A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee Part 21

"They must be attacked! they must be attacked!"

His plan is said to have contemplated a movement of his right wing against the Federal left flank, for which the ground afforded great advantages. All was ready for such a movement, and the orders are said to have been issued, when, as the dawn broke over the hills, the Federal camps were seen to be deserted. General Meade had abandoned his campaign, and was in full retreat toward the Rapidan.

The army immediately moved in pursuit, with Lee leading the column. The disappearance of the enemy was an astounding event to them, and they could scarcely realize it. An entertaining ill.u.s.tration of this fact is found in the journal of a staff-officer, who was sent with an order to General Hampton. "In looking for him," says the writer, "I got far to our right, and in a hollow of the woods found a grand guard of the Eleventh Cavalry, with pickets and videttes out, gravely sitting their horses, and watching the wood-roads for the advance of an enemy who was then retreating across Ely's Ford!" Stuart was pressing their rear with his cavalry, while the infantry were steadily advancing. But the pursuit was vain. General Meade had disappeared like a phantom, and was beyond pursuit, to the extreme regret and disappointment of General Lee, who halted his troops, in great discouragement, at Parker's Store.

"Tell General Stuart," he said, with an air of deep melancholy, to an officer whom he saw pa.s.sing, "that I had received his dispatch when he turned into the Brock Road, and have halted my infantry here, not wishing to march them unnecessarily."

Even at that early hour all chance of effective pursuit was lost. General Meade, without wagons, and not even with the weight of the rations brought over, which the men had consumed, had moved with the rapidity of cavalry, and was already crossing the river far below. He was afterward asked by a gentleman of Culpepper whether in crossing the Rapidan he designed a real advance.

"Certainly," he is reported by the gentleman in question to have replied, "I meant to go to Richmond if I could, but Lee's position was so strong that to storm it would have cost me thirty thousand men. I could not remain without a battle-the weather was so cold that my sentinels froze to death on post."

The pursuit was speedily abandoned by General Lee as entirely impracticable, and the men were marched back between the burning woods, set on fire by the Federal campfires. The spectacle was imposing-the numerous fires, burning outerward in the carpet of thick leaves, formed picturesque rings of flame resembling brilliant necklaces; and, as the flames reached the tall trees, wrapped to the summit in dry vines, these would blaze aloft like gigantic torches-true "torches of war"-let fall by the Federal commander in his hasty retrograde.

Twenty-four hours afterward the larger part of General Lee's army were back in their winter-quarters. In less than a week the Mine-Run campaign had begun and ended. The movement of General Meade might have been compared to that of the King of France and his forty thousand men in the song; but the campaign was not ill devised, was rather the dictate of sound military judgment. All that defeated it was the extreme promptness of Lee, the excellent choice of position, and the beginning of that great system of impromptu breastworks which afterward became so powerful an engine against General Grant.

VI.

LEE IN THE AUTUMN AND WINTER OF 1863.

General Lee's headquarters remained, throughout the autumn and winter of 1863, in a wood on the southern slope of the spur called Clarke's Mountain, a few miles east of Orange Court-House.

Here his tents had been pitched, in a cleared s.p.a.ce amid pines and cedars; and the ingenuity of the "couriers," as messengers and orderlies were called in the Southern army, had fashioned alleys and walks leading to the various tents, the tent of the commanding general occupying the centre. Of the gentlemen of General Lee's staff we have not considered it necessary to speak; but it may here be said that it was composed of officers of great efficiency and of the most courteous manners, from Colonel Taylor, the indefatigable adjutant-general, to the youngest and least prominent member of the friendly group. Among these able a.s.sistants of the commander-in-chief were Colonel Marshall, of Maryland, a gentleman of distinguished intellect; Colonel Peyton, who had entered the battle of Mana.s.sas as a private in the ranks, but, on the evening of that day, for courage and efficiency, occupied the place of a commissioned officer on Beauregard's staff; and others whose names were comparatively unknown to the army, but whose part in the conduct of affairs, under direction of Lee, was most important.

With the gentlemen of his staff General Lee lived on terms of the most kindly regard. He was a strict disciplinarian, and abhorred the theory that a commissioned officer, from considerations of rank, should hold himself above the private soldiers; but there was certainly no fault of this description to be found at army headquarters, and the general and his staff worked together in harmonious cooperation. The respect felt for him by gentlemen who saw him at all hours, and under none of the guise of ceremony, was probably greater than that experienced by the community who looked upon him from a distance. That distant perspective, hiding little weaknesses, and revealing only the great proportions of a human being, is said to be essential generally to the heroic sublime. No man, it has been said, can be great to those always near him; but in the case of General Lee this was far from being the fact. He seemed greater and n.o.bler, day by day, as he was better and more intimately known; and upon this point we shall quote the words of the brave John B. Gordon, one of his most trusted lieutenants:

"It has been my fortune in life," says General Gordon, "from circ.u.mstances, to have come in contact with some whom the world p.r.o.nounced great-some of the earth's celebrated and distinguished; but I declare it here to-day, that of any mortal man whom it has ever been my privilege to approach, he was the greatest; and I a.s.sert here, that, grand as might be your conception of the man before, he arose in incomparable majesty on more familiar acquaintance. This can be affirmed of few men who have ever lived or died, and of no other man whom it has ever been my fortune to approach. Like Niagara, the more you gazed, the more its grandeur grew upon you, the more its majesty expanded and filled your spirit with a full satisfaction that left a perfect delight without the slightest feeling of oppression. Grandly majestic and dignified in all his deportment, he was genial as the sunlight of this beautiful day; and not a ray of that cordial social intercourse but brought warmth to the heart as it did light to the understanding."

Upon this point, General Breckinridge, too, bears his testimony: "During the last year of that unfortunate struggle," he says, "it was my good fortune to spend a great deal of time with him. I was almost constantly by his side, and it was during the two months immediately preceding the fall of Richmond that I came to know and fully understand the true n.o.bility of his character. In all those long vigils, he was considerate and kind, gentle, firm, and self-poised. I can give no better idea of the impression it made upon me, than to say it inspired me with an ardent love of the man and a profound veneration of his character. It was so ma.s.sive and n.o.ble, so grand in its proportions, that all men must admire its heroism and gallantry, yet so gentle and tender that a woman might adopt and claim it as her own."

We beg the reader to observe that in these two tributes to the worth of the great soldier, his distinguished a.s.sociates dwell with peculiar emphasis upon the charms of private intercourse with him, and bear their testimony to the fact that to know him better was to love and admire him more and more. The fact is easily explained. There was in this human being's character naught that was insincere, a.s.sumed, or pretentious. It was a great and ma.s.sive soul-as gentle, too, and tender, as a woman's or a child's-that lay beneath the reserved exterior, and made the soldier more beloved as its qualities were better known. Other men reveal their weaknesses on nearer acquaintance-Lee only revealed his greatness; and he was more and more loved and admired.

The justice of these comments will be recognized by all who had personal intercourse with the ill.u.s.trious soldier; and, in this autumn and winter of 1863, his army, lying around him along the Rapidan, began to form that more intimate acquaintance which uniformly resulted in profound admiration for the man. In the great campaigns of the two past years the gray soldier had shared their hardships, and never relaxed his fatherly care for all their wants; he had led them in battle, exposing his own person with entire indifference; had never exposed them when it was possible to avoid it; and on every occasion had demanded, often with disagreeable persistence from the civil authorities, that the wants of his veterans should be supplied if all else was neglected. These facts were now known to the troops, and made Lee immensely popular. From the highest officers to the humblest private soldiers he was universally respected and beloved. The whole army seemed to feel that, in the plainly-clad soldier, sleeping, like themselves, under canvas, in the woods of Orange, they had a guiding and protecting head, ever studious of their well-being, jealous of their hard-earned fame, and ready, both as friend and commander, to represent them and claim their due.

We have spoken of the great revival of religion which at this time took place in the army. The touching spectacle was presented of bearded veterans, who had charged in a score of combats, kneeling devoutly under the rustic roofs of evergreens, built for religious gatherings, and praying to the G.o.d of battles who had so long protected them. A commander-in-chief of the old European school might have ridiculed these emotional a.s.semblages, or, at best, pa.s.sed them without notice, as freaks in which he disdained to take part. Lee, on the contrary, greeted the religious enthusiasm of his troops with undisguised pleasure. He went among them, conversed with the chaplains, a.s.sisted the good work by every means in his power; and no ordained minister of the Gospel could have exhibited a simpler, sincerer, or more heartfelt delight than himself at the general extension of religious feeling throughout the army. We have related how, in talking with army-chaplains, his cheeks flushed and his eyes filled with tears at the good tidings. He begged them to pray for him too, as no less needing their pious intercession; and in making the request he was, as always, simple and sincere. Unaccustomed to exhibit his feelings upon this, the profoundest and most sacred of subjects, he was yet penetrated to his inmost soul by a sense of his own weakness and dependence on divine support; and, indeed, it may be questioned whether any other element of the great soldier's character was so deep-seated and controlling as his spirit of love to G.o.d. It took, in the eyes of the world, the form of a love of duty; but with Lee the word duty was but another name for the will of the Almighty; and to discover and perform this was, first and last, the sole aim of his life.

We elaborate this point before pa.s.sing to the last great campaign of the war, since, to understand Lee in those last days, it is absolutely necessary to keep in view this utter subjection of the man's heart to the sense of an overruling Providence-that Providence which "shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will." We shall be called upon to delineate the soldier meeting adverse circ.u.mstances and disaster at every turn with an imperial calmness and a resolution that never shook; and, up to a certain point, this n.o.ble composure may be attributed to the stubborn courage of the man's nature. There came in due time, however, a moment of trial when military courage simply was of no avail-when that human being never lived, who, looking to earthly support alone, would not have lost heart and given up the contest. Lee did not, in this hour of conclusive trial, either lose heart or give up the struggle; and the world, not understanding the phenomenon, gazed at him with wonder. Few were aware of the true explanation of his utter serenity when all things were crumbling around him, and when he knew that they were crumbling. The stout heart of the soldier who will not yield to fate was in his breast; but he had a still stronger sentiment than manly courage to support him-the consciousness that he was doing his duty, and that G.o.d watched over him, and would make all things work together for good to those who loved Him.

As yet that last great wrestle of the opposing armies lay in the future. The veterans of the Army of Northern Virginia defended the line of the Rapidan, and the gray commander-in-chief, in his tent on Clarke's Mountain, serenely awaited the further movements of the enemy. During the long months of winter he was busily engaged, as usual, in official correspondence, in looking to the welfare of his men, and in preparations for the coming campaign. He often rode among the camps, and the familiar figure in the well-known hat, cape, and gray uniform, mounted upon the powerful iron-gray-the famous "Traveller," who survived to bear his master after the war-was everywhere greeted by the ragged veterans with cheers and marks of the highest respect and regard. At times his rides were extended to the banks of the Rapidan, and, in pa.s.sing, he would stop at the headquarters of General Stuart, or other officers. On these occasions he had always some good-humored speech for all, not overlooking the youngest officer; but he shone in the most amiable light, perhaps, in conversing with some old private soldier, gray-haired like himself. At such moments the general's countenance was a pleasant spectacle. A kindly smile lit up the clear eyes, and moved the lips half-concealed by the grizzled mustache. The bonhomie of this smile was irresistible, and the aged private soldier, in his poor, tattered fighting-jacket, was made to feel by it that his commander-in-chief regarded him as a friend and comrade.

We dwell at too great length, perhaps, upon these slight personal traits of the soldier, but all relating to such a human being is interesting, and worthy of record. To the writer, indeed, this is the most attractive phase of his subject. The a.n.a.lysis and description of campaigns and battles is an unattractive task to him; but the personal delineation of a good and great man, even in his lesser and more familiar traits, is a pleasing relief-a portion of his subject upon which he delights to linger. What the writer here tries to draw, he looked upon with his own eyes, the figure of a great, calm soldier, with kindly sweetness and dignity, but, above all, a charming sincerity and simplicity in every movement, accent, and expression. Entirely free from the trappings of high command, and with nothing to distinguish him from any other soldier save the well-worn stars on the collar of his uniform-coat, the commander-in-chief was recognizable at the very first glance, and no less the simple and kindly gentleman. His old soldiers remember him as he appeared on many battle-fields, and will describe his martial seat in the saddle as he advanced with the advancing lines. But they will speak of him with even greater pleasure as he appeared in the winters of 1862 and 1863, on the Rappahannock and the Rapidan-a gray and simple soldier, riding among them and smiling kindly as his eyes fell upon their tattered uniforms and familiar faces.

PART VIII.

LEE'S LAST CAMPAIGNS AND LAST DAYS.

I.

GENERAL GRANT CROSSES THE RAPIDAN.

In the first days of May, 1864, began the immense campaign which was to terminate only with the fall of the Confederacy.

For this, which was regarded as the decisive trial of strength, the Federal authorities had made elaborate preparations. New levies were raised by draft to fill up the ranks of the depleted forces; great ma.s.ses of war material were acc.u.mulated at the central depots at Washington, and the Government summoned from the West an officer of high reputation to conduct hostilities on what was more plainly than ever before seen to be the theatre of decisive conflict-Virginia. The officer in question was General Ulysses S. Grant, who had received the repute of eminent military ability by his operations in the West; he was now commissioned lieutenant-general, and President Lincoln a.s.signed him to the command of "all the armies of the United States," at that time estimated to number one million men.

General Grant promptly accepted the trust confided to him, and, relinquishing to Major-General Sherman the command of the Western forces, proceeded to Culpepper and a.s.sumed personal command of the Army of the Potomac, although nominally that army remained under command of General Meade. The spring campaign was preceded, in February, by two movements of the Federal forces: one the advance of General B.F. Butler up the Peninsula to the Chickahominy, where for a few hours he threatened Richmond, only to retire hastily when opposed by a few local troops; the other the expedition of General Kilpatrick with a body of cavalry, from the Rapidan toward Richmond, with the view of releasing the Federal prisoners there. This failed completely, like the expedition up the Peninsula. General Kilpatrick, after threatening the city, rapidly retreated, and a portion of his command, under Colonel Dahlgren, was pursued, and a large portion killed, including their commander. It is to be hoped, for the honor of human nature, that Colonel Dahlgren's designs were different from those which are attributed to him on what seems una.s.sailable proof. Papers found upon his body contained minute directions for releasing the prisoners and giving up the city to them, and for putting to death the Confederate President and his Cabinet.

To return to the more important events on the Rapidan. General Grant a.s.sumed the direction of the Army of the Potomac under most favorable auspices. Other commanders-especially General McClellan-had labored under painful disadvantages, from the absence of cooperation and good feeling on the part of the authorities. The new leader entered upon the great struggle under very different circ.u.mstances. Personally and politically acceptable to the Government, he received their hearty cooperation: all power was placed in his hands; he was enabled to concentrate in Virginia the best troops, in large numbers; and the character of this force seemed to promise him a.s.sured victory. General McClellan and others had commanded troops comparatively raw, and were opposed by Confederate armies in the full flush of antic.i.p.ated success. General Grant had now under him an army of veterans, and the enemy he was opposed to had, month by month, lost strength. Under these circ.u.mstances it seemed that he ought to succeed in crushing his adversary.

The Federal army present and ready for duty May 1, 1864, numbered one hundred and forty-one thousand one hundred and sixty-six men. That of General Lee numbered fifty-two thousand six hundred and twenty-six. Colonel Taylor, adjutant-general of the Army, states the strictly effective at a little less, viz.:

Ewell 13,000 Hill 17,000 Longstreet 10,000 Infantry 40,000 Cavalry and artillery 10,000 Total 50,000

The two statements do not materially differ, and require no discussion. The force at Lee's command was a little over one-third of General Grant's; and, if it be true that the latter commander continued to receive reenforcements between the 1st and 4th days of May, when he crossed the Rapidan, Lee's force was probably less than one-third of his adversary's.

Longstreet, it will be seen, had been brought back from the West, but the Confederates labored under an even more serious disadvantage than want of sufficient force. Lee's army, small as it was, was wretchedly supplied. Half the men were in rags, and, worse still, were but one-fourth fed. Against this suicidal policy, in reference to an army upon which depended the fate of the South, General Lee had protested in vain. Whether from fault in the authorities or from circ.u.mstances over which they could exercise no control, adequate supplies of food did not reach the army; and, when it marched to meet the enemy, in the first days of May, the men were gaunt, half-fed, and in no condition to enter upon so arduous a campaign. There was naught to be done, however, but to fight on to the end. Upon the Army of Northern Virginia, depleted by casualties, and unprovided with the commonest necessaries, depended the fate of the struggle. Generals Grant and Lee fully realized that fact; and the Federal commander had the ac.u.men to perceive that the conflict was to be long and determined. He indulged no antic.i.p.ations of an early or easy success. His plan, as stated in his official report, was "to hammer continuously against the armed force of the enemy and his resources, until by mere attrition, if by nothing else, there should be nothing left of him but an equal submission with the loyal section of our common country to the Const.i.tution and the laws." The frightful cost in blood of this policy of hammering continuously and thus wearing away his adversary's strength by mere attrition, did or did not occur to General Grant. In either case he is not justly to be blamed.

It was the only policy which promised to result in Federal success. Pitched battles had been tried for nearly three years, and in victory or in defeat the Southern army seemed equally unshaken and dangerous. This fact was now felt and acknowledged even by its enemies. "Lee's army," said a Northern writer, referring to it at this time, "is an army of veterans: it is an instrument sharpened to a perfect edge. You turn its flanks-well, its flanks are made to be turned. This effects little or nothing. All that we reckon as gained, therefore, is the loss of life inflicted on the enemy." With an army thus trained in many combats, and hardened against misfortune, defeat in one or a dozen battles decided nothing. General Grant seems to have understood this, and to have resolutely adopted the programme of "attrition"-coldly estimating that, even if he lost ten men to General Lee's one, he could better endure that loss, and could afford it, if thereby he "crushed the rebellion."

The military theory of the Federal commander having thus been set forth in his own words, it remains to notice his programme for the approaching campaign. He had hesitated between two plans-"one to cross the Rapidan below Lee, moving by his right flank; the other above, moving by his left." The last was abandoned, from the difficulty of keeping open communication with any base of supplies, and the latter adopted. General Grant determined to "fight Lee between Culpepper and Richmond, if he would stand;" to advance straight upon the city and invest it from the north and west, thereby cutting its communications in three directions; and then, crossing the James River above the city, form a junction with the left of Major-General Butler, who, moving with about thirty thousand men from Fortress Monroe, at the moment when the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan, was to occupy City Point, advance thence up the south side of James River, and reach a position where the two armies might thus unite.

It is proper to keep in view this programme of General Grant. Lee completely reversed it by promptly moving in front of his adversary at every step which he took in advance; and it will be seen that the Federal commander was finally compelled to adopt a plan which does not seem to have entered his mind, save as a dernier ressort, at the beginning of the campaign.

On the morning of the 4th of May, General Grant commenced crossing the Rapidan at Germanna and other fords above Chancellorsville, and by the morning of the 5th his army was over. It appears from his report that he had not antic.i.p.ated so easy a pa.s.sage of the stream, and greatly felicitated himself upon effecting it so successfully. "This I regarded," he says, "as a great success, and it removed from my mind the most serious apprehension I had entertained, that of crossing the river in the face of an active, large, well-appointed, and ably-commanded army." Lee had made no movement to dispute the pa.s.sage of the stream, from the fact, perhaps, that his army was not either "large" or "well-appointed." He preferred to await the appearance of his adversary, and direct an a.s.sault on the flank of his column as it pa.s.sed across his front. From a speech attributed to General Meade, it would seem to have been the impression in the Federal army that Lee designed falling back to a defensive position somewhere near the South Anna. His movements were, however, very different. Instead of retiring before General Grant in the direction of Richmond, he moved with his three corps toward the Wilderness, to offer battle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Routes of Lee & Grant, May and June 1864.]

The head of the column consisted of Ewell's corps, which had retained its position on the Rapidan, forming the right of Lee's line. General A.P. Hill, who had been stationed higher up, near Liberty Mills, followed; and Longstreet, who lay near Gordonsville, brought up the rear. These dispositions dictated, as will be seen, the positions of the three commands in the ensuing struggle. Ewell advanced in front down the Old Turnpike, that one of the two great highways here running east and west which is nearest the Rapidan; Hill came on over the Orange Plank-road, a little south of the turnpike, and thus formed on Ewell's right; and Longstreet, following, came in on the right of Hill.

General Grant had plunged with his army into the dense and melancholy thicket which had been the scene of General Hooker's discomfiture. His army, followed by its great train of four thousand wagons, indicating the important nature of the movement, had reached Wilderness Tavern and that Brock Road over which Jackson advanced in his secret flank-march against the Federal right in May, 1863. In May of 1864, now, another Federal army had penetrated, the sombre and depressing shadows of the interminable thickets of the Wilderness, and a more determined struggle than the first was to mark with its b.l.o.o.d.y hand this historic territory.

II.

THE FIRST COLLISION IN THE WILDERNESS.

To understand the singular combat which now ensued, it is necessary to keep in view the fact that nothing more surprised General Grant than the sudden appearance of his adversary face to face with him in the Wilderness.

It had not been supposed, either by the lieutenant-general or his corps-commanders, that Lee, with his small army, would have recourse to a proceeding so audacious. It was antic.i.p.ated, indeed, that, somewhere on the road to Richmond, Lee would make a stand and fight, in a carefully-selected position which would enable him to risk collision with his great adversary; but that Lee himself would bring on this collision by making an open attack, una.s.sisted by position of any sort, was the last thing which seems to have occurred to his adversary.

Such, however, as has been said, was the design, from the first, of the Southern commander, and he moved with his accustomed celerity and energy. As soon as General Grant broke up his camps north of the Rapidan, Lee was apprised of the fact, and ordered his three corps to concentrate in the direction of Chancellorsville. Those who were present in the Southern army at this time will bear record to the soldierly promptness of officers and men. On the evening of the 3d of May the camps were the scenes of noise, merriment, and parade: the bands played; the woods were alive; nothing disturbed the scene of general enjoyment of winter-quarters. On the morning of the 4th all this was changed. The camps were deserted; no sound was anywhere heard; the troops were twenty miles away, fully armed and ready for battle. General Lee was in the saddle, and his presence seemed to push forward his column. Ewell, marching with celerity, bivouacked that night directly in face of the enemy; and it was the suddenly-discovered presence of the troops of this commander which arrested General Grant, advancing steadily in the direction of Spottsylvania Court-House.

He must have inwardly chafed at a circ.u.mstance so unexpected and embarra.s.sing. It had been no part of his plan to fight in the thickets of the Wilderness, and yet an adversary of but one-third his own strength was about to reverse his whole programme, and dictate the terms of the first battles of the campaign. There was nothing to do, however, but to fight, and General Grant hastened to form order of battle for that purpose, with General Sedgwick commanding his right, Generals Warren and Burnside his centre, and General Hanc.o.c.k his left, near the Brock Road. The line thus formed extended from northwest to southeast, and, as the right wing was in advance with respect to Lee, that circ.u.mstance occasioned the first collision.

This occurred about mid-day on the 5th of May, and was brought on by General Warren, who attacked the head of Swell's column, on the Old Turnpike. An obstinate engagement ensued, and the division which received the a.s.sault was forced back. It quickly, however, reformed, and being reenforced advanced in turn against General Warren, and, after a hard fight, he was driven back with a loss of three thousand men and two pieces of artillery.

This first collision of the armies on the Confederate left was followed almost immediately by a b.l.o.o.d.y struggle on the centre. This was held by A.P. Hill, who had marched down the Plank-road, and was near the important point of junction of that road with the Brock Road, when he was suddenly attacked by the enemy. The struggle which ensued was long and determined. General Lee wrote: "The a.s.saults were repeated and desperate, but every one was repulsed." When night fell, Hill had not been driven back, but had not advanced; and the two armies rested on their arms, awaiting the return of light to continue the battle.

III.

THE BATTLE OF THE 6TH OF MAY.