Dixie Betrayed (29 page)

Bragg’s army was not well supplied and lacked confidence in its commanding general, despite the victory at Chickamauga. Thomas
attacked and captured Orchard Knob, a hill midway between the river and Missionary Ridge, on November 23. The following day
Hooker’s men assaulted and captured Lookout Mountain, partly aided by a blinding fog that gave the action the name “battle
above the clouds,” but mostly aided by the retreat of most of the Confederate troops. On November 25 Bragg concentrated his
army along Missionary Ridge. As the bulk of the Federal army fanned into several attack points along the ridge, casualties
mounted.

Just as the Union attack seemed desperately stalled, one of the spectacular events of the war occurred. Maj. Gen. Thomas’s
men, ordered to proceed from Orchard Knob to the base of Missionary Ridge and capture the rifle pits, proceeded after a pause
up the mountain. Waves of blue coated the mountain and slowly captured the Confederate guns high atop its crest. “This, I
confess, staggered me,” wrote Maj. James A. Connolly. “‘Charge’ is shouted wildly from hundreds of throats, and with a yell
such as that valley never heard before, the three divisions rushed forward. Our men, stirred by some memories, shouted ‘Chickamauga!’
as they scaled the works at the summit.”
³
The Federal high command, watching from Orchard Knob, was stunned.

Bragg had no choice but to retreat into Georgia. Immediately, Federal troops occupied Chattanooga and controlled its railroads
and communications. The movement opened up the possibility for Sherman’s invasion of Georgia, the Atlanta campaign, and the
March to the Sea that would follow. “The disaster admits of no palliation, and is justly disparaging to me as a commander,”
Bragg wrote in a letter to Jefferson Davis. “I trust, however, you may find on full investigation that the fault is not entirely
mine.”
⁴

As the armies clashed at Chattanooga, other events occurred in eastern Tennessee, at Knoxville, where Rebel Lt. Gen. James
Longstreet had been sent following Chickamauga, partly because of his animosity toward Bragg. Eastern Tennessee with its pro-Union
sentiment had long been a problem for the Confederacy, and Longstreet wished to attack Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside’s Yankees,
who were operating in the region. Small actions erupted before Burnside retreated into Knoxville, pursued by Longstreet. Longstreet
attacked Fort Sanders on November 29, but a deep, icy ditch prevented Confederate success. “For fully twenty minutes the men
stood around the ditch unable to get at their adversaries but unwilling to retreat,” wrote Col. Edward Porter Alexander, Longstreet’s
acting chief of artillery. Capt. Orlando M. Poe, Burnside’s chief engineer, recalled, “Meanwhile those who remained in the
ditch found themselves under a deadly flank fire of musketry and canister, supplemented by shells thrown as hand-grenades
from inside the fort, without the slightest possibility of returning a blow.”
⁵
The Confederate attack failed, and Longstreet was ordered back to support the Army of Northern Virginia.

Before the year ended the United States president solidified the sense of purpose brought into the war the previous New Year’s
Day. For his trip to Gettysburg to dedicate the new National Cemetery, Lincoln struggled to express the meaning of all the
death, the suffering, the smoke and battle. On November 19, speaking for little more than two minutes after the two-hour discourse
by Massachusetts orator Edward Everett, Lincoln concluded, “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining
before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure
of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have
a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the Earth.”
⁶

T
HROUGHOUT
the struggles on the battlefield, Confederate Richmond held its head high, hoping for turnarounds that would signal progress
against the Yankees. And yet a sort of hopelessness had set in among some politicians in Richmond and army officers in the
field. To some it hardly mattered what happened anymore. If you were a crony of the administration, you got a free pass despite
the troubles that might surround you. Otherwise, it would be an uphill struggle for recognition and influence. It seemed that
a new theme was emerging in Richmond: playing favorites. If your name was Bragg, Lee, or Cooper, you were above reproach.
Sometimes the bonds seemed to come from the unlikeliest directions. “I know not what to think of Davis since he professed
to be Yancey’s friend!” penned Clement Clay of Alabama. “By the way he quite persuaded Y. that he was his friend. He left
D. his telescope (wh. was [George] Washington’s) by his will. Yet his wife is very bitter against D. and even blames him for
her husband’s death!”
⁷
For the most part, however, the favorites were predictable and immutable.

For his part Davis enjoyed looking to Johnston as chief scapegoat. Bragg, meanwhile, remained an almost indestructible friend
of Jefferson Davis’s. But confidence in Bragg was draining from almost everyone else at nearly lightning speed. In the wake
of Chickamauga, Bragg blamed several subordinate officers for supposed incompetent behavior on the battlefield, most notably
D. H. Hill and Leonidas Polk, both of whom were relieved of command by Bragg. Bragg’s army felt their commander had overreacted,
and a spirit of disunity and insubordination followed. Trying to assuage the troops, Davis addressed them: “He who sows the
seeds of discontent and distrust prepares for the harvest of slaughter and defeat. To zeal you have added gallantry; to gallantry,
energy; to energy, fortitude. Crown these with harmony, due subordination, and cheerful support of lawful authority, that
the measure of your duty may be full.”
⁸
Such words were cold comfort.

On October 15 several important officers of the army wrote a memorandum in support of Hill’s actions at Chickamauga, testifying
that he had the confidence of the army now. Moreover, Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge, the former vice president of the United
States, wrote Hill: “I was present on the night of the 19th Sept. at an interview between Lt. Gen. Polk and Lt. Col. Anderson
of your staff and think I heard all that passed between them. I do not recollect that Lt. Gen. Polk ordered you to attack
at daylight.”
⁹

Polk, meanwhile, had the good fortune, like Bragg, of being the president’s close friend. “After an examination into the causes
and circumstances attending your being relieved from command with the army commanded by General Bragg,” Davis wrote Polk,
“I have arrived at the conclusion that there is nothing attending them to justify a Court Martial, or a Court of Inquiry,
and I therefore dismiss the application.”
¹⁰

The Hill matter lingered for weeks, however. On November 13 Hill wrote Samuel Cooper asking that a court of inquiry be ordered
to investigate Hill’s conduct at Chickamauga. He wanted to remove the feeling of any “delinquency, mismanagement, or misconduct
on the field” he may have committed.
¹¹

Three days later Hill addressed President Davis directly about the Chickamauga incident. He also complained that respected
officers such as Longstreet, Simon B. Buckner, and Benjamin F. Cheatham also lacked confidence in Bragg but had not been relieved.
¹²

But Davis wanted the matter simply to fade away. On November 20 Cooper wrote Hill formally telling him that a court of inquiry
was not justified. “You have been simply relieved from duty at the request of your Commanding General,” Cooper declared bluntly.
¹³

While Hill was struggling with his reputation, Grant was making his way east. Brought to Chattanooga in the wake of the fiasco
at Chickamauga, Grant was now ready to take on a major, shaping role in the war. Not all in the Confederacy were convinced
this little man was a threat. More worried about Rosecrans. Lawrence Keitt of South Carolina wrote, “Rosecrantz [
sic
] is superseded by Grant—good for us, for Rosecrantz is far the ablest man.”
¹⁴

The new focus of the Confederate leadership was the loss at Chattanooga. “The disaster at Chattanooga gives much uneasiness
here,” lamented Joe Brown to his friend Aleck Stephens. “I fear it will be followed by other Federal victories which will
cost us Upper Georgia for a time and expose our people there to extreme suffering. I wish we had a more able man at the head
of our forces in that Department.”
¹⁵

For his part Jefferson Davis continued to worry over the command structure of the army. Davis hated the fact that various
offices were appointed as political favors and not with regard to the best men. “My observations convince me that I have not
overestimated, but rather underrated the importance of organizing the several staff corps as ‘general staff corps of the army,’’’
he worried to Secretary of War Seddon in late October.
¹⁶

As had been the case since the beginning of the war, chaos trumped coordination. The situation in North Carolina seemed to
be getting out of control. An Alabama brigade on duty in the state supposedly had committed some outrages against the population,
such as stealing, creating a feeling of minor anarchy at local levels. “This thing is becoming unsupportable,” Governor Zeb
Vance reported to Jefferson Davis, “for sixty hours I have been traveling up and down, almost without sleep or rest, making
speeches alternately to citizens and soldiers—engaged in the humiliating task of trying to defend the laws and peace of the
State against our own bayonets!”
¹⁷

Vance later informed the War Department about the arrival of his brother, Gen. Robert B. Vance, into the state. “Gen. R. B.
Vance has arrived [in western North Carolina] and has not a single man with which to defend this country!” he exclaimed. Seddon
endorsed the verso of the letter: “Any would cheerfully furnish the forces, if it could spare them.” The situation was so
perilous in parts of the state that Vance could not get any flour for locals to make the troops bread, and Abraham Myers in
Richmond had to send him four barrels by special train. To restore order in the state, the Confederacy suggested detaching
the Sixty-third North Carolina Infantry from Lee’s army, but Lee refused, and Seddon finally had to write, limply, “If another
good regt. from N.C. could be sent to take its place, there would be no objection.”
¹⁸

In South Carolina getting enough slaves released by their masters to help the Confederacy dig ditches and build fortifications
continued to be a problem. Governor Milledge Bonham vented his frustration to anyone who would listen, including G. T. Beauregard.
“They do not complain that they have to send their slaves,” he wrote, “but they do complain that when impressments are resorted
to, the slaves of those who have neither paid the money or sent the negroes are not impressed and carried to the coast . .
. [and] that the negroes are not returned at the end of the month, as required by the Act of the Assembly.”
¹⁹

Bob Toombs, frustrated with the whole Davis government, contemplated running for political office once again. “I shall leave
here Wednesday morning for Milledgeville [Georgia] with the purpose, if I can be elected, to run for the Senate,” he told
Aleck Stephens.

Mr. Davis’s present policy will overthrow the revolution in six months if the enemy only [gives] him time enough to stand
still and do nothing. I shall do what I can to avert so dire a calamity. Of course in adopting the proposed course towards
Davis I am fully aware of the nature of the contest. We shall both fight under the same flag.
Vae victis
,—with this difference: I shall avow it and he will quote scripture, say “God bids us to do good for evil” and thus “clothe
[his] naked villainy in old odd ends stole forth from holy writ and seem a saint when he plays the devil.”
²⁰

W
HILE
all hell was breaking loose elsewhere, Congress reconvened in Richmond on December 7 for the fourth session of the First
Congress. This would last until February 17, 1864. Previous campaigns, particularly those of Chattanooga and Vicksburg, continued
to cast long shadows on the proceedings. In his opening message to Congress, President Davis chose to focus on the difficulty
of securing international relations, now increasingly unlikely but viewed as the most credible route by which the Confederacy
might establish its independence. “I regret to inform you that there has been no improvement in the state of our relations
with foreign countries since my message in January last,” Davis wrote. “On the contrary, there has been a still greater divergence
in the conduct of European nations from that practical impartiality which alone deserves the name of neutrality, and their
action in some cases has assumed a character positively unfriendly.” He then moved on to other serious challenges:

The state of the public finances is such as to demand your earliest and most earnest attention. . . . An organization of the
general staff of the Army would be highly conducive to the efficiency of that most important branch of the service. . . .
Having begun the war in direct violation of their Constitution, which forbade the attempt to coerce a State, they have been
hardened by crime until they no longer attempt to veil their purpose to destroy the institutions and subvert the sovereignty
and independence of these States. We now know that the only reliable hope for peace is in the vigor of our resistance.
²¹

The congressmen, however, were focused on other things. In the Senate, for example, various legislators inquired about whether
Davis really meant, as he had apparently been quoted, that “the disasterous [
sic
] defeat before Chattanooga [was caused by] . . . the want of valour on the part of our army.” An outraged Senate as a whole
took issue with the president and anyone else who charged the army with want of valor. A countercharge was made that the president
was responsible, for he had not replaced Bragg, who had previously been shown to be incompetent. Some senators demanded that
Bragg be replaced by Joe Johnston. The same arguments were applied also to Pemberton in connection with the Vicksburg campaign.
²²