Josiah Gilbert Holland

“ Are you not over-cautious when you assume that you can not do what the enemy is constantly doing? Should you not claim to be at least his equal in prowess, and act upon the claim?
"As I understand, you telegraphed General Halleck that you can not subsist your army at Winchester, unless the railroad from Harper's Ferry to that point be put in working order. But the enemy does now subsist his army at Winchester, at a distance nearly twice as great from railroad transportation as you would have to do, without the railroad last named. ”

“ When General McClellan assumed command, he found waiting for him fifty thousand men, more or less, in and around Washington. He assumed command during the last days of July; and, within a period of less than three months, that army was raised to a force of more than a hundred and fifty thousand men, with five hundred pieces of artillery. The people gave him more men than any one commander was ever known to handle effectively in the field; and the government lavishly bestowed upon his army all the material of war. ”

“ As we must beat him somewhere, or fail finally, we can do it, if at all, easier near to us than far away. If we cannot beat the enemy where he now is, we never can, he again being within the intrenchments of Richmond. ”

“ General McClellan thought the success brilliant, if we may judge by his dispatches. It was the costly victory of an engineer. He telegraphed to Mr. Stanton, on the fourth, that he held the entire line of the enemy's works; that he had thrown all his cavalry and horse artillery, supported by infantry, in pursuit; that no time should be lost, and that he should "push the enemy to the wall." The enemy retired to his second line of works at Williamsburgh without pushing, and took his position behind the wall. ”

“ The triumphant rebels moved up the Potomac with the evident intention of crossing and invading Maryland. No time was to be lost. Under the representation that the army of the Potomac would serve under no commander but McClellan, General Pope was relieved, and the former placed in command of all the troops. On the fourth of September, he commenced moving into Maryland for the purpose of expelling the rebel forces. Washington was in a panic, and the whole country was in a condition of the most feverish excitement. Still he called for reinforcements. ”

“ The gaps would enable you to attack if you should wish. For a great part of the way you would be practically between the enemy and both Washington and Richmond, enabling us to spare you the greatest number of troops from here. When, at length, running to Richmond ahead of him enables him to move this way, if he does so, turn and attack him in the rear. But I think he should be engaged long before such point is reached. It is all easy if our troops march as well as the enemy, and it is unmanly to say they cannot do it. ”

“ Lincoln immediately telegraphed him that his order for forwarding what he had demanded, including Woodbury's brigade, was not, and would not be interfered with, informing him at the same time that he had then more than one hundred thousand troops with him, independent of those under General Wool's command. Mr. Lincoln closed his dispatch with the words: "I think you had better break the enemy's line from Yorktown to Warwick River at once. They will probably use time as advantageously as you can." ”

“ He begged the President to reconsider his order detaching the first corps from his command, as it was his opinion that he should have to fight all the available force of the rebels, not far from the place where he was writing. If he could not have the whole corps, he begged for Franklin and his division. On the sixth, Mr. Stanton replied that Sumner's troops were on the way to him, that Franklin's division was on the advance to Manassas, and that there were no means of transportation to send it forward in time for service in his operations. ”

“ The President was impatient, but, to be sure that he did no injustice to the General, he Visited the army in person, to ascertain what its real condition was. The result was an order, issued on the sixth, for the army to move across the Potomac, and give battle to the enemy, or drive him south. The President promised him thirty thousand new men, if he would move across the river between the enemy and Washington. If he would prefer to move up the Shenandoah valley, he could only spare him fifteen thousand. Then General McClellan began to make inquiries, and call for shoes and other supplies ”

“ General McClellan pushed a portion of his troops toward Yorktown at once--toward a line of intrenchments held by the enemy, stretching across the Peninsula. On the fifth of April he wrote to the President, dating his letter "Near Yorktown," and stating that the enemy were in large force in his front, and that they apparently intended to make a determined resistance. At that time, the rebel force at that point, according to subsequent reports by the rebels themselves, did not exceed ten thousand men. ”

“ It is a hard judgment, and a sad one to render; but it must be rendered, or the conclusion is inevitable that the General was either incompetent to comprehend the emergency or afraid to meet it. It is impossible to find as apology for his failure to act in this great necessity, that would not damage his reputation as a military man. ”

“ Lincoln, and of the corps commanders, that the army should repair to Washington, but General McClellan was against it. The army, he declared, ought not to be withdrawn. It ought to be promptly reinforced, and thrown again upon Richmond. He wanted the whole of General Burnside's command in North Carolina to help him. He dreaded the effects of a retreat upon the morale of his army, although he had just tried it, and declared, in a dispatch of the eleventh, that the army was in "fine spirits." ”

“ By delay, the enemy will relatively gain upon you--that is, he will gain faster by fortifications and reinforcements than you can by reinforcements alone. And once more let me tell you, it is indispensable to you that you strike a blow. I am powerless to help this. You will do me the justice to remember I always insisted that going down the bay in search of a field, instead of fighting at or near Manassas, was only shifting, and not surmounting, a difficulty; that we would find the same enemy, and the same or equal intrenchments, at either place. ”

“ Further on he says: "I have not, outside of your army, seventy-five thousand men east of the mountains. Thus the idea of sending you fifty thousand men, or any other considerable forces promptly, is simply absurd." He closed by assuring him that he did not blame him for his disasters, asking that he would be equally generous toward the government, and adjuring him to save his army. It was absolutely impossible for the government to send reinforcements at once, to enable McClellan to assume the offensive. ”

“ After making all allowances for deaths, wounds and sickness, fifty thousand men were still absent. General McClellan replied that 38,250 men were absent by authority. Here was a reinforcement at command worth having. Why did the General let them go? Why did he not call them back?
It was determined at last to withdraw the army from the Peninsula, and the order found McClellan still protesting. "The true defense of Washington" was just where he was. ”

“ On the first of April, there were under his command, by the official report of the Adjutant-general, 146,255 men in the four corps, with regular infantry and cavalry and other troops to raise the number to 158,419. In all the orders given by the President concerning the movements of this army, there was one condition that he insisted upon, viz, that troops should be left sufficient to protect Washington; and by General McClellan's order only twenty thousand effective men were to be left with General Wadsworth, the military governor of the District. ”

“ The President wrote him: "Save your army at all events." The President would not blame him. "We protected Washington," said he, "and the enemy concentrated on you. Had we stripped Washington, he would have been upon us before the troops sent could have got to you. Less than a week ago, you notified us that reinforcements were leaving Richmond to come in front of us. It is the nature of the case, and neither you nor the government is to blame." General McClellan called upon the President for a reinforcement of fifty thousand troops, to which Mr. ”

“ Here was fought the battle of Williamsburgh, which McClellan designated in his final report as "one of the most brilliant engagements of the war." He bestows the highest praise upon General Hancock, though Hooker had fought with equal gallantry, and encountered greater losses. ”

“ Two days previously, the General had written the President that he could bring only eighty thousand men into the field, and that he wanted every man the government could send him. Mr. Stanton wrote him on the eighteenth that the President was unwilling to uncover the capital entirely, but desired that he would extend his right wing to the north of Richmond, so that McDowell could communicate with him by his left wing. "At your earnest call for reinforcements," said Mr. ”

“ Geary, on the Manassas Gap Railroad, just now reports that Jackson is now near Front Royal with ten thousand troops, following up and supporting, as I understand, the force now pursuing Banks. Also, that another force of ten thousand is near Orleans, following on in the same direction. Stripped bare, as we are here, I will do all we can to prevent them crossing the Potomac at Harper's Ferry or above. McDowell has about twenty thousand of his forces moving back to the vicinity of Front Royal ”

“ The first corps, under General McDowell, was designated for this protective service, numbering 38,454 men. Two new military departments were at once erected--the Department of the Rappahannock, under General McDowell, and the Department of the Shenandoah, lying between the mountain department and the Blue Ridge, under General Banks. ”

“ Stanton's dispatch, General McClellan wrote again, begging for Franklin's division, complaining that he had no sufficient transportation, and stating that the order forming new departments deprived him of the power of ordering up wagons and troops, absolutely necessary for his advance on Richmond. He requested that the material he had prepared and necessarily left behind, with wagon trains, ammunition, and Woodbury's brigade, might be subject to his order. Mr. ”