THE “ANACONDA SYSTEM”—HOW FAR IT WAS SUCCESSFUL—TERRITORIAL CONFIGURATION OF THE SOUTH FAVORABLE TO THE ENEMY—ONE THEATRE OF WAR FAVORABLE TO THE CONFEDERATES—THE FEDERAL FORCES IN VIRGINIA—THE CONFEDERATE FORCES—THE POTOMAC LINES—CRITICAL SITUATION IN VIRGINIA—EVACUATION OF MANASSAS—TRANSFER OF OPERATIONS TO THE PENINSULA—MAGRUDER’S LINES—EVACUATION OF YORKTOWN—STRENGTH OF THE OPPOSING FORCES BEFORE RICHMOND—DESTRUCTION OF THE “VIRGINIA”—PANIC IN RICHMOND—MR. DAVIS’ CALMNESS AND CONFIDENCE—HE AVOWS HIMSELF “READY TO LEAVE HIS BONES IN THE CAPITAL OF THE CONFEDERACY”—REPULSE OF THE GUNBOATS—“MEMENTOES OF HEROISM”—JACKSON’S VALLEY CAMPAIGN—A SERIES OF VICTORIES, WITH IMPORTANT RESULTS—BATTLE OF “SEVEN PINES”—A FAILURE—GENERAL JOHNSTON WOUNDED—PRESIDENT DAVIS ON THE FIELD—PRESIDENT DAVIS AND GENERAL JOHNSTON—AN ATTEMPT TO FORESTALL THE DECISION OF HISTORY—RESULTS OF LEE’S ACCESSION TO COMMAND—JOHNSTON’S GENERALSHIP—MR. DAVIS’ ESTIMATE OF LEE—LEE’S PLANS—THE ADVISORY RELATION BETWEEN DAVIS AND LEE—THEIR MUTUAL CONFIDENCE NEVER INTERRUPTED—CONFEDERATE STRATEGY AFTER M’CLELLAN’S DEFEAT BEFORE RICHMOND—MAGICAL CHANGE IN THE FORTUNES OF THE CONFEDERACY—THE INVASION OF MARYLAND—ANTIETAM—TANGIBLE PROOFS OF CONFEDERATE SUCCESS—GENERAL BRAGG—HIS KENTUCKY CAMPAIGN—CONFEDERATE HOPES—BATTLE OF PERRYVILLE—BRAGG RETREATS—ESTIMATE OF THE KENTUCKY CAMPAIGN OF 1862—OTHER INCIDENTS OF THE WESTERN CAMPAIGN—REMOVAL OF M’CLELLAN—A SOUTHERN OPINION OF M’CLELLAN—BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG—BATTLE OF MURFREESBORO’—BATTLE OF PRAIRIE GROVE—THE SITUATION AT THE CLOSE OF 1862—PRESIDENT DAVIS’ RECOMMENDATIONS TO CONGRESS—HIS VISIT TO THE SOUTH-WEST—ADDRESS BEFORE THE MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE.

The Federal Government frankly accepted the true teachings of the war in its earlier stages, and no feature of the lesson was more palpable than the inferiority of the North in the art of war and military administration. No longer trusting, to any extent whatever, to a contest of prowess with an enemy whose incomparable superiority was already established, Mr. Lincoln, his cabinet, and his military advisers, were concurrent in their convictions of the necessity of a policy which should make available the numerical superiority of the North. The “anaconda system” of General Scott, adhered to by General McClellan, and sanctioned by the Government and the people, though by no means new in the theory and practice of war, was based upon a just and sagacious view of the situation.

To overwhelm the South by mere material weight, to crush the smaller body by the momentum of a larger force, comprehends the Federal design of the war, undertaken at the inception of operations in 1862. The success attending the execution of this design we have described in preceding pages. We have accredited to the enemy the full extent of his successes, and endeavored to demonstrate that they resulted not from Confederate maladministration, but from a vigorous and timely use of his advantages and opportunity by the enemy. But while according to the North unexampled energy in preparation, and an unstinted donation of its means to the purpose, which it pursued with indomitable resolution, no concession of an improved military capacity is demanded, from the fact that use was made of obvious advantages not to be overlooked even by the stupidity of an Aulic council.

We have shown that the preponderating influence in the achievement of the enemy’s victories in the winter and spring of 1862, was his naval supremacy. Even at that period it was palpable that, without his navy, his scheme of invasion would be the veriest abortion ever exposed to the ridicule of mankind. The maritime facilities of the enemy were, in the end, decisive of the contest in his favor.

Upon those fields of military operations which have thus far occupied our attention, we have seen how propitious to the enemy’s plans, in every instance, was the geographical configuration. Wherever a navigable river emptied into the sea, which was the undisputed domain of the North, or intersected its territory, a short and, in many instances, almost bloodless struggle had ended in the expulsion or capture of the Confederates defending its passage. Yet, in many instances, these results had a most serious bearing upon the decision of the war. It was impossible for Sidney Johnston to hold Kentucky and Tennessee unless the Mississippi, running parallel with his communications, and the Cumberland and Tennessee, running in their rear, should remain sealed to the enemy. It was equally impracticable to hold the region bordering upon the North Carolina sounds after the fall of Roanoke Island. After the fall of New Orleans, the entire avenue of the Mississippi, except the limited section between Vicksburg and Port Hudson, was open to the enemy, giving him bases of operations upon both its banks, and opening to his ravages vast sections of the Confederacy.

Thus had the naval supremacy of the enemy brought him, in a few days, to the very heart of extensive sections of territory, which never could have been reduced to his sway, had he been compelled to fight his way overland from his frontiers. Thus was the great element of space, usually so potent in the defense of an invaded people, annihilated, almost before the struggle had been fairly begun.

The upper regions of Eastern Virginia, remote from the navigable tributaries of the Atlantic and the larger rivers, was the only theatre of war, where the superior valor and skill of the Confederates could claim success from the Federal hosts, deprived of their gunboats and water communications. Here, though not entirely neutralized, his water facilities did not at all times avail the enemy; here the struggle was more equal, and here was demonstrated that superior manhood and soldiership of the South, which, not even an enemy, if candid, will deny.

Of the seven hundred thousand men, which were claimed as under arms for the preservation of the Union, in the beginning of 1862, it is reasonably certain that more than a half million were actually in the field, and of these at least one-half, were operating in Virginia, with Richmond as the common goal of their eager and expectant gaze. The army of McClellan, numbering little less than two hundred thousand men, in the vicinity of Washington, was entitled to the lavish praise, which he bestowed upon it, in his declaration, that it was “magnificent in material, admirable in discipline and instruction, excellently equipped and armed.” In the valley of the Shenandoah was the army of Banks, more than fifteen thousand strong. General Fremont, with about the same force, commanded the “Mountain Department,” embracing the highland region of Western Virginia. By the first of March these various commands, with other detachments, had reached an aggregate of quite two hundred and fifty thousand men.

We have sufficiently described those causes, by which the already disproportionate strength of the Confederates, previous to the adoption of the conscription act, and the inception of the more vigorous and stringent military policy of the Confederate Government, was reduced to a condition in most alarming contrast with the enormous preparations of the enemy.

General Joseph E. Johnston still held his position, with a force which, on the first of March, barely exceeded forty thousand men. The command of General Stonewall Jackson, in the Shenandoah Valley, did not exceed thirty-five hundred, embracing all arms. General Magruder held the Peninsula of York and James Rivers, covering the approaches to Richmond in that direction, with eleven thousand men, and General Huger had at Norfolk and in the vicinity not more than ten thousand. The Confederate force in Western Virginia was altogether too feeble for successful defense, and indeed, the Government had some months previous abandoned the hope of a permanent occupation of that region.

The Confederate authorities had long since ceased to cherish hope of offensive movements upon the line of the Potomac. Circumstances imposed a defensive attitude, attended with many causes of peculiar apprehension for the fate of the issue in Virginia. Weeks of critical suspense, and vigilant observation of the threatening movements of the Federal forces, were followed by the transfer of the principal scene of operations to the Peninsula.

The evacuation of the position so long held by General Johnston at Manassas, executed with many evidences of skill, but attended with much destruction of valuable material, was followed immediately by an advance of General McClellan to that place. The necessity of a retirement by General Johnston to an interior line had been duly appreciated by the Confederate Government, though there were circumstances attending the immediate execution of the movement, which detracted from its otherwise complete success. The destruction of valuable material, including an extensive meat-curing establishment, containing large supplies of meat, and established by the Government, which ensued upon the evacuation of Manassas, elicited much exasperated censure. Similar occurrences at the evacuation of Yorktown, a few weeks later, revived a most unpleasant recollection of scenes incident to the retreat from Manassas. The extravagant destruction of property, in many instances apparently reckless and wanton, marking the movements of the Confederate armies at this period, was a bitter sarcasm upon the practice, by many of its prominent officers, of that economy of resources which the necessities of the Confederacy so imperatively demanded.

Not only the weakness of his forces indicated to General Johnston the perils of his position, but the territorial configuration again came to the aid of the enemy, and gave to General McClellan the option of several avenues to the rear of the Confederate army. It is not improbable that McClellan appreciated the extremity of Johnston’s situation, and has, indeed, assigned other reasons for his advance upon Manassas than the expectation of an engagement, where the chances would have been overwhelmingly in his favor. At all events, the retirement of General Johnston to the line of the Rapidan, imposed upon the Federal general an immediate choice of a base from which to assail the Confederate capital. Originally opposed to an overland movement via Manassas, McClellan was now compelled to abandon his favorite plan of a movement from Urbanna, on the Rappahanock, by which he hoped to cut off the Confederate retreat to Richmond, in consequence of Johnston’s retirement behind the Rappahanock. General McClellan promptly adopted the movement to the peninsula, a plan which he had previously considered, but which he regarded “as less brilliant and less promising decisive results.”[52]

When General Johnston left Manassas, it is probable that he was not fully decided as to the position which he should select. Receiving a dispatch[53] from President Davis, he halted the army, and immediately the President left Richmond for Johnston’s head-quarters, for the purpose of consultation. General Johnston’s position now was simply observatory of the enemy. It was yet possible that McClellan might undertake an overland movement; and, indeed, a portion of his force had followed the retreating Confederates. In that event Johnston would occupy the line upon which Lee subsequently foiled so many formidable Federal demonstrations. From his central position he could also promptly meet a serious demonstration against Richmond from the Chesapeake waters or the Shenandoah Valley. When the numerous transports at Fortress Monroe, debarking troops for the peninsula, revealed the enemy’s real purpose, the army of General Johnston was carried to the lines of Magruder, at Yorktown. Johnston was, however, decidedly opposed to the movement to the Peninsula, declaring it untenable, and urging views as to the requirements of the situation, which competent criticism has repeatedly commended.While the transfer of Johnston’s army to the Peninsula was in process of execution, the situation in Virginia was, in the highest degree, critical. The strength of Magruder was necessarily so divided, that the actual force, defending the line threatened by McClellan with eighty thousand men, was less than six thousand Confederates. Meanwhile the various Federal detachments in other quarters were coÖperating with the main movement of McClellan. Banks and Shields were expected, by their overwhelming numbers, to crush Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley, and then, forming a junction with the large force of Fremont, who was required to capture Staunton, it was designed that these combined forces should unite with the army of McDowell, advancing from the direction of Fredericksburg, at some point east of the Blue Ridge. Thus a force, aggregating more than seventy thousand men, threatening Richmond from the north, was to unite with McClellan advancing from the east. Such was, in brief, the Federal plan of campaign, which the North expected to accomplish the reduction of Richmond and the total destruction of the Confederate power in Virginia. It does not devolve upon us to discuss, in detail, the defects of this faulty combination, but the sequel will show how promptly and triumphantly the Confederate leaders availed themselves of the opportunity presented by this crude arrangement of their adversaries.

Happily the bold attitude and skillful dispositions of Magruder were aided by the over-tentative action of his antagonist. The latter, greatly exaggerating the force in his front, and convinced of the hopelessness of an assault upon the Confederate works, permitted the escape of the golden moment, and prepared for a regular siege of Yorktown. In the meantime General Magruder describes his situation to have been as follows: “Through the energetic action of the Government, reËnforcements began to pour in, and each hour the Army of the Peninsula grew stronger and stronger, until anxiety passed from my mind as to the result of an attack upon us.”

The untenability of the Peninsula was very soon made apparent, and the important advantage of time having been gained, and the escape of General Huger’s command from its precarious position at Norfolk secured, General Johnston abandoned the works at Yorktown, retreating to the line of the Chickahominy, near Richmond. This movement was made in obedience to the necessities of the situation, and was in accordance with his original desire for a decisive engagement with McClellan, at an interior point, where a concentration of the Confederate forces would be more practicable. General McClellan did not pursue the retreating column with much energy after the decisive blow given his advance at Williamsburg, by Longstreet.

With the arrival of Johnston upon the Richmond lines, the Confederate Government began, with energy and rapidity, the concentration of its forces. The superb command of Huger was promptly transferred to Johnston, and troops from the Carolinas were thrown forward to Richmond as rapidly as transportation facilities would permit. By the last of May the Confederate forces in front of Richmond reached an aggregate of seventy-five thousand men. McClellan had sustained losses on the Peninsula which reduced his strength to the neighborhood of one hundred and twenty thousand.

A cruel necessity of the evacuation of Norfolk and Portsmouth was the destruction of the Confederate iron-clad “Virginia,” which had so long prevented the ascent of James River by the Federal gunboats. So invaluable was this vessel in the defense of Richmond, that McClellan had named, as an essential condition of a successful campaign on the Peninsula, that she should be “neutralized.” It was found impossible to convey the Virginia to a point unoccupied on either shore of the river by the enemy’s forces, and, by order of her commander, the vessel was destroyed. Immediately a fleet ascended the river for the purpose of opening the water highway to the Confederate capital.

The intelligence of the destruction of the “Virginia,” and the advance of the Federal fleet, was received, in Richmond, with profound consternation. No one, unless at that time in Richmond, can realize the sense of extreme peril experienced by the public. There were few who dared indulge the hope of a successful defense of the city against the dreaded “gunboats” and “monitors” of the enemy, which, the people then believed, were alike invulnerable and irresistible.

The wise precautionary measures of the Government, in preparing its archives for removal, in case of emergency, to a point of safety, greatly increased the panic of the public. Rumors of a precipitate evacuation of the city, by the Confederate authorities, were circulated, and there was wanting no possible element which could aggravate the public alarm, save the calm demeanor of President Davis, and the deliberate efforts of the authorities—Confederate, State, and municipal—to assure the safety of the city. The courage and confidence of the President, in the midst of this almost universal alarm, in which many officers of the Government participated, quickly aroused an enthusiastic and determined spirit in the hearts of a brave people. Knowing the critical nature of the emergency, he was nevertheless resolved to exhaust every expedient in the defense of Richmond, and then to abide the issue. His noble and defiant declaration was: “I am ready and willing to leave my bones in the capital of the Confederacy.” In response to resolutions from the Virginia Legislature, urging the defense of the city to the last extremity, he avowed his predetermined resolution to hold Richmond until driven out by the enemy, and animated his hearers by an assurance of his conviction, that, even in that contingency, “the war could be successfully maintained, upon Virginia soil, for twenty years.”[54]

The accounts of the enemy were required to demonstrate to the citizens of Richmond, that, by the obstructions in the channel of the river, and the erection of the impregnable batteries at Drewry’s Bluff, their homes were again secured from the presence of the invaders. The significance of that brief engagement, during which the guns were distinctly audible in Richmond, was very soon made evident in the loss of their terrors by the Federal gunboats. President Davis was a spectator of the engagement, by which the Confederate capital was rescued from imminent peril of capture.

But the repulse of the gunboats in James River, with its assuring and significant incidents, was the precursor of far more brilliant successes, which, it was evident, would largely affect the decision of the general issue in Virginia. In the months of May and June, 1862, was enacted the memorable “Valley campaign” of Stonewall Jackson—a campaign which, never excelled, has no parallel in brilliant and accurate conception, celerity, and perfection of execution, save the Italian campaign of Napoleon in 1796. General Jackson’s exploits in the Valley of the Shenandoah present an aggregate of military achievements unrivaled by any record in American history.

On the 23d of March, Jackson fought the battle of Kernstown, near Winchester, with three thousand Virginians against eighteen full Federal regiments, sustaining, throughout an entire day, an audacious assault upon Shields’ force, and at dark leisurely retiring with his command, after having inflicted upon the enemy a loss nearly equal to his own strength. Elsewhere has been mentioned the effort made to induce President Davis to remove Jackson, in compliance with the popular dissatisfaction at his failure to achieve, against such overwhelming odds, more palpable fruits of victory. The immediate consequence of Kernstown was the check of Banks’ advance in the Valley, and the recall of a large force, then on the way from Banks to aid McClellan’s designs against Johnston.Leaving General Ewell, whose division had been detached from Johnston, to intercept any demonstration by Banks in the Valley, or across the Blue Ridge, Jackson united his command with that of General Edward Johnson, a full brigade, and defeating the advance of Fremont, under Milroy, at McDowell, compelled a disorderly retreat by Fremont through the mountains of Western Virginia. Returning to the Valley, he assaulted, with his united force, the column of Banks, annihilated an entire division of the enemy, pursued its fugitive remnants to the Potomac, and threatened the safety of the Federal capital. Alarmed for Washington, Mr. Lincoln halted McDowell in his plans of coÖperation with McClellan, and for weeks the efforts of the Federal Government were addressed to the paramount purpose of “catching Jackson.” Eluding the enemy’s combinations, Jackson turned upon his pursuers, again defeated Fremont at Cross Keys, and immediately crossing the Shenandoah, secured his rear, and destroyed the advance of Shields within sight of its powerless confederate. Resuming the retreat, Jackson paused at Weyer’s Cave, and awaited the summons of his superiors to enact his thrilling rÔle in the absorbing drama at Richmond. Within the short period of seventy days, Jackson achieved at Kernstown, McDowell’s, Front Royal, Winchester, Strasburg, Harrisonburg, Cross Keys, and Port Republic, eight tactical victories, besides innumerable successful combats. But he had done more. He had wrought the incomparable strategic achievement of neutralizing sixty thousand men with fifteen thousand; he had recalled McDowell, when, with outstretched arm, McClellan had already planted his right wing, under Porter, at Hanover Court-house, to receive the advance of the coÖperating column from Fredericksburg.Meanwhile the lines of Richmond had been the scene of no incident of special interest until the battle of “Seven Pines,” on the 31st of May. After his arrival upon the Chickahominy, McClellan had been steadily fortifying his lines, and wherever an advance was practicable, preparing approaches to Richmond. His line, extending over a space of several miles, was accurately described by the course of the Chickahominy, from the village of Mechanicsville, five miles north of Richmond, to a point about four miles from the city, in an easterly direction. Having partially executed his design of bridging the Chickahominy, McClellan had crossed that stream, and in the last days of May, his left wing was fortified near the locality designated the “Seven Pines.” This initiative demonstration by McClellan, which placed his army astride a variable stream, was sufficiently provocative of the enterprise of his antagonist. To increase the peril of the isolated wing of the Federal army, a thunder-storm, occurring on the night of the 29th of May, had so swollen the Chickahominy as to render difficult the accession of reËnforcements from the main body.

Such was the situation which invited the Confederate commander to undertake the destruction of the exposed column of his adversary—a movement which, if successful, might have resulted in the rout of the entire left wing of the enemy, opening a way to his rear, and securing his utter overthrow. Seven Pines was an action, in which the color of victory was entirely with the Confederates, but it was the least fruitful engagement fought by the two armies in Virginia. There was no engagement of the war in which the valor of the Confederate soldier was more splendidly illustrated, though happily that quality then did not require so conspicuous a test. However able in design, it was in execution a signal failure—a series of loose, indefinite and disjointed movements, wanting in coÖperation, and apparently in able executive management.

President Davis, in company with General Lee, was present during most of the engagement. Frequently under fire, and in consultation with his generals in exposed positions, he was conspicuous chiefly by his efforts to animate the troops, and his presence was greeted with evidences of the enthusiasm and confidence which it inspired.

The battle of “Seven Pines,” in itself barren of influence upon the decision of the campaign, was nevertheless attended by an incident—the painful and disabling wound received by General Johnston, in all probability decisive of the future history of the Army of Northern Virginia. Leading to an immediate and positive change of policy, it is hardly a bold declaration that this incident determined the future of the war in Virginia.

A disposition has been freely indulged to influence the sentence of history, by placing President Davis and General Johnston in a sort of antithetical juxtaposition, as exponents of different theories as to the proper conduct of the war by the South. In view of the failure of the Confederacy, it has been ingeniously contended that the result vindicated the wisdom of General Johnston’s views. But besides its evident unfairness to Mr. Davis, no criticism could be founded less upon the intrinsic merits of the case. Overzealous and intemperate partisans generally evince aptitude in the exaggeration of minor differences between the leaders, whose interests they profess to have at heart. Such results are not unfrequent in the lives of eminent public men. In the case of General Beauregard, the unhappy effects of officious intermeddling and misrepresentation, from such sources, between the President and that distinguished officer, are especially notable.

But the assumption that events have indicated the wisdom of General Johnston’s views, in their declared antagonism to those of Mr. Davis, is altogether unsustained. The immediate results of a change of commanders, and a consequent inauguration of a different policy[55]—a policy in accordance with Mr. Davis’ own views, may, with far more reason, be alleged in support of a contrary theory. The vigorous and aggressive policy adopted and executed by Lee not only accorded with the wishes of the President, but fulfilled the long-deferred popular expectation, and agreeably disappointed the public in Lee’s capacity. For despite the general disappointment at the absence of decisive achievements by the Army of Northern Virginia, General Johnston commanded far more of public confidence, than did General Lee at the period of the latter’s accession to command.

Nothing could have been more disadvantageous to Lee, than the contrast so freely indicated between himself and other officers. Johnston was criticised merely because of the absence of brilliant and decisive achievements. Lee was assumed to have proven his incompetency by egregious failure. He was ridiculed as a closet general. His campaigns were said to exist only on paper—to consist of slow methodical tactics, and incessant industry with the spade, and he was pronounced totally deficient in aggressive qualities. A prominent Richmond editor, criticising his North-western Virginia campaign, asserted that the unvarying intelligence from Lee was that he was “hopelessly stuck in the mud,” and an officer was heard to compare him to a terrapin, needing the application of a hot coal to his back to compel him to action. But with the lapse of a fortnight that army, which received the intelligence of Lee’s appointment to command with misgiving and distrust, began to experience renewed life and hope. It was not the few additional brigades given to that army which so soon started it upon its irresistible career of victory. A mighty hand projected its impetus, and directed its magnificent valor against those miles of intrenchments which it had seen grow more and more formidable, itself meanwhile an inactive spectator.

Lee found the army within sight of Richmond; he lifted it from the mud of the Chickahominy, defeated an enemy intrenched and in superior force; pursued the panting and disheartened fugitives to the shelter of their shipping; defeated a second army—then both together—within hearing of the Federal capital; fought an indecisive battle upon the enemy’s soil, and reËstablished the Confederate line upon the frontier. Is it a matter of wonder that the President, the army, and the people recognized the significance of these results, and applauded the substitution of the new system and the new status for the old? A better explanation of so pronounced a contrast is needed than that the “prejudice” or “injustice” of Davis withheld from Johnston, five or even ten thousand men, which he gave to Lee.

Yet there could be no hypothesis more presumptuous, in view of the abundant testimony of competent military judgment, and none more palpably untenable, than that which would deny greatness as a soldier to Johnston. As a consummate master of strategy, in that sense which contemplates the movements of heavy masses, and looks to grand ultimate results, Johnston has probably few equals. His sagacity in the divination of an enemy’s designs is remarkable; and if he be considered as having marked deficiencies, they must be counted as a lack of Jackson’s audacity, of Lee’s confident calculation and executive perfection. The South regards Lee as beyond criticism. Jefferson Davis is accustomed to say “the world has rarely produced a man to be compared with Lee.” Yet in mere intellectuality, it is at least questionable whether Johnston had his superior among the Southern leaders.

But it often happens that qualities, however great, are not those which the occasion demands. That marvelous union of qualities in Lee, which has placed him almost above parallel, probably made him alone adequate to the hazardous posture of affairs at Richmond in the summer of 1862. The result, at least, made evident to the world, the wisdom of the President, in that choice, which was at first declared the undeserved reward of an incompetent favorite.

Whatever may be alleged to the contrary, President Davis at all times, to the full extent of his power, aided General Johnston in the consummation of his designs. To assert that, upon any occasion, he either interposed obstacles to Johnston’s success, or denied him any means in his power to confer, is to question that personal fidelity of Jefferson Davis, which his bitterest enemy should be ashamed to deny. Few Southern men, at least, have yet attained that measure of malignity, or that hardihood of mendacity.General Lee was not dilatory in his preparations to gratify that longing aspiration which the President, on his own behalf, and in the name of the country, briefly expressed, that “something should be done.” Lee had a carte blanche, but frequent and anxious were the consultations between the President and himself. The world now knows what followed those days and nights of anxious conference, in which were weighed the chances of success, the cost of victory, and the possibilities of defeat. The plan executed by General Lee was one of the most hazardous ever attempted in war, but it was not less brilliant than bold, and at least one precedent had been furnished by the great master of the art of war at Austerlitz. Its perils were obvious, but the sublime confidence of Lee in the success of his combinations went far to secure its own justification.

During the week of engagements which followed, the President was constantly with the army and fully advised of its movements.[56] The cordial recognition of this advisory relation between himself and Lee, is indicated by the natural pride, and becoming sense of justice, with which the latter, in the report of his operations against McClellan, mentions the approving presence of the President, during the execution of his plans. This noble harmony between Davis and Lee, equally creditable to each, was never interrupted by one single moment of discord. It was never marred by dictation on one side, or complaint on the other. Unlike other commanders, Lee never complained of want of means, or of opportunity for the execution of his plans. Satisfied that the Government was extending all the aid in its power, he used, to the best advantage, the means at hand and created his opportunities. Lee never charged the President with improper interference with the army, but freely counseled with his constitutional commander-in-chief, whom he knew to be worthy of the trust conferred by the country in the control of its armies. President Davis fully comprehended and respected the jealous functions of military command, and in the exercise of that trust no one would have more quickly resented unauthorized official interference. A soldier himself, he recognized freedom of action as the privilege of the commander; as a statesman, he rendered that cordial coÖperation, which is the duty of government.

When Lee had driven McClellan from his position along the Chickahominy, he had raised the siege of Richmond. The retreat of McClellan to the James River, conducted with such admirable skill, and aided by good fortune, placed the Federal army in a position where, secure itself, another offensive movement against the Confederate capital might, in time, be undertaken. Confederate strategy, however, soon relieved Richmond from the apprehension of attack, and in less than two months from the termination of the pursuit of McClellan, Lee, by a series of masterly strokes, demolished the armies under Pope, united for the defense of Washington, and was preparing an invasion of Maryland.An almost magical change in the fortunes of the Confederacy was wrought by these active and brilliant operations, embracing so short a period, and marked by results of such magnitude.

Not only were the two main armies of the enemy defeated, but the entire Federal campaign in the East had been entirely disconcerted. Richmond was saved, Washington menaced, and McClellan forced back to the initial point of his campaign. Western Virginia, the Carolina coast, and other localities, for months past in Federal occupation, were almost divested of troops to swell the hosts gathering for the rescue of Washington, and to meet the dreaded advance, northward, of Lee’s invincible columns. From the heart of Virginia the cloud of war was again lifted to the Potomac frontier; the munificent harvests of the valley counties, of Fauquier, Loudon, and the fertile contiguous territory, were again in Confederate possession, and a numerous and victorious army was now anxious to be led across the Rubicon of the warring sections.

From harrowing apprehension, from vague dread of indefinable but imminent peril, the South was transported to the highest round of confident expectation. The North, which, in the last days of June, eagerly awaited intelligence of McClellan’s capture of Richmond, now regarded its own capital as doomed, and did not permit itself to breathe freely until McClellan announced the safety of Pennsylvania, when Lee had retired to Virginia.

The inducements which invited a movement of the Confederate forces across the Potomac were manifold. Whatever judgment the result may now suggest, the invasion of Maryland was alike dictated by sound military policy and justified by those moral considerations which are ever weighty in war. The overwhelming defeat of Pope more than realized the hope of President Davis and General Lee, when the strategic design of a movement northward was put in execution, by which was sought the double purpose of withdrawing McClellan from James River and effectually checking the advance of Pope. The successive and decisive defeats of Pope offered the prospect of an offensive by which the splendid successes of the campaign might be crowned with even more valuable achievements. Demoralized, disheartened, in every way disqualified for effectual resistance, the remnants of the armies which Lee had beaten, each in succession, and then combined, would be an easy prey to his victorious legions, could they be brought to a decisive field engagement. There yet remained time, before the end of the season of active operations, for crushing blows at the enemy, which would finish the work thus far triumphantly successful.

To inflict still greater damage upon the enemy—to so occupy him upon the frontier as to prevent another demonstration against Richmond during the present year—to indicate friendship and sympathy for the oppressed people of Maryland—to derive such aid from them as their condition would enable them to extend, were the potent inducements inviting the approbation of the Confederate authorities to a movement across the Potomac. President Davis was pledged to an invasion of the enemy’s country whenever it should prove practicable. Now, if ever, that policy was to be initiated. Hitherto the enemy’s power, not the will of the Confederate Government, had prevented. Now that power was shattered. The mighty fabric trembled to its base, and who would now venture to estimate the consequences of a brilliant victory by Lee, on Maryland soil, in September, 1862? What supporter of the Union can now dwell, without a shudder, upon the imagination, even, of a repetition, at Antietam, of the story of the Chickahominy, or Second Manassas?

The climax of the Maryland campaign was the battle of Antietam—a drawn battle, but followed by the early withdrawal of the Confederate army into Virginia. It is unnecessary to dwell upon the causes conspiring to give this portion of the campaign many of the features of failure. With a force greatly reduced by the straggling of his weary and exhausted troops, Lee was unable to administer the crushing blow which he had hoped to deliver.[57] As a consequence, the people of Maryland, of whom a large majority were thoroughly patriotic and warm in their Southern sympathies, were not encouraged to make that effective demonstration which would inevitably have followed a defeat of McClellan.

Nevertheless, there was some compensation in the terrible punishment inflicted upon the enemy at Antietam; and there was the heightened prestige, so greatly valued by the South at this period, in the eyes of Europe, arising from the temper and capacity of the weaker combatant to undertake so bold an enterprise. In the tangible evidences of success afforded by the capture of Harper’s Ferry, with its numerous garrison supplies of arms and military stores, was seen additional compensation for the abandonment of the scheme of invasion.An interval of repose was permitted the Army of Northern Virginia, after its return from Maryland, in its encampments near Winchester, during which it was actively strengthened and recruited to the point of adequate preparation for expected demonstrations of the enemy.

The operations of the Western army, in many respects, were a brilliant counterpart to the campaign in Virginia, though lacking its brilliant fruits. We have mentioned the circumstance which placed General Braxton Bragg in command of the Western army, after its successful evacuation of Corinth. General Bragg was equally high in the confidence of the President and the Southern people. Greatly distinguished by his services in Mexico, his skillful handling, at Shiloh, of the magnificent corps of troops, which his discipline had made a model of efficiency, more than confirmed his Mexican fame.

Space does not permit us to follow, in detail, the execution of the able and comprehensive strategy, by which General Bragg relieved large sections of Tennessee and Alabama from the presence of the enemy, penetrated the heart of Kentucky, maintained an active offensive during the summer, and transferred the seat of war to the Federal frontier. A part of these operations was the hurried retreat of Buell’s immense army, from its posts in Alabama and Tennessee, for the defense of Louisville and Cincinnati; large captures of prisoners, horses, arms and military stores; and the brilliant progress and successive victories of Kirby Smith and Morgan. For weeks the situation in Kentucky seemed to promise the unqualified success of the entire Western campaign. There was, indeed, reasonable hope of a permanent occupation of the larger portion of Kentucky and Tennessee by the Confederate forces.But the battle of Perryville—an engagement not unlike Antietam in its doubtful claim as a Federal victory—was followed by the retreat of General Bragg, which was executed with skill, and with results going far to relieve the disappointment of the popular hope of a permanent occupation of Kentucky. Buell, on his arrival at Louisville, whither he had retreated, received heavy reËnforcements, which greatly increased his already superior numbers; and Perryville, a battle which General Bragg fought, rather to secure his retreat than with the expectation of a decisive victory, would have been an overwhelming Confederate success, had Bragg been sufficiently strong to follow up his advantage.

No Confederate commander, save Lee and Jackson, was ever able to present a claim of a successful campaign so well grounded as the Kentucky campaign of Bragg. With a force of forty thousand men, he killed, wounded, and captured more than twenty thousand of the enemy; took thirty pieces of artillery, thousands of small arms; a large supply of wagons, harness, and horses; and an immense amount of subsistence, ample not only for the support of his own army, but of other forces of the Confederacy. During the succeeding autumn and winter, Bragg’s army was conspicuous for its superior organization, admirable condition and tone; was abundantly supplied with food and clothing, and in larger numbers than when it started upon its campaign in August. Moreover, General Bragg redeemed North Alabama and Middle Tennessee, and recovered possession of Cumberland Gap, the doorway, through the mountains, to Knoxville and the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad—the main avenue from Richmond to the heart of the Confederacy. Evincing his determination to hold the recovered territory, General Bragg, within a month from his return from Kentucky, was confronting the principal army of the enemy, in the West, before Nashville.

Incidental to the movement of Bragg into Kentucky, and constituting a part of the programme, attempted upon the large theatre of the Western campaign, were the repulse of the first attack of the enemy upon Vicksburg, the partial failure of General Breckinridge’s expedition to Baton Rouge, and the serious reverse sustained by Van Dorn at Corinth. In connection with the more important demonstration into Kentucky, these incidents of the Western campaign may be briefly aggregated as the recovery of the country between Nashville and Chattanooga, and the important advantage of a secure occupation of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, thus closing the Mississippi to the enemy for two hundred miles.

Subsequent operations in Virginia, at the close of 1862, were entirely favorable to the Confederacy. While the two armies were confronting each other, with the imminent prospect of active and important operations, General McClellan was relieved, and one of his corps commanders, General Burnside, assigned to the command of the Federal army of the Potomac. As is now universally acknowledged, General McClellan was sacrificed to the clamor of a political faction. By this act Mr. Lincoln became responsible for much of the ill-fortune which awaited the Federal arms in Virginia.

Perhaps among his countrymen, a Southern tribute to General McClellan may constitute but feeble praise. He was unquestionably the ablest and most accomplished soldier exhibited by the war on the Northern side. “Had there been no McClellan,” General Meade is reported to have said, “there would have been no Grant.” In retirement, if not exile, General McClellan saw the armies which his genius created, achieve undeserved distinction for men, his inferiors in all that constitutes true generalship. He saw the feeble and wasted remnant of an army, with which he had grappled in the day of its glory and strength, surrender to a multitudinous host, doubly as large as the army with which he had given Lee his first check at Antietam. A true soldier, McClellan was also a true gentleman, an enemy whose talents the South respects none the less, because he did not wantonly ravage its homes, nor make war upon the helpless, the aged, and infirm. President Davis, who, while Federal Secretary of War, conferred upon McClellan a special distinction, held his genius and attainments in high estimation. He received the intelligence of his removal with profound satisfaction.

The North was not required to wait long for a competent test of the new commander’s capacity. Foiled and deceived by Lee, in a series of maneuvres, the results of which made him only less ridiculous than the gasconading Pope among Federal commanders, Burnside finally assailed Lee, on the 13th December, at Fredericksburg. The result was a bloody slaughter, unequaled in previous annals of the war, an overwhelming repulse, and a demoralized retreat across the Rappahannock.

The Western campaign terminated with the battle of Murfreesboro’. The Federal commander, Rosecrans, the successor of Buell, advanced from Nashville to drive Bragg from his position. A brilliant and vigorous attack by Bragg, on the 31st December, routed an entire wing of the Federal army; on the second day the action was more favorable to Rosecrans, who had retreated, after his reverse on the first day, to stronger positions. Receiving information that the enemy was strongly reËnforcing, General Bragg fell back to Tullahoma, a position more favorable for strategic and defensive purposes.

The transfer, after the battle of Shiloh, of the troops of Price and Van Dorn to the army east of the Mississippi, had almost divested the Trans-Mississippi Department of interest in the public mind. After Elk Horn, there was but one considerable engagement, in 1862, west of the Mississippi. This was the battle of Prairie Grove, a fruitless victory, won by General Hindman, about the middle of December. The country north of the Arkansas River continued to be nominally held by the Federal forces.

Thus, in nearly every quarter, the second year of the war terminated with events favorable to the prospects of Southern independence. Though the territorial jurisdiction of the Confederacy was contracted, the world was not far from regarding the task of subjugation as already a demonstrated and hopeless failure. All the invasive campaigns of the enemy, save the first shock of his overwhelming onsets against weak and untenable posts, in the winter and early spring, had been brought to grief, and nowhere had he maintained himself away from his water facilities. An unexampled prestige among nations now belonged to the infant power, which had carried its arms from the Tennessee to the Ohio, had achieved a week of victories before its own capital, and carried the war back to its threshold. After such achievements the Southern Confederacy rightly claimed from those powers which have assumed to be the arbiters of international right an instant recognition upon the list of declared and established nationalities.

In our brief and cursory glance at military operations, we have omitted to mention the action of the Government designed to promote the successful prosecution of the war. This action is mainly comprehended by the various suggestions of the President’s messages to Congress. These recommendations related chiefly to measures having in view the increased efficiency of the service. He invited the attention of Congress, especially, to the necessity of measures securing the proper execution of the conscription law, and the consolidation of companies, battalions and regiments, when so reduced in strength as to impair that uniformity of organization, which was necessary in the army. Legislation was urged, having in view a better control of military transportation on the railroads, and the improvement of their defective condition. The President also recommended various propositions relating to organization of the army, and an extension of the provisions of the conscription law, embracing persons between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five years.

About the middle of December President Davis visited the camps of the Western Department, spending several weeks in obtaining information as to the condition and wants of that section of the Confederacy, and devising expedients for a more successful defense in a quarter where the Confederate cause was always seriously menaced. His presence was highly beneficial in allaying popular distrust, founded upon the supposition that Virginia and the Atlantic region engrossed the attention of the Government to the exclusion of concern for the West and the Mississippi Valley. When the President returned to Richmond, there were signs of popular animation in the South-west, which justified a more confident hope of the cause, than the South was permitted to indulge at any other period of the struggle.

An incident of this visit was the address of the President before the Mississippi Legislature. The warm affection of Mr. Davis for Mississippi is more than reciprocated by the noble and chivalrous people of that State. He was always proud of the confidence reposed in him by such a community, and Mississippi can never abate her affection for one who so illustrated her name in the council chamber and upon the field of battle. In this address he alluded, with much tenderness, to this reciprocal attachment, declaring, that though “as President of the Confederate States, he had determined to make no distinction between the various parts of the country—to know no separate State—yet his heart always beat more warmly for Mississippi, and he had looked on Mississippi soldiers with a pride and emotion, such as no others inspired.”

Declaring that his course had been dictated by the sincere purpose of promoting the cause of independence, he admonished the country to prepare for a desperate contest, with a power armed for the purposes of conquest and subjugation. He characterized severely the conduct of the war by the North. Reviewing its progress, and recounting the immense disadvantages, with which the South contended, he maintained that the South should congratulate itself on its achievements, and not complain that more had not been accomplished. The conscription law was explained and defended as to many of its features not clearly understood by the people. We give an extract from Mr. Davis’ remarks as to the Confederate conscription, a subject of vast misrepresentation during the war, and of much ignorant censure since:

“I am told that this act has excited some discontentment, and that it has provoked censure far more severe, I believe, than it deserves. It has been said that it exempts the rich from military service, and forces the poor to fight the battles of the country. The poor do, indeed, fight the battles of the country. It is the poor who save nations and make revolutions. But is it true that, in this war, the men of property have shrunk from the ordeal of the battle-field? Look through the army; cast your eyes upon the maimed heroes of the war whom you meet in your streets and in the hospitals; remember the martyrs of the conflict; and I am sure you will find among them more than a fair proportion drawn from the ranks of men of property. The object of that portion of the act which exempts those having charge of twenty or more negroes, was not to draw any distinction of classes, but simply to provide a force, in the nature of a police force, sufficient to keep our negroes in control. This was the sole object of the clause. Had it been otherwise, it would never have received my signature. As I have already said, we have no cause to complain of the rich. All our people have done well; and, while the poor have nobly discharged their duties, most of the wealthiest and most distinguished families of the South have representatives in the ranks. I take, as an example, the case of one of your own representatives in Congress, who was nominated for Congress and elected, but still did a sentinel’s duty until Congress met. Nor is this a solitary instance, for men of largest fortune in Mississippi are now serving in the ranks.”