Part 3

By mid-July Sherman had forced Johnston into the trenches of Atlanta. On July 18 President Davis replaced Johnston with Gen. John B. Hood, who, although minus a leg and the use of an arm, had a reputation as a hard fighter. Hood quickly lived up to that reputation. On July 20, two days after assuming command, Hood attacked Sherman along Peachtree Creek. The Southerners were repulsed. Two days later Hood attacked again in East Atlanta. Again the Confederates were hurled back with heavy losses. Hood then strengthened his defenses around Atlanta, and Sherman tightened his siege.

Meanwhile, Grant in Virginia had met with a similar stalemate--and at a more terrible cost. Grant encountered no opposition as he started through the Wilderness toward Lee and Richmond. But as the Federal army crept through the tangled undergrowth, Lee's 60,000 Confederates struck suddenly and viciously. Two days (May 5-6) of savage fighting occurred in which Grant met a bloody checkmate.

Yet Grant did not retreat as other generals before him had done. Instead he unfolded his new and radical policy of hammering at Lee while edging closer to Richmond. Grant knew that Lee could not replace his losses, for Southern manpower was all but exhausted. On the other hand, Grant could draw on the vast manpower of the north. With Grant the Civil War was to be a fight to the finish.

The Army of the Potomac pushed stubbornly toward Richmond. Lee tried desperately to block it, winning victories at Spotsylvania (May 12), North Anna (May 23), and Cold Harbor (June 3). In the last-named engagement, over 7,200 Federals fell in less than twenty minutes of fighting. While Lee contested Grant's moves, another and makeshift Confederate force under Gen. Beauregard repelled a Federal stab (May 15-19) at Richmond and Petersburg by Gen. Benjamin Butler.

Grant recognized that he could not take Richmond by direct approach. He shifted his army around the city and moved on Petersburg, a rail junction and important link in the Confederate chain of defenses. Lee at first was unaware of Grant's plans to attack Petersburg. But Beauregard successfully beat back the initial Federal thrusts, thus forcing Grant to begin what became a nine-month siege of Petersburg. Many probes were made of Lee's defenses. The most spectacular of these occurred on July 30 and is known as the Battle of the Crater.

Coal miners in the 48th Pennsylvania Infantry dug a long tunnel under the Confederate earthworks. Their plan was to explode 8,000 pounds of black powder, blast a mighty gap in the Confederate defenses, and then to use the resulting confusion for a large-scale Federal attack.

The explosion and confusion came off as planned. But the Federal assault failed. Grant resumed his tight siege. In the fighting from the Wilderness to Petersburg, the Federal army had suffered 60,000 casualties--more men than were in Lee's whole army. Yet Grant knew, as did many Confederates, that Lee was now pinned down. The well-equipped and well-fed Federal army could afford to wait.

Other related actions took place in Virginia. On May 11, Gen. Philip Sheridan's cavalry clashed with "Jeb" Stuart's horsemen a few miles north of Richmond at Yellow Tavern. Sheridan's men were driven back. Yet this battle cost the Confederacy the colorful Stuart, mortally wounded while leading his troops.

On May 15 the Confederates scored another victory in the Shenandoah Valley. Gen. Franz Siegel and 8,000 Federal horsemen advanced up the Valley as far as New Market. There they encountered a hastily assembled Confederate force less than half the size of Siegel's division. The highlight of the battle was the successful charge of 225 youthful cadets from the Virginia Military Institute. Siegel's force suffered an embarrassing defeat and fled down the Valley.

Both Lee and Grant recognized the importance of control of the Valley. Yet neither could afford to dislodge his army from Petersburg. Grant therefore organized a separate force under Gen. David Hunter with orders to move into the Valley and "to eat up Virginia clear and clean as far as [you] can go, so that crows flying over it for the balance of this season will have to carry their provender with them."

To oppose Hunter, Lee rushed westward a small Confederate army under Gen. Jubal Early. Hunter burned and looted his way as far as Lynchburg before Early sent them scurrying over the mountains. Early then decided to make an invasion of his own. Sweeping down the Valley, he crossed the Potomac and moved to the outskirts of Washington. Yet "Jubal's Raid" (July 4-20) failed when Early decided not to attack the Northern capital.

Grant resolved that no such threat to Washington would again occur. He dispatched a large Federal army under Sheridan into the Valley. Early, woefully outnumbered, nevertheless put up stiff resistance. Only after victories at Winchester (September 19), Fisher's Hill (September 22), and Cedar Creek (October 19) could Sheridan declare the Valley once and for all cleared of Confederate forces.

In Georgia at this time, Sherman was also meeting with success. Federal victories at Ezra Church (July 28) and Jonesboro (August 31-September 1) compelled Hood to evacuate Atlanta. Sherman occupied the city on September 2. The fall of Atlanta was a valuable assist to Lincoln in his reelection to the presidency that autumn.

Sherman felt strongly that the war had to be carried to the Southern people themselves before the Confederacy would collapse. He therefore laid plans to slash through the very heart of the South. The campaign that followed is known as the "March to the Sea."

Sherman first sent part of his army under Gen. Thomas back to Tennessee to watch Hood, whose Confederates had moved northward in an effort to force Sherman from Georgia. With Thomas blocking Hood, Sherman on November 16 left Atlanta in flames and started toward the Georgia coast with 68,000 veteran fighters. Sherman met little opposition during his advance, and on December 22 he telegraphed Lincoln: "I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with 150 heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about 25,000 bales of cotton."

Meanwhile, Hood's strategy in Tennessee backfired tragically. At Franklin, Tenn., on November 30, Hood hurled his army against a part of Thomas's force under Gen. John M. Schofield. Hood's assaults cost 6,000 Confederates, including 5 generals and 53 regimental colonels. Two weeks later, Thomas's troops all but destroyed Hood's army when the Confederates made repeated assaults at Nashville.

Sherman's strategy had cut the Confederacy in two. Although Grant was then no closer to Richmond than McClellan had been two years earlier, all that remained of the Confederacy were Virginia, the Carolinas, and isolated areas of the Trans-Mississippi.

1865

After a month's rest at Savannah, Sherman on February 1 started northward to strike through the Carolinas and join Grant in Virginia for the final blow against Lee. Sherman's major opposition was the remnant of the Army of Tennessee, which had been placed again under the command of Gen. Joseph Johnston.

Johnston could offer but feeble resistance to Sherman. Federal troops occupied Charleston and were in Columbia when the latter was gutted by fire. On March 10 Sherman's forces seized Fayetteville in central North Carolina, brushed back part of Johnston's army six days later at Averysboro, and successfully withstood a Confederate attack at Bentonville (March 19-21).

Meanwhile, Grant had been mustering his forces for a grand drive against Lee's weak defenses. Throughout the long siege of Petersburg Grant had slowly extended his lines farther to the south and west. Lee had no choice but to stretch his own meager defenses accordingly. Soon the Southern defenses were dangerously overextended.

This was the situation which Grant had sought. On April 1 he attacked Lee at Five Forks, sixteen miles southwest of Petersburg. The Confederate line bent and then broke. That night the Army of Northern Virginia abandoned the Richmond-Petersburg trenches and slowly moved westward in retreat. At the same time President Davis transferred the Confederate capital to Danville near the North Carolina border, Lee's major hope was to rendezvous at Danville with Johnston's army, then falling back in the face of Sherman's advance. Together, Lee speculated, he and Johnston might be able to defeat first Sherman and then Grant.

The dream quickly faded. As Lee's army plodded westward, Grant's divisions snipped at its heels at Amelia Court House (April 4-5), Sailor's Creek (April 6), High Bridge (April 7), and Farmville (April 7). On April 8, near Appomattox Court House, Lee found the way blocked by massed infantry and cavalry under Sheridan. The Confederates were surrounded. On Palm Sunday, April 9, Lee surrendered to Grant. Three days later, 28,000 Confederates in the Army of Northern Virginia stacked their muskets before silent lines of Federal soldiers.

Lee's surrender left Johnston with no place to go. On April 26, near Durham, N. C., the Army of Tennessee laid down its arms before Sherman's forces. With the surrender of isolated forces in the Trans-Mississippi West on May 4, 11, and 26, the most costly war in American history came to an end.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Angle, Paul M., and Miers, E. S., eds., _Tragic Years, 1860-1865_ (2 vols., 1960) Barrett, John G., _Sherman's March through the Carolinas_ (1956) Boatner, Mark M., III, _The Civil War Dictionary_ (1959) Catton, Bruce, _The Centennial History of the Civil War_ (2 vols., 1962-63) ____, _Glory Road_ (1952) ____, _Mr. Lincoln's Army_ (1951) ____, _A Stillness At Appomattox_ (1953) ____, _This Hallowed Ground_ (1956) Commager, Henry S., ed., _The Blue and the Gray_ (2 vols., 1950) Coulter, E. Merton, _The Confederate States of America_, 1861-1865 (1950) Donald, David, _et al._, eds., _Divided We Fought_ (1952) ____, ed., _Why The North Won The Civil War_ (1960) Dowdey, Clifford, _The Land They Fought For_ (1955) Eaton, Clement, _A History of the Southern Confederacy_ (1954) Eisenschiml, Otto, and Newman, R. G., eds., _The American Iliad_ (1947) Foote, Shelby, _The Civil War_ (2 vols., 1958-63) Freeman, Douglas S., _Lee's Lieutenants_ (3 vols., 1942-44) Harwell, Richard, ed., _The Confederate Reader_ (1957) ____, ed., _The Union Reader_ (1958) Henry, Robert S., _The Story of the Confederacy_ (1931, 1936) Horn, Stanley F., _The Army of Tennessee_ (1941, 1953) Jones, Archer, _Confederate Strategy from Shiloh to Vicksburg_ (1961) Ketchum, Richard M., ed., _The American Heritage Picture Book of the Civil War_ (1960) Miller, Francis T., ed., _The Photographic History of the Civil War_ (10 vols., 1911, 1957) Monaghan, Jay, _The Civil War on the Western Border, 1864-1865_ (1955) Nevins, Allan, _The War For The Union_ (2 vols., 1959-60) Randall, James G., and Donald, David, _The Civil War and Reconstruction_ (1961) Williams, Kenneth P., _Lincoln Finds a General_ (5 vols., 1949-59)

(_Students should also consult bibliographies in the above works for additional readings._)

IV. LOSSES

More Americans died in the Civil War than in all of America's other wars combined. From the French and Indian wars of the 1750's through the hostilities in Korea in the 1950's (with the exception of the Civil War), 606,000 American soldiers died in the line of duty. In the Civil War alone, over 618,000 men perished in four years of fighting.

The North lost 360,022 soldiers. Of that number, 67,058 were killed in action, while 43,012 later died of battle wounds. A total of 275,175 Federals received wounds while fighting.

Accurate records do not exist for the Confederate side. The total number of Southern soldiers killed was approximately 258,000. About 94,000 were killed or fatally wounded in battle. No figures exist for the number of Confederates who were wounded in action.

Lord Alfred Tennyson's famous poem, "The Charge of the Light Brigade," tells of the assault of a British cavalry unit in the Crimean War. In its charge the Light Brigade sustained 37% losses. Yet at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863, the 1st Minnesota Infantry lost 82% of its strength in that day's fighting. At Antietam the 1st Texas suffered 82% casualties in a few hours of combat. The 27th Tennessee had 54% losses at Shiloh; six months later, the same regiment lost 53% of its remaining strength at the battle of Perryville. In all during the Civil War, no less than 63 Federal and 52 Confederate regiments lost over 50% of their strength _in a single engagement_.

Other statistics of the Civil War give an equally horrible picture. Over 400,000 soldiers died of sickness and disease. For every man killed in battle, two men died behind the lines from such maladies as smallpox, measles, pneumonia, and intestinal disorders. It is a sad fact that almost as many Federal soldiers (57,265) died of dysentery and diarrhea as were killed outright on the battlefield (67,058). Since conditions in Confederate armies were worse, the number of Southern deaths from sickness was probably higher.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Adams, George W., _Doctors in Blue_ (1952) Cunningham, H. H., _Doctors in Gray_ (1958) Fox, William F., _Regimental Losses in the American Civil War_ (1898) Livermore, Thomas L., _Numbers and Losses in the Civil War in America, 1861-1865_ (1900, 1956) Phisterer, Frederick, _Statistical Record of the Armies of the United States_ (1883)

V. NAVIES

Naval affairs were among the most critical problems facing each side in 1861. The Federal navy was woefully small and widely scattered. Moreover, the Confederate seacoast extended 3,500 miles from the Chesapeake Bay to the Mexican border. It contained hundreds of inlets, bays, and river openings. Not even a drastically enlarged Federal navy could patrol so vast a region.

Lincoln and his Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, soon devised an effective plan. The North would weaken the Confederacy by blockading its chief ports--Norfolk, New Bern, Wilmington, Beaufort, Charleston, Savannah, Pensacola, Mobile, New Orleans, and Galveston.

Lincoln accordingly proclaimed a blockade shortly after war began. Several months passed before Federal Squadrons could begin to enforce this blockade. Yet the Federal ring of ships became increasingly stronger as the war progressed. As a result, Federal forces were able to peck away at Southern coastal defenses.

In 1861 Union amphibious forces captured Fort Hatteras, N. C., and Port Royal, S. C. During the next year Roanoke Island, N. C., New Bern, N. C., Fort Pulaski, Ga., Fort Macon, N. C., New Orleans, La., and Pensacola, Fla., fell into Federal hands in that order. The Confederates rallied in 1863 and managed to hold their remaining coastal works, particularly Charleston, S. C.

Northern fleets continued to apply pressure all along the Southern coast. Two engagements marked the effectiveness of coastal attacks. On August 5, 1864, Admiral David Farragut--the greatest naval figure produced by the war--led his Federal squadron into mine-infested Mobile Bay with the battle cry: "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" Farragut so neutralized this last Confederate port on the Gulf of Mexico that its surrender was an anticlimax. Then, five months later, on January 15, 1865, Federal forces stormed and captured Fort Fisher, N. C., the last great Southern defense on the Atlantic coast.

Federal navies also saw much service on the Mississippi River. A wide assortment of Federal vessels campaigned against such Confederate strongholds as Memphis, Tenn., and Vicksburg, Miss. Some were little more than steamboats converted into warships by means of steel plating and deck guns. Others were sailing craft, with high decks and tall masts. One new type of gunboat made its appearance on the Mississippi: the steel ram. Designed by a civilian engineer, Charles Ellet, Jr., this little ship had great speed and maneuverability. Its principal weapon was a heavy prow, which was used to sink a ship by striking it broadside.

The Confederacy was born without a navy. Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory was never able to develop a fleet that could contest the ever-increasing Federal navy. Lack of funds, lack of shipbuilding facilities, and effective Northern diplomacy overseas restricted Confederate efforts to privateers, to blockade-running, and for the most part, to undertakings by individual ships.

Most of the twenty Confederate raiders achieved a measure of fame and success before they were destroyed. For example, the C.S.S. _Florida_, under Capt. John Newland Maffitt, captured thirty-four ships before she herself was seized in Brazil in 1864. The English-built _Alabama_, commanded by Capt. Raphael Semmes, compiled a more remarkable record. In two years on the high seas, the _Alabama_ took sixty-two prizes. On June 19, 1864, however, this Confederate vessel went to the bottom off the coast of France after an historic duel with the U.S.S. _Kearsage_. Captain James I. Waddell's steam raider, the _Shenandoah_, roamed the Pacific Ocean in quest of Federal game. Her crew bagged forty ships, including eight seized two months after the war on land had ended. On November 6, 1865, the _Shenandoah_ furled its Confederate colors in Liverpool, England.

The most famous Civil War contest between ships occurred March 9, 1862, in Hampton Roads, Va. The Confederates had raised from the bottom of Norfolk harbor the Federal warship, _Merrimac_. John Mercer Brooke and John L. Porter had then converted the craft into an ironclad vessel which the Confederates rechristened the _Virginia_. Sloping iron plates four inches thick protected her decks. The ironclad carried a battering ram weighing 1,500 pounds, plus ten guns. On March 8 the _Virginia_ steamed into Hampton Roads. She easily destroyed two wooden Federal warships and ran a third aground.

On the following day, however, the North came forward with a revolutionary weapon of its own. This was the _Monitor_, so weird-looking a craft that sailors referred to it as a "tin can on a shingle." The three-hour battle between the _Monitor_ and the _Virginia_ was a draw. Neither ship could pierce the plating of the other. Yet this indecisive battle caused a revolution in naval craft, for it foreshadowed the day when wooden ships would be obsolete.

Two months later, trapped in Hampton Roads, the _Virginia_ was run aground and destroyed. In December, 1862, the _Monitor_ went down in an Atlantic storm near the North Carolina coast.

The Confederates made several notable innovations in the field of naval warfare.

One was an ironclad ram that had the appearance and characteristics of a monster. This was the _Arkansas_, which the Confederates somehow put together in the summer of 1862 to combat Federal ships on the Mississippi. Constructed of wood, railroad rails, wire, and bits and pieces of iron collected from all over the South, the _Arkansas_ scattered several Federal gunboats, created panic on the Mississippi, and managed to survive a heavy Federal bombardment near Vicksburg.

At Baton Rouge, however, the ironclad's engines failed. The ram's commander, Lieutenant H. K. Stevens, ordered the helpless ship destroyed. The _Arkansas_ enjoyed only one month of action; yet Federal Admiral David Farragut called the end of the _Arkansas_ "one of the happiest moments of my life."

The Confederacy also had the first submarine of modern design. Built in 1863 at Mobile, the _H. L. Hunley_ was named for its inventor. In the process of its trial runs, the thirty-five-foot vessel sank four times and drowned as many crews. Nevertheless, the _Hunley_ was borne overland to Charleston, S. C., to campaign against a fleet of Federal blockaders. On the night of February 17, 1864, the little submarine torpedoed and sank the Federal warship, _Housatonic_. But the _Hunley_ and its fifth crew of seven men perished in the explosion.

In addition to the submarine, Confederates also developed the water mine and the torpedo boat. The latter was a small vessel, propelled by a steam engine. It drifted along the surface of the water and attacked enemy ships with a torpedo suspended from a long spar. The first of these torpedo boats, the _David_, appeared in Charleston harbor early in October, 1863, and seriously damaged the blockading warship, _New Ironsides_.