Forty-Six Years in the Army Part 24

The worst form of operations in such a war is "territorial" strategy, or that which aims at the capture and occupation of territory as a primary object. The best is that which aims at the destruction or capture of the opposing armies as the first and only important object. Grant at Donelson, Vicksburg, and in Virginia best ill.u.s.trated this kind of strategy.

HALLECK'S CHARACTERISTICS

Halleck was probably the chief of the "territorial" strategists of our Civil War period. In the winter of 1861-1862 the counties of north Missouri bordering on the Missouri River were infested with guerrillas. Halleck sent Pope, with a force of all arms amounting to a considerable army, to "clear them out." Pope marched in triumph from one end of that tier of counties to the other, and Halleck then informed me with evident satisfaction that north Missouri was cleared of rebels, and that the war was ended in that part of the State! In fact, the guerrillas, "flushed" like a flock of quail by Pope's advance-guard, had taken to the bush until the rear-guard had pa.s.sed out of sight, and then were found "feeding" again on their old ground.

I felt greatly complimented when Halleck, on his return from Corinth to St. Louis, en route to Was.h.i.+ngton to take command of the army, gave me a full explanation of his "siege of Corinth," including his application of the standard European tactics of a former generation, with its rule of 10,000 men to the mile in line and regular approaches.

I was many years younger than Halleck, Thomas, Sherman, Grant, and the other chief commanders, and hence had much more to learn than they. Perhaps I was also, on account of comparative youth, more teachable. At any rate, the two lessons from Halleck above referred to, and later experience, cause me to do "a world of thinking"; so that I was amazed beyond expression when, in the winter of 1863- 64, just before Grant was made lieutenant-general, Halleck told me that his plan for the next campaign was to send west of the Mississippi River force enough to finish the war in all that region of country, and then return and clear up the States east of that river! I said nothing, but could not help thinking that it was, sure enough, time to have another general-in-chief of the army. But accepting his strategic theory of operations in the American Civil War,-territorial conquest,-his plans of campaign were unquestionably sound.

Halleck was, I believe, a man of great ability and of high military education, though with little practical experience in war; yet his peculiar views, and still more singular action, have seemed to me very remarkable. He remained in Was.h.i.+ngton, practically inert, while one of the great armies of which he was general-in-chief was suffering sore reverses, almost in sight of the Capitol, and the country's cause greatly imperiled for want of a competent commander for that army. How could a soldier resist the impulse to "do or die" at the head of that army? But General Halleck must have known better than any one else at that time the limits of his own capacity. He probably knew that even his great ability and education did not suffice to qualify him for the command of an army in the field. If so, his action afforded a patriotic example which some others would have done well to imitate.

As I have before stated, General Halleck was always kind and just to me, so far as I ever knew, and I was much indebted to him for support when it was needed. Now I find in the records the following letter:

"Richmond, Va., May 10, 1865, 10:30 A. M.

"Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War: "I beg leave to withdraw for the present my recommendation of Schofield as military governor of North Carolina. It is represented to me that he and General Blair were the princ.i.p.al advisers of Sherman in his armistice with the rebel General Johnston. If so, he is not a proper person to command in North Carolina. I therefore suspend my recommendation for further developments.

"H. W. Halleck, Major-General."

The fact was that I had not been present when Sherman's memorandum was agreed upon, had not been consulted about in any way, and knew nothing of its character until after it had been sent to Was.h.i.+ngton. All of this Halleck could have learned at once if he had inquired, which he did not. So far as I know, he left on record, without any subsequent explanation or correction, a report which was without the slightest foundation in fact, and which he understood to be very damaging to my reputation. Hence it seems necessary for me to record the fact that there was no foundation for that report. Beyond this I will only say that I think General Halleck, in this slight matter, as in his far more serious conduct toward General Sherman, was inexcusably thoughtless respecting the damage he might do to the reputation of a brother soldier. The least a true man can do is to make suitable public reparation if he has for any reason done publicly a personal injustice.

HALLECK'S ATTEMPT TO SUPPLANT GRANT

I knew personally at the time the exact truth respecting the action of General Halleck toward General Grant before the battle of s.h.i.+loh, especially in ordering Grant to remain in the rear while General C. F. Smith was sent with the advance of the army to Pittsburg Landing, as described by General Grant in his "Memoirs." Halleck hoped Smith might fight a battle and win a victory in Grant's absence, which would naturally be followed by an order putting Smith in command in place of Grant. But Halleck had not antic.i.p.ated Grant's soldierly action in applying to be relieved, and was not prepared to face that emergency. As soon as Grant's application reached St. Louis, Halleck abandoned that line of action, but he did not abandon his purpose to supersede Grant in some way until some time later. Whatever excuse there may have been at that time for Halleck's opinion of Grant, nothing can be said in favor of the method he adopted to accomplish his purpose to supersede him.

The action of Grant in this case well foreshadowed that which occurred when he was tendered the commission of lieutenant-general and the command of all the armies. Grant would not hold any commission or command without full authority to perform the duties belonging to it. In his "Memoirs" he modestly refrains from relating the most important part of that action, as he told it to me on the war-steamer Rhode Island the next January. Before accepting the commission from President Lincoln, as Grant describes, he said in substance that if it meant that he was to exercise actual command of all the armies, without any interference from the War Department, he was willing to accept it, otherwise he could not. To ill.u.s.trate what he meant, Grant said to me that when he was coming East to accept that commission he determined that he would not be "McClellanized."

The personal observation, experience, and emotions of an individual soldier may perhaps be interesting to the reader. I have never been a lover of war or of strife, and have never been disposed to seek a fight or quarrel. But when once engaged in or challenged to battle all the combativeness in human nature is at once aroused. It is then difficult, if not morally impossible, to decline the challenge. At all events, that question is not even thought of at times. One of the most difficult lessons a commander has to learn is when to offer or accept battle, and when to refrain or decline -that is, to be complete master of his own natural combativeness. That courage which is the highest quality of a private or a subordinate officer may become extremely dangerous in a commander, unless dominated by that higher moral courage which is undisturbed by excitement or pa.s.sion. Grant probably possessed this higher quality in a greater degree than any other commander of our time. Sherman and Thomas also possessed it in a very high degree. In Sherman it was the more remarkable because he was naturally impulsive, and often manifested this trait, especially in minor matters. He acquired the power of absolute self-command in battle. With Thomas this quality appeared to be perfectly natural, as it did with Grant.

Since I had to fight, I sometimes regretted that I could not have a chance with a musket in the ranks (behind a good parapet and "head-log," of course!), for I was a remarkably good shot in my youth. But I never had a chance to fire a shot in battle except once, and that was with my artillery at Fredericktown, Missouri, where not an officer or man in the battery had any idea how to point a field-piece and give it proper elevation according to the distance. I quickly found the proper elevation by the means well known to artillerists, and then directed the battery to go on firing at that elevation, while I was called upon by the commanding officer to devote myself to some men with muskets. I have seen this pa.s.sion so strong that a major-general commanding an army corps would dismount and act the part of a gunner to a field-piece, apparently oblivious to the battle raging all along the line of his corps.

PERSONAL FEELING IN BATTLE

Personal feeling in battle is sometimes remarkable, even to the person himself. In my own experience, the degree of danger was not often entirely unthought of; and in the comparatively few cases where it was, the actual danger was much the greatest ever experienced by me. That such should be the experience of a general in chief command, under the responsibilities of a great battle, is natural enough; but that the same should occur when there is little or no responsibility seems worthy of remark in reference to its apparent cause. In my first battle,-that of Wilson's Creek,-where I was a staff officer under a soldier of great experience, ability, and unsurpa.s.sed courage,-General Lyon,-I felt for a long time no sense of responsibility whatever. I had only to convey his orders to the troops. Yet the absorption of my mind in the discharge of this simple duty, and in watching the progress of the battle, was so complete that I absolutely had no thought whatever of self. Even after Lyon had been twice wounded, both of our horses killed, the troops on our left given way in disorder, leaving us standing in the line, only a few feet to the left of Totten's battery, under a murderous fire, it did not occur to me that I also might possibly be hit. I had not even thought for a moment that the commanding general ought not to be in such an exposed position, or that his wounds ought to have surgical treatment! My absolute confidence in my chief left no room in my mind for even such thoughts as those. It was not until wounds had produced discouragement in the bravest soul I ever knew that I was aroused to some sense of my own responsibility as his senior staff officer, and spontaneously said: "No, general, let us try it again." I was so much absorbed in the battle itself at that time, and even after Lyon's death, that it did not occur to me that wounds and death, even of the commanding general himself, were of any consequence except as they might influence the progress and final result of the battle. This is the feeling that must dominate the action of every successful commander. It is remarkable only because of its early development in one not then under any such responsibility.

It may not be a proper subject for criticism at this time, and certainly is not for any that might seem harsh or unkind, yet it is an instructive lesson which ought never to be forgotten, that feeling and pa.s.sion sometimes more than reason, sound military principles, or wise statesmans.h.i.+p, dictated military as well as political policy during and long after the Civil War.

No doubt all are now ready to admit this in respect to the political measures which wrought so much evil in the South during the so- called reconstruction period. But those who are not familiar with the facts will, I think, be amazed when they see the evidences of this influence in military operations, and perhaps at no time more strikingly than during the last period of the Civil War. It would seem that the official correspondence of that period ought to be a sufficient warning to deter any future generation from bringing the country into a condition where even some of the most distinguished citizens, statesmen, and soldiers seem to be governed more by pa.s.sion than by reason in the conduct of public affairs. The inevitable horrors of war are bad enough in any case, but they are vastly increased when the pa.s.sions begotten of civil strife become dominant. While all parts of the United States have reason for pride in the manhood and valor of American soldiers, and in the patriotic devotion of citizens to the cause which they believed to be right, and profound grat.i.tude for the restoration of the Union of the States, the people of this entire country should bow their heads in humiliation when they think of the general low state of civilization which made such a war possible, and much of its conduct the dictate of pa.s.sion and hate rather than of reason or regard for the public good. Even if it is true, as some soldier-statesmen have said, but which I do not believe, that occasional wars are necessary to the vitality of a nation,-necessary to keep up the fires of patriotism and military ardor upon which the national life depends,-let them be foreign and not civil wars. It is a great mistake, though apparently a common one, to suppose that a country benefits ultimately, in some mysterious way, by civil war, in spite of all its losses during the war. That able scientist General M. C. Meigs demonstrated years ago that this country had, in accordance with a general law, suffered permanent national injury, irreparable in all future time, by its Civil War, and showed very closely the amount of that injury.

It is, no doubt, true that the body politic, like the natural body, may in extreme cases be so diseased either by inheritance or from violation of natural laws, as to require the surgeon's knife to remove the diseased part. But in such a case there is little cause for pride except in the skill of the surgeon, and little cause for rejoicing except in the fact that the operation was successful, that neither the disease nor the surgeon's knife killed the patient.

While the great Von Moltke and others were unquestionably right in their views of the necessity for thorough preparation for war at all times, I believe that indispensable preparation can be made in a way vastly more satisfactory than by actual war. And this can be done with only a trifling expenditure of treasure, and at no cost whatever in blood or sorrow, nor in suspension of peaceful pursuits, nor in burdensome debts, nor in enormous disburs.e.m.e.nts for pensions. Let the schools of all kinds and all grades teach patriotism, respect for law, obedience to authority, discipline, courage, physical development, and the rudiments of practical military manoeuvers; let the national and State military schools be fostered and perfected, and the volunteer citizen soldiery given material aid proportionate to their patriotic military zeal. Let the fortifications of the sea-coasts and the fleets of battle-s.h.i.+ps and cruisers on the ocean be commensurate with the vast national interests and honor intrusted to their protection and defense; let the standing army be sufficient to discharge the duties which require long and scientific education and training, and to serve as models and instructors for the millions of young citizens: then will the United States, by being always ready for war, insure to themselves all the blessings of peace, and this at a cost utterly insignificant in comparison with the cost of one great war. It is a source of profound gratification to an old soldier who has long worked toward this great end to know that his country has already, in his short lifetime, come so near this perfect ideal of a peace- loving yet military republic. Only a few more years of progress in the direction already taken, and the usual prolongation of natural life will yet enable me to witness the realization of this one great object of my earthly ambition.

[( 1) War Records, Vol. XLVI, part ii, p. 802.]

[( 2) For the military convention of April 26, 1865, signed by Sherman and Johnston, and the supplemental terms, signed by Johnston and Schofield, see War Records, Vol. XLVII, part iii, pp. 313, 482.]

CHAPTER XIX The Restoration of Civil Government in the Southern States-The Course Pursued in North Carolina-An Order from General Grant in Regard to Cotton and Produce-Suggestions for the Reorganization of Civil Government-A Provisional Governor for North Carolina.

Being in command in North Carolina at the close of the war, I was connected for a short period with the very earliest consideration of the vital question of the restoration of civil government in the Southern States, in which I acted a more important part at a later period. The moment the surrender of Johnston's army made it evident that the end was near, the question arose, and was much discussed among some of the prominent officers, as to the status of the negroes in the South. The position was promptly taken by me, as the responsible commander in North Carolina, that the question at that time was solely one of fact. The President's proclamation of emanc.i.p.ation was virtually a military order to the army to free all the slaves in the insurgent States as rapidly as military operations should bring them within its control. Whatever the legal effect of the proclamation upon the status of slaves not within the reach of the army when it was issued, there could be no question of its binding obligation, as an order to the army, to be executed and made practically effective as rapidly as it came within the power of the army to execute it. Accordingly, the following order was issued by me to give full practical effect to the proclamation, and to maintain the freedom of all former slaves, so long as the subject-matter should remain under military control. This order, which was the first public official declaration on the subject, was mentioned by one of the leading journals of New York at the time as having at least the merit of "saving a world of discussion." However this may be, little or no discussion followed, and the freedom of all slaves in the States lately in insurrection at once became an established fact.

"(General Orders, No. 32.) "Hdqrs. Dept. of North Carolina, Army of the Ohio, Raleigh, N. C., April 27, 1865. "To remove a doubt which seems to exist in the minds of some of the people of North Carolina, it is hereby declared that by virtue of the proclamation of the President of the United States dated January 1, 1863, all persons in this State heretofore held as slaves are now free, and that it is the duty of the army to maintain the freedom of such persons.

"It is recommended to the former owners of the freedmen to employ them as hired servants at reasonable wages; and it is recommended to the freedmen that, when allowed to do so, they remain with their former masters, and labor fruitfully so long as they shall be treated kindly and paid reasonable wages, or that they immediately seek employment elsewhere in the kind of work to which they are accustomed. It is not well for them to congregate about towns or military camps. They will not be supported in idleness.

"By command of Major-General Schofield: "J. A. Campbell, a.s.sistant Adjutant-General."

On the same day I issued the following:

"(General Orders, No. 31.) "Hdqrs. Dept. of North Carolina, Army of the Ohio, Raleigh, N. C., April 27, 1865. "The commanding general has the great satisfaction of announcing to the army and to the people of North Carolina that hostilities within this State have definitively ceased; that for us the war is ended; and it is hoped that peace will soon be restored throughout our country.

"It is now the duty of all to cultivate friendly relations with the same zeal which has characterized our conduct of the war, that the blessings of Union, peace, and material prosperity may be speedily restored to the entire country. It is confidently believed and expected that the troops of this army and the people of North Carolina will cordially unite in honest endeavors to accomplish this great end.

"All good and peaceable citizens will be protected and treated with kindness, while those who disturb the peace or violate the laws will be punished with the severity of martial law.

"The troops will be distributed so as best to secure the interests of the United States government and protect the people until a civil government can be established in harmony with the const.i.tution and laws of the United States.

"The most perfect discipline and good conduct are enjoined upon all officers and soldiers, and cordial support upon all good citizens.

"All who are peaceably disposed are invited to return to their homes and resume their industrial pursuits. Such as have been deprived of their animals and wagons by the hostile armies will be temporarily supplied, as far as practicable, upon application to the nearest provost-marshal, by loans of the captured property in possession of the quartermaster's department. The needy will also be supplied, for the time being, with subsistence stores from the commissary department... .

"By command of Major-General Schofield: "J. A. Campbell, a.s.sistant Adjutant-General."

On May 4, I issued a circular to this effect:

"Local commanders and provost-marshals will encourage all refugees, white and colored, to return to their homes; and for this purpose will furnish them the necessary railroad pa.s.ses and subsistence.

"Such persons must not be given pa.s.ses to Raleigh or points on the sea-coast, nor be permitted to congregate about towns or camps, there to live in idleness."

On May 5, I wrote to General Sherman:

"When General Grant was here, as you doubtless recollect, he said the lines had been extended to embrace this and other States south. The order, it seems, has been modified so as to include only Virginia and Tennessee. I think it would be an act of wisdom to open this State to trade at once. I hope the government will make known its policy as to organization of State governments without delay. Affairs must necessarily be in a very unsettled state until that is done. The people are now in a mood to accept almost anything which promises a definite settlement. What is to be done with the freedmen is the question of all, and it is the all-important question. It requires prompt and wise action to prevent the negro from becoming a huge elephant on our hands.

"If I am to govern this State, it is important for me to know it at once. If another is to be sent here, it cannot be done too soon, for he will probably undo the most of what I shall have done. I shall be most glad to hear from you fully when you have time to write... ."

Two days later I wrote to General Halleck:

"I have received your despatch concerning slavery, the treatment of freedmen, etc. I will send you my orders issued some days ago, which agree perfectly with your views on this subject. I have not recognized in any way any of the civil officers of the State-not being willing to act in such matters in the absence of any indication of the policy of the government, and taking it for granted that instructions would be given soon. In this connection, I desire to suggest that the sooner a military governor is appointed for this State, and steps taken to organize a civil government, the better. The people are now in a mood to accept anything in reason, and to do what the government desires. If I am, by virtue of my command, to perform the duties of military governor, I would like to know it.

"If another is to be appointed, it ought to be done before I have been compelled to do something which he may think it necessary to undo. I think it would be eminently wise to retain in office justices of the peace, sheriffs, and other inferior officers who may prove to be loyal and worthy; but this should be done by the military governor. I believe the administration need have no anxiety about the question of slavery, or any other important question, in this State. But the proper care of the freedmen should be provided for by State legislation as soon as possible. I shall be thankful for any information or instructions you may be able to give me on these subjects."

A week later more precise rules governing the freedmen were issued:

"(General Orders, No. 46.) "Hdqrs. Dept. of North Carolina, Army of the Ohio, Raleigh, N. C., May 15, 1865.

"The following rules are published for the government of freedmen in North Carolina until the restoration of civil government in the State: "I. The common laws governing the domestic relations, such as those giving parents authority and control over their children, and guardians control over their wards, are in force. The parent's or guardian's authority and obligations take the place of those of the former master.

"II. The former masters are const.i.tuted the guardians of minors and of the aged and infirm, in the absence of parents or other relatives capable of supporting them.

"III. Young men and women under twenty-one years of age remain under the control of their parents or guardians until they become of age, thus aiding to support their parents and younger brothers and sisters.

"IV. The former masters of freedmen may not turn away the young or the infirm, nor refuse to give them food and shelter; nor may the able-bodied men or women go away from their homes, or live in idleness, and leave their parents, children, or young brothers and sisters to be supported by others.