blame boy bureaucrats

Posted on November 6, 2013 by SUMPTER

According to a Richmond newspaper, “There is no wheat in market” because of the government’s “starvation plan of impressment”, or at least the way it was being implemented by “Beardless and senseless boys”. But who else was there?

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch November 6, 1863:

Financial and Commercial. …

Grain.–There is no wheat in market; but we have been informed that sales of small quantities have been made during the week at $10. With an open market a higher figure would no doubt be reached until a fair supply could be thrown in.–The injudicious and indiscriminate system of impressment pursued by the Government, through impressing agents who have no practical knowledge of the wants of the army or the necessities of the people, has made the supply of bread for those outside the army a question for serious consideration, and if not speedily remedied will make starvation a more than probable event. Within two weeks flour has jumped from $40 to $75 per barrel, and we have even heard of sales at $100.–Some are ready to attribute this unprecedented advance solely to speculation; but this is a mistake. The flour is not in the market, and people are beginning to learn that an actual scarcity of the staff of life stares them in the face. We do not mean an actual scarcity in the country, but a scarcity in the market, caused by the starvation plan of impressment of the Government. Beardless and senseless boys, who do not know how many bushels of wheat it requires to make a barrel of flour, are sent through the country with authority to impress supplies for the army, and, without knowing what is needed, they serve written notices upon the farmers that their whole crops are impressed, and that they must not send one bushel of grain to market. The farmer believes that the necessities of the Government require all that he has, feels that he is deprived of his interest in his grain, and it is left to sprout and spool in stacks or mould and mildew in granaries. This is one reason, and the chief one, too, why we have not flour in the Richmond market. What is true of wheat is also true of corn. The same system is pursued and the same starvation plan adhered to. Corn was yesterday selling at $14.50 per bushel, and scarce at that. …

Liquors.–Whiskey $40 to $50 per gallon, according to quality; Apple Brandy $34 to $36. …

Here’s a couple paragraphs from Encyclopedia Virginia’s article on Confederate Impressment that seem to go with the Dispatch piece:

Impressment merely exacerbated the disillusionment and discontent behind the lines. War Department clerk Robert Hill Garlick Kean noted the disastrous effect impressment was having on supplies in the Richmond markets: “Farmers … resent the Secretary [of War]’s schedule prices which are often 50% below the market or neighborhood price.” Kean went on to observe that “the instant impressment of flour, corn, and meat as soon as they are brought to any of the inland towns … is causing universal withholding of surplus … The Army will be starved and famine will ensue in the cities unless the Secretary changes his policy.”

The Richmond press also commented on the negative impact impressment policies were having on the Confederate cause. The acerbic editor of the Richmond Examiner wrote, “These arbitrary impressments of Government touch the people’s pride and sense of justice.” He concluded, “It behooves Congress to redress the present wrongful practice and establish a proper system of impressment without delay.” Despite such entreaties, the War Department did not change the policy. As a result, the Confederate government estimated that by March 1865 it had issued $500 million certificates of indebtedness and unpaid invoices.

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ticket to sew

Posted on November 5, 2013 by SUMPTER
Private Alexander T. Harris of Richmond "Parker" Virginia Light Artillery Battery in Richmond Depot jacket (by Charles R. Rees, 1862; LOC: LC-DIG-ppmsca-37265)

Private Alexander T. Harris in Richmond Depot jacket (Library of Congress)

Problem?

A Richmond newspaper believes that soldiers’ wives were possibly not being given the preferential treatment they deserved in getting seamstress work at the Clothing Bureau.

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch November 2, 1863:

Soldiers’ wives.

–Complains are frequently made by the families and friends of soldiers, that work is given in any quantity to ladies who have neither husbands nor sons in the army, whilst the wives of soldiers are refused tickets, and sometimes rudely treated at the clothing bur[eau]. Where so many persons are to be supplied with work it is very difficult to do justice to all the really needy that apply, or to prevent those who do not need from getting the work that others ought to have. A note before us gives the names of ladies, whose husbands are not in active service, who get enough work to earn and lay by money every week; and also the names of others, whose husbands are in the field, and who have to depend upon their needles for the support of themselves and children, who have been rudely refused tickets for work. Where such cases are known the facts should be given to the head of the clothing bureau, in order to have the errors corrected. From what we have seen we are quite sure that the authorities design giving the wives and mothers of soldiers the preference in work, and only need be informed of any injustice to ensure speedy correction.

Resolved?

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch November 5, 1863:

The Clothing Bureau,

on 14th street, near Cary, under the charge of Capt. Weisiger, has been carefully arranged, as well for the transaction of business as for the accommodation and convenience of the three thousand ladies who get work there. Capt. W. says his first object is to give the work of his department to the wives, daughters, and mothers of soldiers in the field, and to enable him to do this he has already called in some five hundred tickets, held by ladies whose supports are not in active service.–The families of detailed men are not equally entitled to the work with those of soldiers, nor are any other class. Such lists as have been forwarded to us will be sent to the proper bureau, in order that the really needy may have the preference over those ladies who have their husbands and fathers with them, and who can get along without Government patronage.

We are satisfied that all abuses in this office will be remedied as soon as they are discovered, and that Capt. Weisiger will do all in his power to aid soldiers’ families in providing for themselves the necessaries of life. After they are served the surplus work, if any, will be given to helpless widows and other ladies who live only by their needles, and who are known as deserving.

The Richmond Clothing Bureau, also known as the Richmond Depot “supplied uniforms, footwear, and other equipment to the Confederate States Army, primarily the Army of Northern Virginia, and the surrounding region of the Commonwealth of Virginia.” You can read a good overview of the clothing depot at the U.K.’s American Civil War Society. About two dozen tailors cut the cloth. The women in our stories would have assembled the uniform parts from “kits” that included cloth, thread, and buttons. O.F. “Weisiger, a former dry goods merchant, ran the manufactory as a civilian until 1863 when he was commissioned a quartermaster captain.” Food might have been becoming increasingly scarce in the South, but the Richmond Depot was producing large quantities of clothing, which can also be seen at a letter from 1863 published at Blue and Gray Marching. You can read another thorough article about the manufacture of Confederate uniforms at The Company of Military Historians: “The important thing to keep in mind about the Clothing Manufactories is that, in common with the decentralized nature of the war and the overall Confederate policy of each army supplying itself from its own departmental resources, the products of each depot varied depending on local resources. The patterns of the uniforms themselves also varied.”

Brothers Private William Savage Moore and Private John C. Moore of Richmond "Parker" Virginia Light Artillery Battery, 1st Company Howitzers Virginia Light Artillery Battery, and I Company, 15th Virginia Infantry Regiment, in early Richmond depot shell jackets (by Charles R. Rees, between 1861 and 1865; LOC: LC-DIG-ppmsca-32465)

The brothers Moore – Virginians ” in early Richmond depot shell jackets”

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union ticket wins big

Posted on November 4, 2013 by SUMPTER
NYState elect 1863 NY Times 11-05-1863

“success of the loyal”

Early returns showed that the New York State Union ticket (Republicans and War Democrats) were winning big across the state after the November 3, 1863 election. (The clipping at the left is from November 5th, when the results were more final) New York City was still mostly Democrat, but not enough so to make up for results elsewhere. The Republican-leaning Times found Tuesday’s weather to to be emblematic of the election results. Despite a few gangs trying to coerce the vote Gotham had an amazingly peaceful day as the police did a good job keeping control.

From The New-York Times November 4, 1863:

The Election Union Victory.

The Union State ticket prevailed yesterday by an overwhelming majority. In the City, the heavy Democratic majority of last year is cut down over thirteen thousand votes, or about three thousand more than the entire majority of Gov. SEYMOUR in the whole State. The present State majority for the Union ticket is not yet known in its full extent of figures, but the great result and its emphatic meaning are already beyond question. Many of the Western counties, and the great Northern County of St. Lawrence, look, from the partial telegraphic returns received this morning, very like approaching the Lincoln majorities of 1860. And all make a gain on the vote of last year, while the Democratic or Seymour counties of 1862 are as invariably cut down.

The Union cause will have the support of a decided majority in the new Senate, and more than a working majority in the Assembly; and, of course, Executive State officers elected on the present ticket.

At the hour of going to press this morning, we estimate the Union majority in the State as at least twenty-five thousand. The victory is certainly complete.

From the same issue:

HOW THE ELECTION PASSED OFF.; THE ELECTIONS YESTERDAY.

Yesterday awoke sombre and gloomy enough. The clouds early dropped a few tears in compassion for the Democracy, who were to be so badly beaten in the State. But toward noon it broke away for the sunlight, gladdening over the success of the loyal.

The voting during the morning in every ward was remarkably dull, in some wards not a score of votes being taken up to noon, and the polls, except in few instances, presenting none of the bustling active appearance heretofore characterizing them.

Universal quiet prevailed throughout the City. At none of the Districts were there disturbances of any serious character, and but at a few were there any at all. Even the Sixth Ward — the “Bloody Sixth,” where savage fights on election day used to be almost a necessity — put itself on its good behavior, and so conducted itself as to nearly wipe out the remembrance of its misbehavior of old. Early in the mornning there was an attempt made by a gang of rowdies at the Mulberry-street polls to deter men from voting any other than the Mozart and Tammany ticket. They blocked up the passage, swore and threatened considerably, the demonstrations being principally against the McKeonites. They were dispersed by the Police. At Mackerelville, “Australian KELLY” was on hand with a party, and at one time the polls in Avenue C, between Twelfth and Thirteenth streets, were blocked. Matters looked in the direction of a fight, but the Police took KELLY in charge, and quiet was restored. There were a number of knockdowns in several Wards, but among a class who, the more they are knocked down, the better they seem to like it; but, as a general thing, no election ever passed off so quietly and lazily.

After the polls were closed, large crowds gathered in Printing House-square to hear the results. The Democrats did not attempt to conceal their chagrin at the turn affairs had taken, while the Union men were exuberant in their rejoicing, and made the air ring with their shouts at each encouraging announcement.

Although I noticed that Seneca County voted Democrat for Secretary of State, for New York as a whole, the Union ticket won every single statewide office.

According to David Herbert Donald[1], Republicans gave much credit for their 1863 election successes to Lincoln’s “public Letters – to the Conkling letter in particular, …” and The letters of President Lincoln on questions of national policy was published in 1863 as a 22 page pamphlet that sold for 8 cents.

The following cartoon is from the November 7, 1863 issue of Harper’s Weekly at Son of the South

uncle-sam-cartoon (Harper's Weekly, 11-7-1863)


HARPER’S WEEKLY.
[NOVEMBER 7, 1863.
720
SHUTTING UP SHOP.
UNCLE SAMUEL. “What! shutting up shop, eh!”
MANAGING MAN OF THE COPPERHEAD HOUSE. “Yes! ‘taint no use. Sence the news from Ohio and Pennsylvania, we haint seen a customer, and the boss says to shut up quickly before New York ruins us outright.”

  1. [1]Donald, David Herbert Lincoln. London: Jonathan Cape, 1995. Print. page 458.↩
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“Pie women and Apple boys”

Posted on November 2, 2013 by SUMPTER
Washington, District of Columbia. Cavalry depot at Giesborough Point (1864 Mat; LOC: LC-DIG-cwpb-03641)

Cavalry depot at Giesborough Point, May 1864 (Library of Congress)

Those magnetic greenbacks.

The New York First Veteran Cavalry left the state without being paid the state bounty. As SENECA reported, that act of faith was rewarded 150 years ago today.

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in 1863:

CAMP STONEMAN,
Geesbow Pt., Nov. 3, 1863.

The long agony is over at last. Yesterday Col. Van Buren, the Paymaster General of New York, arrived and immediately paid us the State Bounty. The boys are happy now – their pockets stuffed with “greenbacks” and their cheeks distended with good humor and huge quids of tobacco.

Watch peddlers, Jack-knife dealers, Pie women and Apple boys are reaping a rich harvest. The money comes easily and goes as freely, although many of the boys are sending a large proportion of their bounties home, and I am glad to be able to inform you that Co. K has done well in this respect, in fact better than any other in the regiment, sending $2,100 to Seneca Falls; $1,300 to Waterloo and about $600 to other places, making in all over $4,000 from their Bounty money beside allotting $500 per month from their pay. So you see that the Seneca Co. boys are not unmindful of the “Old folks at home.”

Since my last the following promotions have been made in Co. K:

Sergt. D.W. Loring to be Commissary Sergt.
Corp. Peter Hartruff to be Sergt.
Private C.R. Deppen to the Non. Com Staff.
Private James Hall to be Corporal.
   ”   Joseph Herper    ”      ”    
   ”   Robert H. Hanna   ”   Bugler.

Our camp is named after our Corps Commander Gen. Stoneman but all letters must be directed to Washington as heretofore.

Yours &c., SENECA

You can read an excellent article about the Giesboro Point Cavalry Depot at Civil War Washington, D.C..

I looked at a couple of the mentioned promotions in the regiment’s roster, which has them occurring in September before the troops left Geneva, New York.

Unidentified soldier in Union uniform atop horse blowing bugle while unsheathing sword (between 1861 and 1865; LOC: LC-DIG-ppmsca-37528)

Civil War bugler (Library of Congress)

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the great punkin

Posted on November 1, 2013 by SUMPTER

From Harper’s Weekly October 31, 1863 (at Son of the South):

Vallandigham cartoon (Harper's Weekly, October 31, 1863)


THE STATE ELECTIONS.
PENNSYLVANIA. “Friend OHIO, I thought thee hadst got rid of this noxious weed, as I of mine; and yet I see an ugly Pumpkin growing upon thy land.”
OHIO. “Not upon my land, I guess! It’s the VALLANDIGHAM PUNKIN as I’ve tossed over into my neighbor’s field, and he’s bin and tuck root, you see, among the Canady thistles!”

Exiled Copperhead Clement Vallandigham was the Democrat nominee for Ohio governor in 1863, even though he was living in exile in Canada. He lost the election by a sizable majority. Ohio History Central sums up this period in Mr. Vallandigham’s life:

Vallandigham remained in the Confederacy for only a few weeks. He traveled to Canada, where he sought the Democratic nomination to be Ohio’s governor in June 1863. At the Democratic Party’s state convention, delegates endorsed Vallandigham’s efforts. They also demanded that President Lincoln allow Vallandigham to return to the United States. Lincoln agreed to do so but only if Vallandigham swore to support the Union war effort. Vallandigham refused to do so. Due to his controversial views and Union battlefield victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg during the summer of 1863, Vallandigham lost the election to the Union Party candidate, John Brough, by nearly 100,000 votes.

_________________________________________________

Gathering in the pumpkins in the Yakima Valley, Wash. (c.1904; LOC: LC-USZ62-112644)

Yakima Valley, Washington (c1904; Library of Congress)

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trick or treat

Posted on October 31, 2013 by SUMPTER
I'm not to blame for being white, sir! (Boston : Published by G.W. Cottrell, 1862; LOC: LC-USZ62-12771)

“I’m not to blame for being white, sir!”

You can read about this 1862 political carton at the Library of Congress. After being caned by Preston Brooks in the U.S. Senate in May 1856, Charles Sumner needed over three years to be able to fully recover from the damage and resume his duties in the Senate. “When he spent months convalescing, his political enemies ridiculed him and accused him of cowardice for not resuming his duties. The Massachusetts General Court reelected him in November 1856, believing that his vacant chair in the Senate chamber served as a powerful symbol of free speech and resistance to slavery.”

If some Northerners apparently resented what they saw as Sumner’s preferential treatment toward blacks, some Southerners brushed off his anti-slavery, anti-South rhetoric as a cowardly response to the beating he took back in 1856. From the Richmond Daily Dispatch September 17, 1863:

Charles Sumner’s late speech.

–We have before us the New York Herald, of the 11th, in which is published the speech of Charles Sumner at the Cooper Institute, on the foreign relations of the United States. He is the chairman of the Committee of Foreign Relations in the Yankee Senate, and what he says is, on that account, entitled to notice. The speech is the longest of which we have any account, except that of Benton against Kearney. It occupies seventeen closely printed columns of the Herald, and contains — so says the Herald–about seventy thousand words. It is, therefore, three times as long as the 9th volume of “Napoleon’s Memoirs,” which is a narrative of the “reign of one hundred days,” beginning with the landing from Elba and ending with the battle of Waterloo.

We are pleased to see that Sumner entertains very grave apprehensions of France and England on the score of recognition. We have merely dipped into the speech, but we can see that much. He abuses the South, of course, with all the virulence of a timid nature. But we ought not to blame him for that. It is a law of nature that a coward should be vindictive and abusive. Sumner is a most abject coward. God made him so, and we ought not to raise a voice against a work of God. He received from a Southern man the greatest of all personal indignities. No doubt if he had the courage he would have resented it. But as nature denied him this, we cannot find fault with him for following the natural bent of all cowards, and falling to railing at a safe distance. We pity Sumner.–He must be deeply sensible of his humiliation, and it is this that sharpens his temper. He is truly an object of commiseration — too cowardly to resent an indignity, and yet sensitive enough to feel it deeply.

Argument of the chivalry (1856; LOC: LC-USZ62-38851)

about to receive “from a Southern man the greatest of all personal indignities”

Here are the details of the above 1856 political cartoon.

_________________________________________________

Officers and soldiers on the battlefield of the second Bull Run, recognizing the remains of their comrades (by Edwin Forbes, 1863; LOC: LC-DIG-ppmsca-20629)

the skulls of war (the battlefield of Second Bull Run by Edwin Forbes, 1863)

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sick and beyond sick

Posted on October 30, 2013 by SUMPTER

Back in August Dr. Charles Hoyt wrote a letter praising the valor of the New York 126th’s color bearers’ at Gettysburg. The surgeon caught a fever and had to come home to recuperate.

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in October 1863:

DR. HOYT. – The Penn Yan Democrat states that Dr. Charles S. Hoyt, Assistant Surgeon of the 126th Regiment, arrived home on Friday of last week, on sick leave. He has had a severe attack of fever, and is much reduced in strength.

Dr. Hoyt went back.

Charles S. Hoyt 126th

Dr. Hoyt promoted in May 1864

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in November 1863:

DEATH in CAPT. MCDONALD’s COMPANY. – Thomas Welch, a resident of this place, and a member of Co. K, 50th Engineer Regiment, died in the hospital near Washington, on the 29th ult.

Thomas Welch

Thomas Welch

Civil War Trust publishes a very good overview of medical issues during the Civil War, including the diseases that ravaged armies. It looks like Dr. Hoyt could have come down with several types of “fever”. You can also see a photo of Douglas Hospital in Washington, D.C. with tents for the overflow of wounded.

Washington, D.C. General view of Harewood Hospital, on farm of W. W. Corcoran, 7th Street Road near Soldiers' Home (by James Gardner, 1864 Apr; LOC: LC-DIG-cwpb-04248)

D.C.’s Harewood Hospital in May 1864 (Capitol in background)

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“monstrous fraud and swindle”

Posted on October 30, 2013 by SUMPTER

The New-York Times saw the state election in November 1863 as a chance for voters to express their support for the Lincoln election and its vigorous prosecution of the war. A Democrat paper in upstate New York saw a vote for the Union party (Republicans and War Democrats) as supporting President Lincoln’s latest call for “volunteers” with a quota attached that would suck even more manpower out of the state.

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in October 1863:

A PLEASING PICTURE. – The call upon New York for 108, 035 more men. This will take every able-bodied man between the ages of 20 and 35, and draw largely on the second class. Those who vote the administration ticket on Tuesday next, vote to conscript this large number of their fellow-citizens. The apportionment is a monstrous fraud and swindle, well known to the “powers that be.”

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Tredegar still hiring

Posted on October 29, 2013 by SUMPTER

Big surprise – the South’s war economy is still going great guns.

Portrait of Brig. Gen. Joseph R. Anderson, officer of the Confederate Army (Between 1860 and 1865; LOC: LC-DIG-cwpb-06205)

we’ll keep your slaves “well fed and clothed” – and far from Yankee lines

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch October 28, 1863:

Wanted–1,000 negroes.

–We wish to hire for the year 1864, one thousand Negroes, to be employed at the Tredegar Iron Works, Richmond, and at our Blast Furnaces in the counties of Rockbridge, Botetourt, and Alleghany, and Collieries in Goochland and Henrico, for which we are willing to pay the market prices.

Having made arrangements for a supply of provisions and clothing, we can safely promise that servants entrusted to us shall at all times be well fed and clothed.

Our furnaces and other works are located in healthy sections of the country, remote from the enemy’s line, offering unusual inducements to the owners of negroes to send them to us.

We would be glad to hear from those whose hands we have hired this year as early as possible, as to rehiring them another year, and whether they desire that the hands shall be sent home or retained under our protection at the end of the year.

J R Anderson & Co,

Tredegar Iron Works, Richmond, Va.

Tredegar was hiring (and certainly paying the wages to the slave owners); here’s more evidence of the skyrocketing prices (and depreciating currency?) for those who want to buy. From the same issue

High prices.

–Negroes are commanding enormous prices in this market at this time. Yesterday a negro fellow was sold by private sale for $7,000. At the auction rooms three women and two men brought about $24,000, one boy sold for $4,200, and several ordinary field hands brought over $4,000 each. The scarcity of labor is driving negroes up rapidly, and will continue to do so until after the war is ended.

Graduated 4th in his West Point class of 1836, Joseph Reid Anderson joined Tredegar in 1841 and became its owner in 1848. “When the Civil War came, the Tredegar Iron Company emerged as the industrial heart of the Confederate States of America. Using slave and free labor, Anderson supervised ordnance and munitions production through most of the war.” Mr. Anderson also served in the Confederate army until he was wounded at Frayser’s Farm on June 30, 1862:

General Anderson resigned his army commission on July 19, 1862, and served the Confederate war effort in the Ordnance Department until the evacuation of Richmond on the night of April 2–3, 1865. As the retreating Confederate troops burned many of the munitions dumps and industrial warehouses that would have been valuable to the North, Anderson reportedly paid over fifty armed guards to protect the Tredegar facility from arsonists. As a result, the Tredegar Iron Works is one of few Civil War era buildings in the warehouse district that survived the burning of Richmond.

Richmond, Virginia. View of Tredegar Iron Works (1865 Apr; LOC: LC-DIG-cwpb-02887)

Tredegar jutting into the water – pretty much unscathed in April 1865

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just a manpower issue

Posted on October 28, 2013 by SUMPTER

From The New-York Times October 28, 1863:

Another Speech by Major-Gen. Rosecrans.

CINCINNATI, Tuesday, Oct. 27.

Gen. ROSECRANS, in a speech at the Merchants’ Exchange yesterday, where he was most enthusiastically received, said, it was his firm belief that if the forces recently sent to Chattanooga had been ordered there before, as they ought to have been, the backbone of the rebellion ere this would have been broken.

The General left for his home at Yellow Springs last evening.

Well, undoubtedly, the Union force at Chattanooga sure has been beefed up since the disaster at Chickamauga back in September. Seven Score and Ten has pointed out the the Lincoln administration sort of left it up to General Grant whether or not to replace General Rosecrans, then it immediately replaced General Rosecrans on its own initiative. The October 31, 1863 issue of Harper’s Weekly (at Son of the South) portrayed Rosecrans’ replacement as an example of President Lincoln’s increasing decisiveness and the grudging respect even Copperheads seem to be giving him as Commander-in-Chief:

HARPER’S WEEKLY.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1863.
THE REMOVAL OF ROSECRANS.

GENERAL ROSECRANS has been removed from the command of the Army of the Cumberland, and General Thomas, the hero of Chicamauga, appointed in his place—General Grant taking the supreme command of all the armies on the Mississippi and in East and Southern Tennessee. The announcement has taken every, one by surprise. But whereas, some months ago, the removal of a popular general from his command would have been a signal for a popular uproar, now even the Copperheads can barely get up a feeble hiss at the change; and the public at large, fully satisfied that the President knows what is required by the emergency, and is doing his duty faithfully, accept the event without murmur.

Whatever may have been the faults of General Rosecrans, it is encouraging to see that the President, when satisfied that he ought to be removed, had the courage to remove him, without hesitation or explanation to the public. …

There is a lesson to be learned by the people from this event, and that is, to beware of accepting the newspaper and popular estimate of generals as the true one. Up to the hour of Rosecrans’s removal he was believed to be nearly perfection. He was called prudent, daring, invincible, loyal to the back-bone, dextrous as a strategist, and always obedient to his superiors. He was contrasted with other generals, to their invariable disparagement. When he failed at Chicamauga, the Copperheads—whose implacable foe he had proved himself—threw the whole blame on Government, and entirely exonerated him. … that, so far from obeying orders promptly and cheerfully, he frequently disregarded the commands of the President; and that, so far from being the chivalric soldier we pictured him, he left the battle-field at Chicamauga in the middle of the fight, and was in bed at Chattanooga, snug and safe, when the gallant Thomas, with his handful of heroes, was stemming the furious onset of the rebel army. If all this should be presently discovered to be the truth, what shall we then say of popular estimates of generals?

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