CAMP NEAR ALEXANDRIA, March
18, 1862.
I note all you write about McClellan. I fear it is all true,
and that the most desperate efforts have been made and are still being made to
take away his command and destroy him. Franklin told me that McClellan said to
him, as they followed Lander's corpse, that he almost wished he was in the
coffin instead of Lander. It is reported that they were about to introduce into
the House of Representatives a vote of want of confidence in him, but were
restrained by fearing it would not pass. It is said the President remains his
friend.
McClellan is not the man to make himself popular with the
masses. His manners are reserved and retiring. He was not popular either in
Chicago or Cincinnati, when at the head of large railroad interests. He has
never studied or practiced the art of pleasing, and indeed has not paid that
attention to it which every man whose position is dependent on popular favor
must pay, if he expects to retain his position. Now, you know long before the
tide turned, I told you of ill-advised acts on his part, showing a disposition
to gratify personal feelings, at the expense of his own interests. I have no
doubt now that the enmity of Heintzelman, Sumner, McDowell and Keyes can all be
traced to this very cause — his failure to conciliate them, and the injustice
they consider his favoritism to others has been to them. So long as he had full
swing, they were silent, but so soon as others had shaken the pedestal he stood
on, they join in to lend their hands.
Don't you remember as early as last September, telling us how
indignant Charles King was at the treatment of General Scott by McClellan, and
that the General had said he would have arrested him for disrespect if he had
dared to? In the selection of his staff he has not shown the judgment he might
have done. There are too many men on it that are not worthy to be around a man
with McClellan's reputation. Again, you know my opinion of his treatment of the
Ball's Bluff affair, through personal regard for Stone. All these little things
have combined, with his political foes, to shake his position. I think,
however, it is pretty well settled that Old Abe has determined he will not cut
his head off till he has had a chance, and as I wrote you before, all will
depend now on the hazard of a die. Any disaster, never mind from what cause,
will ruin him, and any success will reinstate him in public favor.
It is very hard to know what is going to be done, or what
the enemy will do. My opinion is that they are concentrating all their
available forces around Richmond, and that they will make there a determined
and desperate resistance. Of course, this defense will be made at first in
advance, as far as they deem it prudent to go, or as they can readily retire
from, as for instance, the Rappahannock on the north, Fredericksburg and the
Potomac on the east, Yorktown and Norfolk on the southeast. Where McClellan
will attack them is not known, but before many days are over it will be
settled, and we will have a fight either at Fredericksburg, Yorktown or
Norfolk. For my part, the sooner we meet them the better. The thing has to be
done, and there is nothing gained by delay. The morale is on our side;
our recent victories, their retreat from Manassas, all combine to inspirit us
and demoralize them; and if our men only behave as we hope and believe they
will, I think before long we shall have Richmond.
I rode over this morning and saw Willie.1 I found
on my arrival that there was in camp a party of ladies and gentlemen,
consisting of Mr. Charles King, of New York, and his daughter, Mrs. Captain
Ricketts, and her sister, who is married to a son of Charles King, a captain in
the Twelfth (Willie's) Regiment. These ladies had come out to see Captain King,
accompanied by Colonel Van Rensselaer, who you remember married a niece of
Charles King. They had prepared a lunch, and all the officers were partaking of
it, and having, as is usual, a merry time. Soon after I rode up, Miss King
recognized Kuhn, who was with me, and sent Captain Wister,2 of the
regiment after him, and in a few minutes Colonel Van Rensselaer came up to me,
and, after the usual salutations, politely asked me to permit him to present me
to the party. Of course I had to say yes, and went up with him and joined the
party. Mrs. Ricketts, you know, was a Miss Lawrence. I had known her mother and
family all my life. She is now a great heroine. After doing the civil to the
party I retired.
__________
1 William Sergeant, brother of Mrs. Meade.
2 Francis Wister, captain 12th U. S. Infantry.
SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George
Gordon Meade, Vol. 1, p. 253-4
