Part 12 (1/2)

”What do you think of it?”

”It don't seem to have the ring” was the reply.

”No-the bell is broken,” the other added.

This incident, which is given on the authority of a Northern writer, probably conveys a correct idea of the feeling of both the officers and men of General Burnside's army. The disastrous day of Fredericksburg had seriously injured the troops.

”The Army of the Potomac,” the writer adds, ”was sadly fractured, and its tones had no longer the clear, inspiring ring of victory.”

XII.

THE YEAR OF BATTLES.

The stormy year 1862 had terminated, thus, in a great Confederate success. In its arduous campaigns, following each other in rapid succession, General Lee had directed the movements of the main great army, and the result of the year's fighting was to gain him that high military reputation which his subsequent movements only consolidated and increased.

A rapid glance at the events of the year in their general outlines will indicate the merit due the Southern commander. The Federal plan of invasion in the spring had been extremely formidable. Virginia was to be pierced by no less than four armies-from the northwest, the Shenandoah Valley, the Potomac, and the Peninsula-the whole force to converge upon Richmond, the ”heart of the rebellion.” Of these, the army of General McClellan was the largest and most threatening. It advanced, with little opposition, until it reached the Chickahominy, crossed, and lay in sight of Richmond. The great force of one hundred and fifty thousand men was about to make the decisive a.s.sault, when Lee attacked it, and the battle which ensued drove the Federal army to a point thirty miles from the city, with such loss as to render hopeless any further attempt to a.s.sail the capital.

Such was the first act of the drama; the rest speedily followed. A new army was raised promptly by the Federal authorities, and a formidable advance was made against Richmond again, this time from the direction of Alexandria. Lee was watching General McClellan when intelligence of the new movement reached him. Remaining, with a portion of his troops, near Richmond, he sent Jackson to the Rapidan. The battle of Cedar Mountain resulted in the repulse of General Pope's vanguard; and, discovering at last that the real danger lay in the direction of Culpepper, Lee moved thither, drove back General Pope, flanked him, and, in the severe battle of Mana.s.sas, routed his army, which was forced to retire upon Was.h.i.+ngton.

Two armies had thus been driven from the soil of Virginia, and the Confederate commander had moved into Maryland, in order to draw the enemy thither, and, if practicable, transfer the war to the heart of Pennsylvania. Unforeseen circ.u.mstances had defeated the latter of these objects. The concentration on Sharpsburg was rendered necessary; an obstinately-fought battle ensued there; and, not defeated, but forced to abandon further movements toward Pennsylvania, Lee had retired into Virginia, where he remained facing his adversary. This was the first failure of Lee up to that point in the campaigns of the year; and an attentive consideration of the circ.u.mstances will show that the result was not fairly attributable to any error which he had committed. Events beyond his control had shaped his action, and directed all his movements; and it will remain a question whether the extrication of his small force from its difficult position did not better prove Lee's generals.h.i.+p than the victory at Mana.s.sas.

The subsequent operations of the opposing armies indicated clearly that the Southern forces were still in excellent fighting condition; and the movements of Lee, during the advance of General McClellan toward Warrenton, were highly honorable to his military ability. With a force much smaller than that of his adversary, he greatly embarra.s.sed and impeded the Federal advance; confronted them on the Upper Rappahannock, completely checking their forward movement in that direction; and, when they moved rapidly to Fredericksburg, crossed the Rapidan promptly, reappearing in their front on the range of hills opposite that city. The battle which followed compensated for the failure of the Maryland campaign and the drawn battle of Sharpsburg. General Burnside had attacked, and sustained decisive defeat. The stormy year, so filled with great events and arduous encounters, had thus wound up with a pitched battle, in which the enemy suffered a b.l.o.o.d.y repulse; and the best commentary on the decisive character of this last struggle of the year, was the fault found with General Lee for not destroying his adversary.

In less than six months Lee had thus fought four great pitched battles-all victories to his arms, with the exception of Sharpsburg, which was neither a victory nor a defeat. The result was thus highly encouraging to the South; and, had the Army of Northern Virginia had its ranks filled up, as the ranks of the Northern armies were, the events of the year 1862 would have laid the foundation of a.s.sured success. An inquiry into the causes of failure in this particular is not necessary to the subject of the volume before the reader. It is only necessary to state the fact that the Army of Northern Virginia, defending what all conceded to be the territory on which the decisive struggle must take place, was never sufficiently numerous to follow up the victories achieved by it. At the battles of the Chickahominy the army numbered at most about seventy-five thousand; at the second Mana.s.sas, about fifty thousand; at Sharpsburg, less than forty thousand; and at Fredericksburg, about fifty thousand. In the following year, it will be seen that these latter numbers were at first but little exceeded, and, as the months pa.s.sed on, that they dwindled more and more, until, in April, 1865, the whole force in line of battle at Petersburg was scarcely more than thirty thousand men.

Such had been the number of the troops under command of Lee in 1862. The reader has been informed of the number of the Federal force opposed to him. This was one hundred and fifty thousand on the Chickahominy, of whom one hundred and fifteen thousand were effective; about one hundred thousand, it would seem, under General Pope, at the second battle of Mana.s.sas; eighty-seven thousand actually engaged at the battle of Sharpsburg; and at Fredericksburg from one hundred and ten to one hundred and twenty thousand.

These numbers are stated on the authority of Federal officers or historians, and Lee's force on the authority of his own reports, or of gentlemen of high character, in a situation to speak with accuracy. Of the truth of the statements the writer of these pages can have no doubt; and, if the fighting powers of the Northern and Southern troops be estimated as equal, the fair conclusion must be arrived at that Lee surpa.s.sed his adversaries in generals.h.i.+p.

The result, at least, of the year's fighting, had been extremely encouraging to the South, and after the battle of Fredericksburg no attempts were made to prosecute hostilities during the remainder of the year. The scheme of crossing above Fredericksburg proved a fiasco, beginning and ending in a day. Thereafter all movements ceased, and the two armies awaited the return of spring for further operations.

XIII.

LEE IN DECEMBER, 1862.

Before pa.s.sing to the great campaigns of the spring and summer of 1863, we propose to say a few words of General Lee, in his private and personal character, and to attempt to indicate the position which he occupied at this time in the eyes of the army and the country. Unknown, save by reputation, when he a.s.sumed command of the forces in June, 1862, he had now, by the winter of the same year, become one of the best-known personages in the South. Neither the troops nor the people had perhaps penetrated the full character of Lee; and they seem to have attributed to him more reserve and less warmth and impulse than he possessed; but it was impossible for a human being, occupying so prominent a station before the general eye, to hide, in any material degree, his main great characteristics, and these had conciliated for Lee an exalted and wellnigh universal public regard. He was felt by all to be an individual of great dignity, sincerity, and earnestness, in the performance of duty. Dest.i.tute plainly of that vulgar ambition which seeks personal aggrandizement rather than the general good, and dedicated as plainly, heart and soul, to the cause for which he fought, he had won, even from those who had denounced him for the supposed hesitation in his course in April, 1861, and had afterward criticised his military operations, the repute of a truly great man, as well as of a commander of the first ability. It was felt by all cla.s.ses that the dignity of the Southern cause was adequately represented in the person and character of the commander of her most important army. While others, as brave and patriotic, no doubt, but of different temperament, had permitted themselves to become violent and embittered in their private and public utterances in reference to the North, Lee had remained calm, moderate, and dignified, under every provocation. His reports were without rhodomontade or exaggeration, and his tone uniformly modest, composed, and uninflated. After his most decisive successes, his pulse had remained calm; he had written of those successes with the air of one who sees no especial merit in any thing which he has performed; and, so marked was this tone of moderation and dignity, that, in reading his official reports to-day, it seems wellnigh impossible that they could have been written in the hot atmosphere of a war which aroused the bitterest pa.s.sions of the human soul.

Upon this point of Lee's personal and official dignity it is unnecessary to dwell further, as the quality has long since been conceded by every one acquainted with the character of the individual, in the Old World and the New. It is the trait, perhaps, the most prominent to the observer, looking back now upon the individual; and it was, doubtless, this august moderation, dignity, and apparent exemption from natural infirmity, which produced the impression upon many persons that Lee was cold and unimpressible. We shall speak, in future, at greater length of his real character than is necessary in this place; but it may here be said, that the fancy that he was cold and unimpressible was a very great error. No man had stronger or warmer feelings, or regarded the invasion of the South with greater indignation, than himself. The sole difference was, that he had his feelings under greater control, and permitted no temptation to overcome his sense of that august dignity and composure becoming in the chief leader of a great people struggling for independent government.

The sentiment of the Southern people toward Lee may be summed up in the statement that they regarded him, in his personal and private character, with an admiration which was becoming unbounded, and reposed in him, as commander of the army, the most implicit confidence.

These expressions are strong, but they do not convey more than the truth. And this confidence was never withdrawn from him. It remained as strong in his hours of disaster as in his noontide of success. A few soured or desponding people might lose heart, indulge in ”croaking,” and denounce, under their breath, the commander of the army as responsible for failure when it occurred; but these fainthearted people were in a small minority, and had little encouragement in their muttered criticisms. The Southern people, from Virginia to the utmost limits of the Gulf States, resolutely persisted in regarding Lee as one of the greatest soldiers of history, and retained their confidence in him unimpaired to the end.

The army had set the example of this implicit reliance upon Lee as the chief leader and military head of the Confederacy. The brave fighting-men had not taken his reputation on trust, but had seen him win it fairly on some of the hardest-contested fields of history. The heavy blow at General McClellan on the Chickahominy had first shown the troops that they were under command of a thorough soldier. The rout of Pope at Mana.s.sas had followed in the ensuing month. At Sharpsburg, with less than forty thousand men, Lee had repulsed the attack of nearly ninety thousand; and at Fredericksburg General Burnside's great force had been driven back with inconsiderable loss to the Southern army. These successes, in the eyes of the troops, were the proofs of true leaders.h.i.+p, and it did not detract from Lee's popularity that, on all occasions, he had carefully refrained from unnecessary exposure of the troops, especially at Fredericksburg, where an ambitious commander would have spared no amount of bloodshed to complete his glory by a great victory. Such was Lee's repute as army commander in the eyes of men accustomed to close scrutiny of their leaders. He was regarded as a thorough soldier, at once brave, wise, cool, resolute, and devoted, heart and soul, to the cause.

Personally, the commander-in-chief was also, by this time, extremely popular. He did not mingle with the troops to any great extent, nor often relax the air of dignity, somewhat tinged with reserve, which was natural with him. This reserve, however, never amounted to stiffness or ”official” coolness. On the contrary, Lee was markedly free from the chill demeanor of the martinet, and had become greatly endeared to the men by the unmistakable evidences which he had given them of his honesty, sincerity, and kindly feeling for them. It cannot, indeed, be said that he sustained the same relation toward the troops as General Jackson. For the latter ill.u.s.trious soldier, the men had a species of familiar affection, the result, in a great degree, of the informal and often eccentric demeanor of the individual. There was little or nothing in Jackson to indicate that he was an officer holding important command. He was without reserve, and exhibited none of that formal courtesy which characterized Lee. His manners, on the contrary, were quite informal, familiar, and conciliated in return a familiar regard. We repeat the word familiar as conveying precisely the idea intended to be expressed. It indicated the difference between these two great soldiers in their outward appearance. Lee retained about him, upon all occasions, more or less of the commander-in-chief, pa.s.sing before the troops on an excellent and well-groomed horse, his figure erect and graceful in the saddle, for he was one of the best riders in the army; his demeanor grave and thoughtful; his whole bearing that of a man intrusted with great responsibilities and the general care of the whole army. Jackson's personal appearance and air were very different. His dress was generally dingy: a faded cadet-cap tilted over his eyes, causing him to raise his chin into the air; his stirrups were apt to be too short, and his knees were thus elevated ungracefully, and he would amble along on his rawboned horse with a singularly absent-minded expression of countenance, raising, from time to time, his right hand and slapping his knee. This brief outline of the two commanders will serve to show the difference between them personally, and it must be added that Jackson's eccentric bearing was the source, in some degree, of his popularity. The men admired him immensely for his great military ability, and his odd ways procured for him that familiar liking to which we have alluded.

It is not intended, however, in these observations to convey the idea that General Lee was regarded as a stiff and unapproachable personage of whom the private soldiers stood in awe. Such a statement would not express the truth. Lee was perfectly approachable, and no instance is upon record, or ever came to the knowledge of the present writer, in which he repelled the approach of his men, or received the humblest of them with any thing but kindness. He was naturally simple and kind, with great gentleness and patience; and it will not be credible, to any who knew the man, that he ever made any difference in his treatment of those who approached him from a consideration of their rank in the army. His theory, expressed upon many occasions, was, that the private soldiers-men who fought without the stimulus of rank, emolument, or individual renown-were the most meritorious cla.s.s of the army, and that they deserved and should receive the utmost respect and consideration. This statement, however, is doubtless unnecessary. Men of Lee's pride and dignity never make a difference in their treatment of men, because one is humble, and the other of high rank. Of such human beings it may be said that n.o.blesse oblige.

The men of the army had thus found their commander all that they could wish, and his increasing personal popularity was shown by the greater frequency with which they now spoke of him as ”Ma.r.s.e Robert,” ”Old Uncle Robert,” and by other familiar t.i.tles. This tendency in troops is always an indication of personal regard; these nicknames had been already showered upon Jackson, and General Lee was having his turn. The troops regarded him now more as their fellow-soldier than formerly, having found that his dignity was not coldness, and that he would, under no temptation, indulge his personal convenience, or fare better than themselves. It was said-we know not with what truth-that the habit of Northern generals in the war was to look a.s.siduously to their individual comfort in selecting their quarters, and to take pleasure in surrounding themselves with glittering staff-officers, body-guards, and other indications of their rank, and the consideration which they expected. In these particulars Lee differed extremely from his opponents, and there were no evidences whatever, at his headquarters, that he was the commander-in-chief, or even an officer of high rank. He uniformly lived in a tent, in spite of the urgent invitations of citizens to use their houses for his headquarters; and this refusal was the result both of an indisposition to expose these gentlemen to annoyance from the enemy when he himself retired, and of a rooted objection to fare better than his troops. They had tents only, often indeed were without even that much covering, and it was repugnant to Lee's feelings to sleep under a good roof when the troops were so much exposed. His headquarters tent, at this time (December, 1862), as before and afterward, was what is called a ”house-tent,” not differing in any particular from those used by the private soldiers of the army in winter-quarters. It was pitched in an opening in the wood near the narrow road leading to Hamilton's Crossing, with the tents of the officers of the staff grouped near; and, with the exception of an orderly, who always waited to summon couriers to carry dispatches, there was nothing in the shape of a body-guard visible, or any indication that the unpretending group of tents was the army headquarters.