Beginning to Move

Four vignettes of the beginning of October

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As the weather changed in October 1861, the stagnation that had characterized summer around the nation's capital began to break up. At the end of September, the Confederates evacuated their advanced position at Munson's and Mason's Hills, and the picket war around Bailey's Crossroads and Falls Church died down. The Confederacy's Army of the Potomac, under General Joseph E. Johnston, was falling back to a stronger defensive position, in light of the conclusion that they would be unable to launch an offensive anytime soon.

For Maj. General George McClellan, commanding the Union's Army of the Potomac, it was a time when command of his army was coming together. For McClellan, though, the passing of the imminent threat of Confederate attack (not that he didn't still believe it might come, he just felt prepared for it) seems to have given him full time to worry about his personal battles. "I am becoming daily more disgusted with this administration," he wrote to Mary Ellen on October 2, "perfectly sick of it."

If I could with honor resign I would quit the whole concern tomorrow; but so long as I can be of any real use to the nation in its trouble I will make the sacrifice. No one seems able to comprehend my real feeling--that I have no ambitious feelings to gratify, & only want to serve my country in its trouble, & when this weary war is over to return to my wife...

Perfect Order and Excellent Spirits

In which Stuart and Stevens earn their stars.

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George McClellan, major general commanding the Army of the Potomac, had a great deal to crow about on September 11, but somehow it didn't work its way into his daily letter to his wife Mary Ellen. Instead, he groaned to her in boredom about his previous day visiting the Pennsylvania Reserves in Tenleytown. Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin had come down to see his pet unit and deliver regimental flags paid for by the state, since he hadn't had time to before with the rapidity of their mobilization. He also had delivered a stirring speech, not unexpected for the nation's most hawkish governor.

All our material wealth, and the life of every man in Pennsylvania, stands pledged to vindicate the right, to sustain the Government, and to restore the ascendency of law and order. You are here for that purpose, with no hope of acquisition or vengeance, nor from any desire to be enriched by the shedding of blood. God forbid! Our people are for peace. But if men lay violent hands on the sacred fabric of the Government, unjustly spill the blood of their bretheren, and tear the sacred constitution to pieces, Pennsylvania is for war--war to the death!

"It was long and fatiguing," was the extent of McClellan's assessment to Mary Ellen. The historian of the Pennsylvania Reserves didn't pick up on his disinterest, instead relating his generosity to Curtin, Reserves commander George McCall, President Lincoln, and Secretary of State William Seward. "At the close of the ceremonies the distinguished visitors repaired to General McCall's tent and partook of a bounteous collation, prepared for them by the commanding general."

McClellan did make sure to note for his wife "how the men brighten up now, when I go among them--I can see every eye glisten. Yesterday they nearly pulled me to pieces in one regt. You never heard such yelling. I did not think the Presdt liked it much." He also took time to respond to one of Mary Ellen's previous letters with shock that his friends Simon Bolivar Buckner and Gustavus W. Smith had joined the Confederate army.