Crucible of Command

by William C. Davis

  Jackson did not disappoint. He kept in constant communication with Lee, and though the latter did not always agree with Stonewall’s assessment of a situation, he usually deferred to the man on the ground, saying “you ought to know.”56 Like Grant, Lee knew better than to try to impose his conceptions from afar. When he could send no more reinforcements, he left it to Jackson to decide if he should initiate combat. “Being on the spot you must determine what force to operate against,” Lee told him on August 7. He suggested only that Jackson try to maneuver the enemy out of well-defended positions rather than try to take them by force, but again left the determination to Jackson. “I would rather you should have easy fighting and heavy victories,” he told him. “Make up your mind what is best to be done under all the circumstances which surround us and let me hear the result at which you arrive.”57

  Again it was a hefty degree of independent discretion Lee gave Jackson, though in the event he had little choice. Stonewall was on the ground while Lee was more than a hundred miles to the southeast where he could hardly give direction. Any information he might act on was hours old before he got it, and by the time he could respond with orders the forces in the field might be miles from where he thought them to be. Happily, he had struck on just the right approach for managing Jackson, who was just as agile after Pope as he had been sluggish against McClellan. On August 9, at Cedar Mountain not far from Culpeper, he caught one of Pope’s corps and gave it a severe battering. Lee rejoiced in “the victory which God has granted you.”58 More than that, he quickly read the signs of units leaving McClellan by transport. That told him two things: they were going to reinforce Pope, and a weakened McClellan was even less likely to move against Richmond. Now was the time to act, to take a greater risk. If Lee could concentrate enough strength against Pope, while still leaving Richmond protected, he might destroy one army and then turn back and take on McClellan.

  On August 13 Lee ordered Longstreet’s division off by rail to join Jackson, where as senior officer Longstreet would command. Within hours, however, Longstreet asked Lee to come assume command in person, and Lee spent August 14 making hurried preparations. He could not leave without telling President Davis, of course, and he notified him in a peculiar fashion. Instead of informing him face to face, Lee wrote a letter saying he would leave before dawn on August 15 “unless I hear from you to the contrary.” Lee knew Davis well enough by now to know it was sometimes best not to give the president an opportunity to question. Yet at the same time Lee revealed what he had learned from Johnston’s refusal to communicate. “I will keep you informed of everything of importance that transpires,” he vowed. “When you do not hear from me, you may feel sure that I do not think it necessary to trouble you.” Lee understood that Davis had a right to information from his commanders; indeed it was a necessity. He also sensed that an informed president was less likely to interfere. This would be the basic tenor of his relations with Davis for the rest of the war.59

  Lee reached Gordonsville late the next morning and soon moved on to join the army at Orange Court House twenty miles south of Pope’s army concentrated around Culpeper. His arrival caused something of a sensation among the soldiers, who were reconsidering “Granny Lee” now that he had led them to victory. An artilleryman who saw him in Gordonsville wrote his wife the same day that he thought Lee “silent, inscrutable, strong, like a God.”60

  The day before Lee told Longstreet that “it is all important that our movement in what ever direction it is determined should be as quick as possible,” and on arrival he set out to do just that.61 Though he believed himself to be outnumbered, in fact Lee and Pope were almost evenly matched at about 55,000 soldiers each, but Lee knew that large elements of McClellan’s army were on their way via Washington and a landing on the lower Potomac at Aquia Creek. Lee had to make his move before they reached Pope in little more than a week, or else he would be too heavily outnumbered to risk engagement. He shifted the army east a few miles from Orange Court House to the south side of Clark’s Mountain, which masked him from Pope’s view on Cedar Mountain. He intended then to move north, keeping Clark’s Mountain between himself and Pope, until he crossed the Rapidan River and pushed on to Culpeper. That would put him north of Pope, cut his line of supply and communications, and then Lee could turn south and strike the Federals. He set the movement for August 18, heeding his own injunction to be “as quick as possible.”

  The plan had the genius of simplicity. Lee based it on an accurate reading of enemy movements, a perceptive grasp of Pope’s immediate situation, and his own excellent use of geography. It fit perfectly Lee’s needs. Moreover, it lacked the complexity and coordination pitfalls that hampered him at Cheat Mountain and in the Seven Days. Unfortunately, Lee timed the move before he could be ready himself, and did not reach the Rapidan until August 19, but his cavalry’s failure to secure the crossing held him up another day, by which time it was all pointless. A Union cavalry raid on Stuart’s headquarters at Verdiersville on the night of August 17 captured a copy of Lee’s campaign plan; thus alerted, Pope pulled back north of the Rappahannock and all Lee could do was follow. For the next several days the armies faced each other over the river. Lee’s splendid plan had come to nothing, and Pope’s reinforcements were starting to arrive, boosting his strength to more than 70,000.

  As with Grant, Lee’s surpassing skill lay in his reaction to setbacks and the unexpected. Where most other commanders in this war might have handed the initiative to Pope, Lee instead thought in the boldest terms yet conceived. His problem had changed. Where it had been Pope alone, now it was Pope on north bank of the Rappahannock, and more than two fresh army corps at Fredericksburg, Aquia Creek, and Washington, bent on reinforcing him. Lee’s solution was to hold Pope’s army in place by a spirited demonstration; at the same time Jackson and 30,000 men, soon followed by Longstreet, moved up the right bank of the Rappahannock thirty miles, shielded from view on the east by the Bull Run Mountains, then turned east through Thoroughfare Gap another thirty miles to hit the Orange & Alexandria Railroad at or near Manassas, and cut Pope’s line of communications. That would also cut off the reinforcements destined for Pope from Washington and, Lee hoped, force Pope to pull back to reestablish his supply line and give Lee an opening to attack at advantage somewhere in northern Virginia.

  Lee’s audacity was stunning, though not unduly reckless. Simple acceptance of the reality of his situation suggested that as the underdog he had no option but to take risks or else sit passively while the foe grew ever stronger. Jackson’s success at Cedar Mountain repaired any erosion of Lee’s confidence in his ability, and he thought no less of Longstreet. Pope was no McClellan, and Lee could expect him to move in response. It was a question of who moved faster. The danger for Lee was that if Pope beat Jackson to Manassas, he might be reinforced heavily in a day’s time from Washington; then Lee’s army would either attack at a disadvantage, or else have to retreat sixty miles by the same route they came on two sides of a triangle to Orange, while Pope could move in a straight line half that distance along the Orange & Alexandria to reach Orange first and cut Lee off from Richmond. The fact is that for the Confederates everywhere in this war there would be no gains without risks. Lee took risks in the Seven Days and despite almost daily disappointments, he accomplished much. That enhanced his confidence in himself and his army. And then in moments like this, even his fatalistic providentialism gave him strength in making a decision. If man achieved nothing God did not will, then in a way there was no risk. The Almighty guided his hand in making the effort, win or lose. If he suffered defeat, he was only a divine instrument. That gave him the freedom to gamble boldly.

  It worked. Jackson covered all thirty miles the first day, and pushed his men hard enough on August 26 that by nightfall they reached Bristoe Station a few miles below Manassas and camped astride the railroad supplying Pope. That general did not suspect where the Confederates might be until the next morning, by which time Jackson occupied Manassas and was
in the act of destroying Pope’s mountain of supplies and materiel. Pope soon moved his army north and Jackson pulled back to a strong defensive position to hold on until Longstreet arrived, accompanied by Lee. By the morning of August 29 Lee and Longstreet had pushed through Thoroughfare Gap and were on their way to the field, arriving about ten o’clock, when Lee himself rode forward to the skirmish line to reconnoiter, as had been his habit of old. He returned with a red stripe on his cheek where a bullet narrowly missed killing him.62

  Soon afterward he was reunited with Jackson and Longstreet, who went into line on Jackson’s right, and essentially was not engaged the rest of the day as Pope concentrated on attacking Jackson’s well-emplaced line. Seeing what appeared to be an exposed enemy left flank, Lee spent much of the morning trying to persuade Longstreet to hit it, but Longstreet repeatedly demurred, as he often would in this war, and Lee reluctantly yielded to his judgment, as he often would. Again in the afternoon Lee tried to launch a counterattack with Longstreet, but the presence of menacing Federal divisions on Longstreet’s right front made it too risky. Having conducted a dynamic campaign to get here, Lee found himself fighting a defensive battle, something new to him. Late in the afternoon when the force threatening Longstreet’s right flank shifted toward the center of the battle line, Lee saw once more an opportunity for Longstreet to go forward, but again he objected that it was too late now, and the attack would be better made in the morning, and Lee agreed.

  That night Lee made his plans for the daylight assault and sent a telegram to Davis reporting that he had cleared the Rappahannock of Yankees and so far repulsed Pope’s assaults.63 For the most part he allowed Jackson and Longstreet to conduct the battle that day, confining his efforts to pressing for an attack on the Union left that circumstances conspired against. He did not overrule Longstreet and it is well that he did not, for a repulse and strong counterattack would have jeopardized his army’s position and hazarded all he had gained thus far, which was considerable. The movement to get his army here and reunited in the face of the foe was stunning. He had disrupted Pope’s supply lines, destroyed millions of dollars’ worth of supplies and munitions at Manassas, and put Pope in the position of having to punch through Lee’s line to reestablish his connection to Washington.

  There was no morning assault, however. In the night Lee decided instead to attempt a wide sweeping movement by Longstreet around Pope’s left flank to cut off his line of retreat and pin him against Bull Run. While getting the movement organized, Lee rode across Bull Run at dawn and dismounted on a patch of grass to let his horse graze. As Lee sat on a stump, an enemy cavalry movement got close enough to him that he ran to catch his mount and had just grasped the rein when the horse shied. Lee pitched forward, his feet tangled in his cloak, and he came down hard on both hands. The fall broke a bone in one and sprained the other, jarring his right arm to the shoulder. Though he caught his horse and rode much of the rest of the day, he was in severe pain. It would be months before he had the full use of his hands.64

  Thus later that day he had to dictate a letter giving the president a more extended account of the campaign thus far. He had hoped to avoid a pitched battle with a stronger foe, and was trusting to maneuver to force Pope to leave central Virginia, which had worked. “We have no time to lose & must make every exertion if we expect to reap advantage,” he closed.65 Pope reopened his assaults on Jackson’s line early in the afternoon, which preempted Lee’s flank movement, but soon he found that Longstreet had no enemy in his front so Lee ordered him forward. Five divisions slammed into Pope’s exposed left flank, then Jackson advanced in support and the stunned Union army fell back, ironically to the very hill where Stonewall earned his sobriquet thirteen months before. That evening Pope ordered a retreat to Centreville, and Lee’s army was too battered from marching and fighting to pursue in the darkness. Still, he wired to the president that they had “a signal victory.” He gave credit to his officers and men, but did not forget the one who perhaps gave him the courage to make the gamble in the first place. “Our gratitude to Almighty God for His mercies rises higher and higher each day,” he wrote; “to Him and to the valour of our troops a nation’s gratitude is due.”66

  On August 31 Lee tried another flank movement, sending Jackson across Bull Run in an effort to make a sweep to the north then east to get between Centreville and Washington, following with Longstreet the next day. On September 1, near a village called Chantilly, Jackson launched assaults against Pope’s forces, but his men were so hungry and exhausted that their assaults had little punch. That was enough for the Federals, who pulled back, and the next day Pope began his retreat into the defenses of Washington. Lee suddenly had his second improbable victory. Having neutralized McClellan on the York-James Peninsula, now he virtually drove Pope out of Virginia. Again he benefited from facing a mediocre opponent, though Pope had more fight and determination than Little Mac to be sure, his real failure being his refusal to believe that he faced the bulk of Lee’s army. Far more than in the Seven Days, Lee’s surpassing contribution was his planning, for as a battlefield commander he exerted only minimal influence, unsuccessfully trying to launch Longstreet on what might have proved to be an ill-advised attack on the first day, then planning a flank march that never happened on the second. Yet he recognized the moment of opportunity that afternoon and sent Longstreet forward in the assault that decided the day. Above all else, however, Lee showed once again that he had in abundance a singular quality that he and Grant shared with few others: he was willing. It remained to be seen how he would act if his audacity and confidence put him in a position from which he could not escape.

  Two weeks later that was the sort of position Grant hoped to catch Price in as it became evident that Iuka was his target.67 By September 15 Grant knew he was there and expecting reinforcements to join in an attack on him. Calculating that they could not arrive before September 19, Grant decided to move first, drive him away from his reinforcement, and at the same time relieve Corinth of threat.68 On September 17 he ordered Major General E. O. C. Ord, now commanding three divisions at Corinth, to march toward Iuka, while Rosecrans moved his divisions via a parallel road. Grant would travel with Ord, and the combined force of 15,000 should hit Iuka from two sides. When Rosecrans proposed an alternate route for his command, Grant agreed, assuming him to be better informed. Both columns were to be in place outside Iuka by nightfall September 18. Then Ord would strike after dawn from the northwest to distract Price while, at the sound of Ord’s guns, Rosecrans struck from the southwest. They would pinch Price between them and destroy his army or force him eastward away from his reinforcements. Then Grant would turn on them as well. The plan offered multiple benefits, allowing Grant to respond to contingencies; its weakness was coordinating two forces separated by several miles.

  Rosecrans got started late, slowed by rain and confusion regarding roads. By nightfall September 18 he was still twenty miles from Iuka, but told Grant he could still hit it hard by the next afternoon. That meant covering two miles an hour, easy for a man on foot, but difficult for a marching army over sodden roads in the summer heat. Grant altered the plan since Rosey would likely be late. Though behind schedule, Ord was only about six miles from Iuka. That night Grant ordered him to slow his march next day to give Rosecrans time to arrive, hoping they could still strike simultaneously and “do tomorrow all we can.”69 To encourage his men, he sent his commanders a telegram just received from Washington to be read to the soldiers. McClellan and Lee had fought a great battle in Maryland on September 17 and the Confederates were driven back, Longstreet and his whole corps captured, A. P. Hill killed, and Lee himself reported captured.70 If Grant doubted the truth of all of it, it should nonetheless enspirit his men on the eve of their battle. A similar victory the following day might shatter the rebellion.

  But Hill still lived, Longstreet was no prisoner, and Lee was at large and more dangerous than ever. Two days after Chantilly he wrote twice to Davis, once from the battlefie
ld, and again later from Dranesville in sight of the Potomac. He wanted to cross the river. Defeat had demoralized McClellan and Pope, and though they were uniting around Washington, he believed it might be weeks before that army moved again. This was the moment to give pro-Confederate Marylanders the opportunity to rally to their banners. Lee probably had the idea germinating before he defeated Pope as a means to take pressure off Virginia by drawing enemy forces into Maryland, while subsisting his own there as well.

  His army was not strong enough to conquer and hold territory. Still, he told Davis “we cannot afford to be idle.” The tide of the moment flowed with them and they must run with it. He believed he could successfully raid into Maryland, especially if Beauregard’s army, now commanded by General Braxton Bragg, advanced in tandem to prevent Buell from reinforcing McClellan.71 General-in-Chief Lee was proposing a cross-department strategy, a gingerly inroad on prerogatives Davis jealously kept to himself, but now Lee knew how to manage the president. During the campaign just past he kept him well apprised of his movements. Moreover, when Lee first proposed the campaign against Pope, he emphasized his subordinate position by adding that “I shall feel obliged to you for any directions you may think proper to give.”72 Lee was never obsequious, but he knew Davis was more amenable when his authority was unchallenged.