The Civil War_ Fort Sumter To Perryville Part 18

Arriving while Lincoln was up the country seeing Scott, he made at once an excellent impression on Stanton and the members of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, who saw in him the ant.i.thesis of McClellan. For one thing, there was nothing of caution about him; he was a talker, and his favorite words were "I" and "forward." (If he had been placed in charge of the West in the early spring, he said, nothing could have stopped his march on New Orleans; by now he would have split the South in two and gone to work on the crippled halves.) For another, he was sound on the slavery question, a.s.suring the committee that he and it saw eye to eye on the matter. Wade and the others were delighted, not only with his opinions, civil as well as military, but also with his appearance, which they found as rea.s.suring as his beliefs. He had shaved his cheeks and his upper lip, retaining a spade-shaped chin beard that bobbed and wagged decisively as he spoke, lending weight and point to his utterances and increasing the overall impression of forcefulness and vigor. Lincoln, when he returned from the visit with Scott, was pleased to see the confidence Pope had managed to invite within so brief a span, and gave him at once his orders and his a.s.signment to the command of an army expressly created for his use.

The Army of Virginia, it was called. Its strength was 56,000 men and its mission was to move in general down the line of the Orange & Alexandria Railroad, just east of the Blue Ridge Mountains, so as to close in on the Confederate capital from the west and north, while McClellan's Army of the Potomac applied pressure from the east; thus Richmond would be crushed in a giant nutcracker, with Pope as the upper jaw. His army was created by consolidating the commands of McDowell, Banks, and Fremont. All three of these generals outranked him-an unusual arrangement, to say the least-but only one of them took official umbrage. This was Fremont: which solved another problem. His protest resignation was accepted, and Lincoln replaced him with Franz Sigel, whose appointment, though it involved a thousand-mile transfer, was considered especially felicitous since so many of the troops involved were of German extraction.

Pope's instructions, issued June 26 as part of the order creating his army, required him to operate so as to protect Was.h.i.+ngton from "danger or insult" and to "render the most effective aid to relieve General McClellan and capture Richmond." It was a large order, but Pope only laid down one condition: McClellan must be given peremptory orders to attack the minute he heard that Pope was engaged. This was necessary, Pope said, because of the known timidity and irresolution of his partner in the squeeze play.

For the present, however-as he learned all too soon-the stipulation was unnecessary. On the day the Army of Virginia came officially into being, McClellan no longer had any choice in the matter; the Seven Days had opened, and the Army of the Potomac found itself engaged in a tremendous struggle for survival, trying first to fend off Lee's a.s.sault down the north bank of the Chickahominy and then to reach the gunboat sanctuary of the James. When news of the attack reached Was.h.i.+ngton, Pope showed that there were elements of caution in his make-up after all. He advised Lincoln not to let McClellan fall back southward, since this would unhinge the jaws of the nutcracker, but to order him to retire in the direction of the York. That way, Pope said, he could eventually go to his a.s.sistance-and vice versa, in case the Army of Virginia ran into similar trouble moving south. But there was nothing Lincoln could do about it, even if he had wanted to; the wires were cut and the Army of the Potomac was already in motion for the James. Pope began to see the handwriting on the wall. It warned him plainly that there was an excellent chance that he would be entirely on his own as he moved down the road that led to Richmond.

Discouraging as this prospect was to the newly arrived commander, a look into the backgrounds of the three groups he was expected to weld into an effective striking force proved equally discouraging, if not more so. Two of the three (Banks' and Sigel's) had traditions of defeat, and the third (McDowell's) had slogged all over northern Virginia, seemingly without profit to anyone, least of all to itself. Unquestionably, even in their own eyes-"Milroy's weary boys" were a case in point-this was the second team, restricted to an occasional scrimmage which served primarily to emphasize its lack of style, while the first team got the cheers and glory on the Peninsula. For all his bl.u.s.ter, Pope saw one thing clearly. However second-rate his material might be in some respects, he had here the makings of a first-cla.s.s disaster, unless he could somehow restore or establish confidence in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of his downhearted charges. Accordingly, as a first step before he took the field, he issued an address "To the Officers and Soldiers of the Army of Virginia," giving them, along with much else in the way of advice, a chance to see what manner of man was about to lead them against the rebel force that had just finished mauling the first team and flinging it back from the goal-post gates of Richmond.

"Let us understand each other," he told them. "I have come to you from the West, where we have always seen the backs of our enemies; from an army whose business it has been to seek the adversary and to beat him when he was found; whose policy has been attack and not defense.... I presume that I have been called here to pursue the same system and to lead you against the enemy. It is my purpose to do so, and that speedily." He supposed they longed for distinction in the jar and shock of battle, and he was prepared to show them how to win it. In any event, he said, "I desire you to dismiss from your minds certain phrases, which I am sorry to find so much in vogue amongst you. I hear constantly of 'taking strong positions and holding them,' of 'lines of retreat,' and of 'bases of supplies.' Let us discard such ideas. The strongest position a soldier should desire to occupy is one from which he can most easily advance against the enemy. Let us study the probable lines of retreat of our opponents, and leave our own to take care of themselves. Let us look before us, and not behind. Success and glory are in the advance, disaster and shame lurk in the rear."

The words had a Stantonian ring, which Pope explained long afterwards by identifying the Secretary himself as their author. At any rate, whoever wrote them, the effect was something other than the one that had been intended: particularly among the men the undersigned general addressed. They found the comparison odious, and they resented the boasting tone in which it was made. "Five Cent Pope," they dubbed their new commander, while old-time regulars recalled a parody that had made the army rounds some years ago, when he issued oversanguine reports of success in boring for artesian water on the bone-dry plains of Texas: Pope told a flattering tale Which proved to be bravado About the streams which spout like ale On the Llano Estacado.

McClellan's supporters of course resented him, too: Fitz-John Porter for example, who declared that Pope had "written himself down [as] what the military world has long known, an a.s.s.... If the theory he proclaims is practiced you may look for disaster."

Beyond the lines, where the address enjoyed wide circulation, the Confederate reaction combined contempt and amus.e.m.e.nt. Reports that this new spread-eagle opponent was heading his dispatches "Headquarters in the Saddle" prompted a revival of the old army jibe that he had his headquarters where his hindquarters ought to be.

By the time Pope's flamboyant address was issued in mid-July, Lincoln had been down to the Peninsula and back. Between the two boat-rides, going and coming, he not only made a personal inspection of the Army of the Potomac and questioned its chief and subordinate generals, but he also made up his mind about a matter he had been pondering ever since his visit to Winfield Scott three weeks ago-a command decision, involving this and all the other armies of the Union.

Within two days of his July 1 plea for 50,000 men, with which to "retrieve our fortunes" after the blood-letting of the Seven Days, McClellan doubled the ante; 100,000 would now be needed, he declared. Lincoln replied on the 4th that any such figure "within a month, or even six weeks, is impossible.... Under these circ.u.mstances the defensive for the present must be your only care. Save the army-first, where you are, if you can; secondly, by removal, if you must." He added, perhaps ironically: "p.s. If at any time you feel able to take the offensive, you are not restrained from doing so." Once more he was losing patience fast. Sending troops to McClellan, he said, was like trying to shovel fleas across a barnlot; so few seemed to get there. Also, there were alarming rumors as to the condition of the men the general already had. Lincoln decided to see for himself. Boarding a steamer on the night of July 7, he reached Harrison's Landing late the following afternoon and rode out at once with the army commander for a sundown inspection of the camps.

Apparently to his surprise he found the men in good condition and high spirits-though the latter could be accounted for, at least in part, as a reaction to seeing the President on horseback. For one thing, an observer wrote home, there was the imminent danger that his long legs "would become entangled with those of the horse...and both come down together." Occupied as he was in the attempt to control his mount, which seemed equally nervous, he had trouble tipping his tall hat in response to cheers that were redoubled when the difficulty was seen. "That arm with which he drew the rein, in its angles and position resembled the hind leg of a gra.s.shopper-the hand before, the elbow away back over the horse's tail.... But the boys liked him," the soldier-observer added. "In fact his popularity with the army is and has been universal. Most of our rulers and leaders fall into odium, but all have faith in Lincoln. 'When he finds out,' they say, 'it will be stopped.'...G.o.d bless the man and give answer to the prayers for guidance I am sure he offers."

If guidance was what he was seeking he could find it right there alongside him, astride Dan Webster. Less than three weeks ago McClellan had requested permission to present his views on the state of military affairs throughout the country; Lincoln had replied that he would be glad to have them-preferably in a letter, he said-if their presentation would not divert too much of the general's time and attention from his immediate duties. So tonight, when they returned to headquarters, McClellan handed the President a letter "covering the whole ground of our national trouble" and setting forth the conditions under which he believed the struggle could be won.

The rebellion, he said, had now "a.s.sumed the character of a war," and "as such...it should be conducted upon the highest principles known to Christian civilization. It should not be a war looking to the subjugation of the people of any State in any event. It should not be at all a war upon population, but against armed forces and political organizations. Neither confiscation of property, political executions of persons, territorial organization of States, or forcible abolition of slavery should be contemplated for a moment." This last was a point he emphasized, since "a declaration of radical views" in this direction would "rapidly disintegrate our present armies." More strictly within the military province, he advised concentration as the guiding rule. "The national force should not be dispersed in expeditions, posts of occupation, and numerous armies, but should be mainly collected into ma.s.ses, and brought to bear upon the armies of the Confederate States. Those armies thoroughly defeated, the political structure which they support would soon cease to exist," and the southern people, unembittered by depredations, would turn against the willful men who had misled them out of the Union and sue at once for peace and reentry. So he saw it. However, no matter what "system of policy" was adopted, he strongly urged the appointment of a general-in-chief, "one who possesses your confidence, understands your views, and who is competent to execute your orders." He did not ask that post for himself, he said; but he made it clear that he would not decline the reappointment, since he was "willing to serve you in such position as you may a.s.sign me," including this one. In closing he added a final explanation and disclaimer: "I may be on the brink of eternity, and as I hope forgiveness from my Maker I have written this letter with sincerity toward you and from love for my country."

Lincoln took it and read it through, with McClellan standing by. "All right," he said, and put it in his pocket. That was all. Apparently he had not come down here in search of guidance.

What he had come for, it developed, was a look at the present condition of the army and some specific answers to a specific question which he put the following day to the five corps commanders: "If it were desired to get the army away from here, could it be safely effected?" Keyes and Franklin replied that it could and should be done. The other three thought otherwise. "It would be ruinous to the country," Heintzelman said; "We give up the cause if we do it," Sumner said; "Move the army and ruin the country," Porter said. Once the questioning was over, Lincoln and the generals took a gla.s.s of wine together and the President got ready to go back to Was.h.i.+ngton.

McClellan was upset: particularly by the evidence that the Administration might order him to evacuate the Peninsula. After seeing Lincoln off next morning, he wrote his wife that he feared the President had some "paltry trick" up his sleeve; his manner, he said, "seemed that of a man about to do something of which he was ashamed." For a week the general brooded and delivered himself of judgments. Lincoln was "an old stick, and of pretty poor timber at that," while Stanton was "the most unmitigated scoundrel I ever knew, heard, or read of." He believed he saw which way the wind was blowing: "Their game seems to be to withhold reinforcements, and then to relieve me for not advancing, well knowing that I have not the means to do so." Accordingly, in mid-July he wrote to his friend William H. Aspinwall, asking the New York transportation tyc.o.o.n to be on the lookout for a job for him.

Lincoln meanwhile had made up his mind to act on the command decision which he had been considering for weeks. All through the previous autumn, old General Scott had held out in Was.h.i.+ngton for as long as he could, putting up with McClellan's snubs and digs for the sake of Halleck, who was on his way from California. It was Scott's hope that Old Brains would be there to take his place when he retired as general-in-chief. But the way was long and the digs were sharp; the old man gave up before Halleck got there, and McClellan got the job. Since then, the contrast in accomplishments East and West seemed to reinforce Scott's original opinion, which he repeated when the President came to West Point on the eve of the Seven Days, Lincoln saw merit in the recommendation, but he thought he would have a talk with Halleck before he acted on it. Back in Was.h.i.+ngton in time for the outbreak of the Seven Days, he wired the western commander: "Please tell me, could you make me a flying visit for a consultation without endangering the service in your department?"

Halleck did not want to come, and said so. Even if he did, he added, "I could advise but one thing: to place all the [eastern] forces...under one head, and hold that head responsible."

Refusal was always provocative for Lincoln; in the course of the war, several men were to learn that the surest way to get something from him was to pretend they did not want it. He almost made up his mind, then and there. Down on the Peninsula, however, the matter was more or less cinched by McClellan himself. His Harrison's Landing letter, an exegesis of the conservative position, was the strongest possible proof that its author was not the kind of man to fight the kind of war Lincoln was rapidly coming to believe the country was going to have to fight if it was going to win. Returning to Was.h.i.+ngton on the night of July 10, he had Stanton send a wire to Corinth next morning, which left the recipient no choice in the matter: "Ordered "Ordered, that Maj. Gen. Henry W W. Halleck be a.s.signed to command the whole land forces of the United States as General-in-Chief, and that he repair to this capital as soon as he can with safety to the positions and operations within the department under his charge."

There were delays; Halleck did not arrive for nearly two weeks, being occupied with the incidentals of transferring his command. The delay was hard on Lincoln; "I am very anxious-almost impatient-to have you here," he wired. Down on the Peninsula, McClellan was spared for nine days the shock of hearing that his old post had gone to a rival. Then he read of it in a newspaper. "In all these things," he wrote his wife, "the President and those around him have acted so as to make the matter as offensive as possible. He has not shown the slightest gentlemanly or friendly feeling, and I cannot regard him as in any respect my friend. I am confident that he would relieve me tomorrow if he dared to do so. His cowardice alone prevents it. I can never regard him with other feelings than those of contempt."

This was going to be a harder war from here on out, and Lincoln knew it. He knew it because he was going to make it so. In fact, he was going to make it just as hard as he had to, and he said as much quite frankly to anyone who asked him. Most particularly, despite conflicting advice from McClellan and men like him, it was going to be harder on civilians. Of the four actions which the general had said "should [not] be contemplated for a moment"-1) confiscation of property, 2) political execution of persons, 3) territorial organization of states, and 4) forcible abolition of slavery-the first and second had already been carried out with governmental sanction, the third was in the legislative works, and the fourth was under urgent consideration.

The second of these was the most obviously harsh, and for that reason should be the most obviously effective in securing obedience to occupation rule. So Benjamin Butler reasoned, at any rate, when he reached New Orleans and found that the national ensign, prematurely raised over the Mint, had been ripped from its staff by the mob. "They have insulted our flag-torn it down with indignity," he notified the War Department. "This outrage will be punished in such manner as in my judgment will caution both the perpetrators and abettors of the act, so that they shall fear the stripes if they do not reverence the stars in our banner." As good as his word, Butler found a man still wearing a tatter of the outraged bunting in his b.u.t.tonhole, brought him before a drumhead court, and carried out the resultant sentence by hanging him in public from a window of the building where the crime had been committed.

It worked about as well as he had expected. The sight of one man dangling by his neck from the eaves of the Mint sobered the others considerably. Fear, not reverence, was what Butler had wanted, and he got it-at least from the men. The women were another matter. In them he saw no signs of fear, and certainly none of reverence. In fact, they missed no chance to show their contempt for the blue-clad invaders. Pa.s.sing them on the street, they drew their skirts aside to escape contamination, or else they walked straight ahead, taking their half of the sidewalk out of the middle, and forced oncoming Yankees to step off into the mud. The climax came when one of them, taking careful aim from an upstairs window, emptied a slopjar onto the head of Farragut himself. Butler retaliated with a general order, directing "that hereafter when any female shall, by word, gesture or movement, insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States, she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation."

At home and abroad, the reaction was uproarious. Beauregard made Butler's order the subject of one of his own: "Men of the South! shall our mothers, our wives, our daughters and our sisters be thus outraged by the ruffianly soldiers of the North, to whom is given the right to treat, at their pleasure, the ladies of the South as common harlots? Arouse, friends, and drive back from our soil those infamous invaders of our homes and disturbers of our family ties!" Overseas, Lord Palmerston remarked: "Any Englishman must blush to think that such an act has been committed by one belonging to the Anglo-Saxon race." In Richmond, before the year was out, Davis branded Butler a felon, an outlaw, an enemy of mankind, and ordered that in the event of his capture "the officer in command of the capturing force do cause him to be immediately executed by hanging."

Southerners and their blushful friends abroad were not the only ones offended by the c.o.c.k-eyed general's zeal. Pro-Union men of the region he controlled found that they too came under his strictures, particularly in economic matters such as the seizure of cotton and the freezing of foreign funds, and they were equally vociferous in protest. But Lincoln had little use or sympathy for them. If these riders on the s.h.i.+p of state thought they were "to touch neither a sail nor a pump, but to be merely pa.s.sengers-deadheads at that-to be carried snug and dry throughout the storm, and safely landed right side up," they were mistaken. He gave them a midsummer warning that the voyage was about to get rougher.

"The true remedy," he said, switching metaphors, "does not lie in rounding the rough angles of the war, but in removing the necessity for war." This they could accomplish, he replied to one protestant, by bringing Louisiana back into the Union. Otherwise, "it is for them to consider whether it is probable I will surrender the government to save them from losing all. If they decline what I suggest, you scarcely need to ask what I will do. What would you do in my position? Would you drop the war where it is? Or would you prosecute it in future with elder-stalk squirts charged with rosewater? Would you deal lighter blows rather than heavier ones? Would you give up the contest, leaving any available means unapplied?" The questions were rhetorical, and he closed by answering them: "I am in no boastful mood. I shall do no more than I can, and I shall do all I can, to save the government, which is my sworn duty as well as my personal inclination. I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing."

Already he had sent an official observer, a Maryland senator, down to New Orleans to look into the situation. But when the senator reported that there was indeed much harshness and irregularity (Butler's brother was getting rich on confiscated cotton, and the general himself had been given the nickname "Spoons," implying considerable deftness in the execution of his duties) as well as much disturbance of the master-slave relations.h.i.+p by the enlistment of Negroes in labor battalions, Lincoln was even more forthright in his statement of conditions and intentions: "The people of Louisiana-all intelligent people everywhere-know full well that I never had a wish to touch the foundations of their society or any right of theirs. With perfect knowledge of this they forced a necessity upon me to send armies among them, and it is their own fault, not mine, that they are annoyed." Here again the remedy was reentry into the Union. "And might it not be well for them to consider whether they have not already had time enough to do this? If they can conceive of anything worse...within my power, would they not better be looking out for it?.... I am a patient man, always willing to forgive on the Christian terms of repentance. Still, I must save this Government if possible. What I cannot do, of course, I will not do; but it may as well be understood, once for all, that I shall not surrender this game leaving any available card unplayed."

The unplayed card was emanc.i.p.ation. Mindful, so far, of his inaugural statement: "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the inst.i.tution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so," Lincoln had resisted all efforts to persuade him to repudiate his words. He resisted mainly on practical grounds, considering the probable reaction in the border states; "We should lose more than we should gain," he told one Jacobin delegation. Not only had he refused to issue such a proclamation as they were urging on him, he had revoked three separate p.r.o.nouncements or proclamations issued by subordinates: one by Fremont, one by Cameron, and recently a third by Hunter in South Carolina. In the instance of the latter revocation, however, he had shown which way his mind was turning in mid-May: "Whether it be competent for me, as Commander in Chief of the army and navy, to declare the slaves of any state or states free, and whether, at any time, in any case, it shall have become a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the government to exercise such supposed power, are questions which, under my responsibility, I reserve to myself."

This was putting a new face on the matter. What a President had no right or inclination to do in peacetime, Lincoln was saying, might become an indispensable necessity for a wartime Commander in Chief. Besides, he had done some ciphering back in March, and had come up with a simple dollars-and-cents solution to the problem. Figuring the cost of the war at two million dollars a day, and the cost of slaves at four hundred dollars a head, he had found the value of Delaware's 1798 slaves to be less than the cost of half a day of fighting. Extending his computations on this basis, he found that the total value of the 432,622 slaves in the District of Columbia and the four border states-Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri-amounted to less than the cost of three months of warfare. Accordingly, he laid these figures before Congress in support of a resolution proposing compensated emanc.i.p.ation. In early April it was adopted, despite the objections of abolitionists who considered it highly immoral to traffic thus in souls; but nothing practical came of it, because the slave-state legislatures would not avail themselves of the offer. Lincoln was saddened by this failure, and on revoking Hunter's proclamation the following month addressed a special plea to the people of the border region: "I do not argue-I beseech you to make arguments for yourselves. You cannot, if you would, be blind to the signs of the times. I beg of you a calm and enlarged consideration of them, ranging, if it may be, far above personal and partisan politics. This proposal makes common cause for a common object, casting no reproaches upon any. It acts not the Pharisee. The change it contemplates would come gently as the dews of heaven, not rending or wrecking anything. Will you not embrace it? So much good has not been done, by one effort, in all past time, as in the providence of G.o.d it is now your high privilege to do. May the vast future not have to lament that you have neglected it."

The signs of the times were indeed plain to read; they had in fact the glistening clarity of wet paint, most of them having been posted about the legislative landscape during the current session of Congress. In March, subscribing to the opinion that the Dred Scott decision did not const.i.tute law, the members fulfilled a Republican campaign promise by pa.s.sing an act prohibiting slavery in all present or future national territories. The following month, the "peculiar inst.i.tution" was abolished in the District of Columbia, with compensation for the owners and provisions for colonization of the freedmen, which Lincoln considered the best practical solution to the problem. "There has never been in my mind any question upon the subject," he declared as he signed the bill, "except the one of expediency, arising in view of all the circ.u.mstances." In May, the United States and Britain agreed by treaty to cooperate in suppressing the slave trade: a diplomatic move that gave much pleasure to the Jacobins, whom Lincoln had been at pains to please whenever he could. For their sake he had proposed that the country give formal recognition to the Negro republics of Haiti and Liberia, which Congress gladly did, and back in February-despite the known leniency of his nature in such matters-he sustained the sentence of execution brought against Nathaniel Gordon of Portland, Maine, the first and only slave trader ever hanged in accordance with Federal law.

Gratifying as all this was, including the hanging, the Jacobins were by no means satisfied. They wanted more, much more, and they never stopped letting Lincoln know it. "The pressure in this direction is still upon me and increasing," he said on July 12 when he called twenty border-state congressmen into his office for a final appeal before next week's adjournment sent them scattering for their homes. He spoke of the continuing attempts by the seceded states to persuade their sister slave communities farther north to join them in revolt-attempts which, incidentally, if successful would deprive these representatives of their jobs. The pull was strong, Lincoln admitted, and he wanted these men to help him weaken it. "You and I know what the lever of their power is. Break that lever before their faces and they can shake you no more forever." Besides, he said, slavery was failing fast already. "If the war continues long...the inst.i.tution in your states will be extinguished by mere friction and abrasion.... How much better for you and for your people to take the step which at once shortens the war and secures substantial compensation for that which is sure to be wholly lost in any other event."

They heard him out, and then they shook their heads. The adopted resolution not only seemed to them a violation of State Rights, but they also questioned the const.i.tutional power of Congress to appropriate funds for such a purpose. What was more, they doubted the sincerity of their fellow congressmen; the offer, one of the callers said, "was but the enunciation of a sentiment which could not or was not likely to be reduced to an actual tangible proposition." If Congress really meant it, let the money be put in the President's hands, and then they would consider acceptance. Then too-though this objection went unspoken-the plan entailed payment in government bonds, and though slave property was admittedly precarious and declining fast in value, the national credit was declining even faster. In short, they wanted no part of the offer as things now stood. Respectfully they bowed and took their leave, and Lincoln was left saddened and alone.

Left alone, he would act alone. He knew well enough the arguments against what McClellan, four days before, had called "a declaration of radical views" on the slavery issue: possible loss of the border states, possible loss of large segments of the army through desertion, possible loss of the fall elections. He knew, too, of currents that ran deeper-of Archbishop John Hughes of New York, for example, who had warned in a widely reprinted official declaration: "We, Catholics, and a vast majority of our brave troops in the field, have not the slightest idea of carrying on a war that costs so much blood and treasure just to gratify a clique of Abolitionists in the North." A Westerner, Lincoln knew the rabid division on the subject in the West, where candidates were tagged "charcoal" and "snowflake" in anger and derision, regardless of party. Such considerations, the concrete along with the nebulous, had weight. But he also knew the arguments in favor of positive action. First, it would allay the danger of foreign intervention by engaging the sympathy and arousing the enthusiasm of the rank and file of Europe, against which not even the most avid of the pro-Confederate rulers and ministers would dare to act. Second, whatever it did to the Democrats here at home, it would heal the split in his own party, which was rapidly getting out of hand.

Beyond if not above all these, and entirely aside from his promises to those who claimed to have removed themselves from his authority, there was the question of personal ethics, of whether the considered step was consonant with honor. He had called the nation to arms in support of a single issue, the preservation of the Union; could he now adopt a second-superimpose it, so to speak-without being guilty of chicanery or worse? He believed he could, and he based his persuasion on necessity. "Things had gone on from bad to worse," he later explained, "until I felt that we had reached the end of our rope on the plan of operations we had been pursuing; that we had about played our last card, and must change our tactics or lose the game." The truth was, the war had already outlasted the heady burst of enthusiasm that had flared up after Sumter. What was needed was a new cause, not to supplant, but to supplement the old; and this was it. Having appealed at the outset to reason, he now would appeal to conscience. He would translate the conflict into the terms of a holy war-a crusade-for which Julia Ward Howe had already composed the anthem: In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea...

As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While G.o.d is marching on.

Before the night was over, though the details were still to be worked out, he had completed his decision. He would do it. And next afternoon-much to their surprise, since always before, as one of them said, "he had been prompt and emphatic in denouncing any interference by the general government with the subject"-he spoke of it to two members of his cabinet.

The occasion was a funeral; the Stantons had lost a new-born child, and Lincoln rode to the burial in a carriage with Welles and Seward. According to Welles, the President "dwelt earnestly on the gravity, importance, and delicacy" of the slavery question and the advisability of issuing an emanc.i.p.ation proclamation "in case the rebels did not cease to persist in their war on the government...of which he saw no evidence." He said he "had about come to the conclusion that it was a military necessity absolutely essential for the salvation of the Union, that we must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued." Asked for their opinions on the matter, both men were at first too taken aback by what Welles called "this new departure" to say anything at all. Seward, recovering first, replied that "his present opinion inclined to the measure as justifiable," but he would rather think the matter through before giving a final answer. Welles said he felt the same way about it. Lincoln let it go at that, though he made it clear that he was "earnest in the conviction that something must be done."

Four days later, July 17, Congress came very close to stealing his thunder. In August of the previous year, this body had pa.s.sed a Confiscation Act endorsing Butler's contention that the slaves of disloyal masters were "contraband," liable to seizure and eligible for freedom on entering Union lines. Now, in the final hours before adjournment of the current session, a second such Act was pa.s.sed. Considerably sharper-toothed than the one that had gone before, it provided "That every person who shall hereafter commit the crime of treason against the United States, and shall be adjudged guilty thereof, shall suffer death, and all his slaves, if any, shall be declared and made free." Discretion was left to the courts as to whether a prison term and/or a fine should be subst.i.tuted in lieu of the death penalty, but no leeway was allowed as to the disposition of a traitor's slaves, who were automatically freed upon his conviction. At first glance, with nearly the whole slave region in rebellion, this appeared to be the very proclamation Lincoln was considering. However, closer reading showed it to be no such thing. No slave was to be freed by it until his master had been convicted of treason in a federal court. There was the rub. Secession-or rebellion, as the Jacobins preferred to call it-might be treason, but no court had ever said so (or ever would say so) no matter what opinion the radicals had on the matter. All the Acts really did was provide a sanctuary for such slaves as crossed the Federal lines: with the result that the U.S. government became, in effect, the greatest slaveholder the world had ever known, not excepting the Pharaohs of Egypt.

Lincoln doubted the legality of the Act; "It is startling to say that Congress can free a slave within a State," he declared in a veto message which he had prepared against its pa.s.sage. All the same, he signed it as soon as it reached his desk; but in doing so he forwarded the proposed veto message in order to make his objections part of the record when the legislation was tested in the courts. Read in both houses as a prelude to adjournment, the message was greeted with sneers and laughter by the radicals, who took it as an admission that when the chips were down he did not dare to oppose them with anything but words.

In this they were much mistaken, though words were very much a part of what he had in mind. On July 22, to the surprise of all but Welles and Seward, who had been prepared for something of the sort by his remarks in the funeral carriage nine days back, he read to the a.s.sembled cabinet an emanc.i.p.ation proclamation which he proposed to issue without delay. Unlike the Confiscation Act, which required that individuals be convicted of treason before their slaves were freed, Lincoln's edict left no burden of proof upon the government. He intended it as a military p.r.o.nouncement, designed to help win the war, and that was all. He was not concerned with "legality," as such, since he did not deal with individuals as such; all he required was that they live within an area where the authorities, after a specified date, continued to defy the federal government. The object of the war, he repeated, was the preservation of the Union; "And as a fit and necessary military measure for effecting this object, I, as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, do order and declare that on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or States wherein the const.i.tuted authority of the United States shall not then be practically recognized, submitted to, and maintained, shall then, thenceforward, and forever be free."

Reactions varied. Chase and Stanton approved, but wanted it stronger; Bates wanted it as it was; Welles wanted it weaker; Blair and Smith did not want it at all, or at least not before the fall elections. Then Seward spoke, having turned the matter over in his mind. "Mr President," he said, "I approve of the proclamation, but I question the expediency of its issue at this juncture. The depression of the public mind, consequent upon our repeated reverses, is so great that I fear the effect of so important a step. It may be viewed as the last measure of an exhausted government, a cry for help; the government stretching forth its hands to Ethiopia, instead of Ethiopia stretching forth her hands to the government. It will be considered our last shriek shriek on the retreat. Now, while I approve the measure, I suggest, sir, that you postpone its issue until you can give it to the country supported by military success, instead of issuing it, as would be the case now, upon the greatest disasters of the war." on the retreat. Now, while I approve the measure, I suggest, sir, that you postpone its issue until you can give it to the country supported by military success, instead of issuing it, as would be the case now, upon the greatest disasters of the war."

Lincoln had not considered this aspect of the question, but now that he did so, he perceived its wisdom and acted in accord with Seward's view. "I put the draft of the proclamation aside," he later told an artist friend, "as you do your sketch for a picture, waiting for a victory." Halleck, the man he counted on to give him one, was on the way at last: would arrive, in fact, tomorrow. Meanwhile, this thunderbolt would keep.

2 There was gloom in the West as in the East, but it was of a different nature, proceeding from different causes. Here too the advance had stalled; yet it was precisely in this apparent similarity that the difference obtained. McClellan had been stopped by Lee, but Halleck stopped himself. Curiously enough, or perhaps not curiously at all, the men on the Peninsula who had fought and fallen back, fighting as they went, had developed a fierce pride that burned brighter at the end of their retreat than it had ever burned before; they had fought well and they knew it; whereas Halleck's soldiers felt less elation at the end of their burrowing advance than at the start, not having fought at all. That was the source of a different kind of gloom.

Sherman did not share it, still being happy with the new stars on his shoulders and the sense of having "found" himself in the ordeal of s.h.i.+loh. But when he called by army headquarters not long after the fall of Corinth, he heard something that caused him to suspect that his friend Grant was in lower spirits than ever. Halleck happened to remark that Grant had applied for a thirty-day leave; he was going away next morning. Halleck said he did not know why, but Sherman took it to mean that Grant, "chafing under the slights," intended this as a first step in submitting his resignation. Determined to stop him if he could, Sherman rode over and found him sitting in his tent, sorting some letters and tying them into bundles with red tape. Grant said it was true that he was leaving, and when the red-headed general asked him why, he replied: "Sherman, you know. You know I am in the way here. I have stood it as long as I can, and can endure it no longer."

Where was he going? "St Louis," Grant said. Did he have any business there? "Not a bit," Grant said. So Sherman, being then in what he called "high feather," began to argue with him, ill.u.s.trating Grant's case with his own. Look at him, he said. They had called him crazy as a loon, but he had hung on through s.h.i.+loh, and "that single battle had given me new life." Besides, if Grant went away, "events would go right along, and he would be left out; whereas, if he remained, some happy accident might restore him to favor and his true place." This had its effect; Grant promised to wait, or at any rate not to leave without seeing Sherman again or sending him word. Satisfied, Sherman left, and before the week was out received a note from Grant. He had reconsidered; he would stay. Sherman replied that he was glad to hear it; "for you could not be quiet at home for a week when armies were moving."

Armies were moving now, though not in the direction of the Confederates who had fallen back before them. Like a man riding an oversized mettlesome horse, which he feared might take the bit in its teeth and bolt off with him any minute, Halleck kept as close a rein as possible on his 120,000-man army. Even so, the advance had already covered more ground than he had intended. Once he had accomplished what he set out for-in particular, control of a sizeable stretch of the Memphis & Charleston Railroad-he was more than ready to call a halt and consolidate his gains. Four days after the occupation of Corinth, he warned the commander of the pursuit against goading the rebels into rashness. All he wanted, he said, was for them to fall back far enough to be beyond reach of the railroad. And he added: "There is no object in bringing on a battle if this object can be obtained without one. I think by showing a bold front for a day or two the enemy will continue his retreat, which is all that I desire."

Having withheld his army from pursuit, he now proceeded to dismember it. Eastward, westward, even northward he dispersed it: every way, in fact, but southward. On June 9 he instructed Pope-who presently was on his way to Was.h.i.+ngton, superseded by Rosecrans-to draw back closer to Corinth and take up outpost positions to defend it. And that same day the scattering began: a scattering that divided the Grand Army into four main parts, rather as if the aforementioned timid rider had decided not only to get rid of his mettlesome horse, but to do so by having it drawn and quartered. Buell was ordered east with four divisions to make connection with Ormsby Mitchel, who had encountered so much difficulty in North Alabama; his goal was Chattanooga, which would put him within possible reach of Knoxville or Atlanta. Sherman was sent west; he would garrison Memphis with two divisions, repairing the railroad on the way and doing what he could to restore the wrecked economy by "a.s.sur[ing] all country people that they will be permitted to take their cotton freely to market and that the ordinary channels of trade will be immediately reopened." McClernand, with a similar force, was given a similar mission, except that his destination lay fifty miles north at Jackson, Tennessee; he too was to repair the lines of supply and give the "country people" whatever a.s.surance was needed to make them happy. Halleck himself would remain with the force at Corinth, coordinating the efforts of the other three.

His main concern in ordering the dispersal, he told Stanton, was the "sanitary condition" of the men. At present it was good, he said, but the question arose: "Can it be kept so during the summer?" He thought it could, provided he steered clear of a southward advance; for "if we follow the enemy into the swamps of Mississippi there can be no doubt that the army will be disabled by disease." (At least one of the general's wool-clad soldiers agreed with him. After being exposed to what Halleck was now avoiding, an Indiana veteran declared: "You load a man down with a sixty-pound knapsack, his gun and forty rounds of ammunition, a haversack full of hardtack and sow belly, and a three-pint canteen full of water, then start him along this narrow roadway with the mercury up to 100 and the dust so thick you could taste it, and you have done the next thing to killing this man outright.") "And yet," Halleck wrote, "to lie still, doing nothing, will not be satisfactory to the country nor conducive to the health of the army." He had therefore "deemed it best" to do as he had done. There was one drawback, one calculated risk: "This plan is based on the supposition that the enemy will not attempt an active campaign during the summer months. Should he do so...the present dispositions must be varied to suit the change of circ.u.mstances."

One immediate result the shake-up had. George Thomas returned to his old division, which was stationed under Halleck's eye at Corinth, and Grant was restored to the command of his old Army of the Tennessee, which included the divisions under Sherman and McClernand. Receiving permission to establish headquarters at Memphis, he set out on June 21 with a dozen troopers as escort, and after narrowly escaping capture on the way-Confederate hors.e.m.e.n, tipped off that he was coming, missed intercepting him by less than an hour-arrived three days later to find affairs "in rather bad order, secessionists governing much in their own way." He reported that there was even a plot to burn the city, which he thought might "prove partially successful," though he believed that such an action would "operate more against the rebels than ourselves." The main thing he needed, he told Halleck, was more troops.

Old Brains was in no mood just now to give him anything but trouble. By the end of June they had renewed their old-time wrangle. Halleck began it, wiring: "You say 30,000 men are at Shelbyville to attack La Grange. Where is Shelbyville? I can't find it on any map. Don't believe a word about an attack in large force on La Grange or Memphis. Why not send out a strong reconnaissance and ascertain the facts? facts? It looks very much like a mere stampede. Floating rumors must never be received as facts.... I mean to make somebody responsible for so gross a negligence." Grant replied: "I did not say 30,000 troops at Shelbyville, but at Abbeville, which is south of Holly Springs, on the road to Grenada." Then he too got his back up. "I heed as little of floating rumors about this city as anyone," he protested. He had asked for more troops, he said, "that I might do effectively what you now ask. Stampeding is not my weakness. On the contrary, I will always execute any order to the best of my ability with the means at hand." Halleck drew in his horns at this, replying four days later: "I made no insinuation that there had been the slightest neglect on your part.... Nor did I suppose for a moment that you were stampeded; for I know that is not in your nature." Then-as if he had leaned down to stroke Old Rover, only to have Old Rover snap at his hand-he added: "I must confess that I was very much surprised at the tone of your dispatch and the ill-feeling manifested in it, so contrary to your usual style, and especially toward one who has so often befriended you when you were attacked by others." It looks very much like a mere stampede. Floating rumors must never be received as facts.... I mean to make somebody responsible for so gross a negligence." Grant replied: "I did not say 30,000 troops at Shelbyville, but at Abbeville, which is south of Holly Springs, on the road to Grenada." Then he too got his back up. "I heed as little of floating rumors about this city as anyone," he protested. He had asked for more troops, he said, "that I might do effectively what you now ask. Stampeding is not my weakness. On the contrary, I will always execute any order to the best of my ability with the means at hand." Halleck drew in his horns at this, replying four days later: "I made no insinuation that there had been the slightest neglect on your part.... Nor did I suppose for a moment that you were stampeded; for I know that is not in your nature." Then-as if he had leaned down to stroke Old Rover, only to have Old Rover snap at his hand-he added: "I must confess that I was very much surprised at the tone of your dispatch and the ill-feeling manifested in it, so contrary to your usual style, and especially toward one who has so often befriended you when you were attacked by others."

This was more or less the note on which the other ha.s.sle had ended, four months back; Grant was willing to let it go at that. But five days later, July 8, Halleck was at him again: "The Cincinnati Gazette Gazette contains the substance of your demanding reinforcements and my refusing them. You either have a newspaper correspondent on your staff or your staff is very leaky." Three days later, the Memphis telegraph receiver clacked off a blunt one dozen words from Corinth: "You will immediately repair to this place and report to these headquarters." contains the substance of your demanding reinforcements and my refusing them. You either have a newspaper correspondent on your staff or your staff is very leaky." Three days later, the Memphis telegraph receiver clacked off a blunt one dozen words from Corinth: "You will immediately repair to this place and report to these headquarters."

Just what have I done now? Grant must have thought. It was not his way to worry, but he apparently had cause. For the past two weeks-and, indeed, before-Halleck had shown all the earmarks of a commander engaged in the old army game of needling an unwanted subordinate enough to keep him edgy and fatten the record against him, but of holding back from the big pounce until something downright ruinous turned up to head the list of charges and specifications. Whether his sin was one of omission or commission, Grant did not know, though he had three full days for wondering while his horse retraced the steps taken three weeks ago with its head in the opposite direction. At last, July 15, the worried general reached Corinth and was face to face with his tormentor. What he was confronted with, however, was not the climax to a series of well-organized reproaches, but rather the accomplishment of the "happy accident" Sherman had persuaded him to wait for. Halleck was ordered to Was.h.i.+ngton to take over the direction of all the armies, East and West, and Grant was to receive, by seniority, the lion's share of what he left behind. Specifically, this included command of two armies-his own, now under McClernand and Sherman, and Pope's, now under Rosecrans-and of the department embracing North Mississippi, West Tennessee, and Kentucky west of the c.u.mberland River.

He had what he wanted, but not as he preferred it. The fact was, he disapproved of nearly all that had been done since Halleck's arrival from St Louis, later saying: "For myself I am satisfied Corinth could have been captured in a two days' campaign commenced promptly on the arrival of reinforcements after the battle of s.h.i.+loh." Most of all he disapproved of what had been done, or left undone, since Beauregard's sly evacuation of Corinth. With the Mississippi in Union hands, northward above Baton Rouge and southward below Memphis, "the Confederates at the west were narrowed down for all communication with Richmond to the single line of road running east from Vicksburg." That was the true goal now: that city, that stretch of river, that railroad. "To dispossess them of this...would be equal to the amputation of a limb in its weakening effects." As he saw it, "after the capture of Corinth a moveable force of 80,000 men, besides enough to hold all the territory acquired, could have been set in motion for the accomplishment of [this] great campaign for the suppression of the rebellion." Thus Grant, by hindsight. But Halleck could not see it, or else he feared to undertake it, and "the work of depletion commenced."

Even so, when he wound up his paperwork and departed for Was.h.i.+ngton two days later, he left his successor in immediate command of more than the 80,000 troops which Grant afterwards said would have been enough for the taking of Vicksburg that summer. The trouble was, they were far from "moveable," except when they were needed as reinforcements in adjoining departments. Before he had been at his post a week he was ordered to send a division to strengthen Samuel Curtis, who had marched from Northwest Arkansas to Helena, where the St Francis River flowed into the Mississippi, fifty airline miles below Memphis. Still, this left Grant with well over 75,000 effectives. Sherman had 16,000 at Memphis, and McClernand had 10,000 around Jackson. Another 7500 were stationed at Columbus, Cairo, and Paducah, while the rest of the Army of the Tennessee, 12,000 men under Major General E. O. C. Ord-a West Point cla.s.smate of Halleck's, just arrived from Virginia-were at Corinth. Rosecrans' Army of the Mississippi, 32,000 strong, was spread along a thirty-five-mile front that extended from south of Corinth to Cherokee, Alabama.

It was a sizeable force, but deep in enemy country as he was, charged with the consolidation of all that had been gained since Donelson and s.h.i.+loh, Grant found that its very size increased his major immediate problem: which was how to keep it fed and equipped. Just as the foregoing spring had set records for rainfall, so now the summer was breaking records for drouth, and as a result the Tennessee River was all but worthless as a supply line. So was the Memphis & Charleston Railroad, for the rebels had torn up the track between Chewalla and Grand Junction, and west of there the line had had to be abandoned for lack of rolling stock. All that was left him-except in Memphis, which of course could be supplied by river; the Mississippi never got really thirsty-was the slender thread of the Mobile & Ohio, stretching back to Columbus across more than a hundred miles of guerilla-infested West Tennessee, vulnerable throughout its length to attack by bands of regular and irregular cavalry, equally skilled at burning bridges and wrecking culverts, of which there were many. Tactically, too, the problems were not simple. Princ.i.p.al among them was the presence in North Mississippi of a highly mobile Confederate force, reckoned at 35,000 men, under the command of the resourceful and diabolical Earl Van Dorn, who sooner or later was probably going to succeed in one of his hair-trigger schemes. Its strength was less than half Grant's own, but its advantages were large. Van Dorn, for example, did not have to post a single man on guard in his rear, and best of all-or worst-he could choose the point of attack. He could strike the unconnected extremities, Corinth at one end, Memphis at the other, or he could pierce the lightly held center and knife straight through for Bolivar, Jackson, or Brownsville. What was more, he could choose the time.

Grant did not look forward to the coming months. Committed as he was to the defensive-much as he had been while biding his time before s.h.i.+loh-this was still not his kind of war. It was true, he had learned from what had happened then; from now on, he would keep in close touch with his field commanders and see to it that they had their men intrench. But he still did not like it, and he declared long afterwards that these midsummer months had been for him "the most anxious period of the war."

Discontent was general-amphibious, so to speak. For the navy, too, the successes of late spring and early summer, up and down the falling river, north and south of Vicksburg, were followed by a hot-weather season of doubts and tribulations. Every victory was accompanied by a setback, and the fruits thereof were bitter, their savor turning to ashes in the mouth. For Flag Officers Farragut and Davis, as for Grant, the midsummer word was anxious anxious.

Davis ran into trouble first. As if Plum Run Bend had not been proof enough that his ironclads were vulnerable, it was presently reproved in backwoods Arkansas, and on one of the resurrected victims of that earlier disaster. In the course of his eastward march from Pea Ridge to Helena, Curtis had to cross White River: a task that was complicated by the presence of a Confederate fort at St Charles, sixty miles from the mouth. Given orders to reduce it immediately after his Memphis triumph, Davis a.s.signed the mission to four gunboats and an Indiana regiment which went along in transports. Raised, pumped out, and patched, the Mound City Mound City had the flag; this was her first outing since her encounter with the had the flag; this was her first outing since her encounter with the Van Dorn Van Dorn, back in May. When the flotilla came within sight of the fort, June 17, the Hoosier colonel requested permission to a.s.sault by land-there were only just over a hundred rebels in the place-but the naval commander refused to yield or even share the honors. Closing with the flags.h.i.+p, he opened fire at point-blank range: whereupon the fort replied with a 42-pound solid that pierced the Mound City' Mound City's casemate and went right through her steam drum, scalding to death or drowning 125 out of her crew of 175 men, injuring 25 more, and leaving only 25 unhurt. (It was freakish in more ways than one, including arithmetically; for the round-looking casualty figures were exact.) Helpless, the ironclad went with the current and the other gunboats withdrew, leaving the proposed reduction to the Indianians, who encircled the fort and took it without the loss of a man. Davis had himself another victory, though he had it at far from a bargain price and the credit went to the army.

Farragut's troubles, downriver, were at once less b.l.o.o.d.y and more personal, and having a slopjar emptied onto his head from a French Quarter window was only the least of them. Five days after congratulating him for his "magnificent execution" and "unparalleled achievements" at New Orleans, a.s.sistant Secretary Fox heard that the Tennessee sailor had abandoned the attempt against Vicksburg. "Impossible!" Fox cried. "Sending the fleet up to meet Commodore Davis was the most important part of the whole expedition. The instructions were positive." Quickly he reiterated them in triplicate, dispatching the original and two copies in three different s.h.i.+ps to make certain of delivery: "It is of paramount importance that you go up and clear the river with utmost expedition. Mobile, Pensacola, and, in fact, the whole coast sinks into insignificance compared with this." Two days later he repeated the admonition in a second dispatch, invoking the support of higher authority: "The President requires you to use your utmost exertions (without a moment's delay, and before any other naval operation shall be permitted to interfere) to open the Mississippi and effect a junction with Flag Officer Davis."

On his previous trip upriver, Farragut had explained to Butler why he did not think a limited expedition against Vicksburg should be undertaken: "As they have so large a force of soldiers here, several thousand in and about the town, and the facility of bringing in 20,000 in an hour by railroad from Jackson, altogether, [I] think it would be useless to bombard it, as we could not hold it if we take it." He still felt that way about it; but the orders from Fox, which presently arrived, left him no choice. He put the fleet in order for the 400-mile ascent, taking part of Porter's mortar flotilla with him this time, as well as 3000 men from Butler, and came within sight of Vicksburg's red clay bluff on the same day the Mound City Mound City took the solid through her boiler. He was back again, and though he still did not like the task before him, he wrote home that he was putting his trust in the Lord: "If it is His pleasure to take me, may He protect my wife and boy from the rigors of a wicked world." took the solid through her boiler. He was back again, and though he still did not like the task before him, he wrote home that he was putting his trust in the Lord: "If it is His pleasure to take me, may He protect my wife and boy from the rigors of a wicked world."

He spent ten days reexamining the problem and giving the mortars time to establish ranges. Then on the night of June 27 he made his run. Eleven wars.h.i.+ps were in the 117-gun column: three heavy sloops, two light sloops, and six gunboats. Skippers of the eight smaller vessels were instructed to hug the western bank while the large ones took the middle, the Richmond Richmond leading because her chase guns were situated best for high-angle fire, then the flags.h.i.+p leading because her chase guns were situated best for high-angle fire, then the flags.h.i.+p Hartford Hartford, and finally the Brooklyn Brooklyn, lending a heavy sting to the tail. Two hours after midnight the attack signal was hoisted, and for the next three hours it was New Orleans all over again-except that this time the rebel gunners, high on their 200-foot bluff, were taking little punishment in return. Down on the river, by contrast, everything was smoke and uproar; the Brooklyn Brooklyn and two of the gunboats were knocked back, and all of the others were hit repeatedly. Total casualties were 15 killed and 30 wounded. But when daylight came, eight of the s.h.i.+ps were beyond the hairpin turn, and Farragut was farther from salt water than he had been since he first left Tennessee to join the navy, more than fifty years before. and two of the gunboats were knocked back, and all of the others were hit repeatedly. Total casualties were 15 killed and 30 wounded. But when daylight came, eight of the s.h.i.+ps were beyond the hairpin turn, and Farragut was farther from salt water than he had been since he first left Tennessee to join the navy, more than fifty years before.

Two days later, July 1, Davis brought his gunboats down from Memphis and the two fleets were joined. There was much visiting back and forth, much splicing of the main brace-and with cause. Upper and nether millstones had come together at last, and now there was not even grist between them.

There, precisely, was the trouble; for now that Farragut was up here, there was nothing left for him to do. The day before the blue-water s.h.i.+ps steamed past the batteries, Colonel A.W A.W. Ellet, his brother's successor, took two of his rams up the Yazoo River, which emptied into the Mississippi a dozen miles above Vicksburg, to investigate a report that the rebels had three gunboats lurking there. It turned out to be true, one of them bei