FEBRUARY 22, 1865:
The Fall of Wilmington, North Carolina:
It is Washington’s
Birthday, the official fourth Independence Day of the Confederate States of
America.
The end of the Civil War
appears on the horizon as the city of Wilmington falls to Union forces.
Throughout the war,
Wilmington has been an important port on the eastern seaboard of the
Confederacy. Protected by the massive
guns of Fort Fisher thirty miles seaward on the Cape Fear River, the inland
port has been the only Confederate port where the Union blockade was almost
completely ineffective.
As the war lengthened,
and more and more ports fell to landward assaults, Wilmington’s importance as
the Confederacy’s link to Europe and the Caribbean has only grown. Millions of tons of supplies reach the South
through Wilmington, even as it becomes the only port that remains open to the
blockade runners.
With the fall of Fort Fisher
in January, the port is shut off, ensuring that the Confederacy’s days are surely
numbered. But the city itself remains a critical supply dump, collection point
and rail hub, keeping supplies flowing to the Army of Northern Virginia and to
Richmond and Petersburg.
Although small, the
factories of Wilmington become more and more critical in late 1864, turning raw
materials into blankets, boots, shoes, bullets, guns, first aid kits, and
foodstuffs for the Richmond-Petersburg front. The South’s war machine, though
faltering, rumbles on at Wilmington.
So, by any measure, the
fall of Wilmington is an unmitigated disaster for the Confederacy. Even those most
hard-bitten Confederates who’ve insisted that the loss of heroic Charleston
“was in and of itself of not very great importance” are stunned into silence by
the collapse of Wilmington. “Scott’s Anaconda” has tightened its last coil. The
Confederacy is dying.
A hue and cry goes up
when word reaches Richmond that General Braxton Bragg has given up the city
virtually without a fight, especially when Hoke’s spirited defense at Forks
Road becomes known.
For his part, Bragg
excuses himself by saying that he only followed orders --- that Robert E. Lee ordered him to abandon Wilmington. Lee’s
retort, that Bragg’s pessimistic reports about conditions at Wilmington
actively influenced this decision, goes unanswered.
Enraged members of the
Confederate Congress call for Bragg’s head on a pike. Accusations fly that
Bragg is a Union agent provocateur.
No evidence exists that
Bragg is a Union agent. But there is plenty of evidence that Bragg is some
things worse --- incompetent at command, inflexible, difficult, unimaginative, rude
to his fellows, and, most of all, a man defeated psychologically if not
militarily --- and his blockheaded refusal to aid in the defense of Fort Fisher
stands out as a glaring example of his unfitness for command.
His ready abandonment of
Wilmington has compounded the Confederacy’s woes a thousandfold. Without
Wilmington, the Confederacy has no manufacturing base left save the
overstressed Tredegar Ironworks in Richmond and a few small sweatshop-type
factories in Petersburg.
Without the railheads at
Wilmington, there is no longer any countryside from which to draw raw materials
for war or survival. On a map the Confederacy still looks vast. In reality, the
Trans-Mississippi is long isolated, the Florida peninsula is cut off, and Georgia,
South Carolina, Mississippi and Alabama are in flames, being ground up in the
maw of the relentlessly advancing Union armies even as Wilmington falls.
Only a few pockets of
resistance --- an elongated ovoid stretching from Weldon in the south to
Richmond in the north, and an ill-defined area along the Virginia-North
Carolina border --- are still unquestionably in Confederate hands.
In most circumstances,
Bragg likely would have been dismissed after the debacle at Fort Fisher. If not
Fort Fisher, the fall of Wilmington should have ended his career. But again,
his long friendship with Jefferson Davis saves him.
Jefferson Davis, for his
part, is losing touch with reality. Like Adolf Hitler during a Spring yet to be
eighty years in the future, Davis has adopted a bunker mentality. While he does
not scream and rave at his generals nor shoot or cashier them, his reaction to
criticism is an imperious disdain. He issues orders to commands unable to
respond, and plans offensives with troops no longer available.
With the fall of
Wilmington, Robert E. Lee, the newly-named General-in-Chief insists that Bragg
be consequenced. Davis briefly considers sending Bragg to the
Trans-Mississippi, but then relents. He does not wish to wound his old friend.
Lee himself, as
General-in-Chief, could dismiss Bragg, but he defers to his President. Lee also
remains courteous to Bragg, when most Confederate leaders begin to abuse him.
Lee has war plans. Lee
knows that he has almost no resources with which to fight Grant and Sherman.
Still, he does have some manpower and enough cannon, powder, shot, shell, cap
and ball to inflict damage on the Union if he can reorganize his forces
effectively.
Lee is gambling that a
forceful enough blow against the Union will cause the worm to turn, that the
Copperheads and Peace Democrats will be revivified, and that Lincoln will be
discredited in the eyes of a shocked Union public. If this happens he may be
able to midwife an independent Confederacy if not on the battlefield then
through negotiations.
For weeks Lee has been
insisting that he needs a subordinate --- Joseph E. Johnston --- who is
familiar with managing large bodies of troops and who understands large-scale battle
strategy. Davis, who hates Johnston, has been refusing to reappoint Johnston to
command.
Even Lee admits that
Johnston may be overcautious, but Davis’ oft-suggested alternative --- Bragg
--- has proven himself a defeatist.
Lee and Davis meet, as they
do most days, but this day their meeting degenerates into a shouting match.
Word of the altercation in the Confederate White House spreads quickly.
Within a few hours an
angry delegation of Confederate Representatives and Senators descends on Davis,
castigating him for arguing with Lee, and insisting that Johnston be
reappointed to command. Words such as resignation and impeachment and coup d’etat are
uttered. The idea of a bill to replace Davis with Lee and to name Lee as
Dictator is broached. When Lee hears of
this idea he quickly quashes it as unacceptable, both to him personally and
under law.
Davis, isolated, with no
political allies, and with no options, at last promises the Congressional
Delegation that he will “consider” their demand to name Johnston to a new
command. And then, for a few days, he
does nothing.
