A World on Fire_ Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - Amanda Foreman [383]
Only a month of fighting weather remained. On October 7, 1864, Lee ordered his final large-scale assault of the year, sending two divisions along Darbytown Road with orders to flush the Federals out of their new position. They started off well and overran the first line of trenches, capturing more than three hundred soldiers in the process, among them the English fugitive Robert Livingstone, who had been released from the hospital on September 30 and had only rejoined the 3rd New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry the day before. As Livingstone was marched away, he could hear his side responding with a massive barrage of fire. The Confederates were faltering. Lee galloped toward the retreaters, waving his hat and shouting for them to make another stand. On previous occasions the very sight of him had been enough to stem a flight, but this time the men continued to run.
Grant was sufficiently encouraged by his troops’ handling of the Confederate attack to order a follow-up assault on October 13, but this time the Federals were driven back by the defenders. “We have had a pretty brisk little fight today,” Dawson wrote to his mother that evening. “Grant has been feeling our lines on this [North] side of the River; he made but two attacks on our ranks and each time was easily repulsed.” The setback to the Federals had an immediate effect on the Confederates’ spirits. Dawson was almost giddy: “There are croakers [pessimists] everywhere … but you must not allow any of them to persuade you that we are, as the Yankees say, ‘in our last ditch.’ ” Moreover, his commander had returned: “I am happy to say that General Longstreet reported for duty today, his right arm and hand is still paralyzed from his wound but he could not be kept back any longer … he is a tower of strength to our cause, and he returns at a good time.”37
Dawson’s optimism was a testament to his ignorance of the true state of the Confederate defenses. He had laughed at the sight of black regiments during the recent fighting in and around Darbytown Road, considering their deployment proof of the North’s weakness. But more experienced Confederate officers acknowledged their heroism and were asking why the South did not employ their slaves to solve the manpower shortage.33.6 General Lee was considering the idea, although he did not say so in public.
Edward Stanley was fascinated by the North’s ambivalence to Negro regiments. Even some members of the Adams family were shocked by Charles Francis Jr.’s transfer to a black regiment. “His uncle, Mr. Sidney Brooks, was I hear very disgusted that his favourite nephew would do this,” wrote Stanley. “I am glad he has done this as the more people of position take these commands, the more it tends to raise the Negro.” Stanley thought the experience would be good for Adams himself, who “was not quite free from the American prejudice against and repugnance to Negroes.” Charles Francis Adams, Jr., had not regretted his decision the previous September to transfer to the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry (Colored), but he shared General Sherman’s doubts that black troops would ever be the equal of white. The “Nigs” were angelic, he told Henry Adams after the regiment had sustained nineteen casualties and three dead in fighting at Petersburg on June 15. But “the rugged discipline which improves whites is too much for them. It is easy to crush them into slaves, but very difficult by kindness and patience to approach them to our own standard.”38
Stanley had finished his tour of the North more pessimistic