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HEROES OF BATTLE: AMERICAN SOLDIERS AND SAILORS
One of the wariest and most capable of the Confederate commanders was General Joseph E. Johnston. In his report of the battle of Kenesaw Mountain in Northwestern Georgia, in June, 1864, when Sherman had at last driven him to bay, he thus describes the attack and the repulse: "The Federal troops pressed forward with the resolution always displayed by the American soldier when properly led. After maintaining the contest for three-quarters of an hour, they retired unsuccessful, because they had encountered entrenched infantry, unsurpassed by that of Napoleon's Old Guard, or that which followed Wellington into France, out of Spain."
It would be difficult to find a more soldierly appreciation of both officers and men of those two American armies. And in a recent interesting book on Grant and Lee[2] is cited a remark of Charles Francis Adams when American Minister to Great Britain in the early years of our Civil War. Some one sarcastically asked him his opinion of the Confederate victories of that time. He quietly replied, "I think they have been won by my countrymen." In all those four strenuous years, heroic qualities—enterprise, resolution, valour, self-control, exercise of judgment amid dangers, endurance and fidelity in disaster—were plentifully developed throughout both parties of the then divided American people. The lonely picket-duty, the toilsome march, the endless duties of the soldier, were a constant drain upon enduring faithfulness, harder to bear, often, than the crashing excitement of the battle, while the deadly suffering of camp and hospital were at times easily worse than all.
Most fascinating the story of the leaders of the two armies. The career of two preëminent military leaders of the South, Lee and Jackson, has already been reviewed—cursorily, as must be the case in all the references to example—and we have noted them especially as to character. But it should be said further that in the opinion of military critics and soldiers, both American and foreign, Robert E. Lee was one of the most masterly strategists in warlike annals. In his defense of Richmond as the vital point of the Confederacy he did have the advantage of operating on interior lines; but when that is said all is said, for in numbers of men, equipment and military resources, he was always more meagrely supplied than his Federal opponents. His available means were mostly in his fertile brain, his prompt judgment, and his dauntless heart, together with the spirited support of his officers and the indomitable marching and fighting energy of his soldiers. The intense and tireless Jackson was indeed the chief's "right arm," and more than that, a keen intelligence, instant to see and seize the right way, and to follow it so swiftly that his rarely defeated infantry earned the proud nickname of "foot-cavalry."
Out of the many gallant officers of the Southern armies were some others whose names became familiar throughout the North. Among them were: Generals Pierre G. T. Beauregard, prominent in service from Bull Run to the end; the brilliant Albert Sidney Johnston, killed at Pittsburg Landing in 1862; J. E. B. Stuart, renowned as a fearless cavalry officer; James Longstreet, a leader of great distinction; the two Hills—Daniel H. and Ambrose P., both renowned fighters, the latter immortalized by Stonewall Jackson's last words, "A. P. Hill, prepare for action!" Another was Richard S. Ewell—not, like all the foregoing, a West Point graduate, with training and notable service in United States armies and wars, but, like many Federal generals, a volunteer, who achieved high rank by efficient activity.
In naval affairs, naturally, the South had little chance to show her mettle, having neither navy-yards nor navy, and all her ports being blockaded. The chief attempts on the water were the iron-plated ram Merrimac, commanded by Commodore Franklin Buchanan, which after sinking several wooden men-of-war in Hampton Roads was defeated by the new iron-turreted Monitor under Lieutenant (later Admiral) John L. Worden; the iron-clad ram Albemarle, which damaged Northern shipping until blown up by Lieutenant W. B. Cushing, U. S. Navy, in a daring personal adventure; and the British built, equipped and manned Alabama, under Commodore Raphael Semmes of the Confederacy, which destroyed millions of dollars in Northern ships on the high seas in 1862-1864, until sunk by the war-steamer Kearsarge under Captain (later Admiral) John A. Winslow, off Cherbourg, in June, 1864.
The principal naval activities of the Federals during the war were in the reduction of fortified places on land in cooperation with the armies, and in blockading ports of the South to keep in their cotton and to keep out foreign supplies. One of the earliest feats was the effective use by Captain Andrew H. Foote in February, 1862, of the gunboats built in 1861 by Frémont for river warfare, when Foote daringly shelled Forts Donelson and Henry on the Cumberland River, enabling Grant to attack and summon them to "unconditional surrender." And on the long seaboard, the North soon had a line of battle-ships stretching from Cape Hatteras around to Florida, New Orleans and the further coast of Texas. Besides its few original war-ships, out of coasters, steamers and old junk the Navy Department constructed a fleet. But it was the man behind the gun who maintained the blockade, starved the Confederacy, and cleared the Mississippi River.
The story of men like Farragut and his boys is like a chapter out of a wonder book. In April, 1862, with a fleet of wooden frigates, mortar-schooners, and half-protected boats he entered the mouth of the Mississippi below New Orleans. The bottom of the river bristled with torpedoes—kegs filled with powder, and surrounded with long prongs that rested upon percussion caps. When a ship struck a prong it exploded the cap and the powder, and again and again a boat went to the bottom. The forts that protected the Mississippi thirty miles below the city were sheathed with sand bags, and mounted a hundred guns; while a boom of logs and chains crossed the river, and a fleet of fifteen vessels including an armed ram and a floating battery were there to dispute further progress. But Farragut lashed himself into the rigging of his flag-ship, and his fleet stormed the passage, raked with chains and shell. From the 18th to the 25th of April, a battle royal was waged with splendid valour on both sides; but the forts were passed, the boom was broken, the defensive fleet defeated, and Farragut had won New Orleans. Farragut, David D. Porter and other heroes had their full share of war and of glory not only here but later in Mobile Bay, and in 1863 with Grant and Sherman at Vicksburg, and at Port Hudson on the Mississippi, and Porter at Fort Fisher in December, 1864-January, 1865. Of absolute maritime warfare there was none, except Winslow's sinking of the Alabama, but in all the river and harbour fighting, against both fleets and forts, there was endless demand for intrepidity, ingenuity, large intelligence, and heroism—demands never failing of response.
The greatest soldiers of the North were McClellan, Sherman, Thomas and Sheridan, and, towering above all, Grant. We may not linger in detail upon them all, and can but mention George H. Thomas, the "Rock of Chickamauga," stern as war, firm as granite, the bravest of knights; William T. Sherman, audacious, fertile, perhaps the most brilliant of them all; and Philip H. Sheridan, an organized thunder-storm, with the swiftness of the war eagle, impetuous, loving adventure, the idol of his men.