The Boys of '61 Part 41

At Cold Harbor the abilities of Lee, McClellan, and Grant as commanders have been exhibited. Lee's head-quarters during the battle of Gaines's Mills were at New Cold Harbor, but during the afternoon he rode over to the old tavern and had a talk with Jackson. That battle was won by Lee after a hard struggle, not through any lack of courage on the part of the Union troops, but through McClellan's want of generalship. McClellan was ever taking counsel of his fears. He uniformly overestimated the numbers of the enemy. When Lee advanced to Munson's Hill, near Alexandria, in October, 1861, his army did not exceed sixty thousand, but McClellan estimated it at "one hundred and fifty thousand, well drilled, equipped, ably commanded, and strongly entrenched."[58] In March, 1862, when Lee evacuated Mana.s.sas, his estimate of the Rebel army was one hundred and fifteen thousand, while the actual strength was less than fifty thousand. "It seems clear that I shall have the whole force of the enemy on my hands, probably not less than one hundred thousand, and probably more," wrote McClellan to the Secretary of War upon his arrival at Yorktown.

Magruder commanded the Rebels at Yorktown. "My whole force," says he, "was less than eleven thousand."[59]

The day before the battle of Cold Harbor, McClellan's estimate of Lee's army was two hundred thousand.[60] His own force, sick and well, on the 20th, was one hundred and seventeen thousand. He had present and fit for duty on the day of battle from one hundred to one hundred and five thousand. Lee's force was two or three thousand less.

McClellan knew very little of Lee's army. He intrusted the management of the secret service to two French princes, who, however estimable they might be as individuals, had a superficial acquaintance with the English language, who knew but little of America or Americans,-whose geographical knowledge of the country in which the war was being carried on was less than that of the scholars of a New England grammar school,-who were wanting in the lawyer-like qualifications necessary to separating the true from the false in the stories of deserters, scouts, and spies. So inefficient was the secret service that McClellan had no information of Lee's movements or intentions till Jackson was at Ashland, within a few hours' march of Cold Harbor. When he saw that he was to be attacked, he moved his own head-quarters to the south side, making no effort to win the battle, thinking only of a retreat to the James.

A general who wins a battle through the blundering of an inefficient opponent cannot be called, on that account alone, a great commander. There must be genius in movements, in making use of positions and forces, so that victory is wrenched from a skilful foe, to ent.i.tle a commander to wear the bay leaves upon his brow.

McClellan's army was divided by the Chickahominy. He had about thirty thousand men on the north bank and seventy-five thousand on the south side. Lee submitted a plan to Jeff Davis, which was accepted, by which he hoped to destroy that portion of McClellan's force on the north bank. Whiting's and Ewell's divisions were put on board the cars and sent up the Virginia Central Railroad to Gordonsville, as if to join Jackson in the Shenandoah, or for a march on Washington, but Jackson was on his way towards Richmond. He commanded the united force, amounting to thirty thousand. He moved down to Ashland. A deserter informed McClellan at Cold Harbor that Jackson would attack him on the 28th.[61] Negroes came in on the next day who said that Jackson was at Hanover Court-House. McClellan's line was twenty miles long. His extreme right was north of Richmond, at Mechanicsville; his left was southeast of the city, resting on White Oak Swamp. McClellan could have reinforced Porter, and defeated Lee, or he could have withdrawn him to the south bank, and pushed into Richmond, but he left Porter to contend with Lee's entire army, except Magruder's command of about twenty thousand men,[62] while he burned his supplies, destroyed the railroad, and made ready to march to the James. Porter held his ground till nearly night, calling for reinforcements. Had a division been sent him at the right time, Lee would have suffered a terrible defeat. Sloc.u.m, of Franklin's corps, was sent over when too late to be of essential service. Jackson extended his left south from the old tavern, and fell upon Porter's right flank, and drove the Union troops, but everywhere else Lee was repulsed with great loss. His entire loss in that battle was about nine thousand and five hundred, McClellan's about four thousand.

Lee moved out from Richmond when Jackson was at Hanover Court-House. Branch's division marched up the Brooke turnpike, A. P. Hill moved over the Mechanicsville turnpike, Longstreet and D. H. Hill by the New Bridge road. McClellan was informed of the movement. Here was his golden opportunity. By throwing nearly his entire army north of the Chickahominy, he could have met Lee outside of his entrenchments, or he could have withdrawn Porter and made a rush upon the city. Lee expected to meet the whole Union army at Cold Harbor, and in the battle supposed he was fighting McClellan's main force.

"The princ.i.p.al part of the enemy was on the north side," says Lee in his report. It is evident that in his plan he calculated that McClellan would not risk a battle with a divided army, and he therefore left but a small force to hold Richmond. Magruder on the other hand, saw the danger to the city. Says Magruder:-

"From the time at which the enemy withdrew his forces to this side of the Chickahominy, and destroyed the bridges, to the moment of his evacuation,-that is, from Friday night until Sunday morning,-I considered the situation of our army extremely critical and perilous. The larger portion of it was on either side of the Chickahominy, the bridges had all been destroyed, and but one was rebuilt, the New Bridge, which was fully commanded by the enemy's guns at Golding's; and there were but twenty-five thousand men between his army and Richmond. I received repeated instructions during Sat.u.r.day night from General Lee's head-quarters, enjoining upon my command the utmost vigilance, directing the men to sleep on their arms, to be prepared for whatever might occur. I pa.s.sed the night without sleep, and in the superintendence of their execution. Had McClellan ma.s.sed his whole force in column, and advanced it against any point of our line of battle, as was done at Austerlitz by the greatest captain of any age, though the head of his column would have suffered greatly, its momentum would have insured him success, and the occupation of our works about Richmond, and consequently the city might have been his reward. Our relief was therefore great when information reached us that the enemy had evacuated his works and was retreating."[63]

Magruder, in the above statement, unintentionally exposes the faultiness of Lee's plan, which, had McClellan improved his opportunity, would have been the loss of the Rebel capital, the rout and disorganization of Lee's army, and a historic page wholly different from that now on record.

In contrast is Grant's plan of operations. His secret-service department was managed with rare ability, by men acquainted with the English language, who were adepts in the art of sifting truth from falsehood. Grant was well informed as to Lee's numbers, the reinforcements at his disposal, and his movements. He took counsel of his courage, never of his fear. In his plan of the Wilderness campaigns, the series of movements from the Rapidan to the James, were duly considered before the orders for the advance were given. When he saw that he could not reach Richmond from the north, he decided to sweep round to the James, but not till he had made it impossible for Lee to move upon Washington, by breaking up the Virginia Central and Fredericksburg Railroad. McClellan complained that he was deprived of the control of McDowell's force at Fredericksburg, which was retained by the President to cover Washington; but the railroad from Richmond to Mana.s.sas was then in running order, with the exception of the bridge across the Rappahannock. Grant's prudence in securing Washington was as marked as his tenacity of purpose to push on towards Richmond.

The transfer of the Eighteenth Corps from Bermuda Hundred to seize Cold Harbor,-the order for which was given before the army crossed the Pamunkey,-was a conception as brilliant as that of Lee's in the transfer of Jackson from the Shenandoah in '62. The march of the army to the south side of the James, which will be narrated in another chapter, was the most striking movement of the campaign, exhibiting the same quality of genius which had been exhibited at Vicksburg, and which has no parallel in the movements of any of the Rebel commanders during the war.

There was a season of rest while Grant was preparing for the march to the James. The army needed it. A month had pa.s.sed, the most terrible of all the months of the war. There had been scarcely an hour of quiet from the moment when the army broke camp at Culpepper till it reached Cold Harbor. It never can be known how many were killed and wounded in that month of battle. The hospitals of Washington were crowded. Thousands of slightly wounded were granted leave of absence. Reinforcements were hurried on to fill up the wasted ranks. Lee's loss was nearly as heavy as Grant's. Richmond was overflowing with wounded; all central Virginia was a hospital. Both armies were becoming exhausted.

Lee was the attacking party at the Wilderness, but it was his last offensive movement, except as the gauge of battle was given by Grant.

The march from Spottsylvania to Cold Harbor was through a section never before visited by Union troops. At the crossing of the Ny I found quarters at a farm-house owned by a feeble, forceless, gray-bearded, black-eyed man. There was const.i.tutionally a want of starch in his physical organization. He was free and frank, but shiftless. He owned eighty acres of land, two negroes, an old horse, and a rickety cart. His house was mean, but it was charmingly located, overlooking the broad valley of the Mattapony, and surrounded by locusts and magnolias. Nature had done a great deal towards making it a paradise, but the owner had been an indifferent steward. Lying upon the gra.s.s beneath the trees, I fell into conversation with the proprietor.

"This is Caroline County, I believe."

"Yes, sir, this is old Caroline,-a county which has sold more negroes down south than any other in Virginia."

"I was not aware of that; but I remember now a negro song which I used to hear. The burden of it was,

'I wish I was back in old Caroline.'"

"Quite likely, for the great business of the county has been n.i.g.g.e.r-raising, and it has been our curse. I never owned only old Peter and his wife. I wish I didn't own them, for they are old and I have got to support them; but how in the world I am to do it I don't know, for the soldiers have stripped me of everything."

"Do you mean the Union soldiers?"

"Yes, and ours (Rebels) also. First, my boys were conscripted. I kept them out as long as I could, but they were obliged to go. Then they took my horses. Then your cavalry came and took all my corn and stole my meat, ransacked the house, seized my flour, killed my pigs and chickens, and here I am, stripped of everything."

"It is pretty hard, but your leaders would have it so."

"I know it, sir, and we are getting our pay for it."

It was frankly spoken, and was the first admission I had heard from Southern lips that the South was suffering retribution for the crime of Secession. It probably did not enter his head that the selling of slaves, the breaking up of families, the sundering of heart-strings, the cries and tears and prayers of fathers and mothers, the outrages, the whippings, scourgings, branding with hot irons, were also crimes in the sight of Heaven. Broken hearts were nothing to him,-not that he was naturally worse than other men, but because slavery had blunted sensibility.

During the march the next day towards the North Anna, I halted at a farm-house. The owner had fled to Richmond in advance of the army, leaving his overseer, a stout, burly, red-faced, tobacco-chewing man. There were a score of old buildings on the premises. It had been a notable plantation, yielding luxuriant harvests of wheat, but the proprietor had turned his attention to the culture of tobacco and the breeding of negroes. He sold annually a crop of human beings for the southern market. The day before our arrival, hearing that the Yankees were coming, he hurried forty or fifty souls to Richmond. He intended to take all,-forty or fifty more,-but the negroes fled to the woods. The overseer did his best to collect them, but in vain. The proprietor raved, and stormed, and became violent in his language and behavior, threatening terrible punishment on all the runaways, but the appearance of a body of Union cavalry put an end to maledictions. He had a gang of men and women chained together, and hurried them toward Richmond.

The runaways came out from their hiding-places when they saw the Yankees, and advanced fearlessly with open countenances. The first pleasure of the negroes was to smile from ear to ear, the second to give everybody a drink of water or a piece of hoe-cake, the third to pack up their bundles and be in readiness to join the army.

"Are you not afraid of us?"

"Afraid! Why, boss, I's been praying for yer to come; and now yer is here, thank de Lord."

"Are you not afraid that we shall sell you?"

"No, boss, I isn't. The overseer said you would sell us off to Cuba, to work in the sugar-mill, but we didn't believe him."

Among the servants was a bright mulatto girl, who was dancing, singing, and manifesting her joy in violent demonstration.

"What makes you so happy?" I asked.

"Because you Yankees have come. I can go home now."

"Is not this your home?"

"No. I come from Williamsport in Maryland."

"When did you come from there?"

"Last year. Master sold me. I spect my brother is 'long with the army. He ran away last year. Master was afraid that I should run away, and he sold me."

The negroes came from all the surrounding plantations. Old men with venerable beards, h.o.r.n.y hands, crippled with hard work and harder usage; aged women, toothless, almost blind, steadying their steps with sticks; little negro boys, driving a team of skeleton steers,-mere bones and tendons covered with hide,-or wall-eyed horses, spavined, foundered, and lame, attached to rickety carts and wagons, piled with beds, tables, chairs, pots and kettles, hens, turkeys, ducks, women with infants in their arms, and a sable cloud of children trotting by their side.

"Where are you going?" I said to a short, thick-set, gray-bearded old man, shuffling along the road; his toes bulging from his old boots, and a tattered straw hat on his head,-his gray wool protruding from the crown.

"I do'no, boss, where I's going, but I reckon I'll go where the army goes."

"And leave your old home, your old master, and the place where you have lived all your days?"

"Yes, boss; master, he's gone. He went to Richmond. Reckon he went mighty sudden, boss, when he heard you was coming. Thought I'd like to go along with you."

Negroes coming into the lines.

His face streamed with perspiration. He had been sorely afflicted with the rheumatism, and it was with difficulty that he kept up with the column; but it was not a hard matter to read the emotions of his heart. He was marching towards freedom. Suddenly a light had shined upon him. Hope had quickened in his soul. He had a vague idea of what was before him. He had broken loose from all which he had been accustomed to call his own,-his cabin, a mud-c.h.i.n.ked structure, with the ground for a floor, his garden patch,-to go out, in his old age, wholly unprovided for, yet trusting in G.o.d that there would be food and raiment on the other side of Jordan.

It was a Jordan to them. It was the Sabbath-day,-bright, clear, calm, and delightful. There was a crowd of several hundred colored people at a deserted farm-house.

"Will it disturb you if we have a little singing? You see we feel so happy to-day that we would like to praise the Lord."

It was the request of a middle-aged woman.

"Not in the least. I should like to hear you."

In a few moments a crowd had a.s.sembled in one of the rooms. A stout young man, black, bright-eyed, thick-wooled, took the centre of the room. The women and girls, dressed in their best clothes, which they had put on to make their exodus from bondage in the best possible manner, stood in circles round him. The young man began to dance. He jumped up, clapped his hands, slapped his thighs, whirled round, stamped upon the floor.