Terrible Swift Sword (81 page)

Read Terrible Swift Sword Online

Authors: Bruce Catton

Tags: #Non Fiction, #Military

BOOK: Terrible Swift Sword
5.27Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

4.
 
Pope's
aide, David H. Strother, wrote in his diary that on the night of August 29
"Pope was firmly of the opinion that Jackson was beaten and would get off
during the night." It is interesting to note that Pope apparently realized
that Longstreet's corps had arrived; on the morning of Aug. 30 he wrote Halleck
that he had fought the previous day against "the combined forces of the enemy."
He added: "The news just reaches me from the front that the enemy is
retreating toward the mountains. I go forward at once to see."
(A
Virginia
Yankee in the Civil War,
94; O.R.,
Vol. XII, Part Three, 741.)

5.
 
Actually,
the Army of Northern Virginia had not yet formally adopted the corps formation,
and technically Longstreet commanded one wing of the army. To all intents and
purposes, however, this was an army corps and it is so referred to in the
text.

6.
 
Brig.
Gen. Charles F. Walcott,
The Battle
of
Chantilly: the Virginia Campaign
of
1862 under Gen. Pope,
Papers
of the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, Vol. II, 143.

7.
 
Letter
from Frank Haskell to his brother dated Aug. 31, 1862, in the Haskell Papers,
State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison.

8.
 
Letter
of John F. Sale, 12th Virginia Infantry, dated Jan. 31, 1863, in the Archives
Division of the Virginia State Library, Richmond.

9.
 
O.R.,
Vol. XIX, Part Two, 590; memorandum by Col. William Allan of a conversation
with Gen. Lee on Feb. 15, 1868, in the Southern Historical Collection.

10.    Letter
from Clara Barton to "Mr. Shaver" of Washington,
dated Sept. 4, 1862, B. & L., extra-illustrated edition, Vol. VII, in
the Huntington Library.

3.  
To Risk Everything

1. The comment of Jacob
Cox is worth recalling: "Pope's intro-
duction to the eastern army was an unfortunate one; but neither he
nor anyone else could have imagined the heat of partisan spirit
or the lengths it would run. . . . There was abundant proof that
the wounded
amour propre
of
the officers and men of the Army of
the Potomac made them practically a unit in intense dislike and
distrust of him. It may be that this condition of things destroyed
his possibility of usefulness in the east."
(Military
Reminiscences
of
the Civil War,
Vol. I, 248.)

2. Charles
E. Davis, Jr.,
Three Years in the
Army: the Story

of
the 13th Massachusetts Volunteers from
July
16, 1861, to Aug. 1, 1864,
156-57.

3.
David
W. Judd,
The Story
of
the 33rd New York Volunteers,
217;
letter of Gen. Pope to Gov. Yates of Illinois dated Sept. 21, 1862, in the John
Pope Papers, Chicago Historical Society; sketch of the life of Gen. Doubleday,
written by his wife and with notes by the general, sent by him to Frank I.
Bramhall of New York on Dec. 18, 1864; now in B. & L., extra-illustrated,
Vol. X, Huntington Library.

4.
Pinkerton
to McClellan dated Aug. 25, 1862, from the Allan Pinkerton Papers, notes by
Allan Nevins, courtesy of Howard Swiggett.

5. O.R., Vol. XII, Part Three, 688-89, 691,
709-10, 722-23.

6.      Tyler Dennett, ed.,
Lincoln
and the Civil War in the Diaries
and Letters
of
John
Hay,
45;
letter of Attorney General Bates to
Francis Leiber dated Sept. 2, 1862, in the Francis Leiber Collec-
tion, Huntington Library.

7. O.R., Vol. XII, Part Three, 773.

8.      Ibid., 706, 740; Nicolay &
Hay, Vol. VI, 21-22;
Diary
of
Salmon
P.
Chase,
62-63; Benjamin P. Thomas and Harold Hy-
man,
Stanton,
219-20.

9.         O.R., Vol. XII, Part Two, 83.

10. O.R., Vol. XII, Part Three, 787-88.
An account of Lin-
coln's state of mind at this meeting is in Nicolay & Hay, Vol.
VI, 21.

11. O.R., Vol. XH, Part Three, 797.

12.
Diary
of
Gideon Welles,
Vol.
I, 105;
Diary
of
Salmon
P.
Chase,
63-65.

13.
Letter of
McClellan to Mrs. McClellan dated Sept. 2, 1862, in the McClellan Letterbook;
Diary
of
Gideon Welles,
Vol.
I, 111;
Lincoln and the Civil
War
in the Diaries and Letters
of
John Hay,
47.

14.
The
Lincoln-Stanton order to Halleck, and Halleck's order to McClellan, are in
O.R., Vol. XIX, Part Two, 169. For the relief of Pope and the consolidation of
the armies see the same volume, 183, 188.

15.
For Pope's
furious correspondence with Halleck see his letters to Halleck dated Sept. 30
and Oct. 20, 1862, in the John Pope Papers, Chicago Historical Society. An
angry letter to V. B. Horton, the general's father-in-law, dated March 9, 1863,
containing bitter denunciation of Lincoln, is in the Pope Papers, New York
Historical Society. A long letter from Halleck to Pope dated Oct. 10, 1862, is
in the Halleck Papers, Chicago Historical Society.

16. Memorandum of
Col. William Allan, reciting a conversation with Gen. Lee on Feb. 15, 1868,
and giving also a memorandum by the Rev. Mr. E. C. Gordon describing a conversation
with Lee on the same date; in the Southern Historical Collection. Lee's letter
to Mr. Davis is in O.R., Vol. XIX, Part Two, 590-91.

4.  
A Town Called Sharpsburg

1.
O.R.,
Vol. XIX, Part Two, 281. The literature on the lost order is extensive. There
is a good treatment of the case in Hal Bridges,
Lee's
Maverick General: Daniel Harvey Hill,
96-99.

2.
Diary
of J. R. Boulware, assistant surgeon, 6th South Carolina, in the Virginia State
Library, Richmond; Moore's
Rebellion
Record,
Vol. V, Documents,
444; Alexander Hunter in Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. XXXI, 40.

3.
In
his report (O.R., Vol. XIX, Part One, 151) Lee says that he had 40,000 men in
the battle. Livermore
(Numbers and Losses,
92)
thinks the figure too low, arguing that to accept it is to admit that Lee's
army had had fantastic temporary losses from straggling during the fortnight
before the battle. The fact is, however, that straggling had been fantastic,
and the careful study in Freeman
R. E. Lee,
Vol. II, 402, indicates that Lee's total
is approximately correct. McClellan gives his own strength as 87,000 (O.R.,
Vol. XIX, Part One, 67). John C. Ropes,
The Story
of
the Civil War,
Part
Two, 376, points out that only about 46,000 of McClellan's men were seriously
engaged.

4.
"Every
stalk of corn in the northern and greater part of the field was cut as closely
as could have been done with a knife, and the slain lay in rows precisely as
they had stood in their ranks a few moments before"—Hooker's report, O.R.,
Vol. XLX, Part One, 218.

5.
Cf.
Jed Hotchkiss,
Confederate Military
History, Virginia,
Vol. HI, 357: 'TLee
was not only willing but eager to renew the battle, in which he was earnestly
seconded by Jackson." The best appraisal of casualties indicates that the
Federals lost upwards of 13,000 men on September 17 and the Confederates rather
more than 10,000.

6.         O.R., Vol.
XIX, Part One, 68; McClellan's
Own Story,
613.

7. Albert D.
Richardson,
The Secret Service,
the Field, the
Dungeon and the Escape,
284;
dispatch in the Charleston
Courier
dated Sept. 17, cited in Moore's
Rebellion
Record,
Vol. V, Docu-
ments, 472-75; letter of Frank Haskell dated Sept. 19, in the
Haskell Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin. It might
be noted that the rain which began the day soon ended, and there was clear
sunlight throughout most of the battle.

8. Bell Wiley, ed.,
Reminiscences
of
Big I,"
by
Lieutenant Wil-
liam N. Wood; diary of J .R. Boulware, cited in Footnote 2; diary
and letters of Capt. John Taggart, 9th Pennsylvania Reserves, in
the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Bureau of
Research, Publications and Records; David H. Strother, "Personal
Recollections of the War, by a Virginian," in
Harper's
Magazine,
Vol. XXXVI, February 1868, 82.

9. Strother,
A
Virginia Yankee in the Civil War,
124.

5,
  
Taking the Initiative

1.
Jed
Hotchkiss, Confederate Military History,
Virginia,
Vol. HI, 357; O.R., Vol. XIX, Part Two,
626-27.

2.
Lee
to Davis dated Sept. 25, in O.R., Vol. XIX, Part Two, 626-27; letter of Brig
Gen. John R. Jones dated Sept. 20, in B. & L., extra-illustrated, Vol. VIH,
Huntington Library; Allan,
The Army
of
Northern Virginia in 1862,
451.
A Sept. 22 return on the army's strength in infantry and cavalry is in O.R.,
Vol. XIX, Part Two, 621.

3. O.R., Vol. XIX,
Part Two, 348.

4.
Letters
to Mrs. McClellan, both dated Sept. 20, one marked "9 p.m.," in the
McClellan Letterbook.

5.
Barnett
to S. L. M. Barlow dated Sept. 19, in the Barlow Papers, Huntington Library.
Barnett needs a little study. A friend of Caleb Smith, he held a job of some
sort in the Interior Department and served also as a newspaper correspondent
and as a lobbyist, devoting much of his time to writing gossipy letters to
Barlow on political developments. He apparently knew Lincoln personally, and
some of his letters to Barlow reflect his conversations with the President.

6.        
Diary
of
Gideon Welles,
Vol.
I, 143.

7.
Nicolay
& Hay, Vol. VI, 162-63, quoting Welles in
The
Galaxy
for December 1872,
846-47.

8.
Lincoln
and the Civil War in the Diaries and Letters
of
John
Hay,
50.

9.         Frederick
Seward,
Seward at Washington,
Vol. ffl, 135-36.

10.    Strother,
A
Virginia Yankee in the Civil War,
116-17;
letter of Robert Gould Shaw to his mother dated Sept. 25, from
the Robert Gould Shaw letters, privately held, transcribed by
Allan Nevins; Samuel Butterworth to Barlow, Sept. 23, and
Barnett to Barlow, Sept. 25, in the Barlow Papers.

11.
Letter
dated Sept. 30, in the Manton Marble Papers, Library of Congress.

12.
McClellan
to William H. Aspinwall dated Sept. 26, in B. & L., extra-illustrated, Vol.
VIII, Huntington Library; McClellan
's
Own
Story,
655.

Other books

Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo
Silence of the Wolf by Terry Spear
Tyrant: Force of Kings by Christian Cameron
Tiger's Heart by Aisling Juanjuan Shen
Dead Weight by Steven F. Havill
5 Buried By Buttercups by Joyce, Jim Lavene
The Last Dead Girl by Harry Dolan
Annie's Promise by Margaret Graham
Not After Everything by Michelle Levy