A Stillness at Appomattox (144 page)

By
convention
time,
the
Confederates
could
see
that
the Sons
of
Liberty
simply
were
not
going
to
rise
in
any
substantial
number.
Disgustedly,
Hines
made
a
final
proposal:
if
as many
as
500
armed
Copperheads
would
come
together
he could
at
least
capture
one
of
the
prison
camps,
and
he
would play
it
alone
from
then
on
in.
There
were
more
conferences, more
shiverings
and
headshakings—and,
at
last,
the
Confederates
had
to
slip
back
to
Canada,
with
nothing
accomplished. The
Copperheads
could
deplore
and
conspire
and
denounce, but
they
would
not
fight
and
the
real
fighting
men
whom
the Confederacy
had
sent
to
Chicago
could
do
nothing
with them.
Men
who
thought
themselves
bold
had
had
to
confront men
who
really
were
bold,
and
the
meeting
gave
them
a permanent
scare.
⁶

This
fiasco
was
the
surface
indication
that
a
crisis
had
at last
been
met
and
passed.
The
North
might
be
divided
by bitter
passions
and
half
paralyzed
by
the
numbness
brought on
by
a
long
war,
but
the
nightmare
that
had
been
dimly visible
in
the
background
for
two
years
was
at
last
fading out.
Whatever
happened,
it
was
now
certain
that
the
war would
not
be
lost
because
of
revolt
at
home.
The
attempt
to crush
secession
would
not
fail
because
of
a
second
secession.

Vallandigham
might
roam
Chicago,
conferring
with
leaders
and
orating
to
street-corner
crowds,
forcing
the
Democratic
convention
to
adopt
a
platform
deploring
the
"failure" of
the
war
and
calling
for
"immediate
efforts"
to
end
all hostilities.
In
the
end
there
was
just
going
to
be
another presidential
election,
not
an
armed
uprising.
The
Chicago gathering
remained
an
ordinary
political
convention,
and
it made
an
ordinary
political
bet—that
general
war
weariness and
discontent
over
a
military
stalemate
could
be
made
to
add up
to
a
majority
at
the
polls.

In
making
this
bet
the
convention
played
it
both
ways. It
adopted
the
Vallandigham
peace
plank,
to
pull
in
all
of the
people
who
were
tired
of
war
or
who
had
not
believed
in war
in
the
first
place;
then,
for
its
presidential
candidate,
it nominated
a
soldier—George
B.
McClellan,
the
enduring hero
of
the
enlisted
man
in
the
Army
of
the
Potomac,
a
leader whom
Democratic
orthodoxy
considered
a
military
genius unfairly
treated
by
petty
politicians
in
Washington.

Immediately
after
this,
the
roof
fell
in.

To
begin
with,
McClellan
would
not
stay
hitched.
On reflection
he
found
the
platform
altogether
too
much
to swallow.
Accepting
the
nomination,
he
quietly
but
firmly turned
the
peace
pledge
inside
out,
saying
that
he
construed it
as
a
mandate
to
carry
the
war
through
to
victory
and
remarking
that
to
do
anything
less
than
insist
on
the
triumph of
the
Union
cause
would
be
to
betray
the
heroic
soldiers whom
he
had
led
in
battle.

Worse
yet,
William
Tecumseh
Sherman
captured
Atlanta.

Sherman
had
moved
against
Joe
Johnston
’
s
Confederate army
the
same
day
Grant
crossed
the
Rapidan.
From
the distant
North
his
campaign
had
looked
no
more
like
a
success than
the
one
in
Virginia.
If
it
had
not
brought
so
many casualties,
it
had
seemed
no
more
effective
at
ending
Rebel resistance.
Wise
old
Joe
Johnston,
sparring
and
side-stepping and
shifting
back,
had
a
very
clear
understanding
of
the home-front
politics
behind
the
armies.
His
whole
plan
had been
to
keep
Sherman
from
forcing
a
showdown
until
after the
election,
on
the
theory
that
victory
postponed
so
long would
look
to
the
people
up
North
like
victory
lost
forever, and
his
strategy
had
been
much
more
effective
than
his
own government
could
realize.
To
President
Davis,
Johnston's course
had
seemed
like
sheer
faintheartedness,
and
he
had at
last
dismissed
Johnston
and
put
slugging
John
B.
Hood
in his
place.
Hood
had
gone
in
and
slugged,
and
Sherman's army
had
more
slugging
power—so
now,
with
the
Democrats betting
the
election
on
the
thesis
that
the
war
effort
was
a flat
failure,
decisive
success
had
at
last
been
won.

First
Sherman,
then
Sheridan:
and
in
the
middle
of
September
Grant
quietly
went
up
to
the
Valley
and
had
a
talk with
Sheridan,
the
two
men
walking
back
and
forth
across a
little
field,
Sheridan
gesturing
with
nervous
hands,
Grant chewing
a
cigar
and
looking
at
the
ground.
A
leathery
Vermont
sergeant
leaned
against
a
rail
fence,
watching
them, and
he
looked
moodily
at
Grant's
stoop-shouldered
figure.