Dixie Forever

Chapter 1

With the rising tensions, the 1860 election was a portend of things to come.  If the Democrats had remained united, perhaps they could've won the election, but that is a matter for speculative fiction.  Had it happened, perhaps states in the south might not have seceded.

In Charleston, the Democrat National Convention took place, despite it being normally held in the North.  The convention endorsed 'popular sovereignty,' which resulted in 50 delegates from the south walking out.  When the convention delegates couldn't agree on a nominee, a second meeting then took place in Baltimore, Maryland.  The party was fracturing.  After the walk-out, the remaining Democrats nominated Senator Stephen Douglas, who had held a series of famous debates with the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln.  Southern Democrats held a separate convention over in Richmond, Virginia, where they nominated the current Vice-President, John C Breckinridge as their candidate, with both sides claiming to be the true Democrats.

In addition to this split, members of two former parties, the Know Nothings, and some Whigs, formed the Constitutional Union Party, which tried to avoid the sectional issues plaguing the republic by running on a platform of supporting the Constitution and the laws of the land and being against secession, while avoiding the issue of slavery altogether.

The Republican National Convention met up in Chicago, taking a number of ballots to choose their nominee.  William Seward won the first two ballots, but it had become apparent to many that he had alienated some branches of the party, and on the third ballot, a little known former representative, Abraham Lincoln, won the selection with a number of techniques practiced for decades and would continue to be used for decades to come - packing the crowd, not letting other candidates' supporters in, promises of money and cabinet positions.

While the Democrats had fractured into three separate factions, the Republicans were unified, allowing them to gain the most votes in the electoral college, while gaining only 40% of the popular vote.

Thomas Prentice Kettel, a noted economist of the era, wrote:

It [the North] had before it a most brilliant future, but it has wantonly disturbed that future by encouraging the growth of a political party [Republican] based wholly on sectional aggression, - a party which proposes no issues of statesmanship for the benefit of the whole country; it advances nothing of a domestic or foreign policy tending to national profit or protection, or to promote the general welfare in any way.

He later wrote of the hate used to rally northern votes in the 1860 election:

The North has for more than ten years constantly allowed itself to be irritated by incendiary speakers and writers, whose sole stock in trade is the unreasoning hate against the South that may be engendered by long-continued irritating misrepresentation.


Electoral totals:

180: Abraham Lincoln, Republican (red) 
72: John Breckinridge, Southern Democrat  (green)
39: John Bell, Constitutional Union (orange) 
12: Stephen Douglas, Northern Democrat (light blue) 


152 required to win.

*NOTE: Map is edited from a modern QBAM.  Gray are areas which remain territories at 1860. 

Lincoln's Measures

Lincoln's former law partners, who would become his biographers, Nicolay and Hay, wrote of him: "When the President determined on war, and with the purpose of making it appear that the South was the aggressor, he took measures..."

On the 21st of December, Lincoln wrote of those measures in a 'confidential' letter to Elihu Washburne: "Please present my respects to the General (Winfield Scott), and tell him, confidentially, I shall be obliged to him to be as well prepared as he can to either hold, or retake, the forts, as the case may require, at, and after the inauguration."

Mrs. Davis's Premonition

Speaking to one of her friends, and written down by diarist Mary Boykin Chesnut, Varina said "The South will secede if Lincoln is made president. They will make Mr. Davis President of the Southern side. And the whole thing is bound to be a failure."

While she was in DC with her husband as a representative, she was known to have some 'unorthodox' views for the 1840s, such as "slaves were human beings with their frailties" and that "everyone was a 'half breed' of one kind or another."  She joked she was a half-breed, with part of her family in the North and part in the South.

Varina Davis, 1849

Secession

Southerners looked at the Republican party with fear.  Many saw their victory as a sectional minority intent on overrunning them with tariffs and centralizing power in Washington, DC, away from the states.  Once the election of Lincoln was certified, the people of several southern states voted regarding secession to protect their sovereignty from the centralizing party, which at this point in history was the Republican party.  Missouri and Arkansas voted against secession at this point, as did Tennessee and North Carolina.  The talk of secession was in the air.

It was known that Lincoln's religious views were "most nearly represented" by a man named Theodore Parker, who had a very close relationship with the terrorist John Brown, and had even funded his raid on Harpers Ferry. Parker was a radical Unitarian, a group who denied the divinity of Christ. Jesse Fell, another Unitarian, who was also the secretary of the Republican State Central Committee, wrote a biographical sketch of Lincoln for the 1860 election. Fell wrote about Lincoln, "I have no hesitation whatever in saying that, whilst he (Lincoln) held many opinions in common with the great mass of Christian believers, he did not believe in what are regarded as the orthodox or evangelical views of Christianity." Parker opened his house to Brown and treated him like royalty, after he murdered people in Kansas. Given that knowledge, it is more understandable that southerners were fearful of his election. With northern newspapers calling John Brown, the terrorist, a Saint less than a month after his attack on Harpers Ferry, southerners began viewing Brown, Parker, and Lincoln as conspirators against the south, regardless if one were in the 5% who owned slaves or the 95% who didn't. Newspapers in the north wrote like Wendell Phillips, "Virginia is a pirate ship and John Brown sails the seas as a Lord High Admiral of the Almighty, with his commission to sink every pirate he sees."
Governor Joseph Brown of Georgia, before the end of the 7th of November, 1860, spoke in the capital of Milledgeville:

We have within ourselves, all the elements of wealth, power, and national greatness, to an extent possessed probably by no other people on the face of the earth. With a vast and fertile territory, possessed of every natural advantage, bestowed by a kind Providence upon the most favored land, and with almost monopoly of the cotton culture of the world, if we were true to ourselves, our power would be invincible, and our prosperity unbounded.

Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, wrote on November 10th: "And now, if the Cotton States consider the value of the Union debatable, we maintain their perfect right to discuss it.  Nay, we hold with Jefferson to the inalienable right of communities to alter or abolish forms of government that have become oppressive or injurious; and if the Cotton States shall decide that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace.  The right to secede may be a revolutionary one, but it exists nevertheless; and we do not see how one party can have a right to do what another party has a right to prevent.  We must ever resist the asserted right of any State to remain in the Union and nullify or defy the laws thereof; to withdraw from the Union is quite another matter.  And whenever a considerable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to o out, we shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep it in.  We hope never to live in a republic, whereof one section is pinned to the residue with bayonets."

While he was a fervent abolitionist, he continued to say:  "Any attempt to compel them [the seceded states] to remain, by force, would be contrary to the principles of the Declaration of Independence and to the ideas upon which human liberty is based...If the Declaration of Independence justified the secession from the British Empire of three million of subjects in 1776, it was not seen why it would not justify the secession of five millions of Southerners from the Union in 1861."

The December 10th, 1861 issue of the Chicago newspaper Daily Chicago Times, confessed that the southerners were being exploited by the northern political policies regarding tariffs, which favored the northern capitalists:

"The South has furnished near three-fourths of the entire exports of the country ... we have a tariff that protects our (Northern) manufacturers from thirty to fifty percent and enables us to consume large quantities of Southern cotton, and to compete in our whole home market with the skilled labor of Europe.  This operates to compel the South to pay an indirect bounty to our skilled labor, of millions annually."

"Let the South adopt the free-trade system (Northern) commerce must be reduced to less than half what it is now."

But it would be South Carolina which took the lead as it did in 1828.  A convention was assembled, and on the 20th of December, the state voted to secede from the United States and resume its sovereign powers it believed it had delegated to the United States, not surrendered.  Some states explicitly reserved their right to resume their delegated powers, namely New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia, statements which no other state objected to; New England had threatened multiple times to secede with no one claiming there was no right to secede at the time.  South Carolina simply claimed it was acting in its sovereign and independent authority by removing its agent, the United States, from its foreign relations.

The Indianapolis Daily Journal editorialized about South Carolina's secession: "Is any man so devoted to the idea of 'enforcing the law' and 'maintaining our glorious Constitution,' as not to see that maintaining it by civil war is the surest way to destroy it?"  It continued, "the course to be pursued towards South Carolina...is to let her go freely and entirely."

The Daily Capital City, a paper in Columbus, OH would publish February 9, 1861 an editorial titled "Men Change - Principles Never."  It questioned the right of the federal government to coerce the seceded states back into the Union, "If the principle on which our Government is founded be not incorrect, it should be carried out at all hazards.  There is and can be but one RIGHT in the premises - all else is wrong."

One resident of Charleston, an Englishman by birth, wrote back to his family in England to explain the situation of how the northerners were exploiting the southern people: "Millions and millions have the South unjustly paid under the Northern protective tariff system.  With secession, this tribute payment ceases.  There is no wonder that the Northerners are union men and denounce the impropriety of secession.  It occasions them pecuniary loss."

Before its vote, on the 10th of December, a group of South Carolina congressmen asked President Buchanan for his pledge not to reinforce or change the military situation at Charleston Harbor, where troops were residing at Fort Moultrie (not Fort Sumter).  The congressmen wanted to pay the government for federal property now within its borders, but the federal government would not treat with them on that matter.  However, Buchanan offered his verbal assurances that he would not order the forts reinforced, and South Carolina would be informed if the President were to change that policy. 

After the vote, on the 26th, Major Anderson, who was in charge at Fort Moultrie, ordered his troops to move to Fort Sumter, a fort which could fire upon Charleston if it chose.  Buchanan told the South Carolinians he couldn't order his return, since the takeover of Moultrie by the South Carolinians made that impossible.  Nearly a fortnight later on the 5th of January, President Buchanan ordered the Star of the West to sail from New York with supplies to relieve the fort.  South Carolinians fired across the ship, which turned back.  Buchanan was resolved to hold the fort, though, and only send aid if requested, leaving things as they were for the time being.  What Charleston residents knew, however, was that the city was allowing troops to purchase food and beverage in the city without restriction during this time.

President Buchanan did make a final statement to Congress on the 4th of December, where he said: "The question, fairly stated, is: Has the Constitution delegated to Congress the power to coerce a State into submission which is attempting to withdraw or has actually withdrawn from the Confederacy? (a common term for the US at the time).  If answered in the affirmative, it must be on the principle that the power has been conferred upon Congress to declare and make war against a State.  After much serious reflection I have arrived at the conclusion that no such power has been delegated to Congress, nor to any other department of the Federal Government.  It is manifest, upon an inspection of the Constitution, that this is not among the specific and enumerated powers granted to Congress; and it is equally apparent that its exercise is not 'necessary and proper for carrying into execution' any one of these powers.  So far from this power having been delegated to Congress, it was expressly refused by the Convention which framed the Constitution."  He concluded his statement: "The fact is, that our Union rests upon public opinion, and can never be cemented by the blood of its citizens shed in civil war.  If it cannot live in the affections of the people, it must one day perish.  Congress possesses many means of preserving it by conciliation; but the sword was not placed in their hand to preserve it by force."

When President Lincoln made no public pronouncements on his willingness to defuse the situation, he made his way to Washington on a train ride, stopping at various points to give speeches, and finally approaching Washington in disguise, claiming an assassination plot against him.

Soon after the incident with the Star of the West, six other states seceded: Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. From both North and South, representatives from several states met in Virginia to try to hold the Union together, but proposals for amending the Constitution, including the Corwin Amendment, which made slavery permanent, which Lincoln endorsed, would not be successful.

The seven states met in Montgomery, Alabama, and formed a new government between them: the Confederate States of America. The first, provisional, Confederate Congress was held February 4, 1861, and adopted its provisional constitution. Four days later, it nominated Jefferson Davis, the Senator from Mississippi and former Secretary of War, as its provisional President.

The Confederates sent peace envoys from January to April to Washington to meet with Abraham Lincoln to discuss items such as the assumption of debt, transfer of federal forts and armories to the confederate authorities, and trade, but each time they requested to meet, they were delayed for one reason or another, and Lincoln refused to see them or even acknowledge them. The envoys from the Confederate States did make clear that if the United States were to try to resupply forts, that would be considered an act of war.

By about March, the federal Congress, now in control of the Republican party, which at this point was in favor of Henry Clay's American System, passed the Morrill Tariff, raising tariffs on hundreds of goods, and fueling secession sentiment across the South.  At the same time, the South passed its own tariff of between 10 and 15%, which made the South essentially a free trade zone in comparison to the protectionist North.

Despite the earlier support in the press for letting the South go, after the markets realized their profits would be jeopardized by the loss of southern markets, the tone changed:

New York Times, March 30, 1861:

"The predicament in which both the Government and the commerce of the country are placed, through the non-enforcement of our revenue laws, is now thoroughly understood the world over. ...If the manufacturer at Manchester can send his goods into the Western States through New-Orleans at a less cost than through New-York, he is a fool for not availing himself of his advantage. ...The English, almost to a man are Abolitionists of the ultra school. They abhor the principles of the Confederate States, but they intend to trade with them notwithstanding. We do not propose to offer a remonstrance, unless we are prepared by force to make good our position.

...If the importations of the country are made through Southern ports, its exports will go through the same channel. This is inevitable. The produce of the West, instead of coming to our own port by millions of tons, to be transported abroad by the same ships through which we received our importations, will seek other routes and other outlets. With the loss of our foreign trade, what is to become of our public works, conducted at the cost of many hundred millions of dollars, to turn into our harbor the products of the interior? They share in the common ruin. So do our manufacturers. ...Once at New-Orleans, goods may be distributed over the whole country, duty free. The process is perfectly simple. No remedy is suggested, except force or treaty. We see no other. ...The commercial bearing of the question has acted upon the North...We now see clearly whither we are tending, and the policy we must adopt. With us it is no longer an abstract question -- one of constitutional construction, or of the reserved or delegated powers of the State or Federal Government, but of material existence and moral position both at home and abroad. England and France were indifferent spectators till their interests were affected. We were divided and confused till our pockets were touched. "

Boston Transcript
:It does not require extraordinary sagacity to perceive that trade is perhaps the controlling motive operating to prevent the return of the seceding States to the Union. Slavery is an issue, yes, but the mask has been thrown off, and it is apparent that the people of the principle seceding States are now for commercial independence.
The Union Democrat, from Manchester, NH:

"The Southern Confederacy will not employ our ships or buy our goods. What is our shipping without it? Literally nothing. The transportation of cotton and its fabrics employs more ships than all other trade. It is very clear that the South gains by this process, and we lose. No - we MUST NOT "let the South go.""

The New York Evening Post (March 12, 1861):

"That either revenue from duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the ports must be closed to importations from abroad,...If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed; the sources which supply our treasury will be dried up; we shall have no money to carry on the government; the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe.  There will be nothing to furnish means of subsistence to the army; nothing to keep our navy afloat; nothing to pay the salaries of the public officers; the present order of things must come to a dead stop...Allow railroad iron to be entered at Savannah with the low duty of ten per cent, which is all that the Southern Confederacy think of laying on imported goods, and not an ounce more would be imported at New York; the railways would be supplied from the southern ports.  What, then, is left for our government?"


Behind the backs of the rest of his cabinet, Lincoln ordered two secret missions to resupply both Fort Sumter near Charleston, and Fort Pickens near Pensacola, breaking the de facto truce with the Confederates, with the support of Montgomery Blair, his postmaster general, Gustavus Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and Gideon Welles, his Navy Secretary.  He either intentionally or not, ordered the flotilla going to Charleston to take its orders from a ship that he then sent to Pensacola, rendering any military option there impotent.  His decision, as his biographers John Nicolay and John Hay would later write, was decided by November.  Lincoln wrote to Elihu Washburne: "Please present my respects to the General (Winfield Scott), and tell him confidentially, I shall be obliged to him to be as well prepared as he can to either hold, or retake, the forts, as the case may require, at, and after the inauguration." 

Fox took Welles's idea, namely that it was "very important that the Rebels strike the first blow in the conflict," and then worked out the details of a plan.  He wrote to Montgomery Blair, the future Postmaster General, in February, that "I simply propose three tugs, convoyed by light-draft men-of-war." and "The first tug to lead in empty, to open their fire."

Lincoln had two difficult choices: reinforce the fort and risk losing the Upper South, or not do anything and risk looking weak like Buchanan, and legitimizing the Confederacy. Lincoln made his choice.

The South had two difficult choices: do nothing and look weak, being humiliated internationally if they allowed Lincoln to resupply the forts, or fire upon a coming flotilla and risk being seen as the aggressors.


In what may be an apocryphal quote, when asked "Why not let the South go?" President Lincoln appeared to reply, "Let the South go! Where then shall we get our revenue?"  In Lincoln's own words of 1864, "and so the war came." 

First Flag of the Confederate States
 

The new Confederacy, with seven states, sought to create a flag similar to that of the United States.  They felt their new Confederation was simply a restoration of the original intent of the Union, and the first flag was created, called the "Stars and Bars."  It had a red, white, and red stripe, and a blue canton with seven stars for the seven states.  

Chapter 3: War Begins

Virginia's Betrayal

In Virginia's secession convention, which ran from February into early April, the Unionists controlled the proceedings. Former President John Tyler opened the meeting on February 13th, while at the same time chairing the Virginia Peace Conference in DC, hoping to avoid war.  On April 4th, delegates considered and rejected secession. But when news of Fort Sumter hit, and that the Union fired first, that galvanized the secessionists. The decisive event was Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers to put down the "insurrection" in the Lower South. Virginian Unionists viewed this act by Lincoln as a betrayal. All spring, they had negotiated in good faith with Republican officeholders and party leaders, and had received assurances that Fort Sumter would be given up, and the Lower South slowly drawn back into the Union. Instead, Lincoln's call for troops confirmed the worst fears of the secessionists, the very people whom the Unionists had been calling irresponsible for the last three months. Now, it was the Unionists who looked irresponsible, blind to the treachery of which a Republican administration was capable.

The Lynchburg Daily Virginian, a pro-Union newspaper until after the fall of Fort Sumter, characterized the anger of Unionists across the state of Virginia. On April 16, the editor resigned himself to joining the Confederacy along with his state. He wrote under the headline, "The Feeling Yesterday," that "Those who have fought valiantly for the Union admitted that they had been outraged and deceived by the Administration; whilst professions of peace and compromise were on their lips, they were taking active measures to conquer and perhaps subjugate the South."

If Lincoln had lied about Sumter, could he be lying about the purpose of the army too?

A Unionist from North Carolina stated his case, "We have created reasons to fall out with Lincoln than you secessionists. While we were watching and waiting he was undermining for our subjugation, but now we are for separation and against all sorts of compromise. Death or victory is our motto."

James B Dorman, a Unionist delegate from the upper Shenandoah Valley, wrote to his cousin, "I have no idea that our people will tamely submit to Lincoln's arrogant and infamous usurpation of power, and to his diabolical purpose of waging war with a force of 50,000 Northern men against the Southern states. The issue is presented of a fight, and the question is simply 'which side are you on?'"

Lee Makes His Decision

Colonel Lee wrote to his wife on the 23rd of January:

"I received Everett's Life of General Washington, which you sent me, and enjoyed its perusal. How his spirit would be grieved could he see the wreck of his mighty labors!  I will not, however, permit myself to believe, until all the ground for hope has gone, that the fruit of his noble deeds will be destroyed and that his precious advice and virtuous example will so soon be forgotten by his countrymen.

As far as I can judge from the papers, we are between a state of anarchy and civil war.  May God avert both of these evils from us!  I fear that mankind for years will not be sufficiently Christianized to bear the absence of restraint and force.  I See that four States have declared themselves out of the Union: four more will apparently follow their example.  Then, if the Border States are brought into the gulf of revolution, one half of the country will be arrayed against the other.  I must try and be patient and await the end, for I can do nothing to hasten or retard it."

And to his son Fitzhugh on the 23rd of January about events back east, while he was in Fort Mason:

"The South, in my opinion, has been aggrieved by the acts of the North, as you say.  I feel the aggression, and am willing to take every proper step for redress.  It is the principle I contend for, not individual or private benefit."

"As an American citizen I take great pride in my country, her prosperity, and her institutions, and would defend any State if her rights were invaded.  But I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union.  It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation.  I hope, therefore, that all constitutional means will be exhausted before there is a resort to force."

"Secession is nothing but revolution.  The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will.  It was intended for 'perpetual union,' so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution or the consent of all the people in convention assembled."

"It is idle to talk of secession.  Anarchy would have been established, and not a government, by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and all the other patriots of the Revolution."

"...a Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to take the place of brotherly love and kindness, has no charm for me."

If Virginia secedes, he wrote, "I shall mourn for my country and for the welfare and progress of mankind.  If the Union is dissolved and the Government disrupted, I shall return to my native State and share the miseries of my people, and save in defence will draw my sword on none."

As can be seen from those excerpts, Lee was not in favor of secession, but intended to defend his native State if it came to that.

Back in February, Colonel Robert E Lee was in Texas when he was summoned to Washington, DC. Since he was still an officer in the US Army, there was still a question on whether he would be arrested before he left the state. “Has it come so soon to this?” he sadly remarked to Mrs. Caroline Darrow, a unionist he had met while in San Antonio.

Lee made it out and made it to DC by March 1, still hoping that there would be a compromise that would keep Virginia in the Union. His father was Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee, who fought with George Washington and reported directly to him; his house at Arlington had many artifacts of Washington’s, purchased by the Custis family over the years, which reinforced his identification with the father of the country.

Colonel Lee met with Winfield Scott for three hours on the 5th, expressing his unwillingness to fight against his own state. Scott, hoping Lee would stay with the Union, gave him holding orders to stay close by. Scott himself had been approached by delegates from Virginia to command its state military forces, but he refused; he resolved only to act in defense. Scott also detested Jefferson Davis, whom he called “a Judas who would not have sold the Savior for 30 shillings, but for the successorship to Pontius Pilate he would have betrayed Christ and the apostles and the whole Christian Church.”

Scott did offer Lee a promotion to colonel of the First US Cavalry, which he accepted on the 16th, but he later told his neighbors he might “resign and go plant corn.”

On the 17th of April, Virginia’s constitutional convention met in secret, and this time voted for secession. The next day, Lee was called to Washington again and formally offered the command of the Northern army by Francis P Blair, one of the Republican power brokers in the administration. The offer came directly from Abraham Lincoln. It would take two days, but after talking again to Scott, who told him he either had to resign or be prepared to follow any orders given to him. After another night of pacing and prayer, having received news that Virginia had seceded, Lee wrote his letter to Scott. His own family was divided – Custis and Rooney, his sons, spoke bitterly against secession, and his sister, Ann, married a Unionist.

Lee gave his letter to Scott,


Arlington, Washington City, P.O

20 Apr 1861


Lt. Genl Winfield Scott

Commd U.S. Army

General,

Since my interview with you on the 18th Inst: I have felt that I ought not longer to retain any Commission in the Army. I therefore tender my resignation which I request you will recommend for acceptance. It would have been presented at once but for the struggle it has Cost me to separate myself from a Service to which I have devoted all the best years of my life, & all the ability I possessed. During the whole of that time, more than a quarter of a century, I have experienced nothing but kindness from my superiors & the most Cordial friendships from any Comrades. To no one Genl have I been as much indebted as to yourself for kindness & Consideration & it has always been my ardent desire to merit your approbation. I shall carry with me, to the grave the most grateful recollections of your kind Consideration, & your name & fame will always be dear to me. Save in the defense of my native state shall I ever again draw my sword. Be pleased to accept my most earnest wishes for the Continuance of your happiness & prosperity & believe me

Most truly yours

R E Lee

On the 23rd, Lee went to Richmond and was appointed command of the troops of Virginia by Governor John Letcher, which he accepted.  John Janney, president of the Virginia Convention, presented Lee with his commission.

Lee replied:

"Deeply impressed with the solemnity of the occasion on which i appear before you, and profoundly grateful for the honour conferred upon me, I accept the position your partiality has assigned me, though I would greatly have preferred your choice should have fallen on one more capable.

Trusting to Almighty God , an approving conscience, and the aid of my fellow-citizens, I will devote myself to the defense and service of my native State, in whose behalf alone would I have ever drawn my sword."

Senators Weigh In


Delaware Senator James Bayard gave a long, 3-day speech on the floor of the Senate on the prospects of war, and the legality of secession of the seven states that had already left the Union.  He said:

Resolved by the Senate of the United States, that the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, has full power and authority to accept the declaration of the seceding States that they constitute hereafter an alien people, and to negotiate and conclude a treaty with "the Confederate States of America" acknowledging their independence as a separate nation; and that humanity and the principle avowed in the Declaration of Independence that the only just hosts of government is "the consent of the governed," alike require that the otherwise inevitable alternative of civil war, with all its evils and devastation, should be thus avoided.

Senator Bayard said that "I believe the great value of the American Union...is the preservation of liberty - by which I mean a Government of laws, securing the right of free speech, securing the freedom of thought, and securing the free and ample discussion of any question."

He would go on to disagree with Lincoln and the coming war, for which he would be called a traitor in the press, hung in effigy in Philadelphia, threatened by mob violence, and has his mail searched and confiscated.  He openly questioned the motivation for the war, and wondered how anyone could defend such a cause.  

His son-in-law joined the Union Army a few months later, and he warned him, "In embarking on this war therefore, you enlist in a war for invasion of another people.  If successful it will devastate if not exterminate the Southern people and this is miscalled Union.  If unsuccessful then peaceful separation must be the result after myriads of lives have been sacrificed, thousands of homes made desolate, and property depreciated to an incalculable extent.  Why in the name of humanity can we not let those States go?"

Lincoln Admits His Role

On May 1, a few weeks after Fort Sumter, President Lincoln wrote a letter to Fox.  Fox's plan was admitted on 23 February:

"I simply propose three tugs, convoyed by light-draft men-of-war. ...The first tug to lead in empty, to open their fire."

Fox was disappointed their plan hadn't succeeded, but Lincoln wrote to him:

"I sincerely regret that the failure of the attempt to provision Fort Sumter should be the source of annoyance to you...

You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort Sumter even if it should fail; and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified in the results."

Even the Manchester Guardian in the UK saw through his ruse, and wrote: "The only plausible explanation of President Lincoln's account (of the Battle of Fort Sumter) is that he has thought that a political object was to be obtained by putting the Southerners in the wrong, if they could be maneuvered into firing the first shot."

Missouri Massacre (May 1861)

The local US Army garrison of St Louis was commanded by Captain Nathaniel Lyon of Connecticut.  He was convinced that the federal arsenal was in danger of being seized by secessionists, so he ordered most of the arms stored there to be shipped over to Illinois.  He then discovered evidence that the governor of the state was planning to smuggle artillery to the Lindell Grove militia encampment with the Confederates.

Lyon called the Missouri militiamen a "body of rabid and violent opposers of the General Government," and "a terror to all loyal and peaceful citizens."  He decided to attack, but first augmented his regular army with German Unionist volunteers by permission of the War Department.  Soon he commanded between 6,000-7,000 men, most without uniforms but armed.  On the afternoon of May 10th, Lyon marched his force through the streets of St Louis to Lindell Grove, and surrounded Camp Jackson, demanding its surrender.

Brigadier General Daniel Frist, who was in command of the militia who regularly drilled at Lindell Grove, was outnumbered roughly 8-to-1, and ordered his men to lay down their arms, confessing he was "wholly unprepared to defend" his command.

As Lyon was marching these 689 militia prisoners, a hostile crowd gathered to watch.  They were marched through the streets as the Star Spangled Banner was played by a band leading them.  By about 5:30 PM, outraged citizens were heckling the Germans and began throwing rocks, clods of dirt and other objects at them.  

One German shot into the crowd, while others shot warning shots over the crowd's heads.  But with that one shot, other Germans lowered their rifles and shot into the crowd, shooting civilians.  Later, they would claim members of the crowd had pistols and returned fire, but when it was all over 28 civilians were dead in the streets,  including 2 women and 4 children.  Seventy-five others were wounded.  Three of the militia prisoners were also killed, along with 2 soldiers.

More bloodshed occurred the next day on the 11th, as another German regiment was hastily recruited and armed, this time 10 civilians being killed along with 2 Germans.  Over the next few days, about 10,000 civilians fled St. Louis.

One week after the St Louis Massacre, Lyon's superiors in Washington, DC promoted him from captain to Brigadier General.  One of the delegates to Missouri's secession convention wondered now if he'd been wrong, saying, "If Unionism means such atrocious deeds as I have witnessed in St. Louis, I am no longer a Union man."

Statistics for the US and CS

(as of July 1)

Confederate States of America
Population: 9,110,277
White: 5,362,429
Free Black: 134,039
Slave: 3,613,809




Confederate Army (Dec 31):
Present: 258,680
Absent: 68,088
Total: 326,768


United States of America
Population: 22,068,368
White: 21,291,784
Free Black: 343,923
Slave: 432,661




Union Army (July 1):
Present: 183,588
Absent: 3,163
Total: 186,751

By January 1:
Present: 527,204
Absent: 48,713
Total: 575,917

Maryland, My Maryland
Early in 1861, Maryland was caught between two sides, the Union and the Confederacy. It was culturally Southern, but its economy depended upon both North and South. Likewise, its people were divided between pro-Union and pro-Confederate, even in its legislature, which refused to take a side, reflecting the feeling of many Marylanders of wanting to be left alone.

Unfortunately for them, the Federal Government had no question as to which side Maryland must take. If Maryland seceded, the Federal District would be surrounded, and it couldn't allow that. The situation came to a head when the soldiers of the 6th Massachusetts Volunteers moved through Baltimore towards Washington on April 19, 1861. They were attacked by a pro-Southern mob, which started shooting at the regiment, and the soldiers returned fire; when the smoke cleared, 4 soldiers and 12 civilians had been killed.

To avoid further riots, troops were sent through the Naval Academy at Annapolis. Lincoln sent General Benjamin Butler to secure the city on April 22. The same day, Governor Thomas Holliday Hicks called a special session of the General Assembly to discuss the crisis. It normally met biannually, but due to the situation and popular outcry, the governor felt it necessary to call them. He may have thought the anti-Union sentiment would run too high in a city now occupied by Northern troops, so the governor decided to convene in Frederick, Maryland, a pro-Union city.

On April 26, the General Assembly convened in the Frederick County Courthouse, but moved to Kemp Hall, the meeting hall of the German Reformed Church, which was big enough for them. A bill and a resolution were introduced calling for secession, but both failed because the legislators said they didn't have the authority to secede from the Union. Even many of the pro-Southern delegates and senators didn't support the bills. At the same time, the legislators refused to open the rail links again to the Northern States, because they feared they'd be used for military purposes and pro-Union agitators looking for revenge for the Baltimore riots.

One of the few things the General Assembly could agree on was a resolution protesting Lincoln's occupation of Maryland. The legislature seemed most concerned with preserving Maryland's neutrality, or feared what else the federal government might do; they neither wanted to secede, nor did they want to allow Union troops to cross their territory to attack the Confederacy.

The General Assembly adjourned August 7, intending to meet again September 17, but on that day, Federal troops and Baltimore police officers arrived in Frederick and arrested pro-Confederate members of the General Assembly.

Insurrection

After Fort Sumter, Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring an insurrection against the laws of the Untied States. He called for 75,000 volunteers with three-month enlistments to increase the regular army of 15,000, and later accepted an additional 40,000 three-year enlistees. His call to invade the south by force led directly to the secession of Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee.

Thousands of volunteers rushed to defend the capital, and Lt General Winfield Scott laid out his strategy to subdue the rebellion. He proposed an 80,000-man army sail down to capture New Orleans, and the Navy blockade southern ports in the east and the Gulf, a plan ridiculed in the press as the "Anaconda Plan." Most believed that instead, capturing the capital of Richmond, only a hundred miles south of DC, would quickly end the war.



Black Confederates

In April, a company of sixty free blacks marched into Richmond, with a Confederate flag at the head of their column. Asking to join the repulse of the northern invader, they were complimented for their show of southern patriotism, and referred to Colonel Lee to join the defense of Virginia. Lee, who had before the war considered slavery a great evil, allowed them into Virginia's armed forces, as the state needed men to defend her.  His example would be repeated many times by many other officers, though the official Confederate Army didn't allow blacks into the service at this point, but the various militias did.  Blacks who then wore the gray uniform had placards in their hats which read "We will die by the South."

In North Carolina, the Winston Salem People's Press reported in the summer of 1861: "Fifteen free men of color left Monday morning for the mouth of Cape Fear, volunteers for the service of the State.  They were in fine spirits and each wore a placard on his hat bearing the inscription, 'We will die by the South.'"

On the 12th of March, two prominent North Carolinians, Stephen Collis and D.F. Edmond, asked the governor, John Ellis, to support the State and the Confederacy with black enlistment, saying they had "been very strongly solicited by neighbors, friends, and citizens to raise a company of free mulatives as there is so many near...that is willing to turn out in behalf of our homes and friends," and then adding to that: "There is a small place in about 10 miles of Florisville called Scuffletown settled with free mulattos.  There can easily be three full companies raised in that place.  They say they are willing to raise arms against our Yankee foe and guard our coast."  Two all-black companies drilled at Fort Smith, Arkansas, despite not having weapons or uniforms.  Across the river in Tennessee, a group of blacks formed a well-trained company in Nashville, offering their service to their home state of Tennessee.  

A few months later on the 15th of June, T.J. Minns wrote to Governor Ellis, that he could raise a company of 50 to 100 mulattos or free men of color, which the governor authorized for service within the state of North Carolina in the militias.

In Tennessee, one of the longest-lived soldiers would be "Uncle" Mack Dabney, who served with the 3rd Tennessee Regiment under General John C Brown.

William Johnson, a slave from Nolensville, TN would join the army in 1862 and drive wagons for General Forrest.  Bill King would serve in the 20th Tennessee Regiment, and "Uncle" Jerry Perkins in the 31st Tennessee Infantry from Brownsville.op

In New Orleans, the Native Guards would go on to become one of the most famous groups of black Confederates to serve the South.

Elsewhere in the Confederacy, slaves who worked in town as blacksmiths, artisans, bakers, butchers, and otherwise made donations of some of the money they earned to the soldiers and the government to purchase arms to fight the 'Yankee invasion.'  Others bought Confederate bonds or held bake sales, sold livestock , donated food, held balls and fairs, and sewed socks and flags.

James Chesnut, Jr., who would go on to serve as a Brigadier General during the war, and whose wife, Mary, composed a very famous diary of the family's experiences during the war, spoke to his black servants about enlisting in the Confederate military, and his wife wrote down that nearly all of them would be happy to serve if Mr. Chesnut would only free them and give them land; by 1864, he would do so.

Lincoln Suspends Habeas Corpus

On April 27, President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus in DC and Baltimore by executive order to the military. John Merryman and other people in Baltimore, including a number of police commissioners, were arrested. Justice in Baltimore was then carried out through military officials. When Judge William Giles of the US District Court for the District of Maryland issued a writ of habeas corpus, Major W.W. Morris of Fort McHenry wrote a reply refusing the writ. Merryman's lawyers appealed, and in June 1861, Chief Justice Roger Taney, writing as the US Circuit Court for Maryland, ruled in ex parte Merryman, that Article I, section 9 of the Constitution reserved to Congress (not the President), the power to suspend habeas corpus, and his suspension was thus invalid. President Lincoln's advisors said the circuit court's ruling was invalid and it was ignored.  

Taney's opinion included: "These great and fundamental laws, which Congress itself could not suspend, have been disregarded and suspended, like the writ of habeas corpus, by a military order, supported by force of arms. Such is the case now before me, and I can only say that if the authority which the Constitution has confided to the judiciary department and judicial officers, may thus, upon any pretext or under any circumstances, be usurped by the military power, at its discretion, the people of the United States are no longer living under a government of laws, but every citizen holds life, liberty and property at the will and pleasure of the army officer in whose military district he may happen to be found."

Lincoln's response to Taney was to issue an arrest warrant for the Chief Justice for ruling against him, though the warrant was never served.  It would play a part after thewar, however.

By July, when Congress was convened, they quickly passed an act declaring all Lincoln's unconstitutional actions valid and legal, so as to cover their bases and prevent another such issue from arising.

Albany Evening Journal (June 1, 1861)

Up in New York, the newspaper the Albany Evening Journal editorialized about the common feeling in the North towards the South, after over twenty years of anti-South agitation:

"War is an expensive luxury...We shall come out of the present struggle impoverished in many ways.  With the best success, we shall expend hundreds of millions of treasures and sacrifice thousands of lives.  We shall feel the bruises of the conflict for years after the rebellion has been crushed and peace has been restored.

Will it pay the cost? Yes - a hundred - a thousand fold - if we come out of the struggle conquerors!  If we succeed in crushing out this miserable rebellion - if we exterminate the fatal heresy of Secession - if we shall succeed in convincing the world that we have a Government, strong enough, vigorous enough, determined enough, to overcome all combinations and attacks, whether from conspiracies within or invasions from without; if we shall be able to impress Christendom with the conviction that our Western Empire is built upon a rock, which no convulsion can shake, and no tempests undermine.

The successful termination of the war will be the dawn of a new era in the history of the country.  The Republic will enter upon a new stage of its career."

Notice the word choice of the New York newspaper - "conquerors" - the meaning of which shows that their war was rather to vanquish the South, not the kinder 'save the Union' or 'free the slaves.'  Conquering is what you do to an enemy, to subjugate them, not to preserve the Union or defend the Constitution.  Calling the seceded States as engaging in a "miserable rebellion" showed that newspapers up north were providing a psychological excuse for the hate crimes and war crimes to come against not just southern military personnel, but also southern civilians as well.

One northern Senator around the same time expressed his view of Southerners: "The great majority [of Southerners] are deplorably ignorant...It is this ignorance that enables the rebel leaders to create a prejudice in the minds of this class."  By calling Southerners ignorant and barbarians, the demonization of part of the country shows to have worked.

Tennessee

Governor Isham Harris signed a bill passed by the legislature to receive into service all black men, 15 to 50, to be paid $18/month and the same rations and clothing as white soldiers.  By September, two regiments would report to Memphis.

The Fight Begins at Big Bethel (June 10, 1861)

Under the command of Major General Benjamin Butler, 5,000 Union troops advanced towards Fort Monroe in early June, a fort which could serve as the springboard for further advances into Virginia.  On the way, a Virginian asked as they passed by, what right they had to invade Virginia's "sacred soil," to which the commander replied, "By God, sir, might makes right."

The Confederates sent Colonel John Magruder to the peninsula to deter any advance on the capital at Richmond from Fort Monroe.  His forces established two camps - Big Bethel and Little Bethel - to lure Butler into acting prematurely.  Both were in range of the Union lines, and Butler took the bait.  He came up with a plan to attack at dawn on June 10th.  He chose not to lead his troops personally, and his plan was too complex for his poorly trained subordinates to carry out, especially at night; his forces also neglected to give out the appropriate passwords, all of which would hinder the operation's success.

As the Union troops advanced in the night, a friendly fire incident gave away their position.  The small force of 50 Confederates at Little Bethel fell back to the entrenchments at Marsh Creek, which Butler thought was the main entrenchment.  The 5th NY Infantry found the Confederates fleeing, and burned the church at Little Bethel, set fire to the homes of several civilians who happened to be secessionists, and continued on to Big Bethel.  Coincidentally, Magruder had left most of his forces at Big Bethel, and started his own march towards Hampton to begin his surprise attack.  He heard gunfire, and was alerted by an elderly local lady that the Union forces were just a few hundred yards down the road.  With that warning, the Confederates could place themselves into defensive position well before the Union arrived.

Nearly the entire Confederate force was now stationed behind earthworks, just north of Marsh Creek, a branch of the Back River.  Some of the 3rd Virginia Infantry were in an open field to the south to protect a howitzer position they hoped to use to block the main road between Yorktown and Hampton.  They hurried to entrench, trying to find cover as the Union forces approached.  Colonel D.H. Hill's 1st North Carolina Volunteer Infantry of about 800 men, along with 3 companies of Lt. Col. William Stuart's 3rd Virginia Infantry (208 men), a cavalry battalion with around 100 men under Major E.B. Montague, and the Richmond Howitzer artillery battalion of around 150 men under Major George Randolph, along with a number of free blacks who were acting in various support capacities, faced the arriving Union forces of the 5th and 7th New York Infantries under Duryee and Bendix, respectively, along with the Massachusetts and Vermont companies under Washburn.  There were 3500 to 1400 Confederates, a numerical disparity that would exist in almost every battle of the war until the end.
 
Butler's Union forces continued to Big Bethel without any knowledge of the layout or strength of the positions of their Confederate opposition.  The 5th New York Infantry left first, then returned, after observation, and talking to a local black man and woman, who told them there were roughly 3000 to 5000 Confederates and 30 artillery.  As the Union forces entered the field, they could not see the Confederates from their fortifications, and the Confederates could not see the Union forces due to the shade of the woods and buildings to the left.  Despite this, the Confederates were able to see the bayonets and the flag of a Union force a half mile to the left.  Major Randolph, the officer in charge of the Howitzer Battalion, fired a shot into this column, which ricocheted through the Union line and killed a soldier who was standing next to Colonel Bendix.

The real fight began about 9 AM, continuing until around 1:30 PM.  Bendix's men scattered into the trees for protection after the first shot of artillery.  The 5th New York Infantry under Colonel Duryee charged left to try to turn the Confederates' flank, but were repulsed by heavy Confederate fire.  Union Lt. Greble came up the road to place his three guns where he and some regulars from the 2nd US Artillery Regiment could return fire, but this had little effect; despite that, they handled themselves well.  U.S. General Pierce then positioned the 5th and 7th New York, along with the Massachusetts and Vermont Companies to the right of the Hampton Road, and the 3rd and 1st New York to the left of the road, to launch piecemeal attacks from those positions.  Greble continued firing at the Confederates to try to give Pierce time to arrange his forces and give them some time to rest.

Union skirmishers tried testing the strength of the Confederates, but most of them were driven back immediately.  The two forces fought back and forth, with the Union continuing to test the Confederates.  Captain Judson Kilpatrick, later a Brigadier General, was shot in the leg as he tried to lead part of the 5th New York around the Confederates, and was almost captured after the battle was over.

With Kilpatrick injured, Major Winthrop, an officer from the 7th New York Infantry replaced him in leading a detachment of troops from the 5th New York, 1st Vermont, and 4th Massachusetts.  Though they were all tired from the night march and the increasingly hot day, Winthrop tried to turn the Confederate left flank from the Union right.  Union troops made it across the creek uncontested because they tied white cloths around their hats and pretended to be part of the Confederate force.  Unfortunately, they cheered and ran forward, giving away their identity prematurely.   Two companies of the 1st North Carolina Infantry turned to face them, turning the Union forces back. One was Major Winthrop, who jumped on a log, and yelled, "Come on boys, one charge and the day is ours!"

Those were his last words, as a black servant of Captain Ashe, Co. D, 1st North Carolina Infantry by the name of Samuel, shot him through the heart. Later, Sam would be granted a $100 bounty for killing the Union officer by the governor of Virginia. The governor would take this as a sign, and would allow units in Virginia to arm free blacks to defend the state, despite the official government's policy of not arming blacks, and placing them in the militias.

Advanced Union skirmishers continued firing at Confederate positions; Col. Hill asked 4 volunteers to go forward to burn the house whence they fired. Fire from across the road stopped them, and they dove to the ground. Union Private Henry L. Wyatt was killed. The others were called back, and Major Randolph destroyed the house with artillery fire. Lt Greble, whose guns had been hidden by the house, exposed his position by continuing to fire. By this time the battle was ending, and Pierce ordered his forces to retreat, since the Confederate position was too strong and his troops were too exhausted to continue the increasingly futile attack. Greble remained, continuing to work his remaining gun, which cost him his life as the Confederates concentrated on his position.

When they got word of Greble's death, Lt Col. Warren, Capt. Wilson, and five others rushed to recover his body. Greble was the first graduate of West Point, and the first regular US army officer killed in the war. After littering the road with coats and equipment on the way back to Fort Monroe, they arrived about 5 PM that afternoon. Around 100 Confederate cavalry pursued them, but couldn't mount an attack, and pulled back as they approached Hampton since the Union had pulled up the New Market Bridge.

The Union forces lost 89: 55 wounded, 8 MIA, and 23 killed. The Confederates lost 12: 2 killed, 10 wounded.

President Tyler Joins the Confederacy

President Tyler, now Representative Tyler

US President Tyler signed on June 14th the Virginia Secession Ordinance, and was elected to the Provisional Confederate Congress a week later, being seated August 1st, 1861.
 
Lincoln Addresses Congress

Having conspired to start a war that he initially believed to be quick, Lincoln called Congress into session several months later so they couldn't stop a war he had already started.  He knew his actions of sending warship was a provocation to war, that calling up the militia to invade states was unconstitutional, and his arresting opponents of the war was against the Bill of Rights.  

But in his address, he said: "These measures, whether strictly legal or not, were ventured upon, under what appeared to be a popular demand and a public necessity; trusting then, as now, that Congress would readily ratify them."

Black Support for the Confederates

During the summer of 1861, a black Georgian by the name of Thomas "Blind Tom" Wiggins, a talented and quite popular musician, began to give free concerts for the injured and sick soldiers from his home State.  Over in Memphis, Tennessee, a black man volunteered to outfit himself for war and go fight Lincoln's army, his only condition being that his family and home be protected while he was off to war.  In Nashville, a group of blacks formed their own well-trained company, and offered their services to the Confederate government for the war effort.  Shortly after the intrigue at Fort Sumter, 60 blacks showed up in Richmond, VA, requesting to enlist.  

On the 4th of July, one of several thousand blacks who were in the army, despite the official ban on their being armed, Thomas A. Phelps, wrote home to his mother from Virginia:

I take this opportunity of writing to you to let you know that I am well and doing well, and I hope that this letter will find you as well as I am now in Yorktown.  I will leave at 4 o' clock p. m. today for a scout about the woods for the Yankees... We are looking out for a fight on the 5th of July by the 5th Regiment Louisiana volunteers.  Give my love to Mistress and Master Jim Phelps, and to all of them in New Orleans.  You must excuse this bad writing.  I am writing in a hurry; have not time to write.  I am about to leave for the Mill.  So good by all.  No more at present.
Your devoted son, THOMAS A PHELPS
P. S. - Good by to the white folks until I kill a Yankee.

Vallandigham Admits the Real Reason for War (July 10)

On July 10, speaking in the House of Representatives, Clement Vallandigham (OH), the vocal congressman admitted the "secret" Yankee economic motivation for the war on the South:

...the Confederate Congress adopted our old tariff of 1857...fixing their rate of duties at five, fifteen, and twenty percent lower than ours.  The result was...trade and commerce...began to look to the South ... Threatened thus with the loss of both political power and wealth...both New England - and Pennsylvania ... demanded, now, coercion and civil war, with all its horrors... The subjugation of the South, and the closing up of her ports - first, by force, in war, and afterward, by tariff laws, in peace, was deliberately resolved upon by the East.

This was just one of many examples exposing the truth of the northern motivation for war - money and power.  It had no great moral justification.  It was just the same old motivation as most wars against independence.

Joining in the condemnation of the war in the Senate, Senator Bayard of Delaware gave a speech called "Executive Usurpation," criticizing the Lincoln administration and lamenting the loss of liberty so early in the war.  He said:

Mr. President, there is no other distinction between the condition of France under Louis XIY and present condition of these United States, if this resolution be passed. The Bastille had its dungeons ; the forts have none. Louis XIY alone issued his letters de cachet ; but the President of the United States delegates a general power to one or ten

different officers to arrest and imprison guiltless men, whenever the officer chooses to suspect them of criminal complicity, and all this is to be sanctioned and continued in the face of a Constitution which we had supposed gave us, as citizens of a free country, free institutions, in contradistinction to the absolutism which reigned in France under Louis XIY.

Ardent as may be a man's views in favor of this war, harshly as he may think of the rebels, and determined as he may be to prosecute it to its utmost extent, until the South unconditionally submits, if he cherishes the principles of civil liberty, he cannot sustain this action of the President which violates the laws of the land, and abolishes all security for personal liberty to every citizen throughout what are called the loyal States, while it conduces, not in the slightest degree, to the subjugation or submission of the South. It touches not you now, who support and advocate the course and measures of existing power, but touches only those who are opposed to these measures ; but by your approval, you take the first step for the subversion of a republican form of government, and it is the first step only which costs. The future progress toward absolutism will be rapid...

Mr. President, human nature is the same in all ages and in all countries. Power always tends to corruption, and especially when concentrated in a single person.

Battle of First Manassas (July 18-21)

The First Battle of Manassas (the name used in the CSA, British Commonwealth, German Confederation, and most of the world) or the First Battle of Bull Run (the name used by the USA, Vietnam, Indonesia, and a handful of other countries) was the first major battle of the War for Southern Independence, which took place on the 21st of July in Virginia, just north of Manassas in Virginia, about 25 miles west-southwest of the federal capital at Washington, DC.

Against the advice of his generals which told him the Union forces weren't ready for battle, President Lincoln authorized an attack on the Confederates at Manassas Junction in late June.  His 75,000 troops were volunteers for 3 months, so they were expected to fight before the expiration of their enlistments.  Congress called for another 500,000 volunteers for three-year enlistments, but the patriotic fervor which drew the recruits to Washington would soon fade if the Union didn't strike soon.

Both sides in the fight were inexperienced.  Union Brigadier General McDowell led his green army across Bull Run (the river name) against the similarly inexperienced Confederate Army under Brigadier General P.G.T. Beauregard, whose army was camped near Manassas Junction.  McDowell had an ambitious plan for a surprise flank attack on the Confederates' left, but it would be poorly executed.  On the other side, the Confederates were planning to attack the Union's left flank also, but would find themselves at a disadvantage as well.

Union forces marched slowly for two days, with troops stopping to pick apples or blackberries, or to get water, despite their officers trying to keep them in formation.  After two days, they stopped at Centreville for rest.  McDowell send 5,000 troops under Brig. Gen. Theodore Runyon to guard the rear.  General McDowell was eager to start the fight quickly, because in a few days, he would lose thousands of soldiers whose 90-day enlistments would soon expire.  The very next morning, two units whose enlistments expired that day would turn back to Washington, DC, to be mustered out of service, despite pleas from their superiors to stay and despite the sounds of battle.  He also heard intelligence that reinforcements under Johnston would be coming soon from the Shenandoah Valley.  Becoming more frustrated, the Union commander resolved to attack the Confederate left flank.

On the Union side, McDowell planned to use Brigadier General Daniel Tyler's 1st Division at Stone Bridge, and send the two divisions of Brigadier Generals David Hunter and Samuel Heintzelman over Sudley Springs Ford.  From there, those two would march into the Confederate rear.  From Tyler's division, Colonel Israel Richardson's brigade would harass the Confederates at Blackburn's Ford, to prevent them from thwarting the attack.  Patterson would successfully tie down Johnston in the Shenandoah to prevent reinforcements for a short time.  The plan overall was sound, but had a number of flaws - it required the synchronized execution of troop movements and attacks in a very inexperienced army, and relied on Patterson to take actions he had already failed to take, and McDowell delayed long enough that Johnston was able to reach the train station to reinforce Beauregard's men.


On the morning of July 21, McDowell send Hunter and Heintzelman's divisions of 12,000 men from Centreville at 2:30 AM, marching southwest at the Warrenton Turnpike, then turning northwest toward Sudley Springs. Tyler's division with 8000 men marched directly toward Stone Bridge. The units immediately developed logistical problems, with Tyler's division blocking the advance of the main flanking column on the turnpike; later Union units found the roads which approached Sudley Springs inadequate, little more than cart paths in some places, and did not begin fording the Bull Run till about 9:30 AM; Tyler's men reached Stone Bridge around 6 AM.

At 5:15 AM, Richardson's Union brigade fired a few artillery rounds across Mitchell's Fort on the Confederate right, some of which hit Beauregard's headquarters at the Wilmer McLean house while he was eating breakfast, letting him know his offensive battle plan had been preempted.




Beauregard ordered demonstration attacks north, toward the Union left at Centreville. Bungled orders and poor communication prevented his orders from being executed. Though he meant for Brig. Gen Richard Ewell to lead the attack, he was ordered instead to simply hold at Union Mills Ford to be ready. Brigadier General D.R. Jones was supposed to attack in support of fellow Confederate General Ewell, but found his forces moving forward alone. Major General Holmes was also supposed to support them, but got no orders at all.

The Confederates only had Col. Nathan Evans and his reduced brigade of 1100 men to stand in the path of 20,000 Union soldiers. He began suspecting the weak attacks were feints, and hastily let 900 men from their position on Stone Bridge move to a new location located on the slopes of a place called "Matthews Hill," northwest of his previous position. The delaying action on Matthews Hill included a spoiling attack by Major Roberdeau Wheat's 1st LA Special Battalion, "Wheat's Tigers." Wheat was seriously wounded and his command was thrown back, Evans got reinforcement from two other brigades under Confederate Brig. Gen. Barnard Bee (3rd Brigade) and Col. Francis Bartow (2nd Brigade), bringing his force to 2800 men. They slowed Hunter's brigade (under Burnside) successfully, in its attempts to ford the river at Bull Run. Col William Sherman crossed at an unguarded ford, and struck the right flank of the Confederates defending there; coupled with pressure from Burnside and Major George Sykes, the Confederate line collapsed a little past 11:30 AM, sending them into a disorderly retreat to Henry House Hill.

As they retreated from their position on Matthews Hill, the remnant of Evans's, Bee's, and Bartow's command received some cover from Captain John Imboden and his battery of four 6-lb guns, holding off the advance of the Union troops, while the Confederates made their attempt to regroup at Henry House. They were met by Generals Johnston and Beauregard, who had just arrived from Johnston's HQ at Lewis Farm. Luckily for the Confederates, Union General McDowell did not press his tactical advantage by attempting to seize the strategic ground immediately, choosing instead to bombard the hill with the batteries of Capts. James Ricketts and Charles Griffin from Dogan's Ridge.

Brig. Gen. Thomas Jackson's Virginia Brigade arrived in support of the disorganized Confederate forces around noon, with Col. JEB Stuart's cavalry and Col. Wade Hampton and his Hampton's Legion. The Legion, about 600-men strong, bought Jackson enough time for his brigade to build a defensive line on Henry House Hill, firing repeated volleys at Sherman's brigade, one of which nearly killed Sherman, missing by about ten feet. Hampton had given his troops about 400 British Enfield rifles for his men, and brought in several sharpshooters to help take the field, including several who had fought at Big Bethel. The 79th NY was decimated by Hampton's musket fire, and began disintegrating. Hampton gestured towards the Union colonel, James Cameron, and remarked, "Look at that brave officer, trying to lead his men and they won't follow him." Moments later, the colonel was fatally wounded; his brother, US Senator Simon Cameron, would receive notice within a week. Later, Union officials claimed Hampton deliberately targeted the officers on the 79th NY in revenge for his nephew's death earlier that day, though he had been killed by soldiers in the 69th NY.

Brig. Gen. Jackson posted his five regiments on the reverse slope of the hill, shielding them from direct fire, allowing them to assemble 13 guns for a defensive line, which he posted on the crest of the hill.  As the guns fired, their recoil acted to move them down the reverse slope, where they could be safely reloaded. Meanwhile, Union commander McDowell ordered the batteries of Griffin and Ricketts to move from Dogan's Ridge to the hill for close infantry support. Their 11 guns engaged in an artillery duel over 300 yards with Jackson's 13. Being at such close range, the Union rifled pieces were not as effective at close range as the Confederate smoothbores, with many of the Union shots firing over the heads of their targets.

One of the unfortunate casualties of the artillery fire was Judith Carter Henry, and 85-year-old widow and invalid, who was unable to leave her bedroom in the Henry House. As Ricketts began receiving rifle fire, he believed it was coming from Henry House, and fired at it. A shell crashed through the bedroom wall, tearing off one of her feed, and inflicting multiple injuries, from which he died later that day.

"The Enemy are driving us," Bee said to Jackson. Jackson, former U.S. Army officer VMI professor is said to have replied through a fierce grin with clenched teeth, "Then, Sir, we will give them the bayonet." Bee exhorted his own troops to re-form by shouting, "There is Jackson standing like a stone wall. Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer. Rally behind the Virginians." This exclamation was the source for Jackson's (and his brigade's) nickname, "Stonewall". Bee was shot through the stomach shortly after speaking and died the next day, so it is unclear exactly what he meant. Col. States Rights Gist (yes, that was his real name), serving as Bee's aide-de-camp, took command of the brigade.

The commander of the Union Artillery, Griffin, decided he needed to move two of his guns to the southern end of his line, hoping this to provide enfilade fire against the Confederates. About 3 PM, they were overrun by the 33rd Virginia Infantry, whose soldiers were outfitted in blue uniforms, which caused Griffin's commander, Major William Barry, to mistake them for Union troops and to order Griffin not to fire on them. Close range fire from the 33rd Virginia and Stuart's cavalry against the flank of the 11th NY Volunteer Infantry Regiment (aka Ellsworth's Fire Zouaves), which was supporting the Union battery, killed many of the Union gunners and scattered the blue-coated infantry. Capitalizing on his success, Jackson ordered two of his regiments to charge Rickett's guns, and captured them as well.



This proved to be the event that turned the battle, the Confederate capture of the Union guns. Although McDowell brought 15 regiments into the fight the Confederates on the hill, outnumbering them 2-to-1, no more than two ever engaged simultaneously. Confederate Gen. Jackson continued to press their attacks, telling his soldiers of the 4th VA Infantry, "Reserve your fire until they come within 50 yards! Then fire and give them the bayonet! And when you charge, yell like furies!!"

For the first time, Union troops heard the disturbing, chilling sound of the Rebel Yell. About 4 PM, the final Union troops were pushed off Henry House Hill by charge of two regiments from Colonel Philip St George Cocke's brigade. The yell would spread throughout the Confederate armies.

To the west, Chinn Ridge had been occupied by Confederate Colonel Oliver Otis Howard's brigade, from Heintzelman's division. Also at about 4 PM, two Confederate Brigades, Col. Jubal Early's, moving from the Confederate right, and Brig. Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith's (commanded by Col Arnold Elzey after Smith was wounded), having just arrived from the Shenandoah, crushed Howard's brigade. Beauregard ordered his entire line forward. At 5 PM, all along the battlefield McDowell's army was disintegrating. Thousands of Union troops, in large or small groups, or as individuals, began to leave the battlefield, heading for Centreville. McDowell tried to rally regiments and groups of soldiers by riding the battlefield, but most had had enough. Being unable to stop the mass exodus of his troops, McDowell gave orders for Porter's regular infantry battalion, near the turnpike and Manassas-Sudley Road intersection, to act as a rear guard to protect the soldiers as his army withdrew. The Union unit briefly held the crossroads, then retreated eastward with the rest of the army. McDowell's force crumbled and began to retreat.

Union Forces: 36,000
Command: Brigadier General Irvin McDowell
Casualties and Losses:
-killed: 642
-wounded: 1,164
-missing: 1291

Confederate Forces:

Army of the Potomac: 22,000
Command: Brigadier P.G.T. Beauregard
Army of the Shenandoah: 10,000
Command: General Joseph E. Johnston
Casualties and Losses:
-killed: 396
-wounded: 1621
-missing: 15

Aftermath

The Union feared the Confederates would march on DC, but the rebels would fail to take advantage of their early chance to do so and thus force an early end to the war. The reaction in the north was shock that their army was defeated when they had been expecting an easy victory. The very next day, Lincoln signed a bill which would provide for enlisting another 500,000 soldiers for up to 3 years of service. On July 25th, 11,000 Pennsylvanians who had earlier been rejected for federal service arrived in DC and were accepted.

McDowell bore the chief blame in the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War in Congress, and he was replaced by Maj. Gen. George McClellan.

In the Confederacy, the reaction was more muted. There was little public celebration as they realized there would be more battles to come and more losses. Once the short euphoria of victory wore off, President Jefferson Davis called for another 400,000 volunteers. Beauregard was promoted to full general, as the hero of the battle. Stonewall Jackson, who was the most important tactical contributor to the victory, got no special recognition at the moment. Davis privately credited Greenhow with their victory. The victory managed to give the Confederates an esprit de corps that gave them the morale to continue their fight, while it gave a new sense of insecurity in northern commanders, but did prompt the north to make a more determined organizational effort to win the war.

Lincoln Explains his Arresting the Police

On the 27th of July, Lincoln was asked by the US House of Representatives to explain his actions in arresting police commissioners of Baltimore in violation of the law, and then jailing them illegally.  The President replied:

"In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 24th instant asking the grounds, reason, and evidence upon which the police commissioners of Baltimore were arrested and are now detained as prisoners at Fort McHenry, I have to state that it is judged to be incompatible with the public interest at this time to furnish the information called for by the resolution."  In other words, Lincoln refused to explain why he disobeyed the law.

The Purpose of the War

In the North, abolitionists, who were at this time just a vocal minority and well-hated by many in the North, were impatient with Lincoln and the war.  One, Reverend Charles Edward Lester, expressed his impatience with Lincoln after the President countermanded and revoked the emancipation of slaves in Missouri, notably an angry reversal.  The President told him: "I think Sumner, and the rest of you, would upset our apple-cart altogether, if you had your way...We didn't go into the war to put down Slavery, but to put the flag back, and to act differently at this moment, would, I have no doubt, not only weaken our cause, but smack of bad faith; for I never should have had votes enough to send me here, if the people had supposed I should try to use my power to upset Slavery.  Why, the first thing you'd see, would be a mutiny in the army.  No!  We must wait until every other means has been exhausted.  This thunderbolt will keep."


Incoming Aid

The first ships begin to return to the nascent Confederacy, slipping past the shoddy Union blockade, bringing foods, medicines, guns, munitions, blankets, boots, and also consumer goods, keeping the economy afloat and keeping gold and silver in circulation, helping to prevent inflation in the new Confederate dollar.

NOTE: Lee's words are public record, and are not my own.  The words in quotes are also public record.  Information on black Confederates came from "Forgotten Confederates" and "Black Confederates" amongst other books.  Information on Mack Dabney is easily found with a Bing search.

Interesting TL jjohnson.

Another good update jjohnson.

Chapter 7: The War in 1862

Seven Days' Battles (June 25 - July 1)

A grueling series of battles over the course of seven days, giving the series of fights its collective name in the history books. Union General George McClellan and his troops faced off against General Robert E Lee in seven places:

Oak Grove

Major General McClellan advanced his lines, hoping to bring Richmond within range of his siege guns to end the war by capturing the Confederate capital. Two Union divisions of III Corps attacked across the headwaters of White Oak Swamp, but were repulsed by Confederate Major General Benjamin Huger's division. While he was 3 miles to the rear, McClellan telegraphed ahead to call off the attack, but when he arrived at the front, ordered another attack. Only the darkness of the sunset halted the fighting. His troops gained only 600 yards, at a cost of over a thousand casualties to both sides.

Mechanicsville

The battle near Mechanicsville was to be the start of Confederate General Robert E Lee's counter-offensive against the Army of the Potomac, but his attempted turn on the Union's right flank, which was north of the Chickahominy River failed due to Maj. Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson arriving about 4 hours late. He and his troops were fatigued due to his lengthy and arduous Shenandoah Valley Campaign, but the campaign was ultimately successful in preventing reinforcements to McClellan.

By 3 PM, A.P. Hill grew impatient and began his attack without orders from Lee, a frontal assault with 11,000 men. Porter extended and strengthened his right flank, and fell back to concentrate along Beaver Dam Creek and Ellerson's Mill. They would encounter 14,000 well-entrenched Union soldiers, aided by 32 guns in six batteries, which would turn back the repeated Confederate attacks with heavy casualties.

Jackson had arrived late in the afternoon and ordered his troops to bivouac for the evening, while the major battle was happening within earshot. His presence did cause McClellan to order Porter to withdraw, fearing a threat to his supply lines, which caused McClellan to shift his base of supply to the James River. Again, McClellan feared he was seriously outnumbered due to the diversions by Huger and Magruder. He told Washington he faced 200,000 Confederates, not 85,000 that were actually there. His decision meant McClellan would abandon the siege of Richmond. This would be a tactical Union victory, with the Confederates gaining none of their objectives due to the flawed execution of Lee's plan. He fielded only 15,000 instead of 60,000 men crushing the enemy flank. Despite their success, this would be the beginning of a strategic Union debacle where McClellan never regained the initiative.

Gaine's Mill

Following the inconclusive battle of the previous day, General Lee renewed his attack on the right flank of the Union army, which was relatively isolated on the northern side of the Chickahominy River. Union Brig. Gen. Fitz John Porter's V Corp had established a strong defensive line there behind Boatswain's Swamp. Lee decided to launch the largest Confederate offensive attack of the war, with about 57,000 men in six divisions. Porter's reinforced V Corp held fast for the afternoon as the Confederates attacks in a disjointed fashion, first with Maj. Gen. AP Hill's division, then Maj. Gen. Richard Ewell's, both suffering heavy casualties.

Unfortunately Maj Gen Jackson's command was delayed, preventing the Confederates from concentrating their force before Porter got his reinforcements from VI Corps. Due to his exhaustion, his commands were garbled and one of his staff, Major Robert Dabney, had to correct the orders to make sure they were understood.

By dusk, the Confederates finally mounted a coordinated assault which broke Porter's line, and drove his men back toward the river; they would retreat across the river during the night, but the Confederates were too disorganized to pursue them. The defeat here schocked McClellan such that he abandoned his attempt to capture Richmond, saving the capital of the Confederacy for now. McClellan began a retreat to the James River.

Garnett's and Golding's Farm

While the main forces were battling north of the Chickahominy River, Confederate General John Magruder was conducting a reconnaissance in force, which developed into a minor attack against the Union line south of the River at Garnett's Farm. His Confederates attacked again near Golding's Farm on the morning of the 28th, but were repulsed in both cases, but not before causing over 200 casualties to the Union troops. Magruder's attacks accomplished little other than convincing McClellan that he was being attacked from both sides of the river.

Savage's Station

The majority of McClellan's army had concentrated around Savage's Station on the Richmond and York River Railroad, preparing for a difficult crossing through and around White Oak Swamp. It did so without centralized direction because McClellan had personally moved south of Malvern Hill after Gaines's Mill without leaving directions for corps movements during the retreat, or naming a second in command in his place. Clouds of black smoke filled the air near the station as the Union troops were burning anything they could not carry. Morale dropped, especially for the wounded, who realized they weren't being evacuated along with the rest of the army.

General Lee devised another complex plan to pursue and destroy McClellan's Army. While Maj. Gens. Longstreet and A.P. Hill's divisions loved back toward Richmond, then southeast to the Glendale crossroads, and Maj. Gen. Theophilus Holmes's division headed further south to near Malvern Hill, Brig. Gen. John Magruder's division was ordered to move east along the Williamsburg Road and the York River Railroad, to attack the Federal rear guard. Stonewall Jackson, commanding his own division, along with those of Maj. Gen. D.H. Hill and Brig. Gen. William Whiting, was to rebuild a bridge over the Chickahominy, then head due south to Savage's Station, where he would link up with Magruder, to deliver a strong blow that might cause the Union army to turn around and fight during its retreat.

Again, Jackson's orders were garbled, and he initially thought he was to stay and guard the bridge, but he had the orders repeated, and showed up to link up with Magruder, late, but he showed.

The Confederates managed to attack and smash the Union troops, who fought as they retreated. The rear guard absorbed the brunt of the Confederate attack, and Jackson's arrival helped ensure an actual Confederate victory, though costly, at roughly 600 casualties to the Union 1700 casualties.

Glendale

The divisions of Confederate Major Generals Ben Huger, James Longstreet, and A.P. Hill converged on the retreating Union Army, near Glendale (also called Frayser's Farm). Longstreet's and Hill's attacks penetrated the Union defenses near Willis Church. Union counterattacks sealed the break, and saved their line of retreat along the Willis Church Road. Huger's advance was stopped on the Charles City Road. Maj. Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson's divisions were delayed by Union Brig. Gen. William Franklin's corps at White Oak Swamp, preventing him from joining up with the rest of the Confederate army. Confederate Maj. Gen. Theophilus Holmes made a poor attempt to attack the Union left flank at Turkey Bridge, but his forces were driven back. Had his forces been more coordinated, Lee could have cut off the Union army from the James River. The Union army set up a strong position on Malvern Hill that night.

Malvern Hill



The Union's V Corps had taken up positions on June 30, under the command of Brig. Gen. Fitz John Porter. McClellan had already at this point boarded the USS Galena, an ironclad, and sailed down the James River to inspect Harrison's Landing, where he intended to locate the base for his army. Fortunately for the Confederates, they had good maps of the area, letting Confederate Maj. Gen. John Magruder arrive in time for the battle, and letting both Maj. Gens. Benjamin Huger and Stonewall Jackson collect artillery successfully to be present for the battle.


The issue with the battle was a series of blunders in planning and communication on both sides, which were only corrected by the afternoon, during the third Confederate charge, when they were finally supported by artillery. They faced thrice the number of Union artillery batteries, though, but were able to inflict casualties on the Union infantry and artillery entrenched there. Unfortunately, the Union troops did manage to inflict heavy casualties on the Confederates.

The Union troops evacuated and the Confederates returned to Richmond, the threat to their capital ended. Lee was hailed as a hero in Richmond's three newspapers.

Jackson argued against a direct attack, and proposed turning to the Union eastern flank. Walter Taylor and Porter Alexander both thought they should occupy Evelynton Heights with all the artillery, but Lee's attention was focused on the retreating Union army. D.H. Hill tried to talk Lee out of canceling the attack or finding another route, but Lee ignored him. Lee still maintained the belief in a headlong attack, which had caused and would continue to cause massive casualties to the Confederates and Union troops as well.

D.H. Hill wrote of the battle, "It was not war, it was murder." Had Lee coordinated artillery and infantry, rather than the piecemeal attack, perhaps more lives could have been spared.

Commanders:
Union: George B McClellan
Confederate: Robert E Lee

Armies:

Union: Army of the Potomac
Confederate: Army of Northern Virginia

Strength
Union: 114,691
-Army of the Potomac: 105,445
-Dix's Division: 9,246
Confederate: 92,000

Union Casualties:
Killed: 1,864
Wounded: 8,114
Captured/Missing: 6,098

Confederate Casualties: roughly 18,600 total

Based off the performance here, General Lee reorganized his army into two corps, led by James Longstreet and Thomas Jackson, and removed several generals who performed poorly during the fighting.

A Letter to Davis

General Jackson wrote to President Davis, urging him to bring the war to the northern people to make them end the war sooner. The South did not have as many people to lose as the North, he wrote, and could not overwhelm the Union armies as they could the Confederate armies. He asked his friend Alexander Boteler on July 7 to plead with the President. Boteler asked Jackson why he didn't present the idea to Lee; Jackson did, but Lee said nothing. Boteler presented the idea again to Davis, who declined again, believing that the North would soon tire of the war and quit.

Letters Home


Senator James Bayard of Delaware wrote his son before leaving Washington DC for the summer recess in July of 1862 about the political atmosphere in the US.  He wrote: "We are living under a petty but ruthless tyranny, and God knows what folly this admin and its members are not capable of...It is sad, very sad, to think and feel how low the nation has fallen, and how little reason, knowledge of civil liberty, or high tone sentiment or even humanity of feeling is left.” The Senator lamented to his son that the people were “ready for any folly barbarism or brutality those leaders chose to perpetrate.”

He had just given a speech on the floor of the Senate, in which he said, "Their intent [Republicans in Congress] is the devastation and obliteration of the Southern people as the means of retaining power, and yet I doubt in the history of the world has ever, with the exception of the French reign of terror, shown so imbecile, so corrupt, so vindictive rulers over any people as those with which this country is now cursed."

Note: The quotes here are from Bayard's speech on the floor of the Senate, and his letter to his son is from a Lew Rockwell article.

Letters to the Editor (July 18, 1862)

A letter written and published in The Liberator, discussing the black Confederate*:

Much is said about the slaves coming into the Federal lines, and may complaints are made because they are not promptly given up. Are they not in the Confederate lines, and are they not used to build fortifications and do the work of rebels, and in many instances used to man rebel guns, and fight against the Union?

*This is real history

Northern Newspapers (July 31)

Given the years-long propaganda of blacks eager to escape the South, northern newspapers were perplexed at what happened during the war, as written in the Providence Post:

Negroes as a mass have shown no friendship to the Union - have neither sought to achieve their liberty nor to subdue their masters.  The few thousands who have come into our lines to live at the expense of the whites seek rather a life of laziness than self-dependence.  Their sympathies are with the rebels... The truth is that there never was a greater humbling than the talk about Negro loyalty.  Abolition has asserted it from the beginning of the war, but every fact of the times proves it is a mere assertion.

Diaries from the Confederacy (August 25)

Writing of her experiences in and around Baton Rouge, Sarah Morgan, a 19-year-old woman who lost her father in 1861, so she lived with her mother, three sisters, and the five children of her married sister, Lilly, whose husband, J. Charles LaNoue, came and went due to his irregular service for the Confederate army.  While they were away trying to find a refuge, they returned to find their home pillaged.  She wrote:

It was one scene of ruin, libraries emptied, china smashed, sideboards split open with axes, three cedar chests cut open, plundered, and set up on end; all parlor ornaments carried off; her desk lay open with all letters and notes well thumbed and scattered around, while Will's last letter to her was open on the floor, with the Yankee stamp of dirty fingers.  Mother's portrait, half cut from its frame, stood on the floor.  Margaret, who was present at the sacking, told how she had saved Father's.  It seems that whose who wrought destruction in our house were all officers.  One jumped on the sofa to cut the picture down (Miriam saw the prints of his muddy feet) when Margaret cried: "For God's sake, gentlemen, let it be!  I'll help you to anything here.  He's dead, and the young ladies would rather see the house burn than lose it!"

"I'll blow your d*** brains out," was the "gentleman's" answer as he put a pistol to her head, which a brother officer dashed away, and the picture was abandoned for finer sport.  All the others were cut up in shreds.

The diary entry continued describing how they ransacked the upstairs, stealing clothing, running around and destroying everything they saw or stealing it.*

*This actually happened in real history.

Battle of Second Manassas (August 28-30)





After the failure of Maj. Gen. George McClellan's Peninsula Campaign in the Seven Days Battles back in June/July, President Lincoln appointed John Pope to command the newly created Army of Virginia. He had some success in the Western Theater of the war, and Lincoln sought a more aggressive general than McClellan.

Pope's mission had two main objectives: Protect Washington DC and the Shenandoah Valley, and draw Confederate forces away from McClellan by moving in the direction of Gordonsville. Based on his experience in fighting McClellan, General Lee believed that McClellan was no further threat on the Virginia Peninsula, so he didn't feel the need to keep all his forces in direct defense of Richmond. This allowed him to move Jackson and his command to Gordonsville to block Pope and protect the Virginia Central Railroad. Lee had even bigger plans than just blocking Pope. Since the Union army was split between McClellan and Pope, and widely separated, Lee saw a chance to destroy Pope before returning his attention to McClellan and his army. He ordered Maj. Gen. A.P. Hill to join Jackson with 12,000 men to accomplish this.

From the 22nd to 25th of August, both armies fought a series of minor skirmishes along the Rappahannock River. Heavy rains swelled (swoll) the river and Lee couldn't force a crossing. By this time, reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac were arriving from the Peninsula, where they were evacuating. Lee's new plan to face all these forces which were outnumbering his army was to send Jackson and Stuart with half the army to make a flanking march to cut off Pope's line of communication (the Orange & Alexandria Railroad). His hope was to force Pope to retreat, and that he could then be defeated while moving and vulnerable. Jackson reached Salem that night.

On the evening of the 26th, after passing around Pope's right flank via the Thoroughfare Gap, Jackson's wing of the army struck the railroad at Bristoe Station, and before daybreak on the 27th, marched to capture and destroy the massive Union supply depot at Manassas Junction. Jackson's surprise movement forced Pope into an abrupt retreat from his defensive line along the Rappahannock. Then, during the night of the 27th-28th, Jackson marched his divisions north to the First Manassas battlefield, where he took position behind an unfinished railroad grade below Stony Ridge. It was a good defensive position. The heavy woods allowed his Confederates to conceal themselves while maintaining good observation points on the Warrenton Turnpike from there, which was the likely avenue of the Union movement, only a few hundred yards to the south. There were good approach roads for Longstreet to Join Jackson or for him to retreat to the Bull Run Mountains if he couldn't be reinforced in time. Last, the unfinished railroad grade offered cuts and fills that could be used as ready-made entrenchments.

In a minor Battle of Thoroughfare Gap on the 28th, Longstreet's win broke through light Union resistance and was able to join Jackson. This tiny skirmish essentially ensured Pope's defeat, since it allowed two wings of Lee's to unite on the Manassas battlefield.





First Day of Battle, August 28th

The Battle of Second Manassas began August 28th, when a Federal column under observation by Jackson just outside Gainesville, near John's Brawner family, moved along the Warrenton Turnpike. The Union column consisted of units from Brig. Gen. Rufus King's division (the brigades of Brig. Gens. John Hatch, John Gibbon, Abner Doubleday, and Marsena Patrick), marching eastward to concentrate forces with the remainder of Pope's army at Centreville. King was not with his division because he had suffered a serious epileptic attack earlier in the day.

Jackson, who had been informed Longstreet's men were on their way to join him to his relief, displayed himself prominently to the Union troops, but his presence was disregarded. As he was concerned that Pope might be withdrawing his army to link up with McClellan's forces, Jackson determined to attack the Union troops. Returning to his position behind the tree line, he told his subordinates, "Bring out your men, gentlemen."

At about 6:30 PM, Confederate artillery began shelling the portion of the Union column to their front, John Gibbon's Black Hat Brigade. Gibbon was a former artilleryman, and he responded with fire from Battery B, 4th US Artillery. The artillery exchange halted King's column. Hatch's brigade got past the area, while Patrick's men in the rear sought cover, leaving Gibbon and Doubleday to respond to Jackson's attack. Gibbon assumed Jackson was at Centreville, and these were just horse artillery from J.E.B. Stuarts cavalry. He sent aides to the other brigades for reinforcements, hoping to capture the guns. He got his staff officer Frank Haskell to bring the 2nd Wisconsin Infantry to disperse them. He met the 2nd WI in the woods, telling them, "If we can get you up there quietly, we can capture those guns."

Under Col. Edgar O'Conner, the 2nd WI advanced obliquely through the woods that the Union army was passing through. They were able to drive back the Confederate skirmishers, but soon received a heavy volley on their right flank by 800 men of the Stonewall Brigade under Col William Baylor's command. Absorbing the volley from 150 yards, the 2nd WI didn't waver, but replied with a devastating return volley at the Virginians in Brawner's orchard. The Confederates returned fire when the two sides were only 80 yards apart. As units were added by both sides, the battle lines remained close together, with little cover, trading volleys for over two hours. Gibbon added his 19th Indiana (IN); Jackson, personally directing the actions, sent 3 GA regiments belonging to Brig Gen Alexander Lawton's brigade. Gibbon countered with the 7th WI; Jackson ordered Brig Gen Isaac Trimble's brigade to support Lawton, which met Gibbons' last regiment, the 6th WI.

After Trimble's brigade entered the fight, Gibbon needed to fill in a gap in his lines, and got the 56th PA and 76th NY, who advanced through the woods and checked the Confederate Advance. These men arrived on the scene after dark, and both Trimble and Lawton launched uncoordinated assaults against them. Horse Artillery under Captain John Pelham were ordered forward and fired at the 19th Indiana from less than 100 yards. Doubleday's regiments retired to the turnpike in an orderly fashion. The first day was a stalemate for the most part, with 1350 Union and 1250 Confederate casualties. The 2nd WI lost 278 of 430 engaged. The Stonewall Brigade lost 240 of 800. Two GA regiments - Trimble's 21st and Lawton's 26th - each lost more than 60%. One in three men were shot in the engagement. Confederate Brig. Gen. William Taliaferro wrote, "In this fight there was no maneuvering and very little tactics. It was a question of endurance and both endured." Taliaferro was wounded with a flesh wound, as was Ewell, whose left leg was nicked by a Minié ball, nearly removing him from action by amputation had it been only an inch to one side.

Jackson did not achieve a decisive victory with his superior forces (6200 to Gibbon's 2100) due to the darkness, piecemeal deployment off forces, and the tenacity of the enemy. But he did get the strategic intent, attracting Pope's attention, and learned from the experience. Pope thought he was retreating and sought to capture him before Longstreet could reinforce him. Pope issued orders to his subordinates to surround Jackson and attack him in the morning, but Jackson was not where Pope thought he was, and his own troops weren't where he assumed. He thought McDowell and Sigel were blocking Jackson's retreat westward, but King and Rickets had both retreated south, and Sigel and Reynolds were both south and east of Jackson, who had no intention of retreating, waiting for Longstreet's arrival.

August 29

Jackson had initiated the attack at Brawner's farm, with the intent of holding Pope till Longstreet could arrive with the remainder of the Army of Northern Virginia. Longstreet's 25,000 men began their march at 6 AM on the 29th. Jackson sent Stuart to guide the initial elements of Longstreet's column into positions Jackson had preselected for the fight.

While he awaited the troops, Jackson reorganized his defenses in case Pope attacked him in the morning, positioning 20,000 men on a 3,000 yard line, south of Stony Ridge. Noticing the build-up of the I Corps (Sigel) troops along the Manassas-Sudley Road, he ordered A.P. Hill's brigades behind the railroad grade near Sudley Church on his left flank. Being aware that his position was a little geographically weak, since the heavy woods prevented effective artillery deployment, Hill put his brigades in two lines, and Jackson put two brigades from Ewell's division (temporarily under Brig Gen Alexander Lawton while Ewell rested his wound), and on the right, William Taliaferro's division, commanded by Brig. Gen. William Starke.

Jackson's position straddled a railroad grade, dug out by the Manassas Gap Railroad Company in the 1850s, and abandoned just before the war. Some parts were a good defensive position, and others were not. The heavily wooded terrain largely precluded the use of artillery other than at the right end of the line, which faced open fields. The Confederate right flank, held by Taliaferro's (Starke's) division was potentially vulnerable as that was the smallest of Jackson's divisions, so he put the brigades of Early and Forno, both of which had not been engaged last night. They would also watch and give notice of Longstreet's arrival.

On daybreak on the 29th, Pope learned that Ricketts and King had both withdrawn to the south, and Gibbon arrived in Centreville telling Pope the retreat was a mistake, despite the fact that he had recommended it, and he had no idea what became of McDowell. Gibbon rode down to Manassas and found Porter's troops resting and drawing rations, while King had turned over command to John Hatch due to his epileptic attacks making him ill. McDowell was also there, having spent most of the prior day wandering aimlessly around Prince William Country. Pope was still convinced that Jackson was in a desperate situation and almost trapped, but his assumption, besides being incorrect, depended on the coordination of his troops, none of which were where he needed them to be.

The end result of his situation was that Pope's complicated attack plans for the 29th ended up being a simple frontal assault by Sigel's corps, the only troops in position that morning. Many thought his corps was one of the army's weak links; though Sigel was a trained and experienced military officer, he was seen as an inept political general. A large portion of his men were German immigrants, suffering from prejudices, and had performed poorly in battles against Jackson in the Shenandoah during the spring. Until Pope himself arrived, Sigel was the ranking officer in the field and would be in command.

Pope intended to move against Jackson on both flanks. He ordered Fitz John Porter to move toward Gainesville, and attack what Pope considered the Confederate right flank. Sigel was to attack Jackson's left at daybreak. Since he was unsure of Jackson's dispositions, he chose to advance on a broad front, with Brig. Gen. Robert Shenck's division, supported by Brig. Gen. John Reynold's division on the left, Brig. Gen. Robert Milroy's brigade in the center, and Brig Gen Carl Schurz's division on the right. Schurz's two brigades were the first to make contact with Jackson's men about 7 AM.

Though the unfinished railroad grade provided a good natural defensive position in some places, the Confederates eschewed static defense, absorbing Union blows and following up with vigorous counterattacks (The same tactics Jackson would later use at Antietam in a few weeks). Schurz's two brigades (under Brig. Gen. Alexander Schimmelfennig and Col. Włodzimierz Krzyżanowski) skirmished with Confederates Gregg and Thomas, both sides committing forces piecemeal. Hand to hand combat took place in the woods west of Sudley Road, with Krzyżanowski's brigade and Gregg's. Milroy heard the sound of battle to his right, and ordered his brigade forward, the 82nd OH and 5th WV in front, and the 2nd WV and 4th WV in the rear as support.

The two forward regiments immediately met volleys of Confederate musket fire, and in the confusion, the 82nd OH found an undefended ravine in the middle of the railroad embankment, getting to the rear of Trimble's Confederate brigade. Unfortunately for them, Trimble was quickly reinforced by part of Bradley Johnson's Virginia brigade, and the 82nd OH was forced to retreat. Its commander, Col James Cantwell, was shot dead and his regiment fled in panic, causing the 5th WV behind them to retreat in disorder also. In just 20 minutes, Milroy's brigade had taken 325 casualties. Shcenck and Reynolds, under heavy artillery barrages, countered with their own artillery, but avoided advancing their infantry, instead just using skirmishers, who got into a low-level firefight with Jubal Early's brigade.

While this action was taking place, Meade's brigade came across wounded men from King's division who had been abandoned by their comrades and left on the field all night. Medical personnel attempted to evacuate as many as possible under the ongoing firefight around them. Milroy attempted to rally the survivors even though his own brigade had been destroyed; he came across Brig. Gen. Julius Stahel, one of Schneck's brigadiers, and ordered him to defend against any Confederate counterattack from the woods. About a hundred or so Confederates soon came out of the woods in pursuit of Milroy, but were quickly driven back by artillery fire, and Stahel returned to his original position south of the turnpike.

Schurz assumed that Kearny's division of the III Corps was ready to support him, and ordered another assault against Hill around 10 AM, now that Schimmelfennig's brigade, plus the 1st NY from Kearny's division, and come up to reinforce Krzyżanowski. The fighting in the woods west of Sudley Rd resumed, and came down to a standstill till the 14th GA came in to reinforce the South Carolinians. The Confederates let multiple volleys, sending Krzyżanowski's men running in panic. The Confederates came charging after the disorganized mass of Union troops, clubbing, bayoneting, and knifing resisters, but as soon as they exited the woods into open ground, Union artillery over on Dogan's Ridge fired on them, forcing them to retreat.

To the north, Schimmelfennig's three regiments (61st OH, 74th PA, 8th WV) engaged part of Gregg and Branch's brigades, but were forced to retreat, and Kearny did not move forward. His three brigades marched instead to the banks of Bull Run Creek, where Orlando Poe's brigade forded the creek. Poe's arrival started a feeling of panic at Jackson's HQ, as it looked like the Union troops were getting to the Confederate rear. Jackson ordered his wagons evacuated from the area, and Major John Pelham's horse artillery wheeled into position. The horse artillery and several companies of the 1st VA cavalry engaged in a firefight with Poe's brigade for several minutes. The Union side didn't realize they were getting in the rear of the Confederate lines, and the sight of Confederate infantry in the distance discouraged Poe from advancing any further, and he pulled back across the creek. Robinson's brigade remained in position along the creekbank while Birney's seven regiments scattered. One supported the corps artillery on Matthews Hihll, another was held in reserve, sitting idle, and the remaining three accompanied Poe to the banks of the creek, till the Confederate artillery fire became too much for them, and pulled south into the woods where they joined the Union skirmishing with A.P. Hill's troops.

Sigel was satisfied with the progress of the battle, assuming he was just there to hold until Pope arrived. He was reinforced at 1 PM by Maj Gen Joseph Hooker (III Corps) and the brigade of Brig. Gen. Isaac Stevens (IX Corps). When Pope arrived on the battlefield, Sigel ceded command to him; Pope had expected to see the culmination of his victory, but instead found Sigel's attack had failed completely, and Schurz and Milroy's troops shot up, disorganized, and incapable of further action. Reynolds's and Schneck's divisions were fresh, but committed to guarding the left flank of the Union army. The Union did alos have Heintzelman's corps, and two divisions of Reno available, giving the Union 8 fresh brigades, but Pope was also assuming McDowell would be on the field, and McClellan would also arrive with the II and VI Corps from DC. There were no signs of these troops anywhere. He considered withdrawing briefly to Centreville, but worried about the political fallout if he were seen as insufficiently aggressive. A messanger arrived at this time, giving Pope a note announcing McDowell's corps was close and would soon be on the field. With this, Pope decided to drive in at Jackson's center. What he didn't know yet was Longstreet's first units were in position to Jackson's right, and Brig. Gen. John Bell Hood's division straddled the turnpike, and loosely connected with Jackson's right flank. To the right of Hood, the divisions of Brig. Gens. James Kemper and David "Neighbor" Jones were available, and Brig. Gen. Cadmus Wilcox's division arrived last, and was placed in reserve.

Stuart's cavalry encountered Porter, Hatch, and McDowell moving up the Manassas-Gainesville Road, and halted the Union column in a brief firefight. At that point, a courier arrived with a message for Porter and McDowell, the "Joint Order," which described a move "toward" Gainesville "as soon as communication is established [with the other divisions] the whole command shall halt. It may be necessary to fall back behind Bull Run to Centreville tonight," and nowhere in that order did Pope explicitly direct Porter and McDowell to attack, concluding with, "If any considerable advantages are to be gained from departing from this order it will not be strictly carried out." The last statement made the entire document essentially useless as a military order to the two.

Stuart's cavalry under Col Thomas Rosser deceived the Union generals by dragging tree branches behind a regiment of horses, simulating great clouds of dust from large columns of marching soldiers. At the same time, McDowell got a report from Brig. Gen. John Buford, his cavalry commander, who reported 17 regiments of infantry, a battery, and 500 cavalry were moving through Gainesville at 8:15 AM, which was Longstreet's wing arriving. So again the Union advance halted. Unexplainedly, McDowell didn't forward Buford's report to Pope till 7 PM, so he was operating under two big misconceptions: Longstreet was not near the battlefield, and Porter and McDowell were Marching to attack Jackson's right flank.

As Longstreet's men were placed in their final positions, General Lee ordered an offensive against the Union's left flank. (Longstreet later remembered that Lee "was inclined to engage as soon as practicable, but did not order.") Longstreet saw the divisions of Reynolds and Schenck extended south of the Warrenton Turnpike, overlapping half his line, and argued against attacking at that time. Lee eventually relented when J.E.B. Stuart reported the forces (Porter, McDowell) on the Gainesville-Manassas Road was formidable.

General Pope, assuming the attack on Jackson's right would proceed as he believed he had ordered, authorized four separate attacks against Jackson's front with the intend of diverging the Confederates' attention till Porter arrived and delivered the fatal blow. Brig. Gen. Cuvier Grover's brigade attacked at 3 PM, expecting to be supported by Kearny's division. Grover moved his brigade into the woods, with Isaac Stevens's division as support, and charged right at Ed Thomas's GA brigade. Grover's men got to the railroad embankment, and unleashed a volley at near point-blank range on Thomas's regiments, followed by a bayonet charge. Surprised, the Georgians fell back and the fight became hand-to-hand; the South Carolinians under Gregg came to reinforce them, followed by Dorsey Pender's brigade of North Carolinians. Pender his Grover's brigade in the flank, sending the men fleeing in panic with over 350 casualties. Pender's brigade surged out of the woods in pursuit of Grover, but the Union artillery again forced the Confederates to retreat.

To the north, Joseph Carr's brigade had engaged in a low-level firefight with Confederate troops, but Isaac Trimble luckily escaped harm, and began to route the Union troops, driving Nagle back with the help of Henry Forno's LA brigade, and joined by Bradley Johnson and Col Leroy Stafford's 9th LA. To the south, John Hood's division just arrived on the field, forcing Milroy and Nagle back further, helping Trimble's forces. Milroy's brigade, already exhausted, fell apart and ran from the Confederate onslaught. To try to counter the Confederates, Pope pulled Schneck from the south of the turnpike, and with Union artillery support, forced the Confederates back to the railroad embankment; all the while, Kearny was out of the action.

Union troops under Reynolds were ordered to conduct a spoiling attack south of the turnpike, encountering Longstreet's men, causing him to call off his demonstration. Pope dismissed Reynold's concerns, insisting Reynolds had run into Porter's V Corps preparing to attack Jackson's flank. Jesse Reno ordered a IX Corps brigade under Col James Nagle to attack Jackson's center again. This time, Brig. Gen. Isaac Trimble's brigade was driven back but restored the line quickly at the embankment, and pursued Nagle's troops into the open fields until Union artillery halted their advances.

Finally, at 4:30 PM, Pope gave an explicit order to attack to Porter, but his aide (his nephew) lost his way and didn't manage to deliver the message till 6:30 PM. In anticipation of the attack that would not be coming to his aid, Pope ordered Kearny to attack Jackson's far left flank, attempting to put strong pressure on both ends of the line. At 5 PM, Kearny sent the brigades of Robinson and Birney to attack A.P. Hill's exhausted division. The brunt of the attack came at Gregg's brigade, which had already defended against two major assaults over eight hours that day, and was almost out of ammo, and had lost several of its officers. As they began to fall back, Gregg chopped some wildflowers with his Revolutionary War scimitar and told them, "Let us die here my men, let us die here." A.P. Hill sent word to Jackson for help, with both Gregg's and Thomas's brigades getting ready to disintegrate.

At the same time, Daniel Leasure's Union brigade of Isaac Stevens's division crept around south and forced back James Archer's TN brigade. Jubal Early's brigade and Lawrence O'Bryan Branch's brigade counterattacked and drove back Kearny's division. During the fighting, Charles Field got a shot near his arm, giving him a laceration, but he held on and continued commanding his troops.

On the Confederates' right, Longstreet observed a movement of McDowell's forces away from his front; the I Corps was moving divisions to Henry House Hill to support Reynolds; this caused Lee to revive his plan for an offensive in that sector, but Longstreet again argued against it, due to inadequate time before dusk. He suggested to recon in force, feel out the position of the enemy, and set up for a morning attack. Lee agreed, and sent Hood's division forward.

On the Union side, McDowell arrived at Pope's HQ, with Pope urging him to move King's division forward. McDowell told him King fell ill and gave command to Brig Gen John Hatch in his stead, whom Pope had taken a dislike to early on in the campaign. Pope ordered Hatch to go up Sudley Road to attack, but Hatch protested that it was clogged with Kearny's troops, and it was not possible to clear them out before dark. Exasperated, Pope repeated his order to advance on the Confederate right, but was distracted by actions on either side of the line. Hood's division had arrived on the left of Jackson, and McDowell then ordered Hatch to reinforce Reynolds despite Hatch's protests that two of his three brigades were exhausted from the fight on the previous day. So, Hatch deployed Doubleday's brigade to the front, but Hood's division forced Hatch and Reynolds back to a position on Bald Hill, overrunning Chinn Ridge in the process. As night fell, Hood pulled back from his exposed position. Again Longstreet and his subordinates argued to Lee they should not be attacking a force they considered to be in a strong defensive position, and for a third time, Lee cancelled a planned assault.

On the Union side, Hood's withdrawal from Chinn Ridge only reinforced Pope's belief that the enemy was retreating. Pope learned from McDowell about Buford's report, and he finally acknowledged that Longstreet was on the field, but he optimistically assumed Longstreet was only there to reinforce Jackson while they withdrew; Hood's division had just done that. Pope gave explicit orders for Porter's corps to rejoin the main body of the army and he planned for another offensive on the 30th.

That evening, Pope wired Halleck with his report of the fighting, describing it as 'severe' and estimating his losses at 7500-8500 men. He estimated the Confederates had lost twice as many, an incorrect assumption since Jackson was fighting a mostly defensive battle. Confederate casualties were lower, though their officer losses had been a little high. Luckily, Trimble, Field, and Forno escaped being wounded. The Union lost five brigade commanders in comparison.

August 30

The last piece of Longstreet's command, Maj. Gen. Richard Anderson's division, marched 17 miles and arrived at 3 AM on the battlefield. They halted on a ridge east of Groveton, exhausted and unfamiliar with the area. At dawn, they realized they were in an isolated position and fell back. Pope's belief that the Confederates were in retreat was reinforced by this movement, which came after the withdrawal of Hood's troops the night before.

This in mind, Pope directed McDowell to move his entire corps up the Sudley Road, and hit the Confederate right flank; McDowell protested, saying he had no idea what was happening on the Confederate left, and would much prefer his troops on Chinn Ridge. He believed it made more sense to attack the right with Heintzelman's troops, which were closer to the area. Pope acquiesced, but detached King's division to support Heintzelman.

At 8AM, Pope had a war council at his HQ, where his subordinates tried to convince him to move cautiously. Union probes of the Confederates at Stony Ridge, around 10 AM indicated Stonewall's men were still firmly entrenched. John Reynolds spoke up that the Confederates had good strength south of the turnpike. Fitz John Porter arrived later with similar intelligence reports. However, both Heintzelman and McDowell conducted personal reconnaissance, which somehow failed to find Jackson's defensive line, and Pope decided to make up his mind to attack the retreating Southerners.

While Porter was bringing up his corps, a further mix-up in orders resulted in the loss of two brigades. Abram Sanders Piatt's small brigade, and Charles Griffin's brigade both pulled out of Porter's main column, marched back down to Manassas Junction, and then up to Centreville. Morell, using an outdated set of orders from the day before, assumed Pope was at Centreville and that he was expected to join him there. Piatt eventually realized something was wrong and turned back towards the battlefield, arriving at Henry House Hill about 4 PM. Griffin and his division commander, Maj. Gen. George Morell, stayed at Centreville, despite finding Pope was not there. Eventually, around 4 PM, Griffin began moving his brigade back towards the action, but by this point, Pope's army was in full retreat, and a mass of wagons and stragglers were blocking the roadway, and the bridge over Cub Run was broken, making it impossible for him to move any further west.

Ricketts's Union division approached the Confederate lines, and it became clear the Confederates were still there in force with no signs of retreating. Pope was unnerved, and thought about waiting for McClellan to arrive with II and VI Corps, but worried he would take credit for any victory in the battle, so he decided to attack immediately rather than wait. Shortly after noon, Pope ordered Porter's corps, with Hatch and Reynolds, to advance west along the turnpike. At the same time, Hooker, Kearny, and Ricketts were to advance along the Confederates' right. This coordinated movement could potentially crush the retreating Confederates; but they weren't retreating, and were hoping to be attacked. General Lee was waiting for an opportunity to counterattack with Longstreet's forces. Though he wasn't sure Pope would attack, Lee had positioned 18 artillery pieces under Col. Stephen D. Lee on the high ground northeast of the Brawner Farm, ideally position to bombard the open fields in front of Jackson's position.



Porter's attack, 3 PM

The Union corps under Porter wasn't in a position to pursue west on the turnpike, but was in the woods north of the turnpike near Groveton. IT took about two hours to prepare the assault on Jackson's line, with ten brigades of about 10,000 men, and 28 artillery pieces on Dogan Ridge to support them. On the right, Ricketts's division would support Heintzelmann, while Sigel's corps remained in reserved behind them. Reynolds's division was stationed near Henry House Hill, with King's division on its right. Porter would strike Jackson's left flank with his 1st Division. Since General Morell was AWOL, command of his troops fell to Brig. Gen. Daniel Butterfield. George Sykes's division of regulars were held in reserve. As noon approached, temperatures on the field approached 90° F.

The Confederates attempted to strike the first blow. Parts of Ewell's and Hill's divisions came charging out of the woods and surprised some of Ricketts's men with a volley or two, but again the Union artillery on Dogan Ridge overwhelmed them and they withdrew back to the line of the unfinished railroad.

The Union forces faced a daunting task. Butterfield's division had to cross 600 yards of open pasture, the final 150 yards of which were steeply uphill, to attack a strong position behind the unfinished railroad. Porter ordered John Hatch's division to support Butterfield's right flank, and Hatch formed his four brigades into a line of battle, with his own brigade commanded by Col Timothy Sullivan since he assumed division command the day before. Hatch's division only had 300 yards to cross, but had to perform a complex right-wheel maneuver under fire, to hit the Confederate position squarely in its front. Stephen Lee's batteries gave them devastating fire, then volley after volley from the infantry in the line. In the confusion, Hatch was knocked off his horse by an artillery shell, and removed from the field unconscious; it is believed he got a concussion there that would affect him at the later Battle of South Mountain.

The Union troops broke the Confederate line, and routed the 48th VA Infantry. The Stonewall Brigade rushed in to restore the line, and took some casualties, but luckily, its commander, Col Baylor, was not among them. Among the most infamous incident of the battle, Confederates in Col Bradley Johnson's and Col. Leroy Stafford's brigades fired so much that they actually ran out of ammo, and resorted to throwing rocks at the 24th NY, prompting some of the surprised New Yorkers to start throwing them back. To support Jackson's exhausted defenses, which were stretched to breaking, Longstreet's artillery added to the barrage against Union reinforcements attempting to move in, cutting them to pieces. Hatch's brigade fell back in confusion, the men running into Patrick's brigade, also causing them to panic. The mob quickly met up with Gibbon's brigade, which was some distance to the rear, while Doubleday's brigade had inexplicably wandered away from the field of action. Meanwhile, Butterfield's division was buckling under heavy Confederate rifle shot and artillery, and was almost disintegrating.

To shore up Butterfield's faltering attack, Porter ordered Lt Col Robert Buchanan's brigade of regulars into action, but Longstreet's attack on the Union left interrupted him. Withdrawal was also a costly operation. Some of the Confederates in Starke's brigade attempted a pursuit, but were beaten back by the Union reserves along Groveton-Sudley Road. Jackson's command was too depleted to counterattack, in men and munitions, allowing Porter to stabilize the situation north of the turnpike. McDowell, being concerned about Porter's situation, ordered Reynolds's division to leave Chinn Ridge and come to his support, leaving only 2200 Union troops south of the turnpike.

Lee and Longstreet agreed the time was right for the assault, and the objective was Henry House Hill, the key terrain in last year's battle, which could dominate the potential Union line of retreat. Longstreet's command was 25,000 men in five divisions stretched about a mile and a half from Brawner Farm to Manassas Gap Railroad; they would be crossing 1.5 to 2 miles of ground with ridges, streams, and heavily wooded areas, making a well-coordinated battle line very difficult to impossible, so he would need to rely on the drive and initiative of his division commanders. Leading the left was John Hood's Texans, supported by Brig Gen Nathan Evans's South Carolinians. On the right, Kemper's and Jones's divisions. Anderson's division was held in reserve. Just before the attack, Lee signaled to Jackson, "General Longstreet is advancing; Look out for and protect his left flank."



Start of Longstreet's attack at 4PM

On the Union side, Porter was realizing was was happening on his left, and told Buchanan to move to that direction to stem the Confederate onslaught, and then sent a messenger to find the other brigade of regulars, under Col Charles Roberts, to get in the action also. Union defenders south of the turnpike consisted only of two brigades, that of Cols. Nathaniel McLean (Sigel's I Corps, Schenck's division), and Gouverneur Warren (Porter's V Corps, Sykes's division). McLean held Chinn Ridge, Warren was near Groveton, about 800 yards west. Hood's men began the assault about 4 PM, immediately overwhelming Warren's two regiments, the 5th NY and 10th NY; with in the first 10 minutes of contact, the 500 men of the 5th NY would suffer 300 casualties, 120 mortally wounded.

Pope was in his HQ while this was happening, behind Dogan Ridge, oblivious to the chaos, focusing instead on a message he just got from Halleck, announcing that the II and VI Corps, plus Brig. Gen. Darious Couch's division of the IV Corps to reinforce him, and McClellan was ordered to stay in DC. That would give Pope 41 brigades, all under his command without any interference from McClellan. Only when Warren collapsed and McLean was being driven from the field did Pope finally realize what was happening.



4:30 PM on August 30

On the Union side, McDowell ordered Ricketts's division to cease its attack on the Confederate left, which had failed to break through, and try to reinforce the Union left. McDowell rode out with Reynolds to supervise the construction of a new defensive line on Chinn Ridge, just as Porter's shattered troops came running out of the woods to the west. Reynolds protested being ordered to Chinn Ridge, arguing his division was needed to prevent a Confederate attack from the woods.




The 5th Texas, fighting at 2nd Manassas, by Don Troiani

McDowell informed Reynolds the Confederates weren't coming from that direction, but from the south and to move his division there immediately. Even before this happened, Union Colonel Martin Hardin (in command of Brig. Gen. Conrad Jackson's brigade), took the initiative himself and marched down to stem the Confederate onslaught. He took Battery G of the 1st PA Artillery, and unleashed a volley of musket fire which stunned the 1st and 4th TX brigades, but the 5th TX to the right kept coming and quickly shot down most of the gunners of Battery G. Nathan Evans's South Carolina Brigade arrived quickly to reinforce the Texans, and got in the rear of Hardin's brigade. Hardin fell wounded and would die of his wounds within two days. Command devolved to Col James Kirk of the 10th PA Reserves. Kirk was shot down within minutes (but would survive, luckily) and Lt Col Leonard took over. The crumbling brigade fell back, with some soldiers pausing to take a few shots at the oncoming Confederates. Nathaniel McLean's brigade of Ohioans arrived on the scene, but was attacked on three sides by Law, Wilcox, and Evans brigades, and soon joined the survivors of Hardin's brigade in a disorganized mob on Henry House Hill.





Final Confederate attack, 5 PM

The first two Union brigades which arrived were from Ricketts's division, commanded by Col Fletcher Webster and Brig Gen Zealous Tower. Ricketts had been at the first battle at Bull Run (the Union name for the battle), where he commanded a regular gun battery, and got captured at the fight for Henry Hill. Tower's brigade slammed Wilcox's Alabamians in the flank, sending them reeling, but was immediately confronted with the fresh division of David Jones. Webster lined up his four regiments to face his Confederate attackers, but was struck dead by an artillery shell right there on the field. His men, disheartened by his death, started falling back. Meanwhile, Tower was shot from his horse, and carried off the field, unconscious. He would also succumb to his wounds after the battle.

Robert Schneck then ordered Col. John Koltes's brigade, which was held in reserve during Sigel's attack yesterday and still fresh, into action, along with Krzyzanowski's brigade, which had been heavily involved in the fighting and was tired. Koltes was quickly struck by an artillery shell and killed; command devolved to Col Richard Coulter of the 11th PA, the highest-ranking officer remaining on the field, and a Mexican War veteran. Though both Koltes's and Krzyzanowski's six regiments were able to hold their ground for a little while, they were quickly overwhelmed by the fresher Confederate soldiers in the brigades of Lewis Armistead, Montgomery Corse, and Eppa Hunton, and started falling back in disorder.

In the first two hours of the Confederates' assault, McDowell had built a new line of defense with Reynolds's and Sykes's divisions. Longstreet's final set of fresh troops, Richard Anderson's division, now took the offensive. Forming a line on Henry House Hill, the regulars of Sykes's division, with Meade's and Seymour's brigades, and Piatt's brigade, held off the final Confederate attack long enough to give the rest of the army enough time to withdraw across Bull Run Creek to Centreville.

Stonewall Jackson, under the relatively ambiguous orders from Lee to support General Longstreet, launched an attack north of the turnpike about 6 PM, the soonest he could muster his exhausted forces. His delay greatly reduced the value of his advance. It coincided with Pope's ordered withdrawal of his units north of the turnpike to assist in the defense of Henry House Hill, and the Confederates were able to overrun a number of artillery and infantry units in their assault. By 7 PM, however, Pope had established a strong defensive line on the hill, and by 8 PM, he had ordered a general withdrawal on the turnpike to Centreville. Unlike the chatic retreat of the First Battle of Manassas, this one was quiet and orderly. The Confederates, tired from battle and low on ammunition, did not pursue the enemy. Though General Lee won a significant victory, he didn't destroy Pope's army.

The final significant action of the battle was when Lee ordered J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry to go around the Union flank and cut off their retreat. Brig. Gen. Beverly Robertson's cavalry brigade, along with Col Thomas Rosser's 5th VA Cavalry headed for Lewis Ford, a crossing of Bull Run Creek which would enable them to get in the rear of the Union Army. Unfortunately, they found the crossing blocked by Union cavalry under John Buford, and after a short and fierce engagement, Buford's superior numbers easily won out, and the Confederates pulled back. The clash lasted only ten minutes, and Col Thornton Brodhead of the 1st Michigan Cavalry was shot dead, and John Buford was wounded, but the Union army retreat was safe.

The Confederates, due to their lack of both manpower and ammunition, failed to decisively destroy Pope's army.

After the battle one of the generals was quoted as saying:

A splendid army almost demoralized, millions of public property given up or destroyed, thousands of lives of our best men sacrificed for no purpose. I dare not trust myself to speak of this commander [Pope] as I feel and believe. Suffice to say ... that more insolence, superciliousness, ignorance, and pretentiousness were never combined in one man. It can in truth be said of him that he had not a friend in his command from the smallest drummer boy to the highest general officer.

Brig. Gen. Alpheus S. Williams (II Corps division commander)

On September 12, Pope was relieved of command, and his army merged into the Army of the Potomac as it marched into Maryland under McClellan. He would spend the remainder of the war in the Department of the Northwest in Minnesota, dealing with the Dakota War of 1862, which would become the model for how the Union would deal with the Indians after the war. Pope sought scapegoats to blame for his defeat, and Fitz John Porter was court-martialed on November 25th for his actions, found guilty on January 10th of 1863, and dismissed from the Army on January 21st. He would be later exonerated in 1878 and his sentence reversed two years later.

Note: I changed a few things in this battle, and put a little easter egg in there for the Trekkies. You're welcome.

Zealous Tower and Martin Hardin originally survived long after this battle.

Commanders:
Union: John Pope
Confederate: Robert E Lee

Union Units:
Army of Virginia
Army of the Potomac: III Corps, V Corps, VI Corps, IX Corps, Kanawha Division

Confederate Units: Army of Northern Virginia

Strength:
Union: 77,000 (estimate)
-AoV: 51,000
-AotP: 26,000
Confederate: 62,000 (estimate)

Union Casualties
-Killed: 1,953
-Wounded: 8,914
-Captured/Missing: 4,313

Confederate Casualties:
-Killed: 988
-Wounded: 6,108

Federal Education

In the United States, without southern states to stop them, the Republicans were able to pass through a lot of internal improvement bills for all kinds of special interests - including cattle, timber, oil, and rail. From 1850-1860, expenditures averaged an annual $370,000, but for the 1860s, it jumped up to $1,272,300 on average each year, and would in the 1870s jump even higher to $8,080,000. Often called "river and harbor" bills, these pieces of legislation were great for giving life to state and local political machines that fueled graft and corruption in the 1870s.

One bill passed in 1862, the Morill Land-Grant Act, giving every congressman 30,000 acres within their respective states to finance agricultural and mechanical colleges, leading to the establishment of a number of federally funded colleges, once a state and private concern.

Diaries from the Confederacy (September 1)

Sarah Morgan, a diarist writing of her experiences during the war with her family, wrote on September 1:

"A young lady, passing by one of the pillaged houses, expressed her surprise at seeing an armoire full of women's and children's clothes being empties, and the contents tied up in sheets.  "What can you do with such things?" she asked a soldier who seemed more zealous than the rest.  "Ain't I got a wife and four children in the North?" was the answer.

Preparing to Go North

Before the battles at Harper's Ferry and Sharpsburg, both Jackson and Longstreet advised Lee of avoiding offensive war with the Yankees, with Longstreet saying, "General, I wish we could stand still and let the damned Yankees come to us!" Lee refused the proposals of assuming a defensive posture, let the Yankees attack, then when they're retreating, attack them. Lee also ignored their advice to ignore the Union garrisons of Harper's Ferry and Martinsburg, as capturing them would be a serious diversion of strength, and they had no intentions of holding the towns, so nothing would prevent their reoccupation after they went north. Had Lee remained near Frederick, MD, Harper's Ferry wouldn't have been an issue; but Lee ordered, and to Jackson and Longstreet, that was it. They obeyed and did their best.

Lee wanted to invade the North. To get Davis's approval, he had to use a little deceit, by saying he wanted to place a Confederate army in the North and then offer the Northern people peace.

"Such a proposition," he wrote to President Davis, "coming from us at this time, could in no way be regarded as suing for peace; but being made when it is in our power to inflict injury upon our adversary, would show conclusively to the world that our sole object is the establishment of our independence and the attainment of an honorable peace. The rejection of this offer would prove to the country that the responsibility for the continuance of the war does not rest upon us but that the party in power in the United States elect to prosecute it for purposes of their own. The proposal of peace would enable the people of the United States to determine at their coming elections whether they will support those who favor a prolongation of the war, or those who wish to bring it to a termination, which can but be productive of good to both parties without affecting the honor of either."

His benign and peaceable argument played into Davis's prejudices in conducting the war; Jackson wanted to hit northern rail, business, factories, and farms, which Davis didn't want.

Lost and Found

Before leaving and splitting his army, an Ensign noticed some cigars and the Order 191 sitting at a tree, and grabbed it, not wanting to risk the Yankees or his superiors noticing someone had forgotten them. General D.H. Hill got the orders, and thanked the young officer.

A Union Doctor is Surprised

On the 10th of September, a Union Doctor Lewis Steiner noted in his diary about the Confederates coming in an around Frederick, Maryland:

At four o' clock this morning the Rebel army began to move from our town, Jackson's force taking the advance.  The movement continued until eight o' clock P.M., occupying sixteen hours.  The most liberal calculation could not give them more than 64,000 men.  over 3,000 Negroes must be included in the number.  These were clad in all kinds of uniforms, not only in cast-off or captured United States uniforms, but in coats with Southern buttons, State buttons, etc.  These were shabby, but not shabbier or seedier than those worn by white men in the rebel ranks.  Most of the negroes had arms, rifles, muskets, sabres, bowie-knifes, dirks, etc. They were supplied, in many instances, with knapsacks, haveracks, canteens, etc., and they were manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederacy Army.  They were seen riding on horses and mules, driving wagons, riding on caissons, in ambulances, with the staff of generals and promiscuously mixed up with all the rebel horde.

Battle of Harper's Ferry (September 12)


Jackson's return to Harper's Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia)

After Second Manassas, Lee determined to advance into northern territory, as Jackson had been urging for some time now. His Army of Northern Virginia advanced down the Shenandoah Valley, planning to capture the garrison at Harpers Ferry to secure his supply line back to Virginia. Although he was being pursued at a leisurely pace by Maj. Gen. George McClellan's Army of the Potomac, which outnumbered him more than two to one, Lee chose the risky strategy of dividing his army and senidng one portion to converge and to attack Harpers Ferry from three directions. Col Dixon Miles, the Union commander there, insisted on keeping most of the troops near the town, rather than taking up defensive and commanding positions on the surrounding heights. The slim defenses of the most important position, Maryland Heights, first encountered the approaching Confederates on the 12th of September, but it was only a brief skirmish. Strong attacks by the Confederates the next day drove the Union troops from the heights.

During the fighting on Maryland Heights, the other Confederate columns arrived, and were astonished to see the critical positions west and south of town weren't defended. Jackson methodically placed his artillery around Harpers Ferry, and ordered Maj. Gen. A.P. Hill to move down the west bank of the Shenandoah River, in preparation for a flank attack on the Federal left in the morning.

By morning on the 15th, Jackson had placed nearly 50 guns on Maryland Heights and the base of Loudoun Heights. He began a fierce artillery barrage from all sides, and ordered an infantry assault. Miles realized the situation was hopeless, and agreed with his subordinates to raise the white flag to surrender. He was able to surrender personally to the Confederates later that day. After processing more than 12,000 Union prisoners, Jackson's men rushed to Sharpsburg, MD, to rejoin Lee in preparation for the coming battle at Antietam.


Commanders:
Union: Dixon Miles, Julius White
Confederate: Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, A.P. Hill

Strength:
Union: 14,000
Confederate: 21,000

Union Casualties:
-Killed: 43
-Wounded: 173
-Captured: 12,420

Confederate Casualties:
-Killed: 37
-Wounded: 233

Maryland Campaign

While at Frederick, McClellan got word on the 13th that the Confederates were at Martinsburg and Harper's Ferry and began marching slowly towards Sharpsburg to try to cross the river and meet them.

After crossing the Potomac, issued a document to the people of Maryland:

"Believing that the people of Maryland possessed a spirit too lofty to submit to such a government, the people of the South have long wished to aid you in throwing off this foreign yoke...In obedience to this wish, our army has come among you, and is prepared to assist you with the power of its arms in regaining the rights of which you have been despoiled...We know no enemies among you, and will protect all, of every opinion.  It is for you to decide your destiny freely and without constraint.  This army will respect your choice, whatever it may be; and while the Southern people will rejoice to welcome you to your natural position among them, they will only welcome you when you come of your own free will."

Having had their legislators, mayors, sheriffs, policemen, and various citizens arrested for voicing opposition to Lincoln's War, the Confederates expected the Marylanders to join them in fighting against the Union Army.

Battle of Sharpsburg (Antietam) (September 17)

Luckily for General Lee, A.P. Hill had finished processing and paroling the prisoners from Harper's Ferry, and carried off large supplies overnight, and was available with his 1900 troops for action near Sharpsburg.

Near the town of Sharpsburg, General Lee deployed his available troops behind the Antietam Creek, along a low ridge, starting on the 15th of September. While it was an effective defensive position, it was not an impregnable one. To his detriment, neither he nor General Jackson effectively conducted reconnaissance on the field, which was a hindrance to their performance at this position. The terrain provided excellent cover for infantrymen, with rail and stone fences, outcroppings of limestone, and little hollows and swales. The creek in front was only a minor barrier, ranging from 60 to 100 feet in width, and fordable in places, and having 3 stone bridges a mile apart each. The Confederates were blocked to the rear by the Potomac.

By the time McClellan arrived, Lee had around 38,000 men available to him, less than half the size of the Federal army, but McClellan believed them to be up to 100,000 men and he delayed for a day. This gave the Confederates time to prepare their defensive positions, and to let all of Longstreet and Jackson's men to rest from their march, and A.P. Hill's division to arrive.

Had McClellan attacked on the 15th or 16th he might've won on numbers, but he delayed till the 17th. McClellan ordered Hooker's I Corps to cross the creek and probe enemy positions. Meade's division cautiously attacked Hood's troops near the East Woods; unfortunately this skirmish in the East Woods just served to signal McClellan's intentions to Lee, who prepared his defenses accordingly.

McClellan's battle plans were ill-coordinated and poorly executed; each of his subordinates had only the orders for his own corps, and no general orders describing the entire battle plan. The battlefield terrain made it difficult for the various commanders to monitor events outside their own sectors, and McClellan's HQ was over a mile away at Philip Pry House, east of the creek, making it difficult for him to control the separate corps. The overall effect was that the battle progressed the 17th as three separate, mostly uncoordinated battles; morning in the north, midday in the middle, and afternoon in the south. The lack of coordination practically nullified the nearly two-to-one advantage in manpower the Union enjoyed (72,000 to 38,000), and allowed Lee to shift his defensive forces for each offensive.

Morning in the Cornfield (North)

The battle started at dawn (about 5:30 AM), with an attack down the Hagerstown Turnpike by the Union I Corps under Joseph Hooker. He had about 8600 men, just a little more than the 7700 under Stonewall Jackson. Abner Doubleday's division moved to Hooker's right, James Ricketts's moved to the left, and George Meade's PA Reserves deployed to the center/rear.

The fighting started with an artillery duel, Confederates under J.E.B. Stuart and Col. Stephen D Lee west and east. Union fire returned from nine batteries on the ridge behind the North Woods and twenty 20-lb Parrott rifles, 2 miles east of the creek. This caused heavy casualties.

Hooker's infantry met the Confederates concealed in the cornfield, and were shot down, but began returning fire; having not seen them first was deadly to the Union effort. Soon the battle turned to a melee, rifles becoming hot and fouled from too much firing.

Through the East Woods, Meade's 1st Brigade of Pennsylvanians under command of Brig. Gen. Truman Seymour began advancing, and exchanged fire with Col. James Walker's brigade of Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia Troops. Walkers men forced Seymour's back, aided by the artillery fire from Lee; Rickett's division entered the Cornfield and was also torn up by Confederate artillery. Seymour would die from his wounds the next day. Brig. Gen. Abram Duryée's brigade marched into the volleys of Col. Marcellus Douglass's Georgia brigade, directly, and endured heavy fire from 250 yards. They gained no advantage because of the lack of reinforcements, so Duryée ordered a withdrawal.

The reinforcements that Duryée had expected, namely brigades under the commands of Brig. Gen. George L Hartsuff and Col. William Christian, had difficulties reaching the battle. Hartsuff had been wounded by a shell, and Christian dismounted and fled to the rear in terror. when the men were finally rallied and advanced into the Cornfield, they met the same artillery and infantry fire as those before them. Despite superior Union numbers, the Louisiana "Tiger" Brigade, including members of the Creole and free black communities, under Harry Hays, entered the fray and forced the Union troops back to the East Woods. The 12th MA Infantry's casualties were 67%, the highest of any unit that day. But, the Louisiana Tigers were beaten back eventually when the Union troops brought up a battery of 3" ordinance rifles, and rolled them directly into the Cornfield, point-blank fire at the Tigers, slaughtering them; they lost 287 of 500 men.

The Cornfield remained a bloody stalemate, but Union advances a few hundred yards west were more successful. Brig. Gen. John Gibbon's 4th Brigade of Doubleday's division (now the Iron Brigade)began advancing down and astride the turnpike, into the cornfield, and in the West Woods, pushing Jackson's men aside. They were halted by a 1150-man charge from Starke's brigade, leveling heavy fire on the Union troops from 30 yards away. The Confederate brigade withdrew after getting heavy return fire from the Iron Brigade; luckily Starke himself was not wounded. At the same time, the Union advance on Dunker Church resumed and cut a large gap in Jackson's defensive line, which was on the verge of collapse. Though at a steep cost, Hooker's corps was making progress.

Confederates got reinforcements just after 7 AM, with A.P. Hill, McLaws, and Richard H Anderson having arrived from Harpers Ferry. Around 7:15 Lee moved Anderson's Georgia brigade from the right flank to aid Jackson. At 7 AM, Hood's division of 2300 men advanced through the West Woods and pushed the Union troops back through the Cornfield again. The Texans were particularly fierce in their fighting since they were called from their reserve position, interrupting the first hot breakfast they had had in days. They were aided by three brigades of D.H. Hill's division coming in from Mumma Farm, southeast of the Cornfield, and Jubal Early's brigade, coming in from the West Woods from the Nicodemus Farm, where they had been supporting J.E.B. Stuart's horse artillery. Some Union officers of the Iron Brigade rallied around the artillery of Battery B, 4th U.S. Artillery, with Gibbon himself ensuring they didn't lose a single caisson. Hood's men bore the brunt of the fighting on the Confederate side, and paid the price - 50% casualties - but they did prevent the defensive line from crumbling, and they held off the I Corps.

Hooker's men also paid heavily, but without gaining their objectives. After two hours and 2600 casualties, they were back where they started. The Cornfield, an area of about 250 yards deep, 400 yards wide, was a scene of immense destruction. It has been estimated it changed hands at least 15 times that morning. Hooker called for support from the 7200 men of Mansfield's XII Corps.


Assaults by the XII Corps, 7:30 to 9:00 a.m.

Half of Mansfield's men were raw recruits, and he himself was also inexperienced, having gotten command only two days before. Although he was a 40-year veteran, he had never led a large number of troops in combat. He was concerned his troops would bolt under fire, so he marched them in a formation called "column of companies, closed in mass," which translated to a regiment ten ranks deep, instead of the normal two. It presented an excellent artillery target for the Confederates, and Mansfield himself was shot in the chest and died the next day. Alpheus Williams assumed the command temporarily.

The new recruits of the 1st Division of Mansfield made no progress against Hood's line, reinforced by brigades of D.H. Hill's division under Colquitt and McRae. The 2nd Division of the XII Corps came up against A.P. Hill and McRae's men. The Confederates held Dunker Church, protected by Stephen Lee's batteries.

Hooker attempted to gather the scattering remnants of his I Corps to continue the assault, but a black Confederate sharpshooter spotted the general's conspicuous white horse and shot him through the foot. Command then fell to General Meade, since Hooker's most senior subordinate, James Ricketts, had also fallen wounded. Without Hooker, though, there was no general left with the authority to rally the I and XII Corps. Greene's men also came under heavy fire in the West Woods and withdrew.


The Dunker Church after September 17, 1862. Here, both Union and Confederate dead lie together on the field.

Trying to turn the Confederate left flank and relieve pressure on Mansfield's men, Sumner's II Corps sent two divisions into battle at 7:20 AM. Sedgwick's 5400-man division was the first to ford the Antietam Creek, and entered the East Woods intending to turn left, and force the Confederates south into the assault of Ambrose Burnside's IX Corps. But the plan went awry.

They got separated from William French's division, and at 9 AM Sumner, who was accompanying the division, launched the attack in an unusual battle formation - three brigades in three long lines, men side-by-side, only 50-70 yards separating the lines. They were assaulted first by Confederate artillery, and then from three sides by divisions of Early, Walker, and McLaws, and in less than half an hour, Sedwick's men were forced to retreat in great disorder back to their starting point with over 2400 casualties, including Sedgwick himself, who was taken out of action for several months by a wound.

The final actions of the morning phase of the Battle of Sharpsburg were about 10 AM, when two regiments of XII Corps advanced, only to be confronted by John Walker's division, newly arrived from the Confederate right. They fought between the Cornfield and West Woods, with the Union troops gaining some ground here when they forced Walker's men back with two brigades of Greene's division.

The morning phase of the battle ended with casualties on both sides of almost 14,000, including four Union corps commanders.

Midday Phase

By midday, the battle had shifted to the center of the Confederates' line. Sumner had accompanied the morning attack of Sedgwick's division, but one of his other divisions under French had lost contact, and inexplicably headed south. French found skirmishers and ordered his men forward; by this time, one of Sumner's aides, his son, located French and relayed the order for him to divert Confederate attention by attacking their center.

French confronted D.H. Hill's division, which had about 2500 men, less than half the number French had, and three of his five brigades had been torn up in the morning combat. This was theoretically the weakest point of Longstreet's line. Fortunately for Hill, his men were in a strong defensive position, on the top of a gradual ridge, in a sunken road, worn down by years of wagon traffic, which formed a natural trench.

French launched a series of brigade-sized assaults against the Confederate improvised breastworks about 9:30 AM. The first brigade, mostly inexperienced troops commanded by Brig. Gen. Max Weber, was quickly cut down by heavy rifle fire; neither side used their artillery. The second Union attack included more raw recruits under Col. Dwight Morris, and faced heavy fire but managed to beat back a counterattack by Robert Rodes's Alabama Brigade. The third Union attack, under the command of Brig. Gen. Nathan Kimball, included three veteran regiments, but they too fell to the Confederate fire coming from the sunken road. French's division suffered 1890 casualties out of 5700 in just under an hour of fighting.

Reinforcements arrived on both sides, and by 10:30 AM General Lee sent his final reserve, some 3400 men under Maj Gen Richard Anderson, to bolster Hill's line and extend it to the eright, preparing an attack that would hopefully envelop French's left flank. Unfortunately for him, the 4000 men of Maj. Gen. Israel Richardson's division arrived on French's left; this was the last of Sumner's three divisions, which had been held up in the rear by McClellan as he continued to organize his reserve forces. The Union struck the first blow.


Union Irish Brigade flag, the basis for several flags of a similar design.

Leading off the fourth attack of the day against the sunken road was the Irish Brigade, of Brig. Gen. Thomas Meagher. As they advanced with their emerald green flags, snapping in the breeze, a regimental chaplain, Father William Corby, rode back and forth across the front of the formation shouting words of conditional absolution prescribed by the Roman Catholic Church for those who were about to die. The mostly Irish immigrants lost 541 men to heavy volleys before they were ordered to withdraw.

Gen. Richardson personally dispatched the brigade of Brig. Gen. John Caldwell into battle about noon, after being told that Caldwell was in the rear, behind a haystack, and finally the tide turned. Anderson's Confederate division had been little help to the defenders after Gen. Anderson was wounded early in the fighting (he would recover). Luckily for the Confederates, George B Anderson, Col. Charles Tew (2nd NC), and Col. John Gordon (6th AL) remained alive and helped stem the Union advance from going too far.

Afternoon Phase

By the afternoon, the action had moved to the southern end of the battlefield. Longstreet was arrayed on both sides of Boonsboro Rd, his artillery able to hit across the battlefield, rather than north of Sharpsburg.

McClellan's plan was for Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside and the IX Corps to conduct a diversionary attack to support Hooker's I Corps, hoping to draw Confederate attention away from the intended main attack in the north. Unfortunately Burnside was instructed to wait for explicit orders before launching his attack, which didn't reach him till about 10 AM. He was also strangely passive during battle preparations because he was still disgruntled that McClellan had abandoned the previous arrangements of 'wing commanders' reporting to him. Implicitly refusing to give up his higher authority, he was using Brig. Gen. Jacob Cox of the Kanawha Division as corps commander, funneling orders to the corps through him. Overall, Burnside had four divisions (12,500 troops) and 50 guns east of Antietam Creek.

Facing Burnside were the Confederates which had been depleted by Lee's movement of units to bolster their left flank. Brig. Gen. Robert Toombs had two artillery batteries, but Longstreet's shifting helped somewhat. Toombs had 400 men, the 2nd and 20th GA regiments, and there were four thin brigades guarding the ridges near Sharpsburg. They were defending Rohrbach's Bridge, a three-span 125-foot stone structure at the southmost crossing of Antietam. The bridge would become infamous as Burnside's Bridge because of the coming battle. It was a difficult objective; the road leading to it ran parallel to the creek, and was exposed to enemy fire. It was dominated by a 100-foot high wooded bluff on the west bank, strewn with boulders from an old quarry, making infantry and sharpshooter fire from good covered positions a dangerous impediment to crossing.



Late 20th century interpretation of the battle at Burnside's Bridge.

In this sector the creek was rarely more than 50 feet wide, and several stretches were only waist deep, and out of Confederate range. Burnside ignored this fact during the battle, and concentrated his plan instead of storming the bridge, while simultaneously crossing a ford McClellan's engineers had identified half a mile downstream. When his men reached it, they found the banks too high to negotiate. While Col George Crook's Ohio brigade prepared to attack the bridge with support from Brig. Gen. Samuel Sturgis's division, the rest of the Kanawha Division and Brig. Gen. Isaac Rodman's division struggled through thick brush trying to locate Snavely's Ford, 2 miles downstream, intending to flank the Confederates, but failing due to their struggles.

Crook's assault on the bridge was led by skirmishers from the 11th Connecticut, who were ordered to clear the bridge for the Ohioans to cross to assault the bluff. After taking punishing fire for 15 minutes, the Connecticut men withdrew with 145 casualties, about 1/3 their strength, including the commander, Col Henry Kingsbury, who was fatally wounded. Crook's main assault went awry when his unfamiliarity with the terrain caused his men to reach the creek a quarter mile upstream from the bridge, where they exchanged volleys with Confederate skirmishers for the next few hours.

While Rodman's division was out of touch, slogging towards Snavely's Ford, Burnside and Cox directed a second assault at the bridge by one of Sturgis's Brigades, led by the 2nd MD and 6th NH. They also fell prey to the Confederate sharpshooters and artillery, and their attack fell apart. It was about noon, and McClellan was losing patience. He sent a succession of couriers to motivate Burnside to move forward. He ordered one aide, "Tell him if it costs 10,000 men he must go now." He increased pressure by sending his inspector general, Col. Delos Sackett, to confront Burnside, who was indignant, saying, "McClellan appears to think I am not trying my best to carry this bridge; you are the third or fourth one who has been to me this morning with similar orders."

The third Union attempt to take the bridge was at 12:30 PM by Sturgis's other brigade, commanded by Brig. Gen. Edward Ferrero. It was led by the 51st NY and 51st PA who with adequate artillery support and a promise that a recently canceled whiskey ration would be restored if they were successful, charged downhill and took up positions on the east bank. Maneuvering a captured light howitzer into position, they fired double canister down the bridge and got within 25 yards of their enemy. By 1 PM, Confederate ammunition was running low, and word reached Toombs that Rodman's men were crossing Snavely's Ford on their flank. He ordered a withdrawal. His Georgians cost the Union over 500 casualties while taking less than 140 themselves, and had stalled Burnside's assault on the southern flank for over 3 hours.

Burnside's assault against stalled on its own. His officers had neglected to transport ammunition across the bridge, which itself was becoming a bottleneck for soldiers, weapons, and artillery. This made another two-hour delay. General Lee used this time to bolster his right flank, bringing A.P. Hill's light division out of its rest, and they made it to the right of D.R. Jones's force with rested troops.

Burnside was not prepared for Hill's return to combat, and his plan was to move around a weakened Confederate right flank, converge on Sharpsburg, and cut off Lee's army from Boteler's Ford, their only escape round across the Potomac. At 3 PM, Burnside left Sturgis's division in reserve on the west bank, and moved west with over 8,000 troops, most fresh, and 18 guns for close support.

The initial assault led by the 79th NY "Cameron Highlanders" failed against Jones's division, having been reinforced by A.P. Hill. To the left, Rodman's division advanced towards Harpers Ferry Road, its lead brigade under Col. Harrison Fairchild, containing several colorful Zouaves of the 9th NY, commanded by Col. Rush Hawkins. They came under heavy shellfire from over a dozen enemy guns mounted on a ridge to their front, but kept pushing forward. There was a panic in the streets of Sharpsburg, clogged with retreating Confederates. Of the five brigades in Jones's division, only Toombs's brigade was still intact, but had only 700 men.

Hill's division had divided its column, two brigades guarding its flank, and the other three moving right of Toombs's brigade to prepare for counterattack. At 3:40 PM Brig. Gen. MAxcy Gregg's brigade of South Carolinians attacked the 16th Connecticut on Rodman's left flank in the cornfield of the farmer John Otto. The men from Connecticut had only been in service for three weeks, and their line disintegrated with 195 casualties. The 4th Rhode Island came up on their right, but had poor visibility in the high corn stalks, and were disoriented by Confederates wearing Union uniforms from Harpers Ferry. They also broke and ran, leaving the 8th Connecticut far out in front and isolated; they were enveloped and driven down the hills toward Antietam. Creek.

The IX Corps had casualties of about 22% but still had twice the number of Confederates confronting them. Unnerved by the collapse of his flank, Burnside ordered his men all the way back to the west bank of Antietam Creek, and urgently requested more men and guns, which McClellan refused to provide. He gave one battery, saying, "I can do nothing more. I have no infantry." He actually had two fresh corps in reserve, Porter's V and Franklin's VI, but he was worried about being outnumbered and a massive counterstrike by Lee was imminent. Burnside's men instead spent the day guarding the bridge.

The Battle was over about 5:30 PM. The next morning, Lee's army prepared for defending against a Union assault that never came. After an improvised truce for both sides to recover and exchange their wounded, Lee's forces began withdrawing north to Hagerstown, while McClellan retreated south to Frederick. Union losses were 14,890, with 3,570 dead, and Confederates were 9,887 with 1,291 dead.

The Union lost Maj Gen Joseph Mansfield and Israel Richardson, Brig Gen Isaac Rodman. Confederates lost no generals.

President Lincoln was disappointed in McClellan's performance. He believed that McClellan's overly cautious and poorly coordinated actions in the field had forced the battle to a draw rather than a crippling Confederate defeat. The President was even more astonished over the next month, despite repeated entreaties from the War Department and himself, McClellan declined to pursue Lee across Maryland, and back into Virginia, citing shortages of equipment and fearing overextending his forces. Lincoln relieved McClellan of his command of the Army of the Potomac on November 5, effectively ending the general's military career. He was replaced on November 9 by General Burnside.

Battle of Munfordville (September 19)

Confederate General Braxton Bragg managed to achieve a measure of success in the west, helping hold the Confederates' hopes, by occupying Munfordville on the Green River. He positioned his artillery all along the Green River, and if Buell wanted to go north, he would have to pass through Munfordville.

Union General Don Carlos Buell's supplies were running low and he needed to move, so he went north from Bowling Green, Kentucky. The two forces met on the 19th, where Bragg's forces, in concert with Kirby Smith's forces, opened fire about 6:30 AM.

Buell made fewer mistakes in the west than McClellan in the east, attempting to attack in coordinated waves but the Confederate artillery continued in concert with the infantry, shredding his lines, and forcing retreat after retreat.

Fighting continued until about 2:30 PM, when Buell ordered the retreat back to Nashville. Bragg had the option to follow and destroy his army, but he failed to do so. Conferring with Kirby Smith, the two began to move to Louisville, Kentucky, a major supply base which would help their armies and those in the east with fresh Union supplies.

Battle of Louisville (September 28)

Being practically undefended, much like Harpers Ferry, Kirby Smith and Bragg were able to catch Louisville almost by surprise. Bragg took the north side of the river, and Kirby Smith the south, and began the siege the meager Union defenses. After eight hours, the Union officers surrendered, and Louisville was in Confederate hands, leaving all of the Union supplies in dire jeopardy in the west.

President Davis ordered Smith and Bragg to take what supplies they could and reinforce Frankfort and both the AoNV and the Army of Tennessee. Wagons and trains of supplies, boots, munitions, cannons, medicines, and more moved into the South from Louisville, when Smith and Bragg managed to move south to Frankfort, where the Confederate capital kept them fed and rested.

Stanton's Subterfuge
General Butler, in charge of the Union forces operating in Louisiana, wrote to his old friend, Senator Henry Wilson, hoping to use his influence with Secretary Stanton to try to have some reinforcements sent immediately.  Two days later, Wilson replied that he had spoken to Stanton, who, according to Wilson, "agreed with me and expressed his confidence in you, and his approval of your vigor and ability."  Unknown to both, however, three weeks prior, Stanton wrote a secret order replacing Butler with General Nathaniel Banks.  When he found out about this, Butler would write "Can lying, injustice, deceit, and tergiversation farther go?"
 
Butler's behavior in Louisiana, however, probably had an impact on his removal.

Emancipation Proclamation

Lincoln had been waiting for the right time to release his preliminary document, which he called the 'Emancipation Proclamation.' He wanted to wait for a victory and believed the actions at Antietam might have been that time, but with the Confederates still in Maryland and having defeated Buell in Kentucky and Tennessee, now was not the time. He needed to change the course of the war; people were growing dispirited. Some where growing tired of his tactics used to maintain 'order' in the North, calling them unconstitutional. Lincoln's dream of a perpetual Union was on shaky ground. The Abolitionists in New England were growing restless. But they would have to wait. Now was not the time, and the proclamation would have to wait too.

Battle of Perryville, KY (October 8)

Bragg remained in Frankfort, while Smith took 32,000 troops to Perryville to meet Union General Buell. Kirby Smith was able to field nearly his entire army against the Union troops, forcing a defeat of the rested and resupplied Union army. Smith's Army of Kentucky took 2800 casualties (390 dead) to the 4500 Union casualties (1,024 dead).



Kirby Smith's Army of Kentucky Battle Flag, a common site in Kentucky to this day.



Buell retreated to Bowling Green, while Kirby Smith remained in Perryville to rest his army.

Rest and Refit

After Antietam, the Army of Northern Virginia underwent a remarkable transformation, doubling in size with stragglers coming in. On October 10 it was 64,273; by November 20, it was 76,472. Lee spent time drilling and resupplying them. Those with smoothbore muskets exchanged them for rifles from Harpers Ferry, clothing, boots, and blankets were passed out, and the army which was around Hagerstown moved south to Winchester, leaving the north for a time, having made a point to the Union.

J.E.B. Stuart made a dramatic 126-mile circuit around McClellan's army, rounding up 1200 new horses for the Confederates, hurting McClellan's reputation further.

After northern elections saw seven states go Democrat, the Republicans still maintained control of Congress. Lincoln had enough of McClellan and his slow maneuvering, and replaced him two days after the election with Major General Ambrose Burnside, who only took the job because Lincoln would otherwise have appointed Joseph Hooker, whom Burnside considered a devious conniver from Antietam.

Burnside met with Lincoln and recommended moving to Fredericksburg, VA, where he could get supplies by ship through Aquia Creek, twelve miles from the Potomac. After seizing the town, the army could proceed to Richmond, fifty miles away.

A better target would've been Lee's army, which he had split and were two days' march from each half. Burnside had 119,000 men and 374 guns only a day away from Longstreet's corps at Culpeper.

General Halleck wanted a repeat of Pope's plan of moving toward Gordonsville, while Lincoln would agree if he could move fast, cross the Rappahannock upstream from Fredericksburg, and captured the town from the flank and rear, and seized the heights. Burnside, however, did the opposite and approached from the low land. He waited nearly a week to enter town because he wanted to wait for the pontoon bridges.

Threatening the Foreigners

Abraham Lincoln feared the French and English would help the Confederates during the war.  The British sent a message in October to end the war, or face "more resolute action" from them.  The French wanted to add Mexico to their empire, and without the US to enforce the Monroe Doctrine.  The Americans sent their Ambassador to Russia to ask their help against the British and French, who were also supporting the Polish insurrection against the Russians.

Election Meddling in Delaware

The Lincoln Administration was worried about the results of the November 1862 election in the tiny, 3-county state of Delaware.  Congressman George P. Fisher, a Republican from Delaware, was afraid of the "southern sympathy" in the state possibly leading to a defeat in the coming elections for the Republicans, and began petitioning Lincoln's administration to do something about it.  Lincoln had a "warm feeling and high regard" for Fisher, who wrote to him on the 14th of August.  He had gotten only a 'plurality' of 247 votes in 1860, and wanted Lincoln to keep Delaware troops at home so they could vote in the election.  He believed that the extra 500-1000 votes would strengthen the chances of Republicans holding the state.  Fisher also asked Lincoln to postpone drafting troops from Delaware until after the election, and strip Governor William Burton, a Democrat, of all appointment power over volunteer and militia units from the state.  Lincoln agreed to most of his requests, and was "painfully surprised" to hear of his concerns over the election.

A little election in October terrified the Delaware Republicans.  Democrats swept most local offices in the state, and they feared a coming Democrat victory in November.  False reports of Southern sympathizers from Maryland coming to influence the election circulated, and hostile Democrats crowding polling places.  So, Republican gubernatorial candidate William Cannon continued to seek help from local military officials to 'put down' the Democrat resurgence and help him gain political office.  In mid-October, about 100-120 US cavalry 'paraded' through the state, cheered for Republican candidates, attended political meetings, and insulted the Democrat candidate for Congress, William Temple, as well as other Democrats.  They state 2 weeks, and most Democrats concluded they were there to intimidate them and spread alarm.

Several Republicans, including Congressman Fisher, met in Milford, Delaware to discuss the possibility of military occupation on election day.  Fisher asked for armed intervention in the election, and the others agrees it was necessary to prevent a Democrat victory.  Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War, initially denied the request, but William Canon personally asked Colonel James Wallace (a slave-holding Republican) from Maryland's Home Guards to enter the state on election day.  The Maryland Home Guards had been in the state before disarming (against the 2nd amendment) and arresting anti-Republican militia units.  According to the Constitution, only the actual governor could request troops to enter a state, so as a simple candidate, it was very irregular for Cannon to make such a request.  Stanton, however, complied with the request, as did Col. Wallace, and 1200 troops arrived in the state in Kent and Sussex counties a few days before the election.

Wallace divided the troops into units of 40-60 men and distributed them to polling places throughout the state under the command of Provost Marshals, who were appointed without the governor's authority, and were considered "active and violent partisans of the Republican party."  Governor Burton was not even told the troops were coming.  Voters across Kent and Sussex were intimidated with drawn sabers at voting windows in Georgetown, and Democrats were charged with fixed bayonets in Dover.  Other Democrats were required to take an oath of allegiance before they would be allowed to vote, and many Democrat ballots were replaced with Republican ballots.  Many Democrats were arrested and jailed by the troops who suspected them of being disloyal, or if they refused the oath, and many were driven from polling locations by the troops.

Republicans claimed the troops were necessary to prevent disorder, but could not recall any incidents after the election.  Unfortunately for the Republicans, the blatant election meddling failed, and Fisher lost his seat to William Temple, and Democrats gained control of the Delaware legislature.

Later, governor Gove Saulsbury formed a committee to investigate the occupation, and interviewed over 100 witnesses.  He concluded that the Lincoln Administration should be branded "in infamy and everlasting disgrace" for introducing troops into "one of the feeblest states in the union, for no other purpose than to determine the result of her local election," for getting the country into a war, suspending habeas corpus, suppressing free speech, and depriving many of life and liberty.

Note: This information on Delaware is taken from an article on Lew Rockwell by Brion McClanahan and is not my own work.

Battle of Fredericksburg (December 13)


Massaponax Bridge Fredericksburg, Va., December 12, 1862

To the now seasoned veterans in the Confederate Army, the signs of a coming attack were unmistakable. The Union General Ambrose Burnside's Army of the Potomac, with 122,009 men, had threatened General Robert E. Lee's troops at Fredericksburg for weeks.  Now on December 12th, reports were coming in that indicated that Union forces were massing for the long-awaited assault.  As usual, Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was outnumbered, but here they held the high ground, a strong position in any battle.  And in this instance with a massive coming attack by the Union Army of the Potomac, the Confederates would need every advantage. Lee had the Irish Regiment (2200 strong), and he had the Scottish Regiment (2400 strong), amongst his 78,513 troops.



Irish and Scottish Regimental Flags within the Confederate Army



General Lee conferred with his "right arm" to finalize their battle plans.  General Jackson, along with his cavalry commander, J.E.B. Stuart, and other key commanders from his army.  From their war council came the nearly impregnable defensive line at Fredericksburg.  When the enemy attacked, the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia would be ready.  Lee had created what looked to be a plan for a decisive victory.  The next day, the Union army would end up dashing against the solid Confederate defenses like the ocean battering against a cliff, achieving nothing but scattering its waves.  The coming Battle of Fredericksburg would prove to be one of Robert E. Lee's greatest victories.

Singing in the Ranks

Singing and playing instruments was a common thing for soldiers to try to keep their spirits up in the grueling trials of war. The Irish Confederates who fought with Lee began singing a very traditional Gaelic song "Óró, sé do bheatha 'bhaile" (pronounced: oh-ro sheh ðo va-heh wol-yeh, "oro, welcome home!"), an ancient Irish march, which some associate with Prince Charles (Séarlas Óg) in the 1740s.

This song's lyrics would be altered to fit the current situation, as any song would be.  The new lyrics and translations coming out of the war:

Chapter 8

Confiscation Act (1862)

Congress passed the Confiscation Act which freed slaves whose owners were in rebellion to the United States, and then the Militia Act of 1862, which authorized the President to use those slaves in any capacity in the army. Frederick Douglass, wrote in 1861:

"It is now pretty well established, that there are at the present moment many colored men in the Confederate army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers, but as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down loyal troops, and do all that soldiers may to destroy the Federal Government and build up that of the traitors and rebels. There were such soldiers at Manassas, and they are probably there still. There is a Negro in the army as well as in the fence, and our Government is likely to find it out before the war comes to an end. That the Negroes are numerous in the rebel army, and do for that army its heaviest work, is beyond question. They have been the chief laborers upon those temporary defences in which the rebels have been able to mow down our men. Negroes helped to build the batteries at Charleston. They relieve their gentlemanly and military masters from the stiffening drudgery of the camp, and devote them to the nimble and dexterous use of arms. Rising above vulgar prejudice, the slaveholding rebel accepts the aid of the black man as readily as that of any other."

It took time, but the Union began accepting black troops to fight for the Union, though they would often be paid late or not at all, and white officers would have to be forced to take command of those units, as many were not interested in working with black soldiers. Even states such as Oregon and Illinois had added provisions to their constitutions forbidding blacks from entering their states, and many other northern states added such onerous 'black codes' to their laws that while blacks were free, they were essentially excluded from the benefits of citizenship.

Union League

Up in Philadelphia, to help boost sagging morale amongst the northern populations, the Union League was founded in the city of Philadelphia.

Union League Building, completed 1865

The League's members also actively proselytized in areas of the South that were under Union control, attempting to sway blacks with Union (Northern) ideas and getting them to betray the whites in the area so they could root out opposition to Union occupation in Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Virginia.  With this, they began sowing seeds of distrust and hatred, attempting to remake the South in the image of the North.

Dakota War of 1862

Over in Minnesota, Union General John Pope fought from August to December against a tribe of Sioux Indians. The Indians had demanded annuity payments agreed to in treaty be made directly to their agent Thomas J. Galbraith, as they had too often been late or unfair for some time. Combined with food shortages, famine, hunting no longer providing enough food, past broken treaties, and non-payment due to federal preoccupation with the war, the Dakota were forced to fight against white encroachment against their lands.

The Minnesota militia lost a major battle at Birch Coulee in September, but reinforcements arrived and by late September, the US forces won the Battle of Wood Lake. Most of the Dakota surrendered after this battle, and the 498 captives had rapid trials without a defense and most didn't understand what was happening. They often lasted about 5 minutes a piece.

Of the 500 captured, President Lincoln commuted the sentences of all but 39 individuals, choosing the ones who would be executed. A mass execution was held and 38 were hanged.




A New Year

The new year started well for the Confederates. They successfully defeated the Union boats off the coast from Galveston, which opened up that port to accepting incoming goods from the Caribbean and South America. In Rio Grande, Jefferson [OTL La Pesca] managed to be reopened by a force of Confederates on January 2, notably Juan Pablo Gutierrez, Confederate Major, and Guillermo (Willie) Schmidt, the naval Captain in charge of three cottonclads which helped capture the 560 Union naval officers and men blocking the port.

However, at Arkansas Post and Hartsville, Missouri, the Confederates experienced their first setbacks. At Arkansas Post, Major General Thomas Churchill was forced to surrender his 4900 men, though they did cost the Union 1300 casualties in the process. At Hartsville, Union Colonel Samuel Merrill fought an indecisive battle with Confederate Major General John Marmaduke. While the overall war could not truthfully be called a 'civil war' as Lincoln continued to call it, the fighting in Missouri could truly be called a civil war with Unionists and Confederates fighting for control of the state.

On the 27th of January, the Union tried taking Fort McAllister, in Bryan County, Georgia, but even with the four ironclads and their monitors, they were unable to force the fort's surrender. To make matters worse, Confederate sharpshooters shot and killed* Captain Drayton, when he and Commander Miller stepped onto the deck of the USS Passaic.

In the west, General Forrest and his cavalry were fighting for their cause. When the war started, Forrest spoke with his 45 slaves, and told them that if they fought for him through the war, he would free them; if the Yankees won, they'd be free anyway. At this point, all 45 were still with him two years into the war, and eight of them were among his "green berets," his elite honor guard, plus another twenty black freedmen. Forrest would continue to push for Davis to offer emancipation for any slaves or blacks who would serve in the army for the duration of the war, but at this early point in the year, Davis wouldn't consider it. Slaveholders in Virginia, especially those in the Confederate Congress, didn't want to consider such a thing at this point in the war. Forrest ignored them, and recruited free blacks along his travels anyhow; they were equipped with uniforms, rifles, and provisions, and were paid exactly the same as Forrest's white troops. In Louisiana, the Native Guard grew to four brigades, the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Louisiana Native Guard; each regiment including a mixture of creoles and free men of color, and featuring the Louisiana Flag prominently in their fighting.


1st LA Native Guard, an integrated Confederate Unit, whereas Union forces would segregate their black troops



Flag flown by 1st LA Native Guard, along with the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th

President Davis noted that some of his army would show less sympathy to US Colored Troops than to the white troops of the Union and issued a memorandum to his generals, stating that any captured US Colored Soldier should be given the same treatment as a white soldier, and any who would swear an oath and fight for the Confederacy would receive equal and timely pay as any Confederate soldier. This caused a ruckus amongst several in the command class, as many both north and south didn't believe in black equality, but the President stated in no uncertain terms his expectation for this to be obeyed. The South needed men to fight, he knew, and this might help. In practice, only a few hundred captured black Union troops moved over to the Confederate side, namely those whom the Union had captured as "contraband" and forced into uniform.
*
Battle of Stones River (12-31 to January 2nd, 1863)

What the Confederates call the Second Battle of Murfreesboro (Union: Battle of Stones River) was fought from the 31st of December, 1862 to the 2nd of January 1863 in Middle Tennessee, after Confederate General Braxton Bragg had brought his troops south from the former Union depot of Louisville, and later Frankfort, and Lexington, a force of 28,000, meeting up with General Kirby Smith's 10,000 troops around Murfreesboro.

Union General William Rosecran's Army of the Cumberland marched from Nashville, TN, on December 26, 1862 to challenge his Confederate counterpart. Each general planned to attack his opponent's right flank, but Bragg struck first. A massive assault by the corps of Maj. Gen. William Hardee, followed by that of Leonidas Polk, overran the wing commanded by Maj. Gen. Alexander McCook.

A stout defense by Union Brig. Gen. Philip Sheridan on the right center of the line prevented a total collapse, and the Union assumed a tight defensive position backing up to the Nashville Turnpike. Repeated Confederate assaults were repulsed from the concentrated Union line, most notably in the "Round Forest" against the brigade of Col. William Hazen. Bragg attempted to continue the assault with Maj. Gen. John Breckinridge, but his troops were slow in arriving, and their multiple piecemeal attacks failed against the Union forces.

One of the rising stars in the fight was Major General Patrick Cleburne, who seamlessly filled a gap in the Confederate lines during the fight. His troops were also responsible for the death of Union Major General Crittenden, brother of another Union General.

Fighting resumed on the 2nd of January when Bragg ordered Breckinridge to assault the well-fortified Union position on a hill to the east of the Stones River. Faced with overwhelming artillery, the Confederates were repulsed again with heavy losses. Falsely believing Rosecrans was receiving reinforcements, Bragg chose to withdraw his army on the 3rd to Tullahoma, TN, causing him to lose the confidence of the Army of Tennessee.

Nashville remained a Union supply base that a better general would go after, but not Bragg. This was a huge boost to Union morale after the defeats from late '62.



The 2nd and 6th Kentucky splashing across Stones River, about to face Union artillery. The scene would be reenacted in the Kinos in "Kentucky's Brigade"

Enrollment Act

The Union war effort needed men, so Congress passed the Enrollment Act (1863), which required every male citizen and immigrant who applied for citizenship between 20 and 45 to enroll, a form of conscription. Each county had its own quota to provide troops for the war effort.

The act allowed persons to pay $300 to avoid the draft, called commutation, and allowed substitution, where a person could provide someone else to take his place if drafted. This allowed a powerful incentive for a substitute to desert after collecting his compensation, then being named again, and collecting compensation again. Commutation was intended to keep the price of substitution low, and collect funds for the war; it was criticized as being better at collecting money than troops.


Battle of Vaught's Hill (March 20)

In Rutherford County, TN, after the Battle of Stones River, a Union brigade-sized reconnaissance force under Col. Albert Hall left Murfreesboro on March 18. they circled northeast, encountering Confederate Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan's cavalry command, causing him to fall back to a position east of Milton. Pursuing Hall, Morgan's men caught up with him on the morning of the 20th at Vaught's Hill. Dismounted, Morgan struck at both Union flanks, even to the point of encircling Hall's hilltop position. Hall conducted a perimeter defense and withstood each Confederate attack, which lasted till after 2 PM. Morgan continued bombarding them till 4:30 PM, when he broke off the engagement, after learning Union reinforcements were on the way from Murfreesboro. Union forces would continue to strengthen their position in Middle Tennessee.

Losses: 373 (CS) to 63 (US)

Battle of Brentwood (March 25)

Union Lt. Col Edward Bloodgood held Brentwood, a station on the Nashville & Decatur Railroad with 400 men on the morning of March 25. That very morning, Confederate Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest approached the town with a powerful column. The day prior, Forrest had ordered Col J.W. Starnes, of the 2nd Brigade, to go to Brentwood to cut the telegraph, tear up the railroad track, attack the stockade, and cut off any retreat.

Forrest and the other cavalry brigade joined Bloodgood about 7 AM on the 25th. A messenger from the stockade informed Bloodgood that Forrest's men were about to attack, and had destroyed the railroad tracks. Bloodgood sought to notify his superiors and discovered the telegraph lines had been cut also.

Forrest sent in a demand for surrender under flag of truce, but Bloodgood refused. Within a half-hour though, Forrest had artillery in place to shell his position, and had surrounded the Federals with a large force. Bloodgood decided to surrender.

Forrest and his men did considerable damage in the area during his expedition, and Brentwood, on the railroad, was a big loss to the Union.

Losses: 6 (CS), 306 (US)

March and April

On March 5th, a reinforced Union infantry brigade under Col. John Coburn left Franklin, TN to reconnoiter south towards Columbia. Four miles from Spring Hill, Coburn attacked a Confederate Army force of two regiments and was repelled. Then, Major General Earl Van Dorn seized the initiative.


Earn Van Dorn's Battle Flag, the stars representing states in the CS; later versions in 1864 would include 16 stars

Brig. Gen. W.H. "Red" Jackson's dismounted 2nd Division made a frontal attack, while Brig. Gen. Nathan Forrest swept around Coburn's left flank with his division, and into his rear. After three attempts, Jackson carried the Union hilltop position as Forrest captured Coburn's wagon train and blocked the road to Nashville in his rear. Out of ammo and surrounded, Coburn surrendered, along with all but two of his field officers, lessening Union influence in Middle Tennessee for a while, and helping Confederate sympathizers express themselves a little more freely.

Van Dorn and Forrest got help from an unlikely participant. Miss Alice Thompson, 17 at the time, was visiting the house of Lieutenant Banks. The 3rd Arkansas Cavalry Regiment was advancing through the yard, and lost their Colonel (Samuel Earle) and color bearer, throwing the regiment into disorder. Alice rushed out, raised the flag, and led the regiment to victory. President Davis gave her a Medal of Freedom (red ribbon, three gray stripes, with a bronze disk showing the Goddess Freedom on it) for her actions in late 1863.

Van Dorn flags popped up amongst some homes after this battle, and became popular in both Tennessee and Kentucky after the war.

Louisiana Raids (March-April)

Union Major General Nathaniel Banks launched a campaign at the Bayou Teche region of Louisiana, while federal forces were besieging Confederate positions at Port Hudson along the Mississippi River.  He captured Brashear City, and by mid April, Union troops pushed back the outnumbered Southern defenders at Fort Bisland and Irish Bend.

Major General Banks promised to protect civilians, but the orders he gave to do so were nearly completely unenforced and ignored.  One of the first victims of the Union invasion of Louisiana was a man named John Bateman, a planter living along the lower Atchafalaya River.  This 70-year-old man feared for his safety, so he took the oath of allegiance to the Union, an waved his papers, pleading to the Union troops for protection as a loyal citizen of the United States.  None of that mattered.  The Union troops, under Banks, vandalized his home, smashing windows and mirrors, and carried away everything they could find of value.*
--
A French citizen, named Louis Francois Desire Arnaud tried to protect his home and his property by flying the French flag, but that did no good.  The Union soldiers took everything they saw, including his wife's wedding ring, smashed his furniture and china, and even threw dead animals into his well to poison it.  Once they left, it took months for him to repair the damage; by that time he planted a crop of yams and corn.

The Union army returned in fall of 1863, and Arnaud was eager to avoid their theft and destruction, so he went to the military headquarters and swore an oath of allegiance to the United States, but after having done that, he returned home, finding his crops being harvested by Union army foragers.  He lost his temper, and began shouting at them.  The troops then shackled him, gagged him, arrested him, and sent him to a military stockade.*
--
Men in the 21st Indiana Infantry Regiment came ashore from their gunboat to raid the home of a man named Dorsino Rentrop.  The man was gravely ill, and he died soon after the Union raiders left.  When they returned the next day, they arrested his grieving sons, calling them Confederate soldiers.  Later, Rentrop's grave was broken into by Union robbers, which forced the family to disinter Rentrop's body and return it to their home to protect it from the Yankees.  Shortly after, the two sons did sign up to join the Confederate Army because of what the Union did to their father.*
--
The 2nd Rhode Island Cavalry Regiment pillaged the home of a man named Davison Olivier.  The Union soldiers rummaged through his armoire and closets, and shared the contents of his wallet amongst themselves.  At another man's home, a cavalry detachment dismounted, busted through the front door of Louise Fusilier, and began taking whatever they wanted.  Her gardener, an old man who only spoke French, was terrified, and was pistol-whipped by a sergeant who then knocked him to the ground before rummaging through his pockets.*
--
Mr and Mrs Antoine Goulas were both robbed at gunpoint by Union soldiers, who stole their infant son's clothing and bedding.*
--
Several Union officers grabbed jewelry and watches from Joseph Frere's house before breaking open armoires and bureaus looking for clothing to steal.*
--
One brigadier general, William Dwight, Jr. confessed to the crimes of the soldiers under his command, denouncing the lack of discipline and "the utter incompetency of regimental officers."  He described their actions marching from Indian Village to New Iberia:

"The scenes of disorder and pillage on these two days' march were disgraceful to civilized war.  Houses were entered and all in them destroyed in the most wanton manner.  Ladies were frightened into delivering their jewels and valuables into the hands of the soldiers by threats of violence toward their husbands.  Negro women were ravished in the presence of white women and children."*
--
Two miles from a settlement named Jeanerette, an elderly man named Say who spoke only French begged for protection.  His married daughter's nearby home had already been "sacked even to the destruction of his granddaughter's toys," in the words of one Union officer.  The man was promised a guard, but "the whole plantation rang for the rest of the evening with the cackling of chickens and geese, the squealing of pigs, and the lowering of cattle" said the same officer.  In his words, "the plundering went on under our noses while an order was being composed to forbid it."  The guilty soldiers were punished by being admonished in a 'lecture' and then sent on their way.*
--
Union troops plundered a Catholic church in New Iberia, dancing in the priests' robes.  The men and boys of the town were forced at bayonet point to work for 15 days to build earthwork defenses at the order of Brigadier General Stephen Burbridge.*
--
Smallpox showed up in New Iberia in the invading Union army.  Local doctors begged for a vaccine to inoculate the unprotected civilians.  Soldiers from the 114th New York Infantry Regiment had broken into a drugstore at St. Martinsville, stealing or destroying all medicines and medical instruments, so New Iberia's medical provisions were in very short supply.  Dr. Sabatier, a doctor from that town, would later swear that the vaccine the Union army finally had given to him was either poisoned or contaminated, because hundreds of patients got terrible infections from it that took months to treat.*
--
Union troops rounded up all sorts of animals - horses, ponies, sheep, cattle, and oxen - in a pen in Opelousas and left them there to die uncared for.*
--
In the town of Vermilion, one man named Elise Thibodeaux, who spoke only French, was shocked when he saw hundreds of cattle corralled in his yard, then shot dead by the soldiers.  He couldn't question them since he didn't speak English, but could only come to the conclusion that it was done to deny the civilians their means of living.  When his neighbors came by to help bury the dead animal carcasses, they counted 1700 dead animals.*
--
Finally, one man named Dasincourt Borel, who lived near New Iberia, lost everything to the marauding Union army.  But then he went and complained to General Banks.  He told Banks that he wanted at least one horse returned, because "it is the only means of support I have left me and if I do not get it, I cannot support my family.  My children will starve." 

Banks replied, "The horse is no more your property than the rest.  Louisiana is mine. I intend to take everything."*

This is only a selection of what the Union army did in Louisiana while occupying the state so as to return it to the Union.

*This actually happened in real history

First Battle of Franklin (April 10)

The first battle at Franklin was a reconnaissance in force by Confederal cavalry Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn, coupled with an equally inept response by Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger. Van Dorn advanced northward from Spring Hill, TN, on April 10, making contact with Federal skirmishiers just outside Franklin. Van Dorn's attack was so weak that when Granger received a false report that Brentwood to the north was under attack, he believed it and sent most of his cavalry northward thinking that Van Dorn was just a diversion to the real attack.

When the truth came out, that there was no threat to Brentwood, Granger decided to attack Van Dorn, but was surprised to learn one of his subordinates had already done so without orders. Brig. Gen. David Stanley, with a brigade from the 4th US Cavalry, had crossed the Harpeth River at Huges's Ford, behind the Confederate right rear. Stanley attacked and captured Freeman's Tennessee Battery on the Lewisburg Road, but lost it when Brig. Gen. Nathan B Forrest counterattacked. This incident to his rear caused Van Dorn to cancel his operations and withdraw to Spring Hill, leaving the Union in control of the area.

Brig. Gen. David Stanley was posthumously* awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions at Franklin, when he rode to the front of his brigades to reestablish the lines.



Note: OTL, Stanley survived the battle

Lieber Code
On April 26, Lincoln's War Department promulgated General Order 100, commonly called the Lieber Code, for its author, Franz Lieber.  Given the common wartime acts against the laws of war - theft of civilian property, destruction of civilian property, violations of women, murders, arson, and more - the code was written to try to stop such actions on the part of the Union Army.  However, every instruction seemed to negate itself, making the code apply when it suited the Union Army, and exceptions became the norm rather than following the code.

Confederate Secretary of War, James Seddon remarked that the code was "a confused, unassorted, and undiscriminating compilation."  He said that a commander under this code, "may pursue a line of conduct in accordance with principles of justice, faith, and honor, or he may justify conduct correspondent with the barbarous hordes who overran the Roman Empire, or who, in the Middle Ages, devastated the continent of Asia and menaced the civilization of Europe."

For example, Article 17: "War is not carried on by arms alone.  It is lawful to starve the hostile belligerent, armed or unarmed, so that it leads to the speedier subjugation of the enemy."  Article 21: "The citizen or native of a hostile country is thus an enemy, as one of the constituents of the hostile state or nation, and as such is subjected to the hardships of war."  It concluded that "The more vigorously wars are pursued, the better it is for humanity."


Battle of Chancellorsville (May 1 - 6)*

Going into the battle, Lee had about 60,000 men and 170 guns to the Union's 138,000 men and 428 guns. General Lee had sent most of Longstreet's division to attempt to protect against a possible strike on Richmond, leaving him fewer men to handle what would be coming soon.



After the infamous 'mud march' in January, Burnside had been replaced by "Fighting Joe" Hooker, who had no open political ambitions. Lincoln wrote him on January 26 that "only generals who gain successes can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship." While Lincoln hadn't released an Emancipation Proclamation, he authorized northern soldiers to capture and enlist blacks into the army to free them and deny their labor to feeding southern armies, which was having roughly the same effect on drying up northern enlistments leading to northern conscription.



In the south, Hooker decided to send his cavalry to try to block the retreat of Lee's army by seizing Gordonsville and other points along the Virginia Central Railroad, then turn east behind Lee. Hooker hoped this would force Lee to evacuate Fredericksburg and retreat to Richmond or Gordonsville; his plan was foiled by heavy rains, so he abandoned the plan and decided to send his forces around Lee's western flank. He sent 40,000 men under Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick (1st and 6th corps) to cross at Fredericksburg and hold the Confederates in place, while 42,000 men under Major General Henry Slocum were to march up to Kelly's Ford rather than United States Ford, allowing the Union to seize both US Ford and Banks Ford. By the morning of April 29th, all three Union corps had crossed Kelly's Ford without Confederate J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry detecting them.



Couriers alerted Lee that same afternoon that the Federals had crossed over these fords, and Lee realized Stuart was wrong, and a Union force of unknown size was descending on his left flank. Stuart realized he was out of place, and moved with Fitzhugh Lee's 3300-man brigade to assist Lee eastward, and had W.H.F. "Rooney" Lee's 1000-trooper brigade set to deal with Maj. Gen. George Stoneman's 10,000 Union cavalry to the Confederate rear. Stuart did well in concentrating his cavalry forces where they were needed - at the front of both armies. With this cavalry screen, Lee had quick and accurate information, while Pleasonton, who couldn't penetrate Stuart's shields, was unable to give Hooker information about Confederate movements. Lee ignored Stoneman's breaks of the railway lines, reducing Stoneman's moves to a giant but useless raid.



By the morning of April 30, Stuart had captured some prisoners from the three Union corps, and Lee knew now the size of the force opposing him. It was 2/3 the size of his entire army. Richard Anderson couldn't stand alone, so Lee had him find a strong position and dig in. Anderson retreated back 4/5 miles east of Chancellorsville to Zoan Church and began building entrenchments.



Chancellorsville was really just one large two-story brick house with pillar and a large clearing around it. Union Maj. Gen. Henry Slocum's force continued eastward to seize Banks Ford, about 6 miles northeast of Chancellorsville. Hooker's division of his army would not be complete till this was done. Already, he had 70,000 men and 208 guns on Lee's flank by the morning of May 1.



Lee faced two forces on both sides, and Hooker moved on Lee's left flank to strike against a weakly held point, remaining so only if Sedgwick sent in a powerful frontal assault against the main Confederate line at Fredericksburg, which he didn't. Hooker gave Sedgwick the option of whether or not to advance, and he did not insist on an all-out attack, being a fatal error. With Sedgwick idle, Lee ordered Lafayette McLaws's division to march at once to aid Anderson over at Zoan Church, leaving only William Barksdale's Mississippi brigade to defend Marye's Heights. He also had Jackson march three divisions of his corps at daylight to Zoan Church, take charge of the western flank, and "repulse the enemy."



Jackson left his fourth division, under Jubal Early, along with William Pendleton's reserve artillery, to watch Sedgwick, effectively turning his back on Sedgwick. He had about 10,000 men on the heights, against Sedgwick's 40,000 while pointing 47,000 men and 114 guns west to face Hooker.



Union Maj. Gen. Hooker planned only a modest advance on May 1, to get out of the Wilderness and seize Banks Ford. He started his move in the morning, sending separate columns eastward, but Stonewall Jackson had already reached Zoan Church by 8 AM, and was well aware of the character of the Wilderness. If the Confederates got into the open east of the Wilderness, they would not be able to counter Federal cannons. Knowing this, Jackson had Anderson and McLaws stop building their entrenchments, and with his corps, form up in order of battle to advance westward into the Wilderness.



What Jackson knew was that if he could push Hooker back into the Wilderness, the Federal artillery advantage would be much diminished, evening up the odds, even if the woods would provide excellent defensive positions to both sides. Even more importantly, by pushing Hooker back into the Wilderness, he could prevent the Union army from reaching open country, where its vastly greater power might overwhelm the smaller army Lee now had under his command. In a brilliant stroke, Jackson had turned a desperate situation threatening the destruction of the Army of Northern Virginia into an opportunity for victory.



Hooker was stunned by Jackson's move; rather than using his immensely superior force to challenge Jackson's advance and force him back, Hooker retreated to Chancellorsville and built a defensive line in an arc of crude but strong earthworks and logs just east and south of the crossroads. Hooker had yielded the initiative to Lee with this move and gave up the high ground, angering his generals.



The night of the 1st, Hooker told General Couch, "I have got Lee just where I want him. He must fight me on my own ground." Couch later wrote: "To hear from his own lips that the advantages gained by the successful marches of his lieutenants were to culminate in fighting a defensive battle in that nest of thickets was too much, and I retired from his presence with the belief that my commanding general was a whipped man." Additionally, Hooker detached a 16,000-man force, the 1st Corps, under John Reynolds from Sedgwick at Fredericksburg to Chancellorsville, leaving Sedgwick with 24,000 men in his 6th Corps, indicating he had abandoned the thought of holding the bulk of Lee's forces on the heights below Fredericksburg.



Lee arrived May 1, and around 7:30 PM met with Jackson. Their army had two options - attack frontally at Chancellorsville, or move around the southern Union flank. Lee sent off two engineers to study Hooker's defensive positions, and they reported back they were too strong to be carried by a frontal assault (Lee's most favored strategy). This meant the only option was a flanking movement (Jackson's favored strategy).



Lee and Jackson's war council, with Stuart having joined in.



While Lee and Jackson were discussing the matter, J.E.B. Stuart rode up and announced that Fitzhugh Lee had discovered the Federal right stretched out along the Orange Turnpike west of Chancellorsville, facing south; this line was, in his words, "floating in the air," meaning it rested on no secure defensive position on its western end, and the corp commander (Oliver Howard) had established no defenses facing west.



If the Confederates could swing all the way around Hooker's southern flank, and emerge on the turnpike facing east, the confederates could drive straight down the road toward Chancellorsville, and roll up the entire western flank of the Union army. But this same strategy had a lot of danger. The Confederate army was only about half the size of their opponents, and it had already been divided because Lee had to leave 10,000 men to watch Sedgwick at Fredericksburg. Doing this would divide their forces again, and either segment alone would be too small to fight a pitched battle with Hooker's forces if he struck with most of his force.



Even with this, both Lee and Jackson realized a flanking movement was the only means they had to drive Hooker back across the Rappahannock river. Lee ordered the operation, and appointed Jackson to carry it out, with Stuart to shield the march with his cavalry. Jackson rose, smiling, touched his cap, and said, "My troops will move at 4 o' clock."



Although Lee had approved of the turning movement, nothing else had been decided. The route, exact objective, and number of troops were yet to be settled.



Lee's original idea was for a simple flanking movement to dislodge Hooker from his defensive positions around Chancellorsville and force him to retreat back across the river. But Jackson saw a way to destroy the Union army. If the Confederate troops could get between United States Ford and Hooker's forces around Chancellorsville, they could cut off his only means of retreat, and the Union army, caught between Jackson on one side, and Lee on the other, would be compelled to surrender.



This evening, Jackson told his medical officer, Hunter McGuire, "We sometimes fail to drive them from position, but they always fail to drive us."



May 2

Jackson questioned his chaplain, Tucker Lacy, whose family owned land in the area, about the best route to take. He remembered Charles Wellford owned a furnace called Catharine Furnace, a few miles southwest. Jackson's mapmaker, Jedediah Hotchkiss, joined Lacy to find Wellford, who pointed out a covered route, and appointed his young son Charles as a guide.

Once they returned, Lee was again conferring with Jackson. Hotchkiss traced the route for the generals. Lee was silent a moment.

Lee said, "General Jackson, what do you propose to do?"

"Go around there," Jackson replied, pointing to the line Hotchkiss showed them.

"What do you propose to make this movement with?" Lee asked.

Without hesitation, Jackson replied, "With my whole corps."

"What will you leave me?" Lee asked in reply.

"The divisions of Anderson and McLaws," Jackson answered. Lee had earlier rejected Jackson's earlier proposals for massive strikes on the enemy's flanks, but his surety convinced him. He hesitated briefly.

"Well, go on," Lee finally said.

Jackson's corps began moving forward around 7 AM. As the head of the column swung southwest toward the furnace, Jackson rode a short distance behind with his staff. Lee stood by the road to say goodbye. The pair talked briefly before Lee nodded, and Jackson rode on.

Lee was left with 18,000 men, and started making demonstrations to make the Union troops believe they were intent on attacking from the east. Despite this, the Federals discovered Jackson's march soon after it started. Brig. Gen. David Birney, in command of a division in Daniel Sickles's 3rd corps reported the news to Hooker, who decided the Confederates were retreating, with the direction indicating Gordonsville as the destination. Hooker gave warning to Slocum and Howard, commanding the 12th and 11th Corps respectively, he didn't regard the threat highly, and neither did they.

Birney and Whipple's divisions moved forward, but Carnot Posey's Mississippi brigade in Richard Anderson's division, posted east of the furnace challenged their advance, and the 21st Georgia, detached from Jackson's column, defended the furnace. These forces allowed the rest of Jackson's corps to pass beyond the reach of Federal probes, including the Federal battery that Birney ordered deployed at Hazel Grove, which fired on them.

Jackson's corps marched southwest to the end of Furnace Road, then turned northwest on Brock Road. About 1 PM, Jackson and Fitzhugh Lee saw Union entrenchments a few hundred miles away, facing south.

During the march, Sickles decided he could break the Confederate column, which he and Hooker thought was retreating to Gordonsville. Sickles surrounded the 21st Georgia at Catharine Furnace, capturing most of them, but Howard asked for reinforcements, getting 1500 men under Francis Barlow, reducing Howard's corps to 11,500 men, spread out for nearly two miles along Orange Turnpike. Most of their emplacements faced south, not west, with only two weak lines of Howard's corps facing west.

Jackson's plan was to move eastward along the turnpike, roll up Howard's 11th Corps, and drive into the rear of the corps belonging to Slocum, Couch, and Sickles. He deployed his men, making as little noise as possible. In the first line, Robert E Rodes's division; in the second 200 yards back, Raleigh E Colston's division; behind that, partly in column, A.P. Hill's division.

Since Howard's corps was on the turnpike, the major thrust of the attack was going to be made by three brigades of Rodes's division near the road (Doles's GA Brigade, Edward O'Neal's AL Brigade, and Alfred Iverson's NC Brigade), with Colquitt's GA Brigade, Dodson Ramseur's NC Brigade, and E.P. Paxton's Brigade. E.P. Paxton's Stonewall Brigade was along the south, whose main job was to clear out any Union detachments south of the main line along the turnpike.

Paxton's advance was important, because their path would take them over both Hazel Grove and Fairview, both elevated positions where guns could be emplaced, and capturing them would endanger Hooker's entire position. Additionally, seizing Hazel Grove would separate Sickles's large force from Hooker's main body, and likely lead to its surrender.

Jackson didn't realized the significance of those two points at the moment, but he ordered his troops to push resolutely ahead, allowing nothing to stop them, even disorder in their ranks. He ordered that if any part of the first line needed help to call on aid from the second line without further instruction; under no circumstances was there to be any pause.

By 5:15 PM, everything was ready, and Stonewall Jackson released his soldiers, who descended like thunder on the Union army, which only became aware of the danger when deer and other wild animals, stirred up by the Confederate lines, rushed in fright through their positions.



Jackson's 11th Corps fighting in the Wilderness



Doles's Georgians, a mile forward of their starting point, encountered von Gilsa's soldiers preparing their evening meal. The Federals hastily formed a line of battle, but Doles's force smashed straight into their position. The Federals stood three volleys, but then fell apart, the men hurtling backward in complete disarray. Von Gilsa's regiments facing south, being hit from the front, flank, and rear with Confederate volleys, disintegrated without firing a shot. A few Union soldiers rallied around the 75th Ohio, but it too turned and fled.

The majority of Devens's division, facing south, abandoned their positions and ran headlong towards Chancellorsville. General Howard, watching the disaster unfolding before him from the elevated vantage of Dowdall's Tavern noted the chaos before him. Howard's aide would be struck dead by a shot, and his horse would spring up and fall over, throwing the general to the ground.

As Rodes's three Confederate brigades pressed eagerly towards Dowdall's Tavern, Colquitt advanced on the south only a few hundred yards, then halted in direct defiance of orders. This halted Ramseur and Paxton's brigades, frustrating them. Colquitt got reports of Federals on his southern flank. Only when Ramseur assured him he could take care of it, did Colquitt get going again, but they were all unfortunately too far behind Jackson's advance with their 5000 men that they couldn't catch up. this prevented the Confederates from capturing Hazel Grove and Fairview, and thus severing Sickles's larger force from the main army. After the battle, Lee would ship Colquitt south, disgraced, swapping his brigade for a force from North Carolina.

The last organized force ahead of Jackson was Buschbeck's at Dowdall's Tavern. They had moved into the shallow trench, and were facing westward, but were nervous and tentative as they watched the huge Confederate force descending on their position. Jackson assailed Buschbeck's line along its entire front, while he rolled additional troops around each flank. A sheet of rifle fire struck some Union troops in the trench, and as they went down, men on either side vacated the trench and ran away, many throwing way their arms and joining the chaotic stream of men, horses, cannons, and wagons rushing to the rear. After the battle, the Confederates would make good use of the arms, munitions, and other goods to help resupply their own meager supplies.



Dowdall's Tavern, which served as Howard's HQ during the fight

Around 7:15 PM, about a mile and a half west of Chancellorsville, Rodes called for an abrupt halt to the advance of the Confederate lines, deciding the division was too mixed up. This was a fatal error for the Confederate advance. Rodes sent word he was going to take his division back to Dowdall's Tavern to reform, and sent word to Jackson to send forward A.P. Hill's division. Now, both Rodes and Colquitt had damaged the advance, which needed to happen while there was light to be able to seize the Chandlers crossroads. This gave the Union forces time to organize a defense, and ended any chance of resuming the advance quickly, since it took till nightfall for A.P. Hill to bring up any troops.

Hooker didn't get word of Jackson's attack till 6:30 PM, when Captain Harry Russell, his aide, turned his spyglass west and called out, "My God, here they come!" Russell believed the fleeing Federals were part of Sickles's corps; only when Hooker and his aides rushed into the mass did they discover the truth. Hooker nearly panicked, sending word to Sickles to save his men if he could. At this point, if Colquitt hadn't stopped, Sickles could've been cut off from the main army.

Because of Rodes's halt, Hooker took an hour to stem some of the rout of his army. Hiram Berry's division was near, and Hooker ordered it to move west on the turnpike to challenge Jackson. Berry's men advanced, resolute in the face of the panic-stricken mass of fleeing men, and around 8 PM, started entrenching in the valley of a small stream about a half mile west of Chancellorsville, just north of Fairview. There were twenty artillery pieces there being unlimbered and pointed westward.

As Sickles's men rushed northward, Pleasonton organized a defense around some artillery at Hazel Grove. These guns held off some of the Confederates from A.P. Hill's division, which finally reached Hazel Grove in the darkness. Sickles's forces reconnected with Hooker's main force, and Hill could only bring up James Lane's North Carolinian brigade immediately. It was 8:45 PM before the brigade was lined up on either side of the turnpike about a mile west of Chancellorsville.

Jackson arrived at the front, intending to send part of Hill's division northeast to seize Chandlers crossroads via Bullock Road, which ran directly to the crossroad from where the Confederates were located. Since the night was clear, and the moon was full, there was enough light to move. Helpfully for the Confederates, the Union soldiers were demoralized and could have offered little resistance.

Lane asked for orders about 9 PM; Jackson raised his arm in the direction of the Union troops, "Push right ahead Lane, right ahead." Soon after, Hill arrived. "Press them," Jackson ordered, "Cut them off from the United States Ford, Hill. Press them!" Since Hill was unfamiliar with the terrain, Jackson ordered Captain J Keith Boswell to guide him. Jackson went along with Hill to help get the lay of the land also.

Shortly before, Union General Pleasonton had ordered the 8th Pennsylvania Cavalry to charge the enemy, leaving Lane's soldiers on the alert. The 18th North Carolina mistook their approaching sounds for Federal cavalry, but held their fire till they could be sure who was approaching*. It turned out to be Jackson. Unfortunately, Union artillery fire had wounded General Hill in one of his legs, minor, but enough to take him out of the fight. His command would devolve to Stuart, but would wait till after midnight. This was fatal to Jackson's plan, as Stuart suspended operations till daylight, and by then it was too late.

Hooker had already had George Meade's 5th Corps north of Chancellorsville, and John Reynolds's 1st Corps come up during the night. These two corps, 30,000 men, plus 25,000 Union soldiers which Hooker got lined up west of Chancellorsville, were more than enough for Stuart's forces and Jackson's force. Luckily, Hooker didn't think of turning tables on the Confederates; he ordered the 1st and 5th to build a defensive line to defend United States Ford.

Lee realized the time for blocking United States Ford had passed, and ordered Jackson to press eastward, resulting in a series of bloody frontal attacks, costing a number of casualties to both sides. Hooker then ordered a withdrawal of his entire force northward, allowing the two wings of the Confederate army to reunite.

May 3



Situation on the morning of May 3

Union General John Sedgwick finally moved from Fredericksburg on the morning of May 3. He moved his 24,000 men, which had been facing 3500 men under Jubal Early, who were on Prospect Hill. Sedgwick could've easily driven through Hamilton's Crossing, turned the entire Confederate position, and threatened Lee's rear; instead, he marched up the plain in front of the Confederate positions. There, joined by John Gibbon's 6000-man division from Falmouth, he assaulted the same Sunken Road below Marye's Heights which had ruined Burnside's offensive last December.

Unlike Burnside's assault, however, Sedgwick's faced only a single brigade, William Barksdale's Mississippians. The first assaults failed, with the Union losing nearly a thousand men in under 5 minutes. Thomas Griffin then made the mistake of allowing a ceasefire to remove the wounded, allowing Union officers to see how few Confederates were defending the road. When the ceasefire ended, the Union force attacked in heavy force, and captured or destroyed nearly the whole Mississippi regiment.

On May 3 near Hooker, the Confederates had one of their rare moments of artillery superiority to Union forces. They had guns on Hazel Grove, joined by 20 more on Plank Road which could duel with the Union guns on the neighboring Fairview Hill, causing the Union forces to withdraw as ammunition ran low, and Confederate infantrymen picked off their gun crews. Fairview was evacuated at 9:30 AM, briefly recaptured, and abandoned again by 10 AM by Hooker. The loss of this position doomed the Union position at Chancellorsville crossroads, leading to a fighting retreat to positions circling United States Ford. Lee's army reunited both halves shortly after 10 AM in front of Chancellor mansion, cheering and shouting triumphantly as Lee arrived on Traveller to survey the scene of his victory.

Charles Marshall, Lee's military secretary wrote of the scene:

Lee's presence was the signal for one of those uncontrollable bursts of enthusiasm which none can appreciate who has not witnessed them. The fierce soldiers, with their faces blackened with the smoke of battle, the wounded crawling with feeble limbs from the fury of the devouring flames, all seemed possessed with a common impulse. One long unbroken cheer, in which the feeble cry of those who lay helpless on the earth blended with the strong voices of those who still fought, rose high above the roar of battle and hailed the presence of a victorious chief. He sat in the full realization of all that soldiers dream of—triumph; and as I looked at him in the complete fruition of the success which his genius, courage, and confidence in his army had won, I thought that it must have been from some such scene that men in ancient days ascended to the dignity of gods.

At the height of the fighting on May 3, Hooker himself suffered an injury at 9:15 AM when a Confederate cannonball hit a wooden pillar on which he was leaning at his HQ. He likely received a concussion, which was sufficiently serious enough to knock him unconscious for over an hour. Though he was clearly incapacitated, he refused to turn over command to his second-in-command (Maj. Gen. Darius Couch), and with his chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Daniel Butterfield, and Sedgwick out of communication, there was no one of sufficient rank or stature to convince him otherwise. This may have affected Union performance over the next day or so, and directly contributed to Hooker's lack of nerve and timidity throughout the rest of the battle.

Jubal Early had already withdrawn toward Richmond to protect the RF&P Railroad, so only Cadmus Wilcox's Alabama brigade under Anderson's division stood between Sedgwick and Lee. Fortunately for the Confederates, Sedgwick took so long to organize a strike west on the Plank Road, that Wilcox was able to form a strong defensive line 6 miles east of Chancellorsville at Salem Church, and McLaws's division came to help. Though Sedgwick had twice the number of troops, he remained there, immobile on May 4, allowing Lee the opportunity to organize a converging assault that drove Sedgwick across Banks Ford by early evening.




Situation as of May 4



Situation as of May 6

Hooker had a war council on May 5 to decide whether to continue to fight, when he learned Sedgwick had retreted back across the river. Hooker felt he was out of options to save the campaign. Though a majority voted to fight, Hooker had had enough and ordered the withdrawal. He and his artillery crossed, then the infantry, and finally Meade's V Corps as the rear guard. Rains caused the river to rise, and threatened to break the pontoon bridges.

The surprise withdrawal frustrated Lee's plan for one final attack on Chancellorsville; he had issued orders for his artillery to bombard the Union line in preparation for another assault. Unfortunately, by the time they were ready, Hooker had already gone with the army.

*Change: Jackson isn't shot.

Second Battle of Fredericksburg (May 3)*

While attempting to determine Union Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick's intentions, Confederate Maj. Gen. Jubal Early came to blows at Fredericksburg with his force of 12,000, which was able to defend against the 27,000 Union troops, causing over 5,700 Union casualties to 750 Confederate casualties, capturing six cannon which they were able to haul over to Chancellorsville to help Lee with his fight against Joseph Hooker.

In the wake of this fight, Lee decided to reorganize his army while they rested and refit, and scavenged what leftovers were at Chancellorsville from the retreating Union force. Lee reorganized his forces into 3 corps under Longstreet, Jackson, and Ewell, and a cavalry under J.E.B. Stuart.

The Union lost three generals:

Maj. Gen. - Hiram Berry, Amiel Whipple

Brig. Gen. Edmund Kirby

Confederate Casualties: 1465 killed, 8831 wounded, 2014 missing; roughly 60,000 engaged

Union Casualties: 1781 killed, 9744 wounded, 5923 missing; roughly 133,000 engaged

The Union was shocked by their defeat. President Lincoln was quoted as saying, "My God! My God! What will the country say?" A few generals were career casualties. Hooker relieved Stoneman for incompetence, and labeled Sedgwick as 'dilatory.' Couch was so disgusted by Hooker's conduct that he resigned and was placed in charge of the Department of the Susquehanna, commanding only Pennsylvania militia. Lincoln chose to retain Hooker in command of the army, but friction between Lincoln, general-in-chief Henry Halleck, and Hooker became intolerable, and Hooker was relieved June 28th.

Confederate reaction was jubilant at the victory, though some in the army were concerned about the manpower issue and disparity between the Confederates and Union forces. Some of the generals were asking if the Confederacy would run out of manpower, and some were even contemplating arming the slaves and emancipating them to fight for the Confederates.

Out West

Having made his way through Arkansas, Lt Gen Theophilus Holmes believed his troops could not do much of anything to help the Confederate cause west of the Mississippi. But he went west into the Confederate state of Oklahoma, traveling there, Texas, Louisiana, and Rio Grande, and was able to muster up a force of about 15,000 troops. At this point, letters home to the German settlers in western Texas and in the southwestern territories from their relatives east turned many who were ambivalent about secession into true Confederates. Deeds of the Union troops, including tales of them burning and looting homes, and 'violating' persons, as it were, horrified westerners and brought them into the Confederate fold. Union general Turchin's deeds were earning the Confederates more troops.



Cavalry joined Lt Gen Holmes's efforts, including the 36th Texas Cavalry under Col Peter Woods, amongst numerous others. About 4,000 of his troops were Indians, and 3500 were ethnic Hispanic, and another 400 were free blacks from Louisiana, plus body servants who attended to most camp needs. The Army of Trans-Mississippi now numbered 65,000, and were well stocked with beef for food, chicken, eggs, and enough leather for boots for everyone. Some needs were even being supplied by Mexico, as the Union hasn't cut off overland trade at all.



To mask his true intention, Holmes sent two forces of 4,000 east into Missouri and Kansas from Texas, to conduct raids on Union troops in those states. He used Walker's Greyhounds with his main army, and headed north in Texas, to Oklahoma, then into Colorado. They cut telegraph lines where possible, and avoided towns if they could. While the situation east was looking bad for the Army of Tennessee under Bragg, Holmes was nearing his objective on his several week march. It had taken time for him to gather his army together, as it was spread out across Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma; Brig. Gen. Richard Gano was in charge of his cavalry wing.



Union Col William Cloud fought against a minor Confederate force in the south of Kansas, while Major Samuel Sturgis was occupied with the other force which was helping the Confederate sympathizers in the state, keeping people occupied and distracted with their skirmishes.



Battle of Fort Garland (1863, April 10)



Holmes led his army to the main fort of the area, and sent the cavalry ahead to sever telegraph lines at night, when everyone was sleeping. Several of his Indian troops were expert at maneuvering silently at night, and Pvt Fixico Achehuchee, Corporal Ya Hola Ac Chee and four others maneuvered around the fort and severed its lines quietly, while several others of their regiment found and killed several sentries.



In the morning, the 1st and 2nd Colorado Infantry, along with the 1st Colorado Cavalry and McLain's Light Artillery found themselves surrounded by a Confederate army and unable to send for help. Confederate artillery began firing at 7 AM, while the infantry started firing at the cannon crews. For the next three hours, the fort was defended valiantly, but the Confederates began using heated shot and soon the Union troops were also fighting fires in the wooden portions of the fort. By 2 PM, Col Chivington surrendered his forces, having suffered 353 casualties, to 286 Confederate casualties. A costly victory, but a victory nonetheless. With the fort out of the way, the Confederates marched on, having captured the 1st and 2nd's unit flags with them.



Battle of Pike's Peak (1863, May 3-5)



Union forces in the area were thin, as they were completely occupied with Lee and Bragg in the east, and Lincoln and Seward were intent on micromanaging the war efforts, hoping to find a way to return the Confederates to the Union and put them under heel. But Holmes marched his forces to Pike's Peak, the area of the most recent gold rush. They had made the mistake of ignoring reports of Kansas, Missouri, and Colorado activity, focusing instead on Richmond and getting Nashville or Atlanta or New Orleans. With Fort Garland out of the way, Holmes marched his forces to Pike's Peak and set about raiding the area, intent on capturing as much gold as they could carry in their supply wagons back to Texas.
  

In their raid of the settlement, the Confederates made out with around $2.4 million worth of gold, and about $850,000 worth of silver.  A hard three week march brought them back to Austin, as a trip east to Richmond would be unavailable to them until nearly the end of the war.  Despite that, the increase in gold and silver meant that coinage in the Transmississippi region of the Confederate States would increase, with the first real half dimes, dimes, quarters, half dollars, and dollars being minted west of captured New Orleans, and the first gold certificates being issued with the 'Bank of Texas' printed on them.  Backed by gold, these certificates were highly popular in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, and the territories westward, and encouraged the western Confederates to raid for more gold.


Finding the area sparsely populated, they captured gold from a number of independent miners, whom they left alone if they promised not to alert the Union forces. On May 3, they reached Denver City and started their siege of the town. The town had less than 5000 persons and soon raised a white flag in surrender.



Holmes finally had his target. He sent his cavalry, first the Indian troops, then the other Confederates, including the black troops, in to the United States Assay Office, a branch of the US Mint, and started taking the gold, roughly $2.5 million worth of gold in total. Holmes kept his soldiers in check, keeping private property loss to a minimum. When all was said and done, the Confederates had confiscated around $3.85 million worth of gold from the territory; most had been shipped east to be coined, which is why there wasn't that much here. But Holmes got what he wanted. He was to take the gold back to Texas as safely as possible.



By June 2, Holmes returned to Austin a hero, and delivered the gold, amazingly with none missing, to the vaults at Austin. With the gold in the vaults, Texas began issuing more Confederate currency, though only paper currency redeemable after peace. But the effect would ripple throughout the Confederate economy. Prices began falling as confidence in the Confederate currency rose. While things were looking down in the east, the Confederates were looking good in the west.