The proverb that misfortunes never come singly soon became a painful verity in the South; and a terrible reaction began to still the high-beating pulses of her triumph.
The merry echoes of the winter had not yet died away, when it became oppressingly apparent that proper methods had not been taken to meet the steady and persevering preparations of the North. Disaster after disaster followed the arms of the South in close succession; and the spirits of all classes fell to a depth the more profound, from their elevation of previous joyance.
As early as the 29th of the previous August, a naval expedition under Commodore Stringham had, after a short bombardment, reduced the forts at Hatteras Inlet. In the stream of gratulation following Manassas, this small event had been carried out of sight; and even the conquest of Port Royal, South Carolina, by Admiral Dupont's fleet, on the 7th of November, had been looked upon as one of those little mischances that only serve to shade all pictures of general victory.
They were not taken for what they really were—proofs of the entirely defenseless condition of an immense sweep of coast, in the face of the heavy and increasing naval armament of the United States. They were considered reverses merely; inquiry went but little deeper and the lesson they should have taught was lost; while the inexplicable tardiness of the War Department left still more important points equally defenseless.
But the news of General Crittenden's utter defeat at Mill Springs, on the 17th of January—of the disastrous results of his miscalculation, or misguided impetuosity, and of the death of Zollicoffer—came with stunning effect; opening wide the eyes of the whole country to the condition in which apathy, or mismanagement, had left it.
As usual, too, in the popular estimate of a success, or a reverse, the public laid much stress on the death of Zollicoffer, who was a favorite both with them and the army. He was declared uselessly sacrificed, and his commanding general and the Government came in for an equal share of popular condemnation.
Mr. Davis soon afterward relieved Secretary Walker from the duties of the War Office; putting Mr. Benjamin in his seat as temporary incumbent. The latter, as before stated, was known as a shrewd lawyer, of great quickness of perception, high cultivation, and some grasp of mind; but there was little belief among the people that he was fit to control a department demanding decision and independence, combined with intimate knowledge of military matters. Besides Mr. Benjamin personally had become exceedingly unpopular with the masses. Whether this arose from the unaccountable influence he—and he alone—had with his chief, or whether the busy tongues of his private enemies received too ready credence, is hard to say. But so the fact was; and his elevation gave rise to scurrilous attacks, as well as grave forebodings. Both served equally to fix Mr. Davis in the reasons he had believed good enough for his selection.
Suddenly, on the 7th of February, Roanoke Island fell!
Constant as had been the warnings of the press, unremittingly as General Wise had besieged the War Department, and blue as was the mood of the public—the blow still fell like a thunder-clap and shook to the winds the few remaining shreds of hope. General Wise was ill in bed; and the defense—conducted by a militia colonel with less than one thousand raw troops—was but child's play to the immense armada with heaviest metal that Burnside brought against the place.
Roanoke Island was the key to General Huger's position at Norfolk. Its fall opened the Sounds to the enemy and, besides paralyzing Huger's rear communications, cut off more than half his supplies. The defeat was illustrated by great, if unavailing, valor on the part of the untrained garrison; by a plucky and determined fight of the little squadron under Commodore Lynch; and by the brilliant courage and death of Captain O. Jennings Wise—a gallant soldier and noble gentleman, whose popularity was deservedly great.
But, the people felt that a period must be put to these mistakes; and so great was their clamor that a congressional committee investigated the matter; and their report declared that the disaster lay at the door of the War Department. The almost universal unpopularity of the Secretary made this a most acceptable view, even while an effort was made to shift part of the blame to General Huger's shoulders. But wherever the fault, the country could not shake off the gloom that such a succession of misfortunes threw over it.
This feeling was, if possible, increased, and the greatest uneasiness caused in all quarters, by Burnside's capture of Newbern, North Carolina, on the 4th of March. Its defenses had just been completed at heavy cost; but General Branch, with a garrison of some 5,000 men, made a defense that resulted only in complete defeat and the capture of even his field artillery. Here was another point, commanding another supply country of great value to the commissariat, lost to the South. But worse still, its occupation gave the Federals an easy base for striking at the Weldon railroad.
Nowhere was the weakness of the South throughout the war shown more fully than in her utterly inefficient transportation. Here were the demands of the army of Virginia and of a greatly-increased population in and around Richmond, supplied by one artery of communication! Seemingly every energy of the Government should have been turned to utilizing some other channel; but, though the Danville branch to Greensboro'—of only forty miles in length—had been projected more than a year, at this time not one rail had been laid.
It is almost incredible, when we look back, that the Government should have allowed its very existence to depend upon this one line—the Weldon road; running so near a coast in possession of the enemy, and thus liable at any moment to be cut by a raiding party. Yet so it was. The country was kept in a state of feverish anxiety for the safety of this road; and a large body of troops diverted for its defense, that elsewhere might have decided many a doubtful battle-field. Their presence was absolutely necessary; for, had they been withdrawn and the road tapped above Weldon, the Virginia army could not have been supplied ten days through other channels, and would have been obliged to abandon its lines and leave Richmond an easy prey.
Meanwhile the North had collected large and splendidly-equipped armies of western men in Kentucky and Tennessee, under command of Generals Grant and Buell. The new Federal patent, "the Cordon," was about to be applied in earnest. Its coils had already been unpleasantly felt on the Atlantic seaboard; General Butler had "flashed his battle blade"—that was to gleam, afterward, so bright at Fort Fisher and Dutch Gap—and had prepared an invincible armada for the capture of New Orleans; and simultaneously the armies under Buell were to penetrate into Tennessee and divide the systems of communication between Richmond and the South and West.
General Albert Sidney Johnston was sent to meet these preparations, with all the men that could be spared from Western Virginia and the points adjacent to his line of operations. Still his force was very inadequate in numbers and appointment; while to every application for more men, the War Department replied that none could be spared him.
The Federal plan was to advance their armies along the watercourses, simultaneously with their gunboats—light draught constructions prepared expressly for such service; and, penetrating to any possible point, there form depots with water communication to their base. The Tennessee and Cumberland rivers were plainly their highways. The only defenses of these streams were Forts Henry and Donelson—weak works inefficiently garrisoned; for the half million appropriated by Congress for their defense at the eleventh hour could not have been used in time, even had the money been forthcoming from the treasury.
With scarcely a check to their progress, the Federals reduced and passed Fort Henry on the 4th of February, pressing on to Donelson, into and supporting which work, General Johnston had thrown General J. B. Floyd with some ten thousand troops under Pillow and Buckner. After three days' hard fighting, Floyd found the position untenable and further resistance impossible. He, therefore, turned over the command to Buckner—who refused to abandon the part of the garrison that could not escape—and, with General Pillow and some five thousand men, withdrew in the night and made good his escape.
During the siege of Donelson, Johnston evacuated Bowling Green and awaited its issue opposite Nashville. The result being known, it naturally followed that this city—undefended by works of any description and with an army inadequate to its protection—had to be abandoned. The retreat was at once commenced; and it was on that gloomy march that Forrest first made the name that now stands with so few rivals among the cavalry leaders of the world. Commanding a regiment of cavalry from his own section, he seemed as ubiquitous as untiring. Keeping a constant front to the enemy—now here, no............