He then cites abundant precedents and authorities from British, French, South American, and other sources, one of the most striking of which is this quotation from Thomas Jefferson's letter to Dr. Gordon, complaining of the injury done to his estates by Cornwallis: "He destroyed all my growing crops and tobacco; he burned all my barns, containing the same articles of last year. Having first taken what corn he wanted, he used, as was to be expected, all my stock of cattle, sheep, and hogs for the sustenance of his army, and carried off all the horses capable of service. He carried off also about thirty slaves. Had this been to give them freedom, he would have done right. From an estimate made at the time on the best information I could collect, I suppose the State of Virginia lost, under Lord Cornwallis's hands, that year, about thirty thousand slaves." Whiting says in conclusion: "It has thus been proved, by the law and usage of modern civilized nations, confirmed by the judgment of eminent statesmen, and by the former practice of this Government, that the President, as commander-in-chief, has the authority, as an act of war, to liberate the slaves of the enemy; that the United States have in former times sanctioned the liberation of slaves—even of loyal citizens—by military commanders, in time of war, without compensation therefor, and have deemed slaves captured in war from belligerent subjects as entitled to their freedom."
CHAPTER XVII.
BURNSIDE'S CAMPAIGN.
McCLELLAN'S INACTION—VISIT AND LETTERS OF LINCOLN TO HIM—SUPERSEDED BY BURNSIDE—THE POSITION AT FREDERICKSBURG—ATTACK UPON THE HEIGHTS—THE RESULT—GENERAL BURNSIDE'S LACK OF JUDGMENT—PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S NATURAL APTITUDE FOR STRATEGY—BRAVERY OF THE SOLDIERS—THRILLING INCIDENTS OF THE BATTLE—GALLANTRY OF THE IRISH BRIGADE.
After the battle of the Antietam, Lee withdrew to the neighborhood of Winchester, where he was reinforced, till at the end of a month he had about sixty-eight thousand men. McClellan followed as far as the Potomac, and there seemed to plant his army, as if he expected it to sprout and increase itself like a field of corn. Ten days after he defeated Lee on the Antietam, he wrote to the President that he intended to stay where he was, and attack the enemy if they attempted to recross into Maryland! At the same time, he constantly called for unlimited reinforcements, and declared that, even if the city of Washington should be captured, it would not be a disaster so serious as the defeat of his army. Apparently it did not occur to General McClellan that these two contingencies were logically the same. For if Lee could have defeated that army, he could then have marched into Washington; or if he could have captured Washington without fighting the army whose business it was to defend it, the army would thereby be substantially defeated.
| MAJOR-GENERAL AMBROSE E. BURNSIDE AND STAFF. |
On the 1st of October the President visited General McClellan at his headquarters, and made himself acquainted with the condition of the army. Five days later he ordered McClellan to "cross the Potomac, and give battle to the enemy, or drive him south." The despatch added, "Your army must move now, while the roads are good. If you cross the river between the enemy and Washington, and cover the latter by your operation, you can be reinforced with thirty thousand men." Nevertheless, McClellan did not stir. Instead of obeying the order, he inquired what sort of troops they were that would be sent to him, and how many tents he could have, and said his army could not move without fresh supplies of shoes and clothing. While he was thus paltering, the Confederate General Stuart, who had ridden around his army on the peninsula, with a small body of cavalry rode entirely around it again, eluding all efforts for his capture. On the 13th the President wrote a long, friendly letter to General McClellan, in which he gave him much excellent advice that he, as a trained soldier, ought not to have needed. A sentence or two will suggest the drift of it: "Are you not over-cautious when you assume that you cannot do what the enemy is constantly doing? ... In coming to us, he [the enemy] tenders us an advantage which we should not waive. We should not so operate as to merely drive him away.... It is all easy if our troops march as well as the enemy, and it is unmanly to say they cannot do it." The letter had outlined a plan of campaign, but it closed with the words, characteristic of Lincoln's modesty in military matters, "This letter is in no sense an order." Twelve days more of fine weather were frittered away in renewed complaints, and such inquiries as whether the President wished him to move at once or wait for fresh horses, for the general said his horses were fatigued and had sore tongue. Here the President began to show some impatience, and wrote: "Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietam that fatigues anything?" The general replied that they had been scouting, picketing, and making reconnoissances, and that the President had done injustice to the cavalry. Whereupon Mr. Lincoln wrote again: "Most certainly I intend no injustice to any, and if I have done any I deeply regret it. To be told, after more than five weeks' total inaction of the army, and during which period we had sent to that army every fresh horse we possibly could, amounting in the whole to 7,918, that the cavalry horses were too much fatigued to move, presented a very cheerless, almost hopeless, prospect for the future, and it may have forced something of impatience into my despatches." That day, October 26, McClellan began to cross the Potomac; but it was ten days (partly owing to heavy rains) before his army was all on the south side of the river, and meanwhile he had brought up new questions for discussion and invented new excuses for delay. He wanted to know to what extent the line of the Potomac was to be guarded; he wanted to leave strong garrisons at certain points, to prevent the army he was driving southward before him from rushing northward into Maryland again; he discussed the position of General Bragg's (Confederate) army, which was four hundred miles away beyond the mountains; he said the old regiments of his command must be filled up with recruits before they could go into action.
| BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL J. J. BARTLETT. |