...

On the 5th of January, Sherman wrote1 to Halleck: The advantages of the position are immense certainly three to one. 10,000 men should defeat 30,000 assailants. I am perfectly willing to abide your judgment if I should have pushed my attack farther after learning that I was alone, and that the enemy was at liberty to concentrate at Vicksburg a large part of Pemberton's forces from Grenada.

Sherman's estimate

of the situation.

2

Sherman's whole command was embarked by sunrise of January 2d, and moved down the Yazoo to its McClernand mouth, where it found Gen. McClernand, takes who had just arrived, and who then took command of the expedition.

command.

Comments.

So ended the third attempt to capture Vicksburg. It is hard to divide among all concerned the responsibility for its failure. The President attached great importance to the opening of the Mississippi; and when McClernand came to Washington and offered to raise the troops from among his friends and followers in the Northwest, Lincoln perhaps looked upon them as auxiliaries or allies whose cooperation he could not expect without their leader. By accepting their services, the loyalty of the Western Democrats would be aroused and gratified. He would not let them interfere with Grant. They could not he thought do any harm, and might indeed accomplish "the great object in view." As a military measure, the fate of such a scheme was not doubtful. Halleck tried to carry out the President's wishes without losing Corinth which he had won by hard labor, and which was useful in guarding West Tennessee. Grant was loyal, and did all in his power to carry out Halleck's

I

* 24 R., 613, 614.

* 24 R., 610.

orders; but erred in adopting a middle course, and actually believing that it would succeed. When he was authorized to use the troops in his command as he deemed best to accomplish the object in view, he should have made the expedition down the river very large or very small. One fraction or the other should have been strong enough to reach its destination, either by following the overland route, or descending the river. By dividing his army in halves, and giving Pemberton the interior lines, he put it in Pemberton's power to meet each half in succession, and perhaps throw all his force on Sherman's army between Haynes's Bluff and Vicksburg while Grant himself was repairing the railroad in the north. Both Grant and Sherman escaped without serious loss, but with no material gain; and Vicksburg, which had been almost within the grasp of the Federal fleets and armies from May to December of 1862, did not finally fall until July of the following year.

Army of the
Potomac.

LET us now take a glance at the military situation in January, 1863, when all operations on a large scale are suspended, and consider in each region what progress the Federals have made in cutting off the supplies of the Confederates, destroying their armies, and occupying their territory; and what, from a military standpoint, are their prospects of success in the immediate future. In the first two volumes of this series, Ropes has explained the difficulties under which the Army of the Potomac labored from the interference of President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton with McClellan's plan of operations, by which the best chance of success offered in the Peninsular campaign was thrown away. Such interference is of course fatal, but Lincoln's problem was a hard one: McClellan's loyalty to the Union cannot be doubted; but his conduct gave color to the belief that he would prefer to decide the war by a demonstration of power, rather than by shedding the blood of his own countrymen, and that he had little or no faith in the ability of the politicians to bring it to a successful conclusion. Lincoln did not believe in that kind of warfare; he thought that McClellan was too cautious, and did not think that the country required a dictator; he found

Pope too rash; the bloody assault on the fortified heights at Fredericksburg showed him that Burnside was incompetent; but he was disposed to give him another trial.

Burnside's

second

attempt.

We have seen' that after his failure at Fredericksburg on the 13th of December, 1862, Burnside proposed to cross the Rappahannock with his army seven miles below Fredericksburg; and to send the cavalry up the river to cross at Kelly's Ford, about twenty-seven miles above, destroy the railroad track in the rear of Lee's army, and join the garrison of Suffolk near the mouth of the James. The cavalry had already started on the movement when Burnside received a telegram from the President, enjoining him not to take any step without first informing him. Burnside countermanded the orders, and went to Washington, where he was told by the President that some general officers of his command had represented that the army was not in condition to move. On the 5th of January,' he asked the President, either to accept his resignation, or to approve of his plan for a new campaign on the other side of the Rappahannock, of which he alone assumed the responsibility.

The President3 declined to accept his resignation, and enclosed a letter from Halleck with his approval, advising the movement and saying4:

When the attempt at Fredericksburg was abandoned, I advised you to renew the attempt at some other point, either in whole or in part, to turn the enemy's works, or to threaten their wings or communications; in other words, to keep the enemy oc

Halleck to

Burnside.

cupied until a favorable opportunity offered to strike a

1 Part II., 469; 31 R., 78, 96.

* Swinton, 258; 2 Comte de Paris, 602; 31 R., 944, 78.

3 31 R., 953.

440 R., 13.

decisive blow. . In all our interviews I have urged that our first object was not Richmond, but the defeat or scattering of Lee's army, which threatened Washington and the line of the Upper Potomac.

The Mud
March.

With this authority, Burnside proposed to cross the Rappahannock at Banks Ford, six miles up the river, leaving one corps to guard his communications, and another to make a demonstration below. The movement began on the 20th of January,' 1863; but during the night, a terrible storm came on, and the soil was covered with a soft sticky paste in which the wagons, horses, and men sank deeper and deeper at every step, so that the attempt, which was known as Mud March, was abandoned.

Burnside, knowing that several of his highest officers considered him unfit to command the army, and believing that his ill success was mainly due to their insubordination, recommended that they be relieved or dismissed. To this end, he went to Washington, and saw the President, who, recognizing his incapacity, relieved Burnside himself from his command, but refused to accept his resignation.

On the 25th of January, 1863 (40 R., 3), Hooker was assigned to command of the Army of the Potomac.2 Burnside went to his home on leave of ab

Hooker sence, and in March was appointed to the assigned to command. command of the Department of the Ohio. Hooker thought it would require all his time to place the Army of the Potomac in a proper

1 Powell, 407.

2

It is said (3 B. & L., 239) that Franklin and others were believed to be in sympathy with McClellan; Reynolds did not want the office unless with a freer hand than he could expect; Meade was suggested, but Secretary Chase aspired to be Lincoln's successor, and threw his influence in favor of Hooker on his assurance that, if successful, he would not aspire to other than military honors.