August 17, 1862
. . . I must answer
your letter a little. Neither you nor I understand war nor medicine ; but of
medicine we know enough not to employ a physician who regularly doses all his
patients, nor one who proposes to cure an inflammation of the bowels by
poulticing the little finger, I judge of the merits of military men in the same
way. Again, I have a right to choose between the opinions of men well
acquainted with the military art, and I know that officers of great merit hold
that McClellan has mismanaged the campaign throughout. Pope, one of the most
successful of them, does so. (I know this;) so does Wadsworth; so does
General Hitchcock, a veteran officer personally kind toward McClellan, and
disposed to judge him candidly (I speak from personal knowledge); so also, I
have reason to believe, do hundreds of other officers.
What the “Evening Post” has said in regard to the course
taken by the Government I said in still stronger terms to Mr. Lincoln himself
ten days since, when I went to Washington for the purpose. With me was Mr. K—,
a millionaire (or millionary — which?) of this city, who said to him that
unless the war was prosecuted with greater energy — far greater — and the
confiscation and emancipation act carried into vigorous execution, not sixty
days would elapse before the Government securities would be so depressed that
the administration would not have a dollar to carry on the war.
Mr. Lincoln knows that McClellan is wanting in some of the
necessary qualities of a general officer. He said to Mr. Field: “McClellan is
one of the most accomplished officers in all the army. No man organizes or
prepares an army better, but when the time for action comes he is greatly
deficient.”
As to emancipation, I have none of the fears which you
entertain, and the conduct of the blacks already freed — more than fifty
thousand of them — convinces me that there is no ground for them. Their
peaceful and docile behavior assures me that we have neither “wild disorder nor
massacre to dread.” The rebellion has buried its roots so firmly into the
social system of the South that they must both be pulled up together.
You anticipate a bad effect upon the recruiting service from
such criticisms on the conduct of the Government as the “Evening Post” had
thought it necessary to make. The mischief was done before the “Evening Post”
began to criticise. A gloomy and discouraged feeling prevailed, throughout this
city and this State at least, which seemed to make the raising of the necessary
number of volunteers hopeless. The only remedy that the case seemed to admit
was the adoption by the press and by public speakers of a more vigorous style
of animadversion on the conduct of the war, and the representations of
disinterested persons made personally to the President. Mayor Opdyke, William
Curtis Noyes, Dr. Charles King, and many others, singly or in pairs, have
visited Washington for this purpose. There is not one of these men to whom such
conclusions as you have reached would not be matter of exceeding surprise. They
have all regarded the cause of the Union as drifting to ruin if instant and
powerful means were not applied to give things a new direction. I believe their
representations, and the language held in public meetings, and to some degree
also the comments of the press, have had a certain effect. I hear this morning
that it was Pope who recommended Halleek to the President as a fit person to
force McClellan into action, and to push on the war with vigor. Other
proceedings of the administration within a few days give token that it is
waking to a sense of the danger we are in from causes very much like those of
which you speak.
I have written thus largely because I had some things to say
which I cannot print. If I could, I would have received your rebuke without a
reply.
SOURCE: Parke Godwin, A Biography of William Cullen
Bryant, Volume 1, p. 176-8
