THE raison d’être of the following pages is not at all to set forth the valor of Confederate arms nor the skill of Confederate generals. These are as they may be, and must here take their chances in an unpartisan narrative, written with an entirely different object. That object is the criticism of each campaign as one would criticise a game of chess, only to point out the good and bad plays on each side, and the moves which have influenced the result. It is far from being a grateful task, and the writer is, moreover, painfully conscious of his limitations in his effort to perform it adequately.
But it is of great importance that it should be attempted even approximately not only for the benefit of general history, but more particularly for that of military students and staff-officers. These will find much of value and interest in the details, pointing out how and why the scale of battle was turned upon each occasion. It is only of recent years—since the publication by the War Department of the full Official Reports of both armies, in 135 large volumes—that it has become possible to write this story, even approximately. History, meanwhile, has been following the incomplete reports of the earlier days which, sometimes, as at Seven Pines (or Fair Oaks), have deliberately concealed the facts, and has always felt the need of the personal accounts covering the incidents of every march, skirmish, and battle.
Only among these can be traced the beginnings, often obscure and accidental, of the most important events; and these must ever form an inexhaustible mine for the study by the staff-officer of the practical working and details in every department of an army.
As to the causes of the war, it will, of course, be understood that every former Confederate repudiates all accusations of treason or rebellion in the war, and even of fighting to preserve the institution of slavery. The effort of the enemy to destroy it without compensation was practical robbery, which, of course, we resisted. The unanimity and the desperation of our resistance—even to the refusal of Lincoln’s suggested compensation at Fortress Monroe, after the destruction had already occurred—clearly show our struggle to have been for that right of self-government which the Englishman has claimed, and fought for, as for nothing else, since the days of King John.
It has taken many years for these truths to gain acceptance against the prejudices left by the war, even though it has been notorious from the first that no legal accusation could be brought against any one, even Mr. Davis. With the adoption of this view by leading English authorities, not to mention distinguished Northern and Republican authors, the South may be content to leave all such questions to the final verdict of history, admitting itself too close to the event to claim impartiality.
One thing remains to be said. The world has not stood still in the years since we took up arms for what we deemed our most invaluable right—that of self-government. We now enjoy the rare privilege of seeing what we fought for in the retrospect. It no longer seems so desirable. It would now prove only a curse. We have good cause to thank God for our escape from it, not alone for our sake, but for that of the whole country and even of the world.
Had our cause succeeded, divergent interests must soon have further separated the States into groups, and this continent would have been given over to divided nationalities, each weak and unable to command foreign credit. Since the days of Greece, Confederacies have only held together against foreign enemies, and in times of peace have soon disintegrated. It is surely not necessary to contrast what would have been our prospects as citizens of such States with our condition now as citizens of the strongest, richest, and—strange for us to say who once called ourselves “conquered” and our cause “lost”—the freest nation on earth.
The statistics of our commerce, our manufactures, and our internal improvements are an object-lesson of the truth of old Æsop’s fable, pointing out the increased strength of the separate sticks when bound together into a fagot. That the whole civilized world shares with us in the far-reaching blessings and benefits of our civilization, wealth, and political power is manifest in our building the Panama Canal, and again, in the Treaty of Peace between Russia and Japan, negotiated through the influence of our President. These are but the first-fruits of what the future will develop, for our Union is not built to perish. Its bonds were not formed by peaceable agreements in conventions, but were forged in the white heat of battles, in a war fought out to the bitter end, and are for eternity.