CAPTAINS OF THE CIVIL WAR

CONTENTS

I. THE CLASH: 1861

II. THE COMBATANTS

III. THE NAVAL WAR: 1862

IV. THE RIVER WAR: 1861

V. LINCOLN: WAR STATESMAN

VI. LEE AND JACKSON: 1862-3

VII. GRANT WINS THE RIVER WAR: 1863

VIII. GETTYSBURG: 1863

IX. FARRAGUT AND THE NAVY: 1863-4

X. GRANT ATTACKS THE FRONT: 1864

XI. SHERMAN DESTROYS THE BASE: 1864

XII. THE END: 1865

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

INDEX




ILLUSTRATIONS

GENERAL U. S. GRANT

Photograph by Brady. In the collection of L. C. Handy, Washington.

GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE

Photograph. In the collection of L. C. Handy, Washington

GENERAL T. J. (STONEWALL) JACKSON

Photograph. In the collection of L. C. Handy, Washington.

NORTH AND SOUTH IN 1861

Map by W. L. G. Joerg, American Geographical Society.

ADMIRAL D. G. FARRAGUT

Photograph by Brady.

CIVIL WAR: CAMPAIGNS OF 1862

Map by W. L. G. Joerg, American Geographical Society.

CIVIL WAR: VIRGINIA CAMPAIGNS, 1862

Map by W. L. G. Joerg, American Geographical Society.

CIVIL WAR: CAMPAIGNS OF 1863

Map by W. L. G. Joerg, American Geographical Society.

GENERAL W. T. SHERMAN

Photograph by Brady. In the collection of L. C. Handy, Washington.

CIVIL WAR: CAMPAIGNS OF 1864

Map by W. L. G. Joerg, American Geographical Society.




CAPTAINS OF THE CIVIL WAR

CHAPTER I

THE CLASH: 1861

States which claimed a sovereign right to secede from the Union
naturally claimed the corresponding right to resume possession of
all the land they had ceded to that Union's Government for the use
of its naval and military posts. So South Carolina, after leading
the way to secession on December 20, 1860, at once began to work
for the retrocession of the forts defending her famous cotton port
of Charleston. These defenses, being of vital consequence to both
sides, were soon to attract the strained attention of the whole
country.

There were three minor forts: Castle Pinckney, dozing away, in
charge of a solitary sergeant, on an island less than a mile from
the city; Fort Moultrie, feebly garrisoned and completely at the
mercy of attackers on its landward side; and Fort Johnson over on
James Island. Lastly, there was the world-renowned Fort Sumter,
which then stood, unfinished and ungarrisoned, on a little islet
beside the main ship channel, at the entrance to the harbor, and
facing Fort Moultrie just a mile away. The proper war garrison of
all the forts should have been over a thousand men. The actual
garrison--including officers, band, and the Castle Pinckney
sergeant--was less than a hundred. It was, however, loyal to the
Union; and its commandant, Major Robert Anderson, though born in
the slave-owning State of Kentucky, was determined to fight.

The situation, here as elsewhere, was complicated by Floyd, President
Buchanan's Secretary of War, soon to be forced out of office on a
charge of misapplying public funds. Floyd, as an ardent Southerner,
was using the last lax days of the Buchanan Government to get the
army posts ready for capitulation whenever secession should have
become an accomplished fact. He urged on construction, repairs, and
armament at Charleston, while refusing to strengthen the garrison,
in order, as he said, not to provoke Carolina. Moreover, in November
he had replaced old Colonel Gardner, a Northern veteran of "1812," by
Anderson the Southerner, in whom he hoped to find a good capitulator.
But this time Floyd was wrong.

The day after Christmas Anderson's little garrison at Fort Moultrie
slipped over to Fort Sumter under cover of the dark, quietly removed
Floyd's workmen, who were mostly Baltimore Secessionists, and began
to prepare for defense. Next morning Charleston was furious and
began to prepare for attack. The South Carolina authorities at
once took formal possession of Pinckney and Moultrie; and three
days later seized the United States Arsenal in Charleston itself.
Ten days later again, on January 9, 1861, the _Star of the West_,
a merchant vessel coming in with reinforcements and supplies for
Anderson, was fired on and forced to turn back. Anderson, who had
expected a man-of-war, would not fire in her defense, partly because
he still hoped there might yet be peace.