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(Previous
Page) infirmities, could not be declined.
General McClellan was thereupon, with the
unanimous agreement of the Cabinet, notified that the command of the army would
be devolved upon him.
At four o'clock in the afternoon
the
Cabinet again waited upon the
President, and attended him to the residence of
General Scott. Being seated, the President read
to the General the following order:
On the first day of November,
A.D. 1861, upon his own application to the President of the United States,
Brevet Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott is ordered to be placed, and hereby is
placed, upon the list of retired officers of the army of the United States,
without reduction in his current pay, subsistence, or allowances.
The American people will hear
with sadness and deep emotion that General Scott has withdrawn from the active
control of the army, while the President and unanimous Cabinet express their own
and the nation's sympathy in his personal affliction, and their profound sense
of the important public services rendered by him to his country during his long
and brilliant career, among which will ever be gratefully distinguished his
faithful devotion to the Constitution, the Union, and the Flag, when assailed by
parricidal rebellion.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
General Scott thereupon rose and
addressed the President and Cabinet, who had also risen, as follows :
PRESIDENT—This honor overwhelms
me. It overpays all services I have attempted to render to my country. If I had
any claims before, they are all obliterated by this expression of approval by
the President, with the remaining support of his Cabinet. I know the President
and this Cabinet well. I know that the country has placed its interests in this
trying crisis in safe keeping. Their counsels are wise, their labors are as
untiring as they are loyal, and their course is the right one.
President, you must excuse me. I
am unable to stand longer to give utterance to the feeling, of gratitude which
oppress me. In my retirement I shall offer up my prayers to God for this
Administration and for my country-. I shall pray for it with confidence in its
success over all enemies, and that speedily.
The President then took leave of
General Scott, giving him his hand, and saying he hoped soon to write him a
private letter expressive of his gratitude and affection. The President added :
GENERAL,—You will naturally feel
solicitude about the gentlemen of your staff, who have rendered you and their
country such faithful service. I have taken that subject into consideration. I
understand that they go with you to New York. I shall desire them, at this
earliest convenience after their return, to make their wishes known to me. I
desire you now, however, to be satisfied that, except the unavoidable privation
of your counsel and society, which they have so long enjoyed, the provision
which will be made for them will be such as to render their situation as
agreeable hereafter as it has been heretofore.
Each member of the Administration
then gave his hand to the veteran, and retired in profound silence.
THE WAR IN MISSOURI.
WE continue in this Number our
series of illustrations of the War in Missouri. On page 729 will be found a
picture—from a sketch by Mr. A. Simplot — of
GENERAL SIEGEL CROSSING THE OSAGE ;
on page 728 a spirited illustration of the
CHARGE OF GENERAL FREMONT'S
BODY-GUARD THROUGH SPRINGFIELD ; and on page 727 a picture—from a sketch by Mr.
A. Simplot—representing
FREMONT'S ARMY at THE MARCH THROUGH MISSOURI, and
another of
FREMONT'S BRIDGE ACROSS THE OSAGE.
Our correspondent, who writes
from Warsaw, Missouri, says that General Siegel's army had hard work crossing
the Osage. The infantry were ferried over on the flat-boat shown in our picture
; the cavalry forded the stream, and several men and horses were lost in the
operation. Since then a pontoon bridge has been erected, over which General
Fremont crossed.
Of
General Fremont's army on the march many queer
stories are told. It is reported by
Mr. Thurlow Weed that they are ravaging the
country as they go ; and we regret to say that our own information is to the
same effect. The utmost license in the way of foraging is allowed to the troops,
and thus the feeling of the secessionists is imbittered, while Union men are
converted into enemies. General Fremont believes in making the war support
itself. At Warsaw he quartered his officers in the houses of the leading
inhabitants, himself occupying the residence of Judge Wright, a leading rebel.
Warsaw is a hot-bed of treason.
The charge of his Body-Guard
through Springfield is described in the following dispatches :
HEAD-QUARTERS, IN THE FIELD,
NEAR HOMANSVILLE, MISSOURI, Oct 26, 1861.
CAPTAIN McKEEVER, Assistant
Adjutant-General: Yesterday afternoon Major Seagoyne, at the head of my Guard,
made a most brilliant charge upon a body of the enemy, drawn up in line of
battle, and their camp, at Springfield, 2000 or 2200 strong. He completely
routed them, cleared them from the town, hoisted the national flag on the
Court-house, and retired upon a reinforcement, which he has already joined. Our
loss is not great. This successful charge against such very large odds is a
noble example to the army. Our advance will occupy Springfield tonight. J. C.
FREMONT,
Major-General Commanding.
The following is a special
dispatch to the St. Louis Republican:
The following dispatch has been
received, announcing a most brilliant victory at Springfield by General
Fremont's Body-Guard, numbering 150 men:
FIVE MILES OUT OF BOLIVAR, Oct.
25-10 A.M.
GENERAL,—I report respectfully
that yesterday, at four P.M., I met in Springfield about 2000 rebels formed in
line of battle. They gave a very warm reception, but your Guard, with one
feeling, made a charge, and in less than three minutes the enemy was completely
routed by one hundred and fifty men. We cleared the city of every rebel and
retired, it being near night, and not feeling able to keep the place with so
small a force. Major White's command did not participate in the charge. I have
seen charges, but such brilliant bravery I have never seen, and did not expect.
Their war-cry—"Fremont and the Union;"-broke out like thunder.
CHARLES SEAGOYNE,
Major Commanding Body-Guard.
General Fremont's Body-Guard
numbers three hundred.
Of Fremont's bridge across the
Osage the correspondent of the Times says :
The Osage at this point, from
bank to bank, is perhaps two hundred yards wide: but now, owing to low water,
there is a wide bar in the middle, leaving only a narrow stream of some
twenty-five yards in width on either side. These two streams are the ones which
are now being bridged by General Fremont for the passage of his army. Piers have
been built and erected, stringers stretched
across these, and upon them is
placed a covering of hewn logs, to obtain which General Fremont has torn down
several log-houses. The work is a very substantial one, and will be finished
to-day or to-morrow at furthest.
The Admirable
War Map which
appeared in the last Number of
Harper's Weekly, and that we are prepared to
furnish it,
BEAUTIFULLY COLORED,
at Six CENTS per copy, with the
usual discount to Agents. This Map is generally admitted to be the
MOST COMPLETE
WAR MAP IN EXISTENCE.
HARPER'S WEEKLY.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1861.
GENERAL SCOTT.
As we all read in the papers of
his interview with the Cabinet and retirement from public service, it was
impossible not to recall that other scene, of eighty years ago, in the old
building still standing at the corner of Broad and Pearl streets, in the city of
New York. It was at noon of the 4th of December, 1782, that Washington met all
his officers at the inn where he lodged. The meeting was to say farewell. Few
words were spoken ; and at length Washington arose, and, filling a glass of
wine, turned to his officers, and spoke the words that we all remember. He then
asked them to come and take his hand ; and, in sacred tears
and silence, he so bade them farewell.
But this time, as our later
venerated soldier speaks to the President a few words of farewell gushing from
the heart, it is the whole country that says to him, with emotion, as Washington
said to his Generals : " With hearts full of love and gratitude we now take
leave of you. We most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous
and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable."
THE DISAPPOINTMENTS OF
THE TRAITORS.
THE traitors who are now in arms
against their country are not to be envied. In their case the stings of
conscience must be quickened by a constantly recurring recognition of the fact
that Providence is against them. Every thing they have tried has failed ; every
project they set their heart upon has ended disastrously. From the day their
friend, the hoary dotard Buchanan, vacated the post he disgraced, the hand of
God has lain heavily on them and theirs.
They commenced their rebellion
with the notion—encouraged somewhat by presses and persons here—that a
substantial portion of the Northern people would side with them in their
rebellion. From that delusion they have been rudely awakened by imposing musters
of Northern Democrats in support of the Union, and by the ignominious surrender
of such pseudo-Democrats as Benjamin Wood and others, who presumed for a time to
abet them in their treason. They know now that twenty millions of freemen —aided
by the majority of the people of Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware, and Missouri—are
decidedly against them.
They believed—as the letters of
the special correspondent of the Times show-that neither Great Britain nor
France would suffer the cotton ports to be blockaded. Europe, they boasted in
their meanness, would come to their relief, and would raise the blockade. In
this they have been most egregiously disappointed. Neither England nor France
evince the slightest tendency to interfere with the blockade. In fact, they have
no motive for doing so ; for their trouble is not so much the want of cotton as
the want of a market—at the North—for their manufactured goods. Cotton they can
dispense with if they can not sell cotton cloths. The "fluffy potentate" has
been ejected from his throne.
His power depended upon the
readiness of the North to consume the products of the looms of Manchester and
Lowell. The North has ceased to consume, and the tyrant, whose sovereignty
rested upon the slavery of four millions of human beings, tumbles helplessly to
the earth. England and France will not disturb the blockade—and this the South
knows by this time.
The traitors were satisfied that
they would this summer hold
Washington. One Walker, who figured as "Secretary of
War" of the rebels, announced in April that they would seize Washington by May,
and the Creole
Beauregard fixed upon the 20th October as the time when he would
be in possession. The arch-traitor,
Jefferson Davis, sent word to keep his pew
in church for him, as his family would want it this summer. So long as Buchanan
was President there was some ground for these expectations. That miserable old
man labored so strenuously on behalf of the rebels, and there were so many other
traitors in every Government office, that it was natural the insurgents should
hope to win possession of the capital. That prize is now beyond their reach. No
city in the world is so well fortified as Washington. All the fighting men in
the South can not take it. This must be a bitter disappointment.
It was confidently announced that
the secession of the cotton States would be the ruin, commercially and
financially, of the North. The fact is that stocks have risen from 10 to 20 per
cent. since the war began ; business has improved in every direction ; our banks
hold twice as much specie as they did a year ago ; our exports are increasing
and our imports are diminishing; money is abundant, food is cheap, the demand
for labor is in excess of the supply, and the great cities of the North, New
York, Chicago, Cincinnati, Boston, Buffalo, Philadelphia, etc., were never more
busy than they are at present. It is now evident that our Northern people have
accommodated themselves to the war. They have made up their minds to the
temporary loss of the Southern markets, and they find they can get along without
them. The North is really richer to-day than it was twelve months ago. This is
another substantial disappointment.
These failures must operate
rather unpleasantly upon the spirits of the leaders of the Southern treason.
They will produce no effect upon their subjects—white and black—because Southern
newspapers are not suffered to tell the truth. But such men as Davis,
Toombs,
Stephens, Benjamin, Hunter, Brown, etc., must begin to see that their cause is
hopeless. They have succeeded in nothing but in alienating their Northern
friends, weakening
slavery in the Border States, impoverishing the entire South,
rousing the slaves to notions of emancipation, destroying the credit of Southern
States, ruining forever the political power of the slave institution,
stimulating the growth of cotton all over the world, teaching the North its
independence of the South, and imbuing the whole civilized world with a thorough
conviction of the brutality, dishonesty, and rottenness of a society "based on
the corner-stone of human slavery." In every thing else they have failed. How
long will they persist in the failure ?
THE LOUNGER.
JUSTICE TO OUR GENERALS.
For either the report had
convinced the Secretary that Fremont was incompetent, or it had not. If it had,
it was his duty to urge his removal. Then, if the effort were unavailing, it was
his duty not to injure the service by taking the public into his confidence. It
is not his business to appeal to the public against the President.
But if it had not convinced him,
what honorable motive can be suggested for the publication of a document which
necessarily demoralizes the entire Western Department at its most critical and
perilous moment?
We do not complain of blunders,
for they must occur in our situation, and every man of common sense will expect
them. But when a blunder evidently involves bad faith, every man of common sense
ought to speak out. In the cloud of uncertainty which rests upon the whole
campaign in Missouri, and in the unfortunate quarrel between General Fremont and
Mr. Frank Blair, it has been impossible to see clearly enough to express any
decided opinion except of perfect faith in General Fremont's honesty and
earnestness.
But this document of General
Thomas's is not at all cloudy. It states facts and rumors prejudicial to the
ability of General Fremont. If he is to be heard upon them, the dishonor of
their publication before his answer is patent. If he is not to be heard upon
them, their publication can have no other conceivable result than to aid and
comfort the enemy. We say again, the report may have justified his removal. That
is a question for the Commander-in-chief. But nothing can justify its
publication.
Grant that Fremont is
incapable—does any body
suppose him to be a traitor, or
treacherously inclined? But does any body doubt that
Patterson was morally
responsible for the disaster of
Bull Run? Then why is not the same charitable
silence allowed to fall upon honesty and loyalty, however unavailing, that so
closely envelops conduct which you may qualify as you will ?
If the President thinks Fremont
incompetent, let him be removed. We shall all acquiesce; and if the newspapers
choose to wrangle about him, let them wrangle. But if the President is not yet
persuaded, then, in the name of the national honor, of his own dignity, and of
the justice due to a brave and noble man who is busy with the enemy in front and
is silent toward assailing slander in the rear, let the President of the United
States and Commander-in-chief of the army show that the good name of every
faithful soldier, whether major-general or private, is his peculiar care, and
that the public shall have no official hints to his injury.
THE ARMADA.
OUR
great Armada has sailed away.
Whither? The question may be answered before this paper is printed. It may be
answered in victory which shall cheer the heart of every lover of liberty in the
world. It may be answered in disaster that shall give those hearts a pang. It is
announced now that "next Saturday" the news of its destined point may be safely
told! What babies we still are! If all the newspapers in the land were as loyal
as they are loud, they would instinctively refuse to publish any such "authentic
information." Perhaps they will !
But they may be pardoned if they
only repeat the "authentic information" which has been enjoyed by so many
thousands for the last month. Every other man "had reason to know" where it was
going; and every other mean had reason to know that it was a different point.
Every possible point from Norfolk to New Orleans his been suspected and
supported by the most incontestable considerations. Certainly the Administration
deserves infinite credit for fitting out so vast an expedition, and, in these
days of treason and telegraphic reporters, for keeping its secret so fast. Every
body knows, of course. But fortunately nobody has the least idea.
There is one point in the order
to
General Sherman from Secretary Cameron which shows great good sense. The
General is to else every body he can who is friendly and can be serviceable to
the United States. Should such persons prove to be slaves under any local law
and slaves of loyal masters, they are to be accounted for: they are not to be
sent back. This, of course, is for two reasons. In the first place, nobody could
tell whether they were or were not the slaves of loyal masters: and, secondly,
if they were so proved, the army of the United States has been directed by
Congress that its business is not slave-hunting.
The great Armada has sailed away.
Our hopes and hearts sail with it. Our hopes for our country : our hearts for
the friends, and brothers, and husbands, and sons, and lovers, whom it carries.
Yet while we wait for news, if news will not have come before this morning, then
let us hope reasonably, not wildly, nor trust the future to a single chance. We
lavish credit so freely upon persons and things: we believe so implicitly that
General This knows every thing and General That can do everything, that our
disappointment is overwhelming when they prove to be only men.
Let every body make up his mind
to one thing. If you mean to regard the success of this expedition as decisive
of the war—the moment it is defeated, should defeat be in store for us, go over
straight to the enemy. Don't stay here mourning and mumbling, and wringing your
hands. But if you mean to view its success or defeat as a man and a patriot
should, then, if ill news come, prepare for another blow ; remembering that with
the true spirit which is now getting soberly to work, even at the worst, the
more we are beaten, the more we shall beat.
And so calm waves! swift winds!
and victory !
NATIONAL HYMNS.
MR. WHITE well names his little
book upon the writing of national hymns in general, and upon our recent efforts
in that direction in particular, a lyrical study for the times. It is the study
of a scholar and a musician, and will fill a quaint niche in our literature. The
work is, properly, in three parts : first, a treatise upon national hymn
writing, and upon music as the popular vehicle of such a hymn; second, a brief
and admirable account of the two great national hymns, God Save the King and the
Marseillaise; and, third, a history of the doings of the late Committee upon the
subject, with specimens of some of the best and worst contributions offered to
them.
The book is "thrown off;" but MR.
White is so familiar with the subject he discusses, in both its aspects of
poetry and music, that it is the " throwing off" of an accomplished scholar,
musician, and critic—like the racy and valuable conversation of a master in the
matter. The appointment of a committee for such a purpose can never be
regretted, since it has resulted in this pleasant book.
But it was those gentlemen, and
not the twelve hundred, who were on trial. They were to say to
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