v1.1.2 / chapter 73 of 93 / 01 oct 09 / greg goebel / public domain
* With the failure of the Union thrust at Petersburg, Grant settled in for the long haul, building siege works and sending his troops on end runs around Confederate lines to keep up the pressure. Lincoln visited Grant and the President seemed to have no great difficulty with the situation. The war was being pressed, and if it went on being pressed, the outcome was not in doubt.
Lincoln could not feel such confidence over developments in Virginia west of Richmond. Jubal Early and his troops sent David Hunter's force packing into the mountains of West Virginia, leaving Early free to move north up the Shenandoah Valley and cross the Potomac, threatening Washington. Early didn't really have the men to be much more than a dangerous nuisance, but he could disrupt Union war plans, and also undermine Lincoln's chances for reelection. The President was deeply concerned over the upcoming elections, not only because of Democratic agitation against his administration, but because of intrigues against him by those in his own party, particularly Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase. Lincoln was forced to dismiss Chase.
Lincoln knew that voters might not be as patient as himself with the stalled war in Virginia. The war also remained stalled in Georgia. Sherman continued to try to find a way to get around Joe Johnston's well-built defenses, even resorting to a headlong frontal attack against Confederate lines at Kennesaw Mountain. The result was another bloody Union fiasco, limited by the fact that Sherman did not persist in futile assaults. He went back to the drawing board and considered his next move.
* Following the failure of the assaults on the Petersburg lines, the Federals spent 19 June setting up their own earthworks around Petersburg and pulling up siege guns. Grant, however, was still not quite finished with offensive operations. He wanted to make a thrust to the south of Petersburg using Wright's VI Corps and Birney's II Corps, less in hopes of a knockout blow than of enhancing the reach of Union works around Petersburg. Grant also ordered General James Wilson and his cavalry to ride south to North Carolina and cut the railroad lines to Petersburg. August Kautz was to join him, giving Wilson a total of 5,000 troopers and 12 guns.
Orders were sent out on Monday, 20 June, and the two corps and the cavalry got underway on the morning of 21 June. That afternoon, Grant was waiting for news when, as a staff colonel wrote his wife, "there appeared very suddenly before us a long, lank-looking personage, dressed all in black and looking very much like a boss undertaker." It was the President, who explained his presence by telling Grant: "I just thought I would jump aboard a boat and come down and see you. I don't expect I can do any good, and in fact I'm afraid I may do harm, but I'll just put myself under your orders, and if you find me doing anything wrong, just send me right away."
Grant, who was not particularly happy with the intrusion, said he would do that if necessary, but Lincoln was careful not to make a bother of himself. The colonel wrote: "The old fellow remained with us till the next day, and told stories all the time. On the whole, he behaved very well." The President managed to fit in a visit to Hinck's division of black soldiers, who were ecstatic to see him, the colonel writing that they were all "grinning from ear to ear, and displaying an amount of ivory terrible to behold." Lincoln took off his hat to them as they cheered him, and he thanked them with tears in his eyes.
* Lincoln returned to Washington DC feeling well about things, but Grant was far from happy, since the push south of rebel lines had been another fiasco. Wright's VI Corps and Birney's II Corps had become separated; Lee ordered A.P. Hill to take his Third Corps and teach the careless Yankees a lesson. Hill blocked VI Corps with one division while he hit II Corps with his other two. The actual number of Yankees shot was relatively small, but about 1,700 Federals, including some entire regiments, simply surrendered rather than fight. There were now units so full of bounty jumpers and similar riffraff that were of little or no value in combat. One old timer said that the rebels could easily drown the lot by taking beanpoles and shoving them into the James.
Unfortunately, bounty jumpers weren't the only problem. Continuous combat wears down even the bravest over time, and many soldiers who had once been hard fighters were beyond their limits. The simple fact of the matter was that the Army of the Potomac had been all but wrecked by the spring offensive. Gibbon's division had lost more men than had been in the ranks before the beginning of the campaign, with 40 regimental commanders shot. Gibbon wrote that "troops which at the commencement of the campaign were equal to almost any undertaking, became toward the end of it unfit for almost any."
Wilson had done better in his raid, but not enough for any real satisfaction. His troopers had worked hard at wrecking the railroads to the south of Petersburg and were trying to get back to their own lines when two divisions of Hampton's cavalry, freed for action by Sheridan's withdrawal south across the James, boxed the Federals in and pressed them very hard. The Yankees managed to escape, but Wilson lost about 1,500 men, and had to burn his wagon train and spike all of his guns. In some compensation, Wilson's men had honestly been outnumbered, a rare circumstance for Federal troops at any time in the war, and they had also been thorough in their destruction of the railroads. The Confederates were in a very difficult position for several weeks until they managed to repair the damage.
Grant didn't know this last fact, and the sight of Wilson's bedraggled troopers returning to Federal lines wasn't encouraging. Sheridan's troopers had already returned from their own inconclusive expedition by this time, underscoring the sense of failure.
* On top of these misfortunes, Grant soon received news that the Federal effort in western Virginia had gone completely bust as well. David Hunter had come up to Lynchburg late on 17 June, confronted by Breckinridge, who had only half as many men. Hunter expected to easily drive Breckinridge out the next morning, 18 June, only to be confronted by Jubal Early with three unexpected rebel divisions. After some inconclusive clashes, Hunter completely lost his nerve. Even with the reinforcements, the Confederates still didn't have as many men as the Yankees, but Hunter believed he was heavily outnumbered. Later he would claim he was low on ammunition. He pulled out that night and fled west. Early pursued until 22 June, when it was obvious that Hunter intended to run all the way to the mountains of West Virginia. Hunter believed that Early could easily cut him off and surround him if he headed north.
Early let him go. The mountain terrain was difficult and besides, there was no reason to chase Hunter any longer. Hunter had taken himself off the playing board, and now Early was at the southern end of the Shenandoah Valley, in position to play the same old game of trickery on the Yankees that Stonewall Jackson had perfected to a fine art.
Hunter would not admit to any error, writing whining letters to the President, to Grant, to everyone, absolving himself of blame. He would persist in this after the war, even writing Lee himself to ask for his opinion on the matter. This must have sorely tried Lee's patience, but Lee simply replied that he didn't have the information on Hunter's motivations to make any judgement. Lee even expressed some gratitude, saying that the move had been very beneficial to himself and to the Confederacy.
That was later. With Hunter out of the way, Early put his 14,000 men on a fast march towards the Valley. They passed through Lexington on 25 June, part of the column filing past Stonewall Jackson's grave with their hats off while regimental bands played a dirge, and reached Staunton, at the southern end of the Valley, the next day, 26 June.
Early paused at Staunton to arrange for resupply and also reorganize his command, splitting his 10,000 foot soldiers into two corps, one under John Breckinridge, the other under Robert Rodes. The 4,000 others were cavalry and artillery. The three cavalry brigades were put under command of Robert Ransom, while the artillery was stripped down to forty of their best guns, to be drawn by fit teams of horses that could move fast. The cavalry would also have ten light guns.
Early didn't pause long. His command moved out at dawn on 28 June, and by 30 June the rebels were north of New Market, well up the Valley on an arc whose terminal objective was Washington DC. They encountered no serious Federal opposition.
* By all evidence, the Federal spring offensive of 1864 had been a bloody failure. The Union had lost almost 70,000 men in six brutal weeks of continuous fighting, and was still facing off Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, while the Confederacy was taking the offensive back to the North.
A number of great opportunities had been lost. Despite that, a closer look showed that the Union now held the upper hand. Early's push north was little more than a big raid that would last as long as it took the Union to deal with it, and Lee was pinned down, without the resources or the room to defeat a more powerful adversary through sheer brilliant maneuver. All Lee could do was delay the inevitable and hope sheer luck intervened on the Confederate side. Otherwise, as one of his generals later said: "However bold we might be, however desperately we might fight, we sure in the end to be worn out. It was only a question of a few months, more or less."
The only substantial fortune on which the Confederacy could place any hope was the fact that it was an election year in the North. Few believed that the Lincoln Administration would ever give up the fight to conquer the South, but the war had dragged on for so long and killed so many Northern sons that war weariness might just vote Lincoln and his people out of office, to be replaced by a new administration that would call for an end to the fighting.
It was interesting that there was going to be an election in the North at all. The Lincoln Administration had suspended many rights that Americans took for granted in peacetime in order to conduct the war, but nobody seriously proposed that the election be cancelled. Lincoln might have been forced to take a firm grip on events, but he was not by nature a despot. Many Southerners of course thought differently, even as they still took a contradictory hope in the fact that the states in the Union had political rights and could throw Lincoln out of office.
This was contradictory in another way, since as General Sherman pointed out in a letter to his brother, Senator John Sherman of Ohio, the secession of the Confederate states removed them by their own choice from the rule of United States law. The only rules that now applied to them were the rules of war, and, as General Sherman put it: "War is simply power unrestrained by constitution or compact."
Now the rebels had to rest their hopes on the votes of others. There were some Confederates who didn't think that that was much to cling to, but even they could see a silver lining. The fact that democratic processes remained in effect in the United States in the depths of civil war suggested that after the reconquest of the South there would be an opportunity, sooner or later, for the Southern states to regain their political rights in a reconstructed Union. This was a small consolation for what appeared to be inevitable defeat, but it was better than nothing.
* There was in fact much war-weariness in the North, and the floods of casualties pouring back into Washington in the wake of Grant's spring offensive aggravated it. It even infected Lincoln. Riding past a stream of ambulances in his carriage one day, he said: "Look yonder at those poor fellows. I cannot bear it. This suffering, this loss of life is dreadful."
He was still determined to stay the course. On 17 May he had written up a draft for an order asking for 300,000 more troops, but then the course ran into a completely unexpected obstacle. Early the next day, 18 May, somebody distributed a fabricated document, with the President's forged signature, to all the New York newspapers, which gloomily listed recent military setbacks and asked for a new draft of 400,000 troops. The NEW YORK WORLD and the JOURNAL OF COMMERCE bit and published it, but the fraud was detected before the other papers went to press. The Lincoln Administration quickly released strong denials.
Some witnesses reported that Lincoln was in a rare fury at the hoax. What was certain was the wrath of Secretary of War Stanton, who with the President's approval closed both papers and arrested their editors. Investigation quickly revealed that the perpetrator was a shady journalist named Joseph Howard, who had previously endeared himself to the administration by making up and propagating the story about how Lincoln had snuck through Baltimore in disguise on his way to his inauguration.
Howard was arrested. As it turned out, his primary goal was not political but financial. He wanted to make a killing in the markets by causing the price of gold to fall. The scheme was a bust as far as that went, but Howard had done a fairly good job of making Lincoln and his people squirm. The President was forced to shelve his request for more troops in the face of the negative public reaction to the "Gold Hoax", as it came to be known, while the affair highlighted the heavy-handed tactics of Secretary Stanton and, implicitly, his boss. The authorities quickly cooled off and thought better of their actions. Within three days, the two editors had been released and their papers were back in business. Even Howard only spent a few months in jail.
Lincoln had more serious issues to deal with than a crooked reporter. On 28 May, Maximilian and Carlotta, by the grace of Napoleon III and French soldiers now Emperor and Empress of Mexico, had landed at Vera Cruz, underscoring French interference in the affairs of the New World. There was no way the Americans were going to tolerate such an intrusion over the long run, but for the moment the US government had another war to fight.
* Election politics continued no matter what events, silly or serious, distracted the attentions of the public and government officials. By June, the presidential candidates had boiled down to Lincoln, the candidate of the Republicans; George B. McClellan, the candidate of the Democrats; and John Charles Fremont, the darling of the Radical splinter of the Republican Party.
In quieter times election issues can seem trivial and dull, but the life of the nation had been anything but quiet for four years, and there were very meaty issues to chew on: the conduct of the war and the best way to resolve it; the future of a reunited America; and the place of black people in that reconstructed Union. The confusing nature of these issues was revealed when Congress had debated that spring over the implementation of a government for the new territory of Montana. It began with the House sending the Senate a bill specifying that any "white male inhabitant" of the territory had the right to vote.
This was pretty much standard procedure and wouldn't have been controversial in the past, but things weren't the way they used to be. Senator Morton S. Wilkinson of Minnesota proposed that the bill be modified to give "any male citizen of the United States" the right to vote. This clearly meant that black men also had the right to vote, and Wilkinson didn't bother to conceal his intent. To be sure, it was a strictly theoretical issue at the time, since there were few if any black people in Montana Territory, but just raising the issue was enough to cause a storm.
Senator Reverdy Johnson of Maryland protested that the Chief Justice Taney had clearly established in the Dred Scott decision before the war that black people were not and never could be citizens. However, that was then: the Radical Republicans in the Senate didn't care much about what Chief Justice Taney thought. Senator Charles Sumner declared that Congress should no longer "wear the straight-jacket of the Dred Scott decision." The amendment was passed.
The amended bill was sent back to the House, where the Radicals were not as powerful. Congressman George H. Pendleton, an Ohio Democrat, denounced the amendment, saying it amounted to a presumptuous attempt by the Senate to reverse a Supreme Court decision. It was also an attempt to establish a revolutionary principle, black suffrage, as a mere amendment to an ordinary bill. Phrased in such a way, even the moderate thought twice, and the House refused to accept the amendment by a vote of 75 to 67.
Back in the Senate, Senator James Doolittle of Wisconsin protested against such political grandstanding when the lack of black people in Montana Territory made it a purely abstract issue. The Senate grumbled and shuffled, and finally accepted verbiage that implicitly limited the vote in Montana Territory to white males without coming out and saying so. Radical Senator Ben Wade admitted that the practical issue was "inconsequential" for the moment and said he would not contest it, but such restraint would not be exercised when it did become a real issue.
However, Congress was able to at address at least one injustice against black men that June. Black soldiers had been paid less than white troops: black privates were only paid $10 a month, with $3 deducted for clothing, meaning they only actually got $7 a month, while white privates were paid $13 a month with no deductions. There was, to no surprise, considerable resentment over this double standard, and so Congress decided that black troops be paid the same as white troops, with the change being retroactive to the soldier's enlistment if he had enlisted as a freedman, or to the beginning of 1864 if he had been enlisted out of slavery.
* Although the Radicals often spoke in extremes, they generally acted more moderately. The Radicals had met in Cleveland, Ohio, as the "Radical Democracy" party on 31 May and unanimously declared Fremont their candidate. This was all more smoke than fire. The Radicals had set up their own convention because they knew they couldn't prevail at the Republican Party convention, scheduled for a week later, and in the event the turnout at their splinter convention in Cleveland was in the hundreds, when thousands had been expected. One sarcastic commentator called it a "magnificent fizzle", a meeting of politically marginal figures; in a later time it might have been called a loser's club.
Fremont and the Radical Democrats adopted a platform on good Radical principles: re-union, limitation of the presidency to a single term, Congressional control of Reconstruction, and confiscation of rebel property. This all sounded nice on paper, but it was beyond the limits of what the public would accept. Fremont quickly repudiated the confiscation plank, suggesting that vengeance was an inappropriate consideration in establishing peace.
To be sure, many Radicals thought that vengeance was perfectly appropriate, but the less emotional among them knew that Fremont stood to split their party and accomplish no more than to hand the White House to the Democrats. As a result, few prominent Radicals threw in their lot with the Radical Democrats, however much they might privately admire their ideals, and that was one of the reasons why the attendance at the splinter convention in Cleveland had been so poor. The Radicals might snipe at Lincoln, but the fact was he stood for re-union on Federal terms and the abolition of slavery. That was exactly what the Radicals wanted, they just wished Lincoln be a little more iron-fisted about it.
* Lincoln could tolerate the sniping of the Radicals, but as an experienced politician he also knew how to put them in their place.
The President appreciated the competent services of Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase. As an easy-going man, Lincoln was not particularly bothered by Chase's snobbish and sanctimonious personality, though the President once said of Chase that he "was never perfectly happy unless he is thoroughly miserable, and able to make everyone else as uncomfortable as he is."
However, Chase was the man of the Radicals in the Lincoln Cabinet, and given to both intrigue and opposition to the President. Lincoln was generally perfectly aware of Secretary Chase's back-door activities, and had already cut him down to size once before, in December 1862. Chase had been pursuing the Republican presidential nomination for several months, placing the two men on track for a head-on collision. Chase lost the nomination, but his days in the administration were numbered.
When Lincoln and Secretary Chase disagreed on a Treasury appointment, Chase submitted his resignation on the morning of 30 June as a pressure tactic. The President accepted the resignation immediately, replying in an unusually stiff note: "Of all I have said in commendation of your ability and fidelity, I have nothing to unsay, and yet you and I have reached a point of mutual embarrassment in our official relation which it seems cannot be overcome, or longer sustained, consistently with the public service."
Senator William Pitt Fessenden of Maine, chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, came to the White House the next morning, 1 July, to recommend a replacement, but found out that his advice was not needed: the President had already nominated him, Fessenden, for the post. Fessenden thought this was more trouble than he wanted and protested, but Lincoln refused to retract the nomination, and when Fessenden returned to the Senate to kill the nomination, he found that he had already been confirmed, the Senate having unanimously voted YES without the slightest debate. Fessenden was sworn in on 5 July, and the news was greeted with great enthusiasm by the press and the public, if not by himself.
The dismissal of Chase told the Radicals that hostile actions could and would be met in kind. For all their hot talk, the Radicals didn't have anyone else to nominate as the Republican candidate for the Presidency, and if Lincoln was not happy about their antagonism, he knew his own bargaining position was strong.
The Republicans, still allied with pro-war Democrats in the National Union Party, met in Baltimore on 7 June to select their candidate. The last president to be re-elected was Andrew Jackson, and only Martin van Buren had attempted to run for a second term since that time. Still, the renomination of Lincoln was almost certain. David Davis, who had managed Lincoln's campaign in 1860 and was now a Supreme Court justice, didn't even bother to go. He was not trying to snub anyone, he simply thought that in the absence of any real opposition there was no reason to attend: "The fight is not even interesting, and the services of no one is necessary."
There was some push from the Missouri delegation to nominate Grant, but the notion went nowhere and was given up quickly. Lincoln received the nomination by unanimous vote on 8 June 1864. He was walking into the War Department telegraph room when a clerk told him the news. "What?! I am renominated?!" The clerk showed him the telegram, and the President suggested that it be sent to Mrs. Lincoln: "She will be more interested than I am."
The convention discarded current Vice-President Hannibal Hamblin, who had been much too sympathetic to the Radicals for the taste of the party mainstream. They instead choose Andrew Johnson, the military governor of Tennessee and a pro-war, anti-slavery Democrat, to balance the ticket. Lincoln neither suggested nor protested the selection of Johnson. Newspaper editorials in snobbish Eastern newspapers railed at the prospect of having two coarse, uncouth Westerners at the head of government instead of just one.
* Lincoln gave his firm endorsement to the party platform, whose planks basically called for hard war and unconditional surrender, without detailing either specific punitive actions against rebels or a detailed program of reconstruction. The platform also called for a constitutional amendment to end slavery.
One of the odd clauses of the party platform implicitly expressed disapproval of Republicans who did not endorse the platform. This was specifically aimed at Postmaster General Montgomery Blair and the Blair family. The Radicals did not like Montgomery Blair and were sending a message of their own to the President that he should be thrown out of the Cabinet. The reason for their antagonism was that Blair had been trying to cut a deal with the Democrats. He felt that the Confederacy had to be suppressed and slavery ended for good, but he understood and sympathized with the common Democratic distaste for black equality. Blair suggested that Republicans and Democrats could find common ground, working together to destroy the slave power for good, and then ensuring that black people were kept in their place in the new order. He wrote to New York Democratic leader Samuel L.M. Barlow: "By giving up the past, conceding slavery to be extinct, you can make an issue upon which not only the Democrats of the North and South may unite against the Republicans, but on which the larger portion of the Republicans will join in sustaining this exclusive right of Government in the white race."
Blair specifically suggested that George McClellan, the most likely and powerful candidate of the Democrats, step down and accept a command in the US Army, in essence conceding the election to Lincoln. The proposal was a pure contraption. Francis P. Blair Senior, the Old Man Blair, actually went to McClellan to pitch the idea. McClellan thanked him for his comments and ignored him. Montgomery Blair was trying to stand in what he perceived to be the middle of the road, but in an extreme time all that could happen was that he would be hit by the extremists going both ways. There was no way McClellan could concede the presidency to the man he once called the "original gorilla"; there was no way he would accept a military command from those who had slighted him so repeatedly when he had been a general; and there was no way Lincoln was going to appoint McClellan as a general when he had been so troublesome before.
Although Blair's proposal was wildly impractical, he had a point. The Radical Republicans wanted black equality, but this idea was not particularly popular with the general public. In fact, Barlow demonstrated the depths of the revulsion felt by some over the concept when he replied to Montgomery Blair, saying of Lincoln that his "re-election will be claimed to be, and in fact will be, an endorsement by the people of every fallacy and monstrosity which the folly and fanaticism of the radicals may invent, including miscegenation, Negro equality, territorial organization and subjugation, all to end in bankruptcy, dishonor, and disunion."
Blair shot back at Barlow, suggesting that the stand of many Democrats against the war and for slavery was running against the tide, and that all such a position could do would be to ensure their political defeat. It would hand power over to the Radicals, who would impose the dreaded "Negro equality" on everyone, whether they liked it or not. Barlow was unimpressed, pointing out to Blair that if the war continued to drag on without a prospect of a clear conclusion up to election day, the Democrats would certainly win in any case, though Barlow was also clear-sighted enough to admit that if the Union started winning big victories, the Republicans would surely prevail.
Lincoln understood that black equality was a hard sell to the public: at the time, even many of those who regarded slavery as a monstrosity had their doubts about actually raising black people to the level of whites. The common perception that black people were by nature a second-class race was regarded as arguable, but few could ignore the fact black people had been made as illiterate, impoverished, ignorant, intimidated, and dependent as possible by their masters. Such folk might not make the best citizens.
At the same time, the President saw things in a much bigger view. Many people who think in broad terms and grand issues seem out of their depth, but a few people are able to grasp such abstractions in a powerful way, and Lincoln was one of those people. He saw that even if black people were inferior to white by nature or upbringing, if they were not given their rights as citizens, then no one else's rights were safe either. This idea had been one of the basic concepts of the American Constitution, corrupted by its clauses protecting "property" of the two-legged kind. Lincoln's thinking was inspired by the principles of the previous century, and it is tempting to believe that he could see ahead to the next century as well, realizing that if black equality was not accepted and put into practice, the nation would be weakened for generations by problems that should have been addressed at the outset.
He may not have seen matters so clearly -- the record remains ambiguous to Lincoln's actual commitment to racial equality, with his statements on the matter cited by his advocates to defend him and cited his critics to smear him -- but it is difficult not to wish that he had. From the point of view of the 21st century, it is almost impossible not to look back across the decades to the Civil War and see that there was a slim opportunity at that time to avoid great trouble and pain.
* Sherman's attempt to outflank the Confederates at Dallas, Georgia, had clearly failed. He had hoped to move decisively, but the fighting had instantly degraded into what he called "a big Indian war". His men would afterwards remember the area as the "Hell Hole". Sherman decided it was time for another shift. He also wanted to get his offensive astride the Western & Atlantic Railroad again to simplify his supply problems.
On 1 June, two of Sherman's mounted divisions, one under Brigadier General Garrard, the other under Major General George Stoneman, now out West and part of Schofield's army, seized Allatoona Pass from the small Confederate force that Joe Johnston had left there. This meant that Federal locomotives would now be able to steam south to provide Sherman's grand army with bullets, powder, and fresh food.
Getting the troops on the move again proved difficult, since on 1 June it also began to rain. The rains kept up for over two weeks, turning the landscape into a red clay quagmire, infested with mosquitoes and chiggers. The fact that the Federals weren't moving very fast under such conditions didn't make Joe Johnston complacent, however: realizing that the fall of Allatoona Pass had rendered his current position impractical, on 4 June he pulled off another clean retreat.
Sherman was not happy at this turn of events. Johnston's instincts for the defense were excellent, and his new position was as or more formidable as any he had occupied during the campaign. The line was anchored in the northeast, beyond the Western & Atlantic, on Brush Mountain, where Hood had set up his corps. The center was sited at Pine Mountain, on the near side of the railroad, which was occupied by Polk's corps. The southwest end of the line was anchored by Lost Mountain, held down by Hardee's corps. Johnston had a backup position available at Kennesaw Mountain, shielding Johnson's supply base at Marietta and about two miles (3.2 kilometers) southeast of Pine Mountain.
By 6 June, the Federals had advanced up to the Confederate line, with McPherson facing Hood, Thomas facing Polk, and Schofield facing Hardee. There was no real action for the moment, the Federals spending their time refitting for further action. On 9 June, Major General Francis P. Blair JR, having completed his temporary stint in Congress, returned to McPherson's command, bringing along 10,000 men who had been on reenlistment furloughs. These reinforcements made good Sherman's losses in the campaign. On 11 June, repair crews finally managed to get the Western & Atlantic working all the way down to Big Shanty, where McPherson's army was situated. The trains could now bring in fresh provisions, which were welcomed by the troops who had been subsisting on bacon, hardtack, and coffee during their side trip through the Georgia wilderness.
The troops might have been happy; Sherman was not. Although Hood was sniping at Johnston's timidity to Richmond, Sherman found Johnston very skilled at slowing Sherman down and making him pay in blood. Sherman was particularly unhappy to find that after the vicious fighting around Dallas his soldiers had become timid, advancing slowly and digging in at the first sign of enemy resistance. Dancing around with Joe Johnston didn't seem to be getting Sherman anywhere, but simply driving headlong into rebel defenses didn't seem to be much of a plan either. The Federals kept up the pressure, and in response Johnston contracted his defenses into the center, making them just that much harder to crack.
* After the contraction, Pine Mountain was held only a brigade of infantry and two batteries of guns, one commanded by Lieutenant Rene Beauregard, General Beauregard's son. Pine Mountain was hardly more than a hill, but it still had a good view of the countryside and was an asset to the rebel defense.
Hardee worried that the Federals might be able to seize the hill and the rebels occupying it with a surprise attack, and on 14 June Johnston and Hardee rode over to consider the matter. Polk came along to scout out the countryside. Johnston concluded that Hardee's judgement was correct and that the position should be abandoned. While Johnston was there, however, he decided to take in the view from the top of the hill, even though the Federals had been firing on anything that moved on Pine Mountain with accurate, long-range Parrott rifled guns.
Sherman was inspecting the front at the time and saw the Confederates accumulating on the top of Pine Mountain, though he was too far away to make out who they were. He was annoyed at their boldness, complaining: "How saucy they are!" He ordered Oliver Howard, in charge of this section of the line, to have a battery fire on them to "make them take cover". The order filtered down to Battery I of the First Ohio Light Artillery. The battery's commander, Captain Hubert Dilger, was already shooting at the rebels when the order reached him.
Dilger was an artillerist on leave from the Prussian Army. He had signed up with the Union in 1861 and seen action in many of the major battles back East, arriving in the West with Hooker's corps. He was well known through Sherman's army, partly because of the distinctive and highly non-regulation way he dressed, wearing a clean white shirt with rolled-up sleeves; shiny high boots; and doeskin trousers, which led to him being nicknamed "Leatherbreeches". He was also very professional and aggressive, moving his guns up so close to the fighting line that one joker suggested they should be fitted with bayonets. Since he spoke English with a strong German accent that was hard to understand in the thick of fighting, he had developed a system of hand claps to communicate with his men.
Dilger ordered one of his gunners to "just tickle them fellers" and clapped his hands. The first shot missed the cluster of Confederate officers, but Johnston, knowing the Federals would quickly get the range, ordered everyone to disperse and take cover. A second shot landed closer. Johnston and Hardee got behind the hill in haste, but Polk, who was cool under fire, walked off as though on a thoughtful stroll through the woods. A third shot came ripping up to the top of the hill and tore through him from side to side. It was messy but quick. He was 58 years old.
Johnston and Hardee ran back in a panic to Polk's mangled body. Both of the generals wept, Johnston saying: "We have lost much." Then he added: "I would rather have anything but this." He later commented that the killing was the result of Polk's "characteristic insensibility to danger." A message was sent by signal flag for an ambulance to cart off Polk's corpse.
Braxton Bragg might not have been too unhappy at the news, but most of
Johnston's army mourned. Polk hadn't been the most brilliant of generals,
but he had fought courageously in many of the major battles of the West from
Shiloh on, his troops generally admired him, and his stature as a bishop had
lent moral stature to the cause. The Federals spotted the signal flags
asking for an ambulance to haul off Polk's corpse. Sherman found the news
invigorating, relieving the irritability he had felt for the previous two
weeks, and he wired Halleck with satisfaction on 15 June:
WE KILLED BISHOP POLK YESTERDAY AND MADE GOOD PROGRESS TODAY.
Still, for the rest of his life, Sherman was careful to deny the story that
he himself had lined up the shot that had sent Polk to a better world.
Johnston evacuated Pine Mountain as planned. When the Federals got there,
they found scrawled in chalk on the door of a cabin:
YOU DAMNED YANKEES
YOU HAVE KILLED OUR OLD GENERAL POLK.
* Pine Mountain gave the Yankees a fingerhold into the Confederate defense.
Sherman began to consider forcing Johnston's line, wiring Halleck on 16 June:
I AM NOW INCLINED TO FEIGN ON BOTH FLANKS AND
ASSAULT THE CENTER. IT MAY COST US DEAR, BUT
IN RESULTS WOULD SURPASS ANY ATTEMPT TO PASS AROUND.
Sherman thought it might work because Johnston's line was overextended.
Johnston, sharp as ever, thought the same thing, and on the night of 17 June
he pulled his forces back to Kennesaw Mountain, leaving the Federals staring
at empty trenches in the morning.
If the Federals were impressed with Johnston's ability to slip away at exactly the right time, rebel troops were equally impressed with Sherman's habit of circling around obstacles and forcing them to withdraw. One Confederate who was taken prisoner told his captors: "Sherman'll never go to Hell. He will flank the devil and go to Heaven in spite of the guards."
However, for the moment Sherman was blocked. Kennesaw Mountain was a tall double peak, isolated from the other mountains in the area. The Western & Atlantic snaked around its northeast flank. It was a very strong and extremely intimidating defensive position. The weather continued to be wet, making a rapid flanking move impossible.
Command of the late General Polk's corps had been handed to Major General William W. "Old Blizzards" Loring, the senior division commander. Loring's corps had dug into the face of the mountain, with batteries posted high up where they could command the approaches. Hood's corps had been moved to cover the railroad on the northeast edge of the mountain, while Hardee's corps protected the southwest edge.
Johnston had not occupied any stronger position during the entire north Georgia campaign. Sherman didn't want to smash his army on such a rock, so he kept up pressure with artillery bombardments while he launched probing attacks to see if he could find away around. Schofield, reinforced by Hooker's corps, prodded around the southwest, while McPherson felt his way around the northeast. In the center, Thomas pounded away continuously with 130 guns. Union soldiers watching the bombardment decided that Uncle Billy was either going to take the mountain, or fill it full of iron.
Schofield seemed to be making progress, and so late on 21 June Johnston ordered Hood to take his corps at sunup across the back of the mountain to reinforce Hardee. Wheeler's cavalry would hold the trenches vacated by Hood's men. Hood arrived late in the morning of 22 June with his men and, as always aggressive, decided to attack Schofield immediately. Hood didn't even bother to inform Johnston of this decision, nor did he try to scout out the terrain or determine just how many Federals were in front of him. There were actually about 14,000 Yankees to 11,000 rebels. Even if Hood had known the odds, he was such an enthusiast for the offensive that he would have probably gone ahead anyway.
The assault began at midday. The Federals faded back quickly and Hood, smelling blood, pursued. In reality, Schofield and Hooker had been expecting something like this, and their troops were simply falling back toward entrenchments in their rear around a place named Culp's Farm. On making contact with these defenses, Hood found them heavily braced by artillery throwing out shot, shell, and canister at a fast clip. The "rout" of the Federals immediately turned into a bloody repulse.
The Confederates rallied and tried again, with precisely the same results. As darkness fell, the broken ranks of Confederates fell back to the safety of their own lines, while the Yankees jeered at them and dared them to try it again. Hood lost about a thousand men, the Yankees less than a third that many. Hood tried to conceal the extent of his defeat to Johnston, which would also be fuel for later quarrels between the two generals.
Johnston was displeased with Hood's impetuosity. However, Sherman wasn't happy either. Hooker's troops had born the brunt of the attack, and Hooker had unsurprisingly become excited, sending back dispatches saying he had driven off two attacks by three Confederate corps while crying for reinforcements. Sherman knew that Johnston only had a total of three corps, and that the lines in front of the other Union forces were still occupied.
Sherman didn't like Hooker much, and what Sherman might have ignored from a another general was a cause for fault with Hooker. The next morning Sherman rode over in a downpour to meet Hooker, and told him in essence to cut the crap, giving Hooker no credit for what amounted to a tidy Union victory. Sherman wrote later of Hooker, as if it could have been any surprise: "From that time he began to sulk."
* Sherman was also unhappy because Johnston had decisively blocked any further probes by Schofield and Hooker in that direction. Sherman was now at a loss for what to do to break the stalemate. He finally decided to try to force Johnston's line with a frontal attack, using the forces of Thomas and McPherson.
Nobody was enthusiastic about the idea, and Sherman himself knew it was a big
gamble. He wired Halleck on 23 June:
THE WHOLE COUNTRY IS ONE VAST FORT. JOHNSTON MUST
HAVE FIFTY MILES OF CONNECTED ENTRENCHMENTS, WITH
ABATIS AND FINISHED BATTERIES ... OUR LINES ARE NOW
IN CLOSE CONTACT AND THE FIGHTING INCESSANT, WITH
A GOOD DEAL OF ARTILLERY. AS FAST AS WE GAIN ONE
POSITION, THE ENEMY HAS ANOTHER ALL READY.
Sherman reasoned that Johnston's reshuffling of his forces to meet the
Federal probes around his flanks meant that the defenses in the center of the
line were lightly held, and the fact that they looked so intimidating might
lull the Confederates into thinking the Yankees would never attack them,
providing an element of surprise. These were more in the nature of plausible
ideas than solid calculations, but Sherman had been increasingly frustrated
with what he saw as the increasing timidity of his troops, which the
perceptive Johnston would be certain to exploit sooner rather than later.
The Union newspapers, which annoyed Sherman at the best of times, had also
been making noises about his own lack of aggressiveness.
The attack might have seemed suicidal, but Thomas' men had chased Bragg and his army off Missionary Ridge seven months ago and that had seemed like a suicidal assault to those watching it. It might work again. Thomas, McPherson, and Schofield reluctantly agreed to the plan. Sherman sent out an order to his senior officers on 24 June to conduct reconnaissance and prepare for an assault at 8:00 AM on 26 June.
Sherman was hedging his bet. He would commit only a fifth of his troops. If the rebel defenses were vulnerable to a quick push, those would be enough troops to do the job; if not, no sense in wrecking all of his army. He also planned to precede the assault with a heavy, hour-long artillery bombardment.
McPherson's army would attack the southwest corner of Kennesaw Mountain itself, where Loring's corps was dug in. Thomas would assault the hopefully vulnerable rebel lines just to the south, driving against Hardee's corps. Hooker and Schofield would feint at the far southern end of the rebel defenses, held by Hood and his corps. Sherman hoped that the simultaneous assault all along the Confederate line would prevent Johnston from deciding which part of his defenses were most at risk until it was too late.
Union security was good, and very few of the men knew what was in store for them as their officers made preparations. The Federals probed and scouted rebel defenses, letting the troops on both sides know something was going to happen, but they didn't have a clear idea of what.
* The rain let up on Sunday, 26 June, and the sun came up bright and hot. At exactly 8:00 AM, massed Federal guns started pounding Confederate lines in an intense bombardment. One rebel shouted out over the noise: "Hell has broke loose in Georgia, sure enough!" However, they were deeply dug in, and even in later wars using much more effective artillery, attackers would find it difficult to destroy well-prepared fortifications with barrages alone.
At 9:00 AM, the guns mostly fell silent, and Union infantry rose up out of their own earthworks to move swiftly towards rebel lines. The Federals advanced unmolested at first, until they moved into the open and into range of Confederate rifles. Then the line in front of the advancing troops erupted into fire. McPherson had sent forward 4,000 of his men, but they never got closer than a stone's throw of the rebel defenses, with hundreds shot down. The attack was quickly broken and the survivors pinned down to the ground.
Thomas had committed almost twice as many men, and they pressed their assault more resolutely, though it bought them nothing. One rebel commented: "They seemed to walk up and take death as cooly as if they were automatic or wooden men."
Two brigades under Jefferson C. Davis went forward against a salient in the rebel lines, with the Confederates under the command of Major General Benjamin Cheatham. The attack was pressed very hard, but to no good result, one Federal writing that the rebel defenses were like "veritable volcanoes, belching forth fire and smoke." The survivors fell back and scraped up such cover as they could, in hopes of surviving until night could allow them to get out of range. In the meantime, as another Yankee later put it: "It was almost sure death to take your face out of the dust." The Federals would later remember that section of the rebel line as the "Dead Angle".
Elsewhere on the line, one of Thomas's brigades was badly cut up in front of trenches held by two Arkansas regiments, leaving behind many wounded as the attack faded back. The fighting started a brush fire that swept towards the wounded men. The Confederate commander, Lieutenant Colonel William H. Martin, could not stomach the idea of watching the soldiers being burned alive, so he stood up, waving a flag of truce, and shouted to the Union men: "COME AND REMOVE YOUR WOUNDED! THEY ARE BURNING TO DEATH! WE WON'T FIRE A GUN UNTIL YOU GET THEM AWAY! BE QUICK!" They were, and Confederates even got out of the trenches to help the Yankees haul off the injured men. In appreciation, one Union major gave Martin a pair of Colt revolvers. Then the two sides went back to killing each other.
By midmorning, the futility of the effort was obvious, and the commanders in the line sent back word to Thomas that there was no hope of taking the enemy's positions. Thomas replied at 11:00 AM, telling the men to dig in where they were and wait for darkness to withdraw.
The Battle of Kennesaw Mountain was effectively over, the Federals losing
about 3,000 men to about a sixth as many Confederates. Sherman wired Thomas
in the early afternoon, asking if Thomas thought another push was advisable.
Thomas prudently replied:
WE HAVE ALREADY LOST HEAVILY TODAY WITHOUT GAINING
ANY MATERIAL ADVANTAGE. ONE OR TWO MORE SUCH ASSAULTS
WOULD USE UP THIS ARMY.
Sherman was no obstinate Burnside and let it go at that. His assessment that
his men had become timid proved entirely unjust, with Johnston commenting
with admiration on their courage and tenacity when it was obvious that they
had no chance of success. Oliver Howard summed it up simply: "We realized
now, as never before, the futility of direct assault upon entrenched lines
already well prepared and well manned." The Southern press crowed about the
bloodying of the Yankees, predicting that Sherman and his army were "whipped"
and would soon be "cut to pieces".
An armistice was declared on 30 June to allow burial of the dead, who were rotting quickly in the hot Georgia summer heat. They were dragged into mass graves with hooks made from bayonets, with strict orders that nothing was to be taken from the bodies. Some Confederates helped, and there was a little fraternizing between the two sides, with trades of coffee and tobacco. Although officers tended to frown on fraternization, General Cheatham took part in it, to find himself surrounded by Federal soldiers who wanted his autograph, his tough defense of the Dead Angle having thoroughly impressed the Yankees.
Sherman rationalized his actions to Halleck, saying that the assault had certainly told Johnston that he could not rely too heavily on his entrenchments and assume the Yankees would never test their strength. In fact, the attack had been much more prudent and well-executed than the fiasco back east at Cold Harbor, though no more effective in the end. Sherman told Thomas: "Our loss is small compared with some of those in the East. It should not in the least discourage us. At times, assaults are necessary and inevitable."
Indeed, although the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain had raised the total Federal casualties for the North Georgia campaign to about 17,000, well above the Confederate total of 14,000, Sherman's casualties were only about a seventh of his army. Johnston had lost a good quarter of his men. Given that the number of casualties in an army on the offense would be expected to be higher than those of an army on the defense, the overall ratio of casualties was in the Union's favor. Sherman's army had certainly taken a whipping, but it was just as certainly not close to being cut to pieces.
Sherman was bland about the whole thing. He wrote his wife: "I begin to regard the death and mangling of a couple of thousand men as a small affair, a kind of morning dash. It may be well that we become hardened ... The worst of the war is yet to come."
