Blood, Tears, and Glory

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

ON THIS DAY: Thursday, Jan. 16, 1862

A Sham Battle

Today, Cpl. Robert Caldwell of Elmore, Ohio, settles down to finish a letter to his mother that he began writing yesterday. He only had time that evening to tell her that he now weighs 170 pounds (the hungry times will come later). Then came the last bugle call of the night.

The next morning, the men of the 21^st Ohio and some other regiments in camp at Camp Jefferson in Kentucky donned loaded backpacks and began marching at half past eight..

They were going to intercept an enemy supply train, ran one of the many rumors, but, after marching only a mile, they came to a large field. They were going to have a sham battle! Robert told his mother in some wonderment. Military exercises simulating combat, common practice in the 21^st century, were unusual in the 19^th.

Breathlessly, Robert writes that a company of the 4^th Ohio Cavalry—his neighbors in camp—pretended to attack the infantry from one direction, only to wheel, retreat, and attack from a different direction. Meanwhile, the infantrymen were popping away with guns loaded only with powder.

All the while, artillery pieces, pulled by horses, rushed “here and there wheeling and firing with empty guns, with terrible effect upon the imaginary enemy,” Robert wrote, quite impressed with it all.

Thus the fight raged for upwards of half a day (the young soldier continued), when thinking that the foe had been sufficiently chastised for the present, with tired limbs but fearless hearts we changed our mode of attacks and charged upon our dinner with equal effect, and [then] were ordered back to camp, where we arrived without any further adventure.

Thus terminated our first great fight in this part of Kentucky, I believe our loss consisted of one barrel [of] crackers, nothing more.

After that exciting news, Robert closed with the soldiers’ staple letter-filler, the local weather: cold, rain, one inch of snow, then rain again, meaning the soldiers are living in an ever-deepening mudhole. (Pictured above: an Illinois regiment in their tent near Corinth, Mississippi)

ELSEWHERE IN THE WAR: Confirmed by the Senate only yesterday, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton wastes no time in taking over the War Department with energy, enthusiasm, and little patience for corruption and inefficiency. Stanton discovers that the previous secretary, Silas Cameron, had left him “a rats’ nest” of problems. “We have had no war,” Stanton grumbles. “We have not even been playing war.” Things are going to change very fast. In southern Kentucky, meanwhile, a Confederate force led by Brig. Gen. Felix K. Zollicoffer unwisely camps with their backs to the Cumberland River and facing in the direction of a rumored Federal force led by Brig. Gen. George H. Thomas, a loyalist Virginia and a man Confederates would come to know well, to their regret.

IT’S COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK: April 12, 2011—less than 3½ years from now!—will be the 150^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861, April 12 was the day Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

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Tuesday, January 15, 2008

ON THIS DAY: Wednesday, Jan. 15, 1862

Mail Call

Twenty-eight-year-old Cpl. Alfred D. Searles, a member of Company H, 21^st Ohio Volunteer Infantry, is in winter quarters in western Kentucky. Alfred frequently writes letters and he expects his family to do the same. Today he sits down to send his parents a common complaint.

I take this opportunity…of writing a letter to you today to find out what we have done that we cannot have another letter from you. It is now over 3 weeks since we have heard [from you], but we shall write no more till we hear from home.

Searles’ distress at receiving no mail is one of many examples, found in Civil War archives, of pleading by soldiers for news from home. Tired, lonely, dispirited bored soldiers yearned for reassurance they were cared for and not forgotten. Folks at home were just as anxious to receive letters assuring them their men were safe and sound. To pressure correspondents to send more mail, soldiers counted the letters they received, compared with the ones they sent.

It would take quite a while before both sides learned that mail delivery in Civil War times was a chancey thing, with weather, bushwhackers, and military operations—not to mention weary horses—combining to delay and sometimes lose mail.

But both parties kept trying, with soldiers unaccustomed to putting pen to paper scrambling to find writing utensils and struggle with the mechanics of putting sentences together while using a knapsack or drum for a desk.

Montgomery Meigs, postmaster general in the Lincoln administration, came to the soldiers’ aid by introducing money orders and “soldier’s mail,” which required payment of postage from recipients rather than the soldiers, who not only had little money, but had trouble getting and keeping stamps.

Searles is not optimistic about coming home any time soon. “If reports be true we have only just begun in the war.”

He goes on to describe camp conditions: “It is dreadful weat and mudy here…It is an awfull time for mud here. We have some awfull cold nights here, but very little snow.”

Searles includes a foreboding comment: “Perhaps I shall stay the 3 years out and perhaps I shall never get back. That is more than a man can tell…”

Time will tell if Corporal Searles’ comment is a prescient one.

ELSEWHERE IN THE WAR: A Union gunboat on a reconnaissance mission sails up the Tennessee River almost as far as the Confederate fort called Fort Henry. It is worrisome omen for the Confederates. In Washington, the U.S. Senate confirms Lincoln's nomination of Edwin M. Stanton as secretary of war. It took the Senate less than two days from nomination to vote. Those were the days!

ON THIS DAY: Monday, Jan. 13, 1862

The Bear

He was a brilliant, short-tempered, stocky bully of a man, whose hard eyes staring out of a profusion of whiskers resembled a bear peering out of a briar patch. He was hard to like and hard to resist, and he had not only memorably insulted Abraham Lincoln years ago, he had kept up a drumbeat of criticism of the President in the first, difficult months of the war, proclaiming “the imbecility of this administration.” He was an Ohio Democrat named Edwin McMasters Stanton and today something amazing happens to him.

This morning, President Lincoln, a Republican, tells his Cabinet that he is going to choose Stanton as his secretary of war, replacing the ineffective Pennsylvania politico Simon Cameron. This incomprehensible action—the President choosing a man who had insulted and criticized him bitterly and who was a member of the opposition party—is but one example of how Lincoln could see possibilities other men couldn’t.

Warned that the bull-headed Stanton “might run away with the whole concern,” Lincoln recalled a Midwestern preacher whose liveliness made church members want to put bricks in his pockets to hold him down. “I may have to do that with Stanton,” Lincoln said, “but if I do, bricks in his pockets will be better than bricks in his hat. I’ll risk him for a while without either.”

Stanton was a Democrat, but unlike many Democrats, he was strongly opposed to both secession and slavery. He had spent part of his time as attorney general under the benighted President Buchanan secretly subverting secessionist tendencies in Washington.

Years before the war, Stanton had been lead attorney on a lawsuit and by chance Lincoln was assigned to his legal team in a Cincinnati court. Stanton repeatedly snubbed Lincoln during their mutual stay in Cincinnati, and sneered at him as “a long, lank creature” and a “giraffe.”

But Stanton was a brilliant lawyer with a reputation for getting things done, no matter the obstacles, and he had two other things going for him: he was known to favor vigorous prosecution of the war and he had the support of Lincoln’s general-in-chief, George B. McClellan, who also was a Democrat.

In the years of war, Stanton would prove to have been a brilliant choice. Congressman Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts will write after the war, “If Lincoln was essential to the success of the Union, it is no less true that Stanton was essential to the success of Lincoln.” Another commentator said, “If Lincoln was the heart of the war effort, Stanton was the head.”

OTHER EVENTS IN LINCOLN'S DAY: An ad hoc council of generals, Cabinet members, Lincoln, and McClellan meet to discuss how to get the Union armies moving McClellan, his feathers ruffled by the meeting, rudely refuses to divulge his plans. Lincoln writes Generals Halleck and Buell in the West, urging them to action against the enemy and stressing a strategy of "menacing him with superior forces at different points, at the same time." While still deferring to the generals' superior knowledge of warfare, Lincoln nonetheless is displaying greater wisdom. And his patience is running out.

Monday, January 14, 2008

ON THIS DAY: Sunday, Jan. 12, 1862

The Expedition

As they marched along, the soldiers joked and sang in German, but they were not in Germany. They were members of the 37^th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, the third regiment raised in Ohio that was composed primarily of German immigrants and their descendents. Commanding the 37^th was Col. Edward Siber, described as “an accomplished German officers who had seen active service in Prussia and Brazil.” (Pictured here: a typical Ohio soldier, not necessarily of the 37th regiment)

Most of Siber’s men had been recruited in Toledo, Cleveland, and Chillicothe, but as many as 10 different Ohio counties were represented in the ranks. German regiments had a reputation for orderliness and efficiency and, like all new regiments, were hungry for action.

Mustered in on October 2, 1861, the regiment had been ordered to the District of the Kanawha in western Virginia. After settling into winter quarters near Point Pleasant, almost within sight of Ohio, the men were expecting a long, dull winter. Suddenly, however, the regiment was ordered to undertake—all by itself—what soldiers called an “expedition.” An expedition meant you were venturing into dangerous country to see what might happen and perhaps to do some damage to the enemy.

Last evening, Colonel Siber had been warned that 60 to 70 Confederate sympathizers had formed a guerrilla band they called the “Black Striped Company.” The 37^th Ohio departs today on a long, hard march of 80 miles south to Logan Court House.

They find trouble quickly. A detachment of four of the 37^th’s companies, led by Maj. Charles Ankele, finds itself fired upon by “every house” on the opposite side of the unfordable Guyandotte River. When the captain of Company B is killed, however, the men can stand it no longer. They throw themselves in to the river, swim to the other side, disarm the residents, and take some prisoners.

Colonel Siber reunites the various detachments he had sent out, and marches into Logan Court House after a skirmish between Siber’s scouts and number of bushwhackers and horsemen. One of the 37^th’s corporals is killed. The enemy retreats to a nearby mountain that overlooks the town.

Realizing he couldn’t hold the town “without more sacrifice of life,” the colonel orders his men to burn the court house and other public buildings the rebels had been using as barracks.

Colonel Siber and the 37^th will return to their winter quarters at Camp Clifton near Point Pleasant. He reports that, excepting one loyalist settlement, “the whole population in [the region traveled] are in the highest degree hostile to the Union.” It seems that western Virginia, for all its desire to the join the Union, still has plenty of enemies left in it.

ELSEWHERE IN THE WAR EFFORT: Not only is Lincoln growing weary of generals who won’t attack when urged to, so are a number of important officers. They and the public can’t understand why McClellan’s well-trained and equipped Army of the Potomac is going nowhere. The officers met yesterday to discuss the problem and again today, this time with members of Lincoln and several members of his Cabinet. McClellan, who is still recovering from a serious illness, fears he is being undermined and drags himself to the White House to defend his command.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

ON THIS DAY: Saturday, Jan. 11, 1862

Something wicked this way came

Perhaps you shouldn’t call Simon Cameron a bad man, but it did seem as if badness followed him around.

The vapors of a career politician rose from the man’s very pores. Which is not to deny that Cameron was talented man. Orphaned at nine, he worked and studied hard and at age 25 was able to purchase a newspaper in the Pennsylvania state capital of Harrisburg. He won appointment as state printer the next year, was appointed state adjutant general the year after that, and soon was buying railroad lines and making his fortune.

Simon Cameron was one of those strivers who always seemed a little too lucky, a little too early, a little too successful for mere luck and hard work to explain. Simon Cameron was a politician. He knew how to arrange things, and as politicians always do, he had a wide network of those who owed him—and those he owed.

No doubt about it: Cameron had a finely tuned sense of where opportunity lay. In his portraits (one of which is shown here), his sleek face and hard, agate-like eyeballs suggest a cat studying his next mouse.

First elected to the U.S. Senate in 1884, Cameron eventually switched parties from the Democratic to the newly forming Republican Party. After making a deal with Lincoln’s managers (without Lincoln’s knowledge), he threw his support to Lincoln at the 1860 Republican National Convention, bringing Pennsylvania delegates with him. As reward, he wanted a Cabinet position in the Lincoln administration, so Lincoln reluctantly appointed him secretary of war.

And that’s when the trouble began. Surprisingly, Cameron was not a team player in the Lincoln administration. A Radical Republican, he charted his own course, issuing anti-slavery dictates that embarrassed Lincoln. In the early months of the war, Lincoln could not afford to alienate slave owners in the border states and had to walk a fine line on the ticklish slavery issue...so Cameron was a loose cannon.

It gets worse. All those hangers-on that Cameron had accumulated began claiming their dues, so War Department contracts were given to political favorites and military appointment handed out to friends. It was even worse than that: not only was the War Department corrupt, it was inefficient and ineffective. Something had to be done.

Lincoln was able to ease Cameron out by offering him the post of minister to Russia, which would get the Pennsylvanian as far away from the war as possible. On this Saturday in January, Cameron makes public his resignation from the war department.

Within 48 hours, Lincoln will announce his choice to replace Cameron. It will be a surprising, even shocking, choice, but one that will turn out to be one of his best decisions of the war. It involve an Ohioan.

Friday, January 11, 2008

ON THIS DAY: Friday, Jan. 10, 1862

Garfield rising

Like many other volunteer officers, James A. Garfield lacked military experience, but made up for it in enthusiasm, ambition, and natural talent. Today, he has a chance to prove it.

A professor at what is now Hiram College in Ohio, Garfield had struggled to win a command. After some disappointments, Garfield finally was appointed to head the 42^nd Ohio Volunteer infantry, which trained at Camp Chase in Columbus during the fall of 1861. The inexperienced Garfield carved some wooden blocks and used them in his tent at night to practice maneuvers. A big, gregarious man who liked his fling his arms around friends, he suffered from the loneliness of command and talked to his horse out of sheer desperation.

In December, the 42^nd Ohio joined Don Carlos Buell’s command in Kentucky. Buell immediately put Colonel Garfield in command of a brigade of several regiments and sent him into the Big Sandy Valley region in mountainous eastern Kentucky. After a small clash at Paintsville on the 7^th, Garfield daringly attacks a Confederate force today at Middle Creek.

Garfield, the amateur soldier, had about 1,800 infantrymen, 300 cavalrymen, and no artillery. His opponent is CSA Brig. Gen. Humphrey Marshall, a graduate of West Point who had won a fine reputation in the Mexican War. Not only was Marshall an experienced professional, he was believed to have a stronger force: 2,500 infantrymen, three pieces of artillery, and six companies of cavalry.

But the Confederates are demoralized, tired and weak from hunger. Garfield’s attack on the entrenched enemy soldiers scatters them and sends Marshall fleeing. Afterwards, Garfield’s men find 27 dead Confederates on the fieldand captured 25 prisoners, as well as some supplies. Garfield’s force lost two dead and 25 wounded.

It was a minor affair, but a signal achievement for an untested amateur soldier. It brought praise from Buell (“These services have called into action the highest qualities of a soldier—perseverance and courage.”). And, because Garfield had some political influence in addition to this achievement, he would soon receive a brigadier generalship.

But there is one area of his life where Garfield is doing less well: his three-year marriage to Lucretia (“Crete”) Rudolph (pictured above). As a young man, Garfield was having trouble settling down with one woman and his letters to Crete are infrequent and dry. By contrast, Crete is writing him letters filled with endearments and pleas for attention. For example, in October she had written, “Dear Dear Jamie: I do not willingly think you wicked or neglectful, but how can the heart trust all in silence? It almost breaks my heart….”

ELSEWHERE IN THE WAR: Stonewall Jackson’s Confederate cavalry enters Romney, in the panhandle section of western Virginia. They are unopposed, replacing the Federals who had been lodged there for little more than two months. During the war, Romney will change hands dozens of times, dizzying the locals who were simply trying to figure out who was in charge here.

In Ulysses S. Grant’s district near Cairo, Illinois, the Ohio general begins an advance on Confederates ensconced in Columbus, Kentucky. It is not intended as an attack, but as a diversion to draw attention from a hoped-for Union effort in eastern Tennessee. However, Don Carlos Buell stubbornly resists Lincoln’s urgings to move on behalf of Union loyalists in eastern Tennessee. In Washington, a frustrated President exclaims, “As everywhere else, nothing can be done.” But changes are coming.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

ON THIS DAY: Thursday, January 9, 1862

Gusto

In ways hard for us to imagine, many Americans went to war with gusto during the years of conflict between North and South. Later generations of patriots would volunteer to serve their country with courage, determination, and perhaps grim resolve, but the sheer excitement and enthusiasm of the Civil War volunteers was never matched in depth or breadth.

And that tells us something about our ancestors in those times. There was, of course, the idealism that has always been part of the “American idea.” Another characteristic was the innocence and romanticism, the sheer naïveté that many men brought to the war along with their idealism. (Those feelings waxed and waned throughout the war as its hardships and horrors were encountered.) Another reason why American males so enthusiastically greeted the war was the opportunities it presented, not only for excitement, but for glory, success, and social advancement. For some, the war offered a new opportunity for achievement when it had been hard to find in civilian life.

Marcus Spiegel, a Jewish immigrant who had settled in Millersburg, Ohio, exemplified all these reasons. While training with his 67^th Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment at Camp Chase near Columbus, Ohio, the 32-year-old captain writes excited letters to his beloved wife, Caroline (whom he called “Cary”) and three small children.

“My dear and much beloved Wife! And good children!” he begins his letter today. After telling Cary how much happiness her letters give him, he turns to describing all the wonders and pleasures of army life. He pronounces the officers of his regiment “as good, clever, and gentlemanly [a] set of men as I ever met.” A New Year’s Eve feast “was as pleasant a night as I ever spent in a company of men.” So far as daily rations are concerned, “the boarding could not be any better.”

Spiegel moves on to describe his work in training soldiers:

My company is making very efficient progress in drill; there is no company in the regiment that can beat them. The boys are all right and I am not saying too much when I say they love me, like they would a father.

After telling Cary how much he misses her, he approaches his conclusion:

My prospects are O.K., everything will be all right. I get the best of treatment from colonel down to camp carpenter.

What we can know and Marcus can’t at this point, is that—for all his enthusiasm and skill—war, in time, will exact its terrible price from this man.

ELSEWHERE IN THE WAR: A frustrated President Lincoln tells his general-in-chief, George B. McClellan, that his two top Western commanders—Henry W. Halleck, commander of the Department of the Missouri, and Don Carlos Buell, commander of the Department of the Ohio, have failed to pick a date for forward movement, as Lincoln had requested. Of course, neither had McClellan. Until now the President has been deferring to the judgment of his military men, but he is beginning to realize nothing will happen until he changes from suggester-in-chief to commander-in-chief.