Dined with Wise. Met Hooker,
Butterfield and Fox. Hooker was in fine flow. Before dinner we talked about Halleck
and his connection with Hooker’s resignation. He says he was forced to ask to
be relieved by repeated acts which proved that he was not to be allowed to
manage his army as he thought best, but that it was to be manoeuvred from
Washington. He instanced Maryland Heights, whose garrison he was forbidden to touch,
yet which was ordered to be evacuated by the very mail which brought his (H 's)
relief. And other such many.”
At dinner he spoke of our army. He says: “It was the finest
on the planet. He would like to see it fighting with foreigners. It gave him an
electric feeling to be with it. It was far superior to the Southern army in
everything but one. It had more valor, more strength, more endurance, more
spirit; the rebels are only superior in vigor of attack. The reason of this is
that, in the first place our army came down here capable of everything but
ignorant of everything. It fell into evil hands — the hands of a baby, who knew
something of drill, little of organisation, and nothing of the morale of the
army. It was fashioned by the congenial spirit of this man into a mass of
languid inertness destitute of either dash or cohesion. The Prince de
Joinville, by far the finest mind I have ever met with in the army, was struck
by this singular, and as he said, inexplicable contrast between the character
of American soldiers as integers and in mass. The one active, independent,
alert, enterprising; the other indolent, easy, wasteful and slothful. It is not
in the least singular. You find a ready explanation in the character of its
original General. Stoneman is an instance of the cankerous influence of that
staff. I sent him out to destroy the bridges behind Lee . He rode 150 miles and
came back without seeing the bridges he should have destroyed. He took with him
4,000 men; he returned with 4,500. His purposeless ride had all the result of a
defeat. He claimed to have brought in an enormous train of negroes and other
cattle. He brought 30 contrabands and not a man or a mule. He is a brave, good man,
but he is spoiled by McClellan.
“After the battle of Malvern and after the battle of Fair
Oaks we could have marched into Richmond without serious resistance, yet the
constitutional apathy of this man prevented.”
Says Butterfield: — “On the night of the battle of Malvern I
saw the red lights of Meyer's signal officer, blazing near me, and I went to
him to gain information. He told me he had just received a despatch from Gen'l
McClellan asking where was Gen'l F. J. Porter, he wanted news. I volunteered a
despatch: — ‘We have won a glorious victory, and if we push on and seize our
advantage, Richmond is ours.’ The day of Gaines' Mills, I had taken my position
when Porter ordered me out of it into a hollow where I was compelled to assume
a strictly defensive position. I once or twice terribly repulsed the enemy, but
my orders peremptorily forbade pursuit. I had to keep up the spirits of the men
by starting the rumor that McClellan was in Richmond. I am sure I thought he
would be there that day. In the night, going to Gen'l McClellan's head-quarters,
he asked me what about our Corps. I told him that with a few strong divisions
we could attack and drive the enemy. He said he hadn't a man for us.”
[Fox] said that the night before the evacuation of Yorktown
he staid in McClellan's tent. McC. said he expected to bag 78,000 of them. “You
won't bag one,” replied Tucker. And he didn't.
Hooker says:— “Marcy sometimes sent important orders which
McClellan never saw. On one occasion when I had advanced my pickets very near Richmond I
received an order through Heintzelman, — “Let Genl Hooker return
from his brilliant reconnoissance. We cannot afford to lose his division.” I
did not see how my division could be lost, as in that country there was no
cutting me off. I started back, however, and soon met McClellan himself who
asked me what it meant, my withdrawal. I showed him his own order. He said he
had never seen it, and I ordered my men back. I returned over the swamp, and
held my position for weeks afterwards.”
Hooker and Butterfield both agree as to the terrible defeat
the rebels suffered at Malvern and the inefficiency which suffered them to
escape without injury. They say there was a Corps, fresh and unharmed, which
might have pursued the rebels and entered Richmond in triumph (Franklin’s).
. . . . Hooker drank very little, not more than the rest,
who were all abstemious, yet what little he drank made his cheek hot and red,
and his eye brighter. I can easily understand how the stories of his
drunkenness have grown, if so little affects him as I have seen. He was looking
very well to-night. A tall and statuesque form— grand fighting head and
grizzled russet hair— red-florid cheeks and bright blue eye, forming a fine
contrast with Butterfield, who sat opposite. A small, stout, compact man, with
a closely chiselled Greek face and heavy black moustaches, like Eugene
Beauharnais. Both very handsome and very different. . . .
SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and
Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 95-9; For the whole diary entry see
Tyler Dennett, Editor, Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and
letters of John Hay, p. 84-6.
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