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Various - "The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No."

Grace Aguilar - "The Mother's Recompense, Volume II."

Richard Harding Davis - "With the Allies"

Various - "Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890"

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A School History of the United States by John Bach McMaster

J >> John Bach McMaster >> A School History of the United States




%439. The Peninsular Campaign against Richmond.%--The signal success
of Grant and Farragut in the West was more than offset by the signal
failure of McClellan in the East. The wish of the administration, and
indeed of the whole North, was that Richmond should be captured. Against
it, therefore, the Army of the Potomac was to move. But by what route?
The government wanted McClellan to march south across Virginia, so that
his army should always be between the Confederate forces and Washington.
McClellan insisted on moving west from Chesapeake Bay. The result was a
compromise:

1. Forces under Fremont and Banks were to operate in the Shenandoah
valley and prevent a Confederate force attacking Washington from
the west.

2. An army under McDowell was to march from Fredericksburg to Richmond.

3. McClellan was to take the main army from Washington by water to Fort
Monroe, and then march up the peninsula to Richmond, where McDowell was
to join him.

[Illustration: The Peninsula Campaign]

This peninsula, from which the campaign gets its name, lies between the
York and James rivers. Landing at the lower end of it, McClellan was met
by General Joseph E. Johnston, who caused a long delay by forcing him to
besiege Yorktown. McClellan then advanced up the peninsula, fighting the
battle of Williamsburg on the way. At White House Landing he turned
toward Richmond, extending his right flank to Hanover Courthouse, where
McDowell was expected to join him. But this was not to be, for General
T. J. Jackson ("Stonewall" Jackson) rushed down the Shenandoah valley,
driving Banks over the Potomac into Maryland, and retreated south before
Fremont or McDowell could cut him off; during this campaign he won four
desperate battles in thirty-five days. Jackson's success alarmed
Washington, and McDowell was held in northern Virginia. McClellan's
army, meanwhile, advanced on both sides of the Chickahominy River to
within eight miles of Richmond. At Fair Oaks and Seven Pines (May 31)
his left flank was almost overwhelmed by Johnston; but the latter was
wounded and his troops defeated. Johnston was then succeeded by R. E.
Lee, who, joined by Jackson, attacked McClellan at Mechanicsville and
Games Mill, and forced him to fall back, fighting for six days (June 26
to July 1, 1862)[1] as he retreated to Harrisons Landing, on the James
River. There the army remained till August, when it was recalled to
the Potomac.

[Footnote 1: The "Seven Days' Battles" are these and one fought June
25.]

%440. Lee's Raid into Maryland; Battle of Antietam, or
Sharpsburg.%--While the Army of the Potomac was at Harrisons Landing,
a new force called the Army of Virginia was organized, and General John
Pope placed in command. At the same time General Halleck was recalled
from the West and made general in chief of the Union armies. Pope
intended to move straight against Richmond. But when McClellan in
obedience to orders left Harrisons Landing and took his army by water to
the Potomac, near Washington, the Confederate army was left free to act
as it pleased. Seeing his opportunity, Lee moved at once against Pope's
army, whose line stretched along the Rappahannock and Rapidan rivers to
the Shenandoah valley in western Virginia. Near the Rapidan at Cedar
Mountain was General Banks. He was first attacked and beaten; after
which Lee fell upon Pope on the old field of Bull Run, and put the army
to flight. Pope fell back to Washington, where his forces were united
with those of McClellan. Pushing northward, Lee next crossed the Potomac
and entered Maryland. But he was overtaken by McClellan at Antietam
Creek, near Sharpsburg, where, September 17, 1862, a great battle was
fought, after which Lee went back to Virginia.

McClellan was now removed and the command of the army given to General
Burnside. He was as reckless as McClellan was cautious, and on December
13 threw his army against the Confederates posted at Fredericksburg
Heights and was beaten with dreadful slaughter. Thus at the end of 1862
Richmond was not captured, and the two armies went into winter quarters
with the Rappahannock River between them.

%441. Emancipation of the Slaves%.--More than two years had now
passed since South Carolina had seceded, and during this time a great
change had taken place in the feeling of the North towards slavery. When
Lincoln was inaugurated, very few people wanted the slaves emancipated.
But two years of bloody fighting had convinced the North that the Union
could not exist part slave, part free. As Lincoln said in his speech at
Springfield in 1858, "It must be all one thing, or all the other."
Seeing that the people now felt as he did, Lincoln, in 1862 (March 6),
asked Congress to agree to buy the slaves of the loyal slave states, and
urged the members of Congress from those states to advise their
constituents to set free their slaves and receive $300 apiece for them.
This they would not do; whereupon he decided to act upon his own
authority, and declared all slaves within the lines of the Confederacy
to be freemen.

For this he had two good reasons: 1. So far the war had been one for the
preservation of the Union. By making it a war for union and freedom the
North would become more earnest than ever. 2. The rulers of England, who
wanted Southern cotton, were only waiting for a pretext to acknowledge
the independence of the South. If, however, the North engaged in a war
for the abolition of slavery, the people of England would not allow the
independence of the Confederacy to be acknowledged by their rulers.

The time to make such a declaration was after some victory gained by the
Union army. When McClellan and Lee stood face to face at Antietam,
Lincoln therefore "vowed to God" that if Lee were defeated he would
issue the proclamation. Lee was defeated, and, on September 22, 1862,
the proclamation came forth declaring that if the Confederate States did
not return to their allegiance before January 1, 1863, "all persons held
as slaves" within the Confederate lines "shall be then, thenceforth, and
forever free." The states of course did not return to their allegiance,
and on January 1, 1863, a second proclamation was issued setting the
slaves free.[1]

[Footnote 1: Nicolay and Hay's _Life of Lincoln, _Vol. VI., Chaps. 6,
8.]

Now, there are three things in connection with the Emancipation
Proclamation which must be understood and remembered:

1. Lincoln did not _abolish slavery_ anywhere. He _emancipated_ or _set
free the slaves_ of certain persons engaged in waging war against the
United States government.

2. The Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to any of the loyal slave
states,[1] nor to such territory as the Union army had reconquered.[2]
In none of these places did it free slaves.

[Footnote 1: Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri.]

[Footnote 2: Tennessee, thirteen parishes in Louisiana, and seven
counties in Virginia.]

3. Lincoln freed the slaves by virtue of his power as commander in chief
of the army of the United States, "and as a fit and necessary
war measure."

%442. The Battle of Gettysburg.%--After Burnside was defeated at
Fredericksburg, in December, 1862, he was removed, and General Hooker
put in command of the Army of the Potomac. Hooker--"Fighting Joe," as he
was called--led it against Lee, and (May 1-4, 1863) was beaten at
Chancellorsville and fell back. In June Lee again took the offensive,
rushed down the Shenandoah valley to the Potomac, crossed Maryland, and
entered Pennsylvania, with the Army of the Potomac in pursuit. On
reaching Maryland, Hooker was removed and General Meade put in command.
The opposing forces met on the hills at Gettysburg, Penn., and there,
July 1-3, Lee attacked Meade. The contest was a dreadful one; no field
was ever more stubbornly fought over. About one fourth of the men
engaged were killed or wounded. But the splendid courage of the Union
army prevailed: Lee was beaten and retired to Virginia, where he
remained unmolested till the spring of 1864. Gettysburg is regarded as
the greatest battle of the war, and the Union regiments engaged have
taken a just pride in marking the positions they held during the three
awful days of slaughter, till the field is dotted all over with
beautiful monuments. On the hill back of the village is a great
national cemetery, at the dedication of which Lincoln delivered his
famous Gettysburg address.

[Illustration: Part of the battlefield of Gettysburg]

%443. Vicksburg%.--The day after the victory at Gettysburg, the joy
of the North was yet more increased by the news that Vicksburg had
surrendered (July 4) to Grant. After the defeat, of the Confederate
forces at Iuka and Corinth in 1862, the Confederate line passed across
northern Mississippi, touched the river from Vicksburg to Port Hudson,
and then swept off to the Gulf. As the capture of these river towns
would complete the opening of the Mississippi, Grant set out to take
Vicksburg. Failing in a direct advance through Mississippi, Grant sent a
strong force down the river from Memphis, and later took command in
person. Vicksburg stands on the top of a bluff which rises steep and
straight 200 feet above the river, and had been so fortified that to
capture it seemed impossible. But Grant was determined to open the
river. On the west bank, he cut a canal through a bend, hoping to divert
the river and get water passage by the town. This failed, and he decided
to cross below the town and attack from the land. To aid him in this
attempt, Porter ran his gunboats past the town one night in April and
carried the army over the river. Landing on the east bank, Grant won a
victory at Port Gibson, and occupied Grand Gulf. Hearing that Johnston
was coming to help Pemberton, Grant pushed in between them, beat
Johnston at Jackson, and turning westward, drove Pemberton into
Vicksburg, and began a regular siege. For seven weeks he poured in shot
and shell day and night. To live in houses became impossible, and the
women and children took refuge in caves. Food gave out, and after every
kind of misery had been endured till it could be borne no longer,
Vicksburg was surrendered on July 4.

[Illustration: The Vicksburg Campaign]

Five days later (July 9, 1863), Port Hudson surrendered, and the
Mississippi, as Lincoln said, "flowed unvexed to the sea." It was open
from its source to its mouth, and the Confederacy was cut in two.

%444. Driving the Confederates eastward; Chickamauga and
Chattanooga%.--While Grant was besieging Vicksburg, Rosecrans by
skillful work forced Bragg to retreat from his position south of
Murfreesboro; then in a second campaign he forced Bragg to leave
Chattanooga and retire into northwestern Georgia. Bragg here received
more troops, and attacked Rosecrans in the Chickamauga valley (September
19 and 20, 1863), where was fought one of the most desperate battles of
the war. So fierce was the onset of the Confederates that the Union
right wing was driven from the field. But the left wing, under General
George H. Thomas, a grand character and a splendid officer, by some of
the best fighting ever seen held the enemy in check and saved the army
from rout. By his firmness Thomas won the name of "the Rock of
Chickamauga."

Rosecrans now went back to Chattanooga. Bragg followed, and taking
position on the hills and mountains which surround the town on the east
and south, shut in the Union army and besieged it. For a time it seemed
in danger of starvation. But Hooker was sent from Virginia with more
troops; the Army of the Tennessee under Sherman was summoned from
Vicksburg; Rosecrans was superseded by Thomas, and Grant was put in
command of all. Then matters changed. The forces under Thomas, moving
from their lines, seized some low hills at the foot of Missionary Ridge,
east of Chattanooga (November 23). On the 24th, Hooker carried the
Confederate works on Lookout Mountain, southwest of the city, in a
conflict often called the "Battle above the Clouds"; and Sherman was
sent against the northern end of Missionary Ridge, but succeeded only in
taking an outlying hill. On the 25th Sherman renewed his attack, but
failed to gain the main crest, whereupon Thomas attacked the Ridge in
front of Chattanooga, carried the heights, and drove off the enemy.
Bragg retreated to Dalton, in northwestern Georgia, where the command of
his army was given to Joseph E. Johnston.

%445. "Marching through Georgia"; "From Atlanta to the Sea."%--As the
Confederates had thus been driven from the Mississippi River, and forced
back to the mountains, they had but two centers of power left. The one
was the army under Lee, which, since the defeat at Gettysburg, had been
lying quietly behind the Rapidan and Rappahannock rivers, protecting
Richmond. The other was the army at Dalton, Ga., now under J.
E. Johnston.

[Illustration: WAR FOR THE UNION Breaking the Confederate Line]

Early in the spring of 1864 General U.S. Grant--"Unconditional Surrender
Grant," as the people called him--was made lieutenant general (a rank
never before given to any United States soldier except Washington and
Scott), and put in command of all the Federal armies. General Sherman
was left in command of the military division of the Mississippi.

Before beginning the campaign, Grant and Sherman agreed on a plan.
Grant, with the Army of the Potomac, was to drive back Lee and take
Richmond. Sherman, with the armies of Thomas, McPherson, and Schofield,
was to attack Johnston and push his way into Georgia. Each was to begin
his movement on the same day (May 4, 1864).

On that day, accordingly, Sherman with 98,000 men marched against
Johnston, flanked him out of Dalton, and step by step through the
mountains to Atlanta, fighting all the way. Johnston's retreat was
masterly. He intended to retreat until Sherman's army was so weakened by
leaving guards in the rear to protect the railroads, over which food and
supplies must come, that he could fight on equal terms. But Jefferson
Davis removed Johnston at Atlanta, and put J. B. Hood in command.

Hood, in July, made three furious attacks, was beaten each time;
abandoned Atlanta in September, and soon after started northwestward, in
hope of drawing Sherman out of Georgia. But Sherman sent Thomas and a
part of the army to Tennessee, and after following Hood for a time, he
returned to Atlanta, tearing up the railroads as he went. Then, having
partly burned the town, in November he started for the sea with 60,000
of his best veterans.

[Illustration: SHERMAN'S MARCH TO THE SEA]

The troops went in four columns, covering a belt of sixty miles wide,
burning bridges, tearing up railroads, living on the country as they
marched. Early in December the army drew near to Savannah; about the
middle of the month (December 13) Fort McAllister was taken; and a few
days later the city of Savannah was occupied. During all this long march
to the sea, nothing was known in the North as to where Sherman was or
what he was doing. Fancy the delight of Lincoln, then, when on the
Christmas eve of 1864, he received this telegram:

SAVANNAH, Georgia, December 22, 1864.

To His EXCELLENCY, PRESIDENT LINCOLN, WASHINGTON, D.C.

I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah, with one
hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition; also about
twenty-five thousand bales of cotton.

W. T. SHERMAN, MAJOR GENERAL.

Sherman had sent the message by vessel to Fort Monroe, whence it was
telegraphed to Lincoln.

%446. Sherman marches northward.%--At Savannah the army rested for a
month. Sherman tells us in his _Memoirs_ that the troops grew impatient
at this delay, and used to call out to him as he rode by: "Uncle Billy,
I guess Grant is waiting for us at Richmond." So he was; but he did not
wait very long, for on February 1, 1865, the march was resumed. The way
was across South Carolina to Columbia, and then into North Carolina,
with their old enemy, J. E. Johnston, in their front. Hood, in a rash
moment, had besieged Thomas at Nashville; but Thomas, coming out from
behind his intrenchments, utterly destroyed Hood's army. This forced
Davis to put Johnston in command of a new army made up of troops taken
from the seaport garrisons and remnants of Hood's army. In March,
Sherman reached Goldsboro in North Carolina.

%447. Grant in Virginia.%--Meantime Grant had set out from Culpeper
Courthouse on May 4, 1864, crossed the Rapidan, and entered the
"Wilderness," a name given to a tract of country covered with dense
woods of oak and pine and thick undergrowth. The fighting was almost
incessant. The loss of life was frightful; but he pushed on to
Spottsylvania Courthouse, and thence to Cold Harbor, part of the line of
fortifications before Richmond. He would, as he said, "fight it out on
this line if it takes all summer," and went south of Richmond and
besieged Petersburg.

%448. Early's Raid, 1864.%--Lee now sent Jubal Early with 20,000
soldiers to move down the Shenandoah valley, enter Maryland, and
threaten Washington. This he did, and after coming up to the
fortifications of the city, he retreated to Virginia. A little later,
Early sent his cavalry into Pennsylvania and burned Chambersburg.

Grant thought it was time to stop this, and sent Sheridan with an army
to drive Early out of the Shenandoah valley. "It is desirable," said
Grant, "that nothing should be left to invite the enemy to return."

Sheridan set out accordingly, and on September 19 he met Early in battle
at Winchester, and a few days later at Fishers Hill, beat him at both
places, and sent him whirling up the valley. Sheridan followed for a
time, and then brought his army back to Cedar Creek, after burning
barns, destroying crops, and devastating the entire upper valley.

%449. Sheridan's Ride.%--And now occurred a famous incident. About
the middle of October Sheridan went to Washington, and while on his way
back slept on the night of October 18 at Winchester. At 7 A.M. on the
19th he heard guns, but paid no attention to the sounds till 9 o'clock,
when, as he rode quietly out of Winchester, he met a mile from town
wagon trains and fugitives, and heard that Early had surprised his camp
at daylight. Dashing up the pike with an escort of twenty men, calling
to the fugitives as he passed them to turn and face the enemy, he met
the army drawn up in line eleven miles from Winchester. "Far away in the
rear," says an old soldier, "we heard cheer after cheer. Were
reinforcements coming? Yes, Phil Sheridan was coming, and he was a
host." Dashing down the line, Sheridan shouted, "What troops are these?"
"The Sixth Corps," came back the response from a hundred voices. "We are
all right," said Sheridan, as he swung his old hat and dashed along the
line to the right. "Never mind, boys, we'll whip them yet. We shall
sleep in our old quarters to-night." And they did.[1] Early
was defeated.

[Footnote:1] Read Sheridan's account in his _Personal Memoirs, _Vol.
II., pp. 66-92.

%450. Surrender of Lee.%--At the beginning of 1865 the situation of
Lee was desperate, and in February, Alexander H. Stephens, Vice
President of the Confederacy, met Lincoln and Secretary Seward on a war
vessel in Hampton Roads to discuss terms of peace. Lincoln demanded
three things: 1. That the Confederate armies be disbanded and the men
sent home. 2. That the Confederate States submit to the rule of
Congress. 3. That slavery be abolished. These terms were not accepted,
and the war went on. Sherman marched northward through the Carolinas and
was reenforced from the coast; every seaport in the Confederacy was soon
in Union hands; Sheridan finally dispersed Early's troops, and joined
Grant before Petersburg; and the lines of Grant's army were drawn closer
and closer around Petersburg and Richmond.

Plainly the end was near. On April 2 Lee announced to Davis that both
Petersburg and Richmond must be abandoned at once. The rams in the James
River were immediately blown up, and on the morning of April 3 General
Weitzel, hearing from a negro what was going on, entered Richmond and
found that Lee was in full retreat. Grant followed, and on April 9
forced Lee to surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, seventy-five miles
west of Richmond. Grant's treatment of Lee was most generous. He was not
required to give up his sword, nor his officers their side arms, nor his
men their horses, which they would need, Grant said, "to work their
little farms." Each officer was to give his parole not to take up arms
against the United States "until properly exchanged"; each regimental
commander was to do the same for his men; and, "this done, each officer
and man will be allowed to return to his home." Immediately after this
surrender 25,000 rations were issued to Lee's men.

[Illustration: The house in which Lee and Grant arranged the surrender]

%451. End of the Confederacy.%--What little was left of the
Confederacy now went rapidly to pieces. On April 26 Johnston surrendered
to Sherman near Raleigh, North Carolina. A few days later the victorious
army started for Richmond, and then went on over battle-scarred
Virginia to Washington. May 10, Jefferson Davis was captured. When Lee
fled from Richmond, Davis hurried to Charlotte, N.C., with his cabinet,
his clerks, and such gold and silver coin as was in the Confederate
Treasury. But the surrender of Johnston forced Davis to retreat still
farther south, till he reached Irwinsville, Ga., where the Union cavalry
overtook him.

%452. The Grand Army disbands.%--As this was practically the end of
the Confederacy, the great Union army of citizen soldiers, numbering
more than 1,000,000 men, was called home from the field and disbanded.
Before these veterans separated, never to meet again with arms in their
hands, they were reviewed by the President, Congress, and an immense
throng of people who came to Washington from every part of the loyal
states to welcome them. During two days (May 23 and 24, 1865) the
soldiers of Grant and Sherman, forming a column thirty miles long,
marched down Pennsylvania Avenue, and then, with a rapidity and
quietness that seems almost incredible, scattered and went back to their
farms, to their shops, to the practice of their professions, and to the
innumerable occupations of civil life.

Of the Confederates not one was molested, not a soldier was imprisoned,
not a political leader suffered death. Davis was ordered to be
imprisoned at Fort Monroe for two years, but he was soon released on
bail, was never brought to trial, and died at New Orleans in 1889.


SUMMARY

1. After the election of Lincoln seven states seceded from the Union,
and formed the "Confederate States of America."

2. Four other states joined the Confederacy later.

3. The refusal of the United States to recognize the right to secede led
to the refusal to give up Federal forts in Charleston harbor. The
attempt to take Sumter by force led to the appeal to arms.

4. The line which separated the troops of the two governments ran from
Chesapeake Bay, across Virginia, and through Kentucky and Missouri, to
New Mexico.

5. While the Union troops held the Confederates in check on the eastern
end of the line, they broke through the line in the West, and, aided by
the Union fleet, opened the Mississippi River.

6. The Confederates were thus driven from the Mississippi and forced
back to the mountains of Georgia. Sherman was sent against them, and in
1864 marched eastward through the heart of the Confederacy to
the Atlantic.

7. Marching north from Savannah, across Georgia and South Carolina, to
Goldsboro in North Carolina, he was now in the rear of the Confederate
army in Virginia.

8. Grant, meantime, with the Army of the Potomac, had fought a series of
battles with Lee, and had besieged Richmond and Petersburg; and
Sheridan had cleared out the Shenandoah valley.

9. Lee was thus forced, early in 1865, to leave Richmond, and while
retreating westward he was forced to surrender.

SECESSION AND THE WAR FOR THE UNION
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_The South_ _The North_
The cotton states secede. Attempts to compromise.
The Confederacy formed. Buchanan's attitude.
A constitution adopted. The Crittenden Compromise.
Unites States property seized. A Thirteenth Amendment proposed.
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Buchanan attempts to provision Fort Sumter
_Star of the West_ fired on.
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Lincoln inaugurated.
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Lincoln attempts to provision Fort Sumter
The fort bombarded. The surrender.
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Arkansas, North Carolina, The call to arms.
Virginia, and Tennessee secede. The march to Washington
Richmond made the capital Fight in the streets of
of the Confederacy. Baltimore. ------------------------------------------------------------------
| |
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_The war opens_
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_Fighting in the West._ _Fighting along the Potomac and in
Virginia_
_1861-1862._ Breaking the _1861._ The attempt to take Richmond.
Confederate line. Battle of Bull Run.
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