The Portland daily press., 1863-10-29
Watching and Burning Candles with the

Dead.
There are those from whose heads no facts,
no great events, not even the thunders OF
heaven can expel the fallacy that dead man
has vitality, or that, but for his death, the
worlds entire course and the great tide of
Divine providence would have been totally
reversed. These are the men who sit up three
nights and burn candles with the dead, watch
ing to hear them speak, to catch last wink
OF their eyes; or, may be, thinking they are
not dead-only sleeping, and so they continue
to watch and wait" like Vallandigham "over
the border" until the candles die in their
sockets and the dead become offensive from
putrescence, and still, holding on to their
noses and using cologne and other dislnfecting
agents in order to retain their BREATH they
exclaim, 80, If our candles had burned lon
ger the now dead would have been proved in
fuentalr'
In the Argus yesterday morning We noticed
an example of this kind of watching and wait
ing and burning of candles with the dead. In
an article to prove the superiority of McClel-
lan's strategy over other mems efficient aetiv
ity; to show, we suppose, how easily the reb-
els could have been subdued by Frank Pierce's
moral sadsion, we find this passage:
Gen. Mcclellan was removed and his strategy thus
got rid Of lie by q simple movement and without
the loss of life, had compeIed the evacuation OF
the strong orticstions at Manassas, compelled the
abandonment OF the blockade of the Potomac, and
the concentration OF the whole rebel hosts, in and
abont Virginia for the defence OF the rebel capital
designing then aud there 10 measure power with the
sonfedcrates and by an overwhelming crushing blow
to deprive them of their capital and make them feel
ON their chosen ground, the vast superiority of
the loyal States in military resources and capacity
for effective warfare.
We have italcised the word compelled
Mcclellan "coa,pelied" the evacuation of Ma
nassas. Was ever more arrant nonsense or
insanity uttered? The truth is, Gen. McClel-
Ian proposed to march on Richmond by the
way of Manassas. He found the enemy in
force at that place. Instead of attacking
them when they were comparatively weak, he
waited and watched, he dug and he practised
strategy, and instead Of compelling them to
evacuate he was looking for no movement,
he expected none, he desired none, he knew
of none until, when he got ready to cage his
bird he found it had flown, the enemy had
fairly cheated him, leaving only quaker guns
encamped and practising his everlasting
strategy!
To say he compelled the evacuation is say
ing that he intended to produce the result
that happened, when the simple fact is, he was
out generated, and their evacuation and es-
cape with all their munitions and guns, was
one of the most Notifying things that hap
pened to Mcclellan during his entire cam
paign.
The truth is, McClellan's strategy was
neither got rid Of nor interfered with till he
had changed his base entered upon his pc
ninsular campaign, compelled" the evacuation
of Yorktown as he had that of Manassas,
gone up to within hearing of the church bells
of Richmond, losing by death and disease 40
900 Of his men in the swamps by the way, and
ia six days successive battles had been driven
back to Harrison's Landing, from which point
advance upon Richmond was impossible, and
where TO stand still on the defensive, was sure
death from malarious disease to his whole
command. 1t was not till such juncture
that the President put an end to his peculiar
strategy, and ordered him to new field; and
the country approved the course of the Pres
ident, and now approves it.
But still the Argus will burn candles and
sit up with its cherished dead; for Mcclellan
is as dead as the democratic party, and that is
as dead as julius Caesar. Lice generals who
think less of strategy than of vgor, less of
spades than of bayonets have fought battles
and won victories. Grant, Banks, Rosecrans,
Burnside, Foster, Gilmore-such are the men
who compel the surrender of cities and strong
holds and not their evacuation; who wrest re-
bel territory from the dominion Of JEFF Davis;
who capture State capitals and hoist the Stars
and Stripes over citadels; who have given us,
in large part at least, regenerate Tennessee,
louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and North
Carolina, and they will soon disenthral other
of the rebel States. But who can point TO the
first inch of rebel territory conquered back to
the Union by McClcllan's strategy? We fail
TO remember the first example of such con-
buest but still, in the face of such facts, in the
face of the successes of other men, in the face
of series of victories and tide OF success
which, for the last six months, have inspired
the American people with courage and bright
hopes, and changed the sentiment of Europe
an nations, We find here and there one who is
blind to them ALL and continues TO watch and
wait in the light of his Pickering candles, for
the ghost OF dead man to save the country.