Two Miserable Presidents

by Steve Sheinkin

  “There are two brothers who are especially dirty and if they are left alone for a few days they get such a coat of dirt upon their faces it is impossible to tell one from the other.”

  Civil War soldiers were always short on soap, and many went weeks without washing or changing their clothes. “Soap seems to have given out entirely in the Confederacy,” said a Southern soldier. “I am without drawers [underwear] today, both pair of mine being so dirty that I can’t stand them.” The Union soldier John Billings knew some men who remembered to change their underwear “at least once a week.” But others, he said, “would do so only under the severest pressure.”

  One result of wearing dirty clothes was that Civil War soldiers fought a never-ending battle against body lice. Every night in camp, men sat around the fire picking lice off their clothes. The only way to really get rid of lice was to take off all your clothes and boil them in one of the kettles used for cooking food. But that was a lot of trouble—and the lice came back soon anyway.

  Now you can understand why Civil War soldiers were often eager to leave camp, even if it meant marching into battle.

  Fighting Joe’s Turn

  After the disaster at Fredericksburg, Abraham Lincoln had no choice but to remove General Burnside from command. The war was going so badly that some people in the North were urging Lincoln to give up the fight. “We are now on the brink of destruction,” he said.

  It was about to get worse.

  Still searching for someone who could lead the Army of the Potomac to victories, Lincoln decided to give General Joseph Hooker a chance. Known to his men as “Fighting Joe,” Hooker boldly declared he would march right to Richmond.

  “My plans are perfect, and when I start to carry them out, may God have mercy on General Lee, for I will have none.”

  “Fighting Joe” Hooker

  Lincoln winced when he heard such stupid statements. “That is the most depressing thing about Hooker,” he complained. “It seems to me that he is overconfident.”

  Hooker had good reason to be confident, though—he had about twice as many soldiers as Lee. In late April 1863 Hooker began marching his army through a thick Virginia forest known as the Wilderness. He camped near the town of Chancellorsville.

  Lee Throws Out the Textbook

  Once again, Robert E. Lee took a huge risk. According to the military textbooks Lee studied in college, when you have a smaller army than your enemy, you should keep all your soldiers together. Ignoring the rules, Lee divided his army into even smaller pieces. He gave a piece to Stonewall Jackson and told him to launch a surprise attack. “It must be victory or death,” Lee said.

  On the morning of May 2, Jackson led his men on a long march to get in position for the attack. “Press on, press forward!” he urged, as the army raced along narrow roads.

  This was Hooker’s big chance—he could have charged forward and crushed Lee’s divided army. Instead, he just sat there. Later, when asked what had gone wrong, he said, “Well to tell the truth, I just lost confidence in Joe Hooker.” Bad timing, Joe.

  At 5:15 that afternoon, Union soldiers were relaxing around their campfires, cooking dinner and playing cards. Then something very strange happened—dozens of rabbits and deer suddenly burst out of the nearby woods and ran into the army camp. The men waved their hats and cheered the charging animals. That was the wrong reaction.

  The reason those animals ran into the Union camp was that Stonewall Jackson’s army was right behind them, driving them forward through the woods. Jackson’s men charged into the Union camp, screaming the rebel yell. Startled Union soldiers were driven back into the woods.

  What followed was part violent battle and part confusing chase through the forest. Whatever it was, Jackson was winning, and the fighting lasted until dark.

  Another Union Disaster

  The battle of Chancellorsville continued the next morning, getting closer and closer to the Chancellor family house, which General Hooker was using as his headquarters. Fourteen-year-old Sue Chancellor, along with her mother and five sisters, dashed to the cellar for safety. Then a Union officer ran down and told them to get out—the house was on fire!

  Sue scrambled out into the daylight and was met with a shocking scene. “The woods around the house were a sheet of fire,” she said. “Horses were running, rearing, and screaming, the men, a mass of confusion, moaning, cursing, and praying. Cannon were booming and missiles of death were flying in every direction … . If anybody thinks that a battle is an orderly attack of rows of men, I can tell them differently, for I have been there.”

  Sue and her family retreated to a safer spot. So did “Fighting Joe” Hooker and most of his army. The battle of Chancellorsville was another crushing defeat for the Union.

  Jackson Crosses the River

  “At Chancellorsville we gained another victory,” Lee said. “Our people were wild with delight.” But there was a dark side to the victory. “Our losses were severe,” Lee explained.

  Lee’s army lost about 13,000 men, compared with 17,000 for the Union. But remember, the South had a much smaller population than the North. So Lee knew he would have a much harder time replacing soldiers. He simply could not afford such bloody victories.

  And the news got worse. The night after his successful surprise attack, Stonewall Jackson was riding through the dark woods, planning the next day’s action. A group of Confederate soldiers mistook him for a Union officer and fired, hitting Jackson in the right hand and left arm. Jackson was carried back to camp, where a surgeon amputated his shattered arm.

  Jackson was recovering from the operation when he developed pneumonia. It became clear that he was dying. Lee reacted strangely, refusing to visit Jackson—refusing to face the fact that he was about to lose his best fighter. “He has lost his left arm, but I have lost my right,” Lee said. “Tell him to make haste and get well, and come back to me as soon as he can.”

  Anna Jackson was more realistic. She rushed to her husband’s hospital bed. “His fearful wounds, his mutilated arm, the scratches on his face, and, above all, the desperate pneumonia …” she said, “wrung my soul with such grief and anguish as it had never before experienced.”

  When Stonewall asked Anna how he was doing, Anna spoke the harsh truth. Stonewall called over Dr. Hunter McGuire.

  “Doctor,” he said. “Anna informs me that you have told her I am to die today. Is it so?”

  Dr. McGuire nodded.

  “It is all right. It is the Lord’s day,” Jackson said. “I always desired to die on Sunday.”

  Soon he began drifting into dreams, calling out battle orders to his generals: “Order A.P. Hill to prepare for action!” Then he smiled and quietly said, “Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees.” Then he died.

  Jefferson Davis declared a national day of mourning throughout the South.

  What Will the Country Say!

  If you think Jefferson Davis was depressed, wait till you hear about Abraham Lincoln.

  A journalist named Noah Brooks was with Lincoln when a telegram arrived describing Hooker’s defeat at Chancellorsville. As Lincoln read the paper, Brooks watched the president’s face turn a sickly gray.

  “Never, as long as I knew him, did he seem to be so broken, so dispirited, so ghostlike,” Brooks said.

  Lincoln clasped his hands behind his back and started pacing back and forth, saying:

  “My God! My God! What will the country say! What will the country say!“

  Abraham Lincoln

  The country said a lot—some of it too rude to print here. The basic idea was that Lincoln was messing up, he was losing the war. More and more people were calling for Lincoln to admit defeat and let the South have its independence. But Lincoln was as determined as ever to preserve the Union.

  While trying to figure out exactly how to do that, Lincoln had to deal with the annoying day-to-day details of his job. Unlike today, anyone could walk right into the White House and ask to meet the presid
ent. Even in the middle of the war, tourists, honeymooners, and soldiers lined up to meet Lincoln and shake his hand. People came to show him inventions or ask for jobs in the government. One guy showed up asking to be made ambassador to Germany or France. When he was told those positions were taken, the man said, “Well, then, will you lend me five dollars?”

  A teenage boy complained that he had been hired to deliver horses to Washington. He did the job, but his boss never paid him. Now he had no money to get home.

  Lincoln: What do you want me to do?

  Kid: I want you to send me home.

  Lincoln: I have no fund which I can apply to such a purpose.

  Kid: I don’t know what to do.

  Lincoln: I’ll tell you what I would have done when I was a young fellow like you. I would have worked my own way back.

  Another man wanted to use Lincoln’s name in an advertisement. The normally patient Lincoln finally exploded. “You have come to the wrong place,” he shouted. “There is the door!”

  In June 1863 Lincoln got something much more serious to worry about—Lee’s army was in the North again.

  The Road to Gettysburg

  Following up his victories in Virginia, General Lee decided to try another invasion of the North. He knew that Northerners were getting discouraged and tired of war. And he hoped that one more Southern victory would convince them to give up the fight.

  This was a very real possibility, and Lincoln knew it. He did not want the fate of the nation resting in the shaky hands of “Fighting Joe” Hooker. So he changed generals again!

  On the night of June 28, a Union general named George Meade was fast asleep in his tent. At about three a.m. Meade heard someone saying his name and he opened his eyes and saw an officer leaning over his cot.

  “General, I’m afraid I’ve come to make trouble for you,” the man said.

  I’m being arrested, Meade thought. I wonder why? Then the man handed Meade a note that said: “You will receive with this the order of the President placing you in command of the Army of the Potomac.”

  Meade didn’t want the job. He actually tried to argue with the officer who brought the message, which was fairly pointless, since the guy was only delivering Lincoln’s orders. Meade was taking over an army that had been badly whipped in its last few fights. And now General Lee’s army was marching North—another major battle was coming any day.

  Soon after Lee’s army crossed into Northern territory, a Southern soldier named William Christian wrote a letter home. “My own darling wife,” wrote Christian. “We crossed the line day before yesterday and are resting today near a little one-horse town on the road to Gettysburg. Of course we will have to fight here, and when it comes it will be the biggest on record.”

  He was right.

  The Second-Biggest Fourth of July

  The Union army followed General Lee’s soldiers into Pennsylvania, marching twenty miles a day under a scorching sun. Union men tossed away their extra clothes—it was just too hot to carry heavy backpacks.

  As they splashed through streams, soldiers took off their dusty shirts and rinsed them quickly and hung them on the tops of their rifles to dry. They marched on with their shirts on their guns, flapping like flags in the summer wind.

  Welcome to the North

  The good news for Union soldiers was that they were finally back on Northern soil—friendly territory, that is. Citizens came out to cheer and give them food. A nineteen-year-old soldier named Jesse Young remembered marching past a schoolhouse and watching boys and girls pour outside. Waving flowers and flags, the students greeted the weary soldiers with a popular Union song:

  “Yes, we’ll rally round the flag, boys, we’ll rally once again,

  Shouting the battle cry of Freedom;

  We’ll rally from the hillside, we’ll gather from the plain,

  Shouting the battle cry of Freedom!”

  “Many strong men wept as they looked on the scene,” Young said.

  Southern soldiers got a different greeting—usually curious stares or cold silence. General Lee did have some fans in the North, though. One woman asked for his autograph. Another asked for a lock of his hair. “General Lee said that he really had none to spare,” a Southern officer remembered.

  Lee’s army continued north, capturing supplies, and some soldiers too. James Hodam’s regiment captured a very young Union drummer boy. Drummer boys had the important job of sending signals to soldiers by beating rhythms on their drums. Some were twelve or even younger.

  Hodam and the boy had this conversation:

  Hodam: Hello, my little Yank. Where are you going?

  Drummer Boy: Oh, I am a prisoner and am going to Richmond.

  Hodam: Look here, you are too little to be a prisoner. So pitch that drum into that fence-corner, throw off your coat, get behind those bushes, and go home as fast as you can.

  Drummer Boy: Mister, don’t you want me for a prisoner?

  Hodam: No.

  Drummer Boy: Can I go where I please?

  Hodam: Yes.

  Drummer Boy: Then you bet

  I am going home to Mother!

  The kid tossed away his drum and army coat and dove into the bushes by the side of the road. “I sincerely hope he reached home and Mother,” Hodam said.

  Let’s hope so. The biggest battle ever fought on American soil was about to begin.

  Meanwhile, on the Mississippi

  But before it does, we’ve got to check in on the action in the west—events out there were also speeding toward a major turning point.

  The scene of the showdown was the Mississippi River. The South still controlled a 140-mile section of the river running through Mississippi and Louisiana. And they were desperate to keep it. If the North gained control of the entire Mississippi River, the Confederacy’s land would be sliced in two.

  Slicing the Confederacy in two was exactly what General Ulysses S. Grant had in mind. His main problem was the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, located on steep hills three hundred feet above the Mississippi River. As long as the Confederates held this spot, they could keep control of at least part of the river. Vicksburg, said Jefferson Davis, “held the South’s two halves together.”

  Grant spent the early months of 1863 trying, and failing, to attack Vicksburg. Actually, his army couldn’t even get there—it kept getting stuck in the muddy forests and overgrown swamps around the city. Impatient Northern newspapers were again demanding that Grant be fired.

  “I think Grant has hardly a friend left, except myself,” Lincoln said. “I propose to stand by him.”

  Lincoln never regretted that decision. Grant showed that he had something in common with Robert E. Lee—he would take big risks to achieve big goals. In April he marched 40,000 men far to the south of Vicksburg, crossed the river, and headed into Mississippi with only the food his men could carry on their backs.

  “I was now in the enemy’s country, with a vast river and the stronghold* of Vicksburg between me and my base of supplies. But I was on dry ground on the same side of the river with the enemy.”

  Ulysses S. Grant

  There were about 30,000 Confederate soldiers defending Vicksburg. Instead of heading straight for them, Grant confused everyone (including a very nervous Abe Lincoln) by leading his army east, away from Vicksburg. Moving quickly, keeping Confederate generals guessing, Grant’s army zigzagged 180 miles over the next few weeks, winning battles and destroying railroads. Then Grant swung around and headed for Vicksburg—and his plan suddenly became clear. He had been beating or chasing away Confederate forces all over the state. Now the Confederate soldiers in Vicksburg were all alone, cut off from outside help.

  Northern newspapers stopped calling Grant a drunken loser. Now he was a hero, even a genius. Lincoln joined the praise, calling Grant “a very determined little fellow.”

  By the end of May, Grant’s army had Vicksburg surrounded. “A cat could not have crept out of Vicksburg without being discovered,” said one Confederate
soldier. There were still 30,000 Confederate troops in town, though. And they were not about to let Grant come in. Colonel James L. Autry declared: “Mississippians don’t know, and refuse to learn, how to surrender to an enemy.”

  Grant decided to teach them.

  They’ll Fight All Right

  He got some help from the Union army’s first African American soldiers. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation opened the door for African Americans to enlist in the United States Army. And thousands raced to volunteer.

  When a Union general called for black volunteers in New Orleans, a hundred African American shop owners immediately closed their doors and rushed to join the army. These men became part of the First Louisiana Native Guard, the first black regiment in the Union army. The regiment’s highest-ranking black officer was Captain André Cailloux, a thirty-eight-year-old cigar factory owner and boxer. One of the youngest volunteers was sixteen-year-old John Crowder, who said he joined the army for two reasons: to serve his country, and to earn money to help his mother.

  African American volunteers faced serious prejudice in the army. They were even paid less than white volunteers—starting pay was ten dollars a month for black soldiers, thirteen dollars for white soldiers. (Black soldiers protested this injustice and were finally granted equal pay in 1864.) Many white military leaders and politicians openly doubted that African Americans would succeed as combat soldiers. “Will they fight?” was a question printed in newspapers all over the country.