CHAPTER XLV

THE BATTLES IN THE WILDERNESS

With the coming of May, 1864, the two great commanding geniuses of the War--Lee and Grant--met each other in conflict. The exact forces commanded by each have never been ascertained. But the estimates of the various writers on the subject, North and South, do not differ sufficiently, to make their differences of much consequence. In round numbers Lee had, on the Rapidan, about 66,000 men. The army with which Grant opposed him numbered approximately 120,000. These estimates do not include either the Confederate forces defending Richmond and Petersburg on the one hand, or Butler's strong army south of the James on the other. Lee had called Longstreet back from the region of Atlanta, and had thus in effect massed all the force that he could hope to employ in that campaign. With this force substantially half as large as that of his adversary, he determined to accept Grant's offer of battle in the field. To that end he moved his army on the second of May to the western edge of that peculiar region known as the Wilderness. There he awaited the coming of Grant.

This Wilderness, it should be explained, is a region of peculiar difficulty by reason of the tangled mass of second growths which have replaced the original forest, cut away a century or more ago as fuel for iron works. In extent the region is about a dozen miles wide in either direction. It borders the Rapidan, and extends to the open country in front of Chancellorsville, where the battle of that name had been fought a year before.

At midnight on the third of May the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan on five pontoon bridges, and marched at once into the Wilderness, where it remained during the whole of the fourth in order that its enormous train of 4,000 wagons and the reserve artillery of more than 100 guns might be protected in their passage across the river. It was Grant's hope to move by his left flank, out of the Wilderness, passing around his enemy, and placing himself with all his force between that enemy and the Confederate capital. But with that promptitude which was characteristic of all his operations, Lee anticipated this movement and struck at Grant's flank early on the morning of the fifth.

The assault was made in the midst of the Wilderness--in a thicket so dense that it was impossible at many points for the men on one side to see those on the other, a hundred feet away. Every forward or backward movement involved a struggle through a tangle of vines and underbrush and young forest growths so thickly standing as to render all progress difficult, and all regularity of formation impossible. On either side no corps or regiment or company could know what its own friends were doing on its right or its left; no officer could tell whether he was being supported on his flank or had been abandoned there; no steadiness or cohesion was possible. No alignment could be maintained. It is doubtful to-day that any officer on either side in that struggle, from Grant and Lee at the top to the smallest commander at the other end of the line, ever had a clear-cut idea of the course that that day's fighting took. It consisted of a series of irregular assaults made with desperate valor, and repelled with equal determination. It resembled nothing so much as a battle in the dark, the one thing which all commanders most dread, and most sedulously avoid.

Very naturally the fighting was at short range at every point. Scarcely anywhere on that tangled field did the opposing forces discover each other's positions until they came within short pistol-shot range. The slaughter was therefore tremendous and at no time could either commanding general fully satisfy himself as to how the battle was going or what its result was likely to be or even what his own or the enemy's position was.

The two greatest fighting machines that America has yet produced had met in battle, in the midst of such a maze of tangled growths as nowhere else exists except in marshes where such a meeting is impossible by reason of a lack of firm ground for the men to stand upon. Here at least, there was firm ground.

Grant had not expected to encounter his enemy here. He had supposed that Lee would move out of the Wilderness and choose more favorable ground upon which to receive the assaults of his enemy. Accordingly, the Federal commander had already pushed a part of his army under Hancock toward the edge of the Wilderness, hoping by a rapid march to place it between the Confederate army and the Confederate capital. No sooner, however, was Lee's assault developed than Grant saw clearly that he must fight a determined battle here on this most unsuitable ground. Lee had decided this in the obvious expectation of finding Grant unready. But readiness under all circumstances was a part and an important part of Grant's character and intellectual make-up. It was his habit of mind to take things as he found them and to do the best he could in every case. He hurriedly called Hancock back and accepted battle in the jungle.

The fighting was desperate throughout the day, and at the day's end no decisive advantage rested with either party. Lee had been fighting with only a part of his army, for the reason that Longstreet with that first corps upon which Lee always relied for the more desperate work of war did not reach position in time to take part in the struggle of that day.

At nightfall it was obvious that the contest must be resumed in the morning and indeed, each of the great commanders intended that it should be, each planning to strike first if possible. In preparation for the coming morning's work both sides spent the night in diligent fortifying with such means as were at hand.

Grant ordered an assault all along the line to be made at five o'clock in the morning. Lee, still more alert, struck out with his left an hour earlier. He was still weak on his right wing, for lack of Longstreet, who had not yet come up. Grant, recognizing this fact, planned to hurl Hancock upon the Confederate right at the appointed hour of five o'clock in the morning. By an adroit handling of Rosser's cavalry, the Confederates managed to deceive Hancock into the belief that Longstreet was making a flank movement against the Federal left, similar to those which Jackson had made with such destructive effect in former battles. To meet this and to avoid a disaster like that which had befallen Hooker at Chancellorsville, Hancock promptly detached a considerable part of his force, and sent it to his left, thus weakening his column of attack.

Nevertheless he struck hard enough to drive back the weak Confederate right for more than a mile. Then Longstreet, who had undertaken no such flanking expedition as that which Hancock had supposed, came up and threw his veterans precipitately upon his foe.

These two--Longstreet and Hancock--were both old fighters and very stubborn ones, and they had under their command the very best men there were in their respective armies. When they met in direct conflict at close quarters, therefore, the fighting was as obstinate as any that had yet occurred on any field since the beginning of the war.

Hancock was driven back and the losses on both sides were great, including a conspicuously large loss of officers from the lowest to the highest grade. General Wadsworth on the Federal side, and General Jenkins on the Confederate, were killed, and Longstreet himself was shot through the neck and shoulder so that he had to be carried from the field.

Having thus lost his great lieutenant, General Lee went to that quarter of the field and took personal command in Longstreet's place. It was then that one of the most picturesque incidents of the war occurred. Impressed with the desperate necessity of carrying a certain peculiarly difficult position, General Lee seized the colors of a Texas regiment and undertook to lead the perilous assault in person. The troops loudly protested against such an exposure of their beloved general to danger, and the Texas colonel, in behalf of his men and amid their applause, solemnly promised that they would carry the point at all costs and all hazards if Lee would go to the rear. Finally, Lee's bridle rein was seized, and he was forcibly taken to the rear, while the Texans advanced to the charge with the battle cry of "Lee to the rear!" upon their lips. The incident has been exquisitely celebrated in song by the poet John R. Thompson.

Under inspiration of this incident, the Confederates made an assault of desperate determination, and at one point broke through the Federal lines. They captured the position for the recovery of which Lee had sought to sacrifice himself, but the result was achieved at tremendous cost of life, and their further efforts to dislodge Hancock were bloodily repelled.

By some means--probably by reason of the fierce firing on either side--a forest fire now broke out in Hancock's front, and the flames quickly communicated themselves to the log revetments of his fortifications. The heat and the smoke forced the Federals to retreat, fighting as they went against the Confederates who pursued them with fury. Sadly enough, besides the dead there were large numbers of wounded men, both Federal and Confederate, lying among the burning bushes and underbrush of that mile-wide stretch of wilderness over which the flames swept. Here misfortune and sheer accident wantonly added to the necessary horrors of war another horror not contemplated or intended by either commander although that, like all other risks of battle, is included in the contract which the soldier makes with his country. These men, wounded and helpless as they lay amid the flames that circled and enwrapped them, must have realized as nobody unaccustomed to the horrors of war can, the truth of Sherman's statement that "war is all hell."

Night ended the struggle, and the men on both sides retired to their entrenchments to await the events of the morrow. On neither side was there the least suggestion of demoralization or of shrinking from the work that was yet to be done. On neither side were there skulkers in the rear as there had been at Manassas, at Shiloh and at nearly every other great battle of an earlier time. The volunteers who composed the armies of the Potomac and Northern Virginia were real soldiers now, inured to war, and desperate in their determination to do its work with out faltering or failure. This fact--this change in the temper and morale of the men on either side--had greatly simplified the tasks set for Grant and Lee to solve. They knew their men. They knew that those men would stand against anything, endure slaughter without flinching, hardship without complaining, and make desperate endeavor without shrinking. The two armies had become what they had not been earlier in the contest, perfect instruments of war, that could be relied upon as confidently as the machinist relies upon his engine scheduled to make so many revolutions per minute at a given rate of horse power, and with the precision of science itself.

It will be remembered that as Jefferson Davis approached the battlefield of Manassas, where the Confederates had won a conspicuous victory, the multitude of panic-stricken fugitives through whom he passed was such as to convince him that Beauregard had been disastrously defeated. It will be remembered that at Shiloh when Grant made his way to the front he was appalled by the presence under shelter of the river banks of a multitude of fugitives, demoralized and panic-stricken, who ought to have been at the front lying on their bellies and firing at the enemy. Nothing of the kind occurred on either side at the Wilderness. The war school had perfectly educated its pupils.

The losses in these two days of fighting in the Wilderness have never been accurately ascertained, and never will be. The best estimates fix them at about 15,000 or 16,000 men on either side. These losses included, as has already been said, a remarkable number of officers of high grade on both sides. Nothing could be more significant than this of the determination with which the battle was fought.

In the strictest sense of the military term this had been a drawn battle. Neither side had overcome the other and neither had driven the other into retreat. Yet each side has claimed it as a victory upon grounds which are logical enough in themselves. The Confederates held that by checking Grant and baffling his plan of marching out of the Wilderness, and forcing Lee to a fight in the open, they had accomplished a very distinct victory. The Federals held, that, as they had succeeded in placing their army securely south of the Rapidan and in a position to carry on a further campaign, and that as they had not been so far damaged in the fight as to feel themselves under compulsion of retreat, they were entitled to regard the general result of the two days' fight as a victory for themselves.

There is no doubt whatever that at the end of this struggle the Confederates expected Grant to retire to the northern side of the river, as all his predecessors had done after similar conflicts. When the next morning dawned and Grant still stood firm in their front they were astonished to find him there. Among the men no explanation of his continued presence in the wilderness was forthcoming. In the mind of Lee there was an explanation ready and sufficient. The great Confederate general is reported to have said to his staff on that morning, "Gentleman, at last the Army of the Potomac has a head."