Mr. Bigelow
invited me to breakfast, to meet Mr. Senator King, Mr. Olmsted, Mr. Thurlow
Weed, a Senator from Missouri, a West Point professor, and others. It was
indicative of the serious difficulties which embarrass the action of the
Government to hear Mr. Wilson, the Chairman of the Military Committee of the
Senate, inveigh against the officers of the regular army, and attack West Point
itself. Whilst the New York papers were lauding General Scott and his plans to
the skies, the Washington politicians were speaking of him as obstructive,
obstinate, and prejudiced — unfit for the times and the occasion.
General Scott
refused to accept cavalry and artillery at the beginning of the levy, and said
that they were not required; now he was calling for both arms most urgently.
The officers of the regular army had followed suit. Although they were urgently
pressed by the politicians to occupy Harper's Ferry and Manassas, they refused
to do either, and the result is that the enemy have obtained invaluable
supplies from the first place, and are now assembled in force in a most
formidable position at the second. Everything as yet accomplished has been done
by political generals — not by the officers of the regular army. Butler and
Banks saved Baltimore in spite of General Scott. There was an attempt made to
cry up Lyon in Missouri; but in fact it was Frank Blair, the brother of the
Postmaster-General, who had been the soul and body of all the actions in that
State. The first step taken by McClellan in Western Virginia was atrocious — he
talked of slaves in a public document as property. Butler, at Monroe, had dealt
with them in a very different spirit, and had used them for State purposes
under the name of contraband. One man alone displayed powers of administrative
ability, and that was Quartermaster Meigs; and unquestionably from all I heard,
the praise was well bestowed. It is plain enough that the political leaders
fear the consequences of delay, and that they are urging the military
authorities to action, which the latter have too much professional knowledge to
take with their present means. These Northern men know nothing of the South,
and with them it is omne ignotum pro minimo. The West Point professor
listened to them with a quiet smile, and exchanged glances with me now and
then, as much as to say, "Did you ever hear such fools in your life?”
But the
conviction of ultimate success is not less strong here than it is in the South.
The difference between these gentlemen and the Southerners is, that in the
South the leaders of the people, soldiers and civilians, are all actually under
arms, and are ready to make good their words by exposing their bodies in
battle.
I walked home
with Mr. N. P. Willis, who is at Washington for the purpose of writing sketches
to the little family journal of which he is editor, and giving war “anecdotes;”
and with Mr. Olmsted, who is acting as a member of the New York Sanitary
Commission, here authorized by the Government to take measures against the
reign of dirt and disease in the Federal camp. The Republicans are very much
afraid that there is, even at the present moment, a conspiracy against the
Union in Washington — nay, in Congress itself; and regard Mr. Breckinridge, Mr.
Bayard, Mr. Vallandigham, and others as most dangerous enemies, who should not
be permitted to remain in the capital. I attended the Episcopal church and
heard a very excellent discourse, free from any political allusion. The service
differs little from our own, except that certain euphemisms are introduced in
the Litany and elsewhere, and the prayers for Queen and Parliament are offered
up nomine mutato for President and Congress.
SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and
South, Vol. 1, p. 390-2
No comments:
Post a Comment