SOME
PHASES OF THE CIVIL WAR

AN APPRECIATION AND CRITICISM OF
MR. JAMES FORD RHODES'S
FIFTH VOLUME

BY

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS

\i'

Tij;

SOME
PHASES OP THE CIVIL WAR

AN APPRECIATION AND CRITICISM OF
MR. JAMES FORD RHODES'S
FIFTH VOLUME

WITH COMPLIMENTS OF
Charles F. ^^dams,
23 COURT ST., BOSTOTSr.

CAMBRIDGE:
JOHN WILSON AND SON.
SinitiersitB JBtess.
1905.

SOME
PHASES OF THE CIVIL WAR

AN APPRECIATION AND CRITICISM OF
MR. JAMES FORD RHODES'S
FIFTH VOLUME

BY
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS

[Reprinted from the Pkocebdincs of the Massachusetts Historical
Society, Second Series, Vol. XIX., pp. 315-356.]

CAMBRIDGE:
JOHN WILSON AND SON.
1905.

SOME PHASES OF THE
CIVIL WAR.

This volume covers the twenty-one momentous and ever
memorable months between December, 1864, and August,
1866. Not a few of those who read the narrative themselves
bore a part, subordinate, perhaps, but still a part, in the vast
military and naval operations therein described ; and, when
the war drums ceased to beat and the battle-flags were furled,
they were deeply interested in the subsequent political agita
tion. Passing their own recollections iu review, they have
thus lived to hearken to the verdict of the historian.
Based on the careful study of a vast mass of material,
patiently gathered and judicially considered, Mr. Rhodes's
book is literary in tone and calm in spirit, — a thoroughly good
piece of up-to-date historical work. The significance of the
period dealt with will, moreover, only increase with the lapse
of time, and to its history this volume is a contribution of
lasting value. If for no other reason, it will so prove from the
fact that it is not to such a degree removed from the time of
which it treats as to cease to be contemporaneous. He who
writes has in this case shared in the intensity of that of which
he writes ; with his own eyes he has seen many of the actors
in the events of which he tells, and his ears have drunk in
their own descriptive words. How great an advantage this
may prove to one competent to avail himself of it has been
shown more recently by Clarendon and Thiers, as in the classic
times by Tacitus and Thucydides. What is more, the judg
ments now rendered by Mr. Rhodes, as to both men and events,
based on an exhaustive study of material, are not only cau
tiously reached but they are expressed in measured terms,
quite devoid of either zeal or preconception. Neither a parti-

¦* SOME PHASES OP THE CIVIL WAR.
san nor a theorist, Mr. Rhodes is nothing unless critical. It
is, therefore, not unsafe even now to predict that his conclu
sions will prove in essentials in harmony with the ultimate
verdict. Nor is this something to be lightly said ; for the
events and men of the period of Gettysburg and Emancipa
tion will be studied and weighed not less closely by the his
torians and historical investigators of the twenty-third century
than were those of the Naseby and Commonwealth period by
Masson, by Carlyle, by Macaulay and by Gardiner in the cen
tury we recently closed.
But, in writing history, especially the narrative of events
still to a large extent contemporaneous, much necessarily
depends on the point of view. The direction of approach
involves, indeed, nothing less than the question of perspective,
— the relative proportion of parts. On these, in turn, depend
to some extent the conclusions reached.
Mr. Rhodes approaches his subject in a general way.
Neither a politician nor a soldier, he is as unskilled in prac
tical diplomacy as he is innocent of any study of international
law ; nor can he be classed as a publicist. Once, indeed, a
man of affairs, he is now a judicially minded general investi
gator, bringing much hard common-sense to bear, alwaj'S mod
estly, on the complex problems of a troubled and eventful
period. Now it so chances that as a participant in the earlier
time, and, more recently, through the study of historical ma
terial as yet unpublished, I have looked upon the same prob
lems from other points of view. In what I now have to say,
therefore, I propose to discuss, in a spirit of criticism wholly
friendly, what from those points of view seem to me deficien
cies and shortcomings in Mr. Rhodes's tieatment. They will
prove not inconsiderable. Indeed, they go, in my judgment,
to the heart of the mystery.
At the close of his summary of the war, in that chapter de
voted to a consideration of the internal affairs of the Confed
eracy during the struggle, Mr. Rhodes suggests a query which
many others have often put to themselves, and over which,
first and last, they have pondered much. Tersely stated, it is
this : How was it that we succeeded in overcoming the se
ceded States? A task truly Titanic! — and, looking back
now through a vista of more than forty years, one still instinc
tively asks — How did we ever accomplish it?

MB. rhodes's FIFTH VOLUME. 5
Seeking an answer to this far from self-explanatory query,
Mr. Rhodes says : " A certain class of facts, if considered
alone, can make us wonder how it was possible to subjugate
the Confederates. It could not have been accomplished with
out great political capacity at the head of the Northern
government, and a sturdy support of Lincoln by the Northern
people." 1 This, I submit, is an inadequate answer to a per
plexing question, — a question which goes to the heart of any
correct historical treatment of our Great Rebellion, to adopt
Clarendon's title. Surely it goes without saying that to
overcome a combination of numbers, resources and territory
such as that composing the Southern Confederacy implied
great political capacity in the overcoming power, and the
sturdy popular support of him upon whom the task devolved.
As Shakespeare causes Horatio to observe in another connec
tion, " There needs no ghost come from the grave to tell us
this." But the question suggested by Mr. Rhodes cannot, I
submit, being one of a very perplexing character, satisfac
torily be disposed of by generalities. To formulate an answer
at once definite and satisfactory, we must, descending to par
ticulars, be more .specific.
The usual and altogether conventional explanation given is
the immense "preponderance of strength and resources — men
and material — enjoyed by one of the two contending parties.
The census and the statistics of the War Department are then
appealed to, and figures are arrayed setting forth the relative
population and wealth, — the resources, manufactures and
fighting strength of the two sides. As the result of such a
showing, a certain amount of astonishment is finally expressed
that the Confederacy ever challenged a conflict ; and the con
clusion reached is that, under all the circumstances, the only
real cause for wonder is that such an unequal contest was so
long sustained.
But this answer to the question will hardly bear examina
tion. After the event it looks well, — has a plausible aspect;
but in 1861 a census had just been taken, and every fact and
figure now open to study was then patent. The South knew
them, Europe knew them ; and yet in the spring of 1861, and
from Bull Run in July of that year to Gettysburg and Vicks-
burg in 1863, no unprejudiced observer anywhere believed
1 Vol. V. p. 481.

6

SOME PHASES OF THE CIVIL WAR.

that the subjugation of the Confederacy and the restoration
of the old Union were reasonably probable, or, indeed, humanly
speaking, a possibility. Mr. Gladstone, a man wise in his
generation, and as a contemporaneous observer not unfriendly
to the Union side, only expressed the commonly received and
apparently justified opinion of all unprejudiced on-lookers,
when at Newcastle, in October, 1862, he made his famous
declaration in public speech that " Jefferson Davis and other
leaders of the South . . . have made a nation. . . . We may
anticipate with certainty the success of the Southern States so
far as regards their separation from the North. I cannot but
believe that that event is as certain as any event yet future
and contingent can be." No community, it was argued, num
bering eight millions, as homogeneous, organized and com
bative as the South, inhabiting a region of the character of
the Confederacy, ever yet had been overcome in a civil war ;
and there was no sufficient reason for supposing that the
present case would prove an exception to a hitherto universal
rule. All this, moreover, was so. Wherefore, then, the excep
tion ? How was it that, in the result of our civil war, human
e.xperience went for nothing ?
Was, then, the unexpected really due to preponderance in
force ? Confederate authorities have, of late, evinced a strong
disposition to insist upon this as the correct and sufficient ex
planation. Their contention has been discussed here very
recently by our associate Colonel Livermore.^ In order to
make out even a prima facie showing, the Confederate author
ities have assumed, or endeavored to show, that the South
never, from Sumter to Appomattox, had over 600,000 men in
the aggregate in arms ; and these, first and last, were opposed
by, as they assert, some 2,800,000 on the part of the Union.
Admitting these figures to be correct of both sides, — a large
admission, and one which the analysis of Colonel Livermore
has effectually disposed of, — it is none the less obvious that
a force six hundred thousand strong, made up of fighting
material of the most approved character, wholly homogeneous,
acting on the defensive, mustered for the protection of the
hearthstone, is something not easily overcome. It constitutes
in itself a very large army ; and one more especially formidable
when the minds of those composing it are to the last degree
> Proceedings, 2d series, vol. xviii. pp. 432-444.

ME. rhodes's fifth VOLUME. 7
embittered against an opponent whose courage, as well as
capacity, they held in almost unmeasured contempt. Such a
force would, under the conditions existing in 1861 and 1862,
unquestionably have considered itself, and been pronounced by
others, quite adequate for every purpose of Southern defence.
But this estimate of Confederate field force obviously in
vites criticism of another character. It calls for explanation.
The Confederate historians and investigators responsible for
it do not seem to realize that, in the very act of advancing it,
they cast opprobrium on the community they belong to and
profess to honor. If this estimate is sustained, the verdict
of the historian of the future cannot be escaped. He will say
that if 600,000 men were all the Confederacy, first and last,
could get into the field, it is clear that the South went into
the struggle in a half-hearted way, and, being in it, showed
but a craven soul. No effort of the government, no induce
ment of pride or patriotism, sufficed to get even a moiety of its
arms-bearing men into the fighting line.
Such a showing on the part of the Confederacy, if estab
lished, will certainly not compare favorably with the forty
years' later record of the Boers in the very similar South Afri
can struggle. Accepting the Confederate figures as correct,
how do the two cases stand ? Territorially the Confederacy
covered some 712,000 square miles, — a region considerably
(30,000 square miles) larger than the combined European
areas of Austro-Hungary, Germany, France and Italy, with
Belgium, Holland and Denmark thrown in. This vast space
was inhabited by five million people of European descent, with
three millions of Africans who could be depended upon to pro
duce food for those of European blood in active service. In the
course of the conflict, and before admitting themselves beaten,
every white male in the Confederacy between the ages of
seventeen and fifty capable of bearing arms was called out.
Wherever necessary to preclude evasion of military duty the
writ of habeas corpus was suspended, and the labor, property
and lives of all in the Confederacy were by legislation of the
most drastic character put at the disposal of an energetic ex
ecutive. The struggle lasted four full j'^ears ; and during that
period the eighth part of a generation grew up, yielding its
quota of arms-bearing men. Consequently, under any recog
nized method of computation, the Confederacy, first and last,

O SOME PHASES OF THE CIVIL WAR.
contained within itself some 1,350,000 men capable of doing
military duty. This result, also, is in accordance with the
figures of the census of I86O.1 During the war the Con
federate array was reinforced by over 125,000 sympathizers
from the sister slave States not included in the Confederacy.
The upshot of the contention thus is, out of a population of-
5,600,000 whites, only 475,000 put in an appearance in re
sponse to a many-tongued and often reiterated call to arms, —
a trifle in excess of one man to each twelve inhabitants. There
were, moreover, more than 500,000 able-bodied negroes well
adapted in every respect for all the numerous semi-military
services, — such as teamsters, servants, hospital attendants
and laborers on fortifications, the call for which always depletes
the number present for duty of every army.^ Yet it is now
maintained by Confederate authorities that all the efforts of
the Richmond government, backed by every feeling of pride,
patriotism, protection of the domestic roof-tree and hate of the
enemy, could only induce or compel a comparatively Spartan
band to turn out and strike for independence.
1 The exact number, arithmetically computed on the census returns of 1860,
but of course to a certain extent inaccurate and deceptive, was 1,356,500.
2 An exact statistical statement of the number of sympathizers from Mary
land, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, who, flrst and last, found
their way into the ranks of the Confederate army, is, of course, impossible. It
has been asserted that there were 316,424 " Southern men in the Northern army."
This large contingent, so far as not Imaginary, would naturally have come in
greatest part from the " Border States," so called. It would be not unnatural to
assume that these States furnished an equal number of recruits to the Con
federacy ; but such an assumption would, on the basis above given, be mani
festly absurd. The War Records contain lists of all military organizations of
the Confederate army referred to in that publication. Including regiments, bat
talions and companies belonging to all branches of the service, regular and pro
visional, these numbered 279 from the four States, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri
and Tennessee. Included in these were 238 full regiments. If these averaged,
from first to last, only 600 each, they included an aggregate of 143,000 men. No
less than 132 lesser organizations, battalions, and companies, and all individual
enlistments, remain to be allowed for. Colonel Livermore, in view of these facts,
writes me under date of October 24, 1905, " I think a larger estimate than
135,000 in the Confederate army from these States might safely be made."
8 " I propose to substitute slaves for all soldiers employed out of the ranks —
on detached service, extra duty, as cooks, engineers, laborers, pioneers, or any
kind of work. Such details for this little army amount to more than 10,000
men. Negroes would serve for such purposes, better than soldiers. . . . The
plan is simple and quick. It puts soldiers and negroes each in his appropriate
place; the one to fight, the other to work. I need not go into particulars."
(Gen. J. E. Johnston to Confederate Senator L. T. Wigfall, January 4, 1864.
Mrs. D. G. Wright, A Southern Girl in '61, pp. 168, 160.)

MK. RHODES S FIFTH VOLUME. y
How was it, under very similar circumstances, with the
South Africans ? On Confederate showing they are a braver,
a more patriotic and self-sacrificing race. Two communities,
the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, were engaged in a
defensive struggle against Great Britain. They included
within their bounds an area of 160,000 square miles, — less
than a fourth of that included in the Confederacy. Their
entire white population was but about 825,000, and, when the
war commenced, it was estimated they could muster a force
not in excess of 48,000. In countries equally defensible, the
Confederates had seven whites to a square mile of territory,
the Boers had two. Yet in their two years of resistance the
Boers, it is computed, had 90,000 men, first and last, in actual
service, or more than one in four of their population, as
against the one out of twelve in the case of the Confederacy.^
The preponderance of force opposed to the Boers was as five
to one ; the preponderance of force in the case of the Confed
erates, according to this latest estimate of their historians, was
at most but four and a half to one.^
1 To be exact, one out of each eleven and eight-tenths.
2 We have census (1860) figures of the population of the States of the Con
federacy at the breaking out of the Civil War ; but the Confederate muster-rolls,
showing actual enlistments, are confessedly defective. It is not easy to reach
any accurate figures as to either the population of the two South African re
publics, or the number of men actually put into the field by them during the
war. The "total number of officers and men of all Regular and Auxiliary
[British] Forces in the South African War from the beginning to the end "
Is officially stated as 448,4.35. At the beginning of the war the Intelligence
Division of the British War Office estimated the total available forces of
the Transvaal at 29,917, and those of the Orange Free State at 13,104, or an
aggregate of 43,021 combatants. At the close of the war, however, the total
number accounted for was 72,974 Transvaal and Free State combatants, with
16,400 " Rebels," " Renegades and Foreigners," or a grand total of 89,374.
The British officials content themselves with saying "it is difficult to explain
the excess over the Boer official returns [preceding the conflict] unless, indeed,
these purposely understated the actual strength of the burghers." (Report
(1903) of "His Majesty's Commissioners appointed to Inquire into the Military
Preparations and Other Matters Connected with the War in South Africa,"
pp. 35, 158, 168.) Excluding in each case foreign sympathizers, the two South
African republics apparently put into the field as combatants one man to each
four and two-tenths (4.2) of their entire population ; on the claim of the Southern
historians the nine States of the Confederacy put into tlie field one combatant
to each eleven and eight-tenths (11.8) of their total white population. The
relative aggregate fighting force of the Boers was to that of the British almost
exactly one to five. The force of the Confederacy (tiOO.OOO), as claimed by
Southern authorities, to that of the Union, as stated by the same authorities
(2,778,304), was about as one to four and a half.

10 SOME PHASES OF THE CIVIL WAR.
Such an estimate is, however, as far from the mark as, were
it based on actual facts, it would be discreditable to Confed
erate manhood. It is simply unbelievable that, measured by
the proportion of fighting men to the total populations, the
Boer spirit was to the spirit of the Confederacy as three is
to one. The statement carries its own refutation ; and the
Southerners of that period were no such race of miching,
mean-spirited, stay-at-home skulkers as their self-constituted
and most ill-advised annalists would apparently make them
out. On the contrary, as matter of historical fact, they did
both turn out in force and they fought to a finish. Un
doubtedly there was, towards the close of the contest, a large
desertion from the Confederate ranks. The army melted im-
perceptibl}' away. The men would not stay by the colors.
When, in April, 1865, Jefferson Davis, after his flight from
Richmond, met, at Greensboro', North Carolina, Joseph E.
Johnston, then in command of the army confronting Sherman,
a species of council was held at which the course to be pur
sued, in the then obviously desperate condition of affairs, was
discussed. Johnston, knowing well the condition of things,
and the consequent feeling among his men, when appealed
to for his opinion bluntly said that the South felt it was
whipped, and was tired of the war. Davis, on the other
hand, was eager to continue the struggle. He insisted that
in spite of the " terrible " disasters recently sustained, he
would in three or four weeks have a large army in the
field ; and, further, expressed his confident belief that the
Confederates could still win, and achieve their independence,
if, as he expressed it, " our people will turn out." ^
That Davis even then honestly so thought is very probable ;
and, looking only to the number of fighting men on each side
available for service under proper conditions, he was right.
And yet under existing conditions he was altogether wrong.
As respects mere numbers, it is capable of demonstration that,
at the close of the struggle, the preponderance was on the
side of the Confederacy, and distinctly so. The Union at that
time had, it is said, a million men on its muster rolls. Possibly
1 Alfriend, Life of Jefferson Davis, pp. 622-626 ; B. T. Johnson, Life of Joseph
E. Johnston, p. 219 ; Roman, Military Operations of General Beauregard,
vol. ii. p. 665. Roman here prints a, letter, dated March 30, 1868, from J. E.
Johnston to Beauregard, giving his recollections of what was said and took place
at the Greensboro' meeting of April 12-13, 1861.

MR. rhodes's fifth VOLUME. 11
that number were consuming rations and drawing pay. If
such was the case, acting on the offensive and deep in a vast
hostile country, the Union might possibly have been able to
put 500,000 men in the fighting line. On the other side,
notwithstanding the heavy drain of four years of war, the
fighting strength of the Confederacy at the close cannot have
been less than two-thirds of its normal strength. The South
should have been able to muster, on paper, 900,000 men.
Such a force, or even the half of it, acting on the defensive in
a region inadequately supplied with railroad facilities, — and
these, such as they were, very open to attack, — should have
been ample for every purpose. Texas alone had in 1860 a
white population larger by nearly 100,000 than the white
population of the Transvaal and Orange Free State combined
in 1899.1 Texas covered an area of 265,780 square miles, as
against the 161,296 of the combined African republics ; and
this vast region was rendered accessible in 1861 by some
800 miles of railroad, or about one mile of railroad of most
inferior construction to each 900 square miles of territory.^
The character of the soil made heavy movement, slow and
difficult always, at times impossible. In such a region and
under such conditions, how could an invading force have been
fed or transported, or kept open its lines of communication ?
Thus, on the face of the facts, Davis was right, and the South,
if it chose to defend itself, was invincible.
And here we find ourselves face to face with one of the
greatest of the many delusions in the popular conception of
practical warfare. In his remark at the Greensboro' conference
about the South " turning out," Jefferson Davis seems to have
fallen into it. The South, at that stage of the conflict, simply
could not " turn out." So doing was a physical impossibility.
It was Napoleon who said that an army was like a serpent, it
moves on its belly. In dealing with practical conditions in
warfare, it has always to be borne in mind that an army
1 According to the best authorities, the combined white population of the
two South African states at the beginning of hostilities was approximately
323,113 ; the white population of Texas was returned in the census of 1860 at
421,294. 2 The census of 1860 returned 307 miles of railroad in operation in Texas ; in
1908 it was stated that 11,256 miles were in operation. The proportion of rail
road mileage to area was, in 1860, one mile to each 865 square miles of territory ;
in 1903 it was one mile to each 24 square miles.

12 SOME PHASES OF THE CIVIL WAR.
is a most complex organization; and its strength is measured
and hmited not by the census number of men available, but
the means at hand of arming, equipping, clothing, feeding
and transporting those men. Mere numbers in excess of those
means constitute not strength, but an encumbrance. The
supernumeraries are in the way ; they not only tumble oyer
each other, but they aggravate the shortages. It was so with
the Confederate army iu the last stages of the Civil War. The
men were there ; nor did the leaders want more just so long
as they were unable to arm, clothe, feed and transport those
they already had. Both Lee's army and Johnston's army
melted away as the alternative to starvation. Under such
circumstances, if all the men in the South had flocked to the
colors it would only have made matters worse ; the rations
and ammunition would have given out so much the sooner.
The artillery and commissariat trains could not be hauled
when the horses were dead of inanition. In other words,
after January, 1865, the possibility of organized resistance on
the part of the Confederacy no longer existed. The choice
lay between surrender and disbandment ; or, as General John
ston subsequently wrote : — " We, without the means of pur
chasing supplies of any kind, or procuring or repairing arms,
could continue this war only as robbers or guerillas." ^
The next question is, — How had this result been brought
about ? How did it happen that five millions of people in a
country of practically unlimited extent, and one almost in
vulnerable to attack, were physically incapable of further
organized resistance ? How did they come to be so devoid of
arms, food, clothing and means of transport ? In other words,
what is the correct answer to the query suggested by Mr.
Rhodes ? He certainly does not give it ; but, perplexing as
the question is, a plausible answer can surely at this late day
at least be approximated.
Lord Bacon long ago, in some passage I well remember
but have not been able now to find, compares the judgment
passed on current events by foreign nations with that of
posterity. We may there, as he points out, find the necessary
detachment and sense of proportion ; also that absence of
prejudice and passion which, to some extent, makes good
1 Johnston to Beauregard, March 30, 1868 : Eoman, Beauregard, vol. ii.
p. 665.

MR. rhodes's fifth VOLUME. 13
deficiencies of knowledge. Turning over the pages of an
English periodical lately, 1 came, in its issue for July, 1866,
across a somewhat elaborate paper entitled " The Principles
and Issues of the American Struggle." ^ Philosophizing over
the outcome of the struggle rather more than a year after it
had been brought to a close, the writer of the article thus
answered Mr. Rhodes's query some thirty-eight years in
advance of the time when Mr. Rhodes put it : —
" By dint of obstinate endurance — by dint of illimitable paper money
and credit — by dint of foreign soldiers from Ireland and Germany
who swarmed into the country, allured by bounties on enlistment vary
ing from £100 to £200 sterling per head — by dint of sacrificing general
after general, however brave and able, who could not gain a victory —
by dint of a blockade of the sea-board, producing in due time a famine,
or something very like it, through the most fertile portions of the South ;
and last, but by no means least, by dint of the cowardice or incapacity
of the British government, that refused to unite with that of France in
acknowledging the independence of the South — the Northern people
conquered their Southern brethren."
Here, then, is a foreign contemporaneous explanation, and
one, in some respects, close to the mark. Yet it is not wholly
satisfactory. It again is too general ; for, though the writer
is specific enough, he generalizes in his specification, omitting
nothing that suggests itself, and emphasizing everything about
equally. Further elimination and a more severe analysis are
necessary. Six contributing causes are specified. Let us, through the
perspective of forty years, see which still stand as material.
The initial two, "obstinate endurance" and "illimitable
paper dollars and credit," we may pass over. The first goes
without saying ; and the last would not in itself have sufficed
to accomplish the end sought in 1865 any more than it had
sufficed to accomplish the end then sought, when an advantage
in the hands of Great Britain in the struggle that ended in
1783. The third count also cuts no considerable figure in a
revised summary. The backbone of the Union army at the
close of the struggle, as at its beginning, was made up of
Americans. The number of foreigners, Irish or German,
drawn to the country by the temptation of bounties may have
I Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, July, 1866, vol. c. p. 31.

, 14/ SOME PHASES OF THE CIVIL WAR.
been considerable ; but, as an advantage on the side of the
Union, it was far more than counterbalanced by the drastic
conscription enforced throughout the Confederacy. Three
factors now only remain for consideration. One of these, the
sacrificing of those leaders who failed to win victories, is a
feature of all warfare, and in no way peculiar to our civil
strife. As a factor in results it was not peculiarly iu evidence
there. The allusion is apparently to McClellan ; but, in his
case, history, and the coming to light of historical material,
have more than justified the course finally pursued by Lincoln
and Stanton. Of the two remaining factors of success, — the
blockade and absence of foreign intervention, — the last may
be left out of consideration. It is useless to discuss historical
problems from the point of view of what would have happened
if something had occurred which in point of fact never did
occur. On this foreign and contemporaneous judgment of
conditions we are thus through elimination brought down to
one factor, the blockade, as the controlling condition of
Union success. In other words, that success was made pos
sible by the undisputed naval and maritime supremacy of the
North. Cut off from the outer world and all exterior sources
of supply, reduced to a state of inanition by the blockade,
the Confederacy was pounded to death.
Or, to put the proposition in yet another form, in the game
of warfare, maritime supremacy on the part of the North —
what Captain Mahan has since developed historically as the
Influence of the Sea Power — even more than compensated
for the military advantage of the defensive, and its interior
strategic lines, enjoyed by the South. Such being the case,
the greater command by one party to the conflict of men,
supplies, munitions and transportation worked its natural
result. Unquestionably much could be said in support of this con
tention. More than plausible, it fairly explains an outcome
otherwise inexplicable now, as contrary to all foreign expecta
tion then. Without, however, going into any elaborate dis
cussion of the arguments for and against it as a satisfactory
historical postulate, but for present purposes accepting it as
such, a distinct grasp and full recognition of the advantage in
the struggle pertaining to the mastery of the sea is to my
mind the most marked deficiency in Mr. Rhodes's treatment

MR. rhodes's fifth VOLUME. 15
of the outcome of the conflict. In this respect his narrative
is lacking in a proper sense of proportion. As compared with
the space devoted to the movements on land, he fails to give
to the sea operations the emphasis properly belonging to them.
Towards the close of that portion of his fifth volume devoted
to a summary of the preceding narrative, Mr. Rhodes, it
is true, does incidentally say that the " work of the United
States navy was an affair of long patience unrelieved
by the prospect of brilliant exploits ; lacking the incite
ment of battle, it required discipline and character only the
more. But the reward was great; for the blockade was one
of the effective agencies in deciding the issue of the war." ^
This is a somewhat faint recognition of services really de
cisive ; but, such as it is, it may pass. As one reads Mr.
Rhodes's narrative, however, it would hardly be supposed
that a blockade existed at all, much less that it entered into
the struggle as the essential pivot on which turned many of
the most important of those land movements so fully described.
For instance, an undisputed maritime supremacy made pos
sible Sherman's march to the sea.
To this general criticism, an exception must be made in the
case of the action between the Monitor and the Merrimac.
To that a sufficiency of space (five pages) is given ; for,
obviously, on its result depended McClellan's strategy. Be
sides being temptingly dramatic in itself, it had to be dealt
with in connection with land operations. But the capture of
Hatteras Inlet (August 26, 1861) and of Port Royal (Novem
ber 7, 1861) are incidentally mentioned in part of a twenty-
three line paragraph, though strategically they were, and
subsequently proved, of the utmost consequence, distinctly
foreshadowing that process of devitalization as a result of
which the Confederacy ultimately collapsed. Again, the tak
ing of New Orleans, from every point of view one of the most
important events of the war as well as one of its most striking
episodes, — a knife-thrust in the very vitals of the Confederacy,
— is disposed of in two pages ; the sinking of the Alabama
by the Kearsarge is truly enough referred to " as of no
moment towards terminating the war"; but its moral effect
in Europe at a critical period was very memorable. Finally,
to assert that the achievements of Admiral Farragut con-
' Vol. V. p. 399.

16 SOME PHASES OF THE CIVIL WAR.
tributed not less than those of General Sherman to the down
fall of the Confederacy may or may not be an exaggeration ;
but, on the part of the navy, it may safely be claimed that
the running of the forts at the mouth of the Mississippi, and
the consequent fall of New Orleans, was as brilliant an opera
tion, and one as triumphantly conducted, as the march through
Georgia. It struck equal dismay into the hearts of the South
ern leaders. Yet the name of Farragut appears but once in
the index of Mr. Rhodes's fifth volume, in which he sum
marizes the war ; and that once is in connection with Andrew
Johnson's famous " swinging-round-the-circle " performance.
Twelve lines of text are devoted to the battle of Mobile Bay,
while two lines only are made to suffice for the capture of
Wilmington, which closed the last inlet of the Confederacy,
hermetically sealing it. Here, then, from Hatteras Inlet to
Fort Fisher, — between August, 1861, and January, 1865,
— is a consecutive series of operations, prime factors in the
final result, and they are disposed of in ninety lines of a
narrative covering 1,350 pages. About a sixth of one per
cent of the entire space is given to them. With Hilton Head,
Hatteras Inlet, New Orleans, Hampton Roads, Mobile Bay,
Wilmington and Cherbourg blazing imperishably on the
record, Mr. Rhodes incidentally remarks that the work of the
navy was " unrelieved by the prospect of brilliant exploits " !
Nor do the names of those identified with our naval triumphs
thunder in the general index. Judged by that test, six lines
suffice for the allusions to Farragut, and five for those to
Porter ; while four solid columns are judged scarcely adequate
for Grant, and two for Sherman. This, I submit, is dispropor
tionate. In some future edition an entire chapter for each
year would not be too much to devote to an account of the
operations of that arm of the Union service which on the sea
counterbalanced that advantage of interior lines on the land
the Confederates so confidently counted upon, and of which
all the military strategists or critics, whether domestic or for
eign, so everlastingly wrote. Throttling the Confederacy
throughout, the navy was also a spear-thrust in its back.
Passing to another topic of scarcely less importance, the
sense of correct proportion is again at fault. The Confederacy
did not go into the conflict unadvisedly. On the contrary, its
leaders gave what at the time they considered full considera-

MR. rhodes's fifth VOLUME. 17
tion to all the factors on either side essential to success.^ As
was apparent in the outcome, they reckoned without their
host ; but, none the less, they did reckon. Unfortunately
for it, the Southern community in the years. prior to 1861
was phenomenally provincial. Judged by its literature and
the published utterances of its men and women, particularly
its women, it seemed — intellectually, socially, economically
and physically — to be conscious only of itself. This char
acteristic, among many other phases of development, was in
ordinately and most offensively apparent in an undervaluation
of its prospective opponent both for character and courage,
and in an overvaluation of the importance of the South as
a commercial world-power. As respects the undervaluation of
the prospective opponent, the mental condition of the South in
1861 has since been very tersely stated by General Bradley T.
Johnson, himself a Confederate, though born in Maryland, — at
once jurist and veteran : — " The Southern people for several
generations had trained themselves into a vainglorious mo.od
toward the Northern men. They believed that they were in-
conquerable by the North, and that the men of the North were
not their physical nor mental equals." ^ And, reviewing the
conflict and outcome through the vista of thirty years, this
typical Southron reached a conclusion, bearing directly on the
query suggested by Mr. Rhodes : — " The Confederate States
were not crushed by overwhelming resources nor overpower
ing numbers. They were out-thought by the Northern men." ^
As respects the other great factor of self-deception, the
overvaluation of itself by the South as a commercial world-
power, the mere mention of that delusion recalls to memory
the once familiar, now quite forgotten, postulate, — " Cotton is
1 For instance, in the very matter of a blockade, as an incident to war, James
H. Hammond, then in the Senate from South Carolina, in a speech delivered in
1858, and presently referred to, thus summarily dismissed the idea as an absurd
ity : " We have three thousand miles of continental sea-shore line so indented
with bays and crowded with islands that when their shore lines are added, we
have twelve thousand miles. . . Can you hem in such a territory as that ?
You talk of putting up a wall of fire around eight hundred and fifty thousand
square miles so situated ! How absurd." (Selections from Letters and Speeches
of James H. Hammond, pp. 311, 312.)
2 " Vulgar, fanatical, cheating Yankees — hypocritical, it as women they pre
tend to real virtue ; and lying, if as men they pretend to be honest." (W. H.
Russell, My Diary North and South, chap, xix.)
8 Memoir of the Life and Public Service of Joseph E. Johnston (1891), pp.
60, 61. 3

18 SOME PHASES OF THE CIVIL WAR.
King ! " To the South its infatuation on this point was the
fruitful mother of calamity; for the commercial supremacy
of cotton, accepted as a fundamental truth, was made the
basis of political action. The unquestioning faith in which
that patriarchal community cherished this belief has now
passed out of memory, and the statement of it savors of
exaggeration. As a matter of fact it does not admit of ex
aggeration. For instance, what modern historical presentation
could be so framed as to exceed in strength, broadness and
color the following from a speech delivered in the United
States Senate, March 4, 1858 ? James H. Hammond, repre
senting South Carolina, then said : —
" But if there were no other reason why we should never have war,
would any saue nation make war on cotton ? Without firing a gun,
without drawing a sword, should they make war on us we could bring
the whole world to our feet. The South is perfectly competent to go
on one, two, or three years without planting a seed of cotton. . . . What
would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years ? I will not
stop to depict what every one can imagine, but this is certain : England
would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her,
save the South. No, you dare not make war on cotton. No power
on earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is King. Until lately
the Bank of England was king, but she tried to put her screws as usual,
the fall before the last, upon the cotton crop, and was utterly van
quished. The last power has been conquered. Who can doubt, that
has looked at recent events, that cotton is supreme ? " '
It would not be difficult to multiply almost indefinitely
utterances like the above ; but for the purpose in hand this
one will suffice. Intensely provincial, the idea was vulgar ;
in the jargon of the Stock Exchange the South thought she
had a corner on Cotton, and, if she so willed it, the World
must walk up to her counter, and settle on any terms she saw
fit to prescribe ! As Russell, of the London Times, observed, —
" These tall, thin, fine-faced Carolinians are great materialists.
Slavery perhaps has aggravated the tendency to look at all the
world through parapets of cotton-bales and rice-bags, and
though more stately and less vulgar, the worshippers here
are not less prostrate before the 'almighty dollar' than the
Northerners." ^ ^
I Selections from the Letters and Speeches of James H. Hammond (New York
1866), pp. 316, 317.
2 My Diary North and South, chap. xv.

MR. rhodes's fifth VOLUME. 19
Thus, in complete provincialism and childlike faith a com
munity was willing to venture, and actually did venture, life,
fortune and sacred honor on its contempt for those composing
the largest part of the community of which they were them
selves but a minority, and on the soundness of a commercial
theory. In regard to the extent and implicit character of the
faith held on both these points no better witness could testify
than Dr. William H. Russell, the once famous Times Crimean
correspondent just referred to. Russell certainly had no preju
dice against the South, or Southern men. On the contrary, he
liked both ; while he did not take kindly t6 the North as a
whole, or to its people. He was, however, a foreign observer
with a remarkable faculty for vivid description, and here
to take notes and to portray things as they appeared. He
was in South Carolina immediately after the bombardment of
Sumter, and there mixed freely with the exponents of public
sentiment. In his Diary he thus describes what he heard on
the subject of Southern superiority and cotton supremacy, —
he is recording what occurred at the Charleston Club on the
evening of April 16, 1861, ex-governors of the State, sena
tors, congressmen, and other prominent South Carolinians
being of the company : —
" We talked long, and at last angrily, as might be between friends,
of political affairs.
" I own it was a little irritating to me to hear men indulge in ex
travagant broad menace and rodomontade, such as came from their lips.
' They would welcome the world in arms with hospitable hands to
bloody graves.' ' They never could be conquered.' ' Creation could
not do it,' and so on. I was obliged to handle the question quietly at
first — to ask them ' if they admitted the French were a brave and
warlike people!' 'Yes, certainly.' 'Do you think you could better
defend yourselves against invasion than the people of France ? ' ' Well,
no ; but we 'd make it pretty hard business for the Yankees.' ' Sup
pose the Yankees, as you call them, come with such preponderance of
men and materiel, that they are three to your one, will you not be forced
to submit P ' ' Never.' ' Then either you are braver, better disci
plined, more warlike than the people and soldiers of France, or you
alone, of all the nations in the world, possess the means of resisting
physical laws which prevail in war, as in other affairs of life.' ' No.
The Yankees are cowardly rascals. We have proved it by kicking and
cuflang them till we are tired of it ; besides, we know John Bull very
well. He will make a great fuss about non-interference at first, but

20 SOME PHASES OF THE CIVIL WAR.
when he begins to want cotton he '11 come off his perch.' I found this
was the fixed idea everywhere. The doctrine of ' cotton is king ' — to
us who have not much considered the question a grievous delusion or an
unmeaning babble — to them is a lively all-powerful faith without dis
tracting heresies or schisms." ^
The following day, Dr. Russell was one of a party on an ex
cursion down Charleston harbor, visiting Forts Sumter and
Moultrie. In the course of the trip he met, among others,
L. T. Wigfall, the notorious Texan who had recently resigned
a seat in the Senate of the United States to throw in his
fortunes with the Confederacy. Dr. Russell says in his Diary,
April 17 : —
" For me there was only one circumstance which marred the pleasure
of that agreeable reunion. Colonel and Senator Wigfall, who had not
sobered himself by drinking deeply, in the plenitude of his exultation
alluded to the assault on Senator Sumner as a type of the manner in
which the Southerners would deal with the Northerners generally, and
cited it as a good exemplification of the fashion in which they would
bear their ' whipping.' " ^
A day or two later, Mr. Bunch, the British consul at
Charleston, who not long afterwards achieved a most unhappy
diplomatic notoriety, entertained Dr. Russell at dinner. It
was a " small and very agreeable party," but of the talk at
that table the guest recorded : —
" It was scarcely very agreeable to my host or myself to find that no
considerations were believed to be of consequence in reference to Eng-
1 My Diary North and South, chap. xiii. Later, April 19, the Times cor
respondent called on the Governor of the State, F. W. Pickens. Of him he
.wrote : — " The Governor writes very good proclamations, nevertheless, and his
confidence in South Carolina is unbounded. If we stand alone, sir, we must win.
They can't whip us." {Ibid. chap, xvi.)
2 A month later Mr. Wigfall received, through his wife, from a correspondent
in Providence, Rhode Island, an ardent sympathizer with the Confederacy, a
warning curiously characteristic of the period, and most suggestive of the esti
mate in which the Northern community was then held by those impregnated
with Southern ideals : —
" I think, however, that you at the South are wrong to undervalue the courage
and resources of the Northern States. They are no doubt less accustomed to the
use of firearms — there are very few who know how to ride, and they are less
fiery in their impulses. They are less disposed to fight, but they are not cowardly
where their interests are concerned and will fight for their money. Where their
property is at stake they will not hesitate to risk their lives. ... I would not
advise you of the South to trust too much in the idea that the Northerners will
not fight; for I believe they will, and their numbers are overwhelming." (Mrs.
D. G. Wright, A Southern Girl in '61, pp. 52, 53.)

MR. rhodes's FIFTH VOLUME. 21
land except her material interests, and that these worthy gentlemen
regarded her as a sort of appanage of their cotton kingdom. ' Why,
sir, we have only to shut off your supply of cotton lor a few weeks,
and we can create a revolution in Great Britain. There are four mil
lions of your people depending on us for their bread, not to speak of
the many millions of dollars. No, sir, we know that England must
recognize us,' &c.
" Liverpool and Manchester have obscured all Great Britain to the
Southern eye. I confess the tone of my friends irritated me."
He next visited the leading merchants, bankers, and
brokers : —
"In one office I saw an announcement of a company for a direct
communication by steaipers between a southern port and Europe.
' When do you expect that hue to be opened ? ' I asked. ' The United
States cruisers will surely interfere with it.' ' Why, I expect, sir,' rcr
plied the merchant, ' that if those miserable Yankees try to blockade
us, and keep you from our cotton, you '11 just send their ships to the
bottom and acknowledge us. That will be before autumn, I think.' It
was in vain I assured him he would be disappointed. ' Look out there,'
he said, pointing to the wharf, on which were piled some cotton bales ;
' there 's the key will open all our ports, and put us into John Bull's
strong box as well.' "
A guest shortly after on the island plantation of Mr. Tres
cot, he there met Edmund Rhett, a member of a family
prominent in South Carolina public life. The Rhett dwelling
house and plantation were on Port Royal Island, a few
miles only from the smaller island on which Mr. Trescot
dwelt. They thus were neighbors. The stranger and guest
describes the South Carolinian as " a very intelligent and
agreeable gentleman," but from his lips also came the same
old story. " ' Look,' he said, ' at the fellows who are sent out
by Lincoln to insult foreign courts by their presence.' I
said that I understood Mr. Adams and Mr. Dayton were very
respectable gentlemen, but I did not receive any sympathy ;
in fact, a neutral who attempts to moderate the violence of
either side, is very like an ice between two hot plates. Mr.
Rhett is also persuaded that the Lord Chancellor sits on a
cotton bale. ' You must recognize us, sir, before the end of
October.' " ^
1 This meeting was on April 28. A few days only more than six months
later both the Rhetts and Mr. Trescot hurriedly abandoned their homes, imme-

22 SOME phases of the oivtl war.
As respects the outcome of what may well enough be called
the South"s cotton campaign, Mr. Rhodes's narrative seems to
me deficient. That campaign was in fact the most far-reaching
and, in world effect, the most important inaugurated and
carried out by the Confederacy ; and in its result they sus
tained complete and disastrous defeat, — a defeat which en
tailed on them in the midst of the contest and in presence of
the enemy, an entire change of front, economical, financial and
diplomatic. This nowhere appears in Mr. Rhodes's narrative ;
and yet on this phase of the struggle both Confederate finance
and Confederate diplomacy hinged. And here again the block
ade comes to the front.
Had the theory as respects the potency of cotton on which
the South went into the war been sound, the blockade would
have proved the Confederacy's most potent ally ; for the
blockade shut off from Europe its supply of cotton as it could
have been shut off by no other possible agency. In so far the
government of the Union played the game of the Confederacy,
and played it effectively. In the early days of the struggle,
they talked at Richmond of an export duty on their one great
staple, and of inhibiting its outgo altogether; the blockade
made any action of this nature quite unnecessary. Through
the blockade the cotton-screw, so to speak, was applied to the
fullest possible extent. Nor was the overthrow of the po
tentate brought about easUy. He was well entrenched, and
dethroning him entailed on the commercial world one of the
most severe trials it has ever been called upon to pass through.
In this phase of the struggle Lancashire was the field of central
battle ; and there, as the result of a struggle extending through
eighteen months, the Confederate ikon was tumbled down.
The catastrophe was complete ; and the whole Southern pro
gramme, economical, fiscal, and, at last, strategic, where it did
not utterly collapse, underwent great change. The summer
of 1862 marked the crisis; before that, as ilr. Rhodes truly
states,^ the Confederate policy was to keep cotton at home,
and by withholding it to compel foreign recognition ; after
that, the one effort was to get it to market with a view to its
diately after the bombardment and capture of the forts at Hilton Head. Novem
ber 7, 1861, by the expedition under command of Captain, afterwards Admiral,
Dupont. All of the South Carolina sea-islands, as they were called, were thence-
fortli occupied by the Union forces.
1 Vol. V. p. 382.

MR. rhodes's fifth VOLUME. 23
conversion into ships, munitions of war and necessaries of life.
But Mr. Rhodes, in my judgment, disposes of this crucial
Confederate defeat altogether too lightly. Mr. Rhodes says :
" As we have seen, [England and France] when they could
not get cotton from America, got it elsewhere." I do not
know on what authority this statement is made ; but it is not
in accordance with the facts. In the early months of 1861
the estimated weekly consumption of cotton in Gi'eat Britain
was 50,000 bales ; at the close of 1862 it had fallen to 20,000
bales, inferior in weight as well as quality. Indeed so bad
was the quality that its manufacture was destructive to
machinery. Of thia greatly reduced quantity, moreover,
a considerable portion — some twenty per cent — was the
American product, run through the blockade. So great was
the dearth that in September, 1862, the staple, which two
years before had sold in Liverpool for fourpence a pound,
had gone up until it touched the unheard-of price of half a
crown. Cotton simply was not forthcoming from any quarter,
and the commercial world was everywhere in search of sub
stitutes for it.'
To this subject, from my point of view, Mr. Rhodes might
well have devoted a chapter. As it stands, it is a case of anti
climax ; introduced with a loud blast of trumpets, the poten
tate simply vanishes, — so to speak, he evaporates. How, and
what became of him, nowhere appears. Judging by Mr.
Rhodes's narrative, one would infer that it was a case of insen
sible dissolution ; but, as an historical fact, it was very far
otherwise. Not all that Mr. Hammond and others predicted,
or that the Confederate leaders confidently looked to see
happen, actually did happen ; but, none the less, the process
involved a commercial and industrial disturbance of the first
magnitude, and the most complete and disastrous defeat sus
tained by the Confederacy in the whole course of the war.
The episode, too, carried with it a most instructive historical
lesson as to the danger even nations incur from indulging
with undue confidence in a theory, — in other words, the old
South furnished in 1860-61 a very striking illustration of
the homely truth that the evils incident to what is humanly
known as a condition of mental " cocksureness " are not con
fined to individuals. In 1860 that whole Southern community
was socially and economically daft. But no people and no

24 SOME PHASES OF THE CIVIL WAR.
period are exempt from such states of delusion. Within the
memory of those now living this country has been subject to a
dozen such ; in the eyes of not a few it is to-day suffering
under more than one. Fortunately, so far as deep water and
destruction are concerned, the experience of the South was
exceptional. It was a dream ; but a dream from which the
awakening must have been terribly bitter. The first indica
tion I have found of a recurrence to common-sense was in a
speech made by William L. Yancey at an impromptu reception
given him in the rotunda of the St. Charles Hotel at New
Orleans, on his return in March, 1862, from that wholly abor
tive mission to Europe on which he had been sent by Jeffer
son Davis a year before. He had learned something in the
course of his travels, and he then significantly said : " It is an
error to say that ' Cotton is King.' It is not. It is a great
and influential power in commerce, but not its dictator." A
little foreign travel had educated that particular Southern
prophet out of some of his provincialism. Almost immediately
his words found an echo in Richmond, a Louisiana Senator
there sadly declaring in debate, " We have tested the powers
of King Cotton and have found him to be wanting." ^ While
three months later, in June, 1862, Alexander H. Stephens
enunciated too late the correct principle. They had been pos
sessed with the idea, he told them, that " cotton was a political
power. There was the mistake, — it is only a commercial
power." 2
Passing to the other topics in the treatment of which the
narrative of Mr. Rhodes, though sufficiently full, seems from
my point of view open to criticism, I next refer to his account
of Sherman's famous march to the sea in November, 1863, and
^ Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia, 1862, p. 261, quoted by Rhodes, vol. v.
p. 411. 2 What is known as the alternative Confederate fiscal policy is referred to,
and discussed, by Mr. Rhodes (vol. v. pp. 381, 382). There is in the appendix
to Roman's Life of Beauregard (vol. ii. pp. 674-680) an elaborate letter on this
subject written by Mr. Stephens to Beauregard in 1882, seventeen years after
the close of the struggle. In the letter he quoted at length from a speech made
by him at Crawfordville, Georgia, in the fall of 1862. He then said : " The
great error of those who supposed that King Cotton would compel the English
ministry to recognize our government and break the blockade, and who will look
for the same result from the total abandonment of its culture, consists in mis
taking the nature of the kingdom of the potentate. His power is commercial
and "financial, not political."

MR. rhodes's fifth VOLUME. 25
Grant's advance on Richmond in May, 1864. Mr. Rhodes
quotes General Sherman as saying in his Memoirs : " Were I to
express my measure of the relative importance of the March
to the Sea and of that from Savannah northward, I would
place the former at one and the latter at ten, or the maxi
mum." We are then told, in a foot-note to the same page,^ that
General Schofield was of a different opinion. " Considered,"
he said in his Forty-six Years (p. 348), " as to its military
results, Sherman's march- cannot be regarded as more than I
have stated — a grand raid. The defeat and practical destruc
tion of Hood's army in Tennessee was what paved the way to
the speedy termination of the war, which the capture of Lee
by Grant fully accomplished ; and the result ought to have
been essentially the same as to time if Sherman's march had
never been made."
On this point Mr. Rhodes expresses no opinion. He wisely
leaves it for the military critics to fight it out among them
selves. I can, however, say that at the time, and in Europe,
this view of the relative importance of operations did not
obtain. Far from it. Sphofield, of course, refers to Sherman's
march north from Savannah, through the Carolinas ; but I
gravely doubt whether his estimate of the strategic impor
tance of that march, or Sherman's estimate of its relative im
portance as compared with that through Georgia, are either
of them correct. While, so far as the fall of the Confederacy
was concerned, both exercised great influence on the out
come, from my point of view I incline to the belief that the
march through Georgia was the more potent in influence
of the two. It was so for an obvious reason. In war, as in
most other affairs in which mankind gets itself involved,
moral effects count for a good deal ; and especially is this
so with somewhat volatile and excitable communities, such
as that inhabiting the South unquestionably was. But, so
far as Europe was concerned, it is safe to assert that no
other operation of the entire war was productive of a moral
effect in any way comparable with that caused by the march
to the sea. Indeed, coming as it did and when it did, it is
not too much to say it was an epochal event in that it marked
the turning of the tide of European and especially of Eng
lish opinion as respects the United States and things American.
1 Vol. V. p. 107.
4

26 SOME phases of the CIVIL WAR.
James Russell Lowell wrote a well-remembered essay "Upon
a Certain Condescension in Foreigners"; and, during the
earlier stages of the Civil War, this well-understood " con
descension " resolved itself quite naturally into a studied tone
of scorn, in no way veiled. The change whicli has since be
come so marked in this respect began with Sherman's march.
That march in a way smote the foreign imagination ; and the
whole course of subsequent events, down to the treaty nego
tiated last summer at Portsmouth, has served to promote what
has now developed into a revolution in tone and estimate.
As every one realizes, Lowell's " foreigner " has undergone a
total change ; his " condescension " is of the past. The begin
ning of that change I had occasion to trace through the
utterances of the European press. Up to the autumn of
1864, and the re-election of Lincoln, the general tone of the
European and especially of the English periodicals and papers
was one of exaggerated ad.miration for Confederate valor and
leadership ; while, on the other hand, the leadership and cour
age of the Union side were referred to with studied contumely.
Sometimes, however, the contempt was equally distributed
over both parties to the fray. The famous remark attributed
at least to Von Moltke is still remembered, that he " did not
have time to devote to the study of the combats of two armed
mobs." But a much more curious and illustrative utterance
was one of Charles Lever, the Irish military novelist, who,
most unfortunately for himself, chose as the time and place
in which to deliver himself the January Blackwood's of
1865. The paper was, of course, prepared some time before.
By mere ill luck, however, it appeared in London just as
Sherman put in his appearance at Savannah. In this paper
Mr. Lever undertook to compare the American combatants to
two inmates of a lunatic asylum playing chess. They went
through moves similar to those of chess, but without the
slightest comprehension of the game. He then goes on, — ¦
" Now, does not this immensely resemble what we are witness
ing this moment in America ? There are the two madmen en
gaged in a struggle, not one single rule nor maxim of which
they comprehend. Moving cavalry like infantry, artillery like
a wagon train, violating every principle of the game, till at
length one cries Checkmate, and the other, accepting the
defeat that is claimed against him, deplores his mishap, and

MR. rhodes's fifth VOLUME. 27
sets to work for another contest. . . . Just however, as I feel
assured, nobody who ever played chess would have dignified
with that name the strange performance of the madmen, so
am I convinced that none would call this struggle a war. It
is a fight — a very big fight, if you will, and a very hard fight
too, but not war." ^ There is much more to the same effect,
the intensely ludicrous side of which at just that juncture the
genial Irishman himself subsequently appreciated most keenly.
What I have quoted will, however, suffice for the purpose of
present illustration. At the very time Mr. Lever was thus
rashly committing himself in cold print. General Sherman
was entering on his famous march ; and, while that march
was in progress, the daily tone of the London newspapers was
pitched in much the same key as that of Mr. Lever's lucubra
tion in the forthcoming number of Blackwood. The out
come of the move of the " Yankee " General was looked for
with a contemptuous interest ; it clearly was not war ; a hare
brained effort, dictated probably by desperation, it could end
only in disaster ; most probably it was an ill-considered
attempt at getting out of an impossible military situation.
But one day the tidings came that the heads of Sherman's
columns had emerged on the sea-coast, that they had made
short work of the forces there found to oppose them, and that
Savannah had fallen. The army and the navy had struck
hands ! The announcement seemed absolutely to take away
the breath of the foreign critics, military and journalistic. A
brilliant strategic blow had been struck ; an operation, the
character of which could neither be ignored nor mistaken, had
been triumphantly carried through to a momentous issue ;
the thrust — and such a thrust! — had penetrated the vitals
of the Confederacy ; — what next ? From that moment the
end was plainly foreshadowed. Europe recognized that a new
power of unknown strength, but undeniable military capacity,
was thenceforth to be reckoned with.
To one feature, and one feature only, in Mr. Rhodes's account
of this memorable war episode, do I care to call attention.
The historian, I fear, passes somewhat gently over the pro
nounced vandalism which characterized Sherman's operations
1 Cornelius O'Dowd upon Men and Women and other Things in General :
Part XII., " The Fight over the Way." Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, vol.
xcvii. pp. 57-59.

28 SOME PHASES OF THE CIVIL WAR.
from Atlanta to Savannah, and yet more from Savannah to
Raleigh. It is referred to, indeed, both generally, and, more
especially, in connection with what occurred in South Carolina,
reaching a climax at Columbia ; but the treatment is, not
withstanding, distinctly perfunctory.^ The other, and I very
much fear, the truer and more realistic, side is portrayed in
sufficient detail, and with reference to chapter and verse, in
General Bradley T. Johnson's Life of Joseph E. Johnston.^ It
there appears what Sherman meant by his famous aphorism —
" War is Hell." The truth is that in 1864-65 the conflict had
lasted too long for the patience of the combatants, and the
defence of the South had been very stubborn. The rules and
limitations of civilized warfare, so far as non-combatants were
concerned, were no longer observed, and Sherman's advancing
army was enveloped and followed by a cloud of irresponsible
stragglers, known throughout the country as " bummers,"
who were simply for the time being desperadoes bent on
pillage and destruction, — subject to no discipline, amenable
to no law. They were looked upon then by the North,
weary of the war, with a half-humorous leniency ; but, in
reality, a band of Goths, their existence was a disgrace to
the cause they professed to serve. For a Northerner it is not
a pleasant admission, but the historic, if ungrateful, truth is
that, as respects what are euphemistically termed the " severi
ties" of warfare, the record made by our armies during the
latter stages of the conflict will not bear comparison with that
of the Army of Northern Virginia while in Pennsylvania during
the Gettysburg campaign. Lee's memorable general order
(No. 73) dated at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, June 27, 1863,
is well known, and need not be quoted ; but there was truth
in the reference to those opposed to him when in it he said,
" No greater disgrace could befall the army, and through
1 "It seems probable that the inhabitants of North Carolina were better
treated than had been those of the sister State. Nevertheless correction of the bad
habits engendered in the soldiery by the system of foraging upon the country was
only gradually accomplished and the irregular work of stragglers was not circum
scribed by State boundary lines. . . . The men who followed Sherman were prob
ably more humane generally than those in almost any European army that
marched and fought betoie our Civil War, but any invading host in the country
of the enemy is a terrible scourge. On the other hand there is considerable
Southern evidence of depredations committed bv Wheeler's cavalry." (Vol v.
pp. 102, 104.)
^ Chapters xi., xii., xiii. pp. 119-225.

MR. rhodes's fifth VOLUME. 29
it our whole people, than the perpetration of barbarous out
rages upon the unarmed and defenceless, and the wanton
destruction of private property, that have marked the course
of the enemy in our own country. It will be remembered
that we make war only upon armed men." It was my fortune
to be a participant in the Gettysburg campaign, ^ and, forty
years later, I was glad when occasion offered to bear my evi
dence to the scope and spirit in which Lee's order was at the
time observed by his followers. " I doubt if a hostile force
ever advanced into an enemy's country, or fell back from it
in retreat, leaving behind it less cause of hate and bitterness
than did the Army of Northern Virginia in that memorable
campaign." ^ Our own methods during the final stages of
the conflict were sufficiently described by General Sheridan,
when, during the Franco-Prussian War, as the guest of Bis
marck, he declared against humanity in warfare, contending
that the correct policy was to treat a hostile population with
the utmost rigor, leaving them, as he expressed it, " nothing
but their eyes to weep with over the war." ^
^ Proceedings, 2d series, vol xiii. p. 106.
2 Speech at thirteenth annual dinner of the Confederate Veterans Camp of
New York, at the Waldorf-Astoria, January 26, 1903 ; the annual Confederate
commemoration of General Lee.
^ " Thursday, September 8, 1870. — The Chancellor gives a great dinner, the
guests including the Hereditary Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Herr
Stephan, the Chief Director of the Post Office, and the three Americans.
Amongst other matters mentioned at table were the various reports as to the
affair at Bazeilles. The Minister said that peasants could not be permitted to
take part in the defence of a position. Not being in uniform, they could not be
recognized as combatants — they were able to throw away their arras unnoticed.
The chances must be equal for both sides. Abeken considered that Bazeilles
was hardly treated, and thought the war ought to be conducted in a more
humane manner. Sheridan, to whom MacLean has translated these remarks, is
of a different opinion. He considers that in war it is expedient, even from the
political point of view, to treat the population with the utmost rigour also. He
expressed himself roughly as follows: 'The proper strategy consists in the first
place in inflicting as telling blows as possible upon the enemy's army, and then
in causing the inhabitants so much suffering that they must long for peace, and
force their Government to demand it. The people must be left nothing but their
eyes to weep with over the war.' Somewhat heartless, it seems to me, but
perhaps worthy of consideration." (Bismarck : Some Secret Pages of his
History, Busch, vol. ii. p. 127.) To tlie same eff'ect General Sherman subse
quently declared : " I resolved to stop the game of guarding their cities, and to
destroy their cities. We were determined to produce results, and now what were
those results'? To make every man, woman and child in the South feel that if
they dared to rebel against the flag of their country they must die or submit."
The subsequent influence on the American army of General Sherman's famous

30 SOME PHASES OF THE CIVIL WAR.
In other words, a veteran of our civil strife, General Sheri
dan, advocated in an enemy's country the sixteenth-century
practices of Tilly, described by Schiller, and the later devas
tation of the Palatinate policy of Louis XIV., commemorated
by Goethe. In the twenty-first century, perhaps, partisan
" War is Hell" aphorism, and its illustration in his campaigns in Georgia and
the Carolinas, is deserving of notice.
Lieutenant-General S. B. M. Young spoke to the same effect as General Sheridan,
at Prince Bismarck's table, at a public dinner given by the New York Chamber
of Commerce at the Arlington Hotel, Washington, in honor of the representa
tives of certain foreign commercial bodies then in America, November 13, 1902.
General Young then pronounced " all the army's defamers densely ignorant of
what constitutes the laws of war," and added, " To carry on war, disguise it as
we may, is to be cruel, it is to kill and burn, burn and kill, and again kill and
burn." If the word " humane " could be applied to war, he would define it as one
"fast and furious and bloody from the beginning." He added, " When war has
been decided on by our nation I agree with the German Emperor's sentiments
and believe that the American army should leave such an impression that future
generations would know we had been there." (N. Y. Tribune, November 14,
1902.) The utterance of the German Emperor here referred to was his famous speech
at Bremenhaven, July 27, 1900, to the first contingent of his army then embark
ing for China. He said : " When you meet the foe you will defeat them. No
quarter will be given ; no prisoners will be taken. Let all who fall into your
mercy be at your mercy. Just as the Huns a thousand years ago, under the
leadership of Attila, gained a reputation in virtue of which they still live in
historical tradition, so may the name of Germany become known in such a
manner in China that no Chinaman will ever again dare to look askance at a
German." At a court-martial convened in Manila twenty-one months after this utter
ance, Brigadier-General Jacob H. Smith declared that in operations conducted by
him as General in command he had instructed a subordinate " not to burden him
self with prisoners " ; that he told him " that he wanted him to kill and burn in
the interior and hostile country; and did also instruct him that ' The interior of
Samar must be made a howling wilderness ' ; and did further instruct him that
he wanted all persons killed who were capable of bearing arms and were actively
engaged in hostilities against the United States ; and that he did designate the age
limit of ten years."
The court in this case found General Smith guilty of " conduct to the prejudice
of good order and military discipline," and sentenced him to be admonished by the
reviewing authority. The court declared itself thus lenient " in view of the un
disputed evidence that the accused did not mean everything that his unexplained
language implied ; that his subordinates did not gather such a meaning ; and
that the orders were never executed in such sense." (57th Congress, 2d Session,
Senate Document No. 213.)
Historically, however, it is noticeable that the instructions given by General
Smith were in strict accordance with the " War is Hell" principles on which
operations in a hostile country should be conducted as laid down on the occa-
sipn specified, by Lieutenant-General Sheridan, September 8, 1870, by the Ger
man Emperor, July 27, 1900, and by Lieutenant-General Young, November 13,
1902.

Mr. rhodes's FIFTH VOLUME. 31
feeling as regards the Civil War performances having by
that time ceased to exist, American investigators, no longer
regardful of a victor's self-complacency, may treat the epi
sodes of our struggle with the same even-handed and out
spoken impartiality with which Englishmen now treat the
revenges of the Restoration, or Frenchmen the dragonnades
of the Grand Monarque. But when that time comes, the
page relating to what occurred in 1864 in the valley of the
Siienandoah, in Georgia, and in the Carolinas, — a page which
Mr. Rhodes somewhat lightly passes over, — will probably be
rewritten in characters of far more decided import. ^
1 In his work entitled " Ohio in the War " (1868), Mr. Whitelaw Reid says of
the burning of Columbia, " it was the most monstrous barbarity of the barbarous
march. There is no reason to think that General Sherman knew anything of the
purpose to burn the city, which had been freely talked about among the soldiers
through the afternoon. But there is reason to think that he knew well enough
who did it, that he never rebuked it, and made no effort to punish it. . . . He did
npt seek to ferret out and punish the offending parties. He did not make his
army understand that he regarded this barbarity as a crime. He did not seek to
repress their lawless course. On the contrary, they came to understand that the
leader, whom they idolized, regarded their actions as a good joke, chuckled over
them in secret, and winked at them in public. ... In both campaigns [that from
Atlanta to Savannah, and from Savannah to Goldsboro'] great bodies of men
were moved over States and groups of States with the accuracy and precision of
mechanism. In neither was any effort to preserve discipline apparent, save only
so far as was needful for keeping up the march.
" Here, indeed, is the single stain on the brilliant record. Before his move
ment began. General Sherman begged permission to turn his army loose in South
Carolina and devastate it. He used this permission to the full. He protested
that he did not wage war on women and children. But, under the operation of
his orders, the last morsel of food was taken from hundreds of destitute families,
that his soldiers might feast in needless and riotous abundance. Before his eyes
rose, day after day, the mournful clouds of smoke on every side, that told of old
people and their grandchildren driven, in midwinter, from the only roofs there
were to shelter them, by the flames which the wantonness of his soldiers had
kindled. With his full knowledge and tacit approval, too great a portion of his
advance resolved itself into bands of jewelry-thieves and plate-closet burglars.
Yet, if a single soldier was punished for a single outrage or theft during that entire
movement, we have found no mention of it in all the voluminous records of the
march. He did indeed say that he ' would not protect ' them in stealing ' women's
apparel or jewelry.' But even this, with no whisper of punishment attached, he
said, not in general orders, nor in approval of the findings of some righteously
severe court-martial, but incidentally — in a letter to one of his officers, which
never saw the light till two years after the close of the war. He rebuked no one
for such outrages ; the soldiers understood that they pleased him. Was not South
Carolina to be properly punished ?
" This was not war. It was not even the revenge of a wrathful soldiery, for
it was practised, not upon the enemy, but upon the defenceless ' feeble folk ' he
had left at home. There was indeed one excuse for it — an excuse which chivalric
soldiers might be slow to plead. It injured the enemy — not by open fight, where

32 SOME PHASES OF THE CIVIL WAR.
One final topic ; dealt with by Mr. Rhodes in his fourth
volume rather than in the fifth, it still occupies a prominent
place in his narrative, and its treatment necessarily involves
a man who, first and last, for good or evil, will assuredly
stand forth in history as one of Massachusetts' most conspic
uous contributions to our Great Rebellion period. The topic
is that Virginia campaign which made sadly memorable the
spring and summer of 1864 ; the individual. General B. F.
Butler. To my mind Mr. Rhodes has neither done justice,
nor fully meted out justice, to the episode or to the man.
And, primarily, in the matter of Grant's strategy in that
famous campaign. It seems to me to have been much better
considered, and more creditable to him, than would be inferred
from Mr. Rhodes's narrative. Mr. Rhodes then, secondarily,
as I see it, fails to place where it belongs the grave responsi
bility for the failure of Grant's plan of campaign, with the
awful loss of life that failure involved. My understanding
has always been that Grant's plan assumed the active and
harmonious co-operation of three distinct armies, — that of
the Potomac, under General Meade ; that of the James, under
General Butler ; and, finally, the Ninth Corps, 15,000 strong,
under the command of General Burnside. Meade, with the
Army of the Potomac, was to advance and engage Lee, hold
ing the Confederate army of Northern Virginia fully occu
pied ; Burnside, meanwhile, was to be in reserve, immediately
in Meade's rear ; and, while Lee was thus engaged, Butler,
with the Army of the James, composed of two corps, the Tenth
and Eighteenth, and in all some 35,000 to 40,000 strong, was to
push forward vigorously, threatening Richmond, and jeopard
izing Lee's communications. Thus an important, if not vital,
part in the plan of operations depended on Butler and the
Army of the James. Opposed to him, with his completely
equipped and numerically formidable command, was a wholly
inadequate and widely scattered force under General Beaure
gard, recently (April 15) assigned to that department, and not
yet on the ground.^ If by an offensive movement, intelli-
a million would have been thought full match for less than a hundred thousand,
but by frightening his men about the situation of their wives and children 1 "
(Ohio in the War, vol. i. pp. 475-479.)
1 Beauregard was at Weldon, North Carolina, from April 22 to May 10, await
ing the development of the Union plan of campaign. He did not reach Peters
burg until May 10.

MR. rhodes's FIFTH VOLUME. 33
gently conceived and skilfully as well as vigorously handled,
the Confedeiate line could be broken and thrown back into
Richmond, Lee's rear would" be exposed, his lines of communi
cation threatened, and he must, abandoning Richmond, have
fallen back towards Lynchburg or the Carolinas. Grant then
proposed to follow him up, hanging doggedly on his ,rear,
and catch Lee between an upper and a nether mill-stone, —
the Army of the James holding him in check until the Army
of the Potomac, hurrying up, could force a decisive battle.
As a strategic plan this was open to criticism. Two dis
tinct armies were to operate conjointly in wholly separate
fields, with an active enemy between them, enjoying, of
course, the advantage of shorter interior lines. By a rapid
concentration of forces it was obvious that Lee might crusii
Butler, and then swiftly turn to confront Meade either from
within the defences of Richmond or in the open. Not impos
sibly the Army of the Potomac might then be doomed to
undergo, on the same ground, a repetition of its experiences
of two years before. General Beauregard, it has since ap
peared, did indeed almost at once take in the situation from
this point of view, and devised a plan of campaign accord
ingly.^ Nevertheless, though involving some risk in the
presence of two sueh commanders as Lee and Beauregard,
both at once alert and vigorous. Grant's scheme of campaign
was well considered and practical. He enjoyed a large
numerical preponderance, and each of the three independent
armies, if skilfully as well as energetically handled, was amply
sufficient to take care of itself.
Had, accordingly, Grant's plan been carried out in all its
parts, — south of the James as well as north of Richmond, —
the terrible fighting of May and June in the Wilderness, and
on the road to the James and Petersburg, would have been
avoided. Richmond assuredly must have fallen ; while the
fate of Lee and his army would have been at least problem
atical. Though it is not probable that Appomattox could have
been anticipated, by a year, the Confederacy would have lost
its capital, and Lee, with one of his two lines of communi
cation with the Carolinas cut off, would have been confronted
by the three Union armies, undepleted and combined under
Grant. ' Roman, Beauregard, vol. ii. pp. 201, 202.
5

84 SOME phases OF THE CIVIL WAR.
If such was Grant's plan, as I at the time and since have
always understood, Mr. Rhodes gives no hint of it. He treats
the campaign as if it had developed on the lines originally in
tended. If so, and I am right in my understanding, this does
Grant great strategic injustice. His campaign failed, — failed
in the beginning, and failed through the gross military incom
petency of the General commanding the Army of the James.
An army could not well enter on an active campaign more
auspiciously than did the Army of the Potomac in April,
1864. With full ranks, well disciplined, admirably equipped,
inured to service, with confidence in itself and its commanders,
it felt equal to any emergency of warfare. It was in fact a
most formidable fighting machine ; but, formidable as it was,
the test to which it was subjected exceeded endurance.
Plunging into the Wilderness, it found itself confronted by
Lee at tbe head of the even more veteran Army of Northern
Virginia, fighting on the defensive in a country peculiarly sus
ceptible of an eifective defence.^ Mr. Rhodes has described
1 In his Memoir of General William Farrar Smith, in the " Heroes of the Civil
War Series," General James H. Wilson, both a very competent critic and one who
on this subject spoke from intimate personal knowledge, attributed the ensuing
failure of the campaign in greatest part to the very defective organization of the
headquarters staff. For this, of course. Grant was wholly responsible. General
Wilson says : " Without pausing here to recapitulate the arguments for and
against the line and general plan of operations actually selected by General
Grant, or to consider further his choice of subordinate commanders, it may be
well to call attention to tbe fact that the organization and arrangements made by
him for the control and co-operation of the forces in Virginia are now generally
regarded by military critics as having been nearly as faulty as they could have
been. . . It was in the nature of things impossible to make either the armies
or the separate army-corps work harmoniously and effectively together. The
orders issued from the different headquarters were necessarily lacking in uni
formity of style and expression, and failed to secure that prompt and unfailing
obedience that in operations extending over so wide and difficult a field was
absolutely essential, and this was entirely independent of the merits of the
different generals or the peculiarities of their Chiefs of Staff and Adjutants
General. The forces were too great ; they were scattered too widely over the
field of operations ; the conditions of the roads, the width of the streams and
the broken and wooded features of the battlefields were too various, and the
means of transport and supply were too inadequate to permit of simultaneous
and synchronous movements, even if they had been intelligently provided for,
and t!ie generals had uniformly done their best to carry them out.
" But when it is considered that Grant's own stafi', although presided over by
a very able man from civil life, and containing a number of zealous and expe
rienced officers from both the regular army and the volunteers, was not organ
ized for the arrangement of the multifarious details and combinations of the
inarches and battles cf a great campaign, and indeed under Grant's special

MR. rhodes's FIFTH VOLUME. 35
what ensued. In forty days the force in Lee's front reported
65,000 casualties. Meanwhile, what had become of the Army
of the James? Why did it not play its part, working a diver
sion ? Well do I remember, at the time and on the spot, when
the news came that Beauregard, with a mere handful &f men,
— hardly more than a heavy skirmish line, — had foiled
Butler. No relief was to be looked for from that quarter. It
was at this juncture that Grant characteristically remarked
that " Butler was as safe as wax ; bottled up at Bermuda
Hundred!" But the plan of campaign then went to pieces ;
while Lee, relieved from all anxiety because of Richmond and
his rear, with his communications assured, was left free to op
pose his entire force to the enemy before him. What ensued,
Mr. Rhodes has sufficiently told in a previous volume.
In the volume now under consideration, however, Mr.
Rhodes deals with Benjamin F. Butler judicially, — as one
standing at the bar of history. The sentence he passes upon
him is severe, and the more severe because carefully restrained
in expression. But it is confined to questions of mere lucre,
— " beyond reasonable doubt," Mr. Rhodes says, " he [Butler]
was making money [illicitly] out of his country's life struggle."
That is bad ; but, however bad it may be, it is in my judg
ment the rendering on a very minor count in the long indict
ment to which Massachusetts' senior Major-General of the
Civil War should be made to answer. His departmental dis
honesty may be measured in dollars and cents ; his head
quarters incompetence cost blood and grief both unmeasured
and immeasurable. Who was responsible for the greater part
of that awful loss of life, — a loss numerically nearly equal
to the entire army Napoleon had on the field at Waterloo ?
Primarily, it was that commander of the Army of the James
who so utterly failed in doing the work he had himself in
sisted should be assigned him to do ; ^ and, secondarily, to the
instructions made no efforts to arrange them, it will be appaient that properly
co-ordinated movements could not be counted upon. ... In addition to the
defective organization and inefficient staff' arrangements which have been men
tioned, neither the Union government nor the Union generals ever made pro
visions, or seemed to undevstand the necessity, for a sufficient preponderance of
force, to neutralize the advantages which the Confederate armies enjoyed, when
fighting on the defensive, or to render victor}' over them reasonably certain."
^ Yet in his farewell order to the Army of the James of January 8, 1865,
Butler boasted — " Tl)e wasted blood of my men does not stain my garments."
War Records, Serial No. 96, p. 71.

36 SOME PHASES OF THE CIVIL WAR.
commander-in-chief who left a charlatan and an incompetent
in the place to which he should have designated his trustiest
lieutenant.! It was a parallel case to that of Grouchy, — the
fatal mistake of the man at the head in the choice of a tooj.
Years ago, during the life of our late associate John C. Ropes,
I frequently discussed with him — once (1894), I remember,
on the field of Waterloo — what turn other than that history
has recorded might have been given to the momentous 15th
of June, 1815, had Davout, instead of being at the time
Minister of War and in Paris, been, as he should have been,
in command of Napoleon's right wing. It hardly admits of
question that the victor of Auerstadt and Eckmiihl, instinct
ively taking in the strategic situation, would have kept in
close touch with the Emperor, and that Bliicher would have
found the road from Wavre to Waterloo' effectually blocked.
Napoleon's right arm would not then have been paralyzed ;
he would have been free to throw his whole army on Wel
lington's flank and rear. Fortunately for Wellington, Grouchy,
and not Davout, was that day in command of Napoleon's
detached wing. Butler's command and mission in the Virginia
campaign of 1864 were almost exactly similar to the command
and mission of Grouchy in the Waterloo campaign of 1815 ;
and now' to discuss the operations of the Army of the
Potomac in the Wilderness and at Spottsylvania without
constant reference to what the Army of the James was on
those days doing south of the James, is a treatment no less
defective than it would be to try to explain what took place
at Waterloo without giving any consideration to Grouchy's
blundering march from Gembloux to Wavre. Butler, like
Grouchy, was left by the commander-in-chief to act, under
general instructions, as the conditions of time and place, and
the movements of the enemy in his front, might make more
expedient, the plan of campaign and general strategic situa
tion being^ always clearly in mind. Both failed, and failed
1 " Lastly, to put such an important operation as this under the charge of a
civilian who had never made any military reputation was really an unwarrant
able piece of folly. If, as Badeau says, Mr. Lincoln insisted upon it on political
grounds, it would have done Mr. Lincoln no harm for -General Grant to have re
minded him, in distinct and not to be misunderstood speech, that the Congress
of the United States had placed him. Grant, in charge of the armies of the
United States for the very purpose of seeing to it that this sort of thing should
not occur in the future, as it had so often in the past." (J. C. Ropes, Papers of
Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, vol. iv. p. 369.)

MR. rhodes's fifth VOLUME. 37
utterly. In each case incalculable disaster ensued. My
point is that, in the narrative of Mr. Rhodes, Butler does not
figure as the Grouchy of the Wilderness.
It is obvious enough now, and, when too late, was plain
enough to Grant then, that a blunder of selection entailing
infinite detriment was made. In planning his campaign of
1864 Grant should have taken no chances ; and it is safe to
say that at no subsequent period would he have entrusted
to Butler any military operations. Probably at the time he
relied on General W. F. ("Baldy") Smith, assigned to the
command of the Eighteenth Corps, and second in rank in the
Army of the James, to supply Butler with that military guid
ance of which he stood in such crying need. If this was so.
Grant was wrong again. Smith was then fresh from Chatta
nooga, where he had shown great skill immediately under
Grant's eye ; and perhaps no one available in the whole Union
army at that time promised a more brilliant future. So high
an opinion did Grant then hold of Smith that when the newly
appointed Lieutenant-General came East in February, 1864,
to take full charge, he brought Smith with him, with the
half-formulated idea of substituting him for Meade in com
mand of the Army of the Potomac. This idea Grant subse
quently abandoned, finding a place for Smith in the Army of
the James ; but, unfortunately, he did not substitute him for
Butler as he had proposed to do for Meade,. Instead of so
doing he endeavored, taking a half-way course, by indirec
tions to work directions out. As usual, when in military
operations that feat is attempted, a terrible mistake was made.
Smith was, in fact, a skilful engineer ; in all respects a good
soldier ; and, in some, a brilliant commander. But Butler,
though himself a military harlequin, was a man not easj^ to
guide; nor was "Baldy" Smith the man to guide him. On
the contrary, he was almost the last of those high in rank to
whom that task, at once difficult and delicate, should have
been assigned.^ A year later. General Grant would unques
tionably have selected Sheridan, to do tbe work thus hesitat
ingly assigned ; but, in May, 1864, Sheridan had not forged
to the front as he afterwards so rapidly did. None the less,
just as it is curious to consider what would have been the
1 " General Smith, whilst a very able officer, is obstinate, and is likely to con
demn whatever is not suggested by himself." (Grant to Hancock, May 21, 1865.)

68 SOME PHASES OF THE CIVIL WAR.
result in June, 1815, had Davout filled the position in Napo
leon's command held by Grouchy, so we are free to philoso-
. phize to any extent we see fit over what might have happened
in May and June, 1865, had Beauregard then found himself
confronted by Sheridan instead of by Butler.
The recollection of events and talk of more than forty years
ago was the sole basis for the statements made in the text, and
the conclusions drawn therefrom. Throughout the period in
question I was attached in a subordinate capacity to the head
quarters of the Army of the Potomac, and was, almo.st of ne
cessity, more or less familiar with operations then going on
in the field, and the views generally held at and about head
quarters of them, and of those who had had them in charge.
But, however vivid and distinct it may be, the memory of
what was asserted, or actually occurred, more than the life
time of a generation ago is no basis for any historical state
ment. While revising this paper I have therefore sought to
refresh my memory and verify my recollections by consulting
portions of the vast mass of material put in print since 1865,
especially the War Records, Grant's Personal Memoirs (1885),
Butler's Book (1892), Roman's Military Operations of General
Beauregard (1884), W. F. Smith's Chattanooga to Petersburg
(1893), and, on the whole as illuminating as any, our late asso
ciate John C. Ropes's paper (1884) entitled Grant's Campaign
in Virginia.! While from these authorities I have learned
much I did not before know as to details, I have come across
nothing affecting the general correctness of the impressions
I at the time received.
Grant's original plan of combined campaign for the spring
of 1864 was exactly that described. To quote his own lan
guage in his instructions to Meade, " Lee's army will be your
objective point. Wherever Lee goes, there you will go also.
Gillmore will join Butler with about 10,000 men from South
Carolina. Butler can reduce his [Fortress Monroe garrison] so
as to take 23,000 men into the field directly to his front. The
force will be commanded by Major-General W. F. Smith.
With Smith and Gillmore, Butler will seize City Point, and
operate against Richmond from the south side of the river.
1 This paper appears as Number XV. (pp. 363-405) in the volume entitled " The
Wilderness Campaign," of the publications of the Military Historical Society of
Massachusetts.

MR. rhodes's FIFTH VOLUME. " 39
His movement will be simultaneous with yours." ^ At the
same time Grant wrote to Butler as follows : — Major-General
Smith " is ordered to report to you to command the troops
sent into the field from your own department. . . . The fact
that Richmond is to be your objective point, and that there
is to be co-operation between your force and the Army of the
Potomac, must be your guide." Butler was at once to seize
City Point, and there. Grant wrote, " concentrate all your
troops for the field as rapidly as you can. From City Point
directions cannot be given at this time for your further move
ments." Holding a firm base on the south bank of the James,
Butler was thus left free to move in any direction he saw
fit; and "should the enemy be forced into his intrenchments
in Richmond, the Army of the Potomac would follow, and by
means of transports the two armies would become a unit." ^
Such were Butler's instructions; meanwhile of Smith, wlio
was " to command the troops sent into the field," Grant at the
same time wrote to Halleck, General Smith "is possessed of
one of the clearest military heads in the army ; is very prac
tical and industrious. No man in the service is better quali
fied than he for our largest commands." ^ General Smith " is
really one of the most efficient officers in service, readiest
in expedients, and most skilful in the management of troops
in action." * On the night of May 5th Butler debarked at
Bermuda Hundred. The movement was a complete surprise
to the Confederates. By mere chance General Hagood's
South Carolina brigade was moving by rail to Richmond,
when, on the 6th of May at Walthall Junction, between
Petersburg and Richmond, they encountered a brigade thrown
forward by Butler to seize the railroad at that point. The
Confederates " jumped off the platform cars upon which they
were borne, the [Union] brigade . . . was in view, some
thousand yards off, across an open field, advancing in line of
battle, and supported by artillery ... a brisk action ensued.
The [Union brigade] made two direct attacks, and, after a
second repulse, at nightfall withdrew."^ " Thus were Peters-
1 Grant to Meade, April 9, 1864, Personal Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 135.
2 Grant to Butler, April 2, 1864, Butler's Book, p. 630 ; War Records, Serial
No. 95, p. 15.
2 Grant to Stanton, November 12, 1863, Chattanooga to Petersburg, p. 15.
* Grant to Halleck, July 1, 1804, ibid. p. 29.
^ Roman, Beauregard, vol. ii. p. 552.

40 ' SOME PHASES OF THE CIVIL WAR.
burg and Richmond barely saved by the opportune presence
and gallant conduct of Hagood's command. It was upon that
occasion that General Butler's forces were baffled and beaten
off in their attempt to seize the Richmond railroad above
Petersburg." ^ " The authorities at Richmond were now in
a state of great excitement. The enemy had been repulsed
on the Richmond railroad, and, to all appearance, had aban
doned his original intention of investing Petersburg; but
where he would next attempt to strike was the all-absorbing
question." ^ At this juncture Beauregard had not yet arrived
from Weldon; nor were there 3,000 men all told south of
Walthall Junction, or available for the defence of Petersburg.
The key to the whole military situation was unprotected.
" Meanwhile troops were hastily called for from all quarters,"
and on the 10th Beauregard arrived, with the first body of re
inforcements. The golden opportunity was rapidly passing.
On the evening of the 9th Generals Gillmore and Smith, being
then at Swift's Creek, about four miles north of Petersburg,
united in a written communication to General Butler suggest
ing that the whole command should be directed on Petersburg
instead of Richmond, as previously agreed. They claimed
that " all the work of cutting the [rail]road, and perhaps cap
turing the city, can be accomplished in one day." Refusing
even to consider the suggestion. General Butler, the same
evening, returned a reply beginning as follows: —
" Generals, — While I regret an infirmity of purpose which did not
permit you to state to me, when I was personally present, the sug
gestion which you made in your written note, but left me to go to my
head- quarters under the impression that another and far different
purpose was advised by you, I shall not yield to the written sugges
tions, which imply a change of plan made within thirty minutes after
I left you. Military affairs cannot be carried on, in my judgment,
with this sort of vacillation. The information I have received from
the Army of the Potomac convinces me that our demonstration should
be toward Richmond, and I shall in no way order a crossing of the
Appomattox for the purpose suggested in your note." '
The date of this correspondence (May 9) is important. The
battle of the Wilderness had been fought on May 5th and 6th,
that of Spottsylvania was jto begin on May 10th, and not until
1 Roman, Beauregard, vol. ii. p. 198. '^ Ibid. p. 199.
3 War Records, Serial No. 68, p. 35.

MR. rhodes's FIFTH VOLUME. 41
the 12th was the famous assault made on Lee's salient. The
Confederate army was hard pressed. To what extent at
just this juncture would sudden tidings of the capture of
Petersburg, and the consequent severing of his line of
southern sea-coast communication, have affected Lee's mind
and the entire strategic situation ? And it was just then that
Butler, contemptuously and insolently ignoring the recom
mendations of his two subordinates, allowed Beauregard to
establish himself at Petersburg, while the Army of the James
made " a demonstration " toward Richmond ! In his official
report of the whole campaign Grant subsequently said of this
"demonstration" that "the time thus consumed lost to us
the benefit of the surprise and capture of Richmond and
Petersburg, enabling, as it did, Beauregard to collect his
loose forces in North and South Carolina, and bring them to
the defence of those places." ^ The occasion was great, and
Beauregard showed himself equal to it. Rapidly concentrat
ing liis scattered and scanty command, he, on the 15th,
assumed the offensive. The next day (16th) he attacked
Butler at Di-ewry's Bluff. " Butler's army was driven back,
hemmed in, and reduced to comparative impotency, though
not captured. The danger threatening Richmond was, for the
time being, averted." ^
At that time the Army of the Potomac was fighting at
Spottsylvania fiercely and futilely, and not until June 3d, a
fortnight later, did the slaughter of Cold Harbor occur. The
great opportunity of May 9th, pointed out to Butler by his
lieutenants, had been allowed wholly to escape ; Lee's rear
and communications were secure ; Butler was safely " bottled
up " ; the Army of the Potomac, sorely crippled, had sustained
losses as heavy as they were unnecessary ; Grant's whole plan
of campaign had gone to pieces. Had Butler on May 9th,
correctly taking in the military situation, complied with the
suggestion of his two corps commanders, Petersburg must
have fallen into his hands ; Lee would perforce have been
compelled to fall back on Richmond ; the Cold Harbor assaults
would not have occurred ; and all subsequent operations
would have been other than they were.
Prior to this. May 7th, General Butler had written a
I War Records, Serial No. 95, p. 19.
'^ Roman, Beauregard, vol. ii. p. 209.
6

42 SOME phases OF THE CIVIL WAR.
letter marked " Confidential " to Senator Wilson of Massa
chusetts, then on the Senate Military Committee, beginning
th us : " My Dear Sir : — I must take the responsibility of
asking you to bring before the Senate at once the name of
General Gillmore, and have his name rejected by your body."
Nominated for promotion to the rank of Major-General, the
nomination of General Gillmore was then pending.^ Under
such circumstances the state of affairs in the Army of the
James not unnaturally became in May so unsatisfactory that
General Halleck at the request of General Grant sent (May
21st) Generals Meigs and Barnard to investigate. On the
24th they gave it as their opinion that " an officer of military
experience and knowledge [should be placed] in command.
. . . General Butler . . . has not experience and training to
enable him to direct and control movements in battle. . . .
General Butler evidently desires to retain command in the field.
If his desires must be gratified, withdraw Gillmore, place Smith
in command of both corps under the supreme command of
Butler. . . . You will thus have a command which will be a
unit, and. General Butler will probably be guided by Smith,
and leave to him the suggestions and practical execution of
army movements ordered. Success would be more certain
were Smith in command untrammelled, and General Butler
remanded to the administrative duties of the departments."^
Difficulties naturally suggested themselves to the adoption
of the course thus recommended. General Gillmore was re
lieved of his command early in June,^ and the ill-feeling
between Butler and Smith culminated, June 21st, in a char
acteristic and extremely sharp correspondence,* as a result of
which General Smith requested to be relieved of the com
mand of the Eighteenth Corps. Then followed one of the most
extraordinary and inexplicable episodes of the war. Grant
wrote (July 1) to Halleck, advising him of the situation. He
said : " I regret the necessity of asking for a change of com
manders here, but General Butler, not being a soldier by
education or experience, is in the hands of his subordinates
1 Butler's Book, pp. 644, 1065.
2 War Records, Serial No. 69, p. 178.
8 Butler's Book, p. 679.
* War Records, Serial No. 81, pp. 299-301 ; From Chattanooga to Petersburg,
pp. 28, 155, 186-188.

MR. rhodes's FIFTH VOLUME. 48
in the execution of all orders military." Grant, however,
hesitated " to recommend his [Butler's] retirement." ^ This
brought out a most suggestive reply (July 3) from Halleck.
In it he said : " It was foreseen from the first tiiat you would
eventually find it necessary to relieve General B. on account
of his total unfitness to command in the field, and his generally
quarrelsome character." ^ The Chief of Staff then went on to
discuss the several dispositions which might be made of But
ler, significantly pointing out the danger to be apprehended
from " his talent at political intrigue, and his facilities for
newspaper abuse." He finally suggested: "Why not leave
General Butler in the local command of his department, in
cluding North Carolina, Norfolk, Fort Monroe, Yorktown, &c.,
and make a new army corps of the part of the Eighteenth
under Smith?" The letter closed with a sentence indicative
of the personal apprehension General Butler seemed to excite
in the breasts of those put in any position antagonistic to him.
The official Chief of Staff said : " As General Butler claims
to rank me, I shall give him no orders wherever he may go,
without the special direction of yourself or the Secretary
of War." Three days later, July 6th, Grant wrote to Hal
leck: "Please obtain an order assigning the troops of the
Department of Virginia and North Carolina serving in the
field to the command of Maj. General W. F. Smith, and
order Major General Butler, commanding department, to his
head-quarters. Fortress Monroe." In accordance with this
request. General Order No. 225 was at once issued. Curiously
enough the original order, forwarded both to Butler and Smith,^
read that " Maj. Gen. Smith is assigned by the President to the
command of the corps," etc. ; in the order as formally made
public the words " by the President " do not appear. This
order, though in conformity with the recommendation of
Generals Meigs and Barnard of six weeks before (May 24),
was highly objectionable to General Butler. Immediately
on receipt of it at Bermuda Hundred he rode over to the
head-quarters of General Grant, and asked if " this was his
act and his desire." Grant replied : " But I don't want
this." Colonel Mordecai afterwards wrote: " Gen'l Butle
1 War Records, Serial No. 81, p. 559.
•2 Ibid. p. 598.
' Butler's Book, p. 695 ; From Chattanooga to Petersburg, p. 33.

44 SOME phases of the civil war.
returned to camp about dusk, as I recall it, and, as he dis
mounted from his horse, remarked to a number of his staff
officers who were near him, ' Gentlemen, the order will be re
voked to-morrow.' " ^ Not only was the order revoked, but
General Butler's field command was extended so as to include
the Nineteenth Corps, while General Smith was "relieved from
the command of the Eighteenth Army Corps, and [directed
to] proceed to New York, and await further orders." ^
As respects the details of what transpired at the interview
above referred to. General James H. Wilson, whose relations
at the time and subsequently were intimate with both General
Grant and Smith, wrote in 1904 as follows, in that Memoir of
" Baldy" Smith already referred to : —
" It must be confessed that Grant's explanations of his later attitude
towards Smith, and of the reasons for relieving him and restoring Butler
to command, were neither full nor always stated in the same terms.
He ignores the subject entirely in his memoirs, but it so happens that
Mr. Dana, then Assistant Secretary of War, was sitting with General
Grant when Butler, clad in full uniform, called at headquarters, and
was admitted. Dana describes Butler as entering the General's pres
ence with a flushed face and a haughty air, holding out the order reliev
ing hira from command in the field, and asking : ' General Grrant, did
you issue this order ? ' To which Grant in a hesitating manner replied :
' No, not in that form.' Dana, perceiving at this point that the subject
under discussion was an embarrassing one, and that the interview was
likely to be unpleasant, if not stormy, at once took his leave, but the
impression made upon his mind by what he saw while present was that
Butler had in some measure ' cowed ' his commanding officer. What
further took place neither General Grant nor Mr. Dana has ever said.
Butler's Book, however, contains what purports to be a full account
of the interview, but it is to be observed that it signally fails to recite
any circumstance of an overbearing nature." '
The disposition of commands made in Special Order No. 62,
above referred to, continued in force until the Wilmington
expedition and the famous powder-boat explosion of the fol
lowing December. During the months intervening much had
happened. July, 1864, came about during one of the most
depressing, if not the most depressing, period of the whole
1 Chattanooga to Petersburg, p. 189.
^ Special Orders No. 62, July 19, 1864 ; Butler's Book, p. 1087.
8 Life and Services of W. F. Smith, pp. 112, 113.

MR. rhodes's fifth VOLUME. 45
struggle. Grant's movement against Richmond and Lee's
army had failed, after excessive loss of life ; Sherman's move
ment against Atlanta had not yet succeeded ; Washington was
threatened from the valley of the Shenandoah ; a presidential
election was immediately impending ; the country at large was
in a state of extreme discouragement ; the administration and
the generals in the field stood in manifest fear of Butler's
" talent for political intrigue and his facilities for newspaper
abuse." Six months later the whole aspect of affairs had
undergone a complete and, indeed, almost magical change.
Grant, it is true, was still held in firm check before Petersburg :
but Sherman had marched through Georgia and captured
Savannah ; Sheridan had won his victories in the valley ; Lin
coln had been re-elected ; the Confederacy was believed to be in
extremities. Under these circumstances that might safely be
done which in July had seemed to involve a political risk.
Accordingly, on January 4, 1865, Grant wrote to the Secre
tary of War : " I am constrained to request the removal of
Maj. Gen. B. F. Butler from the command of the Depart
ment of Virginia and North Carolina. I do this with reluc
tance, but the good of the service requires it. In my absence
General Butler necessarily commands, and there is a lack of
confidence felt in his military ability, making him an unsafe
commander for a large army. His administration of the af
fairs of his department is also objectionable."^ Three days
later (January 7) the following was issued from the War
Department : —
"General Orders No. 1.
" I. By direction of the President of the United States, Maj. Gen.
Benjamin F. Butler is relieved from the command of the Department
of North Carolina and Virginia. . . .
" II. Major-General Butler on being relieved will repair to Lowell,
Mass., and report by letter to the Adjutant-General of the Array."
Of General Butler as a field officer in active military service
General W. F. Smith wrote to General Grant, after asking to
be relieved from further service in the Department of Virginia
and North Carolina : "I want simply . . . to ask you how you
can place a man in command of two army corps, who is as
helpless as a child on the field of battle and as visionary as
1 War Record, Serial No. 96, p. 29.

46 SOME phases of the civil war.
an opium-eater in council? "^ Of the same commander. Ad
miral David D. Porter wrote to the Secretary of the Navy,
December 29, 1864, immediately after the withdrawal of the
first expedition against Wilmington, subsequently to the
powder-boat fiasco of December 24 : " If this temporary
failure succeeds in sending General Butler into private life, it
is not to be regretted." ^
1 Chattanooga to Petersburg, p. 37 ; War Records, Serial No. 81, p. 595.
2 Butler's Book, p. 1123.

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