(AotP1) Mr Lincoln's Army by Bruce Catton

Author:Bruce Catton [Catton, Bruce]
Format: epub
Published: 2010-07-19T03:00:00+00:00

And it was not just by accident that these men were so long in being called to the top spots. The radical bloc, demanding the kind of warfare which only such men could provide, was actually making it harder for the administration to find these men and use them: for it was providing an ideological qualification for purely professional jobs, and instead of inquiring about men's competence it was asking about their loyalty. The Army of Northern Virginia was able to find its best men quickly and it was able to use them once it found them; with all his problems, Jefferson Davis did not have to fight his war and run his country in the midst of a witch hunt. If the dominant leaders in the Confederate Congress—the men who had created and shaped the war party in the South—had worked night and day to keep the army out of the hands of General Lee, on the ground that Lee had not supported secession before Fort Sumter was fired on and hence must be a disloyal person, the story of the war in the Virginia theater would have been considerably different.

One thing must be said for the radicals. They believed their own gospel, down to the last inspired word. And during the weeks after Pope's inglorious defeat they suffered an agonizing extreme of suspense and gloom. They had had their way and nothing had worked out right. Pope was a hard-war man and he was also thoroughly "loyal" by their standards; but he was used up now, no pressure of politics could save him, and he was under orders to go back into obscurity in the Northwest, far from the Rebel generals whose minds he could not read. He was complaining enough about it, those days, bombarding Halleck with angry letters, reminding Halleck that he was under certain obligations to him, making veiled, ugly threats of political reprisal. There was some secret between the two men, and Pope was trying to let Halleck know that he would not be above telling it, if he had to, to re-establish himself. Whatever hold he might have thought he held over the general-in-chief, he at last let it go loose. But before departing he created one last, festering sore to plague the army. He filed formal charges against several generals, including chiefly Fitz-John Porter, alleging disobedience of orders at Bull Run and angrily claiming that a conspiracy of generals had foully done the North out of an overwhelming victory. With Mc-Clellan back in command, Porter had protection, and the charges were held in abeyance; if McClellan should ever leave the army, Porter would be at the mercy of every force in Washington that was hunting for a scapegoat.

The record of that first fortnight in September makes fantastic reading, showing, as it does, enough ill will and all-round distrust afloat in Washington to lose any war. The Union cause had reached low-water mark for the war, and the infection in its central nervous system had all but induced complete paralysis.

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