Karl Marx

American Affairs

Written about February 26, 1862.

["Die Presse" No. 61, March 3, 1862]

President Lincoln never ventures a step forward until the conjuncture of circumstances and the general call of public opinion forbid any further hesitation. But once "Old Abe" has convinced himself that such a turning-point has arrived, he surprises friend and foe alike by a sudden operation, carried out as noiselessly as possible. Thus, in recent times, in the most unassuming manner, he has carried out a coup which might have cost him the presidential chair six months ago, and would have provoked a storm of debates only a few months back. We refer to the

removal of McClellan

from his post as Commander-in-Chief [Oberbefehlshaber] of all the Union armies. Lincoln first replaced the Secretary of War Cameron with an energetic and ruthless lawyer, Mr. Edwin Stanton. Stanton then issued an order of the day to Generals Buell, Halleck, Butler, Sherman and other commanders of entire departments or leaders of expeditions, informing them that in future they were to receive all orders, public and private, directly from the War Department, and, on the other hand, to report directly to the War Department. Finally, Lincoln issued several orders which he signed with the attribute constitutionally vested in him, "Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy" [Oberbefehlshaber der Armee und Flotte]. In this "quiet" way, "the young Napoleon" was deprived of his previous supreme command over all the armies and restricted to the command of the Army of the Potomac, although the title "Commander-in-Chief" was left to him. The successes in Kentucky, Tennessee and on the Atlantic coast have auspiciously inaugurated President Lincoln's assumption of the supreme command.

The post of Commander-in-Chief, which McClellan had held up to now, was bequeathed to the United States by England and corresponds roughly to the dignity of a Grand Constable in the old French army. During the Crimean War, even England discovered the inexpediency of this antiquated institution. A compromise was therefore made, by which part of the former attributes of the Commander-in-Chief were transferred to the War Department.

To assess McClellan's Fabian tactics on the Potomac, the requisite material is still lacking. That his influence, however, acted like a brake on the general conduct of the war admits of no doubt. Of McClellan one can say what Macaulay says of Essex:

"The military errors of Essex arose largely from political scrupulousness. He was honest, but by no means warmly attached to the cause of Parliament, and next to a great defeat he feared nothing so much as a great victory."

McClellan, like most of the officers educated at West Point and belonging to the regular army, are more or less linked by esprit de corps [Korpsgeist] with their old comrades in the enemy camp. They are animated by the same jealousy of the parvenus among the "civilian soldiers". The war, in their view, must be conducted in a purely businesslike manner, with constant regard for the restoration of the Union on its old basis, and therefore above all be kept free from principled and revolutionary tendencies. A fine conception of a war that is essentially a war of principles! The first generals of the English Parliament fell into the same error.

"But," says Cromwell in his address to the Rump Parliament of 4 July 1653, "how everything changed as soon as men came to the fore who professed a principle of godliness and religion [ein Prinzip der Frömmigkeit und der Religion]!"

The Washington "Star", McClellan's special organ, still declares in one of its latest issues: "The object of all General McClellan's military combinations is the restoration of the Union exactly as it existed before the outbreak of the rebellion."

No wonder, then, if on the Potomac, under the eyes of the supreme general, the army was trained to slave-catching! Only recently McClellan, by special order, expelled the Kutchinson family of musicians from the camp because they sang anti-slavery songs.

Apart from such "anti-tendential" demonstrations, McClellan extended his saving shield over the traitors in the Union army. For instance, he promoted Maynard to a higher post, although Maynard, as the papers published by the House of Representatives' investigating committee show, acted as an agent of the secessionists. From General Patterson, whose treachery decided the defeat at Manassas, to General Stone, who accomplished the defeat at Ball's Bluff in direct understanding with the enemy, McClellan knew how to withdraw every military traitor from courts-martial, and in most cases from dismissal as well. The investigating committee of Congress has revealed the most startling facts in this respect. Lincoln resolved to prove by a vigorous step that with his assumption of the supreme command the hour had struck for the epauletted traitors and a turn had taken place in the war policy. On his order, General Stone was arrested on 10 February at 2 o'clock in the morning in his bed and transported to Fort Lafayette. A few hours later the arrest warrant appeared, signed by Stanton, setting forth the charge of high treason, upon which a court-martial will pass judgment. The arrest of Stone and his committal for trial took place without previous notification to General McClellan.

McClellan was evidently resolved, as long as he himself remained inactive and wore mere advance laurels, to allow no other general to forestall him. Generals Halleck and Pope had resolved on a combined movement to compel General Price, who had once already been saved from Frémont through intervention from Washington, to give decisive battle. A telegram from McClellan forbade them to deliver the blow. General Halleck was "countermanded" by a similar telegram from the capture of Fort Columbus at a time when that fort was half under water. McClellan had expressly forbidden the generals in the West to correspond with each other. Each of them had to turn to Washington as soon as a combined movement was intended. President Lincoln has now restored to them the necessary freedom of action.

How advantageous McClellan's general war policy was to the secession is best proved by the panegyric which the "New-York Herald" continually lavishes upon him. He is the hero after the heart of the "Herald". The notorious Bennett, owner and chief editor of the "Herald", had previously dominated the administrations of Pierce and Buchanan through his "special representatives", alias correspondents, in Washington.

Under Lincoln's administration he sought to regain the same power by a detour, his "special representative", Dr. Ives, a man of the South and brother of an officer who had gone over to the Confederacy, insinuating himself into McClellan's favour. Great liberties must have been permitted to this Ives under McClellan's patronage at the time when Cameron was at the head of the War Department. He evidently expected Stanton to grant him the same privileges, and accordingly appeared on 8 February in the War Office, where the Secretary of War, his chief secretary and some members of Congress were just deliberating on war measures. He was shown the door. He reared up on his hind legs and finally beat a retreat, threatening that the "Herald" would open fire on the present War Department if it should withdraw his "special privilege" of being entrusted, in the War Department, especially with the cabinet consultations, telegrams, public communications and war news. On the next morning, 9 February, Dr. Ives had assembled McClellan's entire general staff for a champagne breakfast at his quarters. But misfortune moves swiftly. A non-commissioned officer with six men entered, seized the mighty Ives and took him to Fort Mac Henry, where, as the order of the Secretary of War expressly states, he is to be held "as a spy under strict guard".