I have had a long day's ride through the camps of the
various regiments across the Potomac, and at this side of it, which the weather
did not render very agreeable to myself, or the poor hack that I had hired for
the day, till my American Quartermaine gets me a decent mount. I wished to see
with my own eyes what is the real condition of the army which the North have
sent down to the Potomac, to undertake such a vast task as the conquest of the
South. The Northern papers describe it as a magnificent force, complete in all
respects, well-disciplined, well-clad, provided with fine artillery, and with
every requirement to make it effective for all military operations in the
field.
In one word, then, they are grossly and utterly ignorant of
what an army is or should be. In the first place, there are not, I should
think, 30,000 men of all sorts available for the campaign. The papers estimate
it at any number from 50,000 to 100,000, giving the preference to 75,000. In
the next place their artillery is miserably deficient; they have not, I should
think, more than five complete batteries, or six batteries, including scratch
guns, and these are of different calibres, badly horsed, miserably equipped,
and provided with the worst set of gunners and drivers which I, who have seen
the Turkish field-guns, ever beheld. They have no cavalry, only a few scarecrow
men, who would dissolve partnership with their steeds at the first serious
combined movement, mounted in high saddles, on wretched mouthless screws, and
some few regulars from the frontiers, who may be good for Indians, but who
would go over like ninepins at a charge from Punjaubee irregulars. Their
transport is tolerably good, but inadequate; they have no carriage for reserve
ammunition; the commissariat drivers are civilians, under little or no control;
the officers are unsoldierly-looking men; the camps are dirty to excess; the
men are dressed in all sorts of uniforms; and from what I hear, I doubt if any
of these regiments have ever performed a brigade evolution together, or if any
of the officers know what it is to deploy a brigade from column into line. They
are mostly three months' men, whose time is nearly up. They were rejoicing
to-day over the fact that it was so, and that they had kept the enemy from
Washington "without a fight." And it is with this rabblement, that
the North proposes not only to subdue the South, but according to some of their
papers, to humiliate Great Britain, and conquer Canada afterwards.
I am opposed to national boasting, but I do firmly believe
that 10,000 British regulars, or 12,000 French, with a proper establishment of
artillery and cavalry, would riot only entirely repulse this army with the
greatest ease, under competent commanders, but that they could attack them and
march into Washington, over them or with them, whenever they pleased. Not that
Frenchman or Englishman is perfection, but that the American of this army knows
nothing of discipline, and what is more, cares less for it.
Major-General McClellan — I beg his pardon for styling him
Brigadier — has really been successful. By a very well-conducted and rather
rapid march, he was enabled to bring superior forces to bear on some raw levies
under General Garnett (who came over with me in the steamer), which fled after
a few shots, and were utterly routed, when their gallant commander fell, in an
abortive attempt to rally them by the banks of the Cheat River. In this “great
battle” McClellan's loss is less than thirty killed and wounded, and the
Confederate loss is less than one hundred. But the dispersion of such guerrilla
bands has the most useful effect among the people of the district; and
McClellan has done good service, especially as his little victory will lead to
the discomfiture of all the Secessionists in the valley of the Kanawha, and in
the valley of Western Virginia. I left Washington this afternoon, with the
Sanitary Commissioners, for Baltimore, in order to visit the Federal camps at
Fortress Monroe, to which we proceeded down the Chesapeake the same night.
SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and
South, Vol. 1, p. 403-4
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