Captains of the Civil War [74]
their chance at home. But without a decisive victory they could not hope for foreign intervention. So losing their chance at home made them lose it abroad as well.
Burnside was dazed by his defeat and the appalling loss of life in vain. But after five weeks of most discouraging inaction he tried to surprise Lee by crossing the Rappahannock several miles higher up. On the twentieth and twenty-first of that miserable January the Federal army ploughed its dreary way through sloughs of gluey mud under torrents of chilling rain. Then, when the pace had slackened to a funereal crawl, and the absurdly little chance of surprising Lee had vanished altogether, this despairing "Mud March" came to its wretched end. Four days later Burnside was superseded by one of his own subordinates, General Joseph Hooker, known to all ranks as "Fighting Joe Hooker."
Fredericksburg, the spell of relaxing winter quarters beside the fatal Rappahannock, and then the fatal "Mud March," combined to lower Federal morale. Yet the mass of the men, being composed of fine human material, quickly recovered under "Fighting Joe Hooker," who knew what discipline meant. Numbers and discipline tell. But disciplined numbers were not the only or even the greatest menace to the South. For here, as farther west, the Confederate Government was beginning to be foolish just as the Federal Government showed signs of growing wise. Lincoln and Stanton were giving Joe Hooker a fairly free hand just when Davis and Seddon (his makeshift minister of war) were using Confederate forces as puppets to be pulled about by Cabinet strings from Richmond. Here again (as later on at Chattanooga) Longstreet was sent away on a useless errand just when he was needed most by Lee. Good soldier though he was in many ways he was no such man as Stonewall Jackson; and, in this one year, he failed his seniors thrice.
It is true enough that the April situation of 1863 might well shake governmental nerves; for Richmond was being menaced from three points north, southeast, and south: Fredericksburg due north, Suffolk southeast, Newbern south. Newbern in North Carolina was a long way off. But its possession by an active enemy threatened the rail connection from Richmond south to Wilmington, Charleston, and Savannah, the only three Atlantic ports through which the South could get supplies from overseas. Suffolk was nearer. It covered the landward side of Norfolk, which, with Fortress Monroe, might become the base of a new Peninsula Campaign. But Fredericksburg was nearest; nearest to Richmond, nearest to Washington, nearest to the main Southern force; and not only nearest but strongest, in every way strongest and most to be feared. "Fighting Joe Hooker" was there, with a hundred and thirty thousand men, already stirring for the spring campaign that was to wipe out memories of Fredericksburg, make short work of Lee, and end the war at Richmond.
Yet Longstreet cheerfully marched off, pleased with his new command, to see what he could do to soothe the Government by winning laurels for himself at Suffolk. On the seventeenth, just two weeks before the supreme test came on Lee's weakened army at Chancellorsville, Longstreet reported to Seddon that Suffolk would cost three thousand men, if taken by assault, or three days' heavy firing if subdued by bombardment. Shrinking from such expenditure of life or ammunition, Davis, Seddon, and Longstreet fell back on a siege, which, preventing all junction with Lee, might well have cost the ruin of their cause.
Lee and Jackson then prepared to make the best of a bad business along the Rappahannock, and to snatch victory once more, if possible, from the very jaws of death. The prospect was grimmer than before. Hooker was a better fighter than McClellan and wiser than Burnside or Pope. Moreover, after two years of war, the Union Government had at last found out that civilian detectives knew less about armies than expert staff officers know, and that cavalry which was something more than mere men on horses could collect a little information too. Hooker knew
Burnside was dazed by his defeat and the appalling loss of life in vain. But after five weeks of most discouraging inaction he tried to surprise Lee by crossing the Rappahannock several miles higher up. On the twentieth and twenty-first of that miserable January the Federal army ploughed its dreary way through sloughs of gluey mud under torrents of chilling rain. Then, when the pace had slackened to a funereal crawl, and the absurdly little chance of surprising Lee had vanished altogether, this despairing "Mud March" came to its wretched end. Four days later Burnside was superseded by one of his own subordinates, General Joseph Hooker, known to all ranks as "Fighting Joe Hooker."
Fredericksburg, the spell of relaxing winter quarters beside the fatal Rappahannock, and then the fatal "Mud March," combined to lower Federal morale. Yet the mass of the men, being composed of fine human material, quickly recovered under "Fighting Joe Hooker," who knew what discipline meant. Numbers and discipline tell. But disciplined numbers were not the only or even the greatest menace to the South. For here, as farther west, the Confederate Government was beginning to be foolish just as the Federal Government showed signs of growing wise. Lincoln and Stanton were giving Joe Hooker a fairly free hand just when Davis and Seddon (his makeshift minister of war) were using Confederate forces as puppets to be pulled about by Cabinet strings from Richmond. Here again (as later on at Chattanooga) Longstreet was sent away on a useless errand just when he was needed most by Lee. Good soldier though he was in many ways he was no such man as Stonewall Jackson; and, in this one year, he failed his seniors thrice.
It is true enough that the April situation of 1863 might well shake governmental nerves; for Richmond was being menaced from three points north, southeast, and south: Fredericksburg due north, Suffolk southeast, Newbern south. Newbern in North Carolina was a long way off. But its possession by an active enemy threatened the rail connection from Richmond south to Wilmington, Charleston, and Savannah, the only three Atlantic ports through which the South could get supplies from overseas. Suffolk was nearer. It covered the landward side of Norfolk, which, with Fortress Monroe, might become the base of a new Peninsula Campaign. But Fredericksburg was nearest; nearest to Richmond, nearest to Washington, nearest to the main Southern force; and not only nearest but strongest, in every way strongest and most to be feared. "Fighting Joe Hooker" was there, with a hundred and thirty thousand men, already stirring for the spring campaign that was to wipe out memories of Fredericksburg, make short work of Lee, and end the war at Richmond.
Yet Longstreet cheerfully marched off, pleased with his new command, to see what he could do to soothe the Government by winning laurels for himself at Suffolk. On the seventeenth, just two weeks before the supreme test came on Lee's weakened army at Chancellorsville, Longstreet reported to Seddon that Suffolk would cost three thousand men, if taken by assault, or three days' heavy firing if subdued by bombardment. Shrinking from such expenditure of life or ammunition, Davis, Seddon, and Longstreet fell back on a siege, which, preventing all junction with Lee, might well have cost the ruin of their cause.
Lee and Jackson then prepared to make the best of a bad business along the Rappahannock, and to snatch victory once more, if possible, from the very jaws of death. The prospect was grimmer than before. Hooker was a better fighter than McClellan and wiser than Burnside or Pope. Moreover, after two years of war, the Union Government had at last found out that civilian detectives knew less about armies than expert staff officers know, and that cavalry which was something more than mere men on horses could collect a little information too. Hooker knew