The capture of New Orleans, as the detailed reports now to hand show, is distinguished as an almost unparalleled act of valour on the part of the fleet. The Unionists' fleet 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 which blocked the passage of the Mississippi. Within range of the 100 guns of these forts the river was barred by a strong chain, beyond which there 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 other side of the forts, however, was a second formidable line of defence, 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 river, 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".(1) The hazardous enterprise succeeded. As soon as the flotilla effected a landing before New Orleans, the victory was naturally decided.
Beauregard now had nothing more to defend in Corinth. His position there only made sense 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 guerillas, for without a large town, where railways and supplies are concentrated, in the rear of his army, he can no longer hold masses of men together.
McClellan has irrefutably proved that he is a military incompetent who, having been raised by favourable circumstances to a commanding and responsible position, wages war not to defeat the foe, but rather not to be defeated by the foe and thus forfeit his own usurped greatness. He bears himself like the old so-called "manoeuvring generals", w(2)ho excused their anxious avoidance of any tactical decision with the plea that, by strategic flanking manoeuvres, 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 retire unmolested from Manassas to Richmond. He then divided his army and flanked the Confederates strategically by establishing himself with one body of troops near Yorktown. Siege warfare always affords an excuse 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 give battle. A war has never yet been so wretchedly waged. If the rearguard action at Williamsburg ended in defeat for the Confederate rearguard instead of in a second Bull Run[217] for the Union troops, McClellan was in no way responsible for this result.
After a march of about twelve miles (English) in a twenty-four hours' downpour 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 enemy pickets. As soon, however, as the enemy had assured himself of their numerically inferior strength, he dispatched from his picked troops at Williamsburg reinforcements that gradually increased the number of his men to 25,000. By nine o'clock in the morning, battle was being waged in earnest; at half past twelve General Heintzelman discovered that the engagement was going in favour of the foe. He sent messenger after messenger to General Kearny, who was eight miles to his rear, but could only push forward slowly since the road had been completely "dissolved" by the rain. For a whole hour Heintzelman remained without reinforcements and the 7th and 8th Jersey regiments, which had expended their stock of powder, began to run for the woods on either side of the road. Heintzelman now made Colonel Menill with a squadron of Pennsylvanian cavalry take up positions on both edges of the forest, under 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 expended its powder, but now fixed bayonets to its muskets and calmly awaited the enemy. At length, Kearny's vanguard under Brigadier Berry (from the State of Maine) came in sight. Heintzelman's army welcomed its rescuers with a wild "Hurrah"; he ordered the regimental band to strike up Yankee Doodle* and Berry's fresh forces to 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 enemy off the battlefield to his earthworks, the largest of which after repeated attacks and counter-attacks 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 ordered Williamsburg to be occupied by General Jameson. The rearguard of the fleeing enemy 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 rivers on its line of retreat flow crosswise from the mountains to the sea. However, 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[218] against the will of the generals, who judged the situation correctly. Lamentable as McClellan's manner of conducting the war has been, the constant withdrawals, accompanied by abandonment of artillery, munitions and other military stores, and simultaneously the small unsuccessful rearguard engagements, have at any rate badly demoralised the Confederates, as will become manifest on the day of a decisive battle. To sum up:
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 most unlikely, at best the disbanding of their armies will be deferred. They are not in a position to draw the least lasting benefit even from a victory. They cannot advance 20 English miles without coming to a standstill and again awaiting the renewed offensive of the enemy.
It still remains to examine the chances of a guerilla war. But precisely in respect of 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 cut and harassed by Colomb, Lützow, Chernyshev and twenty other leaders of partisans 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. People 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 even with knives is going up in smoke. There can be hardly any doubt, it is true, that the white trash,h as the planters themselves call the "poor whites", will attempt guerilla warfare and brigandage. Such an attempt, however, will very quickly transform the propertied planters into Unionists. They will even call the Yankee troops 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 on the Mississippi. The conflagration in New Orleans was easily organised. The fanaticism of the New Orleans merchants 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, there will be a lot more burning; but theatrical coups like this can only bring the dissension between the planters and the "white trash" to a head and therewith—finis secessiae!*
Endnotes
[216] First published in English in: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Civil War in the United States, New York, 1937, London, 1937, pp. 185-90.
[217] See Note 44. "
[218] This refers to the battles fought at Smolensk, August 16 to 18, and Borodino, September 7, 1812 in the course of Russia's liberation war against aggression by Napoleonic France.