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The Annals of the Civil War Written by Leading Participants North and South (ed. Alexander Kelly McClure), The First great crime of the War. (search)
r, informing me that the President wished to see me at eight o'clock that evening, if I could safely leave my command. I went to Washington, and arrived at the White House at eight o'clock. I was received in a small room in the northeast corner of the house, and found the President, Secretaries Seward and Chase, the Assistant Secrent, we ought to execute those orders. He also told us what was McClellan's plan of operations for the Army of the Potomac. In the evening we again met at the White House. The party of the evening before were there with the addition of Judge Blair, the Postmaster General. General McDowell read a paper embodying our joint views,ain a condemnation of the plan by the subordinate generals. Immediately after this meeting we were informed that the President wished to see us. We went to the White House, and found there the President and Secretary of War. They knew the result of our meeting. Each one of us was asked in turn by the Secretary of War our opinio
The Annals of the Civil War Written by Leading Participants North and South (ed. Alexander Kelly McClure), Death of General John H. Morgan. (search)
thence operated in East Tennessee. He formed a plan to attack a brigade of Tennessee and Michigan troops at Bull's gap, above Knoxville. On the 3d of September he arrived in Greenville, his command camping near by, and a portion of his staff taking up their quarters at the residence of Mrs. Williams. This is the finest residence in Greenville — a large double brick house, not far from that of the late Andrew Johnson, but much larger and finer than any Johnson ever lived in, except the White House. It was built by Dr. Alexander Williams, who died a few years before the war, and, at the time of the tragedy, was occupied by his widow and a few members of the family. Mrs. Williams is now dead, but the house stands just as it did, and the surroundings are almost precisely the same as on that moist and gloomy September morning, in the year 1864, when the roof sheltered John H. Morgan the last night he spent on earth. I have passed the house dozens of times, but never without casting
The Annals of the Civil War Written by Leading Participants North and South (ed. Alexander Kelly McClure), The War's Carnival of fraud. (search)
suffered to take their course. An unhealthy tone pervaded everything; speculation was the rule-conservatism the exception. We floated, on a sea of paper, into a fool's paradise. Contractors, bloated with the profits on shoddy, rode in emblazoned carriages, which, a little while before, they would have been glad to drive as hirelings; and vulgar faces and grimy fingers were made more vulgar and coarse with the glare of great diamonds. Intrigue held the key to the kitchen-stairs of the White House, shaped legislation, sat cheek by jowl with Congressmen, and seduced commissioned officers from the strict path of duty. Our sailors were sent to sea in ships built of green timber, which were fitted with engines good only for the junkshop, and greased with sperm oil derived from mossbunkers and the fat of dead horses. For one pound of necessary metals, one yard of fabric, one gallon of liquid, the price of two was paid. Our soldiers were given guns that would not shoot, powder that wo
Robert Lewis Dabney, Life and Commands of Lieutenand- General Thomas J. Jackson, Chapter 13: Port Republic. (search)
and to this spot the narrative now leads. When General Jackson, on the evening of June 1st, resumed his retreat from Strasbourg, he was aware that Shields had been for nearly two days at Front Royal. The fact that he had not attempted an immediate junction with Fremont suggested the suspicion that he was moving for a point farther upon the rear of the Confederates, by way of Luray and New Market Gap. To frustrate this design, General Jackson now sent a detachment of cavalry to burn the White House bridge across the South Shenandoah, by which the Luray turnpike passed the stream, and also the Columbia bridge, a few miles above it. He knew that Shields had no pontoon train, for Banks had been compelled to sacrifice it at Newtown; and the rivers were still too much swollen to be forded. Having taken this precaution, he retreated up the Valley turnpike in his usual stubborn and deliberate fashion, with his cavalry and Chew's light battery in the rear. It was the saying of his soldie
Robert Lewis Dabney, Life and Commands of Lieutenand- General Thomas J. Jackson, Chapter 14: the Richmond campaign. (search)
of forest, and the coppices of young pine. General McClellan, taking his departure from the White House, on the Pamunkey, and using the York River Railroad as his line of supply, had pressed his vaederalists would continue to withdraw, if overpowered, toward the York River Railroad and the White House, directed General Jackson to proceed, with General D. H. Hill, to a point a few miles north oexpectations that the Federalists would continue their retreat, when hard pressed, toward the White House, was erroneous. Their commander proposed to himself another expedient: to concentrate his trral Ewell destroyed a part of the track. Stuart, pursuing a detachment of cavalry toward the White House, found all the Stations in flames, including the dwelling and farm buildings of General Lee, on of essential information. It has been seen that General Stuart, after his return from the White House, was directed to remain upon the north side of the Chickahominy, guarding the Long Bridge, an
Robert Lewis Dabney, Life and Commands of Lieutenand- General Thomas J. Jackson, Chapter 17: the campaign in Maryland. (search)
shington, which obfuscated his own senses, and obstructed, for a time, every effort of McClellan to act with vigor against the invaders. He was haunted with the fear that the march into Maryland was a feint,--that only a small detachment was there, while the bulk of their army was somehow hidden away in some limbus in the woods of Fairfax, whence the terrible Jackson would suddenly emerge, seize the lines of Arlington while denuded of their defenders, and thunder with his cannon upon the White House. Again, he imagined that he would suddenly recross the Potomac somewhere in the mountains, march down its southern bank, pass it a third time below McClellan's army, and, approaching Washington by its north side, capture the place, with the precious persons of the President and his minions, before the latter General could turn about. A few days after, when he heard that Jackson was indeed passing to the south side of the Potomac at Williamsport, a hundred miles away, he was sure that th
Thomas C. DeLeon, Four years in Rebel capitals: an inside view of life in the southern confederacy, from birth to death., Chapter 1: the forehead of the storm. (search)
est bands of the country had flocked to the Capital, to drown bad blood in the blare of brass; and all available cavalry and artillery of the regular army had been hastily rendezvoused, for the double purpose of spectacle and security. Still the public mind was feverish and unquiet; and the post commandant was like the public mind. Rumors were again rife of raids over the Potomac, with Henry A. Wise or Ben McCullough at their head; nightmares of plots to rob the Treasury and raze the White House sat heavy on the timid; while extremists manufactured long-haired men, with air guns, secreted here and there and sworn to shoot Mr. Lincoln, while reading his inaugural. All night long, orderlies were dashing. to and fro at breakneck speed; and guard details were marching to all points of possible danger. Day dawn saw a light battery drawn up on G street facing the Treasury, guns unlimbered and ready for action; while infantry held both approaches to the Long Bridge across the Poto
Thomas C. DeLeon, Four years in Rebel capitals: an inside view of life in the southern confederacy, from birth to death., Chapter 23: around Richmond. (search)
at Manassas to a major-generalcy of all that arm of the Virginia army. He had gained the confidence of General Lee and the greatest popularity in and out of the army; and, ably seconded by his brigadiers, Jeb Stuart was expected to do great deeds in the coming campaign. Information being desired of the enemy on certain points, he volunteered to obtain it. With the advice and direction of the commanding-general, Stuart started from Richmond; made his reconnaissance; penetrated to the White House on the Pamunkey and burned the depot there; whipped the enemy's cavalry wherever he met them; and, making a complete circuit of the Federal rear, with all his captured men and horses, rode back into the city in triumph. Whatever may be said of raids in the abstract, this was certainly a most dashing one; and was received with loud acclamation by army and people. The latter were by this time in better spirit to receive encouragement; and, dazzled by its brilliance, rather than weighin
Thomas C. DeLeon, Four years in Rebel capitals: an inside view of life in the southern confederacy, from birth to death., Chapter 35: the upper and nether millstones. (search)
ahannock and Fort Royal line. Lee's emphatic repulse of his movement on the North Anna again sent Grant across the Pamunkey; and into the very tracks of MecClellan two years before But there was one vast difference. McClellan had reached this base with no loss. Grant, with all McClellan's experience to teach him, had not reached this point at a cost of less than 70,000 men! Had he embarked his troops in transports and sailed up the river, Grant might have landed his army at the White House in twentyfour hours; and that without the firing of a shot. But he had chosen a route that was to prove him not only the greatest strategist of the age, but the most successful as well. The difference of the two was simply this: he took twenty-six days instead of one; he fought nine bloody engagements instead of none; he made four separate changes in his digested plan of advance; and he lost 70,000 men to gain a position a condemned general had occupied two years before without a skirmi
Jubal Anderson Early, Ruth Hairston Early, Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early , C. S. A., Chapter 16: battle of Sharpsburg or Antietam. (search)
mense resources and its very large population to draw from, after a call for 300,000 more men, and after taking everything in the way of troops from the Ohio to the Atlantic, had been able to bring into the field, for the defence of the National Capital and to oppose the large invading army of rebels, only a force numbering less than 90,000 men, displayed a weakness not at all flattering to the energy of the head of the War Department at Washington, or to the wisdom of the occupant of the White House, and a want of patriotism by no means complimentary to the people of the North. McClellan had stated that the troops in and about Washington and on the Maryland shore of the Potomac above and below, including those in Maryland and Delaware, amounted, on the 1st of March, 1862, to 193,142 present for duty and an aggregate present and absent of 221,987. This did not include the 13,000 brought by Burnside from North Carolina, nor the troops brought by Cox from the Kanawha Valley, nor,
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