Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, major general , United States army : volume 1

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“ [189] their comfort, and their personal safety will be best preserved by adhering to the cause of the Union.” Remember that that word “property” in McClellan's mind was meant to include the slaves.

Similar instructions went from him to Halleck~ in Missouri, who was further ordered to mass his troops on or near the Mississippi, “prepared for such ulterior operations” as the public interests might demand.

General T. W. Sherman with a detachment was at the same time dispatched against Savannah and the coast below. The original plan was: to gain Fort Sumter and hold Charleston. But for a time that plan was postponed.

After New Orleans and its approaches had been secured by Butler, McClellan contemplated a combined army and navy attack on Mobile. His idea of “essential approaches” to New Orleans embraced Baton Rouge, La., and Jackson, Miss.

Burnside received his instructions to first attack Roanoke Island, its defenses and adjacent coast points.

These positive instructions given by McClellan and to a reasonable extent carried out, during the spring of 1862, show his activity of mind and good broad planning. The protection of the possessions of the disloyal, especially of the slave property, was doubtless an unwise insistence, but it originated in the great heart of Mr. Lincoln, who hoped almost against hope to win the secessionists back without going to dire extremities, and earnestly desired to please all Union slaveholders. McClellan was simply the soldier front of this view, a conscientious exponent of the policy.

I had reason to remember Burnside's going forth, for he was permitted to take with his other troops to North Carolina my Fourth Rhode Island Regiment.