While Lee was watching the Charles City and Newmarket roads, north of the James, expecting Grant in that direction, Butler sent General Terry, with a portion of the Tenth Corps, on a reconnoissance in front of Bermuda Hundred. Terry encountered the Rebel pickets, drove them in, reached the main line, attacked vigorously, broke through, carrying all before him, and pushed on to the railroad at Port Walthall Junction, cut down the telegraph, and tore up the track.
This was an advantage not expected by Grant, who at once ordered two divisions of the Sixth Corps, under Wright, to report to Butler at Bermuda Hundred; but that officer, instead of moving rapidly, advanced leisurely, and even halted awhile.
Terry was attacked by A. P. Hill and obliged to fall back. Grant had the mortification of learning in the evening that, through the dilatory movements of the troops under Smith and Wright, his plans had failed.
In the counsels of the Almighty the time for final victory had not come. God reigns, but men act freely nevertheless. There have been numerous instances during the war where great events hung on little things. An interesting chapter might be written of the occasions where the scales were seemingly evenly balanced, and where, to the eye of faith, the breath of the Almighty turned them for the time.
At Bull Run the victory was lost to the Union arms through the mistake of Captain Barry.[67] At Pittsburg Landing, if Johnston had attacked from the northwest instead of the southwest,—if he had deflected his army a mile,—far different, in all human probability, would have been the result of that battle.
Was the arrival of the Monitor in Hampton Roads on that morning, after the havoc made by the Merrimac, accidental? How providential rather! How singular, if not a providence, that the wind should blow so wildly from the southwest on that night of the withdrawal of the army from Fredericksburg, wafting the rumbling of Burnside's artillery and the tramp of a hundred thousand men away from the listening ears of the enemy within close musket-shot! Events which turn the scales according to our desires we are inclined to count as special providences: but the disaster at Bull Run, the sitting down of McClellan in the mud at Yorktown; the lost opportunities for moving upon Richmond after Williamsburg and Fair Oaks; also, while the battle was raging at Gaines's Mills and at Glendale; the pusillanimous retreat from Malvern; the inaction at Antietam; Hooker's retreat from Chancellorsville,—from Lee, who also was in retreat,—are inexplicable events. Meade's waiting at Boonsboro, Lee's escape, Gillmore's unexplained turning back from Petersburg, Wright's halting when everything depended on haste, Smith's delay,—all of these are mysterious providences to us, though to the Rebels they were at the time plain interpositions of God. God's system is reciprocal; everything has its use, everything is for a purpose. We read blindly, but to reason and faith there can be but one result,—the establishment of justice and righteousness between man and man and his Maker. There must be a righting of every wrong, an atonement for every crime.
"The laws of changeless justice bind
Oppressor with oppressed;
And, close as sin and suffering joined,
We march to fate abreast."
It must have been evident to most observers, that as the war progressed men were brought to a recognition of God, as an overruling power in the mighty conflict. In the first uprising of the people there was pure, intense patriotism. The battle of Bull Run stung the loyal masses of the North, and filled them with a determination to redeem their tarnished honor. The failure of the Peninsular campaigns, the terrible disasters in 1862, crushed and bruised men's spirits. They began to talk of giving freedom to the slave as well as of the restoration of the Union.
"My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery," wrote President Lincoln to Horace Greeley, August 22d, 1862, reflecting doubtless the feelings of nearly a majority of the people. Whittier had already expressed, in the lines quoted on pages 41, 42, the feelings of those who saw that slavery or the nation must die.
Two years passed, and Abraham Lincoln gave utterance to other sentiments in his second inaugural address to the people. Disaster, suffering, a view of Gettysburg battle-field, the consecration of that cemetery as the hallowed resting-place of the patriotic dead, had given him a clear insight of God's truth. Thus spoke he from the steps of the Capitol:—