The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1864-08-09

WHY UkkAf AkmX 0OVEnEkIB rAu@NON-
FEssIoNs or AN Ex-MAyoR GESERAL-The Ill
success Of great movements on the part Of our
armies Is constantly cited as proof Of the su-
perior military prowess of the rebels, and Of
our inability to subdue them. 1t should be
more frequently ascribed to the employment
by the federal government of high officials in
the army in the navy and in civil life whose
sympatbies are with the traitors and against
the country which, while pretending to serve,
they are ever ready to betray.
The latest instance of case of this kind that
has come under our notice is that of ex-Major
General Buell., who, under the pressure Of bor-
der State sympathzers, was appointed to, and
retained in, the command of the Army Of the
Tennessee, until his do-nothing policy became
80 obvious that at last Mr.. Lincoln himself
was obliged to notice the fact from the report
of commission that was sent out to investi-
gate his campaign. He was then superseded;
and having declined to accept command under
either General Sherman or General Candy,
for the reason that they were his Juniors,
he was finally mustered out Of service as
major general of volunteers, being thus reduced
to his original rank as colonel in the regular
service which rank he thereupon resigned.
Well, this ex-Major General Buell. has been
writing letter from Bedford Springs proba-
bly, to one OF the peace emocracy-explaining
how it was that he came to leave the army; and
this letter contains the following extraordinary
statement
believe that the policy and means with which the
beng prosecuted dscred able the
nation and stain upon ciyzatiGp; and that they
would not only ia 10 restore the Union, indeed they
had not already rendered it's restoration impossible but
that their tendency was 70 subver the institutions under
which the country had realized uncxamred prosperity
and happiness and TO such work could not lond my
hand.
great Amy to- man who unblushngly
conteases that, while he held that high com
mand, lac regarded the policy of the war as
stain upon civilization. What wonder that
with such commanders, many of whom we
still have in the various ranks of the army, our
brave troops should be so often kept in dis
graceful supinenese, or only sent against the
enemy under circumstances insuring their de-
feat and slaughter II ever the secret history
OF this war could be written it would be made
plain to all that our military disasters, from
Ball run to Petersburg have been caused more
through the disloyaty Of some, and the mill
tary incompetence of Others, Of our generals
than through the power Of the rebel arms. On
the principle on which our generals were CON-
missioned the result could not well be different;
for, in the border slave States, the President
sought to rropitiate pretended loyalists by
giving commands to ill-disgused traitors like
Buell., while in other parts Of the country he
pandered to the abolition sentiment by giving
commands to political partisans who have
since proved their unftnsss by an unvarying
series of failures.
The responsibility, therefore, for the unsuc-
cess Of our arms lies primarily with Mr.. Lin
coin, who appointed generals upon political,
not on military, grounds, who removed them
on the same principle, and whose chief motive
in the management of the war seems to have
been less to crush out the power Of the rebel
lion than to retain himself 10 the Presidency.
We risk little in predicting that the latter
effort will also prove signal failure.