Mr Lincoln's Army (62 page)

Specific references are:

1.
The Antietam and Fredericksburg.

2.
History
of
the
First Regiment Minnesota Volunteer Infantry,
by R. I. Holcombe. This author remarked that his entire
brigade had been drilled to fight in close order, in the obsolete
elbow-to-elbow manner. The Confederates, he added, never made that mistake;
"a hundred of them would string out for more than a quarter of a mile, or
cover an acre." It may actually be true that the Confederate private's
refusal to concern himself overmuch about the niceties of drill was a positive
asset on the battlefield.

3.
Two of Sedgwick's three brigade commanders, Generals Gorman
and Dana, in their official reports characterized the Confederate fire here as
the deadliest they ever saw. One of the most striking things about this whole
battle, indeed, is the frequency with which Federal survivors described the
Southern fire as the worst in their experience. That testimony comes from men
who fought in the cornfield and along Bloody Lane, as well as from the men in
Sedgwick's division.

4.
Reminiscences
of
the Civil War,
by General John B.
Gordon. The good general's memory may have betrayed him in regard to the use of
the drum during this charge.

5.
For a gay account of this incident, see
The Irish Brigade and Its Campaigns.
In his
Days
and Events,
Colonel Livermore
records that General Sumner once exploded at Gosson: "Mr. Gosson, if you
were not such an incorrigible rascal I would cashier you." A graduate of
Dublin University, Gosson had seen service in a European hussar regiment.

6.
This amazing anecdote
appears, not (as one would suppose) in some imaginative regimental history,
but in the official report of Captain William M.Graham of Battery K, 1st U.S.
Artillery. It can be found in the
Official
Records,
Series I, Vol. XIX, Part
2, pp. 343-44.

7.
Another
misconception of the number of Federals engaged at Antietam
arises from the common assumption that Franklin's corps was thrown into
offensive action. Actually, only one of Franklin's brigades saw any serious
fight-
ing—a total of five men were killed in all the rest of the army corps—and most
of the loss of the one brigade which did fight was incurred by one regiment,
the 7th Maine.

8.
        
Under the Old Flag.

3.
All the Landscape Was Red

One of the things which
helped to make the Antietam a badly fought battle appears to have been a
misunderstanding as to the nature of the attack which Burnside's IX Corps was
supposed to make. Burnside and Cox evidently understood that the attack was
simply to be a diversion, to relieve the pressure on the right of the Federal
battle line, while McClellan seems to have wanted an attack that would more or
less go hand in hand with Hooker's. An argument on this point—which, happily,
we need not go into here—became quite heated, during and after the war, and led
to coolness between the once firm friends, McClellan and Burnside. Anyone who
is interested may study the pros and cons in
McClellan's Own Story
and in Cox's account of Antietam in Vol. II of
Battles and Leaders.

Specific references are:

1.
Major Henry Kyd Douglas of Stonewall Jackson's staff lived
in the immediate vicinity of Sharpsburg and had an intimate personal
acquaintance with Antietam Creek. In his book,
I Rode with Stonewall,
he is extremely sarcastic about Burnside's difficulty in
crossing the stream. ("Go and look at it," he writes, "and tell
me if you don't think Burnside and his corps might have executed a hop, skip
and jump and landed on the other side."

2.
For the story of the whisky, the attack on the bridge, and
Ferrero's subsequent promotion, see the engaging
History
of
the
51st Regiment
of
Pennsylvania
Volunteers.

3.
Personal Recollections
of
the Civil War,
by Stone.

4.
Battles and Leaders,
Vol.
II, Part 2, pp. 661-62.

5.
For a rather pathetic picture of the plight of the rookie
soldiers, see
History
of
the 16th Connecticut Volunteers,
by B. F. Blakeslee. Additional interesting details are to
be found in
Forty-six Months with
the 4th Rhode Island Volunteers,
by
Corporal George H. Allen, and in the official reports of Colonel Edward
Harland, commanding Rodman's second brigade, and Colonel Joseph Curtis of the
4th Rhode Island.

6.
Interestingly enough, in a letter to his wife from in front
of Richmond, just after the battle of Seven Pines, McClellan told of receiving
a flag-of-truce message from a Confederate commander in his front, and said:
"Well, whom do you think the letter came from? From no one else than A. P.
Hill, major-general commanding the Light Division."

7.
An examination of that grim barometer of military
pressures, the list of killed and wounded, shows what happened in Burnside's
corps. Rodman's division was almost torn to pieces by Hill's counterattack,
and Sturgis's division lost heavily during the assaults on the bridge, but the
divisions of Cox and Willcox had losses which—by the standards of that terrible
day—were comparatively light. It is to be noted that no two of these four
divisions were at any time under heavy fire simultaneously.

8.
Battles and Leaders,
Vol. II, Part 2, p. 656.

9.
Under the Old Flag.

10.
   
Following
the Greek Cross.

4. The Romance of War Was
Over

Military critics are still
discussing Lincoln's removal of McClellan, and the majority seems to feel that
the removal was a profound mistake. Considered strictly from a military point
of view, this is possibly correct. The basic problem with McClellan, however,
was always more political than military, and to understand and appraise
Lincoln's action it is necessary to study the political history of the times
rather than the reports of military action. After September 1862 the dominant
fact was the Emancipation Proclamation. Nothing in the
Official Records
sheds
any real light on the change in commanders. Actually, the explanation is in
McClellan's letters, if you read them carefully, and the thing to study now is
the fascinating self-portrait which is so unconsciously and revealingly painted
in
McClellan's Own Story.
The McClellan quotations in this chapter are, with one
exception, drawn from that book. The verse at the end of the chapter is from
Awhile with the Blue,
by Benjamin Borton.

Specific references are:

1.
Gibbon's
Personal Recollections; Service with
the 6th Wisconsin Volunteers.

2.
The Life and Letters
of
George Gordon Meade.

3.
Gibbon's
Personal
Recollections.

4.
The
Life
and
Letters
of
George Gordon Meade.

5.
Under the Old Flag.

6.
Musket and Sword.

7.
History
of
the Second Army Corps.
Be it noted that this talk about the romance of war comes
from an officer, and a general at that. The private soldier who had fought at
Antietam had no more illusions about war's romance than the veteran of Okinawa.

8.
See
History
of
the 3rd Indiana Cavalry,
by W. N. Pickerell, and
Forty-six Months with the 4th Rhode Island Volunteers.
The theory that McClellan was to replace Halleck is
recorded in
A Duryee Zouave.

9.
        
A Soldier's Diary.

Index

Abolition sentiment, in Cabinet, 198— 200, 206-7; in first
year of war, 69-71, 79-80; of McClellan, 152.
See also
Emancipation
Adams, Charles Francis, 322 Allen, Major E. J.
See
Pinkerton,
Allan Amputations, necessity for, 188-89 Andrew, John A., governor of Massachusetts,
70, 73, 159 Antietam, battle of, 211-322: advance on   Sharpsburg,   305-14;  
Bloody Lane, 291-98; casualties of, 318-19;  cornfield,  action in,  266-89;
crossing of creek, 301-5; Dunker church, 266, 281; East Wood, 257-58, 269-71,
277-79, 283, 289; Federal strategy after finding lost dispatch, 215-22;
layout of battle area, 245-51; lost Confederate dispatch, 211-15; results of,
316-17, 320-22, 323-25; South Mountain, battle of, 222-45; West Wood, 272-73,
281, 285-89

Aquia Creek, navy action at, 86 Army of Northern Virginia.
See
Confederate
Army of Northern Virginia Army of Potomac, character of, 14-25; grouping into
corps, 94—95; health and medical discharges in, 183-84; living habits of,
178-83; record of,

32; after Second Bull Run, 160-62; strength of units,
184-86; welcome to McClellan after Second Bull Run retreat, 50-52.
See also
Antietam;
Bull Run; Peninsular campaign

Army of Virginia, 28-33

Army Secret Service.
See
Secret service

Artillery, improvement in
weapons of, 190-91.
See
also
Weapons

Assault tactics, 191-92

Averell, Colonel William, 138, 140-41

Baker, Colonel Edward D.,
74-78

Ball's Bluff, battle of, 73-78

Baltimore,
plot to assassinate Lincoln in, 120-21; reception of Union troops in, 170

Baltimore and Ohio railway, 8, 56

Banks,
General Nathaniel P., 28-29, 169, 243; during peninsular campaign, 104, 106;
at Second Bull Run, 47

Barbara Frietchie incident, 220 Barlow, Colonel Francis,
203-4, 297, 299

Barton, Clara, 316

"Battle
Hymn of the Republic," 39-40 Bayonet, use of, 187-88 Beans, baked, 183

Beauregard,
General P. G. T., 66-67, 117

Benjamin,
Judah, Confederate Secretary of War, 121

Berry, General Hiram G., 150

Biddle, Colonel Charles, 166

Black
Hat Brigade, 17-19, 163, 173, 217, 320; at Antietam, 267, 272; at Second Bull
Run, 19-25, 40-41; at South Mountain, 238-39

Blair, General Frank, 203

Blanket rolls, 194

Blenker, General, 104

Bloss,
First Sergeant John McKnight, 212-13

Boonsboro.
See
South Mountain, battle of

Bragg, General Braxton, 160

Brigade, numerical strength of, 185-86

Bristoe
Station, Va., action at, preceding Second Bull Run, 27

Brooklyn-Manhattan rivalry, 177

Buchanan, James, 70

Buckingham, General, 328