Lee's Lieutenants

by Douglas Southall Freeman

  One alleviating aspect was the new law for temporary appointments. The appointment to Rans Wright’s brigade was a unique example of the operation of this law and of the swift attrition that was wrecking command. Captain Victor J. B. Girardey, who had served with high courage and marked capacity on Wright’s staff, was transferred to the division and became a fixture on the staff of Mahone. In organizing and timing the attack of Mahone’s division at the Crater, Girardey won the admiration of the entire army. As a reward he received a distinction never given any officer of Lee’s command, promotion at a single jump from a captaincy to the temporary rank of brigadier general in command of Wrights Georgians. Girardey had every promise of being a brilliant officer, but before he had served a fortnight in the place of his absent former chief, he was killed.30

  To Perrin’s command, under the same act, Colonel J. C. C. Sanders of the nth Alabama was promoted. A temporary commission went to William R. Terry, who had handled Kemper’s brigade during its commander’s captivity and invalidism. For the post of the wounded Kirkland, one of his stoutest colonels, William McRae of the 15th North Carolina, was advanced to the rank of temporary brigadier. Doles’s brigade went to Colonel Philip Cook, a lawyer who had enlisted as a private in the 4th Georgia. Cook was a fighter who by long service was entitled to permanent rather than temporary rank as brigadier.

  To Grumble Jones’s weakened command Colonel Bradley T. Johnson was appointed as temporary brigadier. Why this able Marylander so long was denied advancement is among the Confederate mysteries. He was, to be sure, a lawyer and not a professional soldier, but many another lawyer of military skill less marked had been made a general officer. Stonewall Jackson several times had urged his promotion. The Maryland colonel probably had suffered from the typical émigré jealousies of officers from his own state. Now, at last, he received the distinction he long previously had earned. Another commission as brigadier, with similar assignment to the mounted arm, went to Colonel Martin W. Gary of South Carolina. A Harvard graduate and a lawyer already conspicuous in the politics of the Palmetto State, “Mart” Gary had led in re-equipping the Hampton Legion as mounted infantry. Recruitment and concentration of scattered units had added to the cavalry corps men enough to organize a small brigade, to which Gary was appointed as “permanent” general officer. He justified the appointment forthwith in a fight with Sheridan’s raiders.

  To Hoke’s old brigade was assigned as brigadier the vigorous Colonel Archibald C. Godwin, who had commanded it at Rappahannock Bridge and fought there until overwhelmed. Now exchanged, Godwin was promoted to lead the troops with whom his record had been high. Promotion of the same sort went to Colonel John Bratton of the 6th South Carolina. This young physician had long been recommended for commission by Dick Anderson, but he had served in Micah Jenkins’s brigade where promotion was slow. Now he had the brigade, still strong in numbers and indomitable in spirit.

  In was improbable, of course, that all these men would succeed as brigade commanders. Not one of them had been a professional soldier. They simply seemed the logical appointees or those that appeared most likely to develop, or to escape failure. Outside the Army of Northern Virginia many general officers were available and awaiting assignment, but none was summoned to fill these latest vacancies. Lee doubtless reasoned that if they were qualified, positions would have been found for them in the armies that had dropped them.

  In the fighting from Cold Harbor to the Crater, two names only besides that of the commanding general were found to possess new luster. One of these names was Wade Hampton’s. Hampton lacked the glamour Stuart had in the eyes of the young troopers of 1862, but he appealed more strongly to the temper of 1864; Hampton had the respect of veterans. The operations in Spotsylvania, at Trevilian Station and afterward—these and all the minor clashes of reconnaissance and patrol had been handled without material blunder. Belief that the discretion of Hampton could be trusted led to his assignment on August 11 “to the command of the cavalry of this army.” His division went to Calbraith Butler.

  Equal with Hampton in distinction during May-June 1864 was William Mahone. Many officers who were competent, even conspicuous, at a particular rank in Confederate service, failed when given larger duties. Mahone reversed this. A brigadier of no shining reputation, he proved himself within three months one of the ablest divisional commanders the army ever had. He was a man never aroused to his full potentialities until he felt he had duties that challenged all he knew, all he could learn, all he could do. Small in person, he was so thin that when his wife heard he had received a flesh wound, she said, “Now I know it is serious, for William has no flesh whatever.” Yet in action, said J. C. Haskell, there was about him a “cool promptness and dash which were peculiarly his own.”31

  Anderson’s old division, which Mahone now led, seldom had been called to exceptional service, but Mahone made the men what Hood’s and A. P. Hill’s divisions had been at their best, the spearhead of attack. After the Battle of the Crater, Lee had Mahone’s temporary commission as major general made permanent. Beyond doubt, Mahone was the military “discovery” of those summer days in front of Petersburg, precisely as John B. Gordon had been the “discovery” of the campaign in Spotsylvania.

  The army had, from the time of the crossing of the James, what it never had counted in its personnel: A full general under the direction of the commanding general. For practical purposes, Beauregard became temporarily a corps commander, but because of his rank and prestige he enjoyed a privileged status. He was determined always that responsibility for major decisions should rest on the War Department. In directing the combat in front of Petersburg, before Lee’s arrival, Old Bory was at his best. For the time his theatrical manner disappeared, not to be resumed until Lee was at hand. Beauregard had proved he could be useful, but he must be handled with some care; he showed himself in the contemporary vernacular most distinctly “touchy.” Such men, if in high position, did not usually remain long with the Army of Northern Virginia.

  Two other conditions on the half-immobilized front deserved consideration. The army itself was as much changed as its command. Many of the old, experienced units had been so reduced by casualties that they had lost their offensive power. Inexperienced and reluctant conscripts, in many instances, took the place of veteran volunteers. The infantry who remained in the trenches around Petersburg included a larger percentage of Carolinians than ever had been mustered in Lee’s army—59 regiments and battalions in a total of 161. This most assuredly involved no loss of devotion or of valor, but it was to prove serious when some of these men, nostalgic and half-starved, heard that their homes were threatened by invaders who previously had not penetrated to the interior.

  The other new condition was the absence of the Second Corps. In every heavy battle for two years past the Second Corps had borne its full part. Now it was gone. With it had moved not only the rifle-strength of 64 regiments and battalions, but also three division commanders who, in the Spotsylvania campaign, had much distinguished themselves. Any organization would be the weaker for the absence of three such men as Gordon, Ramseur, and Rodes, to say nothing of their new corps commander, Early.

  In summary, then, that part of the Army of Northern Virginia in the Richmond-Petersburg area was weakened numerically, recruited uncertainly with less-experienced troops, and commanded by an officers’ corps that included many incompetent regimental officers and not a few general officers of untested ability. The two new divisions were under the immediate direction of Beauregard, a general of full rank, whose relations with the administration and with Lee might involve difficulties. In succession to Stuart, there was every prospect that Wade Hampton might prove himself wholly qualified to command the cavalry. “Billy” Mahone was emerging as a division commander of great offensive skill. Grimly on the other side of the book of battle had to be written three stern entries: The army was being caged in the Petersburg trenches, the opposing odds were heavier, the absent Second Corps was engaged in a desperate
gamble.

  CHAPTER 33

  The Darkening Autumn of Command

  1

  JUBE EARLY GAMBLES AT LONG ODDS

  In pursuing Hunter from Lynchburg on June 19, Jube Early’s poorly organized cavalry were soon outrun. Early as well as Lee were disappointed that the raiders were so slightly punished. Both had been anxious to defeat and, if possible, destroy Hunter, who had burned V.M.I, and the home of ex-governor Letcher at Lexington and had countenanced much looting. After resting his men, Early proceeded into the Shenandoah Valley by way of Lexington. As Rodes passed through the town, he had the band of his leading regiment begin a dirge. To this music, some thousands of the men who had fought under Stonewall Jackson marched by his grave. It was his last review of them.1

  Reaching Staunton, Early reorganized his forces. Robert Ransom and his cavalry that had been reporting to Breckinridge were now placed under Early’s own command. Bradley Johnson was designated formally to head Grumble Jones’s cavalry brigade. To give Breckinridge a force in keeping with his rank and abilities, Gordon’s division was assigned to his command. The Kentuckian’s other division was led by Brigadier General John Echols. Rodes’s and Ramseur’s divisions continued to report directly to Early. Altogether, the infantry, as reorganized, counted 10,000 men. Cavalry and artillery perhaps added 4,000.2

  In Gordon’s division there was a measure of almost vehement discontent. York’s brigade combined the “discordant fragments” of the proud old Louisiana brigades of Hays and Stafford. Under Terry were the survivors of the Stonewall Brigade and other units of Allegheny Johnson’s division. “Both officers and men object to their consolidation …,” wrote an inspector. “Strange officers command strange troops….” In this was a new challenge to John Gordon in making his troops believe themselves the special instruments of victory. In Breckinridge’s command was a problem of somewhat similar nature. Many of his soldiers had no desire to do battle beyond the mountains among which they lived. They would fight when the issue was joined but, left alone in a strange country, they would disappear mysteriously—to reappear, weeks later, at home.3

  On June 28 the advance began. Early wrote Lee, “I hope to be able to do something for your relief and the success of our cause shortly.” He was resolved to enter Maryland. Said Kyd Douglas afterward, “Jackson being dead, it is safe to say no other general in either army would have attempted it against such odds…. The audacity of Early’s enterprise was its safety; no one … would believe his force was so small.”4 On July 3, Sigel’s advance guard was struck and driven to Harper’s Ferry. On July 6, without hesitation, Early led the Second Corps into Maryland for its third great adventure. The columns went over South Mountain and pressed eastward through Frederick. At 8:00 A.M., July 9, the van approached the Monocacy River and reported the presence of the enemy.

  The day was young, and Old Jube decided to take his time and ascertain where he best could turn a position he did not wish to attack frontally. John McCausland showed the way with his cavalry brigade, fording the Monocacy and furiously assailing the Federal flank. This, Early said later, “solved the problem for me.” He determined to throw Gordon’s division across the river at the same ford and complete the turning movement McCausland had begun. Against the Federals’ first line Gordon hurled his brigades, drove it back, stopped long enough to catch breath, and then charged and broke a second line. When a new line of Federals was seen advancing at the double-quick to a fence in front, the cry went up from the men, “Charge them! Charge them!” Said John Worsham, “It was useless for General Gordon to try to stop it now—nothing but a shot through each man could have done it. With a yell we were at the fence.”

  One volley scattered the Federals. From the opposite side of the river came the reassuring cheers of the two other divisions. Soon they, too, pushed over the Monocacy and joined the chase. It was, Worsham said, “the most exciting time I witnessed during the war.” They captured between 600 and 700 men. The total loss of the enemy was nearly 1,300. Early’s gross loss was under 700.5

  Early hesitated in pushing after the enemy when he discovered the composition of the force that had contested the crossing of the Monocacy. It included—and this made every Confederate in the expedition attentive—reinforcements from the VI Corps, Army of the Potomac. Good news and bad that was! Whatever Early might or might not accomplish after the Battle of the Monocacy, he had achieved one of the objects the high command had in mind: He had forced Grant to detach troops from the Richmond-Petersburg area in order to defend Washington. Desirable as this was, it imposed greater caution on Early. He hoped to be able to attack and perhaps to capture Washington, but he was in no wise reckless. On July 10 he resumed his advance and sustained the reputation of the foot cavalry by marching his force thirty miles.6

  The next day, July 11, was an historic date in American history. The Confederates might march straight to the defenses of Washington and, if they had the strength and the resolution, might storm them successfully. After the war men said that the charge on the third day at Gettysburg marked “the high-water mark” of the Confederacy, and in the just determination of military values, they were correct; but if proximity to White House, to Capitol, to Treasury be considered strategically the greatest advance, then the honor of it fell a year and a week after Pickett’s charge to that strange, bitter, and devoted man, Jubal A. Early, former Commonwealth’s attorney of Franklin County, Virginia.

  He pressed the march as vigorously as he had on the tenth. When he and his staff rode past the sweating column, he told the troops he would take them into Washington that day. The men responded with their old yell, but the heat of the day was fast exhausting them. Early had to slacken the pace. When he came at last within sight of the city’s heavy fortifications, he had to admit that an immediate attack was out of the question. The most he could do at the moment was to advance his skirmishers while he rested his men and studied the works. Investment was impossible; assault would be costly; but the fighting blood of Old Jube was up. If an attack could achieve results, he would make it.7

  He ascertained that the whole of the VI Corps had arrived on the Washington front from Grant’s army. In conferring on this news with his division commanders, he reminded them that a decision to fight or to move had to be made forthwith. Their counsel and Early’s decision was to attack at earliest dawn the next morning unless some new development came. During the night of July 11-12 a message was received by Early from cavalryman Bradley Johnson, who was close to Baltimore. Johnson’s information was that two corps had arrived from Grant’s army to reinforce Washington. This was news to make Early hesitate. Orders consequently were sent the divisional leaders to delay the assault until daylight would show whether the defenses of the Federal capital were manned heavily.

  As soon as Early could see in the soft summer dawn the far-spreading line of earthworks, he was at a vantage point and gazing at them with his binoculars. They were lined with troops. If the assault were successful, he had to tell himself, it would entail such losses that the remnant of his little army might not be able to escape. Should he fail in the assault, he almost certainly would lose his entire force. In either event, destruction of a Confederate army in front of Washington would have a fatally depressing effect on the South. Early saw no choice. The odds against him were too heavy. The plan must be abandoned!8

  The troops demonstrated and skirmished in front of Fort Stevens on the twelfth and beat off three “feeling out” advances by the enemy. That night they began their retreat to Virginia. “Major,” said Early to Kyd Douglas just before the column slipped away, “we haven’t taken Washington, but we’ve scared Abe Lincoln like hell!”

  “Yes, General,” Douglas answered, “but this afternoon when that Yankee line moved out against us, I think some other people were scared blue as hell’s brimstone!”

  “That’s true,” Early said, “but it won’t appear in history.”9

  There were losses along with gains, and regrets as well as bo
oty. Particularly cherished by Jube was $220,000 in cash he had levied on Hagerstown and Frederick, and the reports of his cavalry that they had destroyed numerous railroad and highway bridges. “Natural obstacles alone prevented our taking Washington,” Dodson Ramseur wrote his wife. “The heat and dust were so great that our men could not possibly march further.” Early himself was not greatly concerned over his failure to enter Washington, because he thought that was explicable. Lee was satisfied with the results and hopeful of still further gains from Early’s presence on the frontier.10

  In any review of the Battle of Monocacy, it would have been observed that most of the combat was the work of Gordon’s single division. If it became a habit for Early to conduct his battles in this fashion, it might imply that he still was, in spirit, a division and not a corps or army commander. A general could not aspire to competence in army command if he thought only in terms of divisions and of divisional firepower. A second weakness of Early’s operations was the lack of a consolidated command of his cavalry. Robert Ransom was incapacitated by illness. McCausland had several bold exploits to his credit; Bradley Johnson and Gilmore and Imboden had ridden far, burned bridges, and, in Johnson’s case, threatened Baltimore. But their troopers were not—and without an able leader, a strong disciplinarian, could not be—a unified body of fighting men in the sense that Hampton’s or Sheridan’s troopers were. Early did not have the aptitude to improve his cavalry arm.