THE ATTACK ON FORT STEADMAN.—GENERAL SHERMAN.
[FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.] New York, March 31, 1865. THE great battle which I spoke of in my letter before the last as impending, and probably to take place within a few days, General Lee attempted to bring on in just a week from the time of my writing. The steamer of Wednesday last took out the news of the attack upon the Union right wing before Petersburg, and of its worse than failure. But the importance of the affair was not then generally appreciated. It is plain that the plan was to cut our centre and left off from the base of supplies upon the James, by seizing and holding two strong works, Forts Steadman and Haskell, which were well situated for this purpose. It was doubtless thought that these works, being once captured by sur- prise, they could afterwards be held against a very superior force, and that thus General Grant would then be compelled 40 attack with his army divided by that of the enemy. General Lee's assault,—a night surprise at 3 a.m.,—was at first successful, as such attacks, if well executed, almost always are. Over- whelming numbers moving suddenly upon the fort in Lee's fashion, three lines of battle deep, swept for a moment all before them, but only to be themselves sent back headlong, having gained nothing and suffering thrice the loss in men which they had inflicted, and also that of a part of their own advanced line, which still remains in General Grant's posses- sion. The rebels fought well and with great spirit as long as they had matters all their own way, but when they found that they were beginning to get the worst of it they quickly fled or sur- rendered. Of the prisoners who were taken 146 refuge to be put upon the exchange-list, and claim that they surrendered on condition of being allowed to take the oath of allegiance. The plan was a very pretty one if it had only worked, but General Lee made a mistake. He must have forgotten with whom he is now dealing ; but to be sure he must do something, or give up entirely. Some of our papers are impugning his veracity, because in his report of this affair he represents the re- pulse, which was very severe, as a voluntary withdrawal,. and says that nine pieces of artillery and eight mortars which were in Fort Steadman were disabled before they were abandoned_ by his forces, when the fact is that the rebel exit from the fort was so sudden that these pieces were all recovered unharmed.. But in General Lee's present situation it is surely pardonable to- put the best possible face on such an unfortunate affair as this. that the utmost limits of literal truth would allow, and as to the guns and mortars, of course he did not see them, and spoke upon. information. It is believed by some of our military men that this will prove to be really the last serious engagement of the war, and that General Lee having failed in this, must see that any further efforts on his part can only be the cause of useless carnage. By the way, we notice since the rapidly accumulating successes of the Government during the last few months (which, however, were only the inevitable consequences of the move to the south bank of the James and the occupation of Atlanta), a conspicuous absence of those appeals for the cessation of hostilities on the ground of humanity, and those denunciations of a persistence in useless war- fare uttered in the interests of civilization (graceful and elastic. phrase !) which used to go up in certain quarters when the hesita- tion or the blunders of our early Generals brought upon us a severe. repulse. What can be the reason of this marked difference ? Doubtless a decorous conviction in the quarters aforesaid that it. is unbecoming to obtrude counsel and offer reproof in regard to matters for which one is not at all responsible. Else surely by those who admit that the end of this war is visibly nigh, Mr. Davis and General Lee would be implored not to waste another life in fruitless battle. But General Lee and some at least of the- leading insurgents are not yet convinced that all is lost, or at least they are determined, like Mr. Dickens's Little Marchioness, to make believe very hard that such is their state of mind. The Richmond Examiner speaks of the attack of Saturday as "the. opening of the spring campaign," and a propitious one; says that General Grant's work is " to hold his position if he can," and that "he no longer threatens Richmond, but Richmond threatens him ;" that " General Grant's army may outnumber that of General Lee," but whereas last year "he outnumbered him with veteran troops, he has now an army of new recruits, raw levies," and that " this spring they cannot hold their lines." Perhaps not. These be valorous words, but we have heard others. like them from the same quarter for many years past, and neither they nor the deeds which they announced have turned us from. our purpose, or yet made its accomplishment impossible.
Two days after this futile attack two men had an interview at City Point, which doubtless did much to decide the immediate course of events. Other persons were present, including Presi- dent Lincoln, General Meade, and General Sheridan, but the importance of the occasion is chiefly, in fact almost entirely, due to the meeting of General Grant and General Sherman. That. the latter should leave his army in the interior of North Carolina and go round to Hampton Roads for two or three hours' talk with the former is in itself of no little interest and significance, that he should feel that he could safely thus absent himself from his command implies a notable confidence in the strength of his position.
Of these two men, who five rears ago were about as unim- portant and as unknown as any two educated men in the country, I am inclined to think that you know, as till quite recently we ourselves have known, very little. They are, as I have before mentioned, two of the unlikeliest men that you could find between
Maine and Missouri. But the portraits of General Sherman that I have seen in the illustrated European papers are not much like him. They are engraved from a photograph taken from another photograph—a very poor one—which had been " doctored" with Indian ink to better it. The only good picture is one which repre- sents him with his coat open in a very careless way, and in a white waistcoat. General Sherman is under middle height and sparely built, has reddish brown hair and a beard somewhat lighter in hue, which, clipped short, looks stiff and bristling. Of his hair and beard, and of his dress generally, he is careless in the extreme. His brain is large and remarkably well-balanced, the head proper being high, well arched, and symmetrical. His eyes are small, penetrating, and restless, his nose aquiline, and his mouth too straight to be handsome, but firm, and not particularly good- natured in expression. In fact General Sherman is one of the most nervously restless and not the best-tempered of men. He knows this, and admits it. In speaking of one of his subordinate generals he once said, " He is as good an officer as I am, is younger, and better-tempered." But although often irritable and rarely . very gracious, General Sherman is not only just and candid, but kind, and even self-sacrificing. He rarely sleeps at night, but does his writing and attends to his personal affairs then, and sleeps in the daytime, as he can. He does this that his men, those who are not on guard, may take their natural rest undisturbed, unless in case of great emergency. The long roll is not heard in his camps at night, except by his own orders. Reports are first brought to him. He sleeps generally without a tent, under a tree, or in some such place ; and during no small part of his campaign his head-quarters have consisted of nothing more than a tent fly for the use of his Adjutant-General. One morning when he had laid down to sleep under a tree by the road-side with only his orderly near him, a regiment marched past the place, and one of the men who bad never seen him, supposing him plenus Riedel, said aloud, with a glance at the two stars on his shoulder-straps, " That's the way we are commanded ; officered by drunken major-generals." Sher- man, who was only dozing, jumped up, and said good-humouredly, " Not drunk, my boy, but I was up all night, and am very tired and sleepy." The men discovered that they were passing head- quarters, and broke out into hearty cheers.
General Sherman's manner is that of self-absorbed and restless energy. He has neither repose nor reserve, although he has great secretiveness. But unless in sleep his limbs are never still for a minute, or his eyes hardly for a second, and when he does talk he rarely allows the other colloquists to finish their sentences, or seems to put any restraint upon his tongue. He breaks in with what he has to say as soon as he has heard all that he thinks it necessary for him to hear, and pours out a succession of sharp, quick sentences, in the utterance of which he will suffer no interruption, and which he accompanies with abrupt and ungrace- ful, though impressive gestures. He is a great smoker, but he does not seem to enjoy his cigar. He works at it, as he does at everything he undertakes, with restless energy ; pulls away at it as if the blast of a blacksmith's bellows were necessary to keep it lit; and throws it away or lays it down forgetfully when it is half consumed, and then lights another. Only on the battle-field is his uneasy, ceaseless movement of eye and limb notably moderated. There he becomes almost quiet ; but he grits his teeth, and sets his lips, and half-closing his eyes like a near-sighted man, be seems striving to peer into the invisible before him. His orders there are given in the quietest and most informal manner. He is exceedingly practical in his turn of mind, and would make an excellent commissary-general or engineer-in-chief. When he was first at Chattanooga the railway people said that it was impos- sible to transport more rations than it was found would just feed
the army day by day, which of course left no provision for the coming campaign. Sherman immediately set himself to work, and by extending the road, planning and building two inclined planes, and impressing freight-cars and ferry-boats, he in one month had, instead of ninety cars of rations, two hundred and seventy coming in every day to Chattanooga. It is his way (being, in this, unlike General Grant) to look himself after all the little details of every matter he undertakes, and on this occasion he ordered the increase in the number of cars to be reported to him daily, and would appear as much pleased by the addition of a few cars to the previous day's report as if he had won a battle.
This brief sketch, based upon information known to be trust- worthy, gives some notion of what the man is by nature. As to his acquirements, he is a thoroughly accomplished soldier, West-
Point bred, and immediately before the war was professor in a military college in Louisiana. His strange, nervous manner, and what were thought his exaggerated notions of the struggle upon
which we were about to enter, caused him then to be looked upon by some persons as slightly insane, but, as far as I can judge, time and his acts have justified his mental soundness. With all his peculiarities of temper and of manner General Sher- man is truly modest and quick to recognize and acknowledge the ability of others. In a recent letter, which Reuter's telegram garbled so as to make him say that he feared too much confidence was placed in our Government and our people, he had said that he feared too much confidence had been placed in his abilities. How odd it is that the telegrams and the letters always blunder one way. It was my intention to attempt giving my readers a portrait of General Grant, who to Sherman's capacity and ac- quirement adds something which Sherman lacks. But this I must postpone to another opportunity.
April lst.—The telegraph brings us news this morning of the beginning of a movement which promises well, for Sheridan com- mands the cavalry advance upon the Danville Railway, General Lee's last line of communication. Dinwiddie Court House, which Sheridan passed on Wednesday, is fifteen miles south-west of Petersburg. If Lee attempts a check, there must, it would seem, be a general engagement ; if he does not, he will be completely invested. Meantime Thomas is moving eastward towards Lynch-
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