I confess to myself
to-night, that deeply as I am interested in the cause for which we fight the
question of government against anarchy—what I have witnessed today has cooled
much of the enthusiasm with which I entered the service of this government,
which I find so tardy in doing justice to those who are fighting for its preservation:
This is a stormy day in mid-winter. Whilst going my rounds of camp to see what
was needed for the health and comfort of the men, I passed the guard house of
the regiment, and stepped in to see the condition of things. I there found
soldiers—formerly my neighbors—sons of my friends, imprisoned in a pen where
pigs could not have lived a fortnight without scalding the hair off them, (this
is not figurative language) and in which these men had been kept for three
months, awaiting the decision of a court martial which had tried them for some
trivial offence, the extremest penalty of which would have amounted to some
three to six days' confinement! at all events, under the extremest limit of the
law, its punishment could not have exceeded in severity a sentence of three
days' imprisonment in this vile hole of filth and water! Yes, they had been
tried, and for three months had been kept, not only in this vile hole, but
under indignity and disgrace, awaiting the convenience of gentlemanly officers,
to send them word whether they were honorably acquitted, or that they must be
imprisoned for two or three days. When these men, who, perhaps, have never been
guilty of offence besides being suspected of it, are released from this
disgraceful punishment, will they not feel indignant at hearing the justice of
their government questioned, and be ready to rush to arms again to defend it?
If scenes like this are necessary to the preservation of a government for my
protection, then in God's name let me be untrammelled by
conventional forms, and left dependent on my own powers for my protection. I
assumed a prerogative; I pronounced most of these men sick, and ordered them
sent to my hospital. They will hardly be pronounced well before the gentlemanly
members of the court get ready to inform them of their sentence.
From this last scene
I passed on to look up a party of our Regiment, who had been detailed to guard
the General's Headquarters. I found them; and, my God! what a sight! Around the
house occupied by the General was a large ditch, some five feet deep, and some
ten or twelve feet wide, dug as the commencement of a fort. In this ditch, over
which a few evergreen boughs had been thrown as a covering, stood a well
dressed Lieutenant, (from my own county) with a squad of soldiers guarding the
General's house—the Lieutenant trying to infuse into the men a little warmth of
patriotic feeling, whilst the winter torrents poured through the evergreen
branches, and their whole frames shook with cold in this sentry house,
charitably built for them by orders of the General, who at that moment was
being joyful over his wine, and with his friends!! And is this the REPUBLIC,
the government of equality for which I am fighting? If we were men,
this would be pitiable, but we are only soldiers, volunteer soldiers at that;
and what right have we to be cold, when our services are wanted for the comfort
of a General? But these are only thoughts; should I write or speak
them, it would amount to shameful insubordination, and I should be
disgracefully dismissed from the service of the country which tolerates it. I
am too honorable a man to permit myself to be disgraced, even for the privilege
of uttering a truth. I therefore decline to say, or even to write, what I have
seen.
This afternoon I
received an order to be ready to move at a moment's notice, and to give no more
certificates for furloughs, as the applications would not be entertained. I
have lost faith in the idea that the authorities have the slightest intention
to move. They have seen our impatience to do something, and this order is a
mere dumb-watch thrown us children to amuse us with the old promised hope that
"when it gets a little older it will keep time."
SOURCE: Alfred L.
Castleman, The Army of the Potomac. Behind the Scenes. A Diary of
Unwritten History; From the Organization of the Army, by General George B.
McClellan, to the close of the Campaign in Virginia about the First Day
January, 1863, pp. 76-9
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