History of the United States, v.3, by James Ford Rhodes, 1910 [c1892].

Chapter 16, Part 4: Ulysses S. Grant through Action of the President and Congress

Ulysses S. Grant is one of the most interesting men whom the war brought out of obscurity. In his "Personal Memoirs" he has told with fascinating simplicity the story of his education and training in boyhood and youth. There was manual labor on the farm as well as attendance at the school; he broke horses and took care of them, he studied under the ordinary teachers, and in the crude text-books of the day. Matthew Arnold, attracted by his early history, makes the comment, "What a wholesome bringing up it was!" He had no desire to go to West Point, but went there because his father insisted on it. He took little interest in the studies or the life of the Military Academy, and showed aptitude for nothing but mathematics. Nevertheless he was graduated twenty-first in a class of thirty-nine, and went into the army. He was twenty-four years old when the Mexican War began, and served with credit through the whole of it under Taylor and Scott. Here we get glimpses of his self-education induced by contact with men and affairs. He was not a man who assimilated a variety of knowledge; he had, in fact, a mind the reverse of encyclopaedic, but by careful observation and systematic thinking he made certain truths his own; these became ingrained in the fibre of his brain, guiding his action in the supreme moment of opportunity.

Returning from the Mexican campaign he married a woman whom he had long loved. Remaining in the army, he passed nearly four years at Detroit and Sackett's Harbor, when his regiment was ordered to the Pacific coast. This occasioned a separation from his family, and a cloud came over his life. He fell into habits of intemperance. In 1854 he resigned from the army and rejoined his family. "I was now to commence," he writes, "at the age of thirty-two, a new struggle for our support." On his wife's farm, near St. Louis, he endeavored to gain their livelihood. He lacked capital, but struggled on with indifferent success. One of the pictures of this time of his life is his loading of a cord of wood on a wagon, and taking it to the city for sale. At last he had a tedious attack of ague, which partially incapacitated him for work, and he gave up farming. He became a real-estate agent in St. Louis, but in this venture he did not prosper. When thirty-eight years old he came for advice and assistance to his father, who was in comfortable circumstances, and had a hardware and leather store in Galena, Illinois. "I referred him to Simpson," the father writes, "my next oldest son, who had charge of my Galena business. . . . Simpson sent him to the Galena store to stay until something else might turn up in his favor, and told him he must confine his wants within $800 a year; that if that would not support him, he must draw what it lacked from the rent of his house and the hire of his negroes in St. Louis. . . . That amount would have supported his family then, but he owed debts at St. Louis, and did draw $1500 in the year, but he paid back the balance after he went into the army." Did it not throw light on his later career, it would be unnecessary to refer to a phase of his life in Missouri and in Galena. He had not thrown off the bad habits he had acquired in the army, and with them went impecuniosity and shiftlessness. Acquaintances in St. Louis and in Galena used to cross the street to avoid meeting Grant, and being solicited for the loan of small sums of money. "Among his old army acquaintances," says a well-informed writer in the Nation "and particularly in the staff corps, the impression was prevalent that his life was hopelessly wrecked." Breaking through this wretchedness, however, there were gleams of true manhood. He was honest and truthful, and he had the instincts of a gentleman, which prevented him from becoming a loafer. He never used profane language; he did not tell obscene stories; and this was not from refinement of taste, for that he lacked, but from his purity of soul.

Such was Ulysses S. Grant when he had reached the age of thirty-nine, and when, in April, 1861, after the firing on Sumter, he was called upon to preside over a war meeting in Galena. He declined to be a candidate for the captaincy of the company enlisted in his town, but he never went back to the leather store. He drilled these men and accompanied them to Springfield, remaining with them until they were mustered into the United States service. Governor Yates, of Illinois, then employed him in the adjutant-general's office of the State. In May he wrote

the adjutant-general of the army, offering his services to his country, saying that he thought himself "competent to command a regiment." "I felt some hesitation," he writes in his book, "in suggesting rank as high as the colonelcy of a regiment, feeling somewhat doubtful whether I would be equal to the position." But no notice whatever was taken of his letter. He then went to Cincinnati and called at the headquarters of the Department of Ohio, on McClellan, whom he had known slightly at West Point and in Mexico, hoping he would be offered a position on the general's staff. "I called on two successive days at his office, but failed to see him on either occasion," is his record. In June he was appointed colonel of an Illinois regiment of three-years' men, and in August a brigadier-general of volunteers. From a military experience in Missouri he had learned a lesson which always seemed beyond McClellan. Advancing on a Confederate force, he was feeling much afraid of the enemy, but kept on, and when he reached the camp found that they had fled, showing that they had been equally afraid of him. "From that event to the close of the war," he says, "I never experienced trepidation upon confronting an enemy, though I always felt more or less anxiety. I never forgot that he had as much reason to fear my forces as I had his." In November, 1861, he attacked a Confederate camp at Belmont; a battle ensued which was without result, but it served as an education for Grant and his soldiers, and demonstrated his coolness in the time of danger. At Donelson he showed intellectual qualities of a high order. He knew Floyd was no soldier, he had a poor opinion of Pillow's military ability, and made the disposition of his forces accordingly. Had Buckner been in command, Grant's plan of investment would have been different. His physical courage was rare even among soldiers, who regard the virtue as nothing extraordinary. "I can recall only two persons," writes Horace Porter, " who throughout a rattling musketry fire always sat in their saddles without moving a muscle or winking an eye; one was a bugler and the other was General Grant." But the sight of a bull-fight in Mexico was sickening to him.1

The capture of Fort Donelson was indeed a great victory; it caused the Confederates to abandon Bowling Green2 and Columbus, and to evacuate Nashville; it resulted in a Union advance of over two hundred miles of territory before the enemy could rally or reorganize. It set at rest all doubts, if any still existed, as to the permanent position of Kentucky in the civil conflict, and it was a step towards the recovery of Tennessee, in the eastern part of which a formidable Union sentiment existed. The North rejoiced with exceeding great joy.3 "The underpinning of the rebellion seems to be knocked out from under it," wrote Chase.4 In an article in the Evening Post, Bryant maintained that" the victories we have gained are equal at least to five hundred million dollars poured at once into the public exchequer;" and he therefore urged the President to veto the Legal-tender bill.5 Holmes wrote Motley : "Never was such ecstasy, such delirium of excitement, as last Monday, when we got the news from Fort Donelson. Why, to give you an instance from my own experience, when I, a grave college professor, went into my lecture-room, the class, which had first got the news a little before, began clapping and clapping louder and louder, then cheering, until I had to give in myself, and flourishing my wand in the air, joined with the
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1 In this estimate of Grant I have been helped by his Personal Memoirs; by the articles of J. D. Cox in the Nation, July 80,1885, February 25,1886; Life of Grant, by Dana and Wilson; Badeau's article, Century Magazine, May, 1885; James H. Wilson's article, ibid., October, 1885; General W. T. Sherman's article, ibid., February, 1888; Horace Porter's on the "Philosophy of Courage," ibid., June, 1888, and his articles on Grant in Appletons' Cyclopaedia of Biography, and in McClure's Magazine, May, 1894.
2 The evacuation of Bowling Green was ordered before the capture of Donelson, and was executed while the battle was being fought, Official Records, vol. vii. p. 259.
3 See New York Tribune, Times, Herald, World, February 18; Congressional Globe, pp. 846, 850.
4 Warden, p. 416.
5 Life of Bryant, Godwin, p. 169.

boys in their rousing hurrahs, after which I went on with my lecture as usual. The almost universal feeling is that the rebellion is knocked on the head; that it may kick hard, even rise and stagger a few paces, but that its os frontis is beaten in."1

The capture of Fort Donelson was in England regarded as a victory of high importance, and helped much the cause of the North. Even before the news of it was received sentiment favorable to the Union had been growing. "Before our Parliament met," wrote John Bright to Sumner, February 27,"there was much talk of interference with the blockade, and much was still said in favor of the South. All that has passed away. In London all has changed, and it is difficult to find a noisy advocate of the secession theory. The press has become much more moderate, and the great party that was to have driven the government into hostilities with you is nowhere to be found. Even the hot Mr. Gregory, the Southern advocate in the House of Commons, is very slow at taking any step in the direction of his known sympathies, and has contented himself with a notice that, at some time not yet fixed, he will call the attention of the House to the state of the blockade."2 When the particulars of Grant's victory became known, it could no longer be asserted that the South had a monopoly of competent officers and of good and brave soldiers. Confidence in the ability of the Confederates was shaken. The friends of the North felt that at last the United States had demonstrated that it had the stronger battalions.3

The fall of Donelson gave the South the bitterness of defeat which the North had felt after Bull Run, and it was doubly bitter, as the Confederates had begun to think that in the field they were invincible. No one appreciated the
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1 Motley's Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 68.
2 Pierce-Sumner Papers, MS.
3 See London Times, March 6; London Daily News, March 7; London Spectator, March 8; Debate in House of Commons, March 7, Hansard, p. 1158.

magnitude of the disaster better than the commanding general in the West. "The blow was most disastrous," wrote Albert Sidney Johnston to Davis," and almost without remedy." 1 When the governor of Tennessee proclaimed that the troops must evacuate Nashville, and adjourned the legislature to Memphis, panic seized upon the people, and disorder, turbulence, and rapine ensued. At Richmond consternation reigned. The management of the campaign was on all sides found fault with, and Davis at once ordered that Floyd and Pillow be relieved from command. The pressure from the people and the Confederate congress upon Davis for the removal of Johnston was strong, but he resisted it and stood by his favorite general.3 Shortly after the fall of Donelson came the day appointed for the provisional government to give place to the permanent government of the Confederacy, and for the inauguration of its president and vice-president for the term of six years. This was February 22, and one is struck with the emphasis that all the contemporary and subsequent accounts give to the dismalness of the day. The heavens were black and the rain poured down. Davis, pale and emaciated, delivered his inaugural address, at the foot of the Washington monument in Capitol Square, to a crowd of people, the gloom in whose hearts was fitly reflected by nature's sombre hue. All minds were full of the defeats suffered by the Confederate arms. "At the darkest hour of our struggle," their president declared, "the provisional gives place to the permanent government. After a series of successes and victories which covered our arms with glory, we have recently met with serious disasters. But in the heart of a people resolved to be free, these disasters tend but to stimulate to increased resistance.. . . With humble gratitude and adoration," he concluded," acknowledging the Providence which has so visibly protected the
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1 March 18, Official Records, vol. vii. p. 260.
2 Davis to Johnston, March 12, Official Records, vol. vii. p. 257; A. 8. Johnston at Shiloh, Century War Book, vol. i. p. 550.

Confederacy during its brief but eventful career, to thee, O God! I trustingly commit myself, and prayerfully invoke Thy blessing on my country and its cause."

Reflecting in scathing terms on the arbitrary acts and violations of the Constitution and the law by the Lincoln government, Davis boasted " that, through all the necessities of an unequal struggle, there has been no act on our part to impair personal liberty or the freedom of speech, of thought, or of the press. The courts have been open, the judicial functions fully executed, and every right of the peaceful citizen maintained as securely as if a war of invasion had not disturbed the land."1 This might Davis truthfully say on the 22d of February, but not for many days longer. The Confederates stood adversity no better than had the Federals. By authority of an act of Congress, passed in secret session,2 the Confederate president, March 1, proclaimed martial law in the city of Richmond and the adjoining country to the distance of ten miles, and declared the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus.3 At first the law-abiding citizens were well pleased with this action. One morning, shortly after the inauguration, the walls in different parts of the city were "scrawled over with inflammatory and treasonable mottoes;" these were interpreted to mean a call upon the Unionists to co-operate in resistance to the Confederate government, and caused alarm.4 When, therefore, under the operation of martial law, several notorious Unionists, who were regarded in this time of distress as traitors, were arrested, the people applauded the vigor of their government. Moreover, the municipal administration and police system, which had served well the quiet and refined Virginia capital, had broken down under the growth of the city and the influx of soldiers, gamblers, and adventurers. General Winder,
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1 Davis's inaugural is printed by Alfriend, p. 348.
2 Passed February 27, Acts of the First Congress, 0. 8. A., p. 1.
3 Life of Davis, Mrs. Davis, vol. ii. p. 185.
4 Richmond Examiner, February 28; Appletons' Annual Cyclopaedia, 1862, p. 239.

to whom was delegated practically unlimited power, positively prohibited the distillation of spirituous liquors, and ordered all the dram-shops closed.1 He established a military police, and strictly enforced this and other orders, restoring peace to the city where had been confusion and turbulence. Rowdies, drunkards, and idle soldiers disappeared from the streets. Ladies could now walk out without fear of insult, and gentlemen could go out at night without danger of being robbed.

But the delight of the people was short-lived. General Winder did not use his arbitrary power with mildness and discretion. The well-grounded belief obtained that he employed it for private oppression and the gratification of personal malice. Extraordinary arrests of respectable citizens were made, capricious acts of tyranny were done, and it was impossible for the sufferers to get redress. A vexatious passport system was established. The Richmond Whig, on account of its criticisms of the administration, was obnoxious to Winder, and one day when an article appeared which he supposed to be a violation of one of his orders, he gave the command to arrest the editor and close the office. This order was not carried out, however, owing to the dissuasion of Jones, a clerk in the Confederate war-office, who maintained that no offence had been committed. Jones's entry of April 17 in his diary is: "The press has taken the alarm, and several of the publishers have confessed a fear of having their offices closed if they dare to speak the sentiments struggling for utterance. It is indeed a reign of terror! Every Virginian and other loyal citizens of the South— members of Congress and all—must now, before obtaining General Winder's permission to leave the city for their homes, bow down before the aliens in the provost-marshal's office and subscribe to an oath of allegiance, while a file of bayonets are pointed at their backs."2 This much one may
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1 General Order No. 8, March 1, Richmond Examiner.
2 A Rebel War Clerk's Diary, vol. i. p. 120, see, also, p. 115; Richmond

gather from the contemporary evidence, but Pollard asserts that the half was not told in the newspapers of the day, that Winder exercised the powers of a viceroy in a terrible manner. His police was largely composed of disreputable men; he gave employment to two hundred spies, on whose reports of private conversations good citizens were imprisoned, and then had to depend for their release on the whim of the tyrant. Not only men but women suffered indignities at his hands.1 His rule was indeed a despotism of the worst kind. He was responsible to no one but Davis, who sustained him, or at all events kept him in his place. Public opinion, however, asserted itself so strongly that Congress modified the law under which the President had exercised these extraordinary powers.2

It was now that a party in opposition to Davis, with powerful exponents in Congress and in the press, was formed. Owing to changes in the cabinet, Benjamin now held both the state and war portfolios;3 he was the chief adviser of the Confederate president and his confidential friend. The blame for the disasters of the early part of 1862 was largely imputed to Benjamin, and at the same time much criticism intended for Davis was showered upon the secretary's head. The permanent congress was composed of a Senate and House of Representatives, but, since the army attracted the best talent of the Confederacy, it was in ability not up to the level of the provisional congress, nor to the representation which the South used to send to the national legislature. "This is a very poor congress," Stephens said, confidentially. "There are few men of ability in the House. In the Senate not more than two or three."4
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Examiner, March 8, 4, 7, 8; Richmond Whig, March 4, 25, 27, April 1 ; Richmond Dispatch, March 1, 8,12,17; Pollard's History of the First Year of the War. 1 Pollard's Davis, p. 215.
2 Passed April 19, Acts of the First Congress, C. S. A., p. 40. Not as much as it should have done according to Jones, Diary, vol. i. p. 120. 3 Randolph, of Virginia, was afterwards appointed Secretary of War. 4 Johnston and Browne, p. 414.

Lincoln's war orders were probably designed as much for assuring the people that something would be done as for commands to his generals. But as affairs turned out, bis "Special War Order Number 1," issued January 31, which directed McClellan to begin a forward movement February 22, whose object should be the seizure of Manassas Junction, was the highest strategy. McClellan had an army three times as large as Johnston's, better equipped, better fed, in better health, and full of confidence on account of the victories which had been gained for the Union; while Johnston's army was almost as much demoralized as were the Richmond government and people, and the time of enlistment of a large number of his men had nearly expired. Had McClellan advanced February 22 a cheap victory awaited him. An intelligent study of the internal affairs of the Confederacy, a reasonable knowledge of the force of the enemy—which might have been easily gained—could not fail to convince a man who was fit to command an army that now was the supreme moment to strike a series of blows, that it was the time when the tide of affairs should be taken at its flood. Only one obstacle existed. The roads were bad, but not impassable. Edward Dicey saw them when they were at the worst, and his testimony is that "they were not worse than many of the roads in the south of Italy, over which the Sardinian army marched in I860."1 Moreover, McClellan would have had a railroad behind him to transport his supplies. Of the army of the Potomac, Dicey wrote: "I have seen the armies of most European countries, and I have no hesitation in saying that, as far as the average raw material of the rank and file is concerned, the American army is the finest."2 These magnificent men, full of courage and desire to end the war speedily, panted to be led against the enemy; but their general, instead of giving the word, haggled with the President over a plan of campaign. It is certain that if the Grant of Don
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1 Federal States, vol. il. p. 19.
2 Ibid., p. 7.

Donelson had been in command, he would have fought Johnston's army and beaten it, and it is possible he might have captured it, or Richmond, or both, thus shortening the war at least a year, and putting an end to the probability of foreign interference.

Meanwhile the astute Confederate general, finding it impossible to conjecture that McClellan would not take advantage of the peculiarly favorable conditions, and aware that in that event he stood in jeopardy, was making preparations to withdraw his army to a more secure position. Beginning his preparations February 22, he commenced the retreat March 7, and four days later had his army safely on the south bank of the Rappahannock River. Constantly expecting an attack, he had deemed it impossible to remove all the property accumulated at Manassas Junction, and therefore a large amount of stores, provisions, clothing, blankets, and baggage was burned.1 March 9 McClellan heard of Johnston's movement, and immediately gave the order for the occupation of Centreville and Manassas. The Union army found that they had been fronting phantom ordnance as well as phantom soldiers. Being deficient in artillery, Johnston had made "rough wooden imitations of guns," which were "kept near the embrasures in readiness for exhibition'"—"Quaker guns," our newspapers called them. Hawthorne was in Washington at this time, and has with exquisite skill described this advance. "On the very day of our arrival," he wrote, "sixty thousand men had crossed the Potomac on their march towards Manassas, and almost with their first step into Virginia mud the phantasmagoria of a countless host and impregnable ramparts, before which they had so long remained quiescent, dissolved quite away. It was as if General McClellan had thrust his sword into a gigantic enemy, and, beholding him suddenly collapse, had discovered to himself and the world that he
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1 Johnston's Narrative; Mrs. Davis's Memoir, vol. ii.
2 Johnston's Narrative, p. 78.

had merely punctured an enormously swollen bladder. . . . The whole business, though connected with the destinies of a nation, takes inevitably a tinge of the ludicrous. The vast preparation of men and warlike material—the majestic patience and docility with which the people waited through those weary and dreary months—the martial skill, courage, and caution with which our movement was ultimately made —and, at last, the tremendous shock with which we were brought up suddenly against nothing at all! The Southerners show little sense of humor nowadays, but I think they must have meant to provoke a laugh at our expense when they planted those Quaker guns. At all events, no other rebel artillery has played upon us with such overwhelming effect." 'Hawthorne accurately describes a phase of public opinion touching McClellan, upon which he comments in words of incisive criticism of the "young Napoleon." "There was and is a most fierce and bitter outcry, and detraction loud and low, against General McClellan, accusing him of sloth, imbecility, cowardice, treasonable purposes, and, in short, utterly denying his ability as a soldier and questioning his integrity as a man. Nor was this to be wondered at, for when before, in all history, do we find a general in command of half a million of men, and in presence of an enemy inferior in numbers and no better disciplined than his own troops, leaving it still debatable, after the better part of a year, whether he is a soldier or no ?" 1

While McClellan dallied, the Confederates recovered from their reverses. Of the same blood, they went through the same stages of feeling as did the Northern people after Bull Run. After the first discouragement they resolved to fight to the bitter end, and their congress expressed in defiant resolutions their stern determination.2 "From words they proceeded to action. On the recommendation of Davis, the Confederate congress passed a conscription act. This
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1 "Chiefly About War Matters," Atlantic Monthly, July, 1863.
2 March 11, Acts of the First Congress, C. S. A., p. 53.

provided that all the white men of the Confederacy between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five, except those legally exempted, should be called into the military service for three years, and that those who had already enlisted for twelve months should be continued in the service for the date of three years from the term of their original enlistment.1 The Governor of Virginia called out the whole militia of his State, which was estimated to amount to 100,000 men.2 The government had previously taken steps to push the enlistment of troops,3 and under the influence of all of this action, the reorganization of the army went on with vigor and a heartiness of spirit that resulted in an earnest and efficient body. When McClellan at last allowed his men to fight, instead of meeting an apathetic army weakened by disease and diminished by a liberal system of furloughs, which he would have encountered in February,4 he had to contend with a larger army, under Johnston and Lee, increased by resolute, fresh recruits, yet with enough of the leaven of disciplined soldiers to manoeuvre and fight like veterans.

The President and McClellan differed as to a plan of campaign, and had much discussion concerning it. Lincoln desired the Army of the Potomac to advance on Richmond directly by the way of Manassas Junction, while McClellan wished to transport his army by water to some point on the lower Chesapeake, making that his base, and advancing thence on the capital of the Confederacy. The advantage of Lincoln's plan was, as we have seen, that it would have enabled the Union troops to strike a blow when Johnston was ill prepared to resist it. Nevertheless Lincoln, although with
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1 Passed April 16, Acts of First Congress, C. S. A., p. 29; Alfriend's Davis, p. 867.
2 Richmond Examiner, March 12.
3 See Davis's message to his Congress, Alfriend, p. 355.
4 Chase appreciated this. He wrote, February 17, "The time has now come for dealing decisively with the army in front of us, weakened by sickness, desertions, and withdrawals of troops, until a victory over it is deprived of more than half its honor."—Warden, p. 416.

keen regret, yielded his preference and gave his consent to McClellan's plan. The retirement of Johnston to the south bank of the Rappahannock determined Fort Monroe as the point on the lower Chesapeake which should be made the base, and the advance upon Richmond would be up the Peninsula, between the York and James rivers.1 With the evidences of the incompetence of McClellan which have been adduced, and the difference of opinion between him and the President, it might seem as if the public service would have been subserved by his removal. But the case then was not so plain as it is now. McClellan had the love and confidence of his soldiers, and a strong support in the country from the conservative Republicans and Democrats. While he had never taken much interest in politics, and had never voted but once and then for Douglas, he had manifested unmistakably his conservatism on the slavery question, so much so that the distrust of him by the radical Republicans, who mainly were his critics, was increased. Lincoln himself, although his confidence was shaken, could not but believe that McClellan would accomplish important results when once in the field. At that time no eminently fit successor to him was at hand. Had Chase been supreme in authority, he might have placed McDowell in command; but McDowell was not popular with the soldiers, and the unfortunate battle of Bull Run hung like a millstone around his neck; moreover, subsequent experience with commanders of the Army of the Potomac, when McClellan was finally displaced, demonstrated that there were greater evils than having him at its head.

On Sunday, the 9th of March, the day that the news of the evacuation of Manassas came, the President received the startling intelligence of the havoc done the day previous in Hampton Roads by the Confederate iron-clad Merrimac. On this Saturday began a new chapter in naval warfare, the introduction to which had come from the hands of two
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1 See Nicolay and Hay, vol. v.; McClellan's Own Story.

friendly but rival powers of Europe. In 1858 France built an armor-plated steam frigate, and speedily thereafter England had constructed another. Their success was sufficient to render "armor-plating an essential feature in the construction of vessels of war."1 In the dissolution of the Union the Confederacy got its share of competent naval officers, and they at once turned their attention to this new invention. In July, 1861, the Confederate Secretary of the Navy gave the order to raise the United States steam frigate Merrimac—which was one of the ships burned and sunk at the time of the destruction of the Gosport navy-yard—and convert her into an iron clad; this work proceeded as rapidly as could be expected under the imperfect manufacturing and mechanical conditions which prevailed in the South. Not until October did the Navy Department at Washington let the contract for the building of an iron-clad on a plan submitted by John Ericsson. The necessity for rapid construction, that she might be ready as soon as the Merrimac, on which he knew work was progressing, the desire to have a vessel of light draught, together with some other reasons, had induced Ericsson to design the peculiar type of the Monitor, instead of following the French
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1 Article of John Ericsson, Century War Book, vol. i. p. 780.

and English models. Work on the Merrimac at Gosport and work on the Monitor at Brooklyn went on; it was a race to get ready first, and each side had an inkling of what the other was doing. The Merrimac appeared upon the scene of action a few hours before the Monitor.

About noon on Saturday March 8, the Merrimac with several tenders steamed into Hampton Roads. The officers of the blockading squadron knew her at once and prepared for action. The frigates Minnesota, St. Lawrence, and Roanoke, anchored at Fortress Monroe, headed for the enemy, which to them looked "like a huge half-submerged crocodile," but the water being low, they grounded. The sailing frigate Congress of fifty guns, and the Cumberland, a sloop-of-war of twenty-four guns, at Newport News made ready for the Merrimac, and as she approached discharged their broadsides, the shore batteries opening fire immediately after. The balls rebounded from her iron sides as if they had been of india-rubber. She reserved her fire until within easy range, gave the Congress a broadside as she passed, then, steering directly for the Cumberland, brought her guns to bear upon the Union sloop-of-war killing and wounding men at every shot, and proceeding on under full headway, rammed the Cumberland," knocking a hole in the side near the water line as large as the head of a hogshead." Backing clear she continued her fire. The water rushed into the hole in the Cumberland, but she kept up the fight, discharging her cannon until they reached the water's edge, and going down with colors flying. The commander of the Congress, seeing the fate of her sister ship, ran her aground to escape destruction, but she was attacked vigorously by the Merrimac and the Confederate gun-boats. The fight was unequal, she being able to make little resistance; at last hot shot from the Merrimac set her on fire and completed her destruction. The Minnesota was aground and at the mercy of the iron-clad, but although there remained nearly two hours of daylight, the pilots were afraid to attempt the channel at ebb tide, the Merrimac drawing

twenty-two feet; she therefore returned to Sewell's Point and anchored, to wait the light of the next day, when her officers expected to return and destroy the Minnesota. That night the consternation in the Union fleet and among the Union troops was profound. The stately wooden frigates, deemed in the morning powerful men-of-war, had been shown to be absolutely useless to cope with this new engine of destruction. The next morning, in Washington, Seward, Chase, Stanton, and Welles hastened to the White House to confer with the President. Alarm pervaded their discussion; their prognostications were gloomy. Stanton was especially excited and declared: "The Merrimac will change the whole character of the war; she will destroy seriatim every naval vessel; she will lay all the cities on the seaboard under contribution. ... I will notify the governors and municipal authorities in the North to take instant measures to protect their harbors." I have no doubt, he said, that the monster is at this moment on her way to Washington. Looking out of the window, which commanded a view of the Potomac for many miles, he continued, " not unlikely we shall have from one of her guns a shell or cannon-ball in the White House before we leave this room." 1 The despatches from the War Department reflect the same anxiety. Besides other measures of precaution, a fleet of canal-boats loaded with stone were sent down the Potomac to be sunk, if it was found necessary to obstruct the channel.2 The terror, though natural, was extreme. The Merrimac had, however, broken the blockade at Norfolk, and she could do likewise at other ports—a consideration of the utmost importance.

While, on this Sunday morning, March 9, the President and the other authorities were a prey to keen anxiety, bounds were set to the Merrimac's power for ruin by John Ericsson's Monitor. Barely escaping shipwreck twice on her
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1 Gideon Welles, in the Annals of the War, p. 24.
2 Official Records, vol. ix. p. 18 et seq.

voyage from New York, she arrived at Hampton Roads at ten o'clock on the evening of the 8th, and took a position which protected the Minnesota. Early on the morning of the 9th the Merrimac stood for the Minnesota and opened fire on her. The Monitor, which was commanded by Lieutenant John L. Worden, steered directly for the Merrimac and commenced firing. Then ensued, for four hours, a hand-to-hand fight. The Monitor, appropriately described as a "cheesebox on a raft," was of 900 tons, the Merrimac of 3500. The Monitor had two 11-inch Dahlgren guns, fired from a revolving turret; the other had six 9-inch Dahlgren guns and two 32-pounder Brooke rifles in broadside, and 7-inch Brooke rifles on pivots in the bow and stern. Men said at the time a pygmy strove against a giant; David had come out to encounter Goliath. Shot after shot struck the Merrimac and the turret of the Monitor without injury; the armor was superior to the projectiles. At one time Lieutenant Jones, who was in command of the Merrimac, inquired, " Why are you not firing, Mr. Eggleston?" "Why, our powder is very precious," was the reply; " and after two hours' incessant firing I find I can do her about as much damage by snapping my thumb at her every two minutes and a half." 1 The Merrimac tried to ram her antagonist, but she herself was unwieldy, and the Monitor, being easily handled, got out of her way without difficulty, receiving only a glancing blow which effected nothing. The Monitor then "came up on our quarter," Wood relates, "her bow against our side, and at this distance fired twice." The impact of the shots "forced the side in bodily two or three inches. All the crews of the after-guns were knocked over by the concussion, and bled from the nose or ears. Another shot at the same place would have penetrated." 2 At another time, Greene, who was in the turret of the Monitor, writes, the Monitor made a dash at the Merrimac's stern, hoping to disable her screw, which Worden thinks he missed
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1 J. T. Wood, C. S. A., Century War Book, vol. i. p. 702. 2 Ibid.

by not more than two feet.1 "Soon after noon," as Greene relates the story, "a shell from the enemy's gun, the muzzle not ten yards distant, struck the forward side of the pilothouse 2 directly in the sight-hole or slit, and exploded, cracking the second iron log and partly lifting the top, leaving an opening. Worden was standing immediately behind this spot, and received in his face the force of the blow, which partly stunned him, and filling his eyes with powder, utterly blinded him." 3 This caused the Monitor to withdraw temporarily from the action. The commander of the Merrimac, perhaps thinking that she had given up the contest, or because his own boat was leaking badly, steered towards Norfolk, and the struggle was over. Only a few had been wounded on the Merrimac; with the exception of the injury to Worden, there was no casualty of account on the Monitor.4

It had been a wonderfully picturesque fight. Holmes, in a letter to Motley, spoke of the Monitor's " appearance in front of the great megalosaurus or deinotherium, which came out in its scaly armor that no one could pierce, breathing fire and smoke from its nostrils; is it not the age of fables and of heroes and demigods over again ?"5 The relief of the Union government and people was great. The power of the Merrimac was broken; she did no further mischief.6
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1 Century War Book, vol. i. p. 723.
2 The pilot-house was of iron logs, and constructed in the manner of a log cabin.
3 Century War Book, vol. i. p. 726.
4 My authorities for this account besides those already named are several articles in vol. i. Century War Book; reports of Flag-officer Marston, Captain Van Brunt, of the Minnesota, Lieutenant Morris, of the Cumberland, Lieutenant Pendergast, of the Congress, Lieutenant Jones, of the Merrimac, statement of the pilot of the Cumberland, Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. iv., Docs., p. 266 et seq.; report of Flag-officer Buchanan, of C. S. Navy, Official Records, vol. ix. p. 8; Nicolay and Hay, vol. v.; The Blockade and the Cruisers, Soley; Swinton's Decisive Battles of the War.
5 Motley's Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 73.
6 When Norfolk was evacuated in May by the Confederates, they destroyed the Merrimac. In December the Monitor foundered off Cape Hatteras.

This first encounter between iron-clads determined that they alone would be of avail in the naval warfare of the future. The English government and people showed intense interest in the accounts of the contest, and it was the subject of a long debate in the House of Commons. The admirable performance of the Monitor, and the intelligence that the United States purposed building a fleet of such boats,1 increased their respect for its blockade of the Southern ports.2

The President, having consented to McClellan's Peninsula plan of campaign, issued an order March 8, dividing the Army of the Potomac into four army corps, to be commanded, respectively, by Generals McDowell, Sumner, Heintzelman, and Keyes. General Wadsworth was to have command of the forces in and about Washington. March 11 another presidential order relieved McClellan of the command of all military departments except that of the Potomac. The

1 Acts of February 13 and April 17, Appendix Congressional Globe, pp. 336, 348; Report of the Secretary of the Navy, December 1.
2 Hansard, March 31,1862. The London Times of March 25 said: "Who would have thought it possible that after England and France had theorized so long on iron-plated and iron-prowed vessels, the first real trial should be made by the inhabitants of the peaceful New World met in unnatural strife? . . . Nothing now remains for our Admiralty but to discontinue the building of wooden vessels, and to convert all that will bear it into machines of war resembling the Confederate frigate." See, also, the London Daily News, March 29, the London Spectator of March 29, April 5. The London Saturday Review of March 29 said: "Not more than a year ago the Times dwelt with much emphasis on the fact that the Americans had steadily refused to avail themselves of the new-fangled device of iron-plated ships. That a people so adventurous and skilful in mechanical appliances should have pronounced the new invention a chimera, was supposed to be a serious ground for doubting the wisdom of the course which France had initiated and England sluggishly followed. No one could then have imagined that the first real test of armor-plated ships in actual warfare would be furnished by America. It is only within a few weeks that either of the belligerents has had a plated ship ready for sea; and, as if to supply the crucial experiment which was wanting to build up the confidence of our naval architects, the Merrimac and the Monitor have exhibited their powers of attack and defence, and proved that even imperfect specimens (as they probably are) of their class are quite capable of sweeping from the ocean whole fleets of the old wooden lingers."

ostensible reason for this was that the general would be actively engaged in the field; at the bottom it represented the waning confidence of Lincoln and Congress in him, for their trust had received a shock from his being out-generalled by Johnston, when he allowed the Confederate commander to steal away from Manassas unimpeded and without harm. March 13 he and his corps commanders had a council at Fairfax Court-house, where they decided in favor of the Peninsula plan of campaign, provided—besides other conditions not necessary to be mentioned for our purpose — that the aid of the navy could be had in silencing the batteries of the enemy on York River, and determined that "the force to be left to cover Washington shall be such as to give an entire feeling of security for its safety from menace." When the plan was submitted to the President, he, in a communication from the War Department, made no objection to it, but stipulated again that Washington be left entirely secure. The embarkation of the troops began. McClellan himself reached Fortress Monroe on the afternoon of April 2. Part of his army was there, and the rest of it was on the way. Directly after his departure there cropped out a serious misunderstanding between the President and the War Department on one side, and McClellan on the other, in reference to what they understood to be necessary to make the capital entirely secure. It was not so much a difference regarding the number of troops needed, but McClellan counted Banks's army in the Shenandoah as part of the covering force required. The President did not so understand it, and, alarmed at the dispositions the general had made, directed that McDowell's corps be detained at Washington. This was an exceedingly unfortunate misunderstanding. Too much depended on the federal possession of Washington for Lincoln to take the slightest chance touching its safety, and yet the withdrawal of 35,000 men was naturally a serious disappointment to the general. He was more to blame, probably, than any one else for this misapprehension. The idea one gets of McClellan from his book and reports is that of a man who does not think straight and work out matters to a logical conclusion. There is a lack of precision and an inconsistency in his statements which indicate a want of clear and concentrated thinking. Such men go through life victims to frequent and honest misunderstandings. Possibly Lincoln may have been at fault in not fully entering into the details with his general, for relations between Stanton and McClellan had already become so inharmonious that no efficient and generous co-operation between them could be expected.

McClellan's plan was a good one, but in the execution of it he showed neither promptness nor ability. Magruder, the Confederate general in command, held a fortified line of thirteen miles from the York River to the James, to defend which he had 11,000 men; 6000 of these were at Yorktown on the York River, and at Mulberry Island on the James; 5000 were posted at the assailable points along his front. McClellan, with his overwhelming force, could easily have broken the Confederate line within a week after the arrival of his army on the Peninsula, and Yorktown would have fallen into his hands. Lincoln's letter of April 9, urging immediate action, is pathetic in its display of his yearning for his general's success, and his desire to furnish abundant means to secure it. "I suppose," he wrote, "the whole force which has gone forward for you is with you by this time, and if so, I think it is the precise time for you to strike a blow. By delay the enemy will relatively gain upon you; that is, he will gain faster by fortifications and reinforcements than you can by reinforcements alone. And once more let me tell you it is indispensable to you that you strike a blow. I am powerless to help this. You will do me the justice to remember I always insisted that going down the bay in search of a field, instead of fighting at or near Manassas, was only shifting, and not surmounting, a difficulty; that we would find the same enemy and the same or equal intrenchments at either place. The country

will not fail to note, is now noting, that the present hesitation to move upon an intrenched enemy is but the story of Manassas repeated. I beg to assure you that I have never written you or spoken to you in greater kindness of feeling than now, nor with a fuller purpose to sustain you so far as, in my most anxious judgment, I consistently can. But you must act."1 Instead, however, of piercing the Confederate line by assault, McClellan sat down before Yorktown, and began the siege of it in a deliberate and scientific manner, probably losing more men by disease in the swamps of Virginia than an assault would have cost him; meanwhile complaining of the lack of his expected co-operation of the navy and of the withdrawal of McDowell's corps, begging the President and the Secretary of War for more troops, and hugging the delusion that Stanton and the radical Republicans at heart desired the failure of his campaign. He gave the Confederates what of all things they most desired —time to recover from their early discouragement, time to bring about the recuperation which shattered the sanguine hopes of the North. While he was erecting most formidable siege works before Yorktown, the Confederate congress, perhaps influenced by fears for the safety of their capital, passed the conscription act, giving an additional impetus to the reorganization of their army.2

Meanwhile at the West the cause of the Union was gaining ground. General Curtis had driven the Confederates out of Missouri into Arkansas. But the victory of Donelson had not been followed up to its full fruition. It was Grant's opinion that "if one general, who would have taken the responsibility, had been in command of all the troops west of the Alleghanies, he could have marched to Chattanooga, Corinth, Memphis, and Vicksburg with the troops we then had; and as volunteering was going on rapidly over
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1 Official Records, vol. xi. part i. p. 16.
2 My authorities for this account are Official Records, vols, v., x. part il, xi. part i.; Nicolay and Hay, vol. v.; "Webb's Peninsula; McClellan's Own Story; Swinton's Army of the Potomac,

the North, there would soon have been force enough at all these centres to operate offensively against any body of the enemy that might be found near them." 1 Such an occupation would have precluded the operation of the Confederate conscription act in a large extent of territory, and prevented a considerable increase of the Southern army. His actual success pointed out Grant for such a command, and, considering what a tremendous advance the insignificant victories in western Virginia gained for McClellan, it might seem astonishing that his ability as a soldier, testified to by the capture of Donelson, was not sooner recognized. Such an arrangement, however, would have supplanted Halleck, which, as he shared with Grant and Foote the glory of Forts Henry and Donelson, would have been unnatural, and was probably not entertained by any one in authority at Washington. There was, moreover, a general distrust of Grant. Owing, probably, to defective means of communication, Halleck did not get as full and prompt reports from Grant as he deemed necessary, and he complained of this to McClellan, who still had command of all the Union armies. "I have had no communication with General Grant for more than a week," he telegraphed March 3. "He left his command without my authority and went to Nashville. His army seems to be as much demoralized by the victory of Fort Donelson as was that of the Potomac by the defeat of Bull Run. ... I can get no returns, no reports, no information of any kind from him. Satisfied with his victory, he sits down and enjoys it without any regard to the future." "Do not hesitate to arrest him at once if the good of the service requires it, and place C. F. Smith in command," promptly replied McClellan. Halleck the next day rejoined: "A rumor has just reached me that since the taking of Fort Donelson General Grant has resumed his former bad habits. If so, it will account for his neglect of my often-repeated orders. I do not deem it advisable to arrest him at present, but
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1 Personal Memoirs, p. 317.

have placed General Smith in command of the expedition up the Tennessee."1 This was an injustice to Grant. Halleck condemned the victor of Donelson without a hearing and on insufficient and untrustworthy evidence, thus displaying a disposition to supersede him on a mere pretext. Grant was ordered to remain at Fort Henry. Hurt by the reprimands he received from Halleck, and also at being superseded, he asked, after explaining why his reports had not been regularly received, to be relieved from further duty in that department, a request which he twice repeated. Halleck was satisfied with his explanations, so advised the War Department, and sent Grant a despatch expressive of trust. This was glad tidings to him, and he at once replied that he would "give every effort to the success of our cause."2 General Smith, on account of an injury received at Pittsburg Landing, was incapacitated for active exertion, and this occurring at the time that Grant gained the favor of Halleck, he was restored to the command of the Army of the Tennessee. He arrived at Savannah, in western Tennessee, March 17, and soon had five divisions of his army in camp at Pittsburg Landing, nine miles above Savannah, on the Tennessee River and south of it; Lew. Wallace's division was stationed at Crump's Landing, five miles below Pittsburg and on the same side of the river. The Army of the Ohio, under General Buell, which occupied Nashville and middle Tennessee, had been ordered to join the Army of the Tennessee at Savannah. The plan of campaign was an offensive movement against the Confederates, who were in force at or near Corinth, Mississippi.

After the battle of Mill Spring, Beauregard had been sent to the West to assist Albert Sidney Johnston in what was recognized as a grave situation, and now he had fixed upon Corinth as the base of operations. He used the utmost exertion to collect an army, calling upon the governors of
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1 Official Records, vol. vii. p. 679 et seq.
2 Ibid., p. 683; vol. x. part ii, p. 3 et seq.

Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee, and the generals of other departments, for help in the most earnest manner; he even appealed to the people of the Southwest to send their church-bells to be manufactured into cannon, an appeal which met with a prompt response. March 25 Johnston's army joined Beauregard's at Corinth, and the Confederate generals determined to attack Grant before Buell should join him, hoping by a quick movement to surprise his forces at Pittsburg Landing. April 3 the Confederate army left Corinth, but the weather was stormy and the roads were bad, causing the usual delays in the movement of troops, so that the attack planned for April 5 could not be made until Sunday the 6th.

Grant was so bent on his projected offensive movement, and so confident that Johnston would not assume the aggressive so soon after the long and apparently demoralized retreat from Bowling Green and Columbus, that he had neglected all defensive measures; he had, indeed, some apprehension of an attack on Crump's Landing, but none for one on Pittsburg Landing. He was careless about the disposition of his forces; he threw up no intrenchments, although he had been ordered by Halleck to fortify his position,1 and although he had a swollen river at his back which separated him from his expected reinforcements, while he himself had his headquarters at Savannah; but at this time he would have moved them to Pittsburg Landing had he not expected Buell at Savannah on the 6th. The Confederates were now face to face with their foe. Beauregard, disappointed at the delay, fearing that the chance to surprise Grant had been lost and that Buell might join him at any moment, favored giving up the attack and retiring to Corinth. Johnston overruled his second in command, and said to Beauregard and his corps commanders, "Gentlemen, we shall attack at daylight to-morrow. I would fight them if they were a million." In the early

1 Halleck to Grant, March 20, Official Records, vol. x. part il. p. 51.

morning of April 6 the Confederates made the onslaught with vigor.

Few if any battles of our Civil War have given rise to so much controversy as this of Shiloh, for so the contest is now generally known. One of the points of dispute is whether the federal troops were surprised. That they were surprised was the current opinion at the North, largely based, it is true, on the accounts of newspaper correspondents. Halleck, who went to Pittsburg Landing soon after the battle, and had no desire to screen Grant, telegraphed Stanton from there, May 2: "The newspaper accounts that our divisions were surprised are utterly false. Every division had notice of the enemy's approach hours before the battle commenced;" and after "a patient and careful inquiry and investigation" he reiterated this in a letter of June 15 from Corinth.1 Grant and Sherman have maintained the same.2 The evidence is, indeed, conflicting, but it is clear enough that at least a portion of the Union army was on the alert, and that a reconnaissance had been made to discover the force of the enemy; it seems equally clear that few, if any, of the federal officers suspected that the whole Confederate army of 40,000 men was before them. That Johnston had not succeeded in effecting a complete surprise was due to the vigilance of the division, brigade, and regimental commanders, and not to the foresight of the commanding general. April 5 Grant telegraphed Halleck, "The main force of the enemy is at Corinth;" and later on the same day he said, "I have scarcely the faintest idea of an attack (general one) being made upon us, but will be prepared should such a thing take place."3 Colonel Ammen, who commanded a brigade of Nelson's division in Buell's army, which division had arrived at Savannah at
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1 Official Records, vol. x. part i., p. 99.
2 See Grant's Personal Memoirs. '' Correspondence between General Sherman and John Sherman," Century Magazine, January, 1893, p. 438.
3 Cited by Force, pp. 120, 121; see, also, Grant to Buell, April 5, Official Records, vol. x. part ii. p. 93.

noon of the 5th, saw Grant, as he recorded in his diary, at about three o'clock in the afternoon of that day, and said to the general that his troops could march on to Pittsburg Landing, if necessary. Grant replied: "You cannot march through the swamps; make the troops comfortable; I will send boats for you Monday or Tuesday, or some time early in the week. There will be no fight at Pittsburg Landing; burg Landing, and while eating his breakfast he heard the firing. Sending an order to Nelson to march his division up the river to a point opposite Pittsburg Landing, the general took boat for the scene of action, stopping on the way at Crump's Landing, to tell Lew. Wallace to hold himself in readiness for an order to come to the assistance of the rest of the army. Arriving at Pittsburg Landing, and finding a tremendous battle in progress, he sent the anticipated order to Wallace, and pressed Nelson to hasten. Although he visited the several divisions, and made perhaps the best disposition he could, it was a battle in which the commanding general on the Union side counted for little; the division, brigade, and regimental commanders did the work. General William Tecumseh Sher-

we will have to go to Corinth, where the rebels are fortified. If they come to attack us we can whip them, as I have more than twice as many troops as I had at Fort Donelson."* Had Grant suspected that 40,000 Confederates confronted his army of 33,000, he certainly would have slept at Pittsburg Landing that night. In an air line Savannah was only six miles from Pitts
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1 Official Records, vol. x. part i. p. 830.

Sherman was the hero of the day. He was wounded twice, and had several horses shot under him. McClernand did valiant service. Hurlbut, W. H. L. Wallace, and Prentiss (these five led divisions) were equal to the demands upon them. Wallace and Prentiss were surrounded. Wallace, in attempting to cut his way out, fell mortally wounded. Prentiss, to save a useless and complete sacrifice, surrendered with 2200 men.

The most pathetic incident on the Confederate side was the death of Albert Sidney Johnston. He had felt keenly the strictures on his generalship for the loss of Donelson, and yet in a measure he admitted their justice. "The test of merit in my profession with the people is success," he wrote Davis. "It is a hard rule, but I think it right."1 He could not help seeing that Beauregard had accomplished results in rallying the people of the Southwest which, with his loss of prestige, he could not have attained. At Corinth he proposed to turn over the command to Beauregard, confining himself to the duties of a department commander, an unselfish offer which Beauregard at once refused. When the battle began he left his second at the headquarters in the field, while he himself rode forward to the front, and cutting loose from communication with his corps commanders, fought as a volunteer of high rank in the line, without attempting to keep his hand on the general control of the army. His seeming disposition was to win a signal victory or die in the attempt. At a critical moment in the afternoon, while leading a charge of a Tennessee regiment, he received a ball in his leg which cut an artery; he soon bled to death. The wound was not necessarily fatal, and had his surgeon, who had attended him most of the morning, been with him he might have been saved; but seeing a large number of wounded men, he had ordered the surgeon to establish a hospital and care for them. His death was a severe blow to the Confederate army.
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1 March 18, Official Records, vol. vii. p. 261.

The battle of Shiloh was a fierce fight. It is described by Force as "a combat made up of numberless separate encounters of detached portions of broken lines, continually shifting position and changing direction in the forest and across ravines."1 The contest of the first day lasted twelve hours and was a Confederate victory, in that the Union troops were driven back one mile and a half and lost Shiloh church, the point which, Grant writes, " was the key to our position." 2 Beauregard's headquarters on the night of April 6 were where Sherman's had been the night before. Nevertheless the result utterly failed to meet the expectations of Johnston and Beauregard; they had hoped to capture the Union army, or at any rate to drive it from the field in complete rout. Lew. Wallace's division, through a misunderstanding of orders, did not get to the field until Sunday's battle was over. Colonel Ammen's brigade of Buell's army reached the Landing in the afternoon and was ferried across the river, arriving in time to take part in the last minutes of the contest. Ten thousand stragglers from the Union army cowered under the high bank of the river. Many of the troops were raw and fled panic-stricken at the first charge; some of the officers showed cowardice as well as inefficiency. Stragglers from the Confederate ranks were numerous. Nearly ten thousand Union soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured; the Confederate loss in killed and wounded was as great as the Union, but the loss in prisoners was small. Through it all Grant preserved his imperturbability. "The tremendous roar to the left," writes Whitelaw Reid, who, as a newspaper correspondent, saw the battle, "momentarily nearer and nearer, told of an effort to cut him off from the river and from retreat. Grant sat on his horse quiet, thoughtful, almost stolid. Said one to him, 'Does not the prospect begin to look gloomy?' 'Not at all,' was the quiet reply. 'They can't force our lines around these batteries to-night—it is too late. Delay counts everything
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1 p. 124.
2 Personal Memoirs, vol. 1. p. 388.

with us. To-morrow we shall attack them with fresh troops, and drive them, of course.'"1 The night of the battle a heavy rain poured down on the unsheltered soldiers of both armies as they slept on their arms. The Union gun-boats fired at regular intervals heavy shells over the woods towards the point where the Confederates had bivouacked, for the purpose of disturbing their rest. Beauregard's disorganized and shattered army, worn out with the exertions of Sunday, was little fitted to cope with the body of fresh troops that had joined Grant. Lew. Wallace had arrived with 6500 men. The rest of Nelson's division, Crittenden's, and part of McCook's division of Buell's army, amounting in all to about 20,000, had reached the scene of action. Buell himself had been on the field of battle Sunday. He and Grant met that night, and determined to make a simultaneous attack on the Confederates early Monday morning. The onslaught was made and resulted in victory. At two o'clock, after eight hours of fighting, Beauregard gave the order to retire; this was accomplished in good order. That night again it rained heavily, making the bad roads worse. Owing to the fatigue of the Army of the Tennessee Grant ordered no immediate pursuit; the later pursuit was not effective. The loss of Grant's army was 1513 killed, 6601 wounded, 2830 captured or missing, a total of 10,944; the casualties in Buell's army were 241 killed, 1807 wounded, and 55 captured or missing, a total of 2103. The whole Union loss amounted to 13,047. In the Confederate army, as officially reported, there were 1728 killed, 8012 wounded, and 959 missing. Never before had a battle of such magnitude been fought in America. It was a desperate effort of the Confederates to retrieve what they had lost by the capture of Donelson, but their advance northward was for the time effectually repelled. General C. F. Smith, who had done such heroic service at Donelson, did not share in the battle of Shiloh. He was in
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1 Ohio in the War, vol. i. p. 875. Reid heard this conversation.

bed at Savannah, owing to an abrasion on the leg received as he was getting into a small boat at Pittsburg Landing; the wound mortified, and he died April 25. In his death the Union army suffered a great loss. Grant writes that, at the time he was superseded by Smith, Halleck's opinion and that of the generality undoubtedly was that Smith had greater fitness for the command of the Army of the Tennessee than he himself had, and in fact he rather inclined to that opinion himself.1

The general notion at the North was that only the arrival of Buell's army saved Grant from a second and more disastrous defeat. Whether that judgment be correct has since become a matter of controversy. Grant and Sherman have affirmed that, with Lew. Wallace's division of fresh troops, they would on Monday have driven the Confederates from the field. Bearing on this dispute, the remarks of General Sherman, in his official report of April 10, 1862, are significant. At about ten a.m. Monday, he wrote, "I saw for the first time the well-ordered and compact columns of General Buell's Kentucky forces, whose soldierly movements at once gave confidence to our newer and less-disciplined forces. ... I concede that General McCook's splendid division from Kentucky drove back the enemy along the Corinth road, which was the great central line of this battle."2 It is safe, at all events, to say that the arrival of Buell converted what would have been at best a doubtful result into an almost absolute certainty. Considering the bad roads, the obstacles encountered, the orders received that haste was unnecessary, and that the soldiers were not veterans, Buell and his officers showed energy and celerity in their march from Nashville to Pittsburg Landing.3
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1 Personal Memoirs, vol. i. p. 838.
2 Official Records, vol. x. part i. p. 251.
3 My authorities for this account are, the reports of Grant, Buell, McClernand, Sherman, Prentiss, Nelson, and Ammen, of the Union army; of Beauregard, Polk, Bragg, and Hardee, of the Confederate army, Official Records, vol. x. part i.; the correspondence, ibid., part ii.; articles of Grant, Buell, William Preston Johnston, Beauregard, and Jordan, Century War Book, vol. i.; also the composition, strength, and losses of the opposing forces at Shiloh, ibid.; J. D. Cox, in the Nation, July 30, 1885, February 25, 1886; From Fort Henry to Corinth, Force; Nicolay and Hay, vol. v.; Swinton's Decisive Battles of the War. My thanks are especially due to General J. D. Cox for reading in MS. my account of the battle of Shiloh, and for making several critical suggestions, which, on revision, I incorporated in my narrative. I am also under obligation to him for a like attention to my descriptions of the battle of Bull Run and of the capture of Fort Donelson.

The laurels which Grant had won at Donelson were faded by his carelessness at Shiloh. That the battle had been a useless slaughter was the opinion of many of his officers and soldiers; and as the details of it became known, and as private letters began to be received from the army, the feeling towards him in the Western States, from which his troops came, was full of bitterness. The press faithfully reflected this sentiment, and members of Congress shared it. Elihu B. Washburne, in the House, and John Sherman, in the Senate, alone defended him. "You will see, from Harlan's remarks," wrote Sherman to his brother, the general, "there is much feeling against Grant, and I try to defend him, but with little success."1 All sorts of charges against him were made; that he had been reckless could not be gainsaid with much show of reason. The pressure on the President for his removal was great. A. K. McClure relates that, carried along by the overwhelming " tide of popular sentiment," and backed by " the almost universal conviction of the President's friends," he urged this course upon Lincoln. Going to the White House at eleven o'clock one night, in a private interview of two hours, in which he did most of the talking, McClure advocated with earnestness the removal of Grant as necessary for the President to retain the confidence of the country. "When I had said everything that could be said from my standpoint," McClure proceeds with his story, " we lapsed into silence. Lincoln remained silent for what seemed a very long time. He then gathered
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1 Century Magazine, January, 1893, p. 429.

himself up in his chair and said, in a tone of earnestness that I shall never forget, 'I can't spare this man; he fights? " 1 The result demonstrated what a clear perception of military ability Lincoln had in this case, when he determined to save Grant from removal and disgrace.

April 7, the second day of the battle of Shiloh, General John Pope, in conjunction with two of Foote's gun-boats, captured Island No. 10 with 6000 or 7000 prisoners; this was a fortress commanding the Mississippi River, and the next one below Columbus. Halleck went to Pittsburg Landing, arriving there April 11, and ordered Pope and his army to join him. Receiving also other reinforcements, he soon had 100,000 effective troops. Appointing General Thomas commander of the right wing, Buell of the centre, and Pope of the left, he named Grant his second in command; but as there went with it no precise duty, this assignment of position was really a displacement. Grant chafed under this, asked several times to be relieved from duty, and would have left the army had he not been dissuaded by Sherman, with whom he had already begun that fast friendship which endured throughout his whole life. Beauregard had been reinforced, and had an effective strength of 50,000. Towards the close of April Halleck began his move on Corinth, marching slowly and cautiously, and intrenching at every halt. The enemy's outposts hovered near the advancing army, but Halleck's orders to his subordinate commanders were to bring on no engagement. He was more than a month advancing the twenty-three miles from Pittsburg Landing to Corinth, and as soon as he arrived before the Confederate intrenchments Beauregard evacuated the place, of which the Union army then took peaceful possession. Grant, Sherman, and Pope had been anxious to fight the enemy, but Halleck discouraged
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1 McClure's Lincoln and Men of War Times, p. 179. See Washburne's speech of May 2; Sherman's speech in the Senate, Harlan's remarks, May 9; Cincinnati Commercial, April 15, 16,18, 25, 28; New York World, April 10; Sherman's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 244.

all such suggestions and efforts. Corinth being a strategic point, on account of the junction there of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad running north and south, and the Memphis and Charleston Railroad running east and west, was worth having; but a victory over Beauregard's army would have been worth vastly more.1

In the last days of April New Orleans was surrendered to Flag-officer Farragut, and the Union flag waved over the city. This result had been attained by an expedition of men-of-war under the command of Farragut, and a fleet of mortar boats under David D. Porter, which had bombarded with effect Forts St. Philip and Jackson; these forts were depended on as the main defences of New Orleans, although seventy-five miles below it. After five days of bombardment without reducing the forts, Farragut decided to make an attempt to run by them, and at two o'clock, on the morning of April 24, he gave the signal to advance, Porter, in the meanwhile, opening fire with fury from his mortar boats. Farragut, returning vigorously the fire of the forts, succeeded in getting past them with the largest portion of his fleet; he then attacked the Confederate gun-boats, which disputed the passage of the river above the forts, and, owing to the superiority of his vessels and the better discipline of his men, he easily defeated them in the naval battle which ensued, consigning most of them to destruction. He then steamed up the river without further serious molestation. When the news spread in New Orleans that the federal fleet was coming, hundreds of drays were set to work to haul the cotton in the presses and the yards to the levee; here patriotism applied the torch to the staple so eagerly desired at the North and in Europe. May 1 General Butler with 2500 troops occupied the city; Forts St. Philip and Jackson had surrendered to Commander Porter three days previously.2
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1 See Force's Prom Fort Henry to Corinth; Nicolay and Hay, vol. v.; Grant's Personal Memoirs; Sherman's Memoirs.
2 See Nicolay and Hay, vol. v.; D. D. Porter, G. W. Cable, W. T. Meredith, in Century War Book, vol. ii.

The taking of New Orleans, a city of 160,000 inhabitants, the chief commercial port and the largest city of the South, a place well known in Europe as an important trading point, had a profound effect on opinion in England and France. May 15 Slidell wrote Benjamin from Paris that a conversation with Thouvenel, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, led him "fairly to infer that if New Orleans had not been taken, and we suffered no very serious reverses in Virginia and Tennessee, our recognition would very soon have been declared." On the next day he had a conversation with Billanet, " minister sans portfolio, especially charged to represent the government in the Chambers on all subjects connected with foreign affairs. ... In reply to my suggestions," Slidell wrote, "that the war could only be brought to a close by the intervention of European powers, which should be preceded by our recognition and a renewed proffer of mediation, he said that France could not act without the co-operation of England, but that within the last few days there seemed to be a change in the tone of the English cabinet; that if New Orleans had not fallen, our recognition could not have been much longer delayed." Mason wrote Benjamin from London, "The occupation of the principal Southern ports by the enemy, and the increased rigor of the blockade of those remaining to us, resulting from it, give little hope now of any interference in regard to the blockade, and leave only the question of recognition."1

While the army and navy were winning victories, the President and Congress were grappling with the evil which had caused the war. In March Arnold, of Illinois, introduced a bill into the House, the purport of which was to render slavery sectional and freedom national; this resulted later in the passage of an act prohibiting slavery in all the
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1 Slidell's second despatch is dated June 1, and Mason's is June 23. These despatches are in the MS. Confederate Diplomatic Correspondence in the Treasury Department, Washington; see, also, London Times, May 12; Daily News, May 13; the Spectator, May 17; Saturday Review, May 17,

present territories of the United States, and in any that should hereafter be acquired,1 thus crystallizing in a formal statute the cardinal principle of the Republican party, which had constituted the reason of its existence. April 16 the President approved an act of Congress, which went further than it had been deemed prudent to go in either of the Republican national platforms; this abolished slavery in the District of Columbia, provided for the compensation of the owners of slaves, and appropriated a sum of money for the voluntary colonization of the negroes in Hayti or Liberia.' In March the President had taken a step far beyond either of these measures. On the 6th he sent a special message to Congress, asking it to adopt a joint resolution "which shall be substantially as follows: Resolved, That the United States ought to co-operate with any State which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to each State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State in its discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system." He enforced his recommendation by argument. "The leaders of the existing insurrection," he said, "entertain the hope that this government will ultimately be forced to acknowledge the independence of some part of the disaffected region, and that all the slave States north of such part will then say, 'the Union for which we have struggled being already gone, we now choose to go with the Southern section.2 To deprive them of this hope substantially ends the rebellion. . . . The point is not that all the States tolerating slavery would very soon, if at all, initiate emancipation, but that, while the offer is equally made to all, the more northern shall, by such initiation, make it certain to the more southern that in no event will the former ever join the latter in their proposed confederacy. I say 'initiation' because, in my judgment, gradual, and not sudden, emancipation is better for all. . . . War has been made and continues to be an
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1 Congressional Globe, p. 1340, Appendix, p. 364.
2 Ibid., Appendix, p. 347.

indispensable means" for the preservation of the Union. "A practical reacknowledgement of the national authority would render the war unnecessary, and it would at once cease. If, however, resistance continues, the war must also continue; and it is impossible to foresee all the incidents which may attend, and all the ruin which may follow it. Such as may seem indispensable, or may obviously promise great efficiency towards ending the struggle, must and will come. The proposition now made, though an offer only, I hope it may be esteemed no offence to ask whether the pecuniary consideration tendered would not be of more value to the States and private persons concerned than are the institution and property in it in the present aspect of affairs." 1 In private letters to Senator McDougall, who opposed the plan, and to the editor of the New York Times, Lincoln was earnest in urging this policy. To McDougall he wrote: "As to the expensiveness of the plan of gradual emancipation with compensation, proposed in the late message, please allow me one or two brief suggestions. Less than one-half day's cost of this war would pay for all the slaves in Delaware, at $400 per head. Thus:

All the slaves in Delaware, by the census of 1860, are 1798 $400

Cost of slaves $719,200

One day's cost of the war $2,000,000

Again, less than eighty-seven days' cost of this war would, at the same price, pay for all in Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Kentucky, and Missouri. Thus:


Slaves in Delaware 1,798

Slaves in Maryland 87,188

Slaves in District of Columbia 3,181

Slaves in Kentucky 225,490

Slaves in Missouri 114,965 432,622
$400

Cost of slaves $173,048,800

Eighty-seven days' cost of war $174,000,000
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1 Congressional Globe, p. 1102.

"Do you doubt that taking the initiatory steps on the part of those States and this District would shorten the war more than eighty-seven days, and thus be an actual saving of expense? A word as to the time and manner of incurring the expense. Suppose, for instance, a State devises and adopts a system by which the institution absolutely ceases therein by a named day — say January 1, 1882. Then let the sum to be paid to such State by the United States be ascertained, by taking from the census of 1860 the number of slaves within the State, and multiplying that number by 400; the United States to pay such sum to the State in twenty equal annual instalments, in six per cent, bonds of the United States. The sum thus given, as to time and manner, I think, would not be half as onerous as would an equal sum raised now for the indefinite prosecution of the war; but of this you can judge as well as I."1 The President pressed the acceptance of this offer upon the members of Congress from the border slave States.2

No one, I think, instructed by the succeeding events, can rise from the reading of this message and this letter without being impressed by the wisdom of Lincoln when he dealt with a subject to which he had given much thought and which he fully understood. No man in the country comprehended the slavery question in all its bearings better than he. We have seen how, in the beginning of his administration, he did not attempt to forecast the future, but deemed it sufficient to meet each exigency as it arose; and although the year of office had given him confidence in himself, and the knowledge that he had won the trust of the people, he still proceeded with care, shaping his policy, in a large degree, by circumstances as they arose, and heedful not to lead faster than the North would follow. Yet he could not fail to see, as did all reflecting persons, whither events were tending. That if the North were successful in
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1 Letter of March 14, Nicolay and Hay, vol. v. p. 210.
2 McPherson, History of the Rebellion, p. 210 et seq.

the conflict slavery was eventually doomed seemed to him certain; that it might be necessary to proclaim immediate emancipation in the Confederate States as a means of military success was equally clear. That such a policy, decided upon opportunely, would have the support of the people was beginning to be apparent. It is interesting to trace the course of public sentiment, by observing who of the aforetime statesmen of the republic were made the popular heroes. In November and December, 1860, the pusillanimous course of President Buchanan caused the men of the North to cry with one accord, "Oh, for an hour of Andrew Jackson!" Later, when the Union sentiment crystallized around the reconstructed cabinet of Buchanan, when the Confederate States fired upon Sumter, when everywhere the North declared with one voice that the sole purpose of the war was the restoration of the Union, the patriotic glow of Daniel Webster animated all hearts, his fervent words were in all mouths; from nearly every platform and pulpit might be heard, " Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable." As the war went on, and thinking men began to see that the restoration of the Union was indissolubly connected with the doom of slavery, they began to study the speeches of John Quincy Adams in the House of Representatives, in which he had laid down the principle that if the slave States became the theatre of war, the President or Congress might, under the war powers of the Constitution, order the universal emancipation of the slaves.1

With a true regard for vested rights, and the Anglo-Saxon aversion to violent social and political changes, Lincoln anticipated the future enough to devise a plan by which freedom should come to the slaves gradually, and by which the owners
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1 Morse's Life of John Quincy Adams, p. 262; New York Tribune, June 3, 22, September 1, 1861 ; New York Evening Post, September 2, 1861; Sumner's speech at Worcester, October, 1861; Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 44; Edward L. Pierce, in the Atlantic Monthly, November, 1861, p. 629; Lecture of Wendell Phillips in New York and Boston, December, 1861, Speeches and Lectures, p. 485.

owners should receive compensation for their loss. Although, as a practical measure, it was not expected that any but the border States would avail themselves of it, the offer—for the House, March 11, and the Senate, April 2, adopted the joint resolution proposed by the President—was open to all of the slave States; and if the people of any and all of the Confederate States had, in this hour of the military successes of the North, agreed to lay down their arms and respect the authority of the national government, not a reasonable doubt can exist that they would have received, in a plan of gradual emancipation, about four hundred dollars for each slave set free. The record of Lincoln and the Republican party on slavery is clear; their course was conservative and in line with the best traditions of America and England. Before Sumter was fired upon they had agreed, practically, to guarantee in perpetuity the possession of slaves to their owners in all of the slave States; now, after nearly a year of war and in the hour of victory, when the logic of events clearly showed that slavery must go, they were willing to reimburse the slave-owners for the misfortune which they had brought upon themselves. Lincoln, in this special message, exhibited a magnanimous statesmanship which is admirable, and the Republicans of Congress, in co-operating with him so speedily, showed their confidence in his judgment and their own desire to do justice.1 All who have read my description of sentiment at the South, and who comprehend what was the meaning of the war to the Southern people, will see at once that it would be impossible for the States of the Confederacy to entertain this offer; in spite of all the influence which Lincoln could bring to bear, it was, unfortunately, not accepted by the border slave States which remained in the Union. Bound up as was slavery with their
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1 The vote on the resolution offering compensation for the slaves was: Senate, yeas, 38 Republicans, 1 Democrat, 3 Unionists; nays, 6 Democrats, 8 Unionists; total, 32 yeas, 9 nays. House, yeas, 83 Republicans, 1 Democrat, 5 Unionists; nays, 2 Republicans, 20 Democrats, 9 Unionists, total, 89 yeas, 31 nays.

social and political life, they could not see that its doom had come. Nevertheless we may rejoice that the offer was in all sincerity made, and that the worth and the meaning of it were appreciated by the friends of the North in England.1

This volume ends with the rejoicing of the North over its military successes in the winter and spring of 1862. The President, by proclamation, asked the people to show their gratitude by giving, in their accustomed places of worship, thanks for these victories to Almighty God.2 Roanoke Island, Mill Spring, Forts Henry and Donelson, the occupation of Nashville, the freeing Missouri of the Confederate forces, Shiloh, Island No. 10, the taking of New Orleans, made up a roll of victory that seemed to presage the end of the war. Instead of discouragement at the North, as there had been after its defeats in 1861, depression and gloom now prevailed at the South. McClellan, with over 100,000 men, was approaching Richmond, and great things were expected of him. McDowell with another army covered Washington. Fremont and Banks were in the Shenandoah valley. Halleck, with an army of 100,000 men, and with subordinate commanders who had military talents of a high order, was moving on Corinth. The general opinion of those in authority, and of the people, was that the war would be over by midsummer. The Secretary of War had stopped recruiting.3 While the movement against slavery
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1 "I have been watching with deep interest all that has served to indicate the better tendencies and most hopeful results of your great contest. . . . Your cause has been steadily 'marching on' by the inevitable force of events. I think that, whatever may be the fate of the Union, the fate of slavery is settled. Yet I see you daily abused in the American correspondence for giving, consciously and intentionally, to the struggle, that one great aim and object for which, more than for any other, it will be memorable in the history of the world."—Duke of Argyll to Sumner, June 12, Pierce-Sumner Papers, MS. See a sensible article in the London Spectator of March 22, entitled '' The Beginning of the End ;" also the London Daily News of March 21. The London Times of March 21 had a leader very unsympathetic in tone.
2 Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. iv., Docs., p. 465.
3 General Order No. 33, War Department, Adjutant General's office, April 3, 1862; also cited in McClellan's Own Story, p. 258. General Sherman was one of the men who did not share the popular view. May 7 he wrote his brother, the senator: "That the war is ended, or even fairly begun, I do not believe;" and May 12: "I think it is a great mistake to stop enlistments. There may be enough soldiers on paper, but not enough in fact."—Century Magazine, January, 1893, p. 429.

had not been rapid enough for the radical Republicans, it was reasonable to believe that the restoration of the Union, should it come in the year 1862, would comprise some scheme of gradual emancipation. In the little more than a year of war, the progress towards liberty had been swift. Slavery prohibited in the territories, abolished in the District of Columbia, the President and Congress making an offer to the States to compensate them for giving freedom to their slaves, when a resolution to that effect, introduced into the House in February, 1861, hardly attracted notice— these demonstrated with what rapidity events had hurried on in a time of revolution and war. We may well conceive with what gratulation Lincoln and the Republicans regarded these landmarks, in the establishment of which they had been the instruments. They were convinced that the end of the struggle was near, that their work was almost accomplished, and that, if their sanguine hopes should prove true, they had, in saving the Union and in giving deadly blows to slavery, wrought out their country's salvation.1
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1 My thanks are due to Hon. Daniel S. Lamont, Secretary of War, for access to the Confederate archives in the War Department. I have already acknowledged my indebtedness to Professor Edward G. Bourne for his assistance on Chapter XII. To this I must add that he read carefully in manuscript the four succeeding chapters, and that he made me many suggestions touching economic matters and literary expression. I am indebted to Dr. Titus Munson Coan for a literary revision of this volume, as well as of Volumes I. and II. I desire to recognize the intelligent aid of Thomas J. Kiernan, superintendent of circulation of the college library of Harvard University, and to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mrs. M. S. Beall for careful work done in the government archives at Washington.

The printer's preparation of this volume was so far along at the time of the publication of Volume I. of John C. Ropes's "Story of the Civil War" that I was unable to make any use of that work.


Source: Rhodes, James Ford. History of the United States; from the compromise of 1850 to the final restoration of home rule at the south in 1877, v.3. New York: Macmillan, 1910 [c1892].