I breakfasted with
Mr. Bigelow this morning, to meet General McDowell, who commands the army of
the Potomac, now so soon to move. He came in without an aide-de-camp, and on
foot, from his quarters in the city. He is a man about forty years of age,
square and powerfully built, but with rather a stout and clumsy figure and
limbs, a good head covered with close-cut thick dark hair, small light-blue
eyes, short nose, large cheeks and jaw, relieved by an iron-gray tuft somewhat
of the French type, and affecting in dress the style of our gallant allies. His
manner is frank, simple, and agreeable, and he did not hesitate to speak with
great openness of the difficulties he had to contend with, and the imperfection
of all the arrangements of the army.
As an officer of
the regular army he has a thorough contempt for what he calls “political
generals” — the men who use their influence with President and Congress to
obtain military rank, which in time of war places them before the public in the
front of events, and gives them an appearance of leading in the greatest of all
political movements. Nor is General McDowell enamored of volunteers, for he
served in Mexico, and has from what he saw there formed rather an unfavorable
opinion of their capabilities in the field. He is inclined, however, to hold
the Southern troops in too little respect; and he told me that the volunteers
from the Slave States, who entered the field full of exultation and boastings,
did not make good their words, and that they suffered especially from sickness
and disease, in consequence of their disorderly habits and dissipation. His
regard for old associations was evinced in many questions he asked me about
Beauregard, with whom he had been a student at West Point, where the
Confederate commander was noted for his studious and reserved habits, and his
excellence in feats of strength and athletic exercises.
As proof of the low
standard established in his army, he mentioned that some officers of
considerable rank were more than suspected of selling rations, and of illicit
connections with sutlers for purposes of pecuniary advantage. The General
walked back with me as far as my lodgings, and I observed that not one of the
many soldiers he passed in the streets saluted him, though his rank was
indicated by his velvet collar and cuffs, and a gold star on the shoulder
strap.
Having written some
letters, I walked out with Captain Johnson and one of the attachés of the British Legation, to the lawn at
the back of the White House, and listened to the excellent band of the United
States Marines, playing on a kind of dais under the large flag recently hoisted
by the President himself, in the garden. The occasion was marked by rather an
ominous event. As the President pulled the halyards and the flag floated aloft,
a branch of a tree caught the bunting and tore it, so that a number of the
stars and stripes were detached and hung dangling beneath the rest of the flag,
half detached from the staff.
I dined at Captain
Johnson's lodgings next door to mine. Beneath us was a wine and spirit store,
and crowds of officers and men flocked indiscriminately to make their
purchases, with a good deal of tumult, which increased as the night came on.
Later still, there was a great disturbance in the city. A body of New York
Zouaves wrecked some houses of bad repute, in one of which a private of the
regiment was murdered early this morning. The cavalry patrols were called out
and charged the rioters, who were dispersed with difficulty after resistance in
which men on both sides were wounded. There is no police, no provost guard.
Soldiers wander about the streets, and beg in the fashion of the mendicant in “Gil
Bias” for money to get whiskey. My colored gentleman has been led
away by the Saturnalia and has taken to gambling in the camps, which are
surrounded by hordes of rascally followers and sutlers' servants, and I find
myself on the eve of a campaign, without servant, horse, equipment, or means of
transport.
SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and
South, Vol. 1, p. 389-90
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