108

LINCOLN AND GRANT

3

[1862

General, "and I try to defend him but with little success." 1 All sorts of charges were made against him. Stanton telegraphed to Halleck at Pittsburg Landing, "The President desires to know . . . whether any neglect or misconduct of General Grant or any other officer contributed to the casualties that befell our forces on Sunday."2 Halleck, in his immediate answer, was evasive; and in his despatch of May 2, as printed, there is a tantalizing ellipsis, but, so far as I have been able to discover, there is no evidence in the printed record of misconduct on the part of Grant. It was the tragedy of his career that whenever he was at fault, the popular judgment harked back to his early record in the regular army and charged his shortcoming to intemperance in drink.5 A large number in the North believed this to be the cause of his recklessness at Shiloh and exerted a strong pressure on the President for his removal. A. K. McClure related that, carried along as he was by the overwhelming "tide of popular sentiment" and backed by "the almost universal conviction of the President's friends," he urged this course upon Lincoln. Late one night, in a private interview of two hours at the White House, during which he did most of the talking, McClure advocated with earnestness the removal of Grant as necessary for the President to retain the confidence of the country. "When I had said everything that could be said. from my standpoint," McClure proceeded with his story, we lapsed into silence. Lincoln remained silent for what seemed a very long time. He then . . . said in a tone of earnestness that I shall never forget, 'I can't spare this man; 1 Sherman Letters, 147.

4 The Official Records are so voluminous that any general remark must be made with the reservation in the text. J. H. Wilson in his Life of General Rawlins, M.S., wrote "Grant was entirely guiltless of anything to his discredit."

5 See III, 595.

Сн. ІІІ]

GRANT'S DEFENCE

109

he fights.' In his private letter to Washburne, Grant is pathetic and at the same time obstinate in his determination to defend his conduct of the battle and his procedure anterior to the Confederate assault. "To say," he wrote, "that I have not been distressed at these attacks upon me would be false, for I have a father, mother, wife and children, who read them and are distressed by them and I necessarily share with them in it. Then, too, all subject to my orders read these charges and it is calculated to weaken their confidence in me and weaken my ability to render efficient service in our present cause. Those people who expect a field of battle to be maintained for a whole day with about thirty thousand troops, most of them entirely raw, against fifty thousand, as was the case at Pittsburg Landing while waiting for reënforcements to come up, without loss of life, know little of Looking back at the past I can not see for the life of me any important point that could be corrected." 2

war.

General Halleck arrived at Pittsburg Landing on April 11; he did not displace Grant until the 30th, when, on reorganizing the army, he deprived him of any actual command of troops, but made him second to himself. Grant chafed at this, asked more than once to be relieved from duty under Halleck and then decided to quit this semblance of active service, saying to General Sherman: "You know that I am in the way here. I have stood it as long as I can and can endure it no longer." Sherman, with whom had begun that fast friendship which endured throughout Grant's whole life, urged him to stay. If you go away, he said, events will go right along and you will be left out, while, if you remain, some happy accident will restore you to favor and your true place.3 Grant acted upon this reasonable counsel and staid with the army.

1

1 III, 627.

2 May 14, Grant's private letters, 10.

3 W. Sherman, I, 255.

[1862

This conversation followed the occupation of Corinth by the Union troops. Halleck had concentrated a force of 100,000, with which he moved slowly and cautiously upon Corinth, intrenching at every halt so that Sherman described the advance as one “with pick and shovel." He forced the evacuation of Corinth, a place of strategic importance, and worth having, but the crushing of Beauregard's army, which was possible, would have been a far more profitable achievement.2

The navy at the outbreak of the war was small and many. of the ships were on distant cruises where orders to return were long in reaching them. Through the indefatigable exertions of the Secretary, Gideon Welles, and his chosen assistant, Gustavus V. Fox, and the purchase and charter of merchant steamers, a navy was improvised which was powerful enough to maintain a reasonably effective blockade. Bases for the blockading fleet and for other naval and military operations were needed and Hatteras Inlet, Port Royal and Roanoke Island were successively captured by joint naval and army expeditions.3 "The English," wrote Adams from London, "must abide by the blockade if it really be one. They will set it aside if they can pick a good flaw in it.' Ever present to the English and American mind was the cotton crop of 1861, which England and France wanted and which the South was eager to exchange for cannon, rifles, munitions of war, iron in many forms and general merchandise. The bar to this trade was the blockade, which to be binding must be effective. One day in March, 1862, the block

10. R., XVII, Pt. II, 83.

I;

2 Authorities: O. R., X, Pts. I, II; Milt. Hist. Soc., VII; B. & L., Ropes; Grant; W. Sherman; III; N. & H.; Swinton; Hosmer's Appeal.

3 III, 489, 581.

4 Forbes, I, 235.

CH. III]

THE MERRIMAC

111

ade at Norfolk was broken, which gave rise to the apprehension lest it should be raised at all the Atlantic ports.

Until 1858, the navies of the world were wooden vessels, but, in that year, the French applied armor-plating to the steam frigate La Gloire, whereupon the British admiralty speedily constructed the 9200-ton iron steamship, Warrior. Probable though it was that an immense change was imminent in naval construction, the United States Navy department was slow to make a venture in the direction indicated. Richmond was in advance of Washington. As early as May 8, 1861, the Confederate Secretary of the Navy wrote, “I regard the possession of an iron-armored ship as a matter of the first necessity;"1 and in July, he gave an order to raise the steam frigate Merrimac (one of the ships partially burned and sunk when the Gosport navy-yard was destroyed 2) and convert her into an ironclad: this was accomplished as rapidly as could be expected under the imperfect manufacturing and mechanical conditions in the South.

By an act of August 3, 1861, the United States Congress constituted a naval board; four days later the Navy Department advertised for plans and offers of iron-clad steamboats “of light draught suitable to navigate the shallow rivers and harbors of the Confederate States." 3 John Ericsson submitted a plan which was rejected but, on the persuasion of a friend, he went to Washington and demonstrated "to the entire satisfaction of the board" that his "design was thoroughly practical and based on sound theory."4 His proposal was accepted and Secretary Welles told him to begin the construction forthwith without awaiting the execution of the formal contract, inasmuch as the knowledge of the progress on the Merrimac had impressed the naval people

1 B. & L., I, 631.

2 April 20, 1861, III, 364.

B. & L., I, 730.

4 Ibid., 731.

112

THE MERRIMAC

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Ericsson's ironclad was the

with the necessity for speed. Monitor; her keel was laid on October 25, 1861; she was launched on January 30, 1862, and on March 6 left New York for Fort Monroe.

On Saturday, March 8, a fine day with a calm sea, the blockading fleet in Hampton Roads were on their usual watch; off Newport News the frigate Congress of fifty guns and the sloop of-war Cumberland of twenty-four, both sailing vessels, swung lazily at anchor. Soon after noon a monster, resembling "a huge half-submerged crocodile," belching out smoke was descried coming from the direction of Norfolk. No such ship had ever before been seen in American waters; few, if any, of the Union men had ever looked upon her like elsewhere, but all knew at once that she was the Merrimac. The Congress and the Cumberland cleared their decks for action. The Merrimac opened with her bow gun on the Congress, received a broadside and gave one in return. The Cumberland and the shore batteries fired at the monster and their balls, rebounded from her iron sides as if they had been of india rubber. Passing the Congress, the Merrimac steered directly for the Cumberland, brought her guns to bear upon the Union sloop-of-war, killing and wounding men at every shot, and, steaming on under full headway, rammed the Cumberland, opening "her side wide enough to drive in a horse and cart." Water poured into the hole; "the ship canted to port," the masts swaying wildly. She delivered a parting shot and sank "with the American flag at the peak." This action had lasted thirty minutes. Seeing the fate of her sister ship, the Congress slipped her anchor, set her jib and top-sails and, assisted by a tug, ran ashore, hoping in the shoal water to escape the Merrimac, which drew twenty-two feet. But she did not get beyond the Confederate range of fire. The

1

1 B. & L., 698, 712; O. R., N., VII, 21.