CAMP OPPOSITE FREDERICKSBURG,
January 2, 1863.
I think I wrote you we were on the eve of a movement, but
day before yesterday Burnside got a telegram from the President directing him
to suspend preparations and come to Washington. Burnside proceeded there
post-haste, and was much astonished by the President telling him that a
deputation of his (Burnside's) generals had called on him to protest against
any further attempt to cross the river, and asking him to stop Burnside.
Burnside asked the names of these officers, which the President declined
giving. He then resigned his command, which the President refused to accept. He
then made a written protest against Stanton and Halleck, which he read to the
President in their presence, stating that neither had the confidence of the
people nor the army, and calling on him to remove them and himself. To this
they made no reply, and the President would not receive his paper, though he
took no offense at its contents. Finding he could get nothing out of any of
them, he came back, and thus matters stand. Burnside told me all this himself
this morning, and read me his paper, which was right up and down. All this is
confidential. God only knows what is to become of us and what will be done. No
one in Washington has the courage to say or do anything beyond hampering and
obstructing us. Burnside is in favor of advancing, but he is opposed by his
principal generals — Sumner, Franklin and Hooker. I had a long talk with
Franklin yesterday, who is very positive in his opinion that we cannot go to
Richmond on this line, and hence there is no object in our attempting to move
on it. I agreed with him on the impracticability of this line, but I did not
think for that reason we ought to stand still, because we must move some time
or other in some direction, and we are every day growing weaker, without any
hope of reinforcements in future. In April, thirty-eight two-year regiments,
from New York, and all the nine-month men go out of service. This is a serious
consideration. Now, while I am not in favor of reattempting to cross here, yet
I was in favor of crossing, if a suitable place could be found above or below,
where we could rapidly cross and attack them before they could get ready to
receive us, and I believed we could whip them, and a victory, I did not care
under what circumstances, gained, or with what results followed, would be of
immense advantage to us. Failing in this, I was for marching down to Urbana,
sixty miles below here, where we could cross any time under cover of the
gunboats, and from whence we had only twenty miles to West Point, the terminus
of the York River Railroad. I agreed with Franklin that the James River was our
proper and only base; but as they were determined in Washington that we should
not go there, I thought, rather than stand still, we ought to attempt a
practicable, though less desirable, line; and should that be forbidden, I was
still in favor of making an attempt to whip them, if there was any reasonable
probability of our doing so, even though we should not be either able or
desirous of following up our victory. So you see I am among the fire-eaters,
and may perhaps jeopardize my reputation by being too decided. But the fact
is, I am tired of this playing war without risks. We must encounter risks if we
fight, and we cannot carry on war without fighting. That was McClellan's vice.
He was always waiting to have everything just as he wanted before he would attack,
and before he could get things arranged as he wanted them, the enemy pounced on
him and thwarted all his plans. There is now no doubt he allowed three distinct
occasions to take Richmond slip through his hands, for want of nerve to run
what he considered risks. Such a general will never command success, though he
may avoid disaster.
I send you a piece from a Boston paper on poor Dehon, sent
to me by some friend or relative. It does no more than justice to Dehon, who
was a gallant officer and clever gentleman. I have felt his loss even more than
poor Kuhn's, because, in his case, I was directly instrumental in placing him
where he received his death wound, though at the time I sent him I had no idea
of the great danger attending his mission. Kuhn, you know, was not with me when
he fell, and I have never been able to ascertain whether he fell before or
after I was wounded, but think it must have been very near the same time, and
that he could not have been very far from me, though I did not see him.
SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George
Gordon Meade, Vol. 1, p. 344-5
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