The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1869-01-26
BANKS AND GRANT.

them; and some, with lofty abnegation, refuse
greatness when fortune is ready to put it about
them as well-ftting and immortal garment
This supplemented reading of Shakespeare is
called for by a curious and startling state
that General Banks, In 1868, while pegging
away against Port Hudson, was ordered to
proceed to the Federal encampment before
Vicksburg and supersede Gen. Grant in the
pending operations against that city, and that
he persistently declined to obey the order
until the Confederate Gibraltar fell and the
campaigns of both generals were terminated.
That the story is substantially true, we see no
reason to doubt. At the conjuncture to which
it refers Grants military reputation was
a very muddled problem. Up to that
time opinions about him had varied
among his equals and superiors in the ar
my, and among the authorities at Washington.
But none of these opinions were unquai-
fedly favorable. In the estimation of some
persons he was tolerably successful blum
derer, and, for luck's sake, it would be well
enough to confde important enterprises to
him in preference to officers of more pro-
nounced and brilliant abilities. By others
he was regarded as q fiat and irreclaimsble
failure. For, at the time in question, the cap
ture of Fort Donelson had been the only VIC
tory associated with his name. He fought at
Shiloh from a position which military critics
universally condemned. and it was generally
believed that nothing prevented the discom-
future of the first day from ending in irretriev-
able disaster to his army but the opportune
arrival of Buell. with fresh and undemoralized
troops. In his attempt to turn Vicksburg by a
movement from Tennessee through North
Mississippi towards Jackson, though he
suffered no defeat in pitched battle, he lost
his camp with immense military stores, and
was compelled to abandon the campaign.
And for long while-for about six months
at least-his operations from the river line
against Vicksburg were attended by nothing
to raise his fame. His first assault, that led
by Sherman at Chickasaw Bluffs, met with
terrible and disheartening repulse. His
prosecution of the canal across Terrapin
Neck, initiated by Butler proved as signal an
abortion as the famous Dutch Gap project,
the conception of the same inventor Of short
cut and explosive strategies. He cut the
levees with some occult design to hurt the
enemy, and thereby nearly drowned out his
own army. 1t was not until he had sue
ceeded, through the aid of Farragut's and
Porter's ships, in crossing his army below
Vicksburg, that serious misgivings as to his
fitness for the command which he held began
to give way. And it would seem to have been
when these misgivings were at their height,
just before the favorable turning point in his
tedious campaign, that it was decided at
headquarters in Washington to supersede
him.
This review is necessary in order to sustain
the credibility of the revelation, which is al
legged to have been quite recently made, OF the
transmission of an order directing General
Banks to replace Grant in command of the
army before Vicksburg. Looked at from be-
hind the glamour of the latter's subsequent
and final success, the allegation has all the
essentials of internal probability. Moreover,
it is now made on the apparent authority, and
in the obvious interest of General Banks, who,
of course, must know all about the affair as
far as it concerned himself. 1t is not neces-
sary to assume that he is the abject slave of
truth in order to give weight to his name in
this connection. 1t is enough to know that
he is one of the most phlegmatic of poll
ticians, and that be is precisely the man to
treasure up such a secret as precious reserve
of capital for investment when a fitting oppor-
tunity should occur. That it is at length di-
vulged, through his continuance doubtless,
shows that, in his belief, such an opportunity
is at hand in the accession to the presidency
of General Grant. For, just think of the
amount to which Grant is indebted for his
greatness to the disobedient abnegation of
Banks. Is it not really incalculable? Sup
pose Banks to have taken the COM
mand before Vicksburg, as ordered
Is it not morally certain that the place
would have fallen nevertheless, and that his
name, instead of Grants, would have assembled
on the cloud of glory and prestige that rained
blood and victory for the conqueror of Vicks-
burg from Chattanooga to the final deadly
close with the exhausted and reeling Confed-
eracy before Richmond? Given the fall of
Vicksburg no one can doubt that the actual
issue of the war was IN the mathematics of
the military problem, whether Grant, or
Banks. or another might have had the chief
command in conducting final operations.
Nothing short Of supernatural imbecility could
have brought about contrary result And
Gen. Banks is not miracle of stupidity, any
more than Gen. Grant. Nor is it to be
doubted that the victorious general before
Richmond, whether Banks or another, would
have been made President by one or the
other party, or by popular unanimity, unless
he should have absolutely refused to accept !
the Office under any circumstances
1t is plain, then, that Gen. Grant owes it
to Banks that he was not, as q superfuous ele-
ment, thrown out of that train of predestinate
events which has brought him to the presi-
dency, and is still to carry him who knows
where? That he will not in some way munif-
Gently acknowledge this obligation, is hardly
q. Al Z n