by Bruce Catton
view of the violent criticism that has descended on Grant be-
cause of Cold Harbor, it might be noted that Upton is spe-
cifically blaming the army's troubles there, not on Grant,
but on the various generals of the Army of the Potomac.
13. Under the Old Flag, Vol. I, p. 400.
Four Years Campaigning in the Army of the Potomac, p. 151.
The Iron-Hearted Regiment, by James H. Clark, p. 131.
A Connecticut soldier in the VI Corps, at about this time, declares himself in respect to civilians: "I suppose that all those miserable hounds who stay at home, that have no more courage than a chicken, who do all they can to encourage others to enlist but stay at home themselves, are marrying all of the smartest girls up there and leave the soldier boys without any or of the poorest quality." (Manuscript letters of Lewis Bissell.)
History of the 12th Regiment New Hampshire Volunteers, p. 208; Letters of a War Correspondent, p. 99.
M.H.S.M. Papers, Vol. V, p. 15; Reminiscences of the 19th Massachusetts Regiment, p. 100; History of the Corn
Exchange Regiment, p. 469; The Diary of a Line Officer, p. 68.
The Diary of Gideon Welles, Vol. II, pp. 43-44.
Under the Old Flag, Vol. I, p. 445.
Humphreys, p. 194.
For diametrically opposite verdicts on Grant's strategy up to this point the reader is referred to two studies in Vol. IV of the M.H.S.M. Papers—"Grant's Campaign in Virginia in 1864," by John C. Ropes, which is highly critical, and "Grant's Campaign Against Lee," by Colonel Thomas L. Livermore, which is very laudatory.
Grant's plans and the reasons assigned for them are set forth in his dispatch to Halleck dated June 5, Official Records, Vol. XXXVI, Part 1, pp. 11-12.
History of the 2nd Connecticut Volunteer Heavy Artillery, p. 69; History of the Philadelphia Brigade, pp. 277-78.
25. Meade's Headquarters, p. 163.
26. Colonel Theodore Lyman in M.H.S.M. Papers, Vol. V,
p. 21.
ME DOWN, YOU DAMN FOOLS
1. Following the Greek Cross, p. 117; Meade's Headquar-
ters, p. 148; Days and Events, p. 372; Under the Old Flag,
Vol. I, p. 271. There is a good sketch of Smith's career in the
Dictionary of American Biography.
2. Official Records, Vol XL, Part 2, p. 595.
Butler's moves are briefly summarized in Grant's report, Official Records, Vol. XXXVI, Part 1, pp. 20-21. There is a good picture of the way this fumbled campaign looked to the men in the ranks in History of the 12th Regiment New Hampshire Volunteers, pp. 171-85.
From Chattanooga to Petersburg Under Generals Grant and Butler, by Major General William Farrar Smith, p. 36.
This description is taken from Colonel Livermore's Days and Events, p. 369.
6. M.H.S.M. Papers, Vol. V, p. 89.
7. "Four Days of Battle at Petersburg," by General Beau-
regard, in Battles and Leaders, Vol. IV, p. 540.
M.H.S.M. Papers, Vol. V, p. 56.
Ibid., p. 90.
Ibid., p. 68; Battles and Leaders, Vol. IV, p. 541; Official Records, Vol. XL, Part 2, p. 83.
Hancock's report, Official Records, Vol. XL, Part 1, pp. 303-5; Grant's report, Official Records, Vol. XXXVI, Part 1, p. 25; M.H.S.M. Papers, Vol. V, pp. 64-72, 93-96; Days and Events, pp. 361-62; History of the Second Army Corps, pp. 527-32.
Recollections of a Private Soldier, p. 157: "We were in high spirits. ... We knew that we had out-marched Lee's veterans and that our reward was at hand."
Ibid., pp. 158, 160, 162.
Battles and Leaders, Vol. IV, p. 541.
M.H.S.M. Papers, Vol. V, pp. 28-29; Official Records, Vol. XL, Part 2, p. 86.
Colonel Theodore Lyman in M.H.S.M. Papers, Vol. V, p. 30.
Ibid., p. 31. See also History of the Second Army Corps, pp. 532-36. For a detailed and judicious critique of the operations of mid-June, see "The Failure to Take Petersburg on June 16-18, 1864," by John C. Ropes, in M.H.S.M. Papers, Vol. V.
18. Official Records, Vol. XL, Part 2, pp. 91, 117.
19. Letter of General Beauregard to General C. M. Wil-
cox, printed in M.H.S.M. Papers, Vol. V, p. 121.
20. Ropes, op. cit., pp. 167-68; Humphreys, pp. 217-18.
21. Ropes, op. cit., pp. 169-72; History of the 51st Regi-
ment of Pennsylvania Volunteers, pp. 564-70; History of the
29th Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, by Wil-
liam H. Osborne, pp. 304-5; Battles and Leaders, Vol. IV,
p. 543; History of the Second Army Corps, p. 539; Hum-
phreys, p. 219; manuscript letters of Henry Clay Heisler.
22. Official Records, Vol. XL, Part 2, p. 120.
23. Ibid., pp. 167, 179, 205; Battles and Leaders, Vol. IV,
p. 544.
24. History of the First Regiment of Heavy Artillery,
Massachusetts Volunteers, pp. 173-75; History of the Second
Army Corps, pp. 541-42.
Recollections of a Private Soldier, pp. 166-67, 180-81.
Official Records, Vol. XL, Part 2, pp. 156-57.
27. History of the 2nd Connecticut Volunteer Heavy Artil-
lery, p. 74.
28. Ropes, op. cit, p. 184.
Chapter Four: White Iron on the Anvil
CHANGING THE GUARD
Manuscript letters of Lewis Bissell; History of the 10th Massachusetts Battery, pp. 228-29; The Diary of a Line Officer, p. 91; A Soldiers Diary: the Story of a Volunteer, by David Lane, p. 177; manuscript letters of Henry Clay Heisler; M.H.S.M. Papers, Vol. V, p. 29.
A Soldier's Diary: the Story of a Volunteer, p. 225; Musket and Sword, p. 291; Campaigns of the 146th Regiment New York State Volunteers, p. 230; Army Life: a Private's Reminiscences, pp. 203-4.
Days and Events, p. 377; Ten Years in the U. S. Army, by Augustus Meyers, p. 323.
4. Meade's Headquarters, pp. 181-82.
The Story of the 48th, p. 281; In the Ranks from the Wilderness to Appomattox Courthouse, pp. 93-94; Thirteenth Regiment of New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry in the War of the Rebellion: a Diary, by S. Millett Thompson, p. 529.
In the Ranks from the Wilderness to Appomattox Courthouse, p. 97; manuscript letters of Lewis Bissell.
Humphreys, pp. 230-35, 243; Battles and Leaders, Vol. IV, pp. 233-39.
8. Under the Old Flag, Vol. I, pp. 457-82.
9. From Chattanooga to Petersburg under Generals Grant
and Butler, pp. 5, 52-53, 174r-78; Official Records, Vol. XL,
Part 2, pp. 558-59.
My Diary of Rambles with the 25th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, p. 109. Theodore Lyman described Butler as "the strangest sight on a horse you ever saw . . . with his head set immediately on a stout, shapeless body, his very squinting eyes, and a set of legs and arms that look as if made for somebody else and hastily glued to him by mistake." (Meade's Headquarters, p. 192.) For an understanding of what Colonel Lyman had in mind the reader is urged to study the photograph of Butler in Divided We Fought, edited by David Donald, p. 95.
A War Diary of Events in the War of the Great Rebellion, by Brigadier General George H. Gordon, pp. 359, 365.
12. Official Records, Vol. XL, Part 2, pp. 131-32, 188.
13. Official Records, Vol. XXXIV, Part 3, pp. 33£-33. For
an illuminating exchange of letters Official Records, Vol. XL, Part 1, p. 2&
Ibid., p. 35.
Recollections of the Civil War, p. 227.
17. Grant to President Lincoln, Official Records, Vol.
XXXVII, Part 2, p. 433. It should be pointed out that in
suggesting Meade as commander in the Valley Grant warmly
endorsed him: "With General Meade in command of such a
division I would have every confidence that all the troops
within the military division would be used to the very best
advantage from a personal examination of the ground."
&n
bsp; 18. Gibbons Personal Recollections, pp. 243-44, 248-51,
History of the Second Army Corps, pp. 544-47; Official Records, Vol. XL, Part 2, pp. 304, 330, 468. The corps' historian calls this "perhaps the most humiliating episode in the experience of the Second Corps."
Gibbon's Personal Recollections, pp. 227-28; Official Records, Vol. XL, Part 1, p. 368.
History of the Second Army Corps, p. 556; Recollections of a Private Soldier, p. 194.
22. Official Records, Vol. XL, Part 2, pp. 444-45; History
of the 106th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, p. 232.
23. Official Records, Vol. XL, Part 1, p. 474.
History of the 24th Michigan, p. 275; History of the 12th Regiment New Hampshire Volunteers, p. 229; My Life in the Army, p. 95.
Service with the 6th Wisconsin Volunteers, pp. 299-300; History of the 150th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, pp. 197-98.
Musket and Sword, p. 183; History of the 39th Regiment Illinois Volunteer Veteran Infantry, p. 208.
Manuscript letters of Lewis Bissell; Meade's Headquarters, p. 232.
28. A Soldiers Diary: the Story of a Volunteer, p. 150.
Manuscript letters of Sebastian Muller, Library of Congress.
Reminiscences of the 19th Massachusetts Regiment, p, 105.
I KNOW STAR-RISE
1. Burnside's testimony at the Court of Inquiry on the
Petersburg Mine, Official Records, Vol. XL, Part 1, p. 60;
the three white divisions in the IX Corps lost 1,150 men
between June 20 and July 20, and on the latter date mustered
9,023 enlisted men for duty. See also Major General Ambrose
E. Burnside and the Ninth Army Corps, by Augustus Wood-
bury, pp. 420-21.
2. Manuscript letters of Henry Clay Heisler.
The Story of the 48th, p. 160; The Tragedy of the Crater, by Henry Pleasants, Jr., p. 35.
The Tragedy of the Crater, p. 32; The 48th in the War, by Oliver Christian Bosbyshell, pp. 163-65.
5. The Tragedy of the Crater, pp. 34-37.
6. Report of Major Nathaniel Michler, Corps of Engi-
neers, Official Records, Vol. XL, Part 1, p. 291.
7. The Tragedy of the Crater, p. 41; Battles and Leaders,
Vol. IV, p. 545; Official Records, Vol. XL, Part 1, p. 45; Part 2, p. 619.
Manuscript letters of Henry Clay Heisler; The 48th in the War, pp. 167-68; Official Records, Vol. XL, Part 1, pp. 556-58; Part 2, pp. 396-97, 417; The Tragedy of the Crater, p. 38.
The Tragedy of the Crater, pp. 44-45; Colonel Pleas-ants' report, Official Records, Vol. XL, Part 1, p. 558.
Official Records, Vol. XL, Part 1, pp. 557-58. Cross sections, diagrams, and general plans of the mine shaft, magazines, and ventilating shaft can be found in that volume, pp. 559-63, and in Battles and Leaders, Vol. IV, p. 548.
History of the 36th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, p. 228; Grant's Personal Memoirs, Vol. II, p. 314; The Long Arm of Lee, Vol. II, p. 846.
12. Official Records, Vol. XL, Part 1, p. 557.
13. Major General Ambrose E. Burnside and the Ninth
Army Corps, p. 430; Meade's Headquarters, p. 201.
14. Official Records, Series III, Vol. V, p. 669.
Papers of the Kansas Commandery, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, p. 11.
This point is made in A History of Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion, by George W. Williams, p. 170.
17. Ibid., pp. 235-36.
Army Life in a Black Regiment, p. 36—one of the most fascinating books, incidentally, in Civil War literature.
Ibid., p. 74; The Negro in the Late War, by Captain George E. Sutherland; War Papers, Wisconsin Commandery, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, Vol. I, p. 183.
Army Life in a Black Regiment, p. 274.
Three Years in the Sixth Corps, pp. 275-76.
22. Shot and Shell: the 3rd Rhode Island Heavy Artillery
Regiment in the Rebellion, by the Rev. Frederic Denison, pp.
214, 229; manuscript letters of Henry Clay Heisler; Service
with the 6th Wisconsin Volunteers, p. 296; Army Life in a
Black Regiment, p. 3L
23. Manuscript letters of Lewis Bissell; A Woman's War
Record, p. 56.
24. Ten Years in the U. S. Army, p. 327.
25. Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 231; Musket and Sword,
p. 315; Official Records, Vol. XXXIII, p. 898.
26. Army Life in a Black Regiment, pp. 39, 71-72, 350.
Ibid., pp. 14-15, 80; The Fourteenth Regiment Rhode Island Heavy Artillery in the War to Preserve the Union, by William H. Chenery, p. 18.
Official Records, Vol. XXXIH, p. 1020; Vol. XXXVII, Part 1, pp. 71-72; A History of Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion, p. 238.
29. Army Life in a Black Regiment, p. 335.
Major General Ambrose E. Burnside and the Ninth Army Corps, pp. 420-21; M.H.S.M. Papers, Vol. V., p. 216.
Battles and Leaders, Vol. IV, p. 563; Papers of the Kansas Commandery, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, p. 16.
32. Army Life in a Black Regiment, p. 286,
LIKE THE NOISE OF GREAT THUNDERS
1. Humphreys, pp. 247-48; Grant's Personal Memoirs,
Vol. II, p. 310; History of the Second Army Corps, p. 559.
Letters of a War Correspondent, p. 190.
The Long Arm of Lee, Vol. II, p. 846.
R. E. Lee, Vol. Ill, p. 466; History of the Second Army Corps, pp. 565-66.
Meade's orders are in the Official Records, Vol. XL, Part 1, pp. 43-44. His testimony at the court of inquiry, pp. 44-58, tells how he overruled Burnside on the use of the colored troops, and how Grant upheld him. The plan of attack, as finally approved, is well outlined in M.H.S.M. Papers, Vol. V, p. 229.
Burnside's testimony at the court of inquiry tells about the drawing of lots; Official Records, Vol. XL, Part 1, p. 61. There is a full account of his meeting with the division commanders in Major General Ambrose E. Burnside and the "Ninth Army Corps, pp. 432-34.
Meade's Headquarters, pp. 168, 199. It is interesting to note that during the fighting around Spotsylvania Court House, two and one-half months earlier, a IX Corps private was writing in his diary that "the regiment on our left, the 14th N. Y. Heavy Art., ran for life at the first fire, leaving our left flank entirely exposed." (Manuscript diary of Corporal S. O. Bryant, 20th Michigan Infantry.) This heavy artillery regiment was in the first assault wave at the Petersburg crater.
Brigadier General Stephen M. Weld, M.H.S.M. Papers, Vol. V, p. 218: "He was a drunkard and an arrant coward. In every fight we had been in under Ledlie he had been under the influence of liquor." See also the testimony of Surgeon H. E. Smith, 27th Michigan, at the court of inquiry; Official Records, Vol. XL, Part 1, p. 119. In his Personal Memoirs (Vol. II, p. 313), Grant remarked: "Ledlie, besides being otherwise inefficient, proved also to possess disqualification less common among soldiers."
History of the 51st Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers, p. 573; History of the 36th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, p. 233; Papers of the Kansas Commandery, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, pp. 16-17.
Official Records, Vol. XL, Part 1, pp. 600, 609.
Ibid., p. 47.
Ibid., p. 557; Battles and Leaders, Vol. IV, p. 551n.
Major General Ambrose E. Burnside and the Ninth Army Corps, p. 437; History of the 36th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, pp. 234-35; Battles and Leaders, Vol. IV, p. 564; The Story of the 48th, p. 230; History of the 29th Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, pp. 312-13; Reminiscences of the War of the Rebellion, 1861-65, p. 246; M.H.S.M. Papers, Vol. V, p. 246; Official Records, Vol. XL, Part 1, p. 323.
Official Records, Vol. XL, Part 1, p. 324; Letters of a War Correspondent, p. 195; The Diary of a Line Officer, p. 102.
Battles and Leaders, Vol. IV, p. 561; The Story of the 48th, p. 230; M.H.S.M. Papers, Vol. V,
p. 208; Musket and Sword, p. 293.
Battles and Leaders, Vol. IV, p. 562; Major General Ambrose E. Burnside and the Ninth Army Corps, p. 438$ M.H.S.M. Papers, Vol. V, p. 209; The Story of the 48th, p. 23L
Humphreys, p. 255. (General Humphreys declares flatly: "Had the division advanced in column of attack, led by a resolute, intelligent commander, it would have gained the crest in 15 minutes after the explosion, and before any serious opposition could have been made to it.")