Circa1865

Grant took command of Lincoln’s Army of the Potomac on March 17, 1864, now massed on Virginia’s Rapidan River and numbering 141,160 men. To oppose this invasion of Virginia, General Robert E. Lee’s strength was 50,403 muskets. His cavalry, artillery and supplies were all depleted, and his numerical strength in all arms did not exceed 64,000 as Grant began his march southward on May 4, 1864.

Grant’s Theory of Attrition

“General Grant’s theory of war was, “to hammer continuously against the armed force of his enemy, until, by mere attrition, there should be nothing left.”

Military genius, the arts of war, the skillful handling of troops, superior strategy, the devotion of an army of men, the noble self-denial of commanders, all must give way before the natural forces of “continuous hammering” by an army with unlimited reinforcements, an inexhaustible treasury, a well-filled commissariat, and all directed by a unanimous people.

The work of Lincoln’s war department was based upon the need for an army of a million men. Vast stores were accumulated. The US Congress, with reckless prodigality, continued to pass the most extravagant appropriations for organizing armies, and for maintaining the countless forces which constituted an invasion so vast, that it was hoped it would be invincible.

At the Wilderness, Grant’s onslaught overpowered two divisions and drove them back until Lee himself rode among his troops to rally them and reestablish his lines. In early June, Grant ordered an assault at Cold Harbor which was repelled with extraordinary slaughter, though he ordered a second attack in the afternoon which his men sullenly refused to obey.

Grant then pivoted toward the James River below Richmond to surprise and capture Petersburg, but was thwarted by Generals Beauregard and Wise, who had been reinforced with local militia and home guards. At this point Lee’s aggregate strength had increased to 78,400 men with which to oppose Grant, who had been reinforced and was now up to 192,160 troops.

Mr. Swinton, in his ‘History of the Army of the Potomac,’ estimates Grant’s losses at the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, North Anna and Cold Harbor battles at “above 60,000 men’ which included 3,000 officers, ‘while the loss of Lee did not exceed 18,000 men, of whom few were officers). This result would seem an unfavorable comment upon the choice of route by Grant, as McClellan two years prior attained the same point with trifling losses.

Grant had achieved no signal victory nor important success to offset his losses and had not defeated Lee on any of the campaign’s battlefields. The Army of Northern Virginia, not reinforced until it had reached Hanover Junction, and then only by 9,000 men, had repulsed every assault, and in the final trial of strength with a force vastly superior, had inflicted upon the enemy, in about an hour, a loss of 13,000 men.”

(Jefferson Davis: A Memoir by His Wife, Volume II. Varina Davis. Nautical and Aviation Publishing Company of America. 1990 (original published 1890), pp. 487-493)

After the absolute rout of the enemy at Chancellorsville, Lee rode into a clearing “where his soldiers rushed around him, waving their hats in celebration of the victory.” Some were in tears of worship, reaching out to touch him and his horse Traveller. Lee’s aide described the scene as “one long, unbroken cheer, in which the feeble cry of those who lay helpless on the earth blended with the strong voices of those who still fought, rose high above the roar of battle, and hailed the presence of the victorious chief.” The aide mused that “it must have been from such a scene that men in ancient times rose to the dignity of gods.”

Two American Generals with Such Perfect Rapport

“If Lee, outnumbered and initially outmaneuvered, had been someone else, he might have tried anything else than a venture so dangerous. After all, there was a prudent alternative and honorable under the circumstances: retreat to a more defensible position.

Instead of that, he chose to risk disaster – because he was Lee, and because the man beside him was Jackson. Whether it was because his opponent was Joe Hooker is less clear. Lee had known Hooker in Mexico, where the young officer earned his reputation before he earned his nickname. But Hooker had not been in a command position there – instead, he was the eager executor of others’ decisions. Yet Hooker’s record since as an aggressive division and corps commander should have told any sensible opponent that it was foolish to chance destruction in detail by his powerful force.

For Lee, however, Hooker’s performance in the previous two days, twice pulling back on Chancellorsville when his generals wanted to drive on, must have outweighed the rest of that war record. If Lee had not firmly concluded that Hooker would stay behind his fortified lines, he was willing to gamble on it. The clinching reason was Stonewall Jackson.

American history offers no other pair of generals with such perfect rapport., such sublime confidence in each other. Jackson had said, “Lee is the only man I know whom I would follow blindfolded.” Lee, from the beginning, had insisted that he was fighting to protect the Virginia of his fathers; Jackson could say he was fighting now to recover his own Virginia, the mountain land that was cut off as a new federal State.

But Lee upped the ante at Chancellorsville when he proposed going all the way around to hit Hooker’s army from its far flank. Jackson, as if challenged, upped it again when he told Lee he not only would go, but he would also take all three of his divisions along to do it right. Lee, fully realizing that this would leave him to hold Hooker’s overwhelming force with about one-fifth its number, met that challenge when he said calmly, “Well, go on.”

This was the climax of two great military careers, each made greater by the other.”

(Chancellorsville, 1863: The Souls of the Brave. Ernest B. Furgurson. Random House, 1992, p. 146)

General Lee visited Wilmington briefly in early 1870 after visiting father’s gravesite in coastal Georgia. This son of Gen. “Lighthorse Harry” Lee also fought bravely for political independence and led brave American soldiers who venerated him.

In a postwar address to the Association of the Army of Northern Virginia, Col. Charles Marshall alluded to Gen. Lee’s “wonderful influence over troops under his command, saying that that such was the love and veneration of the men for him that they came to look upon the cause, [the struggle for political independence] as General Lee’s cause, and they fought for it because they loved him. To them he represented cause, country and all.”

America’s Greatest Military Leader

“April 30, 1870.

At Wilmington, they spent a day with Mr. & Mrs. George Davis. His coming there was known only to a few persons, as its announcement was by private telegram from Savannah, but quite a number of ladies and gentlemen secured a small train and went out on the Southern Road to meet Lee. When they met the regular passenger train from Savannah which Lee was aboard, he was taken from it to the private one and welcomed by his many friends. He seemed bright and cheerful and conversed with all. Lee spoke of his health not being good, and on this account begged that there would be no public demonstration on his arrival, nor during his stay at Wilmington.

On reaching that place, he accompanied Mr. George Davis to his home and was his guest during Lee’s sojourn in the city. Mrs. Davis was the daughter of Dr. O. Fairfax of Alexandria, Virginia. They had been and were very old and dear friends and neighbors.

There was a dinner given to my father that day at Mr. Davis’s home, and a number of gentlemen were present.  He was looking very well, but in conversation said that he realized there was some trouble with his heart, which he was satisfied was incurable.

The next day, May 1^st, Lee left by train for Norfolk, Virginia.”

(Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee. Robert E. Lee, II. Garden City Publishing, 1904. pp. 400-401)

Lt. John M. Kell served as executive officer aboard the raider CSS Alabama which was sunk in battle off the coast of France in June 1864. He survived and four months later was aboard a British mail packet from Liverpool to Halifax, Nova Scotia, thence to Bermuda on another. Determined to return to the Confederate States, Kell boarded a steamer there to run the enemy blockade at Wilmington, North Carolina.

While at Wilmington, Kell contacted the family of Alabama midshipman Edward Maffitt Anderson, who believed he had perished in battle. Anderson was born at Savannah – his father was Col. Edward C. Anderson, wartime commandant of Fort Jackson on the Savannah River. In the prewar US Navy, Anderson and John Newland Maffitt were friends – each giving their sons the last names of each other as their middle name.

Running Wilmington’s Blockade

“We found the little side-wheeler steamer Flamingo ready to sail and took passage on her. The sea was smooth and beautifully adapted to our little vessel which only drew three or four feet of water and skimmed the surface of the ocean like a bird.

We began the voyage very well but our first experience nearing the Cape Fear shore was disappointing with the difficulty of ascertaining our bearings and whereabouts. At morning light, we discovered two enemy blockaders ahead and three on our quarters, then put on all the steam we could carry and proceed eastward. The blockader ahead made every exertion to cut us off and fired upon us, but the shot fell short, and we continued on our course – fairly flying – and soon our pursuers were out of sight and we greatly relieved to have made so narrow an escape.

About eight o’clock we got out instruments to establish our position accurately on the chart, took our bearings on Fort Fisher. As the evening drew on, we made all steam and passed in under the very guns of the enemy blockaders, like a flash of lightning and were soon safely under the guns of the fort. A basket of champagne was at once ordered up and a toast to our successful run was heartily quaffed.

We discovered the cause of our first missing our bearings offshore was due entirely to the drunkenness of the steamer’s officers. The risks they ran seemed to inspire the desire to get up a little “Dutch courage” as the occasion required and came very near precipitating us – after all our hair-breadth escapes – into the hands of the enemy!”

In Wilmington I met a friend of the Anderson family, who informed me of the report that had reached them that their brave young son had perished in the CSS Alabama’s fight off Cherbourg, being “literally torn to pieces by the explosion of an 11-inch shell.” I had the great satisfaction of telling them of his safety, he being one of the last to bid me good-bye in Liverpool.”

(Recollections of a Naval Life, including the Cruises of the CSA Steamers, Sumpter and Alabama. John McIntosh Kell. Neale Company, Publishers. Washington. 1911, pp. 262-263)

Lt. John M. Kell was second in command on the Confederate States raider Alabama and wrote his wife in late December 1862 that “we are in quiet anchorage at the Arcas Cayes, and here we passed the holy season of Christmas. The time so full of home delights and good cheer was to be to us but a time of memories and work.” He wrote her the following on the first day of the New Year:

Christmas and the New Year at Sea

“January 1^st, 1863. Another New Year has rolled around, but alas, how few the inmates of the broken homes in our beloved Southland that are permitted to-day to greet each other with the time-honored salutation, A happy New Year!”

Let us not sorrow or despond but rather lift up grateful hearts that are still able to defend our homes and firesides from the wicked invasion of the hordes of the enemy and their vandal minions, and God grant that ere another year rolls around our land may rejoice in peace and acknowledged independence!”

(Recollections of a Naval Life, including the Cruises of the CSA Steamers, Sumpter and Alabama. John McIntosh Kell. Neale Company, Publishers. Washington. 1911, pg. 207.)

From 1863 through 1865, newly recruited and reenlisting northern soldiers received generous cash bonuses which made them quite wealthy as they returned home. In addition to the US government paying some $300 million in bounties during the war, northern State and local governments paid soldiers an equal amount to wear the uniform.  In stark contrast, the Southern soldier on average was an ill-nourished, physical wreck who returned penniless to burned homes and farms – and an empty State treasury from which to assist veterans in rebuilding their lives.

Raiders of the US Treasury

“Like all veterans’ organizations, the United Confederate Veterans (UCV) was concerned to a greater or lesser degree with obtaining funds from the public treasury for the relief of its members, many of whom were in need.

The north’s Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) was more determined than the UCV to obtain such largesse from the federal government, although as the organization that represented the victorious Union army and navy, its membership was in much less need than were the Southern veterans.

The UCV was hopeful that the various States would provide for the destitute former soldiers and sailors, but as William W. White wrote in the Confederate Veteran, “it is surprising that a group of veterans with so much political power asked for so little from their State governments . . . They viewed themselves not only as veterans but as common citizens and taxpayers.”

This is in contrast to the GAR, which exercised pressure over the years for more and more pensions for northern veterans. “The Grand Army kept in view a very tangible purpose, cash benefits for veterans,” Dixon Wecter wrote in When Johnny Comes Marching Home.  “Only in private dared a well-known statesman to say, apropos of a pension bill, that the GAR having saved the country, now wanted it,” author Wecter declared. Such sentiments seem to have been widely held.

The Nation spoke for many Eastern liberals when it described the GAR as a political party “formed for the express purpose of getting from the government a definite sum in cash for each member of it.” One writer says that by the nineties . . . anyone who opposed to GAR pensions was, at the very least, ‘unpatriotic and un-American,’ and probably a former rebel or Copperhead.”

A member had warned the organization just before its 1887 encampment against asking for more pensions, and urged it “to make clear that the GAR is not organized for the purpose of raiding the US treasury.”

(The Last Review: The Confederate Reunion, Richmond 1932. Virginius Dabney. Algonquin Books, 1984, pp. 26-27)

Robert E. Lee gained his fundamental understanding of the US Constitution while at West Point, that the States were superior to their federal agent in Washington. It is important to note that the word “union” first appears in the “Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union” (which 11 of the 13 States seceded from in 1787).  Two additional States seceded two years later. The 1789 Constitution’s text was prefaced with “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union . . .” The 1861 Constitution of the Confederate States of America began: “We the People of the Confederate States, each acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent federal government . . .”

No Other Course but Dishonor

“Among Lee’s professors at West Point was the distinguished jurist William Rawle, a Pennsylvanian and author of A View of the Constitution of the United States of America (1829), a book that formed the basis of many of Rawle’s lectures. It is likely that cadet Lee became quite familiar with Rawle’s view that the Union was not a compact into which the States had entered irrevocably. Rawle wrote:

“It depends on [the State] itself whether it will continue a member of the Union. To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principle upon which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases the right to determine how they will be governed.”

The newly elected president, Abraham Lincoln, had offered Lee, still only a colonel in rank, command of his army, comprised at the time of some 100,000 men. Had he accepted this, the appointment would have been the pinnacle of his career – everything that he had worked toward for more than 35 years as an officer. But he could not take up arms against his native State and all the complexities of consanguinity that she represented.

“I did only what my duty demanded,” Lee said after the war. “I could have taken no other course without dishonor.” [The final act of his command [of the Army of Northern Virginia], an honorable surrender, was his greatest demonstration of forbearance.”

(Excerpted from Remembering Robert E. Lee, Jack Trotter. Chronicles Magazine, June 2022, pp. 19-20)

After Gettysburg: The Mule and the Grizzly Bear

“That night Gen. Lee decided that he must return to Virginia & began at once to dispatch his trains and wounded. But to give the latter a good start he determined to keep the army in place 24 hours longer. So, the next day I was started at a very early hour, with some engineer officers and staff to select a line of battle for our Corps upon which to fight if the enemy should attack.

This was now Sunday, July 5^th. The march was slow and tedious, our wagons were light of ammunition, and we had lost enormously of horses. We were authorized by Gen. Lee to impress horses from citizens & told to offer Confederate States money, or leave a descriptive list of animals, signed by an officer, on which the bereaved citizen could found a claim for damages upon his government.

During the day I had an accession to my staff, a Captain Stephen Winthrop who held a commission in Her Majesty’s 23^rd Regiment who had come to America to see some fighting. That very afternoon he got a chance to show the stuff he was made of. Anxious for a fight he joined a nearby cavalry regiment about to charge the enemy and led the attack with the colors flying though his horse was killed. After the repulse of that effort, he obtained another horse and went in on a second charge with only his saber – and got into the melee, in which he ran one of the enemy through, coming out with his saber bent and bloody all over.

I recall another incident of the march from Gettysburg. Our men had impressed the horse of and old Dunkard farmer from somewhere in this vicinity. He said he was a poor man & needed a horse for his crops, and that my men told him I had some footsore horses – from lack of horseshoes on the rocky roads. Being told I may abandon them and asked if I would give him one which I did.

Up to now the enemy had pursued us as a mule goes on the chase of a grizzly bear – as if catching up with us was the last thing he wanted to do. But at last, on Friday morning the 10^th of July, the whole of Meade’s army drew near. After making our defensive line how we all did wish that that the enemy would come out in the open & attack us, but they had had their lesson at Gettysburg. But they also had their lesson, in that sort of game, at Fredericksburg and did not care for another. Gen. Meade showed no disposition to attack us.

When it is remembered that Vicksburg had surrendered to the enemy on July 4^th, it does seem that the cumulative moral effect of another immense victory as the destruction of Lee’s army, would surely have ended the war & made Meade its greatest hero and a future president. But the man who could either not see it – or feared to play the game with the opportunities he had – did not deserve it.”

(Fighting for the Confederacy: The Personal Recollections of General Edward Porter Alexander. Gary Gallagher, ed.  UNC Press, 1989, pp. 268-272)

Established in mid-March 1802 during Thomas Jefferson’s presidency, West Point graduation became necessary for an officer commission through 1835, though a rising “Jacksonian Democracy” created a strong desire to end an academy which bred an aristocratic tradition. After Texas statehood, Sam Houston believed a regiment of Texas Rangers better to protect the frontier than US regular troops and officers who he saw as “unaccustomed to frontier life and therefore utterly incompetent” as an Indian fighting command. The Rangers “were men who could ride as well as the Comanches and Kiowas and who understood their dispositions, inclinations – as well as their points of foray and attack.”

In early August 1858, Houston made his harshest Senate speech against the professional military establishment. He attacked West Point as aristocratic and undermining the liberties of American citizens. And it was the untutored frontier military leader Ben McCulloch who peacefully settled the Mormon standoff in Utah circa 1857-58.

West Point’s Aristocratic Traditions

“Early in the nineteenth century, the image of the citizen soldier was strengthened by the hostility that flared against the institution that seemed to embody all the negative elements of a professional military force: the United States Military Academy at West Point. In an era of mass democracy and egalitarian aspirations, West Point became a symbol of aristocratic privilege. It was regarded as a potential threat to popular rule . . . [and] Jacksonian Democrats believed, the caste system created by the professional officer corps would inevitably degrade the enlisted men.

Critic David Crockett spoke for the majority on the frontier when he declared that “this academy did not suit the people of our country, and they were against it.” The officers it trained and commissioned, he maintained, “are too nice to work; they are first educated there for nothing, and they must have salaries to support them after they leave there – this does not suit the notions of the working people, of men who had to get their bread by labor.”

Sam Houston, addressing the United States Senate in 1858, declared that “a political influence” was “growing upon the country in connection with the army,” and “its inception is at the Military Academy.” Its “inmates,” he charged, were “the bantlings of the public” and were nursed, fostered and cherished by the government.” Upon their graduation, the army must be annually enlarged as places must be found for the newly commissioned officers. “The danger,” Houston warned, “is that as they multiply and increase, such will be the political influence disseminated through society that it will become a general infection, ruinous to the liberties of the country.”

As Crockett’s and Houston’s outspoken opposition would suggest, nowhere was the military academy more reviled than on the western Tennessee frontier where the area was yet raw and largely unsettled, and already producing a remarkable number of solider-statesmen whose names would dominate American political and military history until the Civil War. Foremost among them was Andrew Jackson, whose fame and untutored military genius and popularizer of a frontier brand of democracy propelled him into the White House in 1829. Second to Jackson was his political protégé Sam Houston, another product of the frontier as well as an untutored but highly successful military leader. Other Tennesseans of the Jacksonian mold were San Jacinto veteran and Southern cavalry general Tom Green, Texas Ranger John Coffee Hays, and two extraordinary brothers – Ben and Henry McCulloch.”

(Ben McCulloch and the Frontier Military Tradition. Thomas W. Cutrer. UNC Press, 1991, pp. 4-5; 147-149)

Fighting for the “Juster Cause”

The following details the first encounter of the revolutionary CSS Virginia with the USS Monitor after the former had sunk the USS Cumberland and severely damaged the USS Congress the previous day. The Virginia was commanded by Commodore Franklin Buchanan, with Lt. Catesby Jones assuming command after Buchanan was injured. Also aboard was the indefatigable Lt. John Taylor Wood.

“When Jones saw that the Virginia’s guns only dented the Monitor’s turret, he ordered his gun commanders to concentrate their fire on her pilothouse. The vessels wore around until the Virginia’s stern was only ten yards from the Monitor’s pilothouse. Wood quickly barked out the necessary orders to his stern gun crew. A lightning flash erupted from the muzzle of the powerful Brooke rifle and a heavy shell seared the air to strike against the front of the Monitor’s pilothouse, directly in the observation slit. The explosion cracked the iron and partially lifted the top. The blow partly stunned the commander and filled his eyes with powder, temporarily blinding him while ordering his ship to disengage the Virginia. The Monitor retired briefly but resumed firing again.

Wood now had an idea that foreshadowed his special place in the war. As a last hope to defeat the Monitor, he called for volunteers to form a boarding party which he intended to lead to the enemy deck. The response was enthusiastic, and Wood organized the group into special forces, each with a specific task. Some collected sledgehammers and spikes to wedge the Monitor’s turret. Others were ready to fling oakum-ball grenades down the pipes and cover all openings with canvas to cut off visibility and air. A few men carried pistols, boarding pikes and cutlasses in the event of hand-to-hand combat. The Confederates intended to win this battle with brains, seamanship, heroism and the “juster cause.”

When all was ready, the Virginia made a run for the Monitor. The boarding party watched from all ports, each man “burning for the signal to swarm around the foe.” The blood was “fairly tumbling through our veins” recalled one crewmember as the hoarse bark of the boatswain called “boarders away.” At that moment, however, the Monitor frustrated the scheme by standing away and steaming to shallow water.

Wood was disappointed, and with good reason, since the would-be-boarders might well have succeeded [in capturing the Monitor].”

(John Taylor Wood: Sea Ghost of the Confederacy. Royce Gordon Shingleton. UGA Press, 1979, pp. 35-36)