Conduct Of The War

BY JOHN C. ABBOTT.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27, 1862.

To the Editors of the Evening Post:  There are two parties in Washington and throughout the country, taking somewhat opposite views respecting the mode of conducting this war.  The one party is anxious still to conciliate the South, and not to strike blows so heavy as to exasperate them beyond all hope of reconciliation.  They think that if we make a very great show of strength, so as to convince them of the hopelessness of their achieving their object by force of arms, and if we can satisfy them that we are still their friends, and have no disposition, either directly or indirectly, to interfere with their slaves, but on the contrary are rather disposed to aid them in holding the slaves in bondage, we may thus regain the confidence of the south, and lure them back again into the Union.  Persuasion alone will not do this.  There must be tremendous military display and some signal victories, to convince the seceders of the power of the general government.  And then, when the prodigal is starving among the swine, we must meet them with the best robe and the fatted calf.  Men of undoubted patriotism and of high intelligence take this view.  It is unquestionable, in the main, the view taken by McClellan, while he is still disposed to push the war with vigor for the accomplishment of this end.

THE SERIOUS CHARACTER OF THE REBELLION.

There is another party in Washington and all over the country, who take a different view.  To them it is an atrocious and desperate crime, which has been the growth of years.  The leaders of the rebellion, men of the highest position in rank, wealth, and abilities have staked upon the issue of the conflict their earthy all.  With almost maniacal energy they have summoned every resource at their disposal to demolish the constitution of the United States.  Upon the ruins of our free institutions they would reconstruct another government, in the hands of a slave holding oligarchy.  This government, like the aristocratic republic of the Venetian Doges, would develop great power, and gradually extend its sway over all the middle and eastern states, leaving New England outside, helpless in its weakness, and of necessity tributary to the tremendous power of the new government, which could at any time inundate New England with her armies.  They say that it is a marvel that this plan had not succeeded.  Many influential men in the North were in sympathy with it.  Many leading papers were ready to advocate it.  Noting but the simultaneous and almost miraculous uprising of the masses of the north, after the fall of Sumter, checked its career.

A prominent member of Mr. Buchanan’s cabinet said to me last evening, that day after day he attended the cabinet meetings, almost in anguish, alike appalled by the eagerness and exultation of the South in the successful progress of their plans, and by the apparent apathy of the North, which seemed both blind and deaf.

These men affirm that even now the rebellion is a far more fearful reality than many imagine; that the leaders are men of great administrative power, impelled by the energies of despair; that millions of money are yet to be expended in defence of our country, and thousands of lives to be sacrificed.  They saw that this foe was to powerful to be dallied with, and must be assailed with all, all the force at our command.  I think that these are the views entertained by Secretary Stanton.

Had these views been cherished by those who had command of our armies at the commencement of this striFe, in their view, it can hardly be doubted that the strife would now have been at an end.  Had the decree been issued: “Our country is in peril, and every man who will rush to its rescue, black or white, bond or free, shall be honored and rewarded,” the battle would have soon been over.

ERRORS OF OUR MILITARY OFFICERS.

I am in possession of information which allows me to say, without any fear of contradiction from any military officer in Washington, that had the Generals known, as they now know, what was the real condition of the rebels at Manassas last December, there would have been an immediate advance, and the rebels would have been driven from their strongholds in utter rout.  Why did we not know this?  The answer to this question is very instructive.

In all Napoleon’s wars, he found no difficulty in obtaining the most accurate information respecting his foes.  He was fighting for the rights of the people against aristocratic usurpation.  Even when on the Continent, the people knew, as by instinct, that he was their friend.  Consequently they were ever crowding to his camp with intelligence, and ready to act as guides. – Now there were tens of thousands of men in the vicinity of Manassas, many of whom were white men, and nearly all partially white, who were men of energy, and who were our friends, eagerly watching for our coming.  Familiar with every ravine, and morass, and forest path, no earthly power could have kept them from escaping to our camp, if, with insanity almost unparalleled in the history of the world, we had not discouraged them from coming.

Will future ages believe that, under these circumstances, some of our generals issued orders not to allow these, our friends, to enter our lines?  Others, like Gen. Stone, when one of these men happen to get within the lines, would allow the man called his master, though a rebel against our flag, to ride into our camp, and there, under the Stars and Stripes, to which this patriot had fled for protection, to tie a rope around his neck and trot off, dragging him back to bondage.  As soon as this wretched victim of this insane policy was again within the entrenchments of Manassas he was scourged, as an example to others to beware how they carried intelligence to the Stars and Stripes.  An then with his back lacerated with the lash from the neck to heels, he was driven into the trenches, to throw up ramparts which our fathers, brothers and sons were to attempt to scale, and before which, as in that awful day at Bull Run, they were to be mown down before the artillery of the foe.

EFFECTS OF A TIMOROUS POLICY.

We wonder not that a French writer has remarked that “such a mode of conducting war excites the contempt of every military man in Europe.”  And we wonder not that God should frown upon such outrages. – There was no necessity of any general act of emancipation; simply the cordial welcome to our lines of every man ready to aid in the defence of our imperiled country would have given us that information, which last December would have placed Manassas and all its stores, in our hands.  Millions upon millions of money we have lost by the policy which has been pursued, and no one can tell how many thousands of valuable lives.

An advance immediately is next to impossible.  To send our friends to storm these batteries, wading knee deep through the mire and dragging their guns up to the axels in mud, would be cruel indeed.  When the dreadful day shall come, as come now ‘ere long it must, when the assault is to be made which will send grief to thousands of homes, we must, to secure success, have in our favor roads over which our troops can pass with some rapidity.  Such roads we shall now, within a few weeks, have.  And then, probably, after the loss of three months of time, and a vastly increased expenditure of treasure and blood, Manassas will fall into our hands.  And it must not be forgotten that the successful defiance presented so long at Manassas has emboldened the foe in all other parts of the field.  The past has gone.  Let us learn wisdom from the sad lesson it has taught us.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Tuesday Morning, March 11, 1862, p. 2