Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War
no condition for a rapid advance either upon Leesburg or on Winchester;
and it was evident that little was to be feared from Lander until he
had completed the work, on which he was now actively engaged, of
repairing the communications which Jackson’s raid had temporarily
interrupted. With the information we have now before us, it is clear
that Jackson’s view of the situation was absolutely correct; that for
the present Romney might be
advantageously retained, and recruiting pushed forward in this section
of Virginia. If, when McClellan advanced, the Confederates were to
confine themselves to the defensive, the post would undoubtedly have to
be abandoned. But if, instead of tamely surrendering the initiative,
the Government were to adopt the bolder strategy which Jackson had
already advocated, and Johnston’s army, moving westward to the Valley,
were to utilise the natural line of invasion by way of Harper’s Ferry,
the occupation of Romney would secure the flank, and give the invading
force a fertile district from which to draw supplies.
It was not, however, on the Secretary’s misconception of the situation
that Jackson’s request for relief was based. Nor was it the slur on his
judgment that led him to resign. The injury that had been inflicted by
Mr. Benjamin’s unfortunate letter was not personal to himself. It
affected the whole army. It was a direct blow to discipline, and struck
at the very heart of military efficiency. Not only would Jackson
himself be unable to enforce his authority over troops who had so
successfully defied his orders; but the whole edifice of command,
throughout the length and breadth of the Confederacy, would, if he
tamely submitted to the Secretary’s extraordinary action, be shaken to
its foundations. Johnston, still smarting under Mr. Davis’s rejection
of his strategical views, felt this as acutely as did Jackson. “The
discipline of the army,” he wrote to the Secretary of War, “cannot be
maintained under such circumstances. The direct tendency of such orders
is to insulate the commanding general from his troops, to diminish his
moral as well as his official control, and to harass him with the
constant fear that his most matured plans may be marred by orders from
his Government which it is impossible for him to anticipate.”[19]
To Jackson he wrote advising the withdrawal of his resignation: “Under
ordinary circumstances a due sense of one’s own dignity, as well as
care for professional character and official rights, would demand such
a course as yours, but the character of this war, the great energy
exhibited
by the Government of the United States, the danger in which our very
existence as an independent people lies, requires sacrifices from us
all who have been educated as soldiers.
“I receive the information of the order of which you have such cause to
complain from your letter. Is not that as great an official wrong to me
as the order itself to you? Let us dispassionately reason with the
Government on this subject of command, and if we fail to influence its
practice, then ask to be relieved from positions the authority of which
is exercised by the War Department, while the responsibilities are left
to us.
“I have taken the liberty to detain your letter to make this appeal to
your patriotism, not merely from common feelings of personal regard,
but from the official opinion which makes me regard you as necessary to
the service of the country in your present position.”[20]
But Johnston, when he wrote, was not aware of the remonstrance of
Loring’s officers. His protest, in his letter to the Secretary of War,
deprecated the action of the department in ignoring the authority of
the military chiefs; it had no reference to the graver evil of yielding
to the representations of irresponsible subordinates. Considering the
circumstances, as he believed them to exist, his advice was doubtless
prudent. But it found Jackson in no compromising mood.
“Sacrifices!” he exclaimed; “have I not made them? What is my life here
but a daily sacrifice? Nor shall I ever withhold sacrifices for my
country, where they will avail anything. I intend to serve here,
anywhere, in any way I can, even if it be as a private soldier. But if
this method of making war is to prevail, the country is ruined. My duty
to Virginia requires that I shall utter my protest against it in the
most energetic form in my power, and that is to resign. The authorities
at Richmond must be taught a lesson, or the next victims of their
meddling will be Johnston and Lee.”
Fortunately for the Confederacy, the Virginia officers
possessed a staunch supporter in the Governor of the State. Mr. Letcher
knew Jackson’s worth, and he knew the estimation in which he was
already held by the Virginia people. The battle of Manassas had
attained the dignity of a great historical event, and those whose share
in the victory had been conspicuous were regarded with the same respect
as the heroes of the Revolution. In the spring of 1862 Manassas stood
alone, the supreme incident of the war; its fame was not yet
overshadowed by mightier conflicts, and it had taken rank in the
popular mind with the decisive battles of the world.
Jackson, at the same time that he addressed Johnston, wrote to Letcher.
It is possible that he anticipated the course the Governor would adopt.
He certainly took care that if a protest were made it should be backed
with convincing argument.
“The order from the War Department,” he wrote, “was given without
consulting me, and is abandoning to the enemy what has cost much
preparation, expense, and exposure to secure, is in direct conflict
with my military plans, implies a want of confidence in my capacity to
judge when General Loring’s troops should fall back, and is an attempt
to control military operations in details from the Secretary’s desk at
a distance. . . . As a single order like that of the Secretary’s may
destroy the entire fruits of a campaign, I cannot reasonably expect, if
my operations are thus to be interfered with, to be of much service in
the field. . . . If I ever acquired, through the blessing of
Providence, any influence over troops, this undoing my work by the
Secretary may greatly diminish that influence. I regard the recent
expedition as a great success. . . . I desire to say nothing against
the Secretary of War. I take it for granted that he has done what he
believes to be best, but I regard such policy as ruinous.”[21]
This letter had the desired result. Not content with reminding Jackson
of the effect his resignation would have on the people of Virginia, and
begging him to withdraw it, Governor Letcher took the Secretary of War
to task. Mr.
Benjamin, who had probably acted in ignorance rather than in defiance
of the military necessities, at once gave way. Governor Letcher,
assured that it was not the intention of the Government to interfere
with the plans of the general, withdrew the resignation: Jackson had
already yielded to his representations.
“In this transaction,” says his chief of the staff, “Jackson gained one
of his most important victories for the Confederate States. Had the
system of encouragement to the insubordination of inferiors, and of
interference with the responsibilities of commanders in the field,
which was initiated in his case, become established, military success
could only have been won by accident. By his firmness the evil usage
was arrested, and a lesson impressed both upon the Government and the
people of the South.”[22]
That the soldier is but the servant of the statesman, as war is but an
instrument of diplomacy, no educated soldier will deny. Politics must
always exercise a supreme influence on strategy; yet it cannot be
gainsaid that interference with the commanders in the field is fraught
with the gravest danger. Mr. Benjamin’s action was without excuse. In
listening to the malcontents he ignored the claims of discipline. In
cancelling Jackson’s orders he struck a blow at the confidence of the
men in their commander. In directing that Romney should not be held he
decided on a question which was not only purely military, but of which
the man on the spot, actually in touch with the situation and with the
enemy, could alone be judge.[23] Even Johnston, a most able and
experienced soldier, although he was evidently apprehensive that
Jackson’s front was too extended, forbore to do more than warn. Nor was
his interference the crown of Mr. Benjamin’s
offence. The omniscient lawyer asked no advice; but believing, as many
still believe, that neither special knowledge nor practical
acquaintance with the working of the military machine is necessary in
order to manœuvre armies, he had acted entirely on his own initiative.
It was indeed time that he received a lesson.
Well would it have been for the Confederacy had the President himself
been wise enough to apply the warning to its full extent. We have
already seen that after the victory of Manassas, in his capacity of
Commander-in-Chief, he refused to denude the Southern coasts of their
garrisons in order to reinforce Johnston’s army and strike a decisive
blow in Northern territory. Had he but once recognised that he too was
an amateur, that it was impossible for one man to combine effectively
in his own person the duties of Head of the Government and of
Commander-in-Chief, he would have handed over the management of his
huge armies, and the direction of all military movements, to the most
capable soldier the Confederacy could produce. Capable soldiers were
not wanting; and had the control of military operations been frankly
committed to a trained strategist, and the military resources of the
Southern States been placed unreservedly at the disposal of either Lee
or Johnston, combined operations would have taken the place of
disjointed enterprises, and the full strength of the country have been
concentrated at the decisive point. It can hardly, however, be imputed
as a fault to Mr. Davis that he did not anticipate a system which
achieved such astonishing success in Prussia’s campaigns of ’66 and
’70. It was not through vanity alone that he retained in his own hands
the supreme control of military affairs. The Confederate system of
government was but an imitation of that which existed in the United
States; and in Washington, as in Richmond, the President was not only
Commander-in-Chief in name, but the arbiter on all questions of
strategy and organisation; while, to go still further back, the English
Cabinet had exercised the same power since Parliament became supreme.
The American people may be forgiven for their failure to recognise the
deplorable results of the system they
had inherited from the mother-country. The English people had been
equally blind, and in their case there was no excuse. The mismanagement
of the national resources in the war with France was condoned by the
victories of Wellington. The vicious conceptions of the Government,
responsible for so many useless enterprises, for waste of life, of
treasure, of opportunity, were lost in the blaze of triumph in which
the struggle ended. Forty years later it had been forgotten that the
Cabinet of 1815 had done its best to lose the battle of Waterloo; the
lessons of the great war were disregarded, and the Cabinet of 1853 to
1854 was allowed to work its will on the army of the Crimea.
It is a significant fact that, during the War of Secession, for the
three years the control of the armies of the North remained in the
hands of the Cabinet the balance of success lay with the Confederates.
But in March 1864 Grant was appointed Commander-in-Chief; Lincoln
abdicated his military functions in his favour, and the Secretary of
War had nothing more to do than to comply with his requisitions. Then,