Executive and Congress, defined his own position upon
reconstruction, confiscation, the proposed amendment of
freedom, and other points of inquiry. 1 In short, this
memorable conference ended as it had begun, in a spirit
of good will and courtesy, but Stephens and his colleagues
returned to Richmond, conscious that they had utterly
failed to find ground for negotiation on equal terms ; noth
ing they felt was left but entire submission, States and
individuals, to the Federal constitution, trusting to the
usual rights and securities under that instrument ; while as
for the Confederacy, that must die the death. President
Davis, upon this report, took counsel of his indomitable
pride, denounced terms such as only "the conqueror may
grant," and with the bitterest defiance pursued at reckless
cost his hopeless military struggle. 2
Hunter presided at a midday meeting called in Rich
mond, where Davis and Benjamin made last efforts to
rekindle the sinking flames of resistance. 3 But this was
too much for Stephens, who foresaw subjugation close at
hand, and further conflict hopeless. He withdrew from
1 President Lincoln had persisted in asserting that he could not,
upon matters of reconstruction, enter into any agreement with citizens
in arms against the Government. "Mr. Hunter interposed," writes
Stephens, " and in illustration of the propriety of the Executive enter
ing into agreements with persons in arms against the acknowledged
rightful public authority, referred to repeated instances of this char
acter between Charles I. of England and the people in arms against
him. Mr. Lincoln in reply to this said : I do not profess to be posted
in history. On all such matters I will turn you over to Seward. All
I distinctly recollect about the case of Charles I. is that he lost his
head. "
2 10 N. & H. c. 6. And see Davis, c. 77 ; 2 Stephens s War, 600.
8 Am. Cycl. 1865, 191. " Better go down, subjugated and fighting,"
said the press, "than agree to any deceptive peace."
538 HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. CHAP. IT.
the Southern capital, abandoned fight, and retired to his
home in Georgia, still preaching reconstruction upon the
basis of separate State sovereignty. Gladly, no doubt, by
this time, would Georgia s statesmen have thus resolved
their State out of the Davis Confederacy, but they shrunk
from forcing that sanguinary issue with the Richmond cen-
tralizers, who now drew all Southern resources together for
a last determined stand. 1 The situation of the Confederacy
was indeed deplorable. Its financial credit was bankrupt,
and its currency, which, up to July, 1802, had depreciated
I nit slowly, ranged now from $45 to $60 for a single gold
dollar. The Confederate treasury was empty, and immense
hoards of cotton and tobacco, privately owned, could not be
turned to profit. During the early summer of 1861, gold
and silver circulated, notwithstanding the suspension of
State banks, but so rapidly were the precious metals
hoarded or bought up for speculation, that they disap
peared, as in the North. By another year, temporary
expedients having run their course, Confederate notes for
dollars and fractional amounts became the entire currency
of this section. Plentiful enough they were, but with
dingy paper and poor print they soon assumed a miserable
appearance, the fit presage of an approaching worthlessness. 2
Southerners have thought it a grave error that their gov
ernment did not, as many had urged in the fall of 1861, buy
all the private cotton at current rates and then issue bonds
1 President Lincoln at the Hampton Roads conference had not
missed the opportunity to impress upon his old friend the influence he
might exert, by getting Georgia to abandon a doomed warfare and
place herself in prompt allegiance once more to the Union ; but that
advice was not taken. Johnston s Stephens, 484-487 ; 10 N. & II.
128. Stephens was arrested at his home by military authority of the
United States in May, 1865.
2 Am. Cycl. 1865, 188 ; 10 N. & H. c. 8. Beef, pork, and butter
at Richmond reached $35 a pound, common cloth $60 a yard, while a
barrel of flour cost $1400. A suit of clothes cost $600, or $30 in gold.
De Leon, 232, 233. Stephens, as Vice-President, had been paying
$30 a day, in Confederate paper, for his meals and room, while the
Richmond Congress was in session, and $30 more for fuel, light, and
extras. Johnston s Stephens, 475.
1865. DESPERATE STRAITS OF REBELLION.
upon its pledge; but to have sent that immense store to
places of safe custody outside the lines would have been
difficult. Secretary Memminger flooded the South with
paper, whose only basis of redemption was a prospective
independence. For its inordinate issue there was little
demand, and the glut of currency increased. All this
heightened President Davis s unpopularity, and people
said he was autocratic. Discontent with the financial as
well as military situation was laid at his door. An impe
rious mandate to fund millions of these paper notes into
bonds, at a penalty of losing a third of their value, was a
first step in repudiation; for as old Treasury issues of
currency went out of sight new issues came from the press.
The portentous rise in Southern prices was due less to in
flation than to a spreading disbelief in Confederate success
and in the final redemption of public paper. Bonds were
refused, and the credit of this government became a biting
jest. Among country people grew up a system of barter,
and one class of necessaries would be traded off for some
thing else equally needful. Men sought to invest in some
thing that would keep. Tobacco, being of intrinsic value,
compact, and portable, was the choice investment; but cot
ton, real estate, merchandise, anything but the paper money,
found acceptance. 1 Living was hard enough in the cities
when rates became extravagant; but far away from these
centres and the army lines, what with mean transportation,
with impressment to strip the impoverished, with fields
wasted and the ravage of fire and sword, this insurgent
people lived on the barest produce at hand, and the few
who could bring forth the needful bundle of paper notes to
buy a meal, scarcely knew where amid the general scarcity
to find one. 2
Families of comparative means had flocked into the rebel
capital, but even there supplies grew scarce, while paper
1 De Leon, 235 ; 10 N. & H. c. 8. Most of the civil officers of the
Confederacy managed to get their supplies at cost prices from the
military stores ; and otherwise they could not have lived upon their
salaries at all. 10 N. & H. c. 12. 2 De Leon, 233.
540 HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. CHAP. II,
currency became more plentiful. People with surplus
portables were soon seen turning them into money. Here
raged a high fever of speculation in all commodities, with
an ever-failing ratio; and with trade s ordinary channels
blocked, auction stores, with their red flags, dotted the
main business street of Kichmond, and all sorts of incon
gruous articles were offered here, as at the retail shops,
bonnets and cavalry boots, ribbons and rifles, bread and
cartridges, packs of cards and groceries, spikes, rum, feather
beds, and cutlasses. The necessaries of life, however, were
held back by those figuring upon a rise. Flour, bacon,
beef, and salt, were hoarded for increasing profit. The
hyenas of speculation locked up salt, while soldiers in the
trenches sickened for want of it, and stored flour, too,
which some starving military squad might be guarding.
Here, in gaudy and gilded saloons, gambling became an
epidemic, and civilians and soldiery, high in rank, found
relief, among bright lights, good liquors, and cigars, for the
monotony and ennui of existence, while rattling the ivory
chips. Here, high and low gambled, some lightly for
excitement, some dashingly and brilliantly, a few sullen,
and bent upon gain. And all this while the fortunes of
the Confederacy and its financial resources grew more
ruinous. 1
SECTION XII.
THUNDER ALL ABOUND.
After the repulse at Cold Harbor, Grant determined that
his next flank movement to the left should carry his army
to the south of the James River; there steadily to besiege
Richmond, and stretch the line of his foe to its utmost
tension against his own. This resolve he at once announced
to the War Department, as consistent with his ultimate
plans, and compelled by Lee s obstinate refusal to meet
him in open battle. 2
1 De Leon, c. 27. 2 2 Grant, 279.
1864. GRANT S ARMY SOUTH OF THE JAMES. 541
By June 14th the Army of the Potomac had safely
reached the James River, and preparations began for
laying pontoons and crossing over to the south
bank. Simultaneously, with the aid of W. F.
Smith s detachment, now sent back by the way of White
Mouse to City Point, Butler was directed to move against
Petersburg, that railway centre of supply to the south
ward upon whose retention Richmond essentially depended.
Through Meade, Hancock s corps was ordered also to be
moved in readiness to the rear. When Smith arrived be
fore Petersburg on the 15th, he reconnoitred what seemed
to be empty works, a series of redans connected by rifle
pits, some of which he carried about nightfall by a success
ful assault with the aid of colored troops. The next morn
ing, the 16th, Hancock, who had come up, took command,
but after another success he had to be relieved, because the
wound broke out afresh which he had received at Gettys
burg. Meade, taking his place in person, assaulted and
carried more of these redans ; but his loss was very heavy,
and after severe fighting on the following day, the Con
federates, who now manned the defences in force, fell back
to an interior line where they fortified anew.
The golden opportunity had been missed here on the day
of Smith s arrival; for against his 16,000 troops, Peters
burg had then for defence only about 2500, and could lie
possibly have pushed on for another hour, the city might
have been taken or its rear cut off; and this would have
hastened the final capture of Eichmond by half a year. In
fact, Beauregard, who commanded here on the Confederate
side, had acted with the utmost energy and promptness.
Apprehending more quickly than did Lee this point of
danger, he stripped the lines at Bermuda Hundred, and
begged more troops to defend Petersburg, while his supe
rior, incredulous, was holding all forces in hand to fight
Grant upon the roads to Richmond between the Chicka-
hominy and James, just as he had fought McClellan. By
Beauregard s intrepidity, most of all, Petersburg was saved
on the 16th, and, two days later, the bulk of Lee s army
strengthened him in support, with Lee in person to com-
542 HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR.. CHAP. II,
mand. When, therefore, on the 18th, at noon, Meade
opened a vigorous assault upon the Confederate works, im
pressed, like Grant, with the importance of their capture,
the valor of Birney, Warren, Parke, Barlow, and the rest
was fruitlessly spent. Grant, at the close of this day,
called off the fight, and his gallant troops were placed in
shelter, and permitted the rest and recreation they had so
long needed. In these four days struggle, some ten thou
sand had been lost, though not wasted, on the Union side ;
and the Army of the Potomac felt exhausted by long and
arduous marches, and by incessant attacks made under
every disadvantage. It was high time to place them behind
intrenchments, like their foe, and give them safe cover and
comparative respite. 1
The siege of Petersburg now commenced; and to Meade s
army Grant assigned the close investment of that city,
while Butler s force held Bermuda Hundred and all the
ground gained 011 either side of the James River. Burn-
side, with his 9th corps, occupied the right, followed in
due order by Warren with the 5th; Birney (in Hancock s
place), with the 2d; and Wright, at the extreme left, with
the 6th. White House, no longer wanted as a store of
supplies, was now forsaken, and its garrison and wagon
trains were transferred to Grant s new base before the end
of this month, under the escort of Sheridan, whose cavalry
had been scouring northward in a raid upon the Virginia
Central railroad. To break the lines of Lee s communica
tion, and cut off his supplies from the rear of Richmond,
was a purpose which Grant had never lost sight of; and he
made, on the 22d of June, his first attempt at seizing the
Weldon and South Side railroads, those lines of communi
cation, by moving the 2d and Oth corps to the left. The
attempt, however, was unsuccessful, for as these two corps
were not well closed up, the Confederate A. P. Hill thrust
between them and inflicted damage. A cavalry raid under
Wilson, undertaken with the same object, achieved nothing.
Following these incidents, comparative quiet reigned for
1 9 N. & H. 318 ; 2 Grant, c. 56.
1864, OPERATIONS AGAINST PETERSBURG. 543
several weeks, Grant s army being busily occupied in in
trenching and strengthening its lines. 1 Both Grant and
Sherman, through experience, were now reaching the con
clusion that mere cavalry raids, though brilliant and effec
tive in many respects, can accomplish very little in
crippling railroads ; and Confederate leaders shared
most likely that conviction. For both sides had become
quite expert in repairing broken tracks after an enemy s
troopers had dashed away; and such, in particular, was
Sherman s facility in running his railroad trains again
before an enemy s cavalry had time to boast their exploit,
that the saying went through the South that he carried
duplicate tunnels in his baggage. 2 Grant s resolve to cease
his costly sacrifice of lives came none too soon ; for the
humane heart of the President had sickened at the slaughter
of so many thousands, and had it not been for the nerve,
the confidence, and the constant progress of this new gen-
eral-in-chief, which made a cheering impression, dissension
might have broken out at Washington to injure him, as it
had done his predecessors.
A dull, dry midsummer found the Army of the Potomac
recuperating fast in strength and spirit, despite the dust
endured and the difficulty of obtaining good water. Lee,
foreseeing now the inevitable end if this siege were to pro
ceed steadily, encouraged Early to threaten Washington
afar off and thus draw off the foe for guarding his own
domains. The effort failed, as we have elsewhere seen,
nor could Grant be tempted to attack Lee again in his
works, as the latter s strategy contemplated. The Union
general-in-chief held doggedly to his main task, and would
not weaken his advantage by menaces elsewhere. To other
operations he gave judicious attention, and did whatever
seemed needful for combinations elsewhere which had worked
1 2 Grant, 803 ; N. & II. c. 18.
2 For the true method of damaging the railroads of an adversary,
which Sherman now taught, see snpra, p. 513.
544 HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. CHAP. II.
feebly; but nothing could draw him away from his present
purpose, which was to pen up and capture Lee s army. His
siege train was on the ground, his approaches were begun,
and through day and night resounded the deep roar of artil
lery and the toil of pickaxe and spade. Towards the end of
July, Burnside completed an immense mine before Peters
burg, under the centre of the Confederate works, with a
gallery, more than five hundred feet long, which was
crossed by lateral branches of some forty feet each; there
were eight chambers in all, each of which required a ton of
powder for charging. 1 When all was ready Grant ordered
a feint upon the north side of the James, with a view of
drawing away as many of Lee s troops as possible before
the decisive moment of discharge. Shortly before five
o clock in the morning of the 30th, the mine exploded
with terrific effect, lifting a Confederate salient high in
air and disclosing in its place a huge crater whose broad
breach was a good four hundred yards in extent. The foe
fled from the vicinity of the hole- in horror, but the advan
tage of assault was not quickly followed up on the Union
side, as it should have been, while consternation lasted,
and the whole effort proved a wasteful and stupendous
failure, for which Burnside and an incompetent division-
general, whom he sent to conduct the charge, were chiefly
liable. Meade s fiery temper getting momentary control of
him, an angry passage ensued between him and Burnside;
and, with a court of inquiry ordered upon this spectacular
fiasco at the desire of the general-in-chief, Burnside s con
spicuous military career, chequered as it had constantly
been by good and ill fortune, came to an end. 2
The engineers now went on under Grant s orders, perfect-
1 An enterprise suggested by an officer of the 48th Pennsylvania Vol
unteers, a regiment largely composed of coal-miners.
2 9 N. & H. 425. The military court of inquiry censured Burnside,
together with some of his subordinates, while, on the contrary, the
War Committee of Congress sustained him. Burnside now resigned
from military service, the war ending by the time of this latter report;
Imt Rhode Island bestowed the highest civil honors upon her illustrious
on, whose public career ended finally in the United States Senate.
1864. LATEST EFFORTS OF THE YEAR. 545
ing before Petersburg their redoubts and connecting lines,
while Grant s own mind was chiefly intent upon the opera
tions of Sherman and Sheridan, developing victoriously at
a distance. The President, in a terse and charac- August-
teristic despatch, commended his unwillingness to December,
relax the prudent grasp he now held for temptations of
glory such as his great lieutenants were winning elsewhere.
Besides attending to engineering work, Grant s immediate
army stretched its lines on the right and left so as to force
Lee with a weaker thread to stretch correspondingly tow
ards the breaking point; menace and skirmishing were con
stantly kept up, though without risking at present another
assault; and further effort was made, moreover, to clutch
and keep those communicating railways to the southward
upon which both Petersburg and Richmond depended. In
a movement conducted by Warren on the 18th of August,
the Weldon railroad was seized at a point a few miles
below Petersburg; Lee and Beauregard made repeated
efforts to dislodge, and in the bloody skirmishes of the
next few days each side lost heavily ; but Warren kept and
strengthened his new position, and the Weldon railroad
remained in occupation of the Union army until war ended.
A partial destruction followed of the tracks and bridges,
compelling the besieged to haul their supplies by wagon
for a distance of thirty miles. 1 Near the close of Septem
ber, while Sheridan was in hot pursuit of Early, Grant
ordered a demonstration north of the James under Ord and
Birney, whose partial gain enabled his lines to be drawn
permanently closer to Richmond in that upper direction.
Finally, Meade made a vigorous effort, towards the close
of October, to get possession of the South Side railroad,
but in an action of the 27th, at Hatcher s Run, was forced
to withdraw; and Butler, the same day, made a demon
stration in his support, on the north side of the James,
which also failed of notable results. This ended all active
operations for the year, so far as Grant s immediate troops
were concerned. Picket skirmishing continued, to be sure;
1 2 Grant, c. 57 ; 9 N. & II. c. 18.
546 HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. CHAP. II.
but no real battle was fought near Petersburg or Richmond
during the succeeding winter season. Hancock, whose 2d
corps, which Grant so much depended upon, had been
greatly cut up by constant fighting, was now ordered to
Washington to organize a new command in preparation
for the coming spring, Humphreys taking here his place.
While the Army of the Potomac gained its needful repose,
a large amount of raw material was assimilated in the ranks,
which draft or heavy bounties at the North had procured,
to replace the veteran thousands, whose bones since May
lay bleaching on Virginia soil, along the stubborn line of
march. 1
Sherman s inarch to the sea from Atlanta was the latest
military exploit of the present year, and its immortal fame
redounds to the brilliant commander who planned and pur
sued it. To bisect the remaining Southern Confederacy,
now already parted at the Mississippi, might, like that
earlier enterprise, have occurred to various minds, but it was
this general who showed how and when to do it, and who
accomplished it, moreover, personally leading, where com
manders less fertile and intrepid might have failed. Be
tween him and Grant no question of origination was ever
raised, for Grant heartily accorded to Sherman the entire
credit for conception and achievement. 2 President Lincoln
was indeed anxious, if not fearful, when this march began,
but he acquiesced in Sherman s proposal, and would not
interfere with his wishes. 3 Sherman already held Atlanta,
stripped of its civil inhabitants, as a military base ; being
justified in his harsh procedure by the rules of war, and
heartily sustained at Washington. Neither he nor his
general-in-chief intended that he should linger there long
before commencing another campaign and pressing his in
vasion far through the interior.
1 2 Grant, c. 58 ; 9 N. & H. c. 18.
2 2 Grant, 375.
s 9 N. & H. 494 ; 2 Sherman, 166.
1864. HOOD S NEW MOVEMENTS. 547
Mobile had long been a favorite objective point with
Grant ; but motives for concerting there with Canby existed
no longer, and, while other plans were being discussed,
Hood, with the aid of Wheeler s cavalry, moved suddenly
upon Sherman s rear by rapid marches, and forced a new
initiative. This move was in pursuance of plans arranged
with Davis, the Confederate President, who visited Hood s
camp in Georgia towards the close of September, and
in florid and defiant speeches on the way disclosed the
design very frankly. This army, as he boasted, meant to
invade middle Tennessee, whither Forrest had" already been
sent, and the Yankee retreat from Atlanta would prove
more disastrous than Napoleon s from Moscow. Fore
warned was forearmed, and Sherman took instant precau
tions for his rear, where garrisons needed strengthening.
At Allatoona, General John M. Corse made a stubborn
defence, on the 5th of October, and held his fort
against a furious cannonade. Hood, moving still
northward, struck the railroad again between Besaca and
Tunnel Hill, and, after tearing up the tracks for twenty
miles, demanded and received the surrender of Dalton ; he
then disappeared towards the Tennessee line, joined, about
the 20th of October, by Beauregard. By this offensive
progress Hood had sought to improve the morale of his
troops, not yet daring, however, to risk a pitched battle.
The Confederate President had, on his late visit, composed
some personal difficulties in the camp, by transferring
Hardee, of whom Hood complained, to a command on the
seacoast, which was nominally a promotion; while Hood
himself was delicately supervised by Beauregard, who now
united the commands. Meanwhile, Forrest had made a
bold circuit in middle Tennessee, avoiding all fortified
points, and broken up the railroad at several points, in
flicting some temporary damage; and afterwards retreating
before Rousseau, he left the state near Florence, Alabama,
escaping unharmed.
Sherman took vigorous means to find and fight the way
ward and eccentric Hood; but he could not achieve his
purpose. By this time he had fully conceived the plan of
548 HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. CHAP. II.
marching forth to desolate the southern interior and reach
the seacoast, and he was eager to commence. "I can make
this march," he telegraphed Grant on the 9th of October,
"and make Georgia howl! " With that bold end in view,
he proposed breaking up his railroads at once all the way
from Chattanooga to Atlanta, as a defence too costly and
exacting to be worth attempting longer. His bread rations
and cattle on hand were already sufficient for commencing
the march, and with his wagons he could forage, he believed,
for whatever else might be requisite to subsist upon. This
purpose he reiterated in his despatches, making such prepa
rations as he might while awaiting permission ; but October
passed before his plans were approved. Hood, all the while,
hovered about northern Alabama, in Forrest s vicinity,
busily collecting shoes, clothing, and ammunition for a pro
jected invasion of Tennessee, which Beauregard furthered
while himself remaining at Corinth. Sherman supplied