A few days after the battle of Antietam a prominent clergyman of Hagerstown spent the Sunday in camp, and McClellan invited a number of officers to attend religious services in the parlors of the house where headquarters were. The rooms were well filled, several civilians being also present. I was standing by myself as we were waiting for the clergyman to appear, when a stout man in civilian's dress entered into conversation with me. He stood at my side as we faced the upper part of the suite of rooms, and taking it to be a casual talk merely to pass the time, I paid rather languid attention to it and to him as he began with some complimentary remarks about the army and its recent work. He spoke quite enthusiastically of McClellan, and my loyalty to my commander as well as my personal attachment to him made me assent cordially to what he said. He then spoke of the politicians in Washington as wickedly trying to sacrifice the general, and added, whispering the words emphatically in my ear, "But you military men have that matter in your own hands, you have but to tell the administration what they must do, and they will not dare to disregard it!" This roused me, and I turned upon him with a sharp "What do you mean, sir!" As I faced him, I saw at once by his look that he had mistaken me for another; he mumbled something about having taken me for an acquaintance of his, and moved away among the company.
I was a good deal agitated, for though there was more or less of current talk about disloyal influences at work, I had been sceptical as to the fact, and to be brought face to face with that sort of thing was a surprise. I was a stranger to most of those who were there, and walked a little aside, watching the man who had left me. I soon saw him talking with General Fitz-John Porter, on the opposite side of the room, evidently calling attention to me as if asking who I was. I made inquiries as to who the civilian was, and later came to know him by sight very well. He was John W. Garrett, President of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company.
Mr. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was published on the 24th of September, and within a very few days I was invited to meet General Burnside and General John Cochrane of New York at a camp dinner in McClellan's tent. General Cochrane was a "War Democrat" in politics, and had been active as a politician in his State. He was also the son-in-law of Gerrit Smith, the well-known abolitionist, and had advocated arming the slaves as early as November, 1861. McClellan told us frankly that he had brought us there for the purpose of asking our opinions and advice with regard to the course he should pursue respecting the Proclamation. He said that he was urged to put himself in open opposition to it by politicians not only, but by army officers who were near to him. He named no names, but intimated that they were of rank and influence which gave weight to their advice. He knew that we were all friends of the administration, and his object seemed to be to learn whether we thought he should say anything or should maintain silence on the subject; for he assumed that we would oppose any hostile demonstration on his part.
This naturally led to inquiries as to his actual attitude to the slavery question, and he expressed himself in substance as I have before indicated; repeating with even stronger emphasis his belief that the war would work out the manumission of the slaves gradually and ultimately, and that as to those who came within our lines as we advanced the liberation would be complete and immediate. He thought, however, that the Proclamation was premature, and that it indicated a change in the President's attitude which he attributed to radical influences at Washington.
There had been no previous understanding between us who were his guests. For my part, I then met General Cochrane for the first time, and had conversed with McClellan himself more freely on political subjects than I had with Burnside. We found ourselves, however, in entire accord in advising him that any declaration on his part against the Proclamation would be a fatal error. We could easily understand that he should differ from us in his way of viewing the question of public policy, but we pointed out very clearly that any public utterance by him in his official character criticising the civil policy of the administration would be properly regarded as a usurpation. He intimated that this was his own opinion, but, by way of showing how the matter was thrust at him by others, said that people had assured him that the army was so devoted to him that they would as one man enforce any decision he should make as to any part of the war policy.
I had so recently gone through the little experience on this subject which I have narrated above, that I here spoke out with some emphasis. I said that those who made such assurances were his worst enemies, and in my judgment knew much less of the army than they pretended; that our volunteer soldiers were citizens as well as soldiers, and were citizens more than soldiers; and that greatly as I knew them to be attached to him, I believed not a corporal's guard would stand by his side if he were to depart from the strict subordination of the military to the civil authority. Burnside and Cochrane both emphatically assented to this, and McClellan added that he heartily believed both that it was true and that it ought to be so. But this still left the question open whether the very fact that there was an agitation in camp on the subject, and intrigues of the sort I have mentioned, did not make it wise for him to say something which would show, at least, that he gave no countenance to any would-be revolutionists. We debated this at some length, with the general conclusion that it might be well for him to remind the army in general orders that whatever might be their rights as citizens, they must as soldiers beware of any organized effort to meddle with the functions of the civil government.
I left the Army of the Potomac before McClellan's general order on this subject, dated October 7, was published, but when I read it in the light of the conference in his tent, I regarded it as an honest effort on his part to break through the toils which intriguers had spread for him, and regretted that what seemed to me one of his most laudable actions should have been one of the most misrepresented and misunderstood.
[Footnote: The order is found in Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 395, and is as follows:--
General Orders. No. 163.
HEAD-QUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, CAMP NEAR SHARPSBURG, MD., October 7, 1862.
The attention of the officers and soldiers of the army of the Potomac is called to General Orders No, 139, War Department, September 24, 1862, publishing to the army the President's proclamation of September 22.