The Situation in the American Theater of War

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THE capture of New Orleans, as the detailed reports now at hand show, is distinguished as a deed of valor almost unparalleled. The fleet of the Unionists consisted merely of wooden ships: about six warships, each having from 14 to 25 guns, supported by a numerous flotilla of gunboats and mortar vessels. This fleet had before it two forts that blocked the passage of the Mississippi. Within range of the 100 guns of these forts the stream was barred by a strong chain, behind which was a mass of torpedoes, fire-floats and other instruments of destruction. These first obstacles had therefore to be overcome in order to pass between the forts. On the further side of the forts, however, was a second formidable line of defense formed by ironclad gunboats, among them the Manassas, an iron ram, and the Louisiana, a powerful floating battery. After the Unionists had bombarded the two forts, which completely command the stream, for six days without any effect, they resolved to brave their fire, force the iron barrier in three divisions, sail up the river and risk battle with the “ironsides.” The hazardous enterprise succeeded. As soon as the flotilla effected a landing before New Orleans, the victory was naturally won.

Beauregard had now nothing more to defend in Corinth. His position there had only any import so long as it covered Mississippi and Louisiana, and especially New Orleans. He now finds himself strategically in the position that a lost battle would leave him no other choice than to disband his army into guerrillas; for without a large town, where railroads and supplies are concentrated, in the rear of his army, he can no longer hold masses of men together.

McClellan has incontrovertibly proved that he is a military incompetent who, having been raised by favorable circumstances to a commanding and responsible position, wages war not in order to defeat the foe, but rather in order not to be defeated by the foe and thus forfeits his own usurped greatness. He bears himself like the old so-called “maneuvering generals” who excused their anxious avoidance of any tactical decision with the plea that by strategic envelopment they obliged the enemy to give up his positions. The Confederates always escape him, because at the decisive moment he never attacks them. Thus, although their plan of retreat had already been announced ten days before, even by the New York papers (for example, the Tribune), he let them quietly retire from Manassas to Richmond. He then divided his army and flanked the Confederates strategically, whilst with one corps of troops he established himself before Yorktown. Siege operations always afford a pretext for wasting time and avoiding battle. As soon as he had concentrated a military force superior to the Confederates, he let them retire from Yorktown to Williamsburg and from there further, without forcing them to join battle. A war has never yet been so wretchedly waged. If the rearguard action near Williamsburg ended in defeat for the Confederate rearguard instead of in a second Bull Run for the Union troops, McClellan was wholly innocent of this result.

After a march of about twelve miles (English) in a twenty-four hours’ downpour of rain and through veritable seas of mud, 8,000 Union troops under General Heintzelman (of German descent, but born in Pennsylvania) arrived in the vicinity of Williamsburg and met with only weak pickets of the enemy. As soon, however, as the latter had assured himself of their numerically inferior strength, he dispatched from his picked troops at Williamsburg reënforcements that gradually increased the number of his men to 25,000 strong. By nine o’clock in the morning battle had been joined in earnest; by half past twelve General Heintzelman discovered that the engagement was going in favor of the foe. He sent messenger after messenger to General Kearny, who was eight miles to his rear, but could only push slowly forward in consequence of the complete “dissolution” of the roads by the rain. For a whole hour Heintzelman remained without reënforcements and the 7th and

8th Jersey regiment, which had exhausted its stock of powder, began to run for the woods on either side of the road. Heintzelman now caused Colonel Menill and a squadron of Pennsylvania cavalry to take up a position on both fringes of the forest, with the threat of firing on the fugitives. This brought the latter once more to a standstill.

Order was further restored by the example of a Massachusetts regiment, which had likewise exhausted its powder, but now fixed bayonets to its muskets and awaited the foe with calm demeanor. At length Kearny’s vanguard under Brigadier [General] Berry (from the State of Maine) came in sight. Heintzelman’s army received its rescuers with a wild “Hurrah”; he had the regimental band strike up “Yankee Doodle” and Berry’s fresh forces form a line almost half a mile in length in front of his exhausted troops. After preliminary musket fire, Berry’s brigade made a bayonet charge at the double and drove the foe off the battlefield to his earthworks, the largest of which after repeated attacks and counterattacks remained in the possession of the Union troops. Thus the equilibrium of the battle was restored. Berry’s arrival had saved the Unionists. The arrival of the brigades of Jameson and Birney at four o’clock decided the victory. At nine o’clock in the evening the retreat of the Confederates from Williamsburg began; on the following day they continued it—in the direction of Richmond—hotly pursued by Heintzelman’s cavalry. On the morning after the battle, between six and seven o’clock, Heintzelman had already caused Williamsburg to be occupied by General Jameson. The rearguard of the fleeing foe had evacuated the town from the opposite end only half an hour before. Heintzelman’s battle was an infantry battle in the true sense of the word. Artillery hardly came into action. Musket fire and bayonet attack were decisive. If the Congress at Washington wanted to pass a vote of thanks, it should have been to General Heintzelman, who saved the Yankees from a second Bull Run, and not to McClellan, who in his wonted fashion avoided “the tactical decision” and let the numerically weaker adversary escape for the third time.

The Confederate army in Virginia has better chances than Beauregard’s army, first because it is facing a McClellan instead of a Halleck, and then because the many streams on its line of retreat flow crosswise from the mountains to the sea. However, in order to avoid breaking up into bands without a battle, its generals will sooner or later be forced to accept a decisive battle, just as the Russians were obliged to fight at Smolensk and Borodino, though against the will of their generals, who judged the situation correctly. Lamentable as McClellan’s military leadership has been, the constant retirements, accompanied by abandonment of artillery, munitions and other military stores, and simultaneously the small, unlucky rearguard engagements, have at any rate badly demoralized the Confederates, as will become manifest on the day of a decisive battle. We arrive, therefore, at the following summary of the situation:

Should Beauregard or Jefferson Davis lose a decisive battle, their armies will then break up into bands. Should one of them win a decisive battle, which is altogether unlikely, in the best case the disbanding of their armies will then be deferred. They are not in a position to make the least lasting use even of a victory. They cannot advance 20 English miles without coming to a standstill and again awaiting the renewed offensive of the foe.

There still remains to examine the chances of guerrilla war. But precisely in respect to the present war of the slaveholders it is most amazing how slight, or rather how wholly lacking is the participation of the population in it. In 1813 the communications of the French were continually interrupted and harassed by Colomb, Lützow, Chernyshev and twenty other leaders of insurgents and Cossacks. In 1812 the population in Russia vanished completely from the French line of march; in 1814 the French peasants armed themselves and slew the patrols and stragglers of the Allies. But here nothing happens at all. Men resign themselves to the fate of the big battles and console themselves with “Victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa Catoni.” The tall talk of war by water passes off in smoke. There can be hardly any doubt, it is true, that the white trash, as the planters themselves call the “poor whites,” will attempt guerrilla warfare and brigandage. Such an attempt, however, will very quickly transform the possessing planters into Unionists. They will themselves call the troops of the Yankees to their aid. The alleged burnings of cotton, etc., on the Mississippi rest exclusively on the testimony of two Kentuckians who are said to have come to Louisville—certainly not up the Mississippi. The conflagration in New Orleans was easily organized. The fanaticism of the merchants of New Orleans is explained by the fact that they were obliged to take a quantity of Confederate treasury bonds for hard cash. The conflagration at New Orleans will be repeated in other towns; assuredly, also, much will be otherwise burnt; but theatrical coups like this can only bring the dissension between the planters and the “white trash” to a head and therewith—“finis Secessiæ”!