Chapter 18

_Sept. 24._--If the events of this war should progress as they are foreshadowed in the proclamation of September 22, then the application of this proclamation may create inextricable complications. Not only in one and the same State, but in one and the same district, nay, even in the same township, after January 1st, 1863, may be found Africo-Americans, portions of whom are emancipated, the others in bondage. But the stern logic of events will save the illogical, pusillanimous, confused half-measure, as it now is. (O Steffens!)

General McClellan confesses that if Hooker had not been wounded, then _the road_, by which the retreat of the rebels might have been cut off, would have been taken. Such a declaration is the most emphatic recognition of Hooker's superior military capacity. Seldom, however, has the loss of a general commanding only _en second_, or a wing, as did Hooker, decided the fortunes of the day. Why did not McClellan take _the road_ himself, after Hooker was obliged to leave the field? When Desaix, Bessieres, and Lannes fell, Napoleon nevertheless won the respective battles.

_Sept. 25._--The military position of the rebels in Winchester seems to me one of the best they ever held in this war. Winchester is the centre of which Washington, Harper's Ferry, Williamsport, nay, even Wheeling, seem to be the circumference. Our army under McClellan is almost beyond the circle, crosses not the Potomac, and is now only to watch the enemy. So much for the great McClellan's victory. Truly, the enemy may be taken in the rear, its communications with Richmond, &c., cut off and destroyed; but _we are safe_ on the Potomac, and this is sufficient. McClellan is _the man of large conceptions and rapid execution_. The best generals are _hors de combat_; as to Halleck, O, it is not to think, not to speak. Well, I may be mistaken, but I clearly see all this on the map of Virginia.

_Sept. 25._--The West Point spirit persecutes Sigel with the utmost rage. The West Point spirit seemingly wishes to have Sigel dishonored, defeated, even if the country be thereby destroyed. The Hallecks, &c., keep him in a subordinate position; _three days ago_ his corps was a little over seven thousand, almost no cavalry, and most of the artillery without horses, and he in front.

The more I scrutinize the President's thus called emancipation proclamation, the more cunning and less good will and sincerity I find therein. I hope I am mistaken. But the proclamation is only an act of the military power,--is evoked by military necessity,--and not a civil, social, humane act of justice and equity.

The only good to be derived from this proclamation is, that for the first time the word _freedom_, and a general comprehension of "emancipation," appear in an official act under the sanction of the formula, and are inaugurated into the official, the constitutional life of the nation. In itself it is therefore a great event for a people so strictly attached to legality and to formulas.

I do not recollect to have read in the history of any great, or even of a small captain,--above all of such a one when between thirty-four and thirty-six years old,--that he followed the army under his command in a travelling carriage and six, when the field of operations extended from fifty to seventy miles. Three cheers for McClellan, for his carriage and six!

HOW THE GREAT CAPTAIN WAS TO CATCH THE WHOLE REBEL ARMY IN MANASSAS, IN FEBRUARY AND MARCH, A. D. 1862.

It was to have been done by a brilliant and unsurpassable stroke of combined strategy, tactics, manoeuvres, marches, and swimmings; also on land and water. (O, hear! O, hear!)

As every body knows, the rebels were encamped in the so _fearful_ strongholds of Centreville and Manassas, all the time fooling the commander-in-chief of the federal army in relation to their _immense_ numbers. To attack the rebels in front, or to surround them by the Occoquan and Brentsville, would have been a too--simple operation; by a special, an immense, space-embracing anaconda strategy, the rebel army was to be cut off from the whole of rebeldom, and forced to surrender _en masse_ to the inventor of (the not yet patented, I hope) bloodless victories. To accomplish such an immense result, a fleet of transports was already ordered to be gathered at Annapolis. On them in ten or fifteen days (O, hear!) an army of fifty to sixty thousand, most completely equipped, was to be embarked, plus forty thousand in Washington, all this to sail under the personal command of the general-in-chief, and sail towards Richmond. Richmond taken, the rebel army at Manassas would have been cut off, and obliged to surrender on any terms.

The above splendid conception was, and still is, peddled among the army and among the nation by the admirers of, and the devotees of, anaconda strategy.

The expedition was to land at the mouth of the Tappahannock, a small port, or rather a creek, used for shipping of a small quantity of tobacco. As the port or creek has only some small attempts at wharves, the landing of such an enormous army, with parks of artillery, with cavalry, pontoons, and material for constructing bridges,--the landing would not have been executed in weeks, if in months; but the projector of the plan, perfectly losing the notion of time, calculated for ten days. From that port the _flying_ expedition was to march directly on Richmond through a country having only common field and dirt roads, and this in a season when all roads generally are in an impassable condition, through a country intersected by marshy streams, principal among them the Matapony and the Pamunkey--to march towards Richmond and the Chickahominy marshes. It seems that Chickahominy exercised an attractive, Armida-like charm on the great strategian. An army loaded with such immense trains would have sufficiently destroyed all the roads, and rendered them impassable for itself; and the _flying_ expedition would at once have been transformed into an expedition sticking in the mud, similar to that subsequent in the peninsula. The enemy was in possession of Fredericksburg and of the railroad to Hanover Court House on one flank, and of all the best roads north of and through Chickahominy marshes on the other flank. The _flying_ expedition would have had for base Tappahannock and a dirt road. O strategy! O stuff!

The much-persecuted General McDowell exposed the worse than crudity of the brilliant conception. By doing this, McDowell saved the country, the administration, and the strategian from immense losses and from a nameless shame. It is due to the people that the administration lay before the public the scheme and the refutation. A look on the map of Virginia must convince even the simplest mind of the brilliancy of this conception.

During all this time spent in such masterly operations, the rebel army in Manassas was to quietly look on, to wait, and not move, not retreat on Richmond. Early in March, at once the rebel army, always undisturbed, quietly disappeared from Manassas; and this is the best evidence of the depth of that brilliant combination, peddled under the name of the _flying expedition to Richmond_, projected for January, February, or March. I appeal to the verdict of sound reason; the parties are, common sense _versus_ anaconda strategy and bloodless victories.

_Sept. 27._--The proclamation issued by the war power of the President is not yet officially notified to those who alone are to execute it--the armies and their respective commanders. Who is to be taken in? The papers publish a detailed account of an interview between the President and an anti-slavery deputation from Chicago. The deputation asked for stringent measures in the spirit of the law of Congress, which orders the emancipation of the slaves held by the rebels. The President combated the reasons alleged by the deputation, and tried to establish the danger and the inefficiency of the measure. A few days after the above-mentioned debate, the President issued the proclamation of September 22. Are his heart, his soul, and his convictions to be looked for in the debate, or in the proclamation?

The immense majority of the people, from the inmost of its heart, greets the proclamation--a proof how deeply and ardently was felt its necessity. The gratitude shown to Mr. Lincoln for having thus executed the will of his master,--this gratitude is the best evidence how this whole people is better, has a loftier comprehension of right and duty, than have its elected servants.

McClellan already speaks that the campaign is finished, and the army is to go into winter quarters. If the people, if the administration, and if the army will stand this, then they will justly deserve the scorn of the whole civilized and uncivilized world. But with such civil and military chiefs all is possible, all may be expected to be included in their programme of--vigorous operations.

_Sept. 28._--For some weeks I watch a conspiracy of the West Pointers, of the commanders-in-chief, of the staffs, and of the double know-nothing cliques united against Sigel. The aim seems to be to put Sigel and his purposely-reduced and disorganized forces in such a condition and position that he may be worsted or destroyed by the enemy. To avoid dishonoring the forces under him, to avoid exposing them to slaughter, and to avoid being thus himself dishonored, Sigel ought to resign, and make public the reasons of his resignation. A few days ago, I wrote and warned the Evening Post; but--but--

The Richmond papers confirm what I supposed concerning the motives which pushed the rebel army across the Potomac. As the Marylanders rose not in arms, and joined not the rebel army, the invaders had nothing else to do but to retreat and to recross the Potomac. McClellan ought to have thrown them into the river, which Hooker, if not wounded, would have done, or if he had the command of our army.

The rebels would have retreated into Virginia, even without being attacked by McClellan, even if he only followed them, say at one day's distance. Not having destroyed the rebels, McClellan, in reality, and from the military stand point, accomplished very little--near to nothing. Hooker estimates the rebel force, at the utmost, at eighty thousand men, and that is all that they could have. McClellan had about one hundred and twenty thousand. And--and he is to be considered the savior of Maryland and of Pennsylvania. O, good American people! The genuine Napoleon won all his great battles against armies which considerably outnumbered his.

Mr. Seward menaces England with issuing _letters of marque_ against the Southern privateers. The menace is ridiculous, because it will not be carried out, and, if carried out, it will become still more ridiculous; it would be a very poor compliment to the navy to use the whole power of private enterprise against a few rovers, and it would be an official recognition of the rebels in the condition of belligerents. _Quousque tandem_--O SEWARD--_abutere patientiam nostram?_

_Sept. 30._--Nearly three weeks after the battle of Antietam, General McClellan publishes what he and they call a report of his operations in Maryland; in all not twenty lines, and devoted principally to establish--on probabilities--the numerical losses of the enemy. The report is a fit _pendant_ to his bulletins; is excellent for bunkum, and to make other people justly laugh at us.

OCTOBER, 1862.

Costly Infatuation -- The do-nothing strategy -- Cavalry on lame horses -- Bayonet charges -- Antietam -- Effect of the proclamation -- Disasters in the West -- The abolitionists not originally hostile to McClellan -- Helplessness in the War Department -- Devotedness of the people -- McClellan and the proclamation -- Wilkes -- Colonel Key -- Routine engineers -- Rebel raid into Pennsylvania -- Stanton's sincerity -- O, unfighting strategians! -- The administration a success -- _De gustibus_ -- Stuart's raid -- West Point -- St. Domingo -- The President's letter to McClellan -- Broad church -- The elections -- The Republican party gone -- The remedy at the polls -- McClellan wants to be relieved -- Mediation -- Compromise -- The rhetors. -- The optimists -- The foreigners -- Scott and Buchanan -- Gladstone -- Foreign opinion and action -- Both the extremes to be put down -- Spain -- Fremont's campaign against Jackson -- Seward's circular -- General Scott's gift -- "O, could I go to a camp!" -- McClellan crosses the Potomac -- Prays for rain -- Fevers decimate the regiments -- Martindale and Fitz John Porter -- The political balance to be preserved -- New regiments -- O, poor country!

With what a bloody sacrifice of men this people pays for its infatuation in McClellan, for the moral cowardice of its official leaders, and the intrigues and the imbecility of the regulars, of some among the West Pointers, of traitors led by the New York Herald, by the World, and by certain Unionists on the outside, and secessionists at heart! All these combined nourish the infatuation. All things compared, Napoleon cost not so much to the French people, and at least Napoleon paid it in glory. Mind and heart sicken to witness all this here. The question to-day is, not to strengthen other generals, as Heintzelman and Sigel, and to take the enemy in the rear, but to give a _chance_ to McClellan to win the ever-expected, and not yet by him won, _great battle_. McClellan continually calls for more men; all the vital forces of the people are absorbed by him; and when he has large numbers, he is incapable of using and handling them; so it was at the Chickahominy, so it was at Antietam. In the way that McClellan acts now, he may use up all the available forces of the people, if nobody has the courage to speak out; besides, any warning voice is drowned in the treacherous intrigues of the clique, in imbecility and infatuation.

At the meeting of the governors, at the various public conventions, in the thus called public resolutions--platforms, in one word--wherever, in any way. North, West, and East, the public life of the people has made its voice heard: _a vigorous prosecution of the war_ was, and is, earnestly recommended to the administration. All this will be of no avail. By this time, by bloody and bitter experience, the American people ought to have learned it. With his civil and military aids and lieutenants, as the McClellans, the Hallecks, the Sewards, Mr. Lincoln has been at work; and at the best, they have shown their utter incapacity, if not ill-will, to carry the war on vigorously and upon strictly military principles. Many persons in Washington know that Mr. Seward last winter firmly backed the _do-nothing_ strategy, in the firm belief that the rebels would be worried out, and submit without fighting. To those statesmen and Napoleons, Carnots, &c., it is as impossible to manoeuvre with rapidity, to strike boldly and decidedly, as to dance on their _well-furnished_ heads. Only such a good-natured people as the Americans can expect _something_ from that whole _caterva_. To expect from Mr. Lincoln's Napoleons, Carnots, &c., vigorous and rapid military operations, is the same as to mount cavalry on thoroughly lame horses, and order it to charge _a fond de train_.

The worshippers of McClellan peddle that the Antietam victory became neutralized because the enemy fell back on its second and third line. Whatever may be in this falling back on lines, and accepting all as it is represented, one thing is certain, that when commanders win victories, generally they give no time to the enemy to fall back in order on its second and third lines. But every thing gets a new stamp under the new Napoleon. A few hours after the Antietam battle, General McClellan telegraphed that he "_knew not_ if the enemy retreated into the interior or to the Potomac." O, O!

Many from among the European officers here have some experience of the manoeuvring of large bodies--experience acquired on fields of battle, and on reviews, and those camp manoeuvres annually practised all over Europe. In this way the European officers, more or less, have the _coup d'oeil_ for space and for the _terrain_, so necessary when an army is to be put in positions on a field of battle, and which _coup d'oeil_ few young American officers had the occasion to acquire. If judiciously selected for the duties of the staffs, such European officers would be of use and support to generals but for jealousy and the West Point cliques.

During this whole war I hear every body, but above all the West Point wiseacres and strategians, assert that charges with the bayonet and hand-to-hand fighting are exceedingly rare occurrences in the course of any campaign. It is useless to speak to all those great judges of experience and of history.

In the account of the battles of Ligny and of Waterloo, Thiers mentions four charges with the bayonet and hand-to-hand fighting at Ligny, and nine at Waterloo, wherein one was made by the English, one was made by Prussians and by French, and one by the French with bayonet against English cavalry. In 1831 the Poles used the bayonet more than it was used in any one campaign known in history. O, West Point!

It deserves to be noticed that the conspirators against Pope and McDowell, and the pet pretorians of September 6 and 7, distinguished themselves not very much in the battle of Antietam. Hooker commanded McDowell's corps.

To the number of evils inflicted upon this country by the McClellan infatuation, must be added the fact that many young men, with otherwise sound intellects, have been taken in, stultified, poisoned beyond cure, by high-sounding words, as strategy, all-embracing scientific combinations, &c.--words identified with incapacity, defeats, and intrigue.

In all probability, Hooker alone, when he fought, had a fixed plan at the Antietam battle. As for a general plan, aiming either to throw the enemy into the river, or to cut him from the river, or to accomplish something final and decisive, seemingly no such plan existed. It looks as if they had ignored, at the headquarters, what kind of positions were occupied by the enemy; and the only purpose seems to have been to fight, but without having any preconceived plan. This, at least, is the conclusion from the manner in which the battle was fought. If any plan had existed, the brave army would have executed it; but the enemy retreated in order, and rather unmolested. _As always, so this time, the bravery of the army did every thing; and, as a matter of course, the generalship did--nothing._

_Oct. 4._--The proclamation of September 22 may not produce in Europe the effect and the enthusiasm which it might have evoked if issued a year ago, as an act of justice and of self-conscientious force, as an utterance of the lofty, pure, and ardent aspirations and will of a high-minded people. Europe may see now in the proclamation an action of despair made in the duress of events; (and so it is in reality for Mr. Lincoln, Seward, and their squad.) And in this way, a noble deed, outpouring from the soul of the people, is reduced to pygmy and mean proportions by ----. The name is on every body's lips.

But it was impossible to issue this proclamation last year; at that time the master-spirit of Mr. Lincoln's administration emphatically assured the diplomats that the Union will be preserved, _were slavery--to rule in Boston_.

The continued disasters in the West can easily be explained by the fact, that those rotten skeletons, Crittenden, Davis, and Wickliffe control the operations of the generals.

_Among the countless lies peddled by McClellan's worshippers, the most enormous and the most impudent is that one by which they attempt to explain, what in their lingo they call, the hostility of the abolitionists towards McClellan. Concerning this matter, I can speak with perfect knowledge of almost all the circumstances._

_Not one abolitionist of whatever hue, not one republican whatever, was in any way troubled or thought about the political convictions of General McClellan at the time when he was put at the head of the army. All the abolitionists and republicans, who then earnestly wished, and now wish, to have the rebellion crushed, expected General McClellan to do it by quick, decisive, soldier-like, military operations, manoeuvres, and fights. Senators Wade, Chandler, Trumbull, &c., in October, 1861, principally aided McClellan to become independent of General Scott. When, however, weeks and months elapsed without any soldier-like action, manifestation, or enterprise whatever, all those who were in earnest began to feel uneasy, began to murmur, not in reference to any political opinions, whatever, held by General McClellan, but solely and exclusively on account of his military supineness. All those who ardently wished, and wish, that neither slaveholders nor slavery be hurt in any way, such ones early grouped themselves around General McClellan, believing to have found in him the man after their own heart. That cesspool of all infamies, the New York Herald, became the mouthpiece of all the like hypocrites. They and the Herald were the first to pervert and to misrepresent the indignation evoked by the do-nothing or nobody-hurt strategy, and to call it the abolition outcry against their fetish._

Scarcely will it be believed what disorder, what helplessness, and what incapacity rule paramount in the expedition of any current business in the strictly military part of the War Department. It is worse than any imaginable red-tape and circumlocution. And all this, being considered a speciality and a technicality, is in the exclusive hands of the adjutant general, a master spirit among the West Pointers. Generally, all relating to the thus celebrated organization of the army is an exclusive work of the West Point wisdom--is handled by West Pointers; and, nevertheless, the general comprehension of all details in relation to an army, how it is to be handled, all the military details of responsibility, of higher discipline, &c., all this is confusion, and strikes with horror any one either familiar with such matters or using freely his sound sense. A narrow routine which may have been innocuous with an army of sixteen thousand with General Scott and in peace, became highly mischievous when the army increased more than fifty times, and the war raged furiously. All this confusion is specially produced by the wiseacres and doctors of routine. Undoubtedly it reacts on the army, and shows of what use for the country is, and was, that whole old nursery.

Wherever one turns his eyes, every where a deep line separates the patriotic activity of the people from the official activity. With the people all is sacrifice, devotion, grandeur, and purity of purpose, by great and small, by rich and poor, and with the poor, if possible, even more than with the rich. With the highest and higher officials it is either weakness, or egotism, or coolness, or intrigue, or ignorance, or helplessness. The exceptions are few, and have been repeatedly pointed out.