Longstreet had been near by when Grant attacked and defeated Bragg at Chattanooga, and also thought that victory was largely due to overwhelming numbers and Bragg’s incapacity to perceive the impending storm. Longstreet wrote to General Lee from East Tennessee, some time in the winter of 1863–64, that he need have no fear of Grant, then presumptively booked for the Army of the Potomac; that he was overestimated, largely from his prestige acquired against inferior commanders, etc. But in the very beginning of the Wilderness campaign in 1864 the commander of the First Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia saw a power displayed in manœuvring the Army of the Potomac which the Confederates had never met before. There is no doubt that General Lee himself appreciated that he had a new and puzzling force to deal with. At the Wilderness Lee assumed the offensive the moment Grant crossed the Rapidan, essaying the same tactics that had been practised upon Hooker at Chancellorsville, but he failed. The Confederates withstood Grant in the Wilderness, but it was the last time General Lee attempted a general offensive. This was somewhat due to his inferior numbers and waning morale, but it was mainly because of Grant’s presence. The year before, after what was practically a drawn battle at Chancellorsville, Hooker, with double Lee’s force, withdrew across the river. He had between twenty-five thousand and thirty thousand men who had scarcely fired a gun in battle. Grant, with fewer men than Hooker, fought a larger Confederate army at the Wilderness. It, too, was no more than a drawn battle, yet Grant had no thought of recrossing the river to recuperate. He moved forward and immediately put General Lee on the defensive.
General Lee at last realized that the Confederacy’s only hope was defensive battle, and his fame as a General will rest wholly on that campaign. If he had persisted in the tactics employed against Hooker and Pope and McClellan, his army would have been destroyed in ten days after the Wilderness. Grant really had the Army of Northern Virginia on the go on the morning of the 6th of May; it was saved from utter rout only by the timely arrival of the First Corps, which rolled back Hancock’s victorious lines upon the Brock road and beyond.
CHAPTER IV
PLEASANT INCIDENTS OF CAMP LIFE AT CORPUS CHRISTI
The reunion at Corpus Christi made a deep impression upon the fledglings of the service. The long encampment there formed a green spot in the memory of the little army that bore our colors in triumph to the city of Mexico.
Among General Longstreet’s pleasant memories of camp life at Corpus Christi was a rude theatre erected by a joint stock company of the young officers, who acted in the plays produced on its boards, taking both male and female parts. Many roaring comedies were billed, and cheered the garrison from time to time. The enlisted men were of course permitted to pay the entrance fee and see the best that was going. General Worth was always a delighted auditor, General Taylor occasionally honored the entertainments with his presence, and General Twiggs rarely. After exhausting the field of comedy and having already reimbursed themselves for all outlays, the officers concluded to enter the more expensive and difficult field of tragedy. The first play chosen was the Moor of Venice. Lieutenant Porter, brother of Admiral Porter, was assigned the part of Othello, whilst Lieutenant Longstreet was nominated for Desdemona; but upon inspection the manager protested that six feet dignified in crinoline would not answer even for a tragic heroine. So Longstreet was discarded and Grant substituted. Finally, after a rehearsal or two, Grant, too, had to give way under protests of Porter that male tragediennes could not give the proper sentiment to the play. Then the officers “chipped in” and sent to New Orleans for a real actress, and thereafter all went well. The play was pulled off eventually with as much éclat as followed General Taylor’s first victory a few months later on the Rio Grande.
A volume could be filled with incidents of those sunny days on the Mexican Gulf, the incipient stage of the first campaign in real war for the young officers. They gave little heed of the morrow. Their pay was small, but their requirements were on even a less scale. There was a good deal of drilling, but otherwise their duties were far from onerous. A large proportion of the cadets Longstreet had known at West Point from 1838 to 1842 were there congregated, and old associations were renewed. Of course, all these officers were not intimates, but nearly all were personal acquaintances on the most friendly footing. Every one brought his share to the common aggregate of interest and pleasure.
Among the officers there collected who afterwards became prominent in the Union and Confederate armies, in addition to those already mentioned, were William J. Hardee, Thomas Jordan, John C. Pemberton, Braxton Bragg, Earl Van Dorn, Samuel G. French, Richard H. Anderson, Robert S. Garnett, Barnard E. Bee, Bushrod R. Johnson, Abram C. Myers, Lafayette McLaws, and E. Kirby Smith, of the Confederate service; and J. K. F. Mansfield, George G. Meade, Don Carlos Buell, George H. Thomas, N. J. T. Dana, Charles F. Smith, Joseph J. Reynolds, John F. Reynolds, Abner Doubleday, Alfred Pleasanton, Thomas J. Wood, Seth Williams, and George Sykes, distinguished Union generals in the Civil War. There were many others too numerous to mention. Longstreet afterwards met many of these officers as mortal foes on the field of battle. He served with others in the Confederate armies, and others served under him. McLaws and Pickett were long fighting division commanders in his corps.
Robert E. Lee, George B. McClellan, G. T. Beauregard, and Joseph E. Johnston were not with Taylor, and they and others, notably E. R. S. Canby, Isaac I. Stevens, and John G. Foster, did not join the army until Scott’s campaign opened in 1847, though it appears that Lee was with General Wool’s column in the movement towards Chihuahua. They were among the great names of the subsequent Civil War. Jefferson Davis, colonel of the Mississippi Rifles, joined Taylor after Scott had withdrawn the regulars, but in time to turn the tide of battle at Buena Vista. Altogether it was a brilliant roster. They were all graduates of the Military Academy. Of all the officers collected at Corpus Christi, it is doubtful if there is to-day a score of survivors. A large number were killed in action. A far greater number died of disease in the Mexican or Civil War campaigns.
Besides the long list of West Pointers, there were at Corpus Christi many regulars appointed from civil life, meritorious officers who afterwards made their mark. One of these was Lawrence P. Graham, a Virginian, already a captain in the Second Dragoons. He was some six years Longstreet’s senior. After Mexico Graham stuck to the old army, rose to the colonelcy of the Fourth Cavalry in 1864, and was a Union brigadier of volunteers. He had been in the army nearly ten years when the Mexican War broke out. He still survives at the green old age of eighty-eight, a retired colonel since 1870, thirty-three years. He has been carried on the rolls of the United States army nearly sixty-seven years. That is one of the rewards for having been lucky enough to espouse the winning side in 1861. But self-interest had little to do with the choice of sides; conscience pointed the way in that hour of passion.