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SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 -I 
 
 s 
 
 HON. WILLIAM J. FLAGG, 
 
 OF HAMILTON COUNTY, f^ ' 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE 
 
 OHIO HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 
 ON THE RESOLUTION OF 
 
 MR. WEST TO EXPEL HON. OTTO DEESEL, 
 
 MARCH 25, 1863 
 
 BOSTON: 
 PREISS OF THE DAILY COURIER. 
 
 1863, 
 

 l\\ exchange 
 ^AR 2 9 191B 
 
SPEECH. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: Now I have obtained the 
 floor, I hardly know why I rose. I have really 
 no right in a debate like this. I belong neither 
 with those who voted for the resolutions offered 
 by Mr. Dresel, nor with those who would expel 
 him or inflict on him the formal censure of this 
 body for off'ering them. I am of neither house, 
 being merely a poor friend of the Union, who 
 tries to do his duty, in a quiet way, to the State 
 and to the cause, with no taste for party bicker- 
 ings in times like these. 
 
 Mr. Dresel's proposed resolutions were bad, 
 bitter bad ; not so much so in their statements 
 (which contain, with a good deal that is errone- 
 ous, a good deal that is true), as in the serpent- 
 like element of evil which lurks in them, and 
 the connection in which they were off"ered. But 
 there is a right of free debate sacred to freemen 
 in all conditions of life (and which invests with 
 special sanctity the person of a representative 
 of freemen), that we may not rashly tamper 
 with. It is guaranteed by and overshadowed 
 with that great principle of our Constitution 
 which declares that error, falsehood, and malice, 
 even treasonable error, falsehood, and malice, 
 so long as they take no more solid shape than 
 the breath of man, shall be protected in their 
 airy utterance ; the consequence of which great 
 principle has been, that, until about these 
 days all treasonable ideas hatched by discontent 
 in the minds of our people have blown themselves 
 harmlessly away. And in tolerating evil propo- 
 sitions uttered in free debate, we are but assert- 
 ing our faith in the power of our free system to 
 bear assaults which the boasted strength of 
 thrones dare not encounter. 
 
 Is factious opposition to the Government so 
 rare now, that we should specially single out Mr. 
 Otto Dresel to make an example of ? Has the 
 national House of Representatives censured 
 
 Representative Conway for standing on its floor 
 and proposing submission to the rebels and a 
 dissolution of the Union ? Has it disciplined 
 Stevens, who in his place declared against a 
 restoration of the Union, though at the same 
 time avowing his willingness to accept a Union 
 — another Union — but not the Union which 
 was, and is, and, by God's help, is to be ? Or 
 were the portals of the national Senate closed 
 against Trumbull, who dared to give thanks for 
 the defeat of our arms ? 
 
 Why, sir, most of the opposition to the Gov- 
 ernment in its conduct of the war, and by far 
 the most clamorous and factious, as well as most 
 effective and disastrous opposition, has come, 
 not from that party whose province it in some 
 sort was to oppose and criticise, but has come 
 from the bosom of the Republican party itself, 
 whose duty it was to aid, defend and encourage. 
 I must say of the Democrats, that, on the whole, 
 and especially until within eight months past, 
 and until after a policy was adopted and things 
 were done which might provoke a very saint to 
 be factious, they have dealt far more gently with 
 the Government than it had a right to expect. 
 And even now, this very day, and here in this 
 city, their chief men in council have resolved to 
 retrace some of their hasty steps, and render as 
 hearty a support to the war as they did 
 at first. Is not this a cause of rejoicing? 
 Is not their aid valuable to the cause ? 
 Is this a moment for an acrimonious measure 
 like the one before us to* be adopted- 
 initiated, too, by the gentleman from Logan, 
 Mr. West, who but the other day actually im- 
 plored Democratic leaders to abate their oppo- 
 sition, and not forsake the country, for, said he, 
 " if they do forsake it, we are lost ?" 
 
 Sir, I believe that the rebellion would have 
 been suppressed before the last fourth of July, 
 
but for a factious opposition to the war policy 
 of the Government, made by the radical element 
 of the party which raised that Government to 
 power. Sustained as the President was by the 
 people at large, with their whole wealth and 
 strength, there was no problem in the business 
 of conquering the armies of the traitors, cap- 
 turing their holds, and sweeping with our free 
 battalions over every acre of disloyal soil, which 
 military skill of a very moderate kind might 
 not easily have solved. It was simply a 
 question of numbers, equipment, and time. 
 The numbers were given ; the means of equip- 
 ment were given ; the time was at our disposal. 
 At once the true instincts of the masses realized 
 this to be a massive war, and tendered in one 
 month half a million of men. In Ohio alone, 
 the offerings of the first three weeks were eighty- 
 one thousand. But they were refused, and only 
 seventy-five thousand reluctantly, doubtingly 
 accepted. The seventy-five thousand failed to 
 conquer the rebellion ; they only encouraged 
 and inflamed it. 
 
 The fault was the fault, not of the brave, 
 willing people, but of a party. Our arms 
 failed, and our cause failed, that a partisan dog- 
 ma might stand. And what was that dogma ? 
 With the radical or abolitionist element of the 
 Republican organization it was from the first 
 an article of faith, to doubt which was to be ex- 
 communicated, that the Southern people were 
 cowardly and weak, just as with the fire-eaters 
 of the cotton States it was an article of faith 
 that the Northern people were but a contempti- 
 ble race, any ten of whom a Mississippi or 
 Georgia ruffian might hack to pieces with his 
 steel toothpick. And this silly no- 
 tion, that radical element was actually 
 able, so far to infuse into the minds of 
 the whole Republican party, that the Pres- 
 ident and Cabinet adopted it, and acted 
 on it. It so beclouded the judgment of the 
 Congress which assembled on the 4th of July, 
 1861, that they could see in the well-equipped 
 and disciplined army, which then held a natural- 
 ly strong and strongly intrenched position at 
 Manassas Junction only a pusillanimous rebel 
 rout, which the advance of our own armed mob 
 of raw recruits, which General Scott was doing 
 his best to organize — and that he might do it, 
 was imploring for time — would be sure to scat- 
 ter like sheep. They proved this their faith by 
 their works ; for on the eve of the battle Con- 
 gress adjourned wid went out tc view the sport 
 
 with the placid dignity of grave Spaniards 
 going to see a bull-fight— they saw a bull-run ! 
 Strange to say, the lesson thus taken lasted 
 only a few months, and has had to be frequently 
 repeated, as we shall see. The stern teachings 
 of disaster have, however, at length availed to 
 bring our rulers to realize the need which the 
 instincts of the people realized from the first, 
 and which I, but an humble member of the 
 Ohio Legislature, realized as early as April, 
 1861, when, just where I now stand, I declared 
 for accepting half a million volunteers while 
 the spirit of volunteering was up, drilling and 
 equipping them during summer and fall, and 
 then marching them southward with the march 
 of the frosts of early winter, trampling out the 
 rebellion as they went. But the wise Cabinet 
 council could not see this until the guns of 
 Manassas blew open their eyelids, nor until 
 the enthusiasm for enlisting had so sub- 
 sided that midwinter found our forces 
 in the field still far below the desired number, 
 and they, in large part, badly armed. 
 
 It was not long afterwards, and soon after our 
 successes in the Southwest had turned the 
 heads of the Congressional •* Committee on the 
 Conduct of the War," that the baleful fallacy I 
 have named — 
 
 The "habit very blamable, which is 
 That of despising ihose we combat with," 
 
 again resumed its sway. Well knowing how 
 quickly large armies will waste away, and well 
 knowing, too, that a united people is stronger 
 than a divided one, yet, deluding themselves 
 with the notion that the rebellion was over, and 
 the need of Democratic assistance had passed 
 by, the placard was everywhere set up — 
 
 " NO MORE RECRUITS RECEIVED, AND NO DEM- 
 OCRATS WANTED." 
 
 But I must keep myself in order, and speak 
 to the question. I said factious opposition 
 to the war policy of the Government had of late 
 been too common for us to select the case of 
 Otto Dresel as so peculiarly bad, that we must 
 deal with it in the extraordinary mode proposed. 
 
 The war policy of the Executive was clearly 
 announced in the Crittenden resolution. That 
 policy was a good one. It united the North, 
 and divided the South. It saved three great 
 States to the Union. It headed the muster-roll 
 of seven hundred thousand men. More than 
 this, it was a compact, to which our rulers were 
 pledged and bound in faith and honor, as by 
 oath and bond. A few in the Republican party 
 
— a few, but a fiery-hearted, positive, restless, 
 propagandizing few — resolved to break up this 
 beneficent policy, come what might. They did 
 not scruple to choose a time of national trial 
 and trouble to do this. A constituent portion 
 of the Republican organization took upon itself 
 to play the part of an opposition. A party was 
 organized within a party. A conspiracy was 
 formed within the Capitol and the War Office. 
 
 At this time the Commander-in-Chief was 
 one George B. McClellan, a quiet, reticent man, 
 with no politics to speak of, save devotion to 
 the Union, and a desire to be useful in restoring 
 it by conquering the armies of its assailants. 
 But, unfortunately, he had in Western Virginia 
 proclaimed that servile insurrection within his 
 department would be "put down with an iron 
 hand." He must be removed, by fair means or 
 foul. By fair means or foul the war policy must 
 be changed, and the Commander-in-Chief dis- 
 placed. 
 
 The game began. Congress laid by war meas- 
 ures and revenue measures, and organized itself 
 into an Abolition debating society. The rebels 
 were building Merrimacs, but a bill for con- 
 structing iron-clads was delayed two or three 
 months, that Representatives from the loyal 
 slave States might be baited and goaded, even 
 as bulls were baited in a circus. The credit of 
 the treasury was failing, because Republican 
 papers reiterated the falsehood that o 'r expen- 
 ditures were four millions a day, and yet neces- 
 sary revenue bills lay unnoticed on the table. 
 Generals were laboring to make the new recruits 
 submit to drill and discipline ; the press, the 
 Senate, and even the War Office, derided their 
 efforts, and told the recruits that nothing was 
 needed to make them invincible but a policy, no 
 tactics of any value but the art of robbing rebel 
 hen-roosts, and no ^'esprit du corps" but the 
 Spirit of God. Our victories were belittled, and 
 our reverses magnified. The popular impatience 
 was played upon till it was worked into a furor. 
 It was "Forward to Richmond !" "Forward to 
 Manassas !" "Forward to the Shenandoah !" 
 "Forward anywhere and everywhere !" They 
 would see no impediment in trench, abattis, or 
 parapet, nor any guns but Quaker guns, nor 
 any enemies but cowards, few, ill fed and clad 
 and poorly armed. 
 
 A committee on the conduct of the war was 
 organized, whose special function it was to find 
 fault with, hamper and impede — not the enemv, 
 but the Government of their country ! In the 
 
 sound of their clamor the voice of Vallandigham 
 sunk out of hearing. 
 
 Republican Congressmen and Republican 
 journals should have sustained the Government 
 — should have encouraged th-j people — should 
 have taught patience under delays and cheerlul- 
 ness under reverses — should have excused faults, 
 hidden weaknesses, and promised victory — 
 should have acted like the Whigs in the Revo- 
 lution, Democrats in the war of 1812, and Dem- 
 ocrats in the Mexican war ; instead of which 
 they acted more like Tories in the Revolution, 
 Federalists in the war of 1812, and infinitely 
 worse than Whigs in the Mexican war. 
 
 What right had such a faction to hope for 
 success before the people ? They ruled their 
 party in the end, but they ruined it too. They 
 invaded the War Office and White House ; but 
 a Congress of men, quite other than they, stands 
 at the gates of the Capitol. But, worse than 
 this, they robbed our armies of victory — they 
 brought defeat and disgrace on our flag — and 
 the blood of an hundred thousand brave, true 
 men is red upon their foreheads. 
 
 I will now prove this : I will prove that the 
 ascendancy of the radicals, under Wade and 
 Chandler, has alone saved the rebels from ruin, 
 while it has well nigh ruined us. 
 
 To begin earlier than the appearance of McClel- ' 
 Ian at the head of the army. In the outbreak of 
 the rebellion, Missouri was more loyal than 
 Kentucky, more easily held than Kentucky, if 
 disloyal, and more easily managed, by jiolicy, if 
 neutral. General Harney, in command there, 
 had already quieted the feverish pulse of his fel- 
 low Missourians. There was good ground to 
 believe he would have saved all the blood after- 
 wards shed west of tne Mississippi, had he con- 
 tinued in that command. But, on the pretence 
 of disloyalty, he was displaced, and to this day 
 remains without a command. Able and veteran 
 General as he is — driven into oblivion, while 
 others are reaping fame — disgraced, so far as it 
 is poss ble for injustice to disgrace a true man — 
 robbed of the right to prove his loyalty by 
 meeting death in the field, he has been forced to 
 prove it by his life; living down the calumny in 
 retirement and obscurity. Who believes to-day 
 that Harney is a traitor ? Who but knows he 
 was robbed of a sdldi.^r's right because he was c 
 slaveholder, and ioved the Union without 
 amendment or alteration ? 
 
 Fremont, the idol of a party, was, ere long, 
 put in Harney's place, that he m'ght gain sue- 
 
cesses which would justify the transferrin » him 
 to the command of the Army of the Potomac. 
 He found things in a bad condition, ana soon 
 made them worse. He so energetically compli- 
 cated, overset and bewildered things — so dash- 
 ingly, headlessly and heedlessly bejumbled and 
 perplexed the campaign, that history can never 
 unravel its order and sequence, nor all the 
 Auditors of the Treasury ever untangle 
 his accounts. He was recalled. A crowd of 
 swindlers were prosecuted for imposing upon 
 his innocent and unsuspecting nature, and a 
 special commission sent out to jump at his ac- 
 counts. 
 
 McClellan now comes up. I am here called 
 to order because I name him. I know you can- 
 not bear to hear his name. But it will haunt 
 you till you die, and his fame, filling the air 
 around you, will be inhaled with your latest 
 breath. His name is history ; it is power ; it 
 is worth to the cause an army complete in artil- 
 lery, infantry, and cavalry. Hurrah for McClel- 
 lan ! In persistent refusal to accept volunteers 
 who by tens and hundreds of thousands every- 
 where offered themselves — in the Congressional 
 folly of Bull Run — in the subsequent effort to 
 obtain reluctant recruits — the spring, summer, 
 and most of the fall passed away. In making 
 an army the winter was improved. From No- 
 vember 1st till March 11th McClellan held ab- 
 solute command, except in Fremont's depart- 
 ment. During that four months and eleven 
 days we had victory everywhere and disaster no- 
 where, save only Fremont's blunder of Belmont, 
 which was in a department where McClellan 
 had no control. Disaster nowhere and victory 
 everywhere during the whole term of his chief 
 command ! Is the statement plain, simple, and 
 easy to remember ? 
 
 And the victories of that four months and 
 eleven days, with' the victories of the entire 
 spring of 1862, wf-re won because we were 
 everywhere found stroi.- f^nough to cope with 
 the enemy. They were as Ifj^it/mately the fruits 
 of preparation as the apple is the fruit of the 
 tree. And the tide turn (' ^s:ainst us only after 
 that preparation had meae.: :My worn out, in 
 consequence of the wasteful usu ,:-d foolish dis- 
 persion of the army, and the refusal to recruit 
 its ranks. 
 
 All knew it was McCIellan's plan to prepare a 
 great and overwhelming army, and move upon 
 the rebels, East and West, as nearly as might 
 be at the same point of time — that he intend- 
 
 ed the movement should not begin until the 
 season should permit of immediately following 
 up successes, and that so rapidly no time should 
 be allowed the rebels to recover from his blows; 
 and all know that in the spring of 1862, the 
 rebel forces were far inferior to ours, both East 
 and West, particularly at the West, and that it 
 was only in consequence of the pressure of their 
 great reverses then received that the Southern 
 people could be made to submit to a conscrip- 
 tion, which brought in the fresh troops who 
 drove us from the Peninsula ; drove us across 
 the borders of Pennsylvania ; drove us up to 
 the gates of Cincinnati. 
 
 McClellan, furthermore, being a soldier and 
 a man of business, relying on the best modern 
 improved arms, and not on the Sword of Gideon 
 — a student of the Art of War, and not wholly 
 relying on the inspiration of the Spirit of God 
 had his own views of the time needed to make 
 a complete soldier out of a green volunteer; not 
 believing, as Congressional warriors do, that 
 there is no Art of War, or at least none but 
 what every new-born baby has when it tumbles 
 naked and squalling into this world of strife. 
 He had his own opinion, too, and not the Con- 
 gressional or newspaper opinion, as to where 
 and how to strike a blow at the mortal part of 
 the rebellion. 
 
 It will surprise my friend from Ashtabula, 
 Mr. Krum, who here asks my opinion of the 
 campaign against Manassas and the Quaker 
 guns, to learn that a march to Manassas was 
 never in the General's plan, and was made sorely 
 against his own will, to gratify Congressmen, 
 whom those guns had frightened out of their 
 wits. 
 
 The first serious onset upon the Commander- 
 in-Chief was made soon after the meeting of 
 Congress in December, 1861. At this time, and 
 for the three months following, our army was 
 recruiting at the rate of two thousand men a 
 day, while its daily growth in efficiency, through 
 drill and equipment, was fully equal to another 
 one thousand. Every day saw, also, the ad- 
 dition of one gunboat to our navy. The 
 time was not lost ; it was gained. The army 
 was not idle ; it was busy. That of thePo'omac 
 was so thoroughly exercised, that at the end of 
 six months it had reached a pitch of discipline 
 equal to that of Wellington's after three years 
 of practice, ami, like that of Wellington, was 
 fit and able to "go anywhere and do anything." 
 The army of Buel, too, was being brought to 
 
that point of efficiency which afterwards enabled 
 them coolly to march with fixed bayonets 
 through ten thousand of Grant's fugitives, cow- 
 ering under the river bank at Pittsburg Land- 
 ing, and turn the defeat of Shiloh into a vic- 
 tory. 
 
 Yet, during all those three months, the cabal 
 of conspirators were filling the air with their 
 clamor against delay. Every moment improved 
 by the General to create his armies, they im- 
 proved to destroy him, and demoralize both 
 army and people. 
 
 He was slow, they said. He was a coward — 
 a fool — a traitor. The ordinary exercises by 
 which alone an army can be perfected and in- 
 spired with "esprit du corps," were sneered at as 
 futile, ridiculous shows. Carping and jeering 
 were the means where falsehoods failed. Mud 
 was an inexhaustible material for witticisms. 
 "Grand reviews" and "the quiet of the Poto- 
 mac" were jokes some people never tired of 
 laughing at. Telegraph and mail buzzed and 
 groaned with their load of lies. 
 
 A year has gone by. The people have seen a 
 General with his army, abandoned by its Gov- 
 ernment, fight their way out of the jaws of death, 
 and out of the gates of hell. They have seen 
 that army, after being bereft of their chief, and 
 demoralized by defeat and ill management, re- 
 ceive back that chief, whom a terror-struck cab- 
 inet restored to them, and become, with a shout, 
 the Army of the Potomac again. They have 
 heard of South Mountain, and of the salvation 
 at Antietam. And who is there will dare tell 
 them now that McClellan is a fool, a coward, or 
 a traitor? Even those who believe that Pope 
 was a better General than he, or Burnside bet- 
 ter than both, or Hooker better than the three, 
 or Fremont worth them all together — or think 
 they believe it — must own that one year ago 
 there was a vast amount of lying of one sort or 
 another done at Washington, and believed 
 through the country. 
 
 Never was viler conspiracy hatched before. 
 At its head, chosen for his peculiar qualities as 
 a bull-dog to take the President by the throat, 
 armed with authority on behalf of his faction to 
 threaten any measure of opposition he pleased, 
 was the man whom this Legislature has but 
 lately chosen for Senator, to represent the loy- 
 alty of Ohio. 
 
 Again, who believes to-day that the rebel 
 army of Virginia was a flock of timid sheep, 
 afflicted mostly with the rot, and armed only 
 
 with Quaker guns ? Yet to believe this, with 
 the rest, was one short year ago the test of 
 loyalty. 
 
 Up to the moment when the General-in-Chief 
 went to Harper's Ferry to see Banks, with his 
 force of thirty thousand strong, cross the river 
 and enter the Shenandoah Valley, as preliminary 
 to the movement of the main body of the Army 
 of the Potomac, by water, to attack Richmond 
 by way of the James and York rivers and the 
 Peninsula, the effort to shake the President's 
 faith in his chosen commander had seemingly 
 failed. In the three or four days' absence this 
 trip required, the Committee on the Conduct of 
 the War and the Secretary of War measurably 
 succeeded in their purpose, so that on his re- 
 turn McClellan was coldly received, and inform- 
 ed that his plan of campaign, which it had been 
 promised him he should be allowed to follow, 
 would not do ; that the handful of rebels and 
 quaker guns at Manassas were too formidable 
 for the large army he proposed to leave in and 
 about the strong forts that protected Washing- 
 ton, and that he must march straight out to 
 Manassas with his whole force, or a Congres- 
 sional committee would surely faint. He 
 marched on Manassas early the next morning, 
 to find empty works and wooden guns. 
 
 It seems that although the Congressional 
 Committee failed to appreciate the strategy of 
 the General they chose to despise, the enemy 
 had not. Learning from the vast fleet of trans- 
 ports which had since the middle of February 
 whitened river and bay, that McClellan would 
 decline their invitation to fight them just where 
 they wanted him to fight them, before their 
 strong works and in their chosen position, and 
 would go to Richmond his own way — or else 
 learning his plans from a leak in the Cabinet 
 (for the rebels boast they knew it in Richmond 
 only forty-eight hours after the Cabinet forced 
 h-L-ii to tell it) — learning this, the enemy had 
 been for weeks quietly evacuating Manassas, 
 and falling back on Richmond. With Banks 
 and thirty thousand within co-operating distance, 
 and with the larger force left in front of Wash- 
 ington, one would have thought that our Con- 
 gressional heroes could have kept up courage 
 while an army, of a hundred and fifty thousand 
 men or more went to keep the rebels busy in 
 another direction. 
 
 So you see the march to Manassas was not 
 McClellan's, but was a campaign made for the 
 sole benefit and at the express command of the 
 
8 
 
 " conductors of the war." And now, my Aah- . 
 tabula friend, laugh at Generals Wade, Stanton 
 and Chandler till your sides shake. Manassas 
 was taken by strategy, without firing a gun, as 
 Norfolk was afterwards taken, by the same skil- 
 ful hand ; but Manassas was not taken by that 
 celebrated onset upon timber columbiads in 
 empty forts. 
 
 A fortnight or more was lost in this foolery — 
 a precious fortnight for us to lose, as for the 
 rebels to gain. Permission was graciously given 
 McClellan to go his own way to work. And he 
 did. Two-thirds of the army being landed on 
 the Peninsula, its progress began. In as short 
 a time as the transportation could be effected, 
 those two-thirds begin the march against York- 
 town, which must be taken by siege, as such 
 fortifications are usually taken. In conducting 
 the siege, a delay of one month occurs, during 
 which the conspirators develop a disgust for 
 spades. Yorktown is taken, and the march on 
 Richmond commences. About a hundred thou- 
 sand men are on the march. But where is the 
 corps of McDowell, part and parcel of the Army 
 of the Potomac, that was to follow immediately 
 on the leturn of the transports ? It is withheld 
 by a countermand of orders, but it is promised 
 it shall soon advance and be in at the death. 
 With that corps, the fall of Richmond is cer- 
 tain ; without it, the question is getting doubt- 
 ful. The Navy Department has not fulfilled its 
 contract to look after James River, and the 
 rebels are making the best use of their time to 
 bring in conscripts and fortify the city. Mc- 
 Clellan is before Richmond, Fair Oaks 
 proves the fighting quality of our men 
 and the desperation of the rebels. They had 
 sent out Stonewall Jackson with instructions 
 that " he can best serve the interests of the 
 Confederacy by keeping reinforcements from 
 McClellan." The instiuclions fall into the hands 
 of the Conduct of the War Committee, and 
 they " serve those interests " better than even 
 Jackson could, though he does pretty well with 
 his fifteen or twenty thousand, flitting up and 
 down the valley, keeping four times his numbers 
 busy at hide and-seek. 
 
 The baltle of Hanover Court House was 
 fought, and two lines of railway cut, to prepare 
 for the reception of the rest of the Army of the 
 Potomac. Where are they? They belong to 
 the array as much as a limb belongs to the body. 
 They were raised, drilled and inspirited by the 
 General they loved, to do this very business, 
 
 now ready to be done — the taking of Richmond. 
 McClellan has hopefully reached out his right 
 hand, and is now anxiously feeling for that of 
 McDowell. Where is McDowell ? The enemy 
 are growing strong. We are falling sick. De- 
 lay is death and ruin. We are all across the 
 Ghickahominy — all but McDowell ! 
 
 Where is McDowell ? Send down him and 
 his forty-thousand, and we will soon ring you a 
 Yankee-doodle from Richmond steeples, now 
 full in view. If no McDowell, then, for the 
 Union's sake, no Stonewell Jackson ! If you 
 cannot, War Committee, send us McDowell, 
 at the least let not Stonewall fall upon us ! 
 
 The Committee tied up McDowell ! — they let 
 loose Jackson ! God help McClellan ! — God 
 help the grand Army of the Potomac! — God 
 help the Union ! 
 
 Sold, sold and delivered to the Ishmaelites ! 
 Our army cut in twain ! Our enemy doubled ! 
 
 They fall upon our flank — fall upon it 
 like wolves sure of their prey — a week of 
 blood — seven days and seven pitched battles ! 
 But, glory to the Army of the Potomac, not 
 once are we beaten ! At every stand we repulse 
 the foe with at least as bloody a slaughter as he 
 gives, and only resume the line of march af'er 
 hurling him clear from us. The last attack he 
 makes, with the last rally of rebel strength and 
 rebel desperation, is a great and decisive Union 
 victory ! 
 
 WHO SAVED THE AKMY OF THE POTOMAC? 
 
 Safety was brought out of ruin — retreat was 
 turned into a change of base, resulting in a 
 better position than before. Now, give him 
 that fifty thousand men he was cheated out of — 
 give him thirty-five thousand. Too late ! The 
 sign which refused recruits and scorned Demo- 
 crats has only just been taken down. Tha 
 Army of the Potomac must march back as it 
 best can ; must take ship and look after the 
 safety of Washington. McClellan is deposed ! 
 But no matter. Another star is rising. We 
 will see what Pope can do. He despises spades. 
 He knows how to steal chickens. McClellan 
 had too much respect for hen-roosts. Fall in, 
 boys, and the cry shall be — "Pope a-nd Pigs and 
 Victory !" 
 
 Let us go back and see how Washington got 
 frightened and how McDowell was withheld 
 from the business he was thrice sent upon. No 
 sooner did McClellan resign the chief command 
 than somebody in the War OSice cut the map 
 of war into three departments. McClellan was 
 
given a very limited field, with the Army of the 
 Potomac. All west of Knoxville was given to 
 Halleek, who had taken Corinth by forced 
 marches of a mile a day, and the free use of 
 spades, and whose speed was not, therefore, to 
 be feared. The intermediate space was alloted 
 to Fremont. You see the old fallacy was again 
 resuming its sway, and "the speedy downfall of 
 the rebellion" a thing absolutely decided on at 
 the War Office — the pursuit of the flying foe 
 and his capture being a mere question «. f swift- 
 ness. Presidential laurels, growing thick in 
 Southern fields, must not be reaped by one of 
 wrong politics. So Fremont was a second time 
 brought out and put in training. In order to 
 give him a command, to go, the Lord knows 
 where, and do, the Lord knows what, the army 
 of Banks was broken up, and Stonewall Jackson 
 soon got back his valley again. 
 
 All know how easily the Pathfinder lost his 
 path among the gorges of the Mountain De- 
 partment, and that in a wonderfully short time 
 he brought chaos out of order. Under his 
 skilful hand confusion was worse confounded 
 than ever confusion was confounded before. 
 
 The rebels gave him — , what Old Bullion 
 
 never willingly gave him. Never mind it, Fre- 
 mont ! your politics are faultless, if your tactics 
 are a. muddle. Heed not your tumble. Up 
 again, and take another. 
 
 It seems to me that the " Conductors of the 
 War" have not been happy in their selection of 
 Generals to set ofi" against McClellan. 
 
 The consequence, then, of giving Fremont a 
 command, was to let loose Stonewall Jackson, 
 whom McClc-llan had pretty well taken care of 
 when he sent Banksup the Vall?;y with his thirty 
 thousand men. Stonewall Jackson being at 
 large, the consequence was that he occupied the 
 attention of not only Banks, Shields, and Fre- 
 mont, each with a separate command, trying to 
 catch him, but occupied the attention of the 
 War committee itself, and excited lively fears for 
 the safety of Washington. To catch and de- 
 stroy him was resolved on. McDowell, just on 
 the march to join McClellan, is recalled, and 
 sent after Jackson. McDowell begs to be al- 
 lowed to go to Richmond, and do the important 
 business of closing up the war in Virginia, and 
 saving the Army of the Potomac ; or, begs at 
 least to be sent where he can either catch Jack- 
 son or drive him off from Richmond. If he 
 must turn back from his advance upon the 
 lions' den and go fox-hunting, he asks to 
 
 go to the point where he may catch the 
 beast by the nead, and not by the tail, 
 or rather catch at the tip of the tail, as 
 it turned out. His request was denied, and he 
 was marched to a point where he arrived just in 
 time to be too late. The prey had escaped. 
 Here were Fremont, Shields and Banks, each 
 with a separate army, with the troops garrison- 
 ing Washington and the whole line of the Poto- 
 mac, besides the noble army of McDowell — in 
 all full a hundred thousand men — scattering up 
 and down in the exciting but bootless sport of 
 grabbing Jackson — who escapes after all, leav- 
 ing the whole hundred thousand standing at a 
 stand-still and looking each other fooMshly in 
 the face — all this, that Fremont might win his 
 Presidential spurs. 
 
 Here, too, we have a specimen of that strategy 
 which was set up against the well considered 
 plans of McClellan. 
 
 It is easily seen that the turning point of onr 
 destiny was the breaking up of the army left 
 with Banks to hold the Valley, in order to 
 create a department for a political General, the 
 idol of the radicals. The pledge to do this was 
 wrung from the President, you may swear, by 
 the same factious, noxious crew I have named. 
 
 Having displaced McClellan, the conclave 
 made up of the Secretary, the new General-in- 
 Chief, and the conductors of the war, were 
 bound to match him in strategy, or stand con- 
 victed of a crime against the Union. We have 
 seen how they prospered with Fremont. Hal- 
 leek superseded him by Gen. Pope, and then 
 Halleek, Stanton, and Pope together fought a 
 nice little campaign o* their own, "short, sharp, 
 and decisive," — but decisive the wrong way. 
 
 McClellan was recalled just in time to receive 
 within the forts of Washington the worn out 
 remnant of his late splendid army. They had 
 borrowed it of him for a while, and now re- 
 turned it badly used up. 
 
 The enemy were threatening Washington now 
 in earnest. What was to be done ? Fremont 
 had failed and Pope had failed— both entirely 
 unexceptionable in their politics. I lave read 
 that the President excused himself for restoring 
 McClellan, by saying in extenuation of his 
 error, that the soldiers would fight under 
 McClellan, and would not fight under any other 
 commander. I think the excuse has merit in it. 
 
 He was restored just as our cause was at its 
 last gasp. His name, his presence, riding 
 along the lines— the sound of his yoice— were 
 
10 
 
 all that was needed to make our battered forces 
 the equals of the enemy's. McClellan has been 
 accused of slowness in his movements. Within 
 two days after the re-entry of the army within 
 the Washington lines, he was in full march 
 Northward to "meet the rebels, moving a disor- 
 ganized army at the rate of seven miles a day. 
 He overtook and beat the enemy at South 
 Mountain. He forced them to stand and fight 
 him at Antietain, where with numbers about 
 equal to theirs, certainly not greater, he attacked 
 them in a very strong position, and beat them 
 fairly in fair pitched battle. He drove the ene- 
 my out of Maryland. He crossed after them, 
 but refused to attack them in the position they 
 had chosen. He was requested by the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief to attack them without delay. 
 (It is easy to give such orders.) He would not 
 do it. They were in a position from which he 
 knew they must soon retreat, and when they 
 began to fall back he knew that by moving in 
 lines parallel to their march he could be in 
 Richmond a week at least before they could. 
 So it eventuated. As the enemy moved, he 
 moved, keeping always ahead of them, and 
 closing up the gaps as they went. It was while 
 he was thus pursuing them, and at the same 
 time heading them, moving ten miles a day, 
 forcing them into a sterile region where they 
 could not subsist, which would oblige them to 
 attack him in positions of his choosing, or dis- 
 appear from Virginia, leaving it and the Confed- 
 erate Capital in our hands— which even without a 
 general engagement, an army corps could at 
 any moment have taken and held. It was in 
 this crisis— on the eve of a great battle, with 
 the enemy out-generaled — crowded away from 
 the point they would defend — in short, with Lee 
 and his army wholly in our power — it was then 
 that a stormy night witnessed the arrival of 
 a swift messenger from Washington, announcing 
 that the factious radicals had again prevailed — 
 and a victorious General, in full tide of success, 
 is again disgraced in face of his army ! And 
 another chapter is added to the history of hu- 
 man ingratitude. 
 
 Nothing that has been alleged, nothing that 
 has been concealed, nothing that it is possible 
 to imagine, can justify such a deed. It is said 
 that he would not fight just when, where and 
 how his mortal foes in the War OfBce dictated. 
 What was there so brilliant in the strategy of 
 the Fremont, Pope, and Burnside campaigns to 
 make us prefer the generalship of the War De- 
 
 partment to that of the victor of Antietam ? 
 Or had his former experience of their ability to 
 keep his secrets from rebel ears been such as to 
 lead him to explain his intended movements a 
 second time ? 
 
 It was a vile act ! It was a foul deed ! 
 
 They were impatient were they ? What speed 
 have they made since displacing him ? From 
 the fourth of November till now, well nigh the 
 fourth of April, what progress has that Army of 
 the Potomac made ? Five months and no 
 results, except that Burnside was sent to Fred- 
 ericksburg, and came back short seven thousand 
 men. Spades were in disgrace there, until or- 
 dered to the front to bury fifteen hundred and 
 twelve new made corpses ! 
 
 And so Burnside was displaced for Hooker. 
 Fremont failed. Pope failed, Burnside failed ; 
 and yet all acted under the wise and particular- 
 ly minute directions of the War Office, and the 
 War Office was inspired by the Conduct of the 
 War Committee, and the War Committee was 
 inspired — by the spirit of the Devil of old. 
 
 But we are now more than twelve months 
 from the time when the radicals told us that an 
 immediate movement by McClellan, or his im- 
 mediate removal, was rendered imperatively 
 necessary by the immense war expenditure — 
 four millions a day, said they. But how sweet- 
 ly patient have the dear souls become since the 
 battle of Fredericksburg, near four months ago! 
 Do they believe now in Virginia mud ? Do 
 they believe now in the strength of the rebels ? 
 Are they waiting for the spirit of the Lord or 
 the sword of Gideon ? 
 
 But the time has been improved, I believe, in 
 " moralizing " the Army of the Potomac. The 
 Generals of that army, incorporated into its 
 very being by the organizing genius 
 that created it, were a galaxy of veritable 
 heroes. They were embraced with McClellan 
 in the affections of the soldiers. It would not 
 suit the views of the radicals to let them con- 
 tinue with their men. McDowell was displaced. 
 Porter was displaced, degraded, and, with his 
 honors thick upon him, a hero of triumphantly 
 established fame, was dismissed from the army 
 of the Union. Heintzelman was transferred 
 away. At one stroke the gallant Sumner 
 and Franklin were cut off. Burnside, having 
 been used as a tool, was flung by. Of those 
 great Generals hardly one remains. Stevens, 
 Kearney, Reno, Richardson and Mansfield were 
 killed, leading their men. It is well for them 
 
11 
 
 they fell when they did, for the revolutionary 
 tribunal would have never permitted them to re- 
 tain commands in that army : it loved them too 
 well. Such disgrace as a vile faction could in- 
 flict would surely have been their fate, had they 
 survived. Hooker remains, nominally the chief; 
 but he knows that a Turkish pasha of the olden 
 time, or a general-in-chief under the French 
 revolutionary government, had as sure a hold 
 upon his own head as he has on his. 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding all this, the Army of 
 the Potomac to-day, with all the willful con- 
 stancy of a bereaved lover, concentrates its 
 whole affection, all its hopes, dreams, memories, 
 and longings, on that man McClellan. Without 
 him, that army, if properly led, is a hundred 
 thousand strong ; with him, it is a hundred and 
 fifty thousand strong. 
 
 That army has a right to its commander. In 
 right of its services, in right of its hardships 
 and sufferings, in right of its killed and wound- 
 ed, in right of its grief and its injuries, in right 
 of its battles and victories, in right of its devo- 
 tion and glory, it claims and demands its chosen 
 General. 
 
 Now, you and I, at this distance from the seat 
 of war, may fall into delusions respecting the 
 quality of commanders ; but this army that 
 worships McClellan — this semi-popular assem- 
 blage, all soldier and all citizen, composed of 
 our most patriotic and intelligent men — this 
 vast jury of experts, who have summered and 
 wintered with him, marched and fought with 
 him, tried him by the hot ordeal of war — this 
 army does know if he be a General or no Gener- 
 al. Their testimony must seal your mouths and 
 mine. We must bow to it. Within two days, 
 two regular officers, of intelligence, fresh from 
 the Rappahannock, have told me — the one, that 
 the army were infatuated in the worship of their 
 hero to the verge of folly ; the other, that there 
 was but one sentiment in all that army, and that 
 was for McClellan. 
 
 Thus have I in some measure traced the chain 
 of calamity that has befallen our cause from 
 the machinations of that factious opposition 
 which, as I said, has dared to choose a time of 
 war and of the nation's sore trouble to revolu- 
 tionize its own party and revolutionize the 
 
 country. And now to those of the Democratic 
 party I would say, had you not at first too 
 cordially supported the Government in all it 
 did, right or wrong, and had you not afterwards 
 based your opposition on comparatively unim- 
 portant issues, like arrests and so forth, or upon 
 issues that implied an opposition to the war 
 itself, like matters of taxation, draft, conscrip- 
 tion, and confiscation, and had you watched the 
 conduct of the war, to criticise its management 
 and progress, your opposition would have been 
 proper, useful, healthy, and perfectly legitimate. 
 The result of such an opposition would have 
 been to supersede alike the half-sympathy with 
 the rebellion which in its absence has arisen, 
 and, what is more important far, would have 
 superseded also that factious opposition to the 
 Government which the absence of a proper 
 opposition on your part has allowed to spring 
 up within the bosom of the other party, to rend 
 its vitals and the vitals of the country. 
 
 You should bear in mind that anything on 
 your part, looking like a factious opposition to 
 the war itself, will furnish the radicals (who 
 now rule us) with a pretext for abandoning the 
 contest, and submitting to a dissolution of that 
 Union which you love far more dearly than they. 
 You are coming into power. Prepare yourbelves 
 to lift up the banner of the Union when it falls 
 from their imbecile grasp, to hold it high aloft 
 with the nerve only Democrats possess, and de- 
 fend it against all comers, come they from the 
 North or the South, I know, and you know, 
 that had the rebellion found you in power, you 
 would have fought out the issue, without armis- 
 tice or truce, or attempt to conciliate traitors 
 in arms. 
 
 Believe me, the red, white, and blue becomes 
 your political complexion better than the butter- 
 nut tawny. Take no position that is unnatural 
 to you, or that you are not prepared to hold to 
 the end. If you do otherwise, the party that 
 will arise on the downfall of the present domi- 
 nating faction, to guide the triumphant destinies 
 of a re-established Union, whatever may be its 
 principles, will bear upon its front some other 
 title than the time-honored name of "Demo- 
 cratic." 
 
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