Personal Recollections of Distinguished Generals

by William Franklin Gore Shanks

In manners and habits, as well as in modesty and sternness, General Buell is not unlike Thomas, possessing the same dignity of deportment, and reservedness and imperturbability so characteristic of the latter officer. He possessed, too, the same regular habits of business, and is a model of reticence and secrecy. He is, if any thing, too cold in demonstration, and won in consequence, while in the army, a reputation for gruffness which he did not deserve. He smiled as seldom as Thomas. One morning, during a recess of the court which was examining into his conduct at Nashville in December, 1862, he grew unusually lively in a playful controversy with a young daughter of General Rousseau, and perpetrated several rather comical jokes. Miss Rousseau, utterly astonished at this unexpected liveliness on the general's part, expressed her surprise by exclaiming, "Why, General Buell, I never knew you to laugh aloud before."

"Ah! my child," replied the general, suddenly growing serious, "you never knew me when I felt free to laugh as now."

Although very small of stature, General Buell possesses almost Herculean strength, and frequently has been known to lift his wife, a lady of at least 140 pounds' weight, at arm's length, and stand her on a mantle-shelf nearly as high as himself. His frame, compactly built, is all muscle and sinew.

When Buell was relieved by Rosecrans, the army threw up its hat in delight, and the country re-echoed their bravos of approval. Never was joy so inappropriate—never was there a change of commanders so injudicious, and it required only a year of time, but, alas! many a human life, to prove how criminal it was. Politics nor war ever thrust upon the nation a more incompetent leader than William Starke Rosecrans. He had not one of the attributes of generalship. He was neither a strategist nor a tactician, and all he knew of the art of war were its tricks—the tricks that every Indian and all uncivilized nations most excel in. He inspired dread in his enemies only by his reputation for trickery, and was known throughout the camps of the foe as "that wily Dutchman, Rosecrans." He was eminently fitted by nature and education to be the provost-marshal and chief of spies to a great army like that which he commanded, but nothing more.

Nature unfitted him for the task of directing a great army by making him extremely nervous. His nervousness, unlike that of Sherman, was a weakness. His excitability rendered it not only impossible for him to execute, but it made him incoherent, and he could not direct others. I have known him, when merely directing an orderly to carry a dispatch from one point to another, grow so excited, vehement, and incoherent as to utterly confound the messenger. In great danger as in small things, this nervousness incapacitated him from the intelligible direction of his officers or effective execution of his plans. He possessed no control over himself, and consequently was not capable of directing others.

WILLIAM S. ROSECRANS.

Rosecrans was not an impressive man. It was too apparent that all he did was for "effect," in the theatrical sense. He possessed very little dignity, and he dwindled terribly as you came to know him most intimately. He did not "wear well" even with the troops, who are the last of an army to give up their worship of a general. He was not long admired by his subordinate officers, and, though a great favorite with his soldiers, they never lavished upon him that intense devotion which they felt for Thomas, and which seldom found utterance in noisy demonstration. Rosecrans had a system by which to gain the affections of his men totally different from that of Thomas or Grant. It was, however, the false system of the demagogue. He never passed a regiment without having a pleasant word for the men. He chatted freely and even jocularly with them. He blamed the officers for every thing—the men for nothing. If a knapsack was put on carelessly, he told the guilty man's captain that he "didn't know how to strap on a knapsack." If a canteen was missing, he ridiculed the soldier who thought he could fight without water, and scolded his officer. All this pleased the men, without exactly offending the officer, and the whole army had a hearty laugh over every such scene, and felt an increased admiration for the general. But this admiration died out on the first apparent failure of the idol, and transferred itself to the successor, who had won their confidence by saving their former idol and themselves. Shortly after the retirement from Chickamauga to Chattanooga, and while the whole of his army was engaged in building the defenses of that place, Rosecrans, accompanied by Thomas, rode around the line to examine the works. It happened that this was also General Thomas's first public appearance after the battle of Chickamauga, and whenever the two made their appearance, the troops threw down their spades and picks, gathered in tumultuous and noisy crowds around the person of Thomas, grasped and kissed his hands and embraced his legs, to the total neglect of Rosecrans, and much to the latter's disgust and Thomas's confusion. The distinction was too marked to remain unnoticed, and Rosecrans saw in that demonstration his approaching downfall.

The immediate cause of Rosecrans's removal was his failure at Chickamauga. There were other offenses laid to his charge, but this was enough to condemn him; and he would have been relieved immediately after that event had it not been necessary, in Mr. Lincoln's opinion, to retain him in the position until after the Ohio election for governor. So little were the people understood, and so little was their deep earnestness appreciated, that there were wise counselors of the President who believed that the removal of Rosecrans at that time would strengthen Vallandigham, and perhaps secure his election over Brough. As soon as the election was over, however, Rosecrans was removed, and very properly too, for his entire campaign had been one series of great mistakes, which circumstances have served to hide from general observation. I am in some measure responsible for the false impressions prevailing about that campaign, for I was so placed—as correspondent for a leading paper of the country—that I could have given them publication, but the sin was one of omission only. A little circumstance prevented me at the time from telling the whole truth about the battle of Chickamauga, or even all I had proposed to tell. As it was, I was condemned, abused, and ridiculed by half the papers in the country for what little I did say, and for a few weeks I felt myself the best abused man in the country. It was not until Rosecrans, and McCook, and Crittenden were relieved that people began to understand that I was right, and I to feel that I had made a mistake in not giving the whole story in full. The circumstance which induced me to do otherwise was this: A week or two before the battle of Chickamauga, the Assistant Secretary of War, Charles A. Dana, arrived at Rosecrans's head-quarters, and he was received by the army as if he was a bird of evil omen. It was whispered at head-quarters that he had come as the spy of the War Department, and to find justification for Rosecrans's intended removal; the rumor spread to the camp; officers looked upon him with scowls, and the men ridiculed him by pretending to mistake him for a sutler, and by calling after him as he would ride by in the wake of Rosecrans, "Hey, old sutler! when are you going to open out?" Mr. Dana's position must have been very unpleasant to him, for he was evidently an object of suspicion in every body's eyes, and his mission "to ruin Rosecrans" was the talk of the whole camp. On the morning after the battle, when about leaving Chattanooga for New York, in order to write up an account of the battle for the Herald, I waited on General Rosecrans to obtain his approval to a dispatch to be forwarded by telegraph. The general, Garfield, Dana, and one or two aids, were at lunch. While General Garfield read and approved the dispatch, General Rosecrans asked me, among other questions, what I proposed to tell about the late battle. I answered, "The plain, unvarnished truth, I hope." Soon after I left, and Mr. Dana arose and followed me to the telegraph office. Here he very officiously told the telegraph operators to see that my dispatch went through without delay, and otherwise showed almost too plainly a disposition to serve me. Before I could leave the house and mount my horse to ride to the nearest railroad station, I heard two operators talking of collusion between myself and Mr. Dana, while a third told me very plainly "that it was evident that Mr. Dana and myself were both disposed to blame Rosecrans for the defeat." To have written what I had intended would have been to justify this suspicion, and hence much that I would liked to have said of the battle at that time in the Herald I was compelled to defer until the present time and the present book.