by Bruce Catton
13. R. M. Kelly, Holding Kentucky for the Union, B. & L., Vol. I, 382–83; Temple, op. cit., 377–78, 388; O.R., Vol. IV, 231, 236–37, 294, 335–36, 338–39; Govan and Livingood, The Chattanooga Country, 187–88. Thomas proposed the move on Somerset on Nov. 5; he received Sherman’s orders to follow a strict defensive policy on Nov. 7; the east Tennessee uprising began on Nov. 9.
14. O.R., Vol. IV, 340–41, 350; A. K. McClure, Abraham Lincoln and Men of War Times, 230. Lloyd Lewis, Sherman, Fighting Prophet, 195 ff., goes into details about Sherman’s nervous instability at this time.
15. For McClellan’s vain attempts to get Buell to do something about east Tennessee, see his letters of Nov. 7 and Nov. 25, 1861, and Jan. 6, 1862: O.R., Vol. IV, 342; Vol. VII, 447, 531.
16. O.R., Vol. VII, 701, 760, 764; Series Two, Vol. I, 857–58; Temple, op. cit., 394, 399, 408–11.
17. Sherman’s return for Nov. 10 shows an aggregate present and absent in his department of 49,-586. (O.R., Vol. IV, 349.)
18. O.R., Vol. III, 306–10, 327; Grant’s Memoirs, Vol. I, 269–81; William L. Polk, General Polk and the Battle of Belmont, B. & L., Vol. I, 348–55; letter of Charles Johnson to Mrs. Johnson dated Nov. 18, 1861, in the Charles James Johnson Papers, Louisiana State Archives, Baton Rouge; William Preston Johnston, 377. Grant’s ideas about the feasibility of using untrained troops were set forth after the war in a speech by John A. Rawlins quoted in this writer’s Grant Moves South, 72.
19. Isabel Wallace, The Life and Letters of General W. H. L. Wallace, 141; O.R., Vol. III, 312.
CHAPTER TWO: A Vast Future Also
1. Magazine of Discord
1. Alfred Roman, The Military Operations of General Beauregard, Vol. I, 132. This book, which is virtually Beauregard’s autobiography, is cited hereafter as Roman.
2. Joseph E. Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations, (cited hereafter as Johnston’s Narrative) 74–76.
3. Mss. account by Gustavus W. Smith, in the Palmer Collection, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland.
4. Jefferson Davis, Rise and Fall, Vol. I, 442; editorial in the Richmond Examiner for Sept. 27, 1861. Davis’s account of the Fairfax Courthouse Conference is in Rise and Fall, Vol. I, 499 ff.
5. Letter of Davis to Gov. Letcher dated Sept. 14, 1861, printed in Dunbar Rowland, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist, Vol. V, 132.
6. Clifford Dowdey, Experiment in Rebellion, 99–100. Toombs’s brother Gabriel wrote to Vice-President Alexander Stephens urging him to talk Toombs out of the notion of being a soldier: “In this case my brother’s zeal blinds his judgment, and is not according to wisdom. He has never been educated in the science of war and has no experience in the business, and besides is physically unfit for camp life.” (Annual Report of the American Historical Association, 1913, Vol. II; The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens and Howell Cobb, 573.) For Hunter, see D.A.B., Vol. IV, 403–4, and Dowdey, 100–2.
7. Diary of S. R. Mallory, in the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, entries for Sept. 4 and Sept. 16; O.R., Series Four, Vol. I, 602, 613.
8. For the vote, see the American Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, 153.
9. Beauregard’s report on Bull Run is in O.R., Vol. II, 484–504; Davis’s rebuke is in the same volume, 508. The famous letter to the editor of the Whig is from the Richmond Examiner of Nov. 8, 1861, which reprinted it and denounced it. The whole strange sequence is analyzed by Douglas Southall Freeman, Lee’s Lieutenants, Vol. I, 99–108.
10. Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States, Vol. I, 464. The five commissions were dated thus: Cooper, May 16, 1861; A. S. Johnston, May 30; Lee, June 14; J. E. Johnston, July 4; Beauregard, July 21.
11. O.R., Series Four, Vol. I, 605–8, 611. The case is examined in detail in Gilbert E. Govan and James W. Livingood, A Different Valor: the Story of General Joseph E. Johnston, C.S.A., 66–71.
12. The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens and Howell Cobb, 575–78, 580–81.
13. Mary Chesnut, A Diary from Dixie, 108.
14. Diary of S. R. Mallory, entry dated Sept. 4, 1861; Diary of Thomas Bragg, entry for Dec. 6, 1861, in the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library.
15. Richmond Whig, issue of Nov. 29, 1861; Richmond Daily Examiner, issue of Nov. 29.
16. Letter of Jefferson Davis to Gen. G. W. Smith, dated Oct. 24, 1861, in the Jefferson Davis Papers, Duke University Library.
2. Struggle for Power
1. In the McClellan Papers at the Library of Congress there is a notebook in McClellan’s handwriting, “Extracts from letters written to my wife during the War of the Rebellion.” The letters are not known to exist, and the manuscript represents McClellan’s editing of the originals. His autobiography, McClellan’s Own Story, prints other versions of the letters after still further editing; revealing as the letters in McClellan’s Own Story frequently are, they are often much less revealing than the document McClellan himself prepared. The manuscript is cited hereafter as McClellan’s Letterbook; where the printed volume is referred to it is cited as McClellan’s Own Story. The quotation in the text is from the Letterbook; the material about Scott is from McClellan’s Own Story, 66–67.
2. McClellan’s Letterbook. A milder version is in McClellan’s Own Story, 83.
3. Ferri Pisani, 113. The dinner is mentioned in McClellan’s Own Story, 84. McClellan announced organization of 46 regiments into brigades on Aug. 4; O.R., Vol. LI, Part One, 434–35.
4. George B. McClellan, Report on the Organization and Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, 38–43; giving the text of his Aug. 4 memorandum to the President.
5. Gideon Welles, Diary, Vol. I, 242.
6. McClellan’s Letterbook, giving his letter of Aug. 8. The ellipsis is McClellan’s.
7. McClellan to Scott, Aug. 8, 1861, and Scott to McClellan, Aug. 9, O.R., Vol. XI, Part Three, 3–4.
8. Ibid., 4–6.
9. McClellan’s Own Story, 85.
10. Ibid., 86–87; McClellan’s Letterbook, letter of Aug. 16.
11. McClellan’s Letterbook, letter dated Aug. 19.
12. On Aug. 20 McClellan wrote that when he reached Washington the city “could have been taken with the utmost ease” (McClellan’s Own Story, 88). His work in providing the city with a ring of fortifications was excellent, but the situation at the time of his arrival was not as desperate as he made it appear. The report of Major Henry J. Hunt, chief of artillery, shows that on July 29 the Virginia front was tolerably well protected against any thrust which the Confederates could have made at that time. Fort Corcoran, above Arlington, mounted twelve 8-inch seacoast howitzers, seven 24-pounders, two 12-pounders and two 24-pounder howitzers, and was manned by 200 artillerists and a regiment of infantry. Fort Albany, covering the Fairfax Road, mounted eighteen guns, twelve of which were 24-pounders, and had two companies of artillery and a Massachusetts regiment. Fort Runyon, covering the approach to the Long Bridge, had a 30-pounder Parrott rifle, eight 8-inch seacoast howitzers, ten 32-pounders and four 6-pounder field pieces, and was garrisoned by a New York regiment. Fort Ellsworth, on the edge of Alexandria, mounted two 30-pounders and two 10-pounder Parrotts, with twelve 8-inch howitzers, four 24-pounder siege guns, one 24-pounder field howitzer and three 6-pounder field guns; it contained a company of light artillery and a New York infantry regiment. (O.R., Vol. II, 768–69.)
Col. Ferri Pisani toured the defensive positions on the Virginia side on Aug. 4 and wrote that he saw “a series of military works, redoubts, batteries, abatis, carefully constructed and armed with cannons from the Navy dockyard”; he felt that “the whole is well organized and gives the impression of a strong line of resistance.” (Ferri Pisani, op. cit., 114–15.) It is of course true that preparations for defense on the Maryland side were much more sketchy, although Map I, Plate VI, in the Atlas Accompanying the Official Records, showing the Washington field works “executed during parts of June and July, 1861,” shows some protection
on the main roads leading into Washington from Maryland.
13. Letter of Senator Sumner to Gov. John A. Andrew, dated Aug. 11, 1861, marked “private and confidential”; in the John A. Andrew Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.
14. Letter of Charles Francis Adams to his son, dated Aug. 16; A Cycle of Adams Letters, Vol. I, 27–28.
15. John Bigelow, Retrospections of an Active Life, Vol. I, 366–67; letter of J. D. Andrus to David Davis, dated Aug. 18, in the David Davis Papers, Illinois State Historical Library, Springfield.
16. McClellan’s Own Story, 105–7; O.R., Vol. V, 587–89; McClellan to Cameron, Sept. 13, 1861, in the Cameron Papers, Library of Congress.
17. Letter of Winfield Scott to Cameron dated Oct. 4, 1861; letter of Scott dated Oct. 10, quoting orders to McClellan dated Sept. 16 and bearing a notation to Assistant Secretary of War Thomas A. Scott dated Oct. 31 and saying: “I suppose the within is the letter you ask for. A. L.”; in the Cameron Papers, Library of Congress. See also O.R., Series Three, Vol. I, 519.
18. Scott’s letter of Oct. 10, cited in Footnote 17.
19. William H. Russell, My Diary North and South, 205.
20. Jed Hotchkiss, in Confederate Military History, Vol. III, Virginia, 179–88; O.R., Vol. V, 290; McClellan, Report on the Organization and Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, 77–78.
21. Richard B. Irwin, Ball’s Bluff and the Arrest of General Stone, in B. & L., Vol. II, 123 ff.; O.R., Vol. V, 308.
22. Nicolay & Hay, Vol. IV, 467–68; McClellan’s Own Story, 171; Tyler Dennett, ed., John Hay, Lincoln and the Civil War, in the Diaries and Letters of John Hay, 31–32.
23. Chandler’s letter to Mrs. Chandler, dated Oct. 27, 1861, in the Zachariah Chandler Papers, Library of Congress.
24. There is a moving account of Scott’s departure in McClellan’s Own Story, 173. For the report to the Tribune’s editors, see letter of Henry Smith to Charles Ray and Joseph Medill, dated Nov. 4, 1861, in the Charles H. Ray Papers, Huntington Library.
3. The Hammering of the Guns
1. N.O.R., Vol. XII, 198–201.
2. Rush Hawkins, Early Coast Operations in North Carolina, B. & L., Vol. I, 632–35. Interesting accounts of the bombardment, written by correspondents for the Boston Journal and the New York Herald, are in Moore’s Rebellion Record, Vol. III, Documents, 16–26. It is hard to be sure just how many guns the forts contained, the estimates varying all the way from 19 to 35. (B. &. L., Vol. I, 633; C.C.W., 1863, Part III, 282; O.R., Vol. IV, 581–86; D. H. Hill, Jr., Confederate Military History, Vol. IV, North Carolina, 27.)
3. Butler’s testimony of Jan. 16, 1862, in C.C.W., 1863, Part III, 282–83.
4. Butler, Butler’s Book, 285–88.
5. Dispatch to the Petersburg, Va., Express from Raleigh, dated Aug. 30, 1861, in Moore’s Rebellion Record, Vol. III, Documents, 26.
6. For a summary of the full significance of the action, see J. Thomas Scharf, History of the Confederate States Navy, 368–69.
7. Daniel Ammen, The Atlantic Coast, 11–13; Nicolay & Hay, Vol. V, 11–14; N.O.R., Vol. XII, 198–201.
8. Welles to Du Pont, Oct. 12, 1861, in N.O.R., Vol. XII, 214–15. The Naval Board had named Port Royal as one of three or four eligible places for occupation, and had quite strongly recommended Fernandina, Florida, as the likeliest spot. After receiving his appointment, Du Pont exercised the discretion which had been given him and chose Port Royal. (Report of Flag Officer Du Pont, Nov. 6, 1861, in N.O.R., Vol. XII, 259–261.
9. James H. Wilson, Under the Old Flag, Vol. I, 68–69. It should be noted that Gen. T. W. Sherman was not related to the betterknown Gen. William T. Sherman.
10. Nicolay & Hay, Vol. V, 15; Basler, Vol. IV, 527–28.
11. McClellan to Assistant Secretary of War Scott, Oct. 17, 1861, in O.R., Vol. VI, 179. McClellan either withdrew his objection or was overruled; the 79th New York did go south with Sherman.
12. Du Pont’s report, N.O.R., Vol. XII, 259-61; Ammen, The Atlantic Coast, 13-18; also Ammen’s Du Pont and the Port Royal Expedition in B. & L., Vol. I, 674.
13. Letter of John Rodgers, in Moore’s Rebellion Record, Vol. III, Documents, 112; Ammen, The Atlantic Coast, 23-24.
14. Reminiscences of Francis T. Chew, in the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library.
15. Du Pont, in N.O.R., Vol. XII, 262–65; Moore’s Rebellion Record, Vol. III, Documents, 304, 318; report of Brig. Gen. Thomas F. Drayton, C.S.A., in O.R., Vol. VI, 8–9; John Call Dalton, The Battle of Port Royal, 56.
16. Report of Commander Percival Drayton, U.S.N., (brother of the Confederate general who commanded Fort Walker), in N.O.R., Vol. XII, 272; Ammen, The Atlantic Coast, 29–30, 33–35, 40.
17. Sherman’s report, O.R., Vol. VI, 3–4; letter of Du Pont to G. D. Morgan, dated Dec. 24, 1861, in the Gustavus V. Fox Correspondence, Box I, 1861, the New York Historical Society; letter of Du Pont to S. H. Shaw of Boston, dated Dec. 30, 1861, in Miscellaneous Papers XXI, Massachusetts Historical Society.
18. O.R., Vol. VI, 4–5.
19. Letter of Mrs. E. C. Anderson, Jr., dated at Savannah, Nov. 9, 1861, in the Wayne-Stites-Anderson Papers, Georgia Historical Society.
4. “We Are Not Able to Meet It”
1. Lee’s Nov. 9 report, N.O.R., Vol. XII, 299–300; letter of Lee to Governor Pickens, dated Dec. 27, 1861, in the E. M. Law Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library; letter of Lee to his daughter Mildred dated Nov. 15, in Robert E. Lee, Jr., Recollections and Letters of Gen. Robert E. Lee, 55.
2. For a detailed examination of Lee’s problems and conclusions, see Freeman, Lee, Vol. I, 609–13.
3. Gen. Sherman’s testimony, C.C.W., 1863, Part III, 294.
4. James H. Wilson, Under the Old Flag, Vol. I, 71.
5. Lee to Adjutant General Cooper, Jan. 8, 1862, O.R., Vol. VI, 367; Bragg to Jefferson Davis, Oct. 22, 1861, letter in the Palmer Collection, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland.
6. Editorial in the Richmond Examiner for Nov. 23, 1861.
7. D.A.B., Vol. XX, 216–17. Gideon Welles wrote that Wilkes was “ambitious, self-conceited and self-willed,” and said: “He has abilities but not sound judgment, and is not always subordinate, though he is himself severe and exacting towards his subordinates.” (Diary of Gideon Welles, Vol. I, 87.)
8. N.O.R., Series Two, Vol. III, 257–64.
9. Ibid., Series One, Vol. I, 148; Thomas L. Harris, The Trent Affair, Including a Review of English and American Relations at the Beginning of the Civil War, 19.
10. Mrs. Chesnut’s Diary, 160.
11. N.O.R., Vol. I, 154–57, 159; O.R., Series Two, Vol. II, 1107; Theodore Martin, The Life of His Royal Highness, the Prince Consort, Vol. V, 347–48; Thornton Kirkland Lothrop, William Henry Seward, 323.
12. Charles Francis Adams, Jr., Charles Francis Adams, 211–218. For a good account of the receipt of the news at the American Legation see The Journal of Benjamin Moran, Vol. II, 913–15.
13. Charles Francis Adams, Jr., op. cit., 231–32; letter of Henry Adams dated Nov. 30, 1861, in A Cycle of Adams Letters, Vol. I, 75–76; letter of Charles Francis Adams, dated Dec. 20, 1861, in the same, 88–89.
14. Lothrop, op. cit., 326–28. In McClellan’s Own Story, 175, McClellan refers to the meeting with Seward thus: “Today is not to be a day of rest for me. This unfortunate affair of Mason and Slidell has come up, and I shall be obliged to devote the day to endeavoring to get our government to take the only prompt and honorable course of avoiding a war with France and England.” In a part of this letter omitted from the printed version, McClellan wrote of Seward: “It is a terrible dispensation of Providence that so weak and cowardly a thing as that should now control our foreign relations–the Presdt is not much better, except that he is honest and means well.” (Letter to Mrs. McClellan, dated Nov. 17, 1861, in the McClellan Letterbook, Library of Congress.)
15. Wilkes set forth his argument in a letter to Secretary Welles dated N
ov. 16, 1861, in N.O.R., Vol. I, 143–45. See also Adams to Seward dated Nov. 29, 1861, in O.R., Series Two, Vol. II, 1106.
16. Theodore Martin, op. cit., 349–52.
17. Ibid., 350; Spencer Walpole, The Life of Lord John Russell, Vol. II, 346–47; W. H. Russell, My Diary North and South, 217.
18. John Bigelow, Retrospections of an Active Life, Vol. I, 387–90; letter of Scott to Seward dated Dec. 26, 1861, in the William H. Seward collection, Rush Rhees Library, Rochester University.
19. General Horace Porter, Campaigning with Grant, 408–9; Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial History of the Civil War in the United States of America, Vol. II, 156, citing a conversation Lossing had with Lincoln early in December 1861; The Diary of Edward Bates, Vol. I, 177–89, 194–95; Journal of Benjamin Moran, Vol. II, 939–40.
20. Letter from Lee to George Washington Custis Lee, dated Dec. 29, 1861, in the R. E. Lee Papers, Manuscript Department, Duke University Library.
5. Revolutionary Struggle
1. Varina Howell Davis, Jefferson Davis, Vol. I, 165; Richmond Examiner, issues of Nov. 29 and Nov. 30, 1861.
2. O.R., Series Three, Vol. I, 775; Series Four, Vol. I, 822; Diary of Thomas Bragg, entry for Dec. 6, 1861, in the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library.
3. Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States, Vol. I, 467–69, 472.
4. Diary of Thomas Bragg, entries for Nov. 30, Dec. 6, Dec. 7, and Dec. 17, 1861; also O.R., Vol. LIII, 759, 761–63.
5. Charles Francis Adams to his son, letter dated Jan. 10, 1862, in A Cycle of Adams Letters, Vol. I, 99.
6. Letter of R. E. Lee to Gov. John Letcher, dated Dec. 26, 1861, in Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. I, No. 6, 462.
7. Letter to Porcher Miles from Brig. Gen. John S. Preston, written in November or December 1864, in O.R., Series Four, Vol. III, 883.
8. Frémont gave up his command Nov. 2, 1861. For the order relieving him, and Lincoln’s general instructions to his successor, see O.R., Vol. III, 553–54. At the time he was relieved, Frémont was in southwestern Missouri groping unsuccessfully toward an encounter with Sterling Price’s army, which was not at all where Frémont supposed it to be; the circumstances are set forth in this writer’s This Hallowed Ground, 65–66. For the original and revised versions of the paragraph in Cameron’s report dealing with slaves, see A. K. McClure, Abraham Lincoln and Men of War Times, 148–49.