March 3, 1865
Our evanescent Chief-of-Staff, General Webb, has gone to
Washington for a day or two, to see his wife. He insisted, before he went, that
the Rebs were not going to evacuate Petersburg at present, on any account. “Ah!”
said General Meade, “Webb is an anti-evacuationist, because he wants to go to
see his wife, and so wants to prove there isn't going to be any move at
present.” General Webb is a good piece of luck, as successor to General Humphreys.
He is very jolly and pleasant, while, at the same time, he is a thorough
soldier, wide-awake, quick and attentive to detail. In fact, I believe him much
better for the place than Gen. H. from the very circumstance that he was
such a very superior man, that General Meade would take him as a confidential
adviser, whereas the General does much better without any adviser at all. My
only objection to General Webb is that he continually has a way of suddenly
laughing in a convulsive manner, by drawing in his breath, instead of letting
it out — the which goes to my bones.
It is not too much to say that yesterday was a day without
striking events, as it was characterized by a more or less steady rain, from
the rising to the going down of the sun. I wrote you a letter, I entertained
the chronic Duane, and I entertained — oh, I forgot to tell you about him. I
entertained the officer from Roumania, the one whom General Meade could not
make out because he had no map of Europe. This Roumania, as I have ascertained
by diligent study, is what we call Wallachia and Moldavia, and is a patch of
territory lying north of the Danube, and running from its mouth, on the Black
Sea, to the northwest, into the Carpathian mountains. As to the Roumanians
themselves, they have the misfortune to be tremendously protected by everybody.
Imprimis, they pay to the Porte an “honorary tribute” of 600,000 crowns,
in return for which his word is pledged to protect them against all comers,
which is a good joke, seeing he can't protect himself against any comer at all!
Then the Emperor Nap considers them “une
nation Latine” and so he is to protect them. Then the
British protect them for fear the Russians should invade Turkey on that side.
Then the Russians protect them because they want their land as a high road to
Constantinople; and finally, the Austrians and Italians protect them, just to
keep in the mode. Meanwhile the Roumanians seem to dislike all their kind
friends, but still keep smiling and bowing round at them, hoping these protectors
will one day get into a shindy, when they, the protected, propose to
discontinue the honorary tribute, grab Bulgaria from the Turks, Bessarabia from
the Russians, the Banat and part of Transylvania from the Austrians, and make a
grand pan-Roumanian empire, with no protectors at all. All of which we shall
know when they do it. Captain Botiano (that's his name) informed me that his
countrymen were descended from Roman colonists, led thither by Trajan. To judge
from the gallant Cappy, as a specimen, the colonists must have intermarried
considerably with various Gentiles; for his face denotes a combination of
Greek, Italian, and Turk, with a dash of Tartar and a strain of some other
barbarian, whose features are to me not familiar. On the whole, I felt like saying
to him: “Oh, fiddle! don't come humbugging round here. Just put on a turban,
and stick five silver-mounted pistols and seven oriental daggers in your
cashmere sash, and look like yourself!” For you must know he has received his
education in the French army, and now appears trussed in a modern uniform, a
cross between a British Grenadier Guard and a Prussian Chasseur. He talks good
French and is sufficiently intelligent, and apparently well educated. We aired
our Gallic for a long time together and discussed many mighty topics. He, of
course, like all those who have the French way of thinking, was mildly
horrified at the want of central power in this country and thought the
political power delegated to the states was highly dangerous. They ought only
to have power to look out for the bien publique. All of which was
edifying to me, as coming from a descendant of a colonist of Trajan.
SOURCE: George R. Agassiz, Editor, Meade’s
Headquarters, 1863-1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness
to Appomattox, p. 309-10
No comments:
Post a Comment