The Story of American History for Elementary Schools

This battle of Manassas, or Bull Run, was a severe and unexpected defeat. It showed the scope of the tremendous conflict yet to come. There was not much more heavy fighting during the remainder of that year; both sides were busily making enormous preparations for the future struggle.

309. The Desperate Struggles of 1862.– In the early part of the next year (1862) each side had ready in the field about half a million of men. In the East, General McClellan, with a large army, set out in April from Washington for Richmond. He advanced within seven miles of that city, where was fought the battle of Fair Oaks. Neither side was victorious. The desperate seven days' battles soon followed, with result still indecisive. This, the so-called Peninsular Campaign, failed of its purpose.

In September the Confederate General Lee marched north and, invading Maryland, fought the bloody battle of Antietam. He was slightly worsted, and forced to retire into Virginia.

In the West, General Grant, the coming man, with the help of Commodore Foote's fleet of gunboats, captured in February Forts Henry and Donelson with ten thousand prisoners. Soon followed the desperate battle of Shiloh, in which Grant, reinforced by General Buell, repulsed the Confederates.

In April a great navy and army sailed up the Mississippi River, bombarded the forts below New Orleans, then passed up and captured the city. This was an important Union triumph.

The year had been one of many hard-fought battles, only a few of which we are able to mention. The general result was in the East lamentable failure, but in the West brilliant success, of the Union armies.

At the close of 1862, after a year and a half of fighting, the war had already lasted longer than either side expected when it began. At first both had hoped that after a few months the trouble would be settled by some kind of agreement or compromise. Each side was surprised at the vast number of soldiers, the immense military equipment, and the determined spirit shown by the other.

310. The Emancipation of the Slaves.– As the war went on, it was plain that the tens of thousands of slaves, although they did not actually fight in the Southern armies, were helping the South just as much as if they carried muskets. They built forts, toiled in gun shops and powder mills, and raised crops at home. This, of course, released thousands of whites from home duties and swelled the ranks of the Confederate army. It was a terrible and costly war. The final result even seemed doubtful. To save the Union the South must be crippled at every possible point. To set the slaves free was to weaken the South. Mr. Lincoln held that a sound principle of military law gave him the authority to abolish slavery. He proposed to do it primarily as an act of military necessity by virtue of his office as Commander-in-Chief of the army, just as when a general in active warfare destroys buildings or burns bridges to aid his army operations.

It was sound common sense, as well as a profound military policy, to seize the most favorable opportunity to strike at the real cause of the trouble. Public opinion was rapidly shaping itself to this end. Lincoln was one of the most clear-sighted and sagacious of men. He patiently abided his time for so momentous a step.

311. The Proclamation of Emancipation.– Finally, acting on his own judgment and that of his trusted advisers, Lincoln issued in September, 1862, his warning proclamation to the effect that if the Confederate States did not cease hostilities before the first of the next January, all slaves within the Confederate lines should be thenceforth and forever free.

The negroes very soon heard this wonderful news and many thousands of them eagerly awaited the coming of the day when "Massa Linkum would set 'em free." They looked upon the good President as the savior of their race.

On that famous morning, January 1, 1863, the prophecy was fulfilled. That New Year's Day will be forever memorable as the date of the great Emancipation Proclamation, an act by which four millions of slaves were brought from the night of bondage to the sunlight of freedom.

This was the monumental event of the war, perhaps the wisest thing President Lincoln ever did or ever could do. In after years it will perhaps be regarded as the greatest event of the century. Few men in all history have had an opportunity of doing a deed of so vast and far-reaching importance.

Emancipation was quickly followed by the enlistment of negroes, or "freedmen" as they were now called, as soldiers in the armies of the Union. During the year 1863 more than fifty thousand of them, and before the end of the war nearly two hundred thousand, had enlisted under the banner of freedom. They were good soldiers, and on many a battlefield they fought with an unflinching courage.

CHAPTER XXIV.
MORE ABOUT THE WAR FOR THE UNION

312. Union Defeat at Chancellorsville.– Now let us return to our narrative of a few of the prominent military operations of the war. In May, 1863, the army of the Potomac, under General Hooker, moved southward from Washington. At Chancellorsville it was met by a Confederate force under Generals Lee and Jackson. The battle lasted two days, and was disastrous to the Union arms; in fact, the worst defeat of the war. It marked the zenith of Confederate success. In this battle "Stonewall" Jackson, so called from his splendid firmness, one of the ablest of the Southern generals, was mortally wounded.

313. The Mighty Struggle at Gettysburg.– General Lee, proud of this success, now resolved to lead his army into the North. Sweeping past Washington and across Maryland, he pushed up into Pennsylvania, the whole country around being terrified at his approach, especially Baltimore and Philadelphia, both of which cities were threatened. Lee had now eighty thousand soldiers, the finest army the South ever possessed. The army of the Potomac, under the command of General Meade, whom Grant called the right man in the right place, followed closely. The two defiant armies met at Gettysburg, where occurred the most momentous battle ever fought on this continent. It lasted three days, July 1-3, 1863. The first day's fighting ended in favor of the Confederates. On the second day their desperate efforts to drive the Union forces from their positions were repelled, but with an enormous loss on each side.

On the third day came the final test. The brave Confederate General Pickett led many thousands of soldiers over an open plain in a most desperate charge to break the Union center. On, on they came, their ranks now torn through and through by Union shot and shell, but still on they charged. Drawing nearer, up they rushed to the Union line with the familiar Southern yell, and with frantic fury dashed upon our firm-set ranks. Our men wavered with the mighty shock and for a moment fell back, but instantly rallied with the Union cheer.

In the furious onset and the hand-to-hand fight, friend and foe fell by thousands. But the charging battalions were shattered, crushed, driven back, melting away under the concentrated fire, and only some few fragments of all that vast column straggled back over the field of death.

Lee was baffled, defeated; the Union was safe. The invaders, with that vast army that came with stately pride, went back to Virginia with sorrowing memories of the direst disaster of the war. Never again did a large Confederate force hazard a march into the North. After Gettysburg there was little hope of Confederate triumph.

314. Memorials of the Victory.– Gettysburg was a costly victory. Over that broad area of the three days' battles, strewn through wood and meadow, on field and hill, lay the bodies of thousands of soldiers. One-third of Lee's entire army, and about a fourth of the Union forces, had been killed or wounded. The arena of fiercest fighting in the third day's final charge is now marked by a suitable monument, which bears upon a bronze tablet an inscription that indicates the historical importance of the spot.

Upon opposite columns are also inscribed the names of the officers who led the surging columns of gray, and the names of those officers who held firm the impregnable walls of blue.

The whole field of battle, covering several square miles, is dotted with hundreds of similar memorials of many varieties. These monuments have been erected year after year by the survivors or by their friends. They indicate the positions held by regiments, brigades, and divisions, where desperate charges and equally desperate repulses occurred, or where gallant officers fell.

315. Lincoln's Masterly Address at Gettysburg.– In November, 1863, the central portion of the battlefield was set apart as a National Cemetery and dedicated with solemn ceremonies. The most important of these was the notably eloquent address by President Lincoln, which has passed into history as an event hardly less memorable than the great conflict itself. Perhaps in no language, ancient or modern, are any words found more comprehensive and eloquent than this brief speech.

Time has tested the strength of this short, simple address. After more than a quarter of a century it is still as familiar as household words.

316. Success of General Grant in the West.– Let us now read about a few of the great events of the war in the West during the first half of the year 1863. Here General Grant was the central figure of important military operations. He had already become prominent by the brilliant campaigns we have mentioned. His remarkable career furnishes one of the many examples of great men coming up from obscure and unpromising conditions of life.

He was born in Ohio in 1822, and received a military education at West Point. He was a successful officer in the Mexican War, having been engaged in nearly all the battles of the war, where he manifested conspicuous bravery. Returning from Mexico, he engaged a while in farming, but with discouraging results. Evidently it was not his vocation.

When the Civil War opened, Grant was employed at a small salary in his father's leather store in Galena, Illinois. He at once offered the governor his services, and was appointed a colonel of an Illinois regiment. He rose rapidly to conspicuous positions.

317. Capture of Vicksburg.– General Grant, after defeating the Confederates at the battle of Shiloh, and driving them south to Corinth, followed them to Vicksburg. This was a stronghold from which they seemed to defy every effort to dislodge them.

The city stands on a high bluff some two hundred feet above the Mississippi, and as there were heavy batteries all along the river front and on the hillsides, Grant could not attack the city with his gunboats. On the north there were miles of swamps and creeks, so that he could not approach on that side. On the east the city was heavily fortified with cannon.

President Lincoln and the country expected General Grant to capture Vicksburg. What could he do? Witness his superb generalship!

He first protected against cannon shot a number of gunboats and steamers by means of bales of hay, and planned to run them past eight miles of batteries one dark night in April. This movement was so perilous that officers would not order their men to go, but called for volunteers. So many were eager to go that lots were drawn for a chance. One soldier refused one hundred dollars for his place.

Soon as the watchful Confederates sighted the first boat of the grim procession, they opened a deafening cannonade, and started a series of bonfires that lighted up all the miles of that voyage of death. Some of the transports were destroyed, but enough got through to answer the general's purpose.

Next Grant ferried his army across the river some miles below Vicksburg, and fought and defeated General Pemberton's troops, which had moved down to meet him. Then, learning that General Johnston was coming to attack him, he marched up between the two armies. On his east side he met Johnston's army and defeated it. Thence he turned west and drove Pemberton again, and the next day routed him once more and drove his entire army into Vicksburg.

Commodore Porter's gunboats now threw huge shells into the doomed city from the river and Grant's army bombarded it on the east. It was an awful siege. No building was safe. The people lived in caves dug in the sides of the hills. Food was so scarce that mules, cats, dogs, and rats were devoured. At last, after seven weeks of siege, Pemberton, on July 4, surrendered his entire army of about thirty thousand men, the largest force captured during the war.

These two great victories, at Gettysburg and at Vicksburg, one in the East, the other in the West, both won at the same time, gave new hope to the Union cause. The Confederacy was at last cut in two, for the Mississippi River was open in its entire length, and its waters, in Mr. Lincoln's words, "flowed unvexed to the sea."

From this eventful Fourth of July in 1863 the strength of the Confederacy began to decay. There was little hope for its final success after this time. All its future contests only delayed the inevitable end.

318. Two Other Important Victories in the West.– In September occurred the severe battle of Chickamauga, where the Union army would probably have been utterly defeated but for the valor of General Thomas, who thus won for himself the name of the "Rock of Chickamauga." Late in November the Union army was shut in at Chattanooga by the ever alert Confederates, and was relieved only by General Grant's skillful planning and hard fighting.

This battle was fought on a cold, drizzly day. The fog, settling on the valley and sides of Lookout Mountain, up which our brave boys climbed, covered the lower part of the advancing army so that only the upper lines were visible. This brilliant victory is popularly known as "the Battle above the Clouds." These movements ended the army operations of 1863.

319. Sherman's Famous March to the Sea.– The year 1864 saw two great movements, both planned by General Grant, who had now been called by President Lincoln to come to Washington and take control of all the armies of the Republic. One was his own advance against Richmond, and the other General Sherman's famous "March to the Sea."

General W. T. Sherman, a brilliant officer and General Grant's dear comrade and lifelong friend, had driven his opponents southward and captured Atlanta. General Hood then very boldly but injudiciously led a Confederate army up to Nashville, where General Thomas attacked and utterly defeated him.

Meanwhile Sherman had begun his celebrated march to the sea. Having burned the mills, foundries, and workshops at Atlanta which had been of great value to the Confederates, he started in November with an army of sixty thousand on a three-hundred-mile expedition to the Atlantic! They marched on three and sometimes four parallel roads, foraging on the country, destroying railroads, burning bridges, and devastating a belt of territory from forty to sixty miles wide. Our army was followed by thousands of negroes, enjoying their new freedom.

In December Sherman reached the sea and telegraphed to President Lincoln the capture of Savannah as a Christmas present! Resting there, he then marched his conquering legions north, through both Carolinas, up to Goldsboro, having met and defeated Johnston's army at several points along the way. He was now able to aid General Grant, whose campaign against Richmond we must now consider.

320. Grant's Advance on Richmond; Lee's Surrender at Appomattox.– Early in May, Grant had started with a hundred and twenty thousand men on his advance against Richmond. He pushed his work with great vigor, fighting almost daily, but after every battle flanking Lee's right, and thus working constantly southward. It was a series of bloody battles, and the slaughter was enormous; but such is war. He continued slowly advancing all summer, and in the fall of 1864 began the siege of Richmond.

Finally, in April, 1865, General Sheridan had cut the last of the railroads supplying the Confederate capital. Then with Grant's army on one side and Sheridan's on the other, the Confederacy quickly collapsed. Jefferson Davis fled and a panic seized upon the people in the doomed city, while fire and havoc ran riot. The Union army soon marched in and restored order.

One week later Lee surrendered his whole army at Appomattox. General Grant treated his fallen foes with great generosity, requiring only the oath of officers and men not to fight further against the United States. The victorious general permitted all the men to keep their horses, to enable them, as he said, "to do their spring plowing on their farms."

321. The Story of Sheridan's Famous Ride.– Read's stirring poem, "Sheridan's Ride," has always been a favorite, for it records in verse the gallant deed of one of the most brilliant generals in the war for the Union. In the early fall of 1864 Grant sent General Sheridan with a large force of cavalry to lay waste the Shenandoah Valley. Sheridan did the work so well that it was said, "If a crow wants to fly down the valley, he must carry his provisions with him."

The story runs as follows: —

One morning in October the Confederates approached under cover of a fog and surprised the Union forces at Cedar Creek and put them to flight. Sheridan was then at Winchester, twenty miles away, slowly riding back to join his army. A messenger met him with the bad news. On his famous black horse he dashed forward at full speed down that "good broad highway, as with eagle flight," towards the line of battle. As he came nearer he met the first of the fugitives and rallied them with fierce and forcible words. At once they were as eager to fight again as they had been ready to fly.

A brave nucleus of the army which had not shared in the surprise was fighting with determined pluck to prevent disaster from becoming disgrace. Men said, "Oh for one hour of Sheridan!" All at once a deafening cheer was heard above the roar of musketry and artillery as the tired men recognized the long-looked-for Sheridan. The news flashed from brigade to brigade along the front with telegraphic speed. As the gallant general, cap in hand, dashed along the retreating lines, a continuous cheer burst from the whole army.

The entire aspect of affairs seemed changed in a moment. Further retreat was no longer thought of. "This retreat must be stopped!" shouted Sheridan to his officers as he galloped down the lines. The line of battle was speedily re-formed; the retreating army turned its face to the foe.

The ranks of the Confederates swayed and broke everywhere before the charge of the Union cavalry and the impetuous advance of the infantry. They were completely defeated, with the loss of many prisoners, and nearly all of their guns.

Sheridan's ride to the front, October 19, 1864, has passed into history as one of the most thrilling events that have ever given interest to a battle scene. Stripped of all poetic gloss, the result achieved by Sheridan's superb generalship, after reaching his shattered army on the field of Cedar Creek, still stands, with few if any parallels in history, as an illustration of the magnetic influence of one man over many, and as an example of snatching a great victory from an appalling defeat.

322. Death of Lincoln.– Wild was the delight of the country when peace came. There were public meetings, processions, bonfires, every possible display of universal joy!

Suddenly, like a total eclipse at noonday, came the darkness of a great sorrow. Abraham Lincoln, the great and good President, whose heart had bled for the nation's suffering, who had never held a trace of bitter feeling towards the South, was shot down by an assassin!

Instantly the nation was plunged into the deepest sorrow; joy ended in grief, delight was turned to mourning. Ninety thousand Union soldiers had been slain, but this last sacrifice overshadowed all. Never before was a great nation shrouded in a sorrow so deep. Thousands mourned, as for the loss of a personal friend.

The people hardly realized till his death the greatness of this man, the hero of the mighty struggle by which the Union was saved. From that day to this, the admiration and love, not only of the nation but of all mankind, have been increasing for the great and kind-hearted man, the wise leader, the blameless President, – Abraham Lincoln.

323. The Cost of the War.– The cost of the four years' war was something tremendous. At the close of the strife the total debt was about three thousand millions of dollars! This, however, was but a small part of the loss.

The cost in human life can never be estimated in money. The area fought over was so large that there was fighting somewhere almost every day! The number of battles, great and small, was more than two thousand! The total Union loss of men killed in battle and of those who died of wounds and disease was not less than three hundred and sixty thousand. The number of enlisted soldiers on the Union side was over two and a half millions.

324. Grand Review of Troops at Washington.– At the close of the war a grand review of Union troops was held at Washington. These comprised the army of the Potomac, commanded by General Meade in person, and Sherman's army fresh from its march to the sea. These battle-scarred veterans, perhaps one-fifth of all the Union soldiers who had tramped and fought for years, now passed in review, bearing aloft the tattered and shot-torn flags around which they had rallied on many a battlefield. The two days were beautiful and the sight was superb.

The National Capital was full of strangers in holiday dress, and every house was decorated with flags. For two days the two armies marched in close column around the Capitol, down Pennsylvania Avenue, past the President and cabinet, who occupied a large stand prepared for the occasion in front of the White House. On the second day it took six hours and a half for Sherman's magnificent army of sixty-five thousand sunburnt veterans to march in solid columns in review before the President.

This grand review was a fitting conclusion to the war. The million men who were still in arms at the close of the war, old comrades of camp and field, shook hands and parted, each to his home, where mother or sister or wife or children or other dear ones awaited the long-absent soldier.

325. The Country after the War.– The war proved beyond all question that the American Republic is a nation, not a league, and it rid it also of human slavery. It took, of course, a long time for the bitter feeling on both sides to die away. More than a generation has passed since the great Civil War desolated our fair land. The people of to-day have little cause to recall its sufferings and horrors.

How dear to the hearts of the American people are the familiar ceremonies of Memorial Day! What more impressive object lesson could our children have than to see the gray-haired veterans marching with thinner ranks and more faltering steps, on this sacred anniversary!