Crucible of Command

by William C. Davis

  Lee lived simply, an acceptance of shortages as an immutable fact, and a means of setting an example. “I want nothing but a little bread & meat,” he told Mary.50 Grant rarely ever had to go hungry, not even when cut off from his supply line below Vicksburg, and except for Chattanooga, neither did his men. Lee’s soldiers, however, frequently faced slim rations, while operating in countryside exhausted after supporting them and the occasional Yankee visitors for three years. Hence, the more food was on the soldiers’ minds, the more Lee wisely ensured that his fare was not measurably better than theirs. Thinking it “criminal” to indulge daily in meat during times of shortage, he allowed it on his headquarters mess table only twice a week. Instead, his dinner was most often a head of cabbage boiled in saltwater and a pone of cornbread. One rainy day in April when several of his generals waited after a conference to return to their camps, Lee invited them to dine with him and ordered the usual cabbage, only with the addition of some “middling,” or salt pork. What appeared was a heap of cabbage and, almost hiding on top, one slender slice of middling to feed several men. As the cornbread and cabbage went around the table, each guest in turn passed over the meat to leave it for someone else, until the cabbage was gone but the pork remained, which Lee would not eat in their presence. The next day he asked his servant Perry to bring him the pork, only to learn that his cook had borrowed it from someone else and “done paid it back,” leaving Lee to eat cabbage.51

  He did allow himself molasses with his cornbread if available. One of his officers somehow got five gallons of syrup from the commissary, but when Lee asked if that much was available for every other mess in the army, he was told no, and ordered the remainder of his to be returned, with orders that it go to the sick in hospital. Lee surely knew that in a rumor mill like an army, stories like that would spread, and Brigadier General John D. Imboden believed that hearing of Lee’s self-denial “often reconciled a hungry, ragged Confederate to his hardships.”52 That is not to say that the general always handed over gift food. Cakes, fruit, pies, even wine occasionally appeared on his table, but always shared with his staff.

  It was a cold and hungry Christmas that year. Typical of what his adjutant Taylor called Lee’s “peculiar character,” the Great Tycoon could have spent the holiday in Richmond with Mary, but instead returned to the army a few days before, which Taylor rather cynically thought was calculated “to show how very self-denying he is.”53 For the past six months Lee had largely controlled his impatience and not taken out frustrations on his staff, but this holiday he found that “the young men have no fondness for the society of the old Genl.,” telling Mary that “he is too somber & heavy for them.”54

  The only good news that winter was Rooney’s exchange and release in March. Lee still grieved over Charlotte’s death, and consoled his son, saying “she is brighter & happier than ever, Safe from all evil & awaiting us in, her Heavenly abode.” They should all pray that one day “God in his Mercy” would allow them “to join her in eternal praise to our Lord & Saviour.” Grief was an indulgence ill afforded now. “Our Country demands all our thoughts, all our energies,” he told his son. Powerful forces loomed. “If victorious we have everything to hope for in the future,” he said. “If defeated nothing will be left us to live for.” He expected the Yankees to move in the final week of April. “We have no time to wait,” he warned Rooney. “We must strike fast & strong.”55

  The optimistic, like Adjutant Taylor, hoped spring would see them on the offensive and moving into Pennsylvania again, and this time “we’ll stay there.”56 Lee had no illusions. He saw but two opportunities that at best might upset Union plans for the balance of the summer, his objective in invading Pennsylvania the year before. A reinforced Longstreet might march into Kentucky to threaten Grant’s supply line to Chattanooga, forcing the Federals back and allowing Johnston to take the offensive and regain Chattanooga, and perhaps even more of Tennessee. Alternatively, if Longstreet quietly rejoined Lee, they might drive Meade back on Washington. “We are not in a condition, & never have been, in my opinion, to invade the enemy’s country with a prospect of permanent benefit,” he told the president early in February, “but we can alarm & embarrass him to some extent.” Perhaps it could be enough to forestall dangerous enemy enterprises.57 He hardly need mention the fall elections in the North, ever mindful that Confederate independence lay in defeating the Union’s will to continue.

  Lee and Davis held more meetings in late February on strategy in the western theater, but the general soon returned to his headquarters at Orange Court House. Anxious to take the initiative before Meade and Grant were ready, Lee protested that without adequate supplies he could do nothing. With them, and with better horses for his cavalry, he told Davis, “I think I could disturb the quiet of the enemy & drive him to the Potomac.”58 Throughout the winter he recalled detachments, retrieved thousands of absentees, gleaned hospitals for men fit for duty, and exchanged convalescents for able-bodied men at nonessential posts. He juggled officers and shifted units to streamline his command and make his divisions more equal in size, and consolidated strength as much as possible, calling in several brigades from an expedition to North Carolina and urging Longstreet’s return. He also begged the secretary of war to stop releasing his reports on battles to the press too quickly, for they contained information still useful to the Federals about his strength and organization.59

  Meanwhile, he tried to divine enemy intentions. Lee distrusted what he read in Northern papers, expecting much of it to be planted to mislead, and initially his wariness betrayed him. The big news by late March was Grant’s promotion, which he did not question, but he mistrusted the news that Grant would accompany Meade as bait to make him think Richmond would be the objective. Hence, Lee concluded that Johnston’s army was the real target and that his own faced no imminent threat. Still, he advised vigilance and readiness everywhere, but no major troop movements east or west until the enemy gave away their intentions.60 A few days later he accepted that Grant really would accompany Meade, which meant enemy concentration in Virginia. Lee expressed no great concern that he would be meeting Grant on the field, though he knew enough of the Federal’s past campaigns to warn Longstreet that deception “is part of Grant’s tactics” and cautioned Longstreet that “it behooves us to be on the alert, or we will be deceived.”61 By the end of March he was convinced that Virginia was the real target, that Grant would move on Richmond, and that other Federals would advance into the Shenandoah Valley. Moreover, he believed Grant would invade on multiple lines. If Johnston did not launch an offensive to draw troops away from Virginia, Lee would have to concentrate everything available to meet the threat.62 “We have got to whip them,” Lee told his adjutant Taylor on April 3. “We must whip them and it has already made me feel better to think of it.”63

  First he wanted Longstreet in the Shenandoah, where he and Lee could concentrate to meet a threat on either side of the Blue Ridge, but by April 5 concluded to have him return to the army at once. He expected the Army of the Potomac to have 100,000 men or more, not counting those that threatened the Shenandoah, and feared that more might move up the York-James Peninsula from Fort Monroe.64 By April 15 he felt certain he was right, and so he was. He knew of Banks’s expedition up the Red River, and again correctly concluded that Grant’s cherished Mobile operation was postponed. Fearing another incursion on the North Carolina coast, he advised that Beauregard’s troops from South Carolina move north to meet it or hurry to the James River if necessary. Believing Richmond would be invested if Grant got that far, Lee advised that all nonessential civilians be evacuated, both to keep them out of the way and to stop their consuming food vital to a besieged garrison.65 Continually he hammered at the War Department and even Davis for supplies. On April 12 he believed he had but two days’ rations for his army. Food came in, but too little at intervals too long, while he knew that depots in Georgia bulged with rations, if only the useless Northrop would get them to him.

  If Richmo
nd could be securely defended, Lee proposed advancing against Grant and Meade in their positions along the Rappahannock River. “Should God give us a crowning victory there, all their plans would be dissipated,” he told Davis, and the enemy would recall to Washington the small army preparing to advance up the peninsula. It was a desperate proposal, erected on a foundation of “what ifs,” especially as Lee thought his own strength might be fewer than 60,000 versus twice their number. He could do no better, and not even that unless he brought his cavalry and artillery back to the army with enough fodder for a campaign.66

  Longstreet was on his way by April 16, but would take days to arrive, while Lee expected an enemy advance almost daily, especially after scouts reported enemy engineers and bridge-building units moving below the Rappahannock. That could only mean a crossing of the Rapidan River. “Everything indicates a concentrated attack,” he told Davis, as well as one and perhaps two raids into the Shenandoah.67 Lee wisely kept his apprehensions to himself, for rumor around his headquarters held that he had said he would “try and wipe the enemy out” when next they met, one aide noting that “he is [not] given to boasting.”68

  That last week he asked President Davis to visit the army, hoping it would inspirit the soldiers on the eve of action, while Lee encouraged spiritual inspiration.69 He always preferred that only the most necessary work be done on Sundays.70 Beyond question he understood the value of a meaningful gesture, as well as the near-reverence his men felt for him. In the last phases of the abortive Mine Run operations, on a Sunday Lee and Hill with their staffs rode along the lines until they met a group of soldiers singing a hymn in a field service. Hundreds of men looked on from their earthworks, battle flags fluttered in the breeze, and artillery punctured the works awaiting action. Lee halted his retinue immediately and they all sat their mounts to hear the sermon. At the benediction Lee removed his hat to receive the blessing, then spurred his horse and they rode on. “It was a striking scene,” Adjutant Taylor wrote a few days later, “and one well calculated to impress solemnly all who witnessed it.” Seeing Lee beseech Divine assistance, Taylor felt “even more hopeful than before.”71 Hoping to multiply Taylor’s feeling many thousandfold, in February Lee issued a general order that nonessential labor be scheduled for weekdays only, and that Sunday inspections avoid interrupting soldiers at worship.72

  Small indulgences like this went a long way with his soldiers, who rewarded him with a host of nicknames in sign of affection: “Marse Robert,” “Uncle Robert,” and even the familial “Old Pap.”73 Fresh choruses of such greetings came when Longstreet’s corps rejoined the army on April 22. “We had been absent seven months, but it seemed a year,” wrote Longstreet’s artillery chief E. P. Alexander. “Every one, officers & men, felt a keen personal delight in the re-union with our old comrades, & in the command of Gen. Lee.” Lee honored them with a review on April 29, and they honored him, in turn, with an artillery salute. “The general reins up his horse, & bares his good gray head, & looks at us & we shout & cry & wave our battleflags,” Alexander wrote in describing that reunion review, followed by “a wave of sentiment, such as can only come to large crowds in full sympathy.” It seemed a holy moment, a renewed pledge of unwavering faith in their commander. In acts amounting to sacraments, the men clustered around him to touch his horse, the bridle and stirrups, even his boots, while tears welled in the general’s eyes. An officer asked Lee’s aide Venable if that expression of love did not make the general proud. “Not proud,” Venable replied. “It awes him.”74

  On the eve of May Lee was himself more fatalistic than ever. “Our life in this world is of no value except to prepare us for a better,” he told Mary as he awaited Grant’s first move.75 To the last there was no letup in his efforts. “I want for nothing but independence & peace to our distracted country,” he wrote Mary on April 9, and spoke more emphatically with the president ten days later. “We have now but one thing to do; to establish our independence,” he said. “We have no time for anything else.”76 Still, on April 30, with active operations surely just hours away, Lee returned a well-wisher’s chicken sent to provide eggs, explaining that he would be in constant motion, and feared it might be injured during the campaign. Instead, he returned the bird hoping it could be put in a good run with others, “whereas with me he will have to be cooped up & have a dreadful time.”77 Given what he expected to come, Lee could have been speaking of himself and his army.

  Looking backward, Grant’s rise in the war had something of the inexorable about it. By the end of 1863 there simply was no other Union commander with a record of success approaching his. At the same time, almost two years of disappointment in the field established that no Union commander in the East was likely to contain Lee. It was time to look elsewhere, as with Pope, for important as the West was strategically, the Confederacy could only be defeated spiritually in the East by beating Lee. By this point in the war, he was the Confederacy for Southern soldiers and civilians everywhere. Certainly Lincoln realized the gray chieftain’s symbolic significance, and that taking Lee out of the war would knock the breath from the Confederacy everywhere.

  Grant may not have grasped that quite yet, but in time he would. He spent March and April in a flurry of preparation. Now he had to formulate a spring plan for all Union forces. By mid-March it was still in embryo, but he knew he would direct that all forces act in concert to occupy Confederate armies and prevent one from reinforcing another. He advised his commanders to take more enemy territory if possible, but made it clear that defeating their field armies was “of vastly more importance.” He also wanted his legions living off the country, easing pressure on the Federal commissary and increasing the burden on the foe’s.78

  He put Sherman in command of his old military division, and McPherson in command of Sherman’s Army and Department of the Tennessee. Despite having an office in Washington, he made it clear that “I will not be there,” but would be wherever he thought he was most needed.79 He pored over maps showing the positions of Union forces across the country, studied the most recent returns of strength of the several armies, and revised his staff for the coming campaign. Rawlins remained as adjutant, with Bowers and the Seneca sachem Ely S. Parker, nicknamed “the Big Injun,” as assistant adjutants, reflecting the increased paperwork of a general-in-chief. Among his aides he had the fertile-brained Comstock, Orville Babcock, Julia’s brother Fred Dent, and Horace Porter, two military secretaries, and a smaller separate staff in Washington.

  He also faced some liabilities of his new position. He would have to deal with some of the flotsam thrown up by a very politicized war. Lincoln had made influential political leaders into generals to bind their constituencies to the war effort. Some like Logan made first-rate commanders. Others like Frémont and McClernand were hopeless. To deal with them Grant gave them their orders, and then assigned senior officers of his choosing to “assist” them by handling their principal field operations, and sometimes one of his staff officers as well. He was already accustomed to dealing with Banks, and sent General Hunter to make sure Banks obeyed his orders.80 Grant bowed to Lincoln, allowing the expedition up the Red River and postponing Mobile, but expected small return.

  Major General Franz Sigel, a hopeless incompetent who brought German-American votes and enlistments, commanded the Department of West Virginia. To get some use from him, Grant ordered him to enter the Shenandoah to take Staunton, destroy the railroad, and threaten Lee’s left flank. When Sigel tried to communicate directly with Lincoln or a congressman rather than according to protocol, Grant immediately jerked him short. “It is time Gen. Sigel should learn to carry on his official correspondence through the proper channels,” Grant told Halleck, making clear that it would not be tolerated in future.81 He assigned Ord and other officers to “assist” by handling field operations while watching Sigel, and Babcock from his staff went to ensure no confusion about orders at Sigel’s headquarters. Grant expected little. “If Sigel cant skin himself,” he told Sherman, “he can
hold a leg whilst some one else skins.”82

  Another liability was Major General Benjamin F. Butler, now commanding at Fort Monroe. While the Army of the Potomac made Lee’s army its objective, Grant ordered Butler to send 30,000 men up the south side of the James toward Richmond, and assigned Major General William F. Smith and another general to take actual field command to keep Butler in the background. Should Grant push Lee into the defenses of Richmond, then the two Federal forces could unite or cooperate.83 Grant sent Fred Dent to Butler’s headquarters to ensure cooperation with Meade. It was a practical policy to make the best of a difficult situation.

  No one needed to watch Sherman, and Grant left the campaign against Johnston entirely to him. Banks was to start as soon as possible and Butler and Sigel were to wait until Grant ordered them to move, by April 25 if ready. Again Sherman would decide for himself when to go. In the interest of security, Grant revealed his general plan of operations only to those who needed to know. Not forgetting the vital role played by Porter in his Mississippi operations, he also made early requests for cooperation from the navy for the move up the James.