It Seemed
To Me That These Passes Were So Numerous And Were Signed By So Many
Officers That There Could Have Been No Risk In Forging Them.
The
army of the Potomac, into which they admitted the bearer, lay in
quarters which were extended over a length of twenty miles up and
down on the Virginian side of the river, and the river could be
traversed at five different places.
Crowds of men and women were
going over daily, and no doubt all the visitors who so went with
innocent purposes were provided with proper passports; but any whose
purposes were not innocent, and who were not so provided, could have
passed the pickets with counterfeited orders. This, I have little
doubt, was done daily. Washington was full of secessionists, and
every movement of the Federal army was communicated to the
Confederates at Richmond, at which city was now established the
Congress and headquarters of the Confederacy. But no such tidings
of the Confederate army reached those in command at Washington.
There were many circumstances in the contest which led to this
result, and I do not think that General McClellan had any power to
prevent it. His system of passes certainly did not do so.
I never could learn from any one what was the true number of this
army on the Potomac. I have been informed by those who professed to
know that it contained over 200,000 men, and by others who also
professed to know, that it did not contain 100,000.
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