The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1862-11-25 00:00:00

AMERICAN MATTERS.

General M'Clellan, superseded by General
Burnside in the command of the army of the
Potomac, "virtually retires into private life."
Such was Friday night's curt telegram. Thus
for a second time within the last few months the
most popular commander of the Federal army has
been superseded and disgraced. The fact is, the
Federal Government now finds itself compelled I
to face the criticism of a people that in the late
elections has by a strong Democratic or Con-
servative majority declared itself for restraint
on abuses of authority. M'Clellan, too has had 1
his reasons for strong protest against official in- I
sobriety. The people cannot be thrown over,
but M'Clellan can; and who knows but that
Burnside may, by suddenly achieving the great
victory his predecessor always missed, give, in
convenient season, a more jovial turn to Govern-
ment affairs. This was the last card that had to
be played, and if it should prove a trump, and
Burnside go in and win, of course the Repub-
lican faction would recover some of its fast
expiring hopes. With the announcement of
M'Clellan's removal, the New York papers
publish a correspondence between Mr. Stanton—
the Secretary of War—and General llalleck,
with a view of justifying the step that has been
taken. General Ilalleink states that on the 6th
October he issued peremptory orders to
M'Clellan to cross the Potomac, and give battle
to the enemy, and that the Young Napoleon
disobeyed those orders on the ground that he
was short of supplies. He adds all requi-
sitions were promptly complied with, and no-
thing was wautingto prevent his advancing ; still ,
' he did not push on and crush the rebellion as he
was commanded to do. The Ilalleck policy de-
mands that its soldiers should pretend they are
gaining victories, even when they are sustaining
defeat, and the cautions and steady advance of
M'Clellan did not satisfy the chiefs at head
quarters, who will, no doubt, by-and-by tell us
that had they had competent generals in the first
instance, ninety days would have been amply
sufficient for the restoration of the Union. For
sometime past the Federal Government has been
boasting that the winter campaign was being
fully planned and fairly inaugurated ; that the
preliminaries to a complete success were being
carried out ; and that in a few days a "crushing"
victory -would be obtained. The coup &not
which President-Lincoln has given to M'Clellan,
however, cancels all these boastful assertions,
and we are now told that the Young Napoleon
is incompetent to be the leader of an army, and
that a Government which must 'conquer or perish
had no alternative but to remove him. On the
other hand, his friends assert that he has been
sacrificed to the political jealousies of the party
in power, because he was well known to sympa-
thise with the Democrats. It is well known
that he did not approve of the emancipation
edict of President Lincoln ' • and now that the
elections have come, and General M'Clellan's
opinions on the war and abolition have proved
to be in accordance with those held by the
majority of the people, he may have been looked
upon as too dangerous a man to be at the head
of a great army. It is said that Presi-
dent Lincoln has felt deeply the revolution of
public feeling in the Northern States, and it
may be that he thought it not improbable that
if the Democratic commander-in-chief were kept
in his situation, knowing that he was popular
among his soldiers, he might take it into his head
to seize Washington, expel the present incapable
Cabinet, and conclude a peace, or continue the
war on the principles of his own party. Whether
such be the case or not, no one will believe that
M'Clellan has been deprived of his command
purely from military incompetency, and this last
act of the President will tend more than any-
thing that has yet been done to divide the
North, and engender angry feelings between the
two great sections in the States. &heady we
have significant signs of this. At the meeting
of the Union Democratic Association, Mr. John
Van Buren announced "that be would support
the nomination of General M'Clellan as the
Democratic candidate for the next Presidency,"
and the proposed nomination, we are informed,
1 "was seconded with great plaudits."