That was enough for Grant. Receiving Halleck"s go-ahead message near Grand Junction on November n, he had cavalry in Holly Springs two days later. He followed at once with the infantry, established a supply base there, and continued his advance down the Mississippi Central. By December 1 his cavalry was across the Hatchie, the rebels fading back. Still Grant followed. Within another week he had occupied Oxford, fifty miles beyond his starting point, setting up a command post in the courthouse and repairing the railroad in his rear.... Whatever else McClernand"s behind-the-scenes maneuver might accomplish in the end, it had effected at least one thing before it even got beyond the plans-and-training stage: Grant"s mind had emerged from the tunnel it had entered after Shiloh. He was himself again, or anyhow he appeared to be, and this in itself was encouraging to Lincoln. However, he could also see that in North Mississippi, as elsewhere along the thousand-mile front, the fine autumn weather had mostly gone to waste, so far as offensive operations were concerned. Grant was still 150 airline miles from Vicksburg, and neither Banks nor McClernand had even begun to move.
Here in the East, delay was especially discouraging for being close at hand; Lincoln"s torture, as a result, was not unlike that of Tantalus, who saw the surface of the pool recede each time he bent to drink. In this case, too, he was soon obliged to suspect that he had made an error in personal judgment, no matter how well founded that judgment had seemed at the time he acted on it. In addition to native combativeness, demonstrated on independent service, Burnside had other qualities which had caused Lincoln to overrule his twice-repeated protest that he was not competent to command the Army of the Potomac, despite the fact that his rank ent.i.tled him to the post. Less than three years older than McClellan, he had been his friend before and during the war and had taken no part in the bickering that surrounded him. It was Lincoln"s hope that this would ease the blow and soften the reaction when "McClellan"s bodyguard" got the news that its hero had been replaced. Also, Burnside had no political opinions: a lack that might have been expected to spare him the mistrust and enmity of the Jacobins who had hounded his predecessor. Both calculations, one regarding the army, the other Congress, appeared to have been valid at the outset. For a time, they even worked; or else they seemed to. But the President was not long in finding out that both had been something less than inclusive. According to one general in a group who came to congratulate Burnside on his promotion, he thanked them "and then, with that transparent sincerity which made everyone believe what he said, he added that he knew he was not fit for so big a command, but he would do his best." The witness remarked: "One could not help feeling a certain tenderness for the man. But when a moment later the generals talked among themselves, it was no wonder that several shook their heads and asked how we could have confidence in the fitness of our leader if he had no such confidence in himself?" Such in part was the reaction in the army he was about to lead into battle. As for the radicals in Congress, it soon became apparent that an absence of politics was by no means a recommendation in their eyes. They had no objection to politics, per se; they merely insisted that the politics be Republican. All they really knew of Burnside was that he was the acknowledged friend of the man whose ruin they were proud to have helped accomplish, and they were prepared to do as much for him in turn, if on closer acquaintance it appeared that he deserved it.
Such objections were mainly personal, however, and Lincoln did not share them, or if he did he thought them incidental. His main concern was with Burnside as a strategist, a seeker after battle: which was where his doubts came in. Aware that the President wanted immediate action, and had in fact removed his predecessor for not giving it to him, the new commander immediately prepared a plan which he submitted for approval. Not liking the army"s present location-which seemed to him uncomfortably similar to the one John Pope had occupied before he came to grief-Burnside had the notion of converting the advance just east of the Blue Ridge into a feint, under cover of which he would "acc.u.mulate a four or five days" supply for the men and animals; then make a rapid move of the whole force to Fredericksburg, with a view to a movement upon Richmond from that point." This was the so-called "covering approach" which Lincoln had always favored, since it protected Washington. But in this case he thought the plan defective, in that it made the southern capital the primary Federal objective, not Lee"s army, which in fact it seemed that Burnside was attempting to avoid. Halleck felt that way about it, too, and on November 12 went down to Warrenton for a talk with the lush-whiskered general, who argued forcefully in favor of the change of base. Still doubtful, Halleck returned to Washington and reported the discussion to the President. Lincoln too was unconvinced, but he was so pleased at the prospect of early action-here in the East, if nowhere else-that he agreed to let Burnside go ahead-or, more strictly speaking, sideways, then ahead-provided he moved fast. Halleck pa.s.sed the word to Warrenton on the 14th: "The President has just a.s.sented to your plan. He thinks that it will succeed, if you move very rapidly; otherwise not."
Burnside did move rapidly, "very rapidly." Despite the tremendous supply problems which went with having an "aggregate present" of approximately 250,000 officers and men for whose welfare he was responsible-150,441 in the field force proper, 98,738 in the capital defenses-the fact was, he had turned out to be an excellent administrator. On the day he received Lincoln"s qualified a.s.sent to an eastward shift, he regrouped his seven corps into Right, Left, and Center "Grand Divisions" of two corps each, respectively under Sumner, Franklin, and Hooker, leaving the seventh in "independent reserve" under Sigel. With his army thus reorganized for deft handling, he took up the march for Falmouth the following day, November 15. Sumner went first, followed on subsequent days by Franklin, Hooker, and the cavalry. Moving down the north bank of the Rappahannock, which thus covered the exposed flank of the column, the Right Grand Division arrived on the 17th and the others came along behind on schedule. Burnside himself reached Falmouth on the 19th, just in advance of the rear-guard elements. Proudly he wired Washington: "Sumner"s two corps now occupy all the commanding positions opposite Fredericksburg.... The enemy do not seem to be in force." So far, indeed, except for an occasional gray cavalry vedette across the way, the only sign of resistance had come from a single rebel battery on the heights beyond the historic south-bank town, and it had been smothered promptly by counterbattery fire. Lincoln had asked for speed, and Burnside had given it to him. He seemed about to give him all else he had asked for, too-hard fighting-for he added: "As soon as the pontoon trains arrive, the bridge will be built and the command moved over."
But there was the rub. Burnside had left the sending of the pontoons to Halleck, who in turn had left it to a subordinate, and somewhere along the chain of command the word "rush" had been dropped from the requisition. The army waited a week, during which a three-day rain swelled the fords and turned the roads into troughs of mud. Still the pontoons did not come. On the eighth day they got there; but so by then had something else; something not nearly so welcome. "Had the pontoon bridge arrived even on the 19th or 20th, the army could have crossed with trifling opposition," Burnside notified Halleck on the 22d. "But now the opposite side of the river is occupied by a large rebel force under General Longstreet, with batteries ready to be placed in position to operate against the working parties building the bridge and the troops in crossing." Vexed that his forty-mile change of base, executed with such efficiency and speed that it had given him the jump on his wily opponent, had gained him nothing by way of surprise in the end, he said flatly: "I deem it my duty to lay these facts before you, and to say that I cannot make the promise of probable success with the faith that I did when I supposed that all the parts of the plan would be carried out.... The President said that the movement, in order to be successful, must be made quickly, and I thought the same."
Lincoln was distressed: not only because of the delay, which he had predicted would be fatal to the success of the campaign, but also because the new commander, in the face of all those guns across the river, seemed to believe it was part of his duty to expose his army to annihilation by way of payment for other men"s mistakes. November 25, the day the first relay of pontoons reached Falmouth, the President wired: "If I should be in a boat off Aquia Creek at dark tomorrow (Wednesday) evening, could you, without inconvenience, meet me and pa.s.s an hour or two with me?" He made the trip, saw Burnside and the situation-which he characterized by understatement as "somewhat risky"-then returned to Washington, worked out a supplementary plan of his own, and sent for the general to come up and discuss it with him and Halleck. As he saw it, the enemy should be confused by diversionary attacks, one upstream from Fredericksburg, the other on the lower Pamunkey, each to be delivered by a force of about 25,000 men and the latter to be supported by the fleet. Both generals rejected the plan, however, on grounds that it would require too much time for preparation. So Lincoln, with his argument stressing haste thus turned against him, had to content himself with telling Burnside to go back to his army and use his own judgment as to when and where he would launch an a.s.sault across the Rappahannock.
Burnside returned to Falmouth on the next to last day of November. His notion was to strike where Lee would least expect it, and the more he thought about the problem, the more it seemed to him that this would be at Fredericksburg itself, where Lee was strongest. Accordingly, he began to ma.s.s his 113,000 effectives-Sigel having been posted near Mana.s.sas-along and behind the north-bank heights, overlooking the streets of the Rappahannock town whose citizens had already been given notice to evacuate their homes. November was gone by then, however. In the East as in the West, to Lincoln"s sorrow, there had been no fall offensive, only a seemingly endless preparation for one which had not come off.
Between these two East-West extremes, the trouble in Middle Tennessee, while similar to the trouble in Virginia and North Mississippi, was in its way even more exasperating. Burnside and Grant at least regretted the delay and expressed a willingness to end it, but Rosecrans not only would not say that he regretted it, he declared flatly that he would not obey a direct order to end it until he personally was convinced that his hard-marched army was ready for action, down to the final shoenail in the final pair of shoes. This came as a shock to Lincoln, who had expected Old Rosy"s positivism to take a different form. He would have been less surprised, no doubt, if he had known Grant"s reaction when that general learned in late October that his then subordinate was leaving. "I was delighted," he later wrote, adding: "I found that I could not make him do as I wished, and had determined to relieve him from duty that very day."
Whatever reasons lay behind Rosecrans" reluctance to move forward, they could not have proceeded from any vagueness in his instructions, which were covered in a letter Halleck sent him along with his appointment as Buell"s successor: "The great objects to be kept in view in your operations in the field are: First, to drive the enemy from Kentucky and Middle Tennessee; second, to take and hold East Tennessee, cutting the line of railroad at Chattanooga, Cleveland, or Athens, so as to destroy the connection of the valley of Virginia with Georgia and the other Southern States. It is hoped that by prompt and rapid movements a considerable part of this may be accomplished before the roads become impa.s.sable from the winter rains." After emphasizing "the importance of moving light and rapidly, and also the necessity of procuring as many of your supplies as possible in the country pa.s.sed over," the general-in-chief concluded on an even sterner note: "I need not urge upon you the necessity of giving active employment to your forces. Neither the country nor the Government will much longer put up with the inactivity of some of our armies and generals."
There he had it, schedule and all; even the name of the army was changed, so that what had been called the Army of the Ohio was now the Army of the c.u.mberland, signifying the progress made, as well as the progress looked forward to. He knew well enough that Buell had been relieved because the authorities in Washington lacked confidence in his inclination or ability to get these missions accomplished in a hurry. That, too-in addition to the reluctance shown in declining the same appointment a month before-was why Thomas had been pa.s.sed over in order to give the job to Rosecrans, whom they apparently considered the man to get it done. As a sign of this confidence, Halleck at once agreed to let him do what he had been unwilling to grant Buell. That is, he allowed him to return to Nashville with the army, agreeing at last with Buell"s old contention that this was the best starting point for an advance on Chattanooga. Having won this concession, Rosecrans moved into the fortified Tennessee capital, and while b.u.t.ternut cavalry under Morgan and Forrest tore up tracks in his rear and slashed at his front, he set about reorganizing his command, more or less in the manner of Burnside, into Right, Left, and Center "Wings" of four divisions each. Gilbert having faded back into the obscurity he came out of, these went respectively to McCook, Crittenden, and Thomas. The mid-November effective strength of the army was 74,555 men-as large or larger, it was thought, than the enemy force at Murfreesboro, thirty-odd miles southeast-but Rosecrans still had not advanced beyond the outskirts of Nashville. He was hoping, he said, for a sudden rise of the Tennessee River to cut off the rebels" retreat; in which case, as he put it, "I shall throw myself on their right flank and endeavor to make an end of them." For the present, however, he confided, "I am trying to lull them into security, that I do not intend soon to move, until I can get the [rail] road fully opened and throw in a couple of millions of rations here."
The Confederates might be lulled by his apparent inactivity, but his own superiors were not. Alarmed by this casual reference to "a couple of millions of rations"-followed as it was by urgent requisitions for "revolving rifles," back pay, "an iron pontoon train long enough to cross the Tennessee," and much else-Halleck told him sternly on November 27: "I must warn you against this piling up of impediments. Take a lesson from the enemy. Move light." The Tennessee commander protested that he was asking for nothing that was not "indispensable to an effectual and steady advance, which is the only one that will avail us anything worth the cost." By now it was December, and Rosecrans had begun to sound more like Buell than Buell himself had done. Halleck lost his temper, wiring curtly: "The President is very impatient.... Twice have I been asked to designate someone else to command your army. If you remain one more week in Nashville, I cannot prevent your removal." Rosecrans, unintimidated, bristled back at him: "Your dispatch received. I reply in few but earnest words. I have lost no time. Everything I have done was necessary, absolutely so; and has been done as rapidly as possible.... If the Government which ordered me here confides in my judgment, it may rely on my continuing to do what I have been trying to do-that is, my whole duty. If my superiors have lost confidence in me, they had better at once put someone in my place and let the future test the propriety of the change. I have but one word to add, which is, that I need no other stimulus to make me do my duty than the knowledge of what it is. To threats of removal or the like I must be permitted to say that I am insensible."
Now Lincoln knew the worst. With autumn gone and winter at hand, not a single one of the three major blows he had hoped for and designed had been struck. Right, left, and center, for all he knew-and he had observed signs of this with his own eyes, down on the Rappahannock-all that had been accomplished in each of these three critical theaters was a fair-weather setting of the stage for a foul-weather disaster. Halleck was saying of him during this first week in December: "You can hardly conceive his great anxiety," and Lincoln himself had told a friend the week before: "I certainly have been dissatisfied with the slowness of Buell and McClellan; but before I relieved them I had great fears I should not find successors to them who would do better; and I am sorry to add that I have seen little since to relieve those fears."
These words were written in a letter to Carl Schurz, a young German emigrant whom the Republican central committee had sent to Illinois four years ago to speak in Lincoln"s behalf during the senatorial race against Douglas. Grateful for this and later, more successful work, Lincoln appointed him Minister to Spain in 1861, and when Schurz resigned to come home and fight, the President made him a brigadier under Fremont in the Alleghenies. After the fall election returns were in, he wrote Lincoln his belief that they were "a most serious reproof to the Administration" for placing the nation"s armies in "the hands of its enemies," meaning Democrats. "What Republican has ever had a fair chance in this war?" Schurz asked, apparently leaving his own case out of account, and urged: "Let us be commanded by generals whose heart is in the war." Lincoln thought this over and replied: "I have just received and read your letter of [November] 20th. The purport of it is that we lost the late elections and the Administration is failing because the war is unsuccessful, and that I must not flatter myself that I am not justly to blame for it. I certainly know that if the war fails, the Administration fails, and that I will be blamed for it, whether I deserve it or not. And I ought to be blamed if I could do better. You think I could do better; therefore you blame me already. I think I could not do better; therefore I blame you for blaming me." Having thus disposed of the matter of blame, he pa.s.sed on to the matter of hearts. "I understand you now to be willing to accept the help of men who are not Republicans, provided they have "heart in it." Agreed. I want no others. But who is to be the judge of hearts, or of "heart in it"? If I must discard my own judgment and take yours, I must also take that of others; and by the time I should reject all I should be advised to reject, I should have none left, Republicans or others-not even yourself. For be a.s.sured, my dear sir, there are men who have "heart in it" that think you are performing your part as poorly as you think I am performing mine.... I wish to disparage no one, certainly not those who sympathize with me; but I must say I need success more than I need sympathy, and that I have not seen the so much greater evidence of getting success from my sympathizers than from those who are denounced as the contrary."
He closed with a suggestion that the citizen soldier come to see him soon at the White House: which Schurz did, arriving early one morning, and was taken at once to an upstairs room where he found the President sitting before an open fire, his feet in large Morocco slippers. Told to pull up a chair, he did so: whereupon Lincoln brought his hand down with a slap on Schurz"s knee. "Now tell me, young man, whether you really think that I am as poor a fellow as you have made me out in your letter." He was smiling, but Schurz could not keep from stammering as he tried to apologize. This made the tall man laugh aloud, and again he slapped his visitor"s knee. "Didn"t I give it to you hard in my letter? Didn"t I? But it didn"t hurt, did it? I did not mean to, and therefore I wanted you to come so quickly." Still laughing, he added: "Well, I guess we understand one another now, and it"s all right." They talked for the better part of an hour, and as Schurz rose to leave he asked whether he should keep on writing letters to the President. "Why, certainly," Lincoln told him. "Write me whenever the spirit moves you."
It was Schurz"s belief that the visit had done Lincoln good, and unquestionably it had. Busy as he was with the details of office, not all of which were directly connected with the war, he had all too few occasions for relaxation, let alone laughter, the elixir he had always used against his natural melancholia. Out in Minnesota, for example, John Pope had been more successful against the marauding Sioux than he had against Lee and Jackson. He had defeated Chief Little Crow in battle and brought the surviving braves before a military court which sentenced 303 of them to be hanged. Reviewing the list, Lincoln reduced to thirty-eight the number slated for immediate execution and ordered the rest held, "taking care that they neither escape nor are subjected to any unlawful violence." This was of course only one distraction among many, the most troublesome being the host of importunate callers, all of whom wanted some special favor from him. Sometimes he lost patience, as when he told a soldier who came seeking his intervention in a routine army matter: "Now, my man, go away. I cannot attend to all these details. I could as easily bail out the Potomac with a spoon!" But mostly he was patient and receptive. He put them at ease, heard their complaints, and did what he could to help them. When a friend remarked, "You will wear yourself out," he shook his head and replied with a sad smile: "They don"t want much; they get but little, and I must see them."
One place of refuge he had, the war telegraph office, and one companion whose demands on his time apparently brought him nothing but pleasure, Tad. Often he would combine the two, taking his son there with him during the off-hours, when the place was quiet, with only a single operator on duty. He would sit at a desk, reading the acc.u.mulated flimsies, while the nine-year-old went to sleep on his lap or rummaged around in search of mischief, which he seldom failed to find. John Hay once remarked that Tad "had a very bad opinion of books, and no opinion of discipline." The former was mainly his father"s fault. "Let him run," Lincoln said. "There"s time enough yet for him to learn his letters and get poky." So was the latter; for since the death of Willie, eight months before, this youngest child had been overindulged by way of double compensation. "I want to give him all the toys I did not have," Lincoln explained, "and all the toys I would have given the boy who went away." Nor would he allow his son to be corrected. Once when they were at the telegraph office Tad wandered into the adjoining room, where he found the combination of black ink and white marble-topped tables quite irresistible. Presently the operator, whose name was Madison Buell, saw what was being done. Indignant at the ruin, he seized the dabbler by the collar and marched him out to his father, pointing through the open door at the irreparable outrage. Lincoln reacted promptly. Rising, he took the boy in his arms, unmindful of the hands still dripping ink. "Come, Tad," he said; "Buell is abusing you," and left.
In these and other ways he sought relaxation during this season which had opened with reverses and closed before the big machine could overcome the primary inertia which had gripped it when it stalled. Such large-scale battles as had been fought-Antietam, Corinth, Perryville-had been set down as Union victories; but they had been near things at best-particularly the first and the last, which the rebels also claimed-and what was more, all three had been intrinsically defensive; which would not do. It would do for the insurgents, whose task was merely to defend their region against what they called aggression, but not for the loyalists, whose goal could be nothing short of conquest. Besides, the defensive encouraged the fulfillment of Lincoln"s two worst fears: utter war-weariness at home, and recognition for the Confederacy abroad. Other developments might prolong the war, but these two could lose it, and he had taken their avoidance as his personal responsibility. During the period just past, he had sought to prevent the first by appealing directly to the people for confidence in his Administration, and to forestall the second by issuing the Preliminary Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation. How well he had done in both cases he did not know; it was perhaps too soon to tell, though here too the signs were not encouraging. Some said the fall elections were a rejection of the former, while the latter had been greeted in some quarters-including England, so far as could be judged from the public prints-with derision.
He would wait and see, improvising to meet what might arise. Meanwhile, the armies were getting into position at last for another major effort-and, incidentally, fulfilling the Tribune Tribune reporter"s prediction about "the poetry of war." Down on the Rappahannock, for example, another of Greeley"s men overheard the following exchange between two pickets on opposite banks: reporter"s prediction about "the poetry of war." Down on the Rappahannock, for example, another of Greeley"s men overheard the following exchange between two pickets on opposite banks: "Hallo, Secesh!"
"Hallo, Yank."
"What was the matter with your battery Tuesday night?"
"You made it too hot. Your shots drove the cannoneers away, and they haven"t stopped running yet. We infantry men had to come out and withdraw the guns."
"You infantry men will run, too, one of these fine mornings."
The Confederate picket let this pa.s.s, as if to say it might be so, and responded instead with a question: "When are you coming over, bluecoat?"
"When we get ready, b.u.t.ternut."
"What do you want?"
"Want Fredericksburg."
"Don"t you wish you may get it!"
2 As if in accordance with the respective limitations of their available resources-which of course applied to men as well as to the food they ate, the powder they burned, and the shoes and clothes and horses they wore out-while Lincoln was getting rid of experienced commanders, Davis was making use of those he had. Yet this difference in outlook and action was not merely the result of any established ratio between profligacy and frugality, affordable on the one hand and strictly necessary on the other; it was, rather, an outgrowth of the inherent difference in their natures. Lincoln, as he said, was more in need of success than he was in need of sympathy. And while this was also true of Davis, he placed such value on the latter quality-apparently for its own sake-that its demands for reciprocal loyalty, whatever shortcomings there might be in regard to the former, were for him too strong to be denied.
Braxton Bragg and R. E. Lee were cases in point. Ever since the western general began his retreat from Harrodsburg, Davis had been receiving complaints of dissension in the ranks of the Army of Kentucky, along with insistent demands that its commander be removed: in spite of which (if not, indeed, because of them; for such agitations often seemed to strengthen instead of weaken Davis" will) the summons Bragg found waiting for him in Knoxville had not been sent with any notion of effecting his dismissal, but rather with the intention of giving him the chance to present in person his side of the reported controversy. When he got to Richmond, October 25, the President received him with a smile and a congratulatory handshake. On the face of it, both were certainly deserved: the first because it was not Davis" way to dissolve a friendship or condemn any man on the basis of hearsay evidence, and the second because, of the three offensives designed to push Confederate arms beyond the acknowledged borders of secession, only Bragg"s had been even moderately successful. In fact, "moderately" was putting it all too mildly. Whatever else had been left undone, a campaign which relieved the pressure on Chattanooga and recovered for the Confederacy all of northwest Alabama, as well as eastern and south-central Tennessee, including c.u.mberland Gap-not to mention the fact that its two columns had inflicted just under 14,000 battle casualties while suffering just over 4000, and had returned with an enormous train of badly needed supplies and captured materiel, including more than thirty Union guns-could scarcely be called anything less than substantial in its results. What was more, Bragg had conceived and, in conjunction with Kirby Smith, executed the whole thing, not only without prodding from above, but also without the government"s advance permission or even knowledge. Initiative such as that was all too rare. Davis heard him out, and though he did not enjoy hearing his old friend and cla.s.smate Bishop Polk accused of b.u.mbling and disloyalty, sustained him. Bragg was told to rejoin his army, which meanwhile was moving rapidly by rail, via Stevenson, Alabama, from Knoxville to Tullahoma and Murfreesboro, where it would threaten Nashville and block a Federal advance from that direction.
Polk was summoned to the capital as soon as Bragg had left it. Invited to present his side of the controversy, the bishop came armed with doc.u.ments-messages from Bragg to him, messages from him to Bragg, and affidavits provided by fellow subordinates, similarly disaffected-which he believed would protect his reputation and destroy his adversary"s, or at any rate neutralize the poison lately poured into the presidential ear. "If you choose to rip up the Kentucky campaign you can tear Bragg into tatters," Hardee told him. However, Davis urged him to put them away, appealing to his patriotism as well as his churchman"s capacity for forgiveness, and the bishop agreed to go back and do his Christian best along those lines. By way of compensation, the President handed him his promotion to lieutenant general, a new rank lately authorized by Congress at the same time it legalized the previously informal division of the armies into "wings" and corps. That was gratifying. Equally so was the news that his friend Hardee"s name appeared immediately below his own on the seven-man list of generals so honored.
Above them both-next to the very top, in fact-was Kirby Smith, who thus was rewarded for his independent accomplishments in Kentucky, even though he had written to the War Department soon after his return, complaining acidly of Bragg"s direction of the campaign during its later stages and requesting transfer to Mobile or elsewhere, anywhere, if staying where he was would require further cooperation with that general. Davis himself replied to this on October 29. He agreed that the campaign had been "a bitter disappointment" in some respects, but he also felt that events should not be judged by "knowledge acquired after they transpired." Besides, having talked at length with Bragg that week, he could a.s.sure Smith that "he spoke of you in the most complimentary terms, and does not seem to imagine your dissatisfaction." Davis admitted some other commanders might "excite more enthusiasm" than the dyspeptic North Carolinian, but he doubted that they would be "equally useful" to the country. In motion now for Middle Tennessee, Bragg would need reinforcements in order to parry the Federal counterthrust from Nashville. Where were they to be procured if not from Smith? He asked that, and then concluded: "When you wrote your wounds were fresh, your lame and exhausted troops were before you. I hope time may have mollified your pain and that future operations may restore the confidence essential to cheerfulness and security in campaign."
That was enough for Smith, whose admiration for Davis was such that, if the President requested it, he would not only cooperate with Bragg, he would even serve under him if it was absolutely necessary. Grateful, Davis sent for him to come to Richmond in early November. Smith went and, like Polk, gave the President his personal a.s.surance that his rancor had been laid by-as indeed it had. A week later he sent Bragg his strongest division, Stevenson"s, and neither Smith nor any member of his staff permitted himself a public word of criticism of the leader of the Kentucky campaign for the balance of the war. Returning to Knoxville by way of Lynchburg (where he had convalesced from his Mana.s.sas wound and married the young lady who had nursed him) he had an unexpected encounter during a change of trains. "I saw Gen. Bragg," he wrote his wife; "everyone prognosticated a stormy meeting. I told him what I had written to Mr. Davis, but he spoke kindly to me & in the highest terms of praise and admiration of "my personal character and soldierly qualities." I was astonished but believe he is honest & means well."
Breckinridge was already with Bragg: in fact, had preceded the army to its present location. Following the repulse at Baton Rouge, after wiring Hardee to "reserve the division for me," he had reached Knoxville in early October with about 2500 men. Reinforced by an equal number of exchanged prisoners, he had been about to start northward in order to share in the "liberation" of his native Bluegra.s.s, when he received word that Bragg was on the way back and wanted him to proceed instead to Murfreesboro, where he was to dispose his troops "for the defense of Middle Tennessee or an attack on Nashville." He got there October 28, joining Forrest, who had been deviling the Federals by way of breaking in his newly recruited "critter companies." Bragg"s 30,000 veterans arrived under Polk and Hardee ten days later, and when Stevenson"s 9000-man division marched in from Knoxville shortly afterward, the army totaled 44,000 infantry and artillery effectives, plus about 4000 organic cavalry under Wheeler. This was by no means as large a force as Rosecrans was a.s.sembling within the Nashville intrenchments, but Bragg did not despair of whipping him when he emerged. Returning from Richmond with a.s.surances of the President"s confidence, he set about the familiar task of drilling his troops and stiffening the discipline which Buell had admired. Meanwhile, he turned Forrest and Morgan loose on Rosecrans, front and rear. "Hara.s.s him in every conceivable way in your power," he told them. And they did, thus fulfilling the antic.i.p.ation announced in general orders, November 20: "Much is expected by the army and its commander from the operations of these active and ever-successful leaders."
Nor were the infantry neglected in their commander"s announcement of his hopes. Having posted Stevenson"s division in front of Manchester, Hardee"s corps at Shelbyville, and Polk"s at Murfreesboro-the latter now including Breckinridge, so that Polk had three and Hardee two divisions-Bragg announced in the same general order that the army had a new name: "The foregoing dispositions are in antic.i.p.ation of the great struggle which must soon settle the question of supremacy in Middle Tennessee. The enemy in heavy force is before us, with a determination, no doubt, to redeem the fruitful country we have wrested from him. With the remembrance of Richmond, Munfordville, and Perryville so fresh in our minds, let us make a name for the now Army of Tennessee as enviable as those enjoyed by the armies of Kentucky and the Mississippi."
Presumably this was the best that could be done in that direction: Davis had sustained the army commander and persuaded his irate subordinates to lay aside their personal and official differences in order to concentrate on the defense of the vital center in Tennessee. South and west of there, however, the problem was not one of persuading delicate gears to mesh, but rather one of filling the near vacuum created by the b.l.o.o.d.y repulse Van Dorn and Price had suffered in front of Corinth. Vicksburg was obviously about to become the target for a renewed endeavor by Federal combinations. What these would be, Davis did not know, but whatever they were, they posed a problem that would have to be met before they got there. He met it obliquely, so to speak, by turning initially to a second problem, seven hundred miles away, whose solution automatically provided him with a solution to the first.
This was the problem of Charleston, where the trouble was also an outgrowth of dissension. John Pemberton, in command there, had been a cla.s.smate of Bragg"s and had several of that general"s less fortunate characteristics, including an abruptness of manner which, taken in conjunction with his northern birth, had earned him a personal unpopularity rivaling the North Carolinian"s. Indeed, not being restricted to the army, it surpa.s.sed it. He was "wanting in polish," according to one Confederate observer, "and was too positive and domineering...to suit the sensitive and polite people among whom he had been thrown." As a result, he had not been long in incurring the displeasure of Governor Pickens and the enmity of the Rhetts, along with that of other Charlestonians of influence, who by now were clamoring for his removal. They wanted their first hero back: meaning Beauregard. It was a more or less familiar cry to Davis, for others were also calling for the Creole, still restoring his "shattered health" at Bladon Springs. In mid-September two Louisiana congressmen brought to the President"s office a pet.i.tion signed by themselves and fifty-seven fellow members, requesting the general"s return to command of the army that had been taken from him. Davis read the doc.u.ment aloud, including the signatures, then sent for the official correspondence relating to Beauregard"s removal for being absent without leave. This too he read aloud, as proof of justice in his action on the case, and closed the interview by saying: "If the whole world were to ask me to restore General Beauregard to the command which I have already given to General Bragg, I would refuse it."
In any case, he had decided by then to use him in the opposite direction: meaning Charleston. Orders had been drawn up in late August, appointing Beauregard to command the Department of South Carolina and Georgia, with headquarters in Charleston. Whether he would accept the back-area appointment, which amounted in effect to a demotion, was not known. Yet there should have been little doubt; for the choice, after all, lay between limited action and inaction. "Nil desperandum "Nil desperandum is my motto," he had declared, chafing in idleness earlier that month, "and I feel confident that ere long the glorious sun of Southern liberty will appear more radiant than ever from the clouds which obscure its brilliant disk." He wanted a share in scouring those clouds away. Receiving the orders in early September, he told a friend: "If the country is willing I should be put on the shelf thro" interested motives, I will submit until our future reverses will compel the Govt to put me on duty. I scorn its motives and present action." He wired acceptance, took the cars at Mobile on September n, and received a tumultuous welcome on the 15th when he returned to the city whose harbor had been the scene of his first glory. is my motto," he had declared, chafing in idleness earlier that month, "and I feel confident that ere long the glorious sun of Southern liberty will appear more radiant than ever from the clouds which obscure its brilliant disk." He wanted a share in scouring those clouds away. Receiving the orders in early September, he told a friend: "If the country is willing I should be put on the shelf thro" interested motives, I will submit until our future reverses will compel the Govt to put me on duty. I scorn its motives and present action." He wired acceptance, took the cars at Mobile on September n, and received a tumultuous welcome on the 15th when he returned to the city whose harbor had been the scene of his first glory.
This not only freed the embittered Charlestonians of Pemberton; it also freed Pemberton for the larger duty Davis had in mind for him, along with a promotion as seventh man on the seven-man list of new lieutenant generals. Slender and sharp-faced, the forty-eight-year-old Pennsylvanian had been pro-Southern all his adult life, choosing southern cadets as his West Point friends and later marrying a girl from Old Point Comfort. He was, indeed, an out-and-out States Righter, and it was generally known in army circles that in making his choice of sides in the present conflict, despite the fact that two of his brothers had joined a Philadelphia cavalry troop, he had declined a Federal colonelcy in order to accept a commission as a Confederate lieutenant colonel and a.s.signment to Norfolk, where he had been charged with organizing Virginia"s cavalry and artillery. Efficiency at that a.s.signment had won him a brigadier"s stars and transfer to Charleston, where his ability as an administrator-whatever his shortcomings when it came to social converse-had won him another promotion and eventually still another, along with another transfer, in connection with the larger duty Davis had in mind. This was for Pemberton to take charge of a department created October 1, consisting of the whole state of Mississippi and that part of Louisiana east of the Mississippi River. Instructed to "consider the successful defense of those States"-one already invaded from the north, the other already invaded from the south-"as the first and chief object of your command," he was told to proceed at once to his new post: which he did. Arriving October 14, he established department headquarters at Jackson, Mississippi.
There were, as usual, objections. Mainly these came from men over whose heads he had been advanced in his rush up the ladder of rank, including Van Dorn and Lovell, here in his own department, as well as others back in the theater he had come from; "officers who," as one of them protested, "had already distinguished themselves and given unquestioned evidence of capacity, efficiency, and other soldierly qualities." By this last, the disgruntled observer meant combat-for Pemberton had seen none since the Mexican War. Also, it was felt that he lacked the flexibility of mind necessary to independent command of a region under pressure from various directions. But the fact was, Davis had already taken this into consideration. Pemberton"s main job would be to keep a bulldog grip on Vicksburg and Port Hudson, denying free use of the Mississippi to the Federals and keeping the stretch of river between those two bastions open as a Confederate supply line connecting its opposite banks. Inflexibility in the performance of such a job-even tactical and strategic near-sightedness, of which the new commander was also accused by those who had known him in the East-might turn out to be a positive virtue when he was confronted, as surely he would be, by combinations which well might cause a more "flexible" man to fly to pieces. So Davis reasoned, at any rate, when he a.s.signed the Northerner to defend his home state. And at least one Vicksburg editor agreed, declaring that Pemberton"s arrival at last demonstrated that the far-off Richmond government had not "failed to appreciate the vast importance of preserving this important region" and that Mississippians were no longer "to be put off and imposed upon with one-horse generals."
Whatever their resentment of his rapid rise, his northern birth, his lack of exposure to gunfire, and his uncongenial manner, Pemberton"s by-pa.s.sed fellow officers-even Van Dorn, whose ruffled feathers Davis smoothed by explaining that the appointment had been made, not to overslough him, but to unburden him of paperwork and other back-area concerns, in order to free him for the offensive action which he so much preferred-would doubtless have been less envious if they had been able to compare the magnitude of the new commander"s "first and chief object" with the means which he had inherited for effecting it. He had fewer than 50,000 troops of all arms in his entire department: 24,000 under Van Dorn and Price-disaffected Transmississippians for the most part, anxious to get back across the river for the close-up protection of their homes-and another 24,000 mainly comprising the permanent garrisons of Vicksburg and Port Hudson. Even without knowledge of the three-p.r.o.nged Federal build-up now in progress north and south of these two critical points (a combined force of more than 100,000 men, supported by the guns of two fleets) it was obvious that the difficulties of the a.s.signment would be exceeded only by the clamor which would follow if he failed, whatever the odds.
Here too, however, Davis had done what he could and as he thought best. Having sustained Bragg, installed Pemberton, and incidentally disposed of Beauregard, he found it in a way a relief to give his attention to the army closest to the capital: for its troubles, although manifold, were at least of a different nature. Though Lee"s invasion had been less profitable than Bragg"s, and his repulse far bloodier, no one could accuse him of unwillingness to exploit any opening the enemy afforded, regardless of the numerical odds or the tactical risks of annihilation. As a result, such disaffection as arose was not directed against him, either by his army or by the public it protected, but against Congress, which bridled at pa.s.sing certain measures Lee suggested for the recruitment of new men, the establishment of proper supply facilities for the benefit of the men he had-including the more than 10,000 who now were marching barefoot in the snow-and the authority to tighten discipline.
The President supported Lee in the controversy and wrote him of the scorn he felt for their opponents, who were reacting simultaneously to rumors that the enemy was about to advance on Richmond from Suffolk: "The feverish anxiety to invade the North has been relieved by the counter-irritant of apprehension for the safety of the capital in the absence of the army, so long criticised for a "want of dash," and the cla.s.s who so vociferously urged a forward movement, in which they were not personally involved, would now be most pleased to welcome the return of that army. I hope their fears are as poor counselors as was their presumption." He a.s.sured the Virginian, "I am alike happy in the confidence felt in your ability, and your superiority to outside clamor, when the uninformed a.s.sume to direct the movements of armies in the field." Lee replied characteristically: "I wish I felt that I deserved the confidence you express in me. I am only conscious of an earnest desire to advance the interests of the country and of my inability to accomplish my wishes."
Davis left the field work to Lee, while he himself took up the fight with Congress throughout its stormy second session, which extended from mid-August to mid-October. Two of the general"s recommendations resulted in much violent debate: 1) that a permanent court martial be appointed, with authority to inflict the death penalty in an attempt to reduce straggling and desertion, and 2) that the Conscription Act be extended to include all able-bodied men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five. The first of these suggestions was not only not acceptable to the law-makers, it led to vigorous inquiries as to whether such powers had not been overexercised already. But it was the second which provoked the greatest furor, especially after Davis gave it presidential support. Yancey was particularly vitriolic, shouting that if he had to have a dictator, he wanted it to be Lincoln, "not a Confederate." Joe Brown of Georgia thought so, too, declaring that the people had "much more to apprehend from military despotism than from subjection by the enemy." A Texas senator added point to the a.s.sertion, as here applied, by recalling that it had been conscription which "enabled [Napoleon] to put a diadem on his head." Davis met these charges with a bitterness matching that of the men who made them; and in the end he won the fight. Conscription was extended, but not without the estrangement of former loyal friends whose loss he could ill afford. As always, he was willing to pay the price, though it was becoming increasingly steep in obedience to the law of diminishing utility.
At any rate the measure helped secure for Lee the men he badly needed, and while Davis engaged these wranglers in the army"s rear, the bluecoats to its front were obligingly idle, affording time for rest, recruitment, and reorganization of its shattered ranks. The need for these was obvious at a glance. Recrossing the Potomac, only fourteen of the forty brigades had been led by brigadiers, and many of them had dwindled until they were smaller than a standard regiment. Yet the return of stragglers and convalescents, along with the influx of conscripts, more than repaired the shortage in the course of the five-week respite the Federals allowed. By October 10, Lee"s strength had risen to 64,273 of all arms, and within another ten days-on which date McClellan reported 133,433 present for duty in the Army of the Potomac-he had 68,033, or better than half as many as his opponent. High spirits, too, were restored. Pride in their great defensive fight at Sharpsburg, when the odds had been even longer, and presently their jubilation over Stuart"s second "Ride Around McClellan," solidified into a conviction that the Army of Northern Virginia was more than a match for whatever came against it, even if the Yankees continued to fight as well as they had fought in Maryland. Shortages of equipment there still were, especially of shoes and clothes, but these were accepted as rather the norm and relatively unimportant. A British army observer, visiting Lee at the time, expressed surprise at the condition of the trousers of the men in Hood"s division, the rents and tatters being especially apparent after the first files had pa.s.sed in review. "Never mind the raggedness, Colonel," Lee said quietly. "The enemy never sees the backs of my Texans."
He spoke, the colonel observed, "as a man proud of his country and confident of ultimate success." However, this was for the southern commander a time of personal sorrow. Soon after October 20 he heard from his wife of the death on that date of the second of his three daughters. She was twenty-three years old and had been named for his mother, born Ann Carter. He turned to some official correspondence, seeking thus to hide his grief, but presently an aide came into the tent and found him weeping. "I cannot express the anguish I feel at the death of my sweet Annie," he wrote home.
Work was still the best remedy, he believed, and fortunately there was plenty to occupy him. The previously informal corps arrangement was made official in early November with the promotion of Longstreet and Jackson, respectively first and fifth on the list of lieutenant generals. By that time, moreover, the Federals had crossed the river which gave their army its name, and Lee had divided his own in order to cover their alternate routes of approach, shifting Old Pete down to Culpeper while Stonewall remained in the lower Valley, eager to pounce through one of the Blue Ridge gaps and onto the enemy flank. But this was not Pope; this was McClellan. He maneuvered skillfully, keeping the gaps well plugged as he advanced against the divided Confederates. Then suddenly, inexplicably, he stopped. For two days Lee was left wondering: until November 10, that is, when he learned that Little Mac had been relieved. The southern reaction was not unmixed. Some believed that the Federals would be demoralized by McClellan"s removal, while others found a.s.surance in the conviction that his successor would be more likely to commit some blunder which would expose the blue host to destruction. Lee, however, expressed regret at the departure of a familiar and respected adversary. "We always understood each other so well," he said wryly. "I fear they may continue to make these changes till they find someone whom I don"t understand."
When Burnside shifted east in mid-November, Lee"s first plan was to occupy the line of the North Anna, twenty-five miles south of the Rappahannock. From there he would draw the bluecoats into the intervening wintry swamps and woodlands, then move forward and outflank them in order to slash at them from astride their line of retreat. If successful, this would have been to stage a Sedan eight years ahead of the historical schedule; Jackson, for one, was very much in favor of it. If on the other hand the Confederates contested the Rappahannock crossing, where the position afforded little depth for maneuver and was dominated by the north-bank heights, it was Stonewall"s opinion that they would "whip the enemy, but gain no fruits of victory." However, Lee did not want to give up the previously unmolested territory and expose the vital railroad to destruction; so while Burnside balked at Falmouth, awaiting the delayed pontoons, the southern commander moved Longstreet onto the heights in rear of Fredericksburg. This suited Old Pete fine; for the position offered all the defensive advantages he most admired, if only "the d.a.m.ned Yankees" could be persuaded to "come to us."
Apparently they were coming, here or somewhere near here, but they were taking their time about it. ("When are you coming over, bluecoat?" "When we get ready, b.u.t.ternut.") For ten days Lee left the vigil to Longstreet, withholding Jackson for a flank attack if Burnside crossed upstream. Then, as the indications grew that a crossing would be attempted here, he sent for Stonewall, whose troops began to file into position alongside Longstreet"s on the first day of December. By that time the army had grown to 70,000 infantry and artillery, plus 7000 cavalry, and its spirit was higher than ever, despite the fact that one man in every six was barefoot. They now bore with patience, one officer remarked, "what they once would have regarded as beyond human endurance." Even a four-inch snowfall on the night of December 5, followed by bitter cold weather, failed to lower their morale. Rather, they organized brigade-sized s...o...b..ll battles, during which their colonels put them through the evolutions of the line, and thus kept in practice while waiting for the Yankees to cross the river flowing slate gray between its cake-icing banks.
Lee shared their hardships and their confidence. Sometimes, though, alone in his tent, he was oppressed by sorrow for the daughter who had died six weeks ago. "In the quiet hours of the night, when there is nothing to lighten the full weight of my grief," he wrote home, "I feel as if I should be overwhelmed. I have always counted, if G.o.d should spare me a few days after this Civil War has ended, that I should have her with me, but year after year my hopes go out, and I must be resigned." Mainly his consolation was his army. Though he told his wife, "I tremble for my country when I hear of confidence expressed in me. I know too well my weakness, and that our only hope is in G.o.d," his admiration for the men he led was almost without bounds. "I am glad you derive satisfaction from the operations of the army," he replied to a congratulatory letter from his brother. "I acknowledge nothing can surpa.s.s the valor and endurance of our troops, yet while so much remains to be done, I feel as if nothing had been accomplished. But we must endure to the end, and if our people are true to themselves and our soldiers continue to discard all thoughts of self and to press n.o.bly forward in defense alone of their country and their rights, I have no fear of the result. We may be annihilated, but we cannot be conquered. No sooner is one [Federal] army scattered than another rises up. This s.n.a.t.c.hes from us the fruits of victory and covers the battlefield with our dead. Yet what have we to live for if not victorious?"
It was this spirit which made Lee"s army "terrible in battle," and it was in this spirit that he and his men awaited Burnside"s crossing of the Rappahannock.
Off in the Transmississippi, the sixth of the new lieutenant generals, Theophilus Holmes, had established headquarters at Little Rock and from there was surveying a situation which was perhaps as confusing for him as the one near Malvern Hill, where he had cupped a deaf ear in the midst of a heavy bombardment and declared that he thought he "heard firing." If he was similarly bewildered it was no wonder, considering the contrast between the geographical vastness of his command and the slimness of his resources. In addition to Texas and Missouri, the two largest states of the old Union, he was theoretically responsible for holding or reclaiming Arkansas, Indian Territory, West Louisiana, and New Mexico, in all of which combined he had fewer than 50,000 men, including guerillas. These last were sometimes as much trouble to him as they were to the enemy, especially as an administrative concern, and even the so-called "regulars" were generally well beyond his reach, being loosely connected with headquarters, if at all, by lines of supply and communication which could only be characterized as primitive, telegraph wire being quite as rare as railroad iron. By late October, after three months of pondering the odds, he had begun to consider not only the probability of total defeat, but also the line of conduct he and his men would follow in the wake of that disaster. In this he showed that, whatever his physical shortcomings and infirmities, his spirit was undamaged. "We hate you with a cordial hatred," he told an Indiana colonel who came to Little Rock bearing messages under a flag of truce. "You may conquer us and parcel out our lands among your soldiers, but you must remember that one incident of history: to wit, that of all the Russians who settled in Poland not one died a natural death."
Moreover, his three department commanders-John Magruder, Richard Taylor, and Thomas Hindman, respectively in charge of Texas, West Louisiana, and Arkansas-shared his resolution, but not his gloom. All three were working, even now, on plans for the recovery of all that had been lost. Prince John for example, as flamboyant in the Lone Star State as ever he had been in the Old Dominion, was improvising behind the scenes a two-boat cotton-clad navy with which he intended to steam down Buffalo Bayou and retake Galveston, the only Federal-held point in his department. Taylor"s ambition was longer-ranged-as well it had to be; New Orleans was occupied by something more than ten times as many soldiers and sailors as he had in his whole command-but he had hopes for the eventual recapture of the South"s first city, along with the lower reaches of the Father of Waters itself. Meanwhile, having recovered from the mysterious paralysis which had gripped his legs on the eve of the Seven Days, thus preventing any addition to the reputation he had won under Jackson in the Valley, he was working hard with what little he had in the way of men and guns, seeking first to establish dispersed strong-points with which to forestall a further penetration by the gunboats and the probing Union columns, after which he intended to swing over to the offensive and reclaim what had been lost to amphibious combinations heretofore considered too powerful to resist with any substantial hope of success.
Of the three, so far, it was Hindman who had accomplished most, however, and against the longest odds. Operating in a region which had been stripped of troops when Van Dorn crossed the Mississippi back in April, he yet had managed to raise and equip an army of 16,000 men, and with them he had already begun to launch an offensive against Schofield, who had about the same number for the protection of the Missouri border. By late August, Hindman was across it; or anyhow a third of his soldiers were, and he was preparing to join them with the rest. Skirting Helena, where 15,000 Federals were intrenched-they now were under Brigadier General Frederick Steele, Curtis having moved on to St Louis and command of the department, belatedly rewarded for his Pea Ridge victory-the Confederate advance occupied Newtonia, beyond Neosho and southwest of Springfield. All through September they stayed there, 2500 Missouri cavalry under Colonel J. O. Shelby and about 3000 Indians and guerillas, called in to a.s.sist in holding the place until Hindman arrived with the other two thirds of his hastily improvised army. Shelby was a graduate of the prewar Kansas border conflict, a stocky, heavily bearded man approaching his thirty-second birthday. Called "Jo" for his initials, just as Stuart was called "Jeb," and wearing like him an ostrich plume attached to the upturned brim of a soft felt hat, he was a veteran of nearby Wilson"s Creek and of Elkhorn Tavern, forty miles to the south. With him out front, and the stone walls of the town to fight behind, the garrison was more than a match for a 4000-man column Schofield sent to retake Newtonia on the last day of September. The Confederates broke the point of the counterthrust and drove the bluecoats north. However, learning three days later (October 3: Van Dorn and Price were moving against Corinth) that the Federals had been reinforced to thrice their former strength, they fell back next day in the direction of the Boston Mountains, Shelby skillfully covering the retreat with a succession of slashing attacks and quick withdrawals.
Hindman was not discouraged by this turn of events. In fact, he saw in it certain advantages. Schofield should be easier to whip if he advanced into Arkansas, lengthening his lines of supply-and lengthening, too, the distance he would have to backtrack through the wintry woods in order to regain the comparative security of Missouri. Under such disadvantages, a simple repulse might be transformed into a disaster. At any rate, Hindman intended to do all he could to bring about that result. But as he prepared to move forward in early November, consolidating the segments of his army, he received news that was discouraging indeed. It came from Holmes, who had just received in Little Rock a dispatch from Richmond, dated October 27 and signed by the Secretary of War: "Cooperation between General Pemberton and yourself is indispensable to the preservation of our connection with your department. We regard this as an object of first importance, and when necessary you can cross the Mississippi with such part of your forces as you may select, and by virtue of your rank direct the combined operations on the eastern bank."
This meant, in effect, that Hindman"s offensive would have to be abandoned. And when it was followed in mid-November by a specific request from the Adjutant General ("Vicksburg is threatened and requires to be reinforced. Can you send troops from your command-say 10,000-to operate either opposite to Vicksburg or to cross the river?") Holmes perceived that it meant the abandonment, not only of his hopes for regaining Missouri, but also of his hopes for hanging onto Arkansas. "I could not get to Vicksburg in less than two weeks," he protested. "There is nothing to subsist on between here and there, and [Steele"s] army at Helena would come to Little Rock before I reached Vicksburg."
However, he need not have worried. He was not going anywhere. Nor was Hindman"s offensive to be interrupted: at any rate not by anyone in Richmond, and least of all by Thomas Jefferson"s grandson George Randolph. Presently it became fairly clear that the original dispatch sent by that official, though couched in the form of a military directive, was in effect an act of political suicide, whereby the Confederacy lost the third of its several Secretaries of War.
Joe Johnston was one of the first to get inside news of the impending disruption in the President"s official family, and what was more he got it at first hand. His Seven Pines wound had proved troublous, resulting in what the doctors called "an obstinate adhesion of the lungs to the side, and a constant tendency to pleurisy," for which the prescribed treatments were "bleedings, blisterings, and depletions of the system." All three were stringently applied: in spite of which, having sufficiently recovered by early November to begin taking horseback exercise-"My other occupation," he told a friend, "is blistering myself, to which habit hasn"t yet reconciled me"-the general called at the W