Campfire and battlefield

On the 11th it rained heavily, and there was no fighting; but there were reconnoissances and preparations for a renewal of the battle on the next day. Grant determined to make a heavier and more persistent assault upon the tempting salient, and moved Hancock's corps by a wood-road, after dark, to a point opposite the apex. The morning of the 12th was foggy, but by half-past four o'clock it was light enough, and Hancock's men advanced, some of them passing through thickets of dead pines. When they were half-way across the open ground in front of the salient, they burst into a wild cheer and rushed for the works. Here they were met by a brave and determined resistance on the part of the half-surprised Confederates, who fought irregularly with clubbed muskets. But nothing could resist the impetus of Hancock's corps, which was over the breastworks in a few seconds. Large numbers of Confederates were killed, mostly with the bayonet. So sudden was Hancock's irruption into the enemy's works, that he captured Gen. Edward Johnson's entire division of nearly four thousand men, with its commander and also Brigadier-General Steuart. "How are you, Steuart?" said Hancock, recognizing in his prisoner an old army friend, and extending his hand. "I am General Steuart, of the Confederate army," was the reply, "and under the circumstances I decline to take your hand." "Under any other circumstances," said Hancock quietly, "I should not have offered it." Hancock's men had also captured twenty guns, with their horses and caissons, thousands of small arms, and thirty battle-flags. The guns were immediately turned upon the enemy, who was followed through the woods toward Spottsylvania Court-House till the pursuers ran up against another line of intrenchments, which had been constructed in the night across the base of the salient. At the same time that Hancock assaulted at the apex, Warren and Burnside had assaulted at the sides, but with less success, though their men reached the breastworks.

Lee understood too well the danger of having his line thus ruptured at the centre, and poured his men into the salient with a determination to retake it, for which some of his critics have censured him. Hancock's men, when the pressure became too great for them, fell back slowly to the outer intrenchments, and turning, used them as their own. Five times the Confederates attacked these in heavy masses, and five times they were repelled with bloody loss. Before, they had been at disadvantage from defending a salient, and now they were at equal disadvantage in assailing a reëntrant angle. To add to the slaughter, Hancock had established several batteries on high ground, where they could fire over the heads of his own men and strike the enemy beyond. Here and along the west face of the angle the fighting was kept up all day, and was most desperate and destructive. Field guns were run up close to the works and fired into the masses of Confederate troops within the salient, creating terrible havoc; but in turn the horses and gunners were certain to be shot down. There was hand-to-hand fighting over the breastworks, and finally the men of the two armies were crouching on either side of them, shooting and stabbing through the crevices between the logs. Sometimes one would mount upon the works and have loaded muskets passed up to him rapidly, which he would fire in quick succession till the certain bullet came that was to end his career, and he tumbled into the ditch. In several instances men were pulled over the breastworks and made prisoners. One doughty but diminutive Georgian officer nearly died of mortification when a huge Wisconsin colonel reached over, seized him by the collar, and in a twinkling jerked him out of the jurisdiction of the Confederacy and into that of the United States. The fighting around the "death-angle," as the soldiers called it, was kept up till past midnight, when the Confederates finally withdrew to their interior line. The dead were not only literally piled in heaps, but their bodies were terribly torn and mangled by the shot. Every tree and bush was cut down or killed by the balls, and in one instance the body of an oak tree nearly two feet in diameter was completely cut through by bullets, and in falling injured several men of a South Carolina regiment. Not even Sickles' salient at Gettysburg had been so fatal as this. If courage were all that a nation required, there was courage enough at Spottsylvania, on either side of the intrenchments, to have made a nation out of every State in the Union.

It was extremely difficult for either side to rescue or care for any of the wounded. A note from Col. Leander W. Cogswell, of the Ninth New Hampshire Regiment, gives a suggestive incident: "During the night of the 13th, as officer of the day, I was ordered to take a detail of men from our brigade, and, if possible, find the dead bodies of members of the Ninth Regiment. We went over the intrenchments and into that terrible darkness, under orders 'to strike not a match, nor speak above a whisper.' When near the spot where they fell, we crawled upon our hands and knees, and felt for the dead ones, and in this manner succeeded in finding upwards of twenty, and conveyed them within our lines, where, with a few others, they were buried the next morning in one trench."

Thus far we have looked only at what was going on in front. A few sentences from the diary of Chaplain Alanson A. Haines, of the Fifteenth New Jersey Regiment, will give the reader an idea of the rear at Spottsylvania: "With Dr. Hall, our good and brave surgeon, I found a place in the rear, a little hollow with grass and a spring of water, where we made hasty preparations to receive the coming wounded. Those that could walk soon began to find their way in of themselves, and some few were helped in by their comrades as soon as the charge was over and a portion withdrawn. It was a terrible thing to lay some of our best and truest men in a long row on the blankets, waiting their turn for the surgeon's care. Some came with body wounds, and arms shattered, and hands dangling. At ten o'clock, with the drum corps, I sought the regiment to take off any of our wounded we could find. On my way, met some men carrying Orderly-Sergeant Van Gilder, mortally wounded, in a blanket. With his hand all blood, he seized mine, saying, 'Chaplain, I am going. Tell my wife I am happy.' At two o'clock A.M. I lay down amid a great throng of poor, bleeding sufferers, whose moans and cries for water kept me awake. At four o'clock got up and had coffee made, and, going around among the wounded, found a Pennsylvanian who had lain at my feet, dead. At noon the regiment moved off to the right. I retained five drummers to bury Sergeants Schenck and Rubadeau. A number of men from several regiments were filling their canteens at the spring. I asked them if they could come for a few moments around a soldier's grave. Most of them came, and uncovered their heads. I repeated some passages of Scripture, and offered a short prayer. Drum-Sergeant Kline filled up the grave, nailing to two posts which he planted a piece of cracker-box, on which I cut the names of the dead. While he was doing this, with my other men I gathered the muskets and accoutrements left by the wounded. Laying the muskets with the muzzle on a stump, one heavy stamp of the foot bent the barrel, broke the stock, and made the piece useless. The accoutrements we heaped together and threw on the fire, and with hasty steps sought the regiment."

The National losses in the fighting around Spottsylvania, from the 8th to the 21st of May, were thirteen thousand six hundred—killed, wounded, and missing. Somewhat over half of this loss occurred on the 12th. There are no exact statistics of the Confederate loss; but it appears to have been ten thousand on the 12th, and was probably about equal in the aggregate to the National loss. The losses were heavy in general officers. In the National army, besides Sedgwick, Gens. T. G. Stevenson and J. C. Rice were killed, and Gens. H. G. Wright and Alexander S. Webb and Col. Samuel S. Carroll were wounded; the last named being promoted to brigadier-general on the field. Of the Confederates, Generals Daniel and Perrin were killed; Gens. R. D. Johnston, McGowan, Ramseur, and Walker wounded, and Gens. Edward Johnston and Steuart captured.

General Grant had written to Halleck on the 11th: "We have now ended the sixth day of very hard fighting. The result up to this time is much in our favor. But our losses have been heavy, as well as those of the enemy.... I am now sending back to Belle Plain all my wagons for a fresh supply of provisions and ammunition, and purpose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." A week was spent in manoeuvring to find a new point of attack that promised success, but without avail, and at the end of that time it was determined to move again by the left flank. The movement was to the North Anna River; again it was a race, and this time the Confederates had the shorter line.

The distance from Spottsylvania Court House to Richmond is a little more than fifty miles. About midway between them is Hanover Junction, where the railroad from Richmond to Fredericksburg is crossed by the Virginia Central road. Grant did not wish to conceal his movement altogether. He was anxious to induce the enemy to fight without the enormous advantage of intrenchments. So he planned to send one corps toward Richmond, hoping that Lee would be tempted to attack it with all his army, whereupon the other corps might follow up sharply and attack the Confederates before they had time to intrench. When the movement was begun, Lee, instead of moving at once in the same direction, sent Ewell's corps to attack the National right. It happened that six thousand raw recruits, under Gen. R. O. Tyler, were on their way to reinforce the Army of the Potomac, and had not quite reached their place in line when they were struck by Ewell's flank movement. Grant says they maintained their position in a manner worthy of veterans, till they were reinforced by the divisions of Birney and Crawford, which promptly moved up to the right and left, and Ewell was then quickly driven back with heavy loss. This was on the 19th of May.

The corps thrown forward as a bait was Hancock's, and it marched on the night of the 20th, going easterly to Guinea Station, and then southerly to Milford. Warren's corps followed twelve hours later, and twelve hours later still the corps of Burnside and Wright. Some trifling resistance was met by the advance; but the Confederates had no notion of taking any risk. They made a reconnoissance to their left, to be sure that Grant had not kept a corps at Spottsylvania to fall upon their rear, and then set out by a shorter line than his to interpose themselves once more between him and their capital.

The new position that was taken up after some tentative movements was one of the strongest that could have been devised. The Confederate left stretched in a straight line, a mile and a half long, from Little River to the North Anna at Oxford. Here, bending at a right angle, the line followed the North Anna down stream for three quarters of a mile, thence continuing in a straight line southeastward, to and around Hanover Junction. The North Anna here makes a bend to the south, and on the most southerly point of the bend the Confederate line touched and held it. If we imagine a ring cut in halves, and the halves placed back to back, in contact, and call one the line of Confederate intrenchments and the other the river, we shall have a fair representation of the essential features of the situation. It is evident that any enemy approaching from the north, and attempting to envelop this position, would have his own line twice divided by the river, so that his army would be in three parts. Any reinforcements passing from one wing to the other would have to cross the stream twice, and, long before they could reach their destination, the army holding the intrenchments could strengthen its threatened wing. The obvious point to assail in such a position would be the apex of the salient line where it touched the river; and Burnside was ordered to force a passage at that point. But the banks were high and steep, and the passage was covered by artillery. Moreover, an enfilading fire from the north bank was thwarted by traverses—intrenchments at right angles to the main line. Wright's corps crossed the river above the Confederate position, and destroyed some miles of the Virginia Central Railroad; while Hancock's crossed below, and destroyed a large section of the road to Fredericksburg. By this time they had learned the effective method of not only tearing up the track, but piling up the ties and setting them on fire, heating the rails, and bending and twisting them so that they could not be used again. These operations were not carried on without frequent sharp fighting, which cost each side about two thousand men; but there was no general battle on the North Anna.

Before the next flank movement was made by the Army of the Potomac, Gen. James H. Wilson's cavalry division was sent to make a demonstration on the right, to give the enemy the impression that this time the turning movement would be in that direction. In the night of May 26, which was very dark, the army withdrew to the north bank of the North Anna, took up its pontoon bridges, destroyed all the others, and was put in motion again by the left flank. Sheridan's cavalry led the way and guarded the crossings of the Pamunkey, which is formed by the junction of the North and South Anna Rivers. The Sixth Corps was the advance of the infantry, followed by the Second, while the Fifth and Ninth moved by roads farther north. The direction was southeast, and the distance about thirty miles to a point at which the army would cross the Pamunkey and move southwest toward Richmond, the crossing being about twenty miles from that city. But between lie the swamps of the Chickahominy. In the morning of the 28th the cavalry moved out on the most direct road to Richmond, and at a cross-roads known as Hawes's Shop encountered a strong force of Confederate cavalry, which was dismounted and intrenched. After a bloody fight of some hours' duration, the divisions commanded by Gens. David M. Gregg and George A. Custer broke over the intrenchments and forced back the enemy; the other divisions came up promptly, and the position was held.

A member of the First New Jersey cavalry, which participated in this action, writes: "One company being sent on each flank, mounted, Captain Robbins with four companies, dismounted, moved forward and occupied a position on the right of the road, opening a rapid fire from their carbines on the line of the enemy, which was forming for attack. The remainder of the regiment was moved to the left of the road, and having been dismounted, was ordered to the support of the First Pennsylvania, which was hotly engaged. Robbins, as usual, moved with a rush to the assault, and soon cleared his immediate front of the rebels, chasing them across the open ground beyond the wood in which they had taken cover. In this field there was a double ditch, lined by fencing, with another of the same character facing it, only forty or fifty paces distant. As Captain Beekman, heading his men, sprang across the first fence at charging speed, they were met by a desperate volley from the second line of the rebels lying in the other cover. Instinctively, as they saw the flash, the men threw themselves upon the ground, and now Beekman, rolling into the ditch, called his troops there beside him. From the two covers there was kept up a tremendous fire—our men sometimes charging toward the hostile ditch, but in each case falling back, and the fight going on, both parties holding their own, but neither gaining ground upon the other. Meanwhile Captain Robbins, on the right of the road, was being sorely pressed. Major Janeway was sent with two squadrons to his relief, and the fight redoubled in intensity. The ammunition of the men giving out, a supply was brought from the rear and distributed along the line itself by the officers, several of whom fell while engaged in the service. Captain Beekman was shot through both hands as he stretched them forth full of ammunition. Lieutenant Bellis was almost at the same moment mortally wounded, as was also Lieutenant Stewart. Captain Robbins was wounded severely in the shoulder, Lieutenant Shaw severely in the head, Lieutenant Wynkoop fearfully in the foot. Lieutenant Bowne was the only officer of the first battalion on the field who was untouched, and he had several narrow escapes. Major Janeway also had a narrow escape, a ball passing so close to his forehead as to redden the skin. As Lieutenant Brooks was manoeuvring the fifth squadron under fire, a ball fired close at hand struck him near his belt-clasp, slightly penetrating the skin in two places, and, doubling him up, sent him rolling headlong for thirty feet across the road. As he recovered steadiness, he saw his whole squadron hurrying to pick him up, and, in the excitement, losing all sensation of pain, he ordered them again forward, and walked after them half-way to the front. There he was obliged to drop upon the ground, and was carried from the field. Lieutenant Craig also, of the same squadron, was badly bruised by some missile that struck him in the breast, but, though suffering severely from the blow, he did not leave the field. Still the men bravely held their own. And now Custer, coming up with his Michigan brigade, charged down the road, the whole body of the First Jersey skirmishers simultaneously springing from their cover and dashing upon the enemy, sweeping him from the field, and pursuing him until the whole mass had melted into disordered rout. Meanwhile the fighting on the left of the road had been of the severest character. Malsbury received a mortal wound; Dye was killed instantly; Cox was hit in the back, but remained the only officer with the squadron till, toward the close of the action, he received a wound which disabled him. The total loss of the nine companies of the First New Jersey engaged, in killed and wounded, was sixty-four, eleven being officers."

Soon after noon of that day three-fourths of the army had crossed the Pamunkey, and the remaining corps crossed that night. Here were several roads leading to the Confederate capital; but the Confederate army, as soon as it found the enemy gone from its front, had moved in the same direction, by a somewhat shorter route, and had quickly taken up a strong position across all these roads, with flanks on Beaver Dam and Totopotomoy creeks. Moreover, at this time it was heavily reinforced by troops that were drawn from the defences east of Richmond.

The next day the opposing forces were in close proximity, each trying to find out what the other was about, and all day the crack of the skirmisher's rifle was heard. Near Bethesda church there was a small but bloody engagement, where a portion of Early's corps made an attack on the National left and gained a brief advantage, but was soon driven back, with a brigade commander and two regimental commanders among its killed. At dusk, one brigade of Barlow's division made a sudden rush and carried a line of Confederate rifle-pits. But it was ascertained that the position offered no chance of success in a serious assault. Furthermore, Grant was expecting reinforcements from Butler's Army of the James, to come by way of White House, at the head of navigation on York River, and he feared that Lee would move out with a large part of his army to interpose between him and his reinforcements and overwhelm them. So he extended his left toward Cold Harbor, sending Sheridan with cavalry and artillery to secure that place. Sheridan was heavily attacked there on the morning of June 1st, but held his ground, and twice drove back the assailants. In the course of the day he was relieved by the Sixth corps, to which the ten thousand reinforcements under Gen. William F. Smith were added. At the same time the Confederate line had been extended in the same direction, so as still to cover all roads leading to Richmond. The Army of the Potomac, in its movement down the streams, was now at the highest point that it had reached in its movement up the peninsula, when led by McClellan two years before.

At six o'clock in the evening, Smith's and Wright's corps attacked the Confederate intrenchments. Along most of the front they were obliged to cross open ground that was swept by artillery and musketry; but they moved forward steadily, in spite of their rapid losses, and everywhere carried the first line of works, taking some hundreds of prisoners, but were stopped by the second. They intrenched and held their advanced position; but it had been dearly bought, since more than two thousand of their men were killed or wounded, including many officers.

When the other corps had followed the Sixth, and the entire army was in its new position at Cold Harbor, eight or ten miles from Richmond, with its enemy but a little distance in front of it, an attack was planned for the morning of the 3d. The Confederate position was very strong. The line was from three to six miles from the outer defences of Richmond, the right resting on the Chickahominy, and the left protected by the woods and swamps about the head-waters of several small streams. The Chickahominy was between it and Richmond, but the water was low and everywhere fordable. The only chance for attack was in front, and it remained to be demonstrated by experiment whether anything could be done there. If Lee's line could be disrupted at the centre, and a strong force thrust through, it would for the time being disorganize his army, though a large part of it would undoubtedly escape across the river and rally in the intrenchments nearer the city.

At half-past four o'clock on the morning of the 3d, the Second, Sixth, and Eighteenth (Smith's) corps began the attack as planned. They moved forward as rapidly and regularly as the nature of the ground would admit, under a destructive fire of artillery and musketry, till they carried the first line of intrenchments. Barlow's division of Hancock's corps struck a salient, and, after a desperate hand-to-hand contest, captured it, taking nearly three hundred prisoners and three guns, which were at once turned upon the enemy. But every assaulting column, on reaching the enemy's first line, found itself subjected to cross-fires from the enemy's skilfully placed artillery, and not one of them could go any farther. Most of them fell back speedily, leaving large numbers prisoners or bleeding on the ground, and took up positions midway between the lines, where they rapidly dug trenches and protected themselves. General Grant had given orders to General Meade to suspend the attack the moment it should appear hopeless, and the heavy fighting did not last more than an hour, though firing was kept up all day. A counter-attack by Early's corps was as unsuccessful as those of the National troops had been; and one or two lighter attacks by the Confederates, later in the day, were also repelled.

The Ninety-eighth New York regiment was among the troops that were brought up from the Army of the James and joined the Army of the Potomac two or three days before the battle of Cold Harbor. Its colonel, William Kreutzer, writes a graphic account of the regiment's experience during those first three days of June:

"After ten o'clock, Devens, putting the Ninety-eighth in charge of one of his staff, sent it, marching by the right flank, through the wood to support one of his regiments. Soon the rattling of the men among the brush and trees attracted some one's attention in front, and he poured a volley down along our line lengthwise. We stop; the ground rises before us, and the aim of the firing is too high. Staff-officer says: 'These are our men, there is some mistake; wait awhile, and the firing will stop.' Firing does not stop, and the aim is better. Staff-officer goes to report, hastens for orders and instructions, and never comes back. Our position is terribly embarrassing, frightfully uncomfortable. Our ignorance of the place, the darkness, the wood, the uncertainty whether the firing is from friend or foe, increase the horrors of that night's battle. The writer walked from the centre to the head of the regiment and asked Colonel Wead what the firing meant. Wead replied: 'We are the victims of some one's blunder.' We suggested: 'Let us withdraw the regiment, or fire at the enemy in front. We can't stay here and make no reply. Our men are being killed or wounded fast.' Wead remarked: 'I have no orders to do either; they may be our men in front. I am here by direction of General Devens, and one of his staff has gone to report the facts to him. He will return in a short time. If we are all killed, I don't see that I can prevent it, or am to blame for it.'

"We asked Colonel Wead to have the men lie down. The order, 'Lie down,' was passed along the line, and we returned to our position by the colors. Subsequently, Colonel Wead joined us there. The firing continued; the range became lower; the men lying down were wounded fast. We all lay down. Colonel Wead was struck a glancing blow on the shoulder-strap by a rifle-ball, and, after lying senseless for a moment, said to the writer, 'I am wounded; take the command.' We arose immediately, walked along the line, and quietly withdrew the men to the lower edge of the wood where we had entered. In that night's blunder the regiment lost forty-two men, killed and wounded. During the night and early morning, Colonel Wead and the wounded crawled back to the regiment. The more severely wounded were carried back half a mile farther to an old barn, where their wounds were dressed and whence they were taken in ambulances to White House. Nothing could equal the horrors of that night's battle; the blundering march into the enemy's intrenchments, his merciless fire, the cries of our wounded and dying, the irresolute stupidity and want of sagacity of the conducting officer, deepen the plot and color the picture.

"At 4 A.M. of the 3d, the Eighteenth Corps was formed for the charge in three lines; first, a heavy skirmish line; second, a line consisting of regiments deployed; third, a line formed of regiments in solid column doubled on the centre. The Ninety-eighth was in the third line. The whole army advanced together at sunrise. Within twenty minutes after the order to advance had been given, one of the most sanguinary battles of the war, quick, sharp, and decisive, had taken place. By this battle the Army of the Potomac gained nothing, but the Eighteenth Corps captured and held a projecting portion of the enemy's breastwork in front. The Ninety-eighth knew well the ground that it helped to capture, for there lay its dead left on the night of the 1st.

"The men at once began the construction of a breastwork, using their hands, tin cups, and bayonets. Later they procured picks and shovels. They laid the dead in line and covered them over, and to build the breastwork used rails, logs, limbs, leaves, and dirt. The enemy's shells, solid shot and rifle-balls all the while showered upon them, and hit every limb and twig about or above them. Nothing saved us but a slight elevation of the ground in front. A limb cut by a solid shot felled General Marston to the ground. Three boyish soldiers, thinking to do the State service, picked him up, and were hurrying him to the rear, when he recovered his consciousness and compelled them to drop himself. In a short time he walked slowly back to the front. In this advance and during the day our regimental flag received fifty-two bullet-holes, and the regiment lost, killed and wounded, sixty-one. Colonel Wead rose to his feet an instant on the captured line, when a rifle-ball pierced his neck and cut the subclavian vein. He was carried back to the barn beside the road, where he died the same day....

"On the night of the 4th the Ninety-eighth moved from the second line through the approach to the front line, and relieved the One Hundred and Eighteenth New York and the Tenth New Hampshire. It had barely time to take its position when the Confederates made a night attack along our whole front. For twenty minutes before, the rain of shells and balls was terrific; the missiles tore and screamed and sang and howled along the air. Every branch and leaf was struck; every inch of the trees and breastworks was pierced. Then the firing ceased along his line for a few minutes, while the enemy crossed his breastworks and formed for the charge, when,

But no living thing could face that 'rattling shower' of ball and shell which poured from our lines upon them. They fell to the ground, they crept away, they hushed the yell of battle. The horrors of that night assault baffle description."

The entire loss of the National Army at Cold Harbor in the first twelve days of June—including the battles just described and the almost constant skirmishing and minor engagements—was ten thousand and eighty-eight; and among the dead and wounded were many valuable officers. General Tyler and Colonel Brooke were wounded, and Colonels Porter, Morris, Meade, and Byrnes were killed.¹

¹ The lines of the two armies were so close to each other that it was impossible to care for the wounded that lay between them, except by a cessation of hostilities. As the National forces had been the assailants, most of the wounded were theirs. General Grant made an immediate effort to obtain a cessation for this humane purpose, but General Lee delayed it with various trivial excuses for forty-eight hours, and at the end of that time all but two of the wounded were dead. See a part of the correspondence in Grant's "Memoirs," Vol. II., pp. 273 et seq. As to the losses here and at Spottsylvania, authorities differ. The figures given above are from a statement compiled in the Adjutant-General's office.

The Confederate loss—which included Brigadier-General Doles among the killed, and Brigadier-Generals Kirkland, Lane, Law, and Finnegan among the wounded—is unknown; but it was much smaller than the National. The attack of June 3d is recognized as the most serious error in Grant's military career. He himself says, in his "Memoirs," that he always regretted it was ever made. It was as useless, and almost as costly, as Lee's assault upon Meade's centre at Gettysburg. But we do not read that any of Grant's lieutenants protested against it, as Longstreet protested against the attack on Cemetery Ridge.

For some days Grant held his army as close to the enemy as possible, to prevent the Confederates from detaching a force to operate against Hunter in the Shenandoah Valley.

General Halleck now proposed that the Army of the Potomac should invest Richmond on the north. This might have prevented any possibility of Lee's launching out toward Washington, but it could hardly have effected anything else. The Confederate lines of supply would have been left untouched, while the National troops would have perished between impregnable intrenchments on the one side and malarious swamps on the other. Grant determined to move once more by the left flank, swing his army across the James, and invest the city from the south. A direct investment of the Confederate capital on that side was out of the question, because the south bank of the James is lower than the city; and the movement would, therefore, resolve itself into a struggle for Petersburg, thirty miles south of Richmond, which was its railroad centre.

To withdraw an army from so close contact with the enemy, march it fifty miles, cross two rivers, and bring it into a new position, was a very delicate and hazardous task, and Grant performed it with consummate skill. He sent a part of his cavalry to make a demonstration on the James above Richmond and destroy portions of Lee's line of supplies from the Shenandoah; he had a line of intrenchments constructed along the north bank of the Chickahominy, from his position at Cold Harbor down to the point where he expected to cross; and directed General Butler to send two vessels loaded with stone to be sunk in the channel of the James as far up-stream as possible, so that the Confederate gunboats could not come down and attack the army while it was crossing. A large number of vessels had been collected at Fort Monroe, to be used as ferry-boats when the army should reach the James. The so-called "bridges" on the Chickahominy were now only names of geographical points, for all the bridges had been destroyed; but each column was to carry its pontoon train.

The march began in the evening of June 12th, and at midday of the 13th a pontoon was thrown across at Long Bridge, fifteen miles below the Cold Harbor position, and Wilson's cavalry crossed and immediately moved out a short distance on the roads toward Richmond, to watch the movements of the enemy and prevent a surprise. The Fifth corps followed quickly, and took a position covering these roads till the remainder of the army could cross. The Second, Sixth, and Ninth corps crossed the Chickahominy a few miles farther down; while the Eighteenth had embarked at White House, to be sent around by water. In the evening of the 13th, the Fifth reached Wilcox's Landing on the James, ten miles below Haxall's, where McClellan had reached the river at the close of his peninsula campaign. The other corps reached the landing on the 14th. The river there is more than two thousand feet wide; but between four o'clock, P.M., and midnight a pontoon was laid, and the crossing began. The artillery and trains were sent over first, and the infantry followed in a long procession that occupied forty-eight hours, the rear guard of the Sixth corps passing over at midnight of the 16th. Thus an army of more than one hundred thousand men was taken from a line of trenches within a few yards of the enemy, marched fifty miles, and, with all its paraphernalia, carried across two rivers and placed in a position threatening that enemy's capital, without a serious collision or disaster. General Ewell said that when the National army got across the James River he knew that the Confederate cause was lost, and it was the duty of their authorities to make the best terms they could while they still had a right to claim concessions.

Most critics of this campaign have persistently proceeded on the assumption that Grant's objective was the city of Richmond, and have accordingly condemned his plan of marching overland, and with apparent conclusiveness have pointed to his heavy losses and to the fact that Richmond was still uncaptured, and then asked the question, which has been wearisomely repeated, why he might not as well have carried his army by water in the first place to a position before Richmond, without loss, as McClellan had done two years before, instead of getting there along a bloody overland trail at such heavy cost. These critics should know, even if Grant himself had not distinctly declared it at the outset, that his objective was not the city of Richmond; that it was Lee's army, which it was his business to follow and fight until he destroyed it. The same critics appear to think also that he ought to have found a way to accomplish his purpose without bloodshed, and that because he did not he was no general, but a mere "butcher," as some of them boldly call him. If they were asked to name a general who had won great victories without himself losing men by the thousand, they would find it difficult to do so, for no such general figures in the pages of history. If there ever was a chance to defeat the Army of Northern Virginia and destroy the Confederacy by anything but hard fighting, it was when McClellan planted his army on the peninsula; but McClellan's timidity was not the quality necessary for a bold and brilliant stroke. Nearly the whole State of Virginia is admirably adapted for defence against an invading army; and by the time that Grant set out on his overland campaign every position where Lee's army could make a stand was thoroughly known, and most of them were fortified; furthermore, the men of his army were now veterans and understood how to use every one of their advantages, while Lee as a general had only to move his army over ground that it had already traversed several times, and manoeuvre for a constant defence. Under these circumstances, nothing but hard and continuous fighting could have conquered such an army. The same criticism that finds fault with General Grant for not transporting his army by water to the front of Richmond instead of fighting his way thither overland, must also condemn General Lee for not surrendering in the Wilderness instead of fighting all the way to Appomattox and then surrendering at last.

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE CONFEDERATE CRUISERS.

THE "ALABAMA" SUNK BY THE "KEARSARGE"—THE "SUMTER" AND OTHER CRUISERS—PROTEST OF OUR GOVERNMENT TO THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT—SECRETARY SEWARD'S DESPATCHES—PRIVATEERING—WHY ENGLAND DID NOT INTERFERE—ARBITRATION AND AMOUNT OF DAMAGE OBTAINED FROM THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT.

While the Army of the Potomac was putting itself in fighting trim after its change of base, a decisive battle of the war took place three thousand miles away. A vessel known in the builders' yard as the "290," and afterward famous as the Alabama, had been built for the Confederate Government in 1862, at Birkenhead, opposite Liverpool. She was of wood, a fast sailer, having both steam and canvas, was two hundred and twenty feet long, and rated at one thousand and forty tons. She was thoroughly fitted in every respect, and cost nearly a quarter of a million dollars. The American minister at London notified the British Government that such a ship was being built in an English yard, in violation of the neutrality laws, and demanded that she be prevented from leaving the Mersey. But, either through design or stupidity, the Government moved too slowly, and the cruiser escaped to sea. She went to Fayal, in the Azores, and there took on board her guns and coal, sent out to her in a merchant ship from London. Her commander was Raphael Semmes, who had served in the United States navy. Her crew were mainly Englishmen. For nearly two years she roamed the seas, traversing the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and the Gulf of Mexico, and captured sixty-nine American merchantmen, most of which were burned at sea. Their crews were sent away on passing vessels, or put ashore at some convenient port. Several war-vessels were sent out in search of the Alabama, but they were at constant disadvantage from the rule that when two hostile vessels are in a neutral port, the first that leaves must have been gone twenty-four hours before the other is permitted to follow. In French, and especially in British ports, the Alabama was always welcome, and enjoyed every possible facility, because she was destroying American commerce.

In June, 1864, she was in the harbor of Cherbourg, France. The United States man-of-war Kearsarge, commanded by John A. Winslow, found her there, and lay off the port, watching her. By not going into the harbor, Winslow escaped the twenty-four-hour rule. Semmes sent a note to Winslow, asking him not to go away, as he was coming out to fight; but no such challenge was called for, as the Kearsarge had come for that purpose, and was patiently waiting for her prey. She was almost exactly the size of the Alabama, and the armaments were so nearly alike as to make a very fair match. But her crew were altogether superior in gun-practice, and she had protected her boilers by chains, "stoppered" up and down the side amidships, as had been done in the fights at New Orleans and elsewhere. On Sunday morning, June 19th, the Alabama steamed out of the harbor amid the plaudits of thousands of Englishmen and Frenchmen, who had not a doubt that she was going to certain victory. The Kearsarge steamed away as she approached, and drew her off to a distance of seven or eight miles from the coast. Winslow then turned and closed with his enemy. The two vessels steamed around on opposite sides of a circle half a mile in diameter, firing their starboard guns. The practice on the Alabama was very bad; she began firing first, discharged her guns rapidly, and produced little or no effect, though a dozen of her shots struck her antagonist. But when the Kearsarge began firing there was war in earnest. Her guns were handled with great skill, and every shot told. One of them cut the mizzenmast so that it fell. Another exploded a shell among the crew of the Alabama's pivot gun, killing half of them and dismounting the piece. Balls rolled in at the port-holes and swept away the gunners; and several pierced the hull below the water line, making the ship tremble from stem to stern, and letting in floods of water. The vessels had described seven circles, and the Alabama's deck was strewn with the dead, when at the end of an hour she was found to be sinking, her colors were struck, and her officers, with a keen sense of chivalry, threw into the sea the swords that were no longer their own. The Kearsarge lowered boats to take off the crew; but suddenly the stern settled, the bow was thrown up into the air, and down went the Alabama to the bottom of the British Channel, carrying an unknown number of her men. An English yacht picked up Semmes and about forty sailors, and steamed away to Southampton with them; others were rescued by the boats of the Kearsarge, and still others were drowned.

In January, 1863, the Alabama had fought the side-wheel steamer Hatteras, of the United States Navy, off Galveston, Tex., and injured her so that she sank soon after surrendering. The remainder of the Alabama's career, till she met the Kearsarge, had been spent in capturing merchant vessels and either burning them or releasing them under bonds. Before Captain Semmes received command of the Alabama, he had cruised in the Sumter on a similar mission, capturing eighteen vessels, when her course was ended in the harbor of Gibraltar, in February, 1862, where she was blockaded by the United States steamers Kearsarge and Tuscarora, and, as there was no probability that she could escape to sea, her captain and crew abandoned her.

A score of other Confederate cruisers roamed the seas, to prey upon United States commerce, but none of them became quite so famous as the Sumter and the Alabama. They included the Shenandoah, which made thirty-eight captures; the Florida, which made thirty-six; the Tallahassee, which made twenty-seven; the Tacony, which made fifteen; and the Georgia, which made ten. The Florida was captured in the harbor of Bahia, Brazil, in October, 1864, by a United States man-of-war, in violation of the neutrality of the port. For this the United States Government apologized to Brazil, and ordered the restoration of the Florida to the harbor where she was captured. But in Hampton Roads she met with an accident and sank. It was generally believed that the apparent accident was contrived with the connivance, if not by direct order, of the Government.

Most of these cruisers were built in British shipyards; and whenever they touched at British ports, to obtain supplies and land prisoners, their commanders were ostentatiously welcomed and lionized by the British merchants and officials.

The English builders were proceeding to construct several swift iron-clad cruisers for the Confederate Government, when the United States Government protested so vigorously that the British Government prevented them from leaving port. One or two passages from Secretary Seward's despatches to Charles Francis Adams, the American minister at London, contain the whole argument that was afterward elaborated before a high court of arbitration, and secured a verdict against England. More than this, these passages contain what probably was the controlling reason that determined England not to try the experiment of intervention. Secretary Seward wrote, under date of October 5-6, 1863:

"I have had the honor to receive and submit to the President your despatch of the 17th of September, which relates to the iron-clad vessels built at Laird's shipyards for war against the United States, which is accompanied by a very interesting correspondence between yourself and Earl Russell. The positions you have taken in this correspondence are approved. It is indeed a cause of profound concern, that, notwithstanding an engagement which the President has accepted as final, there still remains a doubt whether those vessels will be prevented from coming out, according to the original hostile purposes of the enemies of the United States residing in Great Britain.

"Earl Russell remarks that her Majesty's Government, having proclaimed neutrality, have in good faith exerted themselves to maintain it. I have not to say now for the first time, that, however satisfactory that position may be to the British nation, it does not at all relieve the gravity of the question in the United States. The proclamation of neutrality was a concession of belligerent rights to the insurgents, and was deemed by this Government as unnecessary, and in effect as unfriendly, as it has since proved injurious, to this country. The successive preparations of hostile naval expeditions in Great Britain are regarded here as fruits of that injurious proclamation.... It is hardly necessary to say that the United States stand upon what they think impregnable ground, when they refuse to be derogated, by any act of British Government, from their position as a sovereign nation in amity with Great Britain, and placed upon a footing of equality with domestic insurgents who have risen up in resistance against their authority.

"It does not remain for us even to indicate to Great Britain the serious consequences which must ensue if the iron-clads shall come forth upon their work of destruction. They have been fully revealed to yourself, and you have made them known to Earl Russell, within the restraints which an honest and habitual respect for the Government and the people of Great Britain imposes. It seems to me that her Majesty's Government might be expected to perceive and appreciate them, even if we were henceforth silent upon the subject. When our unhappy civil war broke out, we distinctly confessed that we knew what great temptations it offered to foreign intervention and aggression, and that in no event could such intervention or aggression be endured. It was apparent that such aggression, if it should come, must travel over the seas, and therefore must be met and encountered, if at all, by maritime resistance. We addressed ourselves to prepare the means of such resistance. We have now a navy, not, indeed, as ample as we proposed, but yet one which we feel assured is not altogether inadequate to the purposes of self-defence, and it is yet rapidly increasing in men, material, and engines of war. Besides this regular naval force, the President has asked, and Congress has given him, authority to convert the mercantile marine into armed squadrons, by the issue of letters of marque and reprisal. All the world might see, if it would, that the great arm of naval defence has not been thus invigorated for the mere purpose of maintaining a blockade, or enforcing our authority against the insurgents; for practically they have never had an open port, or built and armed, nor could they from their own resources build and arm, a single ship-of-war.

"Thus the world is left free to understand that our measures of maritime war are intended to resist maritime aggression, which is constantly threatened from abroad and even more constantly apprehended at home. That it would be employed for that purpose, if such aggression should be attempted, would seem certain, unless, indeed, there should be reason to suppose that the people do not in this respect approve of the policy and sympathize with the sentiments of the executive Government. But the resistance of foreign aggression by all the means in our power, and at the hazard, if need be, of the National life itself, is the one point of policy on which the American people seem to be unanimous and in complete harmony with the President.

"The United States understand that the Alabama is a pirate ship-of-war, roving over the seas, capturing, burning, sinking, and destroying American vessels, without any lawful authority from the British Government or from any other sovereign power, in violation of the law of nations, and contemptuously defying all judicial tribunals equally of Great Britain and all other states. The United States understand that she was purposely built for war against the United States, by British subjects, in a British port, and prepared there to be armed and equipped with a specified armament adapted to her construction for the very piratical career which she is now pursuing; that her armament and equipment, duly adapted to this ship-of-war and no other, were simultaneously prepared by the same British subjects, in a British port, to be placed on board to complete her preparation for that career; that when she was ready, and her armament and equipment were equally ready, she was clandestinely and by connivance sent by her British holders, and the armament and equipment were at the same time clandestinely sent through the same connivance by the British subjects who had prepared them, to a common port outside of British waters, and there the armament and equipment of the Alabama as a ship-of-war were completed, and she was sent forth on her work of destruction with a crew chiefly of British subjects, enlisted in and proceeding from a British port, in fraud of the laws of Great Britain and in violation of the peace and sovereignty of the United States.

"The United States understand that the purpose of the building, armament and equipment, and expedition of the vessel was one single criminal intent, running equally through the building and the equipment and the expedition, and fully completed and executed when the Alabama was finally despatched; and that this intent brought the whole transaction of building, armament, and equipment within the lawful jurisdiction of Great Britain, where the main features of the crime were executed. The United States understand that they gave sufficient and adequate notice to the British Government that this wrongful enterprise was begun and was being carried out to its completion; and that upon receiving this notice her Majesty's Government were bound by treaty obligations and by the law of nations to prevent its execution, and that if the diligence which was due had been exercised by the British Government the expedition of the Alabama would have been prevented, and the wrongful enterprise of British subjects would have been defeated. The United States confess that some effort was made by her Majesty's Government, but it was put forth too late and was too soon abandoned. Upon these principles of law and these assumptions of fact, the United States do insist, and must continue to insist, that the British Government is justly responsible for the damages which the peaceful, law-abiding citizens of the United States sustain by the depredations of the Alabama.

"Though indulging a confident belief in the correctness of our positions in regard to the claims in question, and others, we shall be willing at all times hereafter, as well as now, to consider the evidence and the arguments which her Majesty's Government may offer, to show that they are invalid; and if we shall not be convinced, there is no fair and just form of conventional arbitrament or reference to which we shall not be willing to submit them."

In 1856 the great powers of Europe signed at Paris a treaty by which they relinquished the right of privateering, and some of the lesser powers afterward accepted a general invitation to join in it. The United States offered to sign it, on condition that a clause be inserted declaring that private property on the high seas, if not contraband of war, should be exempt from seizure by the public armed vessels of an enemy, as well as by private ones. The powers that had negotiated the treaty declined to make this amendment, and therefore the United States did not become a party to it. When the war of secession began, and the Confederate authorities proclaimed their readiness to issue letters of marque for private vessels to prey upon American commerce, the United States Government offered to accept the treaty without amendment; but England and France declined to permit our Government to join in the treaty then, if its provisions against privateering were to be understood as applying to vessels sent out under Confederate authority. There the subject was dropped, and while the insurgents were thus left at liberty to do whatever damage they could upon the high seas, the United States Government was also left free to send not only its own cruisers but an unlimited number of privateers against the commerce of any nation with which it might become involved in war. When at the beginning of President Lincoln's administration Mr. Adams was sent out as minister at London, he carried instructions that included this passage: "If, as the President does not at all apprehend, you shall unhappily find her Majesty's Government tolerating the application of the so-called seceding States, or wavering about it, you will not leave them to suppose for a moment that they can grant that application and remain the friends of the United States. You may even assure them promptly, in that case, that if they determine to recognize, they may at the same time prepare to enter into alliance with the enemies of this Republic."

England had had a costly experience of American privateering under sail in the war of 1812-15, and she now saw what privateering could become under steam power. While she was rejoicing at the destruction of American merchantmen, she knew what might happen to her own. Let her become involved in war with the United States, and not only a hundred war-ships but a vast fleet of privateers would at once set sail from American ports, and in a few months her commerce would be swept from every sea. The fisherman on the coast of Maine would carpet his hut with Persian rugs, and the ship-carpenter's children would play with baubles intended to decorate the Court of St. James.¹ The navies of England and France combined could not blockade the harbors of New England; and from those harbors, where every material is at hand, might have sailed a fleet whose operations would not only have impoverished the merchants of London, but called out the wail of famine from her populace. Other considerations were discussed; but it was doubtless this contingency that furnished the controlling reason why the British Government resisted the tempting offers of cotton and free trade, resisted the importunities of Louis Napoleon, resisted the clamor of its more reckless subjects, resisted its own prejudice against republican institutions, and refused to recognize the Southern Confederacy as an independent nation. It may have been this consideration also that induced it, after the war was over, to agree to exactly that settlement by arbitration which was suggested by Secretary Seward in the despatch quoted above. In 1872 the international court of arbitration, sitting in Geneva, Switzerland, decided that the position taken by the United States Government in regard to responsibility for the Confederate cruisers was right; and that the British Government, for failing to prevent their escape from its ports, must pay the United States fifteen and a half million dollars. So far as settlement of the principle was concerned, the award gave Americans all the satisfaction they could desire; but the sum named fell far short of the damage that had been wrought. Charles Sumner, speaking in his place in the Senate, had contended with great force for the exaction of what were called "consequential damages," which would have swelled the amount to hundreds of millions; but in this he was overruled.

¹ See lists of goods captured by American privateers in the war of 1812: "Eighteen bales of Turkish carpets, 43 bales of raw silk, 20 boxes of gums, 160 dozen swan-skins, 6 tons of ivory, $40,000 in gold dust, $80,000 in specie, $20,000 worth of indigo, $60,000 in bullion, $500,000 worth of dry goods, 700 tons of mahogany," etc. In Coggeshall's "History of American Privateers."