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(American ^tvU War*

MEMORIES OF THE REBELLION.

JUNE 1879.

©

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR.

raoBiEs OF mciDms
connected with the origin and culmination of
THE REBELLION THAT THREATENED THE EXISTENCE OF
THE NATIONAL SOYERNMENT :-
INCLUDING REMINISCENCES OF THE COURSE OF THE REBEL LEADERS
IN CONGRESS AND IN THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC
CONVENTION "WHICH IMMEDIATELY PRECEDED
THE OUTBURST OF REBELLION;
together -with movements in and concerning the army of the
potomac during the first two years of the war ;—
Including the Proposition made in a Speech at the Astor House, in
Ne'w York, in November, i86i, 'when, in company ¦with SIMON
CAMERON, THE then Secretary of 'War, General JOHN
COCHRANE, of the Army of the Potomac,
FIRST PUBLICL Y AD VOC A TED
THE Arming of the Slaves in the War for the Union—
The year before Emancipation 'was Proclaimed as a "War
Measure by PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

FROM WRITINGS ON THOSE SUBJECTS (PRINTED FOR PRIVATE USE)
By JOHN COCHRANE, General of U. S. Volunteers;
Collated by Henry O'Rielly, Ex-Secretary of the "Association for Promoting the
Organization of Troops," of which Peter Cooper was Ghairnian.
(^Designed as an Appendix to 0' Rielly's " Brief History of the Organization of
Colored Troops in the State of New York " — deposited among his
donations to the New York Historical Society).

, NE'W YORK:
ROGERS & SHER-WOOD, PRINTERS, 21 and 23 BARCLAY STREET.

1879.

INCIDENTS OF THE REBELLION:
PRECEDING AND DURING THE STRUGGLE FOR
PRESERVING OUR NATIONAL EXISTENCE.

To THE Members of the New- York Historical So
ciety : —
Among my Contributions on various subj'ects to your Li
brary, since you elected me as a fellow-member more than
forty years ago, I have placed sundry statements from reliable
sources, as well as from my own knowledge, concerning Inci
dents relating to the Rebelli6n — incidents Civil and Political,
as well as Military. Some of these statements were communi
cated to me, in reply to my requests, by friends who witnessed
the scenes described, in Congress, in the National Conven
tions, and in the Military Service of the Nation, as well as in
Civil life.
Among the statements thus collected from friends with
whom I have been associated, were several peculiarly impor
tant ones from
General JOHN COCHRANE—
yfhoj as a Congressman from New York, as a prominent Politi-

cian, connected with the National Democratic Convention that
immediately preceded the Rebellion, and as an officer of the
Volunteer Army ofthe Potomac for suppre.s.sing that Rebellion,
had ample opportunities (or knowm£^ the facts which he has thus
placed on record, by requests from myself and other friends.
One of the most memorable points in the course of General
Cochrane was the declaration made in his Speech concerning
the Military propriety of
"Armittg the Slaves in the War for the Union"
— a Speech delivered at the Astor House of New York, in No
vember of 1861 — in presence of, and by concurrence with, his
friend SIMON CAMERON, then Secretary of War,— the year
before his zeal for Preserving our Government impelled Presi
dent LINCOLN to proclaim the destruction of Slavery as a
Military Necessity for defending our National Life — an event
that must be forever memorable in the history of Humanity,
especially as the example thus set has expedited, if not caused,
the destruction of African Slavery throughout the world. "A
large part of the credit of agitating the subject," [of arming
the Slaves for the National Defence], says General COCHRANE,
" is due to SAMUEL WILKINSON, then War Correspondent
of the 'Iribune," and now an officer of the Northern Pacific
Railroad Company — who, " in our many conferences." adds
General Cochrane, " insisted that to Arm the Slaves was
indispensable to the proper conduct of the War" — and with
whom, while en route from Washington to New York, " it was
arranged that the occasion of a serenade to Mr. Secretary
Cameron at the Astor House should be availed of by " General

Cochrane " to introduce the theme, and to''advocate it in a
speech" — the subject having been revived in another speech
from General Cochrane, after the return of the party to the
camp near Washington City, on the occasion of a special visit
to that camp from Secretary CAMERON.
The letter afterward addressed to PRESIDENT LINCOLN
by PETER COOPER, as Chairman of the Association
for Promoting the ^Organization of Troops for the Na
tional Armies, (of which Association I was a Secretary and
wrote the brief historical sketch herewith deposited in the
Historical Society's Library,) is also an important feature of
the loyal policy that ^occasioned the destruction of African
Slavery as pernicious to the National Life.
Historians of the "times that tried men's souls " — the
Macaulays of the future as well as of the present — may hence
gather some useful information when undertaking to speak or
write about some of the most important points in the Parti
zan, Congressional and Military, as well as Civic, influences and
operations, which happily, for the time at least, preserved our
Governmental Existence as the foremost Republic and as one
of the most prominent Nations of the World.
Respectfully submitted to the New York Historical Society
by
HENRY O'RIELLY,
Secretary of the above-mentioned Association.
New York, June, 1879.

THE WAR FOR THE UNION.

Memoir of Gen. John Cochrane.

History is defined to be a narrative of facts ; yet probably no
volumes aire less ladened with facts than those entitled History.
Especially true is this of those earlier ages, when the enveloping
darkness of the primitive ignorance, first began to be penetrated by
the curious and explored by the intelligent. It is not strange that
dim tradition should have impressed with an air of the fabulous,
what the credulity of the author entertained as fact ; nor that, be
fore the fervid application of modern research and the crucial tests
of modern science, much in which the human mind has been edu
cated should have been dissolved or rejected for error. The mul
tiplication of the channels of information, their variety, and the
va.st improvement in the adaptation of evidentiary methods to the
discovery of truth, have in a large degree rescued the modern
page from imputed falsehood and deserved skepticism, and placed
upon it the semblance, if not the impress of truth. Annals and
chronicles have, in every age, furnished various material for the his
torian, but liable nevertheless to the doubts inseparably from sec -
ondary statements. A more credible authority is the memoir ;
and we accordingly observe that the exacting demand of this criti
cal age for evidence, has multiplied the records of individual remin .
iscences, and that a prudent forethought is sagaciously placing them
beyond the danger of decay. Many years in this department of
preparatory labor must elapse before the history of our times may
safely be written. In the meantime, events will have assumed sta
bility, narratives will have approached consistency, statements in
seeming conflict will have been reconciled by reference to differen
tial observing points ; and where unavoidable contradiction exists,
discussion will have decided the pubhc mind upon the best sup-

ported facts. Such is the process now. Circles are entertained
with anecdotes of the actors in the drama which has closed ; the
daily press teems with a luxuriant rehearsal of martial events ; in
manifold phase the exciting story inflates and .decorates the litera
ture of the day. Magazines and novels, records and histories, are
the competing depositories of segmentary portions of , the national
Iliad, and every energy of the day seems to have conspired to win
now well the accumulating mass of historical evidence, to transmit
to future times a well-assured truth.
It was my fortune to mingle with the actors upon the stage of af
fairs, transacted in evident premonition of the Rebellion. The
springs of men's motives are not generally discernable in their im
mediate actions. Remote events more frequently reveal occult
causes, and reconcile apparent inconsistencies by discovering their
key. I shall speak of much that composed the basis of that mad
ness which ultimately hurled the South against the government,
and of much that discloses not only the object primarily proposed
by the early architects of rebellion, but the relations which they
sustained to each other. In the narration, not only the designs of
individual men will appear, but the current of sedition and revolt
will be discerned, as with inevitable course, it swept inexorably
forward to the accomplishment of the divine decree. Events of an
other character will also engage my attention — perhaps of not
much intrinsic consequence, but yet reflecting no mean light upon
questions, which, at the time, received public attention, and which
ultimately must occupy no inconspicuous place in history. The ac
cession of a people to arms is necessarily the signal of important
divergence of -opinion on politics and measures. The want of ex
perience contributes to disagreement, which, reacting unfavorably
upon popular uncertainty, is apt to involve in confusion and weak
ness the initiate action of a peaceful government in the movements
Qf war. Political aspirations are seldom absent from these critical
occasions. They perplex, with the dictates of the cabal, the best
concerted plans of the military leader, . and he, in time, influenced,
unfortunately, by the blandishments of power, forfeits unconscious
ly to its patronage, the severe and uncompromising. rules which con
stitute the art, and which conduce to the success of war. Such a
history has been ours ; and although, while in the field, I had little
opportunity to witness it, yet at various points so intimately blent
were military operations with civil measures, that the reason of the

5
liiarch of an army, or the fighting of a battle was frequently not un-
«qually composed of a military necessity and a political finesse.
The Charleston Convention assembled in the month of May,
i860. Active preparations had preceded its advent. Southern
politicians had carefully concerted the measures, on whose suc
cess depended its failure.' It was no conjectural undertaking
doubtfully projected, or of uncertain appUcation when accom
plished. It was the lifting of the curtain upon the subsequently
¦eventful drama ; it was the first overt act of that fearful series,
'whose consummation in rebellion had been long previously definite
ly proposed. It had been suspected that the election of John C.
Fremont, in 1856, would have convulsed the South into hostihty to
the Federal Government. What had been suspicion, was subse
quently revealed to me by President Buchanan as indubitably true.
It was during his administration that he informed me, that since his
induction into office, he had been assured of the fact. Evidently,
the gradual departure from the South to the Northwestern States of
the disposing voice in the Electoral College, had matured the de
termination to secede from the Union. In 1856 their arrangements
were complete, but 'their action was predicated on the defeat of
Mr. Buchanan. At the only point where uncertainty was allowed,
the event held adverse. The unexpected election of the Demo
cratic candidate disarmed them of the proposed excuse of a sec
tional President, to revolt from his authority. The continuance in
power for another four years of a Democratic Administration, sub
missive to their direction, was a recompense for delay, to which
even the most combustible fire-eaters were not indifferent. But,
•concurrently with the advancem.ent of the South to the chief con
trol of the government, were secretly prosecuted the conspiring
measures already projected for its overthrow. Organizations were
continued and enlarged. Action was systematized. Its disci
pline of secrecy was rigid and inviolate. The confidence in
spired by the promotion of the leaders to the chief places
of Federal trust, not unnaturally inclined their followers to
the certainty of assured success ; and the fabric of prepared
rebellion arose — huge, tall, and menacing — in the obscurity of
an atmosphere frequented with plots and loaded with treason.
An incident of the 34th Congress was not inaptly illustrative of the
tendency of the times. Southern statesmen ruled in the Cabinet ;
southern interests swayed the departments. The political party

whose course was at the mercy, occupied every avenue of power
for the benefit of the South, and both branches of Congress has
tened, with the alacrity of Democratic officers and Democratic
majorities, to record the decrees of the oligarchs of the Republic.
It was at this" period, in 1858, that, during a session of the House,.
prolonged by fillibustering into the middle hours of a winter's.
night, occurred the personal encounter between Galusha A. Grow,
of Pennsylvania, and Lawrence A. Keitt, of South Carolina. In
an instant the House was convulsed. Fatigue was forgotten, sleep
fled, and from every side angry and inflamed members rushed im
petuously into the fray, which raged in the area before the Clerk's
desk. It was then, when the conflict was at its wildest, that a Rep
resentative from the city of New York* approached General John
A. Quitman, one of the members from Mississippi, and said :
"General, you must be aware that the North contributes sufiicient
of Democratic strength to the action of the government to insure
security to* Southern interests. Why can you not, therefore, quiet
this contest, by advising your friends to desist?" " Sir," said that
chief in the councils of secession, "before the year 1865 this
government will have ceased to exist;" and he quietly resumed the
employment the question had interrupted. To this' earliest strug
gle of general violence, was thus authentically affixed an ulterior
significance. The requisite preparations of revolt were even then
far advanced. With comparative unanimity, the local politicians
of the South embarked upon the perilous enterprise of secession
from the Union. Prominent among these, and their guide, stood
John A. Quitman. The cabahstic organization of the Knights of
the Golden Circle recognized in him its efficient head. Extreme
councils characterized them, and the scheme of rebelhon, which
ostensibly engaged the multitude, was to the initiate but the pre
cursor of a Southern Empire. Walker's various fillibustering ex
peditions, if they did not originate, received an animating influence
from these secret societies ; and the repeated efforts of Lopez upon
Cuba unquestionably were stimulated by the same interest. It cer
tainly required no superior sagacity to foresee the consequence of
Cuba, as a naval rendezvous to the States that should rebel against
the Federal Union ; and the wily agitators against its authority, dis
cerned in its possession, an impediment to any attempted blockade
of the Southern coasts. * Myself, J. C.

This project combined other considerations. From a ruptured
:government, the thoughts of the conspirators rose to the establish
ment of an empire. It had occurred to them that Havana was the
.-entrepot of the merchandise of Europe— -for the American conti
nent not only, but for insular Asia. Their imaginary transition
from federal dependence, therefore, was simply the first member of
a magnificent scheme of commercial empire, with a radiating cen
tre of wealth and influence in Cuba. Nor, it must be confessed,
were these the mere speculations of theorists, nor the schemes of
visionaries. They reposed in the by no means impossible combina- "
tions of a political future, even then auspiciously dawning upon their
hopeful vision, and claimed the consistence which belongs to the
commercial axiom, that American enterprise and conduct may yet
be the capable implements of ultimately constructing in Havana, a
competing rival with Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, for the
¦commerce of the world.
The failure to acquire Cuba deprived the conspirators of the anti
cipated offices of an ally: unfortunately it did not arrest their re
bellious designs. These continued to thrive within the circumscribed
limits of a secret order, till their malignant virus infected all in
their proximity with concentrated depravity,. and diffused the pesti
lence of revolt. It would, however, be quite erroneous to attribute
the same ulterior purposes to all indiscriminately, who represented
the constituencies or interests of the South.
The vicissitudes of southern politics had, in latter years, been devel
oping into formidable antagonism two well-defined classes of south
ern politicians. Their inception is to be found in that fruitful
source of dissension, personal ambition. The distinctions and re
wards within the gift of the federal government had uniformly
been at the command, and were parcelled among the traditionary
leaders of southern politics. Their consequent attraction to the
federal centre qualified, if it did not withdraw, their attention from
local interests, and the husbandry of local popularity. In the
meantime, another growth of aspirants, to public favor appeared,
and began to assert with vehemence their title to public considera
tion. The rivalry thus started was at no loss for nutriment. Con
tinual appeals to selfishness and local pride, fast acquired for the
more modern men, the usual fruits of subserviency to popular
passions. The demagogues who purveyed to prejudice, had not
long to await their reward. A considerable party soon found itsel

sufficiently strong to oppose the peaceful conservatism of the party
in power; and success was pursued through pertinacious appeals in
behalf of southern rights, artfully engrafted upon the central idea of
southern aggrandizement. The flame caught; conventions thun
dered, and State legislatures resolved: nor did many years elapse
before the process of " firing the southern heart " elevated the in
cendiaries of the edifice, to the confidence and power previously
reposed in its builders. The federal politicians of the South were
at the mercy of the State politicians. The fire-eaters had prevailed
over the conservatives — the Secessionists over the Union men. But
the struggle had not ceased during Mr. Buchanan's administration..
Honorable resistance was made during much of it by Southern gen
tlemen, in Washington, to the demands for revolution transmitted
from the South. The reputation of many of her greatest men had
been acquired in the service of the Union, and was intimately en
twined with its enduring columns; they, therefore, naturally shrunk
from the menace which threatened them, as from a common dan
ger. While they asserted the grievances, the redress of which was-
the pretext of assault, they hoped to redress them during their con
tinued possession of the government, by its subjection to their im
mediate purposes.
Such was the attitude of the opposing schools of southern politi
cians, when the Democratic party assembled in Charleston, in May,
i860, for the purpose of nominating a presidential ticket. The
one, intent upon the enjoyment of slavery, sought their object at
the expense of the Union; and the other, though actuated by the
same insane desire, proposed to attain it through the government,,
and not by its destruction. Events at Charleston soon disclosed
these relations. The northern Democracy were confident in their
ability to retain the succession of the government, should the Con
vention unite in the nomination of a candidate. That portion of
the Southern Democracy, therefore, which adhered to the fortunes
of the Union, affiliated, to this extent at least, with their northern.
brethren. When, however, the interest of slavery became involved'
with the question of a candidate, the Union Democrats of the South,
under the strong impulse of protection to slavery, were found to
diverge widely from the Democrats of the North, who were mainly
desirous of the success of their party. Upon this division followed a
brood of dissensions which filled the Convention and cheered the
southern ultras with hopes of such a disagreement, .as would frustrate

every effort to co-operate; and their expectations were not disap
pointed. In the meantime, however, great exertions were made by various-.
gentlemen from both the North and the South, to unite their strength
upon some one candidate. I have reason to think that those efforts.
were sincere on the part of those politicians who, in this conference,,
represented the South.
It must not be forgotten, that while the South participated in the
Convention, under the two-third rule, which controlled its ballot-
ings, no candidate could be nominated against their united votes.
The effort, therefore, to prolong its participation, could be prompted
only by the wish of effecting an ultimate nomination; while the
withdrawal of any considerable number of southern delegations
could, as the signal of defeat to the South in the Convention and
at the polls, be attributed only to a determination to destroy the
unity of the Democratic party. Now, it was confidently supposed
that the nominee of the Charleston Convention could be successfully
elected by an undivided party vote ; and the event justified the
supposition. In the unity of the Convention, therefore, it was under
stood, consisted Democratic success; while disaster, it was believed,.
would ensue upon its rupture. But the southern destructives had
once before been thwarted in their nefarious purposes, when the
election of Mr. Buchanan unexpectedly seized from them the ex
cuse of a sectional President, for premeditated revolt. The possi
bility of impediment was now to be peremptorily excluded. No
chance was to be permitted against the election of a sectional
President. The bond was to be taken of fate, and the secession
from the Charleston Convention, which rendered secure Abraham
Lincoln's election, against all the Southern votes in the electoral
college, was a foregone conclusion ofthe ultras of the South, and
upon which rested their revolutionary hopes. While the general
complexion of events at Charleston denoted that this inexorable
purpose distinguished the Southern secessionists from the southern
Union men, an anecdote of the times will the more effectually de
monstrate that the Union men steadfastly opposed any division of
the. Convention, and confidently labored for a nomination in which,
as has been shown, consisted both the success of the Democratic
party and the perpetuity ofthe Union.
The Convention had been in session for several days, and ru
mors were frequent of the purposed secession of various State dele-

gations from its deliberations. The situation was critical, when, I
remember, that at the headquarters of the southern Union men, late
at night, a number of gentlemen discussed with solicitude the
question of results. The Convention was carefully canvassed, and
the satisfactory conclusion was unanimously approved, that while
the South adhered, no nomination could be made without her co
operation. Among those present were Hon. John Shdelland Hon.
James A. Bayard. At this time Hon. Wm. L. Yancey and Hon.
Knox Walker were ^announced. Upon the request of Mr.- Slidell,
they withdrew with him into an adjoining room. After a prolonged
absence Mr. Slidell returned, saying that " our calculations were so
convincing to Messrs. Yancey and Walker, of the control of the
nomination by the South, that they had left with the assurance that
Alabama would not withdraw from the Convention." This grati
fying information relieved the prevailing anxiety, and the company
separated in the belief that an imminent danger was averted. Yet,
the business which first engaged the attention of the Convention
the next day, was the withdrawal of Alabama from its deliberations,
upon the announcement of Hon. Knox Walker. Two conclusions
are allowable from this statement. The one affirms the earnestness
with which the Union men of the South labored against a fracture
of the Convention, and the other confirms the supposition that the
Rebellion received its first impulse from the "Fire-eaters," With
whom the explosion of the Charleston Convention had been fully
predeterrhined, as indispensable to successful revolt.
Though after the conflagration has ravaged, the comparative guilt
of its authors cannot mitigate the ruin ; yet history, which examines
effects in their causes, is oftentimes profitably engaged with the
events which follow the catastrophe. Accordingly, it may be of some
use to hold in view in the subsequent narrative the reflection, that
the great Southern Rebellion was the portentous offspring of but a
portion of the political leaders of the South.
It will be remembered that the Convention adjourned to BaUi-
more without having made a nomination. The seceding delega
tions having, in the first instance, adjourned to Richmond, eventu
ally reassembled at Bakimore, on the same day to which the Con
vention was adjourned from Charleston. I was then in Washing
ton, attending Congress, as a member from New York ; and I re
collect, on the evening previous to the Convention's assembling, to
have had a casual conversation with Hon. Robert Toombs, of Geor-

II
gia, and Hon. John C. Breckenridge, of Kentucky, of some rela
tive significance to current events. I called at the former gentle
man's house, where he happened to be entertaining a company of
friends at dinner. At the announcement of my visit, he, with the
Vice-President, left the table, and accosting me in the hall, they
both immediately directed their inquiries to the next day's Conven
tion. The utmost solicitude was expressed by them that the pre
vailing dissensions should be allayed, and that the two Conventions,
reunited, should effectuate nominations which could receive the
common support of the party. They said that Hon. John Slidell
would be in Baltimore with full authority from the South, and to
whom they referred me. I was impressed with the fervor and the
cordiality of these gentlemen, and left the next day for Baltimore,
¦with hopes that patriotic counsels would prevail against the destruc
tive artifices of the Secessionists.
While at the Eutaw House, in Baltimore, a few hours before the
appointed time for the assembling of the Convention, I received in
formation that Mr. Slidell, who had arrived in Baltimore that morn
ing, upon review of the situation of affairs, despaired of any mu
tual accommodation, and was on the point of returning to Wash
ington. He was with difficulty prevailed on to postpone his depar
ture to the evening. In the meantime, and at the first recess of the
Convention, Mr. Dean Richmond and myself, of the New York
delegation, called upon him at the house of Mr. Bruin. At this
interview, it was distinctly proposed by Mr. Slidell, assuming, and
unquestionably empowered with authority, that if the New York
delegation would cast their vote for Horatio Seymour, as candidate
for the Presidency, the seceded States, together with the whole
South, would return into the Convention, and make him the candi
date of the party. Mr. Richmond acceded to the proposition, but
referred his power to execute it to the single condition of liis abil
ity to prevail upon his friends in the delega,tion to accept it. He
and I returned forthwith to the Eutaw House, the headquarters of
the New York delegation, where he, having had an interview with
his friends in the delegation, returned to me with the report that
their rejection of the proposition rendered it impossible. Negotia
tions ceased. Further concessions seemed to be useless. The re
maining southern delegations withdrew from the Convention, when
Hon. Caleb Cushing abdicated the presidential seat. A Northern
and a Southern Democratic Convention having, thereupon, each

nominated a Presidential dcket, and adjourned, the election of
Abraham Lincoln, the nominee of the Chicago Convention to the
Presidency of the United States, without the affirmative record of
a single Southern electoral vote, was secured ; and the Secessionists,
at length, exuUed in the attainment, after many years' labor, of the
initial movement of the rebellion against the government, for
which they had long prayed and plotted.
It is not my purpose to accompany this statement with specula
tive commentaries. The indulgence might detract from the only
merit of narrative. Whether the Power which directs, when human
judgment is turned to folly, did not, with' inscrutable wisdom, be
wilder and perplex for the accomplishment of His own highest pur
poses, future ages will read in the event. They to whom the
present generation is most frequently inchned for guidance and in
struction had, nevertheless, detected in the historical path of our
national growth, admonitions of the approaching rebellion of the
South ; and the general opinion, I think, has definitely settled, that
the effort to destroy our federal relations had long impressed the
various revolutions of southern thought, which was, in no respect,
disposed to uncertainty, except as to the pretext and the time of
revolt. These facts, however, indicate, with the authority, of cirr
cumstances, the separate attitudes of the competing schools of
southern politics towards the Federal Government. They seem
ingly confirm the statement that her politicians and statesmen,
whose personal aggrandisement consisted in federal patronage, and
whose ambition had been fleshed in federal offices, were reluctant
to precipitate the South upon the central Government ; and that it
was not until their last resource had failed, that they yielded to the
wave, whose overwhelming rage cast them, along with their whole
torn-up region, in one rebellious mass against the constitution and
the laws of our common country.
The thirty-fifth Congress was the one most eventful since the adop
tion of the present constitution. The Republican party controlled it ;
but by a meagre majority. The effervescence of the southern con
spiracy, which was percepdble to the experienced observer in its
earliest stages, and at its second session burst through all consti
tutional restraints, and culminated in treason. State followed State
in the march of secession from the Union. The valedictories of
seceding delegations glistened with the mock heroism of the hour.
The Houses were oppressed by the magnitude, and arrested by

13
the novelty, of the crisis ; and the whole sense of the country was^
stunned by the audacity which boldly essayed to sever the ligatures
of the government. The 4th of March came. The Congress,
which two years before had represented all the States, beheld the
vacated places of eleven of them, when it expired. James Buchanan
retired into private life, and Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated to
the supreme direction of a government, agitated with turbulence,
assailed by sedition, and dissolving with internal disorders.
Of all the Southern States Virginia alone remained. Her Con
vention was in session at Richmond, and Union men were hoping;
that her temperate wisdom would allay the heats of secession, and
ultimately restore the integrity of the Union. Very much of national
destiny depended upon the action of Virginia; and, with the approba
tion of President Lincoln and his Cabinet, soon after the expiration of
Congress, I went to Richmond. On the day of my arrival I was in
volved by Governor Henry A. Wise, in an earnest discussion of the
absorbing theme of the times, as I casually stood in the hall of the
Richmond House. The concourse of listeners sympathized with the
disunion sentiments ofthe Governor, and it was obvious that power
ful influences were under command, to drag Virginia fromthe Union
of States. A loyal majority, however, it was supposed, still con
trolled her Convention. It so happened that Colonel Lay, a Vir
ginian, having, with reference to the anticipated secession of Vir
ginia, resigned his commission in the United States Army, was, on
the afternoon of the day I arrived, to be serenaded by his friends
and admirers. I was told by the Union members of the Conven
tion, that it was claimed by their adversaries, that the popular voice
was largely for secession, and, that as the serenade to Col. Lay
would furnish an opportunity of disproving it, I was the only person
who could serve the occasion. Having ineffectually represented
my aversion to inculcate ideas different from those represented by
Col. Lay, at a serenade tendered in his honor, I so far yielded to
their importunities as to consent to address the audience, should a
very general call be made after Col. Lay had retired. I was accord
ingly called for, and spoke. An anonymous dispatch to a northern
paper arbitrarily characterized this as a disunion speech. I will
rest the refutation of the charge upon this narrative of facts. I had
hardly retired when I was accosted by several of the Union mem
bers of the Convention, with whom I was personally acquainted,
with congratuladons upon the service I had rendered them, and

14
with assurances that the reception of my remarks had demonstra
ted that the populace of Richmond were for the Union.*
I had intended to remain in Richmond several days; but at a
consultation that evening of the Union members of the Convention,
and where were Hon. Geo. Summers, Hon. Mr. Willie, Hon. Mr.
Baldwin, Hon. Mr. Lewis, and others, it was judged to be highly
important that I should return forthwith to Washington, with their
representations to the President, and Mr. Seward, and General
Scott, that if the Government would refrain from reinforcing the
garrison at Portress Monroe, their counsels would ultimately prevail
in the Convention, and Virginia be held in the Union.
The suggestion, however, was considered whether I had not bet
ter remain to reply to Hon. Roger A. Pryor, who, it was under
stood, intended in a few days to answer me in a public speech.
But, the majority being of opinion that my immediate return to
Washington with their message to the President was of greater im-
portance, I left on the ensuing morning, bearing a letter of creden.-
tials from Hon. Geo. Summers to Gov. Seward. I discharged my
obligations by communicating to President Lincoln, Gov. Seward,
and General Scott, the message with which I was commissioned,
and by delivering to Gov. Seward the letter of Judge Summers.
Thus, as early as the eighth day of March, 1861, was the Govern
ment in Washington placed, through my mediation, in confidential
communication with the Union members of the Virginia Convention.
I was unexpectedly recalled to New York. But, subsequently.
Judge Summers being prevented from going to Washington, at the
request of Governor Seward (borne to him by special messenger),
Hon. Mr. Baldwin, it appears, was delegated to go in his place.
On his arrival occurred the conversation between him and President
Lincoln, relative to the action of the Virginia Convention, which
Mr. Baldwin has published. My freedom from complicity with
the secessionists of Virginia being thus vindicated, I abstain from
comment upon the negotiations between the President and Mr. Bald-
* While lying with the army in the lines before Fredericksburg, a private in
my brigade brought me the fragment of a newspaper published at Fredericksburg
about the time of my visit to Richmond, in which was this news item ; " Hon.
John Cochrane is in Richmond on some mission it is thought. On being called
¦out, he made a Union speech which was much applauded by the audi
ence." The soldier said, that in searching among the old papers of a deserted
house he had been attracted by my name, and thought it best to bring the paoer

IS
win on the part of the Union men of Virginia, both as unnecessary
and as foreign to my object.
On the 1 2th of April, 1861, a bullet's flight against Fort Sump
ter proclaimed the consummation of the work inaugurated at Char
leston. Twelve States had withdrawn from the nadonal Congress,
rndependent representatives were nursing illegitimate interests at
Montgomery. The Rebellion was a fact. The loyal North sprang
to arms ; hostile armies were confronted on Virginia soil, and war —
Civil war — raged.
During the ensuing summer and winter that I lay with my regi
ment — the United States Chasseurs — near Washington, frequent op
portunity offered of intercourse with both the civil and military
authorities. The delay essential to the organization of an army,
became the theme of angry contentions, and parties began to form
upon the policies of the' war. The battle of the first Bull Run was
the first ¦ lesson in our military experience. The country learned
that the Rebellion was not to be suppressed in a' day. A speech
made by me in November of this'year, to rny regiment in camp,
provoked very general comment. It advocated the arming of the
slaves, and,^ as the first public proposition to tbat effect, became the
object both of applause and denunciation. Its history is brief, and,
as related to the opinions and connected with the fortunes of a
cabinet minister, is worthy of notice.
Upon the invitation of General Cameron, the Secretary of War, I
had, during the last days of October, accompanied him upon a visit
of official form to the City of New York. While there, the General !
was serenaded at the Astor House. After he had addressed the au- ;
dience, I remember to have adverted, in a brief speech, to the neces- j
sity of invoking to our aid', from the ranks of rebellion, where they I
were restrained, the thousands- of slaves anxious for our success,
and willing to contribute to it. The subject had engaged much of
my thought when revolving the military problem bf the war. Its
serious character had come to be very generally acknowedged, and
reflecting minds were referring the question of ultimate success, not
Only to the judicious and skilful direction of our military strength,
but to an immediate recourse to the niilitary advantages of which
the peculiar composite population of the South allowed us the avail.
A tolerably accurate computation disclosed that, deducting from
the three million five hundred thousand siaves; in the States in re
bellion, the females, children, and male domestic servants, there

i6
would be left of male field laborers about one miUion seven hun-
dred thousand. The census of i860 showed, that in aU these States
there were not of male whites at the military age between eighteen
and forty-five, more than one million three hundred thousand.
When considering that indigenous to the country, the slaves, as the
depositaries of its physical geography, were intimate with the topo
graphy of the South, it did not seem unreasonable to conclude, that
with equal discipUne, the slave population in the emergent conflict
for freedom, would be able ultimately to overbear their masters.
This comparison of mere physical force was obviously charged with
the inculcation of the duty of securing to the government at the
earliest practicable day, an ally of such decisive power to inchne
the scales of victory. The question of success might be securely
rested upon the election which the slaves should make, for which
belligerent to cast their strength in the war. To arm them, there
fore, was imperatively required, when simply^ to arm them was to
secure their aid. Such views, also, had the Secretary revolved;
and subsequently, upon our return to Washington, it was determined
that the policy of introducing the slave in arms into the war for
perpetuating free institutions, should be formally proposed and
practically inaugurated. For this purpose the speech was made ;
the Secretary attending upon the occasion, and approving. It was
objected that it would in effect emancipate the slaves. It was an
swered, that the measure which restored the Government was not
chargeable with an injury inflicted on its assailants. It was objected,
that the war was for the purpose of restoring the Union, and not of
emancipating the slaves. It was answered, that the means which
restored the Union were justifiable, even though the utter annihila
tion of its enemies. It was objected, that to arm the slaves was in
violation of the constitutional rights of the South. It was answered,
that in their war against the Constitution, the South had no such
rights. It was objected, that to arm the slaves Would diffuse
through the South, with the fierce ravage of war, the horrors of
barbarous, and the license of servile, insurrection. It was answered,
that the race which for more than a century had, with patient en
durance, acquiesced in the impenetrable gloom of their bondage
and who, when outrage and wrong goaded fiercely to revenge,
had, even in the glut of opportunity, refrained from the least excess,
would not probably be precipitated into it, when the light dawned,
and the sense of an irreparable injury was expelled by the jubilant

T-1
emotions of unexpected manumission. The partisan press teemed
with the expletives of denunciation ; the pulpit groaned with fear
ful admonitions and holy diatribes against the heresy ; statesmen at
home, whose optics had been dazed in the bewildering maze of de
vious political careers ; and philosophers abroad, whose impractica
ble theories had confused systems and oppressed nations, swelled
their united note of objection into one long howl, that it was prema
ture— ^that it was dangerous — that public opinion would not sustain
it. It was not strange that such a blare should have disturbed the
constancy of the President. Even his resolution was shaken, and
the Secretary of War, who had nobly assumed the burden and
borne the heat of the day, was dismissed, lest he should distract
Cabinet councils any longer, with the opinion that the slave should
be armed. All honor to the patriotism and to the fearlessness of
Simon Cameron ! He was a true friend of his country at her dark
est hour ; and when light broke, he was seen advancing in line, with
the measure by which the country was eventually saved. For this
he was rejected !
The President approved the doctrine of the speech, but awaited
the fitting time for its adoption. When General Cameron made
his official conge, he, with characteristic magnanimity, offered to
him a written statement to that effect, authenticated by the Presi
dential signature ; but which, with equal courtesy, was declined.
Mr. Lincoln's inclinations naturally preferred the discretion which
remits the counsels of the leader to the tendency of, his foUowers.-
Sagacity of perception elevated his measures, oftentimes instinc
tively, into greatness. But confessedly, his was not the discursive
intellect that, pressing into the regions of the speculative and un
tried, modelled affairs to its theories, or compelled men to the
adoption of its doctrines. He was an American, and practical.
His was the shrewdness of the West, engrafted on the constancy
and the integrity of the national character. I have cause to be
lieve that his proclivities were unhappily encouraged by the advice
oi the Count de , Gasparin. The President read to me from this
writer's letters. Seldom have I heard the generous sympathies of a
large-souled nature so aflfectingly expressed. Certainly, congenial
ity wedded the heart of this author in sacred unity with human
rights. But, alas! how inadequate the intellect of Europe even to
the comprehension of American liberty. Where popular ignorance
is a pillar of government, the overthrow of despotism depends upon
popular enlightenment. Hence, the propagandists are essential to

i8
European progress ; their theories are the lessons in which the
masses are instructed, and their conceptions of liberty largely par
take of the chimerical characteristics of their teachers. Conse
quently, the method of execution is at the dictation of conspira
tors, who, however proficient in the tenets of constitutional govern
ment, are deplorably incompetent to organize revolution. Having
no knowledge of those whose elevation is at once their object and
their instrument, they are as apt to be abandoned as to be sup
ported by them ; and the excitements of European populations
have, for this reason, uniformly succumbed to the eventual predom
inance of prescriptive organization in the hands of despots, over
the incoherency of revolutionary action, directed by doctrinaires.
But here, where intelligence is the condition, the instructor in
tenets is an exceptional presence. Here, neither learned deductions
nor speculative theories are the source or the auxiharies of freedom.
Its truths are instinctive and its impulses unconscious in the Ameri
can mind ; and they are infalhble, too. What each one likes best,
he does ; and the aggregation of these likes, in an American com
munity, is its hberty ; their execution is its government. Our in
telligence is our birthright, and our institutions an heir-loom. How
foreign to such a people are the brilliant aphorisms and the eccen
tric courses of European republicanism, and how incapable to their
emergencies are European repubhcans, and how inadequate their
advice! When, therefore, the French philosopher counselled
against the arming of the slave, he but darkened judgment. The
American people knew better than the Count de Gasparin ; and,
long before he wrote, or the President acted, they had determined
that that the slave should fight ; and that fighting, he should be free.
President Lincoln executed their will and passed to glory.*
The apprehension with which the South listened to the proposal,
that their slaves should be armed, was signally expressive of their
consciousness of the injury it would inflict. Besides the denuncia
tions of their press, their alarm was conveyed under the disguise of
menacing and anonymous communications. Some threatened im
mediate vengeance, and some death in battle. One of them, post
marked at Alexandria, I copy to attest the proverbial ardor and
poesy of the South :
* For a more detailed account of the proposal to arm the slaves, see pam
phlet entitled "Arming the Slaves in the War for the Union," with introductory
remarks by Henry O'Rielly. New York, May, 1875.

19
Alexandria, Va., November 21, 1861,
Southern Confederacy.
Back to your home, you cowards, go,
Black hearts and bloody hands ;
Ye but disgrace a soldier's name,
Owning such vile commands.
What ! have ye come to spoil our fields ?
Black hearts and bloody hands ;
And taste the sweets that conquest yields
To those who win our lands ?
Dare ye -with. patriot men to strive,
Black hearts and bloody hands ?
And can ye hope to 'scape alive
From their avenging hands ?
Thieves, ruffians, hirelings, slaves.
Black hearts and.bloody hands !
Our country will refuse its graves
To your polluted bands. A Virginia Lady.
By this time the opposition to General McGellan had taken form
and consistence. The radicals, as they began to be called, were
conducting vigorously an uncompromising war against him. The
removal of Simon Cameron from the War Department, if it had not
their acquiescence, was, at least, the occasion of their becoming a
party to the very questionable manoeuvres which indicated his suc
cessor. General McClellan's friends had conceived, in their hos
tility to General Cameron, strong prejudices against him. While
his removal from the War Oifice, therefore, was to them the subject
of coiigratulation, they were elated with the assurance that Hort. E.
M. Stantonwasto.be his successor. I had credible evidence of
this, -w^hen, at Willard's dining-table, I was informed by a confiden
tial member of General McClellan's staff", that of those whose names
had been suggested as General Cameron's successor, the General's
friends preferred Mr. Stanton. On the same day Mr. Stanton, by
invitation, met the chiefs of the Radicals at dinner at General
Cameron's. A portion of the interval, after discussing the viands
of their host, was occupied by Hon. E. M. Stanton and Hon. Zach.
Chandler in a post-prandial promenade, both harmonious in cen
sure of General McClellan's dilatory conduct of the war. The day
after, the political bulletin announced the appointment of Hon. E.
M. Stanton as Secretary of War, vice Sinion Cameron resigned.

In the Spring of 1862, the army ofthe Potomac struck tents and
broke camp. The predictions of many, that no enemy would be
found at Manassas, were verified. The army marched up the hill,
and the army marched down again.
Another line of operations, however, 'was adopted. Once again
the army was under marching orders, and at length opened the
memorable campaign ofthe Peninsula.
Upon the extreme left, the corps of Major-General Keyes moved
up the left bank of the James River from Newport News. The
advance of this column was led by General Couch's division. When
the head of the column came upon the Warwick River, a shell in
formed General Graham, in command of the brigade on the right, of
the presence of the rebels on the north bank of the river. In the
meantime, Yorktown had been invested. It would seem, therefore,
that the passage of the Warwick on the left would have turned the
enemy's position at Yorktown, and have forced him back upon Wil-
liamsburgh. But we were unprovided with a pontoon train, and the
attempt was impossible, which, had the river been fordable, or the
means of bridging it been accessible, would, without doubt, have
prevailed against the weak force opposed. A few days, however,
answered the enemy to strengthen the point ; and we sat down
quietly to await the operations of the army before Yorktown, under
the immediate eye of the General-in-Chief. The evacuation of
Yorktown by the Rebels, and of all their works on the right bank
of the Warwick, their retreat and our advance, the battle of Wil-
liamsburgh, and the subsequent march down the Peninsula, have
been so widely published that further comment would be useless..
The extreme left encountered the Chickahominy at Bottom's Bridge,
where they were the first of the army to cross. The advance was
held by General Casey's division, followed by that of General
Couch. In this order we lay on the 31st day of May, encamped at
Seven Pines, on the road to Richmond, and within four miles of that
place. Our position was precarious. Two divisions composing
one army corps, holding the extreme left, miles away from the cen
tre — the right, unintrenched and separated from the remainder of
the army by the Chickahominy, swollen by extraordinary floods —
were certainly in no position to withstand the shock of the rebel
arms. Such was the military opinion of the situation transmitted,
as I am aware, on the day preceding the attack, to the headquarters
of the army. Nevertheless, there we lay — Richmond spires glinting

and Richmond bells ringing. At noon the enemy was upon us.
With shell and solid-shot, artillery and musketry, down came the
fragments of Casey's division, broken and flying before the lebeis.
Under General Keyes' orders, two regiments of our brigade — then
commanded by General Abercrombie — advanced directly to the
front, and those remaining — Col. Williams' and my own — were or
dered into line bf battle on the. right, beyond the railroad. The
fiery tide swept over the field of Seven Pinesbeyond us, and through
the camps we had just left, while our scouts returned with informa
tion of the approach against our position of a large force of infantry,
accompanied by four batteries. In the meantime, Col. Russell had
deployed the loth Massachusetts into line on our right, while, as
senior Colonel commanding, I awaited in this position the onset
of the enemy ; Gerieral Couch carne up and ordered a retreat.
As we moved off, General Abercrombie rode on the ground, and I
then learned that the two regiments of the brigade which had gone
to the front, had been nearly annihilated. As we moved along the
line of railroad receding from Richmond, I watched the progress of
a conversation between Major-General Couch, commanding the di
vision, and Brigadier-General Abercrombie, commanding the bri
gade. General Couch strenuously expressed the opinion that the
remaining regiments should face about, and, returning to the field,
share its fortunes with their stricken comrades. This was strongly
combatted by General Abercrombie, who insisted that the truest
chivalry demanded from a considerate commander, that he should
remove his troops from encompassing dangers, rather than subject
them anew to useless exposure. Fortunately, General Couch adop
ted the last opinion, and our retreat was continued for nearly a mile,
when we faced in line of battle upon a moderate eminence. Here
it was determined that we should await reinforcements and the ap
proach of the enemy. In the first moments of General Casey's sur
prise, and when disaster careered over the field of Seven Pines,
General Abercrombie, with singular presence of mind, had dis
patched an Orderly to General Sumner, on the other side of the
Chickahominy, with information of the sudden attack upon us, and
of the necessity of assistance. That war-worn veteran had not
awaited the messenger, but, at the opening fire had followed with
his forces the sound of the enemy's guns. The bridge over the
Chickahominy, where he lay, was still incomplete, and practicable
for transit only by men passing over in single file. Thus, when the

rebels, who had continued to advance, were preparing to attack the
position we held, simultaneously appeared the head of General Sum-
ner'.s column. That General seemed, upon the instant, to comprehend
the situation, and, with rare facility, made such immediate disposi
tions that, as each regiment movingby the flank at double quick, came
into line of battle, it received the opening fire of the enemy at sixty
paces. Our front presented on its extreme left Kirby Smith's old
battery, wth General Riker's regiment in support ; then, to the
right. Col. Williams' Eighty first Pennsylvania, my own regiment of
Chasseurs, and Col. Sully's Maine regiment. The forces of Gen
eral Sumner's personal command lay to the rear, to be put in as
emergency demanded. A midsummer's sun was stooping in a
western sky when the battle opened, and our last guns lit up dark
night and a falling fain. Six successive lines advanced as often
upon us, and six times was the enemy hurled back discomfited and
broken. It was our first hattie. I had rea.f of the deadly short-
range, and I have since witnessed the steady and effective firing of
veteran soldiers, but never have I seen, as then, an enemy's advanc
ing and unswerving line at an approach of within twenty yards, re
ceive a volley in which each musket seemed to cover its man, nor
seen that line rolled away, as then, with the battle's smoke. It was
here that, in our front. General Pettigrew was captured and Gen
eral Joe Johnston was wounded. In this engagement, also, the first
batrie-flag.of the campaign was captured by my regiment. That
night we lay upon our arms in line of battie, and at dawn of the
next day swept forward through the wood into a new position.
Thus victory crowned our arms at the battle of Fair Oaks. I
think, however, that its importance is not generally understood.
Had not the defeat we suffered at Seven Pines been redressed, the
probability is that the campaign would have terminated, not only in
our discomfiture there, but in our eventual expulsion from the Pe
ninsula. An effective and material portion of the army had been
flung across the Chickahominy, where it lay without sufficient artil
lery, and unsupported by the main body on the hither side of that
stream, become impassible by floods. The hour projected by the
rebels for a momentous blow had come. The hoped-for opportunity
had arrived of meeting the Federal forces and cutting them off" in
detail. We subsequently learned from our prisoners that every
available man had been concentrated in Richmond, where President
Davis had publicly commented upon the occasion of their attack.

23
promising rewards to those who should distinguish themselves in
the approaching battles. At Seven Pines they were successful, and
if the four unbroken regiments of Couch's division could have been
simultaneously crushed, no obstacle would have withstood their
arms on the right bank of the Chickahominy, Theie considerations
were enforced by Jefferson Davis himself, who accompanied the
attacking column from Richmond. Their soldiers were inspired to
a final effort. They were taught the meagre numbers of those Who
opposed their way to victory, and were hurried upon disaster in the
battle of Fair Oaks. Sumner's generalship, and the bravery ofthe
troops carried by him into act on, retrieved our losses at Seven,
Pines, preserved our communications, and delivered the Peninsular
Campaign to another than the inglorious history which defeat was
prepared to inscribe upon it.
The question has been frequently discussed, whether, after the
victory at Fair Oaks, General McClellan should not have marched
upon Richmond. If it is to be decided by subsequent discbsures,
there can be no doubt that he should have p Jshed forward. The
enemy was not only repulsed — he was demoralized. His reinforce
ments lay at too great a distance either to inspire confidence, or to
contribute assistance. An attack was hourly expected, and flight
or submission was very generally contemplated. There was nothing
wanting, therefore, to the occupation of the city by our forces, ex
cept a knowledge of its practicability. But this was a disposing
want — a want, perhaps, which, inhering in the situation, was beyond
supply by any of its resources. A few facts, however, are due, not
only to a question still of sufficient interest, but to the reputation of
the gallant Sumner.
On Sunday morning, the ist of June, we took position on a new
line. While a careful reconnoisance revealed the enemy in consid
erable force in our front, repeate :1 reports of musketry, and heavy
'firing on our left denoted that our troops, thrown over the river
during the night, were engaged in a struggle to recover the ground.
lost at Seven Pines. Gradually the noise of conflict subsided, and
when night fell our lines covered nearly their original ground. In
the meantime, the enemy was discovered to be massing in our front.
Our whole strength, including reinforcements, was supposed to be
much inferior to the Rebels. Every appearance that night indicated
a heavy attack at no distant hour. So critical was our position, that
had the roads been practicable for artillery, General Sumner would

24
have retreated to the other side of the Chickahominy. To abandon
it, it was thought, was to incur too heavy a loss, and the General
decided to abide the event. I was ordeied to entrench where we
lay, and to inform my officers that they must make their account in
resisting to the last, and of falling, it was feared, in the lines which
we held. That night we slept upon our arms. At intervals artil
lery was heard in motion in the direction of the enemy, as if coming
into' battery. The hours hung wearily, and the earliest gray, the
usual signal of an enemy for attack, came, and hght succeeded,
without a hostile gun. The enemy was not in the force we had sup
posed. Dispirited aud broken, he had retired from the field, and
sought the protection of his works. It was then that General Sum
ner was positive that he could enter Richmond. Had he been per
mitted to advance, it is now clear that there was nothing to prevent
him. But fate and the General-in-Chief ruled o'.herwise, and the
opportunity was lost.
I pass, without comment, the seven days' fighting; Its incidents
have been variously narrated, and from every available point. No
passage of the war has been more sharply criticised, nor is more
thoroughly understood; nor, of any have the manifold delineations
of witnesses and participants been so exhaustive. At Malvern Hill,
the last battle of the series, both infantry and artillery, moving in an
atmosphere of fire, fiercely illuminated the night in which it was
fought ; while the huge shells flung from our gunboats on the James
Eiver, caree ed with baleful trains and hoarse shrieks to explode
beyond die fighting mass. The enemy sullenly retired : again might
the Federal arms have captured Richmond, and again fate and the
General-in-Chief forbade.
The monotony of the intrenched camp at Harrison's Landing
was unbroken. The army was safe and the country reassured. •
But while officer and private were enduring the scorpion heat of
a summer on the James, more fiercely raged the fires of political
strife in Washington. * General McClellan's political enemies com
menced operations in his rear, at the moment his enemies, in the
field retired from his front. Ultima°tely his position was turned,
and General John Pope shot into sudden prominence.
No phrenological chart could have furnished a more accurate
character of this General than did his famous order on assuming
command of the forces in Central Virginia. Weakness was fully de
veloped, which, together with assurance, portended failure. The

25
enemies of General McClellan had committed a mistake. Thence- ,
forth his success was to depend on General Pope's want of it ; and,
as General Pope seemed reliable at this point. General McClellan,
it was foretold, had but to passively await the returning wave of ,
confidence and applause. The event answered the prediction.
The battalion of reverses, which were beckoned by General
Pope's leading staff to our standards, soon thronged our fields and ¦
ways with stragglers and marauders, discontented and mutinous
with denunciations of their General. General McClellan was again
entrusted with the command. As the troops came up, they were
rapidly reorganized, and pushed forward into the Maryland cam
paign. General Lee, having broken through the obstacle interposed by
General Pope's army, moved rapidly down the Valley, and at the
fords near Monocacy, and at Harper's Ferry, crossed with his army
mto Maryland. A series of marches and battles closed the cam
paign, in ten days from its commencement, with Lee's expulsion
from Maryland, at the battle of Antietam.
After the fight of the first day, I picketed with my brigade that
part of our lines in front of the Dunkard Church. The enemy lay
herein strong force, and thus continued during the next day into the
following night. Not an hour of the interval passed without a con
siderable skirmish at the outposts, and at one time, a truce, granted
by me for the burial of the dead, was availed of by the enemy as an
opportunity to recommence the attack. In this situation the second
night after the battle found the two armies. My instructions were,
vigilance and redoubled precautions ; to hold the position at all haz
ards in case of attack, but by no mea is to make one. The dispo
sition of our forces and my orders convinced me that General
McClellan did not court a renewal of the battle. As night wore
away, the movements of the enemy unmistakably denoted his quiet
withdrawal, which daybreak fully revealed. General Lee retired
behind the Potomac, and the Maryland campaign was finished.
The army needed rest. Nearly two months of incessant march
ing and fighting, in Virginia and Maryland, had exhausted the men
and impaired their accoutrements. We accordingly went into camp
at convenient distances, in various directions, from th2 field of
Antietam. The year was now passing rapidly through the autumn, and still
the army did not move. The authorities in Washington did not

26
limit their impatience, nor would they longer brook delay. A tissue
of demands that another campaign be commenced, was encountered
with renewed explanations of the necessity of delay, and of the im-
possibihty of marching without shoes and clothing. A peaceful
quiet began to prevail through our encampments, as the political
storm fiercely arose over the fall elections in Pennsylvania and New
York. The country, though exulting in the prowess of our arms in the
Maryland campaign, had soon begun to be dejected with doubts
whether all that was possible had been accomplished. General
Lee resisted, as a baseless assumption, the proclamation of his de
feat at Antietam. He claimed to have withstood successfully the
assault of battle, and to have marched leisurely from the field, with
the fruits of his foray ravished from Maryland. The charges by
various Generals, of want of conduct at various points in the battle,
were caught up with avidity, and reiterated by the radical politi
cians, to the detriment of General McClellan. It was averred that
the opportunity of crushing the rebel army of Virgiiiia had been
wickedly rejected, and that the failure to finish the rebellion was
evidence of something more serious than military incompetency.
It seemed that, at length, the class which had, from the commence
ment of the war, insisted upon its vigorous prosecution without
temporizing expedients, had determined to bring their policy to the
test ofthe ballot-box. They exposed to derision the gingerly cau
tion with which, under pretext of constitutional qualms, the slave-
strength of the rebellion was respected and coddled. They sub
jected to contempt the tenderness which would avert from a rebel
the consequences of war, because of his relations to it, in the atti
tude he had assumed against a government, of which he once
formed a part. They held in abhorrence the sympathy wh ch such
sentiments betrayed with the rebellion itself; and determined that
the President should unmistakably divorce the war from every such
influence, by the removal of General McClellan, or that they would
oppose his administration. Against these views a large body of the
country came, with alacrity, into opposing line. The conservatism
of wealth, always consulting the security of peace, inclined generally
to that policy which, by the least disturbance, should preserve
the most ofthe elements of readjustment unimpaired. The agencies
of commerce shrank from a total severance of intercourse, which
involved not only rupture of the future relation of debtor and cred-

27
itor, but irremediable loss of the many millions in which the South
already stood debtor on Northern ledgers. But of greater conse
quence was the position suddenly taken by the Democratic party.
The treason of their southern alhes had, at the commencement of
the war, confused and demoralized them. Large numbers of them
had, from the earhest, rallied to the support ofthe President, whom,
though the emanation of adverse majorities, they recognized as the
representative ofthe government to which their allegiance was due.
Political conflict having abated something of its positiveness sub
sequently to the precipitation of the rebellion, no definite issue had
yet enabled partisan pohtics to array parties- against each other at
the polls. But the interval was fruitful of suggestions of party ad
vantage, and schemes of party aggrandizement began to control the
patriotic profession of that large class of political hucksters, whom
the rebellion had surprised into an ostensible virtue, when the sus
picion of its want would have incurred a questionable martyrdom.
Now, it was argued, was the auspicuous time, both for retrieving by
the assumption of a seasonable patriotism, damaged reputations,
and of repairing by a victorj', achieved in connection with the busi
ness classes, the disasters of previous pohtical defeat. The occa
sion was seized ; the discipline of the party was revived ; again its
machinery revolved; candidates were nominated, and a "platform "
was laid for the " ticket '' to occupy, which atthe same time ani
madverted upon the imbecility of the government which restrained
the action of General McClellan, and censured it for directing an
ineffective resistance against the rebellion. Thus the conservative
elements of the voting population were, at the summons of the
Democratic party in Pennsylvania and New York, invited to oppose
the administration of Abraham Lincoln, on the issue of a more vig
orous prosecution of the war. Though this was but a transparent
pretext for political rehabilitation, it soon became obvious that the
continued assaults of the radicals upon General McClellan, while
evoking against him the aversion of the people, had also recom
mended him as the victim of persecution. It was not, therefore,
difficult to comprehend how, through the jarring discords and in
terior divisions of the friends of the administration (the true party
of the country), the dexterity and duplicity of an unscrupulous ad
versary, whose sense of impotency was intensified by the remem
brance of departed power, should lubricate his way, with the credu
lous multitude, back to political consideration and authority. The.

28
times were critical— the danger at hand. October and November
would be decisive ofthe fate ofthe government ; for the mostoTjtuse
observer of events could not doubt that the success of the Democratic
party, by whatever pretext, would be the signal to rebels of their suc
cess at the North, and to loyal men everywhere, of the independence
ofthe South.
It happened that at this period I was o.^ten at the headquarters of the
army. While there it was my fortune to see much of General
McClellan, and to participate ih the conversation frequently directed
by his general officers lo subjects of political interest. In these con
versations the General shared, and occasionally expressed with free
dom his opinions upon the topics under discussion. It was to be
expected that not infrequent mention would be made of the anoma
lous posture of the martial North, against those personal rights of the
South, recognized by their local laws and countenanced by the
laws of the Union. Nor was I surprised that the amenities of civil
ized warfare, should very often confuse the conceptions of ofiicers im
perfectly educated in the delicate but grave principles involved in the
revolt of the slave-holding States, concerning their obhgations to a gov
ernment, composed equally of all the States, and founded in the alle
giance due from every individual to the Constitution created by all.
Yet, as often would these discussions produce clear and forcible ex
positions of the belligerent relations, afiirmed by international laws, in
a slave-holding nation in public war. The forfeiture of all rights of
property to the force of arms was too obviously a law of universal
conflict to admit of exception. The impossibility of discriminating
between property rights in anything admitting them, exposed the fal
lacy of exempting the slaves from the operation of a uniform rule ; and
the law of military necessity was recognized and consulted by the
General-in-Chief in his treatment of them. Such, indeed, had been
his convictions at Harrison's Landing, where numbers of the escaped
slaves within our lines, were employed at the labor adapted to their
habits. Still, there was perceptible aversion to their employment as
soldiers. It is more probable, however, that this had its origin in the
disparagement in which the trained soldier entertained for the warlike
efficiency of irregular and raw levies, than in a conviction of the inad
missibility of their use. But to whichever ofthe two causes attributa
ble, it is very certain that General McClellan not only abstained from
employing the slave in his ranks, but was opposed to his practical
.usefulness. I often heard his unqualified condemnation of the in-

29
stitution of slavery : I mean that censure which, in its denunciation of'
any warrant for human bondage, stopped, nevertheless, at the barrier
which the Constitution raised for its protection. While hostile to the
relation of slave and master, he evidendy thought that the develop
ment ofthe opinion in action, would violate the organic law by which
he proposed to be governed. I do not think that he fully accorded
to manumission by the military arm the virtue of permanent emanci
pation. In 'what civil condition the freedman of war should be estab
lished by peace, he probably referred to the direction of international
law. I, however, heard him denounce the return of a slave to bond
age, after having contributed to our success, as a heartless and in
tolerable violation of our common manhood. I learned from his lips,
his utter repugnance to the admission thereafter of Southern represen
tation to the Federal Congress, upon the numerical basis which in
cluded three-fifths of a slave population. He thought, as I under
stood, that upon no eventual success which he anticipated for our cause
could this rule of representation be continued without detriment.
Many, if not all, of these views I listened to with General Cox, since
Governor of Ohio, when we breakfasted at head-quarters, near Sharps-
biirgh, one October morning. Governor Cox participated in the con
versation, and not only expressed no dissent, but assented to Gen.
McC.ellan's opinions as satisfactory and in harmony with his own. I
testified my surprise at sentiments so explicit, and yet so at variance
with those which I had often heard imputed against him. This
expression of surprise I remember to have testified by the assertion
that theGeneral did not disagree with Gerrit Smith. He replied that
he would like to converse with Gerrit Smith, as he did not think
that they would differ.
It occurred to me now, that the politicians were paltering with
General McClellan, injuriously to himself and with danger to the
country. Nor was the impression less vivid, that while by many of
the Radicals he was wittingly misrepresented, by many more he
was ignorantly misunderstood. It was quite clear, however, that
no verbal reirionstrances would retrieve the error, or redress its
evil effects. Events alone could disarm the wily partisan of his
formidable weapon, and undeceive those upon- whose credulity his
practices had imposed. Events would indicate, inevitably, conclu
sions, which statements, of whatever authenticity, mhst fail to repre
sent. Therefore,'was it needed that such a change should be made
jn the administration of the army as, attended with enlarged pow-

3°
ers and increased responsibilities to General McClellan, would im
press the public with the thorough accord between him and the
President, in the principles of conducting the war. This result
produced, and it was believed that the conservative interests, which
adhered personally to McClellan, would be extricated from the
skilfully-pitched toils of the political jugglers, and would quietly
relapse into a vigorous support of the Administration and its
friends. At this time General Halleck was General-in-Chief of the armies
ofthe United States; promoted to the position, probably, because
of no especial adaptation, but simply to sequester, under the imme
diate supervision of a chief, qualities apprehended as dangerous, if
permitted unrestricted exercise elsewhere ; and perhaps to allay
the jealousy of rival aspiran.s to the command, by conferring it on
one, to whose pretensions even the proverbial sensitiveness of the
army was insensible. His removal would be significant of nothing
but a change ; but to replace him with General McClellan, would
modify events, and perhaps secure to the prosecution of the war
that unanimity of support, which selfish machinations were endan
gering. The object was of worth — the time was propitious. I ac
cordingly broached the subject, and soon after left the headquar
ters of the army for Washington, with permission to repeat General
McClellan's views to those to whom I might address the project of
a change in the chief military comniand.
Immediately after my arrival in Washington, I called upon the
Secretary of the Treasury, Governor Chase. I was aware that the
Governor constituted a central point, to which converged the mul
tifarious strands of the radical web, and that consequently, and be
cause of the repulsions of their private intercourse, he was a decided
and resolute opponent of General McClellan. Yet, such was my
confidence in the virtue, the equanimity, and the constant patriotism
of the Secretary, that I counted on them to incline his reluctant ear
with greater alacrity to a proposal for the public good, than I could
expect from the unvalued partisan. I found him in. his library at
his house. We discussed the condition of the army, the effect of
its repose upon the country, and the danger to be apprehended in
the conduct of the war, from an expression by the approaching elec
tions in New York and Pennsylvania, of a want of confidence in the
Administration. I reviewed the circumstances which involved the
Union for which we ware struggling, exposed the artfully-concerted

31
plot to defeat the Union party, on whose success that Union now
depended, and proposed, in counteraction of these malignant influ
ences, the advancement of General McClellan to the post held by
General Halleck. It was not unexpected by me that this proposal
would be opposed by the obstacle which General McClellan's sup
posed opinions upon slavery and its cognate subjects, presented to
the Secretary's mind. I repeated to him, with faithful accuracy, the
General's views as I have stated them, and undertook that, on my
return to the army, I would commit them to writing, after another
conversation with him, and transmit them as evidence that I had not
erroneously represented the General. He walked the room some
time, evidently submitting his decision to the gravest consideration.
At length he stopped before me, and said, " Under your assurances,
I will accede to the proposal ; for no man should suffer personal
contention to impede the performance Of a public duty. The coun
try's necessities are great, and I will not indulge private inclinations
in the selection ofthe instrument most effective to relieve them. It
was through my instrumentality that General McClellan was called
to the chief command. He subsequently withheld from me the
confidence which our mutual relations suggested, and which my
oiTicial position required. But these memories are subordinate to
the public exigency, and I will co-operate with his friends in the
effort to reinstate him a.t the head of the armies." I may here' re
mark, that upon my return I went to General McClellan's head
quarters, and after repeating my conversation with Governor Chase,
wrote and sent to the Governor the letter which I had promised to
send him on my return. As I left the Secretary's door, I told hira
that it was my intention then to present the subject to the President
for his approbation, so that when presented in the Cabinet, it mighf
receive from him its chief support.
The President was then with his family at the Soldiers' Home, a
few miles from Washington. I drove there in the evening, and had
the desired interview. I found him greatly depressed. He evi
dently was perplexed by the difficulties which beset him, and was
stiuggling with the weight of responsibility they developed. He
said that his nights were sleepless, that the agitation of his spirits
inflicted a restlessness that compelled him to walk his room all
night, as he thought upon the boys at (he front. I had seen much
of the President, and have since scanned the properties of his
friendship ; but never have I witnessed such an impressive exhibi-

32
lion of elevated love of country blent with tenderness for human
suff-ering-srimulating to action, yet deprecating its terrible neces
sity-contemplating new campaigns, while shuddering at human
anguish and sorrowing for human blood. He heard me with his
accustomed patience. When I had finished he answered that the
plan had occurred to him, and that it might, perhaps, supply the
proper relief for the troubles we were enduring, and avert the dan
gers which menaced. He apprehended no serious inconvemence
from the loss of General Halleck's services, and supposed that a posi
tion could readily be found for him. I informed him of Governor
Chase's accession to the scheme, and that probably he would upon
the proper occasion, introduce it to the Cabinet. The President
expressed a willingness to try it, and I left with the assurance that,
at least, the proposal would not diminish either in importance or
value under a Cabinet discussion.
The fall election in New York was rapidly approaching. The
nomination of General James Wadsworth by the Union party for
Governor, had produced a disaffection in their ranks which por
tended danger, if not defeat. The Democratic party, having opposed
Governor Seymour to General Wadsworth, were enabled, under his
wary counsels, to assume and maintain the advocacy of a more
vigorous prosecution ofthe war. The opinions and wishes of Gen
eral McClellan still being construed as hostile to the policy and to
the interest of the Administration, carried to the Democrats those
business and conservative men who, careless of parties, voted
upon occasion with any, as their interests prompted ; and every polit
ical sign denoted the loss of the weight of the great State of New
York, in the efforts directed by the country to the suppression of the
rebellion. The only preventive within the grasp of the Administration — the
promotion of General McClellan to the command of the armies of
the Union — was withheld. What were the reasons for this sin
gular omission have never been clearly revealed. I knew that the
Secretary of War would resist any measure which remotely tended to
the enhancement of General McClellan's reputation. He had, when
I distantly approached him with an intimation that whatever differen
ces had existed between himself and General McClellan could be ar
ranged, rebuffed the suggestion with an abrupt declaration that he de
sired no arrangement The letter was never forwarded which Gov
ernor Chase had written to me in explanation of these' reasons, and

33
when I next saw him the subject was simply alluded to as of past im
portance, and dismissed with the single sentence that it was too late
and could not be done.* I suppose that the delay which continued to
detain the Army ofthe Potomac in its Maryland encampment, and
which the President had interposed his own authority to terminate,
had at last exasperated the Cabinet beyond any prudential consider
ation of elections and their results.
The November elections (1862) brought defeat to the Union party.
New York was arrayed against the policy of the war. The army had
at length crossed the Potomac, and was well on its march through the
valley for the Rappahannock. But it was too late. The administra
tion had recognized the smiting hand. General McClellan was re
lieved of all his commands, and took leave forevei" of the Army of the
Potomac : General Burnside was nominated to the General's trun
cheon, and a new chapter opened in 'its eventful history.
I do not think that his designation to the command departed essen
tially from the process by which a general officer is ordinarily detailed
to an especial duty. Political virulence had apparently been concentra
ted against the Commander ofthe army, rather than engaged with an in-
'* It had been accidentally mislaid, and was subsequently shown to me. It is
printed in Governor Chase's Life by J. W. Schuckers, page 457, and is as fol
lows : " Washington, October i8th, 1862.
¦» * * " My indisposition has prevented me from much intercourse with
other members of the Administration, so that I have not been able to ascer
tain the condition of opinion in relation to the measures you proposed to me.
It has of course been impossible for me to visit headquarters, nor do I think
that it would be exactly delicate for me to do so without an invitation. My
judgment in respect to the course demanded by the public interests remains
unchanged. No man can lament General McClellan's want of success more
than I do. No man has labored more sincerely and earnestly to supply the
means of success. No man would more sincerely rejoice, if now, by a series
of prompt and decisive movements, he might retrieve all he has lost in the
judgment of sincere and judicious and patriotic men. My longing and my
prayer is for the salvation of the country. He whom God may honor as the
instrument of its salvation, whoever he may be, shall be my hero . Magnus
mihi erit Apollo. General McClellan will remember my talks with him a year
ago— ^how I told him then of the necessity of sharp and decisive action, to my
ability to provide the means to carry on the war. By miracles almost I have
been enabled to get on this far, notwithstanding our disasters. But the mir
acles cannot be repeated, andi see financial disaster imminent. I dare na''
say all I feel and fear; my hope is in the prompt arid successful use of all the
immense resources in rnen-and means now provided."

34
trigue for the succession. It was not surprising, therefore, that it
should have abated on the retirement of General McClellan, nor that
an officer of approved conduct should have been promoted to the
•command, regardless of his military affiliations with his immediate
predecessor. But it should not be forgotten that, whatever the de
gree of intimacy in the professional career of the two Generals, their
opinions ofthe object ofthe war, and of its methods, were understood
by the public to be irreconcilable. Whether so or not was in truth of no
particular moment, when the impression was all that was required to
negative every objection by the radicals to General Burnside. The
character of this General was not so largely combined of ambitious
aspirations, as to involve him in projects of personal aggrandizement.
Nor, could I discover that overweening assurance either impressed
his conduct with weakness, or subjected his efforts to failure. The
careful critic would be obliged to scrutinize the opposite page of the
phrenological chart, for the detection of a mental fault. The diffi
dence which not unfrequently characterized General Burnside, if it
was an attractive social quality, by no means prepared him for the ex-
gencies of a position rarely to be met, and never to be controlled,
without moral intrepidity. Obedience to orders, the result of habit
ual reference of individual opinion to the exactions of another's stan
dard, and that magnanimity which invariably attributes success not
to the virtue of obedience, but to the merit of the order, certainly are
the inevitable precursors of those councils of war, in which "reptile
prudence " sicklies resolution, and success is sacrificed to pale-visaged
doubt. It was not singular, therefore, that the earliest and the
gravest difiiculties in General Burnside's military dispensation, should
have sprung from the amiable vice of self-depreciation. The sub
ordinate chieftains, who should have executed his orders, distracted
his counsels. The lieutenants, who had caviUed at the indolence
of General McClellan, were obviously as prompt to censure the
activity of his successor. Unity could not be presumed of consul
tations where rivalry of the commander inflated each general officer
with expectations of the' comniand : so .every mihtary council was
strewn with dragon's teeth.
The army lay at New Baltimore, when General Burnside as
sumed the command. The capture of Fredericksburgh and the
line of the Rappahannock evidently were the objective points of
the campaign. That Fredericksburgh was not captured, was not'
attributable to the Commanding General. The fault was under-

35
¦stood, and has since been ascertained, to have rested in Washing
ton. It remained therefore, an obstacle to be reduced by a corn-
bined attack of the army. This became our immediate object,
therefore, and late in November the various army corps began their
march upon that point.
The weather had been variable, which attended the march from
the Potomac ; but now began to be tempered with the moderation
of a . Virginia winter. The troops were in excellent condition.
Confidence in their expectation of encountering the enemy seemed
a cause of as great congratulation as the anticipation of defeat
ing him. The Sixth Corps, in which I was brigaded, under Gen
eral " Baldy " Smith, lay near Stafford Court-House, where Gen
eral Franklin had fixed the head-quarters of the left wing of the
army. We moved from there early in December, and encamped
in King George's, a few miles froni the Rappahannock. Winter
lad returned in fiercest mood. Snow lay upon the ground, and
when we at length marched, on a bleak December's morning, for
the fords of the Rappahannock, a benumbed and torpid column
moved slowly from their encampment to the battle which awaited
them. An occasional gun announced to our advance, that the prepara
tions for crossing had already attracted the notice of the enemy.
A few hours brought us to the north bank of the river at about a
:mile's distance below Fredericksburgh. The engineers were en
gaged with the construction of pontoon bridges at this point, over
which it was designed to throw the left wing. As the different
corps lay doubled-up on t'ne road and in the fields, the progress of
a similar bridge over the river at Fredericksburgh, was visible to
the eye, designed for the passage of our centre and right to the at
tack of the city, and the enemy's left on the heights of Marye. A
small rebel force held the south bank of the river, which arose pre
cipitously from the water's edge, near Deep Run, from which a de-
.sultory fire of musketry was directed upon us. The short Decem
ber day was waning, when, with shouldered arms. General New
ton's division led the advance ; and at the double-quick, my bri
gade following in the order of march General Devens', we crossed
the Rappahannock and deployed into line. The uncertain light,
however, interfering with a judicious selection of position, but one
brigade was suffered to encamp, while the remainder were ordered
to countermarch to the opposite side. On thejmorriing ofthe r2th.

36
the left wing passed over under the command of General Franklin,
who, fixing his head-quarters near a large country mansion on the
river bank, at Mansfield, disposed his forces in line opposed to the
enemy, who occupied the left bank, and the heights beyond Mas-
saponax Creek. In the meantime Fredericksburgh had been car
ried, and the city being occupied by our troops, the lines were
uhimately completed, which united the centre and right with the
left, under Franklin. Thus we lay confronting the entire Rebel
army, from the Heights of Marye behind Fredericksburgh, circuit-
ously for miles to the river bank, near Massaponax Creek. A
singular topography gave to the country the appearance of an am
phitheatre. From Marye's Heights, a continuation of high ground,
sloping graduaUy to the east, circumscribed an extensive plain
bounded by the river. From this, the access to the heights was on
every side difficult and abrupt. Passing the river to the north, the
plain spread some distance from its banks, where it was terminated
by a boundary of hills, of similar elevation and acclivity to those
on the opposite side. Planted upon these commanding eminences,
hostile guns shelled each other's positions continuously through the
day — with no other effect, however, than the comfortable assur
ance, which salvos of artillery are apt to infuse among the rank and
file, that something is being done. But the fact was apparent to
the most sluggish sense, that though the batteries might not inflict
upon each other serious inconvenience, yet, that whenever the
rebel guns should be trained upon our lines, the result would be
read in our losses.
The gallant charge of our men at Marye, and the bloody re
pulse, are written in history. The daring of the effort which as
sailed an impossibility, will survive the remembrance of the suc
cess with which it was opposed. There will ever be admiration
that an army should, at the word of command, march with alacrity,
under an exterminating fire, upon one of nature's impregnable
fortresses ; nor will the wonder abate, when considering the death-
desolating repulse, that the same iron columns should be in readi
ness to repeat the attack on the ensuing day. Of the decision
which withheld them no question has been made.
While these events were occurring on our right, the troops on the
left were not suffered to lie idle. General Franklin had, with com
mendable promptitude, pushed forward a division against the ene
my in his front. The sun had not yet pierced the heavy fog with

37
which a moderating temperature had enshrouded hill and plain,
when the noise of conflict on our left reached us in Newton's Divi
sion of the Sixth Corps. Here we lay at the rear, but within sup
porting distance of Ayres' Battery, which formed a sort of tete-de-
pont. The battle, which opened vigorously, fluctuated with uncer
tainty. The enemy at first retired before our advance ; but his al
most immediate recovery of ground indicated reinforcements within
reach ; while the force which he simultaneously developed on the
extreme left, admitted no doubt that the natural strength of his po
sition was sustained by strong bodies of both infantry and cavalry.
Two divisions of the Central Grand Division, under General Hooker,
were ordered to the support of the left wing, and which having
held the enemy in check till a late hour of the afternoon,
the reserve of the Sixth Corps (General Newton's Division) was or
dered to the front. Our first position was at the old Richmond Road,
immediately in rear of General Birney's and General Gibbons' Di
visions, where we formed a second line of battle. Before, however,
the twilight had deepened into night, we were ordered still further
in advance, to occupy the interval between the battle-fronts of those
two Divisions. A furious bombardment now revealed the impres
sion of the enemy that we designed to storm his position. It had
become apparent, however, that he was present in too large force
to be driven from it ; and afterwards, it becoming evident that no
attack would be made by him before morning, we were ordered to
fall back to our post in reserve. Several days were now occupied
with skirmishing and picket-firing, without any change in the posi
tion of our forces, and apparently with no deviation from our orig
inal plan of attack. This, obviously, was a failure. The bloody
repulse on the right had been recompensed by no decided success
on the left ; and we lay in the lines of the first day's fighting. Nor
had the enemy's position been materially affected. He had crushed
the storming column upon Marye's heights, and, though driven on
the left, had inflicted as much loss as he had sustained.
It probably will ever be difficult to ascertain the source of this
attack upon Fredericksburgh. The military skill which planned
it could not have resided far from the remissness which had pre
viously transported pontoons from Washington, just too late to al
low of a bloodless capture of the place. But posterity, I presume,
will not grieve at the loss. There was hardly a drummer-boy in
the army who did not perceive, as our columns defiled across the

38
bridges, that they were entering a trap. Every soldier understood
the insecurity of the position ; and an officer, as he gazed upon
the enemy's batteries upon the surrounding heights, likened the
Army of the Potomac to a fiy in a greased saucer, whose progress
towards the circumference was the inverse of its efforts to escape.
I recall the forcible illustration with which President Lincoln char
acterized the fatal facility of the Rappahannock transit, when I
subsequendy described to him the particulars : " Well," he said,
" I thought its ease was suspicious. It reminded me of a young ac
quaintance out in Illinois, who, having secured the affections of a
lass, was proceeding to her fathei- for his permission to marry her,
when he saw him ploughing in the field. 'Hallo!' cried the im
patient youth, ' I want yer darter.' ' Take her,' said the old man,
as, without turning, he trudged after his plough. ' A little too easy P
exclaimed the prudent swain, scratching his head, 'A little too
darned easy f- " The singular perplexity of the Rebels, probably,
was the way of our escape. Their Council of War was peculiarly
stormy, and divided. Among their officers none seemed to com
prehend the opportunity with the energy of Stonewall Jackson,
whose laconic suffrage rose curt and peremptory above the con
flict of opinions — " To the river ! to the river I" — and had their
army been pushed to the river, no human force could have saved
us, and the Army of the Potomac would have been dissolved on
the banks of the Rappahannock.
We lay with the enemy in front, and the river at our rear — be
fore us impregnable fastnesses, and behind us an obstacle to retreat.
Thus situated, on the fourth day we were ordered to relieve General
Gibbons' Division, which had held the front on the left of General
Howe, along the Old Richmond Road. The picket line was ad
vanced not more than a . half-mile, and while at times through the
day sharp artillery practice prevailed at the batteries, the pickets
had agreed upon a suspension of firing, unless upon exceptional
occasions. As we lay in this position, not unfrequently privates
remarked in my hearing upon its peculiar features. I perceived
that our rank and file were as familiar with the enemy's lines as-with
our own. They had remarked his batteries, and knew that not only
our lines, but every acre of the plain to the river's bank, was enfiladed
by his guns. Some even approached me with the declaration, that
although they knew that the assault was impracticable, and that our
retreat was cut off, yet they would follow where led, and fall without

39
surrender. Learning this to be the prevalent feeling of the men,
it seemed of consequence that the General in command should be
advised of the fact. Accordingly, I sought General Newton, in
command of the Division, and disclosing my knowledge to him,
urged that he should at once seek the head-quarters of General
Franklin and General Smith, and communicate with them on the
subject. It seemed to me quite impossible that we should be per
mitted to remain undisturbed by the enemy longer than another
night, without advancing upon his position ; and, therefore, while
advising a withdrawal of our forces to the opposite side of the
Rappahannock, I urged that to save the army it must be done that
night. It was now approaching sunset, and General Newton has
tened to the execution of his purpose.
My two most reliable regiments — the Chasseurs (Colonel Shaler)
and 82d Pennsylvania (Colonel Williams) — were picketing my
front. The posts had been visited, the last orders given, and the
sentinels set. No fires were suffered, and the men lay in their
ranks, each in his blanket, with his musket at his side. Presently
an aid dismounted, and communicated the order verbally that the
men should silently prepare, in light marching order, to withdraw
from the position. The regiments on picket-duty were to remain
at their posts till the order was given them to retire. A clear day
had fallen into a cloudy night, and the moon, which otherwise
would have betrayed our retreat, was fortunately obscured. Be
sides, the wind, which had held its course to the north through the
day, rose with the setting sun, and bore from the enemy's lines the
audible evidence of our retreat. The countermarch was successful.
The last gun had crossed, and the rear-guard followed long before
the breaking day. Apparently, not even suspicion aroused the ene-
.my's vigilance. They to whom the duty was entrusted held the
pickets well that memorable night. But once was the movement
endangered. When but half the troops had defiled across the
bridges, the officer of a Rebel picket strode openly into view, ap
parently to be resolved of a doubt whether our line had not been
withdrawn. With admirable presence of mind, at this most criti
cal moment. Colonel Shaler, of the Chasseurs, opposed himself to
him, and threatened that unless he withdrew he would order his
men to fire upon him. Probably reassured, the Rebel withdrew,
quiet returned, and within two hours thereafter the Colonel re
ceived his orders to withdraw his whole force.

40
I am not informed, nor can I therefore speak of the specific rea
sons which actuated the order for this opportune retreat. Its ne
cessity was obvious, and probably therefore it was made. What
ever the cause, or whosesoever the counsel, without doubt it averted
a most serious catastrophe, if it did not preserve the Army of the
Potomac. *
The army had not well encamped upon its appointed ground,
when rumors came charged with serious imputations of misconduct
against Major-General Franklin. They singled him out as the
cause of our failure at Fredericksburgh. Simultaneously appeared,
at General Burnside's head-quarters, the inquisitorial Committee on
the Conduct of the AVar.
Doubtless, legislative committees frequently subserve useful pur
poses, especially where pubhcity of details operates with the effect
both of admonition and punishment. And this may be accepted
as their use, abp.ve all others, in a Government where pubhc opin-v
ion, imperceptibly incorporated with the conduct of affairs, is the
chief strength and direction of the executive arm. Popular ex
citements, to be sure, may pervert or retard. These, however, at
all times, are found to be submissive to correction, and in critical
times, to be restrained by a predominating sense of propriety.
These committees, chiefly, however, are productive of important
benefits, when the movements of raw levies are directed by inex
perienced commanders, in the initiate scenes of unaccustomed
war. Though the committee itself may be essentially ignorant of
the science which they are judging, yet they are the efficient agents
of publicity to facts, which lead to those conclusions upon which
the public mind ultimately settles. Truth, thus evolved and ac
cepted, is the education of a people in the art of war. The at
tainment of such lessons has probably been expensive to the repu
tation of individual commanders, and, in some instances, unjustly
infiictive of injury and outrage. Stih, the nation has advanced in its
knowledge, and whatever the salve sympathy may supply to wounded
* Sometime after this I was asked, by a lady of my acquaintance in New
York, what was the character of the peculiar service I had performed in the
army before Fredericksburgh. On my expressing surprise at her inquiry, she
said that the reason why she asked was that recently, at a dinner party of
ladies and gentlemen, at the house of the Secretary of 'War, Mr. Stanton's in
¦Washington, at which she was present, the Secretary had announced in the
hearing of the whole table that the safety of the Army on that occasion was
owing to General Cochrane.

41
personal honor, the general flow of affairs rolls into oblivion, and
ultimately merges in the common benefit the individual grief.
Nevertheless, there have often been, and will hereafter be, excep
tional instances, where ignorance, or unscrupulous design, wan
tons with reputation without regard to any ostensible public benefit,
and only to wreak upon real or imagined enemies a vindictive re
venge. It is as difficult to prevent such excesses, as to prevent the
fiux of passion into the deliberations of State. Though in various
degrees, the fabric of affairs is invariably constructed of the con
flicting materials of personal aggrandizement and public benefac
tion. But, when political position is the avowed fulcrum of malig
nant persecution, and the inquiry for the public good is degraded
to an inquisition for individual purposes, an indignant people gen
erally regard the offence as an affront to public justice, and transfix
the offender with their anger.
There can be no possible good derived from either a dissection
of the personnel of the Committee, or from an analysis of the mo-
lives which influenced them. I believe that no one has imputed to
either of them the knowledge necessary to the determination of
military problems ; neither do I think that any one has denied to
either of them such faculties of intellect as would allow to each a
^proficiency in military education, equal in degree to that within
reach of the common mind, under similar circumstances. As for
the rest, the table which comprises a plain, practical education,
minds formed on the usual levels of country traffic, or on the coun
try slopes of professional life, that occasional legislative knowledge,
found in party necessity and constituted of party tactics, strong
passions, prejudices, and partisan zeal, furnishes a careful inven
tory of the qualities which characterized the Joint Committee of
the two Houses on the Conduct of the War. It certainly would
be wrong to refuse to them the laudable ambition of patriots to
promote the interests of the country, as it would be impossible to
deny to them an ambition to subserve their own interests. In
fine, a convocation of plain, ordinary men, moved by the preju
dices invariably the result of partizan training, and in the deep-
worn rut of personal experience, was the Committee on the Con
duct of the War. That such men should commit errors was to be
¦expected ; that they should gratity their passions, when passion was
apt to be confounded with patriotism, was not singular ; that they
: should introduce into the examination of questions of great public

42
concern, incautiously and perhaps unconsciously, animosity against
the principles and persons of those who figured in them, was not
surprising ; and the public was, therefore, not astonished when,
obviously for political purposes, they submitted to the press a re
port of their conclusions, unaccompanied by evidence, and in parts
unsupported by it.
It was this Committee, which, after devious perambulations, re
turned to Washington with their budget of military gossip. Sub
sequently they determined and reported to the country that Gen-
leral Franklin, in having disobeyed the orders of General Burnside„
was responsible for the loss of the battle of Fredericksburgh.
What were the orders of General Burnside clearly could not have-
been kno-wn to the officers whose military obedience was due to
those in immediate command over them. But the result of our
various engagements authorized the conclusion (which was fully
confirmed by the facts that subsequently transpired), that all the
troops of the Left Grand Division, with the support of the twO'
Divisions from General Hooker's Central Grand Division, were
insufficient to break the enemy's lines on our left. General Meade's-
Division had gone in, on the morning ofthe 13th, supported on the
right by General Gibbon ; General Doubleday's Division being held
in reserve. The fighting was severe, the enemy discovering himself
on all sides, in force. General Meade drove him for some distance,
but with great loss to himself: he again advanced, supported by
General Gibbon on his right, across the railroad in the direction of
Hamilton's HUl. They were, however, driven back, and at three
o'clock p. M. held their first position on the field, at the south ofthe
Richmond Road. During this time, the enemy's cavalry appeared
on our extreme left, accompanied by artillery, compelling General
Reynolds to develop the whole of his line, which soon became
hotly engaged. It was now evident that the enemy was in force
both upon our left and in front. On both sides attacks were made
on our batteries and lines, at intervals during the afternoon. Meade's
and Gibbon's Divisions, having been badly cut up, were replaced
by Doubleday's Division, supported on the right by Newton's and
Birney's. The enemy, from his position on the heights in front,
now opened a furious bombardment on our lines, which ceasing;
after a half hour's duration, we lay in position on our arms during
the remainder of the night. In the meantime, our centre and right,
held by Howe's and Brook's Divisions, had not been undisturbed^

43
They were both engaged during the afternoon, and with Rebel
forces, a portion of which, it was observed, had been detached
from their right, then in action with Meade's and Gibbon's Di
visions. The day's fighting, if it effected nothing else, demonstrated
that the enemy's position on the heights was, in his superior force,
impracticable to us. A sketch of the battle of Fredericksburgh, on
the 13th of December, 1862, made by Stonewall Jackson's topo
graphical engineer, which subsequently fell into our hands, dis
closed the right of the enemy on that day to have been held by
Lieut.- General Stonewall Jackson's Corps, and that the heights.
opposed to us were held by him in preponderating force. What
ever, therefore, may have been General Burnside's orders to Gen
eral Franklin, the evidence is irrefutable of the impossibility of their
execution by the troops at General Franklin's disposal, if their
execution involved, as it must necessarily have done, the expulsion
of the enemy from his position on the heights.
This conclusion reached, and the controversy is possessed of no
other interest than that which attends the inquiry whether General
Franklin disobeyed the orders of his commanding officer. It
appearing that from no such disobedience could the battle of
Fredericksburgh have 'been lost, even to establish it would not
disburden the Committee on the Conduct of the War of imputed
ignorance. But Truth seems to have disposed of the assault. Her
facts have assailed the positions of the Committee, and disclosed
how untenable they are. General Franklin's reply to the report not
only reproduces the contemporaneous military record (which the
Committee suppressed) ofthe successive engagements of the event
ful 13th of December, in authentication of his literal obedience of
every order received by him from General Burnside, but reveals
the ultimate bound yet attained by political bigotry, in pursuit of
objects of party aggrandizement and personal spite. This product
of the Committee has probably outlived its temporary object. Its
gangrene perhaps infected honorable aspirations, and blasted high
hopes. If requiting justice never should reveal to its members the
anguish of calumny, they nevertheless must not expect to escape
from the doom that inevitably awaits the calumniator. The wheel
will come "full circle;" and the historic muse holds severe vigil,
eventually to redress the scales of inexorable truth.
The atmosphere of a Southern win'.er seemed to have'reserved
its mildest temperature for the remaining December days which

44
held the army in camp at Falmouth. The men were suffered to con
struct the rude appliances of personal comfort in winter quarters;
their spirits rose with the expulsion from their rations of the inevit
able " hard tack " by fresh bread from the Brigade bakery ; and
even the horses and mules began to thrive under the influence of
more generous provender.
As time wore on, there began to be mingled with animadversions
upon personal conduct in the battle of Fredericksburgh, criticisms
of another movement said to be contemplated across the Rappa
hannock. It should not be disguised that the morale of the army
had gradually degenerated under the combined influences of polit
ical intrigues and military coteries — indeed, no army could' have
withstood their effects.
Perhaps a more singularly compacted body of men, composed of
such complexional characteristic extremes, never were inducted
into mihtary discipline under circumstances so unfavorable or
opposing. I'he armies of the West were indigenous to the soil.
They were the embodied presence of the territorial interests with
which they were identified, and consequently were combined by the
inherent organizing principle of resistance to territorial encroach
ment. Thus, the Norlh-West simultaneously arose against the
embargo upon their commerce at the Delta of the Mississippi,
presumptuously essayed by the rebellious States, and with one
mind hurled themselves against the assailants of the Government,
as against the invaders of their personal rights. The experience
of but a year witnessed the rapid disposition of men into effective
battalions, whose incentives were the same, and whose habits
partook both of the martial characteristics of a people familiar with
the expedients of border life, and of that discipline of command
and obedience to law, which are the natural inheritance of American
populations. Congeniality of disposition, unity of sentiment, a
powerful motive, and ranks to correspond, are apt to combine
resistlessly ; and, like elemental forces, must irrepressibly sway
forward to a general equilibrium, crashing and crushing every
impediment. So was it with the armies of the West. But far
otherwise was it with the Army of the Potomac. The population
with which the Eastern and great Central States teemed, was
largely absorbed inthe pursuits of commerce, or involved in specu
lative traffic and operative industry. These found their abodes
chiefly in large business centres ; while the agricultural population,

45
as it did not probably equal that of the Western States, was also
actuated less by the impulse of youth, in proportion as it was con
stituted in larger numbers of middle-aged and old men. The conse
quence was, that more volunteers from these classes were included
in the levies of the Central aimy than of the armies of the West.
Nor, were those who volunteered impelled by the vehemence with
which the sense of personal wrong is apt to inflate passion. The
South was in arms against their Government, and their resistance
was compounded of loyal zeal for constitutions and laws, and of
acrimonious hostihty to the aggressors upon valuable property
interests. They mustered not only as patriots to reclaim from
assauk the bulwarks of human freedom, — they marched to defend
the inheritance of their fathers. The native soldier, therefore, in
the Army of the Potomac, though qualified with all the national
intelligence and intrepidity, was the conscripted representative
rather of the philosophical patriot, than of the flaming partisan.
Of a broader-bottomed principle, he might not advance so speedily
upon the war-path, but he would endure longer and accomplish
more. His dedication, too, to the attainment of personal livelihood
— an object of prime pursuit in all our country neighborhoods —
had rendered him habitually ignorant of the exactions of military
life, and unacquainted with the rudiments of arms. Such men, it
is obvious, when subjected, as raw recruits, to the drill sergeant's
rattan, insensibly acquire, with proficiency, a sort of military respect
for their instructor; and when,- at last graduated from the awkward
squad, they move in battalion to the word of command, the loyalty
which constrained them into the ranks is inextricably combined
with esteem and admiration for the commander who made them
soldiers. But a very large portion of the Army of the Potomac
was also recruited from the foreign and naturalized population,
which most largely inhabit our maritime and large inland cities.
It was surprising with what unanimity the adopted citizens
responded to their assumed obligations, and with what exemplary
alacrity they voluntarily contributed to the ranks of those who
imperiled life for liberty and a government. Among these, a
martial ardor may be said to have extensively prevailed. Many
had been pro.'essionally trained in the land of their birth to the
science of war ; and most recalled, upon the signal of hostilities,
the military lessons which occasional resistance to the oppressor
had previously taught them. Enlistments of the phlegmatic Ger-

46
man proceeded concurrently whh enlistments of the impulsive Celt,
and both of them were often comrades in the ranks, where the grav
ity of the one contrasted with the gaiety of the other. Thus the
various characteristics of these separate nationalities distinguished
the material texture of the Army of the Potomac. To reduce these
under the equal pressure of disciphne and to restrain national
vivacity, or coerce national deliberation to the exactions of mihtary
necessity, was a task of no ordinary dimensions, and which required
for its execution deHcacy of application and inexorable resolve.
Such was the task committed to General McClellan, when he
assumed the command. It was performed with judicious care and
with eminent success. When the Army of the Potomac, in the
spring of 1862, moved into its first campaign, a more thoroughly-
equipped or better appointed army, of more vigorous discipline,
or of superior morale, never trod anywhere. But the seeds of dis
sension had been scattered widely during its encampment near
Washington. At the capital were concentrated the opinions which
politicians professed of the nature and objects of the war ; and the
rage of their conflict not only resounded through the national halls,
but reverberated through the camp. The clamor did not success
fully invade the ranks, but many officers were injuriously affected.
Thus, though suppressed by the predominating affection of the
army for its leader, the root of ulterior disorder was planted. Not
so, however, with those officers holding chief commands. Here,
personal disparagement found secure disguise under difference of
policy, whether real or assumed, and the plans of the General-in-
Chief were both subjected to the scrutiny of military rivals and
exposed to the derision of political leaders. Campaigns were
essayed and finished ; battles were lost and won. At every pause
in the conflict of .arms, the pohtical storm careered with increased
violence. Success and failure alternately were ascribed to one
peculiar policy or another, and the vicissitudes of our standards
began to be hai.ed by factions as the signals of their successes or
reverses, rather than watcl.ed by the country as the sign of its
salvation. The effect upon the Army soon became apparent.
The attachment of the n.en, it is true, clung without abatement to
their old commander ; but the spirit of criticism had been liberated,
and thenceforth the soldier discussed, with his rations, the policy
of his general, and sometimes his reluctant obedience to orders was
necessarily quickened by compulsion. When General McClehan

47
bade farewell to the Army at New Baltimore, the last restraint —
attachment to the person of their commander — was removed from
the increasing disposition of the soldiers to censure the plans they
were executing. Their failure before Fredericksburgh had not
conduced to their confidence in General Burnside; and when a
committee of civilians from the Capital inquiringly approached his
quarters at Falmouth, with interrogatories to witnesses concerning
his fitness for command, they assumed that they who had fought
were certainly as competent to judge as those who had not.
General Burnside's qualities as a commander thenceforth became
the subject of debate at every camp-fire. Such was the condition
of the Army, when rumors began to prevail of a second attempt to
cross the Rappahannock.
A report had accomplished the circuit of the army, even before
the attempt upon Fredericksburgh, that General Burnside would
not consent to lead it into the campaign beyond that place. It was
traceable to no authentic source ; and, perhaps, was but the mis
chievous gossip of military leisure. It was by no means, however,
destitute of effect. It seemed to put into intelligible phrase the
characteristic peculiarity of the General's mind ; and his amiable
modesty, which was previously confined to the restricted circle of his
personal acquaintances, now came to be the theme of the army.
They who considered, saw in it evidence of a constancy against the
assaults of ambition, which would put from it the leading staff under
the doubts of diffidence. The consequence was unfavorable to the
commander, though far from injurious to the man. Whilst friends
recognized the personal attraction, the soldiers concluded that the
want of self-reliance was the want which most unfitted for com
mand. And so, when the tidings of coming movements began to
circulate, their nature_,was anxiously, and their propriety liberally,
criticised. The place of the projected attempt was not at first conjectured.
As conversation grew, a lower point on the river than at Fredericks
burgh was surmised; which subsequent information disclosed to
be somewhere near the great bend in the river above Port Royal.
It soon transpired that the officers, to whose opinions the General
had referred the practicability of his plan, had without exception
condemned it. The men began now to denounce the project in no
measured terms. The remembrance of their mistaken and useless
exposure at Fredericksburgh, and the still vivid slaughter of the

48
-storming column at Marye, filled them with an aversion to further
trial which lacked littie of a mutinous spirit. There seemed no
abatement in their attachment to the principles of the war ; but re
solve not to be hazarded in fruitiess experiments, allayed the
fervor of their patriotism. At once camp-rumors assumed a more
serious aspect. It was said, that not only was there probability of
defeat, should the effort be made, but that the reconuoitering
officers who had been consulted, were united in the opinion, that
the attempt would be attended by the loss of the whole army. It
is impossible to describe the disorders produced by this impression.
I was informed by captains, that they were fearful their companies
would refuse to fall into line. Others, while communicating the
disposition of their men, openly sympathized with their opposi
tion. In truth, it was apparent that, without reference to the
feasibility of the scheme, had the army been moved to execute it,
discontented and turbulent as it was, inevitable disaster must have
ensued, and, perhaps, the irretrievable ruin of our cause.
It was under such circumstances, that I was induced to ask leave
of absence for a few days in Washington. It had occurred to me,,
that a knowledge of the situation of the army might facilitate a
remedy by superior authority. The absence of harmony between
General Burnside and the commanders of the Grand Divisions of
the army was notorious. Divided councils and discordant ranks,
I thought but fragile assurance of victory, and without the inter
vention of a miracle, I anticipated that the impending movement
would be fatal to our arms. As my leave of absence was delivered,
I was officially informed that an early movement across the Rappa
hannock was contemplated. Having, therefore, made arrange
ments to be telegraphed to return in time to march, should march
ing orders be received, I left camp on the morning of Tuesday,
December 30th, for Washington.
It was my intention to communicate to personal friends in Wash
ington, both the facts of which I was possessed and the inferences
from them which my judgment recognized. The selection was
made with reference principally to their conspicuous loyalty, ap
proved discretion, and offical character. I supposed that what
ever was confided to such gentiemen as Honorable Henry Wilson,
Senator from Massachusetts, and Chairman of the Military Com
mittee of the Senate, and to Hon. Moses F. Odell, Representative
in Congress from New York, and a member of the Committee on the

49
Conduct of the War, while being entertained by them with ap
propriate reserve, would naturally suggest official inquiry, if not
official action. Certainly, this course was not embarrassed with
even a suspicion of interference with military etiquette ; much less
could it be challenged for opposing the plans of a military com
mander. Ignorance could not divulge plans, much less oppose them,
and the morale of an army is always legitimately derived by the
public, through information from those participant in its action and
conversant with its thought. I had frequently before transmitted,
with approbation, to those in civil authority, my impressions of the
military situation, and of the effects of specific political action on
the future of campaigns. Such communications, even in impend,
ing conjunctures, had never been censured, and had even furnished
data for ultimate reform. In a civil war, turning singly upon a
conflict of polities, the military arm, naturally and necessarily, is
postponed to the civil, and however effective, is never victorious
unless in the vindication of the civil interests involved. Should
these be betrayed by the military leader, either to the ambition of
the soldier, or to the turbulence of the camp, his success would
consign government to revolution, and subject nationality to
military license. Intrinsically and extensively was this complica
tion of civil purposes with martial effects, observable through all
the stages of the war of the Rebellion. Not only was the in
tegrity of the government invaded, the entire social fabric was
assailed. Resistance was demanded, both against the fracture of
the Constitution, and the inoculation of society with the infection of
slavery. So fluctuating had been the currents of political educa
tion, so eccentric the tides of advancing population, that the virus
of Southern servitude could be detected, irrespective of geographi
cal limits, and the rabies of secession coursed the entire map of
the Union. Civilians and soldiers at the North were sadly warped
by Southern doctrines, and the influence of secret prejudice was as
much to be feared as the force of rebellious arms. The heresy of
involuntary servitude was embattled in the forum, in the Senate,
at the altar ; it permeated insidiously the entire social body ; and
when, at last, it crested its front against Constitution, laws, and
. liberty, it was with dismay that the friends of human freedom
beheld its careful efforts to conduct the war with security to the
South, whether reduced again to their allegiance by force of North
ern arms, or ultimately permitted to withdraw from the Republic.

5°
Hence, the long and jealous vigil lest the war should be diverted
from its objects, or the principles of its captains should decline
from rectitude; and hence, too, in a measure, the factions which
divided the political world. They were represented in the army,
for the army was recruited from the social mass. They penetrated
the convictions of men whose lives were voluntarily exposed for their
convictions, and the army rose or fell as an object of hope or fear,
as its opinions coincided with or differed from those which proposed
to the war but the one end of unconditional surrender. Thus the
army was the subject of special solicitude, and its condition often
times was the subject of important deliberations. Knowledge,
therefore, in these particulars, was always desirable; and some
times the gravest councils were influenced by timely information.
But, regardless of these considerations, the circumstances which
invoked attention demanded action, which was not referable to
¦ceremony, nor to simply a choice between expedients. A devasta
ting war had ravaged the country. A veteran enemy, flushed
with recent triumph, held its issues in doubt. Whatever elsewhere
its mutations of success and failure, irretrievable disaster would
follow the loss of the Army of the Potomac. Its various fortunes
never, at their summit, had equalled public expectation, nor were
commensurate to the interests which had created it. Its recent
reverses had disturbed the confidence of the army in its com
mander, and its present disorders had shaken the confidence of
the country in the army. At such a moment a movement was pro
jected, which, while condemned by all the Generals of the military
council as impracticable, was denounced by the unrepressed
instincts of the camp. If made, it was certain to fail, and failure
would be the ruin of our cause. A great moral duty loomed in the
gathering gloom — ^the duty of awakening to the exigency a judg
ment armed with the supreme power of redress, and charged with
corresponding responsibQities. Its violation was consistent only
with a disregard of moral obligation, and could be reconciled with
no other motive than that which actuates treason; its performance
involved simply the responsibility of doing right. I accepted the
responsibility, and I do not shrink from the consequences.
On arriving in Washington, I learned, upon inquiry, that both-
Mr. Wilson and Mr. Odell were absent from the city during the
usual holiday recess of Congress. Being, therefore, obliged to re
fer myself to another course, I judged it advisable toproceed di-

SI
rectly to the President, and, as I had previously been accustomed,
to discuss with him the aspect of affairs in their existing condition.
General John Newton had accompanied 'me to Washington on
his way, upon leave of absence, to visit his home in Delaware.
General Newton, who was in command of a Division in the Sixth
Corps, was confessedly one of the most accomplished officers in the
arpiy. His mihtary proficiency placed him in the grade of the
ablest Generals, and his opinions commanded corresponding re
spect. 'I think that he had personally reconnoitered the ground
which was designed for the scene of the intended crossing, and I
judged. that his consequent information would be of some interest,
as well as of use. Accordingly I invited General Newton to accom
pany me, and in the afternoon of the 30th of December we visited
the President at the Executive Mansion. We found him alone.
General Newton introduced the conversation, by referring to the
rumors of a movement, to the unfavorable opinions of the recon
uoitering officers, and to a description of the place, which he him
self had inspected. The President, having listened in silence, up
on the General's conclusion, characterised the disclosure as an ef
fort, in his opinion, by subordinate officers to control the action of
their commander. General Newton resented the imputation, and
insisted upon his representations as but the repetition of rumors'ac-
cessible to all ; and as such, neither improperly submitted to the
notice of the President, nor improperly submitted by him. I then
disclosed my knowledge of the condition of the army, its murmurs
of discontent, its daily canvass of the merits of its commander, and
my fears that an effort required of it under the commanders of
Grand Divisions, none of whom, it was understood, supported the
opinions of the commanding General, would precipitate a reverse,
at a time when a reverse might be attended with ruin. This strain
of appeal having fixed his attention, I submitted that, so far from
being tested by the punctilios of military intercourse, the informa
tion which might possibly avert danger from an army and provide
security to the Republic was to be classed among the most service
able agencies, and that its author was justified in spurning any con
ventional barrier of supposed etiquette opposed to loyal efforts to
subserve the true interests of his country. " As for me," said I,
" Mr. President, to have withheld from you these facts, I should not
have ranked at any criminal grade below treason." The President,
seemingly reflecting, remained silent during a few minutes, when'

S2
in his accustomed clear tones, he said, "You have done right.
Good will come from this. I will look to it." We remained, con
versing generaUy upon the condition of the army, and upon kin
dred subjects, for a half hour, and took our departure, with a cor
dial farewell grasp from the President's hand, and his renewed as
surance that good would result from our interview. We separated :-
General Newton to proceed upon his homeward journey, and I t©
return to the army at Falmouth.
Whether, in consequence of this conversation, any plans of
General Burnside were disturbed, or any projected movement ar
rested, I am unable to pronounce, from my want of knowledge of
their existence. But the inference is irresistible, from the fact that
no movement was made, that, were there one planned and impend
ing, its abandonment was due, not to General Burnside, but to the
President, whose interference, as Commander-in-Chief, must be
attributed to his conviction that a movement, under the circum
stances, would be disastrous. Whether, therefore, a renewed effort
to cross the Rappahannock was contemplated or not, the impossi
bility of inference in the last hypothesis, and its justification by
the action of the President in the first, unite to relieve from
censure any representations on the subject.
It was not long before it was bruited that General Burnside had
been overruled by his superior officer in Washington. The sur
mise extended beyond the purlieus of the camp ; it excited in
quiry in every political community; and wherever newsmongers
congregated, it engrossed conversation. Washington was con
vulsed. The quaking fears which shocked ks inhabitants, when
in momentary expectation of Lee's victorious legions, did not thrill
more keenly than this unexpected sensation. It rang all the changes
of gossip, and did not fail to engage all the passions of detraction,
Private en-vy revelled in the possible wreck of a General's reputa
tion, and the spirit of mischief fed upon the prospect of differ
ences, irreconcilable in their nature, and capable, at maturity, of
irreparable official dissension.
General Burnside was not unnaturally inflamed by the reports
that his efforts had been baffled, and, if conscious of their truth,
perhaps was justifiably exasperated. Eventually, by whatever im
pulse stimulated, his denunciations and complaints, though ap
parently poweriess upon an impassive Executive, were readily
entertained and adopted by the Committee on the Conduct of the

S3
War. The opportunity of arraigning at their inquisitorial bar the
Chief Magistrate of the Union, was seized with avidity, and eagerly
prosecuted. The representations of the actors were heard and re.
corded. General Burnside's statement had distinguished consider.
ation ; General Newton and myself were accorded a hearing ;
and the judgment which, in fact, had been previously determined,
ostensibly followed the ceremony of a trial.
While these events were in course, attributed failure incited the
commander of the army to stUl another effort to cross the Rappa
hannock. The month of February was well towards its last days.
Irregular weather 'had disturbed the prospect and unsettled the
roads. At length, however, the skies were clear, and the roads
became practicable for wagons and artillery. Our orders came to
march with three days' rations and sixty rounds of ammunition ;
and on the morning of the i8th of January, we formed column,
and the army took its line of march for a point on the river above
Fredericksburgh. The evening brought us to the end of our day's march^ at some_
half-dozen miles above Falmouth. The early day had disclosed a
leaden canopy of cloud, driven by an easterly wind. As the Sixth
Corps encamped for the night, the threatening storm broke, and
for two d^ys raged with unabated violence. A winter's morning
ushered in our second day with rain and wind. Our column
staggered through quagmire and inundation on its march U) the
river's side. A few hours brought us to the rendezvous, and
the army, at its various stations, rested in their • ranks beheath the
protecting woods and highlands. And, now, the unavoidable delay,
consequent upon the unprecedented storm, interfered with the
execution of orders. Pontoons lay stalled in the mud ; wagons
were stationary, and artUlery staggered along the line of march as
fortune disposed. Towards night it became quite apparent that
no crossing could be effected that day ; accordingly, we bivouacked
on the field, and waited with anxious expectancy the ensuing morn
ing. The rebels had not been quiet spectators of our columns. From
the heights beyond the river, their batteries flung shot and shell.
To silence these our artillery was brought into position with as
little delay as possible, and an artiUery duel opened and prevaUed
through the day. It was now that it became generally known that
the saturated ground seriously deranged the artUlerists' fire. At

S4
every discharge the wheels sunk some three feet, and it was obvious
that, unless rectified, this evil would arrest the movement. Nor
had we encamped, before it was the subject of general comment,
th£|(t the chief of artUlery had advised the General of the army
that his guns had become useless. During the night dur method
of attack after having crossed, was determined and the consequent
orders were received. Having crossed the bridges, each regiment
was to charge en echelon upon the enemy's position. The intervals
of military duty during the day had been employed by many of
the general officers to reconnoitre the expected scene of battle. It
was quite evident that no opposition would be made to the army
in, its passage across the river. In truth, the bridges had been se
curely laid, and were practicable for troops by nightfall. But it
was equally clear, from the enemy's dispositions, that a murderous'
fire would, from that point, sweep our ranks, and that our advance
must be purchased at the expense of an unusual loss of general
officers. Such considerations occupied the Generals of our Di
vision in the social interviews of the night, and from which they
separated, in the expectation of meeting next on the morrow's
battle-field. Night deepened, morning came and went, and still
no orders to advance. Suspicion prevailed, doubt was expressed,
solicitude fell on all. At length there came the official communi
cation that the movement 'should be abandoned. In a few hours
orders were received for the troops to countermarch, and resume
the camps which they had left. Under the still falling rain, we
filed into column of march, and as night fell upon the fugitive
clouds of the broken storm, my brigade reoccupied the winter
quarters which, on the day before, we supposed we had left for
ever. This, like the former effort of General Burnside to cross the
Rappahannock, was a failure, and the Army of the Potomac was
encamped again at Falmouth.
I had -heard rumors on the night before, that General Burnside
had gone to Washington, to advise of the propriety of abandoning
his projected attack. They were repeated during the next few
days, and I was never satisfactorily informed, whether the order of
countermarch emanated from him in Washington, whither he had
gone, or personaUy in the camp, to which he had returned. Be it,
however, as it may, the fact wiU not be disturbed, that the disap
pointment disposed General Burnside to requite the wrongs which
he supposed he had suffered. They were keenly felt. A singular
placidity must, otherwise, have blessed his temperament. A mar-

ss
velously forgiving temper alone could have induced him to refrain
from resenting them. It was not, therefore, surprising that General
Burnside should have conceived the idea of relieving from duty
with the Army of the Potomac, or of dismissing from the service,
those whose machinations he suspected to be the cause of his
detriment, or whose opinions, he was sensible, were hostile to his
military plans. Sincerity, and an earnest conviction of rectitude
(which should not be denied to him,) would naturally prompt resist
ance to aggression, if they did not visit a penalty upon the aggres
sor. Accordingly, the sense ot injustice under which he was smart
ing, suggested the retaliatory remedy of inchoate General Order
No. 8, while his habitual diffidence undoubtedly conspired with his
predominating conscientiousness, to remit the responsibility of
issuing it to the President of the United States. The ascription,
however, to General Burnside, of the consciousness of doing right,
is one thing; while the President's conviction that he was doing right,
is quite another thing. Ignorance, united to sincerity, was all that
was essential to establish the General's rectitude, and knowledge
was aU that was required to establish his error. So that, while the
General, it is admitted, thought he was right, the President it is
proved, knew that he was wrong. The result is widely known.
The draft of inchoate General Order No. 8 was submitted for the
approbation of the President. It provided for the relief of some gen
eral officers from duty with the Army of the Potomac, and fo'r the
dismissal of others from the service. It was not approved, and, there
fore never promulgated. Its rejection however does not seem to
have exhausted its functions. It received various careful corrections —
was subjected to many discreet emendations ; and when proclaimed.
Behold I General Burnside, who originally had proposed to dismiss
General Joseph Hooker from the military service of the United States,
was himself deposed from the command ofthe Army ofthe Potomac,
and General Hooker appointed in his place.
This event, not unexpectedly, precipitated into activity the chronic
malady ofthe Committee on the Conduct ofthe War. Process sum
moned, and witnesses appeared. The daily drone of question and
answer loaded reams of foolscap, and fatigued the echos of the Capitol.
Solemn conclaves assembled, deliberated, and determined ; and the
result, if it did not attain to the impeachment ofthe President, at least
was not destitute of the merit, in the estimation of the committee, of ani
madverting censoriously upon the conduct of certain General officers.

S6
I do not wish to be understood as of the opinion that this commit
tee was uniformly derogate of functions or invariably responsive to cen
surable influences. Frequent valuable services extended over the long
tract of its important labors. Their persistent quest discovered shame
ful disregard of the public interests, the sacrifice of which their vigi
lance averted. When civil magnates and ecclesiastical dignitaries
and military chieftains were infested with heresy, they made faithful
inquisition, and exerted the chief agency that conducted the war upon
the principles of military efficiency, to its triumphant close. When
personal prejudice did not interfere with their judgment, their view,
were unexceptionable and their measures salutary. When partisan
necessities did not demand, their conclusions were wise, and their
resolutions beneficent. When experience had endued them with
true discernment and competent knowledge, they advanced with com
mendable skill to the examination of military problems, and pro
nounced with reasonable accuracy. It was only when the acrimony,
the subserviency, or the ignyrant assumptions of the politician warped
judgment and clouded reason, that their proceedings were obnoxious,
and their reports a reproach. But had their been no redeeming
qualities to relieve their excesses, or to establish a meritorious monu
ment to their remembrance, their very existence would have been
useful . Doubtless, through all the war, the knowledge that a com
mittee on its conduct supervised military action, and subjected to
inexorable tests the license of military opinion, went very far to recover
from their latitude, the Southei-n proclivities of many of the come
manders of our forces, and to peremptorily confine their efforts to the
single object of victory. It is enough to know, whatever may have
been the agency of this gradual but thorough revolution, both in opin
ion and deed, that it was not till the political theories of Generals-in-
Chief, and the military plans of Cabinet statesmen were resigned, that
the object of the war began to be understood, and our arms to pro
gress to their ultimate triumph.
The repeated efforts of General Burnside to effect the passage of
the Rappahannock closed his career with the Army of the Potomac.
General Hooker assumed the command. The ordinary camp routine
occupied the army, while preparations for the spring campaign were
pushed forward with unusual activity.
I had of late been admonished that my failing health would not
permit a longer exposure to the hardships of the field. The virus of
the Chickahominy fevers had sharpened the tooth of chronic malady,

S7
and my retirement fi-om the service was certified, by the Brigade,
Division, and Corps Surgeons, and the Surgeon General of the Army,
to be, in their opinion, necessary for the preservation of my life.
Accordingly I tendered my resignation, which was accepted by the
President of the United States.
The hour of departure drew near. I issiled to my Brigade my last
order, and in the following address returned to the pursuits of civil
life: ¦' Head-Quarters First Brigade,
" 3D Division, 6th Corps,
" Army of the Potomac,
" February 27th, 1863.
" Soldiers of the First Brigade:
" My command over you has terminated. Serious physical maladies,
Induced by the unaccustomed exposure of nearly two years of mili
tary life, constantly in the camp, on the march, or in the field, have
unfitted me now for the duties of an active campaign. For this
reason my resignation, which severs my connection with the service.
But I should trample upon the most sacred emotions, did I depart
from among you in silence. We began our march, and we have
traversed our fields together. Where we lay down one sky covered
and one flag protected us ; when we arose, it was to the notes of the
same reveille. Your toil has been my toil, and your battles mine.
To Fair Oaks, Malvern Hill, Antietam, Williamsport, and Fredericks
burgh, our memories revert together, as to fields hallowed by the
bravery, and by the blood of our brigade. Soldiers' graves are there
filled with our dead ; and we, their survivors, bear their names upon
our hearts, where too, their praises are inscribed.
" Soldiers ! for your country have you borne all, perilled all, suffered
all ; and for that country will you still bleed and endure, till you have
seized from the tee;h of this monstrous rebellion the dear inheritance
of your children^one name, one country, one home. I shall not be
with you, nor shall I strike at your side. But, wherever in other
fields, bending beneath grievious burdens, I may weary or faint, one
thought of you— brave hearts — shall revive resolution and reinvigor-
ate effort in our common cause.
" You are of the Army of the Potomac. High hopes rest upon you
and fervid prayers supplicate your success. Objects of hope and sub-

S8
jects of prayer, comrades in arms, your future is fraught with the
destinies of the coming generations.
" Though sometimes checked, yet never defeated ; though sometimes
baffled, yet never beaten ; the victories of your past are still within hail
of your victories to come.
" Your country's cause rests upon your arms, and your standards will
yet be gilded by the day of its success.
"Soldiers, farewell!
"John Cochrane,
"Brig. General Commanding ist Brigade, etc.''

ARMING THE SLAVES

IN THE

WAR FOR THE UNION.

SCENES, SPEECHES, AND EVENTS ATTENBINe II.

Speeches of General JOHN COCHRANE and Secretary of 'War CAMERON,
WITH Remarks by EDWIN CROSWELL, Gov. DICKENSON,
and Metropolitan Journals.

EXTRACT FROM
A PRR'ATE MEMOIR CONCERNING THE WAR.
Written bv JOHN COCHRANE, General U. S. Volunteers.

WITH INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
By Henry O'Rielly, .Secretary of the Association for Promoting the Organization of Troops.
{Supplementary to the History of that Organization.)

NE'W YOI\^K, MAY, 1875.

NE^Ar YORK:
ROGERS & SHERWOOD, PRINTERS, 94 and 96 NASSAU STREET.
isTs-

INAUGURATION OF THE POLICY.

SCENES. SPEECHES. AND EVENTS ATTENDING IT.

Controversies connected with Centennial Anniversaries of the pioneer efforts for de
fending American Rights against the encroachments of British Power in the Revolutionary
era, co-operate with the intrinsic importance of the subject in illustrating the propriety of
preserving accurate statements concerning all the principal means whereby the still mightier
recent struggle for Preserving the National Union was maintained against the rebellious
operations of the Slave Aristocracy that threatened destruction to the Republican Govern
ment founded by our patriotic ancestors.
The fHendly rivalry between Lexington, Concord, ^nd other towns, respecting the
honor of inaugurating the Revolutionary War with armed force, together with, the claims
now urged in behalf of a Carolina town, (Charlotte, Mecklenburg County,) for the honor of
having asserted Independence by some resolutions a year before the celebrated " Declara
tion" was proclaimed by Congress on the Fourth of July in "Seventy-six," indicate the
degree of interest that will probably cling through all time to such a momentous fact as the
"Arming of the Slaves" in the struggle for our national existence, when an insolent slave
aristocracy sought to destroy the great Republic for the purpose of building on its ruins a
gigantic Military Empire, with " Slavery as its corner-stone."
As the policy of " Arming the Slaves " as a war-measure, in a critical period of the
American conflict, was a notable precursor of the destruction of the whole slave system,
to which the National Government was soon after compelled to resort as indispensable for
preserving the national life — and as that policy originated in New York — a correct record of
the circumstances connected with its development should be preserved, in connection with
the history of the " First Organization of Colored Volunteers " in this City and State, of
which it was the forerunner.
Hence it is, that the Committee, who prepared that history, deem it proper to
narrate some essential facts concerning the initiation of this very important part of
the policy of National defence, which their " Association " labored to promote in the or
ganization of colored troops.
Having, fortunately, obtained access to the papers of Gen. John Cochrane concerning
his original proposition, sustained by Secretary Cameron of the War Department, some
time before the Administration of President Lincoln was compelled by stern necessity and
by public opinion to sanction it -substantially involving the total destruction of slavery — the
Committee now deem it a duty to supplement their history of the " First Organization of
Colored Troops in the City and State of New York," by quoting some highly interesting
particulars from a private memoir of General Cochrane, sustained by the speech of the
venerable Simon Cameron, then Chief of the War Department, and now a Senator from the
State of Pennsylvania, as substantially indicated by reports copied from prominent
metropolitan journals of that dat».
Important as was the proposition for "Arming the Slaves as a War Measure,"
if derived peculiar additional, value from the trying crisis in which it was first boldly
submitted to the American people (in November, 1861); for, at that time, even after severe

4 ARMING THE SLAVES.
experience in the war, a large portion of the community was unjjrepared for the great issue
which the necessities of self-defence forced upon the nation in the following year, when the
Administration of President Lincoln lelt constrained to proclaim the emancipation of the
slaves in all States which should continue rebellious after December, 1862, and their
admission into t'.ie armed service ofthe United States— the supposition having been Until
then entertained that the Union could be preserved without such a. sweeping resort to
extreme measures — measures which, however desirable on abstract grounds for the destruc
tion of the Slave Aristocracy that begun the war, could not longer be delayed consistently
with national safety.
These matters are particularly worthy of remembrance for various reasons beyond
those already enumerated, among which may be mentioned the fact, that the endorsement of
General Cochrane's speeches about " Arming the Slaves," and his official statement on that
subject in his first Annual Report thereafter, occasioned a partial disruption of the Cabinet,
Secretary Cameron retiring from the War Department, as the Administration was not then
ready to recognize the policy which he had so boldly approved, as will be seen in the ,
annexed extract from the memoir of General Cochrane. One other additional reason may
be appropriately mentioned, which is, that in the City of New York, where the citizens
generally at first shrunk from meddling with the slave question, hearty concurrence was
shown in the necessity of a policy which soon strengthened the Union armies by the
addition of nearly two hundred thousand colored troops, whose services aided essentially in
weakening the rebellion, and correspondingly increasing the power of the General Govern»
ment to preserve the national life.
But it is needless here to say more copcerning the preservation of such authentic records
of the movements concerning the decisive " shot " against slavery, which preserved our
National Union and reverberated through the world.
In behalf of the " Association," and referring for further particulars to the History of
the " First Organization of Colored Volunteers " in the State and City of New York,
Henry O'Rielly, Secretary.
New York, May, 1875.

INTERESTING HISTORICAL FACTS,
Extracted from a Memoir relating to the War, written by
John Cochrane, General U. S. Volunteers.

EXTRACT FROM GENERAL COCHRANE'S NARRATIVE.
A speech made by me in November of this year (i85i,) to my regiment in camp, pro
voked very general comment. It advocated the arming of the slaves, and, as the first pub
lic proposition to that effect, became the object both of applause and denunciation. Its
history is brief, and, as related to the opinions and connected with the fortunes of a cabinet
minister, is worthy of notice.
Upon the invitation of General Cameron, the Secretary of War, I had, during the last
days of October, accompanied him upon a visit of ofScial form to the City of New York.
While there, the General was serenaded at the Astor House. After he had addressed the
audience, I remember to have adverted, in a brief speech, to the necessity of invoking to our
aid, from the ranks of rebellion, where they were restrained, the thousands of slaves anxious
for our success, and willing to contribute to it. The subject had engaged much of my
thought when revolving the military problem ofthe war. Its serious character had come to
be very generally acknowledged, and reflecting minds were referring the question of ultimate
success, not only to the judicious and skillful direction of our own military strength but to

ARMING THE SLAVES. '5
an immediate recourse to the military advantages of which the peculiar composite popula
tion ot the South allowed us the avail. A tolerably accurate computation disclosed that,
deducting from the three million five hundred thousand slaves, in the States in rebellion, the
females, children, and male domestic servants, there would be left of male field laborers about
one million seven hundred thousand. The census of l86o showed that in all these States
there were not of male whites, at the military age between eighteen and forty-five, more
than one million three hundred thousand. When considering that, indigenous to the country,
the slaves, as the depositaries of its physical geography, were intimate with the topography
of the South, it did not seem unreasonable to conclude, that, with equal discipline, the slave
population, in the emergent conflict for freedom, would be able ultimately to overbear
their masters. This comparison of mere physical force was obviously charged with the in
culcation of the duty of securing to the Government, at the earliest practicable day, an ally
of such decisive power to incline the scales of victory. The question of success might be
securely rested upon the election which the slaves should make, for which belligerent to cast
their strength in the war. To arm them, therefore, was imperatively required;
when simply to arm them was to secure their aid. Such views, also, had the Secre
tary revolved ; and subsequently, upon our return to Washington, it was determined that the
policy of introducing the slaves in arms into the war for perpetuating free institutions
should be formally proposed and practically inaugurated. For this purpose the speech was
made ; the Secretary of War attending upon the occasion, and approving. It was objected,
that it would in effect emancipate the slaves. It was answered, that the measure which re
stored the Government was not chargeable with an injury inflicted on its assailants. It was
objected, that the war was for the purpose of restoring the Union, and not of emancipating the
slaves. It was answered, that the means which restored the Union were justifiable, even
though the utter annihilation of its enemies. It was objected, that to arm the slaves was in
violation of the Constitutional rights of the South. It was answered, that in their war
against the Constitution, the South had no such rights. It was objected, that to arm the
slaves would diffuse through the South, with the fierce ravage of war, the horrors of barba
rous, and the license of servile, insurrection. It was answered, that the race which for more
than a century had, with patient endurance, acquiesced in the impenetrable gloom of their
bondage, and who, when outrage and wrong goaded fiercely to revenge, had, even in the
glut of opportunity, refrained from the least excess, would not probably be precipitated into
it, when the light dawned, and the sense of an irreparable injury was expelled by the
jubilant emotions of unexpected manumission. The partizan press teemed with the
expletives of denunciation; the pulpit groaned with fearful admonitions and holy
diatribes against the heresy ; statesmen af home, whose optics had been dazed in
the bewildering maze of devious political careers ; and philosophers abroad, whose impracti
cable theories had confused systems and oppressed nations, swelled their united note of ob
jection into one long howl, that it was premature— that it was dangerous— that the public
opinion would not sustain it. It was not strange that such a blare should have disturbed
the constancy of the President. Even his resolution was shaken, and the Secretary of War,
who had nobly assumed the burden and borne the heat of the day, was dismissed, lest he
should distract Cabinet councils any longer with the opinion that the slave should be armed.
All honor to the patriotism and to the fearlessness of Simon Cameron! He was a true,
friend of his country at her darkest hour ; and when light broke, he was seen advancing in
line with the measure by which the country was eventually saved. For this he was re
jected !
The President approved the doctrine of the speech, but awaited the fitting time for its
adoption. When General Cameron made his official conge, he, with characteristic magnani
mity, offered to the General a written statement to that effect, authenticated by the Presidential
signature; but which, with equal courtesy, was declined. Mr. Lincoln's inchnations
naturally preferred the discretion which remits the counsels of the leader to the tendency

6 ARMING THE SLAVES.
of his followers. Sagacity of perception elevated his measures, oftentimes instinctively,
into greatness. But, confessedly, his was not the discursive intellect that, pressing into t^e
regions of the speculative and untried, modeled affairs to its theories, or compelled men to
the adoption of its doctrines. He was an American and practical. His was the shrewd
ness of the West, engrafted on the oonstancy and the integrity of the national character.
I have cause to believe that his proclivities were unhappily encouraged by the advice
of the Count de Gasparin. The President read to me from this writer's letters. Seldom
have I heard the generous sympathies of a large-souled nature so affectingly ex
pressed. Certainly, congeniality wedded the heart of this author in a sacred unity with
human rights. But, alas ! how inadequate the intellect of Europe even to the comprehen
sion of American liberty. Where popular ignorance is a pillar of government, the
overthrow of despotism depends upon popular enlightenment. Hence, the propagandists are
essential to European progress ; their theories are the lessons in which the masses are in
structed, and their conceptions of liberty largely partake of the chimerical characteristics
of their teachers. Consequently, the method of execution is at the dictation of con
spirators, who, however proficient in the tenets of constitutional government, are ever
deplorably incompetent to organize revolution. Having no knowledge of those whose
elevation is at once their object and their instrument, they are as apt to be abandoned as to
be supported by them ; and the excitements of European populations have, for this reason,
uniformly succumbed to the eventual predominance of prescriptive organization in the
hands of despots, over the incoherency of revolutionary action, directed by doctrinaires.
But here, where intelligence is the condition, the instructor in tenets is an exceptional pres
ence. Here, neither learned deductions nor speculative theories are the source or the
auxiliaries of freedom. Its truths are instinctive, and its impulses unconscious in the
American mind, and they are infallible, too. What each one likes best, he does; and the
aggregation of these likes, in an American community, is its liberty : their execution is its
government. Our intelligence is our birthright, and our institutions an heir-loom. How
foreign to such a people are the brilliant aphorisms and the eccentric courses of European
Republicanism, and how incapable to their emergencies are European Republicans, and
how inadequate their advice ! When, therefere, the French philosopher counseled against
" the arming of the slaves," he but darkened judgment. The American people knew better
than the Count de Gasparin; and long before he wrote, or, the President acted, they had
determined that the slave should fight ; and, that fighting, he should be free. President
Lincoln executed their will and passed to glory. The apprehension with which the South
listened to the proposal, that their slaves should be armed, was signally expressive of their
consciousness of the injury it would inflict. Besides the denunciations of their press,
their alarm was conveyed under the disguise of menacing and anonymous communications.
Some threatened immediate vengeance and some death in battle. One of them addressed
to me, and post marked Alexandria, I copy to attest the proverbial ardor and poesy of
the South : Alexandria, Va., Nov. 21, 1861. Southern Confederacy.
Back to your home you cowards go.
Black hearts and bloody hands ;
Ye but disgrace a soldier's name.
Owning such vile commands.
What ! have ye come to spoil our fields.
Black hearts and bloody hands ;
And taste the sweets that conquest yields
To those who win our lands?
Dare ye with patriot men to strive.
Black hearts and bloody hands ?
And can ye hope to 'scape alive
From their avenging hands ?
Thieves, ruffians, hirelings, slaves,
Black hearts and bloody hands !
Our country will refuse its graves
To your polluted bands. A Virginia Lady.

ARMING THE SLAVES. 7
.Perhaps a little more amplification at this point (the arming of the slaves,) may not be
amiss. A large part of the credit of agitatingthesubject is due to Samuel Wilkinson, then war cor
respondent of the New York Tribune. In our many conferences, he insisted that to arm
the slaves was indispensable to the proper conduct of the war. We were in company with
the Secretary of War on his visit to New York; and while «« J-o«/«, it was arranged that
the occasion of a serenade to General Cameron, at the Astor House, should be availed ¦ of
by me to introduce the theme, and to advocate it in a speech.
The serenade and its speeches were on the night of November 4th, i86i, and were re
ported in the New York Tribune and the New York Herald of the next morning.
; After General Cameron, who was introduced to the audience by me, had spoken, I was my
self introduced by the Hon. Rufus F. Andrews, Surveyor of the Port of New York, and
said in part: " Then let us throw to the winds this figment of the imagination, this telror for
children— that it is ' a war for the emancipation of the slaves,' or that it is ' a war upon the, in
stitutions of the South.' Nay, if is a war of the institutions of the South upon the freedom
bf the North. It is in just such a war that we are all engaged— a war for the discontinuance
or disruption of no institution— for the suspension of no one individual or national right, but
for the conservation of all individual rights, for the continuance of the Government of the
land, for the conservation of civilization itself."
" Mr. Cochrane^ continued to speak at length, upon the significant relations of civilization to
the present juncture in the world's history, urging that our defeat in this war might retard its
(progress and endanger the interests of religion itself. Though he was not in favor of making
]ihis a war for emancipation, yet, if the exigencies of the service required ihe putting of arms
]%n the hands of negro slaves, to fight for the Union, he was heartily in favor of availing ourselves
\f)f that chance of war. This would be no more than our enemies would do toward us.
\Away with proclamations. Let us have none of them. They serve only to create dissensions
among the people in the North. But, at the same timg , the young chieftain of the Union
^armies, in his victorious march southward, would commit a great imprudence should he fail to
avail himself of whatever allies may come to him, white or black. Such a course wouldbe
self-defence ; and it would be folly not to thus put arms in the hands of four millions of
allies and friends. (Applause.) He thought this the general opinion of those who had gone
to fight the battles of the Union. Without distinction of party, and with one accord, let us '
then here declare, that we will know no object of action, no subject of thought, except our
country, and our whole country ; and that, live or die, we are for our whole country.''
The effect of this speech was not thought sufficiently decisive, and upon our return to
Washington, it was determined by the Secretary, Mr. Wilkinson , and myself, that a more im
pressive occasion should be sought, and that immediately, for launching upon the public the
grave and vital doctrine of Arming the Slaves.
The occasion soon offered, in the approaching distribution of new uniforms to the sol
diers of Col. Cochrane's regiment (First United States Chasseurs), then lying within a mile of
Washington. The following cotemporary report of it reproduces, in effect, the scene and
Ihe speeches.
SPEECH OF COLONEL COCHRANE. DELIVERED TO HIS REGIMENT, FIRST
UNITED STATES CHASSEURS, NOVEMBER 13, 1861.
" It having been announced that Colonel John Cochrane would speak to his regiment, at
their camp, on the occasion of their first appearance in new uniforms, on the afternoon of
Friday, the 13th of November instant, a large assemblage of ladies and gentlemen was con
gregated to hear him. A staging had been improvised beneath a spreading oak, where, con
spicuous among the audience, sat the Secretary of War, Simon Cameron. In front,
in enclosing lines, stood the imposing regiment — the First United States Chasseurs-pSteady,
exact, and attentive. Within the square a regimental band uttered music, while

8 ARMING THE SLAVHlS.
the reddening rays of the descending sun enveloped the audience, soldiers, secretary, and
orator in rosy rays, that imparted a soft beauty to the scene, and the pleasing illusion
of dramatic effect. The Colonel then advanced, and notified his hearers that one of the com
panies of the regiment had selected this as a fitting opportunity to present to one of their
lieutenants (Morton) a small token of their esteem. The preliminary ceremony finished.
Colonel Cochrane arose, and, justly inspired by the scene and the circumstances which pro
duced it, spoke as follows :
" Soldiers of the First United States Chasseurs : [Bravo, Colonel.] I have a word to
say to you to-day. You liave engaged in an arduous struggle. You have prosecuted it ; you
intenH to prosecute it ; you have stood unfiinchingly before the enemy ; you have proved your
selves patriotic and tried soldiers, and you are entitled to the meed of praise. I, your
Colonel, this day feel that it is a proud duty to extend to you the hand of approbation, and
to declare that you are worthy of your country.
" Soldiers — you have undergone labor ; you have faced the enemy ; you have stood without
retreating before their fire ; you have borne the inclemencies of the season, and you are ready
to advance with that grand army of which you are a part. Your country opens its arms, and
receives you to its bosom. It will always praise and applaud you. Your commanders stand at
the head of the column, and with you behind them, they are not to be deterred. But the
command is forthcoming — forward, toward the enemy. Take his possessions, for
they are yours; they are yours to occupy, they are yours to enjoy; you are no marauders, you
are no plunderers of property ; but you are the avengers of the law ; you are the
right arm of the Constitution ; under your flag march patriotism and order, and republican in
stitutions ; in your train follow peace, prosperity, and liberty ; you are the servants of these
high potentates, and the arm through which they strike is the arm of the worthy public servant
who stands behind me on this occasion, the Secretary of War.
" Soldiers*— you have been called to the field, not as marauders and mercenaries, but as the
defenders of our high faith, defenders of our glorious reputation, defenders of our honor and
renown, around which cluster the memories of the past, and whose feats and performances
will yet distinguish the future. You are led forward by a commander under whom to serve is.
a pride for the highest among us. He enjoys the confidence of the people, and his reputation
already renders powerless the arms of your enemies. By him we have won victories in
the South and by these victories we have assurances of triumph to come. Beaufort is ours — :
Charleston may be ours — the whole country, now disintegrated, may shortly be united by
the force of those armies of which you are a part, and the Union once more signify to the
world the intent of that glorious motto, E Pluribus Unum. Then no longer shall be heard
that fell doctrine of secession, which would tear us asunder, and distract, part from part,
this glorious Union ; but we shall all be as we have been, one and inseparable, under the flag of
our glorious nationality, won by our fathers and preserved by you. [Applause.] Here is as
sembled on the banks of the Potomac an army the like of which the world has never seen.
The motive which has gathered that army together has never before been presented to the eye
of history. It was congregated by no despotic order ; the voluntary wish was the motive
power, of every man composing it — the power of men rushing, as with one purpose, to rein
state the flag of our Union and save the Republic. That, soldiers, is your mission ; and you
have a commander who, with lightning speed, will lead you to conquest, and with equal speed
will transmit the glory of your labors to the remotest corners of your country. And now per
mit me, though the shades of night are falling upon us, to indulge in a few words as to the
cause of the war, and the means by which it is to be brought to a successful termination. The
material aid I have already averted to ; the motive power remains to be commented upon. On
the one side you have the. Confederate army; on the other side you have the grand Union — the
Federal army. Now, the difference between these two words, in their common acceptation,
is the cause for which the two armies are fighting. It is Secession against Federation ; Fed
eration against Secession ; nationality against disunion ; confusion against order ; anarchy
against a good, free, and liberal Government — a Government made equally by the Fathers of
the South and the Fathers of the North. We are in a revolutionary period. The South con
tends for the right of revolution. We admit the right ; but while we admit it, we invoke the
sole umpire which can be invoked ou such occasions— that umpire the sword— that umpire
force, the ultima ratio, that last effort to which men appeal when they have differences
otherwise irreconcilable.
" They — the South-— have resorted to arms, and they have compelled us to the same recourse;
and, if as they claim, it is a war of self-preservation on their part, it is equally a war of self-
preservation on ours. So then, if we are in controversy for very existence, I contend that all
the means within ourselves, individually, collectively, and nationally, must be resorted to and

ARMING THE SLAVES.

adopted. [Applause.] But some friend— a doubter— exclaims : " Would you disrupt and
tear asunder the Constitution } Would you tread and trample upon that sacred instrument.
and no longer acknowledge its binding force ? no longer be bound by its compromises and
decrees ? I answer, no ! Where is the Constitution ? The Constitution, by the neces
sity of the controversy, is cast behind the arena of strife. May it rest there
safe, until the strife is over, when it shall be restored to its original purity
and force. The. sybil leaves lost, the remainder became more valuable; and in
the midst of this carnage we will clasp to our bosoms that instrument whose worth
has never been transcended by human efforts. Soldiers, to what means shall we
resort for existence? This war is devoted nol^ merely to victory and its mighty hon
ors, not merely to the triumph which moves in glorious procession along our streets; it is a
war which moves toward the protection of our homes,' the safety of our farnilies, the continua
tion of our domestic altars, and the protection of our firesides. In such a war we are justified,
3X.e bound to resort to our every force. Having opened the Port of Beaufort, we shall be able
to export cotton bales. From these we may supply the sinews of war. Do you say that we
should not seize the cotton ? No; you are clear upon that point. Suppose the munitions of
war are within our reach, would we not be guilty of shameful neglect if we availed not our
selves of the opportunity to use them ? Suppose the enemy's slaves were arrayed against you,
would you, from any sqeamishness, refrain from pointing against them the hostile gun, or
prostrating them in death ? No ! that is your very object; and if you would seize their prop
erty, open their ports, and even destroy their lives, I ask you whether you would not use their
slaves ? whether you would not arm their slaves [great applause] and carry them in 'batal-
lions against their masters ? [Renewed and tremendous applause.] If necessary to save this
Government, I would plunge their whole country, black and white, into one scene of indiscrimi
nate warfare, so that we shotild in the end have a Government — a Government the vicegerent of
God. Let us have no more of the dilletante system, but let us work with a will and with a
purpose that cannot be mistaken. ' Let us not be put aside from too great a delicacy of mo
tives. Soldiers, you know no such reasoning as this . You have arms in your hands, and
those arras are placed there for the purpose of exterminating the enemy unless he submit to
law, order, and th« Constitution. If he will not subm.it, seize everything that comes in your
¦way. Set fire to the cotton. Export the cotton . Take property wherever you may find it.
Take the slave and bestovo him upon the non-slaveholder if you please. [Great applause.]
Do to them, as they would do to us. Raise up a party of interest against the absent slaveholder.
Distract their counsels, and if fliis should not be sufficient, take tht. slave iy the hand, place a
m.usiet in it, and in God's name bid him strike for the liberty of the human race. [Immense
applause.] " Now, is this eoiancipation ? Is this abolitionism ? I do not regard it as either. It no
more partakes of abolitionism than a spaniel partakes of the nature of the lion. Abolitionism
is simply but to free the slaves. It is to make war upon the South for that purpose only. It
is to place them with their masters in the civil and social scale. It is to assert me.'ely the great ab
stract principles of equality among men. But to take the slave and make him an implement .
of war in overcoming your enemy, that is a military scheme. It is a military necessity, and
the commander who does not do this, or something equivalent to it, is unworthy of the position he
holds and equally unworthy of your confidence. Emancipation! Are we engaged in a war
of emancipation? Who commenced the war? Not we. And if we did not commence the
war, we cannot be charged with its consequences. Where had it its origin ? It had its origin
inthe South. Itis a war of the South against the free institutions of the North. Let me
illustrate. Are we to free their slaves ? We are not fighting for that only. Do you recollect
the resolution which was passed the last session of Congress, which distinctly declares that it
never had been intended by any body in this wide land to free the slave. "Compromise,"
too, had been talked of in this matter. Why did not the South compromise ? Because it was
not their object. I say this fearlessly, for I infer it from scenes in which I was an actor.
" At Charleston, I remember, that when satisfied that Mr. Douglas could not, while they
remained in the Convention, be nominated for the Presidency, they nevertheless withdrew.
It was, if my-remembrance is not at fault, near the midnight hour, at the prominent headquar
ters of the Southern array, that Messrs. Yancey and Knox Walker entered the room. Those
present had previously concluded, upon careful calculations, that the South abiding in the
Convention, Judge Douglas could not receive two-thirds of the vote of the Convention.
This conclusion was communicated to those gentlemen, who, as I understood, having revie-wed
the calculations, and expressed their reliance upon them, declared, when leaving, their deter
mination to remain in the Convention. It was at the opening of the Convention, on the veiy
next morning, that Mr. Walker sent to the Chair the act of secession of Alabama therefrom!
The morning deed declared marvelously when contrasted with the midnight profession, that
the act of secession was but a foregone conclusion, necessary to precipitate the only issue to
which they desired to be a party — the issue of rebellion.

10 ARMING THE SLAVES.
" Nothing could be satisfactory to these men, except that arms should be resorted to, and
the fate of revolution abided by. I declare, therefore, that the war is not of our originating,
but has been forced upon us by a crafty enemy — an enemy resolved to do or die ; to destroy
our free Government, or perish in the attempt. Now, what is their object? Why, their object
is to tear down this proud, noble, and beneficent Government, to establish a reign of terror,
anarchy, and confiscation, in the land ; to implant upon this, our soil, ^he hideous doctrine of
the right of secession, so that when one State secedes another may secede, and still another,
and another, so that within forty eight hours, by the light of their reason and the exact
ness of their judgmefnt, you may establish on this continent thirty-four independent govern
ments. Thirty-four did I say ? Why, not thirty-four merely ; but every county and every
city, and every village and hamlet, nay, every person who shall suffer from indigestion at a
dinner-table, may claim the same right ; and thus, soldiers, would follow the confusion and dis
order which would plunge into dismay and ruin the best and most benevolent governments in
the world. Now what is our object ? It is simply to arrest the sway of this fell spirit of se
cession. It is to maintain our Government, to establish and vindicate law and order, without
which neither happiness nor prosperity can exist. You are engaged, too, by the strength of
your arms, to protect our commerce with other nations, and when victoiy crowns your devo
tion to our country's cause — as it assuredly will— ^you will, be proudly pointed at as the cham
pions of American rights, as men who have maintained the dearest principles, as those who
shall live in grateful remembrance, and whose names .shall descend with marks of imperish
able honor to the remotest posterity. But, soldiers, to accomplish all this, not merely arms are
necessary, not merely men to carry them, but that powerful and overwhelming spirit which
constitutes and makes you men, that spirit which lifts you above the creeping things of earth,
and brings you near the Deity, in accomplishing His work. Oh! then, let us not think
that the "battle is to the strong " — let us not depend merely on discipline and order, but with
that devoutliess of soul which inspired our fathei^s at Bunker Hill and Saratoga, and Yorktown,
give effect to all that is valuable in patriotism and honor and religion.
" Never, no, never, will you succeed until that spirit is once more manifested which actu
ated the soldiers of Cromwell, who, on the field, invoked the Lord their God. So let it be
with us. We must be at least one with them in spirit. Let us, like Cromwell, invoke the
Almighty blessing, and, clothed in His panoply, strike for our homes and our country. [Im
mense cheering.] Let us ! oh ! let us — without reference to the differences of the past — fasten
our eyes steadfastly on the great object to be achieved, the nationality and independence of
this country, and thesecurity of civilization from the insults and assaults of barbarism. Then,
but not till then, will you be worthy to be recognized as a distinguished portion of the great
American army." [Long continued cheering from the whole regiment.]
The New York Herald of the 14th of November, 1861, gave a full report of the speeches,
which also appeared in full in the New York Tribune of the 15th — the next day. But in the
meantime, and on the 14th of November, the Tribuue announced the event in the following
,startling head-lines :
" THE WAR FOR THE UNION !
" IMPORTANT SPEECHES BY COL. COCHRANE AND SECRETARY CAMERON.
"THE KBY-jrOTii OP THE WAR SOUNDED.
"KMANGIPATION OF THE I^EBEL SLAVES.
" THE DOCTRINE FULL Y ENDORSED B V THE SECRETAR Y.
'• ENTHUSIASTIC EESPONSE BY THE AUDITOKS.
"Special despatch of the New York Tribune.
" Col. Cochrane's regiment received to-day its winter clothing. The new and beautiful
uniforms made a gala day in the camp. The regiment, after parade, was formed in a hollow
square, and addressed by its Colonel. ' The Secretary of War was present, having ridden out
expressly for the pleasure of seeing the Chasseurs in their new uniforms.
"Col. Cochrane made a speech in the highest degree eloquent and patriotic, in which he
placed himself squairely upon the doctrine of ' the militai-y necessity of the emancipation of
the slaves.' The regiment received every sentence of this vital part of. the speech with en
thusiastic clamor. Immediately after the speech of Col. Cochrane there was a tumultuous
demand for the Secretary of War. Mr. Cameron came before the regiment, and said :
"Soldiers— It is too late for me to make you a speech to-night, but I will say that I
heartily approve every sentiment uttered by your noble commander. The doctrines which he

arming the SLAVES. II
has lai i down I' approve as if they were my own words. They are my sentiments  sentiments
which will not only lead you to victory, but which will in the end reconstruct this, our glorious
Federal Constitution. It is idle to talk about treating with these rebels upon th^ir own terms.
We must meet them as our enemies, and punish them as enemies, until they shall learn to be
have themselves. Every meaiis which God has placed 'in our hands it is our duty to use for
the purpose of protecting ourselves. I am glad of the opportunity to say here, what I have
already said elsewhere, in these few words, that / approve of the doctrines this evening enun-
¦ dated by Col. Cochrane. [Loud and prolonged cheering.] "
"The personal respect and affection for the Secretary of War by the officers of the Chas
seurs, as he stood in their midst, gray-haired and worn with the exhausting labors of the De
partment, was a sight that will not be forgotten by the hundreds of visitors who hastened to
catch " the key-note of the war.'"
The work was done. The true thought was lodged full in the bosom of the North, and
from that hour it worked unceasingly for the true conduct of the war. At first the biliousness
of 'party prejudice overwhelmed the event. Denunciation, however, ceased with reflection.
Even the strictest democrats spoke at length in tones bf moderate approval. I insert in illus
tration a letter received from the late Edwin Croswell, ex-editor of the Albany Argus :
LETTER FROM EDWIN CROSWELL AND DANIEL S. DICKENSON, ENDORS
ING COL. COCHRANE'S SPEECH. New York, Nov. 20, 1861.
" Mv De.^r Sir : — Your eloquent and significant speech to the Chasseurs, with its endorsement by the Secre
tary of War, has produced a marked sensation in all quarteis. I am glad that your positions on this subject are
such as the^ are, and that you have taken them without ambiguity or hesitation. As the middle ground between
extreme action on the one side — the surrender of escaped or captured slaves to their owners, rebel or loyal — and
extreme action on the other — the Abolition declaration of emancipation, it will meet with general approval.ifrz^A^/j/
understood, except in Abolition quarters.
" The distinction is a nice one, but, as I think, obvious. Fremont avows the shibboleth of Abolitionism, and
ignore? the right of property in slaves. You recognize it, and seize the slave, as any other rebel property, and con
vert It to public uses, precisely as you would rebel munitions or implements of war, and turn it against the enemy,
or-hand it over to loyal or Union citizens. You disclaim and repudiate Abolitionism. Fremont proclaims emanci
pation as a primal obj ect and result of the war, and captured slaves, instead of being used as a material of war, are
to be let loose upon firee or slave communities, as they may prefer. You capture them as you would a ship, a fort
an 8o-pounder, or a musket; and as a military necessity, deprive the enemy of a material of war, and apply it to the
' uses of the captors. In this Hght it becomes an element of strength, not only in the conduct of the war, but
in the enforcement of the laws and the vindication of the Constitution over the designs of treason and rebellion. In
the Abolition or Fremont sense it becomes an element of weakness and division, and interrupts a vigorous and
united prosecution of the war.
** The first great duty is to put down this causeless and most flagitious rebellion ; the next, to restore the Union
to its condition ot indivisibility. Of the full performance of the first, and much sooner than many, myself in
eluded, thought practicable, I have now no doubt. The second will not be without its difficulties. If we re-es
tablish the Constitution, after repressing and punishing the secession violations of it, and require implicit obedi
ence to Its provisions, no extended question of difference and irritation can arise that will produce serious agitation
and conflict; but if we seek to accomplish the fir.st great purpose— the suppression of tne rebellion— by Abolition
means and positions, we shall retard that much-desired consummation, and probably frustrate the second material
purpose of the war: at least, lay the foundation of future dissensions, acrimonies, and alienations. The Tribune
and Evening Post endeavor to convey the impression that you go farther in the Abolition direction than Fremont.
To my view, your positions are antagonistical to Fremont ; and that they constitute the dividing Hne between the
Administration and the Union feeling of the country on the one side, and abolitionism and secession (both looking
to ih^fermanent disintegration ofthe Union) on the other ; and that loyalty and the energies of the Government
The effective abiHty and vigor with which General Cameron has conducted his branch of one great service
under the difficulties which environ a Government unaccustomed to war, and especially civil war, has won for him
the admiration ofthe country and a position of high lavor with the people. „„„,,,, ^„„c^ii7t7T t
" Sincerely your friend and ob't serv't, "EDWIN CROSWELL.
" CoL. John Cochrane.
" P. S. Mr. Dickenson, who is now in my office, allows me to say that he fully concurs in this view of the
quration.^^ not actuated by Mr. Croswell's reasoning ; for it was obvious to me that to arm the slaves was practi
cally to free them. The government preserved by their aKistance, I believed, would be obliged to proclaim them
free. Abolitionism I thought to be merged in and disposed of by the necessities of war. J. C.
The Secretary of War was firm. He had matured fully his counsels, and his decision
was unalterable. His friends in Pennsylvania were startled with the rumor that he intended to
take the same position and maintain the same doctrine in his annual report, then preparing to
be made to the President.
A delegation of remonstrants visited hira at his house in Washington. Chief among
them was Col. John W. Forney. All night the angry debate raged against the obnoxious
matter, till at length, as early day struggled through the curtained windows, the Secretary
arose, walked to the sideboard, and filling a glass, said, " Gentlemen, the paragraph stands,"

12 ARMING THE SLAVES.
and drank off his whiskey and water. It stands there still,— all eyes can see it ,there, in the
Annual Report of 1861 of the Secretary of War to the President of the United States. Be
cause it stood and was nofivithdrawn, General Cameron ceased to be Secretary of War.
Of the action of these events upon the minds of men and upon the policy of the war, .
brief reference to a few historical facts will exemplify :
On the 22d of September, 1862, not quite ten months after the serenade and speech at
the Astor House, President Lincoln proclaimed, " that on the ist day of January, 1863, all
persons held as slaves, within any State, or designated part of a State, the people -whereof
shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be thenceforward and forever free ;
" and the Executive Goveniment ofthe United States, including the military and naval author
ity thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons,and will do no act or acts
to repress such persons or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom."
On the first day of January, 1863 — say fourteen months after such serenade — the President
issued his Proclamation, confirming in all things that of the preceding September, and
further declaring and making known "that such persons (slaves) of suitable condition, will be
received into the armed service of the United States, to garrison forts, positions, stations, and
other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service. "And upon this act, sincerely be
lieved to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I, Abraham
Lincoln, invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty
God." * * *
On the 6th of April, 1863, (seventeen months after the serenade at the Astor House,) came
over the wires, from the distant West, this despatch to the New York Tribune :
" General Thomas (United States Adjutant-General) appeared at Helena, Arkansas, and
enlisted slaves and formed them into battalions under the Proclamation.''
And now the die was set ! Colored troops, who had been slaves, at length fought in the
armies of the Union — white and black, black and white — for the Government of white and
black alike. This solved the problem of the war. '
Fainter and fainter grew the enemy — stronger and stronger our armies — till, upon a certain
spring morning, about two years after, there went up a shout that the rebels had surrendered —
and the shout came from the ranks promiscuous of white and black soldiers together.
The beneficial effects of these acts were soon afterwards perceptible. An import
ant and disposing force had been applied to and incorporated with our armies. From the
time when it became widely known that the slaves were to be embattled by the Government
against their former masters in arms, patriotic hopes revived, and the fortunes of the Union
brightened. It began then to be thought that the struggle would soon terminate in the defeat
of the Confederacy. Nowhere were these consequences more immediately visible than in the
city of New York. Our occasional reverses had, here, a twofold force. They not only dis
concerted the loyal citizens — ^they animated with activity a numerous and influential class
of Southern sympathizers. But the inspiration of these doctrines, then just become law, re
kindled the flickering and expiring flame of martial enterprise, and brought again the best
and noblest citizens into the arena of patriotic exertion. Meetings were forthwith sum
moned by notable patriots, and were attended by enthusiastic crowds. A spirited society was
formed in New York to promote the enlistment of colored volunteers. The Union League
Club threw its weight into the scale, and soon whole regiments of colored troops, equipped by
the unstinted efforts of its members, and decorated with the emblems of congratulation by the
ladies, marched to the accompaniment of popular applause, through the very streets, where, a.
few months before, the presence of a colored face had been the signal of outrage and murder.
The history of these events has been briefly written by Henry O'Rielly, Esq., a principal actor
in them, and whose lucid pen has plainly revealed the peculiar weapons to which prejudice
and rebellious rancor resorted. Private malice in alliance with official hostility, and social
repugnance in' hand with political venom, raised the deriding sneer and the opposing obstacle.
But the resolution and vigor of the clear-eyed, stout-hearted loyalists triumphed over all ; and
to their efforts it must be attributed, that of the colored troops that opportunely reinforced the
thinned ranks of the Union armies, among the earliest were those who marched from the city
of New York.

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