American Men of Action Part 15

So pa.s.sed the era of the Revolution, and for thirty years the new country was called upon to face no foreign foe; but pressing upon her frontier was an enemy strong and cruel, who knew not the meaning of the word "peace." Set on by the British during the Revolution, the Indians continued their warfare long after peace had been declared. In the wilderness north of the Ohio they had their villages, from which they issued time after time to attack the white settlements to the south and east. No one knew when or where they would strike, and every village and hamlet along the frontier was liable to attack at any time. The farmer tilling his fields was shot from ambush; the hunter found himself hunted; children were carried away to captivity, and women, looking up from their household work, found an Indian on the threshold.

The land which the Indians held was so beautiful and fertile that settlers ventured into it, despite the deadly peril, and in 1787, the Northwest Territory was formed by Congress, and General Arthur St.

Clair appointed its governor. A Scotchman, brave but impulsive, with a good military training, St. Clair had made an unfortunate record in the Revolution. Put in command of the defenses of Ticonderoga in the summer of 1777, to hold it against the advancing British army under Burgoyne, he had permitted the enemy to secure possession of a position which commanded the fort, and he was forced to abandon it. The British started in hot pursuit, and several actions took place in which the Americans lost their baggage and a number of men. St. Clair had really been placed in an impossible position, but his forced abandonment of the fort impressed the public very unfavorably. He still had the confidence of Washington, who a.s.signed him to the important task of governing the new Northwest Territory, and subduing the Indians who overran it. With Braddock's bitter experience still vividly before him, Washington warned St. Clair to beware of a surprise in any expedition he might lead against the Indians, and the events which followed showed how badly that warning was needed.

In the fall of 1791, St. Clair collected a large force at Fort Washington, on the site of the present city of Cincinnati, and prepared to advance against the Miami Indians. He had fourteen hundred men, but he himself was suffering with gout and had to be conveyed most of the way in a hammock. By the beginning of November, the army had reached the neighborhood of the Miami villages, and there, on the morning of the fourth, was surprised, routed and cut to pieces. Less than five hundred escaped from the field, the Indians spreading along the road and shooting down the crazed fugitives at leisure. St. Clair's military reputation had received its death blow, but Washington, with wonderful forbearance, permitted him to retain the governorship of the Territory, from which he was removed by Jefferson in 1802. He lived sixteen years longer, poor and dest.i.tute, having used his own fortune to defray the expenses of his troops in the Revolution--a debt which, to the lasting disgrace of the government, it neglected to cancel. He grew old and feeble, and was thrown from a wagon, one day, and killed. Upon the little stone which marks his grave is this inscription: "The earthly remains of Major-General Arthur St. Clair are deposited beneath this humble monument, which is erected to supply the place of a n.o.bler one due from his country."

The task which proved St. Clair's ruin was to be accomplished by another survivor of the Revolution--"Mad" Anthony Wayne; "Mad" because of his fury in battle, the fierceness of his charge, and his recklessness of danger--attributes which he shared with Benedict Arnold. He was thirty years of age at the opening of the Revolution, handsome, full of fire, and hungering for glory. He was to win his full share of it, and to prove himself, next to Washington and Greene, the best general in the army.

His favorite weapon was the bayonet, and he drilled his troops in the use of it until they were able to withstand the shock of the renowned British infantry, who have always prided themselves on their prowess with cold steel. His first service was with Arnold in Canada; he was with Washington at the Brandywine; and at Germantown, hurling his troops upon the Hessians, he drove them back at the point of the bayonet, and retreated only under orders when the general attack failed. At Monmouth, it was he and his men who, standing firm as a rock, repulsed the first fierce bayonet charge of the British guards and grenadiers.

So it is not remarkable that, when Washington found an unusually hazardous piece of work in hand, he should have selected Wayne to carry it through. The British held a strong fort called Stony Point, which commanded the Hudson and which Washington was anxious to capture. It was impossible to besiege it, since British frigates held the river, and it was so strong that an open a.s.sault could never carry it. It stood on a rocky promontory, surrounded on three sides by water and connected with the land only by a narrow, swampy neck. The only chance to take the place was by a night attack, and Wayne eagerly welcomed the opportunity to try it.

On the afternoon of July 15, 1779, Wayne, at the head of about thirteen hundred men, started for the fort. He arrived near it after nightfall, and dividing his force into three columns, moved forward to the attack.

He relied wholly upon the bayonet, and not a musket was loaded. The advance was soon discovered by the British sentries, and a heavy fire opened upon the Americans, but they pressed forward, swarmed up the long, sloping embankment of the fort, and in a moment were over the walls.

A bullet struck Wayne in the head, and he staggered and fell. Two of his officers caught him up and started to take him to the rear, but he struggled to his feet.

"No, no," he cried, "I'm going in at the head of my men! Take me in at the head of my men!"

And at the head of his men he was carried into the fort.

For a few moments, the bayonets flashed and played, then the British broke and ran, and the fort was won. No night attack was ever delivered with greater skill and boldness.

Wayne soon recovered from his wound, and took an active part in driving Cornwallis into the trap at Yorktown. Then he had retired from the army, expecting to spend the remainder of his life in peace; but Washington, remembering the man, knew that he was the one above all others to teach the Ohio Indians a lesson, and called him to the work. Wayne accepted the task, and five thousand men were placed under his command and started westward over the mountains.

He spent the winter in organizing and drilling his forces on the bank of the Ohio where Cincinnati now stands, but which was then merely a fort and huddle of houses. He made the most careful preparations for the expedition, and early in the spring, he commenced his march northward into the Indian country. The savages gathered to repulse him at a spot on the Maumee where, years before, a tornado had cut a wide swath through the forest, rendering it all but impenetrable. Here, on the twentieth of August, 1794, he advanced against the enemy, and, throwing his troops into the "Fallen Timbers," in which the Indians were ambushed, routed them out, cut them down, and administered a defeat so crushing that they could not rally from it, and their whole country was laid waste with fire and sword. Wayne did his work well, burning their villages, and destroying their crops, so that they would have no means of sustenance during the coming winter. Thoroughly cowed by this treatment, the Indians sued for peace, and at Greenville, nearly a year later, Wayne made a treaty in which twelve tribes took part. It marked the beginning of a lasting peace, which opened the "Old Northwest" to the white settler.

No soldier of the Revolution, with the exception of Washington, was elevated to the presidency, nor did any of them attain an exalted place in the councils of the Nation. Statecraft and military genius rarely go hand in hand, and it was not until 1828 that a man whose reputation had been made chiefly on the battlefield was sent to the White House. Andrew Jackson was the only soldier, with one exception, who came out of the War of 1812 with any great reputation, and it is only fair to add that his victory at New Orleans was due more to the rashness of the British in advancing to a frontal attack against a force of entrenched sharpshooters than to any remarkable generalship on the American side.

The war with Mexico found two able generals ready to hand, and laid the foundations of the reputations of many more. "Old Rough and Ready"

Zachary Taylor, who commanded during the campaign which ended with the brilliant victory at Buena Vista, had been tested in the fire of frontier warfare, and won the presidency in 1848; and Franklin Pierce, who commanded one of the divisions which captured the City of Mexico, won the same prize four years later. It was in this war that Grant, Lee, Johnston, Davis, Meade, Hooker, Thomas, Sherman, and a score of others who were to win fame fifteen years later, got their baptism of fire.

Their history belongs to the period of the Civil War and will be told there; but the chief military glory of the war with Mexico centres about a man who divided the honors of the War of 1812 with Andrew Jackson but who failed to achieve the presidency, and whose usefulness had ended before the Civil War began--Winfield Scott.

A Virginian, born in 1786, Scott entered the army at an early age, and had reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel at the opening of the second war with England. Two years later, he was made a brigadier-general, and commanded at the fierce and successful battles of Chippewa and Lundy's Lane. At the close of the war, he was made a major-general, and received the thanks of Congress for his services. In 1841, he became commander-in-chief of the armies of the United States; but, at the opening of the war with Mexico, President Polk, actuated by partisan jealousy, kept Scott in Washington and a.s.signed Zachary Taylor to the command of the armies in the field. Scott had already an enviable reputation, and had been an aspirant for the presidency, and Polk feared that a few victories would make him an invincible candidate. Perhaps he was afraid that Scott would develop into another Andrew Jackson.

However, it was impossible to keep the commander-in-chief of the army inactive while a great war was in progress, and early in 1847, he was sent to the front, and on March 9 began one of the most successful and brilliant military campaigns in history. Landing before Vera Cruz, he captured that city after a bombardment of twenty days, and, gathering his army together, started on an overland march for the capital of Mexico. Santa Anna, with a great force, awaited him in a strong position at Cerro Gordo, but Scott seized the key of it in a lofty height commanding the Mexican position, and soon won a decisive victory. The American army swept on like a tidal wave, and city after city fell before it, until, on the twentieth of August, it reached the city of the Montezumas. An armistice delayed the advance until September 7, but on that day offensive operations were begun. Great fortifications strongly manned guarded the town, but they were carried one after another by a.s.sault, and on September 14, General Scott marched at the head of his army through the city gates. The war was ended--a war in which the Americans had not lost a single battle, and had gained a vast empire.

General Scott came out of the war with a tremendous reputation; but he lacked personal magnetism. A certain stateliness and dignity kept people at a distance, and, together with an exacting discipline, won him the sobriquet of "Old Fuss and Feathers." In 1852, he was the candidate of the Whig party for President; but the party was falling to pieces, he himself had no great personal following, and he was defeated by the Democratic candidate, one of his own generals, Franklin Pierce. He remained in command of the army until the outbreak of the Civil War. Age and infirmities prevented his taking the field, and after the disastrous defeat at Bull Run, he resigned the command. General Scott was renowned for his striking physique, more majestic, perhaps, even than that of Washington. He has, indeed, been called the most imposing general in history.

With General Scott ends another era of our history, and we come to a consideration of the soldiers made famous by the greatest war of the nineteenth century--the civil conflict which threatened, for a time, to disrupt the Union. It was a war waged on both sides with desperate courage and tenacity, and it developed a number of commanders not, perhaps, of the very first rank, but standing high in the second.

The first real success of the war was won by George B. McClellan. A graduate of West Point, veteran of the war with Mexico, and military observer of the war in the Crimea, he had resigned from the army in 1857 to engage in the railroad business, with headquarters at Cincinnati. At the opening of the war, he was commissioned major-general, and put in command of the Department of Ohio. His first work was to clear western Virginia of Confederates, which he did in a series of successful skirmishes, lasting but a few weeks. He lost only eight men, while the Confederates lost sixteen hundred, besides over a thousand taken prisoners. The achievement was of the first importance, since it saved for the Union the western section of Virginia which, a year later, was admitted as a separate state. It is worth remembering that in this campaign, McClellan's opponent was no less a personage than Robert E.

Lee.

The success was the greater as contrasted with the disaster at Bull Run, and in August, 1861, McClellan was placed in command of the Army of the Potomac, gathered about Washington and still discouraged and disorganized from that defeat and rout. His military training had been of the most thorough description, especially upon the technical side, and no better man could have been found for the task of whipping that great army into shape. He soon proved his fitness for the work, and four months later, he had under him a trained and disciplined force, the equal of any that ever trod American soil. He forged the instrument which, in the end, a stronger man than he was to use. Let that always be remembered to his credit.

He had become a sort of popular hero, idolized by his soldiers, for he possessed in greater degree than any other commander at the North that personal magnetism which wins men. But it was soon evident that he lacked those qualities of aggressiveness, energy, and initiative essential to a great commander; that he was unduly cautious. He seems to have habitually over-estimated the strength of the enemy and under-estimated his own. With this habit of mind, it was certain that he would never suffer a great defeat; but it was also probable that he would never win a great victory, and a great victory was just what the North hungered for to wipe out the disgrace of Bull Run. Not for eight months was he ready to begin the campaign against Richmond, and it ended in heavy loss and final retreat, partly because of McClellan's incapacity and partly because of ignorant interference with his plans on the part of politicians at Washington. For it must be remembered that McClellan was a Democrat, and soon became the natural leader of that party at the North--a fact which seemed little less than treason to many of the political managers at the Capital.

One great and successful battle he fought, however, at Antietam, checking Lee's attempt to invade the North and sending him in full retreat back to Virginia, but his failure to pursue the retreating army exasperated the President, and he was removed from command of the army on November 7, 1862. This closed his career as a soldier. In the light of succeeding events, it cannot be doubted that his removal was a serious mistake. All in all, he was the ablest commander the Army of the Potomac ever had; he was a growing man; a little more experience in the field would probably have cured him of over-timidity, and made him a great soldier. General Grant summed the matter up admirably when he said, "The test applied to him would be terrible to any man, being made a major-general at the beginning of the war. If he did not succeed, it was because the conditions of success were so trying. If he had fought his way along and up, I have no reason to suppose that he would not have won as high distinction as any of us." In 1864, McClellan was the nominee of the Democratic party for the presidency, but received only twenty-one electoral votes.

The command of the Army of the Potomac pa.s.sed to Ambrose E. Burnside, who had won some successes early in the war, but who had protested his unfitness for a great command, and who was soon to prove it. He led the army after Lee, found him entrenched on the heights back of Fredericksburg, and hurled division after division against an impregnable position, until twelve thousand men lay dead and wounded on the field. Burnside, half-crazed with anguish at his fatal mistake, offered his resignation, which was at once accepted.

"Fighting Joe" Hooker succeeded him, and was soon to demonstrate that he, too, was unfitted for the great task. Early in May, believing Lee's army to be in retreat, he attacked it at Chancellorsville, only to be defeated with a loss of seventeen thousand men. At the beginning of the battle, Hooker had enjoyed every advantage of position, and his army outnumbered Lee's; but he sacrificed his position, with unaccountable stupidity, moving from a high position to a lower one, provoking the protest from Meade that, if the army could not hold the top of a hill, it certainly could not hold the bottom of it; and he seemed unable to use his men to advantage, holding one division in idleness while another was being cut to pieces.

It is, perhaps, sufficient comment upon the folly of dismissing McClellan to point out that within seven months of his retirement, the Army of the Potomac, which had been the finest fighting-machine in existence on the continent, had lost thirty thousand men on the field and thousands more by desertion, and had been converted from a confident and well-disciplined force into a discouraged and disorganized rabble.

Meanwhile a new star had arisen in the West in the person of U.S.

Grant--"Unconditional Surrender" Grant, as he was called, after his capture of Fort Donelson--the event which riveted the eyes of the Nation upon him and which marked the beginning of his meteor-like advancement.

We have already spoken of Grant as President, and of his unfitness for that high office. There are also many who dispute his ability as a commander, who point out that his army always outnumbered that opposed to him, and who claim that his victories were won by brute force and not by military skill. That there is some truth in this n.o.body can deny, and yet his campaign against Vicksburg was one of the most brilliant in this or any other war. It might be added, too, that it takes something more than preponderance of numbers to win a battle--as Hooker showed at Chancellorsville--and that Grant did win a great many.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRANT]

The truth about Grant is that he was utterly lacking in that personal magnetism which made McClellan, Sheridan and "Stonewall" Jackson idolized by their men, and which is essential to a great commander. He was cold, reserved, and silent, repelled rather than attracted. He succeeded mainly because he was determined to succeed, and hung on with bull-dog tenacity until he had worn his opponent out. Not till then did he stop to take stock of his own injuries. "I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer," was a characteristic utterance.

The honors of Union victories were fairly divided with Grant by William Tec.u.mseh Sherman, a man who, as a general, was greater in some respects than his chief. Sherman was an Ohioan, and, after graduating from West Point and serving in California during the war with Mexico, resigned from the army to seek more lucrative employment. He was given a regiment when the war opened, and his advance was rapid. He first showed his real worth at the battle of Shiloh, where he commanded a division and by superb fighting, saved Grant's reputation.

Grant had collected an army of forty thousand men at Pittsburg Landing, an obscure stopping-place in southern Tennessee for Mississippi boats, and though he knew that the Confederates were gathering at Corinth, twenty miles away, he left his army entirely exposed, throwing up not a single breastwork, never dreaming that the enemy would dare attack him.

Nevertheless, they did attack, while Grant himself was miles away from his army, and by the end of the first day's fighting, had succeeded in pushing the Union forces back upon the river, in a cramped and dangerous position. The action was resumed next day, and the Confederates forced to retire, which they did in good order. That the Union army was not disastrously defeated was due largely to the superb leadership of Sherman, who had three horses shot under him and was twice wounded, but whose demeanor was so cool and inspiring that his raw troops, not realizing their peril, were filled with confidence and fought like veterans.

Sherman's fame increased rapidly after that. When Grant departed for the East to take command of the Army of the Potomac, he planned for Sherman a campaign against Atlanta, Georgia--a campaign which Sherman carried out in the most masterly manner, marching into Atlanta in triumph on September 2, 1864. The campaign had cost him thirty-two thousand men, but the Confederate loss had been much heavier, and in Atlanta the Confederacy lost one of its citadels. It was especially valuable because of the great machine shops located there, and these Sherman proceeded to destroy before starting on his famous "march to the sea."

This, the most spectacular movement of the whole war, was planned by Sherman, who secured Grant's permission to carry it out, and the start was made on the fifteenth of November. The army marched by four roads, as nearly parallel as could be found, starting at seven o'clock every morning and covering fifteen miles every day. All railroads and other property that might aid the Confederates were destroyed, the soldiers were allowed to forage freely, and in consequence a swath of destruction sixty miles wide and three hundred miles long was cut right across the Confederacy. A locust would have had difficulty in finding anything to eat after the army had pa.s.sed. It encountered no effective resistance, and by the middle of December, came within sight of the sea.

On December 21, Sherman entered Savannah, and wired Lincoln that he presented him the city as a Christmas gift. Then he turned northward to join Grant, taking Columbia, Fayetteville, Goldsboro and Raleigh, and destroying Confederate a.r.s.enals, foundries, railroads and public works of all descriptions. Lee had surrendered four days before Sherman marched into Raleigh, and the next day a flag of truce from General Joseph E. Johnston opened negotiations for the surrender of his army.

This, the virtual close of the Civil War, ended Sherman's career in the field. In 1866, he was made lieutenant-general, and three years later succeeded Grant as commander-in-chief of the army, retiring from the service in 1884, at the age of sixty-four.

Whatever may have been the relative merits of Grant and Sherman as commanders, there can be no question as to the greatest cavalry leader in the Union armies, and one of the greatest in any army, Philip Henry Sheridan. Above any cavalry leader, North or South, except "Stonewall"

Jackson, Sheridan possessed the power of rousing his men to the utmost pitch of enthusiastic devotion; young, dashing and intrepid himself, his men were ready to follow him anywhere--and it was usually to victory that he led them.

Sheridan was a West Pointer, graduating in 1853, and was appointed captain at the outbreak of the war. It was not until May of 1862 that he found his real place as colonel of cavalry, and not until the first days of the following year that he had the opportunity to distinguish himself. Then, at the battle of Murfreesboro, he broke through the advancing Confederate line which was crumpling up the right of the Union army, and turned the tide of battle from defeat to victory. As a reward, he was appointed major-general of volunteers. In April, 1864, he became commander of the cavalry corps of the Army of the Potomac, and three months later made his famous raid along the valley of the Shenandoah.

Entering the valley with an army of forty thousand men, Sheridan swept Early and a Confederate force out of it, and then, to render impossible any Confederate raids thereafter with the valley as a base, rode from end to end of it, destroying everything that would support an army.

Early, meanwhile, had been reinforced, and, one misty morning, fell upon the Federals while they lay encamped at Cedar Creek. The surprise was complete, and in a short time the Union army was in full flight.

Sheridan had been called to Washington, and on the morning of the battle was at Winchester, some twenty miles away. In the early dawn, he heard the rumble of the cannonade, and, springing to horse, galloped to the battlefield, to meet his men retreating.

"Face about, boys! face about!" he shouted, riding up and down the lines; and his men saw him, and burst into a cheer, and reformed their lines, and, catching his spirit of victory, led by their loved commander, fell upon Early, routed him and practically destroyed his army. Perhaps nowhere else in history is there an instance such as this--of a general meeting his army in full retreat, stopping the panic, facing them about, and leading them to victory.

In the last campaign against Richmond, Sheridan's services were of inestimable value; it was he who defeated a great Confederate force at the brilliant battle of Five Forks; it was he who got in front of Lee's retreating army and cornered it at Appomattox. He had his full share of honors, succeeding Sherman as general-in-chief of the army in 1883, and receiving the rank of general from Congress, just before his death five years later. Grant, Sherman and Sheridan are the only men in the country's history who have held this highest of military t.i.tles.

After these three men, George H. Thomas was the most prominent commander on the Union side; notable, too, from the fact that he was a Virginian, and was considered a traitor by his native state for his adherence to the Union cause, just as poor old Winfield Scott had been. He had made something of a name for himself before the Civil War opened, distinguishing himself in the war with Mexico and winning brevets for gallantry at the battles of Monterey and Buena Vista. He won a decisive victory at Mill Springs early in 1862, and saved the army from rout at Murfreesboro by his heroic holding of the centre. But his most famous exploit was the defence of Horseshoe ridge, against overwhelming odds, at the battle of Chickamauga.