ANNA ELLA CARROLL.
THE TENNESSEE CAMPAIGN.
Anna Ella Carroll, the daughter of Thomas King Carroll formerly Governor of Maryland, belongs to one of the oldest and most patriotic families of that State. Her ancestors founded the city of Baltimore; Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was of the same family.
At the breaking out of the civil war, Maryland was claimed by the rebellious States, and for a long time her position seemed uncertain. Miss Carroll, an intimate friend of Gov. Hicks, and at that time a member of his family, favored the national cause, and by her powerful arguments induced the Governor to remain firm in his opposition to the scheme of secession. Thus, despite the siren wooing of the South, in its plaint of
"Maryland, my Maryland."
Miss Carroll was the means of preserving her native State to the Union. Although a slave-owner, and a member of that class which so largely proved disloyal, Miss Carroll freed her slaves, and devoted herself throughout the war to the cause of liberty. She replied to the secession speech of Senator Breckenridge, made during the July session of Congress 1861, with such lucid and convincing arguments, that the War Department not only circulated a large edition, but the Government requested her to prepare other papers upon unsettled points. In response she wrote a pamphlet entitled "The War Powers of the Government," published in December, 1861. By the especial request of President Lincoln she also prepared a paper entitled "The Relation of Revolted Citizens to the National Government," which was approved by him, and formed the basis of his subsequent action. In September, 1861, she also prepared a paper on the Constitutional power of the President to make arrests, and to suspend the writ of habeas corpus; a subject upon which a great conflict of opinion then existed, even among persons of unquestioned loyalty.
Early in the fall of 1861, Miss Carroll took a trip to St. Louis to inspect the progress of the war in the West. A gun-boat fleet, under the special authorization of the President, was then in preparation for a descent of the Mississippi. An examination of this plan by Miss Carroll showed its weakness, and the inevitable disaster it would bring to the National arms. Her astute military genius led her to the substitution of another plan, upon which she based great hopes of success, and its results show it to have been one of the profoundest strategic movements of the ages. Strategy and generalship are two entirely distinct forms of the art of war. Many a general, good at following out a plan, is entirely incapable of forming a successful one. Napoleon stands in the foremost ranks as a strategist, and is held as the greatest warrior of modern times, yet he led no forces into battle. So entirely was he convinced that strategy was the whole art of war, that he was accustomed to speak of himself as the only general of his army, thus subordinating the mere command and movement of forces to the art of strategy. Judged by this standard, which is acknowledged by all military men, Anna Ella Carroll, of Maryland, holds foremost rank as a military genius. On the 12th of November, 1861, while still in St. Louis, Miss Carroll wrote to Hon. Edward Bates at Washington (the member of the Cabinet who first suggested the expedition down the Mississippi), that from information gained by her she believed this plan would fail, and urged him, instead, to have the expedition directed up the Tennessee River, as the true line of attack. She also dispatched a similar letter to Hon. Thomas A. Scott, at that time Assistant Secretary of War. On the 30th of this month (November, 1861), Miss Carroll laid the following plan, accompanied by explanatory maps, before the War Department:
The civil and military authorities seem to me to be laboring under a great mistake in regard to the true key of the war in the South-west. It is not the Mississippi, but the Tennessee River. Now, all the military preparations made in the West indicate that the Mississippi River is the point to which the authorities are directing their attention. On that river many battles must be fought and heavy risks incurred, before any impression can be made on the enemy, all of which could be avoided by using the Tennessee River. This river is navigable for medium-class boats to the foot of Muscle Shoals in Alabama, and is open to navigation all the year, while the distance is but two hundred and fifty miles by the river from Paducah on the Ohio. The Tennessee offers many advantages over the Mississippi. We should avoid the almost impregnable batteries of the enemy, which can not be taken without great danger and great risk of life to our forces, from the fact that our forces, if crippled, would fall a prey to the enemy by being swept by the current to him, and away from the relief of our friends. But even should we succeed, still we have only begun the war, for we shall then have to fight the country from whence the enemy derives his supplies.
Now an advance up the Tennessee River would avoid this danger; for, if our boats were crippled, they would drop back with the current and escape capture. But a still greater advantage would be its tendency to cut the enemy's lines in two, by reaching the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, threatening Memphis, which lies one hundred miles due west, and no defensible point between; also Nashville, only ninety miles north-east, and Florence and Tuscumbia in North Alabama, forty miles east. A movement in this direction would do more to relieve our friends in Kentucky, and inspire the loyal hearts in East Tennessee, than the possession of the whole of the Mississippi River. If well executed, it would cause the evacuation of all those formidable fortifications on which the rebels ground their hopes for success; and in the event of our fleet attacking Mobile, the presence of our troops in the northern part of Alabama, would be material aid to the fleet.
Again, the aid our forces would receive from the loyal men in Tennessee would enable them soon to crush the last traitor in that region, and the separation of the two extremes would do more than one hundred battles for the Union cause. The Tennessee River is crossed by the Memphis and Louisville Railroad, and the Memphis and Nashville Railroad. At Hamburg the river makes the big bend on the east, touching the north-east corner of Mississippi, entering the north-west corner of Alabama, forming an arc to the south, entering the State of Tennessee at the north-east corner of Alabama, and if it does not touch the north-west corner of Georgia, comes very near it. It is but eight miles from Hamburg to the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, which goes through Tuscumbia, only two miles from the river, which it crosses at Decatur thirty miles above, intersecting with the Nashville and Chattanooga road at Stephenson. The Tennessee never has less than three feet to Hamburg on the "shoalest" bar, and during the fall, winter, and spring months, there is always water for the largest boats that are used on the Mississippi River. It follows, from the above facts, that in making the Mississippi the key to the war in the West, or rather in overlooking the Tennessee River, the subject is not understood by the superiors in command.
The War Department looked over these papers, and Col. Scott, the Assistant Secretary, possessing a knowledge of the railroad facilities and connections of the South, unequaled perhaps by any other man in the country at that time, at once saw the vital importance of Miss Carroll's plan. He declared it to be the first clear solution of the difficult problem, and was soon sent West to assist in carrying it out in detail. The Mississippi expedition was abandoned, and the Tennessee made the point of attack. Both land and naval forces were ordered to mass themselves at this point, and the country soon began to feel the wisdom of this movement. The capture of Fort Henry, an important Confederate post on the Tennessee River serving to defend the railroad communication between Memphis and Bowling Green, was the first result of Miss Carroll's plan. It fell Feb. 6, 1862, and was rapidly followed by the capture of Fort Donelson, which, after a gallant defense, surrendered to the Union forces Feb. 16th, and the name of Ulysses S. Grant, as the general commanding these forces, for the first time became known to the American people. By these victories the line of Confederate fortifications was broken, and the enemy's means of communication between the East and the West were destroyed.
All the historians of our civil war concede that the strategy which made the Tennessee River the base of military operations in the South-west, thus cutting the Confederacy in two by its control of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, also made its final destruction inevitable. At an early day the Government had neither a just conception of the rebellion, nor of the steps necessary for its suppression. It was looked upon from a political rather than a military point of view, and much valuable time was wasted in suggestions and plans worse than futile. But while the national Government had been blind to the real situation, the Confederacy had every hour strengthened its position both at home and abroad, having so far secured the recognition of France and England as to have been acknowledged belligerents, while threats of raising the blockade were also made by the same powers.
In order to a more full understanding of our national affairs at that time, we will glance at the proceedings of Congress. When this body met in December, 1861, a "Committee on the Conduct of the War" was at once created, and spirited debates upon the situation took place in both the Senate and the House. It was acknowledged that the salvation of the country depended upon military success. It was declared that the rebellion must be speedily put down or it would destroy the resources of the country, as $2,000,000 a day were then required to maintain the army in the field. Hon. Mr. Dawes compared the country to a man under an exhausted receiver gasping for breath, and said that sixty days of the present state of things must bring about an ignominious peace. Hon. Geo. W. Julian declared that the country was in imminent danger of a foreign war, and that in the opinion of many the great model Republic of the world was in the throes of death. The credit of the nation was then so poor as to render it unable to make loans of money from foreign countries. The treasury notes issued by the Government were falling in the market, selling at five and six per cent. discount. Mr. Morrill, in the Senate, gave it as his opinion that in six months the nation would be beyond hope of relief.
England was anxiously hoping for our downfall. The London Post, Lord Palmerston's paper, the organ of the English Government, prophesied our national bankruptcy within a short time. The London Times denounced us in language deemed too offensive to be read before the Senate. It urged England's direct interference; counseled the pouring of a fleet of gun-boats through the St. Lawrence into the lakes with the opening of spring, "to secure, with the mastery of these waters, the mastery of all," and declared that three months hence the field would be all England's own. At that time the British Government had already sent some thirty thousand men into its colonies in North America, preparatory to an assault upon our north-western frontier. The nation seemed upon the point of being lost, and the hopes of millions of oppressed men in other lands destroyed by the disintegration of the Union. The war had been waged six months, but with the exception of West Virginia, the battle had been against the Union. The fact that military success alone could turn the scale, though now acknowledged, seemed to Congress as far as ever from consummation. Our military commanders, quite ignorant of both the geographical and topographical outlines of our vast country, were unable to formulate the plan necessary for a decisive blow.
Such was the situation at the time Miss Carroll sent her plan of the Tennessee campaign to the War Department. Fortunately for civilization this plan was adopted, and with the fall of Fort Henry, the enemy's center was pierced, the decisive point gained. From that hour the nation's final success was assured. Its fall opened the Tennessee River, and its capture was soon followed by the evacuation of Columbus and Bowling Green. Fort Donelson was given up, its rebel garrison of 14,000 troops marched out as prisoners of war, and hope sprang up in the hearts of the people. Pittsburg Landing and Corinth soon followed the fate of the preceding forts. The President declared the victory at Fort Henry to be of the utmost importance. North and South its influence was alike felt. Gen. Beauregard was himself conscious that this campaign sealed the fate of the "Southern Confederacy." The success of the Tennessee campaign rendered intervention impossible, and taught those foreign enemies who were anxiously watching for our country's downfall, the power and stability of a Republic. Missouri was kept in the Union by its means, Tennessee and Kentucky were restored, the National armies were enabled to push to the Gulf States and secure possession of all the great rivers and routes of internal communication through the heart of the Confederate territory.
On the 10th of April, 1862, the President issued the following proclamation:
It has pleased Almighty God to vouchsafe signal victories to the land and naval forces engaged in suppressing an internal rebellion; and at the same time to avert from our country the damages of foreign intervention and invasion.
During all this time the author of this plan remained unknown, except to the President and his Cabinet, who feared to reveal the fact that the Government was proceeding under the advice and plan of a civilian, and that civilian a woman. Shortly after the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson a debate as to the author of this campaign took place in the House of Representatives.[2] The Senate discussed its origin March 13. It was variously ascribed to the President, to the Secretary of War, and to different naval and land commanders, Halleck, Grant, Foote, Smith, and Fremont. The historians of the war have also given adverse opinions as to its authorship. Draper's "History of the Civil War" ascribes it to Gen. Halleck; Boynton's "History of the Navy" to Commodore Foote; Lossing's "Civil War" to the combined wisdom of Grant, Halleck, and Foote; Badeau's "History of the Civil War" credits it to Gen. C. F. Smith; and Abbott's "Civil War," to Gen. Fremont.
But abundant testimony exists proving Miss Carroll's authorship of the plan, in letters from Hon. B. F. Wade,[3] Chairman of the Committee on the Conduct of the War; from Hon. Thos. A. Scott, Assistant Secretary of War; from Hon. L. D. Evans, former Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas (entrusted by the Government with an important secret mission during the war); from Hon. Orestes A. Bronson, and many other well-known public men; from conversations of President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton; and from reports of the Military Committee of the XLI., XLII., and XLVI. Congresses.[4] So anxious was the Government to keep the origin of the Tennessee campaign a secret, that Col. Scott, in conversation with Judge Evans, a personal friend of Miss Carroll, pressed upon him the absolute necessity of Miss Carroll's making no claim to the authorship while the struggle lasted. In the plenitude of her self-sacrificing patriotism she remained silent, and saw the honors rightfully belonging to her heaped upon others, although she knew the country was indebted to her for its salvation.
Previous to 1862 historians reckoned but fifteen decisive battles[5] in the world's history, battles in which, says Hallam, a contrary result would have essentially varied the drama of the world in all its subsequent scenes. Professor Cressy, of the chair of Ancient and Modern History, University of London, has made these battles the subject of two grand volumes. The battle of Fort Henry was the sixteenth, and in its effects may well be deemed the most important of all.[6] It opened the doors of liberty to the downtrodden and oppressed among all nations, setting a seal of permanence on the assertion that self-government is the natural right of every person.
But it was not alone through her plan of the Tennessee campaign that Miss Carroll exhibited her military genius; throughout the conflict she continued to send plans and suggestions to the War Department. The events of history prove the wisdom of those plans, and that had they been strictly followed, the war would have been brought to a speedy close,[7] and millions of men and money saved to the country.
Upon the fall of Fort Henry, February, 1862, she again addressed the War Department, advising an immediate advance upon Mobile or Vicksburg. In March, 1862, she presented a memorial and maps to Secretary Stanton in person, in regard to the reduction of Island 10, which had long been a vain effort by the Union forces, in which she said:
The failure to take Island 10, which thus far occasions much disappointment to the country, excites no surprise to me. When I looked at the gun-boats at St. Louis, and was informed as to their powers, and that the current of the Mississippi at full tide runs at the rate of five miles per hour, which is very near the speed of our gun-boats, I could not resist the conclusion that they were not well fitted to the taking of batteries on the Mississippi River, if assisted by gun-boats perhaps equal to our own. Hence it was that I wrote Col. Scott from there, that the Tennessee River was our strategic point, and the successes at Forts Henry and Donelson establish the justice of these observations. Had our victorious army, after the fall of Fort Henry, immediately pushed up the Tennessee River and taken position on the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, between Corinth, Miss., and Decatur, Ala., which might easily have been done at that time with a small force, every rebel soldier in Western Kentucky and Tennessee would have fled from every position south of that railroad. And had Buell pursued the enemy in his retreat from Nashville, without delay, into a commanding position in North Alabama, on the railroad between Chattanooga and Decatur, the rebel government at Richmond would necessarily have been obliged to retreat to the cotton States. I am fully satisfied that the true policy of General Halleck is to strengthen Grant's column by such a force as will enable him at once to seize the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, as it is the readiest means of reducing Island 10, and all the strongholds to Memphis.
In October, 1862, observing the preparations for a naval attack upon Vicksburg, Miss Carroll again addressed the Secretary of War in the following memorial:
As I understand an expedition is about to go down the river, for the purpose of reducing Vicksburg, I have prepared the enclosed map in order to demonstrate more clearly the obstacles to be encountered in the contemplated assault. In the first place, it is impossible to take Vicksburg in the front without too great a loss of life and material, for the reason that the river is only about half a mile wide, and our forces would be in point-blank range of their guns, not only from their water-batteries which line the shore, but from the batteries that crown the hills, while the enemy would be protected from the range of our fire.
By examining the map I enclose, you will at once perceive why a place of so little apparent strength has been enabled to resist the combined fleets of the Upper and Lower Mississippi. The most economical plan for the reduction of Vicksburg now, is to push a column from Memphis or Corinth down the Mississippi Central Railroad to Jackson, the capital of the State of Mississippi. The occupation of Jackson, and the command of the railroad to New Orleans, would compel the immediate evacuation of Vicksburg, as well as the retreat of the entire rebel army east of that line; and by another movement of our army from Jackson, Miss., or from Corinth to Meridan, in the State of Mississippi, on the Ohio and Mobile Railroad, especially if aided by a movement of our gun-boats on Mobile, the Confederate forces, with all the disloyal men and slaves, would be compelled to fly east of the Tombigbee. Mobile being then in our possession, with 100,000 men at Meridan, would redeem the entire country from Memphis to the Tombigbee River. Of course I would have the gun-boats with a small force at Vicksburg, as auxiliary to this movement. With regard to the canal, Vicksburg can be rendered useless to the Confederate army upon the very first rise of the river; but I do not advise this, because Vicksburg belongs to the United States, and we desire to hold and fortify it, for the Mississippi River at Vicksburg and the Vicksburg and Jackson Railroad will become necessary as a base for our future operations. Vicksburg might have been reduced eight months ago, as I advised after the fall of Fort Henry, and with much more ease than it can be done to-day.
It will be recollected that after a month's attack upon Vicksburg, commencing June 28, 1862, by the combined Farragut fleet, Porter mortar flotilla and the gun-boat fleet under Capt. C. H. Davis, the bombardment of the city was suspended, it being found impossible to capture and hold it with the forces at command.
In October, 1862, Grant was appointed to the command of the forces from New Orleans to Vicksburg under the name of the "Department of Tennessee," and the capture of this "Gibraltar of the Confederacy" was once more attempted. This was the period of Miss Carroll's memorial above given, and the results proved the wisdom of her suggestions, as it was not until the army, by an attack upon its rear, were enabled to capture this stronghold, July 4, 1863, more than a year after the first demand of Farragut's fleet for its capitulation. Had it been attacked immediately after the fall of Fort Henry, according to Miss Carroll's plan, many lives, costly munitions of war, and much valuable time would have alike been saved. Miss Carroll's claim before Congress in connection with the Tennessee campaign of 1862, shows that the Military Committee of the United States Senate at the third session of the 41st Congress, reported (document 337), through Senator Howard, that Miss Carroll "furnished the Government the information which caused the change of the military expedition which was preparing in 1861 to descend the Mississippi, from that river to the Tennessee River." The same committee of the 42d Congress, second session (document 167), reported the evidence in support of this claim. For the House report of the 46th Congress, third session, see document 386.[8]
No fact in the history of our country is more clearly proved than that its very existence is due to the military genius of Miss Carroll, and no more shameful fact in its history exists, than that Congress has refused all recognition and reward for such patriotic services because they were rendered by a woman. While in the past twenty years thousands of men, great and small, have received thanks and rewards from the country she saved—for work done in accordance with her plans—Grant, first made known at Donelson, having twice received the highest office in the gift of the nation—having made the tour of the world amid universal honors—having received gifts of countless value at home and abroad—Miss Carroll is still left to struggle for a recognition of her services from that country which is indebted to her for its very life.