The National tribune., 1910-03-24

aid Of Gen. Pope In front of Washing
ton. Then follow that army from the
disastrous campaign of Gen. Pope, cul-
minating in the defeat of the Union
forces at Manassas, to South Mountain
and Antietam, and Fredericksburg,
Charlottesville and the three days OF
desperate fighting at Gettysburg. 1t is
true Mcclellan was not in command in
the three last battles named, but the
lighting was done by the army he had
created and organized, and commanded
and led by lieutenants, most of whom
had received their first lessons in actual
warfare under his leadership. And it
was this army that at Gettysburg in
fiicted a mortal wound upon the So
called Southern Confederacy and was
later placed under the command of
| Gen. Grant, by whom the war was
brought to n successful termination.
OF all Gen. McCIellan's alleged fall
ures, for no one has he been so severely
and numerically criticized as that of
not destroying Lees army at Antietam.
But Gen. Meade had a much better op-
portunity to do that important service
for the Union at Gettysburg-had more
fresh troops and a larger army and in
much better physical condition as q
whole than had Mcclellan after Antie-
| tam, and yet he let Lee and his army
withdraw from that field and march
| back into Virginia without interference
worthy the name. And still the criti-
cism of Meade for his stupendous fail
ure was mild and inoffensive compared
to that against Mcclellan.
| 1t would not be in good taste to go
| into details here as to the divided coun-
| ellis, conflicting aims and ambitions, ETC..
| so pronounced among the Washington
authorities and in the army at that
| time Suffice it that until Gen. Grant
| nd III
there an unhampered head of the army,
was there a commander who could or
| der subordinates without interference.
| Had Mcclellan been given the same
authority there is little cause to doubt
Richmond would have been captured in
1852. But the War Department incum-
| bent and the. office-cilair Commander
| in-Chief there had the final say, and in
stead of allowing Mcclellan to press his
| Malvern Hill victory by the aid of the
troops at Fredericksburg, the largest
corps in the army at that time. and
made up largely of the men who fought
the battle of Bull Run, placed there for
the very emergency that had arisen,
those troops were sent hiking after
Jackson's flying squad of 5000 men.
They marched gallantly in obedience to
the order. but never a sight did they
get of the enemy, who, three days later,
joined by the balance of his (Jackson's) }
corps. was in the rear of Mcclellan, by
which strategical move and blunder the
Peninsular campaign was brought to an
inglorous ending.
Mcclellan made the Army of the Po-
| tomac, but it took three years of more
defeats than victories to create public
| sentiment, buttressed by fear, strong
| enough to send the War Department and
| its office-chair Commander-in-Ch and
their sympathizers and abettors TO the
rear with orders to keep hands off, and
the conduct of the war was placed in
the hands of a soldier with sufficient
nerve to direct its operations from the
front.
Finally: Mcclellan made mistakes;
and SO did Grant, some very serious
ones, as witness Cold Harbor and the
Petersburg mine explosion fiasco. But
| history, yet to be written. will, in my
opinion, much more correctly diagnose
the errors and the credits than has yet
| been done. The material for such SER
| vice is abundant.-Jas. D. Wood, 1411
Summit avenue, St Paul, MINI.