May It Not Even Be Presumed That A Man Of
This Class Is Of All Men The Least Fitted For Such A Work?
The
officer required should be a man with two specialties - a specialty
for military tactics and a specialty for national duty.
The army
in the West was far removed from headquarters in Washington, and it
was peculiarly desirable that the general commanding it should be
one possessing a strong idea of obedience to the control of his own
government. Those frontier capabilities - that self-dependent
energy for which his friends gave Fremont, and probably justly gave
him, such unlimited credit - are exactly the qualities which are
most dangerous in such a position.
I have endeavored to explain the circumstances of the Western
command in Missouri as they existed at the time when I was in the
Northwestern States, in order that the double action of the North
and West may be understood. I, of course, was not in the secret of
any official persons; but I could not but feel sure that the
government in Washington would have been glad to have removed
Fremont at once from the command, had they not feared that by so
doing they would have created a schism, as it were, in their own
camp, and have done much to break up the integrity or oneness of
Northern loyalty. The Western people almost to a man desired
abolition. The States there were sending out their tens of
thousands of young men into the army with a prodigality as to their
only source of wealth which they hardly recognized themselves,
because this to them was a fight against slavery. The Western
population has been increased to a wonderful degree by a German
infusion - so much so that the Western towns appear to have been
peopled with Germans. I found regiments of volunteers consisting
wholly of Germans. And the Germans are all abolitionists. To all
the men of the West the name of Fremont is dear. He is their hero
and their Hercules. He is to cleanse the stables of the Southern
king, and turn the waters of emancipation through the foul stalls
of slavery. And therefore, though the Cabinet in Washington would
have been glad for many reasons to have removed Fremont in October
last, it was at first scared from committing itself to so strong a
measure. At last, however, the charges made against him were too
fully substantiated to allow of their being set on one side; and
early in November, 1861, he was superseded. I shall be obliged to
allude again to General Fremont's career as I go on with my
narrative.
At this time the North was looking for a victory on the Potomac;
but they were no longer looking for it with that impatience which
in the summer had led to the disgrace at Bull's Run. They had
recognized the fact that their troops must be equipped, drilled,
and instructed; and they had also recognized the perhaps greater
fact that their enemies were neither weak, cowardly, nor badly
officered.
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