Washington

The Confederate States of America seemed to like what they most often referred to as “peculiar institutions,” since they applied this to their military as much as their social order. It can be understandable if you look at it in the light of the fact that the nation was born in the process of fighting for an enigma to begin with. This is not to say that they were without a conventional standing military. They did have one. It was politics that kept this real army from becoming the national one. Of the nearly hundred and fifty thousand troops that were officially listed as being at full time status (note that this number wildly varied and could do so from month to month), only about fifteen thousand of those men fell into the category of being directly under control of the general staff in Richmond.

All of these regulars made up the “CS Regiments” and were stationed in Virginia. Occasionally they were put on detached duty and moved to other locations but, this was never in mass and only sparingly. They really only had one job but, for that job, they were superbly trained. There were many who referred to them as “the other British Army,” and that had less to do with politics and more to do with their training. All of these men were trained by the British and to British standards. 

The officer corps was almost universally educated at the Royal Military Academies at Woolwich and Sandhurst. The enlisted men were trained by regular British Non-Com’s. Most often, in the case of the latter, these British Sergeants remained with their men for the duration of service. It was popular with the British soldiers because it allowed a chance for advancement that otherwise might not have been. For the Confederates it was equally advantageous in that they had serving professional British sergeants (and they were rightly considered the best in the world) fully integrated in to their military. It meant an on going learning curve for the average soldier that turned out equally professional Confederate Sergeants.

While the doctrine, training, and even the look of these Confederate regulars was distinctly British in flavor, the organization was curiously not. The British were using, what was for that time, a very antiquated system of organizing their troops at a level higher than the regiment. This consisted of temporarily formed brigades, consisting of component full time regiments, that were only brought into being on a situational basis. That worked fine for a nation that was an island and only expected to use it’s land forces in limited conflicts in far off colonies. The Confederacy was faced with an entirely different set of defense needs.

With the prospect of large scale ground combat in the event of a war, the British system was impractical for Confederate needs. It is true that the vast majority of the Confederate land forces still used the British system but, that was mostly due to the fact that the system served the political needs of governors. The general staff had no such needs and only looked at the military situation. That is why they adopted an organization closer to the one used by their enemies.

The US Army had long since reorganized along the lines of the Russian Army. This was not so much due to their alliance as it was the fact that both the American and Russian military forces were faced with similar situations (the long borders to protect). This system was based on the formation of permanent divisions which, consisted of three brigades,  that further broke down into five regiments per brigade. The division also had it’s own logistical and support network that was permanently inherit to that division.

The CS regiments were organized along similar lines with the variations being so minor as to not even be noteworthy. The Confederates formed their regulars into two divisions that they chose to call Corps. These two large, permanent, formations made up two thirds of the Confederacies legendary Army of Northern Virginia(which would be later and routinely referred to as the ANV). The third Corps assigned to the Army consisted of the State of Virginia’s land troops. There were also logistical units and some additional reserve troops that would be added in the event of a long term war but, this had yet to happen in November.

The most notable thing about the ANV was it’s artillery. This is not surprising when you consider it’s basic mission and what it faced. The ANV had more than just the standard field guns, although, those particular guns were patterned after the brand new French, rapid fire, seventy-five millimeter gun. The ANV found itself facing the US fortifications in occupied Virginia. The US had had three decades to turn those series of forts into one long chain of permanent block houses, trenches, and reinforced artillery pits. A good deal of that line was sitting behind hundreds of yards of cleared killing ground that was crossed over with deep fields of barbed wire. It was a formidable defense but the Confederates had had an equal amount of time to figure out how to destroy it. This was the primary job of the ANV. 

At the end of last war the US had retained some of the land it occupied, in Northern Virginia, in order to protect it’s capital which was, legally speaking, sitting directly on the border of the new nation. Washington DC was dominated by the terrain on the Confederate side of the river. A series of hills and bluffs, over looking the Potomac river, in Arlington, would have made defending the capital impossible (ironically the most prominent of these hills was owned by none other than Robert E Lee Sr). There had been a great call by many politicians in the US to hold on to all the occupied land in Virginia at the time. This territory was as far south as the Rappahannock river. Politics would not allow this since Britain would not hear of it but, the US thought they could get away with claiming rights to the original land grant for the District of Columbia and that included Arlington.

In effect the US did get away with it but, this was the primary sticking point that was keeping both nations from signing a permanent peace treaty. It was something that neither side could easily let go of. What the politicians in Washington were not keenly aware of at the time was the changing military realities. The army at Fort Lincoln (sitting directly on the river in Arlington) was all too aware of it but seems to have chosen to ignore it. This reality was that the ranges of artillery had greatly increased since the 1860’s.

By 1898, even standard field guns could hit targets that were well beyond their ability to see. A revolution in artillery had taken place in the world since the last Franco-Prussian war that was now thirty years gone. This ability would later become a curse to most militaries but, it was not the case here. Confederate spies had long since determined the range of US strong points in occupied Virginia. These fixed emplacements were exactly what the name implies, fixed, and they didn’t move. These same spies had also determined the ranges of most of the important buildings in Washington DC as well.

Standard field guns of the time would not do for most of these targets and particularly the military ones. They were reinforced to the point that it would require a sustained barrage to do any damage at all. That is why the Confederates had been developing large siege guns since the early 1880’s. This was made easy by the rapid naval expansion of the time and the birth of the Confederate’s steel industry in Alabama (those two went hand in hand). As a result, most of the Confederate siege guns were really naval guns that had been converted to use on rail cars.  These enormous weapons were reinforced by smaller guns (although huge by the standards of field artillery) that were set in permanent positions and spotted to exact targets. Many of these secondary guns were so precisely aligned that they could only be fired at one target and would be useless once that target was destroyed.

The US reaction to these guns was minimal at best. The politicians in Washington felt safe with the distance they had placed between themselves and the Confederates. To an untrained eye the defensive preparations for the District of Columbia were both formidable and impressive. The US Army must have thought so as well because most of their planning hinged around the assumption that the Confederates would attempt to flank their main lines.

It is certain that General Nelson Miles, sitting in Fort Lincoln, knew about these siege guns. What is not known is why his efforts to counter them were half hearted at best. The US Army had placed some of their own large guns in northern Virginia but, as was to be proven, these were too little too late. Miles was only fortunate in that he was not at Fort Lincoln at 12:01 AM, November the 2cnd, 1898. He was at home, asleep, in a house that was safe by the virtue of being located in north west Washington and was well out of range of Confederate guns. This was also where most of the political leadership lived. One also has to wonder how much Miles, and all of the congressman and senators, really knew about the siege guns considering where they chose to live.

General Porter Alexander, in his headquarters at Fort Hill, Virginia, had not only been preparing for this attack for the last couple of weeks, in reality, he had been preparing for the last four decades. Having sat in on most of the Presidents meetings, concerning the approaching war, Alexander was far better informed of events than was his counterpart in the District of Columbia. He had used his time for mobilizing to good effect and when he received the phone call from Richmond, he already knew what was to be said.

The man who called Alexander was General Robert E Lee Jr. He did not actually place the call from his office in the War Department but, was sitting with his brother Custis in the governors mansion of the state of Virginia. Custis, a former Lieutenant General himself, had been the Governor of Virginia for almost twenty years at this point. Custis is often accredited for the high state of readiness of his state’s troops and it seems that this praise is not misplaced. Since the onset of the crisis the two brothers had been working very closely together in preparations for this moment. The two Lee’s and Alexander had set the date for the attack to be the 1st of November. The ANV had been ready for almost a week prior to that. Those three must have been sitting on pins and needles the entire time. In their minds, every minute they waited was another troop train reinforcing US defenses.

Wheeler had insisted that the attack begin only after it had been confirmed that President Root was notified that the truce was over. Root did in fact receive this notification, personally, from the US envoy to Richmond, Howard Taft. He was given the date of the expiration when he was told that he was being expelled. Of course this came as no surprise to Taft who had already sent most of his staff home.

Taft should have went home via ship. That had always been his plan, and the Confederate plan, should war occur. Wheeler graciously informed him he would be allowed to take the quicker, and more direct route, overland by train. The reason for this was not one of courtesy on the part of Wheeler but, he wanted his official proclamation in the hands of Root as fast as he could get it there. The Confederate war plan depended greatly on speed.

In allowing the US envoy to travel by train it allowed Taft to see a great deal of activity in what would be an important theater of war. He was standing in the White House, before Root, in a little over two hours after leaving Richmond. It was around three in the afternoon and Taft took off his hat, wiped the sweat from his balding head, and informed his President that, “you’re not safe here Eli. My suggestion is to get everybody out.” Root was suitably impressed by Taft but, not to the extent that he felt personally threatened. He also did not see fit to notify General Miles of anything that Taft had told him.

Nine hours later, and just fifty miles to the south of the US executive mansion, General Alexander was not as nonchalant about the war as the US President seemed to be. Alexander told his long time colleague on the phone, “you know when I served your daddy, in this here army, I never dreamed I’d be running it one day.” Alexander was acutely aware of his responsibilities and the fact that the ANV was now much larger, better supplied, and commanded far more firepower than the elder Lee would have ever dreamed possible. 

When the first war with the US broke out, it had been one that the Confederate government could have never planned for because that government did not exist. Now, all of the planning, all of the training, and all of the resources of three and a half decades, and an entire generation of southerners, were about to be put to the test. Alexander admitted that he felt weak as he hung up the phone and nodded to the anxious mass of young staff officers that were waiting for his next set of instructions. 

He later noted that his mind raced over the fact that none of these boys, who were looking at him, had ever known war. Most of them had been born Confederate citizens whereas Alexander had not. The Confederate General had even graduated from West Point which was a school that was still training his enemy. He, like many of his generation, felt an odd sort of kinship with the very men they would soon be trying to kill. None of the children, before Alexander now, had that bond. This fact also included the bulk of the soldiers now serving on both sides of the border. Unlike the last war with the north, this one would truly be a war with a foreign country.

The nod from Alexander was all that was required. All of the young officers knew what the order was. They quickly, and quite enthusiastically, went to their phones and telegraphs and began relaying the orders to the entire ANV. When 12:01 rolled around the Confederate soldiers in the trenches, firing pits, and start lines around the US fortifications were fully prepared. Their counterparts on the other side of the miles of tangled barbed wire, were not.

One might think that, with the period of intense diplomatic tensions that preceded the war, the US Army divisions that occupied northern Virginia might have been a little more on guard. They were on alert at the time and had become a little more vigilant but, only a little. The fact was that these men lived on a state of alert in the most peaceful of times. The constant call to arms that came as a result of the crisis were rather normal so they paid it very little mind. This does not mean that they took no actions in preparation for the war but, their jobs were always about that and nothing else. What was one more stand to? 

The problem was more in their mindset than anything else. Life for the average US soldier, that was posted along this part of the frontier, was a war from the day he arrived. The citizens were hostile and made life here miserable. Attacks on soldiers, of various degrees, were not uncommon. There were no places to go, of the kind that are common around military posts world wide, where a soldier could unwind. The work was tedious and relentless. The result was quite mind numbing and, for those who served here, morale was always low. As a result, the firing of Confederate guns may have almost been a welcome diversion if it had not been such a shock.

President Root was not in bed (as is often portrayed) when the first sounds of war came. He was sitting in his study and no one really knows what he was specifically doing at the time. His private secretary was the first man to inform him of the attack. The man was probably not as convincing as were the sounds of thunder that could easily be heard from the executive mansion. Root went quickly to the roof where he watched flashes of lightening to the south. This was not a thunderstorm of course. A few moments later, when the first big shells fell on Fort Lincoln, Root wisely left the roof.

The Confederate gunners got lucky with their first hit on Fort Lincoln. Many have claimed that this was intentional but, experts agree that, such accuracy was impossible. It didn’t matter if intentional or not, the communications nerve of the US Army was completely destroyed by the first hit. The telegraph and phone operators were located in what was thought to be a hardened bunker. The only problem was that the fortifications at Lincoln had been seriously neglected as funds were diverted towards improving positions closer to the front. No one had seriously thought that the Confederates could bombard this far north and this accurately. 

The shell was most likely fired from one of the many eighteen inch rail guns that, at the time, were firing from several prepared positions, located at the end of rail spurs. Each of these positions were normally nothing more than a track that would dead end at a mound of dirt that was built up on three sides of the rails. Each of these positions were pre-sighted for specific targets and when these targets received the pre-allotted number of rounds, the gun would then move to the next such position and repeat the process. It was all done quite mechanically with no fore thought needed by the gunners. The next barrage would come when damage assessments could be obtained.

The first shell that fell on Fort Lincoln penetrated several feet of dirt, a thin concrete ceiling, and then exploded in the very room that Miles might have been in had he not gone home for the night. The tension between him and his president probably saved his life but, it did nothing to aide in coordinating the army in the opening hours of the attack. Fortunately, for those directly in front of the Confederate guns, the coordination of the city’s defenses were not being handled at Fort Lincoln. This job, along with commanding the Potomac Front, fell to Major General Adna Chaffee who, unlike his commander, was actually at his headquarters when the enemy barrage struck home. It was also fortunate, for both the District of Columbia and Chaffee, that the first shells to strike at his headquarters missed the mark. It was very fortunate indeed because we do know those rounds came from the rail guns and would have likely penetrated his block house. The second barrage came from the smaller, fixed guns, and they did hit the mark but only managed to do minimal damage to the shelter.

As per the Confederate plan, with the exception of the attack on Fort Lincoln, the target list was struck by the big guns from a direction of south to north. As the siege weapons rolled their barrage towards the Potomac river it was then that the field guns, that were assigned to the infantry units, began to take over the job of pounding away at the US positions to their immediate front.

At the time, and for a little while to come, this was the largest artillery bombardment in the history of mankind. Even those on the receiving end were awestruck by the very thing that was trying to kill them. For the people in Washington proper (and you would be hard pressed to find someone who slept through it for the guns were heard as far north as Baltimore) it was a spectacle to behold. Root was not the only one to run to his roof that night. Practically the entire city was fighting for a vantage point to see the show of light and thunder that was raging just across the river.

Initially, when this plan became technologically possible, there had been some sharp debate in Richmond about how far north to go with the bombardment. Confederate politicians were squeamish about the idea of dropping two ton, high explosive, shells in the middle of any city, let alone, one they used to call their national capital. There was a certain amount of sentimentality involved, a certain amount of respect for the artistic merit of Washington, and an equal amount of concern for civilians. In the end, the realization that the strategic benefits of shelling the US capital, along with the temptation of delivering what was termed, “a wake up call for them damn Yankees,” was just too much. Plans to hit Washington DC were made.

Until about five in the morning the only target that had been hit within direct sight of Washington had been Fort Lincoln. It had taken three direct hits out of ten shells lobbed at it (of the other seven all but one fell short of Arlington heights. The last one went wide and detonated harmlessly in the Potomac river). The Fort took one critical hit but was otherwise still functional. It’s defenses were still in tact even if it was never meant to be seriously defended. Some barracks would burn down over the course of the next day but, otherwise, the opening rounds that fell on it were ineffectual. The records, plans, and most of the staff that worked there were just fine.

The people in Washington thought the attack loathsome since, up till around five, that was the only actual impacts they had seen. When the shells began to fall on the city this feeling would only be amplified, a thousand fold, and that would quickly give way to panic. Even for those who had not gotten out of bed when the first sounds of war echoed down the streets, by five there was virtually no one who had not awaken and walked outside. People had begun congregating near gas street lights. People, still in there night clothes, had clumped together in huddled masses, in the early winter morning, to express their sentiments. There were some who even decided to celebrate and more than one street party began.

While it was true that the Confederates had long since decided to attack the political infrastructure of the city, it is equally true that they had decided to do so in a very reserved manner. The average military target, in Northern Virginia, was hit with between five to ten rounds from the big rail guns. The targets in Washington would only get one to three. Sometime between four-fifty and five o’clock, the first rail gun was set and loaded. It’s shell would impact near the Executive Mansion at five-oh-one (just thirty one minutes behind the Confederate schedule).

Again, it is claimed by some that this shell found it’s target, however, Confederate documents prove this not to be the case. The round had been intended to land on the Executive Mansion but, instead, it struck the building across the street, which was, none other than the US War Department. Secretary of War, Russell A. Alger, had only just arrived when this happened. 

Alger’s luck with the Confederacy was bad to say the least. He had been wounded and captured at the battle of Boonesville, Kentucky in 1861. He had escaped but, two years later, found himself fighting in another town named after the famous mountain man, Boonesburough, Maryland. He was wounded there as well and in both instances it had been by Confederate artillery. In the early morning hours of November the 2nd, 1898, Confederate gunners would finish the job. The shell crashed into a second story wall and kept on going until the dirt beneath the building stopped it. As far as anyone knows, the round is still down there, buried beneath a ton of earth, because it failed to detonate. It did not have to blow up to do extensive damage though. It struck any number of critical supports and part of the building collapsed, killing over thirty people including the US Secretary of War.

Confederate aim up till this point had been very good. They had had nearly twenty years to sight their weapons and had not wasted a second of that time. The further north their shells flew the less accurate they became however. Part of the reason for this is obvious. The further an object has to fly then the more external factors, such as wind and humidity, come in to play. For an object that is traveling at twice the speed of sound, over a distance of thirty miles or so, the variations from this will still be small but they are there. The main reason for the inaccuracy, though, had more to do with Confederate estimations of the range.

All of the targets for the big guns had been measured off by spies, and re-measured again and again. The problem with their attempts to get accurate distances were multiple. The biggest of which was that they had to be discreet. If a US soldier or Federal Marshall even thought you were pacing off a target then the result was a quick military trial followed by an even quicker execution. This not only created discrepancies in the measurements but it also meant that no length could be measured by the same people at the same time. The fragments of data flowing from the north were assembled into a coherent picture in Richmond. Some of this data was tainted by US counter-intelligence while other bits were just plain wrong. This was never more true than for the measurements related to the targets in Washington proper.

The barrage, that started with the strike on the War Department, fell on the town in a random way. People were out and about, on roofs, in the streets, with not a concern that they were personally at risk from this war. The rounds aimed at the Executive Mansion are a good case in point. The only one, of the three rounds aimed at it, that would get close was the first one that killed Secretary Alger across the street. Root’s mansion would come through the bombardment unscathed.

The Capital building was also targeted with three rounds and, as near as anyone can tell, those rounds were the most accurate and they completely missed. They also caused a near tragedy that night. The domed building that housed the US legislature, suffered only broken windows. Two of the three rounds, fired at the building, all impacted just short of their target on the National Mall. The third hit a building that was of vital importance but, of no military significance. That building is routinely called “the Castle” and housed none other than the Smithsonian Institute. It would have been a tragedy for not just the US, but for all of mankind, had so many rare treasures been lost with the building. Most, however, were saved and the US would have it’s first two hero’s of the war because of this.

The first of these two hero’s was the director of the Smithsonian, Samuel Langley. The other man was someone we have already met, Theodore Roosevelt. Both of these men would go on to make significant contributions to the war effort but, on this night, they very well may have made their biggest even if it was forgotten in the light of their later deeds. Langley had been fearful of war for sometime. In later years he was to admit that his concerns revolved around the Confederacy capturing Washington and not of them blowing it up. He had no idea what might happen to the collections of artifacts under his charge should the CSA take the capital so, he decided to start quietly moving them early on in September.

Langley had already secured a suitable warehouse, and adjacent office building, in the city of Baltimore, that were owned by the US Naval Academy. The building he rented is, still today, the main offices for the Smithsonian even if they purchased the land across the street to build modern buildings for their exhibits. By the night of the attack, Langley had already moved a great deal of priceless objects to what would later become their permanent home. There was still a great deal left though.

Like most residents in Washington, Theodore Roosevelt had awaken with the first sounds of war. The house he was renting was in north-western Washington and hence safe (although there was no way Roosevelt could have known that and, in fact, he even wrote as much). He had stated that he felt extreme comfort in knowing that he had already sent his family back to New York. Since Roosevelt had been one of the main negotiators at the new round of Langley talks, he had a unique perspective on what was going to happen. Roosevelt had felt all along that war was imminent and, when the talks abruptly concluded, he knew it would be sooner as opposed to later. Just like Sam Langley, Roosevelt had already sent his most precious things, his family, out of harms way. As Roosevelt put it, for none can put it any better, “when it was clear to me, only seconds after I heard the great crash (probably the wire center at Fort Lincoln exploding), I knew there was nothing else for me to do than march towards the sound of the guns.”

In his tailor made hunting suit from Brooks Brothers, with his favorite rifle slung over his shoulder, Roosevelt borrowed a neighbors horse and rode slowly towards the capitol building where he intended to volunteer his services in repelling the attack on the city. He managed to find one official there, a US congressman from Ohio named William McKinley, and proceeded to lecture the man on the points of why he should be allowed to fight. McKinley, who was rather busy at the time, found the only way to get rid of this man was send him over to the War Department with a letter for McKinley’s personal friend, Secretary Alger.

Roosevelt enthusiastically accepted the letter but, after arriving at the War Department, was very irked to find out Alger had yet to arrive. It was a fortunate event for Roosevelt, that while lecturing one of Alger’s staff about the virtues of being at your post during a time like this, that a runner from the Smithsonian burst into the office with a request from Samuel Langley. The director of the Smithsonian was looking for any help that he could muster in order to complete the evacuation of his museum. Roosevelt, not only being an admirer and patron of the Smithsonian, had also contributed a great deal to it’s nature collection. He volunteered to help.

Both men, Langley and Roosevelt, were standing together when the first shells crashed into the mall. The third round, that would seal the fate of the castle, did not actually strike the building. Had it done so, then it is likely that all would have been lost. It was the fire that resulted from the impact that would engulf the castle. This gave them time to complete their task and, both Langley and Roosevelt, would credit each other more than themselves but, their quick thinking and organizational skills saved many priceless objects that night. They would not see each other again for several years but, in that time, Roosevelt would go off to fight the war while Langley would help create one of it’s most ferocious new weapons, the airplane.

Ultimately the barrage sparked a panic of Washington residents. In their stampede to flee the war, they would probably do more damage, and cause more loss of life, than the actual attack. The Confederates might have failed to hit their targets only, in the end, they did not have to in order to achieve their goal. The highest echelons of the US government and military were paralyzed for days. This small “victory” was nothing of the sort however. In reality, the US military was already on the move and simply going through the motions. The lack of orders from the President and Chief of Staff probably even sped things up. The propaganda that would result from the attack, and caused an enraged US public to unify in a way they never had before, was almost nothing compared to the diplomatic nightmare it would cause with the chief Confederate ally, Great Britain. In the long run, it made the Confederacy pay a high price for what had ever only been intended as a, “slap in the face.”