RETREAT WITHIN THE LINES--REORGANIZATION--HALLECK AND HIS
SUBORDINATES
McClellan's visits to my position--Riding the lines--Discussing the
past campaign--The withdrawal from the James--Prophecy--McClellan
and the soldiers--He is in command of the defences--Intricacy of
official relations--Reorganization begun--Pope's army marches
through our works--Meeting of McClellan and Pope--Pope's
characteristics--Undue depreciation of him--The situation when
Halleck was made General-in-Chief--Pope's part in it--Reasons for
dislike on the part of the Potomac Army--McClellan's secret
service--Deceptive information of the enemy's force--Information
from prisoners and citizens--Effects of McClellan's illusion as to
Lee's strength--Halleck's previous career--Did he intend to take
command in the field?--His abdication of the field command--The
necessity for a union of forces in Virginia--McClellan's inaction
was Lee's opportunity--Slow transfer of the Army of the
Potomac--Halleck burdened with subordinate's work--Burnside twice
declines the command--It is given to McClellan--Pope relieved--Other
changes in organization--Consolidation--New campaign begun.
On Sunday, the 31st, McClellan rode over to Upton's Hill and spent
most of the day with me. He brought me a copy of the McDowell map of
the country about Washington, the compilation of which had been that
officer's first work at the beginning of hostilities. It covered the
region to and beyond the Bull Run battlefield, and although not
wholly accurate, it was approximately so, and was the only authority
relied upon for topographical details of the region. McClellan's
primary purpose was to instruct me as to the responsibilities that
might fall upon me if the army should be driven in. A day or two
later I received formal orders to prepare to destroy buildings in
front within my lines of artillery fire, and to be ready to cover
the retreat of our army should any part be driven back near my
position. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. pp. 802,
805.] All this, however, had been discussed with McClellan himself.
We rode together over all the principal points in the neighborhood,
and he pointed out their relation to each other and to positions on
the map which we did not visit. The discussion of the topography led
to reminiscences of the preceding year,--of the manner in which the
enemy had originally occupied these hills, and of their withdrawal
from them,--of the subsequent construction of the forts and
connecting lines, who occupied them all, and the system of mutual
support, of telegraphic communication, and of plans for defence in
case of attack.
McClellan had received me at Alexandria on the 27th with all his old
cordiality, and had put me at once upon our accustomed footing of
personal friendship. On my part, there was naturally a little
watchfulness not to overstep the proper line of subordination or to
be inquisitive about things he did not choose to confide to me; but,
this being assumed, I found myself in a circle where he seemed to
unbosom himself with freedom. I saw no interruption in this while I
remained in the Potomac Army. He was, at this time, a little
depressed in manner, feeling keenly his loss of power and command,
but maintaining a quiet dignity that became him better than any show
of carelessness would have done. He used no bitter or harsh language
in criticising others. Pope and McDowell he plainly disliked, and
rated them low as to capacity for command; but he spoke of them
without discourtesy or vilification. I think it necessary to say
this because of the curious sidelight thrown on his character by the
private letters to his wife which have since been published in his
"Own Story," and of which I shall have more to say. Their
inconsistency with his expressions and manner in conversation, or at
least their great exaggeration of what he conveyed in familiar talk,
has struck me very forcibly and unpleasantly.
He discussed his campaign of the peninsula with apparent unreserve.
He condemned the decision to recall him from Harrison's Landing,
arguing that the one thing to do in that emergency was to reinforce
his army there and make it strong enough to go on with its work and
capture Richmond. He said that if the government had lost confidence
in his ability to conduct the campaign to a successful end, still it
was unwise to think of anything else except to strengthen that army
and give it to some one they could trust. He added explicitly, "If
Pope was the man they had faith in then Pope should have been sent
to Harrison's Landing to take command, and however bitter it would
have been, I should have had no just reason to complain." He
predicted that they would yet be put to the cost of much life and
treasure to get back to the position left by him.
On Monday, September 1st, he visited me again, and we renewed our
riding and our conversation. The road from his headquarters
encampment near Alexandria to Upton's Hill was a pleasant one for
his "constitutional" ride, and my position was nearest the army in
front where news from it would most likely be first found. The Army
of the Potomac had all passed to the front from Alexandria, and
according to the letter of the orders issued, he was wholly without
command; though Halleck personally directed him to exercise
supervision over all detachments about the works and lines. He came
almost alone on these visits, an aide and an orderly or two being
his only escort. Colonel Colburn of his staff was usually his
companion. He wore a blue flannel hunting-shirt quite different from
the common army blouse. It was made with a broad yoke at the neck,
and belt at the waist, the body in plaits. He was without sash or
side arms, or any insignia of rank except inconspicuous
shoulder-straps. On this day he was going into Washington, and I
rode down with him to the bridge. Bodies of troops of the new levies
were encamped at different points near the river. In these there
seemed to be always some veterans or officers who knew the general,
and the men quickly gathered in groups and cheered him. He had a
taking way of returning such salutations. He went beyond the formal
military salute, and gave his cap a little twirl, which with his bow
and smile seemed to carry a little of personal good fellowship even
to the humblest private soldier. If the cheer was repeated, he would
turn in his saddle and repeat the salute. It was very plain that
these little attentions to the troops took well, and had no doubt
some influence in establishing a sort of comradeship between him and
them. They were part of an attractive and winning deportment which
adapted itself to all sorts and ranks of men.
On Tuesday he came a little later in the day, and I noticed at once
a change in his appearance. He wore his yellow sash with sword and
belt buckled over it, and his face was animated as he greeted me
with "Well, General, I am in command again!" I congratulated him
with hearty earnestness, for I was personally rejoiced at it. I was
really attached to him, believed him to be, on the whole, the most
accomplished officer I knew, and was warmly disposed to give him
loyal friendship and service. He told me of his cordial interview
with President Lincoln, and that the latter had said he believed him
to be the only man who could bring organized shape out of the chaos
in which everything seemed then to be. The form of his new
assignment to duty was that he was to "have command of the
fortifications of Washington, and of all the troops for the defence
of the capital." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. p.
807.] The order was made by the personal direction of the President,
and McClellan knew that Secretary Stanton did not approve of it.
General Halleck seemed glad to be rid of a great responsibility, and
accepted the President's action with entire cordiality. Still, he
was no doubt accurate in writing to Pope later that the action was
that of the President alone without any advice from him. [Footnote:
Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. p. 820.] McClellan was
evidently and entirely happy in his personal relation to things. He
had not been relieved from the command of the Army of the Potomac,
though the troops had passed temporarily to Pope's army. As
commandant of all within the defences, his own army reported to him
directly when they came within our lines. Pope's army of northern
Virginia would, of course, report through its commander, and
Burnside's in a similar way. The first thing to be done was to get
the army in good condition, to strengthen its corps by the new
regiments which were swarming toward the capital, and to prepare it
for a new campaign. McClellan seemed quite willing to postpone the
question who would command when it took the field. Of the present he
was sure. It was in his own hands, and the work of reorganization
was that in which his prestige was almost sure to increase. This
attitude was plainly shown in all he said and in all he hinted at
without fully saying it.
Halleck had already directed Pope to bring the army within the
fortifications, though the latter had vainly tried to induce him to
ride out toward Centreville, to see the troops and have a
consultation there before determining what to do. [Footnote: _Id_.,
p. 796.] We were therefore expecting the head of column to approach
my lines, and I arranged that we should be notified when they came
near. McClellan had already determined to put the corps and
divisions of the Army of the Potomac in the works, at positions
substantially the same as they had occupied a year before,--Porter
near Chain Bridge, Sumner next, Franklin near Alexandria, etc. I was
directed to continue in the position I already occupied, to be
supported by part of McDowell's corps.
About four o'clock McClellan rode forward, and I accompanied him. We
halted at the brow of the hill looking down the Fairfax road. The
head of the column was in sight, and rising dust showed its position
far beyond. Pope and McDowell, with the staff, rode at the head.
Their uniform and that of all the party was covered with dust, their
beards were powdered with it; they looked worn and serious, but
alert and self-possessed. When we met, after brief salutations,
McClellan announced that he had been ordered to assume command
within the fortifications, and named to General Pope the positions
the several corps would occupy. This done, both parties bowed, and
the cavalcade moved on. King's division of McDowell's corps was the
leading one, General Hatch, the senior brigadier, being in command
by reason of King's illness. Hatch was present, near Pope, when
McClellan assumed command, and instantly turning rode a few paces to
the head of his column and shouted, "Boys, McClellan is in command
again; three cheers!" The cheers were given with wild delight, and
were taken up and passed toward the rear of the column. Warm friend
of McClellan as I was, I felt my flesh cringe at the unnecessary
affront to the unfortunate commander of that army. But no word was
spoken. Pope lifted his hat in a parting salute to McClellan and
rode quietly on with his escort. [Footnote: General Hatch had been
in command of the cavalry of Banks's corps up to the battle of Cedar
Mountain, when he was relieved by Pope's order by reason of
dissatisfaction with his handling of that arm of the service. His
assignment to a brigade of infantry in King's division was such a
reduction of his prominence as an officer that it would not be
strange if it chafed him.]
McClellan remained for a time, warmly greeted by the passing troops.
He then left me, and rode off toward Vienna, northward. According to
my recollection, Colonel Colburn was the only member of his staff
with him; they had a small cavalry escort. My understanding also was
that they proposed to return by Chain Bridge, avoiding the crowding
of the road on which they had come out, and on which McDowell's
corps was now moving. In his "Own Story" McClellan speaks of going
in that direction to see the situation of Sumner's troops, supposed
to be attacked, and intimates a neglect on Pope's part of a duty in
that direction. I am confident he is mistaken as to this, and that I
have given the whole interview between him and Pope. The telegraphic
connection with my headquarters was such that he could learn the
situation in front of any part of the line much more promptly there
than by riding in person. Lee did not pursue, in fact, beyond
Fairfax C. H. and Centreville, and nothing more than small bodies of
cavalry were in our vicinity. I had kept scouting-parties of our own
cavalry active in our front, and had also collected news from other
sources. On the 1st of September I had been able to send to army
headquarters authentic information of the expectation of the
Confederate army to move into Maryland, and every day thereafter
added to the evidence of that purpose, until they actually crossed
the Potomac on the 5th. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt.
ii. pp. 404, 405; vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 170; vol. li. pt. i. p. 777.]
Hatch's division was put into the lines on my left with orders to
report to me in case of attack. Patrick's brigade of that division
was next day placed near Falls Church in support of my cavalry,
reporting directly to me. My two regiments which had been with Pope
rejoined the division, and made it complete again. The night of the
2d was one in which I was on the alert all night, as it was probable
the enemy would disturb us then if ever; but it passed quietly. A
skirmish in our front on the Vienna road on the 4th was the only
enlivening event till we began the campaign of South Mountain and
Antietam on the 6th.
Pope's proposed reorganization of his army, [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. p. 810.] which would have put me with
most of Sigel's corps under Hooker, was prevented by a larger change
which relieved him of command and consolidated his army with that of
the Potomac on September 5th. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 813.] I had a
very slight acquaintance with Pope at the beginning of the war, but
no opportunity of increasing it till he assumed command in Virginia
and I reported to him as a subordinate. The events just sketched had
once more interfered with my expected association with him, and I
did not meet him again till long afterward. Then I came to know him
well. His wife and the wife of my intimate friend General Force were
sisters, and in Force's house we often met. He was then broken in
health and softened by personal afflictions. [Footnote: Mrs. Pope
and Mrs. Force were daughters of the Hon. V. B. Horton, of Pomeroy,
Ohio, a public man of solid influence and character, and prominent
in the development of the coal and salt industries of the Ohio
valley. I leave the text as I wrote it some years before General
Pope's death. Since he died, the friendship of our families has
culminated in a marriage between our children.] His reputation in
1861 was that of an able and energetic man, vehement and positive in
character, apt to be choleric and even violent toward those who
displeased him. I remember well that I shrunk a little from coming
under his immediate orders through fear of some chafing, though I
learned in the army that choleric commanders, if they have ability,
are often warmly appreciative of those who serve them with soldierly
spirit and faithfulness. No one who had any right to judge
questioned Pope's ability or his zeal in the National cause. His
military career in the West had been a brilliant one. The necessity
for uniting the columns in northern Virginia into one army was
palpable; but it was a delicate question to decide who should
command them. It seems to have been assumed by Mr. Lincoln that the
commander must be a new man,--neither Frémont, McDowell, nor Banks.
The reasons were probably much the same as those which later brought
Grant and Sheridan from the West.
Pope's introduction to the Eastern army, which I have already
mentioned, was an unfortunate one; but neither he nor any one else
could have imagined the heat of partisan spirit or the lengths it
would run. No personal vilification was too absurd to be credited,
and no characterization was too ridiculous to be received as true to
the life. It was assumed that he had pledged himself to take
Richmond with an army of 40,000 men when McClellan had failed to do
so with 100,000. His defeat by Lee was taken to prove him
contemptible as a commander, by the very men who lauded McClellan
for having escaped destruction from the same army. There was neither
intelligence nor consistency in the vituperation with which he was
covered; but there was abundant proof that the wounded _amour
propre_ of the officers and men of the Potomac Army made them
practically a unit in intense dislike and distrust of him. It may be
that this condition of things destroyed his possibility of
usefulness at the East; but it would be asking too much of human
nature (certainly too much of Pope's impetuous nature) to ask him to
take meekly the office of scapegoat for the disastrous result of the
whole campaign. His demand on Halleck that he should publish the
approval he had personally given to the several steps of the
movements and combats from Cedar Mountain to Chantilly was just, but
it was imprudent. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii.
pp. 812, 821.] Halleck was irritated, and made more ready to
sacrifice his subordinate. Mr. Lincoln was saddened and embarrassed;
but being persuaded that Pope's usefulness was spoiled, he swallowed
his own pride and sense of justice, and turned again to McClellan as
the resource in the emergency of the moment.
Pope seems to me entirely right in claiming that Jackson's raid to
Manassas was a thing which should have resulted in the destruction
of that column. He seems to have kept his head, and to have prepared
his combinations skilfully for making Jackson pay the penalty of his
audacity. There were a few hours of apparent hesitation on August
28th, but champions of McClellan should be the last to urge that
against him. His plans were deranged on that day by the accident of
McDowell's absence from his own command. This happened through an
excess of zeal on McDowell's part to find his commander and give him
the benefit of his knowledge of the topography of the country; yet
it proved a serious misfortune, and shows how perilous it is for any
officer to be away from his troops, no matter for what reason. Many
still think Porter's inaction on the 29th prevented the advantage
over Jackson from becoming a victory. [Footnote: I have treated this
subject at large in "The Second Battle of Bull Run as connected with
the Fitz-John Porter Case."] But after all, when the army was united
within our lines, the injuries it had inflicted on the enemy so
nearly balanced those it had received that if Grant or Sherman had
been in Halleck's place, Lee would never have crossed the Potomac
into Maryland. McClellan, Pope, and Burnside would have commanded
the centre and wings of the united and reinforced army, and under a
competent head it would have marched back to the Rappahannock with
scarcely a halt.
That Halleck was in command was, in no small measure, Pope's own
work. He reminded Halleck of this in his letter of September 30th,
written when he was chafing under the first effects of his removal.
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. pp. 816, etc.] "If
you desire," said he, "to know the personal obligation to which I
refer, I commend you to the President, the Secretary of War, or any
other member of the administration. Any of these can satisfy your
inquiries." This means that he had, before the President and the
cabinet, advocated putting Halleck in supreme command over himself
and McClellan to give unity to a campaign that would else be
hopelessly broken down. McClellan was then at Harrison's Landing,
believing Lee's army to be 200,000 strong, and refusing to listen to
any suggestion except that enormous reinforcements should be sent to
him there. He had taught the Army of the Potomac to believe
implicitly that the Confederate army was more than twice as numerous
as it was in fact. With this conviction it was natural that they
should admire the generalship which had saved them from
annihilation. They accepted with equal faith the lessons which came
to them from headquarters teaching that the "radicals" at Washington
were trying for political ends to destroy their general and them. In
regard to the facts there were varying degrees of intelligence among
officers and men; but there was a common opinion that they and he
were willingly sacrificed, and that Pope, the radical, was to
succeed him. This made them hate Pope, for the time, with holy
hatred. If the army could at that time have compared authentic
tables of strength of Lee's army and their own, the whole theory
would have collapsed at once, and McClellan's reputation and
popularity with it. They did not have the authentic tables, and
fought for a year under the awful cloud created by a blundering
spy-system.
The fiction as to Lee's forces is the most remarkable in the history
of modern wars. Whether McClellan was the victim or the accomplice
of the inventions of his "secret service," we cannot tell. It is
almost incredible that he should be deceived, except willingly. I
confess to a contempt for all organizations of spies and detectives,
which is the result of my military experience. The only spies who
long escape are those who work for both sides. They sell to each
what it wants, and suit their wares to the demand. Pinkerton's man
in the rebel commissariat at Yorktown who reported 119,000 rations
issued daily, laughed well in his sleeve as he pocketed the secret
service money. [Footnote: For Pinkerton's reports, see Official
Records, vol. xi. pt. i. pp. 264-272.]
A great deal of valuable information may be got from a hostile
population, for few men or women know how to hold their tongues,
though they try never so honestly. A friendly population overdoes
its information, as a rule. I had an excellent example of this in
the Kanawha valley. After I had first advanced to Gauley Bridge, the
Secessionists behind me were busy sending to the enemy all they
could learn of my force. We intercepted, among others, a letter from
an intelligent woman who had tried hard to keep her attention upon
the organization of my command as it passed her house. In counting
my cannon, she had evidently taken the teams as the easiest units to
count, and had set down every caisson as a gun, with the
battery-forge thrown in for an extra one. In a similar way, every
accidental break in the marching column was counted as the head of a
new regiment. She thus, in perfect good faith, doubled my force, and
taught me that such information to the enemy did them more harm than
good.
As to the enemy's organization and numbers, the only information I
ever found trustworthy is that got by contact with him. No day
should pass without having some prisoners got by "feeling the
lines." These, to secure treatment as regular prisoners of war, must
always tell the company and regiment to which they belong. Rightly
questioned, they rarely stop there, and it is not difficult to get
the brigade, division, etc. The reaction from the dangers with which
the imagination had invested capture, to the commonly good-humored
hospitality of the captors, makes men garrulous of whom one would
not expect it. General Pope's chief quartermaster, of the rank of
colonel, was captured by Stuart's cavalry in this very campaign; and
since the war I have read with amazement General Lee's letters to
President Davis, to the Secretary of War at Richmond, and to General
Loring in West Virginia, dated August 23d, in which he says:
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. ii. pp. 940-941.]
"General Stuart reports that General Pope's chief quartermaster, who
was captured last night, positively asserts that Cox's troops are
being withdrawn by the way of Wheeling." Of course Lee suggests the
importance of "pushing things" in the Kanawha valley. Stuart thus
knew my movement on the day I left Parkersburg.
Even when the captured person tells nothing he is bound to conceal,
enough is necessarily known to enable a diligent provost-marshal to
construct a reasonably complete roster of the enemy in a short time.
In the Atlanta campaign I always carried a memorandum book in which
I noted and corrected all the information of this sort which came to
me, and by comparing this with others and with the lists at General
Sherman's headquarters, there was no difficulty in keeping well up
in the enemy's organization. It may therefore be said that every
commanding officer ought to know the divisions and brigades of his
enemy. The strength of a brigade is fairly estimated from the
average of our own, for in people of similar race and education, the
models of organization are essentially the same, and subject to the
same causes of diminution during a campaign. Such considerations as
these leave no escape from the conclusion that McClellan's estimates
of Lee's army were absolutely destructive of all chances of success,
and made it impossible for the President or for General Halleck to
deal with the military problem before them. That he had continued
this erroneous counting for more than a year, and through an active
campaign in the field, destroyed every hope of correcting it. The
reports of the peninsular campaign reveal, at times, the difficulty
there was in keeping up the illusion. The known divisions in the
Confederate army would not account for the numbers attributed to
them, and so these divisions occasionally figure in our reports as
"grand divisions." [Footnote: In his dispatch to Halleck on the
morning after South Mountain (September 15), D. H. Hill's division
is called a corps. Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 294.] That
the false estimate was unnecessary is proven by the fact that
General Meigs, in Washington, on July 28th, made up an estimate from
the regiments, brigades, etc., mentioned in the newspapers that got
through the lines, which was reasonably accurate. But McClellan held
Meigs for an enemy. [Footnote: General Meigs found ninety regiments
of infantry, one regiment of cavalry, and five batteries of
artillery designated by name in the "Confederate" newspaper reports
of the seven days' battles. Comparing this with other information
from similar sources, he concluded that Lee had about one hundred
and fifty regiments. These, at 700 men each, would make 105,000, or
at 400 (which he found a full average) the gross of the infantry
would be 60,000. General Webb, with official documents before him,
puts it at 70,000 to 80,000. Does one need better evidence how much
worse than useless was McClellan's secret service? See Official
Records, vol. xi. pt. iii. p. 340.] When I joined McClellan at
Washington, I had no personal knowledge of either army except as I
had learned it from the newspapers. My predilections in favor of
McClellan made me assume that his facts were well based, as they
ought to have been. I therefore accepted the general judgment of
himself and his intimate friends as to his late campaign and Pope's,
and believed that his restoration to command was an act of justice
to him and of advantage to the country. I did not stay long enough
with that army to apply any test of my own to the question of
relative numbers, and have had to correct my opinions of the men and
the campaigns by knowledge gained long afterward. I however used
whatever influence I had to combat the ideas in McClellan's mind
that the administration meant to do him any wrong, or had any end
but the restoration of National unity in view.
Whether Halleck was appointed on Pope's urgent recommendation or no,
his campaign in the West was the ground of his promotion. The
advance from the Ohio to Fort Donelson, to Nashville, to Shiloh, and
to Corinth had been under his command, and he deservedly had credit
for movements which had brought Kentucky and Tennessee within the
Union lines. He had gone in person to the front after the battle of
Shiloh, and though much just criticism had been made of his slow
digging the way to Corinth by a species of siege operations, he had
at any rate got there. Mr. Lincoln was willing to compromise upon a
slow advance upon Richmond, provided it were sure and steady.
Halleck's age and standing in the army were such that McClellan
himself could find no fault with his appointment, if any one were to
be put over him.
Everything points to the expectation, at the time of his
appointment, that Halleck would assume the personal command in the
field. He visited McClellan at Harrison's Landing on July 25th,
however, and promised him that if the armies should be promptly
reunited, he (McClellan) should command the whole, with Burnside and
Pope as his subordinates. [Footnote: McC. Own Story, p. 474;
Official Records, vol. xi. pt. iii. p. 360.] That he did not inform
Pope of this abdication of his generalship in the field is plain
from Pope's correspondence during the campaign. It is made
indisputably clear by Pope's letter to him of the 25th of August.
[Footnote: _Id_., vol. xii. pt. ii. pp. 65, 66.] He probably did not
tell the President or Mr. Stanton of it. He seems to have waited for
the union of the parts of the army, and when that came his prestige
was forever gone, and he had become, what he remained to the close
of the war, a bureau officer in Washington. He had ordered the
transfer of the Potomac Army from the James to Acquia Creek,
intending to unite it with Burnside's at Falmouth, opposite
Fredericksburg, and thus begin a fresh advance from the line of the
Rappahannock. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. ii. p. 5;
vol. xi. pt. i. pp. 80-84; _Id_., pt. iii. p. 337.] He believed, and
apparently with reason, that ten days was sufficient to complete
this transfer with the means at McClellan's disposal, but at the end
of ten days the movement had not yet begun. [Footnote: The order was
given August 3; the movement began August 14. _Id_., pt. i. pp. 80,
89.] He was right in thinking that the whole army should be united.
McClellan thought the same. The question was where and how.
McClellan said, "Send Pope's men to me." Halleck replied that it
would not do to thus uncover Washington. McClellan had said that
vigorous advance upon the enemy by his army and a victory would best
protect the capital. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xii. pt. ii. pp. 9, 10.]
Again he was right, but he seemed incapable of a vigorous advance.
Had he made it when he knew (on July 30) that Jackson had gone
northward with thirty thousand men to resist Pope's advance, his
army would not have been withdrawn. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xi. pt.
iii. p. 342.] He was then nearly twice as strong as Lee, but he did
not venture even upon a forced reconnoissance. The situation of the
previous year was repeated. He was allowing himself to be besieged
by a fraction of his own force. Grant would have put himself into
the relation to McClellan which he sustained to Meade in 1864, and
would have infused his own energy into the army. Halleck did not do
this. It would seem that he had become conscious of his own lack of
nerve in the actual presence of an enemy, and looked back upon his
work at St. Louis in administering his department, whilst Grant and
Buell took the field, with more satisfaction than upon his own
advance from Shiloh to Corinth. He seemed already determined to
manage the armies from his office in Washington and assume no
responsibility for their actual leadership.
When the Army of the Potomac was arriving at Alexandria, another
crisis occurred in which a single responsible head in the field was
a necessity. McClellan had been giving a continuous demonstration,
since August 4th, how easy it is to thwart and hinder any movement
whilst professing to be accomplishing everything that is possible.
No maxim in war is better founded in experience than that a man who
believes that a plan is sure to fail should never be set to conduct
it. McClellan had written that Pope would be beaten before the Army
of the Potomac could be transferred to him, and Pope was beaten.
[Footnote: Halleck to McClellan, August 10 and 12, and McClellan's
reply: Official Records, vol. xi. pt. i. pp. 86-88. See also O. S.,
p. 466.] The only chance for any other result was for Halleck
himself to conduct the transfer. If Halleck meant that Franklin
should have pushed out to Manassas on the 27th of August, he should
have taken the field and gone with the corps. He did not know and
could not know how good or bad McClellan's excuses were, and nothing
but his own presence, with supreme power, could certainly remove the
causes for delay. He wrote to Pope that he could not leave
Washington, when he ought not to have been in Washington. [Footnote:
Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. p. 797.] He worked and worried
himself ill trying to make McClellan do what he should have done
himself, and then, overwhelmed with details he should never have
burdened himself with, besought his subordinate to relieve him of
the strain by practically taking command. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 691;
vol. xi. pt. i. p. 103.]
As soon as McClellan began the movement down the James, Lee took
Longstreet's corps to Jackson, leaving only D. H. Hill's at
Richmond. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. ii. pp. 177, 552.] From that moment
McClellan could have marched anywhere. He could have marched to
Fredericksburg and joined Pope, and Halleck could have met them with
Burnside's troops. But the vast imaginary army of the Confederacy
paralyzed everything, and the ponderous task of moving the Army of
the Potomac and its enormous material by water to Washington went
on. The lifeless and deliberate way in which it went on made it the
1st of September when Sumner and Franklin reached Centreville, and
the second battle of Bull Run had ended in defeat on the evening
before.
But the army was at last reunited, within the fortifications of
Washington, it is true, and not on the James or on the line of the
Rappahannock. There was another opportunity given to Halleck to put
himself at its head, with McClellan, Pope, and Burnside for his
three lieutenants. Again he was unequal to his responsibility. Mr.
Lincoln saw his feebleness, and does not seem to have urged him.
Halleck was definitely judged in the President's mind, though the
latter seems to have clung to the idea that he might be useful by
allowing him to assume the role he chose, and confine himself to
mere suggestions and to purely routine work. Pope's unpopularity
with the army was adopted by popular clamor, which always finds a
defeated general in the wrong. The President, in real perplexity,
compromised by assigning McClellan to command for the purpose of
organizing, a work in which he was admitted by all to be able. The
command in the field was a second time offered to Burnside, who
declined it, warmly advocating McClellan's claims and proving his
most efficient friend. [Footnote: C. W., vol. i. p. 650.] Within
three days from the time I had ridden with McClellan to meet the
retreating army, the enemy had crossed the Potomac, and decision
could not be postponed. The President met McClellan, and told him in
person that he was assigned to command in the field. [Footnote:
_Id_., p. 453; Official Records, vol. xi. pt. i. p. 103.]
On the 5th of September Halleck had sent to McClellan a confidential
note, telling of the President's action relieving Pope, and
anticipating the issue of formal orders: [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 182.] "The President has directed that
General Pope be relieved and report to the War Department; that
Hooker be assigned to command of Porter's corps, and that Franklin's
corps be temporarily attached to Heintzelman's. The orders will be
issued this afternoon. Generals Porter and Franklin are to be
relieved from duty till the charges against them are examined. I
give you this memorandum in advance of orders, so that you may act
accordingly in putting forces in the field." Later in the same day
Halleck sent to McClellan the opinion that the enemy was without
doubt crossing the Potomac, and said, "If you agree with me, let our
troops move immediately." The formal order to Pope was: "The armies
of the Potomac and Virginia being consolidated, you will report for
orders to the Secretary of War." [Footnote: _Id_., p. 183.] Pope had
caused charges to be preferred against Porter and Franklin, and had
accused McClellan of wilfully delaying reinforcements and so causing
his defeat. His indignation that the interpretation of affairs given
by McClellan and his friends should be made into public opinion by
the apparent acquiescence of Halleck and the administration overcame
his prudence. Had he controlled his feelings and schooled himself
into patience, he would hardly have been relieved from active
service, and his turn would probably have come again. As it stood,
the President saw that McClellan and Pope could not work together,
and the natural outcome was that he retired Pope, so that McClellan
should not have it to say that he was thwarted by a hostile
subordinate. McClellan himself was so manifestly responsible for
Franklin's movements from the 27th to the 30th of August, that it
was a matter of course that when the chief was assigned to command
the condonation should cover the subordinate, and at McClellan's
request Franklin was allowed to take the field at once. [Footnote:
Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. pp. 190, 197.] A few days later
he urged the same action in Porter's case, and it was done. Porter
joined the army at South Mountain on the 14th of September.
[Footnote: _Id_., pp. 190, 254, 289.] The same principle demanded
that McDowell, who was obnoxious to McClellan, should be relieved,
and this was also done. As an ostensible reason for the public,
McDowell's request for a Court of Inquiry upon his own conduct was
assumed to imply a desire to be relieved from the command of his
corps. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 188, 189, 197.] But the court was not
assembled till the next winter. McDowell had been maligned almost as
unscrupulously as Pope. A total abstainer from intoxicating drinks,
he was persistently described as a drunkard, drunken upon the field
of battle. One of the most loyal and self-forgetting of
subordinates, he was treated as if a persistent intriguer for
command. A brave and competent soldier, he was believed to be
worthless and untrustworthy. As between Halleck, McClellan, and
Pope, the only one who had fought like a soldier and manoeuvred like
a general was sent to the northwestern frontier to watch the petty
Indian tribes, carrying the burden of others' sins into the
wilderness. Mr. Lincoln's sacrifice of his sense of justice to what
seemed the only expedient in the terrible crisis, was sublime.
McClellan commanded the army, and Porter and Franklin each commanded
a corps. If the country was to be saved, confidence and power could
not be bestowed by halves.
In his "Own Story" McClellan speaks of the campaign in Maryland as
made "with a halter round his neck," [Footnote: O. S., p. 551.]
meaning that he had no real command except of the defences of
Washington, and that he marched after Lee without authority, so
that, if unsuccessful, he might have been condemned for usurpation
of command. It would be incredible that he adopted such a mere
illusion, if he had not himself said it. It proves that some at
least of the strange additions to history which he thus published
had their birth in his own imagination brooding over the past, and
are completely contradicted by the official records. [Footnote: This
illusion, at least, is shown to be of later origin by his telegram
to his wife of September 7. "I leave here this afternoon," he says,
"to take command of the troops in the field. The feeling of the
government towards me, I am sure, is kind and trusting. I hope, with
God's blessing, to justify the great confidence they now repose in
me, and will bury the past in oblivion." O. S., p. 567.] The
consolidation of the armies under him was, in fact, a promotion,
since it enlarged his authority and committed to him the task that
properly belonged to Halleck as general-in-chief. For a few days,
beginning September 1st, McClellan's orders and correspondence were
dated "Headquarters, Washington," because no formal designation had
been given to the assembled forces at the capital. When he took the
field at Rockville on the 8th of September, he assumed, as he had
the right to do in the absence of other direction from the War
Department, that Burnside's and Pope's smaller armies were lost in
the larger Army of the Potomac by the consolidation, and resumed the
custom of dating his orders and dispatches from "Headquarters, Army
of the Potomac," from the command of which he had never been
removed, even when its divisions were temporarily separated from
him. [Footnote: On August 31st Halleck had written to him, "You will
retain the command of everything in this vicinity not temporarily
belonging to Pope's army in the field;" and in the general order
issued August 30, McClellan's command of the Army of the Potomac is
affirmed. Official Records, vol. xi. pt. i. p. 103; _Id_., vol. li.
pt. i. p. 775.] The defences of Washington were now entrusted to
Major-General Banks, strictly in subordination, however, to himself.
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. pp. 202, 214.] The
official record of authority and command is consistent and perfect,
and his notion in his later years, that there was anything informal
about it, is proven to be imaginary. [Footnote: _Ante_, p. 257.]
Halleck's direction, which I have quoted, to "let our troops move
immediately," would be absurd as addressed to the commandant of the
Army of the Potomac into which the Army of Virginia was
consolidated, unless that commandant was to take the field, or a
formal order relieved him of command as Pope was relieved. Certainly
no other commander was designated, and I saw enough of him in those
days to say with confidence that he betrayed no doubt that the order
to "move immediately" included himself. McClellan's popularity with
the Army of the Potomac had seemed to Mr. Lincoln the only power
sufficient to ensure its prompt and earnest action against the
Confederate invasion. His leadership of it, to be successful, had to
be accompanied with plenary powers, even if the stultification of
the government itself were the consequence. When the patriotism of
the President yielded to this, the suggestion of McClellan twenty
years afterward, that it had all been a pitfall prepared for him,
would be revolting if, in view of the records, the absurdity of it
did not prove that its origin was in a morbid imagination. It is far
more difficult to deal leniently with the exhibition of character in
his private letters, which were injudiciously added to his "Own
Story" by his literary executor. In them his vanity and his ill-will
toward rivals and superiors are shockingly naked; and since no
historian can doubt that at every moment from September, 1861, to
September, 1862, his army greatly outnumbered his enemy, whilst in
equipment and supply there was no comparison, his persistent outcry
that he was sacrificed by his government destroys even that
character for dignity and that reputation for military intelligence
which we fondly attributed to him.
The general arrangement of the campaign seems to have been settled
between Halleck and McClellan on the 5th of September. General
Sumner with the Second and Twelfth corps moved up the Potomac by way
of Tenallytown, Burnside with the First and Ninth corps moved to
Leesboro with a view to covering Baltimore, the front was explored
by the cavalry under Pleasonton, and the Sixth Corps, under
Franklin, constituted a reserve. [Footnote: Confusion in the numbers
of the First and Twelfth corps is found in the records and
dispatches, owing to the fact that in the Army of Virginia the corps
numbers were not those given them by the War Department. Sigel's,
properly the Eleventh Corps, had been called First of that army.
Banks's, properly Twelfth, had been called Second, and McDowell's,
properly First, had been called Third. In the Maryland campaign
Hooker was assigned to McDowell's, and it sometimes figures as
First, sometimes as Third; Mansfield was assigned to Banks's. The
proper designations after the consolidation were First and Twelfth.
Reno had been assigned to the First, but McClellan got authority to
change it, and gave it to Hooker, sending Reno back to the Ninth.
Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. pp. 197, 198, 279, 349.] The
preliminary movements occupied the 5th and 6th, but on the 7th the
positions were as I have stated them. The principal bodies were
designated, respectively, as right and left wings instead of armies.
The two corps from the Army of Virginia were separated, one being
assigned to the right wing under Burnside, and the other to the left
under Sumner.