The Portland daily press., 1864-10-06
McOlelIan's Mastery Strategy

mCOl6lldu 4u3obo44J NoANeoSJ'
The Argus, anxious to convict the Press Of
inconsistency. copies from the number for Ju-
ly IA, 1862, laudatory paragraph, as follows;
"McClellan's strategy was successful. A
change of front-a movement requiring the
incest calculation even in the presence OF an
inferior enemy, was effected In a manner that
must stamp our chief as the leading military
mind of the age" ma asa .snn
Our neighbor has thought this worthy Of be-
Ing printed in large capitals, headed From
the Portland Press" but he did not think it
worth while to be honest and tell the whole
truth, by informing his readers that it was not
editorial. but was clipped from an army letter
written by a subaltern officer in a Maine reg-
ment. A -1I
lift had been editorial it would have prov
ed nothing, only that its author but imperfect
ly understood the "mind" of whom he wrote
so fulsomely. A great many errors of judg-
ment have been corrected since July, 1862. A
great many wind bags have been pricked by
the pointed pen of the truthful historian, and
a great many military mountebanks have been
endorsed. Why, in July, 80, a large portion
of the leaders even Of the Democratic party,
succeededin imposing upon the people the iu-
preston that they were honest and patriotic;
now they are proven to be as arrant traitors as
jeff Davis himself Then Fitz John Porter
held Major Generals commission in the ar
my and was McClellan's pet; now he is out of
the service, having been cashiered for offences
for which many officers in other countries
@
man and Sheridan were men OF small note
compared with G. B. McC., but to-day they
loom as far above him in a loyal peoples eyes,
as heaven does above the neither regions.
The intelligent people of the country have
not yet forgotten the humbuggery and cruel
imposition that was practiced upon the public
mind in July, 1852, in connection with Nc
Clellan's retreat from the neighborhood of
Richmond to Harrison's Landing. The six
days battles were heralded as six days of sue
cessive victory, and the public was assured
that what so soon proved to have been q Sc
ries OF disastrous retreats and terribly losing
battles on our part, were all according TO Nc
Cteltan's programme! Who has forgotten
this ?-that day after day we were told that it
was all In the play; that Mcclellan was
cheating the rebels; that he was practicing a
great strategic movement; that he was chang
ing his base SO as to attack Richmond from
different point, and that he was making some
of the most brilliant exhibitions of the age
And so the public was humbugged and irnpos
ed upon, until the whole heart became sick
and the head faint at the intelligence, which
could be concealed no longer, that McClellan's
army was nearly used up, and that his won
derful Strategy" was all to save himself from
utter ruin, and to get chance to escape from
almost inevitable destruction
And who has forgotten that Pope was sent
down towards Richmond overland, on purpose
to make diversion in McClellan's favor, so as
to give him an opportunity to save the rem
nant of his once magnificent army ? These
facts will not soon fade from the public mind ;
neither will the other, more disgraceful fact
that when Pope had been used to save Nc
Clellan, the latter showed criminal indiffer,
ence to his (Pope's) fate, and proposed to Pres
ident Lincoln to let him "get out of his Scrape'
unaided! Nor will it be forgotten that it was
his culpable Indifference to duty in this very
connection, and his evident purpose to have
Pope destroyed, that lost Fitz John Porter his
place in the army and came SO near forfeiting
his life.
McClellan's mastery Strategy" during the
six days battles, proved to have been very
much much like the strategy Of John Phoenix,
VINO held his antagonist firmly on top of him,
oy adroity inserting his own nose between
the teeth OF his adversary. Mcclellan prac-
ticed bis strategic retreats because he couldn't
help d. and he became SO perfectly demoraliz.
ed himself, as Gen. summers testimony will
shew, that when he his own troops were flush
ed with victory at Malvern, he sent to them at
midnight from his gunboat citidel to retreat to
the place he had selected before the battle
commenced?