Lincoln sighed deeply and let the papers drop back onto the desk. “Well — it is politics that keeps this war going, so politics it will be. See them in.”
They were not a very prepossessing pair. The Senator was young and already balding. General Sherman had a wiry red beard and a short but tough body, although he did have the erect and military bearing of a West Point graduate. His eyes were as cold and empty as those of a bird of prey. Unless he was addressed directly he did not speak. Instead he sat quietly, looking out the window at the Potomac River and past that to the plowed fields of Virginia on the far side. Apparently having no interest at all in the political conversation. Lincoln watched him out of the corners of his eyes, struggling with a memory that was just below the surface. Of course!
“Well Senator,” the President cut in, interrupting what was turning into an all too familiar abolitionist speech, “what you say has a lot of good reason to it. All I have to say is what the girl said when she put her foot into the stocking, ‘It strikes me that there is something in it’. I shall keep your thoughts in mind. But now I would also like to have a word or two with your brother.” He turned in his chair to face Sherman. “General, stop me if I am wrong, but didn’t we meet at least once before?”
Sherman nodded. “We have, Mr. Lincoln. It was soon after the Battle of Bull Run.”
“That’s it, of course, a little matter of discipline with one of your Irish regiments as I recall.”
“You might say that. As I remember it happened soon before you arrived. A captain, a lawyer if you will excuse my saying so, came up to me and spoke while a number of his soldiers were within earshot. In no uncertain terms he told me that his three-month term was up and he was going home. I was not going to abide by this, not in front of the men.”
Sherman’s face was rigid with anger as he relived the moment. “This kind of thing has to be stopped the instant it starts. Particularly in front of men who have already fled once from battle. So I reached inside my overcoat and said, ‘If you attempt to leave without orders, it will be mutiny, and I will shoot you like a dog’. The matter ended there.”
“Not quite,” Lincoln said, smiling at the memory. “It must have been later that same day when I was riding through the encampment with Secretary of State Seward when this same captain comes up and points at you and says, ‘Mr. President, I have a cause of grievance. This morning I went to speak to Colonel Sherman, and he threatened to shoot me’.”
Always savoring a good story, Lincoln leaned back while he hesitated a dramatic moment before going on.
“I waited a bit, then leaned down and whispered to him in what I believe they call a stage whisper. I said, ‘Well, if I were you, and he threatened to shoot, I would not trust him for I believe he would do it!’ ”
They laughed together because it was a good story well told.
“Of course,” Lincoln added, “I only discovered what it was all about after Colonel Sherman, as he was at that time, explained. My feeling was that since I did not know anything about it, I did still feel that you knew your own business best.”
“Morale was not good after our defeat at Bull Run so any talk like that had to be stopped at once.”
“In the West Point manner.”
“That is correct.”
“After leaving West Point were you not also at one time superintendent of the Louisiana State Military Academy? Is that true?”
“I had that honor.”
“Cump is too reluctant by far,” John said. “He founded that academy, practically built it by himself. Started with an empty field, designed the buildings and had the school up and running within two months.”
The President nodded. “With a responsible post like that you must have had many friends in the South?”
“I had — and perhaps still have some of them. During my service I grew to know the men of the South. I had personal friends there whom I admired as men. But for their attitude toward the Negroes they enslave I have no respect at all. If a man goes forth and no matter how well dressed and well spoken he is, he is a man like any other. However if a man goes forth and is followed by a slave who attends him, why in the South he is looked upon as something else again. A man who enslaves other men — and is proud of it to boot. In many other ways they can be fine and honorable people. If trained, they make good soldiers. They are a military people with a strong military tradition.”
Lincoln nodded. “Unhappily that is so. Far too many of your West Point comrades are fighting on the other side.”
“The Southerners make good fighting men. But at times they are immune to simple logic. I know, for I have attempted to make them see reason. At one time I even attempted to warn them, the officers teaching in the academy, of their certain fate, of what the future positively held in store for them. I am afraid they did not listen for they are a most firm-minded lot.”
The President was puzzled. “You have me there, General. What was it you wanted to warn them about?”
“This was after the Southern states began to secede. It was a time of great concern. All of the instructors in the academy were serving officers in the United States Army. They were torn by loyalty to the government and loyalty to their states. I tried to reason with them. To tell them about the disastrous war that was certainly coming, Mr. President. I tried to tell them of their folly for I could see that our country would be drenched in blood if they persevered along this road to civil war. Drenched in their own blood. I could not convince them that the peaceful people of the North would fight if they had to. They would fight and they would win.”
“You speak with great conviction. You felt the fighting spirit of the North would eventually prevail against that of the South?”
“Not at all. The Southerner has always been military-minded, that is why so many of them have gone to West Point. Because of that they think themselves superior in many ways. But we are all Americans, North and South, and react to conflict in an identical manner. But it is not the fighting spirit that will win this war. In the end it is the machinery of warfare that will prevail. The South cannot build a locomotive or a railway car. Or anything else needed to fight a war and pursue it to final victory. They will win battles — they are very brave people — but they do not have the resources to win a war. When I told them this they smiled at me as though I were soft.”
Sherman paused for a moment looking out of the window with his cold, empty eyes. Looking across the dividing Potomac at the enemy land. Seeing events past — perhaps seeing events to come.
“After that I had no choice. The only course open to me was to leave the South and join the Union cause. Of course my words were rejected and quickly forgotten — and we were swept into this war. But I knew them as kind good friends. To this day I cannot think of them as rebels or traitors. They are fighting in defense of their country, their houses and families, against what they see as invaders.”
Lincoln was impressed; a fighting man who was a serious thinker as well. Too many of his generals were full of fight and very little else. And some of them didn’t even have that fighting spirit. General McClellan had spent five months doing absolutely nothing. Now he was in hospital with fever and the President had taken over his command. In the west Halleck appeared to be stalemated. Soldiers were dying but nothing seemed to be happening despite this. Only at sea was the blockade succeeding. Blockade runners were seized almost every day, supplies in the South running out. But this was a stalemate. The war could not be won by simply standing back and hoping the Rebels would starve themselves to death. If this General Sherman had a higher command he might be able to do something about that. Not right now, but he would keep him in mind.
“You will go far, General. Indeed I wish I had a dozen like you. If I did this war would be over by next spring. It is my understanding that it is your wish to take up a command under General Halleck?”
“It is. If the Commander-in-Chief is in agreement he wishes me to have a division under General Grant.”<
br />
“Then it is done! The order will be issued and I wish you every success.”
Nicolay, with true secretarial precision appeared at that moment, opened the door and ushered them out. Only when the door was closed did he speak.
“Mrs. Lincoln has asked that you see her in Willie’s room.”
Lincoln’s face was gray under his dark skin. “Any change?”
“I don’t know. That was all she said.”
Lincoln hurried out. Mary was standing by the door looking at the bed. She turned when he touched her arm.
“He is so cold,” she said.
One of Willie’s playmates was sitting by the great bed, solemnly upright. Willie’s eyes were shut.
“Has he spoken?” Lincoln asked the boy.
“No, sir, not today. But I am sure he knows that I am here, for he squeezes my hand.”
They pulled up chairs next to the boy and sat in silence. There was nothing that they could say, nothing that they could do. The doctor came and looked at the silent child, touched his forehead — then shook his head. This was more expressive than words could ever be.
It was a good hour before Lincoln returned to his desk. He dropped wearily into his armchair, turned at the sound of a voice.
“He has done it, Mr. Lincoln, Grant has done it again!”
The Secretary of War hurried into the room waving the dispatch like a battle flag. So excited was he that he did not notice the President’s drawn face, his expression of blank despair. Cameron turned to the map of the United States on the wall and tapped his finger on the state of Tennessee.
“Fort Donelson has fallen and it is indeed a mighty victory.” He read from the paper in his hand. “ ‘February 16th… the Confederate army has surrendered… fifteen thousand of them captured.’ And here is the best — proof that we have a mighty fighting general in Grant. When General Buckner asked Grant for terms, you know what Grant said?” He found the quote on the paper, raised his finger dramatically as he spoke.
“ ‘No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works’.” He was jubilant. “I do believe, if I have your permission, that we should promote Grant to Major General.”
Lincoln nodded slowly. Cameron turned back to the map.
“First the fall of Fort Henry, now Fort Donelson in turn, a catastrophe for the enemy. The Cumberland and the Tennessee, the two most important rivers in the southwest are in our hands. The state of Tennessee is now ours while Kentucky is wide open before us. The South can only despair. They are surrounded and under attack.” He addressed the map again, stabbing at it.
“Our armies are here in Virginia, near Washington, and here at Harper’s Ferry. On the Peninsula at Fort Monroe as well — ready to strike at Richmond and Norfolk. A ring of steel, that is what it is! Our men are at Port Royal aiming at Savannah and Charleston. Down on the Gulf Coast we are poised at the gates of Mobile and New Orleans. And here on the Mississippi, on the Cumberland and the Tennessee.”
Exhausted and elated he dropped into a chair. “And all along the rebel coast the blockade is now no longer just a nuisance to Johnny Reb but a fully developed danger. I will be surprised if the war lasts until the end of this year. Eighteen sixty-two will be our annus mimbilis, our year of victory.”
“I pray it will be so, Cameron. I pray that all the death and destruction will finally come to an end and that this beleaguered country will be one again. But a wounded beast will turn and rend — and the South has been well wounded. We must keep ever-watchful guard. And most important of all is the blockade. It must be maintained and strengthened. We must cut off all source of outside supplies. Without supplies and the military wherewithal the South cannot succeed in the field. In the end their armies will be defeated.”
Although the words were optimistic they were spoken in tones of leaden gloom. So sorrowing were they that Cameron for the first time noticed the President’s obvious distress.
“Sir — you are not ill?”
“No, I am not. But the one I love is. My son, little Willie, just twelve years old. Mortally ill the doctors say. The typhoid. They doubt he will live out the day.”
Stricken by the President’s pain and suffering, Cameron could not speak. He rose, head shaking with remorse, and slowly left the room.
The James River cuts through Virginia, the heart of the Confederacy. After leaving Richmond, the Confederate capital, it rolls slowly through the rich countryside toward the sea. It is joined by the Elizabeth River just before it flows into the wide estuary known as Hampton Roads.
A chill mist rose from the surface of the Elizabeth River this March morning, the first light of dawn barely penetrating. Gaunt trees lined the riverbanks; a bluejay sat on a limb overhanging the water, singing coarsely — then was suddenly silent. Disturbed by the dark form that had appeared out of the mist below he took fright and flew off. Birdsong was replaced by a gasping sound, like the breath of some water monster. The monster itself slid slowly into sight, its breath the puffing of a steam engine, dark smoke roiling up from a single, tall funnel.
It was steel-plated, slant-sided, slow and ungainly, its forward motion barely able to stir ripples from the river’s glassy surface. As it slipped by it could be seen that its gray armored flanks were pierced with gun ports, now shut and sealed; an immense ram was fixed to the ship’s bow. An armored pilot house was on the foredeck just above the four-foot iron beak. Inside the pilot house the ship’s commanding officer, Flag Officer Franklin Buchanan, stood behind the helmsman at the wheel.
He was not a happy man. His ship was a clobbered together collection of compromises. Her wooden hull was the burnt shell of the USS Merrimack, fired by the Yankees when they had retreated from Norfolk and the great naval yard there. That sodden hull was supposed to be the salvation of the Confederacy. The burnt strakes and hull had been cut away until sound wood was reached. Onto this hull had been constructed an armored superstructure of pine and oak, covered with iron cladding, to shield the ten large guns that she carried. Now the Merrimack, renamed the CSS Virginia, was going into battle for the first time. And painfully slowly. The single-cylinder engine, always feeble and under-powered, had been under water for a long time before the hull was raised and it was salvaged. The engine was old and badly maintained to begin with, it had suffered no good during its immersion. Nor was the engine equal to the task of moving the heavy craft at more than the feeble speed of five knots.
But they were at least under way at last and the ship would soon taste battle. They would have attacked earlier but severe spring storms had lashed the coast for days, sending mountainous seas rolling across the bay and crashing into the shore. The shallow draft Virginia would never have survived. But now the storm had ended, the waves died down during the night — and the ironclad could finally be put to the test.
Flag Officer Buchanan turned and clambered partway down the steps to the engine room, called out loudly above the clanking and hiss of steam.
“Too slow, Lieutenant Jones, too slow by far. Can we not raise more steam?” The grease-covered officer shouted back.
“No, sir. This is the most we can do. I have too much pressure as it is — any more and something will blow.”
Buchanan went back to his station. As they clanked slowly out into the James River they were joined by four small wooden sidewheel gunboats. The Patrick Henry was the largest, mounting a total of six guns, but the tiny Teaser had only a single gun.
This was the force that was to challenge the might of the warships of the United States Navy.
The mist was gone now as they slowly chugged out into the open waters of Hampton Roads. Once past Norfolk they would be in the open sea.
Where they would face the blockading Yankee warships, for here was where the throttling blockade began. So vital was this entrance to the heart of the Confederacy that a small fleet of Union ships was stationed here. Buchanan had never seen them, but he had received daily reports
of their strength and condition.
Here were the 40-gun steam frigates Roanoke and Minnesota. Accompanying them were the sailing frigates the 50-gun Congress and Cumberland with 24 guns. Over 150 cannon in complete control of the entrance to the Charles River. He knew that it would take at least another small fleet to defeat them. The South did not have a fleet.
All that they had was this single, botched together and untried ironclad. And four tiny, unarmored steamboats.
Never tested in battle, ludicrous and rumbling, almost leisurely, the CSS Virginia steered for the blockading ships.
“Ports open,” Buchanan shouted. “Prepare for action!”
The lookout on the USS Mount Vernon, the ship closest to shore, saw smoke appear above Sewall’s Point and thought a fire had been lit. He was about to report it when the dark shape emerged into view. A ship, but what kind of a ship? Its length shortened as the bow swung toward him and he raised the alarm. He may not have seen a vessel like this before — but he could recognize the Confederate flag at her stern. This could very well be the armorclad craft they had all been expecting, the ship that was supposed to bring victory to the South.
The Mount Vernon raised a signal flag to alert the fleet. It was not noticed. Her captain ordered a gun to be fired at the approaching ironclad. This single shot was the first shot fired in the Battle of Hampton Roads.
Puffing leisurely up the South Channel toward the anchored warships the Virginia looked more ridiculous than menacing. Until her gun ports opened and the black muzzles of her guns appeared. Buchanan singled out Cumberland for his first attack. Still a mile away she opened fire with the bow gun loaded with grape shot that killed or wounded the crew at the pivot gun.
The drums sounded beat to quarters on the Northern frigate and the crew ran to their stations. But the attack was so sudden and unexpected that they even had washing suspended from the rigging. They did their best. The crew swarmed aloft to set sail while the guncrews leaned into the tackle. Within scant minutes the Cumberland’s guns roared their first broadside. The attacker was closer now and the broadside of solid shot crashed into Virginia’s armor plating, four inches of thick iron that was backed by two feet of pine and oak.
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