Robert Toombs / Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage

by Pleasant A. Stovall

The next evening, on the edge of Sharpsburg, General Toombs and his aids crossed a little branch on his way to the headquarters of Colonel Benning. General Toombs rode his famous mare "Gray Alice," so well known to his command. He was not very far over when a troop of [cavalry] rode up. He challenged them, and they answered "We are friends." Captain Troup of his staff, however, detected the ruse and fired into them. The squad returned the fire. General Toombs was shot through the hand with which he was holding the reins. The gray mare at once became unmanageable and ran back across the branch. As soon as he could control the mare, General Toombs rode back to Colonel Benning and, reporting his wound, turned his brigade over to Colonel Benning. When it became known that General Toombs was wounded his men were deeply pained. Always solicitous for their welfare, his soldiers were devotedly attached to him. He took care of his brigade even to the extremity of violating army discipline. He exacted the utmost consideration for his men, and the officer who periled their safety, or disputed their efficiency, was quickly called to account. Whether against Johnston, Longstreet, or Hill, the First Brigade, First Division, was sure of a fearless champion in the person of its commander.

The battle of Sharpsburg was a very bloody one. The losses on the Federal side were nearly 12,500, while the Confederates lost 8000. Lee withdrew into Virginia, and McClellan was too much demoralized to follow. Longstreet, in summing up the Manassas and Maryland campaign, declared that in one month the troops had marched over two hundred miles upon little more than half rations and fought nine battles and skirmishes. They had "killed, wounded, and captured nearly as many men as we had in our ranks, besides taking arms and other munitions of war in large quantities." General Longstreet compliments Brigadier General Toombs for his "gallant defense at the bridge of Antietam and his vigorous charge upon the enemy's flank; he was severely wounded at the close of the engagement."

General Toombs returned to his home after Sharpsburg, and remained several months. He rejoined his command near Fredericksburg, but in March, 1863, wrote a touching farewell to his brigade and resigned his commission in the army of Northern Virginia. It seemed to him that he did not have justice done him at Richmond. He aspired, with the ambition of a soldier, to be promoted in his country's service. His conduct at Sharpsburg, where he wrung admiration from his superior officers, appeared to call for recognition from the President, but he did not receive his major-generalship, and, although more than once in the actual command of a division, did not secure that title. It is true that he would have liked the promotion; but he did not expect it. He had written to his wife that he would not be driven from the army until after some great battle, when he should have the opportunity of doing something for his country. "The day after such an event, I will retire if I live through it." The battle had occurred, his record was written upon the stone bridge of Antietam, and his work was at an end.

Postmaster-General Reagan was one of those who recognized the merits of General Toombs. Twice did he approach President Davis with the request that General Toombs be promoted to the command of a division. That official replied promptly that he did not oppose it himself, but that he could not do it without the recommendation of the army officers, and that recommendation had not been given. Possibly the field officers believed the suggestion would have been ungracious to Mr. Davis. General Toombs had not hesitated to criticise the policy and appointments of the Richmond administration. That practice had strained his relations with the Confederate Government, but Toombs was a man who "would not flatter Neptune for his trident."

General Toombs was not a trained soldier, but he had some fine points of a great commander. He was the soul of energy and common sense. He was bold, dashing, magnetic. He had the quality of infusing his spirit into his men. His quick mind seized the points of a campaign, and his intellect was broad and overmastering. It is related of him that one day in Virginia he hurried to the rear for a conference with Jefferson Davis, to which the President had summoned him, upon some point of civil administration. This business over, he dashed back to the front, where he had an engagement with General Lee over a plan of attack. General Longstreet said Toombs had the kindling eye and rare genius of a soldier, but lacked the discipline of a military man. This was the serious flaw in his character. He had what General Johnston declared was the great drawback about the Southern soldier, "a large endowment of the instinct of personal liberty," and it was difficult to subordinate his will to the needs of military discipline. He had been accustomed to priority, and in whatever company, under whatever conditions he found himself, his had been the part to lead and to rule. As Colonel Thomas W. Thomas had said of him, "Toombs has always been the big frog in the pond." Men conceded to him this prestige. Under the cast-iron rule of the army he found himself subordinated to men intellectually beneath him, but trained and skilled in the art of war. He was swift to detect error, and impatient in combating blunder. The rule of mediocrity, the red tape of the service, the restraints of the corps, the tactics of the field galled his imperious spirit. He commanded his brigade as he had represented his State in the Senate—as a sovereign and independent body, and like the heroic Helvetian had blazoned on his crest, "No one shall cross me with impunity."

Robert Toombs made a mistake in sinking himself in the routine of a brigade commander. He should have taken the War Department, or, like Pitt, have pushed the war from the floor of the Senate. Swinton says that Abraham Lincoln brought the habits of a politician to military affairs, in which their intrusion can only result in confusion of just relations. There is ineradicable antagonism between the maxims which govern politics and those which govern war.

During General Toombs' absence in the field, he opposed the Conscript Acts of the Confederate administration. He believed them arbitrary and unjust. He considered that this was a tendency toward centralization which the Confederate Government was fighting; that it placed too much power in the hands of one man; that it was deadly to States' Rights and personal liberty, and that it would impair the efficiency of the army by lowering its patriotism. The champion of this anti-administration policy in Georgia was Linton Stephens, the brother of the vice president. Toombs in the field, the elder Stephens in Congress, and Linton Stephens in the Georgia Legislature, fought the Conscription and Impressment Acts. Hon. Joseph E. Brown, the war Governor of Georgia, was also a vigorous opponent of this policy. This influence gave rise, in the early part of 1864, to the Peace Resolutions of Linton Stephens, who sustained Governor Brown in his policy, to inaugurate State action for "the preservation of rights and the attainment of peace." Linton Stephens, in a strong letter to General Toombs at that time, called attention to the fact that since the war began neither side had made any effort to stop the effusion of blood. He believed that the professional soldiers and West Point generals would never permit the cessation of hostilities. Such men, he thought, would not, in human nature, desire peace. "How can it be explained," he wrote, "that both governments have fought on during these long years of blood and tears and desolation, without either one offering terms of peace, and with both running a swift race of rivalry in usurping the most despotic power under the ever-recurring and false plea of necessities of war? Have both governments formed designs that cannot be accomplished in peace, and which seek opportunity and shelter in the confusion and panic of war?"

Mr. Linton Stephens was a leading lawyer and legislator in Georgia. He was a man of great ability. He had started the practice of law in the office of Robert Toombs, and had been a political follower and close friend of the great Georgian. He had served upon the bench of the Supreme Court of his State, and at the close of the war his political influence was probably greater than that of any man at home. He was fearless, inflexible, high-toned, and full of power. He did not hesitate to condemn the legislation asked for by Mr. Davis, and joined Mr. Toombs in opposing the appointment of General Bragg as supervisor of all military operations. Mr. Stephens believed that the next step after the Impressment Act would be the organization of all labor into a military system under government control.

The result of the policy of Mr. Davis justified the protest of the Georgians, but there is nothing to warrant the belief that Mr. Davis was moving toward military despotism or that he relished the continuance of strife. He saw that the South was in for the war. Desperate situations required desperate remedies. He grasped the government with a strong hand, and lacked neither nerve nor patriotism. The principles of this policy were unsound, but the motives of Jefferson Davis were pure. Nor was there reason to sustain the wholesale denunciation of West Point. That school of soldiers was the backbone of the army, and the fact that so many Southern men gave up commissions in the United States army and came South when their States seceded, overthrew the idea that they were tools of the general government and had lost identity or sympathy with people at home. But General Toombs was bold and impatient in his positions.

Equally opposed was he to the policy adopted in Georgia of recommending the planting of all grain and no cotton. From Richmond he wrote in March, 1864, directions to his brother Gabriel Toombs, who managed his plantations in Washington: