‘Midnight on the Potomac' Review: The Civil War's Last Gasp

Wall Street Journal

2 days ago

Twelve months before Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Union victory in the Civil War was far from certain. The capture of Vicksburg in 1863 had riven the Confederacy, but in the spring of 1864 Lee's Army of Northern Virginia remained a powerful force. Commander in Chief Abraham Lincoln worried not only about military prospects but also an impending presidential election in which he would face George B. McClellan, the popular Democratic candidate. Defeat would frustrate Lincoln's plans to stamp out the Southern rebellion, end slavery and reunite the nation.
The stakes are high in Scott Ellsworth's fast-paced 'Midnight on the Potomac: The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America.' Mr. Ellsworth, a former historian at the Smithsonian Institution and the author of 'The Ground Breaking,' about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, argues that, in early 1864, 'the fate of the United States of America lay in the balance.' He takes readers on an action-packed journey, beginning with the launch of Grant's Overland Campaign that spring and ending with Lincoln's shocking murder at Ford's Theatre one year later.
Mr. Ellsworth has crafted a suspenseful narrative brimming with engaging insights, highlighting some lesser-known historical episodes and individuals. For instance, most Americans think of Gettysburg as the war's deadliest battle: More than 51,000 soldiers perished, were wounded or went missing in July 1863 on the blood-soaked fields of Pennsylvania. But Mr. Ellsworth draws our attention to a different encounter. After Grant launched his Overland Campaign, the first two clashes between Gen. George Meade's Army of the Potomac and Lee's troops lasted from May 5 to May 21, 1864, and resulted in more than 60,000 casualties. 'Taken together as one single conflict,' Mr. Ellsworth writes, 'the bloody side-by-side battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania was the largest battle ever to occur in the Americas.'
Neither side could claim victory afterward, a fact that must have produced deep anxiety in Lincoln and the members of his administration. The president recognized, Mr. Ellsworth argues, that the war had become one of attrition and 'the trick now, as the summer weather rolled in, was to hang on.' But June and July brought new troubles. Munitions exploded at the Washington Arsenal on June 17, killing 21 workers and producing a damaging fire. The city came out in full force to honor the dead, with Lincoln joining the long march to the cemetery. One month later, Gen. Jubal Early brought his Confederate troops within 5 miles of the White House and contemplated an invasion to level the president's home as well as the U.S. Capitol. For unknown reasons, he decided not to attack. Union reinforcements reached the District of Columbia the following day and Early was forced to retreat. 'The audacious plan to capture Washington—and possibly end the war,' Mr. Ellsworth concludes, 'disappeared as quickly as it had begun.'