The Army of the Potomac : its organization, its commander, and its campaign

Front matter

Class E.V7Q Book l2

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I. %\t Creation of % J^rmg

On my arrival in America, the curtain had just fallen on the first act of the secessionist insurrection. The attack on Fort Sumter by the people of Charleston, had been the prologue, then came the disaster of Bull Run. The army of the

South was encamped within sight of Washington. "Works of defence were hastily thrown up around that Capital. The roar of the cannon was heard from time to time along the front of the line. Amid these commotions the army of the Potomac came into being.

Up to this time, the Federal Government, taken by surprise, had only hit in haste upon certain provisional measures which aggravated instead of dissipating the danger. All the advantages, at the outset of the insurrection, were with the insurgents. They were ready for an ^rmed conflict, the North was not. In truth the work of secession had been lojig preparing. Under the pretext of a military organization to repress slave insurrections, the States of the South had created a permanent militia, ready to march at the first signal. Special schools had been founded in which the sons Of the Slaveholders imbibed the inspiration of those good and bad qualities which combine to form a race of soldiers. Meanwhile, the northern man, reposing with confidence upon the regular operation of the Constitution, remained absorbed in his own affairs behind his counter. The national army of the Union belonged almost entirely to the men of the South. For many years the Federal power had been in their hands, and they had not failed to fill, with creatures of their own, all the departments of its administration, and especially the war office and the army. Mr. Jefferson Davis, long Secretary at War, had done more to accomplish this than any other single man.

The disposition of the northern people facilitated his task. Among the laborious and still somewhat puritanical populations of New England, the career of arms was looked upon as that of an idler. The West Point Academy enjoyed no great consideration in that part of the country, and the heads of families were by no means anxious to send their sons to it. Finally, on the eve of the crisis which was to follow Mr. Lincoln's election, Mr. Floyd, now a General among the secessionists and then war Secretary under Mr. Buchanan, had taken pains to send to the South the contents of all the Federal arsenals, and to despatch the whole of the regular army to Texas, putting between the army and Washington the barrier of the slave States, in order to paralyze the sentiment of duty which might lead the soldiers to follow that small number among their officers who should remain loyal to their flag. Nothing accordingly was lacking in the precautions taken by the Confederacy. They had dealt with the navy as with the army. It was dispersed at the four corners of the globe.

As to the North, it did just nothing. Yet it had not wanted warnings. For many years Secession had been openly preached. A curious book called the " Partisan Leader," published twenty years ago, is a proof of this. Under the form of a novel this book is a really prophetic picture of the war which is at this moment desolating Virginia, a picture so highly colored as easily to explain the ardor with which the imagination of the Creole Jadies has espoused the cause of the South. But it was believed in the North, as in various other places, that " all would come right." The North felt itself the stronger, and saw no reason for troubling itself prematurely. It was the old story of the hare and the tortoise. Moreover, in the last resort, the North counted on the several hundred thousand volunteers set down in the almanacks as representing the military force of the country, and supposed by the popular mind to be irresistible. The North was quickly undeceived. The people of the South were beaten in the presidential election. They were still masters of the Senate, and it was not the loss of power which roused them, it was the wound inflicted on their pride. This was used by the ambitious managers of the party of Secession to excite the Southera mind, and the standard of the insurrection was raised. The federal power, still passive, allowed the period for compromise, the period for conciliation, and the period for energetic and instantaneous repression to roll by alike unimproved. On both sides the States begin to arm for the inevitable strife ; but the South has the warriors, the arms, the organization, the will and the passion. The North is impotent even to provision Fort Sumter, and the volunteers raised for three months, as if that was to be the limit of the campaign, get themselves beaten at Bull Run, not through want of courage, for the instances of individual valor were numerous; nor yet through the fault of General McDowell, who commanded them, and whose plans deserved success, but through the absence of organization and of discipline.

After Bull Ran there was no room left for illusions. A great war was before the country. Intoxicated with pride, encouraged by all those who for one or another reason wished ill to the United States, the South it was plain would never again consent to return to the Union until it should have suffered severe reverses.

The hopes of its ambitious leaders were more than realized. They had struck a successful vein, and nothing could make them abandon it. At the North, on the other hand, humiliation had opened all men's eyes. It was felt that, having on their side, with the superiority of population and wealth, the right and the legality of the question — having the sacred trust of the Constitution to defend against a factious minority, which after all, only took up arms to extend slavery — they would become a by-word for the world if they did not resist. They felt, besides, that if the doctrine of secession were once admitted and sanctioned, it would be susceptible of infinite application ; that, from one rupture to another, it would bring about a chaos which must very soon open the way to despotism. They felt, in short, that it was chimerical to suppose that two Powers could live side by side in peace who had not yet made real trial of their respective strength — who were separated radically, notwithstanding their common tongue and origin, by the institution of slavery — the one wishing its development and the other its abolition — who were separated, also, by interests which no Custom House line could conciliate, and by the impossibility of regulating, without daily quarrels, the numerous cpiestions connected with the navigation of the Western rivers. All these reasons, obvious to every mind, added to the pain of wounded self-love, and to the novelty of a warlike movement in that land of peace, resulted in setting on foot the immense armament witli which the Northern States have up to this day sustained the war against the powerful efforts of Secession.

Let us pause here before passing on to the numerous criticisms that we shall have to make, to admire the energy, the devotion, the spirit of courageous self-denial with, which the population of those States — rather leading the Government than led by it — has of itself, and under the single impulse of its patriotic good sense, given uncounted men and money, sacrificed its comforts, renounced voluntarily and for the public good, its tastes, its habits, even to the freedom of the press, and that, too, not under the influence of a momentary passion, not in a transport of transient enthusiasm, but coolly and for a distant object — that of national greatness.

The North went seriously to work to create an army — a grand army. Seconded by public opinion, Congress resolved upon the raising of five hundred thousand men, with the funds necessary for the purpose. Unfortunately it could not command the traditions, the training and the experience requisite to form and manage such a military force. It was able to collect masses of men and immense material, as if by enchantment ; but it had not the power to create by a vote the spirit of discipline, of obedience, and that hierarchical respect, without which there may be armed crowds, but there can be no army. Here is the reef upon which many generous efforts have been dashed to pieces. Here is an original vice whose fatal influence we shall everywhere encounter. We shall discover the germ of this vice by a rapid examination of the machinery which was used to improvise this first creation.

V p^ According to American law the Federal Government rvy I maintains, in time of peace, a permanent regular army. It V I may, besides, in cases of necessity, war or insurrection, call / to its standard as many regiments of volunteers as it may deem

expedient. The regular army, formed by recruiting only, numbered 20,000 men before the secession. The officers, educated exclusively at the military school, were remarkable. Well educated, versed practically in their profession, understanding the necessity of absolute command, they maintained in their small force the most vigorous discipline. This was an excellent nucleus for an army, but the rebellion, as I >X, have before remarked, had brought on its dissolution. The X^ greater part of the officers — more than three hundred — passed over to the South. The soldiers — all Irish or German — lost

Jin the solitudes of Texas, were dispersed. From two to three thousand men, at most, returned from California or Utah to take part in the war. This was chiefly important as bringing back a certain number of officers who might preside over the organization — such as it was — of the army of volunteers about to be raised. In Europe, where we have learn jd to recognize the comparative value of the regular soldier, and of this costly and capricious amateur soldier, who is called a volunteer, the loss of the aid of the regular army, small as it was, would have brought us to despair, and we should have set to work to increase the army by enlarging its organization an ■ Incorporating recruits. An army of sixty thousand regula would have done more than double or triple the number of volunteers ; but in America they do not know this, and besides, they do not wish to know it. It would involve a renunciation of the general and deeply rooted creed, that every American, when he wishes to do a thing, may find within himself, without any apprenticeship, the power to do it ; and, consequently, there is no volunteer who, when he puts on the uniform, does not at the same time put on the qualities of a soldier. Add to this that the West Point officers, simply from the fact that they have received a superior education, and recognize the necessity of a hierarchy, are regarded as aristocrats, and everything aristocratic is bad. Such officers were safe with the mercenaries who consented to obey them, and under their orders to keep the peace against the frontier tribes of Indians ; but to place under their command a great army, which must be reduced to the subordination of the camps, was to run the risk of grave political dangers. An eighteenth Brumaire is not to be made with volunteers. Therefore, everything having to be created, it was decided to create an army of volunteers — an ephemeral army, comparatively inefficient, and, above all, ruinously expensive. The American volunteer is richly paid. His pay is $13 — more than 65 francs — per month. Besides that, an allowance of $8 per month is paid to his wife in his absence ; and this, it may be said in passing, has brought about many sudden marriages at the moment of departure for the army. Ordinarily there are no deductions from his pay for clothing or other supplies. The volunteer is provided with everything, and is supplied so liberally with rations that he daily throws away a part of them. One may imagine what such an army must cost. This would not matter if even at such an expense the country were well served. It is not so, however. It is ill served for want of discipline, not that the military laws and regulations were not severe enough ; but they were not enforced, and could not be, in consequence of the primary organization of the regiment, and of the composition of its corps of officers. And here we come to the essential vice of an American army.

How is a regiment of volunteers actually formed ? As soon as Congress has voted the number of men, they calculate at Washington the quota which each State must furnish, according to its resources and population. This calculation being made, each Governor announces that there are to be so many regiments raised within the limits of his jurisdiction. The regiment of one battalion only, is the American military unit. Affairs are managed in this way :

Persons present themselves offering to raise a regiment. Each sets forth his claims, his influence in the State, or among a certain portion of the population, which will enable him to procure easily the necessary number of men, his devotion to the party in power, etc. From among the persons thus presented the Governor makes his choice. Generally the person upon whom the choice falls has laid it down as a condition precedent that he shall have the command of the regiment ; and thus Mr. So-and-So, a lawyer or a doctor, never having handled a sword, but feeling within himself an improvised vocation, becomes a colonel at the start, and puts himself in connection with all the recruiting agencies and with all the furnishers of equipment and clothing supplies for the future regiment. The next thins: is to find the soldiers ; this is not so easy, for there is a great deal of rivalry. They apply to all their comrades, traverse the country, and resort to various plans. This is done quickly and well in America, for the Americans have an inventive mind. Most frequently they find friends who, seized with the same martial ardor, promise to bring so many recruits if they be made — the one captain, the other lieutenant, another sergeant, and so forth. The framework is formed and is partly filled up ; it only remains to complete it. It is then that recourse is had to extraordinary measures — to those gigantic posters which set forth in pompous terms all the advantages to be gained by joining the corps. They go among the Catholic priests to procure Irishmen, and give the coveted privilege of sutlership to the individual who promises the necessary complement of men. Thus the regiment finds itself organized, and the lists are carried to the Governor, who approves everything. The regiment is mustered, clothed and equipped, and forwarded by railroad to the seat of war. Sometimes, even frequently, the grades are made to depend on election ; but that is generally only a formality, as everything has been arranged beforehand by those interested.

The inconveniences of this system are obvious. The officers, from the colonel down to the lowest in rank, do not know the first word of the military art, and if they have any real aptitude for it and any warlike qualities, these are still to be proved. The soldiers have no illusions on this point. "They know no more about it than we do, we are well acquainted with them," they say of those who command them. Hence, there is no superiority of knowledge on the part of the officer over the soldier, and no superiority of social position in a country where no such superiority is recognized. Most frequently, also, it is with an idea of being a candidate for political office that the officer has taken up arms. It is to make himself a name in the eyes of the voters. And these future voters are the soldiers. What would become of the popularity he expects to enjoy if he were rough to the soldiers, or showed himself too exacting in the service ? All these causes bring . about the want of authority with officers, and the want of respect among soldiers. Of course, then, there can be neither hierarchy nor discipline. All this has been ameliorated by force of necessity, and in the school of experience. Even trom the beginning there were exceptions to it; some colonels, impelled by a real vocation, or animated by an ardent patriotism,

16 THE AKMY OP THE POTOMAC.

succeeded in overcoming the obstacles placed in their path. Sometimes an officer of the regular army, desirous of distinguishing himself, and having influence enough in his State, raised a regiment and obtained from it an admirable result. Thus, a young lieutenant of engineers, named Warren, was marvellously successful with the Fifth New York regiment, of which he was colonel. This regiment served as engineers and artillery at the siege of Yorktown, and, having again become infantry, conducted itself like the most veteran troops at the battles of the Chickahominy, where it lost half of its force. And yet these were volunteers — but they felt the knowledge and superiority of their chief. Generally, however, the chief is simply a comrade who wears a different costume. He is obeyed in every day routine, but voluntarily. In the same way the soldiers don't trouble themselves about him when cir cumstances become serious. From the point of view of American equality, there is no good reason to obey him. Besides, in the eyes of the greater number this title of volunteer does not signify the soldier who devotes himself generously and voluntarily to save the country or to acquire glory, but rather the well-paid soldier, who only does what he wishes and pleases. This is so true that, although the pay and time of service are the same for volunteers and regulars, the recruiting of regulars has become almost impossible. All that class of men who enlisted when regulars alone existed, from a taste for camp life, now join the volunteers.

On one side is license, on the other discipline — the choice is easily made. The habits created by universal suffrage also play their part and are reproduced on the field of battle. By a tacit agreement the regiment marches against the enemy, advances under fire and begins to deliver its volleys ; the men are brave, very brave ; they are killed and wounded in great numbers, and then, when by a tacit agreement they think they have done enough for military honor, they all march off together. The colonel perhaps attempts to give a direction, an impulse, but generally his efforts are in vain. As to the officers, they never think of it. Why should they attempt it, and why should they be obeyed if the majority of the regiment has made up its mind to retreat? Obedience in such an army is like the obedience which children playing atsoldiers render to him among their comrades whom they have made their captain. Is any argument necessary to show the inconvenience of such a state of things ? Nevertheless, the Government put its hand on an immense mass of armed men, a multitude of regiments; for the country had responded unanimously and vigorously to the call for volunteers. Never, we believe, has any nation created, of herself, by her own will, by her single resources, without coercion of any kind, without government pressure, and in such a short space of time, so considerable an armament. Free governments, whatever may be their faults and the excesses to which they may give rise, always preserve an elasticity and creative power which nothing can equal. Only, the vices of organization which we have pointed out singularly impaired the value of this military gathering.

It was to remedy these vices as far as possible that General McClellan and old officers of West Point, who had become, by. force of circumstances, generals of brigade or of division, devoted all their efforts. Regiments were brigaded by fours, and brigades divisioned by threes. To each division four batteries were given, three of them served by volunteers and one by regulars. The latter was to serve as a model for the others, and its captain took command of all the artillery of the division. At one time they had some idea of placing a battalion of regulars in each division of volunteers, to act the part of " lance head," which Lord Clyde attributes to the European troops in the Sepoy armies ; but the idea was abandoned. It appeared wis^r to keep together the only really disciplined troops that they possessed ; besides, as it was made, the divisional formation was a good one, and Las been of very great utility. It next became necessary to provide for the administrative services for provisions, munitions and transports, and to organize artillery reserves, the engineer corps, the pontoon corps, the topographical brigade, the telegraphs and the hospitals.

This prodigious labor was accomplished with a rapidity and a success which are extraordinary, when we think that the whole thing had to be achieved without any assistance from the past. ISTot only was there nobody to be found who knew anything, except from books, of the management of the numerous threads by which an army is held together and moved ; not only was the country destitute of all precedents in the matter ; the number even of those who had travelled in Europe and seen for themselves what a grand collection of troops is, was infinitely small. The American army had no traditions but those of the Mexican campaign of General Scott — -a brilliant campaign, in which there were many diffi culties to be overcome, but which presented nothing like the gigantic proportions of the present war. Moreover, in Mexico General Scott had with him the entire regular army, and here there only remained its feeble ruins. In Mexico the regulars were the main body, the volunteers were only the accessory, and, as it were, the ornament. The old general, who was one day asked what lie then did to maintain discipline in their ranks, answered, " Oh, they knew that if they straggled off they would be massacred by the guerrillas." The two cases, therefore, had nothing in common, and the management of these great armies of volunteers, in spite of all the efforts to regularize them, was a problem which offered many unknown data.

At the South the organization of the insurrectionary force? presented fewer difficulties. The revolutionary government had qi.ickty assumed in the hands of Mr. Jefferson Davis the dictatorial form. Sustained by an Oligarchy of three hundred thousand slaveholders, of whom he was the choice, and whose violent passions he personified, Mr. Davis had set himself actively at work to create an army fit to contend against the formidable preparations of the federal government. A former pupil of West Point, a former General of volunteers in Mexico, a former Secretary of War in the Union, he had all the requisite conditions to perform his task well. He applied to it his rare capacity. He was seconded by the flower of the former federal staff, by the more military spirit of the Southerners, and also by the assistance of all the adventurers, filibusters and others, whom the South had always nurtured in view of those continual invasions to which slavery condemns her. I have no idea of drawing here a sketch of the separatist army ; but I wish to point out two important differences which mark its organization as compared with that of the North. The officers were chosen and nominated directly by the President, and were sent with the regiments to fill their positions. There was no comradeship between them and the soldiers. The soldiers did not know them, and therefore regarded them as their superiors. They were not men who were subsequently, in private life, to find themselves again their equals.

In short these officers belonged to that class of slave owners who living by the labor of their inferiors and accustomed to command them, attached to the soil by the hereditary transmission of the paternal estate and of the black serfs who people it, possess to a certain extent, the qu alities of aristocrats. In their hands the discipline of the army could not suffer. Numerous shootings caused discipline to be respected, and on the day of battle they led their soldiers valiantly, and were valiantly followed. In the second place, Mr. Davis quickly perceived that the volunteer system would be powerless to furnish him with enough men to sustain the fratricidal strife into which he had plunged his country. He came rapidly to conscrij tion, to forced recruiting. It was no longer a contract betwee i the soldier and his colonel, or between the soldier and the State, which would still leave a possibility of its being annulled, and which brought with it absolute obligations. It was the law, the authority, the power of the State, which carried off all able-bodied men and made them march up blindly to what was called the defence of their country. There was no hesitation possible. Bound by the obligation of duty, the soldier became at once more submissive and more reconciled to the sacrifice. In the situation in which the South was, these measures were wise, and there is no doubt that they contributed at the beginning of the war to secure great advantages to its army. Nevertheless, we are far from reproaching Mr. Lincoln for not having recourse to such violent measures. The leaders of an insurrection recognize no obstacle, and are stopped by no scruples when the object is to assure the triumph of their ambitious views, and particularly to escape the consequences of defeat. They recoil before nothing, and have no repugnance to revolutionary expedients ; but Mr. Lincoln and his advisers were the legitimate representatives of the nation, and if it fell to them to suppress a revolt, they did not wish, unless in case of absolute necessity, to touch the guarantees which, up to that time, had made the American people the happiest and freest people of the earth.

II

The army once improvised, it next became necessary tc decide how to employ it — in other words, to choose the plan of the campaign. The general plan was simple. The idea of conquering and occupying a territory so vast as that of the

Confederate States could not even be considered ; but for the purpose of escaping the dangers, actual and possible, of such a formidable insurrection, it was necessary to attain three results : to blockade efficiently the insurgent coast ; to get control of the Mississippi river, and of the entire system of Western waters ; and, finally, to drive the rebel government out Richmond, its capital. By the blockade the rebels are isolated from the foreigners whose sympathy had been promised them ; the introduction of powder and firearms is prevented ; exportation, and the resources which it might have procured, are stopped ; and, finally, the introduction of supplies from abroad is guarded against, which would, in spite of the state of war, have penetrated into the North, to the great detriment of national manufactures and of the Federal treasury. To the navy belonged the duty of this blockade. It discharged that duty rather inefficiently at first for want of sufficient means ; but by degrees the surveillance grew closer and closer until it became difficult to evade it.

The possession of the Mississippi was an imperious necessity. The great river and its affluents are the outlets of all the countries which they water. They are the arteries of the Western States — States which have, up to this time, remained faithful to the Union, but in which their material interests might at length chill their enthusiasm, and speak even louder than their convictions. To restore the Union as a matter of interest, on the basis of slavery, has been for a long time past the programme of the Southern leaders. To abandon to them without a struggle the Western rivers would be to concede half the question. It was therefore decided to bring on a conflict on this theatre. The navy recaptured New Orleans by a brilliant couj> de main. That was the principal point. The Federals thus put the key in their pocket. As to the course of the Mississippi, the task of reconquering it was confided to the Western armies, admirably seconded by Commodore

Foote's flotilla of iron-clad batteries and steam rams. In those regions the war assumed quite a new character. So long as they were carried on only by water the operations were very rapid. The enemy could not intercept the magnificent navigable highways so favorable to attack which the great rivers of the West supplied. By water Columbus was besieged, whilst by quickly ascending the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, the communications of the rebel army assigned to the defence of that important post, were cut. Once isolated from its railroads, that army had to retreat southwards. It thus retired from position to position, as fast as the Northern flotilla descended the river, and as the Northern army seized upon the principal railroad branches. The march of the Federals only slackened when, being able to advance no farther by navigable waters, parallel to the Mississippi, such as the Tennessee, they had to reconstruct, as they went along, the railroads necessary for their supplies, which the enemy had destroyed in falling back.

The last operation remained — to drive out of Richmond the insurrectionary government. That government, on being concentrated in the hands of Mr. Davis, took the form of a dictatorship, and thus gave to its seat the importance of a capital. There converge all the great railroad and telegraph lines. Thence, for a year past, have all orders and despatches been dated. To force the Confederate government to abandon that capital would be to inflict upon it an immense check — in the eyes of Europe particularly it would have taken away its prestige. Should this attack have been ventured on as soon as the means supposed to be sufficient were provided, without awaiting the results of the blockade and of the Mississippi campaign? On this question opinions were divided. Some Baid " yes," arguing thus : that an insurrection should never be given the time to establish itself; that the Federal army, with its defective organization, would be no better in March than in November ; that a splendid success on the part of the North, following close upon Bull Run, might finish the war at one blow, by permitting a great effort at conciliation before either side became too much embittered. Others said " no." According to them the great work of reducing the insurrection should be performed on the coast and on the Mississippi. The Richmond campaign, undertaken in the spring, with the Army of the Potomac, made hardier by a winter passed in tents, and recovered from the fatal impressions of Bull Run, would be the coup de grace to Secession. The latter course was chosen, either as the result of real deliberation, or of necessity from not having decided in time to act during the fine weather of the autumn of 1861.