The American Civil War and the wars of the Industrial Revolution Part 6

General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia

General George Thomas, "the Rock of Chickamauga"

Union engineers bridging the North Anna River, May 1864, Overland Campaign. The steep banks and depth of water show what serious obstacles the short Chesapeake rivers formed.

Union engineers destroying a Confederate railroad, Atlanta, 1864. The rails are being heated for twisting, as the man in the foreground is doing.

Confederate dead gathered for burial, Gettysburg, July 5, 1863

The McLean house at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, where Grant and Lee signed the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, April 9, 1865

The ruins of Richmond, 1865. The James River runs in the background.

The gallows built in the Was.h.i.+ngton a.r.s.enal for the execution of the conspirators in the a.s.sa.s.sination of Lincoln, 1865

Veterans of Pickett's charge on the field of action at the reunion for the fiftieth anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg, July 3, 1913 Sherman's success in capturing Atlanta opened the way for a project close to his heart and increasingly to Grant's as well, which was to make the civilian population of the South suffer as long as resistance was sustained. On July 15, Grant wrote to Halleck, "Sherman, once in Atlanta, will devote himself to collecting the resources of the country." He was soon to do worse than that. Shortly afterwards his policy for dealing with the Southerners became even more radical. He began on September 8 by ordering the emptying of Atlanta of what remained of its civilian population. The women and children were loaded onto carts and wagons and sent south to the town of Rough and Ready, which had been fought over during his advance. "Then," recorded Sherman, "began the real trouble." Hood had retired from Atlanta, to Lovejoy's Station, thirty miles to the southeast of the city, on the Savannah railroad. His strength was 40,000, all seasoned troops, and he had a large supply train of wagons. On September 21, he s.h.i.+fted his base to Palmetto Station, twenty-five miles southwest of Atlanta on the Montgomery and Selma railroad and began systematic preparations for a campaign against Sherman's long line of communications, with the purpose of forcing him to abandon his conquests. As a result, Sherman was forced, during September and October 1864, into marching troops up and down the railroad to keep the line open. Hood was now visited by Jefferson Davis, who promised his army cooperation and made a speech threatening to make Sherman pay as dearly as Napoleon had in his retreat from Moscow. Sherman at once took precautions, sending one division westward to Rome, one to Chattanooga, and strengthening the detachments guarding the railroads. To keep Hood under such pressure that he could not interrupt supplies, General Thomas was sent back to the headquarters of his department at Nashville and Schofield to his at Knoxville, while Sherman remained with the Army of the Tennessee at Atlanta, and awaited Hood's move, which quickly followed. Hood, behind his cavalry, crossed the Chattahoochee River on October 1, with his main army at Campbelltown and then moved to Dallas, from which he destroyed the railroad above Marietta for fifteen miles. He then sent General French to capture Allatoona. Sherman followed Hood, reaching Kennesaw Mountain in time to see the attack on Allatoona, which was repulsed. Hood then moved westward, bypa.s.sing Rome, and by a flank march reached Resaca, which he summoned to surrender but did not attack, continuing up the railroad, destroying it as he moved to the tunnel at Dalton, where he captured the garrison. This was a complete reversal of the campaign which had led Sherman to Atlanta during May. Sherman followed to observe Hood's movements down the valley of Chattooga, where Sherman failed to intercept him. Hood escaped to Gadsden on the Coosa River. Sherman halted at Gaylesville to observe Hood's movements across the mountains to Decatur, which, since it was well defended, he avoided, finally halting at Florence, Alabama.

Sherman perceived that Hood's object was to hara.s.s and interrupt his communications, rather than to fight a major battle, which he was unlikely to win. Sherman accordingly made a redisposition of his forces to allow him both to restrain Hood and to prepare for a further march into the Southland. He sent Schofield with two of his six corps by rail to Nashville, gave Thomas the troops he needed to defend Tennessee, and began to concentrate, at Atlanta, the forces necessary for a major offensive into Georgia. Repairing the railroads, he a.s.sembled the food and transportation necessary for 60,000 men, sent to the rear all unnecessary baggage and equipment, and called in his detachments to Atlanta, where by November 4, he had had concentrated four infantry divisions, a cavalry division, and 65 field guns, totalling 60,598 men. Hood remained at Florence, preparing either to invade Tennessee and Kentucky or to follow Sherman. "We were prepared for either alternative."

At the conclusion of the Atlanta campaign, Sherman was supremely confident and looked forward to the next and, he believed, final and decisive stage of the campaign and, indeed, of the war. In his survey of his operations, he quoted the great Napoleon "on the fundamental maxim of war, which was 'to converge a superior force on the critical point at the critical time.' "That meant, in 1864, on Lee's and Johnston's armies. He reflected that, had Lee abandoned Richmond before Sherman captured Atlanta, Grant would have advanced to meet him. As he had taken Atlanta first, the correct strategy was now to march his army to meet Grant. "The most practicable route to Richmond was a thousand miles in distance, too long for a single march; hence the necessity to reach the sea-coast for a new base. Savannah, three hundred miles distant, was the nearest point." "'The March to the Sea' was in strategy only a s.h.i.+ft of base for ulterior and highly important purposes."6 It was the outcome of the battle and campaign of Atlanta which may thus be seen as one of the most crucial operations of the whole war. It was the outcome of the battle and campaign of Atlanta which may thus be seen as one of the most crucial operations of the whole war.

Sherman's March to the Sea would make him the most hated Northerner in the Confederacy but also crush the South's spirit of resistance for good. He foresaw coordinating his advance on the ground with naval operations up the Savannah River so that he could "move rapidly to Milledgeville, where there is abundance of corn and meat and could so threaten Macon and Augusta that the enemy would doubtless give up Macon for Augusta; then I would move so as to interpose between Augusta and Savannah, and force him to give up Augusta with the only powder mills and factories remaining in the South."7 He was actively contriving a scheme to make a war upon food resources turn into a war on industrial production. He was now certain that he could make the march to the sea and "make Georgia howl." After devastating Georgia he intended to turn on the Carolinas and thence to reach Virginia and Richmond. He now began to organise the troops he had around Atlanta into marching formations for the great advance. The force was divided into a right and left wing, commanded, respectively by General Oliver Howard and General Henry Sloc.u.m; the right wing consisted of the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps, the left wing of the Fourteenth and Twentieth Corps. There was also a cavalry corps commanded by General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick. The army's strength totalled 55,000 infantry, 5,000 cavalry, and 64 guns. What opposed it was 3,500 of Wheeler's cavalry corps and 3,000 under-trained and poorly equipped Georgia militia. He was actively contriving a scheme to make a war upon food resources turn into a war on industrial production. He was now certain that he could make the march to the sea and "make Georgia howl." After devastating Georgia he intended to turn on the Carolinas and thence to reach Virginia and Richmond. He now began to organise the troops he had around Atlanta into marching formations for the great advance. The force was divided into a right and left wing, commanded, respectively by General Oliver Howard and General Henry Sloc.u.m; the right wing consisted of the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps, the left wing of the Fourteenth and Twentieth Corps. There was also a cavalry corps commanded by General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick. The army's strength totalled 55,000 infantry, 5,000 cavalry, and 64 guns. What opposed it was 3,500 of Wheeler's cavalry corps and 3,000 under-trained and poorly equipped Georgia militia.

The order of march arranged the corps on four parallel roads, and allotted a minimum of wheeled transport to each. The surplus and unnecessary were ruthlessly thrown away. Captain David Oakey, of the 3rd Ma.s.sachusetts Volunteers, described the sorting out. "Each group of messmates decided which hatchet, stew pan or coffee-pot should be taken. The single wagon allowed to a battalion carried scarcely more than a gripsack and blanket, and a bit of shelter tent about the size of a large towel for each officer, and only such other material as was necessary for regimental business. Wagons to carry the necessary ammunition in the contingency of a battle and a few days rations in case of absolute need, composed the train of each army corps and with one wagon and one ambulance for each regiment made very respectable impedimenta, averaging about eight hundred wagons to a corps."8 The paucity of food carried was because Sherman had quite deliberately decided that the army should eat out the state as it advanced: "We were expected to make fifteen miles a day; to corduroy the roads where necessary; to destroy such property as was designated by our corps commander; and to consume everything eatable by man or beast." In Georgia, South Carolina, and, to a slightly lesser extent, in North Carolina when it was reached, Sherman's men found food in abundance, particularly sweet potatoes and hams, for which they developed a keen nose, usually accurate whatever trouble was taken by the inhabitants to hide the produce, often by burying it. The march into Georgia had begun on November 15. By early December, Sherman's Army of Georgia, as it was now officially known, was halfway to Savannah. A swathe of scorched earth had been driven through the state by the foraging parties which marched ahead of the troop columns, on whose flanks hung parties of "b.u.mmers" not under the control of the foraging officers; they were there simply to scrounge whatever they could. By December 10 the army was outside Savannah and poised to capture the city. Sherman wrote that it had pulled up a hundred miles of the three main Georgia railroads and, besides that, had also "consumed the corn and fodder of country thirty miles either side of the line from Atlanta to Savannah, as also the sweet potatoes, cattle, hogs, sheep and poultry and [had] carried away more than 10,000 horses and mules, as well as a countless number of slaves. I estimate the damage done to the State of Georgia and its military resources at $100,000,000.... This may seem a hard species of warfare, but it brings the sad realities of war home to those who have been directly and indirectly instrumental in involving us in its attendant calamities."9 Sherman also wrote, "War is war and not popularity-seeking. If they want peace, they and their relatives must stop the war." "You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out."10 His march to Savannah brought maledictions in plenty. Before taking Savannah, Sherman had to overcome the defences of Fort McAllister, which guarded the bay. As the troops formed up, a Union gunboat, the USS Dandelion Dandelion, appeared and signalled, "Is Fort McAllister taken?" and was answered, "Not yet, but it will be in a minute." Almost at once Hazen's Second Division, Fifteenth Corps, swarmed over the parapet and swamped the garrison of 200 men and their 24 guns. Following its fall and the arrival of the Federal fleet offsh.o.r.e, Savannah was evacuated on the night of December 20-21. Next day Sherman telegraphed to Lincoln, offering him the city, with 150 heavy guns and 25,000 bales of cotton, as a Christmas present.

The South was now running desperately short of soldiers, as desertion became endemic and widespread. By December 1864, manpower returns showed a nominal strength of 400,787 but only 196,016 actually present with the colours. The state's authorities, moreover, had generally ceased to run down deserters, who in many cases had formed themselves into armed bands to resist arrest and coercion back into the ranks. There were many reasons why men deserted. Concern for the welfare of their families was an overriding impulse, particularly where farms were falling out of cultivation for want of labour. Husbands and fathers also feared for their womenfolk's safety, though one of the few barbarities of which the marauding Union marchers were not guilty was rape.

After Savannah, Sherman was on the threshold of carrying his version of war-making into one of the states where slaves formed a majority of the population, South Carolina. It was also, in Northern eyes, the seedbed of the rebellion, and the region most deserving of harsh treatment. It was the home of several of the most fiery theorists of secession and the place where the first shots had been fired in 1861. Many in Sherman's army were eager to punish South Carolina and its people for their attack on the Union. Thus far, moreover, the state had escaped paying the cost of rebellion, except in the deaths of its sons on the battlefield. Now Sherman was determined to make it howl even louder than Georgia had done. But before the march into South Carolina began, there had to be a preliminary in Tennessee, where Thomas was charged by Sherman into dealing with Hood.

Sherman's departure into Georgia, which greatly reduced Union strength in the western theatre, prompted Hood to see a chance of reopening the campaign to seize Tennessee for the South. There was an element of fantasy in Hood's approach to war-making, since he consistently exaggerated his chances of success in whatever campaign he was fighting. Nevertheless, he possessed the valuable gift of boldness, and his courage was unquestionable. By the end of 1864 he was one of the most gravely injured senior officers in either army, having suffered disabling damage to his left arm at Gettysburg and having lost a leg at Chickamauga. Nevertheless he still rode a horse, in his own opinion quite as well as men fitter than himself. Hood was admired by his soldiers but had become a trial to the high command in Richmond because of his insistence on following his own whim and inclination in the conduct of campaigns. He was certainly to do so in the campaign of Franklin and Nashville, where with only 40,000 men he set out to defeat 60,000 Northerners, partly by dint of hard marching, something which his army, much of which was shoeless, was unequipped to achieve. Yet Hood entertained the most extravagant of ambitions. He intended and believed he could break into Tennessee, then into Kentucky, where he counted on recruiting up to 20,000 fresh soldiers, though how they were to be trained and equipped was a matter he did not specify; with them he would complete the defeat of General Thomas and then march northeast, across the mountains, to join forces with Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and triumph over Grant and Sherman. Meanwhile, if comforted by fantasy, he was confronted by the demands of reality, which required him to defeat Thomas in the countryside between Franklin and Nashville, state capital of Tennessee. Thomas, whom he now challenged for control of Tennessee, was an old opponent.

Thomas's advance guard of 30,000 was commanded by General John Schofield, who had previously commanded Union troops in Missouri. Hood's plan was to get between Schofield at Pulaski, south of Nashville, where Thomas had another 30,000 troops. Schofield learnt of Hood's approach in time and took up a defensive position on the Duck River at Columbia, where Hood engaged his troops during November 24-27. Not wanting to risk a frontal a.s.sault on the Union's entrenched positions, Hood sent his cavalry, commanded by Nathan Bedford Forrest, and two of his infantry corps, now much diminished in strength, on a flank march against Schofield's rear. Schofield, however, detected the move and hastened two divisions to hold the threatened sector at Spring Hill. Confederate attacks on the position failed-here, as elsewhere all over the extended Franklin-Nashville battlefield, the Union troops threw up earthworks in haste wherever attack menaced, though the Confederates dug also. As Confederate attacks died away, Schofield withdrew his troops and led them back to join forces with Thomas at Nashville. Hood's men had suffered dreadfully, losing 7,000 killed, wounded, and missing, a casualty list as bad as any recorded in Virginia during the Overland Campaign. The colours of thirty-three Confederate regiments had been captured. Casualties among Confederate senior officers were exceptionally heavy. Fifty-four Confederate regimental commanders were hit, as were several generals, including Major General Patrick Cleburne and Brigadier General States Rights Gist, who had been at First Bull Run.

After disengaging at Franklin, Schofield fell back on Nashville, where General Thomas was preparing to attack the Confederates as they approached from a carefully dug line of earthworks crossing all the roads leading into the city from the south. Thomas had conducted the campaign faultlessly thus far, but not to the satisfaction of Grant in his faraway headquarters at City Point. Grant wanted victory and Thomas was not supplying it fast enough for his impatient superior. He had been bombarding Thomas with urgings and most recently with a threat of his removal, even with an actual removal order, which was fortunately delayed in transmission, for Thomas was just about to do all and more than Grant demanded. Thomas attacked the Confederate line on the morning of December 15. The Confederates, to Hood's disgust, had constructed earthworks as a defensive-offensive base opposite the Union line. Hood had formed the opinion that his army had lost its offensive spirit, but in action it showed no lack of aggressiveness at all, repelling all the Union attacks throughout the day. The attacks were renewed on December 16 and in mid-afternoon, supported by heavy artillery fire, carried a portion of the Confederate line on the left. The Confederates gave way, first at that point and then along the whole line. Hood was watching the action from horseback close in the rear. "I behold," he recorded, "for the first and only time a Confederate army abandon the field in confusion."

Worse was to follow. Hood soon discovered that "all hope to rally the troops was vain." The Confederate army pressed on southward, pursued by Thomas, until it at last was able to halt at Tupelo on January 10. Three days later, Hood wrote to the Confederate secretary of war, requesting to be relieved of command. On January 14 he met General Beauregard, who had arrived to a.s.sess the situation. Hood repeated to him his request to be relieved. He also wrote to Jefferson Davis, emphasising that the plan to invade Tennessee was his and his alone. He needed to concede responsibility. The Franklin-Nashville campaign had been a disaster, reducing the Army of Tennessee from a strength of 40,000 to less than 20,000, so rendering it effectively useless. As it had been the second largest in the South's order of battle, the Confederacy's force was now reduced to that of the Army of Northern Virginia, itself greatly diminished in number since the beginning of the Overland Campaign and shrinking rapidly as the siege of Petersburg was protracted.

Sherman started the Army of Georgia northward from Savannah on February 1. His march lay through what Carolinians called the Low Country, a zone of rivers and their many tributaries all swollen in that very wet fall by twenty-eight days of continuous rain in forty-five days of marching. General William Hazen, a commander in the Fifteenth Corps, counted thirty-six swamp crossings in his division's march through South Carolina, and fourteen river crossings. His men built seventeen miles of corduroy roads as well as bridges and fords. The local inhabitants and Confederate commanders believed that the terrain was impa.s.sable and made little effort to defend it. On February 22, however, Johnston was appointed commander of all Confederate forces in the Carolinas, and with 20,000 troops sc.r.a.ped together from the garrisons of Charleston and Savannah and Hood's Army of Tennessee, he organised defences for Charleston and Augusta, site of the South's most important armaments factories. Sherman, however, while disposing his troops on the line of march so as to appear as if he were threatening both, in practice kept away from them. His aim now was to get into North Carolina and from there to link hands with Grant in Virginia, so as to crush Lee between two Union pincer jaws. Charleston was evacuated on February 18, leaving Columbia, the state capital, the only place of importance in South Carolina still controlled by Confederate forces. By February 17, it too was abandoned, and that night Union troops entered it, finding the streets filled with bales of cotton, some of which were already alight. What followed remains a matter of dispute to this day. Liberated Northern prisoners, free blacks, and troops from Sherman's army roamed the streets; more cotton took fire, as did parts of the city. By the dark hours of the morning half the city was in flames. A great deal of drink had been consumed. Even so, officers and some of Sherman's soldiers tackled the flames and the fire did not get completely out of hand. Nevertheless, the burning of Columbia became a Confederate atrocity story and a difficult one for the North to refute, against the background of burning and looting in Georgia and the Carolinas which had been Sherman's deliberate policy.

The most important military operation in North Carolina during the closing phase of the war was not the work of Sherman's army but a deliberate and separate operation to close down the South's last large blockade-running port at Wilmington, on the Cape Fear River. The port was defended by a fortification built to a new engineering design intended to resist bombardment. Brick and masonry, as in the forts of the Third System, had proved vulnerable to gunfire. Indeed, Fort Sumter had been reduced to a pile of debris by 1863, largely as a result of the concentrated Union naval bombardment of that August and September. Fort Fisher, at Wilmington, was constructed on different principles: instead of being a rigid structure of stone walls and casemates which shattered under gunfire, it was a timber framework, covered with turf and sand, which absorbed the impact of shot and could not be fractured, as the great Russian fortress of Bomersund had been by the British during the Crimean War. The Union eventually did not even try to batter Fort Fisher into submission but landed a large force of infantry to carry it by amphibious a.s.sault, which was achieved on January 15, 1865. Wilmington was then occupied and the Cape Fear River closed to blockade-running traffic.

After the occupation of Columbia on February 17, 1865, Sherman diverted his army towards Goldsboro, North Carolina, where he hoped to join forces with Grant, then still battling against the defences of Petersburg and Richmond. His advance, impeded by torrential rains, appeared to menace both Goldsboro and Raleigh, North Carolina's capital, and was opposed by most of the surviving Confederate hierarchy, including Johnston, Bragg, and Pierre Beauregard. Between them they had managed to a.s.semble about 21,000 troops, deployed by Johnston at Fayetteville, North Carolina. Sherman accompanied his soldiers, who formed the Armies of Tennessee and Georgia, into action at Bentonville on March 19. Johnston, in opposition, put up a spirited performance. He was too heavily outnumbered, 80,000 to 20,000, to succeed, though Sherman, who was present, seems at this stage of the war to have lost the taste for bloodshed and did not press the issue. It was obvious to all, including most Southerners, in and out of the army, that the war was drawing to a close; only the self-deluding in the Confederacy continued to hope that it could be concluded on conditions that would soften Lincoln's terms of surrender and black emanc.i.p.ation. On March 25, Sherman left the scene of action in North Carolina and, by rail and then steamer, set out to meet Grant at City Point, Virginia, the Army of the Potomac's port on the James River, there to describe his march of 425 miles in fifty days, which ended resistance in Georgia and the Carolinas. It had been an extraordinary achievement, though it had inaugurated a style of warfare that boded the worst sort of ill for peoples unable to keep a conqueror at bay, as. .h.i.tler's campaigns in eastern Europe seventy-five years later would testify.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Battle off Cherbourg and the Civil War at Sea

PARALLEL TO BUT quite detached from the land war, though potentially crucial to its outcome, was the Civil War at sea. It was a war that the North completely dominated, as could not otherwise have been the case. The United States Navy was an almost entirely Northern inst.i.tution. Of its 7,600 seamen only a handful went south. The seafaring population of the United States was Northern, and provided the manpower of the country's merchant marine, an enormous resource of trained sailors which had no equivalent in the South. True, of the navy's 1,554 regular officers, 373 chose to side with the South; but their numbers could easily be made good from the ranks of the merchant service. At the outset, moreover, the South had almost no s.h.i.+ps. Of the forty-two naval vessels in commission, almost all were either absent in distant waters or in Union ports. Those the North controlled were, it is true, almost all antiquated and at best obsolescent; but the South had nothing with which to oppose them. Stephen Mallory, the Confederacy's secretary of the navy, recognised from the outset that, lacking as it did almost all s.h.i.+pbuilding capacity, it would have to buy s.h.i.+ps abroad, which effectively meant from England. For that purpose he sent the former U.S. Navy captain James Bulloch to Liverpool, where he set up business in June 1861. It was not difficult to place contracts with British builders; the difficulty lay in circ.u.mventing British neutrality law. Under the Foreign Enlistment Act, which had naval provisions, British builders would be prosecuted by their government for supplying s.h.i.+ps to the rebellious subjects of a friendly foreign state. It would therefore be necessary to represent a Confederate-commissioned s.h.i.+p as a merchantman, to sail it from British waters to a neutral port, and to sail its armament separately. Bulloch quickly learnt the necessary tricks but was closely watched by Union agents and diplomats, who attempted to prevent the delivery of suspected wars.h.i.+ps. The first vessel that Bulloch commissioned was launched as the quite detached from the land war, though potentially crucial to its outcome, was the Civil War at sea. It was a war that the North completely dominated, as could not otherwise have been the case. The United States Navy was an almost entirely Northern inst.i.tution. Of its 7,600 seamen only a handful went south. The seafaring population of the United States was Northern, and provided the manpower of the country's merchant marine, an enormous resource of trained sailors which had no equivalent in the South. True, of the navy's 1,554 regular officers, 373 chose to side with the South; but their numbers could easily be made good from the ranks of the merchant service. At the outset, moreover, the South had almost no s.h.i.+ps. Of the forty-two naval vessels in commission, almost all were either absent in distant waters or in Union ports. Those the North controlled were, it is true, almost all antiquated and at best obsolescent; but the South had nothing with which to oppose them. Stephen Mallory, the Confederacy's secretary of the navy, recognised from the outset that, lacking as it did almost all s.h.i.+pbuilding capacity, it would have to buy s.h.i.+ps abroad, which effectively meant from England. For that purpose he sent the former U.S. Navy captain James Bulloch to Liverpool, where he set up business in June 1861. It was not difficult to place contracts with British builders; the difficulty lay in circ.u.mventing British neutrality law. Under the Foreign Enlistment Act, which had naval provisions, British builders would be prosecuted by their government for supplying s.h.i.+ps to the rebellious subjects of a friendly foreign state. It would therefore be necessary to represent a Confederate-commissioned s.h.i.+p as a merchantman, to sail it from British waters to a neutral port, and to sail its armament separately. Bulloch quickly learnt the necessary tricks but was closely watched by Union agents and diplomats, who attempted to prevent the delivery of suspected wars.h.i.+ps. The first vessel that Bulloch commissioned was launched as the Oreto Oreto, supposedly for the Italian government. The American emba.s.sy correctly identified her as identical to one of the propeller-driven steam gunboats currently being commissioned for the Royal Navy, but it failed to prevent her from leaving Liverpool. She was sailed in April 1862 to Na.s.sau, in the British Bahamas, where she was joined by a merchantman, confusingly called the Bahama Bahama, carrying her guns and ammunition. The Oreto Oreto, now known as the Florida Florida, was sailed to Cuba, where she met the Bahama Bahama. The Spanish colonial government refused to allow the warlike stores to be installed, some but not all having been taken aboard in the Bahamas, and the captain, Commander J. N. Maffitt, of the Confederate navy, determined to run the blockade and reach Mobile, Alabama. She was fired on by Union wars.h.i.+ps while penetrating the blockade but was not badly damaged and succeeded in getting to port in Mobile, where she stayed for the next four months.

In January 1863 she slipped out, evading the blockade, and got into the Atlantic, where she took a number of vessels, using them to unblock Northern s.h.i.+pping. After sinking fourteen, Florida Florida was sailed for repairs to the French port of Brest. She then cruised in the Atlantic, destroying Union s.h.i.+pping, eventually going into port at Bahia, Brazil. There she was cornered by a Union sloop, which attempted to simulate a collision with her. Though the ruse failed, the sloop got possession of her, and she was taken to Hampton Roads and there sank, following an apparently genuine collision. was sailed for repairs to the French port of Brest. She then cruised in the Atlantic, destroying Union s.h.i.+pping, eventually going into port at Bahia, Brazil. There she was cornered by a Union sloop, which attempted to simulate a collision with her. Though the ruse failed, the sloop got possession of her, and she was taken to Hampton Roads and there sank, following an apparently genuine collision.

The Confederate Navy Department succeeded in acquiring several other commercial raiders, either by commissioning them to be built or by purchase abroad. They included the Georgia Georgia, originally the British-owned j.a.pan; j.a.pan; during her career as a cruiser she captured only eight vessels and was eventually taken to Boston by a U.S. Navy s.h.i.+p which had intercepted her outside Lisbon. during her career as a cruiser she captured only eight vessels and was eventually taken to Boston by a U.S. Navy s.h.i.+p which had intercepted her outside Lisbon.

By far the most successful and best known of the Confederate cruisers was the CSS Alabama Alabama. She was built at Liverpool at the same time and under the same subterfuge as the Florida Florida. In August 1862 she was sailed to the Portuguese Azores, where her guns and ammunition were trans.h.i.+pped, and she began her raids on United States s.h.i.+pping under the command of Captain Raphael Semmes. As a Union officer he had shared a cabin during the Mexican War with the future captain John Winslow, who would command the Union s.h.i.+p that sank the Alabama Alabama in battle at the end of her commerce-raiding career. Semmes was a sailor and leader of great ability. Soon after the start of his cruise he began to capture prizes, but while making for the entrance to New York harbour, the in battle at the end of her commerce-raiding career. Semmes was a sailor and leader of great ability. Soon after the start of his cruise he began to capture prizes, but while making for the entrance to New York harbour, the Alabama Alabama ran into heavy weather and suffered damage. He accordingly decided to sail to the Gulf of Mexico, where he got intelligence of a Union seaborne invasion of Texas and determined to intercept the enemy fleet. To his consternation, however, Semmes ran not into a large body of merchantmen but into a squadron of five U.S. wars.h.i.+ps and had to beat a hasty retreat. He was pursued by the USS ran into heavy weather and suffered damage. He accordingly decided to sail to the Gulf of Mexico, where he got intelligence of a Union seaborne invasion of Texas and determined to intercept the enemy fleet. To his consternation, however, Semmes ran not into a large body of merchantmen but into a squadron of five U.S. wars.h.i.+ps and had to beat a hasty retreat. He was pursued by the USS Hatteras Hatteras and brought to action but successfully defended himself, sank the and brought to action but successfully defended himself, sank the Hatteras Hatteras, and escaped first into the South Atlantic, then to the Pacific, where he successfully terrorised Northern s.h.i.+pping in that ocean. The Alabama's Alabama's operations in the Pacific caused all Northern s.h.i.+pping there to take refuge in local ports and so brought U.S. commerce in those waters to a standstill. operations in the Pacific caused all Northern s.h.i.+pping there to take refuge in local ports and so brought U.S. commerce in those waters to a standstill. Alabama's Alabama's eventual tally of prizes taken totalled sixty-four, one of the largest successes ever recorded by a commerce raider. Finding no more victims, Semmes therefore sailed the eventual tally of prizes taken totalled sixty-four, one of the largest successes ever recorded by a commerce raider. Finding no more victims, Semmes therefore sailed the Alabama Alabama first to the East Indies, then to East Africa, and eventually to Brazil. He continued to attack Union s.h.i.+pping on the way. On arrival in Brazil, Semmes decided that his s.h.i.+p needed repairs, since her boilers were burnt out and she was shedding the copper from her bottom. Accordingly he proceeded to Europe, where in June 1864 he entered the French port of Cherbourg and secured permission for the first to the East Indies, then to East Africa, and eventually to Brazil. He continued to attack Union s.h.i.+pping on the way. On arrival in Brazil, Semmes decided that his s.h.i.+p needed repairs, since her boilers were burnt out and she was shedding the copper from her bottom. Accordingly he proceeded to Europe, where in June 1864 he entered the French port of Cherbourg and secured permission for the Alabama Alabama to be docked. Soon afterwards his old s.h.i.+pmate Captain Winslow appeared in command of the USS to be docked. Soon afterwards his old s.h.i.+pmate Captain Winslow appeared in command of the USS Kearsarge. Kearsarge Kearsarge. Kearsarge was almost the twin of the was almost the twin of the Alabama Alabama, same size, same horsepower, almost the same armament. Winslow declared his purpose to be the embarkation of the Union prisoners Alabama Alabama held. Semmes objected to held. Semmes objected to Kearsarge Kearsarge getting permission from French authorities to do so, since she would thereby add to her crew. As getting permission from French authorities to do so, since she would thereby add to her crew. As Kearsarge Kearsarge left harbour, however, Semmes sent word that he would follow her and fight, apparently as a point of honour that he needed to demonstrate that left harbour, however, Semmes sent word that he would follow her and fight, apparently as a point of honour that he needed to demonstrate that Alabama Alabama was also a s.h.i.+p-of-war and not merely a commerce raider. was also a s.h.i.+p-of-war and not merely a commerce raider.

Alabama departed from Cherbourg on the morning of Sunday, June 19, and spotted departed from Cherbourg on the morning of Sunday, June 19, and spotted Kearsarge Kearsarge lying about seven miles to the north. Semmes cleared for action and delivered a stirring address to his men in which he reminded them that they were about to fight in the English Channel, scene of so much naval glory of their race. By this he meant the English race; Americans commonly regarded themselves as sharing a common ethnicity with the English, even eighty years after the War of Independence. The two s.h.i.+ps closed to a distance of about a mile and began to circle. The s.h.i.+ps completed seven circles, keeping up a heavy fire. They were almost perfectly matched, the lying about seven miles to the north. Semmes cleared for action and delivered a stirring address to his men in which he reminded them that they were about to fight in the English Channel, scene of so much naval glory of their race. By this he meant the English race; Americans commonly regarded themselves as sharing a common ethnicity with the English, even eighty years after the War of Independence. The two s.h.i.+ps closed to a distance of about a mile and began to circle. The s.h.i.+ps completed seven circles, keeping up a heavy fire. They were almost perfectly matched, the Alabama Alabama mounting one 100-pounder pivot gun, one 8-inch pivot gun, and six 32-pounders. The mounting one 100-pounder pivot gun, one 8-inch pivot gun, and six 32-pounders. The Kearsarge Kearsarge mounted, besides 32-pounders, two 11-inch pivot guns. Her advantage was that her hull was covered with chains, to serve as armour; these chains were concealed by pine planking. The mounted, besides 32-pounders, two 11-inch pivot guns. Her advantage was that her hull was covered with chains, to serve as armour; these chains were concealed by pine planking. The Alabama Alabama had no armoured protection. Improvised as had no armoured protection. Improvised as Kearsarge Kearsarge's armour was, it proved effective against the Alabama Alabama's shot and sh.e.l.l. Alabama Alabama suffered heavy damage when three 11-inch sh.e.l.ls entered through a gun port. After over one hour's action, at just before one o'clock, the chief engineer of the suffered heavy damage when three 11-inch sh.e.l.ls entered through a gun port. After over one hour's action, at just before one o'clock, the chief engineer of the Alabama Alabama reported to Semmes that the boiler fires were out; the s.h.i.+p was settling rapidly and was in a sinking condition. Semmes therefore ordered that the colours be struck and gave the order to abandon s.h.i.+p. Although reported to Semmes that the boiler fires were out; the s.h.i.+p was settling rapidly and was in a sinking condition. Semmes therefore ordered that the colours be struck and gave the order to abandon s.h.i.+p. Although Kearsarge Kearsarge had suffered only three casualties, the decks and below-deck s.p.a.ces of the had suffered only three casualties, the decks and below-deck s.p.a.ces of the Alabama Alabama were crowded with dead and wounded. Winslow sent his two undamaged s.h.i.+p's boats to rescue men from the water. An English steam yacht, the were crowded with dead and wounded. Winslow sent his two undamaged s.h.i.+p's boats to rescue men from the water. An English steam yacht, the Deerhound Deerhound, commanded by John Lancaster, flying the ensign of the Royal Mersey Yacht Club, which had been watching the action at close hand, came down to pick up survivors also. News of the confrontation of the Alabama Alabama and the and the Kearsarge Kearsarge had brought by train hundreds of spectators from as far away as Paris. The crowd watching the sea battle from sh.o.r.e and headland was estimated at about 15,000. had brought by train hundreds of spectators from as far away as Paris. The crowd watching the sea battle from sh.o.r.e and headland was estimated at about 15,000.

Alabama was the most successful of the Confederacy's twelve commerce raiders. Collectively they inflicted about twenty million dollars of damage on Union s.h.i.+pping and permanently altered the balance in world trade to Britain's advantage. So high did insurance costs rise on U.S.-flagged s.h.i.+ps that traders generally, and American exporters in particular, took to s.h.i.+pping cargos in non-U.S. bottoms, progressively reducing the size of the U.S. merchant fleet, until, from having been larger than and a vigorous compet.i.tor with Britain's, it ceased to be an important part of world commerce carrying. It never recovered from the damage done by the Confederacy's raiders. was the most successful of the Confederacy's twelve commerce raiders. Collectively they inflicted about twenty million dollars of damage on Union s.h.i.+pping and permanently altered the balance in world trade to Britain's advantage. So high did insurance costs rise on U.S.-flagged s.h.i.+ps that traders generally, and American exporters in particular, took to s.h.i.+pping cargos in non-U.S. bottoms, progressively reducing the size of the U.S. merchant fleet, until, from having been larger than and a vigorous compet.i.tor with Britain's, it ceased to be an important part of world commerce carrying. It never recovered from the damage done by the Confederacy's raiders.

The commerce-raiding campaign was a Confederate success, as was its blockade-running. The losses, however, made the effort too costly to be really worth the candle. The Confederacy's personnel, from Secretary Mallory to Semmes, were men of ability; to Mallory is due the credit of inaugurating ironclad warfare in world naval affairs. The base of the effort, however, was too small to have offered the Confederacy any prospect of success in offsetting the strategic balance.

The enormous length of the American coastline, the extent of its territorial waters, and the importance of seaborne trade to the American economy would have led to a pre-war appreciation that naval combat would play a crucial role in any war between North and South. So it did, to an extent. That extent, however, was limited, for simple reasons. The North was vulnerable to attack at sea, but the South's naval power was too small to do the necessary damage. The South was also vulnerable but succeeded in evading the North's much greater power by resort to irregular methods of sea warfare, commerce-raiding and blockade-running.

For such a small service with a short history, the United States Navy had already acquired a formidable reputation by 1861. Although it had only forty-two wars.h.i.+ps in commission, the fleet had won victories far from home in its seventy years' existence. Its frigates had triumphed in several notable single-s.h.i.+p actions against the Royal Navy during the War of 1812, and it had operated as far away as the Mediterranean in the campaign against the North African beys at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Its seamen were of outstanding quality and its officers equal in competence to those of the Royal Navy. Long ago its s.h.i.+ps had been at the forefront of the builder's craft. At the outbreak of conflict, however, the survivors were all antiquated. None had been launched later than 1822. Some dated from the eighteenth century. Almost all were sailing vessels, armed with broadside-firing cannon. The South's raising and rebuilding of the USS Merrimack Merrimack as the armoured wars.h.i.+p CSS as the armoured wars.h.i.+p CSS Virginia Virginia revealed starkly how outdated all were. Only the almost miraculous appearance of the USS revealed starkly how outdated all were. Only the almost miraculous appearance of the USS Monitor Monitor averted the Union fleet's complete destruction when the two ironclads met in Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862. averted the Union fleet's complete destruction when the two ironclads met in Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862.

Riverine warfare, particularly on the Mississippi and its tributaries, was dominated by the North, which controlled and built the largest number of armed river craft. On the high seas, however, it was the South that was most active, because of its recourse to blockade-running and commerce-raiding, with fast s.h.i.+ps built or bought abroad. Though it did not rescue the South from shortage, blockade-running was essential to its war economy. There were several thousand blockade-runners active during the war, of which 1,500 were captured by the several hundred U.S. Navy s.h.i.+ps searching for them. Still, five out of six blockade-runners got through; it was very much in their captains' and crews' interests to take the risks, since the return on a successful voyage was enormous, several hundred dollars even for ordinary seamen. On the outward voyage the blockade runners s.h.i.+pped cotton, on the inward military supplies but also luxury goods, usually the private property of the captain. The danger of interception chiefly arose near the home port, of which the number open dwindled as the war drew out. The U.S. Navy became very skilled at setting traps for the runners, its task considerably eased because destinations were so predictable. The blockade-runners, with the a.s.sistance of sh.o.r.e parties, also became successful at avoiding interception. They made use of bad weather and the hours of darkness to run close insh.o.r.e, where the removal of navigation markers and lights put their pursuers at risk.

As the blockade heightened, the South turned to active measures. At the outset the Richmond government had issued letters of marque, in effect licences to sail as pirates, to private s.h.i.+powners. Twenty-four privateers sailed under the Confederate flag. Privateering, however, died out when the European powers closed their ports to them and their prizes. The privateering had the effect, however, of driving up maritime insurance rates to exorbitant levels and forcing U.S. s.h.i.+powners to reflag their vessels under non-American flags. As privateering lost effectiveness, the Southern government, at the behest of Secretary Mallory, a pre-war chairman of the U.S. Senate's naval affairs committee, began to commission official commerce-raiders. The first was the CSS Sumter Sumter, commanded by Raphael Semmes. Beginning in June 1861, he captured six Northern merchantmen, which he took into ports in Cuba. His campaign, however, was frustrated by the Spanish colonial government, which returned the prizes to their crews. He was also hampered by Spanish restrictions on his freedom to refuel. He transferred to the coast of South America, where he was intercepted by the USS Powhatan Powhatan, under Captain David Porter, and forced to flee across the Atlantic as far as Gibraltar. There he was blockaded by a Union squadron and obliged to abandon his command. He made his own escape to the South, having captured eighteen s.h.i.+ps during his cruise in Sumter Sumter.

Other Confederate commerce-raiders were the CSS Florida Florida, which captured thirty-five prizes but was eventually cornered in Brazilian waters in 1864 and towed to Hampton Roads. The circ.u.mstances of her capture were so clearly illegal that the Federal government agreed to return her to a Brazilian port, but she was, again illegally, disabled by a U.S. s.h.i.+p before she could depart. The CSS Georgia Georgia cruised in the Atlantic in 1863, reaching as far as Morocco, where she fought a s.h.i.+p-to-sh.o.r.e battle with Moors. She had captured nine prizes and was eventually decommissioned in Cherbourg. The CSS cruised in the Atlantic in 1863, reaching as far as Morocco, where she fought a s.h.i.+p-to-sh.o.r.e battle with Moors. She had captured nine prizes and was eventually decommissioned in Cherbourg. The CSS Nashville Nashville cruised off Britain during 1862, taking no prizes before being sunk by the USS cruised off Britain during 1862, taking no prizes before being sunk by the USS Montauk Montauk in 1863. The CSS in 1863. The CSS Tallaha.s.see Tallaha.s.see captured forty Atlantic prizes before taking refuge in Liverpool in April 1865 and being sold. The CSS captured forty Atlantic prizes before taking refuge in Liverpool in April 1865 and being sold. The CSS Shenandoah Shenandoah had an adventurous career, sailing round the Horn to Australia in 1864, where she recruited many Australians. In early 1865 she made captures among the whaling fleet in the Bering Straits, off Siberia, but on hearing of the war's end she sailed for England and hauled down the Confederate colours on November 6, 1865. She had taken thirty-eight prizes. The CSS had an adventurous career, sailing round the Horn to Australia in 1864, where she recruited many Australians. In early 1865 she made captures among the whaling fleet in the Bering Straits, off Siberia, but on hearing of the war's end she sailed for England and hauled down the Confederate colours on November 6, 1865. She had taken thirty-eight prizes. The CSS Chickamauga Chickamauga cruised in the Atlantic in late 1864, taking seven prizes, but was deserted by many of her crew in Bermuda and forced to return to Wilmington, North Carolina, where she was burnt to escape capture in February 1865. cruised in the Atlantic in late 1864, taking seven prizes, but was deserted by many of her crew in Bermuda and forced to return to Wilmington, North Carolina, where she was burnt to escape capture in February 1865.

The commerce-raiders destroyed about 5 percent of the American merchant fleet and, though small in number, severely disrupted the Union's seaborne commerce, with permanent effect. Because of reflagging and the sale of American merchantmen to foreign owners, the U.S. merchant marine, a potential rival to that of Britain, never recovered its place in world trade after 1865. The South's naval effort was remarkable. Yet the real naval achievement of the Civil War was the North's. By effectively closing down the South's maritime commerce, it not only denied the Confederacy the possibility both of resupplying and of funding its war effort, but it also denied Richmond the diplomatic recognition it craved.

The crux of the North's naval dominance was its imposition of blockade. Blockade had legal as well as military substance. To be recognised as having force in international law, blockade had to be effective. Mere declaration of blockade did not invest it with legality. It had to be demonstrated as working. The blockading squadrons of the U.S. Navy, therefore, had to actually be capable of closing the South's ports of entry. As the South had over 3,500 miles of coastline and hundreds of harbours large and small, the task of imposing effective blockade was considerable. Most of the South's harbours could, however, be ignored, since they were too small or deficient in lines of communication inland to be useful to blockade runners. In all there were only ten Southern ports sufficiently deepwater or with adequate facilities to count: New Orleans; Mobile, Alabama; Pensacola and Fernandina, Florida; Savannah, Georgia; Charleston, South Carolina; Wilmington and New Bern, North Carolina; and Norfolk, Virginia. Most of these places were taken early on, New Bern and Fernandina in March 1862, and Savannah was closed by the capture of its approaches in April. New Orleans was also taken in April 1862. Pensacola was abandoned, because the Federal fort guarding its entrance refused to surrender, in May 1862. By mid-1862 the only Atlantic ports left to the South were Charleston, Wilmington, and Norfolk. Norfolk, closely watched by the Northern fleet operating in Chesapeake Bay, was too well blockaded to be useful as a port of entry. Charleston was invaded from landward in 1865; eventually only Wilmington survived as a port of entrance and exit.

The Confederate naval effort was remarkable not for what it achieved but for what it attempted, with revolutionary naval means that permanently altered the nature of war at sea, not only with ironclads but also with "torpedoes," as mines were then called, and submarines. The Confederacy's first submarine was an experimental model, the Pioneer Pioneer, built at New Orleans in February 1862. It was abandoned and sunk in Lake Pontchartrain the following month. The development team, including its leader, Horace Lawson Hunley, then transferred their work to Mobile, Alabama, where they built the American Diver American Diver. It was ready to make an attack on the Union blockading fleet by January 1863, but proved to be too slow for practical use, and after its failure, it sank in a storm in the mouth of Mobile Bay and was not recovered.

Very soon after its loss, Hunley began work on its replacement, which was to be known by his name. Earlier experiments with steam and electromagnetic propulsion were abandoned and it was built with a hand-cranked propeller shaft, turned by its seven-man crew. It was submerged by admitting water to its two ballast tanks.

Hunley was ready for trials in July 1863 and sunk a coal barge in Mobile harbour. It was then sent by rail to Charleston, South Carolina, where it twice sank while undergoing trials in the harbour, drowning five of its crew in the first instance and the whole crew in the second, including its inventor. In each case it was raised and volunteers found to continue work. On the night of February 17, 1863, it attacked the twelve-gun USS was ready for trials in July 1863 and sunk a coal barge in Mobile harbour. It was then sent by rail to Charleston, South Carolina, where it twice sank while undergoing trials in the harbour, drowning five of its crew in the first instance and the whole crew in the second, including its inventor. In each case it was raised and volunteers found to continue work. On the night of February 17, 1863, it attacked the twelve-gun USS Housatonic Housatonic, five miles off Charleston, and sank her, by a spar torpedo rammed into her hull. The Hunley Hunley, perhaps herself damaged in the attack, sank afterwards, again drowning her crew. The wreck of the Hunley Hunley was discovered by divers in 1979 and raised on August 8, 2000. Postmortem examination of the crew's remains later revealed that four of the eight were American-born, four of European origin. They were buried, with military honours, in the Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, on April 17, 2004, in the presence of a crowd of 35,000 to 50,000, in what was described as "the last Confederate Funeral." was discovered by divers in 1979 and raised on August 8, 2000. Postmortem examination of the crew's remains later revealed that four of the eight were American-born, four of European origin. They were buried, with military honours, in the Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, on April 17, 2004, in the presence of a crowd of 35,000 to 50,000, in what was described as "the last Confederate Funeral." Hunley Hunley was to be remembered as the first submarine to commit an act of war in naval history. The Confederate navy was an insignificant strategic a.s.set but one of the most innovative ever to have been organised. was to be remembered as the first submarine to commit an act of war in naval history. The Confederate navy was an insignificant strategic a.s.set but one of the most innovative ever to have been organised.

Americans were the pioneers of submarine warfare, having constructed and operated an experimental submarine during the War of Independence. It was an understandable initiative by a people who were in rebellion against the world's foremost naval power and were unable to challenge the vast British surface fleet. It was also understandable that the Confederacy, lacking any hope of confronting the Union navy on equal terms, should have resumed the submarine experiment.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Black Soldiers

LINCOLN'S ambiguous declaration that the Civil War was "in some way about slavery" concealed a great deal more than it revealed. The most pa.s.sionate anti-secessionists in the North were abolitionists; by no means all Northerners, however, were abolitionists, and few were emanc.i.p.ationist. Many regarded slavery, as long as it was confined to the Southern states, as an efficient and convenient means of controlling an alien population. The free blacks of the Northern states were not a welcome element. Some states indeed had enacted anti-black electoral laws, and a social prejudice against blacks was common and widespread, particularly among the poor, who competed with blacks for employment at the bottom of the economic heap. Segregation, in education and church members.h.i.+p, was the rule rather than the exception; few blacks enjoyed the right to vote, and extension of the franchise was not a cause espoused by many abolitionists; even equality before the law and free access to the courts was a step too far for many whites. Yet it was obvious to many in the North that abolition of slavery logically entailed emanc.i.p.ation. What to do with several million emanc.i.p.ated slaves was a problem to which few had an answer or seemed to want to find one. There was a widespread belief that liberated blacks would prefer to remain in the South, because of their familiarity with its environment and particularly its climate. Those not persuaded by such wishful thinking, though not only they, supported the idea of colonisation, that liberated blacks might be persuaded, or if not then coerced, to migrate to Central America and the Caribbean or to return to West Africa, where the territory of Liberia had been set up for the settlement of American freedmen and the British colony of Sierra Leone for British ex-slaves. As Frederick Dougla.s.s, the leading black spokesman for the cause of emanc.i.p.ation, harshly pointed out, however, there was little point in abolition if its end result was deportation of its beneficiaries. ambiguous declaration that the Civil War was "in some way about slavery" concealed a great deal more than it revealed. The most pa.s.sionate anti-secessionists in the North were abolitionists; by no means all Northerners, however, were abolitionists, and few were emanc.i.p.ationist. Many regarded slavery, as long as it was confined to the Southern states, as an efficient and convenient means of controlling an alien population. The free blacks of the Northern states were not a welcome element. Some states indeed had enacted anti-black electoral laws, and a social prejudice against blacks was common and widespread, particularly among the poor, who competed with blacks for employment at the bottom of the economic heap. Segregation, in education and church members.h.i.+p, was the rule rather than the exception; few blacks enjoyed the right to vote, and extension of the franchise was not a cause espoused by many abolitionists; even equality before the law and free access to the courts was a step too far for many whites. Yet it was obvious to many in the North that abolition of slavery logically entailed emanc.i.p.ation. What to do with several million emanc.i.p.ated slaves was a problem to which few had an answer or seemed to want to find one. There was a widespread belief that liberated blacks would prefer to remain in the South, because of their familiarity with its environment and particularly its climate. Those not persuaded by such wishful thinking, though not only they, supported the idea of colonisation, that liberated blacks might be persuaded, or if not then coerced, to migrate to Central America and the Caribbean or to return to West Africa, where the territory of Liberia had been set up for the settlement of American freedmen and the British colony of Sierra Leone for British ex-slaves. As Frederick Dougla.s.s, the leading black spokesman for the cause of emanc.i.p.ation, harshly pointed out, however, there was little point in abolition if its end result was deportation of its beneficiaries.

Yet there was a practical solution to the problem, which recommended itself for other than social reasons in wartime conditions. And that was to enlist free blacks, including Southern runaways-or contrabands, as they were known-into the army, to fight the Confederacy at the front. Once the idea of black enlistment became current, the advantages seemed obvious. Enlisting blacks would not only add to the North's operational numbers but also deprive the South of their labour. At the same time it would enhance the North's reputation abroad, particularly in Britain, the country the North most wished to influence and one where opinion was most sensitive to the idea of emanc.i.p.ation. Britain had led the way in the suppression of the international slave trade, through the work of the Royal Navy's anti-slavery patrols, and Victorian Britons cherished their anti-slavery credentials. The South's persistence in the slave system was the princ.i.p.al obstacle to its diplomatic recognition by London in 1861-63. Thus there were both practical and political arguments for emanc.i.p.ation from the middle of the Civil War onwards.

There remained, nevertheless, strong objections to it. Beside racial prejudice, which in various degrees of intensity and for different motivations was almost universal in the North, there were also practical considerations. What was to be done with four million ex-slaves if they were to leave the plantations? How would they be employed, accommodated, and provided for? Enlistment would mop up a considerable number-eventually between 180,000 and 200,000 blacks served in the Union armies, two-thirds of them ex-slaves-in circ.u.mstances that promised control of their behaviour and freedom of movement. There were, however, all sorts of difficulties over their admission to the ranks. Frederick Dougla.s.s might argue that black freedom, unless fought for, was not worth having. Many white soldiers held that they were fighting a white man's war and that the enlistment of blacks would compromise the terms of the struggle. In the last resort, however, the difficulty came down simply to widespread Northern disbelief in the black soldier's combat value. Would the blacks fight? Or would they run away and leave the white soldiers in the lurch? Today, when black soldiers have won a sterling reputation as battlers in the modern republic's most bitterly contested wars, such a question seems not worth pondering. Indeed, the American black community's loss of enthusiasm for enlistment during the Iraq conflict sent waves of alarm through the Defense Department, so heavily had the U.S. Army and Marine Corps come to depend on black recruitment to the combat formations, particularly the infantry, to guarantee essential numbers. In the mid-nineteenth century, however, Africans had not yet won the formidable military reputation they have subsequently attained. The Zulu kingdom was still scarcely known outside southern Africa. The French army, though it recruited from the same regions as the slave contingents had been drawn, did not use its black regiments outside West Africa. The British West India Regiment, though its members.h.i.+p was ethnically identical to the slave population of the South, was employed only as a colonial police force. So it was understandable that the white American should ask about black recruits, "Will they fight?," since few had done so in American experience. Black partic.i.p.ants, on both sides, in the Revolutionary War, or the War of Independence as the English call it, had figured as individuals, not as members of formed black units. There were no black units in the antebellum army, while public policy in the antebellum South was to ensure that its black inhabitants were kept in a state of abject pa.s.sivity.

Yet the first stirrings of black martiality during the Civil War took place paradoxically in the Southern states, not the North. The free blacks of Louisiana, the only part of the South to contain anything like an emanc.i.p.ated black community, formed and volunteered a militia unit, the Regiment of Free Men of Color, as early as May 1861. Its members wished to demonstrate their civic responsibility, but though the state governor appointed a colonel to command it, it provided its own weapons and uniforms and it was employed only on local guard duty. The Confederate government awarded it no recognition whatsoever. Also in May 1861 there occurred an event which would lead to a general enlistment of black soldiers. Three escaped slaves presented themselves at Fortress Monroe, announcing that they had been forced by their master to dig a Confederate battery. Shortly afterwards a Confederate officer appeared demanding