For the Common Defense
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Advancing in early April, the Union army encountered the rebels’ Yorktown line. Defended by a minimal force and fake cannons, the line appeared strong to McClellan, who considered a frontal assault risky. He resorted to siege operations, which consumed a month. Just when McClellan was ready to smash Yorktown with enormous siege guns, the Confederates withdrew. As they retreated, they had to abandon Norfolk, a severe blow to the Confederate navy. Plodding up the Peninsula, McClellan found that the Chickahominy River presented a problem. With his base at White House on the York River, the Union commander kept his army north of the Chickahominy, but he would have to cross it to attack Richmond. He also believed he would need reinforcements and beseeched Lincoln for McDowell’s corps, stationed at Fredericksburg. On May 17 the president agreed, but he insisted that McDowell move overland. Stanton ordered McClellan to extend his right flank to meet McDowell. Thus McClellan had to straddle the Chickahominy, maintaining communications with his base and awaiting McDowell while at the same time advancing on the Confederate capital.
The Confederates considered McDowell’s movement a potential calamity, as Johnston could be crushed between McClellan and McDowell. In desperation Johnston planned to attack McClellan, who had reorganized his army into five corps, before McDowell arrived. McClellan had pushed two corps across the Chickahominy, which, swollen by recent rains, separated the unequal halves of his army. Johnston would strike the three corps on the north bank to drive them away from McDowell. Meanwhile, acting as Davis’s military adviser, Robert E. Lee proposed sidetracking McDowell by unleashing Jackson in the Shenandoah. Lee’s advice initiated one of the war’s most brilliant campaigns.
On May 23 Jackson pounded a Union garrison at Front Royal and moved down the Valley, simulating an advance on Washington. After momentary panic Lincoln recognized Jackson’s thrust as a diversion, not an invasion. He also realized the North had an opportunity to trap Stonewall’s 17,000-man army between Fremont, Banks, and McDowell. Ordering McDowell to countermarch away from McClellan toward the upper Shenandoah, Lincoln urged the three commanders to move swiftly and cooperate fully. They did neither, and Jackson, combining knowledge of the terrain with rapid marching, foiled the efforts of 60,000 Federals to spring the trap. Jackson’s Valley campaign allowed Johnston to reorient his attack against McClellan. When news arrived that McDowell had reversed directions, Johnston decided to assault McClellan’s weaker south wing. At the Battle of Fair Oaks (or Seven Pines) on May 31 the South came close to victory, but Union reinforcements crossed the Chickahominy on one half-destroyed bridge, and the advance stalled. The next day the Yankees pushed the rebels back to their starting point.
The strategically insignificant battle had momentous consequences. Johnston was badly wounded, and on June 1 Davis appointed Lee to replace him. Nothing in the new commander’s previous Civil War experience foretold the fame he would achieve leading the Army of Northern Virginia to destruction, and to immortality in military annals. Like Grant at Belmont, Lee began on an unpromising note. He was sent to oust the Federals from western Virginia; his strategy miscarried, and troops derisively called him “Granny Lee” and “Evacuating Lee.” While commanding the southern Atlantic coast, he earned another unflattering nickname, “the King of Spades,” by ordering his men to dig entrenchments. No nicknames could have been less apt, because Lee’s early wartime activities concealed his true character. No general surpassed him in audacity and aggressiveness. If McClellan took no risks, Lee perhaps took too many. He preferred the bold offensive, seeking in true Napoleonic fashion to destroy, not merely defeat, the enemy army. Dedicated to winning a battle of annihilation, he sometimes imprudently continued attacking beyond any reasonable prospect of success. Lee also needed to broaden his view of the war. Exhibiting a narrow parochialism, he believed Virginia was the most important war zone. He underestimated the problems Confederate commanders faced in the western and trans-Mississippi theaters and the significance of those theaters for southern survival. Yet Lee served the South well. Although costing the Confederacy dearly, his victories against great odds buoyed Confederate morale and depressed the North. Furthermore, Lee’s emphasis on his native state was not entirely emotional. Richmond, the South’s primary industrial center, acquired great symbolic value, and the Virginia countryside furnished men, mounts, food, and other logistical assets.
Lee’s defense of Virginia through daring offensive operations began shortly after he assumed command. During June McClellan shifted all but Fitz-John Porter’s 30,000-man corps south of the Chickahominy and repeatedly promised he would attack—as soon as he received more reinforcements. Although Lee had 85,000 men, McClellan thought he had 200,000. Not until June 25 did the Union commander launch a reconnaissance in force, but by then Lee had the Confederate army poised to strike. Learning from his cavalry commander, Jeb Stuart, that Porter’s corps was vulnerable, Lee proposed holding off McClellan’s four corps (70,000 men) with 30,000 soldiers and attacking Porter with 55,000, including Jackson’s command. With Porter destroyed, McClellan would be cut off from White House. Lee believed McClellan would retreat toward the York River to protect his lines of supply and communications. The Confederates would then shred the Union army with constant attacks.
On June 26 the Confederates initiated the Seven Days Battles, which consisted of five engagements: Mechanicsville (June 26), Gaines’ Mill (June 27), Savage Station (June 29), Glendale, or Frayser’s Farm (June 30), and Malvern Hill (July 1). Throughout the week few things went right for Lee. Jackson invariably attacked late. Poor maps, deplorable intelligence, and inadequate staff work resulted in uncoordinated assaults. McClellan did not do what Lee expected. Instead of fighting toward White House, he shifted to Harrison’s Landing on the James, executing a midcampaign change of base. Lee lost every battle except Gaines’ Mill and failed to annihilate the Army of the Potomac. Particularly at Gaines’ Mill and Malvern Hill he hurled his men against formidable defenses. As one division commander said after Malvern Hill, “It was not war—it was murder.” The Seven Days cost the South more than 20,500 casualties, the North about 16,500. Yet Lee became a hero. His offensive battered the Federals away from Richmond and wrenched the initiative from the enemy. McClellan, who did not consider his change of base a retreat, believed he had conducted a brilliant campaign, especially since he thought he was fighting against a larger army without any help from the Lincoln administration. “If I save this army now,” he wrote to Stanton during the furious combat, “I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you or to any other persons in Washington. You have done your best to sacrifice this army.”
Lee soon gave the South more reason to believe in him. On the day Lee attacked at Mechanicsville, Lincoln consolidated the commands of Banks, Fremont, and McDowell into the Army of Virginia under Pope. On July 11 the president brought another westerner east, elevating Halleck, who had been so successful in the west, to the post of commanding general (or, as it was also called, general in chief). Lincoln had hoped Halleck would take responsibility for command and strategic decisions, but Halleck disappointed him, refusing to give orders on his own authority since he considered himself as “simply a military adviser to the Secretary of War and the President,” who “must obey and carry out what they decide upon, whether I concur with their decisions or not.” However, Halleck was an efficient administrator, a valuable talent in mass total war, and generally a source of sound advice. The first major question Lincoln asked Halleck was what to do with the armies of Pope and McClellan. Should they be concentrated? If so, on the James under McClellan or the Rappahannock under Pope? Acting on Halleck’s recommendation, Lincoln decided that McClellan should evacuate the Peninsula. Bitterly resenting this decision, detesting Pope, and convinced “that the dolts in Washington are bent on my destruction,” McClellan moved with inexcusable slowness, wasting more time than Pope had to spare, for Lee was hurrying north.
Having organized his army into corps commanded by Jackson and James Longstreet, Lee moved towa
rd Pope before McClellan’s withdrawal began, leaving Richmond sparsely defended but confident that McClellan would miss the opportunity. Jackson led the advance, defeating Banks’s corps at Cedar Mountain on August 9, and within two weeks Lee’s 55,000 men faced Pope’s 65,000 across the Rappahannock. Violating every military maxim, Lee divided his army, sending Jackson with 23,000 men far to the west around Pope’s right flank and into his rear. Jackson destroyed the Union supply depot at Manassas Junction and assumed a defensive position near the First Bull Run battlefield. Pope found Jackson late on August 28 and erroneously assumed that the retreating Confederates were trapped. Longstreet and Lee were following in the footsteps of Jackson, whose task was to hold on until they arrived. As the Yankees assaulted Jackson on the 29th, Lee and Longstreet reached the battlefield and took up a position lurking on Pope’s left flank. The next afternoon, when renewed enemy attacks nearly overwhelmed Stonewall’s position, Longstreet crushed the Union flank and sent Pope in disarray toward Washington. Another humiliating defeat, the Second Battle of Bull Run (or Second Manassas) cost the Yankees 16,000 casualties. But Lee, whose casualties were 9,200, had failed to destroy Pope’s army.
After his successive victories over McClellan and Pope pushed the invaders out of most of Virginia, Lee prepared to carry the war into enemy territory. But he would not move northward alone. During the fall the South made its only coordinated offensive of the war, attempting simultaneous invasions of Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and western Tennessee. The Confederacy wanted to “liberate” Maryland and Kentucky and allow its armies to live off the enemy countryside. Many southerners believed victories beyond the Potomac and along the Ohio would foster northern war-weariness and inspire British intervention. The prospect of foreign aid was not fanciful. In May 1861 the British government had issued a neutrality proclamation granting the Confederacy belligerent status. In mid-July 1862, Parliament debated a motion for Confederate recognition, and two months later Foreign Secretary Lord Russell and Prime Minister Palmerston considered offering to mediate the conflict. But as the North’s ambassador to the Court of St. James noted, “Great Britain always looks to her own interest as a paramount law of her action in foreign affairs.” Recognition would best serve British interests if the Confederacy looked like a sure winner. As Palmerston told Lord Russell, “The Iron should be struck while it is hot” if “the Federals sustain a great Defeat.”
As it splashed across the Potomac in early September, Lee’s 50,000-man army was not in good condition. Many soldiers suffered acute diarrhea from eating green corn; others hobbled on shoeless sore feet. The high command was also in poor health. Lee’s hands were in splints, Jackson had a sore spine, and Longstreet was in pain from a raw heel blister. With this bedraggled force Lee planned to sever the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad and destroy the Union army. He was sanguine, for he knew that Lincoln had reappointed McClellan to command. McClellan’s behavior during Second Bull Run incensed the president, who believed McClellan wanted Pope to fail. Yet Lincoln needed someone who could whip Pope’s dispirited troops into fighting shape, and, he said, if McClellan “can’t fight himself, he excels in making others ready to fight.” “Little Mac” felt vindicated, writing that “I have been called upon to save the country” again, just as after First Bull Run.
McClellan actually did have the chance to save the country. When the Federals did not evacuate Harpers Ferry as Lee expected, the Confederate commander decided to eliminate this potential trouble spot threatening his lines of supply and communication. In Special Order No. 191 he detailed a daring dispersion of his army. Under Jackson’s overall command, three columns would converge on Harpers Ferry while Longstreet remained at Boonsboro just west of South Mountain. On September 13 Union soldiers found a copy of Lee’s order, which they sent to McClellan. Few generals have had so much good luck and done so little with it. With exact knowledge of Lee’s deployments and with his own 88,000-man army at Frederick, McClellan could crush the enemy piecemeal if he moved rapidly. Unbeknownst to the Union commander, the situation was even more favorable, because Lee had sent Longstreet to Hagerstown, leaving only Daniel H. Hill’s division at Boonsboro. Instead of marching immediately, McClellan waited until the 14th, when, despite a Thermopylae-like fight by the rebels, the Union army gained two gaps in South Mountain. Lee, who had recalled Longstreet, contemplated retreat. But the next day, learning that Jackson had captured Harpers Ferry, he decided to fight. Assuming a position behind Antietam Creek, he awaited Jackson, who arrived on the 16th. Straggling had thinned Lee’s ranks to about 40,000 men. Believing Lee had at least 100,000, McClellan spent a day and a half preparing to attack, giving Lee’s army time to concentrate.
The Battle of Antietam (or Sharpsburg) on September 17 unfolded from north to south. Initially Joseph Hooker’s command struck the Confederate left, where the fighting raged with demoniacal fury, men screaming and laughing hysterically at the frenzy of death. Then Edwin V. Sumner’s corps smashed into the southern center, where, wrote a Union colonel, “it seemed as if heaven and earth vibrated with the stunning roar” of battle. Finally Ambrose Burnside’s corps crunched Lee’s right, breaking the Confederate line. Dramatically, Jackson’s last division arrived on the double-quick after a grueling forced march from Harpers Ferry, filling the breach and hurling the Yankees back. The disjointed attacks negated Union numerical superiority, allowing Lee to shift men from one threatened sector to another. Furthermore, McClellan refused to commit 20,000 reserves, fearful that somewhere out there Lee was massing the rest of his troops for a counterattack. Actually, every Confederate division was on the firing line. Antietam was the war’s bloodiest day. As darkness encased the melancholy field, more than 24,000 men lay dead and wounded, 13,000 of them in gray. Despite his severe losses, Lee not only held his position on the 18th but contemplated an attack! However, his discouraged subordinates convinced him that an offensive would be foolhardy. Even more incredibly, McClellan did not attack. That evening Lee retreated, and McClellan did not pursue. The Federal commander took complete pride in his success, but Lincoln was angry that McClellan’s success was not more complete.
Although tactically indecisive, Antietam had important consequences. Five days after the battle Lincoln issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, transforming a war for the Union into a war for freedom. The basic document was ready in July, but Lincoln delayed issuing it until the Union cause looked more hopeful, as it did after the Antietam half-victory. Paradoxically, in July McClellan had urged the president to follow a moderate policy, arguing that neither the confiscation of rebel property nor political executions nor “forcible abolition of slavery should be contemplated for a moment.” Contrary to the Lincoln administration’s expectations, the emancipation policy initially increased the chances of British intervention. Several leading British statesmen believed that the Union’s conversion to emancipation was hypocritical, a desperate move to salvage victory by inciting servile insurrections throughout the Confederacy. Appalled by the prospect of a brutal race war, they argued that England should intervene not only to preserve its economic interests but also for humanitarian reasons. But in early November, the British secretary for war explained to the ministry the dire consequences for England if war erupted with the Union, and interventionist sentiment quickly abated. By early 1863, with the British population increasingly supporting the North’s antislavery position, an alliance between England and the South was most unlikely.
The western theater invasions also ended in repulses. Angered by Beauregard’s retreat to Tupelo, Davis replaced him with Braxton Bragg, an excellent organizer but a poor tactician. Watching Buell’s slow progress toward Chattanooga, Bragg left Van Dorn holding Vicksburg with 16,000 soldiers and Price at Tupelo with another 16,000. With 32,000 men Bragg “raced” Buell to Chattanooga. The Yankees had a six-week head start, but by utilizing a circuitous railroad route to Mobile, Montgomery, and Atlanta, Bragg got there first. In conjunction with Edmund K
irby Smith, commanding a smaller force at Knoxville, Bragg planned a Kentucky invasion. Since each commanded a separate department, neither could command the other. In mid-August Smith moved into central Kentucky, capturing Lexington and Frankfort. Bragg entered Kentucky in late August along a more westerly parallel track, getting ahead of Buell, who was hurrying toward Louisville. Capturing Munfordsville, Bragg stood between Buell and the Ohio and was astride the Federals’ supply and communications lines. However, Bragg foolishly moved to Bardstown, allowing the Union army to slip past him to Louisville.
In early October Buell headed southeast, stumbling into a Confederate force at Perryville on the 8th. Buell thought he faced Bragg’s entire army, but only three gray divisions were on hand. Bragg, meanwhile, believed he confronted only a small Federal force, but almost 40,000 bluecoats were on the field. The rebel commander attacked and outfought Buell, but he retreated after learning the enemy’s true strength and linked up with Smith at Harrodsburg. The failure to coordinate operations earlier in the campaign may have deprived the Confederates of success. Now Smith wanted to fight, but Bragg retreated to Chattanooga. Coming on the heels of Antietam, Perryville depressed the South and boosted northern morale, but Lincoln felt frustrated. Emulating McClellan, Buell went to Nashville instead of pursuing the enemy. Based on past performance he would be there for some time, reorganizing and preparing, before moving again.
Bragg wanted Van Dorn and Price to strike northward in conjunction with his invasion but allowed them to work out the details. Commanding separate departments, they could not agree on joint plans. Price preferred an advance toward Nashville and perhaps Paducah, while Van Dorn looked toward Memphis and St. Louis. Price captured Iuka, but Grant counterattacked with converging columns under Edward O.C. Ord and William S. Rosecrans. Price narrowly escaped on September 19, his invasion plans foiled. He joined Van Dorn for an attack on Corinth, commanded by Rosecrans, where a savage battle occurred on October 3–4. As at Antietam and Perryville, an indecisive struggle ended with a Confederate retreat.