After the Army of the Potomac’s “Valley Forge”
The “Valley Forge” actors left distinct legacies, good and bad, for posterity:
Abraham Lincoln, the leading actor, persevered and conquered most of his early-1863 concerns with the army. His best wartime strategic direction and political leadership were demonstrated when he expanded war’s aims to include emancipation, absorbed the political backlash, bonded with his troops, and moved into the war’s next strategic phase. By joining his fate with the Army of the Potomac’s, in particular, and winning their support, he accomplished some of his finest political work. Together, they then won battles (military and political), and demanded and retained popular support.
Lincoln’s “Valley Forge” actions and his Stafford visits in April 1863 achieved those things, especially in his interactions with army’s rank and file. Lincoln and the army finally found common ground in defeating the antiwar movement. The army’s renewed fighting spirit—based on patriotism, religious and political faith, and a more mature understanding of what was needed to win the war—progressed steadily from their time in Stafford. The army and Lincoln, once joined, never severed intellectually or emotionally. Whether by conviction, pragmatism, expediency, or a combination, new unity and common purpose emerged. For Lincoln, as with the army, the strategic corner was turned.
Lincoln had never done better service for the country than among his Federal troops in the Stafford spring of 1863. Their allegiance and political conversion, and their advocacy, secured necessary support among the Northerners for Lincoln’s re-nomination and re-election in 1864. And they aided immeasurably to concluding the war victoriously.
Lincoln fell to an assassin’s bullet on April 14, 1865, and died the next day—just two years and a few days after he had reviewed the army in Stafford near the end of their “Valley Forge.” He rests in Springfield, Illinois, and his monument in Washington, D.C., stands, as it should, equal to George Washington’s: Washington did more than anyone to create the nation, and Lincoln did more than anyone to save it.
Edwin McMasters Stanton reformed the “War Department at War”: personnel administration; fiscal management; contracting; and general efficiency. He was rightly credited with conducting war on a “new basis” of material superiority. Stanton reshaped the department and improved national resupply and manpower replacement. He tightened security, improved communications, and censored the press with a sufficiently iron hand to prompt cries of “tyranny.” But even Stanton’s fiercest political enemies—and they were numerous—would not have argued against his preeminence as an effective “war minister” and master political operative.
After Lincoln’s death, Stanton’s heavy-handed manner and political intrigues with Radical Republicans—an odd outcome of war—soon ended his usefulness to President Andrew Johnson. In fact, Stanton’s firing precipitated Johnson’s impeachment. After those efforts failed, in May 1868, Stanton resigned. In ill-health, he died before being seated on the U. S. Supreme Court, to which he had been appointed by President Grant on December 20, 1869. Stanton died on Christmas Eve, December 24—seven years to the day after Rufus Dawes made his Fredericksburg pronouncement about the “Valley Forge” of the war.
Henry Wager Halleck, by any measure, must number among Lincoln’s greatest military failures, and he certainly impeded resurgence during Hooker’s tenure and the “Valley Forge.” Propelled to prominence by Grant’s victories while under his command, Halleck was finally undone—ironically—when Grant came east in 1864. As general-in-chief commanding and coordinating all the Union’s armies from the field, Grant relegated Halleck to “Chief of Staff,” effectively demoting him.
The end of Joseph Hooker as an army commander came at Harpers Ferry, when he handed a loaded bureaucratic pistol to Halleck; Hooker’s personal self-destructiveness took care of the rest. Resigning three days before Gettysburg, he transferred army command—and the subsequent redeeming victory—to Meade. By war’s end, Hooker ultimately crossed personalities with Scott, Halleck, Burnside, Grant, Sherman, and virtually everyone in the Army hierarchy who might cast pity on his declining career.
Reportedly affected by Lincoln’s death and because interment took place in his Northern Department, Hooker presided over the ceremony to bid Lincoln farewell at his commander-in-chief’s gravesite. On horseback, “Fighting Joe” personally led the procession to the Oak Ridge Cemetery and sat “stiffly in his saddle as the closing prayer was offered.” Lincoln had been his best friend among the mighty—and, characteristically, Hooker failed to publicly acknowledge Lincoln’s greatness or kindnesses.
Officially cleared in May 1865 by his old comrades in the Radical Republican-dominated Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War of fault at Chancellorsville, what mattered most to him were reunions with “his” soldiers. In declining health, he at least found love, marrying Olivia Groesbeck in Cincinnati in October 1865. Soon after—attributed to the Chancellorsville head injury some deemed “minor”—Hooker suffered stroke and paralysis. To his further sorrow, his wife passed away in July 1868, only three months after his retirement.1
Arguably, Hooker redeemed the “fatherly” letter the president had given him in January 1863. Together they restored the army’s fighting spirit and, consequently, the nation’s hopes for victory in the East. His wartime testimony certainly suggested his time in Stafford County was significant: “I am, and have been, censured for that which I consider as the most meritorious of my military service …” he said. “[I]f my services have not been such as to merit reward, they should shield me from punishment.”
His service from January 25 to April 27 in 1863 was—unquestionably—Hooker’s highest wartime contribution. In its darkest hour, “Fighting Joe” provided the army essential military leadership and administrative, logistical, and organizational reforms. His administrative skill, soldier-oriented leadership and organizational abilities as army commander during that crucial period ultimately did more to win the war than all of his battles combined. Historical justice for Joseph Hooker demands such a judgment. His supporters always said so, and even his detractors said as much. “The Army of the Potomac never spent three months to better advantage,” wrote one of the latter, Francis A. Walker of the II Corps. Even one of his greatest detractors, Darius Couch, later wrote: “I have never known men to change from a condition of lowest depression to that of a healthy fighting state in so short a time.” Wartime military leadership not only leads men into battle, it also prepares them for battle and ultimate victory. Joseph Hooker and Daniel Butterfield accomplished that at the army’s helm, and their work deserved this and further research.2
Hooker’s later pronouncements shed further light. Writing to Samuel P. Bates between 1876 and his death in October 1879, Hooker was of course self-laudatory and denigrating of others, but his writings nonetheless constitute his summation to the historical jury.3 In December 1876, he sent his key orders, boasting that they were used as models in other armies. He emphasized the order granting leaves of absence and furloughs. “Presdt. Lincoln telegraphed me to come to Washington,” he recounted, “he said that I had ruined my army—that when the men left I would never get them back, when I begged him to let the order work three weeks before countermanding it and then if unsuccessful do as he liked.” He next referred to the March 21, 1863, circular on corps/division badges, adding it was “adopted by the Armies in the West as well as in the East and had a magical effect on the discipline and conduct of our troops ever after.” Hooker accurately stated, “The badge became very precious in the estimation of the soldier, and to this day they value them more than anything.” These Hooker-selected highlights comprised what he termed, “[T]he secret of how I built up the Army of the Potomac to accomplish the great achievement it was expected and destined to make.”
He asserted that Chancellorsville was not a demoralizing defeat. “In but little more than a month after our return to camp, [the army] embarked in the campaign of Gettysburg and fought a great battle there,” he pointed out. “I think no appearance of demoralization can anywhere be found in these events.” Hooker emphasized Meade had changed none of his orders after the change in command.
Of Gettysburg he emphasized, “you will be able to appreciate its [i.e., the army’s] true condition, for it really won the great battle of Gettysburg without a commander. Hancock was grand, and so were Reynolds and Buford, and a host of others. When you re-write Gettysburg I beg you will not fail to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”—by which, he naturally meant Hooker’s.
In 1879, he expounded upon some of those ideas in a passage that well could have been his own military epitaph:
But I have since consoled myself with the conviction that the time had not yet arrived [at Chancellorsville] in the mind of the supreme Ruler of the universe for giving the Rebellion its coup de grace, and to suppose under these circumstances that I would do it, would be supposing that I was stronger than fate itself. Had the war ended at Chancellorsville we doubtless would have had another before this …. No Army ever entered upon a campaign with more confidence and resolution than was shown by the Army of the Potomac in its advance on Gettysburg, and long before that battle was ended no doubt their enemy fully realized the serious mistake they had made in representing it to have been in a forlorn, demoralized condition.
Throughout his correspondence with Bates, Hooker remained classic Hooker: he denigrated Meade, Hunt, and Stoneman, and attacked—primarily for his 1866 army history—correspondent William Swinton, who had extolled Hooker on May 2, but had later reined-in his enthusiasm. Hooker offered enthusiastic endorsement of Rufus Ingalls: “I doubt if any Army ever had his superior in technical and profound knowledge of his profession, and in administrative ability and devotion.” This apparently confirmed Ingalls’ role in Hooker’s logistical reforms and innovations. His views on Hunt mellowed a bit, stating he “was opinionated, but able.”
Hooker passed on a vital lesson: he credited “The rank and file of the Army, which determines all battles.” He took care of his men with improved provisioning and took concrete military steps, namely reorganizing the cavalry and military intelligence, and reforming tactical ordnance and logistics. These improved the army’s combat performance and, although all reforms did not provide immediate dividends, they ultimately aided the army’s ability to maneuver and defeat the Confederate forces. Hooker’s main failures were in personal and military character and in putting the wrong men into positions to make the cavalry reorganizations immediately fulfill their promise. Like Hooker, his subordinates generally lacked the ability to work together. Hooker hadn’t created that poisonous atmosphere of intriguing and backbiting, but he certainly contributed to it.4
Daniel Butterfield was legitimately described as “the brains of the outfit.” Perhaps reflective of that, he continued as the army’s chief of staff after Hooker’s resignation. After Gettysburg, where he was severely wounded, he clashed with Meade over a battle order. When displaced, Butterfield rejoined Hooker in the Western Theater in October 1863 before succumbing to illness.
Butterfield returned to Fredericksburg on May 30, 1901, and dedicated a V Corps monument in the National Cemetery. He died only a few weeks later, on July 17, 1901, in Cold Spring, New York, and was buried at West Point—a special tribute for a citizen-soldier. “Taps” was played at his funeral.
All known historians who have seriously looked at Butterfield’s wartime contributions feel that he had played a greater role than has been credited to him. If the history of the “Valley Forge” achieves wider recognition, then Butterfield should gain greater respect. His close associations with Hooker did not help his case. Butterfield at a minimum deserves a more definitive and thorough biography.5
George Gordon Meade, commander of V Corps during the “Valley Forge,” commanded the army at Gettysburg. He might have been a better choice than Hooker in the first place, but it could be argued that the army at that time needed Hooker’s assertiveness and self-confidence. The humbler Meade might have been unable to make such rapid exertions, as evidenced by the order he issued when he first assumed command on June 28, 1863 (General Order No. 67): “By direction of the President of the United States, I hereby assume command of the Army of the Potomac …. As a soldier in obeying this order—an order totally unexpected and unsolicited—I have no promises or pledges to make.” His next statement might well have been written by Lee or Jackson: “The country looks to this army to relieve it from the devastation and disgrace of foreign invasion. Whatever fatigues and sacrifices we may be called upon to undergo, let us have in view constantly the magnitude of the interests involved and let each man determine to do his duty, leaving to an all-controlling Providence the decision of the contest.”
George Stoneman, who had rendered valuable service as an infantry division and III Corps commander, was badly miscast as Cavalry Corps commander. Comparison with J. E. B. Stuart left much to be desired, as amply revealed during “Stoneman’s Raid” and Chancellorsville. Stoneman, replaced by the equally dubious Alfred Pleasonton after Chancellorsville, was “kicked upstairs” as chief of the new (July 1863) cavalry bureau in Washington. There, paradoxically, his considerable administrative talents and practical horse-logistics experience were used to better effect. He finished the war in various field commands related to the Western armies.6
William Woods Averell, briefly a rising cavalry star before and after his Kelly’s Ford raid, saw his military fortunes precipitously decline. Within two months, his under-performance on “Stoneman’s Raid” and during Chancellorsville left Hooker with a deep enmity. Averell’s military banishment followed, and he led a series of minor raids in western Virginia. Sheridan’s coming east ended chances for Averell’s return. Younger (and better) rising cavalry generals also hurt his case. In many respects, Averell seemed to have the “right stuff” but was a likely victim of the hurried development of the Cavalry Corps. His rapid rise worked against him, and he probably would have been better-served with a more gradual ascent.7
Alfred Pleasonton rightly garnered no admirers at Hooker’s headquarters for his lethargy during the Hartwood Church raid. His Chancellorsville service merely helped him escape retribution. Yet, he replaced Stoneman on June 7, and a few days later, surprised Stuart at Brandy Station. He returned to good repute for his success in what turned out to be the largest cavalry battle of the war. The corps was beginning to show progress as an independent force.
Pleasonton’s Gettysburg performance was deemed undistinguished, though. He showed himself to be a better thinker than commander—many of his earlier ideas were incorporated in the Cavalry Corps reorganization. Rising cavalrymen (e.g., Merritt, Custer, and Mackenzie) carried Pleasonton for a bit and, to his credit, he mentored their ascendance. When Grant came east, the new Commanding General of the Armies brought Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, who replaced Pleasonton on March 25, 1864, and perfected the Cavalry Corps’s development.8
Marsena R. Patrick served as the Army of the Potomac’s provost-marshal-general for the rest of the war and gave effective and loyal service to all of his commanders. A Democrat, he ran afoul of Republicans in the elections of 1864 and was estranged politically within upper military circles. Nevertheless, he was at Grant’s side coordinating the provost duties of all the Union armies and was rewarded with a brevet major generalcy on March 13, 1865.9
Rufus Ingalls, argued historian Ezra Warner, was “perhaps the only officer in a position of great responsibility who gave satisfaction to every commander of the Army of the Potomac from first to last.” His reward for success was becoming permanently typecast and remaining in the quartermaster service for the rest of his 40-year career.10
Colonel George H. Sharpe, chief of the Bureau of Military Information and Marsena Patrick’s deputy provost-marshal-general, continued in that capacity under Meade and, finally, in Grant’s headquarters. He has been rightly included among the pioneers of American intelligence. In a January 1876 speech, per the New York Times, he gave fitting benedictions to both the army and its Southern enemy: “[Sharpe] concluded with an eloquent tribute to the Army of the Potomac, the breastplate of the nation, which had stood through all the trials and struggles of the war, the army which was often complained of for not moving enough, but never for not dying enough, and whose heroic labors were finally crowned by the surrender of the bravest and most successful of the Confederate forces—the Army of Northern Virginia.”11
Elisha Hunt Rhodes, a colonel by the time the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry mustered out in July 28, 1865, penned an elegant final diary entry: “No more suffering, no more scenes of death. Thank God it is over and that the Union is restored. And so at last I am a simple citizen. Well, I am content, but should my country call again I am ready to respond. The Governor has given me a commission as Colonel for gallant conduct during the war. But what are honors now, compared to the delights of peace and home.”12
In 1890, Rufus Dawes he published Service with the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers. The man who had pronounced the commencement of the “Valley Forge” left behind an indelible record. In life’s twilight, Dawes focused on veteran survivors: “To my living comrades this book will be my greeting and farewell.” He regretted overlooking “many noble deeds and some brave men,” adding, “But remember I was not then a historian. I was then only writing to my family, friends and M.B.G., (my best girl) [also Mary Beman Gates], who were personally strangers to you all.” Dawes wanted to show “the generations yet to come that our band was the finest quality of heroic mettle, and ‘equal,’ as Gen. McClellan wrote, ‘to the best troops in any army in the world.’” He poignantly added:
The shadows of age are rapidly stealing upon us. Our burdens are like the loaded knapsack on the evening of a long and weary march, growing heavier at every pace. The severing of the links to a heroic and noble young manhood, when generous courage was spurred by ambitious hope, goes on, but you have lived to see spring up as the result of your suffering toil, and victory the most powerful nation of history and the most beneficent government ever established.
Despite all the dangers that seem to doom good soldiers, Thomas White Stephens survived the war. He went on to fight at Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Overland Campaign and Petersburg before mustering out in August 1864. Without denigrating those who prayed and died, his frequent “seasons of prayer” during the “Valley Forge” may have saved him, as a later biographic sketch related: “he was four times slightly wounded, being protected from serious wounds by his cartridge box and knapsack, once by a book inside his clothing, a Bible taken from Chancellorsville battle field.” His rifle was also shattered deflecting an artillery round. No doubt thankful for his blessings, he remained a faithful Methodist for the rest of his days.13
In final victory was redemption for certain units and soldiers. Sergeant Henry C. Morhaus of the 123rd New York Infantry Regiment provided an interesting finale for the much maligned XI and XII Corps in an 1879 memoir. Consolidated into Sherman’s forces, they moved north for the Washington victory parade after Confederates surrendered in North Carolina. En route, they passed through the Rappahannock Valley. “At about noon [May 15, 1865] the Regiment reached the old Chancellorsville battle field, the scene of their first terrible conflict over two years before,” Morhaus related. “Here they halted two hours, and visited the spot where so many of their comrades had fallen, and a prayer of thanksgiving went up from many a heart that day, that God in his great goodness had seen fit to spare them.” They walked the field and recalled “that terrible 3d day of May, 1863.” Visiting graves of fallen comrades “scarcely covered with earth by the Rebels,” they improved them with shovels and identified the still identifiable. “Soon the bugle sounds to ‘fall in,’” Morhaus recalled,
and with one more look at the graves of fallen comrades they hasten into line, and are soon on the march, taking the same road to United States Ford they did two years before, but under what different circumstances! Then they had been defeated and falling back to their old camp at Stafford Court House; now they were on their way home after having helped conquer the Rebels. Moving down on the flat by the Ford they camped for the night, feeling that they had passed through an eventful day—a day in which scenes of other days had been brought fresh to their memories. May 16th the boys were up early, and after a breakfast of coffee and hard-tack, pushed on across the Rappahannock river at United States Ford, and soon afterward reached Hartwood church….14
Many Union soldiers never left the Rappahannock Valley. A September 1872 reunion of the 107th New York Infantry Regiment recalled Stafford scenes. An elaborate graveyard, unfortunately atypical, had been left by the 107th to dignify the graves at “Camp Valley Forge”:
The grave yard of the regiment was in a beautiful place [Hope Landing]. It was on a knoll close to the [Aquia Creek] bank, and was shaded by two great trees. A neat stone, bearing a suitable inscription marked each soldier’s resting place. The graves were all in exact rows, and in the center of the ground was an extra stone, upon which Lieut. Dennison, with exquisite taste, had placed simply the words, “107 N.Y.V., In Place Rest”
“In Place Rest!” Is a command frequently given to the men “wearied with their drill,” the writer recalled. “[T]hey could rest themselves in any position merely keeping in line, so that when they heard the bugle call, ‘Attention’ they might spring promptly to their places. So we laid in ranks and lines, our comrades tired with life’s battles inscribed above them the order, ‘In Place Rest,’ and left them waiting for the one great bugle note which in some coming time shall sound throughout the world.” The bodies were later disinterred and moved to the new Fredericksburg National Cemetery joining 15,000 burials there from battles in the Rappahannock Valley—85 percent of whom are “unknown.”
David B. Tappen of the 1st New Jersey Infantry, who had found his faith in the army and rejoiced in his brother’s conversion in April, died in action in May at Chancellorsville. Missing after a bayonet charge, comrades Edward W. H. Graham and Stacy L. Disbrow wrote to Tappen’s family sharing what little they knew.
An enemy soldier’s letter of May 12, 1863, from “Rebel Camp 11th Ala. Regt., Fredericksburg, Va.” completed the story. “I found on the person of David B. Tappen a Memorandum Book with a piece written in requesting anyone who chances to find it if he was killed to write to his friends,” the letter said. “He had nothing valuable about him that I saw. He was killed in battle on Sunday evening the 3rd of May in front of my Regt.” The writer, J. J. Cook, related the ball that killed David hit him in the breast. He was buried “near the place where he fell near Salem’s Church about 3 ½ miles from Fredericksburg on the plank road.” Cook added, “Many of his comrades lie close by his side. I am in hopes that you will get this as the deceased desired his friends to know what became of him. I also enclose the piece he left written on an envelope. “I will close by saying I am in hopes that the Northern States will soon see their error and let the South depart in peace.”
This simple “From a Rebel” letter offers a simple testament to American decency in the midst of its cruelest war.15
1 Hebert, Fighting Joe Hooker, Chapter XXI, “Later Life,” 288-296.
2 BV 406, part 2, FSNMP. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Bates Collection. Division of Public Records, Folder C. Joseph Hooker to Samuel P. Bates 1875-1879.
3 BV 406, part 2, FSNMP. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Bates Collection. Division of Public Records, Folder C. Joe Hooker to Samuel P. Bates 1875-1879.
4 William P. Styple, ed., Generals in Bronze: Interviewing the Commanders of the Civil War (Kearny, NJ, 2005), 40-44; Ibid. James Kelly (1855-1933) conversed with his subjects about their postwar reflections. More remarkably, 27 boxes of Kelly’s notes survive in the New York Historical Society.
5 Warner, Generals in Blue, 62-63. Styple, ed., Generals in Bronze, 71-72. www.west-point.Org/taps/Taps.html (accessed on May 28, 2009) provides a balanced discussion from an article by Civil War musical historian Jari A. Villanueva, entitled “24 Notes that Tap Deep Emotions.” The article concludes Butterfield certainly had a hand in the process, but may have modified a call dubbed “Scott’s Tattoo.” BV 220, part 1, FSNMP. Gareth O’Bannon, “Taking the Hill: A History of the Fredericksburg National Cemetery.”
6 Warner, Generals in Blue, 481-482.
7 Ibid., 12-13.
8 Ibid., 373-374.
9 Ibid., 361-362. Internet web-sites, including: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsena_R._Patrick; an interesting article by Benjamin P. Thomas and Harold M. Hyman at http://adena.com/adena/usa/cw/cw148.htm, which addresses election and electioneering issues in the 1864 army (all accessed on April 28, 2009); David S. Sparks, ed., Inside Lincoln’s Army: The Diary of Marsena Rudolph Patrick, Provost Marshal General, Army of the Potomac (New York, NY., 1964).
10 Warner, Generals in Blue, 245-246.
11 Several Internet web-sites provide information on Sharpe’s postwar life; these include: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._Sharpe; Dr. Dennis Casey, “George Sharpe: American Intelligence Pioneer,” at www.fas.org/irp/agency/aia/cyberspokesman/99-09/history1.htm; http://localhistory.morrisville.edu/sites/unitinfo/sharpe-120.html. Sharpe’s obituary can found in the New York Times, dated January 15, 1900: query. Nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F2091EF93D5D147B93C3AB178AD85F428784F9. This concerns the January 1876 speech he gave on the last days of Lee’s army at Harlem Congregational Church. (All accessed on April 28, 2009.) Sharpe’s date-of-rank as brevet brigadier general was March 13, 1865, per Phisterer; other, apparently incorrect accounts list him as receiving brevets to brigadier general in 1864 and major general in 1865.
12 Rhodes, ed., All For the Union; Farewell address provided by Gregg A. Mierka: http://www.angelfire.com/ri2/GARvets/2ndRIphotoAlbum.html (accessed on May 8, 2009).
13 Phisterer’s 1883 Statistical Record of the Armies of the United States, 312, probably a clerical error, lists Dawes’ brevet rank date as March 18, 1865. Se his Congressional biography at: http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=D000149 (accessed April 23, 2009); BV 106, part 3, FSNMP. Paul E. Wilson and Harriet Stephens Wilson, eds., “The Civil War Diary of Thomas White Stephens, Sergeant, Company K, 20th Regiment of Indiana Volunteers,” biographic: http://www.kancoll.org/books/cutler/shawnee/shawnee-co-p41.html (accessed July 13, 2009). William G. Cutler, History of the State of Kansas.
14 BV 319, part 8, FSNMP, published work, Sgt. Henry C. Morhaus, Reminiscences of the 123d Regiment, N. Y. S. V. (Greenwich, NY: People’s Journal Book and Job Office, 1879), 186-187. Morhaus or the type-setter misspelled Hartwood as “Hastwood.”
15 BV 213, part 2, FSNMP, letters of David B. Tappen.