Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1870-04-08
From the New York Tribune
WHO KILLED THE CON
FEDERACG ?
Z. A. roLLARD's ANSWER.

The following paragraph, taken from
the lcttcrof Washington correspondent,
more lively than didactic Gone Doun Pi-
att) has been going the rounds of South
ern newspapers. with strong marks of
their appreciation and assent:
The suspicion is gaining ground that
had we put in the war Grant II Co. at the
time we did Mcclellan, they would in all
probability have come out Is well pluck
ed rs he was. These last great heroes of
the war had the good luck TO be in COM
mand when the cpntcdcratcs had no long
er the fierce armies that sent them whlri-
inc back into Washington. The war had
ended in the South nearly year before
we learned the fact at the North"
The statement is one made either in
gross ignorance of historical facts of the
late war, or in reckless desire TO support
the preference of certain person at the
expense of another. But before proceed
ing to correct statement SO utterly ut
variance with truth let the present writer
be understood. He is no panegyrist OF
Grant, and politically he disScnts from
him. 1t is then from no personal admira'
ton of Gen. Grant that he attempts to
extricate him from IN unjust comparison,
but from the simple and irrepressible de-
sire which every honest man feels to cor
rect false statement made in his pres
ence. and where his own knowledge fur
nishes him with means Of contradiction,
he has undertaken the present cXplana'
ton, forcing an indifference to persons
named in comparison, and carefully only
for the truth of history.
To those at all acquainted with the
comparative condition of the Southern
Confedcracy at different times OF the war,
the fact is certain that with reference to
the inieriority OF numbers opposed on the
Confederate side. Gen. Mcclellan had, in
the year 1862, advantages greater than
Grant or any Northern commander ever
inviting him for six months; and that
he did not avail himself of them, and
that there was at last an accumulation OF
Confederate numbers allowed by him
sufficient to whip him, so far from fur
nishing an excuse, but give to his con-
demnation the additional charge of torpor
and imbeciity. In February, 1862, when
urged by President Lincoln to advance,
when the Federal troops in Virginia and
about Washington numbered l03, l42 and
when Mcclellan himself boasted that his
Grand Army" was 'magnficent in ma
terial, admirable in discipline and in
struction. exccllently equipped and arm
ed" he had on his front, TO dispute his
passage to Richmond, force which
numbered of all arms little more than
trenty-thouSand men! This estimate OF
the Confederate army at Manassas is from
staff officer of Gen. Joseph R. John
ston, its commander, and must be taken
as authentic. More than this, that little
army was, in the early months Of 1862,
in the saddest state of disorganization,
having been turned into an "electioneer.
ing camp" by the folly of the Confederate
Congress, and, says staff officer of Gen.
Stonewall Jackson, "had Mcclellan then
advanced, he would have found little else
than demoralized men, disgracing the
uniform of soldiers, covering the way to
Richmond"
Did Grant ever have such chance?
and if Mcclellan did not use it, is not the
act of omission in Q military commander