New battalions arrived from day to day, the cantonments were built by themselves, like the first, and the business of instruction and drill was systematized. The men were not yet armed, so there was no temptation to begin too soon with the manual of the musket, and they were kept industriously employed in marching in single line, by file, in changing direction, in forming column of fours from double line, etc., before their guns were put into their hands. Each regiment was treated as a separate camp with its own chain of sentinels, and the officers of the guard were constantly busy inspecting the sentinels on post and teaching guard and picket duty theoretically to the reliefs off duty. Schools were established in each regiment for field and staff as well as for company officers, and Hardee’s “Tactics” was in the hands of everybody who could procure a copy. One of the proofs of the unprecedented scale of our war preparation is found in the fact that the supply of the authorized “Tactics” was soon exhausted, making it difficult to get the means of instruction in the company schools. The arriving regiments sometimes had their first taste of camp life under circumstances well calculated to dampen their ardor. The 4th Ohio, under Colonel Lorin Andrews, president of Kenyon College, came just before a thunder-storm one evening, and the bivouac that night was as rough a one as his men were likely to experience for many a day. They made shelter by placing boards from the fence-tops to the ground, but the fields were level and soon became a mire under the pouring rain, so that they were a queer-looking lot when they crawled out in the morning. The sun was then shining bright, however, and they had better cover for their heads by the next night. The 7th Ohio, which was recruited in Cleveland and on the “Western Reserve,” sent a party in advance to build some of their huts, and though they too came in a rain-storm, they were less uncomfortable than some of the others. In the course of a fortnight all the regiments of the Ohio contingent were in the camp, except the two that had been hurried to Washington. They were organized into three brigades. The brigadiers, besides myself, were Generals J. H. Bates and Newton Schleich. General Bates, who was the senior, and as such assumed command of the camp in McClellan’s absence, was a graduate of West Point who had served some years in the regular army, but had resigned and adopted the profession of law. General Schleich was a Democratic senator, who had been in the State militia, and had been one of the drill-masters of the Legislative Squad, which had drilled upon the Capitol terrace. McClellan had intended to make his own headquarters in the camp; but the convenience of attending to official business in Cincinnati kept him in the city. His purpose was to make the brigade organizations permanent, and to take them as a division to the field when they were a little prepared for the work. Like many other good plans, it failed to be carried out. I was the only one of the brigadiers who remained in the service after the first enlistment for ninety days, and it was my fate to take the field with new regiments, only one of which had been in my brigade in camp. After General Bates’s arrival my own hut was built on the slope of the hillside behind my brigade, close under the wooded ridge, and here for the next six weeks was my home. The morning brought its hour of business correspondence relating to the command; then came the drill, when the parade ground was full of marching companies and squads. Officers’ drill followed, with sword exercise and pistol practice, and the evening was allotted to schools of theoretic tactics, outpost duty, and the like.
The first fortnight in camp was the hardest for the troops. The plowed fields became deep with mud which nothing could remove till steady good weather should allow them to be packed hard under the continued tramp of thousands of men. The organization of camp-kitchens had to be learned by the hardest experience also, and the men who had some aptitude for cooking had to be found by a slow process of natural selection, during which many an unpalatable meal had to be eaten. A disagreeable bit of information soon came to us in the proof that more than half the men had never had the contagious diseases of infancy. The measles broke out, and we had to organize a camp-hospital at once. A large barn near by was taken for this purpose, and the surgeons had their hands full of cases, which, however trivial they might seem at home, were here aggravated into dangerous illness by the unwonted surroundings, and the impossibility of securing the needed protection from exposure. The good women of Cincinnati took promptly in hand the task of providing nurses for the sick and proper diet and delicacies for hospital use. The Sisters of Charity, under the lead of Sister Anthony, a noble woman, came out in force, and their black and white robes harmonized picturesquely with the military surroundings, as they flitted about under the rough timber framing of the old barn, carrying comfort and hope from one rude couch to another.
As to supplies, hardly a man in a regiment knew how to make out a requisition for rations or for clothing, and, easy as it is to rail at “red-tape,” the necessity of keeping a check upon embezzlement and wastefulness justified the staff-bureaus at Washington in insisting upon regular vouchers to support the quartermasters’ and commissaries’ accounts. But here, too, men were gradually found who had special talent for the work. Where everybody had to learn a new business, it would have been miraculous if grave errors had not frequently occurred. Looking back at it, the wonder is that the blunders and mishaps had not been tenfold more numerous than they were.
By the middle of May the confusion had given way to reasonable system, but we now were obliged to meet the embarrassments of reorganization for three years, under the President’s second call for troops (May 3d). In every company some discontented spirits wanted to go home, and, to avoid the odium of going alone, they became mischief-makers, seeking to prevent the whole company from reënlisting. The growing discipline was relaxed or lost in the solicitations, the electioneering, the speech-making, and the other common arts of persuasion. In spite of all these discouragements, however, the daily drills and instruction went on with some approach to regularity, and our raw volunteers began to look more like soldiers. Captain Gordon Granger, of the regular army, came to muster the reënlisted regiments into the three-years service, and as he stood at the right of the 4th Ohio, looking down the line of a thousand stalwart men, all in their Garibaldi shirts (for we had not yet got our uniforms), he turned to me and exclaimed, “My God! that such men should be food for powder!” It certainly was a display of manliness and intelligence such as had hardly ever been seen in the ranks of an army. There were in camp at that time, three if not four companies in different regiments that were wholly made up of under-graduates of colleges, who had enlisted together, their officers being their tutors and professors. And where there was not so striking evidence as this of the enlistment of the best of our youth, every company could still show that it was largely recruited from the best nurtured and most promising young men of the community.
MAJOR-GENERAL GORDON GRANGER. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.
Granger had been in the South-west when the secession movement began, and had seen the formation of military companies everywhere, and the incessant drilling which had been going on all winter; while we, in a strange condition of political paralysis, had been doing nothing. His information was eagerly sought by us all, and he lost no opportunity of impressing upon us the fact that the South was nearly six months ahead of us in organization and preparation. He did not conceal his belief that we were likely to find the war a much longer and more serious piece of business than was commonly expected, and that, unless we pushed hard our drilling and instruction, we should find ourselves at a disadvantage in our earlier encounters. What he said had a good effect in making officers and men take more willingly to the laborious routine of the parade ground and the regimental school; for such opinions as his soon ran through a camp, and they were commented upon by the enlisted men quite as earnestly as among the officers. Still, hope kept the upper hand, and I believe that three-fourths of us still cherished the belief that a single campaign would end the war.
Though most of our men were native Ohioans, we had in camp two regiments made up of other material. The 9th Ohio was recruited f
rom the Germans of Cincinnati, and was commanded by Colonel Robert McCook. In camp, the drilling of the regiment fell almost completely into the hands of the adjutant, Lieutenant August Willich (afterward a general of division), and McCook, who humorously exaggerated his own lack of military knowledge, used to say that he was only “clerk for a thousand Dutchmen,” so completely did the care of equipping and providing for his regiment engross his time and labor. The 10th Ohio was an Irish regiment, also from Cincinnati, and its men were proud to call themselves the “Bloody Tinth.” The brilliant Lytle was its commander, and his control over them, even in the beginning of their service and near the city of their home, showed that they had fallen into competent hands. It happened, of course, that the guard-house pretty frequently contained representatives of the 10th, who, on the short furloughs that were allowed them, took a parting glass too many with their friends in the city, and came to camp boisterously drunk. But the men of the regiment got it into their heads that the 13th, which lay just opposite them across the railroad, took a malicious pleasure in filling the guard-house with the Irishmen. Some threats had been made that they would go over and “clean out” the 13th, and one fine evening these came to a head. I suddenly got orders from General Bates to form my brigade and march them at once between the 10th and 13th to prevent a collision that seemed imminent. The long-roll was beaten as if the drummers realized the full importance of the first opportunity to sound that warlike signal. We marched by the moon-light into the space between the belligerent regiments; but Lytle already had got his own men under control, and the less mercurial 13th were not disposed to be aggressive, so that we were soon dismissed, with a compliment for our promptness.
CAMP DENNISON, NEAR CINCINNATI.
The six weeks of our stay in Camp Dennison seem like months in the retrospect, so full were they crowded with new experiences. The change came in an unexpected way. The initiative taken by the Confederates in West Virginia had to be met by prompt action, and McClellan was forced to drop his own plans and meet the exigency. The organization and equipment of the regiments for the three-years service was still incomplete, and the brigades were broken up, to take across the Ohio the regiments best prepared to go. This was discouraging to a brigade commander, for, even with veteran troops, acquaintanceship between the officer and his command is a necessary condition of confidence and a most important element of strength. My own assignment to the Great Kanawha district was one I had every reason to be content with, except that for several months I felt the disadvantage I suffered from having command of troops which I had never seen till we met in the field.
* * *
1 In those opening days of the war, the National Government seemed for the moment to be subordinated to the governments of the States. A revolution in the seceding South had half destroyed the national legislature, and the national executive was left without a treasury, without an army, and without laws adequate to create these at once. At no time since the thirteen colonies declared their independence have the State governors and the State legislators found so important a field of duty as then. A little hesitation, a little lukewarmness, would have ended all. Then it was that the intense zeal and high spirit of Governor Andrew of Massachusetts led all New England, and was ready to lead the nation, as the men of Concord and Lexington had led in 1775. Then it was that Governor Morton of Indiana came to the front with a masculine energy and burly weight of character and of will which was typical of the force which the Great West could throw into the struggle.
Ohio was so situated with regard to West Virginia and Kentucky that the keystone of the Union might be said to be now west of the mountains. Governor Dennison mediated, like the statesman he was, between East and West; and Tod and Brough, following him by the will of the people in votes that ran up to majorities of near a hundred thousand, gave that vigorous support to Mr. Lincoln which showed the earnest nationality of the “war Democrats” of that day.—J.D.C.
2 Afterward aide-de-camp and acting judge-advocate on General McClellan’s staff.
3 Scott’s answer was dated May 3d, and is given by General E. D. Townsend (then on Scott’s staff), in his “Anecdotes of the Civil War.”
CHAPTER 4
THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT AT MONTGOMERY.
R. Barnwell Rhett
EDITOR OF THE CHARLESTON “MERCURY,” 1860–62.
Twenty-six years have passed since the delegates of six States of the South that had seceded from the Union met in a convention or Provisional Congress, at the Capitol, at Montgomery, Alabama. Twenty-one years have elapsed since the close of the war between the States of the North and the eleven States of the South that entered the Confederate Government then and there organized. Most of the men who participated in the deliberations of that convention are dead, and the few now left will before long be laid away. Of the debates of that body there is no record, and the proceedings in secret session have never been published. In Washington the proceedings of the Congress of the United States were open, and at the North there was an intelligent, well-informed, powerful public opinion throughout the war. Not so at the South. Secret sessions were commenced at Montgomery, and at Richmond almost all important business was transacted away from the knowledge and thus beyond the criticism of the people. Latterly, accounts of the battles fought have been written from every standpoint; but of the course and policy of the Confederate Government, which held in its hands all the resources of the Southern people, and directed their affairs, diplomatic, financial, naval, and military, little has been said. During the war scarcely anything was known except results, and when the war terminated, the people of the South, though greatly dissatisfied, were generally as ignorant of the management of Confederate affairs as the people of the North. The arrest and long imprisonment of the President of the Confederacy made of him a representative martyr, and silenced the voice of criticism at the South. And up to this time little has been done to point out the causes of the events which occurred, or to develop the truth of history in this direction. It very well suits men at the South who opposed secession to compliment their own sagacity by assuming that the end was inevitable. Nor do men identified with the Confederacy by office, or feeling obligation for its appreciation of their personal merits, find it hard to persuade themselves that all was done that could be done in “the lost cause.” And, in general, it may be an agreeable sop to Southern pride to take for granted that superior numbers alone effected the result. Yet, in the great wars of the world, nothing is so little proved as that the more numerous always and necessarily prevail. On the contrary, the facts of history show that brains have ever been more potent than brawn. The career of the Confederate States exhibits no exception to this rule. Eliminate the good sense and unselfish earnestness of Mr. Lincoln, and the great ability and practical energy of Seward and Adams, and of Stanton and Chase from the control of the affairs of the United States; conceive a management of third-rate and incompetent men in their places—will any one doubt that matters would have ended differently? To many it may be unpalatable to hear that at the South all was not done that might have been done and that cardinal blunders were made. But what is pleasing is not always true, and there can be no good excuse now for suppressing important facts or perverting history. The time has come when public attention may with propriety be directed to the realities of that momentous period at the South.
ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS, VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE CONFEDERACY. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.
On the 20th of December, 1860, South Carolina passed unanimously the first ordinance of secession, in these words:
“We, the people of the State of South Carolina in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, that the ordinance adopted by us in convention on the twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also, all Acts and parts of Acts of the General Assembly of this State, ratifying amendments of the said
Constitution, are hereby repealed; and that the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of ‘the United States of America,’ is hereby dissolved.”
On her invitation, six other Southern States sent delegates to a convention in Montgomery, Alabama, for the purpose of organizing a Confederacy. On the 4th of February, 1861, this convention assembled. The material which constituted it was of a mixed character. There were members who were constitutionally timid and unfit by character and temperament to participate in such work as was on hand. Others had little knowledge of public affairs on a large scale, and had studied neither the resources of the South nor the conduct of the movement. A number of them, however, were men of ripe experience and statesmanlike grasp of the situation—men of large knowledge, with calm, strong, clear views of the policies to be pursued. Alexander H. Stephens characterized this convention as “the ablest body with which he ever served, and singularly free from revolutionary spirit.”1
In the organization of the convention, Howell Cobb was chosen to preside, and J. J. Hooper, of Montgomery, to act as secretary. It was decided to organize a provisional government under a provisional constitution, which was adopted on the 8th of February. On the 9th a provisional President and Vice-President were elected, who were installed in office on the 18th to carry the government into effect. In regard to this election, it was agreed that when four delegations out of the six should settle upon men, the election should take place. Jefferson Davis was put forward by the Mississippi delegation and Howell Cobb by that of Georgia. The Florida delegation proposed to vote for whomsoever South Carolina should support. The South Carolina delegation offered no candidate and held no meeting to confer upon the matter. The chairman, Mr. R. Barnwell Rhett,2 did not call them together. Mr. Barnwell, however, was an active supporter of Mr. Davis, and it was afterward said that while in Washington in December, as a commissioner to treat for the evacuation of Fort Sumter, he had committed himself to Mr. Davis. At any rate, he was zealous. Colonel Keitt afterward stated to the writer and others in Charleston that a majority of the delegation were opposed to Mr. Davis, but that, not having compared opinions, they did not understand one another, and that Mr. Davis received the vote of South Carolina, and was elected, by the casting vote of Mr. Rhett. Personally Mr. Rhett knew little of Mr. Davis. He regarded him as an accomplished man, but egotistical, arrogant, and vindictive, without depth or statesmanship. Besides this, he judged him not sufficiently in accord with the movement to lead it. His speech on the 4th of July, 1858, between New York and Boston, was reported as denunciatory of secessionists, and as comparing them to “mosquitoes around the horns of an ox, who could annoy, but could do no harm.” The strong Union sentiments uttered in his New England electioneering tour, which secured to him the vote of B. F. Butler and others at the Democratic convention at Charleston, in 1860, were confirmatory of the newspaper report. As late as November 10th, 1860, after the South Carolina convention was called, Mr. Davis had written a letter, within the cognizance of Mr. Rhett, and published by himself since the war, in which he unmistakably indicated the opinion that, if South Carolina seceded, neither Georgia, nor Alabama, nor Mississippi, nor Louisiana, nor any other State would secede unless the United States Government should attempt to coerce South Carolina back into the Union, or to blockade her ports. His expectation, at that late period, apparently was that South Carolina would be left out of the Union alone, and that the United States Government would simply collect duties off the bars of her seaports; and he expressed himself “in favor of seeking to bring those [the planting States] into coöperation before asking for a popular decision upon a new policy and relation to the nations of the earth.” These views did not strengthen him with Mr. Rhett for the executive head of the Southern Confederacy; nor did the published report of his shedding tears on retiring from the United States Senate after the secession of Mississippi. But Mr. Rhett’s contemporary and second cousin, Mr. Barnwell, called three times to solicit his vote for Mr. Davis. The impression was produced upon his mind that he, Mr. Rhett, was the only man in the delegation opposed to Mr. Davis. In reply to objections suggested by Mr. Rhett, Mr. Barnwell said that Mr. Rhett’s standard of the statesmanship requisite was higher than he might be able to get. He added that he knew Mr. Davis, and although he considered him not a man of great ability, yet he believed him just and honorable, and that he would utilize the best ability of the country, as Monroe and Polk and others had done, and would administer the powers intrusted to him as President, with an eye single to the interests of the Confederacy. Upon this presentment Mr. Rhett concluded to forego his own mistrust, and to give his vote for Mr. Davis, along with the rest, as he supposed. On taking the vote in the convention (February 9th) Georgia gave hers to Mr. Cobb, and the other States theirs to Mr. Davis. Georgia then changed her vote, which elected Mr. Davis unanimously. Mr. Alexander H. Stephens was chosen Vice-President.3 Mr. Rhett was made chairman of the committee to notify the President-elect, and to present him to the convention for inauguration. This office he performed in complimentary style, reflecting the estimate of Mr. Barnwell rather than his own fears. Within six weeks the Provisional Congress found out that they had made a mistake, and that there was danger of a division into an administration and an anti-administration party, which might paralyze the Government. To avoid this, and to confer all power on the President, they resorted to secret sessions.
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