Let 'Em Up Easy

(Moc.org)

The Appomattox Campaign

Abraham Lincoln had been at General Grant's headquarters at City Point near Petersburg since March 24 when the news came of the fall of Richmond on April 3 and he could not resist the temptation to see the rebel capital which the armies under his command had sought to capture for four often frustrating and always bloody years.

The next morning Lincoln, accompanied by his son Tad, traveled by ship and barge up the James River.  Landing two miles from the city he proceeded ahead with an armed escort from the U.S. navy eventually linking up with Federal cavalry which took him to the Confederate Executive Mansion where the President sat in Jefferson Davis' chair.

After leaving the mansion, the American President set out on a tour of the city accompanied by General Godfrey Weitzel whose troops were the first to enter Richmond the prior day.  Large crowds turned out to watch, the whites mostly silent, the blacks often cheering and reaching out to grab the President's hand.  Not all the blacks were slaves; there were more than 2,500 freed blacks in the city and even more in nearby Petersburg where 1/3 (3,614) of the black population was free according to the 1860 census, the largest such population in the Confederacy.
(Cleveland Civil War Roundtable)

At one point Weitzel asked the President for advice on how he should treat the citizens of the captured city.  Lincoln replied that he did not want to give orders on that topic but "If I were in your place,  I'd let 'em up easy, let 'em up easy."(1)

On April 7, President Lincoln returned to Washington.
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Forty miles away at Amelia Court House, Lee's scattered troops were beginning to assemble as ordered.  The hungry soldiers expected to find 350,000 rations sent from Richmond on April 2 at the Richmond & Danville Railroad Station in the town but due to a mix-up in orders they found nothing awaiting them.  The crushing disappointment was yet another blow to Lee's getaway plans and further incentive for more disillusioned soldiers to quietly leave the ranks and go home.

 

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(1) " Let 'em up easy" was Lincoln's general instinct at the moment of triumph, a sentiment echoed in his Second Inaugural Address, and in discussions with his cabinet where he indicated he would be just fine with Confederate officials escaping to Europe.  With the president's assassination a week later, we are left with the great "what-if?" of American history - would Reconstruction have turned out differently with Lincoln at the helm for the first three years rather than Andrew Johnson?  And, if so, would Lincoln have stayed with his "let 'em up easy" policy in the face of the violent white Southern violence directly at newly freed blacks and the implementation of the Black Codes by late 1865 and early 1866, or would the president have changed course?

General Barringer's Ride

The Appomattox Campaign

Lee and Grant's strategies for the next week were simple.  For Lee, it was to keep his army ahead of the Federals and to move west quickly towards Danville and then south to united with General Johnston in North Carolina.  For Grant it was to keep his army on the south side of Lee's march to prevent the linkup with Johnston and to eventually get ahead of the Confederates and block their route to the west.

The tactical execution of these strategies was much more complex.  To move quickly, Lee needed to keep his army moving in columns on different roads.  To have all the army moving on the same route would have slowed them down considerably.  This meant having the bridges across the Appomattox west of Amelia Court House open and for his army to be resupplied with ammunition and rations along the way.

Grant needed to have part of his army push Lee along and for that task he chose the deliberate and careful General Meade.  The other part of his force needed to race along south of Lee and find a place to get ahead of him and cut him off from further movement westward.  For the task he selected the aggressive and irascible General Sheridan.

(To see entire map move it towards the left - Appomattox end)

(From Civil War Album.com)

On April 3 both armies were on the move and with the Confederate head start there was very little combat.  One exception was a cavalry engagement at Namozine Church, halfway between Petersburg and Amelia Court House, and an incident in that fight illustrates the strength of the long-standing relationships among the general officers on both sides as well as the comity that still existed between combatants even after four years of bloodshed.

Commanding the Confederate cavalry that day was General Rufus Barringer.  After his rearguard stand was broken by Union cavalry, Barringer and some of his men tried to escape but were captured by Union soldiers dressed as rebel soldiers.  The general and his officers were taken to that evening to General Sheridan's headquarters at the home of a Mrs Cousins on the Namozine Road.  They had dinner that night with Sheridan, his staff and Mrs Cousins and the next morning were invited to breakfast with Sheridan. 
                                                                                   (Rufus Barringer from ncpedia. org)

After breakfast, Barringer and his men set off eastwards with an escort for the Union headquarters at City Point on the James River.  While on the road they passed enormous columns of Federal troops and supplies moving west and one of Barringer's party recognized General Meade, with whom he had served in the pre-war U.S. Army, riding by, and stopped to introduce Barringer to him.  Meade offered the general some greenbacks to take with him to prison but the general refused but did ask that he be allowed to communicate with friends to supply him while a prisoner.  Then, according to Chris Calkins in The Appomattox Campaign:

Meade noticed that Sheridan had place only a corporal over the Confederate officers and immediately ordered a general officer to take his place, instructing him to tell the provost marshal in City Point that Barringer could reach anybody he wanted.

On April 5 after reaching City Point, Barringer met with the site commander, General Charles    Collis and President Abraham Lincoln who had been there since March 24.  Lincoln reminisced with Barringer about the days he'd served in Congress with his brother and asked him "Do you think I could be of any service to you?"  Lincoln gave the general a card of introduction for his use.  Barringer wrote in his diary of the meeting:

Called to see Mr Lincoln at Gen. Grant's H Qtrs - Pleased with him.  His leadership & manners have been misrepresented [by the] South.  Gave me a card to Mr Staunton [Secretary of War Edward Stanton].

General Barringer was released from prison on July 25, reaching home on July 8.  Barringer, who had opposed secession in 1860, became a Republican after the war and was condemned as a traitor by the Democratic press in North Carolina, before switching parties in 1888 to endorse the Democrat Grover Cleveland for President.  He died in 1895.

I Advise That All Preparations Be Made For Leaving Richmond Tonight

The Appomattox Campaign

Grant's general offensive along the Petersburg siege lines began at 430am on Sunday morning April 2, 1865.  Fierce fighting erupted on the entire front.  Though some Confederate troops fought tenaciously (see, for instance the defense of Fort Gregg, called by some "The Confederate Alamo", the Union forces began to break through.
(Storming Fort Gregg from petersburgsiege.org)

At 1040am Confederate Secretary of War John Breckinridge (a former United States Senator, Vice-President of the United States under President Buchanan (1857-61) and one of three rivals to Abraham Lincoln in the presidential election of 1860) received a telegram from Robert E Lee:
(Breckinridge)

I see no prospect of doing more than holding our position here until night.  I am not certain I can do that.  If I can I shall withdraw to-night north of the Appomattox, and, if possible, it will be better to withdraw the whole line to-night from the James River.  I advise that all preparations be made for leaving Richmond tonight.

President Jefferson Davis received Lee's message while attending Sunday services at St Paul's Episcopal Church in Richmond.
 
Late that day, Lee told the War Department "It is absolutely necessary that we abandon our position tonight, or run the risk of being cut off in the morning".

At 8pm, Confederate troops began evacuating Petersburg and Richmond.

By 11pm, Jefferson Davis and the Confederate Cabinet departed Richmond by train from the Richmond & Danville Railroad depot (the same railroad mentioned in The Band's 1969 song The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, "Virgil Caine is the name, and I served on the Danville train) headed towards Lynchburg and then south hoping to join Johnston's army in North Carolina and continue the fight.

Hold Five Forks At All Hazards

The Appomattox Campaign

By the end of March 1865, the strength of the Army of Northern Virginia was slowly seeping away as soldiers deserted daily driven by hunger, cold and despair over their conditions, even as Robert E Lee was forced to lengthen his defensive lines which began at Richmond, proceeded south for 20 miles to Petersburg and then curled around the southern and southwestern portions of the city extending ever westward in an effort to fend off the probes of General Ulysses S Grant's Union Army as it attempted to cut the final railroad links between the Confederate capital and the rest of the rapidly shrinking Confederacy.

For the next twelve days, THC will follow the path of the final campaign of the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac using as his primary source The Appomattox Campaign by Chris Calkins (1997).

The siege of Petersburg began in June 1864 (see Petersburg: Opportunity Missed,  The Overland Campaign Begins and The Bloody Angle for more on the events of May and June of 1864).  At the time Robert E Lee predicted that if his army was pinned down in a siege "then it will be a mere question of time" until all was lost.  For nine months, Lee had been unable to break the growing northern stranglehold on his army.

By late March, Lee knew the time would come soon when he would be forced to abandon Richmond.  His plan was to sidestep Grant and move his army first west, and then south to join General Joseph E Johnston in North Carolina where their combined forces would first defeat the Union army of General William Tecumseh Sherman and then turn north and defeat Grant.

On March 29, US Grant began his move to forestall Lee's plans.  His forces moved further west under orders to then attack north and west at the far end of Lee's line.  The goal was to cut the last railroad links to Richmond and Petersburg and block Lee's retreat route to the west.  To counter Grant's move Lee dispatched General George Pickett (of Gettysburg fame or infamy) with several thousand infantry to the area of Dinwiddie Court House.

Over the next three day, Pickett was forced back from Dinwiddie to the vinicity of the road junction at Five Forks.  If Five Forks were to fall there would be nothing to prevent the railroads from being cut by Federal troops.

Underscoring the importance of holding the position, on the evening of March 31, Lee sent a message to Pickett:

"Hold Five Forks at all hazards.  Protect road to Ford's Depot and prevent Union forces from striking the Southside Railroad.  Regret exceedingly your forced withdrawal, and your inability to hold the advantage you had gained."

(Pickett)

The harsh tone of the dispatch was different from that usually used by Lee, but the relationship between he and Pickett had become ever more poisonous since the afternoon of July 3 at Gettysburg.  Pickett blamed Lee for the destruction of his division in the charge across the open field, while Lee had little regard for Pickett's military skills, only keeping him on because of the lack of competent replacement general officers in the Confederate ranks.

Morning found Pickett's men entrenched around Five Forks anticipating an attack with a few hours.  But the day remained quiet and in early afternoon, Pickett and most of his commanders rode to the rear to indulge in a fish bake put on by another Confederate general, failing to inform their subordinates where they were going or to place someone in charge of the infantry in their absence.  You can guess what happened next.

Around 4pm, Union infantry and cavalry under General Phillip Sheridan, Grant's most aggressive and abrasive commander attacked the Confederate positions.  By the time Pickett returned to his troops it was too late, they were overwhelmed, outflanked and fleeing.  Several thousand were taken prisoner and the path to the Southside Railroad lay open to the Union.  We hope the fish bake was worth it.
(Sheridan)

Receiving the news from Sheridan, Grant ordered an assault along the entire line of siege for early the next morning.

Lee knew that Richmond and Petersburg were no longer defensible and he would have to act according to Grant's timetable, not his own.  The race to the west was about to begin.

Richmond to Appomattox; from nps. gov

A View From The Coliseum

A View through Three of the North-Western Arches of the Third Storey of the Coliseum, by CW Eckersburg (1815 or 1816).  Eckersburg, from Denmark, created a series of paintings from his stay in Rome.  The three views represented below are not actually contiguous but were placed together to create harmony.  THC has been unable to find any writing documenting what we are seeing but thinks the left arch provides a view of the ancient Sacred Way to the ruins of the Roman Forum with the 4th century AD Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine just beyond the open hilltop.   If correct that means the buildings on higher ground behind the Basilica are those on the Capitoline Hill.

Also take a moment to look at the details of the masonry of the Coliseum itself.  Built in 72-80 AD by the Emperors Vespasian and Titus it remained in use for its original purposes into the early 6th century.  Thereafter it fell into disrepair though by the 13th century the Frangipani family had occupied the site and fortified the ruined stadium making it into their personal stronghold. Throughout the Middle Ages the Coliseum was used as a quarry with much stone and its entire marble facade removed for use elsewhere.

Image from Wikipedia.

The "Living" First Amendment

Althouse, the blog of University of Wisconsin law professor Ann Althouse is the most consistently entertaining of the blogs THC regularly checks in with.  You never know what she may choose to write about it (want to know why men should never wear shorts?  she'll tell you - often) and you can't predict the her viewpoint on anything in advances - in fact, THC suspects she delights in confounding her readers expectations; she'd probably find a way to take issue with the way THC wrote this post if she ever read it but it's that wide ranging interest in lots of subjects and how she comes at things from a different angle that make her so interesting; particularly because when it comes to politics she can't (and won't) be categorized in conventional Democrat/Republican or liberal/conservative terms.

A few days ago she wrote  "Liberals Used To Love The First Amendment" commenting on a column by Adam Liptak of the New York Times and using the first sentence from his piece as her title.  Now, for you Times readers THC has some advice.  Relying on Liptak for an accurate assessment of the best arguments of all parties in Supreme Court matters is like, well, it's like relying on Linda Greenhouse, when she was the legal correspondent for the New York Times to do the same.  And since Ms Greenhouse apparently monitors all mentions of her on the interwebs, THC gives her a shout-out! and reminds her that, as always, we will correct any mistakes in a post and do so promptly, as we have done in the past and in telling contrast to the practices of the obstinate and, dare he say, obtuse New York Times.

With that here is Althouse's piece:

"But that was in an era when courts used it mostly to protect powerless people like civil rights activists and war protesters," writes Adam Liptak in The New York Times.

“Corporations have begun to displace individuals as the direct beneficiaries of the First Amendment,” Professor Coates wrote. The trend, he added, is “recent but accelerating.”

Hmm. I don't know. In conlaw class, I was just teaching the great 1964 landmark case — that loved-by-liberals case — New York Times v. Sullivan. But, fortunately, I've got The New York Times to set me straight. Corporations are not people.

Okay. Thanks to Adam Liptak, a man I'm noticing only because the corporate platform of The New York Times elevates him high above all the poor and puny anonymities....

And I'm fascinated by this notion that the Constitution ought to mean what would make liberals love it. Hey, Supreme Court, why don't you make the Constitution lovable again? We used to love you, First Amendment, but you changed.

Ironically, back when Liptak's liberals loved the First Amendment, a big deal was always made about how it protects the speech you hate. That was the challenge, to love the freedom itself. Seems like you changed. 

By the way, in light of the phony larger narrative linking big companies and non-progressives (THC prefers this nomenclature since it covers conservatives (both social and economic), libertarians, classical liberals, Tea Partiers, the mainline GOPers, those who adhere much of the progressive line but demur at times (see, for instance, the notorious Koch Brothers) and just plain cranky people since we all look the same to progressives) peddled by the Times and its acolytes, note that according to David Plouffe, one of President Obama's senior strategists, that Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google (market cap $376 billion), played a key role in the President's 2012 campaign and that "on election night he was in our boiler room in Chicago".  THC is sure that the 230 times since then that Google lobbyists have met with White House officials, not to mention the 15 pages deleted at Google's request, at the last minute by the FCC from its recently published document asserting its regulatory authority over the internet have nothing to do with Schmidt's role as an enabler for the President.