The establishment of my headquarters at Cincinnati threw me once more into close personal relations with Burnside, and enabled me to learn his character more intimately. His adjutant-general's office was on East Fourth Street, and most of the routine work was done there. The general had his own quarters on Ninth Street, where he had also an office for himself and his aides-de-camp. My own office and the official headquarters of the district were on Broadway below Fourth, in the house now occupied by the Natural History Society. There was thus near half a mile between us, though I was but a little way from the adjutant-general of the department, through whose office my regular business with the general went. Burnside, however, loved to discuss department affairs informally, and with the perfect freedom of unrestrained social intercourse. When he gave his confidence he gave it without reserve, and encouraged the fullest and freest criticism of his own plans and purposes. His decisions would then be put in official form by the proper officers of the staff, and would be transmitted, though I was nearly always personally aware of what was to be ordered before the formal papers reached me. He had very little pride of opinion, and was perfectly candid in weighing whatever was contrary to his predilections; yet he was not systematic in his business methods, and was quite apt to decide first and discuss afterward. He never found fault with a subordinate for assuming responsibility or acting without orders, provided he was assured of his earnest good purpose in doing so. In such cases he would assume the responsibility for what was done as cheerfully as if he had given the order. In like manner he was careless of forms himself, in doing whatever seemed necessary or proper, and might pass by intermediate officers to reach immediately the persons who were to act or the things to be done. There was no intentional slight to any one in this: it was only a characteristic carelessness of routine. Martinets would be exasperated by it, and would be pretty sure to quarrel with him. No doubt it was a bad business method, and had its mischiefs and inconveniences. A story used to go the rounds a little later that soldiers belonging to the little army in East Tennessee were sometimes arrested at their homes and sent back as deserters, when they would produce a furlough written by Burnside on a leaf of his pocket memorandum-book, which, as they said, had been given by him after hearing a pitiful story which moved his sympathies. Such inventions were a kind of popular recognition of his well-known neglect of forms, as well as of his kind heart. There was an older story about him, to the effect that, when a lieutenant in the army, he had been made post-quartermaster at some little frontier garrison, and that his accounts and returns got into such confusion that after several pretty sharp reminders the quartermaster-general notified him, as a final terror, that he would send a special officer and subject him and his papers to a severe scrutiny. As the story ran, Burnside, in transparent honesty, wrote a cordial letter of thanks in reply, saying it was just what he desired, as he had been trying hard to make his accounts up, but had to confess he could do nothing with them, but was sure such an expert would straighten them. In my own service under him I often found occasion to supply the formal links in the official chain, so that business would move on according to "regulations;" but any trouble that was made in this way was much more than compensated by the generous trust with which he allowed his name and authority to be used when prompt action would serve the greater ends in view.
My habit was to go to his private quarters on Ninth Street, when the regular business of the day was over, and there get the military news and confer with him on pending or prospective business affecting my own district. His attractive personality made him the centre of a good deal of society, and business would drop into the background till late in the evening, when his guests voluntarily departed. Then, perhaps after midnight, he would take up the arrears of work and dictate letters, orders, and dispatches, turning night into day. It not unfrequently happened that after making my usual official call in the afternoon, I had gone to my quarters and to bed at my usual hour, when I would be roused by an orderly from the general begging that I would come up and consult with him on some matter of neglected business. He was always bright and clear in those late hours, and when he buckled to work, rapidly disposed of it.
He did not indulge much in retrospect, and rarely referred to his misfortunes in the Army of the Potomac. On one or two occasions he discussed his Fredericksburg campaign with me. The delay in sending pontoons from Washington to Falmouth, which gave Lee time to concentrate at Fredericksburg, he reasonably argued, was the fault of the military authorities at Washington; but I could easily see that if his supervision of business had been more rigidly systematic, he would have made sure that he was not to be disappointed in his means of crossing the Rappahannock promptly. As to the battle itself he steadily insisted that the advance of Meade's division proved that if all the left wing had acted with equal vigor and promptness, Marye's heights would have been turned and carried. It is due to him to repeat that in such discussions his judgment of men and their motives was always kind and charitable. I never heard him say anything bitter, even of those whom I knew he distrusted.
At the time I am speaking of, Cincinnati was in a curious political and social condition. The advance through Kentucky of Bragg and Kirby Smith in the preceding year had made it a centre for "rebel sympathizers." The fact that a Confederate army had approached the hills that bordered the river had revived the hopes and the confidence of many who, while wishing success to the Southern cause, had done so in a vague and distant way. Now it seemed nearer to them, and the stimulus to personal activity was greater. There was always, in the city, a considerable and influential body of business men who were of Southern families; and besides this, the trade connections with the South, and the personal alliances by marriage, made a ground of sympathy which had noticeable effects. There were two camps in the community, pretty distinctly defined, as there were in Kentucky. The loyal were ardently and intensely so. The disloyal were bitter and not always restrained by common prudence. A good many Southern women, refugees from the theatre of active war, were very open in their defiance of the government, and in their efforts to aid the Southern armies by being the bearers of intelligence. The "contraband mail" was notoriously a large and active one.
Burnside had been impressed with this condition of things from the day he assumed command. His predecessor had struggled with it without satisfactory results. It was, doubtless, impossible to do more than diminish and restrain the evil, which was the most annoying of the smaller troubles attending the anomalous half-military and half-civil government of the department. Within three weeks from his arrival in Cincinnati, Burnside was so convinced of the widespread and multiform activity of the disloyal element that he tried to subdue it by the publication of his famous General Order No. 38. The reading of the order gives a fair idea of the hostile influences he found at work, for of every class named by him there were numerous examples.
[Footnote: The text of the order is as follows:
"General Orders.
No. 38.
HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO,
CINCINNATI, OHIO, April 13, 1863.
The commanding general publishes, for the information of all concerned, that hereafter all persons found within our lines who commit acts for the benefit of the enemies of our country, will be tried as spies or traitors, and, if convicted, will suffer death. This order includes the following classes of persons: Carriers of secret mails; writers of letters sent by secret mails; secret recruiting officers within the lines; persons who have entered into an agreement to pass our lines for the purpose of joining the enemy; persons found concealed within our lines, belonging to the service of the enemy; and, in fact, all persons found improperly within our lines who could give private information to the enemy; and all persons within our lines who harbor, protect, conceal, feed, clothe, or in any way aid the enemies of our country. The habit of declaring sympathy for the enemy will not be allowed in this department. Persons committing such offences will be at once arrested with a view to being tried as above stated, or sent beyond our lines into the lines of their friends. It must be distinctly understood that treason, expressed or implied, will not be tolerated in this department. All officers and soldiers are strictly charged with the execution of this order,
By command of Major-General Burnside,
LEWIS RICHMOND,
Assistant Adjutant General.">[
It was no doubt true that the Confederate authorities had constant correspondence with people in the Northern States, and that systematic means were used to pass information and contraband merchandise through the lines. Quinine among drugs, and percussion caps among ordnance stores were the things they most coveted, and dealers in these carried on their trade under pretence of being spies for each side in turn. But besides these who were merely mercenary, there were men and women who were honestly fanatical in their devotion to the Confederate cause. The women were especially troublesome, for they often seemed to court martyrdom. They practised on our forbearance to the last degree; for they knew our extreme unwillingness to deal harshly with any of their sex. Personally, I rated the value of spies and informers very low, and my experience had made me much more prone to contempt than to fear of them. But examples had to be made occasionally; a few men were punished, a few women who belonged in the South were sent through the lines, and we reduced to its lowest practical terms an evil and nuisance which we could not wholly cure. The best remedy for these plots and disturbances at the rear always was to keep the enemy busy by a vigorous aggressive at the front. We kept, however, a species of provost court pretty actively at work, and one or two officers were assigned to judge-advocate's duty, who ran these courts under a careful supervision to make sure that they should not fall into indiscretions.
So long as the hand of military power was laid only on private persons who were engaged in overt acts of giving aid and comfort to the rebellion in the ways specified in Order No. 38, there was little criticism. But the time came when General Burnside seemed to be challenged by a public character of no little prominence to enforce his order against him. The Vallandigham case became the sensation of the day, and acquired a singular historical importance. The noise which was made about it seemed to create a current opinion that Burnside's action was a new departure, and that his Order No. 38 was issued wholly on his own responsibility. This was not so. In the preceding year, and about the time of his Emancipation Proclamation, the President had also proclaimed against treasonable practices in very emphatic terms. He had declared that "all rebels and insurgents, their aiders and abettors, within the United States, and all persons discouraging volunteer enlistments, resisting militia drafts, or guilty of any disloyal practice, affording aid and comfort to rebels against the authority of the United States, shall be subject to martial law and liable to trial and punishment by courts-martial or military commission." [Footnote: Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol. vi. p. 98. See also Order No. 42 of General Burbridge, commanding District of Kentucky. Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. ii. p. 27.]