THE NEW ADMINISTRATION AND THE WAR.
Visit to Mr. Lincoln--Closing months of Mr. Buchanan's Administration
--Efforts to avoid war--Character of Buchanan--Lincoln's Inauguration
--His war policy--The grand army of office seekers--The July session
of Congress--The atmosphere of Washington--Battle of Bull Run--
Apologetic resolve of Congress--First confiscation act--Regular
session of Congress--Secretary Cameron--Committee on the conduct
of the war--Its conference with the President and his Cabinet--
Secretary Stanton and General McClellan--Order to march upon
Manassas.
Early in January, 1861, I paid a visit to Mr. Lincoln at his home
in Springfield. I had a curiosity to see the famous "rail splitter,"
as he was then familiarly called, and as a member-elect of the
Thirty-seventh Congress I desired to form some acquaintance with
the man who was to play so conspicuous a part in the impending
national crisis. Although I had zealously supported him in the
canvass, and was strongly impressed by the grasp of thought and
aptness of expression which marked his great debate with Douglas,
yet as a through-going Free Soiler and a member of the radical wing
of Republicanism, my prepossessions were against him. He was a
Kentuckian, and a conservative Whig, who had supported General
Taylor in 1848, and General Scott four years later, when the Whig
party finally sacrificed both its character and its life on the
altar of slavery. His nomination, moreover, had been secured
through the diplomacy of conservative Republicans, whose morbid
dread of "abolitionism" unfitted them, as I believed, for leadership
in the battle with slavery which had now become inevitable, while
the defeat of Mr. Seward had been to me a severe disappointment
and a real personal grief. The rumor was also current, and generally
credited, that Simon Cameron and Caleb B. Smith were to be made
Cabinet Ministers, in recognition of the important services rendered
by the friends of these gentlemen in the Chicago Convention. Still,
I did not wish to do Mr. Lincoln the slightest injustice, while I
hoped and believed his courage and firmness would prove equal to
the emergency.
On meeting him I found him far better looking than the campaign
pictures had represented. His face, when lighted up in conversation,
was not unhandsome, and the kindly and winning tones of his voice
pleaded for him like the smile which played about his rugged
features. He was full of anecdote and humor, and readily found
his way to the hearts of those who enjoyed a welcome to his fireside.
His face, however, was sometimes marked by that touching expression
of sadness which became so generally noticeable in the following
years. On the subject of slavery I was gratified to find him less
reserved and more emphatic than I expected. The Cabinet rumor
referred to was true. He felt bound by the pledges which his
leading friends had made in his name pending the National Convention;
and the policy on which he acted in these and many other appointments
was forcibly illustrated on a subsequent occasion, when I earnestly
protested against the appointment of an incompetent and unworthy
man as Commissioner of Patents. "There is much force in what you
say," said he, "but, in the balancing of matters, I guess I shall
have to appoint him." This "balancing of matters" was a source of
infinite vexation during his administration, as it has been to
every one of his successors; and its most deplorable results have
been witnessed in the assassination of a president. Upon the whole,
however, I was much pleased with our first Republican Executive,
and I returned home more fully inspired than ever with the purpose
to sustain him to the utmost in facing the duties of his great
office.
The closing months of Mr. Buchanan's Administration were dismal
and full of apprehension. One by one the slaveholding States were
seceding from the Union. The President, in repeated messages,
denied their right to secede, but denied also the right of the
Government to coerce them into obedience. It should be remembered,
to his credit, that he did insist upon the right to enforce the
execution of the laws in all the States, and earnestly urged upon
Congress the duty of arming him with the power to do this; but
Congress, much to its discredit, paid no attention to his wishes,
leaving the new Administration wholly unprepared for the impending
emergency, while strangely upbraiding the retiring President for
his non-action. For this there could be no valid excuse. The
people of the Northern States, now that the movement in the South
was seen to be something more than mere bluster, were equally
alarmed and bewildered. The "New York Herald" declared that
"coercion, if it were possible, is out of the question." The
"Albany Argus" condemned it as "madness." The "Albany Evening
Journal" and many other leading organs of Republicanism, East and
West, disowned it, and counseled conciliation and further concessions
to the demands of slavery. The "New York Tribune" emphatically
condemned the policy of coercion, and even after the cotton States
had formed their Confederacy and adopted a provisional Government,
it declared that "whenever it shall be clear that the great body
of the Southern people have become conclusively alienated from the
Union and anxious to escape from it, we will do our best to forward
their views." The "Tribune" had before declared that "whenever a
considerable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to go
out, we shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep it in.
We hope never to live in a Republic whereof one section is pinned
to the other by bayonets." It is true, that it justified the
secession of the Southern States as a revolutionary right; but
although these States defended it as a constitutional one, the
broader and higher ground of Mr. Greeley necessarily gave powerful
aid and comfort to their movement. In the meantime, great meetings
in Philadelphia and New York strongly condemned the Abolitionists,
and urged the most extravagant additional concessions to slavery
for the sake of peace. On the 12th of January Mr. Seward made his
great speech in the Senate, declaring that he could "afford to meet
prejudice with conciliation, exaction with concession which surrenders
no principle, and violence with the right hand of peace." He was
willing to give up Congressional prohibition of slavery in the
Territories, enforce the Fugitive Slave law, and perpetuate slavery
in our Republic by amending the Constitution for that purpose.
The Crittenden compromise, which practically surrendered everything
to slavery, only failed in the Senate by one vote, and this failure
resulted from the non-voting of six rebel senators, who were so
perfectly devil-bent upon the work of national dismemberment that
they would not listen to any terms of compromise, or permit their
adoption. The Peace Congress, assembled for the purpose of devising
some means of national pacification, agreed upon a series of measures
covering substantially the same ground as the Crittenden compromise,
while both Houses of Congress agreed to a constitutional amendment
denying any power to interfere with slavery "until every State in
the Union, by its individual State action, shall consent to its
exercise." The feverish dread of war which prevailed throughout
the Northern States was constantly aggravated by multiplying
evidences of slaveholding desperation. The general direction of
public opinion pointed to the Abolitionists as the authors of these
national troubles, while the innocent and greatly-abused slaveholders
were to be petted and placated by any measures which could possibly
serve their purpose. Indeed, the spirit of Northern submission
had never, in the entire history of the anti-slavery conflict, been
more strikingly exhibited than during the last days of the Thirty-
sixth Congress, when the Capital of the Republic was threatened by
armed treason, and the President-elect reached Washington in a
disguise which baffled the assassins who had conspired against his
life. To the very last the old medicine of compromise and conciliation
seemed to be the sovereign hope of the people of the free States;
and although it had failed utterly, and every offer of friendship
and peace had been promptly spurned as the evidence of weakness or
cowardice, they clung to it till the guns of Fort Sumter roused
them from their perilous dream.
The inauguration of the President was awaited with great anxiety
and alarm. The capture of Washington by the rebels was seriously
apprehended, and had undoubtedly been meditated. The air was filled
with rumors respecting the assassination of the President, and the
stories told of the various methods of his taking off would have
been amusing if the crisis had not been so serious. General Scott
took all the precautions for the preservation of the peace which
the small force at his command, and the District militia, enabled
him to do. The day was beautiful, and the procession to the Capitol
quite imposing. Mr. Lincoln and ex-President Buchanan entered the
Senate chamber arm in arm; and the latter was so withered and bowed
with age that in contrast with the towering form of Mr. Lincoln he
seemed little more than half a man. The crowd which greeted the
President in front of the east portico of the Capitol was immense,
and has never been equaled on any similar occasion with the single
exception of General Garfield's inauguration. Mr. Lincoln's voice,
though not very strong or full-toned, rang out over the acres of
people before him with surprising distinctness, and was heard in
the remotest parts of his audience. The tone of moderation,
tenderness, and good-will, which marked his address, made an evident
impression, and the most heartfelt plaudits were called forth by
the closing passage:
"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though
passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection.
The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and
patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this
broad land, will yet swell the chorus of union, when again touched,
as they surely will be, by the better angels of their nature."
But as an offering of friendship and fair dealing to the South,
this speech failed of its purpose as signally as all kindred
endeavors had done from the beginning. The "Richmond Enquirer"
and "Whig," the "Charleston Mercury," and other leading organs of
secession, denounced the inaugural, and seemed to be maddened by
the very kindliness of its tone and the moderation of its demands.
Their purpose was disunion and war, and every passing day multiplied
the proofs that no honorable escape from this fearful alternative
was possible.
The policy of the new Administration prior to the attack upon Sumter
forms perhaps the most remarkable chapter in the history of the
war. All the troubles of the previous Administration were now
turned over to Mr. Lincoln, and while no measures had been provided
to aid him in their settlement the crisis was constantly becoming
more imminent. The country was perfectly at sea; and while all
hope of reconciliation was fading from day to day, Mr. Seward
insisted that peace would come within "sixty days." His optimism
would have been most amusing, if the salvation of the country had
not been at stake. The President himself not only still hoped,
but believed, that there would be no war; and notwithstanding all
the abuse that had been heaped upon Mr. Buchanan by the Republicans
for his feeble and vacillating course, and especially his denial
of the right of the government to coerce the recusant States, the
policy of the new Administration, up to the attack upon Sumter,
was identical with that of his predecessor. In Mr. Seward's official
letter to Mr. Adams, dated April 10, 1861, he says the President
"would not be disposed to reject a cardinal dogma of theirs (the
secessionists), namely, that the Federal Government could not reduce
the seceding States to obedience through conquest, even though he
were disposed to question that proposition. But in fact the
President willingly accepts it as true. Only and imperial and
despotic Government could subjugate thoroughly disaffected and
insurrectionary members of the State. * * * The President, on the
one hand, will not suffer the Federal authority to fall into
abeyance, nor will he, on the other hand, aggravate existing evils
by attempts at coercion, which must assume the direct form of war
against any of the revolutionary States." These are very remarkable
avowals, in the light of the absolute unavoidableness of the conflict
at the time they were made; and they naturally tended to precipitate
rather than avert the threatened catastrophe. It will not do to
say that Secretary Seward spoke only for himself, and not for the
Administration; for the fact has since been established by the
evidence of other members of the Cabinet that Mr. Lincoln, while
he had great faith in Mr. Seward at first, was always himself the
President. No member of it was his dictator. I do not say that
he endorsed all Mr. Seward's peculiar views, for the latter went
still further, as the country has since learned, and favored the
abandonment of Fort Sumter and other Southern forts, as a part of
a scheme of pacification looking to an amendment to the Constitution
in the interest of slavery. During this early period Mr. Chase
himself, with all his anti-slavery radicalism and devotion to the
Union, became so far the child of the hour as to deprecate the
policy of coercion and express his belief that if the rebel States
were allowed to go in peace they would soon return. But "war
legislates," and the time had now come when nothing else could
break the spell of irresolution and blindness which threatened the
Union even more seriously than armed treason itself.
Notwithstanding this strange epoch of Republican feebleness and
indecision, the warfare against Mr. Buchanan was never intermitted.
It had been prosecuted with constantly increasing vigor since the
year 1856, and had now become so perfectly relentless and overwhelming
that he was totally submerged by the waves of popular wrath; and
for twenty odd years no political resurrection has been thought
possible. Although his personal integrity was as unquestionable
as that of John C. Calhoun or George III, and his private life as
stainless, yet his public character has received no quarter from
his enemies and but little defense from his friends. One of his
most formidable critics, writing long years after the war, describes
him as "hungry for regard, influence, and honor, but too diminutive
in intellect and character to feel the glow of true ambition--a
man made, so to speak, to be neither loved nor hated, esteemed nor
despised, slighted nor admired; intended to play an influential
part in the agitation of parties, and by history to be silently
numbered with the dead, because in all his doings there was not a
single deed; a man to whom fate could do nothing worse than place
him at the helm in an eventful period." While there is a measure
of truth in this picture, I believe any fair-minded man will
pronounce it over-drawn, one-sided, and unjust, after reading the
recently published life of Mr. Buchanan by George Ticknor Curtis,
dealing fully with his entire public career in the clear, cold
light of historic facts. The most pronounced political foe of Mr.
Buchanan can not go over the pages of this elaborate and long-delayed
defense without modifying some of his most decided opinions; but
one thing remains obviously true, and that is in dealing with the
question of slavery Mr. Buchanan was wholly without a conscience.
The thought seems never to have dawned upon him that the slave was
a man, and therefore entitled to his natural rights. In a public
speech on the ninth of July, 1860, defining his position, and
referring to the Dred Scott decision, he says: "It is to me the
most extraordinary thing in the world that this country should now
be distracted and divided because certain persons at the North will
not agree that their brethren at the South should have the same
rights in the Territories which they enjoy. What would I, as a
Pennsylvanian, say or do, supposing any one was to contend that the
Legislature of any Territory could outlaw iron or coal within the
Territory? The principle is precisely the same. The Supreme Court
of the United States has decided, what was known to us all to have
been the existing state of affairs for fifty years, that slaves
are property. Admit that fact, and you admit everything."
In this passage, as in all that he has written on the subject of
slavery, humanity is totally ignored. The right of property in
man is just as sacred to him, "as a Pennsylvanian," as the right
of property in iron or coal. He unhesitatingly accepts the Dred
Scott decision as law, which the moral sense of the nation and its
ablest jurists pronounced a nullity. Mr. Jefferson, in speaking
of slavery, said he trembled for his country, and declared that
one hour of bondage is fraught with more misery than whole ages of
our colonial oppression. Such a sentiment in the mouth of Mr.
Buchanan would have been as unnatural as a voice from the dead.
He saw nothing morally offensive in slavery, or repugnant to the
principles of Democracy. He reverenced the Constitution, but always
forgot that its compromises were agreed to in the belief that the
institution was in a state of decay, and would soon wear out its
life under the pressure of public opinion and private interest.
Throughout his public life he never faltered in his devotion to
the South, joining hands with alacrity in every measure which sought
to nationalize her sectional interest. The growing anti-slavery
opinion of the free States, which no power could prevent, and the
great moral currents of the times, which were as resistless as the
tides of the sea, had no meaning for him, because the Democracy he
believed in had no foundation in the sacredness of human rights.
Mr. Lincoln, in spite of the troubled state of the country, was
obliged to encounter an army of place-seekers at the very beginning
of his administration. I think there has been nothing like it in
the history of the Government. A Republican member of Congress
could form some idea of the President's troubles from his own
experience. I fled from my home in the later part of February, in
the hope of finding some relief from these importunities; but on
reaching Washington I found the business greatly aggravated. The
pressure was so great and constant that I could scarcely find time
for my meals, or to cross the street, and I was obliged to give my
days and nights wholly to the business, hoping in this way I should
be able in a while to finish it; but it constantly increased. I
met at every turn a swarm of miscellaneous people, many of them
looking as hungry and fierce as wolves, and ready to pounce upon
members as they passed, begging for personal intercession, letters
of recommendation, etc. During my stay in Washington through the
months of March and April, there was no pause in this business.
After Fort Sumter had been taken and the armory at Harper's Ferry
had been burned; after a Massachusetts regiment had been fired on
in passing through Baltimore, and thirty thousand men were in
Washington for defensive purposes; after the President had called
for seventy-five thousand volunteers, and the whole land was in a
blaze of excitement, the scuffle for place was unabated, and the
pressure upon the strength and patience of the President unrelieved.
This was not very remarkable, considering the long-continued monopoly
of the offices by the Democrats; but it jarred upon the sentiment
of patriotism in such a crisis, and to those who were constantly
brought face to face with it, it sometimes appeared as if the love
of office alone constituted the animating principle of the party.
When Congress assembled in special session on the Fourth of July,
the atmosphere of the Northern States had been greatly purified by
the attack on Fort Sumter. The unavoidableness of war was now
absolute, and the tone of the President's message was far bolder
and better than that of his inaugural. The policy of tenderness
towards slavery, however, still revealed itself, and called forth
the criticism of the more radical Republicans. They began to
distrust Mr. Seward, who no longer seemed to them the hero of
principle they had so long idolized, while his growing indifference
to the virtue of temperance was offensive to many. He impressed
his old anti-slavery friends as a deeply disappointed man, who was
in danger of being morally lost. Their faith was even a _little_
shaken in Secretary Chase. Of course, they did not believe him
false to his long-cherished anti-slavery convictions, but he was
amazingly ambitious, and in the dispensation of his patronage he
seemed anxious to make fair weather with some of his old conservative
foes, while apparently forgetting the faithful friends who had
stood by him from the very beginning of his career, and were
considered eminently fit for the positions they sought. The rumor
was afloat that even Charles Sumner was urging the claims of Mr.
Crittenden to a place on the Supreme Bench, as a means of conciliating
the State of Kentucky. Washington was largely a city of secessionists,
and the departments of the Government were plentifully supplied by
sympathizers with treason, while the effort put forth at this
session to dislodge them was not responded to by the Administration.
What became known as the Border State policy was beginning to assert
itself everywhere, and was strikingly illustrated in the capture
of fugitive slaves and their return to their rebel masters by our
commanding generals, and by reiterated and gratuitous disavowals
of "abolitionism" by prominent Republicans.
But the war spirit was fully aroused, and active preparations were
on foot for an advance upon the enemy. The confidence in General
Scott seemed to be unbounded, and I found everybody taking it for
granted that when the fight began our forces would prove triumphantly
victorious. On the day before the battle of Bull Run I obtained
a pass from General Scott, intending to witness the engagement,
believing I could do so, of course, with perfect safety, as our
army would undoubtedly triumph. I had a very strong curiosity to
see a great battle, and was now gratified with the prospect of
doing so; but a lucky accident detained me. The battle was on
Sunday, and about eleven o'clock at night I was roused from my
slumber by Col. Forney, who resided on Capitol Hill near my lodgings,
and who told me our army had been routed, and that the rebels were
marching upon the capital and would in all probability capture it
before morning. No unmiraculous event could have been more startling.
I was perfectly stunned and dumbfounded by the news; but I hastened
down to the Avenue as rapidly as possible, and found the space
between the Capitol and the Treasury Building a moving mass of
humanity. Every man seemed to be asking every man he met for the
latest news, while all sorts of rumors filled the air. A feeling
of mingled horror and despair appeared to possess everybody. The
event was so totally unlooked for, and the disappointment so
terrible, that people grew suddenly sick at heart, and felt as if
life itself, with all its interests and charms, had been snatched
from their grasp. The excitement, turmoil and consternation
continued during the night and through the following day; but no
one could adequately picture or describe it. Our soldiers came
straggling into the city, covered with dirt and many of them wounded,
while the panic which led to the disaster spread like a contagion
through all classes.
On the day following this battle Congress met as usual, and
undoubtedly shared largely in the general feeling. A little before
the battle General Mansfield had issued an order declaring that
fugitive slaves would under no circumstances whatever be permitted
to reside or be harbored in the quarters and camps of the troops
serving in his department; and now, both Houses of Congress promptly
and with great unanimity and studious emphasis declared that the
purpose of the war was not the "conquest" or "subjugation" of the
conspirators who were striking at the Nation's life, or the overthrow
of their "established institutions," but to defend "the supremacy
of the Constitution," and to "preserve the Union"; and that "as
soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease."
To through-going anti-slavery men this seemed like an apology for
the war, and a most ill-timed revival of the policy of conciliation,
which had been so uniformly and contemptuously spurned by the enemy.
It failed utterly of its purpose, and this historic resolve of
Congress was only useful to the rebels, who never failed to wield
it as a weapon against us, after the teaching of events had compelled
us to make slavery the point of attack. The Confiscation Act of
the 6th of August was regarded as a child of the same sickly
ancestry. The section of the Act making free the slaves employed
against us by the rebels in their military operations was criticised
as a bribe to them to fight us, rather than a temptation to espouse
our cause. If they engaged in the war at all, they were obliged
to do so as our enemies; but if they remained at home on their
plantations in the business of feeding the rebel armies, they would
have the protection of both the loyal and Confederate Governments.
The policy of both parties to the struggle was thus subordinated
to the protection of slavery.
But on the 31st of August a new war policy was inaugurated by the
proclamation of General Fremont, giving freedom to the slaves of
rebels in his department. It was greeted by the people of the
Northern States with inexpressible gladness and thanksgiving. The
Republican press everywhere applauded it, and even such Democratic
and conservative papers as the "Boston Post," the "Detroit Free
Press," the "Chicago Times," and the "New York Herald" approved
it. During the ten days of its life all party lines seemed to be
obliterated in the fires of popular enthusiasm which it kindled,
and which was wholly unprecedented in my experience. I was then
on the stump in my own State, and I found the masses everywhere so
wild with joy, that I could scarcely be heard for their shouts.
As often as I mentioned the name of "Fremont," the prolonged hurrahs
of the multitude followed, and the feeling seemed to be universal
that the policy of "a war on peace principles" was abandoned, and
that slavery, the real cause of the war, was no longer to be the
chief obstacle to its prosecution.
But in the midst of this great exultation and joy the President
annulled the proclamation because it went beyond the Confiscation
Act of the 6th of August, and was offensive to the Border States.
It was a terrible disappointment to the Republican masses, who
could not understand why loyal slaveholders in Kentucky should be
offended because the slaves of rebels in Missouri were declared
free. From this revocation of the new war policy, dated the pro-
slavery reaction which at once followed. It balked the popular
enthusiasm which was drawing along with it multitudes of conservative
men. It caused timid and halting men to become cowards outright.
It gave new life to slavery, and encouraged fiercer assaults upon
"abolitionism." It revived and stimulated Democratic sympathy for
treason wherever it had existed, and necessarily prolonged the
conflict and aggravated its sorrows; while it repeated the ineffable
folly of still relying upon a policy of moderation and conciliation
in dealing with men who had defiantly taken their stand outside of
the Constitution and laws, and could only be reached by the power
of war.
When Congress met in December, the policy of deference to slavery
still continued. The message of the President was singularly
dispassionate, deprecating "radical and extreme measures," and
recommending some plan of colonization for the slaves made free by
the Confiscation Act. Secretary Cameron, however, surprised the
country by the avowal of a decidedly anti-slavery war policy in
his report; but in a discussion in the House early in December, on
General Halleck's "Order No. Three," I took occasion to expose his
insincerity by referring to his action a little while before in
restoring to her master a slave girl who had fled to the camp of
Colonel Brown, of the Twentieth Indiana regiment, who had refused
to give her up. On the nineteenth of December, a joint select
Committee on the Conduct of the War was appointed, composed of
three members of the Senate and four members of the House. The
Senators were B. F. Wade, of Ohio; Z. Chandler, of Michigan, and
Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee; and the House members were John
Covode, of Pennsylvania; M. F. Odell, of New York; D. W. Gooch, of
Massachusetts, and myself. The committee had its birth in the
popular demand for a more vigorous prosecution of the war, and less
tenderness toward slavery; and I was gratified with my position on
it because it afforded a very desirable opportunity to learn
something of the movements of our armies and the secrets of our
policy.
On the sixth of January, by special request of the President, the
committee met him and his Cabinet at the Executive Mansion, to
confer about the military situation. The most striking fact revealed
by the discussion which took place was that neither the President
nor his advisers seemed to have any definite information respecting
the management of the war, or the failure of our forces to make
any forward movement. Not a man of them pretended to know anything
of General McClellan's plans. We were greatly surprised to learn
that Mr. Lincoln himself did not think he had any _right_ to know,
but that, as he was not a military man, it was his duty to defer
to General McClellan. Our grand armies were ready and eager to
march, and the whole country was anxiously waiting some decisive
movement; but during the delightful months of October, November
and December, they had been kept idle for some reason which no man
could explain, but which the President thought could be perfectly
accounted for by the General-in-Chief. Secretary Cameron said he
knew nothing of any plan for a forward movement. Secretary Seward
had entire confidence in General McClellan, and thought the demand
of the committee for a more vigorous policy uncalled for. The
Postmaster-General made no definite avowals, while the other members
of the Cabinet said nothing, except Secretary Chase, who very
decidedly sympathized with the committee in its desire for some
early and decisive movement of our forces. The spectacle seemed
to us very disheartening. The testimony of all the commanding
generals we had examined showed that our armies had been ready to
march for months; that the weather and roads had been most favorable
since October; and that the Army of the Potomac was in a fine state
of discipline, and nearly two hundred thousand strong, while only
about forty thousand men were needed to make Washington perfectly
safe. Not a general examined could tell why this vast force had
so long been kept idle, or what General McClellan intended to do.
The fate of the nation seemed committed to one man called a "General-
in-Chief," who communicated his secrets to no human being, and who
had neither age nor military experience to justify the extraordinary
deference of the President to his wishes. He had repeatedly appeared
before the committee, though not yet as a witness, and we could
see no evidence of his pre-eminence over other prominent commanders;
and it seemed like a betrayal of the country itself to allow him
to hold our grand armies for weeks and months in unexplained
idleness, on the naked assumption of his superior wisdom. Mr.
Wade, as Chairman of the committee, echoed its views in a remarkably
bold and vigorous speech, in which he gave a summary of the principal
facts which had come to the knowledge of the committee, arraigned
General McClellan for the unaccountable tardiness of his movements,
and urged upon the Administration, in the most undiplomatic plainness
of speech, an immediate and radical change in the policy of the
war. But the President and his advisers could not yet be disenchanted,
and the conference ended without results.
When General McClellan was placed at the head of our armies the
country accepted him as its idol and hero. The people longed for
a great captain, and on very inadequate grounds they assumed that
they had found him, and that the business of war was to be carried
on in earnest. But they were doomed to disappointment, and the
popular feeling was at length completely reversed. The pendulum
vibrated to the other extreme, and it is not easy to realize the
wide-spread popular discontent which finally revealed itself
respecting the dilatory movements of our forces. The people became
inexpressibly weary of the reiterated bulletins that "all is quiet
on the Potomac"; and the fact that General McClellan was in full
sympathy with the Border State policy of the President aggravated
their unfriendly mood. A majority of the members of the committee
became morbidly sensitive, and were practically incapable of doing
General McClellan justice. They were thoroughly discouraged and
disgusted; but when Secretary Cameron left the Cabinet and Stanton
took his place, their despondency gave place to hope. He had faith
in the usefulness of the committee, and co-operated with it to the
utmost. He agreed with us fully in our estimate of General McClellan,
and as to the necessity of an early forward movement. We were
delighted with him, and had perfect confidence in his integrity,
sagacity and strong will. We worked from five to six hours per
day, including the holiday season, and not excepting the Sabbath,
going pretty thoroughly into the Bull Run disaster, the battle of
Ball's Bluff, and the management of the Western Department.
During the months of January and February, the committee made
repeated visits to the President for the purpose of urging the
division of the Army of the Potomac and its organization into army
corps. We insisted upon this on the strength of the earnest
recommendations of our chief commanders, and with a view to greater
military efficiency; but the President said General McClellan was
opposed to it, and would, he believed, resign his command in the
alternative of being required to do it. Mr. Lincoln said he dreaded
"the moral effect of this"; but in the latter part of February, he
began to lose his faith in the General, and finally, after nearly
two months of perseverance by the committee, he gave his order
early in March, which General McClellan obeyed with evident hesitation
and very great reluctance. A few days later the long-tried patience
of the President became perfectly exhausted. He surprised and
delighted the committee by completely losing his temper, and on
the 11th relieved General McClellan from the command of all our
forces except the Army of the Potomac. The rebels, in the meantime,
had evacuated their works at Centreville and Manassas, and retreated
with their munitions in safety. A majority of the committee at
this time strongly suspected that General McClellan was a traitor,
and they felt strengthened in this suspicion by what they afterward
saw for themselves at Centreville and Manassas, which they visited
on the thirteenth of March. They were certain, at all events, that
his heart was not in the work. He had disregarded the President's
general order of the nineteenth of January, for a movement of all
our armies, which resulted in the series of victories of Fort Henry,
Fort Donelson, etc., which so electrified the country. He had
protested against the President's order of the thirty-first of
January, directing an expedition for the purpose of seizing a point
upon the railroad southwest of Manassas Junction. He had opposed
all forward movements of the Army of the Potomac, and resolutely
set his face against the division of our forces into army corps,
as urged by all our chief commanders. And he had again and again
refused to co-operate with the navy in breaking up the blockade of
the Potomac, while his order to move in the direction of the enemy
at Centreville and Manassas was given after the evacuation of these
points.
Our journey to Manassas was full of interest and excitement. About
ten miles from Washington we came in sight of a large division of
the Grand Army of the Potomac, which had started toward the enemy
in obedience to the order of General McClellan. The forest on
either side of the road was alive with soldiers, and their white
tents were to be seen in all directions through the pine forests,
while in the adjacent fields vast bodies of soldiers in their
uniforms were marching and counter-marching, their bayonets glittering
in the sunlight. Large bodies of cavalry were also in motion, and
the air was filled with the sound of martial music and the blasts
of the bugle. Soldiers not on drill were running races, playing
ball, and enjoying themselves generally in every sort of sport.
The spectacle was delightfully exhilarating, and especially so to
men just released from the dreary confinement and drudgery of their
committee rooms.