Second Brigade. Colonel Samuel P. Spear. Fifth Pennsylvania, Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Kleinz. Artillery. New York Light, Eighth Battery, (section,) Lieutenant Peter Morton. UNATTACHED TROOPS. First United States Colored Cavalry, Major Harvey W. Brown. Second United States Colored Cavalry, Colonel George W. Cole. Massachusetts Heavy Artillery, Thirteenth Company, (pontoniers,) Captain John Pickering, Jr. He was Brigadier-General Averill commanded a cavalry division operating in the valley under Hunter first, and afterwards with Crook. with Sheridan from the latter's entrance in the Valley of the Shenandoah, at a later date. There was no boy's play ahead, but work that was to make a continent rock, and whose reverberations were heard round the world. A story is told at this time, and early in the Wilderness movements, which aptly illustrates Sheridan's independence. General Meade, in immediate command of the Army of the Potomac, changed the orders of Wilson at Todd's Tavern. The spunky little commander, on learning of this interference, roundly demanded to know if he (General) Meade) commanded the cavalry, or whether he (Sheridan) did, by G." There was a stormy period, and then Meade gracefully acknowledged he was wrong. As a matter of fact, had Sheridan's orders not been tampered with by Meade on the evening of May 7th, 1864, Spottsylvania would have been successfully held in all human probability against Lee, and the terrible fight at the Bloody Angle would not have occurred. Badeau says, that while Grant's written orders to Sheridan were always sent through Meade, yet that he personally consulted with his cavalry commander on all such matters. CHAPTER XIII. FROM THE WILDERNESS TO JAMES RIVER. HOWARD'S REVIEW OF THE FIELD FROM VIRGINIA TO LOUISIANA - THE CAVALRY AND ITS TEMPER- MOVING TO THE WILDERNESS GUARDING ROADS AND SUPPLIES THE LOSSES IN THE MAY FIGHTING - SHERIDAN'S FIRST GREAT RAID ROUND RICHMOND -THE YELLOW TAVERN FIGHT- REJOINING THE ARMY. GENERAL OLIVER O. HOWARD says in the Century of July, 1887,* that: "On the 18th of March, 1864, Grant and Sherman were together at Nashville. Grant having received promotion, immediately set out for Washington, and Sherman (having returned from East Tennessee and Northern Alabama) accompanied him as far as Cincinnati. That meeting and journey were of interest. They involve the thorough discussion and planning of eventful campaigns. Soldiers like Grant and Sherman consider first the forces at their disposal, and next a plan of operations. Grant had now under his general charge all the Union armies, the Army of the Potomac, under Meade; that of the Ohio, near Knoxville under Schofield; that of the Cumberland, under Thomas, near Chattanooga; that of the Tennessee, under McPherson, scattered from Huntsville, Alabama, to the Mississippi; that of the Gulf, under Banks, in Louisiana; besides subordinate detachments, under Steele and others, in Arkansas and further west. "Grant took the whole field into his thought. He made three parts to the long, irregular line of armies, which extended from Virginia to Texas. He gave to Banks the main work beyond the Mississippi; to Sherman the middle part, covering the hosts of McPherson, Thomas, and Schofield, and reserved to himself the remainder. The numbers were known, at least on paper; the plan, promptly adopted, was simple and comprehensive: Break, and keep broken, the connecting links of the enemy's armies; beat them one by one; unite for a final consummation. Sherman's part was plain. Grant's plan, flexible "The Struggle for Atlanta," Vol. XXXIV., pp. 442-63. enough to embrace his own, afforded him infinite satisfaction.' It looked like enlightened war.'" These words of Howard's are quoted in order to give that breadth and significance to the whole vast field of operations which will enable us fully to understand the great part assigned, subordinate in outward seeming though it was, to the young major-general and division commander whom Grant, with his unerring sagacity as to soldiers, had drafted from the Army of the Cumberland to that of the Potomac, and placed in command of all its superb array of cavalry troopers. The struggle was reduced to a system of pounding on our part, costly, heroic, and full of terrible sacrifice. In it Sheridan had to do a wonderful part, breaking constantly the communications and supply lines of an already exhausted foe, holding, however, to its position - the key of the Confederate struggle with a tremendous tenacity and a slowly expiring vitality which never yielded until annihilation was threatened. Howard's few words indicate also what proved to be the weak points in Grant's comprehensive survey. It was a weakness he received and did not create. Sherman was able in the Atlanta campaign to break the last sturdy resistance of the Central South, and then by his "march to the sea," to prove that the Confederacy was indeed a "hollow shell." If the operations projected for the Southwest had been as vigorously executed, the Civil War would doubtless have closed some months earlier. A brief review of Howard's references to that "third" of the Union field, will throw some light on the causes of the long lingering vitality displayed by Lee and Johnston during the terrible punishment inflicted by Meade, Sheridan, and Sherman, in their several places, and under Grant's orders. Howard speaks of the Union lines as irregularly extending from Virginia to Texas. In reality they reached only, as to the Southwest, to the Indian Territory at Fort Gibson, and to Shreveport, Louisiana. The points held on the Gulf coast had little or no importance at the time named by Howard, who is also a little wrong in giving Banks full sway. That general was charged with an important movement up the Red River to Shreveport. General Steele at Little Rock was required to move simultaneously from that point southwesterly toward Shreveport. He moved twenty-two days later, and as a result Banks was first overwhelmed by a conjunction of the Confederates under Dick Taylor, Kirby Smith, and Sterling Price. Steele was then beaten in detail and driven back by the forces under the two latter commanders. General S. R. Curtis was commander of the Department of Kansas, and Gen eral James G. Blunt was his fighting lieutenant in the field. Under the plans first sanctioned and then overthrown by Halleck, before Grant assumed chief command of field operations, Blunt was to have had command of some twelve thousand men, mostly mounted, who from Fort Smith, Arkansas, on the border of the Indian Territory, were to have raided in the rear of the Confederate armies of the Southwest, and broken up the supply depots of Northern Texas and Louisiana. Blunt's troops were unwarrantably taken from him by Halleck's order, and transferred to Steele, who through that action moved too slow, and really caused Banks' defeat on the Red River. These facts are worth understanding, as they practically caused a prolongation of the war, by enabling the Confederate authorities to retain unharmed its enormous cattle and wheat sources in Texas, and preserving also for nearly twelve months longer the power of reinforcement from the armies in the Southwest. These actions and changes sprang from the prejudices, and not the wisdom of Halleck, Steele, and other officers of the regular army, who were in high places. The men of Kansas were "antislavery radicals," and that was sufficient until Grant assumed full command, and obtained thereby the necessary understanding of the whole field. One of his first orders was to assign Rosecrans to command of the Missouri Department, and Pleasonton as second, with headquarters at St. Louis. On Sheridan's advent, the cavalry arm of the Army of the Potomac was found somewhat demoralized by the same influences that had up to that date injured the morale of the entire force. It was in large part due to the army's undue nearness to the national capital, and the political forces collected there, which sometimes proved potent to arouse personal ambition and disturb discipline. Even Gettysburg had not succeeded in restoring, or rather, in creating, a fighting unity. It needed the presence of commanders untouched by the forces which had for nearly three years, more or less, unfavorably affected the efficiency of a great and valiant soldiery. It was also necessary that the commander should have rank enough to command all the gallant generals who were there upon the final battle-fields. In the promotion of U. S. Grant this was achieved. As to the cavalry, it was ready to receive the soldier who had stormed Missionary Ridge. Major-General Alfred Pleasonton, a splendid organizer and tactician at least, but who was not popular with his brigadiers, was sent by Grant to the Department of the Missouri. Sheridan took his command. From that hour Pleasonton was forgotten. What a galaxy of men, mainly young, too, like himself, did the new trooper find awaiting his commands! |