The 20 Most Significant Events of the Civil War

by Alan Axelrod

  MOST HISTORIANS—MOST AMERICANS—AGREE that the nation’s two greatest presidents were George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. The only disagreement might be over the order of their greatness. Washington first? Lincoln second? Vice versa?

  The thing is, although Washington led the nation to victory in the revolution and independence as a result, and while he answered his new nation’s call to become its first president, Lincoln redeemed the Union and led America through what was for all intents and purposes a Second American Revolution. So the historical basis for ranking in greatness the first and the sixteenth presidents is not straightforward. Both Washington and Lincoln rendered profound services to the nation. Both proved themselves to be indispensable men.

  Viewed from the perspective of popular culture and collective sentiment rather than history, our two greatest presidents are far easier to rank. Congress commissioned Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee, brilliant major general in the Continental Army, governor of Virginia, and future father of Robert E. Lee, to write a eulogy on the death of George Washington in 1799. Light-Horse Harry pronounced his subject “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” But, in the farther-seeing eye of history, this magnificent sentence is not quite accurate. Abraham Lincoln, not George Washington, is arguably first in the hearts of his countrymen. To think of Washington is to think of a great figure carved in gleaming marble. To summon up the image of Abraham Lincoln is to recall a Mathew Brady daguerreotype—the face gaunt, rough, gentle, prematurely aged by four years of war. It is the face of a man for whom the nation’s greatest office was an honor so burdensome and tragic that the word bittersweet is a weak understatement. Lincoln groped his way through the Civil War, desperately seeking a strategy and a military leader to win and end it. He hired and fired one commanding general after another. When Irvin McDowell was defeated at the First Battle of Bull Run (July 21, 1861), he turned to the “Young Napoleon,” George Brinton McClellan, who, after frittering away time and lives in his timid Peninsula Campaign (March-July 1862), eked out enough of a victory at the Battle of Antietam (September 17, 1862) to buy the president a platform from which he might publish to America and the world the Emancipation Proclamation. That was a great thing, but, evaluated in strictly military terms, McClellan had delivered in Antietam yet another crushing disappointment.

  Militarily, the price paid at Antietam was far too high for the results obtained. Lee had been driven out of Maryland, but his Army of Northern Virginia, though battered, lived to fight another day. Not only had McClellan failed to pursue Lee as he retreated from Antietam, he refused to do much of anything with the Union’s flagship force, the Army of the Potomac—prompting the president to complain that its grand name “is a mistake; it is only McClellan’s bodyguard.”

  Lincoln accepted what McClellan had given him at Antietam—the occasion to transform the Civil War into a crusade not only to restore the Union, but to liberate America’s enslaved—but then he fired McClellan. For the Young Napoleon had failed to give him and his country nearly enough.

  Who could?

  Once again, Lincoln found himself forced to choose among candidates of varying degrees of inadequacy. From among these, one stood out—at least more or less—and Lincoln settled on him. His name was Ambrose Everett Burnside, one of those affable and empathetic commanders who naturally express affection for the men they lead and thus receive affection in return. A West Point graduate (Class of 1847), he was deployed to service in the US-Mexican War (1846–1848) too late to see combat, but he did manage to receive an honorable wound after the war in an 1849 skirmish with Apaches in New Mexico when an arrow pierced his neck. He resigned his commission in 1853, devoted himself to perfecting a carbine for cavalry use, and plowed what money he had and could borrow into manufacturing the weapon—only to lose, through the corruption of President James Buchanan’s secretary of war, the government contract that should have made him wealthy. Subsequently, he tried politics, running in 1858 for Congress from Rhode Island. After he lost by a landslide, his rifle factory burned to the ground, and he was forced to sell his firearm patents to the highest bidders—who did not bid very high. Desperate, he moved west and found a position as treasurer of the Illinois Central Railroad, the vice president of which was another West Pointer and former US Army officer, George B. McClellan.

  The two men became friends, and Burnside would serve under McClellan in the Army of the Potomac. For both McClellan and he answered their country’s call at the outbreak of the Civil War. Burnside raised and led the 1st Rhode Island Volunteer Regiment and soon rose to command of a brigade in the Department of Northeast Virginia. His maiden battle was the First Battle of Bull Run (July 21, 1861), in which he performed neither better nor worse than most other unit commanders. Still, McClellan recruited him to train provisional brigades in the emerging Army of the Potomac in August, a job in which he proved his ability to work well with soldiers.

  From September 1861 to July 1862, Burnside commanded the North Carolina Expeditionary Force and achieved a series of victories in that state. Although they were minor, they were won against a dreary backdrop of Union defeats and were thus considerably magnified. Besides, Burnside’s striking appearance began to command considerable public attention. Trim and broad-chested, he filled out his uniform handsomely. His monumentally high forehead and the stately recession of his hairline, which, joined to magnificent mutton chop whiskers and moustache, dramatically framed his noble features. Those whiskers enjoyed a fame destined to outlive anything else he did. They were so widely emulated that they were called burnsides, a name eventually inverted to sideburns.

  Battles won and looks sufficiently distinctive to be considered striking earned Ambrose Burnside good press. Add to this a sincere and highly visible concern for his soldiers, and he shone as one of the few bright lights among the Union’s officer corps. His loyal troops lovingly recounted how, after the Battle of New Bern (March 14, 1862), he visited the wounded in a field hospital. There he ran across a soldier named John Hope, whom he recognized as having served in his artillery battery during the US-Mexican War. Seeing that Hope had been badly wounded in the leg, Burnside withdrew a ten-dollar note from his pocket and gave it to the man, along with a friendly command to buy fresh fruit and vegetables. They promoted healing, Burnside assured him. He returned to visit Hope again just before the wounded were scheduled for evacuation. On that occasion, he proffered another five dollars—for the journey, he said.

  President Lincoln took Burnside’s victories with a grain of salt. They were skirmishes, after all. But he was more impressed by accounts of how soldiers lobbied to serve under him and invariably cheered him wherever he went. It was, according to one officer, a cheer that was first heard at a distance, as Burnside approached, but increased in volume the nearer he came. After North Carolina, Burnside returned to the war’s mainstream, as commander of the right wing (I Corps and IX Corps) of McClellan’s Army of the Potomac at the Battle of South Mountain (September 14, 1862). In contrast to his earlier battles, this one was major, involving a total of 28,000 Union troops, of whom 2,325 became casualties (killed, wounded, or missing). Still, South Mountain was a Union victory, and Burnside had had a part in it. Days later, he served as left wing (just IX Corps) commander at the far more consequential Battle of Antietam (September 17, 1862). And here he did not perform nearly so well. He failed to make proper reconnaissance and lost both time and men by crossing the Antietam over a very narrow stone bridge that was under fire by Confederate sharpshooters. Burnside’s costly delay contributed to McClellan’s failures in the battle. Given the Union’s more than 2-to-1 numerical superiority, Antietam should have been a decisive victory. Instead, it was a strategic victory but a costly tactical draw—at best.

  Why, then, would Lincoln turn from McClellan, who had disappointed him at Antietam, to Burnside, who had materially contributed to that disappointment?

  For one thing, Burnside had performed no less competent
ly than other senior commanders at the battle. In addition, he possessed something no other Union Eastern Theater commander possessed: a record of victories. Indeed, Lincoln first offered Burnside the opportunity to replace McClellan as commanding general of the Army of the Potomac on July 27, 1862, before Antietam. At that time, Burnside turned down the offer—flat. He told the president that George B. McClellan was simply the better commander. All he needed was “a fair chance” to prove it.

  Whatever else Burnside was, he was honorable, and he was loyal. McClellan had given him a good job at the Illinois Central when he desperately needed it, and he had given him every consideration as one of his senior commanders in the Army of the Potomac. But Burnside’s demurral was not just the product of loyalty. It was a remarkably frank self-assessment. Many years later, in his Personal Memoirs, Grant wrote that Burnside “was generally liked and respected,” but “was not … fitted to command an army.” And he added this most telling comment: “No one knew this better than himself. He always admitted his blunders, and extenuated those of officers under him beyond what they were entitled to. It was hardly his fault that he was ever assigned to a separate command”—by which Grant meant command of an entire army.

  Lincoln was intent on removing and replacing McClellan. Just before the Battle of Antietam, he summoned Burnside again and, again, offered him command of the Army of the Potomac. This time, Burnside was even more brutally honest about himself. He told the president that he was simply incapable of leading so large an army. Lincoln let it go, until November 5, 1862, after Antietam and after McClellan repeatedly ignored Lincoln’s orders to take the battle to Lee. Now, through the War Department, President Lincoln issued General Order No. 182, which was handed to Brigadier General Catharinus Putnam Buckingham for delivery to Burnside, who was with his Army of the Potomac corps in Virginia. Buckingham presented the order to Burnside on November 7. It announced McClellan’s relief from command of the Army of the Potomac and the appointment in his place of Ambrose Burnside.

  Having twice offered, Lincoln now commanded. Still, Burnside pleaded with Buckingham, telling him that he was incapable of leading 120,000 men and repeating his opinion that McClellan was a well-qualified commander. He also protested that changing generals in the middle of a campaign was potentially disastrous.

  Lincoln had made clear to the War Department that he needed Burnside to follow his order, and Buckingham had been thoroughly coached in how to prevail against Burnside’s objections and protestations. The brigadier general explained in no uncertain terms that President Lincoln was adamant in his intention to relieve McClellan. The president, he told Burnside, was ordering him to take his place. Of course, he could always resign his commission, but doing so would not save the job for McClellan. Buckingham sympathetically explained that he appreciated the general’s self-doubts, but, he continued, if he did not follow orders and take the job, it would almost certainly go to the single senior officer in the entire United States Army that the universally cordial and popular Burnside actually hated: Joseph Hooker. Hooker was the kind of leader Burnside could not tolerate. He was arrogant, he was a careerist, and he had repeatedly shown himself disloyal to his commanding officers when such disloyalty might gain him a promotion.

  The mention of Hooker spurred Burnside to surrender and say yes. With that, Buckingham accompanied him to McClellan’s tent. From the strained preliminary courtesies, McClellan must have sensed that something unpleasant was afoot even before Buckingham handed over General Order 182. McClellan read it, laid it down, and locked eyes on Ambrose Burnside. He must have understood that his friend and loyal subordinate had asked for none of this.

  “Well, Burnside,” he said, “I turn the command over to you.”

  Poor Burnside! He was absolutely right when he told Lincoln that he was incapable of leading 120,000 men. Lacking any practical idea of how to manage so vast a force, he decided to simplify the organization of the Army of the Potomac by creating three “Grand Divisions” (his term), consisting of two corps each. He put these three immense units under Generals Edwin V. Sumner, Joseph Hooker, and William B. Franklin. It looked like a simple undertaking on paper—but, in the field, it was wholly impractical. There were insufficient levels of command to execute decisions and to provide adequate feedback from the field. Before planning a single battle or firing a single shot, Burnside made his first serious strategic blunder. He had thrown away organizational agility.

  Almost immediately after assuming command, Burnside was bombarded by Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton with demands that he launch a major offensive against Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia. McClellan would have responded with delaying tactics, including simply turning a deaf ear to Washington. Burnside had a very different personality. He wanted, above all, to please the president. Accordingly, he promised to mount an attack that would accomplish in a single stroke what McClellan had been unable to do over many months. He decided to position the Army of the Potomac north of the Rappahannock River at Warrenton, Virginia, thirty miles from Lee’s badly outnumbered Army of Northern Virginia, which consisted of just two corps, commanded by Stonewall Jackson and James Longstreet. From here, he would march on Richmond.

  It might actually have worked if Burnside had been a better general or had even taken some time to ponder the position of Lee’s army. It was, in fact, quite vulnerable at the moment because it was widely separated into two wings, the corps under Jackson and the corps under Longstreet. The correct move was to attack between the wings, hitting both on their flanks, focusing on one and then the other. Given Burnside’s superior manpower, it is likely that he would have thus succeeded in defeating Lee “in detail”—meaning that, by taking on the separated parts of the enemy’s forces, it is far easier to destroy them one after the other, than trying to defeat a united force. Pressed by Washington and intent on taking immediate action, however, Burnside blundered. Instead of patiently attacking the two separated wings of his enemy, he decided to advance toward Richmond via Fredericksburg, thereby forcing Lee to make a stand at the town. This relinquished the advantage of attacking a divided army out in the open and instead gave Lee the opportunity to take up a strong defensive position in the hills behind Fredericksburg. Before firing a shot, Burnside had surrendered the high ground, which gave even the outnumbered Army of Northern Virginia a lethal tactical advantage.

  All of this said, there was still a way for Burnside to win. By allowing Lee to consolidate his forces, Burnside had given himself a very large bite to chew. What he needed now was to move quickly and attack with a maximum of violence before the consolidation of forces could be completed. Instead, Burnside had a great deal of difficulty moving his unwieldy forces, organized as they were into three ponderous “Grand Divisions.” On November 17, 1862, when Sumner’s Grand Division arrived on the bank of the Rappahannock River opposite Fredericksburg, Burnside ordered Sumner to wait there until six pontoon bridges could be put in place for the crossing. Incredibly, bumbling staff work managed to delay the arrival of the bridges for a full month. This gave General Longstreet more than enough time to dig elaborate field fortifications into the hills south and west of town. Moreover, it also allowed ample time for Stonewall Jackson to get into well-defended positions. What had been a divided army was now one.

  By December 11, as Burnside’s engineers labored to assemble the belated pontoon bridges under heavy sniper fire, 78,000 Confederate troops were well entrenched on the south bank of the Rappahannock, with Fredericksburg between their positions and the river. Indeed, Burnside could not have put the Army of the Potomac in a worse spot. He had to cross the Rappahannock to attack, and an even bigger river, the Potomac was at his back, restricting his ability to maneuver.

  While Burnside struggled to mount a brute-force head-on attack, Lee had the tactical genius to allow Burnside to do just that. Except for the sniper fire, Lee did very little to contest the enemy’s crossing of the Rappahannock during December 11–12. In fact, he allowed Bur
nside’s men to enter and occupy Fredericksburg.

  It is difficult to believe that the Union commander did not know he was marching into an ambush. Perhaps he thought that his superior numbers would allow him to overcome even well-entrenched soldiers firing from high ground. Either way, Burnside, a general devoted to his men, was leading them to certain death.

  Before occupying the town, Burnside launched an intense artillery barrage against it. To this day, nobody knows why he ordered the massive barrage. Some believe he thought it would suppress sniper fire. But the Union artillerymen did not aim for the hillside entrenchments. They wanted to destroy the town, which had been evacuated of civilians. Thus the barrage of some 5,000 shells was an orgy of property destruction. After Fredericksburg had been reduced to rubble, the soldiers marched in and began looting whatever of value remained.

  Watching from their hillside fortifications, the Confederates seethed with rage. When the looting troops temporarily withdrew on the evening of December 12, Stonewall Jackson and an aide surveyed the ruins with disbelief. War was one thing, but wanton, purposeless devastation was the act of a spiteful vandal.

  Jackson’s aide shook his head and wondered aloud, What should be done about this?

  Hearing him, Jackson replied under his breath, “Kill ’em. Kill ’em all.”

  That level of killing began south of town at 8:30 on the morning of December 13 as Major General William Franklin led his Grand Division through a gap that had opened in Jackson’s Corps. Once again, Burnside was presented with an opportunity to do something other than kill and be killed. Had he concentrated more men on exploiting this gap, he might have positioned enough of his troops to direct effective fire against the defenders of Fredericksburg. However, anxious to push the battle relentlessly forward, he began a series of headlong charges against virtually impregnable positions dug into the hills.