gt Mrs. Newry B. Joy 8/16/46

INTRODUCTION.

DURING the late War it was common to speak of the "indecisiveness" of its greatest battles. In one sense, the reflec tion was just; since the very occurrence of so many engagements showed that no one had been finally decisive. But in the more important sense, the comment was false; and its error lay in forgetting that a battle inconclusive as to the whole problem. of the war may yet be conclusive as to one stage of that problem This distinction could not easily be drawn during the heat and ferment of actual conflict; and especially when popular criticism was more in the way of impatient complaint against the conduct of operations than of thoughtful study of their weight and meaning.

The Sadowas of history are few, since few are the wars wherein the antagonists concur to expend all their gathered powers in one blow, and, having set their fortunes on a single cast, resolve to stand the hazard of the die. More commonly, whether by reason of near equality in the combatants, or of geographical, social, political obstacles to easy conquest, or by reason of the intense passions aroused, or from whatever cause, wars are long-continuing and dubious, stretch over many campaigns, and embrace many

great battles. Of such sort was the American War of Insurrection.

Where a Tours or a Waterloo is in discussion, the question regarding its results is quickly settled, the most unreflective appreciating them at a glance. But where, in the other class of wars, the final issue can be traced back to no single field, but many great and sanguinary ones are on the record, the study of the comparative influence of each joinder in battle upon the grand result becomes far more attractive, profound, and useful. A hasty critic will aver that all the battles of such a contest were indecisive; a more judicious observer discriminates between them, and assigns to each its proper historic value.

But what rule of judgment shall be adopted, so as to select from the throng of battles those which may be pronounced decisive? The rule should be to choose such as settled the fate of campaigns, the possession of great strategic points, the capture or dispersion of armies, the success or defeat of grand invasions, and, in brief, such battles as, though not final upon the war itself, were final upon the successive stages through which the war was fated to pass.

My purpose in this volume has been to describe, according to this principle, the decisive battles of the late War in America. It is not probable that all, or even the majority of my readers, will agree with me in all the battles I have selected; nor would all, or perhaps any greater number, agree in any other selection or combination. Each student of the war, from his peculiar turn of mind, or habit of thought, or from pardonable local prejudice, or from special sources of information, may honestly form his own opinion on the decisiveness of its battles. Besides,

the events themselves are so recent, that the deceptive haze sur rounding them may not yet, in all cases, have furled away. Still, with regard to most of the battles here set forth, there must needs be substantial unanimity; and with regard to the rest, I am convinced, from much examination, that they will stand the test of criticism. Possibly, he who objects to the presence or absence of this or the other battle in the list may find his neighbor quite satisfied on that point, while the latter, in turn, regrets an omission or insertion which had greatly pleased the former.

During the war, many operations at first appeared trivial which brought forth the largest results; while others, like those on the coast of North Carolina or west of the Mississippi, whence great things were expected, sank in value, though prosecuted to success. So, too, actions in which victory was claimed, for the moment, by both parties, like Shiloh or the naval fight in Hampton Roads, proved to be not dubious, but decisive in their fruits: others, thought to be overwhelming, like Fredericksburg, did not essentially vary the time or the manner of the war's con clusion. But the mist which immediately enveloped both events and actors, could not but distort the former from their true bearings, some being greatly magnified, others as greatly diminished; nor could they take on their just size and relations until they lay in the perspective of history.

Of the twelve decisive battles, Bull Run made known that the contest was to be a war, not a "sixty days" riot: Donelson conquered the western Border States for the Union: Shiloh overthrew the first, and Murfreesboro' the second, of the Con. federate aggressive campaigns at the West: Antietam overthrew

the first, and Gettysburg the second, of the Confederate aggres sive campaigns at the East: the fight of the Monitor and Merrimac settled the naval supremacy of the Union: Vicksburg reopened the Mississippi, and, as it were, bisected the Confederacy: Atlanta opened a path through Georgia, and, as it were, trisected the Confederacy: the battle in the Wilderness inaugurated that dernier resort of "hammering out" which made an end of the Insurrection: Nashville annihilated the Confederacy at the West: Five Forks was the initial stroke of that series under which it toppled at the East, and so the continent over.

Many battles there are, only a little less lustrous than these, as worthy of record in a complete history, and seeming for the time as decisive, but which, in fine, assumed each a different aspect when, in the progress of events, another battle was required to solve that part of the problem which they had been designed to solve. Thus, Fredericksburg did not substantially alter the relations of the combatants, sanguinary as was the shock of arms, but left them facing each other for a more decisive grapple. Thus, Chancellorsville, conclusive though it then appeared, did not settle that summer's campaign, as was seen when, a few weeks later, it was decided on the heights of Gettysburg. Thus, the magnificent conquest of New Orleans did not open the great river, but that result waited for the triumph at Vicksburg, while on the other hand the trans-Mississippi campaigns to which it gave rise, and whence so much was expected, affected but slightly the development of the war. Thus, the expulsion of Bragg from the crest of Missionary Ridge left his army to make front again beyond the Georgia line, and it was Sherman's campaign that drove it into and out from Atlanta. Thus, that first prolonged

and terrible measure of strength between the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia, which began with the Peninsular campaign, was not ended there betwixt the York and the James, but very far away, on the banks of the Antietam. Nor did the Peninsular struggle, nor the passage of arms with Pope that succeeded it, give the right clue to the final and decisive battle of the varied campaign. Thus, Spottsylvania, North Anna, and Cold Harbor, were features of a campaign which did not end the war, but was prudently abandoned for a better; and though all were startling expressions of a decisive element in the war, namely, that of unceasing "attrition," yet this element had been introduced at the previous battle of the Wilderness, and had stamped it as a decisive action.

It only remains to subjoin a word upon the method and manner of the present volume. A somewhat close military study of the war from its beginning to its end, and indeed up to this writing, many facilities in the possession of documents and verbal information communicated to me by busy actors in the drama, joined with some personal observation of a part of the battle-scenes here depicted, induced its publication. In a former work I purported to set forth a "critical history" of one of the great Union armies. My aim now is to give a series of battle-sketches designed more for popular than professional instruction. seemed to me that from many of the books on the war a wrong impressions of the event described would be left on the mind of the reader. I have endeavored to give a true and impartial account of the battles here recorded, that the perusal might neither mislead nor be devoid of profit. And in order to gain for the book a readier acceptance I have labored, while holding

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