Sunday, April 6, dawned quietly. The Union troops were at breakfast when a burst of rifle fire sounded from the direction of Shiloh Church. When Grant arrived on a dispatch boat from his headquarters, nine miles downstream, he found his army fighting a battle for survival. But the troops held on until nightfall, when Buell’s divisions began arriving. Grant counterattacked the next morning. The Confederates gave ground grudgingly, then broke in full retreat.
Reports of more than 13,000 Union casualties and ugly rumors about Grant sullied the tidings of victory. Soon after Stanton became Secretary of War, charges of drunkenness had been filed against Grant by a disgruntled quartermaster, but Assistant Secretary Scott had reported to Stanton that the accusations were unfounded. Now Stanton rushed off a telegram to Halleck, demanding to know if Grant was to blame for “the sad casualties that befell our forces on Sunday.”
Replying, Halleck mentioned no shortcomings on the part of Grant, like himself a West Pointer. In a private letter to Hitchcock, however, Halleck was sharply critical of Grant. “Brave & able on the field,” he wrote, “he has no idea of how to regulate & organize his forces before a battle or how to conduct the operations of a campaign.”26 Stanton probably saw this letter, for Hitchcock, one of the major molders of Stanton’s ideas at this time, wrote from Washington that there “is but one opinion here. General Grant is absolutely disgraced and dishonored.” Hitchcock felt that Grant’s errors were too gross for forgiveness. “He has been little better than a common gambler and drunkard for many years.” To Stanton, such assertions were another indication that his own responsibility to oversee the conduct of the army commanders must never be ignored, and that the West Pointer’s proclivity to protect fellow alumni from civilian overseership must be thwarted.
As though to balance events, the second day of Shiloh brought news of a real Union victory, when General John Pope, supported by Foote’s gunboats, took Island Number 10 in the Mississippi River and opened the way to Memphis. Scott reported to Stanton that Pope had performed brilliantly. And still more good tidings would be coming from the West.
Since overriding McClellan to make sure that the Army would co-operate in the Navy’s New Orleans expedition, Stanton had kept hands off and let the Navy run that show, as well as most river operations. “Our naval friends,” Scott wrote, “are very sensitive on all such points.”27 For weeks not even the Navy Department knew much about what was happening. But three weeks after Shiloh, a barrage of news arrived. Farragut had steamed into the lower reaches of the Mississippi River, opened a destructive bombardment on Forts Jackson and St. Philip, swept past them under cover of night, and moved upstream through Confederate rams and fireboats to land Butler’s troops at New Orleans. Stanton could take satisfaction in having seen to it that the Army played its proper part in the action. But though the North celebrated the news of these triumphs in the West, Stanton more than any other man was soon to know how far the war was from being won. Until he learned this, he made serious errors in setting policy. Like all Americans, Stanton had to be educated in how to fight this war.
1 Perhaps because he did not yet trust anyone at the War Department, Stanton made notes on these matters on some blank pages in a copy of Helper’s Impending Crisis. He entitled these notes “Events; Ideas, Jan. 15–24, 1862.” Mr. Thomas examined the Helper volume and copied Stanton’s annotations, and this account is based on Mr. Thomas’s record. To Dana, Ac. 2626, Dana Papers, LC; Julian, op. cit., 204.
2 Fry, Military Miscellanies (New York, 1889), 285–7; Flower, Stanton, 138–40; Hay, Diaries and Letters, 36; T. C. Pease and J. G. Randall (eds.), The Diary of Orville Hickman Browning (Springfield, 1925, 1933), I, 523 (cited hereafter as Browning, Diary). See also Warren Hassler, Jr., General George B. McClellan: Shield of the Union (Baton Rouge, 1957), 52–62; McClellan, Own Story, 228–9, 237; Randall, Lincoln the President (New York, 1954), II, 74–9; Kelley, op. cit., 33–4.
3 Jesse A. Marshal (ed.), Private and Official Correspondence of General Benjamin F. Butler during the Period of the Civil War (Norwich, 1917), I, 323, 331 (cited hereafter as Butler, Correspondence); Butler, Butler’s Book (Boston, 1892), 335–6; Morse, Welles Diary, I, 60–1; Welles, “Admiral Farragut and New Orleans,” Galaxy, XII, 817–32; Pearson, Andrew, I, 304–10; ms proceedings of the war board, March 18, 1862, Stanton MSS; O.R., V, 40; VI, 677–8.
4 Nicolay, Lincoln’s Secretary, 130–1; K. Pritchett to Cameron, Feb. 17, 1862, Cameron Papers, LC; Scott’s reports, Feb. 5–21, 1862, Stanton MSS. See also Stanton to Buell, Feb. 9, 1862, BU; same to Chase, Feb. 16, 1862, Chase Papers, HSP; Kamm, op. cit., 86–113; and O.R., ser. 3, I, 889.
5 Flower, Stanton, 129–31; Stanton to Dana, Feb. 19, Stanton MSS; same, Feb. 23, Ac. 2626, Dana Papers, LC; Washington Star, Feb. 18, 1862. Hassler, op. cit., 52, sees this as a slap at McClellan. Although this was part of Stanton’s intention, it is still an honest statement of his beliefs.
6 Strong, Diary, III, 208; R. M. Thompson and R. Wainwright, “Confidential Correspondence of Gustavus Vasa Fox,” NHSP, X (1918), II, 297–8 (cited hereafter as Fox, Correspondence); Star, Feb. 26, 1862.
7 Stanton to Chase, Feb. 16, 1862, Chase Papers HSP; O.R., VII, 642, 645, 652, 655; Halleck to his wife, March 5, 1862, in James Grant Wilson, “General Halleck—A Memoir,” JMSI, XXXVI, 555; Barlow to McClellan, Feb. 8, 1862, Barlow Papers, HL, on the western scheme.
8 Star, Feb. 21, 1862; Stanton to Dana, Feb. 23, 1862, Ac. 2626, Dana Papers, LC. On James’s illness, see Wolcott MS, 179–80. Other data in Barlow to Stanton, Feb. 22, and S. Deming to Barlow, Feb. 22, 1862, Barlow Papers, HL.
9 Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, Sen. Rept. 108, 37th Cong., 3d sess., I, 81–5 (hereafter cited as CCW); Detroit Post, Chandler, 227; White in J. Cutler Andrews, The North Reports the Civil War (Pittsburgh, 1955), 194; and see O.R., ser. 3, 1, 889.
10 Feb. 28, March 6, 1862, Patrick ms diary, LC; Sumner to Andrew, March 2, 1862, Andrew Papers, MHS. Other data in John C. Ropes memo, Feb. 8, 1870, of a conversation with Stanton in Sept. 1869, H. Woodman Papers, MHS; Nicolay, Lincoln’s Secretary, 143; McClellan, Own Story, 192–6; Marcy to McClellan, in Horace White to Joseph Medill, March 3, 1862, Ray Papers, HL; Sam Ward to Barlow, March 10, 16, 1862, Barlow Papers, HL.
11 March 7, 1862, Patrick ms diary, LC; Hassler, op. cit., 62–3; Randall, Lincoln the President, II, 82–3; McClellan, Own Story, 222; CCW, II, 86–7.
12 Le Grand B. Cannon, Personal Reminiscences of the Rebellion, 1861–1866 (New York, 1895), 78–9; Madeline Vinton Dahlgren, Memoirs of John A. Dahlgren (New York, 1891), 358–9; Dahlgren to Ulrich Dahlgren, March 11, 1862, Dahlgren Papers, LC; Hay, Diaries and Letters, 36; Browning, Diary, I, 533; Morse, Welles Diary, I, 61–7.
13 As a result of the Merrimac scare, Stanton commissioned Ellet to build a fleet of Union rams. Ellet converted steamboats into rams, which were finished in an amazingly short time and did valuable service on the Mississippi and its tributaries throughout the remaining years of the war. Much of the time they operated under Navy orders, but Stanton saw to it that the Army retained at least the nominal control of them. Warren D. Crandall and Isaac D. Newell, History of the Ram Fleet and the Mississippi Marine Brigade in the War for the Union on the Mississippi and Its Tributaries (St. Louis, 1907); O.R., IX, 18–22, 28–9, 31–2; X, pt. 3, 26; Morse, Welles Diary, I, 66–7, III, 473–4; Browning, Diary, I, 535–6; ms proceedings of the war board, March 13, 14, 20, 1862, and Stanton-McClellan exchange, March 9–12, 1862, Stanton MSS; Dahlgren, op. cit., 360.
14 McClellan, Own Story, 223–4; March 9, 1862, Patrick ms diary, LC; Bates, Diary, 239; Flower, Stanton, 140; Kamm, op. cit., 119.
15 Hay, Diaries and Letters, 37–8; McClellan, Own Story, 218; O.R., V, 54; X, pt. 2, 28–9; XI, pt. 1, 224; Hassler, op. cit., 66–9.
16 O.R., VIII, 596, 602, 831–2; Stanton to Dana, Feb. 1, and Wade to Dana, Feb. 3, 1862, Dana Papers, LC; Frémont to Stanton, Feb. 10, 1862, Stanton MSS; Ethan Allen Hitchcock to Henry Hitchcock
, May 30, 1862, Hitchcock Papers, MoHS.
17 Frémont to Sumner, Dec. 14, 1863, HU; O.R., XII, pt. 3, 40; proceedings of the war board, March 21, 25, 1862, Stanton MSS; Ward to Barlow, March 22, 1862, Barlow Papers, HL.
18 O.R., LI, pt. 1, 551; McClellan to Stanton, Feb. 18, 1862, Simon Gratz Collection, HSP; to Barlow, March 16, and J. G. Barnard to McClellan, March 19, 1862, McClellan Papers, LC; Benjamin Stark to Barlow, March 18, 1862, Barlow Papers, HL.
19 Wade to Stanton, Feb. 19, Stanton MSS; W. T. to John Sherman, Feb. 23, W. T. Sherman Papers, LC; Grant to Julia Grant, Feb. 24, 1862, owned by the estate of Foreman M. Lebold.
20 Hitchcock’s memos to Stanton, March 17, 19, and Stanton to Hitchcock, March 18, 1862, Hitchcock Papers, LC; Hitchcock to Henry Hitchcock, March 10, 17, 1862, Hitchcock Collection, MoHS; March 21, 1862, Hitchcock ms journal, GI; W. A. Croffut (ed.), Fifty Years in Camp and Field, Diary of Major-General Ethan Allen Hitchcock, U.S.A. (New York, 1909), 437–40.
21 Stanton to Rev. I. Prince, March 26, 1862, Simon Gratz Collection, HSP; O.R., XI, pt. 1, 224; LI, pt. 1, 551; Kenneth P. Williams, Lincoln Finds a General (New York, 1949–59), I, 159 (hereafter cited as Williams, Lincoln Finds a General); Dahlgren, op. cit., 361.
22 O.R., V, 58–9; XI, pt. 1, 230–1, pt. 3, 52, 57, 60–2; CCW, I, 305; Hitchcock to Mrs. Horace Mann, July 14, 1864, Hitchcock-Mann Letters, LC; Roy P. Basler (ed.), The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (New Brunswick, 1953), VI, 175–6 (hereafter cited as Lincoln, Works); John C. Ropes, “General McClellan’s Plans for the Campaign of 1862 and the Alleged Interferences of the Government with Them,” MHSM (1895), I, 61–87; McClellan, Own Story, 306.
23 Stanton’s information on McClellan’s pro-Southern attitudes probably came from Senator John Sherman; see Mrs. W. T. Sherman to John Sherman, March 24, 1862, W. T. Sherman Papers, LC; Browning Diary, I, 538–9. See also O.R., XI, pt. 3, 67–8, 71, 73–4; Hassler, op. cit., 74–87.
24 O.R., XI, pt. 1, 14; XIX, pt. 2, 725–8; Lincoln, Works, V, 185.
25 Grant to his wife, March 29, 1862, owned by the estate of Foreman M. Lebold; and see Wilson, “General Halleck—A Memoir,” loc. cit., 555.
26 Scott to Stanton, Jan. 26, 1862, Stanton MSS; O.R., X, pt. 1, 98–99; T. Harry Williams, Lincoln and His Generals (New York, 1952), 85–6, and see Buell’s version of events in Columbia University Forum, IV, 54.
27 Scott to Stanton, April 16, 1862, Stanton MSS; unsigned, undated fragment in Hitchcock’s writing, addressed to “Dear Cox,” Hitchcock Papers, LC.
CHAPTER IX
FAILURE AND FRUSTRATION
WHILE western forces were on the move and fighting, down on the Yorktown Peninsula there was no sound of battle—just the dreary drip of rain. Mist enshrouded the low, flat countryside, blurring the outlines of buildings on the scattered farms and gloomy woods along the swelling Warwick River. The roads became clutching quagmires, and in the army encampments the sick lists began to lengthen. General Joseph E. Johnston, arriving to take over the Confederate command, found that he had only 53,000 troops, and prepared to pull back whenever McClellan started an assault or a bombardment.
Fair weather finally came, and McClellan advised Lincoln not to misunderstand “the apparent inaction here.” Though Lincoln kept his impatience in check, an increasingly strident public outcry arose against McClellan. Democratic spokesmen countered with a vicious onslaught on Stanton, stressing the implication that, by reappointing Frémont, the supposedly conservative War Secretary had allied himself with the Republican abolitionists and was trying to cripple McClellan by denying him men and supplies, as he would “tomahawk anyone he disliked,” in Sam Ward’s words. “If we are disappointed in Mr. Stanton,” wrote David Davis to Holt, “the confidence of conservative men will receive a terrible shock.”
It was true that Stanton would have liked to remove “Little Mac” from command, but his own and Lincoln’s caution held back this decision. But at the same time Stanton supplied McClellan with all that he requested. Assistant Secretary Tucker, sent to the Peninsula by Stanton to help solve McClellan’s transportation problems, although recognizing the general’s difficulties, reported the roads literally covered with wagons. Hitchcock visited McClellan to see if anything was lacking, and decided that the War Department could have done nothing more to contribute to the success of the movement against Yorktown. And none of McClellan’s supporters in the press then asserted that their champion was lacking in men or supplies. “The Secretary had determined to give McClellan everything he wants, no matter what,” confided ordnance officer George T. Balch.1
At last, on May 3, everything seemed ready for opening the bombardment. But Johnston, having delayed McClellan for a month, saw nothing to be gained by tarrying longer. He quietly abandoned Yorktown and pulled back from his defenses along the Warwick River. McClellan wired Stanton triumphantly: “Yorktown is in our possession.” Stanton sent him congratulations and expressed the hope that he would soon hear of his arrival in Richmond. But Stanton shared a wish expressed by Dix that the enemy “could have been thrashed instead of being frightened off.”
Surprised by Johnston’s withdrawal, McClellan sent his army forward in an ill-organized pursuit. Johnston made a stand at Williamsburg, then dug in before Richmond. McClellan inched forward until his troops could see the city’s steeples—and stopped.
Meanwhile, on April 22, Tucker informed Stanton that two hundred Norfolk workmen, swarming over the Merrimac day and night for the past three weeks, had repaired and strengthened her to the point where she would soon be ready to venture forth again. The ability of the Monitor and the Vanderbilt to cope with her was still conjectural; if they failed, she could bring disaster to McClellan by destroying his transports and supply ships. Stanton proposed to Lincoln and Chase, in whom Lincoln still reposed great confidence and who was continuing to dabble in War Department matters, that the three of them try personally to dispose of the Confederate terror about which the Navy Department seemed so unconcerned.2
On May 6, Lincoln joined Chase and Stanton on board the Miami, a Treasury revenue cutter. While the ship was anchored off Fort Monroe next night, plans were completed for an attack on Norfolk, and the three civilians were watching from a tug when the big naval guns commenced firing next morning. Stanton then busied himself reading telegrams from McClellan, and sent off a wire to Ellen that he wished she and their sick baby could be with him to enjoy the perfect weather.
When night fell, Lincoln, Stanton, and Chase went scouting on the rebel shore to find a place suitable for landing troops, and in the bright moonlight, which made the party clearly visible to any sniper lurking in the dunes, a spot selected by Chase was chosen. Stanton went back to Fort Monroe with Lincoln in order to keep him out of further danger, and in the middle of the following night Chase rejoined them with news that Norfolk had fallen. Lincoln beamed with joy, and “Stanton … was equally delighted,” Chase reported to his daughter. And later that night they heard a dull boom across the water; the Confederates had destroyed the Merrimac. McClellan wired Stanton congratulations “from the bottom of my heart” on the destruction of the Merrimac, and on the access to the James River that was now afforded. Congratulations were deserved, for the amateur strategists had waged a brilliant campaign. McClellan’s supply lines and flank were secure and the James was open to Union naval penetration. Chase gave the chief credit for the accomplishment to Lincoln, but the expedition had been Stanton’s idea.
Although he disparaged his own role in these events, Stanton was not one to minimize the Army in public accounts, and this made naval officers bristle. In a confidential letter, Goldsborough termed Stanton a “little man” who “indulges spasmodically in the belief that he is a military genius, but to my mind, bungles every thing he undertakes to direct on his own accord.” Lawyers cannot command armies, Goldsborough wrote, merely because they know how to impress a courtroom. “They are playing the wild with our country, & Mr. Stanton is among the worst of them, because he is in power, & ha
s a very arbitrary & conceited disposition.”
But the country generally applauded the civilian strategists. And Stanton became a casualty. He contracted a severe case of ophthalmia during his stay in the Peninsula and after returning to Washington was almost blind for several days.3
On May 14, McClellan telegraphed Lincoln that the Confederates were concentrating their forces and that he would be compelled to fight “perhaps double my numbers” in order to take Richmond. He pleaded that every man that could be mustered be sent to him “by water.”
The only troops readily available were those commanded by McDowell, who had advanced from Manassas to Fredericksburg and pushed one of his divisions, under General James Shields, into the Shenandoah Valley to support Banks. Lincoln, in consultation with Stanton and the War Department bureau chiefs, now decided to bring Shields back to Fredericksburg and then move McDowell’s entire force to the Peninsula, not by water, as McClellan had requested, but directly against Richmond by the shortest overland route, the approach that Stanton had always favored.
McClellan protested immediately that unless he could exercise complete control over McDowell’s troops, they would be of little use to him, and insisted that the troops be sent by water to save time. Later, in an afterthought of self-justification, he claimed that the President’s order made it impossible for him to use the James River as a base—although he had already selected the Pamunkey River for that purpose—and that in extending his lines northward to link up with McDowell, he left his right wing fatally exposed. “Herein,” he said of Lincoln’s order, “lay the failure of the campaign.”
Lincoln and Stanton decided to stick to their decision. Mindful of what they had accomplished on their trip to the Peninsula, the two men, on the night of May 22, again quietly left Washington by boat, for Aquia Creek, to visit McDowell’s headquarters and speed up his movement, taking Dahlgren along.
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