Leading American soldiers

Front matter

£1' THE SAME AUTHOR.

THE ROMAN THEOCRACY AND

THE REPUBLIC, 1846-1849.

Preface

To write a book on war at the present day is to launch out against a stream that has been flowing pretty steadily in one direction since Green coined his famous phrase concerning the drum and trumpet. Public opinion, never before so active, is set on peace and disarmament, and finds in this plausible shibboleth the only practical basis for international co-operation. The peace movement has become a fashion, and one that enrolls among its followers the most humane and, in some respects, the most progressive section of every community. And so the writer of such a book as this, after recording the overwhelmingly attested fact that men whose vocation was the battle-field must be ranked among the greatest of mankind, rubs his eyes and wonders for a moment whether he is dreaming, or whether he is out of tune with what passes for the most advanced thought of the day. Were these men the leaders of their race, an example to their descendants? — or were ihey only extreme representatives of the decaying traditions of barbarism?

Is not the truth this? One of the most obvious facts of history is the evil aspect of warfare, its hardships, its cruelty, its injustice to the innocent. These are things which even those who have not seen war can realize, these are things which lead good men to cry, though perhaps with insufficient reflection, Down with war. There is another fact, however, equally demonstrated by history, but unviii PREFACE

fortunately far from equally obvious, which is that war does at times carry with it certain benefits, and benefits not so much material as moral. Shakespeare, with his amazing instinct for the profounder realities, well put the case when he wrote of

"The cankers of a calm world and long peace."

The study of history leaves many students firmly persuaded that although war in excess, war as a habit, is brutalizing and degrading, the occasional war that has a right cause behind it, a struggle for religion, for principle, for national existence, marks the healthy and vital stage in a people's development, while the long periods of peace are invariably attended by materialism and moral loss. And is not materialism at the present day more closely associated with the outcry against war than is generally realized? — materialism now busy constructing anew civilization, but that will later turn to the mere enjoyment of it ? There is doubtless an exaggeration in the indifference to death displayed by so many Asiatics; is it not possible, however, that there is some excess of materialism in our present extreme fear of it ? The battle-field takes life, it is true, but it does not take that which otherwise we would retain. The hour is advanced, and that — why hesitate to say it? — is often best. Would it not have been better to have stood among our soldiers on the banks of the Rappahannock furiously cheering our great opponent Stonewall Jackson as he inspected his pickets on the further side, than to have lived twenty years longer to mingle with football mobs hurrahing at the disablement of a successful adversary ? Or to have followed Sherman to the sea among waves of uplifted slave faces fondly dreaming liberty and righteousness had come, rather than spend a lengthened life in the lucrative but dubious routine of mercantile affairs? Which is the better part?

And if it is the case that there is much to urge for war on ethical grounds, as a tonic or stimulus for the moral

PREFACE IX

fibre of a nation, it is also true, as a matter of historical deduction, that the best way to obtain peace is not that which is so widely popular at the present time under the alluring label of disarmament. Disarmament is a vast subject of which only one small aspect, one that arises directly from the lessons of military history, can be touched on here.

If military operations during the period of improved firearms be carefully considered no principle can be deduced of more general application than this: that the duration and decisiveness of a struggle will vary directly as the numbers engaged. In other words, when large armies are opposed the result is longer delayed and less decisive than when small ones are engaged. Even those who have not studied military history may well perceive this by considering an extreme illustration. Take two cases. In the first five men are opposed by five. The struggle will inevitably be short and almost inevitably decisive; in every case it will give the fullest scope for the exercise of those fundamental wiles and stratagems that form the basis of military science. Now let us take the other case, and oppose five milhons to five millions. Is it not obvious that with such masses engaged the result must be long delayed, and that under present conditions decisiveness could rarely be attained ? And to quote a modern example, it may be recalled that most military experts consider that in the event of a war between France and Germany the forces that would be mobilized between Belfort and Sedan are so great that it is a question whether the fiercest fighting could lead to any definite result.

If this, then, is the case, that the larger the armies the less are the chances of substantial gain, is it not better to urge on rather than to retard the movement that is now making of Europe and the world an armed camp? When the runaway horse begins to flag is it not better to whip

X PREFACE

him on to exhaustion than to attempt to rein him in before he has learned his lesson? Supposing armaments could be limited by international agreement, is it not conceivable that the result might be just the contrary of what so many expect? With armies reduced to the size of the professional armies of the eighteenth century, the world would always have to fear the advent of a new Bonaparte and the domination of a military caste; but with inflated armies it can at best only witness a scientific exposition of military methods by two contending groups of specialist staff officers. Is it not really premature to talk of disarmament until we have established as the guiding principles of statecraft, international toleration, equity, good will, and respect of the weak by the strong? A nation that is compelled to pass through the ranks will be more ready to deal justly by its neighbors than one that can get its fighting done for it by a relatively small body of professional soldiers. Let us first learn to act rightly in our international dealings and the question of peace and disarmament will take care of itself.

And now to come more closely to the matter in hand, a few words of explanation appear to be necessary. The series of which this volume forms part is intended to be of an elastic or continuing character. The reader is not to understand that the thirteen biographies included in this volume represent the thirteen leading American soldiers in a final and exclusive sense. For in the first place to draw up such an exclusive list, to draw a line, say, between Meade and Thomas, or Horatio Gates and McClellan, would be an impossible task. All that is claimed is that these thirteen are leading American soldiers, and are those it seemed best to group together in one volume; but this does not preclude the publication of further volumes in the series covering lives the inclusion of which should seem properly warranted.

PREFACE XI

Another matter that requires explanation is this. The classification of prominent men is often difficult. Thus several of the soldiers included in this volume were not only soldiers but statesmen. It has therefore appeared better in the case of Washington and of Andrew Jackson, whose political careers were of such great importance, to focus the attention in this volume on the military side alone, reserving for another volume a treatment of their lives as statesmen.

As this series is intended to be free from foot-notes and bibliographies, the reader will find an unsupported narrative, as to which perhaps the following word of explanation is due. No claim is put forward that these biographies are based on new material. But in those that belong to the Civil War period the Official Records have been freely used, and as to many of them it may be said that they offer points of view not to be found in previous biographies. Hardly one of the existing works on our leading soldiers has been written by a trained scholar with a grasp of the principles of military history. And even in the case of George Washington, whose life has so frequently been written, it is possible that the present biography may present a few facts in a light hitherto unsuspected by the reader.

Lastly it must be said that in the biography of Stonewall Jackson, one authority has been so closely followed that special acknowledgment is due. It is only in one or two details that it has appeared possible to diverge from the late Colonel Henderson's masterly work on the subject, and where his views have not been accepted references to authorities have been given.

PART I THE REVOLUTION George Washington Nathaniel Greene

Washington still remains the great national figure of American history, and deservedly; for nothing less than his heroic leadership could have brought the war of independence to its triumphant close, nothing less than his rectitude and serenity could have inspired the states to rise above provincialism to union. Therefore to compose his biography must be the most gratifying of tasks for an American writer, and yet that biography presents one nearly insurmountable difficulty. So often has the life of Washington been written, so diligently have the records been searched, that it would appear as though at our day nothing but an ancient and familiar literary dish could be served up. To a certain extent this must, indeed, be the case; and at all events no new facts concerning his life can be set out here. But it may be that the angle from which the old facts are viewed will prove not altogether familiar. It was as a soldier that Washington established the independence of his country, and it is from a strict military standpoint that his life, his character, his achievements, will now be considered.

There is little known of the boyhood of George Washington. He was born on the 2 2d of February, 1732, at Wakefield, Westmoreland County, Virginia, at his father's plantation. The Washingtons had emigrated from England less than a century earlier and had become prominent Virginia planters. The family was a large one, however, and George had no brilliant prospects before him. His education was scanty, and, except as to mathematics, left httle impression on his mind. But for mathematics young Washington had a natural bent. His intellect was precise, cold, unyielding. There was little elasticity about him, and with less intelligence and less good breeding, he might have developed into a martinet or a prig. Alongside of his aptitude for mathematics was another factor that helped determine his early vocation. His physique was splendid. He stood over six feet, was broad in proportion, and excelled in the saddle and in the field. Not unexpectedly, therefore, we find him, on leaving school, turning his attention to surveying.

Many of the wealthy planters and of the adventurous spirits of Virginia were at that time interested in the acquisition of land towards the opening West, Washington acted as a prospector and surveyor for friends and relatives, thus undoubtedly developing the instinct for topography that was later to serve him so well when at the head of the army of the United States.

This introduction to the western borders of Virginia led to other things. Beyond lay the rich Ohio valley, and there the French from Canada were gradually erecting a line of posts that must eventually close the West to the English. In 1753 the British Government decided to make a stand. Instructions were sent to Governor Dinwiddle of Virginia to summon the French to abandon their forts; and it became necessary to find a suitable person to carry out the mission. Washington had influential friends; he already had won a reputation for dignity and resolution; his knowledge of the woods was an important advantage; and so he came to be chosen as Governor Dinwiddle's messenger to the French on the Ohio.

Washington carried out his mission to the Ohio frontier successfully. The undertaking proved arduous but fruitful, for he concentrated more experience into it than many men get in an entire lifetime. The hardships of winter travel through the wilderness brought him several times to the verge of famine and of exhaustion; the Indians were mostly hostile, altogether deceitful; the French were nearly as bad, though in different fashion. To deal with such conditions required courage, pertinacity, resource, and even subtlety.

All these qualities Washington displayed, and in respect of the last the point may well be emphasized. Great generals, as a rule, have been men who could add to many other gifts that of deceiving their left hand as to what their right hand was doing, and Washington acquired that talent rapidly while dealing with the French and Indians in the Ohio valley.

He returned from his mission at the beginning of January, 1754. In April he was once more on his way to the Ohio. For some years he had held a commission in the militia, and, partly owing to the aristocratic system then in vogue in Virginia, partly to his real merit, he had attained the rank of major. On hearing that the Governor intended sending a force of militia to the frontier he applied for, and obtained, promotion to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, in which capacity he was sent at the head of two or three hundred Virginians to drive the French from the Ohio.

The expedition that ensued throws little light on the military capacity of its leader, but it was notable in that the first skirmish between the Virginians and the French, a well-planned ambuscade, Indian fashion, led by Washington in person, was the occasion for the tiring of the first shot in the long war that gave Silesia to Prussia and Canada to Great Britain. The skirmishing and ambuscades on the Ohio were insignificant affairs compared to Leuthen and the Heights of Abraham, yet they helped form a soldier who by his crowning triumph of Yorktown won a victory even more fruitful than either of these.

It would be fruitless to enter into the details of the Ohio adventures of Washington. We have no precise account, as is natural, of the way in which he matched wits with the Indian chiefs who might be fighting with one party to-day, with the other to-morrow. Numbers and suppHes, two vital factors, proved to be on the enemy's side, and were decisive. After varying fortune, Washington was driven into a bad position, at Fort Necessity, and there, on the 3d of July, 1754, he had to accept a capitulation whereby he and his troops were to evacuate the fort and return to Virginia. ««•

He was soon in the field once more. Great Britain was now aroused. The Government sent out to America General Braddock and two regiments of regulars; the object of the expedition was to drive the French from Fort Duquesne and the forts of the Ohio. Braddock, a muchabused man, was clearly not a genius, yet he was no such fool as history has generally represented him, if for no other reason than that he singled out Washington and Benjamin Franklin as the two Americans with whom it was a satisfaction to transact affairs. It is true that he underestimated the fighting value of French, Indians, and Virginians among woods; yet he was only partly wrong in insisting that his British regulars should fight in line. The British private, as an individual, was helpless and a poor soldier; it was only under the stress of accustomed discipline that he became part of that highly effective engine of destruction, the British army of the eighteenth century. Braddock erred, but not wholly. He had great faith in Colonel Washington, whom he appointed to his staff and consulted frequently. But when, on the 9th of July, 1755, the little army of regulars and provincials crossed the Monongahela and advanced on Fort Duquesne, Braddock unwarily marched into an ambush and was annihilated.

Washington did wonders on the day of Braddock's defeat. He was ill and had rejoined headquarters only the night before. The advance-guard of the column was suddenly fired on by the French and Indians from a belt of wood in front and from ravines to the right and left. Braddock rode up and attempted to deploy his column into line of battle. The fire was too hot, however, and too close. Braddock himself was struck do^^^l, mortally wounded. Ever}^ officer of the staff was killed or disabled save Washington alone. He had two horses killed under him and received four bullets in his clothes, but, fortunately for America, was saved for greater events. While the regulars, like the French at Rossbach or the Austrians at ^Marengo, huddled into a confused mass, failed to deploy and fired blindly in the air, the Virginians sought cover, fought behind trees, logs, and rocks, met the enemy with equal tactics. Washington, with unsparing courage and unfailing skill, held them together, formed some sort of screen for the army, saved its retreat. And so it proved that Braddock's defeat, an event almost insignificant in its militan,- and political consequences, made the reputation of an individual. Washington was henceforth the most noted of the provincial officers, the one man who had sho^Mi militar}- capacity while British regulars were meeting with their most disastrous rout on the American continent.

It was almost twenty years before this result of Braddock's defeat came to a consequence — years of peace, but years of unrest. France had been driven from America by England, and now the time had come when England in turn should be driven out of the greater part of her possessions. The colonies were eager for independence; constitutional and economic questions had been developed by short-sighted statesmen into an opportunity for disruption. Washington took part in the pohtical agitation, but more with s\'mpathy and advice than with words. He was not so much an orator as a man of the sword, and it was not until the quarrel had come to a crisis that he became prominent. He was now, by his marriage with Martha Custis, one of the wealthiest men in Virginia, and this, together with his mihtary reputation and personal prestige, led to his being chosen as one of the Virginia delegates to the first Continental Congress.

Washington from the first made his position clear. He was the most prominent of provincial officers and was prepared to act up to all that this might logically involve. His heart was in the cause. He declared publicly that he was prepared to raise looo Virginia riflemen at his own expense and march at their head to the relief of Boston. His appearance in Congress was significant; he attended dressed in the uniform of a colonel of Virginia mihtia. There could be but one conclusion, for Washington's attitude was not only expectant, but legitimate. Clearly enough no other man could carry such weight at the head of the American forces from his achievements, from his social position and from his personal qualities, as the Virginia planter. And so, when the federation of the colonies against Great Britain had become an inevitable necessity, when the army of New-Englanders before Boston required a commander whose prestige should silence petty provincial jealousies, when an amalgamation of north and south was necessary to consolidate the new-born union, Washington was the one man in Congress to whom little objection could be raised by any section of the country. John Adams of Massachusetts, with statesmanlike breadth of view and prescience, moved the resolution himself that George Washington of Virginia should be appointed commander-in-chief of the armies of the united provinces. This was at the beginning of June of the year 1775.

Washington arrived at Cambridge on the 2d of July, and assumed command of the colonial army on the following day. The conditions he found were these: within Boston was an army of highly efficient British troops, nearly 10,000 men, under the command of generals of repute — Gage, Howe, Burgoyne, Percy, Clinton. That army, capable by its numbers and discipline of playing a considerable part in European warfare, had, however, recently met with two somewhat disconcerting experiences at the hands of the

SIEGE OF BOSTON

New-England farmers and militia. At Concord and Lexington the Americans had shown that men of determination who knew how to shoot straight, even though unorganized, could throw a column of regulars into considerable confusion among the winding roadways and stone fences of Massachusetts. At Bunker Hill, only a fortnight before WashinglO LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS

ton's arrival, a small force of militia had inflicted a loss of over a thousand on the flower of the British army and had held a rough earthwork for over an hour against superior numbers. From these occurrences two conclusions of a general character might be drawn.

In the first place, the war that had just broken out was of a character unhke those which the armies of the eighteenth century were especially fitted to cope with. The Americans were a people in arms, citizen soldiers with opinions to fight for and with intelligence and skill in the essentials, if not in the fine art, of fighting. Here was a war not between two kings, or two ministers, or two favorites, to be resolved by the formal manoeuvres of trained tacticians, by the fall of a frontier fortress or by the occupation of an enemy's capital, but a war between a king with his small group of trained soldiers and a people in arms. France, Prussia, Spain, might accept the occupation of their capitals as decisive of their fate; the farmers of New England were rather exasperated than cowed by the British occupation of Boston. And as against the regular the farmer was by no means helpless. The military tactics of the eighteenth century were of a highly artificial character. The conduct of war had been crystallized by the genius of Frederick the Great into a somewhat arbitrary system. The essential pivot of battle was the infantry. It was armed with a clumsy firelock, loading slowly, shooting inaccurately, and not able to kill at more than 200 yards. The efforts of tacticians were centred on converting into an effective machine a mass of recruits, the dregs of the European capitals or the clods of feudal servitude. A consensus of opinion had solved the problem in the following manner. Musket-fire to be decisive must be delivered in volleys at a range of from 125 yards downwards. For this purpose soldiers must be aligned not more than three deep, and this extended order must be brought up in rigid ranks to murderously close distance of

GEORGE WASHINGTON li

the enemy. There was only one way of obtaining this result, which was to subject the troops to an iron discipline which instilled in them an even greater fear of the cat-o'- nine-tails than of the enemy's fire.

With this system universally followed, the result of battle depended largely on greater or less rigidity of discipline. The British had proved at Bunker Hill the superb courage and solidity of their infantry. But the New-Englanders had long held them at bay, fighting according to an entirely unorthodox code, and the question presented itself, would it be possible for the colonials to fight the mother country by adopting a new system of tactics ? Under what we may style the official one, both contending generals should be content to seek out a battle-field where flat, open ground would give them opportunity to manoeuvre their troops; but what if the Americans should refuse to play the game ? Sixteen years later the French Republic, when confronted by the same problem, invented a new system of tactics to beat the old; in 1776 Washington accepted tactics as he found them, but employed them with some regard for the difference between the composition of his battalions and those of the enemy. It was possibly a mistake.

To besiege General Gage and his professional army in Boston was precisely the sort of task that the well-trained soldier, who was that and nothing more, would never have attempted. That Washington accepted it and carried it through to a briUiant conclusion is proof enough that he had that greatest of all qualities in a soldier, the quality without which technical skill is fruitless — moral intuition and courage. He knew that "battles are won in the hearts of men"; that to abandon the positions occupied by the New-Englanders, however faulty and dangerous they might be, would deal the cause a well-nigh fatal blow; he knew instinctively that to impose on the enemy is more essential to military success than the best tactics and strategy in the world. He had a cause behind him, he was bound at all risks to show the world that its leader was certain of its success.

And so Washington, with scant army, no gunpowder, and bad positions, settled down to besiege Boston. The choice made of him by Congress was rapidly justified. It was one of his characteristics that he impressed those he met with his greatness at first sight. Few men inspired more complete and more rapid confidence. His common sense, his dignity, his uprightness, his devotion, were all carried to the transcendent point. His physique was magnificent, his deportment indicated courage, modesty, and resolution. To all this Washington added a quahty indispensable for one who was to control the provincial levies of New England. Local jealousy and indiscipline were rife in the camps of Cambridge and Roxbury, military talents moderate and evenly matched. But the general-in-chief, designated by John Adams of Massachusetts, w^s a Virginian; he could arouse no local jealousy; his firmness and tact soon quelled any feeling of provincial rivalry.

It was hard work for Washington during the autumn of 1775 and the winter of 1775-76. Hard work establishing discipline and order in the camps; hard work pleasing the New-England assemblies and resisting their often ill-judged demands; hard work supplying the troops; hard work trying to get powder, money, cannon, and the thousand things that feed war; hard work deceiving friend and foe into the belief that the army was ready to beat back any attempt the British might make to sally from Boston. And here, in passing, it may be remarked that Washington from the first operations of the war showed a wonderful skill in deceiving his opponents. His closest companions were rarely let into his confidence, and his correspondence is by no means overflowing with state secrets. In all he did and all he wrote it is clear enough that his inmost plans arc kept to himself and that he is always thinking of the state of mind of his opponent.

It was of course important that Gage and his successor Howe should not realize fully the feeble condition of the blockading army. Although the engagement against the detachment at Bunker Hill had severely tested the strength of the garrison, yet it was always possible that the British generals might attempt a further attack on some part of the American lines. It was probably far more with the object of keeping the enemy on the defensive than from any real intention that Washington, on at least two occasions, made known his opinion, unanimously disagreed from by his generals, that the American army should attack Boston. It would appear more reasonable to see in this not, as generally accepted, the bold, almost rash, resolve of a mettlesome soldier, but rather the suggestion of the subtle thinker deceiving his own friends in order to ensnare the enemy more completely.

The same profound calculation may be discerned in the remarkable plan eventually devised by Washington for driving the British out of Boston. For many weary weeks and months the blockade dragged on, marked by no incidents beyond an occasional fusillade at the outposts. Washington could not, Howe would not, attack. At last, in February, 1776, the situation changed. Howe, very wisely, considered Boston a bad military position, difhcult to hold, and wlien held not valuable as a base. New York was very differently situated. Its bay could be controlled by the king's ships and the town formed a natural base to the line of the Hudson; that line offered the best communication with loyal Canada and also marked a natural cleavage between New England on the one hand, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the South on the other. Howe had already decided to abandon Boston; Washington was already casting an anxious eye towards New York. At the close of February Howe was leisurely and quietly gathering transports together, and Washington, at last, had succeeded in collecting sufficient gunpowder with which to fight.

It had long been recognized by the British that the harbor could be commanded not only by Bunker Hill to the north, but also by Dorchester Heights to the south. The irrepressible feeling of contempt of the regulars for the provincial levies, however, even after Bunker Hill, had resulted in Howe's neglecting to fortify this point. His neglect cost him dear.

Washington's plan was elaborate and carefully worked out in every detail. On the 26th of February he applied to have all the militia from the districts near by sent into camp for three days. In the meanwhile the troops were busy. At various points, and for various purposes, fascines, bales of hay, floating batteries, bateaux, and bandages were prepared. On the night of the 2d of March the long-silent American batteries at last opened fire and bombarded the town, though with little more effect than to terrify its inhabitants. This cannonade lasted three nights, and was intended to mask the movement that was successfully made on the 3d. At 7 p.m. on the 6th of March General Thomas with 2000 men silently made his way to Dorchester Heights. Behind his column followed a long line of carts, their wheels wrapped in hay, full of material for building up breastworks on the frozen ground. The men worked with an ardor worthy of their cause. The route of the carts and the line of the breastworks gradually extended; relief-parties took the place of the early workers; while to their left and rear the batteries thundered across Roxbury neck.