Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1864-02-25
The Course of General Mcclellan.

From the Green Bay Advocate, War Democrat
What matters it here, in this time of peril,
whether McClellan's orsomebody else's plans
and theories, in 1862, were better? 1t is pre-
cisely of as much consequence as the question
of Grouch's fidelity at Waterloo 1t is a
matter with which history has to deal-not
we here i'll the trenches, resisting an assault
upon the life of the nation.
- Suppose Mcclellan to have been badly
treated. Shall the earth and the sun stand
still until he is attended to? Give him a
court-martial, or a committee of inquiry, if he
wantsit; shoot him or Stanton-whichever is
found to be in the fault-do anything in rea-
son that he wants done but let US 90 on
meanwhile with more pressing and important
matters.
Joe Hooker had as good right to growl
and grumble, and hump himself up Did he
do it GO and ask him, down there in Ten
nessee, good-naturedly smoking his cigar I'M
der the shadow of Lookout Mountain John
Pope, as brave fighting man as ever lived,
never had the hundredth part of the time, the
favor, the patient waiting, which was given
Mcclellan to do something with the Army of
the Potomac-did he fall back, glum and
cross, and demand that nothing should be
done until he was avenged? He came from
the command of great army to mere In
dian border war, as gaily as though it were
holiday excursion. Burnside did not cope
with Longstreet at Fredericksburg, and was
summarily sent away; but he sought another
trial and gave him hard knocks at Knoxville.
Mcdowell, the earliest victim of ill-luck, has
been vainly urging, ever since, not the in
dorsement of his plans at Bull Run. but
command co lead once more at the Rebel
army. Rosecrans, the beloved of all, who
was blown out after Chickamauga, as you
would blow out penny candle, referred to
the druggist, instead of the Government,
about the opium question. Even Scott, the
greatest general living, who was set aside
gently but firmly, takes his morning walks in
the Fifth Avenue, and if he doesent encour-
age, he doesn't discourage the attempts we
are making to save the country.
Up to the advent of Meade, every General
who has had command of the Army of the
Potomac, has been relieved from it under cir
cumstances which they probably did not re-
gard as flattering. But of them all, there has
been only one who has undertaken to infict
his wrongs-if they were wrongs-upon the
country. That one is Geo. b. Mcclellan. He
asks the country to take notice that not only
his military plans but his ideas as to the poll
tics of war, are different from those which
have been pursued. He publishes old letters
to the President. He charges Stanton, the
existing Secretary of War, with having con-
nived at his defeat and the destruction Of the
army. He advocates the election of man to
the Governorship of Pennsylvania who de-
cides that the draft is unconstitutional. Andhe
permits himself to be named as the Presiden-
tial candidate Of the Fernandez Woods, the
Vallandighams, and all the other dead weights
hanging OIL this war. 1t is one of the fatal
ties which seem to attend that class of politi-
clans, that they are making candidate of
that kind. So long as they keep control of
the Democratic party, so long will it be
beaten.