Mr. Weir, with a keen sense of the ridiculous, sent the long dispatch word for word to the Associated Press, adding: "You may rest assured that this is perfectly reliable, because every word of it was written by the old fool himself!" All the newspaper readers in the country had the formal dispatch, and all the telegraph corps had their merriment over this confidential addendum.
Halleck's command contained eighty thousand effective men, who were nearly all veterans. His line was ten miles in length, with Grant on the right, Buell in the center, and Pope on the left.
The grand army was like a huge serpent, with its head pinned on our left, and its tail sweeping slowly around toward Corinth. Its majestic march was so slow that the Rebels had ample warning. It was large enough to eat up Beauregard at one mouthful; but Halleck crept forward at the rate of about three-quarters of a mile per day. Thousands and thousands of his men died from fevers and diarrhœa.
There was great dissatisfaction at his slow progress. Pope was particularly impatient. One day he had a very sharp skirmish with the enemy. Our position was strong. General Palmer, who commanded on the front, reported that he could hold it against the world, the flesh, and the devil; but Halleck telegraphed to Pope three times within an hour not to be drawn into a general engagement. After the last dispatch, Pope retired, leaving the enemy in possession of the field. How he did storm about it!
The little army which Pope had brought from the capture of Island Number Ten was perfectly drilled and disciplined, and he handled it with rare ability. Much of his subsequent unpopularity arose from his imprudent and violent language. He sometimes indulged in the most unseemly profanity and billingsgate within hearing of a hundred people.
Weaknesses of Sundry Generals.
But his personal weaknesses were pardonable compared with those of some other prominent officers. During Fremont's Missouri campaign, I knew one general who afterward enjoyed a well-earned national reputation for skill and gallantry. His head-quarters were the scenes of nightly orgies, where whisky punches and draw-poker reigned from dark until dawn. In the morning his tent was a strange museum of bottles, glasses, sugar-bowls, playing-cards, gold, silver, and bank-notes. I knew another western officer, who, during the heat of a Missouri battle, according to the newspaper reports, inspirited his men by shouting:
"Go in, boys! Remember Lyon! Remember the old flag!"
He did use those words, but no enemy was within half a mile, and he was lying drunk on the ground, flat upon his back. Afterward, repenting in sackcloth and ashes, he did the State some service, and his delinquency was never made public.
At Antietam, a general, well known both in Europe and America, was reported disabled by a spent shell, which struck him in the breast. The next morning, he gave me a minute history of it, assuring me that he still breathed with difficulty and suffered greatly from internal soreness. The fact was that he was disabled by a bottle of whisky, having been too hospitable to that seductive friend!