A Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus's Great Discovery to the War on Terror

by Larry Schweikart

  Then came the news from McClellan at Antietam. It was an incomplete victory, but a victory nonetheless. Lincoln had the moment he had waited for, and called his cabinet together on September 22, 1862, to read them the proclamation. For the border states, he would urge Congress to pass compensated emancipation; for freed slaves who so desired, he would press for colonization. But for the states still in rebellion as of January 1, 1863, the president on his own authority would free “thence forward and forever” all slaves, and the military forces of the United States would protect their liberty. After entertaining criticisms—including the possibility of a mass slave uprising in the South—Lincoln went ahead to publish the decree the following day.93

  Much has been made of the fact that not a single slave was freed by the proclamation itself. After all, those states still in rebellion were not under federal control, and thus no slaves were freed in the South. Since the proclamation said nothing about the border states, except that Lincoln would urge Congress to act there as well, no slaves were actually free there either. Thus, the famous charge that “where he could free the slaves, Lincoln would not, and where he would free the slaves, he could not,” has a measure of truth to it. Nevertheless, word filtered South through a slave grapevine like wildfire, although slaves attempted to hide the fact that they had heard about the proclamation. Southern whites had suspicions that blacks had kept up with news of the war. A Louisiana planter complained that his slaves “know more about politics than most of the white men. They know everything that happens.”94

  Odd as it may seem, changing the status of slaves constituted only one of three critical goals of the proclamation. The second objective, and the one most easily achieved, involved perceptions. Lincoln needed to turn—in the eyes of Europe, particularly England and France—a set of brave Confederate revolutionaries into international pariahs. By shifting the war aims from restoring the Union (which evoked neither excitement nor sympathy abroad) to emancipation, Lincoln tapped into a strong current of Western thought. Both England and France had abolished slavery in their empires in the decades before the Civil War on strictly moral grounds. They could hardly retreat on that position now. As long as Jefferson Davis’s diplomats could maintain the pretense that the war was a struggle for independence on the grounds of constitutional rights—not much different than the rights of Englishmen—then they could still hope for foreign support. Once Lincoln ripped away the facade of constitutionality and exposed the rebellion for what it was, an attempt by some to legitimate their enslavement of others, neither Britain nor France could any longer consider offering aid.

  Lincoln’s third objective, little commented upon because of its abstruse effects, was in fact to yank out the underpinnings from the entire Southern slave/plantation structure. In the twinkling of an eye, Lincoln (in theory, at least) had transformed millions of dollars worth of physical assets—no different from wagons, cattle, or lumber—into people. For the purposes of banking, the impact could not have been more staggering. Slaves (property) showed up on Southern bank books as assets along with the plantation land backing enormous planters’ debts, and now, in an instant, they had (again, in theory) suddenly disappeared as mysteriously as the Roanoke colony! Slaves backed millions of dollars in plantation assets, not just in their physical persons, but also in the value that they imposed on the land. Without the slaves, much of the plantation land was worthless, and the entire Southern banking structure—at one time as solid as a rock—turned to mush.

  A fourth notion regarding the Emancipation Proclamation, however, must be addressed. Left-wing revisionists have argued that Lincoln freed the slaves mainly because he needed the black troops to feed his war machine—that only with the addition of African American soldiers could the North have won. This wrongheaded view not only deliberately and obviously trivializes Lincoln’s genuine sentiments about emancipation, but also cynically and mistakenly discounts the efforts of white troops. It would soon be white Mainers and New Yorkers, not black troops, who would smash Lee at Gettysburg; and although black troops fought at Port Hudson and in the Vicksburg campaign, the bulk of the action was carried by white units from Indiana and Illinois and Ohio. Predominantly Northern white troops would, a year after that, force the surrender of Atlanta and Columbia and Mobile. But until the 1960s, historians had too long ignored or diminished the contributions of the 179,000 African American soldiers (plus 18,000 sailors), most of whom fought in American uniforms for the first time ever. At Fort Wagner, black troops bravely but vainly stormed beachfront Confederate citadels before being repulsed, with black and white alike leaving thousands of casualties in the sand. Their courageous efforts late in the war—especially (at their own prodding) at Petersburg—undoubtedly contributed to the Union victory in important ways. But it is just as wrongheaded to overstate their significance out of political correctness. By late 1864, the doom of the Confederacy was sealed, no matter what color Grant’s forces were.95

  Some states, such as Massachusetts, had urged the creation of black regiments since 1861, but Lincoln resisted, fearing a white backlash. (Massachusetts would eventually put nearly 4,000 black soldiers in the field, fourth only to the much larger states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York.) A change had occurred, though, in the thinking of Lincoln about the use of newly freed slaves between the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation and the January proclamation, which was demonstrated by the fact that the latter announced the intention of admitting freedmen into military service.96 Certainly the dwindling recruitment numbers produced an attitude shift of its own in the North. Whites who previously had opposed arming blacks warmed to the idea of black soldiers in Union ranks.

  Large-scale black recruitment began in 1863. One sticking point was their unequal pay, mandated by the Militia Act of 1862, of $10 per month, minus $3 for clothing, rather than $13 per month, plus clothing, given to white recruits. Governor John Andrew of Massachusetts offered state money to offset the pay differential to the 54th and 55th Massachusetts regiments, but the black troops refused. Equality had to be acknowledged from Washington. Congress finally equalized black and white pay in June 1864.

  By that time, blacks had entered the Union Army in large numbers, yet often (though not exclusively) found themselves on guard duty or in physical labor battalions, not combat. Lobbying the War Department, blacks finally saw action at Fort Wagner, South Carolina (July 1863), and Port Hudson, Louisiana (May–July 1863). It was not until 1865, outside Richmond, however, that Grant used large numbers of blacks routinely alongside whites. While the grueling reduction of the Richmond defenses was bloody, the war had been decided months earlier, at Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Atlanta.97

  Thus, the fact that blacks soldiers did not by themselves tip the balance to the Union makes the Emancipation Proclamation all the more critical and, in context, brilliant. Even if the Confederacy somehow managed to string together several victories so as to make its military position sound, the financial chaos and instability caused by Lincoln’s lone declaration would have been difficult to counteract.

  Hard War, Unresolved War

  Lincoln could call Antietam a victory, but the Army of Northern Virginia remained as deadly as ever. As if to underscore that fact, in October, Lee sent Jeb Stuart’s cavalry on a raid of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Riding around McClellan, Stuart terrified Northerners and again embarrassed Lincoln, who replaced the general for the last time. In McClellan’s stead came the new commander of the Army of the Potomac, Ambrose Burnside, an honest and modest man who was an effective subordinate, but not the war chieftain Lincoln needed. Indeed, Burnside had twice refused earlier offers of command because he doubted his own ability.98

  At the same time as he replaced McClellan in the East, Lincoln removed General Don Carlos Buell in the West, also for lack of aggressiveness. After a series of disastrous appointments and counterappointments, Lincoln sent William S. Rosecrans to take command of the Army of the Cumberland. Fortunately, the musical chairs of commanders from t
he Ohio region had little impact on Grant and his vise around Vicksburg. Whatever the Union Army accomplished in the West seemed unimpressive to Washington politicians and war critics, if for no other reason than the press and the politicians were in Washington, not Cincinnati. Thus, Burnside’s new offensive would be closely watched. The new general drafted a plan to march to Fredericksburg, and from there to Richmond. Neither Lincoln nor his commander in chief, Henry Halleck, liked it, since both perceived that Burnside would have to move faster than any other Union commander (save Grant) had moved before. In mid-November 1862, Burnside’s forces arrived at Fredericksburg. The Confederates had plenty of time to entrench on Marye’s Heights, overlooking the city and a railroad line, with 78,000 men across the Rappahannock River waiting for Burnside. Once the Union Army had drawn up, with the hills in front and the river at its back, Lee had a perfect field of fire against an almost helpless foe. Burnside sent wave after wave of men up the hills in fourteen suicidal charges against the dug-in Confederates, who slaughtered them in every attempt. When the Yankees finally withdrew, with 12,700 Union troops killed, wounded, or missing, Burnside had earned the unwelcome distinction of suffering the worst defeat ever by the U.S. Army.

  To the general’s credit, he begged an audience with Lincoln to publicly accept blame for the defeat—the first Union general to do so. On January twenty-sixth, Lincoln fired the general who had known from the start he was in over his head, but he did so with great regret. Next in line was Fighting Joe Hooker.

  Hooker’s brief stint as commander exemplified all of the difficulties Lincoln had in finding a general. Whereas Burnside was incompetent but honest, Hooker was an intriguer and ladder climber who had positioned himself for command in the East from the get-go. If Burnside almost desperately tried to avoid the mantle of command, Hooker lusted after it.

  With a reinforced Army of the Potomac numbering 130,000 men, Hooker planned to distract Lee with a movement at Fredericksburg, then march up the Rappahannock to attack his flank near Chancellorsville, where the Union would keep a huge reserve force. Lee ascertained the federal plan and disrupted it by sending Jeb Stuart’s cavalry to take control of the roads around Chancellorsville. That blinded Hooker, who delayed his planned attack. Lee then divided his highly outnumbered forces and sent Stonewall Jackson through a thicket known as the Wilderness to the federal flank, where he achieved numerical superiority at the point of attack. Jackson’s march would have been impossible for many units, but not Stonewall’s trained corps. On May 2, 1863, when the Rebels emerged from the dense brush, the stunned Union troops panicked. Lee still remained in front of them with (they thought) his entire army: who were these new troops? The Union army nearly fell apart, but it held together long enough to prevent a total rout. Another telegram reached Lincoln, who could only pace back and forth, his hands behind his back, asking in despair, “My God, my God, what will the country say? What will the country say?”99 To Stanton, Lincoln privately confided, “Our cause is lost! We are ruined…. This is more than I canendure.”100

  Although the Confederacy won another impressive victory, it suffered, again, heavy losses: 10,746 casualties (18.7 percent of Lee’s total forces) to the Union’s 11,116 (11.4 percent). By now, Lee had lost an incredible one quarter of his field force. By itself, that ratio would lead to ultimate Confederate defeat if Lee “won” eight to ten more such battles. An even more staggering loss was dealt to the Rebel army at Chancellorsville, and not by a Yankee. Stonewall Jackson, reconnoitering well past his lines with a few of his officers, was mistakenly shot by Confederate pickets. It took him more than a week to die, removing, as it were, Lee’s right hand. Jackson’s value to the Confederate cause cannot be overstated. After his death, the South won only one other major battle, at Chickamauga. Another Virginian, James “Pete” Longstreet, a competent general, assumed Jackson’s command, but never replaced him.

  Union defeat at Chancellorsville ensured the removal of the isolated Hooker, whose female camp followers, “hookers,” provided a linguistic legacy of a different sort. Lincoln was back at square one, still looking for a commanding general. In the meantime, the Confederates, perhaps sensing that their losses had started to pile up at rates they could not possibly sustain and knowing that Vicksburg was in peril, mounted one more bold and perilous invasion of the North, upon which, conceivably, hung the fate of the war.

  Gettysburg

  Despite triumphs in Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, and the Wilderness, nothing in the strategic equation had changed for the Confederacy. Quite the contrary, the Rebels had over the course of four battles in the East—every one a victory—lost more than 36,000 men and come no closer to independence than when they had opened fire on Fort Sumter. Given the trend in the West, the Army of Northern Virginia could do only three things by May 1863 that might have produced the desired result of an independent CSA.

  First, through an invasion Lee could capture Washington. That was a remote possibility at best. Even if the federal troops around the city were as poorly led as the forces at Fredericksburg or Bull Run, a series of forts surrounded Washington that would require a long siege. Certainly the armies in the West would instantly rush reinforcements over. Second, Lee, if he could raise enough hell in the North and agitate enough politicians, might make the war so politically unpalatable that the forces of democracy would demand Lincoln negotiate terms with the South. Perhaps some in the Confederate cabinet still clung to such fantasies, but Lee, who had seen the unwelcome reception his men received in “friendly” Maryland, knew better. The bastions of Unionism—Pennsylvania, New York, and especially Massachusetts—would see an invasion as exactly that, and civilians would respond with a predictable level of hostility and guerrilla warfare. Only the third alternative really represented a realistic chance for the Confederacy: bring the Union army—the larger part of it—into one big battle and defeat it.

  Once Lee disengaged from Hooker, he turned northwest, using the Blue Ridge Mountains to cover his northerly advance into Pennsylvania. He learned through newspapers that Lincoln had sacked Hooker in June and replaced him with a corps commander, George Gordon Meade, whom the men likened to an old snapping turtle. But Lee’s well-oiled machine began to slow down. First, Jeb Stuart, supposedly scouting for Lee in the Pennsylvania countryside, crossed into Maryland on May fifteenth. One of his tasks involved confusing federal intelligence as to the disposition of Lee’s main forces. But Stuart, a dandy who wore plumes in his hats and perfume on his mustache, enjoyed the adulation he received in the Southern press. On June ninth, Stuart, with 10,000 of his cavalry, considered nearly invincible, ran headlong into Union forces under Alfred Pleasanton in the largest cavalry engagement in American history. As 20,000 horsemen slashed at each other and blasted away with pistols, the Union troopers were finally driven off. But in defeat, the Union cavalry knew that they had gone toe to toe with the finest the South had to offer, and under other and better circumstances, could prevail.

  Stuart disengaged and then headed straight for the Union supply lines. At Rockville, Maryland, the Rebel cavalry surprised a massive wagon train and captured more than 125 wagons, which slowed down Stuart’s movement. He continued to ride around the federal army, into Pennsylvania, and was out of touch with Lee for ten critical days.101

  Seeking to intercept Lee’s army, Meade had marched west into Maryland along the Taneytown Road. Already, though, advance units of both armies approached Gettysburg. Lee came up from the southwest and had ordered other divisions to swing down from the north and west. Spies informed him of the proximity of the federal army, which counted seven corps (roughly 80,000 men). Lee had approximately 75,000 men in three corps—Confederates always weighted their divisions and corps more than did the Union Army—including Stuart’s cavalry, which arrived on the second day of combat. General John Buford’s Union cavalry arrived on the scene to the southwest of Gettysburg. Buford instantly perceived that the ground behind the city, along Cemetery Ridge with Culp’s Hill on the wes
t and the Round Tops on the east, provided an incredibly advantageous natural defensive position. Buford commanded only 1,200 men and had in his sight 20,000 Confederates, but by holding the Rebels up for hours, Buford and his men bought critical hours for Meade.

  Lee had hoped to avoid closing with the enemy until he had his entire army drawn up, but on July first it was spread all over roads in a twenty-five-mile radius around southwestern Gettysburg. By afternoon on July first, Confederate forces had driven back the Yankees. Lee’s subordinates, however, hesitated to take the strong Union positions on Culp’s Hill. The result was that at the end of the first day at Gettysburg, the federals held the high ground along the ridge.

  On July second, Lee’s forces, deployed more than a mile below Cemetery Ridge along a tree line called Seminary Ridge, faced Meade’s line. The Yankees were deployed in a giant fishhook, with the barb curling around Culp’s Hill, then a long line arching along Cemetery Ridge, culminating in the hook at Big Round Top and Little Round Top. Upon learning that the two hills that held the loop of the fishhook constituting the Union position, Big and Little Round Tops, were undefended, Lee sent Longstreet’s division to capture the hills, then roll up the federal lines.

  In fact, Meade already had started to defend the Round Tops. John Bell Hood’s Texas division climbed up the hill to overrun Union positions, opposed by the very end of the Union line. There, another legend of the war was born in Maine’s fighting Colonel Joshua Chamberlain. A Union regiment, the 20th Maine commanded by Chamberlain, held the farthest point of the entire fishhook and thereby the fate of the entire army. A quiet professor of rhetoric at Bowdoin College, Chamberlain had volunteered with his Maine neighbors and his brother, who was his adjutant. Six months previously Chamberlain had charged up Marye’s Heights at Fredericksburg, where he and what was left of his decimated troops were pinned down in the mud. All night, he had listened to the whiz of musket balls and the screams of the wounded, using a dead man’s coat to protect him from the chilling wind.