THE MAN ON HORSEBACK
Before the sun had set on the day of storm which followed the panic at
Bull Run, the President had selected and summoned to Washington the man
who was to create the first Grand Army of the Republic--a man destined
to measure the full power of his personality against the Chief
Magistrate in a desperate struggle for the supremacy of the life of the
Nation itself.
General George Brinton McClellan, in answer to the summons, reached
Washington on July the 20th, and immediately took command of the Army of
the Potomac--or of what was left of it.
The President did not make this selection without bitter opposition and
grave warning. He was told that McClellan was an aggressive pro-slavery
Democrat, a political meddler and unalterably opposed to him and his
party on every essential issue before the people. These arguments found
no weight with the man in the White House. He would ask but one
question, discuss but one issue:
"Is McClellan the man to whip this new army of 500,000 citizens into a
mighty fighting machine and level it against the Confederacy?"
The all but unanimous answer was:
"Yes."
"Then I'll appoint him," was the firm reply. "I don't care what his
religion or his politics. The question is not _whether I shall save the
Union--but that the Union shall be saved_. My future and the future of
my party can take care of themselves--if they can't, let them die!"
The new Commander was a man of striking and charming personality, but
thirty-four years old, and graduated from West Point in 1846. He had
served with distinction in the war against Mexico, studied military
science in Europe under the great generals in command at the Siege of
Sebastopol, and had achieved in West Virginia the first success won in
the struggle with the South. He had been opposed in West Virginia by
General Robert E. Lee, the man of destiny to whom the President, through
General Scott, had offered the command of the Union army before Lee had
drawn his sword for Virginia. He was a past master of the technical
science of engineering, defense and military drill.
In spite of his short physical stature, he was of commanding appearance.
On horseback his figure was impressively heroic. It took no second
glance to see that he was a born leader of men.
On the first day of his active command he had already conceived the idea
that he was a man of destiny. He wrote that night to his wife:
"I find myself in a new and strange position here--President, Cabinet,
General Scott and all deferring to me. By some strange operation of
magic, I seem to have become the power of the land----"
Three days later he wrote again of his sensational reception in the
Senate Chamber:
"I suppose half a dozen of the oldest members made the remark I am
becoming so much used to:
"'Why how young you look and yet an old soldier!'
"They give me my way in everything, full swing and unbounded confidence.
All tell me that I am held responsible for the fate of the Nation, and
that all its resources shall be placed at my disposal. It is an immense
task that I have on my hands, but I believe I can accomplish it. When I
was in the Senate Chamber to-day and found those old men flocking around
me; when I afterward stood in the library looking over the Capital of a
great Nation, and saw the crowd gathering to stare at me, I began to
feel how great the task committed to me. How sincerely I pray God that I
may be endowed with the wisdom and courage necessary to accomplish the
work. Who would have thought when we were married, that I should so soon
be called upon to save my country?"
Nor was McClellan the only man who saw this startling vision. He made
friends with astounding rapidity, and held men to him with hooks of
steel.
With utter indifference to his own fame or future, the President joined
the public in praise of the coming star. The big heart at the White
House rejoiced in the strength of his Commanding General. But the man
who measured the world by the fixed standards of an exact science had no
powers of adjustment to the homely manners, simple unconventional ways,
and whimsical moods of Abraham Lincoln.
McClellan's one answer to all inquiries about his relation to the Chief
Executive was:
"The President is honest and means well!"
The smile that played about the corners of his fine, keen, blue eyes
when he said this left no doubt in the mind of his hearer as to his real
opinion of the poor country lawyer who had by accident been placed in
the White House.
And so the inevitable happened. The suggestions of the President and his
War Department were early resented as meddling with affairs which did
not concern them.
The President saw with keen sorrow that there were brewing schemes
behind the compelling blue eyes of the "Napoleon" he had created. The
talk of McClellan's aspirations to a military dictatorship, which would
include the authority of the Executive and the Legislative branches of
the Government, had been current for more than two months. His recent
manner and bearing had given color to these reports.
The splendor and ceremony of his headquarters could not have been
surpassed by Alexander or Napoleon. His growing staff already included a
Prince of the Royal Blood, the distinguished son of the Emperor of
France, and the Comte de Paris his attendant. His baggage train was
drawn by one hundred magnificent horses perfectly matched, hitched in
teams of four to twenty-five glittering new vans. His Grand Army spread
over mile after mile of territory far back into the hills of Virginia.
The autumnal days were brilliant with fresh uniforms, stars, sabres,
swords, spurs, plate, dinners, wines, cigars, the pomp and pride and
glory of war.
Men stood in little groups and discussed in whispers the significance of
his continued stay in the Capital.
"If the President has any friends, the hour has come when they've got
to stand by him!" The speaker was a man of fifty, a foreigner who had
made Washington his home and liked Lincoln.
"Nonsense, my dear fellow," a tall Westerner replied, "we may have to
get a few rifles and guard the White House from somebody's attempt to
occupy it, but we'll not need any big guns."
"If you'd heard the talk last night," the foreigner replied, with a
shrug of his shoulder, "you'd change your mind----"
The Westerner shook his head:
"No! The General's not that big a fool and the men around him have
better sense. And if they haven't--if they all should go crazy--it
couldn't be done. They couldn't control the army."
"Did you ever hear the army cheer as 'Little Mac' rides along the line?"
"Yes, but it don't mean an Emperor for all that----"
"I'm not so sure!"
And there were men of National reputation who considered the chances of
the man on horseback good at this moment. Such a man had openly attached
himself to the General as his attorney--no less a personage than the
distinguished Attorney General of the late Cabinet, Edwin M. Stanton.
During the closing days of Buchanan's crumbling administration Stanton
had become the dominating force of the Capital. His daring and his skill
had defeated the best laid schemes of the Southern party and broken its
grip on the administration. He had remained in Washington as a lawyer
practicing before the Supreme Court and had become the most aggressive
observer and critic of Lincoln and his Cabinet. His scorn for the
President knew no bounds.
"No one," he wrote to General John A. Dix, "can imagine the deplorable
condition of this city and the hazard of the Government, who did not
witness the weakness and the panic of the administration and the painful
imbecility of Lincoln."
To Buchanan, his ex-Chief, he wrote:
"A strong feeling of distrust in the candor and sincerity of Lincoln's
personality and of his Cabinet has sprung up. It was the imbecility of
this administration which culminated in the catastrophe of Bull Run.
Irretrievable misfortune and National disgrace never to be forgotten are
to be added to the ruin of all peaceful pursuits and National bankruptcy
as the result of Lincoln's running the machine for five months.
Jefferson Davis will soon be in possession of Washington."
Not only in letters to the leaders of public opinion in the Nation did
the aggressive and powerful lawyer seek to destroy the Government, but
in his conversation in Washington he was equally daring, venomous and
personal in his abuse of the President. "A low, cunning clown" and "the
original gorilla" were his choice epithets.
Stanton's influence over McClellan was decided and vital from the moment
of their introduction. It was known among the General's intimate friends
that he had advised again and again that he use his power as Commander
of the Army to declare a Dictatorship, depose the President and dissolve
the sittings of Congress until the war should be ended.
How far McClellan had dallied with this dangerous and alluring scheme
was a matter of conjecture. It is little wonder that the wildest rumors
of intrigues, of uprisings, of mutiny, filled the air.
McClellan had doggedly refused either to move his army or to formally go
into winter quarters until the middle of December, when he took to his
bed and announced that he was suffering from an attack of typhoid fever.
The President was further embarrassed by the course of his Secretary of
War, Cameron, who, while laboring under the censure of Congress for the
conduct of his office, had allowed Senator Winter to stab his chief in
the back by recommending in his report that the slaves be armed by the
Government and put into the ranks of the armies. Senator Winter, as the
Radical leader, knew that to meet such an issue once raised the
President must rebuke his Secretary and apologize to the Border Slave
States. He would thus alienate from his support all Cameron's friends,
and all friends of the negro. The Senator did not believe the President
would dare to fight on such an issue.
He had misjudged his man. The President not only rebuked his Secretary
by suppressing his report and revising its language, he demanded and
received his resignation, notwithstanding the fact that Cameron was the
most powerful politician in the most powerful State of the North.
He at once sought a new Secretary of War, free from all party
entanglements, who could not be influenced by contractors or jobbers or
scheming politicians, who was absolutely honest and who had a boundless
capacity for work.
Strangely enough, his eye rested on Edward M. Stanton, his arch enemy,
the man who had become McClellan's confidential attorney.
As an aggressive patriotic Democrat, Stanton had won the confidence of
the public in the last administration. His capacity for work had proved
limitless. He was under no obligations to a living soul who could ask
aught of Lincoln's administration. He was savagely honest. At the moment
the discovery of gigantic frauds practiced on the War Department by
thieving contractors, coupled with fabulous expenditures in daily
expenses, had destroyed the confidence of the money lenders in the
integrity of the Government. The Treasury was facing a serious crisis.
And then the astounding thing happened. Without consulting a soul inside
his Cabinet or out, Abraham Lincoln appointed his bitterest foe from the
party of his enemies his Secretary of War. He offered the place to Edwin
M. Stanton.
Perhaps the most astonished man in America was Stanton himself. To the
amazement of his friends, as well as his critics, he promptly accepted
the position.
Senator Winter, whose radical temperament had found in Stanton a
congenial spirit, though as wide as the poles apart in politics, met him
in the lobby of the Senate Chamber on the day his appointment was
confirmed.
He broke into a cynical laugh and asked:
"And what will you do?"
Stanton's keen spectacled eyes bored him through in silence as he
snapped:
"I may make Abe Lincoln President of the United States."
Evidently another man was entering the Cabinet under the impression that
the hands of an impotent Chief Magistrate needed strengthening. The
merest glance at this man's burly thick set body, his big leonine head
with its shock of heavy black hair, long and curling, his huge grizzly
beard and full resolute lips, was enough to convince the most casual
observer that he could be a dangerous enemy or a powerful ally.
The President was warned of this appointment, but his confidence was
unshaken. His reply was a revelation of personality:
"I have faith in affirmative men like Stanton. They stand between a
nation and perdition. He has shown a loyalty to the Union that rose
above his own partisan creed of a lifetime. I like that kind of a man."
"He'll run away with the whole concern," was his friend's laconic reply.
The President's big generous mouth moved with a smile:
"Well, we may have to treat him as they sometimes did a Methodist
minister I knew out West. He was a mighty man in prayer and exhortation.
At times his excitement rose to such threatening heights the elders put
brick bats in his pockets to hold him down. We may be obliged to serve
Stanton the same way----"
He paused and laughed.
"But I guess we'll let him jump awhile first!"
The men who knew the inner secrets of Stanton's relations to McClellan
watched this drama with keen interest. Had he gone into the Cabinet to
place the General in supreme power in a moment of crisis? Or had he at
heart deserted the Commander with the intention of using the enormous
power of the War Department to further a scheme of equal daring for
himself? They could only watch the swiftly moving scenes of the war
pageant for their answer.
One fact was standing out each day with sharp and clean cut
distinctness, a struggle of giants was on beneath the surface. Startling
surprise had followed startling surprise during the past months. Men
everywhere were asking one another, what next? The air of Washington was
foul with the breath of passion and intrigue. Purposes and methods were
everywhere assailed. Men high in civil life were believed to be plotting
with military conspirators to advance their personal fortunes on the
ruins of the Republic.
Around two men were gathering the forces whose clash would decide the
destiny of the Nation--the struggle between the supremacy of civil
authority in the President, and the war-created strength of the Military
Commander represented by McClellan. Could the Republic survive this war
within a war?