Camp near Sharpsburg, Md.,
Friday, September 26, 1862.
Dear Brother and Sister:—
Nothing of interest has occurred since I wrote. We are guarding this ford and “All is quiet along the Potomac” The impression prevails that the rebel army is not far off on the other side of the river, and some morning you may hear of another great battle.
I must answer some of your questions. On the march from the Rappahannock to Manassas, we were surrounded by the rebels most of the time. They got in Pope’s rear at Culpeper and then they kept there, going back between him and Washington as far as Centreville and Fairfax. They followed up in our rear and cut off our supply train, and were continually hovering round our left, waiting an opportunity to attack us. If a fire was kindled, the smoke in the day or the light at night would reveal our position and invite a shell, and we were not allowed to make any. Do you see? But I guess “nobody was hurt.”
You ask what good McClellan accomplished by his campaign on the Peninsula, and add that he has but few friends in your neighborhood. Now I might ask you, what has anyone done on our side towards crushing the rebellion? Is the end of the war apparently any nearer than it was last spring? Have not the rebels a larger army to-day than they had last spring? And are they any less determined to continue the war?
In its leading object, the capture of Richmond, the campaign was a failure. Such men as Greeley instantly pounce upon McClellan and blame him for the fact, when, in my humble judgment, the blame belongs on other shoulders. At Yorktown, he first met the enemy intrenched in one of the strongest positions in the country. When he arrived there, if he had had fresh men, artillery and ammunition, provisions, etc., he might have taken the works by assault, but he had not. His artillery and ammunition trains were stuck in the mud that was almost impassable, and by the time they could be got up, Yorktown was defended by twice our number of troops. Then Greeley and his party sneered because McClellan went to digging. He did dig, and compelled a superior force to evacuate their fortifications. Now, I say, he showed consummate skill in driving them from such a place with scarcely the loss of a single life. He followed the army to their new defenses on the Chickahominy. We all hoped he would take Richmond. We were disappointed, and Greeley sneered again. Of course he blamed McClellan, and thousands who swallow every word the Tribune utters as gospel truth believed him. Well, you ask, if he was not to blame, who was? I blame McDowell. I have hardly patience to call him a general. Great events sometimes spring from slight causes. If you have read the history of the war closely, you will remember the quarrel between McDowell and Sigel, when the latter asked permission to burn a certain bridge to cut off Jackson’s retreat up the Shenandoah, and the refusal of the former.
See the result—the bridge was left unburnt and Jackson crossed in safety and hurled his command of forty thousand on McClellan’s right wing. That sudden reinforcement of the enemy compelled McClellan to withdraw his right wing, leaving the White House unprotected, and consequently, to change his base of operations to the James. His success in doing this won for him the admiration of every military man in this country and Europe. Napoleon said that he who could whip the enemy while he himself retreated, was a better general than one who achieved a victory under the prestige of past success. McClellan retreated fifteen miles and fought the enemy every day for seven days, whipping superior forces every day, winding up with the victory at Malvern Hill. There we learned that he is a general. Those who have seen what he had to contend with have confidence in him, and although his campaign was a failure, we see that the blame rests not on him, but on those who failed him just on the eve of success. Had McDowell allowed Sigel to burn that bridge, Fremont could have come up with him, and uniting his forces with those of McDowell, Sigel and Banks, they could have annihilated Jackson’s army, or at least beaten it so it never could have troubled us, and then following up, united all their force with us and swept on into Richmond. When you wrote, you had not heard of McClellan’s victory at Antietam. If you had, I think you would not have asked the question. Public confidence, led by Greeley, and ever hasty to condemn, was severely shaken when he left the Peninsula. I think he has regained at least a part of it by that hard earned victory. If I were at home nothing would make me ready to fight sooner than to hear some home guard abuse McClellan. I am afraid I should lay myself liable to indictments for assault and battery pretty often, if public opinion is as you say. Don’t swallow every word old Greeley says as the pure truth. A man will do a great deal for party and call it country. McClellan is a Democrat, though not a politician. Fremont is a Republican. Now, see if Greeley don’t join in the popular outcry against McClellan and want Fremont to take his place. Compare what you know of the generalship of the two men, and ask yourself if Greeley’s spirit is party or country.
I got started so about McClellan that I almost forgot the one-fingered mittens and everything else in both letters. I will answer that by informing you that my whole wardrobe consists of what I wear at one time. I have not even one extra pair of socks or a shirt. When I get a chance to wash I hang my shirt up and go without till it gets dry. I should not wonder if another year’s soldiering would enable me to do without clothing altogether, and save my $42 for postage and tobacco money. I suppose Almon thinks his mittens and his oil-cloth fixings “big things,” but I wouldn’t give a snap of the finger for them now. They are very well in winter quarters, but I would not carry them ten miles on a march for them.
I suppose that two thousand soldiers looked as big to you as our regiment did to me when I first enlisted at Erie. I would not consider that much of a crowd now. I can see the camp of ten thousand from where I am writing. The greatest show of troops I have seen was at the review near Washington last fall. Old Abe and Little Mac had eighty thousand there on parade and that was a show. I have seen the most of McClellan’s, McDowell’s, Pope’s, Banks’, and Sigel’s armies, but I would rather see two or three pretty girls and a glee-book this afternoon than the whole of them. Write soon as you can.
