US History/US History (Bureau Development Inc.)(1991).ISO/dp/0020/00205.txt

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$Unique_ID{USH00205}
$Pretitle{14}
$Title{Our Country:  Volume 6
Chapter CXXXVI}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Lossing, Benson J., LL.D.}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{general
army
thousand
lee
confederates
confederate
troops
battle
national
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$Volume{Vol. 6}
$Date{1905}
$Log{}
Book:        Our Country:  Volume 6
Author:      Lossing, Benson J., LL.D.
Volume:      Vol. 6
Date:        1905

Chapter CXXXVI

     Investment and Siege of Vicksburg - Galveston - Banks in Louisiana -
Siege and Surrender of Port Hudson - The Two Armies in Virginia - Peck and
Longstreet at Suffolk - Moseby at Fairfax Court-House - Cavalry Battle -
Cavalry Raids - Movements on Chancellorsville - Battle There - Death of
"Stonewall Jackson" - Sedgewick's Escape - Retreat of the Army of the Potomac
- Siege of Suffolk - The Confederate Army and Service - Power of the
Confederates Abroad - Davis Recognized by the Pope - Napoleon, Mexico, and the
Confederacy - Napoleon's Real Designs - Confederates Invade Maryland and
Pennsylvania - Panic - Operations in Pennsylvania - Battle at Gettysburg -
Seward's Circular.

     AFTER Grant's last assault on Vicksburg, his effective men did not exceed
twenty thousand in number.  He determined to make the capture of Vicksburg an
event of the near future, and called in reinforcements.  They came in such
numbers, that by the middle of June the investment of Vicksburg was made
absolute.  Sherman's corps was on the extreme right, McPherson's next and
extending to the railway, and Ord's (late McClernand's) on the left, the
investment in that direction being made complete by the divisions of Herron
and Lanman, the latter lying across Stout's Bayou, and touching the bluffs on
the river.  Parke's corps, and the divisions of Smith and Kimball, were sent
to Haines's Bluff, where fortifications commanding the land side had been
erected to confront any attempt that Johnston might make in that direction.
Meanwhile Vice-Admiral Porter had made complete and ample arrangements for
the most efficient cooperation on the river, and his skill and zeal were felt
throughout the siege, which continued until the first week in July.

     Every day, shot and shell were hurled upon the city and the insurgent
camps, from land and water.  The inhabitants were compelled to seek shelter in
caves dug out of the clay hills on which the city stands.  In these, whole
families, free and bond, lived for many weeks, while their houses without were
perforated by the iron hail.  Therein children were born, and persons died,
and soldiers sought shelter from the tempest of war.  Very soon famine
afflicted the citizens.  Fourteen ounces of food became a regular allowance
for each person for forty-eight hours.  The flesh of mules made savory dishes
toward the end of the siege.  Finally the besiegers undermined one of the
principal forts of the enemy, in the line of the defenses on the land side,
and it was blown up with fearful effect. Other mines were made ready for the
infernal work, when Pemberton, despairing of expected aid from Johnston, made
a proposition to Grant to surrender the post and his army.  The generals met
under the shadow of a live-oak tree in the rear of the town on the 3rd of July
to arrange the terms of surrender, and on the 4th the stronghold of Vicksburg,
with twenty-seven thousand men and a vast amount of ordnance, and other public
property, were surrendered to the leader of the National forces.

     From the time of the battle at Port Gibson to the fall of Vicksburg,
General Grant had captured thirty thousand prisoners (among them fifteen
general officers), with arms and ammunition for an army of sixty thousand men;
also steamboats, locomotives, railroads, a vast amount of cotton, etc. He had
lost, during that time, nine thousand eight hundred and thirty-three men, of
whom one thousand two hundred and thirty-three had been killed.  By the
experience of those few weeks, he had ascertained the real weakness of the
Confederacy in that region.

     On the night of the 4th of July (1863), the powerful fleet of
Vice-Admiral Porter was lying quietly at the levee at Vicksburg, and in
commemoration of that National holiday our troops regaled the citizens with a
fine display of fireworks more harmless than those which, for more than forty
nights, had coursed the heavens above them like malignant meteors.

     Galveston had been recaptured by the Confederates on the first of
January, 1863 but that victory was rendered almost fruitless by a close
blockade of the post by National vessels.  From that time General Banks had
been cooperating with General Grant, and making efforts to repossess
Louisiana. An expedition under General Weitzel and Commodore McKean Buchanan
took possession of the remarkable Teche country in that State, when Banks
concentrated his troops, about twelve thousand in number, at Baton Rouge
(which was then held by General Grover), for the purpose of assisting
Commodore Farragut in an attempt to pass the formidable batteries at Port
Hudson, twenty-five miles up the Mississippi.  That attempt was made on the
night of the 13th of March, when a terrible contest occurred, in the darkness,
between the vessels and the land batteries.  Only Farragut's flag-ship (the
Hartford) and another succeeded in passing by.

     Banks now sent a large portion of his available troops into the interior
of Louisiana, where General Richard Taylor was in command of a Confederate
force.  The Nationals were concentrated at Brashear City, on the Atchafalaya,
and from that point they marched triumphantly to the Red River, accompanied by
Banks in person.  From Alexandria, early in May, that general wrote to his
Government that the Confederate power in northern and central Louisiana was
broken; and with this impression he moved eastward with his troops, crossed
the Mississippi River, and late in May (1863) invested Port Hudson, then in
command of the Confederate general, Frank Gardner.  For forty days he besieged
that post, during which time many gallant deeds were performed on each side.
Banks was ably assisted by the squadron of Farragut - the Hartford, Albatross,
Monongahela, Richmond, Essex and Tennessee, and some mortar-boats.  Finally,
at the close of June, the ammunition of the closely invested garrison was
almost exhausted.  When news of the fall of Vicksburg reached Gardner, he
perceived that further attempts at resistance would be futile; and on the 9th
of July he surrendered the post to Banks, with much spoil.  The National loss
during the siege was about three thousand men, and that of the Confederates,
exclusive of prisoners, was about eight hundred.  The loss of Vicksburg and
Port Hudson was a severe calamity for the Confederates.  It gave the final
blow in the removal of the obstructions to the navigation of the Mississippi
River by Confederate batteries, and thenceforth it was free. Powerful portions
of the Confederacy were repossessed by the National Government, and wise men
among the enemies of the Republic clearly perceived that their cause was
hopeless.

     At the moment when Vicksburg fell, the Army of the Potomac gained an
equally important victory on the soil of Pennsylvania.  We left that army on
the northern side of the Rappahannock River, near Fredericksburg, in charge of
General Joseph Hooker.  From January to April (1863), he was engaged in
preparing for a vigorous summer campaign.  His forces remained in comparative
quiet for about three months, during which time they were reorganized and
well-disciplined; and at the close of April, his army numbered one hundred
thousand effective men.  General Lee's army, on the other side of the river,
had been divided; a large force under General Longstreet being required to
watch the movements of the Nationals under General Peck, in the vicinity of
Norfolk.  Lee had in hand about sixty thousand well-drilled troops, lying
behind strong intrenchments extending twenty-five miles along the line of the
Rappahannock.  For the space of three months some cavalry movements only,
disturbed the two armies.  General W. H. F. Lee, with a mounted force,
attacked National troops at Gloucester, opposite Yorktown, early in February;
and at midnight of the 8th of March, Colonel Moseby, at the head of a band of
guerrillas, dashed into the village of Fairfax Court-House and carried off the
commander of the Union forces there.  A little later National cavalry under
General Averill and Confederate horsemen led by General Fitzhugh Lee, had a
severe battle near Kelly's Ford, on the Rappahannock, in which the former were
repulsed.  That was the first purely cavalry contest of the war.

     Hooker became impatient.  The time of the enlistment of many of his
troops would soon expire, and he determined to put his army in motion toward
Richmond early in April, notwithstanding his ranks were not full.  Cavalry,
under General Stoneman, were sent to destroy railways in Lee's rear, but were
foiled by high water in the streams.  After a pause, Hooker determined to
attempt to turn Lee's flank, and for that purpose he sent ten thousand mounted
men to raid in his rear.  Then he threw thirty-six thousand troops of his own
right wing across the Rappahannock, with orders to halt and intrench at
Chancellorsville between the Confederate army and Richmond. This movement was
so masked by a demonstration on Lee's front, by Hooker's left wing under
General Sedgwick, that the right was well advanced before Lee was aware of his
peril.  These troops reached Chancellorsville in a region known as The
Wilderness, on the evening of the 30th of April, when Hooker expected to see
Lee, conscious of danger, fly toward Richmond.  He did no such thing, but
proceeded to strike the National army a heavy blow, for the twofold purpose of
seizing the communications between the two parts of that army and compelling
its commander to fight at a disadvantage, with only a portion of his troops in
hand.  For this purpose, Stonewall Jackson was sent with a heavy force, early
in the morning of the first of May, to attack the Nationals, when Hooker sent
out his troops to meet them.  The Confederates moved upon Chancellorsville by
two roads.  A sharp engagement ensued, when the Nationals were pushed back to
defensive position behind their intrenchments; but the efforts of Lee to seize
these works were foiled.

     Both armies were now in a perilous position.  Hooker resolved to rest on
the defensive; but Lee boldly detached the whole of Jackson's command, on the
morning of the 2nd of May, and sent it under cover of the forest curtain of
The Wilderness to make a secret flank movement and gain the rear of the
Nationals.  It was observed by the latter.  Suddenly, Jackson burst from the
woods with twenty-five thousand men, and falling upon Hooker's right, crumbled
it, and sent the astounded column in confusion upon the remainder of the line.
A desperate battle, in which nearly all the troops on both sides participated,
was the consequence.  It lasted until late in the evening, when Jackson fell,
mortally wounded by a bullet sent by mistake, in the gloom, by one of his own
men.  Jackson had been engaged in a personal reconnaissance with his staff and
an escort; and when returning, in the darkness, to his lines, he and his
companions were mistaken by their friends for Union cavalry.

     Hooker now made disposition for a renewal of the conflict on the morning
of the 3rd.  He had called Reynolds's corps of more than twenty thousand men
from Sedgwick, and these arrived late on Saturday evening (the 2nd), swelling
his army to sixty thousand.  Sedgwick, by Hooker's order, had crossed the
Rappahannock, seized Fredericksburg and the Heights, and was pushing on toward
Chancellorsville, when he was checked by troops sent by Lee, and compelled to
retreat across the river at Banks's Ford, to save his army.  This was
accomplished on the night of the 4th and 5th of May.  In the meantime there
had been hard fighting at Chancellorsville.  At dawn on Sunday morning, the
3rd of May, the dashing General Stuart, leading the column of the slain
commander so much loved, shouted, when he saw the Nationals, "Charge, and
remember Jackson!" and then fell heavily upon the troops commanded by General
Sickles.  The conflict was desperate and soon became general; and the National
army, after a long struggle, was finally pushed from the field to a strong
position on the roads Jack of Chancellorsville.

     Lee's army was now united; that of Hooker was yet divided; and hearing of
Sedgwick's critical situation, the latter determined to retreat to the north
side of the Rappahannock.  The Army of the Potomac passed the river in safety
on the night of the 4th, when Lee, unable to follow, resumed his former
position on the Heights of Fredericksburg.  Both armies had lost heavily - the
Nationals over seventeen thousand men including prisoners, and the
Confederates about fifteen thousand.  Meanwhile Stone-man's cavalry had been
raiding on Lee's communications with Richmond, and a part of them, under
Colonel Judson Kilpatrick, had swept down within two miles of that city.  They
destroyed much property, but failed to break up the railway communication
between Lee and the Confederate capital.  So far the raiding was a failure.

     Longstreet, as we have observed, had been sent to confront General Peck
in southeastern Virginia.  The latter was strongly fortified near Suffolk,
where he was besieged by Longstreet early in April, who expected to drive the
Nationals from that post, and seizing Norfolk and its vicinity, make a
demonstration against Fortress Monroe.  He failed; and hearing of the struggle
at Chancellorsville, he abandoned the siege and joined Lee with his large
detachment.

     Lee's army was now strong in material and moral force.  Recent successes
had greatly inspirited it.  It was reorganized into three army corps,
commanded respectively by Generals Longstreet, A. P. Hill, and Ewell.  These
were all able leaders, and each bore the commission of lieutenant-general. And
at no time, probably, during the war was the Confederate army more complete in
numbers, equipment and discipline, or furnished with more ample materials for
carrying on the conflict, than it was at the middle of June, 1863.  According
to the most careful estimates made from the Confederate official returns,
there were then at least five hundred thousand men on the army rolls, and more
than three hundred thousand "present and fit for duty."  Fully one-half of the
white men of the Confederacy eligible to military duty, were then enrolled for
active service, while a large proportion of the other half were in the civil
and military service in other capacities.  Doubtless at least seven-tenths of
the white adults were then in public business; while a large number of slaves,
though legally emancipated, were employed in various labors, such as working
on fortifications, as teamsters, etc.  The following is the form of a voucher
held by the Confederate government as the employer of slaves for such
purposes.  It is copied from the original before me:


     "We, the subscribers, acknowledge to have received of John B. Stannard,
First Corps of Engineers, the sums set opposite our names respectively, being
in full for the services of our slaves on Drewry's Bluff, during the months of
March and April, 1863, having signed duplicate receipts."


     Richmond seemed secure from harm.  Charleston was defiant, and with
reason. Vicksburg and Port Hudson on the Mississippi, though seriously
menaced, seemed impregnable against any force Grant or Banks might array
before them and the appeals of General Johnston, near Jackson, for
reinforcements, were regarded as notes of unnecessary alarm.  The Confederates
were encouraged by their friends in Europe with promises of aid and the
desires of these for the acknowledgment of the independence of the
"Confederate States of America" were strongly manifested.  In England, public
movements in favor of the Confederates were then prominent.  Open-air
meetings, organized by members of the aristocracy, were held, for the purpose
of urging the British government to declare such recognition and in the spring
of 1864 a Southern Independence Association was formed with a British peer
(Lord Wharncliffe) as president, and a membership composed of powerful
representatives of the Church, State, and Trade.  But the British government
wisely hesitated and notwithstanding the unpatriotic Peace-Faction in the
city of New York had, six months before (November, 1862), waited upon Lord
Lyons, the British minister at Washington, with an evident desire to have his
government interfere in our affairs, and thus secure the independence of the
Confederates, and the emissaries of the conspirators were specially active in
Europe, the British ministry, restrained by the good Queen, steadily refused
to take decided action in the matter.  Only the Roman Pontiff, then a temporal
prince, of all the rulers of the earth officially recognized Jefferson Davis
as the head of a real government.

     At the same time, a scheme of the emperor of the French for the
destruction of the Republic of Mexico, and the establishment there of a
monarchy ruled by a man of his own selection, and pledged to act in the
interests of despotism, the Roman Catholic Church and the promotion of the
domination of the Latin race, was in successful operation, by means of twenty
thousand French soldiers and five thousand allied Mexicans.  In this movement,
it is alleged, the leaders of the great insurrection were the secret allies of
the emperor, it being understood that as soon as he should obtain a firm
footing in Mexico he should, for valuable commercial considerations agreed
upon, acknowledge the independence of the Confederate States, and uphold it by
force of arms if necessary; it also being understood that the government which
Davis and his associates were to establish at the close of hostilities should,
in no wise, offend Napoleon's imperialistic ideas.  The slave-holding class
were to be a privileged one, and be the rulers, and the great mass of the
people were to be subordinated to the interests of that class.  Therefore, the
triumphal march of the French invaders of Mexico, in the spring of 1863, was
hailed with delight by the government at Richmond, while the great mass of the
people were ignorant of the conspiracy on foot to deprive them of their sacred
rights.

     At the same time the perfidious emperor was deceiving the Confederate
leaders concerning his real and deeper designs, which were both political and
ecclesiastical.  His political design evidently was to arrest the march of
empire southward on the part of the United States.  His religious design was
to assist the Church party in Mexico, which had been defeated in 1857, in a
recovery of its power, that the Roman Catholic Church might have undisputed
sway in Central America.  In a letter to the Spanish General Prim, in July,
1862, the emperor, after saying that the United States fed the factories of
Europe with cotton, and asserting that it was not the interest of European
governments to have our country hold dominion over the Gulf of Mexico, the
Antilles, and the adjacent continent, he declared that if, with the assistance
of France, Mexico should have a "stable government" - that is, a monarchy -
"we shall have restored to the Latin race upon the opposite side of the ocean,
its strength and prestige, we shall have guaranteed then security to our
colonies in the Antilles, and to those of Spain we shall have established our
beneficent influence in the centre of America; and in this influence, by
creating immense openings to our commerce, will procure to us the matter
indispensable to our industry"- that is, cotton.  This contemplated blow
against our great cotton interest was a prime element in Napoleon's scheme,
for the consummation of which he coquetted with the Confederate leaders, and
deceived them.

     The Confederate government, greatly elated by the events at
Chancellorsville, ordered Lee to invade Maryland again.  His force was now
almost equal in numbers to that of his antagonist, and in better spirits than
were the Army of the Potomac.  By a sudden flank movement, Lee caused Hooker
to break up his encampment on the Rappahannock and move toward Washington,
after some sharp cavalry fights above Fredericksburg.  General Ewell, in
command of Lee's left wing, was sent into the Shenandoah Valley through
Chester Gap, and sweeping down toward the Potomac, drove General Milroy and
seven thousand National troops across that stream, on the 15th of June.
Meanwhile Longstreet, with a strong force, moved along the eastern bases of
the Blue Ridge, watching for an opportunity to fall on Washington city; while
Hooker moved in a parallel line to thwart him. Several cavalry engagements
ensued; and fifteen hundred mounted Confederates dashed across the Potomac in
pursuit of Milroy's wagon-train. They pushed up the Cumberland Valley as far
as Chambersburg, plundering the people and causing intense alarm in all
Pennsylvania.

     Lee had, by skillful movements, kept Hooker in doubt as to his real
object, until Ewell's corps had crossed the Potomac above Harper's Ferry on
the 22nd and 23rd of June, and marched rapidly up the Cumberland Valley to
within a few miles of the Susquehanna opposite Harrisburg, the capital of
Pennsylvania.  Another large body of Confederates, led by General Early,
pushed on through Gettysburg to York, on the Susquehanna, levying
contributions on friend and foe alike.  Ewell and Early were speedily followed
by Hill and Longstreet (June 25, 1863), and again the whole of Lee's army was
in Maryland and Pennsylvania.  It seemed, at one time, as if nothing could
prevent that army penetrating to the Schuylkill and even to the Hudson.  The
panic north of the Potomac was intense.  Valuable goods that were portable
were sent from Philadelphia to points above the Hudson Highlands, for safety.
The people flew to arms everywhere to oppose the invaders.

     The Army of the Potomac was now one hundred thousand strong.  It was
thrown across the river into Maryland, at and near Edwards's Ferry.  Halleck
(the general-in-chief) and Hooker differed most decidedly in opinions about
some important military movements that were proposed, when the latter resigned
and was succeeded by General George G. Meade, who held the command of that
army until the close of the war.  Meade entered upon his duties at Frederick
(June 28), in Maryland, where the Army of the Potomac lay, ready to strike
Lee's communications or to attack him, as circumstances might dictate.

     Lee was preparing to cross the Susquehanna and push on to Philadelphia,
when news reached him that the reinforced Army of the Potomac was threatening
his flank and rear.  Alarmed by this intelligence and the rapid gathering of
the yeomanry on his front, he ordered the concentration of his army near
Gettysburg, with the intention of crushing Meade's forces by a single blow,
and then marching on Baltimore and Washington or, in case of failure, to
secure a direct line of retreat into Virginia.  In the meantime Meade was
pushing toward the Susquehanna with cautious movement; and on the evening of
the 30th of June he discovered Lee's evident intention to give battle at once.

     The National cavalry, meanwhile, had been carefully reconnoitering; and
on the previous day, Kilpatrick's mounted men had a sharp fight at Hanover, a
few miles from Gettysburg, with some of Stuart's cavalry, and, assisted by
General Custer, defeated them.  Buford's division of National cavalry entered
Gettysburg the same day; and the next day the left wing of Meade's army, led
by General J. F. Reynolds, arrived near there.  At the same time the corps of
Hill and Longstreet were approaching from Chambersburg, and Ewell was marching
down from Carlisle in full force.  That night Buford's cavalry, six thousand
strong, encamped between Reynolds and Hill.

     On the morning of the first of July, Buford met the van of Lee's army,
led by General Heth, between Seminary Ridge, a little out of Gettysburg, and a
parallel ridge a little further west, when a sharp skirmish ensued, Reynolds,
who was a few miles distant, hastened to the relief of Buford, and in a severe
battle that followed, he was killed, and General Abner Doubleday took command
of his troops.  In the meantime General O. O. Howard came up with his corps.
Lee's troops were then concentrated there, and the battle soon assumed grander
proportions.  The Nationals were finally pressed back; and under the general
direction of Howard, they took a strong position on a range of rocky hills
near Gettysburg, of which Culp's Hill and Little Round Top were the two
extremes of the line, and Cemetery Hill, at the village, was the apex.  There
the Nationals rested that night, and the Confederates occupied Seminary Ridge.

     General Meade, with the remainder of the Army of the Potomac, now
hastened to Gettysburg, and he and Lee prepared cautiously to renew the
battle.  It did not begin until the middle of the afternoon of the 2d, when
Lee fell, with great weight, upon Meade's left wing commanded by General
Sickles.  A most sanguinary battle ensued, extending to the centre on Cemetery
Hill, where General Hancock was in command.  Heavy masses of Confederates were
hurled against him, and these were thrown back with fearful losses on both
sides.  Meanwhile there had been a terrible struggle on the right and centre
of the Nationals, where Generals Slocum and Howard were in command, the former
on Culp's Hill, and the latter on Cemetery Hill.  Against these a large
portion of Ewell's corps had been sent.  The latter were pushed back by
Howard, but seized and occupied the works of Slocum, on the extreme right of
Culp's Hill, that night.  The battle ended at sunset on the left, but it was
continued until about ten o'clock that night on the right.

     Slocum renewed the battle at four o'clock on the morning of the 3d, when
he drove the Confederates out of his lines after a hard struggle for four
hours.  There he held Ewell in check, while the contest raged elsewhere. Lee,
perceiving the Little Round Top - a steep, rocky eminence - to be impregnable,
proceeded, at a little past noon, to attack the more vulnerable centre.  Upon
this he opened one hundred and forty-five heavy cannon, chiefly against
Cemetery Hill and its vicinity, occupied by Meade's centre.  A hundred
National great guns quickly answered; and for two hours a fearful cannonade
that shook the country around was kept up.  Then the Confederates, in heavy
columns, preceded by a cloud of skirmishers, swept over the plain and assailed
the National line with great fury.  It was intended by Lee to give a crushing
blow that should ensure victory.  A terrible struggle followed, that covered
the ground with the slain - men and horses.  At sunset the Confederates were
repulsed at all points; and the decisive battle of Gettysburg ended in triumph
for the Army of the Potomac. In that fearful struggle, the Nationals lost in
killed, wounded and missing, over twenty-three thousand men; the Confederates
lost about thirty thousand, including fourteen thousand prisoners.

     On the evening of the day after the battle (July 4, 1863) Lee began a
retreat toward Virginia, followed the next day by Meade, who pursued as far as
the Potomac, which had been filled to the brim by heavy rains; but the
Confederate leader, by skillful management, kept the Nationals at bay until he
had made ready to cross that stream by pontoons and fording.  This he did with
his shattered army, his artillery and trains, on the 14th of July, much to the
disappointment of the loyal people.  Perceiving the battle to be a decisive
one in favor of the Union cause, and believing it to be a turning point in the
war, the President of the United States recommended the people to observe the
15th of August next ensuing as a day for public National thanksgiving, praise,
and prayer.  And the Secretary of State (Mr. Seward), satisfied that the
insurrection would soon be ended by the discomfiture of its supporters, sent a
cheering circular to the diplomatic agents of the Republic abroad, in which he
recited the most important events of the war to that time; declared that the
country showed no sign of exhaustion of money, material or men that one loan
was "purchased at par by our citizens at the rate of $1,200,000 daily and that
gold was selling in our markets at 23 to 28 per centum premium, while in the
insurrectionary region it commanded twelve hundred per centum premium."