Federal government had united the whole North, brought an army of half a million men into the field, and swelled the proportions of the war far beyond any expectations of the world. The policy of monotonous defence had been perseveringly pursued by the authorities of the Confederacy. On the side of the enemy, it had more than repaired the damage inflicted upon them in many brilliant battles, and had left them at perfect leisure, in the very presence of our forces, to devise, mature, and make trial of any plan of campaign or assault which they thought expedient. A large portion of Virginia and important regions on the Southern seaboards were now occupied by the enemy, who would never have ventured forth to such distances, if they had been menaced nearer home. The strictly defensive policy was sustained by elaborate arguments. It is not within the design of our work to canvass the logical value of these arguments; but it is to recognize as a fact the natural and almost universal impression made upon the popular mind of the South, that it could not be good generalship which left the enemy at perfect leisure to mature all his preparations for aggression; and that it could not be a glorious system of warfare, which never ventured an aggressive movement, and which decimated its armies by inaction. appointed assistant adjutant-general, with rank of captain, but relinquished his rank in line in 1851. As a commander, he was courageous, energetic, and methodical, and he obtained the respect of the South for his chivalric disposition, his courteous behavior to prisoners, and his uniform recognition of the laws and amenities of civilized warfare. Gen. Henry Wager Halleck, before the war, had been but little known, and that only as the author of some military works, and a prominent land lawyer, deeply versed in Mexican titles, at the bar of San Francisco, California. He was a pupil of West Point, and had been brevetted captain for meritorious services in California during the Mexican war. He was appointed Secretary of State of the province of California in the military government of Generals Kearney, Mason, and Riley, and was a member of the Convention to form and one of the committee to draft the State Constitution of California in 1849. He subsequently disappeared from public attention, and occupied himself with his innumerable Mexican clients in California as a lawyer and land speculator. A correspondent gives the following account of the personnel of General Halleck: "In the field he is hardly the same person who might have been seen quietly gliding from the Planters' House to head-quarters in St. Louis He does not look a whit more military in appearance, but looks, in his new and rich, though plain uniform, as if he were in borrowed clothes. In truth, he bears a most striking resemblance to some oleaginous Methodist parson dressed in regimentals, with a wide, stiff-rimmed black felt hat sticking on the back of his head, at an acute angle with the ground. His demeanor in front of his tent is very simple and business-like. When on horseback, his Wesleyan character is more and more prominent. He neither looks like a soldier, rides like one, nor does he carry the state of a major-general in the field, but is the impersonation of the man of peace. His face is large, tabular and Teutonic; his eyes a kind of indistinct gray, not without expression, but of that deep welling kind that only reveal the emotion without indicating its character." In the administration of the civil polity of the Southern army, as distinguished from its command, there were abuses and defects which were constant subjects of newspaper com ment. In the Quarter-master's department, however, the results accomplished by the energy of its directors were little less than surprising, and received the marked commendation of a committee of the Provisional Congress, appointed to inquire into the civil polity of the army. That the immense army now in the service of the Confederate States, suddenly collected, men and officers generally inexperienced in camp life and military duty, should be clothed, armed, and moved with the facility of a permanent organization, was not to be expected; and yet, with but few exceptions, this result was accomplished. Major Alfred M. Barbour, of Virginia, was appointed Chief Quar ter-master of the army of the Potomac, our principal corps d'armée in the field; and his remarkable resources of judgment, his vast energy, and his untiring devotion to his extensive duties in the field, contributed most important results in the emergencies of the many sudden and rapid movements of our forces in Virginia, in the remarkable campaign in that State of the spring of 1862. Such contributions to the public service are not to be depreciated by the side of more visible, and, in the popular mind, more brilliant achievements of the war. The labors of the Quarter-master's department penetrate the entire military establishment, breathe life into the army, nurture its growth, and give it strength and efficiency in the field; vigilant, prepared, and present, it moves unnoticed amid the stirring events of the field, and obscured by the dust and smoke of the combat, it remains unobserved even while collecting the fruits of victory. The most distressing abuses were visible in the ill-regulated hygiene of our camps. The ravages of disease among the army in Virginia were terrible; the accounts of its extent were suppressed in the newspapers of the day, and there is no doubt that thousands of our brave troops disappeared from notice without a record of their end, in the nameless graves that yet mark the camping grounds on the lines of the Potomac, and among the wild mountains of Virginia. Our camps were scourged with fever, pneumonia, and diar rhœa. The armies on the Potomac and in western Virginia suffered greatly-those troops in. Cheat Mountain and in the vicinity of the Kanawha Valley most intensely. The wet and changeable climate, the difficulty of transportation, exposure to cold and rain without tents, the necessary consequence of the frequent forward and retrograde movements, as well as the want of suitable food for either sick or well men, produced most of the sickness, and greatly aggravated it after its accession. The regulations, requiring reports from the regiments as to the number of sick, their diseases, and the wants of the medi cal station, were, but in few instances, complied with. The result of this neglect was, that upon a change of position in the army, it was the unhappy consequence that the number of sick greatly exceeded that indicated by the reports. They were hurried to the rear, where the accommodations, both as to food, shelter, and medical attendance, being all insufficient, there was great suffering and great mortality. The suffering of our army evoked, on the part of the Southern peopie, demonstrations of patriotic devotion and generosity, such, perhaps, as the world had never seen. The patriotism of our citizens at home was manifested in unremitting efforts to supply the wants and relieve the sufferings of the soldiers, sick and well. The supply of money, clothing, and hospital stores, from this voluntary and generous source, is estimated in millions of dollars.* It was the most cheering indication or the spirit of our people in the cause of independence. The women of the country, with the tenderness and generosity of their sex, not only loaded railroad cars with all those applian ces for the comfort of the sick which their patriotic ingenuity could devise, but also came to the rescue in clothing those who were well and bearing arms in the field. They made large pe cuniary contributions, took charge of the hospitals established by the States, and, as matrons of those institutions, carried cleanliness and comfort to the gallant soldier, far from home and kindred. A committee of the Provisional Congress placed on record the thanks of the country to the women of the South, for their works of patriotism and public charity, and declared that the government owed them "a public acknowledgment of their faithfulness in the glorious work of effecting our inde pendence." * The following contributions (estimated in money) were listed at the Pass port Office, in Richmond, during the last three months of the year 1861. The list comprises almost exclusively the donations made to the army of the Potomac. Of the voluntary supplies sent to the army in Missouri, Arkansas, and Kentucky, there is no account whatever; but, as the same patriotic devo tion animated our people everyw here, there is no reason to doubt that an equa amount of clothing, stores, &c., had been sent to those troops. With this cal culation, the whole amount of contributions for the last quarter of the year 1861 could not have fallen short of three millions of dollars: CHAPTER IX. Prospects of the Year 1862. -The Lines of the Potomac.-General Jackson's Expodition to Winchester. - The BATTLE OF MILL SPRINGS IN KENTUCKY. - General Crittenden. Death of General Zollicoffer. - Sufferings of Crittenden's Army on the Retreat. Comparative Unimportance of the Disaster. -The BATTLE OF ROANOKE ISLAND.-Importance of the Island to the South. - Death of Captain Wise.-Causes of the Disaster to the South.-Investigation in Congress. - Censure of the Government.-Interviews of General Wise with Mr. Benjamin, the Secretary of War.--Mr. Benjamin censured by Congress, but retained in the Cabinet.-His Promotion by President Davis. Condition of the Popular Sentiment. THE year 1862 was to bring in a train of disasters to the South. Taking a brief glance at the lines of the Potomac, we shall thereafter have to find the chief interest of the war in other directions in the West and on the seacoast. In December last, Gen. Thomas F. Jackson was sent from Gen. Johnston's line to Winchester with a force at his disposal of some ten thousand men. Had the same force been placed at the command of Gen. Jackson in early autumn, with the view to an expedition to Wheeling, by way of the Winchester and Parkersburg road, the good effects would, in all probability, have shown themselves in the expulsion of the Federals from northwestern Virginia. On the 1st of January, 1862, Gen. Jackson marched with his command from Winchester to Bath, in Morgan county, and from the latter place to Romney, where there had been a large Federal force for many weeks, and from which point they had committed extensive depredations on the surrounding country. Gen. Jackson drove the enemy from Romney and the neighboring country without much fighting. His troops, however, endured the severest hardships in the expedition. Their sufferings were terrible in what was the severest portion of the winter. They were compelled at one time to struggle through an almost blinding storm of snow and sleet, and to bivouac at night in the forests, without tents or camp equipage. Many of the troops were frozen on the march, and died from exposure and exhaustion. |