There was but one thing they had overlooked, and that was that their host would require intelligent control. So complete was the mechanism, so simple a matter it appeared to set the machine in motion, and to keep it in the right course, that they believed that their untutored hands, guided by common-sense and sound abilities, were perfectly capable of guiding it, without mishap, to the appointed goal. Men who, aware of their ignorance, would probably have shrunk from assuming charge of a squad of infantry in action, had no hesitation whatever in attempting to direct a mighty army, a task which Napoleon has assured us requires profound study, incessant application, and wide experience.[[4]]
They were in fact ignorant—and how many statesmen, and even soldiers, are in like case?—that strategy, the art of manœuvring armies, is an art in itself, an art which none may master by the light of nature, but to which, if he is to attain success, a man must serve a long apprenticeship.
The rules of strategy are few and simple. They may be learned in a week. They may be taught by familiar illustrations or a dozen diagrams. But such knowledge will no more teach a man to lead an army like Napoleon than a knowledge of grammar will teach him to write like Gibbon. Lincoln, when the army he had so zealously toiled to organise, reeled back in confusion from Virginia, set himself to learn the art of war. He collected, says his biographer, a great library of military books; and, if it were not pathetic, it would be almost ludicrous, to read of the great President, in the midst of his absorbing labours and his ever-growing anxieties, poring night after night, when his capital was asleep, over the pages of Jomini and Clausewitz. And what was the result? In 1864, when Grant was appointed to the command of the Union armies, he said: “I neither ask nor desire to know anything of your plans. Take the responsibility and act, and call on me for assistance.” He had learned at last that no man is a born strategist.
The mistakes of Lincoln and Stanton are not to be condoned by pointing to McClellan.
McClellan designed the plan for the invasion of Virginia, and the plan failed. But this is not to say that the plan was in itself a bad one. Nine times out of ten it would have succeeded. In many respects it was admirable. It did away with a long line of land communications, passing through a hostile country. It brought the naval power of the Federals into combination with the military. It secured two great waterways, the York and the James, by which the army could be easily supplied, which required no guards, and by which heavy ordnance could be brought up to bombard the fortifications of Richmond. But it had one flaw. It left Washington, in the opinion of the President and of the nation, insecure; and this flaw, which would have escaped the notice of an ordinary enemy, was at once detected by Lee and Jackson. Moreover, had McClellan been left in control of the whole theatre of war, Jackson’s manœuvres would probably have failed to produce so decisive an effect. The fight at Kernstown would not have induced McClellan to strike 40,000 men off the strength of the invading army. He had not been deceived when Jackson threatened Harper’s Ferry at the end of May. The reinforcements sent from Richmond after Port Republic had not blinded him, nor did he for a moment believe that Washington was in actual danger. There is this, however, to be said: had McClellan been in sole command, public opinion, alarmed for Washington, would have possibly compelled him to do exactly what Lincoln did, and to retain nearly half the army on the Potomac.
So much for the leading of civilians. On the other hand, the failure of the Federals to concentrate more than 105,000 men at the decisive point, and even to establish those 105,000 in a favourable position, was mainly due to the superior strategy of the Confederates. Those were indeed skilful manœuvres which prevented McDowell from marching to the Chickahominy; and, at the critical moment, when Lee was on the point of attacking McClellan, which drew McDowell, Banks, and Frémont on a wild-goose chase towards Charlottesville. The weak joint in the enemy’s armour, the national anxiety for Washington, was early recognised. Kernstown induced Lincoln, departing from the original scheme of operations, to form four independent armies, each acting on a different line. Two months later, when McClellan was near Richmond it was of essential importance that the move of these armies should be combined, Jackson once more intervened; Banks was driven across the Potomac, and again the Federal concentration was postponed. Lastly, the battles of Cross Keys and Port Republic, followed by the dispatch of Whiting and Lawton to the Valley, led the Northern President to commit his worst mistake. For the second time the plan of campaign was changed, and McClellan was left isolated at the moment he most needed help.
The brains of two great leaders had done more for the Confederacy than 200,000 soldiers had done for the Union. Without quitting his desk, and leaving the execution of his plans to Jackson, Lee had relieved Richmond of the pressure of 70,000 Federals, and had lured the remainder into the position he most wished to find them. The Confederacy, notwithstanding the enormous disparity of force, had once more gained the upper hand; and from this instance, as from a score of others, it may be deduced that Providence is more inclined to side with the big brains than with the big battalions.
It was not mere natural ability that had triumphed. Lee, in this respect, was assuredly not more highly gifted than Lincoln, or Jackson than McClellan. But, whether by accident or design, Davis had selected for command of the Confederate army, and had retained in the Valley, two past masters in the art of strategy. If it was accident he was singularly favoured by fortune. He might have selected many soldiers of high rank and long service, who would have been as innocent of strategical skill as Lincoln himself. His choice might have fallen on the most dashing leader, the strictest disciplinarian, the best drill, in the Confederate army; and yet the man who united all these qualities might have been altogether ignorant of the higher art of war. Mr. Davis himself had been a soldier. He was a graduate of West Point, and in the Mexican campaign he had commanded a volunteer regiment with much distinction. But as a director of military operations he was a greater marplot than even Stanton. It by no means follows that because a man has lived his life in camp and barrack, has long experience of command, and even long experience of war, that he can apply the rules of strategy before the enemy. In the first place he may lack the character, the inflexible resolution, the broad grasp, the vivid imagination, the power of patient thought, the cool head, and, above all, the moral courage. In the second place, there are few schools where strategy may be learned, and, in any case, a long and laborious course of study is the only means of acquiring the capacity to handle armies and outwit an equal adversary. The light of common-sense alone is insufficient; nor will a few months’ reading give more than a smattering of knowledge.
“Read and re-read,” said Napoleon, “the eighty-eight campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, Gustavus, Turenne, Eugène, and Frederick. Take them as your models, for it is the only means of becoming a great leader, and of mastering the secrets of the art of war. Your intelligence, enlightened by such study, will then reject methods contrary to those adopted by these great men.”
In America, as elsewhere, it had not been recognised before the Civil War, even by the military authorities, that if armies are to be handled with success they must be directed by trained strategists. No Kriegsakademie or its equivalent existed in the United States, and the officers whom common-sense induced to follow the advice of Napoleon had to pursue their studies by themselves. To these the campaigns of the great Emperor offered an epitome of all that had gone before; the campaigns of Washington explained how the principles of the art might be best applied to their own country, and Mexico had supplied them with practical experience. Of the West Point graduates there were many who had acquired from these sources a wide knowledge of the art of generalship, and among them were no more earnest students than the three Virginians, Lee, Jackson, and Johnston.