Authors: Terence T. Finn
Tags: #History, #Asia, #Afghanistan, #Military, #United States, #eBook
While Rosecrans was in Tennessee focusing on Bragg, Grant had been in Mississippi attempting to capture Vicksburg. In July 1863, he finally did so, but it was not an easy campaign.
Vicksburg controlled the central portion of the Mississippi River. Capturing it would cut the Confederacy in half, depriving the Southern states to the east of the food produced in Louisiana and Texas. The river was, as historian Robin H. Neillands has noted, a great commercial highway. Both sides wanted, indeed needed, to control it. By seizing New Orleans, the North had made a strong start. The task for Grant was to finish the job.
He initiated his campaign in November 1862. Trekking through difficult terrain, progress was slow. Then twice disaster struck. In a bold move the Confederates destroyed Grant’s supply base at Holly Springs. And General Sherman was defeated in a battle at Chickasaw Bluffs. The result was a withdrawal by Grant to figure out a different approach. Several were devised and attempted. One was to dig a canal in order to divert the river. Another was to send gunboats east of Vicksburg via streams and bayous. Both failed.
Finally, he decided to march the Army of the Tennessee, some forty thousand men, down the western side of the Mississippi River past Vicksburg. The terrain was most difficult, but with great perseverance they arrived at New Carthage, approximately thirty-five miles south of the city. There, they awaited the navy. On the night of April 16, 1863, in a daring midnight sortie, acting rear admiral David Dixon Porter ran his gunboats and transports past the Confederate guns of Vicksburg. He met up with Grant and conveyed the Union army across the river into Mississippi. Grant’s plan was bold, some would say foolhardy, because he had no lines of supply to the North. The river current was too strong for Porter’s flotilla to sail back. U. S. Grant and the Army of the Tennessee were on their own.
Instead of heading north to Vicksburg, Grant moved east and, after several battles, took control of the city of Jackson, Mississippi’s capital. He then marched on Vicksburg, attacking the city twice before putting in place on May 19 a siege the city and its garrison of thirty thousand had little hope of lifting. On July 4, the Southerners surrendered. The day before Meade had defeated Lee in Pennsylvania.
However, all was not rosy for the North. Its Army of the Cumberland was besieged in Chattanooga. Low on supplies, surrounded by Braxton Bragg’s army, the Union army in Tennessee was in dire straits. Having become overall commander in the west, Grant had the responsibility of rescuing it.
Grant acted forcefully. He opened a supply line into Chattanooga and then laid out a plan of attack. Sherman and the Army of the Tennessee would attack Bragg’s right flank. Joe Hooker, leading two corps on loan from the Army of the Potomac, would hit the left at Lookout Mountain, while General George Thomas and the Army of the Cumberland were to move toward the middle, in front of Missionary Ridge. The two flank attacks were to converge and envelop Bragg’s center. As often happens, events in battle deviated from the plan. Sherman’s men ran into difficulties, although Hooker’s corps succeeded in taking Lookout Mountain. And the Army of the Cumberland, wishing to avenge its defeat at Chickamauga and show its mettle to the other Union units, did more than Grant had anticipated. On their own, without orders, they stormed Missionary Ridge and won the day. Having lost the battle—many in the South believed it to be a catastrophe—Bragg retreated into Georgia. Soon thereafter, he offered his resignation, which Jefferson Davis accepted.
Grant had done well at Chattanooga. Moreover, he had gained a victory at Shiloh and his campaign to capture Vicksburg had been highly successful. Ulysses S. Grant was therefore a soldier accustomed to winning. He was a general who planned well, fought hard, stayed calm, persevered, and, most importantly, won. So hopes were high when Lincoln called him east.
Grant arrived in Washington early in March 1864, checking himself into the Willard Hotel. He did not stay long.
Until Grant, standard practice for the Union army’s general in chief was to remain in Washington rather than operate in the field. Scott, McClellan, and Halleck all had done so. Being in Washington facilitated communications with the president and the secretary of war, and made easier the command of the various army staff organizations. But it also imposed heavy social and political obligations, obligations Grant wished to avoid.
So he did something radical. He left Washington and established his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac. George Meade was retained as the army’s commander, though it was Grant who gave it direction. He also kept Henry Halleck busy, making him the senior army staff officer in Washington, a position in which Old Brains did some good.
As to fighting, Grant wasted little time in bringing the Confederates to battle. He understood his job was to destroy the two remaining Southern armies, each of which comprised about sixty thousand men. He thus ordered General Sherman to move against Joe Johnston’s Army of Tennessee and General Meade to strike at Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. As part of this effort Grant directed General Benjamin Butler to march his Army of the James, some thirty thousand Union soldiers, to attack Richmond from the south. He also directed another general, Nathaniel P. Banks, to campaign along the Red River in Texas, hoping that a victory there, in addition to weakening the Confederates, would send a message to Mexico that mischief on its part would not go unanswered.
Both Butler and Banks were among the many nonprofessional generals Lincoln had commissioned in order to secure the political support he considered vital to the prosecution of the war. No president—then or now—can wage war without the support of Congress and the American people. Lincoln was no exception. As a moderate Republican he had to keep the radicals in the party happy, while at the same time holding on to those Northern Democrats willing to continue the war. One way Lincoln did this was to offer military commissions to politicians, most of whom wanted to serve in the army as a means to secure political advantage once the war was over. Banks had been governor of Massachusetts. Butler, like Banks, was a prominent New England Democrat. Neither man, however, was a particularly good general. Banks made a mess of the expedition in Texas. Butler botched his campaign against Richmond.
In 1864 there was to be a presidential election, and without military successes, Lincoln was likely to lose. Many in the North were weary of the war. It had gone on for four years, casualties were extremely high, and despite Union victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg, the South appeared far from defeated. Democrats in particular were losing their zeal for the war. In fact, many of them favored a negotiated settlement with Jefferson Davis’s government. This might not abolish slavery, but it would put a stop to the killing. To carry their flag on the political battlefield, the Democrats nominated none other than George B. McClellan. Many people, Democrats and Republicans alike, expected him to win.
However, Union soldiers and sailors provided Lincoln successes in battle that gave the president a second term in office. In August, Admiral Farragut damned the torpedoes and captured the coastal port of Mobile. In September, two battles on land resulted in victories for the North. General Philip Sheridan defeated Confederate cavalry in the Shenandoah Valley, an area where the South had enjoyed much success. Perhaps most important of all was William Tecumseh Sherman’s capture of Atlanta.
Grant had put Sherman in charge of three Union armies, totaling approximately a hundred thousand men. George Thomas, the “Rock of Chickamauga,” commanded the Army of the Cumberland. Major General John Schofield led the Army of the Ohio. James McPherson, considered a rising star in the Union army, was in charge of the Army of the Tennessee. Their task was to destroy Joseph Johnston’s Confederate army. The way to do this was to move against Georgia’s capital, thus forcing Johnston to fight.
Early in May, Sherman marched his troops southeast from Chattanooga into Georgia. Atlanta was about a hundred miles away. Johnston fought a cautious, defensive battle that kept his army intact. Sherman moved aggressively, attempting to outflank his opponent. There were several battles along the way, not all of which Sherman won. But the Union advance was inexorable. By early July, Sherman was at the outskirts of the city.
On July 17, Jefferson Davis, frustrated that Sherman had not been stopped, replaced Johnston. The new Confederate commander was John Bell Hood, a veteran of Chickamauga and Gettysburg. Hood’s approach to battle was not terribly subtle: he would attack and then attack again, which is what he did. At Peachtree Creek, Decatur, and Ezra Church, he flung his men at those of Sherman. The battles were hard fought, and on both sides casualties were high (among the dead was General McPherson). Yet each time Sherman prevailed. On September 4, 1864, his troops entered Atlanta, the news of which brought despair throughout the South.
Battered, Hood took his much depleted army north into Tennessee. Sherman detached the Army of the Cumberland to deal with it. George Thomas did just that, defeating Hood twice.
Once in Atlanta, Sherman decided to march to the sea, a distance of 285 miles. His objective was to inflict such damage along the way that Southerners, in uniform and not, would realize the futility of continuing the fight.
The march began on November 16. Averaging about fifteen miles a day, Sherman’s men reached the coast early in December. The results were as planned, although there was more destruction than death. After accepting the surrender of Savannah, Sherman took his force, then numbering some sixty thousand soldiers, north into South Carolina. The state was considered by many of his men to warrant special treatment, for it had been South Carolina that had started the conflict. So they wreaked havoc, burning everything in sight. Yet in March, when they moved through North Carolina, they were far less destructive. It was in North Carolina, in Bentonville, where they fought their last battle. A small Confederate force attacked but were driven back. Soon thereafter some of Sherman’s soldiers linked up with troops belonging to Meade and Grant.
Sherman’s campaign had been a huge success. He had taken Atlanta, destroyed the Confederate Army of Tennessee, marched through Georgia, ransacked South Carolina, and taken control of North Carolina. A large Union force had cut a wide path through the South, destroying whatever stood in its way. Sherman had been its commander and he had performed extremely well. A hero in the North, his name in the South, then and at the present day, brings forth resentment. Yet among military historians William Tecumseh Sherman ranks high.
When in May 1864 Sherman took his troops into Georgia, the Army of the Potomac too was on the march. Generals Grant and Meade broke camp early in the same month and moved south, crossing the Rapidan River on May 4. Their objective was to engage Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and destroy it.
Grant envisioned multiple assaults on the Confederates. In coordination with Meade’s advance, Grant ordered Butler to attack from the south and General Franz Sigel to take control of the Shenandoah Valley. In concert with Sherman’s invasion of Georgia, the Union forces would be attacking on several fronts simultaneously, offering the rebels no respite. In effect, Grant had crafted a strategy that he hoped would lead to overall victory. It would, but not quickly, and not without great loss of life.
Lee still had some sixty-four thousand soldiers and, most certainly, no intention of giving up. His goal was to keep Grant at bay, hold on to Richmond, and hope Northerners, tired of the war, would agree to let the states in rebellion depart the union. Lee’s army was battle-tested. It had bested the Army of the Potomac before and was confident it would do so again.
With approximately 115,000 men Grant first clashed with Lee at a place in Virginia called the Wilderness. This was an inhospitable tract of land, not far from Chancellorsville, some ten miles wide and full of tangled trees and bushes. It was a terrible place to fight a battle, and the ensuing two-day fight was terrible indeed. Many of the wounded, unable to move, died from brush fires started by the gunfire. Their screams were a chorus to the carnage. The Union army suffered sixteen thousand casualties. No one in blue believed they had won.
After the battle most Union soldiers expected the Army of the Potomac to withdraw, in order to rest and rebuild. That is what the army had done in the past. Grant had a different approach. He ordered Meade south to again engage the enemy. The grinding down of Robert E. Lee and his army had begun.
Grant wanted the Union army to occupy Spotsylvania Court House, some eleven miles south of the Wilderness. This was a crossroads, possession of which might cut Lee off from Richmond. But the Army of Northern Virginia got there first. The resulting battle took place on May 12, and once again, American blood flowed freely. According to Robin H. Neillands, “men fought hand to hand with musket and bayonet, sword and pistol.” On both sides casualties were high. When it was over, Grant again moved south. He was taking the initiative away from Robert E. Lee.
They next met at Cold Harbor, near the Chickahominy River. There, in several days of fighting, the Union troops attacked their Southern counterparts. In one such assault, on June 3, Grant hurled his men against well-entrenched Confederates, losing seven thousand men—killed or wounded—in a single day. Later in his memoirs he would write that this attack was a mistake.
So far Grant’s campaign had been costly. The Army of the Potomac was averaging some two thousand casualties per day. In total, more than fifty-four thousand Union soldiers had been killed, wounded, or gone missing. Critics in Washington, and there were many, were calling Grant a butcher, a perception that has lasted until the present time. In fact, throughout the war Lee’s casualty rates were higher than those of Grant. Historian James M. McPherson notes that among seventeen Civil War commanders, both North and South, Lee had the highest percentage of casualties. But the reputation of Grant as a not so subtle killer of men remains. Yet he was doing what he had to do to win. Grant was using the material superiority of the North to hammer the Confederacy’s best army. Slowly but surely, he was destroying the Army of Northern Virginia. Grant knew it and so did Lee.