v1.1.1 / chapter 10 of 93 / 01 sep 07 / greg goebel / public domain
* As the year 1862 began, Union leadership planned future moves, while internal politics played itself out in obscure games. One such game resulted in the dismissal of Secretary of War Cameron and his replacement by Edwin M. Stanton. Another resulted in the unjust imprisonment of a conscientious Union officer, General Charles P. Stone.
Although the Union would have to wait until spring to conduct major offensives, some useful gains were made in the meantime. One, leading to a battle at Logan's Crossroads in Kentucky, helped undermine the Confederate line of defense for Kentucky and Tennessee. Another, the Federal seizure of Roanoke Island off the Virginia coast, helped tighten the blockade. Back on the home front, the Congress helped put the war on a better financial footing by authorizing the issue of paper money by the government for the first time in American history.
* The year 1861 had begun with the Union sliding downhill to disaster, but as it ended someone taking the long view might have seen reasons for satisfaction. The rebellion was in full swing, of course, and the Federals had suffered a number of humiliating beatings, but at least President Lincoln had been able to draw the line in Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and western Virginia. Significant actions had been taken to establish a blockade that would gradually exert stifling pressure on the Confederacy.
Lincoln was still not a happy person. He was a man of character, intelligence, and energy, but he was trying to deal with things no president of the United States had ever faced before, and the strain was murderous. Reporter William Howard Russell of the London TIMES wrote of the President running "from one house to another, armed with plans, papers, reports, recommendations, sometimes good-humored, never angry, occasionally dejected, and always a little fussy." There was something comical in it, enhanced by the President's lanky, bony, and, to many, homely appearance. In his defense, his supporters pointed out: "We didn't get him for ballroom purposes." Russell was gracious enough to see that there had been presidents who were more dignified, but who got much less done.
The generals stalled, the politicians bickered, and the nation called for action. It was all a big headache, aggravated by the fact that a president had very little staff in those days, and almost anyone could bear a grievance to him. When one day a friend found the President visibly depressed, he asked: "What's the matter? Have you bad news from the Army?" Lincoln replied: "No, it isn't the Army. It is the post office in Brownsville, Missouri."
When asked another time how he enjoyed his job, he told a story of a man who had been tarred and feathered and was being run out of town on a rail. When someone asked him if he was enjoying the ride, he replied: "If it wasn't for the honor of the thing, I'd rather walk."
The generals were the biggest worry. Lincoln had been pushing Generals Halleck and Buell to see if they were "in concert". Each had replied he had not the least idea of what the other was doing. General Halleck counseled against too much haste; in fact, Halleck went so far as to write a lecture explaining that a combined offensive was strategically unsound, and send it to the President. Lincoln scribbled on the letter: "It is exceedingly discouraging. As everywhere else, nothing can be done."
General Buell said he supposed General McClellan would provide a plan in due time. This was frustrating, since McClellan had been pressed for a plan ever since he had taken command and so far no plan had appeared. To be sure, McClellan had been considering an amphibious operation that he hoped would bypass the supposedly overwhelming defenses of the rebels in northern Virginia. The Navy would move troops over water down the Potomac into Chesapeake Bay, and then land them near Richmond. Unfortunately, the matter had not progressed beyond the paper stage, and McClellan had not seen fit to discuss his ideas with the President.
Congressmen screamed for something to be done, and to make matters worse, McClellan had fallen ill to a mild case of typhoid in December. On attempting to visit McClellan, only to be turned away, the distraught Lincoln visited the office of Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs, a sensible and competent soldier. Lincoln asked: "General, what should I do? The people are impatient; Chase has no money and tells me can raise no more; the General of the Army has typhoid fever. The bottom is out of the tub. What shall I do?"
General Meigs commented that if McClellan really had typhoid, he would be out of action for six weeks, and suggested that Lincoln consult with senior army officers. Lincoln took the suggestion seriously, and on 10 January 1862 the President called in two of McClellan's subordinates, Generals Irvin McDowell and William B. Franklin, as well Secretaries Seward and Chase, and the Assistant Secretary of War, Thomas Scott. Secretary of War Cameron was politically indisposed at the moment, a state of affairs that would become permanent the next day.
Lincoln told the generals that he was interested in an offensive against the rebels as soon as possible, adding that if General McClellan did not intend to use his army, he would "like to borrow it for a little while." The two men were obviously uncomfortable. Providing counsel to the President over the head of their superior officer was something they wouldn't have dared do on their own, but the President had asked and they couldn't refuse. McDowell, despite his defeat at Bull Run, suggested another land offensive by way of Manassas, while Franklin preferred the amphibious route to the back door of Richmond. The next night the men met again, and both agreed on the overland attack on Manassas since such an operation would be easier to organize. Lincoln told them to work on the plan. The group met again on 12 January for a short meeting.
At the fourth meeting on 13 January, this little flurry of activity was cut short by the abrupt appearance of McClellan, who had found out about the meetings, probably through Edwin Stanton, who had been telling McClellan that his enemies were counting on his death. McClellan had decided to get well in a hurry, though he was pale and weak -- not to mention very annoyed. Lincoln pressed him on the prospect of an offensive, but McClellan remained silent. Secretary Chase questioned him directly on the matter, and McClellan responded that he had a plan, but wouldn't discuss it in front of civilians unless the President directly ordered him to. Lincoln finally managed to at least get McClellan to state that he had a deadline in mind, and then adjourned the meeting.
* Typhoid and busybody Presidents weren't the only irritants on General McClellan's mind. There was also Senator Ben Wade and his Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War. Earlier in the month, in the course of their investigation into the fiasco at Ball's Bluff back in October, the committee had called General Charles P. Stone to testify. General Stone went before them assuming that they were simply after information, but the reality as that they were after him. His diligence in returning escaped slaves had not been forgotten, and not long after the battle at Ball's Bluff the rumor mill began to paint him as an outright traitor. Stone was further burdened by orders from headquarters not to reveal to the committee any element of McClellan's plans and orders without express permission. Not only was he under unrestrained attack, he was not allowed to properly defend himself.
Stone saw the Joint Committee for the kangaroo court that it was and asked his military superiors for a proper court of inquiry. He received a curt and shocking response: "Your military superiors are under attack, and that consideration involves the propriety of abstaining just now." That was the heart of the matter. The Joint Committee's real target was not Stone; he was just a convenient whipping boy. They were really after McClellan and, in a broader sense, the Lincoln Administration's policies for the conduct of the war.
General McClellan's abrupt recuperation put him back directly in the committee's sights, and they quickly called him to testify as well. The burning question was why, after five months of training, was the Army of the Potomac was not marching South to crush the rebels? McClellan responded, not unreasonably, with the details of logistics and strategy that were the preoccupation of any senior general, with a particular focus on the fact that there were only two bridges across the Potomac at Alexandria, which would have made retreat difficult in the case of a defeat.
To Ben Wade and Zach Chandler this sounded timid, and they pressed McClellan further. Wade pointed out that McClellan had substantial resources and asked: "Is it really necessary for you to have more bridges over the Potomac before you move?" McClellan replied: "Not that. "Not that exactly. But we must bear in mind the necessity of having everything ready in case of a defeat, and keep our lines of retreat open." After the meeting adjourned, Chandler railed about McClellan's "infernal, unmitigated cowardice!" To the radicals, McClellan was becoming as much the enemy as the Confederates.
* Despite Lincoln's frustrations, the President needed General McClellan. Some of the President's other servants were more replaceable. Lincoln had never been enthusiastic about Secretary of War Simon Cameron, and it had become obvious Cameron was a liability. The business of organizing a huge army was an expensive and troublesome task that demanded tremendous energy and ability, and Cameron was simply not up to the job. The result was widespread waste and fraud, with the government paying high prices for shoddy goods. Military inspectors had, for example, condemned 25,000 infantry coats, costing the government $167,750, in a single day.
Despite Cameron's shifty political reputation, there was no reason to believe that he was lining his own pockets at the government's expense; the problem was one of managerial incompetence. Still, that was enough. Lincoln had served notice to Cameron that matters were not satisfactory, and in response Cameron tried to be clever but only ended up committing political suicide. Knowing that his position was weak, Cameron decided to toady up to the radicals in Congress in hopes of making his dismissal more difficult. To this end, he included in his annual War Department report a passage earnestly advocating emancipation of all Southern slaves and their induction into the army. Without passing the document past the President for review, as was normal procedure, Cameron had the report mailed out in mid-December to postmasters of all the major cities while it was being read to Congress.
Lincoln quickly found out about the ploy and had the offending pamphlet recalled; it was reprinted without the controversial passage. However, the matter had still been made public, and Cameron was gratified to hear his praises sung by the radicals. The axe fell on him on 11 January 1862. Cameron received a note from the President informing him that he was being made ambassador to Russia. Cameron protested the abrupt nature of his dismissal, and Lincoln, who was perfectly reasonable on small points and actually liked Cameron on a personal basis, allowed him to write and predate a letter of resignation, to which the President wrote a warm reply, full of praise. Then, after some fuss from the radicals in Congress, Cameron was packed off to Russia.
Not all the radicals protested. Virulent old Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, a long-time enemy of Cameron's, grunted in disgust on hearing that Cameron was being sent to Russia, and added: "Send word to the Czar to bring in his things of nights!"
* Cameron's empty position was filled on 13 January 1862 by none other than Edwin M. Stanton. It seemed an odd choice. Stanton was exciteable, aggressive, downright nasty when so inclined, and his remarks about the "original gorilla", the "low, cunning clown", "that giraffe", at the head of the administration had not completely escaped Lincoln's attention. Despite all that, Stanton was an excellent man for the job. Although Stanton was a Democrat, he was a 100% Union man, and if he was often unpleasant the times called for people who were less than gentle. Stanton might have been ruthless, but he was also brilliant, competent, and tremendously energetic. He told an assistant: "As soon as I can get the machinery of the office working, the rats cleared out, and the ratholes stopped, we shall move." He would prove as good as his word.
As far as the remarks about the President went, Lincoln had a great, if not unlimited, indifference to personal abuse, and felt that he had use for Stanton. To be sure, Lincoln thought that Stanton might be in need of some restraint sooner or later, describing his prancing and bouncing as reminiscent of the Methodist preacher out West who became so overwrought in his prayers and exhortations that the congregation finally put bricks in his pockets to hold him down. Lincoln commented: "We may have to serve Stanton in the same way. But I guess we'll let him jump a while first."
Lincoln realized that Stanton had more bark than bite. Stanton was volatile but was not really very bold. One day Stanton burst into a presidential meeting, angrily waving a sheet of paper. He cried out: "Mr. President! This order cannot be signed! I refuse to sign it!" Lincoln looked Stanton in the eye and calmly replied: "Mr. Secretary, I guess that order will have to be signed." After a moment's silent confrontation, Stanton went back to his office and signed it.
* If Stanton had been disliked before becoming Secretary of War, now he became one of the most hated people in Washington. Government contractors who had been making easy profits selling shabby goods to Secretary Cameron's War Department now found themselves under much more severe scrutiny. Few else had a problem with that particular change in procedure, but Stanton also had strong ideas about internal security that weren't as popular.
Responsibility for internal security in the Union had previously been the domain of Secretary of State Seward and his State Department. Seward had established a small army of detectives, who sought out rebel sympathizers and sent them off to prison without much pretense of due process or concern for the facts. Seward seemed to be doing a clumsy job of it, however, and on 14 February 1862 internal security responsibilities passed over to Stanton's War Department. Stanton he moved to clean up the untidy state of affairs created by the secretary of state.
About 200 political prisoners were still being held at that time without due cause, some in fact who had no charges on record against them; their further detention was doing the Lincoln Administration much more harm than good. Since the war seemed to be going very much the Union's way at the time, Lincoln felt he could afford to be generous. He ordered the release of all political prisoners who would take a loyalty oath, with a commission of prominent gentlemen set up to oversee the process and given wide discretion in their ability to release prisoners.
However, Stanton did not interpret this as meaning he should go soft on secessionist trouble-makers, nor was he being told to. The Lincoln Administration would be more careful and selective in protecting internal security, but still did not feel a great need to follow the laws protecting the rights of citizens as they would have applied in peacetime. The iron fist remained; it was just that there would be some greater effort to keep it wrapped in the velvet glove.
The "rats" and "ratholes" that Stanton had referred to turned out to mean secessionist sympathizers still in the employ of the War Department, who had been casually sending information South using the department's own mail pouch. Stanton sacked those of doubtful loyalty and had some army officers arrested. He couldn't act so freely in other government departments, but under his direction the haphazard security apparatus he had inherited from Seward became a well-organized police machine that swept up the disloyal. There was no right of appeal. When a man came to Stanton's office demanding that a friend who had been locked up be released, Stanton replied angrily: "If I tap that little bell, I can send you to a place where you will never hear the dogs bark. And by heaven, I'll do it you say another word!"
His manners with the loyal citizenry won him few friends as well. After he settled into a routine, he reserved an hour of his time every morning for audiences with the public. People would come with their pleas and requests and stand in line in front of Stanton, who "looked as though he had not slept well, and as if it would not give him much pain to refuse your most urgent request." Each of the visitors would step forward and be expected to clearly state his or her business. Stanton would consider the matter and deliver a brusque judgement, and that would be the end of the discussion. When the hour was over, the room would be empty. He put it bluntly: "Individuals are nothing."
Despite this beady-eyed intensity, there was something complex about Edwin M. Stanton. He had considerable charm when he chose to use it, and sometimes he used it to mislead and deceive. There were hidden shadows in his nature. One person came into the Secretary's office unexpectedly, and found the man with his head down on his desk, sobbing bitterly. Long ago he had married for love, only to see his first child die, followed by his wife seven years after their marriage, leaving him crazed with grief. He married again. Ellen Stanton was said to be a striking woman, beautiful and cold and pale as marble, but his passions were focused on his work. He labored to late hours, and never engaged in any social activities; he cared little for money, and did not carry a watch.
He was determined to take control of the war. One of his first moves was to transfer the military telegraph center from the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac to his own offices while McClellan was out of town. From that time on, Stanton controlled what information was passed on to the press and to the Army high command. He was determined to weed out all traitors and reduce the military class to obedience to the Administration. His friendly ties with General McClellan quickly evaporated, inasmuch as they had ever really existed, since Stanton had been playing both sides of the fence all along. McClellan would with good reason rapidly come to regard the War Secretary as treacherous and a personal enemy.
* The obedience of the military leadership was of course a concern to the President as well. This was as manifested by a strange document that Lincoln issued on 27 January 1862, titled "President's General War Order No. One". It directed that the armed forces of the Union move in a coordinated offensive against the Confederacy within a month, on 22 February 1862, and the document made it clear that Lincoln expected the order to be obeyed. In the absence of any formal planning for an offensive, such an order appeared naive at best, and Lincoln later admitted the order was "all wrong". Even so, it certainly got General McClellan's attention. On 31 January, he gave Secretary Stanton a letter describing his plans in detail, demonstrating that Army headquarters was indeed giving careful thought to dealing with the rebels.
Lincoln challenged McClellan's plans, forcing the general to respond in detail. McClellan vigorously promoted his concept of an amphibious operation against Richmond, in which Federal forces would be transferred down the Potomac into Chesapeake Bay, then up the mouth of the Rappahanock river to a town named Urbanna. By such means, the Union would use its overwhelming naval force to bypass the supposedly superior Confederate armies and attack Richmond from the back. McClellan argued strongly against a direct assault on Johnston's army at Manassas Junction, and also proposed that his attack be supported by simultaneous movements by Buell and Halleck in the West, along with other amphibious attacks along the Atlantic seaboard and the Gulf Coast. These last items certainly appealed to the President, who had been asking for coordinated operations all along.
McClellan had now committed himself to action and was obliged to follow through, not the least because there were people taking careful notice of his actions and keeping up the pressure on him, if indirectly. The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War hadn't relented on General Charles P. Stone. They had been asking questions about him and had been getting some very odd answers; they were handed rumors of mysterious messages sent over rebel lines, and told stories of the general's excessive willingness to accommodate the rebels. There was nothing of substance in all this, in fact much of it could be easily proven false if anyone cared to check, but it was all very suspicious. After General Stone's earlier quarrel with Massachusetts Governor Andrews and Senator Charles Sumner, the Joint Committee was not inclined to give the general much benefit of doubt.
A few days before McClellan outlined his Urbanna plan, on 28 January, Secretary Stanton had sent McClellan a written order telling him to relieve General Stone of command and place him under arrest. McClellan relieved Stone but refused to arrest him, replying that Stone should have the opportunity to answer the charges against him. Stone went before the Committee on 31 January, to find himself faced with vague, unspecific, and unanswerable accusations. Stone protested against this humiliation and proclaimed his innocence, but a week later Secretary Stanton ordered that General Stone be arrested and imprisoned. On 8 February, McClellan reluctantly had the general arrested and escorted to Fort Lafayette in New York Harbor, where he was locked up and sealed off from any contact with the outside world. No charges had been brought against him, and no sentence had been passed on him. The injustice of the act did not escape the attention of the press. Lincoln commented, lamely, that he was glad that he "knew nothing of it until it was done." -- and did nothing to help the general.
McClellan carefully managed to distance himself from General Stone. McClellan would testify before the Committee a month later and skillfully manage to shift all blame for the Ball's Bluff disaster from his shoulders, but he certainly understood that those who had wrecked General Stone would not be satisfied to stop there.
* Secretary Stanton had no intention of simply waiting for General McClellan to come up with war plans, and the secretary had been searching for means to punish the rebels on his own. In the last days of January, his assistant Secretary of War, Thomas Scott, toured Kentucky to see what could be done to attack Confederate defenses in the southern part of the state. On 1 February, Scott sent Stanton a message suggesting that 60,000 men be transferred from the Army of the Potomac using all available railroad resources. The next day Scott elaborated, discussing how these forces could be used to take Bowling Green and Columbus, and then advance on Nashville. McClellan knew of the plan, and at least verbally approved. He hinted that he would be willing to go West and direct the operation himself. He needn't have been so concerned, since events in Kentucky were already in motion on their own.
* The US Army had begun to move in the West. The Confederate defense of the region appeared formidable on the surface, with Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston holding a line across southern Kentucky. At the west end of that line, General Polk occupied Columbus. In the center, the rebels held Bowling Green; General Buckner had been replaced in command there by General William J. Hardee, a Georgian who had been a commandant at West Point and had written a tactics manual that was standard in both the Union and Confederate armies. At the east end of the line, General Felix Zollicoffer occupied the Cumberland Gap.
The Confederate defense was really not as strong as it seemed. The rebels had some great fighters in their ranks, such as the tough Irishman Pat Cleburne; a daring Kentucky captain of cavalry named John Hunt Morgan; and, most significantly, another cavalryman, Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest of Tennessee. Unfortunately, the rebels were still outnumbered almost 2 to 1 by the Federals, and if the Union decided to give Albert Sidney Johnston's defenses a good hard kick they would almost certainly break wide open. If they broke, Nashville would almost certainly fall. The Confederacy could not afford to lose that city: it contained foundries forging cannons; mills turning out hundreds of pounds of gunpowder each day; clothing factories producing uniforms; warehouses full of supplies; and it was a crucial transportation hub.
The critical point in Johnston's line was where the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers flowed south through the Confederate line in west Tennessee, and then ran deep into Confederate territory. These rivers were navigable by steamboat over much of their length, and the Cumberland was effectively an open highway to Nashville. The defense of these vital waterways rested on Fort Henry on the Tennessee and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland. The forts were not ideally sited, since Albert Sidney Johnston's advance to Bowling Green in central Kentucky left the forts well behind the furthest extent of Confederate lines, but there was a rail line from Bowling Green to Memphis that ran behind them, allowing the forts to be quickly reinforced if need be. However, the rail line was vulnerable. If the Federals got their gunboats past the forts they could immediately destroy the railroad bridges across the rivers and cut the line.
Albert Sidney Johnston's aggressive game of bluff had worked so far, intimidating Halleck and Buell and even driving William Tecumseh Sherman off his head for the moment. Unfortunately for Johnston, the Yankees weren't the only ones who believed his propaganda. The Southern press trumpeted the strength of his armies, but if their true weakness became apparent, it would be a frightening disillusionment to the citizens of the Confederacy.
* Albert Sidney Johnston's focus was of course in the critical center, but the first shock to his defenses came at the eastern end of his line. After occupying the Cumberland Gap in the fall, in mid-December General Zollicoffer had been ordered to move northwest out of the mountains to the town of Mill Spring, 70 miles (113 kilometers) away on the southern bank of the Cumberland river. Zollicoffer had no military experience, and so Johnston decided to send a professional, George B. Crittenden, to take charge of the region. Crittenden was a West Pointer, a veteran of the Mexican War and Indian fighting, and a Kentuckian. He was one of the two sons of Senator John J. Crittenden, who had proposed the Crittenden Compromise in late 1860 to try to save the Union. Now George Crittenden was a Confederate major general, while his younger brother, Thomas L. Crittenden, was a brigadier general in the Union Army.
When George Crittenden arrived in Knoxville to take command, he found that the enthusiastic Zollicoffer had abandoned the relative safety of Mill Spring and gone north across the river. Zollicoffer was now exposed to attack by superior Union forces to the north, with a wide deep river in his rear, while he attempted with little success to enlist the locals in the Confederate Army and had his men on starvation rations. Crittenden sent a messenger to Zollicoffer with an order telling him to move back across the river immediately, but when Crittenden went forward to inspect Zollicoffer's forces in early January, he found that Zollicoffer had ignored the order, since he liked his current campsite, at a place called Beech Grove. Besides, Zollicoffer explained, there were reports that the Yankees were advancing, and withdrawing would seem cowardly.
Crittenden was shocked, and quickly found out it was all true. Federal forces under George H. Thomas were moving forward to attack the rebels. At the beginning of the month, Thomas had moved out of his camp at Lebanon, Kentucky, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Mill Spring, with 5.000 men. The march was a nightmare, with cold January rains turning roads into quagmires, and striking down Union soldiers from sickness and exposure. The march cost the little army about 20% of its men.
Crittenden took command from Zollicoffer but decided against recrossing the river, fearing that Thomas would catch his force in the middle of the move and destroy it. Crittenden prepared to be attacked, but the rains grew worse and the Federal advance turned into a further week of cold, misery, and mud. Thomas was nothing if not persistent, however. He was known as "Old Slow Trot", partly because of a back injury that prevented him from riding a horse at much more than that pace, but also because he was almost totally unflappable and given to plodding methodicalness. By 17 January, his troops had reached a place named Logan's Crossroads, 9 miles (15 kilometers) away from the rebels, where he went into camp to dry out before going into battle.
Crittenden had no intention of letting Thomas strike when he pleased. The Federal campsite at Logan's Crossroads was split by a stream named Fishing Creek, and Crittenden figured that with Fishing Creek too swollen to be crossed he might be able to take the Yankees by surprise in a dawn attack and destroy them in parts. It was a long shot, but it was better than simply waiting to be wiped out. In the darkness of the night of 18 January 1862, the rebels moved out.
To no surprise, the rain and mud that had been making the Federal advance so dreary now worked against the Confederates. A night march would have been difficult enough under the best of circumstances, but under such wretched conditions it required superhuman stamina. The rebels pushed on and early in the morning of 19 January they ran into Federal cavalry patrols. Shots were exchanged; the advantage of surprise was lost, but Crittenden knew that fighting it out with the Yankees then and there was far preferable to trying to backtrack through the mud with the aroused enemy right behind him, and went forward with the attack.
Zollicoffer led the rebels into battle and made headway at first. The two forces were actually well-matched numerically, with about 4,000 fighters on each side, but the Confederates were exhausted from the night march, and one regiment that was armed with old flintlock rifles, which wouldn't fire in the rain, had to be pulled out of the fight. Worse, Crittenden's belief that Fishing Creek would be too swollen for the Federals to cross turned out to be deadly wrong, and the number of Union soldiers in front of the Confederates continued to grow to an intimidating mass.
Then Zollicoffer made one last blunder. Wearing a white rubber raincoat that made him very visible, he rode out between the lines during the fighting and became confused. He shouted an order to a colonel, who turned out to be a Yankee; the Federal colonel shot Zollicoffer in the chest with a revolver, killing him. Zollicoffer's Tennessee troops loved their commander, and his death was the final stroke. They broke and ran, and suddenly the rebels were in full retreat. Thomas attempted to pursue, but the unburdened Confederates were able to move faster down the muddy roads.
The Confederates crossed the Cumberland in relays during the night using a decrepit old stern-wheeler and then burned it, leaving behind 500 men killed, wounded, and taken prisoner; 12 guns; 1,000 horses and mules; 150 wagons; and half a dozen regimental colors. The Federals only lost about 250 men. Crittenden's force had been effectively wiped out. Although he had done what he could in a difficult situation, he was accused of everything from treason to drunkenness, to be eventually broken in rank and reduced to obscurity.
As bad as the defeat was for the Confederacy, it fell short of complete disaster. Thomas wanted to continue to march to Knoxville and liberate eastern Tennessee, but the rains kept on falling and his men were on half-rations. Thomas was forced to withdraw. Despite this, the North had a clear-cut battlefield victory to celebrate.
* Another Union victory was in the making on the Atlantic coast. Ambrose Burnside had not gone back to Rhode Island with his regiments when they had been mustered out back in August. Instead, he had stayed in the regular Army and been promoted to brigadier general.
His outgoing, generous, and honest nature often made him friends, and among these friends was one of importance and long standing, General McClellan. When Burnside was 18, his father, an Indiana state senator, had managed to get him an appointment to West Point, and the young Ambrose had graduated in the middle of the class of 1847, a year behind McClellan. Burnside missed seeing any action in the Mexican War and spent six years in various frontier military assignments, including fights with the Apaches in New Mexico. Tiring of the military life, he had left the army in 1853 to settle in Bristol, Rhode Island, with his new bride, a Providence girl, and manufacture a breech-loading carbine he had designed in his off hours in the military.
Two years earlier he had tried to marry a Kentucky girl he had courted while home on leave in Indiana, but she had loudly answered "NO!" at the altar when the time came to exchange vows. According to the story, the same girl later married an Ohio lawyer, who had apparently been told of what she had done to Burnside. The lawyer showed her a wedding license and a revolver and told her she would have to choose between them. She went through with the ceremony.
Anyway, although the Burnside carbine was regarded as good weapon, in 1855 Burnside's company had folded, and he had written George McClellan, then vice president of the Illinois Central Railroad, for help. McClellan had generously got Burnside a job with the railroad and even put Burnside and his wife up in his own house for at time. By the time the war came around, he was treasurer of the railroad. His friend McClellan wrote him as "Dear Burn".
During the fall of 1861, Burnside had approached McClellan with a plan to exploit the victory that the Union had obtained at Hatteras Inlet, which had given the Federals control over the North Carolina coast inside Pamlico Sound. The northern end of Pamlico Sound was capped by Roanoke Island, site of the first English colony in the Americas, whose inhabitants disappeared without a trace except for the word CROATOAN cut into a tree. Roanoke Island also formed the southern plug of another ocean shelter, Albemarle Sound. Seizure of the island would threaten Norfolk and the rebel-controlled Gosport Navy Yard.
Burnside outlined a plan to take the island, McClellan liked it, and matters were quickly set in motion. By early January, Burnside had assembled a force of almost 13,000 men, taking care to recruit them directly so he would not have to rob his friend McClellan of troops, and also had collected 80 vessels at a staging area in Annapolis. The ships were a varied lot, selected for shallow draft since the high-tide depth over Hatteras inlet was reportedly only 8 feet (2.5 meters), and so not all the ships were particularly suited for a voyage over the open sea. The naval component of the force was under the command of Flag Officer Louis M. Goldsborough.
Those in Burnside's command who had been to sea protested that many of the transports were unsafe for an ocean journey. Burnside characteristically responded by taking the worst vessel as his headquarters ship. On 9 January 1862 the fleet left Annapolis to assemble the next day near Fort Monroe. On the 11th, the ships steamed out into the Atlantic. The next night, the fleet ran into a storm off Cape Hatteras. Burnside narrowly avoided going to the bottom himself only by having everything on his scow that could be spared thrown overboard. In the morning, the fleet arrived at Hatteras Inlet, but the weather was still bad and would remain so for days. There were collisions; many vessels lost their anchors and grounded; and in general conditions were thoroughly miserable for the sailors and soldiers on the ships. The steamer CITY OF NEW YORK, carrying guns, ammunition, and $200,000 worth of supplies, foundered, leaving the captain and crew clinging desperately to the rigging for almost 40 hours before the seas calmed enough for them to be rescued.
By the end of January the seas had calmed enough to allow the fleet to proceed, but it was immediately discovered that Federal intelligence had been faulty once again: the water over Hatteras Inlet was only 6 feet (1.8 meters) deep, not 8. However, Burnside's men came up with a solution: they repeatedly grounded several of the larger ships on the bar and held them there with tugs and anchors while the tide washed away the sand underneath them. It took until early February to cut a channel through the bar, but by 4 February, the entire fleet had been assembled in Pamlico Sound and Burnside gave his commanders instructions for the attack on Roanoke Island. Another storm delayed the movement, but on the morning of 7 February, the fleet proceeded up the sound in a line two miles (3.2 kilometers) long.
The attack was not a surprise to the rebels. After being relieved of command during the fiasco in West Virginia, in December Confederate General Henry A. Wise had been assigned to command rebel forces on Roanoke Island. He arrived to find the island's defenses not merely in bad condition but sited almost exclusively on the north shore, leaving the island completely open to attack from the south. Furthermore, he had only 2,500 men, hardly enough to put up an effective fight. He put his men to work, sinking pilings and hulks in an attempt to block the channels around the island, while he howled to his superior, Major General Benjamin Huger, for reinforcements and supplies.
Despite the fact that Huger had about a division of men available to help, he simply encouraged Wise to do the best with what he had. On 19 January, Wise, frustrated and angry, went over Huger's head to press his case to Secretary of War Judah Benjamin. Wise got nowhere, though he complained to anyone who would listen that Roanoke was in imminent danger. Then, on 22 January, news arrived that the Federals did in fact seem to be massing for an attack. Benjamin ordered Wise back to his post. Various difficulties delayed his return until the end of the month, and then he fell ill and was forced to bed. He was still out of action when the Federals attacked Roanoke Island on 7 February.
The Confederates had thrown together a "mosquito fleet" of small boats, each carrying a single cannon. When the Union warships approached, they fought back briefly and then fell back. The Federals then engaged the two shore batteries on the north end of the island, while transports began to unload troops halfway down the island's ten-mile (16 kilometer) length.
The next morning, the soldiers moved north towards the island's land defenses, which appeared formidable. The rebels had set up a three-gun battery supported by emplacements for infantry to block the single causeway that ran up the island. The causeway was flanked by bogs and quicksands that were considered impassable. Burnside broke his forces into three parts. One charged up the causeway, while the other two probed with great difficulty through the marshy flanks. The men coming up the causeway were badly cut up and quickly found themselves pinned down, but the marshes were hardly impassable, and the rebels were outflanked by muddy Union soldiers. The Confederate position was quickly overrun.
When Burnside's men moved forward towards the shore batteries, Confederate resistance collapsed. The rebels surrendered that afternoon. The rebels had suffered less than 100 casualties, the Federals about 250, but the Union men had captured 32 cannon and over 2,500 Confederates prisoners. The captives were quickly "paroled", released on the pledge that they would take no further part in the war.
Two days later, on 9 February, Goldsborough's gunboats went up Albemarle Sound towards Elizabeth City and destroyed the rebel mosquito fleet, leaving Norfolk completely defenseless against attack and giving the Federals a free hand throughout the inland waters. On 19 February, eight Union gunboats went deeper into Albemarle Sound to raid the town of Winton. They were lured into an ambush by a slave woman loyal to her masters, but detected the trap and turned away at the last minute, though the sails and masts of the little fleet's flagship were riddled with bullet holes. The townspeople celebrated their victory that night, but their happiness proved short-lived. The Federals returned in the morning, smashed the rebel defenses, to then loot and burn the town. What little politeness the war ever had was starting to disappear.
* General Wise managed to escape from the disaster at Roanoke Island. He was hardly the man to restrain himself from saying "I told you so!", and his bitterness could only have been compounded by the fact that his son, Captain O. Jennings Wise, had been mortally wounded in the fight. Wise complained angrily to an investigating committee appointed by the Confederate Congress: "I intend to 'accuse' General Huger of nothing! Nothing! Nothing!!! That was the disease that brought disaster at Roanoke Island."
Criticism for the fiasco fell mostly on Secretary of War Benjamin, who responded with good humor and unfailing courtesy. Benjamin's coolness under attack impressed Davis, since it was something Davis himself had difficulty with, but enraged his critics. The attacks simply grew louder. They were aggravated by the fact that the Confederate defenses of northern Virginia under the command of Joe Johnston were slowing decaying. It was becoming obvious that the rebels would have to give up their forward positions near Washington DC and fall back to a defensive line closer to Richmond.
The trouble was not merely the material poverty of the Confederacy. There was also the fact that many short-term enlistments had expired, and Johnston's army had fallen from 62,000 effectives in December to 47,000 in February. The expiration of enlistments was a problem, but the solution the Confederate Congress implemented did much to make matters worse. For a three-year re-enlistment, the soldiers were offered a $50 bounty, a 60-day furlough, and the option of transferring to a different military unit or branch of service. The officers would then be elected by the soldiers in the re-formed units. The result was mass chaos and endless headaches for Joe Johnston and his officers, and to make matters even more frustrating, they didn't have any control over granting furloughs: they were issued directly by the office of Secretary of War Benjamin.
Judah P. Benjamin was a major irritant to the generals who he in principle commanded. Like his opposite number, Edwin Stanton, he believed that generals must be kept under civilian control; and this was sometimes manifested as contempt for the military chain of command. Not long before, Benjamin had issued orders to Stonewall Jackson that meddled with the general's troop dispositions in the Shenandoah Valley in order to please one of Jackson's disgruntled subordinates. Jackson obeyed, but he was only with great difficulty talked out of resigning. Much unhappiness was focused on Secretary of War Benjamin. Unfortunately, as much as the Confederate defeats at Logan's Crossroads and Roanoke Island fed the discontent, much worse news would come from the West.
* While the fighting went on, the Federal government had to take some time to attend to finances. When the President told General Meigs that "the bottom is out of the tub" he had given as one of the items in the matter that "Chase had no money and tells me can raise no more." In fact, at that time, the Federal government was effectively broke.
This was not due to any failure in effort or competence on Secretary Chase's part. However charmless he was, he was also hard-working and intelligent. Working with advice from a shrewd Philadelphia banker named Jay Cooke, Chase had obtained funding at the outset of the war by taking short-term loans from banks at 7.3% interest; Cooke then helpfully managed to float some long-term loans at 6%. Chase also came up with the innovative idea of selling war bonds to the citizenry, a scheme that proved so successful that America would resort to it in major conflicts from then on. Cooke acted as an agent of the government in selling bonds and was not surprisingly accused of profiteering -- but his margins were actually small and he gave the government a very good deal.
At the time, the war effort rode on the back of these loans, the only other serious source of revenue being tariffs. Although the Republican-dominated Congress had raised tariffs the instant the departure of their Southern brethren made it possible and would continue to raise them for years, with the withdrawal of Southern ports from the tariff system, the tariffs weren't bringing in any more money than they had in peacetime.
The problem with the loans and bonds was that the transactions were based on hard currency, due to both traditional policy and Secretary Chase's fiscal conservatism. With the Federal war effort seemingly stalled at the end of 1861, the crisis over the TRENT incident led to a panic and people pulling hard currency from banks. With the banks being drained of hard currency, they could no longer deal with the government.
Chase saw the light quickly, realizing that the government had to establish paper money as legal tender. This was not an easy sell to Congress. Paper money was being used successfully in other countries at the time and American banks had issue their own paper notes as well, but its history in the United States did not inspire confidence in the idea. There was considerable outcry against the proposal, but Chase proposed a set of safeguards to prevent the scheme from going out of control and managed to win over the chair of the Senate Finance Committee, William Pitt Fessenden of Maine, who had considerable power over the issue. Fessenden hated the very idea of paper money, but had to admit that it couldn't be avoided.
On 3 February 1862, Secretary Chase told Congress: "Immediate action is necessary. The Treasury is nearly empty." Three-quarters of the Republicans in Congress voted for it; three-quarters of the Democrats voted against it, but of course they were badly outnumbered. President Lincoln signed the "Legal Tender Act" into law on 25 February 1862, and the Federal government could pay its bills once more.
Paper money had finally arrived in the United States in earnest, and it would never go away. There would be inflation but it would not be much greater than that which might be expected in a major war, and the switch to "greenbacks" would prove a major boost to the Union war effort.
