Gens. Carter, Manigault, Quarles, Cockrell, and Scott were wounded, and Brig. Gen. Gordon captured. BATTLE OF NASHVILLE. The next morning Gen. Hood advanced upon Nashville, where Scho field had retreated, and where Thomas lay with his main force. He laid siege to the town on the 2d December, closely investing it for a fortnight. The opinion long prevailed in the Confederacy that in this pause and the operations of siege, Hood made the cardinal mistake of his campaign; and that if he had taken another course, and struck boldly across the Cumberland, and settled himself in the enemy's communications, he would have forced Thomas to evacuate Nashville, and fall back towards Kentucky. This was the great fear of Gen. Grant. That high Federal officer, in his report of the operations of 1864, has written: "Before the battle of Nashville I grew very impatient over, as it appeared to me, the unnecessary delay. This impatience was increased upon learning that the enemy had sent a force of cavalry across the Cumberland into Kentucky. I feared Hood would cross his whole army and give us great trouble here. After urging upon Gen. Thomas the necessity of immediately assuming the offensive, I started west to superintend matters there in person. Reaching Washington city, I received Gen. Thomas's despatch announcing his attack upon the enemy, and the result as far as the battle had progressed. I was delighted. All fears and apprehensions were dispelled." On the night of the 14th December, Thomas decided upon a plan of battle, which was to make a feint on Hood's right flank, while he massed his main force to crush in Hood's left, which rested on the Cumberland, and where the cover of the Federal gunboats might be made available. The brunt of the action did not fall until evening, when the enemy drove in the Confederate infantry outposts on the left flank. Hood, however, quickly ordered up troops from his right to stay the reversed tide of battle; and the remainder of the day was occupied by the enemy in sweeping the Confederate entrenchments with artillery fire, while here and there his infantry attempted, in vain, to find a weak spot in their lines. Under cover of the night Hood re-formed his line, and in the morning was found in position along the Overton Hills, some two miles or so to the rear of his original line. The new position was a strong one, running along the wooded crests of closely-connecting hills; while the two keys to it were the Granny White and Franklin pikes, leading to Franklin, Columbia, Pulaski, and so down the country to the Tennessee River. Thomas' overwhelming numbers enabled him to throw heavy columns against Hood's left and centre. But every attack of the enemy was repulsed. It was four o'clock in the evening, and the day was thought to be decided for the Confederates, when there occurred one of the most extraordinary incidents of the war. It is said that Gen. Hood was about to publish a victory along his line, when Finney's Florida brigade in Bates' division, which was to the left of the Confederate centre, gave way before the skirmish line of the enemy! Instantly Bates' whole division took the panic, and broke in disorder. The moment a small breach was thus made in the Confederate lines, the whole of two corps unaccountably and instantly fled from their ditches, almost without firing a gun. It was a disgraceful panic; muskets were abandoned where they rested between the logs of the breastworks; and everything that could impede flight was thrown away as the fugitives passed down the Granny White and Franklin pikes, or fled wildly from the battle-field. Such an instance of sudden, unlooked-for, wild retreat, the abandonment of a victory almost won, could only have happened in an army where thorough demoralization, the consequence of long, heavy, weary work, and of tremendous efforts without result-in short, the reaction of great endeavours where success is not decided, already lurked in the minds of troops, and was likely to be developed at any time by the slightest and most unimportant circumstance. Fifty pieces of artillery and nearly all of Hood's ordnance wagons were left to the enemy. His loss in killed and wounded was disgracefully small; and it was only through want of vigour in Thomas' pursuit that Hood's shattered and demoralized army effected its retreat. Forrest's command, and Walthal, with seven picked brigades, covered the retreat. The situation on the Tennessee River was desperate; Hood had no pontoon train, and if he had been pressed, would have been compelled to surrender; but as it was, Thomas' great error in resting upon his victory at Nashville enabled a defeated Confederate army to construct bridges of timber over the Tennessee River, while the Federal gunboats in the stream were actually kept at bay by batteries of 32-pounders. Hood succeeded in escaping across the Tennessee, but only with a remnant of the brilliant force he had conducted across the river a few weeks before, having lost from various causes more than ten thousand men, half of his Generals, and nearly all of his artillery. Such was the disastrous issue of the Tennessee campaign, which put out of existence, as it were, the splendid army that Johnston had given up at Atlanta, and terminated forever the whole scheme of Confederate defence west of the Alleghanies. 1 CHAPTER XXXVI. 66 CAMPAIGN OF 1864 IN THE VALLEY OF VIRGINIA.-ITS GENERAL DESIGN AS A STRATEGIC REFLECTIONS To Hood's unbroken series of disasters there was a companion-piece in another part of the Confederacy: a small theatre of the war, but an important and a conspicuous one, associated with many heroic memories of the Confederacy. This other chapter of misfortune was Early's campaign in the Valley of Virginia. In this campaign a Confederate General never won a victory; lost all of his artillery, and brought an army to practical annihilation. But, although like Hood's misadventure in these particnlars, the campaign in the Valley is to be judged by another standard ; while marked by some undoubted misconduct, it had much to excuse its impotent conclusion, and it was, in some respects, what its commander designated it" a forlorn hope." We have already pointed out the first object of Early's operations in the Valley as substantially the same which took Stonewall Jackson there in 1862-the diversion of a portion of the Federal forces from the great arena of combat in the lowlands. It was also important to save, as far as possible, the harvests of the Shenandoah and to protect the Gordonsville road; but the campaign was mainly a strategic auxiliary to the operations around Petersburg and Richmond. In consequence of the threatening attitude of Early, who since he had moved across the Potomac, had been able to send a raiding party into Pennsylvania, which on the 30th July burned Chambersburg, Gen. Grant had been unable to return the Sixth and Nineteenth corps to the Army of the Potomac. On the contrary, he saw the necessity of an enlarged campaign to protect the frontiers of Maryland and Pennsylvania. What was called the Middle Department, and the Departments of West Virginia, Washington, and Susquehanna, were constituted into one under the command of Gen. Sheridan. The new commander was a man of a coarse, active nature, excessive animal spirits, and an intensely combative temperament-an antagonist not to be despised, although he had shown no distinct military genius, and was only remarkable in the war for the execu tion of single tasks indicated to him by his superiours. He had an amount of force which was all he could have asked for as a condition of success. In addition to the column of active operation under his command, consisting of the Sixth and Nineteenth corps, and the infantry and cavalry of West Virginia under Crook and Averill, there were assigned to him two divisions of cavalry from the Army of the Potomac under Torbert and Wilson. His effective infantry strength was about thirty-five thousand muskets; and his great superiority in cavalry was very advantageous to him, as the country was very open and admirably adapted to the operations of this arm. Gen. Lee had long been persuaded that he was too weak to attack the enemy's works in his front at Petersburg. Information derived from trusty scouts and from reconnoissances pushed to the rear of the enemy's flanks, proved the impracticability of turning them. The only resource was strategy, and that obviously the renewal of the Valley campaign, to develop, if possible, a crisis in the situation about Petersburg and Richmond. GEN. LEE'S PLAN TO RELIEVE RICHMOND. 591 On the 4th August, 1864, an order was issued from the headquarters of Lee's army, dircting the march of Kershaw's division of Longstreet's corps, and Fitzhugh Lee's division of cavalry to Culpepper Court-house. Lieut.-Gen. R. H. Anderson was then commanding the troops of Gen. Longstreet (the latter being still incapacitated from duty by the wound received in the battles of the Wilderness), and was assigned to command the expedition. The force ordered for it was withdrawn from Grant's front on the south side of the James; Fitzhugh Lee's division being on the Confederate right in the vicinity of Ream's Station on the Weldon Railroad. Gen. Lee's intentions, as explained to his officers, were to send the troops of Kershaw and Fitzhugh Lee to co-operate with Early in movements on the Maryland border, or even in the State itself. He wanted the enemy in Washington and vicinity "stirred up," as much as possible, and the impression produced that our force was a large one. Upon reaching Culpepper Court-House, Fitzhugh Lee was to go down towards Alexandria and make a demonstration in that vicinity, and if his information as to the disposition of the enemy's forces and strength warranted, Anderson and he were to cross the Potomac about Leesburg, Early crossing higher up, and all to act in concert against Washington or produce that impression. Gen. Anderson was sent on the expedition, though only one division of his corps was detached, because the enemy knew he commanded in Longstreet's place, and the idea might be taken that the whole corps was en route. It was possible, then, that Grant might send a corresponding force to counteract the movement, in which case the remainder of the corps could be sent, and the demonstration continued on a larger scale. In brief, Gen. Lee explained that he was going to try to manœuvre Grant from the front of Richmond. The other alternative which presented itself was that under the supposition that Lee had weakened himself by a whole corps, Grant might be induced to attack, which Gen. Lee conceived to be at that time a very desirable object. No sooner had Anderson's and Fitzhugh Lee's troops reached Culpepper Court-House, than a despatch was received from Early, stating that, in consequence of the concentration of a large force in his front, whilst in the lower part of the Valley, he had been compelled to fall back to the strong position at Fisher's Hill, and asking for reinforcements. This necessitated the movement of Anderson and Lee at once to his support; and their march was at once directed to Front Royal, by the way of Chester Gap in the Blue Ridge. They arrived at Front Royal on the 15th August. Early was ascertained to be at Strasburg, some ten miles distant. The road connecting the two places and running to the base of the Massanutton or Fort Mountain, was in possession of the enemy, who was also in large force in Early's front. |