Part 5 (1/2)
General Meade arrived on the field on the afternoon of the first, and the two armies were thrown rapidly into position. That of the Federals extended in the form of a fishhook from Little Round Top by way of Round Top and along Cemetery Ridge through the cemetery itself, by the way of the gate, and then bending to the right, formed the bowl of the hook, which extended around as far as Culp's Hill and Wolf Creek. The ground was elevated and the convexity was toward the enemy.
By nightfall of the first, both armies were in state of readiness for the conflict. The Union army was on the defensive. It was sufficient that it should hold its ground and repel all a.s.sault. The Confederates must advance and carry the Federal position in order to succeed. How this should be done was not agreed on by the Confederate commanders.
General Lee formed a plan of direct a.s.sault; but General Longstreet was of opinion that a movement of the army to the Union left flank would be preferable, and that by that method the flank might be turned and the position of Meade carried with less loss and much less hazard.
Longstreet, however, did not oppose the views of his commander to the extent of thwarting his purpose or weakening the plan adopted. On the second of July the battle began in earnest about noon. The Confederates advanced against the Union centre and left, and at a later hour a strenuous and partly successful attack was made on the Federal right. But complete success was not attained by Lee in any part of the field. About sundown the Confederates gained considerable advantage against Sloc.u.m, who held the line along Wolf Hill and Rock Creek; and on the Union left a terrible struggle occurred for the possession of Great and Little Round Top. In this part of the field the fighting continued until six o'clock in the evening; but the critical positions still remained in the hands of the Federals.
In the centre the contest was waged for the mastery of Cemetery Hill, which was the key to the Union position. Here were planted batteries with an aggregate of eighty guns, and here, though the a.s.saults of the Confederates were desperate and long continued, the integrity of the Federal line was preserved till nightfall. The fighting along a front of nearly five miles in extent continued in a desultory manner until about ten o'clock on the July night, when the firing for the most part ceased, leaving the two armies in virtually the same position which they had occupied the day before.
This signified, however, that thus far the advantage was on the Union side; for on that side the battle was defensive. The Confederate army had come to a wall, and must break through or suffer defeat. The burden of attack rested on the Confederate side; but General Lee did not flinch from the necessity. In the darkness of night both he and the Union commanders made strenuous preparations for the renewal of the struggle on the morrow.
On the morning of the third both armies seemed loath to begin the conflict. This phenomenon is nearly always witnessed in the case of really critical battles. It was so at Waterloo, and so at Gettysburg.
It seems that in such crises the commanders, well aware of what is to come, wait awhile, as though each would permit the other to strike first. As a matter of fact, the topmost crest of the Civil War had now been reached; and from this hour the one cause or the other must decline to the end.
The whole forenoon of the third of July was spent in preparations.
There was but little fighting, and that little was desultory. At midday there seemed to be a lull along the whole line. Just afterward, however, General Lee opened from Seminary Ridge with about one hundred guns, directing his fire against the Union centre on Cemetery Hill.
There the counter position was occupied by the American artillery of about equal strength, under command of General Hunt. The cannonade burst out at one o'clock with terrific roar. Nothing like it had ever before been seen or heard in the New World. Nothing like it, we believe, had ever up to that time been witnessed in Europe. Certainly there was no such cannonade at Waterloo. For about an hour and a half this tremendous vomit of shot and sh.e.l.l continued. It was the hope of General Lee to pound the Union batteries to pieces, and then, while horror and death were still supreme in the Union centre, to thrust forward an overwhelming ma.s.s of his best infantry into the gap, cut Meade's army in two, plant the Confederate banner on the crest of the Union battle line, and virtually then and there achieve the independence of the Confederate States.
It seems that an action of General Hunt, about half-past two, flattered Lee with the belief that he had succeeded. Hunt adopted the plan of drawing back his batteries over the crest of the hill, for the double purpose of cooling his guns that were becoming overheated and of saving his supply of ammunition, that was running low. The Union fire accordingly slackened and almost ceased for a while. Nor was Lee able to discover from his position but what his batteries under General Alexander had prevailed. It looked for the moment as though the battle were lost to Meade, and that victory was in the clutch of his antagonist.
Already a Confederate charge of infantry had been prepared. About 18,000 men, in three divisions, under Armistead, Garnett and Pettigrew, and led by General George E. Pickett, of Virginia, had been got into readiness for the crisis which had now arrived. Longstreet was the corps commander, and through him the order for the charge should be given. General Lee had himself made the order, but Longstreet seeing, as he believed the inevitable, hesitated and turned aside. It was not a refusal to send an army to destruction, but the natural hesitation of a really great commander to do what he believed was fatal to the Confederate cause. Pickett, however, gave his salutation to Longstreet, and presently said: ”Sir, I am going to move forward!”
Then began the most memorable charge ever witnessed in America. The Confederate column was three-fourths of a mile in length. It was directed against the Union centre, where it was supposed the Confederate fire had done its work. What ensued was the finest military spectacle that had been seen in the world since the charge of the Old Guard at Waterloo; and the results were alike! The brave men who made the onset were mowed down as they crossed rapidly the intervening s.p.a.ce. Hunt's batteries were quickly run back to their position, and began to discharge their deadly contents against the head of the oncoming column. That column veered somewhat to the right as it came. The line staggered, but pressed on. It came within the range of the Union musketry. Gaps opened here and there. Armistead, who led the advance, saw his forces sink to the earth; but he did not waver. Nearer and nearer the column came to the Union line. It _struck_ the Union line. There was a momentary melee among the guns, and then all was over. Hanc.o.c.k's infantry rose with flash on flash from among the rocks by which they were partially protected. The Confederates were scattered in broken groups. Retreat was well-nigh impossible. The impact of the charge was utterly broken, and the Confederate line was blown into rout and ruin. Victory hovered over the National army. The Confederate forces staggered away under the blow of defeat. Night came down on a broken and virtually hopeless cause. The field was covered with the dead and dying. Two thousand eight hundred and thirty-four Union soldiers had been killed outright; 13,709 were wounded, and 6643 were missing, making a total of 23,186 men. The Confederate loss was never definitely ascertained, but was greatly in excess of that of the Federals. The best estimate has been fixed at 31,621. The grand total of losses in those fatal three days thus reached the enormous aggregate of 54,807!
SPOTTSYLVANIA.
A losing cause never showed a braver front than the Confederacy put on in the Wilderness. It was a front of iron. A man weaker than Grant would have quailed before it. It was virtually the same old rim of fire and death that had confronted McClellan, that had consumed Pope, that almost destroyed both Hooker and Burnside. Either the Union army must go through this barrier of flame and destruction and scatter it like brands of fire to right and left, or else the Union could never be rebuilded on the foundation of victory.
There was much discussion--and some doubt--in the spring of 1864 whether the Silent Man of Galena, now made Commander-in-chief of the Union armies, could pursue his military destiny to a great fame with Robert E. Lee for his antagonist. This talk was bruited abroad; Grant himself heard it, and had to consider what not a few people were saying, namely, that he had had before him in the West as leaders of the enemy only such men as Buckner and Beauregard and Pemberton; now he must stand up face to face with ”Old Bobby Lee” and take the blows of the great Virginian against whom neither strategy nor force had hitherto prevailed.
The Man of Galena did not quail. Neither did he doubt. His pictures of this epoch show him with mouth more close shut than ever; but otherwise there was no sign. Lee for his part knew that another foeman was now come, and if we mistake not he divined that the end of the Confederacy, involving the end of his own military career, was not far ahead. It is to the credit of his genius that he did not weaken under such a situation and despair ere the ordeal came upon him; but on the contrary, he planted himself in the Wilderness and awaited the coming of the storm.
Let the world know that Grant in entering upon his great campaign, in the first days of May, 1864, had to do so against the greatest disadvantages. The country south of the Rappahannock was against him.
The fact of Lee's acting ever on the defensive was against him. The woods and the rivers were against him. All Virginia, from the Rapidan to Richmond, was a rifle-pit and an earthwork. The Confederates knew every hill and ravine as though they were the orchard and the fis.h.i.+ng creek of their own homes. The battlefield was theirs, to begin with; it must be taken from them or remain theirs forever. To take a battlefield of their own from Virginians has never been a pleasing task to those who did it--or more frequently tried to do it and did not!
It remained for Grant and his tremendous Union army to undertake this herculean task. He moved into the Wilderness and fought a two-days'
battle of the greatest severity. The contest of the fifth and sixth of May were murderous in character. The National losses in these two days in killed, wounded and missing were not less than 14,000; those of the Confederates were almost as great. In this struggle General Alexander Hays was killed; Generals Getty, Baxter and McAlister were wounded, and scores of under-officers, with thousands of brave men, lost their lives or limbs. Now it was that Lee is reported to have said to his officers, with a serious look on his iron face: ”Gentlemen, at last the Army of the Potomac has a head.”
On the seventh of May there was not much fighting. It is said that in the lull Grant's leading commanders thought he would recede, as his predecessors had done, and that not a few of them gave it as their opinion that he should do so. It is said that when coming to the Chancellorsville House, he gave the command, ”Forward, by the left flank,” thus demonstrating his purpose, as he said four days afterward in his despatch to the government, ”to fight it out on that line if it took all summer,” the soldiers gave a sigh of relief, and many began to sing at the prospect of no more retreating. General Sherman has recorded his belief that at this juncture Grant best displayed his greatness.
With the movement which we have just mentioned, the next stage in the campaign would bring both the Union and the Confederate armies to Spottsylvania Courthouse. The distance that each had to march to that point was about the same. It was at this juncture that the woods in which the two armies were moving, Grant to the left and Lee to the right, took fire and were burned. When the Union advance came in sight of Spottsylvania, Warren, who commanded, found that the place had been already occupied by the vigilant enemy. Hanc.o.c.k did not arrive in time to make an immediate attack, and Longstreet's corps was able to get into position before the pressure of the Union advance could be felt.
At this juncture Sheridan, in command of the Federal cavalry, was cut loose from the Union army and sent whirling with irresistible speed and momentum entirely around the rear of the Confederate army, destroying railroads, cutting communication, burning trains and liberating prisoners, as far as the very suburbs of Richmond.
The main divisions of the Union army came into position before Spottsylvania. Hanc.o.c.k had the right wing, and upon his left rested Warren. Sedgwick's corps was next in order, while Burnside held the left. Just as the commanders were forming their lines and some men at a Union battery seemed to shrink from the Confederate sharpshooters, Sedgwick went forward to encourage them, saying, ”Men, they couldn't hit an elephant at that distance.” But the next instant he himself fell dead! His command of the Sixth Corps was transferred to General Wright.
It now remained for Hanc.o.c.k on the extreme right to attack the Confederate left. This was done by Barlow's division, but without success. This attack and repulse was the real beginning of the battle of Spottsylvania. The Confederates in front were strongly intrenched, but near the northernmost point of their works what was thought to be a weak point in the line was discovered. This point was what is known as a _salient_. The position, however, was in the thick woods, or was at any rate concealed by the woods and ravines in front.
As soon as the position was discovered and its nature known, a large part of Wright's corps was sent against it. The attack was successful.