He commanded the department of
Washington during the memorable siege I am describing.
As I have said before, my son, as soon as it was known that General
Wallace had been driven back on Baltimore in search of rations, and
General Early was close upon Washington, the government waked up to
the fact that the capital was in danger, and began to take measures
for its defense. Our good President, believing, in the honesty of
his heart, that his presence at the front would do good, took the
field. And the Secretary of War and the Chief of Staff went to
issuing orders that no one seemed to obey. Indeed, their orders only
increased the confusion that had already taken possession of
everything military. The regular officers in command of the troops
in the fortifications, and who knew the location and details of the
forts as well as the roads leading to them, were superseded by
strangers, ignorant of all these things, and even of what their
commands consisted.
Why this was, my son, I cannot explain. Perhaps the Secretary of War
will, when he gets his historian, at $2,500 a year, to write a
national history of the war.
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