Military Reminiscences of the Civil War (Vol.1&2). Jacob D. Cox
of the English Army, Colonel J. F. Maurice, R. A. Professor in the Farnborough Staff College. In the able article on "War" in the last edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, he says, "it must be emphatically asserted that there does not exist, and never except by pedants of whom the most careful students of war are more impatient than other soldiers, has there ever been supposed to exist, an 'art of war' which was something other than the methodic study of military history."
12 "Question. You have studied the history of battles a great deal: Now, in the battles of Napoleon, had they at any time half as many artillery engaged as there were at Gettysburg? Answer. I am not sufficiently conversant with military history to tell you that. I think it very doubtful whether more guns were ever used in any one battle before. I do not believe Napoleon ever had a worse artillery fire." Testimony of General John Gibbon, Committee on Conduct of the War, vol. iv. p. 444. At Gettysburg the whole number of cannon employed was about two hundred. Compare this with Leipzig, for instance, the "battle of the giants," where two thousand were employed! Thiers says, "de Leipzig à Schönfeld au nord, de Schönfeld à Probstheyda à l'est, de Probstheyda à Connewitz au sud, une cannonade de deux mille bouches à feu termina cette bataille dit des géants, et jusqu'ici la plus grande, certainement, de tous les siecles." Thiers, Consulat et l'Empire, vol. xvi. p. 607.
13 Wellington said the great task of his military life was "trying to make out what was behind the hill."
CHAPTER X
THE MOUNTAIN DEPARTMENT--SPRING CAMPAIGN
Rosecrans's plan of campaign--Approved by McClellan with modification--Wagons or pack-mules--Final form of plan--Changes in commands--McClellan limited to Army of the Potomac--Halleck's Department of the Mississippi--Fremont's Mountain Department--Rosecrans superseded--Preparations in the Kanawha District--Batteaux to supplement steamboats--Light wagons for mountain work--Fremont's plan--East Tennessee as an objective--The supply question--Banks in the Shenandoah valley--Milroy's advance--Combat at McDowell--Banks defeated--Fremont's plans deranged--Operations in the Kanawha valley--Organization of brigades--Brigade commanders--Advance to Narrows of New River--The field telegraph--Concentration of the enemy--Affair at Princeton--Position at Flat-top Mountain.
As the spring of 1862 approached, the discussion of plans for the opening of a new campaign was resumed. Rosecrans had suggested, early in February, that he would prefer to attempt reaching the Virginia and East Tennessee Railroad by two columns moving simultaneously upon Abingdon in the Holston valley. One of these would start from Gauley Bridge and go by way of Fayette, Raleigh, and Princeton; the other would leave some point in the Big-Sandy valley on the common boundary of Kentucky and Virginia, and march by most direct route to Abingdon. 1 If this plan were approved, he asked that the west side of the Big-Sandy valley be added to his department. He proposed to depend largely upon pack-mule trains in place of wagons, to substitute the French shelter tent for the larger tents still in use, and to carry hand-mills by which the soldiers might grind into meal the Indian corn to be found in the country. McClellan, as general-in-chief, gave his approval, suggesting a modification in regard to the column to move from the Big-Sandy valley. His information led him to believe that the Big-Sandy River could be relied upon as navigable to Prestonburg, which was seventy miles from Abingdon by what was supposed to be a good road. He thought, therefore, that it would be easier to make Prestonburg the base and to use wagons. 2 On investigation Rosecrans reported that the most feasible route in that region was by steamboat transportation to Pikeville, twenty-five miles above Prestonburg, in the Big-Sandy valley, and thence up the Louisa Fork of the Big-Sandy by way of Pound Gap to the Holston valley; but there would still be eighty-eight miles of marching after leaving the steamboats, and navigation on the Big-Sandy was limited to brief and infrequent periods of high water.
On the 12th of March he submitted his modified plan to the adjutant-general of the army. 3 It had grown more complex with the passage of time. The eastern line of the department had been moved forward so as to bring the South Branch of the Potomac and the Cow-pasture branch of the James River under Rosecrans's command. He now planned four separate columns. The first was to move up the south branch of the Potomac with a view to turn and to capture the enemy's position at Alleghany Summit or Monterey on the Staunton turnpike. The second and third were to be in my district, and to move toward the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad on the two sides of New River. The fourth should march from the Big-Sandy valley on the line indicated above. Rosecrans seems to have limited his plan to the occupation of the mountain valleys as far east as the Blue Ridge, and did not submit any scheme for uniting his columns for further work. He asked for reinforcements to the extent of six regiments of infantry, one of cavalry, and two field batteries to enable him to perform his task. The use of pack trains was given up, as they required a greater number of animals than could be procured. In fact, it was never found to be an economical use of mule power, and important movements were always confined to lines upon which wheel vehicles could be used. A rapid cavalry raid could be thus supplied, but heavy columns of infantry and artillery demanded wagon trains.
The weakness of Rosecrans's scheme is found in the wide separation of parallel columns, which could never have co-operated with success, and which had no common object had success been possible. To be sure, it was presumed that McClellan with the Army of the Potomac, and Banks in the Shenandoah valley, would be operating in eastern Virginia; but as McClellan was already bent on making Chesapeake Bay his base, and keeping as far as possible from the mountains, there was no real connection or correlation between his purposed campaign and that of the others. Indeed, had he succeeded in driving Lee from Richmond toward the west, as Grant did three years later, the feeble columns of National troops coming from West Virginia would necessarily have fallen back again before the enemy. If the general scheme had been planned by Lee himself, it could not have secured for him more perfectly the advantage of interior lines. Yet it was in substance that which was tried when the spring opened.
When Rosecrans's letter, enclosing his final plan, reached Washington, McClellan had taken the field, and President Lincoln had made use of the occasion to relieve him from the direction of all other forces, so that he might give undivided attention to his campaign with the Potomac army. This was done by an executive order on March 11, 4 which assigned General Halleck to the command of everything west of a line drawn north and south through Knoxville, Tennessee, and formed the Mountain Department from the territory between Halleck and McClellan. This last department was put under the command of Major-General John C. Frémont. General Banks was commanding in the Shenandoah valley, but he was at this time subordinate to McClellan. These changes were unexpected to both McClellan and Rosecrans. The change in McClellan's relations to the whole army was the natural result of his inactivity during the autumn of 1861, and the consequent loss of confidence in him. The union of Buell's and Halleck's commands in the west was the natural counterpart to the concentration of Confederate armies under A. S. Johnston at Corinth, Miss., and was a step in the right direction. There was, however, a little too much sentiment and too little practical war in the construction of the Mountain Department out of five hundred miles of mountain ranges, and the appointment of the "path-finder" to command it was consistent with the romantic character of the whole. The mountains formed a natural and admirable barrier, at which comparatively small bodies of troops could cover and protect the Ohio valley behind them; but, for reasons which I have already pointed out, extensive military operations across and beyond the Alleghanies from west or east were impracticable, because a wilderness a hundred miles wide, crossed by few and most difficult roads, rendered it impossible to supply troops from depots on either side.
Such assurances