Reveille in Washington

by Margaret Leech

  McClellan was in a difficult position. He considered the Virginia roads impassable for army trains and artillery, and thought it impracticable to make an advance on Manassas before spring. It was unreasonable to expect him to take all official Washington into his confidence. There was much leakage of information, and the knowledge that he did not plan to move would have been of the greatest value to the Confederates. Moreover, he was considering a new line of advance—transporting his army by way of the lower Chesapeake to the neighborhood of Richmond. McClellan was justified in reticence; not in a haughty silence. Meigs privately appealed to him to speak, to promise some movement toward Manassas. The general replied that, if he told his plans to the President, they would be in the New York Herald the next morning. He added that Mr. Lincoln could not keep a secret—he would tell Tad. McClellan, still a sick man, was in a morbidly distrustful frame of mind. He scented a conspiracy. His suspicion of McDowell may have been sharpened by the fact that the latter was the protégé of Chase. There was in fact one conspiratorial figure in the case. It was that of Mr. Edwin Stanton. Apparently befriending McClellan, he was secretly in league with the radical Secretary of the Treasury. Mr. Stanton was a force to reckon with. The President had just appointed him Secretary of War.

  The removal of Cameron was an important step in restoring public confidence in the administration. There was some murmuring among the antislavery faction, for Cameron had attempted to make an official recommendation that the slaves should be armed, and had been forced by the President to withdraw it. The country applauded the appointment. In Buchanan’s Cabinet, Stanton had made a reputation as a strong Union man. Although since the outbreak of war he had condemned the Republican administration and vilified the President, he was intimate with Mr. Seward, with whom he had intrigued during the Buchanan administration. It soon appeared that he would act in wholehearted co-operation with the Republican radicals. Stanton was energetic, impatient and entirely ignorant of military affairs. He brought pressure on McClellan for an immediate advance, and the Committee on the Conduct of the War was delighted with him.

  Anthony Trollope had felt sorrowful at the impotence of Congress. It might vote committees of inquiry, might ask questions without end—but it had no power, Trollope mused. The army had thrown the legislators out of favor, “the rough-shod generals were the men of the day.” The genial Englishman discounted the self-preservative instinct of demagogues, and he had had scant opportunities of knowing men like Ben Wade and Zach Chandler.

  The Committee on the Conduct of the War sat in a room in the Capitol basement, and to its door the generals marched like schoolboys summoned for a secret examination. Ben Wade was in the chair, a grand inquisitor coarse and shrewd, with sharp little jet-black eyes. At the corners of his mouth, the upper lip doubled down over the lower one, giving him a ferocious look. His questions poked and pried into all the affairs of the army; they invited the officers to criticize, to make their own recommendations. Some were flattered, and enthusiastically spilled out pet plans of campaign. Others answered stiffly, resenting these infringements of military regulations.

  “. . . We must stir ourselves,” Ben Wade said, “on account of the expense.” He made another explanation: “We are endeavoring to see if there is any way in God’s world to get rid of the capital besieged, while Europe is looking down upon us as almost a conquered people.” Enmity to McClellan dictated most of the questions. If they had a Napoleon at the head of the army, they might feel easy. “But,” cried Ben Wade on an almost Biblical note, “how can this nation abide the secret counsels that one man carries in his head, when we have no evidence that he is the wisest man in the world.”

  McClellan was summoned before the Joint Committee, and parried questions about his plans. He made a long discourse on military methods, and remained courteous under a sarcastic examination. After it was over, Chandler told Wade that the delay in advancing appeared to be a case of “infernal, unmitigated cowardice.” McClellan had further angered the radicals by barring the Virginia camps to the melodious Hutchinson family, whom Secretary Cameron had permitted to give concerts to the soldiers. The Army of the Potomac was not a force of abolitionists. Many of the men disliked the anti-slavery songs the Hutchinsons sang. The Star protested against turning the camps into “arenas for political pow-wowing.” It was, however, an unfortunate moment for McClellan to add fresh fuel to the suspicions of his enemies. He might have been warned by the speed with which the whispers against another Democrat, Charles P. Stone, had swelled to an accusing chorus of treason.

  Ben Wade and his colleagues passed judgment on Stone in January. Unfriendly officers had come down from the upper Potomac to blacken Stone’s name with the charge of disloyalty. Republicans lent a willing ear to the slander of a general who had been lenient in his treatment of Maryland slaveholders. In his absence, Stone was tried, condemned and sentenced in the star-chamber court, and Mr. Stanton issued an order for his arrest. At McClellan’s request that Stone might be heard in his own defense, he was called before the Joint Committee. None of his detractors confronted him. The vague accusations of communicating with the enemy were repeated; and Stone sat staring at the committee, a reserved and fastidious man, who, save for the droop of his mustaches and a nervous rigidity of carriage, resembled a portrait by Van Dyck. In his outrage, his words tumbled over each other. “That is one humiliation I had hoped I never should be subjected to,” he cried to Ben Wade. “I thought there was one calumny that could not be brought against me . . . . I raised all the volunteer troops that were here during the seven dark days of last winter. . . . I could have surrendered Washington.” He had hardly been out of his clothes for the last year, he went on. Guarding the outposts of the capital, he got into his blankets every night without undressing. The most he had ever done was to pull off his boots.

  “If you want more faithful soldiers you must find them elsewhere. I have been as faithful as I can be. . . .” General Stone might have saved his breath. He was arrested and sent to Fort Lafayette.

  Late in January, the President took the unusual course of issuing an order that the land and naval forces of the Union should move on February 22. This was shortly followed by an order specifically directing that the Army of the Potomac, after providing for the defense of Washington, should make an expedition against Manassas. It was common talk among the army officers that McClellan’s star was setting, and that nothing but a victory could save him.

  In Kentucky, a victory had been gained by Union troops commanded by General George H. Thomas, a Virginian whom Lincoln had rather reluctantly promoted on Sherman’s recommendation. Good news came from Burnside’s expedition which, in co-operation with a naval force under Admiral Goldsborough, took Roanoke Island, valuable to the Federals in tightening the blockade. In prompt compliance with the President’s order, another military and naval expedition, General Grant and Commodore Foote commanding, soon won highly important successes in the West. The capture of Fort Henry on the Tennessee was followed by the surrender of Fort Donelson on the Cumberland, opening western and central Tennessee to Federal occupation. These victories, after months of discouragement, were hailed with joy through the loyal States. The unknown brigadier, U. S. Grant, became overnight the hero of the Union. He had sent a terse dispatch to the Confederate commander at Donelson. “No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works.” The decisive words won a nation’s applause. Grant spoke like a soldier, and he was acclaimed with proud nicknames. The initials, U. S., stood for United States, Uncle Sam, Unconditional Surrender.

  The Army of the Potomac dawdled around Washington, polishing its buttons and stirrups. The perfection on which McClellan insisted was extravagantly exemplified in his personal preparations for taking the field. Twenty-four wagons and two traveling carriages, drawn by four finely matched bay horses, had been provided for the commanding general and his staff. The carriages were ingeniously fitted for sleepin
g, eating and writing en route.

  Even before his wife joined him at Washington, McClellan had relaxed his program of unremitting work. Late in November, he had entertained a large gathering at his quarters with a display of the magical powers of the conjuror, Professor Hermann. Mr. Russell had remarked at the time that the general’s party would be “aggravating news to the bloody-minded, serious people in New England.” All of McClellan’s social activities were scrutinized by bloody-minded, serious people in Washington. It was observed that he took his meals luxuriously at the restaurant of Wormley, the mulatto caterer, and gave elaborate dinners, with a variety of wines, almost every afternoon. There would be twenty guests at least, and they were not friends of the administration, either. “This army has got to fight or run away,” wrote Mr. Stanton; “and while men are striving nobly in the West, the champagne and oyster suppers on the Potomac must be stopped.” Mrs. McClellan gave a large reception in February, shortly after a grand party at the White House had set the abolitionists raging at the unsuitability of extravagant entertainment in Washington.

  Mr. Stanton had cleared the swindling contractors from the War Department, and the new uniforms were made of wool, instead of shoddy. Save for the Zouave organizations, the entire Army of the Potomac was being clad in light-blue trousers and a tunic of dark blue. A mark of red distinguished the artillery; the cavalry had a note of yellow. Most regiments wore the kepi, though some had hats of soft black felt. McClellan’s soldiers looked like an army, and they felt the change and were proud of it.

  Around Fort Donelson, the blood of men in shoddy reddened the snow. Republican politicians looked with a jaundiced eye at the Army of the Potomac. Its accouterments were shining. There was a glimpse of snowy collar above the good wool tunics. Many soldiers had white gloves, some wore white gaiters. The force of bootblacks at Willard’s had been trebled. Officers tied crimson sashes about their tightly fitted coats. The West Point generals were splendid in gold-embroidered shoulder straps and gauntlets and plumed felt hats. One of the finest was General Fitz-John Porter, a cold, autocratic, accomplished soldier, very intimate with McClellan. Another superb military figure was General Joe Hooker, with blue eyes shining in his florid, handsome, conceited face. General Phil Kearny, who had fought with the French in Algiers and Italy, clipped his beard to a point, and slanted his kepi in the French manner. His look of lean distinction was enhanced by an empty coat sleeve, for he had lost an arm in the Mexican campaign. Mounted on horses with costly trappings, followed by smart retinues of aides, the generals of the Army of the Potomac increased the disquiet of the gentlemen of Congress. The aristocratic traditions of West Point paraded in Washington in glory and power. McClellan was ruling the army with a little clique of professional soldiers, confiding his plans to his special pets, the arrogant Fitz-John Porter, and the quiet, cautious Franklin. Dazzled with prejudice and frightened by swank, the Republican radicals were reaching the conclusion that McClellan had traitorous intentions.

  In fact, since the order for a movement on Manassas, McClellan had been ceaselessly urging on the President and the Secretary of War his plan to move on Richmond by way of the lower Chesapeake. Mr. Lincoln’s order had proved to be only a full-sounding pronunciamento. He did not like McClellan’s idea of stripping the capital of its great army, but he listened to it, and invited the general to justify his project. Mr. Stanton, though entirely opposed to the plan, made arrangements for transports and supplies. If the Army of the Potomac was to be removed from Washington, there were two things that must be done, the President told McClellan. One was to clear the rebel batteries from the Potomac. The general agreed. He was even more co-operative in his response to the President’s second requirement, that he should open the line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, repeatedly attacked by the enemy. McClellan intended to make a demonstration on the upper Potomac, reinforcing General Banks for a movement from Harper’s Ferry on the Confederates at Winchester in the Valley. To carry troops and supplies across the river, a strong bridge was needed, and McClellan decided on a bridge constructed of canal boats. He entered on his preparations with energy, sent large numbers of boats up the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, went himself to Harper’s Ferry and ordered up additional troops. At the last moment, however, it was discovered that the boats were six inches too wide to pass through the lift lock from the canal to the river. McClellan countermanded the reinforcements, made a reconnaissance, and returned, well satisfied, to Washington. The expedition to Winchester, said Mr. Chase, ponderously essaying a witticism, had died of lockjaw.

  On February 22, the military routine of the encampments was undisturbed by the President’s order for a movement on Manassas. Crape hung on the White House door, and in the Green Room the undertakers were busy, for Willie Lincoln had died of typhoid fever. The illuminations, ordered for Washington’s Birthday in honor of the Union successes in the West, were hastily canceled. Some private houses displayed colored lanterns, and others had busts of General Washington, crowned with flowers, in the windows. Cheated of their celebration, the children set off Chinese crackers, and ran that night in the streets with transparencies and torches.

  They buried Willie Lincoln on a day of great wind, that tore the roofs off houses and slashed the flags to ribbons. The father drove, unseeing, through the wreckage in a carriage with Robert and the two Illinois senators, Trumbull and Browning. Mrs. Lincoln was too ill to attend the funeral services.

  Early in March, the capital saw another funeral cortege. General Frederick W. Lander—the husband of the lovely actress whom John Hay admired—had been in command in western Virginia, and during the winter his skirmishes with the Confederates had been the only military movements in the neighborhood of Washington. Lander had sickened, died at his post. Now his body came jolting through the mud, to be drawn on a caisson with military pomp. McCleìlan was one of the pallbearers. An observer noted that his face was “shaded by grief“; but General Franklin told General Meade (who wrote it to his wife) that McClellan had said to him that he almost wished he was in the coffin, instead of Lander.

  In the moist air, there was a premonition of spring. Still, beyond the narrow, mired roads, Manassas waited. McClellan firmly refused to go against that stronghold, and the transports were gathering to take the Army of the Potomac to a Virginia battlefield of their general’s choosing. He had won consent to his plan, but there was thunderous disapproval. Lincoln, distracted by sorrow for his dead boy, was almost overwhelmed by the clamor for McClellan’s removal. At seven-thirty in the morning, he sent for the general, and between the two men the word traitor flashed like a drawn sword. McClellan sprang to his feet, demanding that the President retract the expression. In agitation, Mr. Lincoln disclaimed that the idea was his own. He was merely repeating what others said, that the plan of withdrawing the army from the defense of Washington had a traitorous intent. McClellan suggested that he should be careful in his language. The President again apologized.

  At terrible cost to his own prestige, Lincoln retained McClellan in command, and permitted him to embark his troops, but his war orders revealed how deeply his confidence was shaken. Without consulting or even informing McClellan in advance, he directed that the twelve divisions of the Army of the Potomac should be formed into four corps—an organization which had been urged by the Committee on the Conduct of the War, but which McClellan had wished to postpone until he had tested his generals in the field. The President himself specified the corps commanders—McDowell, Heintzelman, Edwin Sumner, and Keyes, who had been secretary to General Scott. Not one was a favorite with McClellan. At a military council, recently called at the President’s instigation, all save Keyes had expressed themselves as opposed to the movement by the lower Chesapeake, and Keyes had qualified his assent to McClellan’s plan by saying that the Potomac batteries should first be reduced. Another Executive order substantiated the point which Keyes had made, and appointed the date of March 18 for the army’s movement—“and the General-in-Chief,” th
e order continued, “shall be responsible that it moves as early as that day.” Most important of all to the capital was the President’s decree that a force adequate to protect Washington should be left behind. The corps commanders were to be consulted regarding the size of this force.

  On Sunday morning, March 9, Gideon Welles rushed over to the White House where he found the President and Mr. Stanton in great alarm. There was bad news from Hampton Roads. For some time, the Government had been informed that the Confederates had been making ready an ironclad ship. They had raised the United States frigate Merrimac from Norfolk harbor, found her hull and engines serviceable, and fitted her with an iron ram and a roof of iron plates. Now there was a telegram saying that the Merrimac had come down from Norfolk to spread destruction in Hampton Roads. Wooden ships had been helpless before the armored monster, the Congress and the Cumberland shot and rammed, the Minnesota driven aground. “If she sinks our ships,” Captain Gustavus Fox, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, had previously said to Lincoln, “who is to prevent her dropping her anchor in the Potomac . . . . and throwing her hundred-pound shells into this room, or battering down the walls of the Capitol?” “The Almighty, captain,” Lincoln had replied. The event found the President wanting in tranquil faith. In his nervously overwrought condition, he showed uncharacteristic excitement, sent his carriage for his friend, Browning, and drove off with him to the Navy Yard to fetch Commander Dahlgren. He wanted a professional opinion on the possibility that the Merrimac might attack Washington, but Dahlgren could give him “little comfort,” and referred him back to Mr. Welles. Stanton, Seward, Chase, McClellan, Meigs and other officers stood around the President’s office, while the Secretary of the Navy explained that there was a ray of hope. The United States ironclad Monitor, barely completed, had reached Hampton Roads on the preceding night. Designed by the Swedish inventor, John Ericsson, she was a new experiment in fighting vessels—a queer little craft, with a low armored deck, surmounted by a revolving turret. She had been condemned by all the older naval officers; but Captain Fox had been enthusiastic about giving the design a trial, and Mr. Welles had taken the risk of bringing censure and ridicule on his department. That Sunday morning, while Washington tremblingly awaited the news from Hampton Roads, the old newspaperman from Hartford was made uncomfortably aware of the great responsibility he had assumed. There was no one to stand by him. Dahlgren offered no support, and the vigorous Captain Fox was at Hampton Roads. Mr. Welles calmly expressed his confidence in the Monitor. When he said that she had two guns, against the ten carried by the Merrimac, Mr. Stanton gave him a “mingled look of incredulity and contempt. . . .” It was beyond the powers of Mr. Welles to describe that look, or the sneering tone of Mr. Stanton’s voice.