We have accounts of mobs, riots, and disturbances in New
York and other places in consequence of the Conscription Act. Our information
is very meagre; two or three mails are due; the telegraph is interrupted. There
have been powerful rains which have caused great damage to the railroads and
interrupted all land communication between this and Baltimore.
There are, I think, indubitable evidences of concert in
these riotous movements, beyond the accidental and impulsive outbreak of a mob,
or mobs. Lee's march into Pennsylvania, the appearance of several Rebel
steamers off the coast, the mission of A. H. Stephens to Washington, seem to be
parts of one movement, have one origin, are all concerted schemes between the
Rebel leaders and Northern sympathizing friends, — the whole put in operation
when the Government is enforcing the conscription. This conjunction is not all
accidental, but parts of a great plan. In the midst of all this and as a climax
comes word that Lee's army has succeeded in recrossing the Potomac. If there
had been an understanding between the mob conspirators, the Rebels, and our own
officers, the combination of incidents could not have been more advantageous to
the Rebels.
The Cabinet-meeting was not full to-day. Two or three of us
were there, when Stanton came in with some haste and asked to see the President
alone. The two were absent about three minutes in the library. When they
returned, the President's countenance indicated trouble and distress; Stanton
was disturbed, disconcerted. Usher asked Stanton if he had bad news. He said, “No.”
Something was said of the report that Lee had crossed the river. Stanton said
abruptly and curtly he knew nothing of Lee's crossing. “I do,” said the
President emphatically, with a look of painful rebuke to Stanton. “If he has
not got all of his men across, he soon will.”
The President said he did not believe we could take up
anything in Cabinet to-day. Probably none of us were in a right frame of mind
for deliberation; he was not. He wanted to see General Halleck at once. Stanton
left abruptly. I retired slowly. The President hurried and overtook me. We
walked together across the lawn to the Departments and stopped and conversed a
few moments at the gate. He said, with a voice and countenance which I shall
never forget, that he had dreaded yet expected this; that there has seemed to
him for a full week a determination that Lee, though we had him in our hands,
should escape with his force and plunder. “And that, my God, is the last of
this Army of the Potomac! There is bad faith somewhere. Meade has been pressed
and urged, but only one of his generals was for an immediate attack, was ready
to pounce on Lee; the rest held back. What does it mean, Mr. Welles? Great God!
what does it mean?” I asked what orders had gone from him, while our troops had
been quiet with a defeated and broken army in front, almost destitute of
ammunition, and an impassable river to prevent their escape. He could not say
that anything positive had been done, but both Stanton and Halleck professed to
agree with him and he thought Stanton did. Halleck was all the time wanting to
hear from Meade. “Why,” said I, “he is within four hours of Meade. Is it not
strange that he has not been up there to advise and encourage him?” I stated I
had observed the inertness, if not incapacity, of the General-in-Chief, and had
hoped that he, who had better and more correct views, would issue peremptory
orders. The President immediately softened his tone and said: “Halleck knows
better than I what to do. He is a military man, has had a military education. I
brought him here to give me military advice. His views and mine are widely
different. It is better that I, who am not a military man, should defer to him,
rather than he to me.” I told the President I did not profess to be a military
man, but there were some things on which I could form perhaps as correct an
opinion as General Halleck, and I believed that he, the President, could more
correctly, certainly more energetically, direct military movements than
Halleck, who, it appeared to me, could originate nothing, and was, as now, all
the time waiting to hear from Meade, or whoever was in command.
I can see that the shadows which have crossed my mind have
clouded the President's also. On only one or two occasions have I ever seen the
President so troubled, so dejected and discouraged.
Two hours later I went to the War Department. The President
lay upon a sofa in Stanton's room, completely absorbed, overwhelmed with the
news. He was, however, though subdued and sad, calm and resolute. Stanton had
asked me to come over and read Dana's1 report of the materials found at Vicksburg. The
amount is very great, and the force was large. Thirty-one thousand two hundred
prisoners have been paroled. Had Meade attacked and captured the army above us,
as I verily believe he might have done, the Rebellion would have been ended. He
was disposed to attack, I am told, but yielded to his generals, who were
opposed. If the war were over, those generals would drop into subordinate
positions.
_______________
1 Charles A. Dana, Assistant Secretary of War.
SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles,
Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30,
1864, p. 369-71
