Whatever the satisfaction among subordinate officers and the ranks, Division Head-quarters was a house of mourning. To the General removed solely it owed its existence. Connected with his choice Corps, it had basked in the sunshine of his favor. With the removal already ordered, "the dread of something worse"—a removal nearer home was apprehended. As a Field Commander, the officer upon whose shoulders rested the responsibilities of the Division, was entirely unknown previously to his assuming command. His life hitherto had been of such a nature as not to add to his capacity as a Commander.
Years of quiet clerkly duty in the Topographical Department may, and doubtless did in his case, make an excellent engineer or draughtsman, but they afford few men opportunities for improvement in generalship. During the McClellan regime this source furnished a heavy proportion of our superior officers. Why, would be difficult to say on any other hypothesis than that of favoritism. Their educational influences tend to a defensive policy, which history proves Generals of ability to have indulged in only upon the severest necessity. To inability to rise above these strictures of the school, may be traced the policy which has portrayed upon the historic page, to our lasting disgrace as a nation, the humiliating spectacle of a mighty and brave people, with resources almost unlimited, compelled for nearly two years to defend their Capital against armies greatly inferior to their own in men and means.
Independently of these educational defects, as they must be called, there was nothing in either the character or person of the Division Commander to command respect or inspire fear. Eccentric to a most whimsical degree, his oddities were the jest of the Division, while they were not in the least relieved by his extreme nervousness and fidgety habits of body. That there was nothing to inspire fear is, however, subject to exception, as his whims kept subordinates in a continual fever. The art of being practical—adapting himself to circumstances—he had never learned. It belongs to the department of Common Sense, in which, unfortunately, there has never been a professor at West Point. His after life does not seem to have been favorable to its acquirement. Withal, the hauteur characteristic to Cadets clung to him, and on many occasions rendered him unfortunate
in his intercourse with volunteer officers. Politeness with him, assumed the airs and grimaces of a French dancing-master, which personage he was not unfrequently and not inaptly said to resemble. Displeasure he would manifest by the oddest of gestures and volleys of the latest oaths, uttered in a nervous, half stuttering manner. Socially, his extensive educational acquirements made him a pleasant companion, and with a friend it was said he would drink as deep and long as any man in the Army of the Potomac. Once crossed, however, his malignity would be manifested by the most intolerable and petty persecution.
"He has no judgment," said a Field-Officer of a Regiment of his command; a remark which, by the way, was a good summary of his character.
"Why?" replied the officer to whom he was speaking.
"I was out on picket duty," rejoined the other, "yesterday. We had an unnecessarily heavy Reserve, and one half of the men in it were allowed to rest without their belts and boxes. The General in the afternoon paid us a visit, and seeing this found fault, that the men were not kept equipped; observing at the same time that they could rest equally well with their cartridge boxes on; that when he was a Cadet at West Point he had ascertained by actual practice that it could be done."
"Do you recollect, General," I remarked, "whether you had forty rounds of ball cartridge in your box then?"
"He said he did not know that that made any difference."
"Now considering that the fact of the boxes being filled makes all the difference, I say," continued the officer, "that the man who makes a remark such a the General made, is devoid of judgment."