Dixie Victorious: An Alternate history of the Civil War

by Peter Tsouras

  In well-publicized statements, the Earl of Shrewsbury, for example, gloated about the “trial of democracy in America and its ignominious failure.” He insisted that “the dissolution of the Union portends that men now before me will live to see an aristocracy founded in America.”2 Leading newspapers with connections to the Palmerston government heartily affirmed similar pro-Confederate sentiments. Unless the South achieved its independence, the London Morning Post asked rhetorically in 1862, “who can doubt that Democracy will be more arrogant, more aggressive, more leveling and vulgarizing, if that is possible, than ever before?”3 The London Times, more prestigious and not to be outdone, editorialized that the dissolution of the Union “is to be welcomed with good riddance to a nightmare, [and] excepting a few gentlemen of republican tendencies, we all expect, we nearly all wish, success to the Confederate cause.”4 These were strong words with a clear message, and elements of the British press seemed locked in competition to lend support to the Confederacy.

  Northerners for their part took umbrage at the failure of the British, after so many years of vehement opposition to slavery, to look beneath the surface and appreciate that success for Union arms meant slavery’s deathblow in North America. The North expected at least warm endorsement, but by the middle of 1862 was receiving at best grudging cool neutrality. The lament of James Russell Lowell reflected widespread Unionist resentment:

  We know we’ve got a cause, John,

  That’s honest, just, and true;

  We thought t’win applause, John,

  If nowheres else, from you.5

  The Substance of the Shadow

  Lee faced two choices. He could withdraw the Army of Northern Virginia from the Washington area and establish it around Richmond again, but such a course of action would have dispirited his troops and disheartened Virginia, which had suffered over a year of conflict on its soil and desperately hoped for fresh military successes. The alternative was to lead his army across the Potomac and begin conducting the war on Union territory. Potential advantages accruing from the second course of action strongly invited it. In addition to the devastating blows Lee would likely inflict, the morale of the Union forces would plummet just as Confederate prestige abroad would rise. Also, the presence of hostile forces on Northern terrain might well dissuade the reappointed commander of the Army of the Potomac, Major General George B. McClellan, from launching another invasion of Virginia. Lee would give his war-ravaged homeland a respite while inflicting the devil of a whipping upon the Federals that might make all the political difference.

  Lee was too worldly-wise and experienced as a soldier not to grasp that the Confederacy could not endure a protracted war against a determined Federal Government. “Against the giant combination for our subjugation,” as Lee called it, the South would have little long-term chance of victory unless foreign powers, meaning Great Britain or France, and preferably both, would render assistance on a large scale.6 Lee’s hopes for a successful campaign were thus based substantially upon the political effects ensuing from a bold invasion and subsequent stunning battlefield victories. Actuated by the triumph of arms in August 1862, Lee wrote to Confederate President Jefferson Davis arguing that this moment of the nadir of Federal morale was propitious for an invasion of Maryland, still loyal to the Union but with alleged widespread sympathies for the Confederate cause. The invasion would shift the brunt of the fighting from the soil of distressed Virginia to the Northern states, furnish forage and provisions to the main Confederate army sorely in want, and allow the citizens of “oppressed territory” to display their true convictions. The trusting association between Lee and Davis, sharply contrasted to the often convoluted Federal command structures, is illustrated by Lee’s willingness to put his army in motion within days of the Battle of Second Manassas and even before receiving explicit assent from Davis. He knew intuitively that Davis would acquiesce to daring and even risky plans in a way Federal commanders could only dream of, burdened as they were by political interference from Washington and the second-guessing of such men as Secretary of War Edward M. Stanton and General-in-Chief of the Army Henry W. Halleck—“Old Brains,” as the latter was sardonically known, the archetypal armchair general.

  True, Lee was entering upon a gamble fraught with hazards. The Maryland campaign was not only perilous in itself, but the Army of Northern Virginia was materially unprepared for such an ambitious undertaking. Short of heavy equipment, above all of transport, the army consisted largely of poorly clothed and ill shod men. These were “ragged soldiers with bright muskets,” one observer aptly pointed out. As if Lee needed much convincing, though, his subordinate commanders provided the necessary reassurance. Lieutenant General James Longstreet,7 referred to affectionately by Lee as his “Old War Horse,” recalled how his troops had lived off the land around the city of Monterey during the Mexican War. Maryland’s farms, as yet unblighted by the cruel scourge of battle, all knew, would be laden in the early fall with vegetables and fruit. Impelled by the adage that he who dares wins, between September 4 and 7 Lee forded his entire army, some 59,000 strong, across the Potomac near Point of Rocks, where the water was scarcely more than knee-deep, and encamped in the vicinity of Frederick, Maryland. Lee’s ambition was palpable. A stolid man with the instincts of a cardsharp, Lee was unswerving in his ardor to carry the war to the North and subsequently to demonstrate his ability to operate there with impunity once his valiant army eradicated Federal forces dispatched to join battle. On September 4, as the Army of Northern Virginia began to cross the river, Lee wrote to Davis: “Should the results of the expedition justify it, I propose to enter Pennsylvania, unless you should deem it inadvisable upon political or other grounds.”8

  For his part, Davis could hardly conceal his enthusiasm, expeditiously drafting a proclamation with the place for the state simply left blank, stating:

  “We are driven to protect our own country by transferring the seat of war to that of an enemy who pursues us with a relentless and apparently endless hostility; our fields have been laid waste, our people killed, many homes made desolate, and rapine and murder have ravaged our frontiers; the sacred right of self-defense demands that, if such a war is to continue, its consequences shall fall on those who persist in their refusal to make peace. The Confederate Army therefore comes to occupy the territory of their enemies and to make it the theater of hostilities.”9

  Lee would have only to write in the name of the Northern state where his headquarters was located following the destruction of the Federal army, and the proclamation would become the basis for an armistice. All was going according to plan on September 9, when Lee wrote to Davis that, “I shall move in the direction I had originally intended, toward Hagerstown and Chambersburg, for the purpose of opening our line of communication through the valley, in order to procure sufficient supplies of flour.”10

  Little Mac is Back

  In the dark hours as the rattled components of the Federal Army of Virginia that had suffered such ignominious defeat at Manassas were slogging back to Washington, McClellan resumed command of the Union army at the request of a distraught President Lincoln. Earlier in the year, as he organized and drilled the Army of the Potomac, McClellan wrote to Halleck, still in the field in the Western theater, “I have, or expect to have, one great advantage over you as a result of my long and tedious labors—troops that will be demoralized neither by success nor disaster.”11

  In truth, he had a point. In the spring and summer of 1862, Union armies in the eastern theater suffered humiliating setbacks and defeats, but fought on with dogged determination. Many had lost faith in their leaders, yet few had lost faith in themselves. The Union troops were dazed and confused after the hard summer campaign of 1862, yet few were perpetually dispirited. Time and again, they demonstrated their resilience by almost eagerly leaping back into the fray in the wake of a hammering. The news of McClellan’s return as commander enlivened the soldiers, plucking up their hearts to form the ranks of a methodical and disci
plined army once again. McClellan had his weaknesses, to be sure, but few called his organizational skills into question, nor doubted the magic his name invoked with the soldiers he led.12 Little Mac would consequently be tasked with bringing method to disorganization, to streamlining disintegrating Union forces, while concurrently directing the troops to thwart an advancing and triumphant foe flushed with victory.

  No mean task, this. The loose ends of two war-torn armies, along with most of the Washington garrison, had to be woven swiftly into a fighting force with the mettle to give battle to “Bobby” Lee. As he was riding down Pennsylvania Avenue on September 7, McClellan encountered Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles who queried whether the army would be moving north up the river. McClellan replied he had just taken charge of the army. “Onward, General, is now the word,” said Welles. “The country will expect you to go forward.” “That,” McClellan assured him, “is my intention.”13

  Indeed, for a general with a reputation for dilatoriness and indecision, McClellan seemed to be responding with uncharacteristic alacrity. News of Lee’s crossing of the Potomac precipitated the brisk movement of the Federal army toward Frederick along five parallel roads. The marching columns were so dispersed as to safeguard both Washington and Baltimore, with the left flank resting on the Potomac and the right on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The army’s right consisted of the First and Ninth Corps under Major General Ambrose Burnside; the center, consisting of the Second and Twelfth Corps under Major General Edwin V. Sumner; and the left wing, of the Sixth Corps under Major General William B. Franklin. In fact, some in Washington began to worry that McClellan was responding too quickly to the threat posed by the Army of Northern Virginia, that the latter’s movement into western Maryland was a ploy to draw Federal forces far enough away from Washington to allow Lee to swing his army around and position it between the capital and the newly reformed Army of the Potomac. McClellan, for his part, displayed no shortage of confidence as he marched his army forward in pursuit of Lee, its flanks and its dispersal adequate for protection of Washington.

  Lucid Schemes

  Lee never considered a direct move against Washington or Baltimore with a sizable Federal army between him and these cities. Rather, the Army of Northern Virginia’s nimble maneuvers, he reckoned, would cause the Union commander to uncover one or both of them. With his supply lines secure through the Shenandoah Valley, Lee planned to push northward, intimidating Pennsylvania by operations in the Cumberland Valley and drawing a Union army so far toward the Susquehanna River that it would be overextended, affording him the opportunity to inflict devastating blows upon it far from the main base of supplies. If all went well, Lee could then position his army between one of the large Northern cities and the enfeebled Federal forces, prodding the latter to attack him on ground of his choosing. Consequently, his first movement from Frederick was towards the western side of the mountain range, named the Blue Ridge south of the Potomac and South Mountain north of the Potomac, which forms the eastern wall of the Shenandoah and Cumberland valleys, the former his line of communications with Richmond and the latter his line of maneuver toward Pennsylvania.

  McClellan established closer and more rapid contact with the Confederate invaders than Lee initially anticipated. The wayworn Federal forces did not appear to be the disparate, combat-fatigued and demoralized assemblages of troops Southern leaders expected to see, for McClellan had somehow pulled together an army perhaps 80,000 strong that might not quickly overreach itself and could hastily concentrate to pose a genuine threat to the invading force.

  So how to effect the plan? How to stay the course of the stratagem with the campaign well under way? How to open the proverbial back door, allowing the Army of Northern Virginia to get into McClellan’s rear when he seemed to have his flanks protected and the capital covered? The solution came following a reconnaissance mission on the eastern side of South Mountain by the Army of Northern Virginia’s hard-driving cavalry arm. Its indefatigable commander, Major General J.E.B. Stuart, noting that McClellan appeared to be moving his forces with uncharacteristic speed, hit upon an idea that accorded with his commander’s intent while giving further purpose to the overall campaign plan.

  Stuart, for his part, had learned to exploit the opportunities attendant to McClellan’s propensity for hesitation and vacillation. During the battles before Richmond the previous spring, Stuart led his entire cavalry corps in a breathtaking ride completely around the huge Federal army. Stuart enjoyed such a reputation for boldness among his fellow generals that some remarked without blushing that he was wonderfully endowed by nature for the direction of light cavalry. If he could pull off such feats, Stuart reasoned, fresh paths to opportunity surely lay open. It was clear to all with eyes to see that McClellan was capable of being his own worst enemy.

  While issuing his situation report to Lee, Longstreet, and Lieutenant General T.J. “Stonewall” Jackson, Stuart devised a means to buoy up the risk-averse McClellan. If the latter, with a knowledge of Lee’s movements, could be made to think he was so perfectly master of the situation, and the stake so great as to warrant, indeed to necessitate, the boldest action, then he just might be inclined to tempt Providence. Jackson, renowned for his skill at swift maneuver and a knack for taking advantage of enemy weakness, heartily concurred. Jackson was an unusual man, who coupled a fearsome killer instinct with an intuitive grasp that the primary means of that instinct are to mystify and confuse the enemy. The two were complementary but hardly a matching pair. Stuart was a playful man, finely carved, all surface, like an intricately cut prism; Jackson was merely a hard man. Stuart’s youthful good looks and romantic style made him an idol of subordinates and a hero throughout the South. In conjuring up a clever ruse de guerre, Stuart and Jackson concocted what became the definitive mystification and confusion plan of the Civil War.

  The Game Made

  Lee would draft orders revealing his designs for the campaign, and Stuart’s cavalry would see to it that these fell into McClellan’s hands, motivating him, it was hoped, to take precipitous action. Lee would then circumvent these plans in such a manner as to throw McClellan completely off balance. Designated Special Order No. 191, dated September 9, 1862, the document seemed to reveal the missions for the major components of Lee’s army and clear up the conundrum surrounding the Confederates’ sudden movement westward from Frederick.14 A Confederate cavalry patrol deliberately dropped an envelope containing three high-quality cigars and a copy of the order, purportedly meant for Major General D.H. Hill, in a field adjacent to the Hagerstown Road near Middletown on September 10 where McClellan had just joined his army. Union soldiers, finding the envelope marked “Headquarters Army of Northern Virginia,” placed it, complete with the cigars, duty having apparently checkmated the temptation to light up, into the hands of an officer who, in turn, headed directly to Twelfth Corps headquarters and Brigadier General Alpheus S. Williams, who perused the order with this adjutant, Colonel Samuel E. Pittman. The latter claimed to have served with R.H. Chilton, Lee’s chief of staff, who drafted the order, and professed to recognize the handwriting. A self-important man, Pittman was telling a boastful tale that would prove serendipitous for the Confederate ruse de guerre. Pittman had not entered the army until September 1861, five months after Chilton resigned his commission to take up the Confederate cause.15 The two could not, therefore, have served together in Michigan, but the young colonel’s assertion lent considerable credence to presuppositions about the order’s genuineness.

  Special Order No. 191 specified that the Army of Northern Virginia should resume its march, taking the Hagerstown Road from Frederick. Jackson’s corps, in the vanguard, would rush forward as was its wont, turn south, recross the Potomac and lay siege to Harpers Ferry, the town situated at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers where a Federal arsenal was located and a garrison of 12,000 Union troops under Colonel D.H. Miles deployed.16 According to the order, the accompanying maneuvers were to be accomplished b
y September 13. Longstreet, for his part, was to move on Boonsboro, on the Hagerstown Road, and halt there. The 16 brigades under the command of Major General Lafayette McLaws would leave the column at Middletown, also turn south and possess themselves of Maryland Heights just north of and overlooking Harpers Ferry. Meanwhile, Brigadier General John G. Walker would also head back south to the Potomac on the same road by which he had come, ford the river, and seize Loudon Heights on the Potomac side of the Ferry. The reserve artillery, ordnance and supply trains were to precede D.H. Hill, whose division would constitute the Army of Northern Virginia’s rearguard through the South Mountain by Turner’s Gap. The cavalry contingent would screen the route of the army and round up stragglers, of which there were expected to be many.

  In fact, no Confederate forces would assault Harpers Ferry. Investing it would have been largely a waste of time. The Union troops occupying Harpers Ferry were under the direct command of Halleck in Washington, who had foolishly ordered Colonel Miles to hold the Ferry at all costs. Lee ascertained through snippets of good intelligence that the town would not be evacuated as McClellan strongly recommended. The Union detachment would be unable to join the Army of the Potomac, much less to offer a threat to the Confederate rear. Compounding the error was Miles’s lack of simple common sense in neglecting even to move the garrison to the top of the lofty range of mountains easily accessible to him. He regarded Halleck’s directive as authorization for inaction. Hence, a sizable Federal force remained bottled up and posed little menace, notwithstanding its position astride the Confederate supply lines and effectually in the rear of Lee’s army in western Maryland. So long as it remained stationary, it was little more than a nuisance to communications through the Shenandoah Valley. Lee, as usual, was willing to run risks, taking for granted that he could sustain the presence of his army in Maryland and Pennsylvania for some considerable time. To buttress the ruse, Lee detached a small unit of reserve artillery to deploy on the undefended Maryland Heights, 2,000 feet above Harpers Ferry, and directed it to fire sporadically into the town, well within earshot of some of McClellan’s forces. McClellan, tricked into believing that the Ferry was indeed under siege, was consequently furnished with an additional incentive to rush his troops forward in a hasty effort to relieve the town prior to its destruction and the subsequent surrender of its garrison.