SHERIDAN AND SHERMAN.* SOME day, when the work of recording
and collecting material for the purpose has been accomplished during the present generation, a vigorous, lucid, industrious, and impartial writer may be found to narrate as it deserves the brilliant story of the late American War. But the theme is so vast, the labour its adequate treatment would demand is so great, the combination of qualities essential to success are so rare, as to make it doubtful whether the fit man will be forthcoming. Pretenders there will be in plenty, they are already in the field, and the public are so easily satisfied with indifferent books, that poor, imperfect, and radically erroneous works readily meet with a lazy acceptation. Still, no one can doubt that, should an American Napier arise, and produce a really great work, his labour would eclipse that of all others. At present, the raw material of history and fragmentary sketches, more or less authentic, alone can be received with any satisfaction. Although documentary evidence abounds, and forms, indeed, almost a library by itself, yet much that it is essential to know lies buried in archives or in the breasts of the principal actors. We want not only systematic narra- tives from General Lee and General Johnston, for instance, but at least some of the more essential documents, orders, reports, memo- randa which were issued and drawn up during the conflict itself. The secrets of the Richmond War Office, and the military policy and views of Mr. Jefferson Davis and his Ministers for War, are neces- sary to a correct comprehension of the varying phases of the conflict. The bold strategy and tactics of Lee and Johnston cannot be appreciated without some knowledge of the information in their possession at the moment. Not versions framed apres coup are the desiderata, but the diaries of the Commanders, the despatch books of the Staff, the rolls and musters, the minutes of the Bureau, showing the political as well as the military information possessed by the Generals. Time alone can make good existing deficiencies ; but, judging from experience, we may well doubt whether the chief actors will find the leisure or command the means necessary to full and impartial disclosures. For in the rush of severe conflicts, long sustained, but often ending in a complete disaster, despatch books, memoranda, and written words of all kinds are frequently lost or destroyed ; and the most conscientious historian, anxious to reach the hard rock of fact, finds that he can only build on the shifting sands of conjecture. And it seems to be almost a law of nature that the nearer we are to a great series of events, while the results are apparent enough, the less we know of the processes by and through which those results were brought about. The American War forms no exception to the general rule ; and we can only hope that the next generation will profit by revelations denied as yet to the present.
Under these circumstances, the most valuable books are those which detail the personal experiences of actors in the war and privileged spectators. The little book by " A Staff Officer " and the "Report of Major-Geneial Sherman" are of this kind. Sheridan's Staff Officer contents himself with describing the share of his chief in the final campaign, and especially sets forth how he used his famous cavalry. Philip Sheridan is one of the triumvi- rate of first-rate men who came to the front on the Northern side during the war. Born in 1831, in Ohio, he passed his youth in the streets or behind a counter, until a Member of Congress sent the bright boy to West Point. He entered that military school in 1848, and passed out in 1852, as second lieutenant of infantry, a fact which shows either that his conduct or his attainments were in default, and, indeed, rumour imputes his comparative failure to his fighting propensities. Hood, the Confederate, was in the same class, and the brilliant McPherson, who fell before Atlanta, was its head. Until 1861 Sheridan served with his regiment, sometimes in garrison, sometimes on the Indian frontier. It was here he first saw service as a dragoon, having obtained an appoint- ment to that arm, then engaged in fighting the Indians. In 1861, while still a lieutenant, he was called up to take part in the war, and promoted to the rank of captain in the 13th Infantry. The scene of his early service was Missouri, where he had to act as a sort of com- missary, an employment which did not suit him ; and he quarrelled with his chief because he did not maintain discipline, but allowed his men to become marauders. Halleck fortunately discerned the
• With General Sheridan in Lee's Last Campaign. By a Staff Officer. Lippincott. Report of Major-General W. T. Sherman, U.S.A., to the Committee on Use Conduct of the War. Government Printing Office, Washington.
worth of the young soldier, and he gave him a regiment of cavalry to command. At this period the cavalry were not considered of much use, and the great mistake of the United States' War Office from the beginning was in not providing themselves with bodies of horse trained, armed, and organized to suit the country. Sheridan showed capacity as a leader of mounted men, but he was taken away from the horse before he made his mark, and promoted to be a brigadier-general of infantry, and he speedily arrived at the command of an entire division. In these positions he everywhere displayed not only those qualities which signalize the competent soldier, but the higher morale on the march and battlefield which discloses the man of genius. In a perilous position he held his men together by personal influence, making them fight as long as a cartridge was left, if honour and prudence required the sacrifice, and carrying the remnant safely away, if compelled to retreat. In pursuit he made his men march nearly as fast as the cavalry. Tried in the furnace at Stone River and Chickamauga, under Rosecrans, though his division was beaten, yet his sterling soldier- ship was only the more apparent, and in spite of reverses, due to his superiors, his reputation rose in value. At Stone River, his division, alone and unbroken, made a gallant stand to protect the right flank of the army, being all that remained of the right wing. " Had my ammunition held out," he says iu his report, "I would not have fallen back, though such were my orders, if hard pressed." It was at the battle of Missionary Ridge that Sheridan first fought under the eye of Grant, and an incident that occurred during the crisis of the action affords an admirable illustration of the character of the young soldier. Before march- ing to the assault he examined the enemy's line, and became impressed with a conviction that if, as his instructions seemed to imply, he halted after carrying the first line of rifle pits on the slope, his position would be untenable. He asked for explana- tions, and pending the return of his messenger, the brigades carried the first line, and lay down. Then came the aide- de-camp with the news that it was the first line that was to be carried ; but believing that the attack had as- sumed a new phase, and that he could carry the ridge, Sheridan would not order the men back to the pits. Indeed, the troops, who saw the chance, kept pressing on step by step. " Captain Avery, of General Granger's staff," writes Sheridan, "here came up, and informed me that the original order was to carry the first line of pits ; but that if, in my judgment, the ridge could be taken, to take it. My judgment was that it could, and orders were given accordingly, obeyed with a cheer, and the ridge was carried." Grant was observing the fight, and he saw how Sheridan decided, and dared, and won. Although he was so young, it is not surprising that Grant, when he became Commander-in-Chief, should have selected him to lead his cavalry. After the merited defeat of Hunter, and the consequent inroad of Early into Mary- land, Sherman wrote to Grant, " I am glad you have given General Sheridan the command of the forces to defend Washing- ton. He will worry Early to death,"—a prediction strictly ful- filled. The later scenes of the war are fresher in men's minds ; they do not forget who rode up to the rear of a routed force in the Shenandoah Valley and converted defeat into victory, nor by whose personal leading and initiative Lee's flank was turned at Five Forks, and his column in retreat pressed so hard by the horsemen, and finally headed at Appomattox Court House. Any one who looks narrowly into the facts will discern in the foresight, decision, speed, audacity, resolution, and wise caution of Philip Sheridan something Napoleonic. Had he been born in France ninety years ago, he would have become a Marshal and a Duke ; had he been born in England, his fine military gifts would have been lost to his country, or if he had entered the Army, he would have died at most a serjeant.
The characteristics of General Sherman as a soldier are great breadth, originality, and justness of view, combined with an un- swerving tenacity of purpose. These qualities are manifest in every crisis of his career, and stand out distinctly in the report he has made to the Committee on the Conduct of the War. He never underrated the task before the Federal Government ; he never took petty views restricted to one field or one line, or the opera- tions of a few weeks. Surveying the map with the eye of an educated soldier, able to fasten on its salient and decisive points,
he always looked to large combined operations directed against the vital positions, and mourned over the want of life and effort that
attended the earlier enterprises of the War Department. And when power to act fell into his hands, when his friend and comrade, Grant, obtained supreme command, he exulted in the prospect of a determined, skilful, and systematic warfare thereby disclosed. Whatever share Sherman may have had, and some he certainly had, in suggesting the great plan the execution of which began in 1864, it is plain that it was definitively settled at Grant's head-quarters, and that the mere sight of a map, streaked with red and blue lines, was sufficient to enable Sherman to " see all," as he said, adding, and " glad I am that there are minds now at
Washington able to devise All I now ask is notice of time, that all over the grand theatre of war there may be simultaneous action. We saw the beauty of time at the battle of Chattanooga, and there is no reason why the same harmony of action should not pervade a continent." To Grant he wrote, April 4, 1864, that his letters gave infinite satisfaction. " That we are now all to act on a common plan, converging to a common centre, looks like enlightened war." The plan was executed, and gave Sherman Atlanta. Then befell the accident of Hood's rash move to the Tennessee, affording an opening visible only to Sherman. The despatches in his report prove to a demon- stration that he, and he alone, was the originator of both his great marches, and there are indications that from the first he contemplated continued offensive movements, after Atlanta should have been taken, although the Confederate Army might still remain in his front. For instance, when on the 13th of August he was preparing to turn Atlanta, he wrote to Halleck, " If I should ever be cut off from my base, look out for me about St. Mark's, Florida, or Savannah, Georgia." As early as April he had decided that he could live in the latter State. " Georgia has a million of inhabitants," he wrote ; " if they can live, we should not starve I will inspire my command, if successful, with my feeling that beef and salt are all that is absolutely necessary to life." Grant, with that confidence in Sherman which he always showed, cordially endorsed his resolve not to go back; even if his roads were cut. "If it comes to the worst," wrote Grant, August 18, "move south as you suggest." It is quite true that Hood's march towards the Tennessee did compel Sherman to go back, but not to quit his hold of Atlanta ; and it also gave him the opportunity of making his decisive move. Even before the Con- federate leader started, at the very time he was outgeneralling Sherman, as he thought, the latter was planning his march to the sea. " I prefer, for the future," he said, in a despatch to Halleck, " to make the movement on Milledgeville, Millen, and the Savannah River." On the let of October, when Hood had crossed the Chattahoochee, Sherman formally proposed to execute the plan he afterwards carried out. Ready to fight Hood, if he could catch him, Sherman saw at a glance that if the Confederate leader went as far north as the Selina Road to Tennessee, it would be a fine stroke " to destroy Atlanta, and then march across Georgia." He continued to press this view upon Grant, and his only fear was that Hood would not commit himself to a northern campaign. On the 16th of October, he wrote to Schofield, " I want the first positive fact that Hood contemplates an invasion of Tennessee. Invite him to do so. Send hint a free pass in." These words show the immense superiority of Sherman, and the marvellously just conception he alone had formed of the actual facts. This becomes the more evident when we see Grant, as late as November 1, putting it to Sherman whether it would not be well to ruin Hood before starting,—to destroy him first, and make the great move a secondary affair. But Sherman insisted with a pertinacity that would not be denied, and at length, on November 2, Grant was convinced, and telegraphed the welcome words, " Go on as you propose." And after the General-in-Chief had perused in their fullness and clearness. the reasons upon which Sherman based his project, he sent another telegram saying, " Good fortune attend you. I believe you will be eminently successful, and at worst can only make a march less fruitful of results than hoped for." The march was made, and the results were fruitful beyond all hope.
Very few words will suffice to show that the second great march originated in Sherman's scheming brain. When be arrived at the sea, he found awaiting him two letters from Grant, the earliest proposing that the western armies should be put across the only two through routes east and west, still held by the enemy ; the second suggesting that Sherman should leave his artillery and cavalry at Savannah, and transport his infantry by water to City Point. Sherman instantly declared his readiness to obey, but at the same time he casually remarked, " With my present command I had expected, after reducing Savannah, in- stantly to march to Columbia, South Carolina, thence to Raleigh, and thence report to you." There was no thrusting the proposal upon the notice of his chief, but one easily understands how greatly grieved Sherman would have been to give it up. On the 22nd December he again said incidentally iu a despatch to Grant,
" If Thomas can continue as he did on the 18th, I could go on and smash South Carolina all to pieces, and also break up roads as far as the Roanoke." The mere suggestion of the plan was sufficient both for Grant and Halleck, and as soon as Sherman's despatches reached the former, he hastened to give his comrade carte blanche. " General Grant's wishes," wrote Halleck, " are that this whole matter of your future actions should be left entirely to your own discretion." Nothing could be more gratifying, and the man to whom the full exercise of his discretion was entrusted never feared any responsibility. He was " very glad," indeed, that he was allowed to work his own way. "I feel no doubt whatever as to our future plans. I have thought them over so long and well that they appear as clear as daylight." And so it proved. Let both Generals receive the meed of praise, Sherman for his astonishing insight and profound views, and Grant for the readiness with which he recognized the superior worth of his friend's plan. We have drawn enough from the most authentic sources, the despatches written during the progress of events, to make plain the great merits of Sherman as a strategist ; but nothing except the whole correspondence, and some further knowledge of the man than these official records furnish, will enable the reader to form a really adequate conception of the very high rank he holds as a soldier.
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