They could defend the first line, or they could meet the enemy with a counter-attack from a position in rear, and in both cases they could pursue. But the pursuit was never to be carried beyond certain defined limits. Moreover, Wellington"s views as to the efficacy of the counterstroke were identical with those of Jackson, and he had the same predilection for cold steel. "If they attempt this point again, Hill," were his orders to that general at Busaco, "give them a volley and charge bayonets; but don"t let your people follow them too far."
But it was neither wise strategy nor sound tactics which was the main element in Pope"s defeat; neither the strong effort of a powerful brain, nor the judicious devolution of responsibility. A brilliant military historian, more conversant perhaps with the War of Secession than the wars of France, concludes his review of this campaign with a reference to Jackson as "the Ney of the Confederate army."* (*
Swinton. Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac.) The allusion is obvious. So long as the victories of Napoleon are remembered, the name of his lieutenant will always be a synonym for heroic valour.
But the valour of Ney was of a different type from that of Jackson.
Ney"s valour was animal, Jackson"s was moral, and between the two there is a vast distinction. Before the enemy, when his danger was tangible, Ney had few rivals. But when the enemy was unseen and his designs were doubtful, his resolution vanished. He was without confidence in his own resources. He could not act without direct orders, and he dreaded responsibility. At Bautzen his timidity ruined Napoleon"s combinations; in the campaign of Leipsic he showed himself incapable of independent command; and he cannot be acquitted of hesitation at Quatre Bras.
It was in the same circ.u.mstances that Ney"s courage invariably gave way that Jackson"s courage shone with the brightest l.u.s.tre. It might appear that he had little cause for fear in the campaign of the Second Mana.s.sas, that he had only to follow his instructions, and that if he had failed his failure would have been visited upon Lee.
The instructions which he received, however, were not positive, but contingent on events. If possible, he was to cut the railway, in order to delay the reinforcements which Pope was expecting from Alexandria; and then, should the enemy permit, he was to hold fast east of the Bull Run Mountains until Lee came up. But he was to be guided in everything by his own discretion. He was free to accept battle or refuse it, to attack or to defend, to select his own line of retreat, to move to any quarter of the compa.s.s that he pleased.
For three days, from the morning of August 26 to the morning of August 29, he had complete control of the strategic situation; on his movements were dependent the movements of the main army; the bringing the enemy to bay and the choice of the field of battle were both in his hands. And during those three days he was cut off from Lee and Longstreet. The mountains, with their narrow pa.s.ses, lay between; and, surrounded by three times his number, he was abandoned entirely to his own resources.
Throughout the operations he had been in unusually high spirits. The peril and responsibility seemed to act as an elixir, and he threw off much of his constraint. But as the day broke on August 29 he looked long and earnestly in the direction of Thoroughfare Gap, and when a messenger from Stuart brought the intelligence that Longstreet was through the pa.s.s, he drew a long breath and uttered a sigh of relief.* (* Letter from Dr. Hunter McGuire.) The period of suspense was over, but even on that unyielding heart the weight of anxiety had pressed with fearful force. For three days he had only received news of the main army at long and uncertain intervals. For two of these days his information of the enemy"s movements was very small. While he was marching to Bristoe Station, Pope, for all he knew, might have been marching against Longstreet with his whole force. When he attacked King on the 28th the Federals, in what strength he knew not, still held Thoroughfare Gap; when he formed for action on the 29th he was still ignorant of what had happened to the main body, and it was on the bare chance that Longstreet would force the pa.s.sage that he accepted battle with far superior numbers.
It is not difficult to imagine how a general like Ney, placed in Jackson"s situation, would have trimmed and hesitated: how in his march to Mana.s.sas, when he had crossed the mountains and left the Gap behind him, he would have sent out reconnaissances in all directions, halting his troops until he learned the coast was clear; how he would have dashed at the Junction by the shortest route; how he would have forced his weary troops northward when the enemy"s approach was reported; how, had he reached Sudley Springs, he would have hugged the shelter of the woods and let King"s division pa.s.s unmolested; and, finally, when Pope"s columns converged on his position, have fallen back on Thoroughfare or Aldie. Nor would he have been greatly to blame. Unless gifted with that moral fort.i.tude which Napoleon ranks higher than genius or experience, no general would have succeeded in carrying Lee"s design to a successful issue. In his unhesitating march to Mana.s.sas Junction, in his deliberate sojourn for four-and-twenty hours astride his enemy"s communications, in his daring challenge to Pope"s whole army at Groveton, Jackson displayed the indomitable courage characteristic of the greatest soldiers.
As suggested in the first volume, it is too often overlooked, by those who study the history of campaign, that war is the province of uncertainty. The reader has the whole theatre of war displayed before him. He notes the exact disposition of the opposing forces at each hour of the campaign, and with this in his mind"s eye he condemns or approves the action of the commanders. In the action of the defeated general he usually often sees much to blame; in the action of the successful general but little to admire. But his judgment is not based on a true foundation. He has ignored the fact that the information at his disposal was not at the disposal of those he criticises; and until he realises that both generals, to a greater or less degree, must have been groping in the dark, he will neither make just allowance for the errors of the one, nor appreciate the genius of the other.
It is true that it is difficult in the extreme to ascertain how much or how little those generals whose campaigns have become historical knew of their enemy at any particular moment. For instance, in the campaign before us, we are nowhere told whether Lee, when he sent Jackson to Mana.s.sas Junction, was aware that a portion of McClellan"s army had been shipped to Alexandria in place of Aquia; or whether he knew, on the second day of the battle of Mana.s.sas, that Pope had been reinforced by two army corps from the Peninsula. He had certainly captured Pope"s dispatch book, and no doubt it threw much light on the Federal plans, but we are not aware how far into the future this light projected. We do know, however, that, in addition to this correspondence, such knowledge as he had was derived from reports.
But reports are never entirely to be relied on; they are seldom full, they are often false, and they are generally exaggerated. However active the cavalry, however patriotic the inhabitants, no general is ever possessed of accurate information of his enemy"s dispositions, unless the forces are very small, or the precautions to elude observation very feeble. On August 28 Stuart"s patrols covered the whole country round Jackson"s army, and during the whole day the Federal columns were converging on Mana.s.sas. Sigel and Reynolds" four divisions pa.s.sed through Gainesville, not five miles from Sudley Springs, and for a time were actually in contact with Jackson"s outposts; and yet Sigel and Reynolds mistook Jackson"s outposts for reconnoitring cavalry. Again, when King"s single division, the rear-guard of Pope"s army, appeared upon the turnpike, Jackson attacked it with the idea that it was the flank-guard of a much larger force. Nor was this want of accurate intelligence due to lack of vigilance or to the dense woods. As a matter of fact the Confederates were more amply provided with information than is usually the case in war, even in an open country and with experienced armies.
But if, in the most favourable circ.u.mstances, a general is surrounded by an atmosphere which has been most aptly named the fog of war, his embarra.s.sments are intensified tenfold when he commands a portion of a divided army. Under ordinary conditions a general is at least fully informed of the dispositions of his own forces. But when between two widely separated columns a powerful enemy, capable of crushing each in turn, intervenes; when the movements of that enemy are veiled in obscurity; when anxiety has taken possession of the troops, and the soldiers of either column, striving hopelessly to penetrate the gloom, reflect on the fate that may have overtaken their comrades, on the obstacles that may delay them, on the misunderstandings that may have occurred--it is at such a crisis that the courage of their leader is put to the severest test.
His situation has been compared to a man entering a dark room full of a.s.sailants, never knowing when or whence a blow may be struck against him. The ill.u.s.tration is inadequate. Not only has he to contend with the promptings of his own instincts, but he has to contend with the instincts and to sustain the resolution of his whole army. It is not from the enemy he has most to fear. A time comes in all protracted operations when the nervous energy of the best troops becomes exhausted, when the most daring shrink from further sacrifice, when the desire of self-preservation infects the stoutest veterans, and the will of the ma.s.s opposes a tacit resistance to all further effort. "Then," says Clausewitz, "the spark in the breast of the commander must rekindle hope in the hearts of his men, and so long as he is equal to this he remains their master. When his influence ceases, and his own spirit is no longer strong enough to revive the spirit of others, the ma.s.ses, drawing him with them, sink into that lower region of animal nature which recoils from danger and knows not shame. Such are the obstacles which the brain and courage of the military commander must overcome if he is to make his name ill.u.s.trious." And the obstacles are never more formidable than when his troops see no sign of the support they have expected. Then, if he still moves forward, although his peril increase at every step, to the point of junction; if he declines the temptation, although overwhelming numbers threaten him, of a safe line of retreat; if, as did Jackson, he deliberately confronts and challenges the hostile ma.s.ses, then indeed does the soldier rise to the highest level of moral energy.
Strongly does Napoleon inveigh against operations which entail the division of an army into two columns unable to communicate; and especially does he reprobate the strategy which places the point of junction under the very beard of a concentrated enemy. Both of these maxims Lee violated. The last because he knew Pope, the first because he knew Jackson. It is rare indeed that such strategy succeeds. When all has depended on a swift and unhesitating advance, generals renowned for their ardent courage have wavered and turned aside.
Hasdrubal, divided from Hannibal by many miles and a Consular army, fell back to the Metaurus, and Rome was saved. Two thousand years later, Prince Frederick Charles, divided by a few marches and two Austrian army corps from the Crown Prince, lingered so long upon the leer that the supremacy of Prussia trembled in the balance. But the character of the Virginian soldier was of loftier type. It has been remarked that after Jackson"s death Lee never again attempted those great turning movements which had achieved his most brilliant victories. Never again did he divide his army to unite it again on the field of battle. The reason is not far to seek. There was now no general in the Confederate army to whom he dared confide the charge of the detached wing, and in possessing one such general he had been more fortunate than Napoleon.* (* It is noteworthy that Moltke once, at Koniggratz, carried out the operation referred to; Wellington twice, at Vittoria and Toulouse; Napoleon, although he several times attempted it, and, against inferior numbers, never, except at Ulm, with complete success.)
CHAPTER 2.18. HARPER"S FERRY.
September 1862.
The Confederate operations in Virginia during the spring and summer of 1862 had been successful beyond expectation and almost beyond precedent. Within six months two great armies had been defeated; McClellan had been driven from the Peninsula, and Pope from the Rappahannock. The villages of Virginia no longer swarmed with foreign bayonets. The hostile camps had vanished from her inland counties.
Richmond was free from menace; and in the Valley of the Shenandoah the harvest was gathered in without let or hindrance. Except at Winchester and Martinsburg, where the garrisons, alarmed by the news of Pope"s defeat, were already preparing to withdraw; in the vicinity of Norfolk, and at Fortress Monroe, the invaders had no foothold within the boundaries of the State they had just now overrun; and their demoralised ma.s.ses, lying exhausted behind the fortifications of Washington and Alexandria, were in no condition to resume the offensive. The North had opened the campaign in the early spring with the confident hope of capturing the rebel capital; before the summer was over it was questionable whether it would be able to save its own. Had the rival armies been equally matched in numbers and equipment this result would have hardly been remarkable. The Federals had had great difficulties to contend with--an unknown country, bad roads, a hostile population, natural obstacles of formidable character, statesmen ignorant of war, and generals at loggerheads with the Administration. Yet so superior were their numbers, so ample their resources, that even these disadvantages might have been overcome had the strategy of the Southern leaders been less admirable. Lee, Jackson, and Johnston had played the role of the defender to perfection. No attempt had been made to hold the frontier. Mobility and not earthwork was the weapon on which they had relied. Richmond, the only fortress, had been used as a pivot of operations, and not merely as a shelter for the army. The specious expedient of pushing forward advanced guards to hara.s.s or delay the enemy had been avoided; and thus no opportunity had been offered to the invaders of dealing with the defence in detail, or of raising their own morale by victory over isolated detachments. The generals had declined battle until their forces were concentrated and the enemy was divided. Nor had they fought except on ground of their own choice. Johnston had refused to be drawn into decisive action until McClellan became involved in the swamps of the Chickahominy. Jackson, imitating like his superior the defensive strategy of Wellington and Napoleon, had fallen back to a zone of manoeuvre south of the Ma.s.sanuttons. By retreating to the inaccessible fastness of Elk Run Valley he had drawn Banks and Fremont up the Shenandoah, their lines of communication growing longer and more vulnerable at every march, and requiring daily more men to guard them. Then, rushing from his stronghold, he had dealt his blows, clearing the Valley from end to end, destroying the Federal magazines, and threatening Washington itself; and when the overwhelming ma.s.ses he had drawn on himself sought to cut him off, he had selected his own battle-field, and crushed the converging columns which his skill had kept apart. The hapless Pope, too, had been handled in the same fashion as McClellan, Banks, Shields, and Fremont. Jackson had lured him forward to the Rapidan; and although his retreat had been speedy, Lee had completed his defeat before he could be efficiently supported. But, notwithstanding all that had been done, much yet remained to do.
It was doubtless within the bounds of probability that a second attempt to invade Virginia would succeed no better than the first.
But it was by no means certain that the resolution of the North was not sufficient to withstand a long series of disasters so long as the war was confined to Southern territory; and, at the same time, it might well be questioned whether the South could sustain, without foreign aid, the protracted and exhausting process of a purely defensive warfare. If her tactics, as well as her strategy, could be confined to the defensive; that is, if her generals could await the invaders in selected and prepared positions, and if no task more difficult should devolve upon her troops than shooting down their foes as they moved across the open to the a.s.sault of strong intrenchments, then the hope might reasonably be entertained that she might tire out the North. But the campaign, so far as it had progressed, had shown, if indeed history had not already made it sufficiently clear, that opportunities for such tactics were not likely to occur. The Federal generals had consistently refused to run their heads against earthworks. Their overwhelming numbers would enable them to turn any position, however formidable; and the only chance of success lay in keeping these numbers apart and in preventing them from combining.
It was by strategic and tactical counterstrokes that the recent victories had been won. Although it had awaited attack within its own frontier, the Army of Northern Virginia had but small experience of defensive warfare. With the exception of the actions round Yorktown, of Cross Keys, and of the Second Mana.s.sas, the battles had been entirely aggressive. The idea that a small army, opposed to one vastly superior, cannot afford to attack because the attack is costly, and that it must trust for success to favourable ground, had been effectually dispelled. Lee and Jackson had taught the Southerners that the secret of success lies not in strong positions, but in the concentration, by means of skilful strategy, of superior numbers on the field of battle. Their tactics had been essentially offensive, and it is noteworthy that their victories had not been dearly purchased. If we compare them with those of the British in the Peninsula, we shall find that with no greater loss than Wellington incurred in the defensive engagements of three years, 1810, 1811, 1812, the Confederates had attacked and routed armies far larger in proportion than those which Wellington had merely repulsed.* (*
Wellington"s losses in the battles of these three years were 33,000.
The Confederates lost 23,000 in the Valley and the Seven Days and 10,000 in the campaign against Pope. It is not to be understood, however, that the Duke"s strategy was less skilful or less audacious than Lee"s and Jackson"s. During these three years his army, largely composed of Portuguese and Spaniards, was incapable of offensive tactics against his veteran enemies, and he was biding his time. It was the inefficiency of his allies and the miserable support he received from the English Government that prevented him, until 1813, from adopting a bolder policy.)
But if they had shown that the best defence lies in a vigorous offensive, their offensive had not yet been applied at the decisive point. To make victory complete it is the sounder policy to carry the war into hostile territory. A nation endures with comparative equanimity defeat beyond its own borders. Pride and prestige may suffer, but a high-spirited people will seldom be brought to the point of making terms unless its army is annihilated in the heart of its own country, unless the capital is occupied and the hideous sufferings of war are brought directly home to the ma.s.s of the population. A single victory on Northern soil, within easy reach of Washington, was far more likely to bring about the independence of the South than even a succession of victories in Virginia. It was time, then, for a strategic counterstroke on a larger scale than had hitherto been attempted. The opportunity was ripe. No great risk would be incurred by crossing the Potomac. There was no question of meeting a more powerful enemy. "The Federals, recruited by fresh levies; would undoubtedly be numerically the stronger; and the Confederate equipment, despite the large captures of guns and rifles, was still deficient. But for deficiencies in numbers and in materiel the higher morale and the more skilful leading would make ample compensation. It might safely be inferred that the Northern soldiers would no longer display the cool confidence of Gaines" Mill or even of Malvern Hill. The places of the brave and seasoned soldiers who had fallen would be filled by recruits; and generals who had been out-manoeuvred on so many battle-fields might fairly be expected, when confronted once more with their dreaded opponents, to commit even more egregious errors than those into which they had already fallen.
September 2.
Such were the ideas entertained by Lee and accepted by the President, and on the morning of September 2, as soon as it was found that the Federals had sought shelter under the forts of Alexandria, Jackson was instructed to cross the Potomac, and form the advanced guard of the army of invasion. It may be imagined with what feelings he issued his orders for the march on Leesburg, above which lay an easy ford.
For more than twelve months, since the very morrow of Bull Run, he had persistently advocated an aggressive policy.* (* In Mrs.
Jackson"s Memoirs of her husband a letter is quoted from her brother-in-law, giving the substance of a conversation with General Jackson on the conduct of the war. This letter I have not felt justified in quoting. In the first place, it lacks corroboration; in the second place, it contains a very incomplete statement of a large strategical question; in the third place, the opinions put in Jackson"s mouth are not only contradictory, but altogether at variance with his practice; and lastly, it attributes certain ideas to the general--raising "the black flag." etc.--which his confidential aid officers declare that he never for a moment entertained.) The fierce battles round Richmond and Mana.s.sas he had looked upon as merely the prelude to more resolute efforts. After he had defeated Banks at Winchester he had urged his friend Colonel Boteler to inform the authorities that, if they would reinforce him, he would undertake to capture Washington. The message had been conveyed to Lee. "Tell General Jackson," was the reply of the Commander-in-Chief, "that he must first help me to drive these people away from Richmond." This object had been now thoroughly accomplished, and General Lee"s decision to redeem his promise was by none more heartily approved than by the leader of the Valley army.
And yet, though the risks of the venture were small, the prospects of complete success were dubious. The opportunity had come, but the means of seizing it were feeble. Lee himself was buoyed up by no certain expectation of great results. In advocating invasion he confessed to the President that his troops were hardly fit for service beyond the frontier. "The army," he wrote, "is not properly equipped for an invasion of the enemy"s territory. It lacks much of the material of war, is feeble in transportation, the animals being much reduced, and the men are poorly provided with clothes. And in thousands of instances are dest.i.tute of shoes...What concerns me most is the fear of getting out of ammunition."* (* O.R. volume 19 part 2 pages 590, 591.)
This description was by no means over-coloured. As a record of military activity the campaign of the spring and summer of 1862 has few parallels. Jackson"s division, since the evacuation of Winchester at the end of February, that is, in six months, had taken part in no less than eight battles and innumerable minor engagements; it had marched nearly a thousand miles, and it had long ago discarded tents.
The remainder of the army had been hardly less severely tasked. The demands of the outpost service in front of Richmond had been almost as trying as the forced marches in the Valley, and the climate of the Peninsula had told heavily on the troops. From the very first the army had been indifferently equipped; the ill effects of hasty organisation were still glaring; the regimental officers had not yet learned to study the wants and comfort of their men; the troops were hara.s.sed by the ignorance of a staff that was still half-trained, and the commissariat officials were not abreast of their important duties. More than all, the operations against Pope, just brought to a successful issue, had been most arduous; and the strain on the endurance of the troops, not yet recovered from their exertions in the Peninsula, had been so great that a period of repose seemed absolutely necessary. It was not only that battle and sickness had thinned the ranks, but that those whose health had been proof against continued hardships, and whose strength and spirit were still equal to further efforts, were so badly shod that a few long marches over indifferent roads were certain to be more productive of casualties than a pitched battle. The want of boots had already been severely felt.* (* "1000 pairs of shoes were obtained in Fredericktown, 250 pairs in Williamsport, and about 400 pairs in this city (Hagerstown).
They will not be sufficient to cover the bare feet of the army." Lee to Davis, September 12, 1862. O.R. volume 19 part 2 page 605.) It has been said that the route of the Confederate army from the Rappahannock to Chantilly might have been traced by the stains of b.l.o.o.d.y feet along the highways; and if the statement is more graphic than exact, yet it does not fall far short of the truth. Many a stout soldier, who had hobbled along on his bare feet until Pope was encountered and defeated, found himself utterly incapable of marching into Maryland. In rear of the army the roads were covered with stragglers. Squads of infantry, banding together for protection, toiled along painfully by easy stages, unable to keep pace with the colours, but hoping to be up in time for the next fight; and amongst these were not a few officers. But this was not the worst. Lax discipline and the absence of soldierly habits a.s.serted themselves with the same pernicious effect as in the Valley. Not all the stragglers had their faces turned towards the enemy, not all were incapacitated by physical suffering. Many, without going through the formality of asking leave, were making for their homes, and had no idea that their conduct was in any way peculiar. They had done their duty in more than one battle, they had been long absent from their farms, their equipment was worn out, the enemy had been driven from Virginia, and they considered that they were fully ent.i.tled to some short repose. And amongst these, whose only fault was an imperfect sense of their military obligations, was the residue of cowards and malingerers shed by every great army engaged in protracted operations.
Lee had been joined by the divisions of D.H. Hill, McLaws, Walker, and by Hampton"s cavalry, and the strength of his force should have been 65,000 effectives.* (* Calculated on the basis of the Field Returns dated July 20, 1862, with the addition of Jackson"s and Ewell"s divisions, and subtracting the losses (10,000) of the campaign against Pope.) But it was evident that these numbers could not be long maintained. The men were already accustomed to half-rations of green corn, and they would be no worse off in Maryland and Pennsylvania, untouched as yet by the ravages of war, than in the wasted fields of Virginia. The most ample commissariat, however, would not compensate for the want of boots and the want of rest, and a campaign of invasion was certain to entail an amount of hard marching to which the strength of the troops was hardly equal.
Not only had the South to provide from her seven millions of white population an army larger than that of Imperial France, but from a nation of agriculturists she had to provide another army of craftsmen and mechanics to enable the soldiers to keep the field. For guns and gun-carriages, powder and ammunition, clothing and harness, gunboats and torpedoes, locomotives and railway plant, she was now dependent on the hands of her own people and the resources of her own soil; the organisation of those resources, scattered over a vast extent of territory, was not to be accomplished in the course of a few months, nor was the supply of skilled labour sufficient to fill the ranks of her industrial army. By the autumn of 1862, although the strenuous efforts of every Government department gave the lie to the idea, not uncommon in the North, that the Southern character was shiftless and the Southern intellect slow, so little real progress had been made that if the troops had not been supplied from other sources they could hardly have marched at all. The captures made in the Valley, in the Peninsula, and in the Second Mana.s.sas campaign proved of inestimable value. Old muskets were exchanged for new, smooth-bore cannon for rifled guns, tattered blankets for good overcoats. "Mr.
Commissary Banks," his successor Pope, and McClellan himself, had furnished their enemies with the material of war, with tents, medicines, ambulances, and ammunition waggons. Even the vehicles at Confederate headquarters bore on their tilts the initials U.S.A.; many of Lee"s soldiers were partially clothed in Federal uniforms, and the bad quality of the boots supplied by the Northern contractors was a very general subject of complaint in the Southern ranks. Nor while the men were fighting were the women idle. The output of the Government factories was supplemented by private enterprise.
Thousands of spinning-wheels, long silent in dusty lumber-rooms, hummed busily in mansion and in farm; matrons and maids, from the wife and daughters of the Commander-in-Chief to the mother of the drummer-boy, became weavers and seamstresses; and in every household of the Confederacy, although many of the necessities of life--salt, coffee and sugar--had become expensive luxuries, the needs of the army came before all else.
But notwithstanding the energy of the Government and the patriotism of the women, the troops lacked everything but spirit. Nor, even with more ample resources, could their wants have been readily supplied.
In any case this would have involved a long halt in a secure position, and in a few weeks the Federal strength would be increased by fresh levies, and the morale of their defeated troops restored.
But even had time been given the Government would have been powerless to render substantial aid. Contingents of recruits were being drilled into discipline at Richmond; yet they hardly exceeded 20,000 muskets; and it was not on the Virginia frontier alone that the South was hard pressed. The Valley of the Mississippi was beset by great armies; Alabama was threatened, and Western Tennessee was strongly occupied; it was already difficult to find a safe pa.s.sage across the river for the supplies furnished by the prairies of Texas and Louisiana, and communication with Arkansas had become uncertain. If the Mississippi were lost, not only would three of the most fertile States, as prolific of hardy soldiers as of fat oxen, be cut off from the remainder, but the enemy, using the river as a base, would push his operations into the very heart of the Confederacy. To regain possession of the great waterway seemed of more vital importance than the defence of the Potomac or the secession of Maryland, and now that Richmond had been relieved, the whole energy of the Government was expended on the operations in Kentucky and Tennessee. It may well be questioned whether a vigorous endeavour, supported by all the means available, and even by troops drawn from the West, to defeat the Army of the Potomac and to capture Washington, would not have been a more efficacious means to the same end; but Davis and his Cabinet consistently preferred dispersion to concentration, and, indeed, the situation of the South was such as might well have disturbed the strongest brains. The sea-power of the Union was telling with deadly effect. Although the most important strategic points on the Mississippi were still held by Confederate garrisons, nearly every mile of the great river, from Cairo to New Orleans, was patrolled by the Federal gunboats; and in deep water, from the ports of the Atlantic to the roadsteads of the Gulf, the frigates maintained their vigilant blockade.
Even on the northern border there was hardly a gleam of light across the sky. The Federal forces were still formidable in numbers, and a portion of the Army of the Potomac had not been involved in Pope"s defeat. It was possible, therefore, that more skilful generalship than had yet been displayed by the Northern commanders might deprive the Confederates of all chance of winning a decisive victory. Yet, although the opportunity of meeting the enemy with a prospect of success might never offer, an inroad into Northern territory promised good results.
1. Maryland, still strong in sympathy with the South, might be induced by the presence of a Southern army to rise against the Union.
2. The Federal army would be drawn off westward from its present position; and so long as it was detained on the northern frontier of Virginia nothing could be attempted against Richmond, while time would be secured for improving the defences of the Confederate capital.
3. The Shenandoah Valley would be most effectively protected, and its produce transported without risk of interruption both to Lee"s army and to Richmond.
To obtain such advantages as these was worth an effort, and Lee, after careful consideration, determined to cross the Potomac. The movement was made with the same speed which had characterised the operations against Pope. It was of the utmost importance that the pa.s.sage of the river should be accomplished before the enemy had time to discover the design and to bar the way. Stuart"s cavalry formed the screen. On the morning after the battle of Chantilly, Fitzhugh Lee"s brigade followed the retreating Federals in the direction of Alexandria. Hampton"s brigade was pushed forward to Dranesville by way of Hunter"s Mill. Robertson"s brigade made a strong demonstration towards Washington, and Munford, with the 2nd Virginia, cleared out a Federal detachment which occupied Leesburg. Behind the cavalry the army marched unmolested and un.o.bserved.1
September 6.
D.H. Hill"s division was pushed forward as advanced guard; Jackson"s troops, who had been granted a day"s rest, brought up the rear, and on the morning of the 6th reached White"s Ford on the Potomac.
Through the silver reaches of the great river the long columns of men and waggons, preceded by Fitzhugh Lee"s brigade, splashed and stumbled, and pa.s.sing through the groves of oaks which overhung the water, wound steadily northward over the green fields of Maryland.
(1 The Army of Northern Virginia was thus organised during the Maryland campaign:--
Longstreet"s McLaws" Division = 35,600 R.H. Anderson"s Division D.R. Jones" Division J.G. Walker"s Division Evans" Brigade Washington Artillery S.D. Lee"s Artillery battalion
Jackson"s Ewell"s (Lawton) Division = 16,800 The Light (A.P. Hill) Division Jackson"s own (J.R. Jones) Division
D.H. Hill"s Division = 7,000
Pendleton"s Reserve Artillery, 4 battalions = 1,000
Stuart Hampton"s Brigade = 4,000 Fitzhugh Lee"s Brigade Robertson"s Brigade 3 H.A. Batteries, Captain Pelham
Total 64,400
No allowance has been made for straggling. It is doubtful if more than 55,000 men entered Maryland.)
September 7.
The next day Frederick was occupied by Jackson, who was once more in advance; the cavalry at Urbanna watched the roads to Washington, and every city in the North was roused by the tidings that the grey jackets had crossed the border. But although the army had entered Maryland without the slightest difficulty, the troops were not received with the enthusiasm they had antic.i.p.ated. The women, indeed, emulating their Virginia sisters, gave a warm welcome to the heroes of so many victories. But the men, whether terrorised by the stern rule of the Federal Government, or mistrusting the power of the Confederates to secure them from further punishment, showed little disposition to join the ranks. It is possible that the appearance of the Southern soldiery was not without effect. Lee"s troops, after five months" hard marching and hard fighting, were no delectable objects. With torn and brimless hats, strands of rope for belts, and raw-hide moccasins of their own manufacture in lieu of boots; covered with vermin, and carrying their whole kit in Federal haversacks, the ragged scarecrows who swarmed through the streets of Frederick presented a pitiful contrast to the trim battalions which had hitherto held the Potomac. Their conduct indeed was exemplary. They had been warned that pillage and depredations would be severely dealt with, and all requisitions, even of fence-rails, were paid for on the spot. Still recruits were few. The warworn aspect and indifferent equipment of the "dirty darlings," as more than one fair Marylander spoke of Jackson"s finest soldiers, failed to inspire confidence, and it was soon evident that the western counties of Maryland had small sympathy with the South.
There were certainly exceptions to the general absence of cordiality.