CAPTAIN LE CLERC.
DUC DE CHARTRES.
PRINCE DE JOINVILLE.
COMTE DE PARIS.
THE ORLÉANS PRINCES AND SUITE AT DINNER. From a photograph.
with a commensurate advance. But this was a faux pas. The blunder was consummated at Ball’s Bluff. . . .
McClellan, once invested with supreme command, proved himself more of a temporizer than his predecessor [General Scott], and, as will soon be seen, his premature promotion to this post was the cause of all his subsequent mortification and misfortune. . . .
Without giving him the full rank enjoyed by Scott, the President had given him full command of the armies of the republic. It should be said that he had the right to this position as the oldest major-general of the regular army. In assuming his new function he did not give up his own personal and particular direction of the Army of the Potomac. Here he was right; for he could neither have found any one to whom he might safely confide his own proper work of organization, nor could he have left the command of the first army of the republic without condemning himself to perpetual prison in the bureau at Washington. . . .
An engineer of distinction, McClellan himself devised in all its details the system of defensive works from Alexandria to Georgetown. He gave his daily personal supervision to the execution of this work, alternating outdoor activity with office business. Tireless in the saddle, he was equally indefatigable with the pen. Possessed of a methodical and exact mind, he comprehended the organization of his army in every minute detail. The creation of all the material of war necessary to its existence and action was extraordinary proof of the wonderful readiness of the Americans in an emergency. . . .
But the season advanced. The army was being formed. At the end of September the enemy had fallen back on Fairfax Court House, leaving to us at Munson’s Hill a few Quaker guns of logs and pasteboard. The time for action seemed to have come. The rigors of winter in Virginia hardly make themselves felt before the beginning of December. By the 17th of October the enemy had again retreated. The Army of the Potomac replied
“ AN AFFAIR OF OUTPOSTS.”
MCCLELLAN ORGANIZING THE GRAND ARMY.
BY PHILIPPE, COMTE DE PARIS.
Aide-de-Camp to General McClellan.
Unfortunately for himself, McClellan succeeded too quickly and too soon to the command of the principal army of the republic. His lieutenants were as new to the work as he — they had not been tested. Public opinion in the army itself—a judge all the more relentless for the very reason that discipline gives it no opportunity to express itself— had as yet been able neither to pronounce on them, nor to ratify the preferences of the general-in-chief. Paradoxical as it may seem, would it not really have been better could McClellan have received a check at first, as Grant did at Belmont, rather than to have begun with the brilliant campaign in West Virginia which won for him the sobriquet of “ The Young Napoleon ” 1 Just at the time when I joined his staff the exacting confidence of the people and the Government was laying on him an almost superhuman task. In forging the puissant weapon which, later, snatched from his grasp, was destined, in the hands of the Great Hammerer, to bray the army of Lee, he acquired an imperishable title to the gratitude of his compatriots. He wrought, will it be said, for the glory of his successors ? No! He labored for his country, even as a private soldier who dies for her, with no thought of fame. In order to give to his weapon every perfection, he soon learned to resist the impatient solicitations of both the people and the Government.
At the end of September, 1861, while yet under the orders of General Scott, McClellan represented the ardent and impatient spirit of men chafing at the slowness of a chief whose faculties had been chilled by the infirmities of age.
Nevertheless, McClellan’s first care was to place the capital bey on d all peradventure of being carried by sudden attack : on the one hand, for the sake of reassuring the inhabitants and the political organism within its limits; and, on the other, that the army might be at liberty to act independently when it should be called to the field, leaving a sufficient garrison only to secure the defense of the city. He knew that an army tied up about a place it has to protect is virtually paralyzed. The events of 1870 have only too fully confirmed this view.
NO one has denied that McClellan was a marvelous organizer. Every veteran of the Army of the Potomac will be able to recall that extraordinary time when the people of the North devoted all their native energy and spirit of initiative to the raising of enormous levies of future combatants and their military equipment, and when infantry battalions, squadrons of cavalry, and batteries of artillery sprung, as it were, from the earth in a night, and poured in from all sides upon the barren wastes of vacant building-lots that then went to the making up of fully three-quarters of the Federal capital.
It was in the midst of this herculean task of organization that two French aides-de-camp were assigned to duty as military attaches on McClellan’s staff. His brilliant operations in Western Virginia against Lee,—who had not yet revealed the full extent of his military genius, and whom McClellan was destined to find again in his front but a year later,—the successes of Laurel Hill and Rich Mountain, gave evidence of what might be expected of the inexperienced troops placed in McClellan’s hands. He had already shown rare strategic ability, and the President had confided to him the task of creating the Army of the Potomac from the disorganized bands who had fallen back on Washington under the brave and unfortunate McDowell. Surrounded for the most part by young officers, he was himself the most youthful of us all, not only by reason of his physical vigor, the vivacity of his impressions, the noble candor of his character, and his glowing patriotism, but also, I may add, by his inexperience of men. His military bearing breathed a spirit of frankness, benevolence, and firmness. His look was piercing, his voice gentle, his temper equable, his word of command clear and definite. His encouragement was most affectionate, his reprimand couched in terms of perfect politeness. Discreet, as a military or political chief should be, he was slow in bestowing his confidence; but, once given, it was never withdrawn. Himself perfectly loyal to his friends, he knew how to inspire others with an absolute devotion.