How Robert E. Lee Lost The Civil War
How Robert E. Lee Lost the Civil War
By Edward H. Bonekemper, III
Sergeant Kirkland's Press
Copyright 1999 by Edward H. Bonekemper, III
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - All Rights reserved. No part of this book
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published & Distributed by
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Manufactured in the
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bonekemper, Edward H.
How Robert E. Lost the Civil War / by Edward H. Bonekemper,
III p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-887901-33-7 (alk. paper)
1. Lee, Robert E. (Robert Edward), 1807-1870—Military
leadership. 2. Generals—Confederate States of
Cover design and page layout
by Ronald R. Seagrave.
Edited by Pia Seija Seagrave, Ph.D.
This book is dedicated to my loving and patient wife, Susan,
and as a memorial to my fellow Civil War buff, Alfred W. Weidemoyer.
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Acknoivledgemen ts |
9 |
Chapter 8 |
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July 1863: Suicide |
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Preface: |
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at |
101 |
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Lee's Fatal Flaws |
11 |
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Chapter 9 |
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Chapter 1 |
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Late 1863: Mistakes |
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The Making of the Man |
and Disillusion |
137 |
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and Soldier |
17 |
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Chapter 10 |
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Chapter 2 |
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1864: Reaping the |
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1861: Failure in |
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Whirlwind |
145 |
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23 |
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Chapter 11 |
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Chapter 3 |
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1865: Inevitable Defeat 181 |
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Early Summer 1862: |
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Slaughter |
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Chapter 12 |
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on the |
35 |
Overview |
193 |
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Chapter 4 |
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Appendix I |
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Mid-Summer 1862: |
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Historians' |
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Costly Victory at |
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Treatment of Lee |
207 |
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Second |
57 |
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Appendix II |
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Chapter 5 |
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Casualties |
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September 1862: |
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in the Civil War |
215 |
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Disaster at |
65 |
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Bibliography |
221 |
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Chapter 6 |
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December 1862: |
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Index |
237 |
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Not Learned |
79 |
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Chapter 7 |
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May 1863: |
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That Wasn't |
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During my seven years of work on this book,
I have been encouraged, stimulated, challenged and assisted by a great many
people. My wife, father-in-law, parents, co-workers and friends have patiently
listened to me excitedly describe each new idea and discovery as I read and
thought about Lee and the Civil War. Without their support, this book would not
have been possible.
My wife tolerated my using my days off to
write this book instead of working around the house. A1 Weidemoyer, my late
father-in-law, and I shared over one hundred Civil War books and jointly
concluded that Lee has been greatly overrated. I owe a special debt to my
mother, Marie Bonekemper, who taught me to love reading even before I went to
school, and my father, Ed Bonekemper, who taught me the typesetting, printing,
and newspaper businesses when I was in my early teens.
The Library of Congress staff was as
helpful to me as they have been to millions of other researchers and authors.
Even more beneficial have been the critical reviews of my manuscript by a
splendid and varied group of professionals and friends. Especially helpful were
the keen and thoughtful criticisms provided by Dr. Edwin Baldrige, former
chairman of the history department at
Other indispensable reviewers were Jim
MacDonald, Mary Crouter and Steve Farbman. Jim's four Buckeye
great-grandfathers all fought for the
I also must acknowledge several other
readers who provided valuable feedback: Dr. Virginia Litres, Jeffrey Baldino,
Bill Holt, Ken Holt, Dore Hunter, and A1 Roberts. My boss, Judy Kaleta,
graciously allowed me to adjust my work schedule to facilitate my writing this
book. Historian and author Mac Wyckoff and Dr. William C. McDonald provided
vital, thorough and critical reviews of my manuscript that significantly
improved its quality.
Absolutely essential were the confidence,
perseverance and skills of my publisher, Ronald R. Seagrave, and my editor, Dr.
Pia Seagrave.
Lastly, vital to this book are permissions
to publish excerpts from the following publications:
From Fighting for the Confederacy: The Personal Recollections
of General Edward Porter Alexander. Edited by Gary Gallagher. Copyright(c) 1989
by the
From Fleming, Martin K., "The Northwestern Virginia Campaign
of 1861: McClellan's Rising Star — Lee's Dismal Debut," Blue & Gray
Magazine, X, Issue 6 (Aug. 1993), 10, 62. Copyright^) 1993 by Blue & Gray
Magazine. Used by permission of the publisher.
Although this book could not have been
completed without the generous assistance of all these people and institutions,
I am solely responsible for any errors that remain.
Robert E. Lee is often described as one of
the greatest generals who ever lived. He usually is given credit for keeping
vastly superior Union forces at bay and preserving the Confederacy during the
four years of the American Civil War (1861-65).
This book presents a contrary view, a side
of the coin infrequently seen. It relies upon previously-published sources but
extracts from them a more critical analysis of Lee's Civil War performance. It
goes beyond any of the earlier critics of Lee by describing all of Lee's strategic
and tactical errors, analyzing their cumulative effect, emphasizing the
negative impact he had on Confederate prospects in both the East and the West,
and squarely placing on him responsibility for defeat of the Confederates in a
war they should have won. More attention is given to developments in the West
than in most books about Lee because events there spelled the ultimate
military doom of Lee's army and because Lee himself played an often-overlooked
role in those events.
The cult of Lee worshippers began with
former Civil War generals who had fought ineffectively under him. They sought
to polish then- own tarnished reputations and restore southern pride by
deliberately distorting the historical record and creating the myth of the
flawless Robert E. Lee.1
In his capacity as the Confederacy's
leading general and President Jefferson Davis' primary military advisor for
virtually the entire war, however, Lee bears considerable responsibility for
the war's outcome. Even more significantly, Lee's own specific strategic and
tactical failures cost the Confederates their opportunity to outlast the
The war was winnable through a conservative
use of Confederate resources, but Lee squandered the Confederacy's precious
manpower
i. See Appendix I herein, Historians' Treatment of Lee. On
the "transcendental" myth of Lee, see Fuller, J.F.C., Grant and Lee:
A Study in Personality and Generalship (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1957) [hereafter Fuller, Grant and Lee], pp. 103-8.
and its opportunity for victory.2 The South's
primary opportunity for success was to outlast
The South was outnumbered by a ratio of 4
to 1 in terms of white men of fighting age and could not afford to squander its
resources by engaging in a war of attrition.3 Robert E. Lee's
deliberate disregard of this reality may have been his greatest failure.
The possibility of a Confederate victory
through a defeat of
Lee's strategy and tactics dissipated
irreplaceable manpower — even in his "victories." His losses at
Malvern Hill, Antietam, and Gettysburg, as well as his costly "wins"
at Second Bull Run and Chancel- lorsville - all in 1862 and 1863 - made
possible Ulysses S. Grant's and William Tecumseh Sherman's successful 1864
campaigns against Richmond and Atlanta and created the aura of Confederate
defeat that Lincoln exploited to win reelection. If Lee had performed
differently, the North would have been fatally split, Democratic nominee (and
"out-to-pasture" Union Major General) George B. McClellan might have
defeated
2. "The
weaker side can win; the South almost did." Hattaway, Herman and Jones,
Archer, How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War (Urbana and
Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983,1991) [hereafter Hattaway and
Jones, How the North Won], p. ix.
3. Ibid.,
p. 114; Nevins, Alan, Ordeal of the Union, 8 vols. (New York and London:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1947-50) [hereafter Nevins, Ordeal], IV, p. 488,
citing Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia (1861).
4. Nevins,
Ordeal, VIII, pp. 92-6.
5. Davis,
William C., The Cause Lost: Myths and Realities of the Confederacy (Lawrence:
University Press of Kansas, 1996), pp. 142-7.
also had demonstrated great concern about southerners'
property rights in slaves.
Lee's strategy was defective in two
respects.6 First, it was too aggressive.7 With one
quarter the manpower resources of his adversary, Lee exposed his forces to
unnecessary risks and, ultimately, lost the gamble.8 Second, Lee's
strategy concentrated all the resources he could obtain and retain almost
exclusively in the eastern theater of operations, while fatal events were
occurring in the "West" (primarily in Tennessee, Mississippi and
Georgia).9 Historian Archer Jones provides an analysis tying
together Lee's two strategic weaknesses:
More convincing is the contention that if the
For details of Lee's defective strategy, see Chapter 12,
"Overview."
7. "Like
Napoleon himself, with his passion for the strategy of annihilation and the climactic,
decisive battle as its expression, [Lee] destroyed in the end not the enemy
armies, but his own." Weigley, Russell F., The American Way of War: A
History of
8. "Even
some generals who enjoy high reputations or fame have actually been predominantly
direct soldiers who brought disaster to their side. One such general was Robert
E. Lee, the beau ideal of the Southern Confederacy, who possessed integrity,
honor, and loyalty in the highest degree and who also possessed skills as a
commander far in excess of those of the Union generals arrayed against him. But
Lee was not, himself, a great general. Lee generally and in decisively critical
situations always chose the direct over the indirect approach." Alexander,
Bevin, How Great Generals Win (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company,
1993) [hereafter Alexander, Great Generals], pp. 25-6. "Of all the army
commanders on both sides, Lee had the highest casualty rate." McPherson,
James M„ Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Ballantine Books,
1988) [hereafter McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom], p. 472.
9. Lee
operated in an area of 22,000 square miles, while the western theater consisted
of 225,000 square miles in seven states. Connelly, Thomas Lawrence,
"Robert E. Lee and the Western Confederacy: A Criticism of Lee's Strategic
Ability," Civil War History, 15 (June 1969), pp. 116-32 [hereafter,
Connelly, "Lee and the Western Confederacy"], p. 118. "... a
very real criticism of Lee is that while he managed to defend
spare some of their strength to bolster the sagging West where
the war was being lost.10
Just as significant as his flawed strategy
were Lee's tactics, which proved fatally defective.11 His tactical
defects were that he was too aggressive on the field,12 he
frequently failed to take charge of the battlefield,13 his battle
plans were too complex or simply ineffective,14 and his orders were
too vague or discretionary.15
The results of Lee's faulty strategies and
tactics were catastrophic. His army had 121,000 men killed or wounded during
the war ~ 27,000 more than any Union or Confederate Civil War general including
that alleged "butcher," Union Lieutenant General Ulysses Simpson
Grant,
10. Jones, Archer, Confederate Strategy from
u. For details concerning Lee's tactical weaknesses, see
Chapter 12, "Overview."
12. General
James Longstreet said, "In the field, [Lee's] characteristic fault was
headlong combativeness... He was too pugnacious." Wert, Jeffrey D.,
General James Longstreet: The Confederacy's Most Controversial Soldier-A
Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993) [hereafter Wert, Longstreet],
p. 296.
13. Lee
explained his approach to a Prussian military observer at
14. Glatthaar,
Partners in Command, p. 35.
15. "Lee's
failure adequately to order his generals to perform specific actions or
discipline them if they failed was probably his greatest character defect...
One of his staunchest defenders [Fitzhugh Lee] agreed:'He had a reluctance to
oppose the wishes of others, or to order them to do anything that would be
disagreeable and to which they would not consent.[']" Katcher, Army of
Lee, p. 26. "Every order and act of Lee has been defended by his staff
officers and eulogists with a fervency that excites suspicion that, even in
their own minds, there was need of defence to make good the position they claim
for him among the world's great commanders." Bruce, George A., "Lee
and the Strategy of the Civil War," pp. 111-38 [hereafter, Bruce,
"Lee and Strategy"] in Gallagher, Gary W. (ed.), Lee the Soldier
(Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1996) [hereafter Gallagher,
Lee the Soldier], p. 117.
and about 90,000 more than any other Confederate general.16
Although Lee's army inflicted a war-high 135,000 casualties on its opponents,
60,000 of those occurred in 1864 and 186517 when Lee was on the
defensive and Grant was engaged in a deliberate war of adhesion (achieving
attrition and exhaustion) against the army Lee had fatally depleted in 1862 and
1863.18 Astoundingly (in light of his reputation), Lee's percentages
of casualties suffered were worse than those of his fellow Confederate
commanders.19
During the first 14 months that Lee
commanded the Army of Northern Virginia, he took the strategic and tactical
offensive so often with his undermanned army that he lost 80,000 men while
inflicting only 73,000 casualties on his Union opponents.20 Although
daring and sometimes seemingly successful, Lee's actions were inconsistent with
the North's 4:1 manpower advantage and were fatal to the Confederate cause. By
1864, therefore, Grant had a 120,000-man army and additional reserves to bring
against Lee's 65,000 and, by the sheer weight of his numbers, imposed a fatal
46 percent casualty rate on Lee's army while losing a militarily tolerable 41
percent of his own replaceable men, as Grant drove from the Rappahannock to the
James River and created a terminal threat to Richmond.21
By June, 1864, Lee's diminished forces were
tied down by Grant at
16. McWhiney, Grady and Jamieson, Perry D., Attack and Die:
Civil War Military Tactics and
the Southern Heritage (Tuscaloosa and London: The University
of Alabama Press, 1982) [hereafter McWhiney and Jamieson, Attack and Die], pp.
19-23. Ibid., p. 19.
ls. "Though Lee was at his best on defense, he adopted
defensive tactics only after attrition had deprived him of the power to
attack. His brilliant defensive campaign against Grant in 1864 made the Union
pay in manpower as it had never paid before, but the Confederates resorted to
defensive warfare too late; Lee started the campaign with too few men, and he
could not replace his losses as could Grant." Ibid., pp. 164-5.
19. Major
Confederate generals' percentages killed and injured were: Lee, 20.2%; Joseph
E. Johnston, 10.5%; Braxton Bragg, 19.5%; P.G.T. Beauregard, 16.1%; Earl Van
Dorn 8.5%; Jubal Early, 11.2%; and John Bell Hood, 19.2%. Ibid., pp. 19-21. See
Chapter 12, "Overview," for more comparative statistics. Also, see
Appendix II herein, "Casualties in the Civil War."
20. Ibid.,
p. 19; Livermore, Thomas L., Numbers & Losses in the Civil War in America,
1861-65 (Millwood, N.V.: Kraus Reprint Co., 1990, reprint of Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1957) [hereafter Livermore, Numbers & Losses],
pp. 82-103.
21. McWhiney
and Jamieson, Attack and Die, p. 19; Livermore, Numbers & Losses, pp.
110-6.
The time had come to end the war, but Lee
did nothing. Revered and loved by his troops and the entire South, Lee
certainly had the power to bring down the curtain on the great American
tragedy. His resignation would have brought about an even more massive return
of southern soldiers to their homes and would have destroyed the Army of
Northern Virginia's, and, ultimately, the Confederacy's, will to fight. But he
did nothing. For five more months after
22. Although the morale of some in the Confederacy remained
high until the end, many realized that defeat was becoming increasingly likely
in late 1864 and early 1865. Massive desertions from Lee's army reflected,
among other things, the likelihood of defeat. See Chapters 10 and 11.
The Making of
the Man and Soldier
"The Lees of
But, despite a romantic record as a
Revolutionary War officer, Lee's father had disgraced the family name. His war
record actually was tainted. Henry Lee, III, proudly known as "Light-
Horse Harry" Lee, had been court-martialed twice. He had ordered a
deserter hanged and then, cruelly, had the man's severed head delivered to
General George Washington.1 Finally, he had resigned from the army
in 1782 while engaged in a love affair.
But it was Henry Lee's profligate spending
of his two wives' money that brought dishonor and disgrace to him and the
family. In 1782, he married his cousin, Matilda Lee, and spent their (her)
money so foolishly that she hired an attorney to put the remaining assets in
trust for their two sons. After her sudden death, Henry married Ann Hill Carter
of the famous and wealthy Virginia Carters ~ over the strong and wise
opposition of Ann's father. That 1793 marriage resulted in the birth of five
children, including Robert E. Lee (the fourth child and third son) on
Harry had, thus, squandered a second family
fortune, passed bad checks (including one to George Washington), fraudulently
sold to his brother land that he no longer owned, and served two jail terms
totaling a year for failure to pay his debts. Four relatives cut him out of
their wills. In 1813, Lee's father, desperate to escape his debtors, fled the
1. Nagel,
Paul C., The Lees of Virginia: Seven Generations of an American Family (New
York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990) [hereafter Nagel, Lees of
Virginia], pp. 161-4; Connelly, Marble Man, pp. 176-7.
2. Ibid.,
pp. 164-82; Thomas, Emory M„ Robert E. Lee: A Biography (New York and London:
W.W. Norton & Company, 1995) [hereafter Thomas, Lee], pp. 23-9.
country. Five years later, the mortally-ill Light-Horse Harry
tried to return to
As if that disgrace were not sufficient,
Light-Horse Harry's son, Henry IV (Robert E. Lee's half-brother), earned the
sobriquet "Black- Horse Harry" by impregnating his wife's sister,
Betsy McCarty, who also was his ward. That 1820 indiscretion became public the
next year when she obtained a court order ending the guardianship. The court
said that "Henry Lee hath been guilty of a flagrant abuse of his trust in
the guardianship of his ward Betsy McCarty." The scandal reached national
proportions a decade later when President Andrew Jackson attempted to name
Black-Horse Harry consul to
The notoriety and prodigality of Robert's
father and half-brother brought shame and humble circumstances to the small
family of Robert, his mother and siblings. After his 1807 birth at stately
Stratford Hall in
From a very early age, Lee cared for his
frail mother, Ann Carter Lee, and his two sisters until he left their
Restoration of his family's honor became a
driving force in the life of Robert E. Lee. At
Upon his mother's death, Lee inherited ten
slaves. Two years later, in July 1831, Lee married Mary Anne Randolph Custis,
the only child of George Washington's adopted son, and, thereby, went a long
way toward reestablishing his aristocratic credentials. His marriage also
3. Nagel,
Lees of
4. Thomas,
Lee, p. 40; Nagel, Lees of
5. Thomas,
Lee, p. 44.
«. Ibid., pp. 36-55.
gained him access to the grand, 1,100-acre Arlington House
plantation, which he made his permanent home until the Civil War. Between 1832
and 1846, the Lees had seven children, two of whom became Civil War major
generals; another became a captain in Lee's army.
Lee served in a variety of engineering
posts in
The highlight of Lee's pre-Civil War career
was his heroic experiences in the Mexican War (1846-48). There he garnered
experience and exposure as a member of General-in-Chief Winfield Scott's staff.
Scott, rivaled only by General Zachary Taylor as
On the down side, however, his Mexican War
experiences may have given Lee an erroneous impression of what could be accomplished
by daring, perhaps rash, frontal assaults. He actively participated in a
series of successful attacks upon positions defended by poorly-trained infantry
armed with unrifled, inaccurate, short-range, muzzle-loading muskets. At
7. Thomas,
Lee, pp. 113-42.
8. Ibid.,
pp. 140-1.
Lee's heroic Mexican War adventure may have
been the only time he enjoyed his pre-Civil War military career. It, perhaps,
made him believe that he had partially restored his family's honor. The Mexican
War experience, however, probably created in Lee's mind an unrealistic
confidence in the success that could be achieved through offensive warfare. The
capture of
The relatively small number of troops on
both sides also distinguished that struggle from the later Civil War. The Americans
invading
During the early 1850s, Lee served as
Superintendent of West Point. In 1855, he became the lieutenant colonel of the
just-formed 2nd Cavalry Regiment and embarked on a western tour of duty, once again
far removed from his wife and children. His colonel was Albert Sidney Johnston,
and they joined John Bell Hood and Edmund Kirby Smith of the same famed
regiment as four of the Confederacy's eight four-star generals. In fact, the
2nd Regiment furnished eleven generals to the Confederacy and eight to the
Throughout the 1850s, Lee was depressed and
thought of himself as a failure; promotions were slow, accomplishments were
few, and his marriage was characterized by duty more than love.9
Despite, or perhaps because of, his long separations from his wife, Colonel
Lee, in early 1859, advised fellow officer Winfield Scott Hancock's wife, Al-
mira Russell Hancock, to accompany her husband to his California post
9. Thomas, Lee, pp. 175-90 (Chapter 14, "How Hard It Is
to Get Contentment"); Nagel, Lees of
because separated young couples "...cease to be
essential to each other."10
Meanwhile, the increasing sectional
dissension concerned Lee. In 1857 he deplored the growing national discord and
expressed his concern about certain northerners who seemed dedicated to
"...interfere with & change the domestic institutions of the
South."11
While on leave in Arlington, in October,
1859, Lee had the opportunity to put down John Brown's ill-fated and
poorly-planned slave insurrection and raid on Harper's Ferry, Virginia. Lee's
men captured Brown and freed his hostages. The efficiency of Lee's actions at
Harper's Ferry enhanced his military reputation in Washington and Virginia.
Brown's subsequent hanging, for treason against the
In 1860, Lee returned to duty in
On the eve of the Civil War, Robert E. Lee
was one of the finest officers of the United States Army, a military hero of
the nation's previous war, an officer convinced of the advantages of offensive
warfare, and a man obsessed with a need to prove himself and to uphold the
honor of his family name.
10. Jordan, David M., Winfield Scott Hancock: A Soldier's Life
(
lis:
12. Ibid.,
p. 186, citing Lee to Rooney Lee,
13. Ibid.,
citing Lee to Annette Carter,
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On April 20,I86I, Robert E. Lee sent this letter to Secretary
of War Simon Cameron, resigning as colonel of the First U.S.
Cavalry. (National Archives and Records Administration)
3
That same day, Lee also wrote to his old chief Bvt. Lt. Gen.
Winfield Scott explaining his difficult decision to resign from the army and
sending his heartfelt wishes for their past association. (Eleanor S.
Brockenbrough Library, The Museum of the Confederacy,
Chapter 2 1861:
Failure In
With the November, 1860, election of
Abraham Lincoln, southern state leaders became aware that slavery in
During those critical months, Lieutenant
Colonel Robert E. Lee, U.S. Army, was on duty in
Meanwhile,
i. Nevins, Allan, Ordeal of the Union, IV, pp. 352-4; Savage,
Douglas, The Court Martial of Robert E. Lee: A Historical Novel (Conshohocken,
Pennsylvania: Combined Books, Inc., 1993) [hereafter Savage, Court Martial], p.
60.
ates.2 On April 12, the very day that Confederates
fired on
After the fall of
That night, Lee drafted and signed his
resignation from the United States Army; the document was hand-delivered to
General Scott the next day. Immediately after signing his resignation, Lee
penned a letter to his brother in which he tellingly said, "Save in
defense of my native State, I have no desire ever again to draw my sword."4
On April 22, Lee traveled to Richmond,
where Governor John Letcher formally offered him a commission as a major
general in the Virginia Militia and command of the "...military and naval
forces of Virginia."5 Lee promptly accepted the
Lee was commissioned a brigadier general in
the Provisional Army of the Confederate States on May 10. For one month, until
2. For
details of the
3. Nagel,
Lees of
l. Lee to Sydney Smith Lee, April 20, 1861, Dowdey, Clifford
and Manarin, Louis H., The Wartime Papers of R.E. Lee (New York: Bramhall
House, 1961) [hereafter Dowdey and Manarin, Papers], p. 10.
5. Union General Winfield Scott, also a native Virginian, had
received the first offer of this position but declined. Allan, William,
"Memoranda of Conversations with General Robert E. Lee," pp. 7-24,
[hereafter Allan, "Conversations"] in Gallagher, Lee the Soldier, p.
10.
the
While assembling his
On May 24, Union troops moved south from
On June 1, Brigadier General Pierre Gustave
Toutant Beauregard (a
Far to the northwest, on May 30, Union
troops moved south from
Thomas, Lee, pp. 189-98; Nagel, Lees of
7. Fleming, Martin K., "The Northwestern Virginia
Campaign of 1861: McClellan's Rising Star - Lee's Dismal Debut," Blue
& Gray Magazine, X, Issue 6 (Aug. 1993), pp. 10-17, 48- 54, 59-65
[hereafter Fleming, "Northwestern Virginia Campaign"], p. 16.
nett, the first general officer to die in Civil War combat,
was killed during the retreat from Laurel Hill.
Although Major General George McClellan was
in command of the Union troops who won all these battles, he was present at and
directly responsible for none of them, behaved timidly, and overestimated
enemy strength throughout the brief campaign.8 The one thing he did successfully
was promote his own alleged achievements via the telegraph wire that he,
without precedent, had dragged along behind his troops.
Demonstrating the
On the northern
Pressure built toward a major battle. To
maintain public support in the North and to utilize the original 90-day
enlistees, Lincoln and his cabinet met on June 29 with Generals Scott and
McDowell to discuss plans for military action. The drumbeat for action
continued as Congress convened on July 4 at the President's request.
Although worried about the readiness of his
men, McDowell moved toward Fairfax Court House with 40,000 troops on July 14.
Northwest of
After some minor skirmishing at
8. Waugh, John C., The Class of 1846: From West Point to
forces took the offensive, attacked the Rebel left flank, and
met with initial success. But the tide of battle turned, and the Union
attackers were repulsed and routed - primarily due to the undetected movement
of Johnston's (including Brigadier General Thomas Jackson's) forces from the
A major impact of the Confederate victory
at
The battle of
Shortly after First Manassas, Lee's first
opportunity to command Southern forces resulted in disaster. Already he had
failed to prevent Yankee occupation of the western counties of
After those defeats and the death of
Garnett, Lee, in July, named Brigadier General William Wing "Old
Blizzards" Loring to command the Army of the Northwest. Not realizing that
the Federals already
9. Wiley,
Bell Irvin, The Road to
10. An
excellent synopsis of the fighting in western
held the key position of
Lee's unannounced arrival at Loring's
headquarters probably disconcerted Loring, who only recently had assumed
command and had discretionary orders on how to handle the situation.
Nonetheless, Lee's arrival was less troubling than the inadequate supplies,
widespread illness, and terrible weather ~ all of which hampered Loring's
ability to push the Yankees back over the Alleghenies. Because Lee failed to
compel or cajole Loring into attacking the enemy before it increased its
strength and fortified its position, critics, including pro-Lee historian
Douglas Southall Freeman, have criticized him for being too much the gentleman
and too little the general.12
The cold mountain weather caused Lee to
grow his famous beard, and, on August 31, he was promoted to full general retroactive
to June 14 - the third senior general in the Confederacy (junior only to Adjutant
General Samuel Cooper and Albert S. Johnston). With this additional
encouragement, Lee replaced Loring as commander-in-fact. Lee became personally
involved in scouting for attack routes on the Union stronghold, the Cheat
Mountain Summit Fort, and allowed Colonel Albert Rust of the 3rd Arkansas
Infantry to convince him of the utility of a rugged route to a vantage point
that commanded the Union position.
In his perceptive analysis of this
northwest
Rust was very confident that he could lead
his men to this vantage point without losing the important element of surprise
and argued his point. Lee acquiesced, revealing his weakness of sometimes being
more of a gentleman than a forceful leader.
Lee was not a stern commander. He tended to
avoid personal controversy and worked best with commanders with whom he was familiar,
giving them broad discretion in
On Lee's western Virginia experiences, see
Freeman, Douglas Southall, R.E. Lee, 4 vols. (New York and London: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1934-5) [hereafter Freeman, R.E. Lee], I, pp. 531-604; Newell,
Clayton R., Lee vs. McClellan: The First Campaign (Washington, D.C.: Regnery
Publishing, Inc., 1996) [hereafter Newell, Lee vs. McClellan],
12. Freeman, R.E. Lee, I, pp. 552-3; Newell, Lee vs. McClellan,
pp. 216,232.
carrying out their orders. These qualities, and other manly
traits for which history remembers him, earned Lee great respect and loyalty
in the rank and file of the Army of Northern Virginia. However, such traits
sometimes caused problems, and during the campaign in northwestern
Forecasting the mistake-prone approach he
would take in the Seven Days' Battle the following year, Lee devised a
complicated battle plan calling for a coordinated, six-column assault on Cheat
Mountain and nearby Camp Elkwater. After marches of up to 2Vi days, three columns
were to converge on each of the two Union positions; the attack on
Long after Lee's attacks were to have
started in earnest, Union scouts discovered the Rebel threat and prepared their
defenses. No serious attack ever took place. Lee, with 10,000 troops, had
failed to dislodge 3,000 Yankees. The next day, Lee sent his aide-de-camp,
Lieutenant Colonel John A. Washington, and his son, William Henry Fitzhugh
"Rooney" Lee, to scout Union positions for an opportunity to salvage
something from all those efforts. The result was that
After two days of skirmishes, Lee withdrew
his forces from the
13. Fleming, "Northwestern Virginia Campaign," p. 62.
Freeman and Newell share Fleming's judgment that Lee seriously erred in
relying upon Colonel Rust for this critical assignment. Freeman, R.E. Lee, I,
p. 575 (referring to Rust as "an unskilled volunteer"); Newell, Lee
vs. McClellan, pp. 232-3.
During August and September, Lee failed to
exercise his authority and resolve a blood feud between two subordinate
generals, Brigadiers John Buchanan Floyd and Henry Alexander Wise. They spent
more time bickering with each other than fighting Yankees in the
When he moved southwest to the
In western
...If his plans and orders had been carried out, the result
would have been victory rather than retreat... Yet, through all this, with a
magnanimity rarely equalled, he stood in silence, without defending himself or
allowing others to de-
14. Freeman,
R.E. Lee, I, p. 594; Newell, Lee vs. McClellan, p. 238; Fuller, Grant and Lee,
pp. 137-8.
15. "[Lee's]
habit of issuing broad orders and leaving details to his subordinates had led
to a series of lost opportunities as the Confederate military leaders in
western
fend him, for he was unwilling to offend
anyone who was
striking blows for the Confederacy.
"If only his plans and orders had been carried
out!" No more sympathetic assessment could any general ask.
While Lee was struggling in the
Contemporaneous developments augured ill
for Confederates in the West. In late 1861,
Lee, meanwhile, needed an opportunity to
redeem himself. Perhaps the "Granny Lee," "Great
Entrencher," and "King of Spades" sobriquets Lee acquired after
his western Virginia experience created a resolve on his part to demonstrate
his aggressiveness when he had another opportunity to command.17 A
new assignment came on November 6, two days after Jefferson Davis was elected
to a six-year term as President of the Confederate States of America.
16. Connelly,
Thomas Lawrence, Army of the Heartland: The Army of
17. Newell,
Lee vs. McClellan, p. 262.
Governor Pickens [of
The situation in the Southeast was
deteriorating badly because of developments on the Union side.
Farther south, shortly after receiving his
new orders, Lee arrived at
While Lee worked on defenses in the
Southeast, developments were occurring in Washington that would affect Lee's
future. On November 1, 1861, General Winfield Scott resigned as
General-in-Chief of the Union Army, and, four days later, Lincoln replaced him
with George McClellan. "Little Mac" had succeeded in driving Scott
out of
1S. Davis, Jefferson, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate
Government, 2 vols. (New York: Da
Capo Press, Inc., 1990; reprint of 1881 edition), p. 376;
Thomas, Lee, p. 212, citing Jefferson
Davis to Joseph E. Brown, November 6, 1861. Freeman also
concluded that Davis wrote
to the two governors because of strong opposition to Lee.
Freeman, R.E. Lee, I, p. 607.
w. Thomas, Lee, pp. 215-6; Weigley, American Way of War, p.
101.
20. On Lee's service in the Southeast, see Freeman, R.E. Lee,
I, pp. 605-31; Thomas, Lee, pp. 212-7 (Chapter 17, "Low-Country Gentlemen
Curse Lee").
Washington and was to be both Lincoln's hope and nemesis for
the following two years. During Lee's four months in the Southeast, McClellan
devised a grand scheme for capturing Richmond that would create the
opportunity, in 1862, for Lee to emerge from the shadows and move to center
stage.
Early Summer
1862: Slaughter on the Peninsula
Throughout the winter of 1861-2, Lincoln
grew increasingly impatient about the inaction on the part of McClellan in the
East and Major General Henry Wager Halleck and Brigadier General Don Carlos
Buell in the West. This led him to issue his January 27,1862 General War Order
Number One directing a general movement of Union forces against the
"insurgent forces" on February 22.1 In the same vein,
Lincoln issued a January 31 Special War Order Number One directing seizure of a
railroad position southwest of Manassas Junction.
In early February, Lincoln and McClellan
debated whether to march the Union army south toward Richmond or to ferry
troops to the southeast of Richmond to launch an assault from there. Meanwhile,
between February 7 and 10, General Ambrose Everett Burnside consolidated Union
control of the Outer Banks and North Carolina's sounds by capturing Roanoke
Island. That same month, in contrast to the inactive McClellan, Union forces
made significant progress in the West. On February 3, Grant launched his
campaign against Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and nearby Fort Donelson on
the Cumberland.2 By the afternoon of February 6, Fort Henry had
fallen to Union Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote's gunboats before the arrival of
Grant's 15,000 troops. On February 11 and 12, Brigadier Generals Grant and John
Alexander McClernand marched on and encircled Fort Donelson and Dover,
Tennessee, with 40,000 Union troops. The land attack commenced on the 13th, and
a gunboat assault followed the next day. After repelling the gunboats, the
Confederates attempted a breakout on the 15th, initially drove back the Blue
troops, fatally hesitated, and then were driven back in by Grant's
counter-attack. Grant insisted on "un
Hattaway and Archer, How the North Won, p. 93.
2. For details of Grant's campaign, see Cooling, Benjamin
Franklin, Forts Henry and Donelson: The Key to the Confederate Heartland
(Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1987).
conditional and immediate surrender," which he obtained
on February 16, 1862. Grant's campaign resulted in the first major victory for
the North, capture of 12,500 of 15,000 Confederates, Union control of the
Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, the South's loss of the bulk of both Kentucky
and Tennessee, and a veritable knife driven into the left side of the Confederacy.
On March 4, Lee was replaced by Major
General John Clifford Pemberton as commander of the Confederate Department of
South Carolina, Georgia and East Florida. Although he thus far had failed to achieve
any operational success, Lee became military advisor to President Jefferson
Davis. On March 13, Davis designated Lee to be in charge of "the conduct
of military operations in the armies of the Confederacy." By making Lee
his advisory chief of staff, Davis thwarted his congressional opponents who had
tried to force Davis to appoint Lee Secretary of War. In Lee's new advisory
position, his only responsibility until June 1, he did little to bring about
the national unity of command so necessary to Confederate defense and success.
Instead, Lee focused on the East.
Yielding to the supposed military expertise
of McClellan, Lincoln on March 8 approved his plan for a campaign against
Richmond via the Virginia Peninsula between the James and York rivers. However,
in his second General War Order, Lincoln required that sufficient troops to
defend the Union capital be kept near Washington. That same day the southern
ironclad CSS Virginia (formerly the USS Merrimack) wreaked havoc on the Union
fleet in Hampton Roads. That evening, however, the just-completed Union
ironclad, USS Monitor, arrived on the scene after its hasty maiden voyage from
the famous Brooklyn Navy Yard. The next day, March 9, the two vessels fought to
a draw in the first battle between ironclad ships, and the perceived threat of
the Virginia to Washington and the entire northeast coast came to an end.
Also on March 9, McClellan's troops moved
out of Alexandria only to make the embarrassing discovery that the Confederates
had abandoned their Manassas camps and left behind a collection of log
"Quaker cannons," which had played a role in causing McClellan to
overestimate enemy strength. It was only two days later that Lincoln removed
McClellan from his General-in-Chief position and put Secretary of War Edwin
Stanton in charge of overall coordination of military activities. As Commander
of the Army of the Potomac, McClellan continued planning his Peninsula
Campaign. On March 13 Stanton advised him to get on with it but to ensure that
Washington and Manassas Junction were protected.
At long last, Little Mac moved out, by
water, for the Peninsula on March 17. He suffered a severe setback four days
later and many miles away. At Kernstown, Virginia, in the northern Shenandoah
Valley, Stonewall Jackson's 4,000 troops unwittingly attacked a vastly superior
force of over 9,000 Union infantry. Although Jackson suffered a tactical defeat
and retreated, he won a major strategic victory. Lincoln and Stanton perceived
Jackson as a threat to Washington or Harper's Ferry and took preventive action.
They held back Major General Nathaniel P. Banks' army at Harper's Ferry and had
Major General McDowell's troops remain at Fredericksburg. Thus, they deprived
McClellan of tens of thousands of additional troops for his campaign against
Richmond.
By April 1, McClellan had moved 12
divisions of the Army of the Potomac to the Peninsula. These joined Major
General John E. Wool's 12,000 troops at Fort Monroe and began the long,
deliberate trek up the Peninsula. On April 3, Lincoln discovered that
"Little Mac" had planned on leaving fewer than 20,000 troops to guard
Washington. Having been disconcerted by Jackson, Lincoln ordered retention of
an additional corps at the capital. Nevertheless, McClellan had about 110,000
Union troops to begin his siege of Yorktown the next day. General Joseph
Johnston had only 17,000 Confederates to defend Yorktown and an eight-mile line
across the Peninsula from the York River on the northeast to the James River on
the southwest. Although Johnston wanted to retreat immediately to the Richmond
area, Lee convinced Davis that Johnston must be ordered to contest McClellan's
advance up the Peninsula.
Meanwhile, another Confederate General
Johnston-Albert Sid- ney~launched a massive, but poorly planned and executed,
surprise attack on April 6 against General Grant's troops at Shiloh (Pittsburg
Landing), Tennessee, on the Tennessee River. In a March 26 letter, Lee had
encouraged Albert Sidney Johnston to take the offensive: "I need not urge
you, when your army is united, to deal a blow at the enemy in your front, if
possible, before his rear gets up from Nashville." In a day-long battle,
the Rebels pushed the Yanks back toward the river, encountered stiffening
resistance, and lost General Johnston to a bullet in the leg, lack of prompt
medical attention, and a lethal loss of blood.
Late that day and throughout the next day,
Grant was greatly reinforced by Major General Don Carlos Buell. Grant went on
the offensive, recovered the ground lost the prior day and compelled the
Rebels to retreat to Corinth, Mississippi. Although both sides claimed victory
at Shiloh, the Rebel offensive actually was a costly bloodbath for each. The
Union lost 13,000 men, and the Confederates almost 11,000. The
massive casualty lists from Shiloh were harbingers of similar
tragedies to occur in the East.
The Confederacy suffered another
significant setback in the West on April 24 and 25, 1862. Union Flag Officer
David Farragut fought his fleet past two forts on the Mississippi and captured
New Orleans, the major city and port of the Deep South.
In Richmond, meanwhile, the need for
additional manpower in the military became so apparent that President Davis, on
April 16, signed the Confederate Conscription Act drafting all white men between
18 and 35 years old and extending all enlistments for the duration of the war.3
Concerned about the manpower disparity between North and South, Generals Lee
and Joseph Johnston had successfully urged Davis to obtain passage of this
legislation. However, a contemporaneous Exemption Act opened the door for
those in many occupations to avoid the draft. There was a disparity between
the law and reality; many southerners required to serve in the military failed
to sign up. The law, however, did allow a draftee to hire a substitute, and the
escalating cost of substitutes led to the perception and complaint that the
struggle was "a rich man's war and a poor man's fight."
During mid-April Lee demonstrated his
manpower priorities. On April 10 Lee advised his southeastern successor, John
C. Pemberton, of the critical need for troops in the West: "Send, if
possible...If Mississippi Valley is lost Atlantic states will be ruined."4
For once Lee recognized the importance of the West — so long as the troops going
there were not from Virginia. More typically, ten days later he requested
Pemberton to send troops to Virginia.5
Realizing the serious threat that McClellan
on the Peninsula and McDowell at Fredericksburg posed to Richmond and
Johnston's army, Lee wrote to Stonewall Jackson on April 21.6 In
that letter and another on April 25, Lee turned Jackson loose (with
reinforcements under Major General Richard S. "Old Baldy" Ewell) on
a brilliant diversionary campaign that prevented the Union forces in Virginia
from uniting against Johnston.7 Reflecting the essence of their
relationship, Lee only had to advise Jackson of the goals and options and then
could leave the execution to Jackson: "I cannot pretend at this distance
to direct operations depending on circumstances unknown to me and requiring
the exercise of discretion and judgment as to time and execution, but sub
3. Hattaway
and Jones, How the North Won, p. 113; Wiley, Road to Appomattox, p. 56.
4. Lee
to John C. Pemberton, April 10,1862.
5. Lee
to John C. Pemberton, April 20,1862, Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, p. 150.
6. Lee
to Thomas J. Jackson, April 21,1862, Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, p. 152.
7. Lee
to Thomas J. Jackson, April 25,1862, Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, pp. 156-7.
mit these suggestions for your consideration."8
Lee's strategy would bear fruit through Jackson's execution of it during the
following several weeks. Lee and Jackson were an excellent match because
Jackson — unlike many of Lee's other subordinates ~ generally thrived under
Lee's hands-off approach.9
Back on the Virginia Peninsula, Johnston,
outnumbered 6 to 1 and having held out as long as possible by bluffing
McClellan into grossly overestimating the Confederate "strength,"
finally evacuated York- town on May 3. The next day Union troops moved in and
once again found a collection of "Quaker cannons." On May 5, however,
the Yankees finally had a successful day on the Peninsula. In a battle at Williamsburg,
they took advantage of Brigadier General Jubal A. Early's excessive aggressiveness,
decimated Confederate troops and inflicted 1,700 casualties, while suffering
fewer than 500 themselves.10
Fearing that they were about to be
outflanked, Confederate forces abandoned Norfolk and its valuable shipyard and
naval facilities on May 9. Lincoln, who had been on the Peninsula since May 7,
prodded McClellan to get moving toward Richmond and personally oversaw the May
10 occupation of Norfolk. Over the course of the next week, McClellan at last
made some real progress advancing on Richmond. President Davis' wife and many
others fled the city, and Johnston retreated across the nearby Chickahominy
River.
Although accompanying Union naval forces,
including the Monitor, were repelled on May 15 at Drewry's Bluff seven miles
below Richmond on the James River, a coordinated land assault on the Confederate
capital appeared to be shaping up nicely. On May 17, McDowell at
Fredericksburg was ordered to head south with his 20,000 men to connect with
McClellan's right flank. Three days later, McClellan, still awaiting McDowell,
had troops as close as eight miles from Richmond and appeared to be poised for
attack. McDowell, however, was not speeding to McClellan's side and was still
in Fredericksburg on the 23rd, when he met there with Lincoln. As Lee had accurately
presumed and because of Lincoln's omnipresent fears for the security of Washington,
the President precluded McDowell's merger with McClellan.
Lincoln's fears reflected developments on
the other side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. With a force of 10,000 moved
secretly into the Virginia mountains west of Staunton, Stonewall Jackson had
begun his
8. Ibid.,
p. 157; Glatthaar, Partners in Command, p. 23.
9. The
Seven Days' Battle was the major exception.
10. Detailed
accounts of the Peninsular Campaign, including the Seven Days' Battle, are in
Sears, To the Gates of Richmond: The Peninsular Campaign (New York: Ticknor
& Fields, 1992); Freeman, R.E. Lee, II, pp. 8-250; and Nevins, Ordeal, VI,
34-64,119-38.
classic Shenandoah Valley Campaign with a May 8 victory over
6,000 Union troops at McDowell. After climbing 20 miles over the rugged
Shenandoah Mountains in less than a day, pushing those Union forces back to
Franklin, and blocking the road between Franklin and Staunton, Jackson's men
quickly slipped back into the Valley for their brilliant general's next move.
This came on the 20th when Jackson joined forces with Ewell and moved to the
Luray area in the center of the Valley to threaten Nathaniel Banks' army.
On the 23rd of May Jackson sprung the surprise
attack that convulsed the North and canceled all attempts to reinforce Little
Mac on the Peninsula. Jackson's men, keeping Massanutten Mountain between them
and Banks' main army, struck 1,400 Yankees at Front Royal. They killed, injured
or captured three-quarters of them and drove the remainder northward across
both branches of the Shenandoah. This put Jackson's and Ewell's 16,000 troops
in a position to cut off Banks' entire army. The next day Lincoln reacted
predictably, ordering Major General John C. Fremont to close in on Jackson's
rear by moving east from Franklin and, even more significantly, ordering
McDowell to send his 20,000 troops west from Fredericksburg into the Shenandoah
Valley instead of south to the Peninsula.
On the 25th Jackson pressed his forces
northward toward Winchester in a bloody but unsuccessful attempt to cut off
Banks completely. The effort, which forced Banks to retreat all the way to
Wil- liamsport, Maryland, on the Potomac River, cost Banks 1,000 men and
Jackson 400. It was now clear to Lincoln that he was not going to be able to
send any additional troops to McClellan, who had an insatiable appetite for
reinforcements. Realizing that and concerned about Jackson's forceful foray,
Lincoln, also on the 25th, ordered McClellan to get on with his attack on
Richmond or to return and defend Washington. Possibly in response, McClellan
initiated minor offensive actions north of Richmond at Hanover Station on the
27th and Ashland on the 29th. Richmonders breathed a sigh of relief when they
learned on the 28th that McDowell was heading to the Shenandoah Valley instead
of Richmond. Lee's strategy had worked.
Meanwhile Jackson's 16,000 men were keeping
an amazing 60,000 Union troops occupied in the Shenandoah. After chasing Banks
across the Potomac, Jackson threatened Harper's Ferry before finally retreating.
With Union armies closing in from the north (Banks), east (McDowell and
Brigadier General James Shields) and west (Fremont), Jackson's foot-soldiers
conducted one of their patented marches southward "up" the Valley on
the last two days of May and eluded
their pursuers with minimal conflict and casualties. Jackson
had done his job.
A few days earlier on the Peninsula it was
Joseph Johnston, not McClellan, who launched a major attack. On May 31, in the
Battle of Fair Oaks (Seven Pines), Joe Johnston assaulted 30,000 entrenched Union
troops isolated on one side of the Chickahominy River. The seemingly simple
plan of attack proved too complicated. Uncoordinated marches and attacks
resulted in high Confederate casualties and Union retreats but in no
Confederate breakthrough or capture of large numbers of Union soldiers.
Committing errors that Lee would often repeat, Johnston had given his generals
verbal orders, failed to ensure that Major General James "Old Pete"
Longstreet understood his orders, and failed to oversee execution of his
orders.
Late in the day, however, an event occurred
that changed the character of the war. Johnston was seriously wounded by flying
shell fragments and succeeded by Major General Gustavus W. Smith. Within hours,
Smith suffered a stroke, and that night Davis replaced him with Robert E. Lee.
One early post-war northern historian concluded that when Lee assumed command
of that army, "he found in command of its various divisions and brigades
the best military talent the South possessed or that was to be developed during
the war."11
To avoid naming another general-in-chief
who might interfere with his playing that role, Davis kept Lee in that position
and simply added an army command to Lee's duties. The next day Lee issued Special
Orders No. 22 referring for the first time to the Army of Northern Virginia.
From June 1, 1862, until April 9, 1865, Lee would command that army.
The Battle of Fair Oaks continued the next
day with a disastrous Confederate assault and retreat. Although ordered from
Richmond to the battlefield at 8 a.m., Lee mysteriously delayed until 2 p.m.
his arrival on the battlefield, which was only six miles from Richmond. The
two days of Rebel frontal assaults at Fair Oaks resulted in 4,400 Union
casualties but a total of 5,700 for the undermanned and attacking Confederates.12
Would a lesson be learned from this experience? Later in June the Seven Days'
Battle, under the command of Lee, would tell.
When McClellan learned that Lee had
replaced Joe Johnston as commander of the Confederate forces defending
Richmond, he must have been pleased. Less than two months before, he had
written to Lincoln: "I prefer Lee to Johnston ~ the former is too
cautious and weak
Bruce, "Lee and Strategy," in Gallagher, Lee the
Soldier, pp. 111-2.
12. Livermore, Numbers & Losses, p. 81.
under grave responsibility — personally brave and energetic to
a fault, yet he is wanting in moral firmness when pressed by heavy responsibility
and is likely to be timid and irresolute in action."13 Not only
had Little Mac failed to detect Lee's propensity for aggressiveness, but in
fact he attributed to Lee the very traits that made McClellan a failure as a
Civil War general.14
McClellan was not alone in his judgment of
Lee at the time Lee replaced Johnston. Because of Lee's lack of prior
battlefield success, many southerners were not pleased by his appointment. The
Richmond Examiner commented: "Evacuating Lee, who has never yet risked a
single battle with the invader, is commanding general."15 What
impact might comments like that have on Lee? Did he have something to prove?
Some insight into how badly McClellan had
misjudged Lee comes from a conversation that June between Longstreet's chief of
artillery, Brigadier General E. Porter Alexander, and Captain Joseph C. Ives of
Jefferson Davis' staff. To Alexander's question whether Lee would be
sufficiently audacious, Ives responded:
Alexander, if there is one man in either
army, Federal or Confederate, who is, head and shoulders, far above every other
one in either army in audacity, that man is General Lee, and you will very soon
have lived to see it. Lee is audacity personified. His name is audacity, and
you need not be afraid of not seeing all of it that you will want to see.16
After the war, Alexander wrote that Lee had been as audacious
as Napoleon — and perhaps had surpassed him in audacity.17
While Lee took about four weeks to
strengthen his Richmond area forces, significant events occurred elsewhere. On
the Mississippi River on June 6, Union naval forces won a major one-hour
battle, sank seven of eight Confederate vessels, and accepted the surrender of
Memphis.
13. Reardon,
Carol, "From 'King of Spades' to "First Captain of the Confederacy':
R.E. Lee's First Six Weeks with the Army of Northern Virginia," pp. 309-30
in Gallagher, Lee the Soldier, p. 312.
14. McClellan,
with resources to spare and the necessity to win, should have been aggressive
but was not; Lee, with scarce resources and only needing a deadlock, should
have been defensive but was not.
15. Connelly,
Marble Man, p. 17.
16. Gallagher,
Gary W. (ed.), Fighting for the Confederacy: The Personal Recollections of General
Edward Porter Alexander (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989)
[hereafter Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy], p. 91.
Ibid., pp. 91-2.
The Union now controlled all of the vital Mississippi except
the southern stretch from Vicksburg to Port Hudson.
Closer to Lee, Jackson continued to flee
frustrated and angry Union forces until he turned on his pursuers and repelled
them in bloody battles. He and Ewell managed to keep the troops of Union
generals Fremont and Shields separated by the South Fork of the Shenandoah
River and to defeat each of them, respectively, in engagements at Cross Keys on
June 8 and Port Republic on June 9. Total casualties were 900 for Jackson and
1,600 for the Yankees. Those battles brought an end to Jackson's famous and
effective diversionary Valley Campaign. At the cost of 2,500 casualties and 600
prisoners, he had inflicted 3,500 casualties and captured 3,500 prisoners,
10,000 small arms and nine cannon. Most significantly, Jackson had carried out
Lee's strategy and performed his primary mission of preventing a massive
coalition of Union armies against Richmond and its defenders. Now Lee, at the
suggestion of Davis, had other plans for Jackson and his exhausted men.
Lee realized that he needed to maximize his
forces in the Richmond area without letting Lincoln and his generals
comprehend what was happening. Therefore, on June 15, he sent 10,000 troops
west from Richmond in what appeared to be an effort to reinforce Jackson. Lee
made sure that this activity appeared surreptitious but was in fact known to
the enemy. At the same time, Lee executed his "real" plan and on the
16th ordered Jackson to proceed east expeditiously to join the Army of Northern
Virginia. Barely a week after the end of his Valley Campaign, Jackson moved on
June 17 toward the Chickahominy River northeast of Richmond.
Lincoln went for the bait. On June 18 he
wrote to McClellan and urged him to attack the opposing Confederate lines,
which had been weakened by the movement of 10,000 troops. McClellan, of course,
saw this deployment as proof of his position that the Gray forces greatly
outnumbered his. Meanwhile, between June 12 and 15, Brigadier General Jeb
Stuart embarrassed Little Mac by leading a cavalry ride completely around the
Union army, capturing 165 prisoners and 300 horses, and exposing the inadequacy
of Union communications. Lincoln's frustrations concerning recent developments
led him, on June 17, to create the Army of Virginia and bring Major General
John Pope in from the West to head it.
On June 25 McClellan at long last launched
a feeble assault. With his Army still divided by the Chickahominy, he ordered
an advance by the picket lines on his left (southern) flank near the James River.
A furious but minor fight ensued with the Rebel defenders prevailing. They
suffered only half of the Union's 500-plus casualties. This small strug
gle nevertheless was significant enough to rattle McClellan.
That evening he sent a bizarre, panic-driven cable to Washington stating that
Jackson was at Hanover Station (he was), that Beauregard's army (actually in
Alabama) was in Richmond, that the Confederates had more than 200,000 men (more
than double their true strength), that he expected to be attacked the next day
(he was), that he could at least die with his army if it was destroyed by the
overwhelming numbers, that any disaster would not be his fault, and that he
could not get reinforcements even if he wanted them.
Even though Lee's and McClellan's armies
were of about even strength, Lee planned to go on the offensive to save
Richmond. Therefore, he devised a series of complicated, frontal-assault
battle plans which resulted in severe casualties on both sides, especially the
Confederate side, and the retreat of the Union forces in the Seven Days'
Battle. For his offensive, Lee organized his army into divisions, including
those under Major Generals Jackson, Longstreet, Ambrose Powell
("A.P.") Hill, and Daniel Harvey ("D.H." or
"Harvey") Hill. By eliminating the two-wing concept of army
organization, which Johnston had created to avoid Davis' prohibition on the use
of corps in the army's organization, Lee undercut his ability to effectively
manage his army that was about to grow to almost 100,000 troops.
Lee's problems began in the weeks and days
preceding the offensive. Although Lee planned to cut off McClellan's army from
its supply base to the north at White House Landing on the Pamunkey River (a
tributary of the York River), Union capture of Norfolk had enabled McClellan to
begin shifting his base to Harrison's Landing on the James River to his south.
When Lee sent Jeb Stuart on his grandiose ride around McClellan's army, Little
Mac realized the vulnerability of White House Landing and the necessity to move
his base of supplies as quickly as possible.
Lee also underestimated the easily
discernible exhaustion of both Jackson and his "foot cavalry."
Between March 22 and June 9, at Lee's suggestion and with his full knowledge,
Jackson's men had marched 676 miles; in their May 30-June 5 retreat from the
Potomac alone, they had rapidly marched 104 miles. It therefore should not have
surprised Lee when Jackson's tired troops took longer than originally contemplated
to move, by marching and limited rail facilities, from the Valley to the
Peninsula.
At Lee's critical pre-battle conference on
June 23, an exhausted and overly optimistic Jackson said he would be on Lee's
army's left, or north flank, early on June 25. Even though the offensive was
delayed until June 26, Jackson would fail to arrive in time for the early
morning
assault. After the conference, Jackson rode in the rain all
night to return to his exhausted men northwest of Richmond. In often rainy
weather, it took Jackson's men three days to march the final 40 miles to their
assigned position on the Confederate left. Lee, however, had sufficient
information about the whereabouts of Jackson's troops to know that the timing
of the offensive for early on the 26th was — at the least — a real gamble. But
Lee was anxious to get on with it.
Thus, in his General Orders Number 75 on
June 24, Lee set his complex, coordinated Mechanicsville attack for early on
the 26th against Union Brigadier General Fitz John Porter's isolated corps
north of the Chickahominy. Lee hoped to drive it back, break the Union sup-
ply-line from White House on the York River south to the Union army, and
capture that supply base, as well as the Union supply trains at Cold Harbor.
Those goals might have been achieved more efficiently and simply by going
around the north flank of McClellan's army instead of launching a complicated
frontal assault. In any event, Lee ordered Major General John B. "Prince
John" Magruder to create a diversion south of the Chickahominy and
Jackson, A.P. Hill, Longstreet and D.H. Hill, in that order from north to
south, to attack Porter with their respective divisions.
Lee's complicated order was reminiscent of
Cheat Mountain. Specifically, Jackson was to march from Ashland to the Slash
Church on the 25th, camp west of the Virginia Central Railroad, march at 3 a.m.
on the 26th, and capture Beaver Dam on the Yankee right flank and rear. When
A.P. Hill heard Jackson's cannon, he was to cross the Chickahominy at Meadow
Bridge and take Mechanicsville. As soon as Hill had moved sufficiently east to
control the Mechanicsville Bridge, Long- street and D.H. Hill were to cross
that bridge and go to the support of Jackson and A.P. Hill respectively. The
major problem with this battle plan was that, with a single error, the entire
enterprise would collapse. Failure or disaster was likely, and both occurred.
Not surprisingly, Jackson failed to appear.
Fatigued by their just- completed Valley Campaign, Jackson's men arrived at
Ashland late on the 25th ~ one day later than planned. Then, exhausted by their
20- mile, mud-encased march on the 25th, they failed to march at the ordered
time of 3 a.m. on the 26th and did not begin leaving Ashland until 8 a.m. Not
arriving at Hundley's Corner near Mechanicsville on the Confederate left flank
until 5 p.m. that afternoon, Jackson, of course, was unable to carry out the
planned morning assault that was to have initiated the entire Confederate
offensive. Jackson himself had gotten only ten hours of sleep in four days and
was physically ill for the next several days. Inexplicably, Lee apparently had
taken no steps
to stay informed of Jackson's location and simply waited for
the battle plan to unfold. Instead it unraveled.
A.P. Hill grew impatient waiting for the
sound of Jackson's nonexistent attack, and decided to go ahead on his own. His
men crossed the Chickahominy and entered Mechanicsville at 3 p.m. on the 26th,
had some initial success and then were decimated by massed Union artillery and
rifles. About 1,500 Rebels attacked 20,000 entrenched northerners at Beaver Dam
and were slaughtered. Instead of halting the ill-advised offensive, Lee allowed
D.H. Hill to enter the fray on A.P. Hill's right and come under the same deadly
fire.
When Jackson finally arrived at Hundley's
Corner near the Rebel left flank at 5 p.m., he decided his 20,000 men were not
fit for fighting. He went into camp before sundown while the fighting raged
three miles away and he was in a position to flank, or cut off the possible
retreat of, the entrenched Union forces of Fitz John Porter. That evening Lee
withdrew A.P. Hill's troops and prepared to attack again the next day.
Although it was a strategic success, the
complex, intricately timed offensive planned by Lee had proven to be a tactical
disaster. Lee had managed to get only 30 percent of his army involved in the
assault. Of about 20,000 Union troops, only about 250 were killed or wounded.
On the other hand, about 16,000 Confederates suffered 1,500 to 2,000 casualties.18
In Brigadier General William Dorsey Pender's Brigade of A.P. Hill's Division,
the 44th Georgia Regiment lost 264 of its 514 men (a 65% casualty rate).19
Mechanicsville provides a first opportunity
to analyze the lethal effect of Lee upon the Army of Northern Virginia. Key
statistics are provided by Thomas L. Livermore's Numbers and Losses in the
Civil War. Livermore provides not only killed, wounded and missing statistics
for both sides in many Civil War battles, but he also gives the numbers hit
(killed and wounded) among each 1,000 soldiers and the number hit by each 1,000
soldiers engaged on each side. At Mechanicsville, the Union troops suffered
light casualties and inflicted heavy casualties: only 16 of each thousand
northerners were hit, while 95 of each 1,000 northerners killed or wounded a
Confederate. Thus, the Union had a very favorable hit ratio of 16:95. On the
other hand, the Confederates had a
18. Livermore,
Numbers & Losses, p. 82
19. Fox,
William F„ Regimental Losses in the American Civil War 1861-1865: A Treatise on
the Extent and Nature of the Mortuary Losses in the Union Regiments, with Full
and Exhaustive Statistics Compiled from the Official Records on File in the
State Military Bureaus and at Washington (Dayton, Ohio: Morningside House,
Inc., 1985; reprint of Albany: Brandow Printing Company, 1898) [hereafter Fox,
Regimental Losses] p. 556.
very negative hit ratio of 91:16; that is, 91 of every 1,000
Confederates were hit, but only 16 of every 1,000 Confederates killed or
wounded a Union soldier.20
The Confederates' ratio compares very
unfavorably with their fairly balanced hit ratios of 49:59 and 137:105 in the
preceding (pre-Lee) battles at Williamsburg and Fair Oaks, respectively.21
In those prior battles, the Army of Northern Virginia was hitting and being hit
at about the same rate as the enemy. In Lee's first battle, on the other hand,
they were being hit eight times as often as they were hitting the enemy.
Livermore hit ratios also will be used to analyze many of Lee's later battles.
Jackson's failure to enter the fray on this
first of the Seven Days presaged his disastrous non-involvement throughout the
entire series of battles. Again and again in these consecutive days of bitter
fighting, Jackson's men were late participants or non-participants — due primarily
to their commanding officer being in a stupor. Jackson slept for most of one
afternoon of battle and fell asleep that night with food still in his mouth.
Jackson's collapse probably resulted from extreme exhaustion brought on by his
brilliant but fatiguing Valley Campaign and his lack of sleep while he oversaw
his army's movement to the Peninsula. Between June 22 and 30, Jackson had very
little sleep.22
Jackson's condition was so evident and
debilitating that Lee should have been aware of it and taken corrective action.
Lee may have been victimized by his practices of having a small staff and
exercising lax battlefield oversight over his commanders. In any event, Lee
either was or should have been aware of Jackson's incredible battlefield lapses
from the very first day and should have placed him on sick leave, temporarily
relieved him of command, or personally supervised Jackson's operations after
the first day.
Although a tactical failure, the Battle of
Mechanicsville was a major strategic success for Lee because it caused
McClellan to panic and order the withdrawal of Porter - over his objections —
across the Chickahominy, final abandonment of the White House Landing supply
base, and then withdrawal of the Union army from the siege lines. Although he
did not know it that night, Lee already had achieved his primary strategic
objective — relieving the siege of Richmond. While
20. Livermore, Numbers & Losses, p. 82.
Ibid., pp. 80-1.
22. For details of Jackson's exhausted condition and lack of
sleep, as well as an ambiguous conclusion about the cause of his failure on
June 30 (one of many Jackson failures at Seven Days'), see Freeman, R.E. Lee,
II, Appendix II-3, "The Reason for Jackson's Failure at White Oak Swamp,
June 30,1862," pp. 572-82.
ordering frontal attacks during the next several days, Lee
ignored cavalry-obtained information indicating that McClellan's forces were
retreating and were vulnerable to a flank attack on their James River base.
Instead of going around McClellan's right flank and striking for the Evelington
Heights overlooking Harrison's Landing, Lee attacked again and again.
Therefore, the next day (the 27th) A.P.
Hill went on the offensive again, carried out a direct assault at Gaines' Mill
for much of the day, and fought his division until it was no longer an
effective fighting unit. Hill's problems were that Porter's forces had
retreated during the night from Beaver Dam to another strong position east of
Powhite Creek and that Jackson this time had barely entered the fray. That morning
Lee had met with Hill and an exhausted Jackson to discuss a coordinated attack
on the Union troops, which were being withdrawn from Mechanicsville for an
ultimate retreat across the Chickahominy. It should have been apparent to Lee
that Jackson was not in a competent state of mind.
Because of Jackson's failure to bring his
men a few miles to the Confederate left flank, Hill once again fought alone for
many long, bloody hours. The battle began at 11 in the morning and continued till
dark. When Hill was suffering from withering artillery and small arms fire at
Boatswain's Swamp, Lee finally sent his adjutant, Major Walter H. Taylor, at
about 1 p.m. to prod the missing Jackson into action. It was another five hours
until Jackson finally appeared and deployed. As the famed Louisiana Tigers were
being driven from the battlefield, Ewell's Division (under Jackson) at last
arrived to prevent a rout. During the middle of the afternoon, Lee ordered
Longstreet's Division and Brigadier General John Bell Hood's and Colonel
Evander Mclvor Law's brigades to join the attack. Hood's 4th Texas Regiment
lost 380 out of 500 men in the courageous charge, which succeeded in breaking
the Union line.
Jackson, whose absence Ewell was unable to
explain to Lee, finally entered the battle on the Confederate left at 6
o'clock. Lee's at-long-last- combined forces compelled Porter to retreat across
the river at dusk. If Jackson had arrived and attacked Porter's right flank
during the afternoon, Porter's retreat route across the Chickahominy would
have been cut off and his forces isolated. Having escaped disaster, McClellan's
forces now were in full retreat, and Lee's eagerness to assault continued
unabated.
Lee's second offensive had again proven
devastating to his own army. At Gaines' Mill (Boatswain's Swamp), the 39,000
Union troops had a total of 4,000 casualties and 2,800 missing, while the
33,000 Con
federates had 8,800 killed or wounded. The Union had a
favorable Livermore hit ratio of 117:256, and Lee's army suffered a negative
153:70 ratio.23 In summary, five of every 40 Union soldiers in
combat were hit, and ten of each 40 of them hit Confederates; on the other
side, six of every 40 Confederates were hit while only three of every 40 Confederates
hit the enemy. Thus, while the Union defenders were hitting their opponents at
twice the rate of their own casualties, Lee's troops conversely were suffering
twice the rate of casualties they were imposing.
On June 28 the Federals destroyed most of
their huge stockpile of supplies at White House Landing, there were skirmishes
at Garnett's and Golding's farms, and the Federal retreat toward the James
River continued. Lee learned that all the Bluecoats had retreated south of the
Chickahominy. He chose to continue attacking them directly instead of sweeping
well around the east of them and cutting them off from embarking on vessels on
the James River.24
On the 29th, Lee resumed his offensive
against the retreating enemy. Once again Lee had a complicated plan of attack
requiring coordination among many of his generals. This plan was not only
complicated; it also was unwritten. Jackson was to cross the Grapevine Bridge
over the Chickahominy and get behind (north and east of) the Union forces at
Savage's Station. Major Generals Magruder and Benjamin Huger were to attack
those forces from the west. Holmes was to seize Malvern Hill in front of the
retreating Yankees. Due to a lackadaisical effort to rebuild or bypass the
destroyed bridge, Jackson took all day to cross the river and never engaged the
enemy.
Meanwhile, Magruder delayed his attack on
particularly vulnerable troops of Brigadier General Edwin V. Sumner's 2nd
Corps because Magruder mistakenly believed that Lee's orders required him to
wait for Huger's arrival on his right flank. Magruder finally got Lee to order
Huger to Magruder's flank. After his arrival on that flank, Huger departed
without advising Magruder. Magruder went ahead with his unsupported attack at
Savage's Station, and two brigades of his division were decimated by Sumner's
corps before the latter retreated toward White Oak Swamp. The Union army left
behind 2,500 wounded and sick. Due to lack of close on-scene coordination by
Lee, lack of communication between Lee and his generals, and poor performance
by all those generals,25 Savage's Station became a major lost
opportu
*>. Ibid., pp. 82-3.
2i. Alexander, Bevin, Lost Victories: The Military Genius of
Stonewall Jackson (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1992) [hereafter Bevin
Alexander, Lost Victories], p. 114-6.
25. Ibid., p. 131.
nity to strike the Bluecoats on the move. Freeman himself
said, "The day's operations had been a failure, not to say a fiasco."26
More of the same occurred the next day. The
Battle of Frayser's (Frazier's) Farm on June 30 was a classic example of the
difficulty of coordinating a multi-divisional attack and the disastrous results
of failure to do so. Jackson (with the divisions of Ewell, Brigadier General
William Henry Chase Whiting and D.H. Hill) was to attack the Union army from
the north as it retreated southward, while the other Rebel divisions were to
attack that army's right flank from the west. Those other divisions were (from
north to south) those of Major Generals Huger, Longstreet, A.P. Hill, and
(Theophilus) Hunter Holmes.
After an early morning meeting with Lee,
the totally fatigued Jackson failed until late in the day to get across White
Oak Creek and Swamp, where the bridges (like Grapevine before them) not surprisingly
had been destroyed. During an early afternoon artillery battle, Jackson slept
under a tree and seemed unable to comprehend the news that his scouts had found
a way through the swamp. Off on the far right, Huger delayed opening the attack
and then inexplicably stopped firing. Once again Lee sent no couriers to the
flanks to see what was amiss. He waited for his generals to carry out his grand
plan. Two of them did. Longstreet and A.P. Hill slugged it out with the
Federals they had attacked at Frayser's Farm. Unsupported on either flank, these
20,000 Butternuts took significant losses at the hands of 40,000 Yankees; they
suffered 3,500 casualties.
Confederate General E. Porter Alexander
thought that June 30, 1862, may have been the Confederates' best opportunity to
win the war because the Confederacy was at its prime, especially in manpower,
and had the chance to shock the North by capturing McClellan's army. He blamed
Jackson for the lost opportunity but did not discount Lee's role:
Yet it is hardly correct either to say that
the failure to reap the greatest result was in no way Gen. Lee's fault. No
commander of any army does his whole duty who simply gives orders, however well
considered. He should supervise their execution, in person or by staff
officers, constantly, day & night, so that if the machine balks at any
point, he may be most promptly informed & may most promptly start it to
work. For instance on Jun. 30 I think he should have been in person with Huger,
& have had reliable members of his staff with Jackson on his left &
Longstreet & others on his right,
Freeman, R.E. Lee, II, p. 176.
receiving reports every half hour or oftener, & giving
fresh orders as needed.27
When confronted with the opinion that
McClellan was about to escape, the frustrated Lee exclaimed, "Yes, he will
get away because I cannot have my orders carried out."28 It is
interesting to compare Lee's hands-off approach to Grant's battlefield activism
at both Fort Donel- son and Shiloh during that same year.
The Rebels' delay on the 30th allowed
McClellan to consolidate his forces in a dominating position on Malvern Hill
near the James River. Malvern Hill became the scene of the most disastrous and
unnecessary of Lee's frontal attacks during the Seven Days' Battle. After
observing that Malvern Hill was a magnificent defensive position on which the
Union infantry and artillery, including its siege and reserve train of 100
guns, could be assembled, and that it had protected positions for 300 guns
which could sweep the narrow and obstructed approaches below, General Alexander
offered a personal insight on the situation there:
I don't think any military engineer can
read this description of this ground without asking in surprise, & almost
in indignation, how on God's earth it happened that our army was put to assault
such a position. The whole country was but a gently rolling one with no great
natural obstacles anywhere, fairly well cultivated & with farm roads going
in every direction. Why was not half our army simply turned to the left &
marched by the nearest roads out of the enemy's view & fire to strike his
road of retreat, & his long, slow & cumbersome trains, a few miles
below, while the rest in front could threaten & hold his battle array
without attacking it.
I have myself, on the ground afterward,
discussed the feasibility of this in company with Gen. Wade Hampton, &
[Major] Gen. J[eremy] F[rancis] Gilmer, chf. engineer, & we examined &
found short, easy, & covered roads in every way favorable.
But Gen. Lee, though himself distinguished
as an engineer, & for engineer work, in Mexico, had but few engineer
officers close to him, & seemed to have such supreme confidence that his
infantry could go anywhere, that he took comparatively little pains to study
out the easier roads.
In the Mexican War we fought with smooth bore, short range
muskets, in fact, the character of the ground cut comparatively little
V. Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, pp. 110-1.
28. Freeman, R.E. Lee, II, p. 202.
figure. But with the rifled muskets & cannon of this war
the affair was very different as was proven both at Malvern Hill, & at Gettysburg.
. ,29
Not satisfied with the Union retreat
virtually to the James River, Lee, ignoring the nearly unanimous advice of his
corps commanders, launched a day-long series of suicidal attacks on July 1 by
valuable veteran forces on strong Union positions. D.H. Hill had personally advised
Lee of the height, vulnerable approaches, size and strength of Malvern Hill and
added, "If General McClellan is there in force, we had better let him
alone."30
Lee's usual lack of battlefield control and
coordination resulted in Longstreet, A.P. Hill and Jackson being barely
involved in the assault. A four-hour artillery duel resulted in the serial
elimination of southern batteries when never more than sixteen Rebel guns were
placed in action at one time and 90 of their guns were kept in reserve all
day. Brigadier General William Nelson Pendleton, a vigorous post-war supporter
of Lee, was Lee's Chief of Artillery directly responsible for this artillery
fiasco.
After that artillery debacle, Union cannons
and rifles decimated Rebel infantry attackers from Major Generals D.H. Hill's,
Lafayette McLaws' and Huger's divisions. Their piecemeal attacks were brought
about by a vague and flawed order Lee issued to his generals: "Batteries
have been established to rake the enemy's lines. If it is broken as is
probable, [Brigadier General Lewis Addison] Armistead, who can witness the
effect of the fire, has been ordered to charge with a yell. Do the same."31
The attacks continued even after the first ones had demonstrated the
correctness of the advice of Lee's subordinates and the folly of continued
infantry assaults on Union artillery and infantry firing down on the
Confederates.
After the first failed attacks by five of D.H.
Hill's brigades with a loss of 2,000 men, Lee himself ordered Magruder to
attack. This led to the slaughter of additional thousands in the nine brigades
of Huger and McLaws, as each one emerged from the woods separately and was
eliminated. The disjointed attacks, spread out over several hours, were marked
by what Union General Fitz John Porter called "a reckless disregard of
life."32 He described how the fourteen Rebel brigades successively
charged the Union stronghold and "the artillery...mowed them
29. Alexander,
Fighting for the Confederal, p. 111.
30. Bevin
Alexander, Lost Victories, p. 124; Wert, Longstreet, p. 146.
31. Bruce,
"Lee and Strategy," in Gallagher, Lee the Soldier, p. 114.
32. McWhiney
and Jamieson, Attack and Die, p. 3.
down with shrapnel, grape, and canister; while our infantry,
withholding their fire until the enemy were within short range, scattered the
remnants of their columns."33 The waves of attackers achieved
nothing but self-destruction at the hands of Union artillery and infantry.
Freeman concluded that Lee realized that
evening that he had made a mistake in allowing his army's right wing to assault
a position of unknown strength. That same evening Lee approached Magruder and
asked him why he had undertaken such an attack; Magruder responded, "In
obedience to your orders, twice repeated."34
In all, Lee had 6,000 men killed or wounded
in that single day of slaughter. Fifty percent of the Confederate casualties
may have been attributable to artillery.35 D.H. Hill himself said
that Lee's assault at Malvern Hill "...was not war - it was murder."36
As a result of this ill- conceived assault, Confederate lines were in complete
disarray and could have been swept from the field by a Union assault, which
most generals other than McClellan would have launched. Fortunately for Lee,
while McClellan was absent at Harrison's Landing and on the James River most of
that day, Fitz John Porter was left in charge of the Army of the Potomac
without authority to initiate a counter-attack.
As Porter Alexander indicated, Malvern Hill
was the first, but certainly not the last, instance in which Lee gave
insufficient weight to the Civil War's new weaponry. With increasing frequency
throughout the war, the combatants, especially the Yankees, used rifled
muskets. They propelled inch-long Minie balls, which were accurate at up to 200
yards and could kill at over half a mile. These weapons were ahead of Lee's
tactics. Although Lee was not alone in making this miscalculation, he lost
more soldiers in less time than any Confederate general - losses that the
outmanned Confederates simply could not absorb.
The Seven Days' Battle terminated the
threat to Richmond but had done so at an unnecessarily high cost. The threat
had disappeared after the first day of battle and was known by Lee to be gone
after the second day. Lee's abysmal control of his forces, insistence on
continual frontal attacks, and persistent attempts to carry out nearly
impossible coordinated attacks resulted in dreadful southern casualties. Of
Lee's 95,000 men, 19,700 (21 percent) were killed or wounded; of McClellan's
33. Ibid.
Freeman, R.E. Lee, II, p. 218.
35. Griffith, Paddy, Battle Tactics of the Civil War, New
Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996) [hereafter Griffith, Battle Tactics],
p. 170.
3*. Freeman, R.E. Lee, II, p. 218; Sears, To the Gates, p.
335; McWhiney and Jamieson, Attack and Die, p. 4.
91,000 men, only 9,800 (11 percent) were killed or wounded.37
As Lee was to learn to his regret, the Confederacy could not afford many such
"victories."38
Alexander summarized Lee's first series of
offensive thrusts as follows:
Very few of the reports distinguish between
the casualties of the different battles, of which there were four, beside a
sharp affair of Magruder's at Savage's Station on Sunday the 29th, about which
I have never known the particulars except that it was an isolated attack on a
strong rear guard by 2 Vi brigades & it was repulsed, as might have been
expected. No small force of ours could have hoped for any real success, &
all such inadequate attacks were mistakes.
Of the other four actions, three were
assaults by main force right where the enemy wanted us to make them. The first,
Ellison's Mill [Mechanicsville], was an entire failure & very bloody — but
fortunately was in a small scale. The second, Cold Harbor or Gaines' Mill, was
also a bloody failure at first ~ being made piecemeal. Finally made in force it
was a success. The third, Malvern Hill, was an utter & bloody failure.
Ellison's Mill & Malvern Hill could both have been turned [flanked], &
Gen. D. H. Hill asserts that the enemy's right at Cold Harbor could have better
[sic] assaulted than the centre or left where our attack was made.39
Another Confederate General, D.H. Hill,
added more criticism of his own Army's efforts: "Owing to our ignorance of
the country and lack of reconnaissance of the successive battlefields,
throughout this campaign we attacked just when and where the enemy wished us to
attack."40 These Confederate military critics of Lee were not
asserting that he should have done nothing, but rather that he should have done
things differently. These possibilities included going around McClel- lan's
right flank and cutting off his access to Harrison's Landing on the
37. Livermore,
Numbers & Losses, p. 86.
38. One
northern post-war analyst commented, "That Lee defeated McClellan is clear
enough, but can it be claimed in any sense, except technically, the Army of the
Potomac was defeated by him during these seven bloody days, a continuous battle
in six separate but related actions, in four of which parts of his army were
repulsed by parts of the opposing army, and on the sole occasion when all of
the forces of each were opposed, the Army of Northern Virginia met with a
decisive defeat?" Bruce, "Lee and Strategy," in Gallagher, Lee
the Soldier, p. 114.
39. Alexander,
Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 120.
Freeman, R.E. Lee, II, p. 232.
James River. What they did oppose were uncoordinated frontal
assaults. Of this week-long struggle, Freeman said, "Lee displayed no
tactical genius in combating a fine, well-led Federal army."41
As a result of Lee's aggressively offensive
strategy and tactics during the Seven Days' Battles, the out-manned
Confederates suffered 20,000 killed, wounded and missing to the Union's 10,000.
Lincoln perceptively noted, "In men and material, the enemy suffered more
than we, in that series of conflicts; while it is certain that he is less able
to bear it."42 The overall Livermore hit ratios for those battles
were telling: the Union ratio was a positive 107:216, and the Confederate ratio
was a very negative 207:102.43 Distilled to their essence, these
figures show that McClellan had lost one in ten while Lee was losing one in
five. Victories at that cost would lose the war ~ and they did.44
Throughout the Seven Days' Battle, Lee's
strategy and tactics were excessively aggressive. His strategy was totally
offensive. Incredibly, Lee watched thousands of his fine troops slaughtered
while charging usually fortified Union forces but did not seem to realize the
foolhardi- ness of such tactics. Lee's Seven Days' battle-plans were overly complex;
he frequently issued vague and discretionary orders to his generals, and then
he failed to supervise their execution through adequate on-the-field command
and control.45 He repeated these mistakes on several later occasions
and thereby squandered the Confederacy's chances of winning the war.
«. Ibid., p. 241.
42. Jones,
Archer, "Military Means, Political Ends: Strategy," [hereafter Jones,
"Military Means"] in Boritt, Gabor S. (ed.), Why the Confederacy Lost
[hereafter Boritt, Why the Confederacy Lost] (New York and Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1992), p. 55.
43. Livermore,
Numbers & Losses, p. 86.
«. Military historian Bevin Alexander said, "With the
direct-assault kind of war Robert E.
Lee unveiled in the Seven Days, the South might win battles,
but it would bleed to death long before it could achieve victory." Bevin
Alexander, Lost Victories, p. 129. i5. Freeman said that, at the
Seven Days' Battle, "Lee trusted too much to his subordinates, some of
whom failed him almost completely..." Freeman, R.E. Lee, II, p. 241.
Mid-Summer
1862: Costly Victory at Second Bull Run
July 2, 1862, marked the beginning of a new
phase of the war. It was then clear that, at least under the pusillanimous
McClellan, the North was not about to capture Richmond, let alone put a quick
end to the war. On that day, Little Mac's army began arriving at Harrison's
Landing on the James River. From there, its pouting commanding general, would
eventually be sending it back north. Also on July 2, Lincoln, realizing that he
would have to make greater use of the Union's numerical superiority, issued a
call for an additional 300,000 men to enlist for three-year terms.
While fortifying his do-nothing position at
Harrison's Landing, McClellan, on July 7, wrote one of his usual complaining
and requisitioning letters to Secretary of War Stanton. He complained that the
President had caused many of his problems by keeping too many troops defending
Washington. He made his usual request for more troops because "...the
rebel army is in our front, with the purpose of overwhelming us by attacking
our positions, or reducing us by blocking our river communication. I cannot
but regard our position as critical."1 Little Mac was unaware
that Lee had started withdrawing his troops back toward Richmond - a movement
hidden from McClellan for days by a cavalry screen. On July 13, Lincoln urged
McClellan to resume the assault on Richmond, but all he got was another request
for reinforcements.
The scene of battle was about to move
north. On July 10, John Pope, the bombastic, newly-appointed Federal Army of
Virginia Commander, announced his intention to deal harshly with Confederate
sympathizers. The next day, Lincoln, having lost confidence in McClellan, named
Major General Henry "Old Brains" Halleck General- in-Chief of the
Federal Armies.
i. Sears, Stephen W„ George B. McClellan: The Young Napoleon
(New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1988), p. 223.
On July 12, Lee learned that Pope had
occupied Culpeper, thereby threatening the Virginia Central Railroad connection
between Richmond and its Shenandoah Valley breadbasket. Therefore, the next
day Lee dispatched Jackson's two divisions to the critical railroad junction
town of Gordonsville. Jackson arrived there on July 19. With this movement, Lee
began moving toward a two-corps organization similar to that which Johnston
earlier had used for better control of the army.
On the same day, July 14, that the U.S.
Congress established the State of West Virginia, the boastful Pope moved
southward toward Gordonsville with his Army of Virginia. His army consisted of
the corps of three, barely-competent major generals: Franz Sigel, Banks and
McDowell. By the 21st, they were spread forty miles west to east from
Sperryville, at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, all the way across the
Piedmont region to Fredericksburg. Pope ordered Banks' cavalry to seize
Gordonsville, but Lee had precluded that maneuver with his Jackson gambit.
Two significant political events occurred
on July 22. Lincoln advised his Cabinet that he had drafted an Emancipation
Proclamation to free slaves in Confederate-controlled areas. He admitted that
he could not publicly announce it until the North had some battlefield success;
otherwise, it would appear to be an act of desperation. That day also saw the
signing of an agreement for an exchange of prisoners between the warring sides;
Lincoln and his generals had not yet realized how significantly these exchanges
primarily aided the manpower-deficient Confederacy.
Lee was concerned about protecting Richmond
and points to the north of Pope. However, he also wanted to take advantage of
the division of the Union forces during McClellan's tortoise-like retreat from
the Peninsula back to northern Virginia. Lee did an excellent job speculating
on McClellan's inactivity, the decreasing threat he posed to Richmond, and his
eventual movement back north via the Chesapeake Bay.
In light of the reduced threat to Richmond
and the increased threat posed by Pope near Gordonsville, Lee sent A.P. Hill's
Division toward Gordonsville on July 27th. Hill joined Jackson there on the
29th. Hoping to head-off the type of problem Jackson had previously had with
his subordinates, Lee, on the 27th had written to Jackson, "A.P. Hill you
will find I think a good officer with whom you can consult and by advising with
your division commanders as to your movements much trouble will be saved by you
in arranging details, as they can act
more intelligently."2 Lee's advice went
unheeded, and Jackson consulted with no one but Lee until Jackson's death the
following year.
Jackson's and Hill's respective departures
had left 69,000 and then 56,000 Confederate troops in the Richmond area to keep
an eye on McClellan. On July 31, McClellan's army at Harrison's Landing was
bombarded by a thousand of D.H. Hill's artillery shells from the south side of
the James River. Although the Union soldiers suffered only twenty-five
casualties, they were reminded of the continuing Confederate presence near
Richmond.
The next day, Lee responded to pompous and
ill-advised proclamations of General Pope, who threatened to execute civilians
who aided the Confederacy. Lee issued General Order No. 54 stating that Pope
and his commissioned officers would not be treated as prisoners of war if
captured and that an equal number would be hanged as were executed under Pope's
orders.
Developments in early August indicated that
action and control on the Union side were shifting from McClellan' army north
to Pope's. On August 2, Pope's men crossed the Rapidan and seized Orange Court
House, a key, central Virginia, crossroads town. The next day new
General-in-Chief Halleck ordered McClellan to bring his Army of the Potomac
back to Alexandria. McClellan ineffectively protested that his Army was more
useful threatening Richmond than defending Washington. He, of course, could not
resist requesting more troops.
Because of the failure of his July call for
three-year volunteers, President Lincoln, on August 4, issued a call for
300,000 nine-month volunteers. But he refused to accept two Indiana regiments
of African- Americans; it was too early in the war to openly use Blacks in the
army. Later that month, on the 22nd, Lincoln, responding to pro-slavery criticism
from Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune, said, "If I could save the
Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save the Union by
freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."3
With discretionary orders from Lee, Jackson
moved out from Gordonsville on August 7.4 That night, his troops
camped at Orange Court House, from which Pope had withdrawn, and Jackson issued
the order of battle for the next day. Overnight he changed the order but failed
to inform A.P. Hill. This oversight resulted in Hill's barely moving on August
8 and initiated a serious rift between Jackson and Hill. In
2 Lee to Thomas J. Jackson, July 27,1862, Dowdey and Manarin,
Papers, p. 239.
3. Nevins,
Ordeal, VI, p. 232.
4. For
details of Lee's Second Manassas campaign, see Hennessy, John J., Return to
Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas (New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1993).
his over-eagerness to exploit the division of the Union armies
and circle Pope's left flank, Jackson advanced carelessly toward Culpeper Court
House without scouting the area to his west.
As a result, at Cedar Mountain, Banks'
Federal corps hit Jackson's Division hard in the left flank.5 Two
divisions of Banks' soldiers smashed into Jackson's men and almost flanked
their quickly-formed line. Three of Jackson's brigades broke and fled. Only a
brave stand by Jubal Early's Brigade saved the day until the arrival of A.P.
Hill's Division. Banks, however, had made the mistakes of attacking without
keeping some troops in reserve and failing to send for reinforcements. After
the Confederate line held and Hill came to the rescue, the Rebels
counter-attacked and drove the Bluecoats from the field.6 Although
the Confederates held the field after the battle, they had paid dearly for
their lack of caution. While the Blue had lost 1,400 killed, wounded, and
captured, the Gray had suffered 1,300 casualties.7 The Confederates
could not afford battles in which they traded nearly equal losses with their
numerically superior foes.
By August 13, Lee accurately calculated
that McClellan's force at Harrison's Landing, only twenty-five miles from
Richmond, no longer represented a viable threat. Therefore, he moved
Longstreet, with the bulk of Lee's remaining forces, toward Gordonsville to
counter the threat posed by Pope. The move was prescient because, on the 16th,
McClellan, at long last, began moving out of Harrison's Landing to return to
Alexandria for the purpose of backing up Pope.
By the 17th, Lee appeared to have Pope's
army trapped between the Rapidan on its southern front and the Rappahannock in
its rear. Before Lee could take advantage of Pope's incautious movement, however,
Pope retired across the Rappahannock to await reinforcements from McClellan. By
the 20th Lee had his 80,000-man army across the Rapidan, controlled the west
bank of the Rappahannock, and was desperately attempting to cross the latter
river to get between Washington and Pope's temporarily outnumbered forces.
On the night of August 22, Jeb Stuart led
the 6th Virginia Cavalry on a successful raid on Pope's headquarters at
Catlett's Station. Stuart and his men captured some Union officers and, most
significantly, Pope's dispatch book. That book revealed the exact position of
Pope's army, his need for reinforcements, and the expected arrival times of
those reinforcements.
5. The
authoritative work on this battle is Krick, Robert K., Stonewall Jackson at
Cedar Mountain (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press,
1990).
6. Hattaway
and Jones, How the North Won, p. 223.
7. Livermore,
Numbers & Losses, pp. 87-8.
Massive rainfall the next night made the
Rappahannock impassable and wiped out offensives planned by both Lee and Pope.
Lee used the information obtained by Stuart to devise his next course of
action. Lee intended to hold Pope in place along the Rappahannock while he
slipped his army, piecemeal, to the northwest, moved around Pope's right (west)
flank, and, finally, got between Pope and Washington. Lee hoped to cut off Pope
from his supplies and defeat him with his momentarily stronger force. To
accomplish this, Lee relied heavily on Stonewall Jackson, the only one of Lee's
generals who usually thrived when given independence and daring assignments.
Early on August 25, Jackson moved away from the Rappahannock to the northwest
and launched one of his patented flanking marches around the right flank and
rear of Pope's Army of Virginia.
On the first day of his march, Jackson
moved twenty-five miles between the Blue Ridge and Bull Run mountains all the
way to Salem, from where he planned to move through Thoroughfare Gap onto
Pope's rear. Pope thought he had things in hand because Jackson's movements
were being tracked by Union cavalry. That cavalry reported that Jackson had
thirty regiments and significant cavalry; in fact, he had sixty-six regiments
and all of Lee's cavalry. Jackson's huge force moved through Thoroughfare Gap
on the 26th. Early on the 27th, Stuart seized Bristoe Station on Pope's
railroad supply line, and Jackson's men destroyed hundreds of boxcars and huge
amounts of Union supplies at Manassas Junction four miles to the northeast.
Although Jackson's men were allowed to fill their knapsacks with canned lobster
and other delicacies, he ordered the destruction of barrels of whiskey to
preserve their fighting capacity. In order to carry out this remarkable end run
on Pope's army, Stuart's men had ridden and Jackson's foot infantry had,
incredibly, marched over 50 miles in 48 hours.
On the same day as the Manassas Junction
debacle, Longstreet, who had been holding Pope in place along the Rappahannock,
moved away to the northwest to go to Jackson's assistance. Advised of the disaster
to his rear, Pope marched hard toward Manassas in the hope of destroying
Jackson before Longstreet could come to his rescue. The resultant clash would
be known as the Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas).
After repelling the first Union forces
responding to his attack at Bristoe Station and Manassas Junction, Jackson
withdrew to a strong defensive position at Groveton, just northwest of the 1861
Bull Run battlefield. Although vulnerable until Longstreet could come to his
aid, Jackson revealed his position by attacking a portion of thirty-four passing
Union regiments, including the famous Iron Brigade, near
dusk on the 28th. In two hours of vicious fighting, both
sides suffered heavy casualties until darkness halted the battle.
On the morning of the 29th, Jackson's
exhausted 23,000 men had moved to a strong position in an unfinished railroad
cut between Groveton and Sudley Springs but faced 50,000 Union attackers. Jackson's
three divisions withstood a full day of uncoordinated assaults from ten Union
divisions. Jackson sent Stuart in search of the marching Longstreet, and he
returned with Lee and Longstreet themselves by mid-morning. Pope had failed to
isolate Jackson by blocking Thoroughfare Gap in strength, and Lee, therefore,
had little difficulty transiting the gap and merging his forces. However, it
was early afternoon before Longstreet's men began arriving and digging in on
Jackson's right.
That afternoon, Lee wanted to attack
immediately with the troops on hand. Longstreet, however, advised Lee against
doing so because they did not know the strength of the opposing forces, they
knew that McClellan was reinforcing Pope, and Longstreet believed there were
Union forces free to attack his right flank in the event of a Confederate
assault. Much to the later chagrin of pro-Lee historian, Douglas Southall
Freeman, Lee took Longstreet's advice.8
On the morning of the 30th, Lee and his
generals watched in puzzlement as Pope's forces did nothing. Starting around
noon, the Union forces resumed their assaults on Jackson's position. While Lee
and Longstreet waited for the perfect moment to counter-attack, Jackson's line
was almost broken. Some of his men ran out of ammunition and repelled their
attackers by throwing rocks and using their rifles as clubs. They were greatly
assisted by oblique and devastating artillery fire on the Federals from the
twenty-two guns of a large artillery battalion under Longstreet.
Finally, at 4 p.m., Longstreet launched a
devastating counterattack; Jackson, much later, sent his forces on the
offensive, and, between them, they drove the panicked and disorganized Union
troops from the field. In three hours on the offensive, however, Longstreet
lost more men than Jackson had lost in three days on the defensive.9
British Major-General J.F.C. Fuller described Jackson's maneuver around Pope's
army as sound strategy and Lee's maneuver [Longstreet's attack] as unsound and
"...not strategically remunerative."10
Aggressive Confederate pursuit toward
Fairfax Court House the next day was hampered by heavy rain. That same day, Lee
fell while
8. Freeman,
R.E. Lee, II, p. 235.
9. Hennessy,
Return to Bull Run, p. 57.
Fuller, Grant and Lee, p. 165.
trying to grab his spooked horse and broke his right wrist.
For the next two weeks he traveled by ambulance. Near evening and in a
torrential downpour, the two sides clashed again on September 1 at Ox Hill near
Chantilly. Both sides suffered heavy losses in the brief, but bloody, Battle of
Chantilly, and the Union forces lost two generals (including the beloved Major
General Philip Kearny).
Although Lee's forces clearly had won a
major battlefield victory at Second Manassas, once again they paid a dear
price. His 49,000 men engaged suffered 9,100 casualties (19 percent), while
Pope's forces lost 10,100 out of 75,000 (13 percent). At Chantilly, the
Confederate casualties were 800 while the Union suffered 1,400 casualties.
Over the seven days of Second Manassas and Chantilly, the Livermore hit ratios
slightly favored the Confederates; Pope's hit ratio was a negative 132:120
while Lee's was a favorable, but high, 187:208.n Thus, of every
1,000 Confederates, 187 were killed or wounded, and 208 inflicted a casualty on
the enemy.
Taking casualties of 19 percent to Pope's
13 percent, however, Lee was continuing his pattern of aggressive attrition through
offensive strategy and tactics. He had assumed command on June 1 of an army of
95,000; within exactly three months, that now-outnumbered army had suffered
almost 30,000 casualties. Although he had moved the scene of conflict from the
environs of Richmond to the outskirts of Washington, Lee's offensives were
seriously weakening his army.
». Ibid., pp. 88-89.
September 1862:
Disaster at Antietam
So far, Lee's summer may have appeared
successful to him. He had driven the Yankees from the Peninsula, swept them
from the field at Manassas, and beaten them at Chantilly. Although these
tactical victories had taken their toll on his army, Lee decided to take a
daring gamble and carry the war to the North. On September 3, Lee wrote to
Davis that he planned to move north into Maryland to take advantage of
Confederate sympathies there and perhaps to move on to destroy the critical
railroad bridge across the Susquehanna River at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In
his letter, Lee admitted that the proposed effort was risky and had little
chance of success: "I am aware that the movement is attended with much
risk, yet I do not consider success impossible..."1 Consistent
with his eastern theater focus, Lee suggested to President Davis that Braxton
Bragg's Army of Tennessee, outnumbered more than 3 to 1 and struggling to
defend eastern Tennessee and Chattanooga, be brought east to protect Richmond
while Lee went north.2
On September 4, Lee's 53,000 battered
troops left Manassas. The next day, they crossed the Potomac into Maryland at
White's Ferry, just east of Leesburg, with false expectations that many
Marylanders would increase their dwindling numbers.3 Crossing the
Potomac was a fateful step because, eventually, Lee would have to return to
Virginia; that return would be interpreted as a retreat and defeat, and Lincoln
was desperately waiting for anything that could be construed as a Confed
1. Lee
to Jefferson Davis, September 3,1862, Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, p. 292,293.
2. Ibid.
"At the time of Lee's request, Bragg was outnumbered 124,000 to 35,000,
and the Union Army of the Ohio was maneuvering within twenty miles of
Chattanooga." Connelly, "Lee and the Western Confederacy," p.
124.
3. One
problem was that those Marylanders who had eagerly enlisted for one year in the
Confederate army in early and mid-1861 had been involuntarily extended under
the Conscription Act even though they were not from a Confederate state. Bruce,
"Lee and Strategy" in Gallagher, Lee the Soldier, p. 116.
erate defeat. Then he could announce his Emancipation
Proclamation and, thereby, change the nature of the war.4
While underway in Maryland on the 8th of
September, Lee, optimistically, wrote to Davis that this might be a propitious
time for the Confederacy, in a perceived position of strength, to propose to
the Union a negotiated settlement that included recognition of the Confederacy's
independence.5 However, the reality of the Maryland incursion
sharply contrasted with any hope Lee had for success. By the time Lee reached
Frederick, Maryland, his soldiers were but a shadow of the army Lee had
inherited only three months before. Lee's aggressiveness had resulted in over
30,000 casualties, and straggling became a significant problem throughout
Lee's exhausted forces.6 On August 20, Jackson had ordered that
deserters be shot without the nicety of a court- martial to determine their
guilt.7
Contributing to the straggling problem were
the scarcity of provisions and the resulting sickness of many men when they
satisfied their hunger by eating raw corn and green apples.8 In his
September 3 letter to Davis, Lee admitted that the army had its problems:
"The army is not properly equipped for an invasion of an enemy's
territory. It lacks much of the material of war, is feeble in transportation, the
animals being much reduced, and the men are poorly provided with clothes, and
in thousands of instances are destitute of shoes."9
According to Alexander, divisions had been
nearly reduced to brigades, and brigades were only slightly larger than regiments.10
By September 13, Lee was telling Davis that one-third to one-half of his
original number of soldiers had deserted.11 In addition, the army's
leadership had been devastated by months of battle; eight of Jackson's
4. For
detailed accounts of the Antietam (Sharpsburg) campaign, see Sears, Stephen W.,
Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam (New York: Book-of-the-Month Club,
Inc., 1994) [hereafter Sears, Landscape]; Luvaas, Jay and Nelson, Harold W.,
The U.S. Army War College Guide to the Battle of Antietam: The Military
Campaign of 1862 (Carlisle, Pennsylvania: South Mountain Press, Inc., 1987);
Priest, John M., Antietam: The Soldiers' Battle (Shippensburg, Pennsylvania:
White Mane Publishing Company, Inc., 1989); Freeman, R.E. Lee, II, pp. 350-414.
5. Lee
to Jefferson Davis, September 8,1862, Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, p. 301.
6. Piston,
Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant, pp. 27-8.
7. Freeman,
Douglas Southall, Lee's Lieutenants: A Study in Command, 3 vols. (New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1942-4; 1972 reprint) [hereafter Freeman, Lee's
Lieutenants], II, p. 149.
8. Ibid.,
pp. 150-1.
'. Lee to Jefferson Davis, September 3,1862, Dowdey and
Manarin, Papers, p. 293.
10. Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 139.
Lee to Jefferson Davis, September 13,1862, Dowdey and
Manarin, Papers, p. 307.
nineteen brigades were led by colonels in place of dead or
wounded brigadier generals.
Lee then took a potentially fatal gamble
and separated his army into four parts - against the advice of both Longstreet and
Jackson. On September 9, he issued his famous Special Order No. 191, calling
for Jackson's large corps to seize Bolivar Heights between the Shenandoah and
Potomac Rivers (thereby cutting off Harper's Ferry, located southeast of
Bolivar Heights at the junction of those rivers); Brigadier General John
George Walker's small Division to occupy Loudon Heights south of those rivers
and across from Harper's Ferry; McLaws' Division to close the noose on that
town by occupying Maryland Heights northeast of the rivers' junction; and
Longstreet's and D.H. Hill's divisions to proceed over South Mountain to
Boonsboro, north of Harper's Ferry and west of Frederick, Maryland.12
Subsequently, Lee (apparently anxious to continue northward) aggravated the
situation by taking his headquarters and Longstreet's Division farther
northwest to Hagerstown, advancing pickets to Middleburg on the Pennsylvania
border, and leaving Harvey Hill with less than 6,000 men, thirteen miles behind
at Boonsboro. Longstreet, who opposed Lee's splintering of his army, even
cursed in Lee's presence as they traveled to Hagerstown: "General, I wish
we could stand still and let the damned Yankees come to us!"13
By that time Lee had split his army into five vulnerable segments.
A strange occurrence increased this
vulnerability. Lee's division of his forces was revealed to McClellan when a
copy of Lee's Special Order No. 191, having been used to wrap three cigars,
was discovered by a Union enlisted man on the morning of September 13 in a
field outside Frederick, Maryland. The order fairly flew up the
chain-of-command and reached McClellan by noon. He was obviously elated and
openly remarked, in the presence of unfriendly Marylanders' ears, that he now
had Lee where he wanted him. Little Mac's foolish revelation of the Order's
discovery resulted in Jeb Stuart's learning, just after midnight on the 14th,
of some unusual event in the Union camp.
Whether or when Lee had learned of McClellan's
discovery of his Order and of the fact that Lee's forces were badly divided,
Lee was alerted by reports of McClellan's unusually semi-aggressive activity
that something significant had happened.14 Nevertheless, Lee continued
to risk his entire Army by remaining in Maryland long enough to
12 Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, pp. 301-3.
13. Wert, Longstreet, p. 184.
h. Gordon, Edward Clifford, "Memorandum of a
Conversation with General Robert E. Lee," February 15,1868, pp. 25-27 in
Gallagher, Lee the Soldier, pp. 25-6.
bring about a major battle. Lee, inexplicably, either failed
to realize that "the gig was up" or hesitated to admit the vulnerable
position in which he had placed his army. The possible temporary capture of
Harper's Ferry was insufficient reason for Lee to remain in Maryland with the
bulk of his Army vulnerable to being trapped north of the Potomac River. Except
for the plodding response of McClellan, Lee's forces would have been destroyed
in piecemeal fashion.15
From Frederick, Little Mac sent two of his
seven corps southwest toward Crampton's Gap to trap McLaws against the Potomac.
He directed his other five corps northwest toward Turner's and Fox's gaps in
South Mountain to deal with the isolated, and now separated, divisions of Hill
and Longstreet. After learning from Jeb Stuart of McClellan's atypical
movement, Lee ordered Longstreet to move Law's and Hood's brigades from
Hagerstown to Turner's Gap to fend off disaster.
The Texas Brigade's march presented Lee
with a problem. Its soldiers were angry about the possibility of going into
battle without their division commander, John Bell Hood, whom Longstreet had
placed in arrest status as the result of a dispute at Manassas over the
disposition of seized Federal ambulances. As they neared South Mountain and
passed Lee, the Texans repeatedly shouted, "Give us Hood!" Lee replied,
"You shall have him, gentlemen," and then sought out Hood.16 Hood
later wrote of that encounter:
I found General Lee standing by the fence, very near the
pike, in company with his chief of staff, Colonel [Robert] Chilton. The latter
accosted me, bearing a message from the General, that he desired to speak to
me. I dismounted, and stood in his presence, when he said, "General, here
I am just upon the eve of entering into battle, and with one of my best
officers under arrest. If you will merely say that you regret this occurrence
[the Manassas incident], I will release you and restore you to the command of
your division."17
When Hood tried to explain the injustice of his arrest, a
frustrated Lee interrupted him and suspended the arrest for the duration of the
battle. After Antietam, the issue was never raised again.18
15. Lee later complained that the lost order's discovery had
caused him to miss an opportunity to concentrate his troops and attack
McClellan's army. Allan, "Conversations" in Gallagher, Lee the
Soldier, pp. 7-8.
Freeman, R.E. Lee, II, p. 370; Holsworth,
Jerry W., "Uncommon Valor: Hood's Texas Brigade in the Maryland
Campaign," Blue b Gray Magazine, XIII, Issue 6 (Summer 1996), pp. 6-20,
50-55 [hereafter Holsworth, "Uncommon Valor"], p. 11.
17. Holsworth, "Uncommon Valor," p. 11.
Ibid.
Reinforced by Longstreet, Harvey Hill's
desperate and valiant all- day holding action at Turner's and Fox's gaps on
September 14 kept McClellan's army from destroying Lee's scattered forces one
after the other. Although the Rebels were on the defensive and held the higher
position, they were spread thinly along a three-mile front accessible by five
roads. As a result of Lee's dispersion of his forces, they also were
outnumbered (28,000 to 18,000) by the aggressive 6th Corps of Major General
Jesse Lee Reno and the dawdling 1st Corps of Major General Joseph Hooker.
Because of the Confederates' on-the-field
leadership and bravery and their defensive advantage, they managed to prevent a
complete Federal break-through during the daylight hours of the 14th. Their position
at nightfall, however, was untenable because they had been flanked at both
gaps, had taken heavy casualties and were about to be overrun by the enemy's
sheer mass. This situation left Lee with no choice but to retreat. He ordered
Hill and Longstreet to move toward Sharpsburg.
Since inadequate forces were in place at
South Mountain, the Rebels there lost a high 1,900 (10 percent) killed,
wounded and missing, while the attacking Yankees lost a tolerable 1,800 (6
percent). The Union's Livermore hit ratio was a slightly unfavorable, and low,
68:66 while the Confederates' hit ratio was a more unfavorable and higher 105:97.19
Although about one in ten of Harvey Hill's engaged defenders had been
casualties, Lee's losses in the one day at South Mountain were a mere prelude
to the devastating casualties his army was to suffer three days later at
Antietam.
Because of the Union corps' delays in
crossing South Mountain at Turner's and Fox's gaps and in getting to some of
McLaws' troops through Crampton's Gap a few miles to the south, Walker and
McLaws had enough time to bombard Harper's Ferry from the commanding heights
while Jackson moved on the town from the northwest. The trapped 12,500-man
garrison, under the cowardly non-leadership of Colonel Dixon S. Miles, put up
only a feeble fight and quickly surrendered to Jackson on the morning of
September 15. Two thousand Union cavalry had escaped under the cover of
darkness.
Meanwhile, Lee oversaw the retreat, on the
night of the 14th, of Harvey Flill southwest from South Mountain and Longstreet
south from Boonsboro toward Sharpsburg, which brought them both closer to
Jackson's troops at Harper's Ferry. At about noon on the 15th, Lee gathered
those outnumbered retreating forces of Longstreet and Hill at
19. Livermore, Numbers & Losses, pp. 90-1.
the small town of Sharpsburg. There, behind Antietam Creek
and with the Potomac River at his back, Lee arrayed his troops and awaited both
an attack by the ever-cautious Little Mac and the hoped-for arrival of
assistance from the victorious troops at Harper's Ferry. Union troops arrived
east of the creek on the afternoon of the 15th and kept arriving for the next
24 hours.
On the night of the 15th, Lee learned of
the capture of Harper's Ferry. Instead of declaring the campaign a success and
safely returning to Virginia, he stayed in his vulnerable position with his
meager two divisions. On that night, McClellan outnumbered Lee by 4 to 1 and
was in a position to destroy Lee's Sharpsburg defenders. But Little Mac did not
attack — either that night or early the next morning, when Lee had a mere
18,000 troops.
Although three additional Confederate divisions
arrived from Harper's Ferry on the 16th, McClellan was acquiring troops even
faster than Lee. By midday, McClellan had accumulated an overwhelming force
east of Antietam Creek, was aware that Lee still had a significant part of his
army at Harper's Ferry, and continued to be in a position to launch a
devastating attack on the depleted forces of Lee. Late that afternoon, the
Union commander had 72,000 troops and 300 pieces of artillery with which to
attack Lee's 27,000 men and 200 guns spread out along a four-mile front. Little
Mac passed up this glorious opportunity to destroy Lee's army, did not attack
at all on the 16th, and, instead, went about deliberately making arrangements
for an attack the next day. Although Lee, therefore, had over a day to prepare
for battle, he did not order his men to entrench.
During the bloodiest single day of the War,
September 17, 1862, the blundering McClellan once again saved Lee's army from
destruction by committing his overwhelmingly superior 75,000 Union troops in
serial fashion from north to south along Antietam Creek. This method of attack
enabled Lee, as the day-long battle progressed, to move his outnumbered
defenders first to the North and West woods and the Cornfield in the north of
the battlefield and later to Bloody Lane and the Mumma Farm in the center of
the battlefield to contest a series of separate and uncoordinated Union
attacks.20
Following hours of pre-dawn artillery
exchanges, Hooker's 1st Corps launched a dawn attack from the East Woods
against Jackson's three divisions on the Confederate left (north). Like most
attacks that day, this one was repulsed and then followed by an enemy counterattack.
When Major General Richard H. "Fighting Dick" Anderson's
Freeman, R.E. Lee, II, pp. 389-96.
counter-attack was failing, the ever-aggressive Hood came to
the rescue. Hood's Texan-dominated division charged into the never-to-be-
forgotten, thirty-acre Cornfield, was decimated (60 percent killed or wounded
in thirty minutes), and compelled to retreat. Harvey Hill led another Rebel
counter-attack, and Brigadier General Joseph King Fenno Mansfield's Union 12th
Corps drove them back with a counter-attack of their own.
When Jackson tried to impede this Federal movement,
he lost 50 percent of one brigade and 30 percent of another in the Cornfield.
Hooker's and Mansfield's forces were sweeping the field and approaching the
Dunker Church south of the Cornfield. There, they finally were repulsed by the
combined forces of Hood, Early, Hill, Walker and McLaws. The early morning
Cornfield and woods casualties ~ incurred in under three hours - were
horrific: Hooker lost 2,600 of 8,600, Hood lost 1,400 of 2,300, the 1st Texas
regiment lost 186 of 226 men in twenty minutes, the Louisiana Tigers lost 323
men in fifteen minutes, the 12th Massachusetts lost 224 of 334 men, and on and
on.21 These were not the results of anyone standing on the
defensive. The annihilation consisted of one fearless, perhaps mindless,
assault after another by the officers and men of both armies, as they swept
back and forth across the Cornfield a total of fifteen times.
It takes little imagination to understand
that Lee had stripped the middle and southern segments of his lines to prevent
a disaster on the north end of the Antietam battlefield, and that McClellan had
achieved an almost-inconceivable numerical superiority on those other unen-
trenched segments of Lee's lines. Little Mac did nothing about it until the
fighting had died down in the north.
From nine to noon, the fighting moved south
of the Cornfield to the Dunker Church and the Sunken Road, known ever since as
Bloody Lane. The church was the scene of more back-and-forth suicidal charges
as both sides took the same type of grotesquely massive casualties as they had
just to the north. The Confederates, under Harvey Hill, initially had the
better of it for about two hours at Bloody Lane, where they stood on the
defensive in the shelter of the depressed road and slaughtered a series of Yankee
attackers. Ten thousand Union attackers, two full divisions, were halted as
their front ranks were cut down man by man, brigade by brigade, in a frontal
assault on out-of- sight defenders. Thousands of Union survivors found safety
by lying prone on the ground and waiting for others to break the seemingly impregnable
Confederate line.
21. Holsworth, "Uncommon Valor," p. 54; Fox,
Regimental Losses, pp. 36,556, 565.
By midday, the attackers, spurred on by
courageous, if foolhardy, assaults by New York's Irish Brigade, managed to
flank Bloody Lane, enfilade the suddenly-helpless defenders, and then overrun
the position. Fighting at Bloody Lane had resulted in the wounding and killing
of 3,000 Blue attackers and 2,600 Gray defenders.
As the Rebel line was being broken there,
Longstreet launched a fortunately timed counter-attack back at the Dunker
Church, and more vicious fighting broke out on the Mumma Farm between the
church and Bloody Lane. Vicious fighting continued to cut down hundreds more on
both sides, but the momentum was clearly with the Union forces. They were about
to break through the entire center of the battlefield, isolate Lee's flanks,
and virtually end the war in the East. Lee had no more reserves. But Longstreet
saved the day by personally leading an advance of the Rebel artillery and a
devastating assault on startled New Yorkers in the center of the cauldron.
Seeing this repulse, the weak-kneed McClellan called off additional attacks in
the center of the field just when another assault would have broken Lee's army.
To the south, where Lee had been removing
troops all day to protect his left and center, McClellan was compounding all
of his other errors of that fateful day. On that end of the battlefield, the
road to Sharpsburg crossed the Rohrbach Bridge, destined to be known as
Burnside's Bridge, in mocking tribute to Union Major General Ambrose E.
Burnside, who took so long to get his troops across it. Ineffectively
superintended and perhaps cut out of the chain of command by Little Mac, Burnside
had over 9,000 troops to assault the Confederate right flank of about 3,000
defenders.
Of those 3,000 Confederates, only 400 were
assigned to defend the bridge itself.22 The bridge rests in a valley
under a steep hill on the west bank, an ideal defensive position that made
crossing very difficult. Even so, given Burnside's overwhelming manpower
advantage, there was no excuse for the fatally gross tardiness of the Union
attack in that sector, and that tardiness cost the Union a battlefield victory.23
Although the artillery fire had started at
3 a.m. and the Union assault to the north at dawn, Burnside received no attack
orders from McClellan until 10 a.m. Therefore, Burnside's first assault on the
bridge did not occur until shortly after that hour. Unprepared for the intense
fire it would receive in attacking across the bridge, the 11th Connecti
22. Sears,
Landscape, p. 260.
23. For
information supporting the view that McClellan intended to use Burnside only as
a diversion, belatedly ordered his involvement, and later tried to use Burnside
as a scapegoat, see Sears, Landscape Turned Red, Appendix II ("Burnside
and His Bridge"), pp. 353-7.
cut Regiment was repulsed in that assault. It was another two
hours until the 2nd Maryland was bloodily thrown back in a virtually identical
attack. Belatedly realizing that other avenues of approach were available,
Burnside sent a fourth of his troops to cross Snavely Ford less than a mile
south of the bridge.
Shortly after 1 p.m., Burnside's men
finally made it across Burn- side Bridge. However, an additional two-hour delay
unbelievably ensued while Burnside properly positioned his troops and provided
them with adequate ammunition. It was not until 3 p.m., therefore, that the
bulk of his 9th Corps finally began driving up the hills and threatened
Sharpsburg itself. Meanwhile, South of the bridge, the rest of Burn- side's
Corps fought across Snavely Ford and drove two miles inland on the far southern
end of the Antietam battlefield. Burnside's numbers had overcome his slowness,
and he finally posed a deadly threat to Lee's right flank.
It looked as though Lee's mistakes in
entering Maryland, dividing his forces, and choosing to fight at Sharpsburg
were about to cost him his army. Even though McClellan had halted the northern
and middle assaults, Lee's forces there were effectively tied down and unable
to help the 2,000 Rebels remaining on the right flank or the 2,800 in
Sharpsburg itself defend against Burnside's finally swarming 15,000 attackers.
The Blue attackers on the south were within a half-mile of Lee's only line of
retreat to the Potomac, and all seemed lost.
An hour after A.P. Hill had arrived at 2:30
in advance of his men, Lee observed a dust cloud to the south with a mixture of
fear and hope. It meant either complete Union encirclement or the arrival of
help from Harper's Ferry. Fortunately for Lee, the cloud of dust signified the
3:30 arrival of A.P. Hill's 3,300 men, exhausted from their seventeen-mile,
eight-hour march but excited by the desperate situation they found.
Unbelievably, these few soldiers, clad in captured Union uniforms, plowed into
the flank of Burnside's 15,000 attackers and drove them from the Sharpsburg
heights with the surprise and ferocity of their assault. Lee's army was saved,
and the Battle of Antietam was over.24
Lee could thank McClellan's incompetence
and Burnside's sluggishness, as well as the good fortune of Hill's timely
arrival, for sparing the Army of Northern Virginia from destruction. The overly
cautious Union commander had compounded his error of making consecutive attacks
by holding one-third of his forces in reserve and unused throughout the entire
battle (primarily Porter's 5th Corps in the center
Freeman, R.E. Lee, II, pp. 398-402; Waugh, Class of 1846, pp.
387-90.
of the battlefield). He also failed to use Major General
Darius N. Couch's Division, which he left near Harper's Ferry.25
Given the forces at his disposal since the
night of the 15th, McClellan's attacks were too late, too short, too
uncoordinated, and too weak. McClellan also erred by keeping his cavalry in the
center of his lines rather than on the flanks, where they could have speeded up
Burnside's crossing of the Antietam and precluded, or at least minimized, the
surprise and impact of A.P. Hill's last-minute arrival. All these mistakes
enabled the Confederates to barely hold throughout the day and, luckily, to
escape defeat. Had McClellan used all of his forces and attacked simultaneously
along the entire front, there would have been no Army of Northern Virginia by
the time A.P. Hill reached Sharpsburg.
That night, the bloodied and ravaged
Confederate army had no sane course of action available except retreat. At
their Sharpsburg war council that night, Lee's generals responded to his
inquiries and reported their abysmal condition to him. Stephen Lee described
Hood's shocking report:
[Hood] displayed great emotion, seemed completely unmanned,
and replied that he had no division. General Lee, with more excitement than I
ever witnessed him exhibit, exclaimed, "Great God, General Hood, where is
the splendid division you had this morning?" Hood replied, "They are
lying on the field where you sent them, sir; but few have straggled. My
division has been almost wiped out."26
East of Sharpsburg, the Union forces still
posed a significant threat. Porter's 20,000-man corps was unsullied, Burnside's
Ninth was fairly fresh, and McClellan had reinforcements on the way. The unused
Federal reserves at Antietam outnumbered Lee's remaining forces. Instead of
retreat, however, Lee discussed with his generals whether they should stand in
place or attack!
When his generals urged him to retreat
because of their severe losses, he rejected their advice and added, "If
McClellan wants to fight in the morning, I will give him battle again."27
Lee thus chose to remain at Sharpsburg through the 18th. Given the inequality
of the armies' numbers and fighting conditions, as well as Lee's inability to
retreat under fire during daylight, McClellan committed another egregious error
by failing to attack that day and, thus, to end the struggle in the
25. Waugh,
Class of 1846, p. 391.
26. Holworth,
"Uncommon Valor," pp. 54-5.
27. Bevin
Alexander, Lost Victories, p. 253; Fuller, Grant and Lee, p. 169.
East in one fell swoop. Little Mac issued incredible orders
not to precipitate hostilities because he wanted to await expected
reinforcements.
General Alexander provided a terse summary
of what he judged to be Lee's greatest military blunder ~ his excessive
audacity at Antie- tam:
He gave battle unnecessarily at Sharpsburg Sep. 17th, 1862.
The odds against him were so immense that the utmost he could have hoped to do
was what he did do~to repel all assaults & finally to withdraw safely
across the Potomac. And he probably only succeeded in this because McClellan
kept about 20,000 men, all of Fitz John Porter's corps, entirely out of the
fight so that they did not pull a trigger. And Lee's position was such, with a
great river at his back, without a bridge & with but one difficult ford,
that defeat would have meant the utter destruction of his army. So he fought
where he could have avoided it, & where he had nothing to make &
everything to lose-which a general should not do.28
In summary, even though McClellan had
fumbled away his glorious opportunity to destroy Lee's entire Army, Lee
himself had blundered just as badly. First, he went on the offensive with a
weakened army into Maryland, from which he would have to retreat. Second, he
badly divided his forces. Third, he failed to reunite them quickly or to return
to the South when he realized that his divided condition was known and after he
already had won a significant victory at Harper's Ferry. Fourth, he selected a
battlefield which jeopardized his entire army by having no ready means of
retreat. Fifth, instead of entrenching and remaining on the defensive at
Sharpsburg, Lee counter-attacked frequently throughout the day, and, in those
suicidal charges, the attacking forces were decimated. Finally, he stayed at
Sharpsburg an additional day and defied McClellan to attack when such an
attack could have destroyed Lee's army.
Each of these errors deserves separate
examination. Following Cedar Mountain, Second Manassas, and Chantilly, Lee's
army was exhausted and badly depleted. His men were in no condition to launch
a campaign into the North; they were exhausted and sick. Freeman states,
"There can be no sort of doubt that Lee underestimated the exhaustion of
his army after Second Manassas. That is, in reality, the major criticism of
the Maryland operation: he carried worn-out men across
2S. Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 92.
the Potomac."29 Instead of savoring his
army's series of victories and rebuilding their strength, Lee took them on a
mission which could only result in a damaging retreat back to Virginia.30
Against the advice of both Longstreet and
Jackson, Lee, inexplicably, divided his small forces so badly that even a
general as incompetent on the offensive as McClellan could have overwhelmed
them separately and almost did destroy them.31 Dividing his forces
to surround Harper's Ferry from three directions is understandable, but
allowing Hill's and Longstreet's divisions to float to the north and then
splitting them up, instead of using them to screen the Harper's Ferry operation
and, possibly, capture the fleeing 2,000 cavalrymen, is inexplicable. Lee's
multiple division of his forces was daring but foolish.32
After he was aware of the Union discovery
of his order, Lee failed to reunite his forces quickly and to return to
Virginia. Even worse, he failed to cross the Potomac at Sharpsburg with D.H.
Hill's and Long- street's divisions on the night of the 15th when he learned of
the capture of Harper's Ferry.33 On this point, historian Archer
Jones concluded, "So politically and strategically Lee's Antietam
campaign was a fiasco. It was really doomed to fail, but Lee could have
mitigated the political damage by ending his raid without a battle."34
He could have avoided perhaps 10,000 casualties by withdrawing into Virginia
after the Battle of South Mountain.35
Lee gravely erred in selecting the
Sharpsburg battlefield. His army was backed up against the Potomac River and
had a marginal avenue of retreat. There was no bridge, and the road to the only
ford was barely wide enough for a wagon and would have been totally unusable
under fire. In addition, Lee's position was vulnerable to Federal artil
29. Freeman,
R.E. Lee, II, p. 412.
30. Bevin
Alexander, Lost Victories, p. 253-4.
31. Piston,
Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant, pp. 24-5.
32. Freeman
criticized Lee's division of his forces in the Antietam campaign. Freeman, R.E.
Lee, II, p. 411.
33. Bevin
Alexander criticized Lee's failure to promptly leave Maryland: "...when
the 1862 invasion of Maryland proved to be abortive, Lee did not retreat
quickly into Virginia but allowed himself to be drawn into a direct
confrontation at Antietam, which he had no hope of winning... Since the
Confederacy was greatly inferior to the North in manpower, any such expenditure
of blood should have been made only for great strategic gains. Standing and
fighting at Antietam offered no benefits, whereas a withdrawal into Virginia
would have retained the South's offensive power." Alexander, Great Generals,
p. 26.
M. Jones, Archer, "Military Means," pp. 43-77 in
Boritt, Why the Confederacy Lost, pp. 60- 61.
35. Hartwig, D. Scott, "Robert E. Lee and the Maryland
Campaign," pp. 331-55 in Gallagher, Lee the Soldier, p. 352.
lery on the hills east of the Antietam and provided little or
no opportunity for a counter-attack on the Union flanks.36 Lee
admitted his poor battlefield selection in a September 19 after-action report
to Davis: "Since my last letter to you of the 18th, finding the enemy
indisposed to make an attack on that day, and our position being a bad one to
hold with the river in the rear, I determined to cross the army to the Virginia
side."37
During the opening portion of the battle,
the opposing forces swept back and forth across the Cornfield fifteen times.
Instead of staying on the defensive, the unentrenched Gray forces frontally
counter-attacked again and again - and, as a result, suffered extremely heavy
casualties.38 At their worst, these tactics cost the 27th North
Carolina Regiment 61 percent of its 325 men.39
Finally, his army having barely survived
the all-day battle on the 17th, Lee jeopardized the very existence of that army
by remaining on the field in the same vulnerable, difficult-to-retreat-from
position for an additional day. He offered McClellan one more chance to crush
the Rebel army with his increasingly superior forces. Although Lee had
accurately gauged the timidity of the Union commander, there was nothing to be
gained by so jeopardizing his decimated force. The safe, sensible course of action
would have been to retreat during the night of the 17th rather than throwing
down the gauntlet for one more day.
Through his combination of errors, Lee
managed to lose an irreplaceable 27 percent of his veteran fighters in a
single day. 11,700 of his 52,000 men were casualties, while Little Mac lost an
amazingly similar, but militarily tolerable, 11,700 of his 75,000.40
These respective casualties of 23 percent and 16 percent demonstrate that this
was a battle Lee should never have fought, one he fought poorly, or both. The
latter appears to have been the case. The Livermore hit ratios for Antietam
were incredibly high for a one-day engagement: 155:156 for the Union and
226:225 for the Confederates.41 Thus, of every 100 Union soldiers,
16 wounded or killed an enemy and 16 were hit; of every 100 Confederates, 23
wounded or killed an enemy and 23 were hit.
Antietam was an unmitigated disaster for
the Confederacy. Its greatest impact may have been that it enabled Lincoln to
claim victory and, on September 22, issue his Emancipation Proclamation. That
dec
Bevin Alexander, Lost Victories, p. 220.
37. Lee
to Jefferson Davis, September 19,1862.
38. Hattaway
and Jones, How the North Won, p. 243.
39. Fox,
Regimental Losses, p. 556; McWhiney and Jamieson, Attack and Die, p. 4.
Livermore, Numbers & Losses, pp. 92-3.
«. Ibid.
laration changed the war from one just to save the Union to
one both to save the Union and to end slavery. Lincoln's shrewd maneuver foreclosed
European intervention on the Southern side.42
Through the Seven Days' Battle, Cedar
Mountain, Second Manassas, Chantilly, South Mountain, Harper's Ferry and
Antietam, Lee's army had suffered an intolerable 45,000 casualties during his
first four months in command.43 His army was exhausted, and
straggling again became a problem. Sent to retrieve absentees from the army,
Brigadier General John R. Jones wrote, "It is disgusting and
heart-sickening to witness this army of stragglers."44
a. Beringer, Richard E.; Hattaway, Herman; Jones, Archer; and
Still, William N. Jr., Why the South Lost the Civil War (Athens: University of
Georgia Press, 1986) [hereafter Beringer et al, Why the South Lost], pp.
169,179.
43. George
Bruce provided a post-war northern perspective: "Confederate writers take
especial delight in recording that General Grant lost 39,000 men in getting his
army to the James River, when he might have reached the same point by the use
of transports with his army intact, but they never mention the fact that Lee in
five months in 1862 had lost nearly 60,000 men in four battles, and still found
Jackson's part of the army one hundred miles south and the remainder only sixty
miles north of their starting-points, Grant, in 1864, moving forward toward final
victory; Lee, in 1862, by his general policy, toward a sure defeat."
Bruce, "Lee and Strategy," in Gallagher, Lee the Soldier, pp. 116-7.
44. Sears,
Landscape, p. 307.
December
1862: Fredericksburg, A Lesson Not Learned
Two days after the bloody battle at
Antietam, Lee's army began its retreat across the Potomac. At midnight,
Brigadier General William N. Pendleton reported to Lee that he had lost all the
reserve artillery to the enemy, but A.P. Hill counter-attacked and discovered
that only four pieces of artillery had been lost. Still hoping to salvage a
major victory from his northern trek, Lee sent his army on a march north toward
Williamsport and Hagerstown but had to give up that dream when problems
developed back at the Sharpsburg crossing. Lee's decimated army then headed
south toward the Shenandoah.1 Lee was still thinking offensively,
however, as he wrote on September 21, "...It is still my desire to
threaten a passage into Maryland, to occupy the enemy on this frontier, and, if
my purpose cannot be accomplished, to draw them into the Valley, where I can
attack them to advantage."2
When McClellan failed to follow Lee into
Virginia, Lincoln made a personal visit to McClellan at the Antietam
battlefield with the specific purpose of prodding him into action. While there,
Lincoln corrected Illinois Senator Ozias M. Hatch when the latter identified
the Union army there as the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln explained, "So it
is called, but that is a mistake; it is only McClellan's body-guard."3
Despite the President's visit and clear intent that McClellan pursue Lee,
Little Mac continued for several weeks more to make excuses instead of war.
Lincoln's exasperation with McClellan was
reflected in his response to one of Little Mac's excuses for his inertia:
"I have just read your dispatch about sore-tongued and fatigued horses.
Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the
Freeman, R.E. Lee, II, pp. 406-8; Sears, Landscape, pp.
307-8.
2. McWhiney
and Jamieson, Attack and Die, p. 71.
3. Sears,
Landscape, p. 325.
battle of Antietam that fatigues anything?"4
As October turned into November, McClellan finally crossed the Potomac in
"pursuit" of Lee, who was in the process of splitting his army
between the Valley and Culpeper Court House. Lincoln told McClellan that he was
closer to Richmond than Lee and had the inside track (the chord of the circle)
to stay there. When Longstreet marched twice as far as McClellan in half the
time and reached Culpeper Court House, that portion of Lee's army was closer to
Richmond than McClellan. Then Lincoln, not surprisingly, removed McClellan
again and named Burnside commander of the Army of the Potomac.5
Burnside, who initially refused the November 9 appointment, accepted it the next
day in order to prevent the honor from going to Joe Hooker, whom he despised.
Lee regretted the change and commented to Longstreet, "We always
understood each other so well. I fear they may continue to make these changes
till they find someone I don't understand."6
As a result of Lee's strategy and tactics,
the Confederates, in the fall of 1862, suffered from a severe shortage of
soldiers. In addition to the 45,000 casualties, Lee's army was missing 20,000
deserters and stragglers.7 Only a few days after Antietam,
therefore, the Confederate Congress raised the draft age to 45 and, thus,
impacted small farm families across the South.8 Congress also
aggravated the slaveholder- freeholder split by exempting one white man on each
plantation with 20 or more slaves.9
Reacting to his extensive losses of
experienced officers, Lee, on November 6, formally reorganized his army into
two corps under two newly-promoted lieutenant generals. Longstreet's 1st Corps
consisted of 31,000 men in five divisions, and Jackson's 2nd Corps was made up
of 34,000 men in four large divisions. On the basis of Lee's recommendations,
Longstreet had been made the senior lieutenant general in the Confederacy on
October 10, and Jackson had been the junior of six lieutenant generals named the
following day.10
Lee meanwhile continued to demonstrate his
Virginia myopia. That November, he still had a reinforced army of 90,000 to
face about 216,000 Union troops in the East, while the western Confederates had
only 55,000 soldiers against Union forces of 180,000. Nevertheless, in
*. Ibid., pp. 330-1.
5. Sears,
McClellan, pp. 334-40.
6. Freeman,
R.E. Lee, II, p. 428.
7. Piston,
Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant, p. 28.
8. Hattaway
and Jones, How the North Won, p. 116.
». Freeman. R.E. Lee, III, p. 254.
Ibid., H, pp. 417-8.
December, he suggested that General Braxton Bragg's Army
might be moved from Tennessee to Virginia.11 Lee's actions reflected
his concern about a new Union offensive. Realizing that Lincoln wanted action,
Burnside initiated a course of action that, ultimately, should have convinced
Lee of the foolhardiness of frontal assaults against modern weaponry. Burnside
decided to take the direct road to Richmond by bridging across the Rappahannock
at Fredericksburg.
On November 17, Burnside's army began
arriving at Falmouth, across the Rappahannock from Fredericksburg.
Unfortunately for him, the bridging equipment arrived days later. Although
Burnside afterwards blamed Washington authorities for this lapse, General
Jacob Cox provided another view: "...I could easily see that if his
supervision of business had been more rigidly systematic, he would have made
sure that he was not to be disappointed in his means of crossing the Rappahannock
promptly." With a little initiative and creativity, Burnside could have at
least ferried most of his men across before the arrival of Longstreet on the
20th. This possibility was demonstrated three weeks later when Burnside rowed
infantry across the river to gain a foothold. The task would not even have been
that difficult because stray cows were fording the river when Burnside first
arrived. By crossing the river earlier and unopposed, the Union forces could
have occupied Fredericksburg and the heights beyond and, thereby, avoided the
disaster that was to follow.12
Because Burnside stayed north of the river,
Lee had sufficient time to move his Army to Fredericksburg and the high ground
overlooking the town and the river. The extent of Burnside's error in not
promptly crossing the Rappahannock is demonstrated by the fact that Jackson's
four divisions did not arrive at Fredericksburg from the Shenandoah Valley
until December 3. Lee, who had belatedly realized and responded to the threat
at Fredericksburg, then made his suggestion that the Army of Tennessee (again facing
a threat to Chattanooga) be brought to Virginia.13
Burnside pressed his offensive even though
he had badly lost the element of surprise. Realizing that Lincoln had fired
McClellan for his timidity and wanted offensive progress, Burnside foolishly initiated
and persisted in a suicidal frontal assault on an enemy occupying the
Lee to Jefferson Davis, December 6,1862, Dowdey and Manarin,
Papers, p. 353.
12. Cox,
Jacob Dolson, Military Reminiscences of the Civil War, 2 vols. (New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1900), I, p. 453; Ambrose, Stephen E„ Halleck:
Lincoln's Chief of Staff (Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University
Press, 1962,1990), p. 98.
13. Nevins,
Ordeal, VI, p. 345; Lee to Jefferson Davis, Dec. 6, 1862, Dowdey and Manarin,
Papers, p. 353.
high ground directly to his front. The persistence and
bravery of the Union soldiers could not overcome the advantages held by the
defenders.
On December 11, Burnside's engineers
attempted to cross the Rappahannock, but Mississippi sharpshooters, under
Brigadier General William Barksdale, kept them from building their pontoon
bridges even when the sharpshooters were fired on by Union artillery from the
Falmouth hills to the north and east. That night, under cover of fog and
darkness, the Yankees, at long last, crossed the river in boats and drove the
Confederates from the town itself. On the 12th Burnside's forces established
footholds on the southwest bank of the river and prepared to launch their
long-delayed assaults. Having postponed his boat crossing for three weeks,
Burnside then faced Confederates entrenched along miles of hills overlooking
Fredericksburg and the Rappahannock River valley.
Early on December 13 the attacking Union
Left Grand Division, specifically the 1st Corps' 3rd Division under Major
General George Gordon Meade, achieved initial success because of a flaw in A.P.
Hill's alignment which left a gap in the Rebel line. The Union breakthrough,
joined by Major General John Gibbon's 2nd Division, was thwarted, and Meade's
and Gibbon's men were driven back by the second line of Rebel defenders. Hill's
mistake, however, resulted in the Rebels losing 3,500 men, while the Yankees
lost 4,000 on the eastern end of the lines.
Meanwhile, a Union disaster was developing
in the town. Burnside's plans for a flanking assault had gone awry because of
his failure to clearly convey his intentions and due to his subordinate
generals' half-hearted efforts. Against the advice of his commanders after the
slaughter became obvious, Burnside ordered attack after attack up Marye's
Heights. All told, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., there were fourteen charges up the
hill. The result was the massacre of brigade after brigade of William H.
French's, Winfield Scott Hancock's, and Andrew A. Humphreys' divisions as
fourteen Confederate guns and six or seven thousand Confederate infantrymen,
often four deep, fired from the heights and from a sunken road behind a stone
wall, eliminating anything that moved on the plateau.
From a nearby location, Rhode Island
Lieutenant Elisha Hunt Rhodes "...could see the long lines of Union troops
move up the hill
and melt away before the Rebel fire."14
General Humphreys wrote to his wife,
I led my division into a desperate fight and tried to take at
the point of a bayonet a stone wall behind which a heavy line of the enemy lay.
The heights just above were lined with artillery that poured upon us round
shot, shell, and shrapnel; the musketry from the stone wall made a continuous
sheet of flame. We charged within 50 yards of it each time but the men could
not stand it.15
There were at least 7,600 Union casualties on the
slaughtering ground in front of Marye's Heights.16
That night and early the next morning, Lee
missed a grand opportunity to annihilate the Union troops massed in
Fredericksburg. The Union soldiers were shocked and dispirited, and they were
trapped against the river with limited means of retreat. Their artillery,
across the river, could provide them no protection at night, in the early
morning mist, or during an attack at close quarters. Lee, however, rejected
advice to assault his vulnerable foe in the town — apparently with the hope
that the Union forces would resume their attack the next day.17 Lee,
thus, returned the favor McClellan had given him by not attacking when Lee kept
his own vulnerable army at Sharpsburg an extra day.18 Although
Burnside may have been relatively stronger at Fredericksburg than Lee had been
at Antietam, after the primary day of fighting, Lee would have been attacking
downhill against only a portion of a completely demoralized Union force that
straddled the Rappahannock River and which could not have utilized its
artillery against a close-quarters attack.19
Rhodes, Elisha Hunt, All for the Union: The
Civil War Diary and Letters of Elisha Hunt Rhodes, edited by Robert Hunt Rhodes
(New York: Orion Books, 1985) [hereafter Rhodes, All for the Union], p. 90.
is. Barry, John M., Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood
of 1927 and How It Changed America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), p.
48.
16. Of Fredericksburg, Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston
commented, "What luck some people have. Nobody will ever come to attack me
in such a place." Johnston to Louis T. Wigfall, December 15, 1862, quoted
in McWhiney and Jamieson, Attack and Die, p. 159.
Lee to Samuel Cooper, "Battle Report
of Fredericksburg Campaign," April 10, 1863, Dowdey and Manarin, Papers,
p. 373; Allan, "Conversations," April 15, 1868, in Gallagher, Lee
the Soldier, p. 13.
18.Fuller, Grant and Lee, pp. 172-4.
I'. Major-General Fuller said, " [At Fredericksburg], on
the morning of December 14, [Lee] erred from over-caution, and as [Captain
C.C.] Chesney says: 'Missed an opportunity of further advantage, such as even
a great victory has rarely offered; it must be borne
Lee almost got his wish for another Union
attack. While the wounded, dead, and a few unscathed survivors spent the night
on Marye's Heights, Burnside gave the order for renewed attacks in the morning.
However, this notion so enraged the Union Grand Division commanders who had
witnessed the day's massacre that they revolted and threatened to resign en
masse. Burnside took the hint, called off the attack, and ordered a retreat
back across the river before Lee could pounce upon the Union army along the
Rappahannock. The next month, Burnside resigned from a job he never wanted when
Lincoln refused to approve his plan to replace most of his subordinate gener-
als.20
It is intriguing to analyze Lee's
observation of the events that cold December day at Fredericksburg. Overlooking
the decimation of the Union forces charging up Marye's Heights, Lee observed,
of the thousands of dead and wounded bodies, "It is well that war is so
terrible; we should grow too fond of it."21 Once again the
attackers' casualties far exceeded those of the defenders; while the Union lost
10,900 (11 percent) killed and wounded, the Confederates lost only about 4,700
(6 percent). The Livermore hit ratios were what could be expected when one side
repeatedly carried out frontal assaults on the other: the Union's was a
devastating 103:44 while the Confederate ratio was a high, but very favorable,
64:150.22 These figures are reminiscent, but the reverse, of those
at the Seven Days' Battle.
Nevertheless, Southern losses were
accumulating, and, that same December, the Confederate Congress abolished the
use of substitutes for draftees and subjected those who had sent substitutes to
the draft themselves.23
As 1862 came to a close and the war entered
its third year, Lee had reason for concern despite his Fredericksburg victory.
In a January, 1863, letter to Secretary of War James A. Seddon, Lee expressed
his concern about his loss of manpower and the need for additional troops:
While the spirit of our soldiers is
unabated, their ranks have been greatly thinned by the casualties of battle and
the diseases of the camp.
in mind that his troops were not on this occasion suffering
from over-marching, want of food and ammunition.'" Ibid., pp. 127-8.
20. Nevins, Ordeal, VI, pp. 366-7.
21 ■ Freeman, R.E.
Lee, p. 462; Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, p. 308; Wert, Long- street,
p. 223.
22 .
Livermore, Numbers & Losses, p. 96.
23 .
McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 603.
More than once have most promising opportunities
been lost for want of men to take advantage of them, and victory itself has
been made to put on the appearance of defeat, because our diminished and
exhausted troops have been unable to renew a successful struggle against fresh
numbers of the enemy. The lives of our soldiers are too precious to be sacrificed
in the attainment of successes that inflict no loss upon the enemy beyond the
actual loss in battle. Every victory should bring us nearer to the great end
which is the object of this war to reach.24
This letter reflects Lee's proclivity for offense rather than
defense because the latter would involve only the mutual exchange of
casualties. His concern about casualties and declining manpower was well-
founded. In Lee's first seven months of command, his army had inflicted 50,000
casualties on the enemy, but it had done so at a cost it could not afford:
about 45,000 casualties of its own. Given the Union's 4:1 manpower advantage,
this was a pace that could not be sustained without fatally weakening the Army
of Northern Virginia and, eventually, subjecting it to a war of attrition,
regardless of its commander's strategy in subsequent years.
What had Lee learned from the Seven Days'
Battle, Second Manassas, Antietam, and Fredericksburg? Had he yet learned the
folly of frontal assaults in this first of modern wars? Did he comprehend the
new-found power of the defense that resulted from rifled guns and artillery?
Did he recognize the similar results that occurred when his troops assaulted
Malvern Hill, when Pope tried to drive Jackson out of the unfinished railroad
cut at Manassas, when both armies charged the other again and again across the
Cornfield at Antietam, or when Burnside ordered fourteen assaults at Marye's
Heights? Did Lee, with his steadily declining personnel, understand the
strategies and tactics which were, in fact, making this war "so
terrible"? The year 1863 would tell.
24. Lee to James A. Seddon, January 10,1863, Dowdey and
Manarin, Papers, p. 389.
.. . ■;
May 1863: Chancellorsville,
The Victory That Wasn't
After Fredericksburg, Burnside attempted,
unsuccessfully, to retain command of the Union troops in Virginia. The final
blow for him was the abysmal failure of his mid-January 1863 attempt to cross
the Rappahannock upstream from Fredericksburg in order to surprise the
Confederates. Nature took over. Fierce storms turned the offensive into the
famous "Mud March," and the Rappahannock was not even crossed.1
On January 25, Lincoln named "Fighting
Joe" Hooker to replace Burnside as Commander of the Army of the Potomac.
Although Lincoln was aware that Hooker had fomented discontent and schemed to
replace Burnside, the President believed he no longer had any choice because
Burnside had lost the confidence of his entire army. In his appointment letter
to Hooker, Lincoln criticized his anti-Burnside conduct and then went on to
challenge Hooker to produce results:
I have heard, in such way as to believe it,
of your recently saying that both the Army and the Government needed a
dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given
you the command. Only those generals who gain success, can set up dictators.
What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship.2
Hooker got off to a great start. He restored the Union
troops' morale by straightening out the supply mess, getting them up to six
months' back pay, and ensuring that they were provided with abundant food,
clothing and other necessities. Hooker reorganized the army and restored both
discipline and morale. One way he did this was by authorizing
1. Nevins,
Ordeal, VI, pp. 366-7.
2. Ibid.,
VI, pp. 433-4; Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, p. 347.
the use of divisional uniform patches, an idea the late General
Kearny had used successfully.
Hooker then went about planning the next
Union offensive. By that time, Lincoln and Halleck had decided that the best
strategy in the East was to go after Lee's army, not Richmond. Lee's continued
aggressiveness in 1863 played into their hands. For his spring offensive,
Hooker would have seven infantry corps of over 15,000 each and about 10,000
cavalry for a total force of about 130,000. His opponent, weakened by the
interminable battles of 1862, would have a mere six infantry divisions
totaling about 50,000 and about 6,000 cavalry.3 In addition, Lee
was hampered by the absence of Longstreet with Hood's and Pickett's divisions,
which were on a major foraging expedition between Richmond and Suffolk in
southeastern Virginia in order to provide food and forage for Lee's troops.
Longstreet originally was defending against the threat posed to Richmond and
Petersburg, by Burnside's 9th Corps.
At that critical April, 1863, juncture, Lee
demonstrated his one- theater mindset and stoutly resisted the use of any of
his army to help in the West. The Union, in March, had moved Burnside's 9th
Corps to the West from the vicinity of Longstreet in southeastern Virginia, and
Lee was content to leave Longstreet far away from Lee's Fredericksburg
position.4 Lee received a report of Burnside's movement on March 28
and was convinced of the report's validity by April l.5
Nevertheless, Lee resisted requests and suggestions by western Confederates,
President Davis, Secretary of War James A. Seddon, and Longstreet that
Longstreet's corps should be sent to the West to counter the increased Union
strength there.6
In early April, Confederate western
Generals John C. Pemberton and the recovered Joseph E. Johnston mistakenly
advised Richmond that Grant, apparently, was moving troops from Mississippi to
Tennessee to join Burnside and Rosecrans. They responded by sending 8,000
troops from Alabama and Mississippi to General Braxton Bragg in Tennessee and
by requesting reinforcements from Lee.
3. Freeman,
R.E. Lee, II, p. 483; Allan, "Conversations," February 19, 1870, in
Gallagher, Lee the Soldier, p. 17.
4. Connolly,
Thomas Lawrence, Autumn of Glory: The Army of Tennessee, 1862-1865 (Baton Rouge
and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1971,1991) [hereafter Connolly,
Autumn of Glory], p. 94.
5. Freeman,
R.E. Lee, II, p. 501.
6. Ibid.,
pp. 503-4; Connolly, Autumn of Glory, p. 104; Woodworth, Steven E., Davis and
Lee at War (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1995) [hereafter Woodworth,
Davis and Lee], pp. 219-21.
On April 6, ironically the same day that
Lee himself observed that the Union apparently "...had a general plan to
deceive us while reinforcing the western armies,"7 Secretary
Seddon requested him to acquiesce in the transfer westward of two or three of
Longstreet's brigades.8 Lee strongly opposed the request and argued,
contrary to his usual advocacy of concentration of forces,9 that
separate Confederate forces should launch separate offensives from Mississippi
to Maryland.10 He minimized the threat to Vicksburg by stating,
"If the statements which I see in the papers are true, Genl Grant is
withdrawing from Vicksburg, and will hardly return to his former position there
this summer."11 Lee wanted to move north and did not want to
give up any of his troops; weeks before he had ordered the preparation of maps
from the Shenandoah through Harrisburg to Philadelphia.12
When Seddon came back with a renewed and
expanded request for some of Longstreet's forces, Lee came up with a new set of
objections. Lee claimed that the forage Longstreet was gathering was critical
to an imminent move north by Lee to test Hooker's strength, to ascertain the
distribution of Union troops between the East and West, and to attempt to drive
Hooker north of the Potomac. He suggested that Tennessee be strengthened by
moving troops from Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, and Vicksburg ~ anywhere but
from Virginia!13 Learning that Grant actually had not moved forces
to Tennessee, and yielding to Lee, Davis and Seddon sent reinforcements to
Bragg in Tennessee only from Beauregard in the southeast.
As soon as he was assured that he was not
going to lose any troops, Lee's plans for an early northern offensive
disappeared and he left Longstreet where he was. Lee remained concerned about
his supplies, but he remained optimistic that the northern will to win could
be destroyed:
I do not think our enemies are so confident of success as
they used to be. If we can baffle them in their various designs
7. Hattaway
and Jones, How the North Won, p. 362.
8. James
A. Seddon to Lee, April 6,1863.
9. Hattaway
and Jones, How the North Won, p. 362.
,0. Lee to James A. Seddon, April 9,1863; Lee to Jefferson
Davis, April 16, 1863: Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, pp. 429-30, 435.
"[Lee's] new theories were rationalizations. Like his emphatic reaction,
these were subconsciously designed to forestall the diminution of his army and
prevent the derangement of his own plans for the spring campaign."
Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, p. 363.
Lee to General Samuel Cooper, Adjutant and Inspector General,
April 16, 1863, Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, p. 434.
12. Woodworth, Davis and Lee, pp. 220-1.
Ibid., pp. 433-4.
this year & our people are true to our cause & not so
devoted to themselves and their own aggrandisement, I think our success will
be certain. But it will all come right. This year I hope will establish our
supplies on a firm basis. On every other point we are strong. If successful
this year, next fall [1864] will be a great change in public opinion in the
North. The Republicans will be destroyed & I think the friends of peace
will become so strong as that the next administration will go in on that basis.
We have only therefore to resist manfully.14
Lee's refusal to part with any of his men,
however, had left the western Confederates shorthanded in two geographic areas.
Johnston and Pemberton would be unable to deal with the imminent movement by
Grant on Vicksburg, and the fall of that Mississippi River citadel within three
months was not a good omen for the 1864 Presidential election. Just as
ominously, Bragg's army in Tennessee also went un- reinforced against a
stronger opponent; it ran out of meat and was short on rations while it
occupied an area from which all crops and livestock were being shipped to Lee.15
Back on the eastern front, beginning on
April 26, Hooker made a major feint by crossing the Rappahannock with two corps
below Fredericksburg, but he made his major effort surreptitiously west of the
town. On the 29th three entire corps crossed the Rappahannock far upstream at
Kelly's Ford and then pushed southward toward the fords of the Rapidan River.
That same evening, they reached the Rapidan, secured Ely's Ford, and crossed
Germanna Ford to the west. By April 30, the brilliant and undetected move was
completed with the securing of U.S. Ford across the Rappahannock downstream of
its merger with the Rapidan, the crossing of that ford by two more corps, and
the resultant reuniting of the bulk of Hooker's army at the key Chancellorsville
crossroads on the left flank of Lee.16
Hooker issued a blustering general order
bragging that "...the operations of the last three days have determined
that our enemy must either ingloriously fly or come out from behind his
defenses and give us battle on our own ground, where certain destruction awaits
him."17 Even Union General George Meade, no friend of Hooker,
exclaimed
14. Lee
to his wife, April 19,1863, Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, pp. 437-8.
15. Connelly,
Autumn of Glory, p. 114.
16. For
details concerning Chancellorsville, see Sears, Stephen W., Chancellorsville
(Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1996) [hereafter Sears,
Chancellorsville]; Fur- gurson, Ernest B., Chancellorsville 1863: The Souls of
the Brave (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992) [hereafter Furgurson,
Chancellorsville]; Freeman, R.E. Lee, II, pp. 507-63.
17. Sears,
Chancellorsville, p. 192; Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, p. 379.
that day, "Hurrah for old Joe! We're on Lee's flank and
he doesn't know it."18
Hooker was now in a position to march south
out of the Wilderness and interpose the bulk of his army between Lee and
Richmond — unless Lee hastily retreated toward Richmond or Gordonsville, which
is what Hooker expected. At worst, Hooker presumed, Lee would attack the Union
forces in a way that Hooker could fight with superior numbers from a strong
defensive position.
In deploying his forces, Hooker had made
one major error; he had sent his cavalry, under Major General George Stoneman,
on a raid far to the south. Hooker intended that Stoneman would cut Lee's
supply- line and prevent him from retreating to Richmond. These intentions were
not realized because of bad weather, Stoneman's incompetence, and Hooker's
confusing orders. Not only was Stoneman's cavalry held in check by part of Jeb
Stuart's Rebel cavalry, but this cavalry deployment left Hooker blind as well.
Without the eyes of his cavalry, Hooker had no idea of the whereabouts of his
opponent. As long as Jackson was alive, this was a fatal mistake.
Having been caught napping by Hooker's
fleet, flanking thrust, an unhealthy Lee responded quickly and effectively.19
On April 30 and May 1, Lee left Jubal Early with a small force to defend
Fredericksburg and moved the divisions of Richard Anderson, McLaws, and then of
Jackson westward to stop the Yankees from escaping the Wilderness. Despite
Hooker's overwhelming superiority of forces, especially at the beginning of the
battle, he lost his self-confidence and retreated back into the Wilderness on
May 1 at the first sign of opposition.20
That opposition came as Jackson arrived
from Fredericksburg at the commanding Zoan Church ridge east of the Wilderness.
Jackson found Anderson's Division entrenching, but ordered them to attack
instead. The combined Confederate divisions drove the Union forces back with
aggressive, patchwork attacks along the only two roads and an unfinished
railroad running west from Fredericksburg to the Wilderness. Instead of
capitalizing on his advantageous position threatening the rear of
Fredericksburg and the road to Richmond, Hooker had failed to move east and
south and, instead, simply consolidated
18. Sears,
Chancellorsville, p. 180.
19. In
April 1863 Lee had been suffering from a throat and chest infection, probably
aggravating his underlying arteriosclerotic health problems. Hattaway and
Jones, How the North Won, p. 379.
20. There
has been a continuing dispute whether Hooker, a heavy drinker, lost his self-
confidence because he had temporarily stopped drinking or because he had lapsed
into drinking again. Sears, Chancellorsville, pp. 504-6.
the bulk of his huge army in the Wilderness (minus the 6th
Corps opposite Fredericksburg and Stoneman's cavalry).
Unlike Hooker, Lee had retained some
cavalry, under the leadership of Jeb Stuart, in the vicinity. This action
quickly bore fruit. On the afternoon and evening of May 1, Stuart and Brigadier
General Fitzhugh Lee (Robert's nephew) discovered that Hooker had left his
right flank, west of Chancellorsville, hanging in the air (that is, not
protected by a river, ridge, or other natural feature nor bent back, entrenched
and supported).
That exposed flank proved irresistible to
Lee and Jackson. That night, Lee discussed the situation with the daring and
dependable Jackson. Jackson proposed, and Lee agreed, that a surprise flanking
march to the west and north should be made by Jackson to attack that inviting
Union right flank the next day. Stonewall proposed that he be given two-thirds
of the 45,000 men Lee had brought out of Fredericksburg, and Lee consented.21
With a mere 15,000 facing the bulk of Hooker's army, Lee distracted Union
attention away from Jackson's march and camouflaged his own weakness by
brazenly initiating minor assaults along the lines throughout the day. Under
Lee's direction, therefore, Anderson's and McLaws' divisions succeeded in distracting
Hooker without bringing about a major battle.
This daring gamble, which avoided a frontal
attack on the numerically superior Army of the Potomac, proved successful. The
now- insecure Hooker ignored repeated reports that Rebel forces were marching
around his Army toward that hanging right flank he also had ignored. Shortly
before dark, Jackson ascertained that Brigadier General Robert E. Rodes was
"ready" and gave him the bland order, "You can go forward
then." Major portions of Jackson's 30,000-man corps came crashing down the
Orange Turnpike, caused panicked wildlife to flee toward the Union lines,
caught unwary Union troops cooking their evening meals, and decimated the right
wing of the Union army.
However, there were several flaws in
Jackson's march and attack, which rendered it less effective than it otherwise
might have been. The 7:30 a.m. starting hour for the march was about three
hours later than usual for Jackson. Also, the generally westward march was not
conducted quickly enough to ensure its full success. Because of narrow roads
and paths, it took twelve hours for the ten-mile march and setup of the attack.
Early reports that the exposed flank was on the Orange Plank Road proved false,
and additional time and daylight were consumed marching farther north to the
Turnpike before turning east to
21. Freeman, Lee's Lieutenants, II, pp. 546-7; Alexander, Lost
Victories, pp. 304-5.
prepare for the attack. The cumulative delays resulted in the
attack starting between 5:15 and 6 p.m. ~ so close to sunset that it could not
be fully developed and the initial Union surprise and panic could not be
totally exploited. After the assault, James Coghill of the 23rd North Carolina
wrote, "A yankey Colonel that we took prisoner said that if we had to have
kept on we would have captured the whole army.. Z'22
The attack itself was hampered by the fact
that many of Jackson's men did not get involved. Brigadier General Alfred H.
Colquitt, an incompetent Georgia political general, severely reduced the
impact of the lead division's five-brigade attack by stopping his own brigade,
on Jackson's right flank, and by blocking Brigadier General Stephen D.
Ramseur's North Carolina Brigade behind him. Colquitt, thus, took at least 20
percent of the leading edge of the attacking force out of the attack by
ignoring Jackson's orders to stop for nothing and, instead, heeding a false
warning from a staff member that Union troops were on their right flank.
The rout on the Union right, nevertheless,
was a major success, and Major General Oliver O. Howard's 11th Corps fled
eastward for more than two miles into a gap left by Major General Daniel Edgar
Sickles' 3rd Corps, most of which had moved south to attack Jackson's rear
guard in the area of Catherine Furnace. But there would be hell to pay by the
Confederates for the time-consuming manner in which the surprise attack had
been arranged and then unfolded.
Darkness, confusion, and heroic stands by
some Union forces brought the advance to a halt. In particular, General Rodes'
front-line division was devastated and stopped by cannon fire from Fairview
Plateau. The following division, that of the inexperienced Brigadier General
Raleigh E. Colston, became badly intermingled with Rodes' division beginning
shortly after the assault started. Colston himself described the chaotic
situation: "Brigades, regiments, and companies had become so mixed that
they could not be handled, besides which the darkness of evening was so
intensified by the shade of the dense woods that nothing could be seen a few
yards off. The halt at that time was not a mistake but a necessity."
General Rodes later explained why it was necessary to call a halt to the charge
at about 7:15: "Such was the confusion and darkness that it was not deemed
advisable to make a farther advance."23 Then the accidental
shooting of Jackson by his own men as he sought a route to the Union rear in
the moonlit darkness took the heart out of the Confederate momentum. His
successor, A.P.
Sears, Chancellorsville, p. 280.
Sears, Chancellorsville, p. 287.
Hill, also was injured that evening, and cavalryman Jeb
Stuart assumed command of Jackson's corps early the next morning.
Jackson and his moonlit party had been
decimated by fire from the 18th North Carolina Infantry when they tried to
return to the Rebel lines and were mistaken for Union cavalry. Jackson's left
arm was shattered by two bullets, and his right palm was struck by a smoothbore
musket bullet. He endured a painful Utter ride to a field hospital, where his
medical director amputated his left arm just below the shoulder. When informed
of Jackson's condition, Lee said, "...Any victory is dearly bought which
deprives us of the services of General Jackson, even for a short time."24
Days later, Lee added, "He has lost his left arm, but I have lost my
right."25 Eight days later, Jackson died of pneumonia at nearby
Guinea Station, and Lee lost the only corps commander who was compatible with his
own hands-off style of command.
Jackson's assault also took a heavy toll on
Jackson's attackers. Although they routed the shocked infantry at the point of
assault, the Rebels met more and more resistance as they advanced down the Turnpike
past its intersection with the Orange Plank Road. Particularly devastating to
them was the Union artillery (twenty or more guns at Hazel Grove and
thirty-four more at Fairview Plateau) that blunted their progress. A Federal
artillery officer described the scene:
It was dusk when [Jackson's] men swarmed
out of the woods for a quarter of a mile in our front... They came on in line
five and six deep... I gave the command to fire, and the whole line of
artillery was discharged at once. It fairly swept them from the earth; before
they could recover themselves the line of artillery had been loaded and was
ready for the second attack... [against which] I poured in the canister for
about twenty minutes, and the affair was over.26
Another problem resulting from Jackson's
flanking march was that Lee's forces were separated and vulnerable to a
counter-attack — especially the two smaller contingents with Lee south and east
of Chancellorsville and with Early back at Fredericksburg. Although the inept
Hooker failed to take advantage of this situation, Stuart and Lee were left
with no choice but to launch desperate offensives the next morning from the
west and south, respectively, toward Chancellorsville so that they could join
their forces.
Freeman, R.E. Lee, II, p. 533.
25. Ibid.,
p. 560.
26. McWhiney
and Jamieson, Attack and Die, p. 4.
Hooker made their task easier that night by
ordering the evacuation of Hazel Grove, the commanding prominence in the
middle of the Wilderness, which was an ideal artillery position and the key to
the battlefield. On the advice of then-Colonel Porter Alexander, Stuart gave
the orders that resulted in the dawn capture of Hazel Grove from its Union
remnants. Alexander posted fifty guns on Hazel Grove and devastated Union
forces to the north and east. Because of Hooker's failure to use more than half
of his forces in the fighting (possibly due, in part, to his having been
knocked unconscious by a shell fragment from one of Alexander's guns), the
Confederates' attack and effort to merge their divided forces were successful —
although costly in terms of dead and wounded.
Unlike during the surprise attack of the
prior afternoon and evening, Lee's men, on that May 3 morning, had to push
back prepared Union lines in the defender-friendly confines of the Wilderness
in order to merge and incurred heavy losses in doing so.27 By the
end of that morning, Lee's forces east and south of Chancellorsville, aided by
ill- conceived Union withdrawals, merged with Stuart's men coming in from the
west. Together, they pushed back the tenacious, but poorly- led, Union troops
and captured the Chancellorsville intersection. There followed a wild
celebration as General Lee rode in on Traveller and accepted the accolades of
his gritty fighters. That emotional scene may have been the apex of the
Confederacy.
The celebration did not last long, however.
No sooner had Lee and Stuart joined their forces when serious problems
developed with Early's small, isolated force at Fredericksburg. Lee received
word that John Sedgwick's 6th Corps had broken through Early's defenses at
Fredericksburg, and Lee then moved east with McLaws' Division and some of
Anderson's to block Sedgwick at Salem Church from getting through to Hooker. At
that point, Hooker missed a grand opportunity to squeeze Lee's forces between
Sedgwick's troops and his own. Instead, Lee blocked and then trapped the
slow-moving Sedgwick east of Salem Church, west of Fredericksburg and south of
the Rappahannock. Although hemmed in by the passive McLaws on the west, the
late- arriving Anderson on the south, and an aggressive Early on the east,
Sedgwick defended his position skillfully, killed and wounded many overly
aggressive Confederate attackers, and then escaped north across
27. Krick, Robert K., "Lee's Greatest Victory,"
American Heritage, 41, No. 2 (March 1990),
pp. 66, 77. Stuart lost thirty percent of Jackson's remaining
troops in bloody attacks on entrenched Union troops. Bevin Alexander, Lost
Victories, p. 318. The fighting that morning cost the Confederates almost 9,000
dead, wounded and missing. Sears, Chancellorsville, p. 365.
the Rappahannock via Scott's Ford on the night of May 4-5.
In E. Porter Alexander's opinion, Lee
wasted a whole day setting up his trap for, and initiating his attack on, the out-numbered
Sedgwick instead of going after him immediately.28 This gave
Sedgwick time to entrench and, ultimately, to escape. All the while Lee was trying
to trap and destroy Sedgwick, the hapless Hooker stood by and did nothing while
his forces remaining in the Chancellorsville area outnumbered Lee's there by a
four-to-one margin.
Never one to pass up an opportunity to
attack, Lee hurried back to Chancellorsville on May 5 after Sedgwick's
nighttime retreat in an effort to assault Hooker's forces before they could
similarly retreat across the Rappahannock ~ at U.S. Ford. General Winfield
Scott Hancock was overseeing an orderly and well-defended retreat, and Lee was
fortunate not to have had the opportunity to attack. In fact, according to E.
Porter Alexander, Lee was saved from disaster by Hooker's May 5-6 retreat back
across the river:
There was still another occasion when I recalled ruefully
Ives's prophecy that I would see all the audacity [on Lee's part] I wanted to
see, & felt that it was already over fulfilled: but when, to my intense
delight, the enemy crossed the river in retreat during the night, & thus
saved us from what would have been probably the bloodiest defeat of the war. It
was on the 6th of May 1863 at the end of Chancellorsville... Hooker's entire
army, some 90,000 infantry, were in the Wilderness, backed against the Rapidan
[actually the Rappahannock], & had had nearly three days to fortify a short
front, from the river above to the river below. And, in that dense forest of
small wood, a timber slashing in front of a line of breastworks could in a few
hours make a position absolutely impregnable to assault. But on the afternoon
of the 5th Gen. Lee gave orders for a grand assault the next morning by his
whole force of about 40,000 infantry, & I was all night getting my
artillery in position for it. And how I did thank God when in the morning the
enemy were gone!29
Bitterly disappointed at the failure to
launch the ill-conceived offensive that he had hoped would bring a grand
victory, Lee erupted when Brigadier General Dorsey Pender reported to him that
the Federal entrenchments had been abandoned overnight.30 He
demeaned
2S. Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 213. 2'.
Ibid., p. 92.
30. Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, p. 385.
him by saying, "Why, General Pender! That is the way you
young men always do. You allow those people to get away. I tell you what to do,
but you don't do it! Go after them! Damage them all you can!"31
Chancellorsville, Jackson's last battle,
also proved to be Lee's last major "victory." The classic flanking
maneuver employed by Jackson was not to be repeated. After Jackson's death
there was no one forceful enough (and only Longstreet apparently tried) to
convince Lee of the necessity of preserving his most precious resource, his
army, by remaining on the defensive whenever possible and by flanking, rather
than frontally assaulting, superior enemy forces. There also was no one left
capable of converting Lee's discretionary orders into daring success on the
battlefield.32
Although often regarded as Lee's greatest
victory, Chancellorsville was a tribute to the incompetence of Hooker under
fire and, most importantly, was a disaster for the South.33 Hooker
had sent his cavalry away from the battle, failed to use much of his infantry,
meekly surrendered one strong position after another, and failed to take advantage
of his artillery superiority. Nevertheless, after the havoc wreaked by
Jackson's flanking maneuver, the Confederates decimated themselves in a series
of frontal attacks on Union defenders. As a result, while inflicting 10,700 (11
percent) northern casualties (killed and wounded), the Rebels themselves
suffered an intolerably high — and irreplaceable - almost 11,100 (19 percent)
casualties (killed and wounded) of their own. The total numbers killed and
wounded on the two sides were about equal, and even a few more Confederates
were killed.34
Although each side had relatively balanced
Livermore hit ratios, the Confederate numbers were much higher. For each 1,000
engaged, the Union side had suffered 114 hit and had hit 114 of the enemy,
while of each 1,000 Confederates, 187 were hit and 194 hit the enemy.35
As
31. Furgurson,
Chancellorsville, p. 318.
32. On
several occasions, Jackson had recommended flanking offensive campaigns into
the North, but Lee and Davis rejected his recommendations. Alexander, Great
Generals, pp. 123-42; Allan, "Conversations," December 17,1868, in
Gallagher, Lee the Soldier, p. 15; Alexander, Lost Victories, passim.
33. "[Chancellorsville]
looked to be a great Confederate victory, but the appearance was
deceiving." Alexander, Lost Victories, p. 322.
Livermore, Numbers & Losses, pp. 98-9.
Stephen Sears states that the Confederates had 30 more soldiers killed than the
Union and only 439 fewer wounded. Sears, Chancellorsville, p. 442. Although
most later authorities use larger numbers than Livermore for Hooker's forces
and those numbers reflect a greater manpower disparity, those larger numbers
also reduce the casualty percentage suffered by Hooker's army. See Appendix II
herein, "Casualties in the Civil War."
35. Livermore, Numbers & Losses, pp. 98-9.
these hit ratios indicate, Lee's forces were much more active
than their opponents, were often on the offensive, and thus incurred higher
losses. Outnumbered 4 to 1 at the outset of the war and devastated by their
1862 losses, the Confederates could not afford many more battles in which they
suffered 19 percent casualties to their foe's mere 11 percent.
His numerical losses were serious enough to
cause Lee to change his Army's manner of counting casualties by eliminating
"slight injuries," to complain of his numerical inferiority, and to
make one of his periodic appeals to President Davis for reinforcements from
elsewhere.36 With both Vicksburg and Chattanooga threatened, Lee opposed
sending one of Longstreet's divisions to the West and argued to Secretary of
War Seddon that, unless he was reinforced, he would have "...to withdraw
into the defences around Richmond... The strength of this army has been reduced
by the casualties in the late battles."37 The next day, Lee
wrote Davis: "It would seem therefore that Virginia is to be the theater
of action, and this army, if possible, ought to be strengthened... I think
that you will agree with me that every effort should be made to reinforce this
army in order to oppose the large force which the enemy seems to be
concentrating against it."38
Chancellorsville demonstrated Lee's
propensity for offensive strategy and tactics. It also displayed his
Virginia-only focus as he refused to part with Longstreet beforehand and
sought reinforcements afterward. While his focus on Virginia had serious
ramifications elsewhere, Lee's aggressive strategy and tactics again resulted
in irreplaceable losses to his own army.
Perhaps as damaging as Lee's actual losses
was the over- confidence that Chancellorsville inspired in Confederate minds ~
particularly in the mind of Robert E. Lee.39 On May 21, Lee wrote
to Hood about the men in the Army of Northern Virginia:
I agree with you in believing that our army would be invincible
if it could be properly organized and officered. There never were such men in
an army before. They will go anywhere and do anything if properly led.40
Every tactical gamble Lee had taken appeared to have been
successful, the enemy had been driven from the field and across the Rappahan-
36. General
Order No. 63, May 14,1863, Fox, Regimental Losses, p. 559.
37. Lee
to James A. Seddon, May 10,1863, Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, p. 482.
M. Lee to Jefferson Davis, May 11,1863,
Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, pp. 483-4.
3®. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p.
645; Woodworth, Davis and Lee, p. 230.
40. Lee to John B. Hood, May 21,1863, Dowdey and Manarin,
Papers, p. 490.
nock, and there seemed no task beyond the capability of his
brave army. Lee's actions in the succeeding weeks reflected a fatal belief that
the Army of Northern Virginia was invincible.41 His belief,
according to E. Porter Alexander, was shared at that time by his army:
But, like the rest of the army generally, nothing gave me
much concern so long as I knew that Gen. Lee was in command. I am sure there
can never have been an army with more supreme confidence in its commander than
that army had in Gen. Lee. We looked forward to victory under him as
confidently as to successive sunrises.42
Lee's over-confident army, however, had seen its last major
"victory."
41. Pfanz, Harry W., Gettysburg: The Second Day (Chapel Hill
and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1987) [hereafter Pfanz, The
Second Day], p. 4.
a. Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 222.
Confederate General George Edward Pickett. After the Union
army turned back Pickett's charge, Robert E. Lee ordered him to rally his
division for a renewed assault. The 38-year-old general responded, "I have
no division now." After the war, Pickett recalled bitterly how Lee had his
division "slaughtered at Gettysburg." (LC)
July 1863:
Suicide at Gettysburg
Lee, with Jackson no longer at his side,
next made the fateful decision to invade the North ~ a decision that carried
him to Gettysburg and destroyed the possibility of a Confederate military (but
not necessarily a political) victory. He did so only after rejecting pleas
that he send part of his army to rescue the 30,000 troops being bottled up near
Vicksburg, Mississippi, by Ulysses S. Grant. Secretary of War Seddon and
Longstreet recommended to President Davis either that course of action or a
reinforcement of Bragg for an assault on Middle Tennessee. They could have
argued that Chancellorsville demonstrated that Lee could survive and even win
without Longstreet.1
Between May 14 and 17, while Grant took
Jackson, Mississippi, and moved toward Vicksburg, the Confederacy's leadership
met in Richmond to debate the issue of whether or not to send some of Lee's
troops to trap Grant between Jackson, Mississippi, and John Pember- ton's
30,000-man army in Vicksburg. Using all the political capital earned by his
Chancellorsville "victory," Lee was able to convince Davis that
Richmond would be threatened if Lee's army was reduced in strength and that the
best defense of Richmond would be an offensive campaign into the North. Lee
demonstrated his lack of a national strategic vision by arguing that this issue
was a "...question between Virginia and the Mississippi." He also
argued that the oppressive Mississippi climate would cause Grant to withdraw
from the Vicksburg area in June.2
McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, pp. 646-7.
2. Lee's arguments are reflected in his letters of April and
May 1863. Lee to James A. Seddon, April 9,1863; Lee to Samuel Cooper, April
16,1863; Lee to Jefferson Davis, April 16, 1863; Lee to James A. Seddon, May
10, 1863; Lee to Jefferson Davis, May 11, 1863; Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, pp.
430-1, 433-4, 434-5, 482, 483-4. See Connelly, Thomas Lawrence and Archer
Jones, The Politics of Command: Factions and Ideas in Confederate Strategy
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1973) [hereafter Connelly and
Jones, Politics of Command], p. 126-8.
Lee prevailed, and, on May 26, the
Confederate Cabinet authorized him to launch a northern offensive in the East.
As Lee moved north, he unrealistically wrote to Davis that his eastern
offensive might even result in the Union recalling some of its troops from the
West. Lee hedged his bet by coupling this statement with a request that troops
be transferred to Virginia from the Carolinas to protect Richmond, threaten
Washington, and aid his advance.3 Although Longstreet acquiesced in
Lee's strategic offensive, he spent a great deal of time trying to convince
Lee to go on the tactical defensive once in the North in an effort to repeat
the victory at Fredericksburg. Confederate General Wade Hampton later
complained that he thought the Pennsylvania campaign would enable the
Confederates to choose a battlefield but that, instead, "...we let Meade
choose his position & we then attacked."4
There is evidence in Lee's correspondence that
he went north with mixed intentions. These are reflected in two June 25 letters
Lee wrote to Davis. In the first, he said, "I think I can throw Genl
Hooker's army across the Potomac and draw troops from the south, embarrassing
their plan of campaign in a measure, if I can do nothing more and have to
return."5 Later that day, he seemed to reflect Longstreet's
view: "It seems to me that we cannot afford to keep our troops awaiting
possible movements of the enemy, but that our true policy is, as far as we can,
so to employ our own forces as to give occupation to his at points of our own
selection."6
General E. Porter Alexander later stated
that sending troops to the West would have been a better use of them, would
have taken advantage of the South's interior lines, and was successful when
used that
3. Lee
to Jefferson Davis, June 23, 1863, Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, pp. 527-8;
Hatta- way and Jones, How the North Won, pp. 401-2, 404. Steven Woodworth noted
that, "Calling for Beauregard a month earlier, when the northern invasion
itself was still being debated by the cabinet, would have made fatally obvious
to the cautious president that what Lee had in mind was an all-out end-the-war
gamble." Woodworth, Davis and Lee, pp. 238-9.
4. Hatfaway
and Jones, How the North Won, p. 414.
5. Lee
to Jefferson Davis, June 25,1863, Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, pp. 530, 531.
6. Lee
to Jefferson Davis, June 25, 1863, Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, p. 532. Bruce
criticized Lee's post-battle rationale that he wanted to draw Hooker away from
the Rappahannock and maneuver to gain a battlefield victory; "This
discloses a piece of strategy with no definite objective, but one resting on a
contingency. There is certainly something quixotic in the idea of moving an
army two hundred miles for the purpose of finding a battlefield, leaving his
base of supplies one hundred miles or more at the end of the railroad at
Winchester, when able to carry along only ammunition enough for a single
battle, as was necessarily the case." Bruce, "Lee and Strategy"
in Gallagher, Lee the Soldier, p. 117.
autumn (at Chickamauga) under less favorable circumstances.7
Lee's failure to send troops to either Vicksburg or middle Tennessee, in order to
maintain his own army at full strength, was a significant factor in the fall of
Vicksburg, the loss of the Mississippi River (a maritime highway and line of
supply) to Union control, a retreat by Bragg out of middle Tennessee and
northern Alabama after he had been forced to send troops to aid Vicksburg, the
exposure of Chattanooga to Union capture, and the continuing Union success in
the West that, ultimately, would spread through Georgia to Lee's own back door.
As Archer Jones explained, "This opening of the Mississippi had a
profound effect by spreading hope in the North for an early victory and in the
South widespread pessimism."8
The Confederate Army of Tennessee had been
considerably weakened that spring and summer because the Confederate commissary
in Atlanta shipped massive foodstuffs to Lee and virtually nothing to Bragg.9
Not only did Lee refuse to send troops to the West, but he implored Bragg to
invade Ohio to complement his own planned incursion into Pennsylvania.10
He did this at a time when Bragg had only 50,000 troops in Tennessee which were
being used either to hold Tennessee or to send assistance to Vicksburg. At the
time, Union strength in the West was 214,000 men.11
Gettysburg ~ the finale to Confederate
military prospects in the East — exposed Lee at his worst. As was the case when
he went north in 1862, an embarrassing retreat and perceived defeat were
inevitable.12 General Alexander later expressed his concern that
Lee's nearest ammunition supply railhead was at Staunton, Virginia, 150
wagon-miles
7. Alexander,
Fighting for the Confederacy, pp. 219-20.
8. Jones,
"Military Means," in Boritt, Why the Confederacy Lost, p. 67.
9. Connelly,
Autumn of Glory, p. 114.
10. Connelly,
"Lee and the Western Confederacy," p. 124.
n. Ibid. "Lee's Pennsylvania campaign demanded that the
Confederacy not use eastern reserves to attempt to lift the Vicksburg siege;
Bragg, weakened to aid Johnston [near Vicksburg], was driven from Middle
Tennessee by Rosecrans's brilliant Tullahoma campaign; and Johnston's fragment
was too small to operate effectively against the heavily reinforced
Grant." Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, p. 415.
12. Beringer et al, Why the South Lost, pp. 264, 300; Jones,
Archer, Civil War Command & Strategy (New York: The Free Press, 1992)
[hereafter Jones, Command & Strategy], p. 168; "If on the other hand
[Lee] fought a battle in Pennsylvania, he could choose his position and compel
the Union army to fight another battle of Fredericksburg [what Longstreet
recommended and Lee did not do]. But again Lee overlooked the political effect
of fighting. Even a victorious defensive battle would look like a defeat
because of the inevitable retreat of a raiding army forced to concentrate and
unable to forage." Jones, "Military Means," in Boritt, Why The
Confederacy Lost, p. 68.
from Gettysburg.13 Just as in 1862, Lee was moving
north with a badly- weakened army but was blinded by its tactical success
earlier in the year.14 In addition, Lee spread his forces all around
south-central Pennsylvania without knowing the location of the Army of the
Potomac.
In going north again, Lee was demonstrating
his flawed philosophy that the best defense was a good offense.15
He hoped to draw Hooker's army out of Virginia and have the two armies live off
the Pennsylvania countryside during the summer and early fall. He succeeded in
taking everyone north, but his stay was shorter than he had hoped, and his
ultimate retreat to the Rappahannock line gave the appearance of defeat to
those not mesmerized by the myth of his invincibility. Gettysburg was Lee's
final majorj strategically offensive campaign.16
Following Chancellorsville and Jackson's
death, Lee reorganized his 75,000-man army. From two infantry corps of four
divisions each, he created three corps, each having three divisions. The 1st
Corps was commanded by Longstreet, the 2nd by Ewell, and the 3rd by A.P. Hill.
Neither Ewell nor Hill had worked directly under Lee's command; neither of them
was a Stonewall Jackson. Lee's offensive strategy and tactics had adversely
affected the entire command structure of his army.17 Lee's failure
to adjust his style, expectations, and orders to the poorer and
less-experienced generals in his army, especially after Chancellorsville, would
prove to be troublesome and even disastrous.
Jeb Stuart commanded the cavalry division,
and his swashbuckling style led to serious problems soon after Lee's army
started north on June 3. On the eve of this departure on a major invasion of
the North, Stuart's cavalrymen seemed less interested than usual. One
Confederate captain later explained that the troops were "...worried
13. Alexander,
Fighting for the Confederacy, pp. 110,222.
14. "Rather
than a menace, Lincoln perceived Lee's raid, like the previous advance to
Antietam, as an opportunity to strike the enemy when vulnerable and far from
his base, "the best opportunity' he said, "we have had since the war
began."' Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, p. 400.
15. In
1868 Lee allegedly told William Allan that his intentions in moving north were
defensive: "First [Lee] did not intend to give general battle in Pa. if
he could avoid it—the South was too weak to carry on a war of invasion, and his
offensive movements against the North were never intended except as parts of a
defensive system." Allan, "Conversations" in Gallagher, Lee the
Soldier, p. 13. Lee's actions in 1862 and 1863 seem inconsistent with that
description.
16. Perhaps
the best study of Lee's Gettysburg campaign is Coddington, Edwin B., The
Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,
1984) [hereafter Coddington, Gettysburg Campaign],
Weigley, American Way of War, p. 116.
out by the military foppery and display (which was Stuart's
greatest weakness)."18
Lee's lax oversight of Stuart and the
cavalry arm of his Army led to one near-disaster and to one real disaster.
Stuart's cavalry was supposed to have been protecting Lee's right flank and
hiding his northward movement from Yankee eyes. On June 5, Stuart's
approximately 9,500 officers and men held a grand parade at Brandy Station
close by the Orange and Alexandria Railroad ~ to the joy of the local ladies
and to the disgust of the Confederate infantry.19 The only
disappointment was that the Commanding General could not be there. But Stuart
received another opportunity to strut his forces when Lee arrived on the 7th
and requested another review the next day. Thus, the cavalry's spectacle was
repeated on June 8th, one day before the date Lee had ordered them to move
across the Rappahannock to cover the continuing northward march of Ewell and
Longstreet.20 Lee himself was pleased; he wrote to his wife,
"...I reviewed the cavalry in this section yesterday. It was a splendid
sight. The men & horses looked well. They had recuperated since last fall.
Stuart was in all his glory."21
Early the next morning (June 9), the
Confederates, instead of moving out themselves, were caught off-guard by a dawn
attack launched by Brigadier General Alfred Pleasonton's Union calvary. Eleven
thousand Union troopers crossed the Rappahannock at Beverly's Ford and, a few
miles south, at Kelly's Ford; they launched attacks on Stuart's scattered
forces. They got all the way to Brandy Station and Stuart's headquarters at
nearby Fleetwood House before being repulsed by superior numbers of Confederate
cavalry under Brigadier Generals Rooney Lee (Robert E. Lee's son) and William
E. "Grumble" Jones, with their horse artillery, and, ultimately,
Rebel infantry. Stuart almost lost his artillery, and an all-day battle swirled
around Fleetwood Hill, which changed hands four times. Union losses were about
900 to the Rebels' 500, but the Northern horsemen achieved their goal of
pinpointing the location of the bulk of the Army of Northern Virginia while
demonstrating, for the first time, their ability to initiate and sustain a
credible offensive.
Thus, Stuart's grand parades for Lee had
been capped at Brandy Station by an early morning Union cavalry attack which
had caught the
18. Gallagher,
Gary W., "Brandy Station: The Civil War's Bloodiest Arena of Mounted
Combat," Blue b Gray Magazine, VIII, Issue 1 (Oct. 1990), pp. 8-22, 44-53;
p. 13.
19. Blackford,
William Willis, War Years with Jeb Stuart (Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana
State University Press, 1945,1993), pp. 211-2.
Ibid., pp. 212-3.
21. Lee to his wife, June 9,1863, Dowdey and Manarin, Papers,
pp. 506-7.
Rebels unprepared and which had been repulsed only by the
bravery of the Southerners' horse artillery, their superior numbers, and the advantage
of being on the defensive. The Battle of Brandy Station was a tactical draw but
a Union strategic victory, and it marked the end of the dominance of the
Confederate cavalry over their Union counterparts. Lee's son, Rooney, was
gravely wounded at Brandy Station and then was kidnapped by Union troops later
that month.
Embarrassed by his lack of preparedness and
near-defeat at Brandy Station, Stuart sought to redeem himself later in June by
setting off on another grand swing around the Union army. Lee, instead of
reining in the flamboyant Jeb, provided Stuart with such ambiguous orders that
Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania and most of the battle at Gettysburg were
carried out without knowledge of his adversaries' whereabouts. Amazingly, Lee
repeated the same error Hooker had just committed when he stripped himself of
cavalry for the entire battle at Chancellorsville. Lee allowed Stuart to depart
with half his cavalry and to take along his best subordinate commanders, Major
General Wade Hampton and Brigadier General Fitzhugh Lee, while leaving the weak
Brigadier General Beverly Robertson to screen and scout for the army commander.
How could this have happened? Simply,
Stuart had a series of orders to choose from and decided upon the most glorious
opportunity offered to him. On June 22, with Ewell already in Pennsylvania and
Stuart still in Virginia, Stuart received the following orders from Lee:
If you find that [Hooker] is moving northward, and that two
brigades can guard the Blue Ridge & take care of your rear, you can move
with the other three into Maryland & take position on General Ewell's
right, place yourself in communication with him, guard his flank, keep him
informed of the enemy's movements, & collect all the supplies you can for
the use of the army.22
Lee sent those orders, with an accompanying note, to
Longstreet, who then forwarded the orders to Stuart with a cover letter
stating:
[Lee] speaks of your leaving, via Hopewell Gap, in the Bull
Run Mountains and passing by the rear of the enemy. If you can get through by
that route, I think you will be less likely to indicate what your plans are
than if you should cross by passing to our rear... I think that your passage of
the Potomac by our rear at the present moment will, in a measure,
Lee to J.E.B. Stuart, June 22,1863, Dowdey and Manarin,
Papers, p. 523.
disclose our plans. You had better not leave us, therefore,
unless you can take the proposed route in rear of the enemy.23
The very next day, in Rectortown, Maryland, Stuart received
another set of orders, dated June 23, from Lee:
If Genl Hooker's army remains inactive you can leave two
brigades to watch him & withdraw the three others, but should he not appear
to be moving northward, I think you had better withdraw this side of the
mountain tomorrow night, cross [the Potomac] at Shepherdstown next day, &
move over to Fredericktown.
You will however be able to judge whether you can pass around
their army without hinderance, doing them all the damage you can, & cross
the river east of the mountains. In either case, after crossing the river, you
must move on & feel the right of Ewell's troops, collecting information,
provisions, &C.24
Utilizing the confusing discretion Lee had provided to him,
Stuart engaged in a meaningless frolic-and-detour and did not rejoin Lee until
late the second day at Gettysburg. Stuart decided to pass behind the Union army
and cross the Potomac east of the Blue Ridge Mountains after effectively
screening Lee's northward movement in successful cavalry actions at Aldie, Middleburg,
and Upperville. Thus, on June 24, he left Salem, Virginia, moved south of
Manassas Junction, crossed the Occoquan and Potomac Rivers, moved eastward
through Rockville and north through Westminster in Maryland, before finally
entering Pennsylvania near Hanover. Although then only a few miles east of
Gettysburg, Stuart had no idea where Lee was and, therefore, headed north to
Carlisle instead of west to Gettysburg. All the while, Stuart was slowed down
by a captured wagon train which he regarded as precious booty.
As a result of this eight-day "ego
trip," Stuart did not join Lee at Gettysburg until the evening of July 2 —
too late to be of any assistance. Lee had to learn, on June 28, from a spy of
Longstreet's, of George Made's appointment to succeed Hooker and of Meade's
army's northward movement across the Potomac. Lee had no idea which Union
corps were going to arrive when at Gettysburg, and, on the critical second day
of July, he had to base his plan of battle on skimpy and incorrect information
concerning Union strength in the area of the Round
23. James
Longstreet to J.E.B. Stuart, June 23,1863, quoted in Freeman, R.E. Lee, III, p.
44.
24. Lee
to J.E.B. Stuart, June 23,1863, Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, p. 526.
Tops south of Gettysburg. Although Lee rebuked Stuart upon
his tardy arrival at Gettysburg by saying, "Well, General Stuart, you are
here at last,"25 Lee had only himself to blame for letting his
strong-willed cavalry commander get away from his army.26
Lee's vague orders to Stuart presaged a
series of such orders which plagued the Confederates throughout the entire
Gettysburg campaign. Some defenders of Lee have attempted to justify Lee's ambiguous
orders as an essential part of his aggressive tactics and strategy. If so,
dangerously vague orders may also be seen as another disadvantage of the
offensive style of warfare that lost the war.
While Stuart campaigned east of the Blue
Ridge, Lee was having success to the west. Ewell's 2nd Corps led the northward
sweep and routed the 9,000 Yankee defenders of Winchester, Virginia, on June 14
and 15. Word of the rout reached Richmond the next day, when Confederate Chief
of Ordnance Josiah Gorgas ominously noted Lee's movement in his journal:
"What the movement means it is difficult to divine. I trust we are not to
have the Maryland campaign over again."27
After Winchester, Ewell, A.P. Hill, and
Longstreet moved their respective corps, in that order, through Sharpsburg and
Hagerstown, Maryland, and across the Mason-Dixon Line into the Cumberland
Valley of Pennsylvania. Ewell moved his leading corps through Cham- bersburg
and then eastward through the mountains to York and Carlisle.
In the midst of this movement, Lee finally
revealed to Davis the scope of his planned offensive by belatedly requesting
back-up diversionary reinforcements. On June 23, and twice on June 25, he
wrote to Davis that an army should be raised in the Southeast under General
Beauregard and moved to Culpeper Court House to threaten Washington.28
In one of the June 25 letters, he explained that his own northward movement
"...has aroused the Federal Government and people to great exertions and
it is incumbent upon us to call forth all our ener
25. Freeman,
Lee's Lieutenants, III, p. 139.
26. In
addition, Lee had skilled cavalry with him, including the Sixth, Seventh,
Eleventh and Thirty-fifth Virginia cavalry regiments (heroes of Fleetwood Hill
at Brandy Station), that he could have used for scouting purposes, but did not.
Nevertheless, after the war, Lee blamed Stuart for disobeying orders, keeping
Lee uninformed and thereby forcing the fighting at Gettysburg. Allan,
"Conversations," April 15, 1868 and February 19, 1870, in Gallagher,
Lee the Soldier, pp. 13-4,17.
27 Wiggins, Sarah Woolfolk (ed.), The Journals of Josiah Gorgas
1857-1878 (Tuscaloosa and
London: The University of Alabama Press, 1955) [hereafter
Gorgas, Journals], p. 70. 28. Lee to Jefferson Davis, June 23 and 25, 1863,
Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, pp. 527-8, 530-1,532-3.
gies."29 Lee's unrealistic, but typical,
suggestion to reinforce Virginia overlooked the facts that Pemberton was
trapped in Vicksburg and that Beauregard already had sent reinforcements to the
West.
By June 28, Ewell was in position to move
on the Pennsylvania capital of Harrisburg. Meanwhile Lee, unaware of the
whereabouts of the Union army, was with Hill and Longstreet back at
Chambersburg. That night, Lee learned from Thomas Harrison, one of Longstreet's
spies, that Major General George Gordon Meade had replaced the hapless Hooker
as commander of the 95,000-man Army of the Potomac and that his army had moved
north to Frederick, Maryland. Lee decided to take them on by moving his entire
army east of the mountains. Realizing the necessity of concentrating his numerically-inferior
force but not sure where the enemy was, Lee sent orders to Ewell to head back
toward either Cashtown or Gettysburg.30
Day one of Gettysburg (July 1, 1863)
included a near-disaster, a fortuitous success, and a missed opportunity for
Lee's army. On the prior day, the Confederates had discovered a division of
Federal cavalry under Brigadier General John Buford at Gettysburg when they
headed there in hopes of obtaining shoes from local factories. Thus, the next
morning a stronger Confederate force, the divisions of Major Generals Henry
Heth and Dorsey Pender of Hill's Corps, headed east from Cashtown toward
Gettysburg to deal with Buford.
Because of Stuart's absence and Lee's
consequent ignorance concerning the whereabouts of General Meade's forces,
Heth's and Pender's infantry divisions found more than they had bargained for.
Initially they were handicapped by the fact that at least two-thirds of Lee's
army was going to have to use a single route, the Chambersburg Pike or Cashtown
Road, to get to Gettysburg. Heth, under somewhat puzzling orders from Lee not
to bring on a general engagement, pushed ahead with two brigades. Why was Heth
sent against a position known to be held by Union forces if he was not to
bring on a general engagement? Was he to stand in place when he encountered
resistance and back up two-thirds of Lee's army on a single road?
On June 30, Buford had astutely recognized
the tactical value of the high ground south of Gettysburg and decided to save
it for the main Union army once it arrived. Instead of putting his own cavalrymen
on those hills, therefore, he deployed them during the night west and north of
the town so they could delay the Confederates until Union infantry arrived. He
sent word to his superior, General Pleasonton, the
29. Lee
to Jefferson Davis, June 25,1863, Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, p. 531.
30. Pfanz,
The Second Day, p. 20.
Army of the Potomac's cavalry commander, that A.P. Hill's
corps was massed back of Cashtown nine miles west and that Hill's pickets, composed
of infantry and artillery, were in sight. He also passed along rumors that
Ewell was coming south over the mountains from Carlisle.31
In a fierce struggle that began at 5:30
a.m. on July 1, Buford's cavalry stubbornly resisted the 7,500-man advance of
Brigadier Generals James J. Archer's and Joseph R. Davis' brigades of Heth's
Division. With the firing of the first shot, Buford had sent word of the
fighting to Major General John Fulton Reynolds, commander of the 1st Corps.
Reynolds, then eight miles away at Emmitsburg, Maryland, ordered his 9,500 men
to shed their baggage and speedily march to Gettysburg.
Buford sent skirmishers west on the
Chambersburg Pike to Herr's and Belmont School House ridges west of his
McPherson's Ridge campsite. Their determined resistance, aided by Spencers and
other repeating rifles, forced the Confederates to spend more than a precious
hour deploying into a battle line. While this was going on, Reynolds arrived
and conferred with Buford about the critical situation. Reynolds then went
back to hasten his infantry to the front, sent word to Oliver O. Howard to
speed his 11th Corps to Gettysburg, and sent a message to Meade advising him
that Gettysburg was to be the collision point of the East's two armies.
Heth, enjoying momentary superiority,
ordered his two brigades forward. Buford's skirmishers grudgingly gave up the
forward ridges and a small stream called Willoughby Run. They gradually fell
back to McPherson's Farm on McPherson's Ridge only a mile west of Gettysburg.
Buford sent a message to Meade describing the battle, stating that A.P. Hill's
entire corps was moving on Gettysburg, and advising that Confederate troops had
been discovered approaching Gettysburg from the north.32
The nature of the battle changed when
Reynolds' men, led by the Iron Brigade, began arriving at the scene shortly
after 10 a.m. That proud brigade was the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division of the
1st Corps of the Army of the Potomac and was composed of stalwart, black-
hatted troops from the Upper Midwest. Reynolds was instantly killed
Luvaas, Jay and Nelson, Harold W. (ed.),
The U.S. Army War College Guide to the Battle of Gettysburg (Carlisle,
Pennsylvania: South Mountain Press, Inc., 1986), p. 5; Krolick, Marshall D„
"Gettysburg: The First Day, July 1, 1863," Blue & Gray Magazine,
V, Issue 2
(Nov. 1987), pp. 8-20 [hereafter Krolick, "The First
Day"], pp. 14-15. On Buford's critical role on June 30 and July 1 at
Gettysburg, see Longacre, Edward, General John Buford: A Military Biography
(Conshohocken, Pennsylvania: Combined Books, 1995), pp. 179-203; Krolick,
"The First Day." 32. Krolick, "The First Day," p. 15.
by a Rebel sharpshooter while directing his troops in an
assault on Archer's brigade. Nevertheless, this Union counter-attack was devastating
and resulted in the killing, wounding, or capturing of much of that brigade,
including the apprehension of General Archer himself. The blue-clad forces
drove the Confederates back toward Herr's Ridge. Buford's brilliant delaying
tactics had saved the day and, perhaps, the entire battle; and Reynolds had
arrived in the nick of time to repel the first serious Confederate assault at
Gettysburg.
Back at Cashtown, Lee had heard the sounds
of battle and started toward Gettysburg. The impact of Stuart's absence was
reflected in Lee's comment as he headed toward the fateful battlefield: "I
cannot think what has become of Stuart; I ought to have heard from him long
before now... In the absence of reports from him, I am in ignorance of what we
have in front of us here. It may be the whole Federal army, or it may be only a
detachment. If it is the whole Federal force, we must fight a battle here ..
,"33
As the Union forces gained strength, so did
Lee's. Down Mum- masberg Road from the northwest came Rodes' 8,000-man division
of Ewell's 2nd Corps, which had been as far north as Carlisle. They arrived
about 11 a.m., the same time as forward elements of Howard's 11th Corps arrived
to impede their advance. Because of Reynolds' death, Howard had assumed overall
command of the Union forces and Major General Carl Schurz had taken command of
the 11th Corps. At about noon Rodes' artillery began shelling the Union lines,
and by 2 p.m., his infantry launched an assault on Schurz' troops north of
town. At about the same time, Meade learned of Reynolds' death and dispatched
Winfield S. Hancock from Taneytown to go to Gettysburg to take command (even
though the unreliable Howard was senior to him).
Rodes' five-brigade attack from the
northwest was uncoordinated and ineffective. Brigadier General Alfred Iverson,
Jr.'s Brigade was slaughtered and then pinned down by Union troops who may have
fired 100,000 shots at them from behind a stone wall. Iverson lost more than
900 of his 1,400 men, and that 66 percent casualty rate was the highest for any
Rebel brigade at Gettysburg.34 Rodes failed to break through the
11th Corps' lines, and the Confederate situation looked bleak. Good fortune,
however, arrived at around 3 p.m. in the person of Jubal Early and his 5,500-man
division (also of Ewell's Corps).
33 Coddington, Gettysburg Campaign, p. 281.
34. Kross, Gary, "That One Error Fills Him with Faults:
Gen. Alfred Iverson and His Brigade at Gettysburg," Blue & Gray Magazine,
XII, Issue 3 (February 1995), pp. 22, 52-3.
Moving from Carlisle toward Cashtown, Early had heard the
battle and headed south on roads approaching Gettysburg from the north and
north-northeast. These approaches brought Early's division in on Schurz' right
and, more importantly, east of Schurz' exposed right flank.
Although the arrival of Rodes' and Early's
divisions of Ewell's 2nd Corps prevented a disastrous defeat of A.P. Hill's men
coming down the bottle-necked Chambersburg Pike, their earlier arrival would
have been even better. Because of Stuart's absence and Lee's subsequent
ignorance of the Union army's precise location, Lee had ordered Ewell to march
from Carlisle to either Cashtown or Gettysburg. Ewell's choice of Cashtown
resulted in a several-hour delay in his corps' arrival at Gettysburg. Had
Ewell been ordered to march directly to Gettysburg, his men should have been
able to drive out Buford's and Reynolds' troops, reduce Hill's and their own
casualties, and occupy the high ground above the town before the arrival of
Union reinforcements.
But this was not the end of the problems
that resulted from Lee's ignorance of the Union army's whereabouts. Lee, still
at Cashtown as the morning fighting erupted in Gettysburg, was advised by a messenger
from Ewell, Major G. Campbell Brown, that Ewell was heading south toward the
sounds of battle. Lee asked about Stuart, ordered Ewell to send scouting
parties to look for Stuart, and then, incredibly, told Major Brown that he
(Lee) did not want a major engagement brought on.35
Even worse, Lee then used the critical
Chambersburg Pike to send Ewell's other division (under Major General Edward
"Old Allegheny" Johnson) and Ewell's entire ten-mile-plus train of
wagons eastward toward Gettysburg. That division and Ewell's train were on the
same road as Hill's and Longstreet's Corps because of Lee's Cashtown-or-
Gettysburg orders to Ewell. Lee's use of the Chambersburg Pike for a crucial
ten-hour period to move Ewell's wagon-train, estimated at fourteen miles long
by McLaws, compounded the bottle-neck on that road. Meade, on the other hand,
had his army marching full-bore for Gettysburg on several roads with its trains
behind.36 Lee's action delayed the arrival near Gettysburg of
Longstreet's leading divisions, those of McLaws and Hood, until midnight and
later.37 Incredibly, Lee
35. Pfanz, The Second Day, p. 22.
Ibid., p. 23.
37. Pfanz made this Lee-Meade comparison and also concluded,
"Obviously [Lee] did not expect a battle that would limit his army's ability
to maneuver as early as 1 July or he
had bottle-necked seven of his nine divisions on a single
road and, thereby, retarded their arrival for both the first and second days of
battle at Gettysburg.38
Nevertheless, as a result of Early's
fortuitous afternoon arrival on the field, when Lee arrived on Herr's Ridge
from Cashtown, he observed the pleasing panorama of Schurz' line crumbling and
those Union troops starting to retreat. Lee hastily sent Heth's badly beaten-
up division and Dorsey Pender's fresh brigade into the fray west of town at
around 3:30. Initially, Lee did not hesitate to take advantage of his momentary
numerical and positional superiority and the opportunity to destroy two Union
corps before Meade had his whole army up.
Between 3 and 5 o'clock in the afternoon on
Day 1, it looked like Gettysburg was going to be a great victory for Lee.
Ewell's two- division attack from the north forced Howard's flanked corps,
under Schurz' command, to flee south in disarray into Gettysburg and through
the town to Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill. When Schurz' soldiers disappeared
from their right flank, the exhausted Union 1st Corps troops, who had been
defending the Chambersburg Pike approach west of town for several hours, had
no choice but to retreat to Seminary Ridge by 4 o'clock and, ultimately, to
Cemetery Hill.
Hancock arrived at Cemetery Hill before 4
o'clock in time to see the massive retreat of two Union corps. He sent some
troops to the unoccupied Culp's Hill, and started the men entrenching. At
around 5 o'clock, Slocum began arriving with his 8,500-man 12th Corps, but it
deployed along Cemetery Ridge south of the high ground. Therefore, an immediate
attack by all of Lee's forces had an excellent chance of dislodging the minimal
Union forces from their position on the heights (Cemetery and Culp's Hills).
The likelihood of their success was demonstrated by Ewell's near-success on
those same hills 24 hours later.
Even though Stonewall Jackson was dead, Lee
persisted in issuing ambiguous orders that only Jackson could have turned into
victories. Lee, with at least a 35,000 to 21,000 manpower superiority through
the late afternoon and evening, did not aggressively take charge of the field
nor order any of Hill's troops to their front and left to join or support an
attack by Ewell on the two hills. Ewell and Early were on their own. At that
point, Ewell should have had over 10,000 men still able to attack - especially
5,000 relatively fresh men in four brigades of Early's division. Early's men
were actively pursuing the Union troops through
would not have given hundreds of wagons precedence over much
needed infantry." Ibid., p. 22.
38. Wert, Longstreet, p. 255.
the town and could have continued up the hills while panic
reigned. Instead, Early halted the pursuit because of a report from William
("Extra Billy") Smith's Brigade of Union troops coming in from the
east; worse, Early sent another brigade (Gordon's) off to that quarter, and
both brigades were left off to the east until the next day.39
Early then went looking for Ewell.
Receiving Early's report and conflicting information concerning Union strength
on Culp's Hill, Ewell decided not to assault.
With Union troops in chaotic retreat
through the town, Lee committed two egregious errors. First, he failed to take
firm control of all troops he had on hand and deploy them for a
maximum-strength attack on the 80-foot-high Cemetery Hill and the
100-foot-high Culp's Hill, the dominant heights in the immediate vicinity of
the town. He ignored all troops other than Ewell's, particularly A.P. Hill's,
and, thus, failed to take advantage of his numerical superiority.
Second, at 4:30 he issued a merely
discretionary order, via Major Walter Taylor, to the stalled Ewell to take the
high ground. Given the critical nature of the situation, Lee's orders to Ewell
were appalling: Ewell was to take the heights "...if he found it
practicable, but to avoid a general engagement until the arrival of the other
divisions of the army," which were being hurried to Gettysburg.40
This order seems inexplicable because there had been a general engagement since
about dawn that day, the remaining Confederate forces were caught in a
Chambersburg Pike traffic jam, and the Union presence could only increase. In
the absence of a mandatory order to immediately take those critical positions,
Ewell, not surprisingly, failed to move on Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill before
the out-numbered and disorganized Union forces there had dug in and been
reinforced.
Even the arrival at dusk of Ewell's third
division, that of "Old Allegheny" Johnson, was not sufficient to
encourage the reticent Ewell, unmoved by Lee's weak order, to take the high
ground - at the very least the dominant heights of Culp's Hill. Virtually all
of Ewell's generals urged an assault on the high ground; they included Early,
who had passed up the earlier opportunity to do so when he alone would have
been responsible.41 Major General Isaac R. Trimble asked for a
single regiment to take the two hills and stalked away in disgust when Ewell
3'. Pfanz, Harry W., Gettysburg-Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill
(Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1993)
[hereafter Pfanz, Culp's and Cemetery Hills], pp. 67-9.
40. Ibid.,
p. 72; Coddington, Gettysburg Campaign, p. 315.
41. Wert,
Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant, p. 49.
declined to attack.42 At the same time, Lee
deliberately and inexplicably held the nearby, unbloodied troops of Major
General Richard H. Anderson's division in Hill's corps in reserve apparently
because Lee's whole army was not yet concentrated and he lacked information on
the enemy's strength.43 For these reasons, leading Gettysburg
historian Edwin B. Coddington concluded, "Responsibility for the failure
of the Confederates to make an all-out assault on Cemetery Hill on July 1 must
rest with Lee."44 That was the only time on July 1 that either
side did not immediately use (usually successfully) all the forces it had
managed to get to Gettysburg.
Lee's, Ewell's and Early's hesitation
proved disastrous. Lee's failure to take full advantage' of his temporary
superiority and to issue a definitive attack order to Ewell left his enemy in
control of the high ground for the final two days of the battle. As a result,
Union forces retained the commanding heights which Buford, Reynolds, and Hancock
had successively determined to protect and hold because they were the key to
battlefield control at Gettysburg.
Lee's reticence to command an all-out
assault on the first day at Gettysburg appears to have been due to his desire
to have his entire Army there before undertaking a "general
engagement." This approach seems strange in light of the facts that even a
greater proportion of the Union army was absent, that, on the afternoon of July
1, Lee outnumbered his adversary, and that every passing hour allowed the
Yankees to move toward numerical and positional parity and then superiority.
On the morning of July 2, Lee expressed his
disappointment concerning the events of the previous late afternoon: "We did
not or could not pursue our advantage of yesterday and now the enemy are in a
good position."45 This amounted to a rebuke of Ewell, but Lee
must have known that he bore at least as much responsibility as Ewell for the
Army's failure to seize the commanding heights on that vital first day at
Gettysburg. With Confederate losses (killed, wounded and missing) at 6,500 and
Union losses at 9,000, Lee had won an engagement but had missed an opportunity
to win the Battle of Gettysburg.
By the next morning, the situation had
seriously changed. Hancock's 13,000-man 2nd Corps and Major General Dan
Sickles' 12,000-
12. Freeman, Lee's Lieutenants, III, pp. 94-5.
Coddington, Gettysburg Campaign, pp. 316-7;
Gallagher, "'If the Enemy Is There, We Must Attack Him': R.E. Lee and the
Second Day at Gettysburg," pp. 497-521, in Gallagher, Lee the Soldier, p.
508.
**. Coddington, Gettysburg Campaign, p. 320. William Garrett
Piston concluded likewise. Piston, Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant, p. 49.
Freeman, R.E. Lee, III, p. 91; Pfanz, The Second Day, p. 111.
man 3rd Corps arrived by early morning. Thus, instead of
three corps with 21,000 men on the battlefield, the Union now had five corps
and 46,000 men. Two more corps (the 5th and 6th Corps) with 28,000 more men
were forced-marched about thirty and thirty-six miles, respectively, to get
there that day. Instead of scrambling to find any kind of position as they had
done on the prior day, the northerners had established a strong line running
from near Little Round Top (two miles south of town) north along Taneytown Road
and Cemetery Ridge to Cemetery Hill and then curving east to Culp's Hill and
southeast parallel to the Baltimore Pike. The Yankees now had superior
numbers, an imposing defensive position and the advantage of interior lines
(which permitted them to quickly move soldiers to threatened points in their
lines). Meade's army had 27,000 men per mile along a three-mile in-
verted-fishook line, Lee's army had 10,000 men per mile along a five- mile
semi-circle.46 That disparity augured ill for Lee's army.
On July 2, Lee erred again - in several
ways. Without Stuart's cavalry to advise him accurately on the enemy's
positions, Lee ordered skimpy and, consequently, inadequate reconnaissance of
the Union left. Somehow, these small scouting parties failed to detect Federal
forces on the south end of Cemetery Ridge and on, and in front of, the Round
Tops. As a result, he erroneously believed that the prominent hills, Little
Round Top and the more southern Big Round Top, and the areas around them were
not occupied by Union troops.47
Lee ordered Longstreet, with his two
delayed and exhausted divisions, to undertake a several-mile march and then to
attack the left flank of the Union forces. In doing so, Lee ignored
Longstreet's astute advice to move south of Gettysburg, seek a strong defensive
position and await a Union attack.48 Longstreet had learned the
Civil War's major lesson: frontally-attacking armies paid a high price.
Late the prior afternoon, Longstreet and
Lee had watched the retreat of the Yankee forces to the high ground
immediately south of Gettysburg and discussed what to do the following day.
Longstreet wanted to turn the Union left flank, establish a strong position and
await an attack.49 Ironically, at about that same hour, Union
General Hancock was sending a message to Meade that the Union's strong position
would be difficult to take but could be turned.50 Lee's response to
Longstreet, however, was, "If the enemy is there tomorrow, we must
46. Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, p. 406.
Coddington, Gettysburg Campaign, pp. 372-4.
«. Ibid., pp. 360-3.
Ibid.
s". Ibid., p. 324.
attack him."51 Longstreet argued that the
Union forces would be compelled to attack any Confederate force placed between
them and Washington and that bringing on this Fredericksburg-type situation was
consistent with a strategically offensive and tactically defensive campaign,
which is what Longstreet thought had been agreed upon. Perhaps desperate for a
convincing victory to justify his gamble on the invasion of the North and
concerned about his medium-term supply situation, Lee insisted upon an attack.
Their climactic dialogue on this subject
went about as follows:
Lee: They are in position, and I am going to whip them or
they are going to whip me. If the enemy is there tomorrow, we must attack him.
Longstreet: If he is there tomorrow, it will be because he
wants you to attack ~ a good reason, in my judgment, for not doing so.52
In his Gettysburg Battle Report, Lee later
justified his deliberate offensives of July 2nd and 3rd on the grounds that
retreat would have been difficult and awaiting attack was impractical because
of foraging difficulties.53 General E. Porter Alexander had the
following thoughts about Lee's rationale:
Now when it is remembered that we stayed for three days
longer on that very ground, two of them days of desperate battle, ending in the
discouragement of a bloody repulse, & then successfully withdrew all our
trains & most of the wounded through the mountains; and, finding the
Potomac too high to ford, protected them all & foraged successfully for
over a week in a very restricted territory along the river, until we could
build a bridge, it does not seem improbable that we could have faced Meade
safely on the 2nd at Gettysburg without assaulting him in his wonderfully
strong position. We had the prestige of victory with us, having chased him off
the field & through the town. We had a fine defensive position on Seminary
Ridge ready at our hand to occupy. It was not such a really wonderful position
as the enemy happened to fall into, but it was no bad one, & it could never
have been
Ibid., p. 361; Pfanz, The Second Day, p. 26.
52. Pfanz
states that the exact dialogue will never be known. Pfanz, The Second Day, pp.
26-7.
53. Lee
to Samuel Cooper, Battle Report of Gettysburg Campaign, January 20, 1864, Dow-
dey and Manarin, Papers, p. 376.
successfully assaulted... We could even have fallen back to
Cashtown & held the mountain passes with all the prestige of victory, &
popular sentiment would have forced Meade to take the aggressive.54
Not only were there problems with Lee's
offensive strategy on July 2, but his execution of it proved disastrous. Lee
again failed to give clear and forceful orders to Ewell's corps, and the result
was an abysmal lack of coordination between the Confederates' attacking left
and right flanks. Lee's plan called for Ewell to demonstrate against the Union
right and to attack if an opportunity developed and for Longstreet to attack
the Union left. Even though Ewell's timidity had clearly been demonstrated the
previous day, Lee failed to adequately oversee his efforts on the 2nd. As a
result, the day passed with no assault by the Confederate left wing to divert
attention from Longstreet's attack on the Confederate right.55
Likewise, Lee failed to see, personally or
through staff, the execution of his orders on the right flank. No one
ascertained the precise, secure route that Hood's and McLaws' divisions of
Longstreet's corps needed to take to reach their attack positions. This lack of
oversight compounded Longstreet's difficulties in proceeding to the southern
Union flank without being observed by the Yankees. Lee's subordinate, E. Porter
Alexander, commented on this particular situation:
That is just one illustration of how time may be lost in handling
troops, and of the need of an abundance of competent staff officers by the
generals in command. Scarcely any of our generals had half of what they needed
to keep a constant & close supervision on the execution of important
orders. An army is like a great machine, and in putting it into battle it is
not enough for its commander to merely issue the necessary orders. He should
have a staff ample to supervise the execution of each step, & to promptly
report any difficulty or misunderstanding. There is no telling the value of
the hours which were lost by that division that morning.56
Some of the post-war defenders of Lee and
critics of Longstreet, such as Jubal Early57 and William Pendleton,58
contended that Lee had
Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, pp. 233-4.
55. Lee
to Samuel Cooper, Battle Report of Gettysburg Campaign, January 20, 1864, Dowdey
and Manarin, Papers, p. 577.
56. Alexander,
Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 236.
57. Piston,
Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant, p. 118.
5S. Coddington, Gettysburg Campaign, p. 270.
ordered Longstreet to attack at dawn. There is no credible
evidence to support this contention. Alexander commented that this position was
not believable, that Lee would have ordered Longstreet's troops into position
during the night if he had desired a dawn attack, and that the enemy's position
was never thoroughly determined until morning.59 Lee, having
personally delayed Longstreet's divisions for ten hours the prior afternoon and
having caused them to arrive near Gettysburg in the wee hours of July 2, was
well aware of their inability to initiate an early morning assault in a
position miles away from their bivouac. Because of Chambersburg Pike
congestion, Longstreet's two primary divisions to be used in the attack had
arrived near Gettysburg at midnight (McLaws' Division) and dawn (Hood's
Division).
In fact, Lee ordered a scouting expedition
around dawn and was not in a position to order an attack until he had specific
information, based on daylight observations, on whom should be attacked where.60
At about 11 a.m., Lee finally issued his only specific attack order of
the day, directing Longstreet to proceed south to get into position to attack.61
In addition, Lee specifically consented to
Longstreet's request that his attack be delayed until Brigadier General Evander
Law's Brigade of Hood's Division could be brought up.62 Law, another
victim of the Chambersburg Pike bottle-neck, had set out at about 3 a.m. and
had arrived on scene at around noon. In light of his actions and knowledge, Lee
could not have expected an attack before mid-afternoon. Even Douglas Southall
Freeman, who severely criticized Longstreet for delaying the attack, contended
that Lee virtually surrendered control to Longstreet and concluded, "It is
scarcely too much to say that on July 2 the Army of Northern Virginia was
without a commander."63 As commanding general of that army and
on-scene commander of the battle, Lee was responsible for where and when
Longstreet attacked.
As Longstreet proceeded on his southward
march toward the Union left, he received reliable scouting reports that the
Union left flank was "hanging in the air" and could be rolled up.
Twice he passed
59. Alexander,
Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 237.
60. Pfanz,
The Second Day, p. 106. Pfanz also says there were other early morning probes
of the Union left by Colonel Armistead H. Long and General William N.
Pendleton, the latter a major pro-Lee, anti-Longstreet commentator in the post-war
decades. Ibid., pp. 105-6.
Coddington, Gettysburg Campaign, p. 378; Freeman, R.E. Lee,
III, p. 93; Freeman, Lee's Lieutenants, III, p. 115.
62. Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 278;
Coddington, Gettysburg Campaign, p. 378.
03. Freeman, R.E. Lee, III, p. 150.
this information on to Lee and requested permission to launch
a flanking attack. Lee declined, however, and repeated his order to attack ~
probably under the erroneous impression that he still was ordering a less
sweeping flanking attack. McLaws' and Hood's divisions had difficulty finding
their way on unfamiliar roads to their designated attack positions and even had
to turn back and retrace their steps when they discovered that a point on the
line of march was visible from a Union signal station on Big Round Top. They
were being guided by Captain Samuel L. Johnston of Lee's staff, and Lee himself
rode part of the way south with Longstreet.64 Lee oversaw and
approved Longstreet's troop dispositions.65
Beginning their attack after 4 p.m.,
Longstreet's forces fought bravely in the Wheatfield, at the Peach Orchard, and
at the Devil's Den and almost succeeded in capturing both Big Round Top and
Little Round Top. The near-success at all those locations indicates what a
brilliant victory might have been achieved if Lee had turned Long- street's men
loose for a flanking attack instead of squandering them in frontal assaults
along the Union lines on Cemetery Ridge. Stonewall Jackson was dead, and the
Lee-Jackson charismatic relationship, which had been present at Second Manassas
and Chancellorsville, had no worthy successor.
Nevertheless, the attack on the afternoon
of July 2 still had prospects for success had it been properly planned,
executed, and supervised. Union General Sickles had presented Lee with a grand
opportunity by advancing his 3rd Corps, contrary to the orders he had received
from Hancock, into a vulnerable position in the Peach Orchard along Emmitsburg
Road well in front of the intended Union line along Cemetery Ridge. Instead of
simultaneously attacking the north-to- south Union line along their entire
front, however, the Confederates attacked in piecemeal fashion. Hood's Division
first attacked the Union left flank for an extended period of time before
McLaws' Division was ordered to attack Sickles' center and right. This
staggered, or en echelon, attack enabled the Union defenders to respond to
each successively threatened position.
When Hood, McLaws and their brigadiers had
first gotten into position, they had been surprised to find large Union troop
concentrations in areas they had been informed were devoid of enemy forces.
Both Hood and McLaws sought Longstreet's permission to avoid the desperate
frontal assault they envisioned, but Longstreet, having failed
M. Coddington, Gettysburg Campaign, pp. 378-81; Freeman, R.E.
Lee, III, pp. 95-7.
65. Piston, Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant, pp. 55-8.
numerous times to change Lee's mind over the previous
twenty-four hours, directed that Lee's attack order be carried out.66
In addition, Lee personally refused Hood's final request to send a brigade
around the Union flank on the Round Tops.67
Each of the individual Confederate attacks
was successful in driving back the enemy and capturing territory, but their
overall impact was greatly reduced by uncoordinated timing. The attacks did
not begin until 4:30 p.m. First, Hood's men attacked on the far south of the
battlefield, crossed and followed Plum Run, captured Devil's Den below the
Round Tops, and would have captured Little Round Top but for the brilliant
courage of Colonel Joshua Chamberlain and his 385- man 20th Maine Regiment.
Hood's attack was underway before McLaws (Joseph B. Kershaw's and Barksdale's
brigades) moved against Sickles' over-extended position to Hood's north. Later,
Paul J. Semmes' and William T. Wofford's brigades of McLaws' Division belatedly
entered the fray, their tardiness due to poor coordination by McLaws. In fierce
fighting, the Confederates drove Sickles' corps from the Peach Orchard, engaged
in bitter combat for control of the adjoining Wheatfield, and, finally, drove
the defenders back to the northern base of Little Round Top.
To their north, Dick Anderson's Division of
A.P. Hill's 3rd Corps participated very ineffectively in the late stages of the
attack. Brigadier General Carnot Posey's Brigade advanced haphazardly, and
Brigadier General William Mahone's Brigade never moved off Seminary Ridge.
Throughout the day, Hill's Corps and much of Anderson's Division acted as
though they were unaware of Lee's plans or any role for them in the struggle.
Apparently Lee had intended for them to join in the sequential attacks
beginning at the southern end of his line but took no actions to get them
properly aligned or to bring all of them into the fray as the afternoon turned
to evening.68
On the Union side, Hancock took advantage
of the disjointed Confederate attack and sent reinforcements to each
successively attacked position. The 2nd Corps went to the Round Tops and to
Sickles' left, and the 5th Corps reinforced Sickles. The 6th Corps, which
arrived at 2 p.m. after marching thirty-four miles in seventeen hours, and the
12th Corps backed up the others, and stopped the Confederates before they could
get to Cemetery Ridge.
Coddington, Gettysburg Campaign, p. 382.
Ibid., pp. 55-8.
Freeman, R.E. Lee, III, pp. 100-1.
As a result of all these developments, by
the time Sickles' line finally was broken and the Wheatfield secured, darkness
was beginning to fall and additional Union troops had moved into position to
back up Sickles and hold Cemetery Ridge. At one critical juncture, the Rebels
broke the Union's Wheatfield lines and were about to advance onto Cemetery
Ridge. Hancock sent in the 262-man 1st Minnesota Regiment to push them back at
all costs, and that Regiment stormed in and broke the attack at a cost of 50
killed and 175 wounded. The failed, Day 2 Confederate attack in echelon cost
the Union 6,000 killed and wounded and the Rebels 6,500 and was reminiscent of
similar failures by Lee's army during the Seven Days' campaign.
Where was Lee while this major,
uncoordinated, and costly attack was falling apart? He was overlooking the
battle from the cupola and elsewhere at the Lutheran Seminary on Seminary
Ridge, part of the time with Generals A.P. Hill and Heth. He neither sent nor
received more than a message or two and, apparently, sent only one order during
the battle.69 He had given his orders many hours before when conditions
were radically different, but he merely stood by and watched the bloody
assaults falter and fail. In a prelude to the more famous events of the next
day, Lee allowed one third of his force to attack while the others remained in
place.70 In sharp contrast, George Meade actively moved his forces
all over the battlefield to meet each new attack, took corrective actions when
he discovered Sickles' disastrous abandonment of his assigned position, and
used this "hands-on" approach throughout the entire battle to
prevent a Rebel break-through along his critical Cemetery Ridge line.71
Between dusk and 10 p.m. on the evening of
July 2, Ewell's forces finally attacked Cemetery Hill on the Union right flank.
They were twenty-four hours too late for a likely success and several hours too
late to coordinate with Longstreet. Nevertheless, the brave men of two
69. Lee's
inaction prompted Arthur J.L. Fremantle, a British military observer at Gettysburg,
to comment, "It is evidently his system to arrange the plan thoroughly
with the three corps commanders, and then leave to them the duty of modifying
and carrying it out to the best of their abilities." Piston, "Cross
Purposes" in Gallagher, Third Day, pp. 31, 43.
70. Piston,
Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant, p. 58.
n. Bruce points to Lee's failure, on both July 2 and 3, to
launch properly coordinated attacks: "For two days, Gettysburg presents
the spectacle of two desperately fought and bloody battles by less than one
third of [Lee's] army on each occasion, the other two thirds looking on, for
the conflict was visible from nearly every point on the Confederate lines. Does
not all this present another question to solve [than] whether a corps commander
was quick or slow? Was the commander-in-chief justified in assigning such a
task to such a force?" Bruce, "Lee and Strategy" in Gallagher,
Lee the Soldier, p. 122.
brigades (Colonel Isaac E. Avery's [Brigadier General Robert
F. Hoke's] 6th North Carolina and Brigadier General Harry T. Hays' Louisiana
Tigers) fought their way to the top of Cemetery Hill. The failures of high
command to provide support, however, compelled them to retreat. Ewell failed
to commit his artillery to support the assault, while Early never committed the
reserve brigade of Brigadier General John Brown Gordon to the battle.72
Furthermore, like the attack to the south
several hours before, the entire attack on Cemetery Hill was planned in echelon
- Johnson to attack first, followed by Early and then Rodes. The reality was an
ineffective assault by one brigade after another and the failure of many
brigades to engage at all. In fact, Avery's and Hays' brigades had completed
their successful attacks and had been compelled to withdraw before Rodes
launched his forces from the town itself. In summary, the timing was atrocious,
the strategy was poor, and the execution was worse. The result was a failure to
secure and hold Cemetery Hill, which dominated the north end of the
battlefield.73 Early on the morning of July 2, Confederate Major
General Edward Johnson assaulted Culp's Hill with even less success.74
In fact, as E. Porter Alexander points out,
Lee wasted Ewell's 2nd Corps by leaving it in an isolated and harmless position
northeast of the primary struggles on the second and third days of Gettysburg:
Ewell's troops were all placed beyond, or
N.E. of Gettysburg, bent around toward the point of the fish hook of the
enemy's position. It was an awkward place, far from our line of retreat in case
of disaster, & not convenient either for reinforcing others or being
reinforced. And...this part of the enemy's position was in itself the strongest
& it was practically almost unassailable. On the night of the 1st Gen. Lee
ordered him withdrawn & brought around to our right of the town. Gen.
Ewell had seen some ground he thought he could take & asked permission to
stay & to take it. Gen. Lee consented, but it turned out early next
morning that the position could not be taken. Yet the orders to come out from
the awkward place he was in~where there was no reasonable probability of his
accomplishing any good on the enemy's line in his front & where his
artillery was of no service—were never renewed & he stayed there till the
last. The ground is there
72. Freeman, R.E. Lee, III, pp. 101-2; Pfanz, Culp's &
Cemetery Hills, pp. 235-83.
Ibid.
7t. Pfanz, Culp's and Cemetery Hills, pp. 284-327.
still for any military engineer to pronounce whether or not
Ewell's corps & all its artillery was not practically paralysed &
useless by its position during the last two days of the battle.75
In conclusion, the second day of Gettysburg
was a disaster for which the Commanding General of the Army of Northern
Virginia must be held accountable. Over the objection of the corps and division
commanders involved, Lee ordered Longstreet's 1st Corps to launch a frontal, in
echelon assault on strong Union positions. Lee stood idly by while A.P. Hill's
3rd Corps in the center of the Confederate lines and directly in front of Lee,
did little to assist Longstreet.76 Finally, Lee neither moved
Ewell's 2nd Corps to an effective supporting attack position nor ensured that
it attacked the Union right flank at the same time Longstreet was attacking the
Union left.
Lee's performance the next day was even
worse. Frustrated by his two successive days of failure, he compounded his
errors on the third and final day of Gettysburg.77 His original plan
for that day again involved simultaneous attacks by Ewell on the Confederate
left and Longstreet on the Rebels' right. This plan was thwarted when Meade
ordered a Union attack on Ewell's forces, which had occupied Union trenches the
prior evening. The result was a five-hour, early morning battle at the north
end of the battlefield, as Johnson's Division of Ewell's Corps unsuccessfully
tried again and again to capture Culp's Hill. Federal forces still held that
critical position as dawn broke on the fateful third of July.78
With Ewell engaged, Lee changed his mind
and decided to attack the center of the Union line. The prior evening, Union
Major General John Newton, Reynolds' replacement as commander of the 1st Corps,
had told Meade that he should be concerned about a flanking movement by Lee
and that Lee would not be "fool enough" to frontally attack the
Union army in the strong position into which the first two
75. Alexander,
Fighting for the Confederacy, pp. 234-5. Similarly, Gary Pfanz criticized Lee
for leaving Ewell, with one-third of Lee's outnumbered infantry, in an isolated
position unsuited to offensive operations. Pfanz, Second Day, p. 426.
76. Pfanz
faulted Lee for his hands-off supervision of Longstreet, whom Lee "...
seems not to have hurried...along," and Hill ("He did not rectify
Hill's faulty deployment of Anderson's division or his inadequate measures to
sustain Anderson's attack ..."). Pfanz, Second Day, pp. 426-7. For details
on Hill's inadequate performance, see ibid., pp. 99, 114, 386-7.
77 For details of the third day, see Gallagher, Third Day, pp.
1-160; Coddington, Gettysburg Campaign, pp. 442-534.
78. Coddington, Gettysburg Campaign, pp. 465-76; Pfanz, Culp's
Hill & Cemetery Hill, pp. 284-309; Pfanz, Second Day, p. 438.
days' fighting had consolidated it.79 At around
midnight Meade told John Gibbon that his troops in the center of the Union line
would be attacked if Lee went on the offensive the next day. Gibbon told Meade
that, if that occurred, Lee would be defeated.80
Lee, however, saw things differently. Again
ignoring the advice and pleas of Longstreet, Lee canceled early morning orders
issued by Longstreet for a flank attack and, instead, ordered the suicidal
assault which was to be known forever as Pickett's Charge.81 After
studying the ground over which the attack would occur, Longstreet said to Lee,
"The 15,000 men who could make a successful assault over that field had
never been arrayed for battle."82
Longstreet was not alone in his bleak assessment
of the chances for success. Brigadier General Ambrose "Rans" Wright
said there would be no difficulty reaching Cemetery Ridge but that staying
there was another matter because the "...whole Yankee army is there in a
bunch."83 On the morning of the third, Brigadier General Cadmus
Wilcox told his fellow brigadier, Richard Garnett, that the Union position was
twice as strong as Gaines' Mill at the Seven Days' Battle.84
Demonstrating the extreme, almost blind,
faith the Confederate troops had in Lee, Alexander commented that, "..
.like all the rest of the army I believed that it would come out right, because
Gen. Lee had planned it."85 "Planned" may overstate
the amount of thought, as distinguished from emotion, that went into Lee's
decision.86
The famous attack was preceded by a massive
artillery exchange - so violent and loud that it was heard 140 miles away. Just
after 1 p.m.,
79. Coddington, Gettysburg Campaign, p. 450.
so. Foote, Shelby, The Civil War: A Narrative. (New York:
Random House, 1958-74) [hereafter Foote, Civil War], II, p. 525.
81. On
this Lee-Longstreet dispute, see Piston, "Cross Purposes" in
Gallagher, Third Day, pp. 31-55.
82. Coddington,
Gettysburg Campaign, p. 460. Longstreet later stated that Lee had written to
him in the 1863-4 winter that, "If I only had taken your counsel even on
the 3d [July 3], and had moved around the Federal left, how different all might
have been." Longstreet, James, "Lee's Right Wing at Gettysburg,"
pp. 339-53, in Johnson, Robert Underwood and Buel, Clarence Clough (eds.),
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. (New York: Thomas Yo- seloff, Inc., 1956;
reprint of Secaucus, New Jersey: Castle, 1887-8) [hereafter Johnson and Buel,
Battles and Leaders], III, p. 349.
83. Coddington,
Gettysburg Campaign, p. 488.
M. Wert, Longstreet, p. 287.
85. Alexander,
Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 254.
86. Bevin
Alexander severely criticized Lee's ordering of Pickett's Charge: "When
his direct efforts to knock aside the Union forces failed, Lee compounded his
error by destroying the last offensive power of the Army of Northern Virginia
in Pickett's charge across nearly a mile of open, bullet-and-shell-torn ground.
This frontal assault was doomed before it started." Bevin Alexander, Great
Generals, p. 26.
then-Colonel E. Porter Alexander unleashed
his 170 Rebel cannon against the Union forces on Cemetery Ridge. Two hundred
Federal cannon responded. Across a mile of slightly rolling fields, the
opposing cannons blasted away for ninety minutes. The Confederate goal was to soften
up the Union line, particularly to weaken its defensive artillery capacity,
prior to a massive assault on the center of that line. Instead of falling on
the Federal batteries, many of the Rebel shells sailed beyond their targets and
fell on Union reserves, medical facilities and even General Meade's
headquarters (wounding his Chief of Staff, Major General Daniel Butterfield).
Alexander's cannonade continued until his
supply of ammunition was dangerously low. A slowdown in the Union artillery
response gave the false impression that the Confederate cannonade had inflicted
serious damage. Although Alexander received some artillery assistance from
Hill's guns to Alexander's north, there were almost no rounds fired from
Ewell's five artillery battalions northeast of the main Confederate line.
Artillery fire was the one thing that Ewell certainly could have provided, but
the Commanding General and his chief of artillery also failed to coordinate
this facet of the offensive.87
The time of decision and death was at hand
for many of the 55,000 Confederates (in 192 regiments) and the 75,000 Yankees
(in 270 regiments). The Rebels were about to assault a position that Alexander
described as "...almost as badly chosen as it was possible to be."
His rationale:
Briefly described, the point we attacked is
upon the long shank of the fishhook of the enemy's position, & our advance
was exposed to the fire of the whole length of that shank some two miles. Not
only that, that shank is not perfectly straight, but it bends forward at the
Round Top end, so that rifled guns there, in secure position, could & did
enfilade the assaulting lines. Now add that the advance must be over 1,400
yards of open ground, none of it sheltered from fire, & very little from
view, & without a single position for artillery where a battery could get
its horses & caissons under cover.
I think any military engineer would,
instead, select for attack the bend of the fishhook just west of Gettysburg.
There, at least, the assaulting lines cannot be enfiladed, and, on the other
hand the places selected for assault may be enfiladed, & upon shorter
ranges than any other parts of the Federal lines. Again there the assaulting
column will only be ex
87. Alexander, Fighting for the Confederal, p. 251.
posed to the fire of the front less than half, even if over
one fourth, of the firing front upon the shank.88
Around 2:30, Alexander ordered a cease-fire
and hurried a note off to General Longstreet. It said, "If you are coming
at all, you must come at once or I cannot give you proper support, but the
enemy's fire has not slackened at all. At least 18 guns are still firing from
the cemetery itself."89 Longstreet, convinced of the impending
disaster, could not bring himself to give a verbal attack order to Major General
George E. Pickett. Instead, he merely nodded his indication to proceed after
Pickett asked him, "General, shall I advance?"90
On the hidden western slopes of Seminary
Ridge, nine brigades of 13,000 men began forming two mile-and-a-half-long lines
for the assault on Cemetery Ridge. Their three division commanders were Pickett,
Dorsey Pender and Brigadier General James J. Pettigrew (in place of the wounded
Henry Heth). Pickett gave the order, "Up men, and to your posts! Don't
forget today that you are from old Virginia!"91 With that, they
moved out.
The hopelessness of the attack was clear to
one of Pickett's more perceptive brigade commanders. North Carolina's Brigadier
General Lewis Armistead took off his ring, handed it to Pickett, and asked him to
give it to Armistead's fiancee if he fell in the assault. General Armistead
bravely put his gray hat on his raised saber and led his men into battle.92
After sending his "come at once"
message, Alexander noticed a distinct pause in the firing from the cemetery and
then clearly observed the withdrawal of artillery from that planned point of
attack. Ten minutes after his earlier message and while Longstreet was
silently assenting to the attack, Alexander sent a frantic note: "For
God's sake come quick! The 18 guns are gone. Come quick or I can't support
you."93 To Alexander's chagrin, however, the Union Chief of
Artillery Henry J. Hunt moved five replacement batteries into the crucial
center of the line. What Alexander did not yet know was that the Union firing
had slowed and virtually ceased in order to save ammunition to repel the coming
attack. Hunt had seventy-seven short-range guns in the position the Rebels
intended to attack, as well as numerous other guns,
88. Ibid., p. 252.
Ibid., p. 258.
90. Ibid.,
p. 260; Coddington, Gettysburg Campaign, p. 500.
91. Freeman,
Lee's Lieutenants, III, p. 157.
92. Waugh,
Class of 1846, p. 472.
93 Coddington, Gettysburg Campaign, p. 501.
including long-range rifled artillery, along the line capable
of raking an attacking army.
The Rebel lines opened ranks to pass their
now-quiet batteries and swept on into the shallow valley between the two famous
ridges. A gasp arose from Cemetery Ridge as the two long Gray lines, 150 yards
apart, came into sight.
It was 3 o'clock, the hottest time of a
scorching day. Under the broiling sun, 40,000 Union soldiers were in position
to directly contest the hopeless Confederate assault. Many Yankees were
sheltered by stone walls or wooden fences. Their awe at the impressive parade
coming their way must have been mixed with an understandable fear of battle and
a confidence in the strength of their numbers and position.
Their brave Rebel counterparts must have
had increasing fear and decreasing confidence with every step they took toward
the stronghold on Cemetery Ridge.94 Their forty-seven regiments
(including nineteen from Virginia and fourteen from North Carolina) initially
traversed the valley in absolute silence except for the clunking of their
wooden canteens. Although a couple of swales provided temporary shelter from
most Union view and rifle fire, the Confederates were under constant
observation from the dominating 600-foot-high Big Round Top to the southeast.
Long-range artillery fire began tearing holes in the Confederate lines. Then
they approached and turned slightly left to cross the Emmitsburg Pike. At that
point, they had marched into the middle of a Union semi-circle of rifles and
cannon. They attempted to maintain their perfect parade order, but all hell broke
loose as Federal cannon exploded along the entire ridge line -- from Cemetery
Hill on the north to Little Round Top on the south.
The cannons' double loads of canister
(pieces of iron) and Minie balls from 40,000 Union rifles decimated the
Confederate front ranks. The slaughter was indescribably horrible, but the
courageous Rebels closed ranks and marched on. Taking tremendous losses, they
started up the final rise toward the copse of trees that was their goal. They
had come so far that they were viciously assaulted from the front, both their
flanks and even their rear (by riflemen and rifled artillery on the Round
Tops). Especially devastating was the rifle fire from Brigadier General George
J. Stannard's Vermont Brigade point-blank into the Rebel right
9i. Confederate Captain Joseph Graham, of the Charlotte
Artillery, wrote in late July 1863
of Pettigrew's infantry "mov[ing] right through my
Battery, and I feared then I could see
a want of resolution in our men. And I heard many say, 'that
is worse than Malvern Hill,' and 'I don't hardly think that position can be
carried,' etc., etc., enough to make me ap
prehensive about the result..." Gallagher, "Lee's
Army" in Gallagher, Third Day, p. 23.
flank. Gaping holes opened in the now-merged Confederate lines,
and their numbers dwindled to insignificance. The survivors let loose their
Rebel yell and charged the trees near the center of Cemetery Ridge. With cries
of "Fredericksburg," the men in blue decimated the remaining
attackers with canister and Minie balls. General Armistead led the final surge.
He and 150 others crossed the low stone wall, but all of them were killed,
wounded, or captured within minutes. Armistead was killed.
During the late stages of the attack, two
additional Confederate brigades, those of Brigadier General Cadmus M. Wilcox
and Colonel David Lang, moved forward on the right but were quickly repulsed.
Amazingly, Lee's third day gamble utilized only eleven of his thirty- eight
infantry brigades in the assault; many of the others just observed the grand
spectacle.95 For the second straight day, Lee attacked with a
smaller percentage of his army than McClellan did at Antietam.
Just as the Union soldiers recognized a
Fredericksburg-like scenario, General Lee, at long last, did so as well. From
1,700 yards away, he watched the smoke-shrouded death throes of his grand
assault. He saw his Gray and Butternut troops disappear into the all-engulfing
smoke on the ridge and then saw some of them emerge in retreat. Fewer than
7,000 of the original 13,000 were able to make their way through the carnage
and return to Seminary Ridge. There was no covering fire from Alexander's
cannon because he was saving his precious ammunition to repel the expected
counter-attack. As the survivors returned to the Confederate lines, Lee met
them and sobbed, "It's all my fault this time."96 It was 97
Lee and Longstreet tried to console
Pickett, who was distraught about the slaughter of his men.98 Lee
told him that their gallantry had earned them a place in history, but Pickett
responded: "All the glory in the world could never atone for the widows
and orphans this day has made."99 To his death, Pickett blamed
Lee for the "massacre" of his division.100
The result of Lee's Day 3 strategy was the
worst single-charge slaughter of the whole bloody war - with the possible
exception of
95. Waugh,
Class of 1846, p. 489. Pickett's Charge is described well in Coddington, Gettysburg
Campaign, 502-20; Freeman, R.E. Lee, III, pp. 121-32; and Freeman, Lee's
Lieutenants, ffl, 157-61.
96. Alexander,
Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 266; Coddington, Gettysburg Campaign, p.
526; Wert, Longstreet, p. 292.
Bruce, "Lee and Strategy" in Gallagher, Lee the
Soldier, pp. 123-4.
'8. Waugh, Class of 1846, p. 487.
". Piston, Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant, p. 62. loo. Wert,
Longstreet, p. 292.
Hood's suicidal charge at Franklin, Tennessee, the following
year.101 The Confederates suffered 7,500 casualties to the Union's
1,500. More than 1,000 of those Rebel casualties were killed — all in a
30-minute bloodbath. Brigadier General Richard Garnett, whose five Virginia
regiments led the assault, was killed, and 950 of his 1,450 men were killed or
wounded. Virtually wiped out on Cemetery Ridge were three regiments, the 13th
and 47th North Carolina and the 18th Virginia.102
The only saving grace for Lee's battered
army was that General Meade, believing his mission was not to lose rather than
to win, failed to immediately follow-up his Day 3 victory with an infantry
counterattack on the stunned and disorganized Confederates. To Lincoln's
chagrin, Meade developed a case of the "slows" reminiscent of
McClellan after Antietam.
That night Lee rode alone among his troops.
At one point, he met Brigadier General John D. Imboden, who said,
"General, this has been a hard day on you." Lee responded, "Yes,
it has been a sad, sad day to us." He went on to praise Pettigrew's and
Pickett's men and then made the puzzling statement, "If they had been
supported as they were to have been — but for some reason not fully explained to
me were not — we would have held the position and the day would have been ours.
Too bad. Too bad. Oh, too bad."103 General Alexander found
Lee's comment inexplicable since Lee personally had overseen the entire
preparation and execution of the disastrous charge.104
Even if Lee was nonplussed, his officers
had little difficulty seeing the folly of Pickett's Charge and its parallel to
the senseless Union charges at Fredericksburg the previous December. A few days
later, as the Confederates waited to cross the Potomac at Williamsport, Maryland,
the Reverend Alexander Falk heard Confederate officers wishing that their
strong defensive position would be attacked: "Now we have Meade where we
want him. If he attacks us here, we will pay him back for Gettysburg. But the
Old Fox is too cunning."105 Similarly General Alexander
recalled that time: "...Oh! how we all did wish that the enemy would come
out in the open & attack us, as we had done them at
lm. "Properly led on the decisive afternoon at Gettysburg,
George Pickett's Virginians and Johnston Pettigrew's Carolinians would not have
been sent across the killing fields from Seminary to Cemetery Ridge, against
the massed Union army. But their bravery at Chancellorsville had persuaded
their general that they were invincible, and so he sent them. And so Gettysburg
was lost, and so the war." Furgurson, Chancellorsville, p. 350.
102. Coddington,
Gettysburg Campaign, pp. 525-6.
103. Freeman,
R.E. Lee, III, pp. 133-4.
1M. Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, pp. 278-80.
io5. Welch, Richard F„ "Gettysburg Finale,"
America's Civil War (July 1993), pp. 50-7.
Gettysburg. But they had had their lesson, in that sort of
game, at Fredbg. [Fredericksburg] & did not care for another."106
Alexander concluded, "Then perhaps in
taking the aggressive at all at Gettysburg in 1863 & certainly in the place
& dispositions for the assault on the 3rd day, I think, it will undoubtedly
be held that [Lee] unnecessarily took the most desperate chances & the
bloodiest road."107 Similarly, Wade Hampton wrote to Joseph E.
Johnston:
To fight an enemy superior in numbers at such a terrible disadvantage
of position in the heart of his own territory, when freedom of movement gave
him the advantage of accepting his own time and place for accepting battle,
seems to have been a great military blunder...the position of the Yankees there
was the strongest I ever saw...we let Meade choose the position and then we
attacked.108
Having lost over half of his 10,500 men in
the July 3 charge, General Pickett submitted a battle report highly critical
of that assault~and probably of Lee. Lee declined to accept the report and
ordered it rewritten.109 Pickett refused to do so.
After the war, Lee provided his rationale
for having attacked on the second and third days at Gettysburg:
It had not been intended to deliver a
general battle so far from our base unless attacked, but coming unexpectedly
upon the whole Federal army, to withdraw through the mountains with our
extensive trains would have been difficult and dangerous. At the same time we
were unable to await an attack, as the country was unfavorable for collecting
supplies in the presence of the enemy who could restrain our foraging parties
by holding the mountain passes with local and other troops. A battle had
therefore become, in a measure, unavoidable, and the success already gained
gave hope of a favorable issue.110
Lee, in fact, had not come upon "the
whole Federal army." That whole army was not on the battlefield until well
into the second day of the Gettysburg struggle. Later, even after suffering
three days of terri
I06. Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 271. Ibid., p.
92.
I0S. McKenzie, John D., Uncertain Glory: Lee's Generalship
Re-Examined (New York: Hippo-
crene Books, 1997) [hereafter McKenzie, Uncertain Glory], pp.
170-1.
Fuller, Grant and Lee, p. 118.
n0. Lee to Samuel Cooper, Battle Report of Gettysburg Campaign,
January 20, 1864,
Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, p. 576.
ble losses, Lee, in fact, was able to retreat safely through
the mountains after the three-day battle. In addition, Lee's army managed to
live off the country north of the Potomac for nine more days. Thus, Lee's rationale
justified neither his series of frontal attacks on the second day nor the
suicidal charge on the third day.111
Furthermore, Lee's strategic campaign into
the North had reaped its inevitable result, the appearance of defeat, and an
unforeseen actual military defeat. Archer Jones provided this analysis:
"Lee...suffered a costly defeat in a three-day battle at Gettysburg. In
losing perhaps as many as 28,000 men to the North's 23,000, the battle became a
disaster of depletion for the Confederate army, and his inevitable retreat to
Virginia, seemingly the result of the battle rather than his inability to forage,
made it a serious political defeat also."112
Considering the nearly equal number of
combatants at Gettysburg, Lee's losses were staggering in both absolute and
relative terms. Of the 75,000 Confederates, 22,600 (30 percent) were killed or
injured. The toll of general officers was appalling: six dead, eight wounded,
and three captured. Just as significantly, the southern field grade officers
suffered very high casualties, and their absence would be felt for the duration
of the war. Of the 83,300 Union troops at Gettysburg, 17,700 (21 percent) were
casualties.113 Despite the fact that his losses were higher in
absolute and proportional terms, Lee told Davis, "Our loss has been very
heavy, that of the enemy's is proportionally so."114
The Livermore hit ratios reflected the
devastating nature of Lee's loss. While 301 of each 1,000 of his engaged men
were hit, they hit 235 of the enemy. Conversely, every 1,000 Yanks suffered 212
hit but inflicted 272 hits on the Rebels.115
Fortunately for Lee's devastated army, the
Union forces again failed to aggressively and promptly follow up their victory.
Lee and his seventeen-mile train of ambulances pulled out of Gettysburg in a
torrential rain on the night of July 4 and headed for the Potomac. Five-
thousand healthy Rebel soldiers had left their posts that day to get a head
start on the trip back to Virginia.116
After Meade's cavalry destroyed the pontoon
bridge across the Potomac at Falling Waters, thereby trapping the Army of Northern
m. Lee's attacks at Gettysburg "were an unhappy
caricature of the most unfortunate
aspects of his tactics." Woodworth, Davis and Lee, p.
245.
m. Jones, "Military Means," in Boritt, Why the
Confederacy Lost, p. 68.
113. Livermore, Numbers b Losses, pp. 102-3.
"4. Lee to Jefferson Davis, July 31,1863,
Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, p. 565.
II5. Livermore, Numbers b Losses, pp. 102-3.
"6. Lee to Jefferson Davis, July 29,1863,
Dowdey & Manarin, Papers, p. 563.
Virginia north of that river, Meade failed to catch the
Rebels on the move. Instead, he took nine days to catch up with them and to
decide to attack. By then the Rebels were in a strong defensive position backed
up against the Potomac. It was entirely too late, and -- much to the chagrin
of Lincoln - the Confederates crossed the river on July 13.117
However, the fatal damage had been done.
Lee had decimated his own army. Throughout Lee's army and the South there were
conflicting views about Gettysburg in the days, weeks and months following
that three-day struggle. Many believed that there would have been a Confederate
victory on Day 3 if only the Yankees had come out to fight; others wondered who
was responsible for sending 13,000 troops into a death-trap.
The Richmond papers, and, thus, many others
in the South, initially reported Gettysburg as a grand Confederate victory.118
The South did not, at first, realize the extent of its losses in Pennsylvania.
By July 31, Lee had deluded himself into calling the campaign a "general
success."119 A Virginia private who had fought at Gettysburg
expressed a different view to his sister, "We got a bad whiping...they are
awhiping us...at every point...I hope they would make peace so that we that is
alive yet would get home agane...but I supose Jef Davis and Lee don't care if
all is killed."120 Josiah Gorgas, similarly, was not fooled. On
July 28, he bemoaned the rapid change of Confederate fortunes resulting from
its defeats at Vicksburg, Port Hudson and Gettysburg. He concluded:
Lee failed at Gettysburg, and has recrossed the Potomac &
resumed the position of two months ago, covering Richmond. Alas! he has lost
fifteen thousand men and twenty-five thousand stands of arms. Vicksburg and
Port Hudson capitulated, surrendering thirty five thousand men and forty-five
thousand arms. It seems incredible that human power could effect such a change
in so brief a space. Yesterday we rode on the
n7. Coddington, Gettysburg Campaign, pp. 535-74.
"8. Because of the misleadingly positive
newspaper reports, Lee had cautioned his wife, "You will have learned
before this reaches you that our success at Gettysburg was not as great as
reported." Gallagher, Gary W., "Lee's Army Has Not Lost Any of Its
Prestige: The Impact of Gettysburg on the Army of Northern Virginia and the
Confederate Home Front," pp. 1-30, in Gallagher, Third Day, p. 18. Lee to
his wife, July 12,1863, Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, p. 547.
Lee to Jefferson Davis, July 31,1863, Dowdey and Manarin,
Papers, p. 565.
12°. Wiley, Road to Appomattox, pp. 64-5.
pinnacle of success-to-day absolute ruin
seems to be our
portion. The Confederacy totters to its
destruction.121
Regardless of what was known when, Lee's
strategy and tactics at Gettysburg were the same he had employed for the entire
thirteen months he had commanded the Army of Northern Virginia. He attacked
too often, and too often he had initiated frontal attacks. Lee's approach had
resulted in a terrible toll of death and injury. When he assumed command in
June, 1862, his army numbered about 95,000. From the Seven Days' through Cedar
Mountain, Second Manassas, Chantilly, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg,
Chancellorsville, and, finally, Gettysburg, Lee's little army had suffered
about 80,000 killed and wounded while inflicting about 73,000 deaths and
injuries on the enemy.
Not only had the outnumbered army of Lee
suffered more casualties in absolute terms, its percentages of losses relative
to those of the Federals were staggering. During the Seven Days' Battle, Lee's
army had 21 percent killed or wounded (to the enemy's 11 percent), at Second
Manassas, it lost 19 percent (to the Federals' 13 percent), at Antietam, Lee
lost an appalling 23 percent (to the "attacking" McClellan's 16
percent); at Fredericksburg, Lee's generally entrenched forces lost only 6
percent (to Burnside's 11 percent); in his Chancellorsville "victory"
Lee lost 19 percent of his men (to Hooker's 11 percent); and then, at
Gettysburg, came the crushing three-day loss of 30 percent of Lee's remaining
troops (to Meade's loss of 21 percent).122 Lee's offensive strategy
and tactics were causing his seriously undermanned army to lose irreplaceable
troops at an unsustainable rate ~ a casualty rate far greater than that of his
stronger opponent. Lee was either fighting the wrong war or was fighting for
the wrong side.
British Colonel Arthur J. L. Fremantle
discussed the flaw of Lee's aggressiveness: "Don't you see your system
feeds upon itself? You cannot fill the places of these men. Your troops do wonders,
but every time at a cost you cannot afford."123 Lee's own
General Harvey Hill later similarly described the folly of the Army of Northern
Virginia's penchant for the tactical offensive:
m. Gorgas, Journals, p. 75.
122. "Principally,
[Gettysburg] cost the Confederacy an immense number of killed and wounded, far
greater in proportion to Lee's resources than the battle losses suffered by the
Union. As President Davis later wrote, stressing the casualties: 'Theirs could
be repaired, ours could not.'" Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, p.
415.
123. Groom,
Winston, Shrouds of Glory. From Atlanta to Nashville: The Last Great Campaign
of the Civil War (New York: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1995) [hereafter Groom,
Shrouds of Glory], p. 42.
We were very lavish of blood in those days, and it was
thought to be a very great thing to charge a battery of artillery or an
earth-work lined with infantry... The attacks on the Beaver Dam intrenchments,
on the heights of Malvern Hill, at Gettysburg, etc., were all grand, but of
exactly the kind of grandeur which the South could not afford.124
All of the attacks mentioned by Hill had been personally
ordered by Lee.
In a little over a year, therefore, Lee's
army had lost almost as many men as it had when he took command and was losing
its strength at a far faster rate than its manpower-rich foe. While the North,
with its 4 to 1 manpower advantage, could afford its casualties and replace the
men it lost, Lee's aggression had seriously depleted the supply of Confederate men
of fighting age in the East and had made his ultimate military defeat
inevitable ~ unless Lincoln lost the war at the ballot-box in 1864.
In summary, Gettysburg demonstrated all of
Lee's weaknesses. He initiated an unnecessary strategic offensive that, because
of his army's inevitable return to Virginia, would be perceived as a retreat
and, thus, a defeat. He rejected alternative uses for Longstreet's corps that
could have avoided or mitigated critical losses of the Mississippi River and
middle and southeastern Tennessee, including Chattanooga. His tactics were
inexcusably and fatally aggressive on days two and three, he failed to take
charge of the battlefield on any of the three days, his battle-plans were
ineffective, and his orders (especially to Stuart and Ewell) were vague and too
discretionary. Gettysburg was Lee at his worst.
Rhode Islander Elisha Hunt Rhodes' July 9
diary entry typified northern elation over Gettysburg: "I wonder what the
South thinks of us Yankees now? I think Gettysburg will cure the Rebels of any
desire to invade the North again."125 Not only would Lee's
entire Army of Northern Virginia never again invade the North, it had been so
damaged that it had become vulnerable to a war of attrition. All hope of
foreign intervention ended as England and France halted deliveries on ships to
the Confederates.126 Perhaps the war already had been lost.
124. Wert,
Longstreet, p. 151.
125. Rhodes,
All for the Union, p. 117.
126. Glatthaar,
Joseph T., "Black Glory: The African-American Role in Union Victory,"
pp. 133-62 [hereafter Glatthaar, "Black Glory"] in Boritt, Why the
Confederacy Lost, pp. 149-50.
A cartoon from Harper's Weekly. The original caption read:
"Richmond newsboy announcing the Rebel success!" (SK)
Late 1863: Mistakes and Disillusion
During the late summer, fall, and winter of
1863, Lee's morale and health deteriorated, and his depleted forces suffered a
series of setbacks and disappointments.
Gettysburg was the primary cause of Lee's
depression. A month after Gettysburg, Lee submitted his resignation to
President Davis. In his resignation letter, Lee took full responsibility for
Gettysburg and urged the appointment of someone in whom the army would have
greater confidence.1 Lee certainly had come to realize many of the
mistakes he had made at Gettysburg, and perhaps he understood what effects his
overall strategy and tactics had wrought on the Army of Northern Virginia.
Davis, however, responded to Lee that there was no person in whom the army
would have greater confidence and refused to accept Lee's resignation.2
Gettysburg, however, did, at least
temporarily, reduce Lee's pro- Virginia influence on Davis. Despite Lee's hopes
and plans for another offensive against Meade, Davis, at long last yielded to
Longstreet's and others' pleas and authorized Longstreet to move west with two
divisions to reinforce Bragg. Since August 21, Bragg had been warning Richmond
of a massive Tennessee offensive by Rosecrans and Burnside, and Davis began
discussing with Lee the possibility of reinforcements from Lee during the last
week of August. Lee, who usually argued that Union reinforcements on his front
precluded transfers from his army, now argued that transfers away from Meade
made him vulnerable to an offensive by Lee's full army.3 In fact,
on August 31, Lee
Lee to Jefferson Davis, August 8,1863, Dowdey and Manarin,
Papers, pp. 589-90.
2. Taylor,
Walter H., General Lee: His Campaigns in Virginia, 1861-1865 with Personal Reminiscences
(Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1994; reprint of Norfolk,
Virginia: Nusbaum Books, 1906) [hereafter Taylor, General Lee], p. 221;
Woodworth, Davis and Lee, p. 251.
3. Connelly
and Jones, Politics of Command, pp. 134-5.
even ordered Longstreet to prepare for that offensive.4
At the same time, Lee declined Davis' request that he take command in the West.
Lee declined on the grounds of poor health, ignorance of the West, and expected
opposition from generals Lee had shipped to the western front (including
William W. Loring, Earl Van Dorn, John B. Magruder, T. Hunter Holmes and Thomas
F. Drayton).5
The situation in Tennessee worsened with
the Confederates' September 3 abandonment of Knoxville that severed the direct
rail route from Richmond to Chattanooga. Finally, on September 7, Davis ordered
reinforcements from Lee to Bragg.6 Beginning September 9, McLaws'
and Hood's divisions and Alexander's reserve artillery, all without supply
wagons and horses, at long last began a time- consuming, circuitous railroad
route through the Carolinas and Georgia to join Bragg at Chickamauga. There,
5,000 of those troops, without artillery, had a hand in breaking William
Rosecrans' Union lines on the last day of the battle, September 20, and in
driving the northerners back into Chattanooga. More of Longstreet's 15,000
troops, as well as his artillery, would have arrived in time to fight and
contest the Yankee retreat except for the delay of up to two weeks caused by
Lee's reticence to leave Virginia himself or to part with any troops.7
Longstreet had pressed Seddon and Lee, in
mid-August, for some of Longstreet's troops to be sent west.8 Lee
had first been summoned to Richmond on August 24 to discuss the
Tennessee/Georgia situation, but Longstreet's troops were not promptly released
for use outside Virginia. During the Davis-Lee consultations on the West,
Burnside marched into Knoxville on September 3 and cut the direct rail link
(the
4. Ibid.,
p. 135; Lee to James Longstreet, August 31, 1863, Dowdey and Manarin, Papers,
p. 594.
5. Thomas,
Lee, p. 309. In early December, Lee again declined command of the Army of
Tennessee and gave similar reasons; on the issue of generals sent west, he
wrote, "I also fear that I would not receive cordial co-operation..."
Lee to Jefferson Davis, December 7, 1863, Freeman, Douglas Southall and
McWhiney, Grady (eds.), Lee's Dispatches: Unpublished Letters of General
Robert E. Lee, C.S.A., to Jefferson Davis and the War Department of the
Confederate States of America 1862-65 (Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State
University Press, 1957, 1994; update of Freeman's 1914 original edition)
[hereafter Freeman and McWhiney, Lee's Dispatches, pp. 130-1.
6. Hattaway
and Jones compared Lee's ultimate acquiescence with his May 1863 position:
"Lee ran less risk, had less emotional investment, and hence less
dissonance in September than he had had in the spring. He felt less need to
keep all of his forces in Virginia; the need in the West appeared more pressing
after the defeats in Mississippi and Tennessee. [Thus] he could easily accede
to Davis's desire to apply the conventional strategy and reinforce the west
with troops sent by rail from Virginia." Hattaway and Jones, How the North
Won, p. 374.
7. Connelly,
Autumn of Glory, pp. 152,191.
8. Ibid.,
p. 150; Freeman, Lee's Lieutenants, III, pp. 221-2.
East Tennessee & Virginia and the East Tennessee &
Georgia railroads) from Virginia to Chattanooga. After agreeing on September 5
to the movement of Longstreet's troops, Lee and Davis took three more days to
agree on the details. As a result, Longstreet's troops did not begin to leave
Orange Court House until September 9 and had to take a time- consuming route
through the Carolinas (1,000 miles on ten railroads) instead of being able to
travel 500 rail-miles directly to the Chattanooga area via Knoxville.9
Back in Virginia, after the July retreat of
his army, Lee had complained of a serious desertion problem. In an August 17
letter to Davis, Lee wrote, "The number of desertions from the army is so
great and still continues to such an extent that unless some cessation of them
can be caused I fear success in the field will be seriously endangered."10
Lee's depressed mental state appears to have aggravated the heart
condition that had caused him great pain and disabled him the prior March and
April. Between September 20 and October 10, and again from October 31 to
November 5, Lee was confined to an ambulance because of the severe chest and
back pains brought about by his deteriorating heart.11
When Lee reorganized his army again that
autumn, he delivered a sharp rebuke to Jeb Stuart. The cavalry was reorganized
into two divisions headed by Wade Hampton and Fitz Lee (Robert's nephew), who
were promoted to major general. Most telling was the fact that Lee created no
formal corps structure above those division commanders. As a result, Stuart
remained a major general and was not given the promotion to lieutenant general
which the law mandated for corps commanders.
On October 9, Lee launched his brief
Bristoe Campaign12 after he learned that two corps had been moved to
the West from Meade's army.13 Lee's army crossed the Rapidan and
Rappahannock Rivers in an effort to get around Meade's right flank. The
campaign quickly ended in disaster.14
On October 14, at Bristoe Station,
Virginia, two brigades under A.P. Hill were lured into a clever Yankee trap and
decimated. From high ground, Hill had seen Meade's army marching north along
the
». Connelly, Autumn of Glory, pp. 150-3; Hattaway and Jones, How
the North Won, p. 444.
10. Lee to Jefferson Davis, August 17, 1863, Freeman and
McWhiney, Lee's Dispatches, pp. 122-3.
». Thomas, Lee, pp. 277-9, 310.
Freeman, R.E. Lee, III, pp. 169-87.
I3. Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, p. 471.
Thomas, Lee, pp. 210-1.
Orange and Alexandria Railroad toward Manassas Junction.
Believing that they would catch the Union troops in a vulnerable condition
while on the move, three Confederate brigades incautiously attacked the Union
rear. Hidden Union forces along the railroad caught the attackers in a bloody
ambush, killed almost 1,400 of them (including two brigadier generals) and
captured another 500. This disaster, caused by inadequate reconnaissance and
rash offensive tactics, was one Lee could ill afford. The adverse impact on
morale was significant.
Although Lee was not personally responsible
for Bristoe Station, the same cannot be said for another disaster that occurred
the following month. Lee himself, aggressive as ever, helped bring about the
loss of 2,000 men at a Rappahannock Station bridge and Kelly's Ford along the
Rappahannock. Lee hoped to lure Meade's forces across the river at Kelly's Ford
and then to hit them with overwhelming force. To do this, he had Jubal Early
establish and hold a bridgehead a few miles away at Rappahannock Station. Lee,
however, played right into the hands of Meade, who ordered a demonstration at
Kelly's Ford while planning an attack on the Confederates' vulnerable
Rappahannock Station bridgehead.15
Lee, conferring late on November 7 with
Early about the two Rebel brigades that had been advanced across the single
pontoon bridge at Rappahannock Station, approved their being kept north of the
bridge even in the face of hostile fire. This specific direction led to those
1,700 men being cut off and then killed, wounded, or captured by Meade's
attacking force. The combined fighting at the two crossings cost Lee 2,000
troops and four guns. Lee's adjutant, Major Walter Taylor, wrote to his fiance
that this debacle was "...the saddest chapter in the history of this
army." The Army of Northern Virginia then retreated to Culpeper and spread
out along the Rapidan River.16
The Mine Run Campaign followed.17
To Lee's delight, Meade advanced across the Rapidan on November 26. Lee, of
course, went on the offensive. His 2nd and 3rd Corps attacked the next day at
Locust Church. The battle resulted in 550 Confederate deaths. Then both armies
entrenched along Mine Run just west of Virginia's Wilderness ~ the old
Chancellorsville battlefield. On the 29th, Union Major General Gouverneur K.
Warren discovered that his corps overlapped Lee's exposed right flank but
delayed attacking until too close to nightfall.
15. Hattaway
and Jones, How the North Won, p. 477.
16. Popchock,
Barry, "Daring Night Assault," America's Civil War, IV, No. 6 (July
1993), pp. 50-7.
See Freeman, R.E. Lee, III, pp. 188-205.
Lee, in a transition from his practice at
Gettysburg and earlier, and anticipating his 1864 modus operandi, entrenched
his troops.18 After correcting his erroneous alignment and
strengthening his line, Lee unsuccessfully tried to entice Meade into
attacking his well-entrenched Confederates. When Meade refused to go for the
bait, Lee, characteristically, decided to attack.
In the hope of repeating Chancellorsville,
Lee sent two divisions on a frozen, nighttime march around the Union left. When
they reached the Union trenches at dawn on the second of December, the frozen
Confederates found nothing. Meade had retreated to the north.
The year 1863 had been as disastrous for
the Confederates in the West as it had been in the East. During the summer and
autumn months, the Confederacy had suffered severe setbacks in the West —
despite one tactical victory gained when Longstreet finally got his chance to
fight on the western front. Vicksburg, the Queen City, had been surrendered to
Ulysses Grant, along with Pemberton's army of 30,000, on July 4, and the
surrender of Port Hudson later that month gave the Union army control of the
entire Mississippi River.
The other Confederate western army, under
the contentious Braxton Bragg, was not doing much better. A series of brilliant
flanking movements across three mountain ranges by Rosecrans' Army of the
Cumberland from late June to early September forced Bragg's Army of Tennessee
into a succession of retreats from Mid-Tennessee, through Chattanooga and into
northwestern Georgia. Lee's refusal to reinforce Bragg played a significant
role in Bragg's outnumbered army losing southeastern Tennessee, its direct rail
connection with Richmond, and Chattanooga, the gateway city into the industrial
heart of the Confederacy.19
Rosecrans then became careless, scattered
his four corps (one cavalry) in pursuit of the Rebels, and reassembled them barely
in time to repel a major offensive by Bragg on September 19 along Chickamauga
Creek. Longstreet arrived by rail that night with 5,000 reinforcements from
Virginia to give Bragg a slight numerical edge, took command of the Rebel
army's left wing the next morning, and broke through and collapsed the right
side of the Union line. While Rosecrans fled back to Chattanooga with many
troops, Major General George H. Thomas
18. Freeman argues that Mine Run was not Lee's first use of
field works, but that he had used them at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville.
Ibid., p. 204. Their use there, however, was not widespread and was not
repeated at Gettysburg.
For details of the struggle for
Chattanooga, see Cozzens, Peter, The Shipwreck of Their Hopes: The Battles for
Chattanooga (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994) [hereafter
Cozzens, Shipwreck of Their Hopes],
earned the name "The Rock of Chickamauga" by
organizing and leading the remaining Union forces in a desperate,
all-afternoon, army- saving defense. Although Bragg had inflicted 11,000
casualties on the forces of Rosecrans, the constantly-attacking Confederates
lost 17,000 men in the two-day battle.
For the next month, the military situation
looked promising for the Confederates as they besieged and brought to
near-starvation Rosecrans' army in Chattanooga. By October 1, however,
Confederate intelligence reported that two eastern Union corps (25,000 troops)
under Hooker and two corps from Grant in Mississippi were headed for
Chattanooga. In response, Beauregard devised a plan for a massive Confederate
concentration and preemptive offensive at Chattanooga. The plan called for
25,000 soldiers from Lee in Virginia and 10,000 from Johnston in Mississippi.
At an October 11 council of war, however, Davis rejected the plan because Lee
would provide no more troops.
Meanwhile, Bragg rekindled a pre-existing
and debilitating dispute between himself and all his corps commanders when he
accused one of them, Lieutenant General Leonidas Polk, of failing to timely attack
at dawn on September 20 at Chickamauga. Longstreet fueled the anti-Bragg
insurrection that followed by participating in anti-Bragg meetings and
co-signing a petition to President Davis urging Bragg's removal. Even Davis'
trip to Tennessee and personal intervention failed to heal the rift. After
hearing most of Bragg's subordinates call for his removal (in Bragg's
presence), Davis made the egregious error of retaining his good friend Bragg
and allowing him to sack all his corps commanders.
On the Union side, things began looking up.
By October 23, Grant, now theater commander of the armies of the Cumberland,
Tennessee, and Ohio, replaced Rosecrans with Thomas as commander of the Army of
the Cumberland and arrived in Chattanooga to take personal charge of the
desperate, near-starvation situation. Within a week, Union forces captured an
important ferry downstream on the Tennessee River and established the famous
"Cracker Line" to get critical food and supplies into Chattanooga. To
more than match Longstreet's 15,000-man movement from Virginia to the West,
Hooker continued his 25,000- troop drive from Virginia to Chattanooga.
Within days of his temporary loss of
Longstreet's 15,000 troops to the West, however, Lee began his efforts to get
them back and, thereby, helped bring about a major military disaster for the
Confederacy. Even before all those troops reached Bragg, Lee twice (on
September 11 and 14) wrote to Davis about getting them back. On both September
23 and 25, he suggested to Davis that Longstreet and his two divisions move
northeasterly from Chattanooga to take on Burnside in
Knoxville.20 This, conveniently, would move Longstreet's forces
toward Virginia and back to Lee, who stressed to Davis his urgent need for
them. At the same time, Lee wrote to Longstreet, "Finish the work before
you, my dear general, and return to me. I want you badly and you cannot get
back too soon."21 On October 26 Lee wrote to Longstreet,
"I missed you dreadfully...I hope you will soon return to me."22
On October 29 Davis passed Lee's idea for a
Knoxville move on to Bragg, who knew that Longstreet had aggravated the
discontent among Bragg's generals and suspected that Longstreet wanted his
command.23 Bragg discussed Lee's and Davis' suggestion with Long-
street on November 3; they agreed to separate, and, only two days later,
Longstreet departed for Knoxville. Bragg had so weakened his forces besieging
the Union troops in Chattanooga that he soon was outnumbered 2 to 1 (80,000 to
36,000) and had no reserve in the event of a Union break-through.
Less than three weeks later, the
undermanned Confederates lost Chattanooga. With Grant personally in charge, the
reinforced Union armies, on November 24 and 25, fought their way over Lookout Mountain
and up Missionary Ridge to liberate Chattanooga and drive Bragg back into
Georgia. The turning point occurred when Union soldiers reached the crest of
the very defensible Missionary Ridge and Bragg had no reserve forces to drive
them back. Bragg's army fled in total disarray and was saved from destruction
only by the presence of an impregnable defensive position in the nearby
mountains of northwest Georgia. Meanwhile, Longstreet launched a futile
November 29 assault on Knoxville, was repelled by Burnside, and retreated into
the mountains for the winter.
As Private Sam Watkins of Tennessee watched
Bragg's demoralized soldiers retreat from Chattanooga, he observed,
It was the first defeat our army had ever suffered, but the
prevailing sentiment was anathemas and denunciations hurled against Jeff Davis
for ordering Longstreet's corps to Knoxville, and sending off [Major] General
[Joseph] Wheeler's and [Brigadier General Nathan Bedford] Forrest's
20. Connelly,
"Lee and the Western Confederacy," p. 129.
21. Wert,
Longstreet, pp. 320-1.
22■ Cited in
Connelly, "Lee and the Western Confederacy" in Gallagher, Lee the
Soldier, p. 207.
23. "Davis's suggestion that Bragg detach Longstreet was
quixotic, reflecting both his lack of appreciation of the gravity of the Union
buildup at Chattanooga and the degree to which he was swayed by Robert E.
Lee." Cozzens, Shipwreck of Their Hopes, p. 103.
cavalry, while every private soldier in the whole army knew
that the enemy was concentrating at Chattanooga.24
Little did Watkins know that Lee's
recommendation was behind Davis' actions in Tennessee. Lee's concern for his
own theater of the war had hobbled the Confederate Army of Tennessee in the
West, resulted in its retreat from Tennessee to Georgia, and cleared the way for
William Tecumseh Sherman's decisive 1864 march through Georgia.
In summary, Lee's singular, grudging
instance of supporting the western Confederate forces came about because of his
weakened standing after Gettysburg, led to a less-than-fulfilling victory at
Chickamauga, and then was undermined by Lee's own impatient efforts to
retrieve Longstreet's two divisions. Although Bragg and Long- street, for their
own reasons, agreed with Davis' suggestion that Long- street go off to
Knoxville, it was, in fact, Lee's idea that they had implemented.
In December, 1863, when he had no option
but to remove Bragg, Davis again offered Lee command of the western army.
Unsurprisingly, Lee, concerned exclusively about preserving the Old Dominion,
declined the appointment. Once again, Lee's stated reason for doing so was that
he would not likely receive support from the subordinate generals in the West,
which Lee had used as a dumping ground for failed eastern generals.25
While Lee had negatively affected
Confederate fortunes in the West, he was even more responsible for the fact
that 1863 also had been a Confederate disaster in the East: the extremely
costly "victory" at Chancellorsville, the death of Jackson, the lost
opportunities and disastrous decimation at Gettysburg, the retreat to
Virginia, Bristoe Station, Rappahannock Station, Locust Church, and Mine Run.
The reality was that the South was running
out of men. The Confederacy had started with a real manpower shortage, but,
under the leadership of Lee it had squandered that precious resource in the
East. As a result, the Confederacy would reap the whirlwind in 1864.
Watkins, Sam R., "Co. Aytch,"
Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment; or, A Side Show of the Big Show
(Nashville: Cumberland Presbyterian Publishing House, 1882, 1987) [hereafter
Watkins, "Co. Aytch"], p. 128.
25. Connelly, "Lee and the Western Confederacy," p.
119.
It was only a matter of time until the
Union realized that Lee no longer had adequate forces to prevail if those
forces were kept engaged. Lincoln did come to that realization, and he
elevated Ulysses S. Grant, who shared his views. Grant's target was Lee's army,
and that army had been fatally weakened by Lee in 1862 and 1863.1
At Lincoln's request, Congress, in early
1864, created the rank of lieutenant general and confirmed Lincoln's nomination
of Grant to be the first three-star general of the United States since George
Washington. Grant's unparalleled record of success at Forts Henry and Donel-
son, Iuka, Corinth, Jackson, Champion's Hill, Vicksburg and Chattanooga —
tempered by the near-disaster and brilliant recovery at Shiloh - had convinced
the President that, at last, he had found a general capable of tenaciously
fighting, and eventually defeating, Robert E. Lee. He had.
Grant became Commander-in-Chief of the
Union Armies and retained George Meade to the end of the war as Commander of
the Army of the Potomac. Grant devised a specific grand strategy to use all of
the Union's military forces to keep the Confederates on the defensive everywhere
and, thereby, preclude their sending reinforcements to each other. This
strategy, generally, deprived the Rebels of the advantage they possessed by
virtue of their inner, shorter lines of communication and reflected Grant's
determination to take advantage of the Union's manpower superiority.2
Even General Alexander grudgingly conceded that Grant "...was no
intellectual genius, but he understood arithmetic."3
Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, pp. 516-7.
2. One
exception was Jubal Early's breaking loose in July 1864; Lee, however, kept him
in the Virginia theater instead of using him to reinforce Atlanta.
3. Alexander,
Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 346.
Grant's grand plan for 18644
contemplated Sherman pushing Joseph Johnston's Army of Tennessee in
northwestern Georgia back to Atlanta (the seizure of which was a major or even
primary objective of Grant),5 Nathaniel Banks joining Sherman after
capturing Mobile, Franz Sigel clearing out the Shenandoah Valley, Major General
Benjamin F. Butler surprising Richmond-Petersburg via the James River, and the
Army of the Potomac attaching itself to Lee's Army of Northern Virginia — to
the death. Grant's instructions to Meade were simple: "Lee's army will be
your objective point. Wherever Lee's army goes, you will go also."6
Instead of subjecting himself to the
political pressures of Washington, Grant took to the field and accompanied
Meade's Army until the war was over. In Virginia, Grant intended to continuously
fight Lee in order to reduce Lee's dwindling manpower further and to keep Lee
so engaged that he could not send forces to aid Johnston against Sherman.7
In a May 2 letter to his wife, Grant expressed confidence: "I know the
greatest anxiety is now felt in the North for the success of this move, and
that anxiety will increase when it is once known that the Army is in motion. I
feel well myself."8 With the addition of Burnside's 9th Corps,
the Army of the Potomac had 120,000 soldiers against Lee's depleted force of
65,000.9
Lee spent the winter and spring of 1865
simplistically urging an offensive by Johnston through barren mountains (with
few foraging opportunities) into middle Tennessee ~ even though Johnston had
virtually no mobile supply capability and had half the strength of Sherman.10
Relying on false rumors that five western Union corps were being moved to
Virginia, Lee insisted that a Johnston offensive was necessary to relieve
pressure on Virginia.11 In sharp contrast, Grant contemplated
coordinated campaigns by Sherman and himself. Grant wrote to Sherman:
4. Hattaway
and Jones, How the North Won, pp. 516-33. Lincoln told Grant, "The particulars
of your plans I neither know nor seek to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant;
and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any constraints or restraints
upon you." Abraham Lincoln to Ulysses Grant, April 30,1864, Johnson and
Buel, Battles and Leaders, IV, p. 112.
5. Hattaway
and Jones, How the North Won, p. 532.
6. Ibid.,
p. 524; McFeely, William, Grant: A Biography (New York and London: W.W. Norton
& Company, 1981), p. 157.
7. Hattaway
and Jones, How the North Won, p. 528.
8. McFeeley,
Grant, p. 165.
Ibid., p. 538.
I0. Connelly and Jones, Politics of Command, pp. 143-52.
Ibid., p. 192.
What I now want more particularly to say
is, that if the two main attacks, yours and the one from here, should promise
great success, the enemy may, in a fit of desperation, abandon one part of
their line of defense, and throw their whole strength upon the other, believing
a single defeat without any victory to sustain them better than a defeat all
along their line, and hoping too, at the same time, that the army meeting with
no resistance, will rest perfectly satisfied with their laurels, having
penetrated to a given point south, thereby enabling them to throw their force
first upon one and then on the other.
With the majority of military commanders
they might do this. But you have had too much experience in traveling light,
and subsisting upon the country, to be caught by any such ruse. I hope my
experience has not been thrown away. My directions, then, would be, if the
enemy in your front shows signs of joining Lee, follow him up to the full
extent of your ability. I will prevent the concentration of Lee upon your
front, if it is in the power of this army to do it.12
Grant's sweeping national strategy led Sherman, later, to
contrast Lee unfavorably to Grant:
[Lee] never rose to the grand problem which involved a continent
and future generations. His Virginia was to him the world... He stood at the
front porch battling with the flames whilst the kitchen and house were burning,
sure in the end to consume the whole... Grant's "strategy' embraced a
continent, Lee's a small State; Grant's Togistics' were to supply and
transport armies thousands of miles, where Lee was limited to hundreds.13
Given Grant's desire to seek out and destroy Lee's Army, Lee
played right into his hands. During 1862 and 1863, Lee's hyper-aggression had
reduced the Army of Northern Virginia to a mere shadow of what it had been or
what it still could have been.14 Because of the North's virtually
unlimited manpower resources (especially since it would employ as many as
180,000 African-Americans in its army and navy by
12. Connelly and Jones, Politics of Command, pp. 180-1.
Coburn, Mark. Terrible Innocence: General Sherman at War (New
York: Hippocrene Books, 1993) [hereafter Coburn, Terrible Innocence], p. 123.
». On February 17,1864, the Confederate Congress did attempt
to address the manpower problem by extending conscription to 17-year-old boys
and men between 45 and 50 years old. Wiley, Road to Appomattox, p. 68.
war's end), Lee probably had lost the military war by the
beginning of 1864.15 That is, if the war continued to its military conclusion,
the Confederacy would lose.
However, if Lee could find some way to
preserve the forces he had left and perhaps even provide some support to the
defense of Atlanta, Lee might still have a chance to maintain a sufficient stalemate
to win the war at the northern ballot-boxes in November 1864.16
Long- street described this connection between the military events of 1864 and
that year's presidential election: "Lincoln's re-election seems to depend
upon the result of our efforts during the present year. If he is re-elected,
the war must continue, and I see no way of defeating his reelection except by
military success."17
But it was a long time from April to
November, and Lee was not a patient man. Lee aggressively sought out the Army
of the Potomac, underestimated Grant's tenacity and cunning, launched attacks
as though he had a surplus of manpower, and, periodically, committed costly
blunders. As a result, the leadership and manpower of Lee's Army were further
decimated - despite his efforts to strip the Caroli- nas to reinforce his own
army ~ and the war went so badly for the South that Lincoln was reelected and
the Confederacy thereby was doomed.
As he had done on many prior occasions, Lee
sought to strengthen his own army at the expense of forces elsewhere. That
April, while the Army of Tennessee faced a massive offensive by Sherman, Lee
made his familiar argument that "...the great effort of the enemy in this
campaign will be made in Virginia."18 On April 7, Lee wrote to
Bragg: "I think every preparation should be made to meet the approaching
storm, which will apparently burst on Virginia, & unless its force can be
diverted by an attack in the West, that troops should be collected to oppose
it."19 Based on that hypothesis and (false) rumors Lee passed
on to Richmond about western Federals coming east, Lee, astoundingly, requested
part of Johnston's cavalry and recommended that Johnston's army should take the
offensive against Sherman. At that time, the Un
15. Hattaway
and Jones, How the North Won, p. 272.
16. "Grant
aimed to keep Lee so occupied that he could not emulate the Chickamauga
campaign by sending men to help oppose Sherman. Although Grant had hopes of capturing
Richmond.. .the essence of his strategy lay in Sherman's taking Atlanta and
beginning his raid." Jones, "Military Means," in Boritt, Why
the Confederal Lost, p. 71.
17. James
Longstreet to Brigadier General Thomas Jordan, March 27, 1864, quoted in
McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 721 and Piston, Lee's Tarnished
Lieutenant, pp. 85-6.
18. Connelly,
"Lee and the Western Confederacy" in Gallagher, Lee the Soldier, p.
198; Weigley, American Way of War, p. 125.
Lee to Braxton Bragg, April 7,1864, Dowdey and Manarin,
Papers, p. 692.
ion numerical advantage was 198,000 to 74,000 in the West and
148,000 to 82,000 in the East.20 Contrary to Lee's advice, Johnston
went on the defensive and preserved his forces much more effectively than did
Lee. Persistent to a fault, Lee, in May, requested Davis to send him all the
organized forces, other than Johnston's, in Florida, Georgia and South
Carolina.
May 4, 1864 was the beginning of the end.
All of the Union's armies began their coordinated movements, but three failed.
The quickest failure among them was that of the incompetent Ben
"Beast" Butler. Navy vessels promptly landed his 40,000-man Army of
the James on May 5 at Bermuda Hundred, a peninsula formed by the James and Appomattox
rivers between Richmond and Petersburg. Butler, however, wasted a week building
defenses around his operational base before moving toward Richmond. This gave
Beauregard time to assemble reinforcements at Petersburg and march north to
intercept Butler at Dre- wry's Bluff about six miles south of Richmond. There,
aided by severe fog, Beauregard shocked Butler by attacking him and driving him
back into Bermuda Hundred. This vicious battle cost each side 3,000 casualties.
The incompetent Butler, thereafter, was so bottled up in Bermuda Hundred that
Grant eventually siphoned off many of Butler's troops for productive use
elsewhere.
Instead of moving on Mobile, Banks went on
a useless and unsuccessful campaign up the Red River in Louisiana. Another
disappointment were the cavalry raids conducted by Grant's new cavalry chief,
Major General Philip H. Sheridan. Between May 9 and 24 and then June 7-28,
Sheridan galloped his troopers all over eastern Virginia but accomplished
little more than fatally wounding Jeb Stuart at Yellow Tavern near Richmond on
May 11.
Even less effective was the Shenandoah
Valley campaign of Franz Sigel. From Cedar Creek, on May 1, Sigel headed south
up the Valley with about 9,000 troops. His campaign was short-lived, however,
as Major General John C. Breckinridge organized troops at Staunton, headed
north with 5,300 troops (including 247 Virginia Military Institute cadets),
and pummeled Sigel at New Market on May 15. On May 26, Grant replaced Sigel
with Major General David Hunter.
While all these Union defeats and
disappointments were occurring, the centerpiece in the East was Grant's
movement south.21 As the
2°. Connelly, Autumn of Glory, pp. 303-13.
21. For details of Grant's 1864 campaign, see Trudeau, Noah
Andre, Bloody Roads South: The Wilderness to Cold Harbor, May-June 1864 (Boston,
Toronto, London: Little, Brown and Co., 1989); Trudeau, Noah Andre, The Last
Citadel: Petersburg, Virginia June 1864-April 1865 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana
State University Press, 1991) [hereafter Trudeau, The Last
120,000-man Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River at
Ger- manna and Ely's fords on May 4, Lee began rushing his three corps,
totaling 65,000 men, to intercept them. Lee had been prepared to meet the enemy
in his Mine Run works if Grant had moved southwest, but he thought and hoped Grant
would move south-southeast through the Wilderness. In that event, Lee's intent
was to meet the invading force in the Wilderness, a defending army's place of
dreams and an attacking army's worst nightmare, and, thereby, negate Grant's
superiority in numbers and artillery.22 Instead of meeting and
harassing the Union forces with all of his troops and remaining on the
defensive in the Wilderness, however, Lee ended up engaging the northerners,
with less than a full complement of his forces, in a series of uncoordinated attacks
and counter-attacks. The results were devastating for both armies.23
Given Lee's desire to attack Grant's forces
in the Wilderness, it is surprising how slowly he brought his three corps to
bear. After the Federal movement was detected, Lee was able to get Ewell's 2nd
Corps and A.P. Hill's 3rd Corps into the fighting on May 5, but Longstreet's
poorly-positioned 1st Corps did not arrive until May 6.24 If Lee's
intent was to use Longstreet to protect the important railroad junction back at
Gordonsville, he took a tremendous gamble by using all of one of his
Citadel]; Lowry, Don, No Turning Back: The Beginning of the
End of the Civil War: March-June 1864 (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1992);
Lowry, Don, Fate of the Country: The Civil War from June-September 1864 (New
York: Hippocrene Books, 1992) [hereafter, Lowry, Fate of the Country]; Rhea,
Gordon C., The Battle of the Wilderness May 5-6, 1864 (Baton Rouge and London:
Louisiana State University Press, 1994) [hereafter Rhea, Wilderness]; Rhea,
Gordon C., The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow
Tavern, May 7-12, 1864 (Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University
Press, 1997); Wheeler, Richard, On Fields of Fury: From the Wilderness to the
Crater: An Eyewitness History (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991).
22 Freeman, R.E. Lee, p. 273.
23. For
details of the Wilderness, see Rhea, Gordon C., Wilderness; Scott, Robert
Garth, Into the Wilderness with the Army of the Potomac (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1985) [hereafter, Scott, Into the Wilderness], For details of
the first day's fighting at the Wilderness, see Mertz, Gregory A., "No
Turning Back: The First Day of the Wilderness," Blue & Gray Magazine,
XII, Issue 4 (April 1995) [hereafter Mertz, "No Turning Back Part
I"]; Freeman, R.E. Lee, III, pp. 269-83.
24. After
the war, Lee criticized Longstreet for being slow in arriving at the
Wilderness- and, in fact, said Longstreet often was slow. Johnston, William
Preston, "Memoranda of Conversations with General R.E. Lee," pp.
29-34, May 7, 1868, in Gallagher, Lee the Soldier, p. 29. Lee made these
statements after Longstreet's published criticism of Lee's actions at
Gettysburg. During the war, however, Lee had said that Jackson, famed for his
"foot-cavalry," was "by no means so rapid a marcher as
Longstreet." Piston, Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant, p. 30. Robert Scott
noted that Longstreet marched 38 miles via Richards' Shop instead of the
28-mile route via Orange Court House to avoid a road clogged with Hill's supply
train. Scott, Into the Wilderness, p. 198.
three corps for that purpose when a lesser force could have
provided sufficient security, or at least an adequate warning capability.
General Alexander was especially critical
of Lee's poor positioning of Longstreet's corps at Mechanicsville, some
forty-three miles from the battlefield behind the Confederates' left flank. He
found it particularly puzzling in light of Lee's May 2nd statement that he
expected Grant to turn the Confederates' right flank. Alexander described what
he saw as a grand missed opportunity:
The first day, naturally, offered us far
the greatest chances. Grant's army was not all in hand, & had had no time
to make breastworks. It was at a great disadvantage in the Wilderness &
could not use its superiority in artillery. We had here the one rare chance of
the whole campaign to involve it in a panic such as ruined Hooker on the same
ground... What proved a drawn battle when begun by three divisions reinforced
by two more after six hours & by three more 18 hours later might have
proved a decisive victory if fought by all eight from the beginning.25
Because of Lee's failure to have his forces at full strength
and in place to meet Grant's army as it entered the Wilderness, May 4 was a successful
day for the Blue army. Although still strung out at the end of the day, they
had moved all their forces across the Rapidan with no opposition.
The Union cavalry failed to detect and
provide early or adequate notice to Grant and Meade that the Confederates were
moving to oppose them. However, those generals, as soon as they learned of the
approach of Lee's army, decided to strike first with whatever forces were at
hand at the threatened points. Their aggressiveness deprived Lee of the
opportunity to bring up Longstreet before a general engagement erupted.
During the early afternoon of the 5th, the
Union 5th Corps under Major General Warren, attacked Ewell at Saunders' Field
on the Orange Turnpike, the northernmost east-west road south of the Rapidan
and near the site of Jackson's last attack the previous year. The Rebel
defenders, however, held their ground and then successfully counterattacked.
The fierce fighting for control of the Turnpike spread south to Higgerson's
Field and north along the Culpeper Mine Road, continued all afternoon and
evening, and resulted in severe casualties to both sides.
2S. Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 349.
Meanwhile, on the virtually-parallel road
to the south, the Orange Plank Road, Hancock's 2nd Corps halted the advance of
A.P. Hill's 3rd Corps in a fierce battle that began in mid-afternoon and also
continued into the darkness. All of this intense, confused, bloody fighting of
the 5th was a mere prelude to that of the 6th.
On the night of the 5th, Lee left Hill's
battered and disorganized forces in an advanced and exposed position on the
Orange Plank Road. He failed to withdraw them, as Hill himself had requested,
under cover of darkness despite the fact that Hill's flanks were exposed to
attack from a massive accumulation of Federal forces and the non-arrival of
Longstreet. Lee, inexplicably, was relying upon Longstreet's early arrival
although he knew that Longstreet had said he would march at 1 a.m. from a point
from which it had taken a messenger ninety minutes to ride to Lee.26
That same night, Grant decided to have Burnside's 9th Corps pierce the
unguarded center between the Confederate forces on the Turnpike and the Plank
Road and then swing left (south) to hit Hill's left flank and rear. The attack
was set for 5 a.m.27
Thus, Grant took advantage of the
opportunity Lee had offered and attacked Hill at dawn. The result was a rout of
Hill's forces and a near-total disaster for the Gray. Only the long-awaited
arrival of Long- street's 1st Corps saved the day. Lee was so excited by their
arrival that he announced, "I want to lead the Texas Brigade in this
charge!" He was dissuaded by Brigadier General John Gregg's Texans, who
yelled, "Go back, General Lee, go back! We won't go on unless you go
back!" The Confederates then completed and stabilized their line.28
Not satisfied with that, Lee authorized
Longstreet to launch a flanking attack on the south (left flank) of the Union
line via an abandoned railroad bed. The initial success of that attack came to
a screeching halt when Longstreet was hit in the throat and shoulder by a
Confederate bullet as his attackers moved across the front of the main
Confederate line. Lee called off the attack until 4:15 that afternoon, when the
Confederates launched a typically costly and unsuccessful thirteen-brigade
assault on Union fortifications along Brock Road and perpendicular to the
Orange Plank Road. Historian Gregory Mertz de
26. Trudeau,
Noah Andre, '"A Mere Question of Time': Robert E. Lee from the Wilderness
to Appomattox Court House," pp. 523-58 [hereafter Trudeau, "Question
of Time"], in Gallagher, Lee the Soldier, pp. 527-8.
27. For
details of the second day's fighting at the Wilderness, see Mertz, "No
Turning Back: The Second Day of the Wilderness," Blue & Gray Magazine,
XII, Issue 5 (June 1995), pp. 8-20, 48-50 [hereafter Mertz, "No Turning
Back Part II"]; Freeman, R.E. Lee, III, pp. 283-303.
Freeman, R.E. Lee, III, pp. 287-8.
scribed how two Confederate generals viewed that final
assault as a failure:
Artilleryman E. P. Alexander felt that the final assault
should not have been made, comparing it to "sending a boy on a man's
errand." The attack cost the Confederacy "good soldiers whom we
could not spare." Confederate general Evander M. Law indicated that between
the time Longstreet was wounded and the time of the attack, "the tide had
turned, and we received only hard knocks instead of victory."29
Meanwhile, on the north end of the
battlefield, the increasingly incompetent Ewell, relying on the faulty advice
of Jubal Early, all afternoon rejected accurate, eye-witness information from
John Gordon that the Union right flank was vulnerable to a flank attack. When
Lee finally learned about the disagreement and ordered Gordon to attack at
dusk, it was too late. Gordon was, initially, successful, but soon was swallowed
up and repulsed by the more numerous Union troops.
Two days of bitter, confused, and
horrendous fighting in the Wilderness ended in a stalemate and were capped by
the dreadful nightmare of wounded soldiers being burned alive in the forest
between the lines. These first two fighting days of Grant's campaign had cost
him 18,000 men. With a smaller loss of 12,000, Lee superficially appeared to be
the winner, but he had cooperated perfectly with Grant's plans to go after
Lee's army and had again suffered large losses that he could not make up. While
Grant lost 15 percent of his soldiers, Lee lost a critical 20 percent of his
strength.30 Lee's offensive had destroyed any reserve he might
assemble31 and reduced Lee's army so significantly that he never
again put his entire army on the tactical offensive.32
Unlike his predecessors, Grant did not
allow the massive bloodletting or any concern about Lee's possible movements
dissuade him
29. Mertz,
"No Turning Back Part II," p. 20.
30. The
absence of many Confederate records for 1864-5 made additional Livermore hit
ratios for Lee's army unavailable for those years.
31. "...Had
[Lee] refrained from attacking Grant on May 5, which was an act of doubtful
wisdom, he would have reached Richmond with his army almost intact."
Fuller, J.F.C., The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1929, 1958) [hereafter, Fuller, Generalship of Grant], p.
362.
32. "Robert
E. Lee assumed the tactical defensive after the Battle of the Wilderness until
the end of the year, and did some of the best fighting of his career."
McWhiney & Jami- eson, Attack and Die, p. 108. However, Grant had achieved
his strategic goal of attaching himself to Lee's army and had done so within
forty-eight hours of the start of his campaign. Arnold, James R., The Armies
of U.S. Grant (London: Arms and Armour Press, 1995), p. 186.
from his mission. On the night of May 6, one of his generals
warned Grant that a crisis existed and that Lee would throw his whole army on
the Union rear and cut off its communications. Grant took the opportunity to
send a message to the entire Army of the Potomac by responding,
Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to
do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double
somersault and land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. Go
back to your command, and try to think what we are going to do ourselves
instead of what Lee is going to do.33
Grant, who had told Lincoln "...there would be no
turning back," ordered a southeasterly movement around Lee's right flank.34
After the two days of vicious fighting on
May 5 and 6 and a day of respite on May 7, Lee erroneously assumed that Grant,
as all his eastern predecessors would have done, was retreating during the
night toward Fredericksburg.35 Therefore, Lee gave orders to move at
4 a.m. on the 8th toward the east in pursuit of what he believed were the
fleeing Federals. Fortunately for Lee, a new corps commander, "Fighting
Dick" Anderson, replacing the injured Longstreet, could find no place to
bivouac in the smoke-filled Wilderness, decided to begin the eastward trek
three hours early at 1 a.m., and kept going once he saw the slow progress being
made.
Anderson's men had to follow a newly cut,
stump-filled trail as they paralleled the Union army's southeasterly march.
Ahead of and parallel to Anderson, on the Brock Road northwest of Spotsylvania
Court House, Confederate cavalry delayed the Union infantry for critical hours
before giving way to superior numbers and firepower. As a result of the
cavalry's delaying tactics, Anderson's early start, and an all-night forced
march, his infantrymen were able to intercept and block ~ by a matter of
seconds or minutes - the southward advance of the Union forces near
Spotsylvania Court House. Lee's army entrenched in the vicinity of the Brock
Road northwest of the courthouse,
33. Gilbert, Thomas D., "Mr. Grant Goes to
Washington," Blue & Gray Magazine, XII, Issue 4 (April 1995), 33,37.
Foote, Civil War, III, p. 186.
35. On the morning of May 8, Lee advised Secretary Seddon that
the "enemy had abandoned his position and is moving toward
Fredericksburg." Trudeau, "Question of Time," in Gallagher, Lee
the Soldier, p. 530. Lee to James A. Seddon, May 8, 1864, Dowdey and Manarin,
Papers, p. 724.
and Grant's army moved in and sought a way to get around or
through Lee's position.
Spotsylvania deteriorated into another
bloodbath, primarily because of a defective alignment and tactics condoned and
authorized by Lee himself. The initial battlefield array at Spotsylvania was
the haphazard result of the Confederates rushing southeast and frantically
blocking the Union advance around the Rebel right flank. As the armies settled
in, it became obvious that a half-mile-wide central portion of the Army of
Northern Virginia's line jutted northward one mile from a generally-straight
alignment and that this projection was vulnerable to an attack on both flanks.
Because of its shape, this salient became known as the "Mule Shoe."
Lee strengthened the position with artillery but did not straighten his line.
Before realizing the vulnerability of the
Mule Shoe, Grant, on May 9, attempted to get around Lee's left flank by having
his forces cross the Po River. When, however, the Yankees attempted to re-cross
the twisting Po farther south the next day, they were repelled at the Block
House Bridge and retreated in the face of a Rebel counter-attack. That same
day, Grant's men unsuccessfully attacked Laurel Hill to the east of the Po.
Finally, at dusk that evening, Union Colonel Emory Upton led a well-conceived,
twelve-regiment, surprise attack on the left flank of the Mule Shoe. He carried
the Confederate trenches and failed to succeed in a major rout only because his
attack was unsupported on his flanks. Although forced to retreat, Upton had
confirmed the already- apparent vulnerability of the Mule Shoe ~ a confirmation
noted by Grant but, apparently, not by Lee.
On May 11, therefore, Grant and Meade made
plans for a full- scale attack early on May 12 against the Mule Shoe similar to
Upton's of the previous evening. Although the Mule Shoe was slightly elevated,
that vulnerable projection could not be properly defended unless covered by
substantial artillery. Despite that, Lee played into Grant's hands by
personally approving the removal of the Mule Shoe's protective artillery
during the night of May 11. Lee had received reports that Grant was on the
move, did not know whether Grant was retreating or advancing, and withdrew the
artillery from the salient in order either to launch an attack elsewhere or to
guard against a flanking movement by Grant.36 No sooner had the big
guns been moved when Rebel pickets in front of the Mule Shoe began hearing
sounds indicating the pos
McWhiney & Jamieson, Attack and Die, p.
116. That evening Lee told Heth, "My opinion is the enemy are preparing
to retreat tonight to Fredericksburg." Freeman, Lee's Lieutenants, III,
p. 398.
sibility of a massive Union assault. Desperate attempts to
recall the guns were too late; they merely resulted in the guns being brought
back just in time to be captured.
Before dawn, 20,000 Union troops under Hancock
attacked in a massive column formation and overran virtually the entire Mule
Shoe area. The absence of Confederate artillery greatly assisted the attack.
The Union attackers captured two generals, 4,000 other prisoners, 20 artillery
pieces and 30 Rebel colors. Lee then organized a frantic and violent
counter-attack. Although the Confederates were able to recapture the area
after many hours of fierce, often hand-to-hand, combat, they lost thousands of
irreplaceable men in the struggle to defend, recapture and then hold the Mule
Shoe ~ especially at its most fiercely- contested point, known ever after as
the "Bloody Angle." At long last, on May 13, Lee moved the survivors
out of the Mule Shoe and back to the security of a new, straightened line.
After a total of twelve days of Union
assaults failed to break the Confederate lines at Spotsylvania, Grant, on May
20, once again moved by the Confederate right flank to get closer to Richmond.
Lee followed the next day. The struggle at Spotsylvania had resulted in
casualty lists remarkably similar to those of the Wilderness; Grant had lost
18,000, and Lee almost 12,000. Given the 2:1 ratio of their respective armies,
Grant could militarily afford casualties at a 3:2 ratio. Lee, on the other
hand, could not tolerate the 24,000 casualties his army had suffered in less
than three weeks.
Lee requested Davis to provide replacements
from the Southeast, and, on May 15, Beauregard and virtually all Rebel infantry
and cavalry in South Carolina, coastal Georgia, and eastern Florida were ordered
to Virginia. Having been reinforced from the Shanandoah Valley, Lee moved
south with 55,000 men toward the North Anna River. They arrived on May 22 and
were attacked the next day by Hancock's 2nd Corps, which captured Chesterfield
Bridge on Telegraph Road across the North Anna. Upstream near Jericho Mill,
other Yankees crossed the river on the 23rd and repulsed a fierce but foolish
attack by A.P. Hill. The next day Lee rebuked Hill by saying, "Why did you
let these people cross the river? Why did you not drive them back as General
Jackson would have done?"37
Lee then brilliantly organized his defenses
into an inverted "V". The "V" not only was inherently
strong but also, by resting its point on
37. Robertson, James I., Jr., General A.P. Hill: The Story of a
Confederate Warrior (New York: Random House, 1987), p. 276; Trudeau,
"Question of Time" in Gallagher, Lee the Soldier, p. 533.
the North Anna, split the Union attackers so that either wing
would have to cross the river twice to reinforce the other. On May 24, some of
Burnside's troops foolishly attacked the point of the "V" at Ox Ford
and sustained heavy losses.
May 25 was the day Lee could have attacked
the divided Blue army, but he did not. Lee was ill, bedridden, and unable to
personally oversee his army in the field; no attack was made. Lee was extremely
disappointed and kept muttering, "We must strike them a blow. We must not
let them pass us again. We must strike them a blow."38 Unable
to push back the "V" and recognizing their vulnerability to a Confederate
attack while badly divided, the Union forces, on May 27, abandoned the North
Anna front and, once again, moved southeast ever closer to Richmond.
Grant next crossed the Pamunkey River just
above its confluence with Totopotomoy Creek. Federal cavalry effectively
screened the army's May 28 movement by engaging in a fierce battle at Haw's
Shop southwest of the Pamunkey crossing. Concerned about the Federal threat to
the Virginia Central Railroad (Richmond's link to the Shenandoah), Lee blocked
possible westward movement by Grant. On May 30, near Bethesda Church, Colonel
Edward Willis' Brigade of Rodes' Division of Early's (formerly Ewell's) Corps
unwisely attacked Major General Samuel Wylie Crawford's Union Division and was
mauled. Willis was mortally wounded, and two of his colonels were killed. Lee
had personally ordered the attack on the enemy force of unknown strength by
telling General Early to "send out a brigade and see if those people are
in force."39 They were.
Grant returned the favor in spades. After
Sheridan's cavalry seized the Cold Harbor crossroads ten miles from Richmond on
June 1, both armies moved to that point. Grant sent Major General Horatio G.
Wright's 6th Corps to relieve Sheridan and prepare to attack. Grant was anxious
to break through the partially-formed Confederate lines that day. His attack,
however, was delayed by the late arrival of Major General William F. Smith's
18th Corps from the Army of the James. Grant had ordered that corps north from
Ben Butler's Bermuda Hundred position, but it had marched in the wrong
direction under outdated orders. The Union attack finally came at 5 p.m.,
broke through a gap in the Rebel lines, but then was sealed off by a
counter-attack.
3S. Dowdey, Clifford, lee (Gettysburg: Stan Clark Military
Books, 1965,1991), p. 464.
39. "Grant and Lee, 1864: From the North Anna to the
Crossing of the James," Blue & Gray Magazine, XI, Issue 4 (April
1994), pp. 11,20.
The Rebels spent that night and the entire
day on June 2 constructing strong fortifications to repel an expected Union
attack. Meanwhile Hancock's 2nd Corps marched during the night to the left of
the 6th Corps. Grant's strong desire to attack promptly before the Confederates
fortified yielded to the reality that his own forces were not ready to launch
the required full-scale attack. Grant planned to renew his attack at 5 a.m. on
the 2nd but pushed the time back to 5 p.m. when Hancock's men did not arrive
until 6:30 that morning. The fate of the planned Union attack was sealed when
Grant postponed the attack again — until 4:30 the next morning - because of the
exhausted condition of Hancock's men. This meant the Rebels had more than a
day- and-a-half to prepare for Grant's attack.
Grant, apparently over-anxious due to the
proximity of Richmond, made, perhaps, his worst mistake of the war. At 4:30 on
the morning of June 3, 50,000 men of three corps initiated a suicidal assault
on Lee's well-entrenched lines. The attack was undertaken without adequate
reconnaissance of the impregnable Confederate line and was so doomed to failure
that, the previous night, many Union soldiers had written farewell letters to
their loved ones and pinned their names on their uniforms so their bodies could
be identified. This mistaken assault, which Grant regretted until his death,
resulted in 7,000 Union casualties (most of them in less than a half-hour) ~
compared to Lee's loss of only 1,500.40
After the Cold Harbor debacle, Union forces
entrenched, and the two sides settled down to a stalemate under the broiling
summer sun, with the monotony broken only by deadly sharpshooting from both
armies. During the two-week series of struggles along the Totopoto- moy and at
Cold Harbor, Lee finally achieved the kind of 3:1 casualty ratio he had needed
all along. The Union forces had suffered 12,000 casualties to the Confederates'
mere 4,000. But these results came too late and were too inconsequential in the
big picture to be decisive. Between the Wilderness and Cold Harbor, Lee had
lost about 32,000 of his 70,000 troops (46%) while Grant had lost about 50,000
of his 122,000 troops (41%).41 Between May 4 and June 3, 22 of the
58 generals in Lee's Army had been casualties (eight killed, twelve wounded and
two captured).42
Now thoroughly convinced that movement
rather than assault was the way to achieve victory, Grant decided to move
around Lee's
Ibid., pp. 11-22,44-58.
41. McWhiney
and Jamieson, Attack and Die, p. 116.
42. Freeman,
Lee's Lieutenants, III, pp. 512-3.
right once again. On June 12, Grant started a brilliantly
screened, three- day movement south to the James River, across the river by
pontoon bridge and ferries, and then west to Petersburg, the key to capturing
Richmond. Grant moved his troops secretly and by several routes and modes of
transportation. Corps by corps, Grant abandoned his Cold Harbor lines without
discovery and moved most of his army across the Chickahominy by three different
routes east of the old Seven Days' battlefields. Behind a screen established
just east of Malvern Hill by Warren's 5th Corps, the other corps headed for the
James River. On the 14th, Hancock's 2nd Corps crossed the James by boat from
Wilcox's Landing to the south side to establish a bridgehead around Windmill
Point.
Grant's daring move was not without risk.
Warren's isolated corps faced Lee's entire army north of the James River.
General Alexander described the situation that existed on June 13 as Grant
moved across the James:
We [Lee's army] could only successfully oppose Grant's
movement in two ways. First, by having an adequate force in the Petersburg
intrenchments to meet him on his arrival there. Second, by taking advantage of
the isolated position of the 5th Corps, on the afternoon of the 13th, &
crushing it. The only trouble about that was that we were entirely ignorant of
the fact that it was isolated. On the contrary, by a well devised piece of
strategy (the suggestion of [Major] Gen. [Andrew A.] Humphreys), Warren's
corps had taken up its line so near to Riddell's Shop as to give us the idea
that it was the advance corps of Grant's whole army pushing toward Richmond on
the road from Long Bridge.43
Meanwhile, Grant had sent W.F. Smith's 18th
Corps east from Cold Harbor to White House on the Pamunkey River, where they embarked
on vessels for the trip back to Butler's command in the Bermuda Hundred area
between Richmond and Petersburg. The vessels carried them down the Pamunkey and
York rivers, south on the Chesapeake Bay, through Hampton Roads and then up the
James to Bermuda Hundred, where they arrived on the 14th. All the rest of
Grant's army crossed the James River on the 15th and 16th on a mile- long
pontoon bridge at the same place Hancock had crossed. Federal cavalry and
Warren's Corps had prevented prying southern eyes from learning of this massive
movement by Grant and had Lee baffled as to
Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 420.
where Grant would strike next. Grant had stolen a march on
Lee, and a prompt, competent attack on Petersburg by the relocated army would
have cost Lee both Petersburg and Richmond, which was dependent on supply by
rail through Petersburg.
All the while Grant was moving his entire
army toward Petersburg, Lee was totally in the dark.44 His
ignorance of Grant's massive movement is demonstrated by a telegram he sent to
Beauregard on the 17th: "Warren's Corps, the 5th, crossed Chickahominy at
Long Bridge on 13th, was driven from Riddell's Shop by Hill, leaving many dead
& prisoners in our hands. That night it marched to Westover... Have not
heard from it since."45 In sharp contrast, Beauregard had
predicted Grant's movement in June 7 and 9 dispatches to Bragg, who had been
brought to Richmond as Davis' chief of staff.46
As early as during the day on the 14th, Lee
had warnings from Beauregard and an opportunity to march troops the necessary
28 miles to join Beauregard in the Petersburg trenches before the arrival of
Grant's men. Beauregard was desperately telegraphing warnings of an impending
attack and requests for reinforcements from Lee. Sensing that telegraphic
requests would be insufficient to convince Lee of the danger, Beauregard sent
Colonel Samuel B. Paul to personally solicit support from Lee. Late on the
14th, Lee rejected the request — apparently firmly and with some hostility.
That night, however, Lee decided to improve
his options by moving Hoke's Division of Beauregard's own army south from Dre-
wry's Bluff and by moving some of Lee's own troops early the next morning in
the direction of Petersburg. Thus, some of Lee's men marched, on the 15th, toward
the pontoon bridge over the James between Chaffin's and Drewry's Bluffs.
Nevertheless, Lee halted even that movement of his troops because of the
presence of Union cavalry in the vicinity of Malvern Hill north of the James.
In reality, that cavalry was just checking to make sure Lee was still there.
At 7 p.m. that evening, June 15th, the
leading elements of Grant's army attacked Petersburg with Lee twenty-five miles
away. General Alexander believed that this attack could have been another Cold
Harbor disaster for Grant, but "General Lee did not have a soldier there
to meet him! Grant had gotten away from US completely & was fighting
Beauregard. The Army of Northern Virginia had lost him, & was suck
44. Hattaway
and Jones, How the North Won, p. 589.
45. Lee
to P.G.T. Beauregard, June 17,1864.
Fuller, Grant and Lee, p. 223.
ing its thumbs by the roadside 25 miles away, & wondering
where he could be!"47
But Lee's reticence to support Beauregard
did not stop on the 15th. Here are some telegrams he sent to Beauregard after
the Union assaults had begun at Petersburg: June 16 at 10:30 a.m.: "I do
not know the position of Grant's army and cannot strip north bank of James
River. Have you not force sufficient?"48 June 16 at 4 p.m.:
"The transports you mention have probably returned Butler's troops. Has
Grant been seen crossing James River?"49 June 16-17 at
midnight: "Until I can get more definite information of Grant's movements,
I do not think it prudent to draw more troops to this side of river."50
June 17 at 6:00 a.m.: "Can you ascertain anything of Grant's
movements?"51 June 17 at 4:30 p.m.: "Have no information
of Grant's crossing James River, but upon your report have ordered troops up to
Chaffin's Bluff." (still north of the James River!).52
Finally, at 6:40 that same evening, two
days since the start of the Union attacks on Petersburg, Beauregard began
getting Lee's attention with a dispatch of desperation:
The increasing number of enemy in my front, & inadequacy
of my force to defend the already much too extended lines, will compel me to
fall within a shorter one, which I will attempt tonight. This I shall hold as
long as practicable, but without reinforcements, I may have to evacuate the
city very shortly.53
Having had his telegraphic pleas insultingly ignored for
days, Beauregard, understandably, decided to resort to extraordinary means of
getting Lee's attention when Beauregard was compelled by overwhelming force to
retreat to inner lines on the night of the 17th. One after the other, he sent
Colonel A.R. Chisolm, who, by 2 a.m. on the 18th, had been told by Lee that he
doubted that any significant part of Grant's
47. Alexander,
Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 422.
48. Lee
to P.G.T. Beauregard, June 16, 1864, 10:30 a.m., Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, p.
784; Thomas, Lee, p. 337; Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 429.
*9. Lee to P.G.T. Beauregard, June 16,1864, 4
p.m., Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, p. 785; Alexander, Fighting for the
Confederacy, p. 429.
50. Lowry, Fate of the Country, p. 53; Freeman, R.E. Lee, III,
p. 417; Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 430.
si. Thomas, Lee, p. 337.
52. Lee
to P.G.T. Beauregard, June 17, 1864, 4:30 p.m., Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, p.
789; Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 430.
53. Foote,
Civil War, III, p. 438; Lowry, Fate of the Country, p. 56; Freeman, Lee's
Lieutenants, III, p. 534; Freeman, R.E. Lee, III, p. 421; Trudeau, The Last
Citadel, p. 51; Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 430.
forces had crossed the James; Colonel Alfred Roman, who was
turned away by Lee's aides; and, finally, Major Giles B. Cooke, who, after 3
a.m. on the 18th, convinced Lee that the broad representation of three Union
corps among captured prisoners demonstrated that Grant, indeed, was across the
James in strength.54
At long last, Lee realized that he had been
duped and was in danger of losing Petersburg, Richmond — and the war. Lee then
sent an urgent 3:30 a.m. message to the Superintendent of the Richmond and
Petersburg Railroad asking whether trains could run to Petersburg, directing
that cars be sent for troops wherever they could be picked up, and stating
finally, "It is important to get troops to Petersburg without delay."55
He also telegraphed Early, who had been sent to defend Lynchburg, that Grant
was in front of Petersburg and that Early should attack quickly and then either
carry out the original plan to move down the Valley or move to Petersburg
"without delay."56 Finally, about three days late, Lee got
his army underway to Petersburg.
As a result of Lee's three-day delay, only
competence and aggressiveness were needed for Grant's army to break through at
Petersburg and virtually end the war. Grant's generals, however, demonstrated
neither. The Union assaults on Petersburg from June 15 to 18 were sufficiently
inept and tepid to allow Lee's belated reinforcements to reach Beauregard and
repel the assaults. Grant's plan was for Smith's Corps to move out of Bermuda
Hundred, supported by the 2nd Corps, and take Petersburg before reinforcements
arrived. Smith dawdled away most of the day before attacking late on the 15th.
Since he had 16,000 troops against 2,200 defenders, Smith's assault succeeded
in taking part of the Petersburg fortifications and driving the defenders back
to a new position. Instead of completing the capture of this crucial town,
Smith replaced his "weary" troops with 2nd Corps men and rested.57
By the 16th, Beauregard, while continuing
to plead with Lee for reinforcements, had consolidated his Bermuda Hundred line
between Richmond and Petersburg and sent more troops south to Petersburg. His
skimpy force at Petersburg gave ground but was able to hold off rather
half-hearted attacks by the 2nd, 18th and newly-arrived 9th corps. Yet another
corps, the 5th, had arrived at Petersburg by the 17th, but still uncoordinated
attacks, amazingly, lost, rather than gained,
54. Alexander,
Fighting for the Confederacy, pp. 430-1.
55. Lee
to E.H. Gill, June 18, 1864, 3:30 a.m., Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, p. 791;
Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 431.
56. Lee
to Jubal A. Early, June 18, 1864, Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, p. 791;
Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 431.
57. Hattaway
and Jones, How the North Won, pp. 589-90.
ground. That night, Beauregard, realizing the extreme danger
of his forward position, withdrew to a new, fortified line.
By dawn on the 18th, the Federals had added
the 6th Corps, and they launched a 70,000-man, five-corps attack. They overran
the Rebels' abandoned trenches and appeared about to sweep aside the defenders
of the new line. Miraculously, Lee's reinforcements, from north of the James
River, arrived just in time to repulse the attackers. From 7:30 to 11 that
morning, Lee's troops poured into the Confederate lines. At noon, Major General
David B. Birney launched an unsupported attack and was beaten back. At 4 p.m.,
one of his regiments did the same, and its 850 men suffered 632 casualties, the
greatest percentage lost in a single battle by any Union regiment in the entire
war. Later that afternoon, a frustrated Grant called off the assaults. During
the preceding three days, he and his corps commanders had missed a golden opportunity
presented to them by Lee to capture a virtually undefended Petersburg. That
action would have ensured the evacuation of Richmond and significantly
shortened the war.
The two armies then settled into siege
warfare, a situation Lee had previously said would spell defeat for his army.
Lee earlier had told Early, "We must destroy this army of Grant's before
he gets to the James River. If he gets there, it will become a siege, and then
it will be a mere question of time."58 Although Lee had
inflicted 65,000 casualties on Grant's army between May 5 and June 18 while his
own suffered "only" 37,000 casualties, Lee's army had been so
weakened by the losses of 1862 and 1863 that it had no chance to defeat Grant's
forces.
Between June 1,1862, when he assumed
command, and December 31, 1863, Lee's army had lost nineteen of its generals,
including four in the Antietam Campaign and five more at Gettysburg. These
losses were followed by the deaths of eight more generals in May, 1864, including
three during Lee's last major tactical offensive at the Wilderness, two at
Spotsylvania, and two at Yellow Tavern.59 As the war progressed,
Lee found it increasingly difficult to find suitable replacements for his dead
generals.
With the partial siege of Petersburg and
Richmond, the first moment had arrived when Lee should have considered ending
the slaughter. He must have known that military victory, in the long run,
Nolan, Alan T„ Lee Considered: General
Robert E. Lee and Civil War History (Chapel Hill and London: University of
North Carolina Press, 1991) [hereafter Nolan, Lee Considered], p. 85.
59. Fox, Regimental Losses, pp. 571-2; Warner, Ezra J.,
Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders (Baton Rouge and London:
Louisiana State University Press, 1959, 1991) [hereafter Warner, Generals in
Gray].
was impossible. General Alexander later explained that Lee
had the ability, but not the will, to halt the proceedings:
It is, indeed, a fact that both the army and the people at
that time would have been very loth to recognize that the cause was hopeless.
In the army, I am sure, such an idea was undreamed of. Gen. Lee's influence
could doubtless have secured acquiescence in it, for his influence had no
bounds; but nothing short of that would. He would not have opposed any policy
adopted by President Davis; so the matter was really entirely within the
president's power.60
Although Alexander believed peace then would have saved
thousands of lives and up to a billion dollars of property for the South, he
agreed with the decision to fight to the bitter end in order to save the honor
of the Army of Northern Virginia.61
On June 12, meanwhile, Lee had sent Jubal
Early and his 2nd Corps west to defend Lynchburg from Union attack. David
Hunter had relieved Sigel, successfully moved up the Shenandoah Valley, won a
battle at Piedmont, burned the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington, and
then crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains to threaten Lynchburg. Early's
reinforcements arrived there from June 17 to 19, just in time to repel Hunter's
probes on the 18th. Outnumbered about 14,000 to 11,000, Hunter abandoned his
offensive and retreated all the way to the Kanawha Valley in West Virginia.
On June 27, Lee authorized Early to march
northward down the Shenandoah Valley, to cross into Maryland, and then to
approach Washington from the north.62 Early's orders from Lee even
authorized a hare-brained scheme to send cavalry around, and far southeast of,
Washington to free the Confederate prisoners at Point Lookout, the intersection
of the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay in St. Mary's County, Maryland.
The fortifications and forts surrounding
Washington ensured that Early would do no damage there. In any event, Early was
slowed for a day by a small Union force at Monocacy Creek south of Frederick,
Maryland, on July 9. On July 11, Early was repulsed at Fort Stevens on the
north side of Washington, and he, thereafter, fled back into northern
Virginia. There he engaged in a couple of skirmishes and then
60. Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 433.
Ibid.
62. For details of Early's campaign, see Judge, Joseph, Season
of Fire: The Confederate Strike on Washington (Berryville, Virginia: Rockbridge
Publishing Co., 1994).
headed north on a senseless revenge mission to burn Chambersburg,
Pennsylvania, on July 30.
Lee probably regarded Early's quixotic
five-week expedition as a success because it forced Grant to send two corps
(the 6th and 19th) from Petersburg by vessel to defend Washington. However,
those troops were not going to enable Grant to take Petersburg anytime soon in
any event and did not make Grant vulnerable to a counter-attack by Lee. Lee had
simply used one corps to draw two of the enemy's to Washington while Grant
still had five others to face Lee's remaining two in the Petersburg-Richmond
area.
With Atlanta critically threatened by
Sherman, there was a much better use for any surplus troops that Lee could
spare. Instead of sending Early on an imaginative, but futile, thrust toward
Washington and then into Pennsylvania, Lee would have produced more effective
results by sending a comparable number of troops south to oppose Sherman in
Georgia. By sending those 18,000 surplus troops to Georgia, Lee could have
increased Johnston's 57,000-man army defending Atlanta by almost 30 percent.
That increase would have had a substantial impact whether Johnston attacked or
stayed on the defensive against Sherman. Such a movement was the very thing
Grant was concerned about preventing during all of his 1864 campaign.63
Unlike Grant, however, Lee was a theater,
not a national, general. General Alexander criticized Lee's futile attempt to
bluff Grant, whom he said could not be bluffed, and Lee's failure to use the
Rebels' internal lines to reinforce Sherman, "...the very strongest play
on the military board. Then every man sent might have counted for his full
weight in a decisive struggle with Sherman &, if it proved successful, then
Early might return bringing a large part of Johnston's army with him to
reinforce Lee."64 The perceptive Grant sent a message to
Sherman, in early July, expressing his concern that Early's men were going to
reinforce Johnston against Sherman; on July 15, Grant wrote Halleck that his
greatest fear was that the Confederates would do just that.65 But, fortunately
for Sherman, Lee had a different idea.
By the time Lee sent Early north from
Lynchburg on June 27, it should have been clear to Lee that Sherman's three
armies in Georgia, originally totaling 110,000 men, presented a serious threat
to the Confederacy, to the chance to beat Lincoln in November's election, and
even to Lee's own army. Beginning on May 3, Sherman had pushed
63. Gallagher, Gary W., '"Upon Their Success Hang
Momentous Interests': Generals," pp. 79-108 [hereafter Gallagher,
"Generals"] in Boritt, Why the Confederacy Lost, p. 91.
Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 440.
65. Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, p. 604.
toward Atlanta with Major General James B. McPherson's Army
of the Tennessee, Major General John M. Schofield's Army of the Ohio, and
George Thomas' Army of the Cumberland. Through a series of flanking moves,
interspersed with a couple of foolish direct assaults, Sherman had relentlessly
moved 70 miles from the Tennessee-Georgia border southeasterly to the environs
of Atlanta, the railroad and manufacturing center of the Confederate
heartland. The absence of major battles had resulted in Sherman's forces
suffering 11,000 casualties and Johnston's 66,000 troops incurring 9,000
casualties ~ low casualties for two months of constant contact.
By June 19, Sherman had reached Kennesaw
Mountain, a mere twelve miles from Atlanta. Lee had notice, by telegram, that
Atlanta was in real trouble ~ and with it the South. There was plenty of time -
a few weeks - to get troops to Atlanta while the city could still be saved.
But, instead of sending Early's Corps, or a comparable number of troops, to
assist in the defense of Atlanta, Lee sent no one and then proceeded to make
the situation in Georgia even worse.
Joseph E. Johnston and Jefferson Davis had
had a long history of acrimony which had developed into deep, mutual hatred by
July, 1864. Johnston believed that Davis had not given him appropriate
seniority among Confederate generals at the outset of the war, that Davis had
placed him in a powerless position as Commander of the Department of the West
while Pemberton and Bragg were losing Vicksburg and Chattanooga respectively,
and that Davis was constantly second- guessing his strategy and tactics.
Sherman's persistent and successful campaign not only brought his armies across
the Chattahoochee River and within five miles of Atlanta on July 8 and 9, but
it also brought the Davis-Johnston feud to a head.
By that time, Davis was disconcerted by the
series of retreats to Atlanta by Johnston, was totally frustrated by Johnston's
refusal to explain his future plans, and, thus, resolved to replace him
immediately in a last desperate effort to save Atlanta. This move was
encouraged by Braxton Bragg, who had caused so much discord among western Confederate
generals, had been relieved for cause after losing Chattanooga, and now,
implausibly, was serving as chief military advisor to Davis, his long-time
friend.
Davis and Bragg both disliked Johnston, and
John Bell Hood, a new major general and new corps commander under Johnston, had
been sending both of them secret, self-serving, and false reports critical of
Johnston's campaign. Hood lied to them about his own battlefield failures
during the campaign and about the alleged willingness to retreat of Johnston
and William J. Hardee (Hood's major competitor to
replace Johnston) ~ when, in fact, Hood had opposed attacks
and urged retreats over Johnston's and Hardee's opposition. Hood's calculated
campaign for Johnston's command won the crucial support of Bragg, who also
remembered Hardee's earlier opposition to Bragg when Bragg commanded the Army
of Tennessee.66
Not only did Davis plan to remove Johnston,
but he decided to replace him at this crucial juncture with the conniving and
hot-headed Hood. Before taking these actions, however, Davis consulted with his
trusted military advisor, Robert E. Lee. At that point, Lee had the opportunity
to prevent what Bruce Catton has called the most grievous error of the war.
Explaining how "the roof fell in" on the Democrats' opportunity to
push Lincoln out of the White House, Catton said:
Worse yet, William Tecumseh Sherman captured Atlanta. Sherman
had moved against Joe Johnston's Confederate army the same day Grant crossed
the Rapidan. From the distant North his campaign had looked no more like a success
than the one in Virginia. If it had not brought so many casualties, it had
seemed no more effective at ending Rebel resistance. Wise old Joe Johnston,
sparring and side-stepping and shifting back, had a very clear understanding of
the home-front politics behind the armies. His whole plan had been to keep
Sherman from forcing a showdown until after the election, on the theory that
victory postponed so long would look to the people up North like victory lost
forever, and his strategy had been much more effective than his own government
could realize. To President Davis, Johnston's course had seemed like sheer
faintheartedness, and he had at last dismissed Johnston and put slugging John
B. Hood in his place. Hood had gone in and slugged, and Sherman's army had more
slugging power—so now, with the Democrats betting the election on the thesis
that the war effort was a flat failure, decisive success had at last been won
[by Sherman].67
Replacing Johnston with Hood was
inexcusable. Hood, who had lost the use of an arm at Gettysburg and who had
lost a leg at Chicka- mauga, was an overly-aggressive general whom even Lee had
described as "all lion, none of the fox."68 His record of
costly frontal assaults included not only the Seven Days' and Gettysburg. His
men also
Connelly, Autumn of Glory, pp. 321-5,371, 391-421; Watkins,
"Co. Aytch", pp. 166-7.
67. Catton, Bruce, The Army of the Potomac: A Stillness at
Appomattox (Garden City, New
York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1953), pp. 294-5. 6S.
Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, p. 607.
had been slaughtered at Antietam the previous September; when
afterwards asked the whereabouts of his division, Hood had responded,
"...dead on the field."69 Again, as recently as June 22 at
Kolb's Farm near Atlanta, Hood's troops had been decimated in battle. Hood, who
had commanded a corps for only a few months, was a protege of Lee. Lee knew and
admired Hood and his over-zealousness and, when consulted by Davis, made no
effort to forcefully dissuade the President from making this disastrous
appointment.
Lee knew Davis' decision was unwise but
refused to use his great influence to veto it. On July 12, Davis sent Lee a
telegram stating that he was relieving Johnston and asking for Lee's evaluation
of Hood as Johnston's successor. Lee responded as follows: "Telegram of
today received. I regret the fact stated. It is a bad time to release the commander
of an army situated as that of Tennessee. We may lose Atlanta and the army too.
Hood is a bold fighter. I am doubtful as to other qualities necessary."70
Obviously concerned about this matter, Lee wrote to Davis later that same day:
I am distressed at the intelligence conveyed in your telegram
of today. It is a grievous thing to change commander of an army situated as is
that of the Tennessee. Still if necessary it ought to be done. I know nothing
of the necessity. I had hoped that Johnston was strong enough to deliver
battle... Hood is a good fighter, very industrious on the battlefield, careless
off, & I have had no opportunity of judging of his action, when the whole
responsibility rested upon him. I have a high opinion of his gallantry,
earnestness & zeal. [Lieutenant] Genl [William J.] Hardee has more experience
in managing an army...71
A couple of days later, Secretary of War Seddon visited Lee
and discussed the matter further. As had Davis, Seddon told Lee, Johnston was
being relieved and sought Lee's advice on a successor. Lee expressed his
regret about the apparent need for a change but did not provide definitive
counsel concerning a replacement.
Although Douglas Southall Freeman, reading
between the lines, claims that Lee opposed Johnston's removal and Hood's
appointment, the record supports a contrary conclusion. Lee failed to
affirmatively oppose Hood, which was necessary in light of Davis' stated
intention to select him. Lee also made several positive statements concerning
Hood
69. Groom, Shrouds of Glory, p. 34.
70 ■ Lee to
Jefferson Davis, July 12,1864, Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, p. 821.
7>. Lee to Jefferson Davis, July 12,1864, 9:30 p.m., Dowdey
and Manarin, Papers, pp. 821-2.
(calling him a bold fighter with gallantry and zeal) that
would have pushed Davis toward naming Hood. These statements were particularly
helpful to Hood because Davis was fed up with Johnston's constant retreats and
was looking for someone who would fight. The worst part of Lee's advice was his
statements that Hood was good on the battlefield and questionable otherwise;
the truth was that Hood's greatest flaw was that he was dangerously reckless on
the battlefield. Hood's recklessness on the field was capable of destroying his
own army, and it did.
Perhaps Lee saw and admired something of
himself in Hood and therefore, did not criticize Hood's battlefield
performance. In that regard, it is interesting to consider Johnston's
comparison of himself to Lee in Johnston's response to Davis' July 17 order
relieving him of command:
...Sherman's army is much stronger compared with that of
Tennessee than Grant's compared with that of Northern Virginia. Yet the enemy
has been compelled to advance much more slowly to the vicinity of Atlanta than
to that of Richmond and Petersburg, and has penetrated much deeper into
Virginia than into Georgia.72
Davis' appointment of Hood drew a mixed reaction;
Confederates had their doubts, and the Yankees were elated. Confederate General
Arthur M. Manigault later remembered that "...The army received the announcement
with very bad grace, and with no little murmuring."73 Sam
Watkins called Hood's appointment "...the most terrible and disastrous
blow that the South ever received," and described how fellow Army of
Tennessee soldiers cried or deserted after the elevation of the
"over-rated" Hood.74 The only place where Hood's
appointment brought joy was in the Union command. John Schofield, Hood's West
Point roommate, told Sherman that Hood was bold, rash, and courageous and
would quickly hit Sherman "like hell."75 Sherman alerted
his commanders to the risk of attack, advised them that "each army commander
will accept battle on anything like fair terms,"76 and wrote to
n. Castel, Albert, Decision in the West: The Atlanta Campaign
of 1864 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992), p. 362.
73. Davis,
Stephen, "Atlanta Campaign. Hood Fights Desperately. The Battles of
Atlanta: Events from July 10 to September 2, 1864," Blue & Gray
Magazine, VI, Issue 6 (August 1989), pp. 8,11.
74. Watkins,
"Co. Aytch", pp. 167-9,174-5.
75. Groom,
Shrouds of Glory, p. 25.
76. Marszalek,
John F., Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order (New York: Macmillan, Inc.,
1993), p. 277.
his wife that he was pleased by the change.77 He
had good reason to be happy.
After replacing Johnston as commander of the
Army of Tennessee, Hood did, predictably and immediately, go on the offensive.
Beginning on July 20, Hood launched frontal assaults on strong Union positions
at Peach Tree Creek, then Decatur (Atlanta) (July 22), and, finally, at Ezra
Church (July 28). The results were so disastrous that, on August 5 Davis, who
must have been having second thoughts, provided his newly-appointed army
commander with some belated tactical advice: "The loss consequent upon
attacking the enemy in his entrenchments requires you to avoid that if
practicable."78
During the preceding months of the Atlanta
campaign, Johnston had lost 9,000 men to Sherman's 11,000. In a little more
than a week, Hood lost an appalling 14,000 more to Sherman's mere 4,000.79
Parenthetically, Early's 18,000 troops would have made up all, and prevented
some, of Hood's losses if Lee had sent them to Georgia, instead of Maryland, in
late June or early July.
A month later, on August 31, Hood lost over
4,000 more men (15 percent casualties) at Jonesboro, where he criticized his
subordinate Hardee's assault as feeble because of the low percentage of
casualties.80 With their win at Jonesboro, the Union forces
controlled all the railroads into Atlanta, which Hood, therefore, was
compelled to evacuate on September 1.
Once Hood took command, the struggle for
Atlanta became a bloodbath. The 100-day campaign had cost the Union 32,000
killed, injured and missing and the Confederates 35,000 — two-thirds of these
Rebel casualties occurring after Hood succeeded Johnston.81 Because
Sherman had a 2-to-l manpower advantage, the southerners could not afford to
trade casualties of this scope. Their weakened condition compelled Hood to
flee westward and make some attempt to destroy Sherman's railroad supply line.
Sherman at first followed Hood, but finally convinced Grant that Sherman's
superiority was so great that he could split his army and break loose on his
famous March to the Sea.
Only three months later, on November 29,
Hood allowed Scho- field's 20,000-man, augmented Army of the Ohio to escape a
trap Hood had carefully set at Spring Hill, Tennessee. The next day, in disgust
and fury, Hood deliberately ordered the slaughter of the Army of Tennes
77 Ibid.
7S. Connelly, Autumn of Glory, p. 433.
79. Hattaway
and Jones, How the North Won, p. 609.
80. Groom,
Shrouds of Glory, p. 53.
81. Ibid.,
p. 54.
see (21 percent casualties) in a suicidal attack at Franklin,
Tennessee.82 Captain Sam Foster, of Texas, said that Franklin, where
six Confederate generals were killed, five were wounded, and one was captured,
was not war: "It can't be called anything else than cold-blooded
murder."83 More Confederates were killed at Franklin than in
any single day of the war. Two weeks later, the remnants of Hood's Army were
routed (with 26 percent casualties) in the Battle of Nashville, where Hood
foolishly used his 25,000 remaining soldiers to challenge 77,000 of the enemy.84
Hood's Livermore hit ratios demonstrate the
manner in which he destroyed an army in six months. At Peach Tree Creek, his
ratio was 133 (of each 1,000) hit to 85 hitting the enemy. In his attack at the
Battle of Atlanta Quly 22), Hood's negative ratio was 190 to 53. On July 28
(Atlanta), the ratio worsened further to 222:30. Unbelievably, things
deteriorated further at Jonesboro (August 31) to 72:7. In the slaughter at
Franklin, the ratio was 206:45. There are no official records of Confederate
losses at Nashville because Hood's army fell apart there.85 In a
mere six months, Hood had reduced a proud army of 50,000 to a battered
collection of 18,000 survivors, who retreated across the Tennessee into Alabama
in the middle of winter.86 This was the man known to, mentored by,
and whose elevation to army command was acquiesced to by Robert E. Lee.
Lee made a positive reference to the one
man qualified to replace Johnston: Lieutenant General William J. Hardee, a
corps commander in Johnston's army. Although Hardee had refused command of that
army after the firing of Bragg, there was no indication that he would refuse
again under different circumstances. In fact, his disgust at Hood's appointment
and disputes with Hood led to his request for a transfer away from Hood within
weeks of Hood's assumption of command. When he made that request, he remarked
that his first refusal of the army command was not permanent.87
The documentary evidence shows that Lee did
not recommend to Davis that he reject Hood and, instead, select Hardee. It
shows that perhaps Lee thought this would be the proper action. But, given
Davis' stated predisposition to name Hood, and given Bragg's well-known dislike
for Johnston and Hardee, Lee's dancing around the issue and failure to make a
straight-forward recommendation could only have
82. Livermore,
Numbers b Losses, p. 132.
83. Groom,
Shrouds of Glory, p. 218.
Ibid., p. 224; Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, pp.
650-3.
85. Livermore, Numbers b Losses, pp. 120-133.
Groom, Shrouds of Glory, p. 273.
87. Warner, Generals in Gray, pp. 124-5.
one result: Davis' proceeding to make the disastrous
appointment of Hood.88
Lee's error in acquiescing to Hood's
appointment eventually eliminated the Army of Tennessee as a southern buffer
for Lee's own army.89 It allowed Sherman to move his unchallenged
force on a destructive march through Georgia and the Carolinas (causing thousands
of desertions from Lee's army) and was about to result in Sherman's and Grant's
encirclement of the Army of Northern Virginia when Petersburg and Richmond
fell in April, 1865.
The ultimate results of Hood's assumption
of command, however, were not immediately apparent. After Hood's initial,
three, costly assaults, he assumed a defensive position in Atlanta, kept open
two vital rail lines to the south, and held off Sherman for another month.
Hood, nevertheless, had so weakened his army that it was only a question of how
much time it would take before Atlanta fell. Would Sherman take Atlanta in time
to keep Lincoln in the White House?
The North was growing impatient. During
July and August 1864, Grant and his army were tied down in a siege of Petersburg
and Richmond while Sherman and his armies were locked in a siege at Atlanta.
These stalemates were particularly frustrating and depressing when considered
in light of the monstrous casualties the Union armies, particularly Grant's,
had suffered since the beginning of May. Peace Democrats were successfully
causing many northerners to question whether the war was worth fighting. Many
appeals were blatantly racist; they asked whether it was worth shedding white
blood to free Negro slaves. When the Democrats adopted a Peace Platform and
nominated popular ex-Union General George McClellan as their presidential
candidate in late August, things looked very bleak for Lincoln and the Union.
Grant's continuing failure to break Lee's
now-formidable lines at Petersburg was a major cause of this gloom. On June 22
and 23, the Yankees had tried to sweep southwest to capture the Weldon and Pe
88. For still another view, see Hughes, Nathaniel Cheairs,
Jr., General William ]. Hardee: Old Reliable (Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana
State University Press, 1965), pp. 215-8. Hughes argues that the Confederacy
needed a miracle to turn the tide and only Hood believed he could produce one.
That argument overlooks the fact that, with the Presidential election looming,
the potentially fatal offensive burden was on Sherman, not the Confederates,
and since the Atlanta environs had now been reached, Sherman could no longer
simply sidestep the Rebels and move on; he had to take Atlanta for political
reasons. By turning to Hood and going on the offensive, Davis doomed Atlanta
and the Confederacy.
8«. Connelly, Autumn of Glory, pp. 429-513.
tersburg Railroad but had been severely repulsed, with a loss
of 3,000 men, by the three divisions of Hill's 3rd Corps.
The biggest fiasco of the Petersburg siege
came a month later, on July 30, when Pennsylvania miner-soldiers set off a
horrendous explosion near the center of the Rebel lines, killing hundreds of
Confederates, and creating the opportunity for a major break-through. The opportunity
was especially great since, during previous days, Grant had duped Lee into
moving four of his seven infantry divisions from Petersburg to north of the
James. Incompetence and cowardice among Union generals, however, led to a half-hearted
assault and the ultimate slaughter of up to 4,000 Union troops, most of them
trapped in "The Crater" created by the explosion; the Confederates
lost only 1,500 men.90
Feeling more confident after this debacle,
Lee, in early August, sent Major General Joseph B. Kershaw's division to
reinforce Early in the Valley. By doing so, he missed another opportunity to
reinforce the Confederate forces (then under Hood) in their continuing struggle
against Sherman outside Atlanta.91
The advantages of being on the defensive
were again demonstrated in late August when, in additional attacks on the
Weldon Railroad, the Union lost 4,500 men (to 1,600 Confederates) in securing
a hold on the tracks at Globe Tavern on August 18-21, then lost 2,700 more (to
700 Rebels) in a trap sprung on Hancock at Reams Station several miles to the
south on August 25. However, in between these defensive victories for Lee was a
foolish August 21 attack in the same Weldon Railroad area. Lee directed an
assault on Union breastworks that resulted in 1,500 casualties to the enemy's
300. On both sides of the action, Lee continued to demonstrate the tremendous
advantage of being on the defensive.
Lincoln was renominated for President on
the Union ticket, but he seriously doubted that he would win another term
because of the bleak battlefield situation. In August he told a friend,
"You think I don't know I am going to be beaten, but I do and unless some
great change
90. Hattaway
and Jones, How the North Won, pp. 614-5; Livermore, Numbers & Losses, p.
116.
91. Grant
was not alone in considering the possibility of Confederate troops being moved
from Virginia to Georgia. Brigadier General
Josiah Gorgas, Chief of Confederate Ord
nance, wrote, "I think still that my
notions were correct at the outset of Sherman's movement when I advocated the
detachment of 10,000 men to Georgia, even at the risk of losing Petersburgh
& the Southern R.R. It would have ruined Sherman, & with his ruin, gone
far to make the north tired of the war." Wiggins, Journals, pp. 143-4.
takes place, badly beaten."92 On August 23,
Lincoln despairingly wrote the following note at a Cabinet meeting:
This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly
probable that this administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my
duty to so cooperate with the President-elect as to save the Union between the
election and the inauguration, as he will have secured his election on such
ground that he cannot possibly save it afterward.93
He had all the Cabinet members sign the statement.94
Three days later, Jedediah Hotchkiss, a skilled Confederate cartographer, came
to a similar conclusion in a letter to his wife: "The signs are
brightening, and I still confidently look for a conclusion of hostilities with
the ending of'Old Abe's' reign."95
Nevertheless, Lincoln persisted in his
efforts to save the Union and to end slavery, and he refused to back down from
his carefully- crafted position on those two issues. Fortunately for Lincoln,
the underlying conditions in both Virginia and Georgia guaranteed ultimate
Union military victories - if the November elections did not stop the war. Lee
had so devastated his own army that it was tied down in a siege situation he
had long regarded as making defeat inevitable. In addition, he had acquiesced
to Hood's taking command in Georgia and, thus, in a similar, fatal weakening of
the Army of Tennessee. The issue was whether the Confederate position in either
situation was bad enough that the Union forces would emerge victorious in time
to affect the Presidential election.96
The first good omen for the North was
Admiral David Farragut's capture of Mobile Bay. His success there began with
his "Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead" charge into the Bay on
August 5 and ended with the capture of critical Fort Morgan on August 23. As a
result, the South had run out of major ports on the Gulf of Mexico.
That same month, Grant expressed his clear
recognition of the overriding significance of the manpower disparity between
North and South when he urged that the Government continue its policy of not
engaging in prisoner exchanges:
Donald, David Herbert, Lincoln (New York: Simon and Schuster,
1995), p. 529.
95. Nevins, Ordeal, VIII, pp. 92-3. * Ibid., p. 92.
«5. Miller, William J., Mapping for Stonewall: The
Civil War Service of Jed Hotchkiss (Washington: Elliott & Clark
Publishing, 1993), p. 143.
"...Most Confederates agreed that they
needed to mobilize Union discontent and undermine Union will sufficiently so
that voters would select a peace candidate to replace Lincoln." Beringer
et al, Why the South Lost, p. 347.
It is hard on our men held in southern prisons not to exchange
them, but it is humanity to those left in the ranks to fight our battles. Every
man we hold, when released on parole or otherwise, becomes an active soldier
against us at once either directly or indirectly. If we commence a system of
exchange which liberates all prisoners taken, we will have to fight on until
the whole South is exterminated. If we hold those caught they amount to no more
than dead men. At this particular time to release all rebel prisoners...would
insure Sherman's defeat and would compromise our safety here.97
The prior day, he had more succinctly written, "We ought
not to make a single exchange nor release a prisoner on any pretext whatever
until the war closes. We have got to fight until the military power of the
South is exhausted, and if we release or exchange prisoners captured it simply
becomes a war of extermination."98
Lee's concerns, expressed in an August 24
letter to the Secretary of War, confirmed Grant's view: "Unless some
measures can be devised to replace our losses, the consequences may be
disastrous... Without some increase of our strength, I cannot see how we are to
escape the natural military consequences of the enemy's numerical
strength."99
The "great change" that Lincoln
needed for re-election occurred the day after the Democrats' August 31
nomination of McClellan as their Presidential candidate. Sherman had moved a
large force south of Atlanta, had seized the last open railroad by pushing
Hardee off the Macon and Western at Jonesboro on September 1, and had compelled
Hood to begin abandoning the city that very night. Lee's failure to provide
reinforcements and Hood's decimation of the forces he did have finally had
proven too much to overcome. On September 2 Sherman occupied Atlanta and
telegraphed Halleck, "Atlanta is ours, and fairly won."100
With the fall of Atlanta, the North went wild, and both Lincoln's re-election
and ultimate Union victory were assured.
The icing on Lincoln's cake was provided by
Phil Sheridan's defeats of Jubal Early in the Shenandoah Valley during the
pre-election months of September and October.101 By early September,
Sheridan had
97■ McWhiney and Jamieson,
Attack and Die, p. 9.
98. Ibid.
Lee to James A. Seddon, August 23,1864, Dowdey and Manarin,
Papers, pp. 343-4.
10°. Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, p. 673.
101. For details of the 1864 Shenandoah Valley campaign, see Wert,
Jeffrey D., From Winchester to Cedar Creek: The Shenandoah Campaign of 1864
(Carlisle, Pennsylvania: South Mountain Press, Inc., 1987).
20,000 troops to take on Early's 12,000. Sheridan's early
cautiousness led to the departure of Kershaw's Division from the Valley for
Petersburg. Learning of this, Sheridan decided to attack a portion of Early's
force at Winchester at the north end of the Valley. Early concentrated his
remaining forces just in time for the September 19 battle, held off the strong
frontal assaults, but was flanked and forced to retreat. Early lost 4,000 men
but inflicted 5,000 casualties on Sheridan, who had been the attacker. Sheridan
followed up this victory by again flanking Early's forces at Fisher's Hill
three days later and by forcing them to retreat southward far up the Valley.
Sheridan, who had suffered only 500
casualties at Fisher's Hill to his enemy's 1,200, then proceeded to
systematically burn and destroy most of the Valley, one of Lee's important
breadbaskets. Early came back for one more pre-election effort when, at dawn on
October 19, he surprised and routed Sheridan's troops at Cedar Creek. That
afternoon, however, the absent Sheridan returned to lead his troops in a
counterattack, which swept the stunned Confederates back up the Valley for the
duration of the war. Although Sheridan had lost 5,700 men to Early's 2,900 in
this final 1864 struggle in the Valley, he had won three major battles in about
a month, cleared the lower Valley of Confederates, and helped set the stage
for Lincoln's November success at the ballot-box.
Meanwhile, the Confederacy's military
situation near Richmond was continuing to prove costly. Grant, hoping to break
through to either Richmond or Petersburg, decided to test the Confederate line
by attacking it on both ends. Thus, he launched simultaneous, costly assaults
on the morning of September 29. The northern assault on Confederate
fortifications in the Chaffin's Bluff area, under the command of Ben Butler,
succeeded in capturing New Market Heights, the critical Fort Harrison, and the
minor Fort Hoke. Other attacks that day on Forts Gilmer, Gregg, and Johnson,
north of Fort Harrison on the Confederate line, met with failure and death.
Nevertheless, Lee was so upset by the loss
of Fort Harrison that he desperately, but unsuccessfully, counter-attacked the
next day. That frontal assault cost him most of the 2,000 Rebel casualties
suffered on the northern sector. The Confederates were compelled to establish a
new line slightly closer to Richmond, and the two sides resumed their trench
warfare. Total Union casualties of 3,300 in this struggle on the northern end
of the line compared unfavorably with the Rebels' 2,000 and again demonstrated
the cost of frontally assaulting strong defensive positions. At the other end
of the line, Grant was successful in ex
tending his line to Poplar Springs Church and, thus,
stretching Lee's lines - but at a cost to Grant of 2,900 men and to Lee of only
900.
After that September fighting, Lee, in
October, proposed to Grant that the two sides resume their prisoner exchanges,
which had been halted when the southerners refused to exchange black soldiers
with the Union. Grant agreed to Lee's request but only if Blacks were exchanged
"...the same as white soldiers." Lee responded that "...negroes
belonging to our citizens are not considered subjects of exchange and were not
included in my proposition." Grant then turned down the exchange in
accordance with Lincoln's policy on the issue, which cost the President votes in
the following month's election.102
The November election, nevertheless,
brought Lincoln a spectacular 212-21 Electoral College victory. He garnered 78
percent of the military vote and 54 percent of civilian ballots. The relative
closeness of the popular vote - 2,200,000 to 1,800,000 ~ provided an inkling of
what might have been, had the Confederates used their forces more wisely and
conservatively and kept Atlanta from falling. Jefferson Davis refused to
accept the fact that the game was up and insisted that Lincoln's reelection
had changed nothing. But southern citizens' demoralization and southern
soldiers' desertions spoke to the contrary.103 Based on his own
earlier statements, Lee should have known that further resistance was futile
and would only bring more death and destruction to the South and its armies.
Nevertheless, on November 12, he wrote to his wife that she should
"...make up [her] mind that Mr. Lincoln is reelected President," and
"...we must therefore make up our minds for another four years of
war."104
From November 1864 until the following
April, Lee, with his unparalleled standing among Confederate leaders, had the
power to bring the war to a halt by simply resigning. There is no indication
that he attempted to tell Davis that further resistance was hopeless, and it is
likely that Davis would have rejected any advice to stop the war — particularly
given his later hopes that the struggle could be continued even after Lee
surrendered at Appomattox the following April. Nevertheless, Lee's stature and
standing were so great that his resignation would have caused massive
desertions and brought virtually all the fighting to an end. Lee could have
presented Davis with a fait accompli, but he chose to carry on the war in the
glorious cavalier tradition and,
102. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 800.
,03. Jones, "Military Means," in Boritt, Why the
Confederacy Lost, p. 73, citing Confederate Vice President Stephens' statement
that southern aspirations of prevailing had been sus
tained only by hopes that the northern peace advocates would
succeed. 1(M. Thomas, Lee, p. 346.
thereby, caused the loss of thousands of lives and the
destruction of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of southern property.
Lee should have realized the importance of
ominous developments occurring in the Deep South. After the capture of
Atlanta, Sherman had pursued Hood into Alabama until Sherman determined to
undertake a more creative and effective campaign. Specifically, in late
September and on into October and November, Hood went after Sherman's Western
and Atlantic Railroad supply line and then moved into northern Alabama for a
planned invasion of Tennessee. Initially Sherman pursued Hood across the
Alabama border, but Sherman then had second thoughts.
Sherman decided that his most effective
course of action would be to break loose of his supply line, live off the
countryside, and bring war to the southern people by sweeping through Georgia
to the coast, where he could establish a new supply base. To obtain Lincoln's
and Grant's consent to this daring gamble, Sherman had sent George Thomas and
John Schofield to defend Tennessee, and, possibly, the Ohio River Valley, with
55,000 troops against Hood's desperate, northward movement from northern
Alabama. Hood's abysmal failures and the disintegration of his army confirmed
the validity of Sherman's strategy and made his campaign an unmitigated
success. On November 16, shortly after the Presidential election, Sherman
marched out of Atlanta and embarked on a five-month campaign of total
destruction through Georgia, then South Carolina, and finally North Carolina.
While Lee must have watched in horror, Sherman's unchallenged 60,000-man force
moved southeast across Georgia, lived off the resources of the countryside, and
left a swath of destruction and depression in its wake. After a 280-mile march,
they reached the beautiful coastal city of Savannah and obtained its surrender
on December 21 in time for Sherman to make it a Christmas present to Lincoln.
Although Hardee's small defending force escaped from Savannah to South
Carolina, Thomas, by that time, had annihilated Hood's Army of Tennessee and
had 50,000 troops which could be moved to the East. By December 1864,
therefore, Lee had to have seen that there was no military force capable of
blocking the inevitable movement by Sherman to join Grant in Virginia and
obliterate or compel the surrender of Lee's army. If Lincoln's reelection had,
somehow, not opened Lee's eyes to the inevitability of a Union victory, the
military events of November and December 1864 should have finally made the
point.
Southern despair had reached some true
believers in the Confederate cause. As early as October 8, 1864, Varina Davis,
the President's wife, was writing to Charleston, South Carolina diarist Mary
Chesnut,
"Strictly between us, Things look very anxious
here..."105 On November 20, Mrs. Davis wrote to Mrs. Chesnut,
"Only I mean that I am so forlorn that they do not tell me how forlorn
they think I am..."106 In December and January, Mrs. Chesnut
reflected her own concerns: "Savannah—a second Vicksburg business.
Neither the governor of Georgia nor the governor of South Carolina moving hand
or foot. They have given up."107 And, "here is startling
news. Politely but firmly the Virginia legislature requests Jeff Davis and all
of his cabinet to resign... And we have sent [Alexander] Stephens, [John
Archibald] Campbell-all who never believed in this thing~to negotiate for
peace. No hope-no good. Who dares hope?"108 In Richmond, Josiah
Gorgas reflected a mixture of despondency and dependency on Lee:
Jan 15 [1865] In this dark hour of our struggle there is of
course strong feeling against the administration for having mismanaged our
affairs. This must be expected in adversity. Jan 25 [1865] I have outlived my
momentary depression, & feel my courage revive when I think of the brave
army in front of us, sixty thousand strong. As long as Lee's army remains
intact there is no cause for despondency. As long as it holds true we need not
fear. The attacks of the enemy will now all be directed against that Army.
Sherman from the South, Thomas from the West and Grant in front.109
With despondency turning to despair throughout the South,
Lee, nevertheless, carried on the hopeless struggle to preserve the honor of
his Army - and, perhaps, to preserve his own honor.
105 Woodward, C. Vann, Mary Chesnut's Civil War (New Haven
and London: Yale Uni
versity Press, 1981), p. 664. Ibid., p. 675.
107. Ibid.,
p. 694 (December 19,1864 diary entry).
108. Ibid.,
pp. 706-7 (late January 1865 diary entry).
109. Gorgas,
Journals, pp. 148-9.
As 1865 dawned, the Union forces stood
ready to annihilate the remainder of the Confederate armies. Grant had Lee's forces
at Richmond and Petersburg tied down and stretched to their limits. Lee was
requesting that General E. Kirby Smith's Trans-Mississippi Army be transferred
to Virginia.1 Sherman was poised to head into the Carolinas
virtually unmolested. The Union was threatening to close the Confederacy's
last major port. Tens of thousands of western troops stood ready to move from
Tennessee to Virginia.
The end was clearly inevitable. About 40
percent of Confederate soldiers east of the Mississippi had deserted during the
fall and early winter.2 On December 31, 1864, less than half of the
Confederacy's soldiers were present with their units.3 Therefore,
1865 should have witnessed no fighting. But Lee had yet to call a halt to the
bloody proceedings. The thousands of deaths that year were a macabre tribute
to his chivalry and sense of honor and duty.
As the result of a January 19, 1865, act of
the Confederate Congress and Davis' grudging appointment, Lee became
Commander-in- Chief of all Confederate forces and, in that capacity, continued
the hopeless struggle. Lee's appointment demonstrated the unused power he held
because it resulted from pressure by the Confederate Congress and the Virginia
Legislature on Davis, who was reluctant to yield any power.4
During January and February, Lee
consistently underestimated the strength and abilities of Sherman's army and
overestimated the numbers and fighting capabilities of the scattered Rebel
forces in the Carolinas. In a single dispatch, he spoke of concentrating forces
against
Connelly, "Lee and the Western Confederacy," p.
123.
2. Jones,
"Military Means," in Boritt, Why the Confederacy Lost, p. 74.
3. Beringer
et al., Why the South Lost, p. 333.
4. Wiley,
Road to Appomattox, p. 85.
Sherman and holding Charleston, two mutually inconsistent
possibilities.5
After a two-month Confederate Government
delay following the collapse of Hood's army, Lee, as Commander-in-Chief, on
February 22, recalled Davis' old enemy, Joseph Johnston, to active duty as commander
of the western army remnants charged with stopping Sherman. Lee's recall order
to Johnston reflected unrealistic expectations about what Johnston could
accomplish with the limited troops at hand: "Assume command of the Army of
Tennessee and all troops in Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.
Assign General Beauregard to duty under you, as you may select. Concentrate all
available forces and drive back Sherman."6 The reality was that
Lee's attention to Sherman came far too late to do any good.7
In January, 1865, Grant wrote to Sherman,
"My own opinion is that Lee is averse to going out of Virginia, and if the
cause of the South is lost he wants Richmond to be the last place surrendered.
If he has such views it may be well to indulge him until everything else is in
our hands."8 Sherman concurred with Grant and also with a
Georgia farmer who was appalled by Sherman's march through Georgia and told
him, "Why don't you go over to South Carolina and serve them this way?
They started it."9
On the Confederate side, Lee's manpower
shortage was now so desperate that he wanted a prisoner exchange at a price he
previously had been unwilling to pay.10 In January, 1865, therefore,
he and President Davis agreed to exchange Negro soldiers. That month, Lee
began putting his persuasive powers to work on President Davis even more
desperately11 and, later, on the Confederate Congress, which passed
a
5. Connelly,
Autumn of Glory, p. 529.
6. Hattaway
and Jones, How the North Won, p. 667.
7. "The
delay in appointing Johnston proved disastrous for the West. Johnston was no
genius at strategy. But if he had been appointed earlier, he might have wrought
some order, and concentration might have been effected. Instead, for almost two
critical months in 1865, the Confederacy confronted Sherman in the Carolinas
with nothing but chaos." Connelly, Autumn of Glory, p. 520.
8. Coburn,
Terrible Innocence, pp. 191-2.
McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 825.
10. On February 25, Lee wrote, "Hundreds of men are
deserting nightly..." Thomas, Lee, p. 348. Between February 15 and March
18, Lee's army lost 3,000 deserters, eight percent of its strength. Ibid., p.
349. In March Lee reported 1,094 desertions in a ten-day period; one brigade
deserted en masse. Wiley, Road to Appomattox, p. 72.
Lee to Jefferson Davis, March 2, 1865, Freeman and McWhiney,
Lee's Dispatches, pp. 373-4.
Blacks' recruitment bill on March 13 — but too late to
augment Lee's disintegrating forces.12
The noose around the Confederacy was
severely tightened that January with the fall of Fort Fisher, which guarded the
river entrance to Wilmington, North Carolina, the only significant southern
port still open to blockade-runners. After an unsuccessful assault the prior
month, the Union assembled a huge fleet of 58 vessels with 627 guns. On January
13 to 15, the Yankees captured critical Fort Fisher on the Cape Fear River with
a joint army-navy-marine assault; they then moved inland to finally capture
Wilmington on February 22. This capture opened three more supply lines, via
railroads radiating west and north from Wilmington, for the northward-moving
Sherman.
Between the fall of Fort Fisher and the
capture of Wilmington, negotiators made an attempt to end the war. When the
respective teams met in Hampton Roads on February 3, however, the Confederate
negotiators were operating under fantasyland instructions from Davis. Lincoln
and Secretary of State William Seward personally rejected the Confederates'
requests for some solution short of abolishing slavery and rejoining the Union.
Lee had clearly not made Davis understand that the military situation was
hopeless.
Sherman was about to end the few hopes that
might have remained among the people of the South. On February 1, he headed
north from Savannah. Despite Rebel doubts that Sherman's forces could move
through the swamps of South Carolina in the middle of the winter, Sherman's men
were truly inspired by the long-awaited opportunity to invade the state that
had started the rebellion and moved as though they were on a summer lark on
turnpikes. "Boys, this is old South Carolina: let's give her hell,"
said one Union soldier, reflecting the feelings of most of his comrades.
Sherman wrote Halleck that he "almost tremblefd] at her fate."13
One Union soldier summarized the feelings of Sherman's soldiers as he firmly
pronounced, "Here is where treason began, and by God, here is where it
will end!"14
As he began this campaign, Sherman was
concerned about possible opposition from forces cut loose by Lee:
...the only serious question that occurred to me was, would
General Lee sit down in Richmond (besieged by General Grant), and permit us,
almost unopposed, to pass through the
12. Glatthaar,
"Black Glory" in Boritt, Why the Confederacy Lost, p. 160; Thomas,
Lee, p. 347; Beringer et al, Why the South Lost, p. 373; Hattaway and Jones,
Why the North Won, p. 272.
13. Marszalek,
Sherman, pp. 320-1.
McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 826.
States of South and North Carolina, cutting off and consuming
the very supplies on which he depended to feed his army in Virginia, or would
he make an effort to escape from General Grant, and endeavor to catch us
inland somewhere between Columbia and Raleigh?15
Through swamps and across rivers rolled the
onslaught. Sherman's 60,000 men swept across the countryside in two wings —
Major General Henry W. Slocum's on the left and Oliver O. Howard's on the
right. Much of South Carolina's capital of Columbia went up in flames on
February 17. The bypassed coastal city of Charleston was evacuated the next
day, as was its North Carolina counterpart, Wilmington, on the 22nd. On the
latter day, Lee wrote in confidence to Longstreet that he believed he would
have to abandon Richmond if the Union armies continued to unite in threatening
his position; he also revealed his plans to retreat westward.16
At that point, Sherman was advancing from
the south with 60,000 soldiers, and Schofield was poised along the North
Carolina coast prepared to move inland with 30,000 more. Against them, the Confederacy
was able to muster a mere 21,000 troops, the augmented remnants of Hood's old
army then under the command of the restored Joseph E. Johnston. Once again, Lee
should have been able to analyze the 9:2 odds of the "struggle"
shaping up about a hundred miles to his south, to realize that the game was
over, and to call a halt to the killing. He did not — even when, in March,
1,100 of his men deserted in ten days and an entire brigade "went over the
hill." Lee refused Johnston's March 1 suggestion that Lee send troops into
North Carolina to oppose Sherman; Lee said he would not do so until Sherman
reached the Roanoke River fifty-five miles south of Petersburg.17
As to Lee's capability to affect events,
Grant commented of him, at the time, "All the people except a few
political leaders in the South will accept whatever he does as right and will
be guided to a great extent by his example."18 This view was
shared by Gorgas, who, on March 2, wrote:
People are almost in a state of desperation, and but too ready
to give up the cause... It must be confessed that we are badly off for leaders
both on the council & on the field. Lee is about
15. Sherman,
William Tecumseh, Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman (New York: Literary Classics
of the United States, Inc., 1990), p. 752.
16. Lee
to James Longstreet, February 22,1865, Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, p. 907-8.
17. Bevin
Alexander, Great Generals, p. 165.
18. Fuller,
Grant and lee, p. 123.
all we have & what public confidence is left rallies
around him, and he it seems to me fights without much heart in the cause. I do
him wrong perhaps, but I don't think he believes we will or can succeed in this
struggle. The President has alas! Lost almost every vestige of the public
confidence. Had we been successful his errors and faults would have been
overlooked, but adversity magnifies them.19
During the first week of March, Sherman's
army moved into North Carolina, and some of Schofield's troops moved westward,
out of New Bern to threaten the Confederate left flank. Schofield's force was
temporarily halted by Bragg's 8,500 men at Kinston on March 8 through 10.
Meanwhile, Sherman's massive Union forces
were barely hindered by the rest of Johnston's troops. On March 11, Sherman
took Fayetteville. He then crossed the Cape Fear and Black Rivers and continued
northeast toward a link-up with Schofield at Goldsboro. Sherman's left wing,
under Slocum, was delayed at Averasboro between the rivers on March 16 and was
attacked on March 19 to 21 at Bentonville, where they inflicted 2,600
casualties on the Confederate attackers while incurring only 1,500 themselves.
At that point, Johnston ordered a retreat
to the northwest, which allowed Sherman's army to merge with Schofield's troops
coming north from Wilmington and west from New Bern. This merger of well over
90,000 Union troops on March 23 in the vicinity of Goldsboro, with less than
20,000 Confederates to oppose them, presented another missed opportunity for
Lee to resign and, thus, to end the war. While Lee was losing Petersburg, Richmond,
and the war during the next three weeks, Sherman moved on the North Carolina
capital of Raleigh, which he occupied on April 13, four days after Lee's
surrender of his army.
Over the winter, Sheridan's and Early's
forces, in the Shenandoah Valley, had been greatly reduced by transfers to the
Richmond area. Nevertheless, Sheridan decided to permanently terminate the
Confederate presence in the valley. He did so by moving south on February 25,
pushing aside Early's cavalry at Mount Crawford on March 2, and destroying his
infantry at Waynesboro on March 3. Early retreated eastward through the Blue
Ridge Mountains toward Charlottesville, and the valley was lost to Lee for the
duration. Sheridan's cavalry then was free to return to the Petersburg front.
19. Gorgas, Journals, pp. 154-5.
On that front, Grant was gradually
tightening the noose. From February 5 to 7, Union troops succeeded in pushing
back the Confederates at Hatcher's Run southwest of Petersburg and then in
extending the Union lines by two additional miles. Throughout February, Colonel
Elisha Hunt Rhodes recorded a flood of Confederate deserters. On February 21,
he noted that ten deserters had come over to Union lines the prior night and
added, "They all tell the same story-that the Southern cause is
hopeless." Four days later, he reported the previous night's arrival of
160 Rebel deserters.20
Seven weeks after Grant had extended his
lines, Lee began the series of actions that terminated the siege and doomed
his Rebel army. On March 25, he ordered a desperate, pre-dawn assault on Fort
Sted- man, just east of Petersburg. The initial attack captured that fort, but
Federal counter-attacks from three directions drove the Rebels back with an
intolerable loss of 4,000 to the Union's 2,000.
Sensing Lee's desperation, Grant went on
the offensive. Humphreys and Warren moved their corps to the left, and Major
Generals Wright and Edward O. C. Ord shifted theirs to cover the lines the
other two had left behind. This freed Humphreys and Warren to attack the southwest
end of Lee's line along White Oak Road south and west of Hatcher's Run. Their
March 31 attack coincided with an attempt by Sheridan's cavalry to sweep around
Lee's army even farther southwest via Dinwiddie Court House. The Union infantry
attack succeeded in breaking through to White Oak Road, where they withstood a
Rebel counter-attack, but Sheridan was driven back to Dinwiddie Court House by
Rooney Lee's cavalry.
The next day, April 1, the Confederate line
finally cracked. Sheridan took his cavalry and Warren's 5th Corps even farther
west to hit Pickett at Five Forks. Although Sheridan, unjustly, replaced Warren
with Brigadier General Charles Griffin during that day, the Union forces almost
encircled Pickett and decimated his corps. This Five Forks victory sprung
Sheridan loose on the western Confederate flank, closed down the last railroad
(the Southside) into Petersburg, and doomed both Petersburg and Richmond.
On the fateful next day, Grant's forces
attacked all along the Rebel lines and broke through at several points. Lee
advised Davis to abandon Petersburg and Richmond, and they did so that
evening. Lee sacrificed more men to hold the Union forces at bay for the
additional hours required for Davis, Lee, and the dwindling Army of Northern
Virginia to flee. Although there was no hope that his army would survive more
2°. Rhodes, All for the Union, pp. 214-6.
than a couple of weeks, Lee did not advise surrender or
threaten to resign. Thus, the killing continued for one more week.
Playing for time on the second of April,
Lee sent three of Anderson's brigades west to assist Pickett's reorganization.
Near Petersburg, John Gordon held off the attack of Major General John G.
Parke's 9th Corps. Elsewhere along the line that day, the Confederates suffered
one disaster after another. West of Parke, Wright's 6th Corps smashed through
the Rebels and wrought havoc. To their west, Humphreys' 2nd Corps achieved a
similar break-through, chased Henry Heth to the northwest, and moved northeast
toward Petersburg. Senseless destruction, at Lee's direction, continued that
night with the Confederates' burning of their massive Richmond stores — and
much of the city with them. Union troops occupied the burning city the morning
of the third - followed the next day by President Lincoln.
Meanwhile, the battered and beaten Army of
Northern Virginia retreated westward from Richmond and Petersburg. The Rebels
generally followed the course of the Appomattox River, but crossing and
recrossing that river hindered their 90-mile retreat. The Union forces moved
even more quickly out of the Petersburg lines and headed west on the left
(south) flank of the fleeing soldiers.
Lee directed all his forces to converge at
Amelia Court House on the Richmond & Danville (R&D) Railroad, where he
hoped to find a supply of rations which were to have arrived from the west.
When the Confederates came together there by April 5, however, no rations were
to be found. Even worse, Grant had a major force eight miles southwest of Amelia
Court House at Jetersville blocking the R&D Railroad. Farther southwest,
Ord's Army of the James arrived at Burke, the crucial intersection of the
R&D and the Southside railroads.
Still not willing to give up, the flanked
Lee sent his men on a forced march westward toward Farmville in the hope of
being supplied from Lynchburg via the Southside Railroad northwest of Burke.
On April 6, however, further disaster struck as Lee's rear guard was cut off at
Sayler's Creek. Anderson's and Ewell's men lagged behind the main body, were
trapped by the 2nd and 6th Union corps, lost most of the precious Confederate
wagon train, incurred 1,000 casualties, and had 6,000 men captured. Union
losses were only 1,200. Did Lee then give up the hopeless mismatch to halt
further bloodshed? No, he continued west.
The next day, his dwindling force at last
found rations at Farmville and there repelled Federal attackers before crossing
the Appomattox River for the last time. This crossing, however, simply bottled
up Lee's army between the Appomattox and James Rivers and
forced them toward Appomattox Court House to escape
entrapment. While Lee was being delayed at Amelia Court House, Sayler's Creek,
and Farmville, however, Union forces had been getting ahead of Lee's retreating
army.
Once again it was Sheridan's cavalry that
proved decisive. His men raced ahead of the retreating Confederates and, on
April 8, blocked them between Appomattox Court House and Appomattox Station on
the Southside Railroad, where Sheridan had captured several trainloads of
Rebel rations.
Realizing that the end was very near, Grant
tried to avoid additional bloodshed by initiating negotiations with Lee on the
afternoon of April 7. He wrote:
General. The results of the last week must convince you of
the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern
Virginia, in this struggle. I feel that it is so, & regard it as my duty
to shift from myself the responsibility of any further effusion of blood by
asking of you the surrender of that portion of the Confederate States Army
known as the Army of Northern Virginia.21
Lee's response that night, his army's third
consecutive night of marching, seemed to reflect a show of determination
combined with realistic resignation:
General, I have received your note of this date. Though not
entertaining the opinion you express on the hopelessness of further resistance
on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia, I reciprocate your desire to
avoid useless effusion of blood, & therefore, before considering your
proposition, ask the terms you will offer on condition of its surrender.22
A roundabout route delayed delivery of that
note until the morning of the 8th, when Grant responded with a single
requirement:
Your note of last evening in reply to mine of the same date,
asking the conditions on which I will accept the surrender of the Army of
Northern Virginia, is just received. In reply I would say that, peace being my
great desire, there is but one condition I would insist upon, - namely, that
the men and officers surrendered shall be disqualified for taking up arms
against the Government of the United States until properly
21. Thomas,
Lee, p. 359.
22. Lee
to Ulysses S. Grant, April 7,1865, Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, pp. 931-2.
exchanged. I will meet you, or will designate officers to
meet any officers you may name for the same purpose, at any point agreeable to
you, for the purpose of arranging definitely the terms upon which the
surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia will be received.23
Lee's "in-your-face" response
that night reflected his reluctance to surrender but, in the end, he appeared
to hint at acceptance of the inevitable. Even at that late juncture, however,
Lee had hoped to discuss peace instead of surrender:
General, I received at a late hour your note of today. I did
not intend to propose the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, but to
ask the terms of your proposition. To be frank, I do not think the emergency
has arisen to call for the surrender of this army; but, as the restoration of
peace should be the sole object of all, I desire to know whether your proposals
would lead to that end. I cannot therefore meet you with a view to surrender
the Army of Northern Va., but, as far as your proposal may affect the
Confederate States forces under my command, & tend to the restoration of
peace, I should be pleased to meet you at 10 A.M. tomorrow on the old stage
road to Richmond between the picket lines of the two armies.24
Longstreet fully understood the depth of
Lee's continuing reluctance to surrender. He was approached by General William
Pendleton on the 8th, after an informal council of officers had agreed to
advise Lee to surrender. Pendleton approached Longstreet because of the latter's
special relationship with Lee. Longstreet refused to carry their advice to Lee
and indignantly added, "If General Lee doesn't know when to surrender
until I tell him, he will never know."25 Although Long- street
did not intend this meaning, Lee had clearly demonstrated during the preceding
several months that he did not know when to surrender.
The end came on April 9. An attempted
Confederate breakout that morning revealed Union infantry backing up Sheridan's
cavalry. One of Gibbon's officers observed the sorry state of the remnants of
Lee's once-grand army: "It was a sad sight - cavalry, artillery, horses,
mules
*>. Thomas, Lee, pp. 360-1.
24. Lee
to Ulysses S. Grant, April 8,1865, Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, p. 932.
25. Freeman,
Lee's Lieutenants, III, p. 721; Longstreet, James, From Manassas to Appomattox:
Memoirs of the Civil War in America (New York: Smithmark Publishers, Inc.,
1994; reprint of Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1896), p. 620.
and half-starved soldiers in a confused mass. It was a scene
to melt the bravest heart."26 At that point, Lee made his
long-overdue decision to seek terms from Grant, who, that morning, had rejected
Lee's peace discussion overture. Lee had no choice but to respond to Grant's
surrender offer of the previous day:
General: I received your note of this morning on the picket-
line, whither I had come to meet you and ascertain definitely what terms were
embraced in your proposal of yesterday with reference to the surrender of this
army. I now ask an interview, in accordance with the offer contained in your
letter of yesterday, for that purpose.27
At long last, and when there was no
alternative but ungentle- manly guerilla warfare, Lee had accepted the
inevitable. Lee's reluctance, however, was demonstrated by his statement that,
"There is nothing left for me to do but to go and see General Grant, and I
would rather die a thousand deaths."28
The surrender of Lee's army to Grant
finally took place that afternoon at Appomattox Court House. The proceedings
were held in the home of Wilmer McLean, who, ironically, had moved there from
outside Manassas, where his home had been shelled in the First Battle of Bull
Run. Grant generously paroled Lee's 30,000 troops and allowed his officers to
keep their horses ~ conditioned only on their promise to never again take up
arms against the United States.
The next day, Lee issued his final order to
what was left of his once-grand army. With language that could have been
accurately used six months earlier, his General Order No. 9 said:
After four years of arduous service marked by unsurpassed
courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to
yield to overwhelming numbers and resources.
I need not tell the brave survivors of so many hard-fought
battles, who have remained steadfast to the last, that I have consented to this
result from no distrust of them; but feeling that valor and devotion could
accomplish nothing that could compensate for the loss that must have attended
the continuance of the contest, I have determined to avoid the useless
26. Waugh,
Class of 1846, p. 497.
27. Lee
to Ulysses S. Grant, April 9,1865, Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, p. 932.
28. Thomas,
Lee, p. 362.
sacrifice of those whose past services have endeared them to
their countrymen.
With an unceasing admiration of your constancy and devotion
to your Country, and a grateful remembrance of your kind and generous
consideration for myself, I bid you all an affectionate farewell.29
At long last, the bloody struggle was
almost over. Over the next month, another 100 minor engagements brought the
fighting to a close. A mind-boggling 620,000 Americans - 260,000 Confederates
and 360,000 Yankees ~ had died of wounds and disease. Robert E. Lee's
offensives of 1862, 1863 and 1864 had accounted for many of those deaths — on
both sides ~ and guaranteed the ultimate defeat of the out- manned Confederacy.
Lee's final wartime mistake had been his
failure to halt the fighting when it no longer served any sane purpose. This
failure accounted for the final tens of thousands of meaningless deaths. After
the fall of Atlanta, or certainly after Lincoln's reelection, Lee should have,
realized that, "...Valor and devotion could accomplish nothing that could
compensate for the loss that must have attended continuance of the contest
[and] determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past services
have endeared them to their countrymen."30
29. General Order No. 9, April 10,1865, Dowdey and Manarin,
Papers, pp. 934-5.
Ibid., p. 934.
After four years of arduous service, marked
by unsurpassed ^ yjm | courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia has
been t
JtL"^
compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources, i need not tell the
brave survivors of so many hard-fought battles, who have remained steadfast to
the last, that I have consented to this ^^
result from no distrust of them ; but feeling that valor and
devotion couid accomplish nothing that would compensate for the loss that must
have attended a continuance of the contest, 1 determined to avoid the useless
sacrifice of those whose past services have endeared them to their countrymen.
By the terms of agreement officers and men can return to their homes and remain
until exchanged. You will take with you the satisfaction that proceeds from the
conscious-
____ ^ ness
of duty faithfully performed, and I earnestly pray «.
^L-J^j, that a merciful God will extend to you
His blessing
|c, and protection. With an increasing admira- # tE£ct«rag|
T
St»«t.»«!hdum. vi«o«i. tion of your
constancy and devotion to jf I
r »'"™mJOE oe L" \
your country and a grateful remem- / ( Mk £ i \ branceof your kindart^ge/ierous /
"" » M \ consideration of myself, I bid
■ you
all an affectionate farewell. /^■KH laSSM
gg ; luA* .SF* \ sets,
rn; Kj^^^^^HH
Robert E. Lee is often described as one of
the greatest generals who ever lived. He usually is given credit for keeping
the vastly superior Union forces at bay and preserving the Confederacy during
the four years of the American Civil War.1
The Confederacy did lose the Civil War,
however, and Lee was the Confederacy's most important military leader. In The
Face of Battle, John Keegan notes that, "...The only cult general in the
English- speaking world - Robert E. Lee - was the paladin of its only component
community to suffer military catastrophe, the Confederacy."2 As
discussed in Appendix I, the cult of Lee worshippers began with former Civil
War generals who had fought ineffectively under Lee and sought to polish their
own tarnished reputations and restore southern pride by deliberately distorting
the historical record and creating the myth of the flawless Robert E. Lee.
In his capacity as the Confederacy's
leading general, however, Lee bears considerable responsibility for the war's
outcome. Even more significantly, as we have seen, Lee's own specific strategic
and tactical failures cost the Confederates their opportunity to outlast the
Union, caused President Abraham Lincoln's electoral defeat in 1864, and thereby
won the war.
Lincoln's 1860 election brought about the secession
of seven states even before the firing on Fort Sumter, and his resolute stance
on the issue of Union caused four more states to secede after Sumter and made
war inevitable. The South's primary opportunity for success was
See Appendix I, "Historians' Treatment
of Lee." Typical is this statement by Lee's Adjutant-General, Walter H.
Taylor: "It is well to bear in mind the great inequality between the two
contending armies, in order that one may have a proper appreciation of the
difficulties which beset General Lee in the task of thwarting the designs of
so formidable an adversary, and realize the extent to which his brilliant
genius made amends for paucity of numbers, and proved more than a match for
brute force, as illustrated in the hammering policy of General Grant."
Taylor, General Lee, p. 231.
2. Keegan, John, The Face of Battle (New York: Dorset Press,
1986; originally New York: The Viking Press, 1976), p. 55.
to outlast Lincoln, and the deep schisms among northerners
throughout the War made this a distinct possibility. Northerners violently disagreed
on slavery, the draft and the war itself.3 To exploit these divisions
and thereby prevail, the Confederates needed to preserve their resources, sap
the strength of the North, make continuation of the war intolerable, and
thereby compel an acceptable compromise.
At the outset of the war, the North had
tremendous population and resources advantages over the South. The North had 22
million people, while the South had only nine million. Moreover, of those nine
million southerners, 3.5 million were slaves.4 Unless therefore the
South found a way to fully involve those slaves in the war effort (and on the
Confederate side), it faced a 4-to-l general population disadvantage.
More relevantly, the North had 4,070,000
men of fighting age (15 to 40), and the South had only 1,140,000 white men of
fighting age. Considering that immigration and defecting slaves further
augmented the North's forces, the crucial bottom line is that the Union had an
effective combat manpower advantage of 4:1 over the Confederacy.
One in ten Civil War soldiers was wounded,
one in sixty-five died in battle and one in thirteen died of disease. Of the
nearly three million men (two million Union and 750,000 Confederate) who served
in the military during the war, 620,000 died (360,000 Union and 260,000 Confederate).5
While many northerners were in the military for brief periods of time (many of
them serving twice or more), most southern military personnel were compelled
to stay for the duration. Amazingly, almost one-fourth of southern white males
of military age died during the war — virtually all of them from wounds or
war-related diseases. The primary point of all these statistics is that the
South was greatly outnumbered and could not afford to squander its resources by
engaging in a war of attrition. Robert E. Lee's deliberate disregard of this
reality may have been his greatest failure.
The Confederacy, however, was not without
advantages of its own. It consisted of a huge, 750,000-square mile territory
which the Federals would have to invade and conquer.6 It also had
interior lines
3. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, pp. 591-611.
*. Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, p. 17.
5. Ibid.,
p. 440.
6. Ibid.,
pp. 18, 35. "Thus space was all in favour of the South; even should the
enemy overrun her border, her principal cities, few in number, were far removed
from the hostile bases, and the important railway junctions were perfectly
secure from sudden attack. And space, especially when means of communication
are scanty, and the country affords few supplies, is the greatest of all
obstacles." Henderson, G.F.R., Stonewall Jackson and the
and was able to move its troops from place to place over shorter
distances via a complex of well-placed railroads. The burden was on the North
to win the war;7 a deadlock would confirm secession and the
Confederacy.8 Historian James McPherson put it succinctly: "The
South could vwin' the war by not losing; the North could win only by
win- ning."9
The Confederates' huge strategic advantage
and their missed opportunities were confirmed by an early war analysis of the
struggle by a military analyst writing in The Times of London. The analyst
said, "No war of independence ever terminated unsuccessfully except where
the disparity of force was far greater than it is in this case. Just as England
during the [American] revolution had to give up conquering the colonies, so the
North will have to give up conquering the South."10 The
Confederate Secretary of War agreed with this view at the start of the war:
"There is no instance in history of a people as numerous as we are
inhabiting a country so extensive as ours being subjected if true to
themselves."11
Confederate General E. Porter Alexander
also confirmed the Confederacy's need to wear down, not conquer, the North:
When the South entered upon war with a power so immensely
her superior in men & money, & all the wealth of modern resources in
machinery and transportation appliances by land & sea, she could entertain
but one single hope of final success. That was, that the desperation of her
resistance would finally exact from her adversary such a price in blood &
treasure as to exhaust the enthusiasm of its population for the objects of the
war. We could not hope to conquer her. Our one chance was to wear her out.12
A southern victory was not out of the
question.13 After all, it had been only eighty years since the
supposedly inferior American revolu
American Civil War (New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1988;
reprint of New York: Grossett
& Dunlap, 1943), p. 82.
7. Beringer
et al., Why the South Lost, p. 49.
8. Union
General Henry W. Halleck wrote, "...The North must conquer the
South." Henry W. Halleck to Francis Lieber, March 4, 1863, quoted in
McWhiney and Jamieson, Attack and Die, p. 6.
». McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 336.
10. Ibid.; Nolan, Lee Considered, p. 65.
n. Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, p. 18.
I2. Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 415.
"The point is that the South could
still have won, save only for the rapid diminution and ultimate death of
morale, the will to win, during the last year or two of the war." Beringer
et al, Why the South Lost, p. 31.
tionaries had vanquished the mighty Redcoats of King George
III and it was less than fifty years since the outgunned Russians had repelled
and destroyed the powerful invading army of Napoleon. The feasibility of such
an outcome is demonstrated by the fact that, despite numerous crucial mistakes
by Lee and others, the Confederates still appeared to have political victory in
their grasp in the late summer of 1864, when Lincoln himself despaired of
winning reelection that coming November.
Had Lee not squandered Rebel resources during
the three preceding years, that 1864 opportunity for victory could have been
realized. It was Lee's strategy and tactics that dissipated irreplaceable
manpower ~ even in his "victories." His army lost at Malvern Hill,
Antietam, Gettysburg, the Shenandoah Valley, Petersburg and Appomattox. His
army took unnecessarily high casualties in those defeats, as well as throughout
the entire Seven Days' Battle and at Chancellorsville. Lee's army's 1862-3
casualties made possible Ulysses Grant's successful 1864 campaign of adhesion
to Lee's army. Finally, the losses Lee's army suffered at the Wilderness and
Spotsylvania were higher than he could afford and helped to create the aura of
Confederate defeat that Lincoln exploited to win reelection.14
As early as May 1863, Josiah Gorgas noted
in his journal the North's susceptibility to a political defeat:
No doubt that the war will go on until at least the close of
[Lincoln's] administration. How many more lives must be sacrificed to the
vindictiveness of a few unprincipled men! For there is no doubt that with the
division of sentiment existing at the North the administration could shape its
policy either for peace or for war.15
If Lee had performed differently, the North
could have been fatally split, Democratic nominee (and
"out-to-pasture" Union Major General) George B. McClellan could have
defeated Lincoln, and the South could have negotiated an acceptable settlement
with the compromising McClellan, who was running on a Democratic Peace Platform
and had demonstrated sympathy for southerners' property interests in slaves.
Lee's strategy was defective in two
respects. First, it was too aggressive. With one quarter the manpower
resources of his adversary, Lee exposed his forces to unnecessary risks and
ultimately lost the
M. Fuller concluded that Lee's audacity more than once
accelerated the Union's achievement of its strategic goal of conquering the
South. Fuller, Grant and Lee, p. 267.
I5. Gorgas, Journals, p. 66.
gamble. The gamble was unwarranted because Lee only needed to
play for a tie; instead he made the fatal mistake of going for the win. Lee
failed to accept the reality that the North had to conquer the South; instead
he tried to conquer the North - or at least destroy its eastern army.16
Twice Lee went into the North on strategic
offensives with scant chance of success, lost tens of thousands of
irreplaceable officers and men in the disasters of Antietam and Gettysburg, and
inevitably was compelled to retreat.17 These retreats enabled
Lincoln to issue his crucial Emancipation Proclamation, created an aura of
defeat which doomed any possibility of European intervention, and played a
major role in destroying the South's morale and will to fight. Finally, Lee's
offensive strategy so seriously weakened the Confederacy's fighting capability
that its defeat was perceived as inevitable by the time of the crucial 1864
Presidential election.
Second, Lee's strategy concentrated all the
resources he could obtain and retain almost exclusively in the eastern theater
of operations while fatal events were occurring in the "West"
(primarily Tennessee, Mississippi and Georgia).18 For example, from
1862 into 1864, grain supplies were stockpiled in Tennessee and Georgia for
Lee's army while the western armies lived off the countryside.19
Both Confederate armies suffered food shortages throughout the war.20
Even more significantly, Lee's actions
played a role in major Confederate western defeats at Vicksburg, Tullahoma,
Chattanooga and Atlanta. He refused to send reinforcements before or during the
attack on and siege of Vicksburg, contributed to the gross under-manning of the
Confederate forces during the Tullahoma Campaign and at Chatta
u. On his way to Gettysburg, Lee wrote to Jefferson Davis,
"It seems to me that we cannot afford to keep our troops awaiting
possible movements of the enemy, but that our true policy is, as far as we can,
so to employ our own forces as to give occupation to his at points of our
selection." Lee to Jefferson Davis, June 25, 1863, Dowdey and Manarin,
Papers, p. 532. As Nolan pointed out, these were not the words of a general
whose grand strategy was defensive-as it should have been. Nolan, Lee
Considered, p. 73. "For a belligerent with the limited manpower resources
of the Confederacy, General Lee's dedication to an offensive strategy was at
best questionable." Weigley, American Way of War, p. 118.
17. Nolan
noted that "...there was a profound difference between Federal casualties
and Lee's casualties... Lee's were irreplaceable..." Nolan, Lee
Considered, p. 85.
18. Connelly
and Jones, Politics of Command, pp. 31-48. "To all these events in the
West, Lee remained remarkably indifferent, despite President Davis's continuing
to call upon him as a military adviser. He persistently underrated the strength
and importance of Federal offensives in the West." Weigley, American Way
of War, p. 125.
19. Connelly,
"Lee and the Western Confederacy," p. 126.
20. See
Joinson, Carla, "War at the Table: The South's Struggle for Food," Columbiad,
1, No. 2 (Summer 1997), pp. 21-30.
nooga. He also, failed to send expendable troops to defend
Atlanta, and played a critical role in the suicidal ascension of Hood to
command in the West that led to the fall of Atlanta and destruction of the Army
of Tennessee.
Throughout the war, Lee was obsessed with
operations in Virginia and urged that additional reinforcements be brought to
the Old Dominion from the West, where Confederates defended ten times the area
in which Lee operated. Thomas L. Connelly and Archer Jones concluded that,
"Lee actually supplied little general strategic guidance for the South. He
either had no unified view of grand strategy or else chose to remain silent on
the subject."21 Often Lee prevailed upon President Jefferson
Davis to refuse or only partially comply with requests to send critical
reinforcements to the West.22
In April 1863, for example, Lee opposed
sending any of his troops to Tennessee even though the Union had sent
Burnside's 9th Corps there. Using arguments that one of his supporters called
bizarre, Lee opposed concentration against the enemy and favored concurrent offensives
by all Confederate commands against their superior foes. Lee used similar
arguments the next month when he declined to involve his soldiers in an effort
to save Vicksburg (and a Confederate army of 30,000) and thereby prevent Union
control of the Mississippi River. In addition, the lack of eastern
reinforcements caused Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee to retreat in the
Tullahoma Campaign from middle Tennessee through Chattanooga into Georgia,
thereby losing Tennessee and the vital rail connection between Tennessee and
Richmond.
Only once, in late 1863, did Lee consent to
a portion of his army being sent west. On that occasion, Lee prorogued the
departure of Longstreet's 15,000 troops, and two-thirds of them arrived at
Chicka- mauga after the battle. Nevertheless, the reinforced Rebels won at
Chickamauga and drove the Yankees back into Chattanooga, where they were
besieged and threatened by starvation. Almost immediately, however, Lee
undercut that grudging assistance by promoting the prompt return to him of his
Virginia troops. His promotion of Long- street's return led to Longstreet's
movement away from Chattanooga
21. Connelly
and Jones, Politics of Command, p. 33. Earlier, T. Harry Williams had concluded
that "Lee was interested hardly at all in 'global' strategy, and what few
suggestions he did make to his government about operations in other theaters
than his own indicate that he had little aptitude for grand planning."
Williams, T. Harry, Lincoln and His Generals (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.,
1952) [hereafter Williams, Lincoln and His Generals], p. 313.
22. Lee's
son Robert later described how Lee had advised Davis throughout the war on
movements and dispositions of armies other than his own. Fuller, Grant and Lee,
p. 113.
just before the Union forces broke out of Chattanooga against
Bragg's vastly outnumbered army.23
Lee compounded his erroneous strategic
approach to the West by acquiescing in the disastrous elevation of his protege,
the obsessively aggressive John Bell Hood, to full general and command of the
Rebel Army of Tennessee at the very moment William T. Sherman reached Atlanta
in July 1864. Within seven weeks Hood lost Atlanta, and within six months he
destroyed that army. During that significant summer, Lee squandered Jubal
Early's 18,000-man corps on a demonstration against Washington instead of
sending them to Atlanta, where they could have played a vital role defending that
city under the command of either Johnston or Hood. These events enabled Sherman
to march unmolested through Georgia and the Carolinas and to pose a fatal
back-door threat to Lee's own Army of Northern Virginia.
Some may question whether Lee should have sent
troops to the West, where allegedly incompetent generals would have simply
squandered them. There are several problems with that position. First, many of
those western generals were so outnumbered (more than Lee was) that they were
simply flanked by their Union opponents (Bragg in mid-1863 and Johnston in
mid-1864) in vast areas that afforded greater maneuverability than did
Virginia. Second, Lee declined several opportunities to take command in the
West, where he could have commanded troops moved from the East but where he
had little interest and probably had an inkling things were more difficult than
he knew or wanted to know. Third, the success of the few troops under Long-
street Lee finally provided for Chickamauga demonstrates what might have been
if Lee had sent more troops in a timely manner. Fourth, Jubal Early's 18,000
troops could have provided invaluable assistance in preventing the fall of
Atlanta prior to the crucial 1864 presidential election. Finally, Lee himself
squandered the troops in the East (particularly at Gettysburg), lost the war
doing what he did, and could hardly have done worse sending some to the
undermanned West.
Just as Lee's strategy was flawed, his
tactics were fatally defective. His tactical defects were: (1) he was too
aggressive on the field, (2) he frequently failed to take charge of the
battlefield, (3) his battle plans
*>. Lee's myopic view of the war cannot be justified by
either (1) his command of a single army or (2) his lack of power to suggest a
national strategy. Numerous Confederate army commanders made national strategic
recommendations to President Davis and his secretaries of war, and Lee himself
had great influence on Davis but chose to use it primarily to aid his own army
rather than to recommend national strategy. Connelly and Jones, Politics of
Command, pp. 33-8.
were too complex or simply ineffective, and (4) his orders
were too vague or discretionary.
First, his tactics, like his strategy, were
too aggressive.24 Although sometimes creative (particularly when
Stonewall Jackson was involved), too often those tactics failed to adequately
consider the advantages new weaponry gave to defensive forces. Rifled muskets
(ones with grooves rifled in their bores to spin bullets for accuracy) and bullets
which expanded in the bores to follow the grooves (Minie balls) greatly
increased the accuracy and effective range of infantry firepower (to between
400 and 1,000 yards), thereby providing the defense with an unprecedented
advantage.25
Despite the fact that seven of eight Civil
War frontal assaults failed, Lee just kept attacking.26 Battles in
which Lee damaged his army with overly aggressive tactics include the Seven
Days' (particularly Mechanicsville, Gaines' Mill, and Malvern Hill), Second
Manassas, Chantilly, Antietam, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Rappahannock
Station, the Wilderness, and Fort Stedman. Archer Jones has pointed to Lee's
periodically misplaced elation, when he refused to "quit while he was
ahead," and cited Malvern Hill, Chantilly, the end of Chancellorsville,
and Pickett's Charge as examples.27
. The North had more of this advanced
weaponry and had it earlier in the war. Its Model 1861 Springfield rifle, with
an effective range of 200-400 yards, could kill at a distance of 1,000 yards or
more. Most infantrymen (especially Federals) had rifles by some time in 1862,
Union cavalry had breech-loading (instead of muzzle-loading guns) repeating
rifles by 1863, and even some Union infantry had these "repeaters"
(primarily Spencer rifles) in 1864 and 1865.
Demonstrating this trend, Rhode Islander
Elisha Hunt Rhodes experienced an improvement in weaponry during the war. In
June 1861 he was first issued one of many muskets that he described as
"old fashioned smooth bore flint lock guns altered over to percussion
locks."28 Late the following month, when other Rhode Islanders'
enlistments expired after First Bull Run, Rhodes' unit members traded
24. "Robert
E. Lee suffered his most decisive defeats while on the tactical offensive, at
Malvern Hill and Gettysburg. Even when he was successful on the offensive, Lee
used up thousands of irreplaceable troops in battles such as Second Manassas
and Chancellorsville." McWhiney and Jamieson, Attack and Die, p. 108.
25. McWhiney
and Jamieson, Attack and Die, pp. 28-49; Beringer et al., Why the South Lost,
pp. 14-6.
26. Fuller,
Grant and Lee, p. 261.
27. Jones,
Archer, "What Should We Think About Lee's Thinking?," Columbiad, 1,
No. 2 (Summer 1997), pp. 73,84-5.
28. Rhodes,
All for the Union, p. 20.
their smooth-bore weapons for Springfield rifles.29
Three years later, in July 1864 in the Shenandoah Valley, Captain Rhodes wrote:
"I have forty of my men armed with Spencer Repeating rifles that will hold
seven cartridges at one loading. I have borrowed these guns from the 37th
Massachusetts Infantry who are armed with them and have used them for some
time."30
Appreciation of the great reliance upon
rifles by both sides in the conflict can be gleaned from the following
estimates provided by Paddy Griffith in his thought-provoking Battle Tactics of
the Civil War. He estimates that the Confederate Government procured 183,000
smoothbore muskets and 439,000 rifles and that the Union obtained 510,000
smoothbores and an astounding 3,253,000 rifles, including 303,000 breechloaders
and 100,000 repeaters.31
Musketry and the new lethal force of rifle
power accounted for as many as 80 percent of the Civil War's battlefield
casualties. The improved arms gave the defense a tremendous advantage against
exposed attacking infantry or cavalry. Use of trenches from 1863 on further
increased the relative effectiveness of infantry defenders' firepower.
Similar improvements in artillery ranges
and accuracy also aided the defense. Rhodes, for instance, wrote on February
14, 1862: "The 4th Battery "C" 1st Rhode Island Light Artillery
came over [to Washington, D.C.] from Virginia this morning and exchanged their
brass guns for steel rifle cannon."32 The old smooth-bore
cannons had ranges of 1,000 to 1,600 yards while the new rifled artillery had
ranges of 4,000 to 6,000 yards.
Despite these significant new advantages
held by the defense, during battle after battle, Lee frontally attacked and
counter-attacked with his splendid and irreplaceable troops. Military historian
Bevin Alexander asserted that Lee's obsession with seeking battle and his
limited strategic vision lost the war.33 The short-term results of
Lee's overly aggressive tactics were his troops' injury, death and capture; the
long-term results were dissipation of the South's finite resources and loss of
the war.34
2«. Ibid., pp. 39-40.
3°. Ibid., p. 172.
31. Griffith,
Battle Tactics, p. 80.
32. Rhodes,
All for the Union, p. 54.
33. Bevin
Alexander, Lost Victories, p. 221.
"...Casualties, like defeats in
battles and campaigns, eventually had nonmilitary consequences. Both
casualties and consequences adversely affected the morale of the home front as
well as of the soldiers, undermining Confederate will to achieve
independence." Beringer et al., Why the South Lost, p. 22.
Lee was not alone in failing adequately to
compensate for the new effectiveness of defensive firepower, but, as the
leading general of a numerically inferior army for almost three years, he could
not afford to make that mistake. In fact, Lee lost 20.2 percent of his soldiers
in battle while imposing only 15.4 percent losses on his opponents. This negative
difference in percentage of casualties (4.8 percent) was exceeded among
Confederate generals only by Lee's protege Hood (19.2 percent casualties; minus
13.7 difference) and by Pemberton, who surrendered his army at Vicksburg. For
example, neither Joseph Johnston (10.5 percent casualties; minus 1.7 percent
difference), Bragg (19.5 percent casualties; minus 4.1 percent difference) nor
Beauregard (16.1 percent casualties; minus 3.3 percent difference) sacrificed
such percentages of their men in unjustified frontal assaults as did Lee.35
Lee's statistics were even worse before he generally went on the
defensive-finally and much too late-after the Battle of the Wilderness in early
May 1864.
Lee's second tactical problem was his
frequent failure to take charge of the battlefield~a glaring problem throughout
the entire Seven Days' Battle and the three days at Gettysburg. Specifically,
he would take a "hands-off" attitude even though, as at the Seven
Days' Battle and Gettysburg, he was on the scene and disaster was developing or
opportunities beckoned. Lee himself may have provided a partial explanation
for some of his army's failures in these situations. After the war, he wrote,
"I plan and work with all my might to bring the troops to the right place
at the right time; with that I have done my duty. As soon as I order the troops
forward into battle, I leave my army in the hands of God." Thirty years after
the war, Confederate General Lafayette McLaws provided an analysis of
Gettysburg that, intentionally or not, reflected on Lee's failure to take
control: "The Battle of Gettysburg has not as yet been analyzed to make
the combination of movements comprehensible. The disjointed assaults which
could not under any circumstances have produced favorable results, have not yet
been explained."36
In fact, Lee too often left battle tactics
to others who were obviously failing even when Lee was personally present on
the battlefield ~
35. McWhiney
and Jamieson, Attack and Die, pp. 19-22. In contrast to Lee, Grant suffered
18.1 percent casualties and imposed 31.0 percent casualties on his opponents
for a positive difference of 12.9 percent. Ibid., p. 23. The Grant calculations
include the 29,396 Confederates of the army that surrendered to him at
Vicksburg. Without those captures, Grant's imposed casualties drop to 54,303
from 83,699, his casualties imposed percentage drops to 20.1 percent (compared
to Lee's 15.4 percent), and his difference of casualties imposed/suffered drops
to a positive 7.2 percent (compared to Lee's minus 4.8 percent).
36. Freeman,
R.E. Lee, II, p. 347; McLaws, Lafayette, Letter to B.F. Johnson Publishing Co.,
July 13,1895, reprinted in North & South, I, Issue 1 (November 1997), pp.
38, 40..
effectively leaving those decisions to no one except perhaps
his God. Lee's hands-off approach is demonstrated by the dearth of written orders
issued by him once a battle had started -something that distinguished him from
most other generals in the war. Part of Lee's problem in this area may have
been his failure to provide himself with an adequate staff; while his small
staff was headed by a colonel or lieutenant colonel, the Army of the Potomac's
large staff was headed by a major general and included several brigadier
generals.37 Staffing problems, with resultant poor coordination, had
a greater effect on offensive than defensive tactics, and thus would have been
a particularly troublesome problem for Lee.38
The third problem with Lee's tactics was
his propensity to devise battle plans which either required impossible
coordination and timing or which dissipated his limited strength through
consecutive, instead of concurrent, attacks. For example, the Seven Days'
Battle was a series of disasters in which Lee relied upon unrealistic
coordination and timing that resulted in Confederate failures and extreme
losses. Again, the second day of Gettysburg saw a classic misuse of
uncoordinated serial assaults on the Union left when a simultaneous assault
might have resulted in a Confederate break-through.
The fourth tactical problem involved Lee's
orders themselves. On numerous occasions they were too vague or discretionary,
characteristics that were enhanced by the verbal nature of many of Lee's
orders.39 Examples of flawed orders are Lee's confusing and
discretionary orders to Stuart as Lee's army moved north prior to Gettysburg
and his orders to Ewell to take the high ground "if practicable" at
the end of Gettysburg's first day. There are times for discretionary orders,
but Lee overused them.
The results of Lee's faulty strategies and
tactics were catastrophic. His army had 121,000 men killed or wounded during
the war ~ 27,000
37. Williams,
Lincoln and His Generals, p. 313. Wiley, Road to Appomattox, pp. 115-6. When
Lee surrendered at Appomattox, his personal staff members signing the parole
agreement along with Lee consisted of four lieutenant colonels and two majors.
Dowdey and Manarin, Papers, p. 935; Taylor, General Lee, p. 295. Freeman
commented on Lee's small staff: "No general ever had more devoted service
than he received from his personal assistants, but surely no officer of like
rank ever fought a campaign comparable to that of 1864 with only three men on
his staff, and not one of the three a professional soldier." Freeman, R.E.
Lee, III, p. 230. For details on the various members of Lee's staff throughout
the war, see Ibid., I, pp. 638-43. T. Harry Williams stated, "It would not
be accurate to say that Lee's general staff were glorified clerks, but the
statement would not be too wide of the mark. Certainly his staff was not, in
the modern sense, a planning staff, which was why Lee was often a tired
general." Williams, Lincoln and His Generals, p. 313.
38. Griffith,
Battle Tactics, p. 56.
39. Wiley,
Road to Appomattox, p. 115.
more than any Civil War general on either side, including
that alleged "butcher," Ulysses S. Grant, and about 90,000 more than
any other Confederate general. Although Lee's army inflicted a war-high 135,000
casualties on its opponents, 60,000 of those occurred in 1864 and 1865 when Lee
was on the defensive and Grant engaged in a deliberate war of adhesion against
the army Lee had fatally depleted in 1862 and 1863.40
In light of his reputation, Lee's relative
casualty statistics could be expected to exceed those of his Rebel
counterparts. In reality, however, Lee's numbers were worse than those of his
fellow Confederate commanders. Lee's soldiers suffered 38 percent of all
Confederate battlefield deaths and injuries (121,000 of 320,000) while
inflicting only 35 percent of the battlefield deaths and injuries (135,000 of
385,000) suffered by Union troops. Conversely, the men serving under all other
Confederate commanders imposed 65 percent of all Union battlefield deaths and
injuries (250,000 of 385,000) while suffering only 62 percent of such
casualties themselves (199,000 of 320,000).41
Similarly, Lee's generals were mortally
wounded in battle at a much higher rate than those under other Confederate
commanders. After Lee took command of the Army of Northern Virginia, he lost
two of the three mortally wounded Confederate lieutenant generals (corps
commanders), four of the seven mortally wounded Confederate major generals
(division commanders), and 33 of 53 mortally wounded Confederate brigadier
generals (brigade commanders).42 These numbers are out of proportion
to the above percentages of casualties inflicted and suffered by Lee's army and
thus do not appear to be the result of greater combat by his army than other
Confederate troops.
During the first fourteen months that Lee
commanded the Army of Northern Virginia, he took the strategic and tactical
offensive so often with his undermanned army that he lost 80,000 men while
inflicting only 73,000 casualties on his Union opponents. During each major battle
in the critical and decisive phase of the war from June 1862 through July 1863,
Lee was losing an average 19 percent of his men while his manpower-rich enemies
were suffering casualties at a tolerable 13 percent.43
"The truth is that in 1864, Lee himself demonstrated the
alternative to his earlier offensive strategy and tactics." Nolan, Lee
Considered, p. 260.
McWhiney and Jamieson, Attack and Die, p.
22; Current, Richard N. (ed.), Encylopedia of the Confederacy, 4 vols. (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 1993) [hereafter Current, Encyclopedia], I, p.
338.
Fox, Regimental Losses, pp. 571-3; Warner, Generals in Gray.
Livermore, Numbers & Losses, pp. 86-103.
Although daring and sometimes seemingly
successful, Lee's actions were inconsistent with the North's 4:1 manpower
advantage and were fatal to the Confederate cause. By 1864, therefore, Grant
had a 120,000-man army to bring against Lee's 65,000 and, by the effective use
(unlike Hooker) of the sheer weight of his numbers, imposed a deadly 46 percent
casualty rate on Lee's army while losing a bearable 41 percent of his own men,
as he drove from the Rappahannock to the James River and created a terminal
threat to Richmond.44
By June 1864 Lee's diminished forces were
tied down by Grant at Richmond and Petersburg. The next month Sherman reached
Atlanta. Atlanta fell on September 1, and the Shenandoah Valley was lost in
October. Lincoln was reelected in November. The South was doomed, Sherman was
marching through Georgia, and Confederate soldiers were dying, nearing
starvation and deserting in droves.
The time had come to end the war, but Lee
did nothing. Revered and loved by his troops and the entire South, Lee had the
power to bring down the curtain on the great American tragedy. Lee's resignation
would have brought about a massive return of southern soldiers to their homes
and destroyed the will to fight of the Army of Northern Virginia. But he did
nothing. For five more months after Lincoln's reelection, up until the last
hours at Appomattox, Lee continued the futile struggle. The result was
continued death and destruction throughout the South. This senseless
continuation of the slaughter was Lee's final failure.
**. McWhiney and Jamieson, Attack and Die, p. 19; Livermore,
Numbers & Losses, pp. 110-6.
Appendix I
Historians' Treatment of Lee
The following is, by necessity, a very
limited and selective summary of the historiography of Lee.1 In the
immediate aftermath of the Civil War, historians dealt with Lee as with most
other participants in the war. Although Lee generally was treated positively,
his faults also were discussed.
This treatment was consistent with
newspapers' treatment of Lee during the war itself — when Lee was rivaled or
surpassed by Stonewall Jackson as the most heroic Confederate general. Both
men became idols after their deaths made them martyrs for the Confederacy.
Books published in those first years after
the war treated Lee favorably but found fault with his actions at Gettysburg
and Malvern Hill — and sometimes Antietam, Fredericksburg and the Seven Days'
Battle. While Jackson, Longstreet, Joseph E. Johnston, Albert Sidney Johnston
and others received generally favorable treatment, Richard Ewell and Jubal
Early were universally criticized for their timidity on the first day at
Gettysburg. These early books included James Dabney McCabe, Jr.'s Life and
Campaigns of Gen. Robert E. Lee (1866), William Swinton's The Twelve Decisive
Battles of the War (1867) and Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac (1882), John
Esten Cooke's A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee (1871), and Edward A. Pollard's Lee
and His Lieutenants (1867).2 In an 1866 book, The Lost Cause,
Pollard concluded that Lee's influence on the Confederacy's general affairs was
negative.3
After his death on October 12,1870,
however, Lee became a southern and then a national deity. Previously second to
Jackson in the literature and hearts of the South, Lee was elevated to the
flawless southern embodiment of The Lost Cause. No criticism of him went
unchallenged, and the South's other leading generals were seen as a threat to
For a broader analysis and list, see
Parrish, T. Michael, "The R.E. Lee 200: An Annotated Bibliography of
Essential Books on Lee's Military Career," pp. 561-93, in Gallagher, Lee
the Soldier.
2. Connelly,
Thomas L., Marble Man, pp. 47-61; Gallagher, Lee the Soldier, p. xviii.
3. Bruce,
"Lee and Strategy" in Gallagher, Lee the Soldier, p. 133.
Lee's deification, and thus became fair game for censure and
condemnation. One of the major reasons for Lee's elevation to god-like status
was that former Confederate officers associated with Lee could promote
themselves through idolization of Lee. Wartime incompetents Jubal Early and
William Nelson Pendleton were among the leaders of the pro-Lee, anti-Longstreet
cabal.4
Early had faltered at Gettysburg, lost the
Shenandoah Valley and his corps, been relieved of command by Lee, and fled the country
for a few years after the war. Through his pro-Lee efforts, he hoped to cover
up his own disastrous record and spread the blame elsewhere. He became the
power and brains behind the anti-Longstreet movement with his famous January
19, 1872 Lee Birthday speech at Washington and Lee University.5 In
that speech, which was widely distributed as a "Lost Cause" pamphlet,
Early created the myth that Lee had ordered Longstreet to attack at dawn on the
second day at Gettysburg.6 Early proved to be a better propagandist
than general and dominated the pro-Lee cult for three decades as an author and
as president of three Lee-worshipping organizations, the Lee Monument
Association, the Association of the Army of Northern Virginia and the Southern
Historical Society.7
Pendleton, a minister and Lee's mediocre
chief of artillery, served as executive director of the Lee Monument
Association and developed in his speeches, sermons and writings the parallels
between the perfect Jesus Christ and the faultless Robert E. Lee. Pendleton's
1873 Lee Birthday speech further promoted the myth of Lee's July 2,1863 orders
to Longstreet to attack at dawn but contradicted Pendleton's own 1863
after-action report to Lee.8 Revisionist historian Thomas L.
Connelly later explained that Pendleton's attack-at-dawn statement:
...was pure fabrication, even embarrassing to some members of
Lee's staff. Charles Venable admitted the statement was due to Pendleton's
obvious emotional illness, vto an absolute loss of memory said to be
brought on by frequent attacks resembling paralysis.' Other Lee staff
members-A.L. Long,
4. Piston,
"Cross Purposes" in Gallagher, Third Day, pp. 47-51. "When the
Civil War ended, Early and Pendleton were generally viewed as failures. For
Early and Pendleton, the worship of Lee seems to have given meaning to
otherwise empty lives." Ibid., pp. 48, 50.
5. See
reprinted speech in Gallagher, Lee the Soldier, pp. 37-73.
6. Piston,
Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant, p. 118.
7. Ibid.,
pp. 43-84; Gallagher, "Generals" in Boritt, Why the Confederacy Lost,
pp. 90-1; Freeman, Lee's Lieutenants, III, p. 770.
8. Piston,
Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant, pp. 37-45, 84-5,121-2.
Walter Taylor, and Charles Marshall-however much they hated
Longstreet, denied that any sunrise order had been given. Venable even
lamented, Tt is a pity, it ever got into print.'9
Another minister, J. William Jones,
published his idolizing Personal Reminiscences of General Robert E. Lee in
1874,10 gained control (with Early) of the Southern Historical
Society, and used its periodic Papers to worship Lee and damn his critics from
1876 through 1887.11
Unabated praise for Lee continued in
hundreds of books and articles published in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. In his 1881 book, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate
Government, Jefferson Davis referred to the Southern Historical Society Papers
as resolving the issue of responsibility for Gettysburg, thereby implying that
the responsibility for failure was Longstreet's. Among the other noteworthy
and influential books in this period were Robert E. Lee, Jr.'s Recollections
and Letters of General Robert E. Lee (1904); the Reverend Jones' 1906 sequel,
Life and Letters of Robert Edward Lee, Soldier and Man; Thomas Nelson Page's
Robert E. Lee: The Southerner (1909) and Page's nationalist revision, Robert E.
Lee: Man and Soldier (1911).12 Praise for Lee knew no bounds in this
period, as demonstrated by the following quote of Senator Benjamin Hill of
Georgia's memorial service oration appearing in his nephew Fitzhugh Lee's
General Lee: A Biography of Robert E. Lee (1894):
[Lee] was a foe without hate, a friend without treachery, a
soldier without cruelty, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public
officer without vices, a private citizen without wrong, a neighbor without
reproach, a Christian without hypocrisy, and a man without guilt. He was
Caesar without his ambition, Frederick without his tyranny, Napoleon without
his selfishness, and Washington without his reward. He was as obedient to
authority as a servant and royal in authority as a king. He was as gentle as a
woman in life, pure and modest as a virgin in thought, watchful as a Roman
vestal, submissive to law as Socrates, and grand in battle as Achilles.13
». Ibid., pp. 84-5.
10. Jones, J. William, Personal Reminiscences of General Robert
E. Lee (Richmond, United
States Historical Society Press, 1874,1989).
». Connelly, Marble Man, pp. 39-42, 73-90,110; Piston, Lee's
Tarnished Lieutenant, p. 130. >2. Connelly, Marble Man, pp.
107-10.
13. Lee, Fitzhugh, General Lee: A Biography of Robert E. Lee
(New York: Da Capo Press, 1994; reprint of Wilmington, North Carolina:
Broadfoot Publishing Company, 1989; original published in 1894 by D. Appleton
and Company), p. 418.
Lee's permanent deification is found in the
classic seven volumes written by Douglas Southall Freeman, the four-volume,
Pulitzer Prize- winning R. E. Lee: A Biography (1934-35)14 and the
three-volume Lee's Lieutenants: A Study in Command (1942-44).15
During his twenty-five years of work on these authoritative historical
masterpieces, Dr. Freeman, editor of the Richmond News Leader, saluted Lee's
statue each day as he went to work in Richmond.16 As early as 1914,
in an introduction to Lee's Dispatches, Freeman had revealed his view of Lee:
"He entered upon the year 1863 with a series of victories unbroken from
the time he had taken command [Malvern Hill and Antietam were what?]17
.. .He ended the year with the greatest opportunity of his career lost through
the blunders and worse of his subordinates...Lee seemed then the very
incarnation of knighthood."18
In his seven volumes of flowing prose and
detailed documentation, Freeman found Lee to be perfect in very nearly every
way. According to Freeman, Lee had in his veins the blood of Virginia's finest
families, the best families of the finest society America ever has produced.
Lee was brilliant, prescient, humane, intelligent and virtually flawless.
Unsurprisingly, his flaws only seemed to make him greater. For example, he was
so tolerant of the faults in others (his lieutenants, for example) that
sometimes their mistakes would result in defeats for which Lee would be held
responsible. Like some of his nineteenth- century predecessors, Freeman cited
Lee's failure to criticize Long- street's conduct at Gettysburg as proof of
Lee's great Christian morality, instead of as evidence that Lee had in fact
found no fault with Longstreet's performance.
Freeman continued in this vein for a couple
thousand pages and, like many of his predecessors, lauded Lee by explicitly
tearing down Longstreet and deftly denigrating the accomplishments of Jackson,
whom he regarded as a threat to Lee's supreme status. In a nutshell, R.E. Lee
demonstrated how great Lee was, and Lee's Lieutenants described how all his
subordinates had let him down.19
u. Freeman, R.E. Lee.
15. Freeman,
Lee's Lieutenants.
16. Savage,
Court Martial, p. 13.
]7. "Since the political definition of losing is retreat,
Lee had lost the battle [of Antietam]. Since he would have had to withdraw
after any battle, his decision to fight assured a negative political result in
the South and a positive one in the North." Jones, "Military
Means" in Boritt, Why the Confederacy Lost, p. 60.
18. Freeman,
Lee's Dispatches, pp. xxxiv, xl.
19. Piston,
Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant, pp. 174-6.
Freeman's works affected those of later
writers such as his protege, Clifford Dowdey, who wrote a series of worshipful
pro-Lee books in the 1950s and 1960s.20 A chapter heading in one of
his books referred to Lee and said it all: "The God Emerges."21
Freeman's influence also is present but muted in Emory M. Thomas' excellent
1995 Robert E. Lee: A Biography, which contains some adverse criticism of Lee but
adopts some of Freeman's strong pro-Lee positions, such as solely blaming
Longstreet for the delays on Day 2 at Gettysburg.22
Contemporary historian Gary W. Gallagher,
argues that Lee was correct in seeing Virginia as the critical battleground,
was successful on several occasions and might have enjoyed success at Antietam
and Gettysburg, and his propensity for the offensive and the attack-mode was
consistent with the hopes and needs of the Southern people.23
It was, however, inevitable that the
dichotomy between the image of the flawless Lee and the reality of the
devastating defeat of his Confederate army would become the subject of more
adverse critical historical analysis. One of the first break-throughs was the
1907 publication of Confederate Brigadier General E. Porter Alexander's
classic and balanced Military Memoirs of a Confederate: A Critical Narrative.
Aware of, but ignoring, the plethora of Lee-worshippers, Alexander set forth
his frank criticisms of all the leading Civil War generals. All of them,
including Lee, received both plaudits and negative criticism for what Alexander
deemed their respective strengths and weaknesses. Even more valuable is the
unexpurgated 1989 printing of the original version of Alexander's work,
Fighting for the Confederacy: The Personal Recollections of General Edward
Porter Alexander, which was retrieved and edited by Gary W. Gallagher.24
Among the many valuable insights of Alexander's works are his criticisms of
Lee's decision to fight a battle he could not win at Antietam, many of Lee's
tactical decisions at Gettysburg, and Lee's failure to coordinate his
activities with those of Confederate forces unsuccessfully defending Vicksburg
and Tennessee in 1863 and Atlanta in 1864.
Another critical evaluation of Lee came
from British Major General J.F.C. Fuller. In his 1933 book, Grant and Lee: A
Study in Personality and Generalship, Fuller described Lee as "in several
respects...one of the
20. Gallagher,
Lee the Soldier, pp. xix-xx.
21. Piston,
Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant, p. 183.
22. Thomas,
Lee, supra.
23 Gallagher, "Generals" in Boritt, Why the
Confederacy Lost, pp. 98-108; Gallagher, "An
other Look at the Generalship of R.E. Lee," pp. 275-89,
in Gallagher, Lee the Soldier. M. Alexander, Fighting for the
Confederacy.
most incapable Generals-in-Chief in history"25
and found Grant superior to Lee because of the former's broad strategic
outlook - in contrast to Lee's narrow eastern theater perspective.26
He also criticized Lee for his over-aggressiveness during the Peninsular,
Gettysburg and 1864 Virginia campaigns. In his earlier The Generalship of
Ulysses S. Grant (1929), Fuller combined these ideas in a succinct statement:
"Unlike Grant, [Lee] did not create a strategy in spite of his Government;
instead, by his restless audacity, he ruined such strategy as his Government
created."27
Another British military historian, Basil
Liddell Hart, wrote two devastating mid-1930s articles critical of Lee in the
Saturday Review of Literature. In "Lee: A Psychological Problem," he
found Lee to be mediocre, overly concerned about Virginia (instead of the
entire Confederacy), and guilty of bleeding the South to death with his
suicidally aggressive tactics.28 In "Why Lee Lost
Gettysburg," Hart criticized Lee as a strategist for failing to recognize
the Confederacy's limited manpower resources.29
A pioneer analyst was T. Harry Williams,
who began questioning the myths surrounding Lee in a short and shocking 1955
Journal of Southern History article criticizing Freeman's analysis of Lee. The
following excerpts demonstrate Williams' heresy:
[Freeman] was more like the little girl in Richmond who came
home from Sunday School and said "Mama, I can never remember. Was General
Lee in the Old Testament or the New Testament?"
*****
Freeman came close to arguing that whatever Lee did was right
because he was Lee.
*****
Freeman was a Virginia gentleman writing about a Virginia
gentleman.
*****
The emotion that impelled Lee into the war also influenced
the way he fought. He fought for Virginia. Freeman did not recognize Lee's
limitations because to him too the war is in
25. Fuller,
Grant and Lee, p. 8.
26. Gallagher,
"Generals" in Boritt, Why the Confederacy Lost, pp. 90,95.
27. Fuller,
Generalship of Grant, p. 375.
28. Hart,
B.H. Liddell, "Lee: A Psychological Problem," Saturday Review, XI
(December 15, 1934), pp. 365ff.
29. Hart,
B.H. Liddell, "Why Lee Lost Gettysburg," Saturday Review, XI (March
23, 1935), pp. 561ff.
Virginia. It did not occur to him to examine the effect of Lee's
preoccupation with Virginia on total Confederate strategy. Nor did he see the
tragic result of Lee's limitation. In the end, all the brilliance and fortitude
of the greatest Confederate general availed little to save his country. It fell
to pieces behind his back, and most of his efforts in Virginia went for
nothing.30
Thomas L. Connelly followed up Williams'
work with a 1969 Civil War History article criticizing and detailing Lee's
ignorance of the western theater, his obsession with defending Virginia, and
his persistent uninformed demands for reinforcements from the West and Deep
South.31 Next, in a 1973 article in the same publication, Connelly
described the image of Lee historians had created. In particular, he argued
that "Lee was a symbol of victory in a defeated region" and cited
1880s Southern Historical Society Papers articles seriously contending that Lee
had never lost (Antietam and Gettysburg being strategic withdrawals).32
Connelly then teamed with Archer Jones to
produce The Politics of Command: Factions and Ideas in Confederate Strategy
(1973). They focused on a "western concentration bloc" and its
running battle with Lee for Davis' attention and scarce troops. They concluded
that Lee's close relationship with Davis enabled him to get attention for the
Virginia front and special treatment for the Army of Northern Virginia.33
Finally, in his remarkable The Marble Man:
Robert E. Lee and His Image in American Society (1977), Connelly traced the
idealized historiography on Lee's life and especially his Civil War
activities. He described the myth of The Lost Cause created by former
Confederate officers who made Lee, Virginia, the Confederacy and themselves
look good by praising Lee and attacking Longstreet. Connelly described how
Early and Jones had falsified documents and cut deals with other authors in
their quest to praise Lee and Early and to damn Longstreet.34 For example,
they had published Jeb Stuart's report on Gettysburg, deleted a paragraph in
which Stuart had criticized Early for failing to watch for Stuart's cavalry,
been caught in their fraud by Stuart's former adjutant, and then struck a
bargain with him calling for no aspersions on either
30. Williams,
T. Harry, "Freeman: Historian of the Civil War: An Appraisal,"
Journal of Southern History, XXI (Feb. 1955), pp. 91, 96, 98-100.
31. Connelly,
"Lee and the Western Confederacy," pp. 116-32.
32. Connelly,
Thomas L., "The Image and the General: Robert E. Lee in American Historiography,"
Civil War History, 19 (March 1973), pp. 50-64.
33. Gallagher,
"Generals" in Boritt, Why the Confederal Lost, pp. 95-6.
34. Gallagher,
Lee the Soldier, p. xxiii.
Stuart or Early and placement of full blame for Gettysburg on
Long- street.35 Connelly also explained how Lee's son Robert and the
Reverend Jones promoted Lee as a national, not just a southern, hero by deleting
documents or portions of documents written by Lee that reflected pro-slavery
or anti-northern views.36
Others who followed Connelly's lead in
exposing the deliberate but flawed deification of Lee were William Garrett
Piston in his Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant: James Longstreet and His Place in
Southern History (1987)37 and Alan T. Nolan in Lee Considered:
General Robert E. Lee and Civil War History (1991).38 Douglas Savage
followed those with a semi- fictional examination of Lee's mistakes in his
creative historical novel, The Court Martial of Robert E. Lee (1993).39
The most recent criticism of Lee's overly aggressive approach was John D.
McKenzie's Uncertain Glory: Lee's Generalship Re-Examined (1997).40
Grady McWhiney's and Perry D. Jamieson's
Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage (1982)
provided valuable insight into unnecessary and self-defeating aggressiveness
during the Civil War, particularly by Confederate generals.41 They
set forth detailed statistics demonstrating the devastating losses suffered by
attacking armies and showing that Lee's troops suffered and imposed far more
casualties than those of any other general on either side.42
Unfortunately for historical accuracy, the
deliberate enshrinement of Robert E. Lee and concurrent denigration of James
Longstreet, Ulysses Grant and Stonewall Jackson have become deeply ingrained
in the American psyche. As J.F.C. Fuller said in his study of Grant, "The
truth is, the more we inquire into the generalship of Lee, the more we discover
that Lee, or rather the popular conception of him, is a myth.. ."43
35. Connelly, Marble Man, pp. 87-9.
Ibid., pp. 118-9.
37. Piston,
Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant.
38. Nolan,
Lee Considered; Gallagher, "Generals" in Boritt, Why the Confederacy
Lost, p. 97; Gallagher, Lee the Soldier, p. xxiii.
39. Savage,
Court Martial.
40. McKenzie,
Uncertain Glory.
41. McWhiney
and Jamieson, Attack and Die, supra.
42. Gallagher,
"Generals" in Boritt, Why the Confederacy Lost, p. 96.
43. Fuller,
Generalship of Grant, p. 375.
Determination of the number of casualties
is one of the most difficult issues in writing about the Civil War. Not only did
the Union and the Confederacy calculate their casualties differently, but
individual armies on both sides took different approaches to doing so.
Sometimes they deliberately changed the way in which they counted casualties.1
The deterioration of the Army of Tennessee in late 1864 and of the Army
of Northern Virginia in 1864 and 1865 resulted in an almost total absence of
reliable Confederate records of their casualties for the last two calendar
years of the war.
Defining casualties is another aspect of the
problem. A full casualty count often includes killed, wounded and missing, but
many records and writers include only killed and wounded. Distinctions between
killed and wounded became difficult because of battle-related deaths that
occurred during the days, weeks and months after a battle.
The "missing" category was
particularly amorphous because it might or might not include soldiers who had
wandered away or deserted under cover of battle — as well as those captured by
the enemy. Because the "missing" category was so ambiguous, captured
soldiers could be exchanged or paroled, and the North could more readily replace
missing or captured soldiers, the present volume ~ except where specifically
indicated-has used only the numbers of killed and wounded in discussing battle
casualties.2
About twenty pages of Union Army Captain
Frederick Phisterer's Statistical Record of the Armies of the United States
(1883) were devoted to
For example, on May 14, 1863, after Chancellorsville's heavy casualties,
Lee issued an order stating that the prevailing practice of counting slight
injuries as casualties ".. .is calculated to mislead our friends, and
encourage our enemies, by giving false impressions as to the extent of our
losses...," and therefore directed that "...the reports of the
wounded shall only include those whose injuries, in the opinion of the medical
officers, render them unfit for duty." General Orders, No. 63, quoted in
Fox, Regimental Losses, p. 559. This order apparently had an immediate impact
on Lee's commanders' casualty reports. Ibid.
2. Bevin Alexander, Lost Victories, p. 287.
Civil War casualty numbers.3 However, the first
comprehensive publication on Civil War casualties was Union Lieutenant Colonel
William F. Fox's Regimental Losses in the American Civil War, 1861-1865, which
was published in 1898.4 It is a voluminous treatise analyzing the
numbers and causes of casualties, primarily totals and percentages suffered by
every single Union regiment. Although its analysis of Union losses is far more
extensive than of Confederate losses, it has many compelling features, such as
tables showing the maximum percentages of losses in individual battles by
regiments on both sides. (The respective "winners" were the
Confederate 1st Texas at Antietam (82.3%) and the Union 1st Minnesota at
Gettysburg (82.0%).)
The foremost authority on Civil War
casualties is Thomas L. Livermore, whose Numbers and Losses in the Civil War in
America, 1861- 1865 (1901) has been the starting point, and often the finishing
point, for almost all later writers and statisticians.5 Livermore's
entire little tome explains how he derived his numbers.6
In his 1933 classic, Grant and Lee: A Study
in Personality and Generalship,7 Major General J.F.C. Fuller
included a valuable appendix listing the strength, killed, wounded and missing
of both sides in 58 Civil War battles.8 About two-thirds of his
numbers were taken from Livermore, but he expanded some of the lesser-known
Confederate numbers. He also analyzed those figures and came to some startling
conclusions.
3. Phisterer,
Frederick, Statistical Record: A Treasury of Information about the U.S. Civil
War (Carlisle, Pennsylvania: John Kallman Publishers, 1996; reprint of
Statistical Record of the Armies of the United States (1883), a supplementary
volume to the Campaigns of Scribner's Civil War series).
4. Fox,
Regimental Losses.
5. Livermore,
Numbers & Losses.
6. Joseph
B. Mitchell criticized Livermore's calculations for Gettysburg (28,063 Confederate
dead, wounded and missing) and questioned his calculations for other battles in
"Confederate Losses at Gettysburg: Debunking Livermore," Blue &
Gray Magazine, VI, No. 4 (April 1989), pp. 38-40. Mitchell argued that it
"is patently obvious" that Livermore double-counted about 6,000
Confederate wounded at Gettysburg and concluded that each side had about 24,000
casualties (including missing) at Gettysburg. Mitchell's major basis for
concluding that Livermore double-counted apparently was that Livermore
overestimated the size of Lee's forces. Even if that were the case, the
percentage of casualties taken by Lee remains high; the important point is
that Lee could not afford to even equally exchange 24,000 casualties at this
stage of the war. In a related discussion, Shelby Foote concluded that Lee had
understated his Gettysburg casualties (including missing) at 20,451, when they
were probably 25,000 or more. Foote pointed to the absence of reports from
some Rebel units, Lee's new policy of not counting lightly wounded, and Lee's
counting 5,150 as missing when the Union records included the names of 12,227
captured Confederates. Foote, Civil War, II, p. 578.
7. Fuller,
Grant and Lee.
8. Ibid.,
pp. 286-7.
First, in their respective 1862-63 battles, Lee had 16.20
percent of his men killed or wounded while Grant's losses were only 10.03
percent. Second, Grant's 1864-65 losses against Lee were 10.42 percent, and
Lee's 1864-65 losses were unknown. Third, where both sides' losses were known,
the Federals lost 11.07 percent and the Confederates 12.25 percent ~ both
higher than Grant's wartime total of 10.225 percent and lower than Lee's
1862-63 total of 16.20 percent even though the Confederate totals include
Lee's own numbers.9
The culmination of these statistical
analyses is found in Grady McWhiney's and Perry D. Jamieson's Attack and Die:
Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage (1982).10 In
their opening chapter, "It Was Not War ~ It Was Murder," they
assembled an illuminating series of statistical tables analyzing the casualties
incurred by Union and Confederate commanders.11 Because of their
mastery of the numbers and for purposes of consistency, their casualty figures
(killed and wounded) have been used throughout this book.
The following significant statistical nuggets
come from the tables in Attack and Die. 121,000 of Lee's men were killed and
wounded -- an astounding 89,000 more than the Confederate runner-up, Braxton
Bragg, and 91,000 more than third place John Bell Hood. Even Ulysses Grant lost
only 94,000. While Lee had 20.2 percent (121,042) of his men killed or wounded
in battle, he imposed only 15.4 percent (134,602) casualties on his opponents.
This minus 4.8 percent difference for killed and wounded was exceeded among all
major commanders only by Lee's protege, John Bell Hood. Selected other
generals' casualty percentage differences were minus 13.7 for Hood, minus 4.1
for Bragg, minus 1.7 for Joseph Johnston, and plus 12.9 percent for Grant. Some
of those calculations, particularly Grant's, include numbers of surrendered
troops.12
Relevant grand totals of casualties appear
in Richard N. Current's Encyclopedia of the Confederacy (1993), Vol. 1,
"CIVIL WAR: Losses and Numbers."13 Relying on Livermore
and others, this article lists the following respective Union and Confederate
casualties: battlefield deaths, 110,100 (U) and 94,000 (C); non-mortally
wounded, 275,000 (U) and
Ibid., p. 274.
10. McWhiney and Jamieson, Attack and Die. Beringer et al., Why
the South Lost, pp. 458-81,
contained a statistical analysis that criticized the Attack
and Die - conclusion that Confederates self-destructed but conceded that the
high Rebel casualties helped depress southern morale.
McWhiney and Jamieson, Attack and Die, pp. 3-24. Ibid., pp.
19-23,158.
13. Current, Encylopedia.
226,000 (C); and total battlefield casualties, 385,100 (U)
and 320,000 (C)«
An analysis of the combined Attack and Kill
and Encyclopedia numbers allows us to determine Lee's contributions to
casualties inflicted and suffered by Confederate forces. As indicated in the
Overview chapter above, Lee's numbers were worse than those of his fellow Confederate
commanders. Lee's soldiers suffered 38 percent of all Confederate battlefield
deaths and injuries (121,000 of 320,000) while inflicting only 35 percent of
the battlefield deaths and injuries (135,000 of 385,000) suffered by Union
troops. Conversely, the men serving under all other Confederate commanders
imposed 65 percent of all Union battlefield deaths and injuries (250,000 of
385,000) while suffering only 62 percent of such casualties themselves (199,000
of 320,000).
The following are various authors'
estimates of killed and wounded (plus missing*) for three major engagements
involving Lee's army:
Antietam
|
Source |
Confederate |
Union |
|
Current, Encyclopedia15 |
11,724 |
11,657 |
|
Foote, Civil War16 |
11,000 |
12,000 |
|
Freeman, R.E. Lee17 |
10,700* |
12,410* |
|
Fuller, Grant & Lee18 |
11,724 |
11,657 |
|
Hattaway and Jones, How the North19 |
13,724* |
12,469* |
|
Livermore, Numbers and Losses20 |
11,724 |
11,657 |
|
|
13,724* |
12,410* |
|
McWhiney and Jamieson, Attack21 |
11,724 (22.6%) |
11,657(15.5%) |
|
Woodworth, Davis and Lee22 |
11,000 |
12,000 |
». Ibid., I, p. 338. is. Ibid.
i'. Foote, Civil War, I, p. 702.
I7. Freeman, R.E. Lee, II, p. 402.
1S. Fuller, Grant and Lee, p. 286.
i®. Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, p. 243.
20. Livermore,
Numbers & Losses, pp. 92-3.
21. McWhiney
and Jamieson, Attack and Die, p. 19
22. Woodworth,
Davis and Lee, p. 192.
|
Source |
Confederate |
Union |
|
Current, Encyclopedia23 |
10,746 |
11,116 |
|
Freeman, Lee's Lieutenants24 |
13,156* |
16,804* |
|
Fuller, Grant and Lee25 |
10,746 |
11,169 |
|
Furgurson, Chancellorsville26 |
10,293(17%) |
11,549(9%) |
|
(citing Bigelow, Chancellorsville |
|
|
|
Hattaway & Jones, How the North27 |
10,746 |
11,368 |
|
Livermore, Numbers & Losses28 |
10,746 |
11,116 |
|
|
12,764* |
16,792* |
|
McWhiney and Jamieson, Attack29 |
10,746 (18.7%) |
11,116 (11.4%) |
|
Sears, Chancellorsville30 |
10,957 |
11,366 |
|
|
13,460* |
17,304* |
|
Gettysburg |
|
|
|
Source |
Confederate |
Union |
|
Current, Encyclopedia31 |
22,638 |
17,684 |
|
Foote, Civil War32 |
25,000-plus* |
17,684 |
|
Freeman, R. E. Lee33 |
23,371* |
28,129* |
|
Fuller, Grant & Lee34 |
22,638 |
17,684 |
|
Hattaway & Jones, How the North35 |
28,063* |
23,049* |
|
Livermore, Numbers & Losses36 |
22,638 |
17,684 |
|
|
28,063* |
23,049* |
|
McWhiney and Jamieson, Attack37 |
22,638 (30.2%) |
17,684 (21.2%) |
These figures demonstrate consistency among
several writers and dependence on Livermore. Regardless of which set of numbers
is used for analysis, Lee's army incurred a much higher percentage of casualties
than its opponent in each of these significant battles. These statistics are
typical of Lee's experience at least through the Wilderness in May 1864 and
demonstrate that he undermined the fighting capacity of his army.
23. Current,
Encyclopedia, I, p. 338.
24. Freeman,
Lee's Lieutenants, pp. 644, 648.
25. Fuller,
Grant and Lee, p. 286.
26. Furgurson,
Chancellorsville, pp. 364-5.
27. Hattaway
and Jones, How the North Won, p. 384.
28. Livermore,
Numbers & Losses, pp. 98-9.
29. McWhiney
and Jamieson, Attack and Die, p. 19.
30. Sears,
Chancellorsville, p. 442.
31. Current,
Encyclopedia, I, p. 338.
32 Foote, Civil War, II, pp. 576, 578.
33. Freeman, R.E. Lee, III, p. 154.
Fuller, Grant and Lee, pp. 200, 286.
35. Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, p. 409.
Livermore, Numbers & Losses, pp. 102-3.
37 McWhiney and Jamieson, Attack and Die, p. 19.
MEMOIRS, LETTERS, PAPERS AND OTHER PRIMARY DOCUMENTS
Alexander, Edward Porter. The Military Memoirs of a
Confederate: A Critical Narrative. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907.
Benson, Susan Williams (ed.). Confederate Scout-Sniper: The
Civil War Memoir of Barry Benson. Athens and London: University of Georgia
Press, 1992.
Blackford, William Willis. War Years with Jeb Stuart. Baton
Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1945.1993 Reprint.
Cox, Jacob Dolson. Military Reminiscences of the Civil War. 2
vols. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1900.
Davis, Jefferson. The Rise and Fall of the Confederate
Government. 2 vols. New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1990. Reprint of 1881
edition.
Douglas, Henry Kyd. I Rode with Stonewall: Being chiefly the
war experiences of the youngest member cf Jackson's staff from the John Brown
Raid to the hanging of Mrs. Surratt. St. Simons Island, Georgia: Mockingbird
Books, Inc., 1961. Reprint of Raleigh: The University of North Carolina Press,
1940.
Dowdey, Clifford and Manarin, Louis H. (eds.). The Wartime
Papers of R.E. Lee. New York: Bramhall House, 1961.
Freeman, Douglas Southall and McWhiney, Grady, (eds.) Lee's
Dispatches: Unpublished Letters of General Robert E. Lee, C.S.A., to Jefferson
Davis and the War Department of the Confederate States of America 1862-65.
Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1957, 1994. Update
of Freeman's original 1914 edition.
Gaff, Alan D. On Many a Bloody Field: Four Years in the Iron
Brigade. Blooming- ton and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1996.
Gallagher, Gary W. (ed.). Fighting for the Confederacy: The
Personal Recollections of General Edward Porter Alexander. Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1989.
Gibbon, John. Personal Recollections of the Civil War. New
York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1928.
Gordon, John B. Reminiscences of the Civil War. Baton Rouge
and London, Louisiana State University Press, 1993. Reprint of New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1903.
Grant, Ulysses S. Memoirs and Selected Letters: Personal
Memoirs of U.S. Grant, Selected Letters 1839-1865. Reprint. New York: Literary
Classics of the United States, Inc., 1990.
Johnson, Robert Underwood and Buel, Clarence Clough (eds.).
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York: Thomas Yoseloff, Inc.,
1956. Reprint of Secaucus, New Jersey: Castle, 1887-8.
Jones, J. William. Personal Reminiscences of General Robert E.
Lee. Richmond: United States Historical Society Press, 1874,1989. Reprint.
Longstreet, James. From Manassas to Appomattox: Memoirs of
the Civil War in America. New York: Smithmark Publishers, Inc., 1994.
McLaws, LaFayette. Letter to B.F. Johnson Publishing Co.,
July 13, 1895. Reprinted in North & South, I, Issuel 1 (November 1997),
pp. 38-40.
Nicolay, John G. The Outbreak of Rebellion. New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1881. Reprint of Harrisburg: The Archive Society, 1992.
Porter, Horace. Campaigning with Grant. New York: Smithmark
Publishers, Inc., 1994. Reprint.
Rhodes, Robert Hunt (ed.). All for the Union: The Civil War
Diary and Letters of Elisha Hunt Rhodes. New York: Orion Books, 1991.
Sherman, William Tecumseh. Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman. Reprint.
New York: Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., 1990.
Taylor, Walter H. General Lee: His Campaigns in Virginia,
1861-1865 with Personal Reminiscences. Lincoln and London: University of
Nebraska Press, 1994. Reprint of Norfolk, Virginia: Nusbaum Books, 1906.
Tower, R. Lockwood (ed.). Lee's Adjutant: The Wartime Letters
of Colonel Walter Herron Taylor, 1862-1865. Columbia, University of South
Carolina Press, 1995.
The War of Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records
of the Union and Confederate Armies. 128 vols. Washington, Government Printing
Office, 1880-1901.
Watkins, Sam. R. "Co. Aytch," Maury Grays, First
Tennessee Regiment; or, A Side Show of the Big Show. Nashville: Cumberland
Presbyterian Publishing House, 1882.1987 Reprint.
Wiggins, Sarah Woolfolk (ed.). The Journals of Josiah Gorgas
1857-1878. Tuscaloosa and London: The University of Alabama Press, 1995.
Woodward, C. Vann (ed.). Mary Chesnut's Civil War. New Haven
and London: Yale University Press, 1981.
STATISTICAL ANALYSES
Fox, William F. Regimental Losses in the American Civil War,
1861-1865: A Treatise on the Extent and Nature of the Mortuary Losses in the
Union Regiments, with Full and Exhaustive Statistics Compiled from the Official
Records on File in the State Military Bureaus and at Washington. Albany:
Brandow Printing Company, 1898. Reprinted: Dayton, Morningside House, Inc.,
1985.
Livermore, Thomas L. Numbers & Losses in the Civil War in
America, 1861-1865. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1957. Millwood, N.Y.:
Kraus Reprint Co., 1977.
Phisterer, Frederick. Statistical Record: A Treasury of
Information about the U.S. Civil War. Carlisle, Pennsylvania: John Kallmann,
Publishers, 1996. Reprint of Statistical Record of the Armies of the United
States (1883), a supplementary volume to the Campaigns of Scribner's Civil War
series.
PERIODICAL ARTICLES
Bradley, Mark L. "Last Stand in the Carolinas: The
Battle of Bentonville, March 19-21, 1865," Blue & Gray Magazine, XIII,
Issue 2 (December 1995), pp. 8-22, 56- 69.
Bruce, George A. "Strategy of the Civil War,"
Papers of the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, 13,1913, pp.
392-483.
Cheeks, Robert C. "Failure on the Heights,"
America's Civil War, 5 (November
1992), pp.
42-49.
Connelly, Thomas Lawrence. "The Image and the General:
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1973), pp. 50-64.
___ .
"Robert E. Lee and the Western Confederacy: A Criticism of Lee's Strategic
Ability," Civil War History, 15 (June 1969), pp. 116-32.
Davis, Stephen, "Atlanta Campaign. Hood Fights
Desperately. The Battles for Atlanta: Events from July 10 to September 2,
1864," Blue & Gray Magazine, VI, Issue 6 (August 1989), pp.
8-39,45-62.
Fleming, Martin K. "The Northwestern Virginia Campaign
of 1861: McClellan's Rising Star - Lee's Dismal Debut," Blue & Gray
Magazine, X, Issue 6 (August
1993), pp.
10-17, 48-54, 59-65.
Gallagher, Gary W., "Brandy Station: The Civil War's
Bloodiest Arena of Mounted Combat," Blue & Gray Magazine, VIII, Issue
1 (October 1990), pp. 8-22, 44-53.
Gilbert, Thomas D., "Mr. Grant Goes to Washington,"
Blue & Gray Magazine, XII, Issue 4 (April 1995), pp. 33-37.
"Grant and Lee, 1864: From the North Anna to the
Crossing of the James," Blue & Gray Magazine, XI, Issue 4 (April
1994), pp. 11-22, 44-58.
Handlin, Oscar, "Why Lee Attacked," The Atlantic
Monthly, CXCV (March 1955), pp. 65-66.
Hart, B.H. Liddell, "Lee: A Psychological Problem,"
Saturday Review, XI (December 15,1934), pp. 365ff.
___ .
"Why Lee Lost Gettysburg," Saturday Review, XI (March 23, 1935), pp.
561ff.
Holsworth, Jerry W. "Uncommon Valor: Hood's Texas
Brigade in the Maryland Campaign," Blue & Gray Magazine, XIII (August
1996), pp. 6-20, 50-55.
Joinson, Carla. "War at the Table: The South's Struggle
for Food," Columbiad, 1, No. 2 (Summer 1997), pp. 21-30.
Jones, Archer. "What Should We Think About Lee's
Thinking?," Columbiad, 1, No. 2 (Summer 1997), pp. 73-85.
Krick, Robert K. "Lee's Greatest Victory," American
Heritage, 41, No. 2 (March 1990), pp. 66-79.
Krolick, Marshall D. "Gettysburg: The First Day, July 1,
1863," Blue & Gray Magazine, V, Issue 2 (November 1987), pp. 8-20.
Kross, Gary. "Gettysburg Vignettes: Three Mini-Tours of
Sites on the Gettysburg Battlefield related to the Fighting on July 1, 1863,
that are Unmarked or Seldom Visited," Blue <& Gray Magazine, XII,
Issue 3 (February 1995), pp. 9-24, 48-58.
Matter, William D. "The Battles of Spotsylvania Court
House, Virginia, May 18- 21,1864," Blue & Gray Magazine, I, Issue 6
(June-July 1984), pp. 35-48.
Mertz, Gregory A. "No Turning Back: The Battle of the
Wilderness," Blue & Gray Magazine, XII, Issue 4 (April 1995), pp.
8-23, 47-53; Issue 5 (June 1995), pp. 8-20, 48-50.
Miller, J. Michael. "Strike Them a Blow: Lee and Grant
at the North Anna River," Blue & Gray Magazine, X, Issue 4 (April
1993), pp. 12-22, 44-55.
Mitchell, Joseph B. "Confederate Losses at Gettysburg:
Debunking Livermore," Blue & Gray Magazine, VI, No. 4 (April 1989),
pp. 38-40.
Popchock, Barry. "Daring Night Assault," America's
Civil War, IV, No. 6 (March 1992), pp. 30-37.
Welch, Richard F. "Gettysburg Finale," America's
Civil War (July 1993), pp. 50-7.
Williams, T. Harry. "Freeman: Historian of the Civil
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91-100.
ATLASES
Cobb, Hubbard. American Battlefields: A Complete Guide to the
Historic Conflicts in Words, Maps, and Photos. New York: Macmillan, 1995.
Davis, George B.; Perry, Leslie J., and Kirkley, Joseph W.
Atlas To Accompany the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies.
Washington: Government Printing Office, 1891-95.
Esposito, Vincent J. (ed.) The West Point Atlas of American
Wars. 2 vols. New York, Washington, London: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., 1959.
Greene, A. Wilson and Gallagher, Gary W. National Geographic
Guide to the Civil War Battlefield Parks. Washington, D.C.: The National
Geographic Society, 1992.
McPherson, James M. (ed.) The Atlas of the Civil War. New
York: Macmillan,
1994.
Symonds, Craig L. Gettysburg: A Battlefield Atlas. Baltimore:
The Nautical & Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1992.
CHRONOLOGIES
Bishop, Chris and Drury, Ian. 1400 Days: The Civil War Day by
Day. New York: Gallery Books, 1990.
Bowman, John S. (ed.). The Civil War Almanac. New York: World
Almanac Publications, 1983.
Mosocco, Ronald A. The Chronological Tracking of the American
Civil War Per the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion. Williamsburg:
James River Publications, 1994.
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___ .
Lost Victories: The Military Genius of Stonewall Jackson. New York: Henry
Holt and Company, 1992.
Ambrose, Stephen E. Halleck: Lincoln's Chief of Staff. Baton
Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1962,1990.
Arnold, James R. The Armies of U.S. Grant. London: Arms and
Armour Press,
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Barry, John M. Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of
1927 and How It Changed America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.
Beecham, R.K. Gettysburg: The Pivotal Battle of the Civil
War. Stamford, Connecticut: Longmeadow Press, 1994. Reprint of Chicago: A.C. McClurg,
1911.
Beringer, Richard E.; Hattaway, Herman; Jones, Archer; and
Still, William N., Jr. Why the South Lost the Civil War. Athens: University of
Georgia Press, 1986.
Boritt, Gabor S. (ed.). Lincoln's Generals. New York and
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___ .
Lincoln, the War President. New York and Oxford: Oxford University
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___ (ed.).
Why the Confederacy Lost. New York and Oxford: Oxford University
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Bowers, John. Stonewall Jackson: Portrait of a Soldier. New
York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1989.
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Jubal A. Early. Ship- pensburg, Pennsylvania: White Mane Publishing Company,
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Pegram. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995.
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New York: Paragon House, 1992.
Castel, Albert E. Decision in the West: The Atlanta Campaign
of 1864. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992.
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___ .
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___ .
The Army of the Potomac: A Stillness at Appomattox. Garden City, New
York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1953.
___ .
Grant Takes Command. New York: Book-of-the-Month Club, 1994. Reprint of New
York: Little, Brown and Company, 1968.
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Clark, Champ (ed.). Gettysburg: The Confederate High Tide.
(The Civil War Series) Alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life Books, Inc., 1985.
Coburn, Mark. Terrible Innocence: General Sherman at War. New
York: Hippocrene Books, 1993.
Coddington, Edwin B. The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in
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Commager, Henry Steele (ed.). The Blue and the Gray. Two
Volumes in One. The Story of the Civil War as Told by Participants. New York:
The Fairfax Press, 1982. Reprint of Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, c. 1950.
Connelly, Thomas Lawrence. Army of the Heartland: The Army of
Tennessee, 1861- 1862. Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University
Press, 1967.
___ .
Autumn of Glory: The Army of Tennessee, 1862-1865. Baton Rouge and
London: Louisiana State University Press, 1971,1991.
___ .
The Marble Man: Robert E. Lee and His Image in American Society. New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977.
___ and
Barbara L. Bellows. God and General Longstreet: The Lost Cause and the
Southern Mind. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,
1982.
___ and
Archer Jones. The Politics of Command: Factions and Ideas in Confederate
Strategy. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,
1973.
Cooling, Benjamin Franklin. Forts Henry and Donelson: The Key
to the Confederate Heartland. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press,
1987.
Cozzens, Peter. The Shipwreck of Their Hopes: The Battles for
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vols.) New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.
Davis, Burke. The Long Surrender. New York: Vintage Books,
1985.
___ .
They Called Him Stonewall: A Life of Lt. General T. }. Jackson, C.S.A. New
York: Rinehart, 1954. Reprint: New York: Wings Books, 1988.
Davis, Kenneth C. Don't Know Much About the Civil War:
Everything You Need to Know About America's Greatest Conflict but Never
Learned. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1996.
Davis, William C. Brother Against Brother: The War Begins.
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___ .
The Cause Lost: Myths and Realities of the Confederacy. Lawrence: University
Press of Kansas, 1996.
___ .
Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour. Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University
Press, 1991.
___ .
The Orphan Brigade: The Kentucky Confederates Who Couldn't Go Home.
Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 1993.
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___ .
Lincoln. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.
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1991. Reprint of 1965 edition.
Eckert, Ralph Lowell. John Brown Gordon: Soldier - Southerner
- American. Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1989.
Eicher, David J. The Civil War in Books: An Analytical
Bibliography. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997.
Faust, Patricia L. (ed.). Historical Times Illustrated
Encyclopedia of the Civil War. New York: HarperPerennial, 1991.
Fellman, Michael. Citizen Sherman: A Life of William Tecumseh
Sherman. New York: Random House, 1995.
Fishel, Edwin C. The Secret War for the Union: The Untold
Story of Military Intelligence in the Civil War. Boston and New York: Houghton
Mifflin, 1996.
Foote, Shelby (ed.). Chickamauga and Other Civil War Stories.
New York: Dell Publishing, 1993.
Foote, Shelby. The Civil War: A Narrative. 3 vols. New York:
Random House, 1958-1974.
Freeman, Douglas Southall. Lee's Lieutenants: A Study in
Command. 3 vols. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1942-4 (1972 reprint).
___ .
R.E. Lee. 4 vols. New York and London: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1934-5.
Fuller, J.F.C. The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant. 1929.
Reprint. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1958.
___ .
Grant and Lee: A Study in Personality and Generalship. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1957. Reprint of 1933 edition.
Furgurson, Ernest B. Ashes of Glory: Richmond at War. New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.
___ .
Chancellorsville 1863: The Souls of the Brave. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1992.
Gallagher, Gary W. (ed.). Lee the Soldier. Lincoln and
London, University of Nebraska Press, 1996.
___ (ed.).
The Third Day at Gettysburg & Beyond. Chapel Hill and London: The
University of North Carolina Press, 1994.
Glatthaar, Joseph T. Partners in Command: The Relationships
Between Leaders in the Civil War. New York: Macmillan, Inc., 1994.
Griffith, Paddy. Battle Tactics of the Civil War. New Haven
and London: Yale University Press, 1996.
Groom, Winston. Shrouds of Glory. From Atlanta to Nashville:
The Last Great Campaign of the Civil War. New York: The Atlantic Monthly
Press, 1995.
Guernsey, Alfred H. and Alden, Henry M. (eds.). Harper's
Pictorial History of the Civil War. New York: The Fairfax Press, 1977.
(Originally Harper's Pictorial History of the Great Rebellion in the United
States. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1866.)
Hattaway, Herman and Jones, Archer. How the North Won: A
Military History of the Civil War. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois
Press, 1983,1991.
Heleniak, Roman J. and Hewitt, Lawrence L. (ed.). The
Confederate High Command & Related Topics: The 1988 Deep Delta Civil War
Symposium. Shippensburg, Pennsylvania: White Mane Publishing Co., Inc., 1990.
Henderson, G.F.R. Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil
War. New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1988. Reprint of New York: Grossett &
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Hendrickson, Robert. Sumter: The First Day of the Civil War.
Chelsea, Michigan: Scarborough House, 1990.
Hennessy, John J. Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle
of Second Manassas. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.
Hughes, Nathaniel Cheairs, Jr. General William J. Hardee: Old
Reliable. Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1965.
Hurst, Jack. Nathan Bedford Forest: ^ Biography. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.
Jones, Archer. Civil War Command & Strategy: The Process
of Victory and Defeat. New York, The Free Press, 1992.
___ •
Confederate Strategy from Shiloh to Vicksburg. Baton Rouge and London:
Louisiana State University Press, 1991.
Jones, Terry L. Lee's Tigers: The Louisiana Infantry in the
Army of Northern Virginia. Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University
Press, 1987.
Jordan, David M. Winfield Scott Hancock: A Soldier's Life.
Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, 1996.
Judge, Joseph. Season of Fire: The Confederate Strike on
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Armour Press, 1994.
Keegan, John. The Face of Battle. New York: Dorset Press,
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___ .
The Mask of Command. New York: Viking, 1987.
Kegel, James A. North with Lee and Jackson: The Lost Story of
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___ .
No Turning Back: The Beginning of the End of the Civil War: March-June,
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___ .
The U.S. Army War College Guide to the Battle of Gettysburg. Carlisle, Pennsylvania:
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McWhiney, Grady and Jamieson, Perry D. Attack and Die: Civil
War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage. Tuscaloosa: The University of
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___ .
The Shiloh Campaign, March-April 1862. New York: Wieser & Wieser, Inc.,
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___ .
The Vicksburg Campaign, April, 1862-July, 1863. New York: Wieser & Wieser,
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___ .
Gettysburg: The Second Day. Chapel Hill and London, The University of
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___ .
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___ .
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___ .
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___ (ed.).
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___ .
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___ .
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___ .
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___ .
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___ .
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___ .
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___ .
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___ .
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___ .
The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy. Baton Rouge
and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1943, 1991.
___ .
The Road to Appomattox. Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press,
1994 (originally Memphis: Memphis State College Press, 1956).
Wilkinson, Warren. Mother, May You Never See the Sights I
Have Seen: The Fifty- seventh Massachusetts Veteran Volunteers in the Army of
the Potomac, 1864-1865. New York: Harper & Row, 1990.
Williams, T. Harry. Lincoln and His Generals. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1952.
Wills, Brian Steel. A Battle from the Start: The Life of
Nathan Bedford Forrest. New York: Harper Perennial, 1992.
Winders, Richard Bruce. Mr. Polk's Army: The American
Military Experience in the Mexican War. College Station: Texas A & M
University Press, 1997.
Woodworth, Steven E. Davis and Lee at War. Lawrence:
University of Kansas Press, 1995.
___ .
Jefferson Davis and His Generals: The Failure of Confederate Command in the
West. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1990.
A
African-Americans
• 59,147,177, 183
Alabama ■ 23, 44,
88,103,171,178 Aldie, VA • 107 Alexander, Bevin • 201 Alexander, Edward P. •
42, 50, 51, 53, 66, 96,102,117,123,126,130, 138,145,151,153,159,160,164,
165,195, 211 Alexandria Line • 25 Alexandria Railroad, VA • 140 Alexandria, VA
• 18,19, 25, 36, 59, 60
Amelia Court House, VA • 187,188 American Revolution • 195
Anderson, Richard H. • 70,91,92,
95,115,121,154,187 Antietam Creek • 70
Antietam, MD • 12,20, 65, 68, 69, 71, 73-80, 83, 85,129,130,134,
163,168,196,197, 200, 207, 210, 211, 213, 216, 218 Appomattox Court House, VA •
16,
177,188,190,196, 205 Appomattox River, VA •
149,187 Appomattox Station, VA • 188 Archer, James J. • 110, 111 Arkansas, 3rd
Inf. • 28 Arlington House, VA ■ 19 Arlington
Mills, VA • 25 Arlington, VA • 19, 25 Armistead, Lewis A. • 52,127 Army of
Northern Virginia
(Confederate) • 15,16, 29, 41, 43, 46, 47, 73, 74, 85, 98,
99,105,119, 124,133-135,137,140,146,147,
155,160,164,172, 186-190, 199, 204, 205, 208, 213, 215 Army
of Tennessee (Confederate) • 31, 65, 81,103,141,144,146, 148,
167,169-172,174,178,182,198, 199, 215
Army of the
Cumberland (Union) •
141,142,166 Army of the James (Union) •
149,
157,187 Army of the Northwest
(Confederate) • 27 Army of the Ohio (Union)
• 166, 170
Army of the
Potomac (Confederate) • 25 Army of the Potomac (Union) • 36, 37, 53, 59, 79,
80, 87, 92,104,109, 110,145,146,148,150,154, 203, 207
Army of the
Tennessee (Union) • 166
Army of the
Trans-Mississippi ■ 181
Army of
Virginia (Union) • 43, 57, 58,61
Artillery • 32,
42, 46, 48, 50-53, 59, 62, 70, 72, 77, 79, 82, 83, 85, 94, 96, 97,105,106,110,
111, 123- 128,135,138,150,151,155,156, 189, 201, 208 Ashland, VA • 40, 45
Association of the Army of
Northern Virginia • 208 Atlanta, GA ■
12,15,103,146,148, 165-173,175, 177,178,191,197, 199, 205 Averasboro, NC ■ 185 Avery,
Isaac E. • 123
B
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad ■ 25 Baltimore Pike, PA • 116 Banks, Nathaniel P. • 37, 40,
58, 60,
146,149 Barksdale, William • 82,121
Beauregard, Pierre G. T. • 25, 26, 108,149,156,160-162,182,202 Beaver Dam, VA •
45,46, 48,135 Belmont School House 110 Bentonville, NC • 185 Bermuda Hundred,
VA • 149,157, 159,162
Bethel Church (Big Bethel), VA • 26 Bethesda Church, VA • 157
Beverly's Ford, VA • 105 Big Round Top
Gettysburg, PA • 116,120,128 Birney, David
B. • 163 Black soldiers • 177 Blackburn's Ford, VA ■ 26 Blair,
Francis • 24 Block House Bridge
Spotsylvania, VA • 155 Bloody Angle
Spotsylvania, VA • 156 Bloody Lane •
Sharpsburg, MD • 70-72 Blue Ridge Mountains
• 39, 58, 61,
106-108,164,185 Boatswain's Swamp, VA • 48
Bolivar Heights
(West) Virginia • 67 Boonsboro, MD • 67, 69
Bragg, Braxton • 65, 81, 88-90,101, 103,137,138,141-144,148,160,
166,171,185,198,202 Brandy Station, VA • 105,106 Breckinridge, John C. • 149
Bristoe Station, VA • 61, 139, 140,
144 Brock Road
Spotsylvania, VA • 152,154 Brooklyn Navy
Yard ■ 36 Brown, G.
Campbell • 112
Brown, John • 21 Buchanan, James • 23 Buell, Don Carlos • 35,
37 Buford, John • 109,110,115 Bull Run Mountains • 61,106 Bull Run, VA • 12,26,
32, 57, 61,
190, 200 Burke, VA • 187
Burnside, Ambrose E. • 35, 72, 73,
80-82, 84, 87,137,143,146 Burnside's Bridge
Sharpsburg, MD ■ 72 Butler,
Benjamin F. • 146,149,161, 176
Butterfield, Daniel • 126
C
Caesar ■ 209 Cameron,
Simon • 22 Camp Bartow, (West) VA ■ 30 Camp Elkwater, (West) VA • 29 Campbell, John A. • 179
Cape Fear River, NC ■ 183,185
Carlisle, PA • 108,112 Carnifax Ferry (West) VA • 30 Carrick's Ford, (West) VA
• 25 Carrickford, (West) VA • 25 Carter, Ann H. • 17 Cashtown, PA •
109,112,113,118 Casualties • 15,19, 39, 41, 43, 44, 46, 48-50, 53, 54, 59, 60,
62, 63, 66, 69, 71, 76-78, 80, 83-85, 97, 98, 112,130,132,134,135, 142,149,
151,156,158,163,166,167,170- 173,176,185,187,196, 201, 202, 204, 214-219
Catherine Furnace, VA • 93 Catlett's Station, VA • 60 Catton, Bruce • 167 Cedar
Creek, VA • 149,176 Cedar Mountain, VA • 60, 78,134 Cemetery Hill
Gettysburg, PA ■ 113,114,122,
123,128 Cemetery Ridge
Gettysburg, PA • 113,116,120- 122,125-130
Cerro Gordo, Mexico • 19 Chaffin's Bluff, VA ■ 160,161,176 Chamberlain, Joshua • 121 Chambersburg Pike, PA
• 109,110,
112-114,119 Chambersburg, PA • 108,109,165
Champion's Hill, MS • 145 Chancellorsville, VA • 12,20, 90, 92,
95-98,101,104,106,120,134, 140,141,144,196, 200, 219 Chantilly, VA • 63, 65,
75, 78,134, 200
Chapultepec, Mexico • 19 Charleston, (West) VA • 27, 30
Charleston, SC • 32,89,184 Charlottesville, VA ■ 185 Chattahoochee River, TN • 166 Chattanooga, TN • 65, 81,
98,103, 135,138,139,141-143,145,166, 197,198
Cheat Mountain,
(West) VA • 28, 29,45
Chesapeake Bay • 58,159, 164 Chesnut, Mary ■ 178
Chesterfield Bridge, VA • 156 Chickahominy River, VA • 39, 41,
43, 45, 46, 48, 49,159,160 Chickamauga
Creek, GA ■ 141
Chickamauga, GA ■ 103,138,142,
144,167,198,199 Chilton, Robert • 68
Chisolm, A. R. • 161 Churubusco, Mexico • 19 Coddington, Edwin B. • 115
Coghill, James ■ 93 Cold
Harbor, VA • 45, 54,157,158,
159,160 Colquitt, Alfred H. • 93 Colston,
Raleigh E. • 93 Columbia, SC • 184 Confederate 1st Corps • 80,104,
124,150,152 Confederate 2nd Corps • 80,108,
111, 112,123,124,140,150,164
Confederate 3rd Corps • 121,124,
140,150,152,173 Confederate Conscription
Act ■ 38
Connecticut, 11th Inf. • 73 Connelly, Thomas L. • 198, 208, 213 Contreras,
Mexico • 19 Cooke, Giles B. • 162 Cooke, John E. • 207 Cooper, Samuel • 28
Corinth, MS • 37,145 Cornfield
Sharpsburg, MD • 70, 71, 77, 85 Couch,
Darius N. • 74 Cox, Jacob D. • 27, 30, 81 Cracker Line • 142 Crampton's Gap •
68, 69 Crater, The
Petersburg, VA • 173 Crawford, Samuel W. •
157 Cross Keys, VA • 43 CSS Virginia • 36 Culp's Hill
Gettysburg, PA
• 113,114,116, 123
Culpeper Court House, VA • 58,
60, 80,108,140 Culpeper Mine Road, VA • 151
Cumberland Island, GA ■ 18 Cumberland
River ■ 36 Cumberland
Valley, PA • 108 Current, Richard N. ■ 217
D
Davis, Jefferson F. • 11,23-28, 30, 31, 36-39, 41-44, 65, 66,
88, 89, 98, 101,102, 108, 132,133, 137-139, 142-144,149,156,164, 166-168,
172,177,179,181-183, 186 Davis, Joseph R. • 110 Davis, Varina • 178 Decatur, GA
• 170 Democratic Peace Platform • 196 Department of the West
(Confederate) ■ 166 Desertions
• 139,172,177
Devil's Den
Gettysburg, PA • 120,121 Dinwiddie Court
House, VA • 186 Dover, TN • 35 Dowdey, Clifford • 211 Drayton, Thomas F. • 138
Drewry's Bluff, VA • 39,149,160 Dunker Church
Sharpsburg, MD • 71, 72
E
Early, Jubal A.
• 29, 35, 39, 60, 61, 71, 82, 91, 92, 95,105,111-115,
118,123,140,153,157,162-166, 170,173,175,176,185,199, 207- 209, 213
East Tennessee
& Georgia Railroad • 139
East Tennessee
& Virginia
Railroad • 139 Electoral College • 177
Ellison's Mill, VA • 54 Ely's Ford, VA • 90,150 Emancipation Proclamation • 58,
66, 77,197 Emmitsburg Road, PA • 120
Emmitsburg, MD 110 England • 135,195 European intervention • 78,135, 197
Evelington Heights, VA • 48 Ewell, Richard S. ■ 38, 40, 43,
48, 50, 104-115,118,122-124,126,135, 150,151,153,157,187, 203, 207 Ezra Church,
GA • 170
F
Fair Oaks, VA ■ 41, 47 Fairfax Court House
Fairfax, VA • 25, 26, 62 Fairview Plateau, VA
• 93, 94 Falk, Alexander • 130 Falling Waters, (West) VA • 132
Falmouth, VA ■ 82 Farmville, VA • 187,188 Farragut, David • 38,174
Fayetteville, NC • 185 Fisher's Hill, VA • 176 Five Forks, VA • 186 Fleetwood
Hill, VA • 105 Fleetwood House
Brandy Station, VA • 105 Fleming, Martin •
28 Fleming, Martin K. • 10 Florida • 23, 31, 32, 36,149,156,182 Floyd, John B.
• 29, 30 Foote, Andrew H. • 35 Forrest, Nathan B. • 143 Fort Beauregard, SC •
32 Fort Clark, NC • 32 Fort Donelson, TN • 35, 51,145 Fort Fisher, NC ■ 183 Fort
Gilmer, VA • 176 Fort Gregg, VA • 176 Fort Harrison, VA ■ 176 Fort
Hatteras, NC • 32 Fort Henry, TN • 35,145 Fort Hoke, VA • 176 Fort Johnson, VA
• 176 Fort Monroe, VA • 19,26, 37 Fort Morgan, AL • 174 Fort Pulaski, GA • 32
Fort Stedman, VA • 186,200 Fort Stevens, DC • 164 Fort Sumter, SC • 23,24,193
Fort Totten
Willets Point, NY • 19 Fort Walker, SC • 32
Foster, Sam • 171 Fox, William F. • 216 Fox's Gap, MD • 68 Franklin, TN •
130,171 Franklin, VA • 40 Frayser's (Frazier's) Farm • 50 Frederick • 209
Frederick, MD ■ 66-68,109,164 Fredericksburg, VA • 18, 37-40, 58, 81-85,
87-92, 95,102,117,129, 130,134,154, 207
Freeman, Douglas S. • 28, 50, 53, 55,
62, 75,119,168, 210, 212 Fremantle, Arthur
J. L. • 134 Fremont, John C. • 40, 43 French, William H. • 82 Front Royal, VA •
40 Fuller, J. F. C. • 62, 211, 216
Greenbriar, VA • 30 Gregg, John • 152 Griffin, Charles • 186
Griffith, Paddy • 201 Groveton, VA • 61, 62 Guinea Station, VA • 94 Gulf of
Mexico-31,174
Gaines' Mill, VA • 48, 54,125, 200 Gallagher, Gary W. •
10,211 Garnett, Richard B. • 125,130 Garnett, Robert S. • 25,26 Garnett's farm,
VA • 49 Gauley Bridge, (West) VA • 27 General Order No. 9-190 General Order No.
54 ■ 59 General
Order No. 75 • 45 Georgia • 13,15,19,23, 31, 32, 36, 93,103,138,141,143,144,146,
149,156,165,166,169,170, 172, 174,178,179,182,197-199, 205, 209
Georgia, 44th Inf. • 46 Germanna Ford, VA • 90,150
Gettysburg, PA • 12, 20, 52,101, 103,104, 106-119,123,124,126,
130-135,137,141,144,163,167, 196-213, 216, 219 Gibbon, John • 82,125,189
Gilmer, Jeremy F. • 51 Globe Tavern, VA • 173 Golding's farm, VA • 49
Goldsboro, NC • 185 Gordon, John B. • 123,153,187 Gordonsville, VA • 58-60,
91,150 Gorgas, Josiah • 108,133,184,196 Grafton, VA • 25
Grant, Ulysses
S. • 12,14,15, 31, 35, 51, 89, 90,101,142,143,145,146, 149,151-163,165,167,
170,173- 176,178,179,181,184,186,188, 190, 204, 205, 212, 214, 217 Grapevine
Bridge, VA ■ 49, 50
Greeley, Horace • 59
Hagerstown, MD • 67, 68, 79,108 Halleck, Henry W. • 35, 57,
59, 88,
165,175,183 Hampton Roads, VA • 26, 36,159,
183
Hampton, Wade •
51,102, 106,131, 139
Hancock, Almira R. • 20 Hancock, Winfield S. • 20, 82, 96,
111, 113,115,116, 120-122,152, 156,158,159,173 Hanover Station, VA ■ 40, 44 Hardee,
William J. ■ 166,168, 170,
171,175,178 Harper's Ferry, (West) VA • 21,
25,
26, 37, 40, 67-70, 73-76, 78 Harrisburg, PA
• 65, 89,109 Harrison, Thomas • 109 Harrison's Landing, VA • 44, 48,
54,60 Hart, Basil L. • 212 Hatch, Ozias M.
• 79 Hatcher's Run, VA • 186 Hatteras, NC • 32 Haw's Shop, VA • 157 Hays, Harry
T. • 123 Hazel Grove, VA • 94 Herr's Ridge, PA • 111, 113 Heth, Henry •
109,122,127, 187 Hill, Ambrose P. • 44-46, 48, 50, 52, 58-60, 73, 74, 76, 79,
82, 94,104, 108,110,112,121,122,124,139, 150,152,156, 173 Hill, Daniel H. ■ 44-46, 50,
52-54,
59, 67, 76 Hill, Harvey • 67, 69, 71,134
Hoke, Robert F. • 123 Holmes, Theophilus H. ■ 50,138 Hood,
John B. • 20, 48, 68, 71, 74, 88, 98,112,118-121,130, 138,
166-175,178,182,184,198,199, 202, 217
Hooker, Joseph • 69-71, 80, 87-92, 95-97,102,104,106,107,109,
134,142,151, 205 Hotchkiss, Jedediah • 174 Howard, Oliver O. • 93,110, 111,
113,184 Huger, Benjamin • 49, 50, 52
Humphreys, Andrew A. • 82, 83,
159, 186, 187 Hundley's Corner, VA • 45, 46
Hunt, Henry J. • 127 Hunter, David • 149,164
I
Illness of troops • 28, 66, 75, 208 Imboden, John D. • 130
Irish Brigade • 72 Iron Brigade • 61,110 Iuka, MS • 145 Iverson, Alfred Jr. •
111 Ives, Joseph C. ■ 42
Jackson, Andrew
• 18 Jackson, MS • 101,145 Jackson, Thomas J. • 25, 27, 37-40, 43-50, 52, 58, 59,
61, 62, 66, 69, 71, 76, 81, 85, 91-94, 97,101,104, 113,120,144,151,156, 200,
207, 210, 214
James River, VA • 15, 37, 39, 43,44, 48, 49, 51-53, 55, 57,
59,146,149, 159,161,163, 205 Jamieson, Perry D. • 214, 217 Jericho Mill, VA ■ 156
Jetersville, VA • 187 Johnson, Edward • 112,114,123
Johnston,
Albert S. • 20, 28, 31, 37, 207
Johnston,
Joseph E. • 26, 37-39, 41, 44, 88, 90,131,142,146,148,165- 171,182,184,185,
199, 202, 207, 217
Johnston, Samuel L. • 120 Jones, Archer • 13, 76,103,132,198,
200, 213 Jones, J. W. • 209 Jones, John R.
• 78 Jones, William E. ■ 105 Jonesboro,
GA ■ 170,171,175
K
Kanawha River, (West) VA • 30 Kanawha Valley, (West) VA ■ 29,
30,164 Kearny, Philip • 63, 88 Keegan, John
• 193 Kelly's Ford, VA ■ 90,105,140
Kennesaw Mountain • 166 Kentucky • 31, 36 Kernstown, VA • 37 Kershaw, Joseph B.
• 121,173,176 King George III • 196 Kinston, NC • 185 Knoxville, TN •
138,139,143,144 Kolb's Farm, GA • 168
I
Lang, David • 129 Laurel Hill, (West) VA • 25,155 Law,
Evander M. • 48, 68,119,153 Lee Monument Association • 208 Lee, Fitzhugh ■ 92,106,139,
209 Lee, Henry III
Light-Horse Harry • 17,18 Lee, Henry IV
Black-Horse Harry • 18 Lee, Mary A. R. •
18,19 Lee, Matilda • 17
Lee, Robert E.
Antietam (Sharpsburg) Campaign of ■ 65-78
Appomattox Campaign of 187- 191
Bristoe Campaign of 139-140 Chancellorsvile Campaign of
87-98 Childhood of 17-18 Cold Harbor
Campaign of 158- 159
Complicated
Orders of • 29,41,
44-45, 49 Fredericksburg Campaign of •
79-85
Gettysburg
Campaign of 101- 135
Illnesses of 137,139,157 Loss of Battlefield Control 14,
28-30,114,120,122-124,131 Mexican War 19-20 Mine Run Campaign of • 140-150
North Anna River Campaign of
■ 156-157 Peninsula Campaign of 35-55 Pre-Civil War Career •
17, 21 Second Bull Run (Manassas)
Campaign of 57-63 Seven Days' Battle of
41-57 Southeastern Command of 31- 32
Spotsyvania
Campaign of 154- 156
Strategy of
12-13, 20, 55, 75, 98,
131,134-135,197-199, 200 Surrender of •
36,177-178,182,
185, 187-190 Tactics of 13-14, 53, 73-75,
98, 122-125,131-135,141-142, 200- 204
Vague Orders of
• 14, 52, 55,108,
135, 200, 203 Western Virginia Campaign of
23-30
Wilderness
Campaign of 150- 155
Lee, Stephen ■ 74 Lee, William H. F. (Rooney)- 29, 105
Leesburg, VA • 65 Letcher, John • 24 Lexington, VA • 164
Lincoln, Abraham • 11, 23, 35, 39, 58, 65, 77, 84, 87,154,167,174, 177,183,187,
191, 193,196, 205 Little Round Top
Gettysburg, PA
• 116,120,121, 128
Livermore, Thomas L. • 46 Livermore Hit Ratios • 47, 49, 55,
63, 69, 77, 84, 97,132,171, 216, 217, 219 Locust Church, VA ■ 140,144 London
Times • 195 Long Bridge, VA • 159,160 Long, A. L. • 208
Longstreet, James • 41,42,44, 45, 50, 52, 60-62, 67-69, 72,
76, 80, 88, 89, 97, 98,101,102, 104-109, 116- 120,122,125,129,135,137-139,
141-144,148,150,152,154,184, 189, 207-210, 213, 214 Lookout Mountain, TN • 143
Loring, William W. • 27,138 Louisiana • 23, 25, 48, 71,149 Louisiana Tigers ■ 48, 71,123
Lynchburg, VA • 162,164,165, 187
M
Macon and
Western Railroad, GA • 175
Magruder, John
B. • 45, 49, 52-54, 138
Mahone, William • 121 Maine, 20th Inf. • 121 Malvern Hill, VA
■ 12,20, 49,
51-54, 85,135,159,160,196, 200, 207, 210
Manassas
Junction, VA ■ 26, 35, 36,
61,107,140
Manassas, VA • 26, 27, 35, 36, 63, 65, 68, 75, 78,
85,107,120,134, 140,190, 200 Manigault, Arthur M. • 169 Mansfield, Joseph K. F.
• 71 Marshall House
Alexandria, VA • 25 Marshall, Charles • 209
Marye's Heights
Fredericksburg, VA • 82-85 Maryland • 40,
65-67, 73, 75, 79,89,
106-110,130,164,170 Maryland Heights, MD •
67 Maryland, 2nd Inf. • 73 Mason-Dixon Line • 108 Massachusetts, 12th Inf. • 71
Massachusetts, 37th Inf. • 201 Massanutten Mountain, VA • 40 McCabe, James D.,
Jr. • 207 McCarty, Betsy • 18 McClellan, George B. • 12, 26, 30, 32, 35-45, 47,
48, 50-55, 57-59, 67, 72, 73, 77, 79, 80,130,172,196 McClernand, John A. • 35
McDowell, Irvin • 25, 26, 32, 37, 38,
39, 40, 58 McKenzie, John D. • 214 McLaws,
Lafayette • 52, 67-69, 71,
91, 92, 95,112,118-121,138 McLean, Wilmer •
190 McPherson, James • 166,195 McPherson's Farm
Gettysburg, PA ■ 110
McPherson's Ridge
Gettysburg, PA • 110 McWhiney, Grady •
214,217 Meade, George G. • 82, 90,102,107, 109-113, 116,117,122,124,125,
126,130-132,134,137,139-141, 145,146,151,155 Meadow Bluff, (West) VA • 30
Meadow Bridge, VA • 45 Mechanicsville Bridge, VA • 45 Mechanicsville, VA •
45-48,151, 200
Memphis, TN
Surrender of • 42 Mertz, Gregory • 152
Mexican War • 19, 20 Mexico City, Mexico ■ 19, 20 Middleburg, VA • 67,107 Miles, Dixon S. • 69 Mine
Run, VA • 140,144,150 Minie balls • 53,128, 200 Minnesota, 1st Inf. • 122, 216
Missionary Ridge, TN • 143 Mississippi • 13, 23,101,197 Mississippi River • 38,
42,141,181,
198 Missouri • 19 Mobile Bay • 174 Mobile,
AL • 89,146,149, 174 Monitor • 39
Monocacy Creek, MD ■ 164 Mount Crawford, VA • 185 Mud March • 87 Mule Shoe • 156
Spotsylvania, VA • 155,156 Mumma Farm
Sharpsburg, MD • 70, 72 Mummasberg Road, PA
- 111
N
Napoleon • 196,209 Nashville, TN • 31, 37,171 New Bern, NC ■ 185 New Market
Heights, VA • 176 New Market, VA • 149 New Orleans • 38 New York Tribune • 59 Newton,
John • 124 Nolan, Alan T. • 214 Norfolk, VA • 39, 44 North Anna River, VA •
156,157 North Carolina ■ 178 North
Carolina, 6th Inf. • 123 North Carolina, 13th Inf. • 130 North Carolina, 18th
Inf. • 94 North Carolina, 23rd Inf. • 93 North Carolina, 27th Inf. • 77 North
Carolina, 47th Inf. • 130
O
Occoquan River • 107 Ohio • 103,142 Ohio River • 31,178
Orange and Alexandria Railroad • 105
Orange Court House, VA ■ 59,139 Orange Plank Road, VA • 92, 94, 152
Orange Turnpike, VA • 92,151 Ord, Edward O. C. ■ 186 Ox Ford,
VA • 157 Ox Hill, VA • 63
P
Paducah, KY • 31
Page, Thomas N. • 209
Pamunkey River, VA • 44,157,159
Pamunkey, VA • 159
Parke, John G. • 187
Patterson, Robert • 26
Paul, Samuel B. • 160
Peace Democrats ■ 172
Peach Orchard
Gettysburg, PA • 120,121 Peach Tree Creek, GA • 170,171
Pemberton, John C. ■ 36, 38, 88,
90,
101,109, 141,166, 202 Pender, William D. • 46, 96,109,
113,127
Pendleton, William N. • 52, 79,118, 189, 208
Pennsylvania • 65, 67,102-104,133, 165,173
Petersburg, VA • 15, 88, 146,149, 159-163,165,169,172,173,
176, 181,184-187,196, 205 Pettigrew, James J. • 127,130 Philadelphia, PA • 89
Philippi, (West) VA • 27 Phisterer, Frederick • 215 Pickett, George E. •
88,125, 127,
129-131,186,187, 200 Pickett's Charge
Gettysburg, PA • 125, 130, 200 Piedmont, VA
• 164 Piston, William G. • 214 Pittsburg Landing, TN ■ 37 Pleasonton,
Alfred • 105,109 Plum Run
Gettysburg, PA • 121 Po River, VA ■ 155 Point
Lookout, MD • 164 Polk, Leonidas • 31,142 Pollard, Edward A. • 207 Pope, John •
43, 57-63, 85 Poplar Springs Church • 177 Port Hudson, LA • 43, 133, 141 Port
Republic, VA • 43 Port Royal, SC • 32 Porter, Fitz J. • 45-48, 52, 53, 73-75
Posey, Carnot • 121 Potomac River • 19,25, 40, 65, 67, 68, 70, 73, 75, 76, 79,
80, 89,102, 106,107,164 Powhite Creek, VA ■ 48 Presidential election of 1864 • 90, 148,172,174,175,
178,197,199 Prisoner exchanges • 174,177,182 Provisional Army of the
Confederate States • 24
Q
Quaker cannons • 36, 39
R
Raleigh, NC • 184,185 Ramseur, Stephen D. • 93 Rapidan River,
VA • 59, 60, 90, 139,
140,150,151,167 Rappahannock River Station
• 200 Rappahannock River, VA • 15, 60, 61, 81-84, 87, 90, 95, 96, 99, 104, 105,
139,140, 205 Reams Station, VA • 173 Rectortown, MD ■ 107 Red River,
LA • 149
Reno, Jesse L. • 69 Reynolds, John F. • 110-112,115, 124
Rhode Island,
1st Light Artillery • 201
Rhodes, Elisha
H. • 82,135,186, 200, 201
Rich Mountain, (West) VA • 25, 27 Richmond & Danville
Railroad • 187
Richmond and Petersburg
Railroad ■ 162 Richmond Examiner • 27, 42 Richmond News Leader ■ 210 Richmond,
VA • 12,15, 24-27, 30, 31, 33, 35-45, 47, 53, 57-60, 63, 65, 80, 81, 88, 91,
98,101,102,108, 133,137,138,141,146,148,149, 156,157-160,162,163,165,169,
172,176,179,181-187,189,198, 205, 212 Riddell's Shop, VA • 159,160 Rifled
muskets ■ 52, 53, 200
Roanoke Island, NC • 35 Roanoke River, VA ■ 184 Robertson, Beverly • 106 Rockville, MD • 107 Rodes,
Elisha H. • 123 Rodes, Robert E. • 92, 111, 112,123, 157
Rohrbach Bridge
Sharburg, MD • 72 Roman, Alfred ■ 162 Rosecrans,
William S. • 30, 88,137,
138,141,142 Russians • 196 Rust, Albert •
28, 29
S
Salem Church
Spotsylvania, VA • 95 Salem, VA • 61,107
San Antonio, TX • 23 Santa Anna • 20 Saunders' Field, VA ■ 151
Savage, Douglas • 214 Savage's Station, VA ■ 49, 54 Savannah
River • 32 Savannah, GA • 32, 89,178,183 Sayler's Creek, VA • 187,188
Schofield, John M. • 166,169,170,
178,184,185 Schurz, Carl • 111-113 Scott,
Winfield • 19, 20, 22, 24-26, 32
Scott's Ford, VA • 96 Seddon, James A. • 84, 88, 89, 98,
101,138,168 Sedgwick, John • 95, 96
Seminary Ridge
Gettysburg, PA ■ 113,117,121,
122,127 Semmes, Paul J. • 121 Seven Days' Battle, VA ■ 29, 41, 44,
51, 53, 55, 78, 84, 85,125,134, 159,167,196, 200, 202, 203, 207 Seven Days'
campaign, VA • 122 Seven Pines, VA • 41 Seward, William • 183 Sharpsburg, MD •
69, 70, 72-76, 79, 83,108
Shenandoah River, VA • 43, 67 Shenandoah Valley, VA • 15,27,
37, 40, 58, 79, 81, 89,146,149,157, 164,175,185,196, 201, 205, 208
Shepherdstown, MD • 107 Sheridan, Phillip H. ■ 149,157,175,
176,185,186,188, 189 Sherman, William T. ■ 12,15,144,
146-148,165-173,175,178,179, 181-185,199, 205 Shields, James • 40,43 Shiloh, TN
• 37, 51,145 Ship Island, MS • 31 Sickles, Daniel E. • 93,115,120-122 Sigel,
Franz • 58, 146,149,164 Slash Church, VA • 45 Slaves/Slavery ■ 12,13,18, 23,
58, 59, 78, 80,172,174,183,194,196, 214
Slocum, Henry W. ■ 184
Smith, Edmund K. • 20,181 Smith, Gustavus W. • 41 Smith,
William "Extra Billy" • 114 Smith, William F. • 157,159 Snavely Ford
Sharpsburg, MD ■ 73 Snavely
Ford, MD • 73 South Carolina • 23, 24, 31, 32, 36,
149, 156,178,179,182-184 South Mountain, MD
• 67-69, 76, 78,134
Southern Historical Society • 208,
209, 213 Southside Railroad • 186-188
Special Order No. 191 • 67 Spencer rifles • 200 Sperryville, VA ■ 58
Spotsylvania Court House, VA •
154-156,163,196 Spring Hill, TN • 170
Springfield rifles • 200,201 St. Mary's County, MD • 164 Stannard, George J. •
128 Stanton, Edwin • 36, 37, 57 Staunton, VA • 28, 39, 40,103,149 Stephens,
Alexander • 179 Stoneman, George • 91, 92 Stratford Hall
Westmoreland
County, VA • 17, 18
Stuart, J. E. B. • 43,44, 60-62, 67, 68, 91, 92, 94,
95,104-109, 111, 112, 116,135,139,149, 203, 213 Sudley Springs, VA • 62 Sumner,
Edwin V. • 49 Sunken Road
Fredericksburg, VA • 82 Sharpsburg, MD • 71
Susquehanna River • 65 Swinton, William • 207
T
Taney town Road, PA • 116
Taney town, MD - 111
Taylor, Walter H. ■ 48,114,140,209
Taylor, Zachary • 19 Telegraph Road, VA • 156 Tennessee • 13,
31, 35-37, 65, 81, 88- 90,101,103,130,135,137, 138, 141-144,146,168-171,178,
181, 197,198, 211 Tennessee River ■ 142 Texas • 21, 23, 48,171 Texas Brigade • 68,152 Texas, 1st
Regiment ■ 71,216 Texas,
4th Regiment • 48 Thomas, Emory M. • 211 Thomas, George H. • 141,166,178, 179
Thoroughfare Gap, VA • 62 Totopotomoy Creek/River, VA •
157,158 Traveller • 95 Trimble, Isaac R. •
114 Tullahoma, TN ■ 197 Turner's
Gap, MD • 68
U
U.S. Ford, VA • 90
Union 1st Corps • 69, 70, 82,110,
113,124 Union 2nd Corps • 49,115,121,
152,156,158,159,162, 187 Union 3rd Corps •
93,116,120 Union 5th Corps • 73,116,121,151,
159,162,186 Union 6th Corps • 69, 92, 95,
116,
121,157,158,163, 165,187 Union 9th Corps •
73, 88,146,152,
162,187,198 Union 11th Corps • 93,110, 111
Union 12th Corps • 71,113,121 Union 18th Corps ■ 157,159,162 Union 19th Corps ■ 165 Upperville, VA • 107 Upton, Emory • 155 USS Merrimack •
36 USS Monitor • 36
V
Valley Campaign • 43, 47 Van Dorn, Earl • 138 Venable,
Charles • 208,209 Vera Cruz, Mexico • 19, 20 Vicksburg, MS • 43, 89, 90,
98,101, 103,109,133,141,145,166,179, 197,198, 202, 211 Virginia Central
Railroad • 45,157 Virginia Military Institute • 149, 164
Virginia Militia • 24 Virginia, 6th Cav. • 60 Virginia, 18th
Inf. ■ 130 Virginia's
Constitutional Convention • 23, 24
W
Walker, John G. • 67, 69, 71 Warren, Gouverneur K. • 140,151,
159,186
Washington and Lee University
Lexington, VA • 208 Washington, DC • 19, 21, 23,27, 30, 32,
36, 37, 39, 40, 44, 57, 59-61, 63, 81,102,108,117,146,164, 165,199, 201
Washington, George • 17,18,145, 209
Washington, John A. • 29 Watkins, Sam • 143,144,169
Waynesboro, VA ■ 185 Weldon and
Petersburg Railroad ■ 173
West Point • 18, 20,169 West Virginia • 27, 29, 58,164
Western and Atlantic Railroad ■ 178
Westminster, MD • 107 Westmoreland County, VA • 18 Westover,
VA • 160
Wheatfield
Gettysburg, PA ■ 120-122
Wheeler, Joseph • 143 Wheeling, (West) VA • 25 White House
Washington, DC • 24 White House Landing, VA
• 44, 45,
47, 49,159 White Oak Road, VA • 186 White
Oak Swamp, VA • 49, 50 White's Ferry, MD-VA • 65 Whiting, William H. C. • 50
Wilcox, Cadmus M. • 125,129 Wilcox's Landing, VA • 159 Wilderness, VA • 91, 95,
96,140, 150-158,163,196, 200, 202, 219 Williams, T. Harry • 212 Williamsburg,
VA • 39, 47 Williamsport, MD • 40, 79,130 Willis, Edward • 157 Willoughby Run
Gettysburg PA • 110 Wilmington, NC •
183-185 Winchester, VA • 40,108,176 Windmill Point, VA ■ 159 Wise,
Henry A. • 29, 30 Wofford, William T. • 121 Wool. John E. • 37 Wright, Ambrose
• 125 Wright, Horatio G. • 157
y
Yellow Tavern, VA ■ 149,163 York River, VA • 36, 37, 44, 45,159 York, PA • 108
Yorktown, VA • 26, 37, 39
Z
Zoan Church, VA • 91