Thus, since the Proclamation of Emancipation the North had again become possessed of what is sometimes considered a necessity of good government, an organised Opposition ready and anxious to take the place of the existing Administration. It can well be understood that honourable men entered into this combination, but it is difficult to conceive on what common principle they could hold together which would not have been disastrous in its working. The more extreme leaders, who were likely to prove the driving force among them, were not unfitly satirised in a novel of the time called the "Man Without a Country." Their chance of success in fact depended upon the ill-fortune of their country in the war and on the irritation against the Government, which could be aroused by that cause alone and not by such abuses as they fairly criticised. In the latter part of 1863 the war was going well. A great meeting of "Union men" was summoned in August in Illinois. Lincoln was tempted to go and speak to them, but he contented himself with a letter. Phrases in it might suggest the stump orator, more than in fact his actual stump speeches usually did. In it, however, he made plain in the simplest language the total fallacy of such talk of peace as had lately become common; the Confederacy meant the Confederate army and the men who controlled it; as a fact no suggestion of peace or compromise came from them; if it ever came, the people should know it. In equally simple terms he sought to justify, even to supporters of the Union who did not share his "wish that all men could be free," his policy in regard to emancipation. In any case, freedom had for the sake of the Union been promised to negroes who were now fighting or working for the North, "and the promise being made must be kept." As that most critical year of the war drew to a close there was a prevailing recognition that the rough but straight path along which the President groped his way was the right path, and upon the whole he enjoyed a degree of general favour which was not often his portion.
3. The War in 1864.
It is the general military opinion that before the war entered on its final stage Jefferson Davis should have concentrated all his forces for a larger invasion of the North than was ever in fact undertaken. In the Gettysburg campaign he might have strengthened Lee's army by 20,000 men if he could have withdrawn them from the forts at Charleston. Charleston, however, was threatened during 1863 by the sea and land forces of the North, in an expedition which was probably itself unwise, as Lincoln himself seems to have suspected, but which helped to divert a Confederate army. In the beginning of 1864 Davis still kept this force at Charleston; he persisted also in keeping a hold on his own State, Mississippi, with a further small army; while Longstreet still remained in the south-east corner of Tennessee, where a useful employment of his force was contemplated but none was made. The chief Southern armies with which we have to deal are that of Lee, lying south of the Rapidan, and that of Bragg, now superseded by Joseph Johnston, at Dalton, south of Chattanooga. The Confederacy, it is thought, was now in a position in which it might take long to reduce it, but the only military chance for it was concentration on one great counter-stroke. This seems to have been the opinion of Lee and Longstreet. Jefferson Davis clung, even late in the year 1864, to the belief that disaster must somehow overtake any invading Northern army which pushed far. Possibly he reckoned also that the North would weary of the repeated checks in the process of conquest. Indeed, as will be seen later, the North came near to doing so, while a serious invasion of the North, unless overwhelmingly successful, might really have revived its spirit. In any case Jefferson Davis, unlike Lincoln, had no desire to be guided by his best officers. He was for ever quarrelling with Joseph Johnston and often with Beauregard; the less capable Bragg, though removed from the West, was now installed as his chief adviser in Richmond; and the genius of Lee was not encouraged to apply itself to the larger strategy of the war.
At the beginning of 1864 an advance from Chattanooga southward into the heart of the Confederate country was in contemplation. Grant and Farragut wished that it should be supported by a joint military and naval attack upon Mobile, in Alabama, on the Gulf of Mexico. Other considerations on the part of the Government prevented this. In 1863 Marshal Bazaine had invaded Mexico to set up Louis Napoleon's ill-fated client the Archduke Maximilian as Emperor. As the so-called "Monroe Doctrine" (really attributable to the teaching of Hamilton and the action of John Quincy Adams, who was Secretary of State under President Monroe) declared, such an extension of European influence, more especially dynastic influence, on the American continent was highly unacceptable to the United States. Many in the North were much excited, so much so that during 1864 a preposterous resolution, which meant, if anything, war with France, was passed on the motion of one Henry Winter Davis. It was of course the business of Lincoln and of Seward, now moulded to his views, to avoid this disaster, and yet, with such dignity as the situation allowed, keep the French Government aware of the enmity which they might one day incur. They did this. But they apprehended that the French, with a footing for the moment in Mexico, had designs on Texas; and thus, though the Southern forces in Texas were cut off from the rest of the Confederacy and there was no haste for subduing them, it was thought expedient, with an eye on France, to assert the interest of the Union in Texas. General Banks, in Louisiana, was sent to Texas with the forces which would otherwise have been sent to Mobile. His various endeavours ended in May, 1864, with the serious defeat of an expedition up the Red River. This defeat gave great annoyance to the North and made an end of Banks' reputation. It might conceivably have had a calamitous sequel in the capture by the South of Admiral Porter's river flotilla, which accompanied Banks, and the consequent undoing of the conquest of the Mississippi. As it was it wasted much force.
Before Grant could safely launch his forces southward from Chattanooga against Johnston, it was necessary to deal in some way with the Confederate force still at large in Mississippi. Grant determined to do this by the destruction of the railway system by which alone it could move eastward. For this purpose he left Thomas to hold Chattanooga, while Sherman was sent to Meridian, the chief railway centre in the Southern part of Mississippi. In February Sherman arrived there, and, though a subsidiary force, sent from Memphis on a similar but less important errand somewhat further north, met with a severe repulse, he was able unmolested to do such damage to the lines around Meridian as to secure Grant's purpose.
There was yet a further preliminary to the great final struggle. On March 1, 1864, pursuant to an Act of Congress which was necessary for this object, Lincoln conferred upon Grant the rank of Lieutenant-General, never held by any one else since Washington, for it was only brevet rank that was conferred on Scott. Therewith Grant took the command, under the President, of all the Northern armies. Grant came to Washington to receive his new honour. He had taken leave of Sherman in an interchange of letters which it is good to read; but he had intended to return to the West. Sherman, who might have desired the command in the West for himself, had unselfishly pressed him to return. He feared that the dreaded politicians would in some way hurt Grant, and that he would be thwarted by them, become disgusted, and retire; they did hurt him, but not then, nor in the way that Sherman had expected. Grant, however, could trust Sherman to carry out the work he wanted done in the West, and he now saw that, as Lincoln might have told him and possibly did, the work he wanted done in the East must be done by him. He went West again for a few days only, to settle his plans with Sherman. Sherman with his army of 100,000 was to follow Johnston's army of about 60,000, wherever it went, till he destroyed it. Grant with his 120,000 was to keep up an equally unfaltering fight with Lee's army, also of 60,000. There was, of course, nothing original about this conception except the idea, fully present to both men's minds, of the risk and sacrifice with which it was worth while to carry it out. Lincoln and Grant had never met till this month. Grant at the first encounter was evidently somewhat on his guard. He was prepared to like Lincoln, but he was afraid of mistaken dictation from him, and determined to discourage it. Also Stanton had advised him that Lincoln, out of mere good nature, would talk unwisely of any plans discussed with him. This was probably quite unjust. Stanton, in order to keep politicians and officers in their places, was accustomed to bite off the noses of all comers. Lincoln, on the contrary, would talk to all sorts of people with a readiness which was sometimes astonishing, but there was a good deal of method in this—he learnt something from these people all the time—and he certainly had a very great power of keeping his own counsel when he chose. In any case, when Grant at the end of April left Washington for the front, he parted with Lincoln on terms of mutual trust which never afterwards varied. Lincoln in fact, satisfied as to his general purpose, had been happy to leave him to make his plans for himself. He wrote to Grant: "Not expecting to see you again before the spring campaign begins, I wish to express in this way my entire satisfaction with what you have done up to this time so far as I understand it. The particulars of your plan I neither know nor seek to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant, and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any constraints or restraints upon you. While I am very anxious that any great disaster or capture of our men in great numbers shall be avoided, I know these points are less likely to escape your attention than they would be mine. If there is anything wanting which is within my power to give, do not fail to let me know it. And now, with a brave army and a just cause, may God sustain you." Grant replied: "From my first entrance into the volunteer service of the country to the present day I have never had cause of complaint—have never expressed or implied a complaint against the Administration, or the Secretary of War, for throwing any embarrassment in the way of my vigorously prosecuting what appeared to me my duty. Indeed, since the promotion which placed me in command of all the armies, and in view of the great responsibility and importance of success, I have been astonished at the readiness with which everything asked for has been yielded, without even an explanation being asked. Should my success be less than I desire or expect, the least I can say is, the fault is not with you." At this point the real responsibility of Lincoln in regard to military events became comparatively small, and to the end of the war those events may be traced with even less detail than has hitherto been necessary.
Upon joining the Army of the Potomac Grant retained Meade, with whom he was pleased, in a somewhat anomalous position under him as commander of that army. "Wherever Lee goes," he told him, "there you will go too." His object of attack was, in agreement with the opinion which Lincoln had from an early date formed, Lee's army. If Lee could be compelled, or should choose, to shut himself up in Richmond, as did happen, then Richmond would become an object of attack, but not otherwise. Grant, however, hoped that he might force Lee to give him battle in the open. In the open or behind entrenchments, he meant to fight him, reckoning that if he lost double the number that Lee did, his own loss could easily be made up, but Lee's would be irreparable. His hope was to a large extent disappointed. He had to do with a greater general than himself, who, with his men, knew every inch of a tangled country. In the engagements which now followed, Grant's men were constantly being hurled against chosen positions, entrenched and with the new device of wire entanglements in front of them. "I mean," he wrote, "to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." It took summer, autumn, winter, and the early spring. Once across the Rapidan he was in the tract of scrubby jungle called the Wilderness. He had hoped to escape out of this unopposed and at the same time to turn Lee's right by a rapid march to his own left. But he found Lee in his way. On May 5 and 6 there was stubborn and indecisive fighting, with a loss to Grant of 17,660 and to Lee of perhaps over 10,000—from Grant's point of view something gained. Then followed a further movement to the left to out-flank Lee. Again Lee was to be found in the way in a chosen position of his own near Spottsylvania Court House. Here on the five days from May 8 to May 12 the heavy fighting was continued, with a total loss to Grant of over 18,000 and probably a proportionate loss to Lee. Another move by Grant to the left now caused Lee to fall back to a position beyond the North Anna River, on which an attack was made but speedily given up. Further movements in the same general direction, but without any such serious fighting—Grant still endeavouring to turn Lee's right, Lee still moving so as to cover Richmond—brought Grant by the end of the month to Cold Harbour, some ten miles east by north of Richmond, close upon the scene of McClellan's misadventures. Meanwhile Grant had caused an expedition under General Butler to go by sea up the James, and to land a little south of Richmond, which, with the connected fortress of Petersburg, twenty-two miles to the south of it, had only a weak garrison left. Butler was a man with remarkable powers of self-advertisement; he had now a very good chance of taking Petersburg, but his expedition failed totally. From June 1 to June 3 Grant was occupied on the most disastrous enterprise of his career, a hopeless attack upon a strong entrenched position, which, with the lesser encounters that took place within the next few days, cost the North 14,000 men, against a loss to the South which has been put as low as 1,700. It was the one battle which Grant regretted having fought. He gave up the hope of a fight with Lee on advantageous conditions outside Richmond. On June 12 he suddenly moved his army across the James to the neighbourhood of City Point, east of Petersburg. Lee must now stand siege in Richmond and Petersburg. Had he now marched north against Washington, Grant would have been after him and would have secured for his vastly larger force the battle in the open which he had so far vainly sought. Yet another disappointment followed. On July 30 an attempt was made to carry Petersburg by assault immediately after the explosion of an enormous mine. It failed with heavy loss, through the fault of the amiable but injudicious Burnside, who now passed into civil life, and of the officers under him. The siege was to be a long affair. In reality, for all the disappointment, and in spite of Grant's confessed mistake at Cold Harbour, his grim plan was progressing. The force which the South could ill spare was being worn down, and Grant was in a position in which, though he might have got there at less cost, and though the end would not be yet, the end was sure. His army was for the time a good deal shaken, and the estimation in which the West Point officers held him sank low. His own determination was quite unshaken, and, though Lincoln hinted somewhat mildly that these enormous losses ought not to recur, his confidence in Grant was unabated, too.
People in Washington who had watched all this with alternations of feeling that ended in dejection had had another trial to their nerves early in July. The Northern General Sigel, who commanded in the lower part of the Shenandoah Valley, protecting the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, had marched southward in June in pursuance of a subsidiary part of Grant's scheme, but in a careless and rather purposeless manner. General Early, detached by Lee to deal with him, defeated him; outmanoeuvred and defeated General Hunter, who was sent to supersede him; overwhelmed with superior force General Lew Wallace, who stood in his way further on; and upon July 11 appeared before Washington itself. The threat to Washington had been meant as no more than a threat, but the garrison was largely made up of recruits; reinforcements to it sent back by Grant arrived only on the same day as Early, and if that enterprising general had not wasted some previous days there might have been a chance that he could get into Washington, though not that he could hold it. As it was he attacked one of the Washington forts. Lincoln was present, exhibiting, till the officers there insisted on his retiring, the indifference to personal danger which he showed on other occasions too. The attack was soon given up, and in a few days Early had escaped back across the Potomac, leaving in Grant's mind a determination that the Shenandoah Valley should cease to be so useful to the South.
Sherman set out from Chattanooga on the day when Grant crossed the Rapidan. Joseph Johnston barred his way in one entrenched position after another. Sherman, with greater caution than Grant, or perhaps with greater facilities of ground, manoeuvred him out of each position in turn, pushing him slowly back along the line of the railway towards Atlanta, the great manufacturing centre of Georgia, one hundred and twenty miles south by east from Chattanooga. Only once, towards the end of June at Kenesaw Mountain, some twenty miles north of Atlanta, did he attack Johnston's entrenchments, causing himself some unnecessary loss and failing in his direct attack on them, but probably thinking it necessary to show that he would attack whenever needed. Johnston has left a name as a master of defensive warfare, and doubtless delayed and hampered Sherman as much as he could. Jefferson Davis angrily and unwisely sent General Hood to supersede him. This less prudent officer gave battle several times, bringing up the Confederate loss before Atlanta fell to 34,000 against 30,000 on the other side, and being, by great skill on Sherman's part, compelled to evacuate Atlanta on September 2.
By this time there had occurred the last and most brilliant exploit of old Admiral Farragut, who on August 5 in a naval engagement of extraordinarily varied incident, had possessed himself of the harbour of Mobile, with its forts, though the town remained as a stronghold in Confederate hands and prevented a junction with Sherman which would have quite cut the Confederacy in two.