Part 41 (1/2)
”THE BOTTOM WILL FALL OUT.”
General McClellan's delayed advance being, in 1862, not upon Mana.s.sas, but on Yorktown, filled the less enthusiastic of his henchmen with consternation. To the general eye he seemed to have pitched on the very point where the enemy wanted to meet with all the gain in their favor. This direct route to Richmond they had tried to make impregnable. The President, whom McClellan openly thwarted with unconcealed scorn for the ”civilian,” was in profound distress. He called General Franklin into his counsel and inquired his opinion of the slowness of movements.
”If something is not soon done in this dry rot, the bottom will fall out of the whole affair!” This was his very saying.
The Confederates evacuated Yorktown, but a series of actions ensued, culminating in the ma.s.sacre at Fair Oaks, where both sides claimed the victory. Soon after, Lincoln took matters in hand, relegating McClellan to one army, and, as commander-in-chief, ordering a general advance. The bottom had fallen out with a vengeance!
”MASTER OF THEM BOTH.”
”General McClellan's att.i.tude is such that in the very selfishness of his nature he cannot but wish to be successful, and I hope he will!
And the secretary of war (Stanton) is in precisely the same situation.
If the military commanders in the field cannot be successful, not only the secretary of war, but myself, for the time being master of both, cannot but be failures.”--(Speech, August 6, 1862, at Was.h.i.+ngton.)
”THE SKEERED VIRGINIAN.”
A reviewing-party, of which the President was the center, was stopped at a railroad by Harper's Ferry, to let a locomotive pa.s.s, and look at the old engine-house where John Brown, the raider, was penned in and captured. The little switching-engine ran past with much noise and bustle, the engineer blowing the ludicrous whistle in salute to the distinguished visitors. Lincoln referred to the recollections of the scene, where old ”Pottowatomie” thrilled the natives with panic lest he raised the negroes to revolt, and remarked, as the engine flew away:
”You call that 'The Flying Dutchman' do you? They ought to call that thing 'The _Skeered_ Virginian!'”--(By General O. O. Howard, a hearer.)
”HE WHO FIGHTS AND RUNS AWAY--”
Shortly after the scandalous rout of Bull Run, the partic.i.p.ants in the panic began to try to palliate the disgrace. The President, listening with revived sarcasm to the new perversion, remarked:
”So it is your notion _now_ that we _licked_ the rebels and then ran away!”
NO SUNDAY FIGHTING.
As the first Battle of Bull Run, a sanguinary defeat to the Unionists, was fought on the Sabbath day, the President forbade in the future important movements on the day desecrated. But with singular inconsistency in a sage so clear-headed, he did not see that the Southerners chuckled, ”The better the day, the better the deed,”
in their victory.
LET A GOOD MAN ALONE!
General Howard, in taking command before Was.h.i.+ngton, incurred the hostility of certain officers of the convivial, plundering, swashbuckling order, who objected to his piety and orderliness. They tramped off to badger the President with their censure. But he who had appreciated the new leader in a glance, reproved them, saying: