Dixie Victorious: An Alternate history of the Civil War

by Peter Tsouras

  “Is that what it has come to, Douglass, bidding for the support of men in bondage?” His gangly shoulders seemed to slump. “We do not have much time, should this come to pass. Grant will be moving in a few months. He must win before the ground falls out beneath us.”

  HQ, Army of the Potomac, Petersburg, Virginia, July 30, 1864

  Grant’s visage was harder than usual as the bad news kept rolling in. Major General George G. Meade, the army commander, was briefing the General-in-Chief of the armies of the Union, on that day’s bloody failure. At great expense a mine had been secretly driven beneath the Confederate works and exploded. The formidable earthwork had disappeared in a mighty blast that sent dirt, logs, guns, and men hurtling through the air. Into the breach a black division had been thrown. Unfortunately, the attack had been badly planned, and the troops had been trapped inside the crater without any means to scale its sheer earthen walls. As they milled about, the enemy had regained his wits and rushed reinforcements forward to ring the crater’s edge. Hundreds of rifles pointed downward into the milling black mass.

  “It was a slaughter, General,” Meade said. “The Rebs [and he emphasized the word harshly] included one of Lee’s new black regiments.”

  “Well, Meade, we know now if blacks will fight blacks. Shouldn’t surprise us, should it? Why should whites have a monopoly on that? Yes, yes, we have North and South set them at liberty to kill each other.”22

  Grant spat out the stub of his cigar. “Lee is being reinforced almost as fast as I am. They call me a butcher because I was willing to spend lives to end this war quickly. In doing so I would save more lives.” He went on to say that he had suspended the cartel for exchanging prisoners because the enemy just kept putting the released men back into the army.23 Attrition had seemed a useful strategy given Southern tenacity and skill on the battlefield. Only it had lost much of its utility in the last few months. He had fought Lee back from the Wilderness to Petersburg, the last shield before Richmond. Both armies had left an enormous blood trail following their struggle southward, but the losses of the men in blue had been twice that of the men in gray and butternut. That was the cost of always attacking a formidable foe.

  Sherman had faced the same problem in Georgia and had now been stalled at Kenesaw Mountain for over a month. He had come perilously close to disaster at the hands of Lieutenant General Cleburne and his corps—aggressive and skillful that Irishman, like that little bantam Sheridan. Cleburne had been promoted and given the command of the corps made up of the divisions Hindman, Stevenson, and Stewart.24 There was alarming intelligence that Davis was looking for a new commander for the Army of Tennessee. Grant hoped it would not be Cleburne. He would then truly have to worry about Sherman for the first time.

  Attrition would have worked in spite of the cost had not the Confederacy turned the tables on the North and issued its own Emancipation Proclamation on March 13, flush with British pounds and French francs to pay off the slave owners. Lee had augmented his force by enrolling blacks already in the army in non-combat roles. “Can’t blame him for wanting to get a head start,” Grant was quoted as saying, “but what a damned sharp stick in the eye.”25 Not only had the calculations upon which he had based his attrition strategy been foiled, but the Southern emancipation had severely demoralized a large part of the Union Army. The white Northern soldier had been incredulous on the occasions before emancipation when he came across instances of blacks bearing arms for the South. The incredulity usually had been mixed with a painful sting as well. The black men had fought uncommonly well. Now that sting was spread by personal experience and by rumor through the main Union armies in Virginia and Georgia.

  Grant ruminated on the increasing disaffection within his own ranks. The occasional black deserter from the other side was more than canceled out by the open and near-mutinous rumbles from the ranks of his white regiments. One old soldier had brazenly accosted Grant and demanded to know, “Why are we fighting if the nigger has already been freed? Let the Rebs keep them.”26 More dangerous had been the loss of morale within his own black regiments. The desertions were going the other way as Southern-born men were seduced by appeals to home and freedom.

  Near the Crater, Petersburg, Virginia, July 30, 1864

  Lee had maintained a position 500 yards from the Crater for much of the fighting. Now that the crisis had passed, he watched as the lines of black Union prisoners from the Crater were marched to the rear past the jeering ranks of the 9th South Carolina Colored, the regiment that had been one of the first to rush to the breach. Two of its sister regiments, the 19th and 22d South Carolina, had been decimated by the explosion, leaving only the 17th and the 9th S.C. Colored to fight it out until regiments from other brigades had arrived to trap the in-rushing Union forces within the 30-foot-high walls. Lee had been heartened by the performance of the South Carolinians of both races.

  He turned to Brigadier General William “Little Billy” Mahone whose brigade had led the attack that had cleared the Crater. He promoted him on the spot. It was a suitable moment to make another point. The 17th and 9th S.C. Colored were being withdrawn, all that was left of their shattered brigade. As the first black rank passed, Lee doffed his hat with a broad wave of his hand. The troops, exhausted by the day’s fighting, quickly squared their shoulders and dressed their ranks. Their white officers drew their swords to return the salute. And the band struck up Dixie.

  Lee’s open and enthusiastic backing of the emancipation had carried the army and much of the Southern public along with the idea. The Army of Northern Virginia had taken the change calmly, all things considered. There were no greater realists in the South, save perhaps in Johnston’s Army of Tennessee. Facing the sharp end of the stick had focused them on what was essential. Lee’s prestige, almost godlike in the deference and trust it inspired, had carried the issue. In many cases there was downright enthusiasm within the army for arming blacks. Georgia regiments in Lee’s army petitioned the government, stating that the cause of “glorious independence” demanded black participation. Officers of the 49th Georgia suggested to Lee that men be sent to their home counties to recruit blacks.27

  A wave of enthusiasm for arming the black man swept across the South. The desperation of the moment was a sharp spur. In their enthusiasm, though, white Southerners took comfort in the comfortable assumption that they would remain in control after the war. Only the opponents of the measure were talking of consequences, and they were drowned out. The planter aristocracy came out in force for the measure. Twenty-three of the largest slave owners in Roanoke County, Virginia, came out in favor of emancipation tied to military service. The Sentinel of Virginia boldly pronounced that: “None… will deny that our servants are more worthy of respect than the motley hordes which come against us.” It urged whites not to be too jealous of the honor of killing Yankees. It thundered that the guarantees of freedom must be “redeemed with the most scrupulous fidelity and at all hazards… bad faith must be avoided as an indelible dishonor.”28

  It was not as if Southern racism had suddenly evaporated, but the essential biracial nature of Southern society meant that these men, black and white, had lived together for 200 years. You could not separate the one from the other. Whether they liked each other or not, they were part of the same communities in a way blacks and whites in the North had never been. It was, after all, a Southern solution to a Southern problem. The thousands of blacks in the Army of Northern Virginia before emancipation had been more fully integrated into the life of the army and suffered less cruelty and abuse than did their counterparts in the North. One historian of slavery would write that, “Blacks retained a strong sense of local identity and a bittersweet affinity for the land of their birth.” Moreover, the motives that led to their willing military service were complex and varied.

  “Some sided with the South, and some with the North, but the majority were loyal to themselves and their families, and tried to do what was best for themselves without recourse to abstract political
causes. One recalled that he had fought for both North and South, ‘but I neber fought for the Yankees till dey captured me and put me in a corral and said, “Nigger, you fought for de South; now you can fight for the North.”’”

  Another prisoner, a free black volunteer, was questioned by a Northern officer about his allegiance to the South and replied:

  “I had as much right to fight for my native state as you had to fight for your’n, and a blame sight more right tan your furriners, what’s got no homes.”29

  Before the first drafts of new men had arrived at their camps, Lee encouraged those body servants and other blacks in support positions within the army to be voluntarily enrolled within the regiments they already served. There were at least 20–30 body servants alone per Southern regiment. This gave the Army of Northern Virginia an immediate increase of over 5,000 men in strength, the equivalent of a division. The original idea had been to incorporate the new regiments into brigades, but Lee recognized that time would not allow this step. When the new regiments began arriving from Camp Lee, he simply incorporated them into existing white brigades. That served a two-fold purpose by ensuring the green units would be brigaded with veterans while at the same time providing a watch on their actions. The policy also meant that black regiments were appearing all down the line.

  The black regiments were all organized as Confederate States Colored Troops (C.S.C.T), officially with no state affiliation. There were two large complexes of training camps for the eastern and western theaters. Those regiments training in the Richmond camps numbered 1–50; those training outside Atlanta were numbered 51–100. By the Battle of the Crater, eight C.S.C.T. regiments had already joined the Army of Northern Virginia. Inevitably, though, as the drafts by state were trained together at the large training ground at Camp Lee west of Richmond, they took on affiliations of not only their states but their counties as well. Lee was sure to brigade the new regiments with white regiments from the same state and counties, where possible. Thus a new recruit from Virginia would officially be enrolled in the 1st Regiment C.S.C.T. but would quickly learn to call his unit the 1st Virginia Colored Infantry. Johnston was following much the same policy in Georgia with the new C.S.C.T. regiments pouring out the training camps around Atlanta. This gave the Confederates an advantage the Union Army did not have with its own United States Colored Infantry. When a new C.S.C.T. regiment joined its brigade, inevitably it found itself among neighbors and even family from home. There was something particularly Southern about both races; neither could abide the taint of cowardice in the presence of men who would carry word of their shame back home.

  It was the Virginia brigades that were augmented first, simply because Virginia was the main battleground and because one-sixth of all the slaves in the Confederacy were in that state according to the 1860 Census. The Superintendent of the Census in Washington had hurriedly calculated that 236,990 Afro-Virginians (12,475 free blacks and 224,515 slaves) were of the right age groups for military service. Already about 48 percent of the white male population was in the army; a similar ratio for blacks would give the Confederates another 113,755 men from the black population.30

  After the Crater, Lee’s aggressive nature found its scope again. His counterattacks began to beat upon Grant’s forces with growing strength.

  Second Battle of Kenesaw Mountain; Georgia, August 5, 1864

  Sherman pitched out his saddle as if he had been picked up and thrown. He was dead before he hit the ground, a bloody bundle of blue rags. The shell that killed him killed his horse and two of his staff as well. Sherman had been everywhere that day trying to stem the fury of Cleburne’s assault which had led Joe Johnston’s unexpected attack. Bedford Forrest’s raids had so often interrupted Sherman’s supply lines that he had not been able to mass the men and supplies for further offensive operations. Both armies had therefore settled down to position warfare, but after holding the Federals in place for over a month with a steadily strengthening army, Johnston had finally gone over to the attack, to Sherman’s great surprise.31

  Confederate infantry swept over the corpses and beyond. A black soldier stopped to pull off the fancy swordbelt from Sherman’s body. It would be presented to Cleburne that night. His corps had broken the Union center with one hard punch after another. The point of the attack was Gilgal Church which the troops had nicknamed “Golgotha”. Now Cleburne was directing his divisions to the right and left to exploit the advantage. The neighboring blue corps were vulnerable, fixed by the rest of the Army of Tennessee. The news of “Uncle Billy’s” death had raced through the ranks. No army had had more confidence in a commander than this one. The news of his death while they were in the most desperate fight of their experience unnerved them. Units bolted to the rear, and soon the army had collapsed as a living thing. Men said it was Chickamauga all over again. This time there was no staying the pursuit.

  Epilogue

  Sherman’s death at Golgotha unleashed the floodtide of Union disaster. Although officially the Second Battle of Kenesaw Mountain, Southerners would always prefer the biblically resonant name, “A Place Called Golgotha.” Sherman’s most gifted subordinate, Major General William McPhearson, fought his way back to Chattanooga through Forrest’s cavalry with most of his Army of the Tennessee (not to be confused with the Confederate Army of Tennessee). Major General Schofield’s Army of Ohio was shattered, and most of its men killed or captured. It fell to Major General George Thomas, the “Rock of Chickamauga” to play again the thankless rearguard role.

  Johnston’s attack had not been entirely out of the blue; once resolved to attack he coordinated his assault with Lee. The same morning that Sherman died, Lee attacked Grant, unleashing the Battle of Petersburg, the last great bloodbath of the war. The armies grappled for two days amid the trenches of Petersburg. Lee’s men twice broke through the Union defenses only to be beaten back by Grant’s ruthless use of reserves. A third time the Confederates could not be dislodged. Lee quickly reinforced their lodgment and thereby made a large stretch of the Union siege works untenable. Grant was forced to pull back several miles. It was a tactical victory for Lee. The news of Kenesaw Mountain magnified Grant’s reverse, and both coming together sent a shock wave through the North. The South rejoiced that the two battles were a fitting revenge for Gettysburg and Vicksburg.

  The twin disasters sank the Lincoln Administration. Going into the 1864 election campaign with nothing but bad news, Lincoln was swept from office by former Major General George B. McClellan and the Peace Democrats. McClellan promptly recognized the independence of the South and turned his hand to dictatorship. It was a brief attempt, and his vice-president served out his term.32

  The Confederate Government kept its word about emancipation. That was the start of troubles. For the most part, prewar social relationships reasserted themselves at first, but, to the South’s surprise, the word “suffrage” followed emancipation as surely as the day follows the night. Surprisingly, the United Confederate Volunteers became a leading exponent of the black franchise. The bonds of shared hardships and danger had altered many attitudes. As honorary president of the Volunteers, Lee was instrumental in the adoption of a policy of gradual suffrage based on education. His influence, however, ensured that all black veterans were guaranteed the right to vote by act of Congress. Full suffrage arrived finally with the Voting Rights Bill of 1896. That had been made inevitable with the growing political and financial power of black Southerners. Although social patterns had initially reverted to prewar forms, the disappearance of slavery made it economically inefficient so support so many people on the land. Many blacks drifted to the new industries created by Northern and European investments and became skilled industrial workers and entrepreneurs.33

  The Reality

  The events surrounding the presentation of Cleburne’s Manifesto are historically accurate. Instead of seizing this opportunity, Jefferson Davis, after receiving a copy from Walker, ordered that the document be suppressed. There was no fortunate meeti
ng with Lee in Richmond in January. Davis’s slaves did set fire to his house on January 20. Lee would confer with Davis in February. Davis’s argument was that the South was not in such extreme danger that it had to resort to such a drastic measure. The irony, though, is that by the time such a state of danger was recognized, remedies were too late.

  That is exactly where Davis found himself by the fall of 1864 when he finally accepted the necessity for change. Lee’s support carried the argument and a bill was passed on March 13, 1865, authorizing the enrollment of blacks in the Confederate armies, but leaving to the states the matter of manumission. This measure and the resulting surge in public and military support that followed I have placed one year earlier in an effort to demonstrate that timing is everything. What might have saved the Confederacy in early 1864 was too little, too late, in early 1865. Grant himself stated in his memoirs that:

  “Anything that could have prolonged the war a year beyond the time that it did finally close, would probably have exhausted the North to such an extent that they might then have abandoned the contest and agreed to a separation.”34

  Pat Cleburne’s career was driven into eclipse by his boldness. He had been manifestly the most able and successful of the division commanders of the Army of Tennessee. He was clearly in line for a promotion and a corps command before he read his manifesto. Instead, on two occasions in 1864, he was passed over in favor of lesser contemporaries as punishment for his vision and courage.

  The most intriguing thought to come out of the slavery issue in the Civil War is the concept that itlighted a fire in the minds of men by the revolutionary process of the war itself. A major if not primary pillar of secession was the South’s “peculiar institution.” For the Northern man, abolition was at first a hateful idea as well. He had no use for the black man as slave—but did not want him as a neighbor either. But the bloody revolution of war broke down these attitudes until both sides arrived at the abolition of slavery and the arming of the black man as essentials to victory. History enjoys her jokes, barbs and all.