CH. XIX.]

REMOVAL OF BUELL

183

it a duty to his country as well as an offering to his selfinterest to crush the man whom he could not use.1

October 21 Governor Morton telegraphed the President: "Bragg has escaped with his army into East Tennessee. . . . The butchery of our troops at Perryville was terrible, and resulted from a large portion of the enemy being precipitated upon a small portion of ours. Sufficient time was thus gained by the enemy to enable them to escape. Nothing but success, speedy and decided, will save our cause from utter destruction. In the Northwest distrust and despair are seizing upon the hearts of the people." 2

Morton was backed by Governors Tod and Yates,3 whom Buell had offended by his lack of tact. The general was a strict disciplinarian, and lacked popularity with his soldiers, who were volunteers largely from Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. There was an interaction of opinion between the soldiers in the field and the people at home, so that the private letters written from the army and the editorials in the influential newspapers of the West were at one in their criticisms of him. All these manifestations of public opinion could not be disregarded by Lincoln. He craved popular support, and knew that the war could not go on long without it. Andrew Johnson, military governor of Tennessee, whose sturdy patriotism and brutal energy gave him influence with the President, was earnest for the displacement of Buell, while Stanton had been urging it for two months. The general himself had with magnanimity written that if it were deemed best to change the command of the army, now was a convenient time to do it. It is little wonder, then, that the President gave the word for his removal.5 Rosecrans was placed in command

1 J. D. Cox on Buell, The Nation, Oct. 2, 1884; The Army under Buell, Fry; Warden's Chase, pp. 496, 498; Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography.

2 O. R., vol. xvi. part ii. p. 634.

8 Of Ohio and Illinois.

4 Oct. 16.

5 The orders were issued Oct. 24. See the correspondence, O. R., vol. xvi. part ii.; also proceedings in the Buell commission, part i; Hollister, Life of

of the force, which now becomes known as the Army of the Cumberland.

The action of Rosecrans was a tribute to Buell's sagacity. Halleck urged him "to take and hold East Tennessee." 1 It was impossible. He concentrated his troops at Nashville, a movement which the General-in-Chief had warned Buell not to make. In thirty-five days from his assumption of command, the government became impatient at his delay. December 4 Halleck telegraphed him, "If you remain one more week at Nashville, I cannot prevent your removal."3 Rosecrans replied immediately: I am trying to do "my whole duty. . . . To threats of removal or the like I am insensible." He did not move from Nashville for twenty-two days, not until his preparations were complete, and he was not displaced. There is no reason whatever to believe that in the substitution of Rosecrans for Buell, aught was gained toward the capture of Chattanooga or the relief of the Unionists of East Tennessee.

4

...

The scene changes to the banks of the Potomac, the leading actor is McClellan, the action is much the same: the general did not take the aggressive promptly enough to satisfy the President and the people of the North. Among radical spirits prevailed distrust of the future, which in a private letter of Sydney Howard Gay, the managing editor of the New York Tribune, finds apt expression. "Smalley," he wrote, "has come back, and his notion is that it is to be quiet along the Potomac for some time to come. George [McClellan], whom Providence helps according to his nature, has got himself on one side of a ditch [the Potomac River], which Provi

Colfax, p. 199; J. D. Cox and Fry, hitherto cited. The injustice to Buell did not end with his removal. See remarks of Cox and Fry on the Buell commission and Buell's subsequent career. "I think Buell had genius enough for the highest commands."- Grant, J. R. Young, Around the World with Gen. Grant, vol. ii. p. 289.

1 Oct. 24, O. R., vol. xvi. part ii. p. 640.

3 Ibid., vol. xx. part ii. p. 118.

5 George W.

2 Ibid., p. 638.

4 Ibid.

6 From the army.

CH XIX.]

MCCLELLAN ORDERED TO MOVE

185

dence had already made for him, with the enemy on the other, and has no idea of moving. Wooden-head [Halleck] at Washington will never think of sending a force through the mountains to attack Lee in the rear, so the two armies will watch each other for nobody knows how many weeks, and we shall have the poetry of war with pickets drinking from the same stream, holding friendly converse and sending newspapers across by various ingenious contrivances." 1 October 1 Lincoln went to see McClellan, remained with the army three days, and as a result of the conferences and observations of his visit, issued through Halleck, after his return to Washington, the following order: "The President directs that you cross the Potomac and give battle to the enemy or drive him south. Your army must move now while the roads are good. If you cross the river between the enemy and Washington, and cover the latter by your line of operations, you can be reinforced with 30,000 men. If you move up the valley of the Shenandoah, not more than 12,000 or 15,000 can be sent to you. The President advises the interior line between Washington and the enemy, but does not order it. He is very desirous that your army move as soon as possible." "

While giving his army the rest it needed, McClellan had begun the work of reorganization and the drilling of the new recruits. His native aptitude in matters of detail now commenced to spy out defects in equipment and to remedy them, to send complaints to Washington, and to clamor for shoes, blankets, clothing, and camp equipage. The correspondence between the army and Washington is unpleasant reading. It goes to the extent of mutual recrimination between Halleck

1 Sept. 25, to A. S. Hill, Hill papers, MS. On the disposition of pickets to fraternize, see Walker, 2d Army corps, p. 127; N. P. Hallowell, Memorial Day address, May 30, 1896, pamphlet ; also Cæsar, De Bello Civili, Comm. iii. cap. xix. As to Chase's dissatisfaction, see Warden, pp. 484, 485. 2 Oct. 6, O. R., vol. xix. part i. p. 10. McClellan at first decided to adopt the line of the Shenandoah. This was what Lee desired him to do. Oct. 22 he changed his plan to moving on the interior line, and began the movement Oct. 26. Ibid., p. 11; part ii. pp. 464, 626.

and McClellan. One is surprised that this exchange of acrimonious despatches, this working at cross purposes, should have continued when the two were less than a day's journey apart and both had efficient subordinates, Meigs, the Quartermaster-General, and Ingalls, Chief Quartermaster of the Army of the Potomac. The prime cause of the disagreement was McClellan's procrastination. An energetic general would have made the best of his deficiencies, and, reflecting that the Confederates were worse off in every respect, would have moved boldly forward. "The men cannot march without shoes 2 seems to be the summing up of McClellan's reasons for delay. Making due allowance for the higher standard of comfort which ought to have obtained and did obtain among Union soldiers, the contrast between the Army of the Potomac refusing shoes because the sizes were too large3 and the plaintive utterance of Lee to Davis, "The number of barefooted men is daily increasing, and it pains me to see them limping over the rocky roads," is significant of the difference between the two commanders, the one ready to undertake any operation with insufficient means, the other aiming at an “ideal completeness of preparation."

The impatience of the country at the army's inaction was becoming intense. To prevent the people of the North from growing weary of the contest, to convince Europe that there was a prospect of the end of the war, and to guard against an interference of France and England, who were eager to get cotton, Lincoln felt that he had great need of victories in the field. This yearning, tempered by a common-sense view of means and chances, bursts out in a letter to McClellan which was "in no sense an order," and which cannot in fairness be compared to "the meddling interference" of the Vienna Aulic Council in the Napoleonic Wars.5

1 See Ropes's Civil War, part ii. p. 436.

2 McClellan to Halleck, Oct. 11, O. R., vol. xix. part i. p. 75.

Ibid., pp. 22, 23.

Ibid., part ii. p. 633.

'See Sloane's Napoleon, vol. i. pp. 263, 266; vol. ii. pp. 105, 236.

CH. XIX.]

LINCOLN TO MCCLELLAN

187

"MY DEAR SIR,-You remember my speaking to you," he wrote, "of what I called your over-cautiousness. Are you not over-cautious when you assume that you cannot do what the enemy is constantly doing? . . . Change positions with the enemy, and think you not he would break your communication with Richmond within the next twenty-four hours? You dread his going into Pennsylvania, but if he does so in full force, he gives up his communications to you absolutely, and you have nothing to do but to follow and ruin him. . . . Exclusive of the water-line, you are now nearer Richmond than the enemy is by the route that you can and he must take. Why can you not reach there before him, unless you admit that he is more than your equal on a march? His route is the arc of a circle, while yours is the chord. The roads are as good on yours as on his. . . If he should . . move toward Richmond, I would press closely to him; fight him, if a favorable opportunity should present, and at least try to beat him to Richmond on the inside track. I say 'try; if we never try we shall never succeed. We should not so operate as merely to drive him away. As we must beat him somewhere or fail finally, we can do it, if at all, easier near to us than far away. If we cannot beat the enemy where he now is, we never can, he again being within the intrenchments of Richmond." 1

2

...

McClellan complained that he could not advance because he was short of horses for his cavalry; then disease attacked them, and those which remained sound were broken down by fatigue. The much-enduring Lincoln thought of Stuart's cavalry raid around the Union army, and the ineffectual pursuit by the Federal troopers, and, irritated because he believed that McClellan conjured up difficulties, sent this sharp inquiry: "I have just read your despatch about sore-tongued and fatigued horses. Will you pardon me for asking what

1 Oct. 13, O. R., vol. xix. part i. p. 13.

2 Oct. 9-12. Especially discreditable to McClellan because the raid was made on Union territory. "It is disgraceful that Stuart's cavalry are this morning in possession of Chambersburg."-Chase, Oct. 11, Schuckers, p. 382.