MILITARY MISCELLANIES, BY JAMES B. FRY, RETIRED ASSISTANT ADJUTANT-GENERAL, RANK OF COLONEL, BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL, U. S. A. 11 It fiufficcth not to the strength o/ the armes to have flesh, blood and bonex, tin-less then have also siti.cwes, to stretch out and pull in for the defence of the hody; so it sufflceth not in an army to have VICTUALS, for the maintenance of it; ARMOUR and WEAPONS for the defence of it; unless it have MONEY also, the SINEWES OP WARRE." " Wherefore, seeing that money is such a real advantage in the warres, we may conclude, that whosoever prepareth forwarre must first be provided of MONEY, the Sinewes thereof."" (Ward's "An- imadversions of Warre." London, 1639.) BREISTTANO'S. 1889. '- 'opyright liy JAMES B/FRY. PRESS OP A. G. SHERWOOD which the Supreme Court has pro- THE COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 113 nouuced constitutional. These points are not really contested in Colonel Wherry's article, but he tells us that the President ought to delegate his military func- tions to some General. His reasons for this are, briefly, as gleaned from his article, that the staff departments are ambitious of predominance and power, that unity in military command is essential, that military educa- tion is of great value, that the President may be ig- norant of the military duty which the Constitution imposes on him, and he adds, in the way of illustra- tration, that the War of Rebellion might have been ended in two years instead of four, "if any one soldier of fair military ability had been given the absolute control of military operations, and the necessary mili- tary resources of the country" (Let us ask, in paren- thesis, how it could be possible, under our system, to give any soldier the absolute power here mentioned ? What would "the Fathers" have thought of such a suggestion ?) The inapplicability of these arguments to the question of the President's power to delegate his military functions need not be pointed out in detail. In using them, Colonel Wherry no doubt had in mind their bearing on what he calls " the military theory." He says : " the military theory is perfectly simple and plain. A General-in-Chief is a military expert, versed in all branches of the science of war, appointed by the President, under authority of the law, to do, in accordance with the rules taught by the science of war with which he is familiar, those things which the Commander-in-Chief may direct or authorize to be done, but which he himself does not know how to do, or which his other duties do not 114 MILITAKY MISCELLANIES. leave him time to do in person.' 7 Any one may ad- vance and advocate a theory. Tn relation to this one it is only necessary to say, at present, that it does not embrace the question at issue, to wit, the "delegation" of the President's "military functions," nor does it ap- pear to be sound in the light of a definition of the term " General-in-Chief." The presumption that the President is ignorant of his duties as Commander-in- Chief is put forth in this "theory" as also in another part of Colonel Wherry's article, where, quoting from General Schofield, he says of one* "President," as compared with the chief " executive officers of most other nations he is pre-eminently a civil magistrate." What chief executive can show better title to being pre-eminently a military magistrate ? If direct ap- pointment by the Constitution of his country to the supreme command of all of its land and naval forces can make a head magistrate a "military chief," cer- tainly ours is one, and he has been so defined by an Attorney-General. Without depreciating the advan- tages of military education and talents, it may be said that no presumption that the President is ignorant of his duties can invalidate the force of his high com- mission, nor can his chieftainship be impaired by the opinion his subordinates may have of his military ability or attainments. It is gratifying to find that, notwithstanding Colonel Wherry argues that the President should "delegate " his "military functions " to some General who should "command," he arrives at the conclusion that the chosen General can, after all, be nothing more than the President's Chief -of - * Misprint. Should be our. See p. 133. THE COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 115 Staff, which is admitting that the President must command. He says, "practically the functions of the General-in-Chief, as advocated by those who argue in favor of such an assignment, are coincident with those of the Chief-ofStaff, or? Chef cTMat- Major ' of Euro- pean armies." That is the conclusion at which Hal- leek arrived when he was so-called General-in-Chief. In my article of May last I said: "To assert that two persons command the same force at the same time, in- volves a contradiction amounting to absurdity. There can be but one commander : all others must be com- manded. Saying that a chosen General commands the whole Army under the Secretary of War is admit- ting, what is the fact, that he does not command it. The late Major-General Halleck, who was an educated soldier, an accomplished scholar, and a profound law- yer, fully comprehended this. While General-in-Chief he wrote as follows : 'The great difficulty in the office of General-in-Chief is, that it is not understood by the country. The responsibility and odium thrown upon it do not belong to it. I am simply a military adviser of the Secretary of War and the President, and must obey and carry out what they decide upon, whether I concur in their decisions or not. . . . It is my duty to strengthen the hands of the President -as Commander-in-Chief, not to weaken them by factious opposition. I have, therefore, cordially co-operated with him in any plan decided upon, although I have never hesitated to differ in opinion. I must leave it to history to vindicate my opinions or plans. They will be found at some future time on record.' (Letter from H. W. Halleck, Headquarters of the Army, 116 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. Washington, Feb. 16, 1864, to Major-General W. T. Sherman.) " In conclusion, if, as the Constitution says, the Presi- dent is Commander-in- Chief ; if, as I claim to have shown, he cannot, as such, delegate his authority and responsibility ; if he has a legal staff through whom to exercise the command of the Army, as is admitted by General Schofield's statement, that " the President's staff" thus becomes the staff of his chosen General, and if, as experience has shown it to be, it is practi- cable for him to exercise the command in the only way that the Supreme Court has pronounced constitu- tional, how can he be expected to delegate the actual command of the Army to a chosen General ? and who are the " would-be " reformers of whom Colonel Wher- ry speaks ? Are they the men who advocate an en- forcement of the existing system, or those who urge a departure from it ? * THE COMMAND OF THE ARMY. CONTINUED. f When I wrote my article on " The Command of the Army," which appeared in your number for July, I purposely omitted General Fry's or any other person's name, to avoid personal controversy and the asperity which usually belongs to such personal mention. In your number for August appears a letter from General Fry, Assistant Adjutant- General, which de- mands an answer from me, and I desire to reply on the broad ground upon which only such an important subject should be discussed. * This letter was dated Saratoga, July 7, 1879. t From Field Glass for September, 1879. By Brevet-Colonel Will- iam M. Wherry, Captain 6th Infantry. THE COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 117 General Fry's answer has the great merit of reduc- ing the subject of contention within very narrow limits, and of clearly stating the only question upon which there can be any difference of opinion so far as it is a constitutional or legal question. The position assumed by General Fry, in his article in your May number, is restated by him in the August number, in the following emphatic language: "To as- sert that two persons command the same force at the same time involves a contradiction amounting to ab- surdity. There can be but one commander : all others must be commanded. Saying that a chosen General commands the whole Army under the Secretary of War is admitting what is the fact, that he does not command it." Is it meant that to command and be commanded at the same time is an impossibility, " a contradiction amounting to an absurdity " ? Of course not. That is the condition in which all comman- ders, save the President, from highest to lowest, find themselves at all times. Each commands a certain force, which force, with its immediate commander, is also commanded by a superior, and so on up to the Commander-in-Chief, the President. The relations between superior and subordinate are essentially the same throughout. The law and regulations and the custom of Service define to some extent the proper scope of functions to be performed by each of the several grades of com- manders. But there yet remains a wide range within which any commander may, in his discretion, exercise control of the details of military operations or leave those details to his subordinates. The range within 118 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. which such discretion may be exercised is, of course, greatest with the Comrnander-in-Chief. Who will undertake to say exactly what functions of the chief command he must exercise and what he may trust to his subordinates ? It hardly need be stated that the President may, in his discretion, control all the details of military affairs so far as it is physically possible for him to do so. But must he do this ? Must he in fact exercise any of the functions of generalship ? May he not, on the contrary, limit himself to simply determin- ing the use that shall be made of the Army, under the law, that is, the object for which it shall be employed, and leave to his General-in-Chief the entire conduct of the campaign ? Again, because it has been decided by the Supreme Court that rules and orders publicly promulgated through him (the Secretary of War), must be received as the acts of the Executive, does it follow that the President cannot send his orders to the Army through any other channel ? Are all laws held to be uncon- stitutional until the Supreme Court approves them ? Is the law authorizing the assignment of the General of the Army to command all the armies unconstitu- tional ? And did not General Grant so command ? And was not the President at the same time, in fact as well as in name, Commander-in-Chief ? Could not General Grant command the Army, and the President, by commanding him, also command the Army at the same time ? What is meant by the proposition, " There can be but one commander : all others must be com- manded " ? It must mean that there cannot be at the same time two independent commanders, for which it is THE COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 119 believed no one has ever contended. But certainly there may be, at the same time, any number of com- manders, each dependent upon and subordinate to the next superior, and each acting under such orders and instructions as he may receive from higher authority, but exercising supreme command within the sphere of duties left to his discretion. Thus, to take an extreme case for illustration, there may be a post garrisoned by a single company, but with a post commander, superior to the Captain of the company. In that case, the post commander would exercise command over that one company as much or as little as he sees fit, within the limits of the law and regulations. Just so the Commander-in-Chief may as- sign the General to command the entire Army, and yet himself exercise the command so far as he sees fit under his constitutional and legal obligation. So also, if Congress sees fit, all the staff departments may be united under one head, or Chief-of-Staff. Cer- tainly no one will contend that there may not be one instead of several Chief s-of -Staff, and that the Presi- dent or Secretary of War may not command the staff through that one, instead of as now, through the sev- eral heads of bureaus. And why, so far as any consti- tutional question is involved, may not this Chief-of- Staff and the General-in-Chief be one and the same person ? Is there anything in the letter or spirit of the Con- stitution which makes it necessary for the President and Secretary of War to give their orders directly to ten or twelve heads of departments, and to three, four, or any other number of military commanders ? May 120 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. this not all be done through one chief instead of through several, if Congress so desires? Would the President be any the less Commander-in-Chief because he exercised his functions, as such, through one subor- dinate than through many ? The error into which General Fry has fallen seems to proceed entirely from the fallacy that a man cannot command and be com- manded at the same time, a fallacy which is exposed by the universal fact to the contrary. It is believed that the constitutional question in- volved in this subject is purely imaginary, and that there is nothing in the letter or spirit of the Constitu- tion to prevent the organization, command, and admin- istration of the United States Army in accordance with the strict military principles which have been deduced from the experience of the military nations of Europe. Army officers are at liberty to discuss this subject upon the broad basis of principle, that is, of "the military theory," and to consider how this military principle or theory may be best applied to our country and Government, and this not for the present, but for all time, not under some one Presi- dent,* as General Fry supposes, but under the Presi- dent at any time, who, as everybody knows, is chosen as a statesman, and not as a military chieftain. When General Schofield wrote on this subject the then Presi- *The text of General Fry's letter of July 7, as published in the Field Glass for August, contains the following: "In another part of Colonel Wherry's article, where quoting from General Schofield, he says of one ' President ' as compared with the chief ' executive officers of most other nations, he is pre-eminently a civil magistrate. ' ' But in the copy in a number of the Field Glass sent to me by General Fry since the above was written, he has corrected in ink the " one " to read " our," hence the above remarks and this note. W. THE COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 121 dent was our most eminent soldier, yet General Fry quotes as if he understood General Schofield to refer to that " one President." So far as General Fry's claim that the President of the United States " is pre-eminently a military magis- trate " is concerned, it may not be inapplicable to quote the following from a speech made by the Hon. Mr. Edmunds, of Vermont, in the United States Senate, May 9, L879 : "The President of the United States, by the Constitution, commands it (the Army), not because he is a military tyrant, or has any military or divine right to command it, but because he, the chief civil magistrate of the Union, and not the military magistrate of the Union, is selected by the Constitu- tion to command it. " The Army is not intrusted to the command of a military officer. It is intrusted to him (the President) by your Constitution, and beyond your rightful power to take away ; I say ' rightful power,' I do not know what will happen. It is intrusted, beyond your right- ful power to take away, to him as a civil officer to command it. It is not, therefore, when it is exerted under his authority the power of the sword per se, but it is the power of the civil law." This indicates what is the President's constitutional duty in reference to the Army, namely, to control and direct the uses to which it may be put, and not to command it in a military sense. It is for that reason, the subordination of the military to the civil, that the command (that is, the use and direction of it, not the military control or generalship of its various parts) is. given to the civil magistrate. 122 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. It must be admitted Senator Edmunds is a constitu- tional lawyer, and acquainted with what " the framers of the Constitution meant to do." And his language is very nearly identical with that of General Schofield, in his letter quoted in my article, which General Fry regards as presumptuous. General Fry begs the whole question when he ad- mits the President's command of the Army is or has been exercised by the Secretary of War. If by a Sec- retary of War, why not by a General ? If he cannot delegate his authority to a General appointed in accord- ance with law, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, how can he permit the Secretary, who is " a civil officer, and whose duties are civil duties," and " who cannot take the field," who " is not a part of the Army," to exercise his military functions as Comman- der-in-Chief ? General Fry claimed, in his first paper, that " there is one constitutional way in which he (the President) may be relieved of the labor of continuous personal command, that is, by having that command ex- ercised ~by the Secretary of War; not by virtue of dele- gated power, nor, in fact by any power of his own, but because his rules and orders, and his only, must be received as the acts of the President," because the Su- preme Court had decided that the President's " rules and orders, publicly promulged through him (the Secretary of War) must be received as the acts of the Executive." And in his letter, in your August number, he so refers again to that decision, and claims that experience shows "it is practicable for the President to exercise the command in a way (namely, by the Secretary of War) THE COMMAND OF THE AEMY. 123 that the Supreme Court has pronounced constitu- tional." Now, that decision was not based upon a question of command at all, and was not intended to apply to military functions. The decision of the Supreme Court (15 Peters, 291), in which the Secretary of War is pronounced "the regular constitutional organ of the President for the administration, of the military establishment of the nation," and which is so often quoted and relied upon as manifesting the right of the Secretary of War to execute the military functions of command of the President, because of the subsequent language of the decision, " and rules and orders publicly promulged through him, must be received as the acts of the Ex- ecutive, and as such be binding upon all within the sphere of his legal and constitutional authority," was given upon a case purely administrative and minis- terial, a case of settlement of money accountability and claim for compensation for disbursements. And the decision was upon the right or power of the Presi- dent, either in his own name or acting "through," his secretary, to " modify, or repeal, or create anew " an existing regulation, and denied the right of a subordi- nate officer to insist upon a prior regulation as govern- ing when the order for its repeal or modification " was adopted by the proper authority " that is, the Presi- dent and by the same authority promulged to every officer through the regular official organ." Now, beside the fact that the decision relates to administrative duties, and not military command, it is noticeable that the language used by the Supreme Court throughout treats of the acts as being those of 124 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. the President, and only promulgated " through " his constitutional organ, not the acts of a delegate, deputy, or alter ego. In a preceding decision (13 Peters, 513) the same court had, in reference to another purely administra- tive act of the Secretary's, used the following lan- guage: "Now, although the immediate agent in requir- ing this reservation was the Secretary of War, yet we feel justified in presuming that it was done by the ap- probation and direction of the President. The Presi- dent speaks and acts through the heads of the several departments in relation to subjects which appertain to their respective duties. Both military posts and In- dian affairs, including agencies, belong to the War De- partment. Hence we consider the act of the War De- partment in requiring the reservation to be made, as being in legal contemplation the act of the President, and, consequently, that the reservation thus made w r as, in legal effect, a reservation made by order of the President, within the terms of the Act of Congress." Now, the Supreme Court having decided that " he (the Secretary of War) is a civil officer, and all his duties are civil duties," how would it have been had the act of the Secretary been a military instead of a civil administrative act ? The whole decision hinges upon the fact that the act was one appertaining to the duties of the department, among which is not the mili- tary command of the armies of the United States. It is believed far safer for the President to " dele- gate " his military command to a General-in-Chief than to have it exercised by the Secretary of War not by any constitutional authority, " nor by delegated power, nor in THE COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 125 fact by any power of his own" but relying upon a de- cision of the Supreme Court which does not relate to such functions. And it certainly would be more in ac- cordance with the teachings of the best military author- ities. That the President has the power to delegate such authority, and to assign the General-in-Chief cannot be denied, for it is clearly and distinctly set forth in sun- dry acts of Congress, and most recently in the act re- viving the grade of General of the Army of the United States, which reads as follows : " That the grade of ' General of the Army of the United States ' be and the same is hereby revived ; and that the President is hereby authorized, whenever he shall deem it expedient, to appoint, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, a General of the Army of the United States, to be selected from among those officers in the military Service of the United States most distinguished for courage, skill, and ability, who being commissioned as General, may be author- ized, under the direction and during the pleasure of the President, to command the armies of the United States." (Sec. 1, July 25, 1868, Chap. 232.) So there is no question as to the power of the Presi- dent in the case, but there seems to be one as to what he ought to do. And since the constitutionality of that Act of Congress has never been questioned, offi- cers of the Army have a right to accept it in the dis- cussion of this subject rather than a decision of the Supreme Court, which does not apply to the question. General Fry takes issue with me upon the use of the word " delegate " or delegation, and claims that " it 126 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. does not in the least resemble the assignment to duty of a subordinate by his military superior." The issue as made by him is accepted, and his difficulty in this will be found to be as fictitious and fallacious as the trouble he has in reference to commanding and being commanded at the same time. The powers conferred upon the President as Com- mander-in-Chief of the Army embrace every possible detail of command respecting the duties of every indi- vidual in the Army. He may exercise direct authority in any and every one of this vast number of details, or he may, as he does in his discretion, confide the vast majority of these to his subordinates, both commanders and staff officers. He does this habitually in his as- signments of officers to command, and in his regula- tions and orders prescribing what such commanders may and what they shall do. It is not worth the while to contend over the meaning of a word, but if this is not a delegation of the authority of the Com- mander-in-Chief, then what is it ? The President reserves to himself the right at any time to alter his regulations, change his commanders, or in terf ere directly in any detail of command ; in other words, to resume at any moment the power dele- gated to his subordinates, or to control the manner of their exercise. It is thus, in addition to what uses authorized by law shall be niade of the Army, that the President continually discharges the duty imposed upon him as Commander-in-Chief. The vast majority of these duties are actually performed by his subordi- nates, whether they may be called " delegates " or not. And if the President may confer these powers upon THE COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 127 twenty different officers, may he not confer them, or a certain portion of them, npon one, the power so con- ferred upon one to be exercised over the entire Army, instead of over only a part of it ? If not, how large or how small are the parts of the Army over which the President may assign commanders ? Again : where do the several commanders derive the authority which they habitually exercise ? None of that authority is conferred by the Constitution, and very little (such as that relating to courts-martial, etc.) by act of Congress. It is a portion of the President's authority as Commander-in-Chief which he confers upon his subordinates, but which he may still resume and exercise in person at any moment if he sees fit to do so. Is not this a delegation of authority ? Wherein consists the supposed difference between an assign- ment to command under certain regulations and in- structions and a delegation of military authority? Unquestionably, then, the President may assign one officer to command all the armies and all parts of the armies of the United States under his direction and during his pleasure, but he must assign an officer of the Army appointed and commissioned according to law, or he may assign any number of such officers so appointed and commissioned to command parts of the Army ; but he cannot assign such duties to the Secre- tary of War, and in such assignments he delegates to the officers so assigned his functions, or so much of them as may be necessary to carry out his will. The duties of officers, such as relate to courts-mar- tial and certain duties of some of the staff departments, defined by special acts of Congress, are to be per- 128 MILITAKY MISCELLANIES. formed by authority of law ; all other duties are per- formed by authority delegated by the President. And there is nothing in the law preventing the President from requiring those specific duties confided by law to special officers from being performed under the super- vision of a General-in-Chief, whom the law has author- ized him to assign, so long as he does not take the performance of such duties from the officers designated in the laws.* THE COMMAND OF THE ARMY. CONTINUED. f Colonel Wherry desires more information than your columns or my circumstances will justify me in giving him in this letter. In his last communication on " The Command of the Army," he asks some twenty-five questions ! I find no new arguments to answer. I thank him for his quotation from Senator Edmunds, which clearly sustains my conclusion that the President must command the Army. In my first article, I said the " actual command " was " lodged irrevocably and unalterably with the elective civil magistrate." and that is substantially the ground taken by Senator Edmunds, as Colonel Wherry quotes him. But the fact that the highest civil functions and also the highest military functions are lodged in the President does not impair his supremacy in both. To deny the President hi* real military power with a view to leaving that power to be exercised, .through delegation or otherwise, by " a chosen General," would destroy the force of Senator Edmunds' argument as well as defeat the purpose of * Dated, West Point, N. Y., August 4, 1879. f General Fry in Field Glass ; dated, Governor's Island, September 9, 1879. THE COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 1 29 the Constitution. The fact that the President is en- dowed with supreme military power for the very reason that he is chief civil magistrate does not weaken the point here made. Colonel Wherry is catching at straws. Because I asserted the broad proposition that two persons cannot command the same force at the same time, saying, " there can be but one commander : all others must be commanded," he attributes to me the " fallacy " foolery, it might be called of holding that " a man cannot command and be commanded at the same time " ; and then he demolishes that "fallacy " ; telling us that " there may be a post garrisoned by a single company, but with a post commander superior to the Captain of the company," who " would exercise com- mand over that one company as much or as little as he saw fit," etc. I despair of enabling Colonel Wherry to grasp my meaning ; and it would not be allowing fair play to the discernment of your readers if I com- mented for their benefit on such points as the one I have just quoted, or upon the Colonel's view that the general principle plainly enunciated by the Supreme Court that rules and orders publicly promulgated through the Secretary of War must be received as the acts of the President, and as such be binding upon- all within the sphere of his legal and constitutional au- thority must be restricted to so-called administrative and ministerial matters, because the decision embrac- ing the principle was given upon a case of money accountability. That nothing more on the main ques- tion is necessary from me is very clear. There is an old story to the effect that during the Flood a certain 130 MILITAEY MISCELLANIES. man made many fruitless attempts to get into the Ark, and, when finally repulsed, he waded away with the water up to his chin, remarking, " It makes no differ- ence, there ain't going to be much of a shower, no how." Fortunately he was so constituted that he could take a cheerful view of a difficult situation. Colonel Wherry seems able to take a like comforting view of the weighty subject under discussion. After having for several months wrestled unsuccessfully with a trouble which, like the waters in the Deluge, grew deeper and deeper, he at last turns away, remarking, u it is believed that the constitutional question involved in this subject is purely imaginary." Under this as- sumption he abandons it, and proceeds to discuss numerous other points, leaving the important matter to the fate of Ginx' baby. I repeat that the points I maintain are the broad ones distinctly stated in my first article, namely, that the President is required by the Constitution to command the Army (not nominally, nor yet with "fuss and feathers," but actually)', that Congress has no right to divest him of that duty, and that he cannot delegate the command to " a chosen General," or any one else, but that the Secretary of War is his " regular constitutional organ for the administration of the MILITARY establishment of the nation," and may be used in that capacity to any extent the President deems best. The points which I especially contest are em- braced in General Schofield's assertion that "The President does not command in person ; he delegates his military command to a General officer who has been educated, appointed, commissioned and assigned by him for that purpose. The President's military THE COMMAND OF THE AEMY. 131 staff thus becomes the staff of his representative the Commanding General of the Army; . . . the orders of his chosen General-in-Chief are as much his own orders as if he gave them in person." I will not be a party to smothering these points in details and side issues, nor to clouding them with sophistries ; nor will I be drawn away from them through the allure- ments of European systems, or native modern military theories. As matters now stand, I am quite willing to submit the case without further argument. Colonel Wherry again presents the proposition of having the "General-in-Chief" made " Chief -of-Staff " of the Army. I have not discussed that proposition directly. But so far as my argument on the President's constitutional obligation to command the Army bears upon the question of the appointment or assignment of a Chief -of-Staff, it supports the view that the " Gen- eral-in-Chief " can be nothing more than Chief-of-Staff. Certainly a Chief-of-Staff can be authorized by law. Possibly the President can make one by assignment without further legislation. I know of nothing im- pairing his power to do so, unless it be the fact that the office of Chief-of-Staff to the Lieutenant-General, created by the Act of March 3, 1 865, transferred to the General by the Act of July 25, 1866, and filled until March 12, 1869, was formally abolished by the Act of April 3, 1869. But to convert the " General-in-Chief r into Chief-of-Staff would not be much more than a change of name. Whether it would grease the wheels or not is a question ; it would not materially alter the machine. The feature in our military system, which Colonel Wherry and many other good officers are 132 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. trying in fact to remove, is not due to the organization or behavior of the Army, line or staff, nor to military grades or titles. It arises from the existence of the Secretary of War. Their scheme involves the neces- sity of " wiping out " the Secretary. His office au- thorized in general terms by the Constitution has been formally created by law. Various acts of Con- gress have imposed upon him specific duties in the military Service. Decisions of the Supreme Court, and the inherent and imperative demands resulting from the relations between the Secretary of War and the President, have, for all purposes affecting the Army, fastened these two functionaries so closely and firmly together, that no officer of the Army can, with any practical advantage to himself or the Service, be wedged in between them. It was not accomplished when Grant, as General, was backed by all the law on the point now in force, and was covered with military glory. No one acquainted with the war times need be reminded of the actual command of the Army exer- cised by President Lincoln through his Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, during the Rebellion. Nor, when Grant had stepped from the head of the army-list into the White House did he permit his successor as Gen- eral, to come between him and his Secretary of War. To abolish the Secretary of War would unquestionably be very difficult, but the task of establishing between him and the President a General with independent and conclusive powers for any military purpose, either ad- ministrative or executive, is more than difficult it is hopeless. Colonel Wherry's letter contains a few things which THE COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 133 it is proper for me to notice in the way of correction and u cleaning up," although they are immaterial to the question under consideration. He says, if I under- stand him, that a letter from General Schofield, which he quoted, is regarded by me as " presumptuous." So far as I know, the assertion is wholly groundless. I regard and have treated General Schofield as one of the highest military authorities. Again, in my letter which appeared in the Field Glass of August, I am, through a misprint, made to say " one " President making the expression special, instead of " our " President making it general. I had no opportunity to correct the proof, and did not see the letter in print until the paper, regularly issued, reached nie in Montreal about the 4th of August. Then I detected and corrected the error.* To the reader who examines carefully enough to become a reviewer, the context, it seems to me, ought to have disclosed the fact that the printer was at fault. But I did not leave Colonel Wherry to make the discovery. I sent to him by letter-mail a corrected copy as early as the 5th of August. Notwithstanding all of this, he, in the Sep- tember number of your paper, makes the erroneous reading the basis of sharp comment as if it had been correct, and then adds a foot-note confessing that-he received from me a correction of the misprint. His excuse for retaining his comments seems to be that his article was written before he received notice of the error. He revised the printer's proof of his article, and that, too, after he received the correction. There was * The error here mentioned was a misprint, and there is conclusive evidence that General Fry corrected it as stated. [Ed. Field Glass. 134 MILITAKY MISCELLANIES. unnecessary labor, due perhaps to an author's excus- able love of offspring, in retaining and trying to explain sharp comments founded upon error, instead of preventing their appearance by simply striking them out. Finally, Colonel Wherry says that when he wrote his article on " The Command of the Army," which appeared in your number for July, he purposely omitted " General Fry's or any oilier person's name, to avoid personal controversy, and the asperity which usually belongs to such personal mention." I do not perceive the necessity for this statement, but finding it, I may remind the Colonel that, in the article to which he refers, he quoted from two officers General Scho- field and myself and that he cited General Schofield by name. I hope no " personal controversy " will arise between them on this account. Colonel Wherry's omission applied to me. I appreciate his motives as he explains them, but it is a new notion that, in mak- ing quotations, a writer may, to avoid personal contro- versy, neglect to credit the author from whom he quotes especially if, as in this instance, he quotes from the published writings of two persons, one of whose names is given. Colonel Wherry overestimates my sensitiveness. In quoting me he can mention my name with entire safety. As he has introduced the subject, I may suggest that, as a rule, in making quo- tations, personal controversy is more likely to be avoided by giving authorities than by omitting them. With respect and kind feelings for those who differ from me especially for General Schofield and Colonel THE COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 135 Wherry I quit this subject, leaving the Colonel a lady's privilege the last word. THE COMMAND OF THE ARMY. CONTINUED.* General Fry, in his last article (of September 9, in your October number), graciously gives me the last word. I am not disposed to comment on the tone of his article, much less to retort in kind. It is sufficient that he now states the case so as to leave no ground for discussion. Certainly, it cannot be contended that the President may lawfully be de- prived of the actual command of the Army ; or that the office of the Secretary of War may be, or ought to be, abolished (" wiped out ") ; or a General-in-Chief interposed between the President and the Secretary of War. If this is the proposition with which General Fry started, it is difficult to imagine why he thought it necessary to prove it. A very different proposition, viz.: that a Command- ing General, General-in-Chief, or Chief of Staff under both the President and the Secretary of War, and sub- ject to their direction, might be placed over the entire Army, line and staff, has been maintained on the one hand and denied on the other. But, it now seems, General Fry takes no part in this contention. Hence, I cheerfully end the discussion, with assurances ' of respect and kind feelings for General Fry, and regrets that I failed to see at the start that his labored argu- ment was designed only to prove the simple and self- evident propositions with which he closes the discus- sion. * Colonel Wherry (West Point, N. Y., October 2), in Field Glass for November, 1879. 136 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. THE COMMAND OF THE ARMY. CONTINUED.* Your letter of the 2d inst. reached me some days ago. You adhere positively, yet kindly I am sure, to your assertion that the " fact of history is diametrically the reverse " of a certain statement in my pamphlet on the command of the Army. But you tell me to "strike out the word diametrically" if I wish. In my understanding of language, the reverse of a fact is the same as diametrically the reverse of it. I do not avail myself of your concession for the reason that it does not change the meaning of your remark nor re- duce the force of your contradiction. The statement in my pamphlet is, " the fact may be recalled that President Washington in 1794 took the field in actual command of the militia of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Virginia ; and when he relinquished immediate command, he turned it over to the Governor of the last-named State." In your letter of October 26, you say of this, 1st, "It is pivotal to the question " discussed in my pamphlet, and, 2d, that it is "a serious error of history that it is diametrically the reverse " of the "fact of history." I do not regard the incident as "pivotal" or very important to the question. It was mentioned, as shown by the terms used, merely as an example which had arisen by chance under a rule which, I thought, firmly established by the argu- ment of the pamphlet. As I look at it, the force of the argument would not be impaired much, if at all, by striking out the occurrence. But unimportant as the statement appears to me in its connection in the * Letter from General Fry (New York, November 23, 1882), to Gen- eral H. C. Wayne, published in Journal Military Service Institution. THE COMMAND OF THE ARM Y. 137 pamphlet, your flat and elaborate contradiction, de- mands my reasons for making it. You say, " now the fact of history is diametrically the reverse of this state- ment. President Washington did not command in person the militia above mentioned on the occasion referred to, nor any other militia, nor any other troops at any time during the two terms of his presidency ;" and you add in relation to the militia force called into the Service of the United States to suppress the whiskey insurrection, " Governor Lee of Virginia was appointed to the command of this force." In both of your letters (October 26 and November 2) you insist that the reader shall " interpret technical lan- guage according to its meaning and application as de- termined by our Constitution, military law and Army Kegulations "; and add that "to inspect troops in no manner implies command of them in person or ac- tively." You speak as if the Constitution, military laws and Army Regulations laid down or "deter- mined " an exact method for interpreting technical language. If that were so we should not be engaged in discussion. But there is no accepted glossary to the instrument you name. In the case we have in hand you say Washington did not command " in person." To be exact in technical terms, I may remind you that my pamphlet does not say he commanded in person. It says he took the field in " actual command," and speaks of his " immediate command," We may be differing a little about the technical meaning of " actual," " immediate " and personal command, but I think by explanation we may understand each other. As to the facts of history in the case in point, I ob- 138 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. serve that you cite no authority but Sparks. You admit that President Washington went in person to the army but you hold that his only purpose was u to inspect." In relation to his exercise of command you say, " Sparks settles that question by telling us that Washington had the intention at one time of taking personal command of the militia if necessary, but that he did not do so, but after inspecting them returned to Philadelphia to be present at the meeting of Con- gress." Here, on November 2, you accept Sparks as settling the question, but in your letter of October 26, being at that time unwilling to admit that Wash- ington ever had even the intention of taking command, you discredit this same authority by saying, " but Mr. Sparks gives no authority in confirmation of his inten- tion, and as it is well known, a mere statement of intention unsupported by corroborative testimony has no positive weight." I may remark here that for the purpose of the argument in my pamphlet, Washing- ton's intention to take command is quite sufficient even if he did not carry out the intention. Mr. Sparks could have been discredited to more advantage on some of his other statements concerning the whiskey insur- rection, than upon what he says of Washington's in tention to take command. For example, he says that the " Secretary of War " accompanied the President to the place of rendezvous and that the " Secretary of War went on with the army to Pittsburgh These are mistakes. The Secretary of War, Knox, did not ac- company the President, did not go to the places of rendezvous at all, nor did he go on with the army to Pittsburg. Sparks 1 failure to state in the text of his THE COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 139 Life of Washington that the Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton, accompanied the President to the rendezvous and went on with the army is a grave omission, especial- ly in view of the active part taken by Hamilton in ike military 'as well as in the civil business of the expedition. To return to the main point. You, adopting Sparks, say, as I understand you, Washington went merely " to inspect " troops which were already organized and under the command of Governor Lee of Virginia. I think you are wrong. Washington himself says in his message to Congress, November 20 : "I ordered the militia to march, after once more admonishing the insurgents." " If the state of things had afforded reasons for the continuance of my presence with the army it would not have been withheld." " But every appearance assuring such an issue as will redound to the reputation and strength of the United States, I have judged it most proper to resume my duties at the seat of Government, leaving the chief command with the Governor of Virginia." On the 8th of October (1794), Washington wrote from Carlisle to General Daniel Morgan saying, " im- perious circumstances alone can justify my absence from the seat of Government while Congress is in ses- sion, but if these, from the disposition of the people in the refractory counties, and the state of the informa- tion I expect to receive at the advanced posts, should appear to exist, the less must yield to the greater duties of my office, and I shall cross the mountains with the troops ; if not, I shall place the combined force under the orders of Governor Lee of Virginia and repair to the seat of Government." 140 MILITABY MISCELLANIES. On the 9th of October, being still at Carlisle, he wrote to Knox, Secretary of War, at Philadelphia, " it would have given rne pleasure to have you with with nie," but " it is now too late as we shall be in the act of crossing the mountains, or I shall be on my return to Philadelphia, according to circumstances and the information T shall receive at the head of the line, before you could arrive." " To-morrow, if I can get the troops in motion at this place, I shall set out for Williamsport, thence to Bedford, where about the 18th or 20th, my ultimate measures will be determined on." On the 16th of October, he wrote from Cumber- land, to Randolph, Secretary of State, "I do not ex- pect to be here more than two days, thence to Bedford, whence, as soon as matters are arranged and a plan settled, I shall shape my course for Philadelphia, but not because the impertinence of Mr. Bache or his cor- respondent has undertaken to pronounce that I cannot constitutionally command the Army 'while Congress is in session" On the 20th of October, Washington having arrived at Bedford, decided on the u ultimate measures " men- tioned in his letter of the 8th to Morgan. He directed Hamilton to address a formal and lengthy letter of instructions to Governor Lee which opens by saying : " I have it in special instruction from the President of the United States now at this place, to convey to you on his behalf the following instructions for the general direction of your conduct in the command of the militia army with which you are charged." It is in this letter that the rank of the Governors is an- THE COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 141 nounced ; Hamilton saying, " it has been settled that the Governor of Pennsylvania will be second, the Governor of New Jersey third in command." On the same day, October 26, Washington addressed a let- ter to Governor Lee in which he says, " could my fur- ther presence with them " (the troops) " have been necessary or compatible with my civil duties, at a period when an approaching session of Congress par- ticularly calls me to return to the seat of Government, it would not have been withheld. In leaving them, I have less to regret as I know I commit them to able and faithful direction." The foregoing extracts afford conclusive proof, as it seems to me, that wheu President Washington, in September, 1794, left the seat of Government for Car- lisle, Williamsport and Bedford, it was not merely " to inspect " a militia force which was, as you claim, at that time organized and commanded by Governor Lee of Virginia. If a doubt could remain on this point it probably would be removed by what Washington himself says of his purpose. In the message sent to Congress after his return he says he " visited the places of general rendezvous to obtain more exact informa- tion, and to direct a plan for ulterior movements." What was embraced in directing a plan ? What in fact did he do ? I have said in substance that he went in his capacity of Commander-in-Chief of the militia he had called into the Service of the United States, and that he exercised the actual command of that militia until he turned it over to Governor Lee of Virginia. In support of this I cite the foregoing extracts and will add a few comments. If he was not exercising 142 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. command there would be no meaning in the indigna- tion with which he spurns Mr. Bache's assertion that he could not constitutionally command the Army while Congress was in session, and in his giving reasons for his return to the seat of Government, which were not that he was not commanding but, that matters were arranged and a plan directed so that it was un- necessary for him to remain with the army. In fact, Mr. Bache's question about Washington's right to command could hardly have arisen if the right had not been exercised. In his message to Congress, Nov. 20, Washington says, " f ordered the militia to march," "./put in mo- tion 15,000 men;" and he distinctly states that it was " as Commander-in- Chief of the militia when called into the Service of the United States," that he pro- ceeded to join the troops. The Constitution appoints the President Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States and of the militia when called into the Service of the United States. He is- always on duty in that capacity. No assignment or formal announcement is necessary to the exercise by him of any command he may deem proper. As soon as he arrived at Carlisle, he went directly and actively to work to improve the discipline of the troops there. They were disorderly, and it was feared they would burn the town. " To what heights these heats might have gone if the President had not arrived so seasonably it is impossible to tell." " Though there were officers possessed of virtue and experience before he arrived, yet their authority was not sufficient to preserve order," etc. " After a short conversation he THE COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 143 informed us he was just going out about some business relating to the army, and that after breakfast he was going to see a division of the army march, but would converse with us at 10 o'clock that morning." Thus he was attending in person to army business both before and after breakfast. " He assured us that he would provide by dispersing the disorderly corps among bet- ter troops, or otherwise, that they should be kept in strict subordination." "Having rode out a few miles to see some relations, the President was gone out to the army before we returned." "General Smith, who commanded the Maryland brigade, complied strictly with the President's orders in discharging such of the men as were disorderly." " The President was hap- pily successful in reducing the licentious part of the army to subordination," * etc., etc. This certainly in- dicates the exercise of " actual " and " immediate " command. The President confirms it by his letter of October 9, already cited, in which he says, " If /can get the troops in motion at this place, I shall set out for Williamsport, thence to Bedford." That he was at this time actually executing the duties of his military office is further shown by his letter of October 8 to Morgan, his letter of October 20 to Lee, and his message of November 20 to Congress. In the" first he says, "if imperious circumstances require it, the less must yield to the greater duties of my office, and I shall march across the mountains with the troops." In the second he distinctly contrasts the military du- ties he was then performing with the " civil duties " he proposed to resume by returning to the seat of Gov- * Findley's History of the Whiskey Insurrection. 144 MILITAEY MISCELLANIES. ernment. In the third, after giving reasons for his return from the army, he says : " I have judged it most proper to resume my duties at the seat of Govern- ment, leaving the chief command with the Governor of Virginia." Clearly from this, he had for a time laid aside his civil duties at the seat of Government, for the purpose of attending in person to military duties at the seat of war. And furthermore it appears plain enough from this that the Governor of Virginia did not have the chief command of the militia army until the Presi- dent left it to him by quitting the field. It is true that Washington is reported to have said at Carlisle that he did not "command the army in person, but had ap- pointed Governor Lee Commander-in-Chief." The date on which he appointed Lee to command in person, or left him in chief command, is not material in this dis- cussion. It would seem however that he had not ap- pointed Lee as late as October 8, for he said in his letter of that date to Morgan, if not required to cross the mountains, " I shall " (that is at some future time) " place the combined force under the orders of Gov- ernor Lee of Virginia." It seems clear that up to that date the President was exercising the command him- self. The Governors bore the same relation to their respec- tive forces that the President bore to the whole force. He and they exercised command on exactly the same principles. For the purpose of actual military com- mand he fixed their relative military rank as already shown. In our discussion, the historical fact of the President's part in the whiskey insurrection is impor- tant only as bearing on the principle of command THE COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 145 which controls alike the President and the Governors. Admitting, that at some date not known, the Presi- dent appointed Lee to command in person, it would still be true that up to the date of his departure, the President actually exercised the chief command him- self. In his letter of October 20 to Lee he says of the troops : " In leaving them I have less to regret as I know I commit them to able and faithful direction." You will observe the force of the present tense of the verb commit. It seems to me that it was then and there that the immediate command was relinquished by the President and turned over to the Governor of Virginia, just as stated in my pamphlet, and that you are in error in characterizing my statement as " dia- metrically the reverse of the fact of history." Allow me also to say, in all kindness, that the " brief history " of the whiskey insurrection, given in your letter of October 26, is defective in making no allusion to the documents I have cited ; for without considering them, Washington's part, especially in the military operations, cannot be fully understood. A few words as to a general proposition in your letter and I shall close. You say "it is not to be supposed that the Chief Magistrate of the nation shall be qualified to command in person, an army in the field, or direct the ma- noeuvres of a naval squadron. Nor is it to be sup- posed that he could abstract himself from his other duties, civil and military, to command in person on land or sea, were he competent to do so. Either sup- position is an impossibility, and therefore both are in- admissible." 146 MILITAKY MISCELLANIES. On the basis of these assumptions, after we have had more than a hundred years of experience, you would transplant from the British military system to ours, certain features and titles which the founders of our Government understood and rejected. That Wash- ington did not entertain the views you express con- cerning the military functions of the President, is proved by the foregoing extracts. It seems to me there is no more unstable founda- tion for a military system than the assumption that the actual head of it is incompetent, and if com- petent would necessarily be unable to perform his duties ; and so I judge the framers of our Con- stitution thought, for it is recorded, that " objec- tions were made to that part of this article by which the President is appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States ; and it was wished to be so far restrained that he should not command in per- son, but this could not be obtained"' Looking from my point of view, the only supposi- tion admissible is, that the President is qualified for all the duties imposed upon him by the Constitution. The/act is the Constitution and laws afford him ample facilities for the efficient performance of them. * Luther Martin's Letter to Maryland House of Representatives. El- liott's Debate on Federal Constitution. ARTICLE III. Justice in the Army.* Justice is absolutely essential to discipline in our Army. Inasmuch as the military is a more arbitrary and despotic system than the civil, so is even-handed justice the more necessary in it. Mercy (which is one form of favoritism) should not be confounded with kindness. It implies wrong known both to the offender and the judge. Justice and mercy are totally incom- patible. There can be no such compound as justice seasoned with mercy. The least particle of the latter destroys the former. In the Army, if not elsewhere, it is justice, not mercy, that " is twice blessed " ; it " blesses him that gives, and him that receives " ; and as justice conveys double blessings, so does mercy bring double evils. The records of our Army sustain the assertion that remissions and mitigations of de- served penalties smooth the way to repetitions of offences and lead offenders deeper and deeper into trouble. But the more common form of favoritism in Army management does not come under the head of mercy. Many Army scandals if not attributable to, have been promoted by, the purer form of this evil. It is a truism that some men cannot stand prosperity. In the Army where regularity and strict routine are the rule, sudden elevation is dangerous, especially when * Army and Navy Journal, September 22, 1883. 147 148 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. it does not come from established merit. Take for example the case of .A cadet, he was pro- moted in 1871 to the grade of 2d Lieutenant. After less than two years' service in that grade he resigned ; and without distinction in the Army or out of it he was in 1876 appointed paymaster with the rank, pay, and emoluments of Jfcyor, while his classmates who had served faithfully during the time he was out of the Army, were still Lieutenants. He could not stand the sudden and unearned elevation. To him the pay and emoluments of Major seemed so large compared with those of his former and proper grade, 2d Lieu- tenant, that he probably thought they would sustain any indulgence, even a big game of draw-poker. When his pay failed he resorted to the public purse to meet the demands of habits he never would have formed if he had remained a Lieutenant until he grew gradually to higher grades. This is no apology for his crimes. It is merely one of the causes of them. Colonel -'s case is also in point. He, a young Major of cavalry, received by a mere stroke of the pen the rank, pay and emoluments of Colonel, was transferred from the active service and wholesome in- fluence of his regiment to Washington City, where he had little or nothing to do. He, too, became dizzy and was not able to resist the temptations of his new and exalted sphere. Colonel furnishes another example of influ- ence, or favoritism. He had shown ability and gal- lantry as a soldier, and had military recommendations for promotion to the grade of Major in the Adjutant- Department. But the contest between him JUSTICE IN THE AEMY. 149 and other officers for that position was decided in his favor by political influence. The lesson he learned from concentrating and applying that influence to secure his promotion, he subsequently turned to such account that the military powers of the War Depart- ment were not able even to change his station. He would not leave Washington, the source of favors. There, as he is said to have expressed it in a gambler's figure of speech, he had a seat near the dealer, and that was an advantage in the game which he was not going to surrender. Nor did he surrender it. He held Washington as his station from the time he en- tered the Adjutant-General's Department by promo- tion until he left it by voluntary retirement ; and that was still his residence when he appeared in the scan- dals which bear his name. The cure for these ills is not in the hands of the Army. But united action on the part of officers may promote remedial measures. There is nothing in which the Army is more deeply concerned than in the laws and regulations governing appointments and promotions and their enforcement. While appoint- ments to so-called original vacancies are by unre- strained selection, the law provides that selections for appointment to the lowest grades in several of the staff departments shall be made from the Army. The rule of promotion is that seniority shall govern, but there are exceptions to the rule, and under these selec- tion has precedence. There is a growing tendency to restrict the operation of the rule and increase the ex- ceptions. This works badly for the Army. Certainly it is objectionable in a military system to have medi- 150 MILITAEY MISCELLANIES. ocrity, especially as it grows old, sit witli all the weight of the law ou active and aspiring energy and ability. Promotion based on merit might be of ad- vantage to the Army, provided relative merit could be accurately determined and promotion made to con- form rigidly and impartially to it. But that is impos- sible in our Service, though in times of great and im- mediate danger appointments and promotions may to a limited extent be made safely by selection. With us, speaking broadly, there is no such thing as promo- tion by merit. All promotion that is not by seniority is now, and will continue to be, by favoritism. The Army's views upon these systems, if clearly expressed, would no doubt have some weight. It is not easy to secure the attention to this subject which it deserves. Comparatively few of our people are willing to con- cern themselves during the long years of peace with preparations for war. Only part of those who admit the necessity for activity in that direction are able to live up to their convictions. The belief that if war should come, we shall be able through the intelligence, patriotism and pluck of the people to provide for it after it gets in sight, is widespread and sincere. While the Army is respected for its character and the services it has rendered, people impressed by the fact that it is not necessary to our present welfare, do not realize that its preservation in the highest state of pro- ficiency and efficiency is necessary as an assurance of safety in the future. On the easy and agreeable assumption that we shall have no more wars, Army offices come to be regarded as well paid positions, in which there is nothing of JUSTICE IN THE ARMY. 151 importance to do, and which one man can fill as well as another. Viewed in this way it is quite natural that Army offices in time of peace should be used to the fullest extent of the law, to reward services, po- litical or personal, rendered by a candidate or his backers. The only protection against this eril seems to be in positive laws requiring promotion (in time of peace at least), to be by seniority, even to the very top. Some points concerning corps and arms of service would have to be considered, but they would give rise to no practical difficulty. Our liberal and comprehensive system of retirement would prevent serious injury to the Service from the occupation of high places by worn-out or broken-down men. It would be better for the Army to have majorities in the Pay Depart- ment filled by promoting the senior Captains in the line, and vacancies in the captaincies of the Quarter- master's Department and Subsistence Department filled by promoting the senior first Lieutenants of the line, than to have them filled as at present by so-called selection. AKTICLE IV. Law in the Army/ Division and Department commanders have fre- quently in fact generally, of late retained authority when beyond the limits of their commands. This has occurred when absence was, and also when it was not, on duty, and somewhat regardless of the distance the commander might go or the length of time he might stay. There is no doubt that such proceedings have led, and may continue to lead, to serious embarrass- ment, and it is clearly in the interest of the public service that General Gibbon files a temperate and re- spectful objection to them. But he appears to go too far in charging that they are a direct violation of the 122d Article of War. That Article says : "AnT. 122. If, upon marches, guards, or in quarters, different corps of the Army happen to join or do duty together, the officer highest in rank of the line of the Army, marine corps, or militia, by commission, there on duty or in quarters, shall command the whole, and give orders for what is needful to the Service, unless otherwise specially directed by the President, accord- ing to the nature of the case." General Gibbon maintains that this Article pre- scribes the rule of succession in command, not only in all the organizations of the Army as created by law, but also in the sub-divisions of the country made by * See article in the 4th number of the Journal. 152 LAW IN THE AEMY. 153 the President for the welfare of the Service, and for his convenience as Commander-in-Chief ; and he takes the extreme ground that absence instantaneously dis- qualifies the regularly assigned commander, and that, " the moment he absents himself, the law steps in, and says " (Art. 122) "that the next in rank 'is the com- mander? r This broad claim does not appear to be sustained by the Article quoted. It cannot fairly be said that the troops posted and habitually encom- passed within the limits of a geographical department " happen to join or do duty together " in the meaning of this Article ; nor can the temporary absence of the designated Department commander give rise to the contingency or happening which it is clearly the pur- pose of the Article to provide for. In fact there is no statute law requiring the transfer or relinquishment of command on account of the temporary absence of a Division or Department commander. The attempt to correct what threatened to be an abuse is weakened by presenting the dangerous practice as a violation of any particular Article of War. The Judge Advocate Gen- eral has reached substantially the same conclusion that General Gibbon arrives at on the main question, but he does so by a process of reasoning, not by alleging a direct violation of law. He says "the place it is submitted of the action taken is material to the ques- tion of a proper exercise of an attribute of command." But the views of the Judge Advocate General on this subject have been examined by the Attorney-General of the United States and overruled. The opinion- with which General Gibbon was probably not ac- quainted when he wrote is as follows : 154 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, August 28, 1880. THE SECRETARY OF WAR. SIR : Yours of the 24th instant, asking whether a Department commander, assigned by the President to command^ can exercise the functions of his office to appoint general courts-martial, and act upon the record of proceedings of the same when he is outside the territorial limits of his command, has been duly considered, in connection with Orders No. 26, Wash- ington, May 18, 1878, in the case of General Kautz, and Orders No. 9, Vancouver Barracks, Washington Territory, May 14, 1880, transmitted by you in the same connection ; and herewith I submit a reply. The division and subdivision of the territory of the United States into military divisions and departments is a matter of discretion for the President, and scarcely anything, and that indirect and for the present purpose uninstructive, is to be found upon the subject in the statutes. Orders making such geographical divisions, and assigning officers to their commands, are also very brief, and throw no special light upon the present question. In the absence of special orders or legislation to that effect, I am of opinion that personal presence within the territorial limits of his Department is not essential to the validity of commands given by a Department commander to be executed within such limits such, for instance, as the appointment of a court-martial. The question which you put, is general, as regards the absence in question, so that my answer is neces- sarily general also. Whether there may be exceptions IAW IN THE ARMY. 155 to it growing out of special circumstances attending ab- sence, can be best determined when those circumstances arise. But I see no reason why mere absence should have the effect of invalidating such commands. The distribution of military command into geograph- ical departments, is, as I suppose, mainly for the pur- pose of preventing collision and confusion, and so of securing individual responsibility in the execution of commands by officers otherwise of like authority. Practically, such collision is to be apprehended rather in execution than in exercise. It seems, therefore, that the place of the action taken is material to the question of the proper execution of command rather than to that of its proper exercise. In the analogous cases of civil authority, the incident of geographical limits for its execution has not, in the absence of special features, been considered to require, ex. gr., judicial orders to be issued by a judge only whilst within such limits. In order to render this necessary, something else must concur to indicate the will of the constituting au- thority. The ground of this opinion is that there is present here nothing else to indicate the will of the President or other proper superior authority, that the functions of commanding officers should be so limited. In the meantime, the arguments in its favor are such as are for consideration only by the power having leg- islative or quasi legislative control of the question (i. o sured him that he had no thought of moving him, and in his " Memoirs/' after relating what had passed, he adds," etc. It is not worth while to multiply illustrations, but it may be noted that Mr. Arnold's vocabulary is large. He has more words than he needs, and he appears to throw in the surplus to get rid of it. Possibly, how- ever, the mystery of English with " charm " and " high- breeding" may lie hidden in the distribution of this surplus. Here are some examples : " The afternoon of that same day ; " " he says with perfect truth ; " "high genius ; " " the United States Senator for Ohio procured for young Grant when he was 17 years old ; " "from this time he was always the same strong man," etc. ; " almost exactly the same strength as at the be- ginning of the campaign ; " " if the South could suc- ceed in prolonging an indecisive struggle year after year still, the North might probably grow tired of the contest ; " " in the field there was some sharp fighting for a day or tivo still ; " " but the Mexican war came on and kept him in the Army;" "Grant declined be- cause he was to go off that evening to visit his chil- dren." Perhaps on and off, as they stand in the last two sentences, are not so bad as they would be if they changed places, but they are unnecessary, unless it be that they give "charm" and " high-breeding " to the English. 318 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. Without making more comparisons between the English of General Grant and Mr. Arnold, the follow- ing may be taken from Mr. Arnold's article as fair ex- amples of his English with charm and high-breeding. Comparing Grant before he went to West Point with English school-boys, Mr. Arnold calls the latter " our young gentlemen " / and speaking of the way Grant was reared, he says : " The bringing up of Abraham Lincoln was also, I suppose, in this wise" Two more examples must suffice. Mr. Arnold says : " After Grant had, after a hard and bloody struggle of two days, won the battle of Shiloh, in which a ball cut in two the scabbard of his sword, and more than 10,000 men were killed and wounded on the side of the North, General Halleck, who did not love Grant, ar- rived on the scene of action and assumed the com- mand." " And, therefore, crossing the James River he invested, after failing to carry it by assault, Peters- burg, the enemy's stronghold south of Richmond. . . . Finally, Grant, resuming operations in March, 1865, possessed himself of the outer works of Peters- burg. . . . Then Grant proceeded to possess him- self of the railroad by which Lee's army and Rich- mond itself, now drew their supplies." Under cover of a statement made by Grant, Mr. Arnold assumes the defence of the sympathy for the South shown by England during the Rebellion. Grant says : " It was evident to my mind that the election of a Republican President in 1856 meant the secession of all the slave States and rebellion. Under these circumstances I preferred the success of a candidate whose election would prevent or postpone secession, GRANT AND MATTHEW ARNOLD. 319 to seeing the country plunged into a war, the end of which no man could foretell." Upon this Mr. Arnold remarks : " I am not con- cerned to discuss Grant's reasons for his vote, but I wish to remark how completely his reflections dispose of the reproaches addressed so often by Americans to England for not sympathizing with the North attack- ing slavery in a war with the South upholding it. From what he says, it is evident how very far the North was, when the war began, from attacking slavery." Did Mr. Arnold have to learn from Grant's book " from what he says "- that the North was very far from attacking slavery when the War began ? His- tory abounds in proof of that. Our Congress, after war broke out, passed a resolution saying that " the War was not waged for the purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institu- tions of the States, but to defend and maintain the permanency of the Constitution and to preserve the Union with all the dignity and equal rights of the several States unimpaired " ; and about the same time the Confederate Commissioners, Yancey, Mann, and Rust, said, in a letter to Earl Russell : " It was from no fear that the slaves would be liberated that seces- sion took place. The very party in power has pro- posed to guarantee slavery forever in the States, if the South would but remain in the Union." That Mr. Arnold should discover these historical facts by draw- ing an inference from General Grant's book is as sur- prising as his discovery of General Grant in 1880 ; but his conclusion from the discovery is more surpris- 320 MILITAEY MISCELLANIES. ing still. From the fact that Grant in 1856 held the opinion that the election of a Democratic President would prevent or postpone a civil war in his country, and voted accordingly, Mr. Arnold draws the con- clusion that Americans were unjust, or at least incon- sistent, in reproaching " England for not sympathizing with the North attacking slavery, in a war with the South upholding it." The meaning is that as the North was not attacking slavery at the beginning it had no claim to English sympathy. This is a weak defence. According to the morals of England, slavery was a monstrous evil ; and in this judgment a large part of our Northern people heartily concurred. But slavery, having been found by us as it was left here by England, was imbedded in our Constitution ; and our Government from the beginning had been part slave and part free, with the free part located in the North, growing in moral strength as well as in pro- portional numbers. The necessity for subjection of the slave-owners' will to the will of the Union after political control had passed to the North in I860, the unwillingness of the North to have slavery extended, and a violent resentment by Southerners of abolition- ism in the abstract, caused the Southern States to secede from the Union, and proceed to set up a gov- ernment of which Mr. A. H. Stephens, its Vice-Presi- dent, said in a public speech, March 21, 1861 : "Its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man ; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first in the history of the world GRANT AND MATTHEW ARNOLD. 321 based upon this great physiological and moral truth." Mr. Arnold tells us that " admiration and favor are not compellable ; we admire and favor only an object which delights us, helps us, elevates us, does us good." The government described by Mr. Stephens, based upon slavery, is the one which Mr. Arnold admits many Englishmen, for whom he now offers a poor excuse, admired and favored, as against the Govern- ment of the Union, founded upon the principle of human freedom, and composed largely of men devoted to the general enforcement of that principle. It is true that the Union, choosing between evils and trust- ing to the appearance of some peaceful process for eliminating slavery, was willing, at first, to let the evil alone where it existed, rather than enter upon a bloody civil war, the end of which, as Grant says, no man could foretell. But this dilemma of the North affords no excuse to Englishmen, who were not in the dilem- ma, for taking sides with the South ; nor does Grant's action in 1856 " dispose of the reproaches addressed so often by Americans to England for not sympathiz- ing with the North " in the civil war of 1861-65. If English lack of sympathy for the North had been, as Mr. Arnold intimates, because the North did -not at- tack slavery at the beginning, then surely, as soon as the Government did attack it, early in 1863, they would have been with the North heartily. But the abolition of slavery did not divert English sympathies from the South to the North. Mr. Arnold himself probably has some love for Americans in general, for he uses the lash freely, and we are told that whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth. 322 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. Grant, Mr. Arnold tells us, a is boastful, as Americans are apt to be, for his nation " ; " The Americans are too self -laudatory ; " " Grant was boastful only in cir- cumstances where nothing but high genius or high training, I suppose, can save an American from being boastful ; " " The United States would be more attrac- tive to us if they were more backward in proclaiming themselves the greatest nation on earth ; " " The Americans in the rage for comparison-making beat the world ; whatever excellence is mentioned America must, if possible, be brought in to balance or surpass it. That fine and delicate naturalist, Mr. Burroughs, mentions trout, and instantly he adds, British trout, by the way, are not so beautiful as our own." Mr. Arnold shows a keen perception of the fitness of things by 'closing these extravaganzas with a fish story. It is to the chance by which " some documents pub- lished by General Badeau in the American newspapers first attracted his (my) attention to Grant " that the British people are indebted for Mr. Arnold's discovery of the American soldier, and it must be admitted that the treatment of General Grant in Mr. Arnold's so-called Estimate, though patronizing, is quite com- mendatory. Indeed, having caught from America " the rage for comparison-making," he compares Grant to the Iron Duke, saying : " But he certainly had a good deal of the character and qualities which we so justly respect in the Duke of Wellington." . . . " Surely, in all this he resembles the Duke of Welling- ton." Englishmen are not boastful. They merely set up one of their own heroes as the standard of human GRANT AND MATTHEW ARNOLD. 823 greatness, and measure other men by that standard. So, too, Mr. Arnold does honor to Grant's "Memoirs." Notwithstanding they are in language " all astray in its use of will and shall, ... an English without charm and without high-breeding," Mr. Arnold com- forts us by saying, "surely the Duke of Wellington would have read these i Memoirs ' with pleasure." But having lifted us above the American level by admitting that Grant " had a good deal of the qualities" of the Duke of Wellington, and that the Duke " would have read these 'Memoirs' with pleasure," Mr. Arnold drops us back by saying, " Cardinal Mazarin used to ask concerning a man, before employing him, est-il Jieureux? Grant was Jieureux; " and there he leaves us. How deeply are we indebted to him ? MARK TWAIN DEFENDS GEN. GRANT'S ENGLISH ATTACKING MAT- THEW ARNOLD. The Army and Navy Club of Connecticut held their annual reunion to-night to commemorate the anniversary of Gen. Grant's birthday. The chief address on the memory of Gen. Grant was delivered by the Rev. Dr. M. B. Riddle, formerly a chaplain in the Ser- vice. Toastmaster V. B. Chamberlain introduced Mr. S. L. Clemens (Mark Twain), who spoke as follows : MARK TWAIN'S SPEECH. I will detain you with only just a few words just a few thousand words ; and then give place to a better man if he has been created. Lately a great and honored author, Matthew Arnold has been' finding- fault with Gen. Grant's English. That would be fair enough, may be, if the examples of imperfect English averaged more instances to the page in Gen. Grant's book than they do in Mr. Arnold's criticism upon the book but they don't. (Laughter and applause.) It would be fair enough, may be, if such instances were commoner in Gen. Grant's book than they are in the works of the average standard author but they aren't. In truth, Gen. Grant's derelictions in the matter of grammar and construction are not more frequent than are such derelictions in the works of a majority of the professional authors of our time and all previous times authors as exclusively and painstakingly trained to the literary trade as was Gen. Grant to the trade of war. (Applause.) MILITARY MISCELLANIES MR. ARNOLD'S GRAMMAR. This is not a random statement ; it is a fact, and easily demonstrable. I have at home a book called u Modern English Literature, its Blemishes and Defects," by Henry H. Breen, F.S.A., a countryman of Mr. Arnold. In it I find examples of bad grammar and slovenly English from the pens cf Sydney Smith, Sheridan. Hallam, Whateley, Caiiyle, both Dis- raelis, Allison, Junius, Blair, Macaulay, Shakespeare, Milton, Gibbon, Southey, Bulwer. Cobbett, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Trench, Lamb, Landor, Smollett, Wai pole, Walker (of the dictionary), Christopher North. Kirke White, Mrs. Sigourney, Benjamin Franklin, Walter Scott and Mr. Lindley Murray, who made the grammar. In Mr. Arnold's paper on Gen. Grant's book we find a couple of grammatical crimes and more than several examples of very crude and slovenly English enough of them to easily entitle him to a lofty place in that illustrious list of delinquents just named. The following pas- sage, all by itself, ought to elect him : ' ' Meade suggested to Grant that he might wish to have immediately under him Sherman, who had been serving with Grant in the West. He begged him not to hesitate if he thought it for the good of the Service. Grant assured him that he had no thought of moving him, and in his 'Memoirs,' after relating what had passed, he adds," &c. To read that passage a couple of times would make a man dizzy, to read it four times would make him drunk. (Great laughter.) Gen. Grant's grammar is as good as anybody's; but if this were not so, Mr. Breen would brush that inconsequential fact aside and hunt his great book for far higher game. Mr. Breen makes this discriminating remark : "To suppose that because a man is a poet or a historian, he must be correct in his grammar, is to suppose that an architect must be a joiner, or a physician a compounder of medicines." Mr. Breen 's point is well taken. If you should climb the mighty Mat- terhorn to look out over the kingdoms of the earth, it might be a pleas- ant incident to find strawberries up there; but, Great Scott, you don't climb the Matterhorn for strawberries ! (Continued applause.) GRANT'S IMMORTAL SENTENCES. There is that about the sun which makes us forget his spots ; and when we think of Gen. Grant our pulses quicken and his grammar vanishes. We only remember that this is the simple soldier who, all untaught of the silken phrase-makers, linked words together with an art surpassing the art of the schools, and put into them a something which will still bring to American ears, as long as America shall last, the roll of his vanished drums and the tread of his marching hosts. (Applause.) What do we care for grammar when we think of the man that put together that thunderous phrase, " Unconditional and imme- GRANT AND MATTHEW ARNOLD. 325 diate surrender ! ' ' And those others : "I propose to move immediately upon your works ! " "I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer!" (Applause.) Mr. Arnold would doubtless claim that that last sentence is not strictly grammatical, and yet nevertheless it did certainly wake up this nation as a hundred million tons of Al, fourth proof, hard-boiled, hide-bound grammar from another mouth couldn't have done. And finally we have that gentler phrase, that one which shows you another true side of the man ; shows that in his sol- dier heart there was room for other than gory war mottoes, and in his tongue the gift to fitly phrase them : " Let us have peace." (Prolonged applause and cheers.) Hartford, Conn., April 27. ARTICLE IV. Halleck and Grant Misunder- standings.* Grant opened his Shiloh article in the Century Magazine (February, 1885) with the statement that he had been unjustly treated by Halleck after the capture of Fort Donelson; and his "Personal Memoirs " con- tain the same charge, and, in addition, are laden with adverse criticism of Halleck. The leading article in the North American Review for December, 1885, by Colonel F. D. Grant, is entitled " Halleck's Injustice to Grant "; and for weeks after its appearance large post- ers were displayed from the news-stands in New York City, bearing, in conspicuous type, the words " Grant Vindicated from Halleck's Slanders ; by Colonel F. D. Grant." It is proper to state that Colonel Grant disclaims responsibility for the heading of his article, and while he presents official documents which suggest, but do not prove injustice, he merely disseminates, without comment, his father's sentiments concerning Halleck ; and though he speaks of having taken the documents from his father's files, they are to be found in their proper places in the "Records of the Rebellion." Grant and Halleck are dead. Though not equally successful, they were equally earnest and patriotic, and both deserved well of their country. Halleck's lot * Magazine of American History, Dec., 1886, p. 561. 326 H ALLEGE AND GRANT. 327 -was disappointment and premature death.* Fair-play demands that all questions of justice between him and Grant be treated according to their merits, apart from the comparative military ability, eminence, and popu- larity of the two great men. Without going into tedious details, it may be as- sumed that the charge of injustice has one main and four subordinate specifications. The first is, that after the capture of Fort Donelson, February 16, 1862, Hal- leek sought to promote C. F. Smith to a major-gen- eralcy over Grant, and thus give Smith the honors of the victory. This is the one specification of real substance to prove Halleck's injustice to Grant. Halleck is not guilty of it. All three of the authorities just cited,f General and Colonel Grant and General Badeau, have failed to present one essential telegram upon the sub- ject. They set forth the fact that on the 19th of Feb- ruary, 1862, Halleck telegraphed McClellan : " Briga- dier-General Charles F. Smith, by his coolness and bravery at Fort Donelson, when the battle was against us, turned the tide and carried the enemy's works. Make him a Major-General. You can't get a better one. Honor him for this victory and the whole coun- try will applaud ; " and leave it to be understood that by this telegram Smith was recommended instead of Grant, and to the neglect and prejudice of Grant. The truth is that Halleck by telegraph recommended * Halleck died January 9, 1872, aged 57. t " Personal Memoirs," vol. i., p. 328; North American Review, De- cember, 1885, p. 522 ; Badeau's Military History of General Grant, vol. i., p. 54. 328 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. Grant for a major-generalcy on the 17th of February, two days before he recommended Smith. This dis- patch (vol. vii., p. 628, " Records of the Rebellion,") is plainly of record. It reads : " Make Btiell, Grant and Pope Major-Generals of volunteers, and give me command in the West. I ask this in return for Forts Henry and Donelson." Grant's name was promptly sent to the Senate, and the fact was announced in the newspapers of the 18th. It is not necessary to quote more than one. The New York daily Tribune of Feb- ruary 18, 1862, announced Grant's nomination with the heading, " Honor to the brave ! " and its Washing- ton correspondent on the same day wrote : "The Sen- ate in executive session to-day unanimously confirmed Grant as Major-General." Halleck recommended Grant by telegraph on the 17th; the President's nomination of Grant was announced in the morning papers of the 18th. Halleck would naturally be watching for the announcement, and it is safe and fair to say he knew of the nomination on the 18th certainly by the morn- ing of the 19th, the day on which he recommended Smith. But be that as it may, he recommended Grant, and Grant was nominated and confirmed be- fore Smith was recommended ; which is conclusive as to what Halleck sought to do. Badeau, ignoring Halleck's prior recommendation of Grant, and assuming that Halleck designed to honor Smith at Grant's expense, says, vol. i., p. 54 : " Neither did the Government agree with Halleck that Smith should receive the honors of this victory. The Secre- tary of War at once recommended Grant for a Major- General of volunteers, and the President nominated H ALLEGE AND GKANT. 329 him the same day." This version of the transaction given in Badeau's book, published in 1867, is mislead- ing, and is unjust to Halleck. Though the foregoing statement is not specified by Grant as one of the " facts " relating to Donelson which Grant says in his "Memoirs," p. 328, "General Badeau unearthed," it is probable that he accepted it as a fact, and died in the belief that Halleck tried to give Smith the honor and reward for Donelson. As the minor or incidental matters of this supposed grievance have been pre- sented formally, they must be considered. The first of them is that, failing to get Smith pro- moted to rank Grant, Halleck, nevertheless, gave Smith command of an expedition up the Tennessee early in March, 1862, and left Grant at Fort Henry, as Grant states it, " virtually in arrest and without a command." * On the 15th of February, 1862, Halleck gave Grant command of the " District of West Tennessee," " limits undefined." He sent a telegram on the 1st of March, directing Grant to move his column up the Tennessee River to destroy railroad bridges. Halleck did not designate the commanders for the sub-columns into which the expedition was to be divided for the work to be done. He merely said : " General C. F. Smith, or some very discreet officer, should be selected for such commands ; " and " that competent officers should be left to command the garrisons of Fort Henry and Donelson in your absence." He intended Grant to go with the expedition. But soon after Halleck made * " Personal Memoirs," vol. i., pp. 327-8 ; Century Magazine, Febru- ary, 1885, p. 594. 330 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. the order for the movement, he heard as he reported to McClellan on the 3d of March that Grant had left his command and gone to Nashville without authority, that great disorders in the army had occurred during Grant's absence ; and coupling these accounts with his failure to get reports and returns from Grant, and with a rumor that reached him on the 4th published as one of the telegrams in Colonel Grant's article that Grant had " resumed his former bad habits," Halleck on the 4th telegraphed Grant, " You will place Major- General C. F. Smith in command of expedition, and remain yourself at Fort Henry." In speaking of this affair in the winter of 1885, Grant said that Halleck left him at Fort Henry " in arrest." I remarked that I thought he was in error about the arrest, but he adhered to his assertion. His Shiloh article for the Century Magazine had then been written, but not published. When it appeared, it contained the state- ment that he was " virtually in arrest." That state- ment is repeated in the " Personal Memoirs," and is strengthened by the addition that he was " without a command." The facts upon this point are, that McClellan, in a dispatch of March 3d, authorized Halleck to arrest Grant, but Halleck answered on the 4th that lie did not " deem it advisable." There was no order of ar- rest, no report or return indicating arrest; and no re- striction of Grant's authority. The telegram directing him to remain at Fort Henry was the only order in the case. Grant's authority over the entire District of West Tennessee, including the expeditionary force un- der C. F. Smith, was uninterrupted and unlimited. No H ALLEGE AND GRANT. 331 one lias ever pretended to show any order or instruc- tion to the contrary. The " Records" abound in proofs that Grant was continuously on duty and in full com- mand of his district and troops. On the 5th of March he issued formal orders for Smith to take command of the expedition, and gave him instructions for conduct- ing it, saying, " I will remain at Fort Henry and throw forward all the troops that can be provided with transportation." On the 6th he reported to Halleck, " All transports here will be loaded and off to-day, if the gunboats arrive to convoy them. One gunboat has gone to Savannah. The transports here will not take all the troops in readiness to move. Your instructions contemplated my commanding expedition in person. Dispatch yesterday changed it." On the same day he re- ported to Halleck : " Union City is said to be garrisoned by rebels. I will keep a lookout to prevent a surprise from that direction while the garrison is weak here." On the 7th he wrote to General S. A. Hurlburt, com- manding fourth division : u Embark your forces on the transports now awaiting you as rapidly as possible." . . . Signed "U. S. Grant, Major- General, Com- manding" On the same day and over the same signa- ture he issued an equally peremptory order to " Colonel K. I. Oglesby, commanding U. S. forces, Fort Donel- "son, Tenn" On the 9th, he telegraphed Halleck, "I will do all in my power to advance the expedition now started . . .1 renew my application to he re- lieved from further duty" showing that he was on duty. On the 9th he made to Halleck a statement of the forces in the district: those composing the expedi- tion, 25,206; those at Fort Henry awaiting transport a- '332 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. tiou, 5,740; those at Clarksville, 1,173; those at Fort Donelson, 2,328. On the 10th he telegraphed Halleck, " Third Iowa Infantry just arrived. Effective strength, 676 ; ordered : to join General Smith. Advance of ex- pedition started last evening;" and also on the 10th to Halleck, " To-morrow is the day when all persons of proper age are to be enrolled in this State in the rebel army. Troops are now in Paris to enforce the orders of Governor Harris. I am concentrating the small force under my command on the west bank of the river, to defeat their object as far as lays in my power." On the llth, he wrote as follows: " General C. F. Smith, commanding expedition to Upper Ten- nessee. Send back steamers as rapidly as possible to enable us to forward troops . . . U. S. Grant, Major- General, Commanding;" and on the same day, llth, he telegraphed Halleck, "I shall run down to Paducah to-night." These dispatches and others of like import, showing Grant to have been constantly on duty, are in " Records of Rebellion," vol. x., part ii., pp. 3 to 29. They prove that he was not in arrest of any sort, that he was not without a command, and that he was exercising command loyally and efficiently over his entire district, including the forces under imme- diate control of C. F, Smith. It is true that Grant's detention on duty at Fort Henry grew out of Halleck's disapprobation. The de- tention itself, however, would not have been a griev- ance if it had not been based upon special causes. Halleck had required Sherman, who was Grant's supe- rior officer, to remain a few miles in the rear and push forward men and munitions to enable Grant to capture H ALLEGE AND GRANT. 333 Forts Henry and Donelson, but Sherman did not com- plain that he was virtually in arrest or without a com- mand. The order for Grant to remain at Fort Henry was, in fact, of no practical disadvantage to him. It was made on the 4th of March. On the 9th, only five days afterward, and before anything of importance had been done up the Tennessee, Halleck terminated the effect of the order by telegraphing to Grant to be ready to take the advance (vol. x., part ii., p. 27, " Eecords of Rebellion.") This notification was given on the very day that the advance of the expedition, as reported by Grant, started from Fort Henry ; so that, practically, Grant was not left behind at all. The notification was repeated on the llth, and again on the 13th, Halleck saying upon the latter date, " I wish you, as soon as your new army is in the field, to assume the immediate command and lead it on to new victories." By directing Grant to assume immediate command, Halleck recognized that Grant had been continuously exercising general com- mand. Under this authority, and fixing his own time for starting to the front, Grant proceeded up the Ten- nessee and reached Savannah on the 17th of March. Not having been relieved from command by arrest or otherwise, he issued no order assuming command on reaching Savannah, but continued in the exercise of the authority conferred by his assignment of February 15th, to command of the District of West Tennessee. As already stated, Grant's detention at Fort Henry, while his new army was getting ready for the field, was not in itself a grievance. But the next specifica- tion of Halleck' s injustice to Grant rests upon the 334 MILITAEY MISCELLANIES. causes which led to the detention. Grant specifies as follows : " Halleck reported to Washington that he had repeatedly ordered me to give the strength of my force, but could get nothing out of me ; that I had gone to Nashville beyond the limits of my command without his authority, and that my army was more demoralized by victory than the army at Bull Run had been by defeat." (" Personal Memoirs," vol. i., p. 327.) Halleck did not say that Grant's army was more de- moralized in fact, he did not say that it was demoral- ized at all. He said, " it seems to be as muck demoral- ized by the victory of Fort Donelson as was that of the Potomac by the defeat of Bull Run." It is true that Halleck called upon Grant for reports and returns; and that he reported the failure to get them to McClel- lan, who, as well as Halleck, wanted the information. Some of Halleck's calls did not reach Grant, and some of Grant's reports did not reach Halleck. In a tele- gram to Halleck of March 24, Grant says : " I have just learned to-day that your dispatches to me after the taking of Fort Donelson, reached Fort Henry some of them at least but were never sent to me. What has become of the operator then at Fort Henry ? I don't know." There was no explanation that covered the case of " Returns," for Grant did not make them. In telegram, March 9, he said to Halleck : " You had a better chance of knowing my strength whilst sur- rounding Fort Donelson than I had. Troops were re- porting daily by your orders," etc. As the General-in-Chief was calling upon Halleck for information concerning Grant's force, there is no ground for serious complaint because Halleck reported H ALLEGE AND GRANT. 335 his inability to get it from Grant. No one disputes that Grant went to Nashville without Halleck's au- thority. On the 25th of Februar}^ he notified Cullum, Halleck's Chief -of -Staff, then at Cairo, that he would " go to Nashville immediately after the arrival of the next mail, should there be no orders to prevent it." It is not known when the next mail arrived ; but Grant went to Nashville by boat, arriving there on the 27th of February. Hearing that he was in the city, Buell went to Grant's steamer to see him, and had an in- formal conversation with him. During the day Grant wrote a note of no special importance to Buell, and left in the evening. He claimed, and Halleck after investigation admitted, that the trip was made from a " desire to subserve the public interests " ; and there is no purpose here to question the propriety of it, but it cannot be said, fairly, that it was unjust for Halleck to mention this trip to McClellan in explanation of failure to get reports and returns from Grant. In his "Memoirs" (vol. i., p. 326), Grant contradicts Hal- leck's assertion that Nashville was beyond the limit of Grant's command, saying, " that place was not beyond the limits of my command, which it had been expressly declared in orders were not defined." The. limits of Grant's district were not defined, but Nashville was beyond the limits which Halleck had a right to go, and beyond the limits he could empower Grant to go. Furthermore, Nashville was in Buell's command and in his possession, and Buell, by the President's order, was independent of both Halleck and Grant. The exigencies of the occasion as Grant saw them no doubt, required him to go to Nashville just as he did ; but 336 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. there was nothing in the fact of the limits of his dis- trict being undefined which brought Nashville, then belonging to the territory of, and actually occupied by an independent army, within the limits of Grant's dis- trict. . If Halleck did Grant any injustice in the causes which led to the latter's detention at Fort Henry, it was in saying that " Grant's army seems to be as much demoralized by the victory of Fort Donelson, as was that of the Potomac by the defeat of Bull Run." That, evidently, w r as not intended as a specific allega- tion. It was an ejaculatory expression of Halleck's displeasure at the irregularities of which he com- plained. The ground for it was that he could get " no reports, no returns," that Grant had " gone to Nash- ville without authority," and that serious disorders in his army had occurred during his absence. Halleck received, and on the 6th of March transmitted to Grant, a copy of a letter addressed to Judge David Davis, then President of the Western Investigation Commission. The writer's name was not given, but Judge Davis vouched for him as " a man of integrity and perfectly reliable." The letter (vol. x., part ii., p. 13, "Rec. of Reb."), charged various frauds and irregularities among officers and men after the capture of Fort Donelson. Grant had tried to correct the irreg- ularities and did not deny them ; in fact, his orders go to prove them ("Rec. Reb." vol. vii., pp. 599, 633, 650), and his letter to Halleck of March 18th, with characteristic frankness, distinctly admits some of them. He says : " I have found that there was much truth in the report that captured stores were carried HALLECK AND GKANT. 337 off from Fort Henry, improperly ; " and on the same day he issued a general order, saying : " A better state of discipline than has heretofore been maintained with much of this command is demanded, and will be enforced." ("Rec. Reb.," vol. x., part ii., p. 47.) On the 25th of March he said in a telegram to Halleck, upon this subject : " I most fully appreciate your just- ness, General, in the part you have taken " (p. 63) ; and on the 24th of March he said, referring to another species of disorder in his army, to which Halleck had called his attention : " I acknowledge the justness of your rebuke in this respect, although I thought all proper measures had been taken to prevent such abuses, and will see that no such violation occurs in future ; " adding, in the same dispatch, " the conduct of the Twenty-first Missouri, on the way up here, has been reported to me as infamous." These evi- dences of a bad condition of affairs in Grant's forces after Donelson are reproduced, not as a reflection upon Grant, but in justice to Halleck, as the explana- tion of his displeasure. There had not been time and opportunity for Grant to organize and discipline the raw levies hurriedly sent to him for that early cam- paign. But in the interest of the discipline which Halleck knew must be established as soon as possible, for the sake of what remained to be done, it was none the less his duty to rebuke disorders even in Grant's victorious forces. The War Department, in a letter of March 10, to Halleck, directed him to make a for- mal report of what he had mentioned by telegraph, concerning Grant's absence at Nashville, and his fail- ure to make returns, etc, Halleck investigated the 338 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. subject, and as early as March 15, made a full report to Washington, saying, among other things : ''General Grant has made the proper explanations. As he acted from a praiseworthy, although mistaken zeal for the public service in going to Nashville and leaving his command, I respectfully recommend that no fur- ther notice be taken of it. There never has been any want of military subordination on the part of General Grant, and his failure to make returns of his forces has been explained as resulting partly from the fail- ure of Colonels of regiments to report to him on their arrival, and partly from an interruption of telegraphic communication. All of these irregularities have been remedied." ("Eec. Eeb.", vol. v., p. 683.) Before this report was made, Halleck had ordered Grant up the Tennessee. He promptly sent Grant a copy of the communication from which the foregoing extract is taken, and also a copy of the communication to which it is an answer. In a letter dated March 24 r acknowledging these copies, Grant said : " I most fully appreciate your justness, General, in the part you have taken." Halleck, no doubt, felt that he had been generous. In that way the affair was closed. But after the war the case was re-opened by Badeau, in his " Military History of General Grant," and more recently by both General and Colonel Grant. Re-opening this case has given rise to what is treated in this article as Grant's third subordinate specification of Halleck's injustice. The complaint, as stated by Grant in his " Personal Memoirs," is, that Halleck forwarded "a copy of a detailed dispatch from himself to Washington, entirely exonerating me ; H ALLEGE AND GRANT. 339 but lie did not inform me that it ivas his oivn reports that had created all the trouble. I never knew the truth until General Badeam unearthed the facts in his re- searches for his history of my campaigns^ The complaint here is not based upon the contents of the dispatch, which Grant assumes "created all the trouble," but upon Halleck's omission to send Grant a copy of that dispatch ; or, " its concealment from me when pretending to explain the action of his superiors," as Grant puts it. ("Personal Memoirs," vol. i., p. 328.) It is by no means certain that Halleck's dispatch " created all the trouble " ; but aside from that, the trouble having been ended, neither duty nor expediency required Halleck to re-open it. The wound was healed by the report of March 15, and Halleck knew that Grant's usefulness would probably be increased by keeping it healed. He is not charge- able with " concealment," because he did not tell Grant in 1862 all that passed then between Halleck and McClellan. That was not required either by army regulations or custom of Service. If that charge were just it would lie against Grant as well as Hal- leck. After Grant gained confidence and power, he sent dispatches to Washington, speaking unfavorably of other Generals ; but he is not chargeable with wrongful concealment because he did not tell the sub- ordinate what he had said to the superior. He did simply what he thought duty required. A brief ex- planation of the dispatch which Grant says was con- cealed from him and unearthed by Badeau, is, how- ever, necessary. It was from Halleck to McClellan, March 3, and reads as follows : " I have had no com- 340 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. munication with General Grant for more than a week. He left his command without my authority and went to Nashville. His army seems to be as much demor- alized by the victory of Fort Donelson as was that of the Potomac by the defeat of Bull Run. It is hard to censure a successful General immediately after a vic- tory, but I think he richly deserves it. I can get no returns, no reports, no information of any kind from him. Satisfied with his victory, he sits down and en- joys it, without any regard to the future. I am worn out and tired with this neglect and inefficiency. C. F. Smith is almost the only officer equal to the emer- gency." Badeau says in his u History " (vol. i., p. 65)? this telegram " was not left on file in the War Depart- ment, but was obtained by me after long research and repeated efforts." But in an official report to the Secretary of "War, from the War .Records office, it is stated that " Hal- leek's telegram of March 3, 1862, to McClellan, was found in package No. 96, United States Military Tele- graph Records, filed in War Department. The reply of McClellan bearing the approval of the Secretary of War was found in volume of 'Telegrams sent by Major-General McClellan and staff, March 1 to 10, and September 1 to 16, 1862, ib., vol. 3.' That ' volume was in War Department files. A copy of McClellan 's reply was also found in package Xo. 96, referred to above.' " From this it seems that Halleck's telegram was on file in the War Department. The statement in Badeau's " History," published in 1867, that this telegram was not left on file in the War De- partment, but was obtained by Badeau after long re- HALLECK AND GRANT. 341 search and repeated efforts was, in fact, " unearthed," as Grant expresses it in his " Memoirs," implied that somebody had concealed it, and probably made upon Grant's mind and fastened there an impression unjust to Halleck. The injustice to Grant involved in this telegram of March 3, had been corrected by Halleck's full report of March 15, a copy of which had been sent to Grant. The foregoing quotation from the report of the War Records office, shows that no wrong was done to Grant through the concealment of the dispatch ; shows, in fact, that there was no conceal- ment. Here the details in refutation of Halleck's so- called injustice to Grant after the battle of Fort Donelson may be closed. But there are some general considerations which bear upon the subject. The campaign of Fort Uonelson was made in February, 1862. Halleck was high in authority, being one of the three Major- Generals of the Regular Army. Grant, one of Halleck's many subordinates, was but a Briga- dier-General of volunteers. The operations on the Tennessee and Cumberland, the operations on the Mississippi and the campaign in Missouri and Ar- kansas, under Curtis, were all directed by Halleck. Grant was merely the lieutenant in command of one of Halleck's columns. Halleck's reputation as well as Grant's was at stake, and he was necessarily anxious and exacting. As shown further on, Grant under- stood this, and as late as 1879 announced that he bore Halleck no ill-will on account of the action then taken. In February, 1862, the War was young, and high officers had to be taken on trust. Grant did not pos- sess, nor had he then earned the confidence of the 342 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. Government. If Grant's ability and trustworthiness had had then the foundation of his later career, Hal- leek's anxiety and fault-finding would have been inde- fensible. But as matters stood at the time, his watch- fulness of Grant, even his doubts and misgivings, were the natural outgrowth of attending facts and circum- stances. Indeed, it is remarkable that Halleck should have been so little influenced by personal preference. Sherman and Halleck at that time were devoted friends, and Sherman as well as Grant was one of Halleck's subordinates. Yet Halleck gave Grant, the junior, command of the column on the Tennessee and Cumberland, because he was first identified with the service in that quarter, and held Sherman, the senior, a few miles down the river, while Grant reaped the glory and reward of capturing Forts Henry and Donelsou. Sherman made no complaint of injustice. On the con- trary, as Badeau says, he wrote Grant February 13 : " I will do everything in my power to' hurry forward your re-enforcements and supplies ; and if I could be of service myself, would gladly come without making any question of rank with you or General Smith." The last subordinate specification of injustice is, as Grant states it, that a few days after the battle of Shiloh, " General Halleck moved his headquarters to Pittsburg Landing, and assumed command of the troops in the field. Although next to him in rank, and nomi- nally in command of my old district and army, I was ignored as much as if I had been at the most distant point of territory within my jurisdiction." (" Personal Memoirs," vol. i., p. 370; Century Magazine, February, 1885, p. 594.) HALLECK AND GRANT. 343 This may show bad judgment on Halleck's part, but the facts do not prove injustice. After the battle of Shiloh, Halleck formed his army into the left wing under Pope ; the center, under Buell ; the right wing under George H. Thomas, and the reserve under McClernand. Grant, still in command of the Army of the Tennessee and the district of West Tennessee, was in addition assigned as second in command, a position without defined duties or specific authority. Nomi- nally, the new arrangement was an honor to Grant practically, it restricted his powers. The Donelson shadow that had been partly cleared away, had reap- peared after Shiloh and hung heavily over Grant. It did not vanish until he captured Vicksburg in July, 1863. The opinion which Halleck held of Grant's army a week after the battle of Shiloh is shown by the follow- ing, dated, "PiTTSBURG LANDING, April 14, 1862. "To Major-General U. S. Grant, commanding District and Army in the field. Immediate and active measures must be taken to put your command in condition to resist another attack. Fractions of batteries will be united temporarily under competent officers, supplied with ammunition, and placed in position for service. Divisions and brigades should, where necessary, be re- organized and put in position, and all stragglers re- stored to their companies and regiments. Your army is not now in condition to resist an attack. It must be made so without delay. Staff officers must be sent to obtain returns from division commanders, and assist in supplying all deficiencies. "H. W. HALLECK, Major-General." 344 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. At that time there was a deep and widespread sen- timent adverse to Grant. On the 23d of April the Secretary of War telegraphed Halleck : " The President desires to know . . . whether any neglect or mis- conduct of General Grant or any other officer contribu- ted to the sad casualties that befell our forces on Sunday." This telegram was not due to anything Halleck had reported about Shiloh. He replied : " The sad casualties of Sunday 6th were due in part to the bad conduct of officers who were utterly unfit for their places, and in part to the numbers and bravery of the enemy. I prefer to express no opinion in regard to the misconduct of individuals till I receive the reports of commanders of divisions." That there was more complaint of Grant than ap- pears in detail in the "Kecords," is indicated by Hal- leek's letter of May 12, 1862, in which he says to Grant : u You certainly will not suspect me of any intention to injure your feelings or reputation, or to do you in- justice. . . . For the last three months I have done everything in my power to ward off the attacks which were made upon you." Fortunately for the country and for Grant, he had the inherent strength to bear his burden, and to re- move adverse feeling by his great deeds. Much of the dissatisfaction with Grant after Shiloh arose from the reported surprise of his army on the 6th. Halleck, in that matter, took his lieutenant's part, and boldly de- nied the surprise, saying in a telegram of May 2, to Stanton : " The newspaper accounts that our divisions were surprised are utterly false ; " adding in his formal report of June 15, 1862, "the impression which at one HA.LLECK AND GKANT. 345 time seemed to have been received by the Department that our forces were surprised on the morning of the 6th, is entirely erroneous." Time seems to have proved the futility of all denials of surprise, but Hal- leek's denial was none the less a friendly and a timely service to Grant. The official records, informal evidence, and Grant's "Personal Memoirs," vol. i., show that bad feeling did not exist between Grant and Halleck at the close of the war. Grant probably felt during the contest that Halleck, though he had sometimes found fault, had been friendly and just to him. On the llth of August, 1863, more than a year after what he presents in his " Memoirs" as the Shiloh injustice, Grant said to Halleck in a letter written with his own hand, " I feel under many obligations to you, General, for the interest you have ever taken in my welfare, and that of the army I have the honor to command. I will do the best I can to satisfy you that your confidence has not been misplaced." In a letter to a distinguished General written on the 16th of February, 1864, Halleck said : "You have probably seen the attempt in the newspapers to create difficulties and jealousies between me and Grant. This is all for political eifect. There is not the slight- est ground for any such assertions. There cannot, and will not, be any differences between us. If he is made Lieutenant-General, as I presume he will be, I shall most cordially welcome him to the command, glad to be relieved from so thankless and disagreeable a position. I took it against my will, and shall be most happy to leave it as soon as another is designated to fill it." 346 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. In a letter dated July 16, 1864, to the same officer, Halleck said, speaking of Grant, who had then been put over Halleck's head : " While the General himself is free from petty jealousies, he has men about him who would gladly make difficulties between us. I know that they have tried it several times, but I do not think they will succeed." Immediately after Lee's surrender Grant went to Washington, and Halleck from Washington to Rich- mond for duty. On the 17th of May, 1865, Secretary Stanton telegraphed to Halleck : " General Grant is here with his wife. It is not safe for him to be at the hotel, and he is reluctant to go into a private family. He would go into your house for a while if agreeable to you. Will you write him to do so while your family are absent ? " Halleck at once telegraphed Grant, " There are two servants and most of the fur- niture and bedding in the house I occupied in George- town. I suggest that while your wife is with you, you move right in and make yourself comfortable. My family will not again occupy it, and I do not re- quire the furniture here, at least for the present. During the hot weather you can make yourself much more comfortable there than in Washington." Grant promptly accepted this friendly offer, telegraphing Halleck, " Your very kind dispatch, placing your house at Mrs. Grant's disposal during her stay, is received. I have not seen Mrs. Grant, but I know that she will be delighted to get out of the hotel for the few weeks she remains here." Halleck's house was occupied by General and Mrs. Grant. This offer and acceptance of hospitality was supplemented by HALLECK AND GRANT. 347 the following expressions of friendliness and courtesy. Telegram from Grant to Halleck, May 26: "I under- stand that Mrs. Halleck is expected in Washington. If you will let me know when to expect her, I will be glad to meet her at the wharf with a carriage, and have Mrs. Grant entertain her during her stay in this city." Halleck to Grant, May 27: "Mrs. Halleck will not visit Washington till she goes north for the summer. The house will therefore remain entirely at your disposal." The foregoing communications show that Grant en- tertained feelings of friendship and respect for Hal- leck at the close of the War. And there are favorable expressions from him of a much later date. John Russell Young, in his book "Around the World with General Grant" (1879), quotes Grant thus: "In the early part of the War Halleck did very good service for which he has never received sufficient credit I mean in his civic administration. Some of his orders were in anticipation, I think, of those of Butler, which gave him so much fame in New Orleans " (p. 465, vol. ii.), . . . " he was in addition a very able military man. Halleck had intellect and great ac- quirements outside of his military education. He was at the head of the California bar when the War broke out, and his appointment to the Major-Generalcy was a gratification to all who knew the old Army. When I was made Lieutenant-General, General Hal- leck became Chief-of-Staff of the Army. He was very useful, and was loyal and industrious ; sincerely anxious for the success of the country, and without any feeling of soreness at being superseded. In this 348 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. respect Halleck was a contrast to other officers of equal ability, who felt that unless they had the com- mand they craved they were not needed. Halleck's immense knowledge of military science was of great use in the War Office to those of us in the field " (p. 216, vol. ii.). . . . "After Donelson I was in dis- grace, and practically without a command, because of some misunderstanding on the part of Halleck. It all came right in time. I never bore Halleck ill-will for it. He was in command, and it was his duty to com- mand as he pleased" (p. 452, vol. ii.). Grant's unkind feeling toward Halleck appears to have been engen- dered quite recently, and was due probably to misun- derstanding of the facts arising from Grant's inability to search the " Records " thoroughly for himself. NEW YOEK CITY, December 15, 1885. ARTICLE V. Nicolay's " Outbreak of Rebellion." * Colonel Nicolay has made an important contribu- tion to history and has done the readers of the present day a service of incalculable value. Adhering close- ly to the facts established by official records, and un- der the restraint of presenting occurrences in chrono- logical order, he invests his account of the outbreak of rebellion with the charm of a romance. His style is excellent, though at times he drops below the sublime, as, for example, in stating that Ellsworth's Zouaves were received at the Academy of Music, in New York City, by " as fashionable an audience as ever packed the walls or split their Icid gloves to encore the most famous prima-donna." Occasionally, too, an adjective appears which may improve the turn of a sentence but impairs its accuracy, as when speaking of the affair at Blackburn's Ford, June 18, 1861, the author says that " Tyler withdrew his reluctant officers and men from the fight." There was no reluctance to speak of in that engagement. Officers and men were anxious to get into it, and more anxious to get out of it. Many of them did not wait to be withdrawn. Colonel Nicolay generally views his subject from the extreme standpoint of the Republican Party. He places the responsibility not on the Southern people, * " The Outbreak of Rebellion," by Colonel John G. Nicolay. Chas. Scribner's Sons. N. Y. 349 350 MILITAEY MISCELLANIES. but on their leaders, and regards the Rebellion as the fruit of a deliberate cunning conspiracy of cliques and cabals. He does not admit that the South had any cause of complaint, or that there was anything in the terms of the Constitution or the history of its adop- tion on which to found the so-called " State rights " ; and to support his condemnation of this doctrine he pronounces State rights and State supremacy synony- mous terms and uses the latter term. The merit of Colonel Nicolay's work lies chiefly in the chapters which deal with the political events and commotions that preceded the outbreak of actual hostilities. There is nothing in American biography surpassing his pen- pictures of Buchanan and Lincoln. They are mere outline sketches, but the likenesses are nearly perfect. His personal devotion to the Martyr President per- haps carries him a little too far when he claims that Lincoln's " countenance " when " illuminated " in the utterance of a strong or " stirring thought " was " posi- tively handsome," but that is merely a matter of opin- ion or taste, and if he errs at all it is on the right side, the side of love. He takes the 5th day of October, 1860, as the initial point of the " American Rebellion " because on that day Governor Gist of South Carolina commenced a correspondence with the Governors of the Cotton States concerning secession. That, however, does not fix an initial point. Governor Gist's action was but a continuation of treasonable proceedings which had been going on in South Carolina for many years. The first overt act was the adoption of an Ordinance of Secession by the South Carolina Convention, Decem- NICOLAY'3 " OUTBREAK OP REBELLION." 351 ber 20, 1860. That is the true initial point of the Rebellion, and it is the one adopted by the compiler of the "Records of the Rebellion," Colonel R. N. Scott, U. S. A. It is well merely for convenience of reference to note that after the War the Federal courts decided that " the proclamation of the 19th of April, 1861, was the first formal recognition of the existence of civil war by the National authority," and that ' the suppression of the Rebellion is to be deemed to have taken place on the 20th of August, 1866." Colonel Nicolay brings his narrative down to Mc- Clellan's appointment as General-in-Chief in 1861, giv- ing a history of the early operations in West Virginia, Patterson's Harper's Ferry Campaign, and McDoAvell's Campaign of Manassas or Bull Run. His account of these operations is interesting and in the main accu- rate, but is not marked by the skill and vigor that characterize the treatment of the earlier events of the outbreak. He recites too many elementary principles- It might have been of use to the raw levies brought forward at the time lie writes about, to announce that " war combines art with science " ; that " the superior work of the veteran comes through long years of prac- tice " ; that " the value of a veteran consists as much of his habitual expertness in the routine of camp and march, as of coolness and confidence tinder fire " ; and that an army develops " the greatest usefulness from action and thoroughness of organization," but it is hardly worth while for Colonel Nicolay at this date to give such precepts so much prominence in a narra- tive of this sort. His meaning in some of these pre- cepts is not clear ; as, for example, when he says, " of 352 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. all machines an army develops perhaps, the greatest inefficiency from mere friction," and he is rather too hard on the public in saying, " occasionally an idea finds a tenacious and almost ineradicable lodgment in the public mind, without a shadow of reason or truth to justify it. Because the fanatic John Brown selected Harper's Ferry as the scene of his wild exploit, the public mind jumped to the conclusion that the spot was a natural stronghold, a Gibraltar, a Thermopylae. Now the single mountain line called the Blue Ridge crossing the Potomac River at Harper's Ferry, is as far from being a mountain stronghold as a straight line of picket-fence across a brook is from being a block house. John Brown was as unsound in war as in politics. But it would seem that even in highly civilized nations there lingers a remnant of the savage superstition that insanity is inspiration ; for strong minds caught at the suggestion that he had recognized in Harper's Ferry a negro Thermopylae." Colonel Nicolay discusses Patterson's Campaign about Harper's Ferry at considerable length. He shows that Patterson was, in due time, informed by General Scott that McDowell would make an ad vance from Washington " against Beauregard at Manassas, and that Johnston must be defeated or detained in the Shenandoah Valley in order that their two armies might not unite and defeat McDowell," and that Pat- terson " found nothing but reasons for fear and justi- fication for inaction and retreat," and that with ample means and full instruction he utterly failed either to defeat Johnston or detain him. Patterson, the author adds, " had neither the skill nor courage to direct the NICOLA.Y'8 " OUTBREAK OF REBELLION." 353 blow." What then ? Having fixed this lamentable failure upon Patterson, Colonel Nicolay undertakes to transfer the blame from him to his Assistant Adjutant- General ! He sa} r s : " In justice to him (Patterson), however, it should always be remembered that his personal instinct was right, and that he was led into his fatal error mainly by the influence of his Chief-of- Staff, Fitz John Porter." What weight suppressed " personal instinct " is entitled to in extenuating mili- tary failures, it is hard to say, but certainly nothing much worse can be said of a commanding general than that he was led into a fatal error through the " influence " of his staff officer. It is no apology for failure that the commander adopts bad advice. He has the power and the glory. It is not fair play to try to shift the responsibility from him to his power- less adviser. That merely hurts the one without helping the other. It is remarkable that the most extended citation of proof in the whole volume is made in support of the unimportant point that Patter- son was led into error by the influence of Fitz John Porter ; and it is still more remarkable that the testi- mony quoted instead of proving the statement clearly refutes it. The author says Patterson's "Senior Aide- de-Camp, in his testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War relates the circumstances un- der which he took his final decision : i At one time ' (says this Aide-de-Camp) ' General Patterson had given an order to move from Bunker Hill to Winchester. He was very unwilling to leave Johnston even at Winchester without attacking him, and on the after- noon before we left Bunker Hill he decided to attack him notwithstanding his force.' 354 MILITAKY MISCELLANIES. " i Question. Behind his intrenchments ? ' " i Answer. Yes, sir ; it went so far that his order was written by his Assistant Adjutant-General, Colo- nel Porter. It was very much against the wishes of Colonel Porter, and he asked General Patterson if he would send for Colonel Abercrombie and Colonel Thomas, and consult them on the movements. General Patterson replied: u No, sir ; for I know they will at- tempt to dissuade me from it, and I have made up my mind to fight Johnston under all circumstances." That was the day before we left Bunker Hill. Then Colo- nel Porter asked to have Colonel Abercrombie and Colonel Thomas sent for and consulted as to the best manner to carry out his wishes. He consented and they came, and after half an hour they dissuaded him from it.' " This is one of the many ex-parte statements made before the Committee on the Conduct of the War; but as Colonel Nicolay adopts it, it is not proposed here to discredit it. It shows as clearly as language can, that, so far from being led into error by Porter, Patterson squarely repelled that officer's influence, and in spite of it made up his mind " to fight Jolmston under all circumstances.' 1 '' He, however, accepted Porter's sug- gestion to consult Colonels Abercrombie and Thomas, as to the best manner of conducting the fight he had resolved upon and in that consultation " they " Aber- crombie and Thomas led him into the fatal error of not fighting at all. Who, it may be asked, were Aber- crombie and Thomas that Patterson should have been so fatally led by them after having resisted Porter's " influence " ? The former was an old and esteemed NICOLAY'S "OUTBREAK OF REBELLION." 355 officer of the Regular Army of high rank, and was Pat- terson's life-long friend and son-in-law. The Thomas mentioned was George H. Thomas, whose life was spent in the Regular Army. He too was an officer of high rank and known ability at that time. His career as a Major-General in the Rebellion was brilliant and successful. It is not strange that Patterson, with the character that Colonel Nicolay gives him, failed to fight if these two men advised against it ; but it is amazing that Colonel Nicolay should go so far out of his way in a fruitless and unnecessary attempt to fasten on Porter the responsibility for the effects of advice, which by the testimony adduced belongs to Abercrom- bie and Thomas. But strange to say Colonel Nicolay does not produce all the testimony. The report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War from which he quotes to prove that it was Porter's influence which prevented Patterson from fighting, contains the testi- mony of Colonel Craig Biddle, one of Patterson's aides, showing that a council of general officers unanimously opposed the advance. It is as follows : a The discus- sion at Martinsburg was as to whether or not General Patterson should go on to Winchester. General Pat- terson was very full of that himself. He was' deter- mined to go to Winchester, but the opinions of all the regular officers who were with him were against it. . . Ihe opinions of all the men in whom I had any confidence were against it. . . . He (Patterson) decided upon going ahead against the remonstrances of General Porter who advised against it. He (Porter) told me he considered he had done his duty, and said no more. The movement was delayed in consequence 356 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. of General Stone 's command not being able to move right away. It was then evident that there was so much opposition to it that the General was induced to call a council of the general officers in his command at which I was present. They were unanimously opposed to the advance" Why in the face of all these facts Colonel Nicolay should assert that Patterson " was led into his fatal error mainly by the influence of his Chief -of -Staff, Fitz John Porter," must be left to conjecture. If we look up instead of down for the cause of the failure of the campaign of 1861 we shall probably find that General Scott is not entirely free from responsi- bility. As General-in-Chief of the Army, it was in his power, if not restrained by the President, to unite the armies of McDowell and Patterson or keep them apart. He chose the latter course, giving McDowell no better assurance than that if Johnston joined Beau- regard he should have "Patterson on his heels" It would perhaps have been better to put Patterson on Johnston's toes by sending him in due time to the Manassas field of operations via Leesburg. When weighing military services a historian should hold the scales with a firm grasp. In Patterson's cam- paign there appears to be a little unsteadiness in our author's hand, but that, in its relations to the general subject, is a mere blemish on a meritorious work; and the Scribners have a right to feel proud of the intro- ductory volume of their commendable enterprise. ARTICLE VI. The First Battle of Bull Run.* Speaking broadly, the South had political control of the Government until 1860. The election of Lin- coln to the Presidency in that year showed that South- ern domination within the Union had probably come to an end and that the anti-slavery spirit of the North was growing. But it was from no fear that the slaves would be liberated that secession took place. Presi- dent Lincoln, to avoid war, was at the beginning willing that slavery should be continued in the States where it existed. Congress, even after the Battle of Bull Run, almost unanimously resolved with the most conciliatory feeling, that the War was " not waged in any spirit of oppresssion, nor from any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor for the purpose of over- throwing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of the States, but to defend and maintain the permanency of the Constitution and to preserve the Union with all the dignity and equal rights .of the several States unimpaired." The necessity for subjection of the slave-masters 7 will to the will of the Union after political control had passed to the North ; the unwillingness of the North to have slavery extended and a violent resentment in the South of abolitionism in the abstract, was the * Published in part in the " Battles and Leaders of the Civil War." Century Company, N. Y. 357 358 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. cause of the attempt of Southern States to withdraw from the Union. The Confederate Commissioners, Yancey, Munn and Rust, in their letter to Earl Rus- sell said : " It was from no fear that the slaves would be liberated that secession took place. The very party in power has proposed to guarantee slavery forever in the States if the South would but remain in the Union." Secession, which had long been ripening in South Carolina, was actually inaugurated there in October prior to the election, and was formally declared De- cember 20, 1860. Through the activito of political leaders, but much against the will of many of the people, it spread rapidly among other States and the South was soon in rebellion. As President Buchanan's administration was draw- ing to a close he was forced by the action of the South to decide whether the power of the General Govern- ment should be used to coerce, into submission, States that had attempted to secede from the Union. His opinion was that the contingency was not provided for, that while a State had no right to secede, the Constitution gave no authority to coerce, and that he had no right to do anything except hold the property and enforce the laws of the United States. Before President Buchanan went out of uffice, a spirit not only of secession but of war and aggression was rampant in the South, and the capital of the na- tion seemed to be in danger of seizure by the reckless and daring spirits of the fostering rebellion. For its protection and in order to consult about holding Southern forts and arsenals, General Scott was in December called to Washington, from which he had THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL BUN. 359 been absent since the inauguration of Pierce, who had defeated him for the Presidency. Jefferson Davis, Pierce's Secretary of War, and General Scott had quarrelled and the genius of acrimony controlled the correspondence which took place between them."" Notwithstanding the fact that on account of his age and infirmities he was soon overwhelmed by the rush of events, General Scott's laurels had not withered at the outbreak of the War, and he brought to the emer- gency, ability, experience and prestige. A high light in the whole military world, he towered above the rest of our Army, at that time, professionally as he did physically. As the effect of his immense stature was increased by contrast with a short Aide-de-Camp, pur- posely chosen as it was suspected, so was his exalted character marked by one or two conspicuous but not very harmful foibles. With much learning, great * The last letter of that correspondence is as follows : "WAR DEPARTMENT, "WASHINGTON, May 27, 1856. u SIR: I have received your letter of the 21st instant. The delay for which you make a hypocritical apology has strengthened you to re- sume the labor of vituperation ; but having early in this correspondence stamped you with falsehood, and whenever you presented a tangible point convicted you by conclusive proof, I have ceased to regard your abuse ; and as you present nothing in this letter which requires remark, I am gratified to be relieved from the necessity of further exposing your malignity and depravity. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, " JEFFERSON DAVIS, Secretary of War. " Brevet Lieut. -General Winfield Scott, U.S. Army, New York City." To mark the difference between precept and example, it may be noted that upon the heels of the foregoing abusive letter to Genera Scott, Davis, as Secretary of War, issued in 1857, a new code of Army Regulations, the first Article of which says : " Superiors of every grade are forbid to injure those under them, by tyrannical or capricious con- duct or by abusive language." 360 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. military ability, a strict sense of justice, and a kind heart, lie was vain and somewhat petulant. He loved the Union and hated Jefferson Davis. By authority of the President, General Scott assem- bled a small force of regulars in the capital and for the first time in the history of the country, the elec- toral count was made and a President was inaugurated under the protection of soldiery. But before the in- auguration of Lincoln, March 4, the secession move- ment had spread through the " cotton-belt " and dele- gates from the secession States had met as a congress at Montgomery, Alabama, February 4. On the 8th, they had organized the " Provisional Government of the Confederate States of America," and on the 9th had elected Jefferson Davis President and Alexander H. Stephens Vice-President. On the llth of March the Confederate Congress adopted a constitution con- taining a clause saying, "The institution of Negro slavery as it now exists in the Confederate States shall be recognized and protected." In his Inaugural Address, February 18, Jefferson Davis expressed it as the judgment and will of the Southern people that a reunion with the North was " neither practicable nor desirable." Stephens in his speech, March 21, 1861, said of the new Southern government, " Its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man, that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This our new government is the first in the history of the world based upon this great physiological and moral truth." THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL KUN. 361 In his Inaugural Address, Lincoln avowed that he had no purpose to interfere, directly or indirectly, with slavery in the States where it existed, but he pro- nounced ordinances of secession legally void ; asserted that the Union was perpetual ; that it would defend itself and hold its property and offices and collect its duties and imports. That is the issue that was joined at the time. The South, believing in the doctrine of State rights, main- tained that a State had the right to withdraw from the Union, and the Southern States proceeded to withdraw from the Government of the United States and set up a government of their own, based upon slavery. The Government of the United States, without then passing upon the principle of slavery and without any purpose of interfering with it where it existed, denied the right of secession and asserted the perpetuity of the Union and the right and duty of the General Government to enforce the laws of the United States over the whole country. Actual hostilities were not long delayed. Major Anderson, commanding a small Union force in Fort Moultrie, a weak post in Charleston harbor, finding himself threatened by the gathering and angry, troops of South Carolina, while commissioners of that State were in Washington to treat for the surrender of the forts, escaped the danger of capture by transferring his command to Fort Sumter on the night of December 26, 1860. Governor Pickens, of South Carolina, promptly seized Fort Moultrie, Castle Pinckney, the Arsenal, Custom House and Post Office in Charleston, raised 362 MILITAEY MISCELLANIES. the Palmetto flag over them and began the construc- tion of batteries to bombard Fort Sumter. On the 9th of January he fired upon and drove away the steamship " Star of the West," sent by the Government with recruits and supplies for Major Anderson. The siege of Fort Sumter was assumed by the Confederate government on the 1st of March, with General Beaure- gard in command. Learning on the 8th of April that a naval expedition was about to approach with succor for the garrison, Beauregard on the 12th opened fire upon the fort, which surrendered on the 13th, and its Union flag was lowered to be raised only on the fourth anniversary thereafter. For many months the Govern- ment had borne insults and wrongs with amazing patience. Diplomacy and forbearance were at an end. The morning that the news of the firing upon Sum- ter reached Washington, President Lincoln issued a proclamation dated April 15, convening Congress and calling forth 75,000 three months' militia to suppress combinations against the Government, to cause the laws to be executed and to maintain the honor, the integrity and existence of the Union and the perpetuity of pop- ular government. The war spirit was aroused to the highest pitch in the North as well as in the South. The people in arms prepared to flock to their respective standards, those of the South to establish a new government based upon slavery; those of the North to preserve the Union as it was. Upon the issue of abolishing slavery as it then existed, indeed upon any other issue than the one plainly and forcibly announced by President Lincoln, THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN. 363 the General Government would have failed to raise an a,rnry for the suppression of the rebellion. The Federal situation was alarming. Sumter fell on the 13th of April; Virginia seceded on the 17th. She seized Harper's Ferry on the 18th and the Norfolk Navy Yard on the 20th. On the 19th a mob in Balti- more assaulted the 6th Massachusetts Volunteers as it passed through to Washington, and soon the bridges were burned and railroad communication was cut off between Washington and the North. The national capital, a slave-holding city, lying between the slave- holding States of Virginia and Maryland, was in peril. But General Scott was there with two light batteries, the Marine Corps and a few foot companies of the Reg- ular Army. On the 9th of April, President Lincoln called upon the District of Columbia for militia, but the response increased for the moment the alarm of the situation. Some of the men refused to be mustered into service, being disloyal, and others exacted the -condition that they should not be required to serve beyond the limits of the District. Thirty-eight com- panies were, however, finally obtained, thirty-five of them with the condition just mentioned, and being placed under the command of their Inspector-General, that able and indefatigable soldier, General Charles P. Stone, contributed to avert the shame that threatened the nation in the loss of its capital before the Northern people could reach it. After April 12, both sides began to prepare in earnest for the gigantic struggle, which lasted until four years of bloody war had worn out the South. The North had a regular army composed on January 384 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. 1st, 1862, of 1,098 officers, and 15,304 enlisted men. Of this force, some four or five hundred men were in Washington. The remainder were scattered from the British boundary to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. After January 1st, the Army in addition to ordinary casualties, was reduced by the surrender of a considerable part of its own oificers to the Confederates, and by the resignation and desertion of 313 commissioned officers, who joined the South. No addition was made to the government forces prior to April, 1861. The Southerners,, daring, fiery, full of confidence in their own prowess and of contempt for the courage and manhood of the North, having through their leaders resolved upon secession as soon as they were voted down by the election of Lincoln, before that even in South Carolina, had taken up arms and spent the winter of their favoring clime in military exercises. The Northerners, on the other hand, deprecating war and hoping that patience and forbearance would prevent it, made no preparation for the hostilities that were forced upon them. Lincoln, who was at the head of the Union, had had no experience as a party leader or executive officer and was without knowledge of military affairs or acquaintance with military men. Davis, at the head of the Confederacy, was an experienced and acknowl- edged Southern leader; was a graduate of the Military Academy ; had commanded a regiment in the Mexican War; had been Secretary of War under President Pierce, and was chairman of the military committee in the United States Senate at the time he left Congress to take part with the South. He was not only well THE FIKST BATTLE OF BULL BUN. 365 versed in everything relating to war, but was thor- oughly informed concerning the character and capacity of prominent and promising officers of the Army. There was nothing experimental in his choice of his high military commanders. Those appointed at the beginning retained command with but few exceptions, until they lost their lives or the War closed. The Southern States, all claiming to be independent republics after secession, with all their governmental machinery including militia and volunteer organiza- tions in complete working order, transferred them- selves as States from the Union to the Confederacy in cheerful obedience to the command of State rights and slavery. The organization of a general government from such elements, with war as its immediate pur- pose, was a simple matter. Davis had only to accept and arrange according to his ample information and well-matured judgment, the abundant and ambitious material at hand in the way that he thought would best secure the purposes of the Rebellion. Lincoln had to adapt the machinery of a conservative old govern- ment, some of it unsuitable, some unsound, to sudden demands for which it was not designed. Officers from all departments of the Federal civil service and from all the corps of the Regular Army, most of them full of vigor, with the same education and experience as those who remained, went South and awaited assignment to the duties for which Davis might regard them as best qualified. All Confederate offices were vacant and the Confederate President had large if not absolute power in filling them. On the other hand, the civil offices under Lincoln were occu- 366 MILITAKY MISCELLANIES. pied or controlled by party and in the small Regular Army of the Union the law required that vacancies as they occurred should as a rule be filled by seniority. There was no retired list for the disabled, and the Army was weighed down by longevity ; by venerated traditions ; by prerogatives of service rendered in for- mer wars; by the firmly tied red tape of military bureauism and by the deep-seated and well-founded fear of the auditors and comptrollers of the Treasury. Nothing but time and experience possibly nothing but disaster could remove from the path of the Union President difficulties from which the Confederate President was, by the situation, quite free. So, too, Davis was free from the disloyalty which surrounded Lincoln at that period and which was injurious not only through its reality but through the apprehension and suspicion that lingered after it had ceased in fact. The talents of Simon Cameron, his first Secretary of War, were political, not military. He was a kind, gentle, placid man, gifted with powers to persuade, not to command. Shrewd and skilled in the manage- ment of business and personal matters, he had no knowledge of military affairs, and could not give the President much assistance in assembling and organ- izing for war the earnest and impatient, but unmilitary people of the North. In the beginning of the War, therefore, the military advantage was on the side of the Confederates, not- withstanding the greater resources of the North, which produced their effect only as the contest was prolonged. After the firing of the first gun upon Sumter, the two sides were equally active in marshalling their THE FIRST BA.T1LE OF BULL RUN. 367 forces on a line along the border States from the At- lantic coast of Virginia in the east to Kansas in the o west. Many of the earlier collisions along this line were due rather to special causes or local feeling than to general military considerations. The prompt ad- vance of the Union forces under McClellan to West Virginia was to protect that new-born free State. Patterson's movement to Hagerstown and thence to Harper's Ferry was to prevent Maryland from joining or aiding the Rebellion, to re-open the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, and prevent invasion from the Shenan- cloah Valley. The Southerners having left the Union and set up the Confederacy upon the principle of State rights, in violation of that principle invaded the State of Kentucky in opposition to her apparent pur- pose of armed neutrality. That made Kentucky a field of early hostilities and helped to anchor her to the Union. Missouri was rescued from secession through the energy of General F. P. Blair and her other Union men, and by the indomitable will of Cap- tain Lyon of the Regular Army, whose great work was accomplished under many disadvantages. In illustration of the difficulty with which the new con- dition of affairs penetrated the case-hardened bureauism of long peace, it may be mentioned that the venerable Adjutant-General of the Army, when a crisis was at hand in Missouri, came from a consultation with the President and Secretary Cameron, and with a sorry expression of countenance and an ominous shake of the head exclaimed, " It's bad, very bad ; we're giving that young man Lyon a great deal too much power in Missouri." 368 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. Early in the contest another young Union officer came to the front. Major Irvin McDowell was ap- pointed Brigadier-General May 14. He was forty- three years of age, of unexceptionable habits and great physical powers. His education, begun in France, was continued at the United States Military Academy, from which he was graduated in 1838. Always a close student, he was well informed outside as well as inside his profession. Distinguished in the Mexican war, intensely Union in his sentiments, full of energy and patriotism, outspoken in his opinions, highly esteemed by General Scott, on whose staff he had served, he at once secured the confidence of the President and the Secretary of War, under whose ob- servation lie was serving in Washington. Without political antecedents or acquaintances, he was chosen for advancement on account of his record, his ability, and his vigor. Northern forces had hastened to Washington upon the call of President Lincoln,* but prior to May 24 they had been held rigidly on the north side of the Potomac. On the night of May 23-24, the Confederate pickets being then in sight of the Capitol, three col- umns were thrown across the river by General J. K. F. Mansfield, then commanding the Department of Washington, and a line from Alexandria below to * The aspect of affairs was so threatening after President Lincoln's call of April 15 for 75,000 three-months' militia, and General Scott was so averse to undertaking any active operations with such short-term troops, that, as early as May 3, and without waiting for the meeting of Congress, the President entered upon the creation of an additional vol- unteer army to be composed of 42,034 three-years' men, together with an increase of 22,714 regulars and 18,000 seamen. THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL BUN. 369 chain-bridge above Washington was intrenched under guidance of able engineers. On the 27th Brigadier- General Irvin McDowell was placed in command south of the Potomac. By the 1st of June the Southern government had been transferred from Montgomery to Richmond, and the capitals of the Union and of the Confederacy stood defiantly confronting each other. General Scott was in chief command of the Union forces, with Mc- Dowell south of the Potomac, confronted by his old classmate, Beauregard, hot from the capture of Fort Sumter. General Patterson, of Pennsylvania, a veteran of the War of 1812 and the War with Mexico, was in command near Harper's Ferry, opposed by General Joseph E. Johnston. The Confederate President, Davis, then in Richmond, with General R. E. Lee as military adviser, exercised in person general military control of the Southern forces. The enemy to be en- gaged by McDowell occupied what was called the " Alexandria line," with headquarters at Manassas, the junction of the Orange and Alexandria with the Mannassas Gap railroad. The stream known as Bull Run, some three miles in front of Manassas, was the line of defense. On Beauregard's right, thirty miles away, at the mouth of Aquia Creek, there was a Con- federate brigade of 3,000 men and 6 guns under Gen- eral Holmes. The approach to Richmond from the Lower Chesapeake, threatened by General. B. F. But- ler, was guarded by Confederates under Generals Huger and Magruder. On Beauregard's left, sixty miles distant, in the Lower Shenandoah Valley and 370 MILITAKY MISCELLANIES. separated from him by the Blue Ridge Mountains, was the Confederate army of the Shenandoah under command of General Johnston. Beauregard's author- ity did not extend over the forces of Johnston, Huger, Magruder, or Holmes, but Holmes was with him be- fore the battle of Bull Run, and so was Johnston, who, as will appear more fully hereafter, joined at a decisive moment. Early in June Patterson was pushing his column against Harper's Ferry, and on the 3d of that month McDowell was called upon by General Scott to submit " an estimate of the number and composition of a column to be pushed toward Manassas Junction and perhaps the Gap, say in 4 or 5 days, to favor Patter- son's attack upon Harper's Ferry." McDowell had then been in command at Arlington less than a week, his raw regiments south of the Potomac were not yet brigaded, and this was the first intimation he had of offensive operations. He reported, June 4th, that ] 2,000 infantry, 2 batteries, 6 or 8 companies of cav- alry, and a reserve of 5,000 ready to move from Alex- andria would be required. Johnston, however, gave up Harper's Ferry to Patterson, and the diversion by McDowell was not ordered. But the public demand for an advance became imperative stimulated perhaps by the successful dash of fifty men of the 2d United States Cavalry, under Lieutenant C. H. Tompkins, through the enemy's outposts at Fairfax Court House on the night of June 1st, and by the unfortunate re- sult of the movement of a regiment under General Schenck toward Vienna, June 9, as well as by a dis- aster to some of General Butler's troops on the 10th THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL BUN. 371 at Big Bethel, near Fort Monroe. On the 24th of June, in compliance with verbal instructions from General Scott, McDowell submitted a " plan of opera- tions and the composition of the force required to carry it into effect." He estimated the Confederate force at Manassas Junction and its dependencies at 25,000 men, assumed that his movements could not be kept secret and that the enemy would call up addi- tional forces from all quarters, and added : " If Gen- eral J. E. Johnston's force is kept engaged by Major- General Patterson, and Major-General Butler occupies the force now in his vicinity, I think they will not be able to bring up more than 10,000 men, so we may calculate upon having to do with about 35,000 men." And as it turned out, that was about the number he " had to do with." For the advance, McDowell asked " a force of 30,000 of all arms, with a reserve of 10,- 000." He knew that Beauregard had batteries in position at several places in front of Bull Run and defensive works behind the Run and at Manassas Junction. The stream being fordable at many places, McDowell proposed in his plan of operations to turn the enemy's position and force him out of it by seizing or threatening his communications. Nevertheless, he said in his report : " Believing the chances are greatly in favor of the enemy's accepting battle between this and the Junction and that the consequences of that battle will be of the greatest importance to the country, as establishing the prestige in this contest, on the one side or the other, the more so as the two sections will be fairly repre- sented by regiments from almost every State, I 372 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. think it of great consequence that, as for the most part our regiments are exceedingly raw and the best of them, with few exceptions, not over steady in line, they be organized into as many small fixed brigades as the number of regular Colonels may admit, . . so that the men may have as fair a chance as the na- ture of things and the comparative inexperience of most will allow." This remarkably sound report was approved, and McDowell was directed to carry his plan into effect July 8. But the government machinery worked slowly and there was jealousy in the way, so that the troops to bring his army up to the strength agreed upon did not reach him until the 16th. Beau regard's Army of the Potomac at Manassas consisted of the brigades of Holmes, Bonham, Ewell, D. R. Jones, Longstreet, Cocke and Early, and of 3 regiments of infantry, 1 regiment and 3 battalions of cavalry, and 6 batteries of artillery, containing in all 27 guns, making an aggregate available force on the field of Bull Run of about 23,000 men.* Johnston's army from the Shenandoah consisted of the brigades * Beauregard himself has said that on the 18th of July he had "along the line of Bull Run about 17,000 men ; that on the 19th General Holmes joined him with about 3,000 men " ; and that he " received from Richmond between the 18th and 21st about 2,000 more " ; and that Johnston brought about 8,000 more, the advance arriving "on the morning of the 20th and the remainder about noon of the 21st, ' ' mak- ing his whole force, as he states it, " nearly 30,000 men of all arms." The figures are probably under the mark, as Hampton's Legion, Mc- Rea's Regiment, a North Carolina "regiment and two battalions of Mississippi and Alabama" joined between the 17th and 21st. Beaure- gard's force may fairly be placed at 32,000 ; and the opposing armies, both in the aggregate and in the parts engaged, were nearer equal in that than in any other battle in Virginia. THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL KUN. 373 of Jackson, Bee, Bartow, and Kirby Smith, 2 regi- ments of infantry not brigaded, 1 regiment of cavalry (12 companies), and 5 batteries (20 guns), making an aggregate at Bull Run of 8,340. McDowell's army consisted of 5 divisions, Tyler's First Division, containing 4 brigades (Keyes's, Schenck's, W. T. Sherman's, and Richardson's); Hun- ter's Second Division, containing 2 brigades (Andrew Porter's and Burnside's); Heintzelman's Third Divi- sion, containing 3 Brigades (Franklin's, Willcox's, and Howard's) ; Runyon's Fourth Division (9 regiments not brigaded) ; and Miles's Fifth Division, containing 2 brigades (Blenker's and Davies's), 10 batteries of artillery, besides two guns attached to infantry regi- ments, 49 guns in all, and 7 companies of regular cav- alry. Of the foregoing forces, 9 of the batteries and 8 companies of infantry were regulars, and 1 small battalion was marines. The aggregate force was about 35,000 men. Runyon's Fourth Division was 6 or 7 miles in the rear guarding the road to Alexandria, and, though counted in the aggregate, was not embraced in McDowell's order for battle.* There was an ill-suppressed feeling of sympathy with the Confederacy in the Southern element of Washington society; but the halls of Congress re- sounded with the eloquence of Union speakers. Mar- tial music filled the air, and war was the topic wher- ever men met. By day and night the tramp of sol- diers was heard, and staff-officers and orderlies galloped * The average leDgth of service of McDowell's men prior to the bat- tle was about sixty days.~*The longest in service were the three-months' men, and of these he had fourteen regiments. 374 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. through the streets between the headquarters of Gen- erals Scott and McDowell. Northern enthusiasm was unbounded. "On to Richmond" was the war-cry. Public sentiment was irresistible, and in response to it the army advanced. It was a glorious spectacle. The various regiments were brilliantly uniformed according to the aesthetic taste of peace, and the silken banners they flung to the breeze were unsoiled and untorn. The bitter realities of war were nearer than we knew. McDowell marched on the afternoon of July 16, the men carrying three days' rations in their haver- sacks ; provision wagons were to follow from Alexan- dria the next day. On the morning of the 18th his forces were concentrated at Centreville, a point about 20 miles west of the Potomac and 6 or 7 miles east of Manassas Junction. Beauregard's outposts fell back without resistance. Bull Run, flowing south-easterly, is about half-way between Centreville and Manassas Junction, and, owing to its abrupt banks, the timber with which it was fringed, and some artificial de- fenses at the fords, was a formidable obstacle. The stream was fordable, but all the crossings for eight miles, from Union Mills on the south to the Stone Bridge on the north, were defended by Beau- regard's forces. The Warrenton Turnpike, passing through Centreville, leads nearly due west, crossing Bull Run at the Stone Bridge. The direct road from Centreville to Manassas crosses Bull Run at Mitchell's Ford, half a mile or so above another crossing known as Blackburn's Ford. Union Mills was covered by Swell's brigade, supported after the 18th by Holmes's brigade ; McLean's Ford, next to the north, was cov- THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL EUN. 375 ered by D. R. Jones's brigade ; Blackburn's Ford was defended by Longstreet's brigade, supported by Early's brigade; Mitchell's Ford was held by Bonham's bri- gade, with an outpost of two guns and an infantry support east of Bull Run ; the stream between Mitch- ell's Ford and the Stone Bridge was covered by Cocke's brigade ; the Stone Bridge on the Confederate left was held by Evans with 1 regiment and Wheat's special battalion of infantry, 1 battery of 4 guns, and 2 companies of cavalry.* McDowell was compelled to wait at Centreville un- til his provision wagons arrived and he could issue rations. His orders having carried his leading divi- sion under Tyler no farther than Centreville, he wrote that officer at 8.15 A.M. on the 18th, " Observe well the roads to Bull Run and to Warrenton. Do not bring on an engagement, but keep up the impression that we are moving on Manassas." McDowell then o went to the extreme left of his line to examine the country with reference to a sudden movement of the army to turn the enemy's right flank. The recon- * The state of General Beauregard's mind at the time is indicated by the following telegram on the 17th of July from him to Jefferson Davis : ' ' The enemy has assaulted my outposts in heavy force. . I have fallen back on the line of Bull Run and will make a stand at Mitchell's Ford. If his force is overwhelming, I shall retire to Rappahannock railroad bridge, saving my command for defence there and future oper- ations. Please inform Johnston of this via Staunton, and also Holmes. Send forward any re-enforcements at the earliest possible instant and by every possible means." The alarm in this dispatch and the apprehen- sion it shows of McDowell's " overwhelming " strength are not in har- mony with the more recent assurance of the Confederate commander, that through sources in Washington treasonable to the Union, and in other ways, he " was almost as well informed of the strength of the hos- tile army in my [his] front as its commander." 376 MILITARY MISCELLANIES noissance showed him that the country was unfavor- able to the movement, and he abandoned it. While he was gone to the left, Tyler, presumably to " keep up the impression that we were moving on Manassas," went forward from Centreville with a squadron of cavalry and two companies of infantry for the purpose of making a reconnoissance of Mitchell's and Black- burn's fords along the direct road to Manassas. The force of the enemy at these fords has just been given. Eeaching the crest of the ridge overlooking the valley of Bull Run and a mile or so from the stream, the enemy was seen on the opposite bank, and Tyler brought up Benjamin's artillery, 2 20-pounder rifled guns, Ayres's field battery of 6 guns, and Richardson's brigade of infantry. The 20-pounders opened from the ridge and a few shots were exchanged with the enemy's batteries. Desiring more information than, the long-range cannonade afforded, Tyler ordered Richardson's brigade and a section of Ayres's battery, supported by a squadron of cavalry, to move from the ridge across the open bottom of Bull Run and take position near the stream and have skirmishers " scour the thick woods " which skirted it. Two regiments of infantry, 2 pieces of artillery, and a squadron of cavalry moved down the slope into the woods and opened fire, driving Bonham's outpost to the cover of in trench ments across the stream. The brigades of Bonham and Longstreet, the latter being re-enforced for the occasion by Early's brigade, responded at short range to the fire of the Federal reconnoitering force and drove it back in disorder. Tyler reported that having satisfied himself " that the enemy was in force," THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL EUN. 377 and ascertained " the position of his batteries," he withdrew. This unauthorized reconnoissance, called by the Federals the affair at Blackburn's Ford, was regarded at the time by the Confederates as a serious attack, and was dignified by the name of the " battle of Bull Run," the engagement of the 21st being called by them the battle of Manassas. The Confederates, feeling that they had repulsed a heavy and real attack, were encouraged by the result. The Federal troops, on the other hand, were greatly depressed. The regi- ment which suffered most was completely demoralized, and McDowell thought that the depression of the re. pulse was felt throughout his army and produced its effect upon the Pennsylvania regiment and the New York battery which insisted (their terms having ex- pired) upon their discharge, and on the 21st, as he ex- pressed it, " marched to the rear to the sound of the enemy's cannon." Even Tyler himself felt the de- pressing effect of his repulse, if we may judge by his cautious and feeble action on the 21st when dash was required. The operations of the 18th confirmed McDowell in his opinion that with his raw troops the Confederate position should be turned instead of attacked in front. Careful examination had satisfied him that the country did not favor a movement to turn the enemy's right. On the night of the 18th the haversacks of his men were empty, and had to be replenished from the pro- vision wagons, which were late in getting up. Nor had he yet determined upon his point or plan of attack. While resting and provisioning his men, he devoted the 19th and 20th to a careful examination by his en- 378 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. gineers of the enemy's position and the intervening country. His men, not soldiers, but civilians in uni- form, unused to marching, hot, weary, and footsore, dropped down as they had halted and bivouacked on the roads about Centreville. Notwithstanding Beau- regard's elation over the affair at Blackburn's Ford on the 18th, he permitted the 19th and 20th to pass without a movement to follow up the advantage he had gained. During these two days, McDowell care- fully examined the Confederate position, and made his plan to manoeuvre the enemy out of it. Beaure- gard ordered no aggressive movement until the 21st, and then, as appears from his own statement, through miscarriage of orders and lack of apprehension on the part of subordinates, the effort was a complete fiasco, with the comical result of frightening his own troops, who, late in the afternoon, mistook the return of one of their brigades for an attack by McDowell's left, and the serious result of interfering with the pursuit after he had gained the battle of the 21st. But Beauregard, though not aggressive on the 19th and 20th, was riot idle within his own lines. The Confederate President had authorized Johnston, Beau- regard's senior, to use his discretion in moving to the support of Manassas, and Beauregard, urging John- ston to do so, sent railway transportation for the Shenandoah forces. But, as he states, " he at the same time submitted the alternative proposition to Johnston that, having passed the Blue Eidge, he should assemble his forces, press forward by way of Aldie, north- west of Manassas, and fall upon Mc- Dowell's right rear," while he, Beauregard, "prepared THE FIKST BATTLE OF BULL KUN. 379 for the operation at the first sound of the conflict, should strenuously assume the offensive in front." " The situation and circumstances specially favored the signal success of such an operation," says Beaure- gard. An attack by two armies moving from opposite points upon an enemy, with the time of attack for one depending upon the sound of the other's cannon, is hazardous even with well-disciplined and well-seasoned troops, and is next to fatal with raw levies. Johnston chose the wiser course of moving by rail to Manassas, thus preserving the benefit of " interior lines," which, Beauregard says, was the " sole military advantage at the moment that the Confederates possessed." The campaign which General Scott required Mc- Dowell to make was undertaken with the understand- ing that Johnston should be prevented from joining Beauresrard. With no lack of confidence in himself. O 7 McDowell was dominated by the feeling of subordi- nation and deference to General Scott which at that time pervaded the whole Army, and General Scott, who controlled both McDowell and Patterson, assured McDowell that Johnston should not join Beauregard without having " Patterson on his heels." Yet John- ston's army, nearly nine thousand strong, joined Beau- regard; Bee's brigade and Johnston in person arriving on the morning of the 20th, the remainder about noon on the 21st. Although the enforced delay at Centre- ville enabled McDowell to provision his troops and gain information upon which to base an excellent plan of attack, it proved fatal by affording time for a junc- tion of the opposing forces. On the 21st of July General Scott addressed a dispatch to McDowell, say- 380 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. ing : " It is known that a strong re-enforcement left Winchester on the afternoon of the 18th, which you w r ill also have to beat. Four new regiments will leave to-day to be at Fairfax Station to-night. Others shall follow to-morrow twice the number if necessary." When this dispatch was penned, McDowell was fight- ing the " strong re-enforcement" which left Winchester on the 18th. General Scott's report that Beauregard had been re-enforced, the information that four regi- ments had been sent to McDowell, and the promise that twice the number would be sent if necessary, all came too late and Patterson came not at all.* * On the 17th of July Patterson, with some 16,000 three-months' men, whose terms began to expire on the 24th, was at Charlestown, and John- ston, with about the same number, was at Winchester. On that day General Scott telegraphed Patterson, " McDowell's first day's work has driven the enemy behind Fairfax Court House. Do not let the enemy amuse and delay you with a small force in front while he re-enforces the Junction with his main body." To this Patterson replied at half- past one o'clock in the morning of the 18th, stating his difficulties and asking, ' ' Shall I attack ? ' ' General Scott answered on the same day : " I have certainly been expecting you to beat the enemy, or that you at least had occupied him by threats and demonstrations. You have been at least his equal and I suppose superior in numbers. Has he not stolen a march and sent re-enforcements toward Manassas Junction? " Patterson replied on the same day (18th), " The enemy has stolen no march upon me. I have caused him to be re-enforced ; ' ' and at one o'clock P.M. on that day he added: " I have succeeded, in accordance with the wishes of the General-in-Chief, in keeping General Johnston's force at Winchester. " At the very hour that Patterson was writing this dispatch Johnston's advance was leaving Winchester. On the 18th Johnston telegraphed to Richmond that Patterson was at Charlestown, and said : ' ' Unless he prevents it, we shall move toward General Beau- regard to-day." He moved accordingly, and the Confederate armies were united for battle. It rested, however, with higher authority than Patterson to establish between his army and McDowell's the relations that the occasion called for. In considering the requirements for Mc- Dowell's movement against Manassas, General Scott gave great weight THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN. 381 During the 19th and 20th the bivouacs of McDow- ell's army at Centreville, almost within cannon range of the enemy, were thronged by visitors, official and unofficial, who came in carriages from Washington, bringing their own supplies. They were under no military restraint, and passed to and fro among the troops as they pleased, giving the scene the appear- ance of a monster military picnic.* Among others, to the general and irresistible fear then prevailing in Washington that the capital might be seized by a dash. Its direct defence was the first purpose of the three-months' militia. The Potomac at Washington was itself a strong barrier, and with the field-works on its south bank af- forded security in that quarter. The danger was thought to be from the Shenandoah, and that induced the Government to keep Patterson in the valley. Indeed, on the 30th of June Colonel C. P. Stone's com- mand was ordered from Point of Rocks to Patterson at Martinsburg, where it arrived on the 8th of July ; whereas the offensive campaign against Manassas, ordered soon after, required Patterson to go to Stone, as he proposed to do June 21, instead of Stone to Patterson. The cam- paign of McDowell was forced upon General Scott by public opinion, but did not relieve the authorities from the fear that Johnston might rush down and seize Washington. General Scott, under the pressure of the offensive in one quarter and the defensive in another, imposed up- on Patterson the double task, difficult, if not impossible, of preventing Johnston from moving on the capital and from joining Beauregard. If that task was possible, it could have been accomplished only by per- sistent fighting, and that General Scott was unwilling to order : though in his dispatch of the 18th in 'reply to Patterson's question, " Shall I attack? " he said, u I have certainly been expecting you to beat the enemy." Prior to that, his instructions to Patterson had enjoined cau- tion. As soon as McDowell advanced, Patterson was upon an exterior line and in a false military position. Admitting that he might have done more to detain Johnston, bad strategy was probably more to blame for the result than any action or lack of action on Patterson's part. * The presence of senators, congressmen, and other civilians upon the field on the 21st gave rise to extravagant and absurd stories, in which alleged forethought and valor among them are contrasted with a lack of these qualities in the troops. The plain truth is that the non-com- batants and their vehicles merely increased the confusion and demorali- zation of the retreat. 382 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. the venerable Secretary of War, Cameron, called upon McDowell. Whether due to a naturally serious ex- pression, to a sense of responsibility, to a premonition of the fate of his brother who fell upon the field on the 21st, or to other cause, his countenance showed apprehension of evil; but men generally were confi- dent and jovial. McDowell's plan of battle promulgated on the 20th, was to turn the enemy's left, force him from his de- fensive position, and, "if possible, destroy the railroad leading from Manassas to the Valley of Virginia, where the enemy has a large force." He did not know when he issued this order that Johnston had joined Beauregard, though he suspected it, Miles's Fifth Division, with Richardson's brigade of Tyler's division, and a strong force of artillery was to remain in reserve at Centreville, prepare defensive works there and threaten Blackburn's Ford. Tyler's First Division which was on the turnpike in advance, was to move at 2.30 A.M., threaten the Stone Bridge and open fire upon it at daybreak. This demonstration was to be vigorous, its first purpose being to divert attention from the movements of the turning column. As soon as Tyler's troops cleared the way, Hunter's Second Division, followed by Heintzelman's Third Division, was to move to a point on the Warren ton Turnpike about one or two miles east of Centreville and there take a country road to the right, cross the Run at Sudley Springs, come down upon the flank and rear of the enemy at the Stone Bridge, and foice him to open the way for Tyler's division to cross there and attack, fresh and in full force. THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL KUN. 383 Tyler's start was so late and his advance was so slow as to hold Hunter and Heintzelman two or three hours on the mile or two of the turnpike between their camps and the point at which they were to turn off for the flank inarch. This delay, and the fact that the flank march proved difficult and some twelve miles instead of about six as was expected, were of serious moment. The flanking column did not cross at Sudley Springs until 9.30 instead of 7, the long march, with its many interruptions, tired out the men, and the delay gave the enemy time to discover the turning movement. Tyler's operations against the Stone Bridge were feeble and ineffective. By 8 o'clock Evans was satisfied that he was in no danger in front, and perceived the movement to turn his position. He was on the left of the Confederate line, guarding the point where the Warrenton Turnpike, the great highway to the field, crossed Bull Run, the Confeder- ate line of defence. He had no instructions to guide him in the emergency that had arisen. But he did not hesitate. Reporting his information and purpose to the adjoining commander, Cocke, and leaving four companies of infantry to deceive and hold Tyler at the bridge, Evans before 9 o'clock turned his back upon the point he was set to guard, marched a mile away, and, seizing the high ground to the north of Young's Branch of Bull Run, formed line of battle at right angles to his former line, his left resting near the Sudley Springs road, by which Burnside with the head of the turning column was approaching, thus covering the Warrenton Turnpike and opposing a determined front to the Federal advance upon the 384 MILITAKY MISCELLANIES. Confederate left and rear.* In his rear to the south lay the valley of Young's Branch, and rising from that was the higher ridge or plateau on which the Robinson house and the Henry house were situated, and on which the main action took place in the afternoon. Burnside, finding Evans across his path, promptly formed line of battle and attacked about 9.45 A.M. Hunter, the division commander, who was at the head of Burnside's brigade directing the forma- tion of the first skirmish line, was severely wounded and taken to the rear at the opening of the action. Evans not only repulsed but pursued the troops that made the attack upon him. Andrew Porter's brigade of Hunter's division followed Burnside closely and came to his support. In the meantime Bee had formed a Confederate line of battle with his and Bar- tow's brigades of Johnston's army on the Henry house plateau, a stronger position than the one held by Evans, and desired Evans to fall back to that line ; but Evans, probably feeling bound to cover the War- rantor! Turnpike and hold it against Tyler as well as against the flanking column, insisted that Bee should move across the valley to his support, which was done. After Bee joined Evans, the preliminary battle con- tinued to rage upon the ground chosen by the latter. The opposing forces were Burnside's and Porter's bri- gades, with one regiment of Heintzelman's division on the Federal side, and Evans's, Bee's, and Bartow's * Evans's action was probably one of the best pieces of soldiership on either side during the campaign, but it seems to have received no spe- cial commendation from his superiors. THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL BUN. 385 brigades on the Confederate side. The Confederates were dislodged and driven back to the Henry house plateau, where Bee had previously formed line and where what Beauregard called " the mingled remnants of Bee's, Bartow's, and Evans's commands r were re- formed under cover of Stonewall Jackson's brigade of Johnston's army. The time of this repulse, as proved by so accurate an authority as Stonewall Jackson, was before 11.30 A.M., and this is substantially confirmed by Beaure- gard 's official report made at the time. Sherman and Keyes had nothing to do with it. They did not begin to cross Bull Run until noon. Thus, after nearly two hours' stubborn fighting with the forces of Johnston, which General Scott had promised should be kept away, McDowell won the first advantage ; but Johns ton had cost him dearly. During all this time Johnston and Beauregard had been waiting near Mitchell's Ford for the development of the attack they had ordered by their right upon McDowell at Centreville. The gravity of the situa- tion upon their left had not yet dawned upon them. What might the result have been if the Union column had not been detained by Tyler's delay in moving out in the early morning, or if Johnston's army, to which Bee, Bartow, and Jackson belonged, had not arrived ? But the heavy firing on the left soon diverted Johnston and Beauregard from all thought of an offensive movement with their right, and decided them, as Beauregard has said, " to hurry up all avail- able re-enforcements, including the reserves that were to have moved upon Centreville, to our left, and fight 386 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. the battle out in that quarter." Thereupon Beaure- gard ordered " Ewell, Jones, and Longstreet to make a strong demonstration all along their front on the other side of Bull Run, and ordered the reserves, Holmes's brigade with six guns, and Early's brigade to move swiftly to the left," and he and Johnston set out at full speed for the point of conflict, which they reached while Bee was attempting to rally his men about Jackson's brigade on the Henry house plateau. McDowell had waited in the morning at the point on the Warren ton Turnpike where his flanking column turned to the right, until the troops, except Howard's brigade, which he halted at that point, had passed. He gazed silently and with evident pride upon the gay regiments as they filed briskly but quietly past in the freshness of the early morning, and then, remark- ing to his staff, u Gentlemen, that is a big force," he mounted arid moved forward to the field by way of Sudley Springs. He reached the scene of actual con- flict somewhat earlier than Johnston and Beauregard did, and, seeing the enemy driven across the valley of Young's Branch and behind the Warrenton Turnpike, at once sent a swift aide-de-camp to Tyler with orders to " press the attack " at the Stone Bridge. Tyler acknowledged that he received this order by 11 o'clock. It was Tyler's division upon which Mc- Dowell relied for the decisive fighting of the day. He knew that the march of the turning column would be fatiguing, and when by a sturdy fight it had cleared the Warrenton Turnpike for the advance of Tyler's division, it had, in fact, done more than its fair pro- portion of the work. But Tyler did not attempt to THE FIEST BATTLE OF BULL RUN. 387 force the passage of the Stone Bridge, which, after about 8 o'clock, was defended by only four companies of infantry, though he admitted that by the plan of battle, when Hunter and Heintzelman had attacked the enemy in the vicinity of the Stone Bridge, " he was to force the passage of Bull Run at that point and attack the enemy in flank." Soon after McDowell's arrival at the front, Burnside rode up to him and said that his brigade had borne the brunt of the battle, that it was out of ammunition, and that he wanted per- mission to withdraw, refit and fill cartridge-boxes. Mc- Dowell in the excitement of the occasion gave reluct- ant consent, and the brigade, which certainly had done nobly, marched to the rear, stacked arms, and took no further part in the fight. Having sent the order to Tyler to press his attack and orders to the rear of the turning column to hurry forward, McDowell, like Beauregard, rushed in person into the conflict, and by the force of circumstances became for the time the commander of the turning column and the force actu- ally engaged, rather than the commander of his whole army. With the exception of sending his Adjutant- General to find and hurry Tyler forward, his subse- quent orders were mainly or wholly to the troops un- der his own observation. Unlike Beauregard, he had no Johnston in rear with full authority and knowl- * After the affair at Blackburn's Ford on the 18th and Tyler's action in the battle of the 21st, a bitterness between Tyler and McDowell grew up which lasted till they died. As late as 1884, McDowell, writing to me of Tyler's criticism of him after the war, said, " How I have been punished for my leniency to that man ! If there is anything clearer to me than anything else with reference to our operations in that cam- paign, it is that if we had had another commander for our right we should have had a complete and brilliant success." 388 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. edge of the situation to throw forward reserves and re-enforcements. It was not until 12 o'clock that Sherman received orders from Tyler to cross the stream, which he did at a ford above the Stone Bridge, going to the assistance of Hunter. Sherman reported to McDowell on the field and joined in the pursuit of Bee's forces across the valley of Young's Branch. Reyes's brigade, accompanied by Tyler in person, fol- lowed across the stream where Sherman forded, but without uniting with the other forces on the field, made a feeble advance upon the slope of the plateau toward the Robinson house, and then about 2 o'clock filed off by flank to its left and, sheltered by the east front of the bluff that forms the plateau, marched down Young's Branch out of sight of the enemy and took no further part in the engagement. McDowell did not know where it was, nor did he then know that Sclienck's brigade of Tyler's division did not cross the Run at all. The line taken up by Stonewall Jackson upon which Bee, Bartow, and Evans rallied on the southern part of the plateau was a very strong one. The ground was high and afforded the cover of a curvi- linear wood with the concave side toward the Federal line of attack. According to Beauregard's official re- port made at the time, he had upon this part of the field, at the beginning, 6,500 infantry, 13 pieces of artillery, and 2 companies of cavalry, and this line was continuously re-enforced from Beauregard's own reserves and by the arrival of the troops from the She- nandoah Valley. To carry this formidable position, McDowell had at THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL KUN. 389 hand the brigades of Franklin, Willcox, Sherman, and Porter, Palmer's battalion of regular cavalry, and Ricketts's and Griffin's regular batteries. Porter's brigade had been reduced and shaken by the morning fight. Howard's brigade was in reserve and only came into action late in the afternoon. The men, un- used to field service, and not yet over the hot and dusty march from the Potomac, had been under arms since midnight. The plateau, however, was promptly assaulted, the northern part of it was carried, the bat- teries of Ricketts and Griffin were planted near the Henry house, and McDowell clambered to the upper story of that structure to get a glance at the whole field. Upon the Henry house plateau, of which the Confederates held the southern and the Federals the northern part, the tide of battle ebbed and flowed as McDowell pushed in Franklin's, Willcox's, Sherman's, Porter's, and at last Howard's brigades, and as Beau- regard put into action reserves which Johnston sent from the right and re-enforcements which he hurried forward from the Shenandoah Valley as they arrived by cars. On the plateau, Beauregard says, the disad- vantage of his " smooth-bore guns was reduced by the shortness of range." The short range was due to the Federal advance, and the several struggles for the plateau were at close quarters and gallant on both sides. The batteries of Ricketts and Griffin, by their fine discipline, wonderful daring, and matchless skill, were the prime features in the fight. The battle was not lost till they were lost. When in their advanced and perilous position, and just after their infantry supports had been driven over the slopes, a fatal mis- 390 MILITAEY MISCELLANIES. take occurred. A regiment of infantry came out of the woods on Griffin's right, and as he was in the act of opening upon it with canister, he was deterred by the assurance of Major Barry, the chief of artillery, that it u was a regiment sent by Colonel Heintzelman to support the battery."* A moment more and the doubtful regiment proved its identity by a deadly vol- ley, and, as Griffin states in his official report, a every cannoneer was cut down and a large number of horses killed, leaving the battery (which was without sup- port excepting in name) perfectly helpless." The effect upon Ricketts was equally fatal. He, desper- ately wounded, and Ramsay, his lieutenant, killed, lay in the wreck of the battery. Beauregard speaks of his last advance on the plateau as "leaving in our final possession the Robinson and Henry houses, with most of Ricketts's and Griffin's batteries, the men of which were mostly shot down where they bravely stood by their guns." Having become separated from McDowell, I fell in with Barnard, his chief engineer, and while together we observed the New York Fire Zouaves, who had been supporting Griffin's battery, fleeing to the rear in their gaudy uniforms, in utter confusion. Thereupon I rode back to where I knew Burnside's brigade was at rest, and stated to Burnside the condition of affairs, with the suggestion that he form and move his brigade to the front. Returning, I again met Barnard, and as the battle seemed to him and me to be going against us, and not knowing where McDowell was, with the concurrence of Barnard, as * Griffin himself told me so as we rode together after leaving Cen- treville. He and I were classmates and warm friends. THE FIRST BA.TTLE OF BULL KUN. 391 stated in his official report, I immediately sent a note to Miles, telling him to move two brigades of his re- serves tip to the Stone Bridgeand telegraphed to Washington to send forward all the troops that could be spared. After the arrival of Howard's brigade, McDowell for the last time pressed up the slope to the plateau, forced back the Confederate line, and regained posses- sion of the Henry and Robinson houses and of the lost batteries. But there were no longer cannoneers to man or horses to move these guns that had done so much. By the arrival upon this part of the field of his own reserves and Kirby Smith's brigade of John- ston's army about half -past three, Beauregard extend- ed his left to outflank McDowell's shattered, shortened and disconnected line, and the Federals left the field about half-past four. Until then they had fought wonderfully well for raw troops. There were no fresh forces on the field to support or encourage them, and the men seemed to be seized simultaneously by the conviction that it was no use to do anything more and they might as well start home. Cohesion was lost, the organizations with some exceptions being disintegrated, and the men quietly walked off. There was no special excitement except that arising from the frantic efforts of officers to stop men who paid little or no attention to anything that was said. On the high ground by the Matthews house, about where Evans had taken position in the morning to check Burn- side, McDowell and his staff, aided by other officers, made a desperate but futile effort to arrest the masses and form them into line. There, I went to Arnold's MILITARY MISCELLANIES. battery as it came by, and advised that he unlimber and make a stand as a rally ing-point, which he did, saying he was in fair condition and ready to fight as long as there was any fighting to be done. But all efforts failed. The stragglers moved past the guns, in spite of all that could be done, and as stated in his report, Arnold at my direction joined Sykes's battalion of infantry of Porter's brigade and Palmer's battalion of cavalry, all of the Regular Army, to cover the rear, as the men trooped back in great disorder across Bull Run. There were some hours of daylight for the Confederates to gather the fruits of victory, but a few rounds of shell and canister checked all the pursuit that was attempted, and the occasion called for no sacrifices or valorous deeds by the stanch regulars of the rear-guard. There was no panic, in the ordinary meaning of the word, until the retiring soldiers, guns, wagons, congressmen and carriages were fired upon, on the road east of Bull Run. Then the panic began, and the bridge over Cub Run being rendered impass- able for vehicles by a wagon that was upset upon it, utter confusion set in : pleasure-carriages, gun-carriages and ammunition wagons which could not be put across the Run were abandoned and blocked the way, and stragglers broke and threw aside their mus- kets and cut horses from their harness and rode off upon them. In leaving the field the men took the same routes, in a general way, by which they had reached it. Hence when the men of Hunter's and Heintzelman's divisions got back to Centreville, they had covered about twenty-five miles. That night they walked back to the Potomac, an additional distance THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL BUN. 393 of twenty miles ; so that these undisciplined and un- seasoned men within thirty-six hours walked fully forty -five miles, besides fighting from about 10 A.M. until 4 P.M. on a hot and dusty day in July. Mc- Dowell in person reached Centreville before sunset,* and found there Miles's division with Richardson's brigade and three regiments of Runyon's division, and Hunt's, Tidball's, Ayres's, and Greene's batteries and one or two fragments of batteries, making about twenty guns. It was a formidable force, but there was a lack of food and the mass of the army was completely de- moralized. Beauregard had about an equal force which had not been in the fight, consisting of Ewell's, Jones's? and Longstreet's brigades and some troops of other brigades. McDowell consulted the division and brigade commanders who were at hand upon the question of making a stand or retreating. The verdict was in favor of the latter, but a decision of officers one way or the other was of no moment ; the men had already decided for themselves and were streaming away to the rear, in spite of all that could be done. They had no interest or treasure in Centreville, and their hearts were not there. Their tents, provisions, baggage, and letters from home were upon the banks of the Potomac, and no power could have stopped them short of the camps they had left less than a week before. As before stated, most of them were sovereigns in uniform, not * I left the field with General Franklin. His brigade had dissolved. We moved first northerly, crossed Bull Run below the Sudley Spring Ford, and then bore south and east. Learning by inquiries of the men I passed that McDowell was ahead of me, I left Franklin and hurried on to Centreville, where I found McDowell, just after sunset, rearrang- ng the positions of his reserves. 394 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. soldiers. McDowell accepted the situation, detailed Richardson's and Blenker's brigades to cover the re- treat, and the army, a disorganized mass, with some creditable exceptions, drifted as the men pleased away from the scene of action. There was no pursuit, and the march from Centreville was as barren of oppor- tunities for the rear-guard as the withdrawal from the field of battle had been.* When McDowell reached Fairfax Court-House in the night, he was in communi- cation with Washington and exchanged telegrams with General Scott, in one of which the old hero said, " We are not discouraged " ; but that dispatch did not lighten the gloom in which it was received. McDow- ell was so tired that while sitting on the ground writ- ing a dispatch he fell asleep, pencil in hand, in the middle of a sentence. His Adjutant-General aroused him ; the dispatch was finished, and the weary ride to the Potomac resumed. When the unfortunate com- mander dismounted at Arlington next forenoon in a soaking rain, after thirty-two hours in the saddle, his disastrous campaign of six days was closed. The first martial effervescence of the country was over. The three-months' men went home, and the three-months' chapter of the War ended with the South triumphant and confident ; the North disap- pointed but determined. * The revised losses are as follows: Federal, 16 officers and 444 en- listed men killed ; 78 officers and 1,046 enlisted men wounded ; 50 of- ficers and 1,262 enlisted men missing ; 25 pieces of artillery and a large quantity of small arms. Confederate, 25 officers and 362 enlisted men killed; 63 officers and 1,519 enlisted men wounded ; 1 officer and 12 enlisted men missing. THE OPPOSING ARMIES AT THE FIRST BULL RUN AS GIVEN BY "CENTURY MAGAZINE." [The composition and losses of each army as here stated give the gist of all the data obtainable in the Official Records. K stands for killed ; w for wounded ; m for captured or missing ; c for captured.] COMPOSITION AND LOSSES OF THE UNION ARMY. Brig. -Gen. Irvin McDowell. Staff loss: w, 1. (Capt. O. H. Tilling- hast, mortally wounded.) FIRST DIVISION, Brig. -Gen. Daniel Tyler. Staff loss, w, 2. First Brigade, Col. Erasmus D. Keyes : 3d Me., Col. C. D. Jameson, 1st Conn., Col. G. S. Burnham; 3d Conn., Col. A. H. Terry; 3d Conn., Col. John L. Chatfield. Brigade loss: k, 19; w, 50; m, 154=223. Second Brigade, Brig.-Gen. Robert C. Schenck : 2d N. Y. (militia), Col. G. W. B. Tompkins; 1st Ohio, Col. A. McD. McCook ; 2d Ohio, Lieut. -Col. Rodney Mason ; E, 2d U. S. Arty., Capt. J. H. Carlisle. Brigade loss: k, 21; w, 25; m, 52=98. Third Brigade, Col. W. T. Sherman: 13th N. Y., Col. I. F. Quinby; 69th N. Y., Col. M. Corcoran (w and c), Capt. James Kelly; 79th N. Y., Col. James Cameron (k) ; 2d Wis., Lieut. -Col. H. W. Peck ; E, 3d U. S. Arty., Capt. R. B. Ayres. Brigade loss : k, 107 ; w, 205 ; m, 293=605. Fourth Brigade, Col. Israel B. Richardson: 1st Mass., Col. Robert Cowdin; 12th N. Y., Col. Ezra L. Walrath; 2d Mich., Major A. W. Williams; 3d Mich., Col. Daniel Mc- Connell; G, 1st U. S. Arty., Lieut. John Edwards; M, 2d U. S. Arty., Capt. Henry J. Hunt. This brigade was only slightly engaged in front of Blackburn's Ford, with the loss of one officerjdlled. SECOND DIVISION, Col. D. Hunter (w), Col. Andrew Porter. Staff loss: w, 1 ; m, 1=2. First Brigade, Col. Andrew^Porter : 8th N. Y. (militia), Col. Geo. Lyons; 14th N. Y. (militia), Col. A. M. Wood (w and c), Lieut.-Col. E. B. Fowler; 27th N. Y., Col. H. W. Slocum (w), Major J. J. Bartlett; Battalion U. S. Infantry,*Major George Sykes; Battalion U. S. Marines, Major J. G. Reynolds ; JBattalion U. S. Cavalry, Major I. N. Palmer ; D, 5th U. S. Arty., Capt. Charles Griffin. Brigade loss: k, 86; w, 177; m, 201=464. Second ^Brigade, Col. Ambrose E. Burnside: 2d N. H., Col. Gilman Marston (w), Lieut.-Col. F. S. Fiske ; 1st R. L, Major J. P. Balch ; 2d R. I. (with battery), Col. John S. Slo- 395 - 396 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. cum (k), Lieut. -Col. Frank Wheaton ; 71st N. Y. (with two howitzers). Col. H. P. Martin. Brigade loss: k, 58; w, 171 ; m, 134=363. THIRD DIVISION, Col. Samuel P. Heintzelman. First Brigade, CoL W. B. Franklin: 5th Mass., Col. S. C. Lawrence; llth Mass., Col. George Clark, Jr. ; 1st Minn., Col. W. A. Gorman; I, 1st U. S. Arty., Capt. J. B. Ricketts (w and c), Lieut. Edmund Kirby. Brigade loss : k, 70; w, 197; m, 92=359. Second Brigade, Col. Orlando B. Willcox (w and c), Col. J. H. H. Ward ; llth N. Y., Lieut.-Col. N. L. Farnham ; 38th N. Y., Col. J. H. H. Ward, Lieut,-Col. A. Farnsworth ; 1st Mich., Major A. F. Bidwell ; 4th Mich., Col. D. A. Woodbury ; D, 2d U.S. Arty., Capt. Richard Arnold. Brigade loss: k, 65; w, 177; m, 190= 432. Third Brigade, Col. Oliver O. Howard: 3d Me., Major H. G. Staples; 4th Me., Col. H. G. Berry; 5th Me., Col. M. H. Dunnell ; 2d Vt., Col. Henry Whiting. Brigade loss: k, 27; w, 100; m, 98=225. FOURTH (RESERVE) DIVISION. [Not on the field of battle.] Brig.- Gen." Theodore Runyon. Militia: 1st N. J., Col. A. J. Johnson; 2d N. J., Col. H. M. Baker; 3d N. J., Col. Wm. Napton ; 4th N. J., CoL Matthew Miller, Jr. Volunteers: 1st N. J., CoL W. R. Montgomery; 2d N. J., Col. Geo. W. McLean; 3d N. J., Col. George W. Taylor; 41st N. Y., Col. Leopold von Gilsa. FIFTH DIVISION. [In reserve at Centreville and not engaged in the battle proper. It had some skirmishing during the day and while cov- ering the retreat of the army.] Col. Dixon S. Miles. First Brigade, Col. Louis Blenker; 8th N. Y. (Vols.), Lieut.-Col. Julius Stahel; 29th N. Y., Col. Adolph von Steinwehr ; 39th N. Y. (Garibaldi Guards), Col. F. G. D'Utassy; 27thJPenna., Col. Max Einstein; A, 2d U. S. Arty., Capt. John C. Tidball ; Bookwood's N. Y. battery, Capt. Charles Book- wood. Brigade loss: k, 6 ; w, 16 ; m, 96=118. Second Brigade, Col. Thomas A. Davies: 16th N. Y., Lieut.-Col. Samuel Marsh; 18th N. Y., Col. W. A. Jackson; 31st N. Y., Col. C. E. Pratt; 32d N. Y., Col. R. Matheson; G, 2d U. S. Arty., Lieut. O. D. Greene. Brigade loss: w, 2; m, 1=3. Total loss of the Union Army: killed, 460; wounded, 1,124; cap- tured or missing, 1,312, grand total, 2,896. / STRENGTH OF THE UNION ARMY. General James B. Fry, who was General McDowell's Adjutant-Gen- eral, prepared, in October, 1884, a statement of the strength of the army, in brief as follows : u It was not practicable at the time to ascertain the strength of the army with accuracy ; and it is impossible now to make a return which can be pronounced absolutely correct. u The abstract which appears on page 309, vol. ii., ' Official Rec- THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN. 397 ords,' is not a return of McDowell's army at the Battle of Bull Run, and was not prepared by me, but, as I understand, has been compiled since the war. It purports to give the strength of the ' Department of Northeastern Virginia,' July 16 and 17, not of McDowell's army, July 21. It does not show the losses resulting from the discharge of the 4th Pennsylvania Infantry and Varian's New York battery, which marched to the rear on the morning of the 21st, nor the heavy losses incident to the march of the army from the Potomac ; it embraces two regiments the 21st and 25th New York Infantry which were not with the army in the field ; and it contains the strength of Company E, Second United States Cavalry, as a special item, whereas that com- pany is embraced in the strength of the Second (Hunter's) Division, to which it, with the rest of the cavalry belonged. 4k ln his report of the battle (p. 324, vol. ii., 'Official Records') General McDowell says he crossed Bull Run ' with about eighteen thou- sand men.' I collected information to that effect for him at the time. His statement is substantially correct. The following is an exhibit in detail of the forces actually engaged : COMMANDS. Officers. Enlisted men. General staff . . .... 19 First Division, two brigades . . .... 284 5,068 Second Division, two brigades 252 5,717 Third Division, three brigades 341 6,891 Total seven brigades . . 896 17,676 " Only Reyes's and Sherman's brigades of the four brigades of the First Division crossed Bull Run. " The Fifth Division, with Richardson's brigade of the First Division attached, was in reserve at and in front of Centreville. Some of it was lightly engaged on our side of Bull Run in repelling a feeble advance of the enemy. The Fourth (Reserve) Division was left to guard our com- munications with the Potomac, its advance being seven miles in rear of Centre ville. " That is to say, McDowell crossed Bull Run with 896 officers, 17,676 rank and file, and 24 pieces of artillery. " The artillerymen who crossed Bull Run are embraced in the figures of the foregoing table. The guns were as follows : Ricketts's Battery, 6 10-pounder rifle guns ; Griffin's Battery, 4 10-pounder rifle guns, 2 12-pounder howitzers; Arnold's Battery, 2 13-pounder rifle guns, 2 6-pounder smooth-bores ; R. I. Battery, 6 13-pounder rifles ; 71st N. Y. Reg't's Battery, 2 Dahlgren howitzers. 398 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. " The artillery in addition to that which crossed Bull Run, was as follows: Hunt's Battery, 4 12-pounder rifle guns; Carlisle's Battery, 2 13-pounder rifle guns, 2 6-pounder smooth-bore guns ; TidbalPs Battery, 2 6-pounder smooth-bore guns, 2 12-pounder howitzers; Greene's Bat- tery, 4 10-pounder rifle guns; Ayres's Battery, 2 10-pounder rifle guns, 2 6-pounder smooth-bore guns, 2 12-pounder howitzers ; Ed wards 's Bat- tery, 2 20-pounder rifle guns, 1 30-pounder rifle gun." COMPOSITION AND LOSSES OF THE CONFEDERATE ARMY. General Joseph E. Johnston. ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, Brig. -Gen. G. T. Beauregard. First Bri- gade, Brig. -Gen. M. L. Bonham: llth N. C., Col. W. W. Kirkland ; 2d S. C., Col. J. B. Kershaw; 3d S. C., Col. J. H. Williams; 7th S. C., Col. Thomas G. Bacon; 8th S. C., Col. E. B. C. Cash. Loss, k, 10 ; w, 66=76. Second Brigade [not actively engaged], Brig. -Gen. R. S. Ewell : 5th Ala., Col. R. E. Rodes; 6th Ala., Col. J. J. Seibels; 6th La., Col. J. G. Seymour. Third Brigade, Brig. -Gen. D. R. Jones: 17th Miss., Col. W. S. Featherston; 18th Miss., Col. E. R. Burt ; 5th S. C., Col. M. Jenkins. Loss; k, 13; w, 62=75. Fourth Brigade [not actively en- gaged], Brig. -Gen. James Longstreet : 5th N. C., Lieut. -Col. Jones; 1st Va., Major F. G. Skinner; llth Va.. Col. S. Garland, Jr. ; 17th Va., Col. M. D. Corse. Loss: k, 2 ; w, 12=14. Fifth Brigade, Col. P. St. Geo. Cocke : 8th Va., Col. Eppa Hunton ; 18th Va., Col. R. E. Withers ; 19th Va., Lieut.-Col. J. C. Strange; 28th Va.. Col. R. T. Preston; 49th Va. (3 cos.), Col. Wm. Smith. Loss : k, 23 ; w 79 ; m, 2=104. Sixth Brigade, Col. Jubal A Early: 7th La., Col. Harry T. Hays; 13th Miss., Col. Wm. Barksdale; 7th Va., Col. J. L. Kemper ; 24th Va., Lieut.- Col. P. Hairston, Jr. Loss : k, 13 ; w, 67=79. Evans's command (temporarily organized), Col. N. G. Evans : 1st La. Battalion, Major C. R. Wheat (w) ; 4th S. C., Col. J. B. E. Sloan; Cavalry, Capt. W. R. Terry; Artillery, Lieut. G. S. Davidson. Loss: k, 20; w, 118; m, 8= 146. Reserve Brigade [not actively engaged], Brig.-Gen. T. H. Holmes r 1st Arkansas and 2d Tennessee. Unattached Infantry, 8th La. ; Col. H. B. Kelly ; Hampton's (S. C.) Legion, Col. Wade Hampton. Loss : k, 19 ; w, 100 ; m, 2=121. Cavalry: 30th Virginia, Col. R. C. W. Radford ; Harrison's Battalion ; Ten independent companies. Loss : k, 5; w, 8=13. Artillery: Battalion Washington Artillery (La.), Major J. B. Walton; Alexandria (Va.) Battery, Capt. Del Kemper: Latham's (Va.) Battery, Capt. H. G. Latham ; Loudoun (Va.) Artillery, Capt. Arthur D. Rogers ; Shields's (Va.) Battery, Capt. J. C. Shields. Loss : k, 2 ; w, 8=10. Total loss Army of the Potomac : k, 105 ; w, 519 ; m, 12=636. THE FIRST BATTLE OP BULL KUN. 399 ARMY OF THE SHENANDOAH, General Joseph E. Johnston. First Brigade, Brig. -Gen. T. J. Jackson: 2d Va., Col. J. W. Allen; 4th Va., Col. J. F. Preston; 5th Va., Col. Kenton Harper; 27th Va., Lieut. -Col. John Echols; 33d Va., Col. A. C. Cummings. Loss: k, 119; w, 442 =561. Second Brigade, Col. F. S. Bartow (k) : 7th Ga., Col. Lucius J. Gartrell; 8th Ga., Lieut. -Col. W. M. Gardner. Loss: k, 60; w, 293 =353. Third Brigade, Brig. -Gen. B. E. Bee (k) : 4th Ala., Col. Jones (k), Col. S. R. Gist: 2d Miss., Col. W. C. Falkner; llth Miss. (2 cos.), Lieut.-Col. P. F. Liddell; 6th N. C., Col. C. F. Fisher (k). Loss: k, 95 ; w, 309; m, 1=405. Fourth Brigade, Brig. -Gen. E. K. Smith (w). Col. Arnold Elzey: 1st Md. Battalion, Lieut.-Col. George H. Steuart ; 3d Tennessee, Col. John C. Vaughn; 10th Va., Col. S. B. Gibbons; 13th Va., Col. A. P. Hill. Loss: k, 8 : w, 19=27. Artillery: Imbo- den's, Stanard's, Pendleton's, Alburtis's, and Beckham's batteries. Cavalry: 1st Va., Col. J. E. B. Stuart. (Loss not specifically reported.) Total loss Army of the Shenandoah : k, 282 ; w, 1,063 ; m, 1=1,346. Total loss of the Confederate Army : killed, 387; wounded, 1,582; captured or missing, 13, grand total, 1,982. STRENGTH OF THE CONFEDERATE ARMY. In October, 1884, General Thomas Jordan, who was General Beaure- gard's Adjutant-General, prepared a statement of the strength of the Confederate Army at Bull Run or Manassas, of which the following is a condensation : " So far as the troops of Beauregard's immediate Army of the Po- tomac are concerned, this statement is condensed from two that I pre- pared with the sub-returns of all the commands before me as the Adju- tant-General of that army, September 25, 1861, and I will vouch for its exactness. In respect to the Army of the Shenandoah, I have been obliged to present an estimate of 8,340 as the total of the rank and file of Johnston's army, my authority for which is a statement written by me in the official report of the battle, and based, as I distinctly recol- lect, upon official documents and returns in my hands at the time, of the accuracy of which I was and am satisfied. The totals of General Beauregard's Army of the Potomac are : ARMY OF THE POTOMAC AVAILABLE ON THE FIELD. Generals and Staff 37 Infantry, Rank and File 19,569 Cavalry. " 1,468 Artillery " " '. 826 21,900 Field Guns.. 27 400 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. ARMY OF THE POTOMAC ACTIVELY ENGAGED. Generals and Staff 10 Infantry, Rank and File 8,415 Cavalry, " " 1,000 Artillery, " " 288 9,713 Field Guns ,. 17 RECAPITULATION. Infantry. Cavalry. Artillery. Staff. Total. Army of the Potomac Rank and File engaged 8,415 1,000 288 10 9,713 Army of the Shenandoah, Rank and File engaged (estimated) .. 7,684 300 350 6 8,340 Total Rank and File, both Confed- erate armies, engaged 16,099 1,300 638 16 18,053" ARTICLE VII. Smith's " Confederate War Papers." This is a book in four parts by General G. W. Smith, late Major-General Confederate Army. It is a contribution to the controversies going on among ex-officers of the Confederacy ; but its real value is in the new light it throws upon the battle of Seven Pines, or Fair Oaks. The book adds one more to the proofs that the President of the ex-Confederacy had to contend with formidable opposition inside of his own lines. Never- theless, he stood from beginning to end at the head of the able and ambitious generals and politicians turbulently thrown together by secession. That fact is evidence of his ability, earnestness of purpose, and force of character. That he should have bitter op- ponents was inevitable. The author of this book ap- pears as one of them ; but he says something on both sides of the subject and comments with moderation. When General Smith reported for duty at Fairfax Court-House in September, 1861, General J. E. John- ston, commanding the army, and General Beauregard, second in command, were on bad terms with Mr. * ' ' Confederate War Papers : Fairfax Court-House, New Orleans, Seven Pines, Richmond and North Carolina." By Gustavus W. Smith, late Major-General, Confederate States Army. New York: Atlantic Publishing and Engraving Co. Journal Military Service Institute. 401 402 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. Davis, the Confederate President. General Smith, the third in rank, was on friendly terms with all of them. The three Generals were in favor of having the army under them strengthened and authorized to invade the North that fall, by turning Washington. With a view to convincing Mr. Davis of the wisdom of this course, and securing the necessary re-enforce- ments, he was invited to visit headquarters, at Fair- fax Court-House, for a conference, and accepted, think- ing the conference was for general purposes. The meeting took place early in October the exact date is not stated. General Smith was the common friend. The Generals wanted "to concentrate in that vicinity, as rapidly as possible, all the available forces of the Confederacy, cross the Potomac with the army thus re-enforced, and by pressing the fighting in the enemy's country, make a determined effort in the autumn of 1861 to compel the Northern States to recognize our (the Southern) independence." Mr. Davis, on the other hand, said that " the whole country was demanding protection at his hands, and praying for arms and troops for defence " ; that he hoped for arms from abroad before spring ; and he advocated minor military operations some of which he specified to occupy, instruct, and encourage the troops during the winter. The Generals, finding themselves disappointed in the one grand operation which they advocated, failed to undertake the minor operations pointed out by their President. Bad feel- ing between the two parties continued to grow ; questions arose among the people as to the war policy of Mr. Davis ; and it seemed that the President might SMITH'S " CONFEDERATE WAR PAPERS " 403 be credited with the views the Generals had advocated and he had opposed. The conference held in October was informal, and was not recorded. But in January following (1862) General Smith wrote out his recol- lection of it, signed the paper, obtained the signatures of Johnston and Beauregard, and filed the document away. He says in his book that the statement was " mildly drawn, care being taken to make it as re- spectful as possible, consistent with the facts." He could have given this statement a better character by simply asserting that it was a true record of what oc- curred. He adds : " It was not intended to publish it unless it became necessary to use it in vindication of the truth." That is to say, it was a secret docu- ment, prepared by the Confederate President's subor- dinates, held by one of them to be drawn against his superior officer if the holder thought best. By the time General Smith drew up the paper in January, 1862, he had, no doubt, joined Johnston and Beaure- gard in opposition to their President. Mr. Davis says in his book : " Twenty years after the event I learned of this secret report by one party without notice having been given to the other of a conversation said to have lasted two hours. I have noticed the improbabilities and inconsistencies of the paper, and, without remark, I submit to honorable men, the con- cealment from me in which it was prepared, where- by they may judge of the chances for such co-intel- ligence as needs must exist between the Executive and the commanders of armies to insure attainable success." There is not likely to be much difference of opinion 404 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. upon this issue. The verdict will be in favor of the ex-President of the " lost cause." A word as to the merits of the war policy, for which the Generals were anxious to secure credit at the ex- pense of their President. The author says, " I believed that by the course proposed we could, before winter set in, convince the people of the Northern States, that it was unwise for them to persist in trying to hold the Southern people in the Union at the point of the bayonet. By pressing the fighting in the enemy's country we expected to compel the Northern States to recognize our independence." As the author anticipated such remarkable results, it is not strange that he deems it important to fix on Mr. Davis the responsibility for " the failure of the Confederate army in Virginia to make an active campaign of inva- sion, fighting on Northern soil, in the autumn of 1861." But General Smith was mistaken in his premises. Bayonets were necessary to settle the questions which were open at the time, but they are not required to "hold the Southern people in the Union." Further- more, his great expectations from an invasion in the fall of 1861 would not have been realized. It would not have compelled the Northern States to recognize the independence of the Southern Confederacy. Gen- eral Smith's belief, affected no doubt by his hope, may have been due somewhat to the fact that Northern valor and soldiership were at that time underestimated in the South ; Union troops were looked upon, not as earnest men contending for a principle, but as " Lin- coln hirelings." One Southern man, some people thought, was equal in war to five or six Yankees. SMITH'S "CONFEDERATE WAR PAPERS." 405 The truth is, that in addition to the desire for human freedom, as an independent principle, there was in the North a determination to preserve the Government, and a deep-seated, old-fashioned patriotism which many prominent Southerners did not reckon upon. The war, from the nature of the case, could not be decided by a dash. It had to be a trial of courage, endurance, and resources combined. But there were more direct considerations which also tended to induce Mr. Davis to reject the war policy presented by his Generals at Fairfax Court House. He saw, no doubt, that while the proposed policy was tempting from a purely mili- tary point of view, it took small account of political conditions which he could not disregard. " The whole country," as he told the Generals, " was demanding protection at his hands, and praying for arms and troops for defence" He could not have consolidated his people for the long struggle which had to come, if he had denied defence to all, for the sole purpose of an invasion from Virginia. General Smith admits that there " was the hope and expectation that, before the end of winter, arms would be introduced into the country ; and all were confident that we could then not only protect our own country, but successfully invade that of the enemy" This admission alone is a suffi- cient answer for Mr. Davis to the war policy of his Generals. SEVEN PINES. Part III. is entitled " Notes on the Battle of Seven Pines, or Fair Oaks." This is much the most impor- tant part of the work. During that action Smith was next in rank to John- 406 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. ston, the General-in-Chief, and commanded the left wing of the Confederate army during the first day, and the whole army from 7 P.M. on the first day, when John- ston was wounded, till 1 P.M. on the second day. His- torians have failed to commend his part in the action. In his book, Smith, with drawn sabre, boldly charges upon them all ; attacking especially the accounts given by Jefferson Davis in his " Rise and Fall of the Con- federacy," Joseph E. Johnston in his " Narrative, 7 ' Richard Taylor in his " Destruction and Reconstruc- tion," writers on the Confederate side ; and Swinton and Webb, Union authors. To weigh the points General Smith makes, it is nec- essary to recall the main features of the situation at the time the battle of Seven Pines was fought. As McClellan followed the retiring Confederates up the Peninsula from Williamsburg, in May, 1861, his main line of advance, nearly due west, was the Rich- mond and Williamsburg, or Old Stage, road. About ten miles east of Richmond this road crosses the Chick- ahominy River by Bottom's Bridge. The part of the Chickahorniny with which we are concerned runs almost in a right line from northwest to southeast. At the point on the Williamsburg road where it is spanned by Bottom's Bridge, the stream is about forty feet wide, and for fifteen or twenty miles above it varies in width from forty to seventy-five or eighty feet. It is skirted by heavy timber, and its valley, or bottom- land, varying from half a mile to a mile in width, is low and marshy, and is subject to overflow. A mile above Bottom's Bridge the stream is crossed by the bridge of the Richmond and York River Railroad. SMITH'S "CONFEDERATE WAR PAPERS. 1 407 This railroad runs from Richmond to West Point at the head of York River. It crosses the Pamunky H ^ rV- JM ^ * s } i^i \ /*\ J V /2 X/ *S* v J ! 7 =|i-* sir I \ iTav **w^ ^ \ ^v Hv^ \ 1 jf \ H- 4 - / U N J N. ^* /V v\ * *a t ^^^i csi p, ^ cc KD rl x* !l j 1 II 1 5 X ^ 09* ' a X \ 5^ S& S; n : ^ i t |: N Q * ? s' ? M s 1" S I W D 2 H S * < CO *7. CONFEDERATE /c^r^rC^ - - O P 00 hrt h^ Ci ^j fej ^ ^j h. 01 r ?l *" f 1 ?5 Si i> I 1 * * s g H Co* M HTJ 1 2 5 g t s i : : ]2 River just above the point where the stream empties into the York. This crossing, called White House, 408 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. only about twelve miles by the railroad from the Chicahominy, was the Union depot York and Pa- munky rivers being open to our shipping. As they withdrew from Williamsburg, the Confed- erates crossed to the Richmond side of the Chicka- hominy, and destroyed the bridges as far as they could, but did not undertake to defend the crossings. They did not appear disposed to make a stand until they were under cover of the entrenchments around Rich- mond. McClellan's advance (Keyes's 4th Corps) reached the Chickahominy at Bottom's Bridge on the 20th of May, forded the stream, and occupied the high ground on the west side. Although the season was unusually wet, the Chickahominy was then fordable at all cross- ings above Bottom's Bridge. Neither the river nor the enemy, therefore prevented the Union army from continuing the advance. But McClellan threw his army forward into line upon his leading corps as his left, and established the centre and right of it in rear of the Chickahominy, the left being in front of that stream. He deemed this disposition of his centre and right necessary to guard hie line of communication (twelve miles long) with his depot at the White House, and to protect his right and rear ; although he assumed that, as a final result, the opposing army would take shelter behind its defences near Richmond, and that a siege would ensue. As the Chickahominy was liable to rise suddenly, become impassable, and sweep away temporary bridges, and thus cut him off from his base on the Pamunky, McClellan was not willing to throw all of his army SMITH'S " CONFEDERATE WAR PAPERS." 409 across the stream until he had built bridges which would enable him to pass troops and supplies with certainty and celerity. While constructing these bridges he held a strong position. On the left a stream called White Oak branch rises near Richmond, flows easterly just south of the Williarnsburg road, and empties in the Chickahominy two or three miles below Bottom's Bridge. The valley of this creek, from its mouth for several miles toward Richmond, is a difficult and in most places an impassable morass, called White-Oak swamp. The left wing of the army, Keyes's 4th Corps, with Heintzelman's 3d Corps as reserve, was thus well covered. A stream called Beaver-Dam creek runs nearly due south, and empties into the Chickahominy at a point north of Richmond. Upon the high bank of this creek, at right angles to his main line along the Chickahominy, the Union com- mander posted his right flank. His line thus estab- lished, covered, speaking broadly, the northeastern quarter of a circle drawn around Richmond with a radius of about twelve miles, and extended from Bot- tom's Bridge, east of Richmond, along the Chickahom- iny to Meadow Bridge north of that city, a distance of about fifteen miles. The weakness of the position was in the fact that the army was astride a stream which might, and did, rise so as to prevent one wing from supporting the other. The Confederate army was posted between the Chickahominy and Richmond, and was necessarily well concentrated ; but the entrenchments around the city were weak. In addition to the danger he was in from McClel- 410 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. Ian, the Confederate commander was menaced by McDowell, who, with over forty thousand men and a hundred guns (if not deterred by counter movements against Washington), threatened to advance on McClel- lan's right, from Fredericksburg, some sixty miles north of Richmond. Johnston, with his entire army well in hand, had resolved to pursue an offensive-defensive policy. While he was deliberating upon striking a blow at McClellan's left near Bottom's Bridge or waiting an opportunity to do so he heard (May 27) that Mc- Dowell was advancing from Fredericksburg. There- upon he resolved to cross the upper Chickahominy and (on 29th May) destroy or "double-up" McClellan's right before McDowell could get within supporting distance ; and for this purpose he strengthened his left and placed General G. W. Smith in command of his left wing. Bat learning on the 28th that McDow- ell had abandoned the advance had in fact turned north Johnston countermanded his orders for attack- ing the Union right.* In the meantime McClellan had been pushing his left wing forward. On the 24th Casey's division (of Keyes's 4th Corps) occupied and entrenched a point called Seven Pines, only seven miles from Richmond by the main Williamsburg road. Couch's division (the other part of Keyes's corps) was not far in rear ; * General Smith repeats with a little sly sarcasm how the Confeder- ate President, Davis, hurried through his office work on the morning of the 29th, and rode about the field trying to find the performance, which he finally learned from subordinates that Johnston with whom he was not on cordial terms had countermanded, without notifying him. SMITH'S "CONFEDERATE WAR PAPERS." 411 and Heintzelman's 3d Corps had crossed the Chicka- hominy at Bottom's Bridge, and was guarding the road to the left through White-Oak swamp, and ready to support the troops in front. On the 29th Casey's division was pushed forward a half or three quarters of a mile to the front of Seven Pines, and began to entrench; and Couch occupied the position vacated by Casey at Seven Pines. By the 30th the time had come when the Confed- erate commander felt that some positive move must be made in support of his offensive-defensive policy. The season, being unusually wet, increased actually and relatively the difficulties of the Union army. The Chickahominy had overflowed the bottom-lands, destroyed some of the new bridges, and delayed the completion of others. The elements were decidedly in favor of the Confederates. On the 30th Johnston, encouraged by a reconnois- sance in force, decided to attack McClellan's left next day, the 31st, and the battle of Seven Pines, or Fair Oaks, was the result. To use almost literally General Smith's description which agrees generally with that of Union writers the point known as Seven Pines is merely the junc- tion of two roads ; it is seven miles east of Richmond, on the Williamsburg (or Old Stage) road, which starts out from the southern part of the city. From the northern suburb of the city another road starts out, and runs in an easterly direction, keeping about two miles to the north of the Williamsburg road for a dis- tance of seven miles from Richmond, where it forks at a point called Old Tavern. The fork to the left leads 412 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. northerly to New Bridge on the Chickahominy, oppo- site McClellan's centre. The fork to the right runs southeasterly two miles, where it intersects the Will- iamsburg road at Seven Pines. This fork of two miles from Old Tavern to Seven Pines, with the main road (seven miles) from Old Tavern to Richmond, is the " Nine-Mile Road." The Richmond and York River Railroad lies between the Will iamsburg and Nine- Mile roads, until it crosses the latter at a point called Fair Oaks, a mile northwest from Seven Pines. The Charles City road branches off from the Will- iamsburg road at a point three miles east of Richmond, and leads to the southwest, below White-Oak swamp ; but before reaching the swamp, going by that road from Richmond, lateral country roads lead from the Charles City to the Williamsburg road The country about Seven Pines is generally flat and swampy, with farms and heavy timber interspersed. Although there are many country roads through the neighborhood, it is a bad region for army movements in rainy weather, even on the roads. The natural features of the battle-field afforded no- special favor either to attack or defence ; but the Con- federates had some advantage in the fact that the two- best highways the Williamsburg and Nine-Mile road& lying at a safe and convenient distance apart, led from their camps and intersected at the point occupied by the Union forces ; thus enabling a ready concen- tration upon the field of battle. The official morning report made at the time (" Records of Rebellion," vol. xi., part iii., p. 204) shows that on the 31st of May, McClellan's Army of SMITH'S "CONFEDERATE WAK PAPERS." 413 the Potomac in the Peninsula, had 98,008 present for duty, not including McDowell's arrny, 41,000 near Fredericksburg, nor Wool's command of 11,514 for duty, at Fort Monroe. No return of the Confederate forces for May 31 ap- pears ; but a return for May 21 (vol. xi., part iii., p. 530) gives the strength of Johnston's army (Smith's 1st Division, Longstreet's 2d Division, Magruder's 3d Division, D. H. Hill's 4th Division, Cavalry Brigade, and Artillery Reserve) as 53,688. But before the battle of Seven Pines the force was increased by Huger's division, 5,000, and by other re-enforcements, which ran it up, no doubt, to the figures given by General Smith, 62,000 present on May 31. On the 30th when Johnston ordered the attack although the Chickahominy was high, McClellan had several bridges by which, at that time, he could cross to support his left wing. But during the night of the 30th-31st the rain fell in torrents, and raised the already swollen stream, so as almost to prove the ruin of the Union left. Surnner got to its relief by antici- pating orders. Receiving instructions at 1 P.M. to " be in readiness to move at a moment's warning," he did not simply prepare his command, but, hearing the sound of battle on the opposite side of the river, he formed his two divisions, and marched each to the bridge it had built across the Chickahominy, and waited with " the heads of columns on the bridges," holding the flooring down against the rising waters, for word to advance. The orders came at two o'clock. Just before that, one of the bridges was swept from under the feet of the men, but both divisions rushed 414 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. across the other bridge before it became impassable y and reached the field in time to avert the impending disaster. This is one of the few instances in which a great result in war can be traced directly to a single exhibition of good soldiership by a subordinate. In auditing the public services of its soldiers this Gov- ernment cannot overestimate its debt to General E. V. Sumner for his conduct on the 31st of May, 1862. Johnston's purpose of attacking Keyes at Seven Pines was adopted before the heavy rain of the night of the 30th 31st, and was not suggested by the advan- tage which that storm gave him by destroying bridges. His orders were based upon the assumption that the Chickahominy , as he said, would " be high passable only at the bridges." In fact, the battle was due rather to the course of events than to his conception. Speaking of Casey's advance beyond Seven Pines, and Longstreet's desire to attack him, Johnston said in a letter to Generals Whiting and G. W. Smith on the 29th : " Who knows but in the course of the morning Longstreet's scheme may accomplish itself. If we get into a fight here, you must hurry to help us." Up to that time certainly Johnston had not decided to attack. This is further shown by his instructions of the 30th to Huger, hereafter quoted. But during the day the 30th Longstreet was with him in person, and re- ceived verbal instructions for next day's operations, Johnston's orders for this battle constitute one of the principal topics discussed in General Smith's book. They do not show a well defined purpose in the com- mander's mind. The general control of the attack was entrusted to SMITH'S "CONFEDERATE WAR PAPERS." 415 Longstreet, who had his own division 14,000, D. H. Hill's division 11,000, and Huger's division 5,000, a force of 30,000 men present. In addition to this, Hood's brigade of Smith's division joined Longstreet during the afternoon of the battle. Longstreet's orders from Johnston were verbal. D. H. Hill re- ceived orders from Longstreet to conduct the attack. Huger, who had arrived only the day before the bat- tle, though the senior, was required to act under Long- street ; but, nevertheless, Johnston gave him written orders as if he were independent. Huger was blamed for not taking an earlier and more active part than he did, but he appears to have defended himself success- fully against the accusations. His orders from Johns- ton were as follows : "May 30, 1862, 8.40 P.M. " MAJOR- GENERAL HUGER: General: The reports of Major-General D. H. Hill give me the impression that the enemy is in considerable strength in his front. It seems to me necessary that we should increase our force also. For that object I wish to concentrate the troops of your division on the Charles City road, and concentrate the troops of Major- General Hill on that to Williamsourg. To do this, it will be necessary for you to move as early in the morning as possible, to re- lieve the brigade of General Hill's division now on the Charles City road. The road is the second large one diverging to the right from the Williamsburg road ; the first turns off near the toll-gate. On reaching your position on the Charles City road, learn at once the routes to the main roads to Richmond on your right and left, especially those to the left, and try and find 416 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. guides. Be ready, if an action should be begun on your left, to fall upon the enemy's flank. " Most respectfully your obedient servant, "J. E. JOHNSTON, General. " P. S. It is important to move early." Certainly under such orders, clearly expressing a defensive purpose, and telling him to be ready if an action should be begun on his left, an officer could not be expected to begin an action himself. But appar- ently, lest he might do something, the Confederate commander sent Huger a second order as follows : "MAY 31. " MAJOR-GENERAL HUGER: General: I fear that in my note of last evening, of which there is no copy, I was too positive on the subject of YOUR ATTACKING the enemy's left flank* It will, of course, be necessary for you to know what force is before you first. I hope to be able to have that ascertained for you by cavalry. As our main force will be on your left, it will be neces- sary for your progress to the front to conform at first to that of General Hill. If you find no strong body in your front, it will be well to aid General Hill ; but then, a strong reserve should be retained to cover our right. Yours truly, " J. E. JOHNSTON, General" These orders are in " Records of Rebellion," vol. xi., part i., page 938. They show conclusively that John- ston did not expect Huger to begin an attack, which beginning Longstreet reported that he lost several hours waiting for. In fact, the most that these orders * Italics by the reviewer in all instances in this review. SMITH'S "CONFEDERATE WAR PAPERS." 417 required of Huger was to co- operate in a battle which was to be begun by others. If he found no strong body in his front, it would " be well to aid General Hill " ; but even in that case he was to retain " a strong reserve " to cover the right. Huger claimed, and it does not appear to have been controverted, that though he was the senior, he was ready to take Longstreet's orders, and so expressed himself to Longstreet at the time, but that he received no orders from that officer. Yet, in the face of these facts, Longstreet said in a note to Johnston dated June 7 (" Records of Rebel- lion," vol. xi., part iii., p. 580) : " The failure of com- plete success on Saturday, May 31, I attribute to the slow movements of General Huger's command. This threw perhaps the hardest part of the battle upon my own poor division. ... I can't help but think a display of his forces on the left flank of the enemy by General Huger would have completed the affair, and given Whiting as easy and pretty a game as was ever had upon a battle-field. Slow men are a little out of place upon the field." The Records do not show that Johnston repelled the imputation put upon Huger. Although the attack was entrusted to the right wing, some 30,000 men under Longstreet, the Con- federate commander gave orders for co-operation by his left wing. At 9.15 P.M. on the 30th he wrote General G. W. Smith, commanding the left wing (" Records of Rebellion," vol. xi., part iii., p. 563) : " If nothing prevents we will fall upon the enemy in front of Major- General Hill ... as early as pos- sible. The Chickahominy will be high, and passable 418 MILITAKY MISCELLANIES. only at the bridges, a great advantage to us. Please be ready to move by the Nine-Mile road, corning as early as possible to the point at which the road to New Bridge turns off. Should there be cause of haste,* General McLaws on your approach will be ordered to leave his ground for you, that he may re- inforce General Longstreet." The part assigned to the left by this order was but little, if any, more aggressive than that allotted to Huger oh the right. Evidently all the fighting orders were given to Longstreet verbally. Yet both Smith and Huger were blamed as if they had received orders to attack ; and the former has been forced to defend himself in a book against the charge of having failed to do what there is nothing to show he was ordered to do, or ought to have done. General Smith shows quite clearly that historians of the battle of Seven Pines have wronged him. While other writers may have been ignorant, Johnston, according to General Smith, knew the truth, but did not divulge it in fact, suppressed it. Smith, the second in command, was on intimate terms with Johnston, the chief. He shows in his book that he was fully informed as to Johnston's plans and intentions. When the move- ment was ordered on the 30th, Longstreet's division was on the Nine-Mile road,f and Johnston directed that it should proceed to the attack by that road ; while D. H. Hill's division advanced by the Williams- burg road on which it was lying ; and Huger's by the * That is to say, should Longstreet need assistance before you reach McLaw's position. t See map. SMITH'S " CONFEDERATE WAR PAPERS." 419 Charles City road, further to the right south. That would have brought Long-street's division upon Keyes's right flank, the weakness of which is shown by the following remark from Keyes's recent book (" Fifty Years' Observations," etc., p. 452) : " The left of my lines was all protected by the White-Oak swamp, but the right was on ground so favorable to the approach of the enemy, and so far from the Chickahominy, that if Johnston had attacked there an hour or two earlier than he did, I could have made but a feeble- defence comparatively, and every man of us would have been killed, captured, or driven into the swamp or river before assistance could have reached us." The loss of this grand opportunity, the existence of which is ad- mitted on all sides, has been charged by most, if not all, writers on the subject to General G. W. Smith. By his book he succeeds in transferring the responsi- bility to Johnston and Longstreet. He proves, using Johnston as principal witness, that Johnston's orders required Long street's division to proceed to the Nine- Mile road against the weak point of Keyes's line de- scribed above ; but that on the morning of the 31st Smith ascertained and informed Johnston that Long- street's division had left that road and gone down to the Williamsburg road and fallen in behind Hill. Johnston sent orders for Longstreet, if not too late, to send at least part of his division back to proceed as ordered by the Nine-Mile road. But it was too late, or was thought to be. Having entrusted the manage- ment of the attack to Longstreet, Johnston left him to conduct it by the Williamsburg road, and went himself along the Nine-Mile road with G. W. Smith's 420 MILITARY MISCELLANIES. division, and held that division until late in the after- noon, watching the north side of the Chickahominy. Smith stated these particulars in his official report, dated June 23, 1862, but they were stricken out by request of Johnston, because he did not want " to make generally known the misunderstanding between Longstreet and himself in regard to the direction in which Longstreet's division was to move into action." Certainly it is due to General Smith, as well as to history, -that these important points should become generally known now. But after giving due weight to the fact that Long- street, not Smith, was ordered to attack Keyes's ex- posed right flank by the Nine-Mile road, it remains true that Smith's division and Smith in person early in the day reached the position on that road from which the fatal attack could and should have been made. The question is, Who was to blame for the failure of Smith's division to make it at the right time ? The answer is, Johnston, as proved by Smith's book. The same conclusion must be drawn from Johnston's official report, dated June 24, 1862 (vol. xi., part i., pp. 933, 934, " Records of Rebellion"). He says : " General Smith was to march to the junc- tion of the New Bridge road and the Nine-Mile road, to be in readiness either to fall on Keyes^s flank or to cover Longstreet s left. . . . In the meantime I had placed myself on the left of the force employed in his (Longstreet's) attack, withthe division of General Smith, that I might be on a part of the field where I could observe and be ready to meet any counter-move- ments which the enemtfs General might make against SMITH'S " CONFEDERATE WAR PAPERS." 421 our centre or left. Owing to the peculiar condition of the atmosphere, the sound of the musketry did not reach us.* I consequently deferred giving the signal for General Smith's advance until about four