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206

DISAFFECTION AMONG THE SOLDIERS.

[1861.

Soldiers! I regret to leave you. Sincerely I thank you for the regard and confidence you have invariably shown me. I deeply regret that I shall not have the honor to lead you to the victory which you are just about to win, but I shall claim to share with you in the joy of every triumph, and trust always to be fraternally remembered by my companions in arms.

Fremont's name had been the rallying-point of the volunteers. Officers and entire regiments had come from distant parts of the country to serve under him. All felt the impropriety and cruelty of his removal at this time. Many officers at once wrote their resignations. Whole battalions were reported laying down their arms. The Germans were specially indignant, and among the Body Guard there was much bitterness.

The slightest encouragement or tolerance from the General would have produced wide-spread mutiny; but he expostulated with the malcontents, reminding them that their first duty was to the country; and, after Hunter's arrival, left the camp before daylight, lest his appearance among the soldiers, as he rode away, should excite improper demonstrations.

A few days moderated the feeling of the troops; for, like all our volunteers, they were wedded not to any man, but to the Cause.

In St. Louis, Fremont was received more like a conquering hero than a retiring general. An immense assembly greeted him. In their enthusiasm, the people even carpeted his door-step with flowers.

For weeks before his removal the air had been filled with clamors, charging him with incompetency, extravagance, and giving Government contracts to corrupt men. The first attacks upon him immediately followed his Emancipation Proclamation, issued August 31, 1861. There were many half-hearted Unionists in Missouri.

1861.]

SPURIOUS MISSOURI UNIONISTS.

207

For example, shortly after the capture of Sumter, General Robert Wilson, of Andrew County, in a public meeting, served upon the committee on resolutions reporting the following:

"Resolved, That we condemn as inhuman and diabolical the war being waged by the Government against the South."

Eight months after, this same Wilson claimed to be a Union leader, and, as such, was sent to represent Missouri in the Senate of the United States! Of course all men of this class waged unrelenting war upon Fremont. Afterward there was a rupture among the really loyal men; a fierce quarrel, in which the able but unscrupulous Blairs headed the opposition, and some zealous and patriotic Unionists co-operated with them. The President, always conscientious, was persuaded to remove the General; but afterward tacitly admitted its injustice by giving him another command.

Mr. Lincoln also countermanded the Emancipation Proclamation, which was a little ahead of the times. Still it gratified the plain people, even then. Tired of the tender and delicate terms in which our authorities were wont to speak of "domestic institutions" and "systems of labor," they were delighted to read the announcement in honest Saxon:

"The property of active Rebels is confiscated for the public use; and their slaves, if any they have, are hereby declared Free Men."

It was a new and pure leaf in the history of the war.

Of course Fremont made mistakes, though the abuses in his department were infinitely less than those which disgraced Washington, and which in some degree are inseparable from large, unusual disbursements of public money.

208

CONDUCT OF CAMERON AND THOMAS.

[1861.

But he was very earnest. He was quite ignorant of How Not to Do it. He took grave responsibilities. When red tape hampered him, he cut it. Unable to obtain arms at Washington-which, in those days, knew only Virginia-he ransacked the markets of the world. for them. When a paymaster refused to liquidate one of his bills, on the ground of irregularity, he arrested him, and threatened to have him shot if he persisted. Able to leave but few troops in St. Louis, he fortified the city in thirty days, employing five thousand laborers.

Secretary Cameron and Adjutant-General Thomas visited Missouri, after Fremont started upon his Springfield campaign. General Thomas did not hesitate, in railway cars and hotels, to condemn him violently-a gross breach of official propriety, and clearly tending to excite insubordination among the soldiers. Cameron dictated a letter, ordering Fremont to discontinue the St. Louis fortifications as unnecessary, informing him that his official debts would not be discharged till investigated, his contracts recognized, or the officers paid whom he had appointed under the written authority of the President.

In due time they were recognized and paid. The St. Louis fortifications proved needful, and were afterward finished. Yet Cameron permitted the contents of this letter to be telegraphed all over the country four days before Fremont received it. It seemed designed to impugn his integrity, destroy his credit, promote disaffection in his camps, and prevent his contractors from fulfilling their engagements. Thomas officially reported that Fremont would not be able to move his army for lack of transportation. Before the report could reach Washington, the army had advanced more than a hundred miles!

1861]

DISREGARD OF THE ARMY REGULATIONS.

209

Time, which at last makes all things even, vindicated Fremont's leading measures in Missouri. His subsequent withdrawal from the field, in Virginia, was doubtless unwise. It was hard to be placed under a junior and hostile general; but private wrongs must wait in war, and resignation proves quite as inadequate a remedy for the grievances of an officer, as Secession for the fancied wrongs of the Slaveholders.

Brigadier-General Justus McKinstry, ex-Quartermaster of the Western Department, was arrested, and closely confined in the St. Louis arsenal for many months. His repeated demands for the charges and specifications against him were disregarded. He was at last court-martialed and dismissed the service, on the charge of malfeasance in office. Brigadier-General Charles P. Stone was for a long time kept under arrest in the same manThese proceedings flagrantly violated both the Army Regulation, entitling officers to know the charges. and witnesses against them, within ten days after arrest, and the spirit of the Constitution itself, which guarantees to every man a speedy public trial in the presence of his

ner.

accusers.

Equally reprehensible was the arrest and long confinement of many civilians without formal charges or trial. States where actual war existed, and even the debatable ground which bordered them, might be proper fields for this exercise of the Military Power. But the friends of, the Union, holding Congress, and nearly every State Legislature by overwhelming majorities, could make whatever laws they pleased; therefore, these measures were unnecessary and unjustifiable in the North, hundreds of miles from the seat of war. Utterly at variance with per⚫sonal rights and republican institutions, they were alarming and dangerous precedents, which any unscrupulous fu

210

MILITARY POWER AND THE PRESS.

[1861. ture administration may plausibly cite in defense of the grossest outrages. President Lincoln was always very chary of this exercise of arbitrary power; but some of his constitutional advisers were constantly urging it. Secretary Stanton, in particular, advocated and committed acts of flagrant despotism. He was a good patent-office lawyer, but had not the faintest conception of those primary principles of Civil Liberty which underlie English and American institutions. Even the Magna Charta, in sonorous Latin, declared:

"No person shall be apprehended or imprisoned, except by the legal judgment of his peers, or the law of the land. To none will we sell, to none will we deny, to none will we delay right or justice."

Kindred questions arose touching the Military Power and the Liberty of the Press. Each northern city had its daily journal, which, under thin disguise of loyalty, labored zealously for the Rebels. Soldiers could not patiently read treasonable sheets. On several occasions military commanders suppressed them, but the President promptly removed the disability. The sober second thought of the people was, that if editors and publishers in the loyal North could not be convicted and punished. in the civil courts, they should not be molested.

General Hunter, succeeding Fremont, evacuated .southwestern Missouri. Before leaving Springfield, besieged with applications for runaway slaves, he issued orders to deliver them up; but soldiers and officers in his camps hid them so safely that they could not be found by their masters.

Hunter's little brief authority lasted just fifteen days, when he was succeeded by General Halleck-a stout, heavy-faced, rather stupid-looking officer, who wore

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