The Tipton advertiser. [volume] (Tipton, Cedar Co., Iowa) 1856-1962, 1870-03-31
WHO KILLED THE CoNFEDER
ACY.
A Slashims Article from E. A. Pollard

To the Edittr Of the Tribune:
STR: The following paragraph, taken
from the letter of Washington cores
pondent, more lively than didactic, Zone
Dom Piatt, has been going the rounds
of Southern newspapers, with strong
marks of their appreciation and assent:
1.-The suspicion is gaining ground that
had we put in the war Grant 4 Co., at
the time we did Mcclellan, they would
in every human probability have come
out as well plucked as he was. Those
hast great heroes of the war had the good
luck to be in command when the Con-
federates had no longer the fierce ar
mics that sent them whirling back into
Washington. The war had ended in
the South nearly a year before we learn
ed the fact ut the North"
The statement is one made either in
gross ignorance Of historical facts Ut the
late war, or in a reckless desire to sup
port the preference Of certain person
at the expence of another. But before
proceeding to correct a statement so
utterly at variance with. the truth, let
the present writer be understood. He is
no panegyrist Of General Grant, and
politically he dissents from him. 1t is,
then, from no personal admiration OF
General Grant that he attempts to ex-
tricate him from an unjust comparison,
but from the simple anil irrepressible
desire which every honest man feels to
correct statement made in his pres
ence, and where his own knowledge
furnishes him with means Of contradic-
ton, he has undertaken the present eX-
PLANTATION, forcing an Indifference to
persons named in the comparison, and
careful only for the truth of history.
To those at all acquainted with the
Confederacy at different times of the
war, the fact is certain that with refer
ence to the inferiority of numbers op-
posed on the Confederate side, General
Mcclellan had, in the year 1862, advan-
tages greater than Grant or any North
ern commander ever had. He had these
advantages steadily inviting him for six
months; aud that he did not avail him
self ofthem, and that there was at last
an accumulation of Confederate NUM-
bers allowed by him sufficient to whip
him, so far from furnishing an excuse.
but gives to his condemnation the ad-
ditional charge Of torpor and imbecility.
In February, 1862, when urged by Pres
ident Lincoln to advance, when the
Federal troops in Virginia and about
Washington numbered 1913, Jap, and
when Mcclellan himself boasted that
his Grand Army was "magnificenti in
admirable in discipline and
instruction, excellently equipped and
he had on his front, to dispute
his passage to Richmond, a force which
numbered of all arms little more than
twenty-seven thousand men! This es-
innate of the Confederate army at
Manassas is from staff officer Of Cen
eral Joseph f. Johnston, its tscommander.
and must be taken as authentic. More
than this, that little army was, in the
early months of 1852, in the saddest
state of disorganization, having been
turned into an "electioneering camp"
by the folly Of the Confederate Con-
gress, and, says staff officer of General
Stonewall Jackson, "had Mcclellan
then advanced, he would have found
little else than demoralized men, dis
graciDg the uniform of soldiers, cover
ing the way to Richmond"
Did Grant ever have such chance?
And if Mcclellan did not use it, is not
the act Of omission in military COM
mander to be taken as proof Of inferior
Generalship quite as we'll as that of
Again, when Mcclellan went down
to Yorktown, and opened another cam
paign there, the "fierce army" that
then opposed him was exactly scven
thousand Jfvc hundred men. General
Magruder commanded all that was
then in the pathway of Mcclellan,
while the bulk of the Confederate forces
,,-ns et;n - ~.i".. i.I vaIo neISnoornoOu
of the Rappahannock and the Rapidan,
and he had no assurance Of reinforce
ments. The force of Mcclellan was
then ten times his own; they had COM
menced a cannonading upon his lines;
and council Of General officers was
convened to consult whether the little
army Of $500 men should maintain
their position in the face of ten fold
odds, or retire before the enemy. The
opinion of the council was unanimous
for the latter alternative except one
officer, who declared that every man
should die in the intrenchments before
the little army should fall back 1T
shall be So" was the sudden exclama-
ton of General Magruder, in sympathy
with the gallant suggestion. And SO
Richmond was saved.
Mcclellan was defeated at last by an
army not greatly inferior in number,
which he had supinely allowed to be
drawn in from the ends of the Confed.
eraey. But so far from its being a
"fierce army" we report the fact as il
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