218 
. ENGELS TO MARX **° 

Manchester, 4 June 1862 

Dear Moor, 

I hope you got the Post Office Order for £2 I sent off last Friday 
on Kentish Town post orrice.? 

So, at last we learn from Anneke’s letter that on 26 April 
Halleck had rather more than 100,000 men and 300 cannon incl. 
Pope and Mitchel, and that he was awaiting the arrival of Curtis 
and Sigel with further reinforcements. Up till 29 April the state of 
the army appears to have been passable on the whole, nor does 
Anneke say anything about sickness. Hence, I consider the talk of 
sickness to be pure invention. Still, one is bound to admit that 
Stanton and Halleck have a way of making both press and public 
mistrustful; it should actually be easy enough to have one 
correspondent with each army who would write what the general 
tells him so that the public at any rate can get some sort of news. 

The big battle, then, will doubtless be fought as soon as Sigel 
and Curtis arrive. Spence’s estimate that 120,000 men are needed 
to keep the sorper states in order is ludicrous;” in Kentucky hardly 
a man would appear to be under arms (apart, perhaps, from the 
recruits at the training camp at Louisville, from whom Sigel’s 
corps. will doubtless be formed) and in Nashville, according to | 
Anneke, there are nothing but convalescents, etc.; otherwise, apart 
from Halleck’s and McClellan’s armies, the only ones. still 
remaining in the sorper stares are Frémont (who apparently has no 
army at all yet), Banks (who must be very short of men) and 
McDowell, though they all count as part of the regular army. 
However, Spence errs in the other direction, 1. at this moment the 
armies of the Feperats certainly do not amount to a total of 
500,000 men, 2. they have undoubtedly allocated more than 
90,000 to the coast. My rough estimate is as follows: 

On the coast 100,000 men 
Banks & Frémont 30,000 ” 

4 See this volume, p. 371. - > J. Spence’s letter to the Times editor of 2 June 1862, The 
Times, No. 24263, 4 June 1862. 

Sigel & Curtis 30,000 men 
McClellan 80,000 

At Washington 30,000 ” 
McDowell 30,000 ” 
Halleck 100,000 ” 

Hence a total of 400,000 men in the field, to which should be 
added approx. 60,000 recruits, convalescents and small detach- 
ments who are probably dispersed about Missouri, along each 
bank of the lower Ohio and Tennessee, and partly among the 
cities of the North-East; summa summarum 460,000 men. I am 
confirmed in this by the new draft of 50,000 men which will be 
followed very shortly by another of equal size; evidently, the 
intention is to maintain the army at its normal strength of 500,000 
men. 

It was a colossal blunder on Stanton’s part, and sheer 
boastfulness, to put a stop to recruiting. Materially, it has done a 
great deal of harm and was the cause of ail that waste of time at 
Corinth and Richmond; and morally the present revocation will do 
even more harm—aside from the fact that it will now be much 
more difficult to get recruits. It’s not as though there weren’t 
plenty of men available; as a result of immigration, the Northern 
States must have, in terms of total population, at least 3-4% more 
men aged between 20 and 35 than any other country. 

In other respects in his letters Monsieur Anneke appears to be 
the same grumpy old rautrrinver and knowall he always was, who 
judges the army, not in accordance with circumstances or even the 
enemy, but rather with the old, trained European armies and not 
even these as they are, but as they ought to be. The blockhead 
would do well to reflect on the confusion he himself must have 
experienced often enough during manoeuvres in Prussia. 

The .comedy in Berlin is getting very funny indeed. The 
ministry assures the Chamber of its liberalism and the Chamber 
assures the King of its royalism. Embrassez-vous et que cela finisse!*?’ 
In other respects, it is undoubtedly a sign of progress that people 
are getting so nicely and so rapidly embroiled in parliamentary 
intrigue; however, there'll be a conflict all right. Very fine, too, 
that nothing came of the whole Hesse-Cassel affair until the 
Elector* had personally insulted handsome William,” whereupon it 
really did come to nothing.** 

 Ludwig UI - > William I 

How is little Jenny getting on? 
Warm regards to your wife and the children. Eichhoff’s thing* 
returned herewith. 

Your