Henry County, Indiana - Chapter 3, 1906

Chapter 3

The Effect of Bull Run - Collapse of the ^Millilx System - Effective MiLiT.\RV Forces of Indiana^ Ohio, and Other States - Political Generai,s - Seizure of the Trent - Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War - Relations of Stanton and Halleck with McClel- LAN, Grant and Sherman - Weaknesses of the South - Inactivity of the Army of the Potomac - Importance of \"ictories in the West - General Bragg's Campaign in Tennessee and Kentucky.

The disaster of Bull Run occurred on July 21, 1861. Its effect was to throw the Xorth into a panic. The venerable (General Scott, then seventy five vears of age, was general-in-chief. The next day General George B. McClellan was called to Washington to take charge of the defense of the city and he arrived there July 26th. The Confederates, as much elated as the people of the North were depressed, at once moved up to the Potomac, stopped navigation, and virtually blockaded the national capital.

At Washington the authorities, civil and military, were in constant dread of an attack that might result in the capture of the capital and an invasion of the country north of it. Still the mass of people of the North did not yet fully appreciate the magnitude of the preparations necessary to suppress the Rebellion. Even the Secretary of War, as late as October, 1861, had no conception of the stupendous proportions into which the conflict, then scarce six months old, was destined to expand.

"About this time," says ]\Ir. W. Dudley Foulke, in his "Life of Oliver P. Morton,"' vol. I, p. 147, "Secretary Cameron stopped at Indianapolis, on his way from St. Louis to Washington, and in company with Senator Chandler, took supper with Morton at the Governor's mansion. He was quite talkative and laughed heartily at Sherman's idea that it would take two hundred thousand men to recover the Alississippi states. He made no secret of his belief that Sherman was crazy, and unfit for any military -command. He derided Sherman's notions of the need of cavalry and artillery as old-fashioned and silly, and was boyish in his fun over the 'Minie rifle,' and over improved arms generally. The old smoothbore musket, in the hands of well-disciplined infantry, he regarded as the best kind of arms. Morton listened to this talk in silence."

We can well understand why ^Morton listened in silence, and no doubt in amazement, to such twaddle at such a time from the Secretary of War.

]\Ioreover the slavery question continued to be a disturbing element, and military operations were interfered with by political considerations and by the jealousies of generals. The senseless clamor expressed in the cry of "On to Richmond,"' which led to the disastrous defeat at Bull Run, again urged an advance of the Union armies and led to another defeat on October 21st at Ball's Bluff, and soon after, on November i, 1861, General Scott was succeeded as general-in-chief by General McClellan.

The disasters at Bull Run and Ball's Bluff only deepened the conviction, longbefore entertained by Morton and others of far-seeing sagacity, that the Rebellion would not blow over in sixty days as Seward had predicted. It also became apparent that it was not wise policy to enlist men for a term so short that their period of service would expire before they had acquired more than the rudiments of a military education, and that the regular army could not be depended upon, as General Scott had supposed, to suppress the Rebellion. Many of its officers sympathized with the South, and those who resided there, Avith a few notable exceptions, accepted commissions in the Confederate army. There were not enough left of those loyal to the Federal government to officer the new regiments. It was useless to expect to fill the regiments necessary to be raised by recruiting for the regular army. The men of the North were eager to enlist but they preferred to serve with their neighbors and under officers whom they knew. It was upon the volunteers that the Federal government was forced to relv for the material with which to make up the rank and file.

Therefore on May 3, 1861, President Lincoln issued another call for volunteers, and under this call, and the acts of Congress confirming and supplementing it, 500,000 men were required. There was not much difficulty in getting the men. Indeed, under this call and the acts of Congress supplementing it, over 700,000 volunteered, of whom over 657,000 enlisted for three years. The first serious trouble arose in equipping them for active service. It had been difficult to arm and equip the 75,000 three-months' troops, and it was only by almost superhuman exertions that Governor Morton had been able to send to the front the six three-months' regiments contributed by Indiana. No preparations had been made by the Federal government or by any state for such a war as had now burst forth. Long before the outbreak of the war the militia organizations in most of the northern states had been practically abandoned. Governor Chase, of Ohio, had made vigorous efforts to re-organize the militia sA'stem of that State. Whitelaw Reid, in his "Ohio in the War," vol. I, p. 19, says:

"In this, as in his political views, he was in advance of his times. In every state west of the Alleghanies the militia had fallen into undisguised contempt. The old-fashioned militia musters had been given up ; the subject had been abandoned as fit only to be the fertile theme for the ridicule of rising writers and witty stump orators. The cannon issued by the government were left for the uses of political parties on the occasion of mass meetings or victories at the polls. The small arms were scattered, rusty, and become worthless. In Chicago a novel drill had been an inducement for the organization of the Ellsworth Zouaves ; and here and there through the West the young men of a city kept up a military company; but these were the exceptions. Popular prejudice against doing military duty was insurmountable, and no name for these exceptional organizations so struck the popular fancy as that of "the Cornstalk Militia."

by the former, but with little success. "And yet," quoting again from Reid, "the organization of Ohio militia was far superior to that existing in any of the states to the westward. All of them combined did not possess so large a militia force as the First Ohio Regiment, then under the command of Colonel King of Dayton."

General Jacob D. Cox, "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War," vol. I, p. 84, has given a graphic account of the military condition of the great state of Ohio at the outbreak of the Rebellion. Governor Dennison on the first call for troops summoned to his aid Captain George B. McClellan, then a railway superintendent, (jeneral Cox says :

"The next morning McClellan requested me to accompany him to the state arsenal, to see what arms and material might be there. We found a few boxes of smooth-bore muskets which had once been issued to militia companies and had been returned rusted and damaged. No belts, cartridge-boxes, or other accoutrements were with them. There were two or three smooth-bore brass fieldpieces, 6-pounders, which had been honey-combed by firing salutes, and of which the vents had been worn out, bushed and worn out again. In a heap in one corner lav a confused pile of mildewed harness which had been once used for artillerv horses, but was now not worth carrying away. There had for many \'ears been no money appropriated to buy military material or even to protect the little the state had. The Federal government had occasionally distributed some arms which were in -the hands of the independent uniformed militia, and the arsenal was simply an empty store-house. It did not take long to complete our inspection. At the door, as we were leaving the building, McClellan turned, and, looking back into its emptiness, remarked, half humorously and half sadly. 'A fine stock of munitions on which to begin a great war !' "

Scanty as were Ohio's military supplies they far surpassed those of Indiana and of most of the northern states. In Indiana there was not the semblance of a state militia organization. Even the "cornstalk" musters had almost passed out of mind. There were not muskets enough in the whole state to arm a single regiment, to sa\' nothing of uniforms, tents, knapsacks and the other equipments essential to actual military service. Now 500,000 men were not onlv to be raised but equipped. Not only were they to be equipped but they were to be drilled and ilisciplined, to be organized in regiments, brigades, divisions, corps, and armies, and officers were to be found competent to command all these military organizations. The work to be done was of stupendous magnitude. The first of the great armies organized in the North was that for the defense of Washington, and, whatever may be said of General McClellan, it must be conceded that the country owes to him a great debt for his untiring labor in fashioning from the crude material with which he was supplied that great army afterward known as the Army of the Potomac. Looking back over the history of the Civil War, nothing in it is so wonderful as the transformation in so short a time of the men taken from the fields, the shops and other civil pursuits, wholly inexperienced in war, into trained soldiers, and the creation in both North and South of armies such as were never before known in the history of the world.

The most difficult task of all was not, as had been expected, to find the men and the arms and equipments for them, but to find the generals able to lead these great armies to victory. As in many professions, other than that of arms, the education acquired in the schools, indispensable as it may be to success, must be supplemented by the experience acquired in actual practice, and not infrequently it turns out that the bright man at recitations utterly fails to fulfil the expectations raised by his success as a scholar. And so it was with many of the West Point generals. Moreover, the best of the generals developed by the war had much to learn in the field. It Is no discredit to them that all made some mistakes. Marshal Turenne once said : "When a man boasts that he has never made mistakes in war, he convinces me that he has not been long at it." The weeding out of political generals, the failure of one after another of those appointed to command the great armies, went on during four years and cost the North heavily in money and in lives ; in the end, however, generals were found ''fit to stand by the side of Csesar and give direction."

Shortly after the Ball's Bluff disaster another event of great importance occurred. Captain Wilkes, commander of the San Jacinto of the United States Xavy, had seized the Trent, a British mail steamer, in the Bahama channel, and forciblv taken from her ]\Iason and Slidell, Confederate commissioners on their wav to Europe. They were brought to the United States and imprisoned in Fort \\'arren, near Boston. There were some mitigating circumstances, but it is now generally conceded that the seizure was a plain violation of international law. It immediately stirred up a great ferment both in England and in America. It very nearly caused Great Britain to declare war against the Federal government, or at least to recognize the Southern Confederacy. Either course at that time would have been fatal to the Union cause. There was nothing to do but promptly return the Confederate commissioners. This was done, and upon Secretary Seward devolved the delicate task of pacifying the English government and at the same time mollifying the wrath of those in the North who have never got be}ond the idea that twisting the tail of the British lion is the acme of American statesmanship. It is needless to say that Seward accomplished his task with consummate diplomatic skill.

When Congress met in December, 186', one of its first acts was the appointment of a joint committee consisting of three members of the Senate and four of the House, thereafter known as the Committee on the Conduct of the War, of which Senator Wade of Ohio was made chairman. He continued to serve as such during the war. We are told by Nicolay and Hay: "Abraham Lincoln," vol 5, pp. 1 50-1. the eminent historians, that this committee "was for four years one of the most important agencies in the country. It assumed, and was sustained by Congress in assuming, a great range of prerogative. It became a stern anrl zealous censor of both the army and the government ; it called soldiers and statesmen before it. and questioned them like refractory schoolboys. It claimed to speak for the loyal people of the United States, and this claim generally met with the sympathy and support of a majority of the people's representatives in Congress assembled. It was often hasty and unjust in its judgments, but always earnest, patriotic and honest : it was assailed with furious denunciation and defended with headlong and indiscriminating eulogy ; and on the whole it must be said to have merited more praise than blame."

One of the first matters investigated by the committee was the humiliating afi'air at Ball's Bluff. The investigation is a fair illustration of the difficulties under which the Federal generals labored in the early part of the war. The country was smarting under the disaster and, as is usual in such cases, a scapegoat was demanded and General Stone was the unfortunate victim selected. He was suspected of having held treasonable correspondence with the enemy and, by an order issued from the office of the Secretary of War, he was arrested and imprisoned for six months in Fort Lafayette. No formal charges were filed, but a secret investigation was held by the Committee on the Conduct of the War. He was not permitted to confront the witnesses against him. nor was he informed what testimony they had given; in vain he demanded a hearing; in vain he demanded a copy of the charges against him. At last such a commotion was raised over the arbitrary proceedings by which he was deprived of his liberty that the authorities were compelled to release him. No one now doubts his loyalty and it has since been shown that the evidence upon which he was imprisoned was totally unworthy of credit. The case stands as a striking illustration of the necessity, even in time of war, of jealously guarding the individual liberty of the citizen.

Before the meeting of Congress in December, 1861, General McClellan had gathered together the greatest army ever known in America. It is true that it was not made up of veteran soldiers, but neither was the Confederate army under the command of General Joseph E. Johnston confronting Washington. AIc- Clellan's troops were as well disciplined and as well equipped as Johnston's and numbered twice as many. But ]\IcClellan"s army had been in camp for five months and had made no advance nor any sign of an advance. The whole country was impatient at this delay and the demand in the North was loud and emphatic for a more vigorous prosecution of the war. One of the first changes made in response to this demand was the resignation of Simon Cameron as Secretary of War and the appointment of Edwin ]\1. Stanton as his successor. All efforts to induce ]\IcClellan to move had so far proved unavailing. Even Lincoln's patience had been exhausted, and in an interview wath Generals ^IcDowell and Franklin, January 10, 1862, he said in his homely way that "if something was not soon done the bottom would be out of the whole affair; and if General Mc- Qellan did not want to use the army he would like to borrow it, provided he could see how^ it could be made to do something. ""

LTider the constitution Lincoln, by virtue of his office, was commander-in-chief of the armies and navies of the United States. He was, however, totally destitute of military education. Appreciating his deficiencies in this respect he diligently studied books of strategy, poured over the reports of the department commanders, familiarized himself wath maps, and in every way sought to understand the military situation. The generals with whom he consulted w^ere surprised, or pretended to be surprised, at his familiarity with technical military learning and with the .acuteness of his suggestions. Fie discussed with McQellan and other generals not only their own plans for the advance to Richmond, but some which he himself had conceived. At a later date he undertook to unfold a favorite plan to Grant. Grant tells us that he "listened respectfully." He did not tell Lincoln, but he tells the readers of his Memoirs, w^hy Lincoln's scheme was impracticable, and adds this brief and characteristic sentence : 'T did not communicate my plans to the President, nor did I to the Secretary of \\^ar or to General Halleck."

The chief need now of the Union cause was a competent, responsible head with intelHgence to direct, and power to enforce the conduct of miUtary operations comformably to some general systematic plan. After the appointment of the Committee on the Conduct of the War and of Stanton as Secretary of War, IMcClellan was general-in-chief in name only. All his plans were subjected to the scrutiny not only of the President, but of the Committee on the Conduct of the War and of Stanton, whose influence in military operations was now more powerful than that of President, committee, and general-in-chief combined. The difficulties incident to such divided responsibility and conflicting counsels were intensified when, on March 12, 1862, McClellan was deprived of authority as general-in-chief and his command was limited to that of the Army of the Potomac. For four months after that date there was no general-in-chief of the Federal armies and each department commander was left to work out his own plans without reference to those of other commanders, modified only by such orders as came from Washington. It was not until July 11, 1862, when General Henry W. Halleck was appointed general-in-chief. that there was a responsible head of the Federal armies.

Three of the men already mentioned became very prominent in the Civil War - Stanton, Halleck, and McClellan. Stanton, the new Secretary of War, was a man of great intellectual strength, of sterling honesty, of boundless energy, and of vast executive ability. Though of Quaker descent he was a man of the type of Oliver Cromwell. Men of this type are necessary in great emergencies, but the very qualities that make them valuable are also apt to make them at times arbitrary and tyrannical. Stanton had been Attorney General under President Buchanan and, according to McClellan, was wont, before he became Secretary of War, to speak of Lincoln as the "original gorilla," shocking McClellan by the virulence with which he abused the President, his administration, and the Republican party. But, after becoming Secretary of War, he speedily developed into the most radical of the Radicals. He favored the policy of emancipation long before the proclamation was issued and was one of the earliest advocates of the arming of the negroes. He was a man who brooked no opposition and whose dislikes were relentless and enduring. He assumed toward Lincoln the attitude of a self-constituted guardian rather than that of a subordinate officer, and there is no doubt that he was often exasperated by Lincoln's seeming irresolution and disgusted with his jests.

It is probable that Halleck while general-in-chief was little more than Stanton's scribe. The latter soon became hostile to McClellan and to Rosecrans. His injustice to Thomas before the battle of Nashville has never been satisfactorily explained, nor has it ever been forgotten by the friends of that illustrious commander. In Grant, Stanton at last found a general whose iron will and stubborn tenacity of purpose were superior to his own. Grant's opinion of Stanton is expressed without any circumlocution. He says :

"Owing to his natural disposition to assume all power and control in all matters that he had an.ything whatever to do with, he boldly took command of the armies, and, while issuing no orders on the subject, prohibited any order from me going out of the adjutant-general's office until he had approved it. This was done by directing the adjutant-general to hold any orders that came from me to be issued from the adjutant-general's office until he had examined them and given his approval. He never disturbed himself, either, in examining my orders until it was entirely convenient for him ; so that orders which I had prepared would often lie there three or four days before he would sanction them. I remonstrated against this in writing, and the Secretary apologetically restored me to my rightful position of general-in-chief of the army. But he soon lapsed again and took control much as before."

"Mr. Stanton never questioned his own authority to command, unless resisted. He cared nothing for the feeling of others. In fact it seemed to be pleasanter to him to disappoint than to gratify. He felt no hesitation in assuming the functions of the executive, or in acting without advising with him. If his act was not sustained, he would change it - if he saw the matter would be followed up until he did so."

Throughout Grant's Memoirs it is easy to perceive the trouble he experienced with both Stanton and Halleck. Probably no enemy in front ever caused him so much annoyance as did these two Federal officials in the rear. During the four months, from March 12 to July 11, 1862, when the Union armies were without a general-in-chief, Stanton was virtually military dictator, for his imperious will was too strong to be curbed by Lincoln. Whatever his abilities in other directions, he did not have the military education qualifying him to direct the operations of the armies in the field, and McClellan maintains, and with some reason, that the disasters following the Peninsular campaign were in no small part due to Stanton's ignorant and arbitrary interference.

Consistently with the policy of inconsistency, which seemed at the time to govern the military plans of the Federal authorities at Washington, Halleck, who had demonstrated his utter incompetence to accomplish anything with an army of 100,000 men in his own department, had been appointed general-in-chief of all the Federal armies. Only two excuses have ever been offered for his appointment : That General Scott favored him as his successor, and that it was desired to give General Grant full command of Halleck's department where it was thought the latter's jealousy of Grant's rising fame was keeping him in the background. Whatever were the motives for Halleck's appointment as general-in-chief, there is now almost entire unanimity respecting his unfitness for the place. McClellan, in "McClellan's Own Story," p. 137, says of him:

^'Of all men whom I have encountered in high position, Halleck was the most hopelessly stupid. It was more difficult to get an idea through his head than can be conceived by any who never made the attempt. I do not think he ever had a correct military idea from beginning to end."

Swinton, in his "Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac," p. 170. a less prejudiced witness than McClellan, speaks of Halleck as "the incalculable obstruction of the conduct of the war, and the intolerable annoyance of every general commanding the Army of the Potomac." Halleck's jealousy of Grant became apparent at an early period. Soon after the surrender of Fort Donelson, Grant went to Nashville to consult with General Buell, whereupon Halleck sent to McClellan, then general-in-chief, a dispatch containing this outrageous charge :

He left his command without my authority and went to Nashville. His army seems to be as much demoralized by the victory of Fort Donelson as was that of the Potomac by the defeat of Bull Run. It is hard to censure a successful g-eneral immediately after a victory, but I think he richly deserves it. I can get no returns, no reports, no information of any kind from him. Satisfied with his victory, he sits down and enjoys it without any regard to the future. I am worn out and tired with this neglect and inefficiency. Charles F. Smith is almost the only officer equal to the emergency."

Afterward, Halleck wrote Grant that his conduct had occasioned "vcrv serious complaint at Washington," and tried to make him believe that it was his own interference in his behalf that saved him from the disgrace of an arrest. Halleck's downright duplicity in this affair is very clearly exposed bv both Grant and McClellan.

Sherman was even more incensed than Grant against both Stanton and Halleck. His preliminary negotiations with General Joseph E. Johnston just at the end of the war have since been fully explained, but at the time, largelv through the distorted construction of them by Stanton, they excited great indignation in the North against Sherman, causing that great soldier much mortification. Shortly before that time Halleck had been appointed to the command of the Department of Virginia with headquarters at Richmond, and he took it on himself to send a dispatch to Stanton containing this extraordinary suggestion :

"The bankers here have information today that Jeff Davis' specie is moving South from Goldsborough ;n wagons as fast as possible. I suggest that orders be telegraphed through General Thomas that Wilson obey no orders from Sherman," etc.

"You were some days ago notified that the President disapproved Sherman's proceedings and were directed to disregard them. If you have not already done so, you will issue immediate orders to all officers in your command, directing flic in to pay no attention to any orders hut your own or from General Grant," etc.

The insulting character of this order conveying, as it did, a scandalous insinuation against Sherman's loyalty, will be better understood when it is remembered that Generals Thomas and Wilson were at that time subordinate officers under General Sherman, and that he and his victorious army, after the conspicuous services they had rendered the Union cause, were then on their way to Washington. Grant, in his '\Menwirs," tells how Sherman resented Halleck's insult :

"It was during this trip that the last outrage was conmiitted upon him. Halleck had been sent to Richmond to command Virginia, and had issued orders prohibiting even Sherman's own troops from obeying his, Sherman's, orders. Sherman met the papers on his return, containing this order of Halleck, and very justly felt indignant at the outrage. On his arrival at Fortress Monroe returning from Savannah, Sherman received an invitation from Halleck to come to Richmond and be his guest. This he indignantly refused, and informed Halleck, furthermore, that he had seen his order. He also stated that he was coming up to take command of his troo])s, and as he marched through it would probably be as well for Halleck not to show himself, because he (Sherman) would not be responsible for what some rash person might do through indignation for the treatment he had received." '

Grant also says, in his "Memoirs," that at the grand review in Washington after the close of the war, Sherman '^'showed his resentment for the cruel and harsh treatment that had unnecessarily been inflicted upon him by the Secretary of War, by refusing to take his extended hand." At that time Halleck, at least, who had just emerged from a year's obscurity at Washington, had become a very insignificant figure in comparison with the illustrious soldier who had completed a triumphant march through the heart of the Confederacy, and Stanton was no longer the military dictator that he had been for over three years.

As general-in-chief Halleck conducted military operations at long range from Washington - never appearing on a field of battle, but sending telegraphic dispatches and voluminous letters, planning on paper vast campaigns utterly impossible of execution in the field, and so hampering all the generals in front as to make it impossible for them to execute any plans of their own.

Of ]\IcClellan it is safe to say that there are few at this day that question his loyalty, of which there was, during the war, a widespread suspicion. Of his military abilities and operations it is perhaps not possible, even at this day, to form a just and impartial estimate. There is no doubt, however, that he was constantly embarrassed and thwarted by the orders that he received from Washington and by the relentless hostility of Stanton. This is clear from the evidence that he himself has furnished. In view of the constant interference with his plans, the wonder now is that he accomplished as much as he did. That he himself felt stung to desperation by what he believed to be the persecution of Stanton is indicated by his remarkable dispatch to the latter June 28, 1862, in which he said :

"If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you or to any other persons in Washington. You have done your best to sacrifice this army."

When McClellan took command of the troops at Washington immediately after the first battle of Bull Run, he found the city full of stragglers and round about in regiments camped indiscriminately here and there without even a brigade organization, or general organization of any kind ; without any systematic fortifications or defenses, and even without pickets on some of the roads leading to the capital. McClellan took these unorganized troops, together with the raw recruits that were afterward added, organized, trained, and disciplined them, and out of them fashioned the magnificent Army of the Potomac. He took that army again and with it won a great victory at Antietam ; he had never shown so much vigor and generalship as he exhibited immediately before and during this battle, and at the time when he was finally removed from the command of the Army of the Potomac he had the unbounded confidence of all the officers and men under his command.

But McClellan's great faults as a general were that he never ceased preparing for a forward movement, and that he was perpetually exaggerating the strength of the enemy in his front. The chief drawback, however, to his success as a general was a delusion of which he was possessed that he had been predestined from all eternity to be a Moses and Washington combined and to go down to posterity as the savior of his country, his memory surrounded with a halo of glory and his fame forever growing more resplendent. Therefore he undertook not only to conduct the military operations entrusted to him, but to advise Lincoln how to discharge his duties as President. In a long letter to the latter, dated July 7, 1862, and since published in "McClellan's Own Story," p. 497, he said :

"Neither confiscation of property, political execution of persons, territorial organization of states, or forcible abolition of slavery should be contemplated for allowed to interfere with the relations of servitude, either by supporting or impairing the authority of the master, except for the repressing disorder, as in other cases."

In the same letter he assured Lincoln : "A declaration oi radical views, especially upon slavery, will rapidly disintegrate our present armies."

Such sentiments ill suited the radical element then in control of the Republican party, but greatly elated those in the North who were denouncing the prosecution of the war as an Abolition crusade and who were loudly complaining of arbitrary arrests. The radical leaders of the Republican party could not believe that a man with such sentiments as those advocated by McClellan was fit to lead the armies of the Union to victory, and their conviction of his unfitness was strengthened by his acceptance in 1864 of the nomination for President on a "Peace at any price" platform.

It is probable, however, that future generations, uninfluenced by the intense political prejudices that swayed McClellan's contemporaries, will judge him more leniently. The spirit of justice that, after many years, brought about the vindication of General Fitz-John Porter may be depended upon to correct, as far as it is possible to correct the errors of the past, whatever injustice may have been done to McClellan. In McClellan's Ozvn Story he has made a strong defense against many of the aspersions that at an early period were accepted by his political opponents as undoubted facts. His admirers, however, will probably never succeed in convincing the American people that if he had been given all the men and all the opportunities that Grant had, he would ever lii.ve accomplished what Grant accomplished.

The wonder is that under such conflicting and incompetent management the Union cause did not speedily fall to pieces. It did not, because military operations in the South were conducted under still greater difificulties. The South, from the beginning, was inferior to the North in men, in munitions of war, and in material resources, but had the great advantage of being on the defensive in the inner circle or interior lines which made them in every way equal to the North. It excelled the North, however, in its abundant yield of political generals, but this proved to be a constant source of weakness. Moreover, if the generals of the North were perplexed with the interference of Stanton and the Committee on the Conduct of the War, the southern generals were still more harassed by the perpetual interference of Jefiferson Davis, who affords a striking illustration of the truth of the saying that "a little learning is a dangerous thing." Priding himself on being a West Point graduate and puffed up with exaggerated notions of his military acquirements, he imagined himself profoundly versed in the art of war.

Acting on this assumption, he constantly thwarted the plans of all the Confederate generals, addling the weaker and confusing the stronger, by suggestions and advice springing from his conceited superiority as a military strategist.

With the extraordinary vanity of Davis was combined an uncontrollable propensity to boast of the anticipated results of his military schemes thus betraying to the enemy in advance plans which a careful general would have taken all pains to conceal. On several occasions the Federal generals gained the first and most reliable information of proposed movements of the Confederate armies from the boastful speeches of Davis as reported in the southern newspapers. It was in this way that Grant was advised of the purpose of Longstreet's advance against Burnside, and Sherman of Hood's proposed invasion of Tennessee. Pollard, a southern historian, in "The Lost Cause," p. 456, speaking of the withdrawal of Longstreet's corps during the siege of Chattanooga, says :

"This extraordinary military movement was the work of President Davis, who seems, indeed, to have had a singular fondness for erratic campaigns. His visits to every battle-field of the Confederacy were ominous. He disturbed the plans of his generals ; his military conceit led him into the wildest schemes ; and so much did he fear that the public would not ascribe to him the hoped-for results of the visionary project, that his vanity invariably divulged it, and successes were foretold in public speeches with such boastful plainness, as to put the enemy on his guard and inform him of the general nature of the enterprise."

"The catastrophe moved President Davis in Richmond, and mortified the vanity that had so recently proclaimed the security of Atlanta under the command of Hood. He determined to visit Hood's new lines, to plan with him a new campaign, to compensate for the loss of Atlanta, and to take every possible occasion to raise the hopes and confidence of the people. It is remarkable that the visits of the Confederate President to the armies were always the occasions of some far-fetched and empirical plan .of operations, and were always accompanied with vapors and boasts that unduly exalted the public mind. Davis never spoke of military matters without a certain ludicrous boastfulness, which he maintained to the last event of the war. It was not swagger or affection ; it was the sincere vagary of a mind intoxicated with conceit when occupied with a subject where it imagined it found its forte, but where in fact it had least aptitude. Mr. Davis, as a military commander or adviser, was weak, fanciful to excess, and much too vain to keep his own counsels. As he traveled toward Hood's lines, he made excited speeches in South Carolina and Georgia. At Macon he declared that Atlanta would be recovered; that Sherman would be brought to grief; and that this Federal commander 'would meet the fate that befell Napoleon in the retreat from Moscow." These swollen assertions, so out of character, were open advertisements to the enemy of a new plan of operations."

If Davis had ever heard it, he evidently did not appreciate the pith of the witty saying attributed to John Adams who is reported to have added, after commenting on a portrait of George Washington : "And that old wooden-head made his fortune by keeping his mouth shut."

Indiana Infantry

Union cause during the first four months of the year 1862. At the beginning of the year the national capital was deemed secure. Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland and West Virginia had been kept in the Union. On January 19 General Thomas defeated the Confederates in an engagement at Mill Springs, in which the Confederate General Zollicoffer was killed. General Grant, aided by Flag Officer Foote and his gunboats, captured Fort Henry February 7 and Fort Donelson February 16, with over 10,000 prisoners, forty cannon, and immense stores. The day after the surrender of Fort Henry a permanent footing on the coast of North Carolina was gained at the battle of Roanoke Island by General Burnside and the navy under Commodore- Goldsborough. On March 8 General Curtis defeated General Price at Pea Ridge, and the next day the Monitor practically destroyed the Merrhnac in Hampton Roads. In the month of April a great battle, resulting in a Union victory, had been fought at Shiloh, in which General Albert Sidney Johnston, regarded as the greatest of Confederate generals, had lost his life, and in the same month Farragut captured New Orleans. In some portions of nearly all the Confederate states the Federal land or naval forces had gained a foothold.

The importance of these victories, coming at this time, can hardly be overestimated. For nearly its entire length above and below Vicksburg the Mississippi was now open to Federal gunboats, and the territory west of that river was practically cut off from the Confederacy, while the possession of New Orleans was of vast importance in many ways to the Union cause. The drooping spirits of the North revived. President Lincoln issued a proclamation for a special Thanksgiving, and so clearly did events point to a speedy termination of the war, that, for a time, further recruiting was stopped by order of the Federal government, and Governor Morton was requested to cease purchasing arms.

This order for the discontinuance of recruiting is given in full in McClellan's Own Story^ p. 258. It was issued from the Adjutant General's office April 3. 1862, and directed that "The recruiting service for volunteers will be discontinued in every state from this date,"' and that "The superintendents of the Volunteer Recruiting Service will disband their parties and close their offices, after having taken the necessary steps to carry out these orders." The extraordinary character of the order will be more fully apparent when it is considered that it was issued just after McClellan had started on his Peninsular campaign and only three days before the beginning of the battle of Shiloh.

Before the year was half gone the northern skies were again overcast with the shadow of disasters that came thick and fast. While the western armies and the navy were achieving splendid victories, the great Army of the Potomac was resting idly in camp. The Fall and Winter of 1861 had passed and the Spring of 1862 was far advanced, and still that magnificent army had done nothing. The daily dispatch, "All quiet on the Potomac," at first conveying a cheering assurance of the safety of the national capital, now excited only derision, and was accepted as further proof of the inefficiency of McQellan and his army.

McClellan should have moved on February 22 - indeed long before that time. The northern press, the leading members of Congress, and Stanton and Chase, the two most influential members of the cabinet, were urgently, almost furiously demanding that McClellan be forced to advance or be removed from command.

Stanton was already bitterly hostile to McClellan. Chase was equally so, and at one of the cabinet meetings, to which McClellan had been invited for a discussion of his plans, bluntly asked him whether he intended to move at all and, if so, when. Lincoln still clung to McClellan, but was continually urging him to advance. To all his appeals McClellan pleaded for more re-enforcements, though it was then generally believed, and is now known to be a fact, that ]\IcGellan had twice as manv men as the Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston, who was in his front. Finally, after many cabinet meetings and councils of war, interviews, and consultations, the Army of the Potomac started March 17 on what is known as the Peninsular campaign. The story of it is sorrowful reading. It lasted about three months. In that time the Federal army had been in sight of Richmond. At the end of it, after seven days of battle, it had retreated to the river James, arriving at Harrison's Landing July 3 with a loss of over 15,000 men. ^McClellan laid the blame for his failure upon Stanton and Halleck, while they charged it to him. (~)n August 3 Halleck ordered McClellan to abandon the Peninsular altogether and to withdraw his army to Acquia Creek. Against this order Mc Qellan earnestly protested, but his protest was not heeded. The change of base by the Army of the Potomac exposed Washington to an attack by the Confederate armies, and, to avert this danger, the troops scattered over northern Virginia, under the commands of Fremont, McDowell, and Banks, about 50,000 in all, were hastily patched together and called the Army of Virginia, over which General Pope, suddenly called from the West, was placed in command. McQellan was ordered to Washington and the Army of the Potomac was for a time virtually without a commander. Pope, the young Lochinvar who had so unexpectedly come out of the West, signalized his assumption of command by an address characterized by Ropes as one of the most ''extraordinary in military annals," extraordinary alike for its bombast and for its tone of insult to the eastern soldiers over whom he had taken command. In this address, together with much like stuff. Pope said :

"Let us understand each other. I have come to you from the West zi'Jiere zi.'e liai'e always seen the backs of our enemies; from an army whose business it has been to seek the adversary and to beat him when he was found ; whose policy has minds certain phrases which I am sorry to find in vogue amongst you. I hear constantly of taking strong positions and holding them - of lines of retreat and bases of supplies. Let us discard such ideas."

The woeful outcome of Pope's boasts made them all the more ridiculous. The Army of \'irginia lasted only about two months, long enough, however, to be demolished at the second battle of Bull Run. Pope afterward complained that the rcnmants of his army had been so scattered by McClellan that he (Pope) could not tell what had become of them. The Army of Virginia had vanished forever, and never again appeared in the list of Union armies. The fragments of it which escaped, together with the portions of the Army of the Potomac that had been sent to re-enforce it, found their way back to Washington September 2d. Again the Army of the Potomac was in the trenches about Washington, confronted by the army of Lee ; the cabinet was in a panic ; the North was in dread of invasion ; Halleck was helpless ; and Lincoln, in utter despair, was obliged to appeal to Mc- Clellan to save the national capital.

On jVlarch ii, 1862, the departments formerly commanded by Generals Halleck, Hunter and Buell were merged into the Department of the Mississippi in order to give Halleck control of all the armies that took part in the battle of Shiloh, and after the battle these armies were all consolidated into one, divided into the right wing, left wing, center, reserve, and cavalry, under the respective commands of Generals George H. Thomas, Don Carlos Buell, John Pope, John A. McClernand, and Andrew J. Smith. Halleck assumed chief command and Grant was announced as second. By this contrivance Grant was made a fifth wheel and \\ as temporarily shelved.

Xo other Federal general in the Civil ^^''ar ever had such an opportunitv as that now afforded Halleck. Had Grant been in his place it is possible that the war might have been brought to a speedy termination ; it is at least highl}- probable that its duration would have been greatly shortened. But, unfortunately for the country, Halleck was unequal to the opportunity. Although he had a great armv of over 100,000 men, more than twice that of the Confederate army under Beauregard confronting him, he avoided bringing on a general engagement, proceeded to advance against Corinth, about twenty miles distant, after the old fashion of gradual approaches by parallels, and going along at a snail's pace arrived there ]May 30 to find that the Confederate army had safely retreated.

For a few days the North was fed on bombastic dispatches from Halleck to the eftect that "General Pope with 40,000 men is thirty miles south of Corinth pushing the enemy hard."" and that "he alreadv reports 10.000 prisoners and deserters from the enemy and 15,000 stand of arms captured. The countrv was chagrined to find a few days later that the pleasing story told in Halleck's dispatches was a hoax. All the blame, however, was laid on Pope. We know now, moreover, that Halleck's orders to Pope were not to press the Confederates so hard as to bring on a battle.

Halleck next proceeded to break up his army and to scatter over the country the various parts of which it had been composed, Buell being ordered to advance into east Tennessee. The. movement which Buell was ordered to make, a very important one if pushed with energy and celerity, was neutralized bv the condition imposed upon him that, as he marched, he should repair the IMemphis and Charleston railroad. Buell strongly protested against frittering away precious time by repairing a railroad that ran parallel to the enemy's lines, which, when repaired, could not be depended upon as a safe line of communication, but his protests were overruled by Halleck.

The Confederates had now determined to make another eft'ort to regain Tennessee and Kentucky, and, while it was yet uncertain what would be the line of advance, it soon became apparent that the Confederate Army of the Tennessee intended to take the offensive. The forerunners of the projected Confederate advance were the forces under General John ]\Iorgan and General Forrest, which soon began to play havoc with Buell's communications, destroying railroad bridges, cai)turing garrisons and creating widespread consternation in Kentucky. Before the middle of August it became apparent that Kentucky was to be invaded by General Kirby Smith through Cumberland Gap and by General Bragg, who had succeeded to the command of the Confederate Army of the Tennessee, marching north toward Louisville.

Long before the removal of either AlcClellan or Buell, the commanders of the two great armies in the East and in the West, the people of the North had begun to distrust both. It was suspected that they were lacking in the earnest devotion to the Union essential to the general who would lead its armies to victory. The great commanders who were to do this were yet in the background. After the surrender of Fort Donelson the people of the North had begun to talk of "Unconditional Surrender" Grant, who was beginning to be famous ; but Halleck was jealous of him as were other generals ; he was assailed in Congress and in portions of the northern press for his conduct of the battle of Shiloh, and his former victories had already been overshadowed by his repeated failures to take Vicksburg. The newspapers of the North were ridiculing his attempts to dig a channel that would allow the passage of vessels around Vicksburg and were bitterly complaining of his retention in command of his army.

Referring to these failures of Grant, and to Sherman, his most trusted subordinate, one of the coarsest and most reckless of the newspapers said that "the army was being ruined in mud-turtle expeditions under the leadership of a drunkard, whose confidenial adviser was a lunatic."

Senator Ben Wade, the blufif, honest, but impulsive chairman of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, a man of powerful influence in Congress and in the national councils, vehemently urged the removal of Grant, at the same time giving the President the cheerful assurance that he was leading the government to hell, which at that minute was not a mile off. But for the strong support of Representative Elihu B. A\'ashburn and the steadfast friendship of Lincoln, Grant probably would have been relegated during the remainder of the war to some obscure position in which it would have been impossible for him to display the soldierly qualities that afterward placed him in the front rank of the world's great commanders.

Alexander K. McClure, an active and influential Republican politician of Pennsylvania, was one of those who urged upon Lincoln the removal of Grant and he has given us an interesting account of it. He ^labored with Lincoln from 1 1 o'clock one night until i o'clock the next morning. He says :

"I pressed upon him, with all the earnestness I could command, the immediate removal of Grant as an imperious necessity to sustain himself. As was his custom, he said but little, only enough to make me continue the discussion until it was exhausted. He sat before the open fire in the old Cabinet room, most of the time with his feet up on the high marble mantel, and exhibited unusual distress at the complicated condition of military aflfairs. Nearly every day brought some new and perplexing military complication. He had gone through a long Winter of terrible strain with McClellan and the Army of the Potomac ; and from the day that Grant started on his southern expedition until the battle of Shiloh he had had little else than jarring and confusion among his generals in the W^est. He knew that I had no ends to serve in urging Grant's removal, beyond the single desire to make him be just to himself, and he listened patiently.

"I appealed to Lincoln for his own sake to remove Grant at once, and in giving my reasons for it I simply voiced the admittedly overwhelming protest from the loyal people of the land against Grant's continuance in command. I could form no judgment during the conversation as to what effect my arguments had upon him beyond the fact that he was greatly distressed at this new conipHcation. When I had said everything that could be said from my standpoint, we lapsed into silence. Lincoln remained silent for what seemed a very long- time. He then gathered himself up in his chair and said in a tone of earnestness that I shall never "forget : 7 can't spare this man; he fights.' That was all he said, but I knew that it was enough, and that Grant was safe in Lincoln's hands against his countless host of enemies.'"

The Confederate plan was that General Bragg should invade Kentucky, march on Louisville, destroy Buell's communications, and force his army back to the Ohio River. This meant that the invasion of Kentucky, if successful, would be speedily followed by the invasion of Indiana and Ohio. Indiana had gained some idea of what was involved in an invasion by a hostile army, when in Julv a band of Confederates crossed the Ohio and sacked the town of Newburg, situated on the river a few miles below Evansville.

The loyal citizens of Kentucky were appealing to Governor Morton for aid. The people of Indiana were apprehensive for their own homes. Not a moment was to be lost. The President had called for 300,000 more volunteers. The emergency was pressing. The difficulty of raising the troops required, and the greater difficulty of equipping them, were apparently insurmountable. But nothing daunted Morton. He at once began the work. On July 12th he addressed a great war meeting at Indianapolis, and all over the State similar meetings were held. \'olunteers came forward faster than they could be mustered into service ; a new mustering officer was called and all the energies of the state government were taxed to the utmost. The result is briefly told in some of Morton's telegrams as given by Foulke :

"August 21. I sent another regiment last night; a battery will go to-morrow. The Sixty Ninth has started. Tlie Seventy Fifth leaves at 6 p. m. and the Seventy Fourth at 9 p. m. to-day for Louisville."

"August 26. The Seventy Ninth leaves Tuesday; will hurry others; Indiana has put 14,480 men in Kentucky up to Friday last; this will make it 19,296 by Thursday, this week. This includes two batteries."

"August 30. The Eighty Ninth leaves this afternoon. The Eighty First and Eighty Second will be armed to-day. Two regiments will start to-morrow, and five more will be ready next week."

"August 31. The Eighty Eighth is at the depot. The Eighty Seventh will be in Louisville to-morrow morning. Two regiments leave to-day and two more to-night."