HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF
THE POTOMAC,
Berkeley, August 12, 1862 – 11 p.m.
Your dispatch of noon to-day received. It is positively the
fact that no more men could have been embarked hence than have gone, and that
no unnecessary delay has occurred. Before your orders were received Colonel
Ingalls directed all available vessels to come from Monroe. Officers have been
sent to take personal direction. Have heard nothing here of Burnside’s fleet.
There are some vessels at Monroe, such as Atlantic and
Baltic, which draw too much to come here. Hospital accommodations exhausted
this side of New York. Propose filling Atlantic and Baltic with serious cases
for New York, and to encamp slight oases for the present at Monroe. In this way
can probably get off the 3,400 sick still on hand by day after to-morrow night.
I am sure that you have been misinformed as to the
availability of vessels on hand. We cannot use heavily-loaded supply vessels
for troops or animals, and such constitute the mass of those here which have
been represented to you as capable of transporting this army.
I fear you will find very great delay in embarking troops
and material at Yorktown and Monroe, both from want of vessels and of
facilities of embarkation. At least two additional wharves should at once be
built at each place. I ordered two at the latter some two weeks ago, but you
countermanded the order.
I learn that wharf accommodations at Aquia are altogether
inadequate for landing troops and supplies to any large extent. Not an hour
should be lost in remedying this.
Great delay will ensue that from shallow water. You will
find a vast deficiency in horse transports. We had nearly two hundred when we
came here; I learn of only twenty provided slow; they carry about 50 horses
each. More hospital accommodations should be provided. We are much impeded here
because our wharves are used night and day to land current supplies. At Monroe
a similar difficulty will occur.
With all the facilities at Alexandria and Washington six
weeks, about, were occupied in embarking this army and its material.
Burnside's troops are not a fair criterion for rate of
embarkation. All his means were in hand, his outfit specially prepared for the
purpose, and his men habituated to the movement.
There shall be no unnecessary delay, but I cannot
manufacture vessels. I state these difficulties from experience, and because it
appears to me that we have been lately working at cross purposes because you
have not been properly informed by those around you, who ought to know the
inherent difficulties of such an undertaking. It is not possible for any one to
place this army where you wish it, ready to move, in less than a month. If
Washington is in danger now this army can scarcely arrive in time to save it.
It is in much better position to do so from here than from Aquia.
Our material can only be saved by using the whole army to
cover it if we are pressed. If sensibly weakened by detachments the result
might be the lees of much material and many men. I will be at the telegraph
office to-morrow morning to talk with you.
GEO. B. McCLELLAN,
Major General.
Maj. Gen. H. W. HALLECK, Washington, D.C.
SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of
the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume
11, Part 1 (Serial No. 12), p. 87-8
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