The History Of The Confederate War, Its Causes And Its Conduct - free ebook by George Cary Eggleston

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The History Of The Confederate War, Its Causes And Its Conduct

George Cary Eggleston

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THE HISTORY OF THE CONFEDERATE WAR

THE HISTORY OF THE CONFEDERATE WAR

THE HISTORY OF THE CONFEDERATE WAR ITS CAUSES AND ITS CONDUCT A NARRATIVE AND CRITICAL HISTORY BY GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON Volume I New York STURGIS &amp; WALTON COMPANY 1910 All rights reserved Copyright, 1910 By STURGIS &amp; WALTON COMPANY Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1910...

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INTRODUCTION The Magnitude of the Confederate War

INTRODUCTION The Magnitude of the Confederate War

During the years from 1861 to 1865, one of the greatest wars in all history was fought in this country. There were in all three million three hundred and seventy-eight thousand men engaged in the fighting of it. There are not that many men in all the regular standing armies of Europe combined, even if we include the unpaid hordes of Turkey and the military myriads of the armed camp known to geography as Russia. The actual fighting field of this war of ours was larger than the whole of western Eu

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CHAPTER I A Public, not a Civil, War

CHAPTER I A Public, not a Civil, War

The war of 1861–65 was in fact a revolution. Had the South succeeded in the purposes with which that war was undertaken it would have divided the American Republic into two separate and independent confederations of states, the Union and the Southern Confederacy. The North having succeeded, no such division was accomplished, but none the less was a revolution wrought as has been suggested in the introductory chapter of this work. Familiarly, and by way of convenience, we are accustomed to call t

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CHAPTER II The Growth of the National Idea

CHAPTER II The Growth of the National Idea

The causes of the war of 1861–65 were deeply imbedded in the history of the country, in the peculiar manner of its development, in the complex interests of men, and in those primary instincts of human nature which account for everything but which are themselves often unaccountable. It is difficult, indeed it is impossible to trace and unravel to the full the influences which in 1861 brought the North and South into armed conflict and created a war of stupendous proportions between men who had fo

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CHAPTER III The "Irrepressible Conflict"

CHAPTER III The "Irrepressible Conflict"

There is no possibility of doubt that, but for the slavery controversy, that growth of an intense national feeling which has been mentioned would have rendered the war of 1861–65 impossible. That intensely patriotic feeling of nationality was all pervasive, except in so far as the slavery controversy impaired it as it did, both North and South. If that one cause of disagreement had not existed, if there had been no negro slaves in the United States, the sentiment of union and nationality which h

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CHAPTER IV The Annexation of Texas

CHAPTER IV The Annexation of Texas

If matters had remained as they were, there is little room for doubt that the settlement reached in the Missouri Compromise would have endured for another generation at the least. It is true that, once raised, the issue between free labor and slavery was, as Mr. Seward afterwards said, "an irrepressible conflict." It is morally certain that sooner or later, in one way or in another, it was bound to lead to a decisive struggle either of war or of diplomacy between the North and the South. But we

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CHAPTER V The Compromise of 1850

CHAPTER V The Compromise of 1850

The Mexican war and the subsequent negotiations added a vast territory to the national domain. Much of it lay south of the Missouri Compromise line, and into that part of it at least the advocates of slavery confidently expected to extend their labor system. The introduction of the Wilmot Proviso and its passage by the House did not indeed result in the exclusion of slavery from those territories, for the reason that the proviso, failing in the Senate, did not become law. But it alarmed the Sout

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CHAPTER VI Uncle Tom's Cabin

CHAPTER VI Uncle Tom's Cabin

The failure of the Compromise of 1850 to accomplish its purpose did not at first appear in the national election returns. In fact the new Free-soil party polled fewer votes in 1852 than it had cast four years before, but in the elections of the several states of the North it was steadily gaining ground precisely as in the South the extreme disunion pro-slavery party was likewise doing. Little by little the more conservative men on either side were being drawn into the radical propaganda. In 1852

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CHAPTER VII The Repeal of the Missouri Compromise, The Kansas-Nebraska Bill and Squatter Sovereignty

CHAPTER VII The Repeal of the Missouri Compromise, The Kansas-Nebraska Bill and Squatter Sovereignty

The Missouri Compromise was in effect repealed by the compromise measures of 1850 but there was as yet no formal repeal. The effect of the compromise measures of 1850 was presently to stir up a greater strife than ever on the subject of slavery and even to raise new questions with regard to it. The ultra Southern men began to see that the Compromise of 1850 had given them practically nothing whatever in the way of territory out of which to create future slave states. It had admitted California a

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CHAPTER VIII The Kansas War—The Dred Scott Decision—John Brown's Exploit at Harper's Ferry

CHAPTER VIII The Kansas War—The Dred Scott Decision—John Brown's Exploit at Harper's Ferry

With the aid of a considerable Northern vote in Congress the South succeeded in passing the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, repealing the Missouri Compromise, and under the doctrine of "Squatter Sovereignty" throwing all the territories open to slavery at least as a possibility. The North at once took alarm and the Free-soil party, newly named the Republican party, grew in numbers and enthusiasm as no other party had ever done before. Events mightily aided this growth, driving into the Free-soil or Republ

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CHAPTER IX The Election of 1860

CHAPTER IX The Election of 1860

When the time came to nominate candidates for the presidential election of 1860, something akin to despair had seized upon the minds of men—a despair that discouraged hopeful conservatism and prompted many to courses that could promise nothing other than disaster to the Union. In the event, the election of that year showed that there was a majority of nearly a million votes against the Republican party, in a total vote of about four and a half millions. There was still an overwhelming majority o

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CHAPTER X The Birth of War

CHAPTER X The Birth of War

The election of Mr. Lincoln filled the whole country with alarmed apprehension. At the North no less than at the South men anxiously asked of themselves and of their neighbors "What is going to happen?" What had already happened was something unprecedented in the history of the country. On its face it was merely the election of a president by a majority of the electoral college vote, against whose election there had been a heavy popular majority. The like had happened several times before and th

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CHAPTER XI The Reduction of Fort Sumter

CHAPTER XI The Reduction of Fort Sumter

The events that brought about the Confederate War, the conditions and circumstances under which it occurred, and the passions and prejudices which inspired that bloody and most lamentable conflict have been sufficiently and quite truthfully set forth, the author believes, in the preceding chapters of this work. He has sought to show them forth without prejudice, and in a spirit of the utmost candor and fairness. It is the function of the historian to record facts, not to complain of them; to des

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CHAPTER XII The Attitude of the Border States

CHAPTER XII The Attitude of the Border States

With the secession of Virginia on the seventeenth of April, 1861, there came a final end to all hope of finding a way out. The active border states did not immediately declare their secession indeed, but that was a foregone conclusion so far as Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee were concerned, and military proceedings did not wait for the formal act. That came on the sixth of May, in Arkansas, on the twentieth of May in North Carolina, and on the eighth of June in Tennessee. Kentucky and Mi

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CHAPTER XIII "Pepper Box" Strategy

CHAPTER XIII "Pepper Box" Strategy

The moment Virginia adopted an ordinance of secession the authorities on both sides recognized the fact that that state was destined to be the chief battle ground of the war, and especially that the first and perhaps the decisive actions of the struggle were likely to occur there. Accordingly both sides began at once to hurry troops to that borderland—the South sending them to such vantage points in Virginia as might most seriously threaten Washington, the North sending them to the capital city

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CHAPTER XIV Manassas

CHAPTER XIV Manassas

At midsummer, 1861, there occurred near Manassas Junction in Virginia a battle which must always be regarded as one of the most remarkable of conflicts whether we consider its unusual event or its extraordinary sequences. The battle was utterly untimely in its happening. It was a contest of the unready with the unready. It was brought about by influences peculiarly unmilitary and in defiance of the judgment of all the military men who had aught to do with it. We shall see hereafter in how strang

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CHAPTER XV The Paralysis of Victory

CHAPTER XV The Paralysis of Victory

On the evening of the twenty-first day of July, 1861, the Confederate army at Manassas rested upon one of the completest and most spectacular victories that had ever been won by any army over any adversary. The assailing army had not only been repelled—all possibility of resistance was gone from it. Not only had it been driven pell-mell from the field with every circumstance of demoralization that could add picturesqueness to its flight, but the uttermost link of cohesion that could hold its bat

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CHAPTER XVI The European Menace

CHAPTER XVI The European Menace

While the Southern army indulged in its siesta after its victory, and seemed to wait for the war to come to an end of its own accord, the North was stirred by that event into more strenuous activity. Fresh levies were called for, and volunteers by scores of thousands eagerly responded to the call. New energy was brought to bear upon the fortification of Washington, so that the capital city might never again be in such danger of hostile conquest as it had been on that fateful twenty-first day of

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CHAPTER XVII Border Operations

CHAPTER XVII Border Operations

During the long period of strange inactivity in those parts of the country where the real seat of war lay, there was a good deal of active fighting elsewhere. Some of it was severe and gave rise to stirring events, including some stoutly contested battles. But with the exception of the operations upon the Southern coasts in aid of a more effective blockade none of these conflicts had any considerable strategic importance and the story of them may with propriety be briefly told. In Missouri the c

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CHAPTER XVIII The Blockade—The Conquest of the Coast and the Neglect to Follow up the Advantage thus Gained

CHAPTER XVIII The Blockade—The Conquest of the Coast and the Neglect to Follow up the Advantage thus Gained

As soon as the fact was recognized that war existed between the Northern and the Southern states it was quite a matter of course and of common sense that the Federal Government should endeavor to shut in the Confederates by a blockade that should cut them off from all commerce with the outer world. The South was almost exclusively an agricultural country. It had scanty means of supplying itself with any of those articles of manufacture which enable communities to live and to carry on war. It was

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CHAPTER XIX The Era of Incapacity

CHAPTER XIX The Era of Incapacity

This was the situation during the year 1861 and the early part of the year 1862. There were destined soon to come upon the scene two great masters of the military art—the one upon the one side and the other upon the other—Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. But during the early part of the struggle neither of these great men was in a position of mastery or control. Grant was struggling against all the difficulties that technicality and official jealousy could plant in his pathway. He found it di

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CHAPTER XX The First Appearance of Grant

CHAPTER XX The First Appearance of Grant

The "pepper box" policy of employing small bodies of troops everywhere for the accomplishment of ends of no strategic consequence prevailed at Washington during all those early months of the war. The results of that policy are the despair of the historian who would intelligently trace the progress of the conflict from its beginning to its end. In very truth there was no progress. So far as the outcome of the war was concerned those events had no part to play; so far as the history of the war is

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CHAPTER XXI The Situation Before Shiloh

CHAPTER XXI The Situation Before Shiloh

During the autumn of 1861 the troops of both sides were pushed into the "neutral" state of Kentucky at various points and in considerable numbers. Two battles of some moment resulted. At a place called Paintville, on the Big Sandy river in the eastern part of the state, Humphrey Marshall established himself with about 2,000 or 2,500 Confederates. Colonel Garfield (afterwards General and still later President), in command of a substantially equal force of Federals, assailed Marshall there, pushed

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CHAPTER XXII Between Manassas and Shiloh—The Situation in Virginia

CHAPTER XXII Between Manassas and Shiloh—The Situation in Virginia

It is necessary now to record what had meanwhile been going on in Virginia and elsewhere. At the beginning of November General George B. McClellan was placed in supreme command subject only to the President—of all the armies of the United States. He was called "the young Napoleon," though upon what grounds of achievement that characterization was based it is difficult to conjecture. He was thirty-five years of age, and therefore young. He was a West Point graduate and an accomplished officer of

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CHAPTER XXIII Shiloh

CHAPTER XXIII Shiloh

McClellan's advance upon Richmond, in its beginnings at least, antedated the great conflict at Shiloh. But its crisis did not come until much later, nor did it in its early progress involve aught that was of significance in its bearing upon the conduct and outcome of the war. It seems proper therefore to discuss Shiloh and other operations in the Mississippi Valley first, leaving the campaign in Virginia for later consideration. The Confederates, before the fall of Fort Donelson and Fort Henry,

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CHAPTER XXIV New Madrid and Island Number 10

CHAPTER XXIV New Madrid and Island Number 10

While the battle of Shiloh was in progress another strategically important struggle was fought out. By way of defending the Mississippi and holding it within Confederate control the Southern generals had strongly fortified New Madrid Bend and Island Number 10. Let us explain. The Mississippi river is exceedingly tortuous in its course. Some miles above New Madrid in Missouri, it suddenly turns northwardly and makes a great bend. At or near the northerly curve of that bend lies the village of New

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CHAPTER XXV Farragut at New Orleans

CHAPTER XXV Farragut at New Orleans

There was still another man of splendid genius and capacity who about this time came to the front as a winner of victories for the Federal arms, and above all, as a man like Grant, who knew how to do things when officialism permitted him to act. Like Grant on the one side, and Lee on the other, Farragut was at first treated as a negligible factor in the war. David Glasgow Farragut was a man of Southern birth who had been twice married in Virginia, and all of whose kindred and connections and ins

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CHAPTER XXVI McClellan's Peninsular Advance

CHAPTER XXVI McClellan's Peninsular Advance

We have already seen from his own reports what McClellan thought of the force he was called upon to command at and near Washington after the disastrous defeat of McDowell at Manassas. There was, he said, "no army to command—a mere collection of regiments, cowering on the banks of the Potomac, some perfectly raw, others dispirited by recent defeat, others going home.... Washington was crowded with straggling officers and men absent from their stations without authority." Slowly, patiently, painfu

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CHAPTER XXVII Jackson's Valley Campaign

CHAPTER XXVII Jackson's Valley Campaign

No sooner had Lee come into command than he set out to change and reverse the existing conditions of the war. He was determined to drive McClellan away from Richmond, to put an end to siege operations that, if persisted in, must ultimately result in the capture of that city, and to transfer to some more distant point the scene of active hostilities. In other words, it was Lee's purpose to change a dispiriting defense into an all-inspiring offense, to raise McClellan's siege of Richmond and to in

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CHAPTER XXVIII The Seven Days' Battles

CHAPTER XXVIII The Seven Days' Battles

It was explained in the last chapter that Lee's first object when he took personal charge of the army defending Richmond was to raise McClellan's siege of the Confederate capital, drive him away, and transfer the scene of active operations to some more distant field. To that end, first of all, he had strengthened the army at Richmond by calling to it every man that could be spared from coast defense and from the regions farther south. Next he had set Jackson at work in the Valley, to occupy the

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CHAPTER XXIX The Second Manassas Campaign

CHAPTER XXIX The Second Manassas Campaign

Lee had now accomplished the first of his two purposes. He had raised McClellan's siege of Richmond. He had not succeeded in capturing or destroying McClellan's army as he had hoped to do, but he had completely baffled its endeavor. He had driven it out of its strongly fortified positions. He had kept it in an enforced and continuous retreat for a whole week. He had compelled it to fight losing battles by day, and to spend the nights in painful and exhausting efforts to escape, which McClellan h

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CHAPTER XXX Lee's First Invasion of Maryland

CHAPTER XXX Lee's First Invasion of Maryland

Lee seemed now to be master of the situation so far at least as determining when and where the fighting should be done. Within the brief space of two months he had raised the siege of Richmond, maneuvered McClellan completely out of Virginia, and overthrown Pope in a two-days' battle compelling that commander to retire behind the defenses of Washington. There remained no Federal army in Virginia. There was no further defensive campaigning to be done there. Lee decided at once upon an aggressive

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Transcribers' Note

Transcribers' Note

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. Simple typographical errors, including occasional unpaired quotation marks, were corrected. Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. Page 340 : "Pass á l'Outre" was printed with that accent mark. The book cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the Public Domain....

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THE HISTORY OF THE CONFEDERATE WAR

THE HISTORY OF THE CONFEDERATE WAR

THE HISTORY OF THE CONFEDERATE WAR ITS CAUSES AND ITS CONDUCT A NARRATIVE AND CRITICAL HISTORY BY GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON Volume II New York STURGIS &amp; WALTON COMPANY 1910 All rights reserved Copyright, 1910 By STURGIS &amp; WALTON COMPANY Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1910...

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CHAPTER XXXI The Struggle for Emancipation

CHAPTER XXXI The Struggle for Emancipation

In the meantime great events were occurring which were in some respects more important in their bearing on the war than battles would have been. In these events the war recognized itself and adapted itself to its conditions. From the beginning the abolitionists had clamorously and ceaselessly demanded of Mr. Lincoln that he should recognize the actual cause of the war by proclaiming freedom for the slaves at the South. There was no doubt in anybody's mind that the war was simply the culmination

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CHAPTER XXXII Burnside's Fredericksburg Campaign

CHAPTER XXXII Burnside's Fredericksburg Campaign

It has already been related that at the end of the battle of Sharpsburg, or Antietam, neither army cared to renew the contest. The two confronted each other within deadly firing distance for the space of twenty-four hours, doing nothing whatever. Apparently each had so far had enough of such fighting that neither cared to take the initiative for its renewal, yet each was ready enough to meet the other should that other care to assail it. At the end of this waiting time Lee slowly retired towards

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CHAPTER XXXIII Halleck's Treatment of Grant

CHAPTER XXXIII Halleck's Treatment of Grant

When Halleck assumed command at Pittsburg Landing after the battle of Shiloh he seemed intent, not only upon depriving Grant of the privilege of vigorously following up the victory he had won but also upon "snubbing," ignoring and humiliating that successful general in every way possible. If Grant's tremendous and at last successful struggle to force Beauregard back to his defenses at Corinth had been a crime instead of a heroic achievement, his commanding general could scarcely have punished it

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CHAPTER XXXIV Grant at Corinth

CHAPTER XXXIV Grant at Corinth

When Grant took command at Corinth he found matters in an exceedingly confused and embarrassing condition. In the first place his authority was so ill defined that he could do nothing of importance without risk of subjecting himself to censure and perhaps even to a trial by court martial for having exceeded his authority, while if he left anything undone by reason of his uncertainty as to the scope of his command, he must do so at equal risk of censure or court martial for neglect. Halleck had b

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CHAPTER XXXV Bragg's Campaign Against Louisville

CHAPTER XXXV Bragg's Campaign Against Louisville

Strategically considered there was no point in the middle South so important to either side at that time as Chattanooga. Either side having possession of that place could hold it against a force outnumbering its garrison many times. More important still, its possession by the Confederates opened to them three or four different routes of advance into Kentucky, which no enemy with anything like an equal force could effectually guard or defend. To hold one of these routes was to open another. Confe

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CHAPTER XXXVI Fall and Winter Campaigns at the West and South

CHAPTER XXXVI Fall and Winter Campaigns at the West and South

The climatic conditions of the disputed country south and west were excellent for campaigning during the autumn, and tolerable during most of the winter. As neither side was satisfied with the results achieved in that quarter during the spring and summer of 1862, both were disposed to carry on the war with vigor during the autumn of that year and the winter following. On the third of October, while Buell and Bragg were confronting each other near Louisville, Van Dorn, who had been heavily reinfo

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CHAPTER XXXVII The Chancellorsville Campaign

CHAPTER XXXVII The Chancellorsville Campaign

However important the operations at the West and South might be, the vital seat of the war was always in Virginia. There the contending armies ceaselessly threatened the two capitals, the conquest of either of which would have been decisive. There both sides concentrated their best armies. There was present the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia under Lee, of which General Hooker, after being overthrown and beaten by it, testified: "That army has, by discipline alone, acquired a character for

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CHAPTER XXXVIII The Gettysburg Campaign

CHAPTER XXXVIII The Gettysburg Campaign

When the campaign of Chancellorsville ended in defeat for the Federals, the two armies returned to their former positions at Fredericksburg, confronting each other with a river between—a river which neither of them was for the time being disposed to cross with fighting intent. Hooker, as his orders issued at that time showed, was content as McClellan had been the year before, that he had saved his great army from disastrous defeat and capture. He was glad to escape with what remained of his army

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CHAPTER XXXIX The Campaign of Vicksburg

CHAPTER XXXIX The Campaign of Vicksburg

After Shiloh, Grant was left, as he himself has told us, in a state of grave uncertainty as to the limits of his command, and even as to the question whether or not he had any command. After Halleck was transferred to Washington and placed in the position of General in Chief, things at the West did not much mend. We have seen how Grant at Corinth was slowly stripped of his forces and compelled to stand mainly upon the defensive in a field where offense, instant and vigorous, was obviously called

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CHAPTER XL The State of Things After Gettysburg

CHAPTER XL The State of Things After Gettysburg

The summer of 1863 presented the most interesting epoch of the war. The baffling of Lee's second attempt to invade the North left the struggle in Virginia about as it had been before, except that Lee's veteran army continued to grow steadily stronger in morale and weaker in numbers. The operations at the West, however, had been very disastrous to the Confederates. Their chief city had been taken and was firmly held. Their armies had been driven out of Missouri, Kentucky and the greater part of T

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CHAPTER XLI The Struggle for Charleston

CHAPTER XLI The Struggle for Charleston

The Confederate war necessarily involved military operations at very widely separated points at one and the same time. The telling of its story, therefore, of necessity involves a good deal of harking back, as the huntsmen say. While Lee's tremendous campaigns in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania had been going on, and while Grant was engaged in conquering Vicksburg and reopening the Mississippi river, there was important fighting done at other points and particularly at Charleston in South Ca

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CHAPTER XLII The Campaigns of Chickamauga and Chattanooga

CHAPTER XLII The Campaigns of Chickamauga and Chattanooga

While Lee was fighting his tremendous campaigns in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, and while Grant was battling for Vicksburg, two other armies confronted each other near the southern border line of Tennessee. Rosecrans had command of the Federal forces near Murfreesboro, and Braxton Bragg was in charge of the Confederates at Chattanooga. The position of each of these armies was a serious threat to the other side. If Bragg should be left unoccupied by his enemy it was easily within his powe

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CHAPTER XLIII Grant's Strategy—The Red River Campaign—Fort Pillow, Etc.

CHAPTER XLIII Grant's Strategy—The Red River Campaign—Fort Pillow, Etc.

The operations of the Confederate war covered a vast area, and included a multitude of actions severe in themselves, and often rising to the dignity of great battles so far, at least, as the extent of the slaughter was concerned. But many of these actions had no particular bearing or effect upon the general conduct and outcome of the war. To tell the story of them all would not only be tedious, but it would make this history a confused mass of only slightly related details rather than a consecut

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CHAPTER XLIV Grant's Plan of Campaign

CHAPTER XLIV Grant's Plan of Campaign

As the month of April neared its end Grant prepared to execute the plans he had so laboriously formed, and for which he had given to all his lieutenants in every quarter of the country orders as minute as they could be made without risk of leaving any lieutenant embarrassed for want of liberty of action in the event of an emergency. For the sake of a clear understanding let us state again in brief outline his scheme of operation. His fundamental conception was that in order to conquer the Confed

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CHAPTER XLV The Battles in the Wilderness

CHAPTER XLV The Battles in the Wilderness

With the coming of May, 1864, the two great commanding geniuses of the War—Lee and Grant—met each other in conflict. The exact forces commanded by each have never been ascertained. But the estimates of the various writers on the subject, North and South, do not differ sufficiently, to make their differences of much consequence. In round numbers Lee had, on the Rapidan, about 66,000 men. The army with which Grant opposed him numbered approximately 120,000. These estimates do not include either th

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CHAPTER XLVI Spottsylvania and the Bloody Angle

CHAPTER XLVI Spottsylvania and the Bloody Angle

All day during the seventh of May the two armies lay still. There was a little cavalry fighting at Todd's Tavern, but the two great armies did not again engage each other in conflict. They had tried conclusions here, and each was measurably satisfied with the result. The question now was where next they should meet each other in arms. Lee had chosen the field of the first onset. It was for Grant to choose the next. And in pursuance of his strategy Grant determined to move by his left flank to Sp

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CHAPTER XLVII Cold Harbor and on to Petersburg

CHAPTER XLVII Cold Harbor and on to Petersburg

A week of desperate fighting had convinced Grant that he could not break through or overlap or force back Lee's stubborn line of defense at Spottsylvania. After another week devoted to a study of the problem the Federal commander decided to make another movement by his left flank, similar to that which he had made from the Wilderness. He had in the meantime replenished his supplies of food and ammunition, and in spite of continuous fighting in a small way throughout the week of pause, he had suc

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CHAPTER XLVIII The Confederate Cruisers

CHAPTER XLVIII The Confederate Cruisers

From the beginning of the war the Federals had enjoyed the very great advantage of having possession of a navy, and of shipyards in which that navy could be increased almost at will, while the Confederates had neither ships nor shipyards. On the Federal side it was easily possible to increase the naval force by drawing into the service available vessels of every kind—steamers, merchantmen, tugs, and even double-ender ferry boats from New York Harbor. The guns with which to arm these vessels were

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CHAPTER XLIX Sherman's Campaign against Atlanta

CHAPTER XLIX Sherman's Campaign against Atlanta

The plan by which General Grant hoped to crush the Confederacy during the summer of 1864 and to make an end of the resisting power of its armies has been set forth already. In that plan, as the reader will remember, an operation second in importance only to Grant's own campaign in Virginia was Sherman's southward march from Chattanooga, which was intended to defeat Johnston, seize upon Atlanta, and push forward thence through the heart of the Confederacy, either to Mobile or to Savannah, in eith

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CHAPTER L The Bay Fight at Mobile

CHAPTER L The Bay Fight at Mobile

In the meanwhile another important blow had been struck in pursuance of Grant's comprehensive plan of destroying the Confederate capacity of resistance. The reader will doubtless remember that when Farragut captured New Orleans in April, 1862, he desired at once to move against Mobile in the hope and confident expectation of capturing and closing all those Confederate ports upon which, as blockade running centers, the Southerners relied for the export of their cotton, and the import of arms, amm

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CHAPTER LI The Mine Explosion at Petersburg

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

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CHAPTER LII Early's Invasion of Pennsylvania

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

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CHAPTER LIII Operations at Petersburg and Sheridan's Valley Campaign

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 pec

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CHAPTER LIV The Presidential Campaign of 1864

CHAPTER LIV The Presidential Campaign of 1864

At this time there was a presidential campaign in progress at the North. Throughout the war, the South had the advantage of a practically united people, while at the North there was division of sentiment, and a violent difference of opinion as to policy. At the North there was a political party bitterly opposing the administration which must carry on the war, and even opposing the war itself, as unconstitutional in its inception, blundering in its management and completely barren of results. Her

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CHAPTER LV Sherman at Atlanta

CHAPTER LV Sherman at Atlanta

Sherman occupied Atlanta on the second day of September, 1864, the Confederates retiring without a further struggle to a strong position east of the city. Sherman almost immediately decided to depopulate the town and make of it a rigidly military stronghold. To that end he ordered all the inhabitants, old and young, sick and well, men, women and children alike, to leave the place. He gave to each the choice of fleeing northward or southward as each might elect, but all must go. All these helples

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CHAPTER LVI Sherman's "March to the Sea"

CHAPTER LVI Sherman's "March to the Sea"

Upon reaching this decision, which had the approval both of General Grant and of the War Department, Sherman's first thought was to equip Thomas for the task of dealing successfully with Hood. He detached strong army corps from his own force and sent them to Thomas's reinforcement. He ordered the prompt abandonment of all unimportant posts held in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama, sending their garrisons to Nashville or Chattanooga, still further to strengthen his lieutenant fo

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CHAPTER LVII Hood's Campaign

CHAPTER LVII Hood's Campaign

In the meanwhile Hood had moved northward from in front of Atlanta. His hope had been to draw Sherman in pursuit and induce him to leave the Confederate city. When Sherman shunned the bait and stayed in Atlanta arranging for his march to the sea, Hood set out to assail Thomas at Chattanooga. It was an absurdly impracticable campaign, which could not possibly result in anything of advantage to the Confederates except the incidental slaughter of a good many thousands of Federal soldiers with no co

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CHAPTER LVIII Preparations for the Decisive Blow

CHAPTER LVIII Preparations for the Decisive Blow

The situation of the Confederates was now desperate in the extreme. During January an expedition ordered by Grant captured Fort Fisher, at the mouth of Cape Fear river, and made itself master of Wilmington, North Carolina. New Orleans had long ago fallen, Mobile had been completely closed by Farragut's Bay fight and Sherman had secured possession of Savannah. Charleston was the only Southern port still in possession of the Confederates, and Sherman was already threatening that from the rear in s

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CHAPTER LIX The End

CHAPTER LIX The End

While all this was going on around Petersburg, Sherman, under Grant's instructions, was carrying out the other part of the lieutenant general's program. After securing possession of Savannah he pushed troops forward to Pocotaligo, a point on the Charleston and Savannah railroad about midway between the two cities. From that position he could move with equal ease against Charleston, Augusta, or Columbia and the cities and towns north of Columbia. General Joseph E. Johnston had been grudgingly rec

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