"Now I am very anxious to have you give me your views pro and con, and as to feasibilities. In the idleness of our camps, we the poor generals, discuss ad libitum, all these plans, inasmuch as General MCCLELLAN's policy is to exclude every one from his presence. At first there were a few generals admitted to see him (about the time of his reviews). Latterly there is nobody. Some generals, as HEINTZELMAN, &c., &c., have not seen him at all, except at these reviews, and the others almost not at all. This quality of reticence and secrecy are valuable qualities in a man like LOUIS NAPOLEON, or in one of genius-a quality other than mere talents-but I consider it most unfortunate in MCCLELLAN. Talents he has; genius he has not. The trifles in the army, which in results, swell to essentials from their utter mismanagement, prove that MCCLELLAN (even if from our great resources he succeeds) is at the antipodes of that genius, which, like the first NAPOLEON, could dispense, if he pleased, with all aid, since in the midst of a campaign, he could regulate the smallest supplies of a newly organizing regiment. So far * * * from your not being able to advise for large bodies of men, none that know you will disclaim it. If thero exists a preventive, it is that you take the world a little bit too much by force instead of receiving it in practical working order, such as human nature constitutes it. But I have not the slightest doubt, but that your friends will gradually be able to bring your utility more into notice."

Again, KEARNY wrote from Alexandria, on the 19th February,

1682:

"Saturday evening I received a telegraph notice of the serious illness of ARCHIE' (his idolized son). I took forty-eight hours' leave, arrived home Sunday at dawn, comforted AGNES, I believe witnessed a favorable change in the disease" (typhoid fever) "of my boy, and left on Monday at 11 P. M. Arrived yesterday in time to take my place, at 10 A. M. on the Board, I had been detailed to (clothing and uniform), and at night went to my brigade. * * "I have to thank you for four interesting letters, although not meeting fully my hopes. I had hoped that as to passing pieces in the mud that you would have been able to have remembered to have joined in your extensive reading positive facts as to what had been used.

"The printed matter you sent me was most interesting. You have a wonderful faculty of introducing and printing for the public, subjects that are

apropos.

"The notions are good; as to certain points; as to masking Manassas, it may have been originally yours, but it also belongs to General MCDOWELL and others.

It spoke for itself; the moment you could not force them. As to the idea of Albemarle Sound, I know that it was yours a long while since. I am quite ready to suppose, that you were treated thus * precisely because you had given to him, or others (his staff) ideas which struck him as

* *

feasible; that he intended to adopt them, (or they might have coincided with his actual plans,) and feared lest by an interview, he might betray the importance he attached to them; or it might truly be, that he is necessarily so overworked, that he could not find time to see you.

"There is so much indiscretion, even treachery, that McC

a rule to see few officers.

has made

'HEINTZELMAN and most of the generals never see him; I think that he is wrong, for much escapes him that ought to be done, and especially since he is an engineer; and since he has brought so many other engineers, and put them in high places, who are as ignorant as himself. I sometimes think, that C. F. SMITH, and GRANT, and BUELL will cut him out, although I am quite ready to believe that no person surpassed McC- —— as a man of great talents, as a mathematician and calculator. He is also a man of real courage, although I find in many occasions that he has been guilty of 'tatonnement.' But all allow that McC- is a superior man. I am sorry to say, that I think, that he wants first what General SCOTT excelled all military men in, his genius for command (the innate knowledge of handling men), and yet you are of the opinion that SCOTT was overrated.

"I refer you to the French School of Generals, where élan and tactical pow. ers of mind elevate the officer, and are regarded as procuring success far more than strategic subtlety. For myself, I know of no one short of NAPOLEON, in this century, that has equalled Scorr; and it is to be remembered that he led his men to the bayonet charge, at a period when all had been in the habit of running."

Before closing this chapter, a couple of paragraphs from the Address of CORTLANDT PARKER, Esq., are too apposite to be omitted—even although they embrace what may seem to be a repetition of ideas already presented-since they contain extracts from PHIL. KEARNY's letters, reflecting on passing events:

"And so the autumn of 1861 rolled on; KEARNY, and a few like him, impatiently longing for the order to advance; Ball's Bluff checking and delaying it, and carrying sorrow and almost dismay to the hearts of the Northern patriots; Dranesville, partially reassuring them, the victories south and west invigorating the resolution of the Nation; General MCCLELLAN bustling hither and thither, reputed busy and successful in organization; the Cabinet, the President and the Nation, waiting long, at first with full, then with scarce half confidence in the commanding General, for the moment when, with the advance of the Army of the Potomac, the haughty Confederacy should disappear.

"It was not long, however, before the lynx-like perception of General KEARNY saw the truth as to his commanding General, and he expressed it, not insubordinately, but confidentially, and with many cautious and generous

hopes that he might be mistaken. In October, 1861, he writes: 'I see a vacillation in his great objects, allowing small objects to intrude.' 'That General MCCLELLAN,' he writes, in February, 1862, 'has had full sway for his great specialité-talents of calculation and long-headedness- is most fortunate for him and the country. But the United States alone, of all countries, could have supplied by her wonderful virgin resources for a want of genius of command which would, early in September have decided, by timely fighting and maneuvering, what we were doing now by dead momentum. Fifty thousand more troops on the Potomac would have maneuvered the enemy, with sure success, out of Manassas in September last; England would not have insulted us; foreign powers not been doubtful of us; the greatness of the American name been more immediately vindicated, and the terrific expenses been saved by a speedy termination of the war.' March 4th, 1862, he speaks more decidedly: 'Although there is no one exactly to replace MCCLELLAN, I now proclaim distinctly that, unless a chief, a LINE officer not an engineer, of military prestige (success under fire with troops), is put in command of the Army of the Potomac (leaving MCCLELLAN the minor duties of General-in-Chief), we will come in for some awful disaster; the only person to take his place is General C. F. SMITH, in the Army of Kentucky.'

"Up to this time he and General MCCLELLAN had never clashed. These opinions were the result of his observation, and very much of his conviction that Ball's Bluff was really an advance from which MCCLELLAN shrunk back and threw the blame on General STONE unjustly-scared by the first disaster. Not long after he saw himself what he deemed evidence of the inferiority of MCCLELLAN'S genius, and thenceforward he was decided in his depreciation of him."

CHAPTER XIX.

THE SECOND ADVANCE TO MANASSAS.

"NEW JERSEY BLUES, the bold and true,

Though small the State, the men though few,

They prov'd, in eighteen sixty-two,

They'd deeds of seventy-six outdo;

New Jersey Blues, ye bold and true,

Were worthy KEARNY, KEARNY you!"

"Like all the troops from this State (New Jersey), their gallant conduct during the years that the command existed, rendered invaluable aid to the National cause." CAPT. BLAKE's "Three Years in the Army."

GLOSTER. "Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this son' of York."

"HOS EGO GLORIOSOS FECI TULIT ALTER HONORES."

RICHARD III.

VIRGIL.

"And now he writes * for his redress:
Sweet scrolls to fly about the streets of Rome !
What's this, but libelling against the Senate,
And blazoning our injustice everywhere ?"

TITUS ANDRONICUS.

It was a season admirably This is admitted by all the

THE fall of 1861 had been wasted. adapted to military movements. generals who testified before the Committee on the Conduct of the War. The winter also had drifted away in inaction. MCCLELLAN, "from his comfortable house in Washington, issued orders to all the military forces of our country," while, throughout, the rebels continued to flaunt their insulting ensigns within sight, not only of our camps, but almost of our Capital.

This they may be said to have blockaded (in the same degree that Sebastopol was besieged), since their batteries commanded the Potomac, and menaced any foraging parties sorties, in fact - which ventured beyond our lines. Even Drainsville, so highly honorable to our arms, had been a mere sporadic effort, altogether without results, except the glory acquired by the troops engaged. That which had made KEARNY most indig nant at the outset was the rebel occupation of Munson's Hill,* and a friend, in constant communication with him, recorded that, if his suggestions had been attended to, or his proposition had been accepted, the enemy would have been driven out at once, ignominiously, if not actually captured. As on so many other occasions, KEARNY's proposition to move out against them was made known to the rebels by some traitor within our lines almost as soon as it was suggested; and they availed themselves of this, so as to render the contemplated manœuvre as unnecessary as unadvisable.t

The spring at length arrived. The general-in-chief now talked of moving, in the worst season for military movements, after having wasted the best, since it is indisputable that, as a

CAMP SHERMAN," Washington, Sept. 27, 1861. "The rebel flag is now waving in sight of the President's house. I, myself, saw it, though unable to distinguish the colors. The place is Munson's Hill, three and a half or four miles from the city. Daily skirmishes take place in hearing of the city; even now I hear the report of musketry in the distance, and perhaps some good soldier has fallen in defense of his country, while I have been writing these three lines."—Soldier's Letter, by LYDIA MINTURN POST.

That we made no reconnoissances in force at this time is most astonishing, utterly inexplicable. GUROWSKI, in his Diary from March, 1861, to March, 1862, refers to this at page 157: "MCCLELLAN acts as if he had taken the oath to some hidden and veiled deity or combination, by all means not to ascertain any thing about the condition of the enemy. Any European, long ago would have pierced the veil by a strong reconnoissance on Centreville. Here 'All quiet on the Potomac.' And I hear Generals * * justifying this colossal offense against common sense, and against the rudiments of military tactics, and even science. Oh, noble, but awfully dealt with American people."

On the subject of reconnoissances the military reader is referred to "Theorie Generale des Reconnaissances Militaires, mise en Concordance avec le Reglement sur le Service des Armees en Campagne et deduite des Pratiques les plus usitees dans les Guerres Modernes; ouvrage compose pour S. A. R. le Duc de Brabant, et offert a ce Prince en manuscrit illustre; par VICTOR-SEVERIN SOBIESKI DE JANINA, Capitaine commandant la 5e batterie montee, au 2e Regiment d'Artillerie Belge, ex-premier Eleve de l'Ecole, d'application de Varsovie. Librarie Militaire, de J. DUMAINE (Ancienne Maison Anselin), Rue et Passage Dauphine, 30, Paris, France."