We have never been among those who regretted the determination of
General Wing Field Scott to remain at the head of the
Northern Army.
We have long been accustomed to hear him styled, in the hyperbolical language so common in our country, the ‘"great chieftain of the age,"’ and have little doubt that he considers himself so; but have never yet seen any evidence of remarkable military skill, much less genius, in his whole career.
His stand-up fights with the
British in the late was were valuable exhibitions of game and endurance on both sides, but no generalship was attempted or required.
In the
Mexican war,
General Taylor whipped the poor devils so often and so thoroughly before
General Scott appeared upon the field, that the latter, with the aid of
Lee's engineering, had a comparatively easy task to accomplish.
He made one or two awful blunders notwithstanding, though the patriotism of the country promptly threw its mantle at the time over the old man's shoulders.
Gen. Scott once visited
Europe, and having heard himself so often called the ‘"great captain of the age."’ was intensely mortified and disappointed to find that his name was scarcely known by one in a hundred even of the military community.
Andrew Jackson was known, the man who displayed, in fighting Indians and British, military genius as well as courage, but
Wingfield, (or Winfield,) as be chooses to style it, was a man scarcely heard of. It is due to
Scott's genuine courage to say that, none of the wounds he received in the late war, and which he refers to on all possible occasions, ever gave him such a smart as the unaffected ignorance of the ‘"great captain of the age,"’ which he encountered in every military circle of
Europe.
Who but the vainest and most self-complacent of mortals could have supposed that in that Old World, where the bloody foot-prints of the Napoleons, Wellingtons, and a mighty multitude of the most magnificent military names ever know in human history, were still fresh upon the earth
Wingfield Scott could have created a sensation as the most prodigious military comet that had ever blazed across the sky?
We have never ceased to be grateful, that this prodigious humbug prefers the command of the
Northern Army, to loyalty and good faith to
Virginia.
The consequence is that the
North gets the benefit of his imbecility, arrogance and bad temper, whilst
Virginia has at the head of her army that gentleman of real merit, and whose modesty is as great as his merit,
Robert E. Lee.
The amazing vanity petulance of
Scott have involved him in innumerable difficulties with the civil and military authorities of his own Government, and even with persons in private life.
Who was he ever able to keep on good terms with?
He quarreled with
Gen. Jackson, but Old Hickory soon brought him to his senses, and
Scott fairly wilted beneath the wrath of that genuine man. Never was there a more complete back down than
Jackson forced upon
Scott. He was foolish enough to pitch into old
Marcy, and
Marcy replied in a cool and excoriating epistle, which scarcely left a whole spot upon his body.
He fell out with noble old
Gen. Taylor a man so just, so self-poised, and so amiable as well as valiant, that no one was ever before his enemy, except the enemies of his country.
And last, but not least, he tried the game of ‘"rebel,"’ which now fills his soul with horror, against his lawful master, and intellectual, official and military superior,
Jefferson Davis, then
Secretary of War.
The awful chastisement which he received on that occasion is undoubtedly smarting yet in his vindictive nature, and prompting him to put forth all the energies of his impotent malice for the destruction of the
Southern cause.
But
Jeff. Davis has rod still in pickle for this venerable ingrate, compared with which all the former scorchings of his vanity and egotism have been mere child's play.
A long life of intense selfishness and successful pretension must soon endemic the sharpest pangs of disappointment and mortification.--We shall not be surprised to see him soon discarded by his own Government, and his dear friend
Wool put in his place; a punishment which is the only one we can imagine at all adequate to his deserts.
