The Life of Jefferson Davis

The Federal Government was hardly less lavish in the distribution of its enormous resources to Sherman than to Grant. Sherman had proven himself an officer of much enterprise. Intellectually he was the superior of Grant, but not less than other Federal commanders he relied upon superior numbers to overcome the skill and valor of the Confederate armies. Physical momentum was needed to overwhelm Johnston, and was amply supplied. Sherman demanded one hundred thousand men to capture Atlanta, and, by the consolidation of the various armies which had hitherto operated independently in the West, his force attained within a few hundreds of that number.

In painful contrast with this enormous outlay of forces, were the feeble means of the Confederacy. When the season favorable for military operations opened, General Lee confronted Grant upon the Rapidan, and General Johnston faced Sherman near Dalton, in Northern Georgia. Neither of these armies reached fifty thousand men. The undaunted aspect and mien of firm resistance, with which both awaited the perilous onset of the enemy, were, however, assuring of the steady determination which still defended the Confederacy. Critical as was the emergency, the Government and the country yet believed the strength of these two armies equal to the great test of endurance, at least beyond the perils of the present campaign. To hold its own was the primary hope of the Confederacy. If autumn could be reached without decisive victories by the North, and the great Federal sacrifices of spring and summer should then have proven in vain, there was ample ground for hope of those dissensions among the enemy, which, throughout the struggle, constituted so large a share of Confederate expectation.

On the 3d of May, 1864, General Grant initiated the campaign in Virginia, by crossing the Rapidan with his advanced forces; on the 5th, the correspondent movement of Sherman, a thousand miles away, was begun. By the morning of the 5th, one hundred thousand Federal soldiers were across the Rapidan, and on the same day, the first round of the great wrestle occurred. Entertaining no doubt of his capacity to destroy Lee, Grant imagined that his adversary would seek to escape. Having, in advance, proclaimed his contempt for “maneuvres,” he was solicitous only for an opportunity to strike the Confederate army before it should elude his grasp. But Hooker had made the same calculation a year before, and was disappointed, and a like disappointment was now in store for Grant.

Lee had no power either to prevent the Federal crossing of the Rapidan, nor to prevent the turning of his right. Instead of retreating, he immediately assumed the aggressive, and dealt the assailant one of the most effective blows ever aimed by that powerful arm. Three days sufficed to reveal to the Federal commander his miscalculations of his adversary’s designs, and, baffled in all his operations, he already indicated distrust of his system of warfare, and was compelled to attempt by “maneuvre,” what he had failed to effect by brute force. The events of the 5th and 6th of May clearly demonstrated that strategy could not yet be dispensed with in warfare. Indeed, nothing but Lee’s extreme weakness and the untoward wounding of Longstreet, in just such a crisis, and in exactly the same manner as marked the fall of Jackson, prevented the defeat of the Federal campaign in its incipiency. But for these circumstances the Federal Agamemnon would have been completely unhorsed on the 6th of May, and would have added another name to the list of decapitated commanders whom Lee had successively brought to grief. But the luck of Grant did not forsake him, and he still had numbers sufficient to attempt the “hammering” process again. Grant’s first attempt at “maneuvre” was a movement upon Spottsylvania Court-house, a point south-east of the late battle-fields, by which he sought to throw his army between Lee and Richmond. Again he was to be disappointed, and again did the Confederate commander prove himself the master of his antagonist, in every thing that constitutes generalship. The Confederate forces were already at Spottsylvania, when the Federal column reached the neighborhood, and Lee, so cautious in his words, announced to his Government that the enemy had been “repulsed with heavy slaughter.”

But Lee had done far more than foil Grant. He had secured an impregnable position upon the Spottsylvania heights, against which Grant remorselessly, but vainly, dashed his huge columns for twelve days. At the end of that period Lee’s lines were still intact, his mien of resistance still preserved, and the “hammering” generalship of Grant had cost the North nearly fifty thousand veteran soldiers. Men already began to ask the question, to which history will find a ready answer: “What would be the result if the resources of the two commanders were reversed?” Not even the North could fail to see how entirely barren of advantage was all this horrible slaughter. The “shambles of the Wilderness” became the popular phrase descriptive of Grant’s operations, and the Northern public was rapidly reaching the conclusion that the “hammer would itself break on the anvil.”

While the dead-lock at Spottsylvania continued, and Lee held Grant at bay, Richmond was seriously threatened by coöperating movements of the enemy. General Grant had organized a powerful cavalry force under Sheridan, for operations against the Confederate communications. Sheridan struck out boldly in the direction of Richmond, followed closely by the Confederate cavalry. For several days he hovered in the neighborhood of the city, unable to penetrate the line of fortifications, and eventually retired in the direction of James River.

A melancholy incident of this raid of Sheridan was the death, in an engagement near Richmond, of General J. E. B. Stuart, the renowned cavalry leader of the Army of Northern Virginia. This was a severe bereavement to the South, and a serious loss to the army. Stuart’s exploits fill a brilliant chapter of the war in Virginia, and he was probably the ablest cavalry chieftain in the Confederate army. President Davis, who was constantly on the field during the presence of Sheridan near Richmond, deeply deplored the loss of Stuart. The President, not less than General Lee, reposed great confidence in Stuart’s capacity for cavalry command, and the noble character and gallant bearing of Stuart enlisted the warm personal regard of Mr. Davis – a feeling which was heartily reciprocated. Upon the day of his death, Mr. Davis visited the bedside of the dying chief, and remained with him some time. In reply to the question of Mr. Davis, “General, how do you feel?” Stuart replied: “Easy, but willing to die, if God and my country think I have fulfilled my destiny and done my duty.”

The important correspondent movement of Butler upon the south side of James River, began early in May. Ascending the river with numerous transports, Butler landed at Bermuda Hundreds, and advanced against the southern communications of Richmond. The force near the city was altogether inadequate to check the army of Butler, and almost without opposition he laid hold of the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad, and advanced within a few miles of Drewry’s Bluff, the fortifications of which commanded the passage of the river to the Confederate capital. Troops were rapidly thrown forward from the South, and by the 14th May, General Beauregard had reached the neighborhood of Richmond, from Charleston.

Probably at no previous moment of the war was Richmond so seriously threatened, as pending the arrival of Beauregard’s forces. Mr. Davis was, however, resolved to hold the city to the last extremity. Though much indisposed at the time, he was every morning to be seen, accompanied by his staff, riding in the direction of the military lines. Superintending, to a large extent, the disposition of the small force defending the city, he was fully aware of the extreme peril of the situation, but nevertheless determined to share the dangers of the hour. When Beauregard reached the scene the crisis had by no means passed. Unless Butler should be dislodged, not only was Richmond untenable, but it was impossible to maintain Lee’s army north of James River. Yet the force available seemed very inadequate to any thing like a decisive defeat of the enemy. The aggregate of commands from the Carolinas, added to the force previously at Richmond, did not exceed fifteen thousand men, while Butler, with thirty thousand, held a strongly intrenched position.

Immediately upon his arrival, General Beauregard suggested a plan of operations, by which he hoped to destroy Butler, and, without pausing, to inflict a decisive defeat upon Grant. The plan he proposed was that Lee should fall back to the defensive lines of the Chickahominy, even to the intermediate lines of Richmond, temporarily sending fifteen thousand men to the south side of the James, and with this accession of force he proposed to take the offensive against Butler. Pointing out the isolated situation of Butler, he urged the opportunity for his destruction by the concentration of a superior force. Under the circumstances General Beauregard thought the capture of Butler’s force inevitable, and the occupation of his depot of supplies at Bermuda Hundreds a necessary consequence. When these results should be accomplished, he proposed, at a concerted moment, to throw his whole force upon Grant’s flank, while Lee attacked in front. General Beauregard was confident of his ability to make the attack upon Butler, in two days after receiving the desired reënforcements, and was equally confident of the result both against Butler and Grant. His proposition concluded with the declaration that Grant’s fate could not be doubtful if the proposed concentration should be made, and indicated the following gratifying results: “The destruction of Grant’s forces would open the way for the recovery of most of our lost territory.”

Whatever his views as to its feasibility, the President could not refuse a careful consideration of a plan, whose author, in advance, claimed such momentous results. Upon reflection President Davis declined the plan as involving too great a risk, not only of the safety of Richmond, but of the very existence of Lee’s army. The proposition of Beauregard was submitted on the 14th May. At that time the grapple between Grant and Lee was still unrelaxed. Twelve days of battle had cost Lee fifteen thousand men. Meanwhile he had not received a single additional musket, while Grant had nearly supplied his losses by reënforcements from Washington. Thus, while Lee’s force did not reach forty thousand, Grant’s still approximated one hundred and thirty thousand. The President also knew that Grant was at that moment closely pressing Lee, moving toward his left, and seeking either to overlap or break in upon the right flank of Lee.

The proposed detachment of fifteen thousand men from Lee, leaving him not more than twenty-five thousand, in such a crisis, would have been simply madness. Butler, it is possible, might have been destroyed, but the end of the Confederacy would have been hastened twelve months. It is questionable whether, at any moment after Grant crossed the Rapidan, the overmatched army of Lee could have been diminished without fatal disaster. The timely arrival of Longstreet had prevented a serious reverse on the 6th May. Is it reasonable to suppose that Lee could have detached one-third of his army, without Grant’s knowledge, or that the energy of the Federal commander would have permitted an hour’s respite to his sorely-pressed adversary after the discovery? The case would have been altogether different, had Lee been already safe within his works at Richmond. Under the circumstances proposed, he had before him a perilous retrograde, followed by a force four times his own strength, and commanded by the most unrelenting and persistent of officers.

But there was another view of the proposition not to be overlooked by the President in his perilous responsibility. It is true Beauregard promised grand results – nothing less than the total destruction of nearly all the Federal forces in Virginia. In brief, his plan proposed to destroy two hundred thousand men with less than sixty thousand. Again it was true the enemy was to be destroyed in detail – Butler first, and Grant afterwards. There were precedents in history for such achievements. But it should be remembered that if Butler should be immediately destroyed, and if Lee should be guaranteed a safe retrograde, Beauregard would still be able to aid Lee to the extent of but little more than twenty thousand men. This would give Lee less than fifty thousand with which to take the offensive against more than twice that number. Against just such odds Lee had already tried the offensive, and failed because of his weakness. He had assailed Grant under the most favorable circumstances, effecting a complete surprise when the Federal commander believed him already retreating, but was unable to follow up his advantage. Was there reason to believe that any better result would follow from a repetition of the offensive?

Believing himself not justified in hazarding the safety of the Confederacy upon such a train of doubtful conditions, and agreeing with General Beauregard, that Butler could be dislodged from his advanced positions, so menacing to Richmond, Mr. Davis rejected a plan which, under different circumstances, he would have heartily and confidently adopted.

With remarkable promptitude, Beauregard conceived a brilliant plan of battle, and within twenty-four hours had already put it in virtual execution. With fifteen thousand men, he drove Butler from all his advanced works, and confined him securely in the cul de sac of Bermuda Hundreds, where, in a few months, ended the inglorious military career of a man who, in every possible manner, dishonored the sword which he wore, and disgraced the Government which he served. The brilliant conception of Beauregard merited even better results, which were prevented not less by untoward circumstances than by the weakness of his command.

While Beauregard thus effectually neutralized Butler, Grant’s combinations, elsewhere, were brought to signal discomfiture. The expedition from the Kanawha Valley had been, in a measure, successful in its designs against the communications of South-western Virginia, but did not obtain the coöperation designed, by the column moving up the Shenandoah Valley. Sigel, in his advance up the Valley, was encountered at Newmarket by General Breckinridge, who signally defeated him, capturing artillery and stores, and inflicting a heavy loss upon the enemy. Sigel retreated hastily down the Valley.

General Grant, on the 11th of May, proclaimed to his Government his purpose “to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer,” yet, within a week afterwards, he was already meditating another plan of operations. Forty thousand of the bravest soldiers of the Federal army had been vainly sacrificed, and yet the Confederate line remained intact upon the impregnable hills of Spottsylvania. A week was consumed in fruitless search for a weak point in the breastplate of Lee. Grant was again driven to “maneuvre.” Foiled again and again by the great exemplar of strategy, with whom he contended, Grant at no point turned his face towards Richmond without finding Lee across his path. Moving constantly to the left, the 3d of June – exactly one month from the crossing of the Rapidan – found Grant near the Chickahominy, and Lee still facing him. The fortune of war again brought the belligerents upon the old battle-ground of the Peninsula. Just before Lee reached the defenses of Richmond, for the first time during the campaign, he received reënforcements.75 Grant also was strengthened, drawing sixteen thousand men from Butler at Bermuda Hundreds.

On the 3d of June occurred the second battle of Cold Harbor. It was the last experiment of the strictly “hammering” system, unaided by the resources of strategy. It cost Grant thirteen thousand men, and Lee a few hundred. Such was a fitting finale of a campaign avowedly undertaken upon the brutal principle of the mere consumption of life, and in contempt of every sound military precept. Cold Harbor terminated the overland movement of Grant, and he speedily abandoned the line upon which he had proposed “to fight all summer.” Not that he willingly abandoned his “hammering” principle after this additional sacrifice of lives, for he would still have dashed his army against the impregnable wall in his front, but his men recoiled, in the consciousness of an impotent endeavor. They had done all that troops could accomplish, and shrank from that which their own experience told them was impossible. And there should be no wonder that the Federal army was reluctant to be vainly led to slaughter again. For forty days its proven mettle had been subjected to a cruel test, such as even Napoleon, reckless of his men’s lives as he was, had never imposed upon an army. It is safe to say that no troops but Americans could have been held so long to such an enterprise as that attempted by Grant in May, 1864, and none but Americans could have withstood such desperate assaults as were sustained by Lee’s army.

In one month, from the Rapidan to the Chickahominy, more than sixty thousand of the flower of the Federal army had been put hors du combat, and many of the best of its officers, men identified with its whole history, were lost forever. In one month Lee had inflicted a loss greater than the whole of the force which he commanded during the last year of the war! Yet this was the “generalship” of Grant, for which a meeting of twenty-five thousand men in New York returned the “thanks of the nation.” The world was invited, by the sensational press of the North, to admire the “strategy” which had carried the Federal army from the Rapidan to the James, a position which it might have reached by transports without the loss of a man.

For a brief season, hope, positive and well-defined, dawned upon the South. Thus far the problem of endurance was in favor of the Confederacy. Grant’s stupendous combinations against Richmond had broken down. The spirit of the North seemed to be yielding, and again the Federal Government encountered the danger of a collapse of the war.

The battle of Cold Harbor convinced General Grant of the futility of operations against Richmond from the north side of James River. He therefore determined to transfer his army to the south side of the river, and seek to possess himself of the communications southward, and to employ coöperative forces to destroy or occupy the communications of Richmond with Lynchburg and the Shenandoah Valley. This involved new combinations, and Grant still had abundant means to execute them. If successful, this plan would completely isolate Richmond, leaving no avenue of supplies except by the James River Canal, which also would be easily accessible.

Lee could not prevent the transfer of Grant’s army to the south side. Petersburg and Richmond were both to be defended, and his strength was too limited to be divided. Grant made a vigorous dash against Petersburg. He had anticipated an easy capture of that city by a coup de main, but in this he was disappointed. Petersburg was found to be well fortified, and the desperate assaults made by the Federal advanced forces were repulsed. In a few days Lee’s army again confronted Grant, and Richmond and Petersburg were safe.

Thus the system of rushing men upon fortifications failed on the south side not less signally than in the overland campaign. The Federal commander had no alternative but a formal siege of Petersburg. Driven by circumstances beyond his control, General Grant thus assumed a position which, in the end, proved fatal to the Confederacy, and the results of which have exalted him, in the view of millions, to rank among the illustrious generals of history. The south side of James River was always the real key to the possession of Richmond. Sooner or later the Confederate capital must fall, if assailed from that direction with pertinacity, and with such ample means as were given to Grant.

The new Federal combination was in process of execution by the middle of June. After the defeat of Sigel, a large force was organized in the lower valley, and intrusted to the direction of General Hunter, an officer distinguished by fanatical zeal against the section of which he was a native, and by the peculiar cruelty of a renegade. Breckinridge had been withdrawn from the Valley, to Lee’s lines, immediately after his defeat of Sigel, and Hunter without difficulty overwhelmed the small force left under General Jones. Forming a junction with Crook and Averill from North-western Virginia, at Staunton, Hunter advanced upon Lynchburg, meanwhile destroying public and private property indiscriminately, and practicing a system of incendiarism and petty oppression against which even Federal officers protested.

It was necessary to detach a portion of the army from the lines of Richmond to check the demonstration of Hunter. Accordingly, General Early, who had acquired great reputation in the battles upon the Rapidan, was sent with eight thousand men to the Valley. Uniting his forces to those already on the ground, General Early made a vigorous pursuit of Hunter, whose flight was as dastardly as his conduct had been despicable. Retreating with great precipitation through the mountains of Western Virginia, Hunter’s force, for several weeks, bore no relation to operations in Virginia. With the Shenandoah Valley thus denuded of invaders, Early rapidly executed a movement of his forces down the Valley, with a view to a demonstration beyond the Potomac frontier, which was entirely uncovered by Hunter’s retreat. The movement of Early into Maryland caused, as was anticipated, a detachment from Grant’s forces, for the defense of the Federal capital. Advancing with extraordinary vigor, General Early pursued the retreating enemy, defeating them in an engagement near Frederick City, and arrived near Washington on the 10th of July. Warned of the approach of heavy reënforcements from Grant, which must arrive before the works could be carried, Early abandoned his design of an attack upon Washington, and retired across the Potomac, with his extensive and valuable captures.

Signal failure attended the cavalry expeditions sent by Grant against the railroads. Sheridan, while moving northward against Gordonsville and Charlottesville, from which points, after inflicting all possible damage upon the railroads to Richmond, he was to join Hunter at Lynchburg, was intercepted by Wade Hampton, the worthy successor of Stuart, and compelled to abandon his part of the campaign. An extended raid, under Wilson and Kautz, on the south side, also terminated in disaster. The expedition of Burbridge against South-western Virginia was baffled by a counter-movement of Morgan with his cavalry, into Kentucky, the Federal forces following him into that State.

Thus again were all of General Grant’s plans disappointed, and by midsummer the situation in Virginia was altogether favorable to the Confederacy. There was indeed good reason for the evident apprehension of the North, that, after all, Grant’s mighty campaign was a failure. His mere proximity to the Confederate capital signified nothing. All his attempts against both Petersburg and Richmond, whether by strategy or coups de main, had ended in disaster; the Confederate lines were pronounced impregnable by the ablest Federal engineers, and after the ridiculous fiasco of “Burnside’s mine,” the capture of Richmond seemed as remote as ever. To increase public alarm at the North, was added the activity of Lee, his evident confidence in his ability to hold his own, with a diminished force, and even to threaten the enemy with invasion.

The Confederate Government, fully apprized of the momentous results, with which the present year was pregnant, and of the increased peril which assailed the Confederacy, in consequence of its diminished resources, depended upon other influences, than an exhibition of military strength, to promote its designs. The cause of the South could no longer be submitted, unaided, to the arbitrament of battle. At other periods, while freely avowing his desire for peace, and offering to the Federal authorities, opportunity for negotiation, President Davis had relied almost solely upon the sword, as the agency of Southern independence. The opening of the spring campaign of 1864 was deemed a favorable conjuncture for the employment of the resources of diplomacy. To approach the Federal Government directly would be in vain. Repeated efforts had already demonstrated its inflexible purpose not to negotiate with the Confederate authorities. Political developments at the North, however, favored the adoption of some action that might influence popular sentiment in the hostile section. The aspect of the peace party was especially encouraging, and it was evident that the real issue to be decided in the Presidential election, was the continuance or cessation of the war.