Chapter Thirteen Sunday morning, July 21, 1861, dawned clear and the sun rose big and red. The day promised to be hot, in more ways than one, because the first major battle of the Civil War was at hand. There was nothing to compare with what was about to happen. Recent, small-scale clashes in western Virginia, and at Big Bethel on the peninsula between the James and York Rivers, would pale into relative insignificance when compared with the bloodletting at Bull Run. The river that gave the battle its name was a fairly formidable forty-foot-wide stream, “with ugly ragged banks” according to Sherman, which flowed in a generally northwest-to-southeast direction as it meandered across the area where the opposing armies were marshaling.1
Brigadier General Irvin McDowell’s hastily formed Army of the Potomac, numbering about 34,000, was drawn up a short distance from the northeast banks of the stream; while Brigadier General P. G. T. Beauregard, who had been a classmate of McDowell at West Point, commanded approximately 20,000 Confederates, spread along an eight- or nine-mile front on the opposite side of the winding river. Beauregard, viewed in the South as a dashing hero after Fort Sumter, was being substantially reinforced. Joseph E. Johnston, leading 12,000 troops, had slipped away from Robert Patterson’s Federal force in the Shenandoah Valley. Most of Johnston’s men had already arrived, and the rest were drawing near. Beauregard was positioned to defend Manassas Junction, where the Manassas Gap Railroad intersected the vital Orange & Alexandria, with its connections to the new Confederate capital at Richmond.2
Events had developed rapidly since Virginia seceded from the Union. After Richmond became the capital of the Confederacy in late May, the United States capital in Washington lay within approximately a hundred miles, and many people, north and south, anticipated that a major battle would soon occur somewhere between the two cities. Aggressive Southern expansionists were dreaming of adding the slave state of Maryland to their confederacy, and by force of military invasion if necessary. With Washington, D.C., totally encompassed by Virginia and Maryland, the U.S. capital would be compelled to capitulate—or so ran the theorizing among some “Southrons,” as they delighted in styling themselves.3
Americans in Washington were thinking in equally aggressive terms. Many officials in the nation’s capital strongly favored a grand offensive. “We should bring on the battle,” demanded one impatient member of the U.S. Congress, doubtless speaking for a host of other representatives. Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois called for an “immediate movement of the troops,” with the objective of taking Richmond before the Confederate Congress could meet in late July. Northern newspaper editors were of like mind. “On to Richmond” became the masthead slogan of Horace Greeley’s widely influential New York Tribune, and other papers at once backed his cry for action. The time had come to crush the rebellion. One battle, and the deed would be done. President Lincoln stood with those demanding action.4
However, General Winfield Scott demonstrated no enthusiasm for an immediate offensive. He believed that going to war with the army he had made no sense. The troops were simply too raw, and he did not like the idea of a campaign in Virginia anyway. Scott advocated that no forward movement should be made before the fall. Then, advised the nation’s most experienced soldier, the line of advance should be down the great Mississippi, dividing the Confederacy and seizing New Orleans with a simultaneous, amphibious advance from the Gulf of Mexico, while placing a strong blockade around the Southern coastline. Scott’s “anaconda” plan, as some called it, would thereby isolate the Confederacy and slowly squeeze it to death.5
Also General McDowell, even if he had never commanded troops in battle, knew that his green army was not ready for offensive operations; and other officers of military training agreed. Certainly Sherman understood there was great risk in attacking with an inadequately prepared army. Admittedly, Sherman continued to nourish his deep disdain for volunteer soldiers, but that bias did not alter the fact, plainly evident to any one with open eyes, that the mass of the Union Army consisted of ill-trained and ill-disciplined units. He wrote Ellen that “the volunteers do pretty much as they please.” He observed that “on the Slightest provocation,” they fire their weapons, and reported that the day before “there was an ugly stampede of 800 Massachusetts men.” He also penned a letter to his brother John, stating “the volunteers test my patience by their irregularities.” He accused them of “robbing, shooting in direct opposition to orders, and like conduct showing a great want of Discipline—Twill take time to make soldiers of them.”6
But President Lincoln determined that the army must take the offensive immediately. When General McDowell protested that the soldiers needed more time for training, Lincoln replied with his oft quoted assessment that both sides were “all green together,” as if that nullified McDowell’s argument.7
Perhaps, given the circumstances, the President had no other choice. A Confederate army positioned within a short distance of the capital could not be ignored. Both the public and the politicians demanded that the Rebels be driven away. Enlistment time for the ninety-day men who volunteered after Fort Sumter would soon be up. Many congressmen believed those troops should not go home before being engaged in a campaign. Sherman said that the volunteers had also taken up the cry “On to Richmond.”8
While Lincoln liked General Scott’s concept of how the war should be fought—and in the long term the aging general’s plans certainly did help win the conflict—the President realized that a great host of people demanded immediate battle with an enemy embarrassingly positioned at the doorstep of the nation’s capital. “The temper of Congress and the people,” remembered Sherman, “would not permit the slow and methodical preparation desired by General Scott.” Without action soon, the President feared that Northern morale, both of the army and the general public, would suffer severe damage—not to mention harm to America’s image abroad. The U.S. forces, Lincoln concluded, must move against the Rebels at once. And so he ordered.9
General McDowell reluctantly began his advance on July 16. From the start, all manner of problems plagued the movement. McDowell was leading an army fully three times the size of Scott’s force in Mexico, and neither he nor his division and brigade commanders knew much about how to do it. As for the ninety-day men, they had not been impressive on the parade ground; now, on the march, they proved physically unfit. Carrying full equipment on a hot day, the army covered only six miles and that distance exhausted a large number of men. Five days would be consumed before the marching, bringing up supplies, reconnoitering and organizing for an attack were at last completed.10
Discipline was woefully lacking among the volunteers. Sherman’s criticisms were not exaggerated. They broke ranks in search of water, picked blackberries, discharged firearms and looted. Houses were plundered, animals shot and some structures were set on fire. When the volunteers’ equipment became heavy, it was dropped by the wayside; sometimes they even dispensed with ammunition. The day before the battle, two regiments of ninety-day men, announcing that their enlistment was expired, headed back to Washington. All in all, their conduct seemed to be confirming Sherman’s worst nightmares about the unreliability of volunteer soldiers.11
The Union Army heading for Manassas Junction consisted of four divisions, each with a strength of about 8,000 men. Brigadier General Daniel Tyler’s First Division led the advance, and Sherman’s Third Brigade, numbering 3,400, marched in Tyler’s division. General McDowell established his headquarters in Centreville and came up with a well-conceived attack plan. Sherman wrote that Bull Run “was one of the best-planned battles of the war.” Learning that Beauregard’s forces occupied good defensive ground behind the river, McDowell discarded any thought of a frontal assault. Hoping to take the Confederates by surprise, he determined to feign a head-on attack while moving to strike their left flank with half of his army.12
Tyler’s lead division would conduct the feint, moving out from its camps at two o’clock on the morning of July 21. Tramping west-southwest along the Warrenton Turnpike, as the road from Washington was known in that vicinity, Tyler was to advance to the Stone Bridge over Bull Run. There, on the opposite side of the river, Nathan G. Evans’s small Confederate brigade of two regiments and a handful of cavalry formed the weak left flank of the Rebel army—although the Federals did not know how few Confederates defended the bridge. Tyler was to make a strong demonstration against the enemy, capturing the bridge if possible, convincing the Confederates that this was the focal point of the Union attack. To further aid in screening the main assault, one brigade from the Fourth Division would feint an attack at Blackburn’s Ford, some three miles south of the Stone Bridge.13
Meanwhile, the Second and Third Divisions would be marching to launch the real attack against the Confederate left flank. Brigadier General David Hunter’s Second Division would follow in the wake of Tyler’s First, until he crossed Cub Run, a stream roughly paralleling Bull Run about two miles back of the Stone Bridge. There Hunter’s command would turn to the right, make a sweeping advance of several miles to the north and west and cross Bull Run at Sudley Springs Ford. Brigadier General Samuel Heintzelman’s Third Division would follow Hunter’s troops. Once across Bull Run, the two divisions would strike southward in battle array. If all went well, the Rebels would be under great pressure, enabling the First Division to drive across the river at or near the Stone Bridge and significantly strengthen the Federal attack.14
As the Union forces prepared for their early move that Sunday morning, General Beauregard, with approval from the recently arrived Joe Johnston, also planned to take the offensive. He even issued the orders. Curiously, Beauregard’s intention, like McDowell’s, was to attack the left flank of his enemy. However, Beauregard’s orders never reached some of the brigade commanders. Nevertheless, two Rebel brigades did actually cross Bull Run as the Southern army began lurching into position for an attack. Before the Confederates could assemble and strike, Beauregard learned that McDowell had already brought on the battle.15
The Union commander’s carefully designed plan of attack may have seemed nearly flawless on paper, but the implementation went askew from the beginning. Not that anyone should have been surprised, considering that all the previous marching had been halting and time-consuming. Worse than the advance from Washington, the Union Army had to move into attack position in the dark. Tyler’s division, leading off to launch the big diversion at the Stone Bridge, was slow getting under way. Troops became confused about their place in line, and the road on which they were to march. Thus the First Division took excessive time moving beyond the crossroads at Cub Run, where the flanking divisions marching behind Tyler were to swing off to the right.16
Once the Second and Third Divisions finally turned northward, heading toward Sudley Springs Ford, the going was very slow. Men groped along in the dark, and frequently blundered into one another. Accordion action in the marching units (“hurry up and stop”) contributed to the slowness of the advance. They had been awake since shortly after midnight. They were tired, many were hungry and grousing, when at last the head of the column reached Sudley Springs Ford at 9:30 a.m.—2½ hours later than intended. Another thirty minutes to an hour passed before Hunter and Heintzelman got their troops across Bull Run and advanced to attack.17
Meanwhile, Daniel Tyler’s First Division had arrived at the Stone Bridge at about 5:30, opening the battle with an artillery shot across the river. Several more artillery pieces soon went into action, but they fired slowly, and only one of Tyler’s brigades provided support with rifled-musket fire. The demonstration was not at all convincing. The Confederates soon concluded that the Stone Bridge would not be the main point of attack. Sherman’s brigade lay on the north side of the road, behind the infantry who were conducting the demonstration. As usual, Sherman was restless. He rode to the river, examining the ground and seeking a place to ford the stream.18
Confederate horsemen showed him what he was looking for, although that was never their intention. Sherman described what happened in a letter to Ellen: “About 9 o’clock I was well down to the River—with some skirmishers and observed two men on horseback ride along a hill, descend, cross the stream and ride out toward us.” One Rebel waved his gun over his head, making himself conspicuous, and loudly shouted: “You D——d black abolitionists, come on.” Sherman permitted his men to fire on the man, but none of them hit the brazen fellow, who eventually rode back across the river. If a Rebel could cross Bull Run at that point, obviously the Union troops could, too. The site was approximately a half mile north of the Stone Bridge.19
At about the same time, a Confederate signal officer, located on a high observation point, spotted through his spyglass the reflection of the sun’s rays as they struck metal—bayonets, field pieces, rifled muskets—in the vicinity of Sudley Springs Ford. Sending word immediately to Beauregard’s command post, the officer also signaled Colonel Evans at the Stone Bridge: “Look out for your left; you are turned.” Evans, who conducted his command well that day, reacted at once. Leaving four companies and two artillery pieces to continue bluffing the Union troops at the Stone Bridge, which he had been effectively achieving for some time, Evans took approximately 1,100 men and moved rapidly to meet the enemy on his flank. He positioned his men in a strip of woods along Matthews Hill, facing toward Sudley Springs Ford, which was less than a mile distant. The Confederates enjoyed a clear field of fire to their front, and here they opened with artillery (two pieces) and infantry fire, when the Federals drew within a range of approximately 600 yards. The time was near 10:30.20
Soon hard-pressed by the advancing Federals, who significantly outnumbered him, Evans called for help. He was reinforced by two Southern brigades, moving up to the fight and close at hand, which brought the total Confederate strength at Matthews Hill to approximately 4,500. Then, as the second Union division in the flanking force came up, deployed and added its numbers to the clash, the battle on the hill became intense. The Northerners boasted a decided advantage in numbers—more than two to one. At this point, Sherman was ordered into the action. His division commander had received an order from General McDowell to “press the attack,” and Tyler selected Sherman for the work. Marching his brigade at once toward the crossing he had discovered a little earlier, he soon had the men over the river and “ascending the Bluff Bank.” Once atop the bank, Sherman said he moved out “slowly to permit the Ranks to close up.” First tramping through a woods skirting the stream, the regiments then marched out into the open, advancing toward the Confederate right flank, a half mile distant.21
BULL RUN BATTLEFIELD
On Sunday, July 21, 1861, Sherman saw action at Bull Run (Manassas), the first significant battle of the Civil War. Map by Jim Moon Jr.
Sherman’s brigade consisted of the Thirteenth, Twenty-Ninth, Sixty-Ninth and Seventy-Ninth New York Regiments; the Second Wisconsin Regiment; and Company E, U.S. Artillery, although the field pieces could not cross the river due to the steepness of the banks. The Sixty-Ninth New York wore gray uniforms that looked much like the clothing of some Virginia troops. Consequently Sherman feared the Federals engaged on Matthews Hill might fire on his unit, supposing it to be a Confederate force. But as his men cautiously approached the Rebel flank, the Sixty-Ninth’s gray clothing actually worked to Sherman’s advantage. It was the Southerners, rather than the Union soldiers, who mistook the identity of Sherman’s brigade, and supposing it to be a Confederate unit advancing to assist them, permitted the Federals to draw near, and deliver a murderous volley.22
The terrible fire left one Rebel regiment without a single field officer. Their line broke and began to fall back in disorder. Within a short time, all three Confederate brigades, having suffered heavy losses, began retreating from Matthews Hill, across the Warrenton Turnpike, splashing through a little creek called Young’s Branch, and afterward struggling up the rise of Henry Hill, where they finally rallied. Sherman’s Civil War combat debut, effectively striking the enemy in flank, was auspicious; and the additional strength of his brigade, attacking where it did and when it did, may have been decisive in driving the Rebels from Matthews Hill. “Indeed,” wrote one historian of the battle, “if Sherman’s crossing had come just half an hour sooner, all three Confederate brigades would have been nearly surrounded and possibly destroyed.” Another historian praised Sherman in the following words: “In his first major battle General Sherman was giving clear evidence of his ability as a tactician.” In reality, the fog of war had worked a bit of magic on his behalf. Chance determined the advantageous angle at which his brigade approached the enemy flank. Chance accounted for his command being misidentified by the Rebels, and thus permitted to advance within very close range, where they delivered devastating fire.23
The battle, to this point, could hardly have gone better for the Union Army. In fact, General McDowell rode along the line uttering shouts of “Victory,” and exclaiming, “The day is ours.” Telegraph messages to Washington conveyed strong assurances that the Rebel lines were broken, and “a glorious victory” was at hand. The dispatches were so positive that President Lincoln, after going to church that morning, decided to take his usual Sunday afternoon carriage ride. But as the Federal forces eagerly pursued the Confederates to Henry Hill in the early afternoon, they found the enemy rallying, and strengthened by fresh troops. The battle was far from over. The fiercest stage of the clash was just beginning.24
The fight quickly became a confused melee. Some Federals wore gray while some Confederates wore blue. Both sides presented a number of men in fancy-dress, multicolored uniforms. The New York Zouaves accented their striking outfits with red baggy pants, and the Louisiana Zouaves were also decked out in baggy trousers, except that theirs featured blue and white stripes. Other men simply went to war wearing the same clothes they donned for a day of work on the farm. The Confederate flag was similar to the U.S. flag, and when hanging limply with no breeze affecting it, as often was the case, one could not tell if the banner was Union or Rebel. Mix in a widespread pall of black powder smoke generally obscuring the battle area and, understandably, both Federals and Confederates at times fired on their own troops, or failed to fire on an approaching foe—as when Sherman’s brigade had advanced to the battle.
The elated Union troops scrambling up Henry Hill may have thought “the day is ours,” as their commander zealously proclaimed, but there they soon discovered a well-positioned and significantly strengthened enemy. Thomas Jonathan Jackson’s five-regiment Rebel brigade had established a defensive line slightly behind the crest of Henry Hill, one that the U.S. forces could not see until they topped the rise. Jackson’s troops anchored the Confederate stand, and Bernard Bee, trying to rally his shaken brigade, famously called out, only minutes before he was mortally wounded: “There stands Jackson like a stone wall! Rally behind the Virginians!” Rally they did, and more Southern reinforcements came up from the rear. “Once the resistance had hardened,” remarks Basil Liddell Hart, “it was a calculable probability . . . that the . . . Confederates on the hill would be able to repulse superior numbers in an attack which had now become purely frontal.”25
Worse for the Federals, only four of the eight brigades that were close enough to have reached Henry Hill in time for the clash were actually brought into the action. And these were fed into the battle piecemeal. Sherman’s brigade advanced on the left side of the Union forces. When he received an order to attack, Sherman sent in his regiments one at a time—a common mistake of commanders, both at Bull Run and on many a future field of battle. Only when his Second Wisconsin, first into the fray, was falling back, did Sherman send in the Seventy-Ninth New York. As the latter faltered, he ordered the Sixty-Ninth New York to attack. Twice they charged; afterward the Sixty-Ninth troops blamed their failure, at least in part, upon the Seventy-Ninth regiment as it stumbled back through their ranks in demoralized disarray.
Sherman’s troops took heavy losses. For the entire battle, he said 111 of his men were killed, 205 wounded, and 293 missing, a total of 609. Most of the killed and wounded came in the fight for Henry Hill. Up to that point, Sherman thought the volunteers “had done well,” and added, “I do think it was impossible to stand long in that fire.” Perhaps he was right about the severity of the enemy fire, but his brigade’s chances of success would have been greater if he had attacked with more than one regiment at a time. Of course the ultimate responsibility for the piecemeal effort lay with the army’s commander, who did nothing to halt such attacks by Sherman and other brigade leaders. For the record, McDowell himself ordered some individual regiments to attack in turn, even when several regiments were available to go into action simultaneously. Also, looking at the big picture of the battle, nearly half of McDowell’s army never got into the fight.26
From about 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. the battle raged, with charges and countercharges on the plateau of Henry Hill. The momentum of the clash finally turned in favor of the Confederates. The decisive attack came when the last of Joe Johnston’s army, two brigades arriving by rail from the Shenandoah, detrained and marched rapidly toward the sound of the guns. Their angle of advance chanced to strike McDowell’s right flank, forcing the Federals to give ground. Beauregard sensed the moment, raised a cheer and attacked all along the line. Confederate pressure on the Union Army became too great, and the men began falling back toward Bull Run. McDowell and other officers tried to bring them to a halt, but to no avail. More and more Federals were breaking away and heading to the rear. Initially there was some order to the retreat, but things rapidly went from bad to worse.27
Sherman was among the officers trying to restore order. He and Colonel Michael Corcoran, commanding the predominantly Irish Sixty-Ninth New York, managed briefly to halt the troops and form the brigade into a ragged, irregular square, only to see their work “fall to pieces,” in Sherman’s words, in a short time. The men once more began hustling to the rear, and Colonel Corcoran was captured by the oncoming Confederates. Sherman got away safely, still determined to reorganize his brigade, which he achieved three miles farther back, in the vicinity of Centreville. This, too, proved momentary, and his regiments soon became inextricably mixed with other units, as more and more men bolted in the direction of Washington, hoping to outdistance the Rebels, who were thought by many to be in hot pursuit.28
Confederate cavalry played a role early on, harassing the Union retreat, although their threat does not appear to have been a major factor, except for the effect upon the minds of terrified soldiers. Southern artillery fire struck along the turnpike too and blocked the bridge over Cub Run when it disabled a wagon crossing the stream. A traffic jam quickly developed at the bridge, as wagons, artillery pieces, caissons and frightened troops clogged the route to safety. Enraged and scared, men yelled and cursed as they found their path obstructed. Further complicating the mass exodus were numerous civilians who, in an oft told but important tale in understanding the Washington frame of mind, had come out to see the battle. Among them were several U.S. senators and ten or twelve congressmen, having chosen their places on the gently rolling hills, where they had hoped to witness the great clash of arms.
Some men, both politicians and the general public, had appeared with wives or lady friends, adorned in their Sunday best and carrying picnic baskets with wine or champagne to celebrate the anticipated triumph. Never mind that virtually nothing of the battle could be seen because of the ubiquitous haze of gun smoke. For the enthralled spectators, it was all a somewhat mysterious yet alluring pageant, hinting of danger and punctuated with a great deal of noise. They seemed to thoroughly enjoy the occasion, right up to the moment they suddenly realized that the Union forces were falling back toward Washington—fleeing in terror, and a portion of them rapidly turning into a wild, frantic mob.
Down from the hillsides then came the private carriages, transporting anxious civilians scrambling to make their escape. Some crowded right in with the mass of soldiers, ambulances, gun carriages and various encumbrances that seemed to be everywhere. Others struck out across the fields and hills, as did many of the troops, seeking a route less congested, even if longer and more rugged. The panic fed upon itself, with frightening rumors spreading rapidly. Most persistent was the cry that Rebel dragoons were bearing down upon the defeated Federals, slaughtering everyone they could run upon, including the civilians.29
Sherman remarked that he “saw very little evidence of [the army’s] being pursued,” but frightened imaginations were working creatively. At Centreville “came pouring in the confused masses of men, [who were] without orders or system.” Sherman thought the scene “was as disgraceful as words can portray,” but he also doubted “if volunteers from any quarter could [have done] better.” The scenes of that July Sunday profoundly impressed him, both the battle and the beaten army fleeing in panic. “For the first time I saw the Carnage of battle,” he wrote. The handful of guerrilla-like clashes with Indians that Sherman had experienced in Florida seemed like nothing in comparison with Bull Run. Men were “lying in every conceivable shape, and mangled in a horrible way,” he told Ellen. Yet he seemed equally moved by the suffering and slaughter of large numbers of horses—“horses running about riderless with blood streaming from their nostrils . . . [while others] were lying on the ground hitched to guns, gnawing their sides in death.” Sherman liked horses, and the widespread destruction of the big, innocent animals, forced by humans into a bloody butchery, had to be a disturbing sight, especially when experienced for the first time.30
Bull Run also left Sherman marveling that he himself had survived the battle. “I was under heavy fire for hours,” he wrote Ellen, “brushed on the Knee & Shoulder—my horse shot through the leg, and was every way exposed and cannot imagine how I escaped.” He did not anticipate surviving the war. “I never expect again to move you from Lancaster,” he told Ellen a few days later. “The simple chances of war, provided we adhere to the determination of subduing the South, will . . . involve the destruction of all able bodied men of this Generation and go pretty deep into the next.” He considered it “folly to underestimate the task,” as the nation had been doing. “The Real war has not yet begun,” he declared. “The worst will be down the Mississippi,” and in the Deep South, he thought, “provided of course that we get that far.”31
Sherman’s Bull Run experience, as revealed in his letters to both Ellen and John, and in his memoirs, left him more keenly aware than ever of the alarming vulnerability of the United States, as well as the distinct possibility of Confederate success. “Probably a more gloomy day [accented by a slow rain setting in] never presented itself” than that which followed the battle, wrote Sherman, when “all organization seemed to be at an end.” He feared that the American people “won’t realize the magnitude of the opposition until we are whaled several times a la Bull Run.” Yet time was a luxury the nation could not afford. If the Rebels took Washington, Sherman had no doubt that the Confederacy “would be an established fact” and quickly recognized “by all foreign nations.” He believed that, fortunately for the Union, General Beauregard “committed a sad* mistake in not pursuing us promptly. Had he done so, he could have . . . gone into Washington.” After more reflection on the battle, and the failure of the Confederates to pursue, Sherman changed his opinion. “I am now satisfied that the Southern army is not much better than ours—else Beauregard would certainly have taken Washington.” The Rebel failure to move against the capital meant that they “must have suffered [heavy losses].” Those two statements were much closer to the truth.32
Nevertheless, the presumed inadequacies of the Southerners hardly compensated for the failings of the U.S. forces. The effect of the Bull Run disaster was very serious and no one knew that better, during the days of recrimination that followed the battle, than General-in-Chief Winfield Scott. The general disgustedly called himself “the greatest coward in America.” He said that he deserved to be removed from command “because I did not stand up [to the pressure of the politicians and the press] when my army was not in condition for fighting, and resist [them] to the last.” The troops, wrote Sherman, “are discouraged beyond measure.” Many of the men were determined to go home, usually contending their term of enlistment was up, or that some kind of family emergency demanded their presence.33
“They claim to be only 3 months men,” Sherman told John, “whereas the War Department claims their services for three years.” He reported that some of his regiments were “in a state of mutiny,” and he had been compelled to place about one hundred men in irons, imprisoning them on board a warship. Sunday, August 18, presented one of the worst threats that Sherman faced. A group of the volunteers were so mutinous that, he informed John, “I had my regulars all ready with shotted guns to fire on our own troops,” some of whom were not only claiming a discharge but refusing to obey orders and threatening to spike the artillery. “For some hours,” he told Ellen, describing the same confrontation, “I thought I would have to give the order to fire, but they did not like the artillery, and have gone back to their duty.”34
One of those tense and trying days after Bull Run did prove memorable in a welcome, positive manner. President Lincoln, accompanied by Secretary of State William Seward, appeared unannounced at Sherman’s camp. “We thought we would come out and see the ‘boys,’” as Sherman recalled the President saying. Learning that Lincoln planned to offer the troops words of encouragement, Sherman boldly suggested that the President should “please discourage all cheering, noise, or any sort of confusion; that we had had enough of it before Bull Run to ruin any set of men.” What the nation needed now, said Sherman, “were cool, thoughtful, hard-fighting soldiers—no more hurrahing, no more humbug.” He wrote that the President accepted his remarks well, “in the most perfect good nature.”35
Lincoln then stood in his carriage before the assembled troops and, in Sherman’s estimate, “made one of the neatest, best, and most feeling addresses I ever listened to, referring to our late disaster at Bull Run, the high duties that still devolved on us, and the brighter days yet to come.” When the soldiers began to cheer, the President promptly checked them: “Don’t cheer, boys. I confess I rather like it myself, but Colonel Sherman here says it is not military; and I guess we had better defer to his opinion.” In conclusion, Lincoln declared, as commander in chief, that he was determined the troops should receive “everything that the law allowed” and urged the men to appeal to him personally if in any way they felt that they were wronged. “The effect of this speech,” remembered Sherman in his memoirs, “was excellent.”36
However, there was a captain who immediately came forward, availing himself of the President’s offer to hear any man with a grievance. “Mr. President, I have a grievance,” he stated, relating that Sherman, that very morning, had threatened to shoot him. Of course the officer, who was a lawyer, neglected to say that he was about to leave the army without a proper discharge and made an arrogant show of the matter in front of a group of soldiers. Sherman said Lincoln looked at the man and queried: “Threatened to shoot you?” The captain confirmed, “Yes, sir, he threatened to shoot me.” The President then looked toward Sherman, “and stooping his tall, spare form toward the officer,” according to Sherman, “said to him in a loud stage-whisper, easily heard for some yards around: ‘Well, if I were you, and he threatened to shoot, I would not trust him, for I believe he would do it.’” A howl of laughter erupted, and the man beat a hasty retreat. When Sherman explained the case to Lincoln, the President remarked: “Of course I didn’t know anything about it, but I thought you knew your own business best.”37
From that day forward Sherman held a higher opinion of Lincoln. Through the war years his respect for the President would grow, and possibly enhanced his favorable memory of Lincoln’s performance that summer day in 1861. Sherman, who had hardly ever been moved by any speaker, with the exception of Henry Clay, was obviously impressed by Lincoln, both his speech and his reply to the “grievance” case. That day certainly did not resolve all of Sherman’s problems with the volunteers—“called by courtesy soldiers,” as he once disparagingly referred to them when writing Ellen. Speeches rarely bring significant, permanent change. Presumably though, the President’s impact on some of the troops proved beneficial. Clearly Sherman thought so.38
In August Sherman received a promotion to brigadier general of volunteers, confirming a rumor he heard several days earlier. Since some brigade commanders were expecting a demotion and General McDowell had been relieved of command in favor of George B. McClellan, the advancement in rank came as a bit of a surprise. “I have just sworn in as Brigadier General,” he informed Ellen, “and therefore suppose I might as well admit the title.” The promotion, however, did little to alleviate the gloomy, dark mood that had fastened itself upon him since the defeat at Bull Run. Fundamentally, he was mired in a deep-seated disgust that had been building up for some time.
The volunteers continued to provoke him. They were “the most destructive men I have ever known.” People who had experienced their depredations, he declared, would prefer “government by the Czar of Russia . . . rather than our American Volunteer Army.” Not even Goths or Vandals “ever had less respect for the lives & property of friends and foes.” On August 17, because of the threats of mutiny, as well as the volunteers’ never-ending grumbling and growling about clothing, shoes, beef, sick wives and more, Sherman told Ellen that “I have not undressed of a night since Bull Run.” He supposed that he should “make a requisition for two wet nurses per soldier to nurse them in their helpless, pitiful condition.”39
Having resisted returning to the army until he thought the new administration and the Congress were showing signs of taking the crisis seriously, Sherman was disappointed, both before and after Bull Run, as he observed widespread confusion and incompetence. “Out of this Chaos some order in time must arise, but how or when I can not tell.” In the meantime, “the muddle,” as he characterized the disconcerting mess in a letter to Ellen, gripped the nation’s war effort. He feared that “our old Government may disintegrate and new Combinations” be formed. Kentucky and Tennessee, in this context, he considered critical. Sherman told John that unless the United States could control Kentucky and Tennessee, which he correctly viewed as a strategic entity, “it is a doubtful question whether the Federal Government can restore the Old Union.”40
Even more basic, Sherman’s long-standing distrust of democracy came to the fore. Democratic-republican government, as he analyzed the institution, was inherently weak when attempting to mount a war effort. “I doubt,” he wrote Ellen, “if our Democratic form of Government admits of the organization and discipline without which our army is a mob.” The volunteers are “all that we have got and God only knows the issue.” Fortunately for the United States, “our adversaries have the weakness of slavery in their midst to offset our Democracy.” He deemed it “beyond human wisdom to say which is the greater evil.”41
Writing to his influential father-in-law, Sherman believed that “all should know that our defeat resulted from our own want of discipline & not from the superiority of our Enemy.” He declared that “the defeat began with the Private soldiers [meaning volunteers], who would not reform their ranks or pay any heeds to our commands—I saw the colonels commanding, remonstrating and begging—I did so myself, and I heard McDowell plead with them to . . . make a new effort—but the men kept edging off in masses to the Rear.” If the impression should “go down in history that the officers failed,” he assured Ewing, then the analysis of Bull Run “would be an injustice and false.” The volunteer soldiers must learn “that if at fault they will be held to account,” just as, added Sherman, will be their officers. Otherwise, “if like Politicians we become afraid of the rank & file of our army, then our nation is at an End.” The bottom line: the volunteers would have to become as good as regulars. In the meantime, he wrote John, he still felt “as one grasping in the dark.”42
ABOUT THE MIDDLE of August, Sherman received a note from Robert Anderson, widely viewed in the North as a hero since Fort Sumter. Anderson wanted Sherman to meet him at Willard’s Hotel in Washington. Sherman rode over and learned that Anderson had just been appointed commander of the Department of the Cumberland, headquartered in Louisville. He would soon be leaving for Kentucky, where events were thought to be approaching a crisis. Anderson wanted Sherman with him, “as his right hand.” The objective was to marshal pro-Union forces, keep Kentucky in the Union, and try to assist the Federal men of Tennessee as well, especially in east Tennessee. Sherman was “perfectly willing to go.” He wanted to get out of the Washington area, where mutinous volunteers and “clamors for discharge on every possible frivolous pretext” continued to plague him. Also, he had been wanting to go west, because he viewed the region and the mission as crucial, telling Ellen, “upon it may hang the existence of the present Government.”43
Although Sherman was pleased to serve as Anderson’s second in command, he did want a clear understanding that his role was not to be altered. Sherman informed Lincoln of “my extreme desire” to remain in a subordinate capacity. The President readily agreed, although surprised by his request. Lincoln was constantly badgered by generals seeking positions of top command. Apparently no one except Sherman had asked to be kept in a subordinate position. “Not till I see daylight ahead,” he wrote Ellen, “do I want to lead.” By late August, Sherman was on his way to the Bluegrass State. However, instead of relief, he was entering upon the most trying and embarrassing period of his Civil War career.44
* Used in the archaic sense of very bad.
