Such, in my judgment, were the two great antagonist forces, and such their leaders in our civil war.

Recurring now to the autumn of 1861, these two forces stood facing each other with one of the most difficult problems of the science of war before them. The line of separation was substantially the Potomac, the Ohio, and a line through southern Missouri and the Indian Territory to New Mexico, fully two thousand miles long; but this naturally divided itself into three parts- the east or Potomac (McClellan), the center or Ohio (Buell), and the west or Missouri (Halleck). Confronting them was the Army of Northern Virginia (Johnston-Lee), that of the Cumberland (Albert Sidney Johnston), and that of the trans-Mississippi (McCulloch Price). All these were educated and experienced soldiers. The North necessarily took the offensive, and the South the defensive. After much preliminary skirmishing the first significant movement was that of General Thomas, January 20, 1862, who moved forward, attacked, defeated, and killed General Zollicoffer, at Mill Springs, Kentucky; the next was that of General Grant from Cairo, Illinois, up the Tennessee River in conjunction with the gunboat fleet under Commodore Foote, which captured Fort Henry, and afterwards (February 14th-16th) Fort Donelson, in which the Union losses are reported, 2886, and the Confederate, 15,067,* most of these prisoners of war. The prompt capture of these two fortified positions with their garrisons compelled the Confederate general, Johnston, to abandon his fortified flanks at Bowling Green, Kentucky, and Columbus, on the Mississippi River, and to fall back two hundred miles to a new line along the Memphis and Charleston railroad. The Union armies followed up this movement, the one (Grant) to Shiloh, abreast of Corinth, the other (Pope) directly down the Mississippi River, the real " objective" of this grand campaign. There was still another army, under General S. R. Curtis, an educated and professional soldier, moving southward, west of the Mississippi River, which encountered its enemy at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, on the 6th-8th of March, defeated him, inflicting a loss of 5200* men to his of 1384. These three armies, under the command of General Halleck at St. Louis, were operating from a secure base, with abundant supplies on "concentric lines," with a well-defined and important "objective," the recovery of the Mississippi River, the chief navigable river of the continent, which had been forcibly taken possession of by the enemy, its banks fortified with heavy guns, and with several

The Army of the Ohio, General Buell, moved forward to Nashville and the Tennessee River.

Here the Confederate general, Albert Sidney Johnston, displayed great skill and generalship by using his railroads, collecting all his scattered forces at Corinth, Mississippi, completely reorganizing them and hurling them with terrific energy on Grant at Shiloh, timing his attack so as to overwhelm this army before the arrival of the Army of the Ohio, approaching from the direction of Nashville. On the first day, April 6, 1862, he was partially successful, but met a foe of equal skill and determination, and there lost his life, necessitating a change of commanders in the very crisis of battle. He was succeeded by Beauregard, who continued the attack; but the Union forces under Grant held the key-points of the position till night, when arrived the division of Lew Wallace, which had been detached, and three divisions of the Army of the Ohio. The next morning the Union armies assumed the "offensive," drove the Confederates back to Corinth, and won the victory. The losses are recorded 13,573 to the Union, and 10,699 to the Confederates. This was a highly critical battle, more important in its moral than its physical results. It gave the Union army great confidence in itself, and in its ability not only to defeat the Confederate armies, man to man, but to overcome the "obstacles of nature" and the machinations of an "exasperated people."

While these movements were in progress down the Mississippi, Commodore Farragut, with his sea-going fleet, a flotilla of mortarboats under Commodore Porter, and a land force under General Butler, was preparing to reach the same "objective " from the mouth of the river. On the 20th of April, Farragut began by breaking the chain of obstacles at Forts Jackson and Saint Philip, both works planned by scientific engineers and built by competent workmen; both were well garrisoned and supplied, with heavy artillery and abundance of ammunition. Then he steamed by these forts, fighting right and left in his "wooden ships with hearts of steel," instantly attacked the Confederate fleet above, utterly annihilated it, went on up to the city of New Orleans and captured it all inside of ten days. No bolder or more successful act of war was ever done than this, which was fully equal to Nelson's attack on the French fleet at Aboukir, and infinitely more important in its conse

The Official Records, while not conclusive, would seem to place this loss at a much smaller figure.— EDITOR.

quences. Had not events elsewhere delayed the movement from the North, the Mississippi would have been ours in the summer of 1862, whereas its recovery was only postponed till 1863.

Almost coincident with the battle of Shiloh, General Pope, operating down the Mississippi in coöperation with the gun-boat fleet of Commodore Foote, attacked the fortified Island No. 10, and on the 8th of April captured it, with all its stores and most of its garrison. The gun-boat fleet, pushing on down the river, encountered Fort Pillow on the 14th of April, again on the 10th of May, and June 4th captured it; and under command of Commodore Davis pushed on to Memphis, where, June 6th, it absolutely destroyed the Confederate fleet of gun-boats, thus leaving no obstacle, except Vicksburg, to the free navigation of the river.

General Halleck, after the battle of Shiloh, ordered General Pope's army by water from Island No. 10 to Shiloh, and proceeded there himself to command the several armies in person. He organized these, viz., of the Ohio, Tennessee and Mississippi, into the usual right and left wings, center, and reserve, and moved, about the end of April, with great deliberation on the Confederate army intrenched at Corinth, Mississippi, a strategic place of value, being the point of intersection of two important railroads. After some immaterial skirmishing the Confederate general, Beauregard, abandoned the place, fell back to Tupelo, fifty miles south on the Mobile and Ohio railroad, and the Union forces occupied Corinth, May 30, 1862. General Halleck then had in hand one of the strongest and best armies ever assembled on this continent, and could easily have pursued Beauregard, scattered his army, marched across to Vicksburg, then unfortified, occupied it, and thus brought to a brilliant conclusion the campaign he had so well begun; he could have made the Mississippi open to commerce, created a complete isolation of the trans-Mississippi department of the Confederates, and thereby set free, for other uses, three-fourths of his army of one hundred thousand men. But the reverses to McClellan in the worthless peninsula of James River, and the appeal of the good Union people of East Tennessee, caused our President and commander-in-chief to break up that army and call General Halleck to Washington, send Buell's army towards Chattanooga, and leave General Grant with the Army of the Tennessee to defend a line of one hundred and fifty miles (Tuscumbia to Memphis), placing him on the defensive with a bold, skillful, and enterprising enemy at his front. The Confederate armies of Price and Van Dorn were brought from across the

Mississippi to face Grant from Holly Springs. Bragg, who succeeded Beauregard at Tupelo, moved his army, reënforced by recruits, detachments, and exchanged prisoners, rapidly by rail to Chattanooga to meet Buell, who had marched across from Corinth. Feeling himself equal if not superior to Buell, Bragg, August 21, 1862, began that really bold and skillful campaign which forced Buell back to his base of supplies at Louisville, on the Ohio River. Here, in his turn, Buell received reënforcements and resumed the offensive, encountering Bragg at Perryville, Kentucky, on the 8th of October, 1862, inflicting a loss to the enemy of 7000, to his own of 4348, which induced Bragg to fall back to Murfreesboro', Tennessee.

Meantime Price and Van Dorn began to be aggressive against General Grant's long, thin line of defense; but Grant met them with consummate skill, at every point, as at Iuka, September 19th-20th, and at Corinth, October 3d-4th, the casualties of which are reported 2359 Union and 14,221* Confederate fiercely contested battle at which Rosecrans commanded, and which was conclusive of events in that quarter to the end of the war.

a

Grant then, November, 1862, resumed the original offensive against Vicksburg,— known to be strongly fortified, occupied by a competent garrison, and covered by the armies of Price and Van Dorn, under the command of Lieutenant-General Pemberton, whose headquarters were at Holly Springs, Mississippi. Leaving small detachments to guard the keypoints to his rear, Grant moved with all his force straight against Pemberton, who first formed his defensive line behind the Tallahatchie, and, this being too long for his strength, fell behind the Yalabusha at Grenada. Grant moved his scattered forces concentrically on Oxford, Mississippi, which he occupied on the 2d of December, and then resolved to send Sherman back to Memphis with one of his four brigades to organize, out of new troops arrived there and other troops belonging to Curtis at Helena, Arkansas, an expeditionary force to move by the river direct against Vicksburg, whilst he held the main force under Pemberton so occupied that he could not detach any of his men to that fortress. After Sherman had started, Pemberton detached Van Dorn with a strong cavalry command to pass around the flanks of Grant's army, to capture his depot of supplies at Holly Springs, and to go on northward, destroying his line of communication. Van Dorn, an educated soldier, did his work well, and compelled Grant to halt and finally to take up a new base of supplies at Memphis. Meantime Sherman went * Later compilations make this 4707.— EDITOR.

Ringgold Gap, twenty-six miles; and then only paused because of the necessity to send relief to General Burnside at Knoxville. This was fully accomplished, so that by the end of November the enemy was beaten at all points, and the temporary check at Chickamauga was fully redeemed. The losses in the Union army were 5615, to the Confederate loss of 8684. All the movements were made strictly according to the lessons of war as taught by the great masters, and they will stand the test of the most rigid critic.

I now turn with some degree of hesitation to the great Army of the Potomac, operating directly in front of Washington, and which European and Eastern critics, whose sight apparently could not penetrate beyond the Alleghanies, watched with painful solicitude. That army was from the beginning to the end of the war the controlling military force of the Union cause; and never was an army more true and loyal to its government, more obedient to its generals, more patient in adversity, more magnanimous in victory than was the Army of the Potomac. After the episode of Bull Run in July, 1861, General McClellan was called from the West by universal acclaim to command it; and on the retirement of General Scott, by reason of age, November 1st, General McClellan was appointed by President Lincoln to command all the armies of the United States. He proceeded with commendable skill and energy to the work of organization, equipment, and transportation; but the season for active operations had passed, and his army remained on the banks of the Potomac at the beginning of 1862. The Confederate army, under General Joseph E. Johnston, was at Centreville, twenty-six miles south, with outposts in sight of the National Capitol, and had established batteries on the river below threatening the water-line of supply from the direction of the Chesapeake. General McClellan's "Own Story," now a part of history, shows that he was conscious of the impatience of the whole country at his seeming quiescence; and I am not surprised that Mr. Lincoln should have assumed his unquestioned power to issue his General Order No. 1, of January 27th, ordering a simultaneous advance of all the armies on the 22d of February, 1862. The Army of the Potomac advanced directly from their camps to the front at Fairfax and Centreville, to find that the Confederates had gone behind the Rappahannock.

At Fairfax Court House, on the 11th of March, General McClellan received President Lincoln's war order, No. 3, relieving him of the command of the armies of the United States; restricting his authority to the single Army of the Potomac; and in common with

VOL. XXXV.-80.

all other department commanders requiring him to report promptly and frequently to the Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton. Meantime had been fully discussed the plan of campaign, the bases of supply, lines of operation, fortresses, etc., partly by conference, and partly by a correspondence given at length in McClellan's "Own Story," culminating in the two letters of February 3, 1862, on p. 229. The result was the movement against Richmond by way of Fort Monroe, resulting in innumerable delays at Yorktown, Williamsburg, etc., till the 31st of May, when was fought the first considerable battle of " Fair Oaks," or "Seven Pines," near Richmond, at which General Johnston was wounded, and General Lee succeeded him in command of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Soon followed the battle of Gaines's Mill, and McClellan's "retreat," fighting for seven days (June 25thJuly 1st) to reach Harrison's Landing on the James River, twenty-five miles below Richmond, as a new "base" from which to renew his offensive against Richmond, when his army had become rested and reënforced from the North. During his stay at Harrison's Landing, July 2d-August 17th, the temper of his correspondence, official and private, was indicative of a spirit not consistent with the duty of the commanding general of a great army.

After reading McClellan's "Own Story," and the principal histories of that period, coupled with conversations with many of his principal subordinates, I am convinced that McClellan's fatal mistake was in the choice of his "line of operations" in the spring of 1862. I believe that had he moved straight against his antagonist behind the Rappahannock with his then magnificent army, and had he fought steadily and persistently, as Grant did two years later, he would have picked up his detachments, including McDowell's corps, would have reached Richmond with an overwhelming force, would have captured the city, possibly the Confederate army,—at least would have dispersed it,- thus ending the war.

I do not entertain the idea that Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Stanton, Mr. Chase, and General Halleck could have conspired for his defeat, lest McClellan should become a rival presidential candidate, or for any motive whatsoever. He had ample power and adequate force, but failed in his "objective," which should have been the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, instead of the city of Richmond. Of course, the withdrawal of Blenker's division and McDowell's corps at the crisis of his attack on Richmond were large factors in his failure, but these were direct consequences of his own plan of campaign, which involved the defense of Washington as well as the capture of Rich

mon mistake in strategy.

a man of pure character, of great intelligence, learned in the science of war, and with all the experience possible in our country with its limited military establishment. He was graduated at West Point, No. 2 in the class of 1846; went directly to the war in Mexico, whence he returned with an exalted reputation for soldiership under fire; was selected by the War Department for many scientific purposes, among them to proceed to Sebastopol in 1856, to observe the operations of the armies there engaged; and soon after the outbreak of our Rebellion was chosen with universal assent to command the principal army of the Union. No man knew better than he that the problem of war demanded an aggressive soldier. He failed because he chose a wrong "objective" and a wrong "line of operation a comMeantime General Halleck, July 16, 1862, had been summoned from Corinth, Mississippi, to Washington, to command the armies of the United States, and thus the Army of the Potomac had four commanding generals, the President, the Secretary of War, General Halleck, and General McClellan,-each giving orders, planning campaigns, ordering detachments hither and thither, seemingly without concert, and based on the latest information by "spies and informers." Nothing but Divine Providence could have saved this nation from humiliation at that crisis of our history. General John Pope, whose work at Island No. 10 and at Corinth had been personally seen by General Halleck, was brought east by him and given command of the scattered forces left behind by McClellan to protect Washington against Stonewall Jackson and the Confederate hosts who believed that Washington was synonymous with the Union cause, and that if Washington could be captured "the game was up." General Pope skillfully collected and disposed his forces, and fought them manfully. The Army of the Potomac, by Halleck's orders, was withdrawn from Harrison's Landing and sent as rapidly as possible to the assistance of General Pope, who was threatened by Stonewall Jackson, followed by Lee's whole army. The battle of Groveton, or the second Bull Run, has been the subject of the most critical investigation, and I do not propose to mingle in that controversy; but I believe Pope fought valiantly and well, that he checked Lee in his full career for Washington, and brought his "forlorn-hope" to the defenses of Washington in as good condition as could have been done by any of his critics.

At all events the Army of the Potomac was back in front of Washington about the end of August, 1862, confronting its old enemy com

cible. On the 2d of September Major-General McClellan was ordered by the President to "have command of the fortifications of Washington, and of all the troops for the defense of the capital."* Pope's Army of Virginia was merged into that of the Potomac, then commanded by McClellan.

Lee then began his invasive campaign into Maryland, crossing the Potomac by its upper fords east of Harper's Ferry, having detached Stonewall Jackson to capture Harper's Ferry and its garrison, which he did promptly on the 15th of September, at a loss to the Union of 11,783 men, to the Confederates of 500, and thereafter joined Lee at Antietam in time to render material assistance in that battle.

As soon as McClellan became convinced that Lee designed to cross the Potomac, he followed by roads leading north of that river, his left near it and his right extending to Frederick City, which he reached September 12th. The Confederates had been there the day before, and had fallen back along the old National Road by Turner's and Crampton's Gaps of South Mountain (Blue Ridge), where a battle was fought on the 14th, in which the Union loss was 2325 to the Confederate 4343Lee called in all his detachments and prepared for battle at Sharpsburg, covering a ford of the Potomac River with Antietam Creek to his front, assuming the defensive. McClellan closed down on him and prepared to defeat him with a considerable river to his rear. This battle also has been one which has been discussed with crimination and recrimination in which I do not propose to engage, limiting myself to quotations from Soady:

It is an approved maxim in war never to do what the enemy wishes you to do, for this reason alone that he desires it. A field of battle, therefore, which he has previously studied and reconnoitered should be avoided, and double care should be taken where he has had time to fortify or intrench. One consequence deducible from this principle is never to attack a position in front which you can gain by turning (Napoleon) [p. 75].

General McClellan at the battle of Antietam, beside

that [sic] of making his attacks so disconnectedly that they afforded no help to each other, . . . kept 15,000 men in strict reserve to the very end of the battle-a force which properly employed might have been used to obtain some decisive advantage. For any practical effect. Porter's corps might as well have been at Washington. There is no example of any great tactician thus making useless his superiority of force of his own choice, except the single one of Napoleon refusing to employ his guard to decide the desperate struggle at Borodino; and although the great emperor had the strongest possible reason for thus reserving his best troops in the enormous distance from his depots which he arrived at, and the consequent impossibility of replacing them, yet he has been more condemned than admired for this striking deviation from his usual practice, which rendered his victory so "McClellan's Own Story," p. 536.