L'envoi to the reader.
Summary.
Much has been said and written as to my failure to do anything in my military capacity for the country, or to be of any service to it in any form.
I hope I may be pardoned in bringing together for the purpose of recalling to memory, several things which are proven in this narrative to whomsoever shall carefully read it, which have been done by me, although I am supposed to have needed a “technical military education.”With foresight and persistent effort I caused the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia to be so made ready that they were the first organized armed force marched into Washington for its defence.
I seized Annapolis, one capital of Maryland, and held it, and thus opened and held open a way for the transportation of Northern troops to the capital, which insured its safety.
I occupied and fortified the heights at the Relay House, and so prevented an assault upon Washington from Harper's Ferry, which the rebels had captured and were occupying for that purpose.
From thence I made a descent upon Baltimore and established it a Union city, which it always remained. These movements prevented the secession of Maryland, and held her loyal during the war.
At Fort Monroe I first declared the legal principles by which, under military law, slaves could be set free, and thereby made the President's proclamation of emancipation possible.
Within forty-five days after the fall of Sumter, without orders from anybody having a “technical military education,” of my own motion, [1035] I seized and strongly fortified the important strategic point of Newport News, at the mouth of the James River, which was held during the war, thus keeping open a water-way for the transportation of troops and supplies to the intrenchments around Richmond, and by which the Army of the Potomac under McClellan escaped from Harrison's Landing.
In co-operation with the navy I captured Fort Hatteras and Fort Clark, thus making the holding of the sounds of Virginia and North and South Carolina practicable.
I raised a division of more than six thousand men for the United States without payment of bounties or impressment. With the division thus raised, aided by an equal number of troops added to that force, co-operating with the fleet of the immortal Farragut to his entire satisfaction, we opened the Mississippi River, captured New Orleans, subdued Louisiana, and held all of it that was ever afterwards permanently held as a part of the United States. I enforced respect there to the nation's flag, its laws and power.
By proper sanitary regulations I rescued New Orleans, the commercial port of the Gulf of Mexico, from its most potent danger, the yellow fever, from the ravages of which in no year had it ever escaped, a foe which the enemies of my country surely relied upon to destroy my army, as it would have done if uncontrolled.
I enlisted there the first colored troops ever legally mustered into the army of the United States, thus inaugurating the policy of arming the colored race before Congress or the President had adopted it, by so doing, pointing the way to the recruitment of the armies of the United States by the enlistment of colored men to the number of one hundred and fifty thousand, and establishing the negro soldier as a component part of the military resources of the country forever.
In the spring of 1864 I devised, organized, and perfected the strategy for a campaign against Richmond by having an impregnable intrenched camp containing thirty square miles of territory within its boundaries, which could be held by ten thousand men against the whole rebel forces forever, within eight miles of the rebel capital, like a hand upon its throat never to be unclenched, as it never was. I fortified it as a refuge to which the Army of the Potomac could repair in safety as a base of supplies, as it did when it failed to drive Lee's army in retreat to the defences of Richmond. [1036] I took possession of this camp to be intrenched by a march wholly of my planning and execution, by moving more than thirty thousand men, with their artillery supplies and munitions of war, by water seventy-five miles through the enemy's country in a single day without the loss of a man, and without any knowledge on the part of the rebels of my presence until I was in camp.
From that intrenched camp at Bermuda Hundred, on the 15th of July, I captured Petersburg, but lost it through the sloth or incompetency of a corps commander who had a “technical military education.”
With the Army of the James on the 29th of September, I captured Fort Harrison and a line of intrenched works, a strong part of the defences of Richmond, which were held by my colored troops until Richmond was evacuated.
I planned, carried out, and constructed the great strategic work, Dutch Gap Canal, which was prevented from being made entirely efficient only by a naval officer, who was afterward convicted for cowardice in that matter, and which remains to this day a most valuable public work, worth more as a commercial avenue in time of peace than all it cost as a military undertaking.
By firmness of purpose which subsequent events have shown to have been the best military judgment, as I knew it was then, I prevented my major-general of division from making an assault on Fort Fisher by which very many of the troops of the expedition would have been slaughtered in a useless attack.
In all military movements I never met with disaster, nor uselessly sacrificed the lives of my men.
In all I did and in all I left undone I never had over twenty-five thousand effective troops under my command for offensive operations, but usually commanded much smaller forces.
If any of my readers doubt upon any one of these propositions, let them examine carefully the verified record in my narrative. I write in no boastful spirit, claiming only justice and fair play. If any general officer with the same means did more in the war for the life of the nation, I congratulate him most heartily, but I would like to see his list.
In my congressional career my proudest boast is that through my advocacy and efforts, the legal tender greenback was made [1037] the constitutional money of the United States, to be issued in peace or in war, during the existence of the nation; and I believe soon it will be the only money of the United States, gold and silver taking their appropriate places as products of the mineral resources of the country.
In closing I apologize most humbly for the many omissions and imperfections of my work, and. I claim for it but one merit: it has been earnestly and fairly done.
What is writ, is writ,--
Would it were worthier! but I am not now
That which I have been, and my visions flit
Less palpably before me,--and the glow
Which in my spirit dwelt, is fluttering, faint and low.
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| Decorative Motif. |
