The Confederate line of communications, so the President believed, ran from Richmond to Culpeper Court House, and McClellan’s advanced guards, on November 7, were within twenty miles of that point. Lee, however, had altogether failed to respond to Mr. Lincoln’s strategical pronouncements. Instead of concentrating his forces he had dispersed them; and instead of fearing for his own communications, he had placed Jackson in a position to interfere very seriously with those of his enemy.
Mr. Lincoln’s letter to McClellan shows that the lessons of the war had not been altogether lost upon him. Generals Banks and Pope, with some stimulus from Stonewall Jackson, had taught him what an important part is played by lines of supply. He had mastered the strategical truism that an enemy’s communications are his weakest point. But there were other considerations which had not come home to him. He had overlooked the possibility that Lee might threaten McClellan’s communications before McClellan could threaten his; and he had yet to learn that an army operating in its own country, if proper forethought be exercised, can establish an alternative line of supply, and provide itself with a double base, thus gaining a freedom of action of which an invader, bound, unless he has command of the sea, to a single line, is generally deprived.
The President appears to have thought that, if Lee were cut off from Richmond, the Army of Northern Virginia would be reduced to starvation, and become absolutely powerless. It never entered his head that the astute commander of that army had already, in anticipation of the very movement which McClellan was now making, established a second base at Staunton, and that his line of supply, in case of necessity, would not run over the open country between Richmond and Gordonsville, but from Staunton to Culpeper, behind the ramparts of the Blue Ridge.
Lee, in fact, accepted with equanimity the possibility of the Federals intervening between himself and Richmond. He had already, in the campaign against Pope, extricated himself from such a situation by a bold stroke against his enemy’s communications; and the natural fastness of the Valley, amply provided with food and forage, afforded facilities for such a manœuvre which had been altogether absent before the Second Manassas. Nor was he of Mr. Lincoln’s opinion, that if the Army of Northern Virginia cut in between Washington and McClellan it would be a simple operation for the latter to about face and attack the Confederates in rear. He knew, and Mr. Lincoln, if he had studied Pope’s campaign, should have known it too, that the operation of countermarching, if the line of communication has been cut, is not only apt to produce great confusion and great suffering, but has the very worst effect on the moral of the troops. But Lee had that practical experience which Mr. Lincoln lacked, and without which it is but waste of words to dogmatise on strategy. He was well aware that a large army is a cumbrous machine, not readily deflected from the original direction of the line of march;[[1]] and, more than all, he had that intimate acquaintance with the soldier in the ranks, that knowledge of the human factor, without which no military problem, whether of strategy, tactics, or organisation, can be satisfactorily solved. McClellan’s task, therefore, so long as he had to depend for his supplies on a single line of railway, was not quite so simple as Mr. Lincoln imagined.
Nevertheless, on November 7 Lee decided to unite his army. As soon as the enemy advanced from Warrenton, Jackson was to ascend the Valley, and crossing the Blue Ridge at Fisher’s Gap, join hands with Longstreet, who would retire from Madison Court House to the vicinity of Gordonsville. The Confederates would then be concentrated on McClellan’s right flank should he march on Richmond, ready to take advantage of any opportunity for attack; or, if attack were considered too hazardous, to threaten his communications, and compel him to fall back to the Potomac.
The proposed concentration, however, was not immediately carried out. In the first place, the Federal advance came to a sudden standstill; and, in the second place, Jackson was unwilling to abandon his post of vantage behind the Blue Ridge. It need hardly be said that the policy of manœuvring instead of intrenching, of aiming at the enemy’s flank and rear instead of barring his advance directly, was in full agreement with his views of war; and it appears that about this date he had submitted proposals for a movement against the Federal communications. It would be interesting indeed to have the details of his design, but Jackson’s letter-book for this period has unfortunately disappeared, nor did he communicate his ideas to any of his staff. Letters from General Lee, however, indicate that the manœuvre proposed was of the same character as that which brought Pope in such hot haste from the Rappahannock to Bull Run, and that it was Jackson’s suggestion which caused the Commander-in-Chief to reconsider his determination of uniting his army.
“As long as General Jackson,” wrote Lee to the Secretary of War on November 10, “can operate with safety, and secure his retirement west of the Massanutton Mountains, I think it advantageous that he should be in a position to threaten the enemy’s flank and rear, and thus prevent his advance southward on the east side of the Blue Ridge. General Jackson has been directed accordingly, and should the enemy descend into the Valley, General Longstreet will attack his rear, and cut off his communications. The enemy apparently is so strong in numbers that I think it preferable to baffle his designs by manœuvring, rather than resist his advance by main force, To accomplish the latter without too great a risk and loss would require more than double our present numbers.”[[2]]
His letter to Jackson, dated November 9, ran as follows: “The enemy seems to be massing his troops along the Manassas Railroad in the vicinity of Piedmont, which gives him great facilities for bringing up supplies from Alexandria. It has occurred to me that his object may be to seize upon Strasburg with his main force, to intercept your ascent of the Valley. . . . This would oblige you to cross into the Lost River Valley, or west of it, unless you could force a passage through the Blue Ridge; hence my anxiety for your safety. If you can prevent such a movement of the enemy, and operate strongly on his flank and rear through the gaps of the Blue Ridge, you would certainly in my opinion effect the object you propose. A demonstration of crossing into Maryland would serve the same purpose, and might call him back to the Potomac. As my object is to retard and baffle his designs, if it can be accomplished by manœuvring your corps as you propose, it will serve my purpose as well as if effected in any other way. With this understanding, you can use your discretion, which I know I can rely upon, in remaining or advancing up the Valley. Keep me advised of your movements and intentions; and you must keep always in view the probability of an attack upon Richmond from either north or south, when a concentration of force will become necessary.”[[3]]
Jackson’s plan, however, was not destined to be tried. McClellan had issued orders for the concentration of his army at Warrenton. His troops had never been in better condition. They were in good spirits, well supplied and admirably equipped. Owing to the activity of his cavalry, coupled with the fact that the Confederate horses were at this time attacked by a disease which affected both tongue and hoof, his information was more accurate than usual. He knew that Longstreet was at Culpeper, and Jackson in the Valley. He saw the possibility of separating the two wings of the enemy’s forces, and of either defeating Longstreet or forcing him to fall back to Gordonsville, and he had determined to make the attempt.
On the night of November 7, however, at the very moment when his army was concentrating for an advance against Longstreet, McClellan was ordered to hand over his command to General Burnside. Lincoln had yielded to the insistence of McClellan’s political opponents, to the rancour of Stanton, and the jealousy of Halleck. But in sacrificing the general who had saved the Union at Sharpsburg he sacrificed the lives of many thousands of his soldiers. A darker day than even the Second Manassas was in store for the Army of the Potomac. McClellan was not a general of the first order. But he was the only officer in the United States who had experience of handling large masses of troops, and he was improving every day. Stuart had taught him the use of cavalry, and Lee the value of the initiative. He was by no means deficient in resolution, as his march with an army of recently defeated men against Lee in Maryland conclusively proves; and although he had never won a decisive victory, he possessed, to a degree which was never attained by any of his successors, the confidence and affection of his troops. But deplorable as was the weakness which sanctioned his removal on the eve of a decisive manœuvre, the blunder which put Burnside in his place was even more so. The latter appears to have been the protégé of a small political faction. He had many good qualities. He was a firm friend, modest, generous, and energetic. But he was so far from being distinguished for military ability that in the Army of the Potomac it was very strongly questioned whether he was fit to command an army corps. His conduct at Sharpsburg, where he had been entrusted with the attack on the Confederate right, had been the subject of the severest criticism, and by not a few of his colleagues he was considered directly responsible for the want of combination which had marred McClellan’s plan of attack. More than once Mr. Lincoln infringed his own famous aphorism, “Never swap horses when crossing a stream,” but when he transferred the destinies of the Army of the Potomac from McClellan to Burnside he did more—he selected the weakest of his team of generals to bear the burden.