The War In America

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This is an abridged version of the series of articles about the American Civil War (see Note 468) which Engels wrote in the first half of March 1862 for the New-York Daily Tribune. For an idea of Engels’ work on the series, see his letter to Marx of March 8, 1862 and Marx’s reply of March 15 (present edition, Vol. 41). Engels, however, did not manage to publish the articles in the Tribune (by that time a break had occurred between Marx and its editors, among whom supporters of a compromise with the Southern plantation owners increased influence). Marx translated Engels’ work into German, supplemented it with his own text, and sent it to the Vienna newspaper Die Presse where it was printed on March 26 and 27, 1862 under the heading “The Civil War in America” (see present edition, Vol. 19). The text of The Volunteer Journal version in this volume and that of Die Presse therefore largely coincide, though the latter is naturally more complete and informative, in particular as regards details of the capture of Nashville by the Northerners, news of which was received after the article for The Volunteer Journal had been written.

In The Volunteer Journal the article was published unsigned, but with the editorial remark: “By the Author of ‘Essays Addressed to Volunteers’.”

p. 530

The real opening of the campaign in this war dates from the advance of the Union forces in Kentucky. Not before Missouri and Western Virginia had been finally reconquered did this advance commence. The Secessionist troops held three strong positions—entrenched camps—in the State of Kentucky: Columbus, on the Mississippi, on their left; Bowling Green, in the centre; Mill Springs, on the Cumberland River, on their right. Their line thus extended fully 250 miles as the crow flies. By road, the distance certainly was 300 miles east and west. Such an extended line precluded all possibility of these corps supporting each other, and gave the Federal forces a chance of attacking each of them separately with superior forces. There was no great risk in such a course, as none of the three Secessionist corps were strong enough to advance, even if unopposed, beyond the Ohio River.

The great mistake in the Secessionist position was the attempt to occupy everything, and the consequent dissemination of the troops. One strong central entrenched camp, destined to be the prepared battle-field for a decisive action, and held by the main body, would have defended Kentucky far more efficiently; for it must either have attracted the main body of the Federals, or placed them in a disadvantageous position if they attempted to march past it without noticing this strong concentration of troops. As it was, the Federals attempted to attack these three camps one after another, and to manoeuvre their enemy out of them, so as to compel him to fight in the open. This plan was completely in accordance with the rules of military art, and it was executed with a vigour and rapidity which deserves much commendation, as well as the perfect success obtained. Towards the middle of January, a body of 15,000 Federals moved upon Mill Springs, which was held by about 10,000 Confederates. The Federals manoeuvred so as to make their adversaries believe that but a weak force was in the neighbourhood, and the Confederate general, Zollicoffer, at once took the bait thrown out to him. He marched out of his works, attacked the first Federal body he met, but very soon found that he had to do with a force superior to his own in numbers, and at least its equal in spirit and discipline. He fell, and his troops were as completely routed as the Federals had been at Bull Run.

But this time the victory was followed up far differently. The beaten army were pursued very closely until they arrived, broken, demoralised, and deprived of their field artillery and baggage, at their camp of Mill Springs. The camp was constructed on the northern shore of the Cumberland River, so that the troops, in case of another defeat, had no retreat but by a few steamers and boats across the river. We shall find that almost all these Secessionist camps were thus placed on the enemy’s side of a river. Such an encampment is perfectly correct, and of the greatest utility—when there is a bridge.

The camp, in that case, serves as a bridge-head, and gives to its occupants the chance of throwing their forces at will on either bank of the river, by which alone they obtain a perfect command over it. But to do the same thing when there is no bridge, is to place your troops in a position where they have no retreat after an unlucky engagement, and when, therefore, they will either have to surrender or to be massacred and drowned, same as the Federals were whom General Stone’s treachery had sent across the Potomac at Balls Bluff. Accordingly, when the defeated Secessionists reached their camp at Mill Springs, the fact at once became patent to them that unless they could beat off an attack on their entrenchments, they would have to surrender very speedily. After the experience of the morning, they had no longer any confidence in their powers of resistance; and when the Federals, next morning, advanced to attack the entrenched camp, they found that the enemy had taken advantage of the night to cross the river, abandoning camp, baggage, artillery, and stores. Thus the extreme right of the Confederate line was driven back into Tennessee; and Eastern Kentucky, where the population are chiefly Union men, was reconquered for the Union.

About the same time—the second half of January—the preparations for dislodging the Secessionists from Columbus and Bowling Green were commenced. A strong fleet of mortar-boats and iron-clad gunboats had been got ready, and the news was spread everywhere that they were to accompany the march of a strong army down the Mississippi, from Cairo to Memphis and New Orleans. A ridiculously conspicuous reconnaissance was made towards Columbus. The retreat of this strong body of troops, which did not effect anything, even looked like a serious check to the Union troops. But it seems that all these demonstrations on the Mississippi were mere blinds. When everything was ready, the gunboats were quietly removed into the Ohio, and thence into the Tennessee River, which they steamed up to Fort Henry. This place, together with Fort Donelson, on the Cumberland River, formed a second line of defence of the Secessionists in Tennessee. The position was well chosen; for if they had retreated behind the Cumberland River, this would have covered their front, and the Tennessee River their left flank, while the narrow strip of land between the two would have been sufficiently covered by the two camps just named. But the rapid action of the Federals broke through the second line before even the left and centre of the first was attacked.

In the first week of February, the Federal gunboats appeared before Fort Henry, and shelled it with such effect that it at once surrendered. The garrison escaped to Fort Donelson, the land force of the expedition not being strong enough to invest the place. Then the gunboats steamed down the Tennessee again, up the Ohio, and up the Cumberland, towards Fort Donelson; only one gunboat boldly steamed up the Tennessee, right through the heart of the State of Tennessee, skirting the State of Mississippi, and penetrating as far as Florence, in Northern Alabama, where a series of flats and swamps (the so-called mussel shoals) stop further navigation. The single fact of one gunboat performing this long journey (at least 150 miles) and returning without ever being attacked, proves in itself that there must be, along this river at least, a strongly prevailing Union sentiment, which no doubt will tell very powerfully if the Federals should penetrate so far.

The naval expedition up the Cumberland now concerted its movements with those of the land forces under Generals Halleck and Grant. The Secessionists at Bowling Green were deceived as to the Federal movements, and remained quiet and confident in their camp, while a week after the fall of Fort Henry, Fort Donelson was invested on the land side by 40,000 Federals and menaced on the river by a powerful fleet of gunboats. Same as Mill Springs and Fort Henry, the entrenched camp of Fort Donelson was constructed with its rear to the river and no bridge for a retreat. It was the strongest place the Federals had as yet attacked. The works were not only constructed with much greater care, but, besides, it was large enough to shelter the 20,000 men which held it. On the first day of the attack, the gunboats silenced the fire of the batteries facing the river and shelled the interior of the works, while the land forces drove in the enemy’s outposts and compelled the main body to take shelter close under the guns of their works. On the second day, the gunboats, having suffered severely the day before, appear to have done little work, but the land forces had to fight a long and sometimes severe battle with the columns of the garrison, which tried to break through their right in order to keep open the line of retreat towards Nashville. But a vigorous attack of the Federal right upon the Secessionist left, and strong reinforcements sent to the Federal left, decided the victory in favour of the assailants. Several outworks had been stormed; the garrison, hemmed in within their inner lines of defence, without any chances of retreat, and evidently not in a condition to resist an assault next morning, surrendered on the third day unconditionally. General Floyd escaped on the evening of the second day, it is said, with 5,000 men. It is not quite clear how that was possible; the number is too large to have been stowed away on steamers during the night; but still they may have successively crossed the river, and escaped along its right bank. The whole of the artillery, baggage, and stores, together with 13,300 prisoners, fell into the hands of the Unionists; 1,000 more prisoners were made next day, and on the appearance of the Federal advanced guard, Clarksville, a town higher up the river, surrendered with great quantities of stores, collected there for the Secessionist troops.

Whether Nashville has also fallen, appears very uncertain, and we can scarcely believe it. As it is, these successes of the Federals, in the short space of three weeks, are quite enough for them to be satisfied with. Columbus, the only place the Secessionists now hold in Kentucky, they can continue to hold at very great risks only. If they lose a decisive battle in Tennessee, the garrison of Columbus cannot escape being compelled to surrender, unless the Federals commit very great blunders. And that the Confederates are now compelled to fight a decisive battle in Tennessee, is one of the great results of the Federal victories. They have concentrated, we are told, 65,000 men at and about Nashville; it may be that they have succeeded in collecting even a larger force. But the combined troops of Halleck, Grant, Buell, and Thomas, together with the reserve now hurrying up from the camps of instruction in Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, will enable the Federals to outnumber them; and with their morale necessarily much raised above that of their adversaries by the late successes, and with a strong Union party among the population to keep them well informed of the movements of the enemy, we do not see that they have any reason to be afraid of the issue.