PRIVATE AND
CONFIDENTIAL.]
WASHINGTON, May 18, 1862.
Rev. HEMAN DYER:
MY DEAR FRIEND:
Yours of the 16th is welcomed as an evidence of the continued regard of one
whose esteem I have always been anxious to possess. I have been very well aware
of the calumnies busily circulated against me in New York and elsewhere
respecting my relations to General McClellan, but am compelled, from public
considerations, to withhold the proofs that would stamp the falsehood of the
accusations and the base motives of the accusers, who belong to two classes:
1st. Plunderers,
who have been driven from the Department, where they were gorging millions.
2d. Scheming
politicians, whose designs are endangered by an earnest, resolute,
uncompromising prosecution of this war, as a war against rebels and traitors.
A brief statement
of facts — an official record — which I can make to you confidentially, will be
sufficient to satisfy yourself that your confidence in me has not been
misplaced.
1. When I entered
the Cabinet I was, and for months had been, the sincere and devoted friend of
General McClellan, and to support him, and, so far as I might, aid and assist
him in bringing the war to a close, was a chief inducement for me to sacrifice
my personal happiness to a sense of public duty. I had studied him earnestly,
with an anxious desire to discover the military and patriotic virtue that might
save the country; and if in any degree disappointed, I hoped on, and waited for
time to develop. I went into the Cabinet about the 20th of January. On the
27th, the President made his War
Order, No. 1, requiring the Army of the Potomac to move. It is not
necessary, or perhaps proper, to state all the causes that led to that order,
but it is enough to know that the Government was on the verge of bankruptcy,
and, at the rate of expenditure, the armies must move or the Government perish.
The 22d of February was the day fixed for movement, and when it arrived there
was no more sign of movement on the Potomac than there had been for three
months before. Many, very many, earnest conversations I had held with General
McClellan, to impress him with the absolute necessity of active operations, or
that the Government would fail because of foreign intervention and enormous
debt.
Between the 22d of
February and the 8th of March, the President had again interfered, and a
movement on Winchester and to clear the blockade of the Potomac was promised,
commenced, and abandoned. The circumstances cannot at present be revealed.
Two lines of
operations were open. First. One moving directly on the enemy by Manassas, and
forcing him back on Richmond, beating and destroying him by superior force, and
all the time keeping the capital secure by being between it and the enemy. This
was the plan favored by the President. Second. The other plan was to transfer
the troops by water to some point on the Lower Chesapeake, and thence advance
on Richmond. This was General McClellan's plan. The President reluctantly
yielded his own views, although they were supported by some of the best
military men in the country, and consented that the general should pursue his
own plan. But, by a written order, he imposed the special condition that
the army should not be moved without leaving a sufficient force in and around
Washington to make the capital perfectly secure against all danger, and
that the force required should be determined by the judgment of all the
commanders of army corps.
In order to enable
General McClellan to devote his whole energy to the movement of his own army
(which was quite enough to tax the ability of the ablest commander in the
world), he was relieved from the charge of the other military departments, it
being supposed that their respective commanders were competent to direct the
operations in their own departments. To enable General McClellan to transport
his force, every means and power of the Government was placed at his disposal
and unsparingly used.
When a large part
of his force had been transferred to Fortress Monroe, and the whole of it about
to go in a few days, information was given to me by various persons that there
was great reason to fear that no adequate force had been left to defend the
capital in case of a sudden attack; that the enemy might detach a large force,
and seize it at a time when it would be impossible for General McClellan to
render any assistance. Serious alarm was expressed by many persons, and many
warnings given me, which I could not neglect. I ordered a report of the force
left to defend Washington. It was reported by the commander to be less than
20,000 raw recruits, with not a single organized brigade! A dash, like that
made a short time before at Winchester, would at any time take the capital of
the nation. The report of the force left to defend Washington, and the order of
the President, were referred to Major-General Hitchcock and Adjutant-General
Thomas to report—
1st. Whether the
President's orders had been complied with.
2d. Whether the force
left to defend this city was sufficient.
They reported in
the negative on both points. These reports were submitted to the
President, who also consulted General Totten, General Taylor, General Meigs,
and General Ripley. They agreed in opinion that the capital was not safe.
The President then,
by written order, directed me to retain one of the army corps for the
defense of Washington, either Sumner's or McDowell's. As part of Sumner's corps
had already embarked, I directed McDowell to remain with his command, and the
reasons were approved by the President.
Down to this period
there had never been a shadow of difference between General McClellan and
myself. It is true that I thought his plan of operations objectionable, as the
most expensive, the most hazardous, and most protracted that could have been
chosen, but I was not a military man, and, while he was in command, I would not
interfere with his plan, and gave him every aid to execute it. But when the case
assumed the form it had done by his disregard of the President's order, and by
leaving the capital exposed to seizure by the enemy, I was bound to act, even
if I had not been required by the specific written order of the President. Will
any man question that such was my duty?
When this order was
communicated to General McClellan, it of course provoked his wrath, and the
wrath of his friends was directed upon me because I was the agent of its
execution. If the force had gone forward, as he had designed, I believe that
Washington would this day be in the hands of the rebels. Down to this point,
moreover, there was never the slightest difference between the President and
myself. But the entreaties of General McClellan induced the President to modify
his order to the extent that Franklin's division (being part of McDowell's
corps that had been retained) was detached and sent forward by boat to
McClellan. This was against my judgment, because I thought the whole force of
McDowell should be kept together and sent forward by land on the shortest route
to Richmond, thus aiding McClellan, but at the same time covering and
protecting Washington by keeping between it and the enemy. In this opinion
Major-General Hitchcock, General Meigs, and Adjutant-General Thomas agreed. But
the President was so anxious that General McClellan should have no cause of
complaint, that he ordered the force to be sent by water, although that route
was then threatened by the Merrimac. I yielded my opinion to the President's
order; but between him and me there has never been the slightest shadow since I
entered the Cabinet. And excepting the retention of the force under McDowell by
the President's order, for the reasons mentioned, General McClellan had never
made a request or expressed a wish that had not been promptly complied with, if
in the power of the Government. To me personally he has repeatedly expressed
his confidence and his thanks in the dispatches sent me.
Now, one word as to
political motives. What motive can I have to thwart General McClellan? I am not
now, never have been, and never will be a candidate for any office. I hold my
present post at the request of a President who knew me personally, but to whom
I had not spoken from the 4th of March, 1861, until the day he handed me my
commission. I knew that everything I cherished and held dear would be
sacrificed by accepting office. But I thought I might help to save the country,
and for that I was willing to perish. If I wanted to be a politician or a candidate
for any office, would I stand between the Treasury and the robbers that are
howling around me? Would I provoke and stand against the whole newspaper gang
in this country, of every party, who, to sell news, would imperil a
battle? I was never taken for a fool, but there could be no greater madness
than for a man to encounter what I do for anything else than motives that
overleap time and look forward to eternity. I believe that God Almighty founded
this Government, and for my acts in the effort to maintain it I expect to stand
before Him in judgment.
You will pardon
this long explanation, which has been made to no one else. It is due to you,
who was my friend when I was a poor boy at school, and had no claim upon your
confidence or kindness. It cannot be made public for obvious reasons. General
McClellan is at the head of our chief army; he must have every confidence and
support; and I am willing that the whole world should revile me rather than
diminish one grain of the strength needed to conquer the rebels. In a struggle
like this, justice or credit to individuals is but dust in the balance.
Desiring no office nor honor, and anxious only for the peace and quiet of my
home, I suffer no inconvenience beyond that which arises from the trouble and
anxiety suffered by worthy friends like yourself, who are naturally disturbed
by the clamors and calumny of those whose interest or feeling is hostile to me.
The official
records will, at the proper time, fully prove—
1st. That I have
employed the whole power of the Government un-sparingly to support General
McClellan's operations in preference to every other general.
2d. That I have not
interfered with or thwarted them in any particular.
3d. That the force
retained from his expedition was not needed, and could not have been employed
by him; that it was retained by express orders of the President, upon military
investigation, and upon the best military advice in the country; that its
retention was required to save the capital from the danger to which it
was exposed by a disregard of the President's positive order of the 6th of
March.
4th. That between
the President and myself there has never been any, the slightest, shadow of
difference upon any point, save the detachment of Franklin's force, and that was
a point of no significance, but in which I was sustained by Generals Hitchcock,
Meigs, Thomas, and Ripley, while the President yielded only to an anxious
desire to avoid complaint, declaring at the same time his belief that the force
was not needed by General McClellan.
You will, of
course, regard this explanation as being in the strictest confidence, designed
only for your information upon matters wherein you express concern for me. The
confidence of yourself, and men like you, is more than a full equivalent for
all the railing that has been or can be expressed against me, and in the
magnitude of the cause all merely individual questions are swallowed up.
I shall always rejoice to hear from you, and
am, as ever, truly yours,
EDWIN M. STANTON.
SOURCE: The
War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and
Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 19, Part 2 (Serial No. 28), p. 725-8
