Pomeroy weekly telegraph. [volume] (Pomeroy, Meigs County, Ohio) 1860-1866, 1862-11-21
Another Letter of Gen. KearneY
His Opinions OF Gen. Mcclellan, and of
the Battles of Williamsburg and Ball's
Bluff.
HEADQUARTERS, THIRD DIVISION,
HeintzeL1ndn's Corps,

|
| HEADQUARTERS, THIRD DIVISION, \
| Heintzelman's Corps,
| CUMBERLAND LANDING, Va, May Is, 1862.
DEAR SIR: I am sorry to find that,
very far from military chiefs being so
immaculate that their subordinates, re-
| lying on their ightforward conduct
and truthfulness, might disregard po-
| litical influence as eXtrenuous and un-
necessary, so grossly have [ been out
ragged (and / say SO as representing my
iyisiasa bg the iptrigues ,ofetheesGen-
eral con mandlng this army, that | now
appeal to, yan- and my friends for p~o=
lection against imposture.
Gen. Mcclellan is the first comman-
der in history who has either dared, or
been SO unprincipled, as to ignore those
uder him, who have not on.y fought a
good fight, but even saved his army,
himself, and his reputation. And here,
precisely, is the point. From want Of
frankness and reliance in his native su-
periority, he fears to admit the services
Of others, (my division in particularly
lest he thereby condemn himself for a
want of generalship which gave rise to
the dangerous crisis. So great and
successful battle, where the unpreceden-
ted number Of two thousand have fall
len, is passed over by him in silence,
whilst the day after that fearful fight he
forestalls the glory of the victors,e by
vamping up, in deceitful official tele-
gram, mere furry of skirmish, where
Hancock Ga charming officer and gen
tleman) with preponderating numbers,
drives for an instant paltry few of the
i,enemy, with pittance of loss which
Ibespeaks the littleness of the transac-
ton
This move of Hancock's based on in
formation that the enemy had aban-
Edoned their minor defenses opposed to
our right, to concentrate their forces on
our left, was gotten up at Il P. M, ex-
pre5sly to relieve from pressure the Sc
we're Fl ght of the Third Corps enacted by
Hooker from A NJ. until my division,
Fat near 3 P NJ, entered under fire and
took the places of his exhausted rem
I'nants, demoralized by fatigue, abandon
ment and want of cartridges. The fire,
that lasted from about A, for some
twenty minutes, and which then ceased,
was most distictly without results, for it
was not followed up by any advance;
and left me, used to the fields of battle
in Europe, as in Mexico, with full be
lief that an attempted succor had been
given up, and that [ must alone look to
myself for my own means of success
For [ we'll know that, besides the re-
peated messengers that had been DC
s ee.sa,.~ls Locker
and Il Heintzelman, that all there must be
aware of our severe fight, from our cans
non and. musletry, which sill rolled
with the full tide Of battle. This fire,
tantamount to that OF half brigade
which aliude to from a bout l. to p NJ,
was the only one that took place with
in three miles Of my position after my
arrival, at p ?. M.-for [ was ever con-
stantly far in advance on the plain, in
the midst of the heavy abattis. Yet
General Mcclellan vaunts the one, and
assumes to ignore the the other. The
engagement whore a similar loss in the
army OF the Allies constituted the great
battle Of the Alma, an engagement where
my few (ive) weak regiments suffered
more (some four hundred and fifty
killed and wounde } than the twelve
thousand men of French division,
when, in 1859, it won for its General
world wide fame as the victor of Monte
bello
But when General Mcclellan passes
over, as if in ignorepce, an engagement
of such great proportion it proves be-
yonI the blackness of the deed, which
breaks down by its iniquitous injustice
the spirits of his entire soldiery, that it
has been the result of a malignant de-
sign of covering up from the scrutiny of
the American public, weakness of his
own, flaw in his generalship, which,
he we'll knows, if once made patent to
our people, would bring him down from
his accidental superiority lower than the
world ever dreamed of, when exercising
retribution toward Mcdowell for the
disasters Of Bull Run.
This action of General Mcclellan has
but one parallel in history; his incarcer-
ating Stone, one Of the ablest men Of
his army on the plea that it was done
on the pressure Of the Abolitionists,
w ben it in reality WAS to damn, past be-
ing listening to, one who, he knew, if
questioned by Military Committee,
would not avoid bringing to light the in
capacity, (and subsequent contrivanccs
to smother it) which had exposed Col.
Baker, and then left him, helpless,
doomed and unsupported, at the battle
Of Balls Bluff.
There is a secret in this matter, and
although patriotism, on the eve Of an
Expected action, may prevent me from
publishing to the world the weakness OF
the man to whom are contided our
Union destinies, it does not preclude me
from vindicating for myself and my com
mand recognition Of Our service ana
exposure (no officer has ever exposed
himself as | did, for the crisis domain
ded it, and unburden myself to friends.
As Stone has been militarily killed
under IA false pretense, So the secret Of
McClelIan's sending an official bulletin
on the 9th instant, after entering Viii
liamshurg, in which he ignores all but
Hancock, and is perfectly silent us to
US, and our battle Of serious war (al-
though perfectly instructed 5y Colonel
Sweitzer his A. d. G., whom he had
sent on the night Of the 4th to me and
Heintzelman for itformatian) in this
that he might obtain for General Han
cock an important character in the
crisis Of the 5th, the first prestige Of its
eapabiiity Of fighting (Which invariably
nettv disasters and long inaction had