CHAPTER XXVI. CAMPAIGN OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC UNDER GENERAL GRANT. ON the 4th May, 1864, the Army of the Potomac moved out from Culpepper, and that of the Cumberland from Chattanooga, on their respective campaigns; while, about the same time, General Banks moved upon his unfortunate expedition up the Red river. The original plan of the campaign of the Army of the Potomac. The original plan of the campaign for the army first designated was the following. The corps of General Burnside, about 40,000 strong, was to be conveyed by water from Anapolis to Fortress Monroe, and incorporated with that of General Butler, an army quite 60,000 strong being thus organized in that vicinity. When Grant should move out from Culpepper, Butler, with his army of 60,000 men, was to land at Bermuda Hundred and seize Petersburg, on the one hand, and all Lee's communications south of James river, and Richmond if possible, on the other. This plan, it will be at once perceived, is an exact copy of the one we laid before the President and other leading minds in Washington, in January, 1863,—a plan fully approved at the time by the corps commanders of the Army of the Potomac, and, as we have been informed, by General Butler, who had then returned from New Orleans. It was General Butler, as we have also been informed, who submitted the plan to General Grant and secured its adoption by him. Had the plan, as originally projected, been carried out, and especially with the addition of 10,000 or 20,000 men, brought up from the Carolinas and sent down from Washington, which could have been done as well as not, it would have been, most obviously, the grand movement of the war, and would soon have ended the Eastern Campaign, by the capture of Lee's army, of Richmond, and the ready conquest of Virginia and the Carolinas. Just before he was ready to move, however, Grant ordered Burnside to move from Anapolis to the vicinity of Culpepper, and at the same time issued an absolute order to Butler to land with 20,000 men at Bermuda Hundred, and accomplish, or attempt the accomplishment of, the great flank movement above indicated. General Butler did move as commanded, and seized the railroad between Petersburg and Richmond, and in his despatches affirmed himself able to hold the advantage he had gained. The nation received the intelligence with ecstatic joy, and inferred from it the great success of the campaign which was being inaugurated. We openly spake of the movement with deep regret and reprobation. Our views were soon the topic of general remark in the community, and the late Judge Barbour called upon us, and thus remarked: “Dr. Mahan, the Republicans are saying very hard things of you, and I have called to advise you to be cautious about what you may say. We know very well that ever since. the war began you have advocated the identical movement which General Butler has made, and now, when it has been successfully made, you speak of it with reprobation. Such inconsistencies appear mysterious and inexcusable to us, and I would seriously advise you to restrain further remarks upon the subject." "Please say to the Republicans and Democrats too, Judge Barbour," replied, "that Dr. Mahan will continue to utter what he thinks on this and other subjects. It is true, as you state, that I have advocated such a movement, and that to secure such a movement was a known object of my visit to Washington in the winter of 1862-3. While I have thus advocated this movement, I have, as you and the Republicans and Democrats around you well know, ever maintained that this movement should not be made with an army less than from 70,000 to 100,000 strong. Now that it has been made with 20,000 men, I pronounce it a ridiculous and tragic farce. Please say to our Republican and Democratic friends, that Dr. Mahan affirms that General Butler we will be driven back with loss the very first blow he shall receive, and that that blow will fall within two or three days. Say to them, further, that Dr. Mahan expresses the sad belief that, in ordering this absurd and tragic farce, General Grant has revealed an utter incapacity to lead a great army in a campaign of vital importance such as this is, and that the campaign which he has inaugurated will be a disastrous one.' "But General Butler says that he can hold his present position." "I know that he says so. I tell you, however, that he can't do it, and that events will issue as I have foreshadowed them." We all know now that the blow did fall, and that General Butler was driven back as predicted, and was "bottled up at Bermuda Hundred." For the credit of General Butler, it should be said that, prior to this event, he made the attempt, with a force 20,000 strong, to capture Richmond by surprise, and was only prevented doing so by a culprit who, by bribery, escaped from prison, and gave the Confederates timely notice of the impending peril. In this expedition our commander marched his infantry the astonishing distance of 80 miles in fifty-six hours, and moved his cavalry 150 miles in fifty hours. A plan proposed. When we learned that Burnside was ordered to Culpepper, instead of being sent to Fortress Monroe, we forwarded to Washington the following plan for the conduct of the campaign,-a plan which was laid before the President and his advisers,—namely, nothing should be done within the circle of Butler's command. He, with his forces, on the other hand, should be brought up to the Department of Washington, and there united with the corps of Burnside. With 10,000 to 20,000 men added to this body, a second army should be constituted and secretly located at the crossings over the Rappahannock above Fredericksburg. When all things should be in readiness, this army, under General Butler, for example, should cross the river, and by a rapid march through Chancellorsville and Spottsylvania, move directly upon Richmond,-General Grant, with his army, in the meantime, moving directly upon Lee's position at Orange Court House. In this double movement, the contiguous wings of our two armies should be kept in continuous communication with one another, so that, in an exigency, either army could go to the other's help. Under such circumstances, General Lee would be necessitated to adopt one or the other of the following courses. He might remain where he was, and await there the approach of General Grant. In that case, Butler would capture Richmond and seize all Lee's communications south of James river. Being thus cut off from its supplies, the capture of the Confederate army would be only a question of time. Or, General Lee might move out to attack Butler. In that case, in the open country, Lee would encounter an army as large as his own, while Grant, with a still larger force, would fall upon the Confederate army and crush it. In the next place, Lee might retreat to Richmond. In that case, he would soon find himselt surrounded with a circle of fire, through which it would be impossible for him to break, and, by starvation, he would soon be forced to surrender. Or, finally, Lee might attempt a retreat into the Carolinas. In that case, while hard pressed by our forces, he would be thrown from his railroad communications, cut off from his supplies, and from want of provisions be necessitated to disperse or surrender his army. It is perfectly obvious, that had this, or the plan previously suggested by General Pleasanton, been adopted, the destruction of General Lee's army would have been accomplished in a short time, and at a very small expense of human life. All the known principles of military science, and all the examples of successful warfare, required that Grant should have made Lee's position at Orange Court House his objective point, or centre, and that he should have approached that position in connection with a great flank movement upon Lee's right or left wing, and it mattered little which. The campaign as actually conducted. It now remains to consider how a campaign inaugurated. by a false and tragico-farcical movement south of James river, in the first instance, and directed towards a totally wrong centre, in the next, was conducted by our Commander-in-Chief. Moving out from Culpepper, advancing on a single line, and making Richmond his objective point, General Grant was necessitated to cross the Rapidan, and pass through a region of country known as the Wilderness, an almost totally uninhabited region, from which the timber had often been cut off for mining purposes, and had consequently become a densely overgrown thicket. This Wilderness, which is situated directly east of General Lee's position at Orange Court House, extends south from the river named to the vicinity of Spottsylvania Court House, and is crossed, among others, by two excellent highroads which branch off from the village where the Confederate army lay, and consequently furnished its ever-vigilant commander the best possible opportunity to assail and strike through ours when on its line of march. It was over this river, and through this Wilderness, and in the form stated, that General Grant made his advance upon Richmond. What, judging it from the military standpoint, shall we think of that advance? It was made, permit us to say, in the first place, upon one of the most perilous and universally condemned and reprobated principles known to the science of war. We refer to a lateral movement, on a single line, directly in front of the position occupied by a powerful and ever-vigilant foe. It was just such a movement, on the part of the forces of the Coalition, that gave Buonaparte his world-renowned victory at Austerlitz, and Wellington his great victory over Marmont in Spain. This lateral movement of General Grant was made, we add, in the most perilous circumstances conceivable. No spot in the wide world can be selected where such a movement would give greater advantages to the enemy than General Grant's movement through that Wilderness presented to General Lee. The roads diverging from Lee's position, and cutting our line at different points, gave him the best possible facilities to advance his army upon that line, while the Wilderness itself gave him the best possible opportunities to conceal his movements, and to deliver his blows at the very times and places when and where the effects would be most fatal to our army. Nor is it possible to conceive of such a bad movement made in a more careless and stupidly presump |