Reveille in Washington

by Margaret Leech

  Of McDowell’s faithfulness to his duty, Pope spoke in praise. But that earnest officer, who could not remember names and faces, and spoke with “rough indifference” to his soldiers, had again been unfortunate as a commander. He had failed too often. His men would no longer fight under him. Calumnies, ranging from treason to drunkenness, assailed him, and he sought to clear himself by asking for a court of inquiry. The court exonerated McDowell, but he did not again receive a command in the field.

  Halleck, however, remained at his post. He had not essayed to bear a gallant part, and there was little notoriety in his failure. Whipped at his desk, he lingered on in Washington, exercising tyrannical authority over the mass of army details. He was still nominally the general-in-chief, but actually, as John Hay quoted Lincoln as saying, “little more than a first-rate clerk.”

  The incapacity of the Union commanders was a scandal over which Cabinet members shook their heads. Mr. Welles ascribed their dilatoriness to their West Point education, which instilled a defensive policy; and, quite overlooking Lee and Jackson, declared that “no efficient, energetic, audacious, fighting commanding general had yet appeared from that institution.” Montgomery Blair blamed Stanton for the defects of the generals, and said that he should not give way to narrow prejudices and personal dislikes, but should search out good officers—“should dig up these jewels.”

  The reputation of the soldiers of the East, as well as of the officers, was blighted. The ranks of the veterans were thinned, not only by death and wounds and capture, but by the dark contagion of desertion. Exhaustion and hunger and loss of faith had demoralized thousands of the soldiers. They flooded back in disorder on the Alexandria road, flopped down to rest, indifferent to the tumult of the retreating infantry and cavalry, artillery and wagons. Their great fires illuminated the whole countryside. Across the bridges, they crowded into the capital, congregated in low groggeries and staggered drunken and loud-mouthed in droves on every street. Hundreds of officers, absent from their commands, were rounded up in Washington hotels and other public places in “such general hauls . . . . as the police of New York are at times compelled to make of the inmates of the notable dance houses.” Washington saw the dead beats and the shirking officers, and believed that they represented the armies of the Union. The backwash of this retreat was not soon forgotten. So many organizations were dissolved, so many men were too sick and jaded for duty that a convalescent camp was formed for them at Alexandria. It was an immense, comfortless dump heap for the misfits of the army, and throughout the war it was a disgrace to Federal management; but the need for it persisted, and it remained.

  Monotonously every day, the incoming volunteers lined up at the depot. One morning, the Soldiers’ Retreat fed over seven thousand men. “We are coming, Father Abraham.” Into a soured and despairing city, they brought their awkwardly held rifles, their inexperienced faces that had never looked on war.

  The cause of the Union had never seemed so hopeless. To the people of Washington it appeared that Lee’s victorious army would be faced by a force of drunken stragglers and the legions of the raw recruits. But the capital had not forgotten the summer of 1861, and, in spite of the belief that the veterans were demoralized, many eyes turned with hope to McClellan’s house on H Street. The Army of Virginia no longer existed. All the troops—Pope’s, Burnside’s, the new volunteers—were consolidated in the Army of the Potomac. Once more McClellan went out to inspect the fortifications and the camps, once more he galloped along the Avenue, with his staff pelting behind him. There were a few changes. The French princes had gone back to Europe. One of the aides, appointed on the Peninsula, could ride as hard as McClellan—a long-haired, reckless lad called Custer.

  For over a week, the wounded came back to Washington by train and boat and in vehicles of every description. The provost guard commandeered private carriages for service between the wharves and depot and the hospitals. To the consternation of the State Department, the Prussian minister, Baron Gerolt, was unceremoniously deprived of his conveyance and left standing in the street; and, to prevent diplomatic incidents, Frederick Seward hastened to get safeguards for all the foreign ministers from Wadsworth. A horrified sergeant rode up in time to rescue the President’s barouche, stopped by one of the troopers. Lincoln said that the man was doing his duty.

  The guard had become the bugbear of the Avenue. When the hacks were back on their stands, a waggish gentleman at Willard’s whispered that the provost marshal was about to send for the drivers. In a minute, the double line of carriages had wheeled and made off “in a cloud of oaths and dust” in the direction of the Island. The alarm spread to the stands at Kirkwood’s, Brown’s and the National, and soon the Avenue was as empty of hacks as it had been on the night of the battle.

  After the army came the long trains of noncombatants—sutlers’ men, traders, laborers and other camp followers. Strangers descended on Washington as merrily as though there had been a victory. Volunteer surgeons and nurses continued to arrive until there were more than five hundred in the city. Most of them indignantly made their way home, after a vain attempt to get their expenses paid by the Government; but some lingered in the hope of finding an opportunity to attend the wounded. Washington was so crowded that it was almost as hard to move in the back streets as on the Avenue. The bakers, unprepared for the demand, could not supply enough bread to feed the people.

  Meanwhile, Lee’s army appeared to have withdrawn. Rumors came that it was crossing the upper Potomac. The President, consumed with anxiety to find and hurt the enemy, ordered Halleck on September 3 to organize an army immediately for active operations. Halleck passed the word along to McClellan.

  That week, McClellan performed something very like a miracle. In the camps and fortifications, the broken brigades seemed to re-form by magic. This had been a conglomeration of soldiers. When McClellan spoke the word, it was an army. Its organization was imperfect, its clothing, ammunition and supplies were all in sad condition. No commander ever had more excuse for saying that his men were not ready to fight; but for once McClellan was able to lay aside his desire for a perfection not attainable in human enterprise. He took command on Tuesday. On Thursday, he threw out the advance of his force to the north. On Friday, the army marched.

  The bummers had not all been cleared from the streets, and people were still clucking and headshaking over the demoralization of the troops, when the Army of the Potomac came swinging along the Avenue. Washington had known regiments of sturdy boys, American individualists, smartly drilled and perfectly equipped. They had returned as veterans. Every reduced brigade had its iron column of fighting men. With the tendrils of home and family and small ambitions quick about them, they had learned to subdue their strongest traditions, and yield uncritical obedience to an arbitrary command. Scarred by war and weather, with their bleached and scanty uniforms and their dirty, shredded flags, they wore a look of hard utility. Their collars had been wilted in the sweat of the Chickahominy, leggings and gaiters had littered the Peninsula from Mechanicsville to Malvern Hill. Men marched in shirt sleeves or blue blouses, open at the throat, with trousers rolled at the ankle, and tucked into gray woolen socks. There were worn-out caps of every style, and hats of straw and of palm leaf, of brown and black and soiled white wool. The trappings of the officers’ horses no longer glittered. The gold-embroidered shoulder straps were tarnished, or replaced by common metal, and the crimson sashes were faded or gone. It was a shabby and seasoned army that brought the gaping citizens to the pavements. The troops did not pass the White House, but turned into H Street, to cheer McClellan lustily as they went by his house.

  By every road the long columns marched, recruits brigaded with veterans; by Seventh Street, Fourteenth Street, out by the Kalorama, by Georgetown. Reversing the usual order, soldiers pounded across the bridges from Virginia into Washington. This was a defending, not an invading army. It was marching to the north.

  Seward’s cheerful spirit had been saddened. “Mr. Hay, wh
at is the use of growing old?” he asked. “You learn something of men and things but never until too late to use it. I have only just now found out what military jealousy is.” As was his custom in the late afternoon, when he had dealt with his “croaking, litigious, foreign mail,” he went out for a drive on Friday, and paused by the roadside near Tennallytown to watch the troops go by. At the head of the column, marching in a brisk route step to the tap of a single drum, came the strong soldiers, with their eyes on the road ahead; cheering, as now and then an officer would recognize the silver-haired man by the roadside, but never slackening their pace. Then came squads that lounged forward lazily and unevenly, disintegrating here and there into knots of men who stopped to talk or take a rest. Trailing behind them, with no pretense of order, came a shambling rabble of laggards—old skulkers, convalescents, limping recruits. With furtive glances behind them, they scrambled over the ditches into the fields, or prowled off toward the farmhouses. Last of all, sounded the sharp, steady tread of the army provost guard, coming to pick up the stragglers and deserters. “Those first soldiers are the ones the country must depend on for its victories,” Mr. Seward remarked. “These later ones are those that only turn up on pay-day.”

  McClellan had been expressly informed that his command was confined to the troops defending Washington. Burnside, again offered the active command, had for a second time declined it. The Army of the Potomac was advancing on Lee’s forces without a leader. McClellan prepared to follow his men. Halleck said that the President told McClellan to take command in the field. Lincoln said that the responsibility was Halleck’s. There was no written order, and McClellan affirmed that he received no directions at all. He thought that, in the excited state of feeling in the capital, he might well be condemned to death, if the army were defeated. Firmly and promptly, he made his decision; but some puerility in his nature persuaded him to disfigure it with a piece of impudence. Like a gentleman leaving a town where he had been hospitably received, he inscribed on three of his visiting cards the initials, P.P.C.—“Pour Prendre Congé.” With his staff and personal escort, he rode on Sunday to the White House, the War Office and Seward’s house, and left a card at each.

  In the evening, while taking a walk with his son, Edgar, Mr. Welles observed a cavalcade on the Avenue near H Street, and remarked that their mounts seemed better than usual. Edgar, with the sharper eyes of youth, reported that this was no squad of cavalry, but General McClellan and his staff. As they dashed past and the Secretary of the Navy raised his hand in salute, the general pulled up his horse, and rode over to the sidewalk to take his leave. Welles inquired which way he was going. McClellan said that he was proceeding to take command of the onward movement. “Well,” hinted the Secretary, “onward, General, is now the word; the country will expect you to go forward.” McClellan said that it was his intention. “Success to you, then, General, with all my heart,” said Mr. Welles. Thus, fortuitously, a representative of the Government sped McClellan on his way.

  With the departure of the army and its commander, Cabinet members, senators, and heads of Government bureaus ran from office to office with stories that hostility to the administration was rampant in the Army of the Potomac. These tales were not without foundation. Supercilious West Pointers in McClellan’s command had openly sneered at the Government as well as General Pope, and bragged about clearing the Republicans out of Washington and putting the army in power. At Harrison’s Landing one night, Burnside had moved into a fire-lit circle with the blunt words, “I don’t know what you fellows call this talk, but I call it flat Treason, By God!” Washington called it flat Treason. Senator Henry Wilson assured Gideon Welles that there was a conspiracy among certain generals for a revolution—he had obtained important information from a member of McClellan’s staff. Welles reflected that Wilson was “by nature suspicious and sensational“; and as chairman of the Military Affairs Committee he came under Stanton’s influence. Most sensible men concluded that the threats were mere bluster and camp talk; but the more excitable politicians trembled at the menace of military dictatorship. McClellan rode in triumph into Frederick, a Union town which pelted him with flowers, and decked Dan Webster’s bridle with little flags. The army was filled with confidence and vigor, and even Chase admitted that it might have been hazardous, in view of the condition of the troops, to have dismissed McClellan.

  McClellan led his army slowly forward, sending back entreaties to Halleck to reinforce him. He wanted all the troops in Washington, where General Banks had been left in command of the defenses. Even if the capital should be taken, McClellan said, its capture would not compare in importance with the defeat of the Army of the Potomac. Lee sent a large detachment to lay siege to Harper’s Ferry. McClellan did not relieve the garrison at the Ferry, which presently surrendered. Neither did he take the opportunity to attack Lee’s reduced army. In gloomy depression, Washington awaited the clash of arms from Maryland. Even the secessionists had lost their joyful spirits, for Maryland had not risen in insurrection, as they had fondly expected, on the arrival of the rebel forces.

  General Mansfield came in to call on Mr. Chase, feeling himself wronged. Scott had treated him badly, superseding him by McDowell, and at Fort Monroe he had fared no better under General Wool, who did not like him. Now he had been called to a court of inquiry at Washington. Mansfield’s beard was white, but he wanted active service. Chase, touched by his story, found himself wishing that the stiff, resentful old soldier were a younger man. After all, Mansfield had his way. He was sent to Maryland, and placed in command of Banks’s former corps, the Twelfth, a week after he talked with Chase. Two days later he fell, mortally wounded, while cheering on his troops.

  On September 15, Washington had news of a victory at South Mountain, a spur of the Blue Ridge, beyond which Lee’s army was massed. The hotels, public offices and promenades were filled with smiling unionists, and “McClellan stock went up generally.” In the evening, a large crowd gathered before the bulletin board at the Star office. When a man said that he wanted the news confirmed, for “McClellan was no more reliable than Pope,” he was struck instantaneous blows on each side of the head by two bystanders. “Divil take the man who would say a word again McClellan after hearing that news,” said an Irishman who was one of the assailants.

  Two days later, there was furious fighting at Sharpsburg, along the Antietam Creek. There, in the golden air of September, for fourteen hours the armies contended; and, at the close of day, twenty thousand men from North and South lay dead and wounded in the narrow country lanes, the ripe cornfields and the laden orchards. McClellan claimed a great victory—'’a masterpiece of art.” Lee called it a drawn battle. The losses of the Union were a little the heavier. But the tide of gray rolled back from Maryland, and the North went wild with joy.

  Lee’s army made its escape into Virginia. McClellan did not follow. His thirst for battle had been quenched in the blood of Antietam. He had learned to fight aggressively, but he could not pursue or destroy. After South Mountain, he had received a telegram, signed Winfield Scott. “Bravo, my dear general!” it ran. “Twice more and it’s done.” But once more was all that McClellan was able to manage.

  The breach between McClellan and the Government widened. His partisans included not only patriotic members of the Democratic party, but peace advocates, soreheads with a grudge against the administration, secession sympathizers. He was being spoken of as the Democratic nominee for President in 1864. The military proclamation of emancipation which the President issued that month was said to have awakened great dissatisfaction among McClellan’s soldiers. There was a story that he did not pursue the enemy because it was not “the game” to destroy the rebel army and end the war, but rather to bring about a compromise settlement which should preserve the institution of slavery. The President traced the report to a major who was the brother of one of McClellan’s staff officers, and personally examined and dismissed him from the service as an example.

  One early morning,
while visiting McClellan’s camp, Lincoln climbed a hill from which he could see the white tents stretching for miles in the rising sun. “Do you know what this is?” he asked a friend who accompanied him. “It is the Army of the Potomac,” said the gentleman, in surprise. “So it is called,” said Lincoln, “but that is a mistake; it is only McClellan’s bodyguard.”

  On his return to Washington, the President sent McClellan orders to cross the Potomac, and give battle to the enemy or drive him south. McClellan did not obey. The dashing rebel commander, General Jeb Stuart, galloped his cavalry completely around the Army of the Potomac—a contemptuous feat he had already performed on the Peninsula. His raid extended into Pennsylvania, where at Chambersburg he took much plunder of stores, horses and cattle.

  Washington went to the circus, where P. T. Barnum’s famous pygmies were the chief attraction. Tom Thumb was the most admired general in town, and Commodore Nutt was received at the White House and sang “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean” for the Cabinet. Guns sounded along the Potomac, as sportsmen invaded the marshes. The military occupation had enforced a quiet season the year before, and reedbirds, blackbirds, blue-wing duck and jacksnipe were plentiful.

  The fine autumn days went past. The capital grew restless, waiting for Lee’s army to be driven from the Valley. Little was said in the Cabinet meetings, clouded by discouragement. Now and then, Stanton’s voice uttered a musical sneer; but for the most part he brooded in silence. With McClellan in power, he felt that his importance and influence were gone, and he threatened to resign.

  For six weeks, the Army of the Potomac lay in Maryland. The country groaned with impatience and dissatisfaction. Stocks declined. Volunteering lagged. The State ballot boxes gave a verdict adverse to the administration. The President repeatedly begged, persuaded and ordered McClellan to advance. McClellan said that the army was not ready. It was true that his soldiers were in need—like those of General Lee, though not so sorely—of shoes, blankets, clothing, horses and camp equipment. McClellan’s mood was one of proud, dark, brooding resentment. His communications with Stanton and Halleck were few and rigidly formal. He regarded himself as the savior of his country, who should be spared interference. Much of his time was spent in controversies with the Quartermaster’s Department over his supplies—those supplies that he had been able to forget in his great phase of resolution in September.