John G. Nicolay - A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln

J >> John G. Nicolay >> A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln

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From the Virginia campaigns of 1863 we must return to the Western
campaigns of the same year, or, to be more precise, beginning with the
middle of 1862. When, in July of that year, Halleck was called to
Washington to become general-in-chief, the principal plan he left behind
was that Buell, with the bulk of the forces which had captured Corinth,
should move from that place eastward to occupy eastern Tennessee. Buell,
however, progressed so leisurely that before he reached Chattanooga the
Confederate General Bragg, by a swift northward movement, advanced into
eastern Kentucky, enacted the farce of appointing a Confederate governor
for that State, and so threatened Louisville that Buell was compelled
abruptly to abandon his eastward march and, turning to the north, run a
neck-and-neck race to save Louisville from rebel occupation. Successful
in this, Buell immediately turned and, pursuing the now retreating
forces of Bragg, brought them to bay at Perryville, where, on October 8,
was fought a considerable battle from which Bragg immediately retreated
out of Kentucky.

While on one hand Bragg had suffered defeat, he had on the other caused
Buell to give up all idea of moving into East Tennessee, an object on
which the President had specially and repeatedly insisted. When Halleck
specifically ordered Buell to resume and execute that plan, Buell urged
such objections, and intimated such unwillingness, that on October 24,
1862, he was relieved from command, and General Rosecrans was appointed
to succeed him. Rosecrans neglected the East Tennessee orders as
heedlessly as Buell had done; but, reorganizing the Army of the
Cumberland and strengthening his communications, marched against Bragg,
who had gone into winter quarters at Murfreesboro. The severe engagement
of that name, fought on December 31, 1862, and the three succeeding days
of the new year, between forces numbering about forty-three thousand on
each side, was tactically a drawn battle, but its results rendered it an
important Union victory, compelling Bragg to retreat; though, for
reasons which he never satisfactorily explained, Rosecrans failed for
six months to follow up his evident advantages.

The transfer of Halleck from the West to Washington in the summer of
1862, left Grant in command of the district of West Tennessee. But
Buell's eastward expedition left him so few movable troops that during
the summer and most of the autumn he was able to accomplish little
except to defend his department by the repulse of the enemy at Iuka in
September, and at Corinth early in October, Rosecrans being in local
command at both places. It was for these successes that Rosecrans was
chosen to succeed Buell.

Grant had doubtless given much of his enforced leisure to studying the
great problem of opening the Mississippi, a task which was thus left in
his own hands, but for which, as yet, he found neither a theoretical
solution, nor possessed an army sufficiently strong to begin practical
work. Under the most favorable aspects, it was a formidable undertaking.
Union gunboats had full control of the great river from Cairo as far
south as Vicksburg; and Farragut's fleet commanded it from New Orleans
as far north as Port Hudson. But the intervening link of two hundred
miles between these places was in as complete possession of the
Confederates, giving the rebellion uninterrupted access to the immense
resources in men and supplies of the trans-Mississippi country, and
effectually barring the free navigation of the river. Both the cities
named were strongly fortified, but Vicksburg, on the east bank, by its
natural situation on a bluff two hundred feet high, rising almost out of
the stream, was unassailable from the river front. Farragut had, indeed,
in midsummer passed up and down before it with little damage from its
fire; but, in return, his own guns could no more do harm to its
batteries than they could have bombarded a fortress in the clouds.

When, by the middle of November, 1862, Grant was able to reunite
sufficient reinforcements, he started on a campaign directly southward
toward Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, and sent Sherman, with an
expedition from Memphis, down the river to the mouth of the Yazoo,
hoping to unite these forces against Vicksburg. But before Grant reached
Grenada his railroad communications were cut by a Confederate raid, and
his great depot of supplies at Holly Springs captured and burned,
leaving him for two weeks without other provisions than such as he could
gather by foraging. The costly lesson proved a valuable experience to
him, which he soon put to use. Sherman's expedition also met disaster.
Landing at Milliken's Bend, on the west bank of the Mississippi, he
ventured a daring storming assault from the east bank of the Yazoo at
Haines's Bluff, ten miles north of Vicksburg, but met a bloody repulse.

Having abandoned his railroad advance, Grant next joined Sherman at
Milliken's Bend in January, 1863, where also Admiral Porter, with a
river squadron of seventy vessels, eleven of them ironclads, was added
to his force. For the next three months Grant kept his large army and
flotilla busy with four different experiments to gain a practicable
advance toward Vicksburg, until his fifth highly novel and, to other
minds, seemingly reckless and impossible plan secured him a brilliant
success and results of immense military advantage. One experiment was to
cut a canal across the tongue of land opposite Vicksburg, through which
the flotilla might pass out of range of the Vicksburg guns. A second was
to force the gunboats and transports up the tortuous and swampy Yazoo to
find a landing far north of Haines's Bluff. A third was for the flotilla
to enter through Yazoo Pass and Cold Water River, two hundred miles
above, and descend the Yazoo to a hoped-for landing. Still a fourth
project was to cut a canal into Lake Providence west of the Mississippi,
seventy miles above, find a practicable waterway through two hundred
miles of bayous and rivers, and establish communication with Banks and
Farragut, who were engaged in an effort to capture Port Hudson.

The time, the patience, the infinite labor, and enormous expense of
these several projects were utterly wasted. Early in April, Grant began
an entirely new plan, which was opposed by all his ablest generals, and,
tested by the accepted rules of military science, looked like a headlong
venture of rash desperation. During the month of April he caused Admiral
Porter to prepare fifteen or twenty vessels--ironclads, steam
transports, and provision barges--and run them boldly by night past the
Vicksburg and, later, past the Grand Gulf batteries, which the admiral
happily accomplished with very little loss. Meanwhile, the general, by a
very circuitous route of seventy miles, marched an army of thirty-five
thousand down the west bank of the Mississippi and, with Porter's
vessels and transports, crossed them to the east side of the river at
Bruinsburg. From this point, with an improvised train of country
vehicles to carry his ammunition, and living meanwhile entirely upon the
country, as he had learned to do in his baffled Grenada expedition, he
made one of the most rapid and brilliant campaigns in military history.
In the first twenty days of May he marched one hundred and eighty miles,
and fought five winning battles--respectively Port Gibson, Raymond,
Jackson, Champion's Hill, and Big Black River--in each of which he
brought his practically united force against the enemy's separated
detachments, capturing altogether eighty-eight guns and over six
thousand prisoners, and shutting up the Confederate General Pemberton in
Vicksburg. By a rigorous siege of six weeks he then compelled his
antagonist to surrender the strongly fortified city with one hundred and
seventy-two cannon, and his army of nearly thirty thousand men. On the
fourth of July, 1863, the day after Meade's crushing defeat of Lee at
Gettysburg, the surrender took place, citizens and Confederate soldiers
doubtless rejoicing that the old national holiday gave them escape from
their caves and bomb-proofs, and full Yankee rations to still their
long-endured hunger.

The splendid victory of Grant brought about a quick and important echo.
About the time that the Union army closed around Vicksburg, General
Banks, on the lower Mississippi, began a close investment and siege of
Port Hudson, which he pushed with determined tenacity. When the rebel
garrison heard the artillery salutes which were fired by order of Banks
to celebrate the surrender of Vicksburg, and the rebel commander was
informed of Pemberton's disaster, he also gave up the defense, and on
July 9 surrendered Port Hudson with six thousand prisoners and fifty-one
guns.

Great national rejoicing followed this double success of the Union arms
on the Mississippi, which, added to Gettysburg, formed the turning tide
in the war of the rebellion; and no one was more elated over these
Western victories, which fully restored the free navigation of the
Mississippi, than President Lincoln. Like that of the whole country, his
patience had been severely tried by the long and ineffectual experiments
of Grant. But from first to last Mr. Lincoln had given him firm and
undeviating confidence and support. He not only gave the general quick
promotion, but crowned the official reward with the following generous
letter:

"My Dear General: I do not remember that you and I ever met personally.
I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable
service you have done the country. I wish to say a word further. When
you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you should do
what you finally did--march the troops across the neck, run the
batteries with the transports, and thus go below; and I never had any
faith, except a general hope that you knew better than I, that the Yazoo
Pass expedition and the like could succeed. When you got below and took
Port Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you should go down the
river and join General Banks, and when you turned northward, east of the
Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make the personal
acknowledgment that you were right and I was wrong."

It has already been mentioned that General Rosecrans after winning the
battle of Murfreesboro at the beginning of 1863, remained inactive at
that place nearly six months, though, of course, constantly busy
recruiting his army, gathering supplies, and warding off several
troublesome Confederate cavalry raids. The defeated General Bragg
retreated only to Shelbyville, ten miles south of the battle-field he
had been obliged to give up, and the military frontier thus divided
Tennessee between the contestants. Against repeated prompting and urging
from Washington, Rosecrans continued to find real or imaginary excuses
for delay until midsummer, when, as if suddenly awaking from a long
lethargy, he made a bold advance and, by a nine days' campaign of
skilful strategy, forced Bragg into a retreat that stopped only at
Chattanooga, south of the Tennessee River, which, with the surrounding
mountains, made it the strategical center and military key to the heart
of Georgia and the South. This march of Rosecrans, ending the day before
the Vicksburg surrender, again gave the Union forces full possession of
middle Tennessee down to its southern boundary.

The march completed, and the enemy thus successfully manoeuvered out of
the State, Rosecrans once more came to a halt, and made no further
movement for six weeks. The President and General Halleck were already
out of patience with Rosecrans for his long previous delay. Bragg's
retreat to Chattanooga was such a gratifying and encouraging supplement
to the victories of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, that they felt the
Confederate army should not be allowed to rest, recruit, and fortify the
important gateway to the heart of the Southern Confederacy, and early
in August sent Rosecrans peremptory orders to advance. This direction
seemed the more opportune and necessary, since Burnside had organized a
special Union force in eastern Kentucky, and was about starting on a
direct campaign into East Tennessee.

Finally, obeying this explicit injunction, Rosecrans took the initiative
in the middle of August by a vigorous southward movement. Threatening
Chattanooga from the north, he marched instead around the left flank of
Bragg's army, boldly crossing the Cumberland Mountains, the Tennessee
River, and two mountain ranges beyond. Bragg, seriously alarmed lest
Rosecrans should seize the railroad communications behind him, hastily
evacuated Chattanooga, but not with the intention of flight, as
Rosecrans erroneously believed and reported. When, on September 9, the
left of Rosecrans's army marched into Chattanooga without firing a shot,
the Union detachments were so widely scattered in separating mountain
valleys, in pursuit of Bragg's imaginary retreat, that Bragg believed he
saw his chance to crush them in detail before they could unite.

With this resolve, Bragg turned upon his antagonist but his effort at
quick concentration was delayed by the natural difficulties of the
ground. By September 19, both armies were well gathered on opposite
sides of Chickamauga Creek, eight miles southeast of Chattanooga; each
commander being as yet, however, little informed of the other's position
and strength. Bragg had over seventy-one thousand men; Rosecrans,
fifty-seven thousand. The conflict was finally begun, rather by accident
than design, and on that day and the twentieth was fought the battle of
Chickamauga, one of the severest encounters of the whole war. Developing
itself without clear knowledge on either side, it became a moving
conflict, Bragg constantly extending his attack toward his right, and
Rosecrans meeting the onset with prompt shifting toward his left.

In this changing contest Rosecrans's army underwent an alarming crisis
on the second day of the battle. A mistake or miscarriage of orders
opened a gap of two brigades in his line, which the enemy quickly found,
and through which the Confederate battalions rushed with an energy that
swept away the whole Union right in a disorderly retreat. Rosecrans
himself was caught in the panic, and, believing the day irretrievably
lost, hastened back to Chattanooga to report the disaster and collect
what he might of his flying army. The hopeless prospect, however, soon
changed. General Thomas, second in command, and originally in charge of
the center, had been sent by Rosecrans to the extreme left, and had,
while the right was giving way, successfully repulsed the enemy in his
front. He had been so fortunate as to secure a strong position on the
head of a ridge, around which he gathered such remnants of the beaten
detachments as he could collect, amounting to about half the Union army,
and here, from two o'clock in the afternoon until dark, he held his
semicircular line against repeated assaults of the enemy, with a heroic
valor that earned him the sobriquet of "The Rock of Chickamauga." At
night, Thomas retired, under orders, to Rossville, half way to
Chattanooga.

The President was of course greatly disappointed when Rosecrans
telegraphed that he had met a serious disaster, but this disappointment
was mitigated by the quickly following news of the magnificent defense
and the successful stand made by General Thomas at the close of the
battle. Mr. Lincoln immediately wrote in a note to Halleck:

"I think it very important for General Rosecrans to hold his position at
or about Chattanooga, because, if held, from that place to Cleveland,
both inclusive, it keeps all Tennessee clear of the enemy, and also
breaks one of his most important railroad lines.... If he can only
maintain this position, without more, this rebellion can only eke out a
short and feeble existence, as an animal sometimes may with a thorn in
its vitals."

And to Rosecrans he telegraphed directly, bidding him be of good cheer,
and adding: "We shall do our utmost to assist you." To this end the
administration took instant and energetic measures. On the night of
September 23, the President, General Halleck, several members of the
cabinet, and leading army and railroad officials met in an improvised
council at the War Department, and issued emergency orders under which
two army corps from the Army of the Potomac, numbering twenty thousand
men in all, with their arms and equipments ready for the field, the
whole under command of General Hooker, were transported from their camps
on the Rapidan by railway to Nashville and the Tennessee River in the
next eight days. Burnside, who had arrived at Knoxville early in
September, was urged by repeated messages to join Rosecrans, and other
reinforcements were already on the way from Memphis and Vicksburg.

All this help, however, was not instantly available. Before it could
arrive Rosecrans felt obliged to draw together within the fortifications
of Chattanooga, while Bragg quickly closed about him, and, by
practically blockading Rosecrans's river communication, placed him in a
state of siege. In a few weeks the limited supplies brought the Union
army face to face with famine. It having become evident that Rosecrans
was incapable of extricating it from its peril, he was relieved and the
command given to Thomas, while the three western departments were
consolidated under General Grant, and he was ordered personally to
proceed to Chattanooga, which place he reached on October 22.

Before his arrival, General W.F. Smith had devised and prepared an
ingenious plan to regain control of river communication. Under the
orders of Grant, Smith successfully executed it, and full rations soon
restored vigor and confidence to the Union troops. The considerable
reinforcements under Hooker and Sherman coming up, put the besieging
enemy on the defensive, and active preparations were begun, which
resulted in the famous battle and overwhelming Union victory of
Chattanooga on November 23, 24, and 25, 1863.

The city of Chattanooga lies on the southeastern bank of the Tennessee
River. Back of the city, Chattanooga valley forms a level plain about
two miles in width to Missionary Ridge, a narrow mountain range five
hundred feet high, generally parallel to the course of the Tennessee,
extending far to the southwest. The Confederates had fortified the upper
end of Missionary Ridge to a length of five to seven miles opposite the
city, lining its long crest with about thirty guns, amply supported by
infantry. This formidable barrier was still further strengthened by two
lines of rifle-pits, one at the base of Missionary Ridge next to the
city, and another with advanced pickets still nearer Chattanooga
Northward, the enemy strongly held the end of Missionary Ridge where the
railroad tunnel passes through it; southward, they held the yet stronger
point of Lookout Mountain, whose rocky base turns the course of the
Tennessee River in a short bend to the north.

Grant's plan in rough outline was, that Sherman, with the Army of the
Tennessee, should storm the northern end of Missionary Ridge at the
railroad tunnel; Hooker, stationed at Wauhatchie, thirteen miles to the
southwest with his two corps from the Army of the Potomac, should
advance toward the city, storming the point of Lookout Mountain on his
way; and Thomas, in the city, attack the direct front of Missionary
Ridge. The actual beginning slightly varied this program, with a change
of corps and divisions, but the detail is not worth noting.

Beginning on the night of November 23, Sherman crossed his command over
the Tennessee, and on the afternoon of the twenty-fourth gained the
northern end of Missionary Ridge, driving the enemy before him as far as
the railroad tunnel. Here, however, he found a deep gap in the ridge,
previously unknown to him, which barred his further progress. That same
afternoon Hooker's troops worked their way through mist and fog up the
rugged sides of Lookout Mountain, winning the brilliant success which
has become famous as the "battle above the clouds." That same afternoon,
also, two divisions of the center, under the eyes of Grant and Thomas,
pushed forward the Union line about a mile, seizing and fortifying a
hill called Orchard Knob, capturing Bragg's first line of rifle-pits and
several hundred prisoners.

So far, everything had occurred to inspirit the Union troops and
discourage the enemy. But the main incident was yet to come, on the
afternoon of November 25. All the forenoon of that day Grant waited
eagerly to see Sherman making progress along the north end of Missionary
Ridge, not knowing that he had met an impassable valley. Grant's
patience was equally tried at hearing no news from Hooker, though that
general had successfully reached Missionary Ridge, and was ascending
the gap near Rossville.

At three o'clock in the afternoon Grant at length gave Thomas the order
to advance. Eleven Union brigades rushed forward with orders to take the
enemy's rifle-pits at the base of Missionary Ridge, and then halt to
reform. But such was the ease of this first capture, such the eagerness
of the men who had been waiting all day for the moment of action, that,
after but a slight pause, without orders, and moved by a common impulse,
they swept on and up the steep and rocky face of Missionary Ridge,
heedless of the enemy's fire from rifle and cannon at the top, until in
fifty-five minutes after leaving their positions they almost
simultaneously broke over the crest of the ridge in six different
places, capturing the batteries and making prisoners of the supporting
infantry, who, surprised and bewildered by the daring escalade, made
little or no further resistance. Bragg's official report soundly berates
the conduct of his men, apparently forgetting the heavy loss they had
inflicted on their assailants but regardless of which the Union veterans
mounted to victory in an almost miraculous exaltation of patriotic
heroism.

Bragg's Confederate army was not only beaten, but hopelessly demoralized
by the fiery Union assault, and fled in panic and retreat. Grant kept up
a vigorous pursuit to a distance of twenty miles, which he ceased in
order to send an immediate strong reinforcement under Sherman to relieve
Burnside, besieged by the Confederate General Longstreet at Knoxville.
But before this help arrived, Burnside had repulsed Longstreet who,
promptly informed of the Chattanooga disaster, retreated in the
direction of Virginia. Not being pursued, however, this general again
wintered in East Tennessee; and for the same reason, the beaten army of
Bragg halted in its retreat from Missionary Ridge at Dalton, where it
also went into winter quarters. The battle of Chattanooga had opened the
great central gateway to the south, but the rebel army, still determined
and formidable, yet lay in its path, only twenty-eight miles away.

XXVIII

Grant Lieutenant-General--Interview with Lincoln--Grant Visits
Sherman--Plan of Campaigns--Lincoln to Grant--From the Wilderness to Cold
Harbor--The Move to City Point--Siege of Petersburg--Early Menaces
Washington--Lincoln under Fire--Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley

The army rank of lieutenant-general had, before the Civil War, been
conferred only twice on American commanders; on Washington, for service
in the War of Independence, and on Scott, for his conquest of Mexico. As
a reward for the victories of Donelson, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga,
Congress passed, and the President signed in February, 1864, an act to
revive that grade. Calling Grant to Washington, the President met him
for the first time at a public reception at the Executive Mansion on
March 8, when the famous general was received with all the
manifestations of interest and enthusiasm possible in a social state
ceremonial. On the following day, at one o'clock, the general's formal
investiture with his new rank and authority took place in the presence
of Mr. Lincoln, the cabinet, and a few other officials.

"General Grant," said the President, "the nation's appreciation of what
you have done, and its reliance upon you for what remains to do in the
existing great struggle, are now presented, with this commission
constituting you Lieutenant-General in the Army of the United States.
With this high honor devolves upon you, also, a corresponding
responsibility. As the country herein trusts you, so, under God, it will
sustain you. I scarcely need to add that with what I here speak for the
nation, goes my own hearty personal concurrence."

General Grant's reply was modest and also very brief:

"Mr. President, I accept this commission with gratitude for the high
honor conferred. With the aid of the noble armies that have fought on so
many fields for our common country, it will be my earnest endeavor not
to disappoint your expectations. I feel the full weight of the
responsibilities now devolving on me; and I know that if they are met,
it will be due to those armies, and above all to the favor of that
Providence which leads both nations and men."