Karl Marx: The American Civil War, Part 3

By Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

This is one in a series of articles featured on the Political Spectrum as part of Secession Week.

Written: between March 7 and 22, 1862;

First published in Die Presse, 85, March 26 and 27, 1862.

Chapter 2

Click to view Chapter 1, part 2

With Fort Donelson the enemy’s artillery, baggage and military stores fell into the hands of the Unionists; 13,000 secessionists surrendered on the day of its capture ; 1,000 more the next day, and as soon as the advance guard of the victors appeared before Clarksville, a town that lies further up the Cumberland River, it opened its gates. Here, too, considerable supplies had been accumulated for the secessionists.

The capture of Fort Donelson presents only one riddle: the flight of General Floyd with 5,000 men on the second day of the bombardment. These fugitives were too numerous to be smuggled away in steamers during the night. If certain precautions had been taken by the assailants, they could not have got away.

Seven days after the surrender of Fort Donelson, Nashville was occupied by the Federals. The distance between the two places is about 100 English miles, and a march of 15 miles a day, on very bad roads and in the most unfavourable season of the year, redounds to the honour of the Unionist troops. On receipt of the news that Fort Donelson had fallen, the secessionists evacuated Bowling Green; a week later, they abandoned Columbus and withdrew to a Mississippi island, 45 miles south. Thus, Kentucky was completely reconquered for the Union. Tennessee, however, can be held by the secessionists only if they give and win a big battle. They are said in fact to have concentrated 65,000 men for this purpose. Meanwhile, nothing prevents the Unionists from bringing a superior force against them.

The leadership of the Kentucky campaign from Somerset to Nashville deserves the highest praise. The reconquest of so extensive a territory, the advance from the Ohio to the Cumberland in a single month, evidence energy, resolution and speed such as have seldom been attained by regular armies in Europe.

One may compare, for example, the slow advance of the Allies from Magenta to Solferino in 1859 — without pursuit of the retreating enemy, without endeavour to cut off his stragglers or in any way to outflank and encircle whole bodies of his troops.

Halleck and Grant, in particular, offer good examples of resolute military leadership. Without the least regard either for Columbus or Bowling Green, they concentrate their forces on the decisive points, Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, launch a swift and energetic attack on these and precisely thereby render Columbus and Bowling Green untenable. Then they march at once to Clarksville and Nashville, without allowing the retreating secessionists time to take up new positions in northern Tennessee. During this rapid pursuit the corps of secessionist troops in Columbus remains completely cut off from the centre and right wing of its army. The English papers have criticised this operation unjustlyEven if the attack on Fort Donelson had failed, the secessionists kept busy by General Buell at Bowling Green could not dispatch sufficient men to enable the garrison to follow the repulsed Unionists into the open country or to endanger their retreat. Columbus, on the other hand, lay so far off that it could not interfere with Grant’s movements at all. In fact, after the Unionists had cleared Missouri of the secessionists, Columbus became an entirely useless post for the latter. The troops that formed its garrison had greatly to hasten their retreat to Memphis or even to Arkansas in order to escape the danger of ingloriously laying down their arms.

In consequence of the clearing of Missouri and the reconquest of Kentucky, the theatre of war has so far narrowed that the different armies can co-operate to a certain extent along the whole line of operations and work to achieve definite results. In other words, for the first time the war is now assuming a strategic character, and the geographical configuration of the country is acquiring a new interest. It is now the task of the Northern generals to find the Achilles’ heel of the cotton states.

Before the capture of Nashville, no concerted strategy between the army of Kentucky and the army on the Potomac was possible. They were too far apart from each other. They stood in the same front line, but their lines of operation were entirely different. Only with the victorious advance into Tennessee did the movements of the army of Kentucky become important for the entire theatre of war.

The American papers influenced by McClellan are full of talk about the “anaconda” envelopment plan. According to it, an immense line of armies is to wind round the rebellion, gradually tighten its coils and finally strangle the enemy. This is sheer childishness. It is a rehash of the so-called cordon system... devised in Austria about 1770, which was employed against the French from 1792 to 1797 with such great obstinacy and with such constant failure. At Jemappes, Fleurus and, more especially, at Montenotte, Millesimo, Dego, Castiglione and Rivoli, the final blow was dealt at this system. The French cut the “anaconda” in two by attacking at a point where they had concentrated superior forces. Then the coils of the “anaconda” were cut to pieces one after another.

In densely populated and more or less centralised states there is always a centre, with the occupation of which by the enemy the national resistance would be broken. Paris is a brilliant example. The slave states, however, possess no such centre. They are sparsely populated, with few large towns and all these on the seacoast. The question therefore arises: Does a military centre of gravity nevertheless exist, with the capture of which the backbone of their resistance will be broken, or are they, just as Russia still was in 1812, not to be conquered without occupying every village and every plot of land, in short, the entire periphery?

Cast a glance at the geographical shape of the secessionists’ territory, with its long stretch of coast on the Atlantic Ocean and its long stretch of coast on the Gulf of Mexico. So long as the Confederates held Kentucky and Tennessee, the whole formed a great compact mass. The loss of both these states drives an enormous wedge into their territory, separating the states on the North Atlantic Ocean from the States on the Gulf of Mexico. The direct route from Virginia and the two Carolinas to Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and even, in part, to Alabama leads through Tennessee, which is now occupied by the Unionists. The sole route that, after the complete conquest of Tennessee by the Union, connects the two sections of the slave states goes through Georgia. This proves that Georgia is the key to the secessionists’ territory. With the loss of Georgia the Confederacy would be cut into two sections, which would have lost all connection with one another. A reconquest of Georgia by the secessionists, however, would be almost unthinkable, for the Unionist fighting forces would be concentrated in a central position, while their adversaries, divided into two camps, would have scarcely sufficient forces to put in the field for a joint attack.

Would the conquest of all Georgia, with the seacoast of Florida, be required for such an operation? By no means. In a land where communication, particularly between distant points, depends much more on railways than on highways, the seizure of the railways is sufficient. The southernmost railway line between the States on the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic coast goes through Macon and Gordon near Milledgeville.

The occupation of these two points would accordingly cut the secessionists’ territory in two and enable the Unionists to beat one part after another. At the same time, one gathers from the above that no Southern republic is viable without the possession of Tennessee. Without Tennessee, Georgia’s vital spot lies only eight or ten days’ march from the frontier; the North would constantly have its hand at the throat of the South, and, at the slightest pressure, the South would have to yield or fight for its life anew, under circumstances in which a single defeat would cut off every prospect of success.

From the foregoing considerations it follows:

The Potomac is not the most important position in the war theatre. The seizure of Richmond and the advance of the Potomac army further south — difficult on account of the many rivers that cut across the line of march -could produce a tremendous moral effect. From a purely military standpoint, they would decide nothing.

The outcome of the campaign depends on the Kentucky army, now in Tennessee. On the one hand, this army is nearest to the decisive points; on the other hand, it occupies a territory without which secession cannot survive. This army would accordingly have to be strengthened at the expense of all the rest and the sacrifice of all minor operations. Its next points of attack would be

Chattanooga and Dalton on the Upper Tennessee, the most important railway junctions of the entire South. After their occupation, the link between the eastern and western states of Secessia would be limited to the lines of communication in Georgia. The further problem would then be to cut off another railway line, with Atlanta and Georgia, and finally to destroy the last link between the two sections by the capture of Macon and Gordon.

On the contrary, should the anaconda plan be followed, then, despite all the successes gained at particular points and even on the Potomac, the war may be prolonged indefinitely, while the financial difficulties together with diplomatic complications acquire fresh scope.

End.

Image used courtesy of the Marxist Internet Archive.