Colonel Marston of New Hampshire, who has been with the Army
of the Potomac for a year, called on me to-day. Says he has no confidence in
McClellan as a general; thinks him neither brave nor capable; expresses
distrust of the integrity and patriotism of other generals also. Marston is not
a brilliant or great man, nor perhaps a very competent military critic to judge
of the higher qualifications of his superiors; but he is politically patriotic,
and gives the opinion of others with whom he associates as well as his own.
Senator Wilson, who is by nature suspicious and sensational,
tells me there is a conspiracy on foot among certain generals for a revolution
and the establishment of a provisional national government. Has obtained
important information from one of McC.'s staff. Wilson is doubtless sincere in
all this, but, being on the military committee, is influenced by Stanton, who
is mad with the army and officers who stand by McClellan. There may have been
random talk and speculation among military men when idle in camp, but there is
nothing serious or intentional in their loose remarks. They and the soldiers
are citizens. The government and country is theirs as well as ours.
Secretary Smith says he has heard of these movements.
Imputes misfortune and mismanagement to one (Seward) who has the ear of the
President and misadvises and misleads him.
H. H. Elliott, Chairman of the Prize Commission in New York,
writes me that the public mind there is highly excited and on the eve of
revolution. There is, undoubtedly, a bad state of things in New York, and he is
surrounded by that class of Democratic partisans whose sympathies and
associations were with the Rebels, and who are still party opponents of the
Administration.
There are muttering denunciations on every side, and if
McClellan fails to whip the Rebels in Maryland, the wrath and indignation
against him and the Administration will be great and unrestrained. If he
succeeds, there will be instant relief, and a willing disposition to excuse
alleged errors which ought to be investigated.
General Halleck is nominally General-in-Chief and
discharging many of the important functions of the War Department. I have as
yet no intimacy with him and have seen but little of him. He has a scholarly
intellect and, I suppose, some military acquirements, but his mind is heavy and
irresolute. It appears to me he does not possess originality and that he has
little real military talent. What he has is educational. He is here, and came
from the West, the friend of Pope, and is in some degree indebted to Pope for
his position. Both were introduced here by an intrigue of the War and Treasury
with the design of ultimately displacing McClellan, to whom the President has
adhered with tenacity, and from whom Stanton alone and unassisted could not
alienate him. The President was distressed by McClellan's tardy movements and
failure before Richmond, but did not understand the object which the Secretary
of War, seconded by Chase, had in view, nor perhaps did either of the two
generals, Pope and Halleck, whose capabilities were wonderfully magnified by
Stanton, when ordered here. Pope is a connection of Mrs. Lincoln and was
somewhat intimate with the President, with whom he came to Washington in 1861. There
were some wonderful military operations on the Mississippi and at Corinth
reported of him just before he was ordered here, and which led to it, that have
not somehow been fully substantiated. Admiral Foote used to laugh at the
gasconade and bluster of Pope. Halleck, Foote insisted, was a military
imbecile, though he might make a good clerk. Pope was first brought here, and
soon began to second Stanton by sounding the praises of Halleck. On one or two
occasions I heard him express his admiration of the extraordinary capacity of
Halleck and his wish that H. could be on this field, where his great abilities
would comprehend and successfully direct military operations. Stanton would on
these occasions back Pope so far as to hope there could be some change. The
President listened, was influenced, and finally went to West Point and saw
General Scott. Chase had in the mean time abandoned McClellan, and I well
remember the vehement earnestness with which, on one occasion when we were
examining the maps and criticizing operations before Richmond, he maintained
with emphasis we had begun wrong, and could have no success until the army was
brought back here, and we started from this point to reach the James River.
How far Halleck was assenting to or committed to Stanton's
implacable hostility to McClellan, or whether he was aware of its extent before
he came here, I cannot say. Shortly after he arrived I saw that he partook of
the views of Stanton and Chase. By direction of the President he visited the
army on the James and became a partner to the scheme for the recall of the
troops. This recall or withdrawal he pronounced one of the most difficult
things to achieve successfully that an accomplished commander could execute.
The movement was effected successfully, but I did not perceive that the country
was indebted to General Halleck in the least for that success. The whole thing
at Headquarters was slovenly managed. I know that the Navy, which was in the
James River cooperating with the army, was utterly neglected by Halleck.
Stanton, when I made inquiry, said the order to bring back the army was not
his, and he was not responsible for that neglect. I first learned of the order
recalling the army, not from the General-in-Chief or the War Department, but
from Wilkes, who was left upon the upper waters of the James without orders and
a cooperating army. When I called on Halleck, with Wilkes's letter, he seemed
stupid, said there was no further use for the Navy, supposed I had been advised
by the Secretary of War. When I suggested that it appeared to me important that
the naval force should remain, with perhaps a small number of troops to menace
Richmond, he rubbed his elbow first, as if that was the seat of thought, and then
his eyes, and said he wished the Navy would hold on for a few days to embarrass
the Rebels, but he had ordered all the troops to return. I questioned then, and
do now, the wisdom of recalling McClellan and the army; have doubted if H.,
unprompted, would himself have done it. It was a specimen of Chase's and
Stanton's tactics. They had impressed the President with their ideas that a
change of base was necessary. The President had, at the beginning, questioned
the movement on Richmond by way of the Peninsula, but Blair had favored it.
Pope having been put in command of the army in front of
Washington, it was not difficult to reinforce him with McClellan's men.
Stanton, intriguing against that officer, wanted to exclude him from command.
Chase seconded the scheme, but, fearing the influence of McClellan with the
President and the other generals and the army, the plan of his dismissal at the
instigation of the Cabinet was projected. McClellan, by an unwise political
letter, when his duty was military, weakened himself and strengthened his
enemies. Events must have convinced him that there was an intrigue against him,
that he was in disfavor. Perhaps he was conscious that he had failed to come up
to public expectation and do his whole duty. He certainly committed the great
error, if not crime, after Halleck's appointment and his recall, of remaining
supine, inactive, at Alexandria while the great battle was going on in front;
and he imparted his own disaffected feelings to his subordinates.
Halleck, destitute of originality, bewildered by the conduct
of McClellan and his generals, without military resources, could devise nothing
and knew not what to advise or do after Pope's discomfiture. He saw that the
dissatisfied generals triumphed in Pope's defeat, that Pope and the faction
that Stanton controlled against McClellan were unequal to the task they were
expected to perform, and, distrustful of himself, Halleck, without consulting
Stanton, assented to the President's suggestion of reinstating McClellan in the
intrenchments to reorganize the shattered forces; and subsequently recommended
giving him again the command of the consolidated armies of Washington and the
Potomac.
The President assured me that this appointment of McClellan
to command the united forces and the onward movement was Halleck's doings. He
spoke of it in justification of the act. I was sorry he should permit General
H. to select the commander in such a case if against his own judgment. But the
same causes which influenced H. probably had some effect on the President, and
Stanton, disappointed and vexed, beheld his plans miscarry and felt that his
resentments were impotent, at least for a time.
SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles,
Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864,
p. 118-22
