Four Years in Rebel Capitals Part 30

That charge--unequaled in history--has fearfully crippled the enemy. He can not pursue. But it has failed, and the battle of Gettysburg is over!

That night General Lee fell back toward Hagerstown, turning in his retreat to show front to the enemy that dared not attack. Nine days he stayed on the Maryland sh.o.r.e, waiting the advance that never came; then he recrossed the river, on the night of the 13th, and again fell back to the Rappahannock lines.

The second Maryland campaign had failed!

Into the midst of the general elation in Richmond crashed the wild rumors from the fight. We had driven the enemy through the town; we held the height; we had captured Meade and 40,000 prisoners. Washington was at our mercy; and Lee would dictate terms of peace from Philadelphia!

These were the first wild rumors; eagerly sought and readily credited by the people. They were determined to believe and would see no change of plan in General Lee's forced battle at Gettysburg, instead of on the plains at Harrisburg.

Then over the general joy, creeping none knew whence nor how, but rapidly gaining shape and substance, came a shadow of doubt. Crowds besieged the War Department, anxious, excited, but still hopeful. Then the truth came; tempered by the Government, but wildly exaggerated by northern sources.

Down to zero dropped the spirits of the people; down to a depth of despairing gloom, only the deeper from the height of their previous exultation. The dark cloud from Gettysburg rolled back over Richmond, darkened and made dense a hundred fold in the transit.

The terrible carnage of that field was exaggerated by rumor. Pickett's gallant division was declared annihilated; it was believed that the army had lost 20,000 men; and it was known that such priceless blood as that of Garnett, Pettigrew, Armistead, Pender, Kemper, Semmes and Barksdale had sealed the dreadful defeat.

It only needed what came the next day, to dash the last drop from the cup of hope the people still tried to hold to their lips; and that was the news of the fall of Vicksburg, on the 4th of July.

And out of the thick darkness that settled on the souls of all, came up the groan of inquiry and blame. Why had the campaign failed? they asked. Why had General Lee been forced into battle on ground of the enemy's choosing? Why had he attacked works that only an army like his would have made an effort to take, when he could have flanked the enemy and forced him to fight him on his own terms? Why had the Government--as was alleged--allowed the crucial test of liberty--the crisis campaign of the war--to be undertaken without proper transportation and supplies of ammunition?

And why, above all, had the general they still loved and trusted, spite of their doubts--why had he sent their beloved Virginians unsupported to the shambles? Why had he fought the whole Yankee army with one division?

Such were the murmurs on every side. And though they gradually died away, after the first shock of surprise and grief had pa.s.sed; still they left a vague feeling behind that all was not well; that grave errors had been committed somewhere. For the southern people could not get over the feeling that there were no odds of numbers and position that could cause defeat to a southern army, properly supplied and properly handled. So, although the murmurs ceased, the conviction did not die with them that the battle of Gettysburg was a grave error; that there had been a useless waste of priceless lives; and that the campaign had been nullified, which else had ended the war.

And unlike other post-disaster conclusions of the southern people, this did not die out. It only became strengthened and fixed, the more light was thrown on the vexed questions and the more they were canva.s.sed. The excuses of the War Department that ammunition had given out, were scornfully rejected. Then, said the people, that was your fault.

General Lee could not depend--in a campaign in the heart of an enemy's country and far away from his base--upon his captures. And as to his not intending to fight a pitched battle, how could he calculate upon that, or why then did he fight it; and upon ground of the enemy's choice?

And with the other objections to the conduct of the campaign, came that of the general's treatment of the people of Pennsylvania. It was felt to be an excess of moderation to a people whose armies had not spared the sword, the torch and insult to our unprotected tracts; and it was argued--without a shadow of foundation--that Lee's knightly courtesy to the Dutch dames of Pennsylvania had disgusted his troops.

Those starving and barefooted heroes would have thought it right if their beloved chief had fallen down and worshiped the makers of apple-b.u.t.ter! They felt he could do no wrong; and it was indirect injustice to the gallant dead that dotted Cemetery Hill--and to the no less gallant living ready to march up to those frowning heights again--to intimate that any action of their general would, or _could_, have made them fight better.

Excessive as was that moderation--ill advised as it might have proved, in case of a long campaign--it could have had no possible effect on the fortunes of the disastrous and brief one just ended.

Equally unjust as that popular folly, was the aspersion upon southern sympathizers in Maryland, that they did not come forth to aid their friends. The part of Maryland through which southern armies pa.s.sed in both campaigns were spa.r.s.ely settled, and that with strong Union population. The Marylander of Baltimore and the lower counties--whatever may have been his wishes, was gagged and bound too closely to express, far less carry them out. Baltimore was filled with an armed guard and was, moreover, the pa.s.sage-way of thousands of troops; the lower counties were watched and guarded. And, moreover, the Confederate army was not _practically_ in Maryland, but from the 20th of June to the 1st of July.

The taunt to the down-trodden Marylanders--oppressed and suffering bravely for conscience sake--we must in justice to ourselves believe only the result of grief and disappointment. Men, like goods, can only be judged "by sample;" and, from the beginning to the end of the war, Maryland may point to Archer, Winder, Elzey, Johnson and many another n.o.ble son--unhonored now, or filling, perhaps, a nameless grave--and ask if such men came from among a people who talked but would not act!

And so in sorrow, disappointment and bitterness ended the second Maryland campaign.

And with it ended all hopes of carrying the war beyond our own gates in future; happy could we beat it thence, baffled and crushed as ever before.

For the short, sharp raid of General Early--penetrating to the gates of the Capital and with possible capabilities of even entering them--can hardly be considered an organized scheme of invasion. It was rather the spasmodic effort by a sharp, hard blow to loosen the tightening and death-dealing grip upon our throat, and give us time for one long, deep breath before the final tug for life.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

THE CONFEDERACY AFLOAT.

Measured by the popular test, success, the Confederate States Navy would, perhaps, be accorded little merit. Even cursory examination into the vast difficulties and discouragements with which it contended, will do it prompt justice.

No men who joined the southern service sacrificed more than her navy officers. The very flower of the old service, they had grown gray in their slow promotion to its positions of honor; their families depended for sole support upon the pittance of pay they received. Still they hesitated not a moment to range themselves under the banners their native states had unfurled. Once there, no men labored more faithfully--and efficiently. Subject to misconstruction, to jealousy, to petty annoyances--and later, to the most pinching straits of poverty--they were ever uncomplaining and ever ready.

Many and varied were the calls upon them. They commanded land batteries, trained raw gunners and drilled lubberly conscripts; they were bridge-builders, carpenters, wood-cutters, chemists and colliers; and, at the best, it was hard for the veteran who had, for forty years, trod the deck of a frigate, to be cooped in the contracted limits of a razeed tug, or an armed pilot boat. But once there he made the best of it; and how well he wrought in the new sphere, the names of Hollins, Lynch, Buchanan and Tucker still attest.

At the time the first Army Bill was pa.s.sed by Congress, a law was also made securing to resigned naval officers the same rank they held in the United States service. But there was scarcely a keel in Confederate waters, and small indeed was the prospect for the future; so these impatient spirits, panting for active work, were put into unsuitable positions at the very outset. Later, a bill was pa.s.sed for a provisional navy, but there was no fleet for their occupation. The department, therefore, used the discretion given it to confer a few honorary t.i.tles, and to appoint a vast number of subordinate officers, for sh.o.r.e duty in its work-shops and navy-yards.

The acceptability of Mr. Mallory to the people, at the outset of his career, has been noted. They believed that his long experience in the committee of naval affairs was guarantee for the important trust confided to him. Moreover, he was known to be relied upon by Mr. Davis as a man of solid intellect, of industry and perseverance. If his knowledge of naval affairs was entirely theoretical, it mattered little so long as he could turn that knowledge to practical account, by the counsel and aid of some of the most efficient of the scientific sailors of the Union.

Mr. Mallory took charge of the Navy Department in March, '61. At this time the question of iron-clads had attention of naval builders on both sides of the Atlantic; and deeming them indispensable to naval warfare, the Secretary's first movement was a strong memoir to Congress, urging immediate and heavy appropriations for their construction at New Orleans and Mobile. With a treasury empty and immovably averse to anything like decisive action, the astute lawgivers of Montgomery hesitated and doubted. The most that could be forced from them were small appropriations for the fitting out of privateers.

The first venture, the "Sumter," was bought, equipped and put into commission at the end of April; and in the course of a few weeks she ran out of New Orleans, in command of Raphael Semmes, and the stars and bars were floating solitary, but defiant, over the seas. The history of her cruise, the terror she spread among the enemy's shipping, and the paralysis she sent to the very heart of his commerce, are too well known to need repet.i.tion here. Badly-built craft as she was for such a service, she was still more badly equipped; but so eminently successful was she that both Government and Congress must have been incurably blind, not to put a hundred like her upon every sea where the Union flag could float.

Had one-twentieth the sum frittered away in useless iron-clads, and worse than useless "gunboats," been put into saucy and swift wasps like the "Sumter," their stings must have driven northern commerce from the sea; and the United States ports would have been more effectually blockaded, from a thousand miles at sea, than were those of the southern fleet-bound coast.

It may not be irrelevant here to allude to the finale of the Confederate cruisers; and to recall the most inane farce of all those enacted by the madmen who held power in '66.

In the January of that year, Raphael Semmes was seized and thrown into prison. He was now charged--not with having violated his parole given to General Grant, who was personally and morally responsible for his persecution--not with doing aught but "obeying the laws themselves;"

but he was charged with having escaped, the year before, from the custody of a man whose prisoner he was not and had never been--with having broken from a durance that ought to have existed! From incontrovertible testimony, we know that Captain Semmes only raised the white flag, after his vessel began to sink; that he stayed on her deck until she went down beneath him; that no boat came to him from the "Kearsage," and that he was in the water full an hour, before the boat of the "Deerhound" picked him up and carried him aboard that yacht.

But radical hatred, and thirst for vengeance on a disarmed enemy, raised the absurd plea that Semmes became a prisoner of war by raising the white flag; that by so doing he gave _a moral parole_! and violated it by saving himself from a watery grave and afterward taking up arms again. It is only a proof that the country was a little less mad than the radical leaders, that the unheard-of absurdity of its Navy Department was not sustained by popular opinion. It would have no doubt been chivalric and beautiful in Raphael Semmes to have drowned in the ocean, because the boat of the "Kearsage" would not pick him up after accepting his "moral parole;" but, as he did not see it in that light, and as he was never called upon to surrender by any officer of that ship, he was perfectly free the moment his own deck left him in the waves. The white flag was but a token that he desired to save the lives of his men; and would surrender them and himself, if opportunity were given. But even granting the nonsensical claim that it made him a prisoner--the laws of war demand absolute safety for prisoners; and the fact of the "Kearsage" leaving him to drown was, in itself, a release.

There is no necessity for defense of Captain Semmes' position; but it may be well to record how blind is the hate which still attempts to brand as "_Pirate_" a regularly-commissioned officer in service, whose long career gained him nothing but respect under the northern--nothing but glory under the southern flag. If Raphael Semmes be a "pirate,"

then was the northern recognition of belligerents but an active lie!

Then was Robert E. Lee a marauder--Wade Hampton but a bushwhacker, and Joseph E. Johnston but a guerrilla!

When the "Sumter" began her work, she was soon followed by the "Florida"--a vessel somewhat better, but still of the same cla.s.s. Under the dashing and efficient Maffitt, the "Florida," too, wrought daring destruction. Her record, like that of her rival, is too familiar for repet.i.tion; as is the later subst.i.tution of the "Alabama" for the worn-out "Sumter."

During the long war, these three vessels--and but two of them at one time--were the only cruisers the Confederacy had afloat; until just before its close, the "Shenandoah" went out to strike fresh terror to the heart and pocket of New England. Then, also, that strong-handed and cool-headed amphiboid, Colonel John Taylor Wood, made--with wretched vessels and hastily-chosen crews--most effective raids on the coasting shipping of the Northeast.

One popular error pervades all which has been said or written, on both sides of the line, about the Confederate navy. This is the general t.i.tle of "privateer," given to all vessels not cooped up in southern harbors. Regularly-commissioned cruisers, like the "Alabama" and "Florida," the property of the Navy Department, and commanded by its regularly-commissioned officers, were no more "privateers" than were the "Minnesota," or "Kearsage."

There was a law pa.s.sed, regulating the issue of letters of marque; and from time to time much was heard of these in the South. But after the first spirt of the saucy little "Jeff Davis," not more than two or three ever found their way to sea; and even these accomplished nothing.

At one time, a company with heavy capital was gotten up in Richmond, for the promotion of such enterprises; but it was looked upon as a job and was little successful in any sense.

So, with all the ports of the world open to belligerent ships; with unsurpa.s.sed sailors "panting for the very lack of element" in musty offices, privateers did not increase in number; and one of the most effective engines of legitimate warfare was but ill.u.s.trated, instead of being utilized.

Meantime, the Navy Department had ceased to importune for appropriations to build iron-clads at New Orleans; an omission that carried the grave responsibility for loss of that city, and for the far graver disaster of the closing of the whole river and the blockade of the trans-Mississippi. For had the "Louisiana" been furnished with two companion ships of equal strength--or even had she been completely finished and not had been compelled to succ.u.mb to accidents within, while she braved the terrific fire from without--the Federal fleet might have been crushed like egg-sh.e.l.ls; the splendid exertions of Hollins and Kennon in the past would not have been nullified; the blood of McIntosh and Huger would not have been useless sacrifice; and the homes of the smiling city and the pure vicinage of her n.o.ble daughters might not have been polluted by the presence of the commandant, who crawled in after the victorious fleet.

Norfolk, however, had come into southern possession, by the secession of Virginia; and the vast resources of her navy-yard--only partly crippled by the haste of the Federal retreat--stimulated the Government. A meager appropriation was pa.s.sed for the construction of the "Merrimac;" or rather for an iron-clad ship upon the hull of the half-destroyed frigate of that name. Had the whole amount necessary for her completion been given, the vessel would have been ready weeks before she was, under the dribblet system adopted. Then, indeed, it would be hard to overestimate her value; damage to shipping in Hampton Roads; or her ultimate effect upon McClellan's campaign.

No appropriation for an object of vital import could be shaken free from its bonds of red tape; and this one was saddled with an incubus, in the bill for the "construction of one hundred gunboats." The scheme to build that number of wooden vessels of small size seemed equally short-sighted and impracticable. They could only be built on inland rivers and creeks, to prevent attacks by the enemy's heavier vessels; and hence they were necessarily small and ineffective. The interior navy-yards had, moreover, to be guarded against surprises by the enemy's cavalry; and as men were so scarce, it was generally arranged that the navy-yard should follow the army lines. Constantly shifting position--caused by the rapid movements of the enemy, left these impromptu ship-yards unprotected; and then a small party of raiders would either burn them, or force their builders to do so. It was not until the appropriation was nearly spent--although _not one efficient_ gunboat of this cla.s.s was ever finished--that the system was abandoned as utterly worthless and impracticable.

Had the large sum thus wasted been applied to the purchase of swift and reliable cruisers--or to the speedy and energetic completion of one iron-clad at a time--it would have read a far more telling story to the enemy, both in prestige and result.

But even in the case of these, energy and capital were divided and distracted. On completion of the "Merrimac," there were in the course of construction at New Orleans, two mailed vessels of a different cla.s.s--one of them only a towboat covered with railroad iron. There were also two small ones on the stocks at Charleston, and another at Savannah. The great difficulty of procuring proper iron; of rolling it when obtained; and the mismanagement of transportation, even when the plates were ready--made the progress of all these boats very slow.

Practicality would have concentrated the whole energy of the Department upon one at a time; not have left them all unfinished, either to prove utterly useless at the trying moment, or to fall a prey to superior force of the enemy.