Terrible Swift Sword (65 page)

Halleck sent peremptory orders. Franklin
began to move, and then halted at Annandale, ten miles out. Halleck angrily
told McClellan that "this is all contrary to my orders," and
McClellan took offense, icily requesting that he be given very specific
instructions about movements henceforth because "it is not agreeable to me
to be accused of disregarding orders when I have simply exercised the
discretion you committed to me."
⁵

In the end, Pope was
not reinforced; Franklin and Sumner got out too late to be of any use in
battle; and after it was all over President Lincoln told John Hay that it
really seemed to him that McClellan wanted Pope to fail. Attorney General Bates
wrote to a friend: "The thing I complain of is a criminal tardiness, a
fatuous apathy, a captious, bickering rivalry, among our commanders who seem so
taken up with their quick made dignity that they overlook the lives of their
people and the necessities of their country. They, in grotesque egotism, have
so much reputation to take care of that they dare not risk it."
⁶
But by August 31 the bad news from Bull Run indicated that the moment for a
general accounting had at last arrived, and McClellan moved for a showdown,
sending this telegram to Halleck: "I am ready to afford you any assistance
in my power, but you will readily perceive how difficult an undefined position,
such as I now hold, must be. At what hour in the morning can I see you alone,
either at your own house or the office?"
⁷

McClellan's position was not so much
undefined as unstable. He was still commander of the Army of the Potomac, no
order relieving him having been issued. By bits and pieces, this army had been
sent to, or at least toward, General Pope, and if it was ever brought together
again McClellan would presumably remain in charge of it. But a military
catastrophe had taken place, and it was clear that somebody was going to be
fired . . . and so it was time to touch base with the general-in-chief.

McClellan was not the only one who
wanted a showdown. Secretary of War Stanton also wanted one and wanted it intensely.
Since Halleck's arrival Stanton had stuck to the administrative routine, but
now he got back into action. To Halleck, on August 28, he sent a note asking
what orders had been given McClellan regarding the return from Harrison's
Landing and the movement of people like Franklin, and requesting the
general-in-chief to say whether these orders had been obeyed "as promptly
as the national safety required"; after which the Secretary went to call
on Secretary Chase to organize the cabinet in favor of putting a new man in
charge of the Army of the Potomac. Halleck's reply, which came in on August 30,
enclosed copies of his correspondence with McClellan and contained Halleck's
official finding that McClellan, all things considered, had not moved as fast
as he should have moved.

Stanton and Chase drew up a sort of round
robin, which asserted that destruction of the armies, waste of national resources,
and the overthrow of the government must inevitably follow McClellan's
retention in command. Then they set out to induce the rest of the cabinet to
sign it. Attorney General Bates, after getting the document toned down
slightly, gave his signature, as did Caleb Smith, Secretary of the Interior.
Montgomery Blair was on McClellan's side, Mr. Seward was out of the city (there
were those who felt that the Secretary of State had concluded this was a good
fight to stay out of) and Secretary Welles said that he was in favor of
removing McClellan but would sign no paper putting pressure oh the President.
Still, a majority did sign; when presented, the paper would serve notice on
Abraham Lincoln that he must either fire a general or lose most of his cabinet.
⁸

Now came a contribution from General
Pope. From his cheerless camp at Centreville he wrote to Halleck to say that
"the unsoldierly and dangerous conduct" of certain Army of the
Potomac officers had created an impossible situation. There were brigade and division
commanders, he said, who kept saying "that the Army of the Potomac will
not fight; that they are demoralized by the withdrawal from the peninsula,
etc." Pope correctly believed that this called for action at the top; he
told Halleck, "You alone can stop it," and he suggested that Halleck
bring all of the troops back to Washington for a general overhaul and
reorganization. He warned: "You may avoid great disaster by doing
so."
⁹

The
advice was good but tardy. The great disaster had already occurred. It had
been cumulative, five months long, running from the first hesitant pause in
front of Yorktown to the last blind battle in the thunderstorm at Chantilly. At
the beginning of April it had seemed that the war was all but won; now, at the
beginning of September, it began to seem that the war might be all but lost. It
would unquestionably be lost unless General Lee, who was about to invade the
North, could soon be beaten and driven back. And President Lincoln, whose
responsibility it was to say which soldier should be given the task of meeting
and defeating Lee, was obliged to recognize a very odd fact.

The most compelling reason for removing
General McClellan from command of the Army of the Potomac was precisely the
reason that made his removal impossible. The gravest charge against him was at
the same time his greatest asset.

It was being charged that McClellan had
turned the Army of the Potomac into his own personal instrument. Both his
friends and his enemies were saying that the army actually would not fight for
anyone else, and this latest dispatch from General Pope could be taken as
evidence from a man who had been through the mill. Pope had suggested a remedy,
but there was no time to apply it: General Lee was in a hurry, and the Federal
Army—not for the last time, either—was going to have to march in step with
Lee's drums. If General McClellan, for whatever reason or combination of
reasons, was the only man the army would follow, then he must lead it. If to
give him the army was to gamble on an integrity that some men doubted and an
aggressiveness that had never yet been in evidence—well, Mr. Lincoln could
gamble, just as General Lee could do. There was in fact no other course open.

When McClellan met with Halleck on
September 1, President Lincoln was present. He had seen Pope's dispatch, and
he brought the matter up—not to administer a rebuke but simply to ask McClellan
to use his influence with his friends so that they would loyally serve any
superior the government happened to put over them. McClellan gave him what he
wanted, and that evening he sent a dispatch to General Porter—as singular a
message, from one general to another, as the annals of American wars contain.
It went thus:

"I
ask of you for my sake, that of the country, and of the old Army of the
Potomac, that you and all my friends will lend the fullest and most cordial
co-operation to General Pope in all the operations now going on. The destinies
of our country, the honor of our arms, are at stake, and all depends now upon
the cheerful co-operation of all in the field. This week is the crisis of our
fate. Say the same thing to my friends in the Army of the Potomac, and that the
last request I have to make of them is that, for their country's sake, they
will extend to General Pope the same support they ever have to me.

"I am in charge of the defenses of
Washington, and am doing all I can do to render your retreat safe should that
become necessary."
¹⁰

The final sentence outweighed all of the
verbiage ahead of it. It said that McClellan had won. Putting him in charge of
the defenses of Washington, Mr. Lincoln was in effect giving him Pope's army as
well as his own. The arrangement was still makeshift, but it would quickly be
made formal. On the following day Halleck telegraphed Pope to bring everyone
back inside the Washington lines, telling him that McClellan was in charge and
that "you will consider any direction as to disposition of the troops as
they arrive, given by him, as coming from me."
¹¹

On
September
2
McClellan
rode out to take possession of the returning troops and Abraham Lincoln went to
a cabinet meeting.

No public announcement of his action in
respect to McClellan had been made, and the cabinet ministers knew nothing for
certain, although horrid rumors had been circulating. Not until the President
himself came into the room and told them what had been done did the men who had
prepared that round robin realize that they had been outmaneuvered. Mr. Welles
wrote that there was "a more disturbed and desponding feeling" than
he had ever seen in a cabinet meeting; Mr. Lincoln was "greatly
distressed," but was unyielding. Mr. Chase, who had told Welles that
McClellan ought to be shot, warned that what the President was doing was
equivalent to making McClellan temporary commander-in-chief, and said that it
might be uncommonly hard to get the man out, later on; to all of which the
President made the obvious reply—he had to use the Army of the Potomac, and so
he had to use McClellan. What he did not say, and never thereafter needed to
say, was that army commanders would be named by the President and not by the
cabinet. The round robin was not delivered.
¹²

McClellan felt that he had done the
administration a favor. He told Mrs. McClellan that Halleck had written,
"begging me to help him out of his scrape and take command here," and
he went on: "Of course I could not refuse, so I came over this morning,
mad as a March hare"—what he really meant was that he was angry—"and
had a pretty plain talk with him & Abe—a still plainer one this evening.
The result is that I have reluctantly consented to take command here & try
to save the capital." Secretary Welles was disturbed, a few days later, to
note that when a big draft from the Army of the Potomac had to march through
Washington it was routed past McClellan's house at 15th and H Streets so that
the men could cheer the general, rather than past the White House, where the
President would get the cheers. At about the same time Mr. Lincoln told Hay
that "McClellan is working like a beaver," and said that "the
sort of snubbing he got last week" seemed to have been good for him.
¹³

The President did give Halleck a chance
to come to his rescue. Late on the evening of September 3 he wrote out and gave
to Secretary Stanton, who promptly sent it on to Halleck, a directive
instructing Halleck to "proceed with all possible dispatch to organize an
army for active operations" against Lee. By its wording, this order was
the broadest hint that Halleck himself could take command of field operations
if he chose. But Halleck would not do this. He transmitted the order to
McClellan, revising it just enough to indicate that the command would be
McClellan's; and a few days later, as the reorganization proceeded, Pope's army
was formally consolidated into the Army of the Potomac, Pope was relieved and
sent out west to Minnesota to fight the Indians, and the rest was definitely up
to McClellan.
¹⁴

Pope
departed, protesting with extraordinary bitterness and with some logic;
unquestionably, the man had been given a hard deal. But nothing could be done
about it; the army just was not big enough to contain both Pope and McClellan,
it was necessary now to use McClellan, and Pope would have to make the best of
it, which he did with very bad grace. He sent long letters to Halleck,
denouncing that officer and President Lincoln in unmeasured terms, and Halleck
(who was being paid to handle this sort of thing) wrote long, soothing replies
in which Pope found little healing. The eastern theater of the war saw John
Pope no more.
¹⁵

Meanwhile, President Lincoln was under
two great pressures.

In his desk was a
paper which undertook to proclaim freedom for Negro slaves—a document which
would transform the war and change the future course of American history, if it
ever got out, but which would only be a piece of paper unless the Federal Army
speedily won a victory; and Lee was north of the Potomac with an army that had
never been beaten and was beginning to look unbeatable, moving northwest
across Maryland, bent on nothing less than the destruction of the Army of the
Potomac.

Lee had raised his sights. He had
written to Mr. Davis to say that at the least his move into Maryland would get
the war out of Virginia and provide a breathing space, but as he moved he was
thinking again in terms of an all-out offensive. (Lee had this hallmark of a
great soldier; if he had the slightest warrant for doing so he planned in terms
of complete victory.) He had received reinforcements which slightly more than
made up for the 9000 men he had lost at Bull Run, and he crossed the Potomac
near Leesburg on September 5, moved up to the town of Frederick, Maryland, and
planned a new maneuver. Off to his left and rear, posted where it could
interrupt his communications with Virginia, was a detachment of 10,000 Federals
at Harper's Ferry. Lee proposed to move his army beyond the sheltering screen
of South Mountain— that long extension of the Blue Ridge which runs northeast
from Harper's Ferry into Pennsylvania—and send Jackson down to capture this
annoying outpost. Then he would reassemble his army, seek out McClellan, bring
him to battle and defeat him.