Military Reminiscences of the Civil War: Autobiographical Account by a General of the Union Army. Jacob D. Cox
with those about him was so kindly, and his bearing so modest, that his dispatches, proclamations, and correspondence are a psychological study, more puzzling to those who knew him well than to strangers. Their turgid rhetoric and exaggerated pretence did not seem natural to him. In them he seemed to be composing for stage effect something to be spoken in character by a quite different person from the sensible and genial man we knew in daily life and conversation. The career of the great Napoleon had been the study and the absorbing admiration of young American soldiers, and it was perhaps not strange that when real war came they should copy his bulletins and even his personal bearing. It was, for the moment, the bent of the people to be pleased with McClellan's rendering of the rôle; they dubbed him the young Napoleon, and the photographers got him to stand with folded arms, in the historic pose. For two or three weeks his dispatches and letters were all on fire with enthusiastic energy. He appeared to be in a morbid condition of mental exaltation. When he came out of it, he was as genial as ever. The assumed dash and energy of his first campaign made the disappointment and the reaction more painful when the excessive caution of his conduct in command of the Army of the Potomac was seen. But the Rich Mountain affair, when analyzed, shows the same characteristics which became well known later. There was the same over-estimate of the enemy, the same tendency to interpret unfavorably the sights and sounds in front, the same hesitancy to throw in his whole force when he knew that his subordinate was engaged. If Garnett had been as strong as McClellan believed him, he had abundant time and means to overwhelm Morris, who lay four days in easy striking distance, while the National commander delayed attacking Pegram; and had Morris been beaten, Garnett would have been as near Clarksburg as his opponent, and there would have been a race for the railroad. But, happily, Garnett was less strong and less enterprising than he was credited with being. Pegram was dislodged, and the Confederates made a precipitate retreat.
1 Official Records, vol. ii. p. 44.
2 Id., pp. 46, 47.
3 Id., p. 648.
4 Id., pp. 46, 49, 655.
5 Id., pp. 50, 656, 674.
6 Official Records, vol. ii. p. 66.
7 Id., pp. 70, 72.
8 Colonel Kelley was a man already of middle age, and a leading citizen of northwestern Virginia. His whole military career was in that region, where his services were very valuable throughout the war. He was promoted to brigadier-general among the first, and was brevet-major-general when mustered out in 1865.
9 Official Records, vol. ii. pp. 64–74.
10 Johnston's Narrative, p. 10. Townsend's Anecdotes of the Civil War, p. 31. Long's Memoirs of Lee, pp. 94, 96.
11 Official Records, vol. ii. p. 911.
12 Id., p. 827.
13 I treated the relations of Lee and Virginia to the Confederacy in a paper in "The Nation," Dec. 23, 1897, entitled "Lee, Johnston, and Davis."
14 Official Records, vol. ii. p. 912.
15 Official Records, vol. ii. pp. 908, 915.
16 Id., p. 239.
17 Id., pp. 240, 274.
18 Official Records, vol. ii. p. 268.
19 Id., pp. 241, 248.
20 Id., pp. 194, 196.
21 As part of the troops were State troops not mustered into the United States service, no report of them is found in the War Department; but the following are the numbers of the regiments found named as present in the correspondence and reports,--viz., 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th, and 22d Ohio; 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 13th, 14th, 15th Indiana, and 1st and 2nd Virginia; also Howe's United States Battery, Barnett's Ohio Battery, Loomis's Michigan Battery, and Daum's Virginia Battery; the cavalry were Burdsal's Ohio Dragoons and Barker's Illinois Cavalry. VOL. I.--4
22 Official Records, vol. ii. p. 195.
23 Id., p. 205.
24 Id., p. 200.
25 Id., pp. 203, 204.
26 Official Records, vol. ii. pp. 215, 256, 260. Conduct of the War, vol. vi. (Rosecrans), pp. 2,3.
27 Official Records, vol. ii pp. 215, 260, 265. C. W., vol. vi. (Rosecrans) pp. 3–5.
28 C. W., vol. vi. p. 6. McClellan seems to have expected Rosecrans to reach the rear of Pegram's advanced work before his own attack should be made; but the reconnoissance of Lieutenant Poe, his engineer, shows that this work could be turned by a much shorter route than the long and difficult one by which Rosecrans went to the mountain ridge. See Poe's Report, Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. p. 14.
29 Reports of Morris and Benham, Official Records, vol. ii. pp. 220, 222.
30 Report of Hill, Official Records, vol. ii. p. 224.
31 Report of Pegram, Official Records, vol. ii. pp. 265, 266.
32 Id., pp. 247, 254.