CHAPTER XXXIII. SHERMAN'S MARCH FROM SAVANNAH, GEORGIA, TO GOLDSBORO', NORTH CAROLINA; THE SUR- We now approach the closing scenes of the eventful tragedy which has thus far occupied our attention,-scenes in respect to which our nation and the world have thus far, and in many important respects, been most essentially misinformed, and in respect to which we will at this late, period furnish the needed information. Contrary to all expectation, to the great surprise of our military authorities and the nation at large, the war, by the unexpected surrender of Generals Lee and Johnston, and of the entire Confederate armies throughout the United States, came to a sudden and bloodless termination. The surrender of Generals Lee and Johnston, at the time when it occurred, was as unexpected to them and to the whole Confederacy as it was to the rest of the nation and the world. Two weeks prior to this surrender, these Generals, as we shall see, were in the most sanguine expectation of a great victory-a victory in which, and by which, Sherman would be crushed and captured, Grant be rendered powerless for future aggressive movements, and the whole aspect of the war fundamentally changed. The real cause or causes which brought about this unexpected consummation. What were the causes which so suddenly blighted these hopeful expectations, induced the unexpected surrender of the two central armies of the Confederacy, and brought the war to this sudden and bloodless termination? The masterly strategy, wise dispositions, and timely and energetic action of General Grant, is the present response nearly or quite universally given to such a question. It is this impression which, in the general regard, has given him a place among the great commanders of the world, has for two successive terms rendered him President of the United States, and, until quite recently, was likely to put him upon the course for the occupancy of that high office for a third term. Of the correctness of this impression, the nation and the world will, in the light of the facts which we are about to present, be able to form a correct judgment. What, then, was the immediate cause which did occasion this unexpected consummation? The Hon. Alexander H. Stevens, exVice-President of the Confederacy, assigns, as the definite and exclusive reason why Generals Lee and Johnston surrendered without fighting a battle, the fact that, at Goldsboro', Sherman was reinforced by the corps of Generals Schofield and Terry, the Union army thereby being rendered nearly or quite 100,000 strong, and thus becoming irresistible to any force which the Confederate Generals could bring into the field against us. Between such an army under Sherman, and a still greater one under Grant, these Generals saw themselves utterly powerless. For them to fight a battle under such circumstances, would be to throw away thousands of precious lives to no purpose. But one thing remained, unless they would involve themselves in the crime of a murderous and unavailing slaughter of their brave troops, and that was to surrender on the best terms that could be secured. Such is the definite cause assigned by Mr. Stevens for the unexpected and bloodless termination of the war, and nobody questions the accuracy of his information. In assigning his reasons for his approval of the surrender of Lee and Johnston without a battle, Mr. Stevens (vol. ii., p. 624 of his History) says: "I saw nothing to prevent Sherman himself from proceeding right on to Richmond and attacking Lee in the rear, to say nothing of any movements by Grant, who then had an army in front of not much, if any, under 200, 000 men. Lee's forces were not over one-fourth of that number. Sherman's army, when united with Schofield's and Terry's, which were joining him from Wilmington, North Carolina, would be swelled to near 100,000. To meet these, the Confederates had in his front, nothing but the fragment of shattered armies amounting in all to not one-half the number of the Federals." We have good reason for affirming that Johnston's army was at this time greater than Mr. Stevens supposes, as that army was being rapidly reinforced, and had become so large, and brought into a state of such organization, that its commander had no doubt whatever of being fully able to defeat the army which Sherman brought with him from Savannah to North Carolina. The case was widely and appallingly different in Johnston's regard, after Sherman had been reinforced by Schofield and Terry. To fight Sherman then would imply infinite presumption. The fact is undeniable, that at the time when this reinforcement did arrive, the battle was being joined between the armies then confronting each other-that had this battle been fought, it would have been one of the bloodiest of the war-that, in the united judgment of two such Generals as Lee and Johnston, who perfectly understood the amount and character of the force in each army, the result of the conflict would have been the defeat and destruction of the Union army, and a sudden and total change in the status and prospects of the war itself. The fact is equally obvious and undeniable, also, that in consequence of the arrival of these reinforcements at that critical moment, Johnston retreated, and he and Lee afterwards surrendered, and the war was terminated without further bloodshed. Now, if we would know the real cause of this sudden and bloodless termination of the war, we must find the reasons and influences which brought Schofield and Terry to Goldsboro' at the critical moment when they appeared at that place. On the evening of January 14th, General Schofield, then at Clifton, on the Tennessee river, received by telegram an order to report, with his entire army, as soon as possible at Annapolis, Maryland. He was at the time at Clifton, under special orders from General Grant to transport that army by water, down the Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers, to Eastport, Mississippi, and this for the purpose of another expedition up the Arkansas river for the subjugation of Texas; and had all things in readiness to embark his army on that expedition the morning after the telegram referred to was received. The order conveyed in that telegram turned the army of Schofield from its intended destination, and brought it round, in connection with the corps of Terry, to Goldsboro', and by that means brought the war to its unexpected and bloodless termination. After the presentation of a few important facts and considerations, the causes which occasioned that order will be presented, and then all misapprehensions which have hitherto hung over the subject will be for ever removed. What General Grant did, and might and should have done, while he was "bottled and corked up" in the Peninsula before Petersburg and Richmond. Between the 12th and 15th of June, 1864, General Grant passed his army over James river, and commenced operations before Petersburg. After many vain efforts, in which he lost upwards of 30,000 men, he remained idle there until the opening of the next spring campaign. The only excuse or apology that we ever heard offered for this idleness is that the policy of Grant was to threaten Lee, and thus prevent his injuring Sherman by reinforcing Johnston. In other words, our great Commander-inChief kept for more than half a year 1,000,000 men in stagnant idleness, for no other reason than to enable an army 60,000 strong to make a safe march around a semicircle of 1,000 miles in extent, and at the end of that march to come upon General Lee's rear. If this was the real motive for such inaction, then we affirm that our General ought to stand lower in national and world regard than any other General that ever commanded a great army. Let us for a few moments contemplate the facts of the case. During this year, aside from all the forces then in the field, the Government made successive calls for conscriptions amounting in all to the vast sum of 1,500,000 men, and it is quite safe to conclude that from 600,000 to 800,000 of these entered the army. In addition to the 180,000 coloured troops enlisted during this and the year preceding, 100,000 volunteers, enlisted for a hundred days, were "fully armed and equipped." Of these coloured troops and volunteers more than 100,000 joined the Army of the Potomac. All these-with, no doubt, a still larger number from the regular army-were added to Grant's forces in Virginia. With all these immense forces under his immediate command, he lay in perfect torpor for more than six months, watching, in his wisdom, it is said, General Lee, to prevent his dividing his little army of 60,000 men, and sending reinforcements to Johnston, Hood, or Hardee, and waiting for Sherman to make with his 60,000 men his march of 1,000 miles, round from Rome and Kingston, in Georgia, through Atlanta, Macon, Savannah, Columbia, and over Johnston's army into Lee's rear at Petersburg. We leave the facts, which cannot be denied, and their explanation, to speak for themselves. The only explanation which meets our honest judgment is the conclusion that our General remained thus idle because he did not know what to do. Let us now consider what might have been done, and what any General of even ordinary knowledge and capacity would have done, in General Grant's circumstances. We will suppose, to instance no other case, that he had moved an army 70,000 or 80,000 strong to Warrenton or Culpepper, had reinforced these with the 30,000 troops under Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley, and had given Sheridan the command of all these combined forces. All this could, undeniably, and at any time, have been done in two or three weeks. While Grant had concentrated all his army at Petersburg, and held his forces in readiness to move as soon as the proper moment should arrive, suppose that Sheridan, driving Early before him, or more probably having captured his little army, had moved through Gordonsville into Lee's rear, as Sherman was expected to do, after his march of 1,000 miles. The inevitable consequence would have been that General Lee would have surrendered, as he afterwards did, without a battle. Between the crushing forces of Sheridan and Grant he would never have assumed the criminal responsibility of sacrificing his soldiery to no purpose. Had he retreated into the Carolinas, he would in his retreat have been confronted with the superior forces sent round to Hilton |