Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864», страница 15

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

A GREETING FOR THE NEW YEAR

We are at the close of the third year of the Secession War. It is customary to speak of the contest as having been inaugurated by the attack on Fort Sumter, April 12, 1861; but, in strictness, it was begun in December, 1860, when the Carolinians formally seceded from the Union, which was as much an act of war as that involved in firing upon the national flag that waved over the strongest of the Federal forts at Charleston. Even those who insist that there can be no war without the use of weapons must admit that the act of firing upon the Star of the West, which vessel was seeking to land men and stores at Sumter, was an overt act, and as significant of the purpose of the Secessionists as anything since done by them. That occurred in January, 1861; and because our Government did not choose to accept it as the beginning of those hostilities which had been resolved upon by the Southern ultras, it does not follow that men are bound to shut their eyes to the truth. But we all took the insults that were offered to the flag in President Buchanan's time as coolly as if that were the proper course of things, while the attack on Sumter had the same effect on us that the acknowledgment of the Pretender as King of Great Britain and Ireland by Louis XIV. had on the English. War was then promptly accepted, and has ever since been waged, with that various fortune which is known to all contests, and which will be so known while wars shall be known on earth,—in other words, while our planet shall be the abiding-place of men. We have had victories, and we have had defeats, which is the common lot; but, taken as a whole, we have but little reason to complain of results, if we compare our situation now with what it was at the close of 1862. Great things have been done in 1863, such as place the military result of the war beyond all doubt, and permitting us to hope for the early restoration of peace, provided the people shall furnish their Government with the human material necessary to inflict upon the enemy that grace stroke which shall put them out of their pain by putting an end to their existence; and that Government itself shall not be wanting in that energy, without which men and money are worse than useless in war,—for then they would be but wasted.

The year opened darkly for us; for not even the success of General Rosecrans on the well-contested field of Murfreesboro'—a success literally extorted from a brave and stubborn and skilful foe—could altogether compensate for the Union defeat at Fredericksburg, a defeat that gave additional force to the gloomy words of those grognards who had adopted the doctrine that it was impossible for the Army of the Potomac to accomplish anything worthy of its numbers, and of the position and purpose assigned to it in the war. Months rolled on, and little was done, the mere military losses and gains being not far from equally shared by the two parties; but that was positively a loss to the enemy, whose position it has been from the first, that they must have so large a proportion of the successes as should tend to encourage their people at home and their advocates abroad, and so compensate for their inferiority in numbers and in property. Nothing has tended more, all through the war, to show the vast difference in the parties to it, than the little effect which serious reverses have had on the Unionists in comparison with the effect of similar reverses on the Confederates. No blow that we have received—and many blows have been dealt upon us—has been followed by any loss of territory, any decrease of the means of warfare, or any diminution of our purpose to carry on the contest to the last piece of gold and the last greasy greenback. The enemy have taken of our men, our cannon, our stores, and our money, more than once, but not one of their victories produced any "fruit" beyond what was gleaned from the battle-field itself. Our victories, on the contrary, have been fruitful, as the position of our forces on the enemy's coast, and on much of their territory, and in many of their ports, most satisfactorily proves. As an English military critic said, the Rebels might gain battles, but all the solid advantages were with their opponents. A Union victory was so much achieved toward final and complete success; a Confederate victory only operated to postpone the subjugation of the Rebels for a few days, or perhaps weeks. We could afford to blunder, while they could not; and the prospect of the gallows made the brains of Davis and Lee uncommonly clear, and caused them to plan skilfully and to strike boldly, in order that they might get out and keep out of the road that leads to it,—the road to ruin.

The movement in April, under General Hooker, which led to the Battle of Chancellorsville, was a failure, and for some time the country was much depressed in consequence; but our failure, there and then, proved to be really a great gain. Had General Hooker succeeded in defeating General Lee in battle, the latter would, it is altogether probable, have succeeded in retreating to Richmond, behind the defences of which he would have held our forces at bay, and the Peninsular campaign of 1862 might have been repeated; for we had not men enough to render the capture of Richmond certain through the effect of regular and steady operations. The death of Stonewall Jackson, one of the incidents of the April advance, was a severe loss to the enemy, and promises to be as fatal to their cause as was that of Dundee to the hopes of the House of Stuart. General Lee's success was really fatal to him. It compelled him to make a movement in his turn, in June, and at Gettysburg we had ample compensation for Chancellorsville; and the capture of Morgan and his men, in Ohio, following hard upon Lee's retreat from Pennsylvania, put an end to all attempts at invasion on the part of the Rebels, while we continued to hold all that we had acquired of their territory, and soon added more of it to our previous acquisitions. At the same time that General Meade was disposing of the main Rebel army, General Grant was taking Vicksburg, and General Banks was triumphing at Port Hudson. Generals Pemberton and Gardner had defended those Southern strongholds with a skill and a gallantry that do them great credit, considering them merely as military operations; but the superior generalship of General Grant at and near Vicksburg compelled them to surrender, and to place in Union hands posts the possession of which was necessary to maintain the integrity of the Confederacy. General Grant's least merit was the taking of Vicksburg. The operations through the success of which he was enabled to shut up a large force of brave men in Vicksburg, and to cut them off from all hope of being relieved, were of the highest order of military excellence, and justly entitle him to be called a great soldier, and no man can be only a great soldier, for that intellectual rank implies in its possessor qualities that fit him for any department of his country's service. General Grant was admirably seconded and supported by his lieutenants and their subordinates and men, or he must have failed before such courageous and stubborn foes. He was also supported by the naval force commanded by Admiral Porter, whose heroic exploits and scientific services added new lustre to a name that already stood most high in our naval history. He commanded men worthy of himself and the service, and whose deeds must be ever remembered. General Banks and his associates were not less successful in their undertaking, and had been as well seconded as General Grant. The Mississippi was placed at our control, and the enemy were deprived of those supplies, both domestic and foreign, which they had drawn in so large quantities from the trans-Mississippi territory. Through Texas, which had contrived to keep up a great commerce, the supplies of foreign matériel had been very large; and from the same rich and extensive State came thousands of beeves, sheep, and hogs, that were consumed by Southern soldiers in Virginia and the Carolinas. Generals Grant and Banks put an end to this mode of supplying the Rebels with food and other articles; and at a later period the success of General Banks near the Rio Grande was hardly less useful in putting an end to much of the Texan foreign trade, whereby the Rebels beyond the Mississippi must find their powers to do mischief very materially lessened.

In the mean time, Charleston, whence rebellion had spread over the South, had been assailed by a large force, military and naval, commanded by General Gillmore and Rear-Admiral Dahlgren. General Gillmore had become famous as the captor of Fort Pulaski, under circumstances that had seemed to render success impossible; and hence it was expected that he would quickly take Charleston. It is not believed that that very able and modest officer ever said a word to give rise to the popular expectation. He knew the gravity of the task he had undertaken, and we believe, that, if all the facts connected therewith could be published, it would be found that he has accomplished all that he ever promised to do or expected to do. He has done much, and done it admirably; and not the least of the effects of his deeds is this,—that the report of his guns reached to Europe, and caused the intelligent military men of that dominating quarter of the world to doubt whether their respective countries were militarily prepared to support intervention, even if to intervention there existed no moral or political objections. He has demolished Sumter, and that fortress which was the scene of our first failure has ceased to exist. He has completed the blockade of Charleston, which was almost daily violated before he brought his batteries into play. We have the high authority of no less a personage than Mr. Jefferson Davis himself,—a gentleman who never "speaks out" when anything is to be made by reticence,—that Wilmington is now the only port left to the Confederacy; and this is the highest possible compliment that could be paid to the excellence of General Gillmore's operations, and to the value of his services. Since he arrived near Charleston, that port has been as hermetically sealed as Cronstadt in December; whereas, until he began his scientific and most useful labors, Charleston was one of the most flourishing seaports in the whole circle of commerce. As to the taking of Charleston, our opinion is, and has been from the first, that the history of the War of the American Revolution demonstrates that the Carolina city can be had only as the result of extensive land-operations, carried on by a power which has command of the sea. Sir Henry Clinton failed before the place in 1776, his attack being naval in its character; and he succeeded in taking it in 1780, when he had control of the main-land, and made his approaches regularly. Even after he had obtained command of the harbor, and Fort Moultrie had been first passed and then taken, and no American maritime force remained to oppose his fleet, he had to depend upon the action of his army for success. We fear that the event will prove that we can succeed at Charleston only by following Sir Henry's wise course. "The things which have been are the things which shall be."

Late in the summer, General Rosecrans resumed operations, and marched upon Chattanooga, while General Burnside moved into East Tennessee, and obtained possession of Knoxville. General Burnside's march was one of the most difficult ever made in war, and tasked the powers of his men to the utmost; but all difficulties were surmounted, and the loyal people of the country which he entered and regained were gladdened by seeing the national flag flying once more over their heads. Both these movements were at first brilliantly successful; but the enemy were impressed with the importance of the points taken or threatened by our forces, and they concentrated great masses of troops, in the hope of being able to defeat our armies, regain the territory lost, and transfer the seat of war far to the north. The Battle of Chickamauga was fought, and a portion of General Rosecrans's army was defeated, while another portion, under General Thomas, stubbornly maintained its ground, and inflicted great damage on the enemy. The effect of General Thomas's heroic resistance was, that the enemy's grand purpose was baffled. Their loss was so severe, and their men had been so roughly handled, that they could not advance farther, and the time thus gained was promptly turned to account, by General Rosecrans in the first instance, and by Government. The Union army was soon reorganized by its energetic leader, and placed in condition to make effectual resistance to the enemy, should they endeavor to advance. The Government's action was rapid and useful. General Grant was placed in immediate command of the army, which was largely reinforced, and preparations were quickly made for the resumption of offensive operations. In the mean time, General Bragg had sent General Longstreet to attack General Burnside; and as Longstreet has been looked upon, since the death of Jackson, as the best of the Rebel fighting generals, great hopes were entertained of his success. Apparently taking advantage of the absence of so large a body of Rebel troops under so good a leader, General Grant resumed the offensive on the twenty-third of November, and during three days' hard fighting inflicted upon General Bragg a series of defeats, in which Generals Thomas, Hooker, and Sherman were the active Union commanders. The Unionists were completely victorious at all points, taking several strong positions, forty-six pieces of cannon, five thousand muskets, valuable stores, and seven thousand prisoners, besides killing and wounding great numbers. All these successes were gained at a cost of only forty-five hundred men. The skill of General Grant and his lieutenants, and the valor of their troops, were signally displayed in these operations, the first assured intelligence of which reached the North in time to add to the pleasures of the National Thanksgiving, as the first news of Gettysburg had come to us on the Fourth of July.

The November victories put an end to all fear that the enemy might be able to carry out their original project, while it seemed to be certain that the scene of active operations would be transferred from East Tennessee to Northern Georgia. General Burnside still held Knoxville, and it was supposed that General Longstreet would find it difficult to escape destruction. General Bragg had retreated to Dalton, which is about a hundred miles from Atlanta, and is reported to have summoned General Longstreet to rejoin him. The Army of the Potomac, which had borne itself very gallantly in some of the autumnal operations consequent on Lee's advance, had followed the army commanded by this General when it retreated, inflicting on it considerable loss, and crossing the Rapid Ann.³

Victories have been gained by the Unionists in other quarters,—in Missouri, in Arkansas, in Louisiana, and in Mississippi,—whereby the enemy's numbers have been diminished, and territory brought under the Union flag that until recently was held by the Rebels, and from which they drew means of subsistence now no longer available to them.

The effects of all the successes which have been mentioned are various. We have deprived the enemy of extensive portions of territory, in most of their States. Tennessee is rescued; Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri are placed beyond all danger of being taken by the Rebels; in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas we hold places of much political and military importance; Mississippi is practically ours; Alabama yields little to our foe; Georgia is invaded, instead of remaining the basis of a grand attack on Tennessee and Kentucky; the Carolinas, greatly favored by geographical circumstances, are barely able to hold out against attacks that are not made in force, and portions of their territory are ours; Virginia is exhausted, and there the enemy cannot long remain, even should they meet with no reverses in the field; and, finally, as General Grant's successes at Vicksburg halved the Confederacy, so have his Chattanooga successes quartered it. The Rebels are no longer one people, but are divided into a number of communities, which cannot act together, even if we could suppose their populations to be animated by one spirit, which certainly they are not. Of the inhabitants of the original Confederacy probably two-fifths are no longer under the control of the Richmond Government; and of the remainder a very large proportion are said to be massed in Georgia, a State that has hitherto suffered little from the war, but which now seems about to become the scene of vast and important operations, which cannot be carried on without causing sweeping devastation. The public journals state that there are two million slaves in Georgia, most of whom have been taken or sent thither by their owners, inhabitants of other States. This must tend greatly to increase the difficulties of the enemy, whose stores of food and clothing are not large in any of the Atlantic or Gulf States.

Much stress has been placed on "the starvation-theory," and it is probable that there is much suffering in the Confederacy; but this does not proceed so much from the positive absence of food as from other causes. The first of these causes is undoubtedly the loss of all faith in the Southern currency. That currency has not yet fallen so low as the Continental currency fell, when it required a bushel of it to pay for a peck of potatoes, but it is at a terrible discount, and the day is fast coming when it will be regarded as of no more value than so many pieces of brown paper; and its depreciation, and the prospect of its soon becoming utterly worthless, are among the chief consequences of the triumphs of our arms. Men see that there will be no power to make payment, and they will not part with their property for rags so rotten. They may wish success to the Confederate cause, but "they must live," and live they cannot on paper that is nothing but paper. The journal that is understood to speak for Mr. Davis recommends a forced loan, the last resort of men the last days of whose power are near at hand. Another cause of the scarcity of food in the South is to be found in the condition of Southern communications. If all the food in the Confederacy could be equally distributed, now and hereafter, we doubt not that every person living there would get enough to eat, and even have something to spare,—civilians as well as soldiers, blacks as well as whites; but no such distribution is possible, because there are but indifferent means for the conveyance of food from places where it is abundant to places where famine's ascendency is becoming established. The Southern railways have been terribly worked for three years, and are now worn out, with no hope of their rails and rolling-stock being renewed. Our troops have rendered hundreds of miles of those ways useless, and they have possession of other lines. Southern harbors and rivers are held or commanded by Northern ships or armies. The Mississippi, which was once so useful to the Rebels, has, now that we control it, become a "big ditch," separating their armies from their principal source of supply. It is that "last ditch" in which they are to die. That wide extent of Southern territory, which has so often been mentioned at home and abroad as presenting the leading reason why we never could conquer the Rebels, now works against them, and in our favor. Food may be abundant to wastefulness in some States, while in others people may be dying for the want of it. The Secessionists are now situated as most peoples used to be, before good roads became common. The South is becoming reduced to that state which was known to some parts of England before that country had made for itself the best roads of Christendom, and when there would be starvation in one parish, while perhaps in the next the fruits of the earth were rotting on its surface, because there were no means of getting them to market. With a currency so debased that no man will willingly take it, while all men readily take Union greenbacks,—with railways either worn out or held by foes,—with but one harbor this side of the Mississippi that is not closely shut up, and that harbor in course of becoming closed completely,—with their rivers furnishing means for attack, instead of lines of defence,—with their territory and numbers daily decreasing,—with defeat overtaking their armies on almost every field,—with the expressed determination of the North to prosecute the war, be the consequences what they may,—with the constant increase of Union numbers,—and with the steady refusal of foreign powers to recognize the Confederacy, or to afford it any countenance or open assistance,—the Rebels must be infatuated, and determined to provoke destruction, if they do not soon make overtures for peace.

It is all very well for the "chivalrous classes" at the South, whoever they may happen to be, to talk about "dying in the last ditch," and of imitating the action of Pelayo and his friends; but common folk like to die in their beds, and to receive the inevitable visitant with decorum, to an exhibition of which ditches are decidedly unfavorable. As to Pelayo, he lived in an age in which there were neither railways nor rifled cannon, neither steamships nor Parrott guns, neither Monitors nor greenbacks,—else he and his would either have been routed out of the Asturian Mountains, or have been compelled to remain there forever. The conditions of modern life and society are highly unfavorable to those heroic modes of resistance and existence in which alone gentlemen of Pelayo's pursuits can hope to flourish. We Saracens of the North would ask nothing better than to have Pelayo Davis lead all his valiant ragamuffins into the strongest range of mountains that could be found in all Secessia, there to establish the new Kingdom of Gijon. We should deserve the worst that could befall us, if we failed to vindicate the common American idea, that this country is no place for lovers of crowns and kingdoms.

As to the guerrillas, we know that they are an exasperating set of fellows, but they must soon disappear before the advance of the Union armies. A guerrillade on an extensive scale and of long continuance is possible only while it is supported by the presence of large and successful regular armies. Had Wellington been driven out of the Peninsula, the Spanish guerrillas would have given little trouble to the intrusive French king at Madrid. Defeat Lee, and Mosby will vanish. After all, the Southern guerrillas are not much worse than other Southrons were at no very remote period. It is within the memory of even middle-aged persons, that the southwestern portion of our country was in as lawless a state as ever were the borders of England and Scotland, and with no Belted Will to hang up ruffians to swing in the wind. As those ruffians were mostly removed by time, and the scenes of their labors became the seats of prosperous and well-ordered communities, so will the guerrillas of to-day be made to give way by that inexorable reformer and avenger. Order will once more prevail in the Southwest, and cotton, tobacco, and rice again yield their increase to regular industry,—an industry that shall be all the more productive, because exercised by free men.

The political incidents of 1863 are as encouraging as the incidents of war. The discontent that existed toward the close of 1862—a discontent by no means groundless—led to the apparent defeat of the war-party in many States, and to the decrease of its strength in others. But it was an illogical conclusion that the people were dissatisfied with the war, when they only meant to express their dissatisfaction with the manner in which it was conducted. Their votes in 1863 truly expressed their feeling. In every State but New Jersey the war-party was successful, its majority in Ohio being 100,000, in New York 30,000, in Pennsylvania 15,000, in Massachusetts, 40,000, in Iowa 32,000, in Maine 22,000, in California 20,000. And so on throughout the country. The popular voice is still for war, but for war boldly, and therefore wisely, waged.

The improvement that has taken place in our foreign relations is even greater than that which has come over our domestic affairs; and for the first time since the opening of the civil war, it is possible for Americans to say that there is every reason for believing that they are to be left to settle their own affairs according to their own ideas as to the fitness of things. This change, like all important changes in human affairs, is due to a variety of causes. In part it is owing to what we considered to be among our greatest misfortunes, and in part to those successes which changed the condition of affairs. Our failure at Fredericksburg, at the close of 1862, strengthened the general European impression that the Rebels were to succeed; and as their defeat at Murfreesboro was not followed by an advance of our forces, that impression was not weakened by General Bragg's failure, though that was more signal than was the failure of General Burnside. If the Rebels were to succeed, why should European governments do anything in aid of their cause, at the hazard of war with us? Our defeat at Chancellorsville, last May, tended still further to strengthen foreign belief that the Secessionists were to be the winning party, and that they were competent to do all their own work; but if it had not soon been followed by signal reverses to the Rebel arms, it is certain that the Confederacy would have been acknowledged by most European nations, on the plausible ground that its existence had been established on the battle-field, and that we could not object to the admission of a self-evident fact by foreign sovereigns and statesmen, who were bound to look after the welfare of their own subjects and countrymen, whose interests were greatly concerned with the trade of our Southern country. Fortunately for all parties but the Rebels, those reverses came suddenly and with such emphasis as to create serious doubts in the European mind as to the superiority of the South as a fighting community. In an evil hour for his cause, General Lee abandoned that wise defensive system to which he had so long and so successfully adhered, and made a movement into the Free States. What was the immediate cause of his change of proceeding will probably never be accurately known to the existing generation. On the face of things no good political reason appears for that change being made; and on military grounds it was sure to lead to disaster, unless the North had become the most craven of countries. So bad was Lee's advance into the North, militarily speaking, that it would have been the part of good policy to allow him to march without resistance to a point at least a hundred miles beyond that field on which he was to find his fate. A Gettysburg that should have been fought that distance from the base of Southern operations could have had no other result than the destruction of the main Southern army; and that occurring at about the same time that Port Hudson and Vicksburg surrendered, the war could have been ended by a series of thunder-strokes. Not a man of Lee's army could have escaped. But the pride of the country prevented the adoption of a course that promised the most splendid of successes, and compelled our Government and our commander to forego the noblest opportunity that had presented itself to effect the enemy's annihilation. Gettysburg was made immortal, and Lee escaped, not without tremendous losses, yet with the larger part of his army, and with much booty, that perhaps compensated his own loss in matériel. He was beaten, on a field of his own choosing, and with numbers in his favor; and his previous victories, the almost uniform success that had attended his earlier movements, made his Pennsylvania reverses all the more grave in the estimation of foreigners. Immediately after news was sent abroad of his defeat and retreat, tidings came to us, and soon were spread over the world, that the Rebels had experienced the most terrible disasters in the Southwest, whereby the so-called Confederacy had been cut in two. These facts gave pause to those intentions of acknowledgment which had undoubtedly been entertained in European courts and cabinets; and nothing afterward occurred, down to the day of Chickamauga, which was calculated to effect a change in the minds of the rulers of the Old World. But when intelligence of Chickamauga reached Europe, England had taken a position so determinedly hostile to intervention in any of its many forms and stages that even a much greater disaster than that could have produced no evil to our cause abroad. For it is to be remembered that the whole business of intervention has lain from the beginning in the bosom of England, and that, if she had chosen to act against us in force, she could have done so with the strongest hope of success, if merely our humiliation, or even our destruction, had been her object, and without any immediate danger threatening herself as the consequence of her hostile action. The French Government, not France, or any considerable portion of the French people, has been ready to interfere in behalf of the Rebels for more than two years, and would have entered upon the process of intervention long since, if it had not been held back by the obstinate refusal of England to unite with her in that pro-slavery crusade which, it is with regret we say it, the French Emperor has so much at heart; and without the aid and assistance of England, the ruler of France could not and durst not move an inch against us. Not the least, nor least strange, of the changes of this mutable world is to be seen in the circumstance that France should be restrained from undoing the work of the Bourbons and of Napoleon I. by England's firm opposition to the wishes and purposes of Napoleon III. The Bourbon policy, as well in Spain as in France, brought about the early overthrow of England's rule over the territory of the old United States; and the first Napoleon sold Louisiana to us for a song, because he was convinced, that, by so doing, he should aid to build up a formidable naval rival of England. The man who seeks to undo all this, to destroy what Bourbon and Bonaparte sacrificed so much to effect, is the heir of Bonaparte, and the expounder and illustrator of Napoleon's ideas; and the power that places herself resolutely across his path, and will not join in his plot to erase us from the list of nations is—England! In a romance such a state of things would be pronounced too absurd for invention; but in this every-day world it is nothing but a commonplace incident, extraordinary as it may seem at the first thought that is bestowed upon it.