178

BUELL

[1862

in the fall of Louisville; Bragg feared the serious crippling of his army. Both were short of supplies. Finally when reduced to three days' rations, Bragg turned aside from the direct road north leaving the way open for Buell, who moved rapidly to Louisville. Thus the Kentucky campaign of the Confederates was a failure even as was their Maryland campaign and mainly for the same reason: that in each case the denizens of the invaded territory were for the most part favorable to the Union. "We must abandon the garden spot of Kentucky to its cupidity," wrote Bragg. "The love of ease and fear of pecuniary loss are the fruitful sources of this evil."

Buell, having insured the safety of Louisville, started in pursuit of the enemy; they met in a severe battle at Perryville, both generals claiming the victory. Next day Bragg fell back and soon afterwards took up his march southward. Buell did not make a vigorous pursuit. He failed to overtake the Confederates and bring them to battle but he drove them out of Kentucky.

Western Radicals opposed Buell as their Eastern fellowlaborers opposed McClellan and they had at their head Oliver P. Morton of Indiana, who was the ablest and most energetic of the war governors of the Western States. The governors of the Northern States were important factors in the early conduct of the war because the national Administration was at first dependent on the State machinery for furnishing troops, and, to some extent, their equipment. Owing to the geographical position of his State and the bitterness of the Democratic opposition within its borders, Morton had more obstacles to surmount than any other governor; he threw himself into the contest with a vigor and pertinacity that could not be excelled. Wishing to see operative in military affairs the same force which he put

CH. V]

OLIVER P. MORTON

179

into the administration of his State, he made no secret of his contempt for the generalship of Buell, whom he even accused in his communications with Washington of being "a rebel sympathizer." Morton, though personally incorrupt, took his coadjutors from amongst the vulgar and the shifty, making his test of fitness for civil and military office a personal devotion and unscrupulous obedience to himself rather than intrinsic honesty and high character. He and Buell became enemies and he held it a duty to his country as well as an offering to his self-interest to crush the man whom he could not use.

Lincoln had been dissatisfied with Buell's slowness and, influenced by the pressure of Morton and Stanton and the manifestations of public sentiment in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, took the general at his word when, aware of the Government's discontent, he suggested on October 16 that, if it were deemed best to change the command of the army, now would be a convenient time to do it. Buell was relieved and Rosecrans put in his place. In this decision. the President erred, as the opinion expressed by Grant fourteen years after the war is doubtless sound, "Buell had genius enough for the highest commands." 1

If, now, the scene be changed to the banks of the Potomac, the leading actor is McClellan, the action, much the same: the General did not take the aggressive promptly enough to satisfy the President and the people of the North. On 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, directed the general, after his return to Washington, to "cross the Potomac and give battle to the enemy or drive him south." Still McClellan

1 IV; Foulke, I.

180

MCCLELLAN'S INERTNESS

[1862

procrastinated, aiming always at his "ideal completeness of preparation." On October 13, Welles recorded, "the mortifying intelligence that the Rebel cavalry rode entirely around our great and victorious Army of the Potomac, crossing the river above it . . . and recrossing the Potomac below McClellan and our troops." " 1 "This will be a mortifying affair to McClellan," wrote Meade, "and will do him, I fear, serious injury."2 On October 22, Welles set down in his diary: "It is just five weeks since the Battle of Antietam and the Army is quiet, reposing in camp. The country groans but nothing is done. ... McClellan's inertness makes the assertions of his opponents prophetic. He is sadly afflicted with what the President calls the 'slows." Meade

had a high respect for McClellan, but held the opinion that "he errs on the side of prudence and caution and that a little more rashness on his part would improve his generalship.'

On October 26, the army, 116,000 strong, began to cross the Potomac and six days later the last division was over. The Confederates fell back. On November 7, the Union Army was massed near Warrenton and received word from the President that he had relieved McClellan and placed Burnside in command. "The Army is filled with gloom," wrote Meade next day. “Burnside, it is said, wept like a child and is the most distressed man in the Army, openly says he is not fit for the position and that McClellan is the only man we have who can handle the large army collected together." 5 The pressure of the Radicals led by Stanton and Chase undoubtedly influenced the President to remove McClellan, but he ought not to have issued the order unless he and his Secretary of War knew of a 1 Welles's Diary, I, 169.

2 General Meade, I, 320. On 318 is a partial apology for McClellan. 3 Welles's Diary, I, 176, 177.

4 General Meade, I, 319.

5 Ibid., I, 325.

CH. VÌ

MCCLELLAN'S REMOVAL

181

general of equal ability for the command. This obligation he seemed indeed to feel. In a letter to Carl Schurz, he intimated that "the war should be conducted on military knowledge," not "on political affinity";1 and he said to Wade, a leading Radical senator, who pressed him to remove McClellan: "Put yourself in my place for a moment. If I relieve McClellan, whom shall I put in command?" "Why," said Wade, "anybody"; to which came the reply: "Wade, anybody will do for you but not for me. I must have somebody." 11 2

Meade, Reynolds and the other generals of their corps called upon McClellan, expressed their deep regret at his departure "and sincerely hoped he would soon return. McClellan was very much affected, almost to tears," Meade wrote, "and said that separation from this Army was the severest blow that could be inflicted upon him. The Army," Meade added, "is greatly depressed." The officers and soldiers undoubtedly felt, as General Francis A. Walker afterwards wrote, that he who could move "the hearts of a great army was no ordinary man; nor was he who took such heavy toll of Joseph E. Johnston and Robert E. Lee an ordinary soldier." This judgment may be supported by a comparison of the losses in battles between McClellan and the Confederates; in nearly every one of them their loss was greater than his. Inasmuch as the number of men fit for military service was greater at the North than at the South, the Confederacy must, if continuing to suffer equal losses in battle, be thrust to the wall provided the Union could and would maintain the contest. "While the Confederacy was young and fresh and rich and its armies were numerous," wrote Francis W. Palfrey, "McClellan fought a good, wary, damaging, respectable fight against it." 1 Schurz, Speeches, etc., I, 213. 2 Nicolay, 255.

182

GRANT'S JUDGMENT OF MCCLELLAN

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Grant's candid expression fourteen years after the war is of great value: In any judgment on McClellan, he asserted, there must be considered the vast and cruel responsibility which at the outset of the war devolved upon him, a young man watched by a restless people and Congress. "If he did not succeed, it was because the conditions of success were so trying. If McClellan had gone into the war as Sherman, Thomas or Meade, had fought his way along and up, I have no reason to suppose that he would not have won as high distinction as any of us.' Nineteen days after the removal, Lincoln confessed his mistake, writing to Carl Schurz, "I certainly have been dissatisfied with the slowness of Buell and McClellan ; but before I relieved them I had great fears I should not find successors to them who would do better; and I am sorry to add, that I have seen little since to relieve those fears." 1.

Even though Lincoln felt that he must yield his better judgment to political considerations he might have exercised greater discretion in the choice of McClellan's successor. A certain Radical, reflecting deeply in his quiet retreat at Cambridge, suggested the test that William T. Sherman afterwards applied [in January 1865] 2- a test that should have been seriously considered by the President, his Secretary of War and Halleck. "Burnside may be able to command one hundred thousand men in the field but is he?" Burnside had given no proof of his fitness, had refused the place twice and had told the President and

3

1 Schurz, Speeches, etc. I, 220.

2" I have commanded one hundred thousand men in battle," wrote General Sherman to the Senator on Jan. 22, 1865, "and on the march, successfully and without confusion, and that is enough for reputation." Sherman Letters 246.

3 C. E. Norton, I, 258.