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CHAPTER V

THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR

Nothing

DURING the last week of April, 1862, McClellan was besieging Yorktown, the Army of the Potomac outnumbering that under General Johnston three to one. could have pleased the Confederacy more than McClellan's dilatory methods, his delusions, his querulous attitude toward Lincoln and the government and his whole conception of the management of the war. When, on May 3d, Johnston evacuated Yorktown, McClellan was wholly surprised; he had insisted on reinforcements and McDowell's corps had been sent him the week before. Johnston's army retreated toward Richmond; Hooker fought the Confederates at Williamsburg, but the battle was a Union defeat. McClellan came up late in the day and planned to renew the fight next morning, but that night the Confederates withdrew toward Richmond. The roads were in a dreadful condition, but it was McClellan who caused the Army of the Potomac to consume a fortnight in marching forty-five miles in ostensible pursuit of Johnston, and go into camp on the Chickahominy. Norfolk was abandoned by the Confederates, May 10th, leaving the James River open to the Union fleet, and the Merrimac to be destroyed at her moorings. News of the destruction of this iron-clad depressed the South and persuaded many at the North that the road to Richmond was now clear: the Union fleet coming up to within eight miles of the city. Military critics assert that the

water way to Richmond should have been used months earlier by McClellan: his excuse was ever, lack of troops and equipment; the superior strength of the Confederates, and official interference with his plans at Washington.

The approach of the Union fleet caused a panic in Richmond; Davis was suspected by many at the South of designing to abandon his capital; the Confederate archives were transported to a safer place, and many timid people left the city: there is no evidence that either the Confederate government or the State government thought seriously of abandoning Richmond. Alarm in the city quieted down as news came of the repulse of the Union gunboats by the batteries along the James River.

At this time the Union forces in the East were badly scattered. The administration suffered a perilous division of the national arms among political generals: Banks, in the Shenandoah valley and Frémont in western Virginia. General McDowell was at Fredericksburg. Many detachments of from two to four thousand men each were posted here and there; General Schenck, near Franklin; General Milroy at McDowell, some forty miles from Staunton. With General McDowell there were 30,000 men. Military critics have remarked on the strange policy of the government in not concentrating the national armies East, and taking the offensive. The Union forces engaged in the operations in Virginia outnumbered the Confederate in the ratio of three to two.

At this moment Stonewall Jackson took the initiative: he would attack and destroy these scattered detachments of the Union army. He consulted with General Lee, who at this time was military adviser to Davis. At McDowell, Jackson defeated Milroy and Schenck on the 10th and pushed on to fight Banks in the Shenandoah valley; victorious there, Washington might be raided. Lincoln and Stanton seem to have been in ignorance of the peril, and president and secretary visited General McDowell, in camp, to perfect the plan for a movement against Richmond. Meanwhile Jackson,

reinforced by Ewell, was marching northward, threatening the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. Lincoln, awake to the peril, ordered McDowell to send 20,000 men to the Shenandoah valley to meet Jackson, but on the 25th, Banks was fleeing up the valley, eager to reach the north bank of the Potomac. Washington was threatened and Lincoln telegraphed to the Northern governors to forward all the available militia. The North was thoroughly alarmed. Lincoln began concentrating the scattered Union forces, hoping to unite them against Jackson near Strasburg: but Frémont failed him. Jackson eluded pursuit and won victories. For thirty days he, with not more than 17,000 men, had discomfited nearly three times that number; had destroyed millions of property, taken many prisoners, and effectively aided McClellan in keeping away from Richmond. Military critics assert that the deflection of half of McDowell's army into the Shenandoah valley to pursue Jackson was a blunder; that McDowell should have been enabled to join McClellan's 100,000, and the advance then have been made against Johnston and Richmond: or, that, even alone, McDowell should have been permitted to carry out his plan and have marched against Richmond. Perhaps the political generals who were retreating before Jackson should not be overlooked as contributory to the failure of the campaign against Jackson. Moreover, McClellan and McDowell were not on friendly terms and co-operation between them was scarcely to be hoped for. Practically, at this time, the Confederate army was a unit: the National, divided and factional. The greatest need of the United States at this time was a great soldier in the field who, as commander-in-chief, should unify all efforts, naval and military. But nations, like individuals, have to pass through the refining process of hard experience before they are capable of understanding or doing.

On the last day of May, the battle of Seven Pines, or Fair Oaks, was fought. McClellan was defeated on the right wing and was saved from defeat on the left by General

Sumner. General J. E. Johnston, struck by the fragment of a shell, was supposed to have received a fatal wound. On Sunday morning, June 1st, the battle was renewed and the Confederates fell back; McClellan was within four miles of Richmond, but failed to push on. On Sunday night the Army of the Potomac was back in its old quarters before the battle.

On June 1st, Jefferson Davis gave to the Confederacy the chief source of its strength till the end: he made General Robert E. Lee commander-in-chief of the Confederate army. General Lee was not known to the South, at the time, as a great soldier; that distinction the South awarded to General Joseph E. Johnston; but amicable relations between Davis and Johnston were impossible. Whatever Davis's real sentiments toward Lee, he could work with him. Yet, despite the career of Lee, military critics are not wanting who deny that he surpassed Johnston as a soldier. One of the most bitter chapters of the history of the Confederacy tells the story of Davis and Johnston: the long, hopeless quarrel and mutual recrimination which continued between them till death.

At the time of General Lee's appointment McClellan was calling for reinforcements. The church spires of Richmond could be seen from the Union camps. But there was a new force in the field against him; General Lee knew McClellan better than McClellan knew himself: he divined his plans. After the battle of Fair Oaks the weather became fine; by June 13th McClellan had received 21,000 men; he planned to give Lee battle on the 17th or 18th: he would possess himself of "Old Tavern," push up to the city already in sight, bring his heavy guns into action and then carry Richmond by assault. Several of the Confederate generals expected McClellan to do this. General Lee formed his plans to attack McClellan's communications, to trust to McClellan's procrastination, and to leave the Army of the Potomac to fight the swamp fever, for Northern men compelled to inaction and the perils of the climate of Virginia

in July, along the banks of the Chickahominy, were practically equivalent to reinforcements to the Confederacy. McClellan was already losing more men by the fever than he ever lost in battle. On Stonewall Jackson fell the task of cutting off McClellan's communications and supplies. Meanwhile General Lee, assuming that McClellan's credulity was quite limitless, caused information, suitable for his purposes, to be inserted in the Richmond papers-the chief source of McClellan's information about the Confederatesthat strong reinforcements had been sent to attack Frémont and Shields, and the political generals at large, in the Shenandoah valley-confident that the news would quickly be interpreted by McClellan as evidence of the military resources of the South. General Lee understood his man. At this critical moment McClellan was engaged in writing a very long letter to the president, instructing him what should be done in political affairs, particularly regarding slavery, and the general conduct of the war, civil and military. It remains an astonishing example of impertinence and incapacity; it disclosed the ambitious politician.

On June 26th, Jackson crossed the river and attacked the Army of the Potomac and was repulsed by Fitz John Porter, who, later, was ordered by McClellan to withdraw to Gaines's Mill, where, on the following day a great battle was fought. Had McClellan adequately supported Porter the result must have been decisive, but true to his delusions, he believed Lee's army three times as numerous as his own; it was a case of pure timidity in McClellan. At seven in the evening, Lee and Jackson ordered a general assault and the Union troops retreated. McClellan in a despatch to the War Department blamed it for the defeat, saying that the government had not sustained the army; that if it did not at once, "the game is lost," and concluding— "If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you or to any other persons in Washington. You have done your best to sacrifice this army." The president with infinite patience replied "Save your army at all

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