Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 / From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860

by James Gillespie Blaine

General McClellan fought the battle of Antietam under extraordinary embarrassment caused by the surrender of Harper's Ferry to the Confederates on the 13th, with a loss to the Union army of more than twelve thousand men. Could he have had the advantage of this force on the battle-field, under a competent commander, at the critical moment, his victory over Lee might have been still more decisive. His success however was of overwhelming importance to the National Government and put a stop to an invasion of Pennsylvania which might have been disastrous in the extreme. He was blamed severely, perhaps unjustly, for not following Lee on his retreat and reaping the fruits of his victory. He had the misfortune to fall into a controversy once more with the authorities at Washington. After a correspondence with the War Department he was peremptorily ordered by the General-in-Chief Halleck on the 6th of October in these words: "The President directs that you cross the Potomac and give battle to the enemy or drive him south. Your army must move now while the roads are good. . . . I am directed to add that the Secretary of War and the General-in-Chief fully concur with the President in these instructions." The order was not promptly obeyed. The Army of the Potomac—as those who spoke for General McClellan maintained—had been for six months engaged in a laborious campaign in which they had fought many battles and experienced much hardship. They needed rest, recruitment, clothes, shoes, and a general supply of war material before setting out on what would prove a winter march. The authorities at Washington asserted, and apparently proved on the testimony of Quartermaster-General Meigs, a most accomplished, able, and honorable officer, that the Army of the Potomac, when it received its first orders to move in October, was thoroughly and completely equipped. General McClellan thought however that if intrusted with the command of the army he should be allowed to direct its movements. He crossed the Potomac near Harper's Ferry in the last week of October, and began an advance through Virginia which effectually covered Washington. He had reached Warrenton, and, before the plan of his campaign was developed, received at midnight, on the 7th of November, a direct order from President Lincoln to "surrender the command of the army to General Burnside, and to report himself immediately at Trenton, the capital of New Jersey."

GENERAL McCLELLAN'S MILITARY CAREER.

The reasons for this sudden and peremptory order were not given, and if expressed would probably have been only an assertion of the utter impossibility that the War Department and General McClellan should harmoniously co-operate in the great military movements which devolved upon the Army of the Potomac. But the time of removal was not opportunely selected by the Administration. After General McClellan's failure on the Peninsula, a large proportion of the Northern people clamored for his deposition from command, and it would have been quietly acquiesced in by all. At the end of those disastrous days when he was falling back on the line of the James River, General McClellan had telegraphed the Secretary of War "If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you or to any persons in Washington. You have done your best to sacrifice this army." Perhaps no such dispatch was ever before sent by a military officer to the Commander-in-Chief of the army—to the ruler of the nation. In any other country it would have been followed with instant cashiering. Mr. Lincoln, with his great magnanimity, had however condoned the offense, and after the defeat of Pope the Administration had enlarged the command of McClellan and trusted the fortunes of the country to his generalship. The trust had not been in vain. He had rolled back the tide of invasion by a great battle in which for the first time the army of Lee had been beaten. He was now marching forward with his army strengthened for another conflict, and without explanation to the country or to himself was deprived of his command. A large part of the people and of the public press and an overwhelming majority in the army were dissatisfied with the act, and believed that it would entail evil consequences.

This ended the military career of General McClellan which throughout its whole period had been a subject of constant discussion—a discussion which has not yet closed. The opinion of a majority of intelligent observers, both civil and military, is that he was a man of high professional training, admirably skilled in the science of war, capable of commanding a large army with success, but at the same time not original in plan, not fertile in resource, and lacking the energy, the alertness, the daring, the readiness to take great risks for great ends, which distinguish the military leaders of the world. For a commander of armies, in an offensive campaign, his caution was too largely developed. He possessed in too great a degree what the French term the defensive instinct of the engineer, and was apparently incapable of doing from his own volition what he did so well on the bloody field of Antietam, when under the pressure of an overwhelming necessity.

General Burnside assumed the command with diffidence. After a consultation with General Halleck he moved down the Rappahannock opposite Fredericksburg where he confronted General Lee's army on the 13th of December, and made an attack upon it under great disadvantages and with the legitimate result of a great defeat. The total loss of killed and wounded of the Union army exceeded ten thousand men. The public mind was deeply affected throughout the North by this untoward event. All the prestige which Lee had lost at Antietam had been regained, all the advantage we had secured on that field was sacrificed by the disaster on the still bloodier field of Fredericksburg. It added immeasurably to the gloom of a gloomy winter, and in the rank and file of the army it caused a dissatisfaction somewhat akin to mutiny. So pronounced did this feeling become and so plainly was it manifested that the subject attracted the attention of Congress and led to some results which, despite the seriousness of the situation, were irresistibly amusing.

On the 23d of January Mr. Wilson of Massachusetts offered a somewhat extraordinary resolution,—instructing the Committee on the Conduct of the War to "inquire whether Major-General Burnside has since the battle of Fredericksburg formed any plans for the movement of the Army of the Potomac or any portion of the same, and if so whether any subordinate generals of said army have written to or visited Washington, to oppose or interfere with the execution of such movements, and whether such proposed movements have been arrested or interfered with, and if so by what authority." The consideration of the resolution was postponed under the rule, and three days later it was called up by Mr. Anthony of Rhode Island and its adoption urged "with the view of finding out whether officers were coming up here from the Army of the Potomac to interfere with the plans of General Burnside." There was indeed no doubt that some of the general officers connected with the army had been in Washington, and confidentially informed the President of the dispirited and depressed condition of the whole force.

GENERAL BURNSIDE AND GENERAL HOOKER.

General Burnside's character was one of great frankness, truth, and fidelity. He was full of courage and of manliness, and he conceived from circumstances within his knowledge, that certain officers in his command were gradually undermining and destroying him in the confidence of the army and of the public. He had not desired the position to which the President called him as the successor of General McClellan. He did not feel himself indeed quite competent to the task of commanding an army of one hundred thousand men. But there as in every other position in life he would try to do his best. He failed and failed decisively. It would probably have been wise for him to resign his command immediately after the defeat at Fredericksburg. On January 23, the Friday before the Senate resolution was adopted, General Burnside, highly incensed by the injury which he thought had been done him, wrote an order peremptorily "dismissing, subject to the approval of the President, Major-General Joseph E. Hooker from the Army of the United States, for having been guilty of unjust and unnecessary criticism of his superior officers, and for having by the general tone of his conversation endeavored to create distrust in the minds of officers who have associated with him, and for having habitually spoken in disparaging terms of other officers." The order declared that General Hooker was dismissed "as a man unfit to hold an important commission during a crisis like the present when so much patience, charity, confidence, consideration, and patriotism is due from every person in the field." The same order dismissed Brigadier-General John Newton and Brigadier-General John Cochrane for going to the President with criticisms on the plans of the commanding officer, and relieved Major-General William B. Franklin, Major-General W. F. Smith, Brigadier-General Sturgis and several others from further service in the Army of the Potomac.

The outcome of this extraordinary proceeding was very singular. General Burnside took the order, before its publication, to the President who instead of approving it, very good-naturedly found a command for the General in the West, and on the very day that the Senate passed the resolution of inquiry, two orders were read at the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac,—one from General Burnside announcing that Major-General Joseph E. Hooker was assigned to the command of the Army of the Potomac and asking the army to "give to the brave and skillful General, who is now to command you, your full and cordial support and co-operation;" the other from General Hooker assuming command of the Army of the Potomac by direction of the President and conveying to the late commander, General Burnside, "the most cordial good wishes of the whole army."

In the South-West where General Grant, General Sherman, and General Rosecrans were stubbornly contesting the ground, no decisive results were attained. The army went into winter quarters, with a general feeling of discouragement pervading the country. A substantial advantage was gained by General Buell's army in driving Bragg out of Kentucky, and a very signal and helpful encouragement came to the Government from the fact that the public manifestations in Kentucky were decisively adverse to the Confederates, and that Lee's army in Maryland met no welcome from any portion of the population. General McClellan's army was cheered everywhere in Maryland as it marched to the field of Antietam; and as Bragg retreated through the mountain sections of Kentucky his stragglers were fired upon by the people, and the women along the route upbraided the officers with bitter maledictions. Perhaps the feature of the two invasions most discouraging to the Confederates was the condition of the popular mind which they found in the Border States. They had expected to arouse fresh revolt, but they met a people tired of conflict and longing for repose under the flag of the Nation.