After stating that much alarm and insecurity continued to be manifested in Kentucky, and also Tennessee, the Secretary added: ** * General Boyle on his own authority has been ordering troops from Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois for Nashville, at the instance, he says, of General Dumont. General Morgan has also been telegraphing daily about the greatly superior forces of the enemy threatening him, although at his request he was also authorized to raise recruits. We have no knowledge of his strength. Under these circumstances I would be glad to hear from you your opinion of the actual state of affairs and the condition and strength of the forces in Kentucky and Tennessee. a As all the territory in which General Boyle was operating, had belonged to the Department of the Mississippi since the 11th of March, the duty of regulating affairs in Kentucky and Tennessee, all of which States had been added to the department, manifestly devolved upon General Halleck, but the despatch set him completely aside. Addressed to his subordinate, the despatch concluded: * * * You are at liberty to intrust the command in both States to whomsoever you may deen best qualified to meet the present emergencies. The President is anxious to have speedily some definite information from you on these subjects. The fatal three months were now drawing to a close. It will be remembered that from the moment the President consented to reduce the Army of the Potomac, till its commander was finally relieved, the latter never proved false to the principle of military concentration. His enemies accused him of making a war of positions, but seeing further than them all, he designated what four years of war finally proved, that Richmond was the head and heart of the Rebellion. He knew that to take it-whether North of the James River or, as indicated in his despatches, South of the Appomattox-involved the overthrow of the main Confederate army. To defend it as their political capital, he knew they would bring every man East of the Alleghenies. To make sure of their defeat, he urged the Government, as the only safe course, to send him every man at its disposal. He finally suggested that troops be brought from the West, but his despatches produced no effect till too late, when all chance of reenforcing him was gone. June 26, after a demonstration by 16,000 men had neutralized 60,000 troops in the military departments around Washington, the Confederates began the first of the Seven Days' battles. Two days after, June 28, the Secretary of War telegraphed General Halleck: The enemy has concentrated in such force at Richmond, as to render it absolutely necessary in the opinion of the President, for you immediately to detach 25,000 of your force and forward it by the nearest and quickest way, by way of Baltimore and Washington, to Richmond." It is believed that the quickest route would be by way of Columbus, Kehtucky, and up the Ohio River. But in detaching your force, the President directs that it be done in such way as to enable you to hold your ground and not interfere with the movement against Chattanooga and East Tennessee. * * * * * The direction to send these forces immediately, is rendered imperative by a serious reverse suffered by General McClellan before Richmond yesterday, the full extent of which is not yet known.c * * * June 30, the fate of the Army of the Potomac being still unknown, the President-uncertain how to act-telegraphed General Halleck: Would be very glad of 25,000 infantry; no artillery or cavalry; but please do not a Scott's Despatches, p. 18. Scott's Despatches, pp. 18, 19. send a man if it endangers any place you deem important to hold, or if it forces you to give up or weaken or delay the expedition against Chattanooga. a * * * The occupation of East Tennessee had now taken possession of the mind of the President, to the exclusion of every other consideration. To him and his advisers, Richmond, around which two armies were con tending in battle, seemed a mere geographical point, destitute of military and political value. As evidence of so remarkable a fact, and as tending to explain why no weight was given to the argument of the commander of the Army of the Potomac, the President, in concluding his despatch to General Halleck, stated: To take and hold the railroad at or East of Cleveland, in East Tennessee, I think fully as important as the taking and holding of Richmond. The importance of East Tennessee, and its value as compared with Richmond, was pressed upon General Halleck in another despatch of June 30. The Secretary of War telegraphed: The Chattanooga expedition must not on any account be given up. The President regards that and the movement against East Tennessee as one of the most important movements of the war, and its occupation nearly as important as the capture of Richmond.b Unable to comprehend the difficulty of supplying troops, with all the railroads and bridges destroyed, the idea still prevailed at Washington that an army ought to move as the crow flies. Referring to the President, the despatch concluded: * * * He is not pleased with the tardiness of the movements toward Chattanooga, and directs that no force be sent here if you cannot do it without breaking up the operations against that point and East Tennessee.c July 1, General Halleck replied to the Secretary of War: * * * If order had been carried out we should have been either defeated or forced to retreat. No forces can be spared at present. The enemy is apparently preparing to make an attack, and his guerrillas have already done us considerable damage. July 2, the day after the battle of Malvern Hill, the President again expressed a wish for more troops. He telegraphed General Halleck (still at Corinth): Your several despatches of yesterday to Secretary of War and myself received. I did say and now repeat I would be exceedingly glad for some reenforcements from you; still, do not send a man if, in your judgment, it will endanger any point you deem important to hold, or will force you to give up or weaken or delay the Chattanooga expedition. * * * e Probably wearied with the responsibility of command, he also added: Please tell me, could you make a flying visit for consultation without endangering the service of your department? July 4, made uneasy by the concentration of Confederate troops in a Scott's Despatches, p. 24. b Scott's Despatches, pp. 24, 25. c Scott's Despatches, p. 28. d The alarm of General Halleck was not without reason. The 1st of June his forces at Corinth exceeded 100,000 men. By July 1 he had reduced it to barely a sufficient garrison. e Scott's Despatches, p. 29. Virginia and the battles around Richmond, the President again telegraphed General Halleck: You do not know how much you would oblige us if, without abandoning any of your positions or plans, you could promptly send us even 10,000 infantry. Can you not? Some part of the Corinth army is certainly fighting McClellan in front of Richmond. Prisoners are in our hands from the late Corinth army." July 5, General Halleck practically settled the question of sending troops to Virginia. Beginning with allusion to secret organizations to aid the enemy in Tennessee, he telegraphed the President: * * * Every commanding officer from Nashville to Memphis has asked for reenforcements. Under these circumstances I submitted the question of sending troops to Richmond to the principal officers of my command. They are unanimous in opinion that if this army is seriously diminished the Chattanooga expedition must be revoked or the hope of holding Southwest Tennessee abandoned. I must earnestly protest against surrendering what has cost us so much blood and treasure, and which, in a military point of view, is worth three Richmonds. It will be infinitely better to withdraw troops from the Shenandoah Valley, which at this time has no strategetic importance *.6 * * Evidence has already been presented in the review of Eastern operations, that after the removal of the General in Chief the President never gave an order for the movement of troops, without first consulting the Secretary of War or some member of his military council. It has also appeared that as soon as it was discovered there was no military head to our armies, everyone in high station had a plan of campaign. Everything was weighed in a political balance. People were deferred to less from their wisdom than from their power. There was a charm in mingling in the war councils of the nation-an ambition to share the credit in military achievements. Of all the persons admitted to the confidence of the President and his Cabinet, the members of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War were the most active and officious. They early disclosed their purpose to withdraw the Army of the Potomac from the Peninsula, and within less than a month the fatal order was given. In the West, as seen from the telegram to General Buell, a Congressional delegation could create new commands and on the least alarm, cause troops to be rushed hurriedly from one State to another. This was not in violation, but in harmony with the system. As throwing light on the question whether civilians can command or combine the operations of the armies, the despatches sent to General Halleck disclosed two remarkable facts. The first was that at the moment the fate of the Union hung on the fate of the Army of the Potomac, neither the President nor the Secretary of War would assume the responsibility of ordering troops to Virginia, but left the question to be decided by a general, hundreds of miles away from the scene of action. The second was that they attached the same importance to the occupation of a railroad junction in East Tennessee, as to the capture of the Confederate capital. Another letter from the President to General Halleck, dated the 6th of July, shows to what capricious influences military operations were exposed, up to the close of his three months' command. The letter stated: This introduces Governor William Sprague, of Rhode Island. He is now governor for the third time and Senator-elect of the United States. I know the object of his visit to you. He has my cheerful consent to go, but not my direction. He wishes a Scott's Despatches, p. 36. to get you and part of your force, one or both, to come here. You already know I should be exceedingly glad of this, if in your judgment it could be without endangering positions and operations in the Southwest, and I now repeat what I have more than once said by telegraph, "Do not come or send a man if in your judgment it will endanger any point you deem important to hold, or endangers or delays the Chattanooga expedition.' Still, please give my friend, Governor Sprague, a full and fair hearing." The mission of Governor Sprague was profitable only in advice, but this advice was worth his journey. Coinciding with the urgent recommendations made by the commander of the Army of the Potomac, from the date of McDowell's detachment to the beginning of the Seven Day's Battles, General Halleck on the 10th replied: Governor Sprague is here. If I were to go to Washington I could advise but one thing: To place all the forces in North Carolina, Virginia, and Washington under one head, and hold that head responsible for the result. Three days before this despatch was received, General McClellan, waiving all claim to the position himself, urged the President to appoint a General in Chief. The President yielded, and on the 11th of July, General Halleck was summoned to the duties of the office. From this time to the end of the year, the review of military operations in the West may be brief. Pursuant to the dispositions made by the commander before leaving his department, the troops toward the end of August were scattered from Helena in the West, to Cumberland Gap in the East, a distance of over 400 miles. Weak at every part of our line, there was no point that did not invite an attack. The enemy chose the extreme left, and moving late in August with three corps between Chattanooga and Cumberland Gap, he pushed boldly toward Lexington and Cincinnati, and the 25th of September, saw the Army of the Ohio back at Louisville, Kentucky.c Consenting to take a place in the military council of the Secretary of War, and to execute the predetermined plan to withdraw the Army of the Potomac from the Peninsula, the new General in Chief and the country were amazed to find, as the logical result of three months' War Department strategy, that the enemy in the West as well as the East, had been able to regain nearly all the territory he had lost since the beginning of the war. His triumph, however, was but short. Reenforced by 30,000 men, the Army of the Ohio, as has already been related, moved forward on the 1st of October, and on the 8th, fought the Battle of Perryville. Thence pursuing the enemy toward Cumberland Gap, it changed commanders, and turning Westward under General Rosecrans, proceeded through Nashville 30 miles Southward, where on the closing days of the year, it met and defeated the enemy in the battle of Murfreesboro, on Stone River. The Army of the Tennessee in the meantime defeated the enemy at Corinth, on October 3 and 4, after which, advancing toward Grenada and Jackson, till its communications were severed, it returned to Memphis and began a second movement against Vicksburg along the levees of the Mississippi. a Scott's Despatches, pp. 30, 31. Scott's Despatches, p. 33. General Buell estimated the enemy's force at 60,000 effectives. See despatch from Buell to Halleck, Frank Moore's Rebellion Record, date of September 25, 1862.-EDITORS. 932°-17 - 26 CHAPTER XXVII. INFLUENCE OF THE STATES IN DEPLETING OUR ARMIES. No sooner was the Army of 1861 organized and equipped, than the governors began to take back with one hand what they had given with the other. This was the result of our system, rather than of deliberate design. In all foreign wars, as well as civil commotions greater than a riot or insurrection, the Constitution intended the Government should raise and support" its own armies, but Congress thought differently. STATE HOSPITALS. In the hasty legislation of 1861, it enacted that the Government should support its armies, but their organization, on the confederate principles, it turned over to the States. The recruitment and subsistence of the new levies till they were mustered into service, naturally carried with it the care of the sick. To meet this necessity, State and private hospitals sprang up in nearly all large cities. As partial compensation, General Orders, No. 47, of April 26, 1862, directed: When the care of sick and wounded soldiers is assumed by the States from which they come, the Subsistence Department will commute their ration at 25 cents. The maintenance of these hospitals soon became a burden to the States, but, instead of urging they be discontinued, the governors demanded that they be transferred to the Government, or that "United States General Hospitals" be established in their places. General Crane, then Assistant Surgeon-General, states: * * Many hospitals were established under State auspices and were apparently transferred to the General Government by common consent. * The governors and surgeons-general of States found these hospitals too costly and were anxious to transfer. The transfer, General Crane further states, took place about June, 1862. In regard to the policy of establishing the General Hospitals, Dr. Jos. R. Smith, surgeon, U. S. Army, who in 1862 acted in the capacity of Assistant Surgeon-General, states: The governors of the different States did not ask for State hospitals in the sense of hospitals supported and controlled by the individual States, but they did ask for the establishment of United States general hospitals at different places within their States, and further, asked that the sick soldiers from the different States be sent for treatment to the hospitals in those States, and this, irrespective of distance, expense, or convenience. It was the natural feeling that the sick citizen soldier should desire to go to his home, relatives, and friends for care and nursing during a tedious convalescence, and that friends and relatives should desire to have him. It was the policy, always, of the Surgeon-General to comply with this sentiment, as far as the public interest would permit. |