part in the campaign that commenced in the first week in June.
Tired of standing always on the defensive, the Confederate authorities
determined to carry out the stop that had been so warmly advocated by
Jackson earlier in the war, and which might at that time have brought it
to a successful termination. They decided to carry the war into the
enemy's country. By the most strenuous efforts Lee's army was raised to
75,000 men, divided into three great army corps, commanded by
Longstreet, Ewell, and Hill. Striking first into Western Virginia, they
drove the Federals from Winchester, and chased them from the State with
the loss of nearly 4,000 prisoners and 30 guns. Then they entered
Maryland and Pennsylvania, and concentrating at Gettysburg they met the
Northern army under Meade, who had succeeded Hooker. Although great
numbers of the Confederates had seen their homes wasted and their
property wantonly destroyed, they preserved the most perfect order in
their march through the North, and the Federals themselves testify to
the admirable behavior of the troops, and to the manner in which they
abstained from plundering or inflicting annoyance upon the inhabitants.
At Gettysburg there was three days' fighting. In the first a portion
only of the forces were engaged, the Federals being defeated and 5,000
of their men taken prisoners. Upon the second the Confederates attacked
the Northerners, who were posted in an extremely strong position, but
were repulsed with heavy loss. The following day they renewed the
attack, but after tremendous fighting again failed to carry the height.
Both parties were utterly exhausted. Lee drew up his troops the next
day, and invited an attack from the Federals; but contented with the
success they had gained they maintained their position, and the
Confederates then fell back, Stuart's cavalry protecting the immense
trains of wagons loaded with the stores and ammunition captured in
Pennsylvania.
But little attempt was made by the Northerners to interfere with their
retreat. On reaching the Potomac they found that a sudden rise had
rendered the fords impassable. Intrenchments and batteries were thrown
up, and for a week the Confederate army held the lines, expecting an
attack from the enemy, who had approached within two miles; but the
Federal generals were too well satisfied with having gained a success
when acting on the defensive in a strong position to risk a defeat in
attacking the position of the Confederates, and their forces remained
impassive until pontoon bridges were thrown across the river, and the
Confederate army, with their vast baggage train, had again crossed into
Virginia. The campaign had cost the Northern army 23,000 men in killed,
wounded, and prisoners, besides a considerable number of guns. The
Confederates lost only two guns, left behind in the mud, and 1,500
prisoners, but their loss in killed and wounded at Gettysburg exceeded
10,000 men. Even the most sanguine among the ranks of the Confederacy
were now conscious that the position was a desperate one. The Federal
armies seemed to spring from the ground. Strict discipline had taken the
place of the disorder and insubordination that had first prevailed in
their ranks. The armies were splendidly equipped. They were able to
obtain any amount of the finest guns, rifles, and ammunition of war from
the workshops of Europe; while the Confederates, cut off from the world,
had to rely solely upon the makeshift factories they had set up, and
upon the guns and stores they captured from the enemy.
The Northerners had now, as a blow to the power of the South, abolished
slavery, and were raising regiments of negroes from among the free
blacks of the North, and from the slaves they took from their owners
wherever their armies penetrated the Southern States. Most of the
Confederate ports had been either captured or were so strictly blockaded
that it was next to impossible for the blockade-runner to get in or out,
while the capture of the forts on the Mississippi enabled them to use
the Federal flotillas of gunboats to the greatest advantage, and to
carry their armies into the center of the Confederacy.
Still, there was no talk whatever of surrender on the part of the South,
and, indeed, the decree abolishing slavery, and still more the action of
the North in raising black regiments, excited the bitterest feeling of
animosity and hatred. The determination to fight to the last, whatever
came of it, animated every white man in the Southern States, and,
although deeply disappointed with the failure of Lee's invasion of the
North, the only result was to incite them to greater exertions and
sacrifices. In the North an act authorizing conscription was passed in
1863, but the attempt to carry it into force caused a serious riot in
New York, which was only suppressed after many lives had been lost and
the city placed under martial law.
While the guns of Gettysburg were still thundering, a Federal army of
18,000 men under General Gillmore, assisted by the fleet, had laid siege
to Charleston. It was obstinately attacked and defended. The siege
continued until the 5th of September, when Fort Wagner was captured; but
all attempts to take Fort Sumter and the town of Charleston itself
failed, although the city suffered greatly from the bombardment. In
Tennessee there was severe fighting in the autumn, and two desperate
battles were fought at Chickamauga on the 19th and 20th of September,
General Bragg, who commanded the Confederate army there, being
reinforced by Longstreet's veterans from the army of Virginia. After
desperate fighting the Federals were defeated, and thirty-six guns and
vast quantities of arms captured by the Confederates. The fruits of the
victory, however, were very slight, as General Bragg refused to allow
Longstreet to pursue, and so to convert the Federal retreat into a rout,
and the consequence was that this victory was more than balanced by a
heavy defeat inflicted upon them in November at Chattanooga by Sherman
and Grant. At this battle General Longstreet's division was not present.
The army of Virginia had a long rest after their return from Gettysburg,
and it was not until November that the campaign was renewed. Meade
advanced, a few minor skirmishes took place, and then, when he reached
the Wilderness, the scene of Hooker's defeat, where Lee was prepared to
give battle, he fell back again across the Rappahannock.
The year had been an unfortunate one for the Confederates. They had lost
Vicksburg, and the defeat at Chattanooga had led to the whole State of
Tennessee falling into the hands of the Federals, while against these
losses there was no counterbalancing success to be reckoned.
In the spring of 1864 both parties prepared to the utmost for the
struggle. General Grant, an officer who had shown in the campaign in the
West that he possessed considerable military ability, united with
immense firmness and determination of purpose, was chosen as the new
commander-in-chief of the whole military force of the North. It was a
mighty army, vast in numbers, lavishly provided with all materials of
war. The official documents show that on the 1st of May the total
military forces of the North amounted to 662,000 men. Of these the force
available for the advance against Richmond numbered 284,630 men. This
included the army of the Potomac, that of the James River, and the army
in the Shenandoah Valley--the whole of whom were in readiness to move
forward against Richmond at the orders of Grant.
To oppose these General Lee had less than 53,000 men, including the
garrison of Richmond and the troops in North Carolina. Those stationed
in the seaport towns numbered in all another 20,000, so that if every
available soldier had been brought up Lee could have opposed a total of
but 83,000 men against the 284,000 invaders.
In the West the numbers were more equally balanced. General Sherman, who
commanded the army of invasion there, had under his orders 230,000 men,
but as more than half this force was required to protect the long lines
of communication and to keep down the conquered States, he was able to
bring into the field for offensive operations 99,000 men, who were faced
by the Confederate army under Johnston of 58,000 men. Grant's scheme
was, that while the armies of the North were, under his own command, to
march against Richmond, the army of the West was to invade Georgia and
march upon Atlanta.
His plan of action was simple, and was afterward stated by himself to be
as follows: "I determined first to use the greatest number of troops
practicable against the main force of the enemy, preventing him from
using the same force at different seasons against first one and then
another of our armies, and the possibility of repose for refitting and
producing necessary supplies for carrying on resistance. Second, to
hammer continuously against the armed force of the enemy and his
resources until, by mere attrition if in no other way, there should be
nothing left to him but submission."
This was a terrible programme, and involved an expenditure of life far
beyond anything that had taken place. Grant's plan, in fact, was to
fight and to keep on fighting, regardless of his own losses, until at
last the Confederate army, whose losses could not be replaced, melted
away. It was a strategy that few generals have dared to practice, fewer
still to acknowledge.
On the 4th of May the great army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan and
advanced toward Chancellorsville. Lee moved two divisions of his army to
oppose them. Next morning the battle began at daybreak on the old ground
where Lee had defeated Hooker the year before. All day long the division
of Ewell supported the attack of the army corps of Sedgwick and Hancock.
Along a front of six miles, in the midst of the thick forest, the battle
raged the whole of the day. The Confederates, in spite of the utmost
efforts of the Northerners, although reinforced in the afternoon by the
army corps of General Burnside, held their position, and when night put
an end to the conflict the invaders had not gained a foot of ground.
As soon as the first gleam of light appeared in the morning the battle
recommenced. The Federal generals, Sedgwick, Warren, and Hancock, with
Burnside in reserve, fell upon Hill and Ewell. Both sides had thrown up
earthworks and felled trees as a protection during the night. At first
the Confederates gained the advantage; but a portion of Burnside's corps
was brought up and restored the battle, while on the left flank of the
Federals Hancock had attacked with such vigor that the Confederates
opposed to him were driven back.
At the crisis of the battle, Longstreet, who had marched all night,
appeared upon the ground, drove back Hancock's men, and was on the point
of aiding the Confederates in a decisive attack upon the enemy, when,
riding rapidly forward into the wood to reconnoiter, he was, like
Jackson, struck down by the fire of his own men. He was carried to the
rear desperately, and it was feared for a time mortally wounded, and his
loss paralyzed the movement which he had prepared. Nevertheless during
the whole day the fight went on with varying success, sometimes one side
obtaining a slight advantage, the other then regaining the ground they
had lost.
Just as evening was closing in a Georgia brigade, with two other
regiments, made a detour, and fell furiously upon two brigades of the
enemy, and drove them back in headlong rout for a mile and a half,
capturing their two generals and many prisoners. The artillery, as on
the previous day, had been little used on either side, the work being
done at short range with the rifle, the loss being much heavier among
the thick masses of the Northerners than in the thinner lines of the
Confederates. Grant had failed in his efforts to turn Lee's right and to
accomplish his direct advance; he therefore changed his base and moved
his army round toward Spotsylvania.
Lee soon perceived his object, and succeeded in carrying his army to
Spotsylvania before the Federals reached it.
On the afternoon of Monday, the 9th, there was heavy fighting and on the
10th another pitched battle took place. This time the ground was more
open, and the artillery was employed with terrible effect on both sides.
It ended, however, as the previous battles had done, by the Confederates
holding their ground.
Upon the next day there was but little fighting. In the night the
Federals moved quietly through the wood, and at daybreak four divisions
fell upon Johnston's division of Ewell's corps, took them completely by
surprise, and captured the greater part of them.
But Lee's veterans soon recovered from their surprise and maintained
their position until noon. Then the whole Federal army advanced, and the
battle raged till nightfall terminated the struggle, leaving Lee in
possession of the whole line he had held, with the exception of the
ground lost in the morning.
For the next six days the armies faced each other, worn out by incessant
fighting, and prevented from moving by the heavy rain which fell
incessantly. They were now able to reckon up the losses. The Federals
found that they had lost, in killed, wounded, or missing, nearly 30,000
men; while Lee's army was diminished by about 12,000.
While these mighty battles had been raging the Federal cavalry under
Sheridan had advanced rapidly forward, and, after several skirmishes
with Stuart's cavalry, penetrated within the outer intrenchments round
Richmond. Here Stuart with two regiments of cavalry charged them and
drove them back, but the gallant Confederate officer received a wound
that before night proved fatal. His loss was a terrible blow to the
Confederacy, although his successor in the command of the cavalry,
General Wade Hampton, was also an officer of the highest merit.
In the meantime General Butler, who had at Fort Monroe under his command
two corps of infantry, 4,000 cavalry, and a fleet of gunboats and
transports, was threatening Richmond from the east. Shipping his men on
board the transports he steamed up the James River, under convoy of the
fleet, and landed on a neck of land known as Bermuda Hundred. To oppose
him all the troops from North Carolina had been brought up, the whole
force amounting to 19,000 men, under the command of General Beauregard.
Butler, after various futile movements, was driven back again to his
intrenched camp at Bermuda Hundred, where he was virtually besieged by
Beauregard with 10,000 men, the rest of that general's force being sent
up to reinforce Lee.
In western Virginia, Breckenridge, with 3,500 men, was called upon to
hold in check Sigel, with 15,000 men. Advancing to Staunton,
Breckenridge was joined by the pupils of the military college at
Lexington, 250 in number, lads of from 14 to 17 years of age. He came
upon Sigel on the line of march, and attacked him at once. The Federal
general placed a battery in a wood and opened fire with grape. The
commander of the Lexington boys ordered them to charge, and, gallantly
rushing in through the heavy fire, they charged in among the guns,
killed the artillerymen, drove back the infantry supports, and bayoneted
their colonel. The Federals now retired down the valley to Strasburg,
and Breckenridge was able to send a portion of his force to aid Lee in
his great struggle.
After his six days' pause in front of Lee's position at Spotsylvania,
Grant abandoned his plan of forcing his way through Lee's army to
Richmond, and endeavored to outflank it; but Lee again divined his
object, and moved round and still faced him. After various movements the
armies again stood face to face upon the old battle-grounds on the
Chickahominy. On the 3d of June the battle commenced at half-past four
in the morning. Hancock at first gained an advantage, but Hill's
division dashed down upon him and drove him back with great slaughter;
while no advantage was gained by them in other parts of the field. The
Federal loss on this day was 13,000, and the troops were so dispirited
that they refused to renew the battle in the afternoon.
Grant then determined to alter his plan altogether, and sending
imperative orders to Butler to obtain possession of Petersburg, embarked
Smith's corps in transports, and moved with the rest of his army to join
that general there. Smith's corps entered the James River, landed, and
marched against Petersburg. Beauregard had at Petersburg only two
infantry and two cavalry regiments under General Wise, while a single
brigade fronted Butler at Bermuda Hundred. With this handful of men he
was called upon to defend Petersburg and to keep Butler bottled up in
Bermuda Hundred until help could reach him from Lee. He telegraphed to
Richmond for all the assistance that could be sent to him, and was
reinforced by a brigade, which arrived just in time, for Smith had
already captured a portion of the intrenchments, but was now driven out.
The next day Beauregard was attacked both by Smith's and Hancock's
corps, which had now arrived. With 8,000 men he kept at bay the assaults
of two whole army corps, having in the meantime sent orders to Gracie,
the officer in command of the brigade before Butler, to leave a few
sentries there to deceive that general, and to march with the rest of
his force to his aid. It arrived at a critical moment. Overwhelmed by
vastly superior numbers, many of the Confederates had left their posts,
and Breckenridge was in vain trying to rally them when Gracie's brigade
came up. The position was reoccupied and the battle continued.
At noon Burnside with his corps arrived and joined the assailants; while
Butler, discovering at last that the troops in front of him were
withdrawn, moved out and barred the road against reinforcements from
Richmond. Nevertheless the Confederates held their ground all the
afternoon and until eleven o'clock at night, when the assault ceased.
At midnight Beauregard withdrew his troops from the defenses that they
were too few to hold, and set them to work to throw up fresh
intrenchments on a shorter line behind. All night the men worked with
their bayonets, canteens, and any tools that came to hand.
It was well for them that the enemy were so exhausted that it was noon
before they were ready to advance again, for by this time help was at
hand. Anderson, who had succeeded to the command of Longstreet's corps,
and was leading the van of Lee's army, forced his way through Butler's
troops and drove him back into the Bermuda Hundred, and leaving one
brigade to watch him marched with another into Petersburg just as the
attack was recommenced. Thus reinforced Beauregard successfully defeated
all the assaults of the enemy until night fell. Another Federal army
corps came up before morning, and the assault was again renewed, but the
defenders, who had strengthened their defenses during the night, drove
their assailants back with terrible loss. The whole of Lee's army now
arrived, and the rest of Grant's army also came up, and that general
found that after all his movements his way to Richmond was barred as
before. He was indeed in a far worse position than when he had crossed
the Rapidan, for the morale of his army was much injured by the repeated
repulses and terrible losses it had sustained. The new recruits that had
been sent to fill up the gaps were far inferior troops to those with
which he had commenced the campaign. To send forward such men against
the fortifications of Petersburg manned by Lee's veteran troops was to
court defeat, and he therefore began to throw up works for a regular
siege.
Fighting went on incessantly between the outposts, but only one great
attempt was made during the early months of the siege to capture the
Confederate position. The miners drove a gallery under the works, and
then drove other galleries right and left under them. These were charged
with eight thousand pounds of powder. When all was ready, masses of
troops were brought up to take advantage of the confusion which would be
caused by the explosion, and a division of black troops were to lead the
assault. At a quarter to five in the morning of the 30th of July the
great mine was exploded, blowing two guns, a battery, and its defenders
into the air, and forming a huge pit two hundred feet long and sixty
feet wide. Lee and Beauregard hurried to the scene, checked the panic
that prevailed, brought up troops, and before the great Federal columns
approached the breach the Confederates were ready to receive them. The
assault was made with little vigor, the approaches to the breach were
obstructed by abattis, and instead of rushing forward in a solid mass
they occupied the great pit, and contented themselves with firing over
the edge of the crater, where regiments and divisions were huddled
together. But the Confederate batteries were now manned, and from the
works on either side of the breach, and from behind, they swept the
approaches, and threw shell among the crowded mass. The black division
was now brought up, and entered the crater, but only added to the
confusion. There was no officer of sufficient authority among the
crowded mass there to assume the supreme command. No assistance could be
sent to them, for the arrival of fresh troops would but have added to
the confusion. All day the conflict went on, the Federals lining the
edge of the crater, and exchanging a heavy musketry fire with the
Confederate infantry, while the mass below suffered terribly from the
artillery fire. When night closed the survivors of the great column that
had marched forward in the morning, confident that victory was assured
to them, and that the explosion would lay Petersburg open to capture,
made their retreat, the Confederates, however, taking a considerable
number of prisoners. The Federal loss in killed, wounded and captured
was admitted by them to be 4,000; the Confederate accounts put it down
at 6,000.
After this terrible repulse it was a long time before Grant again
renewed active operations, but during the months that ensued his troops
suffered very heavily from the effects of fever, heightened by the
discouragement they felt at their want of success, and at the tremendous
losses they had suffered since they entered Virginia on their forward
march to Richmond.