Records Related to Augusta County Regiments



From: C. SCHURZ.
June 12, 1862.

Summary:
On June 8, 1862, Confederate General Thomas J. Jackson attacked and defeated Shield's division that had been pursuing him up the Valley. In the wake of this defeat, Union General Carl Schurz sent a confidential dispatch to president Abraham Lincoln analyzing Federal problems in the Shenandoah Valley. He discusses the poor state of Union supply, as well as the lack of engineers and miners appropriate for mountain fighting. He also recommends the destruction of Jackson's army as more useful for capturing Staunton and cutting its railroads than the pursuit of guerilla warfare in the mountains.


Hon. ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
President of the United States:

MOUNT JACKSON,

June 12, 1862.

DEAR SIR:

When I took leave of you you authorized me to send you a confidential report about the condition of things in this department. I arrived at Harrisonburg on the 9th, having been detained in the mountains for two days by the swollen creeks. My experience is therefore short, but I have already seen and heard enough to give a reliable opinion on many points.

It is a fact, which admits of no doubt, that when you ordered Gen. Fremont to march from Franklin to Harrisonburg it was absolutely impossible to carry out the order. The army was in a starving condition and literally unable to fight. I have been assured by many that had they been attacked at Franklin about that time a number of regiments would have thrown down their arms. Thus it seems to have been necessary to move back toward Moorefield in order to meet the supply trains. The army then went in forced marches to Strasburg. Most of the baggage and the knapsacks of the soldiers were left behind. The march was difficult, and, owing to the lack of provisions, very hard on the men. The army failed to arrest Jackson at Strasburg, and although it seems that Jackson's rear guard might have been attacked with more promptness and vigor, yet it is undoubtedly a very fortunate circumstance that Gen. Fremont did not succeed in placing himself across Jackson's line of retreat; for Jackson's force was so much superior to his (all the generals Banks included, put at 25,000 as the very lowest) that he would in all probability have been beaten. The pursuit was vigorous, and the battle fought on the 8th an honorable affair. You are probably well informed of what followed; how the bridge was burned and how Jackson drove Shields back on the other side of the river.

Early on the morning of the 10th, when I had already left Harrisonburg for the purpose of joining Gen. Fremont, I was advised of his retrograde movement, and shortly after 1 o'clock p. m. the army entered the town. The weather was very bad and the roads in a miserable condition. I saw the general immediately after his arrival, and he communicated to me his intention to fall back as far as Mount Jackson. Shortly afterward he received your orders to remain at Harrisonburg. He sent for me, and we had a full conversation on the subject, and I will at once state that as he explained the condition of things to me I fully concurred in his views.

The reasons for falling back to Mount Jackson are the following:

1st. Your order is based upon an imperfect knowledge of facts. When you sent it you knew nothing of the battle of the 8th nor of the defeat of Shields.

2nd. Shields being defeated, and, moreover, ordered to join McDowell in a movement on Richmond, Fremont alone would have Jackson on his hands, who can now move with perfect liberty, the more so, as, according to the best information we have, he has received considerable re-enforcements, which carry his force up to 29,000, while Banks is still too far off to support Fremont.

3rd. Fremont's force had dwindled down to 10,000 combatants at the outside, and these in a wretched condition. He has twenty-three regiments, which do not average over 400; some of them are mere skeletons. A great many foot-sore and without shoes, marching barefooted through the mud and over rocky ground. The horses are in a miserable condition,having fed on nothing but grass and cover for a considerable time; the artillery horses hardly able to draw their pieces. I have seen but one company of cavalry that is tolerably well mounted.

4th. The position of Harrisonburg is not tenable for an army so weak and exhausted as this against the force Jackson can bring against it. It has no protection in front and can easily be turned on both wings. Besides, the possession of Harrisonburg seems to be of no particular importance; it covers nothing but the country immediately behind it, and can easily be retaken as soon as the army is in a condition to resume the offensive.

5th. The position of Mount Jackson is very strong, covered in front by the Shenandoah, and has good appuis on both wings. In that position the army can rest with safety, reorganize, and wait provisions and re-enforcements, and have that repose of which it stands so much in need.

For these reasons you will concede it was advisable to do what was done. Offensive operations being out of the question for the present, the defensive was to be made as strong and secure as possible, and the measures adopted are in my opinion the best and in fact the only ones that will fully answer the object.

Let me say a few words of the wants of this army:

1. It wants recruits to fill up the regiments. There are regiments mustering less than 300 men, and there are but very few mustering over 500.

2. It wants a few more regiments. Gen. Fremont's army ought to consist of four divisions, of two brigades each, for active operations. There are regiments in the country which might be sent forward. I know of two which are without employment: the Nineteenth Wisconsin, guarding prisoners of war at Madison, Wis., and the Fifty-fourth Pennsylvania, Col. Campbell, which I found scattered along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad between Cumberland and Martinsburg, mustering 900 men, and eager to do duty in the field. Prisoners as well as railroads might be guarded by militia.

3. Our soldiers want shoes and underclothing; they cannot march without them. Above all, let us have shoes.

4. The army wants at least 1,000 good horses. Only in this way can the artillery, as well as the cavalry, be rendered efficient.

5. In this mountainous country we ought to have a small company of suppers and miners to each division. It is so in every well-organized army, and ours cannot get along without them. It has been tried to supply their place with infantry furnished with the necessary tools, but this will not answer. It was found that the infantry soldiers charged with the tools will throw them away as soon as they become inconvenient on the march. In fact, I saw yesterday, when the march of the army was impeded by the breaking down of a little bridge, how the officer charged with repairing it had to borrow an ax of a farmer, and the march of the whole column was stopped for nearly an hour, while the damage done to the bridge might have been repaired by a company organized for that purpose in five minutes.

6. The commissary department must be looked into. It is impossible to stop marauding and to prevent the entire demoralization of the army unless the supplies of provisions arrive with some regularity. It is absolutely impossible to live upon a country where there is nothing left.

All the statements I have made here are based upon my own observations, and when speaking of the wants of the army I know that they are of the most absolute kind.

Now, permit me a few remarks on the strategical operations in this campaign. A great blunder was committed by not uniting the two corps of Gens. Fremont and Shields. Divided commands will in almost every instance lead to disaster. While Fremont and Shields united might have driven the enemy into the river, Shields was defeated, and it is owing only to the extreme vigor of Fremont's attack that he did not meet a similar fate. If we had been attacked at Harrisonburg night before last, our army decimated by deaths, sickness, fatigue, and exhaustion, the result could hardly have been doubtful. We must hold the valley of Virginia, and in holding it we hold Western Virginia at the same time. It is much easier to take Staunton and to cut the railroad in this way than by operating in the mountains. The guerrilla warfare in the mountains is of no consequence, but in here we must have the necessary means. The see-saw business, as it has been going on here for some time, is destroying our armies and wearing out the patience of our people for no purpose whatever. Jackson's army must be annihilated, and that done we can easily branch off into Eastern Tennessee and clear that country of the enemy. But for this it is indispensably necessary that we should have a strong force here which can always act on the offensive.

While I am writing I learn that Gen. Banks is going to Front Royal, and it is reported that Jackson has reoccupied Harrisonburg. If he should try he might easily succeed in forcing Banks back and then turn against us. The two armies are so far apart that they cannot aid each other nor fall back one upon the other on a day of battle.

If there are any personal considerations at the bottom of these arrangements I pray you let them be dropped, and also, if theirs is possible, let the generals commanding armies know the general plan upon which these movements of troops are based. It is frequently the case that the communication between the different armies is interrupted, as for instance when Shields was attacked and beaten by Jackson, and then it depends entirely on accident whether they learn of each other's movements or not. Hence many blunders and misunderstandings.

This morning I found Gen. Fremont in a somewhat irritated state of mind, and I must confess I understand it. The Government has plenty of provisions, and our soldiers die of hunger; plenty of shoes, and they go barefooted; plenty of horses, and we are hardly able to move. I would entreat you let it not be said that this army is more neglected than any other. It would appear that it is willfully so, and you know well how this will be interpreted. The task this army has before it is an important one, and it ought to have the means to fulfill it.

There are many things in the management of thinks here which I have not been able to observe closely enough to give a fair and reliable opinion; but I pray you to give orders providing for the wants of the army. If we could have another battery of howitzers so much the better. As a general thing we have plenty of artillery, but in howitzers, which are particularly important in this mountainous country, we are deficient.

As ever, faithfully, yours,

C. SCHURZ.


Bibliographic Information : Letter Reproduced from The War of The Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, Volume 12, Serial No. 18, Pages 379-381, Broadfoot Publishing Company, Wilmington, NC, 1997.


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