The Life of Jefferson Davis

Immediately upon his arrival, General Beauregard suggested a plan of operations, by which he hoped to destroy Butler, and, without pausing, to inflict a decisive defeat upon Grant. The plan he proposed was that Lee should fall back to the defensive lines of the Chickahominy, even to the intermediate lines of Richmond, temporarily sending fifteen thousand men to the south side of the James, and with this accession of force he proposed to take the offensive against Butler. Pointing out the isolated situation of Butler, he urged the opportunity for his destruction by the concentration of a superior force. Under the circumstances General Beauregard thought the capture of Butler’s force inevitable, and the occupation of his depot of supplies at Bermuda Hundreds a necessary consequence. When these results should be accomplished, he proposed, at a concerted moment, to throw his whole force upon Grant’s flank, while Lee attacked in front. General Beauregard was confident of his ability to make the attack upon Butler, in two days after receiving the desired reënforcements, and was equally confident of the result both against Butler and Grant. His proposition concluded with the declaration that Grant’s fate could not be doubtful if the proposed concentration should be made, and indicated the following gratifying results: “The destruction of Grant’s forces would open the way for the recovery of most of our lost territory.”

Whatever his views as to its feasibility, the President could not refuse a careful consideration of a plan, whose author, in advance, claimed such momentous results. Upon reflection President Davis declined the plan as involving too great a risk, not only of the safety of Richmond, but of the very existence of Lee’s army. The proposition of Beauregard was submitted on the 14th May. At that time the grapple between Grant and Lee was still unrelaxed. Twelve days of battle had cost Lee fifteen thousand men. Meanwhile he had not received a single additional musket, while Grant had nearly supplied his losses by reënforcements from Washington. Thus, while Lee’s force did not reach forty thousand, Grant’s still approximated one hundred and thirty thousand. The President also knew that Grant was at that moment closely pressing Lee, moving toward his left, and seeking either to overlap or break in upon the right flank of Lee.

The proposed detachment of fifteen thousand men from Lee, leaving him not more than twenty-five thousand, in such a crisis, would have been simply madness. Butler, it is possible, might have been destroyed, but the end of the Confederacy would have been hastened twelve months. It is questionable whether, at any moment after Grant crossed the Rapidan, the overmatched army of Lee could have been diminished without fatal disaster. The timely arrival of Longstreet had prevented a serious reverse on the 6th May. Is it reasonable to suppose that Lee could have detached one-third of his army, without Grant’s knowledge, or that the energy of the Federal commander would have permitted an hour’s respite to his sorely-pressed adversary after the discovery? The case would have been altogether different, had Lee been already safe within his works at Richmond. Under the circumstances proposed, he had before him a perilous retrograde, followed by a force four times his own strength, and commanded by the most unrelenting and persistent of officers.

But there was another view of the proposition not to be overlooked by the President in his perilous responsibility. It is true Beauregard promised grand results – nothing less than the total destruction of nearly all the Federal forces in Virginia. In brief, his plan proposed to destroy two hundred thousand men with less than sixty thousand. Again it was true the enemy was to be destroyed in detail – Butler first, and Grant afterwards. There were precedents in history for such achievements. But it should be remembered that if Butler should be immediately destroyed, and if Lee should be guaranteed a safe retrograde, Beauregard would still be able to aid Lee to the extent of but little more than twenty thousand men. This would give Lee less than fifty thousand with which to take the offensive against more than twice that number. Against just such odds Lee had already tried the offensive, and failed because of his weakness. He had assailed Grant under the most favorable circumstances, effecting a complete surprise when the Federal commander believed him already retreating, but was unable to follow up his advantage. Was there reason to believe that any better result would follow from a repetition of the offensive?

Believing himself not justified in hazarding the safety of the Confederacy upon such a train of doubtful conditions, and agreeing with General Beauregard, that Butler could be dislodged from his advanced positions, so menacing to Richmond, Mr. Davis rejected a plan which, under different circumstances, he would have heartily and confidently adopted.

With remarkable promptitude, Beauregard conceived a brilliant plan of battle, and within twenty-four hours had already put it in virtual execution. With fifteen thousand men, he drove Butler from all his advanced works, and confined him securely in the cul de sac of Bermuda Hundreds, where, in a few months, ended the inglorious military career of a man who, in every possible manner, dishonored the sword which he wore, and disgraced the Government which he served. The brilliant conception of Beauregard merited even better results, which were prevented not less by untoward circumstances than by the weakness of his command.

While Beauregard thus effectually neutralized Butler, Grant’s combinations, elsewhere, were brought to signal discomfiture. The expedition from the Kanawha Valley had been, in a measure, successful in its designs against the communications of South-western Virginia, but did not obtain the coöperation designed, by the column moving up the Shenandoah Valley. Sigel, in his advance up the Valley, was encountered at Newmarket by General Breckinridge, who signally defeated him, capturing artillery and stores, and inflicting a heavy loss upon the enemy. Sigel retreated hastily down the Valley.

General Grant, on the 11th of May, proclaimed to his Government his purpose “to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer,” yet, within a week afterwards, he was already meditating another plan of operations. Forty thousand of the bravest soldiers of the Federal army had been vainly sacrificed, and yet the Confederate line remained intact upon the impregnable hills of Spottsylvania. A week was consumed in fruitless search for a weak point in the breastplate of Lee. Grant was again driven to “maneuvre.” Foiled again and again by the great exemplar of strategy, with whom he contended, Grant at no point turned his face towards Richmond without finding Lee across his path. Moving constantly to the left, the 3d of June – exactly one month from the crossing of the Rapidan – found Grant near the Chickahominy, and Lee still facing him. The fortune of war again brought the belligerents upon the old battle-ground of the Peninsula. Just before Lee reached the defenses of Richmond, for the first time during the campaign, he received reënforcements.[75 - At Hanover Junction, on the 23d of May, General Lee was joined by Breckinridge’s division, numbering less than three thousand muskets, and by Pickett’s division of perhaps three thousand five hundred muskets. General Lee was compelled, very shortly afterwards, to send Breckinridge’s division back to the Valley.] Grant also was strengthened, drawing sixteen thousand men from Butler at Bermuda Hundreds.

On the 3d of June occurred the second battle of Cold Harbor. It was the last experiment of the strictly “hammering” system, unaided by the resources of strategy. It cost Grant thirteen thousand men, and Lee a few hundred. Such was a fitting finale of a campaign avowedly undertaken upon the brutal principle of the mere consumption of life, and in contempt of every sound military precept. Cold Harbor terminated the overland movement of Grant, and he speedily abandoned the line upon which he had proposed “to fight all summer.” Not that he willingly abandoned his “hammering” principle after this additional sacrifice of lives, for he would still have dashed his army against the impregnable wall in his front, but his men recoiled, in the consciousness of an impotent endeavor. They had done all that troops could accomplish, and shrank from that which their own experience told them was impossible. And there should be no wonder that the Federal army was reluctant to be vainly led to slaughter again. For forty days its proven mettle had been subjected to a cruel test, such as even Napoleon, reckless of his men’s lives as he was, had never imposed upon an army. It is safe to say that no troops but Americans could have been held so long to such an enterprise as that attempted by Grant in May, 1864, and none but Americans could have withstood such desperate assaults as were sustained by Lee’s army.

In one month, from the Rapidan to the Chickahominy, more than sixty thousand of the flower of the Federal army had been put hors du combat, and many of the best of its officers, men identified with its whole history, were lost forever. In one month Lee had inflicted a loss greater than the whole of the force which he commanded during the last year of the war! Yet this was the “generalship” of Grant, for which a meeting of twenty-five thousand men in New York returned the “thanks of the nation.” The world was invited, by the sensational press of the North, to admire the “strategy” which had carried the Federal army from the Rapidan to the James, a position which it might have reached by transports without the loss of a man.

For a brief season, hope, positive and well-defined, dawned upon the South. Thus far the problem of endurance was in favor of the Confederacy. Grant’s stupendous combinations against Richmond had broken down. The spirit of the North seemed to be yielding, and again the Federal Government encountered the danger of a collapse of the war.

The battle of Cold Harbor convinced General Grant of the futility of operations against Richmond from the north side of James River. He therefore determined to transfer his army to the south side of the river, and seek to possess himself of the communications southward, and to employ coöperative forces to destroy or occupy the communications of Richmond with Lynchburg and the Shenandoah Valley. This involved new combinations, and Grant still had abundant means to execute them. If successful, this plan would completely isolate Richmond, leaving no avenue of supplies except by the James River Canal, which also would be easily accessible.

Lee could not prevent the transfer of Grant’s army to the south side. Petersburg and Richmond were both to be defended, and his strength was too limited to be divided. Grant made a vigorous dash against Petersburg. He had anticipated an easy capture of that city by a coup de main, but in this he was disappointed. Petersburg was found to be well fortified, and the desperate assaults made by the Federal advanced forces were repulsed. In a few days Lee’s army again confronted Grant, and Richmond and Petersburg were safe.

Thus the system of rushing men upon fortifications failed on the south side not less signally than in the overland campaign. The Federal commander had no alternative but a formal siege of Petersburg. Driven by circumstances beyond his control, General Grant thus assumed a position which, in the end, proved fatal to the Confederacy, and the results of which have exalted him, in the view of millions, to rank among the illustrious generals of history. The south side of James River was always the real key to the possession of Richmond. Sooner or later the Confederate capital must fall, if assailed from that direction with pertinacity, and with such ample means as were given to Grant.

The new Federal combination was in process of execution by the middle of June. After the defeat of Sigel, a large force was organized in the lower valley, and intrusted to the direction of General Hunter, an officer distinguished by fanatical zeal against the section of which he was a native, and by the peculiar cruelty of a renegade. Breckinridge had been withdrawn from the Valley, to Lee’s lines, immediately after his defeat of Sigel, and Hunter without difficulty overwhelmed the small force left under General Jones. Forming a junction with Crook and Averill from North-western Virginia, at Staunton, Hunter advanced upon Lynchburg, meanwhile destroying public and private property indiscriminately, and practicing a system of incendiarism and petty oppression against which even Federal officers protested.

It was necessary to detach a portion of the army from the lines of Richmond to check the demonstration of Hunter. Accordingly, General Early, who had acquired great reputation in the battles upon the Rapidan, was sent with eight thousand men to the Valley. Uniting his forces to those already on the ground, General Early made a vigorous pursuit of Hunter, whose flight was as dastardly as his conduct had been despicable. Retreating with great precipitation through the mountains of Western Virginia, Hunter’s force, for several weeks, bore no relation to operations in Virginia. With the Shenandoah Valley thus denuded of invaders, Early rapidly executed a movement of his forces down the Valley, with a view to a demonstration beyond the Potomac frontier, which was entirely uncovered by Hunter’s retreat. The movement of Early into Maryland caused, as was anticipated, a detachment from Grant’s forces, for the defense of the Federal capital. Advancing with extraordinary vigor, General Early pursued the retreating enemy, defeating them in an engagement near Frederick City, and arrived near Washington on the 10th of July. Warned of the approach of heavy reënforcements from Grant, which must arrive before the works could be carried, Early abandoned his design of an attack upon Washington, and retired across the Potomac, with his extensive and valuable captures.

Signal failure attended the cavalry expeditions sent by Grant against the railroads. Sheridan, while moving northward against Gordonsville and Charlottesville, from which points, after inflicting all possible damage upon the railroads to Richmond, he was to join Hunter at Lynchburg, was intercepted by Wade Hampton, the worthy successor of Stuart, and compelled to abandon his part of the campaign. An extended raid, under Wilson and Kautz, on the south side, also terminated in disaster. The expedition of Burbridge against South-western Virginia was baffled by a counter-movement of Morgan with his cavalry, into Kentucky, the Federal forces following him into that State.

Thus again were all of General Grant’s plans disappointed, and by midsummer the situation in Virginia was altogether favorable to the Confederacy. There was indeed good reason for the evident apprehension of the North, that, after all, Grant’s mighty campaign was a failure. His mere proximity to the Confederate capital signified nothing. All his attempts against both Petersburg and Richmond, whether by strategy or coups de main, had ended in disaster; the Confederate lines were pronounced impregnable by the ablest Federal engineers, and after the ridiculous fiasco of “Burnside’s mine,” the capture of Richmond seemed as remote as ever. To increase public alarm at the North, was added the activity of Lee, his evident confidence in his ability to hold his own, with a diminished force, and even to threaten the enemy with invasion.

The Confederate Government, fully apprized of the momentous results, with which the present year was pregnant, and of the increased peril which assailed the Confederacy, in consequence of its diminished resources, depended upon other influences, than an exhibition of military strength, to promote its designs. The cause of the South could no longer be submitted, unaided, to the arbitrament of battle. At other periods, while freely avowing his desire for peace, and offering to the Federal authorities, opportunity for negotiation, President Davis had relied almost solely upon the sword, as the agency of Southern independence. The opening of the spring campaign of 1864 was deemed a favorable conjuncture for the employment of the resources of diplomacy. To approach the Federal Government directly would be in vain. Repeated efforts had already demonstrated its inflexible purpose not to negotiate with the Confederate authorities. Political developments at the North, however, favored the adoption of some action that might influence popular sentiment in the hostile section. The aspect of the peace party was especially encouraging, and it was evident that the real issue to be decided in the Presidential election, was the continuance or cessation of the war.

A commission of three gentlemen, eminent in position and intelligence, was accordingly appointed by Mr. Davis to visit Canada, with a view to negotiation with such persons in the North, as might be relied upon, to facilitate the attainment of peace. This commission was designed to facilitate such preliminary conditions, as might lead to formal negotiation between the two governments, and their intelligence was fully relied upon to make judicious use of any political opportunities that might be presented in the progress of military operations.

The Confederate commissioners, Messrs. Clay, of Alabama, Holcombe, of Virginia, and Thompson, of Mississippi, sailed from Wilmington at the incipiency of the campaign on the Rapidan. Within a few weeks thereafter they were upon the Canada frontier, in the execution of their mission. A correspondence with Horace Greeley commenced on the 12th of July. Through Mr. Greeley the commissioners sought a safe conduct to the Federal capital. For a few days Mr. Lincoln appeared to favor an interview with the commissioners, but finally rejected their application, on the ground that they were not authorized to treat for peace. In his final communication, addressed “To whom it may concern,” Mr. Lincoln offered safe conduct to any person or persons having authority to control the armies then at war with the United States, and authorized to treat upon the following basis of negotiation: “the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery.”

Upon this basis, negotiation was, of course, precluded, and peace impossible. Mr. Lincoln was perfectly aware that the commissioners had no control of the Confederate armies, and that the Confederate Government alone was empowered to negotiate. He therefore did not expect the acceptance of his passport, and added to the mockery an arrogant statement, in advance, of the conditions upon which he would consent to treat. Even if the commissioners had been empowered to treat, Mr. Lincoln’s terms dictated the surrender of every thing for which the South was fighting, and more than the North professed to demand at the outset. Abolition was now added to the conditions of re-admission to the Union. Mr. Lincoln’s proposition was a cruel mockery, an unworthy insult to the manhood of a people, whom his armies, at least, had learned to respect.

CHAPTER XIX

DISAPPOINTMENT AT RESULTS OF THE GEORGIA CAMPAIGN – HOW FAR IT WAS PARALLEL WITH THE VIRGINIA CAMPAIGN – DIFFERENT TACTICS ON BOTH SIDES – REMOVAL OF GENERAL JOHNSTON – THE EXPLANATION OF THAT STEP – A QUESTION FOR MILITARY JUDGMENT – THE NEGATIVE VINDICATION OF GENERAL JOHNSTON – DIFFERENT THEORIES OF WAR – THE REAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE SOUTHERN FAILURE – THE ODDS IN NUMBERS AND RESOURCES AGAINST THE SOUTH – WATER FACILITIES OF THE ENEMY – STRATEGIC DIFFICULTIES OF THE SOUTH – THE BLOCKADE – INSIGNIFICANCE OF MINOR QUESTIONS – JEFFERSON DAVIS THE WASHINGTON OF THE SOUTH – GENERAL JOHN B. HOOD – HIS DISTINGUISHED CAREER – HOPE OF THE SOUTH RENEWED – HOOD’S OPERATIONS – LOSS OF ATLANTA – IMPORTANT QUESTIONS – PRESIDENT DAVIS IN GEORGIA – PERVERSE CONDUCT OF GOVERNOR BROWN – MR. DAVIS IN MACON – AT HOOD’S HEAD-QUARTERS – HOW HOOD’S TENNESSEE CAMPAIGN VARIED FROM MR. DAVIS’ INTENTIONS – SHERMAN’S PROMPT AND BOLD CONDUCT – HOOD’S MAGNANIMOUS ACKNOWLEDGMENT – DESTRUCTION OF THE CONFEDERATE POWER IN THE SOUTH-WEST

General Johnston had failed to realize either the expectations of the public, or the hope of the Government, in his direction of the campaign in Georgia. His tactics were those uniformly illustrated by this officer in all his operations, of falling back before the enemy, and seeking to obviate the disadvantage of inferior numbers by partial engagements in positions favorable to himself. There was, indeed, some parallel between his campaign and that of Lee, between the Rapidan and James, but the results in Virginia and Georgia were altogether disproportionate. The advance of Sherman was slow and cautious, but nevertheless steady; and when the campaign had lasted seventy days, he was before Atlanta, the objective point of his designs, and in secure occupation of an extensive and important section of country, heretofore inaccessible to the Federal armies. Not only were Sherman’s losses small, as compared with those of Grant, but his force was relatively much weaker.

There can be no just comparison of these two campaigns, either as illustrating the same system of tactics, or as yielding the same results. The aggregate of Federal forces in Georgia did not exceed, at the beginning of the campaign, one hundred thousand men, if indeed it reached that figure. To oppose this, Johnston had forty-five thousand. We have already stated the aggregate of Federal forces in Virginia to have been at least four times the force that, under any circumstances, Lee could have made available. The public did not interpret as retreats, the parallel movements by which Lee successively threw himself in the front of Grant, wherever the latter made a demonstration. Not once had Lee turned his back upon the enemy, nor abandoned a position, save when the baffled foe, after enormous losses, sought a new field of operations. At its conclusion, Grant had sustained losses in excess of the whole of Lee’s army, abandoned altogether his original design, and sought a base of operations, which he might have reached in the beginning, not only without loss, but without even opposition.

Some explanation of the widely disproportionate results achieved in Virginia and Georgia, is to be found in the different tactics of the Federal commanders. Sherman, whose nature is thoroughly aggressive, yet developed great skill and caution. Instead of fruitlessly dashing his army against fortifications, upon ground of the enemy’s choosing, he treated the positions of Johnston as fortresses, from which his antagonist was to be flanked.

But while this explanation was appreciated, the public was much disposed to accept the two campaigns as illustrations of the different systems of tactics accredited to the two Confederate commanders. It was seen that in Virginia the enemy occupied no new territory, and, at the end of three months, was upon ground which he might easily have occupied at the beginning of the campaign, but to reach which, by the means selected, had cost him nearly eighty thousand men.[76 - This estimate includes Grant’s losses in his assaults upon the fortifications of Petersburg, immediately after his passage of the James River. I have seen his total losses from the Rapidan, until the siege of Petersburg was regularly begun, estimated by Northern writers, at over ninety thousand.] In Georgia, on the other hand, Sherman had advanced one hundred miles upon soil heretofore firmly held by the Confederacy, and without a general engagement of the opposing forces. In Virginia, the enemy had no difficulty as to his transportation, and the farther Grant advanced towards James River, the more secure and abundant became his means of supply. In Georgia, Sherman drew his supplies over miles of hostile territory, and was nowhere aided by the proximity of navigable streams.

When in a censorious mood, the popular mind is not over-careful of the aptness of the parallels and analogies, wherewith to justify its carping judgments. Without denying his skill, or questioning his possession of the higher qualities of generalship, people complained that “Johnston was a retreating general.” Whatever judgment may have arisen from subsequent events, it can not be fairly denied that when Johnston reached Atlanta, there was a very perceptible loss of popular confidence, not less in the issue of the campaign than in General Johnston himself. It was in deference to popular sentiment, as much as in accordance with his views of the necessity of the military situation, that President Davis, about the middle of July, relieved General Johnston from command. Sympathizing largely with the popular aspiration for a more bold, ample, and comprehensive policy, and appreciating the value of unlimited public confidence, Mr. Davis had lost much of his hope of those decisive results, which he believed the Western army competent to achieve.

The dispatch relieving General Johnston was as follows:

    “Richmond, Va., July 17, 1864.

“To General J. E. Johnston:

“Lieutenant-General J. B. Hood has been commissioned to the temporary rank of General, under the law of Congress. I am directed by the Secretary of War to inform you, that as you have failed to arrest the advance of the enemy to the vicinity of Atlanta, and express no confidence that you can defeat or repel him, you are hereby relieved from the command of the Army and Department of Tennessee, which you will immediately turn over to General Hood.

    “S. COOPER,
    “Adjutant and Inspector-General.”

This order sufficiently explains the immediate motive of Johnston’s removal, but there was a train of circumstances which, at length, brought the President reluctantly to this conclusion. The progress of events in Georgia, from the beginning of spring, had developed a marked difference in the views of General Johnston and the President. Early in the year Mr. Davis had warmly approved an offensive campaign against the Federal army, while its various wings were not yet united. The Federal force, then in the neighborhood of Dalton, did not greatly exceed the Confederate strength, and Mr. Davis, foreseeing the concentration of forces for the capture of Atlanta, believed the opportunity for a decisive stroke to exist before this concentration should ensue. General Hood likewise favored this view of the situation. He urged that the enemy would certainly concentrate forces to such an extent, if permitted, as would gradually force the Southern army back into the interior, where a defeat would be irreparable, with no new defensive line, and without the hope of rallying either the army or the people. General Johnston opposed these views, on the ground that the enemy, if defeated, had strong positions where they could take refuge, while a defeat of the Confederate force would be fatal. This difference of opinion is to be appropriately decided only by military criticism, but it can not be fairly adjudged that an offensive in the spring would not have succeeded, because it failed in the following autumn. Circumstances were altogether different.

General Johnston’s operations between Dalton and Atlanta were unsatisfactory to Mr. Davis. Here again arises a military question, which we shall not seek to decide, in the evident difference as to the capacity of the Army of Tennessee, for any other than purely defensive operations. It was, indeed, not so much an opposition on the part of the President, to Johnston’s operations, as the apprehension of a want of ultimate aim in his movements. Whatever the plans of General Johnston may have been, they were not communicated to Mr. Davis, at least in such a shape as to indicate the hope of early and decisive execution. Alarmed for the results of a policy having seemingly the characteristics of drifting, of waiting upon events, and of hoping for, instead of creating opportunity, Mr. Davis yet felt the necessity of giving General Johnston an ample trial. During all this period strong influences were brought to bear against Johnston, and upon the other hand, he was warmly sustained by influences friendly both to himself and the President.

For weeks the President was importuned by these conflicting counsels, the natural effect of which was to aggravate his grave doubts as to the existence of any matured ultimate object in General Johnston’s movements. Upon one occasion, while still anxiously deliberating the subject, an eminent politician, a thorough patriot, a supporter of Mr. Davis, and having to an unlimited extent his confidence, called at the office of the President, with a view to explain the situation in Georgia, whence he had just arrived. This gentleman had been with the army, knew its condition, its enthusiasm and confidence. He was confident that General Johnston would destroy Sherman, and did not believe that the Federal army would ever be permitted to reach even the neighborhood of Atlanta. Mr. Davis, having quietly heard this explanation, replied by handing to his visitor a dispatch just received from Johnston, and dated at Atlanta. The army had already reached Atlanta, before the gentleman could reach Richmond, and he acknowledged himself equally amazed and disappointed.

Despite his doubts and apprehensions, however, Mr. Davis resisted the applications of members of Congress and leading politicians from the section in which General Johnston was operating, for a change of commanders, until he felt himself no longer justified in hazarding the loss of Atlanta without a struggle. There appeared little ground for the belief that Johnston would hold Atlanta, nor did there appear any reason why his arrival there should occasion a departure from his previous retrograde policy. Of the purpose of General Johnston to evacuate Atlanta the President felt that he had abundant evidence. Not until he felt fully satisfied upon this point, was the removal of that officer determined upon. Indeed, the order removing Johnston sets forth as its justification, that he had expressed no confidence in his ability to “repel the enemy.” If Atlanta should be surrendered, where would General Johnston expect to give battle?[77 - President Davis regarded the security of Atlanta as an object of the utmost consequence, for which, if necessary, even great hazards must be run. His frequent declaration was that the Confederacy “had no vital points.” This theory was correct, as there was certainly no one point, the loss of which necessarily involved the loss of the cause. Yet it was obvious in the beginning that certain sections, either for strategic reasons, or as sources of supply, were of vast importance for the prosecution of the war to a speedy and successful conclusion. The value of Richmond and Virginia was obvious. Equally important was a secure foothold in the Mississippi Valley, and the possession of the great mountainous range from Chattanooga to Lynchburg, the “backbone region” of the South. Mr. Davis regarded each one of these three objects as justifying almost any hazard or sacrifice. Under no circumstances could he approve a military policy which contemplated the surrender of either of these objects, without a desperate struggle. He had wanted Vicksburg defended to the last extremity, and now desired equal tenacity as to Atlanta. This city was a great manufacturing centre; the centre of the system of railroads diverging in all directions through the Gulf States, and it was the last remaining outpost in the defense of the central section of the Confederacy.]

Subsequently to his removal, General Johnston avowed that his purpose was to hold Atlanta; and, therefore, we are not at liberty to question his purpose. But this does not alter the legitimate inference drawn by Mr. Davis at the time of his removal. Can it be believed that the President would have taken that step, if satisfied of Johnston’s purpose to deliver battle for Atlanta?

This entire subject belongs appropriately only to military discussion, and no decision from other sources can possibly affect the ultimate sentence of that tribunal. Yet the most serious disparagement of Mr. Davis, by civilian writers, has been based upon the removal of Johnston from the command of the Western army. Granting that General Johnston would have sought to hold Atlanta, can it be believed that the ultimate result would have been different? When Sherman invested Atlanta, the North found some compensation for Grant’s failures in Virginia; and even though his force should have been inadequate for a siege, can it now be doubted that he would have been reënforced to any needed extent? The mere presence of Sherman at Atlanta was justly viewed by the North as an important success. He had followed his antagonist to the very heart of the Confederacy, and was master of innumerable strong positions held by the Confederates at the outset of the campaign. To suppose that he would, at such a moment, be permitted to fail from a lack of means, is a hypothesis at variance with the conduct of the North throughout the war.

General Johnston has that sort of negative vindication which arises from the disasters of his successor, though, as we shall presently show, Mr. Davis was nowise responsible for the misfortunes of General Hood.[78 - Yet the argument that General Hood’s errors establish the wisdom of General Johnston’s policy, can hardly be deemed fair by an intelligent and impartial judgment. A more competent commander than Hood might have more ably executed an offensive campaign, even after the fall of Atlanta; or, again, other tactics than those of Johnston, from Dalton to Atlanta, might have had better results.After Johnston’s removal, the President received numerous letters from prominent individuals in the Cotton States, heartily applauding that step. The condemnation of the President, for the removal of Johnston, came only after Hood’s disasters; and it must be remembered that Hood’s later operations were not in accordance with Mr. Davis’ views.The writer remembers a pithy summary of the Georgia campaign, made by a Confederate officer, shortly before the end of the war. Said he: “While Johnston was in command there were no results at all; when Hood took command, results came very rapidly.”] The question is one which must some day arise as between the general military policy of the Confederacy, and the antagonistic views which have been so freely ascribed to General Johnston by his admirers. We have no desire to pursue that antagonism, which, if it really existed, can hardly yet be a theme for impartial discussion. Towards the close of the war, it was usual to accredit Johnston with the theory that the Confederacy could better afford to lose territory than men, and that hence the true policy of the South was to avoid general engagements, unless under such circumstances as should totally neutralize the enemy’s advantage in numbers. We are not prepared to say to what extent these announcements of his views were authorized by General Johnston, or to what extent they were based upon retrospection. Some confirmation of their authenticity would seem to be deducible from General Johnston’s declaration since the war, that the “Confederacy was too weak for offensive war.” Certainly there could be no theory more utterly antagonistic to the genius of the Southern people, and that is a consideration, to which the great commanders of history have not usually been indifferent. Nor was it the theory which inspired those achievements of Southern valor, which will ring through the centuries. It was not the theory which Lee and Jackson adopted, nor, we need hardly add, that which Jefferson Davis approved.

Indeed, the philosophy of the Southern failure is not to be sought in the discussion of opposing theories among Confederate leaders. The conclusion of history will be, not that the South accomplished less than was to be anticipated, but far more than have any other people under similar circumstances. Southern men hardly yet comprehend the real odds in numbers and resources which for four years they successfully resisted. Other questions than those merely of aggregate populations and material wealth, enter into the solution of the problem.

By the census of 1860, the aggregate free population of the thirteen States, which the Confederacy claimed, was 7,500,000, leaving in the remaining States of the Union a free population of over twenty millions. This statement includes Kentucky and Missouri as members of the Confederacy; yet, by the compulsion of Federal bayonets, these States, not less than Maryland and Delaware, were virtually on the side of the North. Kentucky proclaimed neutrality, but during the whole war was overrun by the Federal armies, and, with her State government and large numbers of her people favoring the North, despite the Southern sympathies of the majority, her moral influence, as well as her physical strength, sustained the Union. The legitimate government of Missouri, and a majority of her people, sided with the South; but early occupied and held by the Federal army, her legitimate government was subverted, and her moral and physical resources were thrown into the scale against the Confederacy.

To say nothing of the large numbers of recruits obtained by the Federal armies from Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri, (chiefly from their large foreign populations,) their contributions to the Confederate army were nearly, if not quite, compensated by the accessions to Federal strength from East Tennessee, Western Virginia, and other portions of the seceded States. It would be fair, therefore, to deduct the population of these two States from that of the South, and this would leave the Confederacy five and one-half millions. Dividing their free populations between the two sections, and the odds were six and a half millions against twenty and a half millions. This is a liberal statement for the North, and embraces only the original populations of the two sections at the beginning of hostilities. There can hardly be a reasonable doubt, that had the struggle been confined to these numerical forces, the South would have triumphed. But hordes of foreign mercenaries, incited by high bounty and the promise of booty, flocked to the Federal army, and thus was the North enabled to recruit its armies to any needed standard, while the South depended solely upon its original population. As the South was overrun, too, negroes were forced or enticed into the Federal service, and thus, by these inexhaustible reserves of foreign mercenaries and negro recruits, the Confederate army was finally exhausted.

The following exhibition of the strength of the Federal armies is from the report of the Secretary of War, at the beginning of the session of Congress in December, 1865:

Official reports show that on the 1st of May, 1864, the aggregate national military force of all arms, officers and men, was nine hundred and seventy thousand seven hundred and ten, to-wit:

Available force present for duty 662,345

On detached service in the different military departments 109,348

In field hospitals or unfit for duty 41,266