Read Never Call Retreat Online

Authors: Bruce Catton

Tags: #Non Fiction, #Military

Never Call Retreat (75 page)

BOOK: Never Call Retreat
13.32Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

13.Rowland, Vol. V, 513-15; Alexander H. Stephens,
A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States,
Vol. II, 563-64.

14.        Ibid., 565-66; O.R., Series Two, Vol. VI, 74-76.

15.
Diary of Gideon Welles,
Vol. I, 359-61; Johnston and Browne,
Life of Alexander H. Stephens,
444-45.

16.Letter of Barnett to Barlow dated May 28, 1863, declaring that the political opposition to President Lincoln "is so mixed up that it, as much as anything, presents the spectacle of a peace party"; letter of S. S. Cox to Barlow dated Nov. 21, 1863; both in the Barlow Papers, Huntington Library.

6. Encounter at Gettysburg

1.
To follow Lee from June 28 to the beginning of the battle see Freeman,
R. E. Lee,
Vol. Ill, 60 ff.

2.
O.R., Vol. XXVII, Part One, 70-71; Part Three, 458; testimony of Gen. W. S. Hancock,
CCW Report, 1865,
Vol. I,
Army of the Potomac,
404.

3.
Col. George Meade,
The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade,
Vol. II, 35-36; Col. Thomas L. Livermore,
The Gettysburg Campaign,
MHSM Papers, Vol. XIII, 524-26, 528-29.

4.
Abner Doubleday, who was Reynolds' ranking division commander, said that in conversations en route to Gettysburg Reynolds "was clearly of opinion that it was necessary to bring the enemy to battle as soon as possible . . . He was really eager to get at them." (Letter of Doubleday to Samuel Bates dated April 3, 1874, in the Bates Collection, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Division of Public Records, Harrisburg.) The orderly who was with Reynolds when the battle began wrote that he had seen many men killed in action but that he never saw one die as quickly as Reynolds did. (Letter of Charles H. Veil to "Mr. McConaughy," dated April 7, 1864, in the Civil War Institute, Gettysburg College.)

5.
Letter of Gen. Barlow dated July 7, 1863, in the Francis Channing Barlow Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society. The XI Corps did some hard fighting before it retreated. Its Gettysburg losses included 369 men killed and 1922 wounded, and the great bulk of these losses came on July 1. It listed fewer men as "missing" than did the I Corps.

6.
Reminiscences of Carl Schurz,
Vol. Ill, 34-37; Ewell's report, O.R., Vol. XXVII, Part Two, 444-46; Jubal Early,
Causes of Lee's Defeat at Gettysburg,
SHSP, Vol. IV, 253-61; A. L. Long,
Memoirs of Robert E. Lea,
276-78. Ewell has probably been too much blamed for the Confederate failure to seize the heights south of Gettysburg on July 1. His troops were temporarily disorganized by their victory and by the large number of Federal prisoners they had taken; one of the two divisions on the scene, Rodes', had lost 2500 men, and Howard's artillery was laying down a sharp fire. Lee's orders—to take the high ground but not to bring on a general engagement—were vague, and Ewell's decision to wait until Johnson's division arrived is quite understandable. By the time that division was ready to go into action the Federal grip on the new defensive line was probably too firm to be broken.

7.
At 6 P.M. on July 1 Meade wrote to Hancock and Double-day: "It seems to me we have so concentrated that a battle at Gettysburg is now forced on us, and that, if we get up all our people and attack with our whole force tomorrow, we ought to defeat the force the enemy has." O.R., Vol. XXVII, Part Three, 466.

8.
Longstreet,
Lee's Right Wing at Gettysburg,
B. & L., Vol. Ill, 339.

9.
Diary of Henry Robinson Berkeley, entry dated July 2, in the Virginia State Historical Library, Richmond; letter of E. P. Alexander to his brother dated July 17, in the E. P. Alexander Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library.

10.Notes by Gen. Warren commenting on Samuel P. Bates'
The Battle of Gettysburg,
in the G. K. Warren Papers, New York State Library, Albany.

11.The theory that Meade on the night of July 2 wanted to order a retreat to the Pipe Creek line hardly needs to be taken seriously. The Hooker contingent in the Army of the Potomac officer corps argued this at length, and was supported by members of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, and the dreary record of this back-biting is available in the Committee's 1865 report, but the alleged evidence hardly merits detailed consideration.

12.Cf. Gen. Heth, Vol. IV, SHSP, 160: "The fact is, General Lee believed the Army of Northern Virginia, as it then existed, could accomplish anything."

13. Longstreet,
Lee in Pennsylvania,
in
Annals of the War,
429.

14.O.R., Vol. XXVII, Part One, 74; Col. J. B. Walton, in SHSP, Vol. V, 47-52.

15.John Gibbon,
Personal Recollections of the Civil War,
147-48; report of Col. Joseph Mayo, Jr., of the 3rd Virginia Infantry, in the George Pickett Papers, Manuscript Department, Duke University Library; diary of Henry Robinson Berkeley, entry for July 3, in the Virginia State Historical Society; Freeman,
R. E. Lee,
Vol. Ill, 120; memoirs of Gen. Henry H. Bingham, in the Palmer Collection, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland.

16.Longstreet,
Lee's Right Wing at Gettysburg,
B. & L., Vol. Ill, 346-47.

17.
All estimates of numbers and losses in this attack are conjectural, and it is hard to feel sure that one knows how many men made the advance. The figures in the text simply represent the best guess this writer can make. A good study of the subject is George R. Stewart,
Pickett's Charge.

It might be emphasized that only a third of "Pickett's charge" was actually Pickett's, since he was not formally in command of either Pettigrew or Trimble. In fact, the command situation was extremely odd. Most of the men belonged to A. P. Hill, but Longstreet was in general control, and he used his control hardly at all—possibly because of his profound premonition of disaster—to direct or guide the operation. Once the advance began the separate divisions were more or less on their own.

18. Frank A. Haskell,
The Battle of Gettysburg,
118; letter of Meade to "Dear Margaret" dated July 5, in the George G. Meade Papers, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Walter Lord, ed.,
The Fremantle Diary,
213-15; John D. Imboden,
The Confederate Retreat from Gettysburg,
B. & L., Vol. Ill, 421.

Chapter Four:
IN LETTERS OF BLOOD
1. All or Nothing

1.
 
Letter of Grant to his father dated June 15, 1863, in the Philip H. and A. S. W. Rosenbach Foundation, Philadelphia. In this letter Grant said that if his May 22 assault had succeeded, "I could by this time have made a campaign that would have made this state of Mississippi almost safe for a solitary horseman to ride over."

2.
 
For a glimpse of Grant's plans in the early stages, see his letter to Banks, dated March 22, in O.R., Vol. XXIV, Part Three, 125; his April 12 message to Halleck, in the Illinois State Historical Library; message from Charles A. Dana to Secretary Stanton dated April 12, in the ChaTles A. Dana Papers, Library of Congress; and an incomplete letter by Grant to his father dated April 21, in the Civil War Collection, G. A. R. Room, Chicago Public Library.

3.
 
N.O.R., Vol. XXIV, 610-12, 632-33. The intensity of the fire is indicated by the Confederate estimate that Porter's ships got off more than 3000 rounds in this engagement.

4.
 
Letter of Banks to Mrs. Banks dated April 29, in the N. P. Banks Papers, Essex Institute Library: letter to Burnside, same date, B. & L., extra-illustrated, Vol. XI, Huntington Library; O.R., Vol. XXVI, Part One, 12.

5.
Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant,
Vol. I, 480-81.

6.
O.R., Vol. XVII, Part One, 252-53, 521-29; study of the Vicksburg campaign in the J. C. Pemberton Letters, New York Public Library. For an excellent account of the cavalry exploit see D. Alexander Brown,
Grierson's Raid.

7.
Memoirs of W. T. Sherman,
Vol. I, 319; letter of Grant to Sherman dated May 7, in the Illinois State Historical Library, Springfield; O.R., Vol. XXIV, Part One, 576-78. For a recital of Pemberton's problems see his report, ibid., 257-59.

8.
Letter of Grant to McPherson dated May 11, in the Rutgers University Library.

9.         O.R., Vol. XXIV, Part Three, 815, 842, 859-60.

10.Adam Badeau,
Military History of U. S. Grant,
Vol. I, 249. Edwin C. Bearss, Research Historian at the Vicksburg National Military Park, and one of the most thorough students of the Vicksburg campaign, has argued (in the Vicksburg Sunday
Post
for April 7, 1957) that Pemberton's only is*! chance was to attack McClernand's corps vigorously on May 13. Grant's army was divided at that time, and Bearss suggests that if Pemberton had been alert and aggressive, "Grant probably would have suffered a humiliating defeat."

11.
Grant Moves South,
443-45; letter of Maj. William Augustus Drennan, 27th Mississippi infantry, to his wife, dated May 30, in the Mississippi State Department of Archives and History, Jackson; diary of Joseph Dill Alison, in the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library; O.R., Vol. XXIV, Part One, 268-69.

12. O.R., Vol. XXIV, Part One, 241.

13.Ibid., 272-73. Pemberton's sick list, and the number of detailed men, must have been high. When Vicksburg finally surrendered more than 31,000 Confederates were paroled.

14.Letter of Gen. Johnston to Gen. W. W. Mackall dated June 7, from the Mackall Papers, Southern Historical Collection.

15.Peter F. Walker,
Vicksburg: A People at War,
156; letter of Sgt. Thomas Hogan, 5th Missouri infantry, dated July 5, in the Civil War Papers of the Missouri Historical Society; letters of Maj. William Augustus Drennan dated May 30 and June 2, as cited in Note 11, above.

16.Maj. J. T. Hogane,
Reminiscences of the Siege of Vicksburg,
SHSP, Vol. XI, 296; Edward S. Gregory,
Vicksburg During the Siege,
in
Annals of the War,
116; diary of Rowland Chambers, entries for June 9 and June 14, in the Department of Archives,

Louisiana State University; diary of "Miss Balfour," owned by Mrs. J. W. Collier of Vicksburg, copy in the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

17. Letter of Banks to Mrs. Banks dated July 8, in the N. P. Banks Papers, Essex Institute Library.

2. The Notion of Equality

1.  Sallie A. Putnam,
In Richmond During the Confederacy,
242-43; letter of F. Sorrel, Jr., to Col. Henry Innes Thornton
dated July 8, 1863, in the Henry Innes Thornton Papers, Cali-
fornia Historical Society, San Francisco; Kean,
Inside the Con-
federate Government,
79-81, quoting Robert Garlick Hill Kean's
diary entry for July 12.

2. Rowland, Vol. V, 548-49, 552-54.

3.
 
Letter of Jefferson Davis to Judge James H. Howry dated Aug. 27, 1863, in the Howry Family Papers, Library of Congress, the Davis letter having been presented to the Library by Mary Harris Howry and Elizabeth Butler Howry; Rowland, Vol. V, 578-80.

4.
 
O.R., Vol. XXVIII, Part Two,. 173. On June 25 Davis had written to Beauregard urging him to send more troops west if he could do so without losing Charleston, adding: "I need not state to you that the issue is vital to the Confederacy." Ibid., 162.

5.
 
Inside the Confederate Government,
100;
A Rebel War Clerk's Diary,
246. Col. Northrop, a Job's comforter if ever there was one, brightly pointed out that even if people had to go without meat they might remember that European peasants rarely ate meat and that peasants in Hindustan never had any.

6.
 
Letter of Bragg to Mrs. Bragg dated June 20; photostat in the Library of Congress.

7.
 
O.R., Vol. XXIII, Part One, 8; Part Two, 420-24; CCJ*'
Report, 1865,
Vol. Ill, 27; letter of Garfield to his brother dated June 11, in the James A. Garfield Papers, Library of Congress; letter of Garfield to Secretary Chase dated July 27, reprinted after the war in the New York
Sun,
clipping in the Garfield Papers.

8.
 
Stanton to Rosecrans, in the Rosecrans Papers, Library of the University of California at Los Angeles; O.R., Vol. XXIII, Part Two, 518. Rosecrans' losses for the Tullahoma campaign are listed at 570. OR., Vol. XXIII, Part One, 424.

9.
 
O.R., Vol. XXVn, Part One, 83, 92-94; Nicolay & Hay, Vol. VII, 278;
Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and Letters of John Hay,
66-67; Noah Brooks,
Washington in Lincoln's Time,
91-92, 94; Basler, Vol. VI, 327-28.

10.Letter of Rufus Dawes to Mary Gates dated July 14, in the Rufus Dawes Papers, courtesy of Rufus D. Beach and Ralph G. Newman; letter of Frank Haskell dated July 17, in the Frank Haskell Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin; letters of Meade to Mrs. Meade dated July 8, July 12 and July 14, in the George G. Meade Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania. It should be noted that Meade did not carry his complaints to the press or Congress, but confined them to letters to his wife.

11.Letter of Edward Burrus dated July 27, in the Department of Archives, Louisiana State University.

12.Letters of Lee to Mrs. Lee dated July 12 and July 15, in the R. E. Lee Papers, Library of Congress; Clifford Dowdey, ed.,
The Wartime Papers of R. E. Lee,
560, 564-65.

13. Supra, 188-89.

14.Basler, Vol. VI, 319-20. This short, rambling speech is worth looking at as a first approach to the line of thought that ultimately found expression in the Gettysburg address.

15.
American Annual Cyclopaedia for 1863,
811-16; Morgan Dix,
Memoirs of John Adams Dix,
Vol. II, 72-75; O.R., Vol. XXVII, Part Two, 878-81, 886-89; diary of Mrs. Gustavus V. Fox, entries for July 13-15, in the Blair Family Papers, Library of Congress.

BOOK: Never Call Retreat
13.32Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Love Inspired Suspense June 2015 #1 by Margaret Daley, Katy Lee
Beside a Narrow Stream by Faith Martin
Enemy Overnight by Rotham, Robin L.
Caught Up in the Touch by Laura Trentham


readsbookonline.com Copyright 2016 - 2024