Read Never Call Retreat Online

Authors: Bruce Catton

Tags: #Non Fiction, #Military

Never Call Retreat (79 page)

BOOK: Never Call Retreat
13.99Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

15.E. P. Alexander,
Military Memoirs of a Confederate,
557-58.

5.
Vested Interest in Failure

1.
Rachael Sherman Thorndike, ed.,
The Sherman Letters: Correspondence between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891,
227-33.

2.
Note by Horatio Seymour dated April 28, 1864, in the Miscellaneous File, Barlow Papers, Huntington Library.

3.
American Annual Cyclopaedia for 1864,
237-40.

4.
Letter of Halleck to Lieber dated Jan. 11, 1864, in the Lieber Collection, Huntington Library.

5.
American Annual Cyclopaedia for 1864,
306-10; Brooks,
Washington in Lincoln's Time,
155-56.

6.
Edward McPherson,
The Political History of the United States of America During the Great Rebellion,
411-14; Allan Nevins,
Fremont, Pathmarker of the West,
573-74. The Barlow Papers fairly sparkle with expressions of hope that the Fr6mont candidacy would mean Lincoln's defeat.

7. Basler, Vol. VII, 419.

8.
Davis to Lincoln, June 2, in the David Davis Papers, Chicago Historical Society.

9.
Noah Brooks (op. cit., 141-42, 148) insisted that Lincoln took no position at all on the vice-presidential contest, and so did John Nicolay (Helen Nicolay,
Lincoln's Secretary: A Biography of John G. Nicolay,
207-8). The Pennsylvania politician A. K. McClure, on the other hand, said flatly that "Lincoln conceived and executed the scheme to nominate Andrew Johnson"; a statement whose credibility is slightly flawed by McClure's vigorous attempt to show that he was a prime insider at the convention.
{Abraham Lincoln and Men of War Times,
115-29.) For a temperate analysis, see James F. Glonek,
Lincoln, Johnson and the Baltimore Ticket,
in the
Abraham Lincoln Quarterly,
Vol. VI, No. Five, 255-59.

10.Basler, Vol. VII, 380-83.

11.McPherson, op. cit., 406-7.

12.Letter of Montgomery Blair to Barlow dated Dec. 25, 1863; in the Barlow Papers, Huntington Library.

13.Blair to Barlow, letters dated May 1 and May 4, in the Barlow Papers.

14.Nicolay & Hay, Vol. LX, 247-49, citing a letter of the elder Blair in the
National Intelligencer
Oct. 5, 1864.

15.Barlow to Blair, dated May 10; Blair to Barlow, dated May 11 and May 27; in the Barlow Papers.

16.        Basler, Vol. VII, 259, 504-5.

17.Barlow to Johnson, Jan. 19; to Barnett, Feb. 18 and April 15; to Blair, May 3; in the Barlow Papers.

18.Records of the court of inquiry on the mine fiasco are in O.R., Vol. XL, Part One, 42-129.

19.Thurlow Weed to Seward, letter dated Aug. 22, and Henry Raymond to Lincoln, also dated Aug. 22, both in the Robert Todd Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress; David Davis to his brother Rockwell, dated Aug. 4, in the David Davis Papers, Chicago Historical Society.

20.Basler, Vol. VII, 514; Noah Brooks,
Two War-Time Conventions, Century Magazine,
Vol. XXVII, April 1895, 732-35.

21.Letter of McClellan to Barlow, apparently of June 17, in the Barlow Papers.

22.       McPherson, op. cit., 419, 423.

23.    Brooks,
Two War-Time Conventions,
734; letter of Noah
Brooks to John G. Nicolay, for Lincoln, dated Aug. 29, in the
Robert Todd Lincoln Papers; letter of J. Ditzler to Jefferson
Davis dated Sept. 15, in the Davis Papers, Duke University Li-
brary.

6. A Grand Simplicity of Purpose

1. Letter of Braxton Bragg to President Davis dated July 27, in
the Braxton Bragg Papers, Duke University Library: "The return
of 10th July will show 50,000 men for duty, and over 10,000
men on extra duty—all able-bodied, and as a general rule the
best men in the army. This will in a few days be reduced by at
least half."

2. O.R., Vol. XXXVIII, Part Three, 630.

3.
John B. Hood,
The Defense of Atlanta,
B. & L., Vol. TV, 336-38; Stanley Horn,
The Army of Tennessee,
352-54; L. G. Bennett and W. M. Haigh,
History of the 36th Regiment, Illinois Volunteers,
614-15; James Cooper Nisbet,
Four Years on the Firing Line,
209-11.

4.
There is a detailed account of the Confederate attack in Col. T. B. Roy,
General Hardee and the Military Operations around Atlanta,
SHSP, Vol. VIII, Nos. Eight and Nine, 340-66. Also good is Horn, op. cit., 354-59. For Sherman's missed opportunity, see Maj. Gen. Grenville Dodge,
Personal Recollections of President Abraham Lincoln, General Ulysses S. Grant and General William T. Sherman,
156; Gen. John M. Schofield,
Forty-six Years in the Army,
148, and
Memoirs of Gen. W. T. Sherman,
Vol. II, 82.

5.
Dodge, op. cit., 159-60, 162-66; letter of Hooker to Logan dated July 27, in the Logan Family Papers, Yale University Library.

6.
There is a brief summary of the Ezra Church affair in William Key,
The Battle of Atlanta and the Georgia Campaign,
65-68.

7.
Lloyd Lewis,
Sherman: Fighting Prophet,
407-9; Brig. Gen. Alpheus S. Williams,
From the Cannon's Mouth,
340-42; O.R., Vol. XXXVIII, Part Three, 635, 992; Lt. Col. William F. Fox,
Slocum and His Men,
271-72; Julian Wisner Hinkley,
A Narrative of Service with the 3rd Wisconsin Infantry,
141; letter of Hood to Bragg dated Sept. 4, in the Jefferson Davis Papers, Duke University Library.

8.
O.R., Vol. XLIII, Part Two, 110, 117; letter of Garfield to his wife dated Sept. 23, in the James A. Garfield Papers, Library of Congress.

9.
The difficulty of getting a reasonably close count on Civil War numbers once more arises. Early himself consistently understated his numbers, and the Federals wildly exaggerated them— Halleck assured Grant that "Early's force is now about 40,000, perhaps a little more" (Halleck to Grant dated Aug. 3, in the

Sheridan Papers, Library of Congress). Early's strength at the Opequon is given by Freeman
(Lee's Lieutenants,
Vol. II, 577) as 12,150; by Livermore
(Numbers and Losses,
127) as 18,131. The only real certainty is that Early was very heavily outnumbered.

10.
Recollections of Jubal Early, by One Who Followed Him, Century Magazine,
Vol. LXX, 311-13. For a somewhat less emotional sketch see John Esten Cooke,
Wearing of the Gray,
edited by Philip Van Doren Stern, 99-100.

11.O.R., Vol. XLIII, Part Two, 202. Grant's desire to strike at the Virginia Central was expressed many times, and he continued to call for such a move even after the victory on the Opequon. See O.R., Vol. XXXVII, Part Two, 300, 408, 413-14, 426, 558, for messages July 14, July 21, July 22 and Aug. 1; and Vol. XLIII, Part Two, 345.

12. O.R., Vol. XLIII, Part Two, 152.

13.Three drafts of McClellan's letter of acceptance are preserved in the Barlow Papers at the Huntington Library. One draft, whose language is somewhat cloudy, seems to favor the idea of an armistice, but also asserts that restoration of the Union must be the basis for any settlement. For Vallandigham's comment, see McPherson, 422.

14.Butler's operations can be glimpsed in a letter William Den-nison of Ohio wrote to Lincoln on Sept. 2, citing widespread rumors about Butler's desire for the nomination (in the Robert Todd Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress), and in Thurlow Weed's assertion that Butler asked him for his support on a new ticket (John Hay,
Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and Letters of John Hay,
220-21). Fremont wrote that his only consideration in withdrawing was "the welfare of the Republican party" (correction in Fremont's hand on a manuscript written by his wife and son; in the Fremont Papers, Bancroft Library, University of California).

15.Letter of Humphreys to his wife, undated but obviously written in August or September 1864, in the A. A. Humphreys Papers, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

16.Letter of John Bright to Horace Greeley dated Oct. 1, in the A. Conger Goodyear Collection, Historical Manuscripts Division, Yale University Library. For a revealing letter about the business of getting campaign contributions from war contractors, see Henry J. Raymond to Secretary of the Treasury Fessenden, dated Aug. 11, in the same collection.

17. Letter of Dr. H. C. Parry, a Union army surgeon, dated

Oct. 19, to his father, made available by Dr. Edward Owen Parry of Devon, Pa.

18.O.R., Vol. XLIII, Part Two, 249, 307-8, 436. The literature on Cedar Creek is of course voluminous. For contrasting Confederate accounts, see Early's
Autobiographical Sketch and Narrative of the War Between the States,
440-58, and John B. Gordon,
Reminiscences of the Civil War,
337-65. An interesting Federal account, strongly colored in Sheridan's favor, is George A. Forsyth,
Thrilling Days in Army Life,
126-66.

19.Barlow to McClellan, dated Nov. 9, and McClellan to Barlow, dated Nov. 10, in the Barlow Papers, Huntington Library.

Chapter Seven:
HIS ALMOST CHOSEN PEOPLE
1. Appeal Against the Thunderstorm

1. O.R., Series Four, Vol. Ill, 520, with June 30 returns show-
ing 121,000 absentees; 989, where an end-of-the-year return
shows an "aggregate present" of 196,016, as against an "aggre-
gate present and absent" of 400,787. At the close of 1864, accord-
ingly, there were at least 200,000 absentees.

2. Rowland, Vol. VI, 341-44.

3.
Horace Porter,
Campaigning with Grant,
313; Rowland, op. cit., 353-61, passim.

4.
O.R., Vol. XXXVIII, Part Five, 837-38; Vol. XXXLX, Part Two, 415; petition of the Mayor of Atlanta dated Sept. 11, and Sherman's reply dated Sept. 12, in the Dearborn Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University.

5.
Letter of Sherman dated Sept. 22, in the Silas F. Miller Papers, originals owned by John Mason Brown, photostats in the Filson Club, Louisville; O.R., Vol. XXXIX, Part Two, 411-13.

6.
For excellent accounts of Hood's and Sherman's maneuvers in this period see Jacob D. Cox,
Atlanta,
218-39, and Horn,
The Army of Tennessee,
369-83.

7.
Thomas B. Van Home,
The Life of Major General George H. Thomas,
255; O.R., Vol. XX, Part Two, 128-29.

8.
O.R., Vol. XXXIX, Part Three, 202, 324, 594; letter of Grant to Stanton dated Oct. 13, in the Ulysses S. Grant Letters and Papers, Illinois State Historical Library; letter of Sherman to Senator John Sherman dated Oct. 11, in R. S. Thorndike, ed.,
The Sherman Letters,
240.

9. Rowland, Vol. VI, 386-87.

10.     Jacob Thompson's report is in O.R., Vol. XLIII, Part Two,
930-36. There is a vast literature on this fifth column movement,
most of it rather uncritical, and a sober re-examination of the
entire picture is much needed. For a participant's story, see John
W. Headley,
Confederate Operations in Canada and New York.
A recent treatment of the daring Confederate operative Capt.
Thomas Hines is James D. Horan,
Confederate Agent.

11.Lee to Davis, Sept. 11, in Rowland, Vol. VI, 327-29.
12.O.R., Series Four, Vol. Ill, 324-44, 855-56, 880-81, 964.
13.Ibid., 869-70; Rowland, Vol. VI, 421.
14.O.R., Series Four, Vol. Ill, 976-77.

15.Manuscript memoirs of Senator Williamson Simpson Oldham, in the Eugene C. Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas. For a moving discussion of the dawning awareness of defeat, see George Cary Eggleston,
A Rebel's Recollections,
172-77.

16.For excellent articles on Price's Missouri campaign, see Howard N. Monnett:
The Confederate Invasion of Missouri,
Missouri Historical Society Bulletin, October 1951;
The Battle of Westport,
Kansas City
Star,
April 23, 1961;
Retreat from West-port,
in The Trail Guide, Kansas City Posse, The Westerners, Vol. VII, No. 3, September 1962. Pertinent reports are in O.R., Vol. XLI, Part One, 313-17, 341-43, 491-519, 636-40.

17. O.R., Vol. XLII, Part Three, 1134.

2.
What Have You Done?

1. Basler, Vol. VIII, 136-53.

2. Hood sets forth his plans in
Advance and Retreat,
263-69,
271-73. In a postwar letter to his friend Lucius B. Northrop, Davis
wrote that "I certainly did not contemplate a movement into
Tenn. as the means which would cause Sherman to counter-
march," and said that the projected march to the Ohio "was to
be subsequent to the defeat of Sherman's army." When Davis
learned where Hood was going he telegraphed Beauregard, warn-
ing him that Grant and Sherman would "regard the occupation
of Tennessee as of minor importance." (Letter dated Sept. 25,
1879, in the Goodyear Collection, Historical Manuscripts Division,
Yale University Library; telegram to Beauregard dated Nov. 30,
1864, copy in the Eugene C. Barker Texas History Center, Uni-
versity of Texas.)

3.
T. Harry Williams,
Beauregard: Napoleon in Gray,
243-45; Alfred Roman,
Military Operations of General Beauregard,
Vol. II, 293-94, 299-300; Henry Stone,
The Battle of Franklin,
MHSM Papers, Vol. VII, 436-42; O.R., Vol. XXXIX, Part One, 590; Vol. XLV, Part One, 663, 678.

4.
Hood,
The Invasion of Tennessee,
B. & L., Vol. IV, 425-32; O.R., Vol. XLV, Part One, 652-53. The reasons for Hood's failure to strike at Spring Hill are by no means clear even now. Hood laid the blame on General Cheatham, one of his corps commanders, but his account of the affair differs so sharply from other accounts—notably Cheatham's—and is so infused with Hood's constant effort to show that his army had let him down, that it is quite unconvincing. In a careful analysis of the whole situation
(The Army of Tennessee,
386-93), Stanley Horn seems inclined to put most of the blame on Hood. Henry Stone, one of Thomas' staff officers, asserts that there "were queer doings in the Rebel lines among some of the leading officers," and implies that some heavy drinking had taken place. Op. cit., 462.

BOOK: Never Call Retreat
13.99Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Witches' Waves by Teresa Noelle Roberts
Falling for an Alpha by Vanessa Devereaux
Rex Stout by The Sound of Murder
Affection by Krissy Kneen
Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham
Because of You by Rashelle Workman
Bayou Paradox by Robin Caroll