The History of the Confederate War, Its Causes and Its Conduct. Volume 2 of 2

On the fourth of August a strong land force under General Gordon Granger succeeded in making a landing on Dauphin Island. This gave to Farragut the support he had desired from the land side. His time had at last come, and with four ironclad monitors, seven wooden vessels, all heavily armed, and a fleet of gunboats he advanced toward the mouth of the bay, a little after daylight on the morning of August 5, 1864.

During almost half an hour before Farragut's ships were in a position from which they could render their own fire effective, the fire from the Confederate forts and still more from the Confederate fleet that lay just inside the entrance line, played havoc with the wooden ships of Farragut's squadron. His flagship, the Hartford, had her mainmast shot away and many of her crew destroyed. Still Farragut pushed onward without a moment's hesitation at any point until he brought his ships into a position from which they could effectively return the Confederate fire. The heavier metal of his guns quickly and disastrously told upon the Confederate defenses. But these continued to belch out destruction in spite of any crippling that had been done to them, and for a time the fleet suffered terribly.

In order that he might see everything that occurred and direct the conflict with full knowledge of all its details, Farragut mounted to the rigging of his flagship, and a quartermaster lashed him to the spars in order that he might not fall to the deck, in the event of his receiving a wound.

One of Farragut's monitors, the Tecumseh, was quickly destroyed in an attempt to pass over the line of torpedoes in order to engage the Confederate ram, Tennessee, at close quarters. The Monitor encountered one of the torpedoes, and its explosion sent her to the bottom so suddenly that her commander and most of her crew perished with her.

The Brooklyn had been set to lead the advance with Farragut's flagship following immediately in her wake. The Brooklyn was provided with an apparatus for removing torpedoes in advance of her, but the apparatus was by no means a perfect one, and when the commander of that ship discovered the presence of torpedoes almost immediately under his bows, he stopped his vessel and began to back her. The whole fleet was now under a terrific fire, and the maintenance of its order was of the most vital importance. Farragut saw in a moment that the backing of the Brooklyn must result not only in halting the entire line under a destructive fire, but in throwing it into hopeless confusion. It was then that he gave his celebrated order, "Go on, damn the torpedo!" But as the Brooklyn still hesitated, Farragut immediately pushed the Hartford past that vessel, and himself took the lead of the line with his flagship, "damning the torpedoes."

Having crippled the forts and forced his way past the entrance into the harbor, Farragut ordered all his gunboats which had been lashed to the wooden vessels to cut loose, and assail the enemy's fleet. This they did with vigor and promptitude, capturing or destroying nearly all of the Confederate vessels.

There still remained, however, the Confederate ram, Tennessee, a powerful ironclad ship, commanded by a gallant captain, and manned by a desperately determined crew. Seeing what had happened, the commander of the Tennessee instantly tripped his anchors, and steamed at full speed into the midst of the Federal fleet, firing as he went, and with the great steel nose of his ship ramming every vessel that came in his way. Farragut's fleet in the meanwhile poured all the fire possible upon the ironclad monster to no effect, and many of them stove in their bows in a futile effort to sink her by collision. Then the monitors assailed her and so far crippled her, after a brief struggle, that she surrendered.

The story of this great battle at the mouth of Mobile Bay has been splendidly told in verse by Henry Howard Brownell in his poem entitled, "The Bay Fight." Mr. Brownell had written a poem called "The River Fight" in celebration of Farragut's struggle for the defenses of New Orleans two years before. Farragut had written to the poet, expressing his appreciation of his tribute, and at Brownell's request that he might accompany the great sea fighter in his next battle, Farragut had taken him with him on the Hartford as a witness to the struggle at the mouth of Mobile Bay.

The battle there had been a desperate one, costly in life and in ships, but it had accomplished its purpose. Farragut had passed the forts after crippling them so badly that they surrendered a few days later. He had destroyed the Confederate fleet and was now completely master of the entrance to a harbor which he had permanently sealed against the world. By reason of shoal water in the bay, he found it impossible to steam up to the city and take possession of it. But at any rate he had destroyed it for all useful purposes as a Confederate port. Its capture from the land side was now certain, whenever any one of the Federal generals in the field should see fit to move against it in adequate force. In the meanwhile its nominal defense served henceforth only to occupy troops whose presence was badly needed by Lee in his great contest with Grant in Virginia.

CHAPTER LI

The Mine Explosion at Petersburg

General Grant was a man of skill and genius in the game of war. But until the summer of 1864 he had never played that game against another great master of it. He had baffled and beaten Albert Sydney Johnston, whose reputation as a commander of great skill rests rather upon the anticipation of his comrades in the old army at the outbreak of the war, than upon any demonstration of such skill made by himself. Grant had held his own and more against Beauregard in the tremendous second day's struggle at Shiloh. He had overcome great natural obstacles in his effort to take Vicksburg and he had received there the surrender of Pemberton, – a general who had never before commanded an army in the field, or in any other way manifested a capacity for command. Grant had also met Bragg at Chattanooga and beaten him. But none of these antagonists had been comparable with Lee as a great master of strategy and command.

When Grant found himself defeated at Cold Harbor, as he has himself described his situation, he had been baffled in both the purposes with which he had undertaken his campaign. He had not crushed Lee's army, nor had he succeeded in cutting it off from its base in the fortifications of Richmond. He had said at Spottsylvania that he would "fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." The summer was still young when he found himself at Cold Harbor unable to do further fighting upon that line. He had crippled his enemy, it is true, but he had lost more than three men to that enemy's one, and that enemy still lay between him and Richmond in a mood of resoluteness and defiance. There was no way open to him by which, with any show of sanity, to assail Lee further in the field. It was then that he decided upon a campaign on other lines than those which he had chosen at the beginning of the summer.

He hoped by his movement upon Petersburg to take Lee at last by surprise, to cut his communications, and compel his precipitate retreat from the Confederate capital. Here again he was baffled of his purpose. There remained to him only the resource of dogged determination. He called for reinforcements in order that his army might always outnumber that of his adversary by two or three to one, and thus equipped with superior force, he determined, by continually extending his lines to the south and west, to draw Lee's slender line of defense into the condition of an attenuated thread.

Let us make this military situation clear to the minds of unmilitary readers. Grant lay east of Richmond and Petersburg, with a secure base of supplies at City Point on the James river, just in his rear. That base was perfectly protected by a great war fleet which lay in the river and held it. It was easily accessible from the North by transports of every kind, bringing troops or supplies of food or ammunition. Grant's rear was as secure and as well furnished as if it had rested upon New York harbor.

He so disposed his men as to threaten Richmond and Petersburg over a space of about thirty miles. His battalions and his guns besieged the two cities all the way from a position north of Richmond, across James river and the Appomattox, to a point south and west of Petersburg. Good roads and a railroad in his rear lay beyond the possible sight of his enemy, and by the use of these he could concentrate any force he pleased at any point he might select upon Lee's attenuated lines, – all without Lee's knowledge, and beyond the possibility of his discovery.

From the beginning of these siege operations to the end General Grant's plan was not that which is here suggested, but another and slower one. It was his plan to continue the extension of his lines southward and westward toward the Weldon railroad, thus compelling his adversary to stretch out his lines and weaken his defenses at every point, and at the same time threatening his communications with the south. This cautious policy is explained and perhaps justified by the fact that in the preliminary operations against Petersburg, in which General Grant was baffled of his purpose to take that town with a rush, the Federals had lost no less than 10,000 men in a stubborn fight with Lee's small head of column. To assail Lee and such an army as that which Lee commanded behind entrenchments was a task so difficult and so perilous that it might well give pause to the most daring and most obstinate of generals.

No sooner was position taken up in front of Petersburg than Grant began his bold operations against the Weldon railroad leading thence southward. On the twenty-first and twenty-second of June Grant and Meade sent heavy forces southward and hurled them upon the Confederate defenses of that railroad. These forces were promptly met by the Confederates and disastrously defeated with a loss of 1,700 prisoners and four guns captured.

The failure of this enterprise ended operations in that quarter with such purpose for several weeks to come. Another plan was formed by which to break Confederate resistance. Immediately in front of Petersburg the two opposing lines of fortifications lay at one point within less than fifty yards of each other. Each line was strongly built and each was protected at every point by traverses, – earthworks built at right angles to the main works, as a protection against an enfilade or cross fire. So close were the works together, and so incessant was the fire that it became at last impossible for men on either side to show their heads above the works in order to discharge their guns. On either side port holes were made by the placing of sand bags on top of the parapets, in such fashion as to leave holes through which the men might fire their guns. Even these port holes were unavailable for use if by any chance the enemy looking toward them through a port hole on the other side could see the sky beyond. The moment a man undertook to shoot through the port hole his head, obscuring the light, revealed his presence there to some sharpshooter on the other side who was standing ready with gun aimed and "bead drawn" waiting to fire into the hole the instant the sky beyond should be obscured by human presence. So ceaseless was the fire at this point that repeated experiments showed that any twig thrust above the crest of the parapet would be instantly cut in two by one of the multitudinous bullets which were flowing in a continuous stream from one side to the other.

The space between the works was so perfectly and completely commanded by Confederate artillery that no general in his senses would have thought of attempting to cross it, even with the most heroic of veterans. But just in rear of the Federal lines there was a cavernous hollow between the hills, where anything might be done without the possibility of Confederate discovery. A regiment composed mainly of Pennsylvania coal miners was brought to that point, and instructed to push a mining shaft under the hill in order to plant a great mine immediately beneath the Confederate works.

The tunnel began in the ravine in rear of the Federal works, and extended thence 500 feet. This brought it immediately under an important redan in the Confederate lines. There a cross gallery eighty feet long was dug, and packed full of gunpowder, – 8,000 pounds in all.

The plan was to surprise the Confederates and break their lines by the explosion of this tremendous mine on the morning of the thirtieth of July. It was intended to take advantage of the confusion thus created, and push a strong column through the gap made in the works, thus cutting Lee's army in two, and compelling it to retreat.

The affair was badly managed from beginning to end, and resulted in a disaster which amounted almost to a crime. For the execution of such an enterprise as this, General Meade ought to have selected his most daring and determined subordinate to lead the assailing force. Instead of that he permitted the selection to be made by some species of lot drawing, and the choice fell upon General James H. Ledlie, who proved himself peculiarly unfit for the conduct of an enterprise that required so much of heroic daring. General Grant in his "Memoirs" says of this officer that, "Ledlie, besides being otherwise inefficient, proved also to possess a disqualification less common among soldiers." He did, indeed, order his men to advance into the breach made by the explosion which occurred at about daylight, but he did not lead them. He remained instead, during all that terrible day, securely ensconced in the ravine that lay in rear of the Federal line.

The explosion completely destroyed a Confederate fort and its garrison, leaving a vast crater thirty feet deep and two hundred feet long into which Ledlie's men were sent like sheep to the slaughter. Having reached the crater they stopped there instead of pushing on as had been intended and running over the weak second line of Confederate defense. Thus the whole purpose of the enterprise was completely defeated at the outset for lack of capable leadership.

It must be remembered that at that period of the war Lee's army was so far battle seasoned that any form of panic was to it completely impossible. Even when it saw the most important part of its line blown up, and thousands of Federal troops rushing into the crater, the Army of Northern Virginia remained steadfast and unshaken. Hurried orders were given, and promptly obeyed. Within ten minutes after Ledlie's column came to a halt in the crater it was forever too late for them to gain the advantage intended by rushing through that slender second line which held the Jerusalem plank road, and which alone stood then between the Federal army and Petersburg. Under Lee's command, the Army of Northern Virginia had become as perfect a piece of military mechanism as ever existed, and under Lee's command, for both Lee and Beauregard were promptly present at the post of danger, the men of that army were quickly shifted into positions against which an advance of their enemy would have been nothing less than wholesale suicide.

In the meanwhile Ledlie's men in the crater were as helpless to retire as they were to advance. They were practically leaderless and the space in rear of them was already commanded by Confederate artillery which could sweep it with canister from end to end. To this commanding force of artillery Lee promptly added thirty-five other guns, placing each in a position from which it could hurl its missiles from one end to the other of the doomed space.

It was not until after midday that these preparations and others of a like kind were completed. But in the meanwhile detachments from Lamkin's battery of mortars were pushed up and placed behind traverses within sixty yards of that cavernous hole in which thousands of Federal soldiers were lying helpless for lack of a leader fit to command them. These mortars continued ceaselessly throughout the morning to hurl twenty-four-pound shells into the hole at the rate of twenty a minute. This fire was murderous in an extreme degree, but there was no escape from it. The men subjected to it had no choice but to sit still and await the end. They could neither advance nor retreat with any hope of escape in either direction.

Finally a little after midday, and after he had completed his preparations and the placing of his guns, Lee ordered Mahone, with a heavy infantry force, to charge across the field to the very edge of the crater, and pour into it a fire so destructive that its further tenancy should be rendered impossible. The more desperate of the Federal troops in the hole risked flight toward their own lines, fifty yards away. Not many of them succeeded in getting there. The rest surrendered, and the Confederates occupied the crater.

The narrow space between the two lines was literally piled high with dead Federal soldiers, lying on top of each other, sometimes three deep, and in some places five. A day later there was a suspension of hostilities for a few hours, and the dead were dragged away and buried.

This badly managed affair well nigh rivaled the blunder at Cold Harbor in its costliness to the Army of the Potomac. Grant's loss was more than 4,000 men, – Lee's less than 1,000.

The whole enterprise was of doubtful military propriety. Yet if it had been conducted with an energy and capability equal to that which had been brought to bear upon other fields it might have promised the early and complete destruction of Lee's defenses. If there had been, in command of the troops set apart for the assault, such a man as Sheridan, for example, or Hooker, or Hancock, the chance was an even one or better that the force hurled suddenly upon Lee's broken line could have made its way into Petersburg by impetuous advance. It must be accounted one of General Meade's rare failures in judgment, that he did not place the assailing force under some such commander upon whom he could depend to give wise personal direction and leadership to the desperate fighting needed on such an occasion.

In its outcome, this enterprise which had been planned for the destruction of Lee and his army, resulted rather in their strengthening. Having recaptured the crater they promptly threw up a line of works along that side of it which lay nearest to their enemy, thus in fact, shortening the distance between the two lines, without in any way weakening their position.

An unfortunate circumstance connected with this affair was the fact that General Burnside, who had general command in that part of the field, made a desperate endeavor – which came a few minutes too late – to force the Confederate second line by an advance of the negro troops under his command. These pushed themselves as far forward up the hill as they could go and were there hurled back and driven into the great pit. In the event many of them were captured. The Confederates refused to recognize these black men as soldiers or to treat them as prisoners of war. It was a time, indeed, when the Southern soldiers were in a state of peculiar exasperation and revengefulness against negroes in arms. During a recent raid certain negro troops had committed unforgiveable outrages upon women, and in consequence the mood of mind of the Army of Northern Virginia was such that a negro soldier in arms had better have fallen into hell than into their hands. General Lee and his subordinates did what they could to compel a merciful treatment for the negro troops who were captured in the crater. It was all to no purpose. Every effort made to send these men to the rear as prisoners under charge of details ended in a report from the commander of the detail that the negroes had "escaped." Their escape was of such kind that burial parties had to be sent into the covered ways leading to Petersburg to clear them of the negro corpses there.

General Grant has said of this mine enterprise: "The effort was a stupendous failure. It cost us about 4,000 men, mostly however, captured; and all due to inefficiency on the part of the corps commander (Burnside) and the incompetency of the division commander (Ledlie) who were sent to lead the assault."

CHAPTER LII

Early's Invasion of Pennsylvania

It will be remembered that General Grant set out upon his Virginia campaign of 1864 with the definite and avowed purpose of crushing and destroying Lee in the field. The completeness of his failure to accomplish this purpose was made manifest in July, when Lee, confronting the consolidated armies of the Potomac and the James, nevertheless felt himself strong enough to detach from his own force a vigorous body of troops under Early, with instructions to sweep Hunter out of the Valley of Virginia and undertake a third invasion of Maryland, so conducted as to threaten Baltimore and Washington.

This movement was a peculiarly daring one, but the strategy of it was brilliant. The detachment of the troops sent to Early seriously weakened the force that Lee had under his command for the defense of the Confederate capital, but he hoped for such results from Early's movement as should again compel the Federal Government to weaken or withdraw Grant's army from the siege of Petersburg. He had twice before succeeded by such tactics in compelling the Army of the Potomac to withdraw from Virginia and stand upon its defense at the North. In both instances as soon as that army had withdrawn Lee himself had moved with all his force to the support of the invading column. There is little doubt that he intended to repeat this operation if Early's threat to Washington should prove effective in compelling Grant's withdrawal from Virginia. But by this time volunteering by hundreds of thousands and drafts, some of which brought as many as half a million men into the field, had so enormously increased the Federal numbers that Grant was strongly disposed to leave the defense of Washington to quite other troops than those he had with him in his operations at Petersburg. The disparity of numbers between the two armies had now become too great to be offset by brilliant strategy, or by any energy in daring enterprise.

Hunter had so far carried out Grant's plan of ravaging the Valley of Virginia and moving upon the Confederate lines of communication at Lynchburg, as to create in Lee's mind a serious apprehension. Partly to meet this danger, and partly with a larger strategic purpose, Lee detached Early, and sent him down the Valley with about 8,000 men. Slipping into the upper or southern end of the valley without discovery, Early plunged forward impetuously, and so completely broke Hunter's resistance that that general, instead of retiring before his enemy toward the Potomac, abandoned the field completely, and took refuge in West Virginia, thus leaving Early's pathway to the region beyond the Potomac open and unobstructed. Early was an officer of extraordinary vigor and promptitude. He quickly crossed the Potomac and pushed on to Monocacy near the city of Frederick. There he was met by a force under General Lew Wallace on the ninth of July. Hurling his army upon Wallace he quickly swept him from the field. He then pushed forward until, on the eleventh of July, he came within sight of Washington City itself, and for a time it was gravely feared there that he would enter and possess the Federal capital.

Grant had known nothing of Early's detachment from Lee's army until the news came to him that the Confederates were marching upon Washington in threatening force. As has been said before, it was Grant's conviction that Washington ought to be able to take care of itself so long as the main body of the Army of Northern Virginia was kept busy in his own front at Richmond and Petersburg. Nevertheless, as soon as news came to him that Early had defeated Hunter and driven him out of the valley, and that the Confederates were rapidly advancing upon Washington, Grant detached a strong force, and hurried it to the capital city. In the meanwhile the authorities at Washington seem to have been thrown into a panic as dangerous as it was senseless. They did, indeed, take certain measures of defense. They put arms in the hands of the clerks in the several departments, and sought with these to make some show of opposition to the approach of the Confederate veterans. This was manifestly useless. The time had long gone by when untrained clerks, however well armed, could be expected to stand for one moment against the battle-hardened veterans who had learned their trade under Lee or Grant in the desperate struggles in Virginia. It is not an exaggeration but simple truth to say that at that time a single regiment from either the Army of Northern Virginia or the Army of the Potomac could easily and almost without effort have swept away a hundred thousand untrained militiamen, however patriotic they may have been, and however they may have been inspired with personal courage. To send a mob of department clerks, however numerous, against such a force as that which Early commanded was like sending sheep to a contest with wolves. It meant the butchery of the poor fellows, without the smallest hope that their sacrifice of life could yield anything of advantage to the Federal cause or could delay the Confederate progress by more than a few minutes at the most. But Grant had promptly met the danger by hurrying two corps of his veterans to Washington city. Fortunately for the Federal cause, this force got there in time to interpose itself effectively between Early and the capital.

After burning the city of Chambersburg Early was compelled to retire, which he did at once without loss, taking up a strong position in the Valley of Virginia, where his presence as a continual threat to Washington city was more effective than his coöperation with Lee at Petersburg could have been.

Posted in the valley, Early's little force of 8,000 men served to occupy twice or thrice that number of Grant's troops in the defense of Washington, and in preparation for repelling an apprehended invasion of the country north of that city.

This Monocacy campaign, as it is called in history, involved no great battle, but as a strategic influence it was an achievement of the utmost importance to General Lee. Before that campaign was begun Hunter's presence in the Valley and his mastery there served not only to cut off from Lee the rich supplies which it was his custom to draw from that quarter of the country, but also to threaten him dangerously in the rear. If Hunter had been let alone, he must presently have forced his way to Lynchburg, cutting Lee's chief line of communication with the south and west, and opening the way to a junction between his own force and the forces which were pushing forward by Grant's order from Tennessee toward that point. By the detachment of Early with 8,000 men Lee had succeeded in preventing all this; in driving Hunter beyond the mountains into West Virginia, where his force could render no assistance whatever to Grant's campaign; in clearing the valley of all Federal forces; and in compelling Grant to keep at Washington a strong force which he might otherwise have utilized in his operations at Petersburg.

For several months after the Monocacy campaign this continued to be the situation. It grew at last so intolerable to Grant that he sent Sheridan to the Valley to drive Early out, and possess that fair region. In the meanwhile the results of Early's brilliant campaign with a handful of men, and his still more important success in holding the Valley of Virginia with that same handful of men, had its influence upon operations at the principal seat of hostilities.

CHAPTER LIII

Operations at Petersburg and Sheridan's Valley Campaign

In the mine operation General Grant had been baffled even more conspicuously than at the Wilderness or at Spottsylvania or at Cold Harbor. All his efforts to break through Lee's lines had completely failed. All his efforts to crush Lee and destroy his resisting power had come to naught. There remained to him – notwithstanding his enormous superiority of force and of the materials of war – only the resource of continuing the regular siege operations already in progress.

For such operations he was peculiarly well equipped. He had more men than his adversary had by three or four to one. He had an unassailable base of supplies upon the James river to which his vessels could come without the slightest fear of molestation. He had unlimited supplies while his adversary hung all the time upon the verge of starvation. He had a railroad in his rear over which he could move trains at will without even the possibility of his adversary's discovery. He had already by the extension of his lines compelled Lee to draw his out to the point of breaking. Grant could, at any moment, concentrate a hundred thousand men and a hundred guns upon any point in Lee's line which he might select for assault, and that without the smallest possibility of Lee's discovering his purpose. But instead of assault, which he had many times attempted with disastrous results, General Grant wisely determined to continue his policy of attenuating Lee's lines by enforced extension. He continued to move his own troops southward and westward toward and along the Weldon railroad, thus compelling Lee to stretch out his lines until the men in his breastworks, instead of standing elbow to elbow, stood many feet apart, and held their ground only by virtue of a desperate determination.

On the thirteenth of August Grant sent Hancock to assail the defenses of Richmond on the northern side of the James river. Lee was prompt to meet him, and the Confederates succeeded in repelling every attack made throughout a succession of bloody days. But while these operations were going on north of the James, Grant availed himself of his superior numbers by sending Warren on the eighteenth to seize upon the Weldon railroad south of Petersburg, and entrench himself in a line crossing that avenue of Confederate communication. On the nineteenth of August and again on the twenty-first, Lee desperately assailed Warren in this position, but without success. On the twenty-fifth a Confederate force under General A. P. Hill was sent forward to recapture the position. The Confederates made three desperate assaults, but in each case were beaten back with terrific loss. Finally, Hill ordered Heth's division to move forward and carry the works at all hazards and all costs. That was an order which the veterans in these two contending armies understood, and were accustomed to obey. Ordered to carry the works, Heth did so, capturing three batteries and a large number of prisoners. Then the Federals, under General Miles, rallied and made a counter assault, recapturing a part of the works, but suffering terribly in the encounter. In this fierce struggle the Federals lost 2,400 men. The Confederate loss has never been accurately reported, but in such desperate fighting as was done on that field, it must have been severe.

The total result of this struggle was that Grant held and continued thereafter to hold a part of the railroad which led south from Petersburg, by way of Weldon, and upon which Lee was compelled to depend in a considerable degree for communication and supplies. But with that vigor and resourcefulness which had come to mark the operations of the armies on both sides, Lee promptly opened a wagon route thirty miles long and well defended, over which as a bridge to the gap he was able for months afterwards to carry all supplies and reinforcements that could be brought to him from the south.