ALSO BY JOHN KEEGAN The Iraq War Intelligence in War The First World War The Face of Battle The Nature of War (with Joseph Darracott) World Armies Who’s Who in Military History (with Andrew Wheatcroft) Six Armies in Normandy Soldiers (with Richard Holmes) Warpaths The Mask of Command The Price of Admiralty The Second World War A History of Warfare Fields of Battle The Battle for History War and Our World: The Reith Lectures 1998 An Illustrated History of the First World War Churchill: A Life To Lindsey Wood CONTENTS LIST OF MAPS INTRODUCTION North and South Divide Will There Be a War? Improvised Armies Running the War The Military Geography of the Civil War The Life of the Soldier Plans McClellan Takes Command The War in Middle America 10 Lee’s War in the East, Grant’s War in the West 11 Chancellorsville and Gettysburg 12 Vicksburg 13 Cutting the Chattanooga—Atlanta Link 14 The Overland Campaign and the Fall of Richmond 15 Breaking into the South 16 The Battle off Cherbourg and the Civil War at Sea 17 Black Soldiers 18 The Home Fronts 19 Walt Whitman and Wounds 20 Civil War Generalship 21 Civil War Battle 22 Could the South Have Survived? 23 The End of the War NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS MAPS The American Civil War, 1861–65 American Railroads in 1861 First battle of Bull Run (Manassas), July 21, 1861 Shiloh, April 6–7, 1862 The Seven Days’ Battles, June 25–July 1, 1862 Antietam, September 17, 1862 Chancellorsville, May 2–6, 1863 Convergence of forces in the North Gettysburg, July 2–3, 1863 The Vicksburg Campaign, April—July 1863 The Push to Petersburg Sherman’s March, May 1864—April 1865 INTRODUCTION I began an earlier book with the sentence “The First World War was a cruel and unnecessary war.” The American Civil War, with which it stands comparison, was also certainly cruel, both in the su ering it in icted on the participants and the anguish it caused to the bereaved at home But it was not unnecessary By 1861 the division caused by slavery, most of all among other points of division between North and South, was so acute that it could have been resolved only by some profound shift of energy, certainly from belief in slavery as the only means by which America’s colour problem could be contained, probably by a permanent separation between the slave states and their sympathisers and the rest of the country, and possibly, given the ruptions such a separation would have entailed, by war That did not mean, however, that war was unavoidable All sorts of political and social variables might have led to a peaceful resolution Had the North had an established instead of a newly elected president, and a president whose anti-slavery views were less provocative to the South; had the South had leaders, particularly a potential national leader, as capable and eloquent as Lincoln; had both sections, but particularly the South, been less a ected by the amateur militarism of volunteer regiments and ri e clubs which swept the Anglo-Saxon world on both sides of the Atlantic in mid-century; had industrialisation not so strongly fed the North’s dence that it could face down Southern bellicosity; had Europe’s appetite for Southern cotton not persuaded so many planters and producers below the Mason-Dixon line that they had the means to dictate the terms of a separatist diplomacy to the world; had so many “had nots” not clustered in the mentality of both North and South, then simple and scant regard for peace and its maintenance might have overcome the clamour of marching crowds and recruiting rallies and pointed the great republic through the turmoil of war fever to the normality of calm and compromise Americans were great compromisers Half a dozen major compromises had averted the crisis of division already during the nineteenth century Indeed, a tacit resort to compromise had led the whole country to adopt compromise as the guiding principle of relations with the old colonial overlords at the beginning of the century and to forswear ict with Britain, after the aberration of the War of 1812, in perpetuity Unfortunately, Americans were also people of principle They had embodied principle in the guiding preambles to their magni cent governing documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and, when aroused, Americans resorted to principle as their guiding light out of trouble Even more unfortunately, the main points of di erence between North and South in 1861 could be represented as principles; the indivisibility of the republic and its sovereign power and states’ rights both had to with the passions of the republic’s golden age and could be invoked again when the republic’s survival was under threat They had been invoked, iterated, and reiterated throughout the political quarrels of the century’s earlier decades by protagonists of great sincerity and eloquence, Henry Clay and John Calhoun It was nally unfortunate that America produced opinion leaders of formidable persuasiveness It was the South’s ill fortune that, having dominated the debate in the rst half of the century, at precisely the point when the issue of principle ceased to be a contest of words and threatened to become a call to action, the North had produced a leader who spoke better and more forcefully than any of the South’s current champions War must have been very close beneath the surface of debate in 1861, for scarcely had the South moved to the level of organisation for secession than it was appointing not only its own Confederate president but also a secretary for war, as well as secretaries of state and of the treasury and the interior Scarcely had President Lincoln assumed o ce before he was embodying the militias of the Northern states for federal service and calling for volunteers in tens of thousands In only a few weeks one of the most peaceable polities in the civilised world was bristling with, if not armed men, then men demanding arms and marching and drilling in the manual of arms It would take time for the arms to appear The delay would not, however, abate the turmoil, for the challenge to the republic’s integrity and authority had aroused profound popular passions In the Old World, it had become, through struggles for national liberation, as much in the Spanish-speaking part of the continent as in the Englishspeaking half, the concern of populations The Americas of 1861, North and South alike, had decided by unspoken consensus that the issues of principle the quarrel provoked by the election of Abraham Lincoln was grave enough to be fought over The decision was to invest the coming conflict with a grim purpose It would become a war of peoples, and those of each side, who had hitherto considered themselves one, would henceforth begin to perceive their di erences and to consider their di erences more important than the values that, since 1781, they had accepted as permanent and binding The coming war would thus be a civil war, and it was quickly so called and recognised to be In the meantime, however, the leaders of North and South turned to consider what form the war should take if war overtook their peoples The matter, for the South, was simple It would defend its borders and repel any invaders who appeared For the North, things were not so simple Any war would be a rebellion, a de ance of its authority which had to be defeated; but how and, more crucially, where should defeat be in icted? The South formed half the national territory, an enormous area that touched the North’s organised regions at only a few widely separated points There was contact between the South and the North’s region of great cities in the Atlantic coast corridor of Maryland and Pennsylvania, a region amply supplied with railroads; there were some tenuous connections between North and South in the Mississippi Valley, where there were extensive riverine links, but a dearth of cities and population As a result, when war broke out in April 1861, it began in a haphazard, unplanned, and largely undirected form, the embryo armies falling upon each other as and when found The rst encounters would occur in what would become the state of West Virginia, minor engagements on what the correspondent of CHAPTER FIFTEEN R U Johnson and C C Buel, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (New York, 188488), vol p 250 Ibid., p 252 Ibid Ibid., p 256 Ibid., p 253 Ibid William T Sherman, Memoirs of General William T Sherman (London, 1975), p 112 Steven E Woodworth, Nothing but Victory (New York, 2005), p 539 Sherman, Memoirs, p 173 10 Ibid., p 852 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN R Cobb, quoted in James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom (New York, 1988), p 835 N A Trudeau, Like Men of War (Boston, 1998), p 326 Ibid., p 416 Theodore Lyman, Meade’s Headquarters, ed George R Agassiz (Boston, 1922), p 102 McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p 759 CHAPTER NINETEEN Steven E Woodworth, Nothing but Victory(New York, 2005), p 518 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom (New York, 1988), p 849 Ibid Ibid., p 850 Quoted in Edmund Wilson, Patriotic Gore (New York, 1994), p 685 Saul R Padover, Karl Marx on America and the Civil War (New York, 1972) Ibid BIBLIOGRAPHY Alexander, Bevin Robert E Lee’s Civil War Holbrook, Mass., 1999 Atkinson, Rick The Long Gray Line London, 1990 Black, Robert C The Railroads of the Confederacy Chapel Hill, N.C., 1952 Boritt, Gabor S., ed Why the Civil War Came New York, 1996 Catton, Bruce The Centennial History of the Civil War New York, 1961-65 Cornish, Dudley Taylor The Sable Arm: Negro Troops in the Union Army, 1861-1865 New York, 1956 Crane, Stephen The Red Badge of Courage 1895; New York, 1962 Cunliffe, Marcus Soldiers and Civilians: The Martial Spirit in America, 1775-1865 Boston, 1973 Davis, George B., Leslie J Perry, Joseph W Kirkley, and Calvin D Cowles The Official Military Atlas of the Civil War New York, 1983 Donald, David H Lincoln New York, 1995 Why the North Won the Civil War Baton Rouge, La., 1960 Dyer, F H A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion New York, 1953 Esposito, V J The West Point Atlas of American Wars Vol New York, 1959 EyeWitness to History “Surrender at Appomattox, 1865.” www.eyewitnesstohistory.com, 1997 Faust, Drew Gilpin The Creation of Confederate Nationalism Baton Route, La., 1998 Fox, Stephen Wolf of the Deep: Raphael Semmes and the Notorious Confederate Raider CSS Alabama New York, 2007 Freeman, Douglas S Lee’s Lieutenants New York, 1942-44 _ R E Lee: A Biography New York, 1934-35 Furgurson, Ernest B Not War but Murder: Cold Harbor, 1864 New York, 2000 Garrison, Webb B Atlanta and the War Nashville, Tenn., 1995 Genovese, Eugene D Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made London, 1975 Gould, John M The History of the First—Tenth—Twenty-ninth Maine Regiment: In Service of the United States from May 3, 1861, to June 21, 1866 Portland, Maine, 1871 Grant, U S Personal Memoirs of U S Grant New York, 1885-86 Griess, Thomas E., ed The American Civil War Wayne, N.J., 1987 Griffith, Paddy Battle Tactics of the Civil War New Haven, Conn., 1989 Hattaway, Herman, and Archer Jones How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War Urbana, Ill., 1983 Henderson, G F R Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War New York, 1900 Herman, Marguerita Z Ramparts: Fortification from the Renaissance to West Point New York, 1992 Hess, Earl J The Union Soldier in Battle Lawrence, Kans., 1997 Hicks, Roger W., and Frances E Schultz Battlefields of the Civil War Tops-field, Mass., 1989 Johnson, R U., and C C Buel Battles and Leaders of the Civil War: The Century Magazine vols New York, 1884-88 Jones, Archer Civil War Command and Strategy: The Process of Victory and Defeat New York, 1992 Jones, John B A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary New York, 1958 Katcher, Philip The American Civil War Source Book London, 1992 Kennedy, Frances H., ed The Civil War Battlefield Guide Boston, 1990 Kerby, Robert L Kirby Smith’s Confederacy: The Trans-Mississippi South New York, 1972 Liddell Hart, B H Sherman: Soldier, Realist, American New York, 1958 Lincoln, Abraham Speeches and Writings, 1859-1865 New York, 1989 Livermore, Thomas L Numbers and Losses in the Civil War in America, 1861-5 Boston, 1901 Lyman, Theodore Meade’s Headquarters, 1863-1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness to Appomattox Edited by George R Agassiz Boston, 1922 Lytle, Andrew Nelson Bedford Forrest and His Critter Company Nashville, Tenn., 1984 McElfresh, Earl B Maps and Mapmakers of the Civil War New York, 1999 McFeely, William S Grant: A Biography New York, 1981 McPherson, James M Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era New York, 1988 _ For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War New York, 1997 McWhiney, Grady, and Perry D Jamieson Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1982 Miller, Willam J Mapping for Stonewall: The Civil War Service of Jed Hotchkiss Washington, D.C., 1993 Mitchell, Joseph B Decisive Battles of the Civil War New York, 1962 Mitchell, Reid Civil War Soldiers New York, 1988 Nevins, Allan The Ordeal of the Union vols New York, 1947-71 Oates, Stephen B With Malice Toward None: The Life of Abraham Lincoln New York, 1977 Parish, Peter J The American Civil War New York, 1975 Potter, D M The South and the Sectional Conflict Baton Rouge, La., 1968 Pullen, John J The Twentieth Maine: A Volunteer Regiment in the Civil War Philadelphia, 1957 Reid, Brian Holden The Origins of the American Civil War New York, 1996 Rutledge, Archibald, and Richard Rollins, eds Pickett’s Charge: Eyewitness Accounts at the Battle of Gettysburg Mechanicsburg, Pa., 2005 Sandburg, Carl Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years New York, 2002 Sears, Stephen W Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam New Haven, Conn., 1983 To the Gates of Richmond: The Peninsula Campaign New York, 1992 George B McClellan: The Young Napoleon New York, 1996 Sherman, William T Memoirs of General William T Sherman London, 1975 Smith, Robin American Civil War: Union Army Brassey’s History of Uniforms London, 1996 Sommers, Richard J Richmond Redeemed: The Siege at Petersburg New York, 1991 Stevens, Joseph E America’s National Battlefield Parks Norman, Okla., 1990 Tanner, Robert G Stonewall in the Valley Mechanicsburg, Pa., 1996 Tate, Allen Stonewall Jackson: The Good Soldier Nashville, Tenn., 1991 Thomas, Emory M Robert E Lee: A Biography New York, 1995 Trudeau, N A Like Men of War: Black Troops in the Civil War, 1862-1865 Boston, 1998 Turner, G E Victory Rode the Rails New York, 1953 U.S War Department The War of the Rebellion 36 vols Washington, D.C., 18801901 Ward, Geoffrey C., and Ric and Ken Burns The Civil War: An Illustrated History New York, 1998 Waugh, John C The Class of 1846: From West Point to Appomattox; Stonewall Jackson, George McClellan and Their Brothers New York, 1994 Weigley, Russell F History of the United States Army New York, 1967 _ A Great Civil War: A Military and Political History, 1861-1865 Bloomington, Ind., 2000 Wiley, Bell Irvin The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy New York, 1983 The Life of Billy Yank: The Common Soldier of the Union New York, 1952 Williams, Kenneth P Lincoln Finds a General: A Military Study of the Civil War vols New York, 1950-59 Williams, T Harry Lincoln and His Generals London, 1952 Wilson, Edmund Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War New York, 1994 Winik, Jay April 1865: The Month That Saved America New York, 2001 Woodward, C Vann Mary Chesnut’s Civil War New Haven, Conn., 1981 Woodworth, Steven E Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861-1865 New York, 2005 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is tting that my rst debt of gratitude goes to Bill Coolidge It was through his philanthropic enterprise that I and many other Balliol men and women were introduced to the United States In 1957 I became a Coolidge Scholar and embarked on a tour of the country, primarily to visit some of the Civil War’s most important battlefields Twelve years before I undertook that journey, hundreds of thousands of American men were returning from ghting in the twentieth century’s most terrible ict Their not-so-distant Union and Confederate relatives must have experienced the same emotions as they, too, were reunited with their families after surviving what remains to this day the United States’ most costly of wars So it is natural that my second debt of thanks goes to the people of the United States To arrive in post-war America as a twenty-three-year-old Englishman was to step from the shadow of European reconstruction into the light of a nation determined to realise its own interpretation of a democratic society Since then I have been fortunate enough to have made numerous return journeys to the United States and witness that ongoing ambition There are countless individuals and institutions who have so generously played host and to list them all after my fty-year association would constitute a book in itself But I would like to thank sta at West Point, Vassar College, and Princeton University and the U.S Army Center of Military History, including General John Foss, who was the rst of the post-war West Point liaison o cers at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and nally a four-star general, and Professor James McPherson of Princeton University I owe special thanks to the thoughts and suggestions provided by my numerous friends and colleagues, including former Senator Paul Sarbanes, Tom Clancy, and George Thompson, who assisted me so kindly during my last visit to the United States I must single out my publisher at Knopf, Ash Green, for his stoic faith in this book and for the unrelenting support he has so generously given George Andreou, who succeeded Ash during the nal editing, has graciously carried on that baton of encouragement In England my gratitude goes to my agent Anthony Sheil who has, as ever, paid such careful attention to the project Anthony Whittome, my editor at Random House, deserves special praise for his patience and encouragement during the time I spent writing this book, as does my picture editor Anne-Marie Ehrlich I owe a lifetime of gratitude to two great British institutions: the Army and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, from where so many talented soldiers and academics have emerged In particular I must thank Field Marshall Sir John Chapple, General Sir John Wilsey, Major-General Charles Vyvyan, Colonel Mike Dewar, and Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hoare From Sandhust I have received great support from my former colleagues Duncan Anderson, Christopher Du y, and Ned Willmott I also wish to acknowledge the support of The Daily Telegraph and in particular Con Coughlin, Simon He er, David Twiston-Davies, and Pat Venter I would also like to thank Professor Robert O’Neill and Professor Hew Strachan, the past and present Chichele Professors of Military History at Oxford University I would not have able to undertake this book without the love and support given to me by my family My wife, Susanne, has been, as always, a tower of strength, as have been our children and children-in-law, Lucy and Brooks Newmark, Tom and Pepy, Matthew and Sharon, and Rose and James McCarthy Their wonderful children, Benjamin, Sam, Max, Lily, Zachary, Walter, Martha, and Mamie have all helped make the passage of this book easier to navigate I would also like to thank friends in Kilmington, who include Nesta and Michael Gray, Shirley Thomas, and Eric Coombs And nally thanks to my assistant Lindsey Wood, to whom this book is dedicated Her tolerance and hard work in difficult circumstances were central to its completion ILLUSTRATION CREDITS Abraham Lincoln: Photograph by Anthony Berger Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-ppmsca-19305 Jefferson Davis: The Art Archive/Culver Pictures Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson: The Art Archive/National Archives, Washington, D.C George McClellan: The Art Archive/National Archives, Washington, D.C Former slaves: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-USZ62-118354 Company E, 4th U.S Colored Infantry: Photograph by William Morris Smith Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpb04294 Zouave Company: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpb-03688 A cavalry repeating carbine: © The Board of Trustees of the Armouries A Springfield percussion rifle-musket: © The Board of Trustees of the Armouries David Farragut: The Art Archive/National Archives, Washington D.C O cers of the USS Monitor: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-USZC4-7979 The Confederate ram Stonewall: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpb-04311 Improvised Union hospital: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpb-00202 Basic amputation set: © Dr.MichaelEchols/www.braceface.com/medical Confederate dead in a ditch at Antietam: Photographs by Alexander Gardner Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpb01100 Dead Confederate infantrymen in the Devil’s Den: Photograph by Alexander Gardner Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIGcwpb-03701 Ulysses S Grant: The Art Archive/Culver Pictures William Tecumseh Sherman: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpb-07314 Robert E Lee: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpbh-03116 George Thomas: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpbh-03123 Union engineers bridging the North Anna River: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpb-03568 Union engineers destroying a Confederate railroad: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpb-00391 Confederate dead gathered for burial: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpb-00907 The McLean house at Appomattox Court House, Virginia: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpb-03957 The ruins of Richmond, 1865: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpb-02696 The gallows built in Washington Arsenal: Photograph by Alexander Gardner Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpb04198 Veterans of Pickett’s charge: Pennsylvania State Archives, RG-25 Records of Special Commissions, Fiftieth Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, Pickett’s Charge of July 3, 1913 A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR John Keegan was born in 1934 He is the author of twenty books, of which the best known are The Face of Battle (1976); Six Armies in Normandy (1981); The Mask of Command (1987); The Second World War (1989); A History of Warfare (1993), which won the Du Cooper Prize; Warpaths (1985); The First World War (1998), which was awarded the Westminster Medal; Intelligence in War (2003); and The Iraq War (2004) In 1998 he gave the BBC Reith Lectures, which were published as War and Our World From 1960 until 1986 he taught military history at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst He has been Lees Knowles Lecturer in Military History at Cambridge University in 1986—87, a fellow of Princeton University in 1984, and Delmas Distinguished Professor of History at Vassar College in 1997 He was a trustee of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and Heritage Lottery Fund from 1994 to 2000 and is now a commissioner of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of the Royal Society of Literature He was awarded the O.B.E in the 1991 Gulf War Honours List and was knighted in 1999 for services to military history Since 1986 John Keegan has been defense editor of The Daily Telegraph He is married to the biographer Susanne Keegan and they have four children He lives in Wiltshire, England THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A KNOPF Copyright © 2009 by John Keegan All rights reserved Published in the United States by Alfred A Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto www.aaknopf.com Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc Portions of this book originally appeared in The Civil War Times and Military History Quarterly Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Keegan, John The American Civil War : a military history / by John Keegan p cm eISBN: 978-0-307-27314-7 United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Campaigns Military geography—United States—History—19th century United States—Strategic aspects United States—Geography I Title E470.K255 2009 973.7′3—dc 2009019469 v3.0 ... Whitman and Wounds 20 Civil War Generalship 21 Civil War Battle 22 Could the South Have Survived? 23 The End of the War NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS MAPS The American Civil War, 1861–65 American. .. had conferred the highest value on the family and on the sacred bond between the mother of the family and her husband, the sexual use of slave women by the planter and his sons, and the presence... Geography of the Civil War The Life of the Soldier Plans McClellan Takes Command The War in Middle America 10 Lee’s War in the East, Grant’s War in the West 11 Chancellorsville and Gettysburg