…[B]ut just then a white flag was seen to flutter from the rebel works, which proclaimed that the finale had been reached. Then one long, joyous shout echoed and re-echoed along our lines. Its cadence rang long and deep over hill and valley until we caught the glad anthem and swelled the chorus with our voices in one glad shout of joy. It was a glorious opening for the Fourth of July…
—Corporal Barber, at the surrender of Vicksburg, July 1863
This c. 1888 lithograph depicts the siege and surrender of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863.
The Emancipation Proclamation declared the freedom of all slaves in any Confederate state that refused to return to the Union by January 1, 1863.
As the new year began, the Battle of Murfreesboro (Stone’s River) continued. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation went into effect. It did nothing to free the slaves in the Northern states, but it was a major moral force in the South.
More fighting at Stone’s River this day. Breckin-ridge’s “Orphan Brigade” managed to take a small hill but were driven from it with heavy losses. Every one took another breather. Bragg announced to Richmond that he had a great victory.
Gen. Braxton Bragg determined that he could not hold the positions at Murfreesboro, and he retreated to Manchester, leaving Rosecrans in possession of the field. The cleanup began. Jackman found a good meal and began the march.
Jackman and the “Orphans” went into winter quarters at Manchester. The pace was slow, the duty dull, the recreation better than average.
In Tennessee, Grant rescinded his General Order No. 11, which had expelled the Jews.
Since the Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1, slaves in the South had been celebrating as best they could. For many years, even into the 20th century, that day was celebrated as “Freedom Day.”
At Arkansas Post on the Arkansas River, Major Gen. McClernand’s troops were landed under the cover of naval gunfire, which drove the enemy from their rifle pits. This enabled McClernand’s men to approach Ft. Hindman unseen. Grant evacuated Holly Springs, Miss.
Lt. John N. Maffitt (1819–86), left, was compared by a journalist at the New York Herald to Capt. Raphael Semmes (1809–77), right. Both men were commanders in the Confederate States Navy. Semmes was photographed standing on the deck of the CSS Alabama in 1863.
On this morning the bombardment of Ft. Hindman was continued from the gunboats and “after a well directed fire of about two and one-half hours every gun in the fort was dismounted or disabled and the fort knocked to pieces.…” Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Churchill, CSA, surrendered the fort after a gallant resistance.
At Fredericksburg, Burnside had convinced Lincoln that a new attack across the Rappahannock was possible. The troops of the Army of the Potomac started upriver towards the U.S. Ford.
A letter, intercepted coming out of Nassau, Bahamas, showed the effect of the blockade on the South:
There are men here who are making immense fortunes by shipping goods to Dixie. … It is a speculation by which one makes either 600 to 800 percent or loses all.
In Havana, Cuba, a correspondent for the New York Herald described Lt. John N. Maffitt, commander of the raider CSS Florida, which had just come into port:
Captain Maffitt is no ordinary character. He is vigorous, energetic, bold, quick and dashing, and the sooner he is caught and hung the better it will be for the interest of our commercial community. He is decidedly popular here, and you can scarcely imagine the anxiety evinced to get a glance at him. … Nobody, unless informed, would have imagined the small, black-eyed, poetic-looking gentleman, with his romantic appearance, to be a second Semmes, probably in time to be a more celebrated and more dangerous pirate.
Along the Rappahannock in Virginia, the famous “Mud March” of the Army of the Potomac was about to begin. The Army having gone to U.S. Ford to effect a crossing, the rains swelled the river to prevent any such activity and created mud, mud and more mud.
Grant, finally tired of McClernand’s grandstand plays, assumed command of all troops in Arkansas; this reduced McClernand from commander of the expedition to a corps commander. McClernand was furious and went to Lincoln with his problem. Lincoln told him to calm himself.
Lincoln met with Burnside, who argued, unsuccessfully, for removal of the Generals Hooker, W. B. Franklin and W. F. Smith. If this was not done, said Burnside, he would resign from the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln appointed Hooker the new commander and relieved Generals E. V. Sumner and W. B. Franklin. Burnside, who never wanted the command to begin with, settled for this.
At Fredericksburg (actually across the river at Falmouth), Major Gen. Joseph Hooker took command of the Army of the Potomac, a job for which he had been angling for months. Lincoln wrote a letter to Hooker regarding his assignment:
Jan 26, 1863.
Major-General Hooker.
… Only those generals who gain success can set up as dictators. What I ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship. The Government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. …
And now, beware of rashness! Beware of rashness! But with energy and sleepless vigilance, go forward and give us victories. …
The Richmond Dispatch printed a listing showing the price of groceries had increased tenfold since the war had started.
Two Confederate rams left Charleston Harbor in an early-morning fog and attacked the blockading fleet. The rams successfully destroyed two Federal blockading ships. Gen. P. T. G. Beauregard, commander of the Charleston district, claimed that the blockade had been lifted. More Federal ships arrived.
FEBRUARY 1863 
THERE WAS LITTLE ACTIVITY as the armies lay in their respective camps, trying to stay warm and outwait the weather until the spring campaigns could begin. The blockade vessels on the coasts continued their endless patrols, occasionally catching a blockade runner. The Army of Tennessee huddled in its tents at Manchester, Tenn., and tried to build a social life in the town. Grant was constantly probing for a way to get into Vicksburg. A quiet time in the war.
Col. C. R. Ellet, commander of the ram USS Queen of the West, had her decks covered with confiscated cotton bales for protection, and her paddle wheels boarded over with heavy planks. She, in effect, looked like a floating box with a long snout. Ellet intended to take the ship under the guns of Vicksburg to ram and sink the steamer City of Vicksburg early that morning. The shore batteries opened fire but hit her only three times before she reached her target.
North of Vicksburg, the Federals blew up the levee, creating a gap almost 75 yards wide. The Mississippi River gushed through, flooding the Yazoo Pass. It was hoped that gunboats and transports could go over this flood to attack Vicksburg from the rear.
In Washington, the French minister, M. Mercier, hoping to get a mediation going between North and South, made his offer to “chair” such a meeting to Secretary of State Seward. Seward was more than a little offended by what he called “interference by a foreign power in a family dispute,” and turned down the offer. Congress, when it learned of the offer, was also highly incensed.
At Falmouth, Va., Hooker was busy reorganizing the Army of the Potomac into corps, eliminating Burnside’s Grand Divisions. Eight corps were formed, and the cavalry was placed in a separate command under Stoneman. This command arrangement would remain essentially the same for the remainder of the war.
The USS Queen of the West met her fate today when she came under heavy fire from the shore batteries at Gordon’s Landing on the Black River. Attempting to back down the river, she ran aground directly under the guns of the shore batteries, which poured shot into the ship with every broadside. The ram was abandoned and fell into Confederate hands. The crew escaped primarily by floating downriver on cotton bales; they were picked up by the De Soto, an Army steamer.
The U.S. ram Queen of the West
In a landmark decision that would cause much turmoil, the U.S. Senate passed the Conscription Act. The South had been conscripting men for more than a year at this time.
There was heavy skirmishing along the Yazoo River where Grant was trying to get at the Vicksburg defenses.
There were mass rallies in support of the Emancipation Proclamation at Liverpool and Carlisle, Eng land. Because of popular support for the freedom of the slaves, if the British government endorsed the South, it would be against the will of the people. Britain hereafter stayed neutral.
Simon Cameron (1799–1889) served as Lincoln’s Secretary of War until he resigned amid a corruption scandal on February 23, 1863.
Jackson, at Moss Neck, Va., worked on more court-martial proceedings for deserters.
Allen, Pvt., Co. K, 1st Batallion, 10th Illinois Cavalry, Helena, Ark., wrote:
As no one speaks or writes without saying something about the war, I will give my humble opinion in as few words as possible: I believe that with proper management the accursed rebellion can be put down and could have been put down long ago; but that with management like the past, it will never be put down. I approve of the acts of the Administration, except the Emancipation Proclamation which virtually amounts to nothing, as the act for freeing the slaves and confiscating the property of rebels accomplishes all that the Proclamation can do, besides the latter excites some discontent in the army, and more among the people of loyal States. In regard to the arming of the blacks, I have no very great objection to that if the white and black soldiers are kept distinct and separate; but I think we have plenty of white men to whip the damned rebels. …
Simon Cameron, former governor of Pennsylvania, political boss of a corrupt machine, Secretary of War who was (essentially) fired by Lincoln, today resigned his post as Ambassador to Russia. Cameron’s tour as Secretary of War initiated one of the most corrupt eras ever seen in this country of wholesale bilking of the government for war matériel.
In perhaps one of the most poignant diary entries ever written in the war, James K. Boswell, who had served as an aide-de-camp to Jackson for one year, recorded:
How long it seems since that day; it appears more like ten years than one; the truth is that I have thought, felt and acted more in the last year than in all the rest of my life. … I have been once with Gen. Jackson when he was defeated, and nine times when he was victorious; in some of these battles I have been exposed to death in all its forms, and in others I have been exposed but little. I have heard the wild cry of victory as it rose above the roar of cannon and musket. I have seen the field strewn with thousands of corpses, both of friend and foe. I have heard the groans of the wounded and dying. … I have seen towns ransacked, and hundreds, nay thousands, of helpless women and children thrown homeless upon the world. … O war, why art thou called glorious when such are thy fruits? How long must our dear land be desolated by the ravages and our bravest sacrificed upon thy altars? One year ago I was full of life and animation, hope dressed the future in “couleur de rose,” all my dreams were cherished as though I were sure of their realization.
James K. Boswell would have his rendezvous with death in early May at the Battle of Chancellorsville, just west of Fredericksburg, Va.
In Washington, Lincoln signed the act authorizing the national bank and national currency system.
Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston was unhappy with the command arrangements in the west. He said his armies were too scattered for offensive operations, and were too small for good defensive operations. He asked to be relieved and assigned some other command.
MARCH 1863
EVEN IN THE “SUNNY” SOUTH there was bitter cold and deep snows to contend with. The food distribution system was still in need of repair and there was near famine in the larger cities, such as Richmond. Vicksburg still stood, as did Port Hudson. Little progress had been made over the winter. In the camps, the soldiers still outwaited the weather and hoped for dry roads.
On this date a new national color was presented to the colonel of the 11th Connecticut Volunteers by a Miss Julia A. Beach of Wallingford, Conn. It was to replace the old flag, presented to the regiment in 1861, which had been carried through many battles. The new flag and what remained of the old one were placed on the same staff and carried until the end of the war.
The Union Army finally acknowledged that the practice of the men doing their own cooking was both bad for their digestion and for their morale. Cooking was a major problem in both Northern and Southern armies. Most of the men were not familiar with the preparation of food (their mothers or their wives did this for them), and the consequent product was often inedible and generally very greasy.
A real problem, just being dealt with, was the conduct of the officers who commanded the regiments. Most of these officers were “rewarded” for forming the regiments (sometimes at their own expense) by being appointed colonel of the regiment. In all too many cases they had no experience in military matters, and, in some cases, no desire to learn. This was true, unfortunately, both for North and South.
In Richmond, Judge Samuel A. Meredith had stated an opinion that foreigners, Marylanders, and others who had served in the Army had become domiciled, and were thus liable for conscription. There was a rush for passports to leave the Confederacy.
A man cooks on a stove in the camp of the 153rd New York infantry in this undated photograph.
In Tennessee, Rosecrans braced for a Confederate attack.
Grant, just having a little fun on the Mississippi, sent a second fake ironclad past the batteries of Vicksburg, drawing a tremendous amount of fire. The “gunboat” was made of logs with barrels for smokestacks.
This evening at Fairfax C.H., south of Washington, Union Gen. Edwin H. Stoughton and his staff were captured in their beds by Confederate John S. Mosby and his band. This was most embarrassing for the general since he was supposed to be out to capture Mosby. The officers were taken to Confederate lines and turned over as prisoners-of-war. They were later exchanged.
Admiral Farragut arrived at Baton Rouge aboard his flagship, the USS Hartford, to finalize the plans for the assault on Port Hudson. The USS Richmond, Capt. James Alden, was at Baton Rouge awaiting Farragut’s arrival.
At the Richmond Arsenal, located near the James River, at the foot of 7th Street in Richmond, the building was shaken when the Confederate States Laboratory on nearby Brown’s Island exploded. Forty-five women and children were killed in the explosion.
On the Mississippi River, Admiral Farragut sent his squadron of seven ships against the shore batteries of Port Hudson, attempting to run past them. All made it to safety except for the Mississippi, which had blown up.
At Kelly’s Ford on the Rappahannock, Federal cavalry under Gen. William W. Averell crossed the river and ran into a nasty group of Confederates who gave them a stiff fight in brushy and second-growth timber country. The South lost one of its favorite sons, young John Pelham, age 25, known as “the gallant Pelham,” who was killed while observing the fight.
Day, Pvt., Co. B, 25th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, New Bern, N.C., wrote:
After months of idleness in camp, at last comes a change. At 4 o’clock PM orders came to break camp, pick up our traps and be ready to march in half an hour. …
In Richmond, Hood’s Texans were marching through the city, going back north to join Lee’s army, south of Fredericksburg.
Farragut, below Warrenton, Miss., sent a message to Grant and Admiral Porter offering his assistance in stopping the supplies from crossing at the mouth of the Red River. He also asked for coal to resupply his two ships. Grant floated a coal barge down past the guns of Vicksburg for the resupply.
The water-borne expeditions to attack Vicksburg from the rear had now been canceled. Admiral D. D. Porter described them as “a most novel expedition. Never did those people expect to see ironclads floating where the keel of a flat boat never passed.”
Day, Pvt., Co. B, 25th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, Plymouth, N.C., wrote:
This town has undergone quite a change since we were here last fall. During the winter the enemy made a dash in here, setting the town on fire, burning up the central and business portion of it. These people have singular ideas; they seem to think that by destroying their property, they are in some way damaging us, but if we destroy any property, it is a great piece of vandalism. …
Admiral Farragut wrote his wife from his flagship below Vicksburg. In this letter he clearly stated the credo of every good military leader in history:
I passed the batteries of Port Hudson with my chicken USS Albatross under my wing. We came through in safety. … Would to God I only knew that our friends on the other ships were as well as we are! We are all in the same hands, and He disposes of us as He thinks best. … You know my creed: I never send others in advance when there is a doubt, and, being one on whom the country has bestowed its greatest honors, I thought I ought to take the risks which belong to them. So I took the lead. …
Barber, Cpl., Co. D, 15th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, Memphis, Tenn., wrote:
Col. Richardson, a noted guerrilla, now began to harass us. Several regiments of the 4th division were sent out to disperse this band. They were strongly posted in a low, swampy ground, accessible only on one side by the artillery. A sharp fight ensued. We lost several killed and wounded. A Major in an Iowa regiment was killed.
A Frenchman named Brutus de Villeroi designed a semi-submarine boat and sold it to the government in Washington. This contraption was 46 feet long, 4½ feet wide, and carried a crew of 17. It originally was propelled by oars, but these were replaced at the Washington Navy Yard by a hand-operated screw propeller. This “ship,” called the Alligator, was sent to Admiral Du Pont to be used as a reconnaissance craft.
Commander Duncan, USS Norwich, reported the evacuation of Jacksonville, Fla., by Union forces after they destroyed the greater part of the city.
The USS Alligator, seen in this undated illustration, left Washington for Port Royal on March 31, 1863. It was towed by the USS Sumpter. On April 2, a storm forced the Sumpter to cut the submarine adrift near the Cape Hatteras coast. According to reports sent to Secretary of the Navy Welles, the Alligator was then lost at sea.
In the words of Lt. Maffitt, CSS Florida, the crew were “living like lords on Yankee plunder” from the provisions taken from the seized bark M. J. Colcord. The ship, loaded with provisions and bound for Cape Town, South Africa, was taken, the provisions transferred to the Florida, the crew to a Danish brig, Christian, and the Colcord destroyed.
The Confederate Army forces launched a large attack on the Union garrison at Washington, N.C. The Confederate forces were supported by large numbers of artillery to cope with Union gunboats. This siege would last till mid-April with the garrison being supplied by gunboats running past the artillery batteries of Gen. A. P. Hill.
Meanwhile, Gen. McClernand’s troops had left Milliken’s Bend and were en route to New Carthage, on the west bank of the Mississippi.
APRIL 1863
SPRING CREPT THROUGH THE SOUTH, greening the laurel bushes, setting the woods ablaze with blooming dogwood trees and lifting the heart of civilian and soldier alike. The runoff of the snows into the streams made the larger rivers, like the Mississippi, Ohio, Cumberland and Tennessee, flood and fill with hazards to navigation. In the camps, the soldiers stretched their aching muscles, long stiffened from winter’s inactivity, and prepared for the coming campaigns. In the distance, the summer bugles called the men to arms.
On April 1, as the soldiers and sailors from the USS Commodore Morris prepared to remove 22,000 bushels of grain from Patterson Smith’s plantation on the Ware River in Virginia to the ship, the landing party was attacked by Confederate cavalry. The landing party immediately formed into ranks, the guns from the ship fired on the cavalry, the Union men charged and the Confederates were routed. What grain could not be removed to the ship was burned.
Barber, Cpl., Co. D, 15th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, Memphis, Tenn., wrote:
Our picket duty here required the utmost vigilance. Rank rebels of both sexes, under the guise of peaceful citizens, obtained passes to go beyond the lines. … It was soon discovered that these persons carried on a regular system of smuggling through contraband articles. … Things, calling themselves ladies, were caught with quinine and other articles secreted in their crinolines. Gen. Veatch now issued an order that all ladies of suspicious character should be searched before passing out. …
There was no mention of yesterday’s “food riot” in the Richmond papers this day. Crowds of women and other “non-draftable” individuals still gathered on street corners asking for food. The City Battalion, charged with keeping the peace, was finally called in, and the crowds dispersed.
Admiral Du Pont issued his order of battle for the attack on Charleston.
At New Carthage, Grant’s troops were preparing to cross the Mississippi south of Grand Gulf, in the attack to take Vicksburg in the rear.
Lincoln, visiting Hooker at Fredericksburg, expressed his opinion that “our prime object is the enemies’ army in front of us, and is not with, or about, Richmond.…” This would be his constant message and it would not be understood until Grant took command eleven months later.
Admiral Du Pont attacked Charleston but was rebuffed. Du Pont told Gen. David Hunter that he now believed that the port could not be taken by a sea assault.
In Richmond, President Davis called for the people to plant “truck gardens” to grow vegetables for the army’s use. This effort was very successful. After all, the South couldn’t sell cotton at this time.
At Charleston, S.C., Gen. P. T. G. Beauregard commanded the defenses of the harbor. He believed that Du Pont would attack again.
Col. A. D. Streight moved out from Nashville with 1,700 Federal cavalry mounted on mules, for a raid into Georgia.
Gen. Hooker, at Falmouth, Va., evidently was not listening to Lincoln about what the real objective was for the Army of the Potomac—Lee’s army. He wrote Lincoln with a plan to go around Lee’s left flank and cut him off from Richmond. What he intended to do with Lee after he cut him off was not stated.
On the Mississippi River above Vicksburg, Admiral D. D. Porter got ready to move most of his gunboats past the Vicksburg guns to support Grant’s attack from New Carthage on the west bank to Grand Gulf on the east bank.
In the west, Grant’s forces continued to concentrate at, or near, New Carthage, La., getting ready for the crossing. The Confederates withdrew from the assault on Washington, N.C., which had been going on since the end of the previous month. A relief expedition of Union gunboats and troops was coming up and it would overpower Confederate strength.
Barber, Cpl., Co. D, 15th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, Memphis, Tenn., wrote:
So foul had the morals of the city become that Gen. Veatch issued an order expelling two boat loads of fallen humanity. Indeed, matters had come to such a pass that a decent lady was ashamed to be seen on the street, and stringent measures had to be resorted to to remedy the evil. All the bad passions of the naturally dissipated in our division were brought to light here, and too often were the young and noble drawn into this whirlpool of vice.
Col. Benjamin H. Grierson led 1,700 Union cavalry from LaGrange, Tenn., on a raid through Mississippi and Louisiana. This raid was later immortalized in the movie Horse Soldiers. The raid, which lasted 16 days, covered 600 miles.
On this day a Union soldier recorded in his diary that “Mr. Howe is now visiting us. His son has been discharged, the old gent, I believe, also.” This was in reference to Elias Howe, the inventor of the sewing machine. The editor of the diary, Edward Marcus, footnotes the entry with:
Although he was clubfooted and in his forties, Elias Howe, inventor of the sewing machine, served with the 17th Connecticut Regiment but was never officially mustered in. His son, Elias, Jr., enlisted in Company D on August 28, 1862, serving to the end of the war. Elias Howe, then a wealthy man, made himself responsible for many of the expenses of the 17th. When the regiment had gone three months without pay early in 1863, he gave the paymaster his personal check to cover what was due all officers and men. Then, the story goes, he went back into line and drew $39, his pay for three months as a private.
The Union cavalry leaders featured in this collection of portraits include, from top left across and then down (by row): William W. Averill, Hugh J. Kilpatrick, August Kautz, David McMurtrie Gregg, Philip Sheridan, George Armstrong Custer, Abel D. Streight, Benjamin H. Grierson, James H. Wilson, George Stoneman, Wesley Merritt and Alfred Thomas Archimedes Torbert.
Lincoln declared that the new State of West Virginia would join the Union on June 20th of this year.
Barber, Cpl., Co. D, 15th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, Memphis, Tenn., wrote:
An order from the Secretary of War now permitted the enlistment of colored troops and the appointment of white officers to command them. I was offered a recommendation by the adjutant of the regiment for a commission, but I preferred my present position to any in a Negro company. Several members of the 15th did receive commissions. …
Gen. Lee reported to the Confederate War Department today that his men subsisted on a daily ration of one-quarter pound of meat and a pound of flour. In addition, they received a pound of rice for every ten men, two to three times a week. Scurvy and typhoid fever were breaking out among the men.
Day, Pvt., Co. B, 25th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, Plymouth, N.C., wrote:
The noise of the battle is over and we are no longer harassed by war’s dread alarms, but can now sit down, eat our fresh shad and herring and drink our peach and honey in peace and quiet.
Company E of the 4th U.S. Colored Infantry of the Union Army
News of Grierson’s raid into Mississippi had reached Richmond, causing much consternation among the people.
The Army of the Potomac was on the move from its winter quarters at Falmouth. They marched up the Rappahannock towards the fords which would take them to Lee’s rear.
Hooker’s Army of the Potomac began crossing the Rappahannock upstream from Fredericksburg, leaving Major Gen. John “Uncle John” Sedgwick racing Lee. At Fredericksburg the bells of the Episcopal Church rang out the alarm for the Confederates.
On the Mississippi at Grand Gulf, Admiral D. D. Porter’s gunboats engaged the fortifications at that city for five and one-half hours while Grant’s troop transports passed the guns at night.
At Chancellorsville, Hooker, in his exuberance, prepared a message to be read to the troops on May 1, in which he informed his army that “the operations of the last three days have determined that our enemy must ingloriously fly, or come out from behind their defenses and give us battle on our ground, where certain destruction awaits him.”
Grant’s first landing of troops on the east bank of the Mississippi River near Bruinsburg met with success. The final stages of the Vicksburg campaign were set.
The friends of the Seventh and Eighth Regiments, New York Volunteers, welcome the return of their heroes to New York on April 28, 1863.
MAY 1863
AT THE BEGINNING OF MAY 1863, major actions were pending in Virginia and Mississippi. The Army of the Potomac had left its muddy, sprawling camps in the denuded countryside around Falmouth and had moved to the fords of the Rappahannock and Rapidan, poised for an assault on Lee. Grant, in the west, was across the Mississippi at Grand Gulf, tightening the noose around Vicksburg.
Hooker, with 70,000 men, crossed the fords and began the Battle of Chancellorsville. Lee hurriedly withdrew all but Jubal Early and 10,000 Confederates, whom he left facing Major Gen. Sedgwick’s 40,000, and with 47,000 men turned to face Hooker.
An 1863 map of the Chancellorsville, Va., battlefield
The Army of the Potomac moved forward, and then in the afternoon Hooker stunned his own officers and Lee by withdrawing and concentrating in a small area near Chancellorsville. With little or no fighting, “Fighting Joe” Hooker went on the defensive.
That night Lee and Jackson talked in the now famous “cracker barrel” conference which resulted in Jackson taking 26,000 of the 47,000 available forces around the left flank to attack Hooker’s right flank.
Barber, Cpl., Co. D, 15th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, Vicksburg, Miss., wrote:
It was with some regret, but no reluctance, that I bade adieu to Memphis. … Our brave comrades, in their grapple with the rebel “Gibraltar of the West”—Vicksburg, needed our assistance. …
Confederate Secretary of the Navy Mallory solved a sticky problem by getting the Congress to create a Provisional Navy.
Early in the morning, Jackson’s corps was moving deeper into the Wilderness, going past Catherine Furnace at a rapid pace. At 6 PM he gave the order which opened the assault against the unsuspecting Federals’ right flank. On the Federal left flank, Lee opened fire against George Meade’s men to draw attention from Jackson.
The Federal right flank fell back in confusion and panic and rolled up like a carpet. Few of the units fought well, most fleeing back towards the main body of the army at Chancellorsville.
In the twilight, Jackson and some of this staff were riding on a recon when they were mistaken for Federals and fired upon by their own troops. Jackson, struck twice in the left arm and once through the palm of the right hand, was taken to a nearby farmhouse, where his arm was amputated later that evening.
THE BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE
APRIL 30 TO MAY 6, 1863
The Reverend James Power Smith, “Stonewall” Jackson’s aide-de-camp,
describes the injury that first cost Jackson his left arm—which was
amputated—and eventually his life.
When Jackson had reached the point where his line now crossed the turnpike, scarcely a mile west of Chancellorsville, and not half a mile from a line of Federal troops, he had found his front line unfit for the farther and vigorous advance he desired, by reason of the irregular character of the fighting, now right, now left, and because of the dense thickets, through which it was impossible to preserve alignment. Division commanders found it more and more difficult as the twilight deepened to hold their broken brigades in hand. Regretting the necessity of relieving the troops in front, General Jackson had ordered A. P. Hill’s division, his third and reserve line, to be placed in front.
While this change was being effected, impatient and anxious, the general rode forward on the turnpike, followed by two or three of his staff and a number of couriers and signal sergeants. He passed the swampy depression and began the ascent of the hill toward Chancellorsville, when he came upon a line of the Federal infantry lying on their arms. Fired at by one or two muskets (two musket-balls from the enemy whistled over my head as I came to the front), he turned and came back toward his line, upon the side of the road to his left.
This lithograph depicts the fatal wounding of General Jackson during the Battle of Chancellorsville, May 2, 1863.
As he rode near to the Confederate troops, just placed in position and ignorant that he was in the front, the left company began firing to the front, and two of his party fell from their saddles dead—Captain Boswell of the Engineers, and Sergeant Cunliffe, of the Signal Corps. Spurring his horse across the road to his right, he was met by a second volley from the right company of Pender’s North Carolina brigade. Under this volley, when not two rods from the troops, the general received three balls at the same instant. One penetrated the palm of his right hand and was cut out that night from the back of his hand. A second passed around the wrist of the left arm and out through the left hand. A third ball passed through the left arm half-way from shoulder to elbow. The large bone of the upper arm was splintered to the elbow joint, and the wound bled freely. His horse turned quickly from the fire, through the thick bushes which swept the cap from the general’s head, and scratched his forehead, leaving drops of blood to stain his face.
As he lost his hold upon the bridle-rein, he reeled from the saddle, and was caught by the arms of Captain Wilbourn, of the Signal Corps. Laid upon the ground, there came at once to his succor General A. P. Hill and members of his staff. The writer reached his side a minute after, to find General Hill holding the head and shoulders of the wounded chief. Cutting open the coat-sleeve from wrist to shoulder, I found the wound in the upper arm, and with my handkerchief I bound the arm above the wound to stem the flow of blood. Couriers were sent for Dr. Hunter McGuire, the surgeon of the corps and the general’s trusted friend, and for an ambulance. Being outside of our lines, it was urgent that he be moved at once. With difficulty litter-bearers were brought from the line nearby, and the general was placed upon the litter and carefully raised to the shoulder, I myself bearing one corner. …
Soon an ambulance was reached, and stopping to seek some stimulant at Chancellor’s (Dowdall’s Tavern), we were found by Dr. McGuire, who at once took charge of the wounded man. Passing back over the battlefield of the afternoon, we reached the Wilderness store, and then, in a field on the north, the field-hospital of our corps under Dr. Harvey Black. Here we found a tent prepared, and after midnight the left arm was amputated near the left shoulder, and a ball taken from the right hand. …
The Wilderness Church in Chancellorsville, Va., was the site of an attack by Gen. Stonewall Jackson against the Union forces of Maj. Gen. Carl Schurz.
On Monday the general was carried in an ambulance, by way of Spotsylvania Court House, to most comfortable lodging at Chandlerss, near Guinea’s Station, on the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac railroad. And here, against our hopes, notwithstanding the skill and care of wise and watchful surgeons, attended day and night by wife and friends, amid the prayers and tears of all the Southern land, thinking not of himself, but of the cause he loved, and for the troops who had followed him so well and given him so great a name, our chief sank, day by day, with symptoms of pneumonia and some pains of pleurisy, until, at 3:15 PM on the quiet of the Sabbath afternoon, May 10th, 1863, he raised himself from his bed, saying, “No, no, let us pass over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees”; and, falling again to his pillow, he passed away, “over the river, where, in a land where warfare is not known or feared, he rests forever ‘under the trees.’”
Wounded soldiers after the Battle of Chancellorsville
On this night Hooker ordered Sedgwick to assault Lee from the rear; this action brought on the Second Battle of Fredericksburg.
Hooker ordered a retreat, and Gen. Darius Couch organized the movement across the Rapidan.
Sedgwick twice attacked Marye’s Heights and finally drove Early off the Heights, but with tremendous casualties. Lee’s line finally gave way, and Early retreated. Lee, using some of the troops awaiting Hooker’s assault, turned and stopped Sedgwick at Salem Church late in the afternoon.
Things were a mess for the Union forces in the area west of Fredericksburg. Hooker, losing his nerve and the initiative, ordered his Army of the Potomac back across U.S. Ford on the Rapidan River, disengaging from Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.
Grant was still pulling his troops across the river at Bruinsburg and pushing them east towards Jackson, Miss., as rapidly as possible.
Lee prepared his forces to attack Hooker but found that the Federals were moving back across the Rappahannock in defeat. The Battle of Chancellorsville was over, as was the Second Battle of Fredericksburg. The Union fielded nearly 134,000 men, suffering almost 17,300 casualties. Confederate losses were about 12,800 from an effective force of nearly 60,000 (nearly 20 percent) a loss that they could ill afford. But perhaps the greatest loss to the Confederacy in this battle was “Stonewall” Jackson; there was no replacement for him.
Confederate General Ambrose Powell (A. P.) Hill was assigned Jackson’s old corps. Jackson was lying in a house at Guiney’s Station. His wife would join him there and remain with him until his death.
At Falmouth, Va., Lincoln and Gen. Halleck concluded their meeting with Hooker and returned to Washington. Lincoln was very concerned about the effect of the defeat on the people of the North.
Sherman was now across the river from Milliken’s Bend with his large corps and started moving towards Jackson, Miss., directly east of Vicksburg to cut the rail lines of supply. In an early lesson on for aging, Grant’s orders were to “live off the country.” The countryside was soon stripped.
With Charleston more and more bottled up, and New Orleans gone, the blockade runners were concentrating more on Wilmington, N.C., which would become the principal port for such activity.
Grant was now at Utica, about 20 miles southwest of Jackson, Miss., and driving hard.
On this Sunday in a small house south of Fredericksburg, near Guiney’s Station, the mighty “Stonewall” Jackson died, his last words being “Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees.”
In Massachusetts, Col. Robert Shaw had exceeded his 1,000-man limit in recruiting the first all-black regiment in the Union army—the 54th Massachusetts. The spillover in manpower was used to form the second black regiment—the 55th Massachusetts.
Grant decided to handle the city of Jackson first and then go on to Vicksburg.
Beleaguered Vicksburg was calling for more support, and the Confederate Secretary of War was pulling troops from Charleston and other areas to help. Beauregard, commander at Charleston, warned that this would drastically weaken that port’s defenses.
Gen. Nathaniel Banks embarked on his mission to capture Port Hudson, the Confederate fortification south of Vicksburg.
Sherman’s and McPherson’s corps neared Jackson, Miss., in midmorning. Joe Johnston, knowing he had little hope against Grant’s superior force, evacuated as much of the vital supplies as he could and sent two brigades to delay the Yankees.
The Battle of Champion’s Hill was fought. Grant, moving fast towards Edward’s Station, blocked a move by Pemberton to join Johnston, and the two forces collided at Champion’s Hill. By mid-afternoon the hill had changed hands three times, and the Confederates had had enough, beginning their withdrawal towards Vicksburg and towards the bridge crossing the Big Black River. The Confederates had lost about 3,850 men at Champion’s Hill as opposed to 2,440 Union lost. Pemberton could not afford such losses for long. Johnston never got into the fight.
Things were heating up in the Vicksburg area. Grant was back from Jackson and the Battle of Champion’s Hill was over. On this day, Grant invested Vicksburg. The fortifications were completely surrounded on the land side, and the gunboats were on the river. No escape now for Pemberton’s army.
At Vicksburg, Grant lost almost 3,200 of his total force of 45,000 in a large-scale attack on the Confederate defenses. The Confederate losses were less than 500.
Barber, Cpl., Co. D, 15th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, Vicksburg, Miss., wrote:
It was fifteen miles to Vicksburg and we could plainly hear the heavy notes of artillery. On the 18th and 22d, when the charges were made, the hills fairly shook with the shock of artillery. Grant saw what a sacrifice of life it would cost to take the place by storm, so he waited the slow and surer operations of a siege. …
Barber, Cpl., Co. D, 15th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, Vicksburg, Miss., wrote:
… We were now within one and one-half miles of the rebel line and two and one-half miles from Vicksburg. In our immediate front was a strong fort, a little isolated from the others, mounting heavy siege guns.
Major Gen. Nathaniel Banks today launched his long-awaited attack on Port Hudson, La., with little result other than nearly 2,000 killed, wounded or missing, out of a force of 13,000. The attack, poorly coordinated, was made through rough terrain, heavily wooded and cut with deep ravines, which caused troop alignment problems. Admiral Farragut’s gunboats provided close support where possible, and continued firing on the fortifications after the attack faltered.
Rifle-Musket, .58 caliber, used by G. T. Holford of the 83 Ohio Volunteer Infantry, which fought in the Battle of Vicksburg
Henry A. Monroe (1845–1913) was a drummer for Company C of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.
The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry left Boston for Hilton Head, S.C., the first all-black regiment to be ordered south.
President Davis’s hopes of getting enough troops to aid Pemberton were still alive, but dying rapidly. The famed “Orphan Brigade” was coming to help.
JUNE 1863
THROUGHOUT THE SOUTH, the June heat had a telling effect on the protagonists. The ironclads operating on the rivers and along the coast were like ovens most of the time, the boilers heating things up internally, the sun externally. The soldiers around Vicksburg and Port Hudson were also steaming, realizing that the worst of the summer was yet to come. In the South the prices of goods were increasing, not only from scarcity, but also due to the decreased value of the Confederate dollar. Both sides had their woes this summer.
Ambrose E. Burnside, Major Gen., USA, closed the Chicago Times for publishing disloyal statements. This created a furor throughout the North among the defenders of the First Amendment.
The Gettysburg campaign began with the movement of Lee’s legions from the Fredericksburg area to the west. The long gray columns quit their camps and began the trek to the Shenandoah Valley, where they would turn north for Pennsylvania. In Hooker’s camps, no movement was yet to be seen. The Yankee commander was unaware that his adversary was moving.
Barber, Cpl., Co. D, 15th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, Vicksburg, Miss., wrote:
One day General Grant rode along the line and told the boys that he had plenty of ammunition and not to be afraid to use it. This was the signal for firing. Some of the boys expended over two hundred rounds that day. The rebs lay in their trenches, quiet as mice, not daring to show their heads. …
Sometimes the rebels would make a charge on our picket line in the night and try to force it back. In one of these charges, they surprised the 14th Illinois, killed and wounded seven and took twenty prisoners. … All this was done so quickly that we, only a short distance from them, were unable to render them any assistance. …
Hooker, trying to find where Lee’s army had gone, probed the crossings at Franklin’s Crossing and Deep Run, only to find them screened with pickets from A. P. Hill’s corps. Lincoln suggested to Hooker that he might attack the moving Confederates, but Hooker delayed until it was too late. Lee’s last corps, A. P. Hill’s, was set in motion for Culpepper.
There was skirmishing again between Rosecrans’s and Bragg’s armies in Tennessee.
Grant and Admiral Porter were giving Vicksburg no rest. Twenty-four hours a day the mortar boats lobbed their deadly missiles into the city. Many of the residents now lived in caves to escape the danger.
At Beverly and Kelly’s Ford on the Rappahannock, west of Fredericksburg, Union cavalry galloped across the fords, driving in the Confederate pickets, and went looking for Lee. Stuart, at Brandy Station, was caught by surprise, and was rapidly engaged in the largest cavalry battle ever fought in North America. Almost 20,000 horsemen clashed at Stevenburg and Fleetwood Hill for about 12 hours. The Confederates held the ground at the end of the day, but it was a close thing indeed. Gen. Alfred Pleasanton’s Federal cavalry had reversed the image of the North’s cavalry, and had given Southern cavalry a bloody nose.
Union mortar boats were bombarding Vicksburg almost every hour. From dawn till noon, a total of 175 shells were fired into the city. The pounding the city was taking was severe.
After the deadly cavalry charge near Brandy Station, Va.—depicted here in a drawing by Edwin Forbes—jokes about “Who ever saw a dead cavalryman?” would no longer be in vogue in either army.
Jackman, Pvt., “The Orphan Brigade,” Jackson, Miss., wrote:
Was waked up by the fire bells in the city and opening my eyes saw that the light of a fire was shining into the office—the walls of the tent being up—making it light as day. Could see the Bowman House, a large hotel near the Capitol, wrapped in flames which roared not a little in the stillness of the night. Heavy cannonading all night at Vicksburg.
One group of Confederate prisoners would not make it to their Union prison camp. Being transported to Ft. Delaware on the steamer Maple Leaf, they overpowered the guards, captured the ship and forced it to land below Cape Henry, Va., where they escaped.
On this day, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment received its first combat experience. This, the first all-black regiment in the Union Army, went on an amphibious raid on Darien, Ga., with the 2nd South Carolina. The commander of the expedition, one Col. James Montgomery, had the town sacked and burned for no apparent reason.
Ewell’s corps was still leading Lee’s army north west. At Winchester, the Confederates drove in the Union pickets at that city and moved on to occupy Berryville. Hooker started the blue columns north by northwest from Falmouth about three days behind Lee.
Lee’s gray columns were strung out all over western Virginia and into Maryland. Hooker reached Fairfax C.H., about 20 miles from the capital, and between Lee and Washington.
Grant, who was convinced that all McClernand wanted was to make political headway, relieved him of command and sent him north.
The mountain counties of Virginia, having voted for separation from their parent state, were admitted into the Union as the new State of West Virginia.
Barber, Cpl., Co. D, 15th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, Vicksburg, Miss., wrote:
We had now got so close to the enemy that in several places along the line we were at work undermining their forts with the intention of blowing them up. … Finally every thing was in readiness, the troops were under arms, ready to make the charge if a breach was made and our boys went in.
The concussion was terrific. Rebels were thrown twenty feet into the air and buried in the ruins, but so strong were the works that the explosion failed to make a breach. A fierce hand-to-hand encounter ensued over the parapet, bayonets crossed over the works and thrusts and stabs were made. Our boys finally retired, confident that victory would soon crown our efforts. The 45th Illinois stood the brunt of this engagement.
Lincoln finally stirred Rosecrans enough to get him moving towards Braxton Bragg at Tullahoma, Tenn. Rosecrans did well in this campaign, outflanking Bragg and forcing him to fall back towards Chattanooga.
Gen. Lee made a big mistake today. He gave JEB Stuart permission to leave the Army of Northern Virginia, giving up his role of being the “eyes of the commander,” and to join Lee on the other side of the Potomac. Stuart went on his way and Lee would not see him until the middle of the Battle of Gettysburg.
Jubal Anderson Early (1816–94, seen here in civilian clothes many years after the war ended), initially voted against secession but volunteered for military service when Virginia left the Union. His greatest battles were in the Valley Campaigns of 1864, when he defeated several Union generals and threatened Washington. After the war, he supervised the Louisiana State Lottery, and was the first president of the Southern Historical Society.
This day saw the passing of Rear Admiral Andrew Hull Foote, at age 57, in New York City. He died of the wounds received at Ft. Donelson in the spring of 1862. He was a great innovator of river warfare on the western rivers, and a great supporter of joint-service actions. He would be sorely missed.
Confederate Gen. Jubal Early passed through Gettysburg, Pa., for the first time today on his way to York, Pa. Gov. Curtin of Pennsylvania called for 60,000 volunteers to serve for 90 days to repel the invaders. Just how these raw troops were supposed to stand up to Lee’s battle-hardened veterans has always remained a mystery.
In Washington, Lincoln did something rarely done in the annals of military history. He relieved the commander of a major army on the eve of battle. “Fighting Joe” Hooker was relieved by George Gordon Meade, Major Gen., USA, as commander of the Army of the Potomac.
Meade wasted no time ordering the Army of the Potomac towards Gettysburg. Gen. Buford’s cavalry-men were in Gettysburg already and more troops were coming up fast. Lee was calling his men in as fast as possible.
In Tennessee, Rosecrans was mixing it up with Bragg at Tullahoma, with heavy skirmishing in other points nearby.
JULY 1863
THE BROILING HEAT OF JULY baked the land from Vicksburg to Gettysburg. In Pennsylvania, the blue and gray columns about to collide at Gettysburg marched down the dusty roads in sweltering sun. Water was in short supply and the troops suffered. In Vicksburg and Port Hudson, the heat was even more intense. At those places, the fortifications were bombarded incessantly, the defenders waiting with stoic patience for the outcome. In Tennessee, the elevation made the heat more tolerable but to those on the roads, no less a problem. Rosecrans drove for Chattanooga, moving Bragg into Georgia.
At dawn the Confederates moved towards Gettysburg along the Chambersburg Pike, A. P. Hill’s skirmishers looking for Union troops. They found them about four miles west of town in the form of Company E, 9th New York Cavalry of John Buford’s cavalry division, armed with repeating rifles. By 8 AM the contact had reached a point where Buford’s men were opposing two Confederate brigades, but Major Gen. John F. Reynolds’s corps of infantry was coming up fast. By midmorning, the fighting was getting heavy and in the midst of battle Reynolds was killed at the edge of McPherson’s Woods. The Union lines held the Confederates. The famed “fishhook” line was established on Cemetery Ridge, with the Confederates occupying Seminary Ridge across the way. All day long the Federals streamed into Gettysburg and were placed in defensive positions. There was a lot of confusion and milling about until things settled down about dark. Meade arrived on the field about midnight.
At Vicksburg the end was clear—surrender or starvation. Grant’s army encircled the city with a death grip, and Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s small force to the east around Clinton, Miss., was vastly outnumbered and had little or no means to transport itself beyond the railroad line from Jackson.
Things were stirring early at Gettysburg. Not all the Union troops had arrived as yet, the long columns still pouring in. Gen. Dan Sickles took things into his own hands and moved his Third Corps out of the assigned positions on the Union left and forward to the area of the Peach Orchard and Devil’s Den to an exposed position. Lee wanted Longstreet to attack this salient of the Union left and Longstreet opposed the plan. Fortunately, Major Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren, the Chief Engineer of the Army of the Potomac, rode to the Little Round Top, recognized that disaster was awaiting for the left flank unless something was done and sent his aides to pull any troops off the road and send them to the hill. Meanwhile, Longstreet sent his Confederates against Sickles’s exposed men and drove them from the Peach Orchard and Devil’s Den to the crest of Cemetery Ridge. Gen. John Bell Hood’s Texans got into a stiff fight with the 20th Maine of Col. Chamberlain on Little Round Top and the fighting was hand-to-hand and rock-to-rock. Chamberlain’s men ran out of ammunition, so he ordered a bayonet charge that so demoralized the Rebels that they fled. The left flank was saved for the Union.
This July 1863 photograph by Alexander Gardner shows the headquarters of Gen. George Gordon Meade on Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg.
Gen. Jubal Early was to have attacked Culp’s Hill at the same time Longstreet began his attack, but delays occurred and the charge up East Cemetery Hill did not begin until dusk. It went on until 10 PM and ended with Early back down the hill and where he started from. The day ended with many casualties, including Dan Sickles, who would lose a leg from his wounds, many deaths, but no real advantage gained by either side. Meade was fighting a defensive battle and handling it well, so far.
During the fighting, JEB Stuart arrived back at the Army of Northern Virginia, quite pleased that he had brought Gen. Lee a wagon train of supplies. Lee was angry with Stuart for his grandstand ride around Meade’s army when Stuart should have been available to provide scouts for intelligence purposes. Quickly taking advantage of the situation, Lee ordered Stuart to use his cavalry to cut Meade’s retreat route to the east. Stuart rested his horses and got ready.
In the area of Vicksburg, the tension was growing. Surely the city could not hold much longer. Joe Johnston’s Confederates waited the outcome of the battle, knowing that when Grant was finished with Vicksburg, he would turn on the Confederate force to destroy it.
The entrenchments began and the artillery rolled forward into place. By dawn the place known as Cemetery Ridge fairly bristled with Union muskets and artillery.
Lee had tried assaults on both flanks of Meade’s army and been repulsed. Now he would try the middle. He would send 15,000 men in three divisions against the Union center in a charge that would forever be known as “Pickett’s Charge,” but that would be made up of troops from the divisions of Henry Heth, Dorsey Pender and Pickett’s Virginians.
Longstreet again advised against the attack. Lee was adamant and the attack was ordered, beginning with a tremendous 100-gun artillery barrage against the Union lines that started at 1 PM, to be answered by about 80 guns from the Federal line.
Across the field from the Union position, the Confederates emerged from the woods and formed into lines for the attack. It was a supreme example of raw courage and one of the most heart-stopping spectacles of the war. The Union gunners waited until the gray lines were within range and then pounded them with shot and shell in a seemingly unending stream. The ranks developed wide gaps where the artillery fire took its toll and the men closed ranks, still advancing. As they came within range of the Union muskets, the Federals, behind the cemetery wall and the entrenchments, poured a rain of lead into the gray ranks. The charge had failed and the Confederates retreated across the field to be met by Lee, who kept repeating, “All this has been my fault.”
This battle would cost both sides dearly. The total casualties amounted to about 43,500’23,049 Union and 20,451 Confederate—of whom over 27,000 were wounded. When the cleanup was being done, the burial squads picked up the muskets left on the field by the dead and wounded, affixed the bayonets, and stuck the bayonets in the ground so that the butt of each rifle was up. The 26,000 muskets thus recovered made the battlefield look like a forest of rifles.
This c. 1894 illustration commemorates the surrender of Vicksburg. Gen. Grant, on horseback at the far left, meets the Confederate soldiers as they march out. Gen. Pemberton and his staff stand at right, observing.
Early that same morning in Vicksburg, the white truce flags appeared on the defenses of the city. Gen. Pemberton had bowed to a superior force and six weeks of siege after nearly a year of Union operations against him. The two generals, Grant and Pemberton, met under an oak tree to discuss the terms of surrender which would take place the next day, the Fourth of July.
Barber, Cpl., Co. D, 15th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, Vicksburg, Miss., wrote:
The two generals met beneath the wide spreading branches of a stately oak between the lines. … General Grant gave him until the next morning to accede to his unconditional terms of surrender. … While the truce was being held, the pickets of the two armies met and conversed on friendly terms on neutral ground between the lines. Blackberries were very thick there and friend and foe picked from the same bush and vied with each other in acts of civility. …
Gen. John Pemberton and about 29,000 Confederates surrendered to Gen. Grant at Vicksburg by laying down their arms and marching out of the battered city. The Mississippi was now open, save for Port Hudson, which could not hold out much longer. The citizens of Vicksburg wept with sorrow as the surrender was completed. Grant could now turn his attention to Johnston’s army to the east.
Raphael Semmes, the famed Confederate commerce raider, wrote later, with keen insight, about the fall of Vicksburg and the loss at Gettysburg:
… Vicksburg and Gettysburg mark an era in the war. … We need no better evidence of the shock which had been given to public confidence in the South, by those two disasters, than the simple fact that our currency depreciated almost immediately a thousand percent!
In Gettysburg, Lee had decided to retreat into Virginia. Late in the afternoon, in a heavy downpour the wagons filled with wounded began their slow, agonizing journey south. Meade, left in possession of the field, had no plans to follow Lee, although he was urged to do so by Lincoln. This would be another opportunity lost to the Army of the Potomac.
W. F. Goodhue created this map of the battlefield at Gettysburg in 1863. It shows drainage, vegetation, roads, railroads, houses and names of inhabitants, as well as the movements of the 12th Army Corps. Union and Confederate positions are shown with names of the commanding officers of some units.
THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG
JULY 1 TO 3, 1863
Augustus Buell, a cannoneer with the 1st Division of the 1st Corps
of the Army of the Potomac, describes the first day of the battle.
We turned out the next morning about daybreak, harnessed up, and, after crossing the creek, halted to let the infantry of Wadsworth’s Division file by. There was no mistake now. While we stood there watching these splendid soldiers file by with their long, swinging “route step,” and their muskets glittering in the rays of the rising sun, there came out of the northwest a sullen “boom! boom! boom!” of three guns, followed almost immediately by a prolonged crackling sound, which, at that distance, reminded one very much of the snapping of a dry brush-heap when you first set it on fire. We soon reasoned out the state of affairs up in front. Buford, we calculated, had engaged the leading infantry of Lee’s army, and was probably trying to hold them with his cavalry in heavy skirmish line, dismounted, until our infantry could come up. …
Field glasses used by Union Brevet Major General G. K. Warren (1830–82) during the Battle of Gettysburg
The sounds of the cavalry fight had been distinct ever since we left Marsh Creek—a fitful crackle—but now we heard fierce, angry crash on crash, rapidly growing in volume and intensity signifying that our leading infantry—Cutler’s and the Iron Brigade—had encountered the “doughboys” of Lee’s advance. It is well known that the men of the Iron Brigade always preferred slouch hats (Western fashion), and seldom or never wore caps. At the time this heavy crashing began we were probably halfway up from Marsh Creek, and, as the Battery was marching at a walk, most of us were walking along with the guns instead of riding on the limbers. Among the Cannoneers was a man from the 2d Wisconsin (John Holland) who took great pride in the Iron Brigade. So, when that sudden crash! crash! crash! floated over the hills to our ears, John said, with visible enthusiasm, “Hear that, my son! That’s the talk! The old slouch hats have got there, you bet!!”
An untitled painting of the Battle of Gettysburg by an unknown artist.
Now the artillery began to play in earnest, and it was evident that the three batteries which had preceded us were closely engaged, while the musketry had grown from the crackling sound of the skirmishing we had heard early in the morning to an almost incessant crash, which betokened the file firing of a main line of battle. Just before reaching the brow of the hill, south of the town, where we could get our first sight of the battle itself, there was a provoking halt of nearly half an hour. We could hear every sound, even the yells of the troops fighting on the ridge beyond Gettysburg, and we could see the smoke mount up and float away lazily to the northeastward; but we could not see the combatants. While halted here Doubleday’s Division passed up the road, each regiment breaking into double quick as it reached the top of the hill. The Eleventh Corps also began by this time to arrive from Emmittsburg. Finally, when the last of the Second Brigade of Doubleday’s (Stone’s) had passed, we got the order to advance again, and in two minutes the whole scene burst upon us like the lifting of the curtain in a grand play. The spectacle was simply stupendous. It is doubtful if there was ever a battle fought elsewhere of which such a complete view was possible from one point as we got of that battle when we reached the top of the hill abreast of Round Top. …
Veterans of the Battle of Gettysburg (from left): Lieutenant Colonel Myles Keogh, Major General John Buford, Captain Peter Penn-Gaskell, Captain Craig W. Wadsworth, Lieutenant Colonel Albert Payson Morrow
The center of the Federal position viewed from Little Round Top, Gettysburg
From Gettysburg, Lee’s army had moved south towards Hagerstown, Md., and Meade sat in Gettysburg—an act somewhat reminiscent of those of McClellan.
Vicksburg was in Federal hands, supplies came in for the relief of the citizens of the city, and troops occupied the public buildings. The Federals began to parole the Confederates. Sherman stirred his men out of their entrenchments and prepared for an attack towards the city of Jackson, and Joe Johnston, to the east.
Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren, former commander of the Washington Navy Yard and a friend of President Lincoln, arrived in Port Royal, S.C., as the new commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, replacing Rear Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont. There had been a lot of finger-pointing about the failure of the assault on Charleston, S.C., and it appeared that the scapegoat was to be Du Pont.
There was light skirmishing between the cavalry forces of Lee and Meade as Lee withdrew through Maryland to Virginia. Meade still sat in Gettysburg, despite Lincoln’s urging.
The forces gather for the Union assault on Joe Johnston and Jackson, Miss. While the generals shuffled the maps and symbols, the troops waited.
Pickett’s Charge is depicted in this undated oil painting by Edwin Forbes. The viewer looks toward the Confederate attack: Ziegler’s Grove appears on the left.
At Port Hudson, south of Vicksburg, the last remaining Confederate bastion held out despite short rations and incessant pounding by mortar boats.
Lee, in Hagerstown, Md., notified President Davis of his retreat from Gettysburg and his decision to withdraw further south. Davis was not joyous at the news, but understanding. Lincoln received the news of Vicksburg’s surrender and wrote Halleck, “Now, if General Meade can complete his work, so gloriously prosecuted thus far, by the literal or substantial destruction of Lee’s army, the rebellion will be over.” Lincoln was right again, but he couldn’t get his commander of the Army of the Potomac to see this.
As Sherman drew near the Mississippi capital, there was light fighting near Clinton and the approaches to the city. President Davis, wholly out of touch with the situation there, wired Johnston that he hoped Johnston might yet “attack and crush the enemy.”
Port Hudson formally surrendered, clearing the last obstacle for navigation on the Mississippi from Cairo to New Orleans and the sea. There would be minor guerrilla harassment for the remainder of the war.
Sherman had invested the city of Jackson, Miss., and the waiting began. Things remained reasonably quiet in the lines.
At Gettysburg, Meade finally got off his posterior and mounted a halfhearted general offensive against Lee’s forces, which had their backs to the Potomac. Lincoln, in the wings, cheered Meade on, hoping that he would attack and destroy Lee’s army.
Lee, still with his back to the river, awaited either Meade’s attack or the falling of the river so he could cross with his main force, which he hoped he could do the next day. Lincoln hoped Meade would be in time to stop Lee, but this was not to be.
In Tennessee, Bragg was now in Chattanooga, having lost the state to Rosecrans. Both commanders were reorganizing and fitting up for the next campaign.
The opposition to the Draft Law reached its culmination today with riots in New York City, Boston, Portsmouth, N.H., Rutland, Vt., Wooster, Ohio, and Troy, N.Y. The largest, of course, was in New York, where a mob stormed the draft headquarters, burned houses and looted stores. Fires broke out, and a Negro church and orphanage were burned as Negroes became the prime target for the mob, made up mostly of working-class Irish. Property losses were estimated at $1,500,000, and it was estimated that 100 people were killed or wounded during the period, which ended July 16.
Lee crossed the Potomac and was safe, for the time being, in Virginia.
Gen. Joseph E. Johnston decided to abandon Jackson, Miss., to its fate at Sherman’s hands. Johnston pulled his men out of the city about midnight.
Things were looking gloomy all around with Vicksburg and Port Hudson gone, Gettysburg a costly defeat and now the attack on Morris Island near Charleston.
Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade (1815–72) was not only a career officer in the U.S. Army, but also a civil engineer. His notoriously short temper earned him the nickname Old Snapping Turtle.
On Morris Island in Charleston Harbor, another assault was made on Ft. Wagner after a heavy pounding by mortar boats and ironclads. The assault by Brig. Gen. Truman Seymour’s men was led by the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the first of the Negro regiments to enter the war. Of the 6,000 men in the assault, 1,515 of them would be casualties, including Col. Robert Gould Shaw, who organized and commanded the 54th Massachusetts. He would be buried in the trenches with his men. The failure of the assault would cause a change in the Federal plan of attack on Charleston from a frontal assault to a siege.
Meade’s Army of the Potomac finally crossed the Potomac after Lee, at Harpers Ferry and other fords, and moved rapidly south towards the Blue Ridge passes, which were being screened by Stuart’s cavalry.
Having eluded capture the day before with about 400 of his men, John Hunt Morgan got into another scrape with Union forces at Hockingport, Ohio, before turning away from the Ohio River.
In the Blue Ridge passes, Federal and Rebel cavalry got into stiff fights with each other as Lee moved through the Shenandoah, and Meade paralleled Lee’s route further east.
Morgan was finally run to ground near the Pennsylvania line. At Salineville, Ohio, he and his spent command surrendered. He had 364 officers and men remaining. The officers were sent to the state prison at Columbus, and the enlisted men to prison camps. Morgan’s raid was daring, spectacular and caused much consternation but did little else. Nothing of great military value was destroyed nor were many people killed. In many ways the raid was a great grandstand play.
AUGUST 1863
CONSIDERING THE EVENTS OF JULY, for the North things looked better. The Mississippi was open to the sea and Lee was out of Pennsylvania. The South had a different perspective. The country had been cut in two, with the trans-Mississippi area isolated and the supplies from that region no longer available for the armies in the east. Both North and South, towns and villages counted their dead and mourned for the fallen at Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Port Hudson, Tullahoma and a thousand other skirmishes. The war continued.
There was another melee at Brandy Station, Va., but certainly nothing like the previous cavalry battle at the same site in early June. Opposing cavalry clashed briefly on the old battlefield, the Union looking for Lee.
Belle Boyd, an oft-arrested spy suspect, was again in custody for similar activities at the Old Capital Prison in Washington.
President Davis issued what was, in effect, an act of amnesty by requesting that all absentees return to their regiments. Desertion in Lee’s army was reaching dramatic proportions. One man, living along the James River east of Richmond, reported more than one thousand, mostly North Carolinian, soldiers crossing there heading for home.
In Virginia, President Davis rejected an offer by Gen. Robert E. Lee to resign as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee cited the criticism on his defeat at Gettysburg. He wrote Davis: “… in all sincerity, request your excellency to take measures to supply my place.” Many cited Lee’s general health and depression for his offer to resign.
In one of the greater justices of the war, Lincoln refused to give Major Gen. John A. McClernand a new command. McClernand, a political general, had been relieved from command by Grant during the siege of Vicksburg.
Admiral Dahlgren renewed the attack on Charleston’s defenses, using both ironclads and the Union guns on Morris Island. In all, more than 930 shells were fired at Sumter. Dahlgren’s Chief of Staff, Capt. G. W. Rodgers, was killed during the engagement by a shot from Ft. Wagner.
The Chickamauga campaign opened with its first skirmish at Calfkiller Creek, near Sparta, Tenn. Rosecrans moved slowly towards Chattanooga.
In New York City the draft was resumed without much difficulty, after the disastrous and deadly riots last month that killed or wounded almost 100 people.
The guns on Morris Island and the blockading fleet were pounding Sumter again, the fourth straight day of bombardment. The mayor of Charleston requested that the Confederate government send the South Carolinian troops in Lee’s army back to the state to “defend their native soil.”
Rosecrans’s 90,000-strong Army of the Cumberland had reached the Tennessee River east of Chattanooga, where Bragg was holed up with 40,000 troops awaiting action.
The interior of Ft. Wagner on Morris Island, S.C., showing the quarters of the Federal garrison
This print depicting William Quantrill’s massacre of the citizens of Lawrence, Kans., on August 21, 1863, was published in Harper’s Weekly shortly thereafter.
Brig. Gen. Q. A. Gilmore on Morris Island demanded the surrender of Charleston or he would continue the bombardment and next time include the city. The Confederates refused to surrender and the firing went on for the fifth straight day.
In one of the more tragic and senseless acts of the war, William C. Quantrill, an outlaw and self-appointed Southern officer, raided Lawrence, Kans., burning the town, looting the stores and people’s purses and murdering many of the men in a wanton slaughter that served no useful purpose. Quantrill’s raiders murdered about 150 men and boys and destroyed about $1,500,000 worth of property.
In Tennessee, Union troops were close enough to throw artillery shells into Chattanooga. There was skirmishing between the forces in eastern Tennessee near the city.
At about 1:30 that morning a shell landed in the city of Charleston, S.C., terrifying the residents. A total of 16 shells were fired during the morning, 12 filled with “greek fire.” Confederate Gen. Pierre G. T. Beauregard, currently in command of the city, sent an angry message to Gillmore, castigating him for firing on innocent civilians. The British and Spanish consuls in the city also sent messages asking that the bombardment be stopped. Gillmore declined.
In Tennessee, Rosecrans’s Army of the Cumberland drew closer to Chattanooga as President Davis tried to round up some reinforcements for Bragg.
In Richmond, all of the clerks in the city post office had resigned in a wage dispute with the government. No mail was being delivered, some of which might have been important to the war effort.
The Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley used a unique approach to torpedo a ship. The sub would dive beneath the ship while towing a floating cop per-cylinder torpedo some 200 feet astern. When the submarine was safely under the ship, she would surface and go forward until the torpedo struck the target and exploded.
A previous act of the Confederate Congress decreed that any Union officer who was captured by the Confederacy who had commanded Negro troops would be executed. President Davis declined to order the execution of some of the captives, and, instead, ordered them held indefinitely, without exchange.
SEPTEMBER 1863
THE WAR IN EASTERN TENNESSEE was beginning to warm up considerably. Bragg, in the Chattanooga area, was facing Rosecrans’s Army of the Cumberland, currently in eastern Alabama and coming up slowly.
The Army of the Cumberland assembles near Chattanooga, Tenn., with Lookout Mountain on the left.
Other than in Charleston, things were fairly quiet. Grant’s army was being taken apart by Halleck and scattered to the winds, sent to garrison duty in Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky. A good part of the Ninth Corps was sent to Burnside, who now was on his way to the Chattanooga area to lend a little weight to Rosecrans’s assault. Meade was sitting quietly near Warrenton, Va., occasionally swatting at pesky guerrillas such as Mosby, who persisted in nibbling at him. The Confederacy lived.
Near Chattanooga, Rosecrans’s Army of the Cumberland was crossing the Tennessee River to prepare for the assault on Bragg’s army at Chattanooga. Gov. Isham Harris, a governor without a state, was informed by President Davis that reinforcements were being sent to Bragg.
Union Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside easily took Knoxville, Tenn., thus blocking any direct communications between Tennessee and Virginia. His presence in the area was in support of Rosecrans’s operations against Chattanooga.
In Charleston Harbor the guns were almost silent, with the Union troops entrenched only eighty yards from the outer works of Battery Wagner. The Union troops had taken the Confederate rifle pits after a second try, the first being repulsed.
In England there had been much controversy about British shipbuilders providing ships to the Confederacy, an act the United States government felt was a violation of the neutrality which England proclaimed. There were two ironclad rams being constructed at Birkenhead, and Lord Russell finally came down on the side of the Union by ordering the rams to be kept in port.
Rosecrans’s Army of the Cumberland was across the Tennessee River and forming for the assault on Bragg. The latter was now faced with Union forces from two directions, Burnside coming from Knoxville.
Gen. Grant, an excellent horseman, was riding in New Orleans when his horse shied and fell on him. His injuries would keep him incapacitated for sometime, and on crutches for several weeks.
In New Orleans also, an expedition to capture and hold Sabine Pass, Tex., was getting underway. The Navy would supply the gunboats USS Clifton, Arizona and Granite City with the steamer Sachem, all under the command of Acting Volunteer Lt. Amos Johnson. The gunboats, with about 180 Army sharpshooters aboard, would make the assault and drive the defenders from their positions with their guns. Sabine Pass in Federal hands would go far to strengthen the Union position in that area.
It was reported that defection was spreading in North Carolina. In Wilkes County, Gideon Smoot, commander of the insurgents, was reported to have raised the United States flag at the county courthouse.
During the night, Confederate forces secretly abandoned Morris Island by boat. The previous day, the 5th, one hundred of the nine hundred Confederate defenders of Ft. Wagner were killed in the bombardment by shore batteries and naval gunboats. Beauregard, the commander of the Charleston defenses, ordered the evacuation. The Union attackers now had a full view of the city of Charleston.
The operation at Sabine Pass, Tex., was a disaster. The attack was led by the USS Clifton, which had her wheel rope shot away and was disabled under the defenders’ guns. After having 10 men killed, the captain surrendered the vessel. The Sachem was totally disabled by a shot through her boilers. The other gunships recrossed the bar and headed back to New Orleans.
The Chickamauga Campaign opened with fighting at Winston’s Gap, Ala., and at Alpine, Ga. In Virginia, Longstreet’s corps was moving to the relief of Bragg at Chattanooga.
Beginning the night before, an assault by boat was made on Ft. Sumter, led by Commander Stevens. The attack comprised more than 30 boats with some 400 sailors and Marines. The defenders, having recovered a code book from the wreck of USS Keokuk, had read the signals and were ready for the attack. More than 100 men were captured, and Ft. Sumter was still safe in Confederate hands.
Outflanked, Gen. Bragg evacuated Chattanooga, Tenn., without a struggle. Rosecrans’s Army of the Cumberland immediately occupied the city.
Contact between Rosecrans’s and Bragg’s armies became more frequent, and the skirmishing heavier.
In Georgia, Rosecrans concentrated his troops in the vicinity of Lee and Gordon’s Mills, on the Chickamauga Creek, some 12 miles south of Chattanooga.
James Longstreet and his corps from the Army of Northern Virginia arrived at Bragg’s location in Georgia early this morning, and Bragg wasted no time. He drove all but three of his divisions across West Chickamauga Creek from Ringgold with a part of Longstreet’s corps. Heavy fighting broke out with Rosecrans’s cavalry at Pea Vine Ridge, Dyer’s Ford, Spring Creek, Stephen’s Gap and the bridges at Alexander and Reed.
Going into battle, Rosecrans was outnumbered by about 7,000 men, the balance being Confederates, with the arrival of Longstreet.
At Mobile, the inventor and builder of the submarine H. L. Hunley, Mr. Horace L. Hunley himself, wrote Gen. Beauregard at Charleston and requested that the submarine be turned over to his command. The orders were given and Mr. Hunley brought his crew from Mobile, and in a short time was ready for the attack.
Rosecrans and Bragg were unaware of the exact position of the opponent. Thomas was in position on the Union left, guarding the route to Chattanooga. Thomas sent part of his corps up to find the Confederates and the Union forces ran into the dismounted cavalry of Nathan Bedford Forrest. By 2 PM the entire three-mile front was engaged. Casualties were heavy on both sides, but at dark the lines were in about the same location.
Confederates advance through the forest toward Union forces at the Battle of Chickamauga, as depicted in this drawing by Alfred Rudolph Waud.
This map of the Chickamauga battlefield was sketched by Joseph C. McElroy of the 18th Ohio Infantry (McElroy later became secretary of the Ohio Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Park Commission) and was published around 1895.
Bragg, having placed Polk in command of the left flank of the army, and Longstreet the right, ordered an attack for dawn by Polk on the Union right. About noon, Longstreet came up opposite the Federal center and found a hole in the line. Union troops under Thomas J. Wood had been pulled out of the line and shifted to the left, leaving a wide gap that Longstreet immediately filled with Confederates. Thomas held throughout the afternoon, repelling assault upon assault by the Confederates. The “Rock of Chickamauga” earned his nickname this day.
That night, Thomas, under orders, disengaged and withdrew towards Rossville on the way to Chattanooga, where he set up new defensive lines. The casualty rate for both sides was high—about 28 percent of the forces engaged. The Union casualties were 16,170, the Confederate slightly higher at 18,454. Bragg won the battle, but Rosecrans held Chattanooga.
“The Orphan Brigade” had made one last charge towards the end of the day that drove some of Thomas’s men back, and the Brigade held the Union line. After playing the role of rear guard on retreats at Shiloh, Baton Rouge, Murfreesboro, and then Jackson, Miss., it felt good for a change. Breckinridge, ever fond of his old Brigade, exulted in its actions.
Jackman, Pvt., “The Orphan Brigade,” Battle of Chickamauga, Ga., wrote:
Men and horses were lying so thick over the field one could hardly walk for them. I even saw a large black dog that had been mangled by grape. … About 10 o’clock AM… Breck in-ridge [ordered us] to advance in fifteen minutes and adjust his movements to the brigade on the right. … When I got to the regiment it was just falling back under a heavy fire having charged three times unsuccessfully. The regiment was greatly reduced—by half at least—Col. G. had been wounded. … Gen’l. Helm had received a mortal wound and had to be borne to the hospital on a litter. Col. W., in command of the regiment, had me ride the Gen’l.’s horse back to the hospital. …
Dawn found Gen. Thomas at Rossville in good defensive positions which he would hold all day, retiring to Chattanooga after dark. Rosecrans had occupied good defensive positions around Chattanooga and with Thomas inside the perimeter, the Union army was safe, at least for the time. Bragg had ordered a new offensive and then cancelled it, missing a chance to severely damage the Union forces.
The defeat had a sobering effect on the North, and the South celebrated. It was the only bright spot this year! Lincoln ordered Burnside to reinforce Rosecrans.
In Washington, Lincoln and his wife, Mary, mourned the death of Confederate Brig. Gen. Ben Hardin Helm, Mary’s brother, who was killed at Chickamauga. He commanded the division to which “The Orphan Brigade” belonged.
At Chattanooga, Major Generals Alexander McDowell McCook and T. L. Crittenden were relieved of their corps commands and ordered to Indianapolis, where a court of inquiry would be held on the conduct of the Battle of Chickamauga. Gen. Thomas escaped criticism.
Barber, Cpl., Co. D, 15th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, Natchez, Miss., wrote:
There were camped here about twenty thousand negroes. Their condition was distressing in the extreme. The small-pox broke out amongst them carrying off as many as one hundred daily. They just rolled in filth and rags, dependent upon the Government for support. A good many earned a little by washing clothes for the soldiers. Most of the able bodied males enlisted and several regiments were formed here. Some of our boys went in as officers of companies.
OCTOBER 1863
AUTUMN. The armies were in camp mostly, with some activity here and there. Bragg, resting at Chickamauga and Lookout Mountain, watched Rose-crans in Chattanooga, doing nothing to follow up his late victory. Burnside was still busy in Knoxville, sitting astride an important rail link to Virginia. Meade, at Culpeper C.H., was being nibbled at by Mosby and still facing Lee, a few miles south at Orange C.H. Both North and South had had abundant crops, so it appeared that food would not be in short supply, but distribution remained a problem in the South.
Joe Wheeler’s cavalry was still spreading havoc behind Rosecrans’s lines in eastern Tennessee. At Bridgeport, Ala., just south of Chattanooga on the Tennessee River, Gen. Hooker and 20,000 men arrived, having ridden the railroad for 1,159 miles in seven days. Quite a feat and the first time the trains had been used to transport a Union force that far in so short a time. The only road open to Chattanooga from Bridgeport was the mountainous trail over Walden’s Ridge.
Barber, Cpl., Co. D, 15th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, Natchez, Miss., wrote:
Tidings of the bloody battle of Chicamauga now reached us. It came first through rebel sources. There had been a rebel regiment formed from the principal young business men of Natchez which was in the fight and only about thirty escaped unhurt. There was weeping and wailing in the city. These men were the flower of the society here, and although our foes, we could not but sympathize with their friends in their loss.
In northern Virginia, Lee was on the move, crossing the Rapidan and moving west, trying to get around Meade’s right flank and threaten Washington. Meade, alerted some days before, took immediate action to cover his own flank.
Lee was trying hard to get around Meade’s right flank and behind the Union army, but had no luck. Meade’s cavalry was probing heavily trying to find Lee’s main force. For once the armies were well matched in strength. Fighting at Russell’s Ford, Germanna and Morton’s Fords, and other points on the Rapidan.
On October 5, 1863, the USS New Ironsides, an ironclad warship depicted in this print by W. H. Rease, was struck by a torpedo attached to a spar on the end of the CSS David. The ironclad was only slightly damaged, but the event prompted Union Admiral John Dahlgren to tell Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus Fox: “By all means let us have a quantity of these torpedoes, and thus turn them against the enemy. We can make them faster than they can.”
Near Bristoe Station, Va., Lt. Gen. A. P. Hill’s Confederates struck Meade’s rear guard but not with sufficient strength to dislodge the entrenched Yankees. Meade had time to prepare his lines around Centreville near the old Manassas battlefields. The battle that ensued was fairly matched. Lee found no easy solution and Meade couldn’t find a good opening for an attack.
Grant assumed command of the Union forces from the Mississippi River east to the Cumberland Mountains, replacing several “Department” organizations with a leaner, less top-heavy organization. Rosecrans was relieved of his command at Chattanooga, and Gen. George Thomas was placed in command, with the admonition to hold Chattanooga at all costs.
In northern Virginia, Lee was almost back to his old lines at Orange C.H., with Meade following. There were several brisk fights during the withdrawal, but nothing of any weight.
JEB Stuart took the last of the Confederate forces back across the Rappahannock River and into Lee’s lines at Orange C.H., ending a campaign which had accomplished almost nothing for either North or South. Casualties were about equal—Confederate, 1,381; Union, 1,423.
In central Tennessee Sherman assumed command of the Army of the Tennessee, replacing Grant.
At Chattanooga, Grant inspected the defenses of the city and the state of the troops. The famous “Cracker Line” was then ordered into effect.
At Bridgeport, Ala., Gen. Joseph Hooker received orders to move his men up the Tennessee River and to secure the crossing at Browns Ferry by cleaning out the Confederates at Raccoon Mountain. Hooker wasted no time, and during the night he was attacked by Longstreet’s men. The Union force under Brig. Gen. John W. Geary held, and by 4 AM the Confederates withdrew. The “Cracker Line” was not bothered again for the duration of the campaign.
The Union troops of Gen. Hooker, in over whelming numbers, attacked the Confederates on Raccoon Mountain, and the Union thus secured the route for the “Cracker Line” to begin operations. President Davis approved a request from Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest to separate his forces from Bragg’s and to go raiding in northern Mississippi and Tennessee. The devil was loose!
Maj. Gen. George Henry Thomas (1816–70), United States Army
Firing on Ft. Sumter continued today for the third straight day. A total of 2,961 shells were fired at this small dot of landfill in three days, but the Confederate flag still flew.
NOVEMBER 1863
THE ARMIES SETTLED FAIRLY WELL into winter camp along the Rappahannock and Rapidan rivers in Virginia, a time for training and equipment repair. In the west, Grant had relieved the siege of Chattanooga and the “Cracker Line” was in full operation; the Federal troops were eating well again. Bragg, a little crotchety, as usual, was pondering Grant’s next move. Ft. Sumter, further reduced to dust, was still defiant. The war ground on.
Ft. Sumter was under fire again. Some 780 rounds of artillery and mortar shells would be fired into this crumbling fort, yet the defenders stayed on.
In Washington, President Lincoln received, and accepted, an invitation to make a “few appropriate remarks” at Gettysburg, Pa., during the dedication of the new National Cemetery.
Union guns and mortars sent another 661 shells against the walls of Ft. Sumter.
In an action quite uncharacteristic of him, Gen. Bragg detached Gen. Longstreet’s corps from the Army of Tennessee and sent it against Burnside at Knoxville. The all-important railroad linking Virginia with the west was the goal.
In West Virginia, the Confederates defending Droop Mountain were routed by a two-prong advance of Brig. Gen. William W. Averell’s Union troops. This was part of a continuing campaign to clear the Confederates from the important rail links to the southwestern part of that state.
Around the Rappahannock, Meade’s men were not idle. Moving further towards Lee, they skirmished at Warrenton, Brandy Station, Culpeper C.H. and other points.
At Chickamauga, Ga., Major Gen. John Cabell Breckinridge replaced Lt. Gen. Daniel H. Hill as commander of the Second Corps of Bragg’s Army of Tennessee. Hill had been relieved of command for his constant carping and back-biting.
In Washington, President Lincoln, an admirer of the theater, went to see John Wilkes Booth in Marble Heart.
The Union guns opened again on Ft. Sumter, beginning a four-day bombardment. The target was already a pile of rubble. In Arkansas, pro-Union delegates met to discuss how they could best arrange to get back into the Union.
Confederate sword belonging to Lt. Joseph McLeod Turner, who was killed in action during an engagement with Union forces at Rappahannock, Virginia
At Chattanooga, Grant still waited for Sherman to appear. Grant’s problem was really one of morale. The Army of the Cumberland that he inherited from Rosecrans was, he felt, badly demoralized by its defeat at Chickamauga. He also felt that the two corps brought from the Army of the Potomac by Hooker would perform poorly because they had never won a battle. What he wanted was troops that were accustomed to winning and a commander to match them: Sherman and his Fifteenth Corps. The redhead was two days away.
Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest was assigned an “operational area” of western Tennessee for his raiding parties. At Chattanooga, Sherman arrived after leaving his wagon train at Bridgeport and rushing forward to see Grant. Immediately, Grant, Thomas and Sherman went for a tour of the lines to discuss strategy. What Sherman saw was a huge natural amphitheater running northeast to southwest with the prominence of Missionary Ridge about three miles distant to the northeast. To the southwest was Lookout Mountain, which overlooked Chattanooga. A grand panorama, filled with the tents and camps of the Confederate army.
At Campbell’s Station, Tenn., Longstreet missed an opportunity to cut off Burnside’s line of retreat. Burnside withdrew into Knoxville, which Longstreet immediately besieged. There was other skirmishing and light fighting around Kingston, Tenn.
At Charleston, the fifth day of bombardment continued with 602 more shells being fired at Ft. Sumter.
A policy, both North and South, had long existed that permitted soldiers who were wounded to go home to recuperate, providing, of course, they could travel. This served a useful purpose in that it relieved the government of nursing and feeding the wounded.
At Gettysburg, Edward Everett, a noted orator of the day, talked for two hours, tracing the history of men at war from the earliest times to the present. Beautifully delivered, as always, when his speech was done, hardly anyone remembered what had been said. This was not because his words were not note worthy, but because of what followed.
Next on the platform was the tall, lanky President. In a few short moments he delivered one of the most eloquent, moving speeches ever written, and one that has become known throughout the world.
The town of Gettysburg on the day of President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863
President Abraham Lincoln arrives at Gettysburg, Pa., for the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery on November 19, 1863. He appears, hatless, just left of center in the photograph, with his bodyguard Ward Hill Lamon at his right and Pennsylvania governor Andrew G. Curtin at his left. Lincoln delivered his famous speech about three hours after this picture was taken.
Food was ever a problem in Richmond, which had grown from a somewhat sleepy town of less than 40,000 before the war to over 140,000 in about 18 months. Some residents were getting desperate.
At Charleston, the Union gunners fired 1,344 rounds onto Ft. Sumter, killing three men and wounding eleven.
At Chattanooga, Sherman was on the move, crossing the Tennessee River at Brown’s Ferry and heading northeast to the Confederate right flank around Missionary Ridge. Sherman was to attack the north end of the ridge, Thomas the center. Hooker was to attack the Confederate left flank. There were delays, even more than usual, because of the heavy rains, and the roads were quagmires.
At Missionary Ridge, Ga., Gen. Braxton Bragg detached Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner from Bragg’s Army of Tennessee and sent Buckner to Knoxville, Tenn., to support Gen. James Longstreet, who was besieging Union forces under Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside. Bragg was unaware, of course, that a storm of blue was about to descend upon him in the form of Grant’s army. As a part of the Union buildup, Grant ordered Gen. George Thomas to demonstrate in front of Missionary Ridge the following day.
The Battle of Missionary Ridge is commemorated in this c. 1886 lithograph.
In the early dawn light, Sherman’s men moved against the north end of Missionary Ridge and Tunnel Hill. Heavy fighting continued until about 2 PM, with little or no progress being made. Grant then sent Thomas with four divisions against the center. The divisions advanced rapidly from the base of the ridge, overwhelming the Confederate line and driving them up the steep slope of the ridge.
Sheridan’s division pursued the Confederates, but Hardee’s corps held them off and then the Confederates withdrew in the darkness. The battle was over, the siege of Chattanooga was broken, and Bragg’s army was intact, but beaten. Grant, with his typical aggressive style, issued orders for a follow-up immediately at first light. The Federal troops, feeling avenged for the defeat at Chickamauga, screamed at the top of their lungs, “Chickamauga! Chickamauga!”
The battle for Chattanooga was over. Sherman and Thomas chased Bragg’s troops from Chickamauga Station towards Ringgold, Ga., without pause. The Union troops clashed with Pat Cleburne’s rear guard near Ringgold and heavy fighting erupted. The Federals finally called a halt, and Bragg had a chance to regroup his army.
At Knoxville, Longstreet was preparing an assault, blissfully unaware that Bragg had been defeated and was withdrawing.
Sherman was ordered to send more troops, in addition to those sent with Gen. Granger, to the relief of Burnside. Bragg, feeling like the world had fallen in, wired Richmond, “I deem it due to the cause and to myself to ask for relief from command and investigation into the causes of the defeat.” Strangely enough, Bragg was little at fault this time. He was defeated by overzealous Union soldiers who refused to stop at the bottom of Missionary Ridge.
In Virginia, Meade was sending heavy skirmishers against the Confederate positions at Mine Run. The gray line held without too much trouble and it seemed that Meade’s offensive was stalled.
At Charleston, the Union guns were still pounding Ft. Sumter and the other harbor defenses.
Bragg received a telegram from the War Department in Richmond accepting his offer to resign from command. He was directed to turn the army over to Gen. Hardee in the interim. The Army of Tennessee was slowly being pulled together after its near-rout from Missionary Ridge. The troops began to settle in for the winter.
DECEMBER 1863
THE LAST MONTH OF THE YEAR began with fresh victories at Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge for the Union and “non-victories” at Charleston and at Mine Run for the Confederacy. Economically, the South was becoming more desperate, distribution of food being of major concern. The grind of war was also taking its toll, North and South. The casualty lists posted attest to the cost of the war in human terms. The major armies were now settled into their winter quarters fairly well and would remain there until spring, with some eruptions. The South had survived another year.
In Virginia, Major Gen. George G. Meade had decided that he was not going to make it around Lee’s flank at Mine Run, so he pulled back across the Rapidan completely and went into winter quarters.
At Knoxville, Longstreet had tried no new major assaults on Burnside’s positions, and knowing that more Union troops were on the way, Longstreet prepared to depart.
The bombardment of Ft. Sumter that had begun on November 20th still went on.
In Washington, Confederate spy Belle Boyd, who was ill with typhoid, was released from the Old Capital Prison and was sent to Richmond by flag-of-truce boat, and was told not to come back.
Confederate Gen. Joe Wheeler’s cavalry were noted for their raids on the local populace, wherever they were, to obtain rations and mounts. This problem became serious in North Carolina, and the fiery governor of that state, Zebulon B. Vance, wrote to the government in Richmond, “If God Almighty had yet in store another plague for the Egyptians worse than all others, I am sure it must have been a regiment or so of half-armed, half-disciplined Confederate cavalry.”
At Knoxville, Longstreet was threatened by a fast-moving Union force coming up on his rear from Chattanooga to relieve the siege.
At Dalton, Ga., Braxton Bragg was leaving the Army of Tennessee, turning the command over to Lt. Gen. William Hardee. Hardee would command only a short time before Gen. Joseph E. Johnston arrived to assume command.
At Knoxville, Longstreet began moving his troops away from the city, effectively breaking the siege. He moved north and east to Greeneville, Tenn., where he took up winter quarters. Tennessee was now totally occupied by Union forces.
Gen. Sherman and his staff entered Knoxville, Tenn., officially ending the siege. Parts of his old Fifteenth Corps were close behind and coming up fast.
Capt. John Parker, CSN, devised a plot whereby one John C. Braine, in company with 16 other Confederate sympathizers, were sent from New Brunswick, Canada, to New York, where they acquired weapons and boarded the steamer Chesapeake, en route to Portland, Me. When the steamer was off Cape Cod, the Confederates took over the ship, killing the second engineer, and took her to the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, where Parker came aboard. The intent was to refuel the ship and go to Wilmington, slipping by the blockade at that port. The capture of the ship caused great alarm in the Northern ports and the U.S. Navy sent ships out to recapture the Chesapeake as soon as possible.
Messages from both Presidents Lincoln and Davis went to their respective Congresses, Lincoln’s reporting success and hope. Davis’s was apprehensive. Lincoln also offered amnesty with exceptions to those in the South who would take an oath of allegiance.
This photograph of Knoxville and its environs, seen from the south bank of the Tennessee River, was taken shortly after Gen. Longstreet had withdrawn his forces.
Only 220 shells were fired at Ft. Sumter today. One, however, exploded a powder magazine, killing 11 and wounding 41 of the defenders. This would be the last bombardment for the year.
The United States, until now, had been sending rations to Richmond to feed the 13,000 Union prisoners held there, because the Confederate government did not have the means. This changed today when orders were given in Richmond that no more supplies from the United States should be received by the Federal prisoners.
Gen. Longstreet attacked Union troops at Bean’s Station, Tenn., on his way to Greeneville. He drove back the Federals, under the command of Brig. Gen. James M. Shackelford, in a sharp fight. The Federals held for a while, but withdrew further the following day.
It was announced today that Gen. Joseph Eggleston Johnston, CSA, would command the Army of Tennessee, replacing Lt. Gen. William Hardee. Johnston, at Brandon, Miss., left his current command to Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk.
In Washington, John Buford, who had commanded the cavalry that made the initial contact at Gettysburg, was promoted to Major General, just a few hours before he died of typhoid.
Capt. Semmes, CSS Alabama, moved his base of operations from the East Indies back to the Cape of Good Hope, Africa. He wrote from Singapore:
The enemy’s East India and China trade is nearly broken up. Their ships find it impossible to get freights, there being in this port [Singapore] some nineteen sail, almost all of which are laid up for want of employment. … The more widely our blows are struck, provided they are struck rapidly, the greater will be the consternation and consequent damage to the enemy.
Many of the two-year regiments mustered in during 1861 were coming up for reenlistment or discharge. The government, of course, preferred to get the soldier to reenlist because it saved training and provided an instant veteran. The bounty was used as an inducement in most cases, part of which would be paid upon reenlistment, the remainder in installments.
The CSS Alabama, Capt. Semmes, captured and burned the ships Sonora and Highlander, both in ballast and at anchor in the entrance of the Straits of Malacca. Semmes wrote that one of the ship’s masters told him:
Well, Captain Semmes, I have been expecting every day for the last three years to fall in with you, and here I am at last. … The fact is, I have had constant visions of the Alabama, by night and by day; she has been chasing me in my sleep, and riding me like a night-mare, and now that it is all over, I feel quite relieved.
In Richmond, the Examiner perhaps summed up the totality of the year when it said, “To-day closes the gloomiest year of our struggle.”
Matthew Brady’s post-war photograph of Gen. James Longstreet, CSA (1821–1904)
