wind along its front can believe that eighteen thousand men were moved
in tolerably good order up its broken and crumbling face unless it was
his fortune to witness the deed. It seemed as awful as a visible
interposition of God. Neither Grant nor Thomas intended it. Their orders
were to carry the rifle-pits along the base of the ridge and capture
their occupants; but when this was accomplished, the unaccountable
spirit of the troops bore them bodily up those impracticable steeps, in
spite of the bristling rifle-pits on the crest, and the thirty cannons
enfilading every gully. The order to storm appears to have been given
simultaneously by Generals Sheridan and Wood because the men were not to
be held back, dangerous as the attempt appeared to military prudence.
Besides, the generals had caught the inspiration of the men, and were
ready themselves to undertake impossibilities.

The first time I saw Sheridan after the battle I said to him, "Why did
you go up there?"

"When I saw the men were going up," he replied, "I had no idea of
stopping them; the rebel pits had been taken and nobody had been hurt,
and after they had started I commanded them to go right on. I looked up
at the head of the ridge as I was going up, and there I saw a
Confederate general on horseback. I had a silver whisky flask in my
pocket, and when I saw this man on the top of the hill I took out my
flask and waved my hand toward him, holding up the shining, glittering
flask, and then I took a drink. He waved back to me, and then the whole
corps went up."

All the evening of the 25th the excitement of the battle continued.
Bragg had retreated down the Chickamauga Valley and was burning what he
could not carry away, so that the east was lit by his fires, while
Sheridan continued his fight along the east slope of Missionary Ridge
until nine o'clock in the evening. It was a bright moonlight night, and
we could see most of the operations as plainly as by day. The next
morning Bragg was in full retreat. I went to Missionary Ridge in the
morning, and from there I could see along ten miles of Chickamauga
Valley the fires of the depots and bridges he was burning as he fled.

At intervals throughout the day I sent dispatches to Washington, where
they were eagerly read, as the following telegram sent me on the 27th
shows:

                   WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON CITY, _November 27, 1863_.

     Hon. C. A. DANA, Chattanooga, Tenn.:

     The Secretary of War is absent and the President is sick, but both
     receive your dispatches regularly and esteem them highly, not
     merely because they are reliable, but for their clearness of
     narrative and their graphic pictures of the stirring events they
     describe.

     The patient endurance and spirited valor exhibited by commanders
     and men in the last great feat of arms, which has crowned our cause
     with such a glorious success, is making all of us hero worshipers.

                                       P. H. WATSON,
                                   _Acting Secretary of War_.

The enemy was now divided. Bragg was flying toward Rome and Atlanta, and
Longstreet was in East Tennessee besieging Burnside. Our victorious army
was between them. The first thought was, of course, to relieve Burnside,
and Grant ordered Granger with the Fourth Corps instantly forward to his
aid, taking pains to write Granger a personal letter, explaining the
exigencies of the case and the imperative need of energy. It had no
effect, however, in hastening the movement, and a day or two later Grant
ordered Sherman to assume command of all the forces operating from the
south to save Knoxville. Grant became imbued with a strong prejudice
against Granger from this circumstance.

As any movement against Bragg was impracticable at that season, the only
operations possible to Grant, beyond the relief of Burnside, were to
hold Chattanooga and the line of the Hiwassee, to complete and protect
the railroads and the steamboats upon the Tennessee, and to amass food,
forage, and ordnance stores for the future. But all this would require
only a portion of the forces under his command; and, instead of holding
the remainder in winter quarters, he evolved a plan to employ them in
an offensive winter campaign against Mobile and the interior of Alabama.
He asked me to lay his plan before Mr. Stanton, and urge its approval by
the Government, which, of course, I did at once by telegraph.

I did not wait at Chattanooga to learn the decision of the Government on
Grant's plan, but left on November 29th, again with Colonel Wilson, to
join Sherman, now well on his way to Knoxville, and to observe his
campaign.

I fell in with Sherman on November 30th at Charleston, on the Hiwassee.
The Confederate guard there fled at his approach, after half destroying
the bridges, and we had to stay there until one was repaired. When we
reached Loudon, on December 3d, the bridge over the Tennessee was gone,
so that the main body of the army marched to a point where it was
believed a practicable ford might be found. The ford, however, proved
too deep for the men, the river being two hundred yards wide, and the
water almost at freezing point. We had a great deal of fun getting
across. I remember my horse went through--swam through, where his feet
could not strike the ground--and I got across without any difficulty. I
think Wilson got across, too; but when the lieutenant of our squad of
cavalrymen got in the middle of the river, where it was so deep that as
he sat in the saddle the water came up to his knees almost, and a little
above the breast of the mule he rode, the animal turned his head upward
toward the current, at that place very strong, and would not stir. This
poor fellow sat there in the middle of the stream, and, do his best, he
could not move his beast. Finally, they drove in a big wagon, or truck,
with two horses, and tied that to the bits of the mule, and dragged him
out.

Colonel Wilson at once set about the construction of a trestle bridge,
and by working all night had it so advanced that the troops could begin
to cross by daylight the next morning.

While the crossing was going on, we captured a Confederate mail, and
first learned something authentic about Burnside. He had been assailed
by Longstreet on the 29th of November, but had repulsed him. He was
still besieged, and all the letter writers spoke of the condition in the
town with great despondency, evidently regarding their chance of
extrication as very poor. Longstreet, we gathered from the mail, thought
that Sherman was bringing up only a small force.

By noon of December 5th we had our army over, and, as we were now only
thirty-five miles from Knoxville, we pushed ahead rapidly, the enemy
making but little resistance. When Longstreet discovered the strength of
our force he retreated, and we entered Knoxville at noon on the 6th. We
found to our surprise that General Burnside had fully twenty days'
provisions--much more, in fact, than at the beginning of the siege.
These supplies had been drawn from the French Broad by boats, and by the
Sevierville road. The loyal people of East Tennessee had done their
utmost through the whole time to send in provisions and forage, and
Longstreet left open the very avenues which Burnside most desired. We
found ammunition very short, and projectiles for our rifle guns had
been made in the town. The utmost constancy and unanimity had prevailed
during the whole siege, from Burnside down to the last private; no man
thought of retreat or surrender.

The next morning after our arrival, December 7th, Sherman started back
to Chattanooga with all his force not needed there. Colonel Wilson and I
returned with him, reaching Chattanooga on December 10th.

Everything in the army was now so safe, quiet, and regular that I felt I
could be more useful anywhere else, so the day I got back I asked leave
of Mr. Stanton to go North. I did not wait for his reply, however. The
morning of the 12th Grant sent for me to come to his headquarters, and
asked me to go to Washington to represent more fully to Stanton and
Halleck his wishes with regard to the winter campaign. As the matter was
important, I started at once, telegraphing Mr. Stanton that, if he
thought it unnecessary for me to go, orders would reach me at any point
on the railroad.

CHAPTER XI.

THE WAR DEPARTMENT IN WAR TIMES.

    Grant's plans blocked by Halleck--Mr. Dana on duty at
    Washington--Edwin McMasters Stanton--His deep religious feeling--His
    swift intelligence and almost superhuman energy--The Assistant
    Secretary's functions--Contract supplies and contract
    frauds--Lincoln's intercession for dishonest contractors with
    political influence--A characteristic letter from Sherman.

I reached Washington about the middle of December, and immediately gave
to Mr. Stanton an outline of Grant's plan and reasons for a winter
campaign. The President, Mr. Stanton, and General Halleck all agreed
that the proposed operations were the most promising in sight; indeed,
Mr. Stanton was enthusiastic in favor of the scheme as I presented it to
him. He said that the success of Grant's campaign would end the war in
the Mississippi Valley, and practically make prisoners of all the rebel
forces in the interior of Mississippi and Alabama, without our being at
the direct necessity of guarding and feeding them. But Halleck, as a
_sine qua non_, insisted that East Tennessee should first be cleared out
and Longstreet driven off permanently and things up to date secured,
before new campaigns were entered upon.

The result was that no winter campaign was made in 1863-'64 toward the
Alabama River towns and Mobile. Its success, in my opinion, was certain,
and I so represented to Mr. Stanton. Without jeoparding our interests in
any other quarter, Grant would have opened the Alabama River and
captured Mobile a full year before it finally fell. Its success meant
permanent security for everything we had already laid hold of, at once
freeing many thousands of garrison troops for service elsewhere. As long
as the rebels held Alabama, they had a base from which to strike
Tennessee. I had unbounded confidence in Grant's skill and energy to
conduct such a campaign into the interior, cutting loose entirely from
his base and subsisting off the enemy's country. At the time he had the
troops, and could have finished the job in three months.

After I had explained fully my mission from Grant, I asked the Secretary
what he wanted me to do. Mr. Stanton told me he would like to have me
remain in the department until I was needed again at the front.
Accordingly, an office in the War Department was provided for me, and I
began to do the regular work of an assistant to the Secretary of War.
This was the first time since my relations with the War Department began
that I had been thrown much with the Secretary, and I was very glad to
have an opportunity to observe him.

Mr. Stanton was a short, thick, dark man, with a very large head and a
mass of black hair. His nature was intense, and he was one of the most
eloquent men that I ever met. Stanton was entirely absorbed in his
duties, and his energy in prosecuting them was something almost
superhuman. When he took hold of the War Department the armies seemed to
grow, and they certainly gained in force and vim and thoroughness.

One of the first things which struck me in Mr. Stanton was his deep
religious feeling and his familiarity with the Bible. He must have
studied the Bible a great deal when he was a boy. He had the firmest
conviction that the Lord directed our armies. Over and over again have I
heard him express the same opinion which he wrote to the Tribune after
Donelson: "Much has recently been said of military combinations and
organizing victory. I hear such phrases with apprehension. They
commenced in infidel France with the Italian campaign, and resulted in
Waterloo. Who can organize victory? Who can combine the elements of
success on the battlefield? We owe our recent victories to the Spirit of
the Lord, that moved our soldiers to rush into battle, and filled the
hearts of our enemies with dismay. The inspiration that conquered in
battle was in the hearts of the soldiers and from on high; and wherever
there is the same inspiration there will be the same results." There was
never any cant in Stanton's religious feeling. It was the
straightforward expression of what he believed and lived, and was as
simple and genuine and real to him as the principles of his business.

Stanton was a serious student of history. He had read many books on the
subject--more than on any other, I should say--and he was fond of
discussing historical characters with his associates; not that he made a
show of his learning. He was fond, too, of discussing legal questions,
and would listen with eagerness to the statement of cases in which
friends had been interested. He was a man who was devoted to his
friends, and he had a good many with whom he liked to sit down and talk.
In conversation he was witty and satirical; he told a story well, and
was very companionable.

There is a popular impression that Mr. Stanton took a malevolent delight
in browbeating his subordinates, and every now and then making a
spectacle of some poor officer or soldier, who unfortunately fell into
his clutches in the Secretary's reception room, for the edification of
bystanders. This idea, like many other false notions concerning great
men, is largely a mistaken one. The stories which are told of Mr.
Stanton's impatience and violence are exaggerated. He could speak in a
very peremptory tone, but I never heard him say anything that could be
called vituperative.

There were certain men in whom he had little faith, and I have heard him
speak to some of these in a tone of severity. He was a man of the
quickest intelligence, and understood a thing before half of it was told
him. His judgment was just as swift, and when he got hold of a man who
did not understand, who did not state his case clearly, he was very
impatient.

If Stanton liked a man, he was always pleasant. I was with him for
several years in the most confidential relations, and I can now recall
only one instance of his speaking to me in a harsh tone. It was a
curious case. Among the members of Congress at that period was a Jew
named Strouse. One of Strouse's race, who lived in Virginia, had gone
down to the mouth of the James River when General Butler was at
Fortress Monroe, and had announced his wish to leave the Confederacy.
Now, the orders were that when a man came to a commanding officer with a
request to go through the lines, he was to be examined and all the money
he had was to be taken from him. General Butler had taken from this
Virginian friend of Strouse between fifty thousand and seventy-five
thousand dollars. When a general took money in this way he had to
deposit it at once in the Treasury; there a strict account was kept of
the amount, whom it was taken by, and whom it was taken from. Butler
gave a receipt to this man, and he afterward came to Washington to get
his money. He and Strouse came to the War Department, where they
bothered Mr. Stanton a good deal. Finally, Mr. Stanton sent for me.

"Strouse is after me," he said; "he wants that money, and I want you to
settle the matter."

"What shall I do?" I asked; "what are the orders?" He took the papers in
the case and wrote on the back of them:

    Referred to Mr. Dana, Assistant Secretary of War, to be settled as
    in his judgment shall be best.

                                        E. M. STANTON.

The man then turned his attention from the Secretary to me. I looked
into the matter, and gave him back the money. The next day Mr. Stanton
sent for me. I saw he was angry.

"Did you give that Jew back his money?" he asked in a harsh tone.

"Yes, sir."

"Well," he said, "I should like to know by what authority you did it."

"If you will excuse me while I go to my room, I will show my authority
to you," I replied.

So I went up and brought down the paper he had indorsed, and read to
him:

"Referred to Mr. Dana, Assistant Secretary of War, to be settled as in
his judgment shall be best." Then I handed it over to him. He looked at
it, and then he laughed.

"You are right," he said; "you have got me this time." That was the only
time he spoke to me in a really harsh tone.

At the time that I entered the War Department for regular duty, it was a
very busy place. Mr. Stanton frequently worked late at night, keeping
his carriage waiting for him. I never worked at night, as my eyes would
not allow it. I got to my office about nine o'clock in the morning, and
I stayed there nearly the whole day, for I made it a rule never to go
away until my desk was cleared. When I arrived I usually found on my
table a big pile of papers which were to be acted on, papers of every
sort that had come to me from the different departments of the office.

The business of the War Department during the first winter that I spent
in Washington was something enormous. Nearly $285,000,000 was paid out
that year (from June, 1863, to June, 1864) by the quartermaster's
office, and $221,000,000 stood in accounts at the end of the year
awaiting examination before payment was made. We had to buy every
conceivable thing that an army of men could need. We bought fuel,
forage, furniture, coffins, medicine, horses, mules, telegraph wire,
sugar, coffee, flour, cloth, caps, guns, powder, and thousands of other
things. Sometimes our supplies came by contract; again by direct
purchase; again by manufacture. Of course, by the fall of 1863 the army
was pretty well supplied; still, that year we bought over 3,000,000
pairs of trousers, nearly 5,000,000 flannel shirts and drawers, some
7,000,000 pairs of stockings, 325,000 mess pans, 207,000 camp kettles,
over 13,000 drums, and 14,830 fifes. It was my duty to make contracts
for many of these supplies.

In making contracts for supplies of all kinds, we were obliged to take
careful precautions against frauds. I had a colleague in the department,
the Hon. Peter H. Watson, the distinguished patent lawyer, who had a
great knack at detecting army frauds. One which Watson had spent much
time in trying to ferret out came to light soon after I went into
office. This was an extensive fraud in forage furnished to the Army of
the Potomac. The trick of the fraud consisted in a dishonest mixture of
oats and Indian corn for the horses and mules of the army. By changing
the proportions of the two sorts of grain, the contractors were able to
make a considerable difference in the cost of the bushel, on account of
the difference in the weight and price of the grain, and it was
difficult to detect the cheat. However, Watson found it out, and at once
arrested the men who were most directly involved.

Soon after the arrest Watson went to New York. While he was gone,
certain parties from Philadelphia interested in the swindle came to me
at the War Department. Among them was the president of the Corn
Exchange. They paid me thirty-three thousand dollars to cover the sum
which one of the men confessed he had appropriated; thirty-two thousand
dollars was the amount restored by another individual. The morning after
this transaction the Philadelphians returned to me, demanding both that
the villains should be released, and that the papers and funds belonging
to them, taken at the time of their arrest, should be restored. It was
my judgment that, instead of being released, they should be remanded to
solitary confinement until they could clear up all the forage frauds and
make complete justice possible. Then I should have released them, but
not before. So I telegraphed to Watson what had happened, and asked him
to return to prevent any false step.

Now, it happened that the men arrested were of some political importance
in Pennsylvania, and eminent politicians took a hand in getting them out
of the scrape. Among others, the Hon. David Wilmot, then Senator of the
United States and author of the famous Wilmot proviso, was very active.
He went to Mr. Lincoln and made such representations and appeals that
finally the President consented to go with him over to the War
Department and see Watson in his office. Wilmot remained outside, and
Mr. Lincoln went in to labor with the Assistant Secretary. Watson
eloquently described the nature of the fraud, and the extent to which it
had already been developed by his partial investigation. The President,
in reply, dwelt upon the fact that a large amount of money had been
refunded by the guilty men, and urged the greater question of the safety
of the cause and the necessity of preserving united the powerful support
which Pennsylvania was giving to the administration in suppressing the
rebellion. Watson answered:

"Very well, Mr. President, if you wish to have these men released, all
that is necessary is to give the order; but I shall ask to have it in
writing. In such a case as this it would not be safe for me to obey a
verbal order; and let me add that if you do release them the fact and
the reason will necessarily become known to the people."

Finally Mr. Lincoln took up his hat and went out. Wilmot was waiting in
the corridor, and came to meet him.

"Wilmot," he said, "I can't do anything with Watson; he won't release
them."

The reply which the Senator made to this remark can not be printed here,
but it did not affect the judgment or the action of the President.

The men were retained for a long time afterward. The fraud was fully
investigated, and future swindles of the kind were rendered impossible.
If Watson could have had his way, the guilty parties--and there were
some whose names never got to the public--would have been tried by
military commission and sternly dealt with. But my own reflections upon
the subject led me to the conclusion that the moderation of the
President was wiser than the unrelenting justice of the Assistant
Secretary would have been.

Not a little of my time at the department was taken up with people who
had missions of some kind within the lines of the army. I remember one
of these particularly, because it brought me a characteristic letter
from General Sherman. There was much suffering among the loyal citizens
and the Quakers of East Tennessee in the winter of 1863-'64, and many
relief committees came to us seeking transportation and safe conduct for
themselves and their supplies into that country. Some of these were
granted, to the annoyance of General Sherman, then in command of the
Military Division of the Mississippi. The reasons for his objections he
gave in this letter to me:

          HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI,
                                NASHVILLE, TENN., _April 21, 1864_.

     C. A. DANA, Esq., Ass't Sec. of War, Washington.

     MY DEAR FRIEND: It may be parliamentary, but is not military, for
     me to write you; but I feel assured anything I may write will only
     have the force of a casual conversation, such as we have indulged
     in by the camp fire or as we jogged along by the road. The text of
     my letter is one you gave a Philadelphia gentleman who is going up
     to East Tennessee to hunt up his brother Quakers and administer the
     bounties of his own and his fellow-citizens' charity. Now who would
     stand in the way of one so kindly and charitably disposed? Surely
     not I. But other questions present themselves. We have been working
     hard with tens of thousands of men, and at a cost of millions of
     dollars, to make railroads to carry to the line of the Tennessee
     enough provisions and material of war to enable us to push in our
     physical force to the next stop in the war. I have found on
     personal inspection that hitherto the railroads have barely been
     able to feed our men, that mules have died by the thousand, that
     arms and ammunition had [have] laid in the depot for two weeks for
     want of cars, that no accumulation at all of clothing and stores
     had been or could be moved at Chattanooga, and that it took four
     sets of cars and locomotives to accommodate the passes given by
     military commanders; that gradually the wants of citizens and
     charities were actually consuming the real resources of a road
     designed exclusively for army purposes. You have been on the spot
     and can understand my argument. At least one hundred citizens daily
     presented good claims to go forward--women to attend sick children,
     parents in search of the bodies of some slain in battle, sanitary
     committees sent by States and corporations to look after the
     personal wants of their constituents, ministers and friends to
     minister to the Christian wants of their flocks; men who had fled,
     anxious to go back to look after lost families, etc.; and, more
     still, the tons of goods which they all bore on their merciful
     errands. None but such as you, who have been present and seen the
     tens, hundreds, and thousands of such cases, can measure them in
     the aggregate and segregate the exceptions.

     I had no time to hesitate, for but a short month was left me to
     prepare, and I must be ready to put in motion near one hundred
     thousand men to move when naught remains to save life. I figured up
     the mathematics, and saw that I must have daily one hundred and
     forty-five car loads of essentials for thirty days to enable me to
     fill the requirement. Only seventy-five daily was all the roads
     were doing. Now I have got it up to one hundred and thirty-five.
     Troops march, cattle go by the road, sanitary and sutler's stores
     limited, and all is done that human energy can accomplish. Yet come
     these pressing claims of charity, by men and women who can not
     grasp the great problem. My usual answer is, "Show me that your
     presence at the front is more valuable than two hundred pounds of
     powder, bread, or oats"; and it is generally conclusive. I have
     given Mr. Savery a pass on your letter, and it takes two hundred
     pounds of bread from our soldiers, or the same of oats from our
     patient mules; but I could not promise to feed the suffering
     Quakers at the expense of our army. I have ordered all who can not
     provide food at the front to be allowed transportation back in our
     empty cars; but I can not undertake to transport the food needed by
     the worthy East Tennesseeans or any of them. In peace there is a
     beautiful harmony in all the departments of life--they all fit
     together like the Chinese puzzle; but in war all is ajar. Nothing
     fits, and it is the struggle between the stronger and weaker; and
     the latter, however it may appeal to the better feelings of our
     nature, must kick the beam. To make war we must and will harden our
     hearts.

     Therefore, when preachers clamor and the sanitaries wail, don't
     join in, but know that war, like the thunderbolt, follows its laws,
     and turns not aside even if the beautiful, the virtuous, and
     charitable stand in its path.

     When the day and the hour comes, I'll strike Joe Johnston, be the
     result what it may; but in the time allotted to me for preparation
     I must and will be selfish in making those preparations which I
     know to be necessary.

                    Your friend,
                        W. T. SHERMAN, _Major General_.

CHAPTER XII.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND HIS CABINET.

    Daily intercourse with Lincoln--The great civil leaders of the
    period--Seward and Chase--Gideon Welles--Friction between Stanton
    and Blair--Personal traits of the President--Lincoln's surpassing
    ability as a politician--His true greatness of character and
    intellect--His genius for military judgment--Stanton's comment on
    the Gettysburg speech--The kindness of Abraham Lincoln's heart.

During the first winter I spent in Washington in the War Department I
had constant opportunities of seeing Mr. Lincoln, and of conversing with
him in the cordial and unofficial manner which he always preferred. Not
that there was ever any lack of dignity in the man. Even in his freest
moments one always felt the presence of a will and of an intellectual
power which maintained the ascendancy of his position. He never posed,
or put on airs, or attempted to make any particular impression; but he
was always conscious of his own ideas and purposes, even in his most
unreserved moments.

I knew, too, and saw frequently, all the members of his Cabinet. When
Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated as President, his first act was to name his
Cabinet; and it was a common remark at the time that he had put into it
every man who had competed with him for the nomination. The first in
importance was William H. Seward, of New York, Mr. Lincoln's most
prominent competitor. Mr. Seward was made Secretary of State. He was an
interesting man, of an optimistic temperament, and he probably had the
most cultivated and comprehensive intellect in the administration. He
was a man who was all his life in controversies, yet he was singular in
this, that, though forever in fights, he had almost no personal enemies.
Seward had great ability as a writer, and he had what is very rare in a
lawyer, a politician, or a statesman--imagination. A fine illustration
of his genius was the acquisition of Alaska. That was one of the last
things that he did before he went out of office, and it demonstrated
more than anything else his fixed and never-changing idea that all North
America should be united under one government.

Mr. Seward was an admirable writer and an impressive though entirely
unpretentious speaker. He stood up and talked as though he were engaged
in conversation, and the effect was always great. It gave the impression
of a man deliberating "out loud" with himself.

The second man in importance and ability to be put into the Cabinet was
Mr. Chase, of Ohio. He was an able, noble, spotless statesman, a man who
would have been worthy of the best days of the old Roman republic. He
had been a candidate for the presidency, though a less conspicuous one
than Seward. Mr. Chase was a portly man; tall, and of an impressive
appearance, with a very handsome, large head. He was genial, though very
decided, and occasionally he would criticise the President, a thing I
never heard Mr. Seward do. Chase had been successful in Ohio politics,
and in the Treasury Department his administration was satisfactory to
the public. He was the author of the national banking law. I remember
going to dine with him one day--I did that pretty often, as I had known
him well when I was on the Tribune--and he said to me: "I have completed
to-day a very great thing. I have finished the National Bank Act. It
will be a blessing to the country long after I am dead."

The Secretary of the Navy throughout the war was Gideon Welles, of
Connecticut. Welles was a curious-looking man: he wore a wig which was
parted in the middle, the hair falling down on each side; and it was
from his peculiar appearance, I have always thought, that the idea that
he was an old fogy originated. I remember Governor Andrew, of
Massachusetts, coming into my office at the War Department one day and
asking where he could find "that old Mormon deacon, the Secretary of the
Navy." In spite of his peculiarities, I think Mr. Welles was a very
wise, strong man. There was nothing decorative about him; there was no
noise in the street when he went along; but he understood his duty, and
did it efficiently, continually, and unvaryingly. There was a good deal
of opposition to him, for we had no navy when the war began, and he had
to create one without much deliberation; but he was patient, laborious,
and intelligent at his task.

Montgomery Blair was Postmaster-General in Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet. He was
a capable man, sharp, keen, perhaps a little cranky, and not friendly
with everybody; but I always found him pleasant to deal with, and I saw
a great deal of him. He and Mr. Stanton were not very good friends, and
when he wanted anything in the War Department he was more likely to come
to an old friend like me than to go to the Secretary. Stanton, too,
rather preferred that.

The Attorney-General of the Cabinet was Edward Bates, of Missouri. Bates
had been Mr. Greeley's favorite candidate for the presidency. He was put
into the Cabinet partly, I suppose, because his reputation was good as a
lawyer, but principally because he had been advocated for President by
such powerful influences. Bates must have been about sixty-eight years
old when he was appointed Attorney-General. He was a very eloquent
speaker. Give him a patriotic subject, where his feelings could expand,
and he would make a beautiful speech. He was a man of very gentle,
cordial nature, but not one of extraordinary brilliancy.

The relations between Mr. Lincoln and the members of his Cabinet were
always friendly and sincere on his part. He treated every one of them
with unvarying candor, respect, and kindness; but, though several of
them were men of extraordinary force and self-assertion--this was true
especially of Mr. Seward, Mr. Chase, and Mr. Stanton--and though there
was nothing of self-hood or domination in his manner toward them, it was
always plain that he was the master and they the subordinates. They
constantly had to yield to his will in questions where responsibility
fell upon him. If he ever yielded to theirs, it was because they
convinced him that the course they advised was judicious and
appropriate. I fancied during the whole time of my intimate intercourse
with him and with them that he was always prepared to receive the
resignation of any one of them. At the same time I do not recollect a
single occasion when any member of the Cabinet had got his mind ready to
quit his post from any feeling of dissatisfaction with the policy or
conduct of the President. Not that they were always satisfied with his
actions; the members of the Cabinet, like human beings in general, were
not pleased with everything. In their judgment much was imperfect in the
administration; much, they felt, would have been done better if their
views had been adopted and they individually had had charge of it. Not
so with the President. He was calm, equable, uncomplaining. In the
discussion of important questions, whatever he said showed the
profoundest thought, even when he was joking. He seemed to see every
side of every question. He never was impatient, he never was in a hurry,
and he never tried to hurry anybody else. To every one he was pleasant
and cordial. Yet they all felt it was his word that went at last; that
every case was open until he gave his decision.

This impression of authority, of reserve force, Mr. Lincoln always gave
to those about him. Even physically he was impressive. According to the
record measurements, he was six feet four inches in height. That is, he
was at least four inches taller than the tall, ordinary man. When he
rode out on horseback to review an army, as I have frequently seen him
do, he wore usually a high hat, and then he looked like a giant. There
was no waste or excess of material about his frame; nevertheless, he was
very strong and muscular. I remember that the last time I went to see
him at the White House--the afternoon before he was killed--I found him
in a side room with coat off and sleeves rolled up, washing his hands.
He had finished his work for the day, and was going away. I noticed then
the thinness of his arms, and how well developed, strong, and active his
muscles seemed to be. In fact, there was nothing flabby or feeble about
Mr. Lincoln physically. He was a very quick man in his movements when he
chose to be, and he had immense physical endurance. Night after night he
would work late and hard without being wilted by it, and he always
seemed as ready for the next day's work as though he had done nothing
the day before.

Mr. Lincoln's face was thin, and his features were large. His hair was
black, his eyebrows heavy, his forehead square and well developed. His
complexion was dark and quite sallow. His smile was something most
lovely. I have never seen a woman's smile that approached it in its
engaging quality; nor have I ever seen another face which would light up
as Mr. Lincoln's did when something touched his heart or amused him. I
have heard it said that he was ungainly, that his step was awkward. He
never impressed me as being awkward. In the first place, there was such
a charm and beauty about his expression, such good humor and friendly
spirit looking from his eyes, that when you were near him you never
thought whether he was awkward or graceful; you thought of nothing
except, What a kindly character this man has! Then, too, there was such
shrewdness in his kindly features that one did not care to criticise
him. His manner was always dignified, and even if he had done an
awkward thing the dignity of his character and manner would have made it
seem graceful and becoming.

The great quality of his appearance was benevolence and benignity: the
wish to do somebody some good if he could; and yet there was no flabby
philanthropy about Abraham Lincoln. He was all solid, hard, keen
intelligence combined with goodness. Indeed, the expression of his face
and of his bearing which impressed one most, after his benevolence and
benignity, was his intelligent understanding. You felt that here was a
man who saw through things, who understood, and you respected him
accordingly.

Lincoln was a supreme politician. He understood politics because he
understood human nature. I had an illustration of this in the spring of
1864. The administration had decided that the Constitution of the United
States should be amended so that slavery should be prohibited. This was
not only a change in our national policy, it was also a most important
military measure. It was intended not merely as a means of abolishing
slavery forever, but as a means of affecting the judgment and the
feelings and the anticipations of those in rebellion. It was believed
that such an amendment to the Constitution would be equivalent to new
armies in the field, that it would be worth at least a million men, that
it would be an intellectual army that would tend to paralyze the enemy
and break the continuity of his ideas.

In order thus to amend the Constitution, it was necessary first to have
the proposed amendment approved by three fourths of the States. When
that question came to be considered, the issue was seen to be so close
that one State more was necessary. The State of Nevada was organized and
admitted into the Union to answer that purpose. I have sometimes heard
people complain of Nevada as superfluous and petty, not big enough to be
a State; but when I hear that complaint, I always hear Abraham Lincoln
saying, "It is easier to admit Nevada than to raise another million of
soldiers."

In March, 1864, the question of allowing Nevada to form a State
government finally came up in the House of Representatives. There was
strong opposition to it. For a long time beforehand the question had
been canvassed anxiously. At last, late one afternoon, the President
came into my office, in the third story of the War Department. He used
to come there sometimes rather than send for me, because he was fond of
walking and liked to get away from the crowds in the White House. He
came in and shut the door.

"Dana," he said, "I am very anxious about this vote. It has got to be
taken next week. The time is very short. It is going to be a great deal
closer than I wish it was."

"There are plenty of Democrats who will vote for it," I replied. "There
is James E. English, of Connecticut; I think he is sure, isn't he?"

"Oh, yes; he is sure on the merits of the question."

"Then," said I, "there's 'Sunset' Cox, of Ohio. How is he?"

"He is sure and fearless. But there are some others that I am not clear
about. There are three that you can deal with better than anybody else,
perhaps, as you know them all. I wish you would send for them."

He told me who they were; it isn't necessary to repeat the names here.
One man was from New Jersey and two from New York.

"What will they be likely to want?" I asked.

"I don't know," said the President; "I don't know. It makes no
difference, though, what they want. Here is the alternative: that we
carry this vote, or be compelled to raise another million, and I don't
know how many more, men, and fight no one knows how long. It is a
question of three votes or new armies."

"Well, sir," said I, "what shall I say to these gentlemen?"

"I don't know," said he; "but whatever promise you make to them I will
perform."

I sent for the men and saw them one by one. I found that they were
afraid of their party. They said that some fellows in the party would be
down on them. Two of them wanted internal revenue collector's
appointments. "You shall have it," I said. Another one wanted a very
important appointment about the custom house of New York. I knew the man
well whom he wanted to have appointed. He was a Republican, though the
congressman was a Democrat. I had served with him in the Republican
county committee of New York. The office was worth perhaps twenty
thousand dollars a year. When the congressman stated the case, I asked
him, "Do you want that?"

"Yes," said he.

"Well," I answered, "you shall have it."

"I understand, of course," said he, "that you are not saying this on
your own authority?"

"Oh, no," said I; "I am saying it on the authority of the President."

Well, these men voted that Nevada be allowed to form a State government,
and thus they helped secure the vote which was required. The next
October the President signed the proclamation admitting the State. In
the February following Nevada was one of the States which ratified the
Thirteenth Amendment, by which slavery was abolished by constitutional
prohibition in all of the United States. I have always felt that this
little piece of side politics was one of the most judicious, humane, and
wise uses of executive authority that I have ever assisted in or
witnessed.

The appointment in the New York Custom House was to wait until the term
of the actual incumbent had run out. My friend, the Democratic
congressman, was quite willing. "That's all right," he said; "I am in no
hurry." Before the time had expired, Mr. Lincoln was murdered and Andrew
Johnson became President. I was in the West, when one day I got a
telegram from Roscoe Conkling:

"Come to Washington." So I went.

"I want you to go and see President Johnson," Mr. Conkling said, "and
tell him that the appointment of this man to the custom house is a
sacred promise of Mr. Lincoln's, and that it must be kept."

Then I went to the White House, and saw President Johnson.

"This is Mr. Lincoln's promise," I urged. "He regarded it as saving the
necessity of another call for troops and raising, perhaps, a million
more men to continue the war. I trust, Mr. President, that you will see
your way clear to execute this promise."

"Well, Mr. Dana," he replied, "I don't say that I won't; but I have
observed in the course of my experience that such bargains tend to
immorality."

The appointment was not made. I am happy to say, however, that the
gentleman to whom the promise was given never found any fault either
with President Lincoln or with the Assistant Secretary who had been the
means of making the promise to him.

One of the cleverest minor political moves which Mr. Lincoln ever made
was an appointment he once gave Horace Greeley. Mr. Greeley never
approved of Mr. Lincoln's manner of conducting the war, and he sometimes
abused the President roundly for his deliberation. As the war went on,
Greeley grew more and more irritable, because the administration did not
make peace on some terms. Finally, in July, 1864, he received a letter
from a pretended agent of the Confederate authorities in Canada, saying:

    I am authorized to state to you for our use only, not the public,
    that two ambassadors of Davis and Company are now in Canada with
    full and complete powers for a peace, and Mr. Sanders requests that
    you come on immediately to me at Cataract House to have a private
    interview; or, if you will send the President's protection for him
    and two friends, they will come on and meet you. He says the whole
    matter can be consummated by me, them, and President Lincoln.

This letter was followed the next day by a telegram, saying: "Will you
come here? Parties have full power."

Upon receiving this letter, Mr. Greeley wrote to President Lincoln, more
or less in the strain of the articles that he had published in the
Tribune. He complained bitterly of the way the business of the
Government was managed in the great crisis, and told the President that
now there was a way open to peace. He explained that the Confederates
wanted a conference, and he told Mr. Lincoln that he thought that he
ought to appoint an ambassador, or a diplomatic agent, of the United
States Government, to meet the Confederate agents at Niagara and hear
what they had to say. Mr. Lincoln immediately responded by asking Mr.
Greeley to be himself the representative and to go to Niagara Falls.

"If you can find any person anywhere," the President wrote, "professing
to have any proposition of Jefferson Davis, in writing, for peace,
embracing the restoration of the Union, and abandonment of slavery,
whatever else it embraces, say to him he may come to me with you, and
that if he really brings such proposition he shall at the least have
safe conduct with the paper (and without publicity, if he chooses) to
the point where you shall have met him. The same, if there be two or
more persons."

Mr. Greeley went to Niagara, but his mission ended in nothing, except
that the poor man, led astray by too great confidence, failed in his
undertaking, and was almost universally laughed at. I saw the President
not long after that, and he said, with a funny twinkle in his eye: "I
sent Brother Greeley a commission. I guess I am about even with him
now."

Lincoln had the most comprehensive, the most judicious mind; he was the
least faulty in his conclusions of any man I have ever known. He never
stepped too soon, and he never stepped too late. When the whole Northern
country seemed to be clamoring for him to issue a proclamation
abolishing slavery, he didn't do it. Deputation after deputation went to
Washington. I remember once a hundred gentlemen, dressed in black coats,
mostly clergymen, from Massachusetts, came to Washington to appeal to
him to proclaim the abolition of slavery. But he did not do it. He
allowed Mr. Cameron and General Butler to execute their great idea of
treating slaves as contraband of war and protecting those who had got
into our lines against being recaptured by their Southern owners; but he
would not prematurely make the proclamation that was so much desired.
Finally the time came, and of that he was the judge. Nobody else decided
it; nobody commanded it; the proclamation was issued as he thought best,
and it was efficacious. The people of the North, who during the long
contest over slavery had always stood strenuously by the compromises of
the Constitution, might themselves have become half rebels if this
proclamation had been issued too soon. At last they were tired of
waiting, tired of endeavoring to preserve even a show of regard for what
was called "the compromises of the Constitution" when they believed the
Constitution itself was in danger. Thus public opinion was ripe when
the proclamation came, and that was the beginning of the end. He could
have issued this proclamation two years before, perhaps, and the
consequence of it might have been our entire defeat; but when it came it
did its work, and it did us no harm whatever. Nobody protested against
it, not even the Confederates themselves.

This unerring judgment, this patience which waited and which knew when
the right time had arrived, is an intellectual quality that I do not
find exercised upon any such scale and with such absolute precision by
any other man in history. It proves Abraham Lincoln to have been
intellectually one of the greatest of rulers. If we look through the
record of great men, where is there one to be placed beside him? I do
not know.

Another interesting fact about Abraham Lincoln is that he developed into
a great military man; that is to say, a man of supreme military
judgment. I do not risk anything in saying that if one will study the
records of the war and study the writings relating to it, he will agree
with me that the greatest general we had, greater than Grant or Thomas,
was Abraham Lincoln. It was not so at the beginning; but after three or
four years of constant practice in the science and art of war, he
arrived at this extraordinary knowledge of it, so that Von Moltke was
not a better general, or an abler planner or expounder of a campaign,
than was President Lincoln. To sum it up, he was a born leader of men.
He knew human nature; he knew what chord to strike, and was never afraid
to strike it when he believed that the time had arrived.

Mr. Lincoln was not what is called an educated man. In the college that
he attended a man gets up at daylight to hoe corn, and sits up at night
by the side of a burning pine-knot to read the best book he can find.
What education he had, he had picked up. He had read a great many books,
and all the books that he had read he knew. He had a tenacious memory,
just as he had the ability to see the essential thing. He never took an
unimportant point and went off upon that; but he always laid hold of the
real question, and attended to that, giving no more thought to other
points than was indispensably necessary.

Thus, while we say that Mr. Lincoln was an uneducated man in the college
sense, he had a singularly perfect education in regard to everything
that concerns the practical affairs of life. His judgment was excellent,
and his information was always accurate. He knew what the thing was. He
was a man of genius, and contrasted with men of education the man of
genius will always carry the day. Many of his speeches illustrate this.

I remember very well Mr. Stanton's comment on the Gettysburg speeches of
Edward Everett and Mr. Lincoln. "Edward Everett has made a speech," he
said, "that will make three columns in the newspapers, and Mr. Lincoln
has made a speech of perhaps forty or fifty lines. Everett's is the
speech of a scholar, polished to the last possibility. It is elegant,
and it is learned; but Lincoln's speech will be read by a thousand men
where one reads Everett's, and will be remembered as long as anybody's
speeches are remembered who speaks in the English language."

That was the truth. Who ever thinks of or reads Everett's Gettysburg
speech now? If one will compare those two speeches he will get an idea
how superior genius is to education; how superior that intellectual
faculty is which sees the vitality of a question and knows how to state
it; how superior that intellectual faculty is which regards everything
with the fire of earnestness in the soul, with the relentless purpose of
a heart devoted to objects beyond literature.

Another remarkable peculiarity of Mr. Lincoln's was that he seemed to
have no illusions. He had no freakish notions that things were so, or
might be so, when they were not so. All his thinking and reasoning, all
his mind, in short, was based continually upon actual facts, and upon
facts of which, as I said, he saw the essence. I never heard him say
anything that was not so. I never heard him foretell things; he told
what they were, but I never heard him intimate that such and such
consequences were likely to happen without the consequences following. I
should say, perhaps, that his greatest quality was wisdom. And that is
something superior to talent, superior to education. It is again genius;
I do not think it can be acquired. All the advice that he gave was wise,
and it was always timely. This wisdom, it is scarcely necessary to add,
had its animating philosophy in his own famous words, "With malice
toward none, with charity for all."

Another remarkable quality of Mr. Lincoln was his great mercifulness. A
thing it seemed as if he could not do was to sign a death warrant. One
day General Augur, who was the major general commanding the forces in
and around Washington, came to my office and said:

"Here is So-and-So, a spy. He has been tried by court-martial; the facts
are perfectly established, he has been sentenced to death, and here is
the warrant for his execution, which is fixed for to-morrow morning at
six o'clock. The President is away. If he were here, the man certainly
wouldn't be executed. He isn't here. I think it very essential to the
safety of the service and the safety of everything that an example
should be made of this spy. They do us great mischief; and it is very
important that the law which all nations recognize in dealing with
spies, and the punishment which every nation assigns to them, should be
inflicted upon at least one of these wretches who haunt us around
Washington. Do you know whether the President will be back before
morning?"

"I understand that he won't be back until to-morrow afternoon," I
replied.

"Well, as the President is not here, will you sign the warrant?"

"Go to Mr. Stanton," I said; "he is the authority."

"I have been to him, and he said I should come to you."

Well, I signed the order; I agreed with General Augur in his view of the
question. At about eleven o'clock the next day I met the general. "The
President got home at two o'clock this morning," he said, "and he
stopped it all."

But it was not only in matters of life and death that Mr. Lincoln was
merciful. He was kind at heart toward all the world. I never heard him
say an unkind thing about anybody. Now and then he would laugh at
something jocose or satirical that somebody had done or said, but it was
always pleasant humor. He would never allow the wants of any man or
woman to go unattended to if he could help it. I noticed his sweetness
of nature particularly with his little son, a child at that time perhaps
seven or nine years old, who used to roam the departments and whom
everybody called "Tad." He had a defective palate, and couldn't speak
very plainly. Often I have sat by his father, reporting to him some
important matter that I had been ordered to inquire into, and he would
have this boy on his knee. While he would perfectly understand the
report, the striking thing about him was his affection for the child.

He was good to everybody. Once there was a great gathering at the White
House on New Year's Day, and all the diplomats came in their uniforms,
and all the officers of the army and navy in Washington were in full
costume. A little girl of mine said, "Papa, couldn't you take me over to
see that?" I said, "Yes"; so I took her over and put her in a corner,
where she beheld this gorgeous show. When it was finished, I went up to
Mr. Lincoln and said, "I have a little girl here who wants to shake
hands with you." He went over to her, and took her up and kissed her and
talked to her. She will never forget it if she lives to be a thousand
years old.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC IN '64.

    Mr. Lincoln sends Mr. Dana again to the front--General Halleck's
    character--First visit to the Army of the Potomac--General Meade's
    good qualities and bad--Winfield Scott Hancock--Early acquaintance
    with Sedgwick--His death--Humphreys's accomplishments as a soldier
    and as a swearer--Grant's plan of campaign against Lee--Incidents at
    Spottsylvania--The "Bloody Angle."

I remained in Washington the entire winter of 1863-'64, occupied mainly
with the routine business of the department. Meantime the Chattanooga
victory had made Grant the great military figure of the country, and
deservedly so. The grade of lieutenant general had been immediately
revived by act of Congress, and the President had promptly promoted him
to the new rank, and made him general in chief of all the armies of the
United States. His military prestige was such that everything was put
into his hands, everything yielded to his wishes. The coming of Grant
was a great relief to the President and the Secretary. Halleck, the late
general in chief, consented to serve as Grant's chief of staff in
Washington, practically continuing his old service of chief military
adviser to the President and the Secretary of War, while Grant took the
field in active direction of operations against Richmond.

Halleck was not thought to be a great man in the field, but he was
nevertheless a man of military ability, and by reason of his great
accomplishments in the technics of armies and of war was almost
invaluable as an adviser to the civilians Lincoln and Stanton. He was an
honest man, perhaps somewhat lacking in moral courage, yet earnest and
energetic in his efforts to sustain the national government. I have
heard Halleck accused of being unjust to his inferiors in rank,
especially to Grant. I believe this wrong. I never thought him unjust to
anybody. He always had his own ideas, and insisted strenuously on
following his own course, but I never detected a sign of injustice in
his conduct toward others. I think this false impression came from the
fact that he was a very critical man. The first impulse of his mind
toward a new plan was not enthusiasm; it was analysis, criticism. His
habit of picking men and manners to pieces to see what they were worth
gave the idea that he was unjust and malicious toward certain of his
subordinates.

It was March when Grant came to Washington to receive his new grade of
lieutenant general. Soon afterward he joined the Army of the Potomac. On
the 4th of May he had moved out from Culpeper, where the army had been
in winter quarters since the previous December, and crossed the Rapidan
with an effective force of one hundred and twenty thousand men. General
Lee, his opponent, had about seventy thousand.

For two days after Grant moved we had no authentic reports from the
army, although it was known that great events were occurring. Mr.
Stanton and Mr. Lincoln had begun to get uneasy. The evening of May 6th
I was at a reception when a messenger came with summons to the War
Department. I hurried over to the office in evening dress. The President
was there, talking very soberly with Stanton.

"Dana," said Mr. Lincoln, "you know we have been in the dark for two
days since Grant moved. We are very much troubled, and have concluded to
send you down there. How soon can you start?"

"In half an hour," I replied.

In about that time I had an engine fired up at Alexandria, and a cavalry
escort of a hundred men awaiting me there. I had got into my camp
clothes, had borrowed a pistol, and with my own horse was aboard the
train at Maryland Avenue that was to take me to Alexandria. My only
baggage was a tooth-brush. I was just starting when an orderly galloped
up with word that the President wished to see me. I rode back to the
department in hot haste. Mr. Lincoln was sitting in the same place.

"Well, Dana," said he, looking up, "since you went away I've been
thinking about it. I don't like to send you down there."

"But why not, Mr. President?" I asked, a little surprised.

"You can't tell," continued the President, "just where Lee is or what he
is doing, and Jeb Stuart is rampaging around pretty lively in between
the Rappahannock and the Rapidan. It's a considerable risk, and I don't
like to expose you to it."

"Mr. President," I said, "I have a cavalry guard ready and a good horse
myself. If we are attacked, we probably will be strong enough to fight.
If we are not strong enough to fight, and it comes to the worst, we are
equipped to run. It's getting late, and I want to get down to the
Rappahannock by daylight. I think I'll start."

"Well, now, Dana," said the President, with a little twinkle in his
eyes, "if you feel that way, I rather wish you would. Good night, and
God bless you."

By seven o'clock on the morning of May 7th I was at the Rappahannock,
where I found a rear guard of the army. I stopped there for breakfast,
and then hurried on to Grant's headquarters, which were at Piney Branch
Meeting House. There I learned of the crossing of the Rapidan by our
army, and of the desperate battle of the Wilderness on May 5th and 6th.

The Army of the Potomac was then composed of the Second, Fifth, Sixth,
and Ninth Army Corps, and of one cavalry corps. In command of the army
was Major-General George C. Meade. He was a tall, thin man, rather
dyspeptic, I should suppose from the fits of nervous irritation to which
he was subject. He was totally lacking in cordiality toward those with
whom he had business, and in consequence was generally disliked by his
subordinates. With General Grant Meade got along always perfectly,
because he had the first virtue of a soldier--that is, obedience to
orders. He was an intellectual man, and agreeable to talk with when his
mind was free, but silent and indifferent to everybody when he was
occupied with that which interested him.

As a commander, Meade seemed to me to lack the boldness that was
necessary to bring the war to a close. He lacked self-confidence and
tenacity of purpose, and he had not the moral authority that Grant had
attained from his grand successes in other fields. As soon as Meade had
a commander over him he was all right, but when he himself was the
commander he began to hesitate. Meade had entirely separate headquarters
and a separate staff, and Grant sent his orders to him.

In command of the Second Army Corps was Major-General W. S. Hancock. He
was a splendid fellow, a brilliant man, as brave as Julius Cæsar, and
always ready to obey orders, especially if they were fighting orders. He
had more of the aggressive spirit than almost anybody else in that army.
Major-General G. K. Warren, who commanded the Fifth Army Corps, was an
accomplished engineer. Major-General John Sedgwick commanded the Sixth
Army Corps. I had known him for over twenty years. Sedgwick graduated at
West Point in 1837, and was appointed a second lieutenant in the Second
Artillery. At the time of the McKenzie rebellion in Canada Sedgwick's
company was stationed at Buffalo during a considerable time. I was
living in Buffalo then, and in this rebellion the young men of the town
organized a regiment of city guards, and I was a sergeant in one of
those companies, so that I became quite familiar with all the military
movements then going on. Then it was that I got acquainted with
Sedgwick. He was a very solid man; no flummery about him. You could
always tell where Sedgwick was to be found, and in a battle he was apt
to be found where the hardest fighting was. He was not an ardent,
impetuous soldier like Hancock, but was steady and sure.

Two days after I reached the army, on May 9th, not far from
Spottsylvania Courthouse, my old friend Sedgwick was killed. He had gone
out in the morning to inspect his lines, and, getting beyond the point
of safety, was struck in the forehead by a sharpshooter and instantly
killed. The command of the Sixth Army Corps was given to General H. G.
Wright. Wright was another engineer officer, well educated, of good,
solid intellect, with capacity for command, but no special predilection
for fighting. From the moment Meade assumed command of the army, two
days before Gettysburg, the engineers rapidly came to the front, for
Meade had the pride of corps strongly implanted in his heart.

Major-General Burnside, whom I had last seen at Knoxville in December,
was in command of the Ninth Army Corps. Immediately after the siege of
Knoxville, at his own request, Burnside had been relieved of the command
in East Tennessee by Major-General John G. Foster. The President somehow
always showed for Burnside great respect and good will. After Grant's
plans for the spring campaign were made known, the Ninth Corps was moved
by rail to Annapolis, where it was recruited up to about twenty-five
thousand men. As the time for action neared it was set in motion, and by
easy marches reached and re-enforced the Army of the Potomac on the
morning of the 6th of May, in the midst of the battle of the Wilderness.
It was not formally incorporated with that army until later, but, by a
sort of fiction, it was held to be a distinct army, Burnside acting in
concert with Meade, and receiving his orders directly from Grant, as did
Meade. These two armies were the excuse for Grant's personal presence,
without actually superseding Meade.

In my opinion, the great soldier of the Army of the Potomac at this time
was General Humphreys. He was the chief of staff to General Meade, and
was a strategist, a tactician, and an engineer. Humphreys was a fighter,
too, and in this an exception to most engineers. He was a very
interesting figure. He used to ride about in a black felt hat, the brim
of which was turned down all around, making him look like a Quaker. He
was very pleasant to deal with, unless you were fighting against him,
and then he was not so pleasant. He was one of the loudest swearers that
I ever knew. The men of distinguished and brilliant profanity in the war
were General Sherman and General Humphreys--I could not mention any
others that could be classed with them. General Logan also was a strong
swearer, but he was not a West Pointer: he was a civilian. Sherman and
Humphreys would swear to make everything blue when some dispatch had not
been delivered correctly or they were provoked. Humphreys was a very
charming man, quite destitute of vanity. I think he had consented to go
and serve with Meade as chief of staff out of pure patriotism. He
preferred an active command, and eventually, on the eve of the end,
succeeded to the command of the Second Corps, and bore a conspicuous
part in the Appomattox campaign.

Meade was in command of the Army of the Potomac, but it was Grant, the
lieutenant general of the armies of the United States, who was really
directing the movements. The central idea of the campaign had not
developed to the army when I reached headquarters, but it was soon clear
to everybody. Grant's great operation was the endeavor to interpose the
Federal army between Lee's army and Richmond, so as to cut Lee off from
his base of supplies. He meant to get considerably in advance of
Lee--between him and Richmond--thus compelling Lee to leave his
intrenchments and hasten southward. If in the collision thus forced
Grant found that he could not smash Lee, he meant to make another move
to get behind his army. That was to be the strategy of the campaign of
1864. That was what Lee thwarted, though he had a narrow escape more
than once.

The first encounter with Lee had taken place in the Wilderness on May
5th and 6th. The Confederates and many Northern writers love to call the
Wilderness a drawn battle. It was not so; in every essential light it
was a Union victory. Grant had not intended to fight a battle in those
dense, brushy jungles, but Lee precipitated it just as he had
precipitated the battle of Chancellorsville one year before, and not six
miles to the eastward of this very ground. In doing so he hoped to
neutralize the superior numbers of Grant as he had Hooker's, and so to
mystify and handle the Union leader as to compel a retreat across the
Rapidan. But he failed. Some of the fighting in the brush was a draw,
but the Union army did not yield a rood of ground; it held the roads
southward, inflicted great losses on its enemy, and then, instead of
recrossing the river, resumed its march toward Richmond as soon as
Lee's attacks had ceased. Lee had palpably failed in his objects. His
old-time tactics had made no impression on Grant. He never offered
general battle in the open afterward.

The previous history of the Army of the Potomac had been to advance and
fight a battle, then either to retreat or to lie still, and finally to
go into winter quarters. Grant did not intend to proceed in that way. As
soon as he had fought a battle and had not routed Lee, he meant to move
nearer to Richmond and fight another battle. But the men in the army had
become so accustomed to the old methods of campaigning that few, if any,
of them believed that the new commander in chief would be able to do
differently from his predecessors. I remember distinctly the sensation
in the ranks when the rumor first went around that our position was
south of Lee's. It was the morning of May 8th. The night before the army
had made a forced march on Spottsylvania Courthouse. There was no
indication the next morning that Lee had moved in any direction. As the
army began to realize that we were really moving south, and at that
moment were probably much nearer Richmond than was our enemy, the
spirits of men and officers rose to the highest pitch of animation. On
every hand I heard the cry, "On to Richmond!"

But there were to be a great many more obstacles to our reaching
Richmond than General Grant himself, I presume, realized on May 8, 1864.
We met one that very morning; for when our advance reached
Spottsylvania Courthouse it found Lee's troops there, ready to dispute
the right of way with us, and two days later Grant was obliged to fight
the battle of Spottsylvania before we could make another move south.

It is no part of my present plan to go into detailed description of all
the battles of this campaign, but rather to dwell on the incidents and
deeds which impressed me most deeply at the moment. In the battle of
Spottsylvania, a terrific struggle, with many dramatic features, there
is nothing I remember more distinctly than a little scene in General
Grant's tent between him and a captured Confederate officer, General
Edward Johnson. The battle had begun on the morning of May 10th, and had
continued all day. On the 11th the armies had rested, but at half past
four on the morning of the 12th fighting had been begun by an attack by
Hancock on a rebel salient. Hancock attacked with his accustomed
impetuosity, storming and capturing the enemy's fortified line, with
some four thousand prisoners and twenty cannon. The captures included
nearly all of Major-General Edward Johnson's division, together with
Johnson himself and General George H. Steuart.

I was at Grant's headquarters when General Johnson was brought in a
prisoner. He was a West Pointer, and had been a captain in the old army
before secession, and was an important officer in the Confederate
service, having distinguished himself in the Valley in 1863, and at
Gettysburg. Grant had not seen him since they had been in Mexico
together. The two men shook hands cordially, and at once began a brisk
conversation, which was very interesting to me, because nothing was
said in it on the subject in which they were both most interested just
then--that is, the fight that was going on, and the surprise that
Hancock had effected. It was the past alone of which they talked.

It was quite early in the morning when Hancock's prisoners were brought
in. The battle raged without cessation throughout the day, Wright and
Hancock bearing the brunt of it. Burnside made several attacks, in which
his troops generally bore themselves like good soldiers. The results of
the battle of Spottsylvania were that we had crowded the enemy out of
some of his most important positions, had weakened him by losses of
between nine thousand and ten thousand men killed, wounded, and
captured, besides many battle flags and much artillery, and that our
troops rested victorious upon the ground they had fought for.

After the battle was over and firing had nearly ceased, Rawlins and I
went out to ride over the field. We went first to the salient which
Hancock had attacked in the morning. The two armies had struggled for
hours for this point, and the loss had been so terrific that the place
has always been known since as the "Bloody Angle." The ground around the
salient had been trampled and cut in the struggle until it was almost
impassable for one on horseback, so Rawlins and I dismounted and climbed
up the bank over the outer line of the rude breastworks. Within we saw a
fence over which earth evidently had been banked, but which now was bare
and half down. It was here the fighting had been fiercest. We picked our
way to this fence, and stopped to look over the scene. The night was
coming on, and, after the horrible din of the day, the silence was
intense; nothing broke it but distant and occasional firing or the low
groans of the wounded. I remember that as I stood there I was almost
startled to hear a bird twittering in a tree. All around us the
underbrush and trees, which were just beginning to be green, had been
riddled and burnt. The ground was thick with dead and wounded men, among
whom the relief corps was at work. The earth, which was soft from the
heavy rains we had been having before and during the battle, had been
trampled by the fighting of the thousands of men until it was soft, like
thin hasty pudding. Over the fence against which we leaned lay a great
pool of this mud, its surface as smooth as that of a pond.

As we stood there, looking silently down at it, of a sudden the leg of a
man was lifted up from the pool and the mud dripped off his boot. It was
so unexpected, so horrible, that for a moment we were stunned. Then we
pulled ourselves together and called to some soldiers near by to rescue
the owner of the leg. They pulled him out with but little trouble, and
discovered that he was not dead, only wounded. He was taken to the
hospital, where he got well, I believe.

The first news which passed through the ranks the morning after the
battle of Spottsylvania was that Lee had abandoned his position during
the night. Though our army was greatly fatigued from the enormous
efforts of the day before, the news of Lee's departure inspired the men
with fresh energy, and everybody was eager to be in pursuit. Our
skirmishers soon found the enemy along the whole line, however, and the
conclusion was that their retrograde movement had been made to correct
their position after the loss of the key points taken from them the day
before, and that they were still with us in a new line as strong as the
old one. Of course, we could not determine this point without a battle,
and nothing was done that day to provoke one. It was necessary to rest
the men.

In changing his lines Lee had left more uncovered the roads leading
southward along his right wing, and Grant ordered Meade to throw the
corps of Warren, which held the right, and the corps of Wright, which
held the center of Meade's army, to the left of Burnside, leaving
Hancock upon our right. If not interrupted, Grant thought by this
maneuvre to turn Lee's flank and compel him to move southward.

The movement of the two corps to our left was executed during the night
of May 13th and 14th, but for three days it had rained steadily, and the
roads were so bad that Wright and Warren did not get up to surprise the
enemy at daylight as ordered. The only engagement brought on by this
move was an active little fight over a conspicuous hill, with a house
and plantation buildings upon it. The hill, which was on our left and
the enemy's right, was valuable as a lookout rather than for offensive
operations. Upton took it in the morning, and later the enemy retook it.
General Meade, who was there at that moment, narrowly escaped capture.
Our men very handsomely carried the hill again that evening.

The two armies were then lying in a semicircle, the Federal left well
around toward the south. We were concentrated to the last degree, and,
so far as we could tell, Lee's forces were equally compact. On the 15th,
16th, and 17th, we lay in about the same position. This inactivity was
caused by the weather. A pouring rain had begun on the 11th, and it
continued until the morning of the 16th; the mud was so deep that any
offensive operation, however successful, could not be followed up. There
was nothing to do but lie still and wait for better weather and drier
roads.

While waiting for the rain to stop, we had time to consider the field
returns of losses as they were handed in. The army had left winter
quarters at Culpeper Courthouse on May 4th, and on May 16th the total of
killed, wounded, and missing in both the Army of the Potomac and the
Ninth Corps amounted to a little over thirty-three thousand men. The
missing alone amounted to forty-nine hundred, but some of these were, in
fact, killed or wounded. When Grant looked over the returns, he
expressed great regret at the loss of so many men. Meade, who was with
him, remarked, as I remember, "Well, General, we can't do these little
tricks without losses."

CHAPTER XIV.

THE GREAT GAME BETWEEN GRANT AND LEE.

    Maneuvering and fighting in the rain, mud, and thickets--Virginian
    conditions of warfare--Within eight miles of Richmond--The battle of
    Cold Harbor--The tremendous losses of the campaign--The charge of
    butchery against Grant considered in the light of statistics--What
    it cost in life and blood to take Richmond.

By the afternoon of May 17th the weather was splendid, and the roads
were rapidly becoming dry, even where the mud was worst. Grant
determined to engage Lee, and orders for a decisive movement of the army
were issued, to be executed during the night. At first he proposed an
attack upon the enemy's right, but changed the plan. Instead of
attacking there, Hancock and Wright made a night march back to our right
flank, and attacked at daylight upon the same lines where Hancock made
his successful assault on the 12th. They succeeded in pressing close to
the enemy's lines, and for a time were confident that at last they had
struck the lair of the enemy, but an impassable abatis stopped them. One
division of Hancock's corps attempted in vain to charge through this
obstacle, and held the ground before it for an hour or more under a
galling fire of canister. The difficulty of storming the enemy's
intrenched camp on that side being evidently of the most extreme
character, and both corps having artfully but unsuccessfully sought for
a weak point where they might break through, Grant, at nine o'clock,
ordered the attack to cease. The attempt was a failure. Lee was not to
be ousted; and Grant, convinced of it, issued orders for another
movement which he had had in contemplation for several days, but which
he did not wish to try till after a last attempt to get the enemy out of
his stronghold. This was nothing less than to slip away from Lee and
march on toward Richmond again.

The new order directed that Hancock's corps should march by night from
its present position southeast as far toward Richmond on the line of the
Fredericksburg road as he could go, fighting his way if necessary.
Warren was to follow, and, if Lee did not come out and attack when our
army was thus weakened, Wright and Burnside also were to march
southward.

This movement was begun on the night of the 20th. By the night of the
21st Hancock was across the Mattapony River at Milford. Warren had
crossed the same river at Guiney's Station, the point to which Grant had
moved his headquarters. By the morning of the 22d Wright and Burnside
were up in safety, and the forward movement was continued. We were now
in a fine, clear country, good to move in and fight in, and the advance
of the 22d was most successful. By night our army lay in an east and
west line along the Mattapony River, holding the crossings. On the right
was Wright; close to him at the left, Warren; in the center, Burnside;
on the left, Hancock. Our headquarters were at New Bethel Church. Our
talk that night was that in all probability we should meet the enemy on
the North Anna, a day's march to the south of our position.

The operations of the next day were much embarrassed by our ignorance of
the road and the entire incorrectness of our maps; nevertheless, by one
o'clock in the afternoon our right wing, under Warren, reached the North
Anna. The stream there was about one hundred and fifty feet wide, with
bluff banks from fifty to seventy-five feet high. Wright followed after
Warren. As soon as Warren reached Jericho Mills he pushed his
sharpshooters across the stream, which was easily fordable at that
place, following them with a compact body of infantry. A Confederate
regiment posted to watch the crossing at once gave way, leaving a single
prisoner in our hands. From this man Warren learned that another of the
enemy's divisions was drawn up to receive him near by. Under the orders
of General Grant, he promptly threw across the pontoon bridge, over
which he rapidly moved his artillery, at the same time urging forward
his infantry by the ford as well as by the bridge; and by five o'clock
he had transported his entire command, and had taken up a position of
great strength. Here he rapidly commenced intrenching himself.

Grant had by this time moved his headquarters up to Mount Carmel Church,
some four miles from Jericho Mills. About six o'clock we knew from the
firing that Warren had been attacked. I never heard more rapid or
heavier firing, either of artillery or musketry. It was not until about
half past ten that evening that we knew surely how the fight had gone;
then a dispatch from Warren announced that he had triumphantly repulsed
the enemy, and made considerable captures of prisoners.

About the same time that Warren was fighting for his position at Jericho
Mills, Hancock advanced on our left. By a vigorous charge of two
brigades of Birney's division, the enemy was driven over the North Anna
River. The next morning Hancock crossed over. That same morning, May
24th, we found that, as a result of the operations of the previous day,
we had about one thousand prisoners. They were more discouraged than any
set of prisoners I ever saw before. Lee had deceived them, they said,
and they declared that his army would not fight again except behind
breastworks.

The general opinion of every prominent officer in the army on the
morning of the 24th was that the enemy had fallen back, either to take
up a position beyond the South Anna or to go to Richmond, but by noon
the next day we knew this was a mistake. All through the day of the 24th
Lee blocked our southward march. The opinion prevailed that the enemy's
position was held by a rear guard only, but the obstinacy of their
skirmishers was regarded as very remarkable. About dark Hancock made an
attack, breaking into the Confederate line of works, taking some
prisoners, and satisfying himself that a whole corps was before him.
Soon afterward the division of Gibbon was attacked, but it beat back the
assault handsomely without any considerable loss. Just before dark
Crittenden--the same Crittenden who was at Chickamauga--was also
suddenly attacked, and one of his brigades damaged. No fighting of any
moment took place on the morning of the 25th, but the enemy showed such
strength as to leave no doubt that Lee's whole army was present. His
intrenchments were in the form of the letter V. He showed artillery on
both faces. By the morning of the 25th Grant was sure that Lee was
before him and strongly intrenched. He soon determined on a new move.
This was to withdraw his whole army as quickly as possible, and, before
Lee discovered his intention, to move it southeast, across the Pamunkey,
and perhaps on across the Chickahominy and the James, if he could not
meanwhile get Lee out of his earthworks.

The orders for the new move were received with the best spirit by the
army, in spite of the fact that the men were much jaded. Indeed, one of
the most important results of the campaign thus far was the entire
change which had taken place in the feelings of the armies. The
Confederates had lost all confidence, and were already morally defeated.
Our army had learned to believe that it was sure of ultimate victory.
Even our officers had ceased to regard Lee as an invincible military
genius. On the part of the enemy this change was evinced not only by
their not attacking, even when circumstances seemed to invite it, but by
the unanimous statements of prisoners taken from them.

The morning after we began to move from our position on the North Anna I
was so confident that I wrote Mr. Stanton, "Rely upon it, the end is
near as well as sure."

It was on the night of the 26th that our army was withdrawn from the
North Anna, without loss or disturbance, and by the evening of the 27th
Grant had his headquarters ten miles from Hanovertown, and his whole
army was well up toward the crossing. We had no news of Lee's movements
that day, though we heard that there was a force of the enemy at Hanover
Courthouse. Grant himself was very doubtful that day of our getting
across the Hanover Ferry; he told me that we might be obliged to go
farther to the southeast to get over. On the morning of the 27th
Sheridan and his cavalry seized the ferry, laying bridges, and, after
crossing, advancing well beyond. Everything went on finely that night
and during the 28th, the troops passing our headquarters in great
numbers and very rapidly. By noon of the 28th the movement of the army
across the Pamunkey was complete, with the exception of Burnside, who
did not arrive until midnight. The movement had been executed with
admirable celerity and success. The new position was one of great
strength, our lines extending from the Pamunkey to Totopotomoy Creek.
Wright was on the Pamunkey, Hancock on his left, and Warren on the
Totopotomoy. The orders for that day were to let the men rest, though
both officers and men were in high spirits at the successful execution
of this long and difficult flank movement.

We were now south of the Pamunkey, and occupying a very strong position,
but we did not know yet where Lee was. A general reconnoissance was at
once ordered, and the enemy was found in force south of the Totopotomoy
Creek; by the 30th there was no doubt that Lee's whole army, now
re-enforced by thirteen thousand men, was close at hand and strongly
intrenched again. Grant said he would fight here if there was a fair
chance, but he declared emphatically he would not run his head against
heavy works.

Our line began to push forward on the 30th. All the afternoon of that
day at headquarters, which were now at Hawes's Shop, we heard the noise
of fighting. First Warren on the left, who had reached a point only
about seven miles and a half from Richmond, had a short, sharp, and
decisive engagement with Early; and later an active conflict raged for
some time with our right on the Totopotomoy. We were successful all
along the line. The next day, the 31st, we pushed ahead until our lines
lay from Bethesda Church, on the east, to the railroad, on the west.
Desultory firing was constantly heard, but there was no very active
fighting that day until about five o'clock in the afternoon, when
Sheridan's cavalry, by hard work, drove out the enemy and secured Cold
Harbor, which was at that moment of vast importance to us strategically.

It was determined to make a fight here before the enemy could intrench.
Wright was at once ordered to have his whole force on the ground by
daylight on the 1st of June, to support Sheridan and take the offensive.
"Baldy" Smith, of Butler's army, who had landed at White House on the
31st with twelve thousand five hundred men, was ordered to the aid of
Wright and Sheridan. But there was an error in Smith's orders, and
Wright's march was so long that his corps did not get up to Cold Harbor
until the afternoon of the 1st. Meanwhile Sheridan's cavalry had
repulsed two attacks by two brigades of Kershaw's infantry.

It was not until six o'clock in the afternoon that we at headquarters at
Bethesda Church heard the cannon which indicated that an attack had at
last been made by Wright and Smith. From the sounds of artillery and
musketry, we judged the fight was furious. Rickett's division broke
through the rebel lines between Hoke and Kershaw, capturing five hundred
prisoners, and forcing the enemy to take up a new position farther back.
Smith's troops effected lodgments close up to the Confederate
intrenchments. Our losses this day were twenty-two hundred men in these
two corps. Warren was slightly engaged. Altogether they had done very
well, but meanwhile Lee was again concentrated and intrenched in our
front.

Hancock was ordered to move during the night, and his advance arrived at
Cold Harbor about daylight. When I got up in the morning--I was then at
Bethesda Church--his rear was marching past our headquarters. In
conjunction with Wright and Smith, he was to fall upon Lee's right that
day. Warren and Burnside were also ordered in as soon as they heard that
the three corps on our left had begun battle. There was no battle that
day, however. Hancock's men were so tired with their forced march of
nearly twelve miles, and the heat and dust were so oppressive, that
General Grant ordered the attack to be postponed until half past four
o'clock the next morning.

So the battle Grant sought did not come until June 3d--that of Cold
Harbor. On the morning of the 3d our line lay with the right at Bethesda
Church, the left extending to the Chickahominy. Hancock commanded the
left; next to him was Wright, with his corps drawn up in three lines;
next, Smith, with the Eighteenth Corps in two lines; next, Warren, who
had his whole command in a single line, the distance he covered being
fully three miles. With this thin order of battle he was necessarily
unable to make any effective assault. Burnside held the extreme right.
Hancock, Wright, and Smith were to make the main attacks at daybreak.
Promptly at the hour they dashed out toward the rebel lines, under a
fearful fire of musketry and a cross fire of artillery. The losses were
great, but we gained advantages here and there. The entire charge
consumed hardly more than an hour. Barlow, of Hancock's corps, drove
through a very strong line, and at five o'clock reported that he had
taken intrenchments with guns and colors, but he could not stay there.
An interior breastwork commanded the one he had carried, and his men had
to withdraw, leaving behind them the captured cannon, and bringing out a
single Confederate standard and two hundred and twenty prisoners as
tokens of their brief success. Wright and Smith succeeded in carrying
the first line of rifle-pits, but could get no farther to the front. All
our forces held ground close up to the enemy. At some points they were
intrenched within a hundred feet of the rebel breastworks. Burnside, on
the right, captured some rifle-pits. Later he was attacked by Early, who
was roughly handled and repulsed. Warren was active, and repulsed a
vigorous attack by Gordon.

Thus by noon we had fully developed the Confederate lines, and Grant
could see what was necessary in order to get through them. Hancock
reported that in his front it could not be done. Wright was decidedly of
the opinion that a lodgment could be made in his front, but it would be
difficult to make much by it unless Hancock and Smith could also
advance. Smith thought he could carry the works before him, but was not
sanguine. Burnside also thought he could get through, but Warren, who
was nearest him, did not seem to share his opinion. In this state of
things, at half past one o'clock, General Grant ordered the attack to be
suspended. He had told Meade as early as seven in the morning to suspend
the movement if it became evident that success was impossible.

This was the battle of Cold Harbor, which has been exaggerated into one
of the bloodiest disasters of history, a reckless, useless waste of
human life. It was nothing of the kind. The outlook warranted the
effort. The breaking of Lee's lines meant his destruction and the
collapse of the rebellion. Sheridan took the same chances at Five Forks
ten months later, and won; so did Wright, Humphreys, Gibbon, and others
at Petersburg. They broke through far stronger lines than those at Cold
Harbor, and Lee fled in the night toward Appomattox. So it would have
been at Cold Harbor if Grant had won, and who would have thought of the
losses?

While we lay at Cold Harbor, as when we had been at Spottsylvania, the
principal topic of conversation was the losses of the army. The
discussion has never ceased. There are still many persons who bitterly
accuse Grant of butchery in this campaign. As a matter of fact, Grant
lost fewer men in his successful effort to take Richmond and end the war
than his predecessors lost in making the same attempt and failing. An
official table, showing the aggregate of the losses sustained by the
armies of McDowell, McClellan, Pope, Burnside, Hooker, Meade, Butler,
and Ord, in the effort to capture the Confederate capital, is appended:

    _Comparative Statement of the Losses sustained in Action by the Army
    of Northeastern Virginia, the Army of the Potomac, and the Army of
    Virginia, under Command of Generals McDowell, McClellan, Pope,
    Burnside, Hooker, and Meade, from May 24, 1861, to May 4, 1864, and
    the Army of the Potomac (Meade) and the Army of the James (Butler
    and Ord), constituting the Armies operating against Richmond under
    General Grant, from May 5, 1864, to April 9, 1865_:

    ----------------------------+-------+--------+--------+----------
                                |       |        |Captured|.
                                |Killed.|Wounded.|   or   |Aggregate.
                                |       |        |missing.|
    ----------------------------+-------+--------+------- +----------
    Losses from May 24, 1861,   |       |        |        |
      to May 4, 1864:           |       |        |        |
                                |       |        |        |
    McDowell, May 24            |       |        |        |
      to August 19, 1861        |    493|   1,176|   1,342|    3,011
                                |       |        |        |
    McClellan, August 20, 1861, |       |        |        |
      to April 4, 1862          |     80|     268|     815|    1,163
                                |       |        |        |
    McClellan, April 5          |       |        |        |
      to August 8, 1862         |  3,263|  13,868|   7,317|   24,448
                                |       |        |        |
    Pope, June 26               |       |        |        |
      to September 2, 1862      |  2,065|   9,908|   4,982|   16,955
                                |       |        |        |
    McClellan, September 3      |       |        |        |
     to November 14, 1862       |  2,716|  11,979|  13,882|   28,577
                                |       |        |        |
    Burnside, November 15, 1862,|       |        |        |
      to January 25, 1863       |  1,296|   9,642|   2,276|   13,214
                                |       |        |        |
    Hooker, January 26          |       |        |        |
      to June 27                |  1,955|  11,160|  11,912|   25,027
                                |       |        |        |
    Meade, June 28, 1863,       |       |        |        |
      to May 4 1864             |  3,877|  18,078|   9,575|   31,530
                                +-------+--------+--------+----------
        Total                   | 15,745|  76,079|  52,101|  143,925
                                |       |        |        |
                                |       |        |        |
    Grant's losses from May 5,  |       |        |        |
    1864, to April 9, 1865:     |       |        |        |
                                |       |        |        |
                                |       |        |        |
      May 5 to June 24,         |       |        |        |
        1864--Army of the       |       |        |        |
        Potomac, from the       |       |        |        |
        Rapidan to the James    |  7,621|  38,339|   8,966|   54,926
                                |       |        |        |
      May 5 to June 14--Army of |       |        |        |
        the James, south of     |       |        |        |
        James River             |    634|   3,903|   1,678|    6,215
                                |       |        |        |
      June 15 to July 31--Army  |       |        |        |
        of the Potomac and Army |       |        |        |
        of the James            |  2,928|  13,743|   6,265|   22,936
                                |       |        |        |
      August 1 to December      |       |        |        |
        31--Army of the Potomac |       |        |        |
        and Army of the James   |  2,172|  11,138|  11,311|   24,621
                                |       |        |        |
                                |       |        |        |
      January 1 to April 9,     |       |        |        |
        1865--Army of the       |       |        |        |
        Potomac and Army of     |       |        |        |
        the James and           |       |        |        |
        Sheridan's cavalry      |  1,784|  10,625|   3,283|   15,692
                                +-------+--------+--------+----------
          Total                 | 15,139| 77,748 |  31,503|  124,390
                                |       |        |        |
              SUMMARY:          |       |        |        |
    Armies of McDowell,         |       |        |        |
      McClellan, Pope, Burnside,|       |        |        |
       Hooker, and Meade        | 15,745|  76,079|  52,101|  143,925
    Armies under Grant          | 15,139|  77,748|  31,503|  124,390
                                +-------+--------+--------+----------
        Grand aggregate         | 30,884| 153,827|  83,604|  268,315
                                |       |        |        |
    Aggregate of losses from    |       |        |        |
      May 24, 1861, to May 4,   |       |        |        |
      1864                      |       |        |        |  143,925
    Aggregate of losses from    |       |        |        |
      May 4, 1864, to April 9,  |       |        |        |
      1865                      |       |        |        |  124,390
                                |       |        |        +----------
    Difference in Grant's favor |       |        |        |   19,535
    ----------------------------+-------+--------+--------+----------

This table shows exactly what Richmond cost us from May 24, 1861, when
McDowell crossed the Potomac into Virginia, to Lee's surrender at
Appomattox; and it proves that Grant in eleven months secured the prize
with less loss than his predecessors suffered in failing to win it
during a struggle of three years.

CHAPTER XV.

THE MARCH ON PETERSBURG.

    In camp at Cold Harbor--Grant's opinion of Lee--Trouble with
    newspaper correspondents--Moving south of the James River--The great
    pontoon bridge--The fighting of the colored troops--Failure to take
    Petersburg at first attack--Lee loses Grant and Beauregard finds
    him--Beauregard's service to the Confederacy.

The affair of June 3d at Cold Harbor showed that Lee was not to be
driven from his position without a great sacrifice of life. A left flank
movement south of the James River was accordingly decided upon by Grant.
This was no new idea; that eventuality had been part of the original
plan of campaign, and preparations for bridging the James had been
ordered as early as the 15th of April, three weeks before the battle of
the Wilderness. One object of the movement across the James was to cut
off Richmond's line of supplies from the south. But before this could be
done another matter had to be attended to.

In General Grant's plan of campaign the effectual destruction of the
Virginia Central Railroad was an indispensable feature. In moving from
Culpeper he had expected that before reaching the Chickahominy he would
have a chance to crush Lee's army by fighting. This would have allowed
him an undisturbed opportunity to destroy that road, as well as the
Fredericksburg road from the Chickahominy to the North Anna. The
expectation had been disappointed by Lee's success in avoiding a
decisive battle. Before moving farther in accomplishing the great object
of the campaign, these roads must be so thoroughly destroyed that when
Richmond was cut off from other lines of communication with the south
the attempt to repair and use the line through Gordonsville and
Lynchburg would be hopeless. The work was first to be attempted by
Sheridan with cavalry. If he was not able to complete it, the whole army
was to be swung around for the purpose, even should it be necessary to
abandon temporarily our communications with White House.

This necessity, as well as that of making thorough preparations for the
difficult march south of the James and for the perfect co-operation of
Butler at Bermuda Hundred, detained Grant at Cold Harbor until June
12th. Two officers of his staff, Colonel Comstock and Colonel Porter,
had been sent to General Butler to arrange for co-operation in the
movement of the army to Bermuda Hundred, and to look over the ground to
be traversed and the means of crossing the river. Grant would not order
the movement until they returned. They did not get back until the 12th.

During this time the opposing lines of Grant and Lee were very close
together, and on our side the troops made regular siege approaches to
the Confederate works. The days passed quietly, with no fighting except
an occasional rattle of musketry and now and then a cannon shot. There
was occasionally a scare on the line. On the evening of June 5th
Wright's and Hancock's line responded to a stiff assault; the firing
lasted for twenty minutes, and it was very loud, but it was all about
nothing and no harm was done. The enemy were so near that in the dark
our men thought they were coming out to attack. On June 6th there was an
onslaught on Burnside just after midnight, which was successfully
repulsed, and in the afternoon a rush was made by a party of a hundred
picked men of the enemy, who came to find out what was the meaning of
Hancock's advancing siege lines. As a rule, everything was quiet except
the picket firing, which could not be prevented when the men were so
close together. The picket firing ceased only during the occasional
truces to bury the dead.

The operations around Cold Harbor, the close proximity of the two lines,
the unceasing firing, with no hour in the day or night when one could
not hear the sound of musketry and cannon, were precisely like the
conditions at Spottsylvania and those on the North Anna. It was a
constant feeling for the weak spot in Lee's armor. There was far less
maneuvering at Cold Harbor after the first efforts than during the long
struggle at Spottsylvania. We were merely waiting for the proper moment
to withdraw toward the James. Grant, Meade, and all the leading officers
were certain of ultimate success; although the fighting had been more
severe and continuous than anything in the previous history of the army,
I must say a cheerful, confident tone generally prevailed. All acted as
if they were at a job which required only time to finish.

Grant was disappointed, and talked to me a good deal about the failure
to get at Lee in an open battle which would wind up the Confederacy. The
general was constantly revolving plans to turn Lee out of his
intrenchments. The old-time fear of Lee's superior ability that was rife
among the officers of the Army of the Potomac had entirely disappeared.
They had begun to look upon him as an ordinary mortal, making a fairly
good effort to ward off fate, and nothing more. I think Grant respected
Lee's military ability and character, yet the boldness with which he
maneuvered in Lee's presence is proof that he was not overawed by Lee's
prestige as a strategist and tactician. He thought Lee's great forte was
as a defensive fighter, a quality displayed at Antietam and
Fredericksburg; but held no high opinion of his Chancellorsville
operations, where he had recklessly laid himself open to ruin. To me the
views of the military men at the different headquarters were interesting
and instructive.

While we were encamped at Cold Harbor, General Meade was very much
disturbed by a letter published in a Cincinnati paper, saying that after
the battle of the Wilderness he counselled retreat--a course which would
have destroyed the nation, but which Grant prohibited. This was entirely
untrue. Meade had not shown any weakness since moving from Culpeper, nor
once intimated doubt as to the successful issue of the campaign. Nor had
he intimated that any other plan or line would be more likely to win.
The newspaper correspondent who was responsible for the misstatement was
with us, and Meade ordered that, as a punishment, he should be paraded
through the lines and afterward expelled from the army. This was done
on June 8th, the correspondent being led through the army on horseback
by the provost-marshal guard. On his back and breast were tacked
placards inscribed, "Libeller of the Press."

It was not often, considering the conditions, that correspondents got
into trouble in the army. As a rule, they were discreet. Besides this
case of Meade, I remember now only one other in which I was actively
interested; that was a few months later, after I had returned to the
department. Mr. Stanton had been annoyed by a telegram which had been
published about Sherman's movements, and he ordered me to send it to the
general, so that we might know how much truth there was in it. I wired
him as follows:

                                   WAR DEPARTMENT, _November 9, 1864_.

     Major-General SHERMAN, Kingston, Ga.:

     Following, copied from evening papers, is sent for your
     information:

                                        CINCINNATI, _November 9, 1864_.

     "Yesterday's Indianapolis Journal says: 'Officers from Chattanooga
     report that Sherman returned to Atlanta early last week with five
     corps of his army, leaving two corps in Tennessee to watch Hood. He
     destroyed the railroad from Chattanooga to Atlanta, and is sending
     the iron into the former place. Atlanta was burned, and Sherman is
     now marching for Charleston, S.C.'"

Sherman sent back two characteristic dispatches. The first ran:

                                   KINGSTON, GA., _November 10, 1864_.

     Hon. C. A. DANA:

     Dispatch of 9th read. Can't you send to Indianapolis and catch
     that fool and have him sent to me to work on the forts? All well.

                              W. T. SHERMAN, _Major General_.

The second:

                                   KINGSTON, GA., _November 10, 1864_.

     Hon. C. A. DANA, Assistant Secretary of War:

     If indiscreet newspaper men publish information too near the truth,
     counteract its effect by publishing other paragraphs calculated to
     mislead the enemy, such as "Sherman's army has been re-enforced,
     especially in the cavalry, and he will soon move several columns in
     circuit, so as to catch Hood's army"; "Sherman's destination is not
     Charleston, but Selma, where he will meet an army from the Gulf,"
     etc.

                                   W. T. SHERMAN, _Major General_.

So I telegraphed to Indianapolis to General A. P. Hovey, who was
stationed there:

                                   WAR DEPARTMENT, _November 10, 1864_.

     Major-General A. P. HOVEY, Indianapolis:

     In compliance with the request of Major-General Sherman, the
     Secretary of War directs that you ascertain what persons furnished
     the information respecting Sherman's alleged movement published in
     the Indianapolis Journal of the 8th inst. You will arrest them and
     send them under guard to such point in the Department of the
     Cumberland as Major-General Thomas may prefer, where they will be
     employed in hard labor upon the fortifications until General
     Sherman shall otherwise order.

General Hovey never found the man, however.

By the morning of the 12th of June Grant was ready for his last flank
movement of the campaign. Our army at that time, including Sheridan's
cavalry, consisted of approximately one hundred and fifteen thousand
fighting men. The plan for moving this great body was as follows: The
Eighteenth Corps was to move to White House without baggage or
artillery, and there embark for City Point. The Fifth Corps was to cross
the Chickahominy at Long Bridge, and take a position to secure the
passage of the remainder of the army, after which it was to cover the
rear. The Second, Sixth, and Ninth Corps were to cross in two columns at
Long Bridge and Jones's Bridge. At first it had been hoped, if not
opposed by the enemy in force, to strike James River immediately
opposite Bermuda Hundred; if resisted, then lower down, where General
Butler had been ordered to throw a bridge across and to corduroy the
approaches.

The Fifth Corps having prepared the way, the whole army left the lines
about Cold Harbor on schedule time, just as soon after nightfall on the
12th as its movements could be concealed from the observation of the
enemy. It was in drawing orders for such complicated movements as these,
along different roads and by different crossings, that the ability of
General Humphreys, the chief of staff, was displayed. Everything went
perfectly from the start. That evening at seven o'clock, when I reached
Moody's, four miles from Long Bridge, the Fifth Corps (Warren's) was
moving rapidly past us. Our cavalry advance, under General Wilson, who
had also been transferred to the East, had previously taken Long Bridge
and laid a pontoon bridge in readiness for the crossing, so that by nine
o'clock that evening the Fifth Corps was south of the Chickahominy, well
out toward the approaches from Richmond, and covering them. All day,
the 13th, the army was hurrying toward the James. By night the Sixth
Corps had reached the river, and the rest of the troops were on the
march between there and the Chickahominy, which was our rear.

When I reached the James early the next day, the 14th, large numbers of
men were hard at work on the pontoon bridge and its approaches, by which
it was intended that the artillery and trains should cross. It was a
pretty heavy job to corduroy the marsh, which was fully half a mile wide
and quite deep. The bridge itself was unprecedented in military annals,
except, perhaps, by that of Xerxes, being nearly seven hundred yards
long.

All day on the 14th everything went like a miracle. The pontoon bridge
was finished at two o'clock the next morning, and the cavalry of
Wilson's leading brigade, followed by the artillery trains, instantly
began crossing. By ten o'clock on the 15th Hancock's corps had been
ferried over, and he was off toward Petersburg to support Smith, who had
taken the Eighteenth Corps around by water from the White House, and had
been ordered to attack Petersburg that morning. All the news we had that
night at City Point, where headquarters had been set up, was that Smith
had assaulted and carried the principal line of the enemy before
Petersburg.

The next morning early I was off for the heights southeast of the town.
Smith's success appeared to be of the most important kind. He had
carried heights which were defended by very formidable works. He
thought--and, indeed, we all thought for the moment--that his success
gave us perfect command of the city and railroad. I went over the
conquered lines with General Grant and the engineer officers, and they
all agreed that the works were of the very strongest kind, more
difficult even to take than Missionary Ridge at Chattanooga.

General Smith told us that the negro troops fought magnificently, the
hardest fighting being done by them. The forts they stormed were, I
think, the worst of all. After the affair was over, General Smith went
to thank them, and tell them he was proud of their courage and dash. He
said they had no superiors as soldiers, and that hereafter he should
send them into a difficult place as readily as the best white troops.
They captured six out of the sixteen cannons which he took.

It soon appeared, however, that Smith was far from having captured
points which commanded Petersburg. His success had but little effect in
determining the final result. He had stopped his advance a few minutes
and a considerable space too soon, because, as he subsequently alleged,
it was too dark and his men were too much fatigued for further
operations; and he feared Lee had already re-enforced the town. This
turned out not to be so; Lee did not know until the 17th that Grant had
crossed the James. And up to that date Lee's position was a mystery to
us; we could hardly suppose he had remained at Cold Harbor.

When Grant discovered exactly how much had been gained and lost, he was
very much dissatisfied. There was a controversy between Hancock and
Smith subsequently about the responsibility for this failure.

On June 16th, the day after Smith's attack, more of the troops arrived
before Petersburg. General Meade also arrived on the ground, and the job
of capturing Petersburg was now taken up in earnest by the whole Army of
the Potomac. It was no longer a mere matter of advancing eighty or one
hundred rods, as on the night previous, for meanwhile the enemy had been
largely and rapidly re-enforced. Much time and many thousands of
valuable lives were to be expended in getting possession of this vital
point, which had really been in our grasp on the evening of the 15th.
That afternoon there began a series of assaults on the works of the
enemy. The fighting lasted all night, the moonlight being very clear.
Our loss was heavy.

The next day, the 17th, another attack was made at Petersburg. It was
persistent, but Meade found that his men were so worn out with marching,
fighting, and digging that they must have rest, and so laid off until
noon of the 18th, when, all of the army being up, a general assault was
ordered. Nothing important was gained, and General Grant directed that
no more assaults should be made. He said that after this he should
maneuver to get possession of Petersburg.

I saw nothing of the fighting of June 16th and 17th, being ill in camp,
but the members of Grant's staff told me that our operations were
unsatisfactory, owing to our previous heavy loss in superior officers.
The men fought as well as ever, Colonel Comstock told me, but they were
not directed with the same skill and enthusiasm.

While these operations were going on, I made two or three trips to the
river to watch the crossing of the troops. It was an animated and
inspiring sight, for the great mass of men, animals, and baggage was
handled with the greatest intelligence. By the 17th our entire army was
south of the James, and the bridge over the river by which the trains
had crossed was taken up.

During all this period, from Cold Harbor to Petersburg, we knew nothing
of Lee. In making the disposition for this great and successful
movement--a far more brilliant evolution than McClellan's "change of
base" two years before over almost the same roads--the purpose was, of
course, to deceive Lee as to the ultimate direction of the army. The
design succeeded far beyond Grant's most sanguine hopes. As soon, on the
morning of the 13th, as the Confederate chieftain discovered our
withdrawal, he moved his army across the Chickahominy in hot haste,
flinging it between his capital and the foe, supposed to be advancing on
a new line between the James and the Chickahominy. He held and fortified
a line from White Oak swamp to Malvern Hill, and here he remained stock
still for four days, wondering what had become of Grant.

Lee had been completely deceived, and could not be made to believe by
Beauregard, on the 15th, 16th, and 17th, that Grant's whole army had
turned up before Petersburg. His troops, as we know now, did not cross
the James, to go to the relief of Beauregard until the 17th. He was
caught napping, and, but for mistakes by subordinates in carrying out
Grant's plans, Lee's cause would have been lost. In the operations from
the night of the 12th, when Grant changed his line and base with an army
of one hundred and fifteen thousand men, and all its vast trains of
artillery, crossing a wide and deep river on a temporary bridge, until
June 18th, when at last Lee awoke to the situation, General Beauregard
shines out on the Confederate side far more brilliantly than the general
in chief. He unquestionably saved Petersburg, and for the time the
Confederacy; but for him Lee had at that time lost the game.

CHAPTER XVI.

EARLY'S RAID AND THE WASHINGTON PANIC.

    President Lincoln visits the lines at Petersburg--Trouble with
    General Meade--Jubal Early menaces the Federal capital--The
    excitement in Washington and Baltimore--Clerks and veteran reserves
    called out to defend Washington--Grant sends troops from the
    front--Plenty of generals, but no head--Early ends the panic by
    withdrawing--A fine letter from Grant about Hunter.

Although Grant had decided against a further direct attack on the works
of Petersburg, he was by no means idle. He sent out expeditions to break
up the railroads leading into the town. He began extending his lines
around to the south and southwest, so as to make the investment as
complete as possible. Batteries were put in place, weak spots in the
fortifications were felt for, and regular siege works were begun.
Indeed, by July 1st the general opinion seemed to be that the only way
we should ever gain Petersburg would be by a systematic siege.

A few days later we had an interesting visit from President Lincoln, who
arrived from Washington on June 21st, and at once wanted to visit the
lines before Petersburg. General Grant, Admiral Lee, myself, and several
others went with him. I remember that, as we passed along the lines, Mr.
Lincoln's high hat was brushed off by the branch of a tree. There were a
dozen young officers whose duty it was to get it and give it back to
the President; but Admiral Lee was off his horse before any of these
young chaps, and recovered the hat for the President. Admiral Lee must
have been forty-five or fifty years old. It was his agility that
impressed me so much.

As we came back we passed through the division of colored troops which
had so greatly distinguished itself under Smith on the 15th. They were
drawn up in double lines on each side of the road, and they welcomed the
President with hearty shouts. It was a memorable thing to behold him
whose fortune it was to represent the principle of emancipation passing
bareheaded through the enthusiastic ranks of those negroes armed to
defend the integrity of the nation.

I went back to Washington with the presidential party, but remained only
a few days, as Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Stanton were anxious for my daily
reports of the operations around Petersburg. On the return, I arrived at
City Point on July 1st. The army occupied about the same positions as
when I had left it a week before. Two corps were engaged in siege work,
their effort being to get possession of a ridge before them, supposed to
command Petersburg; if they succeeded in this, Grant thought that the
enemy would have to abandon the south side of the Appomattox, and, of
course, the town. On the left our line extended southward and westward
across what was known as the Jerusalem road, but at so great a distance
from the Confederate fortifications as to have no immediate effect upon
them. Farther around to the west, toward the Appomattox above
Petersburg, the enemy's works extended, and the idea of enveloping them
for the whole distance had been given up. The efforts to break up the
railroads leading from Petersburg had been very successful, Grant told
me. There were plans for assault suggested, but Grant had not considered
any of them seriously.

Before the army had recovered from its long march from Cold Harbor and
the failure to capture the town, there was an unusual amount of
controversy going on among the officers. Smith was berated generally for
failing to complete his attack of June 15th. Butler and "Baldy" Smith
were deep in a controversial correspondence; and Meade and Warren were
so at loggerheads that Meade notified Warren that he must either ask to
be relieved as corps commander or he (Meade) would prefer charges
against him. It seemed as if Meade grew more unpopular every day.
Finally the difficulties between him and his subordinates became so
serious that a change in the commander of the Army of the Potomac seemed
probable. Grant had great confidence in Meade, and was much attached to
him personally; but the almost universal dislike of Meade which
prevailed among officers of every rank who came in contact with him, and
the difficulty of doing business with him, felt by every one except
Grant himself, so greatly impaired his capacities for usefulness and
rendered success under his command so doubtful that Grant seemed to be
coming to the conviction that he must be relieved.

I had long known Meade to be a man of the worst possible temper,
especially toward his subordinates. I think he had not a friend in the
whole army. No man, no matter what his business or his service,
approached him without being insulted in one way or another, and his own
staff officers did not dare to speak to him unless first spoken to, for
fear of either sneers or curses. The latter, however, I had never heard
him indulge in very violently, but he was said to apply them often
without occasion and without reason. At the same time, as far as I was
able to ascertain, his generals had lost their confidence in him as a
commander. His orders for the last series of assaults upon Petersburg,
in which we lost ten thousand men without gaining any decisive
advantage, were greatly criticised. They were, in effect, that he had
found it impracticable to secure the co-operation of corps commanders,
and that, therefore, each one was to attack on his own account and do
the best he could by himself. The consequence was that each gained some
advantage of position, but each exhausted his own strength in so doing;
while, for the want of a general purpose and a general commander to
direct and concentrate the whole, it all amounted to nothing but heavy
loss to ourselves. General Wright remarked confidentially to a friend
that all of Meade's attacks had been made without brains and without
generalship.

The first week of July the subject came to pretty full discussion at
Grant's headquarters on account of an extraordinary correspondence
between Meade and Wilson. The Richmond Examiner had charged Wilson's
command with stealing not only negroes and horses, but silver plate and
clothing on a raid he had just made against the Danville and Southside
Railroad, and Meade, taking up the statement of the Examiner for truth,
read Wilson a lecture, and called on him for explanations. Wilson denied
the charge of robbing women and churches, and said he hoped Meade would
not be ready to condemn his command because its operations had excited
the ire of the public enemy. Meade replied that Wilson's explanation was
satisfactory; but this correspondence started a conversation in which
Grant expressed himself quite frankly as to the general trouble with
Meade, and his fear that it would become necessary to relieve him. In
that event, he said, it would be necessary to put Hancock in command.

In the first days of July we began to get inquiries at City Point from
Washington concerning the whereabouts of the Confederate generals Early
and Ewell. It was reported in the capital, our dispatches said, that
they were moving down the Shenandoah Valley. We seemed to have pretty
good evidence that Early was with Lee, defending Petersburg, and so I
wired the Secretary on July 3d. The next day we felt less positive. A
deserter came in on the morning of the 4th, and said that it was
reported in the enemy's camp that Ewell had gone into Maryland with his
entire corps. Another twenty-four hours, and Meade told me that he was
at last convinced that Early and his troops had gone down the valley. In
fact, Early had been gone three weeks. He left Lee's army near Cold
Harbor on the morning of the 13th of June, when we were on the march to
the James. Hunter's defeat of Jones near Staunton had forced Lee to
divide his army in order to stop Hunter's dangerous advance on
Lynchburg.

On the 6th General Grant was convinced that Washington was the
objective. The raid threatened was sufficiently serious to compel the
sending of troops to the defense of the capital, and a body of men
immediately embarked. Three days later I started myself to Washington,
in order to keep Grant informed of what was going on. When I arrived, I
found both Washington and Baltimore in a state of great excitement; both
cities were filled with people who had fled from the enemy. The damage
to private property done by the invaders was said to be almost beyond
calculation. Mills, workshops, and factories of every sort were reported
as destroyed, and from twenty-five to fifty miles of the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad torn up.

During my first day in town, July 11th, all sorts of rumors came in.
General Lew Wallace, then in command at Baltimore, sent word that a
large force of the enemy had been seen that morning near that city. The
Confederate generals were said to have dined together at Rockville a day
or two before. The houses of Governor Bradford, Francis P. Blair,
senior, and his son, Montgomery, the Postmaster General, were reported
burned. We could see from Washington clouds of dust in several quarters
around the city, which we believed to be raised by bodies of hostile
cavalry. There was some sharp skirmishing that day, too, on the
Tennallytown road, as well as later in front of Fort Stevens, and at
night the telegraph operators at the latter place reported a
considerable number of camp fires visible in front of them.

I found that the Washington authorities had utilized every man in town
for defense. Some fifteen hundred employees of the quartermaster's
department had been armed and sent out; the veteran reserves about
Washington and Alexandria had likewise been sent to the front. General
Augur, commanding the defenses of Washington, had also drawn from the
fortifications on the south side of the town all the men that in his
judgment could possibly be spared. To this improvised force were added
that day some six boatloads of troops which General Grant had sent from
the Army of the Potomac. These troops went at once to Fort Stevens.

With the troops coming from Grant, there was force enough to save the
capital; but I soon saw that nothing could possibly be done toward
pursuing or cutting off the enemy for want of a commander. General
Hunter and his forces had not yet returned from their swing around the
circle. General Augur commanded the defenses of Washington, with A. McD.
McCook and a lot of brigadier generals under him, but he was not allowed
to go outside. Wright commanded only his own corps. General Gilmore had
been assigned to the temporary command of those troops of the Nineteenth
Corps just arrived from New Orleans, and all other troops in the Middle
Department, leaving Wallace to command Baltimore alone. But there was no
head to the whole. General Halleck would not give orders, except as he
received them from Grant; the President would give none; and, until
Grant directed positively and explicitly what was to be done, everything
was practically at a standstill. Things, I saw, would go on in the
deplorable and fatal way in which they had been going for a week. Of
course, this want of a head was causing a great deal of sharp comment on
all sides. Postmaster-General Blair was particularly incensed, and,