History of the United States, v.3

Chapter 16, Part 1

 
 

History of the United States, v.3, by James Ford Rhodes, 1910 [c1892].

Chapter 16, Part 1: Joseph E. Johnston through McClellan

CHAPTER XVI

The battle of Bull Run demonstrated that in the Confederate army were two generals, Joseph E. Johnston and Thomas J. Jackson, who had military talents of a high order. Johnston was fifty-four years old; of the same age as Lee, he was graduated from West Point in the same class.1 The two ablest commanders of the South, of the first families of Virginia, formed while at the Military Academy a fast friendship which was never impaired. They served under General Scott in the Mexican War, when the youthful intimacy had ripened into the mellow attachment of manhood, the sympathy between them remaining complete. At Contreras Johnston's nephew—whom, having no children of his own, he regarded as a son—was killed, and it fell to Lee to break the news. Finding his friend standing on captured intrenchments, flushed with victory at the success of a seemingly desperate assault, Lee, with the tenderness of a woman, told him of the sad fate of his nephew, and their tears, mingling together, cemented a friendship that helps to light up the dark story of the carnage and the waste of energy of our Civil War.

With the exception of one year, Johnston, since his graduation from West Point, had served constantly in the army, being quartermaster-general at the time Sumter was taken. Like Lee he was opposed to secession, but he made no question of his duty. Five days after the secession of Virginia he resigned his commission in the federal army and offered
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1 Lee stood second, Johnston thirteenth, in a class of forty-six.

his services to his native State; he was the officer highest in rank who espoused the Southern side.

While in the Shenandoah valley, he and Jefferson Davis were on the best of terms, and their correspondence was of the most friendly nature. Davis addresses him, "My dear General," "may God bless and direct you," and assures him, "My confidence and interest in you, both as an officer and as a friend, cause me to turn constantly to your position with deepest solicitude."1 On the battle-field of Bull Run their relations seem to have been cordial. But immediately after a quarrel arose between them, which boded no good to the Southern cause. A conflict of authority between the Richmond War Office and Johnston occurred, and he wrote Adjutant General Cooper two letters displaying acerbity and combativeness; these Davis endorsed as " insubordinate.''2 For this or for some other personal reasons the Confederate President, in sending the nominations of five generals to Congress, determined Johnston's rank as fourth. This drew from him an emphatic letter, in which he maintained that by his previous rank in the United States army and by the acts of the Confederate Congress he still rightfully held the rank of first general in the armies of the Southern Confederacy. Davis replied: The language of your letter "is, as you say, unusual; its arguments and statements utterly one-sided, and its insinuations as unfounded as they are unbecoming."3 The breach was never healed. Had Johnston been less sensitive to an affront to his personal dignity, had he been in temper like Lee, and had Davis shown such abnegation of
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1 June 22, July 10,13, Official Records, vol. ii. pp. 945, 974, 977.
2 Johnston's letters are July 24, 29, and are printed in Mrs. Davis's Memoir, vol. ii. p. 139.
3 The Confederate Congress confirmed, August 31, the nominations of Cooper, A. S. Johnston, Lee, J. E. Johnston, Beauregard. J. E. Johnston dated the letter referred to September 12, but had thought it over two days before sending it. Davis's reply is of September 14, see Mrs. Davis's Memoir, vol. ii. p. 144 et seq.; Johnston's Narrative, p. 70 et seq.

self as did Lincoln in his dealings with his generals, blame and recrimination would not be written on every page of Southern history in the endeavor to explain why the Southern cause was lost.1 We now begin to discern the inferiority of Davis to Lincoln in the conduct of the large affairs of men and of state.

The most striking figure of the war on the Southern side, "Stonewall" Jackson, has the fascination of a character of romance. No characterization of him has fully satisfied his admirers. To some he seems made up of contradictions; to others a rare consistency appears to run through his mature life. Growing up in a community of western Virginia where morals were loose and where the sentiment was irreligious, he developed in manhood a piety which, had it not been so manly and consistent, would seem extreme and fanatical. As a youth, racing horses with a jockey's skill, and an eager frequenter of merry-makings, a gay young officer in the City of Mexico after its capture, eating dinners prepared by Parisian art, and participating with the dark-eyed senoritas in the wild delights of the dance, he took, after making a public profession of his faith, the attitude towards worldly amusements of a New England Puritan. No man was more devout. With an unquestioning faith in a God who directed by continual interposition human affairs, his religion became a part of his being, influencing every act. When misfortune and sorrow came, his comfort lay in the reflection, "We know that all things work together for good to them that love God." His communion with his Maker seemed complete. He prayed without ceasing, supplicating the throne of grace for the most common things and asking divine guidance in the
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1 I have drawn this characterization of Johnston from his Narrative; General J. D. Cox's review of same in the Nation, May 21, 1874; Cox's Obituary of Johnston, the Nation, March 26, 1891; Sketch of Johnston, by Judge Robert W. Hughes, in Lee and His Companions in Arms; Life of Johnston, Great Commander Series, R. M. Hughes; letter of Johnston's, printed in Long's Lee, p. 71,

most trivial affairs of life. He said that the habit of prayer had become with him almost as fixed as the habit of breathing. His reverence for ministers of the gospel, his thoughtful analysis of their sermons, his profound respect for their exposition of Bible texts, call to mind the regard paid the preacher in the colonial days of Massachusetts, when he was, indeed, the wisest man in the community. These traits were a rightful inheritance from Jackson's Scotch-Irish ancestry. His observance of the Sabbath was extremely rigorous, yet he was no Pharisee, for it was in full keeping with the rest of his life.

He imposed upon himself the severest bodily discipline, having always the same care of his physique as an athlete in training. He loved liquor, but would not drink it. "I am more afraid of it," he said, during the war, "than of federal bullets." In his mental operations he was rigidly methodical. Not well prepared at the time of his entrance to West Point, he made up in industry what, owing to his poverty and the necessity that compelled him to work on an uncle's farm, he had lacked in opportunity. Inexperienced for his professional duties at the Virginia Military Institute, he fitted himself for his daily tasks by diligent study, and acquired by his habit of reflection a remarkable concentration of mind. Morally he was conscientious to a nicety that appears extreme, but his exact truthfulness and ready self-denial were traits of a noble soul. Had the war not occurred, had his own prayer and the prayers of righteous men averted, as he at one time hoped they would, the conflict between Christian peoples, Jackson would have been remembered in a small circle of Virginia as an eccentric professor, unpopular with his students and respected by serious men. But he was a born fighter, and the war breaking out when he was only thirty-seven, gave him his opportunity. One great principle of his life had been to obey orders, and such discipline he imposed on his men. Yet he won from them a love and devotion such as no other Southern general except Lee obtained.

Jackson had no love for slavery, but, believing that the Bible taught that it was ordained of God, he had no question that it was the best actual relation for the two races. A strict but kind master to his own slaves, he requested his wife to teach two of their negro boys to read, and he himself organized a Sabbath-school for the instruction of the colored people of Lexington, in which, until the war broke out, he labored with interest and zeal. He was present in command of his cadets at the execution of John Brown. "Awful was the thought," he wrote to his wife, "that John Brown might, in a few minutes, receive the sentence, 'Depart, ye wicked, into everlasting fire.1 I sent up a petition that he might be saved." Jackson was opposed to secession, but, being a thorough state-rights man, he had no difficulty about his duty after the decision of Virginia, and, firmly believing in the justice of the Southern cause, he threw himself into it with the ardor of a crusader.1

It is easy to understand why both Davis and Lincoln were so anxious for the adhesion of Virginia. Her worth was measured by the quality as well as the number of her men. Reflect that her secession gave to the Confederate army the three generals, Lee, Johnston, and Jackson! Had Virginia remained with the Union, it is unlikely that any of them would have commanded a Confederate army; it is possible that Lee and Johnston might have served under the old flag.

While Lincoln had not lost confidence in McDowell 2— and, as affairs turned out, it would have been better had he remained at the head of his army—yet, after the battle of Bull Run, military judgment, political opinion, and public sentiment, dominated by the successes in western Virginia, combined to mark McClellan as a great soldier. To place him in command of the army at Washington was the un
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1 I have drawn this characterization of Jackson from his Life by R. L. Dabney, D.D. ; his biography by his wife; Life, by John Esten Cooke; Eggleston's Recollections of a Rebel.
2 Lincoln to Buell, January 13,1862, Official Records, vol. vii. p. 928.

questioned course to pursue. He was immediately summoned to the capital, and, July 27, he assumed command of the troops in and about the city,1 going diligently to work to reorganize the armies of McDowell and Mansfield, and to drill systematically in camps of instruction these soldiers, as well as the fresh recruits constantly arriving. By his untiring exertions and power of organizing he soon had them under some degree of discipline.

McClellan, now thirty-four years old, had graduated from West Point in the same class as " Stonewall" Jackson, and immediately afterwards had seen active service in Mexico. In 1855, being one of a commission sent by the government to Europe to report on the art of war, he saw something of the operations in the Crimea. Two years later he resigned from the army to take the position of chief engineer of the Illinois Central Railroad, of which he became the vice-president. When the war broke out, he was president of the eastern division of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad, living in Cincinnati, and in receipt of an annual salary of ten thousand dollars. Made in May a major-general in the United States army, and placed in command of the Department of the Ohio, he displayed from the start the personal qualities that gave him such a hold on the men with whom he came in contact. His "intercourse with those about him was kindly, and his bearing modest," writes General Cox, who had much to do with McClellan in the early days of the war. In daily life and conversation he was a "sensible and genial man." 2 "His unusually winning personal characteristics," write the private secretaries of Lincoln, contributed in a large degree to inspire "a remarkable affection and regard in every one, from the President to the humblest orderly who waited at his door." 3
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1 Official Records, vol. ii. p. 768; vol. v. p. 11.
2 Century War Book, vol. i. p. 185.
3 Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. p. 444. The other authority I have drawn from in this characterization is McClellan's Own Story.

In no apparent trepidation, Congress met at the usual hour the day after the battle of Bull Run. It transacted the ordinary amount of business, and the House adopted a resolution of Crittenden's, introduced two days previously, which gave expression to the common sentiment of the country touching the object of the war. This resolution declared that the war was not waged for conquest or subjugation, or to overthrow or interfere with the rights or established institutions of the Southern States, but to maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and to preserve the Union.1 It passed the House with only four dissenting voices, and the Senate three days later, the vote standing 30 to 5.2 Congress also passed an act confiscating all property used in aid of the "insurrection." One section of it caused considerable opposition in the House, since it was the beginning of legislation concerning slavery.3 This provided that the claims of owners should be forfeited to those slaves whom they should require to take up arms against the United States, or to labor in forts or intrenchments, or whom they should employ in any military or naval service whatsoever against the national government.

The Confederate provisional Congress, in session at Richmond from July 20 to August 31, sitting most of the time with closed doors, passed, in retaliation for the Confiscation act, a law providing for the sequestration of the estates and property of alien enemies; it brought within its operation debts due Northern merchants by the Southern people.4 The Congress by statute had previously defined as alien enemies all citizens of the United States, except those residing in the Confederacy, who should declare their intention to become citizens of it and who should acknowledge the
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1 Congressional Globe, p. 222.
2 Ibid., p. 265.
3 The Confiscation bill passed the House August 3 by 60 to 48, ibid., p. 431.
4 Approved August 30, Statutes at Large of the Provisional Government, p. 201; see article of Richmond Examiner, September 3.

authority of its government.1 The Confederate district courts of Richmond, Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans were largely occupied during the fall of 1861 with proceedings under the Sequestration act, which appear to have been conducted in as orderly a manner and with as great safeguards for the privilege of the defendant as would have obtained in similar cases at the North.2
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1 Approved August 8, Statutes at Large of the Provisional Government, p. 175. Citizens of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and of the District of Columbia were put on a somewhat different footing from the citizens of the free States.
2 See Richmond Examiner, October 9, 11, 16, 18, 31; Richmond Whig, October 8, 29; Richmond Enquirer, October 31; Savannah Republican, October 8, 16, November 27, December 9, 21; Charleston Courier, September 10, October 8, 10, 21; New Orleans True Delta, October 6, 8, 9, 12, 25, December 5. The question of the constitutionality of the Sequestration act was submitted to the Confederate district courts, see Richmond Examiner, October 19, November 7; Richmond Whig, November 8; Savannah Republican, December 21. Judge Magrath, of Charleston, decided that the act was constitutional, Charleston Courier, October 25.

"We have seen it estimated that under the operation of the Sequestration act of the Confederate Congress, from fifteen to thirty millions of dollars will pass into the custody of the Confederate receivers in Virginia. The estimate strikes us as moderate. It is well known that nearly all the merchants of our cities, towns, and villages were in the habit of purchasing their stock at the North. Even though a small portion of the merchants of the interior laid in their goods in Richmond, still, inasmuch as the Richmond merchants bought the largest portion of their goods from New York, the result was the same as if the country merchants had all gone directly to the city. The war came on in April, just after the season when the merchants had laid in their spring supplies of goods from the North. Very few of these goods were purchased for cash. The custom of trade was to buy on credit, and nearly all these goods were bought on the usual terms of six months' time. Thus the war opened on an indebtedness from Virginia (and doubtless the case was the same with all the Southern States) to the North, equal to the total of the spring purchases of her merchants. This indebtedness was augmented by the whole amount of old debts of prior standing, which had resulted from a course of business that had existed for a long train of years. From these considerations we are inclined to put the indebtedness from Virginia to the North on mercantile account at a very high figure. We do not think it can be less than twenty millions. For that portion of the State not overrun by the enemy we suppose it to be at least fifteen millions."—Richmond Dispatch, September 24. The New Orleans Delta "estimated the amount of property which will be liable to sequestration at twelve millions of dollars

Despite the efforts of the Lincoln administration and the majority of the Northern people to keep the slavery question in abeyance; despite the wish of Jefferson Davis that it might not obtrude, and the emphatic assurances of the Confederate commissioners to Lord John Russell that slavery was not the cause of the war,1 the negro in bondage was a stubborn fact, and as the federal armies advanced into slave territory, his condition and his status had to be dealt with. Three negroes who had come to Fortress Monroe were, on May 24, the day after Virginia had ratified by popular vote the ordinance of secession, claimed by an agent of their owner. General Butler, who was in command, refused to deliver them up, on the ground that, as they belonged to a citizen of a State offering resistance to the federal government and had been employed in the construction of a battery, they were "contraband of war."2 Although the application of this phrase had not, as Butler himself admits, high legal sanction, it was at once taken up by the popular mind as an admirable and effective solution of a vexing question, and the policy of the government towards the "contrabands" who flocked into Fortress Monroe became a subject of great interest. May 27 General Butler reported to the War Department that he had within his lines negro men, women, and children to the value of $60,000, as they were rated in good times. He had determined to feed them, to put the able-bodied at work, keeping an account of the value of their services and the cost of maintenance of the whole number.3 The
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lars."—Richmond Enquirer, October 15. These extravagant estimates were not justified. I find no mention of receipts from sequestration until Secretary Memminger's report of December 7, 1863, where the amount is set down as $1,862,550.21; May 2, 1864, he notes the receipts under this head as $3,000,787.37. Capers's Life of Memminger, pp. 457, 477; see, also, Pollard's Davis, p. 183; J. C. Schwab, The Finances of the Confederacy, Political ScienceQuarterly, March, 1892.
1 British and Foreign State Papers, 1860-61, pp. 186, 226.
2 Butler's Book, p. 256 et seq.; correspondence of New York Tribune, May 25, editorial, May 28.
3 Butler to Scott, Official Records, vol ii. p. 58.

government formally approved this course.1 At first, some of the fugitive slaves became the servants of officers, while others were employed in storing provisions landed from vessels; but, as they continued to increase in number, many were set to work on the intrenchments, under the superintendence of Edward L. Pierce, an attorney of Boston, who had written a law book of authority, who was a strong anti-slavery Republican, active in politics, and who, prompted by patriotism, had come to Fortress Monroe as a private in the Massachusetts Third.2 July 30 General Butler reported that he had under his control 900 negroes, and asked further instructions.3 August 8 Cameron replied in a letter which indicated the carefully-thought-out policy of the administration: "It is the desire of the President that all existing rights in all the States be fully respected and maintained; in cases of fugitives from the loyal slave States, the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave law by the ordinary forms of judicial proceedings must be respected by the military authorities; in the disloyal States the Confiscation act of Congress must be your guide."4 This act, which the President had signed with reluctance did not, however, make provision for fugitives escaping from loyal masters in disloyal States. Cameron instructed that care should be taken to protect the interests of such owners. As affairs turned out, this was of little practical moment to them or to their slaves, but it is important as showing Lincoln's carefulness and regard for vested rights when the question was thrust upon him. Practice differed in the military departments, depending largely upon the respective opinions of the commanding generals; but in the main the Confiscation
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1 Cameron to Butler, May 80, cited by Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. p. 389.
2 See Pierce's article, "The Contrabands at Fortress Monroe,"' Atlantic Monthly, November, 1861.
3 Moore's Rebellion Record, Docs., vol. ii. p. 437. 2 Ibid., p. 493.
4 Chase to Green Adams, of Kentucky, September 5, Schuckers, p. 428; New York Evening Post, September 16.

tion act of Congress and the instructions of Cameron to Butler determined the course towards fugitive slaves who came within the lines of the Union armies.1 Public opinion at the North was gradually developing to the point at which it would support the President in striking at the root of the trouble should the war be prolonged;2 but, in spite of the murmurs of the abolitionists and some radical Republicans, a large majority of the Northern people had acquiesced in his policy as a wise temporary expedient, when General Fremont opened the question afresh by his proclamation in Missouri.

Fremont, "the pet and protege of the Blairs,"3 at their earnest solicitation had been made a major-general and placed in command of the Western Department, which included Missouri. The appointment was immensely popular in the country; it seemed fitting that the first presidential candidate of the Republican party, who was supposed to possess military talent, should have a prominent place in the armies of the North. Fremont arrived from Europe about the 1st of July, but remained in New York three weeks, though he was sorely needed in St. Louis. Arriving there July 25, he found the confusion incident to the organization and supply of an army before a proper administrative system has been established. He had neither business training nor military ability, and affairs went from bad to worse. Lyon was in the field, begging for reinforcements, his entreaties fortified by the urging of well-in
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1 Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. p. 895.
2 "Slavery is a doomed institution."—New York Times, July 29; see New York World, July 30. "If it shall appear that either slavery or this government must perish, then the voice of a united people will declare, let slavery perish."—Dixon, of Connecticut, in Senate, July 15, CongressionalGlobe, p. 119; see, also, remarks of Browning, of Illinois, and Sherman, July 18, ibid., pp. 187, 190. These are utterances of conservative newspapers and conservative senators. The New York Tribune and Sumner, representing a reasonable radical sentiment, were eager to strike at slavery, see Tribune, passim; Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 41.
3 Lincoln's statement, 1863, Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. p. 415.

in-formed Union citizens. Troops were in reach that could have been sent to him in time, but Fremont refused to give the order. At the battle of Wilson's Creek, August 10, Lyon was outnumbered by the Confederates, his army defeated, and he himself killed.1

This disaster turned the attention of those who were in a position to get at the truth to the Western Department. Less than one month had sufficed to demonstrate that Fremont was intellectually a weak man, utterly unfit for a responsible command; before the 1st of September serious charges were made against him. It was averred that he was over-fond of display; that he had surrounded himself with dishonest and bad men, some of whom were on his staff; that, although he maintained the state of a European monarch, and allowed high military and civil officers and honest Union citizens to wait days in his ante-room for an interview, in many cases making himself inaccessible, his door was always open to his intimates, most of whom had neither character nor standing. It was also charged that his time, instead of being occupied with the proper duties of a commanding general, was taken up in giving out contracts; that he was recklessly extravagant; that some of his officers were interested in the fat contracts, and that the Department of Missouri seemed to be managed rather for the purpose of making private fortunes than for the country's weal.2 Surrounded though he was by speculating
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1 Adjutant General Thomas's report, Official Records, vol. iii. p. 545. 2 See the report of the House Committee on Government Contracts, and the testimony taken by them, Reports of Committees, 2d Session 37th Congress, vols. i. and ii. The members of this committee who went to St. Louis and took the testimony implicating Fremont and his friends in corrupt transactions were Elihu B. Washburne, of Illinois, the friend of Lincoln and of Grant, a gentleman of strict integrity, who later acquired the name of the "Watch-dog of the Treasury"; William S. Holman, winning afterwards the title of the "Great Objector"; Henry L. Dawes, of Massachusetts, and W. G. Steele, of New Jersey. The report said: "In furnishing supplies in the Western Department the commanding general was peculiarly unfortunate in the character of the men by whom he was sur

flatterers, Fremont must have got an inkling of the opinion in which he was held by many people of worth and influence; he could hardly have been persuaded by his sycophants that his administration of military affairs was so far successful. He undoubtedly had some conception of the smouldering anti-slavery sentiment at the North, and it may have occurred to him that a way was open by which he might commend himself to the radical Republicans, and detract attention from the gross mismanagement of his department. At all events, his action is susceptible of such an explanation. August 30 Fremont issued from his headquarters at St. Louis a proclamation confiscating the property "of all persons in the State of Missouri who shall take up arms against the United States, or who shall be directly proven to have taken an active part with their enemies in the field," and declaring their slaves freemen.1 He then "set up a bureau of abolition," 2 and issued deeds of manumission to slaves.3 The first knowledge which Lincoln had of the proclamation was gained from the newspapers. Although the act was one of insubordination, and a major-general of two months' standing, with no careful survey of the whole field, with no appreciation of the important and various interests involved, had, on a sudden impulse 4 assumed to solve a question which the President, his cabinet, and Congress were only approaching in a careful and

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rounded. The system of public plunder which pervaded that department was inaugurated at the very beginning and followed up with untiring zeal; the public welfare as entirely overlooked and as effectually ignored as if the war was gotten up to enable a mammoth scheme of peculation at the expense of the people to be carried out."—p. 55. See also testimony of Francis P. Blair, Jr., before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, part iii. of report; editorial in New York Times, September 20.
1 Official Records, vol. iii. p. 467.
2 Lincoln's remark, 1863, Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. p. 415.
3 Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. iii. p. 129.
4 "In the night I decided upon the proclamation. . . . I wrote it the next morning and printed it the same day. I did it without consultation or advice with any one."—Fremont to Lincoln, September 8, Official Records, vol. iii. p. 477.

tentative manner, Lincoln's letter to Fremont of September 2 was as full of kindness as of wisdom. "I think there is great danger," he wrote, "that the closing paragraph, in relation to the confiscation of property and the liberating slaves of traitorous owners, will alarm our Southern Union friends and turn them against us; perhaps ruin our rather fair prospect for Kentucky. Allow me, therefore, to ask that you will, as of your own motion, modify that paragraph so as to conform to the" Confiscation act of Congress, approved August 6. "This letter is written in a spirit of caution and not of censure."1

The President had his finger on the pulse of Kentucky; he felt that after much trembling her sentiment was now distinctly favorable to the Union,' and he was loath to see it in any way disturbed. "The proclamation of General Fremont reached here yesterday," wrote Garrett Davis, September 3, from Frankfort, where he was in attendance on the session of the legislature," and is most inopportune for the Union party. It fell amongst us with pretty much the effect of a bombshell. The slavery feature is greatly objected to by our friends, and has greatly disconcerted, and, I fear, has scattered us. We should have passed all our measures but for it. . . . There is a very general, almost a universal, feeling in this State against this war being or becoming a war against slavery. The position of the secessionists here has been all the time that it is, and this proclamation gives them the means of further and greatly pushing that deception. ... I wish it had not been made until this legislature had done its business and adjourned.”3 Joseph Holt wrote Lincoln that the Union-loving citizens of Kentucky had read the proclamation with "alarm and consternation," and that the approval of it by the administration
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1 Official Records, vol. iii. p. 469. Lincoln requested the modification of another point, which is now relatively unimportant, but it shows his extreme caution in dealing with weighty matters.
2 Ante.
3 To Chase, Chase Papers, MS.

would chill "the power and fervor of the loyalty of Kentucky."1

Fremont was unwilling to retract the objectionable part of his proclamation, and suggested that the President should openly direct him to make the correction.2 Lincoln, therefore, by letter of September 11, ordered him to modify the clause "in relation to the confiscation of property and the liberation of slaves" so as to conform to the Confiscation act of Congress.3

The first impression of a majority of the Northern people, on the publication of Fremont's proclamation, was decidedly favorable to it; generally regarded as a wise and effective move, it aroused enthusiasm on the part of many.4 When the President modified it, so sound were his reasons, so strong a hold had he himself on the people, so determined were the mass of Republicans and war Democrats to support the administration in the prosecution of the war, that Lincoln carried with him an efficient public opinion.5 The mischief of Fremont's action was that it brought out a factional difference in the Republican party, which, since the firing on Sumter, had had but little to excite it. Sumner grieved at this manifestation of Lincoln's policy.
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1 September 12, Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. iii. p. 127.
2 Fremont to the President, September 8, Official Records, vol. iii. p. 477.
3 The President to Fremont, ibid., p. 485.
4 See New York Times, September 2; New York Evening Post, September 2; New York World, September 4; New York Tribune, September 1, 2, 3; Boston Evening Transcript, September 2; Boston Advertiser, September 7; New York Herald, September 1; Life of Bryant, Godwin, vol. ii. p. 161. "Even such Democratic papers as the Boston Post, Detroit FreePress. Chicago Times, and New York Herald approved of it, while it stirred and united the people of the loyal States during the ten days of life allotted it by the government far more than any other event of this war."—George W. Julian in the House of Representatives, February 18, 1863; see also his Political Recollections, p. 199.
5 See, for example, New York World, September 19; New York Times, October 9, Boston Herald, Boston Advertiser, September 17. The result of the fall elections, and the canvass preceding them, and the trend of thought from September 15, the day the President's letter of modification was published, to December 31, warrant the statement in the text.

"Our President," he wrote, "is now dictator, imperator— which you will; but how vain to have the power of a god and not to use it godlike!"1 October 1 he delivered a carefully prepared speech before the Massachusetts Republican Convention at Worcester, maintaining that emancipation was our best weapon, and, while he did not in direct words applaud Fremont or condemn Lincoln, that was the tenor of his discourse.2 Sumner in Congress and Chase in the cabinet stood for the radical anti-slavery sentiment of the country; they gave a sympathetic ear to the earnest and unreserved expression of that opinion, and their private correspondence shows how strong the tendency was with many good people to abase Lincoln and exalt Fremont.3
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1To Dr. Lieber, September 17, Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 48.
2 See his Works, vol. vi.; Pierce's Sumner.
3 Since his acceptance of the Treasury Department Chase had won golden opinions. "You have taught Massachusetts men to rely upon you for counsel and aid," wrote to him Dr. Samuel G. Howe, May 14. "You were never so highly appreciated in Ohio as at this moment," wrote Rutherford B. Hayes, from Camp Chase, in Ohio, June 29. "The good things done at Washington people are disposed to place to your credit. The errors are charged to others."—Chase Papers, MS. At this time Chase's Ohio friends tried to impress upon him that the administration had made a mistake in regard to Fremont. George Hoadly, an eminent lawyer of Cincinnati and judge of the Superior Court, afterwards governor, wrote, September 18: "Our people are in a state of great consternation and wrath on account of the quarrel between Fremont and the administration, public opinion being entirely with General Fremont; ... no word describes popular sentiment but 'fury.' I have heard men of sense, such as are called conservative, advocate the wildest steps, such as the impeachment of Mr. Lincoln, the formation of a party to carry on the war irrespective of the President and under Fremont, etc., etc. For myself, I must say that if the letters of Mr. Lincoln to Magoffin and Fremont are any fair indication of his character and policy, I pray God to forgive my vote for him. Loyal men are giving their lives and means like water to no end, if the imbecility of Buchanan's administration is to be surpassed thus. I cannot, cannot think that your wise head and true anti-slavery heart have consented to this abasement of the manhood and honor of our nation. Let Mr. Lincoln, while he is conciliating the contemptible State of Kentucky, a State which ought to have been coerced long ago, bear in mind that the free States may want a little conciliation,

Chase himself, however, agreed with the President, and in a private communication stated with force the legal position,
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that they are not wasting their substance to secure the niggers of traitors." Hoadly was so full of the subject that he wrote the following day: "I have never heard wilder or more furious denunciation than yesterday and day before found expression from the lips of cool men. Three times I was applied to to join in getting up a public meeting to denounce the administration and support Fremont; and while no such disturbance will be permitted, I am nevertheless certain that there is here a perfect and, I am sorry to say, very angry unanimity in support both of Fremont's proclamation and of his action at St. Louis in other respects, expensive though it may have been. . . . General Fremont is thus far the favorite of the Northwest, because he has come up to the standard. And if the election were next fall, to displace him would be to make him President. . . . The bitterest attacks I have heard upon the cabinet in this matter have been based upon the theory that a jealousy of Fremont as a presidential candidate is the root of all the trouble. My wife expresses the common feeling about Lincoln's letter to Fremont, by saying it seems to her to be the old conflict of Mr. Feeble-Mind and Mr. Ready-to-Halt with Mr. Greatheart." James Monroe, a member of the Ohio legislature from 1855 to 1862, afterwards consul to Rio de Janeiro for eight years and member of Congress for ten years, wrote Chase, September 17, from Oberlin: "After having attended our State convention, and after having enjoyed many opportunities there and elsewhere for an interchange of sentiment with men of all parties, and from all parts of the State, I am fully convinced that Fremont's proclamation, without 'modification,' is universally endorsed by all Union-loving men in this State. It is evident to me and to all men here that the great free North is fully prepared for the course which General Fremont proposes in regard to the emancipation of the slaves of rebels." C. N. Olds, a leading lawyer of central Ohio, wrote from Columbus, September 17: "I was deeply impressed by the effect on the public mind of Fremont's late proclamation. ... I saw men, who were never suspected of any anti-slavery tendencies, meet on the street to shake hands over it, in mutual congratulations—'Now the administration is in earnest,' 'That looks like work,' 'Now our army will have some heart for the fight,' 'Now the war means something.' The modification of this proclamation by Mr. Lincoln produces great disappointment. The moral effect is worse than that of the battle of Bull Run. I suppose it was modified in deference to the delicate position of Kentucky, but that has always been a false position, that has greatly protracted and complicated our struggle. Kentucky has no right to be coaxed into a slow and reluctant loyalty, at the risk of crippling the hearty and spontaneous loyalty of the entire North."—Chase Papers, MS.

James Chestney, in writing to Sumner from Washington, October 1, men

and indignantly disclaimed that "aspirations for the presidency" had in this affair any influence on Lincoln or
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mentioned the President's "disposition to listen to the demands of slavery. . .. The New York Herald is the organ and oracle now." Frank W. Ballard, a member of the executive committee of the Young Men's Republican Union of New York city, spoke in a letter of October 1 of the "infernal idea of carrying on a war for the Union upon border-State specifications and dictation." Moncure D. Conway wrote from Cincinnati, October 7: "Mulligan surrendered to Price only because the President surrendered to the slaveholders of Kentucky."—Pierce-Sumner Papers, MS. Ballard, who was active in arranging for a speech from Sumner at Cooper Institute, New York, November 27, wrote him October 26: "I think we can make the meeting endorse the principles of the Fremont proclamation as a gentle hint to Mr. Lincoln that the 'modification' was a mistake. Let me add that strong meat will be quite acceptable to all who hear you this time."—Ibid. The meeting did adopt such a resolution, which is printed in Sumner's Works, vol. vi. p. 114; but the New York Tribune, which published the speech November 28, neither printed nor mentioned the resolution.

Sumner's speech at Worcester, October 1, had a large circulation, being printed in full by the New York Tribune and the New York Independent, and brought forth a large expression of public opinion touching slavery in press comments and in private letters. Many of these are printed in Sumner's Works, vol. vi. pp. 33-64. I will cite extracts from several letters. Carl Schurz, though at Madrid as our Minister to Spain, understood well the feeling of his countrymen who had become American citizens, and wrote: "Let me thank you for the glorious speech you have delivered before the Massachusetts Convention. I agree with you on every point, and expect shortly to fight by your side." Montgomery Blair, Postmaster-General, wrote from Washington: "Your speech is noble, beautiful, classical, sensible. I would have timed it differently; but I will take it now rather than lose it."—p. 56. George H. Monroe, editor Norfolk County Journal, wrote Sumner, October 26. "Events every day are tending to induce the conviction in my mind that your position is the right one, and I scarcely doubt that it will be generally acknowledged such in the future."—Pierce-Sumner Papers, MS. Schleiden wrote from New York, October 28: "Apart from the EveningPost and the Tribune, I have not yet discovered an echo of your views in the press. It is true all seem to agree that if slavery or the Union must fall, then let slavery perish and not the Union; but I cannot help thinking that the great majority of the people do not believe that the time for a change of the programme of the war has already arrived."— Ibid.; see, also, Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 45. "Does the war go on to suit you?" asked William H. Herndon, November 20, from Springfield, 111. "It does not suit me. Fremont's proclamation was right. Lincoln's modification of it was wrong."—Pierce-Sumner Papers, MS.; see, also,

his cabinet.1 Lincoln, in a confidential letter to his friend Browning, senator from Illinois, who was a conservative, and, to his astonishment, approved Fremont's proclamation, fully justified his own course from policy as well as on principle. "The Kentucky legislature," he wrote, "would not budge till that proclamation was modified. ... I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game. Kentucky gone, we cannot hold Missouri, nor, as I think, Maryland. These all against us, and the job on our hands is too large for us. We would as well consent to separation at once, including the surrender of this capital."2

If Fremont had been able, honest, and patriotic, the annulment of his decree touching the emancipation of slaves and the confiscation of property would have ended the matter, and he would have remained in command of the
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New York Evening Post, September 16; Life of Bryant, Godwin, vol. ii. p. 161; Boston Evening Transcript, September 17; Grimes to Fessenden, September 19, Life of Grimes, Salter, p. 153.
1 Letter to Simeon Nash, September 26; see, also, letter to Green Adams, September 5, Schuckers, pp. 277, 428. In an article in National Intelligencer, of October 8, the authorship of which is disclosed by a private letter of James C. Welling, its editor, to Chase, Chase Papers, MS., Chase made a clear exposition of the administration policy, with which, it is obvious, he sympathized fully. He wrote: "We have already taken occasion to express our general approval of the policy adopted by the administration, and set forth in the letter of Secretary Cameron to Major-General Butler, in respect to slaves employed or involved in the existing insurrection. It is a policy in full harmony with the act of Congress on the subject, and equally remote from that of emancipation by proclamation, and that of heedless inaction in regard to a matter of great consequence. The leading principle of Mr. Cameron's letter is that the existing war has no direct relation to slavery. It is a war for the restoration of the Union under the existing Constitution. . . . The whole subject of slavery in loyal States [is left] to the civil authorities ... in insurrectionary States the military authorities are directed to refrain from all interference with servants lawfully employed in peaceful pursuits. . . . Mr. Cameron's instructions. . . simply direct that those who come within the lines and offer their services to the government be received and employed. ... In using these services the national government will only follow the example of the Confederate rebels. Slaves and free negroes have been pressed into the service of the insurrection."
2 September 22, Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. p. 422.

"Western Department. There was neither the slightest disposition nor the most remote design on the part of the administration to shear his lawful powers or to remove him because in this affair he had transcended his authority.1 But the mismanagement and corruption at St. Louis imperatively demanded correction. Francis P. Blair the younger, though he was loath to lose faith in the man whose appointment had given him exceeding gratification, could not fail, on his return home from the special session of Congress, to appreciate the alarming condition of affairs and the loss which the Union cause had suffered,' though he found no fault with the proclamation freeing the slaves, except that it should have been sooner issued. September 1 he wrote his brother, the Postmaster-General, that it was his decided opinion that Fremont "should be relieved of his command, and a man of ability put in his place."3 On seeing this letter, the President directed that Montgomery Blair, and Meigs, the Quartermaster-General of the army, should go to Missouri for the purpose of making a thorough inquiry. They arrived at St. Louis September 12, and remained there long enough for the Postmaster-General to make up his mind that the good of the country required the removal of Fremont; this he recommended.4 In a confidential letter to Sumner, with whom he was on the best of terms, he gave his own and his brother's opinion of affairs in the Western Department. "Frank5 is a fearfully earnest man," he wrote. "The blood of the old ship-building Covenanters who fought James at Londonderry, which flows in his veins, speaks in all his acts. He cannot tolerate trifling in a great cause,
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1 Letter of Lincoln to Browning, before cited; Chase to Cable, October 23, Schuckers, p. 432.
2 Testimony before Committee on the Conduct of the War, part iii. p. 170.
3 Cincinnati Enquirer, copied in New York Tribune, October 7.
4 Testimony before Committee on the Conduct of the War, part iii. p. 154.
5 Francis P., familiarly called Frank. He frequently signed his name Frank P.

and when he discovered that Fremont was a mere trifler, he was not to be reconciled to seeing the State overrun by pro-slavery myrmidons, by an empty proclamation threatening to deprive them of their negroes. It was a bitter sarcasm on the cause of emancipation at the time it was issued. The truth is, with Fremont's surroundings, the set of scoundrels who alone have control of him, this proclamation setting up the higher law was like a painted woman quoting Scripture."1

While Montgomery Blair and Meigs were in St. Louis, Jessie Benton Fremont, the devoted wife of the general, was at Washington pressing his cause with zeal. "She sought an audience with me at midnight," Lincoln afterwards related, "and taxed me so violently with many things that I had to exercise all the awkward tact I have to avoid quarrelling with her. She surprised me by asking why their enemy, Montgomery Blair,2 had been sent to Missouri. She more than once intimated that if General Fremont should decide to try conclusions with me, he could set up for himself."3 She sent the President a written demand for a copy of Francis P. Blair's letter of September 1. This he respectfully declined to furnish, and at the end of his note he said, "No impression has been made on my mind against the honor or integrity of General Fremont, and I now enter my protest against being understood as acting in any hostility towards him."4

Meanwhile the contest at St. Louis increased in heat. Fremont placed under arrest Francis P. Blair, who was colonel of the First Missouri Regiment of light artillery; he in turn made formal charges against his commanding general.5
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1 Letter of October 16, Pierce-Sumner Papers, MS.
2 Lincoln sent him because he had been the stanch friend of Fremont. 3 Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. p. 415.
4 This and Mrs. Fremont's letter were printed by the Cincinnati Enquirer, and copied in the New York Tribune of October 7. 5 Blair was first arrested September 15. He was released September 25, and the next day wrote Adjutant-General Thomas that he should make formal

The rumor gained ground that Fremont would be removed. Besides his hold on the officers to whom he had given commissions, many of which were irregular, and on his satellites who were making money out of the government, he was genuinely popular with the Germans, of whom there were a large number in St. Louis and other parts of Missouri. B. Rush Plumly, general appraiser in the Philadelphia Custom-house, an appointment due to Chase's influence, had, with his knowledge, and perhaps with his commission as a secret agent of the Treasury Department, gone to St. Louis.1 Plumly was a friend of Fremont, and, arriving there, heartily espoused his cause. Indignant at the President for the modification of the proclamation freeing the slaves, Plumly reported to Chase the dire results which would ensue should the general be removed. "I despatched to you the day of Fremont's rumored removal," he wrote, "for in thirty years of participation in popular commotions, I have never seen such desperate and deadly feeling as then existed. The 'Headquarters' were thronged with committees of inquiry and opposition to his removal; great numbers of officers were preparing to resign; companies threw down their arms or dashed them to pieces. Mass-meetings were extemporized, and a general revolt seemed inevitable. Had the report been true, the army would have been virtually disbanded. I am sure that Colonel Blair would have been killed in the street. I think that will be the end of him, sooner or later, so fearful is
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charges against Fremont, New York Tribune, October 8. He was then rearrested, when he prepared his charges and specifications, Cincinnati Enquirer, copied in Tribune, October 9.

1 In requesting leave of absence and designation as a secret agent of the Treasury Department, Plumly wrote Chase, August 29: "If I could tell you what I know, not what I imagine, about this contract-and-supply practice, you would do as I do, despair, not only of the government, but of human nature. I cannot turn 'informer,' but I could be a sentinel." Chase, August 4. had warned Fremont against extravagance, and from a letter to a friend, October 23, it is evident he had feared financial mismanagement on the part of the general, Schuckers, pp. 273, 432.

the hostility to him.. . . Since the publication of his charges against Fremont the sentiment has strengthened against Blair, because some of the charges are the 'eating his own words,' and others are flatly false."1

Lincoln had thought well of Fremont,2 and obviously hoped to continue him in command, for it was worth much to conciliate the sentiment in his favor in St. Louis and in the rest of the country, where he had become the idol of the radical Republicans. The President sought fuller knowledge, and sent Secretary Cameron and Lorenzo Thomas, the Adjutant-General of the army, to investigate affairs in Missouri.3 General David Hunter and General Samuel R. Curtis, who were serving under Fremont, told Cameron that he was not fit for the command, and the letters of General Pope to Hunter were of the same purport.4 Before Cameron returned to Washington, Plumly was there. He went to see the President, and thus relates his interview: "I said to him at once that I had called out of respect to him, having never seen him; that I should say very little of the West, as I would not forestall General Cameron's report, whom I expected to find here. He asked me some questions and . . . then spoke of the West, and especially of the threatened tumult there in the event of Fremont's removal, and added,' You yourself have written and telegraphed this, Mr. Plumly.' 'Certainly, sir,' said I,'I did, at the request of Colonel Scott, write and despatch a state of facts, and the inference, made by the very friends of the administration on the spot.' 'I did not,' said he, 'attribute these despatches and letters to General Fremont in any way, but to a set of speculators who would be disturbed if General
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1 Letter of October 9 from St. Louis, Chase Papers, MS.; see, also, despatches of Plumly to T. A. Scott from St. Louis, October 3, 16, Official Records, vol. iii. pp. 516, 535.
2 Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. p. 415.
3 They arrived there October 11.
4 Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. pp. 430,432; Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, part iii. p. 246.

Fremont was removed.' 'I hope, sir, you do not include me in that category.' 'I do, sir,' said he. 'Mr. President, I am not of them; I have no interest, remote or immediate, in contracts, and no other interest but to serve the government by sending the exact state of things; do you accept my statement, Mr. President?' 'I think I cannot; nobody has said anything to me against you, but my opinion was formed from your letters and despatches.1 'Power needs the truth,' said I, 'and I sent the truth to the power, at its own request; if it was disagreeable, it was no fault of mine.1 'Why, sir,' said he, 'as soon as I saw your card, the thought arose that you had come here post haste, to be ahead of General Cameron.'"1

October 21 Cameron and Adjutant-General Thomas arrived at Washington. The result of their investigations was embodied in Thomas's report; this contained three statements, which afforded sufficient ground for the removal of Fremont: General Curtis "deemed General Fremont unequal to the command of an army, and said that he was no more bound by law than by the winds;" "General Hunter expressed to the Secretary of War his decided opinion that General Fremont was incompetent and unfit for his extensive and important command;" "It is the expressed belief of many persons that General Fremont has around him on his staff persons directly and indirectly concerned in furnishing supplies."2 The President could no
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1 Letter to Chase from Washington, October 19, Chase Papers, MS. Plumly assured the President, "General Cameron knew of my coming; he invited me to accompany him," and he explained to Chase, "I am out of pocket by going west. I have refused what seemed to be proper modes of profit, because I could not participate in them, much as I need a few thousand dollars to release my property from the grip of judgments." He also wrote, "The removal of Fremont will justify the statements I made, either by elevating Fremont into a political martyr, or by dividing the nation, disaffecting the West to the administration, and dissipating that grand enthusiasm which has poured into Missouri an army of 50,000 men in sixty days."
2 Official Records, vol. iii. pp. 541, 542, 547. Thomas's report is also

longer hesitate, and, October 24, made an order for Fremont's removal, to be delivered to him with all reasonable despatch unless, when reached by the messenger, he should have "fought and won a battle," or should "then be actually in a battle," or should be "in the immediate presence of the enemy in expectation of a battle." None of these conditions obtaining, the order was given to General Fremont, and, November 2, he turned over his command to Hunter.1 The change occasioned neither trouble in the army nor an outbreak at St. Louis.

It was indeed time that Fremont should be removed. Elihu B. Washburne, who was at the head of the sub-committee on government contracts that spent two weeks in St. Louis taking a large amount of testimony relating to the procedure of Fremont and his friends,2 wrote Secretary Chase from Cairo, October 31: "I was on the point of writing you from St. Louis several times, but the situation of things there was so terrible and the frauds so shocking, I did not know where to begin or where to end; and then again it appeared that everything communicated by our best men there in regard to Fremont and the condition of matters in the city and State was utterly disregarded. Our committee labored for two weeks, and our disclosures will astound the world and disgrace us as a nation. Such robbery, fraud, extravagance, peculation as have been developed in Fremont's department can hardly be conceived of. There has been an organized system of pillage, right under
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printed in the Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War. The newspapers published it October 30. Fremont made an elaborate defence in his testimony, January, 1862, before the Committee on the Conduct of the War. The majority of the committee, who were its leading men, were friendly to him, and their report, made in April, 1863, was distinctly favorable.
1 Official Records, vol. iii. pp. 553-556.
2 For the members of this sub-committee vide ante, p. 469. Their first report was made December 17, when they had examined 265 witnesses, and the testimony covered 1109 pages; a subsequent report was based on 1600 printed pages of testimony of 350 witnesses. A large part of this had reference to Fremont's department.

the eye of Fremont. Governor Chase, what does the administration mean by permitting this state of things to exist in the Western Department? It cannot be ignorant of what the situation of matters is. I fear things have run on so far there is no remedy, and that all has gone. Fremont has really set up an authority over the government, and bids defiance to its commands. The government, in failing to strike at Fremont and his horde of pirates, acknowledges itself a failure. The credit of the government is ruined. Everybody knows there has been such an extent of swindling that payment ought not to be made, and people are now afraid to trust anybody who acts for the government. I am utterly discouraged and disheartened. A people so blind, so corrupt, and so dishonest and unpatriotic are not deserving a free government."1

The evidence I have presented and indicated justifying the removal of Fremont is more than the men of the North had when the news came, November 6, that the removal had finally been made. Yet they were in possession of facts enough to be aware that the President had acted wisely, and it is probable that a majority of them so believed. It is, however, one of the melancholy reflections of history that many worthy people have been led by a charlatan for the sole reason that he knew how to play upon the one idea dearest to their hearts. We have an example of this in the case of Fremont, whose removal was regarded by a goodly number as martyrdom in the anti-slavery cause. "Is it known to the administration that the West is threatened with a revolution?" asked Richard Smith, the editor of the Cincinnati Gazette, in a letter to Chase of November 7. "Could you have been among the people yesterday and witnessed the excitement, could you have seen sober citizens pulling from their walls and trampling under foot the portrait of the
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1 Chase Papers, MS. Washburne did not then know that the order had been sent for the removal of Fremont.

President, and could you hear to-day the expressions of all classes of men, of all political parties, you would, I think, feel as I feel, and as every sincere friend of the government must feel, alarmed. What meaneth this burning of the President in effigy, by citizens who have hitherto sincerely and enthusiastically supported the war? What mean these boisterous outbursts of indignation, and these low mutterings favorable to a Western confederacy that we hear? "Why this sudden check to enlistments? Why this rejection of Treasury notes by German citizens? Why is it that on the 6th of November, 1861, not one dollar was subscribed here to the national loan? Why is it that it would not be safe to go into places where the Germans resort, and publicly express an opinion favorable to the President? Why this sudden, this extraordinary, this startling change in public sentiment, on 'change, in the street, in the banking-house, in the palace and the cottage, in country and city? Is it not time for the President to stop and consider whether, as this is a government of the people, it is not unsafe to disregard and overrule public sentiment, as has been done in the case of General Fremont? The public consider that Fremont has been made a martyr of.. . . Consequently he is now, so far as the West is concerned, the most popular man in the country. He is to the West what Napoleon was to France; while the President has lost the confidence of the people."1
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1 Chase Papers, MS. O. Follet, president of the Sandusky, Dayton, and Cincinnati Railway, wrote Chase, November 6: "You have no idea of the deep and all-pervading excitement that pervades all classes of people — men, women, and children. It is not loud, but deep and threatening. You know my means of information, and I can say I do not know half a dozen men, not in office, that justify the course of the administration; most of them loudly condemn. Now that the removal has been made, I fear a sad reaction at the West on the war question. God grant that patriotism may keep the bad spirits in subjection." Ex-mayor Senter, of Cleveland, who supported the President, told Chase, November 17, of a war meeting in Cleveland, at which "members of Congress sought to prejudice the people against

Lincoln's policy in dealing with the question of freeing the slaves, raised by Fremont, made the Democratic opposition to him less active than it otherwise would have been, and it bound to the Republican Union party those waverers, composed of conservative Republicans and of Democrats, who, in the emergency, had been willing to give up their party allegiance. But Democrats who revered their name, who looked upon the yearly conflict with the Republicans as an integral part of their life, and who were determined to maintain their organization, were sure to create some issue before election day came. "Do not, my friend," wrote Washington McLean, editor of the Cincinnati Enquirer, to Chase, "mistake the clamor of the mob for the real sentiment of the people, who would hail the return of peace with rapturous joy. In the strictest confidence I assure you that nine tenths of the Democrats are at heart bitterly opposed to the war."1 Immediately after the firing
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the administration for displacing Fremont, backed up by editors, officeholders, etc." Professor C. E. Stowe wrote from Andover, Mass., November 6: "I do not know that you have either time or inclination to listen to a word from the common people; but I wish you could hear the voice of surprise, indignation, disgust, and contempt which now everywhere finds utterance at the removal of Fremont. The feeling is frightfully earnest."—Chase Papers, MS. Henry Ward Beecher said in his church, October 20: "I cannot but express my solemn conviction that both our government, and in a greater degree the community, have done great injustice to the cause in Missouri, in the treatment which has been bestowed upon that noble man, General Fremont. I have narrowly watched the course of things, not unacquainted with the reality of facts in the case; and it is my settled judgment that, partly from private ambition, partly from political reasons, and partly from calculating aspirations of rivals, the most unjust influences have been permitted to issue against this heroic man."—New York Tribune, October 22. See also editorial in New York Evening Post, November 5; letters of Grimes to his wife and to Fessenden, November 13, Life, p. 154. For comment on the abolition opposition to the administration, see New York Herald, November 9.
1 Letter of June 30, Chase Papers, MS. In this letter McLean also said. "Be assured, my friend, that the country looks to you as the responsible head of this administration, and all calamities growing out of the same will be charged (justly or not) against you, while any glory that may be

on Sumter, Democrats and Republicans, as we have seen, acted together without distinction of party, and nearly all the Democrats, at the special session of Congress, were willing to vote men and money freely for the prosecution of the war; although, at the same time, most of them thought that it should be waged with the sword in one hand and the olive-branch in the other. Samuel S. Cox, a representative from Ohio, was able to get in the House forty-one votes for his motion to suspend the rules in order that his peace propositions might be considered.1

As the time for holding party conventions approached, the Republicans, in most of the important States where fall elections were to take place, asked the Democrats to cooperate with them in naming a ticket on which both parties should be fairly represented; the platform of the coalition was simply to be the vigorous prosecution of the war for the restoration of the Union. Those who had authority to speak for the Democratic organization declined the invitation, but many individuals shook off their party trammels and entered heartily into the plan proposed. Daniel S. Dickinson, a Breckinridge Democrat, and David Tod, a Douglas Democrat, headed respectively the Union tickets of New York and Ohio. The Democrats who adhered to the regular organization held conventions, formulated declarations of principles, and placed candidates in nomination. They generally approved of prosecuting the war with vigor, but criticised the President for the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus; the Democrats of New York and Ohio
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reaped from it will inure to the military political leaders who are so clamorous for the prosecution of the war." William Gray, a Boston merchant of high standing and a good representative of business men, wrote Chase, September 4: "I have had a conversation, this morning, with a prominent Democrat, who is entirely devoted to sustaining the government in the present struggle. He informs me that the leaders and committee men generally of that party are opposed to the war and sympathize with the South; that they keep quiet because it will not advance their views to move just now." —Chase Papers, MS.
1 July 29, Congressional Globe, p. 33t

favored a national convention, in the view that it might lead to a settlement of the difficulties. The action of the Northern Democrats gave a certain degree of comfort to the Confederates, and it led to a revival of the hope with which the South had entered on the path of revolution—that she would have a divided North to contend against. But the result of the elections gave her little encouragement. Although the vote was everywhere small, Governor Andrew in Massachusetts overtopped his competitor by 34,000; Dickinson carried New York city by over 17,000 majority and the State by 107,000; and Tod, in Ohio, had 206,000 votes for governor to his competitor's 151,000.1

In the Confederacy the people were, for the first time, to choose a President and Vice-President in accordance with their permanent Constitution. The mode of election was the same as that in force in the United States. But there was no contest. The symptoms of opposition to the administration shown in the Richmond Congress at its July session were, after its adjournment, no longer seen. One voice went up from all the States that Davis should be chosen. The Confederates " believe in no other man," wrote William H. Russell to Sumner,' and the tone of the Southern press at this time confirms this opinion. Some muttering there had been against Stephens, but this was quickly overborne. Conventions were not generally held for the purpose of nominating electors; the electoral tickets were in most cases the suggestion of self-constituted committees of prominent and trusted men through the medium of the press. Although the President and Vice-President were to be
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1 See New York Tribune, August 9,31, September 6; NationalIntelligencer, August 10; Columbus correspondence Cincinnati Commercial, August 7, September 5; Boston Advertiser, September 19; New York World, November 5, 7; New York Times, November 5; New York Evening Post, November 6; New York Herald, September 1, 8, November 20; Richmond Examiner, August 13, September 7, October 15; Richmond Enquirer, August 2, 30, October 22 ; Richmond Whig, August 2, September 7; Tribune Almanac. The vote in New York city was remarkable, as it had gone against Lincoln in 1860 by 29,000.
2 Letter of September 5, Pierce-Sumner Papers, MS,

chosen for a term of six years from February 22,1862, one journal complained that the coming election hardly drew as much notice as an ordinary contest for members of the State legislature or for county officers.1 For many of the other positions there was some strife, yet it turned on no difference of principle or of policy, but merely on a preference as to men. The place of representative was competed for in all of the congressional districts of Virginia, and in the Richmond district an animated contest took place, in which ex-President Tyler polled more votes than both of his opponents. In Arkansas and Mississippi ballots were necessary for the choice of Confederate senators, and the struggles for the senatorship in the North Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana legislatures called to mind the contests of the days of peace. The people of Alabama divided in an election for governor. Only after a hard struggle in Georgia did Brown defeat his opponent, the difference being personal, heightened by the point made against him that it was unprecedented to choose a man governor for a third term. In none of these elections were voters marshalled under political banners that had been raised when these States were in the Union; men were no longer Democrats, Whigs, or Americans. The grounds of controversy of the preceding year, which had found expression in the support of Breckinridge, Bell, or Douglas, had been entirely lost sight of. In Virginia it was at one time said that the submissionist, or, as the North called it, the Union, party still lived; yet its influence was not felt in the elections. On the first Wednesday of November, electors in the several States were chosen; and at the proper time, and in accordance with the statute, they cast a unanimous vote for Davis and Stephens as President and Vice-President of the Confederacy.2
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1 Richmond Examiner, September 16.
2 Ibid., August 6, 10, 29, September 5, 12, October 2, 8, 17, November 4, 5, 7, 11, 30, December 10; Richmond Whig, September 10, October 1, 18, November 8, 19; Richmond Enquirer, August 13, September 13, 14, 16, 25, October 8, 29, November 6, 12, 26; Atlanta SouthernConfederacy, September 15, 21, 22, 24, 26, 29, October 1, 4, 12,

The war of bullets went on but slowly. General Cox drove Wise out of the Kanawha valley. Rosecrans as ranking officer succeeded McClellan in western Virginia. Owing to a lack of harmony between Wise and Floyd—the latter at the head of a brigade he had raised in his own section of his State—Robert E. Lee was sent to take command of the Confederate forces, but he was not able to wrest from Rosecrans and Cox the ground which the Union forces had gained. Their operations, following McClellan's earlier successes, secured western Virginia for the Union, and made the Alleghanies the line between the Confederacy and the United States.1

The navy at the outbreak of the war was small. Many of the ships were on distant cruises, and their orders to return were long in reaching them. Through the indefatigable exertions of Secretary Welles and his assistant Gustavus V. Fox, and by the purchase and charter of merchant steamers, a navy was improvised which was powerful enough to maintain a reasonably effective blockade.2 By the end of the summer this department could assist in offensive movements. August 26 a joint army and naval expedition, under the command of General Butler and Flag-officer Stringham,
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November 7; Atlanta Intelligencer, September 3, 12, 14, 20, 26, October 3; Atlanta Commonwealth, October 22; Letters and Times of the Tylers, vol. ii. p. 662. Many expressions of praise of Davis from the press might be given. I will cite the strongest I have found: "The President has never yet committed a blunder or neglected to achieve a practicable advantage for the South." —Richmond Whig, August 13. "The South Carolina legislature has passed resolutions, with only one dissenting voice, expressive of confidence in the patriotism and ability of President Davis and the administration."—Richmond Enquirer, December 2. The Richmond Examiner of September 16 made a severe attack on Stephens. He was defended in the Richmond Enquirer of September 16, the Richmond Whig of September 20, the Atlanta Southern Confederacy of September 24, the Charleston Courier of September 25.
1These operations continued from July to October inclusive; see Cox's article, Century War Book, vol. i. p. 137; Davis's Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, vol. i. chap. x.
2 See Yancey, Rost and Mann to Earl Russell, November 30, 1861, British and Foreign State Papers, 1860-61.

sailed from Fortress Monroe and took Forts Hatteras and Clark, which commanded Hatteras Inlet, on the coast of North Carolina, a point of importance for the blockading fleet. Its capture caused considerable joy to the people of the North, who were in a condition to be cheered by the slightest successes, and it occasioned some dismay at the South.1 November 7 another expedition, under General Thomas W. Sherman and Captain Du Pont, took Port Royal, South Carolina, the finest harbor on the Southern coast, thirty miles from Savannah and fifty miles from Charleston. This created alarm in South Carolina, and tended to hold back troops for home defence which otherwise would have been sent to Virginia.2

Meanwhile McClellan was at work with energy and talent, erecting fortifications around Washington and organizing the " Army of the Potomac," as he christened it soon after assuming command. He had good executive ability, an aptitude for system, and, being in robust health, an immense capacity for labor. All these qualities were devoted without stint to the service. In the saddle a large part of the day, he visited the several camps, mixed with the different brigades and regiments, and came to know thoroughly his officers and his men. Himself a gentleman of sterling moral character, having come to Washington with the respect and admiration of these soldiers, he soon gained their love by his winning personality, and inspired an attachment such as no other Northern general of a large army, with one exception, was ever able to obtain. He was called "the young Napoleon," being believed by the army, the administration, and the country to have military genius such as entitled him to the name. In these first days he was on excellent terms with every one save the veteran of the army, General Scott, whom he began to ignore soon after his ar
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1 Nicolay and Hay, vol. v. chap.; Butler's report, Official Records, vol. iv. p. 581; New York Tribune, September 2; Richmond Examiner, September 4.
2 Nicolay and Hay, vol. v. chap. i.; Charleston Courier, November 9, 13, 29.

arrival at Washington. Scott had a full sense of his own importance, and with age had grown irascible, but he deserved better treatment from the young officer whose star was rising. We may imagine with what respect and tenderness Robert E. Lee, under similar circumstances, would have treated the older man, and we may recognize thus early a defect in McClellan's character. In the first open difference with Scott, he exhibited the failing which made his splendid opportunities go for naught. Personally courageous himself, he had great fear for his army, and was full of apprehension that his movements would not be attended with success. Joined to this, his intelligence of the enemy was either defective or his judgment on the facts he possessed radically unsound. In August he was pursued by the phantom that the Confederates largely outnumbered him, and that they would attack his position on the Virginia side of the Potomac and also cross the river north of Washington.1 At this time, however, Johnston did not purpose either movement, and was chafing at the smallness of his force, the large amount of sickness and the lack of discipline in his army, and the defects of the commissariat.2 Scott divined that he would not attack, and wrote the Secretary of War, August 9: "Major-General McClellan has propagated in high quarters the idea . . . that Washington was not only 'insecure,' but in 'imminent danger.' . . I have not the slightest apprehension for the safety of the government here."3 Since the beginning of the war the old general's despatches and letters had, on the whole, shown good business and military
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1 Letter of August 8 to Scott, Official Records, vol. xi. part iii. p. 3. "I have scarcely slept one moment for the last three nights, knowing well that the enemy intend some movement, and fully recognizing our own weakness. If Beauregard does not attack to-night I shall look upon it as a dispensation of Providence. He ought to do it."—Letter of McClellan to his wife, August 8, McClellan's Own Story, p. 84.
2 Roman writes that Beauregard wished to make an offensive movement the first part of August, but Johnston did not approve of the plan, Roman's Beauregard, vol. i. p. 181.
3 Official Records, vol. xi. part iii. p. 4.

ability and judgment, and his opinion at this time, as the sequel has shown, was entitled to more weight than McClellan's;1 but the younger general had cast a glamour over every one and gained a reputation for infallibility. Although Scott felt hurt at his treatment, and showed it in a letter of sensitive dignity which he wrote Cameron, he acknowledged that his " ambitious junior" had "unquestionably very high qualifications for military command."2

While McClellan was working with diligence, every one was co-operating with him in a way to give his talent for organization the widest scope. The President, the Treasury and the War departments, the Secretary of State, the governors of the Northern States assisted him faithfully with their full powers. The officers under him displayed zeal and devotion. He had the sway of a monarch. Such complete harmony produced fertile results. Troops poured in from the enthusiastic North, swelling the army of 52,000 men of July 27 to one of 168,318 three months later.3

There was no time at which the Confederate army was as large as the Union force, but McClellan's fears prevented him from correctly envisaging the situation. August 16 he wrote his wife: "The enemy have from three to four times my force." 4 As time wore on and he was not disturbed he gained confidence and wrote, August 25: "Friend Beauregard has allowed the chance to escape him. I have now some 65,000 effective men; will have 75,000 by the end of week. Last week he certainly had double our force. I feel sure that the dangerous moment has passed.'" At this time the effective total of the Confederate army was less
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1 "I am leaving nothing undone to increase our force, but the old general always comes in the way. He understands nothing, appreciates nothing."—Letter of McClellan to his wife, August 8, McClellan's Own Story, p. 84.
2 Official Records, vol. xi. part iii. p. 6.
3 Present for duty, 147,695. These are McClellan's figures from his report to the Secretary of War, October, 1861, and from his general report of August 4, 1863, Official Records, vol. v. p. 10.
4 McClellan's Own Story, p. 87. 5 Ibid., p. 89.

than 41,000. September 6 he wrote: "I feel now perfectly secure against an attack; the next thing will be to attack him."1 William H. Russell wrote Sumner, September 5: "Washington is, I feel, quite safe from a direct attack, and a turning movement into Maryland the only thing to be feared. Such an operation would be attended with extreme hazard, but the Confederates must do something. I think if they do attack they will be beaten." 2

McClellan himself, and experienced observers, began to believe that he was creating an efficient army. William H. Russell wrote the London Times, September 2: "Never perhaps has a finer body of men in all respects of physique been assembled by any power in the world, and there is no reason why their morale should not be improved so as to equal that of the best troops in Europe." 3 Three days later he wrote Sumner: "McClellan is working hard and is doing much good. The enemy must be greatly embarrassed by his inaction, which is really hard work, drilling and the like;"4 and September 10 he said: "McClellan is doing his best to get his troops into order. Hard work." 4 The outposts of the Confederate army were at Munson's Hill, six and a half miles from Washington; their flag could be seen from the federal capital. The lower Potomac was blockaded, and McClellan would not furnish troops to co-operate with the navy in silencing the Confederate batteries and taking possession of points that would secure an uninterrupted communication by water between the North and Washington. Having a vivid remembrance of Bull Run,
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1 McClellan's Own Story, p. 90.
2 Pierce-Sumner Papers, MS.
3 In a letter to the London Times of November 10 this enthusiastic opinion is modified, perhaps owing to the fact that, as events progressed, the tone of Russell's letters became less favorable to the North But it must be remembered his judgment is always based on a comparison with well-disciplined European armies. See on this point The Civil War in America, Comte de Paris, vol. i. p. 407; same author in Century War Book, vol. ii. p. 113; Webb's Peninsula, p. 169.
4 Pierce-Sumner Papers, MS. 5 Ibid.

the country looked on patiently, and did not complain at the daily news, "All quiet on the Potomac," deeming the period of inaction a necessary incident of the work of disciplining an army, which would, when ready, bring the civil war to an end.

The last of September, Johnston, considering his advanced position hazardous, withdrew his outposts from Munson's Hill.1 At his request Jefferson Davis came to the army headquarters at Fairfax Court-house the 1st of October, and had, with Beauregard, General Gustavus W. Smith, and himself, a council of war in reference to taking the offensive. All agreed that the Confederate army was in better shape to fight now than, unless arms could be obtained from abroad, it would be in the spring, and that if inactive it would retrograde in discipline during the winter; it was also clearly understood that the federal army was constantly augmenting in number and efficiency. Smith then asked: "Mr. President, is it not possible to increase the effective strength of this army, and put us in condition to cross the Potomac and carry the war into the enemy's country? Can you not, by stripping other points to the last they will bear, and even risking defeat at all other places, put us in condition to move forward? Success here at this time saves everything; defeat here loses all."

"The President asked me," wrote Smith, who related the story of the council, " what number of men were necessary, in my opinion, to warrant an offensive campaign, to cross the Potomac, cut off the communications of the enemy with their fortified capital, and carry the war into their country. I answered, 'Fifty thousand effective, seasoned soldiers,' explaining that by seasoned soldiers I meant such men as we had here present for duty. . . . General Johnston and General Beauregard both said that a force of sixty thousand such men would be necessary, and that this force would
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1 McClellan was jubilant at obtaining possession of Munson's and Upton's bills, letter to his wife, McClellan's Own Story, p. 92.

require large additional transportation and munitions of war, the supplies here being entirely inadequate for an active campaign in the enemy's country even with our present force."

With regret Davis declared that "want of arms was the great difficulty," and that it would be impossible to furnish the army with the reinforcements and supplies asked for.1 The alternative, therefore, was that the Confederates must remain on the defensive, awaiting the action of McClellan. October 19 Johnston drew his army back from Fairfax Court-house to Centreville and Manassas Junction—a much stronger position.2

Meanwhile McClellan was perfecting his organization. Neither he nor any one else apparently had any other idea than that at some time during the fall he would attack Johnston's army. When he and McDowell were riding together from camp to camp on the south side of the Potomac, he used to point towards Manassas and say: "We shall strike them there." 3 In October he declared to the Secretary of War that the object of the government should be to "crush the army under Johnston at Manassas."4 "With the great increase in numbers of men," wrote William H. Russell to Sumner, October 14, "and above all with his preponderance in artillery, McClellan ought to be able to overcome all the obstacles of the enemy, and to overlap and beat them, in spite of their advantages in position, for I believe they are inferior in number and in guns and in all but perhaps the craft of their leaders and the animosity of their men. There is still to a European a woful lack of real discipline in this
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1 G. W. Smith's account, probable date October 1, 1861. Beauregard and Johnston wrote, January 31,1862, that their recollections agreed fully with his statement, Official Records, vol. v. p. 884. See also Johnston's Narrative, p. 75; Hughes's Johnston, p. 92; criticism of Smith's account, Davis's Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, vol. i. p. 450, and the examination of this criticism, Roman's Beauregard, vol. i. p. 139; Confederate War Papers, G. W. Smith.
2 Johnston's Narrative.
3 Swinton's Army of the Potomac, a book friendly to McClellan, p. 69.
4 Webb's Peninsula, also favorable to McClellan, p. 168.

army, and the country is so difficult that no general can control or oversee the movements of the enormous mass once it is set in motion. ... I am not sure of the result if the Confederate States army be nearly equal."1

Three months had passed by with McClellan in command. Although the country was becoming impatient that there were no signs of a forward movement, it did not for a moment lose faith in its general. Could the Northern people, however, have known him as well as we now do through the publication of his private correspondence, they would have been amazed and their confidence shaken. Rapid advancement and hero-worship had swollen him up with conceit. As early as October he had arrived at the conviction that all the ability needed for the conduct of the war centred in himself and in a few of his favorite generals, and that no one else in responsible position had any wisdom whatever.2 October 21 occurred on the Potomac, above Washington, the affair of Ball's Bluff, in which, owing to mismanagement, the Union forces were defeated. Measured by subsequent battles, the casualties were not large; but the death of Colonel Baker, a dear friend of Lincoln and a popular senator and officer, and the loss to New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania of some of "the very pride and flower of their young men," 3 caused a profound feeling of discouragement all over the North; still, there was little
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1Pierce-Sumner Papers, MS.; see, also, The Civil War in America, Comte de Paris, vol. i. p. 407.
2 October —: "I can't tell you how disgusted I am becoming with these wretched politicians." October —: "I presume I shall have to go after them when I get ready; but this getting ready is slow work with such an administration. I wish I were well out of it." October 2: " I am becoming daily more disgusted with this administration—perfectly sick of it. If I could with honor resign, I would quit the whole concern to-morrow." October 10: "There are some of the greatest geese in the cabinet I have ever seen—enough to tax the patience of Job."—Letters of McClellan to his wife, McClellan's Own Story, pp. 167, 168, 169.
3 Roscoe Conkling's speech in the House of Representatives, January 6,1863.

tendency to impute this disaster to McClellan, although it occurred in his department. The friction between Scott and McClellan increased, resulting in the voluntary retirement with due honors of the elder soldier. This took place October 31, and McClellan succeeded him in the command of all the armies of the United States. A few days earlier Senators Trumbull, Chandler, and Wade had urged upon the President the importance of immediate action, but Lincoln and Seward maintained that McClellan was right not to move until he was ready.1 Yet for financial as well as for political reasons it was eminently desirable that some progress should be made in the work which the North had set out to perform. The expenses of the government were now $1,750,000 a day.3 From a military point of view it would seem as if the conditions were favorable for an advance. October 27, according to McClellan's own figures, the aggregate strength of the Army of the Potomac was 168,318, and the force present for duty 147,695; of these 13,410, from various causes, were unfit for the field, reducing his effective force to 134,285.4 At the same time Johnston's "effective total"—soldiers "capable of going into battle"—was 41,000.4 McClellan had substantially three to one, and his force was constantly increasing. December 1 he had 198,000 men, of whom 169,000 were present for duty.5 During the same period Johnston had gained 6200.6 The discipline, experience, and fighting qualities of the two armies were equal. The federal artillery
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1 Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. p. 467.
2 Letter of Chase to Larz Anderson, October 2, Schuckers, p. 430.
3 Official Records, vol. v. p. 10.
4 Johnston's Narrative, p. 81. Northern writers have generally accepted the statements of Johnston as correct, but on his method of computation see J. D. Cox in the Nation, May 21,1874, p. 334. Nevertheless, after all allowances, the statement frequently made that McClellan had three men to Johnston's one is true. See Webb's Peninsula, p. 169; The Civil War in America, Comte de Paris, vol. i. p. 407; Swinton's Army of the Potomac, p. 72.
5 Official Records, vol. v. p. 12.
6 Johnston's Narrative, p. 83.

was superior; the infantry had better arms. The workshops of the North and of Europe were busy in supplying the Union army, and money, or the credit of the government, was used lavishly for this purpose. The manufacture of arms and ordnance in the public armories and private establishments of the Confederacy was attended with difficulty and discouragement, largely owing to the lack of skilled workmen.1 Munitions of war from Europe could be brought only in vessels which were able to run the blockade, and so rarely did such a cargo arrive at a Southern port that it afforded a day of rejoicing2 The health of the Union army was good, that of the Confederate bad.3 The weather was fine and dry; up to Christmas the roads were in condition for military operations. The officers and men of the Army of the Potomac were devoted to McClellan, were eager to fight, and would have been glad to follow where he led. It only remained for the commanding general to give the word.

McClellan, however, could neither make up his mind to advance nor to abandon all idea of offensive operations until spring. On account of the affair of Ball's Bluff, writes the Comte de Paris, "a fatal hesitation took possession of McClellan."4 But in truth he was by nature irresolute, and he did not study his enemy with good results. He deluded himself as to the size and efficiency of the Confederate army, magnifying Johnston's force of 41,000 into one of 150,000,5 and such was the weight attached to his
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1 Davis's Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, vol. i. p. 473; Life of Albert Sidney Johnston, W. P. Johnston, p. 417.
2 Richmond Examiner, August 30, November 15; Richmond Enquirer, November 14.
3 McClellan's Own Story, p. 126; Johnston's Narrative, p. 65; The Civil War in America, Comte de Paris, vol. i. p. 407; Richmond Dispatch, August 27; Pollard's First Year of the War, p. 218 ; A Rebel War Clerk's Diary, Jones, vol. i. p. 81; Down South, Samuel Phillips Day, vol. ii. p. 109.
4 Century War Book, vol. ii. p. 114.
5 "All the information we have from spies, prisoners, etc., agrees in showing that the enemy have a force on the Potomac not less than 150,000 strong, well drilled and equipped, ably commanded, and strongly in

opinion that he impressed upon nearly every one the correctness of his judgment. In a speech to a delegation of Philadelphians, he said: "The war cannot last long. It may be desperate. I ask in the future forbearance, patience, and confidence. With these we can accomplish all." 1 The country gave him what he asked,2 but the sequel will show that he was not worthy of the unconditional trust reposed in him. Although McClellan was a good organizer and had a high degree of patriotism, he lacked the brains to command a large army in the field. As Lowell expressed it, "Our chicken was no eagle, after all." 3 Yet he himself had no conception of his own limitations. To save the country he was willing to accept the dictatorship.4 Recognizing "the weakness and unfitness of the poor beings who control the destinies of this great country," the impulse came to him that he must give Lincoln and Seward counsel respecting a grave diplomatic question.5

Johnston, by means of spies, knew almost accurately the size of the federal army.6 McClellan likewise should have known that he only had 40,000 or 50,000 troops to contend against, instead of three times that number as he persisted in believing. Had Johnston been in McClellan's place, we may be reasonably certain that a battle in Virginia
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intrenched."—McClellan to Secretary of War, latter part of October, Official Records, vol. v. p. 9. Seward and Meigs estimated the enemy at 100,000, Life of Seward, vol. ii. p. 621; testimony of Meigs before the Committee on the Conduct of the War.
1 New York Tribune, November 4.
2" General McClellan asked . . . 'forbearance, patience, and confidence.' He has a right to them all, and he enjoys them all at the hands of those to whom the appeal is made. . . . The people have all the confidence in General McClellan which it would be safe for any man in his position to enjoy."—New York Times, November 6; see, also, New York Herald, November 9.
3 Political Essays, p. 94 ; North American Review, April, 1864.
4 Letter to his wife, August 9, McClellan's Own Story, p. 85.
5 Letter to his wife, November 17, ibid., p. 175; but see Lothrop's Seward, p. 327.
6 Johnston's Narrative, p. 81.

Virginia, perhaps as momentous in its results as Gettysburg, would have been fought before Christmas day of 1861; with a great commander, "that rare son of the tempest,"1 the capture of the Confederate army or of Richmond was in the range of possibilities. But McClellan dallied with opportunity, seeing phantoms in the shape of an immense army before him and powerful enemies behind him.2 Had he decided, as did Johnston, in spite of clamors of the press,3 not to take the offensive that autumn, but to wait until he had his army under better discipline, military authorities might justify him; but on such a policy he could not resolve. Some time in November he wrote his wife, "I am doing all I can to get ready to move before winter sets in, but it now begins to look as if we were condemned to a winter of inactivity;" and November 25 he shows a manifest joy at a "driving snow-storm," and a hope that the roads will be bad enough to render a decision against a forward movement unmistakably clear.4 Let us not, however, overlook one fine trait in McClellan, which, united to a greater ability, would have been of significant service to himself and his country. "Our George," he wrote, the
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1 Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, vol. i. p. 181.
2" I am concealed at Stanton's to dodge all enemies in shape of 'browsing' Presidents, etc. ... I have a set of men to deal with unscrupulous and false. . . . The people think me all-powerful. Never was there a greater mistake. I am thwarted and deceived by these incapables at every turn."—Letter of McClellan to his wife, November —, McClellan's Own Story, pp. 176, 177.
3 " All over the South, in every State from the Rio Grande to the Potomac, the desire is universal that our brave army shall go forward. . . . We believe that McClellan's army could on a fair field be defeated by twenty-five thousand Southern soldiers. . . . Our army once across [the Potomac], we do not fear the result. . . . The enemy would have to quit his intrenchments and fight at a disadvantage with an army paralyzed with apprehension, and exceedingly anxious to get back to the land of pumpkin-pies and scraggy-faced females."—Richmond Examiner, September 20, see also September 25 ; also Richmond Dispatch, September 28.
4 McClellan's Own Story, p. 177, also p. 199, and testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War.

soldiers "have taken it into their heads to call me. I ought to take good care of these men, for I believe they love me from the bottom of their hearts; I can see it in their faces when I pass among them."1

It is impossible to contemplate McClellan's treatment of the President with patience. Misled, as many indeed were, by Lincoln's lack of society manners, by his want of systematic attention to the details of administration, by his neglect to exact punctiliousness in official intercourse, the young general of thirty-five failed to see beyond these things his capacity for dealing with men and large affairs, and summed up his character with, " the President is honest and means well."2 So anxious was Lincoln about the progress of military operations that it was his custom to call often at the house of the general, sometimes coming before breakfast, but more frequently in the evening. On the evening of November 13 he came with Seward, and was told that McClellan had gone to an officer's wedding, but would soon return. They waited. The general entered, and, though informed by the orderly of his visitors, went directly up stairs. The President, thinking there must be some misunderstanding, sent a servant to announce him again; this brought the information that the general had gone to bed. Lincoln probably asked no explanation of this incident, for personal slights, in view of the magnitude of the cause which engaged him, were of no moment. On another occasion, when the general failed to meet an appointment with him, he said, " Never mind; I will hold McClellan's horse if he will only bring us success."3 Such occurrences cannot fail to suggest a comparison with
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1 McClellan's Own Story, p. 173.
2 Letter to his wife, November 17, McClellan's Own Story, p. 176.
3 Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. p. 468. "Officers of McClellan's staff tell that Mr. Lincoln almost daily comes into McClellan's library and sits there rather unnoticed. On several occasions McClellan let the President wait in the room, together with other common mortals."—Count Gurowski's Diary, November, 1861, p. 123.

Davis's treatment of Joseph E. Johnston;1 they make manifest to us that Lincoln had the magnanimity of a great mind.

In December McClellan fell ill with typhoid-fever. The Army of the Potomac, the administration, the country waited on his recovery.2
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1 Ante.
2 Besides authorities specifically quoted, I have used the report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, and the testimony before it of McClellan, Franklin, McCall, Fitz-John Porter, Heintzelman, McDowell, Wadsworth, and Meigs; also McClellan's Military Career Reviewed and Exposed, Swinton, pamphlet, 1864; General J. D. Cox's review of McClellan's Own Story, the Nation, January 20 and 27, 1887 ; John C. Ropes's review of the same, Atlantic Monthly, April, 1887,


Source: Rhodes, James Ford. History of the United States; from the compromise of 1850 to the final restoration of home rule at the south in 1877, v.3. New York: Macmillan, 1910 [c1892].