Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar / Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War

by James Harrison Wilson

This arrangement, as might have been foreseen, was fatal to coherent and prompt co-operative action, and the result was properly described by Grant himself as comparable only to the work of a "balky team." It was in the nature of things impossible to make either the armies or the separate army-corps work harmoniously and effectively together. The orders issued from the different headquarters were necessarily lacking in uniformity of style and expression, and failed to secure that prompt and unfailing obedience that in operations extending over so wide and difficult a field was absolutely essential, and this was entirely independent of the merits of the different generals or the peculiarities of their Chiefs of Staff and Adjutants General. The forces were too great; they were scattered too widely over the field of operations; the conditions of the roads, the width of the streams and the broken and wooded features of the battle fields were too various, and the means of transport and supply were too inadequate to permit of simultaneous and synchronous movements, even if they had been intelligently provided for, and the generals had uniformly done their best to carry them out.

But when it is considered that Grant's own staff, although presided over by a very able man from civil life, and containing a number of zealous and experienced officers from both the regular army and the volunteers, was not organized for the arrangement of the multifarious details and combinations of the marches and battles of a great campaign, and indeed under Grant's special instructions made no efforts to arrange them, it will be apparent that properly co-ordinated movements could not be counted upon. When it is further considered that Meade, Burnside, Butler, Hunter and afterwards Sheridan, as well as the corps commanders, were left almost invariably to work out the details for themselves, it will be seen that prompt, orderly, simultaneous and properly co-operating movements on an extended scale, from different parts of the same theatre of operations, and that properly combined marches and battle movements were almost impossible. As a fact they rarely ever took place, and it is not to be wondered at that the best officers of every grade in the armies operating in Virginia found much throughout the campaign, from beginning to end, to criticise and complain of. Nor is it to be thought strange that many of their best movements were successful rather because of good luck than of good management, or failed rather because of their defective execution, than by the enemy's better arrangements or superior generalship, though it is evident that the Confederates kept their forces better in hand and operated more in masses than did the Union generals. Their organizations were simpler and more compact, their generals were better chosen and better supported. Operating generally on the defensive and fighting behind breastworks whenever it was possible, it was all the more necessary to bring overwhelming forces to bear against them, in order to ensure their final overthrow. In addition to the defective organization and inefficient staff arrangements which have been mentioned, neither the Union government nor the Union generals ever made provisions, or seemed to understand the necessity, for a sufficient preponderance of force, to neutralize the advantages which the Confederate armies enjoyed, when fighting on the defensive, or to render victory over them reasonably certain.

Looking back over the long series of partial victories, vexatious delays and humiliating failures, and considering the inadequate organization and defective staff arrangements for which Grant was mainly responsible, it is evident that the terrible losses in the Union army in the overland campaign were due quite as frequently to the latter causes as to incompetency or lack of vigor on the part of the subordinate commanders. The blind grapplings in the forests of the Wilderness could not be helped, when both armies were marching through it, for they could not see each other through the tangled underbrush till they were almost face to face, but it is now certain that if the marches of the Union army corps had been properly timed and properly conducted, they could have reached the open country before the Confederate corps could have engaged them. But when the senseless assaults of fortified positions, which occurred in endless succession, from Spottsylvania Court House to Petersburg are considered, it will be impossible to find sufficient excuse for them. They were in nearly every case the direct result of defective staff arrangements and the lack of proper prevision. In a few instances they were due to positive incompetency on the part of subordinate commanders, while on several notable occasions there was a woeful lack of responsible oversight and supervision on the part of those whose duty it should have been to exercise both. Before the campaign was half over it had come to be an axiom among both officers and men that a well-defended rifle trench could not be carried by a direct attack without the most careful preparation nor even then without fearful loss. Such undertakings were far too costly, and far too frequently ended in failure, to justify them when they could be avoided. But no experience, however frequent or bloody, no remonstrance however forcible, could eradicate the practice of resorting to them occasionally. Rawlins was utterly opposed to them and never failed to inveigh against them but the advice of more than one trusted and influential staff officer was uniformly in favor of assaulting fortified positions. The favorite refrain at general headquarters is said to have been "Smash `em up! Smash `em up!"

It was with special reference to the application of this method of procedure at Cold Harbor, that General Smith afterwards gave vent to his indignation in words of the bitterest criticism. It will be remembered that the entire army confronting the enemy had advanced on that fatal day in compliance with a general order to attack "all along the line," which was done in a half-hearted, desultory manner, foreboding failure and defeat. Not a soul among the generals or in the fighting line dreamed of success and not a commander from highest to lowest except Smith and Upton, made any adequate preparation to achieve it. Officers and men alike felt that they had been ordered to a sure defeat. Knowing intuitively what awaited them, they wrote their names on scraps of paper and pinned them to their coats in order that their bodies might be identified after the slaughter was over. This done they advanced in long and wavering lines of blue against the enemy's bristling breastworks and rifle pits, and were mowed down like ripe grain before the scythe. In almost as short a time as it takes to recount the useless sacrifice, over twelve thousand Union soldiers were killed and wounded, without shaking the enemy's position or inflicting serious injury upon him.

Smith and his gallant corps, did their part bravely in the futile attack. They were just back from Butler's abortive movement to Bermuda Hundred, in which by good management on the part of the General, and by steadiness on the part of the men, they had saved the expedition from a disgraceful defeat. They were not only hungry and tired, but disgusted with the incompetency of Butler and his abortive plans. The situation which confronted them was most discouraging. They were on new and unknown ground, but they had not yet worn themselves out against Lee's veterans and therefore they cheerfully took the position assigned them. Smith with his usual foresight and deliberation made haste to examine the ground in his front, and by availing himself of the advantages which his trained eye soon detected he was enabled to direct his main attack along a sheltering depression against a weak point, where he reached and broke through the enemy's line. He needed only the prompt and vigorous support that intelligent prevision and co-operation would have given, to make his lodgement safe and his victory certain. But as no one above him seems to have expected victory, no proper provision was made to ensure it. No supports were at hand. Each corps commander was looking out for his own front only, and not for his neighbor's. The Confederates were more wise and more alert, and seeing the danger which threatened the continuity of their line, made haste to concentrate their forces against Smith and of course hurled him back with terrible loss.

Smarting under this unnecessary disaster, and grieving over the useless loss and suffering of his gallant men, it was but natural that he should vent his feelings in sharp and caustic denunciation of all who were in any degree responsible for the blunder. He was especially outspoken with Grant and Rawlins, whose confidence he had won in the Chattanooga campaign, and with whom he had since been on terms of the closest intimacy and friendship. It is but just to note that they did not at that time appear to consider his criticism as in any sense directed against them nor did they rebuke or condemn it, but to the contrary they gave him every assurance of sympathy and approval.

But Smith although one of the heaviest sufferers, was not the only or even the severest critic, of the mismanagement or lack of management which characterized that disastrous day. The result was most demoralizing to the army. Officers of every grade were unreserved in their condemnation. The newspaper criticism was wide-spread and continuous.

It was with special reference to the useless slaughter at Cold Harbor that the gallant and invincible Upton, then coming to be widely recognized as the best practical soldier of his day, immediately wrote in confidence to his sister.

"I am disgusted with the generalship displayed. Our men have in many instances been foolishly and wantonly sacrificed. Thousands of lives might have been spared by the exercise of a little skill; but as it is, the courage of the men is expected to obviate all difficulties. I must confess that so long as I see such incompetency, there is no grade in the army to which I do not aspire."

Later referring to the same battle, he adds: