This Country Of Ours by Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall (general ebook reader txt) 📖

his horse was shot under him, and his clothes were torn to pieces, but still through the fray he rode unharmed. At length a ball hit him in the thigh. He paid no heed. Still his tall soldierly figure dominated the battle, still his ringing voice cheered on his men. Then suddenly the voice grew faint, the tall figure bent, and a deathly whiteness overspread his cheeks.

“General, are you wounded?” asked one of his officers, anxiously.

“Yes,” he answered, faintly, “and I fear badly.”

They were his last words. Gently he was lifted from his horse and laid on the ground, and in a few minutes he died.

When the sun went down the Confederates claimed the victory. But if victory it was it was too dearly bought with the death of their commander-in-chief. Nor did the Federals own themselves beaten. They were dumbfounded and bleeding, but not shattered. They felt that the struggle was not over, and still facing each other the weary armies lay down to rest on the field, under the lashing rain, each side well aware that with the morrow would come the decisive contest.

All through the night the guns from the river boomed and crashed, and rain fell in torrents, adding to the discomforts of the wearied men, making sleep almost impossible.

When day dawned rain still fell in a cold and dismal drizzle. The Federals, however, rose cheerfully, for the inspiriting news that twenty-five thousand fresh troops had arrived ran through the lines. Before the sun had well risen the battle began again, but now the advantage was on the Federal side.

The Confederates fought bravely still. To and fro rode General Beauregard cheering on his men, but step by step they were driven backward, and by noon were in full retreat. Then as the Federals realized that the day was theirs cheer after cheer went up from their lines.

The second day’s fighting had turned the battle of Shiloh into a victory for the Union, although not a decisive one. On the same day, however, the navy captured a strongly fortified island on the Mississippi called Island Number Ten, with its garrison of seven thousand men and large stores of guns and ammunition. This considerably increased the force of the victory of Shiloh, and gave the Federals control of the Mississippi Valley from Cairo to Memphis.

Meanwhile command of the lower Mississippi had also been wrested from the Confederates by General Benjamin F. Butler in command of the army, and Commander David Glasgow Farragut in command of the fleet.

Captain Farragut who was already sixty-three at this time was a Southerner by birth, but he had never faltered in his allegiance to the Union. “Mind what I tell you,” he said to his brother officers, when they tried to make him desert his flag, “you fellows will catch the devil before you get through with this business.” And so unshaken was his faith that he was trusted with the most important naval expedition of the war, the taking of New Orleans.

New Orleans is about a hundred miles from the mouth of the Mississippi and the Confederates, who were aware even more than the Federals of the importance of the great waterway, had from the very beginning done their utmost to secure it. Seventy-five miles below New Orleans two forts named Jackson and St. Phillips guarded the approaches to the city. These the Confederates had enormously strengthened, and had stretched a great chain between them from bank to bank, to prevent the passage of hostile ships. They had also gathered a fleet of ironclads and gunboats further to defend the city.

But in spite of all these defenses the Federals determined to take New Orleans and on the 18th of April the Union ships began to bombard the forts. The Confederates replied fiercely, and for four days the sky seemed ablaze and the earth shook. Then having succeeded in cutting the chain across the river Farragut determined to sail past the fort and take New Orleans.

At two o’clock in the morning the ships began to move. The night was dark but very still and clear, and soon the noise of slipping anchor cables warned the enemy of what was afoot. Then a very hail of shot and shell fell upon the Federal boats. Burning fire ships too were sent down upon them, and the red light of battle lit up the darkness. Yet through the baptism of fire the vessels held on their way undaunted. The forts were passed, the Confederate fleet disabled and put to flight, and Farragut sailed unhindered up the river.

At his approach, New Orleans was seized with panic. Filled with a nameless fear women and children ran weeping through the streets, business of every kind was at a standstill. The men, mostly grey-haired veterans and boys, turned the keys in their office doors, and hurried to join the volunteer regiments, bent on fighting to the last for their beloved city. Thousands of bales of cotton were carried to the wharves, and there set on fire, lest they should fall into the hands of the enemy. Ships too were set on fire, and cast loose, till it seemed as if the whole river front was wrapped in flames. Thirty miles away the glare could be seen in the sky, and at the sight even strong men bowed their heads and wept. For they knew it meant that New Orleans had fallen, and that the Queen of Southern cities was a captive.

But there was no fighting, for General Lovell who was in command of the city marched away with his army as soon as the Union ships appeared. The citizens who were left were filled with impotent wrath and despair. They felt themselves betrayed. They had been assured that the city would fight to the last. Now their defenders had marched away leaving them to the mercy of the conqueror.

The streets were soon filled with a dangerous, howling cursing mob man of them armed, all of them desperate. Yet calmly through it, as if on parade, marched two Federal officers, without escort of protection of any kind. The mob jostled them, shook loaded pistols in their faces, yelling and cursing the while. But the two officers marched on side by side unmoved, showing neither anger nor fear, turning neither to right nor to left until they reached the city hall, where they demanded the surrender of the city.

“It was one of the bravest deeds I ever saw done,” said a Southerner, who as a boy of fourteen watched the scene.

By the taking of New Orleans Farragut won for himself great fame. His fame was all the greater because in his fleet he had none of the newly invented ironclads. With only wooden vessels he had fought and conquered. “It was a contest between iron hearts and wooden vessels, and iron clads with iron beaks, and the iron hearts won,” said Captain Bailey who served in the expedition under Farragut.

After taking New Orleans Farragut sailed up the river and took Baton Rouge, the state capital. So at length the Federals had control of the whole lower river as far as Vicksburg. The upper river from Cairo was also secure to the Federals. Thus save for Vicksburg the whole valley was in their hands, and the Confederacy was practically cut in two.

But Vicksburg stood firm for the South. When called upon to surrender the governor refused. “I have to state,” he said, “that Mississippians do not know, and refuse to learn, how to surrender to an enemy. If Commodore Farragut, or Brigadier General Butler, can teach them, let them come and try.”

At the time soldiers enough could not be spared to help the fleet to take Vicksburg. So for the time being it was left alone.

 

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Chapter 86 - Lincoln - The Slaves are Made Free

 

The Federals rejoiced greatly at the successes of Grant and the navy, and indeed they had need of success somewhere to keep up their spirits, for on the whole things did not go well. George McClellan was commander-in-chief, and although he drilled his army splendidly he never did anything with it. He was a wonderful organiser, but he was cautious to a fault, and always believed the enemy to be far stronger than he really was.

He was at last dismissed, and was succeeded by one commander-in-chief after another. Not none proved truly satisfactory. Indeed it was not until the last year of the war, when Ulysses Grant took command, that a really great commander-in-chief was found.

At the beginning of the war no matter who was leader the long campaigns in Virginia ended in failure for the Federals. On the Confederate side these campaigns were led first by Joseph E. Johnston, and then by the great soldier, Robert E. Lee.

Lee came of a soldier stock, being the youngest son of “Light Horse Harry Lee,” who had won fame during the War of the Revolution. He was a noble, Christian gentleman, and when he made his choice, and determined to fight for the South, he believed he was fighting for the right.

With Lee was Stonewall Jackson, his great “right hand,” and perhaps a finer soldier than Lee himself. His men adored him as they adored no other leader. Like Cromwell he taught them to pray as well as to fight. He never went into battle without commending his way to God, and when he knelt long in prayer his men might feel certain that a great fight was coming. He was secret and swift in his movements, so swift that his troops were nicknamed “Jackson’s foot cavalry.” Yet he never wore his men out. He thought for them always, and however urgent haste might be he called frequent halts on his flying marches, and made the men lie down even if it were only for a few minutes.

To conquer such leaders, and the men devoted to them, was no easy matter, and it was not wonderful that the campaigns in Virginia marked few successes for the Federals. At length the long series of failures ended with a second, and for the Federals, disastrous, battle of Bull Run. This was followed two days later by the battle of Chantilly, after which the whole Federal army fell back to Washington.

Lee, rejoicing at his successes in Virginia, made up his mind then to invade Maryland, which state he believed would readily join the Confederacy. But he was disappointed. For if the Marylanders had not much enthusiasm for the Union cause they had still less for the Confederate, and the invaders were greeted with exceeding coldness. Their unfailing good fortune, too, seemed to forsake the Confederates, and the battle of Antietam, one of the fiercest of the war, although hardly a victory for the Federals, was equal to a defeat for the Confederates. For fourteen hours the carnage lasted, and when at length night put an end to the slaughter thousands lay dead on either side. Next day, having in a fortnight lost half his army, Lee withdrew once more into Virginia.

Lincoln’s chief object in carrying on the war was not to free slaves, but to save the Union.

“My first object is to save the Union,” he wrote, “and not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves I would do it. If I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it. And if I could save it by freeing some, and leaving others alone I would also do that.” Gradually, however, Lincoln began to believe that the only way to save the Union was to free the slaves.

Many people were impetuously urging him to do it. But Lincoln would do nothing rash. It was a tremendous step to take, and the question as to when would