The Victim: A Romance of the Real Jefferson Davis

by Thomas Dixon

  CHAPTER XXXII

  THE PATH OF GLORY

  Jefferson Davis had created the most compact and terrible engine of warset in motion since Napoleon founded the Empire of France. It had beendone under conditions of incredible difficulty, but it had been done.The smashing of McClellan's army brought to the North the painfulrealization of this fact. Abraham Lincoln must call for another halfmillion soldiers and no man could foresee the end.

  Davis had begun in April, 1861, without an arsenal, laboratory or powdermill of any capacity, and with no foundry or rolling mill for ironexcept the little Tredegar works in Richmond.

  He had supplied them.

  Harassed by an army of half a million men in blue led by able generalsand throttled by a cable of steel which the navy had drawn about hiscoast line, he had done this work and at the same time held his owndefiantly and successfully. Crippled by a depreciated currency,assaulted daily by a powerful conspiracy of sore-head politicians andquarreling generals, strangled by a blockade that deprived him of nearlyall means of foreign aid--he had still succeeded in raising the neededmoney. Unable to use the labor of slaves except in the unskilled work offarms, hampered by lack of transportation even of food for the army,with no stock of war material on hand,--steel, copper, leather or ironwith which to build his establishments--yet with quiet persistence heset himself to solve these problems and succeeded.

  He had created, apparently out of nothing, foundries and rolling millsat Selma, Richmond, Atlanta and Macon, smelting works at Petersburg, achemical laboratory at Charlotte, a powder mill superior to any of theUnited States and unsurpassed by any in Europe,--a mighty chain ofarsenals, armories, and laboratories equal in their capacity andappointments to the best of those in the North, stretching link by linkfrom Virginia to Alabama.

  He established artificial niter beds at Richmond, Columbus, Charleston,Savannah, Mobile and Selma of sufficient capacity to supply the niterneeded in the powder mills.

  Mines for iron, lead and copper were opened and operated. Manufactoriesfor the production of sulphuric and nitric acid were established andsuccessfully operated.

  Minor articles were supplied by devices hitherto unheard of in theequipment of armies. Leather was scarce and its supply impossible in thequantities demanded.

  Knapsacks were abolished and haversacks of cloth made by patriotic womenwith their needles took their places. The scant supply of leather wasdivided between the makers of shoes for the soldiers and saddles andharness for the horses. Shoes for the soldiers were the prime necessity.To save leather the waist and cartridge-box belts were made of heavycotton cloth stitched in three or four thicknesses. Bridle reins weremade of cotton in the same way. Cartridge boxes were finally madethus--with a single piece of leather for the flap. Even saddle skirtsfor the cavalry were made of heavy cotton strongly stitched.

  Men to work the meager tanneries were exempt from military services andtransportation for hides and leather supplies was free.

  A fishery was established on the Cape Fear River in North Carolina fromwhich oil was manufactured. Every wayside blacksmith shop was utilizedas a government factory for the production of horseshoes for thecavalry.

  To meet the demands for articles of prime necessity which could not bemade in the South, a line of blockade runners was established betweenthe port of Wilmington, North Carolina, and Bermuda. Vessels capable ofstoring in their hold six hundred bales of cotton were purchased inEngland and put into this service. They were long, low, narrow craftbuilt for speed. They could show their heels to any ship of the UnitedStates Navy. Painted a pale grayish-blue color, and lying low on thewater they were sighted with difficulty in the day and they carried nolights at night. The moment one was trapped and sunk by the blockadingfleet, another was ready to take her place.

  Depots and stores were established and drawn on by these fleet shipsboth at Nassau and Havana.

  By the fall of 1862, through the port of Wilmington, from the arsenalsat Richmond and Fayetteville, and from the victorious fields of Manassasand the Seven Days' Battle around Richmond, sufficient arms had beenobtained to equip two hundred thousand soldiers and supply theirbatteries with serviceable artillery.

  On April 16, 1862, Davis asked of his Congress that every white man inthe South between the ages of 18 and 35 be called to the colors and allshort term volunteer contracts annulled. The law was promptly passed inspite of the conspirators who fought him at every turn. Camps ofinstruction were established in every State, and a commandant sent fromRichmond to take charge of the new levies.

  Solidity was thus given to the military system of the Confederacy andits organization centralized and freed from the bickerings of Statepoliticians.

  With her loins thus girded for the conflict the South entered the secondphase of the war--the path of glory from the shattered army of McClellanon the James to Hooker's crushed and bleeding lines at Chancellorsville.

  The fiercest clamor for the removal of McClellan from his command sweptthe North. The position of the Northern General was one of peculiarweakness politically. He was an avowed Democrat. His head had beenturned by flattery and he had at one time dallied with the idea ofdeposing Abraham Lincoln by the assumption of a military dictatorship.Lincoln knew this. The demand for his removal would have swayed aPresident of less balance.

  Lincoln refused to deprive McClellan of his command but yieldedsufficiently to the clamor of the radicals of his own party to appointJohn Pope of the Western army to the command of a new division of troopsdesigned to advance on Richmond.

  The generals under McClellan who did not agree with his slow methodswere detached with their men and assigned to service under Pope.

  McClellan did not hesitate to denounce Pope as an upstart and a braggartwho had won his position by the lowest tricks of the demagogue. Hedeclared that the new commander was a military impostor, a tool of theradical wing of the Republican party, a man who mistook brutality inwarfare for power and sought to increase the horrors of war by armingslaves, legalizing plunder and making the people of the Southirreconcilable to a restored Union by atrocities whose memory couldnever be effaced.

  Pope's first acts on assuming command did much to justify McClellan'ssavage criticism. He issued a bombastic address to his army whichbrought tears to Lincoln's eyes and roars of laughter from Little Mac'sloyal friends.

  He issued a series of silly general orders making war on thenoncombatant population of Virginia within his line. If citizens refusedto take an oath of allegiance which he prescribed they were to be drivenfrom their homes and if they dared to return, were to be arrested andtreated as spies.

  His soldiers were given license to plunder. Houses were robbed andcattle shot in the fields. Against these practices McClellan had set hisface with grim resolution. He fought only organized armies. He protectedthe aged, and all noncombatants. It was not surprising, therefore, whenLincoln ordered him to march his army to the support of Pope, McClellanwas in no hurry to get there.

  Pope had boldly advanced across the Rappahannock and a portion of hisarmy had reached Culpeper Court House. He had determined to make goodthe proclamation with which he had assumed command.

  In this remarkable document he said:

  "By special assignment of the President of the United States, I haveassumed command of this army. I have come to you from the West where wehave always seen the backs of our enemies--from an army whose businessit has been to seek the adversary and to beat him when found, whosepolicy has been attack not defense. Let us study the probable lines ofretreat of our opponents and leave ours to take care of themselves. Letus look before us and not behind."

  While his eyes were steadily fixed before him Jackson, moving with thestealthy tread of a tiger, slipped in behind his advance guard, sprangon it and tore his lines to pieces before he could move reenforcementsto their rescue.

  When his reenforcements reached the ground Jackson had just finishedburying the dead, picking up the valuable arms left on the field andsending his prisoners to the r
ear.

  Before Pope could lead his fresh men to an attack the vanguard of Lee'sarmy was in sight and the general who had just issued his flamingproclamation took to his heels and fled across the Rappahannock where hecalled frantically for the divisions of McClellan's army which had notyet joined him.

  While Lee threatened Pope's front by repeated feints at different pointsalong the river, he dispatched Jackson's corps of twenty-five thousand"foot cavalry" on a wide flanking movement through the Blue Ridge toturn the Federal right, destroy his stores at Manassas Junction andattack him in the rear before his reenforcements could arrive.

  With swiftness Jackson executed the brilliant movement. Withintwenty-four hours his men had made the wide swing through the lowmountain ranges and crouched between Pope's army and the FederalCapital. To a man of less courage and coolness this position would havebeen one of tragic danger. Should Pope suddenly turn from Lee'spretended attacks and spring on Jackson he might be crushed between twocolumns. Franklin and Sumner's corps were at Alexandria to reenforce hislines.

  Jackson had marched into the jaws of death and yet he not only showed nofear, he made a complete circuit of Pope's army, struck his storehousesat Manassas Junction and captured them before the Federal Commanderdreamed that an army was in his rear. Eight pieces of artillery andthree hundred prisoners were among the spoils. Fifty thousand pounds ofbacon, a thousand barrels of beef, two thousand barrels of pork, twothousand barrels of flour, and vast quantities of quartermaster's storesalso fell into his hands.

  Jackson took what he could transport and burned the rest.

  Pope rushed now in frantic haste to destroy Jackson before Lee's armycould reach him.

  Jackson was too quick for the eloquent commander. He slipped past hisopponent and took a strong position west of the turnpike from Warrentonwhere he could easily unite with Longstreet's advancing corps.

  Pope attempted to turn Jackson's left with a division of his army andthe wily Southerner fell on his moving columns with sudden savageenergy, fought until nine o'clock at night and drove him back with heavyloss.

  When Pope moved to the attack next day at two o'clock Longstreet hadreached Jackson's side. The attack failed and his men fell back throughpools of blood. The Federal Commander was still sending pompous messagesto Washington announcing his marvelous achievements while his army hadsteadily retreated from Culpeper Court House beyond the Rappahannock,back to Manassas where the first battle of the war was fought.

  At dawn on August 30, the high spirited troops of the South were underarms standing with clinched muskets within a few hundred yards of thepickets of Pope. Their far flung battle line stretched for five milesfrom Sudley Springs on the left to the Warrenton road and on obliquelyto the southwest.

  The artillery opened the action and for eight hours the heavens shookwith its roar. At three o'clock in the afternoon Pope determined to hurlthe flower of his army against Jackson's corps and smash it. His firstdivision pressed forward and engaged the Confederates at closequarters. A fierce and bloody conflict followed, Jackson's troopsrefusing to yield an inch. The Federal Commander brought up two reservelines to support the first but before they could be of any use,Longstreet's artillery was planted to rake them with a murderous fireand they fell back in confusion.

  As the reserves retreated Jackson ordered his men to charge and at thesame moment Longstreet hurled his division against the Federal center,and the whole Confederate army with piercing yell leaped forward andswept the field as far as the eye could reach.

  No sublimer pageant of blood and flame and smoke and shrouded Death evermoved across the earth than that which Lee now witnessed from thehilltop on which he stood. For five miles across the Manassas plains thegray waves rolled, their polished bayonets gleaming in the blazing sun.They swept through the open fields, now lost a moment in the woods, nowflashing again in the open. They paused and the artillery dashed to thefront, spread their guns in line and roared their call of death to thestruggling, fleeing, demoralized army. Another shout and the charginghosts swept on again to a new point of vantage from which to fire.Through clouds of smoke and dust the red tongues of flame from a hundredbig-mouthed guns flashed and faded and flashed again.

  The charging men slipped on the wet grass where the dead lay thickest.Waves of white curling smoke rose above the tree-tops and hung in denseclouds over the field lighted by the red glare of the sinking sun.

  The relief corps could be seen dashing on, with stretchers andambulances following in the wake of the victorious army.

  The hum and roar of the vast field of carnage came now on the ears ofthe listener--the groans of the wounded and the despairing cry of thedying. And still the living waves of gray-tipped steel rolled on inrelentless sweep.

  Again the fleeing Federal soldiers choked the waters of Bull Run. Massesof struggling fugitives were pushed from the banks into the water andpressed down. Here and there a wounded man clung to the branch of anoverhanging tree until exhausted and sank to rise no more.

  The meadows were trampled and red. Hundreds of weak and tired men wereridden down by cavalry and crushed by artillery. On and on rushed theremorseless machine of the Confederacy, crushing, killing, scarring,piling the dead in heaps.

  It was ten o'clock that night before the army of Lee halted and Pope'sexhausted lines fell into the trenches around Centreville for a fewhours' respite. At dawn Jackson was struggling with his tired victoriousdivision to again turn Pope's flank, get into his rear and cut off hisretreat.

  A cold and drenching rainstorm delayed his march and the rabble that wasonce Pope's army succeeded in getting into the defenses of Washington.

  Davis' army took seven thousand prisoners and picked up more than twothousand wounded soldiers whom their boastful commander had left on thefield to die. Thirty pieces of artillery and twenty thousand small armsfell into Lee's hands.

  Pope's losses since Jackson first struck his advance guard at CulpeperCourt House had been more than twenty thousand men and his army had beendriven into Washington so utterly demoralized it was unfit for furtherservice until reorganized under an abler man.

  For the moment the North was stunned by the blow. Deceived by Pope'sloud dispatches claiming victory for the first two days it wasimpossible to realize that his shattered and broken army was coweringand bleeding under the shadow of the Federal Capitol.

  Even on the night of August thirtieth, with his men lying exhausted atCentreville where they had dropped at ten o'clock when Lee's army hadmercifully halted, poor Pope continued to send his marvelous messages tothe War Department.

  He reported to Halleck:

  "The enemy is badly whipped, and we shall do well enough. Do not beuneasy. We will hold our own here. We have delayed the enemy as long aspossible without losing the army. We have damaged him heavily, and Ithink the army entitled to the gratitude of the country."

  To this childish twaddle Halleck replied:

  "My dear General, you have done nobly!"

  Abraham Lincoln, however, realized the truth quickly. He removed Popeand in spite of the threat of his Cabinet to resign called McClellan toreorganize the dispirited army.

  The North was in no mood to listen to the bombastic defense of GeneralPope. They were stunned by the sudden sweep of the Confederate army fromthe gates of Richmond on June first, to the defenses at Washingtonwithin sixty days with the loss of twenty thousand men under McClellanand twenty thousand more under Pope.

  The armies of the Union had now been driven back to the point from whichthey had started on July 16, 1861. It had been necessary to withdrawBurnside's army from eastern North Carolina and the forces of the Unionfrom western Virginia. The war had been transferred to the suburbs ofWashington and the Northern people who had confidently expectedMcClellan to be in Richmond in June were now trembling for the safety ofPennsylvania and Maryland, to say nothing of the possibility ofConfederate occupation of the Capital.

  An aggressive movement of all the forces of the South under Lee in theEast and Bra
gg and Johnston in the West was ordered.

  In spite of the fact that Lee's army could not be properly shod--thesupply of army shoes being inadequate and the lack of shoe factories adefect the Confederacy had yet been unable to remedy, the SouthernCommander threw his army of barefooted veterans across the Potomac andboldly invaded Maryland on September the fifth.

  The appearance of Stonewall Jackson on his entrance into Frederick City,Maryland, was described by a Northern war correspondent in graphicterms:

  "Old Stonewall was the observed of all observers. He was dressed in thecoarsest kind of homespun, seedy, and dirty at that. He wore an old hatwhich any Northern beggar would consider an insult to have offered him.In his general appearance he was in no respect to be distinguished fromthe mongrel barefoot crew who followed his fortunes. I had heard much ofthe decayed appearance of rebel soldiers,--but such a looking crowd!Ireland in her worst straits could present no parallel, and yet theyglory in their shame!"

  Lee's army was now fifty miles north of Washington, within strikingdistance of Baltimore. His strategy had completely puzzled the WarDepartment of the Federal Government. McClellan was equally puzzled.Lincoln and his Cabinet believed Lee's movement into Maryland a feint todraw the army from the defense of the Capital, and, when this wasaccomplished, by a sudden swoop the Southern Commander would turn andcapture the city.

  While McClellan was thus halting in tragic indecision one of theunforeseen accidents of war occurred which put him in possession ofLee's plan of campaign and should have led to the annihilation of theSouthern army. A copy of the order directing the movement of theConfederates from Frederick, Maryland, was thrown to the ground by apetulant officer to whom it was directed. It fell into the hands of aFederal soldier who hurried to McClellan's headquarters with the fatefuldocument.

  Jackson's corps had been sent on one of his famous "foot cavalry"expeditions to sweep the Federal garrison from Martinsburg, surround andcapture Harper's Ferry. McClellan at once moved a division of his armyto crush the small command Lee had stationed at South Mountain to guardJackson's movement.

  McClellan threw his men against this little division of the Confederatesand attempted to force his way to the relief of Harper's Ferry. Thebattle raged with fury until nine o'clock at night. Their purposeaccomplished Lee withdrew them to his new position at Sharpsburg toawait the advent of Jackson.

  The "foot cavalry" had surrounded Harper's Ferry, assaulted it at dawnand in two hours the garrison surrendered. Thirteen thousand prisonerswith their rifles and seventy-three pieces of artillery fell intoJackson's hands. Leaving General A. P. Hill to receive the finalsurrender of the troops Jackson set out at once for Sharpsburg to joinhis army with Lee's.

  The Southern Commander had but forty thousand men with which to meetMcClellan's ninety thousand, but at sunrise on September seventeenth,his batteries opened fire and the bloodiest struggle of the Civil Warbegan. Through the long hours of this eventful day the lines of blue andgray charged and counter-charged across the scarlet field. When darknessfell neither side had yielded. The dead lay in ghastly heaps and thelong pitiful wail of the wounded rose to Heaven.

  Lee had lost two thousand killed and six thousand wounded. McClellan hadlost more than twelve thousand. His army was so terribly shattered bythe bloody work, he did not renew the struggle on the following day. Leewaited until night for his assault and learning that reenforcements wereon the way to join McClellan's command withdrew across the Potomac.

  It was a day later before Lee's movements were sufficiently clear forMcClellan to claim a victory.

  On September nineteenth, he telegraphed Washington:

  "I do not know if the enemy is falling back or recrossing the river. Wemay safely claim the victory as ours."

  Abraham Lincoln hastened to take advantage of McClellan's claim to issuehis Emancipation Proclamation. And yet so utter had been the failure ofhis general to cope with Lee and Jackson, the President of the UnitedStates relieved McClellan of his command.

  While Lee's invasion had failed of the larger purpose, its moral effecton the North had been tremendous. He carried back into Virginia fourteenthousand prisoners, eighty pieces of artillery and invaluable equipmentfor his army.

  In the meantime the Western army under Bragg had invaded Kentucky,sweeping to the gates of Cincinnati and Louisville and retiring withmore than five thousand prisoners, five thousand small arms and tenpieces of artillery.

  The gain in territory by the invasion of Maryland and Kentucky had beennothing but the moral effect of these movements had been far reaching.The daring valor of the small Confederate armies fighting againstoverwhelming odds had stirred the imagination of the world. In the westthey had carried their triumphant battle flag from Chattanooga toCincinnati, and although forced to retire, had shown the world that theconquest at the southwestern territory was a gigantic task which was yetto be seriously undertaken.

  The London _Times_, commenting on these campaigns, declared:

  "Whatever may be the fate of the new nationality or its subsequentclaims to the respect of mankind, it will assuredly begin its careerwith a reputation for genius and valor which the most famous nations mayenvy."

  On McClellan's fall he was succeeded by General Burnside who found amagnificently trained army of veteran soldiers at his command. It wasnow divided into three grand divisions of two corps each, commanded bythree generals of tried and proven ability, Sumner, Hooker and Franklin.

  Burnside quickly formed and began the execution of an advance againstRichmond. He moved his army rapidly down the left bank of theRappahannock River to Fredericksburg, and ordered pontoon bridges tocross the stream. His army could thus defend Washington while moving inforce on the Confederate Capital.

  When Burnside led his one hundred and thirteen thousand men across theriver and occupied the town of Fredericksburg, Lee and Jackson wereready to receive him. Lee had entrenched on the line of crescent-shapedhills behind the town.

  When the new Northern Commander threw his army, with its bands playingand its thousand flags flying, against these hills on the morning ofDecember 13, 1862, he plunged headlong and blindfolded into a deathtrap.

  Charge after charge was repulsed with unparalleled slaughter. Lee's gunswere planted to cross fire on each charging line of blue. Burnside'smen were mowed down in thousands until their sublime valor won thepraise and the pity of their foe.

  When night at last drew the veil over the awful scene the shatteredmasses of the charging army were huddled under the shelter of the housesin Fredericksburg leaving the field piled high with the dead and thewounded. The wounded were freezing to death in the pitiless cold.

  Burnside had lost thirteen thousand men--the flower of his troops--thebravest men the North had ever sent into battle.

  Jackson's keen eye was quick to see the shambles into which thisdemoralized army had been pushed. The river behind them could be crossedonly on a narrow pontoon bridge. A swift and merciless night attackwould either drive the bleeding lines into the freezing river,annihilate or capture the whole army. He urged Lee to this attack. Leedemurred. He could not know the extent of the enemy's losses. It wasinconceivable to the Southern Commander that Burnside with his onehundred and thirteen thousand picked soldiers, could be repulsed withsuch slight losses to the South. Only a small part of the army under hiscommand had been active in the battle and their losses wereinsignificant in comparison with the records of former struggles.Burnside would renew the attack with redoubled vigor. He refused to movehis men from their entrenchments into the open field where they would beexposed to the batteries beyond the river.

  Jackson turned his somber blue eyes on Lee:

  "Send my corps into Fredericksburg alone to-night. Hold the hills withthe rest of the army. I'll do the work."

  "You cannot distinguish friend from foe, General Jackson--"

  "I'll strip my men to the waist and tie white bands around their rightarms."

  "In this freezing cold?"

  "They'll obey my
orders, General Lee--"

  "It's too horrible--"

  "It's war, sir," was Jackson's reply. "War means fighting--fighting tokill, to destroy--fighting with tooth and nail--"

  Lee shook his head. He refused to take the risk. Jackson returned to hisheadquarters with heavy heart. His chief of medical staff was busypreparing bandages for his men. He had been sure of Lee's consent. Hecountermanded the order and Burnside's army was saved from annihilation.When the sun rose next morning half his men were safely across theriver--and the remainder quickly followed.

  Again the North was stunned. Another wave of horror swept its homes asthe lists of the dead and wounded were printed.

  Burnside resigned his command and "Fighting" Joe Hooker was placed atthe head of the Northern troops. Since June first, Lee and Jackson haddestroyed four blue armies and driven their commanders from thefield,--McClellan twice, John Pope and now Burnside.

  The political effects of these brilliant achievements of Davis' army hadbeen paralyzing on the administration of Lincoln. The Proclamation ofEmancipation which he had issued immediately after the bloody battle inMaryland had not only fallen flat in the North, it had created areaction against his policies and the conduct of the war. The Novemberelections had gone against him and his party had been all but wiped out.

  The Democrats in New York had reversed a majority of one hundred andseven thousand against them in 1860 and swept the State, electing theirentire ticket. The administration was defeated in New Jersey,Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

  The voters of the North not only condemned the administration fordeclaring the slaves free, but they assaulted the war policy of theirGovernment with savage fury. They condemned the wholesale arrest ofthousands of citizens for their political opinions and arraigned theGovernment for its incompetence in conducting the military operations ofan army of more than twice the numbers of the triumphant South.

  The Emancipation Proclamation and the victories of Davis' army had notonly divided and demoralized the North, they had solidified Southernopinion.

  Even Alexander H. Stephens, the Vice-President of the Confederacy, whohad been a thorn in the flesh of Davis from the beginning in hisadvocacy of foolish and impossible measures of compromise now took hisposition for war to the death. In a fiery speech in North Carolinafollowing Lincoln's proclamation Stephens said:

  "As for any reconstruction of the Union--such a thing isimpossible--such an idea must not be tolerated for an instant.Reconstruction would not end the war, but would produce a more horriblewar than that in which we are now engaged. The only terms on which wecan obtain permanent peace is final and complete separation from theNorth. Rather than submit to anything short of that, let us resolve todie as men worthy of freedom."

  A few days after the defeat of Burnside's army at Fredericksburg theSouth was thrilled by the feat of General McGruder in Galveston harbor.The daring Confederate Commander had seized two little steamers andfitted them up as gun boats by piling cotton on their sides forbulwarks. With these two rafts of cotton cooeperating on the water, hisinfantry waded out into the waters of Galveston Bay and attacked theFederal fleet with their bare hands.

  When the smoke of battle lifted the city of Galveston was in Confederatehands, the fleet had been smashed and scattered and the port opened tocommerce. Commodore Renshaw had blown up his flag ship to prevent herfalling into McGruder's hands and gone down with her. The garrisonsurrendered.

  Jackson had invented a "foot cavalry." McGruder had supplemented it by a"foot navy."

  At Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on the same day General Bragg had engagedthe army of Rosecrans and fought one of the bloodiest engagements of thewar. Its net results were in favor of the Confederacy in spite of thefact that he permitted Rosecrans to move into Murfreesboro. The Northernarmy had lost nine thousand men, killed and wounded, and Bragg carriedfrom the field six thousand Federal prisoners, thirty pieces ofartillery, sixty thousand stand of small arms, ambulances, mules, horsesand an enormous amount of valuable stores.

  His own losses had been great but far less than those he inflicted onRosecrans. He had lost one thousand two hundred and ninety-two killed,seven thousand nine hundred and forty-five wounded and one thousandtwenty-seven missing.

  At Charleston a fleet of iron-clads on the model of the _Monitor_ hadbeen crushed by the batteries and driven back to sea with heavy loss.The _Keokuk_ was left a stranded wreck in the harbor.

  A second attack on Vicksburg had failed under Sherman. A third attack byGrant had been repulsed. Farragut's attack on Port Hudson had failedwith the loss of the _Richmond_.

  The Federal Government now put forth its grandest effort to crush at ablow the apparently invincible army of Davis' still lying in itstrenches on the heights behind Fredericksburg.

  Hooker's army was raised to an effective force of one hundred and thirtythousand and his artillery increased to four hundred guns. Lee had beencompelled to detach Longstreet's corps, comprising nearly a third of hisarmy for service in North Carolina. The force under his command wasbarely fifty thousand.

  So great was the superiority of the Northern army Hooker divided hisforces for an enveloping movement, each wing of his being still greaterthan the whole force under Lee.

  Sedgwick's corps crossed the river below Fredericksburg and began aflanking movement from the south while Hooker threw the main body acrossthe Rappahannock at three fords seven miles above.

  On April thirtieth, he issued an address to his men. His forces were allsafely across the river without firing a shot. He had Lee's little armycaught in a trap between his two grand divisions.

  In his proclamation he boldly announced:

  "The operations of the last three days have determined that our enemymust ingloriously fly, or come out from behind their defenses and giveus battle on our own ground, where certain destruction awaits him."

  His enemy was not slow in coming out from behind his defenses. Withquick decision Lee divided his little army by planting ten thousand menunder Early on Marye's Heights to stop Sedgwick's division and movedswiftly with the remainder to meet Hooker in the dense woods of theWilderness near Chancellorsville.

  With consummate daring and the strategy of genius he again divided hisarmy. He detached Jackson's corps and sent his "foot cavalry" on a swiftwide detour of twenty-odd miles to swing around Hooker's right andstrike him in the flank while he pretended an attack in force on hisfront.

  It was nearly sundown when Jackson's tired but eager men saw from thehill top their unsuspecting foe quietly cooking their evening meal.

  When the battle clouds lifted at the end of three days of carnage,Hooker's army of one hundred and thirty thousand men had been cut topieces and flung back across the Rappahannock, leaving seventeenthousand killed and wounded on the field.

  In the face of his crushing defeat Hooker issued another address to hisarmy.

  He boldly announced from his safe retreat beyond the banks of the river:

  "The Major-General commanding tenders to the army his congratulations onits achievements of the last seven days. If it has not accomplished allthat was expected the reasons are well known to the army. It issufficient to say, that they were of a character not to be foreseen orprevented by human sagacity or resources.

  "In withdrawing from the south bank of the Rappahannock beforedelivering a general battle to our adversaries, the army has givenrenewed evidence of its confidence in itself and its fidelity to theprinciples it represents.

  "Profoundly loyal and conscious of its strength, the Army of the Potomacwill give or decline battle whenever its interests or honor may commandit.

  "By the celerity and secrecy of our movements, our advance and passageof the river was undisputed, and on our withdrawal not a rebel dared tofollow us. The events of the last week may well cause the heart of everyofficer and soldier of the army to swell with pride!"

  The heart of the North quickly swelled with such pride that thePresident was forced to remove General Hooker and appoint General G
eorgeMeade to his command.

  While the South was celebrating the wonderful achievement of their nowinvincible army, Lee's greatest general lay dying at a little farm housea few miles from the scene of his immortal achievement. Jackson had beenaccidentally wounded by a volley from his own men fired by his orders.

  His wound was not supposed to be fatal and arrangements were made forhis removal to Richmond when he was suddenly stricken with pneumonia andrapidly sank. He lifted his eyes to his physician and calmly said:

  "If I live, it will be for the best--and if I die, it will be for thebest; God knows and directs all things for the best."

  His last moments were marked with expressions of his abiding faith inthe wisdom and love of the God he had faithfully served.

  Yet his spirit was still on the field of battle. In the delirium whichpreceded death his voice rang in sharp command:

  "Tell Major Hawkes to send forward provisions to the men!"

  His head sank and a smile lighted his rugged face. In low tender tonesbe gasped his last words on earth:

  "Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees."

  So passed the greatest military genius our race has produced--the manwho never met defeat. His loss was mourned not only by the South but bythe world. His death extinguished a light on the shores of Time.

  The leading London paper said of him:

  "That mixture of daring and judgment which is the mark of heaven-borngenerals distinguished him beyond any man of his age. The blows hestruck at the enemy were as terrible and decisive as those of Bonapartehimself."

  Thousands followed him in sorrow to the grave. The South was bathed intears.

  Lee realized that he had lost his right arm and yet, undaunted, hemarshaled his legions and girded his loins for an invasion of Northernsoil.