The Times Great Military Lives: Leadership and Courage – from Waterloo to the Falklands in Obituaries. Ian Brunskill
to threaten an attack, in the hope that Lee would withdraw part of his force from Petersburg to meet this new movement. In the meantime a mine had been dug under a fort occupying an advanced position in the Confederate defensive lines, directly behind which was Cemetery hill, the most commanding ground in Petersburg.
This mine was a gallery 520ft. long, terminating in lateral branches 40ft. long in each direction, and it was charged with 8,000 pounds of powder. General Burnside had it in charge, and if the Confederate works were blown up by the explosion other troops were disposed so as to quickly reinforce him. The Deep Bottom expedition having reached its post, the mine was exploded on July 30 about daybreak, blowing up the fort and its garrison of about 500 Confederates, belonging to a South Carolina Regiment. The explosion made a crater about 30ft.deep, 200ft. long, and 60ft. wide, and the Confederates fled from their works on either hand. The sides of the crater were rough and steep, so that they could not be mounted in military order. A single Union regiment managed to climb up, and made for Cemetery Hill; but, others not following, they faltered and finally fell back into the crater. The Confederates quickly rallied, poured in shells, and planted guns to command the approach. Four hours were spent in this ineffectual effort, and then the Union forces were withdrawn, leaving 1,900, prisoners, their entire loss being about 4,000, while the Confederates lost about 1,000.
This result was disheartening, and a long period of comparative inaction followed, Grant making movements to get possession of the railways south and west of Petersburg, which Lee steadily foiled. Butler tried to cut the Dutch Gap Canal across a narrow neck of land to divert the James, but this was also unsuccessful. Nothing of interest occurred in the autumn or winter, the two armies watching each other, although movements elsewhere were gradually enclosing the Confederacy in narrower limits, until, when spring opened and Sherman’s march from Atlanta had come out to the sea, it was practically reduced to southern Virginia and northern North Carolina. Lee and Johnston, all told, then had less than 100,000 rebels, while Grant, Sherman, and others were pressing them in all directions. Petersburg and Richmond were successfully held, but their supplies were endangered, and at times cut off.
Lee in March planned to abandon Petersburg and Richmond, and to unite with Johnston, who was on the Carolina border. Lee to facilitate his withdrawal threw an offensive movement against the Union right. On the morning of March 25, squads of Confederates announcing themselves as deserters approached the Union lines, and this being a common occurrence no suspicion was aroused. Suddenly, however, these squads overpowered the pickets, and a Confederate column 5,000 strong rushed out and seized a fort. In a few minutes the Union guns from all sides began playing upon the fort, and it was speedily retaken, less than half the Confederates being able to regain their lines. The contest extended, and the Confederates lost altogether 4,500 and the Union army 2,000. Grant then began a movement westward to turn the Confederate right, the troops being in full motion by March 29. The moving columns were about 50,000, including 10,000 cavalry under Sheridan. Lee had an intrenched line at Petersburg about 10 miles long, and leaving 10,000 men to defend it, collected all his remaining force, not 20,000 men, to oppose this flanking movement.
A furious storm next day made the roads almost impassable, but on the 31st the two forces met at Five Forks, about eight miles south-west of Petersburg, and had a severe conflict. Lee gained some advantage, and on April the 1st drove the Union advance about three miles southward to Dinwiddie. Reinforcements coming up, Sheridan, who was in command, forced the Confederates back to Five Forks and then beyond it, routing them at Hatcher’s Run and the cavalry pursuing them for miles. This broke up the two corps of Lee’s army upon which he had placed the most reliance, the Confederates losing 6,000 prisoners, besides large numbers killed and wounded. Simultaneously with this movement a heavy bombardment was made upon the works at Petersburg and a general assault was ordered on April 2, the outposts being captured. Lee that night abandoned both Petersburg and Richmond. The Confederates still had 40,000 men, but they were widely scattered and the only forlorn hope was in concentration. Before daybreak on April 3 the Confederates had all withdrawn from Petersburg, crossed the Appomattox and burnt the bridges behind them, at the same time blowing up the magazines on the whole line to Richmond. The Union troops immediately advanced, and were met by the Mayor of Petersburg, who surrendered the city. To unite their forces, Lee moved north-west from Petersburg and Longstreet south-west from Richmond, and they came together at Chesterfield. Thence they moved westward, Grant pursuing on parallel roads to the southward. Lee had ordered a provision train to meet him at Amelia, but through mistake of orders it went on to Richmond without unloading, so that when he arrived he found no rations for the famishing troops and had to halt and send out foraging parties. This delay was fatal, for Grant’s troops came up and surrounded him, so that further resistance was useless. On April 8 Grant sent Lee a message to the effect that there was no hope of any further successful resistance and demanding surrender in order to avoid further shedding of blood.
Lee replied, asking the terms upon which a surrender would be received. Grant named as the sole condition that ‘the men aud officers surrendered shall be disqualified from taking up arms again against the Government of the United States until properly discharged.’ Lee, on the 9th, met Grant near Appomattox Court-house, and the terms of surrender were agreed upon. The list of paroled prisoners was 27,805, but of these barely one third had any arms, there being only 10,000 muskets and 30 cannon found. All the rest of Lee’s army had been killed or captured, or had deserted during the operations around Richmond and Petersburg.
Thus ended the great civil war, and Grant became a hero of world-wide renown.
Grant was himself partly responsible for confusion over his names. Christened Hiram Ulysses, he wished to avoid being nick-named ‘Hug’ and so reversed the sequence on his application for West Point, but the congressman through whom the application passed mistakenly entered him as Ulysses Simpson. A fine horseman since boyhood, it was his hope to join the cavalry, in which he would doubtless have done well, as his understanding of manoeuvre and pursuit during the Civil War was to demonstrate, but lack of a cavalry vacancy resulted in him being commissioned into the 4th Infantry. His reason for leaving the army in 1854 is attributed to a rebuke for heavy drinking, through boredom, while in command of a small isolated fort on the California frontier.
There are indications of some intellectual laziness, not only in his failed business ventures but also in his conduct of set-piece battles where much careful thought is required. In fluid warfare, opportunities to exploit the enemy’s situation suggest themselves, so long as the commander has a working grasp of the ground, but frontal attacks such as he made at Corinth in 1862 and against Lee in Richmond in 1864 brought only a terrible ‘butcher’s bill’ of casualties to the Union Army. His slow and deliberate speech was consistent with his real military strength as a strategist, as was his lack of outward concern for the losses his mistakes incurred, a concern usually associated with the thinking of a tactician.
The American Civil War was the first fought in a nation-wide industrial context and Grant appreciated that from well before he became commander-in-chief of the Union armies. His strategies were designed to destroy the Confederate capability and will to continue the struggle, although the idea of Sherman’s ‘March to the Sea’ devastating the wheatlands of Georgia, came from Sherman. Grant was initially opposed to the plan and even as complete success was in prospect, urged Sherman to caution. A straight comparison between Grant and his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee is complicated by their different troop strengths and politico-strategic objectives. Given an even contest, Lee would probably have won.
American soldier: ‘one of the noblest soldiers who have ever drawn a sword in a cause which they believed just.’
12 OCTOBER 1870
EVEN AMID THE turmoil of the great European struggle the intelligence from America announcing that General Robert E. Lee is dead will bs received with deep sorrow by many in this country, as well as by his followers and fellow-soldiers in America. It is but a few years since Robert Lee ranked among the great men of the present Time. He was the able soldier of the Southern Confederacy, the bulwark of her northern frontier, the obstacle to