Crucible of Command

by William C. Davis

  120General Orders No. 11, December 17, 1862, PUSG, 7, p. 50.

  121Jonathan D. Sarna, When General Grant Expelled the Jews (New York: Schocken Books, 2012) is the fullest modern treatment of the whole subject, though its emphasis is on the aftermath of the order. Korn, American Jewry is also very useful.

  122USG to Isaac N. Morris, September 14, 1868, PUSG, 19, p. 37.

  123REL to M. J. Michelbacher, August 22, 1861, Herbert T. Ezekiel and Gaston Lichtenstein, The History of the Jews of Richmond from 1769 to 1917 (Richmond: Herbert T. Ezekiel, 1917), pp. 161–62.

  124REL to MCL, December 7, 1862, Wartime Papers, p. 354; Emancipation document, December 29, 1862, Eleanor Brockenbrough Library, Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond.

  125Interview with Thomas M. Cook, April 23, 1865, New York, Herald, April 29, 1865.

  126REL to E. D. Eacho, January 3, 1863, Macon, Telegraph, February 19, 1886.

  127REL to MCL, January 8, 1863, Lee Family Papers, VHS.

  128REL to GWCL, January 11, 1863, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston.

  129REL to Captain Peters, September 25, 1861, William N. Palmer Collection, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, OH.

  130REL to MCL, December 7, 1862, Wartime Papers, p. 354, February 8, 1863, p. 402. While Perry’s identity is clear, there were two Georges at Arlington: George Clarke and George Parks. Lee’s cook could have been either, but since Lee had had George Parks whipped along with the Norrises, it seems more likely he would opt for the other.

  131Thomas M. Cook, reporting on April 24, 1865, an interview with Lee held the day before, stated that Lee said of the Custis manumission that “they were all thus liberated, together with a number who were either the General’s or Mrs. Lee’s private property.” It has been assumed by some, without evidence, that this included Nancy Ruffin and her grown children. Perhaps it did, perhaps not. They are not named on the December 29, 1862, deed of manumission, but that was only intended to cover the Custis slaves. Lee may have freed others by separate deeds not extant, or without filing documentation so that they would not be forced to leave Virginia when the Lee’s could not employ them (New York, Herald, April 29, 1865). Joe Ryan, “The Lee Family Slaves,” at http://americancivilwar.com/authors/Joseph_Ryan/Articles/General-Lee-Slaves/General-Lee-Family-Slaves.html, claims that Lee included Nancy and her children “as part of his action as executor as the Custis estate.” There is no evidence for this, and he offers none. As stated, their names do not appear on the emancipation document.

  132Springfield, Daily Illinois State Journal, January 1, 1863.

  133See, for instance, the Washington, Evening Star, January 6, 1863.

  134USG to Halleck, December 21, 1862, PUSG, 7, p. 83, USG to McPherson, December 21, 1862, p. 84.

  135REL to MCL, December 21, 1862, Wartime Papers, p. 379.

  136REL to MCL, December 25, 1861, ibid., p. 96.

  137REL to Mildred Lee, December 25, 1862, ibid., p. 381.

  138REL to MCL, December 25, 1862, ibid., p. 380.

  139REL to Mildred Lee, December 25, 1862, ibid., p. 381.

  140REL to GWCL, January 11, 1863, Massachusetts Historical Society; REL to GWCL, January 19, 1863, Wartime Papers, pp. 105–106.

  141REL to GWCL, November 28, 1862, Wartime Papers, p. 351.

  142REL to Pickens, May 29, 1862, Gilder Lehrman Collection.

  143REL to Cooper, December 13, 1862, OR, I, 21, p. 1061.

  144REL to Seddon, January 10, 1863, Wartime Papers, pp. 389–90. Lee’s comments have often been interpreted to be a reaction to recent actions by General Robert Milroy making local citizens pay for damage done by Confederate raiders in western Virginia. However, those acts utterly fail to merit Lee’s references to “saving families from pollution” or a “social system from destruction.” The Emancipation Proclamation, issued just ten days before, is the only such event to draw forth accusations like this from Confederates during the war.

  145Cleveland, Plain Dealer, November 24, 1862; Boston, Evening Transcript, November 25, 1862; New Haven, CT, Columbian Register, November 29, 1862.

  146REL to MCL, January 8, 1863, Lee Family Papers, VHS.

  147REL to GWCL, February 1863, Wartime Papers, p. 411.

  148REL to John D. Imboden, February 6, 1863, OR, I, 51, pt. 2, p. 677.

  149REL to GWCL, February 12, 1863, Jones, Life and Letters, p. 226.

  150REL to Andrew G. Magrath, December 24, 1861, Wartime Papers, pp. 93–94.

  151Gary Gallagher develops this theme perceptively, and persuasively, in “Conduct Must Conform to the New Order of Things: R. E. Lee and the Question of Loyalty,” Becoming Confederates: Paths to a New National Loyalty (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2013), pp. 8–34.

  CHAPTER 11: TWO RIVERS TO CROSS

  1General Orders No. 138, December 31, 1862, OR, I, 21, pp. 549–50.

  2Lynchburg, VA, Republican, quoted in Cleveland, Plain Dealer, February 19, 1863.

  3Macon, Telegraph, January 7, 1863.

  4Atlanta, Southern Confederacy, December 5, 1862.

  5Chattanooga, Daily Rebel, January 31, 1863; New York, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, February 28, 1863.

  6Fayetteville, NC, Carolina Observer, February 16, 1863.

  7E. W. Hubard to the editor, Lynchburg Republican, December 10, 1862; Richmond, Whig, January 6, 1863.

  8George C. Rable, God’s Almost Chosen People: A Religious History of the American Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010), pp. 136–37. Rable notes Lee’s fatalism, and that Lee rarely if ever went beyond that in finding theological justification for his actions.

  9Lynchburg, Virginian quoted in Augusta, GA, Daily Constitutionalist, August 11, 1861; Fayetteville, NC, Carolina Observer, November 25, 1861; Richmond, Whig, July 1, 1862; Hillsborough, NC, Recorder, December 17, 1862.

  10Quoted in Augusta, GA, Chronicle, January 21, 1863.

  11Thomas R. R. Cobb to Marian Cobb, July 11, 1862, Thomas R. R. Cobb Papers, University of Georgia, Athens.

  12William McCash, Thomas R. R. Cobb: The Making of a Southern Nationalist (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1983), p. 312.

  13REL to Howell Cobb, December 18, 1862, Augusta, GA, Daily Constitutionalist, February 10, 1863.

  14REL to Pickens, December 18, 1862, Charleston, Mercury, January 8, 1863.

  15Macon, Weekly Telegraph, March 28, 1862.

  16REL to MCL, April 19, 1863, Wartime Papers, p. 438; REL to A. E. Dickinson, n.d., 1862, Macon, Telegraph, December 11, 1862.

  17REL to Joseph S. Key, November 17, 1862, Mobile, Register, March 8, 1863.

  18Chattanooga, Daily Rebel, January 23, 1863; Macon, Telegraph, January 7, 1863.

  19REL to Mildred Lee, December 25, 1862, Wartime Papers, p. 381.

  20REL to Agnes Lee, December 26, 1862, ibid., p. 382.

  21REL to MCL, March 27, 1863, ibid., p. 419.

  22REL to MCL, April 5, 1863, ibid., p. 429.

  23REL to MCL, April 24, 1863, ibid., p. 440.

  24Samuel Merrifield Bemiss to My dear Children, April 10, 1863, Bemiss Family Papers, VHS.

  25[Garnet Wolseley], “A Month’s Visit to the Confederate Headquarters,” Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 93 (January 1863), p. 21.

  26Atlanta, Southern Confederacy, December 5, 1862.

  27San Francisco, Bulletin, March 20, 1863. The writer visited Lee on November 21, 1862.

  28[Wolseley], “A Month’s Visit to the Confederate Headquarters,” p. 21.

  29Richmond, Enquirer, January 5, 1863.

  30Baltimore, Sun, January 13, 1863.

  31Richmond, Whig, January 27, 1863.

  32REL to MCL, March 9, 1863, Wartime Papers, p. 413.

  33Augusta, GA, Chronicle, January 23, 1863.

  34Francis Lawley to London, Times, November 14, 1862; Charleston, Mercury, February 5, 1863.

  35Chattanooga, Daily Rebel, February 20, 1863.

  36REL to GWCL Lee, January 5, 1863, Wartime Papers, p. 385.

 
37REL to Cooper, January 9, 1863, ibid., p. 388.

  38REL to Seddon, January 10, 1863, ibid., pp. 388–90.

  39REL to Davis, January 13, 1863, ibid., pp. 390–91.

  40REL to Gustavus W. Smith, January 4, 1863, ibid., p. 384.

  41REL to Davis, January 13, 1863, ibid., pp. 390–91.

  42REL to Seddon, January 5, 1863, ibid., pp. 385–86, REL to Davis, January 6, 1863, p. 388.

  43William Allan, “Memoranda of Conversations with General Robert E. Lee,” Gary W. Gallagher, ed., Lee the Soldier (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), pp. 11–12.

  44REL to Davis, January 19, 1863, Wartime Papers, pp. 391–92.

  45REL to Wade Hampton, January 20, 1863, ibid., p. 393.

  46REL to Davis, January 23, 1863, ibid., p. 394.

  47REL to MCL, January 29, 1863, ibid., pp. 395–96.

  48REL to Agnes Lee, February 6, 1863, ibid., p. 400.

  49REL to Davis, February 16, 1863, ibid., p. 376.

  50REL to Davis, February 18, 1863, ibid., p. 405.

  51REL to Seddon, February 4, 1863, ibid., p. 398, REL to Davis, February 5, 1863, p. 399, February 16, 1863, p. 376, February 18, 1863, p. 405, REL to Longstreet, February 18, 1863, p. 406.

  52REL to MCL, February 23, 1863, ibid., p. 407.

  53REL to Davis, February 26, 1863, ibid., p. 409.

  54REL to GWCL Lee, February 28, 1863, ibid., p. 411.

  55REL to MCL, March 9, 1863, ibid., p. 413.

  56REL to CCL, March 24, 1863, Special Collections, UVA.

  57REL to MCL, December 21, 1862, Wartime Papers, p. 378, REL to Mildred Lee, December 25, 1862, p. 381.

  58REL to MCL, January 29, 1863, ibid., p. 396.

  59REL to Mary, February 8, 1863, ibid., p. 401.

  60REL to MCL, March 9, 1863, ibid., p. 413.

  61New London, CT, New London Daily Chronicle, February 20, 1863.

  62REL to MCL, March 27, 1863, Wartime Papers, p. 419.

  63REL to MCL, April 5, 1863, ibid., pp. 427–28.

  64REL to Seddon, March 27, 1863, ibid., p. 419.

  65REL to Longstreet, March 27, 1863, ibid., p. 417.

  66REL to CCL, March 24, 1863, Special Collections, UVA.

  67REL to MCL, February 8, 1863, Wartime Papers, p. 401.

  68REL to MCL, February 23, 1863, ibid., p. 408, REL to GWCL, February 28, 1863, pp. 411–12.

  69REL to Davis, January 6, 1863, ibid., p. 387.

  70REL to MCL, April 3, 1863, ibid., p. 427.

  71REL to Michelbacher, April 2, 1863, Ezekiel and Lichtenstein, Jews of Richmond, p. 162.

  72REL to Seddon, April 9, 1863, Wartime Papers, p. 430.

  73REL to Davis, April 16, 1863, ibid., p. 435.

  74REL to Cooper, April 16, 1863, ibid., p. 434.

  75REL to MCL, April 19, 1863, ibid., pp. 437–38.

  76REL to Jackson, April 25, 1863, photocopy provided by Robert K. Krick, from Clifford Dowdey, Lee (Boston: Little, Brown, 1965), p. 741, which misdates the document to 1862.

  77Richmond, Examiner, May 1, 1863; REL to MCL, March 21, 1863, Wartime Papers, p. 416, April 24, 1863, p. 440. The Examiner notice says Minnis went to the army with his camera. Lee’s April 24 letter refers to “Mr. Carole” coming to photograph him, an obvious error in transcription of “Cowell.” The inference that Mary might have had something to do with the photographer(s) coming to the army is drawn from that same letter.

  78REL to MCL, April 24, 1863, Wartime Papers, pp. 439–40, REL to Longstreet, April 27, 1863, p. 441.

  79See communications in Ibid., pp. 441–45.

  80USG to Kelton, December 25, 1862, PUSG, 7, p. 105, USG to Halleck, January 4, 1863, p. 170.

  81USG to John K. Mizner, December 21, 1862, ibid., p. 88, USG to McPherson, December 25, 1862, p. 110.

  82USG to Hurlbut, January 3, 1863, ibid., p. 167, USG to James C. Veatch, January 22, 1863, p. 245.

  83USG to McPherson, December 31, 1862, ibid., p. 150.

  84USG to McPherson, January 1, 1863, ibid., p. 155.

  85USG to McPherson, December 31, 1862, ibid., p. 148, January 4, 1863, pp. 174–75, USG to Hamilton, January 1, 1863, p. 156, USG to Halleck, January 2, 1863, pp. 158–59, USG to Halleck, January 4, 1863, p. 171, USG to Washburne, January 7, 1863, p. 196, USG to Halleck, January 9, 1863, p. 204.

  86USG to Porter, January 10, 1863, ibid., p. 206.

  87For a detailed examination of Grant’s several attempts to approach Vicksburg, and of the campaign itself, see Edwin Cole Bearss, The Campaign for Vicksburg (Dayton, OH: Morningside House, 1985–1986), 3 vols. A very good general account in briefer compass is William L. Shea and Terrence J. Winschel, Vicksburg Is the Key: The Struggle for the Mississippi River (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003).

  88USG to Halleck January 11, 1863, PUSG, 7, p. 209.

  89USG to McClernand, January 11, 1863, ibid., p. 210, January 13, 1863, p. 218.

  90USG to Halleck, January 18, 1863, ibid., p. 231.

  91USG to Halleck, January 20, 1863, ibid., pp. 233–35.

  92USG to McClernand, January 18, 1863, ibid., p. 231.

  93USG to Julia, January 28, 1863, ibid., p. 253, USG to Julia, January 31, 1863, p. 270.

  94USG to McClernand, January 31, 1863, ibid., p. 264 and ff.

  95USG to Kelton, February 1, 1863, ibid., pp. 274–75n. In fact, Grant was out on a rigorous personal reconnaissance with Porter on that day, nowhere close enough for Kountz to have seen him personally, though the two were briefly at Milliken’s Bend at the same time on March 16, when Grant got back and before Kountz left that same day. Thus Kountz could have heard something from someone who had been on the reconnaissance, but the claim of officers of high rank as substantiation, in that brief interval, strains credulity.

  96USG to Kelton, February 4, 1863, ibid., p. 281.

  97USG to Porter, January 30, 1863, ibid., p. 257, USG to McClernand, January 30, 1863, pp. 257–58.

  98USG to McPherson, February 5, 1863, ibid., pp. 284–85.

  99USG to Halleck, March 7, 1`863, ibid., pp. 399–400, USG to McPherson, March 11, 1863, p. 411.

  100USG to McPherson, March 16, 1863, ibid., p. 422, USG to Halleck, March 17, 1862, p. 427, USG to David G. Farragut, March 23, 1863, pp. 458–59.

  101USG to McClernand, January 22, 1863, ibid., p. 239.

  102USG to Halleck, January 29, 1863, ibid., pp. 253–54, USG to Kelton, February 4, 1863, p. 281, USG to Kelton, February 6, 1863, p. 286, USG to Commanding Officer, February 7, 1863, pp. 296–97.

  103USG to Porter, February 14, 1863, ibid., p. 323.

  104USG to Halleck, February 16, 1863, ibid., pp. 333–34, USG to McPherson, February 27, 1863, p. 366, March 5, 1863, pp. 388–89.

  105USG to Halleck, March 7, 1863, ibid., p. 400, USG to Washburne, March 10, 1865, p. 409.

  106USG to Halleck, March 17, 1863, ibid., pp. 427–28, USG to Prentiss, March 17, 1863, pp. 429–30, USG to McClernand, March 18, 1863, p. 441, Grant to Nathaniel Banks, March 23, 1863, p. 446.

  107USG to McPherson, March 14, 1863, ibid., USG to Sherman, March 16, 1863, pp. 424–25, USG to Halleck, March 17, 1863, p. 428.

  108USG to Prentiss, March 17, 1863, ibid., p. 430, USG to Banks, March 23, 1861, p. 446.

  109USG to Quinby, March 23, 1861, ibid., p. 463, USG to Halleck, March 27, 1863, p. 478.

  110USG to Julia, February 9, 1863, ibid., p. 309.

  111USG to Julia, February 11, 1863, ibid., p. 311, February 14, 1863, p. 325, March 6, 1863, p. 396.

  112USG to Julia, February 15, 1863, ibid., pp. 330–31.

  113New York, Tribune, May 25, 1866.

  114USG to Hillyer, February 5, 1862, PUSG, 32, p. 43.

  115USG to Julia, February 11, 1863, PUSG, 7, p, 311.

  116USG to William F. Raynolds, February 23, 1863, PUSG, 32, p. 45.

  117USG to Halleck, February 2, 1863, PUSG, 7, p. 280.

  118USG to Halleck, March 27, 1863, ibid., p. 478.

  119USG to Sherman, February 27, 1863, ibid., p. 367.


  120USG to Porter, March 23, 1863, ibid., pp. 456–57.

  121USG to Porter, March 26, 1863, ibid., p. 475.

  122USG to Charles A. Reynolds, March 25, 1863, ibid., p. 471, USG to Robert Allen, March 26, 1863, p. 476.

  123USG to Sherman, March 22, 1863, ibid., pp. 455–56.

  124USG to Julia, March 27, 1863, ibid., pp. 479–80.

  125USG to Porter, April 2, 1863, PUSG, 8, pp. 3–4.

  126USG to Porter, March 29, 1863, PUSG, 7, p. 486.

  127USG to Julia, March 30, 1863, ibid., pp. 490–91.

  128USG to Julia, April 3, 1863, PUSG, 8, p. 9.

  129USG to Halleck, April 4, 1863, ibid., p. 12.

  130USG to Halleck, April 19, 1863, ibid., p. 91.

  131USG to Halleck, April 12, 1863, ibid., p. 53, USG to McClernand, April 11, 1863, p. 47, April 12, 1863, p. 56, April 18, 1863, p. 88.

  132USG to Jesse Grant, April 21, 1863, ibid., pp. 109–10.

  133USG to Sherman, April 24, 1863, ibid., p. 117.

  134USG to McClernand, April 25, 1863, ibid., 119.

  135USG to Halleck, April 27, 1863, ibid., p. 122, USG to McClernand, April 27, 1863, pp. 126–27.