Gettysburg

by Stephen W. Sears

  Halleck replied sharply on the morning of the 27th. Harper’s Ferry had always been regarded as an important point; much labor and expense had been expended on the works there: “I cannot approve their abandonment, except in case of absolute necessity.”

  Hooker promptly accelerated his challenge—and the stakes. He and chief engineer Gouverneur Warren were now at Harper’s Ferry and had inspected the position, and both realized what a liability it had become. “I strongly urged the abandonment of Harper’s Ferry,” Warren recalled, “and this was so apparent to both of us that my views were only a confirmation of his.” Hooker responded to Halleck that the garrison at Harper’s Ferry was “of no earthly account there.” There was nothing worth defending; the enemy would never take possession of the fortifications. The troops should be marched to where they could be of service. “Now they are but a bait for the rebels, should they return.” He closed by asking that his telegram “may be presented to the Secretary of War and His Excellency the President” for a decision.

  With the telegraph battle thus joined, Hooker proceeded with his plan. He ordered the cavalry to push northward to Gettysburg, his predicted point of possible collision, “to see what they can of the movements of the enemy.” The assignment would go to John Buford’s division. Hooker handed march instructions to General French. Because this superseded his standing orders, French telegraphed the general-in-chief for confirmation. Halleck had not yet received Hooker’s morning telegram calling for the case to be laid before Lincoln and Stanton, and his response fully displayed his contempt for the Potomac army commander. “Pay no attention to General Hooker’s orders,” he told French.

  This was not only an insult but a calculated one, for Halleck well knew that French would have to show this countermanding order to Hooker. As Halleck hoped, Joe Hooker—perhaps impulsively—treated it as the last straw. Without waiting for the president to respond to his earlier dispatch—without realizing that Lincoln had not even seen that dispatch—Hooker dashed off a brief telegram to the general-in-chief. His instructions required him to cover Harper’s Ferry, he began. “I beg to be understood, respectfully but firmly, that I am unable to comply with this condition with the means at my disposal, and earnestly request that I may at once be relieved from the position I occupy.” Halleck’s reply was bland: “Your dispatch has been duly referred for Executive action.“42

  Mr. Lincoln seems to have conferred with no one except Halleck and to have hesitated not at all in accepting Hooker’s resignation. At a Cabinet meeting the next day, Gideon Welles recorded Lincoln’s sparse comments on the matter: “The President said he had, for several days as the

  conflict became imminent, observed in Hooker the same failings that were witnessed in McClellan after the Battle of Antietam—a want of alacrity to obey and a greedy call for more troops which could not and ought not to be taken from other points.” When Halleck opposed him on abandoning Harper’s Ferry, said the president, “Hooker had taken umbrage at the refusal, or at all events had thought it best to give up the command.” Lincoln did not mention the lack of confidence in Hooker displayed by his lieutenants, but it surely weighed heavily in his decision.

  Nor did Lincoln hesitate about naming a successor. The Potomac army’s chief officers had left no doubt they wanted George Meade for the post, and in any event four other eligible generals had already turned it down. That evening General Orders No. 194 was drawn up, relieving General Hooker as commander of the Army of the Potomac and appointing General Meade in his place.

  That night a special train sped James Hardie, of the army’s adjutant-general’s office, through Maryland to Frederick, and at 3 o’clock on the morning of Sunday, June 28, Hardie awakened General Meade at his Fifth Corps headquarters outside town. “At first,” Meade would tell his wife, “I thought that it was either to relieve or arrest me, and promptly replied to him, that my conscience was clear….” After reading the orders Hardie had brought, Meade stifled his misgivings and (he told his wife) “as a soldier, I had nothing to do but accept and exert my utmost abilities to command success. This, so help me God, I will do….”

  At daybreak Meade and Hardie rode to the camp of the general commanding. Hooker had learned of Hardie’s arrival and surmised his mission, and was dressed in full uniform to meet them. He and Meade conferred in the headquarters tent for some time. In due course Meade, looking grave, emerged and found his son, an aide-de-camp, waiting for him. With “a familiar twinkle of the eye, denoting the anticipation of surprise at information to be imparted,” he announced, “Well, George, I am in command of the Army of the Potomac.“43

  SUNDAY, JUNE 28, proved to be a day of surpassing importance to the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia as well. At 10 o’clock that night, at Longstreet’s headquarters near Chambersburg, the provost guard brought in a dusty, scruffy-looking man in civilian clothes who insisted on seeing the general. Longstreet’s chief of staff, Moxley Sorrel, recognized the visitor as Old Pete’s favorite spy, Henry Thomas Harrison. In his memoirs Sorrel would describe Harrison as “altogether an extraordinary character.” Longstreet had first used his services in the Suffolk campaign in April, at which time he appeared with a letter of introduction from Secretary of War Seddon. In the first week of June Longstreet had called in Harrison, filled his pockets with gold, and sent him to Washington to find out all the intelligence he could about the Federal army and to report back by the end of the month.

  The story Harrison told was a revelation. Rather than still being massed below the Potomac in Virginia as the Confederate high command assumed, Hooker’s army had begun crossing the river three days earlier and was now well up into Maryland. Harrison gave an accounting for five of the seven Federal corps—three at Frederick, two between Frederick and South Mountain. Old Pete, “immediately on fire at such news,” as Sorrel put it, sent the spy in the care of aide John Fairfax to General Lee. At first Lee was suspicious of the unlikely figure and dubious about talking to him. He told Major Fairfax he did not know what to do: “I cannot hear from General Stuart, the eye of the army. What do you think of Harrison?” Fairfax replied that he did not think much of spies, “but General Longstreet thinks a good deal of Harrison.” Lee finally agreed to see the man, and heard him out “with great composure and minuteness.“44

  General Lee was certainly not taken aback by the news that the Yankees had crossed the Potomac—it was after all his intent that they should follow him into the enemy’s country—but what was startling and deeply disturbing was only now hearing about it, three days after the event. If the spy Harrison was right that Hooker started his army across the Potomac on June 25, by all rights Lee should have learned about it no later than the 26th. Never before had Jeb Stuart let him down, and the lapse was unsettling.

  Even now he had no idea where Stuart was, nor any idea of the whereabouts of the enemy’s forces beyond what Longstreet’s spy had just told him—information that was already twenty-four hours old—nor, in fact, any idea of how to remedy this intelligence-gathering void. The unpleasant truth was that Mr. F. J. Hooker had stolen a forty-eight-hour march on him. As a consequence, before midnight that Sunday a headquarters courier went pounding down the road north of Chambersburg bearing urgent orders to pull together the scattered elements of the Army of Northern Virginia.45

  6. High Stakes in Pennsylvania

  ON JUNE 25, three days before Major Hardie handed him his appointment as commanding general of the Army of the Potomac, George Gordon Meade discussed that very possibility in an introspective letter to his wife. The army command had been in Meade’s thoughts since early May, when the generals plotting Hooker’s overthrow sought Meade’s blessing for their scheme to promote him as Hooker’s successor. Mrs. Meade, the general noted, seemed still to have visions of his being placed in the command, but he thought by now it had all blown over. “It is folly to think I stand any chance upon mere merit alone,” he explained. He lacked the necessary friends, “political or others,” to advance
his case. Still, he was proud enough of his mere merits to elucidate them.

  For one thing, he said, no one could accuse him of being “an unprincipled intriguer, who had risen by criticising and defaming my predecessors and superiors.” Nor could he be called incompetent, for “so far as I have been tried I have been singularly successful.” And certainly none could say “I had never been under fire, because it is notorious no general officer, not even Fighting Joe himself, has been in more battles, or more exposed, than my record evidences.” The one thing that could be said, “and I am willing to admit the justice of the argument, is that it remains to be seen whether I have the capacity to handle successfully a large army.” However that might be, he would not indulge “in any dreams of ambition,” but simply await events and do his duty. He closed his letter by gently chiding his wife: “I think your ambition is being roused and that you are beginning to be bitten with the dazzling prospect of having for a husband a commanding general of the army. How is this?“1

  George Meade’s self-analysis was as perceptive and practical as the man himself. A career soldier, age forty-seven, he had a drab professorial look about him and as a figure of command was utterly lacking in color. But he was sharp-minded and quick-tempered. As one of his staff remarked, “I don’t know any thin old gentleman, with a hooked nose and cold blue eye, who, when he is wrathy, exercises less of Christian charity

  George Gordon Meade was the sixth and last general to lead the Army of the Potomac. (Library of Congress)

  than my well-beloved Chief!” On the battlefield Meade was conscientious and energetic and led from the front. He had been twice wounded at Glendale on the Peninsula, and he came away from Fredericksburg with two bullet holes in his hat. He was hardly known outside the Fifth Corps, and less than well known there. But of surpassing importance was the respect he enjoyed among the army’s general officers. Their lack of

  respect for Joe Hooker all but destroyed that general’s usefulness; their pledged confidence in George Meade was the strongest card in his command hand.2

  “I was delighted, on the road, to hear that Gen. Meade was in command of the army,” General John Gibbon wrote home. “… I now feel my confidence restored and believe we shall whip these fellows.” That confident tone was reflected all through the officer corps. Alpheus Williams, commanding a division in the Twelfth Corps, “rejoiced at the change of commanders…. Now with a gentleman and a soldier in command I have renewed confidence that we shall at least do enough to preserve our honor and the safety of the Republic.” At headquarters that June 28, wrote Provost Marshal Marsena Patrick, “Of course this has caused great commotion, but as yet I have heard no regret.”

  Beyond any doubt, by his miscalculations and intemperate talk and his too mistrustful attitude toward his lieutenants, Joe Hooker alienated his fellow generals and helped precipitate his own downfall. Yet at the same time, these fellow generals plotted within a climate of military disloyalty they themselves had created, beginning in the Burnside regime and reaching fruition in the Hooker regime. The generals’ revolt critically wounded Hooker in the eyes of Mr. Lincoln, and Henry Halleck then provided the excuse to push Fighting Joe over the edge. Now, their wish granted, the dissidents had little option except to serve one of their own with absolute fealty.

  At 6 o’clock on the evening of that eventful Sunday, Joe Hooker made his farewells to the army in which he had fought for two years and which he had led for five months. “Hooker feels his removal very much,” wrote the First Corps artillerist Charles Wainwright, especially on the eve of a battle “in which he might wipe off the opprobrium attached to him for his last.” But Wainwright thought Hooker’s farewell order to the army, which described his successor as a brave and accomplished soldier, was excellent, “the most modest of all his productions.” As reported by Charles Coffin of the Boston Journal, the principal officers at headquarters were drawn up in line. General Hooker “shook hands with each officer, laboring in vain to stifle his emotion. The tears rolled down his cheeks. The officers were deeply affected.” Hooker said he had hoped to lead them to victory, but “the power above him had ordered otherwise. He spoke in high terms of General Meade.” Marsena Patrick tried to sum up the moment in his diary: “He leaves few friends behind him, altho’ personally, he is the most agreeable commander I have yet served under….“3

  The reaction among the rank and file was muted. The troops were not suffering the kind of crisis in morale that had caused Hooker to be welcomed and Burnside condemned after Fredericksburg. Indeed it was Joe Hooker’s legacy that now the army was well managed and its morale restored. This was the fifth command change in the Army of the Potomac within the past year, and the response of many was a resigned shrug at the mysterious ways of Washington. “Again a change in the face of the enemy & yet the government ask us to believe that they know what they are about!” exclaimed Captain Charles Francis Adams, Jr. According to T. C. Grey of the New York Tribune, “The relieving of Hooker is received with a kind of apathetic indifference by the army, although many are loud in denouncing the act at this particular time.” There were regrets, however, for Joe Hooker was remembered by many as the soldier’s friend. A man in the 1st Minnesota entered in his diary on June 28, “The intelligence that ‘Fighting Joe’ is superceded by Gen. Meade falls on us ‘like a wet blanket.‘“4

  The colorless Meade was a virtual stranger, little more than a name to troops outside the Fifth Corps. “Few of our men knew him by sight,” Rufus Dawes of the 6th Wisconsin remembered. “He was sometimes seen riding by the marching columns of troops at a fast trot, his hat brim turned down and a poncho over his shoulders.” Meade had marched his corps hard to reach Maryland, and the change of command caught some of his men out of sorts. “‘Old Four Eye,’ as General Meade is termed by the men, appears to be a man universally despised in the Corps,” Captain Francis Donaldson observed. “He certainly cares very little for the rank and file, and curses loud and deep are hurled at him, (for obeying instructions, as he must be doing), in marching us so tremendously.” In the end, there was considerably more excitement about the change of command in Washington than in the army. In the capital, the Cincinnati Gazette’s correspondent wrote, “the crowds talked over the strange affair in all its phases; a thousand false stories were put in circulation…, darkening the very air.“5

  Along with the order for Meade to take command of the Potomac army came a letter of instruction from the general-in-chief. Halleck assured Meade he would “not be hampered by any minute instructions from these headquarters. Your army is free to act as you may deem proper….” Meade was reminded, however, that the Army of the Potomac was the covering force for Washington and Baltimore as well as the operational force confronting the Rebel invaders. Should General Lee move against either city, “it is expected that you will either anticipate him or arrive with him so as to give him battle.” Meade was also authorized to appoint or remove officers without regard to seniority, an important power to wield during the heat of a campaign.

  Now that he had succeeded in maneuvering Joe Hooker out of the army command, Halleck was prompt to remove the restraints he had used to tie Hooker’s hands. The new commanding general was told that “All forces within the sphere of your operations will be held subject to your orders,” and Halleck pointedly included a specific: “Harper’s Ferry and its garrison are under your direct orders.” Having used any means to justify the end, Henry Halleck preened himself on a job well done. Had Hooker remained in command, he assured U. S. Grant, “he would have lost the army and the capital.“6

  Meade’s first task that crowded Sunday was to learn where the enemy was and where the elements of his own army were—he had earlier complained of Hooker’s habit of keeping his corps commanders in the dark. His early-morning conference with his predecessor included a briefing by Dan Butterfield, and afterward Meade decided, until “I can post myself up,” to continue the massing of the army at Frederick. Hooker’s plan had been to cross into Pen
nsylvania in pursuit of the enemy and let events there dictate his course. For the moment, that would be Meade’s course as well. “I can only now say,” he telegraphed Halleck that morning, “that it appears to me I must move toward the Susquehanna, keeping Washington and Baltimore well covered….”

  The picture of Lee’s army was clarified that day by a remarkable piece of intelligence, dating from June 27, from citizen-spies in Hagerstown. As Colonel Sharpe of the Bureau of Military Information summarized it, a careful count of the Rebel army passing through Hagerstown “could not make them over 80,000,” with 275 pieces of artillery. There was much reinforcing detail about enemy units that had passed through the town and where they were bound. In forwarding this report to Washington, Meade made note that the intelligence it contained “is confirmed by information gathered from various other sources regarded as reliable.” This picture of the enemy was accepted, at least for the moment, by Potomac army headquarters. In point of fact, except for Stuart’s absent cavalry, it was a remarkably accurate picture. The actual count of Lee’s army ready for battle would come to 80,000, with 283 guns.7

  Meade hurried through various administrative tasks on day one of his new command. He tried first to obtain a chief of staff of his choice. Seth Williams, the army’s adjutant general, and Gouverneur Warren, its chief engineer, each pleaded too much work in their departments to take on the burdens of a new job. Andrew Humphreys wanted to keep his divisional command in the Third Corps. Consequently Meade retained Dan Butterfield in the post. Butterfield was an able staff administrator who knew where every unit in the army was to be found, and he made the command transition a smooth one. Although Butterfield was suspect in many eyes as a Hooker partisan, and in due course would become an avowed enemy of Meade’s, while in his service as chief of staff he served loyally. Meade was himself an able administrator, and between the two of them they maneuvered the army with considerable efficiency. Other key department heads, such as artillery chief Henry Hunt and quartermaster Rufus Ingalls, also remained in their posts.