by Bruce Catton
3 Scott’s letters are in the Official Records, Vol. I, pp. 112, 114.
4 Official Records, Vol. I, p. 195.
5 Ibid., pp. 196-98.
6 Ibid., pp. 211, 245, 248, 285; B. & L., Vol. I, pp. 65-66.
7 Ibid., pp. 74-76.
Chapter Two: NOT TO BE ENDED QUICKLY
Men Who Could be Led
1 B. & L., Vol. I, p. 85.
2 Sandburg, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 211-14. For an appraisal of Douglas’s influence in Illinois, see The Borderland in the Civil War, by Edward Conrad Smith, p. 179.
3 The Sherman Letters: Correspondence between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, edited by Rachel Sherman Thorndike; p. 110; The Blue and the Gray, edited by Henry Steele Commager, pp. 40, 43; The Rebellion Record, edited by Frank Moore, Vol. I, Part 1, p. 45; B. & L., Vol. I, p. 84.
4 War Papers Read before the Commandery of the State of Michigan, Military Order of the Loyal Leaxon of the United States, Vol. I, pp. 8-11.
5 Rebellion Record, Vol. I, Part 2, pp. 86-87.
6 A History of the Sixth Iowa Infantry, by Henry H. Wright, p. 11; The Story of a Cavalry Regiment: The Career of the Fourth Iowa Veteran Volunteers, by William Forse Scott, pp. 1-3.
7 Army Life of an Illinois Soldier: Letters and Diary of the Late Charles Wills, compiled and published by his sister, p. 8; History of the Sixth Regiment, Indiana Volunteer Infantry, by C. C. Briant, pp. 4-5; The History of the 9th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, by Daniel George MacNamara, p. 11; Rebellion Record, Vol. I, Part 1, p. 45; A Narrative of the Formation and Services of the Eleventh Massachusetts Volunteers, by Gustavus B. Hutchinson, p. 11.
8 Drum Taps in Dixie: Memories of a Drummer Boy, 1861-1865, by Delavan S. Miller, p. 30; Civil War Papers Read before the Commandery of the State of Massachusetts, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, Vol. II, p. 448; Story of the Service of Company E and of the 12th Wisconsin Regiment, written by One of the Boys, pp. 44-46.
9 Journal History of the 29th Ohio Veteran Volunteers, by J. Hamp SeCheverell, p. 21; History of the 9th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, p. 11; Army Life of an Illinois Soldier: Letters and Diary of the Late Charles Wills, pp. 14, 21.
10 Story of the Service of Company E and of the 12th Wisconsin Regiment, pp. 48-50.
11 History of the 124th Regiment, N.Y.S.V., by Charles H. Weygant, p. 32; History of the 33rd Regiment Illinois Veteran Volunteer Infantry, by Isaac H. Elliott and Virgil G. Way, pp. 7-8; The Eagle Regiment: 8th Wisconsin Infantry Volunteers, by a “Non-Vet” of Company H, pp. 40-49, 75 et seq.
12 Military Essays and Recollections: Papers Read before the Commandery of the State of Illinois, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, Vol. III, p. 402; A Soldier Boy’s Letters to his Father and Mother, 1861-65, by Chauncey H. Cooke, p. 3; Diary of an Ohio Volunteer, by A Musician, Co. H, 19th Regiment, p. 15; Story of the Service of Company E and of the 12th Wisconsin Regiment, pp. 84-85.
13 Army Memoirs of Lucius W. Barber, Company D. 15th Illinois Infantry, p. 12; A History of the Sixth Iowa Infantry, p. 20; B. & L., Vol. I, pp. 94-95.
14 History of the 51st Indiana Veteran Volunteer Infantry, by William R. Hartpence, p. 36; J. S. Clark, op. cit., p. 56; Military History and Reminiscences of the 13th Regiment of Illinois Volunteer Infantry, prepared by a committee of the regiment, p. 18. An eastern soldier remarked caustically: “The ignorance by our officers has become proverbial and patent to the men and hence the present low standard of discipline in the army”. (Manuscript letters of James Gillette, 4th Maryland Volunteers.)
15 An amusing account of Lincoln’s war experience is to be found in Carl Sandburg’s Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years, Vol. I, pp. 154-57, 386.
In Time of Revolution
1 An excellent study of the problem in respect to the border states is E. C. Smith, op. cit. There is a good brief discussion in Clement Eaton’s A History of the Southern Confederacy, pp. 34-40.
2 Life of General Nathaniel Lyon, by Ashbel Woodward, pp. 25-30, 204-31, 235, 242.
3 E. C. Smith, op. cit., pp. 122-30, 228-30; Official Records, Vol. I, pp. 654, 656-57 669-70; B. & L., Vol. I, pp. 119-20.
4 Official Records, Vol. I, p. 675; B. & L., Vol. I, p. 171; The Mississippi Valley in the Civil War, by John Fiske, pp. 10-12.
5 Fiske, op. cit., pp. 14-18; Official Records, Vol. III, p. 4; E. C. Smith, op. cit., pp. 234-36; The Union Cause in St. Louis in 1861, by Robert J. Rombauer, pp. 218, 224. Mr. Rombauer doubts very much that Lyon visited the militia camp in woman’s dress. Aside from the inherent difficulty of dressing Nathaniel Lyon so that he would look at all feminine, Mr. Rombauer remarks that as a competent officer Lyon undoubtedly had other sources of information about doings in the southern camp.
6 Official Records, Vol. III, p. 5; Rombauer, op. cit., pp. 233-39; E. C. Smith, op. cit., pp. 236-38.
7 Ibid., pp. 240, 244-50; Woodward, op. cit., p. 261; Forty-six Years in the Army, by Lt. Gen. John M. Schofield, pp. 33-34.
8 B. & L., Vol. I, pp. 266-67; E. C. Smith, op. cit., p. 252.
The Important First Trick
1 Wooden Nutmegs at Bull Run, by Frinkle Fry, p. 31; Three Years with the Adirondack Regiment, by John L. Cunningham, p. 21; Rebellion Record, Vol. I, Part 1, p. 50; The Soldier Boy’s Diary Book; or, Memorandums of the Alphabetical First Lessons of Military Tactics, by Adam S. Johnston, p. 8; Military Essays and Recollections: Papers Read before the Commandery of the State of Illinois, Military Order of the Loyal Legion, Vol. III, p. 426.
2 Edward Rowland Sill: His Life and Work, by William Belmont Parker, pp. 34-36; Cooke, op. cit., p. 10.
3 History of the 38th Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry, by Henry Fales Perry, p. 129; Story of the Service of Company E and of the 12th Wisconsin Regiment, pp. 88-89.
4 B. & L., Vol. I, p. 179.
5 Ibid., pp. 138-39; Diary of an Ohio Volunteer, pp. 35, 46, 52.
6 History of the Army of the Cumberland, by Thomas B. Van Horne, (cited hereafter as Van Horne), Vol. I, pp. 8-12; The Wild Riders of the First Kentucky Cavalry: A History of the Regiment, by Sgt. E. Tarrant, pp. 9-11.
7 B. & L., Vol. I, pp. 373-77.
8 See E. C. Smith, op. cit., p. 311: “South of the Ohio River there was no good line of defense for the Southern armies. From the time that Kentucky finally made her decision for the Union, they fought a losing battle.”
The Rising Shadows
1 The Living Lincoln, edited by Paul M. Angle and Earl Schenck Miers, p. 639.
2 There are extensive discussions of Bull Run and of McDowell’s problems, in B. & L., Vol. I, pp. 167-259. An uncommonly useful handbook is Joseph Mills Hanson’s Bull Run Remembers. These two have been heavily relied on in the preparation of this section.
3 There is a good description of all of this in Sherman, Fighting Prophet, by Lloyd Lewis, pp. 177-79.
4 There are enough accounts of the Bull Run panic to satisfy all tastes. The classic, probably, is that of William Howard Russell, correspondent for the London Times. For his and other accounts, see The Blue and the Gray, pp. 106-15.
5 Official Records, Vol. III, pp. 48, 58.
6 J. S. Clark, op. cit., pp. 54-57, 64.
7 Ibid., p. 66; Official Records, Vol. III, pp. 61, 95; B. & L., Vol. I, pp. 289-97.
8 J. S. Clark, op. cit., pp. 57, 69-70; Schofield, op. cit., p. 45.
9 Official Records, Vol. III, pp. 62, 74; Schofield, op. cit., pp. 44-46.
10 J. S. Clark, op. cit., p. 72.
Chapter Three: MEN WHO SHAPED THE WAR
The Romantics to the Rescue
1 For a full presentation of Scott’s plan, see Abraham Lincoln: A History, by John G. Nicolay and John Hay, Vol. IV, pp. 298-303.
2 Mr. Lincoln’s Army, pp. 63-68.
3 Manuscript letters of John W. Chase of the 1st Massachusetts Artillery.
4 Down in Dixie: Life in a Cavalry Regiment in the War Days, by Stanton P. Allen, p. 145; The Story of a Cavalry Regiment: The Care
er of the Fourth Iowa Veteran Volunteers, p. 27; A History of the First Regiment of Massachusetts Cavalry Volunteers, by Benjamin W. Crowninshield, p. 11.
5 Miller, op. cit., pp. 19, 27.
6 McClellan’s Own Story, pp. 82-83.
7 Ibid., p. 85.
8 Frémont’s account in B. & L., Vol. 1, pp. 278-79.
9 Fremont: Pathmarker of the West, by Allan Nevins, pp. 481-84; B. & L., Vol. I. pp. 279-80.
Trail of the Pathfinder
1 B. & L., Vol. I, pp. 281, 307-13.
2 Personal Memoirs of John H. Brinton, Major and Surgeon, U.S.V., p. 32; The Story of the Guard: A Chronicle of the War, by Jessie Benton Fremont, pp. 34, 44; Official Records, Vol. III, p. 541.
3 The History of Fuller’s Ohio Brigade, by Charles H. Smith, p. 67.
4 The Eagle Regiment: 8th Wisconsin Infantry Volunteers, p. 10.
5 Army Memoirs of Lucius W. Barber, p. 21.
6 History of the 51st Indiana Veteran Volunteer Infantry, p. 68.
7 Schofield, op. cit., pp. 1-30, 49.
8 Nevins, op. cit., pp. 496-97; Official Records, Vol. III, pp. 542-43.
9 Jessie Benton Fremont, op. cit., pp. 43, 85, 88.
10 Official Records, Vol. III, pp. 466-67.
11 Jessie Benton Fremont, op. cit., Preface, p. x; The Eagle Regiment: 8th Wisconsin Infantry Volunteers, p. 3.
12 Official Records, Vol. III, pp. 469-70.
13 Abraham Lincoln, by Benjamin P. Thomas, p. 276; Official Records, Vol. III, pp. 477-78, 485.
14 Ibid., Vol. VI, p. 788.
15 Nevins, op. cit., pp. 507, 520; History of the 16th Battery of Ohio Volunteer Light Artillery, compiled by a committee, p. 6.
16 The Story of the Guard; A Chronicle of the War, p. 85.
17 A History of the Sixth Iowa Infantry, p. 35; Military History and Reminiscences of the 13th Regiment of Illinois Volunteer Infantry, p. 27; J. S. Clark, op. cit., p. 64.
18 Official Records, Vol. III, p. 553.
19 Thomas, op. cit., pp. 278-79.
He Must be Willing to Fight
1 Ulysses S. Grant and the Period of National Preservation and Reconstruction, by William C. Church, p. 84.
2 Ibid., p. 83.
3 Personal Memoirs of John H. Brinton, Major and Surgeon, U.S.V., pp. 36-37.
4 Muskets and Medicine; or, Army Life in the Sixties, by Charles Beneulyn Johnson, M.D., p. 181.
5 Personal Memoirs of John H. Brinton, pp. 40, 43, 61; Letters from the Army, by B. F. Stevenson, p. 14.
6 Guns on the Western Waters: The Story of River Gunboats in the Civil War, by H. Allen Gosnell, pp. 15, 18.
7 Van Horne, Vol. I, p. 23; Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Vol. I, pp. 265-67.
8 Military Essays and Recollections: Papers Read before the Commandery of the State of Illinois, Military Order of the Loyal Legion, Vol. I, pp. 22-23, 25.
9 Ben Hur Wallace, by Irving McKee, Chap. 1, passim; Lew Wallace: An Autobiography, Vol. I, pp. 338-45.
10 B. & L., Vol. I, pp. 380-81; History of the 38th Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry, by Henry Fales Perry, p. 11.
11 Lewis, op. cit., pp. 189-91; The Wild Riders of the First Kentucky Cavalry: A History of the Regiment, p. 30.
12 History of the 53rd Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, by John K. Duke, p. 6.
13 Memoirs of a Volunteer, 1861-1863, by John Beatty, edited by Harvey S. Ford, pp. 70-71, 75-76, 79-81.
14 History of the 38th Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry, p. 261.
15 The Life of Major General George H. Thomas, by Thomas B. Van Horne, pp. 1-31; Military Reminiscences of the Civil War, by Jacob D. Cox, Vol. II, p. 237.
Chapter Four: TO MARCH TO TERRIBLE MUSIC
Sambo Was Not Sambo
1 Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel, Astronomer and General, by F. A. Mitchel, p. 237.
2 Personal Memoirs of John H. Brinton, pp. 46-47.
3 Military Essays and Recollections: Papers Read before the Commandery of the State of Illinois, Military Order of the Loyal Legion, Vol. III, p. 404.
4 History of the 51st Indiana Veteran Volunteer Infantry, pp. 9-10; Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 95; The Story of a Cavalry Regiment, by William Forse Scott, p. 380.
5 History of the 33rd Regiment Illinois Veteran Volunteer Infantry, p. 23.
6 Cox, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 158; History of the 77th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, by Lt. W. H. Bentley, p. 101; A Soldier Boy’s Letters to his Father and Mother, pp. 30, 36.
7 Manuscript letters of John W. Chase, 1st Massachusetts Artillery.
8 For anyone who is interested, the Stone affair is discussed in greater length in Mr. Lincoln’s Army, pp. 76-83. For a much more pointed analysis, see T. Harry Williams, “Investigation 1862,” in American Heritage, Vol. VI, No. 1.
War Along the Border
1 B. & L., Vol. I, pp. 632-33.
2 Ibid., p. 661 et seq.; Official Records, Vol. VI, p. 179.
3 Thomas, op. cit., p. 289.
4 For a pointed discussion of the ruinous effect of the habit of overestimating Confederate strength (written by a soldier by no means hostile to McClellan) see Military Reminiscences of the Civil War, by Jacob D. Cox, Vol. I, pp. 250-53.
5 The Wild Riders of the First Kentucky Cavalry, p. 109.
6 Personal Recollections of Distinguished Generals, by William F. G. Shanks, p. 258.
7 Official Records, Vol. XVI, Part 1, p. 51.
8 Ibid., Vol. VII, pp. 530-31.
9 The Rise of U. S. Grant, by A. L. Conger, p. 83 et seq.; Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Vol. I, pp. 271-80.
10 Van Horne, Vol. I, pp. 50-58; The Life of Major General George H. Thomas, p. 50 ff; History of the Tenth Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry, by James Birney Shaw, p. 162; B. & L., Vol. I, pp. 387-91.
Come On, You Volunteers!
1 Official Records, Vol. VII, pp. 527, 532-33.
2 Ibid., p. 532.
3 Anyone interested in following this dreary exchange of messages can find them in Official Records, Vol. VII, pp. 573-74, 576, 578-80, 583-87.
4 Gosnell, op. cit., pp. 47-48.
5 Ibid., pp. 49-50.
6 B. & L., Vol. I, p. 358 ff.
7 Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Vol. I, p. 294.
8 Official Records, Vol. VII, pp. 590-91.
9 B. & L., Vol. I, pp. 398-410, 430-436; History of the Seventh Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry, by D. Leib Ambrose, p. 32; Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Vol. I, pp. 298-304.
10 Personal Memoirs of John H. Brinton, p. 121.
11 Ibid., pp. 129-30; Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, pp. 308-12.
12 B. & L., Vol. I, p. 426; The Army of Tennessee, by Stanley Horn, p. 98.
To the Deep South
1 The Army of Tennessee, pp. 99-102; P. G. T. Beauregard, Napoleon in Gray, by T. Harry Williams, p. 119.
2 Official Records, Vol. VI, pp. 398, 828; Vol. VII, p. 889.
3 Ibid., Vol. VI, p. 692.
4 Ibid., Vol. VII, pp. 640-41.
5 Ibid., pp. 627, 628, 632, 641, 648, 655.
6 Ibid., pp. 630, 640, 646, 652; The Rise of U. S. Grant, p. 192.
7 Personal Memoirs of John H. Brinton, p. 133; Official Records, Vol. VII, pp. 637-38, 649.
8 Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel, Astronomer and General, p. 255; Official Records, Vol. VII, p. 660.
9 Personal Memoirs of John H. Brinton, p. 131; Official Records, Vol. VII, pp. 679-80, 682; Vol. X, Part 2, p. 3.
10 Ibid., Vol. VII, p. 683.
11 Ibid., p. 283; Vol. X, p. 32.
12 Personal Memoirs of John H. Brinton, pp. 160-61.
13 Army Memoirs of Lucius W. Barber, pp. 43, 47; A History of the Sixth Iowa Infantry, p. 57.
14 Official Records, Vol. VII, p. 647.
15 Ibid., Vol. X, Part 2, p. 55.
16 Grant’s letters to Mrs. Grant; photostats of manuscript copies furnished by Ralph G. Newman of Chicago.
17 Downing’s Civil War Diary, by Sgt. Alexander G. Downing, edited by Olynthus B. Clark, p. 39.
C
hapter Five: A LONG WAR AHEAD
Hardtack in an Empty Hand
1 Lewis, op. cit., p. 217; Official Records, Vol. X, Part 1, pp. 252, 262, 288, 290, 411.
2 Ibid., Vol. X, Part 2, p. 91. This may be as good a place as any to point out that Shiloh is exhaustively covered in B. & L., Vol. I, in articles that extend from p. 465 to 610, that there is an excellent account of the battle in Stanley Horn’s The Army of Tennessee, pp. 122-43, and that T. Harry Williams discusses it in his P. G. T. Beauregard, Napoleon in Gray, pp. 133-149. One of the most moving descriptions is in Lloyd Lewis’s Sherman: Fighting Prophet, pp. 219-31.
3 Army Memoirs of Lucius W. Barber, p. 48; Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 40.
4 Official Records, Vol. X, Part 2, p. 94.
5 It might be noted that Confederate reports in the Official Records do not bear out the rumors that Federal troops were surprised in their tents. Uniformly, the Confederate accounts describe very stiff resistance from the beginning; General Hardee tells of Federal attacks on his skirmishers at dawn, before the main attack got rolling. See Official Records, Vol. X, Part 1, pp. 513, 514, 532, 536, 541, 548, 568, 573, 581.
6 Ibid., p. 331; report of Col. Jacob Ammen.
7 Lew Wallace: An Autobiography, Vol. II, p. 505.
8 Ohio at Shiloh: Report of the Commission, by T. J. Lindley, pp. 37-38; Official Records, Vol. X, Part 1, pp. 264-65; History of the 53rd Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, pp. 27-48.
9 Official Records, Vol. X, Part 1, p. 133.
10 Ulysses S. Grant and the Period of National Preservation and Reconstruction, p. 135; Official Records, Vol. X, Part 1, p. 288; History of the 15th Regiment Iowa Veteran Volunteer Infantry, by William W. Belknap, pp. 84-85.