by Alan Sewell
“The President and I regret having thrust you into field command of this department before the men were sufficiently trained,” McClellan said. “But we felt that if there was any chance at all of breaking the insurgency with one decisive campaign the risk would be justified.”
“The risk was justified,” Lee replied. “After all, the enemy was no better trained than us. The difference was that Fremont panicked our men with his unexpected attack before we could panic the enemy with ours! But now we have cavalry too. And, as you can see, our men are being trained to set out pickets in advance of our lines. We shall not be caught napping again.”
“I’m sure you’ll have the men prepared for all contingencies.” McClellan grinned. “And now for some good news: You are hereby relieved as General-in-Chief of the Armies. As soon as you have settled your dispositions here you may transfer back to the Department of the West.” McClellan handed Lee the copy of the relief order. “Please don’t take it too hard!”
Lee smiled. “Well, I already knew as much by reading the newspapers! The newspaper editors ‘relieved’ me from command before the President did. And I am happy to be out of that position. That job requires someone who will sit at the President’s side night and day, advising him of developments in all the departments. I am honored to serve my country in whatever capacity needed, but I am a field commander, not a staff officer.”
“The President and I finally figured that out,” McClellan acknowledged. “It was only because the President valued your insights so much that he tried to make you both.”
Lee nodded in acceptance of the compliment.
“Your reassignment to command the field armies of the Department of the West will not be immediately announced,” McClellan explained. “The President regrets the negative appearances of your being relieved without announcing your reassignment, but we want the Rebels to believe that you are out of the war. That gives us all the more chance of surprising them when you strike. Please don’t take offense at this secrecy.”
“Offense must never be taken in the service of one’s country,” responded Lee.
McClellan put his arm on Lee’s shoulder. “Your sense of duty to your country before thinking of yourself inspires all of us to do our utmost duty too.”
It certainly does, thought Stanton. In time of war nations live or die according to the leadership of their generals. Lee is the personification of leadership.
“General Bragg will be in nominal command of the West until you are ready to take the field,” explained McClellan. “He will be acting as Inspector General. In that capacity he will insure an adequate standard of training of all the men assembling in the Mississippi Valley. On or about October first we will concentrate those men on the Illinois front and you will take the offensive.”
“A good plan,” acknowledged Lee. “Perhaps Bragg will not be so popular with the men, but his discipline in training will save their lives in battle.”
“Bragg isn’t popular with himself,” cracked McClellan. “He’s the only general in any man’s army who has ever ordered his own court martial!”
The men rollicked with laughter. The often-told story about Bragg ordering his own court martial for failing to follow one of his own orders to the letter was an exaggeration, but only a small one. Bragg was notorious for quarrelling with every officer within his reach. But he would hand over to Lee a superbly trained army.
“Have any candidates been selected for consideration to command here in the East?” asked Lee.
“That’s the other subject I wanted to discuss,” McClellan answered, rubbing his chin. “I’ve been thinking that perhaps I should step down as Secretary of War and assume direct command of this department. Like you, I’m a field commander, not an administrator. I suppose I’ve seen more of modern warfare than any other living man, in Mexico and in Europe. I am longing to put that practical knowledge to good use for my country.” He addressed Stanton. “How would you like to become Secretary of War, subject to the President’s approval, of course?”
Stanton was surprised by the proposition. When he composed his thoughts he answered, “Like General Lee, I will be pleased to serve my country in any capacity where I can be of the most value. I am honored by your confidence that I will be able to execute such a high responsibility.”
“Your record in Buchanan’s Cabinet speaks for itself,” McClellan assured him. “You stiffened ‘Old Buck’s’ spine sufficiently to clamp down on the secession nonsense from the Southern Fire Eaters. Otherwise they’d have been in a race with the Free State Rebels to see who could get out of the Union first. We’d be fighting Secessionists from both directions. It’s our good fortune that you decided to stick with us instead of taking a position in Lincoln’s Free State Government.”
“It wasn’t an easy decision,” Stanton confessed. “I learned to admire Mr. Lincoln while trying cases with him. Salmon Chase is my dearest friend, and he did implore me to come over to their side. But I can’t see destroying this Confederate Union because of our dispute over keeping the Negroes, who are but one-seventh of our people, as slaves.”
“I also grew very fond of Mr. Lincoln back during the days when I ran the Illinois Central and he tried railroad cases for me,” replied McClellan with a smile. “Oh, how he loved to tell stories when we stayed in those little taverns in the frontier towns! And how we laughed! Oh, too bad, that the Abolitionists have persuaded him to take up their cause!”
Stanton took off his hat and patted down the sweat gathering in his thick curly hair. “I remember reading an article last year in the St. Louis Globe predicting that this country will ultimately attain a population of six hundred million in the next century --- if we can keep it together for that long. But if we don’t stay united we’ll fall prey to the European disease of national jealousies spawning wars, famines, and plagues. Our continent will become the ruin of Mankind’s hopes instead of its salvation. We must stay united and at peace. Let’s save the country now, then we’ll address slavery later on, when the public sentiment is advanced enough to favor the gradual liberation of the Negroes.”
“A splendid way of stating the case,” agreed McClellan.
“If we break the country up now we’ll never put it back again,” Stanton elaborated. “In ten years we’ll be five or six countries. The Europeans will be sticking their noses in our affairs and making alliances with some of us to fight against the others. I saw that danger right away when the Rebels started coordinating their defiance with the British. We’ve been trying for a hundred years to get the British off our continent. Now the Rebels want to invite them back in?”
“Your view satisfies me that you are the right man for the position,” replied McClellan. “As soon as we get back to Washington City I will recommend to the President your appointment as Secretary of War and mine as commander of the Department of the East. The sooner we get things sorted out here, the sooner General Lee can get on with advancing his plans for the West.”
“What are your plans here, in the East, if I may ask?” said Lee. “Do you intend to renew the assault on Philadelphia?”
“Oh, no,” answered McClellan. “We can’t try that again. The Rebels are pouring every man and his dog into the fronts around Philadelphia and New York. They’re barricading the back door through Harrisburg as well. And this, mind you, is exactly what we want them to do, because this is the one place where we shall not attack them!”
Lee’s expression flashed surprise. “What is your plan?”
“An amphibious assault,” replied McClellan, looking off in the distance. “Landings of our armies at Boston, Portland, and Portsmouth, followed by overland advances into Hartford, Providence, and Augusta. We’ll take New England away from the Rebs while they’re all down here gawking at New York and Philly. That’s why I want Stanton to be our Secretary of War.”
McClellan looked at Stanton. “We’ll rely on you to organize the shipyards to transport our men to New England and keep them supplied with food
and equipment once they get there. We’ll rely on you to organize the rail traffic in the Mississippi Valley when Lee renews his assault in the West. This is a big country, and it will take a superb administrator of your energy to coordinate the logistics of the war across all of it.”
“Your plan to occupy Boston from the sea appears to be the same in principle to what we proposed to do in Philadelphia --- taking those people’s cities by surprise without fighting them street by street,” Lee observed.
“It’s what we must do,” confirmed McClellan. “We can’t afford another set-piece battle like we had in St. Louis. That ‘victory’ cost us nine thousand casualties. And it leveled the city.”
“The North does have a lot of cities,” said Lee. “The Free Staters can garrison each such that it would cost us an army corps to reduce. Given enough time they can prepare their defenses in depth so as to make each city prohibitively expensive for us to capture.”
“Ex-act-ly!” exclaimed McClellan. “That’s why the Insurrection must be suppressed quickly, with the least amount of death and destruction. We want the country restored in substance and in spirit. Every man who is diverted into the war is lost to the production of peaceful pursuits. Those killed and crippled are lost not only to the present generation, but to those who follow us. The longer the war continues, the more difficult it will be to restore national harmony, and the more likely the British and French will intervene on behalf of the Free States. Our victories must be rapid and complete.”
3
The White House, August 7, 1861
President Jefferson Davis called the Confederate Union Cabinet to order in the Executive Office on the 2nd floor of the White House.
“Let me begin by thanking you for your kindest expressions of support while we mourn the passing of the late President Douglas. May God rest his soul”…wherever it is. Davis glanced upward and then downward as he tried to guess where Douglas’ agnostic soul might be reposed. He fixed his eyes on a cigar box sitting atop the fireplace mantle.
“That reminds me, Adele Douglas is taking up a collection for a memorial mass to pray his soul out of Purgatory. Those who feel so inclined may place your donations in the box up there.”
Postmaster General Andrew Johnson took a pull from his ever-present flask of “medicinal” whiskey then reached into his pocket, brought out a gold dollar, and flipped it between his thumb and forefinger into the box.
“That ought to help some,” he exclaimed before belching. “Lord knows, he’s going to need all the help he can get to get out of there before the Second Coming. He surely wasn’t a religious man.”
Attorney General Alexander Stephens chuckled. “Looks like Mrs. Douglas is having the final say about that!”
“And that’s the first time anybody’s ever gotten in the last word with Stephen Douglas!” retorted the new Vice President George Pendleton of Ohio, slapping the table with his palm.
Guffaws echoed around the tables. Most of the men got up and chucked a silver or gold coin into the box.
When the clinking of coins finished Davis smiled.
“Let’s not be too hard on the old boy. I don’t know that he was so much against religion as he was against its being corrupted by human beings who misuse it to advance their political agendas. I do know that he was a patriot. The Union would have been lost by now without him. We’d have been ground between the millstones of the Black Republican Abolitionists at the North and Bill Yancey’s Fire Eating Secessionists at the South.”
Murmurs of affirmation echoed from around the tables. Davis shifted his head left and right to look the members of the Union Cabinet in the eyes. His expression became serious.
“I ask now for your patience as I assume the mantle of Chief Executive. Experience in public stations of subordinate grade has taught me that care and toil and disappointments are the price of official elevation. You will have many errors to forgive, many deficiencies to tolerate. But you will not find in me either a want of zeal or fidelity to the cause of restoring our Confederate Union. Upon your wisdom and patriotism, I rely to direct and support me in the performance of the duties required at my hands.”
Andy Johnson took another pull of whiskey, wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve, then stood up and applauded. Born and raised in a frontier cabin, Johnson had an inherent dislike for planter aristocrats of Davis’ class. But he began to warm to Davis as he sensed there might be more to the man than the haughty personality he showed to those who did not know him well. The rest of the Confederate Union Cabinet followed Johnson in standing to applaud their new President.
“With friends such as you our government cannot fail,” Davis acknowledged. “Now let us begin by welcoming Vice President Pendleton into our Cabinet. The Vice President confirms by his presence that Ohio remains fully a part of our Confederate Union.”
Pendleton bowed and the Cabinet applauded again.
“And I want to commend the Congress for accepting my invitation to include its members in this Union Cabinet,” Davis added. He looked at the three Senators and three Representatives from the Confederate Union Congress. “It is essential for the Executive and the Legislature to be of one mind in the restoration of our Confederate Union.”
I’m glad I had sense enough to invite these Congressional busybodies into my Union Cabinet before they tied their drawers in a knot criticizing my administration, especially after our defeat at Gettysburg. Taking these people into my most intimate confidence poses risks, but if they are going to criticize me, then it is better here than from the floor of Congress.
“Our Confederate Union is a confederation of sovereign communities,” Davis intoned. “We acknowledge the right of any state to assert its sovereignty, provided it does so by taking the legally required steps. To assert its sovereignty, a state legislature must vote to convene a Secession Convention of delegates duly elected by the people. The Convention must vote to approve an Ordinance of Secession. The Ordinance must be ratified by the people.
“The Insurgents have not met any of these tests,” Davis said firmly. “They have not garnered the consent of the people to reassert their sovereignty by electing a convention, passing an Ordinance of Secession, and ratifying it by popular referendum. They have instigated a Rebellion against the Confederate Union based on their dubious claim of having obtained slim majorities in several of the Free States during the recent election. Even that feeble test fails for California, Oregon, Illinois, Indiana, and New Jersey --- Free States that were won by us!”
Davis raised his right hand and waved it for emphasis.
“When I came into the Senate in ‘47, my first effort was to persuade Congress to appropriate funds to reconstruct the Capitol to the size appropriate to house the legislature of our expanding Republic.”
He looked past the Cabinet to the fogged up windows behind. They were closed tight to block the humidity and raw stink rising from the swampy grounds where human and animal waste had been poured until it bubbled up and festered in the steaming heat. He coughed and felt the irritation of the chronic sore throat he had picked up here.
Well, truth be told, perhaps that wasn’t the wisest decision I’ve ever made. If I had known Washington City was going to stink like this I would have asked Congress to move the Capitol to another place instead of expanding it here. This city has killed untold thousands with its plagues. Now it has claimed Stephen Douglas. His drinking brought him to the edge of the grave, but the deadly airs of this city pushed him over the edge. When we have put down this Rebellion I will urge Congress to remove the capital to the beautiful mountains where there is sanitation, drainage, pure flowing water, and healthy airs. We will build a great new capital in the cool, clear sunshine to celebrate the restoration of the Confederate Union.
Davis returned his thoughts to the present.
“I do not intend now for the Capitol to house the Congress of anything less than this entire Republic! I will not permit the Insurgents who have suborned the state governments of a
portion of this Confederate Union to ally themselves with foreign nations hostile to the remaining parts of it. The Insurgents are seeking to guarantee the success of their Rebellion by allying themselves to the British Monarchy and its North American Dominion. They have emboldened the French to assert their hegemony over Mexico. So now, instead of fulfilling our Manifest Destiny to master the American Continent, we are to be mastered by European Monarchies allied with Rebels who were formerly our fellow citizens!”
Treasury Secretary Howell Cobb pounded his fist on the table, shouting, “This shall not be!”
“We cannot allow it!” roared Congressman John Reagan of Texas. “We cannot allow the British and Abolitionists to threaten us from the North while the French thumb their noses at us from a cross the Rio Grande!”
Davis, caught up in their fury, uncharacteristically pounded the table with both fists.
“We will never allow our hallowed Republic to disassemble itself into squabbling tribes of petty nations to be pushed hither and yon by the European monarchies! Let us therefore devote ourselves to completing the late President Douglas’ work of placing the Confederate Union on an unshakable foundation where it may never again be disturbed by hostile powers from within or without!”
The Cabinet stood up again, applauding and whistling. The Southerners --- Aleck Stephens and Howell Cobb of Georgia; R.M.T. Hunter of Virginia; Andy Johnson of Tennessee; John Crittenden of Kentucky; and John Reagan of Texas --- were ardent Unionists. Kentucky Senator John C. Breckinridge alone was a Southern Rights man of sorts. He might have been inclined to support a Southern War of Independence if Mr. Lincoln had been elected President. But like most other Southern Rights men, he had taken up the pro-Union faith now that the extremists on the northern side of the Ohio were in rebellion against the government of his party.
The Northern men --- George McClellan of Pennsylvania; Horatio Seymour of New York; Caleb Cushing of Massachusetts; William English of Indiana; William Richardson of Illinois; and George Pendleton of Ohio --- were, if anything, even angrier with their fellow Northerners whom they believed had walked into secession and treason because they valued the Negro more than the Union.
