It was in such a command that Burnside appeared at his best. The independence of his campaign gave full play to his active energy, whilst the bodies of troops were not so large as to prevent his personal leadership in their combats. In a great army he was at a disadvantage from lack of true system in handling great and complicated affairs when he was in chief command; and if his position was a subordinate one he lacked the sort of responsibility which called out his best qualities, and he was therefore liable to become the formal intermediary for the transmission of orders. In such cases, too, he was in danger of suffering from faults of subordinates whom his kind heart had permitted to retain important positions for which they were not fit. When acting immediately under his eye, he could give them energy and courage which they would lack when left to themselves. The sore spot in his experience in 1864 was the failure to make full use of the explosion of the mine at Petersburg, and the Court of Inquiry made it clear that the fault lay with inefficient subordinates. One of the most prominent of these was said to have stayed in a bomb-proof instead of leading his command. But the same officer had done the same thing in Fort Sanders at Knoxville, as had been officially reported by Captain Benjamin, the Chief of Artillery; [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. i. p. 344.] and Benjamin was an officer of such military and personal standing that a court-martial should certainly have investigated the case. A mistaken leniency brought bitter fruit.
The campaign had been a new test for General Grant also, and it is instructive to follow him in grasping the details of his enlarged responsibility. When communication with Burnside became difficult and infrequent, he gave orders to Willcox at Cumberland Gap and to subordinates of Burnside in Kentucky and Ohio. He provided for starting supplies to Knoxville by all practicable routes as soon as the siege should be raised. He cut trenchantly through pretences where he thought a lack of vigorous performance was covered up by verbosity of reports. [Footnote: Id., pt. iii. p. 233.] He was quietly but easily master, and showed no symptom of being overweighted by his task or flurried by the excitements of a critical juncture in affairs. He does not impress one as brilliant in genius, but as eminently sound and sensible. His quality of greatness was that he handled great affairs as he would little ones, without betraying any consciousness that this was a great thing to do. He reminds one of Wellington in the combination of lucid and practical common-sense with aggressive bull-dog courage. Some telling lines, developing his traits as he appeared to a critical observer, are found in a dispatch of General David Hunter to the Secretary of War, giving a report of his visit to Chattanooga where he was sent to inspect the army. Hunter was one of the oldest of the regular officers in service, knew thoroughly Grant's history and early army reputation, and his words have peculiar significance. Grant had received him with a sort of filial kindness, making him at home in his quarters, and opening his mind and his purposes to him with his characteristic modesty and simplicity of manner. Hunter says: "I saw him almost every moment, except when sleeping, of the three weeks I spent in Chattanooga.... He is a hard worker, writes his own dispatches and orders, and does his own thinking. He is modest, quiet, never swears, and seldom drinks, as he took only two drinks during the three weeks I was with him. He listens quietly to the opinions of others and then judges promptly for himself; and he is very prompt to avail himself in the field of all the errors of his enemy. He is certainly a good judge of men, and has called around him valuable counsellors." He naively adds: "Prominent as General Grant is before the country, these remarks of mine may appear trite and uncalled for, but having been ordered to inspect his command, I thought it not improper for me to add my testimony with regard to the commander." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. p. 402.]
AFFAIRS IN DISTRICT OF OHIO--PLOT TO LIBERATE PRISONERS AT JOHNSON'S ISLAND.
Administrative duties--Major McLean adjutant-general--His loyalty questioned--Ordered away--Succeeded by Captain Anderson--Robert Anderson's family--Vallandigham canvass--Bounty-jumping--Action of U. S. Courts--of the local Probate Court--Efforts to provoke collision--Interview with the sheriff--Letter to Governor Tod--Shooting soldiers in Dayton--The October election--Great majority against Vallandigham--The soldier vote--Wish for field service--Kinglake's Crimean War--Its lessons--Confederate plots in Canada--Attempt on military prison at Johnson's Island--Assembling militia there--Fortifying Sandusky Bay--Inspection of the prison--Condition and treatment of the prisoners.
In the sketch I have given of the campaign in East Tennessee, I have reached the time when I joined the Twenty-third Corps in front of Knoxville, and became part of the organization with which my fortunes were to be united till the end of the war. It is necessary, however, to go back and pick up the threads of personal experience during this autumn of 1863.
The arrangement of the business of the department which I have mentioned [Footnote: Ante, vol. i. p. 492.] gave me some work in addition to that which properly belonged to the District of Ohio and Michigan. I did not appear officially in it, but under Burnside's instructions to his adjutant-general on leaving Cincinnati, the questions arising in daily administration were submitted to me, and on my advice current orders were issued in Burnside's name. This kept me in close communication with the general personally as well as officially, and made me aware of the progress of events more perfectly than I could otherwise have been. The adjutant-general in charge of the Cincinnati headquarters was Major N. H. McLean, an experienced officer of the regular army, and most systematic and able in his administrative duties. He was punctilious in his performance of duty, and was especially averse to having his military conduct seem in any way influenced by political motives. Like many other officers of the army, he made his devotion to his government as a soldier the basis of all his action, and disclaimed any interest in politics. But in the summer of 1863 politics in Ohio became too heated to allow any neutrality or even any hesitation in open declarations of principle. Vallandigham was a candidate for governor, although an exile under the judgment of the military court. Local politicians were not always discreet, and some of them demanded avowals of Major McLean, which he refused to make, not because of any sympathy with Vallandigham's partisans, but because he thought it unbecoming his military character to submit to catechising. This was enough to condemn him in the eyes of those who literally enforced the proverb that "he that is not for us is against us," and they sent to the War Department a highly colored statement of McLean's conduct, accusing him of disloyalty. Mr. Stanton, in his characteristic way, condemned him first and tried him afterward. The first we knew of it, an order came sending McLean off to the Pacific coast,--to Oregon, I believe. General Burnside protested, and warmly sustained the major as a loyal man and able officer; but the mischief was done, and it was months before it could be undone. Indeed it was years before the injury done him in his professional career was fully recognized and a serious attempt was made to recompense him.
When Major McLean was thus removed, the business of his office fell into the hands of Captain William P. Anderson of the adjutant-general's department, who issued the orders and conducted the correspondence in General Burnside's name. The captain was a nephew of General Robert Anderson, and though the general had no sons himself, his near kinsmen gave striking evidence of the earnest and militant patriotism of a loyal Kentucky stock closely allied to a well-known Ohio family. The roster of the members of the family who saw military service is an exceptional one. [Footnote: Colonel Charles Anderson, brother of the general, was in Texas when the Civil War began, but abandoned his interests there, and coming back to Ohio was made colonel of the Ninety-third Ohio Infantry, which he led in the battle of Stone's River, where he was wounded. He was in 1863 made the Union candidate for lieutenant-governor on the ticket with John Brough, whom he succeeded as governor when Brough died in 1865.
Colonel Latham Anderson, son of Charles, graduated at West Point in 1859 and became a captain in the Fifth U. S. Infantry and colonel of the Eighth California Volunteers. His war service was mostly in New Mexico and on the frontier.