From the earliest moment General Grant assumed command in the West, the old idea of bisecting the Confederacy seems to have monopolized his mind. The oft-tried theory of "drilling the heart of the Rebellion"—by cutting through to the Atlantic seaboard—had never been lost sight of, but in Grant's hands it was to be given practical power and direction.
To effect that object, it was essential to make North Georgia the objective point; and North Georgia—now as ever—offered a stubborn and well-nigh insurmountable barrier. But the northern War Department was now fully impressed with the importance of crushing the spine of the Confederacy; and the fact was as clearly realized in the North, as in the South, that the vital cord of Confederate being ran from Atlanta to Richmond! Therefore, every facility of men and material was furnished the commander, who at that moment stood out—in reflected lights from Vicksburg and Missionary Ridge—as the military oracle of the North; and he was urged to press this design of the campaign to a vigorous and speedy issue.
During the winter of 1863-64, General Grant incubated his grand scheme, and with the month of February brought forth a quadruple brood of ridiculous mice.
His plan—in itself a good and sound one—was to secure a permanent base nearer than the Mississippi. To accomplish this he must first secure Mobile, as a water base, and connect that with some defensible point inland. At the same time that this attempt was made—and while the troops guarding the passway into Georgia might be diverted—Thomas, commanding the Chattanooga lines, was to advance against that point.
The plan was undoubtedly sound, but the general's want of balance caused him to overweight it, until its own ponderousness was its destruction. On the 1st of February, Sherman, with a splendidly-appointed force of 35,000 infantry, and corresponding cavalry and artillery, marched out of Vicksburg; to penetrate to Mobile, or some other point more accessible, on the line of the proposed new base. Simultaneously a heavy force approached the city from New Orleans; Smith and Grierson, with a strong body of cavalry, penetrated Northern Mississippi; and Thomas made his demonstration referred to.
Any candid critic will see that four converging columns, to be effective, should never have operated so far away from their point of convergence, and so far separated from each other. The enterprise was gigantic; but its awkwardness equaled its strength, and its own weight broke its back.
Sherman, harassed by cavalry and skirmishers—advanced in solid column; while Polk, with his merely nominal force, was unable to meet him. But the latter fell back in good order; secured his supplies, and so retarded his stronger adversary, that he saved all the rolling-stock of the railroads. When he evacuated Meridian, that lately busy railroad center was left a worthless prize to the captor.
Meantime Forrest had harassed the cavalry force of Smith and Grierson, with not one-fourth their numbers; badly provided and badly mounted. Yet he managed to inflict heavy loss and retard the enemy's march; but finally—unable to wait the junction of S. D. Lee, to give the battle he felt essential—Forrest, on the 20th February, faced the Federal squadrons. Confident of an easy victory over the ragged handful of dismounted skirmishers, the picked cavalry dashed gaily on. Charge after charge was received only to be broken—and Forrest was soon in full pursuit of the whipped and demoralized columns. Only once they turned, were heavily repulsed, and then continued their way to Memphis.
This check of his co-operating column and the utter fruitlessness of his own march, induced a sudden change of Sherman's intent. He fell rapidly back to Vicksburg; his army perhaps more worn, broken and demoralized by the desultory attentions of ours, than it would have been by a regular defeat.
Meantime the New Orleans-Pensacola expedition had danced on and off Mobile without result. Thomas had been so heavily repulsed on the 25th, that he hastily withdrew to his lines at Chickamauga—and the great campaign of General Grant had resulted in as insignificant a fizz as any costly piece of fireworks the war produced.
On the contrary, history will give just meed to Forrest, Lee and Polk for their efficient use of the handfuls of ill-provided men, with whom alone they could oppose separate and organized armies. They saved Alabama and Georgia—and so, for the time, saved the Confederacy. There could be no doubt that the sole safety of the invading columns was their numerical weakness. General Grant's practice of a perfectly sound theory was clearly a gross blunder; and had Polk been in command of two divisions more—had Lee been able to swoop where he only hovered—or had Forrest's ragged boys been only doubled in number—the story told in Vicksburg would have been even less flattering to the strategic ability of the commander.
As it was, he had simply made a bad failure, and given the South two months' respite from the crushing pressure he was yet to apply. For the pet scheme of the North was but foiled—not ruined; and her whole power sang but the one refrain—Delenda est Atlanta!
And those two months could not be utilized to much effect by the South. Worn in resources, supplies—in everything but patient endurance, she still came forth from the dark doubts the winter had raised, hopeful, if not confident; calm, if conscious of the portentous clouds lowering upon her horizon.
Meanwhile, Grant, elevated to a lieutenant-generalcy, had been transferred to the Potomac frontier; and men, money, supplies—without stint or limit—had been placed at his disposal.
On the 1st February, Mr. Lincoln had called for 500,000 men; and on the 14th March for 200,000 more!
General Grant, himself, testified to the absolute control given him, in a letter to Mr. Lincoln, under date of 1st May, '64—from Culpeper C. H., which concludes: "I have been astonished at the readiness with which everything asked for has been granted without any explanation being asked. Should my success be less than I desire and expect, the least I can say is, that the fault is not with you."
With these unlimited resources, he was given almost unlimited power; and the jubilant North crowed as loudly as it had before Manassas, the Seven Days, or Fredericksburg.
In Richmond all was quiet. The Government had done all it could, and the people had responded with a generous unanimity that ignored all points of variance between it and them. All the supplies that could be collected and forwarded, under the very imperfect systems, were sent to the armies; all the arms that could be made, altered or repaired, were got ready; and every man not absolutely needed elsewhere—with the rare exceptions of influence and favoritism openly defying the law—was already at the front.
And seeing that all was done as well as might be, the Capital waited—not with the buoyant hopefulness of the past—but with patient and purposeful resolve.
And the ceaseless clang of preparation, cut by the ceaseless yell of anticipated triumph, still echoed over the Potomac—ever nearer and ever louder. Then, by way of interlude, on the 28th March, came the notorious Dahlgren raid. Though Kilpatrick was demoralized and driven back by the reserves in the gunless works; though Custar's men retired before the furloughed artillerists and home guards; and though Dahlgren's picked cavalry were whipped in the open field by one-fourth their number of Richmond clerks and artisans!—boys and old men who had never before been under fire—still the object of that raid remains a blot even upon the page of this uncivilized warfare. It were useless to enter into details of facts so well and clearly proved. That the orders of Dahlgren's men were to release the prisoners, burn, destroy and murder, the papers found on his dead body showed in plainest terms.
No wonder, then, that many in Richmond drew comfort from soothing belief in special Providence, when three trained columns of picked cavalry were turned back in disgraceful flight, by a handful of invalids, old men and boys!
The feeling in Richmond against the raiders was bitter and universal. Little vindictive, in general, the people clamored that arson and murder—as set forth in Dahlgren's orders—merited more serious punishment than temporary detention and highflown denunciation. The action of the Government in refusing summary vengeance on the cavalrymen captured, was indubitably just and proper. Whatever their object, and whatever their orders, they were captured in arms and were but prisoners of war; and, besides, they had not really intended more than dozens of other raiders had actually accomplished on a smaller scale.
But the people would not see this. They murmured loudly against the weakness of not making these men an example. And more than one of the papers used this as the handle for violent abuse of the Government and of its chief.
At last all preparations were complete; and the northern army—as perfect in equipment, drill and discipline as if it had never been defeated—came down to the Rapidan.
Grant divided his army into three corps, under Hancock, Warren and Sedgwick; and on the 5th May, his advance crossed the river, only to find Lee quietly seated in his path. Then commenced that series of battles, unparalleled for bloody sacrifice of men and obstinacy of leader—a series of battles that should have written General Grant the poorest strategist who had yet inscribed his name on the long roll of reverses. And yet, by a strange fatality, they resulted in making him a hero to the unthinking masses of his countrymen.
Lee's right rested on the Orange road; and an attempt, after the crossing, to turn it, was obstinately repulsed during the entire day, by Heth and Wilcox. During the night Hancock's corps crossed the river, and next morning received a fierce assault along his whole line. The fighting was fierce and obstinate on both sides; beating back the right and left of Hancock's line, while sharply repulsed on the center (Warren's). Still his loss was far heavier than ours, and the result of the battles of the Wilderness was to put some 23,000 of Grant's men hors de combat; to check him and to force a change of plan at the very threshold of his "open door to Ric............