on entering, stood a soldierly looking orderly in a tattered gray uniform, holding three horses—one a fairly well-bred-looking gray, in good heart, though thin in flesh, which, from the accoutrements, I concluded belonged to General Lee; the others, a thoroughbred bay and a fairly good brown, were undoubtedly those of the staff-officer who had accompanied General Lee and of the orderly himself. He was evidently a sensible soldier, too, for as he held the bridles he baited the animals on the young grass, and they ate as though they needed all they had a chance to pick up.
I cannot say exactly how long the conference between Generals Grant and Lee lasted, but after quite a while, certainly more than two hours, I became aware from the movement of chairs within that it was about to break up. I had been sitting on the top step of the porch, writing in my field note-book, but I closed it at once, and, stepping back on the porch, leaned against the railing nearly opposite and to the left of the door, and expectantly waited. As I did so the inner door slowly opened, and General Lee stood before me. As he paused for a few seconds, framed in by the doorway, ere he slowly and deliberately stepped out upon the porch, I took my first and last look at the great Confederate chieftain. This is what I saw: A finely formed man, apparently about sixty years of age, well above the average height, with a clear, ruddy complexion—just then suffused by a deep-crimson flush that, rising from his neck, overspread his face and even slightly tinged his broad forehead, which, bronzed where it had been exposed to the weather, was clear and beautifully white where it had been shielded by his hat—deep-brown eyes, a firm but well-shaped Roman nose, abundant gray hair, silky and fine in texture, with a full gray beard and mustache, neatly trimmed and not over-long, but which, nevertheless, almost completely concealed his mouth. A splendid uniform of Confederate gray cloth, that had evidently seen but little service, was closely buttoned about him and fitted him to perfection. An exquisitely mounted sword, attached to a gold-embroidered Russia-leather belt, trailed loosely on the floor at his side, and in his right hand he carried a broad-brimmed, soft, gray felt hat, encircled by a golden cord, while in his left he held a pair of buckskin gauntlets. Booted and spurred, still vigorous and erect, he stood bareheaded, looking out of the open doorway, sad-faced and weary—a soldier and a gentleman, bearing himself in defeat with an all-unconscious dignity that sat well upon him.
The moment the open door revealed the Confederate commander, each officer present sprang to his feet, and as General Lee stepped out onto the porch every hand was raised in military salute. Placing his hat on his head, he mechanically but courteously returned it, and slowly crossed the porch to the head of the steps leading down to the yard, meanwhile keeping his eyes intently fixed in the direction of the little valley over beyond the Court-house in which his army lay. Here he paused and slowly drew on his gauntlets, smiting his gloved hands into each other several times after doing so, evidently utterly oblivious of his surroundings. Then, apparently recalling his thoughts, he glanced deliberately right and left, and, not seeing his horse, he called, in a hoarse, half-choked voice, “Orderly! Orderly!”
“Here, General, here!” was the quick response. The alert young soldier was holding the general’s horse near the side of the house. He had taken out the bit, slipped the bridle over the horse’s neck, and the wiry gray was eagerly grazing on the fresh young grass about him.
Descending the steps, the general passed to the left of the house and stood in front of his horse’s head while he was being bridled. As the orderly was buckling the throat-latch, the general reached up and drew the fore-lock out from under the brow-band, parted and smoothed it, and then gently patted the gray charger’s forehead in an absent-minded way, as one who loves horses but whose thoughts are far away might all unwittingly do. Then, as the orderly stepped aside, he caught up the bridle-reins in his left hand, and, seizing the pommel of the saddle with the same hand, he caught up the slack of the reins in his right hand, and placing it on the cantle he put his foot in the stirrup and swung himself slowly and wearily, but nevertheless firmly, into the saddle (the old dragoon mount), letting his right hand rest for an instant or two on the pommel as he settled into his seat, and as he did so there broke unguardedly from his lips a long, low, deep sigh, almost a groan in its intensity, while the flush on his neck and face seemed, if possible, to take on a little deeper hue.
Shortly after General Lee passed down the steps he was followed by an erect, slightly built, soldierly looking officer, in a neat but somewhat worn gray uniform, a man with an anxious and thoughtful face, wearing spectacles, who glanced neither to the right nor left, keeping his eyes straight before him. Notwithstanding this, I doubt if he missed anything within the range of his vision. This officer, I was afterward told, was Colonel Marshall, one of the Confederate adjutants-general, the member of General Lee’s staff whom he had selected to accompany him.
As soon as the colonel had mounted, General Lee drew up his reins, and, with the colonel riding on his left and followed by the orderly, moved at a slow walk across the yard toward the gate.
DEPARTURE OF GENERAL LEE AFTER THE SURRENDER
Just as they started, General Grant came out of the house, crossed the porch, and passed down the steps into the yard. At this time he was nearly forty-two years of age, of middle height, not over-weighted with flesh, but, nevertheless, stockily and sturdily built, with light complexion, mild, gray-blue eyes, finely formed Grecian nose, an iron-willed mouth, brown hair, full brown beard with a tendency toward red rather than black, and in his manner and all his movements there was a strength of purpose, a personal poise, and a cool, quiet air of dignity, decision, and soldierly confidence that were very good to see. On this occasion he wore a plain blue army blouse, with shoulder-straps set with three silver stars equidistant, designating his rank as lieutenant-general commanding the armies of the United States; it was unbuttoned, showing a blue military vest, over which and under his blouse was buckled a belt, but he was without a sword. His trousers were dark blue and tucked into top-boots, which were without spurs, but heavily splashed with mud, for, once he knew that General Lee was waiting for him at Appomattox Court-house, he had ridden rapidly across the country, over road and field and through woods, to meet him. He wore a peculiar, stiff-brimmed, sugar-loaf-crowned, campaign hat of black felt, and his uniform was partly covered by a light-weight, dark-blue, waterproof, semi-military cloak, with a full cape, unbuttoned and thrown back, showing the front of his uniform, for while the day had developed into warm, bright, and beautifully sunny weather, the early morning had been damp, slightly foggy, and presaged rain.
As he reached the foot of the steps and started across the yard to the fence where, inside the gate, the orderlies were holding his horse and those of several of his staff-officers, General Lee, on his way to the gate, rode across his path. Stopping suddenly, General Grant looked up, and both generals simultaneously raised their hands in military salute. After General Lee had passed, General Grant crossed the yard and sprang lightly and quickly into his saddle. He was riding his splendid bay horse Cincinnati, and it would have been difficult to find a firmer seat, a lighter hand, or a better rider in either army.
As he was about to go out of the gate he halted, turned his horse, and rode at a walk toward the porch of the house, where, among others, stood General Sheridan and myself. Stopping in front of the general, he said, “Sheridan, where will you make your headquarters to-night?”
“Here, or near here; right here in this yard, probably,” was the reply.
“Very well, then; I’ll know where to find you in case I wish to communicate. Good-day.”
“Good-day, General,” was the response, and with a military salute General Grant turned and rode away.
As he rode forward and halted at the porch to make this inquiry, I had my wished-for opportunity, but my eyes sought his face in vain for any indication of what was passing in his mind. Whatever may have been there, as Colonel Newhall has well written, “not a muscle of his face told tales on his thoughts”; and if he felt any elation, neither his voice, features, nor his eyes betrayed it. Once out of the gate, General Grant, followed by his staff, turned to the left and moved off at a rapid trot.
General Lee continued on his way toward his army at a walk, to be received by his devoted troops with cheers and tears, and to sit down and pen a farewell order that, to this day, no old soldier of the Army of Northern Virginia can read without moistening eyes and swelling throat.
General Grant, on his way to his field headquarters on this eventful Sunday evening, dismounted, sat quietly down by the roadside, and wrote a short and simple despatch, which a galloping aide bore at full speed to the nearest telegraph station. On its reception in the nation’s capital this despatch was flashed over the wires to every hamlet in the country, causing every steeple in the North to rock to its foundation, and sending one tall, gaunt, sad-eyed, weary-hearted man in Washington to his knees, thanking God that he had lived to see the beginning of the end, and that he had at last been vouchsafed the assurance that he had led his people aright.
SYNOPSIS OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS, CHIEFLY
MILITARY, BETWEEN APPOMATTOX, 1865,
AND THE BATTLES OF MANILA BAY
AND SANTIAGO DE CUBA, 1898
1866. The Civil Rights Bill is passed over President Johnson’s veto. Adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment granting political rights to the negro. (This amendment was proclaimed part of the Constitution in 1868.) Successful establishment of ocean telegraphy between Europe and America. Fenian raid into Canada.
1867. Admission of Nebraska into the Union. Passage of the Reconstruction Act. Purchase of Alaska from Russia. Dominion of Canada constituted. Maximilian, abandoned by the French in Mexico, is captured and shot.
1868. Impeachment and trial of President Johnson. The impeachment fails. Ulysses S. Grant elected President. Outbreak of Cuban insurrection.
1869. Adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment prohibiting the States from denying the right to vote to any citizen of the United States on account of race or color. (This amendment was proclaimed a part of the Constitution in 1870.) Completion of the Pacific Railway.
1870. Completion of reconstruction in the Southern States. Death of Lee and Farragut.
1871. Treaty of Washington for the settlement of the “Alabama” Claims. Great Fire in Chicago. Hall’s Arctic Expedition reaches lat. 82° 16´.
1872. The Geneva Tribunal makes an award to the United States on account of the “Alabama” Claims. The Emperor of Germany decides San Juan boundary question. Ulysses S. Grant re-elected President. Outbreak of the Modoc War.
1873. Surrender of the Modocs. Capture of the American steamer Virginius by a Spanish gunboat. Surrender of the Virginius. Financial Panic.
1874. President Grant vetoes Inflation Bill. Race riots in the Southern States.
1875. Supplementary Civil Rights Bill passed.
1876. The Custer Massacre by the Sioux Indians. Admission of Colorado into the Union. Disputed Presidential Election (Hayes, Republican, and Tilden, Democrat). The Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Invention of the Telephone.
1877. The Electoral Commission awards the Presidency to Rutherford B. Hayes. Great Labor Strike throughout the United States. Campaign against the Nez Percé Indians.
1878. End of the Ten Years’ War in Cuba. China sends a minister to Washington for the first time.
1879. Resumption of Specie Payment in the United States.
1880. James A. Garfield elected President. Treaty with China relative to the restriction of Chinese Immigration.
1881. Assassination of James A. Garfield. Chester A. Arthur succeeds to the Presidency. Construction of the Panama Canal begun by the French.
1882. Verdict in the Star Route case.
1883. Passage of the Civil Service Bill. Northern Pacific Railroad opened.
1884. Grover Cleveland elected President.
1885. United States government guarantees transit across Isthmus of Panama threatened by insurgents, and enforces this with troops.
1886. Extensive Labor Strikes in the United States. The “Haymarket” Anarchists’ riot at Chicago. Earthquake at Charleston. Anti-Chinese riots in Seattle. Railroad riots in the West. United States troops ordered to St. Louis. Act passed to increase navy.
1887. Interstate Commerce Bill passed. Centennial Celebration of the Constitution. Execution of the Chicago “Haymarket” Anarchists. Blizzard throughout the northwestern section of the United States.
1888. Blizzard in the East. Benjamin Harrison elected President. Dakota divided into North and South Dakota.
1889. Wreck of the U. S. steamers Trenton, Vandalia, and Nipsic at the Samoan Islands. The territory of Oklahoma opened for settlement. Flood at Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Centennial celebration of Washington’s inauguration. Admission of North and South Dakota into the Union; also of Montana and Washington. Department of Agriculture created.
1890. The McKinley Tariff Bill passed. Admission of Wyoming into the Union. The Mormon Church formally abandons Polygamy.
1891. The Pine Ridge Indian outbreak. Seizure of the Chilian insurgent steamer Itata. Assault upon sailors of the U. S. Cruiser Baltimore at Valparaiso.
1892. An Ultimatum submitted to Chili; the latter country makes an apology and pays an indemnity. The Homestead Labor Riots in Pennsylvania. Railroad riots at Buffalo. National Guard ordered out. Grover Cleveland elected President.
1893. Opening of the World’s Columbian Exposition at Chicago. Admission of Utah and Arizona into the Union.
1894. Great Railway Strike at Chicago. President Cleveland recognizes the new Republic of Hawaii. Kearsarge lost on Roncador Reef.
1895. Steamship Alliance fired upon by a Spanish Cruiser. Spain apologizes. Spain declares martial law in Cuba. Cuban revolutionists proclaim independence, adopt a constitution, establish a republican government, and unfurl the flag of the revolution of 1868–78. Message of President Cleveland regarding the boundary dispute between Great Britain and Venezuela.
1896. William McKinley elected President. President Cleveland issues a proclamation against the Cuban Filibusters. International Arbitration Congress meets at Washington.
1897. The United States recognizes the belligerency of the Cuban insurgents. Venezuela boundary treaty ratified. Hawaii annexed to the United States.
1898. The U. S. battle-ship Maine is blown up in Havana Harbor, with great loss of life, on the night of February 15th. On April 20th Congress directs the President to intervene between Spain and Cuba. On April 23d the President issues a call for one hundred and twenty-five thousand volunteers, and on April 26th Congress authorizes an increase of the regular army to 61,919 officers and men. On April 25th Congress declares war between Spain and the United States as existing since April 21st.
XXI
THE BATTLE OF MANILA BAY, 1898
For more than a century the island of Cuba had been an object of peculiar interest and concern to the United States.[272] During the first part of the nineteenth century the fear was that Cuba might be acquired by Great Britain or France, and thus a strong European power would be established at the very gate of the American republic. Manifestly, it was then the policy of the United States to guarantee the possession of the island to Spain. But after the Mexican War the idea of exterritorial expansion entered more and more largely into American statesmanship. The South looked upon Cuba as a desirable addition to slave-holding territory, and it was apparent to every eye that the island occupied an all-important strategic position in relation to the proposed canal routes across the Isthmus of Panama.
In 1822 propositions for annexation came from Cuba to the United States, and Monroe sent an agent to investigate. Later, annexation was a recurrent subject favored by the South, which saw a field for the extension of slavery. In 1848 the American minister at Madrid was instructed by President Polk to sound the Spanish government upon the question of sale or cession. But Spain declined even to consider such a proposition. In 1854 the so-called “Ostend Manifesto,” drawn up by James Buchanan, John Y. Mason, and Pierre Soulé (respectively United States ministers to England, France, and Spain), declared in plain language that the “Union can never enjoy repose nor possess reliable security as long as Cuba is not embraced within its boundaries.” It went on to advise the seizing of the coveted territory in case Spain refused to sell. The administration of President Pierce never directly sanctioned the proposition advanced in such extraordinary terms, and Marcy, the Secretary of State, repudiated it unqualifiedly. So the matter fell again into abeyance until in 1873 the Virginius, an American schooner suspected of conveying arms and ammunition to the Cuban insurgents, was captured by a Spanish gunboat and taken to Havana. As a result of the trial, many insurgents, together with six British subjects and thirty American citizens, were executed. For a time international complications seemed certain, but finally Spain made proper apologies and surrendered the Virginius and the survivors of her crew.
The Cuban “Ten Years’ War,” from 1868 to 1878, was characterized by great cruelty and destructive losses of life and property in which American interests were now deeply involved. President Grant seriously considered and even threatened intervention, which would have meant annexation; but Spain promised definite reforms, and the old conditions were continued.
When the insurrection of 1895 began, American citizens owned at least fifty millions of property in the island, and American commerce amounted to a hundred millions annually. Both on the Spanish and Cuban side outrages were of daily occurrence, and the situation quickly became intolerable. The McKinley administration ventured upon a mild remonstrance against the inhumanities of Captain-General Weyler, and the Spanish authorities replied evasively. Finally the United States formally offered its good offices for the adjustment of Cuban affairs, presumably on a basis of independence. Spain declared that it was her intention to grant autonomy to the island, and the decree was actually published on November 27, 1897. But it was now too late, and the unhappy conditions grew worse day by day.
There had been riots at Havana itself, and it was thought advisable to send the United States cruiser Maine on a friendly visit to that port. The Maine arrived at Havana on January 25, 1898. On the night of February 15th the Maine was blown up while lying at her harbor moorings, with a ghastly loss of life. The American Court of Inquiry found that the ship was destroyed from the outside; the Spanish inquiry resulted in a verdict that the ship was destroyed from causes within herself. At the time there was an outburst of passion throughout the United States, and Spain was held guilty of an atrocious crime. While the exact cause of the disaster has never been finally determined, it is the verdict of calmer and more distant consideration that official Spain must be acquitted, although the belief remains on the part of the American naval authorities that the Maine was blown up from outside. At the time, however, this tragedy powerfully reinforced the efforts of Cubans and the pressure of financial interests to secure American support. When Senator Redfield Proctor, of Vermont, a man of peculiarly dispassionate temperament, made public his account of the suffering which he had witnessed among the reconcentrados (collections of native Cubans, particularly women and children, herded together by Spanish troops), the sympathies of Americans were stirred even more deeply. Ministers preached intervention from their pulpits. Many newspapers demanded intervention. Yellow journals clamored for an ultimatum backed by arms. Congress was carried away by the wave of intense feeling, although President McKinley thought that a solution could be reached without an appeal to arms—a belief in which the final verdict of history will probably agree, although it was inevitable that Spain should resign control of Cuba. But the President was powerless against the popular sentiment.
On April 25th war with Spain was formally declared, and for the first time in over three-quarters of a century the republic of the West found itself arrayed in arms against a European nation.
The situation had its peculiar features. It had been assumed that the principal theatre of conflict would be the island of Cuba, and consequently the American campaign must be one of invasion. But the Spaniards, owing to the civil war in the colony, were in virtually the same position—fighting at a distance from their base of supplies.
In material resources the United States ranked immeasurably superior. True, the numerical strength of the regular army was small, but behind it stood thousands of State militia and millions of available reserves. Moreover, the United States was classed among the richest of nations and Spain among the poorest. So far as the land operations were concerned, the final issue could not be doubtful.
In naval strength, however, there was less disparity. On paper the United States ranked sixth among the world powers, while Spain occupied eighth place. But the United States, with its thousands of miles of coast on both the Atlantic and the Pacific seaboards, was unquestionably vulnerable. Coast defences were admittedly inadequate, and it was conceivable that one swift dash by a Spanish squadron might endanger millions of property at Boston, New York, and Baltimore; at San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle.
The situation on the Pacific coast seemed even more delicate than that on the Eastern seaboard. There was a formidable Spanish squadron at Manila in the Philippine Islands, and all depended upon the fighting ability of the American Pacific fleet; if Dewey failed, the Western States of America were absolutely at the mercy of the enemy.
For more than a month Commodore Dewey had lain with his fleet in the harbor of Hong-Kong, waiting for events to shape themselves. In anticipation of the coming strife, and the consequent declaration of neutrality on the part of Great Britain, the American commander had purchased two transport steamers, together with ten thousand tons of coal. He was thus prepared for prompt and decisive action.
War had been declared on April 25th, and the American squadron immediately left Hong-Kong for Mirs Bay, some thirty miles away. On April 26th Commodore Dewey received the following despatch:
“Washington, April 26.
“Dewey, Asiatic Squadron,—Commence operations at once, particularly against the Spanish fleet. You must capture or destroy them.
McKinley.”
On April 27th the American fleet sailed for Manila, six hundred and twenty-eight miles away, and on the morning of Saturday, April 30th, Luzon was sighted, and the ships were ordered to clear for action.
Under Commodore George Dewey were the Olympia, the Boston, the Petrel, the Concord, the Raleigh, and the Baltimore. The only armored vessel in the squadron was the Olympia, the protecting belting, four inches thick, being around the turret guns. The auxiliary force was made up of the revenue-cutter McCulloch and two transports, the Vaughan and the Zafiro. Altogether, the American fighting force included four cruisers, two gunboats, fifty-seven classified big guns, seventy-four rapid-fire and machine guns, and 1808 men. On the other side, Rear-Admiral Montojo commanded seven cruisers, five gunboats, two torpedo-boats, fifty-two classified big guns, eighty-three rapid-fire and machine guns, and 1948 men. It will thus be seen that the Americans mounted a few more heavy guns, but the Spanish had several more ships and over a hundred more men. Moreover, the Spanish ships were assisted by the fort and land batteries at Manila, and they also possessed the great advantage of range-marks. Finally, the ship-channels were supposed to be amply protected by mines and submarine batteries. After satisfying himself that the ships of the enemy were not in Subig Bay, Commodore Dewey resolved to enter Manila Bay the same night. It was known that the channel had been mined, but that risk must be taken. With all lights except the stern ones extinguished, the American vessels steamed steadily onward; finally, Corregidor Island, with its lofty light-house, came into view, and the fleet swept into the main ship-channel known as the Boca Grande.
Up to this point no sign had been made by the enemy that the approach of the American ships had been discovered, although the night was moonlit and it was only a little after eleven o’clock. Then a fireman on the McCulloch threw some soft coal in the furnace and a shower of sparks flew from the cutter’s funnel. A solitary rocket ascended from Corregidor, and there was an answering light from the mainland. At a quarter-past eleven a bugle sounded, and from the shore batteries came a blinding glare, followed by the boom of a heavy gun—the first shot of the Spanish-American War.
The Raleigh had the honor of replying for the American side, and the Boston followed quickly. A well-aimed six-inch shell from the Concord plumped into the Spanish fort; there was a crash and a cry, and all was still. The forts had been silenced.
At slow speed the squadron moved onward, for Commodore Dewey did not wish to arrive at Manila before dawn. Some of the men managed to get a little sleep, but the ever-present danger of torpedoes and the excitement of the approaching battle were not conducive to peaceful slumbers.
The morning of Sunday, May 1st, dawned clear and beautiful, although the day promised to be hot. The squadron found itself directly across the bay from the city of Manila; and there, under the guns of Cavité, lay the Spanish fleet.
BATTLE OF MANILA BAY
According to Commodore Dewey’s report, the shore batteries began firing at a quarter-past five. The Olympia, flying the signal “Remember the Maine,” led the American column, followed closely by the Baltimore, Raleigh, Petrel, Concord, and Boston in the order named. The ships came on in a line approximately parallel to that of the enemy, reserving their fire until within effective range. As the fleet advanced two submarine mines were exploded, but neither did any damage. At twenty minutes to six Commodore Dewey shouted to Captain Gridley in the conning-tower of the flag-ship: “Fire as soon as you get ready, Gridley.” Instantly the Olympia discharged her broadside, the Baltimore followed the lead, and each successive ship in turn discharged every gun that could be brought to bear. The Spanish returned the fire with great energy, but with inconclusive results. Several of the American ships were struck, but no casualties followed. Lieutenant Brumby, of the flag-ship, had the signal halliards shot out of his hands; a shot passed clean through the Baltimore, and another smashed into the foremast of the Boston. Incessantly firing, the battle-line steamed past the whole length of the stationary Spanish fleet, then swung slowly around and began the countermarch. Once Montojo’s flag-ship, the Reina Cristina, made a desperate attempt to leave the line and engage at close quarters, but she was quickly driven back.
A little after half-past seven the American commander ordered the firing to be stopped, and the fleet headed for the eastern side of the bay for breakfast and a redistribution of ammunition for the big guns. The Spaniards, seeing the withdrawal of the American vessels, rashly concluded that the enemy had been repulsed and raised a feeble cheer. In reality they were hopelessly beaten: several of their ships were on fire, the decks of all were covered with dead and dying men, and ammunition was running low.
At a quarter-past eleven the battle was renewed. Several of the Spanish ships were now disabled and on fire, and Admiral Montojo had been forced to transfer his flag to the Isla de Cuba.
A few minutes later the Reina Cristina, his former flag-ship, was blazing from end to end, and the explosion of her magazine completed the destruction of the vessel. One after another the Spanish ships succumbed under the storm of shot and shell, and either surrendered or were cut to pieces. The Don Antonio de Ulloa, riddled like a sieve and on fire in a dozen places, refused to acknowledge defeat, and went down with colors flying. Finally, Admiral Montojo hauled down his flag, and, leaving the Isla de Cuba, escaped to the shore. The arsenal building at Cavité ran up the white flag, and at half-past one Commodore Dewey signalled to his ships that they might anchor at discretion.
BATTLE OF MANILA BAY
Never was victory more decisive. Not a man had been killed on the American side, and but four men were wounded—this through the explosion of a Spanish shell on the Baltimore. None of the American ships received any material damage. On the other hand, the following Spanish ships were completely destroyed: Reina Cristina (flag-ship), Castilla, Don Antonio de Ulloa, Don Juan de Austria, Isla de Luzon, Isla de Cuba, Marquiz del Duero, General Lezo, Correo, Velasco, and Isla de Mandanao. The casualties on the Spanish side amounted to about four hundred men. Moreover, the water-batteries of Cavité had been demolished, the arsenal had been captured, and the city of Manila lay defenceless under the guns of the American fleet.
But Commodore Dewey’s difficulties were by no means at an end. He had immediately proclaimed a blockade of the port. The German Pacific squadron, under Vice-Admiral von Diederich, had arrived at Manila shortly after the battle, and were, of course, in the position of neutrals, having access to the harbor merely on the ground of international courtesy. This privilege the Germans quickly began to abuse, disregarding Commodore Dewey’s regulations at will, and committing various acts inconsistent with the neutrality laws. Their attitude was both annoying and insolent, and it was evident that it must be promptly and effectually checked if the American supremacy were to be maintained.
At last the opportunity came. Commodore Dewey learned, on unquestionable authority, that one of the German vessels had been landing provisions at Manila, thereby violating neutrality. He immediately sent a vigorous protest to Admiral von Diederich—a message that ended with these significant words: “And, Brumby, tell Admiral von Diederich that if he wants a fight he can have it right now.”
That was enough. The German admiral was not quite ready to involve his country in a war with the United States; he made an apology, and the incident was closed.
On June 30th the first army expedition from the United States arrived at Manila, and Commodore Dewey’s long vigil was at an end, the succeeding operations in the Philippines being almost exclusively military, and consisting of the capture of the city of Manila by the Americans and subsequent warfare with Aguinaldo and insurgent Filipinos.
Such, in large outline, was the battle of Manila Bay. Foreign critics have derided American enthusiasm on the ground that the American fleet was far superior, that the Spanish vessels, many of them mere gunboats, lacked armor and adequate guns, and that they were imperfectly manned. Yet the same critics ranked the naval forces of Spain as quite equal to the American at the outset of the war. Furthermore, the action of Dewey, without a single battle-ship or torpedo-boat under his command, in entering a mined harbor without waiting to countermine, and in attacking a fleet whose strength was not accurately known, under the guns of land batteries, must be classed among the distinctive achievements of naval history. The battle was decisive in its immediate outcome, far-reaching in its ultimate consequences. Dewey’s victory but presaged the final triumph of American arms. The Battle of Manila Bay meant the expulsion of Spain from the Pacific and the succession of the United States to Spain’s heritage of Asiatic power. Politically, therefore, in its establishment of the United States as a power in the Orient, Manila Bay is to be placed among the decisive battles of history.[273]
XXII
THE BATTLES OF SANTIAGO, 1898
I
THE FIRST PERIOD OF THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR IN THE WEST INDIES
Ex-President Roosevelt once said that the most striking thing about the war with Spain was the preparedness of the navy and the unpreparedness of the army. For fifteen years the United States had been building up a navy, and for months preceding the war every effort was made, with the resources at the command of the Navy Department, to put it in a state of first-class efficiency. As early as January 11, 1898, instructions were sent to the commanders of the several squadrons to retain in the service men whose terms of enlistment were about to expire. As the Cuban situation grew more threatening, the North Atlantic Squadron and a torpedo-boat flotilla were rapidly assembled in Florida waters; and immediately after the destruction of the Maine the ships on the European and South Atlantic stations were ordered to Key West....
Both from a political and a military point of view the blockade of Cuba was the first step for the American government to take, and the surest and quickest means of bringing things to an issue. Cuba was the point in dispute between the United States and Spain, and a blockade would result in one of two things—the surrender of the island or the despatch of a Spanish naval force to its relief. The Navy Department had very little apprehension of an attack on our coast, as no squadron could hope to be in condition after crossing the Atlantic for offensive operations without coaling, and the only places where Spain could coal were in the West Indies. The public, however, took a different view of the situation, and no little alarm was felt in the Eastern cities. A few coast-defence guns of modern pattern would have relieved the department of the necessity of protecting the coast, and enabled it to concentrate the whole fighting force around Cuba. To meet popular demands, however, a Northern Patrol Squadron was organized April 20th, under command of Commodore Howell, to cover the New England coast; and a more formidable Flying Squadron, under Commodore Schley, was assembled at Hampton Roads, and kept there until the appearance of the Spanish fleet in the West Indies. The main squadron was stationed at Key West under Rear-Admiral William T. Sampson, who had just been promoted to that grade, and given command of the entire naval force in North Atlantic waters. His appointment over the heads of Schley and other officers of superior rank and longer service created a great deal of criticism, although he was everywhere conceded to be one of the most efficient and progressive officers of the new navy.[274]
One hundred and twenty-eight ships [steam merchantmen, revenue-cutters, light-house tenders, yachts, and ocean liners] were added to the navy, and the government yards were kept busy transforming them. To man these ships the number of enlisted men was raised from 12,500 to 24,123, and a number of new officers appointed.[275] The heavy fighting force consisted of four first-class battle-ships, the Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, and Oregon; one second-class battle-ship, the Texas; and two armored cruisers, the Brooklyn and the New York. As against these seven armored ships Spain had five armored cruisers of modern construction and of greater reputed speed than any of ours except the Brooklyn and the New York, and one battle-ship of the Indiana type. Spain had further a type of vessel unknown to our navy and greatly feared by us—namely, torpedo-boat destroyers, such as the Furor, Pluton, and Terror. It was popularly supposed that the Spanish navy was somewhat superior to the American.
As soon as the Spanish minister withdrew from Washington, a despatch was sent to Sampson at Key West directing him to blockade the coast of Cuba immediately from Cardenas to Bahia Honda, and to blockade Cienfuegos if it was considered advisable. On April 29th, Admiral Cervera’s division of the Spanish fleet left the Cape de Verde Islands for an unknown destination, and disappeared for two weeks from the knowledge of the American authorities. This fleet was composed of four armored cruisers, the Infanta Maria Teresa, Cristobal Colon, Oquendo, and Vizcaya, and three torpedo-boat destroyers. Its appearance in American waters was eagerly looked for, and interest in the war became intense....
[In the next two weeks Sampson’s patrol of the Windward Islands and adjacent waters, and his visit to San Juan, Porto Rico, produced no discoveries, and he started to return to the blockade of Havana. At midnight, May 12th–13th, thirty-six hours after the event, the Navy Department learned that Cervera had appeared off Martinique. Sampson, with his fleet, and Schley, with the Flying Squadron, were ordered to Key West, which they reached on May 18th.]
The department had heard that Cervera had munitions of war essential to the defence of Havana, and that his orders were to reach Havana, Cienfuegos, or a port connected with Havana by rail. As Cienfuegos seemed the only place he would be likely to choose, Schley was ordered there with the Brooklyn, Massachusetts, and Texas, May 19th. He was joined later by the Iowa, under Captain Evans, and by several cruisers. The Spanish squadron slipped into Santiago, unobserved by the cruisers on scouting duty, May 19th, two days before Schley arrived at Cienfuegos, so that had Cervera known the conditions he could easily have made the latter port. On the same day the department received from spies in Havana probable information, conveyed by the cable which had been allowed to remain in operation, that Cervera had entered Santiago. As we now know, he had entered early that morning. Several auxiliary cruisers were immediately ordered to assemble before Santiago in order to watch Cervera and follow him in case he should leave.
At the same time the department “strongly advised” Sampson to send Schley to Santiago at once with his whole command. Sampson replied that he had decided to hold Schley at Cienfuegos until it was certain that the Spanish fleet was in Santiago. Later he sent a despatch to Schley, received May 23d, ordering him to proceed to Santiago if satisfied that the enemy were not at Cienfuegos.[276] The next day[277] Schley started, encountering on the run much rain and rough weather, which seriously delayed the squadron. At 5.30 P.M., May 26th, he reached a point twenty-two miles south of Santiago, where he was joined by several of the auxiliary cruisers on scouting duty. Captain Sigsbee, of the St. Paul, informed him that the scouts knew nothing positively about the Spanish fleet. The collier Merrimac had been disabled, which increased the difficulty of coaling. At 7.45 P.M., a little over two hours after his arrival, Schley without explanation signalled to the squadron: “Destination, Key West, via south side of Cuba and Yucatan Channel, as soon as collier is ready; speed, nine knots.” Thus began the much-discussed retrograde movement which occupied two days. Admiral Schley states in his book that. Sigsbee’s report and other evidence led him to conclude that the Spanish squadron was not in Santiago; hence the retrograde movement to protect the passage west of Cuba.[278] But he has never yet given any satisfactory explanation why he did not definitely ascertain the facts before turning back. Fortunately the squadron did not proceed very far; the lines towing the collier parted and other delays occurred. The next morning Schley received a despatch from the department stating that all the information at hand indicated that Cervera was in Santiago, but he continued on his westward course slowly and at times drifting while some of the ships coaled. The next day, May 28th, Schley returned to Santiago, arriving before that port about dusk, and established a blockade.[279]
Admiral Sampson arrived off Santiago June 1st, and assumed direct command of the squadron. The blockade, which lasted for over a month, was eagerly watched by the whole American people. The most thrilling incident was the daring but unsuccessful attempt made by Lieutenant Richmond Pearson Hobson to sink the collier Merrimac across the entrance to Santiago harbor, undertaken by direction of Admiral Sampson. Electric torpedoes were attached to the hull of the ship, sea-valves were cut, and anchor chains arranged on deck so that she could be brought to a sudden stop. Early on the morning of June 3d, Hobson, assisted by a crew of seven seamen, took the collier into the entrance of the harbor under heavy fire and sunk her. The unfortunate shooting away of her steering-gear and the failure of some of the torpedoes to explode kept the ship from sinking at the place selected, so that the plan miscarried. Hobson and his men escaped death as by a miracle, but fell into the hands of the Spaniards.[280]
II
THE LAND CAMPAIGN
As soon as Cervera was blockaded in Santiago and the government was satisfied that all his ships were with him, it was decided to send an army to co-operate with the navy. Hitherto the war had been a naval war exclusively, and the two hundred thousand volunteers who had responded to the calls of the President in May had been kept in camp in different parts of the country. Most of the regular infantry and cavalry, together with several volunteer regiments, had been assembled at Tampa and organized as the Fifth Army Corps, in readiness to land in Cuba as soon as the navy had cleared the way. Conspicuous among these troops was the First Volunteer Cavalry, popularly known as Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, a regiment which through the energetic efforts of Dr. Leonard Wood, an army surgeon, who became its colonel, and Theodore Roosevelt, who resigned the position of assistant secretary of the navy to become its lieutenant-colonel, had been enlisted, officered, and equipped in fifty days. It was recruited largely from Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma, and had in its ranks cowboys, hunters, ranchmen, and more than one hundred and sixty full-blooded Indians, together with a few graduates of Harvard, Yale, and other Eastern colleges.
Tampa was ill-suited for an instruction camp, and the preparations made by the department for the accommodation and provisioning of such large bodies of men were wholly inadequate. One of the main difficulties was the inability of the Commissary and Quartermaster departments, hampered by red tape, senseless regulations, and political appointees, to distribute the train-loads of supplies which blocked the tracks leading to Tampa; so great was the congestion that the soldiers could not even get their mail. This condition continued for weeks. The great majority of the troops were finally sent to Santiago to fight under a tropical sun in heavy woollen clothes; lighter clothing was not supplied to them until they were ready to return to Montauk Point, where they needed the woollen. The sanitation of the camp was poor and the water-supply bad; dysentery, malaria, and typhoid soon made their appearance. Similar conditions prevailed at the other camps. The administrative inefficiency of the War Department was everywhere revealed in striking contrast with the fine record of the Navy Department. Secretary Alger had been too much occupied with questions of patronage to look after the real needs of the service. Although war had been regarded for months as inevitable, when it finally came the department was found to be utterly unprepared to equip troops for service in Cuba. As the result of this neglect, for which it should be said Congress was partly responsible, it was necessary to improvise an army—a rather serious undertaking!
It had been the original intention to land the Fifth Army Corps at Mariel, near Havana, and begin operations against the capital city under the direct supervision of General Miles; but the bottling-up of Cervera at Santiago caused a change of plan, and General Miles, who still expected the heavy fighting to take place at Havana, selected Major-General William R. Shafter for the movement against Santiago. By June 1st the battle-ship Indiana, under Captain Henry C. Taylor, with a dozen smaller vessels, was ready to convoy the expedition. The army was very slow in embarking, and it was not until June 8th that the force was ready to depart. Further delay was caused by the unfounded rumor that a Spanish cruiser and two torpedo-boat destroyers had been sighted off the north coast of Cuba.[281] In order to ascertain whether all the Spanish ships were at Santiago, Lieutenant Victor Blue, of the navy, landed, and by personal observation from the hills back of the city located Cervera’s entire division in the harbor. On June 14th the transports, about thirty in number, sailed from Tampa with their convoy. They were crowded and ill-provided with supplies, the whole movement showing lack of experience in handling large bodies of men. The expedition consisted of 815 officers and 16,072 enlisted men, regulars except the Seventy-first New York, Second Massachusetts, and the First Volunteer Cavalry.[282]
The expedition under Shafter began disembarking at Daiquiri on the morning of June 22d, and by night six thousand men had with great difficulty been put ashore. No lighters or launches had been provided, and the only wharf, a small wooden one, had been stripped of its flooring: the War Department expected the navy to look after these matters. In addition, the troops had been crowded into the transports without any reference to order, officers separated from their commands, artillery-pieces on one transport, horses on another, harness on a third, and no means of finding out where any of them were. By the aid of a few launches borrowed from the battle-ships, the men were put ashore, or near enough to wade through the surf, but the animals had to be thrown into the sea, where many of them perished, some in their bewilderment swimming out to sea instead of to shore.
General Lawton advanced and seized Siboney next day, and Kent’s division landed here, eight miles nearer Santiago. General Wheeler pushed on with part of Young’s brigade, and on the morning of the 24th defeated the Spanish force at Las Guasimas, with a loss of one officer and fifteen men killed, six officers and forty-six men wounded.[283] During the next week the army, including Garcia’s Cuban command, was concentrated at Sevilla. These were trying days. The troops suffered from the heavy rains, poor rations, and bad camp accommodations. No adequate provision had been made for landing supplies or for transporting them to the camps, so that with an abundance, such as they were, aboard the transports, the soldiers were in actual want.
On June 30th it was decided to advance. San Juan Hill, a strategic point on the direct road to Santiago, could not be taken or held while the Spaniards occupied El Caney, on the right of the American advance. The country was a jungle, and the roads from the coast little more than bridle-paths. Lawton moved out to a position south of El Caney that afternoon, so as to begin the attack early next morning. Wheeler’s division of dismounted cavalry and Kent’s division of infantry advanced toward El Poso, accompanied by Grimes’ battery, which was to take position early in the morning and open the way for the advance toward San Juan. The attack at this point was to be delayed until Lawton’s infantry fire was heard at El Caney. After forcing the enemy from this position, Lawton was to move toward Santiago and take position on Wheeler’s right. Little was known of the ground over which the troops were to move or the position and strength of the forces they were to meet, consequently they went into battle without knowing what they were about and fought without any generalship being displayed. General Shafter was too ill to leave his headquarters in the rear.
At El Caney, which was surrounded by trenches and block-houses, the Spaniards developed unexpected strength, and held Lawton in check until late in the afternoon, when he finally carried the position. In this fight about thirty-five hundred Americans were engaged, and not more than six hundred or one thousand Spaniards. The American loss was four officers and seventy-seven men killed, and twenty-five officers and three hundred and thirty-five men wounded. About one hundred and fifty Spaniards were captured, and between three hundred and four hundred killed and wounded.[284]
THE CAPTURE OF THE BLOCK-HOUSE AT SAN JUAN
Meanwhile there had been a desperate fight at San Juan Hill. As soon as Lawton’s musket-fire was heard at El Caney, Grimes’ battery opened fire from El Poso on the San Juan block-house. This fire was immediately returned by the enemy’s artillery, who had the range, and a number of men were killed. The Spaniards used smokeless powder, which made it difficult to locate them, while some of the Americans had black powder, which quickly indicated their position. The road along which the troops had to advance was so narrow and rough that at times they had to proceed in column of twos. The progress made was very slow, and the long-range guns of the enemy killed numbers of men before they could get into position to return the fire. By the middle of the day the advance had crossed the river, the cavalry division under Sumner deploying to the right in front of Kettle Hill, and Kent’s division of infantry deploying to the left directly in front of San Juan Hill. During this movement the troops were exposed to a galling artillery and rifle fire and suffered greatly, especially the third brigade of Kent’s division, which lost three commanders in fifteen minutes, General Wikoff being killed and Colonels Worth and Liscum disabled. The suffering of the wounded, many of whom lay in the brush for hours without succor, was the most terrible feature of the situation.
Finally the long-expected order to advance was given. The First Regular Cavalry, the Rough Riders, and the Negro troopers of the Ninth and a part of the Tenth advanced up Kettle Hill and drove the Spaniards from the ranch-house, while the infantry division with the Sixth and Sixteenth regiments under Hawkins in the lead charged up San Juan Hill in the face of a destructive fire and captured the block-house. Then the cavalry under Sumner and Roosevelt advanced from Kettle Hill and occupied the trenches on San Juan Hill north of the block-house. The Spaniards fled to their second line of trenches, six or eight hundred yards in the rear.
PLAN OF MILITARY OPERATIONS AROUND SANTIAGO
After occupying San Juan Hill, the cavalry were still exposed to a constant fire, and many were discouraged and wanted to retire, but General Wheeler, who, though ill, had come to the front early in the afternoon, put a stop to this and set the men to work fortifying themselves. The next day Lawton came up and advanced to a strong position on Wheeler’s right. The fighting was resumed on the two following days, but about noon, July 3d, the Spaniards ceased firing. The losses in the three days’ fight were eighteen officers and one hundred and twenty-seven men killed, sixty-five officers and eight hundred and forty-nine men wounded, and seventy-two men missing.[285] The condition of the troops after the battle was very bad; many of them were down with fever, and all were suffering from lack of suitable equipment and supplies. General Shafter cabled to the secretary of war, July 3d, that it would be impossible to take Santiago by storm with the forces he then had, and that he was “seriously considering withdrawing about five miles and taking up a new position on the high ground between the San Juan River and Siboney.”[286] The destruction of Cervera’s fleet the same day materially changed the situation.
III
THE DESTRUCTION OF CERVERA’S FLEET
The advance made by the American troops around Santiago on July 1st and 2d forced the Spanish authorities to come to a decision in regard to Cervera’s fleet. Captain-General Blanco insisted that the fleet should not be captured or destroyed without a fight. Cervera refused to assume the responsibility of leaving the harbor, and when ordered to do so went out with consummate bravery, knowing that he was leading a forlorn-hope. Sampson seems to have been under the impression all along that the Spanish squadron would attempt to escape at night, but the American ships kept in so close to the shore, with dazzling search-lights directed against the entrance of the harbor, as to render it almost impossible to steer a ship out. On the morning of July 3d, at 8.55, Sampson started east to meet General Shafter in conference at Siboney, signalling to the fleet as he left: “Disregard movements commander-in-chief.” The Massachusetts had also left her place in the blockade to go to Guantanamo for coal. The remaining ships formed a semicircle around the entrance of the harbor, the Brooklyn to the west, holding the left of the line, then the Texas, next the Iowa in the centre and at the south of the curve, then, as the line curved in to the coast on the right, the Oregon and the Indiana. The Brooklyn and the Indiana, holding the left and the right of the line, were about two miles and one and a half miles respectively from the shore, and near them, closer in, lay the converted gunboats Vixen and Gloucester.
At 9.35 A.M., while most of the men were at Sunday inspection, the enemy’s ships were discovered slowly steaming down the narrow channel of the harbor. In the lead was the Maria Teresa, followed by the Vizcaya, the Colon, the Oquendo, and the two torpedo-boat destroyers. The Iowa was the first to signal that the enemy were escaping, though the fact was noted on several ships at almost the same moment, and no orders were necessary. The American ships at once closed in and directed their fire against the Teresa. For a moment there was doubt as to whether the Spanish ships would separate and try to scatter the fire of our fleet or whether they would stick together. This was quickly settled when Cervera turned west, followed by the remainder of his command. At this point Commodore Schley’s flag-ship, the Brooklyn, which was farthest west, turned to the eastward, away from the hostile fleet, making a loop, at the end of which she again steamed westward farther out to sea but still ahead of any of the American vessels. The sudden and unexpected turn of the Brooklyn caused the Texas, which was behind her, to reverse her engines in order to avoid a collision and to come to a standstill, thus losing position, the Oregon and the Iowa both passing her. The two destroyers, which came out last, were attacked by the Indiana and the Gloucester, the commander of the latter, Wainwright, dashing toward them in utter disregard of the fragile character of his vessel. The Furor was sunk and the Pluton was run ashore. The Teresa, struck by several shells which exploded and set her on fire, turned to the shore at 10.15 and was beached about six miles west of the Morro. The Oquendo was riddled by shell and likewise soon on fire. She was beached about half a mile west of the Teresa at 10.20. The Vizcaya and Colon were now left to bear the fire of the pursuing American ships, which were practically uninjured. In this running fight the Indiana dropped behind, owing to the defective condition of her machinery, but kept up her fire. At 11.05 the Vizcaya turned to run ashore about fifteen miles west of the Morro. The Brooklyn and the Oregon, followed at some distance by the Texas, continued the chase of the Colon. The Indiana and the Iowa, at the order of Sampson, who had come up, went back to guard the transports. At 1.15 P.M. the Colon turned to shore thirty miles west of the Vizcaya and surrendered.[287]
THE RELATIVE POSITIONS OF THE SHIPS IN THE BATTLE OF JULY 3, 1898, OFF SANTIAGO
Abbreviations:—N. Y., New York; B., Brooklyn; Tx., Texas; A., Iowa; I., Indiana; O., Oregon; G., Gloucester; Vx., Vixen; H., Hist.; E., Ericsson; T., Teresa; V., Vizcaya; C., Colon; Oq., Oquendo; P., Pluton; F., Furor.
The fight was over, one of the most remarkable naval battles on record. On the American side, though the ships were struck many times, only one man was killed and one wounded. These casualties both occurred on Commodore Schley’s flag-ship, the Brooklyn. The Spaniards lost about six hundred in killed and wounded. The American sailors took an active part in the rescue of the officers and crews of the burning Spanish ships.
Only one hundred and twenty-three out of about eight thousand American projectiles hit the Spanish ships.
IV
THE SPANISH SURRENDER
On July 3d, General Shafter demanded the surrender of the Spanish forces in Santiago. This being refused, he notified General Toral that the bombardment of Santiago would begin at noon of the 5th, thus giving two days for the women and children to leave the city. Nearly twenty thousand people came out and filled the villages and roads around. They were in an utterly destitute condition, and had to be taken care of largely by the American army—a great drain on their supplies. On the 10th and 11th the city was bombarded by the squadron. At this point General Miles arrived off Santiago with additional troops intended for Porto Rico. He and Shafter met General Toral under a flag of truce and arranged terms for the surrender, which took place on the 17th. Shafter’s command was by this time in a serious state of health and anxious to return home. Malarial fevers had so weakened the men that an epidemic of yellow-fever, which had appeared sporadically throughout the command, was greatly feared. The situation was desperate, and the War Department apparently deaf to all representations of the case. Under these circumstances the division and brigade commanders and the surgeons met at General Shafter’s headquarters early in August and signed a round-robin addressed to the secretary of war urging the immediate removal of the corps to the United States. This action was much criticised at the time, but it had the desired effect, and on August 4th orders were given to remove the command to Montauk Point, Long Island. The movement was begun at once and completed before the end of the month.
THE LAST OF CERVERA’S FLEET
(The Colon’s final effort)
The surrender of Santiago left General Miles free to carry out plans already matured for the invasion of Porto Rico. He left Guantanamo, July 21st, with 3415 men, mostly volunteers, convoyed by a fleet under the command of Captain Higginson, and landed at Guanica on the 25th. Early next morning General Garretson pushed forward with part of his brigade and drove the Spanish forces from Yauco, thus getting possession of the railroad to Ponce. General Miles was reinforced in a few days by the commands of Generals Wilson, Brooke, and Schwan, raising his entire force to 16,973 officers and men. In about two weeks they had gained control of all the southern and western portions of the island, but hostilities were suspended by the peace protocol before the conquest of Porto Rico was completed. The American losses in this campaign were three killed and forty wounded.[288]
The last engagement of the war was the assault on Manila, which was captured August 13, 1898, by the forces under General Merritt, assisted by Admiral Dewey’s squadron. This occurred the day after the signing of the peace protocol, the news of which did not reach the Philippines until several days later.
V
CONTROVERSIES CAUSED BY THE WAR
Two controversies growing out of the war with Spain assumed such importance that they cannot be passed by. The first related to the conduct of the War Department, which was charged with inefficiency resulting from political appointments and corruption in the purchase of supplies. The most serious charge was that made by Major-General Miles, commanding the army, who declared that much of the refrigerated beef furnished the troops was “embalmed beef,” preserved with secret chemicals of an injurious character. In September, 1898, President McKinley appointed a commission to investigate these charges, and the hearings held were sensational in the extreme. Commissary-General Eagan read a statement before the commission which was so violent in its abuse of the commanding general that he was later court-martialled and sentenced to dismissal for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, though this sentence was commuted by the President to suspension from rank and duty, but without loss of pay. The report of the commission[289] failed to substantiate General Miles’ charges, but it was not satisfactory or convincing. In spite of its efforts to whitewash things, the commission had to report that the secretary of war had failed to “grasp the situation.” Many leading newspapers demanded Alger’s resignation, but President McKinley feared to discredit the administration by dismissing him. Nevertheless, a coolness sprang up between them; and several months later, when Alger became a candidate for the Michigan senatorship, with the open support of elements distinctly hostile to the administration, the President asked for his resignation, which was tendered July 19, 1899.[290]
The other controversy, which waged in the papers for months, was as to whether Sampson or Schley was in command at the battle of Santiago. As a reward for their work on that day, the President advanced Sampson eight numbers, Schley six, Captain Clark of the Oregon six, and the other captains five. These promotions were all confirmed by the Senate save those of Sampson and Schley, a number of senators holding that Schley should have received at least equal recognition with Sampson. The controversy was waged inside and outside of Congress for three years. The officials of the Navy Department were for the most part stanch supporters of Sampson, while a large part of the public, under the impression that the department was trying to discredit Schley, eagerly championed his cause. Finally, at the request of Admiral Schley, who was charged in certain publications with inefficiency and even cowardice, a court of inquiry was appointed July 26, 1901, with Admiral Dewey as president, for the purpose of inquiring into the conduct of Schley during the war with Spain. The opinion of the court was that his service prior to June 1st was “characterized by vacillation, dilatoriness, and lack of enterprise.” Admiral Dewey differed from the opinions of his colleagues on certain points, and delivered a separate opinion, in the course of which he took up the question as to who was in command at Santiago, a point which had not been considered by the court. His conclusion was that Schley “was in absolute command and is entitled to the credit due to such commanding officer for the glorious victory which resulted in the total destruction of the Spanish ships.” This made matters worse than ever. Secretary Long approved the findings of the majority of the court, and disapproved Dewey’s separate opinion. Schley appealed from the findings of the court to the President. February 18, 1902, President Roosevelt’s memorandum, in which he reviewed the whole controversy, was made public. He declared that the court had done substantial justice to Schley. As regards the question of command at Santiago, he said that technically Sampson commanded the fleet, and Schley the western division, but that after the battle began not a ship took orders from either Sampson or Schley, except their own two vessels. “It was a captains’ fight.”[291]
The Spanish war revealed many serious defects in the American military system, some of which have been remedied by the reorganization of the army and the creation of a general staff.[292] It demonstrated the necessity of military evolutions on a large scale in time of peace, so as to give the general officers experience in handling and the Quartermaster and Commissary departments experience in equipping and supplying large bodies of troops; it showed the folly and danger of appointing men from civil life through political influence to positions of responsibility in any branch of the military or naval service; it showed the value of field-artillery, of smokeless powder, and of high-power rifles of the latest model; it also showed the necessity of having on hand a large supply of the best war material ready for use. While every American is proud of the magnificent record of the navy, it must not be imagined that the war with Spain was a conclusive test of its invincibility, for, however formidable the Spanish cruisers appeared at the time, later information revealed the fact that through the neglect of the Spanish government they were very far from being in a state of first-class efficiency.