JAMES S. WADSWORTH
OF GENESEO
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JAMES S. WADSWORTH
OF.GENESEO
BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL OF UNITED STATES
VOLUNTEERS
BY
HENRY GREENLEAF PEARSON
WITH PORTRAITS AND MAPS
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1913
Copyright, 1913, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Published June, 1913
©CI.A347734
PREFACE
The documentary materials for writing the life of
James S. Wadsworth are of the scantiest description. He
was always a sparing letter-writer, and although during
his service in the army he wrote regularly to members of
his family, the letters have almost all, from one cause or
another, suffered destruction. The story of his work in
the Civil War, therefore — what he did in camp, on the
field of battle, as military governor, ana in politics — must
be traced in the printed records that deal with that time.
Abundant as these are, it has often been only after long
search that they have yielded up information about an
individual who, in filling his proper place in the vast ma-
chinery of the army, gave all his thoughts to the duties
before him and none to the spreading of them before men.
In view of this meagreness of printed matter bearing
on General Wadsworth's career and of such manuscript
records as the members of his family have been able to
place at my disposal, I have been particularly fortunate
in the cordial assistance that has come to me from three
surviving members of his staff. Brigadier-General John
A. Kress (U. S. A. retired), Colonel Clinton H. Meneely,
of Troy, New York, and Major Earl M. Rogers, of
Viroqua, Wisconsin, have spared no pains either in giving
me such memoranda and recollections as they had or in
answering my many questions. Their devotion to the
memory of the soldier under whom fifty years ago they
vi PREFACE
were proud to serve has been one of my chief inspirations.
In him these young men of twenty-one beheld an ideal
of courage and of patriotism; if any of the brightness
of that ideal is shed upon these pages, it is to them that
the reader's thanks are due. In age they have not for-
gotten the vision of their youth.
Colonel W. R. Livermore's recently published "Story
of the Civil War" has been of great assistance to me in
revising the chapter on Gettysburg and in preparing the
maps to illustrate the positions of troops; to Captain
Morris Schaff's "Battle of the Wilderness" I am similarly
indebted in connection with the chapter on that battle.
To the authors themselves I make grateful acknowledg-
ment for the help they have been so ready to give in
person on the many difficult military questions with
which I have had to deal. I am under especial obliga-
tion to the office of the Adjutant-General of the United
States Army for permission to consult the records for
the purpose of ascertaining the number of troops under
General Wadsworth's command at Washington and the
strength of the Union forces at Gettysburg on the first
day, and in the battle of the Wilderness. Mr. Oswald
Garrison Villard has been kind enough to read the mili-
tary chapters, and I have profited by his helpful sug-
gestions. From Mr. E. B. Adams of Boston, Mr. C. A.
Brinley of Philadelphia, and Mr. W. H. Samson of
Rochester I have obtained information and valuable
documents bearing on the early history of the Wads-
worth family. Finally, to my secretary, Mr. Edward L.
Viets, I owe much; to my wife I owe more than to any
one else.
CONTENTS
VAGB
Preface v
CHAPTER
I. The Inheritance 1
II. Before the Call:
I. Private Life 22
II. Politics 35
III. The Beginning of the War: Bull Run . . 55
rV. Upton's Hill . 81
V. Military Governor of Washington: New
York Gubernatorial Campaign . . . 112
VI. In Winter Quarters. Fitzhugh's Crossing.
Chancellorsville. The March to Get-
tysburg 167
VII. Gettysburg 204
VIII. Between Battles 239
IX. The Wilderness 249
Appendices 291
Index 311
ILLUSTRATIONS
brigadier-general james s. wadsworth. Photogravure
spiece
Frontispiece ^
FACING PAGE
COLONEL JEREMIAH WADSWORTH 4
GENERAL WILLIAM WADSWORTH 10
A PORTION OF AN INDIAN DEED 14 ^
JAMES WADSWORTH 20'
JAMES S. WADSWORTH 22 ■
MRS. JAMES S. WADSWORTH. Photogravure 24^
ELIZABETH WADSWORTH. Photogravure 26 v
RESIDENCE OF JAMES S. WADSWORTH, GENESEO ... 30 l
BRIGADIER-GENERAL IRVIN MCDOWELL 66 l
SONS AND SON-IN-LAW OF JAMES S. WADSWORTH ... 82
T. R. H. THE COMTE DE PARIS AND THE DUC DE CHARTRES 98
DAUGHTERS OF JAMES S. WADSWORTH 112 "'
MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN F. REYNOLDS 170 V
BRIGADIER-GENERAL LTSANDER CUTLER 170 '
SEMINARY RIDGE, GETTYSBURG 220 l
STATUE OF BRIGADIER-GENERAL JAMES S. WADSWORTH . 238 ^
FAC-SIMILE OF JAMES S. WADSWORTH's LAST LETTER TO
HIS WIFE 252 ^
FORT WADSWORTH, IN NEW YORK HARBOR 290
MAPS
BATTLE-FIELD OF BULL RUN Page 80 Y '
FIELD OF THE FIRST DAY'S BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG:
(a) POSITION OF TROOPS AT NOON ) j. ■ »., 1/
(6) POSITION OF TROOPS AT 4 P. M. } ' ^^ ^ ~ U
POSITION OF TROOPS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE BATTLE
of the wilderness facing page 260 ^
GENERAL MAP OF THE REGION BETWEEN GETTYSBURG, PA.,
AND FREDERICKSBURG, VA end of Volume
JAMES S. WADSWORTH
OF GENESEO
CHAPTER I
THE INHERITANCE
The life of James S. Wadsworth, of Geneseo, was in a
peculiar manner influenced by circumstances of environ-
ment and of ancestry. The story of the land-owner and
agriculturist who in the mid-decades of the nineteenth
century was beloved by tenants and townsmen, of the
citizen who publicly championed in western New York
the unpopular cause of anti-slavery, of the volunteer
soldier who threw himself heart and soul into the war
for union and freedom, sacrificing his life on the field
of battle, — this story is in its beginnings so inextricably
engaged with that of the generation immediately pre-
ceding that, to count for its full value, it must be pref-
aced by introductory exposition and comment more
ample than that to which the patience of the reader
of biography is usually subjected. On the other hand,
this preliminary narrative has the merit of possessing a
completeness and interest all its own.
In Durham, Connecticut, a town less than a score of
miles northeast of New Haven, there were growing to
manhood in the years preceding and during the period
of the Revolution three brothers of the name of Wads-
worth. Their father, John Noyes Wadsworth, a farmer
like most of his neighbors, belonged to one of the an-
cient families of the colony, his great-grandfather, Will-
iam Wadsworth (1595P-1675), having been one of the
group of one hundred persons who, in 1636, under the
lead of the Reverend Thomas Hooker, marched from
Cambridge, Massachusetts, through the wilderness to
2 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
the Connecticut River and established the settlement
of Hartford. From the ten children of William Wads-
worth the family had spread widely, and it had become
well known. Its male members were soldiers, farmers,
lawyers, clergymen, and men of affairs, and, whether the
pecuniary status of any individual happened to be fort-
unate or otherwise, the family name, in a community
notably precise in such matters, was one always held in
honor. 1
Among the Wadsworths of Colonial and Revolution-
ary days, three men, Captain Joseph Wads worth (1648?-
1730?), General James Wadsworth (1730-1817), and
Colonel Jeremiah Wadsworth (1743-1804) — names of fre-
quent occurrence in Connecticut annals — illustrate the
quality of the family. The first of these is associated
with the familiar story of the Charter Oak. When Sir
Edmund Andros, royal governor of New England under
James II, came to Hartford to demand the charter which
was the bulwark of the liberties of Connecticut, his pre-
text being that the colony had enacted laws contrary to
those of England, he found himself confronted in conven-
tion by a body of angry and determined men. Suddenly
the candles were extinguished, and when, after a pro-
longed interval of darkness and confusion, they were relit,
the charter, which had been lying on the table before the
royal governor, had disappeared. It may not have been
Captain Joseph Wadsworth who made away with the pre-
cious parchment; but his title to the credit of having pre-
served it in the hollow of a tree which was ever afterward
known as the Charter Oak is pretty generally acknowl-
edged, particularly in view of the fact that in 1715 he was
voted a sum of money for his safeguarding the charter
at a time " when our constitution was struck at." 2 Again,
in 1693, according to Trumbull, 3 when Governor Fletcher,
1 For the genealogy of the Wadsworth family, see Appendix A.
2 Colonial Records of Connecticut, V, 507.
3 History of Connecticut, I, 413.
1C93-1788] THE EARLY WADSWORTHS 3
of New York, having a commission vesting him with
power to command the Connecticut militia, came to Hart-
ford to assert his authority, Captain Wadsworth, in com-
mand of the train-bands, ordered the drums to beat, in-
tending thus to smother the reading of the governor's
proclamation. In a brief, inadvertent interval of silence
on the part of the contending parties, Captain Wads-
worth, speaking "with great earnestness," gave a final
order to his drummers, and then, turning to Governor
Fletcher, said: "If I am interrupted again I will make
the sun shine through you in a moment." The assurance
of the word "interrupted," which may be an embellish-
ment of the narrator's, was sufficiently sublime; but the
force of character behind it caused the governor to desist
from his efforts and to return to New York with the scope
of his command no greater than when he sallied forth.
General James Wadsworth, of Durham, another mil-
itary member of the family, was a graduate of Yale
College, of the class of 1748, his social rank, as given
in the catalogue according to the custom of those days,
being eleventh iri a class of thirty-three. He was pre-
eminently the military representative of the family in
his generation, having raised a company for the inva-
sion of Canada in 1758 and serving also in the Revolu-
tion, his final grade being that of major-general of the
Connecticut line. The civil offices which he held were
numerous, and his tenure of them, after the good old
Connecticut fashion, was long. In the year 1784 he
was a member of the Continental Congress. Perhaps
his most conspicuous public act was his speech at the
State convention assembled in January, 1788, to ratify
the proposed Federal Constitution, when he set forth
his belief that under the new instrument the tendency
toward centralization of power would be irresistible and
that in time of stress the rights of the States would go
by the board. The authority vested in Congress to lay
duties on imports he condemned, asserting that to unite
4 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
the power of the purse and the power of the sword is
despotic. 1 Though of course he was roundly voted down,
he continued steadfast in his conviction. The oath to
support the new government never passed his lips, for to
him that would be a violation of his fidelity to his State;
in short, he clung to the last to that doctrine of States'
rights in protest against which, two generations later,
the Wadsworth of this biography was to give his life.
In 1788 Connecticut was too old and the Union too
young for this attitude of the Revolutionary soldier to
be treated with anything but respect, of which his ap-
pointment by the assembly in 1794 to settle the accounts
between Connecticut and New York is sufficient proof. 2
The position of honor which this old soldier held as the
"squire" in Durham is quaintly indicated in the rem-
iniscences of the town historian:
I remember, too, that the boys of the Center School
often when they saw General Wadsworth coming, on his
Narragansett pacer, with his large, erect, military figure,
with his broad-brimmed hat, with his Olympian locks,
would run across the Green to the road, to take off their
hats and make a low bow. This courtesy he returned to
each of us, taking his hat quite off, and bowing to each
one. Thus he encouraged good manners, of which he
was a model. 3
Unquestionably the most eminent member of the
family in the latter decades of the eighteenth century
was Jeremiah Wadsworth, of Hartford, a man of great
wealth and a true patriot. During the Revolutionary
War, when, after the terrible winter at Valley Forge,
Major-General Greene undertook the charge of the quar-
termaster's department, he consented to serve as "com-
missary-general of purchases." 4 These responsible and
1 Bancroft's History of the United States, VI, 394.
2 History of Durham, Connecticut, by William Chauncey Fowler, p. 186.
3 Ibid., 186.
4 He was elected to the position by Congress on April 9, 1778, and held it
till January 1, 1780.
COLONEL JEREMIAH WADSWORTH.
m ;i portrail in the possession o! Mr James W. Wadsw<
m3-i804] JEREMIAH WADSWORTH 5
arduous duties he discharged in such a way as to win
the praise of both Greene 1 and Washington. "I also
consider it as an act of justice," wrote the latter to the
president of Congress on August 3, 1778, "to speak of
the conduct of Colo. Wadsworth, Commissary General.
He has been indefatigable in his exertions to provide
for the Army, and since his appointment our supplies
of provisions have been good and ample." 2 Later in
the war Wadsworth performed a similar service for the
French army which had come to aid the Americans,
and Rochambeau and the other officers of Louis XVI
came to hold him in as warm regard as did Washington
and Greene; for, besides being a person of force and
integrity in public life, he was a man who, wherever he
went, made friends. When Washington and Rocham-
beau met at Hartford in the summer of 1780, Jeremiah
Wadsworth was conspicuous among those who made them
welcome; and it was under his roof that the two gen-
erals discussed the plans for the campaign which they
hoped to undertake together. At the close of the war,
having gone to Paris to adjust his accounts with the
French Government, he was honored by it with one of
the gold medals struck to commemorate the restoring of
peace between France and England. The effect of dig-
nity, kindliness, and generosity produced by this man of
the world was summed up by one of his young Durham
kinsmen in a letter to a college friend: "Are you ac-
quainted with his character? If not, take it in short. He
can certainly say in many respects to Augustus of old,
'Thou art my brother.'" 3
It was the writer of this encomium, James, son of John
Noyes Wadsworth, who was destined, with his brother
William, to be the first to carry the name of Wadsworth
'In one of the references to him in Greene's letters, he is described as
" fretting his soul out " on account of some of his difficulties in provisioning
the army. — (Life of Major-General Greene, by G. W. Greene, II, 167.)
2 Ford's edition of the Writings of George Washington, VII, HI.
3 James Wadsworth to Rev. Tillotson Bronson, February 18, 1790.
6 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
beyond the borders of New England. Although young-
est of the three sons, he was first to receive a college
education, graduating from Yale in 1787 at the age of
nineteen. His social rank among his classmates is not
a matter of record, for the college authorities had aban-
doned that practice even before the days of democracy;
but there is preserved the subject of his commencement
"thesis technologica " : magna et numerosa metropolis rei
publico? emolumento non fuerit. For a year after his grad-
uation, so the story goes, he tried his hand at teaching in
Montreal, making the journey thither, it is said, in com-
pany with the first John Jacob Astor, a youth of about
his own age, who was just beginning his career in Amer-
ica. But the call of the profession of teacher, as well as
of the ministry, sounded faint as against the summons of
the new age. George Washington had become first Pres-
ident of the United States under the Constitution, and
in the prosperity destined to come in the train of peace
and stability this young man of twenty-one was resolved
to have a share. From the time when his purpose was
formed, late in the year 1789, the record of James Wads-
worth's life becomes ample and vivid.
Jeremiah Wadsworth, making welcome in his Hart-
ford home this young cousin from Durham, perceived in
him, with his ambition, his clear mind, and his tenacious
will, what every man of large affairs longs for — a mem-
ber of the next generation on whose active devotion he
may rely, whom he may train up to the knowledge of
his interests, and whom he may launch on enterprises
that advancing age has the foresight to plan but not the
strength to execute. All the more heartily did Jeremiah
Wadsworth welcome James because his own son Daniel,
though a man of undoubted parts, was unfitted both by
health and by temperament for the life of business. What
Jeremiah now proposed was that he should furnish money
in order that James might purchase land and become a
settler in western New York, in a region where he him-
1790] THE GENESEE LANDS 7
self had already made a considerable investment. Thus,
when the resources of the man of means were combined
with the youthful energy of the man whose wealth was
in his mind and will, and when the field of both was a
rich territory just opened to development, there was every
prospect that the returns would be substantial and grati-
fying.
The Phelps and Gorham purchase, in which were the
lands that Jeremiah Wadsworth had been induced to buy
— probably through one of the chief purchasers, Oliver
Phelps, well known to him from their common connection
with the commissary department of Washington's army
— was a tract of some two and a half million acres con-
stituting the easternmost section of the lands in western
New York that belonged to Massachusetts. Roughly
speaking, it was bounded on the east by a line running
north and south through what is now Geneva, and on
the west by an irregular line from ten to fifteen miles
west of what is now the city of Rochester. Its southern
boundary was the State line, its northern the shore of
Lake Ontario. The desirability of this land, particularly
on its western margin along the Genesee River, was well
known; but since it had only recently come into the
market it had but few settlers, who were for the most
part scattered along the trail running through Geneva
and Canandaigua to Niagara. Jeremiah's own purchase
consisted of about twenty-five thousand acres, forming
township number six in range seven, which bordered on
the Genesee River; 1 with the money that he advanced
James Wadsworth bought a portion 2 of number nine, also
in range seven, the township known as Big Tree.
1 Brief of the Titles of Robert Morris to a Tract of Country in the County
of Ontario, p. 33.
2 One-twelfth, according to Turner's History of Phelps and Gorham's
Purchase, p. 325. Whatever the amount of James Wadsworth's first purchase
in Big Tree, on June 15, 1792, he bought of Phelps and Gorham at the rate
of a dollar an acre an equal undivided moiety of the township (which was
estimated to contain twenty-seven thousand acres), giving four several
bonds and mortgages to secure the payment. — (From articles of agreement
in possession of James W. Wadsworth.)
8 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
To acquire land in the western wilderness at less than
a dollar an acre for the purpose of speculation is one
thing; to travel to that land for settlement and to re-
main there in close proximity to the Indians, watching
the tide of civilization creep thither by slow approaches,
is quite another. For many of the demands of such a
venture James Wadsworth was singularly unsuited. All
his inclinations and habits of mind and body designated
him for the office life of a business man or a lawyer. He
had little of the manual facility and zest for practical
accomplishment which are indispensable to the frontier
settler. The qualities lacking in him, however, abounded
in his next older brother, 1 William, whom he persuaded to
join him in the undertaking and who proved to be a
born leader of pioneers. The partnership of two men
whose abilities complemented each other in such perfect
fashion was what brought the enterprise to its high level
of success.
It was in the spring of 1790 that James and William
Wadsworth set out from Durham. The story of their
journey and of their settlement at Big Tree, a tale often
told by the historians of western New York, may best
be given here as it is narrated by Professor James Ren-
wick, of Columbia College. 2
The brothers hired a small band of hardy axmen in
Connecticut, purchased provisions to maintain them until
the first crops should ripen, and provided agricultural
implements sufficient for their proposed farm. The
whole party, with its heavy incumbrances, ascended the
Hudson to Albany, then often the voyage of a week;
made the long portage through the pines to Schenectady;
embarked in bateaux upon the Mohawk . . . and fol-
lowed its tortuous course until they reached the limit
of continuous settlement. Here cattle were purchased
1 The eldest brother, John Noyes, the father being dead, retained the
land in Connecticut.
2 From his sketch of James Wadsworth in the Monthly Journal of Agri-
culture for October, 1846. Turner, pp. 324-344, gives an excellent account
of the Wadsworth brothers and their work.
1790] SETTLEMENT AT BIG TREE 9
to serve as the foundation of a future stock and for
temporary support, and the party was divided into two
bands. James continued the laborious task of thread-
ing nameless streams, encumbered by wood-drifts and
running in narrow channels, while William undertook
the still more difficult duty of driving the stock through
the pathless forest. Finally the party was again united
upon a small savannah upon the bank of the Genesee.
... A house having been built by the aid of no other
implement than the ax, crops were planted and the cat-
tle turned out to graze in the rich savannah. . . . With
the autumn came the enervating and unmanning attacks
of the ague. This, to the natives of a country where it
was unknown, presented such terrors that the hired men
broke the conditions of their engagement and hurried as
they best could to the older settlements, leaving the two
brothers almost if not quite alone in their log-built cabin.
In this position even mere passiveness on the part of their
neighbour Big Tree, the chief of the Indian village on
the Genesee, immediately opposite to the settlement of
the Wadsworths, might have compelled them to follow
their servants; but they now obtained from him ready
and efficient aid. 1 . . . With the opening of a new spring,
a fresh supply of white laborers was obtained, and
whether they were acclimatized, or had been familiar-
1 The friendly relations thus established between the two Wadsworths
and the Indians were never broken. It was at their house, in 1797, that
what is known as the treaty of Big Tree was negotiated, whereby the In-
dian title to the lands west of the Genesee was extinguished and Robert Mor-
ris was able to accomplish his sale to the Holland Land Company; on this
occasion Jeremiah Wadsworth journeyed thither to take part in the proceed-
ings as commissioner for the United States. The homestead, built about
1800 on the high ground east of the river, had bullet-proof walls, but they
were fortunately never put to the test. Thither the Indians came on
matters of business and for advice; and the stains made upon the wooden
floor of the parlor by their moccasins were visible even in the days of
James Wadsworth's grandchildren.
An indication of the continued interest of James Wadsworth in the In-
dians appears in a letter which he addressed to Daniel Webster and which
was published in 1838. In this letter he endeavored to show that the rea-
son why they remained in a degraded condition was because they were kept
on reservations where they held the land in common, and where they were
preyed upon by the surrounding whites. He urged that they be colonized
in the West, and that the holding of land in severalty, which he believed
was "essential to the civilization of man," be permitted to them.
10 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
ized to the endemic disease, no farther interruption oc-
curred in the progress of the clearing.
The duties to be performed were divided between the
two brothers. Upon "William fell the management of the
farm, — a task requiring the utmost diligence and master-
fulness, for both labor and materials were scarce. Owing
to the remoteness of the region and the high cost of trans-
portation, the raising of stock proved to be the most
profitable use to put the land to, for that was a crop
which could be conveyed to market on its own feet. In
this fashion the rich river pastures were made use of,
except, of course, for such land as furnished the produce
required by the household. Besides overseeing all this
work, "Bill," as he was always called, had many repre-
sentative duties which he discharged with gusto. At
every house-raising or "logging bee" he was the life of
the gathering, and the militia had no more faithful mem-
ber than he. "General Bill," mounted on a fine black
charger, was a figure to impress vividly the imagination
of the youth assembled at the fall musters. 1 "Few men,"
1 William Wadswortk's devotion to the militia was worthy of a better
fate. After twenty years' attendance at drill and muster, he was accepted
when the war with England broke out in June, 1812, as major-general com-
manding the militia of the Genesee district. These troops, stationed to-
gether with a small force of regulars along the Niagara frontier, were natu-
rally impatient for action, and on October 13 General Stephen Van Rens-
selaer essayed to cross the river from Lewiston to drive the British from
Queenstown Heights. Successful at first, the small band of Americans,
mostly regular troops, had no hope of maintaining itself against the rein-
forcements which the enemy were about to bring into action from Fort
George. At this crisis the militia, falling back on their constitutional priv-
ilege of not being bound to serve outside the limits of the State against
their will, refused to budge. Wadsworth, who in his impetuosity had al-
ready crossed to the other side of the river, and Van Rensselaer, who re-
mained with the militia, were unable to stir them from the vantage-ground
whence as spectators they could witness the engagement about to take place.
The Americans, under Lieutenant-Colonel Winfield Scott, were hemmed in
by a force of British regulars and a band of Indians and forced to surrender.
Two days later all the militia and the wounded regulars were returned upon
parole. This ended General Bill's participation in the War of 1812. In his
one battle he had gained much praise for his soldierly conduct under ex-
ceedingly trying circumstances. — (Phelps and Gorham's Purchase, p. 330.)
GENERAL WILLIAM WADSWORTH.
From a portrait in the possesion ol Major \V. A. Wadsworth.
1796-98] JAMES WADSWORTH IN ENGLAND 11
remarks Turner, "were better fitted for a pioneer in the
backwoods — to wrestle with the harshest features of pi-
oneer life — or for being merged in habits, social inter-
course, and inclinations with the hardy adventurers who
were his early contemporaries." 1
James, on the other hand, who assumed as his share
of the work the task of disposing of the lands of which
he had charge, soon found that there was little that he
could accomplish at Big Tree, or, as it soon came to be
called, Geneseo. Purchasers of these lands, whether for
speculation or for settlement, must be sought in New
York City and in Connecticut, and thither he went re-
peatedly for that purpose. Indeed, during the period
between his arrival at Big Tree in June, 1790, and his
departure for England in 1796, he spent at Geneseo,
besides the first winter, only the summer months of four
years. Through this period, moreover, although specula-
tive purchase of western lands was carried to the edge of
peril, the first rush of settlers to the region opened up by
the Phelps and Gorham purchase was by no means con-
tinued. It was not surprising, therefore, that he accepted
eagerly the proposal of several owners of lands in west-
ern New York that he should visit England, to negotiate
there, if possible, a sale for them.
Although James Wadsworth's stay abroad, which
lasted, including Atlantic voyages, from February, 1796,
to November, 1798, was financially but moderately suc-
cessful, it was rich in results affecting his political con-
victions and personal tastes. That the Europe of 1796-
1798 was full of warnings to strengthen an American in
his loyalty to the newly founded republic appears from
the prospectus of the Geneseo lands which he drew up
for the benefit of possible purchasers. From the con-
trast made therein between existing conditions in the Old
World and in the New, it is clear that he regarded the
principles embodied in the Constitution of the United
1 Phelps and Gorham's Purchase, p. 330.
12 WADSWORTII OF GENESEO
States as the only sure basis of prosperity. The cairn
and careful reasoning which he addressed to Englishmen
about the state of their home investments constituted
also his own democratic creed. In all this, of course, he
was merely giving cautious expression to the feelings that
prevailed on this side of the water in the first half -century
of our national existence. His lack of success in England,
however, and later the animosities arising from the War
of 1812, contributed to intensify rather than to mitigate
his anti-British prejudice. In his last years, indeed, this
antipathy caused in his family the tragedy of a broken
engagement, though after his death the lovers were re-
united in strangely romantic fashion.
Thorough-going as was his dislike to some things Brit-
ish, James Wadsworth, by his prolonged stay in England,
came to set a value upon other things cherished there.
However vigorously he might reject the political institu-
tions of the mother country, he could not utterly escape
the consequences of his English ancestry. The country
families, with their large estates, quickening the imagina-
tion to a grateful sense of the worth of tradition and the
beauty of well-ordered living, have cast a spell upon too
many a loyal American to call for remark in the ease of
this young pioneer. Evidently, not merely his imagina-
tion but his will was quickened, and for the family which
he meant to found in Geneseo he planned a similar set-
ting. At any rate, after his experience in England he
was willing to turn his back upon the metropolis of the
New World, and to join fortunes with his brother in
Geneseo.
For the next four years, however, the status of west-
ern lands in the market was such as to require a good
deal of anxious attention. Even before his return, letters
came from Colonel Jeremiah informing him that things
were not going well. In truth, the embarrassments of
Robert Morris had produced a crisis that affected more
or less disastrously all those who had been speculating
1801] MARRIAGE OF JAMES WADSWORTH 13
in wild lands throughout the country. It was probably
through these business difficulties that James Wadsworth
was involved in 1801 in duels with two of the Kane
brothers, brothers-in-law of Morris's son Thomas, who
had the management of his father's lands. One of the
brothers was, James had written to Colonel Jeremiah,
"a great rascal," and an insult offered him by another
of them was what brought on the encounters on the field
of honor.
With the beginning of the nineteenth century affairs
in the Genesee Valley began to look brighter. The returns
from the labor of ten years, though not large, were sub-
stantial and full of promise. The letters written by James
Wadsworth to Hartford in these years reveal how surely
circumstances were binding him by a thousand ties of in-
terest, loyalty, enthusiasm, and devoted labor to this land
of his adoption. "When one first comes out of the woods
to this place," he wrote on the occasion of a trip to New-
York, "the novelty pleases for a few days; but to me a
city life very soon becomes insipid and wearisome." In
this fashion he maintained in later years his commence-
ment thesis as to the disadvantages of a magna et nume-
rosa metropolis.
The strongest tie of all was the last to be knit. These
same letters show, with entertaining frankness, how, as
he built up the happiness of his life at Geneseo, he con-
tinually felt the lack of a helpmate. As the long years
of his single life rolled on, the references to this topic
shade from gay to grave, and one cannot help surmising,
from his increasing criticalness as to womankind, that it
was by the narrowest of margins that he failed to remain,
like his brother William, a bachelor to the end of his days.
The lady who, in his own words, first brought him to
"make his bow" with serious purpose was Naomi Wol-
cott, daughter of Samuel Wolcott, of East Windsor, Con-
necticut, and cousin of Oliver Wolcott, who had been
Secretary of the Treasury in Washington's cabinet. They
14 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
were married on October 1, 1804, he being thirty -six and
she twenty-seven years of age. Five children were born
to them, of whom James S. Wadsworth was the second
child and the eldest son.
A man like James Wadsworth, who, tenacious of pur-
pose, planned in terms of decades and lavished on his
plans minute attention to detail, had, perhaps, a right to
count upon success. Though the first fruits of reward
in the early years of the century were cut short by the
period of depression caused by the troubles that culmi-
nated in the War of 1812, at length, when peace was estab-
lished, the quarter of a century of preparation began to
receive its adequate reward. With another decade, in
1825, what had been from the first the greatest obstacle
of all to the development of western New York — lack of
cheap transportation — was overcome by the opening of
the Erie Canal. Genesee wheat could then be profitably
raised for the Eastern market, and from that time on
every part of the region had a share of well-earned fame
and prosperity.
In these days of affluence, when men like the Wads-
worth brothers, who had ventured much and labored
longest and hardest, naturally fared best, the fact that
they adopted the principle of using their surplus profits
in the purchase of more land in the Genesee region is
highly significant. At a period in America when manu-
factures and commerce, offering returns both immediate
and glittering, were absorbing capital rapidly, they pre-
ferred the slow and moderate profits obtainable from
ownership of the soil. So extensive, indeed, were James
Wadsworth's purchases that he could ride, it was said,
from Geneseo to Rochester, a distance of twenty-eight
miles, on his own land. 1
1 He also purchased land in Ohio and Michigan. Among the deeds of
the estate is one dated September 20, 1788, of a tract in Michigan sixty miles
long and twelve miles wide on the north side of the river a la Franche, a
"free and voluntary gift of the principal chiefs and leaders of the Chipe-
way nation of Indians at Detroit," to Jonathan SchJeffelm, lieutenant of
m i l i , , —^— — —
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4
w
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ia< /At i/ac't/o JitttttfaS- I,-*"- ■' ' ''•; ^1
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A PORTION OF AN I
In the possession of Mr. Jut:
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t, //•■' t.s,r.'ti*t
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r.r .,■,. . ,-.-/• .-//,' isX __
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•IAN DEED.
W. Wadsworth.
1825] THE WADSWORTH ESTATE 15
The explanation of his freedom from the American
passion for haste at all hazards lies in the distinctive
ideal that he cherished — an ideal of which the groups of
trees that he left standing in his pastures told the story.
In this country, as an English traveller in the 'forties
complained, "people seldom ever seem really to get near
a tree except to cut it down." l According to the tradi-
tion and prejudice of backwoodsmen, the shade ruined
+he grass, whether for hay or for grazing. But James
Wadsworth, with the recollection of English parks that
had delighted his eye, was not at all moved by such con-
siderations. The result proved that the harm predicted
was wholly imaginary. The benefit of occasional shade
for the cattle was most desirable, while the effect of
beauty has given the Genesee Valley the happy distinc-
tion of providing the traveller's memory with an unfor-
gettable picture.
In working out this ideal of a large estate, however,
James Wadsworth's common sense and democratic faith
never allowed him to lose sight of the need of adapting
his aims to American conditions. The system of leases
evolved in the course of years for the lands worked by
tenants is only one out of a dozen instances that might
be cited to exemplify this fact. The leases, which had
at first been drawn for life tenure, were gradually short-
ened, until finally the general practice came to be to
draw them for only a year. This arrangement did not
mean that the farms changed hands frequently; on the
contrary, any change in the tenants was very rare. 2
volunteers. The signatures of nine white men testify that "the said prin-
cipal chiefs and leaders were perfectly sober at the time of signing and de-
livery of said deeds and writings for the said tract of land, granted as afore-
said, and that the extent and quantity was fully explained in our presence."
That portion of the deed containing the signatures of the Indians is here
reproduced.
1 Lord Morpeth's MS. journal of his travels in North America in 1840-41.
Pierce-Sumner Collection, Harvard College Library.
2 Not a few of the farms are at the present time occupied by descendants
of the early tenants.
16 WADS WORTH OF GENESEO
For them, the result of the short-term system was,
according to Professor Renwick, that they "were upon
the whole more successful in their pursuits, enjoyed a
greater share of comfort, and laid by larger profits than
those who purchased upon credit lands of equal quality
in the neighborhood." 1 For the owner the advantage
was that in the matter of improvements, rotation of
crops, and so on, he kept the control of his property in
his own hands, and also ran no risk of the "anti-rent"
disturbances that troubled the owners of the large es-
tates in the Hudson River counties where long-term
leases prevailed.
What thorough attention the leased farms required
— and received — from James Wadsworth is apparent from
his instructions to the farm agent, whom he directed to
make inquiries as follows:
Are the gates in good order? Is the wood-pile where
it ought to be? Are the grounds around the house kept
in a neat and wholesome manner? Are the sheds and
yard fence around the barn in a good state of repair?
The land agent should make suggestions to the tenants
on the leading principles of good husbandry, with fre-
quent references to sound morals, founded on the sanc-
tion of religion and just reasoning; and also the unap-
preciable importance of the education of youth and of
a vigilant attention to the state of common schools in
the lessees' district. Shade trees must be about each
house. From a look or two about the garden or house,
you can easily ascertain if the occupant drinks bitters
in the morning or whiskey with his dinner. If he drinks
bitters, you will find his garden full of weeds. 2
The result achieved by James Wadsworth as the
product of a lifetime of labor was unique, and the reason
is apparent when one considers what, according to Eng-
lish and to American criticism respectively, were its weak
1 Journal of Agriculture, October, 1848, p. 151. For further quotations
from Professor Renwiek's article, see Appendix B.
2 Turner, Phelps and Gorham's Purchase, p. 341.
1834] THE WADSWORTH ESTATE 17
points. To the Englishman, James Wadsworth's profits
seemed large, but still not sufficiently generous to com-
pensate for the fact that the possession of the land, be-
sides requiring much hard work of its owner, gave "no
political and little social influence," when "by lending
his money and doing nothing a man can obtain seven per
cent certain." 1 To the American, whose magnet was the
even more remunerative industries centring in a magna
et numerosa metropolis, the life of a "farmer" was as
repugnant as its gains seemed inconsiderable. To the
owner himself each of these opposing objections was but
stronger motive for taking satisfaction in the work of his
own hands and brain.
Unique his achievement was, and complete also.
Nothing conveys the sense of well-rounded attainment
better than the picture of him at Geneseo in 1834, as
drawn by another English traveller:
Fortune seemed not yet wearied of being bountiful,
and allowed us to see this most beautiful valley, with the
advantage of residing in one of the most hospitable and
agreeable houses that I ever entered. Mr. W 's son
accompanied us through his extensive farms, which are
formed to delight equally the eye of a Poussin or a Sir
J. Sinclair. The broad meadows of an alluvial soil, cov-
ered with the richest grasses, as watered by the winding
Genesee, are studded with trees beautifully and negli-
gently grouped, among which are scattered large herds
of cattle of various breeds and kinds, both English and
American; the meadows are here and there interspersed
with fields of Indian-corn and wheat, while the hills that
rise on each side are crowned with timber, excepting
spots where the encroaching hand of improvement has
begun to girdle some of the tall sons of the forest, whose
scathed tops and black, bare arms, betokening their ap-
proaching fall, give a picturesque variety to the scene.
Yet this scene, extraordinary and interesting as it
was, possessed less interest to a contemplative and nuis-
1 Notes on North America, by Professor J. F. W. Johnston, I, 206. See
Appendix C.
18 WADS WORTH OF GENESEO
ing mind than the venerable and excellent gentleman
who had almost created it; for it was now 44 years
since Mr. W came as the first settler to this spot,
with an axe on his shoulder, and slept the first night
under a tree. After this he lodged in a log-house, sub-
sequently in a cottage; and he is now the universally
esteemed and respected possessor of a demesne which
many of the proudest nobility of Europe might look upon
with envy, where he exercises the rites of hospitality in
the midst of his amiable family with a sincerity and kind-
ness that I shall not easily forget. 1
This effect of completeness, it should be remembered,
however, was attained by years of labor in other fields
besides those of land. Just as the pioneer farmer's vent-
ure was what he could raise on his hundred-acre lot,
so James Wadsworth's venture was the social welfare
of the entire Geneseo tract. His responsibility toward
the region had from the first, and in the most natural
manner possible, quickened in him the community sense.
Whatever may have been the case in the early Puritan
commonwealths, the pioneers of the first years of the
nineteenth century who went forth to settle western
New York were pioneers also of the age which imagined
that it was approximating complete democracy in en-
deavoring to approximate complete individualism. With
a social sense developed only enough to provide the few
necessary measures for common protection and preser-
vation, they looked askance at suggestions intended to
bring about among them greater coherence. To James
Wadsworth the situation in Geneseo was typified, as he
used to indicate to his guests, by the contrast between
the spires of four rival churches visible from his win-
dows and the one school-house, which, as he bade them
note, was in such condition that a good farmer would
consider it unfit to keep swine in. What stock of sur-
plus energy his neighbors possessed was, he felt, not
1 Travels in North America during the Years 1834-5-6, by the Hon. C.
A. Murray, I, 80, 81.
1827] INTEREST IN EDUCATION 19
turned to strengthen the community either for that gen-
eration or the next, but was exploited on the motives of
individual salvation and sectarian rivalry. To train that
which was a community only in name to a sense of this
lack in itself became the object of his philanthropic labors
in the later years of his life.
From the time when he first entertained the idea of
settling in western New York his plans for the develop-
ment of the region had included an "academy" or some
similar institution of higher learning. The long season
of winter leisure, which country dwellers are so prone to
waste, he devoted to hard study and reflection concern-
ing the changes that were beginning to take place in the
body of accepted knowledge, and the ways in which the
benefit of the advances of science might be brought im-
mediately to the population whose welfare he had at heart.
In 1827 he was successful in establishing in Geneseo a
high-school "sufficiently extensive to teach six hundred
scholars, particularly in the higher branches of science."
Though in those early days he could find no one better
equipped to teach these subjects than three youths, Cor-
nelius C. Felton, Henry R. Cleveland, and Seth Sweetser,
fresh from the classical curriculum at Harvard, he held
fast to his original purpose and never failed to proclaim
his faith. "It will be no injury to a mason," he wrote,
"to become acquainted with the properties of air, nor
to a millwright with the properties of fluids, and, I add,
to the mighty mass of mind throughout the State to
reason correctly." And again: "The man who is sci-
entifically instructed is a double man, whether he acts
in General Scott's regiments on the lines, or in a work-
shop, or on a farm, or in the cabinet at Washington." *
Admirable illustrations, these, that it is the clear thinker
living close to realities who is the first to catch the spirit
of the age to come. 2
1 American Journal of Education, 1858, pp. 396, 397.
2 The practical and persistent effort which James Wadsworth gave to the
cause of public education in New York is set forth in detail in an article in
20 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
Although time and money without stint were expended
by James Wadsworth in this chosen 'work of his for the
public welfare, he kept himself through it all very much
in the background. In the same fashion, too, he avoided
the publicity of politics. To a certain extent he was
active behind the scenes, particularly with William H.
Seward and Thurlow Weed, at the time of the "anti-
masonry" excitement in 1S27-182S; but neither as Fed-
eralist nor as Whig would he consent to stand before the
people as a candidate for office.
No man ever saw with clearer eye than James Wads-
worth what opportunity had to offer him, or ever with
firmer will made it render up to him the uttermost of
his desires. Fortunately, the material that he wrought
in — the land — has this benefaction for its owner, when,
as in this case, he dwells upon it and cultivates it with
free labor: because of its imposing permanence, because
it is the home as well as the means of livelihood of those
dependent upon it, it will not suffer its temporary pos-
sessor to ravage it for a few years' profit. Subtly it works
through his imagination upon every purpose, so that his
thought of it gradually comes to concern as much what
he shall give as what he shall get. The certainty that
the American Journal of Education for 1858, pp. 389-406. In substance it is
a story of attempts through legislative action to arouse the several town
governments to their duty to keep fresh the springs of democracy for the
next generation. Slow work it was, for the reasons already given; but
mere slowness was not discouragement to a man of his long-range endeavor.
Hall's Lectures on School Keeping, and The School and the Schoolmaster,
by Alonzo Potter and George B. Emerson, were books in the preparation
and distribution of which he was actively concerned. Of the latter of
these books his son-in-law, Martin Brimmer, mayor of Boston in 1843,
distributed three thousand five hundred copies among the public schools and
school committees of Massachusetts. Another work, an essay on Town
Organization: Its Uses and Advantages, by Robert A. Coffin, was the re-
sult of a prize offered by James Wadsworth. To him also the system of
district-school libraries owes its existence. Copies of important school re-
ports — particularly of work done in Massachusetts — and of educational ar-
ticles of note in newspapers and magazines he procured in large numbers
and distributed widely. Finally, the library in Geneseo, known as the Wads-
worth Athenasum, was endowed by him.
JAMES WADSWORTH.
i a portrait in the possession oi Major W. V Wadsworth.
THE INHERITANCE 21
in the end his children will possess this domain is the
final incentive to its master to make it in every sense
a fair inheritance. Thus for James Wadsworth's recog-
nition of responsibility as the mate of opportunity not
only his family but the whole region of western New
York had reason to be grateful.
With this endowment of ancestry, with this environ-
ment, what would his eldest son make of life?
CHAPTER II
BEFORE THE CALL
I
PRIVATE LIFE
James Samuel, the second of the five children of James
and Naomi Wadsworth and the eldest son, was born on
October 30, 1807. 1 His childhood and youth were passed,
it is hardly necessary to say, in happy circumstances; but
of traits or deeds associated with these early years little
is known except that he was quick and strong of body,
bold and ardent in character, and full of high spirits.
In his early education what was imparted to him from
books probably counted for less than the varied life
which centred in his home. At all events, his college
career shows that he had no faculty, innate or acquired,
for systematic hard study, and no motive either of in-
terest or compulsion for addressing himself to the dry,
classical routine of what then constituted the curriculum
at Harvard. He was a member of the class of 1828 dur-
ing its junior and senior years, but he did not receive a
degree. Older than most of the members of his class, he
possessed a broader experience of life, and this fact un-
doubtedly made it easier for him to undervalue the studies
that they were pursuing. Then, too, although he had not
inherited his father's keen mind and gift for the persist-
ent pursuit of detail, he unquestionably had imbibed
some of his contempt for the old-fashioned educational
methods of colleges. However that may be, as concerns
1 Harriet was born in 1805; William Wolcott, Cornelia, and Elizabeth in
1810, 1812, and 1815, respectively.
22
.1 \MKS S WADSWORTH.
rater-color sketch in the possession uf Mrs. Charles F. Wadsworth.
1807-34] EARLY YEARS 23
learning in these years, James S. Wadsworth seems to have
come out at the same door wherein he went.
Friends he had in plenty, and they were men worth
knowing. Among them were the three young fellows of
the class above his, who, immediately after their gradu-
ation, went to Geneseo to be the first teachers in the new
academy founded by his father. And with Felton and
Cleveland was to be reckoned another member of the
"Five of Clubs," Charles Sumner. John Lothrop Mot-
ley, a freshman of thirteen, admired the "dashing, hand-
some young man," seven years his senior, but did not
know him.
Wadsworth's legal education was as unsystematic as
his college studies had been. A season of "reading law"
in the office of Daniel Webster was followed by a year, or
part of a year, 1829-1830, at the Yale Law School, and this
by study in the office of McKean and Denniston at Al-
bany. Such training was highly important for a -man
destined for the kind of work that was before Wadsworth ;
and it was to this end, rather than with the intention of
practising, that he pursued his studies till he was admit-
ted to the bar in 1833.
In truth, by this time there was need of him at Gen-
eseo. In the month of March, 1831, his mother and his
nineteen-year-old sister Cornelia had died; in this year,
1833, his uncle, "General Bill," and his oldest sister Har-
riet had followed. 1 The duty of the eldest son was to
bring strength and comfort to the three remaining mem-
bers of the family, and to acquire an understanding of
the way in which the property was managed. His father
had inherited General Bill's lands and at sixty-five had
reached an age to feel the need of training younger shoul-
ders to bear his burden.
The final motive to hold young James Wadsworth to
Geneseo was added when, on May 11, 1834, he was mar-
ried to Mary Craig Wharton, daughter of a well-known
1 Harriet in 1829 had married Martin Brimmer (1793-1847), of Boston.
24 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
family of Quaker merchants in Philadelphia. 1 At the
time of her marriage she was not quite twenty, "the most
beautiful woman in the country," as Motley wrote, in the
language of enthusiastic reminiscence, "and as agreeable
and accomplished as beautiful." 2
Desirable as was the elder son's presence at Geneseo,
his father had no mind to restrain him and his bride from
making an extended trip abroad. Provided with letters
of introduction and with an even better passport in the
fame of Mrs. Wadsworth's beauty, the young couple pur-
sued a brilliant and happy course through France and
England. In Paris, there were those who welcomed them
for the sake of the old friendship of Lafayette, Rocham-
beau, and their brother officers for Colonel Jeremiah Wads-
worth. In England, too, they were received with great
cordiality. As the result of an acquaintance with Lord
Palmerston, the young American farmer was successful
in arranging for a number of lads from his estate on the
west coast of Ireland to come to the Genesee Valley as
laborers; furthermore, in their search for a house the style
of which pleased them, the Wadsworths chose Lord Hert-
ford's villa in Regent's Park, and before they sailed for
home were able to procure plans of it, from which they
proposed to build a replica in Geneseo.
As soon as possible after their return, work was begun
upon the house, which, situated in ample grounds at the
opposite end of the village from the homestead, com-
manded to the west the same wide view over the valley,
with its pastures studded with groups of oaks and elms.
In this autumn of 1835, Charles Frederick, the first of
their six children, was born. 3
1 Her father, John Wharton, was the grandson of Joseph Wharton (1707-
1776), the owner of Walnut Grove, where in May, 1778, took place the brill-
iant fete, known as the Meschianza, which was given to Sir William Howe
before his departure for England.
2 J. L. Motley and His Family, Further Letters, p. 207.
3 The others were Cornelia, Craig Wharton, Nancy Wharton, James
Wolcott, Elizabeth. Craig died in 1872, Charles in 1899.
,,.,//,
1838] EARLY MARRIED LIFE 25
Among the young people in the two households there
was naturally, in these peaceful years, much merriment,
watched over, as from afar, by the single surviving mem-
ber of the elder generation, and it is not strange that young
James's fondness for a jest at the expense of his father
was frequently exercised. On one occasion, conspiring
with his wife and his sister, he dressed the young Charles
Frederick, aged three, in the uniform in miniature of a
British soldier and then sent the child alone into the room
where his grandfather was sitting. The immediate ex-
plosion of wrath gratified all the expectations of the
mischief-makers; the old gentleman rushed out to hurl at
them the words: "Would you make a harlequin of your
boy?" At another time the elder Wadsworth, walking
on Broadway with his son and Thurlow Weed, met the
man with whom thirty years before he had exchanged
shots on the field of honor. The other bowed, but he
made no sign. "Don't you know Mr. Kane?" asked his
son, and received the brief answer: "I met him once."
"Supposing," writes Thurlow Weed, "that James had not
heard of the duel, when we were alone I mentioned it to
him, to which he replied, laughing, 'I know all about that,
but I wanted to draw the governor out.' " 1 Anecdotes as
slight as these do not survive in any convincing number
for seventy or eighty years, but the fact of a strong love
of fun in the younger Wadsworth is testified to by a tra-
dition shared amongst innumerable friends and visitors.
From the earliest days of Big Tree the Wadsworths
had been famed for their hospitality. The Frenchman
or Englishman on his way to Niagara Falls was almost
certain to appear at the door of the homestead with a
letter of introduction, and relatives and friends from Hart-
ford, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia were constantly
coming and going. Moreover, in a household that con-
1 Autobiography, p. 153. Weed, as editor of the Rochester Telegraph, had
in 1823 made the acquaintance of James Wadsworth, and always spoke of
him warmly as a " friend and patron."
26 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
tained a nature so gay and sweet as Elizabeth Wadsworth,
it was not strange that young bachelors should find at-
traction; and men like Charles Sumner and "Prince
John," the brilliant and handsome son of President Van
Buren, were not infrequently to be found there.
Among English visitors, mention must be made of
Lord Morpeth, the friend of Charles Sumner and a de-
scendant of that Earl of Carlisle who, in 1778, had come
from England with vain offers of peace. He found as
Wadsworth's tenants three Yorkshiremen from his own
neighborhood, one of whom told him that James Wads-
worth was "the finest nobleman in the country." 1 But
of all the travellers from over-seas, Charles Murray is the
most noteworthy, for he it was who was destined to win
Elizabeth Wadsworth's heart. The story of their love
is a moving page in the family history.
Charles Augustus Murray, second son of the Earl of
Dunmore, was an Englishman of unusual personal charm
and exceptional ability. Famous at Oxford for his feat
of riding in one day to London and back, a distance of
one hundred and twenty miles, he also displayed marked
literary tastes and was a frequent guest at Samuel Rogers's
breakfast-table. His fondness for the active life of travel
brought him to America, and in 1834, when he was twenty-
eight years old, he appeared at Geneseo, accompanied by
his friend, Andrew Buchanan, then British attache at
Washington. No prolonged visit was needed for either
Charles Murray or Elizabeth Wadsworth to discover the
rare qualities of mind and character which the other pos-
sessed, or for a strong affection to grow up between them
and to be avowed. James Wadsworth, however, refused
his consent to their engagement, and Murray, pursuing
his original plan, continued his journey to the West. He
joined a tribe of wandering Pawnees, with whom he lived
for a number of months, experiencing adventures the nar-
rative of which forms an interesting part of his Travels
1 Travels in America, p. 24.
i83i-5i] ELIZABETH WADSWORTH 27
in North America. Returning to Geneseo at the end of
a year or more, he renewed his suit. James Wadsworth
now relented, but his willingness to put his daughter's
happiness first was not of long duration. After a few
months he insisted that the engagement should be broken
off, giving as a reason that he could not allow his daugh-
ter to live so far away. The girl, who was not yet twenty-
one, yielded, as many another before her had yielded, to
the old man's iron will, and Charles Murray went back
to England.
Eight years later, in 1844, James Wadsworth died,
being seventy-six years of age. When the news of his
death reached England, Murray wrote at once to Eliza-
beth Wadsworth urging that, as her service of filial devo-
tion was now ended, there could be no obstacle to their
marriage. Though her deep affection for him had never
altered, her over-sensitive nature and an exaggerated feel-
ing that her youth had gone — she was only twenty -eight,
but her hair had begun to turn gray — made her fear that
the offer was now prompted by chivalry alone, and she re-
fused him. Six years afterward she was travelling in Eng-
land with her friends, the Duncans. At a crowded junction
where the train in which they were journeying to Scotland
was stopping, the carriage occupied by her party was un-
expectedly entered by Charles Murray. Within a week
after the meeting thus brought about by a caprice of fate
— once, at least, bent upon an errand of mercy — the en-
gagement of the reunited lovers was announced; in a short
space of time the marriage took place, her brother James
coming from America to give her away. The Murrays
went almost immediately to Cairo, where he had been
consul-general for some years. A year later Elizabeth
Murray died, leaving an infant a few days old. Among
the thousand love tragedies of the world, few are at the
same time so simple and so poignant as this one.
Not long after this blow, another fell in the death of
William Wadsworth. After a few years of married life,
the latter part of which was clouded by ill health, he died
28 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
in 1852, leaving to his brother's care a widow 1 and three
small boys. Thus, at the age of forty-five, James S.
Wadsworth was left without brother or sister, and through
the death of his brother-in-law and co-executor, Martin
Brimmer, the entire management of the property fell to
him. Included in this duty was that of attending to the
inheritance of his brother's children and of his nephews,
Martin Brimmer, Jr., and Charles James Murray. The
latter, having an English father, was debarred by the
laws of New York from inheriting the land owned by his
mother; but Wadsworth, in order that the little alien
might suffer no ultimate loss, procured with considerable
difficulty the enactment of a special law by which the
land in question was held in trust until the boy should
come of age and decide for himself whether he should
remain a British subject or become a citizen of the United
States. In a thousand affairs, ranging from such a mat-
ter as this to the minutest detail of crops and leases, in
all of which Wadsworth must decide, and decide right,
there was enough to charge every minute of the day with
activity. "He is," wrote Murray's naval brother, "the
nearest thing to perpetual motion I ever saw . . . and
he has more 'irons in the fire' than there were bayonet
points before Sevastopol." 2
Busy as he was, no man ever fitted himself to his
responsibilities with less friction. The father's passion
for organization and thoroughness, together with his per-
ception of the necessity that his subordinates should be
men of no less than first-rate ability, had already created
a machine perfectly adapted to the work in hand; what
was required from the son was the direction of the ma-
chine from day to day. 3
But in the wealth of James S. Wadsworth's inheri-
1 He married Emineline Austin, of Boston, sister of the late Edward
Austin. His two sons who grew to manhood are William Austin Wads-
worth and Herbert Wadsworth.
2 Lands of the Slave and the Free, by Capt. the Hon. Henry A. Murray,
R. N., p. 45.
3 See Appendix C. The Wadsworth Estate in 1850.
1847] RELIEF FOR IRELAND 29
tance there was more than this. Not only the way of
life fashioned by his father but also the convictions on
which it was based he accepted implicitly. Neither the
younger man's abundance of means nor the personal gift
of leadership that soon began to manifest itself in him
ever brought him to betray the sincere creed of democ-
racy in the light of which the elder Wadsworth had lived
and worked. The contrast in outward circumstances
between the early life of father and of son may easily be
made too much of; the point to remember is the conti-
nuity from one generation to the next of those convic-
tions that count for far more than money.
More genial and more ardent than his father, the
younger Wadsworth, having lacked the discipline of mak-
ing a fortune grow by constant calculation of profit and
loss, was also less precise in the spending of it. Indeed,
his impulse to give was almost incorrigible. How ready
he was to respond to a call upon him appeared on a large
scale at the time of the Irish famine of 1847. In the
movement in Boston and New York to send relief Wads-
worth was quick to join, and his contribution of grain
filled one of the ships sent from New York to Ireland.
Again, some eight or ten years later, when he owned a
house in New York, 1 it was his practice, on coming to the
city each autumn, to call at the office of one of the most
effective benevolent societies, and to leave with its secre-
tary a check for three or five thousand dollars. His char-
ity, as the narrator of the incident justly remarks, "formed
as much a part of his system of life as business itself." 2
Meanwhile, a succession of prosperous years, culmi-
nating in a season when wheat sold at the high price of
three dollars a bushel, gave to his ability to spend freely
a perceptible stimulus. It was the needs of his growing
household that were chiefly responsible for the addition
1 On Sixteenth Street, between Fifth Avenue and Broadway.
2 See the editorial entitled " A Country Gentleman of the Free States,"
in the New York Evening Post, September 27, 1864.
30 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
of an upper story to the house at Geneseo — an alteration
by which its resemblance to Lord Hertford's villa was
considerably modified; but the plan of taking his whole
family abroad for an extended stay was one which few
American fathers of that day would have had either the
means or the inclination to put into effect. Some remi-
niscences written by the eldest daughter give interesting
glimpses of the trip.
We first went to Paris, where we met my eldest brother,
Charles, just returned from Egypt and studying at the
Ecole des Mines in the Quartier Latin. A short time
after we arrived Charles developed small pox and gave
it to my father, who was very ill at the Hotel Meurice
for weeks. He was obliged to take the whole wing of
the hotel in which our rooms were, as all the other people
went away for fear of infection, though he was so well
isolated that not one of the rest of us took it.
When he got well we went to the South of France,
travelling for the most part in a large carriage, — a berline,
it was called. It was a second-hand one which my father
had commissioned the courier to buy for him, and he was
much dismayed, when it met us at Tours, to find that a
huge coat of arms in brilliant colors, surmounted by a cor-
onet, still decorated the panels. We were obliged to stay
at Tours till this could be painted out and my father's
republican spirit appeased!
We travelled with four horses and postillions, a new
and most delightful experience to all of us young people.
In this way we went through Southern France, stopped at
many places of interest, and came in June to Switzerland,
where we spent the summer at the "Trois Couronnes"
at Vevey. My father was obliged to go to Geneseo for
several months, but he came back to us in the autumn,
when we crossed the Alps, and stayed all that winter in
Italy, a rather diminished party, as my sister Nancy and
my brother James were left at school in Vevey.
The following May we all (with the exception of
Charles, who remained in Paris), went to England, as
my father was anxious to visit the spot where his sister
was buried, and to see the child in giving birth to whom
she had died.
1857-59] THE YOUNGER GENERATION 31
Enriched by the memory of many adventures, and
with the bond that held them together strengthened, as
is always the case with those who enjoy a holiday in com-
mon, the Wadsworth family returned to the absorbing
routine of work and play that made up their home life.
In 1857 took place the marriage of the eldest daughter
to Montgomery Ritchie, of Boston, grandson of Harri-
son Gray Otis; in 1859 Charles completed his studies in
Paris, being the first American to receive the diploma of
the French school.
Meanwhile the Genesee Valley was suffering from a
term of lean years that coincided most unfortunately with
the period of depression caused by the financial panic of
1857. The extent of the disaster, due to the ravages of a
tiny insect called the wheat midge, appears from a report
which Wadsworth communicated to the State Agricult-
ural Society:
The midge was seen here in 1854; a little in Monroe
and Livingston counties; did no material damage; more
seen in 1855; did no material damage in this county; con-
siderable in Monroe; came from the east. In 1856, the
midge took from one-half to two-thirds of the crops in
this county on upland, and nearly all on flats; at least
2,000 acres on flats, which would have yielded thirty
bushels per acre, not harvested. Worse in 1857, took
over two-thirds of crops; 1858, very little white wheat
to harvest; a few fields escaped; generally destroyed.
Mediterranean wheat escaped generally (as it is supposed
from being earlier); perhaps one-fifth Mediterranean
destroyed; spring barley very much injured this year
by midge. In some cases, one-half to two-thirds crops
taken. Winter barley too early for midge. Very little
white wheat now sown in western New York.
. . . The midge has reduced the value of all the
wheat lands in western New York, at least forty per
cent. Lands which sold here readily for $70. per acre,
can now be bought for $40. per acre. 1
1 N. Y. State Agricultural Society Transactions for 1858, p. 300.
32 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
In the privations consequent upon the loss of the
Genesee Valley's world-wide prestige as a wheat-growing
region, Wadsworth's concern was constantly with the suf-
ferings of his tenants. Rejecting their requests that they
be allowed to make good the next year the deficiency in
their wheat rent, he insisted on a settlement for that sea-
son. They must, he declared, first make provision for
their families for the coming twelvemonth and then pay
him what they could. This done, he squared the ac-
counts, and the tenants began the year debt free. In one
case he remitted the wheat rent to the amount of a thou-
sand bushels; in other cases he helped discouraged farmers
to remove to Illinois, there to make a fresh start. Thus,
of the loss attendant on the discontinuance of one form
of agriculture and the adoption of others, Wadsworth
assumed the burden to the full extent of his ability.
Acts such as this, affecting the general welfare, to-
gether with his participation in politics presently to be
mentioned, and, most of all, the geniality and simplicity
of his bearing, made James S. Wadsworth, in the fifteen
years following his father's death, a citizen whom all west-
ern New York regarded with pride and untainted affec-
tion. To the strength and sincerity of this feeling his
friends and neighbors once, after a long period of suspense
as to his safety, bore witness in a fashion most moving
and memorable. Having gone to England in the autumn
of 1850 to be present at his sister's wedding, Wadsworth
had taken passage for the return voyage on the steamer
Atlantic, sailing from Liverpool on December 28. Eight
days out the shaft broke, and for forty-eight hours the
vessel was at the mercy of the waves without and the
thrashing shaft within, while the crew, aided by such help
as Wadsworth and other passengers could give, struggled
to set the ice-bound sails. At length getting under way,
she headed, with successive changes of wind, for Halifax,
Bermuda, the Azores, and Ireland, finally making port at
Cork on January 22.
1851] RETURN FROM ENGLAND 33
In those days of infrequent ocean service and lack of
communication by cable, the prolonged anxiety over the
fate of the Atlantic became more and more agonizing to
those on shore who were concerned for her safe passage.
It was not till the middle of February that the good news
reached New York, and it was March 1 before Wads-
worth at length reached home. The release from the
strain of apprehension and the sight of their fellow-
townsman actually restored to them alive set the people
of Geneseo wild with joy. When he drove into the town
from Rochester — where the night before he had taken
part in a meeting called to set on foot plans for a railroad
"up the valley" — he was made welcome with the sound
of bells and cannon, to which in the evening were added
bonfires and a general illumination of houses. As he nar-
rated to his neighbors the tale of his adventures, the boom
of cannon at Mount Morris told of the widening circle
of rejoicing. The excitement over his return lasted for
days, perhaps reaching an anticlimax in the thanksgiv-
ing of the local poet that he had not been thrown
"A waif on the sands of some cannibal coast,"
but altogether furnishing a remarkable instance of what
may happen at a time when the threat of peril awakes a
community to consciousness of what it holds dear. 1
The affection of which the little world outside the
Wadsworth gates thus made demonstration was the very
oxygen of the atmosphere of the home. It was with no
effort either on his part or on theirs that he made himself
the companion of his children. They trooped on their
ponies down to the "home farm" to help their father
give salt to the cattle; they accepted eagerly the duties
which he laid upon them and which he designed not only
to increase their sense of responsibility but also to win
them irrevocably to the way of life which he himself loved
so well. And as they grew to manhood and womanhood
'See the Livingston Republican for March 6, 1851.
34 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
they became more and more grateful for the comradeship
and counsel of one whose character showed in turn the
fruits of work, wisdom, and a happy temper. What
Wadsworth was as a husband may be gathered from cer-
tain touchingly intimate passages in the few long-treas-
ured letters of his sister Elizabeth to his wife. The bride
of a few months writes to the mother of six children: "I
do think one cannot be happy unless one is married, but
I would not say this to any one in the world but you."
And at another time, after speaking of her husband's
sweetness and purity of nature and his devoted consid-
eration of herself, she declares that he will bear compari-
son — she never referred to her brother as James — "even
with Cheri himself."
During their stay abroad the Wadsworths at one
time passed many pleasant days at Vevey with John
Lothrop Motley and his family. The two men found
each other particularly sympathetic, for both were men
of enthusiasms, with no fondness for cautious and tem-
pered speech, and their views of the approaching crisis
in the United States coincided. Ten years later, when
Motley heard of Wadsworth's death, he wrote of him as
follows :
It always seemed to me that he was the truest and
the most thoroughly loyal American I ever knew, and
this to my mind is his highest eulogy. ... I often
thought of him and spoke of him as the true original
type of the American gentleman — not the pale, washed-
out copy of the European aristocrat. 1
The manner in which his character expanded in those
trying times, from the agreeable and genial man of the
world, the generous and useful landed proprietor, the
frank, unaffected, delightful companion, into the hero
and the patriot, has always impressed me deeply. 2
1 To Mrs. James S. Wadsworth.
2 To Thomas Hughes. (J. L. Motley and His Family, Further Letters,
p. 207.)
1844] A VAN BUREN DEMOCRAT 35
The first of the archways of experience through which
Wadsworth attained to this expansion of character was
politics. His share in the building up of the Republican
party in New York State forms, therefore, the next step
in the narrative.
II
An attempt to establish the political status of a citizen
of New York accomplishes little if it does not indicate
the wing or faction of the party to which he gives his
allegiance. Such is the character of these subdivisions,
moreover, that any one of them is likely to require of its
adherents a stronger loyalty than the party is able to insist
upon from them for itself. Hence not only the remark-
able vicissitudes in political fortunes in the Empire State
but also the bitterness and intensity of personal feeling
which has accompanied them.
Though the elder Wadsworth was a sound Whig, the
son, in what manner is not known — possibly through the
visits to Geneseo of "Prince John" — became a Demo-
crat, an adherent of Martin Van Buren, and a member
of the group known as Radicals, in opposition to the Con-
servatives, or Hunkers. Besides loyalty to the principles
of this group, personal acquaintance and friendly regard
bound James S. Wadsworth to the able politician who
sought and sometimes achieved the distinction of states-
manship. This acquaintance belonged, however, not so
much to the days of Van Buren's brilliancy as Secretary
of State, Minister to England, Vice-President, and Presi-
dent, as to the next decade, when, in retirement at Lin-
denwald, his estate near Kinderhook, he awaited in vain
the call to lead his party again and later sallied forth at
the head of the Barnburners and Free-soilers, in a cam-
paign the motives of which were a mingling of revenge
and anti-slavery ardor.
36 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
A letter 1 which is the fruit of this acquaintance be-
tween Wadsworth and Van Buren shows Wadsworth's
political attitude in the early 'forties. It was written to
the ex-President at a white-heat of wrath on the arrival
of the news that the Democratic convention of 1844,
controlled by the pro-slavery element of the party, had
rejected him on account of his opposition to the annexa-
tion of Texas and had nominated as its presidential can-
didate the insignificant Polk.
My Dear Sir:
We are all prostrated by the news from Baltimore.
We do not know what to say, or how to move. It is an
overwhelming wrong and outrage, which excites equally
our surprise and our indignation. Here we were com-
pletely unprepared for it. We expected agitation, ex-
citement, possibly secession, but never the result we
have got. Certainly Mr. Butler 2 and his friends gave
up too soon. If it had been a mere question of State
preference, such as in their respective states we may sup-
pose to have been felt for Messrs. Polk, Benton, or Bu-
chanan, it would have been another matter, but a great
wrong was to be avenged, a great principle vindicated,
and it was a principle which the more it was dwelt upon
and considered, the more deeply and powerfully it would
have been felt. I can not but think a little more firm-
ness would have led to a different result, but they on
the spot were perhaps the best judges and at least their
fidelity is not to be doubted. I have seen no full ac-
count of the debates, but I do not perceive that the dic-
tation and selfishness of the South were properly rebuked.
They have filled the Executive Chair 44 years, the North
1 From the Van Buren Papers, vol. LI, Library of Congress.
2 Benjamin F. Butler, Van Buren's former law partner, had withdrawn
his friend's name when it appeared that the Southern delegates, ignoring
Van Buren's claims to nomination by virtue of his record as President
and his unjust defeat in 1840, were determined to cast him aside. As a sop
to the friends of the rejected candidate, Silas Wright, senator from New
York, was given, by a vote almost unanimous, the nomination for Vice-
President. Wadsworth's letter was written before the news of Wright's-
rejection of the nomination had reached Geneseo.
1844] NOMINATION OF POLK 37
12, and yet because we are not prepared to embark in a
most unjust and iniquitous war to extend their "Insti-
tutions" — meaning thereby Slavery — our rights are again
to be deferred. The only satisfactory feature in this re-
sult is the defeat of Cass. If that disorganising, treach-
erous Hybrid had been nominated, I should have "re-
turned to private life" until after this election, at all
events. I have a favorable opinion of Mr. Polk and hoped
to have seen him nominated, but not where he is. What
will Mr. Wright do? is in everybody's mouth. I shall
not doubt that whatever he does will be done from the
purest and most patriotic motives, but I sincerely hope
he will resign. I can not bear that any one so devoted
to you and so true to us should reap any share of the
profits of this insult and fraud. Mrs. W. and my sister
are so indignant that they reproach me with being too
calm, and even my Father, feeble as he is, 1 and nomi-
nally a very good Whig, seems to resent it as much as
any of us.
At a moment like this, when you must have so many
communications to reply to, I shall not expect to hear
directly from you, but I really wish you would command
the Major or Smith to write me. Altho' I do not doubt
that all is "calm as a summer's morn" at Lindenwald,
I want to know that you are alive and well, after the
storm. What shall we do with our great meeting called
for the 6th, which would have been the next thing to
the Cattle show, if all had gone well? I think we shall
adjourn it, until we know where we stand.
I am dear Sir
with great regard
Yrs
JA S S. WADSWORTH
June 1st 1844
The impatience shown in this letter at the arrogance
of Southern Democrats is the first sign of the working
in Wadsworth of the anti-slavery spirit which from this
time was to grow steadily stronger. And since during
the next sixteen years of Democratic control of the
Federal government that arrogance increased, demand-
1 He died within the week.
38 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
ing and obtaining from the North one concession after
another, mounting from the admission of Texas to the
Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska act, and the
Dred Scott decision, Wadsworth and other men of like
mind gained proportionately in firmness of resistance to
the extension of slavery. They gained in number, too,
for each act of aggression on the part of the South was
further proof that the very existence of the nation was
thereby threatened; each act made possible a wider ac-
ceptance of the words of Lincoln and of Seward that
"a house divided against itself cannot stand" and that
"it is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and en-
during forces, and it means that the United States must
and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slave-
holding nation or entirely a free-labor nation."
In the case of Wadsworth, the conviction that the
efforts of the Southern leaders to extend slavery must
be resisted at every turn came in connection with his
participation in State politics; the growth of this con-
viction must therefore be followed through the perplex-
ing course of the factional quarrels of the New York
Democracy.
In the years following the election of Polk, in 1844,
the antagonism between the two wings of the New York
Democracy grew rapidly more violent. The Conserva-
tives, with their leader, Marcy, in Polk's cabinet as Sec-
retary of War, possessed an advantage which they did not
allow to sleep. By one deed of punishment after another
they brought the Radicals to a frame of mind like that,
it was said, of the farmer who, to rid himself of the
plague of rats, was willing to burn down his barn. The
Radicals, accepting the taunting title of Barnburners,
proceeded to carry out the comparison to the letter.
It was, however, not chiefly the motive of rule or
ruin that controlled this faction of the New York De-
mocracy in its fight against the Hunkers, for its lead-
ers, Silas Wright, William Cullen Bryant, David Dudley
1847] THE BARNBURNERS 39
Field, Preston King, S. J. Tilden, B. F. Butler, C. C. Cam-
breling (or Cambreleng) , and James C. Smith, stood for
a more disinterested kind of public service than any to
which the Hunkers (who were supposed to hunker or
hanker after office) could possibly make good a claim.
Indeed, their ablest man, Silas Wright, United States
senator, who was as remarkable for his honesty and his
unselfish aims as for his ability, had declined nominations
tc the Supreme Court of the United States and to the
vice-presidential place on the Democratic ticket in 1844.
What animated the Barnburners was allegiance to party
principles which they felt were being denied both by
the Southern leaders and by the other faction within
their own State. Furthermore, support of the Wilmot
Proviso, which opposed the extension of slavery into ter-
ritory acquired by the United States, furnished them with
a bond of union on a moral question particularly appeal-
ing to men of such character as were here found work-
ing shoulder to shoulder. Finally, the Barnburners were
united by a sense of personal loyalty to beloved leaders
and by a desire to avenge the wrongs unjustly visited
on the heads of those leaders. Not only was the treat-
ment measured out to Van Buren in 1844 by the Hunkers
as yet unrequited; after the State election of 1846, when
Silas Wright, who had left the Senate to become governor
in the vain hope of bringing harmony into the New York
Democracy, was, as a candidate for re-election, defeated
by the Hunker influence in the State and at Washington,
there was another score to be settled. 1 The memory of
this outrage was quickened by Wright's sudden death in
August, 1847, and there was danger that the Democratic
State convention, soon to be held at Syracuse, would be
a battle-ground on which there would be no thought of
quarter.
To forestall the chance of collision at the opening of
the convention, Preston King and Wadsworth, who by
1 Hammond's Life of Silas Wright, pp. 694-697.
40 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
this time held a position of influence in the councils of
the Barnburners, arranged with the leaders of the other
faction for the appointment of two tellers to call the roll,
one of them to be named by Wads worth. 1 In this man-
ner it was hoped to obtain a measure of fair considera-
tion for the eleven contested seats through which the
Hunkers had planned to gain full control of the assembly.
But it proved impossible to settle these cases in commit-
tee, and in the full convention, though the Barnburners had
the aid of "Prince John," the devices of their opponents
overmatched them. How passions rose with the long de-
bate over the contested seats and what motive fed those
passions is indicated by an incident of which Wadsworth
was the hero. It is related by H. B. Stanton, the anti-
slavery journalist, with all the zest of a connoisseur in
conventions.
Some one spoke of doing justice to Silas Wright. A
Hunker sneeringly responded, "It is too late; he is dead."
Springing upon a table, Wadsworth made the hall ring
as he uttered the defiant reply: "Though it may be too
late to do justice to Silas Wright, it is not too late to do
justice to his assassins." 2
The break came, however, not on a point of personal
revenge, but on the great national question of slavery.
The efforts of the Radicals to pass a resolution indors-
ing the Wilmot Proviso were brought to naught by a
ruling of the presiding officer. "The arbitrary decision
of their chairman," to quote the Radical version of what
then happened, "sustained and encouraged by the bois-
terous support of the Conservatives and the lobby, gave
rise, at the close, to a scene of unexampled tumult, con-
fusion, and uproar." 3 As a result, the Barnburners se-
ceded in a body.
1 The Syracuse Convention. Its Spurious Organization and Oppression
and Anti-Republican Action, p. 10.
2 Random Recollections, p. 159. 3 The Syracuse Convention, p. 14.
18^8] THE BARNBURNERS 41
The events of the next twelvemonth — a year which
abounded in conventions and which gave indications
clearer than ever before of that breaking up of parties
which was to be caused by the slavery issue — carried the
two factions farther and farther apart. The result of
an appeal issued by a Barnburner mass convention in
October was the defeat of the Democratic State ticket;
it followed naturally that, when the national party con-
vention assembled in May at Baltimore to nominate can-
didates for the presidential campaign of 1848, two sets
of delegates appeared, each claiming to be the regular
representatives of the New York Democracy. Alexan-
der describes the crisis which this war of local factions
brought about in the deliberations of the party at large.
New York held the key to the election; without its
vote the party could not hope to win; and without har-
mony success was impossible. To exclude either faction,
therefore, was political suicide, and, in the end, the vote
was divided equally between them. To the politician,
anxious for party success and hungry for office, perhaps
no other compromise seemed possible. But the device
failed to satisfy either side, and Lewis Cass was nomi-
nated for President without the participation of the state
that must elect or defeat him. 1
Wadsworth, as a Barnburner delegate, signed the pro-
test which the Barnburners made to the convention when
they withdrew and also the appeal which they immedi-
ately addressed to the State Democracy, justifying their
action and calling for a convention to meet in Utica to
make new presidential nominations. In the enthusiasm
of this gathering, when Martin Van Buren was put at
the head of a rival Democratic ticket, Wadsworth had a
part, too, and so it was all through that inspiring cam-
paign. On the informal ballot for candidate for governor
at the Barnburners' State convention he received a few
1 Political History of New York, II, 130.
42 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
votes, but he at once withdrew in favor of John A. Dix.
The place then given him on the ticket as elector at
large was a recognition of the value of his labors and his
name.
The climax of this remarkable movement in New York
politics came in August at Buffalo, when it coalesced
with similar independent movements in other States, all
having as their guiding principle opposition to the ex-
tension of slavery, and when the party was formed which
took for its motto the words: "Free soil, free speech, free
labor, and free men." Here was a gathering of persons
who, besides receiving and imparting that enthusiasm
and elevation of spirit which are possible when a politi-
cal issue is blended with a moral issue, possessed leaders
with skill sufficient to fuse together such diverse elements
as Free-soilers, Conscience Whigs, Barnburners, and Lib-
erty men, and to bring them all to agreement on both
platform and candidates. The achievement of this com-
posite party in New York on election day was doubly
gratifying: not only was the Democratic vote divided,
with the result that Cass was defeated both in the State
and in the electoral college, but the number of Demo-
crats who voted for Van Buren constituted more than
half the party. 1
Though the Free Democracy, as this new organiza-
tion called itself, proved but a half-way house to the
party that was to be permanently founded on the prin-
ciple of opposition to the extension of slavery, there was
nothing half-way about the experience it afforded to those
who participated in its councils. In explicit terms it
taught them that under certain conditions the political
benefits of party regularity and success must be sacrificed
for the sake of principle. Years later, in the troubled
winter of 1860-1861, as well as in the State campaign of
1862, when much depended on Wadsworth's individual
^an Buren received 120,510 votes; Cass, 114,318; Taylor, 218,603.
—{Whig Almanac, 1849.)
1848] OSTRACISM OF ABOLITIONISTS 43
firmness, what he had learned in the Free-soil movement
stood him in good stead.
Through the activities of this campaign of 1848, too,
Wadsworth was brought into touch with the anti-slavery
men who for years had maintained an unflinching posi-
tion that had won them much contumely and few votes.
Though distinct from the abolitionists, who abstained
from political action, they received a share of the popu-
lar opprobrium attaching to the hated name which was
but little less than that borne by the extremists. "The
charge of 'abolitionism,'" writes Julian, whose affilia-
tions were entirely with the anti-slavery group, "was
flung at me everywhere, and it is impossible now to real-
ize the odium then attaching to that term by the general
opinion. I was an 'amalgainationist' and a 'woolly-
head.' I was branded as the 'apostle of disunion' and
'the orator of free-dirt.'" 1 Some remarks of Wads-
worth's made during the campaign of 1862 show that
he, too, had been made to suffer from that animosity
which is directed most fiercely of all against a man who
has dared to oppose the interests of his class. "I know,
for I have sometimes felt, the influence of the odium
which the spurious aristocracy who have so largely di-
rected the destinies of this nation for three-quarters of
a century have attached to the word 'abolition.' They
have treated it, and too often taught us to treat it, as
some low, vulgar crime not to be spoken of in good so-
ciety or mentioned in fashionable parlors." 2
In explaining Wadsworth's uncompromising position
on matters connected with the question of slavery, ac-
count must in a measure be taken of his remoteness from
the commercial influence prevailing in the Northern cities
and from his family connections in conservative Boston
and Philadelphia society. But he was the last man in
whom such interests, even if close at hand, could have
availed to deaden the motive that chiefly aroused his
1 Political Recollections, p. 65. l See p. 160.
44 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
opposition to slavery — an inborn hatred of injustice and
oppression. This hatred his ardent temper was con-
stantly impelling him to express in deed as well as in
word. Single-minded always, he never could be made to
feel the weight of reasons for holding back when by going
forward there was a chance that a wrong could be righted.
This quality has its obvious defects; but when fighting is
to be done — and Wadsworth was "ever a fighter" — it is
as precious as genius.
A man of this temper, it is hardly necessary to say,
has, when inspired by his cause, the gift of imparting his
inspiration to others. Even thus early in his political
career Wadsworth's friends had recognized this power of
leadership in him and had begun to give him their votes
in convention. They knew that if he continued in public
life — and he certainly showed none of his father's aver-
sion to it — his winning a position of eminence in the
party was only a matter of time.
During the next four years new quarrels occurred in
both sections of the New York Democracy and new ad-
justments resulted. The Hunkers divided into Hards and
Softs; among the Barnburners there was a separation be-
tween the personal adherents of Van Buren and the anti-
slavery men. The Softs and the Van Buren men united
and, sometimes with the aid of the anti-slavery men, op-
posed the Hards. In general, however, it was for the
anti-slavery men a period of preparation rather than of
fighting. But when the false peace of the Compromise of
1850 was shattered by the Kansas-Nebraska agitation of
1854, they knew that their time had come. The proposal
that the people of the Territories should be allowed to
settle for themselves the question of the existence of sla-
very within their borders constituted a violation of the
Missouri Compromise and made possible the spread of
slavery into regions from which it had been understood
to be forever excluded. With the whole North roused as
never before against this new act of aggression on the part
185C] THE DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICANS 45
of the South, it was but natural that Wadsworth and his
friends should first endeavor to make their own Democratic
party the vehicle of this protest. At the State conven-
tion of Softs on September 6, 1854, the enthusiasm of the
delegates seemed to be for a resolute stand, but when it
came to voting, the anti-Nebraska resolution of the anti-
slavery men was defeated, whereupon, under the lead of
Preston King, they left the hall. 1 At the convention of
1855, after a stormy three days' session, they succeeded
in bringing the Softs to condemn the Kansas outrages,
but their work was soon undone, for the exigencies of the
national Democratic convention of 1856 forced the Softs
to unite with the Hards on a pro-slavery basis. As a
result of this union the situation of the anti-slavery
group was that of a man who finds himself on the steps
with the house door slammed in his face.
This remnant, free now to act in accordance with its
singleness of aim, met in convention at Syracuse on July
24, 1856. Wadsworth presided. His remarks on taking
the chair, 2 strongly as they expressed regard for the
party which he and his associates were now compelled
to leave, expressed still more strongly allegiance to that
principle which was "one of the corner-stones of the
Democracy of New York, a stone of Jefferson granite —
opposition to the extension of slavery." On this ques-
tion in 1848 the people of the State had spoken. "I be-
lieve," continued Wadsworth, "that they are what they
were then — if I may be allowed the expression — only
more so. And I am impatient for the day to come
when they will record this verdict on the issues before
us." With hearty applause for the speaker, the conven-
tion proceeded to business.
The men whom Wadsworth addressed were wise as
well as devoted and saw that the logic of the situation
left but one course of action open to them. The Repub-
lican party in New York was entering upon its third
1 Political History of New York, II, 197. 2 See Appendix D.
4G WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
campaign; the year before it had received into its organ-
ization the great Whig leaders, and it was now preparing
to sweep the State for Fremont. The members of this
convention of Democratic-Republicans, as they called
themselves, having repudiated the Democratic platform
and the Democratic candidate, James Buchanan, pro-
ceeded to nominate Fremont, indorsing, in an address
and resolutions reported by David Dudley Field, the prin-
ciple of opposition to the extension of slavery for which
Fremont stood. They thus in effect announced them-
selves ready to receive an invitation from the Republi-
cans, and they concluded their business by appointing
a State committee, of which Wadsworth was chairman,
"to further the objects of the convention." *
As anti-slavery men it was, perhaps, not difficult for
the loyal members of this group to join hands with other
opponents of the hated institution; but it was hardly
to be expected that they should accept without ques-
tion the personal leadership of the former Whig chief-
tains, William H. Seward and Thurlow Weed, against
whom they had fought for years. A body so compact
and homogeneous was none too likely under the best
circumstances to disintegrate, scattering its components
through the larger organization; as it was, the habit of
opposition to Seward and Weed continued in force and
held them together, the nucleus in New York of what
were later known as Radicals, or Black Republicans.
The tendency of these former Democrats to rally by
themselves was manifested as soon as they were received
into the fold at the Republican State convention, which
assembled at Syracuse on September 17. The nomina-
tion of Wadsworth for governor was the recompense of
reward which they desired; but they commanded barely
a third of the delegates, and Weed, though he and Wads-
worth had always been personally on friendly terms, was
1 Proceedings of the Democratic-Republican State Convention at Syra-
cuse, July 24, 1856.
1856] COALITION WITH REPUBLICANS 47
otherwise minded. Wishing a man of Whig antecedents
to head the ticket, he had chosen John A. King, the son
of Rufus King. On the first ballot the vote stood: King,
91; Wadsworth, 72; Draper, 23; Clark, 22; Harris, 22.
The followers of the last three, who had belonged to the
Whig party, were easily persuaded to throw their votes
to King; but the Wadsworth men stood firm. The result
of the second ballot was: King, 158; Wadsworth, 73.
"It was not soon forgotten," writes Alexander, "that in
the memorable stampede for King, Wadsworth more than
held his own." 1
In another instance that presently occurred of the
unwillingness of the anti-slavery Democrats in the Re-
publican party to submit to Whig leadership, Weed's
handling of the difficulty furnishes an excellent example
of the skill which made him so formidable. "To allay
any bitterness of feeling which the nomination of John
A. King might occasion," says Alexander, "it was pro-
vided that, in the event of success, the senator to be
chosen by the legislature in January, 1857, should be
of Democratic antecedents." 2 The strength shown by
Wadsworth in the September convention naturally made
him a candidate for this office, and his supporters were
active. Of the men whose names were under considera-
tion, however, Preston King made the strongest appeal.
Not only was his anti-slavery record unimpeachable, but
his service in Congress had given him a national position
which the others lacked. Though Weed contended that
the understanding in September had been for Preston
King, he avoided the appearance of dictation by referring
the matter to a caucus of the Republican members of
the legislature who had formerly been Democrats. Their
choice of King was decisive. 3
1 Political History of New York, II, 236. Wadsworth refused to be a
candidate for nomination as lieutenant-governor, but accepted a place on
the ticket as elector at large.
1 Ibid., II, 243. ' Ibid., H, 244, 245.
48 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
The friction thus begun in the Republican party in
New York between the leaders of Whig and the leaders
of Democratic antecedents was a difficulty destined to
increase and, as in the case of other factional difficulties
in the Empire State, to invade the national convention
of the party with far-reaching results. The labor of
Weed for years had led up to the nomination of Seward
as the Republican candidate for President in 1860. As
the delegates to the convention began to assemble at
Chicago, the opposition to Seward among the old Barn-
burners gained importance by the accession of Horace
Greeley. The objection which had most weight with
them and which now they urged most plausibly on the
men from other States was Seward's weakness in New
York by reason of his record in matters of State poli-
tics. "At Chicago," writes H. B. Stanton, "Seward
encountered the opposition from his own State of such
powerful leaders as Greeley, Dudley Field, Bryant, and
Wadsworth. The first two were on the ground and very
busy. The two latter sent pungent letters that were
circulated among the delegates from various States.
The main point of the attack was that Seward could not
carry New York." 1
If the estimates of Seward's weakness in his own
State were perhaps exaggerated, his connection with
Weed and the fear that if one were in the White House
the influence of the other would be as dominant in Wash-
ington as it had hitherto been in Albany played their
part in undermining his strength with the delegates from
other States. The gubernatorial candidates in Pennsyl-
vania and Indiana declared that with Seward a candi-
date they could not carry their own State elections in
October. Thus it befell that the man who was the rec-
ognized leader of his party was passed by and Abraham
Lincoln chosen. In the assessment of conventions long
years of able service signify often merely the disadvan-
1 Random Recollections, p. 214.
1860] STATE CONVENTION 49
tages of a "record," and the award is given to the man
who, by reason of few achievements, has few foes.
As the time for the State convention approached,
Wadsworth declined to allow the use of his name in
connection with the nomination for governor. His rea-
sons he gave to E. N. Packard, of Nunda, in a letter
dated July 31 :
I cordially thank you for the friendly feelings which
you express as to my nomination by the Republicans at
the approaching election. I should not on this impor-
tant occasion refuse to serve our party in any capacity
in which I might be deemed useful, but I consider the
renomination of Gov. Morgan as due to him for the
faithful performance of his duties, and at the same
time as the best course to pursue, and maintain the
integrity of the party. I think the best elements in
the party are now united in his favor. If we abandon
him, the powerful interests, controlled by and connected
with the corrupt legislation of last winter, 1 may force upon
us a candidate of their choice. This would be, and
ought to be, fatal to the party in this State. For these
reasons I have refused to have my name presented to
the convention as a candidate, and should, if a delegate
myself, earnestly urge the renomination of Gov. Morgan.
When the convention assembled, Morgan was renom-
inated by acclamation. Wadsworth's name for the third
time found a place on a party ticket as presidential
elector.
With the election of Lincoln the question as to who
should represent New York in his cabinet became one of
moment to the group of men whom the Nao York Herald
called " the Van Buren Democratic Buffalo Free-soil wing
of the Republican party," 2 for it was understood that
Seward would not accept a place at the hands of his suc-
1 The grants of charters for street railroads in New York City. Governor
Morgan vetoed them all but one, but the legislature passed them over his
veto. See Brummer's Political History of New York State during the
Period of the Civil War, pp. 23, 41.
2 Quoted by Alexander, II, 395.
50 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
cessful rival. Late in November a number of them met
in New York and formed a committee to recommend to
the President-elect the most eligible of the New York
Radicals. 1 Extracts from letters written in this connec-
tion by H. B. Stanton to Senator Salmon P. Chase, of
Ohio, whose claims, as another Radical, were also urged
by them for some other place in the cabinet, furnish inter-
esting testimony as to the position which Wadsworth's
political activity had given him.
The names most frequently mentioned by the sound
Republicans of our State, for a seat in the Cabinet, are
Mr. Greeley, David Dudley Field, Jas. S. Wadsworth,
and Wm. Curtis Noyes. . . . Messrs. Field, Noyes, and
Wadsworth are all able men. . . . The old Barnburners,
who were in the fight of 1848, and are now sound and
honest Republicans, would doubtless prefer either Mr.
Field or Mr. Wadsworth. ... In fine, if we are to have
a man of democratic antecedents the first choice I think
would be Mr. Field. If he cannot be had, then Mr.
Wadsworth. 2
Of Mr. Wadsworth I have room to say but little. He
is one of the most reliable men in the State. He was
with us heart and soul in the Buffalo fight of '48. . . .
His integrity and courage are unquestionable, and he is
one of the most popular men in New York. 3
Though the news that Seward had after all consented
to serve in the cabinet was soon made public, the men
with whom Wadsworth stood had still plenty to fight for
and unabated zest for the fray. The scramble for office in
the first weeks after Lincoln's inauguration involved them
in a struggle with the conservatives of the party in New
York, the issue being the ascendancy of one group or the
other in State affairs. Charles A. Dana has described
a scene at the White House when Wadsworth acted as
1 Brummer's Political History of New York State during the Civil War,
p. 129.
2 Correspondence of S. P. Chase. — (Annual Report of the American His-
torical Association, 1902, II, 485.) 3 Ibid., H, 488.
1861] FACTIONS IN NEW YORK 51
spokesman for a group of New Yorkers, to whose pro-
tests Lincoln replied: "One side shall not gobble up
everything. Make out a list of places and men you
want, and I will endeavor to apply the rule of give and
take." 1
Though the contest was spirited, its importance has been
dwarfed by the giant events that overshadowed it. Of the
status of the two factions, however, when the places were
filled, record must be made, for their relative strength
has a bearing on the State campaign two years later. The
Seward-Weed wing obtained nearly all it sought for ex-
cept the most important office of all — the collectorship of
the port of New York. It also achieved a triumph in de-
feating Horace Greeley, who sought to succeed Seward as
United States senator. On the other hand, Weed's pres-
tige was seriously damaged because, in order to defeat
Greeley, he was obliged to throw over his own candidate,
William M. Evarts; furthermore, the loss of the custom-
house patronage was a severe blow. Hiram Barney, the
new Collector, was a Radical and the friend of Chase,
who had become Secretary of the Treasury. The means
of communication and influence thus established between
New York and Washington was of the utmost value to
the Black Republicans, as they were derisively called; it
brought them into close touch with the administration
and made it impossible for Seward to have his way un-
opposed in matters affecting State politics.
One last event before Wadsworth was summoned by
the call to action in another field requires chronicle here.
Early in February, 1861, he was chosen one of the eleven
commissioners elected by the legislature to represent New
York at the Peace Conference. Assembling in Wash-
ington at the call of Virginia, delegates from twenty-
one States debated for nineteen days in a vain endeavor
to frame such a constitutional amendment as would sat-
isfy both North and South and thus save the Union,
1 Recollections of the Civil War, p. 3.
52 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
which seemed in the very act of dissolution. Wadsworth
took no part in the speech-making that prolonged the
sessions of the conference; but David Dudley Field, the
chairman of the New York delegation, William Curtis
Noyes, and James C. Smith put before the convention
in language plain and firm the resolve of the radical
Republicans that the fruits of their well-won victory
at the polls should not be compromised away. This
firmness, though it showed no bravado, was of the kind
that stands ready, if necessary, to make good every
word with a blow. Field, in fact, proposing as a part
of the constitutional amendment a declaration that no
State can secede, said: "The people of my section wish
to know whether we can compel the obedience of a State
if every man in it undertakes to refuse obedience. They
believe that power to exist in the Constitution now. If
there is any doubt about it, they wish that power dis-
tinctly asserted." *
The promptness with which this resolution was voted
down was only one of many happenings of the confer-
ence that proved how wholly disinclined were the South-
erners to yield one inch of the ground which a political
domination covering many decades had taught them to
regard as their own. The compromising done, there-
fore, was on the part of those Northern delegates who
were willing to make almost any sacrifice of party prin-
ciple for the sake of the Constitution and the Union. 2 In
1 Chittenden's Report of the Proceedings of the Peace Convention, p. 396.
2 The speech of William E. Dodge, who represented the merchants of
New York, reads like a parody of the arguments constantly used by those
who shrink from introducing a moral issue into politics on the ground that it
will " hurt business" :
"I am unused to public discussion or arguments, but I am a business
man, and I take a business view of this subject. I can see as clearly as I
can see the sun at noonday the causes of our present embarrassment. I
believe I can see equally clear how those causes may be removed. . . .
"The delegates from New England in this conference seem to be the
most obstinate and uncompromising. They aver that they cannot agree
to these propositions because their adoption involves a sacrifice of principles,
that New England is opposed to slavery and will not consent to put it into
1801] THE PEACE CONFERENCE 53
the proposed constitutional amendment as prepared in
committee and as voted upon by the conference, the
wishes of the South were triumphant everywhere save in
the provision prohibiting the African slave-trade. 1
Though the victory, such as it was, lay with the
"Union-savers" — a Union which seven States had al-
ready repudiated — the no-compromise men brought away
from this much-ridiculed Peace Conference a conviction
that soon proved of vastly more value than any point
which they might have gained by a majority vote. The
frank talk which these men from North and South had
exchanged in the sessions of the conference and in
hotel lobbies had, for the anti-slavery men, put beyond
question the fact that the Southerners meant to fight.
The corollary of this conviction — that the North must
prepare itself to encounter them on the field of battle
— gave to the handful of radical Republicans from New
York and Massachusetts, amongst all those who loved
the Constitution, nor to its extension. They say the people hate slavery
and will not for that reason accept these proposals.
" I do not believe one word of this. I know the people of New England
well: they are true Yankees; they know how to get the dollars and how to
hold on to them when they have got them. They are a shrewd and cal-
culating as well as an enterprising people; they understand their interests
and will protect them. They will not sit quietly by and see their property
sacrificed or reduced in value. Once show them that it is necessary to adopt
these propositions of amendment in order to secure the permanence of the
government and to keep up the property and other material interests of
the country, and they will adopt them readily. You will hear no more
said about slavery or platforms. They will never permit this government,
which has contributed so much to their wealth and prosperity, to be sacri-
ficed to a technicality, a chimera." — (Chittenden, Peace Convention, pp.
194, 195.)
1 In the final voting, which was done by States, the vote of New York
was divided on six of the seven articles of the proposed amendment. The
loss of the vote of the State was due to the unexpected absence of Field,
the chairman, who was called to attend an important case before the Su-
preme Court. His behavior in leaving for this reason occasioned much bit-
terness of feeling among the men who with him would have made a major-
ity of the State delegation and thus thrown the vote of the State against
compromise. See the majority report of the New York commissioners,
signed by Field, Noyes, John A. King, Wadsworth, A. B. James, and J.
C. Smith, with the statements appended to it. — (Chittenden, Peace Con-
vention, pp. 585-004.)
54 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
the Union, the key to the future. For the next few weeks
there were almost none to heed their message; but when
at last war broke out it was they, with their vision long
since clarified and their unyielding temper, who were
ready, and it was the militia of their States that were the
first armed troops to reach the capital of the nation.
On April 11, 1861, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a let-
ter to his friend Charles Sumner, senator from Massa-
chusetts, enclosing a check for two hundred odd dollars;
the sum, he explained, was the remnant of an unsettled
account between himself and the United States that went
back to the days of his consulship at Liverpool, and he
begged Sumner to turn the check over to the United
States Treasury. "It is full time," he wrote, "to rectify
the mistake, for the probabilities seem to be that the gov-
ernment to which, if anywhere, I am responsible, will soon
crumble away, leaving me to burn my fingers forever with
money not my own." * The feeling of distrust and despair
which prompted Hawthorne's act — the sense that the end
of things was at hand — formed a trouble that hung low
over many another mind in the North during these early
days of April. With the first shot against Sumter, fired
within twenty-four hours of the writing of this letter,
dawned the era of war, and with it the day of Wads-
worth's destiny. He was then more than fifty-three
years old.
1 Pierce-Sumner collection, Harvard College Library.
CHAPTER III
THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR: BULL RUN
When, following close upon the news of the surrender of
Sumter, came Lincoln's call for troops to put down resist-
ance to the authority of the United States Government
in the Southern States, all the hesitation and uncertainty
of these days of waiting were dispelled. As one man, the
people of the North declared that the Federal Union must
be fought for and preserved. Bearing their part in the
"glorious uprising" of the people, men of influence and
affairs in New York City came together by spontaneous
action to do quickly and thoroughly the work that must
be done to save the government at Washington. As the
week wore on, thrilling events, coming in rapid succes-
sion, lifted the people to higher and higher levels of patri-
otic devotion. On Friday, April 19, the march of the
splendid Seventh Regiment down Broadway through a
"tempest of cheers two miles long" ' stirred the city as it
had never been stirred before; later in the day came the
news that the Sixth Massachusetts had been fired upon
in the streets of Baltimore; on Saturday, at a mass-
meeting in Union Square, the war feeling, now at its height,
was unified for action by the organization of the Union
Defense Committee of the City of New York. Wads-
worth had been among the first to spring forward with
offers of help, and the value of his services was now
recognized by his being made a member of its executive
committee of thirteen.
While the "solid men of Wall Street," thus backed
by public sentiment, were perfecting their organization
1 Theodore Winthrop, in the Atlantic Monthly, June, 1861, p. 745.
55
56 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
and raising money, Wadsworth found a special piece of
work that needed immediate attention. The land route
to Washington had been blocked by the destruction of
the railroad bridges and track north of Baltimore; a
sea route by way of Annapolis must be improvised and
boats must be chartered to convey troops, provisions,
and men for repairing the railroad. On this very Sat-
urday morning a telegram from the colonel of the New
York Seventh at Philadelphia announced his intention
of obtaining a steamer and going to Annapolis by water
and asked that a vessel loaded with provisions be sent
thither immediately. 1 The task of procuring a vessel for
this purpose Wadsworth at once took in hand. It was
perhaps unusual for an up-State squire, versed in herds
and crops, to undertake a maritime negotiation of this
sort; but the act is highly characteristic of the spirit
that prevailed in those fervid days. He went searching
about among docks, examining boats and interviewing
owners, and on Sunday evening brought back from Eliz-
abethport the Kill von Kull, a double-end, side-wheel
ferry-boat of large capacity.
For the next three days Wadsworth and the other mem-
bers of his sub-committee were busy stocking the ferry-
boat with materials needed at Annapolis. On Wednes-
day he was able to report to the executive committee
that the following morning at seven the Kill von Kull
would leave for Annapolis, carrying provisions, clothing,
horses, and one hundred laborers with tools to lay rails
and to keep open the railroad from Annapolis to Wash-
ington. At the same time he gave them his draft for
seventeen thousand dollars to cover the cost of char-
tering the boat. 2 Later in the day, when rumors of
1 History of the New York 7th Regt., I, 478.
2 Minutes of the Executive Committee of the Union Defense Committee,
deposited at the N. Y. Historical Society. For the expenses which Wads-
worth incurred, amounting to $15,588, he was later reimbursed by the com-
mittee. See also War of the Rebellion, Official Records, Navies, series I,
vol. IV, 432, and Union Defense Committee, pp. 17, 18.
1861] JOURNEY TO ANNAPOLIS 57
Confederate privateers in Chesapeake Bay reached New-
York, it was necessary to appeal to the commandant of
the Brooklyn navy-yard, who provided the Monticello,
which he had been arming, as a convoy. On Thursday,
April 25, the vessels got under way, arriving at Annapolis
two days later.
Wadsworth himself, meanwhile, deeming that an
ocean voyage on a ferry-boat was no part of his duty
of patriotism, had taken the train for Philadelphia.
There, from conversation with railroad officials, he got
some light as to the causes of the demoralization which
had for the last five days kept Washington isolated from
the rest of the country. At the end of the day he wrote
back to New York as follows: 1
Phila., April 25, 11 p. m.
Dear Sir: —
Upon reflection, I decided that I could better exe-
cute my commission by going to Annapolis by Havre
de Grace in advance of my ship. 2 I have just had an
interview with General Patterson. He did not know
where any of our ships or troops were, what was the
condition of the Annapolis and Washington R.R., or
what was being done about it. I have since seen Mr.
Felton, the superintendent of the Baltimore Road. He
informs me that the Massachusetts Sappers and Miners
are at work on the road, have about eight miles finished,
and twelve to complete, on which there are no very
heavy repairs. On my telegraphic advice this morning,
he sent me a gang of regular track hands. He thinks
my tools and materials furnished by Mr. Sloan will be
much needed. He thinks there are about eight thou-
sand troops in Annapolis, plenty of raw provisions, but
much confusion and some suffering. General Patter-
son is to send on a quarter-master from the regular
1 This letter is printed, with some trifling errors, in the Union Defense
Committee, p. 150. Lincoln's order that the Pennsylvania troops which
had advanced to Cockeysville should return was the result of his purpose
to give no opportunity for the disloyal sentiment in Maryland to make
headway.
2 See general map at the end of the volume.
58 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
army with me in the morning. I saw the orders to with-
draw the troops from Cockeysville, "to prevent unnec-
essary excitement and irritation in Baltimore," drawn
by Cameron at the request of the President. I blushed
for my country and our President as I read them.
All the efficiency, energy, and capacity here is found
outside the military organizations. Thompson, President
Pennsylvania Central, and Felton, have accomplished al-
most all that has been done. They and other private
citizens here and elsewhere have saved the Capital.
As the Capital is now safe and the Government seems
to be without a plan for the future, I think the heavy
expenses of our Committee in chartering steamers should
be reduced. It is inexpedient to send forward large re-
inforcements until the organization of the army is com-
pleted, or at least made better than it is at present.
Has any one authority to send home such steamers as
are not needed at Annapolis?
I will write you as often as I find time, and you can
read to the Committee whatever you think worthy of
their attention.
Truly yours,
JAMES S. WADSWORTH.
Simeon Draper.
The impatience with official slowness and incompe-
tence which this letter betrays reveals how little Wads-
worth or any other man caught up by the war enthusi-
asm that was sweeping the North could at the moment
understand and make allowance for the difficulties under
which Lincoln and his advisers were laboring. Not only
were they new at their work, but they could not tell
whom to trust. Resignations from the departments and
from the army and navy were of daily occurrence.
Virginia was almost certain to join the Confederacy;
Maryland was doubtful. Moreover, cut off from the
North, they could not imagine to what pitch of devo-
tion to the Union the spirit of the people had risen. Their
hands were tied; the dignity of the government must
suffer itself to be succored by the efforts of private indi-
1861] AT ANNAPOLIS 59
viduals and of States as prompt and loyal as Massa-
chusetts and New York.
The confusion which Wadsworth found when he
reached Annapolis on April 26 and the irritation which
that confusion bred were described by the correspondent
of the New York Times: 1
The Annapolis and Elk Ridge Railroad, eighteen miles
in length, having one locomotive, two baggage and two
passenger cars, constructed in primeval times, is the sole
direct link of the United States Government with nine-
teen millions of people, with its army and navy, with
its diplomatic corps in Asia, Africa, Europe, and North
America. There ought to be some new rolling-stock at
once put upon this little branch, and then two mails a
day should be sent from .Washington via Annapolis and
Havre de Grace, and a telegraphic communication kept
up through the same points. The fact is, there is a uni-
versal disorder and want of organizatoin through the
whole route; a perfect waste of provisions at one point
and a dearth at another — no regularity or system any-
where. The soldiers are fired with a noble enthusiasm,
but even the most ideal patriotism cannot stand long
against bad salt beef, stale bread, and universal careless-
ness and want of order.
What a pity if this grand movement of patriotism
should all come to an end through bad commissariat
and stupid routine! Thank Heaven! I said, when I
saw the Kill von Kull appearing in the Annapolis Har-
bor, laden with the bounty of our generous merchants —
these are business men's arrangements for the emergency.
Mr. Wadsworth was all ready to meet her, and a
grand supply she had — tea, coffee, cheese, biscuit, hard
bread, hams, etc., etc., with some light wagons which
will be very acceptable for sick and wounded.
By Saturday, April 27, when the Kill von Kull reached
Annapolis, things were beginning to get into shape under
the vigorous management of General Benjamin F. Butler.
The railroad had been taken possession of by the govern-
1 May 3, 1861.
CO WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
ment and the repairs so well begun by the Massachu-
setts troops could be speedily finished by Wadsworth's
gangs of workmen. As rapidly as possible the provisions
were unloaded from the Kill von Kull, conveyed to the
railroad station, and put into cars. On Sunday afternoon
the train started for Washington, stopping every two miles
or so, wherever a detachment of troops was posted, to
distribute food. "The abundant supply," wrote Thur-
low Weed, who made the journey with Wadsworth, "was
received by men who had been twelve, eighteen, and
twenty-four hours without rations with avidity not un-
like that witnessed in menageries when the animals are
being fed." : As soon as he had completed his distribu-
tion, Wadsworth started homeward, reaching New York
on May l. 2
During Wadsworth's absence, the executive body of
the Union Defense Committee, at the sessions which it
held often twice a day, had been pushing on its arrange-
ments for forwarding troops to Washington. In the
first two weeks, when it was a question of sending off
militia organizations for the defence of the capital, their
singleness of zeal and their complete adequacy to the
situation were indispensable. But later, when the Fed-
eral and the State governments each in its own way
undertook to raise troops for a longer term of service,
these two sources of authority and the volunteer com-
mittee, working at cross-purposes, became tangled be-
yond any method of extrication save that of the shears.
1 Life of Thurlow Weed, II, 341.
2 The manner in which fact mellows into anecdote is illustrated by the
form which this effort of Wadsworth's takes in General E. D. Townsend's
Anecdotes of the Civil War, p. 12:
"At about this time General Scott received a telegram from General
James S. Wadsworth in New York, asking him if a vessel-load of cheese
would be acceptable. I well remember the expression of satisfaction with
which the general dictated a reply to be sent that it would be; for it was
really a question of some concern whether the army commissary and the
private grocery and provision stores would have subsistence enough for citi-
zens and troops until the way could be opened from the North. The cheese
arrived safely and was issued to the troops."
1861] THE CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS Gl
On April 16 the State legislature had authorized the
raising of thirty-eight regiments to serve for two years,
and Cameron, the Secretary of War, on May 3 accepted
them all. On May 4 Lincoln called for forty regiments
of volunteers to serve for three years; but the quotas
required of the respective States were not announced
till twelve days later. When this call — another indica-
tion of the state of incomprehensiveness in which the
administration still dwelt — proved ridiculously dispro-
portionate to the war enthusiasm of the North, the
government had not the courage or the power to curb
the offerings of the loyal States. True, the Secretary
of War, by ways of exasperating deviousness, sought to
cut down the number of regiments which the governors
of States were to supply; but the President, with reck-
less disregard of official responsibility and of orderly
administrative procedure, gave permission for raising
regiments and brigades to any pertinacious applicant
for military distinction. The result was a high degree
of irritation among the State executives, for the officers
so commissioned, appearing in their respective States,
began to recruit men for their organizations in direct
competition with the efforts of the State authorities.
Thus at the very outset the inexperience of Lincoln and
the indirectness of Cameron operated to prejudice against
the new administration a number of the best of the North-
ern governors — precisely the men whose support was most
needed in this people's war.
To help in establishing a working arrangement in this
matter Wadsworth made a trip to Washington. The
letter which he wrote to Governor Morgan on May 23
reveals his discouragement:
I do not know that I can give you any further infor-
mation as to the entanglements at Washington. The
truth is, the Government is weak, miserably weak at
the head. The President gets into at least one serious
scrape per diem by hasty, inconsiderate action. While
62 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
I was there he accepted X 's regiment and regretted
it an hour after. He (X ) is a disgraced man, as was
well known to General Scott, at the Navy Department,
and to Mr. Cameron ; but they were not consulted. The
President is undoubtedly committed to some extent to
Y , but regrets it too late, as he thinks. If I was
Governor and X brought the order to me he will
bring to you, I should advise the President that I had
no objections to Colonel X 's leaving the state and
remaining out of it indefinitely, but that I objected to
his taking citizens of this state out of it under his con-
trol. I should likewise reply to the enclosed circular 1
that I should pay great respect to its valuable sugges-
tions and that I had entire confidence that the Presi-
dent in making appointments from this state would be
governed by the same excellent rules. I think after
what he now knows of Y and X , and might
have learned at once, he would see the point. You will
of course regard these suggestions as only half serious.
The readiness with which Wadsworth had addressed
himself to these matters of military management, dis-
playing good judgment in all his dealings and giving
orders with the air of one who expected obedience as a
matter of course — these evidences, taken with his position
as a representative of the western part of the State, made
it seem proper that one of the high commands of the
New York troops should be given to him. Under Cam-
eron's first requisition the State was entitled to two major-
generals. The first of these positions fell properly to
John A. Dix, who was eminent as a citizen and who had
from 1821 to 1828 served in the regular army; the second
Morgan offered to Wadsworth.
Although Wadsworth, in common with thousands of
others, was eager, at the country's call for men, to offer
his services and, if need be, his life, he would himself
have preferred that his career as a volunteer officer begin
1 The circular referred to was that issued by Cameron on May 22 urging
governors of States to give commissions to no one of doubtful morals or pa-
triotism. 122 W. R. (War of the Rebellion, Official Records), p. 227.
1861] A MAJOR-GENERAL'S COMMISSION 63
with some lower rank than the highest. But he was
obliged to consider the situation as it existed in New
York at the moment, with the danger that the governor
might be forced to name some one of even less suitable
qualifications than himself. "My own confidence in the
propriety of the appointment," he wrote to James C.
Smith, "has not got beyond the point that 'I am better
than a worse man.' " He did not, therefore, reject the
proposal, and in the letter which he sent to Morgan on
May 5 he stated his attitude with entire frankness:
As it is possible that I left my position in regard to
the appointment at your disposal of Major-General some-
what ambiguous, I beg leave to restate it in writing.
As against a graduate of West Point or an officer of
the regular army of fair reputation, for example, and
capacity, I can on no account allow my name to be
presented as a candidate. As against men who have
no advantage over me but a more recent connexion with
the Militia, and a fresher knowledge of military techni-
calities, I do not think it would be presumptuous in me
to offer my name.
Thanking you for the friendly terms in which you
spoke of this subject in our recent interview, I beg leave
to assure you that whatever decision you may come to
will be cordially acquiesced in by me.
The question of Wadsworth's fitness, however, was
soon obscured by a new issue, and the course of events
from it was highly characteristic of the early days of the
war. Cameron, at about the time that he had notice
from Governor Morgan of the organization of the first
seventeen regiments of New York volunteers into two
divisions, of which the first was to be commanded by
Dix and the second by Wadsworth, reversed his first
decision and insisted that general officers must receive
their commissions not from the State but from the Fed-
eral government. His act, which was not only justifi-
able but highly necessary, increased for the moment the
04 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
difficulties of the three-cornered misunderstanding be-
tween the authorities at Albany, the Union Defense
Committee, and the War Department. Morgan, insist-
ing on his constitutional power to make the appoint-
ments, used arguments that had a strongly Southern
sound; Cameron averred that unless the governor
yielded this point he would accept no troops at all from
New York. 1 But in this, as in the other matters in
dispute, it soon became plain that the administration,
growing stronger every week, must in the end have its
way, and Wadsworth, recognizing this fact, did what he
could to relieve Morgan of embarrassment by sending
in his resignation. When finally the controversy was
adjusted by Cameron's accepting Dix, the first of Mor-
gan's appointees, and giving him a commission as major-
general of United States Volunteers, Wadsworth was
probably neither surprised nor disappointed. 2
During the weeks of uncertainty preceding this deci-
sion, the fighting tradition of the family, which had in
his youth identified him with the militia and which sub-
sequently would have led him into the Mexican War but
for his wife's stronger claim, 3 had blossomed into full
vigor. The ways of comfort and serenity in which the
years of his manhood had been passed had not too deeply
overlaid the pioneer spirit acquired in youth from his
father and uncle. The strength of will, the resourceful-
ness in action which those early years had trained him
in had been awaiting for the best part of a lifetime such
a summons as this. During many decades the material
growth of the country had set a premium upon the quali-
ties developed by trade and its cognate affairs in the
1 122 W. R., p. 250.
2 The appointments to the same rank of Butler and Banks in Massachu-
setts, made as the result of somewhat similar conditions, proved far less
desirable than that of Dix.
3 It is related that he had with difficulty been restrained from giving
the name of Monterey to his youngest son, who was born a few days after
the capture of that city by the United States troops.
1861] THE CALL OF PATRIOTISM 05
city; here was a call for the capacities bred in men by
knowledge of the land and out-of-doors leadership. Pos-
sessing these, Wadsworth knew that he possessed also,
as he wrote to Smith, "a certain amount of energy and
administrative capacity." All these faculties now cried
aloud for use.
But infinitely more compelling was the simple call
of duty and patriotism. In this crisis of his country's
need, when he saw the Union assailed by the power of
slavery, the foe that he had so long been fighting — in
this crisis the earnest and straightforward nature of the
man could see no course open to him but to offer and
to risk his- life in bearing arms for her preservation. 1
Well beyond the age limit set for volunteers, he could
not think of himself as a person accepting exemption
for that or for any other reason. And if men of small
means could afford to leave their families, was not the
shame greater to him if with his affluence he failed to
do likewise? So dominant and intense was his mood
that he did not hesitate at the appeals of his sons in
turn that they should be permitted to join the army,
and General Keyes reports his saying at this time: "If
my father were alive now, and would not devote his
mind, body, and estate to this cause, I could not respect
him." 2
With this driving purpose to fight for his country,
what Wadsworth did was highly characteristic. Briga-
dier-General Irvin McDowell had just been put in com-
mand of the troops south of the Potomac, with head-
quarters at Arlington, the pillared mansion belonging to
Robert E. Lee which stands out so boldly to the view
from Washington. 3 Thence McDowell, an admirably
1 "Amid the guarded words of most Northern leaders at the outburst of
the war, it was refreshing to hear one loyal man who did not hesitate to
avow that he hated the rebellion and slavery, and meant to fight them wher-
ever he could." — (Editorial on Wadsworth in the New York Times, May 21,
1864.)
• Fifty Years' Observation of Men and Events, E. D. Keyes, p. 437.
3 The Lee estate is now a national military cemetery. Most of those
interred there lost their lives in the Civil War.
66 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
trained and thoroughly capable soldier, was expected soon
to lead his men to battle, for already the cry of "On to
Richmond" was beginning to be heard. Of him Wads-
worth asked an appointment on his staff as aide. At the
request of a man ten years older than himself to serve
him in a position of this character McDowell was natu-
rally embarrassed. For aides he desired young men who,
besides being quick and active, could be ordered about
without any deferential picking and choosing of phrases,
and who could, if necessary, be worked for twenty-four
hours a day. Manifestly a gentleman of fifty-three, whose
white hairs made him appear even older and who was re-
garded everywhere in New York as one of the foremost
citizens of the State, might not be treated in this manner.
On the other hand, the intelligence, discretion, and per-
sonal force that a good aide must have were certainly
Wadsworth's; and these qualities, together with his de-
termination to begin the business of soldiering in such
modest fashion, at last prevailed against McDowell's re-
luctance. Before a week had gone it was apparent that
no one on the staff was more active and efficient.
The duties to which Wadsworth now addressed him-
self brought him to the very centre of things military
and showed him still more clearly the respects in which
the administration had not yet grasped the magnitude
of the task before it. In one way its failure was not
strange, for, generally speaking, executive ability had
hitherto not been regarded as the strongest of a man's
qualifications for public service, and at this particular
moment the men responsible for the preservation of the
government had all won their experience in the school
of small things. Although, as the next few years proved,
there was amongst them capacity in abundance only
awaiting opportunity, the men actually trained in the
control of large affairs were at this time to be found
exclusively in the business world, and there chiefly in the
circle of railroad management. This disadvantage, es-
pecially strong at the beginning of the contest, told of
BRIGADIER-GENERAL IRVIN McDOWELL.
From a photograph taken in July, 1861.
1861] McDOWELL'S DIFFICULTIES 67
course equally against North and South, but a disquali-
fication peculiar to the North was its aversion to the
whole matter of war. It is an historical commonplace
that martial affairs had no part in the absorbing indus-
trial life of the Northern States. When, as a matter of
national preservation, the need for them came, the people,
with true Yankee persistence and conscientiousness, put
the bitter business through; then they went back gladly
to their pretermitted ways of peace.
Such fundamental facts, when realized, make possible
a more vivid comprehension of the trying life at Mc-
Dowell's head-quarters in the weeks before Bull Run.
McDowell himself, in his testimony before the congres-
sional committee on the conduct of the war, five months
after the defeat for which he had been made a scape-
goat, indicated, though without resentment or tinge of
personal chagrin — for he was both a true soldier and a
man of the world — the preposterousness of a situation
in which, from the inability of the administration to
withstand the public clamor for an advance, he was
obliged to "organize and discipline and march and fight
all at the same time." l "I had no opportunity to test
my machinery; to move it around and see whether it
would work smoothly or not. In fact, such was the
feeling that when I had one body of eight regiments of
troops reviewed together, the general [Scott] censured
me for it, as if I was trying to make some show. I did
not think so. There was not a man there who had ever
manoeuvred troops in large bodies. There was not one
in the army; I did not believe there was one in the whole
country; at least I knew there was no one there who had
ever handled thirty thousand troops. 2 I had seen them
handled abroad in reviews and marches, but I had never
1 Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, 1863, pt.
2, p. 37. (To be referred to hereafter as C. W.)
2 The United States regular army in 1860 numbered only 16,000 men. —
(Report of the Secretary of War, 36th Cong., 2d Sess., Senate Ex. Doc. 1,
H, 189.)
68 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
handled that number, and no one ever had. I wanted
very much a little time; all of us wanted it. We did
not have a bit of it. The answer was: 'You are green,
it is true; but they are green also; you are all green
alike.' " x
Russell, the correspondent of the London Times (for
whom a sensitive Northern public had in store the sob-
riquet of "Bull Run," because, forsooth, his picture of
the flight from the battle held them up to the laugh-
ter of Europe), visiting McDowell at Arlington early
in July, found the head-quarters staff of the army shel-
tered in four small tents and recorded the commanding
general's apologetic explanation that "there was great
jealousy on the part of the civilians respecting the least
appearance of display, and that as he was only a briga-
dier, though he was in command of such a large army,
he was obliged to be content with a brigadier's staff." 2
Again, on July 16, the day on which the Union army
began its advance toward Manassas, and five days before
the battle of Bull Run, Russell met McDowell at the rail-
road station looking for two batteries which had been
ordered to Washington but which had "gone astray"
somewhere on the road. "I was surprised to find the
General engaged on such duty, and took leave to say so.
'Well, it is quite true, Mr. Russell; but I am obliged to
look after them myself, as I have so small a staff, and they
are all engaged out with my head-quarters.'" 3 It is not
strange that the commander of an army thus casual in its
organization, as he drove the correspondent back to his
lodgings, "although he spoke confidently, ... did not
seem in good spirits."
The desperateness of the venture upon which an ig-
norant and tyrannous public was now sending the Union
1 C. W., pt. 2, p. 38.
2 My Diary North and South, W. H. Russell, II, 145.
3 Russell's Diary, II, 187. The date under which this entry is made
is incorrectly printed as July 19.
1861] BLACKBURN'S FORD 69
army had been from the first apparent to the members
of McDowell's staff, and, as soon as the army moved,
was plain to all who could reason from the evidence
brought them by their eyes and ears. The enlisted men
strayed from the line of march at the sight of a tempt-
ing blackberry patch and at every opportunity emptied
their canteens in order to get a fresh supply of cool water. 1
The officers in their sphere of duty were equally hard to
control, and the unfortunate affair at Blackburn's Ford,
into which Brigadier-General Tyler, leading the advance,
allowed himself to be drawn, showed that even com-
manders of divisions might prove to be of little reliance
in the hour of battle. (See map, page 80.)
Tyler, a typical instance of the men who at the be-
ginning of the war were given high places, was a soldier
over sixty years of age who, though a West Point grad-
uate, had left the army more than a quarter of a cen-
tury before. On the morning of July 18 Wads worth
took to him McDowell's order to proceed to Centreville
and to keep up the impression that the Federals were
moving on Manassas, where the Confederate army under
Beauregard was stationed, but not to bring on a gen-
eral engagement. Carrying out McDowell's instructions,
Wadsworth did his best to make Tyler feel the force of
the warning against too great zeal, for on that day it was
important to gather further information as to the posi-
tion of the enemy on the Union left. 2 But Tyler, una-
menable to directions, pushed ahead to Bull Run at
Blackburn's Ford and there proceeded to dispose his
forces as if to make an attack on the strong body of
Confederates posted to defend the crossing. Though
McDowell's adjutant-general, Fry, and his chief of engi-
neers, Barnard, repeatedly called Tyler's attention to his
wilful disregard of the commanding general's orders, their
remonstrances were in vain; the demoralizing effect of
the repulse which the troops soon suffered was out of all
1 McDowell's testimony, C. W., pt. 2, p. 39. 2 Ibid., p. 46.
70 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
proportion to the loss in killed and wounded. For this
excess of boldness Tyler sought to atone three days later
by an excess of caution even more disastrous.
The encounter at Blackburn's Ford, however, was
not the only circumstance of ill augury. Beauregard,
on the other side of Bull 'Run, had had ample opportu-
nity to be well informed as to the strength and position of
the Federal force, and with the lapse of time the chances
that he would be joined by Johnston's army from the
Shenandoah Valley grew greater. But McDowell was not
yet ready to attack. The information which he must
first obtain he had no well-organized and reliable means
of getting; moreover, volunteers and militia, with the
ignorance of raw troops, were wasting their provisions,
and the supply train from Washington was unconscion-
ably slow in arriving. Two long and harassing days en-
gaged the labor of the head-quarters staff in remedying
these consequences of defective organization, while the
army lay quiet about Centreville, its ears strained to
catch the faint sound of locomotives at Manassas Junc-
tion which might signify the arrival of Johnston's army
to reinforce Beauregard. It was not till the evening of
Saturday, July 20, that McDowell called his division
commanders together to give them their orders and to
explain to them the movements depending for success
on their prompt co-operation.
In spite of his care, there was at the very outset of
the day of battle a fatal delay. Tyler, with costly cau-
tion, moved his advance so slowly that the two divisions
behind him, which had a long march to make in order
to cross Bull Run at the Sudley Springs ford, some miles
up-stream, were held back for full three hours. The
time set for the advance was two o'clock on Sunday
morning, but when at sunrise McDowell and his staff
reached the blacksmith's shop at the corner of the road
by which the troops were to march to the right, Tyler's
division was not yet out of the way. Wadsworth was
1861] BULL RUN 71
despatched to Tyler to try to stir him to greater activity
and to remind him that this was the time when he was
expected to go forward to attack. 1 Then, coming back
to the blacksmith's shop, he gave help to McDowell, who
personally as well as through the efforts of his staff was
doing his utmost to expedite matters there. When at
last the road was clear, the troops which had been held
back pressed forward with the rush of a stream when an
obstruction has been removed, and soon regiments were
swinging by at double-quick. Already the day was hot,
and the road-side began to be strewn with blankets and
overcoats. This rush, however, proved of short duration,
for the advance of the flanking column was led by the
deliberate Burnside. Indeed, at the Sudley Springs ford
his horses and men were found by McDowell's staff re-
freshing themselves in the stream and taking a good rest.
Having at last got under way again, after marching a
mile or so they received the first shots of the enemy, and
by half-past nine the battle had begun.
The stereotyped characterization of the first Bull
Run disposes of it as a contest remarkable for the pict-
uresque if disheartening display of what may be ex-
pected when untrained volunteers and militia are under
fire for the first time. The variety in the Federal uni-
forms, which ranged all the way from the brilliant Zou-
ave costume to a color which proved disastrously like the
Confederate gray; the courageous advances made by one
regiment after another without co-ordination; the firm-
ness of the Confederate brigade which won for its com-
mander the immortal epithet of "Stonewall"; finally,
that indescribable panic twenty-seven miles long in which
fear played her maddest pranks with an army that had
become a mob — all these we are familiar with as historic
details in the battle which, containing so many touches
of comedy, awoke the nation to the tragedy of war. And
in the way of reflection we content ourselves with Sher-
1 McDowell's testimony, C. W., pt. 2, p. 43.
72 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
man's comment that in all the war Bull Run was the
battle "best planned and worst fought." x A far dif-
ferent thing is it, however, to live through the day in
the experience of an aide like Wadsworth, who has on
his shoulders a part of the responsibility of seeing that
plan carried into execution, and who, finding one officer
after another inadequate to the performance of his duties,
perceives that he must put all his might into multiplying
himself to make good these dozens of deficiencies. For
him the business was like a prolonged nightmare in which
a single, struggling human will is baffled and overwhelmed
by superhuman forces.
In truth, McDowell and all his staff were similarly
at the mercy of fate. Having sent an aide to the dila-
tory Tyler at his post at the turnpike bridge to press
his attack, and another to hurry up the rear of the turn-
ing column, "McDowell, like Beauregard, rushed in per-
son into the conflict, and by the force of circumstances
became for the time the commander of the turning col-
umn and the force actually engaged, rather than the
commander of his whole army." 2
As for Wadsworth, the kind of work that he took
upon himself is illustrated by his part in the charge of
the Eighth New York. When, advancing upon the Henry
House hill, the regiment made a wrong turn to the left
and was exposed to a severe flank fire, Wadsworth, dash-
ing after it, rectified its course, went with it up the hill,
and ordered it to charge the woods on the right. Three
companies answered his call, with handsome results, 3 but
then the regiment encountered, from the belt of pine
woods along the southeastern edge of the plateau, the
steady fire of Brigadier-General T. J. Jackson's brigade,
"standing like a stone wall." Thus assailed, it quickly
became demoralized, and that was the end of its ser-
vice as an organization during the day. "Staff officers,"
1 Memoirs of Gen. W. T. Sherman, I, 187.
2 Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, I, 187. 3 2 W. R., p. 388.
1861] BULL RUN 73
reported Colonel Porter, the brigade commander, "could
be seen galloping rapidly in every direction, endeavoring
to rally the broken Eighth, but this laudable purpose was
only partially attained, owing to the inefficiency of some
of its field officers." ' One of their officers, Captain
Woods, who did his full duty, came under the eye of
Wadsworth as he hurried back and forth trying to get
the troops into some sort of order. "I witnessed," Wads-
worth took the trouble to write to him afterward, "the
manner in which you rallied such of your regiment as you
could induce to follow you, and led them into action under
a terribly severe fire. I saw no officer expose himself more
freely in front of his men." 2
The words apply equally well to Wadsworth himself.
The crisis of his first battle revealed him as belonging
in the class of such Revolutionary fighters as Stark
and Wayne — a man of natural courage and of natural
powers of command, whose instinct bade him ever to
lead and, leading, to rely upon others to follow. "Well
do I remember," writes a lieutenant of the Thirteenth
New York, "how he came flying down the steep hill by
the 'Old Stone House' at Bull Run, and led the Thir-
teenth (under a heavy fire from the enemy's battery
that commanded the hill) into action." 3
Wadsworth was later concerned in getting infantry
supports for the batteries of Ricketts and Griffin, which
had been advanced by McDowell's order to a position
on the Henry House plateau. So great were the diffi-
culties in communicating orders, so uncertain was the
reliance to be placed on officers or men, and so exigent
were the needs of the moment that it was impossible to
make any properly organized movement to this end.
The most that could be done was to throw forward a
regiment or two at a time. The batteries, in their ad-
vanced position, were soon lost, and the remainder of
1 2 W. R., p. 384. - History of the 10th N. Y., p. 241.
3 Unidentified newspaper clipping.
74 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
the battle resolved itself into a series of attempts to
recapture them. In organizing these assaults Wads-
worth played his part in helping to form and to send
forward some of Franklin's regiments and, after their
repulse, some of Sherman's. He was in the thick of
the fighting, his horse was shot under him, and more
than once when a regiment fell back in confusion he
seized its colors and called on the men to rally to the
flag.
At last, a little before three o'clock, an advance was
made that promised permanent success. The Confed-
erates were driven completely from the open plateau
and fresh Union troops were about to come on the field.
The balance of victory, so long unsettled, seemed to dip
in favor of the Federals. But in the belt of pines Jack-
son's brigade stood firm, and Wadsworth and others
who had seen its stubborn fighting realized that trouble
might still be expected from that quarter. At this mo-
ment, when the arrival of reinforcements on either side
would be decisive, a brigade commanded by Colonel
Elzey of Johnston's army appeared without warning on
the extreme right of the Union army. As it charged,
the Federals heard for the first time the sharp, pulsating
"yaai, yai . . . yaai, yaai, yai . . . yaai !" which they soon
came to know as the "rebel yell" — the battle-cry that
"lasts with the voice of Stentor and with the horn of
Roland." x Wadsworth happened to be with the troops
that received the first discharge of musketry. "It was
very severe," he testified, "and then they followed it
up immediately with a very bold charge right on the
field." 2 At the same time Jackson, having held his
men in check for three hours, sent them with irresistible
force against the advancing Federal centre. Under this
double attack the Union troops completely gave way.
Though McDowell and his staff took the colors of one
regiment after another in the hope of rallying the men
1 The Long Roll, p. 93. 2 C. W., pt. 2, p. 48.
1861] BULL RUN 75
about them, every such effort was futile. The soldiers
who in the morning had constituted an army were now
individuals seeking the banks of Bull Run and the safety
of the other side. Ordering the regulars, who stood firm,
to guard the rear, McDowell rode off toward Centreville,
where the reserves were stationed.
As Wadsworth followed he did not yet need to aban-
don himself to despair at this reverse in the fortunes of
the day. With the fresh troops at Centreville a stand
might still be made, and behind them the men now
plodding along the road, showing as yet no signs of panic,
might be reformed. But as he drew near Centreville
the aspect of things became less promising. Here the
road was filled not only with army impedimenta but with
light vehicles that had brought spectators from Wash-
ington to view the battle from a safe distance. Worse
than all, panic had set in. Shot from a Confederate bat-
tery had reached the road at one place and rumors of
pursuit by the much-dreaded "black horse cavalry" made
the danger seem greater at every moment. As twilight
came on the thought of the long road still to be covered
magnified these terrors tenfold, and McDowell, seeing
that his army was ruled by a commander more power-
ful than he, wisely decided to let the mob flow on to the
safety of Washington. The reserve brigades, which were
steady, could be relied upon as a rear-guard, but nothing
else could be counted on.
It was in this hour of defeat that Wadsworth dis-
played other qualities no less characteristic of him as a
soldier than his courage. His concern was less for the
able-bodied fugitives than for the dead left unburied
where they had breathed their last and for the wounded
remaining on the field of battle and in the hospitals at
Centreville, soon to fall into the hands of the enemy.
Filled with a sense of all there was to be done here, he
helped to find places in wagons for men slightly wounded
and encouraged the Federal surgeons to continue in their
76 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
duty toward those who could not be moved. Then,
when he had accomplished all that was possible, he
joined the crowd streaming toward Washington, being
accompanied by Montgomery Ritchie, his son-in-law,
who, as aide to the commander of the reserves, had been
at Centreville all day.
When these two had made their slow way through
seven miles of disorganized army to Fairfax Court House
it was long after midnight, and, as Wadsworth had been
in the saddle since before daybreak, they decided to stop
here to refresh themselves and their horses and if might
be to get a little sleep. Crowded though the tiny ham-
let was with wounded and others whose fatigue had
prevailed over their fears, Wadsworth and Ritchie finally
succeeded in obtaining a place where they could throw
themselves down for a brief rest.
The next morning, Monday, July 22, they found that
the fugitive mob had vanished and that the last regi-
ments of the rear-guard were taking their departure.
During the night there had been no pursuit, and there
was a chance that the heavy downpour of rain, which
gave promise of continuing all day, would dampen the
ardor of the victorious Confederates. Taking advantage
of this chance, Wadsworth decided to remain where he
was and to devote himself to the needs of the wounded,
some hundred in number, whom he found left at Fairfax
Court House with none, in that devil-take-the-hindmost
flight, to care for them. He forthwith began to search
the small settlement through to procure the food and
comforts that these sick men required and to provide
means of transportation for them. Ritchie, meanwhile,
set out for Washington to obtain from McDowell or
from the Secretary of War a request for a flag of truce
under which the wounded at Centreville might be brought
within the Union lines.
Fortunately for Wadsworth's undertaking, the tor-
rents of rain did not cease during all of Monday. Not
1861] BULL RUN 77
a Confederate appeared on the road from Centreville,
and he was successful in getting off to Washington, on
foot or in wagons, practically all the men of whom he
had assumed charge. He himself did not take his leave
until the Confederate cavalry came in sight on Tues-
day morning, July 23; and when J. E. B. Stuart and
his men reached the Court House at 9.30 a. m. they
found there only three wounded officers. 1 Three civilians,
come out from Washington to ask for permission to search
the battle-field for the body of Colonel Cameron, brother
of the Secretary of War, were also encountered and made
prisoners. As for Wadsworth, he had not travelled far
toward Washington when he met Ritchie bringing the
request for a flag of truce, which he had finally suc-
ceeded in obtaining from Cameron. 2 Turning his horse
back toward Centreville, Wadsworth accordingly pro-
ceeded thither with the document.
The unwillingness of Secretary Cameron, however,
to do anything that might be twisted into a recognition
of the Confederate States of America had led him to
address his letter in such a fashion that Major-General
J. E. Johnston refused to receive it. After waiting all
night Wadsworth was advised to go back to the Union
lines, whither in due time an answer, if there was one,
would be forwarded. 3 When he reached the Federal
pickets he found that the long train of ambulances sent
out to meet him had given up waiting and gone back to
the city. To disappointment at the failure of his mis-
1 2 W. R., p. 995.
2 The civilians captured by Stuart, who were kept prisoners at Richmond
for some months, came without written authorization from Cameron be-
cause, according to General Johnston's report of what they said, "a rule es-
tablished by their authorities forbids flags of truce in such cases" (2 W. R.,
p. 995). To others making the same attempt a few days later Cameron
gave a letter addressed "To whom it may concern." Stuart, in refusing
their request, returned it to them "for the reason that its object does not
concern me, nor any one else that I am aware of, in the Confederate States
of America." — (Marginalia, or Gleanings from an Army Note-Book, by
Personne, p. 78.)
3 Russell's letter to the London Times of July ii, 1861.
78 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
sion was added disgust at the futile craft of the Secretary
of War, a feeling that could have been little abated when
he read the Richmond papers that taunted the Federals
with making no efforts to relieve their wounded or to
bury their dead. 1
For Wadsworth the campaign of Bull Run ended
with his arrival at McDowell's head-quarters at Arling-
ton on the afternoon of July 24, the last man, it is safe
to say, to come in from the field. He had, indeed, served
his apprenticeship in battle, and the regard that Mc-
Dowell felt for his service was expressed not only in
the complimentary acknowledgment of the commander's
official report but also in a recommendation to the Presi-
dent that he be made brigadier-general of volunteers.
Not because it tells any new circumstance of his
part in the fight, but for what it shows of the pride which
his family took in him, a letter written a month later
by his eldest daughter to her aunt in Europe will serve
to sum up the story of Wadsworth at Bull Run:
. . . You know all about our disgraceful defeat, but
you are too far off to have felt anything like the sense
of disgrace that we feel who had husbands and fathers
sharing in this odium, who had seen the grand army
advance with such feeling of certainty that there could
be but one result, and that Victory. That Monday
evening when the terrible news came (after the first re-
port of "a great success"), I do assure you that our
bitterest tears were shed . . . from the humiliating sense
of shame, of intense mortification, that our much vaunted
Northern troops, with their "earnestness of purpose"
and "sense of right" should have run away.
I am told that strong men on the field of battle,
after vainly attempting to rally our disorganized troops,
wept from sheer despair; and in the streets of Washing-
ton, as the haggard soldiers came pouring in with fresh
details about the disgusting retreat and shameful panic,
1 The taunts were repeated by General Johnston in his Narrative, p. 65,
most unjustifiably, since he could hardly have failed to know of Wadsworth's
mission.
1861] BULL RUN 79
men forgot their manliness and turned away to hide
their emotion.
But it has been a lesson to us that we needed. The
great fault, they say, lay with the volunteer officers, not
the men. Some of these officers behaved most shame-
fully. Two colonels of regiments were met seven miles
from their men, flying to Washington. Father, in car-
rying orders, constantly came on regiments and parts of
regiments with only a lieutenant or some minor officer
in command. This will be changed now, and officers
have to undergo a strict examination before being com-
missioned, and the most rigid discipline, which was very
much neglected before the battle.
You must read all Russell's letters to the London
Times; they are correct in most particulars though much
exaggerated. Monty saw a great deal of him in Wash-
ington, dining and breakfasting with him constantly; he
says he is the most brilliant, entertaining person, but
withal the most prejudiced John Bull. Consequently
the London Times has said the most scathing things about
us since our defeat, speaking of our army as entirely
composed of New York rowdies and Boston Abolition-
ists, and saying that the Volunteers have proved them-
selves utterly worthless in opposing the "Gentlemen of
the South."
I send you some newspaper paragraphs about Father
which you may not have seen. They appeared in the
New York press soon after the battle. There is but one
story of his conduct, and you can imagine how proud
we are of him. McDowell told Monty that he was the
youngest man among them, and capable of enduring
more fatigue on horseback. 1 The day of the battle he
was in the saddle twenty-four hours and Monty twenty.
Monty was with the reserve, which did not move as
soon as the main army; he was on the staff of Colonel
(of the regular army), who commanded the reserve.
This Colonel was superseded on the field of battle
for drunkenness; the staff was of course dispersed, and
Monty joined Father. They were the last officers who
1 At the age of twelve or thirteen Wadsworth had ridden all the way
from Geneseo to New York, helping his uncle drive thither a herd of cattle.
Life in the saddle was always as much a matter of course with him as it is
with any ranchman.
80
WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
passed through Fairfax Court House; Father remained
till Tuesday to look after the wounded, and Monty
rode into Washington on Monday afternoon to get a
flag of truce from the War Department. This Father
carried to their lines; he was kept waiting by the road-
side for eight hours, and then vouchsafed no answer,
as the communication was not properly addressed. . . .
Father has now been made a brigadier-general, and
Monty 1 is going to try and get into one of the new regi-
ments. Craig will, I think, go as one of Father's aides.
. . . Almost everyone feels that we must make great
effort and great sacrifice; but unfortunately there are
a great many "Copperheads" 2 in our midst who are
doing their utmost to discourage enlistment, and with
too much success. This the newspapers hardly dare to
speak of, but it is true.
1 Montgomery Ritchie, having helped to recruit the regiment known as
the Wadsworth Guards, accepted an offer to join Burnside's expedition to
North Carolina, but ill health forced him to return to the North in the
summer of 1862. Later he served on the staff of Major-General Augur,
division commander in Banks's expedition to Louisiana, and displayed gal-
lantry before Port Hudson; but disease again interrupted his service, and
in May, 1864, continued ill health compelled him to resign. He died at
Geneseo six months later.
2 The use of this word at this time antedates by several months the ear-
liest occurrence hitherto noted by historians.
CHAPTER IV
UPTON'S HILL
The commission as brigadier-general of volunteers of-
fered to Wadsworth he was at first inclined to refuse,
for his brief military experience had made him less will-
ing in August to accept a position of that rank than
he had been in May to receive a major-generalship at
the hands of Governor Morgan. But his friends on
McDowell's staff, whose admiration he had won by zeal
as a worker and by courage and leadership on the field
of battle, were urgent that he should take the place, and
he was assured that a graduate of West Point would be
assigned to duty as adjutant-general of the brigade which
he would command. 1 With this understanding he ac-
cepted the offer, and a commission was issued to him
bearing the date of August 9. He was presently assigned
to a brigade composed of the Twelfth, Twenty -first,
Twenty-third, and Thirty-fifth New York regiments,
with head-quarters at Arlington. 2 In the organization
of his staff he was not able, after all, to obtain as
adjutant-general the promised West Pointer, for the War
Department had put a close restriction on details of offi-
cers away from their commands in the regular army;
but when Lieutenant John A. Kress, who had been
three years at the military academy, became one of his
aides, he had no reason for regret on that score. He
also found a place on his staff for his second son, Craig,
who was twenty years old.
The fruits of the lesson of Bull Run were already be-
1 Letter of Brigadier-General John A. Kress, U. S. A. (retired).
2 The composition of the brigade was subsequently changed by the with-
drawal of the 12th N. Y. and the addition of the 20th N. Y.
81
82 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
ginning to appear; the cry of "On to Richmond!" had
given place to the watchword of "organization," and
with a submission almost pathetic the chastened North
waited upon the word of McClellan, the young major-
general whose early successes and personal popularity
were regarded as omens full of hope for the future.
McDowell, accepting his defeat with the philosophy of
a good soldier, had been willing to serve as division com-
mander under his junior, and the assignment of Wads-
worth's brigade to his division was a welcome arrange-
ment to both men.
Drill now was the order of the day, though from all
the commands large detachments were made for work
on the defences of Washington. Necessary as the con-
struction of these fortifications was — for the outposts of
the enemy were at Munson's and Upton's Hills, 1 four
miles from Arlington — the troops little relished what
seemed to them preparations for a defensive campaign.
In spite of all Wadsworth's efforts, the ardor of his
pickets frequently got them into skirmishes with those
of the enemy. That the "rebel flag" should be allowed
to remain flying within six miles of Washington and in
full view from the dome of the Capitol was an indignity
under which not only the army, but the whole North
chafed.
A letter from Craig to his mother gives a glimpse of
camp life at Arlington late in September:
I am safely installed in the office of aide to the Gen-
eral. I hold a Second Lieutenant's commission in Ker-
rigan's Irish regiment. I am to be transferred to the
Thirty-Fifth regiment in a few days and expect to rank
better. I sign my name with A. D. C. added about
sixty times a day — you have no idea how nice it looks.
McClellan reviewed McDowell's division on Monday
last. He said it was the most satisfactory review he
1 For places referred to from this point in the narrative to the battle of
Gettysburg, consult the general map at the end of the volume.
brevet MAJOR CHARLES f. wadsworth. brevet colonel CRAIG \V. WADSWORTH.
BREVET MAJOR JAMES W. WADSWORTII. BREVET MAJOR MONTGOMERY RITC HIE.
SONS AND SON-IN-LAW OF JAMES S. WADSWORTH.
1861] OCCUPATION OF UPTON'S HILL 83
had had during the campaign. I suppose it was all
owing to my military knowledge. Father is not as stout
as when he was in New York, but notwithstanding I
never saw him looking better. It is all bone and muscle
now. We have the front this week, but there is noth-
ing doing, there have been only two or three shots in
the last forty-eight hours. . . .
The proximity of the enemy to Washington which
had continued through September was at last brought
to an end, though not by any effort of McClellan's. It
was his opponent, Joseph E. Johnston, who, seeing that
the Confederate army was not then and was not likely
to be in condition to undertake offensive operations,
gave the order for the outposts to retire from their ad-
vanced position. On September 28 Wadsworth's pickets
reported that the force at Munson's Hill was withdraw-
ing. Setting out at once with two companies on a re-
connoissance, Wadsworth found Munson's Hill and also
Upton's Hill, a little under a mile to the north, aban-
doned, except for a small detachment of cavalry which
retired on his approach. The stove-pipe on wheels and
the pump-logs doing duty as cannon which were found
there were probably indicative not so much of the pov-
erty of the Confederates in artillery as of their love for
a joke. In the evening of the same day Wadsworth was
ordered to move his brigade thither; and here, where
the Union line was farthest advanced toward the enemy,
he and his men were stationed for the next five months.
The well-built Virginia farm-house on the hill, belong-
ing to Charles H. Upton, Wadsworth occupied as his
head-quarters. 1 Colonel Regis de Trobriand, commander
of the New York Fifty-fifth, having ridden out to Up-
ton's Hill the day after Wadsworth's command took
possession, described the scene there as follows:
1 Upton had remained loyal to the Federal government. He claimed
election as representative from the Alexandria district to the existing Con-
gress, but as the election had taken place in May, 1861, after Virginia had
seceded, the House refused to seat him .
84 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
I found General Wadsworth under the roof of the
pillaged farmhouse. ... A few broken stools were all
there was left of the furniture. Some doors taken off
their hinges served for tables; some boards picked up
in the garden answered for benches. The Confederates,
who were still occupying the house the day before, had
written their names with charcoal upon the defaced walls
of all the rooms. They had added, after the manner of
soldiers, rough sketches, among which the favorite was
the hanging of Mr. Lincoln. An alteration in the ex-
planatory legend was all that was needed to turn the
picture into the hanging of Mr. Jefferson Davis, and this
our soldiers did not fail to do.
The house was surmounted by a sort of observatory,
from which one saw in all its details a scene of the most
varied character. About the premises stacks of arms,
surrounded by soldiers lying on the ground or digging
in the vegetable garden; regiments successively taking
their positions in line; a dozen cannon in battery, the
cannoneers at their guns watching the valley, the offi-
cers sweeping with their field glasses the wooded hori-
zon, the caissons in the rear, the teams on the inner
slopes of the hill. In front, the Leesburg Road, upon
which galloped here and there staff officers followed by
their orderlies, and the isolated hillock called Munson's
Hill, from the top of which already floated the Federal
flag. 1
To the task of making this post a secure point for
defence Wadsworth at once devoted himself. Besides
strengthening the works on the hill, he sent the axemen
out to fell the trees along the front so that there would
be less chance for the enemy to approach unseen and
greater opportunity for the use of artillery. The man-
agement of such pioneer tasks was a matter of course
to him, and the speed with which his men did their
work elicited the public praise of McClellan. 2 It was
no less characteristic of Wadsworth that, though the
needs of the camp required every stick of wood possible,
1 Quatre Ans de Campagnes a l'Armee du Potomac, I, 106, 107.
2 Campfires of the 23rd N. Y., p. 34.
1861] VISITORS AT UPTON'S 85
he would not suffer the axe to be laid to any of the oaks
and chestnuts that immediately surrounded the Upton
house.
During the next weeks many other visitors followed
Colonel de Trobriand to the house at Upton's. Before
the brigade had been in camp a fortnight, Russell, in
quest of copy for the Times, arrived, lunched with Wads-
worth on camp fare, and then from the lookout surveyed
the "fine view, this bright, cold, clear autumn day, of
the wonderful expanse of undulating forest lands streaked
by rows of tents which at last concentrated into vast
white patches in the distance towards Alexandria." 1
With an eye by no means friendly to the North, he
noted that "the country is desolate but the camps are
flourishing, and that is enough to satisfy most patriots
bent on the subjugation of their enemies." Among the
visitors was Mrs. Wadsworth, and as a result of her
housewife's inspection of the premises there presently
arrived sundry supplies contributing to the comfort of
her husband and her son.
Early in November Wadsworth's brigade was strength-
ened by the arrival of the Ulster Guard. This regiment,
which as the Twentieth New York State Militia he had
in May vainly urged to enlist for two years, had now
been reorganized as the Eightieth New York Volunteers,
though it was familiarly known by its numerical designa-
tion in the State force. The story of its arrival at night
at Upton's Hill, as told by the lieutenant-colonel, Theo-
dore Gates, and his characterization of Wadsworth, give
details that make vivid the camp life of these months:
Officers and men were glad to hear the command
"halt!" for the march had been a long and fatiguing
one, and they were tired, hungry, and thirsty. Not one
of us knew anything about the commander into whose
hands we had just fallen, and the locality was a perfect
terra incognita to all of us. We knew we had reached
1 Russell's Diary, II, 375.
86 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
our destination, because we were halted by a guard
drawn up across the road in front of us, and an officer
directed us to file to the left, into an open field, and biv-
ouac. We marched into the field, and went to work
in the darkness to make ourselves as comfortable as
possible, but the command was by no means in an ami-
able mood. Each officer and man knew we had marched
fifteen miles to reach a point less than eight from our
starting place, and that there were two routes no more
than half as far as the one we had been required to
take, and the consequence was we had arrived at our
destination too late to cook coffee or make any arrange-
ments for a comfortable night's rest.
But this feeling underwent a very sudden and un-
expected change. Lanterns were seen approaching from
what appeared to be a house, a few hundred feet west
of us, and a kind, cheery voice called out, "Twentieth,
where are you? " The interlocutor was Brigadier-General
James S. Wadsworth, who captured the affections of the
entire command by his evident anxiety for their com-
fort and by the practical way in which he manifested
it. He had the men supplied with fuel, and the whole
regiment was furnished with an abundance of splendid
hot coffee which he had had prepared for it as soon as
its approach was announced at his headquarters. He
did not turn this good work over to some of [his] subor-
dinate officers and get back into his comfortable house,
out of the chill November air, but he personally super-
intended it, and left only when he was assured the men
were properly provided for; many a poor fellow went to
sleep that night blessing General Wadsworth, and con-
gratulating himself that his regiment had been assigned
to his brigade.
This example of consideration for the men over whom
he was placed was by no means exceptional. He was
the commander not only, but he was also the watchful
friend of the officers and men in his brigade. There was
no matter too trivial for his ready personal attention, if
it concerned the health or comfort of his men. The
guard-house, the kitchens, the sinks, the stables: all
were frequently subjected to his inspection and required
to be kept in the cleanest and best possible condition.
The writer of this has been aroused by General Wads-
1801] CAMP INSPECTION 87
worth at four o'clock of a winter's morning and re-
quested to accompany him in a tour of the camp to
see if the men's huts were properly warmed and venti-
lated, and many a soldier of the Twentieth was surprised
on being awakened in the short hours of the morning
at seeing his gray-headed Brigade-Commander and his
Lieutenant-Colonel inspecting his stove and chimney
and sniffing the air of his hut, as though they suspected
he had the choicest stores of the commissary and quar-
termaster's departments hidden away in the capacious
recesses of his eight by ten palace. General Wadsworth
would stand in the snow and mud for hours at a time
instructing the men how to build rude fireplaces and
chimneys, and he was especially exacting in regard to
the stables. He was a lover of good horses, and he
believed the brute deserved a good dwelling-place, and
that he should be well fed and kindly treated. 1
Such a description indicates, as well as anything can,
not only the responsibilities but also the opportunities of
a general officer of volunteers at the beginning of the
war. In view of the fact that there were many volun-
teer officers who to inexperience added incapacity, one
is likely to dwell on the superior fitness of the trained
officers of the regular army and, as is so often done, to
condemn the Federal and State authorities for putting
political ahead of military considerations in their appoint-
ments. This criticism, however, ignores the plain facts
of the case. The number of men professionally trained
for war — small at best, and diminished by the with-
drawal from the regular army of those who entered the
Confederate service — was hopelessly inadequate to fill
the positions required in the vast body of troops which
the North was raising. Volunteer officers were there-
fore a plain necessity. But this was not the whole
story. The Northern soldier who enlisted in 1861 and
1862 was a self-reliant, intelligent citizen and patriot.
The only power to which he was accustomed to yield
1 The Ulster Guard and the War of the Rebellion, pp. 153, 154.
88 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
obedience was the law which he as a voter had had a
chance in making. In this respect he resembled the
patriot soldier of the early part of the French Revolu-
tion, who considered the title citoyen to confer every bit
as much authority as the titles which his officers held.
His attitude toward his commanders was one of friendly
co-operation, and in this attitude he expected them to
acquiesce. On New Year's day, 1862, the celebration
devised by one of Wadsworth's regiments consisted in
the temporary abdication of the officers, their places
being taken by men elected from the ranks, who made
their superiors the camp Gibeonites, hewers of wood and
drawers of water for the day. 1
Clearly, to win the reluctant footsteps of such "sov-
ereigns in uniform" along the hard road of instinctive
and instantaneous obedience — the first duty of a sol-
dier — the skill of an officer of their own antecedents was
often of more avail than that of a military precisian.
Of course, not every officer from civil life possessed this
skill; but wherever was found a man who had the gift
of leadership, it usually proved that in camp, on the
march, and on the field of battle his power of personal
ascendancy formed the basis of the discipline which his
men acquired. And if such an officer showed himself
earnest in purpose and brave in fight there was no feat
of endurance or courage to which he could not command
them.
Such considerations by no means leave out of ac-
count the fact that there were volunteer officers who
were not only a weakness but a disgrace to the army,
but it must be remembered that the chief cause of their
inferiority was one that was common to a large number
of the officers of the regular army. Jealousies, bicker-
ings, insubordination, magnifying of self were human
failings that distracted the Army of the Potomac for
the first three years of the war. An officer could rise
1 Chronicles of the 21st N. Y., p. 140.
1861] CARE OF HIS MEN 89
above such failings and sink self in service not by virtue
of his previous military experience but by virtue of the
stuff of manliness and patriotism that was in him. This
fact the American volunteer, with his keen native wit,
instantly recognized, and on this recognition he based
his conduct.
The bearing of all this in Wadsworth's case may
be summed up in the words of one of his staff. He
had, says General Kress, 1 "a serious appreciation of his
lack of education and training in the details of mili-
tary affairs, a deficiency for which I claim his good
judgment, energy, sound common sense, the esteem and
regard of all under his command which he invariably
acquired, his adaptability, and his quiet, matchless bra-
very were ample offsets; military details are not so diffi-
cult to acquire; he would soon have mastered the essen-
tials. I doubt if any more appropriate appointment to
the grade had been made at that time."
Thus it was that Wadsworth from the first won re-
gard and obedience from the men in his brigade. More-
over, the practical instinct which led him to have a supply
of hot coffee ready for the cold and weary Twentieth is
only one out of a hundred instances of the way in which
the long habit of out-of-doors life and the traditions of
pioneering had taught him the right thing to do for the
comfort of man and beast exposed to the elements. An-
other case is that of his ordering at his own expense a
large supply of gloves from Gloversville for the benefit
of men on picket duty. The long habit of generosity,
too, is of course accountable for this; but such favors
carried with them no demoralization. The men took
them in the spirit in which they were given, not as evi-
dences of wealth or of a desire to curry favor, but as
showing a generous solicitude to provide for his soldiers
that degree of comfort necessary to their efficiency.
When the men of Wadsworth's brigade prided them-
1 In a private letter.
90 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
selves on their good fortune in having as commander
a man of means, they also did not fail to note that he
was careful to make no ostentatious display in his own
way of life. It was not uncommon for the commander
of a regiment or brigade to show his sense of a recent
rise in social importance by entertaining guests at his
head-quarters with champagne. The "camp fare" on
which Russell dined at Upton's Hill and on the plain-
ness of which he for once did not comment unfavorably,
in his usual gourmand's fashion, was but an example
of Wadsworth's gift for keeping in touch with his men
by living with them the life of a soldier.
The current newspaper phrase of these months, "All
quiet along the Potomac" — a watchword which came
to have a sharp edge of irony as the season wore on —
was by no means true of Wadsworth's command and
the adjoining brigades along the line of the advance.
The country between the Federal pickets stationed three
miles in advance of Upton's Hill and the Confederate pick-
ets at Fairfax Court House abounded in woodlands and
offered many opportunities for the detachments of Stu-
art's cavalry which infested it to operate secretly against
the Federals. The region had, of course, suffered from
the devastations of both armies, and on many of the
farms the buildings were either burnt to the ground or
else abandoned; but where white inhabitants remained
they were, with few exceptions, of Southern sympathies
and, in effect, spies upon the movements of the Federals.
As for the negroes, the instinct of loyalty to their masters
still persisted in enough cases to render their childlike
curiosity concerning the Northern troops a matter of
decidedly ambiguous intention. All these advantages
the dashing Stuart knew how to put to good use.
Another circumstance that contributed to make
Wadsworth anxious about his picket line was the fact
that as yet the Yankee volunteer approximated the con-
1861] RECONNOITRING 91
dition of a soldier only in external aspect. In outpost
duty the regiments took turns, marching from camp with
a supply of "cooked rations," and serving for forty-
eight hours. Although the men when on duty were no
longer so green that they could be led by the tinkle of
a cow-bell in search of fresh milk only to walk into a
Confederate ambush, still the sight of one of the lean
pigs that ran wild in the woods was often too great a
temptation to a hungry man; and it was common knowl-
edge that the picket-firing, strictly forbidden except in
case of alarm, was likely to be directed at a four-legged
rather than a two-legged victim. It is no wonder, there-
fore, that Wadsworth should have had very much on
his mind the fortunes of whatever regiment was doing
picket duty, or that he should have ridden nearly every
day to Falls Church, just inside the Federal fines, to con-
sult with its commanding officer and also, it must be
admitted, to do a little reconnoitring on his own ac-
count. If in this practice he calls to mind Washington
and Lafayette similarly occupied at Wilmington, it is
only another point in the resemblance, already suggested,
between Wadsworth and the fighters of the Revolution-
ary era.
A still further incentive to Wadsworth in making
these reconnoissances was the hope of finding forage at
some farm between the lines, for with navigation on
the Potomac blocked by Confederate batteries and the
single-track railroad between Washington and Baltimore
taxed far beyond its powers of performance, the prob-
lem of providing fodder for the horses in the army was
rapidly becoming critical. 1 The zeal with which he set
about scouring the country for provender brought him
on one occasion into closer quarters with the enemy
than he had bargained for. On the morning of Novem-
1 According to the report of the chief quartermaster of the Army of the
Potomac, four hundred tons of forage were required daily. — (W. R., XI,
pt. 1, p. 157.)
92 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
ber 8 he had set out on this quest, accompanied by
two privates, and his search had carried him to a farm
a mile or more beyond the lines. Here, having dis-
mounted at noon to eat his lunch, he suddenly spied a
squad of Confederate cavalry rapidly approaching. He
himself had time to get to horse and make good his es-
cape; the two privates, who had accepted an invitation
to take their meal inside the house, were captured. 1
Though after this incident Wadsworth restricted
somewhat the range of his own reconnoitring, the warn-
ing of the adventure was lost on a foraging expedition
that set forth a few days later from the other brigade
stationed at Upton's Hill. A train of six wagons with
teamsters and men to do the loading and an escort of
fifty soldiers started on November 16 for Doolan's farm,
which was some distance beyond the place where Wads-
worth had had his narrow escape. While filling their
wagons they kept due watch, but when at noon the
negroes about the place offered them the unwonted del-
icacies of hoe-cake and milk the hungry and guileless
soldiers, taking the bait, gathered about the house, in-
tent on nothing but their dinners. Meanwhile a mes-
senger betook himself to the next farm where some
sixty cavalry of a Mississippi regiment were in hiding.
Soon the care-free Northerners were disturbed in their
hour of ease, and, after an interval during which the
farm premises were the scene of what was more a scram-
ble than a skirmish, the Mississippians retired from the
field of action, having in their possession over thirty
shamefaced New Yorkers and their muskets, five new
army wagons, twenty valuable horses, and "one hun-
dred and twenty bushels of excellent corn, ready shucked
and in the wagons." 2 Such was the happy-go-lucky
volunteer of 1861.
The result of these two successes was to embolden
the Confederates to a deed of greater daring. On No-
1 108 W. R., p. 379. 2 5 W. R., p. 440.
1801] ATTEMPT TO CAPTURE WADSWORTH 93
vember 15 Beauregard sent to Johnston a clipping from
a Baltimore newspaper detailing the incident in which
Wadsworth, for the first and only time in his life, showed
a clean pair of heels to the enemy; 1 three days later, act-
ing on the hint thus given, Lieutenant-Colonel Fitzhugh
Lee, with a detachment of the First Virginia Cavalry,
set out in the direction of the Union line in front of
Upton's Hill "for the purpose," as the Confederate com-
mander said in his report, "of obtaining valuable infor-
mation." His plan was probably to break through the
pickets with a dash and push toward Falls Church at
the hour at which Wadsworth was accustomed to make
his afternoon round. Lee succeeded in getting three or
four hundred yards within the Union lines; but, unfort-
unately for him and quite contrary to his expectation,
the reserve companies of the regiment on picket, 2 which
happened to be close at hand and in command of an
officer with a cool head, were marched forward and from
the shelter of a thicket poured a sharp fire on the Con-
federates. For a few moments there was hot work, Lee's
opponents, greatly to his surprise, fighting "with much
more bravery than the Federal troops usually exhibit."
Then, since there was no longer hope of catching the
Yankee brigadier on that day, Lee, taking his wounded
and his prisoners, retired slowly to camp. 3
Such brushes as these, though productive of greater
watchfulness, did not cause Wadsworth to abandon his
determination to obtain forage wherever it could be
found outside the lines. In the course of the winter
1 108 W. R., p. 379.
2 The 84th New York, commonly known as the 14th Brooklyn. It was
not at the time in Wadsworth 's brigade, though in 1803 it formed a portion
of his command.
3 See the reports of the respective commanders in each of which the ob-
ject of the raid is hinted at (5 W. R., pp. 441, 442). W. M. Campbell, one
of the captured, was brought the next day before Generals Johnston, Beau-
regard, G. W. Smith, and Stuart, and Colonel Fitzhugh Lee, and the in-
quiries put to him by them disclosed the purpose of the raid. — (Letter of
W. M. Campbell to J. W. Wadsworth.)
94 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
four or five expeditions, managed with circumspection
and sufficient escort, were uniformly successful, and
Wadsworth reported that on each occasion they brought
in from fifty to a hundred wagon-loads of forage, whereby
the needs of McDowell's division were greatly relieved.
During the whole season the only loss suffered by his
command at the hands of the enemy was that of the
two unwary privates who put their faith in the hospital-
ity of a Virginia farmer. 1
If this narrative of the unpretentious military ex-
ploits of a general of volunteers tend to provoke a smile,
let it be remembered that the point of the story is not
to make a hero out of a modest country gentleman but
to show in what fashion a man of aptitude in affairs
brought over into his new profession of arms the expe-
rience gained in civil life. In applying to himself the
standard of duty to which he held up the enlisted men
under him, Wadsworth showed a sense of dignity different
at least from that of the general officers whose presence
in force on Pennsylvania Avenue, the Via Sacra of the
capital, was a subject of derisive jest. A stone, so one
story ran, thrown at a dog there glanced from its in-
tended victim and hit two brigadier-generals. From such
dangers Wadsworth at Upton's Hill was exempt.
In still another respect the experience and convic-
tions of Wadsworth's civil life came into play in this
new field. It was quite a matter of course for him to
regard the inhabitants of the region under his command
much as he had always regarded the tenants on his es-
tates, and to deem a concern for their welfare as within
the scope of his duty. How naturally and how actively
he carried out this conception was described some months
later by Upton, who reoccupied his house after the Army
of the Potomac had taken the field. 2
1 General Wadsworth's report to the War Department of his military
career. Original in the possession of J. W. Wadsworth.
2 Letter in the New York Tribune, October 24, 1862.
1861] CARE OF VIRGINIANS 95
While in command at this post, where he [Wads-
worth] had a most difficult and trying task to perform,
he exhibited so much wisdom, and tempered the firm-
ness of his command with so much kindness and for-
bearance, that he won the confidence and respect of the
citizens of Fairfax, and I have heard some of them, who
were among the bitterest rebels, express feelings of re-
spect, and even affection, for him, which no subsequent
events of this wretched rebellion are likely to efface.
. . . W T hen the rebels fell back there went with them
a good many men from my neighborhood who were ig-
norant and deluded as to the cause of the war, and the
true character of the "Yankees and Lincolnites," but
who had never taken up arms; some of these left desti-
tute families behind them, and there were then — as,
alas! there will be this coming winter— many cases of
sickness and destitution among women and children.
These cases General Wadsworth inquired into and re-
lieved so far as possible; to give two instances out of
many which might be related: one man left a wife and
ten children; the mother was taken sick and the chil-
dren were starving; General Wadsworth sent flour and
provisions from his own stores to this family and con-
trived to get word of invitation beyond our lines to the
father to return home, which he did in time to soothe
the last hours of his dying wife and parent; this man has
been ever since at home and is a good, industrious farmer.
Another case was that of a man who had been violent in
denouncing all Yankees (but who speaks now in the
warmest praise of General Wadsworth), who had fled
without other cause than a conscious complicity with
the rebels, and whose wife was near her confinement,
while his aged mother was on her death-bed. General
Wadsworth sent for him also in time to assuage the
distress of his family. . . . Indeed, so thoroughly did he
enter into the duties of his position, I verily believe he
is better acquainted at this moment with the personnel
of Fairfax County than I, who have lived there nearly
thirty years. . . .
No less under his care did Wadsworth consider the
slave population of the region, and his efforts at this
time in their behalf proved an introduction to more im-
96 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
portant work that he was to do later. In many cases,
where the negroes had been abandoned by their masters,
their condition was peculiarly forlorn, and his sympathy
was quick to respond to the plight of the poor wretches
whose state, according to his conviction, was the cause
of the war, and to do for them what little there was
that could be done. "My dear Sumner," he wrote on
December 31: "There are three or four families here of
slaves — practically emancipated — which I wish to get to
the North, at least as far as Philadelphia. They are
mostly women and children. How can I get papers for
them through Baltimore? Please make inquiries and
advise me."
Another instance of Wadsworth's concern for the
negroes is given in the story told by an officer whom
he sent out to a house near the picket line, where, he
had been informed, lay the body of an old man who had
been the slave of an acquaintance of former days. "The
house, on reaching it," wrote the officer, "I found oc-
cupied by a party of the Harris Light Cavalry, com-
manded by Major Gregory, who, on learning the Gen-
eral's wish, promptly furnished men for the requisite
service. An old colored woman, the wife of the de-
ceased, was the only person of her race present — a meek,
subdued old soul — who, in answer to my questions about
her family, said, in broken accents, that her three chil-
dren, her only ones, had been sold into the Carohnas
while yet very young, and that she had never seen or
heard of them since. If these were alive they were her
only living kin, and she was now alone in the world. We
gave the old man a decorous Christian burial, and I
stated what I had seen and heard to General Wadsworth
on my return. The recital moved him deeply, and he
expressed himself with indignant energy on the abomina-
tions of a system which laughs at the rights of parents,
and by tearing apart families at pleasure and for gain
violates the most sacred ties and affections." 1
1 Unidentified newspaper clipping.
1861] CARE OF NEGROES 97
Though such an instance is highly characteristic of
the first contact of one type of Northerner with the sys-
tem of slavery, there was many another officer in the
Army of the Potomac whom the application of the touch-
stone showed to be of quite different quality. If negroes,
seeking with the instinct of freedom what they deemed
the refuge of the Union army, came within the lines at a
point where one of these men held high command, they
soon discovered their mistake. They were seized as fugi-
tive slaves, and United States volunteers were used to
return them to their masters, though when, as often hap-
pened, the owners also were fugitives, the attempt to do
so was not attended with success. Negroes who made
their way to the outposts in front of Upton's Hill re-
ceived, it is needless to say, treatment of another sort.
Every such case was, by Wadsworth's orders, brought
directly to him, and before the interview was ended he
had provided as best he could for the fugitive's wants,
giving him work about the camp when possible, or send-
ing him on to Washington. But first he plied him with
questions as to what he knew of the number and posi-
tion of the Confederate forces at Centreville and Manas-
sas. In the information derived from repeated inquiries
of this kind Wadsworth put considerable confidence, and
though this confidence was not shared by many officers
of higher rank, in the end, when the question of the
size of the force that had been confronting the Army
of the Potomac all winter was a matter of general con-
cern, it was proved that Wadsworth's judgment was not
mistaken.
The year 1861 drew to a close and the Army of the
Potomac had still taken no advantage of the Indian
summer which delayed so long amid the woodlands of
Virginia. To Lincoln and the officers coming in con-
tact with McClellan the reason why was beginning to
be apparent, for they had already had cognizance of
98 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
those qualities in the general-in-chief which made him
so difficult either to command or to obey. "Surrounded
for the most part by young officers," says the Comte de
Paris, who was then serving on McClellan's staff 1 and
who has been one of his most lenient critics, "he was
himself the most youthful of us all, not only by reason
of his physical vigor, the vivacity of his impressions,
the noble candor of his character, and his glowing pa-
triotism, but also, I may add, by his inexperience of
men." 2 Difficulties with a valetudinarian such as Gen-
eral Winfield Scott could perhaps be pardoned to the
"inexperience of men" of any commander; but Mc-
Clellan's persistent and contemptuous stand-off attitude
toward "browsing presidents" showed this inexperience
to consist in part of the Bourbonism which learns noth-
ing and forgets nothing.
The tactlessness of a man who could thus deal with
his superiors naturally displayed itself also in his hand-
ling of his division commanders, among whom the posi-
tive and able McDowell was soon in disfavor. Of these
facts the Northern public was naturally ignorant; had
it possessed them its murmurs would have been louder
and more menacing than they were. Congress, how-
ever, assembling early in December, was quick both to
sense the situation and to act, appointing a committee
on the conduct of the war with powers for gaining in-
formation at first hand. "Endeavoring," in the words of
its chairman, Senator Wade, "to see if there is any way
in God's world to get rid of the capital besieged, while
Europe is looking down upon us as almost a conquered
people," 3 it summoned to its sessions as witnesses one
general after another from the Army of the Potomac.
Wadsworth, as it chanced, was the fifth person to appear
before it, giving his testimony on December 26, 1861.
1 His younger brother, the Due de Chartres, held a similar position.
2 Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, II, 112.
3 C. W., pt. 1, p. 140.
BvJAVir flfl vA 1
BB.^Br flBr
wMm ' Bi
T. R. II. THE COMTE DE PARIS AND THE
DIC DE CHARTRES.
The Orleans Princes who Served on General
McClellan's Staff.
1861] STRENGTH OF THE ENEMY 99
From McDowell, who preceded Wadsworth as a wit-
ness, the committee had obtained his views touching
the importance of an advance toward the enemy at
Manassas and Centreville. To Wadsworth they now put
questions on the subjects as to which they were most
concerned: whether McClellan had called his division
commanders to council; whether the condition of the
roads was favorable to a forward movement; whether
the divisions of the army should not be organized into
army corps; whether the cavalry was not in excessive
proportion; whether he, Wadsworth, returned fugitive
slaves to their owners. In fact, he was asked to answer
any sort of military question that might suggest itself
to the inconsequent and non-military mind of a con-
gressman sitting in committee. Such of these queries
as related to matters of fact he answered with frank-
ness; to such as dealt with matters of opinion he re-
plied with discretion. His testimony on two important
points is here given. As to his ways of getting informa-
tion concerning the strength of the enemy, he said:
The sources of supply that were open to us, until
within a very few days, were these: runaway negroes
coming in our lines, deserters coming in, and prisoners
taken from the enemy; likewise the information col-
lected by scouts, who go out, but do not go exactly
within the lines of the enemy — or not very much within
their lines — very slightly. ... I have scouts who go
out, for instance, to Fairfax Court House; there are a
number of Union men near Fairfax Court House with
whom these scouts communicate, and also some intelli-
gent negroes. From these various sources a great deal
of information is obtained. It is reliable as far as it
goes, but it is not definite enough. The way in which
we get at the numbers of the enemy from such sources
is by endeavoring to ascertain the number of their
camps, the number of their regiments, and then we mul-
tiply that by what we suppose to be the average force
of their regiments. We have several times had parties
come in who would tell us how many camps there were,
100 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
for instance, at Fairfax Court House; how many at Cen-
treville; and, not so definitely, but approximately, the
number at Manassas. In that way we have had some
materials for getting an estimate of their strength. But
latterly an order has been issued prohibiting the com-
manders in front from examining these parties as they
came in. We are now obliged to send them to head-
quarters. That order took effect two or three weeks
ago, and we now send them in without examination to
any great extent. I know that General McDowell told
me it would not be a breach of the order to examine
them sufficiently for us to know whether the enemy were
going to attack us at once. Then there have been re-
strictions placed upon the movements of these scouts.
There is difficulty in getting passes through the lines;
so that within two or three weeks we have not had so
much information as previously. I do not know the
object of it. . . .
As to the effect on the men of inaction, he said:
The troops are still in very good spirits. They have
not abandoned the idea of active service this winter;
but I think if it should become generally understood
in the army that we are not to have any active service
this winter, it would be almost impossible to keep the
volunteers here. The volunteers, as I know to be
the case with those from New York, embrace a great
many men of intelligence and property. Many have
left their families under circumstances of a great deal
of anxiety and have come here from patriotic motives.
If it was understood that they were going into winter
quarters, it would be almost impossible to keep them
here at all. The applications for furloughs are now ten
times what they were in the summer. The men want
to go home and see their families, as they are doing
nothing here. Our time is largely occupied by these
applications, which are very pressing.
Question. I will ask you whether, in your judgment,
your men would be improved by the experience they
would obtain by remaining in camp during all winter?
Wadsworth. I do not think they would. The winter
isfli] CONDITION OF THE ENEMY 101
is very unfavorable for drilling. ... I do not think the
men would be better in the spring under any circum-
stances, even if they were in good spirits. The officers
of the line might be improved if they had efficient work-
ing commanders who would compel them to study, and
who would drill them themselves at officers' drill. . . .
Question. Is it your opinion that a movement should
be made?
Wadsworih. It seems almost presumptuous for me to
give an opinion upon that question. But as you ask
me, I will answer you. It seems to me that there is
no doubt about it: that we must, beyond all question,
make a movement. I think we are largely superior to
our enemies in numbers, and we have a vast superiority
in artillery. . . . They are brave men, and ardent in
their cause; they fight very well when we meet them.
. . . From what I have seen of them, however, I am
sure we are superior to them in discipline.
Question. How are they off for clothing, so far as you
have been able to learn from their prisoners?
Wadsworih. Very badly off. We get very reliable ac-
counts in that respect from negroes and from citizens
who have seen them. There are citizens near Fairfax
Court House who see their troops there, but are not al-
lowed to go to Centreville or Manassas. The enemy
takes very extraordinary precautions to prevent us from
learning their numbers. And if any citizen goes to Cen-
treville or Manassas he is kept there, and not allowed
to return. But these citizens see detachments of their
troops. A man by the name of Webster, living a little
way out of Fairfax Court House, saw some regiments
pass his house, and he gives a very reliable account of
their condition as to clothing. 1
The period when the committee of Congress was en-
tering upon its labors, patriotic but nevertheless subver-
sive of military propriety and discipline, marked also
the beginning of one of the most poignantly distressing
situations of the war in its exhibition of men at cross-
purposes, of incompatibility of temperaments. A day or
two before Christmas McClellan fell ill. Refusing to
1 C. W., pt. 1, pp. 147-149.
102 WADSWORTII OF GENESEO
relinquish his command temporarily, he kept everything
at a stand-still at precisely the moment when further in-
action had become insupportable. Lincoln, expressing
the wish to "borrow" the army for a while, called Mc-
Dowell and Franklin, another of McClellan's division
commanders, into council with some of the members of
the cabinet, and the body thus casually constituted un-
dertook first to inform itself as to the internal condi-
tion of the army and then to plan a campaign which
should satisfy the impatience of the North for action.
Nothing shows better the desperateness of the situation
than the fact that men of sense should undertake to co-
operate in this fatuous fashion. Though the conference
seems to have wonderfully accelerated McClellan's re-
covery, the deadlock continued. Unfortunately for him,
his inaction, combined with the ungracious treatment of
his generals already referred to, had spread demoraliza-
tion among them. The testimony of the officers, except
Fitz-John Porter, called before the Committee on the
Conduct of the War, goes far to prove this; if further
evidence were needed it could be found in a letter writ-
ten by Wadsworth to Sumner on January 10, the day of
Lincoln's first conference with McDowell and Franklin.
Upton's Hill, January 10, 1862.
My Dear Sumner: —
I have just received your note. There are no signs
of a fight or a move. The Adjutant-General of General
McClellan told one of my staff that the country ought
to be satisfied that the Capital had been protected,
and that he did not think an onward move could be
made.
In my judgment the policy of sending expeditions to
attack the enemy at unguarded points while he comes
up and offers us battle in sight of our Capital which
we decline is a pusillanimous, cowardly one. The army
is as much depressed and discouraged as the monied
interest. The despondency and disgust is almost uni-
versal. Starting with a prosperous and patriotic North
1862] DISCONTENT IN THE ARMY 103
we have reached bankruptcy and got seven miles into
Virginia. 1 I tell you confidentially but advisedly that
the army has lost confidence in its commander. It
never had any, nor had anyone else, in the Secretary of
War. Our only hope now is in the Legislative branch.
If you are competent to the crisis you may save the
country; but you must do it soon or be too late.
It is difficult for me to leave my command and come
to Washington, though I have been in for a few hours
at a time occasionally. I wish you would make up a
party and come out and dine with me. Send me word
if' you can by the Military Telegraph from [the] War
Office and I will be at home. I should be very much
gratified if I could have an hour's conversation with a
few influential gentlemen in the Senate. I should like
to meet Mr. Fessenden and Mr. Grimes. Can you man-
age this for me? You see that I write you with great
frankness. My apology will be found in the desperate
condition of our affairs. I do not aspire to discuss the
great problems before you, but to let you know the
condition and feeling of the army.
Very sincerely yours,
JAS. S. WADSWORTH.
It was from the executive, nevertheless, that the
first ray of hope came. Remove McClellan Lincoln
could not, for there was no one commanding the confi-
dence of the country who could be put in his place; but
on the very day after Wadsworth's letter was written
Cameron was displaced, and on January 13 Edwin M.
Stanton was appointed to succeed him. This was almost
the first act of Lincoln's to reveal the quality of leader-
ship which the stern discipline of the national crisis was
slowly developing within him. Conscious of the train
of blunders into which his administrative inexperience
1 The financial measures adopted by Congress in the summer of 1861
had proved inadequate, and the United States Treasury was nearly empty.
" Saturday night, December 28, 1861, the managers of the New York banks,
after a meeting of six hours, decided that they must suspend specie pay-
ments. Gold soon brought a slight premium." — (Rhodes, History of the
U. S., m, 561.)
104 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
and insecurity had led him, he had now, at the long last,
turned into the upward path. His genius consisted not
a little in his power to grow from weakness to strength,
and with this deed of courage he fitly began the great
year of Emancipation.
The appointment of Stanton, however, had little effect
upon the immediate fortunes of the Army of the Potomac
except to strengthen in the cabinet the hostility to Mc-
Clellan. Meanwhile the unseemly tussle between the
President and the commander of the armies went on.
The long arguments between them as to the best route
for the advance of the Army of the Potomac — whether
it should be directly against the Confederate army at
Manassas, or, by a change of base, against Richmond up
one of the rivers flowing into Chesapeake Bay — have no
place here. With a point at issue, however, which later
became acute, Wadsworth had a direct concern. It was
one of McClellan's failings as a commander that his
sense of fact was always at the mercy of his imagina-
tion. His faculty for "realizing hallucinations," x to use
the phrase of Gurowski, the Thersites of Washington at
this time, displayed itself nowhere more tryingly than in
his estimate of the number of the enemy opposed to
him in Virginia. He was convinced that his own army
of over one hundred and fifty thousand was face to face
with eighty thousand men at Manassas and Centreville,
while the Confederate forces along the Potomac above
and below Washington amounted to thirty-five thousand
more. 2 His belief, based on the reports of Allen Pinker-
ton, the chief of his secret service, was proof against any
evidence which made his foes less formidable in point
of numbers. Wadsworth, on the other hand, relying on
the means of information which he had indicated to the
Committee on the Conduct of the War, had reached the
conviction that the force about Manassas was between
1 Gurowski's Diary from March, 1861, to Nov. 1863, p. 99.
2 5 W. R., p. 53.
1862] SECRETARY STANTON 105
forty thousand and fifty thousand men. 1 Growing surer
of his figures as the weeks of the winter wore on, he
took his evidence to McDowell, to McClellan, and even
to Stanton. Though McClellan rejected it with a rude-
ness, so the story goes, surpassing his usual treatment
of subordinates, on the Secretary of War the effect was
of a different sort. The soldier before him, so clear as
to his facts and pressing them home with all the personal
force of a man accustomed to make his ideas tell upon his
auditors, struck Stanton as a man who might be of ser-
vice for other work in the combinations to be made in
the near future.
These new combinations, representing the effort of
the administration to put vigor into the conduct of the
war, were the outcome of the appointment of Stanton,
who, having now been in office for nearly two months
and feeling himself firmly established, was beginning to
manifest that relentless and unreasoning love of author-
ity for which he was to become famous. A man of
far greater executive force than Lincoln, a "worker of
workers," in the phrase of Nicolay and Hay, 2 and also
of far less personal tact and human understanding, he
was soon at loggerheads with McClellan. Being both
inexperienced and contemptuous as to military habits of
thought and methods of procedure and having withal
a consuming passion for action, he had come into the
cabinet at just the moment when Lincoln was dallying
with the idea of "borrowing" the Army of the Potomac.
Impatient of all half-way measures, Stanton fell in read-
ily with the President's scheme, which was in effect to
ignore McClellan and to issue orders direct to the army
1 Greeley's American Conflict, II, 212. Lossing, II, 355, 358, says that
the estimate of General Wool at Fortress Monroe confirmed that of Wads-
worth. It has been too often assumed that all the estimates given Mc-
Clellan of the numbers of the Confederates were exaggerated. The truth
is, he wilfully shut his eyes to the evidence that, if accepted, would condemn
his inaction.
2 Life of Lincoln, V, 136.
106 WADS WORTH OF GENESEO
himself. In defence of such a course, as green and art-
less as it was demoralizing and predestined to disaster,
the only thing that can be urged is that no other was
open. As has already been said, there was no available
commander of sufficient achievement in whose favor Mc-
Clellan could be relieved, and, this being the case, the
way to make the best of a bad business seemed to be for
the administration to assume such control as should pre-
vent McClellan from having altogether his own wilful
way. A forlorn hope, this, as the events of the past
winter had already shown; but there was no hope else-
where.
It was on Saturday, March 8, 1862, soon after Mc-
Clellan had returned from the inglorious "lockjaw expe-
dition" at Harper's Ferry, 1 that effective steps toward
this singular arrangement were taken. While McClellan
was taking counsel of his general officers, mostly divi-
sion commanders, called together at Lincoln's direction
to discuss the still unsettled question of the route to
be taken against the enemy, Lincoln was preparing the
President's General War Orders, numbered two and
three, and bearing this same date. 2 By these orders
McClellan was required to organize the part of the
Army of the Potomac about to enter upon active opera-
tions into four corps, for the command of which the rank-
ing division commanders, Major-General McDowell and
Brigadier-Generals Sumner, Heintzelman, and Keyes,
were designated. A fifth corps under Major-General N. P.
Banks was to be formed of two divisions stationed near
Harper's Ferry. At Washington was to be left a force
sufficient in the estimation of McClellan and his corps
1 McClellan had assembled a large number of boats in the canal oppo-
site Harper's Ferry, to be used in making a bridge across the river, and had
ordered a large force to rendezvous there. When, however, it was attempted
to pass the boats through the lift lock it was found that they were some six
inches too wide. Chase's mot, that the expedition died of lockjaw, spread
rapidly in Washington.
2 5 W. R., pp. 18, 50.
1862] McCLELLAN'S COMMAND 107
commanders for its defence, and to the command of this
force Wadsworth was assigned with the title of Military
Governor of the District of Washington. The work
thus begun without consultation with McClellan was
continued — but by no means completed — by the Presi-
dent's War Order, No. 3, published three days later. 1
By its terms McClellan was relieved of his position of
general-in-chief, his command being restricted to the
Department of the Potomac; the troops in the West were
constituted the Department of the Mississippi, under
General Halleck; while the mountainous region of west-
ern Virginia, where there were almost no forces, Union
or Confederate, was designated the Mountain Depart-
ment, with Major-General John C. Fremont, recently
returned in disgrace from Missouri, as its commander.
All three commanders of departments were ordered to
report directly to the Secretary of War.
This stripping of authority from McClellan, the pre-
lude to a still more humiliating stripping of troops, he
bore with fairly good grace, issuing without undue delay
the necessary commands for the organization of his army
into corps. Against the appointment of Wadsworth, how-
ever, he saw fit to protest. It was not strange that he
should object to an arrangement by which a man wholly
without technical training was to be put in command of
the extensive fortifications about the city and of the
troops necessary to man them. He must also have had
some inkling of Wadsworth's personal hostility to him.
But, on remonstrating with Stanton, he was told, as he
declares, "that Wadsworth had been selected because it
was necessary, for political reasons, to conciliate the agri-
cultural interests of New York, and that it was useless
to discuss the matter, because it would in no event be
changed." 2 Whatever the rashness of Lincoln and Stan-
ton in assigning Wadsworth to such a position, McClel-
lan, as in the case of the corps commanders, had only his
1 5 W. R., p. 54. 2 McClellan's Own Story, p. 226.
108 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
own dilatoriness to thank. His proposal that the place
should be given to Brigadier-General W. B. Franklin, an
excellent officer of the regular army, came too late and
had the air of being merely an afterthought, a peg upon
which he could hang his protest.
With regard to such appointments as those of Banks,
Fremont, and Wadsworth, it must be remembered that,
from one point of view, they represented for the month
of March the balance of favors which Lincoln was con-
tinually trying to strike between the two wings of the
Republican party. Throughout the winter the inactiv-
ity of the Army of the Potomac had been laid by the radi-
cal leaders to the conservative tendencies of McClellan
and some of his generals. It was the men of anti-slavery
sentiments who were spoiling for a fight, and their clamors
kept the harassed President constantly between the devil
and the deep sea. The coming of Stanton was a godsend
to the party of action, and his falling out with McClellan
a circumstance of which they made the most. The three
military appointments in question were also read through-
out the North as signs that the administration had set
its steps resolutely forward, and the response desired by
Lincoln came in renewed support from this section of
the party.
It was considerations such as these, rather than the
need of conciliating the agricultural interests in New
York, that probably played a part in the choice of Wads-
worth for the position of military governor of the capi-
tal. His inexperience as commander of an army of
twenty -five thousand men within fortifications cannot be
gainsaid; but Stanton, who was already expecting to
bring to Washington Major-General E. A. Hitchcock, an
army officer of long service and high standing, was
doubtless trusting to him to make good Wadsworth's
professional deficiencies. 1 In point of fact, the turn of
circumstances, as will presently appear, ultimately relieved
1 Fifty Years in Camp and Field, p. 437.
1802] MILITARY GOVERNORSHIP 109
the volunteer officer of this larger responsibility. The
true justification for his appointment, therefore, over
and above his qualifications of general capacity and
executive force, is to be found in the fact that the
position was quasi-civil. The man who was to govern
a place that was half city, half camp must use his mili-
tary authority in such fashion that it should not con-
found the strength of the civil arm. In this respect the
appointment of Wadsworth was as suitable in promise
as it actually resulted in performance. The single in-
stance in which, acting with Stanton's consent, he made
his power paramount is the exception that proves the
rule.
Saturday, March 8, the day on which Lincoln's two
orders were issued, was the beginning of a week of mem-
orable events, tumbling after one another in disordered
sequence, kaleidoscopic in their bewildering combina-
tions. To touch for a moment on things naval, it was
the day when the iron-clad Merrimac dealt destruction
among the wooden frigates at Hampton Roads. On the
next day the iron-clad was checkmated by the Monitor
in a combat which revolutionized warfare on sea for the
whole world. On land, on this same Sunday, it became
known that the Confederate pickets were being with-
drawn from the lines which they had watched for five
months. Wadsworth's outposts were among the first to
make the discovery, and he telegraphed the fact to Mc-
Clellan's head-quarters. Later in the evening his bri-
gade received marching orders. Although the day before
he had had word of Stanton's intention to appoint him
military governor of Washington, the order assigning
him to that duty had fortunately not been made out,
and he was free to lead his men in the advance move-
ment for which he had so long waited. An hour after
midnight the sergeants went from tent to tent quietly
arousing the men and bidding them prepare to start at
five. "At four," according to the regimental narrative
of the Twenty -first New York, "all were astir, bonfires
110 WADSWORTII OF GENESEO
were lighted in the streets with the straw of our bunks
and the remnant of firewood, and in their glare men
hurried to and fro, securing the safety of whatever must
be left behind, filling haversacks and canteens, and tak-
ing a last look at the old camp which had been the scene
of so many long-to-be-remembered experiences.
"At five the bugle sounded, and the cry of 'Fall in!'
echoed from street to street; the men hurried into their
places, the fine was formed, and just as daylight began
to streak the east we joyously took up the march. The
morning was damp, and the hill was enveloped in an
ashy canopy of smoke through which the smouldering
fires showed dimly as we turned away, wondering if we
should ever see it again. On the march at last." '
That night Wadsworth's men, being the advance bri-
gade of the army, encamped in a pine grove about two
miles east of Centreville. There they tarried for five
days, the men spending the time free from drill and
camp duties in straying about the deserted Confeder-
ate camps and over the battle-field of Bull Run. There,
too, Stanton's order of appointment reached Wadsworth,
who made immediate preparation to return to Washing-
ton. The news of their loss spread rapidly among the
regiments of the brigade, just returning from drill, and
with the instinct of soldiers for an emotional moment
they gathered about their commander to bid him fare-
well. The thronging adieus, inarticulate save for the
repeated cries of "Good-by!" were gathered up for ex-
pression in the "Auld Lang Syne" which the band of
the Twenty-first New York struck up as he left the
camp. 2 His connection with the Army of the Potomac,
beginning with its organization by McDowell, had lasted
for nine months; another nine months was to pass be-
fore he saw service with it again. 3
1 Chronicles of the 21st N. Y., pp. 146, 147. 'Ibid., p. 150.
3 A few weeks after this leave-taking Wadsworth had occasion to visit
his old brigade. "He was discovered and recognized by some of the men
when half a mile away, and the cry was immediately raised, 'Waddy's
coming!' 'Old Waddy's coming!' It ran rapidly along the line. Then a
1862] TO WASHINGTON 111
Riding toward Washington over the same road that
he had travelled alone after Bull Run, Wadsworth had
opportunity to reflect upon the transition from the first
to the second period of his military career. Keenly as
he desired to lead his brigade in the coming campaign
and there to justify his pride in its discipline, he was
not insensible to the recognition by the administration of
a greater power of service for him in another field. The
very scope of opportunity in this command, the limits
of which were still indeterminate in the minds of those
who had created it, was an attraction to him. With no
illusions as to his lack of military training for the com-
mand of a fortified city, and yet in true American fash-
ion in no wise daunted thereby, he crossed the Potomac
and entered the nation's capital, the governance of which
was henceforth to be his care.
grand rush was made. Men jumped from their tents capless and coatless.
Those who had caps swung them, and all shouted, 'Hurrah for General
Wadsworth!' As he came galloping into camp accompanied by his staff,
the brigade instantly surrounded him in so dense a mass as to hem him in
entirely. He shook hands with all whom he could reach, asking after the
health and fare of the men, then forced his way out of this press. . . . He
did not expect such a greeting, and indeed such a greeting is vouchsafed
to but few men in the army." — (Camp Fires of the 23rd Reg., N. Y. V., by
Pound Sterling, p. 45.)
CHAPTER V
MILITARY GOVERNOR OF WASHINGTON: NEW
YORK GUBERNATORIAL CAMPAIGN
The culminating event of this March week of wonders
was the return of McClellan and his army from Ma-
nassas to Alexandria. Instead of pressing after the re-
treating enemy he purposed, it seemed, to embark his
vast force on transports and to make the first stage of
his movement upon Richmond by water. The aston-
ishment of the North at these developments, as well as
the disgust of those who from first-hand knowledge saw
in them the climax of the controversies of the past two
months, finds vent in a letter written at the end of the
week by Wadsworth's oldest daughter to her aunt in
Europe.
New York, March 15, 1862.
. . . We have just returned from a short visit to
Philadelphia and Washington. Mother, Lizzie, and my-
self arrived one fine evening in Washington where we
met Father, whom I had not seen for eight months. The
next morning he took us off to his headquarters at Up-
ton's Hill, seven miles over the most atrocious roads
that you ever imagined. We stayed there for three or
four days, living in a very primitive manner. Lizzie
and I had a room together, a desolate-looking attic
room, . . . two camp cots and a tin basin were the
sole pieces of furniture. One of the aides tacked up a
couple of old blankets over the windows, and stuffed a
big hole in the ceiling supposed to have been made
by a Secessionist cannon-ball. On Saturday we re-
turned to Washington, and on Sunday came the news
that the rebels were evacuating Manassas. An immedi-
ate advance was ordered, and although Father had al-
ready — on Saturday — been offered the position I have
COHNEI.IA WADSWORTM KITCIIIE.
NANCY WHARTON WADSWORTH. ELIZABETH WADSWORTH.
DAUGHTERS OF JAMES S. WADSWORTH.
From photographs taken during the Civil War.
18C2] TO MANASSAS 113
spoken of [that of military governor of Washington], he
would not be left behind, and started on Monday morn-
ing for Centreville and Manassas. Monday was a most
exciting day in Washington. Troops were moving in
every direction, followed by long trains of army wagons.
From Willard's hotel I saw pass forty-eight batteries of
artillery, and McClellan and his staff — a brigade of itself.
All were in the greatest spirits, with colors flying and
bands playing; the streets were thronged with people
cheering them as they passed. A great battle, a great
victory, we all surely expected, and how did it all end?
These magnificent columns, which have been waiting
so impatiently all winter, this splendid corps d'armee
marched to Manassas to find the enemy had quietly
given them the slip, to find only empty fortifications
with stove-pipes representing cannon, and so they were
ordered back to Washington. This is probably what
McClellan has been thinking about the last eight months.
You probably see nothing but praise of McClellan in
the newspapers you get abroad. He is extremely un-
popular here for his arrogance to his divisional generals
— many of them older than himself — his partiality for
slavery. . . . The President and Cabinet all dislike him.
For one thing we certainly have to thank him — by his
inactivity he has gained for us the contempt of Europe.
Do you wonder that we are ridiculed and laughed at
when an army of forty or fifty thousand poorly equipped
men have kept in check all winter our two hundred thou-
sand on the banks of the Potomac?
Never, indeed, did commander set forth for the field
under unhappier auspices than McClellan, when, on
Monday, March 17, he began to embark his army at
Alexandria. The state of mind of Stanton on that day,
as reported by General Hitchcock in his diaiy, shows
how the "lockjaw expedition" and the march to Ma-
nassas and back again had driven the Secretary of War
to his wits' ends.
First of all, this morning, in an interview with the
secretary of war, I declined his offers of a high station
(two or three of them), and finally asked him if he would
114 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
allow me to be placed under his own orders as a staff
officer, to render such service as I might be capable
of. . . .
He then asked me to take a seat in his private
council-room, where I remained most of the day. Towards
evening he came in, and, shutting the door behind him,
stated to me the most astounding facts, all going to
show the astonishing incompetency of General McClel-
lan. I cannot recite them; but the secretary stated
fact after fact, until I felt positively sick — that falling
of the heart which excludes hope.
I do not wonder, now, that the secretary offered even
me the command of this Army of the Potomac. . . .
The secretary is immensely distressed, and with rea-
son: he is dreadfully apprehensive of a great disaster,
which, also, is not improbable. 1
This atmosphere of jealous suspicion of McClellan,
nowhere more tainted than in Washington, Wadsworth
was to breathe during the months of the coming spring
and summer. On his own part he had good reason for
distrust, as he soon found out when he endeavored to
ascertain precisely what troops were to be left behind
to constitute his command.
McClellan's first thought at this time was naturally
for the perfecting of the army with which he was to
take the field. This care led him to make one deduction
after another from the force originally designated for
the defence of the capital. For expected siege opera-
tions he withdrew from the forts the regiments trained
as heavy artillery; he organized additional divisions for
one of his corps; for the artillery thus required he took
horses from the batteries that were to be left behind. 2
To make up for this reduction he relied upon regiments
that for one cause or another were not in condition to
accompany the Army of the Potomac and upon raw
1 Fifty Years in Camp and Field, p. 440.
2 Gen. Barry's testimony at the McDowell court of inquiry. — (W. R.,
XII, pt. 1, p. 240.)
1862] McCLELLAN'S ARRANGEMENTS 115
troops that had just reached the capital or were about
to arrive there.
McClellan's justification of this course lay in his
conviction that the vigorous movement of his own army
against Richmond was the best way of occupying the
forces of the enemy and so protecting Washington.
Whatever the merit of this view, its weakness was that
it treated too lightly the stipulation laid down by Lin-
coln, on recommendation of the four corps commanders,
that the safety of Washington should be assured by the
presence of a sufficient body of troops. 1 This fault Mc-
Clellan, in view of the strained relations existing between
him and the President and the Secretary of War, should
have been sedulous to avoid. Still another error in the
hasty arrangements which he made in these crowded days
of work at Alexandria was that they did not take into
account the peculiar opportunity which the Shenandoah
Valley offered to a body of troops desiring thence to
threaten Washington. Even less did they take into ac-
count the presence there of Stonewall Jackson, though,
as Henderson remarks of McClellan's lack of precautions
in this respect, "It would have been nothing short of
miraculous had he even suspected that 4,500 men, under
a professor of the higher mathematics, might bring to
naught the operations of his gigantic host." 2 The battle
of Kernstown, however, on March 23, when Jackson,
though defeated, made himself felt, resulted in McClellan's
remedying this neglect by sending back to the Shenandoah
a considerable portion of Banks's command; but in so do-
ing he deprived Washington of the force designed to pro-
tect it at Manassas and Warrenton and did nothing ade-
quate to make good the deficiency. The final indication
1 At a council of war held on March 13 these generals, while approving
McClellan's plan for an advance on Richmond from Fortress Monroe, had
recommended that, in addition to the garrison for the forts, at least twenty-
five thousand troops should be left for the defence of Washington. —
{5 W. R., p. 56.)
2 Stonewall Jackson, I, 235.
116 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
of his failure, from whatever motive, to discharge his
full responsibility in this matter upon which Lincoln and
Stanton properly laid such stress is the fact that in his
schedule of the forces left to defend Washington he not
only included 3,500 men said to be "now ready in Penn-
sylvania," but also did not perceive that the body of
7,780 men which was to form part of this covering army
was also included in his estimate of 23,000 men for Banks's
army. 1 "It is too plain for argument," says Ropes, sum-
ming up his careful discussion of the matter, "that Gen-
eral McClellan did not give to the subject of the defence
of Washington that strict and conscientious attention
which its importance demanded, and which a man of the
highest character would have given to it, — all the more
because the matter was one which did not directly affect
his own contemplated operations in the field. Moreover,
the whole story shows how short-sighted was McClellan's
course." 2
McClellan was not a man with the gift of concealing
his feelings, and when on April 1 Lincoln went down to
Alexandria to bid him farewell his indifference to the
safety of Washington was so apparent as to cause the
President considerable uneasiness. He was in no posi-
tion, however, to extract from McClellan a definite state-
ment on this head, for one of the objects of his visit
was to make clear to the commander the necessity of
taking from the Army of the Potomac Blenker's divis-
ion, in order that Fremont in the Mountain Department
might have a force of sufficient importance. Politics
and "pressure," as Lincoln himself regretfully admitted,
were responsible for his proposal — though the anxiety
aroused by Jackson's giving battle at Kernstown was
also a consideration of weight — and must be paramount,
in spite of the opposition of McClellan and Hitchcock. 3
1 Ropes's Story of the Civil War, I, 262-264. 2 Ropes, I, 265.
3 As to Stanton's position, compare the following: "When I heard of
the design to remove that division from the front of Washington I expressed
1862] McCLELLAN'S ARRANGEMENTS 117
Instead, therefore, of being able to ask with authority
for sufficient troops to make the city safe, Lincoln was
obliged to give McClellan "positive and emphatic assur-
ance" that after Blenker's division no more men should
be withdrawn from him. 1 The mood in which the two
men parted was not a happy augury for the future.
McClellan turned to write the final letters of instruction
to Banks and Wadsworth as to the size and disposal of
their commands, requiring of the latter at this last mo-
ment some regiments for the Army of the Potomac which
would in part make up for the loss of Blenker. He also
prepared for the War Department a statement, impres-
sive but misleading, showing that in Virginia, the Shenan-
doah Valley, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Penn-
sylvania, and New York there was a force of seventy-
three thousand available for the defence of the capital.
Lincoln on his part took back to Washington a troubled
mind which McDowell, who happened to be on the boat
with him, could do little to relieve. 2
During all this time, that is, for the first fortnight of
his service in his new position, Wadsworth had found it
impossible to ascertain what troops were then and what
troops were ultimately to be under his authority. For
lack of a better means of obtaining the necessary infor-
mation, he inserted a notice in the Washington news-
papers requiring officers whose commands constituted a
part of the defending force to report to him; but the
results were by no means satisfactory. Part of the evi-
my opinion to the secretary of war that it ought not to be done. He ac-
quiesced at once in that view, and desired me to go with him to the Presi-
dent and explain it to the President, which I did, but without success." —
(General Hitchcock's testimony before the McDowell court of inquiry,
W. R., XII, pt. 1, p. 220.)
"I am vigorously urging the President to send you seventeen thousand
troops, infantry, cavalry, artillery, and pontoon train. He will decide to-
day."— (Stanton to Fremont, March 31, W. R., XII, pt. 3, p. 34.) Truly an
extraordinary man, as baffling to the historian and the biographer as he
was to his contemporaries!
1 MeClellan's report, 5 W. R., p- 59.
2 McDowell's testimony, C. W., pt. 1, p. 261.
118 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
dence that came to him from day to day seemed to
show that his command was to be made up exclusively
of troops that were raw, disorganized, or imperfectly
equipped.
In this state of affairs, with Lincoln, Stanton, and
Wadsworth jealously v watchful of the departing com-
mander, it was the final letter of McClellan's, already
referred to, that confirmed their suspicions, and it was
Wadsworth's action thereupon that set in operation the
train of events which McClellan's partisans later af-
firmed prevented him from capturing Richmond. On
the morning of April 2, the day after McClellan's depart-
ure, General Wadsworth appeared at the War Depart-
ment with McClellan's letter of the day before ordering
him to detach four good regiments to the Army of the
Potomac and to send four thousand men to Manassas.
In his whole command, Wadsworth said, he had not that
number of men in fit condition to take the field, and to
that effect he had telegraphed the general commanding
at Manassas. 1 From Wadsworth's indignant narrative
Stanton received the full revelation of McClellan's con-
temptuous ignorance and indifference in regard to provi-
sion for the safety of Washington. The facts as Wads-
worth wrote them down for Stanton are here given:
Headquaeters Military District of Washington,
Washington, D. C, April 2, 1862.
Sir: — I have the honor to submit the following con-
densed statement of the forces left under my command
for the defences of Washington:
Infantry 15,335
Artillery 4,294
Cavalry (six companies only mounted) .... 848
20,477
Deduct sick, and in arrest and confinement . . . 1,455
Total present for duty 19,022
1 W. R., XI, pt. 3, p. 57.
1862] LETTER TO STANTON 119
I have no mounted light artillery under my com-
mand.
Several companies of the reserve artillery of the army
of the Potomac are still here, but not under my command
or fit for service.
Of this force I am ordered by General McClellan to
detail two regiments (good ones) to join Richardson's
division (Sumner's corps) as it passes through Alexandria;
one regiment to replace the 37th New York volunteers
in Heintzelman's old division, and one regiment to re-
lieve a regiment of Hooker's division at Budd's Ferry.
Total, four regiments.
I am further ordered this morning by telegraph to
send 4,000 men to relieve General Sumner at Manassas
and Warrenton, that he may embark forthwith.
In regard to the character and efficiency of the troops
under my command, I have to state that nearly all the
force is new and imperfectly disciplined; that several
of the regiments are in a very disorganized condition
from various causes, which it is not necessary to state
here. Several regiments having been relieved from bri-
gades which have gone into the field, in consequence of
their unfitness for service, the best regiments remaining
have been selected to take their place.
Two heavy artillery regiments and one infantry regi-
ment, which had been drilled for some months in artil-
lery service, have been withdrawn from the forts on the
south side of the Potomac, and I have only been able
to fill their place with very new infantry regiments, en-
tirely unacquainted with the duties of that arm, and of
little or no value in their present position.
I am not informed as to the position which Major-
General Banks is directed to take; but at this time he
is, as I understand, on the other side of the Bull Run
mountains, leaving my command to cover the front
from Manassas Gap (about twenty miles beyond Ma-
nassas) to Aquia creek.
I deem it my duty to state that, looking at the nu-
merical strength and character of the force under my
command, it is, in my judgment, entirely inadequate to,
and unfit for, the important duty to which it is assigned.
I regard it very improbable that the enemy will assail
us at this point; but this belief is based upon the hope
120 WADSWORTII OF GENESEO
that they may be promptly engaged elsewhere, and may
not learn the number and character of the force left here.
I have the honor to be your obedient servant,
JAMES S. WADSWORTH,
Brigadier General and Military Governor.
The Hon. Secretary of War. 1
No man was less fitted than Stanton to bear calmly
the shock of such a piece of news. To his natural ap-
prehensions for the safety of the capital and his dis-
trust of McClellan was now added a sense of outrage at
an act of high-handed carelessness which had all the as-
pect of a personal affront. Sending for Lorenzo Thomas,
the adjutant-general of the army, and for General Hitch-
cock, he turned over to them the President's instructions
as given in his War Orders, the recommendations of the
corps commanders, and the statements of McClellan and
Wadsworth, and bade them report whether or not the
commander of the Army of the Potomac had done what
was required for the defence of the capital. In the course
of a few hours the two officers made answer that Lin-
coln's conditions had not been complied with. 2
The scandal of this situation was not long in spread-
ing from the War Department to the Capitol, where, at
the slightest rumor of mismanagement in the Army of
the Potomac, the Committee on the Conduct of the War
always promptly met and began summoning witnesses
to its sessions. Since its inquiries as to the "Quaker
guns" at Centreville it had had little to feed upon;
now, on April 3, it assembled to take its fill of sensa-
tion from Wadsworth's letter and the comments with
which he elucidated it. As to the number of troops
which would in his opinion render Washington safe, his
1 W. R., XI, pt. 3, p. 60. A year later the New York World attacked Wads-
worth for the statements made in this letter. For his reply and further dis-
cussion of the subject, see Appendix E.
2 All the documents are printed in W. R., XI, pt. 3, pp. 57-62. Generals
Totten, Taylor, Meigs, and Ripley, all of them being familiar with the situa-
tion at Washington, took the same view. — (W. R., XIX, pt. 2, p. 726.)
1862] WADSWORTH'S TESTIMONY 121
estimate is of interest, because, being considerably lower
than the lowest estimate of McClellan's corps command-
ers, it shows how httle his judgment was moved in these
hours of alarm.
I should say that while the army of the rebels occu-
pies its present position at Culpeper and Gordonsville,
with none of our troops between this city and them,
not less than twenty-five thousand first-class troops
should occupy the city of Washington and its defences.
With that number this place can be held against any
number the rebels can bring against it. When that rebel
army disperses, which must be soon, of course a less
number would be required here. If this were any other
place than the capital of the nation, even a less number
might be deemed sufficient now; but being the capital,
while the rebel army remains at Culpeper and Gordons-
ville, only some forty miles from here, with no army of
ours in front of them, I think there should be troops
enough here to render this capital safe beyond any con-
tingency. 1
Meanwhile Lincoln, after a long conference at the
War Department with the various chiefs, directed Stan-
ton to detain at Alexandria one of the corps of the Army
of the Potomac which had not yet embarked for the
Peninsula. Stanton, who had a constitutional tendency
to panic, chose that of McDowell, the largest in the
army, having at this time thirty-three thousand men
present for duty. On April 4 the Department of the
Rappahannock, with McDowell in command, was created,
and as the District of Columbia was included in it Wads-
worth henceforth reported to his old commander. 2 The
President also cancelled McClellan's order to Wadsworth
to send regiments to Manassas and to the Army of the
1 C. W., pt. 1, p. 253.
2 On the same day the Department of the Shenandoah was created, with
Banks in command. There were then in the East, as commanders of dis-
tinct departments, McClellan, McDowell, Banks, Fremont, Wool at For-
tress Monroe, Dix at Baltimore, Burnside in North Carolina, and Hunter in
South Carolina.
122 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
Potomac. Finally, to man the forts on the south side of
the Potomac, two 1 of the three regiments which McClel-
lan had proposed to take to constitute his siege train were
retained. The withholding of McDowell's corps at this
juncture, after Lincoln's "positive and emphatic assur-
ance" to McClellan that his army should suffer no fur-
ther depletion, was an act against which McClellan pro-
tested at the time and on the unfortunate consequences
of which he and his friends never ceased to harp. Yet
it is hard to see how, given the men and the situation,
Lincoln could have done otherwise. As the last word
on the subject, let him speak in his own defence:
My explicit order that Washington should, by the
judgment of all the commanders of army corps, be left
entirely secure, had been neglected. It was precisely this
that drove me to detain McDowell.
I do not forget that I was satisfied with your [Mc-
Clellan's] arrangement to leave Banks at Manassas Junc-
tion; but when that arrangement was broken up and
nothing was substituted for it, of course I was con-
strained to substitute something for it myself. And
allow me to ask, do you really think I should permit
the line from Richmond via Manassas Junction to this
city to be entirely open except what resistance could be
presented by less than twenty thousand unorganized
troops? This is a question which the country will not
allow me to evade. 2
The two days of stress over, there was before Wads-
worth the duty of transferring to the Virginia side of
the Potomac men to fill the forts which had been stripped
by McClellan and of sending the raw regiments to a
camp of instruction near Alexandria. The infantry made
good progress in proficiency, but the cavalry were for
the most part unmounted and without arms, save sabres, 3
1 The 26th New York and the 3d New York Heavy.
2 W. R., XII, pt. 1, p. 230.
3 Wadsworth's testimony before the McDowell court of inquiry. — (W. R.,
XII, pt. 1, p. 114.)
1862] AN IMAGINARY ATTACK 123
and the light artillery had difficulty in obtaining a supply
of horses. The deficiencies of Wadsworth's command
were glaringly revealed on April 19, when, in spite of
his protest, Stanton insisted that he should suppose the
city to be attacked, and should order all the troops
within the city limits to hurry to the long bridge and
the aqueduct communicating with the Virginia shore.
There, three hours after the alarm was given, an inspec-
tion was to be held of the number and condition of the
troops thus reporting; four thousand one hundred men
appeared, some with little ammunition, some with none.
The only regiment that the inspector-general could char-
acterize as "efficient" was one of cavalry recently re-
turned from several weeks' hard campaigning in the
Shenandoah. 1 In the forts on the south side of the
river, too, ammunition was scarce, and it was only after
long delays and repeated requisitions that a supply could
be procured for them. 2 Wadsworth himself has told the
story of his efforts to put his nondescript army into con-
dition. 3
I had some fragments of light artillery companies,
which I filled up by detailing men from infantry regi-
ments and unmounted cavalry. The great difficulty was
as to horses, owing to the numerous requisitions for
General McClellan's expedition. I procured an order
from the secretary of war to impress horses in Virginia
from disloyal citizens 4 and to break up a wagon train
in the quartermaster's department. In this way I
mounted two batteries, and subsequently twelve others,
seven of which were sent into the field, and seven turned
over to my successor in the command of the defences.
The impulse that caused Stanton to order Wads-
worth to assemble his forces to resist an imaginary at-
1 W. R., XH, pt. 1, pp. 225, 226. J W. R., XII, pt. 1, p. 219.
3 In a letter in the New York Times, May 15, 1863, written in reply to
attacks made by partisans of McClellan. See Appendix E.
* Wadsworth's order to the commander of the expedition contains a charac-
teristic phrase: "But do not oppress the poor families." — (117 W. R., p. 50.)
124 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
tack at the very gates of the city is one of not a few-
instances that show how during the spring of 18G2 the
secretary's satisfaction in his strategy was from time to
time darkened by the shadow cast by Stonewall Jack-
son. In the latter days of April the Confederate com-
mander's inactivity in the upper part of the valley, where
Banks was supposed to be watching him strictly, was
regarded in Washington now as a favorable now as an
unfavorable omen. Early in May it became known that
Jackson had been reinforced, and straightway both Mc-
Dowell at Fredericksburg and Fremont in the mountain
region w r est of the Shenandoah conceived themselves in
danger of attack. As for Stanton, on May 9 he ex-
pressed his belief that "The probabilities at present point
to a possible attack upon Washington while the Shen-
andoah army is amused with demonstrations. Washing-
ton is the only object now worth a desperate throw." 1
The news of Jackson's sudden descent, the day before, on
a portion of Fremont's command at the village of Mc-
Dowell, at the same time that it showed the Secretary
of War how wide of the mark his guess had been, did
little to allay his apprehensions of this man who moved
in mystery. Nevertheless, when Jackson after his vic-
tory again relapsed into quiet, Lincoln and Stanton felt
safe in pushing their preparations for strengthening Mc-
Dowell's force by the addition of Shields's division from
Banks's command, and for then sending McDowell over-
land from Fredericksburg to McClellan's aid.
One or two signs there were, however, which, if prop-
erly followed up, would have given the Union authori-
ties the clue to their danger. The railroad from Alex-
andria to Strasburg in the Shenandoah Valley, which
had been put in running order as far as Front Royal,
where it entered the valley through a gap in the Blue
Ridge, was protected by Colonel Geary with a small
force. On May 15 a considerable body of Confederate
1 W. R., VII, pt. 3, p. 151.
1862] DANGER FROM JACKSON 125
cavalry dashed down upon one of his outposts, captur-
ing prisoners and also despatches which Banks was send-
to him. 1 Wadsworth, on receiving Geary's report, no-
tified McDowell, who gave orders that log-houses be
built in which the detachments of Geary's command
might defend themselves against these roving bodies; he
also ordered Wadsworth if possible to strengthen Geary's
force from Washington, but this Wadsworth, having
stripped the city of troops to go with McDowell, did
not feel justified in doing. Nevertheless, in spite of Mc-
Dowell's belief that all was well, Geary was by no means
satisfied that trouble was not brewing. On the night of
May 20 he sent a small force from Front Royal to make
a reconnoissance ten miles up the Luray Valley, and the
report that was brought back of Confederates approach-
ing from that direction was so disquieting that it shook
even the serenity of Banks at Strasburg. 2 In Washing-
ton, however, all was calm. The President and the Sec-
retary of War had left for Fredericksburg to witness a
grand review of McDowell's army before it marched to
join McClellan, and the capture of Richmond seemed as-
sured within a few weeks.
In point of fact, the attack on Geary on May 15,
which had so disturbed him and which McDowell had
regarded so philosophically, had been made by a Con-
federate scouting party sent out for the express purpose
of tracing the departure of Shields to McDowell's assist-
ance. The authorities at Richmond had been at once
notified of this weakening of the Union force in the
valley; the critical moment had come, the trained eye
of Lee perceived, for Jackson to make his long-desired
attempt to threaten Washington by moving against
Banks, and in this way to check McClellan's advance
upon Richmond. On May 18, accordingly, the com-
mander of the Army of the Valley began his famous
1 W. R., XII, pt. 1, p. 501.
2 See his letter to Stanton of May 22.— (W. R., XII, pt. 1, p. 524.)
126 WADSWORTII OF GENESEO
"raid." He chose to steal upon his adversary by way
of the Luray Valley, which is separated by the Massa-
nutten range from the main valley, and on May 21,
when the Federal scouting party got wind of his ad-
vance, he was well on his way toward Front Royal.
On May 23 he suddenly fell upon the small force there,
crushed it speedily, and set out at once to cut off Banks
at Strasburg.
The astounding events of the succeeding week, when
Banks, retreating rapidly down the valley, barely got
his army across the Potomac in safety, and when Jack-
son, hot in pursuit, threatened Harper's Ferry, produced
at the War Department a state of mind that for the
remainder of the war was grimly referred to in the North
as the "great scare." It was in effect the visiting upon
Lincoln and Stanton of the full consequences of the ar-
rangement by which McClellan, McDowell, Banks, and
Fremont commanded armies working independently of
each other except for such control as the civilian authori-
ties at Washington were inspired to give. In a sudden
crisis requiring the highest degree of military sagacity
and firmness, these authorities were utterly destitute of
the experience that breaks the force of instinctive alarm,
discriminates between possible and probable danger, and
discerns unerringly between what can and what cannot
be accomplished. The President and the Secretary of
War, acting on untrained impulse, ordered McDowell to
abandon his march toward Richmond and to make all
haste to the Shenandoah, closing in on Jackson from one
side while Fremont did the same from the other. Mean-
while, Northern governors were exhorted in frantic tele-
grams from Stanton to hurry militia to the defence of
the capital, upon which, as it seemed to his excited im-
agination, the troops of the enemy were about to descend
overwhelmingly.
From this frenzy of apprehension Wadsworth seems
to have been altogether free. Against the plans formed
1862] JACKSON'S RAID 127
by Lincoln and Stanton, which he felt must prove inef-
fective and which he was sure were injudicious, he pro-
tested vigorously, even to the point of overstepping the
bounds of military etiquette. He did his best to dis-
suade the President from despatching McDowell on a
chase after Jackson; 1 he urged that the country be not
needlessly alarmed by a call for fresh troops. 2 Both ef-
forts proving vain, however, he turned with a will to
do his part in the things needful to be done to carry
into effect the elaborate piece of strategy which Lincoln
and Stanton had devised to trap Jackson. At one time
he was sending reinforcements to Geary; at another time
he was at Alexandria, giving help in the forwarding of
McDowell's corps to the Shenandoah. He had to quiet
Stanton, who suddenly discovered that only three hundred
cavalry had been left in Washington ; he despatched tele-
grams to McDowell informing him of the state of things
in the valley; he sent a force up the Potomac to sink
the boats at the ferries and to guard the fords. It was,
in fact, one of those times of impromptu co-operation
when some pieces of work are done twice and others
not at all. But this medley of effort could have little
chance of success against the genius of Jackson. On the
night of May 31 the Confederate general and his "foot
cavalry" slipped between the Union forces about to close
in upon them from east and west and made good their
escape up the Shenandoah.
The activities brought on by Jackson's raid consti-
tuted the last of Wadsworth's duties as a commander
intrusted with the defence of Washington. During the
eight weeks in which he carried this responsibility he
had found his time also heavily taxed by his work as
military governor, particularly, as is about to be nar-
rated, by reason of a crisis arising from the emancipation
of the slaves in the District of Columbia. This double
1 Wadsworth's letter in the New York Times, May 15, 1863.
2 Gurowski's Diary, 1861-1862, p. 213.
128 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
set of duties and the exacting demands of each Stanton
recognized on June 18 by organizing into an army corps
the forces in and about Washington, except such as were
needed for provost guard duty, and by placing them under
the command of Brigadier-General S. D. Sturgis. 1 This
was only one step in the general reorganization which
resulted on June 26 in Lincoln's order creating the
Army of Virginia, to be composed of the troops in the
Mountain Department, of those in the Departments of
the Shenandoah and the Rappahannock, and of General
Sturgis's corps, and to be commanded by Major-General
John Pope. 2 Henceforth Wadsworth's duties were to be
exclusively those of an officer exercising military com-
mand in a place where the civil law held sway.
It is no easy thing to shut one's eyes to the Wash-
ington of the present day and to construct a picture of
the "overgrown watering-place" of sixty-one thousand
inhabitants which Wadsworth had been called upon to
govern. The effect produced upon the visitor by its
temporary and shifting population was intensified by the
appearance of its unfinished public buildings. The dome
of the Capitol was a "bare framework of beams and
girders, surmounted by a crane"; in many places "its
staring red-brick walls" were "still without their marble
facings." Work on the Washington Monument had been
stopped. The Treasury Building, as an observer sug-
gested, "would make a good Palmyra." "The roads,"
wrote Edward Dicey, the English publicist who visited
the city in March, 1862, "appear to have been marked
out and then left uncompleted, and the pigs you see
grubbing in the main thoroughfares seem in keeping with
the place. The broken-down ramshackle hackney-coaches
(or hacks, as they are called), with their shabby negro
drivers, are obviously brought out for the day, to last
for the day only; the shops are of the stock Margate
1 W. R., XII, pt. 3, p. 408. 2 W. R., XII, pt. 3, p. 435.
1862] CITY OF WASHINGTON 129
watering-place stamp, where nothing is kept in stock,
and where what little there is is all displayed in the
shop-windows. The private houses, handsome enough
in themselves, are apparently stuck up anywhere the
owner liked to build them, just as a travelling-van is
perched on the first convenient spot that can be found
for a night's lodging." 1 "The whole place looks run up
in a night, like the cardboard cities which Potemkin
erected to gratify the eyes of his imperial mistress on
her tour through Russia; and it is impossible to remove
the impression that, when Congress is over, the whole
place is taken down, and packed up again till wanted." 2
The population of the city at this time was inevi-
tably nondescript and far from homogeneous. The per-
manent residents, "a few land-owners who have estates
in the neighborhood, a few lawyers connected with the
Supreme Court, and a host of petty tradesmen and lodg-
ing-house keepers," 3 were naturally Southern in tone and
sympathy; the temper of the floating population, which
for long years had been that of the Democratic majority,
still persisted in these first months of the Republican ad-
ministration. The military, transient from the nature of
the case, consisted of new bodies arriving and going into
camp, other troops returning from the front for various
reasons, and individuals, privates, and officers, separated
from their organizations from one cause or another and
therefore especially difficult of control. Last of all, there
were the negroes, enslaved and free, to the number of
nearly thirteen thousand. 4
For a city so many of whose inhabitants were under
suspicion as disloyal and which harbored such large num-
bers of soldiery, the civil authority required supplement-
ing by some power that at need could be vigorous and
1 Edward Dicey, Six Months in the Federal States, I, 95.
2 Ibid., I, 93. 3 Ibid., I, 94.
4 According to the Census Report of 1860, the number of free blacks iu
Washington and Georgetown was 10,567 and of slaves 2,351.
130 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
arbitrary. To this end, during the fall and winter of
1861-18G2, the provost-marshal general of the Army of
the Potomac, Colonel A. Porter, had exercised various
functions in addition to those proper to his office. With
a force of three thousand men he had maintained a
military police and guarded the bridges and ferries. He
also had charge of the state prisoners, confined in what
was known as the Old Capitol Prison, and controlled a
detective force which kept under surveillance persons
suspected of treasonable conduct. Furthermore, it was
his duty to provide for the negroes, forlorn and half-
famished, who, as has already been seen, were flocking
in from Virginia. It was to have charge of all these
matters and any similar ones arising that, when the Army
of the Potomac was about to take the field, the office of
military governor of Washington was created.
The commander filling this post, however, could
hardly hope to discharge his duties without sooner or
later incurring the antagonism of the civil authorities.
In particular, the composition of the circuit court of the
District of Columbia was such that trouble of this sort
could easily be fomented. One judge, it is true, was
efficient and loyal; but the second was over eighty
years old, while the third was of decided pro-slavery
sympathies; indeed, Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, de-
clared of him in the Senate that "his heart is sweltering
with treason." * This last judge, far from applying to
himself the maxim Inter arma silent leges, had chosen
this as a fitting time to assert the majesty of the law.
In October, 1861, he had allowed a writ of habeas corpus
to issue against Colonel Porter, in order that a father
might get back his seventeen-year-old son who had en-
listed without his consent. This act of judicial pedan-
try — not to call it by a worse name — did not, it is hardly
necessary to say, meet with the approval of the Federal
government; Lincoln promptly suspended the privilege
1 Globe, 37 Cong., 3 Sess., 1139.
1861] THE NEGROES IN WASHINGTON 131
of the writ in the case of soldiers in the District of Co-
lumbia, and the judge found himself shut up in his house
under guard. 1
The ministerial officer of the court, moreover, Mar-
shal Ward H. Lamon, who had recently acquired much
notoriety by his pretentious behavior as Lincoln's con-
fidential agent and friend and by his claim to be a
brigadier-general, had adopted a policy in dealing with
fugitive slaves which, being shaped to please the South-
ern sympathizers in Washington, would almost certainly
bring him into collision with any military person in au-
thority who chanced to be on the side of the negro.
According to the black code of Maryland and Virginia,
which prevailed in the District, a slave found abroad
beyond a certain distance from his master's house and
unprovided with written authorization from his master
or overseer was liable to arrest. No free negro was safe
who had not with him his "certificate of freedom." 2
The "apprehension fee" paid by the owner for the re-
covery of a slave was a constant inducement to the row-
dies in town to become self-constituted kidnappers, and
the advent of the unvouched-for contrabands from Vir-
ginia had been an opportunity of which they were not
slow to take advantage. Under such conditions the city
jail was soon filled to overflowing with fugitives brought
there in the hope that their owners would appear to re-
cover their property and to distribute fees generously.
To his colleagues in the Senate Wilson, denouncing the
frightful state of things existing in the jail, in which were
confined nearly four times as many persons as it was de-
signed to accommodate, asserted that he had even found
in it slaves of disloyal masters placed there for safe-
keeping till the war should be ended ! 3
1 See Hayward and Hazletine's Reports of the Circuit Court of the Dis-
trict of Columbia, II, 394-401.
2 Tremain, Slavery in the District of Columbia, p. 39.
3 Speech of December 4, 1861.— (Globe, 37 Cong., 2 Sess., 10.)
132 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
In retaliation for the remarks of Wilson and other
anti-slavery senators, Lamon issued an order to the
effect that no senator unprovided with a permit from
him should be allowed to visit the jail. 1 The President
finally intervened in the squabble and forestalled action
on the part of Congress by ordering Lamon to clear the
jail within ten days of all cases held on suspicion; to re-
ceive into custody no fugitives unless upon arrest or com-
mitment pursuant to law ; and to retain these not beyond
thirty days. 2 As a result thirty negroes were set free. 3
With these circumstances of antecedent irritation, it
is not surprising that when a military governor of Wash-
ington appeared in the person of Wadsworth, having
anti-slavery sympathies irrepressibly militant, the pro-
tection that he gave to the negro, whether fugitive or
free, afforded to one judge at least of the circuit court
and to its marshal occasion for a conflict to which they
were by no means averse.
All slaves who had been employed by their disloyal
masters in some form of work against the United States
had been by the terms of the Confiscation Act of August,
1861, set free. According to the interpretation of this
act permitted by the War Department, the fact of dis-
loyalty on the part of the master was presumption that
the slave had been so employed. Such slaves when fugi-
tives were considered "contraband of war" in the apt
phrase of General Butler, and were specifically under the
protection of the military authorities. 4 One of Wads-
worth's plain first duties as military governor, therefore,
was to provide adequately for the contrabands in Wash-
1 The report of the congressional committee appointed to investigate the
jail showed that Lamon, receiving twenty-one cents a day for the keep of
each prisoner, was making on that allowance a profit of nearly one hundred
per cent. — (Neio York Tribune. July 2, 1862.)
2 Seward to Lamon, January 25, 1862, printed in the National Repub-
lican, February 1.
3 National Republican, February 28.
4 See Seward's letter to McClellan of December 4, 1861. — (Greeley's
American Conflict, II, 244.)
1862] THE NEGROES IN WASHINGTON 133
ington from Virginia, the number of whom had been in-
creasing rapidly since the withdrawal of the Confederates
toward Richmond. 1 He accordingly gave them quarters
in what was known as Duff Green's Row, east of the
Capitol, and he assigned them a superintendent charged
with the duties of attending to their necessities, provid-
ing them with work, and teaching them the difficult task
of learning to work for themselves. Food for all was
supplied by the government, which also employed many
of the men as laborers at forty cents a day. Through
Wadsworth's efforts some of their wants were supplied
from the goods confiscated from blockade-runners ; others
were ministered to by the National Freedmen's Associa-
tion, recently formed for this purpose. Representatives
of other like philanthropic bodies came to labor among
them, schools were established, and in the course of a
few months these fugitives were learning the first lessons
of freedom under auspices that were both kindly and
firm. In June 200 women and children and 100 men
1 The condition of these unfortunates was vividly described by Edward
Dicey, who went to Manassas on the first train to run after the road had
been rebuilt from Alexandria:
"On our return to the cars [at Manassas] we came upon a strange living
evidence of the results of this strange war. Huddled together upon a truck
were a group of some dozen runaway slaves. There were three men, four
women, and half a dozen children. Anything more helpless or wretched
than their aspect I never saw. Miserably clothed, footsore, and weary,
they crouched in the hot sunlight more like animals than men. They seemed
to have no idea, no plan, and no distinct purpose. They were field-hands
on a farm some score of miles off, and had walked all night; so at least they
told us. Now they were going North as far as Washington, which appeared
to them the end of the world. They had no fear of being recaptured, partly
I think, because they had reached Northern troops, still more because then-
home seemed to them so far away. With the exception of one woman,
who was going to look for her husband, who was hired out somewhere in
the District of Columbia, they talked as if they had no friends or acquaint-
ances in the new land they were travelling to. For the present they were
content that they could sit in the sun without being forced to work. Some
of our party gave them money, and broken victuals which they valued more.
I overheard one of the men saying to a woman, as he munched some white
bread he had picked up, 'Massa never gave us food like that.' Poor things,
if their idea of freedom was white bread and rest, they must have been dis-
appointed bitterly!"— (Federal States, U, 29, 30.)
134 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
were thus taken care of; 1 during one week in July there
were 37G arrivals, 15G of whom found employment at
once. 2
The treatment of fugitives from Maryland could not
be so simple. They had escaped from masters who were
still residing on their plantations and who either were
loyal or, if disloyal, made a pretence of allegiance to
the Union. Loyal masters were, of course, entitled to
the assistance of the law in getting back such of their
slaves as ran away; by the same token it was absurd
and, from Wadsworth's point of view, unendurable that
men who were working to overthrow the Federal govern-
ment should be able to invoke its laws to recover their
human property. He therefore adopted the policy of
taking measures to inform himself as to the loyalty of
the master of a fugitive brought before him, and, when
he had become satisfied that the master was of seces-
sion sympathies, of issuing to the negro a paper stating
that "the bearer, A B , colored, is under the
protection of the military authorities of the District." 3
When Wadsworth put his signature to one of these "mil-
itary protections," as they were called, he intended it to
guarantee to the fugitive the full strength of his author-
ity as a bulwark against both the violence of the hood-
lum kidnappers and the activity of the civil power.
Meanwhile, at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue
there were signs that told of the progress of events
toward Emancipation. On March 6 Lincoln sent to Con-
gress his message recommending that the United States
co-operate with any State to secure gradual emancipa-
tion; on March 10 Congress passed an additional article
of war prohibiting officers from employing the forces
under their command to return fugitives; and on April
16 the act abolishing slavery within the District of Co-
lumbia received the President's signature. There were
1 National Republican, June 11, 1862. 2 Ibid., July 21.
3 Ibid., July 21.
1862] EMANCIPATION IN THE DISTRICT 135
also under discussion in Congress various measures the
purpose of which was to extend the scope of the Confis-
cation Act of August, 1861, along the line which Wads-
worth was already following.
During the debates on the bill liberating slaves in
the District of Columbia, the excitement in Washington
and in the adjoining counties of Maryland became daily
more and more intense. Within the District indignant
slave-holders, none too loyal at best to the cause of the
Union, perceiving that their protests against the measure
were likely to be in vain, began to remove their slaves
to Maryland; 1 but with the new haven of safety so near
at hand they could hardly be surer of retaining their
property there than if they had tried to keep it at home.
The events of the next few weeks justified their appre-
hensions, for cases of escaping slaves became more and
more frequent. Moreover, the activity of kidnappers and
their use of fire-arms in running down their prey created
a situation of disorder which was likely at any moment
to require stringent measures from the military governor.
The slave-holders of the region about Washington knew
Wadsworth to be a man whose actions were likely to be
even better than his words, and by way of heading him
off they began to clamor for the machinery of the Fugi-
tive Slave Law, in order to effect the recovery of their
slaves under the protection of the courts. Of the will-
ingness of the circuit court of the District of Columbia
to appoint the necessary commissioners under the law
they had no doubt, for they considered as of no weight
the argument of anti-slavery men that neither the con-
stitutional provision guaranteeing the right of an owner
to a slave escaping from one State to another State, nor
the fugitive slave laws of 1793 and 1850, covered the
case of a slave escaping from a State to the District of
1 It was estimated that about two thousand slaves were removed from
the District before the Emancipation Act was passed.— {National Repub-
lican, June 19.)
136 WADSWORTII OF GENESEO
Columbia. 1 To make assurance doubly sure, however,
the Maryland slave-owners decided to lay their case be-
fore the President. On Monday, May 19, a delegation
of them, led by some of their members of Congress, ap-
peared before him to urge that they should not be de-
prived of the benefit of the law upon which they were
relying. This being the period of Lincoln's "Border
State policy," the time when he was bending every effort
to induce the border States to initiate a course of com-
pensated emancipation, he was inclined to give the Mary-
landers the benefit of the doubtful situation. Though he
made no explicit reply to their representations, they went
away in good spirits, having, so they declared, private
intimations that their request would not be denied.' 2 At
any rate, some forty of them betook themselves to the
court-house to procure warrants for the reclamation of
their property, and on the same day the circuit court,
promptly fulfilling their expectations, appointed three
commissioners to hear any case arising under the Fugi-
tive Slave Law.
The incompleteness of the measures of emancipation
already passed by Congress became apparent the instant
the omnipotence of this remarkable statute was invoked;
the marshal and his deputies, impelled by the powerful
vis a tergo of heavy fines, overran the town. 3 They could
invade the contraband quarters with impunity; they
could even make search through the regimental camps,
for the article of war recently passed, though forbidding
officers to return fugitives, made no provision for keeping
out civil authorities bent on such an errand. Wads-
worth's military protections counted for naught, and
Lamon's promise that a fugitive thus provided should,
1 See Sumner's speech of May 23, 1862 (Globe, 37 Cong., 2 Sess., 2306),
and an editorial in the New York Tribune, May 30, 1863.
2 New York Evening Post, May 19.
3 The marshal was required to make unusual exertions to enforce the
law under penalty of a fine of one thousand dollars. If the slave escaped the
marshal was liable to a civil suit.
1862] WADSWORTH AND THE COURTS 137
if apprehended, be turned back to him, in order that the
loyalty of the master might again be investigated, was
evaded. One negro, arrested in spite of a "protection,"
was tried and returned to his master with such speed
that Wadsworth had no opportunity to make his inves-
tigation. In other cases Wadsworth was not notified
at all.
In the course of their legalized prowlings, Lamon's
officials came to the camp of the Seventy-sixth New
York. Here the anti-slavery spirit of the plain soldiers,
responsive to the dictates of the "higher law," brought
the slave-hunters to a stand, and the camp, which con-
tained a number of negroes acting as officers' servants
and in other capacities, went unsearched. On the next
day, however, May 22, as the regiment marched through
the streets of the city, it was set upon by the same men.
The fugitives were being protected by the menace of
bayonets and by a few good knock-down blows from
clubbed muskets, but on sight of the writs the officers
of the regiments ordered their men to desist, and two
captives were taken off for trial. 1
At the court-house, whither the victims were brought
to appear before the commissioners, further demonstra-
tion of the might of the Fugitive Slave Law within the
District was now to be given. These gentlemen, who
were of assured conservative, if not Southern, proclivi-
ties, had that morning announced a decision that the
law (Section 6) required their proceedings to be ex 'parte
and summary, and that they were not competent to in-
quire as to the loyalty of the claimant except when he
resided in a State that had seceded. 2 By this decision,
1 See the History of the 76th N. Y., p. 57, where it is noted with pride
that the incident was reported in the London papers.
2 National Intelligencer and Maryland News Sheet of May 24. The com-
missioners further decided that a slave could not participate by cross-
examination or counter-proof, but that they might at their discretion cross-
examine or allow counter-proof in his behalf. In a later case they announced
their willingness to admit testimony to show that slaves had been employed
against the United States Government. — (National Republican, June 13.)
138 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
the slave-holders of Maryland, a large number of whom,
it is to be remembered, were disloyal, would be able to
recover their fugitive slaves without the disagreeable ne-
cessity of taking the oath of allegiance to the United
States Government. Veritably, on this day the slave
power reached the ne plus ultra of its legal triumphs, and
that, too, in the capital of the nation.
A decision much less extreme than this would have
sufficed to stir up Wadsworth's fighting spirit; as it was,
he was now ready to go to almost any length in uphold-
ing the dignity of the military arm in the city of Wash-
ington. The spark which touched off his quick temper
was the news brought to him at the end of this same
day that Althea Lynch, a mulatto having one of his pro-
tections, had been put in the city jail overnight pending
further examination by the commissioners. "It stands
upon something like record," to employ a serviceable
phrase of the elder Trevelyan, that the said Althea Lynch
was cook in the Wadsworth household and that the pros-
pects were dark for breakfast the next morning; but per-
haps it is safer to regard this assertion as an embellish-
ment of the narrative. At any rate, having personal
knowledge that her owner was disloyal, Wadsworth sent
to the jail and demanded the release of the prisoner.
The jailer refused. A second demand, threatening force,
was also denied. Then Wadsworth, at about nine o'clock
in the evening, sent thither his aide, Lieutenant John A.
Kress, with a dozen soldiers, who, after considerable par-
leying, arrested the jailer and also the deputy-marshal,
who had arrived upon the scene, took possession of
the jail, and set free not only the mulatto in question
but all the other contrabands there confined. Lamon,
now aroused, dashed to the White House, only to dis-
cover that the President was out of town, and then, col-
lecting a force of city police, proceeded to the jail at
two o'clock in the morning. Finding there only two of
Wadsworth's men, he was easily able to turn the tables
1802] WADSWORTH AND THE COURTS 139
on the military. Later in the day there was a courteous
release of the prisoners captured by both sides in this
engagement, but the marshal did not regain possession
of Althea Lynch.
Meanwhile the situation in its legal aspects was un-
dergoing rapid developments. On the decision of the
commissioners that one of the negroes snatched from the
ranks, as it were, of the Seventy-sixth New York was
to be returned to his master, the lawyer, John Dean
of Brooklyn, who had been employed to defend the
fugitive, applied for a writ of habeas corpus in order to
test the applicability of the Fugitive Slave Law in the
District of Columbia. Dean's argument had weight with
anti-slavery lawyers at least; but the refusal of his appli-
cation by the circuit court 1 made it plain that the only
hope of remedy lay in Congress. As that body was not
yet ready to repeal or to suspend the Fugitive Slave
Law, 2 a bill was introduced on June 18 to abolish the
circuit court and to establish instead a supreme court,
but owing to the lateness of the session, it never came
to a vote. 3
In spite of the decision of the circuit court, Wads-
worth yielded not an inch of ground. Taking the atti-
tude that it was not one of the circuit courts to which
power had been given to appoint commissioners to act
under the Fugitive Slave Law, he in July released ne-
groes imprisoned by Lamon; moreover, in August and
again in September he arrested some of Lamon's officers
as kidnappers. But for all his zeal and watchfulness it
1 U. S. ex rel. Wm. Copeland. — (Hayward and Hazletine's Reports of the
Circuit Court of the D. of C, II, 402.)
2 Sumner's resolution, introduced May 22, to prevent the seizure of fugi-
tives in the District of Columbia, failed of passage.
3 Congress did, however, pass an act providing for the education of the
colored children in the District and abolishing the black code, and an act
remedying defects in the first act of emancipation. By the Emancipation
and Confiscation Act, approved July 17, under which such slaves of persons
giving aid and comfort to the rebellion as came in any way under the con-
trol of the government were freed and the return of fugitives to such mas-
ters was prohibited, Wadsworth's hand was strengthened somewhat.
140 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
was only in sporadic cases that he could do anything to
break the sweep of the Fugitive Slave Law. On October
30, to cite but one of several instances, Commissioner
Phillips returned to slavery in Maryland two boys of ten
and eleven and a girl of three who had been snatched
from their place of refuge the day before under pecul-
iarly distressing circumstances. 1 At the end of Wads-
worth's service as military governor, a few weeks later,
the civil and the military authorities of the District were
as much at odds as ever on this subject, and the
disagreement existing there was typical of the divided
opinion on the question of Emancipation throughout the
North. 2
In reviewing Wadsworth's anti-slavery activity as mili-
tary governor of Washington, two things are to be borne
in mind. In the first place, the working principle adopted
by him that no fugitive should be remanded to slavery
without an examination on the part of the military au-
thorities concerning the loyalty of his master — a rule which
came to be called the habeas corpus of the contraband — was
an interpretation of the Confiscation Act of 1861 which,
as has been said, was sanctioned by the War Depart-
ment and which, moreover, was incorporated in the Con-
1 National Republican, November 5.
2 The newspapers from which I have chiefly drawn this account of Wads-
worth's contest with the civil authorities in the District of Columbia are
the Washington National Intelligencer, Washington National Republican, New
York Tribune, and the New York Evening Post.
The outcome of the contest in 1863 is worth narrating. On March 3,
by act of Congress, the circuit, district, and criminal courts of the District of
Columbia were abolished and a supreme court created in their room. A
petition of forty-eight lawyers of the District against the bill had no weight
with the Senate, and the debate showed clearly that the reason for the
change was in large measure to get rid of the pro-slavery judges. The new
court, however, composed of Judges Cartter, of Ohio; Olin, of New York;
Fisher, of Delaware; and Wylie, of Virginia, when the first fugitive slave case
came before it, was evenly divided as to its power to act. Judge Cartter in
a few words stated his conviction that the court had the power, apologizing
for his failure to argue the matter by saying: "My brethren, perhaps, can
furnish better reasons for their opinion than I can for mine." — (D. of C. Re-
ports, Supreme Court, VI, 11.) The judge who had issued the warrant now
made an elaborate argument to prove that he had no right to issue it, and
1862] WADSWORTH AND LINCOLN 141
fiscation Act of July, 1862. In the second place, Wads-
worth, who was constantly sought in conference by Lin-
coln and Stanton on matters both military and political,
had throughout the benefit of their suggestion and sup-
port. Though eager to take part with his old brigade in
McDowell's anticipated advance on Richmond from Fred-
ericksburg, he yielded to their requests to continue in his
present position. Lincoln himself knew that his own pe-
riod of border-State probation could not last long. Fore-
seeing the day when he himself must join the ranks of
the emancipationists, he had no inclination to displace a
man of Wadsworth's caliber who was doing all that he
could to shape popular opinion in favor of the great war
measure that was soon to be. In fine, Wadsworth's ca-
reer as military governor in this respect is an admirable
instance of the distinct public service that can be rendered
by a man of individual force and weight who, being inde-
pendent of the fear of any constituency and careless of
consequences to himself, has the rare satisfaction of car-
rying out, in spite of opposition, what he himself feels to
be right and necessary. Of such cases during the Civil
War there were none too many.
To pass to other duties of Wadsworth's office: his
general watch over residents of the adjoining counties
discharged the fugitive. When the negro attempted to leave the court-room,
however, a scuffle ensued over him between his master and Dean, his lawyer.
Dean was arrested on a charge of obstructing the operation of the Fugitive
Slave Law, though he was never brought to trial; the negro was delivered
to the military authorities and obtained his freedom by enlisting in a col-
ored regiment. On the next day the court appointed a commissioner to
hear fugitive slave cases. Dean protested against the appointment in vain,
and the commissioner was returning slaves to their masters as late as No-
vember, 1863. — (See National Intelligencer, November 19, 1863.) But the en-
listment of colored troops in Maryland under an order by which an owner could
obtain three hundred dollars for every slave whom he allowed to become a
soldier reduced considerably the number of fugitives after this time. The
Fugitive Slave Law, like Charles II, was an unconscionable time a-dying,
and the courts of the District of Columbia, having exhausted all their reme-
dies, stood by the bedside of the expiring patient and nursed it till the end
with tender and assiduous care. Slavery was abolished in Maryland in Octo-
ber, 1864; the fugitive slave laws were repealed on June 28, 1864.
142 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
of Maryland and Virginia, maintained, as has already
been indicated, so that the Federal government might
not suffer from treason enveloping the capital, was a part
of his task that required the constant exercise of vigor
and tact. The record of his activities along this line is
considerable, though not in detail particularly illumina-
ting. It included such acts as sending to Leesburg,
Virginia, to break up the sessions of a court held there
under Confederate laws; releasing a jailful of fugitive
slaves at the same place; searching out Maryland planters
who had been active in giving help to deserters from the
Army of the Potomac; arresting as hostages citizens of
Alexandria and Fredericksburg. The Old Capitol Prison,
where all such political prisoners were confined, was also
under his charge, and in his control of its inmates he
tempered with humanity as far as he might the strict
justice which the situation required. Some of the pris-
oners had been seized in retaliation for seizures of Union
non-combatants made by the Confederate authorities;
some were in truth guilty of treason; but all were in-
sistent in asserting the injustice of their imprisonment
and in demanding release. In informing himself as to
the merits of each of these cases, in helping the prisoners
to communicate with their friends, and in attending to
their exchange or release, Wadsworth consumed many
hours.
The story of his treatment of one of these prisoners
may be told in illustration of this part of his work;
moreover, it has a sequel in which the bread he cast
upon the waters was returned in a fashion as moving
as it was miraculous. Patrick McCracken, living on a
small farm on the outskirts of that forest region be-
yond Fredericksburg destined to a double fame from
the battles of Chancellorsville and the Wilderness, was
brought to Washington as a spy and imprisoned. Wads-
worth, investigating the circumstances, learned of his
hard-working life, heard the need that family and farm
1862] CARE OF SOLDIERS 143
had of him, and, believing that the stability of the na-
tional government would in nowise be threatened by
the freedom of this poor white, let him go, receiving
from him a promise that he would, as far as lay within
his power, withhold aid from the Confederacy. For
Wadsworth the incident ended there: the thought of
the man thus befriended in the course of the day's work
probably never again crossed his consciousness. But the
gratitude of McCracken, biding its time, found at last
the opportunity for which it had been waiting.
Not only for political offenders had Wadsworth re-
sponsibility but also for prisoners captured on the field
of battle. From the nature of the case the treatment
of prisoners must be one of the weak spots of warfare,
even when war is conducted, to quote the language of
one of McClellan's circulars, "upon the highest princi-
ples known to Christian civilization"; 1 and it was not
till July 22, 1862, that a cartel of exchange was agreed
to between the Union and the Confederate authorities.
When an exchange was about to be negotiated through
General Dix stationed at Fortress Monroe, Wadsworth
provided him with lists of Union soldiers in the hands of
the Confederates and, at the proper time, despatched to
Fortress Monroe the Confederate prisoners about Wash-
ington. He it was, too, who received the wasted boys in
blue, numerically deemed their equivalents. 2
Then there were the sick and wounded soldiers. Of
the twenty-one thousand who during July and August,
after McClellan's defeat in the Peninsula, had been
sent in transports and hospital ships to ports in the
North, 3 Washington had its share. Though the pro-
vision there for them was hopelessly inadequate, Stan-
ton nevertheless issued an order 4 putting a stop to the
1 W. R., XI, pt. 3, p. 364.
2 Three thousand eight hundred and forty-five sick and wounded pris-
oners, received in exchange or on parole, were sent to Washington and other
Northern cities between July 15 and August 3. — (W. R., XI, pt. 1, p. 215.)
3 Report of Medical Director Letterman. — (VV. R., XI, pt. 1, pp. 212, 216.)
4 G. O. No. 78, July 14, published in National Republican, July 26.
144 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
practice of granting furloughs to wounded men and re-
quiring them to remain where they were. The discovery
by Lincoln and Stanton of the astonishing depletion of
McClellan's army through absences unaccounted 1 for was
the immediate occasion of this severe requirement; yet in
many a case it caused most unnecessary suffering. The
story of Wadsworth's successful protest is told by Colo-
nel Clinton H. Meneely, who at the time was serving
as aide on his staff:
The hospitals in and around Washington were filled
with sick and wounded soldiers, and the disabled officers
had to get accommodation, if such it could be called, in
miserable quarters, everything being crowded. General
Wadsworth was personally acquainted with some of the
officers who, though wounded in battle, were yet able
to travel, and who were confined in wretched buildings.
He went to the War Department with the request that
any and all of these officers be allowed to go to their
homes. The reply was that it would take fully two weeks
to get the proper surgical certificates made out, thus
holding the officers in the city all of that time; and one
red-tape official said that some of the officers, thus re-
moved from Washington, might desert. The ready an-
swer of General Wadsworth to this last statement was
that the quicker men of that character deserted, the
better for the service; and he readily persuaded Presi-
dent Lincoln to have an order issued at once that all
wounded and sick officers could go to their homes im-
mediately after leaving their names and addresses at
headquarters. The suffering officers left the city in a
few hours' time, as might be imagined. One young
man whose home was in General Wadsworth's own town,
and who had been compelled to take shelter in a swel-
tering room over a noisy saloon, showed General Wads-
worth a spent bullet which had broken his jaw and
lodged itself under his tongue, and he wrote his "thank
you" as he started to meet his mother in his New York
home. 2
1 See Lincoln's letter to McClellan of July 13.— (W. R., XI, pt. 3, p. 319.)
2 From a private letter.
1862] THE CALL FOR TROOPS 145
Another officer, Captain James McMillan, conva-
lescing from " Chickahominy fever" at Long Branch,
was stung into going back to Washington by reading
articles in the newspapers assailing men at home on
sick leave. Wadsworth, meeting him on the street and
learning that he was proposing to go to the front, told
him that he was going to his grave instead, took him
before the Secretary of War, and obtained an order de-
tailing him for duty in Detroit. 1 Many similar inci-
dents that are preserved show how constant were these
acts of kindly care, all the result of individual initiative
cutting across the tangle of official red tape.
Through the North the summer of 1862 was a sea-
son of renewed consecration. Lincoln's calls for three
hundred thousand volunteers for three years and three
hundred thousand for nine months, made necessary by
the failure of McClellan's Peninsula campaign, brought
home to every man of military age the ultimate ques-
tion of patriotism. The following correspondence be-
tween father and son is typical of the fashion in which
the depths were sounded in many a family:
Geneseo, Sunday, Aug. 10, '62.
My Dear Father: —
I write you this to inform you of the fact that I
commenced yesterday recruiting in Buffalo for the new
Buffalo Regiment with the intention of going myself
when the company is full as First Lieutenant.
My dear Father, I have taken this determination
from a sense of duty to my country and hope most sin-
cerely that it will meet with your approval as I think it
will-
When I wrote you two weeks ago you said you could
not advise me to go but would write again. From this
I inferred that you were undecided on the subject, and
did not wish to say yes or no. I am an able-bodied
1 Letter of Mrs. McMillan to J. W. Wadsworth.
146 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
young man and all such should immediately rally around
the flag of our country in this her greatest hour of peril.
I have no family whose daily bread depends upon
my exertions and therefore am not exempt in any man-
ner from the call of my country for volunteers to save
and preserve her from disaster and utter ruin
In raising this company I have associated with me
Mr. John Higgins, an officer of the Buffalo Tigers, . . .
who sacrifices more than I do to save his country. He
will be captain of the company. We have only this next
week to raise the company, as drafting will then com-
mence. We have already recruited about twenty men.
We have already received our permits to recruit from
Albany. Mother is quite reconciled to my going and
I hope, my dear Father, that you will not be displeased
with this act of
Your affectionate son,
CHARLES F. WADSWORTH. 1
Washington, D. C.
August 13, 18C2.
My Dear Son: —
I have just received your letter of the 10th. I
approve of your determination to enter the service and
the honorable reasons you give for taking this step. It
is sad for your dear mother to have all of us exposed to
the hazards of war, but if the poor and those with limited
means leave their families to the charity of their neigh-
bors or to the uncertain chances of employment, there is
little reason for our remaining at home.
I like too your taking the modest position of Lieu-
tenant. It is really the post you are at present best
fitted to fill, and there is not much patriotism in seeking
an honorable position before you have earned it.
I will pay an extra bounty of ten dollars to all who
join your company. Show this to Mr. Janes and he
will advance the funds. If you go into this business
give your whole heart and time to it. Get your com-
1 Charles F. Wadsworth was commissioned first lieutenant in the 116th
New York Volunteers, and later became captain. He served under Banks
in the Department of the Gulf, was present at the siege of Port Hudson,
and was brevetted major "for gallant and meritorious services during the
war."
1862] EMANCIPATION AND McCLELLAN 147
pany organized as soon as possible and join one of the
first regiments coming to the field. Study the "Tactics"
thoroughly and the Army Regulations, and make your-
self master of all your duties.
God bless you, my dear son,
Your affectionate father,
J. S.W.
But this passion of sacrifice was ever troubled by
the question, To what end? Was it for Union alone, or
was it for Union and Freedom? To Horace Greeley's
"Prayer of Twenty Millions" asking for Emancipation,
Lincoln replied with the baffling, balanced phrases of a
leader who is still waiting for the hour to strike. On
this point the strife of factions in the Republican party
threatened to rend the organization in twain. In Wash-
ington, where the strife was heightened and complicated
by the ardor of McClellan's opponents and followers, the
military and political cross-currents made a confusion to
tax the skill of the adroitest navigator. The walls of
Wadsworth's office in the old mansion at the corner of
Madison Place and Pennsylvania Avenue gave back the
sound of many imprecations uttered by Kearney, Hooker,
and other officers in reciting the disasters of McClellan's
army. Thither came the green-goggled Polish exile Gu-
rowski, idealist and newsmonger; the sting of his tongue
spared few men in public life, but for Wadsworth he had
nothing but praise. 1 The Washington correspondents of
the great dailies knew the place well, and the anti-slavery
readers of the New York Tribune, through the diligence
of A. S. Hill, 2 could follow from day to day the story of
Wadsworth's fight to keep his contrabands clear of the
clutches of the Fugitive Slave Law. When, as in Hill's
case, the journalist had Wadsworth's confidence, he ob-
tained glimpses of that inner world of politics where
'The last volume of Gurowski's Diary, published after Wadsworth's
death, is dedicated to his memory.
2 Later professor of English at Harvard.
148 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
impatience, half-knowledge, and suspicion were playing
havoc with the loyalty of devoted men, who, though all
working toward one great end, were not yet in accord as
to the means. The following extracts from Hill's letters
to Sydney Howard Gay, managing editor of the Tribune,
are quoted by Mr. Rhodes in his history:
General Wadsworth says that in all the councils of
war which he attended he never heard a word of econ-
omy, never from President, secretary of war, chief of
ordnance, or General Meigs. Millions of money were to
them as to ordinary men star distances; whether two or
three hundred billions of miles, what difference? 1
Ten minutes' talk last night with General Wads-
worth. The result this: he is cheerful in view of mili-
tary prospects, but thinks political signs gloomy. I value
his testimony because he has, as he says, been with the
President and Stanton every day at the War Depart-
ment — frequently for five or six hours — during several
months. He says that the President is not with us; has
no anti-slavery instincts. He never heard him speak of
anti-slavery men otherwise than as "radicals," "aboli-
tionists"; and of the "nigger question" he frequently
speaks. Talking against McClellan with Blair, in Lin-
coln's presence, Wadsworth was met by Blair with the
remark, "He'd have been all right if he'd stolen a couple
of niggers." A general laugh, in which Lincoln laughed,
as if it were an argument. Wadsworth believes that if
emancipation comes at all it will be from the rebels, or
in consequence of their protracting the war. 2
This political and military coil, however, gave way
to the demands of the moment for the safety of Wash-
ington, when, late in August, Lee pushed Pope back
toward the capital and engaged him in the second battle
of Bull Run. For four days, while direct communica-
tion with the army was entirely cut off, 3 the city thrilled
with the painful excitement of a battle in progress thirty
1 Rhodes, History of the U. S., IV, 208, foot-note.
2 Ibid., IV, 64, foot-note. 3 Ropes, II, 317.
1862] SECOND BULL RUN 149
miles away. At Alexandria McClellan was forwarding
troops to Pope with such slowness as to raise serious
suspicion of his good-will; and Herman Haupt, the man
who, as Lincoln said, "could build a bridge of bean-poles
and corn-stalks," 1 was working day and night to repair
the railroad to Manassas. In Washington contrabands
and stragglers from the army were arriving, coming in
throngs over the bridges like harbingers of the approach
cf the Confederate hosts; to the call for nurses to go
to the battle-field, department clerks responded by the
hundred; surgeons by the hundred, too, began to arrive
from the cities of the North; Wadsworth seized all the
available vehicles in the city and despatched them under
a cavalry guard to Centreville to bring back the wounded.
With the positive news of Pope's disaster and his
retreat upon the city, uncertainty gave place to alarm.
Orders were given for the removal to New York of most
of the contents of the arsenal, and Wadsworth was in-
structed to form the clerks and employees in the public
buildings into companies and to provide them with arms
and ammunition. 2 McClellan had been restored to the
command of the Army of the Potomac, but the disorgan-
ization of the troops and the mystery of Lee's move-
ments in the days following the battle sharpened the
edge of apprehension. Halleck, the nervous and pedantic
general-in-chief, had fears of a night raid of the enemy's
cavalry into the city; as late as September 7 Secretary
Chase "found Stanton, Pope, and Wadsworth uneasy on
account of critical condition of affairs." 3 On the next
day he wrote in his diary: "Barney, collector of New
York, came in, and said that Stanton and Wadsworth
had advised him to leave for New York this evening, as
communication with Baltimore might be cut off before
to-morrow. . . . Went to War Department, where found
»Nicolay and Hay, VI. 10. 2 W. R., XII, pt. 3, pp. 802, 805, 807.
3 Chase's Diary. — (Annual Report of the American Historical Association,
1902, n, 68.)
150 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
the President, Stanton, and Wadsworth. The President
said he had felt badly all day. Wadsworth said there
was no danger of an attack on Washington, and that the
men ought to be severely punished who intimated the
possibility of its surrender."
His conviction that Washington was in no danger was
soon justified; within a day or so it was almost certain
that Lee, having entered Maryland, was in the vicinity
of Frederick City, forty miles away. But Wadsworth's
care concerning the safety of the city, engrossing though
it had been, troubled him less than the thought of the
part played by military jealousies and bad generalship
in bringing disaster upon the Union army. As the news
of the defeats on the Peninsula had caused him many a
sleepless night, so now the disgrace of this recent defeat
at Bull Run set him pacing up and down his office, try-
ing to master his agony of distress at the sacrifice of
human lives required by men unable to subdue love of
self to love of country. It is the penalty of the patriot
that his keenest suffering is caused by the dearth of patri-
otism in others.
In this year of Emancipation still another call came
to Wadsworth to champion the cause of anti-slavery
for men who were trying to place the issue of the war
squarely on the basis of freedom. As candidate of the
Union Republicans for governor in the fall campaign
in New York, he stood before the whole country rep-
resenting what was demanded by the radical wing of
the party.
Having declined the nomination for governor in I860,
in order that Morgan might have a second term, Wads-
worth would naturally be the candidate in 1862, other
things being equal. His own feeling on this point he
expressed in a letter written August 22 to James C.
Smith, of Canandaigua, who had been his comrade in
politics ever since the Barnburner days of 1848.
1862] LETTER TO SMITH 151
Washington, D. C, August 22, 1862.
My Dear Sir:—
... I do not find any sufficient reason for abso-
lutely refusing to accept the nomination for governor,
but I unaffectedly dread it, and long to be at home and
rid of public cares. While I do not seriously doubt that
I can get on reasonably well with the ordinary duties
of the office, I know that a candidate coming in by com-
mon consent, as it were, must disappoint many of his
supporters. "Availability" is very pleasant while run-
ning, but greatly increases the embarrassment of execut-
ing the duties of an office.
I have another objection to being a candidate: I
wish you to go to the Senate, not for your own sake, but
because I believe you are the fittest man. My election
would interfere with this on the ground that we are both
from the same geographical section. This is really an
objection of no force, but it would be made to have a
good deal of influence.
I have tried to be ordered to the field, in which case
I should peremptorily decline the nomination; but I have
not been successful, partly I think because the Secretary
of War wishes me to accept the nomination. He is out
and out of our views on the slavery question, and wishes
New York to stand unequivocal in that question. Who
would be, or could be, nominated, if I were out of the
way, and what do you advise?
I may add that I am doing, as I think, some good
here, and in certain contingencies I may be able to do
more good here than even in the exalted position re-
ferred to.
Please write me frankly.
Truly yours,
JAMES S. WADSWORTH.
P. S. I feel that this last hasty request is quite un-
necessary and hardly polite.
This letter, giving with directness and without re-
serve Wadsworth's own views about his nomination,
shows also that, absorbed in his military duties, he had
taken little pains to keep in touch with the intricate
state of politics at home. The differences between the
152 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
two factions in the Republican party in New York, re-
sulting from the defeat of Seward at Chicago in 1800
and the thwarting of Horace Greeley's senatorial aspira-
tions in 1861, had been kept somewhat in abeyance since
the outbreak of the war, but now were in danger of burst-
ing out again. To prevent this evil, Thurlow Weed, just
returned from abroad, where with good effect he had
been presenting the cause of the Union to European
powers, now endeavored by his skill to bring about a
temporary alliance of the Republican and the Dem-
ocratic parties on a basis, — support of the President
and the Constitution, and prosecution of the war, — that
would appeal to the moderate members of each. By this
shrewd device he hoped to dominate the radical faction
of his own party and to silence its insistent clamor for
Emancipation. The man who, he proposed, should re-
ceive the joint nomination for governor from the two
parties was John A. Dix, a War Democrat and one of the
most distinguished citizens of the State, who had contin-
ued in the military service from the time of his appoint-
ment as major-general, soon after the beginning of the
war, and who was now in command at Fortress Monroe.
An understanding between Weed and his long-time enemy,
Bennett, of the New York Herald, resulted in their bring-
ing forward the scheme for discussion in the columns of
their respective newspapers; 1 but when the Democratic
convention met on September 10, its course in rejecting
Dix and choosing Horatio Seymour, a vigorous partisan
assailant of the administration, put an end to all projects
for such a combination.
While the course of affairs in New York was thus in-
directly preparing the way for the nomination of Wads-
worth, the stirring succession of military events in front
of Washington was having the effect of causing him to
set his face against the project. Since he had written
1 Diary of Gideon Welles, I, 78; Brummer's Political History of New
York State during the Civil War, p. 203.
1862] SECOND LETTER TO SMITH 153
his letter of August 22, Pope had been defeated at Bull
Run, Washington had been in danger of attack, Lee with
his victorious army had invaded Maryland. Cannon-
ading within hearing of the Capitol had quickened Wads-
worth's blood, and when matched against its thunder the
call of political duties at home was far and faint. His
eagerness to be at hand, ready for active service, together
with the possibility of duty where his anti-slavery sym-
pathies would have full scope, inspired the letter which
he wrote to Smith four days before McClellan met Lee
at Antietam.
Washington, D. C, Sept. 13, '62.
My Dear Smith: —
I find myself growing quite nervous as the day for
the gathering of our convention approaches. I sincerely
trust that my friends or my enemies will give the nomi-
nation some other direction. I do not like the idea of
leaving the military service at this time, or of leaving
the Capital. While my main duties are unimportant I
hold a position which gives me some influence here which
I do not like to relinquish. I should probably be suc-
ceeded by a pro-slavery general; moreover, great changes
have got to be made in the command of the army be-
fore any good will come of it. While I should not antic-
ipate or desire any very responsible position, in the event
of these changes I might find a position where I could
render service in the line which I prefer and which
would carry me "down South" where Military Govern-
orships will be plenty and of some avail. 1 I trust that
you and my other friends who may meet at our con-
vention will well consider the matter in this point of
view.
But if I am to be nominated let me have a strong,
decided platform. If you do not I shall surely kick it
over when I accept. I have come to think that the
1 Wadsworth refers to the plan of appointing a military governor and three
judges for every district occupied by the Union troops, the district to be ex-
tended as the troops advanced till it embraced a State. A bill embodying
this plan was reported in the Senate by the judiciary committee, in the sum-
mer of 1862, but was not brought to a vote. — (See Schucker's Chase, p. 381.)
154 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
Rebellion can only and ought only to end in the total
overthrow of slavery. This is a severe ordeal to pass
through, but let us meet it like men and not leave it
to our children, with the inheritance of debt and taxa-
tion we are laying up for them. I have no fears of the
"St. Domingo Massacres" which are held up to us as
the certain results of emancipation, but it would be a
terrible revolution to the whites of the South and the
merchants of the North. Still, let it come now, what-
ever it may be, and let us have an end of this infamy.
The blacks are the most docile people on the face of the
earth; they will make the most innocent if not the most
industrious peasantry, and we shall recover from the
shock sooner than we dare to hope. But cost what it
may, I say again let us meet it now. We have paid
for peace and freedom in the blood of our sons; let us
have it.
Truly yours,
JAMES S. WADSWORTH.
This letter, it is to be noted, was written three days
after the nomination of Seymour by the Democrats.
Meanwhile Weed, his first scheme having failed, had
begun to consider Wadsworth's availability and, so
roundabout were the ways of New York politics, pro-
ceeded to sound him through Secretary Chase. "Long
talk with Weed," wrote Chase in his diary of Septem-
ber 15. "He expressed again his conviction that more
decided measures are needed in an anti-slavery direc-
tion, and said that there was much dissatisfaction with
Seward in New York because he is supposed to be ad-
verse to such measures." ' A few days later a letter from
Hiram Barney, in New York, to Chase put Weed's posi-
tion in a practical form. Weed was willing, it seemed,
to make Wadsworth's nomination unanimous if it were
"not to be considered as a triumph over him," — an expres-
sion which might well be interpreted to mean that, in
return for Weed's support, Wadsworth would be expected
to yield in the matter of the platform.
1 Report of the American Historical Association, 1902, H, 83.
1862] NOMINATION OF WADSWORTH 155
Barney's letter, as it happened, reached Chase on
the morning of September 22, and before going to that
cabinet meeting which, in Mr. Rhodes's words, is "a
point in the history of civilization," he sent an invita-
tion to Wadsworth to come to dinner and talk the mat-
ter over. In the evening the secretary, having first
made in his diary the record to which posterity chiefly
owes its knowledge of the historic scene when Lincoln
announced to his advisers his intention of issuing the
proclamation of Emancipation — having made this record,
Chase noted the outcome of the other matter upon which
he had been engaged. His guest, it seemed, had quickly
detected the implication in Weed's phrase.
Wadsworth had but one objection to saying he would
be governor, if at all, of the State and not of a section
of a party: which was that it might be considered as in
some sort a pledge, which he would not give to anybody.
Told Wadsworth in confidence that the proclamation
might be expected to-morrow morning — which surprised
and gratified him equally. 1
As it turned out it was Lincoln's change of attitude
on the subject of Emancipation that determined Wads-
worth's nomination. In the convention, meeting when
the news of the proclamation was barely forty-eight
hours old, the Greeley and the anti-slavery men had
things their own way. Since to support the policy of
Emancipation was now to support the President, they
were in no mood to listen to the counsels of the mod-
erates and under no necessity to bargain for their help.
Weed, who on the failure of his overtures to Wadsworth
had renewed his advocacy of Dix, could make no head-
way against the cry for a leader who could rally the
State to strengthen the hands of the President in his
new policy. On the first ballot Wadsworth was nomi-
nated, two hundred and thirty-four votes having gone
1 ibid., n, 90.
156 WADSWORTII OF GENESEO
to him, while Dix received only one hundred and ten. 1
Governor Morgan's name was not brought before the
convention. The platform adopted was such that there
was no danger of Wadsworth's attempting to kick it
over.
The nomination of Wadsworth was received with
enthusiasm and his election regarded as certain. 2 In
his letter of acceptance and in a speech 3 to a group of
serenaders who came to his house, Wadsworth indicated
in unequivocal terms his position on Emancipation and
the prosecution of the war. Having put himself publicly
on record, he declared that military duties prevented his
leaving Washington to stump the State; the campaign
must go on without help from him.
Almost immediately, however, it became plain that
there was to be a lively contest. Seymour and his fol-
lowers began a series of partisan attacks on the adminis-
tration. Emancipation was condemned as "a proposal
for the butchery of women and children, for scenes of
lust and rapine, and of arson and murder, which would
invoke the interference of civilized Europe." 4 Corrupt
contracts and arbitrary arrests were violently denounced. 3
To these attacks Raymond, in the New York Times, and
Greeley, in the Tribune, made vigorous reply. On both
sides the blows were shrewd and in the heat of the strife
personalities were soon mingled with policies as the sub-
ject-matter of debate. Wadsworth's record as land-owner
and soldier was vilified with abundant use of superlatives;
the polls, it was said, was the only place where this gen-
eral would not run well. "Prince John" Van Buren,
1 Alexander's Political History of N. Y., Ill, 45.
2 For Gideon Welles 's gossip concerning the nomination, see bis Diary, I,
154, 162.
3 See Appendices F and G.
4 Political History of New York, II, 40.
6 Lincoln on September 24 had issued a proclamation withdrawing the
right of habeas corpus from all who "discouraged enlistments" or were
guilty of any "disloyal practice" which gave "aid and comfort to the reb-
els." — (Lincoln's Works, H, 239.)
1862] THE STATE CAMPAIGN 157
appearing from retirement to delight audiences with his
wit, and to anger opponents by his misrepresentation and
malice, did not spare the Republican-Union candidate.
As sometimes happens when men who have been friends
become political opponents, he forgot to fight fair, and
ridiculed Wadsworth's military career as insignificant —
that of a mere "militia major." Wadsworth was also
attacked for his alleged interference with McClellan's
plans; on the other side, Seymour was made to smart
from repeated accusations of treason. The intensity of
the conflict, all the sharper because the contestants stood
at the extremes of the two parties, at last began to alarm
Republicans and Democrats occupying the middle ground
where, according to the proverb, the way is safest. Fear-
ing not only defeat in the election but party disruption
as well, some of them now urged that both candidates
should withdraw in order that General Dix might take the
field alone. Even those who proposed the scheme must
have realized that there was little hope of its success;
and when the sturdy old soldier replied that he could
not leave his post at Fortress Monroe "to be drawn into
any party strife," 1 they resigned themselves to party
strife again.
The managers of Wadsworth's campaign, perceiving
that the party was likely to suffer from lukewarm alle-
giance 2 as well as from active opposition, arranged for a
mass-meeting at Cooper Institute, in New York City,
on the evening of October 30, a few daj r s before the elec-
tion, and put before Wadsworth with all urgency the
need of his attendance. Heeding their importunities, he
obtained leave from his duties in Washington and came.
On his arrival in New York, so the story is told in the
1 Memoirs of John A. Dix, II, 51.
2 "The difficulty has been," so ran a letter to Wadsworth from the head-
quarters of the State committee on November 1, " to create enthusiasm among
our friends. They had been exhausted by the war excitement, and it took
extraordinary effort to wake up the friends from the lethargy in which they
all seemed buried."
158 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
Life of Thurlow Weed, he went to Weed's room at the
Astor House. Weed said to him: '"James, for the first
time in my life, I am not glad to see you,' adding, in
explanation, 'you have been sent for to make an aboli-
tion speech. You will do it, and thus throw away the
State.'" * As the event proved, Weed spoke from the
fulness of knowledge possessed by a ripened politician; but
Wadsworth had passed the point where he could accept
such guidance. A man who for the last six months had
been devoting himself heart and soul to caring for con-
trabands and to fighting the Fugitive Slave Law could
fill his speech with eloquent silence on the subject of
slavery only at the price of utter self-stultification. As
he faced the great audience in Cooper Union, he met
Weed's challenge in the same steady spirit that had
moved him when he wrote to Smith: "Let us have an
end of this infamy. . . . We have paid for peace and
freedom in the blood of our sons; let us have it."
Here is his "abolition speech": 2
The man who pauses to think of himself, his affairs,
of his family, even, when he has public duties to per-
form and his country lies prostrate, almost in the agonies
of dissolution, is not the man to save it. We must lay
aside all subordinate considerations and raise ourselves
to fix our minds upon the true magnitude of the ques-
tion which we have to solve. We must look directly in
the face the deadly peril which surrounds us if we would
save the country. I tell you it is my deliberate and
solemn conviction that here in the State of New York
— here, more even than in the Shenandoah and in the
valleys of Kentucky — is the battle being fought which
is to preserve our liberties and perpetuate our country.
[Applause.] I do not propose to enter largely into the
consideration of many of the questions involved in this
canvass; following the able and eloquent speaker whom
you have just heard, who has referred to some points upon
which I had intended to comment in terms which I could
1 Life of Weed, II, 425.
2 Compiled from the reports in the New York papers of October 31.
1862] COOPER UNION SPEECH 159
not command, I shall glance hastily at a few of the
leading points at issue.
You hear it charged by my opponents that our na-
tional administration is incompetent to manage the af-
fairs of the country in this crisis. I do not propose to
enter into an elaborate defence of the administration.
I am not of the administration: I am only its subor-
dinate officer, its humble and, I trust, its faithful ser-
vant. [Great applause.] Look, for a moment, at the
circumstances under which this administration took up
the reins of power. James Buchanan [murmurs of in-
dignation] and the thieves and traitors who gathered
around him had left the country a hopeless wreck, al-
most in the struggle of death. Under these trying cir-
cumstances, Abraham Lincoln [enthusiastic applause], an
able, honest, inexperienced man, came to the aid of the
government. I do not doubt that his warmest friends,
and the warmest friends of his cabinet officers, will admit
that mistakes have been committed — and considerable
mistakes; but that they have labored faithfully and ear-
nestly to save this country, I can myself bear witness.
[Applause.] And I do not believe that even in this heated
canvass any man has dared to stand up before you and
say that Abraham Lincoln was not an honest man, trying
to save his country. What do these gentlemen pro-
pose? Do they intend to supersede the administration
by a revolution? The more audacious among them have
dared to hint it. If they dared openly to avow it they
would be covered with infamy, and would not receive
one in a thousand of the votes which will now be given
by unreflecting men for their ticket. Does it need ar-
gument to prove that if this rebellion is put down at
all it must be done within the two years and a few
months during which Mr. Lincoln must administer the
government?
What, then, can any honest patriot, whose heart
looks alone to the preservation of his country, do to
sustain and strengthen Abraham Lincoln? Advise him;
admonish him, if you will — and I tell you no man re-
ceives the plain talk of honest men, whether political
friends or opponents, with more pleasure and more cour-
tesy than Abraham Lincoln — admonish him, if you will,
but strengthen and sustain him. [Applause.] Give him
160 WADS WORTH OF GENESEO
your lives and fortunes and sacred honor to aid his
honest efforts to put down this rebellion, and I venture
to promise that before the end of his term the sun will
shine upon a land unbroken in its territorial integrity
[applause], undiminished in its great proportions, a land
of peace, a land of prosperity, a land where labor is
everywhere honorable and the soil is everywhere free.
[Great applause.]
Mr. Lincoln has told you that he would save this
country with slavery if he could, and he would save it
without slavery if he could; he has never said to you
that if he could not save slavery he would let his coun-
try go. [Applause.] I believe that that honest patriot
would rather be thrown into a molten furnace than
utter a sentiment so infamous. He has said to those
in rebellion against the United States: "I give you one
hundred days to return to your allegiance; if you fail
to do that, I shall strike from under you that institu-
tion which some of you seem to think dearer than life,
than liberty, than country, than peace." And some of
us, let me add, appear to entertain the same opinion.
Gentlemen, I stand by Abraham Lincoln. [Tremendous
applause.] It is just, it is holy so to do. I ask you
to stand by him and sustain him in his efforts. [We
will; we will.]
I know, for I have sometimes felt, the influence of
the odium which the spurious aristocracy, who have so
largely directed the destinies of this nation for three-
quarters of a century, have attached to the word "abo-
lition." They have treated it, 'and too often taught us
to treat it, as some low, vulgar crime, not to be spoken of
in good society or mentioned in fashionable parlors. I
know there are many men still influenced by this preju-
dice; but let those who, in this hour of peril, this struggle
of life and death, shrink from that odium stand aside.
The events of this hour are too big for them. They may
escape ridicule, but they cannot escape contempt. Their
descendants, as they read the annals of these times and
find the names of their ancestors nowhere recorded among
those who came to the rescue of their government in the
hour of its greatest trial, will blush for shame. [Ap-
plause.]
You are told by the candidates of this anti-war
1862] COOPER UNION SPEECH 161
party which is springing up that they will give you
peace in ninety days. I believe them. They will give
you peace — but, good God, what a peace! A peace
which breaks your country into fragments; a Mexican
peace; a Spanish-American peace; a peace which inau-
gurates eternal war! [Applause.] What peace can they
give you in ninetv days or in any other time which does
not acknowledge" the Southern Confederacy and cut
your country in twain? Let me ask you, for a moment,
if you ever looked at the map of your country which
it is proposed to bring out— this new and improved
map of Seymour, Van Buren & Co., the map of these
" let 'em go" geographers? [Laughter.] A country three
thousand miles long and a few hundred miles wide in
the middle. Why, they could not make such a country
stand until they got their map lithographed; nay, not
even until they got it photographed. [Renewed laugh-
ter.] All the great watercourses, all the great chan-
nels of trade dissevered in the middle. No, the man-
date of nature, the finger of God is against any such
disseverance of this country. It can never be divided
by the slave line or any other line.
If you are not prepared to acknowledge the indepen-
dence of the Southern Confederacy and take this peace
which is offered to you in ninety days, what are the
other alternatives presented to you? The South has
unanimously declared that she will submit to no restora-
tion of the Union, that she will under no circumstances
come back into the Union. What, then, are we to do?
We must either go over and join them and adopt their
laws and their social system, or we must subjugate them
to our laws and to our system. Abraham Lincoln tells
you that he intends to subjugate them. Your soldiers
in the field say that they intend to subjugate them.
[Applause.] Sleeping to-night upon the cold ground as
they are, to sleep to-morrow, perhaps, upon the battle-
field, to sleep in death forever, they say: "Surrender
never!" [Great applause.] Gentlemen, what do you
say? Do you propose to surrender? [No, no, never!]
What is to be the voice of New York upon this ques-
tion? Is it to carry cheering words to those brave and
suffering soldiers? Is it to reanimate and encourage
them? Or is it to tell them that their State is against
162 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
them and against their cause? And what of the gallant
dead? What of those who have fallen in battle, or fallen
by disease, in thousands and tens of thousands? Have
they been sacrificed all in vain? Have they been sacri-
ficed in an unnecessary, as Mr. Seymour would say,
and unprofitable war? Are these the words which we
are to carry to those hearts made desolate by this war?
to the fathers and mothers, to the wives and children
of the heroic dead? No, gentlemen, never! Let Mr.
Seymour say to them, if he has the heart to say it, that
they fell in an unnecessary war; I shall say no such
thing. When it is my lot to meet any of them, I shall
say: "Your kinsman fell in a glorious cause; he gave
his life to save the life of his country in a war forced
upon him by a selfish, savage, brutal aristocracy. All
honor to him; all honor to his name; and may a merci-
ful God mitigate the afflictions of those who mourn."
I said at the commencement of my remarks that if
we would meet this issue properly we must appreciate
the imminence of the peril. I tell you now that here
in New York you stand face to face with the enemy.
Here are the minions, the instruments, the tools of that
aristocracy to which I have referred. Here, too, are the
agents and here, too, is the money of that other sym-
pathetic aristocracy upon the other side of the Atlantic,
those people who, while talking of peace and neutrality,
have sent out armed vessels to prey upon your com-
merce and take captive your seamen. As your soldiers
stand upon the hills of Antietam and the plains of Ma-
nassas, so you stand here, face to face with your enemy.
I know, gentlemen, that on ordinary occasions there
might be some question raised as to the expediency of
a candidate's indulging in speculations on the result;
but, having divested myself of all personal feeling in
regard to this matter, I shall speak of it as I would if
I were not a candidate.
It is fifteen months since I have stood upon the soil
of New York until this evening; but in that time I have
seen as much and perhaps more of the sons of New
York than I should if I had remained at home. I have
seen them on the battle-field, flushed with victory; I
have seen them dismayed with defeat; I have seen them
sleeping on the frozen ground; I have seen them suffer-
1862] COOPER UNION SPEECH 103
ing and dying in the hospitals. I claim, gentlemen, to
know as well as any man knows what race of men come
from New York, and I tell you that they do not intend
to give up [great applause]; they do not intend to sur-
render; they do not intend to let their country go.
[Applause.] You will perhaps, gentlemen, when you get
the returns from some of the election districts near you,
be somewhat alarmed. But wait, gentlemen, wait till you
hear from the hills of Saint Lawrence on the north; wait
till you hear from the hills of Allegany on the south,
wait till you hear from the valleys of the Mohawk, Cay-
uga, Onondaga, and Genesee; wait till you hear from
them, gentlemen, and you will hear a voice which will
bring joy and glad tidings to every loyal heart in this
land, and make it cry out: "The country is saved!"
[Renewed cheers.]
Gentlemen, I only propose to detain you a moment
longer. [Go on! Go on!] Let me say to you, gentle-
men, that if we meet this great crisis in which an over-
ruling Providence has assigned it to us to act, if we meet
it as becomes men, if we shape our course so that we
may appeal to the God of Justice to smile upon our arms
and upon our councils, I tell you, gentlemen, that the
glories of the Revolutionary period, even, will pale be-
fore the achievements of your soldiers and your states-
men. [Great applause.]
I will not detain you any further, gentlemen; and
I thank you for the great patience with which you have
heard me. [Enthusiastic applause, the audience rising
and waving handkerchiefs.]
The immediate effect of the speech is described by
Alexander in his Political History of New York: 1
Amid a hurricane of approbation he mingled censure
of Seymour with praise of Lincoln, and the experience
of a brave soldier with bitter criticism of an unpatriotic
press. It was not the work of a trained public speaker.
It lacked poise, phrase, and deliberation. But what it
wanted in manner it made up in fire and directness, giv-
ing an emotional and loyal audience abundant opportu-
nity to explode into long-continued cheering. Thoughtful
i m,50,5i.
164 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
men who were not in any sense political partisans gave
careful heed to his words. He stood for achievement.
He brought the great struggle nearer home, and men
listened as to one with a message from the field of pa-
triotic sacrifices. The radical newspapers broke into a
chorus of applause. The Radicals themselves were de-
lighted. The air rung with praises of the courage and
spirit of their candidate, and if here and there the faint
voice of a Conservative suggested that emancipation
was premature and arbitrary arrests were unnecessary,
a shout of offended patriotism drowned the ignoble
utterance.
One point in this speech calls for further remark.
Its characterization of Lincoln shows how Wadsworth,
like every other man who saw enough of the President
to learn his ways and to find the fire of his sincerity
steadily burning behind its baffling defences of jocular-
ity, had outgrown and repudiated the distrust felt in
the days of ignorance. The story of the cabinet meet-
ing of September 22, as told by Chase to Wadsworth
at dinner on that day, could not fail to win the lasting
allegiance of a nature so ardent as Wadsworth's. It
was this revelation that inspired the words: "I stand
by Abraham Lincoln. It is just; it is holy so to do."
To the Radicals, confident in the righteousness of
their cause and looking so far ahead to the time of its
ultimate consummation that their vision of immediate
conditions was distorted, the result of the election was
nothing short of astounding. Seymour had a majority
of over ten thousand votes. 1 Thereupon ensued much
discussion between the wings of the Union party as to
the cause of the defeat, each side considering that it
had a grievance against the other. According to H. B.
Stanton, the anti-slavery journalist, Wadsworth believed
that Seward was "dead against him all through the cam-
ir The vote stood: Seymour, 307,063; Wadsworth, 296,492.— New York
Tribune, November 24.
1862] DEMOCRATIC VICTORY 165
paign." 1 As for Weed, he made public announcement of
his "steady and earnest support" 2 of the whole State
ticket; but so high had feeling run that for some time he
suffered, as he himself notes in his Autobiography, 3 from
the suspicion that he had worked to defeat Wadsworth.
But not personal and factional interests, nor dissat-
isfaction at corrupt contracts and arbitrary arrests, nor
the absence of the soldier vote, contributing causes
though they were, are adequate of themselves to ac-
count for the wiping out of the fifty thousand majority
which Lincoln had received in New York in 1860 and
the substitution for it of the decisive majority by which
Seymour was elected. The view of the situation dur-
ing the campaign which was urged by William Cullen
Bryant upon Lincoln presents what is generally agreed
to be the major cause of this great reversal. "The elec-
tion of Seymour as Governor of the State of New York
would be a public calamity, but it may happen if the
army is kept idle. A victory or two would almost an-
nihilate his party, and carry in General Wadsworth tri-
umphantly." 4 In default of any such victory, the wave
of reaction which swept New York carried also the
States of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illi-
nois, and Wisconsin into the Democratic column. "The
defeat of the administration party in these important
States," says Mr. Rhodes, "which was occasioned by
its former friends staying away from the polls, was a
symptom of weariness of the war, a protest against the
waste of so much life and money with so little result
accomplished." 5
1 Random Recollections, p. 216.
2 Letter in the New York Tribune, November 4, 1862.
3 Pp. 360, 361. 4 Godwin's Life of Bryant, II, 176.
6 History of the U. S., IV, 164. "The country were tired of inaction,"
wrote Edwards Pierrepont to Wads worth on November 5, "disgusted with the
delay, and determined that the President should hear and heed a voice which
had not been regarded for a long time. The very things which have made
you impatient with the President, and with imbecile, timid generals, have
made the people impatient with the same President and determined that he
166 WADS WORTH OF GENESEO
If any shade of personal chagrin tinged the defeat
for Wadsworth, it quickly cleared away. The pressure
put upon him not only to trim his anti-slavery opinions
to the times but also to make a heavy contribution of
money for electioneering purposes was, he realized, but
a slight strain for his powers of resistance compared to
what he would be subjected to if he became governor.
"After the election had been decided," writes his aide,
Colonel Meneely, "General Wadsworth came to my office
door, stood erect, and, holding his hand on his breast,
said, 'Here is one person who thinks just as much of
General Wadsworth after the election as he did before.'
He had not sold himself, and he felt that, although de-
feated for office, he was a man."
The political campaign over, Stanton was willing
to release Wadsworth from his duties at Washington
and to accede to the desire which he had some time
since expressed for active service with the Army of the
Potomac. Although at the moment no place could be
found for him there, Stanton on November 19 granted
him a brief leave of absence from his duties as military
governor. When, after a visit to his family in New
York, he returned to Washington on December 7, his
fate was still undecided. "I do not know what I am
to do," he wrote to his son James, "whether remain here
or go into the field." But Burnside, who had replaced
McClellan, had already begun his campaign, and within
the week the battle of Fredericksburg was fought and
lost. In the train of that disaster came the opportunity
for which Wadsworth had been waiting.
should know it. I write this rather to say that you may be sure that no
want of personal popularity or personal admiration for your course has pre-
vented your election."
The discussion of this campaign in Brummer's Political History of New
York State during the Period of the Civil War, pp. 201-254, is admirable
in every respect, and I am greatly indebted to it.
CHAPTER VI
IN WINTER QUARTERS. FITZHUGH'S CROSSING.
CHANCELLORSVILLE. THE MARCH TO
GETTYSBURG
On the night of December 13 news reached the War
Department of the desperate battle which Burnside had
been waging that day. The losses had been heavy, and
several general officers were known to have been killed.
Wadsworth was given orders to report at once to Burn-
side, and leaving Washington before daylight made his
way with all speed to the front. When he reached Fred-
ericksburg he found himself in the midst of an army
demoralized and almost prostrated by the repulse which
it had just suffered at Lee's hands. It still lay where
it had stopped fighting on the south side of the Rappa-
hannock, its only occupation the depressing labors that
call for performance after a battle-field has taken its toll
of dead and wounded. What revealed itself to the eye
received its complement in the stories told by every one
with whom Wadsworth spoke, both at Burnside's head-
quarters, whither he went to report, and at the head-
quarters of Reynolds, on the extreme left, where he found
his son Craig, who had done gallant service as one of
Reynolds's aides. The much-enduring Army of the Poto-
mac, in changing McClellan for Burnside as commander,
had only fared worse, and the useless sacrifice which he
had called upon it to make in the attack on Marye's
Heights had wiped out altogether its confidence in its
new commander.
Since at the moment there was no need of Wads-
worth's services — for the promotions and readjustments
107
168 WADS WORTH OF GENESEO
that follow a battle had not yet made a place for him —
he returned to Washington to give his testimony before
the McDowell court of inquiry. 1 In a few days he was
back with the army again, and on December 22 was
published his assignment to command the First Division
of the First Corps. 2 His aides-de-camp were Major Clin-
ton H. Meneely and Captain T. E. Ellsworth.
The officers and men with whom Wadsworth was to
share the service of the next six and a half months — a
period which included the battles of Chancellorsville and
Gettysburg and the long march from one field to the
other — require description here, for his life now became
a part of theirs. The officer whom he succeeded was
Brigadier-General Doubleday, who, as captain in the
regular army, had at Sumter fired the first gun that re-
plied to the Confederates. A capable commander, cool
and brave in battle, he was not in good favor with all
his brother officers, partly because of his anti-slavery
sympathies, partly for the length to which he carried
his habit of outspoken criticism. He presently received
the command of the Third Division of the First Corps,
taking the place of Meade, promoted to the command
of the Fifth Corps. The Second Division was led by
Brigadier-General John C. Robinson, a brave and re-
liable soldier.
The corps commander, Major-General John Fulton
Reynolds, was one whose qualities both as a man and
a soldier were then and are still spoken of in terms of
praise that carry with them no phrases of depreciation
or disparagement. Fortunate as his career had already
been, with its brilliant record on hard-fought fields, the
future at the time seemed still brighter. Rated among
the "most distinguished and best-beloved officers" of
the Army of the Potomac, he was also, in Swinton's
words, "one whom, by the steady growth of the highest
1 His testimony is found in W. R., XII, pt. 1, pp. 112-115.
2 W. R., XXV., 876.
1863] WADSWORTH AND HIS STAFF 169
military qualities, the general voice of the whole army
had marked out for the largest fame." J Though Reyn-
olds was thirteen years younger than Wadsworth, there
was much in their natures, besides their readiness to
fight, which drew them together, and to an unusual de-
gree Wadsworth shared his commander's confidence and
regard.
With the members of his staff Wadsworth's intimacy
was much more than that of mere forced fellowship.
They were young men of the same age as his son Craig,
or even younger, and to them, as to his own sons, he
knew how to be both father and companion. The warmth
and tenderness with which such of them as still survive
cherish the memory of those days bears witness to the
truth that nothing so quickly and yet so permanently
impresses youth as the example of a noble nature thus
lived with from day to day. In a world the moral tone
of which was constantly threatened by intrigue, jealousy,
and all the diversions that crowd into idle hours, these
youths had the ever-present inspiration of a man who
never thought of himself, because his mind was filled
with the thought of duty, and whose sole purpose in the
performance of duty was "to alway spend and never
spare."
The friendly feeling for Wadsworth which was a mat-
ter of course on the part of officers and men in the vari-
ous regiments established itself the more quickly since
one of the four brigades in the division was that which
he had commanded the winter before at Upton's Hill.
His welcome from them was probably not so turbulent
and overpowering as that which the men had given him
on the Sunday in the preceding April when he had ridden
out from Washington to visit them, but it nevertheless
bespoke regard and confidence. The regiments com-
posing the brigade, however, were soon transferred to
the provost-marshal general's command and their places
1 Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, p. 330.
170 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
taken by four New Jersey regiments and one Pennsyl-
vania regiment — all nine months' men whose term of ser-
vice was to end in June. In still another brigade, where
three of the four regiments were composed of two years'
men from New York, the worth of his troops was weak-
ened by the fact that the day of their muster-out was
but a few months away.
The other two brigades of Wadsworth's division were
organizations which any soldier would be proud to com-
mand. They had seen and were destined to see as hard
fighting as any soldiers in the Army of the Potomac;
their fame has matched their great losses in killed and
wounded. They were three years' men who had filled
the ranks at the call not of bounties but of patriotism.
Six of the eleven regiments in the two brigades, it is
worth noting, were from the States of Indiana, Michigan,
and Wisconsin.
One of these brigades, consisting entirely of Western
regiments — Nineteenth Indiana, Twenty-fourth Michi-
gan, Second, Sixth, and Seventh Wisconsin — was known
throughout the army as the Iron Brigade, a name which
it had won from its gallant work in storming the Con-
federate position at South Mountain. The black slouch
hats which its men wore made it easily distinguishable.
Among its regimental officers was an unusual number of
men of the highest type of volunteer soldier. Three of
the colonels were Henry A. Morrow, Lucius Fairchild,
and E. S. Bragg; the lieutenant-colonel of the Sixth
Wisconsin, who still lacked a few days of being twenty-
five when he commanded the regiment at Gettysburg,
was Rufus A. Dawes. His Service with the Sixth Wis-
consin Volunteers, composed largely of letters written to
"family, friends, and M. B. G. (my best girl)," is dis-
tinguished among books of its class for the completeness
of the picture which it gives of the life of a soldier and
his regiment and of their relation to the world within
and without the army. The brigade commander was
1863] WADSWORTH'S BRIGADES 171
Solomon Meredith, a Hoosier politician. His visits to
Washington took him to the White House and obtained pro-
motion for him as the only Quaker general in the army. 1
The other brigade consisted of the Seventh Indiana,
the Seventy-sixth and the Ninety-fifth New York, and
the Fifty-sixth Pennsylvania, to which during the spring
were added the One Hundred and Forty-seventh New
York, a new regiment, and the Eighty-fourth New York,
commonly known by its militia designation of Four-
teenth Brooklyn. Here, too, were devoted officers and
brave men; but the figure that most deserves notice is
that of the brigade commander, Lysander Cutler. Fully
as old as Wadsworth, with hair and beard nearly white,
spare of frame and limping from a wound received at
Gainesville, severe in aspect, yet with a kindly look in
his keen eyes, quick and nervous, he was a conscientious
officer and an indomitable fighter.
Another noteworthy figure was Lieutenant James
Stewart, a broad-shouldered Scotchman, commanding the
battery of regulars (Battery B, Fourth U. S. Artillery)
attached to the division. He had entered the battery
as a private ten years before the war began and by
reason of this long service understood how to produce
effective discipline by the right attitude of comradeship.
His men, mostly detached volunteers from the two in-
fantry brigades, responded heartily to such training as
his, and the battery won a high name for its wonderful
fighting qualities. 2
The position to which the First Corps was assigned
for the winter was on the extreme left of the army, at
Belle Plain, on Potomac Creek, a short distance above
the place where it empties into the Potomac. A few
1 After the war Morrow became colonel of the 21st Regiment, U. S. In-
fantry; Fairchild was Governor of Wisconsin and minister to Spain; Bragg
served three terms in Congress, was minister to Mexico, and consul-general
at Havana and Hong-Kong; Dawes served in Congress.
2 In The Cannoneer, by A. L. Buell, is told the story of this battery, with
much interesting detail as to the personality of its commander.
172 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
miles up the river was Aquia Creek, the landing-place at
which the supplies for the army were transferred from
boats to the military railroad running to Falmouth. At
Belle Plain, too, a desolate region with not a house in
sight, were supply depots, but here the transportation
was wholly by wagons. Back from the landing lay a
range of hills, their sides covered with a growth of scrub
oak and pine and cut by deep ravines, up which, on has-
tily constructed roads, struggled the long trains. The
Virginia mud, the object of much eloquently descriptive
language both then and since, exercised upon the heavy
loads all its powers of suction, and frequently a wagon
was overturned. Characteristically, one of Wadsworth's
first labors was to improve the condition of these thor-
oughfares — if the term be not altogether a misnomer —
for he had no mind that any portion of the army depend-
ent on supplies from Belle Plain should suffer delay or
deprivation. With logs cut from the trees on the hill-
sides he "corduroyed," the roads, employing himself so
unremittingly in the work that he presently came to be
known as "Old Corduroy." When, in spite of his care,
it was found that "the sharp-hoofed mules would go
down in the mud and mire," Wadsworth obtained a supply
of oxen, keeping them near his head-quarters. "It was
a rare treat to our men," writes Dawes, "to see the old
general take a gad and 'whisper to the calves.' He
took great interest in the oxen, and was often seen at
the landing giving instructions in driving them." x The
wonder here expressed conveys not only the astonish-
ment of the soldiers at, so to say, scratching a brigadier
and finding a farmer, but also their sense of the con-
trast between Wadsworth and numerous other officers
at a period when, according to the latest historian of
the campaign of Chancellorsville, "many regimental com-
manders took little interest in the welfare of their men." 2
1 Service with the 6th Wisconsin, p. 129.
2 The Campaign of Chancellorsville, by J. Bigelow, Jr., p. 34.
1863] FORAGING EXPEDITIONS 173
Even after all these labors the roads fell short of the
service required of them. This restriction in the trans-
portation of supplies affected first the animals of the
army, of which the number was unusually large, for at
this time Hooker, who had succeeded Burnside in com-
mand, was making his unfortunate experiment of sub-
stituting pack-mules for wagons. To supply the defi-
ciency in forage, Wadsworth, reviving his practice at
Upton's Hill, sent out twice in February and twice in
March expeditions to the Northern Neck, as the region
to the south lying between the Potomac and the Rappa-
hannock Rivers is called. A similar expedition of cav-
alry, in which Craig participated, is referred to in the
following letter written by Wadsworth on March 9 to
his sixteen-year-old son James. Incidentally, the letter
shows the writer's rugged health and his intention that
his youngest son should join him in the army:
I rode day before yesterday forty odd miles and
yesterday sixteen. Craig has just returned from an ex-
pedition down the Neck. ... He went down to Coan
River in a boat with 80 cavalry and returned by land—
80 miles the way he came. He destroyed several boats
the Rebels were using to take supplies over the Rappa-
hannock, took several prisoners engaged in this business,
some signal officers, and a considerable amount of army
supplies. 1 I sent two infantry parties in the same direc-
tion, which were quite successful.
It is my present intention to have you with me
early next fall in the army. I am afraid to have you
come into this country in the summer— at your age you
1 Craig Wadsworth's report of the expedition in which he took part is
given in 39 W R., p. 14. On one of these expeditions, or some similar one,
Craig, accompanied by a few soldiers, had entered a mill in search of flour.
While they were in the loft a small group of Confederate horsemen rode
up hitched their horses, and came into the mill on a similar errand, lhe
Yankees made a hasty exit by sliding down the pulley-rope that hung m
front of the loft door, and, as their own horses had been tied on the other
side of the mill, rode off on the horses of the rebels. In one of the saddle-
bags Craig found a letter which had been written to him by one of his sisters
and which had suffered capture, with other letters, at the hands of some en-
terprising Confederate cavalryman.
174 WADSWORTII OF GENESEO
would be almost sure to have the fever. If I were in a
healthy region I would take you as soon as the summer
vacation commenced. . . .
As the winter wore away the effects of Hooker's
labors of organization began to appear. The equipment
of the army was improved in every way possible, and
if the pack-mules had not yet shown how bad their
worst could be in the way of straying and rolling, at
least they were faster than wagons; the absentees had
returned to increase the ranks of their regiments — though
not indeed to fill them — and all were eager to enter
upon the campaign which must begin as soon as the
roads became less miry. Across the Rappahannock lay
the enemy. His front at Fredericksburg was impreg-
nable; the question was: would Hooker move up or
down the river to assail him on the flank?
The arrival of the circular of April 13 from head-
quarters was the first sign that operations were about
to begin. The scale of the movement proposed might be
guessed from the fact that each soldier was required to
carry in knapsack and haversack field rations for eight
days. Heretofore three days' rations had been his usual
load, though at times he had carried five. As Wads-
worth read this order, his question was not as to the
destination of his men, but whether, with this extraor-
dinary burden, in addition to clothing, blanket, canteen,
ammunition, and musket, they could possibly compass
a march of any length. On this point he would not be
satisfied till he had made the experiment on his own
person. The historian of the Seventy-sixth New York
regiment tells the story of his test as follows:
"Orderly!" said the general, "pack a knapsack, can-
teen, haversack, and cartridge-box, and roll the tent and
overcoat and place them upon the knapsack, according
to orders, and put the whole rig on me and hand me a
gun. I am going to see if this order can be obeyed by
1863] DECEIVING LEE 175
the men"; and for nearly an hour the general paced his
tent carrying the load of a soldier. At the end of that
time, perspiring at every pore, he commenced unloading,
declaring as he did so: "No man can carry such a load
and live; it is preposterous!" He was obliged to pro-
mulgate the order, but to the general's credit be it said,
no inspector came around to see that the order was
obeyed. 1
Heavy rains prevented the beginning of the move-
ment; yet Hooker's readiness to march at the first op-
portunity was plain from an order dated April 20 which
called for a "spirited regiment" from the First Corps
to go down the river some twenty miles and then to
cross and capture a small body of Confederates said to
be stationed at Port Royal. The object of this demon-
stration, for which the Twenty -fourth Michigan and the
Fourteenth Brooklyn were designated, was to induce
Lee to believe that Hooker's main attack was to be
made from that quarter. Already fires had been built
at night within view of the same place by troops from
Doubleday's division, which had gone thither for that
purpose. After a day's marching in continuous rain,
over roads almost impassable, Wadsworth's regiments
returned. They had destroyed a wagon train and capt-
ured a few prisoners; 2 whether or not they had deceived
Lee is an open question.
At last the rain was over and gone, and under the
influence of a warm sun and a brisk wind the roads began
to dry rapidly. Expectation was at high pitch. On Mon-
1 History of the 76th Regiment N. Y. Vols., p. 255. The total weight
carried by each soldier as estimated by the chief quartermaster of the army
was forty-five pounds (40 VV. R., p. 545); as estimated by the quarter-
master of the First Corps, forty pounds, exclusive of musket, which was
nine pounds (40 W. R., p. 547). Swinton calls it sixty pounds (Campaigns
of the Army of the Potomac, p. 273). Wadsworth's brigade of nine montlis'
New Jersey men proved unequal to the burden, throwing away about half
their knapsacks and also a considerable number of overcoats, haversacks, and
canteens (40 W. R., p. 547). In making his report of the campaign (39 W. R.,
p. 261), Wadsworth entered a protest at the excessive weight of the load.
2 39 W. R., 137.
176 WADS WORTH OF GENESEO
day, April 27, four of the army corps began the grand
turning movement up the river; on Tuesday morning
the First Corps made ready for its march, which was to
bring it to the banks of the Rappahannock, opposite a
spot a few miles below Fredericksburg.
But at the very moment of starting a smouldering
difficulty in a regiment of one of Wadsworth's brigades
burst into flame as open mutiny. There were at the
time in the Army of the Potomac sixteen thousand
four hundred and eighty men 1 who had enlisted at the
beginning of the war for two years. As has been said,
their term of service was about to expire, but whereas
the men contended that the date of its expiration should
be determined by that of their acceptance by their re-
spective States, the adjutant-general's office at Washing-
ton had ruled that the period of two years must count
from the time of their muster in as United States vol-
unteers. It so happened that the day had passed on
which, according to the soldiers' reckoning, their service
was over, while the day which the Federal government
recognized lay beyond the gulf of battle. The patriotism
of a few companies of one of the New York regiments
in Wadsworth's First Brigade proved unequal to this
strain; on being given the order to march they refused
to move.
When the news that the apprehended trouble had
come to a head was brought to Wadsworth, he sent on
his command, except the Iron Brigade, after the other
divisions of the First Corps. As soon as they were well
out of sight he ordered the Iron Brigade to march to the
camp of the mutinous companies and, halting in front of
it, to load and come to "ready." "The forlorn little
band," so the incident is recalled by Earl M. Rogers,
then in command of Company I, Sixth Wisconsin, 2 "that
had done good work, and left many on the field of battle,
1 40 W. R., p. 243. There were also 6,421 nine months' men.
2 MS. narrative.
1863] MUTINY 177
then saw their error. General Wadsworth then rode in
front of them, uncovering his head, and in a loud voice
said, 'Men of New York, of good deeds, I give you the
alternative. New York is ashamed of your conduct; I
am astonished. Take two steps to the front as your
willingness to obey the command to march; unless you
do, by the Almighty, I will bury you here.' He gave
the command and every man marched, ashamed of him-
self. The Iron Brigade recovered arms, the band played
'Johnny Comes Marching Home,' and the little affair
was over, and the army, other than Cutler's brigade, 1
no wiser. When Wadsworth rode past, the boys of Cut-
ler's brigade cheered him vociferously, and carried their
hats on their bayonets in further honor for his vigorous
putting down of the little rebellion." Within twenty-
four hours he was to win their admiration in an even
higher degree.
The movement which Wadsworth's division had be-
gun was a part of the comprehensive and masterly strat-
egy which preceded the battle of Chancellorsville and
for which Hooker's severest critics have not stinted
their praise. To deceive Lee as to his real intention to
cross the Rappahannock by its upper fords, Hooker
planned to have pontoon bridges thrown across the
river at two points below Fredericksburg, and over these
bridges troops were to be sent to make a demonstra-
tion against Lee's right flank. For this purpose three
corps under the command of Major-General Sedgwick
were designated. It was apparently Hooker's expectation
that Lee, forced to abandon Fredericksburg, would re-
treat toward Richmond, whereupon both wings of the
Union army were to start in pursuit. If, however, the
Confederate commander were so rash as to fight, he
would be hopelessly crushed between them. In either
case success was assured, and Herman Haupt was in
waiting on the north bank of the Rappahannock with
1 The Iron Brigade had formerly been commanded by Cutler.
178 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
all the materials for rebuilding the railroad toward Rich-
mond in the rear of the advancing army.
To make the crossing at Pollock's Mill Creek, or
Fitzhugh's Crossing, about three miles below Fredericks-
burg, where the lower pair of bridges was to be laid,
Wadsworth's division was chosen. The peril of the en-
terprise came from the rifle-pits with which the high
south bank of the stream was lined and from which
Confederate sharp-shooters and infantry could pour de-
structive fire on whoever came down to the opposite
margin of the river, which was here less than two hun-
dred yards wide. In the preceding December, before
the battle of Fredericksburg, the efforts of the engineer
brigade to bridge the stream had been frustrated and
matters had remained at a stand-still until the colonel
of the Seventh Michigan offered his regiment to cross
the river in the pontoon boats, make a charge up the
bank, and drive the enemy out of his defences. The
operation so brilliantly successful then was to be at-
tempted now with this difference, that the attacking
party was to be thrown over just before dawn in the
hope of taking the enemy by surprise.
The pontoon train which had been put under Wads-
worth's charge he found assembled at a point some dis-
tance back from the river. In order that there might
be no rumble of heavy wagons or uplifted voices of
mules and darkies to alarm the enemy, he was directed
to assign seventy-two men to carry each of the forty-
four pontoons (the weight of each being one thousand
five hundred pounds), and to detail crossing squads of
sixty men which were to march each beside its boat.
By this arrangement the boats would receive their sev-
eral loads as soon as they were put into the water.
To move without noise some three thousand one
hundred men, with their heavy burdens, over uneven
roads for a distance of three-quarters of a mile in the
darkness of a drizzly night was a feat the successful
1863] FITZHUGH'S CROSSING 179
performance of which might well rival the silent up-
building of Solomon's temple. Nevertheless, according
to orders the first five pontoons were lifted from the
wagons, raised breast high on timbers, and started toward
the river. "For some time," writes an officer in one of the
regiments assigned to the work, "the march was continued
in silence, as had been intended from the first, but as
the long minutes wore on, with no signs of shore apparent,
the burden of carriage became too great for the soldiers'
strength. Obliged by the compulsion of fatigue to stop
sometimes for rest, the intervals of marching forward
became shorter, and voices had to be used to prevent
irregularity in lowering the boats as well as to halt those
in the rear of a group too tired to proceed farther. . . .
Finally the officers had to take hold with the men. . . .
It seemed as though the river was withdrawing from us
and could never be reached. The damp meadows over
which we were groping our way became as mortar under
our feet. Man after man dropped to the ground unable
to sustain the work. Morning was coming on apace, and
still no sign of the Rappahannock. The babbling of many
tongues swelled up from the ranks, and from the distant
hills came the sound of cock-crowing, the precursor of
breaking day." 1
As Wadsworth followed the struggles of his men he
became convinced that the chance for a surprise had al-
ready been lost and that if this method were continued
it would be long after daybreak before the forty-four
pontoons could be assembled at the shore. Taking things
into his own hands, he ordered the five pontoons to be
reloaded on the trucks and the entire train to proceed
to the river. At dawn twenty of the boats were in the
water, and in the morning mist that hung over the river
there was reason for hope that the remainder could be
1 Among the Pontoons at Fitzhugh's Crossing, by Theron W. Haight.
War Papers Read before the Commandery of the State of Wisconsin, Mili-
tary Order of the Loyal Legion of the U. S., I, 419, 420.
180 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
brought down in safety. Suddenly a volley of musketry
from the opposite bank crashed through the fog. "A
panic ensued in the pontoon train," writes Dawes.
"There was a grand skedaddle of mules with lumbering
pontoon boats, negroes, and extra-duty men. We cleared
the track and let them go by us in their frantic and ludi-
crous flight. We had completely failed to surprise the
enemy." 1
For some hours things were at a deadlock. Neither
Wadsworth nor Reynolds was willing to send men hud-
dled together in boats against a force of unknown mag-
nitude hidden behind a screen of fog. Artillery was
brought into position, infantry posted in sheltered places
on the edge of the bank above the shore; the men got
breakfast.
This period of waiting was broken in upon by the arri-
val of the commander of the engineer brigade, Brigadier-
General H. W. Benham. Though the other bridges at
Franklin's Crossing, a mile and a half up the river, had
at last been laid, the misunderstandings and delays at-
tending the work had wrought his naturally excitable
temper to its highest pitch. Here at Fitzhugh's Cross-
ing, when he learned how Wadsworth had seen fit to
countermand his orders and when he saw the boats lying
empty on the shore with no troops at hand, he would
doubtless have ordered Wadsworth under arrest as he
had already ordered the brigade commander at Frank-
lin's Crossing. Fortunately— that is, for Benham — signs
that the fog was beginning to lift speedily engaged the
thoughts of all those responsible in planning for imme-
diate action.
When at about half-past eight the curtain was with-
drawn from before the Confederate side of the river,
the rifle-pit from which the firing had come was seen to
be directly opposite the point where the boats lay. Skir-
mishers were stretched along the bluff up and down
1 Service with the 6th Wisconsin, p. 135.
1863] FITZHUGH'S CROSSING 181
stream, and the total number of the enemy appeared
to be four or five hundred. 1 The steep bank was ob-
structed not only with underbrush but with an abatis
of trees placed with their tops extending down the slope.
Reynolds ordered Wadsworth to force the crossing at
once, and Wadsworth communicated the order to the
two regiments of the Iron Brigade chosen for the un-
dertaking—the Sixth Wisconsin and the Twenty-fourth
Michigan. While their colonels were giving the men ex-
plicit instructions, the artillery on the higher ground be-
hind them began a "slow, deliberate, and well-sustained
fire of great accuracy." 2 It checked and dispersed a
regiment coming to reinforce the Confederates on the
river bank and ultimately compelled the latter to take
refuge by lying prostrate behind their defences.
Encouraging though the support of the batteries was,
the Michigan and Wisconsin men had a daunting task
before them. They had watched the shooting down of
their comrades who were unloading the boats, had seen
the pell-mell of confusion when the teams were stam-
peded, and now, as they fixed bayonets and threw their
belongings into company piles, they called out: "Here's
for Libby," 3 "Farewell, mother," "Good-by, my lover,
good-by," and other grim vocatives of the soldier's vo-
cabulary. "As the troops were going to the river at the
double quick," writes General Kress, "Generals Reyn-
olds and Wadsworth, with staff officers and orderlies, rode
down behind the lines. I joined them, and as we were
under a heavy fire of artillery and small-arms, I looked
around to see how it affected my friends. The most un-
concerned of the whole party appeared to be the two
generals, who energetically smoked their cigars and main-
tained a calm exterior." 4
"By the right of companies, to the front, double
quick, march!" At Colonel Bragg's command the Sixth
1 39 W. R., p. 258. 2 General Hunt's report, 39 W. R., p. 247.
8 Libby Prison. 4 Unidentified newspaper article.
182 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
Wisconsin dashed to the boats, filled them, and pushed
out into the stream. Craig Wadsvvorth was in one of
the first. Poles and even the butts of muskets helped
the oars in speeding them over the short space of water.
The Twenty-fourth Michigan, embarking farther down,
was behind them only a moment, if at all. As soon as
they were off, some companies of the Second Wisconsin,
which had been moved down to the shore to assist in cov-
ering the crossing of the first regiments, scrambled into
I he remaining boats. "When the last boat was launched
and filled by the infantry," writes one of the men who
crossed in it, "and the engineers, who acted as oarsmen,
were about to move off, the general [Wadsworth] cried
out, 'Hold on,' stepped to his horse, threw the lines over
his head, and sprang into the stern of the boat, holding
the lines in his hand. The horse was decidedly opposed
to taking a bath so early in the morning, but the general
said to me, 'Push him in, lieutenant,' and, some of my
company standing near by, I said to them, 'Push him
in, boys,' and with a strong push, a long push, and a
push-all-together, the horse was forced into the stream.
The infantrymen were ordered before they went 'aboard'
to lie down and were occupying this position, while Gen-
eral Wadsworth stood erect in the stern of the boat, the
horse swimming behind. ... It is not strange that I
should make the remark at the time to some of the
men standing near me: 'General Wadsworth will never
see the end of this war — he is too brave a man — he'll
be killed before it closes.' " l
At first a sharp fire assailed the fleet, but it dwindled
as the boats drew near the shore; the two leading regi-
ments, landing one below and one above the rifle-pit,
rushed up the bank, went at the works with a cheer,
and over them in triumph. As Wadsworth's boat touched
the shore, the soldiers, seizing bridle, saddle, and stir-
rups, dragged the horse to land; animal and rider were
1 Captain John T. Davidson, in the Elmira Telegram, August '24, 1890.
18G3] FITZHUGH'S CROSSING 183
up the bank in an instant. Reaching the level of the
plain, Wadsworth with exultation beheld it occupied by
none except retreating enemy, and his own men in full
possession of the rifle-pit. They had captured nearly a
hundred prisoners. He rode his dripping horse up to the
commander of the Sixth Wisconsin, calling out: "Colonel
Bragg, I thank you and your regiment for this gallant
charge in pontoons." 1 The whole affair had taken barely
ten minutes.
Another trip of the boats sufficed to bring over the
other regiments of the Iron Brigade, and then nothing
prevented the rapid construction of the bridges. They
were completed by noon, and Wadsworth's entire divi-
sion of eight thousand men was presently in position
on the south side of the river, his lines extending down
to Massaponax Creek and up to connect with the divi-
sion (Brooks's) of the Sixth Corps that had come over
by the bridges at Franklin's Crossing. The Confeder-
ates, meanwhile, except for an occasional shell, made
no further opposition, and all day the two armies re-
mained watching each other, their picket fines not more
than fifty yards apart.
During these hours there was opportunity to bury
the men killed in the morning's engagement at the rifle-
pit — a few Confederates, of Union soldiers a consider-
ably larger number. "One of our sergeants," writes
Colonel Meneely in this connection, "came to the gen-
eral with a letter which he had taken from the body
of a Georgia soldier. This letter was directed to the
soldier's wife and contained a ten-dollar bill of Northern
money. The letter said: 'My dear Wife, — I am going
into battle very soon. I send all of the money that I
have for you and the children. God knows that I wish
I had more.' Here the letter stopped in a way showing
that the writer intended adding to it. The general took
the letter, turned his horse as if to hide his action,
1 MS. narrative of Earl M. Rogers.
184 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
placed two additional ten-dollar bills in the letter, and
sealed it. Then he said: 'Poor woman. She has done
no harm and will feel badly enough.' The letter was
handed to our provost-marshal with instructions to see
that it was sent across the line by the first flag of truce."
It is not always the inhumanities of war that stir us
most profoundly.
That night Wadsworth's men lay on their arms. On
Thursday morning, April 30, in expectation of a for-
ward movement on the part of the Confederates, they
fell to work perfecting their intrenchments, using freely
for this purpose farming implements and timber from
barns. When, early in the afternoon, the enemy was
seen to be forming in column of attack and threatening
the bridge-heads, Wadsworth's line was further strength-
ened by two batteries sent over in haste by Reynolds.
Nothing came of the threatened movement, however,
and the Confederates confined their activity to shelling,
damaging the bridges somewhat and annoying Robin-
son's division across the river. With the coming of dark
Wadsworth ordered work on the intrenchments to be
resumed; as the men toiled through the night they were
surprised to find themselves visited by him and were
cheered with the assurance of his unsleeping care. By
morning breastworks firm enough to resist solid shot and
shell protected the brigades, and Wadsworth was justi-
fied in sending word to General Butterfield, Hooker's
chief of staff at Falmouth, that his troops were in good
spirits and his position a strong one. 1
For the success of Hooker's movement it was highly
important that he should know whether Lee, suspecting
his design, had begun to transfer troops from Fredericks-
burg to front him at Chancellorsville and whether Long-
street, who, with two divisions of his corps, had been
south of the James, was returning to take part in the
battle. Yet at the critical moment the means that
1 40 W. R., p. 333.
1863] FITZHUGH'S CROSSING 185
should have been available for this purpose proved of
little service. In this fact lies the explanation of the
disappointing inactivity of the left wing of Hooker's
army at the beginning of the battle. In the first place,
being without cavalry, Sedgwick could make no attempt
at finding out whether or not the movement of trains
on the railroad from Richmond signified the arrival of
Longstreet. 1 In the second place, the river fog, as thick
on the morning of Friday, May 1, as it had been two
days before when Wadsworth had crossed, rendered of no
use the balloons and signal stations upon which Hooker
depended in lieu of cavalry. Finally, Sedgwick realized
that he was in danger of being added to the list of gen-
erals on whom Stonewall Jackson had practised success-
fully his arts of mystification. In the early hours of
this Friday morning a deserter had appeared at Wads-
worth's picket line. When brought in and questioned
he gave information that Jackson's whole corps was still
opposite Franklin's Crossing and that Longstreet, with
two divisions of his corps, was on the way to rejoin Lee.
Wadsworth hurried the man to Reynolds, who hurried
him to Butterfield, who at 5.30 a. m. sent the news to
Hooker. 2 The first glimpses caught by the signal sta-
tions and the balloons at Falmouth through the dispers-
1 During the forenoon of the day on which Wadsworth and Brooks had
crossed, Lee had learned of the other force crossing at Kelly's Ford, far
beyond his left. This fact and the continued inactivity of Wadsworth's and
Brooks's men made him suspect that the movement below Fredericksburg
was merely a feint. — (Lee's report, 39 \V. R., p. 796.) On that day, therefore,
he did no more than assemble Jackson's divisions opposite Sedgwick and
Reynolds. The various movements among these troops watched by Wads-
worth on the next day were ordered with deliberate intent to cause the
Federals just such bewilderment as appears in the following despatch of
Reynolds to Butterfield: "Their position and formation threaten our bridge-
heads. This is either bravado, in order to get up troops from Richmond, or
they are really in force. They have never shown their troops in this way
before. It may be that the artillery is simply horses arranged to look like
teams. I cannot see the guns. Wagons have just been seen moving up on
the other side of the Massaponax, and a train of passenger cars just gone
down the road toward Bowling Green." — (40 W. R., p. 313.)
2 40 W. R., pp. 322, 336.
186 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
ing mist seemed to reveal no diminution of the force
opposite; but considerably later in the morning the bal-
loons reported heavy columns of gray marching in the
direction of Chancellorsville. The explanation given by
the first deserter, repeated by two other deserters — "one
of them quite an intelligent man," 1 thanks again without
doubt to Jackson — kept bewilderment alive in the Fed-
eral officers. Was it Jackson or Longstreet who was
going to Lee's aid ?
Thus, all through May 1, Sedgwick, though his
thirty-eight thousand men were opposed by only ten
thousand Confederates at Fredericksburg, the remainder
having joined Lee at Chancellorsville, made no attempt
by a vigorous attack to help Hooker in the fight which
he was waging twelve miles away. If, according to
general expectation, the enemy had retreated, Sedgwick
knew his part; but since the Confederate force stood
firm, in a strong position, with apparently undiminished
numbers, he felt bound to depend upon instructions from
his distant commander. Unfortunately, the recently in-
stalled field telegraph service on which he relied worked
badly, and he and Reynolds, left in the dark, puzzled
themselves with hypotheses as to the situation at Fred-
ericksburg and at Chancellorsville. Early in the after-
noon, in the hope of getting some light on the state of
things opposite them by forcing the enemy to expose
his line of battle, Reynolds ordered Wadsworth to make
a demonstration, but so advantageous was the Con-
federate position for concealing troops that Wadsworth
could report merely that the enemy got under arms in
two lines of battle and seemed in the same strength and
position that he had been in when they threatened him
the day before. 2 Later the intermittent telegraph brought
a message that Hooker had suspended his attack, with
directions to Sedgwick to keep a sharp lookout and to
1 Butterfield's report to Hooker.— (40 W. R, p. 332.)
2 40 W. R., p. 341.
1863] FITZHUGH'S CROSSING 187
attack if he saw a chance of success. 1 Finally, at 5.30
an order for a brisk demonstration came from Hooker,
having been delayed six hours in transmission. 2 Again
Wadsworth made his preparations to advance, but the
time for such a movement had plainly gone by, and pres-
ently the order was countermanded.
After three days of a situation in which men of Wads-
worth's temper were
"... like greyhounds in the slips
Straining upon the start,"
it was a relief, on the morning of Saturday, May 2, to
receive orders to march with the rest of the First Corps
to Chancellorsville, where Hooker, impressed by the
vigor of Lee's attack and the stories of Longstreet's
arrival, had withdrawn to his intrenchments and was
preparing to assume the defensive. In the case of this
order, however, the telegraph, as on the day before,
had done its worst; instead of being able, according to
Hooker's intention, to recross the river under cover of
darkness, Wadsworth must now get his men over in full
view of the enemy. The operation was all the more
difficult because one of the bridges had been removed
on Thursday night and because the enemy's batteries
had acquired perfect range of the single bridge which
remained.
The first regiments of his Third Brigade, which had
been lying in the rear close to the river, Wadsworth
succeeded in getting over without exciting the enemy's
attention, thanks partly to the earthworks that pro-
tected Reynolds's New York battery at the bridge-head.
But no sooner were the Confederates aware of what
was forward than their batteries became active. As
the One Hundred and Thirty-seventh Pennsylvania was
crossing a shell struck and exploded, shattering and
sinking a pontoon, killing and wounding several men,
and sending the rest precipitately back to the shelter
1 40 W. R., p. 326. 2 Ibid., pp. 338, 342.
188 WADS WORTH OF GENESEO
from which they had just emerged. During the delay-
caused by the repairing of the bridge General Reyn-
olds came over to Wadsworth and ordered the move-
ment to be abandoned. But the latter, not convinced
that it was impracticable, urged his reasons till he ob-
tained permission to continue. The brigade (Cutler's)
which held the position farthest up the river he could
safely take care of by sending it along under cover of the
bank to the bridge at Franklin's Crossing. As for the
other brigades, Wadsworth hoped that the vigorous work
of the New York battery would soon begin to tell on
the Confederate guns.
His confidence was well justified. Though the enemy
was playing havoc with the men and horses of the bat-
tery, the coolness and nerve of its officers kept its fire
steady and sure. The duel, in which some of the ar-
tillery on the north bank also took part, lasted an hour
and a half; twice the Confederate batteries succeeded
in delaying the withdrawal of the infantry over the
bridge, but in the end they were silenced. After an-
other half-hour of slow firing Captain Reynolds began
to withdraw his battery piece by piece, keeping up the
game till the last gun was limbered up. 1 When, a little
before ten o'clock, none remained to cross except skir-
mishers and pickets, Wadsworth, who had superintended
the crossing from the south bank, rode over and set his
command in motion. 2 The other divisions of the First
Corps were already several miles ahead on their way
to the field of battle.
This episode of the Chancellorsville campaign — the
three days' stay of Wadsworth's men on the south side
of the Rappahannock, together with the "charge in pon-
toons" that began it and the anxious recrossing with
which it ended — though rarely recorded in the histories
1 39 W. R., p. 275.
2 40 W. R., p. 362. Wadsworth's estimate of his loss during this crossing
was 20 men killed and wounded. The loss of his division in killed at Fitz-
hugh's Crossing, April 29 to May 2, was 15; the total loss in killed, wounded,
and missing, 154.— (39 W. R., pp. 173, 261.)
1863] FITZHUGH'S CROSSING 189
because it was not in the direct train of mighty events
that constituted the great battle, has always been a
vivid memory to those who took part in it. Spite of
its dearth of fighting, it had an effect of completeness
to which the gallantry of its leader lent, perhaps, a final
happy touch. The newspaper correspondents with their
ready pens gave his distinctive act an additional glamour
by the ambiguous statement that General Wadsworth
"swam his horse" across the Rappahannock, thereby
thrilling their readers and alarming his family; 1 but for
the soldiers who watched him standing erect as he crossed
the river what he really did was sufficient to seal their
admiration for him as a forward fighter. The day of
supreme trial for Wadsworth's division of the First Corps
was only two months distant in the future; when that
day should find it standing firm against Lee's advance
upon Gettysburg it was to mean much that commander
and men should know each other to be "one equal temper
of heroic hearts." 2
1 "I do not think I exposed myself unnecessarily," he wrote to his eldest
daughter a week later. "I had a very difficult task assigned me. If the
enemy had attacked my troops in any force before I got the bridges laid,
they would have cut them to pieces; so my place was with them to organize
and direct them."
2 General Orders,
No. 40. Hdqks. 1st Division, 1st Army Corps,
May 9, 1863.
The general commanding, availing himself of the temporary repose now
enjoyed by his command to review the operations of the past few days,
deems it proper to express his thanks to Colonel Bragg, Sixth Wisconsin Vol-
unteers, Colonel Morrow, Twenty-fourth Michigan Volunteers, and the gal-
lant men under their command, for the heroic manner in which they crossed
the Rappahannock and seized the heights on the opposite shore on the 29th
of April; and likewise to Brigadier-General Meredith and the whole of the
Fourth Brigade for the promptness with which they followed in this daring
enterprise. The skill and courage with which Captain Reynolds' Battery
L, First New York Artillery, returned the enemy's fire, the boldness exhib-
ited by the Fourteenth New York State Militia as skirmishers, and the stead-
iness of the whole command during the advance and retreat, have afforded
the general commanding the highest gratification and inspired him with en-
tire confidence in the troops of this division.
By command of Brigadier-General Wadsworth:
John A. Kress,
Lieutenant-Colonel and Acting Assistant Inspector-General.
—(39 W. R., p. 262.)
190 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
The long march of twenty-two miles which the men
of the First Corps, loaded down with eight days' rations,
had now to make on this hot Saturday in May was
taken with a will, for they could not doubt that a full
meed of fighting would be theirs. Yet, meanwhile, as
was presently to be proved, another column of men,
led by Stonewall Jackson, was marching to much bet-
ter purpose. When, well into the evening, Wadsworth's
brigades came to a halt, they were still short of United
States Ford, where the other divisions of the corps had
crossed to join the army. Leaving them by the road-
side for a snatch of rest, their commander pushed ahead
to find Reynolds and to get orders for the positions that
his troops were to occupy. The ford crossed, he plunged
into the depths of the forest known as the Wilderness,
a region the mystery of which was intensified on this
night of brilliant moonlight by the incessant call of the
whippoorwills and by the presence of the two armies
encamped within its vast shadows. The rout of How-
ard's corps had occurred but a few hours earlier, and as
Wadsworth made his way along the crowded road he
gathered such scraps of information and rumor as one
picks up at a time like this — the news of Jackson's sud-
den onslaught upon the negligently guarded flank, of the
final stemming of his advance, of the isolated situation
of Sickles's corps. Even as he rode the crash of mus-
ketry told of the midnight attack by which Sickles was
fighting his way back to the Union lines. Having found
Reynolds at last, Wadsworth learned that the other di-
visions of the First Corps were in position holding the
right along Hunting Creek and that he was to occupy
a second line behind them. He went back to his division,
roused the men from their three hours' rest, conducted
the brigades through forest roads to their several sta-
tions. It was broad daylight when he finished his work,
and the battle of Sunday, May 3, had begun — fighting
as fierce as any during the whole war — which ended in
Hooker's being driven back from the Chancellor house.
1863] CHANCELLORSVILLE 191
In the midst of that terrific roar of cannon and musketry,
Wadsworth and his men, in their exhaustion, lay down
and went to sleep.
For all the use that Hooker made of them, however,
they might as well have rested in the log huts of the
disgarnished camp at Belle Plain. All told there were
thirty-seven thousand fresh troops on the edge of the
zone of battle eager to be ordered into the fight; but
neither on this morning nor on the two following days
did the stunned commander of the Army of the Poto-
mac make any effort to use them, not even to aid Sedg-
wick, fighting his own battle at Salem Church. The
story of the army in those baffled days of despair may
be given in Wadsworth's own words as he told it in a
letter to his eldest daughter:
The next day [Monday] we all lay quiet, strangely
enough to all of us, hearing the combat between Sedg-
wick and the foe, who had turned upon him. It was
the universal opinion that we should have attacked.
Tuesday we rested quietly, and Tuesday night were or-
dered to recross. After this order was issued we had a
tremendous storm of rain. The river rose from three
to four feet in as many hours. The smaller water courses
were impassable. My pickets 1 were cut off by Hunting
Creek, which became a great river, and my division di-
vided by a small stream which for two hours swam a
horse in crossing. The movement was ordered sus-
pended at nine o'clock, and resumed at eleven or twelve
o'clock. It was a gloomy, anxious, miserable night, all
soaked to the skin and splashing about in mud and
water of unknown depth. The enemy did not follow. 2
1 The 24th Michigan had been sent off to the extreme right to do picket
duty.
2 The notes jotted down by Dawes in his journal on May 4, 5, and 6
make a valuable supplement to Wadsworth's account:
"Monday, May 4. — Hot firing on the picket line in the night. An attack
by the enemy expected, and men forbidden to take off their blankets.
" Ordered under arms at ten o'clock this forenoon. Twenty-fourth Michi-
gan has just moved to the right, and our regiment is to support them in
case of a fight. At half-past eleven nothing has come of it. Just got per-
192 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
"We are all humiliated at our retreat," wrote Wads-
worth in his discouragement at the results of a cam-
paign which had opened so brilliantly. "Hooker has
lost the confidence of the army by his conduct of this
movement." Indeed, it was everywhere recognized that
not the army but the commanding-general had been
beaten. With the right leader, the fighting stuff in the
Army of the Potomac could work wonders. The ques-
tion was, would it ever come to its own?
As soon as Wadsworth's division had established itself
in camp at White Oak Church and Fitzhugh's Plantation,
not far from the place where he had "swum his horse"
across the Rappahannock, he applied for a brief leave
of absence; private affairs, which since the battle of
Bull Run he had managed with the left hand, as it
mission to get dinner. Boys are all cooking coffee. Drizzling rain at inter-
vals this afternoon. At 5 p. M. there was a very sharp fight at the same
place on our left. At this writing, 6 p. m., there is a heavy cannonading in
the direction of Fredericksburg. Ten p. m., heavy volleys of musketry on
our left aud quite a sharp fusillade on our right. Constant alarms until
midnight. . . .
" Tuesday., May 5.— Foggy this morning. At this writing, 8 a. m.,
scattering musketry fire a mile away to our left. This developed into a
heavy fire of about twenty minutes' duration. The sun will be very hot
to-day. Heavy whiskey rations being dealt out to the men. . . . Whiskey
enough was sent here to make the whole regiment dead drunk.
"Eleven o'clock A.M. — Orders are: 'Be ready to move at once to the
right.' It is said that we are to lead in an attack. It is always so. Guess
our time has come. False alarm. Some mistake by one of the nine months'
colonels on the right. Lie down again and try to kill time. Very hot.
Orders to be under arms at sunset. Very heavy thunder-storm at 5 p. m.
Miserable situation. Colonel Bragg and I and Huntington all crouched un-
der one oil-cloth in the driving rain. At dark, rumor has come of a general
retreat. Mules are packed and sent to the rear. The rain continues pour-
ing down, and our condition that of unmitigated discomfort. Picket-firing
the entire night.
"Wednesday, May 6. — About three o'clock this morning the infantry
began to move for the rear. Our brigade moved the last of our corps at
3.30 a. m. Mud very deep and a drizzling rain. At 5 a. m. we reached
the pontoon bridge at United States Ford. Forty thousand men are not
yet over. Our division formed in line of battle to protect the passage of the
troops. Crossed at 8 a. m. unmolested. Soaking rain and chilly. One
hundred thousand miserable and discouraged men are wading through this
terrible mud and rain. We cannot understand it in any other way than as
a great disaster." — (6th Wisconsin, pp. 138, 139.)
1863] LEE'S PLANS 193
were, now required his presence at Geneseo. The request
was refused on the ground that "impending movements
would not allow it," But Hooker soon found that his
purpose of continuing operations against the enemy was
impossible of immediate execution. Not only were regi-
ments whose terms of service had expired on the point
of departure — with no fresh men to take their places —
but in consequence there was much work of reorganiza-
tion and redistribution to be done. Moreover, Lincoln
intervened, suggesting for the moment a posture of de-
fence and intimating his knowledge that some of the
corps and division commanders had lost confidence in
Hooker. 1 Since active operations were thus to be de-
ferred, Wadsworth made a second application for leave
and his request was granted.
A week later, however, when, having despatched his
business in haste, he returned to camp, he found a change
in the aspect of things. All signs indicated a forward
movement on Lee's part. He had been reinforced by
Longstreet; his cavalry, five brigades, was gathering at
Culpeper under Stuart; Richmond newspapers, received
through the picket exchange on the banks of the Rappa-
hannock, announced that the Army of Northern Virginia
was about to make an important movement. This time
waiting and watchfulness was the game of the Army of
the Potomac; Lee was to keep them at it for a fort-
night longer, before the cavalry fight at Brandy Station
on June 9 gave Hooker his clue.
The uneasy state of the army in this season of flying
rumors is described by Dawes in a letter to M. B. G. on
June 5. "We were sold again. After turning out at
midnight and packing our traps, and preparing for a
battle which somebody seemed to think impending, our
orders were countermanded. So we have rebuilt our
canvas cities and settled down again. The fact is, some-
body is very much exercised lest the terrible Lee may
i 40 W. R., p. 479.
194 WADS WORTH OF GENESEO
do something dangerous. Three times now of late this
army has been turned out of house and home to lie
sweltering in the sun, only to have its marching orders
countermanded. The boys have long ago learned to
take such things philosophically. They tear down and
build up cheerfully, with the shrewd observation that
'it is only Johnny Reb fooling the balloon again.'" 1
During these days the departure of the New Jersey
brigade of nine months' men made the final reduction
suffered by Wadsworth's division after the battle of
Chancellorsville. His eight thousand men had been cut
to four thousand, and this loss, taken with similar re-
ductions in other divisions and in the artillery, brought
the First Corps down from seventeen thousand to ten
thousand men, "present for duty," in round numbers.
Wadsworth's division now consisted of only two bri-
gades, the Iron Brigade and Cutler's; but its efficiency
could not be higher. It was a force fit for hard march-
ing and hard fighting — iron to the last man.
At length, after more orders and counter-orders, at
daybreak on June 12 the First Corps broke camp for
good and began that series of marches the end of which
was accomplished on July 1, when it met and stayed
Heth's division of the Confederates advancing upon Get-
tysburg in search of shoes. Together with the Third
and the Eleventh Corps it constituted the right wing of
the Army of the Potomac, with Reynolds in command.
His place as corps commander was taken by Doubleday,
who, having become a major-general of volunteers, now
ranked Wads worth.
Reynolds's march was toward the fine of the Orange
and Alexandria Railroad, with a view to preventing the
cavalry raid across the Rappahannock from Brandy
Station which Lee was supposed to be contemplating.
There was need of haste, for the Confederates already
had a start of nearly a week. From White Oak Church
1 6th Wisconsin, p. 147.
1863] A FORCED MARCH 195
to Deep Run by the back roads which Reynolds took to
avoid observation is full twenty miles. Having broken
camp at dawn, the troops marched till dusk. The day
was one of scorching heat and suffocating dust; no clear
water was to be found, and sometimes even the puddles
were miles apart. During the noon halt Wadsworth
had to superintend the execution of a deserter from the
Iron Brigade. The case was a flagrant one, but the
spectacle did not add to the refreshment of the hour's
rest.
The next day, June 13, was cloudy, and the march
was only fourteen miles to Bealeton Station on the
Orange and Alexandria Railroad. At the end of the
day Reynolds received orders to make Manassas Junc-
tion and then Centreville by forced marches. 1 Ewell's
corps, the advance of Lee's army, was known to be in
the Shenandoah Valley, and Hooker was planning to
withdraw at once from before Fredericksburg to cover
Washington.
In good season, on Sunday, June 14, Wadsworth's
men, with the rest of the First Corps, started on their
journey of thirty miles. Again the sun scorched and
the dust choked; the men suffered from them as never
before. FoUowing the line of the railroad toward Wash-
ington, the troops checked off the stages of their prog-
ress by the names of the stations, familiarity with which
had been gained by sterner means than the study of
time-tables. Warrenton Junction marked seven miles
from Bealeton — Catlett's, ten. In the afternoon there
was less delay from fording brooks and crossing streams
imperfectly bridged, and the quickened pace came at a
time when the men could least endure it. The com-
mand, "Close up, men, close up!" was incessant and
relentless. "No man was allowed to fall out of ranks,
under any pretext, without a pass from his company
commander, approved by the regimental surgeon. Those
1 45 W. R., p. 88.
196 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
who did were driven in again by the field-officer at the
rear of each regiment, or 'gobbled up' by the rear-
guard and urged forward forcibly." ' "For three miles
before the halt at Kettle Run, the men became frantic
for water, as there was none save now and then in some
mud-hole or slimy frog marsh." 2
The heights of Centreville, which the enemy might
at any moment seize, were fourteen miles farther on;
a night march was imperative. It was already dark
when the men stepped from stone to stone through the
waters of Kettle Run; at Broad Run, a larger stream,
they had the help of torches and bonfires on the banks
and an improvised bridge of rails. From the heat of
the day there was relief, but as the hours of the night
dragged on sheer sleepiness caused incredible agony. At
dawn, having struggled six miles to Manassas Junction,
they were ordered to halt with the promise of five hours
of rest; "that noise which once heard on a still night
is never forgotten, the solid tramp of a heavy column on
a hard road, like the dull roar of a distant cataract," 3
gradually ceased; the exhausted men threw themselves
on the damp grass and slept.
The remaining eight miles to Centreville were ac-
complished during the forenoon of June 15, completing
a march of sixty-four miles made in seventy -eight hours.
Here the First Corps rested for the remainder of that
day and all of the next, while Hooker was concentrating
his army, — three corps at Centreville, three at Fairfax,
one corps and the cavalry at Manassas Junction. The
news reached the troops that Milroy's force at Win-
chester, in the Shenandoah Valley, had been attacked
and a large part of it captured, thus leaving the way
clear for Lee to enter Maryland and Pennsylvania. The
same newspapers contained Lincoln's proclamation call-
1 History of the 150th Pa., p. 109.
2 History of the 24th Michigan, p. 147.
3 Henderson's Life of Stonewall Jackson, I, 337.
1863] FOLLOWING LEE 197
ing for one hundred thousand militia to repel the in-
vading force. Clearly, stirring events were ahead.
On Wednesday, June 17, at 3 a. m., Reynolds put
two of his corps in motion toward Leesburg, bringing
them still nearer the Blue Ridge and the Potomac.
The route prescribed to the First Corps led it over a
cross-road through a dense growth of scrub pine which
shut out the breeze but not the sun. The heat was in-
tolerable, the dust an enveloping fog. Cases of sun-
stroke were frequent, and officers fared little better than
men.
In this state of things, any means that Wadsworth
could use to lighten the burdens borne by his choking
ranks he did not hesitate to employ. He discovered that
an ambulance had been filled with the valises of the offi-
cers of his own staff, a practice expressly forbidden by
Hooker in a circular issued the very day before with
intent to reduce the superfluous baggage in his trains. 1
The requirements of this circular Wadsworth now put
into instant effect to the extent of ordering all the valises
thrown out at once, — the men delighted to say that his
own was among them, — but he shut his eyes to the fur-
ther provision that "ambulances will not be appropri-
ated to any other than their authorized use," and for
the baggage of the officers substituted the knapsacks and
muskets of the men. 2 The division papers that formed
part of the property thus jettisoned were fortunately
rescued by a salvage party sent out the next day; as for
the superfluous baggage, the young men of Wadsworth's
staff took the hint and sent it to the rear by less irregular
methods than his.
The day's march of fourteen miles brought the First
Corps to Herndon Station on the Loudoun and Hamp-
shire Railroad. The next day no orders came; the men
sought shade from the sun and made up sleep. On
Friday, June 19, they advanced six miles and encamped
1 45 W. R., p. 150. ■ Ctb Wisconsin, p. 153.
198 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
beyond Guilford Station, along the banks of Broad Run.
Here they lay for five days.
During this interval Hooker was engaged with scant
success in importuning Washington for reinforcements
and for a free hand. The other task which occupied
him — that of finding out how much of Lee's force had
crossed the Potomac — proved, in the existing state of
alarm, nearly as difficult. In the words of Hooker's
chief of staff, "The whole country, generals and all,
seem struck with heavy stampede." ' At last Lee's
movements were disclosed: on June 23 two of E well's
divisions had laid Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, under
tribute; on the next day the corps of Longstreet and of
Hill had crossed to the north bank of the Potomac.
This grand strategy, however, was little more than
camp rumor for Wadsworth's men, refreshing themselves
in the oak groves along the pleasant waters of Broad
Run. As for their commander, he had turned bridge-
builder and was superintending the erection of a struct-
ure over Goose Creek, so that if Hooker should have
to pursue Lee into Maryland the army might be able
to march by the shortest route to Edwards Ferry, where
a pontoon bridge was being thrown across the Potomac.
Early on the morning of June 25, as a result of the
knowledge that Hooker now possessed, the First Corps
was set in motion. Again Reynolds was put in com-
mand of three corps that now were to constitute the
left wing 2 and ordered to make haste to lay hold of the
passes of South Mountain, as the continuation of the
Blue Ridge north of the Potomac is called. With these
in possession of the Federals, it would be impossible
for Lee to burst through from the Cumberland Valley
and to threaten Washington and Baltimore.
The seven miles from camp to Edwards Ferry the
1 45 W. R., p. 209.
2 The First, Third, and Eleventh Corps, with a brigade of cavalry and
two sections of artillery.
1863] INTO MARYLAND 199
First Corps covered easily, only to find that the single
pontoon bridge was still encumbered by the long and
slow-moving trains of the Eleventh Corps. Down-stream
another bridge was in course of rapid construction; on
both banks was the picturesque animation that always
accompanies the crossing of a river by an army.
At last the men of the First Corps felt the bridge
sway beneath their tread, and as they took their first
steps on the soil of Maryland they broke into cheers.
It was a relief to be out of the land of the enemy, even
though the State which they were now entering to de-
fend was but half-loyal. Not only were there less for-
ests and more farms, but from many a farm-house they
might expect substantial sympathy. Stirring, indeed,
Avas the welcome that met them, and as they marched
through Poolesville they found themselves strangely
moved by the sight of a large group of school-children
drawn up to watch them pass.
At this high pitch of feeling they trudged on, for a
time taking little note of the rain which had begun to
fall. But when, after a day's march of nearly a score
of miles, they went into camp near Barnesville, their
elation of spirit had long since felt the effect of the in-
vading wet. One regiment found itself turned into a
field where the water stood from three to six inches
deep between the rows of corn. By happy chance a
large stack of straw in a farm-yard close at hand caught
Wadsworth's eye. Its purchase by him and its demo-
lition by his men occupied but a few moments, and, as
far as the straw would go, his division was made dry and
comfortable. 1
To reach their destination it was necessary for the
First Corps to start at daylight on the morning of June
1 History of the 70th N. Y„ p. 229. A night or two later, after an-
other long march in the rain, be bought a large quantity of fence rails
that his men might dry their sodden clothes and have hot coffee. — (New
York at Gettysburg, III, 1001.)
200 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
26. The march of that day was made harder by deep
mud, drizzling rain, and the ups and downs and twists
of the rough roads running over the Catoctin ridge.
When, however, having accomplished eighteen miles,
they went into camp near Jefferson, the long green wall
of South Mountain blocked the western view.
Since leaving the Rappahannock, Wadsworth's men
had come over a hundred miles, and it was not strange
that the rugged ground covered by this day's march
should have completed the destruction of many a pair
of shoes. His action, as he saw not only men but offi-
cers trudging along with bleeding feet, was no more
impulsive and characteristic than in the case of the
valise-filled ambulance or the stack of straw; but as
an extreme measure it caught the soldiers' humor more
quickly.
We came to a town on the line of march [so he told
the story to a newspaper correspondent some eight
months later], and I, who was riding at the head of the
column, spurred ahead to see if there were not some
shoe stores where I could purchase what was needed
for the men. All the shops were closed; the first men
I saw were two sitting outside of a closed shop.
"Are there any shoe stores in this town?" I asked.
They replied, in a gruff way, that they could not tell,
there might be and there might not. I told them that
I wanted to buy shoes for my troops who were bare-
footed. They replied they guessed I wouldn't get many.
At that I got angry. Said I: "There are two pairs
of shoes, at any rate, which I see on your feet. Take
them off instantly!" They were obliged to do it. I went
through the town and took the shoes off every man's
feet I could see, and thus I raised about two hundred
pairs in all. One fine old fellow, a miller, whom I met,
I did not deprive of his own pair. I rode up to him and
asked if he had any shoes he could spare me, describing
the pitiful condition of my men. The old man said:
"I don't know if there's any shoes in the house or not,
but" — looking down at his feet — "here's a pair you're
welcome to, at any rate." I would not let him take
1863] MEADE SUCCEEDS HOOKER 201
them off, but he gave me some from his house. All the
rest I stripped. 1
On June 27, Lee having kept on his way up the Cum-
berland Valley, all that was required of the First Corps
was an eight-mile march which took them through Mid-
dletown and a little distance beyond along the National
Pike, which crosses the mountain at Turner's Gap. Less
than two miles away, at the summit of the pass, was the
battle-field of South Mountain, where ten months before
the Iron Brigade had won its name. The officers who
now rode up the gentle slope of the famous highway to
note the landmarks of that well-fought mountain struggle
and to find the scattered graves of their comrades had a
sense that battle was again hovering over them; when
the two mighty armies at present separated by South
Mountain next met, the shock might well be such as
war had never yet known.
On the following day, June 28, came the news that
Hooker had been relieved, and with a pang of regret
the First Corps learned that his successor was not their
Reynolds, but Meade. Reynolds, they believed, was
the great soldier, clear-sighted, cool, yet full of ardor;
a fighter by instinct and a master of his art. " High was
his name, high was his might"; high, too, they felt, should
be his command. 2 Yet even then the fatal bullet was
1 Pictorial Book of Anecdotes and Incidents of the Rebellion, p. 458.
2 "As a matter of fact, General Reynolds was sent for by the President,
and, on the second day of June, 18C3, discussed with him for a whole even-
ing and late into the night, at the White House, the question of his taking
command of the Army of the Potomac. Reynolds, conscious of his ability
to command that army, fully recognized the great responsibility of such a
trust, and, that he might be untrammelled in his possible future leadership,
on that occasion made it a condition of his ever taking command that he
should have absolute control of that army and alone direct its movements,
upon which point Halleck and Hooker, some three weeks later on, disagreed,
with the result that Hooker was superseded by Major-General Meade, who
was then allowed to have his own way." — (From H. S. Huidekoper's Address
at the Unveiling of the Equestrian Statue of Major-General John F. Reyn-
olds at Gettysburg, July 1, 1899.)
202 WADSWORTII OF GENESEO
waiting for him in the cartridge-box of one of Heth's
sharp-shooters.
From this point the course of events was rapid. Lee's
army was known to be over the Pennsylvania boundary.
What Meade must do was to follow him north, spreading
his corps so that Lee could not slip around his flank, and
at the same time holding them so well in hand that they
could be concentrated in case Lee made a sudden attack.
On the afternoon of this day, June 28, the First Corps
was drawn back ten miles to Frederick; the next day,
still a part of the left wing, it made a forced march in
the rain of twenty-three miles or more to Emmitsburg.
This day's journey was like no other, for exaltation
blotted out fatigue. Here was no half-loyalty. Each
little village that they passed through — Adamsville, Lew-
istown, Catoctin Furnace, Mechanicstown — roused them
with its flags and its cheers; from the farms along the
road women issued forth bearing pails of water and of
milk, loaves of fresh bread, and cherries in abundance.
A mounting wave of enthusiasm swept with them up
toward the Pennsylvania boundary, quickening their
desire to find and to fight the invader.
On June 30, making a late morning start and leaving
behind them the Eleventh Corps, they crossed Mason
and Dixon's line, going into camp at Marsh Creek after
a march of less than five miles. In the afternoon offi-
cers were busily occupied; the troops had to be mus-
tered for pay; quartermaster, commissary, ordnance, and
regimental returns were to be made out, for it was the
last day of the fiscal year. At Wadsworth's request,
Lieutenant-Colonel Kress set out to discover if possible
a map in some friendly farm-house, for the unexpected
course of the campaign into Pennsylvania had found
the Army of the Potomac but meagrely supplied with
topographical information. From Buford's division of
cavalry, passing by on the road to Gettysburg, Wads-
worth and his men learned of the proximity of the enemy.
1863] AT MARSH CREEK 203
"We have found the Johnnies," the riders called out;
"they are just above and to the left of us, and the
woods are full of 'em!" 1 In expectation that the John-
nies might speak for themselves, the divisions of the
First Corps were so disposed at nightfall as to guard
against surprise from the west. Among officers and
men the feeling was strong that they had at last reached
the brink of battle. "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower
came."
1 The Cannoneer, p. 61.
CHAPTER Vn
GETTYSBURG
"But who, if he be called upon to face
Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined
Great issues, good or bad for human kind,
Is happy as a Lover; and attired
With sudden brightness, like a Man inspired."
— Wordsworth — Character of the Happy Warrior.
Daylight on July 1 brought no sign of the enemy, and
Wadsworth's division, breaking camp, prepared for the
march to Gettysburg, which lay some five miles to the
north. Having been the leading division on the day
before, it was to-day, according to custom, to let the
other divisions pass it on the road and to take its posi-
tion in the rear. As the troops were forming, however,
General Reynolds rode up and directed Wadsworth to
start his men at once; to follow the routine of march
procedure would waste precious time and the First Di-
vision must take the head of the column again. On
the day before, it seemed, the enemy had shown him-
self not far from Gettysburg, having come through the
South Mountain range by the Cashtown or Chambers-
burg Road; 1 another force, Ewell's, which had been oc-
cupying York and Carlisle and threatening Harrisburg,
was probably approaching from the north; and if, as
appeared likely, Lee was planning to concentrate his
army at Gettysburg, it was highly desirable that sup-
port for Buford should be at hand in good season. 2 A
1 See the general map at the end of the book.
2 "I do not know under what orders General Reynolds moved that day.
He was generally very particular in communicating his orders to his division
commanders, but on that occasion he communicated none if he had any." —
204
186S] LEE'S ADVANCE 205
glance at the map which Wadsworth had procured and
which the two generals sat down by the road-side to ex-
amine showed them the roads converging upon the town
from all points of the compass and gave plausibility to
the conjecture. At any rate, from Buford, energetic
and reliable, they could get what information had been
brought in during the night, and so they soon remounted
and with the members of their staffs pushed on ahead
of the infantry to find him in Gettysburg.
When they were within a mile of the town they
encountered an aide of Buford's riding in haste to meet
them. A considerable force of the enemy's infantry,
he reported, was advancing upon Gettysburg from the
direction of Cashtown and was driving back the cavalry
vedettes. Taking in the full significance of this news,
Reynolds and Wadsworth paused a moment to consider
whether their troops should go into the town or should
take position on the elevated ground to the west where
the cavalry- were now making their stand. In order
that the town might not be endangered by the shell-
ing, Reynolds decided upon the latter course. 1 Leaving
Wadsworth to direct the troops to what was to be the
(General Wadsworth's testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of
the War, Report of 1865, I, 413.) The orders for July 1 contained in the cir-
cular of June 30 required the First Corps to move to Gettysburg with the
Eleventh Corps in supporting distance; but Meade was already preparing to
withdraw his army to the defensive line of Pipe Creek, and his expectation
was that, if the First Corps should encounter the Confederates in superior
force at or near Gettysburg, Reynolds would hold the enemy in check and
fall slowly back.— (-to W. R., p. 462. See also the despatch to Hancock of
12 30 on p. 461). Reynolds, on the other hand, was guiding his conduct
more'bv the sentence in Meade's letter of June 30: "... if they advance
against me, I must concentrate at that point where they show the strongest
f orce ." — (45 W. R., p. 420). Thus Reynolds, keen to meet the enemy and to
attack him before he could concentrate, felt himself free to hurry the First
Corps to support Buford at Gettysburg. Meade's circular of July 1 (45
W R., p. 458), in which the plan for the movement to Pipe Creek was out-
lined, and his letter to Reynolds of the same date (p. 460), in which is ex-
pressed reliance on Reynolds's judgment as to the desirability of concentra-
tion at Gettysburg, were probably not received by Reynolds.
1 Wadsworth's testimony.— (C. W., 1865, I, 413.)
206 WADSWORTII OF GENESEO
field of battle, he then rode forward to consult with the
cavalry commander. 1
Almost at the same time the triple boom of cannon,
the cavalry leader's signal gun, came across the fields,
followed by the prolonged crackling sound of musketry.
The contest had begun, but it would be an hour yet
ere Wadsworth's division could get up. Summoning it
to come on in haste, he impatiently watched for its
arrival. Out of all the infantry in the great Army of
the Potomac, it had been chosen by fate to bear the
brunt of the first onset in what could hardly be other
than one of the decisive battles of the war. If Lee were
victorious, his success would mean foreign recognition
of the Confederacy and the eventual triumph of its
cause; if defeated, he never again, in all probability,
would be able to undertake an offensive campaign against
the Federal arms. On the First Division of the First
Corps, therefore, in the early hours of the battle, de-
pended great issues, and Wadsworth as he waited glo-
ried in its opportunity.
Meanwhile sounds of the fight were swelling stronger
and stronger. Presently aides dashed by on the Emmits-
1 Lee had designated Cashtown, eight miles west of Gettysburg, as the
place of concentration for his army, and on July 1 his head-quarters were
to be there. — (See The Strategy of the Gettysburg Campaign, by Major-
General George B. Davis, Mass. Mil. Hist. Soc. Papers, III, 405-409.)
The force approaching Gettysburg on the morning of that day was Heth's
division, 7,600 strong, which belonged to A. P. Hill's corps and which, ac-
cording to the accepted story, was marching thither in the hope of supplying
itself with shoes; since, in the absence of his cavalry, Lee was ignorant of
the whereabouts of the Army of the Potomac, Heth was supported by Pen-
der's division of 6,200 men. Behind them, coming from the direction of
Chambersburg, was the main strength of the Confederate army. Near
Heidlersburg, nine miles northeast of Gettysburg, were two of the divisions
of Ewell's corps, Rodes's and Early's, with 15,000 men. These, marching
toward Cashtown, turned toward Gettysburg on orders from Lee after the
engagement had begun.
Of Federal troops within reach there were, besides the 3,100 cavalry at
Gettysburg, the First and the Eleventh Corps, with 20,000 men ; the Eleventh
Corps, however, was, on the morning of July 1, ten miles away at Emmits-
burg. Of the two other corps nearest to Gettysburg, the Third and the
Twelfth, neither reached the field in time to take part in the battle.
1863] THE BATTLE-GROUND 207
burg road with messages from Reynolds to Doubleday,
to Howard, to Sickles; then Reynolds himself appeared,
riding across the fields to Codori's farm-house on the
high-road, his escort demolishing the fences in order to
make a short cut for the troops to the battle-ground;
finally, from the other direction, the head of the infan-
try column came into view. As Wadsworth turned it
into the fields, where it crushed the ripening crops into
the red earth, non-combatants fell to the rear; the
men going into action flung aside knapsacks and were
ready for the command to double-quick.
The ground where Wadsworth's division was to fight
on the first of the three days' battle at Gettysburg has
as its chief characteristic two elevations of land running
north and south about seven hundred yards apart, be-
tween them a gently curving dip of open fields. The
ridge next the town is known as Seminary Hill, from the
brick building of the Lutheran Seminary situated on
the road which follows the line of the ridge. The road,
at that time as now, was pleasantly shaded, and the
houses along it belonged to professors in the institution.
Two highways cross the ridge, diverging from each other
at an angle of about sixty degrees, and the seminary
building stands about half-way between them. The
northern road is the turnpike leading to Cashtown and
to Chambersburg; the southern leads to Fairfield. The
western ridge, which is hardly more than a roll of ground
lower and smoother than the eastern, was partly cov-
ered by some four or five acres of woodland, between
which and the pike were the buildings of the McPherson
farm. The western side of this ridge slopes down to
Willoughby Run. About four hundred feet north of the
pike, and nearly paralleling it, ran the road-bed of a
railroad, graded, but with no rails or ties laid; a cutting
of some depth had been made for it through each of the
ridges and between them it was carried over the low
ground on an embankment. North of the railroad the
208 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
continuation of Seminary Hill was heavily wooded for
three-eighths of a mile; beyond was open ground rising
steadily for half a mile to an elevation known as Oak
Hill, which commands all the region to the south. To the
east of this northern portion of Seminary Ridge was a
broad, open plain; east of the seminary itself was the com-
pact little town of Gettysburg. (See map facing p. 214.)
The direction given to Wadsworth's troops by Rey-
nolds brought them out into the open space between
the ridges and the two diverging roads. The head of
the column reached the Cashtown pike not long before
ten o'clock, at the moment when Buford's men had been
pressed back to the McPherson ridge, where the six
guns of a battery of horse artillery were stationed. 1
Reynolds ordered Wadsworth to form the three leading
regiments of the leading brigade (Cutler's sixteen hun-
dred men) in line of battle north of the pike; the other
two were to advance south of it; between them, at the
point where the road crossed the ridge, he stationed Hall's
battery, thus relieving the guns in position there.
The work which Cutler's three regiments had to do
north of the road admitted of no delay. Even before
the line could be completely formed they were fired
upon, and Cutler had to send them forward up the
little slope without clear knowledge of the enemy's num-
bers or precise position. At the crest they met the foe;
the crash was sudden and terrific. Not only were the
Confederates (three regiments of Davis's Mississippi bri-
gade of Heth's division) in greater force (about one thou-
sand nine hundred men), but they overlapped consider-
ably Cutler's right. Unequal as the conditions were,
his men fought stubbornly, suffering heavy loss, till an
order reached them from Wadsworth to retreat. The
two veteran regiments on the right withdrew in some
confusion; the third regiment, the One Hundred and
1 Tidball's battery, commanded by Lieutenant John H. Calef. It was
this battery that had opened the battle.
1863] DEATH OF REYNOLDS 209
Forty-seventh New York, under fire for the first time,
did not receive the order and remained where it was,
the men getting what protection they could by lying
down. The Confederates were now sweeping on in tri-
umph, partly pursuing Cutler, partly preparing to sur-
round the isolated New York regiment. Hall's battery
in the road consequently came in for severe handling from
the skirmishers advancing on that flank; finally, in de-
fault of orders to retire from his impossible situation,
its commander took matters into his own hands. Dur-
ing his withdrawal all the horses of the last gun were
shot and he was obliged to leave it behind.
At the beginning of the engagement Wadsworth had
taken his stand at the edge of the woods on Seminary
Hill, from which point of observation he could watch
the operations of both his brigades. As he took note
of this succession of misfortunes on the right, he per-
ceived to his horror that the One Hundred and Forty-
seventh was still in its advanced position. Evidently
his order had not reached it and it was now in danger
of being cut off. On the perilous mission of extricating
it, if possible, Wadsworth despatched his aide, Captain
Ellsworth. Then came the worst news of all, stunning
in its suddenness, overwhelming in its consequences.
Reynolds was killed, shot by a Confederate sharp-shooter
on the edge of the McPherson woods as he was sending
the Iron Brigade into action. "The architect of the
battle had fallen dead across its portal."
Wadsworth was therefore, as he believed, in com-
mand in the absence of Doubleday, and the situation
was at the very acme of crisis. He instantly gave orders
to Hall to go toward the town and to take a position
to cover the retreat of the troops thither. When Hall
asked that he might first recover his abandoned gun,
Wadsworth ordered him peremptorily to make haste,
for no time was to be lost. 1
1 Hall's report, 43 W. R., p. 359.
210 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
Fortunately, from the other end of the field help was
already under way to the imperilled right wing. General
Doubleday, who, unknown to Wadsworth, had arrived as
the nineteen hundred men of the Iron Brigade were going
into action, had detained for reserve its rear regiment,
the Sixth Wisconsin, and the brigade guard; now, with
the sureness and skill of a trained soldier, he sent this
body of five hundred men speeding to the place where
their impact would prove most telling. Davis's brigade,
made aware of the danger, gave over the pursuit of Cut-
ler and faced to meet them. Swiftly blue and gray ap-
proached each other, their lines being parallel to the turn-
pike and the railroad embankment. A carefully aimed
volley or two from the men of the Sixth Wisconsin, their
muskets resting on the road-side fence rails, checked the
onset of the yelling Confederates and sent them rushing
for shelter to the railroad cut on their right. In this
position the fire of one of the guns from the horse artil-
lery stationed on Seminary Ridge began to tell on them
severely. 1 Through the smoke the watchers there could
descry other blue troops deploying beyond the Sixth
Wisconsin. These, the two regiments stationed by Rey-
nolds on the left of Hall's battery, having first driven off
easily the enemy's skirmishers to their left and front, and
then fallen back with Hall, were now turning to the rescue
of the regiment on their right, and the line thus lengthened
charged across the interval of four hundred feet between
the turnpike and the railroad. A murderous fire met it
from the Confederates sheltered in the cut; "the whole
field behind streamed with men who had been shot and
who were struggling to the rear or sinking in death upon
the ground"; 2 again and again the colors fell, but each
time they were uplifted and the men closed up well
upon them. The Sixth Wisconsin threw forward its
1 43 W. R., p. 1031.
2 6th Wis., p. 168. "Four hundred and twenty men started in the regi-
ment from the turnpike fence, of whom about two hundred and forty reached
the railroad cut."
1863] SUCCESS OF IRON BRIGADE 211
right across the end of the cut, and as the smoke drifted
away on the sultry breeze the entrapped Confederates
were seen throwing down their arms. Also, if the figure
of Dawes came within the field of Wadsworth's glasses,
he was revealed among the Second Mississippi Volunteers
holding a clumsy armful of swords collected from its
officers. 1
If ever Wadsworth had reason to glory in the alert-
ness and firmness of his fighters it was at this moment-
By the swift and brilliant stroke of these three regi-
ments the knot of troubles on the right was cut clean
through, and matters at once began to straighten them-
selves out. The One Hundred and Forty-seventh New
York, which in the space of half an hour had lost in
killed and wounded two hundred and seven out of four
hundred men engaged, 2 could make its retreat unmo-
lested. As for the enemy's force, it was, except for a small
nucleus, resolved into groups of unarmed stragglers. 3
The cheer of a victory thus snatched from defeat
on the right was heightened by the good news from the
left. The Iron Brigade, advancing over the crest south
of the McPherson woods, had surrounded and captured
General Archer and over five hundred men, one-half of
his brigade; Craig Wadsworth, as it happened, had ad-
vanced with them, and, together with another of Rey-
nolds's aides, had had much to do with the success of
the flanking movement. As a further piece of good fort-
1 "Later in the day," writes Dawes, "we marched through the railroad
cut, and about one thousand muskets lay in the bottom of it. Only one
regiment surrendered as an organization, and that was the 2d Mississippi
Volunteers. The 95th New York took prisoners, as did also the 14th Brook-
lyn. All the troops in the railroad cut threw down their muskets, and the
men either surrendered themselves, or ran out of the other end of the cut." —
(6 Wis., p. 173.)
2 43 W. R., p. L 2S*2. The total of three hundred and eighty given there
is undoubtedly too small.
3 "Davis's brigade was kept on the left of the road that it might collect
its stragglers, and from its shattered condition it was not deemed advisable
to tiring it again into action on that day." — (General Heth's report, 44 W. R.,
p. 638.)
212 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
une, the Confederates, though in force, did not renew
the attack, 1 contenting themselves with desultory firing
from the batteries of Mcintosh's and Pegram's battalions,
stationed on the high ground beyond Willoughby Run.
To Doubleday this successful repulse of the Confeder-
ates, followed by their inaction, seemed to justify a con-
tinuance of the fight on the ground on which Reynolds
had begun it, and he accordingly sent orders to Wads-
worth to dispose his command in the position for which
it had originally been designated. 2
Setting his hand to this work with a will, Wadsworth
presently made the discovery that Hall's battery was
out of reach, its commander having understood Wads-
worth's order to mean that he was to take his guns to
Cemetery Hill, south of the town. In his instant need
Wadsworth fell upon the horse artillery on Seminary
Ridge, whither it had gone to refill its limber chests, and
ordered it forward to the McPherson ridge. Its com-
mander, however, John H. Calef, a young second lieu-
tenant just out of West Point, respectfully represented
that he was under Buford's orders. At a moment of
such stress and excitement Wadsworth was in no mood
to give weight to such distinctions; after a rapid pas-
sage of words he had his way. Whatever his ire, Calef
had to admit that the necessities of the occasion re-
1 Heth, although he had two fresh brigades, did not renew the battle at
that time because, as he says in his report, his orders were merely " to make
a forced reconnoissance and determine in what force the enemy were, whether
or not he was massing his forces on Gettysburg." — (44 W. R., p. 637.) Hav-
ing found, at the expense of heavy loss to two of his brigades, that he had
encountered not Pennsylvania militia but the Army of the Potomac, he
awaited the arrival of Ewell from the northeast.
- Doubleday, on reaching the field just as the battle was beginning, had
sent to Reynolds for orders. The reply was: "Tell Doubleday I will hold on
to this road [the Cashtown Turnpike] and he must hold on to that one [the
Fairfield Road]. "— (Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, p. 130.) This order,
meant merely to cover the emergency of the moment, had the unfortunate
effect of directing Doubleday's attention to the left "during the entire day,"
as he himself admits, and prevented him from realizing as quickly as he
should have done the real danger on the right, of which Buford had full
knowledge.— (See Buford's despatch to Meade, 43 W. R., p. 924.)
1863] DISPOSITION OF FIRST CORPS 213
quired a battery in that position, and he sent thither
four of his guns. Wadsworth meanwhile dashed off to
find the necessary infantry supports. The regiments of
Cutler's brigade, none too strong at the beginning of
the day, were now pitiably thin; but when eked out with
the Sixth Wisconsin they made a respectable though far
from adequate force. Such as they were, however, they
went forward to the exposed open fields on the ridge
north of the McPherson farm.
This done, Wadsworth gave his attention to the
Iron Brigade, a portion of which, after its capture of
Archer and his men, had pushed on across Willoughby
Run. He ordered them back to the shelter of the Mc-
Pherson woods and disposed them there; then he got
skirmishers to go forward to occupy the Harman house
on the other side of the run, and here again, as in the
case of Calef's battery, it made no difference to him
that the men whom he obtained came from another
command — the Third Division, namely, one brigade of
which was taking position at the left of the Iron Bri-
gade. Next he turned his thoughts to the protection
of his right. It is of such occupations as these, crowded
into moments flying all too fast, that Dawes was think-
ing when he wrote: "The activity, efficiency, and, if I
may so express it, the ubiquity of General James S.
Wadsworth in the battle was remarkable. He was of
venerable and commanding appearance, and was abso-
lutely fearless in exposing himself to danger." *
Meanwhile the remaining divisions of the First Corps,
with five thousand five hundred men to take into battle,
and the artillery that accompanied them were reaching
the field. Stone's brigade of the Third Division was
posted at the McPherson farm buildings between Wads-
wor'h's two brigades; the other brigade (Biddle's) of the
division, as has already been noted, took position on the
1 Dawes's With the Sixth Wisconsin at Gettysburg. Sketches of War
History, Ohio Commandery of the Loyal Legion, III, 373.
214 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
extreme left. Robinson's division, consisting of Paul's
and Baxter's brigades, Doubleday stationed in reserve
at and near the seminary, where a breastwork of rails
was thrown up. Presently, Major-General Howard came
upon the scene, having ridden on ahead of the infantry
of the Eleventh Corps, and by virtue of his rank took
command.
The knowledge of these reinforcements, together with
the observation of a movement of the enemy's troops
which, through the hazy atmosphere, seemed like retreat,
led Wadsworth to believe that opportunity was offered
to follow up the first success of the morning. Accord-
ingly, at 12.10 he sent an aide with a message to Double-
day or Howard urging a prompt advance. "I am not
sure," he added, "that they are not moving round on
our right flank, though I do not see any indication of it." l
Any such proposal, however, the rapid development
of events soon disposed of as out of the question. On
Wadsworth's right, it will be remembered, rose the emi-
nence of Oak Hill, which was, in fact, a continuation of
Seminary Ridge and which, if seized by the Confederates,
would give them an enfilading fire on the troops holding
the open McPherson ridge. Awake to the possibility
of danger from this quarter, as the message just quoted
indicates, Wadsworth had already sent an orderly thither
to reconnoitre, and when Hall's battery returned from
its travels despatched it in the same direction under
shelter of the woods. Howard, on his part, gave orders
that two of his divisions, as they reached the field, should
be told off to occupy this important point and the ground
between it and Wadsworth's right. 2 But it was then too
late. Hall, on his way toward Oak Hill, was soon met by
Wadsworth's orderly, returning from his reconnoissance,
and was told that he was taking the battery "directly
into the enemy's lines, which were advancing from this
direction." Hall rode forward until fired upon by the
1 45 W. R., p. 463. 2 43 W. R., p. 702.
1863] DANGER FROM THE NORTH 215
Confederate skirmishers, when he turned and counter-
marched his battery. 1
Hurrying this disconcerting news on to Doubleday
and Howard, Wadsworth waited for what was now in-
evitable, the sound of Confederate guns from Oak Hill.
Not long after noon they opened with telling effect upon
Cutler in his exposed position, and Wadsworth at once
withdrew the brigade to the shelter of the woods on
Seminary Ridge, north of the railroad, where it took a
position facing northwest and began putting up breast-
works of rails. For the Iron Brigade no change of posi-
tion was necessary, since the McPherson woods gave it
sufficient protection; but the other brigades and bat-
teries of the First Corps were stationed much less advan-
tageously. Howard, now fully aware of the danger from
both Rodes and Early, ordered that the two divisions
of his corps should deploy on the plain north of the
town, at right angles to the First Corps.
Looking east from his station on Seminary Hill,
Wadsworth could observe Howard's "Dutchmen" —
Schimmelfennig with Von Amsberg and Krzyzanowski,
Barlow with Von' Gilsa and Ames — coming out from
Gettysburg, but in the hazy atmosphere of that sultry
July noon and in the press of his own occupations he
could not estimate their strength (seven thousand men
and at first ten guns) 2 or perceive how far to the east
their line stretched. He could, however, see that the
left of their line did not extend far enough to connect
with his own right, and presently Baxter's brigade, sent
by Doubleday from the reserve division on Seminary
Ridge, passed him on its way to fill in part this danger-
ous gap. With these provisions made for taking care of
the attack from the north, Wadsworth felt confident that
the main body of the First Corps could keep off the
enemy from the west, thus delaying Lee's concentration
and holding Gettysburg as a point at which Meade could
1 43 W. R., p. 360. J Ibid., p. 725.
216 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
concentrate his army. Howard, coming at about two
o'clock to inspect the position of the First Corps, gave
orders in person to Wadsworth to hold the ridge as long
as possible. 1 Against the onrush of Lee's veterans this
body of troops in which Reynolds had taken such pride
must maintain itself with more than its wonted firm-
ness; in Wadsworth and all his men was the iron will
to prove by their deeds that the sacrifice of his life which
their commander had made had not been in vain.
The attack began from the north at about 2.30, the
brigades of Rodes's division moving forward along both
the eastern and the western slopes of the ridge. Their
advance, however, was not simultaneous, and Baxter's
brigade was able first to repel the attack on its right
and then, changing front, to meet that on its left. The
Confederate troops here, taken by surprise at short
range, were severely punished, and Cutler, with the
coolness and alertness that characterized his handling
of the brigade in this battle, sent forward his men on
their flank to complete the work of demoralization.
After this brilliant affair, in which many prisoners were
captured, Cutler turned his attention to another of
Rodes's brigades sweeping across his front to attack
Stone at the McPherson farm, part of whose line was
facing north along the turnpike, and here again he poured
in an effective cross fire. Thus, thanks to the adroitness
of Baxter and Cutler in taking advantage of their oppo-
nents' mistakes, thanks, too, to Hill's inaction, this at-
tack from the north was repulsed.
By three o'clock, however, Hill had got under way,
sending two brigades of Heth's division — Brockenbrough
with 1,070 men, Pettigrew with 2,900 men — against the
Iron Brigade stationed in the McPherson woods and
Biddle's brigade on its left. The Iron Brigade, having
suffered but little in the morning engagement in which
it had captured Archer, was both fresh and strong; the
1 43 W. R., p. 266.
1863] THE IRON BRIGADE 217
disposition of its regiments had received the approval
of Wadsworth and Doubleday, and the men had been
told how much depended on their steadfastness. "The
devoted men of this brigade stood to action for three
hours, saw the rebel line form for the attack upon them
in double and treble lines, knew we could not hope for
reinforcements or adequate force to meet them, as well
as the impossibility of holding the position assigned them
[us], and unflinchingly awaited the blow." x "We have
come to stay ! " had been their cry as they plunged into the
woods in the morning; that pledge they were now about
to redeem in terms that the whole army would wonder at.
The Confederate force, consisting of fresh troops, was
in greater numbers than its opponents and came on with
spirit, but it was received with a firm front, and a sharp
conflict ensued. Where the Twenty-fourth Michigan met
the Twenty-sixth North Carolina the contest proved par-
ticularly destructive. 2 In the end the assailants were re-
pulsed/ Meanwhile, the pressure from the north contin-
ued. Baxter and Cutler maintained themselves gallantly,
but at last, their ammunition gone and their numbers
greatly reduced, they were withdrawn behind the woods
on Seminary Ridge. To take their place Doubleday sent
his last reserve brigade, that of Paul, containing thirteen
hundred men, fully equal to the desperate work assigned
them. Most ominous fact of all, however, on the high
ground beyond Wilderness Run, a line of gray (Pender's
division, 6,200 strong, consisting of brigades commanded
by Lane, Thomas, Perrin, and Scales) could be seen extend-
ing a brigade front beyond either flank of the Union line.
Under these circumstances it was wise not to attempt
further resistance in the advanced position on the Mc-
Pherson ridge; the First Corps artillery, twenty-two guns,
and a portion of the infantry were accordingly withdrawn
1 Report of the Iron Brigade at Gettysburg, p. 11.
2 The percentage of loss in the 24th Michigan was 80; in the 2G th North
-Carolina, 88.5.— (History of the 24th Michigan, p. 172.)
218 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
to Seminary Ridge, there to make a last stand, and Doub-
leday despatched an aide to Howard, importuning him
for additional troops from the reserve on Cemetery Hill,
or, failing that assistance, an order to fall back thither.
This portentous danger was fully evident to Wads-
worth, stationed on the ridge at a point near the place
where it is crossed by the Cashtown turnpike, but in
spite of the great preponderance of the Confederates in
numbers and their presence to the north as well as to
the west, his confidence had not yet begun to fail. Know-
ing well that "if hopes were dupes, fears may be liars"
and exalted by the successful resistance that the First
Corps had so far made, he still believed that the de-
fenders of Seminary Ridge would be able to repel the
attack about to be launched against them, even if the
attack were to prove the most formidable of all. But
not long before four o'clock, while they waited for the
first signs of the enemy's advance, Wadsworth's atten-
tion was drawn by one of his aides to the open ground
in their rear, north of the town, where the Eleventh
Corps was supposed to be stationed. Of which army
was the long battle line there a part? Could there be
any doubt? When told that the skirmishers were ap-
parently on the side of it toward the town, Wadsworth,
evidently thinking of the behavior of the Eleventh Corps
at Chancellorsville, replied that what seemed like a skir-
mish line must be men placed in the rear to drive up
stragglers and skulkers. Still uneasy, Kress and others
about him continued to peer through the smoke and haze
in an endeavor to establish the identity of some battle
flag. When at last the excellent field-glasses of the chief
of artillery, Colonel Wainwright, made out the Con-
federate colors, it was plain that the Eleventh Corps
had been driven in. 1 If that were true, the case of the
1 The rout of the Eleventh Corps was caused by the attack of Early's
division from the northeast and by the renewal of the attack by a portion
of Rodes's division from the north.
1863] THE LAST STAND 219
First Corps was indeed critical. Already it was out-
flanked; half an hour later, twenty minutes later, it
would be cut off altogether from the rest of the
army.
Braced to resist on Seminary Hill, Wadsworth in an
instant had to readjust himself to the impending neces-
sity of retreat. In a turmoil of mortification and anger
he sent word to Doubleday of the new peril, and then
addressed himself to the work of holding back the enemy,
whose approaching lines, having dipped down out of sight
as they crossed Willoughby Run, were now beginning to
show again over the McPherson ridge. Slowly, before
this imposing advance, the remnants of Stone's men and
of the Iron Brigade fell back from the positions about
the McPherson farm buildings and in the woods which
they had defended so stoutly. Close upon them came
two Confederate brigades, commanded by Scales and
Perrin, marching with wonderful steadiness, aligned as
if on parade. "In many cases the colors of regiments
were advanced several paces in front of the line." 1 To
shatter this attack was imperative, particularly in view
of the exposed situation of Paul's brigade on the right,
for which a gain of ten minutes might make the differ-
ence between capture and safety; but, since the lines of
blue and gray were in such proximity, there was risk that
the Federal artillery, if it did not withhold its fire for a
space, might harm friend as well as foe. Wadsworth,
near the batteries of Stevens and Stewart, hesitated long
before giving their commanders the order; he yielded
only when it was plain that the necessity had become
paramount and absolute. At this, the crisis of the
battle, no matter what the cost, the enemy must be
checked as decisively as he had been checked earlier in
the day.
When these broken ranks of blue, avoiding the can-
ister of the batteries as best they might, had made their
1 6th Wis., p. 175.
220 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
way back to the ridge, they once again faced the enemy
undauntedly. It could not be said that they were un-
supported. North of the railroad was Stewart himself
with three of his guns; the other three, commanded by
Lieutenant Davison, were on the small space of ground
between the cut and the pike; south of the pike roared
Stevens's battery. 1 It was against this concentrated fire
that Scales's brigade was advancing. Buell, the Cannon-
eer, who served one of the guns in the half-battery com-
manded by Davison, in the rear of which Wadsworth
now found himself, has described the scene vividly. To
obtain an enfilading fire upon Scales's line, Stewart and
Davison had swung their guns about so that the muz-
zles faced southwest. "This change of front gave us
a clean rake along the Rebel line for a whole brigade
length, but it exposed our right flank to the raking vol-
leys of their infantry near the pike, who at that moment
began to get up again and come on. Then for seven
or eight minutes ensued probably the most desperate
fight ever waged between artillery and infantry at close
range without a particle of cover on either side. They
gave us volley after volley in front and flank, and we
gave them double canister as fast as we could load.
The Sixth Wisconsin and Eleventh Pennsylvania men
crawled up over the bank of the cut or behind the rail
fence in rear of Stewart's caissons and joined their mus-
ketry to our canister, while from the north side of the
cut flashed the chain-lightning of the Old Man's half-
battery in one solid streak!" 2
Under this deadly storm the first line of Scales's
men wavered and fell back; then it rallied and returned
to the attack with a steady fire of musketry. Stew-
art's men all the time, in the excitement and inspira-
tion of the high noon of battle, were working their guns
1 Stevens's battery expended about fifty-seven rounds of canister in re-
pelling this attack. — (Maine at Gettysburg, p. 85.)
2 The Cannoneer, p. 68.
1863] THE LAST STAND 221
with the regularity of a machine. Davison, an ankle
shattered, and with other wounds, too, propped up by
one of his men, continued to give orders until weakness
overcame even his "grim, stoical pluck"; then Wads-
worth, who had been laboring as if one of them, cheered
them on and held them to their work. So destructive
was the battery's fire proving that it almost seemed
that the enemy's charge might fail altogether. 1 But
the other Confederate brigade, attacking south of the
seminary, had been successful and had already gained
possession of that part of the ridge; the Union artillery
and infantry there were in full retreat. At this moment
an aide appeared hunting for Wadsworth with the ex-
pected order from Doubleday to fall back to Cemetery
Hill. The incorrigible fighter whom he sought was in
the act of sighting one of Davison's twelve-pounders.
"Tell General Doubleday," Wadsworth shouted through
the roar, "that I don't know anything about strategy;
but we are giving the Rebels hell with these guns,
and I want to give them a few more shots before we
leave." 2
Keen though his battle passion was, Wadsworth
wrenched himself away, for the moments were nearly all
told in which the remnant of Union artillery and infan-
try could slip between the converging Confederates to
safety. Fortunately, one advantage of the desperate and
devastating last stand on Seminary Ridge, maintained
by Doubleday's men with "deliberate valor" as if the
whole Army of the Potomac were within call, accrued
to them at once. The Confederate pursuit from the
west was far from vigorous; its caution verged upon
1 The commander of this Confederate brigade, General Scales, who was
himself disabled, reported that all his field-officers but one were killed or
wounded. — (44 W. R., p. 670.) The brigade lost half its 1,070 men. After
the war General Scales told Dawes that the fire of Stewart's battery was the
most destructive he had known in the war. — (0th Wisconsin, p. 175, note.)
2 See War Papers, Commandery of District of Columbia of the Loyal
Legion, I, 9.
222 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
timidity. Skirmishers, it is true, played havoc with the
Union battery horses and caused the abandonment of
one gun and some caissons; but the damage from this
quarter was small, out of all proportion to the men's
expectation of danger. Generals Lee and A. P. Hill,
reaching the ridge while the battle smoke was still hang-
ing in the trees, could perceive that the town was in
E well's possession; but the sights that the Confeder-
ate commander had witnessed on the way to the ridge
and the reports brought to him from Heth's and Pen-
der's divisions gave him pause. 1 Hill said that he had
never known the Federals to fight so well. 2 After the
indomitable resistance of the First Corps, it was hard
for Lee to dismiss the inference that Meade's army was
close at hand, and the approach of the Twelfth Corps
from the southeast during the last moments of the battle
was a circumstance that highly increased such a proba-
bility. Whether the inference were correct or not — and
with his cavalry gone it was impossible to ascertain the
facts — Lee must give it weight. In view of the impres-
sion thus produced upon the Confederate commander
and of the hours gained thereby, the sacrifice made by
the First Corps was one that added to its glory. Its be-
lief in the value of this sacrifice was expressed by Wads-
worth three days later to the commander of the Twenty-
fourth Michigan. "Colonel Morrow, the only fault I
find with you is that you fought too long, but God only
knows what would have become of the Army of the
Potomac if you had not held the ground as long as you
did." 3
1 The six brigades engaged from these two divisions numbered 10,000
men. The "reports of casualties," which includes also the engagement of
July 3, gives their loss as 3,962. — (44 W. R., p. 344.) A seventh brigade,
Lane's, 1,600 strong, of Pender's division, was delayed by the fire of some
of Buford's cavalry, stationed on Seminary Ridge, south of the Fairfield
Road. It did not attack, and suffered slight loss.— (44 W. R., p. 667.)
2 43 W. R., p. 272. His remark was reported to the colonel of the 24th
Michigan, who was a prisoner.
3 24th Mich., p. 168.
1863] CULP'S HILL 223
Though but haltingly pursued by Hill, the broken
detachments of the First Corps, picking their way
through the streets of an unknown town in search of
a designated place of safety the position of which was
also unknown, suffered no small loss at the hands of
EwelFs men, now swarming everywhere. The number
of prisoners taken from Wadsworth's division was 627, 1
most of them from Cutler's brigade, which covered the
retreat. In Robinson's division, of which Paul's bri-
gade had farther to travel, the loss was even heavier
(983). Of the 3,500 men whom Wadsworth had taken
into battle in the morning he had at the end of the
day less than 1,300.
The hill toward which the troops of the First and
Eleventh Corps were now making their way rises by
a gentle slope from the fields south of Gettysburg. In
the angle between the converging roads from Emmits-
burg and Baltimore which meet at its base lay the small
cemetery of the town. Here, where were posted How-
ard's scanty reserves, with batteries already protected
by earthworks, was the nucleus of safety. A bulwark
even stronger was the presence among the group of offi-
cers by the cemetery gate of Hancock, sent by Meade to
take command. His gallant figure was known through-
out the army, and where he was troops felt that they
had a true leader. With the aid of other able soldiers,
such as Buford and Warren, Hancock brought a meas-
ure of order out of the chaos of artillery and infantry
that choked the roads and overflowed into the fields.
An infantry support was needed for Stevens's battery,
which Hancock had sent to Gulp's Hill, the bold, heav-
ily wooded eminence a half-mile or less to the east. If
this hill were not held by the Federals their present
position would be untenable; yet it was a post of dan-
ger, for at present there were not troops in sufficient
1 43 W. R., pp. 173, 174. The total loss of the First Corps in "captured
or missing" was 2,162.
224 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
force to occupy it securely, and, in spite of the waning
day, it was inconceivable that the Confederates should
not make some attempt to win it. Wadsworth, "by
no means daunted or weakened by the day's work, but
. . . still full of fight," 1 was assigned by Hancock to
this place. While he was gathering up such fragments
of his division as came to hand, he was gladdened by
the unexpected appearance of the Seventh Indiana,
which was the strongest regiment of Cutler's brigade
and which, detached by Reynolds's order in the morn-
ing to accompany the First Corps trains, had just ar-
rived from Emmitsburg. With this increase of five
hundred men Wadsworth set his troops in motion for
their new position. An officer who had gone in advance
to the right to establish the line there encountered on his
way back a Confederate scout and captured him. The
scout was hastening to report to Ewell that Culp's Hill
was unoccupied. 2 With all the greater speed, therefore,
Wadsworth, when he reached the pleasant groves of the
hill-side, put his men to work throwing up intrenchments,
and there was rest for none until the defences were se-
cure. Fortunately, as the shadows lengthened, Ewell's
troops opposite Culp's Hill made no sign of attacking,
and the advance brigades of the Federal Third and
Twelfth Corps had already reached the field. Behind
them, from south and southeast, over far-stretched roads,
the remaining corps of the scattered Army of the Poto-
mac were hurrying hither; there was time for supper,
for rest — for the solemn moment of roll-call.
After the day's ordeal of fire Wadsworth could re-
joice that all the members of his staff were safe; Craig,
also, was untouched. In spite of the hail of bullets that
had beaten upon Stewart's battery in that fierce ten
minutes, Wadsworth himself had not a scratch. Other-
1 From a letter of General Morgan, Hancock's chief of staff, quoted by
Hancock in the Atlantic Monthly for December, 1876, p. 330.
2 Address by General J. W. Hofman. — (Reynolds Memorial, p. 41.)
18C3]
WADSWORTH'S LOSS
225
wise the tale of disaster was a fearful one. The Twenty-
fourth Michigan, the largest of Wadsworth's eleven regi-
ments, went into battle with 49G men; that evening the
number with the flag was 99. 1 Only four field-officers
of the Iron Brigade escaped without injury. As the
men told over the hours of the struggle and noted how
and where this and that comrade had been lost, there
was many a story of desperate gallantry. Besides the
dead, hundreds of wounded men were lying in the Mc-
Pherson woods and on Seminary Hill beyond the reach
of all friendly aid and comfort. 2
War is many-sided in its motives and passions, a
fact that the aftermath of the First Corps' battle now
brought forth. Major-General John Newton arrived on
that very evening, despatched by Meade in haste to
supersede Doubleday. As it happened, one of the first
sights witnessed by Howard when he reached the field
at half-past eleven on the morning of July 1 had been
the withdrawal of Hall's battery and Cutler's regiments
from Seminary Hill toward the town — a spectacle which
prompted him to send a message to Meade that the
First Corps had fallen back. Later in the day, between
half-past four and half-past five, Howard, who was not
a soldier abounding in chivalry and who was smarting
1 History of the 24th Michigan, p. 180.
2 The following statement of the strength and losses of Wadsworth's divi-
sion on July 1 at Gettysburg is computed from the official records, and from
the figures given in The Iron Brigade at Gettysburg, New York at Gettys-
burg, and Fox's Regimental Losses. The official statement of losses is for
all three days of the battle, but as there was hardly any loss at Culp's Hill
these figures may be considered as holding good for July 1. The 7th Indi-
ana of Cutler's brigade is not included, as it was not engaged on July 1.
Its loss is given as ten.
KILLED
WOUNDED
inssraa
CAPTURED
TOTAL
LOSS
NO.
ENGAGED
NO. RE-
MAINING
1st Brigade (Iron Brigade) .
189
142
77-1
506
249
349
598
1,212
997
2,209
1,883
1,621
3,504
671
0*4
500
1,795
7th Indiana (not engaged) .
Total
331
1,280
22(5 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
under the mortification of the retreat of his own corps
and the presence of Hancock, repeated this misleading
statement to Hancock, who in his turn communicated
it to the commanding general; 1 Meade, receiving the
news at the end of a harassing day, in which the unex-
pected encounter at Gettysburg had not only shattered
his plans but imperilled his army, found in Doubleday
the victim which his temper demanded. The change of
commanders was not one to approve itself to men who
had fought under Reynolds. Though Doubleday was
not a "popular commander," he was respected by his
men as a hard fighter — and this respect had been much
increased by his handling of them in the day's battle.
Newton, on the other hand, came to them unknown;
and in respect to fighting skill he remained unknown,
for he never commanded them on the field. 2
The quiet of that night for the Army of the Potomac
was succeeded by further respite on the following morn-
ing and early afternoon. During those hours Meade's
remaining corps were reaching the field and taking posi-
tion. Wadsworth's men, lying behind their breastworks
under the shadow of the oak-trees, waited for the expected
attack upon their stronghold. As the afternoon wore on
and they were still unmolested, their thoughts were held
by the distant roar of the terrific struggle on their left
which has made memorable the names of Peach Orchard,
Wheat Field, Devil's Den, Little Round Top.
1 43 W. R., p. 356.
2 Newton was displaced by the merging of the First Corps with the
Fifth in March, 1864. Doubleday left the Army of the Potomac almost
immediately after the battle of Gettysburg was over and did not serve with
it again. His bitterness against Meade is shown in his testimony before
the Committee on the Conduct of the War and in the account of the battle
in his book, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. It is exhibited without any
restraint whatever in his narrative of the first day's battle, the MS. of which
is in the possession of Mr. James W. Wadsworth. Here he declares that
Meade at first refused to allow him to prepare a report of the fight of July
1, and that it was only when General Newton refused to make the report
that Meade permitted Doubleday to do it. The correspondence on p. 256
of 43 W. R. is indicative of some trouble of this sort.
1863] SECOND DAY 227
Suddenly the sound of the beginning of conflict near
at hand drew back the minds of Wadsworth's men to
their own situation. They were on the crest of the hill
facing north. From their right the line ran south and
had been held by the Twelfth Corps, but the exigencies
of the contest at the other end of the battle-field had
caused Meade to order thither all the troops of that
corps except Greene's brigade. As Greene was endeav-
oring to stretch his men over the ground from which the
other brigades had withdrawn, the Confederate attack
struck his whole line. On Greene's extreme right the en-
emy had little more to do than to walk into the intrench-
ments. Nearer the top of the hill his men made a deter-
mined resistance, but the peril was such that he sent to
Wadsworth and to Howard for help. These two generals
rushed off three regiments each, seven hundred and fifty
men in all, but the fighting value of the two groups proved
to be by no means equal; "kicked into action," indeed,
is the expression used by a member of Wadsworth's staff
in describing the means by which one of Howard's regi-
ments was brought to perform its duty. At length, re-
lieved by the returning troops of the Twelfth Corps,
Wadsworth's and Howard's men went back to their own
commands.
Meanwhile, on Wadsworth's left a furious assault by
Hays's "Louisiana Tigers" and Hoke's brigade had been
made up the little valley between Cemetery Hill and
Gulp's Hill. Again the main attack avoided Wadsworth's
strong position; but with this activity on both sides of
him he was kept in continual apprehension as to what
might happen in his own front. During these alarums
and excursions, Lieutenant-Colonel Kress, having re-
turned from carrying an order and not finding his com-
mander, was told that he was out in front of the line, dis-
mounted. "The ground was covered with trees and was
steep and rocky," so the aide tells the story now; "I
also had to dismount, and climbed the embankment and
228 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
found the general a short distance down the hill, only
one orderly with him. He was under a lively fire of
rifles from both front and rear, from enemies and friends.
Fortunately, it was not difficult to convince him that he
ought not to remain there long; he said he wanted to
encourage the men!"
Again, in the morning of the next day, July 3, there
was sharp fighting on Wadsworth's right, the result of
which was to drive the enemy back. After this repulse,
with little fear that Culp's Hill would again be attacked,
he could give undivided attention to the marvellous and
terrible battle drama which that afternoon was to un-
fold. The prolonged cannonading, the charge of Pick-
ett's division, the fearful moments of close struggle, the
drifting back of the gray lines in fragments — these, the
culminating events of the battle of Gettysburg, both
from their proportions and from their significance in
the history of the war, constituted a spectacle the clutch
of which upon the heart of the beholder was like the
moment of the death agony. If it should prove that Lee
had delivered his last blow, then his invasion of the North
was also proved a failure.
Nothing is more characteristic of Wadsworth as a
soldier than his attitude and temper during the period
of eleven days between Lee's defeat at Gettysburg and
the successful withdrawal of the Army of Northern Vir-
ginia over the Potomac at Williamsport. 1 The battle
ardor of the volunteer commander, pushed to its high-
est intensity by the three days of conflict, demanded
that the fight should be carried to a finish. The first
evidence of this spirit in him was seen when, at the time
of Pickett's charge, he sent an aide to Meade with the
request that he be allowed to put his division in. When
the offer reached Meade the attack had been repulsed,
and Meade, busy with his staff in the work of attending
1 From this point use the general map at the end of the book.
1863] NO COUNTER-ATTACK 229
to the prisoners, replied that they were all right and
did not need help. Great as was Wadsworth's disap-
pointment, it took larger proportions when he perceived
that no counter-attack— the "soul of the defence," in
Henderson's expressive phrase 1 — was to be made. To
his mind, the repulse of Lee should at all hazards be
taken advantage of on the instant.
Yet Wadsworth could see for himself some of the
reasons that explained the hesitation of the commanding
general. "I think," he said in his testimony before the
Committee on the Conduct of the War, "that General
Meade did not, perhaps, appreciate fully the complete-
ness of his victory. The terrible slaughter of our men
produced, of course, a great impression upon the officers
of our army. General Meade's head-quarters were al-
most in the line of battle, and were surrounded by great
havoc." 2 The dead to be buried were numbered by
thousands, the wounded to be cared for by tens of thou-
sands. Furthermore, such of the survivors as were not
exhausted by hard fighting were exhausted by hard
marching. The need of supplies was immediate and
imperative, the trains were remote. In the Sixth Wis-
consin, for instance, the men had nothing to eat from
the morning of July 3 to the evening of the next day;
futhermore, nearly half of them were barefoot. 3 But
the most powerful reason of all to urge Meade to cau-
tion was the difficulty of ascertaining and comprehend-
ing the extent of the damage suffered by the enemy.
In default of that knowledge, he whose command of the
Army of the Potomac was but a week old could not
escape the magic of Lee's great name. Though deter-
mined on pursuit, Meade dared do nothing to bring on
1 Stonewall Jackson, I, 173.
s C. W., Report of 1865, 1, 415. "There was a tone amongst most of the
prominent officers that we had quite saved the county for the time and that
we had done enough; that we might jeopard all that we had won by trying
to do too much." — (General Warren's testimony, ibid., 378.)
3 6th Wisconsin, pp. 160, 185.
230 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
a general engagement. He was therefore stopped from
following the Confederates by the passes through the
South Mountain range, which they had used to reach
the Cumberland Valley, and obliged to proceed first
south along the east side of the ridge to Middletown
and then west over South Mountain by the National
Pike— a route considerably longer than the one that they
had taken. Thus the first chance to strike at Lee in re-
treat was lost.
On July 4 detachments of men were upon the field
succoring the wounded, burying the dead, and collecting
arms. From the hour of noon the rain came down in
torrents. Wadsworth took advantage of this day of
rest to write his report of the battle of July 1. It is
brief, as the products of his pen always were, but clear,
consistent, and accurate. A characteristic touch occurs
at the end. "The officers of my staff and command
performed their whole duty without an exception. Un-
der these circumstances I cannot particularly commend
any of them without doing injustice to others equally
meritorious." * This method of rendering justice at the
expense of individual fame did not, it is hardly neces-
sary to say, meet with the approval of all the officers in
question.
On July 5 the Army of the Potomac began to move
in pursuit of Lee; but it was not till the following day
that Wadsworth's division and the First Corps marched.
Once begun, the advance of the army was sufficiently
energetic, though, as a result of the frequent and copious
rains during the last fortnight, the heavy roads prevented
it from being rapid. That night the First Corps en-
camped, after a ten-mile march, at Emmitsburg. The
next day brought it within a short distance of Middle-
town, a hard march of over twenty-two miles. In crossing
the Catoctin ridge the road was so rough and narrow that
the men were frequently obliged to march in single file.
1 43 W. R., p. 267.
1863] AT WILLIAMSPORT 231
On July 8 the First Corps crossed South Mountain
and bivouacked on its western flank near Boonesboro
(eight miles) . Even the macadamized National Road was
in bad condition, and Meade was forced to allow a whole
day for the corps at the rear of his column to get up;
rations and shoes, too, must be distributed to hungry
and barefoot men, and worn-out horses must be shod.
But Confederates as well as Federals suffered from the
downpourings of the heavens. The Potomac had risen un-
precedentedly, and Lee, reaching Williamsport and Fall-
ing Waters, where he expected to cross, found not only
his bridge burned by the Federal cavalry but the stream
swollen several feet above the fording stage. Not a
dozen miles distant from the assembled Army of the
Potomac was the great Confederate commander, caught
at last, it would seem, with the raging river in his rear.
Again the Union army nerved itself for battle. Its
physical condition was mended somewhat: reinforce-
ments had arrived; Lincoln, the whole North behind
him, urged it on. If now, with Vicksburg captured,
Lee's army might be destroyed, the Confederacy could
not long survive.
On July 10 Meade set his army in motion for what
he believed must be "the decisive battle of the war";
yet considerations of weight prevented him from push-
ing forward with ardor and relentlessness. He could ill
afford, he felt, to sacrifice or even to prejudice the re-
sults of the victory just won; it was still on the cards
that the daring Confederate commander might issue
forth to attack him. "I desire," Meade wrote to Hal-
leck on July 9, "to adopt such measures as in my judg-
ment will tend to insure success, even though these may
be deemed tardy." x Consequently, the operations of
the next two days were governed by his purpose to
"advance cautiously." At the end of that time his army
was astride Antietam Creek, the left being advanced to
1 43 W. R., p. 86.
232 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
within striking distance of the enemy. "On the morn-
ing of the 12th of July," such is the testimony of
General A. A. Humphreys, Meade's chief of staff, " Gen-
eral Meade expressed to me his views, which were to
move the army forward and feel the enemy, and to at-
tack them at such points as he should find it best to
attack. We knew something of the general character
of their position, but it was a very general knowledge.
General Meade asked my opinion. I replied that I co-
incided with him; that I was in favor of the operation
that he proposed, the advance of the army and a recon-
noissance in force, as it is called, to be converted into
an attack. We could not see the position of the enemy
well; their skirmishers acted as a sort of curtain, to
keep us from looking too closely at them. A circular
note was therefore sent to corps commanders to meet
at eight o'clock in the evening at general head-quarters;
they were to be brought there for the purpose of receiv-
ing instructions and to give all the information they
had collected during the day concerning the position of
the enemy, etc." 1 At this council of the seven corps
commanders of the Army of the Potomac, Wadsworth
was present as representing the First Corps, General
Newton being temporarily incapacitated and General
Doubleday, wounded at Gettysburg in body as well
as in spirit, having left the army. Besides Meade and
Humphreys and these seven, there were present, crowded
into the head-quarters tent, Warren, the chief engineer
of the army, and Pleasonton, the chief of cavalry. Of
the momentous discussion which then took place there
is abundant record, six of the eleven men having later
appeared before the inquisitorial Committee on the Con-
duct of the War. Since their testimony agrees in sub-
stance, though with much variety of interesting detail,
the story of what happened may be told in Wadsworth's
own words:
1 C. W., Report of 1865, I, 395.
1863] WADSWORTH'S TESTIMONY 233
General Meade stated briefly the condition of our
forces, giving his estimate of our army and the best
information he had as to the numbers of the enemy,
stating, as I think, that he believed we were superior
to them in numbers, and he asked the corps commanders,
commencing with the ranking officer, General Sedgwick,
what they thought of the expediency of attacking the
enemy the next morning. General Sedgwick, General
Slocum, General Sykes, General French, and General
Hays, who was temporarily commanding the Second
Corps, pronounced decidedly against the attack. Gen-
eral Howard, General Pleasonton, and myself advised
the attack. General Meade stated that he favored an
attack; that he came there to fight the enemy and did
not see any good reason why he should not fight them.
But he said he could not take the responsibility of bring-
ing on a general engagement against the advice of his
commanders.
It will be observed that four of the officers who op-
posed the attack were the ranking officers of the army,
next to General Meade, and held in every respect the
highest positions in the army. The reasons for and
against an attack were not discussed for some time, and
I believe not until I asked that those generals who op-
posed the attack should state their reasons for it. Gen-
eral Sedgwick did not give at any length his reasons
against an attack, but stated generally that General
Meade had won a great victory, and he thought he ought
not to jeopard all he had gained by another battle at
that time. General Sykes and General French gave as
a reason for not making an attack, as nearly as I can
remember, that there was nothing between the enemy
and Washington except our army, and that if it was
overwhelmed Washington and Baltimore would be open
to the enemy.
Question. Was not that true?
Ansiver. There was no force of any moment but that
army, not enough to have resisted General Lee. Gen-
eral Warren, the engineer officer of General Meade's
staff, made a strong and able argument in favor of an
attack; and General Pleasonton likewise urged an at-
tack. General Howard, who had voted for an attack,
did not enter much into the discussion. I did not my-
self, except to meet the objection that there was nothing
234 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
between the enemy and Washington but our army, which
I did by urging that our line of breastworks, the Antie-
tam creek, and South Mountain gave us defensive lines,
where we could certainly hold the enemy if repulsed in
our assault; and that we had every reason to believe
that the enemy were demoralized by their retreat and
were short of ammunition. Some of the officers — I do
not recollect whom — took the ground that the enemy
would attack us if we did not attack them. I said that
I did not believe that the enemy had ever come there
to fight a battle; that so good an officer as General Lee
never would take a position with his back on the river
to fight a battle. 1
The vote of the corps commanders being five to two
against making an attack, the council broke up, with the
understanding that they were, during the next twenty-
four hours, to endeavor to gain further information as
to the enemy's position and strength. "I was waiting
in a hard rain on that dismal night to guide General
Wadsworth back to our head-quarters," writes Colonel
Meneely, "and I do not think that I ever heard any
person in high position express so much regret at a posi-
tive mistake [such] as was made by the meeting and where
different action had such splendid promise of success."
The proposed reconnoissance in force that had been
under discussion was not to be converted into a battle
unless circumstances warranted it; yet the men whose
words had weight because of their rank were all against
it. They were willing to risk nothing. Warren and
Humphreys, with their keen minds and fresh energy,
indomitable fighters both as well as accomplished offi-
cers, had grasped the situation, but they were juniors
and staff officers and had no vote. If Reynolds, now
dead, if Hancock and Sickles, both wounded, could have
been of the council, the result must have been different. -
"C. W., 1865, I, 415, 416.
2 Wadsworth, Howard, and Pleasonton were in error in supposing Lee
without ammunition but right in supposing that he was trying to escape at
the first opportunity. The error of the other corps commanders was in
thinking that Lee was likely to attack. "I still think," testified General
1863] LEE'S ESCAPE 235
The information gathered on the next day was, owing
to the thick weather, of little decisive value. In front
of the First Corps, so Wadsworth reported, the line of
the enemy was a mile distant. The ground rose gradu-
ally from the Federal position to heavy woods on the
edge of which the Confederates were intrenched. 1 Else-
where, too, it appeared they were strongly posted. In
spite of the reports, either vague or unfavorable, from
his commanders, and in spite of the vote of the council,
Meade now decided upon action. The pressure from
Washington was becoming more and more insistent;
failure to advance to the attack would there be counted
as much against him as defeat in case of actual battle.
At nine o'clock that evening, therefore, he finally is-
sued orders for the reconnoissance in force, the move-
ment to begin at seven the next morning, July 14. But
when the Union troops, so long held back, moved for-
ward, they found the Confederate pickets withdrawn;
the intrenchments behind which Lee's worn and wasted
veterans had made such an imposing show of strength
were empty. During the night, thanks to the rapidly
subsiding river and to a rebuilt pontoon bridge, Lee had
begun his retreat; it was accomplished during the next
forenoon with only slight loss. The Maryland cam-
paign was ended. 2
Humphreys before the Committee on the Conduct of the War (1865, I, 397)
"that it would have been better to have made the reconnoissance in force,
and have made an attack if we had found some parts of the enemy's line
were not as strong as others. We might, perhaps, have found toward the
right that we could have attacked them. It was very strong ground, and
if we had made an attack there is no doubt that we shoidd have lost very
severely. But I cannot pretend to say now whether, if I had seen all that
ground, I should or should not have counselled an attack. It would have
been right for us to have made that reconnoissance in force and to have
been guided afterwards by the developments made by that reconnoissance."
1 45 W. R., p. 674.
" The slowness of a part of Meade's army in marching forward on the
morning of July 14 is worth noting. The withdrawal of Lee's pickets was not
discovered on the left till half-past seven. Buford, in command of the cavalry
there, then went in pursuit, but none of the infantry on the left apparently
made any attempt to follow the enemy toward Falling Waters, where Hill's
236 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
This fiasco at Williamsport seemed an ignoble sequel
to the glory of Gettysburg, and for once Wadsworth
was out of conceit with war. As usual he was prompt
to act upon his feeling. General Newton, having re-
covered from his disability, was again in command of
the First Corps; Wadsworth's own division had less
than a brigade's strength; and as he had always con-
tended that there were in the army too many general
officers there was at this juncture every reason why he
should ask to be relieved. His request was at once
granted and he started forthwith for Washington.
Arrived at the capital, Wadsworth soon made his
way to the White House, his appearance there being
the cause of the following entry in the diary of Lin-
coln's young secretary, John Hay:
July 16. . . . This evening at tea was talking with
Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander and Judge Whiting. They
agreed in ascribing vast importance to the crushing of
Lee at Williamsport. . . .
General Wadsworth came in. He said in answer to
Alexander's question, "Why did he escape?" "Because
nobody stopped him," rather gruffly. Wadsworth says
that at a council of war of corps commanders, held on
Sunday the 12th, he was present, on account of sick-
ness of his corps commander, he, Wadsworth, being tem-
porarily in command of the corps. On the question of
fight or no fight the weight of authority was against
fighting. French, Sedgwick, Slocum, and [Sykes and
Hays] strenuously opposed a fight. Meade was in favor
of it. So was Warren, who did most of the talking
on that side, and Pleasonton was very eager for it, as
was also Wadsworth himself. The non-fighters thought
or seemed to think that if we did not attack, the enemy
would; and even Meade thought he was in for action,
and Longstreet's corps were crossing during the forenoon. When Buford
reached Lee's rear guard at Falling Waters he found that Kilpatrick's cav-
alry, coming from Meade's right flank by way of Williamsport, had arrived
before him. Kilpatrick had discovered the withdrawal of the pickets on the
right at three o'clock.— (43 W. R., p. 990.)
1863] LEE'S ESCAPE 237
had no idea that the enemy intended to get away at
once. Howard had little to say on the subject.
Meade was in favor of attacking in three columns of
twenty thousand men each. Wads worth was in favor of
doing as Stonewall Jackson did at Chancellorsville— double
up the left and drive them down on VVilliamsport. Wads-
worth said to Hunter, who sat beside him, "General,
there are a good many officers of the regular army who
have not yet entirely lost the West Point ideas of South-
ern superiority. 1 That sometimes accounts for an other-
wise unaccountable slowness of attack." 2
The chagrin felt by some of those who first learned
that Lee had given his antagonist the slip has been
described by Noah Brooks, the newspaper correspondent,
who, having reached the army on the morning of July
14, had pressed on to Falling Waters. "Meade's head-
quarters, on my return, presented a chap-fallen appear-
ance. Here I met Vice-President Hamlin. ... As we
met, he raised his hands and turned away his face with
a gesture of despair. Later on I came across General
Wadsworth, who almost shed tears while he talked to us
about the escape of the rebel army." 3
It is easy, of course, to disparage Wadsworth's opin-
ion concerning what should have been the battle of Will-
iamsport, to say that his judgment was not that of a
professional soldier, to bring into court the evidence that
we now possess of the strength of Lee's position and his
willingness to receive attack; yet the point of the mat-
ter is that Lee's unmolested escape into Virginia was the
natural outcome of a series of causes all having their
spring, as Lincoln put it, in "a purpose to get the enemy
across the river again without a further collision," rather
1 On July 17,fl863, Sedgwick, explaining to his sister why Meade had not
attacked Lee at Williamsport, wrote: "I am tired of risking my corps in
such unequal contests." — (Correspondence of Major-General John Sedg-
wick, II, 132.) Sedgwick also says (p. 135) that Newton, though not pres-
ent at the council, was known to be against the proposed attack.
2 This extract has been supplied by the kindness of Mrs. John Hay.
3 Washington in Lincoln's Time, p. 95.
238 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
than in "a purpose to prevent his crossing and to de-
stroy him." ' In Wadsworth's case, the failure to fight
at Williamsport provoked exasperation because it was
the culminating instance of an attitude that he, with
his impulsive ardor and singleness of vision, could not
comprehend. In his conception, to be a soldier meant
to use the strength of an army to the utmost and with-
out relenting in order that the enemy might be crippled
and overcome. This belief, too, was no mere matter
of temperament; it was the conviction of a man who,
knowing the value of energy and efficiency in the con-
duct of affairs, assumed that those qualities were of
universal applicability. The situation, as it seemed to
him, must be met as a man of high financial courage
would meet a panic in the world of business. While the
time of stress prevails, no moment must be lost, no
thought left uncanvassed, no deed undone that will con-
tribute even in the smallest degree to the desired result.
It was because Meade's generals — and to a certain ex-
tent Meade himself — seemed to regard the crisis as al-
ready past, seemed not to be straining every nerve to
deal Lee another blow, that Wadsworth blamed them
as he did. Gettysburg, observes Henderson, "was pre-
eminently a battle of lost opportunities," 2 and the scope
of his remark may well be extended to include the re-
mainder of the campaign. 3
> Lincoln to Halleck — (45 W. R., p. 567.)
2 Stonewall Jackson, II, 488.
3 Of the situation at Williamsport Major-General George B. Davis writes:
"On the Confederate side a desperate chance was taken, not justified by
the strength and situation of the opposing armies; not warranted even by
the cautious and sluggish temperament of the Union commander. The
management of the Army of the Potomac was halting, dilatory, wanting in
firm direction, and, to a degree, irresolute and unskilful. An opportunity
such as rarely occurs in war presented itself and was not availed of; and the
Army of Northern Virginia was permitted to escape from a situation which
should have gone far to compass its defeat, if not its utter discomfiture." —
(From Gettysburg to Williamsport, Military Historical Society of Massa-
chusetts Papers, III, 469.)
STATUE OF BRIGADIER-GENERAL JAMES S. WADSWORTH.
To be erected at Gettysburg by the State of New York.
From a photograph of the scale model hy R. Hinton Perry.
CHAPTER VIII
BETWEEN BATTLES
Release from the Army of the Potomac did not for
Wadsworth mean release from active devotion to the
cause of the Union. The firmness and skill which, as
military governor of Washington, he had shown in es-
tablishing and protecting the freedmen in their new
rights now made him of value to the administration as
adviser in the unfamiliar fields which its policy of eman-
cipation had obliged it to enter.
During the first half of the year 1863 the work of
arming the blacks had progressed notably in spite of
conservative opposition. In Massachusetts, Governor
Andrew had raised two regiments of volunteers; in the
Southwest the task of organizing the regiments that were
eventually designated United States Colored Troops was
under the personal charge of Adjutant-General Lorenzo
Thomas. On that evening in July when the men of the
Fifty-fourth Massachusetts followed their devoted colo-
nel, Robert Gould Shaw, up the battlements of Fort
Wagner, they proved once for all the fighting quality of
their race.
But the negro who could thus be brought under arms
to serve the nation in what had now become a war for
freedom as well as for union constituted only one part
of the problem that the government had on its hands.
The care of the negro laborer and his family was becom-
ing a work as urgent and important in the Mississippi
Valley as Wadsworth had found it in the District of
Columbia in 1862, and after the surrender of Vicks-
burg on July 4, 1863, it assumed proportions of greater
240 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
magnitude than ever. Both the plantations and the
freedmen who had worked them were now under control
of the national government, and every consideration of
expediency and necessity required that, as soon as pos-
sible, some system be put into effect adequate to the
exigencies of the new times.
In addressing themselves to this complicated busi-
ness, Lincoln and Stanton were not without informa-
tion, though much of it was so incomplete, so confused,
and so prejudiced as to form an unsafe basis for judg-
ment. They had the jaunty and bustling reports of the
peripatetic adjutant-general, who, if rumor is to be be-
lieved, had been sent on this mission chiefly to get him
out of harm's — that is, out of Stanton's — way, and who
recommended the reasonableness of the new policy of
arming the blacks by sending to the guard-house such
soldiers as, when invited by him to express their opin-
ions, ventured to differ from him in regard to it. 1 From
the military commanders also came official communica-
tions, and when Grant sent his superintendent of contra-
bands, Chaplain John Eaton, to Washington to report
in person, the information obtained was of the highest
value. Furthermore, the American Freedmen's Inquiry
Commission, consisting of Robert Dale Owen, James Mc-
Kaye, and Samuel G. Howe, appointed by Stanton in
March, 1803, had in June made a preliminary report
and was now industriously pursuing its investigations.
Lastly, the authorities at Washington had the benefit
of the advice, admonitions, and importunities of North-
ern friends of the negro. In this multitude of counsel-
lors there was less wisdom than confusion; and so, in
the early autumn, when the success of the draft had
been but moderate and when the President was about
to issue a call for three hundred thousand volunteers,
when, too, in view of the approaching session of Con-
gress, it was desirable for the administration to deter-
1 Grant, Lincoln, and the Freedmen, p. 55.
1863] WADSWORTHS PAY 241
mine what kind of measure for the management of the
freedmen's affairs it wished to have passed, — at this time
it was decided to send Wadsworth to the Mississippi
Valley to look into and to report upon the condition both
of the colored troops there and of the non-military part
of the negro population. In this wise Lincoln and Stan-
ton hoped to gain what they needed to know in order
to deal skilfully with the batteries of congressmen and
committees that were sure to assail them during the
coming winter.
Wadsworth's instructions from Stanton, dated Octo-
ber 9, 1863, ordered him to begin his inspection at Cairo,
Illinois, and to proceed thence down the Mississippi to
New Orleans, going elsewhere, too, if he found it de-
sirable. 1 Being authorized to take one of his aides with
him, he chose Captain T. E. Ellsworth, who had served
on his staff ever since the early days of his military gov-
ernorship.
Here belongs — to interrupt for a moment the course
of the main narrative — a story told by the paymaster of
the army from whom, since the beginning of the war,
Wadsworth had received his pay. This official, supply-
ing him with cash for his journey, recommended to him
Paymaster Vedder at New Orleans as a person from
whom he could obtain further sums if necessary. "No,
sir," replied Wadsworth, "I shall not apply to Major
Vedder. While I am in the service I shall be paid only
by you. And my reason for that is that I wish my ac-
count with the government to be kept with one pay-
master only; for it is my purpose at the close of the
war to call on you for an accurate statement of all the
money I have received from the United States. The
amount, whatever it is, I shall give to some permanent
institution founded for the life relief of disabled soldiers.
This is the least invidious way in which I can refuse
pay for fighting for my country in her hour of danger." 2
1 124 W. R., p. 872. * Neio York Tribune, June 13, 1864.
242 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
Having completed his inspection at Cairo, where he
found one hundred and twenty-five freedmen employed
as laborers in the quartermaster's and commissary de-
partments, receiving ten dollars a month and a ration
as well as partial provision for their families, Wadsworth
started down the river to meet Adjutant-General Thomas
at Vicksburg. The latter placed his own steam-boat at
Wadsworth's disposal and accompanied him as far as
New Orleans. They stopped at Natchez, Port Hudson,
and Baton Rouge to inspect camps and leased planta-
tions, and Wadsworth made investigations at several
places below New Orleans. 1 In the latter part of Novem-
ber he started on his return journey, making the trip
by sea, and arriving in Washington on December 3.
The recruiting of colored troops Wadsworth found
going forward, indeed, though in somewhat irregular
fashion. At various points up and down the river were
nuclei of regiments, some of which were growing steadily
and others of which were at a stand-still, according to
the ability and zeal of their officers. There was no sys-
tem for designating these commands, and the adjutant-
general, whatever his authority, had been more success-
ful in getting the work under way than in unifying and
controlling it. Though Wadsworth obtained consolidated
reports showing the strength of the regiments recruiting
in the Department of Tennessee and the Department
of the Gulf, he had no certainty that the lists were com-
plete or that the figures were accurate. In all, he made
out about twenty thousand men, scattered through some-
thing like thirty-five regiments. 2 Of course the troops
were untried and untrained, but in this respect it was
as with their numerical strength: whenever a command
1 Thomas to Stanton.— (124 W. R., p. 1044.)
2 Between the lists furnished to Wadsworth and that given by Stanton's
report (Senate Document, 38 Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 56, 57) there are great
discrepancies in the designations of the regiments, in the names of their
commanders, and in their numerical strength. In general, Wadsworth's
figures run lower than the printed ones.
1863] CONDITION OF THE NEGROES 243
was fortunate in its officers the men responded to the
stimulus of their new discipline, which was for them the
gateway to the land of freedom.
Though at the present stage confusion existed in the
organization of the colored troops, the work had been
started right and there was little in the situation that
time would not untangle. But with the non-military
part of the population the case was far otherwise. Even
if the freedmen had known how to take care of them-
selves, they had nothing to begin with, and most of
the experiments made for their welfare had been bun-
gled. If they were gathered into camps and fed on the
unaccustomed army ration, they sickened and died at
an alarming rate; if they were hired out to work on
plantations leased from the government, they were in
most cases heartlessly exploited by the lessees, whose
loyalty was all too likely to prove a feebler passion
than their greed. Where a man like Chaplain Eaton
was in control the state of things was better, but men
such as he were few and the circle of their influence
was small. The conditions against which they had to
contend were the inevitable result of the breaking up
of slavery; not in a year, not even in a generation, was
the heritage of that evil to be blotted out.
By what he had seen on this trip, brief though it
was, Wadsworth had not merely brought himself abreast
of the hour touching a subject which with each new
month took on a fresh aspect; he had so corrected and
fortified the judgments drawn from his experience with
the negro in 1862 that they carried the weight not only
of his force of character but of their own soundness as
well. Though as a soldier the negro had revealed sur-
prising capacity, that pathway of advance could not
carry him far, for the war must soon be brought to an
end. The profound problem, Wadsworth felt, was that
of the negro's economic and political status, a field full of
puzzles and pitfalls and one in which, as it later proved,
experience was destined to run sharply athwart theory.
244 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
Complicated and baffling though the question was, it
rang a note of challenge that roused in Wadsworth all
his zeal as an anti-slavery man, an agriculturist, and an
administrator. If the call should come to him to serve
in this field, he was ready to answer with all his heart.
One cannot but echo the judgment of his friend, Gu-
rowski: "With his purity, with his clear-sightedness,
and with his great practical sense, Wadsworth would
have been the man to direct on a large scale organiza-
tion of the freedmen." '
For this organization, it is worth noting, he had al-
ready formed a plan of his own. According to Gurow-
ski, "Wadsworth's idea was to organize the freedmen
into self-sustaining and self-defending agricultural colo-
nies, locating them on confiscated and on new, hitherto
uncultivated lands. Wadsworth was altogether averse
to hiring out the freedmen as laborers; he considered
it as a perpetuation of slavery, disguised with another
name. Of course Wadsworth recognized the necessity
of appointing directors, who were to preside, to organize,
and to direct the labor of the colonists." 2 This proposal,
of course, is merely another form of Lincoln's favorite
scheme of colonization; also, it calls to mind James
Wadsworth's proposal that the Indians should be re-
moved from proximity to the race which made use of
its superiority to oppress and to degrade them and
should find in the undeveloped regions of the West an
opportunity to grow unhampered toward civilization and
citizenship. Whatever the intrinsic merits of this method
of dealing with the freedmen, its advantages were not
sufficiently obvious to enable it to make its way against
the fierce passions of the Reconstruction period; more-
over, when that period came its two strongest champions
were no longer living to urge its adoption. 3
1 Gurowski's Diary, 1863-65, p. 374. ; Ibid., p. 375.
3 In Arnold's Lincoln and Slavery, p. 656; Carpenter's Six Months at
the White House, p. 270; and in the Gettysburg edition of Nicolay and Hay's
Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, XI, 130, is printed a letter dealing
with the future treatment of the negro which purports to have been written
1864] COURT OF INQUIRY 245
Having made his representations at the War De-
partment and at the White House, Wadsworth was
given a leave of absence which lasted over Christmas
and New Year's day. On January 9, 1864, he was de-
tailed to serve on a court of inquiry to investigate the
conduct of Generals McCook, Crittenden, and Negley,
who, in the rout at Chickamauga, after the Confederates
had attacked and dispersed their commands, had left
the field. This duty took Wadsworth to Nashville and
Louisville and occupied the greater part of the month
of February. The result of the inquiry was an exon-
eration of all three of the generals. 1
Two letters on matters of family concern may be
introduced here, though chronologically the place of the
second is somewhat later. The first is to Wadsworth's
youngest son:
Louisville, Feb. 8, 1864.
My Dear Son: —
I rec d some days since your letter by the way of
Nashville. I am very glad to hear that you have made
a satisfactory arrangement for prosecuting your studies
at N. Haven, and that you have gone at your work with
good courage. You will never regret the sacrifices you
by Lincoln to Wadsworth at about this time, but the genuineness of which
is not vouched for. The occasion of the letter, if it is genuine, was a ques-
tion from Wadsworth whether, " in the event of our complete success in the
field, the same being followed by a loyal and cheerful submission on the
part of the South, . . . universal amnesty should not be accompanied by uni-
versal suffrage." The gist of Lincoln's reply is in the sentence: "I cannot
see, if universal amnesty be granted, how, under the circumstances, I can
avoid exacting in return universal suffrage, or, at least, suffrage on the basis
of intelligence and military service."
1 For the records of the court, see 50 W. R., pp. 930-1053.
Another possibility of service for Wadsworth was in connection with
Lincoln's plans for Florida, and resembled that which Wadsworth had con-
sidered in 1862. (See p. 153.) The President's proposal was to appoint a
military governor who was to develop the Union sentiment that was be-
lieved to exist there, and the scope of whose command was to be extended
with the advance of the Union troops. The scheme came to naught through
various untoward circumstances, chief among them being the defeat of the
Federal army at Olustee on February 20, 1864. If things had gone will,
Wadsworth would undoubtedly have received the appointment. — (Letter
of Colonel Meneely.)
246 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
make now to secure a good education. I have often
deeply regretted that my own education was so defi-
cient, especially in the classics. It has been a great bar-
rier to my progress in other studies, especially the nat-
ural sciences, which I could not master thoroughly from
want of some knowledge of the languages from which
the technical terms were derived. I hope you will re-
solve to stick to it until you master them. Tho' if I
get a command I shall keep my promise and take you
with me. 1 There is now little or no prospect of this
coming to pass. This court is a very tedious affair.
It will keep us here for two weeks longer certainly, per-
haps even longer. It is a much less interesting busi-
ness than we had in the Miss'. . . .
I hope you will be careful as to what acquaintances
you make — & what company you keep. Now is the
time for study. The harder you work the sooner it will
be over, and the sooner we shall all be together at our
dear home, where we have so much to interest and
amuse us. If you get into gay company & neglect your
studies it will only add a year or two to your exile. . . .
Your affectionate Father,
JA a S. WADSWORTH.
ClJLPEPER, VA.
Apl. 7, 1864.
Dear Miss Burden: —
I have just reed, a letter from my son informing
me that he has offered you his hand and heart, and that
you have referred him to your father. Without waiting
for his decision, which however must of course be con-
clusive, allow me to assure you that no event could give
us more pleasure than to welcome you to our family, and
that Mrs. Wadsworth and myself would find our great-
est joy in watching over your happiness. You have al-
ready made quite as complete a conquest of Mrs. W. as
of our dear Charlie. Before she was aware that he was
interested in you, she spoke of you to me in the highest
terms.
It is not for us to speak of our son except to tell
1 In November, 1864, James W. Wadsworth was appointed aide on the
staff of Major-General G. K. Warren, under whom he served until the end
of the war, receiving then a "brevet- major" for services at Five Forks.
1864] GRANT LIEUTENANT-GENERAL 247
you of his faults, and I must accordingly say to you,
for there should be no concealment in such a case, that
you are not his first love — tho' I am sure you are his
second. He has been for some years devotedly and ten-
derly attached to Iron. If any one could wean him
from this passion and make him think a little more of
science, literature, and cultivated society, I think they
would make a very good fellow of him. I am sure you
can do this good work better than any one else.
I can only say further, dear Miss Burden, that if
your destinies should be united with those of our son,
you will divide with him the parental care and affection
with which we have watched over him, and which he
has always dutifully returned.
With great respect and regard,
truly yrs,
JAS. S. WADSWORTH.
While Wadsworth was sitting through the long ses-
sions of the court at Louisville, events were occurring at
Washington which changed his fears to hopes and fixed
his fate. Congress revived the grade of lieutenant-
general; Grant, the hero of Vicksburg and Chattanooga,
was nominated to the position, and on March 10 was
assigned by the President to the command of all the
armies of the United States. The days of Halleck's ped-
antry and indecision were over; concert of action on
the part of the forces operating against the Confederacy
was now assured. Under such fortunate auspices it was
reasonable to believe that the campaign of the coming
spring would end the war. A mighty push against Rich-
mond, made as Grant could make it, must, it would
seem, prove more than Lee's weakened army could with-
stand. The thought of fighting under Grant, a leader
not sparing of conflict, brought all Wadsworth's battle
ardor back in full flood; in this final forward movement
he longed to bear a part, to lead once more into battle
his loved brigades of the old First Division. To this end
the splendid record which he and they had made at
Gettysburg now did him good advocate's service at the
248 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
War Department. Manifestly, one fighter such as he,
as Grant said of him later, was worth a whole brigade,
and in the coming campaign there was to be no lack of
hard fighting. Accordingly his request was granted, and
on March 15 he was ordered to report to General Meade
for assignment to duty with the Army of the Potomac. 1
When they heard the news, Wadsworth's family and
friends, likewise remembering that record at Gettysburg,
felt that his days were numbered.
1 107 W. R., p. 1151.
CHAPTER IX
THE WILDERNESS
A Battle-field, too, is great. Considered well, it is a kind of Quin-
tessence of Labor; Labor distilled into its utmost concentration; the
significance of years of it compressed into an hour. Here too thou
shalt be strong, and not in muscle only if thou wouldst prevail. Here
too thou shalt be strong of heart, noble of soul; thou shalt dread no
pain or death, thou shalt not love ease or life."
— Carlyle — Past and Present, book iii, chapter x.
Meade's orders of March 25, 1864, assigned Wadsworth
to the command of the Fourth Division of the Fifth Corps,
under Major-General G. K. Warren. This corps, with
the Second under Hancock and the Sixth under Sedg-
wick, constituted the Army of the Potomac. It lay in
winter quarters in the vicinity of Culpeper Court House,
north of the Rapidan and along the line of the railroad
from the Rappahannock to Manassas Junction. The
Ninth Corps, under Burnside, which, rendezvousing at
Annapolis, was receiving additions, mostly of raw troops,
was designed to act with it in the coming campaign,
though remaining an independent command and receiv-
ing orders direct from Grant.
In all the preparations which filled the first weeks of
the spring there were many signs that the war hence-
forth was to be conducted on a professional basis; that
non-military considerations were no longer to be allowed
to interfere with whatever made for efficiency. With
this spirit prevailing at head-quarters, it is significant of
the esteem entertained for so unprofessional a soldier
as Wadsworth that Hancock, Warren, and Sedgwick
should each have asked to have him as a division com-
249
250 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
mander. 1 That he was assigned to Warren was due to the
fact that one of the divisions in the Fifth Corps con-
tained the two brigades which Wadsworth had commanded
the year before. The Iron Brigade was now once more
under Cutler; the Second Brigade was commanded by
Brigadier-General Rice, of New York, a soldier of the
very finest quality; a third brigade, consisting of Penn-
sylvania regiments, was under Colonel Roy Stone, who,
severely wounded in the desperate fighting at the Mc-
Pherson farm on the first day at Gettysburg, had now re-
turned to the army. The number of men "present for
duty" in the division at the opening of the campaign
was 6,921. 2
The men of the old First Corps, hurt at the change
which had obliterated that organization and left of it
nothing but a proud memory, welcomed all the more
eagerly their old division commander. Dawes, of the
Sixth Wisconsin, just back from a furlough during which
he had made M. B. G. his wife, wrote to her on April 4:
"General James S. Wadsworth is now in command of
our division, and we begin at once to feel the old fellow
trying in his own level-headed way to ferret out abuses.
For instance: 'All officers applying for leave of absence
must state the date and length of their last leave.' He
is a thorough and able commander." And four days
later: "This morning the regiment is to be inspected
by Colonel Osborne, Inspector, at General Wadsworth's
head-quarters, and every man is busy polishing his
gun and brasses and blacking his shoes. Our men will
not allow themselves to be surpassed in neatness of
appearance." 3 This inspection was a result of Wads-
worth's announcement that he would publish in general
orders the names of the three regiments in the division
1 Letter of Hancock, June 25, 1864, published in New York Evening Post,
September 29, 1864.
2 From the return of April 30, 1864, in the adjutant-general's office.
The total "present for duty" in the Fifth Corps was 25,071.
3 Service with the 6th Wis., p. 242.
1864] MARCHING ORDERS 251
in which the arms and equipment were in the best con-
dition and also the names of the three regiments at the
bottom of the list in these respects. The Sixth Wiscon-
sin came first, owing partly to a recent issue of clothing
and partly to the fact that the colonel of the regiment
had discovered at brigade head-quarters at midnight the
order giving the time of inspection of his regiment— eight
o'clock the next morning. A preliminary inspection at
daylight, after which the men went back to bed again,
had done the rest. 1
Signs that the campaign was about to begin multi-
plied. Sutlers and camp-followers of every description
were ordered to the rear. Baggage was reduced, leaves
of absence were forbidden, and drills, often in heavy
marching order, were of almost daily occurrence. In all
these preparations Wadsworth was mindful of the com-
fort and well-being of his men. "'Make out a requisi-
tion for extra shoes,' we heard him say to one of his
brigadiers; 'about one pair of shoes for every two men.
I think we can get them of the quartermaster, but I
will see to it that at any rate they are got. They will
not be heavy to carry, and we shall find the value of
them before we get through.' " 2 And then he told the
correspondent the story already given of his levy of shoes
during the marches of the Gettysburg campaign.
Thus April passed, and with the drying up of the
roads — so important an element in every Virginia cam-
paign — the time was reached when marching orders for
the army might be expected at any hour. They came
on Tuesday, May 3; the Fifth Corps was to start at
midnight. Since it was important that the enemy should
get no hint of Grant's movement, the lighting of fires,
a favorite practice with soldiers breaking camp, was
strictly forbidden; three days' rations were to be car-
ried by each man, and fifty rounds of ammunition. Since
1 Hist, of 150th Pa., p. 205; 6th Wis., p. 245.
2 Unidentified newspaper clipping.
252 WADSWORTH OF GENESEO
it was already evening when the order reached Wads-
worth's head-quarters, the completion of his prepara-
tions gave occupation for every moment of his time.
And with him, as with many another soldier, one of the
last things to be done was the writing of the letters
which might be, and which indeed were, for those at
home the final word of farewell. Different in tone these
were from what he had written a year before at the be-
ginning of the Chancellorsville campaign, showing more
plainly how his thoughts dwelt upon the welfare of those
he loved, if perchance he should fall. That to his wife
was a true soldier's letter, reserved, yet charged with
feeling that showed the poles of his life to be home and
duty.
May 3rd., 9 p. if.
My Dear Wife: —
I have just received your most kind letter of
April 30th (Saturday). We have just received march-
ing orders to move at 12 tonight and all is bustle and
confusion. Still I withdraw my mind from the scene
and the duties of the hour a few moments, my dear wife,
to tell you that we are all well (Tick 1 is with me) and
in the best spirits. We feel sure of a victory. — I wish
I could tell you how much I love you and our dear
children, how anxious I am that all should go well with
you, that you will all live in affection and kindness, and
that none of our dear children will ever do anything to
tarnish the good name which we who are here hope to
maintain on the battlefield. — Write a kind letter to dear
Jimmie if he is not with you, with all the love and affec-
tion I can express. Kiss Nancy and Lizzie and believe
me, my dear wife, fondly and truly yours,
JAS. S. WADSWORTH.
The region of the Wilderness, 2 into and- through which
Grant was moving his army and which was destined
1 Craig was on the staff of Brigadier-General A. T. A. Torbert, command-
ing the First Division of the cavalry. He distinguished himself throughout
his service for gallant conduct in battle, particularly at Cold Harbor and
Trevylian Station, and was thrice brevetted, his final brevet being that of
colonel. - See map facing p. 260.
[Fac-simile of General James S. Wadsworth's last letter to his wife j
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