Chapter XXIII
CHANCELLORSVILLE
It has already been said that while the Army of Northern Virginia lay in winter quarters the omens did not point to decisive success in the forthcoming campaign. During the same period that Lincoln and Stanton, taught by successive disasters, had ceased to interfere with their generals, Jefferson Davis and Mr. Seddon, his new Secretary of War, had taken into their own hands the complete control of military operations. The results appeared in the usual form: on the Northern side, unity of purpose and concentration; on the Southern, uncertainty of aim and dispersion. In the West the Confederate generals were fatally hampered by the orders of the President. In the East the Army of Northern Virginia, confronted by a mass of more than 130,000 foes, was deprived of three of Longstreet’s divisions; and when, at the end of April, it was reported that Hooker was advancing, it was absolutely impossible that this important detachment could rejoin in time to assist in the defence of the Rappahannock.
A full discussion of the Chancellorsville campaign does not fall within the scope of this biography, but in justice to the Southern generals—to Lee who resolved to stand his ground, and to Jackson who approved the resolution—it must be explained that they were in no way responsible for the absence of 20,000 veterans. Undoubtedly the situation on the Atlantic littoral was sufficiently embarrassing to the Confederate authorities. The presence of a Federal force at New Berne, in North Carolina, threatened the main line of railway by which Wilmington and Charleston communicated with Richmond, and these two ports were of the utmost importance to the Confederacy. So enormous were the profits arising from the exchange of munitions of war and medicines[[1]] for cotton and tobacco that English ship-owners embarked eagerly on a lucrative if precarious traffic. Blockade-running became a recognised business. Companies were organised which possessed large fleets of swift steamers. The Bahamas and Bermuda became vast entrepôts of trade. English seamen were not to be deterred from a perilous enterprise by fear of Northern broadsides or Northern prisons, and despite the number and activity of the blockading squadrons the cordon of cruisers and gunboats was constantly broken. Many vessels were sunk, many captured, many wrecked on a treacherous coast, and yet enormous quantities of supplies found their way to the arsenals and magazines of Richmond and Atlanta. The railways, then, leading from Wilmington and Charleston, the ports most accessible to the blockade-runners, were almost essential to the existence of the Confederacy. Soon after the battle of Fredericksburg, General D. H. Hill was placed in command of the forces which protected them, and, at the beginning of the New Year, Ransom’s division[[2]] was drawn from the Rappahannock to reinforce the local levies. A few weeks later[[3]] General Lee was induced by Mr. Seddon to send Longstreet, with the divisions of Hood and Pickett,[[4]] to cover Richmond, which was menaced both from Fortress Monroe and Suffolk.[[5]]
The Commander-in-Chief, however, while submitting to this detachment as a necessary evil, had warned General Longstreet so to dispose his troops that they could return to the Rappahannock at the first alarm. “The enemy’s position,” he wrote, “on the sea-coast had been probably occupied merely for purposes of defence, it was likely that they were strongly intrenched, and nothing would be gained by attacking them.”
The warning, however, was disregarded; and that Mr. Seddon should have yielded, in the first instance, to the influence of the sea-power, exciting apprehensions of sudden attack along the whole seaboard of the Confederacy, may be forgiven him. Important lines of communication were certainly exposed. But when, in defiance of Lee’s advice that the divisions should be retained within easy reach of Fredericksburg, he suggested to Longstreet the feasibility of an attack on Suffolk, one hundred and twenty miles distant from the Rappahannock, he committed an unpardonable blunder.
Had Jackson been in Longstreet’s place, the Secretary’s proposal, however promising of personal renown, would unquestionably have been rejected. The leader who had kept the main object so steadfastly in view throughout the Valley campaign would never have overlooked the expressed wishes of the Commander-in-Chief. Longstreet, however, brilliant fighting soldier as he was, appears to have misconceived the duties of a detached force. He was already prejudiced in favour of a movement against Suffolk. Before he left for his new command, he had suggested to Lee that one army corps only should remain on the Rappahannock, while the other operated south of Richmond; and soon after his arrival he urged upon his superior that, in case Hooker moved, the Army of Northern Virginia should retire to the North Anna. In short, to his mind the operations of the main body should be made subservient to those of the detached force; Lee, with 30,000 men, holding Hooker’s 130,000 in check until Longstreet had won his victory and could march north to join him. Such strategy was not likely to find favour at headquarters. It was abundantly evident, in the first place, that the Army of Northern Virginia must be the principal objective of the Federals; and, in the second place, that the defeat of the force of Suffolk, if it were practicable, would have no effect whatever upon Hooker’s action, except insomuch that his knowledge of Longstreet’s absence might quicken his resolution to advance. Had Suffolk been a point vital to the North the question would have assumed a different shape. As it was, the town merely covered a tract of conquered territory, the Norfolk dockyard, and the mouth of the James River. The Confederates would gain little by its capture; the Federals would hardly feel its loss. It was most improbable that a single man of Hooker’s army would be detached to defend a point of such comparative insignificance, and it was quite possible that Longstreet would be unable to get back in time to meet him, even on the North Anna. General Lee, however, anxious as ever to defer to the opinions of the man on the spot, as well as to meet the wishes of the Government, yielded to Longstreet’s insistence that a fine opportunity for an effective blow presented itself, and in the first week of April the latter marched against Suffolk.
April 17 His movement was swift and sudden. But, as Lee had anticipated, the Federal position was strongly fortified, with the flanks secure, and Longstreet had no mind to bring matters to a speedy conclusion. “He could reduce the place,” he wrote on April 17, “in two or three days, but the expenditure of ammunition would be very large; or he could take it by assault, but at a cost of 3,000 men.”