It was a pleasant march from Harper's Ferry to Warrenton. The roads were in excellent condition; dry and hard. The troops were in good spirits; living on turkeys, chickens, pigs, and mutton. They marched ten or twelve miles a day, built roaring fires at night, and enjoyed the campaign. The army was a week in reaching Warrenton. General McClellan was waited upon there by a messenger from Washington, who delivered him a sealed envelope containing orders relieving him of the command of the army and appointing General Burnside as his successor. The matter was soon noised abroad. There was much discussion upon the subject, relative to the cause of the removal. Some officers said that the Government wanted to destroy the army, and had begun with General McClellan; others that the President, General Halleck, and Secretary Stanton were afraid of General McClellan's popularity; others, that they were wearied with his delays, and that there were no political reasons for the change.
The reasons for the removal undoubtedly have been truly stated by Mr. Montgomery Blair, who was at that time a member of the President's cabinet, that the President was friendly to General McClellan, but the military authorities at Washington and many of the officers of the army were hostile to him. They held that his delay to attack the Rebels at Manassas in the fall and winter; the delay at Yorktown; the keeping the army in the swamps of the Chickahominy; the operations on the Peninsula, showed conclusively that the command ought to pass into other hands.
The President resisted all the importunities of those who desired his removal when the affairs were so disastrous in front of Washington. The success at Antietam gave the President new confidence, but the failure to renew the attack with his reserves; the refusal of McClellan to cross the Potomac and attack Lee; his long delay at Berlin and Harper's Ferry, gave great dissatisfaction. These were the causes of his removal.[84]
General McClellan was much loved by a portion of his troops. When he rode along the lines for the last time, they cheered him. Some could not refrain from shedding tears. They believed that he was a good man, and that he had been thwarted in all his plans by General Halleck, Secretary Stanton, the President, and members of Congress; and that if he could have had his own way, he would have won great victories.
There were other soldiers who did not join in the cheers. They rejoiced at his removal and the appointment of General Burnside. They felt that he had failed as a commander, and that he was incompetent to command a great army. They remembered their hardships, privations, sufferings, and losses on the Peninsula; they recalled the fact, that while the battle was raging at Malvern, he was on board a gunboat. Perhaps they did not fully weigh all the circumstances of the case—that it was necessary for him to consult Commodore Rogers relative to joint operations of the army and navy; but it looked like cowardice. General Kearny, the idol of his division, then sleeping in a soldier's grave, had declared it to be cowardice or treason; and the soldiers who had fought under the command of one who had been in the battle-clouds on the heights of Chapultepec and on the plains of Solferino, who had dashed like a lion upon the enemy at Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, Glendale, and Groveton, were not likely to forget the sentiments of one so brave and brilliant as he.
In all the battles of the Peninsula, they could not remember that General McClellan had been upon the field. When Fair Oaks was fought, he was north of the Chickahominy; when Lee with his whole army approached Gaines's Mills, he removed to the south side of the river. He passed White-Oak Swamp before the enemy came to Savage Station. He was at Malvern when they appeared at Glendale, and on board the gunboat when they came to Malvern. They did not consider that he rode to Malvern once during the day. Sitting by their camp-fires, the soldiers talked over the matter. There was no disaffection. They were too good soldiers to make any demonstration of disapprobation. Besides, General Burnside had been successful at Roanoke, Newbern, and South Mountain; and success gives confidence.
The soldiers were in earnest in carrying on the war. The people were impatient at the delays of General McClellan in the east, and General Buell in the west.
Riding from the east to the west and back again in the cars, after the battle of Antietam, I had an opportunity to know how the people were affected by the war. It was the last week in October. The mountains were purple, scarlet, and crimson, and had it not been that there was war in the land, one might have dreamed that he was in Eden,—so beautiful the landscape, so resplendent the days. But there were sad scenes. A mother bidding farewell to her son, the wife to her husband, the father to his children, taking them in his arms, perhaps, for the last time, dashing aside the tears, kissing them again and again, folding them to his heart, tearing himself away at last, sitting down by himself and weeping, while the swift train bore them away. It was not for military glory, not for honor, or fame, but for his country!
I saw an old man, whose head was crowned with years. He was on his way to Washington, to take back with him to his Pennsylvania home the body of his youngest son, who had died in the hospital. He had three other sons in the army. He was calm, yet a tear rolled down his cheek as he talked of his loss.
"I shall take the body home, and bury it in the family ground. I shall miss my boy. But I gave him to the country. I want the government to push on the war. I want our generals to move. I want this rebellion crushed out," he said.