Part 18 (2/2)
Anything that savored of the wit and humor of the soldiers was especially relished by Lincoln. Any incident that showed that ”the boys”
were mirthful and jolly amidst their privations seemed to commend itself to him. There was a story of a soldier in the Army of the Potomac, carried to the rear of battle with both legs shot off, who, seeing a pie-woman hovering about, asked, ”Say, old lady, are them pies _sewed_ or _pegged_?” And there was another one of a soldier at the battle of Chancellorsville, whose regiment, waiting to be called into the fight, was taking coffee. The hero of the story put to his lips a crockery mug which he had carried, with infinite care, through several campaigns. A stray bullet, just missing the coffee-drinker's head, dashed the mug into fragments and left only its handle on his finger. Turning his head in that direction, the soldier angrily growled, ”Johnny, you can't do that again!” Lincoln, relating these two stories together, said, ”It seems as if neither death nor danger could quench the grim humor of the American soldier.”
A juvenile ”brigadier” from New York, with a small detachment of cavalry, having imprudently gone within the rebel lines near Fairfax Court House, was captured by ”guerillas.” Upon the fact being reported to Lincoln, he said that he was very sorry to lose the horses. ”What do you mean?” inquired his informant. ”Why,” rejoined the President, ”I can make a 'brigadier' any day; but those horses cost the government a hundred and twenty-five dollars a head!”
Lincoln was especially fond of a joke at the expense of some high military or civil dignitary. He was intensely amused by a story told by Secretary Stanton, of a trip made by him and General Foster up the Broad river in North Carolina, in a tug-boat, when, reaching our outposts on the river bank, a Federal picket yelled out, ”Who have you got on board that tug?” The severe and dignified answer was, ”The Secretary of War and Major-General Foster.” Instantly the picket roared back: ”We've got Major-Generals enough up here--_why don't you bring us up some hardtack?_”
On one occasion, when the enemy were threatening the defenses of Was.h.i.+ngton, the President made a personal visit to the men in the trenches, for the purpose, as he stated, of ”encouraging the boys.” He walked about among them, telling them to hold their ground and he would soon give them reinforcements. His presence had a most inspiring effect, and the trenches were held by a few hundred soldiers of the Invalid Corps until the promised help came and the enemy withdrew.
On a visit to City Point, Lincoln called upon the head surgeon at that place and said he wished to visit all the hospitals under his charge.
The surgeon asked if he knew what he was undertaking; there were five or six thousand soldiers at that place, and it would be quite a tax upon his strength to visit all the wards. Lincoln answered, with a smile, that he guessed he was equal to the task; at any rate he would try, and go as far as he could; he should never, probably, see the boys again, and he wanted them to know that he appreciated what they had done for their country. Finding it useless to try to dissuade him, the surgeon began his rounds with the President, who walked from bed to bed, extending his hand and saying a few words of sympathy to some, making kind inquiries of others, and welcomed by all with the heartiest cordiality. After some hours the tour of the various hospitals was made, and Lincoln returned with the surgeon to his office. They had scarcely entered, however, when a messenger came saying that one ward had been overlooked, and ”the boys” wanted to see the President. The surgeon, who was thoroughly tired, and knew Lincoln must be, tried to dissuade him from going; but the good man said he must go back; ”the boys” would be so disappointed. So he went with the messenger, accompanied by the surgeon, shook hands with the gratified soldiers, and then returned to the office. The surgeon expressed the fear that the President's arm would be lamed with so much hand-shaking, saying that it certainly must ache. Lincoln smiled, and saying something about his ”strong muscles,”
stepped out at the open door, took up a very large heavy axe which lay there by a log of wood, and chopped vigorously for a few moments, sending the chips flying in all directions; and then, pausing, he extended his right arm to its full length, holding the axe out horizontally, without its even quivering as he held it. Strong men who looked on--men accustomed to manual labor--could not hold the axe in that position for a moment.
In summer Lincoln's favorite home was at ”The Soldiers' Rest,” a place a few miles out of Was.h.i.+ngton, on the Maryland side, where old and disabled soldiers of the regular army found a refuge. It was a lovely spot, situated on a beautifully wooded hill, reached by a winding road, shaded by thick-set branches. On his way there he often pa.s.sed long lines of ambulances, laden with the suffering victims of a recent battle. A friend who met him on such an occasion, says: ”When I met the President, his att.i.tude and expression spoke the deepest sadness. He paused, and, pointing his hand-towards the wounded men, he said: 'Look yonder at those poor fellows. I cannot bear it! This suffering, this loss of life, is dreadful!' Recalling a letter he had written years before to a suffering friend whose grief he had sought to console, I reminded him of the incident, and asked him: 'Do you remember writing to your sorrowing friend these words: ”And this too shall pa.s.s away. Never fear. Victory will come.”' 'Yes,' replied he, '_victory will come, but it comes slowly_.'”
CHAPTER XX
Lincoln and McClellan--The Peninsular Campaign of 1862--Impatience with McClellan's Delay--Lincoln Defends McClellan from Unjust Criticism--Some Harrowing Experiences--McClellan Recalled from the Peninsula--His Troops Given to General Pope--Pope's Defeat at Mana.s.sas--A Critical Situation--McClellan again in Command--Lincoln Takes the Responsibility--McClellan's Account of his Reinstatement--The Battle of Antietam--The President Vindicated--Again Dissatisfied with McClellan--Visits the Army in the Field--The President in the Saddle--Correspondence between Lincoln and McClellan--McClellan's Final Removal--Lincoln's Summing-up of McClellan--McClellan's ”Body-guard.”
President Lincoln's relations with no other person have been so much discussed as those with General McClellan. Volumes have been written on this subject; many heated and intemperate words have been uttered and wrong conclusions reached. Whatever defects may have marked McClellan's qualities as a soldier, he must remain historically one of the most conspicuous figures of the war. He organized the largest and most important of the Union armies, and was its first commander in the field.
He was one of the two out of the five commanders of the Army of the Potomac, before Grant, who led that army to victory; the other three having led it only to disastrous defeat. Great things were expected of him; and when he failed to realize the extravagant expectations of those who thought the war should be ended within a year, he received equally extravagant condemnation. It is noticeable that this condemnation came chiefly from civilians--from politicians, from Congress, from the press: not the best judges of military affairs. His own army--the men who were with him on the battlefield and risked their lives and their cause under his leaders.h.i.+p--never lost faith in him. Of all the commanders of the Army of the Potomac, he was the one most believed in by his troops. Even after his removal, at a grand review of the army by the President, after the battle of Fredericksburg, it was not for the new commander, Burnside, but the old commander, McClellan, that the troops gave their heartiest cheers. It is worth remembering also that the war was not ended until two and a half years after McClellan's retirement, and until trial after trial had been made and failure after failure had been met in the effort to find a successful leader for our armies. The initial task of organization, of creating a great army in the field, fell upon him--a task so well performed that General Meade, his first efficient successor, said, ”Had there been no McClellan there could have been no Grant, for the army [organization] made no essential improvements under any of his successors.” And Grant, the last and finally victorious of these successors--who was at one time criticized as being ”as great a discouragement as McClellan”--recorded in his Memoirs the conviction (already quoted in these pages) that the conditions under which McClellan worked were fatal to success, and that he himself could not have succeeded in his place under those conditions.
It is not in the province of the present narrative to enter into a consideration of the merits or demerits of McClellan as a soldier, but to treat of his personal relations with President Lincoln. Between the two men, notwithstanding many sharp differences of opinion and of policy, there seems to have been a feeling of warm personal friends.h.i.+p and sincere respect. Now that both have pa.s.sed beyond the reach of earthly praise or blame, we may well honor their memory and credit each with having done the best he could to serve his country.
McClellan was appointed to the command of the Union armies upon the retirement of the veteran General Scott, in November of 1861. He had been but a captain in the regular army, but his high reputation and brilliant soldierly qualities had led to his being sent abroad to study the organization and movements of European armies; and this brought him into prominence as a military man. It was soon after McClellan took command that President Lincoln began giving close personal attention to the direction of military affairs. He formed a plan of operations against the Confederate army defending Richmond, which differed entirely from the plan proposed by McClellan. The President's plan was, in effect, to repeat the Bull Run expedition by moving against the enemy in Virginia at or hear Mana.s.sas. McClellan preferred a transference of the army to the region of the lower Chesapeake, thence moving up the Peninsula by the shortest land route to Richmond. (This was a movement, it may be remarked, which was finally carried out before Richmond fell in 1865.) The President discussed the relative merits of the two plans in the following frank and explicit letter to McClellan:
EXECUTIVE MANSION, WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C., February 3, 1862.
MAJOR-GENERAL MCCLELLAN.
MY DEAR SIR: You and I have distinct and different plans for a movement of the Army of the Potomac; yours to be done by the Chesapeake, up the Rappahannock to Urbana, and across to the terminus of the railroad on the York river; mine to move directly to a point on the railroad southwest of Mana.s.sas. If you will give me satisfactory answers to the following questions, I shall gladly yield my plan to yours:
1st. Does your plan involve a greatly larger expenditure of _time_ and _money_ than mine?
2d. Wherein is a victory more certain by your plan than mine?
3d. Wherein is a victory _more valuable_ by your plan than mine?
4th. In fact, would it not be _less_ valuable in this, that it would break no great line of the enemy's communication, while mine would?
5th. In case of a disaster, would not a retreat be more difficult by your plan than mine?
Yours truly, ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
To this communication McClellan made an elaborate reply, discussing the situation very fully, and answering the inquiries apparently to the satisfaction of the President, who consented to the plan submitted by McClellan and concurred in by a council of his division commanders, by which the base of the Army of the Potomac should be transferred from Was.h.i.+ngton to the lower Chesapeake. Yet Lincoln must have had misgivings in the matter, for some weeks later he wrote to McClellan: ”You will do me the justice to remember I always insisted that going down the bay in search of a field, instead of fighting at or near Mana.s.sas, was only s.h.i.+fting, and not surmounting, a difficulty; that we would find the same enemy, and the same or equal intrenchments, at either place.”
After the transfer of the Army of the Potomac to the Peninsula there was great impatience at the delays in the expected advance on Richmond. The President shared this impatience, and his despatches to McClellan took an urgent and imperative though always friendly tone. April 9 he wrote: ”Your despatches, complaining that you are not properly sustained, while they do not offend me, do pain me very much. I suppose the whole force which has gone forward for you is with you by this time. And, if so, I think it is the precise time for you to _strike a blow_. By delay, the enemy will relatively gain upon you--that is, he will gain faster by fortifications and reinforcements than you can by reinforcements alone.
And once more let me tell you, it is indispensable to you that you _strike a blow_.... I beg to a.s.sure you that I have never written to you or spoken to you in greater kindness of feeling than now, nor with a fuller purpose to sustain you, so far as, in my most anxious judgment, I consistently can. But you _must act_.”
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