by Bruce Catton
9. O.R., Vol. VI, 873–74; Series Four, Vol. II, 151, 173–75.
10. O.R., Vol. XVII, Part Two, 839–40.
11. Ella Lonn, Salt as a Factor in the Confederacy, 14–50; Letter of G. S. Denison, Acting Collector and Surveyor for the Port of New Orleans, to Secretary Chase, Nov. 29, 1862, from Diary and Correspondence of Salmon P. Chase, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1902, Vol. II, 336.
12. O.R., Vol. XVII, Part Two, 179, 186; M. A. DeWolfe Howe, ed., Home Letters of General Sherman, 232.
13. Moore’s Rebellion Record, Vol. VI, Documents, 291–92.
14. Diary and Correspondence of Salmon P. Chase, 312–13, 321–24, 346. In his voluminous reports to Secretary Chase, Collector Denison was highly critical of the things that happened in New Orleans but he never quite believed that General Butler was personally dishonest and he greatly respected his administrative ability. He remarked finally that Butler “has great ability, great energy, shrewdness and activity, but he can never acquire a character here for disinterestedness.”
15. J. B. Jones, A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, ed. by Earl Schenck Miers, 55; O.R., Series Four, Vol. II, 301–2, 334–35.
16. O.R., Series Four, Vol. III, 645–48; “Trade with the Rebellious States,” House of Representatives Report No. 24, the Joint Committee on Commerce, 38th Congress, Second Session, 1–3.
2. The Ultimate Meaning
1. Letter of John Nicolay to Therena dated July 13, 1862, in the Nicolay Papers, Library of Congress; letter of Attorney General Bates to James B. Eads dated Aug. 2, in the James B. Eads Papers, Missouri Historical Society; letter of Thomas Scott to S. L. M. Barlow dated July 31, in the Barlow Papers.
2. Congressional Globe, 37th Congress, Second Session, Appendix, 412–13; Basler, Vol. V, 328–30. For an analysis of the act, see James G. Randall, Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln, 358–63. The act was puzzling to army officers. W. T. Sherman was anxious to send fugitive slaves to St. Louis, where the Quartermaster badly needed laborers, and he wrote: “By inviting Negroes to come in, by providing for their families and by providing all with free papers, we could send north any number of slaves, but I would prefer to send none away until after they are declared free by a court of competent jurisdiction.” (Letter to Capt. Lewis B. Parsons, dated Aug. 30, 1862, in the Parsons Papers, Illinois State Library, Springfield.)
3. Basler, Vol. V, 317–19.
4. Ibid., 342–43, 344–46; F. B. Carpenter, Six Months in the White House, 13.
5. Basler, Vol. V, 336–37. An endorsement on the text reads “Emancipation Proclamation as first sketched and shown to the cabinet in July 1862.” According to one account, Vice-President Hannibal Hamlin was shown a draft of the proclamation more than a month before the cabinet meeting. Lincoln is said to have invited Hamlin to dinner on the night of June 18, to have read the draft aloud, and to have accepted some of Hamlin’s suggestions regarding it. (Charles Eugene Hamlin, The Life and Times of Hannibal Hamlin, 428–29.)
6. Diary of Gideon Welles, Vol. I, 70–71; Nicolay & Hay, Vol. VI, 125–27; Carpenter, op. cit., 13–15; letter of Secretary Chase to Bishop B. B. Smith of Louisville dated June 24, 1862, in the Salmon P. Chase Papers, New York Public Library; Diary and Correspondence of Salmon P. Chase, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1902, Vol. II, 48–49. In The War for the Union, Vol. II, 165, Allan Nevins shows that Nicolay and Hay overstate the amount of opposition Lincoln met in the cabinet meeting. After the meeting Blair wrote Lincoln that he feared the measure would “depress our financial credit & would add to the enthusiasm of but a small portion of our people & that not the effective portion in war.” (Letter of Montgomery Blair dated July 23, in the Blair Family Papers, Library of Congress.) As late as Aug. 10 Lincoln’s friend Leonard Swett, who said that the President had talked frankly about his plans, predicted flatly: “He will issue no proclamation emancipating Negroes.” (Letter of Swett to Mrs. Swett, in the David Davis Papers, Illinois State Historical Library.)
7. Moore’s Rebellion Record, Vol. XII, Supplement, 480–83.
8. Basler, Vol. V, 388–89.
9. Ibid., 419–25.
10. Cincinnati Commercial for July 11, 1862.
11. New York Tribune for Aug. 15, 1862.
3. A Long and Strong Flood
1. After his retreat to Tupelo Beauregard wrote that for the immediate future military operations would depend largely on the enemy’s movements: “Should he divide his forces, the offensive must be taken as soon as the condition of our troops and our means of transportation will permit.” (O.R., Vol. X, Part One, 775.)
2. Basler, Vol. V, 322; O.R., Vol. XVI, Part Two, 143.
3. O.R., Vol. XVI, Part One, 767–70, 792–93, 796–97, 810–11; Stanley Horn, The Army of Tennessee, 160–61.
4. One of the oldest Civil War controversies concerns the orders under which Buell moved. Buell argued that Halleck required him to repair and use the Memphis & Charleston line and said that this was chiefly responsible for the delay. In substance, Buell’s point was upheld by the Buell Court of Inquiry (whose hearings and findings are recorded in O.R., Vol. XVI, Part One, 6–726); it is set forth in Henry M. Cist, The Army of the Cumberland, 40–42. Kenneth P. Williams sharply attacks this thesis (Lincoln Finds a General, Vol. IV, 27) and it is even more strongly criticized by George Bruce in General Buell’s Campaign Against Chattanooga, Papers of the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, Vol. VIII, 101–22. An interesting account of the march is Capt. Ephraim A. Otis, Recollections of the Kentucky Campaign of 1862, also in the Papers of the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, Vol. VII, 232–36.
5. A. T. Mahan, The Gulf and Inland Waters, 90–96; F. V. Greene, The Mississippi, 20–23; letter of Welles to Farragut dated May 19, 1862, in the Farragut Papers, David H. Annan Collection.
6. Isaac N. Brown, The Confederate Gunboat Arkansas, B. & L., Vol. III, 572–76; C. W. Read, Reminiscences of the Confederate States Navy, Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. I, 349–55; Mahan, op. cit., 98–103.
7. N.O.R., Vol. XIX, 4–5, 19; Charles Lee Lewis, David Glasgow Farragut, Our First Admiral, Vol. II, 117–18, 121.
8. Letter of Mrs. Bragg to General Bragg, undated but written in the spring of 1862, in the collection of her letters in the Eugene C. Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas.
9. Letter of C. I. Walker to Miss Ada Oriana Sinclair, dated June 2, 1862, in the C. I. Walker Civil War Letters, typescript in the Eugene C. Barker Texas History Center; Richard Taylor, Destruction and Reconstruction, 117; letter of Gen. Bragg to Mrs. Bragg dated July 22, 1862, in the Braxton Bragg Papers, Missouri Historical Society.
10. O.R., Vol. XVI, Part Two, 709–10, 713, 727, 730.
11. There is an excellent study of Bragg’s move in Grady McWhiney, Controversy in Kentucky: Braxton Bragg’s Campaign of 1862, Civil War History, Vol. VI, Number One. See also Robert C. Black, The Railroads of the Confederacy, 180–84.
4. Triumph in Disaster
1. O.R., Series Four, Vol. II, 34.
2. O.R., Vol. XII, Part Two, 51–52; Part Three, 435, 437, 444, 473–74, 495.
3. Dunbar Rowland, Vol. V, 320–25.
4. Letter of James Gillette, commissary officer in Pope’s army, dated July 31, 1862; notes in the possession of Allan Nevins. See also Charles F. Walcott, History of the 21st Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 128; Warren H. Cudworth, History of the 1st Regiment Massachusetts Infantry, 255; Joseph Keith Newell, Ours: Annals of the 10th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers in the Rebellion, 136; James L. Bowen, History of the 37th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers in the Civil War of 1861–1865, 92–93.
5. Diary of Betty Herndon Maury, entry for May 13, 1862, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
6. O.R., Vol. XI, Part Three, 295–96, 306.
7. Diary and Correspondence of Salmon P. Chase, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1902, Vol. II, 46–47; letters of Fitz John P
orter to J. C. G. Kennedy of Washington, dated July 17 and July 29, 1862, in the Fitz John Porter Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.
8. O.R., Vol. VIII, 508–11.
9. McClellan to Barlow dated “Berkeley, Wednesday 23” (obviously of July 1862) in the Barlow Papers, Huntington Library; O.R., Vol. XI, Part Three, 345.
10. McClellan’s Own Story, 490–91; O.R., Vol. XI, Part Three, 337–38, 359–60; Vol. XI, Part One, 80–81.
11. Pope’s July 31 returns, O.R., Vol. XII, Part Three, 523; Lee’s returns for July 20, O.R., Vol. XI, Part Three, 645.
12. Lee’s Dispatches, 38–40.
13. O.R., Vol. XII, Part Three, 925–26.
14. Freeman, Lee’s Lieutenants, Vol. II, 1–52; Edward J. Stackpole, From Cedar Mountain to Antietam, 55–78. Jackson’s report on the battle is in O.R., Vol. XII, Part Two, 180–86; Pope’s, 132–36.
15. O.R., Vol. XI, Part Three, 334, 372; Part One, 284.
16. Montgomery Meigs, memorandum on the relations of Lincoln and Stanton, in the Meigs Papers, Library of Congress. (Notes from Allan Nevins.)
17. Letter of Webb to his father dated Aug. 14, 1862, in the Alexander Stewart Webb Collection, Historical Manuscripts Division, Yale University Library.
18. McClellan to Barlow dated July 30, 1862, in the Barlow Papers; McClellan to Mrs. McClellan dated Aug. 21, in the McClellan Letterbook.
5. The Pressures of War
1. C. F. Adams, Jr., Charles Francis Adams, 240–49.
2. Letter of General Butler to Montgomery Blair dated May 8, 1862, in the Blair Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
3. Two Months in the Confederate States, Including a Visit to New Orleans Under the Domination of General Butler, by an English Merchant, 28–30; Journal of Mrs. Robert Dow Urquhart, entry for May 2, 1862, in the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library Archives, Tulane University; Clara Solomon, Diary of a New Orleans Girl, 208, typescript in the Department of Archives, Louisiana State University. The case of the woman who was sent to Ship Island is discussed from Butler’s point of view in James Parton, General Butler in New Orleans, 438–39; from the prisoner’s point of view in Eugenia Phillips, A Southern Woman’s Story of her Imprisonment during the War of 1861–1862, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
4. Butler wrote an interesting defense of his order in a letter to C. C. Garner of New York dated June 10, 1862, asserting: “Since that order, no man or woman has insulted a soldier of mine in New Orleans. And from the first hour of our landing, no woman has complained of the conduct of my soldiers toward her, nor has there been a single cause of complaint.” (Courtesy of Ralph Newman of Chicago.)
5. C. F. Adams, Jr., op. cit., 250–60.
6. Cited in James Ford Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. IV, 84.
7. James A. B. Scherer, Cotton as a World Power, 263–64, 267; C. F. Adams, Jr., 268–69.
8. James L. Watkins, King Cotton: a Historical and Statistical Review, 1790 to 1908, 19.
9. Dunbar Rowland, Vol. V, 338–39.
10. O.R., Series Four, Vol. I, 1156–69; Rowland, Vol. V, 292–93.
11. O.R., Series Four, Vol. I, 1127; N.O.R., Series Two, Vol. II, 243–44, 535.
12. O.R., Series Four, Vol. II, 881–83; Series Three, Vol. V, 1003; Charles W. Ramsdell, Behind the Lines in the Southern Confederacy, 94–98; Robert C. Black, Railroads of the Confederacy, 294–95.
13. Rowland, Vol. VIII, 42–43; American Annual Cyclopaedia for 1863, 205.
14. There is an excellent discussion of the Confederacy’s financial problems in Ramsdell, op. cit., 7–14, 115–16. See also Emory Hawk, Economic History of the South, 400–5, 409–10.
15. Rowland, Vol. V, 209, 301–3, 342–43.
16. DeBow’s Review, May–August, 1862, 77; Victor S. Clark, History of Manufactures in the United States, Vol. II, 52.
6. Scabbard Thrown Away
1. London Times for Aug. 5, 1862, bearing a story from New York dated July 22.
2. Fred A. Shannon, The Organization and Administration of the Union Army, 1861–1865, Vol. I, 275–77; O.R., Series Three, Vol. V, 609; William B. Hesseltine, Lincoln and the War Governors, 201–2; Report of Secretary Stanton, Congressional Globe, 37th Congress, Third Session, Part Two, 28.
3. William E. Dodd, Jefferson Davis, 283; Rowland, Vol. V, 313; letter of W. T. Sherman to T. Ewing from Chewalla, Tenn., in the Ewing Family Papers, Library of Congress.
4. Chicago Morning Post for July 1, 1862, bearing a Memphis dispatch dated June 26; letter of E. L. Acee to Governor Pettus dated July 29, in the John J. Pettus Papers, Mississippi State Archives, Jackson, Miss.
5. Letter to August Belmont from a Dr. Mercer of New Orleans dated Aug. 22, 1862, copy in the Barlow Papers, autograph collection, Huntington Library.
6. Davis’s ideas about the western campaign are presented in fair detail in a July 28 letter to Kirby Smith (Kirby Smith Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina) and an Aug. 5 dispatch to Bragg (Rowland, Vol. V, 313). The President believed that success against Buell would mean the recall of Grant’s army.
7. O.R., Vol. XVI, Part One, 471. Perhaps the best succinct analysis of Bragg’s campaign is Grady McWhiney, Controversy in Kentucky, Civil War History, Vol. VI, Number One, 11 ff.
8. W. L. Gammage, The Camp, the Bivouac and the Battlefield; being a History of the Fourth Arkansas Regiment, 38, 45–47; letter of Smith to Bragg from Lexington dated Sept. 3, 1862, in the Palmer Collection, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland.
9. Robert S. Harper, Ohio Handbook of the Civil War, 25; “The Siege of Cincinnati,” in the Atlantic Monthly for February 1863; O.R., Vol. XVI, Part Two, 524.
10. Arndt Stickles, Simon Bolivar Buckner, 201–3; O.R., Vol. XVI, Part One, 209–10, 967, 982.
11. Letter of Bragg to Mrs. Bragg from Munfordville dated Sept. 18, in the Braxton Bragg Papers, Missouri Historical Society; Journal of Captain W. L. Trask, in the possession of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon W. Trask of Oak Park, Ill.; O.R., Vol. XVI, Part One, 208, 961.
12. O.R., Vol. XVII, Part Two, 628, 667–68.
13. Letter of Smith to Bragg dated Sept. 23, in the Palmer Collection, Western Reserve Historical Society.
14. Journal of Capt. W. L. Trask, cited in Footnote 11: O.R., Vol. XVI, Part Two, 876.
CHAPTER SEVEN: Thenceforward and Forever
1. Recipe for Confusion
1. For a detailed study of Lee’s moves between his departure from the peninsula and Pope’s retirement behind the Rappahannock, the reader is referred to Freeman, R. E. Lee, Vol. II, 259–90: also E. P. Alexander, Military Memoirs of a Confederate, 186–90.
2. There is a good time-table of the Army of the Potomac arrivals in Peter S. Michie, General McClellan, 383. See also O.R., Vol. XII, Part Two, 412; Part Three, 613–4, 617, 620.
3. Letter of Lee to Mrs. Lee dated Aug. 25, 1862, in the R. E. Lee Papers, Library of Congress.
4. Letter of Mallory to Mrs. Mallory dated Aug. 31, in the Stephen R. Mallory Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina.
5. O.R., Vol. XI, Part Three, 345–46, 359–60.
6. Ibid., 378–80.
7. O.R., Vol. XII, Part Three, 653.
8. Ibid., 684.
9. W. W. Blackford, War Years with Jeb Stuart, 121.
10. There is a good sketch of the Groveton fight in Edward J. Stackpole, From Cedar Mountain to Antietam, 158–63.
2. The Terrible Weariness
1. O.R., Vol. XII, Part Three, 704; Cecil D. Eby, Jr., ed., A Virginia Yankee in the Civil War: the Diaries of David Hunter Strother, 91–92.
2. The argument over Porter’s inaction continues to this day. The dust cloud which caused him to halt was raised by Stuart’s troopers, who worked hard to make Porter think exactly what he did think. Longstreet got his corps into position by noon or a little later, and when Pope at 4:30 P.M. peremptorily ordered Porter to attack Jackson’s right flank such a move was wholly impossible. Porter was cashier
ed for his failure to obey this order; long after the war a Court of Inquiry reconsidered the case and exonerated him, and his commission as an army officer was returned to him. Pope unquestionably based his plan of battle on a misunderstanding of the real situation.
At the same time it is hard to acquit Porter of having been an extremely reluctant dragon. General Lee noted the presence of Porter’s corps some time before Longstreet’s corps came up and directed Stuart to make a demonstration in order to prevent an attack—a fairly clear indication that energetic action by Porter in the middle of the morning would have harmed the Confederates. After the war, Lee remembered that Porter’s troops were “peaceable looking” and said that he did not think them disposed to attack. (Memorandum by Col. William Allan of a conversation with General Lee on Feb. 18, 1870, in the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina.) The case for Porter is energetically and exhaustively argued in Otto Eisenschiml’s The Celebrated Case of Fitz John Porter. For an opposing viewpoint see K. P. Williams, Lincoln Finds a General, Vol. I, 324–30.
There are interesting sidelights on the case in the John A. Logan Memorial Collection, Illinois State Historical Library, Springfield. In 1880, as a member of Congress, Logan made a speech opposing the attempt to exonerate General Porter, and this collection contains six volumes of letters from former soldiers commending his speech. Written long after the event, when the case had become a hot political issue, the letters have only sketchy value as evidence, and yet their weight is rather impressive. They at least show that many hundreds of the men who fought at Bull Run felt in 1880 that Porter had willfully refused to join in the fight at a time when his help was greatly needed, and they deserve a critical examination.
3. Lee to Davis, Aug. 30, 1862, in Lee’s Dispatches, 56–59.
4. Pope’s aide, David H. Strother, wrote in his diary that on the night of August 29 “Pope was firmly of the opinion that Jackson was beaten and would get off during the night.” It is interesting to note that Pope apparently realized that Longstreet’s corps had arrived; on the morning of Aug. 30 he wrote Halleck that he had fought the previous day against “the combined forces of the enemy.” He added: “The news just reaches me from the front that the enemy is retreating toward the mountains. I go forward at once to see.” (A Virginia Yankee in the Civil War, 94; O.R., Vol. XII, Part Three, 741.)