The History of the Confederate War, Its Causes and Its Conduct. Volume 2 of 2. Eggleston George Cary

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СКАЧАТЬ railroads in Mississippi and in northern Georgia and Alabama. It is certainly not an exaggeration to estimate that had Bragg succeeded, as he hoped, in seizing Louisville and meeting Van Dorn and Price "on the Ohio" as he said, the Confederates could and would have mustered at least 150,000 men for the invasion of the Northwest at the opening of the spring of 1863 – an army greater than the South ever put into the field at any point during the entire continuance of the war.

      And all this was a not impossible – indeed a not improbable – contingency. It is true that Bragg's force was in numbers inferior to Buell's in about the proportion of three to five. But it was massed at the outset and remained completely coöperating from beginning to end of the campaign. It had besides, the advantage of knowing what it intended and whither it was going, while Buell must vaguely guess its intentions and hold himself ready during a retreat, to meet his enemy wherever that enemy might see fit to strike.

      In war these things offset superiority of numbers in a degree which it is difficult for the civilian reader to understand. He who can give battle or refuse it where he pleases, has a very great advantage over his adversary who must accept whatever is offered or else retreat at disadvantage.

      Moreover Bragg had managed to get the start of Buell in their race for Louisville, and this advantage had been greatly increased by his success in breaking Buell's lines of march by burning bridges, tearing up railroads and capturing supply depots. For a time it seemed more than probable that Bragg would reach Louisville and occupy it before Buell could by any possibility get there. In that event Buell would have been cut off from all supplies, and only ordinary vigilance on the part of the Confederates would have been necessary to starve him into surrender – for if thus cut off, his stores could not have supported his army for more than three or four days at the utmost.

      Still again, Bragg had another ground of hope. It often happens in war, that a smaller force, skilfully handled, masters a larger force. To go no further back than the Seven Days' battles around Richmond, and the campaign following, Lee had succeeded by the skilful handling of a comparatively small force in overcoming one army which greatly outnumbered his own, while paralyzing the purpose of other forces as great as his own, that had been sent to reinforce his enemy. With this and many other familiar illustrations of the possibility of achieving conspicuous military success against superior numbers present to his mind, it was not vainglorious on the part of Bragg, who believed in his own skill, to hope that if he could reach Louisville in advance of Buell, his army, inspirited by repeated successes on the march, and holding the vantage ground of possession, might successfully meet and defeat Buell's way-weary force, cut off, as in that case it would have been, from its objective, from all hope of assistance and even from very badly needed supplies.

      Indeed, had Bragg achieved his purpose of pushing his columns into Louisville in advance of Buell's coming, it would have been almost a miracle for him to have failed in his resistance to the outmarched Federal commander's attempts to recapture the lost stronghold.

      It was one of those fearful crises of the war, – like Sharpsburg and Gettysburg – in which the whole outcome of the struggle hung trembling in the balance, and the future alike of the Union and of the Confederacy was risked, as it were, upon the hazard of a die.

      For while Bragg was thus dragging Buell back from northern Alabama and Georgia to the Ohio river and more than seriously threatening to make of that river the fortified frontier of the Confederacy, Lee was in Maryland, after having overthrown McClellan before Richmond and Pope at Manassas, and the National capital itself seemed in sore danger of capture. The year which had opened with the Union victories at Forts Henry and Donelson, presently followed by Grant's success at Shiloh, while McClellan's overwhelming divisions were near enough to Richmond to see the spires of that city's churches, seemed about to draw to a close so disastrous to the Federal cause as to leave it in worse case than at the beginning of the war or indeed at any time since the first defeat at Bull Run.

      The National credit was impaired as it never had been before. The Confederates were moved to make of the eighteenth of September a day of Thanksgiving for a deliverance which they regarded as in effect accomplished.

      Enlistments at the North had so far fallen off that drafts must be made in order to maintain that great superiority of numbers without which the North, fighting aggressively, could not hope to make head against Southern defense, as all the operations of the war up to that time had shown, and as the later course of the contest additionally proved at every point.

      But Bragg's effort to seize Louisville before Buell could throw himself into that city's defenses, failed of its purpose. By virtue of a wonderful march Buell reached the city first, near the end of September, the last of his forces arriving there on the twenty-ninth. Bragg was at Bardstown, not far away and in a very threatening position. In the meanwhile Grant held his own at Corinth in spite of the dangerous depletion of his forces, and the whole of West Tennessee remained in possession of the Federals.

      Buell found heavy reinforcements awaiting him at Louisville, while Bragg at Bardstown had not yet been joined, as he had expected to be, by Kirby Smith's force from eastern Kentucky.

      The conditions of the campaign were thus reversed. Buell, who had been on the defensive and in enforced retreat, was able now to take the offensive, while Bragg, who had been advancing with high hopes was now in a position from which he must retreat promptly on pain of having his army overwhelmed and destroyed.

      Buell quickly reorganized his army into corps, welding the raw troops into the seasoned force, and within a day or two he was ready to assail the enemy who had driven him across two states.

      Bragg retired to Perryville with a total force of about 35,000 men, and Buell with 58,000 advanced upon him. On the eighth of October a severe battle occurred which lasted from noonday to night and seemed undecided when night fell. But when morning came Bragg had retired and was in slow and orderly retreat southward. The Federal loss in the battle of Perryville was reported at 4,348, including two brigadier generals killed. The Confederate loss is unknown, but as Bragg began the battle with only three divisions assailing eight, and as the fighting at times was muzzle to muzzle, the slaughter among such troops as were actually engaged on his side, must have been terrible.

      Learning that Kirby Smith's command had on that evening joined Bragg, General Buell did not press his enemy, but disposed his forces for a defensive battle. It was not until the thirteenth that he discovered that Bragg was indeed retreating and ordered a pursuit. This was pressed, with some fighting now and then, as far as Crab Orchard, where the Federals halted, leaving Bragg free to make his leisurely way to East Tennessee with an enormous wagon train loaded with a rich booty of supplies which he had gathered in Kentucky.

      CHAPTER XXXVI

      Fall and Winter Campaigns at the West and South

      The climatic conditions of the disputed country south and west were excellent for campaigning during the autumn, and tolerable during most of the winter. As neither side was satisfied with the results achieved in that quarter during the spring and summer of 1862, both were disposed to carry on the war with vigor during the autumn of that year and the winter following.

      On the third of October, while Buell and Bragg were confronting each other near Louisville, Van Dorn, who had been heavily reinforced from Missouri, undertook to carry out Bragg's orders, for the capture of Corinth and the reconquest of western Tennessee and Kentucky. He advanced upon Corinth in force and assailed Rosecrans, who held the immediate command of that place, upon lines chosen by the Federal commander, three miles in front of the main defenses.

      It was a rich prize that the Confederate commander battled for, and right manfully did he strive to gain it. Corinth at that time was a depot of supplies of unusual consequence, and besides that, its conquest would mean the complete breaking of Grant's long and difficult line of defense.

      During the first СКАЧАТЬ