It was always the great boast of
Gen. Scott's friends, before the
battle of Manassas, that he never suffered a defeat The
Lieutenant-General has been very successful in making the public forgot the facts of history.
The very first action he was ever engaged in he was defeated.
This was the attack on Queenstown Heights, which ended disastrously, a great many being killed and wounded, and
Scott himself made prisoner of war. In the bloody battles of
Chippewa and
Lundy's Lane both sides claimed the victory.
The
Seminole war in
Florida was placed in his hands, and all the resources of the
Government at his disposal, and he managed it so badly that he was ordered home and deprived of his command.
Old ‘"Rough and Ready,"’ then plain Col
Taylor, with limited means and resources, conquered gloriously where
Scott had failed, and taught the Indians of
Florida to respect American valor.
It is, therefore, a sheer falsification of history to pretend that
Gen. Scott has never known defeat.
He was successful in the late war at
Fort George,
Fort Erie, the descent upon
York, and the capture of Fort Matilda; he was badly beaten and made prisoner at
Queenstown; totally unsuccessful in managing the
Florida war, and again fortunate in
Mexico; showing that his military life, like that of many other
Generals, has been one of alternate triumphs and reverses.
The
Mexican victories, which gave him his
chief eclat, were due more to
Gen. Taylor's triumphant campaign on the
Rio Grande, and to
Gen. Lee's engineering skill on the
Vera Cruz line, than to his own talents.
Old
Zack broke the spirit of the Mexicans at
Palo Alto,
Resaca,
Monterey, and finally at
Buena Vista, where the flower of the
Mexican Army, under
Santa Anna, was smashed to powder, and thoroughly demoralized.
After that battle, the Mexicans, cowed, dispirited, deprived of their choicest troops and military supplies, gave way readily before the splendid column of
Scott, composed in great part of Old
Zack's regulars, whom, with his usual magnanimity, the
Lieutenant-General had despoiled
Taylor of on the eve of the
battle of Buena Vista, and commanded by such officers as
Beauregard,
Lee,
Johnson and others.
Nevertheless, old ‘"Fuss and Feathers"’ managed to scramble off with a vast share of glory from the
Mexican war, and became
Lieutenant-General, which never consoled him, however, for the election of
Taylor to the Presidency, or for his own defeat when running for that office!
Of late years, it has been fashionable with the
Lieutenant-General, whom his devotees describe as the great
General of the age, compared with whom
Napoleon and
Washington were small potatoes, and
Marshal Pelissier, old
General Hess and
Count Todleben, mere farthing rushlights, to play the part of the Great Pacificator.
He has been solicitous to have it understood that
Mars is capable of being pacific and beneficent; that terrific and annihilating as
Wingfield is, when fairly roused, yet the very consciousness of his awful powers of destructiveness makes him most reluctant to put them in exercise.
Consequently, on various occasions, he has gone about the country, now to
Maine and now to
California, like an amiable lion, with an olive branch in his mouth, trying to induce people not to shed each other's gore.
We have heard nothing of his exploits in this way since the present conflict commenced.
He has not once sought to smooth the ‘"wrinkled front of grim visaged war,"’ since he discovered that pacific counsels would endanger his salary.
Virginia is his mother, It is true, and she has loaded him with more laurels than he ever deserved; but, like a spoiled child, who forgets ninety-nine favors, when he is refused the hundredth,
Scott never forgave
Virginia for declining to vote for him for the Presidency.
That grudge never ceased to rankle in his aspiring heart.--The Presidency had been his day and night dream for years, and to think that old
Zachary Taylor, a subordinate officer, should have that prize in the lottery thrown at his head, without an effort for it on his part, and that
Pierce, a volunteer subordinate in the same war, should beat
Scott in a Presidential campaign, and receive the vote of
Virginia besides, was too much for his philosophy.
It is disappointed ambition and wounded vanity that have impelled him to harden his heart against
Virginia, and to make her once peaceful plains and beautiful valleys run red with the blood of his former companions, comrades and friends.
We rejoice that this military impostor and personal ingrate is about to receive the reward due to a long career of selfishness, falsehood and treason.
The announcement from
Washington that he is virtually displaced by
McClellan, will be sweet music to all Southern ears.
In the
South, no one is more despised and execrated than
Wingfield Scott, and the
North, which has used him only to reap the fruits of his treason, has at last discovered that he is a humbug.
The newspapers and telegraphs which a month ago were burthened with his name, now scarcely ever refer to
Gen. Scott. It is
Gen. McClellan who orders this and that; it is all
McClellan, and will continue to be, until
McClellan shall venture upon a Manassas, when he, too, we predict, will be laid up in dignified retirement with the late
Commander-in-Chief of ‘"the
Grand Army."’