by Bruce Catton
11. Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America, Vol. I, 614; Moore’s Rebellion Record, Vol. IV, Documents, 284–85, quoting a story in the Philadelphia Inquirer; notebook containing diary notes and letters of Rufus Dawes, in the Rufus Dawes Papers, courtesy of Rufus D. Beach of Evanston, Ill., and Ralph Newman of Chicago.
12. Basler, Vol. V, 155.
13. Ibid., 157–58.
14. McClellan’s Own Story, 225. In his copy of McClellan’s book, now in the Oberlin College Library, McClellan’s former subordinate in western Virginia, Gen. Jacob Cox, scribbled the marginal comment: “The hollowest of stuff!”
15. Letter of McClellan to Barlow dated at Washington March 16, 1862, in the Barlow Papers, Huntington Library.
16. Congressional Globe, 37th Congress, Second Session, Part IV, appendix, 14.
17. Barlow to Stanton, Dec. 11, 1861, in the Barlow Papers, Huntington Library.
18. Diary of Edward Bates, 239, 241.
CHAPTER FOUR: Stride of a Giant
1. The Ironclads
1. Thomas O. Selfridge, Jr., Memoirs, 44–45; H. Ashton Ramsay, The Monitor and the Merrimac, 33; Recollections of the sinking of the Cumberland, in the Mss. log of Charles William Bishop, Historical Manuscripts Division, Yale University Library; Indianapolis Sunday Star for March 20, 1929, printing letter of William Reeder of Company A, 20th Indiana Infantry, describing the sinking of the Cumberland.
2. Capt. Catesby ap R. Jones, Services of the Virginia, Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. XI, 65–67; letter of J. L. Porter, constructor, reprinted in the Charleston Courier for March 19, 1862, from an earlier issue of the Petersburg Express; S. B. Besse, C.S. Ironclad Virginia, with Data and References for a Scale Model, 10–13.
3. D.A.B., Vol. III, 206; Charles Lee Lewis, Admiral Franklin Buchanan, 184–85; Catesby ap R. Jones, loc. cit.; letter of Buchanan to Mallory dated March 19, 1862, in the Franklin Buchanan Letter Book, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina.
4. Testimony of Gustavus V. Fox in C.C.W. Reports, 1863, Part III, 415; Thomas W. Selfridge, Jr., The Story of the Cumberland, Papers of the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, Vol. XII, 118–20; Mss. log of Charles William Bishop, Yale University Library.
5. Log of Charles William Bishop; Selfridge, op. cit., 123–25; Jones, Services of the Virginia, 68–69.
6. H. Ashton Ramsay, op. cit., 34–40; report of Franklin Buchanan, N.O.R., Vol. VII, 41, 44–49; Israel N. Stiles, The Merrimac and the Monitor, in Military Essays and Recollections, Vol. I, 128.
7. Joseph T. Durkin, Stephen R. Mallory, 150; N.O.R., Series Two, Vol. I, 743; John Ericsson, The Building of the Monitor, B. & L., Vol. I, 730 ff.; S. B. Besse, U.S. Ironclad Monitor, with Data and References for a Scale Model, Mariners’ Museum, Newport News, Va.
8. E. B. Potter, The United States and World Sea Power, 325–27; Lieut. S. D. Greene, In the Monitor Turret, B. & L., Vol. I. 719 ff.; Ramsay, op. cit., 51–52; N.O.R., Vol. VII, 11, 25; letter of Harry van Brunt, son of Captain Van Brunt, in the Papers of the Massachusetts Commandery, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, Houghton Library, Harvard.
9. N.O.R., Vol. VII, 27, 78, 100; Frank M. Bennett, The Steam Navy of the United States, Vol. I, 307; letter of Lieut. Greene dated March 14, 1862, in the Dana Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.
2. The Vulture and the Wolf
1. Letter of Braxton Bragg to Mrs. Bragg dated March 20, 1862, in the Manuscript Department, Duke University Library. His reference to the evils of universal suffrage is in O.R., Vol. X, Part One, 464.
2. Letter of Mrs. Bragg dated March 12, 1862, in the Eugene C. Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas.
3. O.R., Vol. X, Part One, 463.
4. Walter Lee Brown, “Pea Ridge: Gettysburg of the West,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. XV, No. One, 3–5; William Preston Johnston, 523; O.R., Vol. VIII, 750–52; Gen. D. H. Maury, Recollections of the Elkhorn Campaign, Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. II, No. Four, 180–85; letter of Jefferson Davis to Victor Rose dated Oct. 23, 1883, in the Lawrence Sullivan Ross Letters, the Eugene C. Barker Texas History Center.
5. O.R., Vol. VIII, 755; Wiley Britton, Union and Confederate Indians in the Civil War, B. & L., Vol. I, 335–36.
6. Letter of Gen. Curtis to his brother dated Feb. 25, 1862, in the Samuel Ryan Curtis Letters, Huntington Library; O.R., Vol. VIII, 502, 503; D.A.B., Vol. IV, 619–20; Edward A. Blodgett, “The Army of the Southwest and the Battle of Pea Ridge,” Military Essays and Recollections, Vol. II, 298–99. There is a good account of the army’s march by Samuel Prentis Curtis, the general’s son and aide, “The Army of the Southwest on the First Campaign in Arkansas,” in The Annals of Iowa, Vol. IV to Vol. VI.
7. Blodgett, op. cit., 301–9; Gen. Franz Sigel, The Pea Ridge Campaign, B. & L., Vol. I, 314–34; John W. Noble, Battle of Pea Ridge or Elkhorn Tavern, in War Papers of the Missouri Commandery, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, Vol. I, 224-42; O.R., Vol. VIII, 206, 285.
8. Letter of Gen. Curtis dated March 13, 1862, in the Samuel Ryan Curtis Papers, Huntington Library.
9. O.R., Vol. X, Part Two, 354, 365, 370–71; William Preston Johnston, 584, 552–53. For an excellent study of Johnston’s plans and achievements in the six weeks before Shiloh see Charles P. Roland, Albert Sidney Johnston and the Shiloh Campaign, Civil War History, Dec., 1958.
10. William Preston Johnston, 551.
3. Pittsburg Landing
1. The circumstances surrounding Beauregard’s drafting of the plan of attack are discussed in Roland, op. cit., and in Thomas Jordan, Recollections of General Beauregard’s Service in West Tennessee in the Spring of 1862, Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. VIII, August and September, 1880, 404–17. Stanley Horn, The Army of Tennessee, 104 ff.; T. Harry Williams, Beauregard: Napoleon in Gray, 113 ff.; G. T. Beauregard, The Campaign of Shiloh, B. & L., Vol. I, 579–81. A telegram from Johnston to President Davis announcing a corps formation unlike the one actually used is in William Preston Johnston, 554.
2. Jordan, op. cit., 410–11, 414; William Preston Johnston, 561, 568–71; Dunbar Rowland, Vol. V, 227.
3. The attitude is well illustrated by Grant’s dispatch to Halleck dated March 21 in O.R., Vol. X, Part Two, 55.
4. Ibid., 93–94; Joseph W. Rich, The Battle of Shiloh, 40–41; Ephraim C. Dawes, The Battle of Shiloh, Papers of the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, Vol. VII, 115–16.
5. John G. Biel, ed., The Battle of Shiloh from the Letters and Diary of Joseph Dimmit Thompson, Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Vol. XVII, No. Three, 255–56.
6. Beauregard’s report on Shiloh, O.R., Vol. X, Part One, 386; Lloyd Lewis, Sherman, Fighting Prophet, 232.
7. Diary of A. H. Mecklin, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson; William Preston Johnston, 569; A. D. Kirwan, ed., Johnny Green of the Orphan Brigade: the Journal of a Confederate Soldier, 25.
8. O.R., Vol. X, Part One, 408; letter of Stephen Ellis dated April 11, 1862, in the Department of Archives, Louisiana State University.
9. Letter of Jeff D. Bradford to “My Dear Aunt,” dated April 22, 1862, in the Confederate Memorial Literary Society, Richmond.
10. Letter of W. A. Howard, 33rd Tennessee, to Mrs. Howard dated April 11, 1862, in the collection of the Shiloh National Military Park.
11. William Preston Johnston, 613–15.
12. The effect of Johnston’s death has been discussed in detail for a century, and the general opinion is that the Confederates would have lost the battle even if he had lived. It may be worth noting that both Polk and Bragg held an opposite view. In his report on Shiloh Polk wrote that when Johnston died “the field was clear; the rest of the forces of the enemy were driven to the river and under its banks. We had one hour or more of daylight still left; were within 150 to 400 yards of the enemy’s position, and nothing seemed wanting to complete the most brilliant victory of the war but to press forward and make a vigor
ous assault on the demoralized remnant of his forces.” Bragg’s report asserted that “at the moment of this irreparable disaster the plan of battle was being rapidly and successfully executed … Great delay occurred after this misfortune, and that delay prevented the consummation of the work so gallantly and successfully begun and carried on until the approach of night induced our new commander to recall the exhausted troops for rest and recuperation.” (O.R., Vol. X, Part One, 410, 469–70.)
13. Diary of A. H. Mecklin, cited in Note 7, above.
14. Johnny Green of the Orphan Brigade, 28–29; Charles James Johnson Papers, Department of Archives, Louisiana State University; letter of Braxton Bragg, dated April 8, in the Braxton Bragg Papers, Missouri Historical Society.
15. Livermore, Numbers and Losses in the Civil War, 79–80, gives fairly accurate figures. He puts Federal casualties at 1754 killed, 8408 wounded, and 2885 missing, for a total of 13,047; Confederate casualties are given as 1723 killed, 8012 wounded, and 959 missing, for a total of 10,694. The armies at Bull Run numbered about 30,000 each, and those at Shiloh were approximately 40,000 each. It should be added, of course, that a much higher percentage of each army was put into action at Shiloh.
4. Threat to New Orleans
1. There is a good summary of the operation in John Fiske, The Mississippi Valley in the Civil War, 101–7. Pope discussed his campaign against New Madrid in the C.C.W. Supplemental Report, 1866, Part II, 23–24. For Foote’s misgivings about Island Number Ten see N.O.R., Vol. XXII, 695–97.
2. There is an engaging account of the creation of this waterway written by Col. J. W. Bissell, Sawing out the Channel Above Island Number Ten, in B. & L., Vol. I, 460–62.
3. N.O.R., Vol. XXII, 703.
4. Walke tells about all of this in The Western Flotilla at Fort Donelson, Island Number Ten, Fort Pillow and Memphis, in B. & L., Vol. I, 442–45. To “splice the main brace” was of course to give all hands a drink.
5. Letter of Foote to Secretary Welles dated Nov. 13, 1862, in the Gideon Welles Papers, Huntington Library.
6. Alfred Roman, The Military Operations of General Beauregard, Vol. I, 358; O.R., Vol. VIII, 809.
7. Ibid., 757, 793.
8. O.R., Vol. VI, 827. Confederate spies were sending such full reports of Federal preparations in St. Louis that the Confederate Navy Department was convinced that the main effort against New Orleans was coming from the north. (Joseph T. Durkin, Stephen R. Mallory, 203.)
9. O.R., Vol. VI, 610–11.
10. Construction of the forts is described by Ernest Adam Landry, “The History of Forts Jackson and St. Philip with Special Emphasis on the Civil War Period,” a thesis written for the History Department of Louisiana State University and made available by the Historian’s Office, Adjutant General’s Department, Jackson Barracks, La. For Gen. Mansfield Lovell’s comment on the weakness of the guns, see O.R., Vol. VI, 512. Admiral A. T. Mahan draws attention to this point in Gulf and Inland Waters, 58–59.
11. Farragut’s letter to Secretary Welles dated Dec. 7, 1869, in the Gideon Welles Papers, Huntington Library; Loyall Farragut, The Life of David Glasgow Farragut, 219–20.
12. Loyall Farragut, 218.
5. Fire on the Waters
1. Lovell’s testimony at the Court of Inquiry on the loss of New Orleans, O.R., Vol. VI, 558–59.
2. Ibid., 564; Roman, Military Operations of Gen. Beauregard, Vol. I, 153–54.
3. O.R., Vol. VI, 847.
4. Pamphlet, “Correspondence between the War Department and General Lovell relating to the Defenses of New Orleans, submitted in response to a resolution of the House of Representatives passed third February, 1863; and Correspondence between the President, War Department and Gov. T. O. Moore,” 105–9; in the Beauregard Papers, Special Collection, Columbia University Library. See also testimony of Nelson Tift, N.O.R., Series Two, Vol. I, 532–38, 546–49.
5. Pamphlet cited in Note 4, above, 114–15; O.R., Vol. VI, 572, 612–13, 811–12.
6. Durkin, Stephen Mallory, 206; O.R., Vol. VI, 865, 877.
7. Loyall Farragut, 212; Diary of Oscar Smith, U.S.M.C., in the Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
8. Welles to Farragut, Jan. 20, 1862, in N.O.R., Vol. XVIII, 7–8.
9. Ibid., 48–49.
10. Confidential Correspondence of Gustavus V. Fox, Vol. II, 89–90, 97.
11. See Butler’s Book, 358; Farragut’s report of April 21, in N.O.R., Vol. XVIII, 135; Loyall Farragut, 219. In N.O.R., Vol. XVIII, 372, Porter is credited with firing 7500 shell at Fort Jackson; in The Opening of the Lower Mississippi, B. & L., Vol. II, 38, Porter says he fired 16,800.
12. Private diary of Commander Henry Bell in N.O.R., Vol. XVIII, 694–96; George S. Bacon, “One Night’s Work, April 20, 1862,” Magazine of American History, March 1886, 305–7; Lewis, David Glasgow Farragut, Our First Admiral, 55.
13. Butler’s Book, 366; letter of Capt. Craven in N.O.R., Vol. XVIII, 198; Farragut’s report of April 25, ibid., 154; Diary of Oscar Smith, cited in Note 7, above.
14. N.O.R., op. cit., 152, 177–80. There are a number of graphic accounts of the fighting in B. & L., Vol. II, 22–91. For a general description of the entire campaign, Charles L. Dufour’s The Night the War Was Lost is warmly recommended.
15. Lovell’s testimony at the Court of Inquiry, O.R., Vol. VI, 564.
16. Farragut to Mrs. Farragut, April 25, in the Farragut Papers, David H. Annan Collection.
17. N.O.R., Series Two, Vol. I, 440; O.R., Vol. VI, 608.
6. Brilliant Victory
1. The United Service Magazine, London, February 1864, cited in J. G. Barnard, The Peninsular Campaign, 74–75; Swinton, Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, 99–100; Prince de Joinville, The Army of the Potomac, 33–34; O.R., Vol. XI, Part One, 158.
2. Stanton’s Act, which certainly must rank as one of the big blunders of the war, was only in part due to overoptimism. He wanted to reorganize the recruiting service—a badly needed reform—and planned to reopen it a bit later. See O.R., Series Three, Vol. II, 2–3, 29; Benjamin P. Thomas and Harold M. Hyman, Stanton: the Life and Times of Lincoln’s Secretary of War, 201–2.
3. Jacob Cox, Military Reminiscences of the Civil War, Vol. I, 265–66; report of Charles S. Tripler, Medical Director, Army of the Potomac, O.R., Vol. XI, Part One, 206–7.
4. D.A.B., Vol. XVII, 106–7; James F. Huntington, Operations in the Shenandoah Valley, Papers of the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, Vol. I, 304; Benjamin P. Thomas, Abraham Lincoln, 81–85.
5. Joseph E. Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations, 106–7; O.R., Vol. XII, Part Three, 836.
6. O.R., Vol. XII, Part One, 337, 343, 383–84.
7. O.R., Vol. XI, Part Three, 53; Nicolay & Hay, Vol V, 180; Mss. note, Stanton to Lincoln dated March 30, 1862, in the Stanton Papers, Library of Congress.
8. Basler, Vol. V, 184–85; O.R., Vol. XII, Part Three, 16.
9. Basler, Vol. V, 179; O.R., Vol. XI, Part Three, 66.
10. O.R., Vol. XI, Part Three, 76–77; Basler, Vol. V, 182. The interesting part about these messages is that McClellan gave the lower estimate to Wool rather than to Lincoln. If he had been purposely understating his strength in order to get reinforcements, he would of course have given Lincoln the lower figure.
11. Reports and letters of “E. Allen,” in the Report and Letter Book of Allan Pinkerton, the Pinkerton Papers, Library of Congress; quoted by permission of Dr. D. F. Boyce, assistant secretary and assistant treasurer, Pinkerton National Detective Agency, 100 Church Street, New York.
12. O.R., Vol. XI, Part One, 268–70.
13. O.R., Vol. V, 57–58.
14. N.O.R., Vol. VII, 99–100; O.R., Vol. XI, Part Three, 63, 67; James Russell Soley, The Navy in the Peninsular Campaign, B. & L., Vol. II, 264–66; Alexander S. Webb, The Peninsula, 38–41.
15. Aeronautic Report by T. S. C. Lowe, Record Group 94, A. G. O. Checklist entry 126, National Archives.
16. O.R., Vol. XI, Part Three, 68, 71–72; J
ohn G. Palfrey, The Siege of Yorktown, Papers of the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, Vol. I, 144–45; Barnard, The Peninsular Campaign, 20–22.
17. O.R., Vol. XI, Part One, 272–74, 538–50; George B. McClellan, Report on the Organization and Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, 159, 162–64.
18. McDowell’s testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War; C.C.W. Reports, 1863, Part I, 260–62.
19. O.R., Vol. XI, Part Three, 71, 74; Webb, op. cit., 60–62; Basler, Vol. V, 226; Prince de Joinville, The Army of the Potomac, 47.
CHAPTER FIVE: Turning Point
1. The Signs of the Times
1. O.R., Vol. XI, Part Three, 134–35.
2. Livermore, Numbers and Losses, 80-81, puts Union casualties at 2239 out of an estimated 40,000 engaged, and says the Confederates had an effective strength of 31,823 and losses of 1703.
3. Letter of Capt. Wilson Barstow to his sister, Mrs. Richard Henry Stoddard, dated May 12, 1862, in the Wilson Barstow Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress; Assistant Secretary of War John Tucker to Secretary Stanton from Fort Monroe, May 13, 1862, Stanton Papers, Library of Congress; O.R., Vol. XI, Part Three, 160, 164.
4. O.R., Vol. XI, Part Three, 145–46, 148–49.
5. Basler, Vol. V, 185.
6. McClellan to Mrs. McClellan dated May 8, 1862, McClellan Letterbook, Library of Congress.
7. Letter of Barlow to McClellan dated April 14, 1862; letter of Samuel Ward to Barlow, marked on verso “Apl/62” but otherwise undated; letter of Barlow to McClellan dated May 10, 1862; all in the Barlow Papers, Huntington Library.
8. Letter of Meagher to Barlow dated April 27, 1862, in the Barlow Papers.
9. Letter of August Belmont to Barlow dated April 27, 1862, in the Barlow Papers; letters of Fitz John Porter to Manton Marble, one written probably in April 1862, the other dated May 21, 1862, in the Manton Marble Papers, Library of Congress; letter of Capt. Wilson Barstow to his sister dated May 20, 1862, in the Barstow Papers, Library of Congress.
