CHAPTER XII.
THE GOVERNMENT GETS AGITATED, AND THE GREAT COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF TAKES THE FIELD.
THIS, my son, is a portrait of General Auger, a dashing, handsome officer, and a courteous gentleman. He commanded the department of Washington during the memorable siege I am describing.
As I have said before, my son, as soon as it was known that General Wallace had been driven back on Baltimore in search of rations, and General Early was close upon Washington, the government waked up to the fact that the capital was in danger, and began to take measures for its defense. Our good President, believing, in the honesty of his heart, that his presence at the front would do good, took the field. And the Secretary of War and the Chief of Staff went to issuing orders that no one seemed to obey. Indeed, their orders only increased the confusion that had already taken possession of everything military. The regular officers in command of the troops in the fortifications, and who knew the location and details of the forts as well as the roads leading to them, were superseded by strangers, ignorant of all these things, and even of what their commands consisted.
Why this was, my son, I cannot explain. Perhaps the Secretary of War will, when he gets his historian, at $2,500 a year, to write a national history of the war. Some malicious people said the Secretary of War had two reasons for this: the first, to show his contempt for military science; the second, because he wanted to show what fools some of these strange generals were. I have also heard it intimated that the reason why some of these strange generals were assigned to such important posts at such a moment of peril to the nation, was because they were of sufficient consequence to be made victims. And as it was always necessary to have a victim to cover up and excuse the blundering of high officials, these men would come in handy enough. But I never considered this a good excuse for thus superseding the officers, the only officers who really knew how to defend the city.
It was not surprising, however, that, with such an opportunity for gaining distinction as the defense of the capital of the nation, major and brigadier-generals should spring up as by magic. Their number was truly marvelous. Nor was it strange that they should all want to be heroes. It was a little queer, however, that they should all be in the city just at this time, and seemingly without employment. Each, on application, was assigned to an important command, though but few of them knew the road to the forts, and fewer still what they were going to command when they got there.
The alarm and confusion continued to increase as General Early and his rebel hosts approached. And now the great question arose as to who was to be regarded as responsible for the safety of the city? Was it the President, the Secretary of War, or the great Chief of Staff? people inquired. No, it could be neither of these, for the President, though frequently seen at the front, seemed only a pleasant observer, and gave no orders to the troops. The Secretary of War and Chief of Staff were issuing orders, as I have before described, and assigning strange generals to commands. It could not be General Auger, for the War Department seemed to have forgotten him, and he remained quietly in command of the department. The Military Governor was discharging the active duties of his office, and so it could not be him. Some persons said General Haskins was the man. He had been in charge of the defenses north of the Potomac, and knew them well. But it could not be him, for he had been superseded by General Hardin; and General McDowell McCook ranked both of them; and, as I have before informed you, was placed in command and sent out to see to General Early.
This, my son, was very hard on General McCook, who found himself in a predicament he would willingly have escaped from. It is no more than right, my son, that I should give you an account of how this general went to the field, and what he found when he got there.
Provided with a pocket full of orders, the general mounted his horse late on Saturday afternoon and set out for the front, over the Fourteenth-street road. The corpulent engineer I have described in the early part of this history was assigned to General McCook for duty; and this officer, and two sorry-looking orderlies, were all that bore him company. The corpulent engineer alone knew the military roads, and the location of the forts, which was very fortunate. As they advanced over the road beyond Meridian Hill, they overtook several straggling generals, each proceeding to the front with a pocket full of orders, and generally accompanied by a single orderly. Two or three of these generals seemed quite at a loss as to where they were going, or what they were to command. I have thus explained this matter to you, my son, to show you what a nice way our war authorities had of producing confusion.
When the general and his staff, which I have described above, were well nigh Brightwood, he halted to inquire, of the alarmed negroes and straggling citizens who were wending their way into the city, what news they had of the enemy outside. But no trustworthy information could he get from any of them. They all knew that General Early was coming; and that they had left just before he had got to where they lived. This sort of information was not exactly the kind a general would consider it safe to base his plan of operations on. Nor was the general any more fortunate in getting information concerning the enemy from a number of squads of cavalry, whose business it seemed to be to ride excitedly to the front and then ride excitedly back again. Indeed, the whole business of these doughty troopers, it seemed to me, was to increase the alarm and confusion.
It was nearly sundown, the weather was hot and oppressive, and the general was full of troubles. The worst of these was that he could not find the troops he was sent to command. Nor could he get any tidings concerning General Early and his rebels. Hence it was that he concluded, and very naturally, that the enemy would not be within sight of the defenses until morning, and that the city would at least be safe until that time without any more of his generalship.
He therefore went into camp for the night, pitching his headquarters in a clump of wood near Rock Creek, and not far from Crystal Spring. And here let me record that the general had not even a camp guard. To make the matter worse, there was no forage for the horses, and nothing for supper. Never was general so much to be pitied. The two orderlies, however, were willing fellows, and soon had a fire lighted. They then proceeded to a neighboring house, and got refreshments for the general, without which he must have gone hungry to bed.
As the night advanced, the discomforts of the situation increased. In short, it may as well be confessed, the general's headquarters were besieged long before midnight, and that sleep was a thing not to be enjoyed. You may have made up your mind that the besiegers were an advance guard of the rebels; but they were not. They were nothing less than an army of fierce musquitoes, who made such a persistent attack on the general and his staff as to make his position almost untenable. In truth, they so harassed the corpulent engineer, in rear and flank, that he mounted his horse and returned to the city, where he spent a comfortable night at Willard's Hotel, and went back in the morning refreshed. My authority for this is the distinguished engineer himself.
A little after midnight, the two orderlies became seriously alarmed (I ought to mention that one was recently from Cork, and the other from Kerry), and reported to the general that a conversation was being carried on in an unknown language by two persons in the woods beyond, and whom they verily believed to be spies of the enemy. The general was not a little perplexed at this intelligence, for the better informed orderly declared, that while one shouted in very bad Irish, the other seemed to answer him in Dutch. The general listened attentively for a minute or more, when the noise was again heard. It turned out, however, that the intruders were only a pair of owls, who had perched in some trees near by, and were exchanging hootings for their own entertainment.