Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Charles Francis Adams, Jr., to his mother

H.Q. Cav’y Escort, A. of P.
Before Petersburg, August 27,1864

I got back from Washington last evening, but have nothing later from London than the letters which I acknowledged a week ago today. In my mission to Washington I was quite successful in spite of the authorities of that place, for, most fortunately for me I went there strongly armed. Before going up I went to General Meade and stated to him my errand and scheme, and the General not only approved it himself but gave me a letter of introduction to General Grant, with which I next day went down and presented myself to the Lieutenant General. I found him sitting in front of his tent under a large fly talking with a couple of his staff. I stated my business and presented my letter. He told me to be seated, read my letter, thought an instant puffing at his eternal cigar and stroking his beard as he listened to what I had to say and then replied in a short decided way: “I will approve your plan and request the Secretary to issue you the horses and have an order made out for you to go to Washington to attend to it yourself.” This was three times what I had expected to get from him, as I had no idea he would send me to Washington or request the issue of the horses, and accordingly I at once became a violent Grant man. He immediately went into his tent and wrote the order on the back of Meade’s letter and then came out and talked about matters in general, the weather, Colonel Buchanan and the campaign, past, present and future, while my order to go to Washington was being made out. I had never talked with Grant before and was glad of this small chance. He certainly has all the simplicity of a very great man, of one whose head has in no way been turned by a rapid rise. A very approachable man, with easy, unaffected manners, neither stern nor vulgar, he talked to me much as he would had he been another Captain of Cavalry whom I was visiting on business. Just at that time Hancock was operating up the James, towards Richmond, and he gave me the last reports of what was doing there, and then discussed the campaign and the failure of Burnside’s mine, unequivocally attributing the last to the bad behavior of the men who constituted the storming party. He said that he ought to have routed Lee at Spottsylvania and would have done so but for his own misapprehension as to the enemy’s weak place, and when he found it out his reserve Corps (the 5th and 6th) were too deeply engaged to be available. So he went on discussing the enemy and their tenacity, talking in his calm, open, cheerful but dignified way, until my order came, when I got up and went off very well pleased with my interview. I have long known that Grant was a man of wonderful courage and composure — self-poise — but he must also be a man of remarkably kindly disposition and cheerful temper. He can’t, however, I imagine, be on very good terms with the authorities at Washington, for he spoke with the greatest contempt of the whole manner in which the Maryland invasion had been managed there.

The next morning I started for Washington and got there Thursday, finding John, as I told you. Then, and for the next week, I went through all the disgusting routine of one who waits upon those in power, dangling my heels in ante-rooms, on the walls of which I patiently studied maps and photographs, and those in high places shoved me from one to another as is their wont in such cases. All my success and good treatment was over. My business in Washington was to try and get the government, as they would not mount the 5th Cavalry on new horses, to give them enough old horses unfit for present service, owing to severe work in the present campaign, and to let them build them up while doing their present work at Point Lookout. The officials by no means approved of me or my scheme, or, I thought, of General Grant. To Major Williams I went first, he suggested Colonel Hardie; Colonel Hardie suggested Dana, Assistant Secretary of War; Dana suggested Colonel This or General That, but distinctly disapproved of my scheme. So, somewhat discouraged, I drifted back to Colonel Hardie and froze to his office until I could get admission to Mr. Stanton’s presence — the holy of holies. Seeing me resolved and getting weary of seeing me always there, Hardie suggested to me that General Halleck was my man, he being the chief of cavalry; and, in an evil moment, I allowed myself to be beguiled into stating my business to General Halleck. Here I caught fits. Halleck is certainly “a crusty cuss” and one, I should say, after Stanton’s own heart. In about one minute he signified an emphatic disapproval of me and of my plan, and of General Grant and of everything else, and concluded an emphatic statement that he would n’t give me a horse, if he had his own way, or without a positive order, by slamming his door in my face. I returned to Colonel Hardie somewhat depressed in spirit, but resolved now to grapple with old Stanton and have it over. As for my prospects, they had suddenly fallen in my own eyes and I would have sold out very cheap; and yet I was by no means disgusted with old Halleck individually. It is n’t pleasant to be roughed out of a man’s office and it’s decidedly unpleasant to have one’s pet scheme trampled under foot before one’s eyes, and then kicked out of doors; but I do like to see a man who can say “no” and say it with an emphasis, and for old Halleck’s capacity in this respect I can vouch. I have seen so much rascality round our departments and such bloody rascals innocently prosecuting their little pet schemes and grinding their harmless little axes, that I long ago came to the conclusion that the suaviter in modo would by no means always do in public officers, and that it was generally necessary with the men such have to deal with to knock them down so that they can’t get up. Accordingly I derived a grim satisfaction from the reflection that if such was my reception by General Halleck, what must be the fate of the harpies and vultures who flock round the War Department. Anyhow I went back and resumed my dreary watch and ward in Hardie’s office.

Now Hardie is Stanton’s Chief of Staff and a nervous, gentlemanly man withal, and soon my silent, reproachful presence, even though but one of a silent, reproachful throng which crowded his office and from which one individual disappeared only that two more might struggle to enter, my presence began to haunt him, so he dashed at me, possessed himself of my papers and flung himself into the Secretary’s rooms. I grimly waited, hopeless and well-nigh indifferent. Presently Stanton himself scuffed into the office and after him came Hardie. Now for it, said I to myself; but the American Carnot took no notice of me, but scuffed off through the room and Hardie gave me my paper with an endorsement from the Secretary upon it. Well, I had succeeded. Grant’s endorsement was too strong to be overlooked and I had gotten my horses, so, after being duly bandied through a score more officials, and this time being lucky enough to hit on a polite streak of these cattle, I finished my business in Washington and, Thursday noon, took boat for City Point.

This, of course, settled my fate as to what regiment I was to belong to, and I came back only to leave my old regiment and company. . . . I can’t say that I leave my old regiment with any feeling of regret. In it, as a whole, there are few who know or care for me and my whole life in the regiment was embittered and poisoned. . . . As for my squadron, however, my feelings are very different. Here all my association has been pleasant. We have never had any family quarrels or bickerings and with them, at least, my career has been a success. Still it’s high time I went. Here I have done my work as well as I know how to do it, and I am getting nervous and restless and discontented. For a time the 5th will serve me as a new object of interest and in working over that I shall hope for a time to keep myself contented and quiet in the service and when that plays out, I must look for something new; but I am very tired of the war.

The brilliant military criticisms in my recent letters have come ludicrously to nought. Here we are, in spite of my announcement that military operations had evidently come to a close in these parts until autumn, pounding again fiercely away at each other. Grant certainly deceives friends as well as foes in regard to his movements. So far we seem this time to have the inside track, and Lee has spilt a good deal of blood, which he could ill spare, in trying to get it away from us. It is a great point gained for us when he is forced to take the offensive, and if this kind of thing goes on, this steady fighting all summer long, Lee won’t have much left to winter in Richmond. . . .