Operating in familiar terrain around Richmond, Lee and Jackson imaginatively employed risky flanking movements to achieve complete surprise and victory over Pope’s numerically superior Union forces. Every time Pope moved to shift his armies, Lee and Jackson anticipated him and confidently divided their army, allowing Jackson the advantage of surprise behind enemy lines. With the intelligence support of Jeb Stuart’s cavalry, Jackson knew Pope’s every move and was able to rejoin forces with Lee before a punch-drunk Pope could recover and smash Lee’s undermanned and divided positions.
Despite glaring weaknesses in Northern command, the Yankee soldiers continued to remain confident in their superiority. On August 27 a cocky Private Dickinson wrote to his brother: “I do not believe any danger is to be apprehended from the Rebs being [that we are] in superior numbers.” But just in case, “this letter will be put in the hands of one of our band who are going home. Give my love to all, your affectionate brother, Fred.”17
Two days later, Dickinson was killed in yet another Union fiasco in the battle of Second Bull Run, fought on August 29 and 30. With McClellan rushing reinforcements to Pope, and with Pope’s army already outnumbering Lee seventy-five thousand to fifty-five thousand, Lee launched the bold (and highly risky) tactic of dividing his smaller army between Longstreet’s thirty thousand soldiers west of the Bull Run Mountains and Jackson’s twenty-four thousand soldiers at Manassas. Between these contingents stood Pope’s massive army. Had Pope known of Lee’s strategy, he could easily have smashed each wing of Lee’s army in succession, leaving Lee utterly destroyed and Richmond within Pope’s grasp. But Lee appropriately counted on Pope’s indecision and made up in speed and effective command what he lacked in concentrated forces to achieve victory.
In all, Pope suffered 16,000 casualties to 9,100 for the South. He lost as well two of his best commanders—Isaac Stevens (in line to become the next commander of the Army of the Potomac) and Philip Kearny.18 The reversal of fortunes had an electric effect on the Confederacy. For President Davis, the victory confirmed his confidence in Lee, even at the risk of leaving Richmond temporarily unprotected. Instead of standing at the gates of Richmond, the Army of the Potomac lay in rout, and Lee stood poised to invade Maryland and even the capital.
Despite the victory, many in Richmond mourned the heavy casualties the city’s defense exacted. Churches witnessed countless rituals of funeral sermons, celebrating the heroism of fallen members and hoping their destination was heaven.
In a funeral sermon for Roswell Lindsey, recorded in his private sermon notebook, Jeremiah Bell Jeter grieved with the parents and then praised the son’s patriotism: “[He] was a brave soldier beloved by his comrades... and his body sleeps on the gory field. He died at the post of duty—offered his life on the altar of his Country—and there is hope concerning his future estatc.”19
In Savannah the Methodist pastor George G. N. MacDonell memorialized two members of his congregation who fell in battle “near Richmond.” One eulogy, for Captain Jonathan Ethridge, delivered on June 8, took for its text Revelation 21:3-4 and developed the doctrine that “[m]an [is] subject to the laws of suffering and death.” A month later, in a sermon for the Reverend Robert Jones, MacDonell delivered a gentler sermon on the same text, this time with the doctrine “no death in heaven.”20
In New York the religious press issued a rare denigration of Lincoln following Second Bull Run when “the sun seems to rise and set in blood.” In the end, they would counsel loyalty, but not veneration:A year and a half of very difficult administration has shown our President to be a plain, good man, honest in heart, pure in intention, but certainly not those rare geniuses, who are born to “ride in the whirlwind and direct the storm.” We have taken a plain country lawyer out of his village and placed him at the head of the Government, and imagined him to be a great man, and because he does not quite measure to the character, were ready to censure and complain. Might we not rather reprove ourselves for our unreasonable expectations?21
The secular press paid less attention to Lincoln and more to sensational headlines. On August 18, 1862, the Philadelphia Inquirer front page included: “News of the Repulse of Breckinridge at Baton Rouge,” “Gen. Williams’ Head Shot Off by a Cannon Ball,” “The Recent Demonstrations of the Negroes,” and “Outrages of the Guerrillas along the Mississippi.” In contrast to the religious press, the Inquirer had far less sympathy with the plight of the slaves and instead denigrated the “poor deluded creatures” who thought that invading Yankees would bring them their freedom.22
A deeply frustrated Lincoln questioned himself and turned for direction to his God. Like Davis, Lincoln was becoming steadily more spiritual, although without compromising his unshaken resolve. Along with spirituality came a sort of mystical fatalism. Increasingly he sensed that something more than a mere civil war was going on in this conflict, and that it transcended the rightness or wrongness of either side. Northern clergy and opinion shapers might be certain that God was on their side, but Lincoln, almost alone, was not convinced. He too had a growing sense of Providence, but without the self-righteous evangelical piety that went along with so much patriotism in the North and the South.
In a moment of disturbed meditation, he reflected on just whose side God was really on: The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God can not be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party—and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect this purpose. I am almost ready to say this is probably true—that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By His mere great power on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And having begun, He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds.23
Here we see the first premonitions of a sense of destiny that would lift Lincoln above the rank partisanship of virtually everyone else. It could allow him to glimpse a divine purpose to the war that transcended section and ultimately helped him escape the rhetorical cage of the jeremiad. In life, this provided for Lincoln a Christlike compassion for his foes; in death, it would render him a Christlike messiah for the reconstituted American nation.
Lincoln was unusual in questioning the ironclad logic of the jeremiad that promised success, but he was not alone. Princeton’s Charles Hodge came to a similar conclusion, and called into question the entire moral logic of the jeremiad: “The distribution of good and evil in this world to individuals, churches, or nations is not determined by the principles of justice, but according to the wise and benevolent sovereignty of God... the orderings of his providence are not determined by justice, but by mysterious wisdom for the accomplishment of higher ends than mere punishment or reward.”24
But the Lincolns and Hodges were lone wolves. Most clergy embraced the contractual logic of the jeremiad and sought in it formulae for victories. In casting about for explanations of why victories were not forthcoming, abolitionist clergy saw in slavery the hidden cause of defeat. In a sermon delivered to the First Congregational Church of Leavenworth, Kansas, James D. Liggett used the case of the ten tribes of Israel to underscore the point that defeat did not mean that God’s “favor is even temporarily with his enemies, and against his own people.” What then did God intend? In a word, Liggett asserted, God wanted the Civil War to become an abolition war, and only then would victory be granted to the North:The question is now, whatever it may have been twelve months ago, no such thing as “the restoration of the Union as it was.” Let that most stupid and transparent of all fallacies ... be abandoned. Let us break away from the fallacies and prejudices of the past... and in manly strength grapple with the living issue of the agonizing Present. That issue is Liberty or Slavery. The rebels have resolved to des
troy the nation that they may establish Slavery. Shall we hesitate to destroy Slavery that we may preserve the nation?25
Other less abolitionist preachers explained defeats with reference to the traditional jeremiad sins of pride, materialism, profanity, and Sabbath-breaking. Added to these universal sins were others peculiar to the North. Again the question of God in the Constitution was raised as a sort of mantra. For Philadelphia’s Henry Boardman:There is one feature of our government too closely connected with this question [of defeat], and too conspicuous, to be passed by in silence. I refer, as you will readily suppose—for the topic is a familiar one—to the absence of any adequate recognition of the sovereignty of God, and the religion of which he is the author and object, in our Constitution.... Our national charter pays no homage to the Deity.
As if the constitutional oversight were not enough, Boardman also divined that God was angry because He was missing from the coinage of the nation. This absence, Boardman insisted, “is not a trivial matter... [for] the entire absence of all such emblems and legends from the coins of a nominally Christian nation, must be taken to indicate as much a want of reverence for the Deity, as a want of respect for the common religious sentiment of mankind.”26
On September 4, a triumphant President Davis proclaimed a national thanksgiving day for September 18. The fast days had done their job and now the time had arrived for measured thanksgiving: “Once more upon the plains of Manassas have our armies been blessed by the Lord of Hosts with a triumph over our enemies. It is my privilege to invite you once more to his footstool, not now in the garb of fasting and sorrow, but with joy and gladness, to render thanks for the great mercies received at his hand.”27
This time, with victories to count, the secular press was more willing to concede efficacy to religious observances. The Richmond Daily Whig enjoined all to observe the occasion: “To-day all the people of our fair land, which He has given us for a heritage should approach His footstool with joy and thanksgiving, and pour forth their hearts in praise and gratitude to Him who hath given us the victory.”28
Richmond’s Jeremiah Bell Jeter celebrated the thanksgiving with an unpublished sermon on “The National Victories.” His text, from Psalm 126:3 (“The Lord hath done great things for us”), yielded a classic jeremiad. In developing the parallel between ancient Israel and God’s new Confederate Israel, Jeter explained that both had experienced crushing defeats, but then turned to their covenant God and were delivered: “The Jews rejoyced in their restoration to their own land and well they might. Have we not cause to rejoice in our deliverance?” The recent victories around Richmond confirmed God’s presence with the Confederacy:The enemy has been defeated in a succession of battles—the siege of Richmond has been raised—the foe has been almost entirely driven from Confederate soil—is dispirited—demoralized. Fleeing. Thousands of them have been slain or taken prisoners. In every conflict, apart from the gunboats, they have been beaten. Meanwhile our victorious armies have pushed forward their successes, invading territory that heretofore [lay] in the undisputed possession of the enemy. Truly our deliverances have been wonderful.29
Of the many published sermons following the September thanksgiving, one delivered by Henry Allen Tupper, pastor of the Baptist Church in Washington, Georgia, stands out. Tupper had the distinction of also serving as a chaplain of the Ninth Georgia regiment and delivered a sermon to his home congregation. His text, from Psalm 124 (“the snare is broken”) had been a highly favored scripture during the American Revolution. From start to finish, Tupper’s sermon offered a vitriolic attack on the “Northern rapacity,” as only a chaplain involved in combat could produce. If the South had its “peculiar institution,” Tupper countered, the North had its “peculiar sentiment”—a sentiment so hateful to Southern sensibilities and life that nothing short of “monstrous barbarities” against the South can satisfy its bloodlust. In response to this apostasy, God blessed the South with “many providences,” so that “since our escape, how merciful has God been to us, as a Government, a people, and an army!”
By locating the Southern struggle in the American Revolution and invoking its rhetoric, sermons like Tupper’s grafted the short history of the Confederacy onto the long history of the American Revolution and, through that, to ancient Israel. On that rhetorical foundation, Tupper could conclude with a confident benediction: “Oh God, look down upon our bleeding country—hear the cries of our distracted mother—and arm her sons with hearts of fire, and sinews of steel, and let future ages know, in our rescue from the jaws of ruin, the glory of thy mercy, and the terribleness of thy wrath.”30 In September 1862 Tupper had confidence that just as Americans looked back to the Revolution for present history and comfort, so “future ages” would look back on these revolutionary years as the beginning of a very old and distinguished history.31
Meanwhile, in the Confederacy, President Davis passed the Second Conscription Act on September 27, authorizing the government to call out men between thirty-five and forty-five years of age. A million soldiers in arms was clearly not enough. Total war meant entirely new proportions of soldiers, which meant disproportionate carnage. By the end of the year, soldiers in uniform would number 918,121 for the North and 446,662 for the South, for a total of nearly 1.4 million men.32 With ever-increasing levies, and no end in sight, there was no room to think of exits or peace. It was a fight to the death and at the end only one would prevail.
CHAPTER 16
ANTIETAM: “THE HORRORS OF A BATTLEFIELD”
Pope had to go. But Lincoln saw no clear successors. Where were his Lee and Jackson? At the moment, and unbeknownst to Lincoln, Grant and Sherman were in the western theater. But in the all-important East, with no obvious candidate in view, Lincoln went back to the soldiers’ choice and reinstated the popular McClellan. One soldier’s song captured the respect the general still commanded with the soldiers:Give us back our old Commander, Little Mac, the people’s pride,
Let the army and the nation, In their choice be satisfied.
With McClellan as our leader, Let us strike the blow anew,
Give us back our old Commander, He will see the battle through. 1
McClellan returned to a hero’s welcome among the soldiers of the Army of the Potomac, but no one was more pleased than Robert E. Lee, who was presently entertaining thoughts of bringing Maryland into the Confederacy, and from there moving north to Washington. With McClellan effectively immobilized Lee would be free to maneuver at will and offset numerical shortcomings to his advantage.
By fall Lee had Davis’s complete trust and proceeded virtually unchecked. On September 5, 1862, Lee pressed the offensive, crossing the Potomac near Leesburg and occupying the town of Frederick, Maryland, two days later. This represented the first Confederate invasion of the North, and hysterical officials and journalists feared for Baltimore and Washington. Even Philadelphia was not considered safe before the menace of Lee’s bold tactics, Stonewall Jackson’s mysterious wanderings, and a flashy cavalry led by Jeb Stuart.
To secure his line of communications as he headed north, Lee again divided his army and sent Jackson’s six divisions to capture Harpers Ferry and secure supply lines to the Shenandoah Valley Again, Lee’s gamble paid off. On September 15, Jackson captured Harpers Ferry, taking with him an astounding eleven thousand prisoners. Meanwhile McClellan’s massive army of nearly ninety thousand remained safely and predictably cautious before Lee’s nineteen thousand effectives.
In what would stand as one of the most colossal overlooked intelligence finds of the war, Union Corporal Barton W. Mitchell discovered a copy of Lee’s orders wrapped around three cigars. “The Lost Order of Antietam” plainly showed how precariously Lee’s army was divided into four parts—McClellan’s army was actually closer to each Confederate wing than the wings were to one another.
Had McClellan acted decisively on this intelligence, he could easily have destroyed the Army of Northern Virginia in detail, by first smashing Lee’s army with overwhelming f
orce and then turning on Jackson with similar results. In yet another instance of pathological caution, however, McClellan divined that the intercepted order must be a ruse planted by Lee to trap McClellan’s outnumbered army, so he held back for eighteen critical hours.2 Such are the contingencies of war, that with that fatal miscalculation, the moment to crush the Army of Northern Virginia, and quite probably the Confederacy with it, passed.
But a battle still remained to be fought. Lee’s newly combined force of forty thousand stood before an Army of the Potomac almost twice its size. But Lee had long since learned that raw numbers did not win battles—at least not in 1862—and decided to take his stand. Lee did not hesitate to divide his army and dramatically increase his hitting power. Of course the risks were enormous. If the Yankees ever had an inkling of a divided army, they would simply mass on one side and destroy it in force, then turn on the other and complete the destruction of Lee’s army. But that would require superior intelligence, and in the early years the Confederates—particularly Jeb Stuart’s cavalry—had the advantage. Lee knew exactly how strung out the Federals were and therefore where they were most vulnerable to flanking movements. With the Army of Northern Virginia reunited, the stage was set for the most horrific battle yet fought in the Civil War, and the single bloodiest day in American history.3
At daybreak on September 17, 1862, before the morning mist had burned away, Federal General Joseph Hooker’s First Corps engaged Stonewall Jackson’s seventy-seven hundred men in Miller’s cornfield along the Hagerstown Pike toward Dunkard Church. At the same time, Union General Edwin Sumner led five thousand men of General John Sedgwick’s division of Second Corps directly into a well-placed ambush by Confederate troops at West Woods just north of Dunkard Church. In twenty minutes, 40 percent of Sumner’s division was lost. Included among the wounded was Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who had been shot through the throat and left for dead.
Upon the Altar of the Nation Page 20