A military Adventurer.
In the early part of this war,
Gen. McClellan wrote to a distinguished officer in the
South, expressing his desire to serve in the Confederate army.
If he dare deny the fact, and his recent reports prove that in mendacity he is the representative man of the
Yankee nation, it can be demonstrated by such evidence as will close his lips in sternal silence.
When he was at
West Point, he affected to frsternize especially with those from the
South and to have little sympathy with those from his own section.
We dare say this who g nine, and that be really was anxious to serve under
Jeff Davis in this war, but the high bribes offered by
Lincoln was too much for his easy virtue.
He was not the man to se interest to sentiment, and of late has shown a disposition to become as extreme in his antagonism as in his friendship for the
South.
There are various reasons for
McClellan's change of demeanor from the time when he commanded in
Western Virginia to the present moment.
But the controlling motive is the intense selfishness which led him at the start to give up all his personal sympathies for the take of his personal advancement.
He found that it pleased his master better to be a blackguard than a gentleman, and he has proved himself ready for any
role that improves his own fortunes.
Moreover, it became necessary to propitiate the
Northern mob.
Scott was too allow for them, because he had not succeeded in three months in subjugating the
South, and they had discovered in
McClellan a young
Napoleon, who would come up to the mark in time and efficiency.
He himself proclaimed that the war was to be "short and d sperat: " he has proclaimed that over and over again.
He has now been ten months in
Scott's saddles, and he is not yet even in
Richmond.
The Northern mob begin to suspect their new idol.
They clamor for victories, and he has no victories to give them, except upon paper.
Hence the astounding falsehoods in his accounts of recent battles, so unworthy a gentleman and a soldier.
He is doing homage to the mob for his place, and, in order to keep it, is throwing off, day by day, semblance of those good qualities and decent properties for which he once had credit.
