McClellan's campaign.
We have not the smallest doubt that when the history of McClellan's late campaign shall come to be written truthfully, if that shall ever be done, it will turn out to have been one of the most disastrous that ever occurred. From a private source we obtain the following facts, which may serve, in some degree, to illustrate the prodigious losses which be sustained.A lady, whose residence was within his lines while he remained on James River, and who frequently saw him, writes to a friend in this city to the following effect. Gen. McClellan called to see her just before he James River, and opened the conversation thus.
‘"McC.--I wish you, madam, to answer a question I shall ask you candidly. Have you any objection?"’
‘"Lady.--I must hear the question first."’
‘"McC.--When does the sickly season commence in this part of the country?"’
"Lady.--I have lived here upwards of thirty years. I have always found the sickly season commence towards the last of August, and continue at ? throughout the month of September. We generally leave home about the first mentioned period, unless unavoidably detained.
"McC.--Then If I stay here until the first of October, I shall lose every man I have left. I have already last, from battle and disease, since I first set foot on the peninsula, 100,000 men! I have 40,000 left, and they are so worn down by sickness that if I were attacked I should be compelled to surrender. Why I have not been attacked, I cannot imagine.
The lady who writes this bears an high a character as any other in the State of Virginia; so high, Indeed, that it is impossible to doubt anything she says. Whether McC, told her the truth or not, it is impossible to know. But it is certain that she has what she heard him say. We can conceive of the motive he could have for exaggerating his losses to her. We therefore believe he told the truth, the more especially that all accounts from that part of the country to confirm his statement. The whole region to converted into a graveyard. The stench which loads the atmosphere for miles upon miles is perfectly overpowering. The magnificent estate of Westover, especially, is one huge Golgotha. Dead horses by the thousand strew the surface of the ground, and beneath is little else but the bodies of dead men. The whole estate was trenched up, or dug up in sinking wells. Many of these wells have been filled up with dead horses since the enemy left, and dirt thrown upon them.
Had Johnson lived in these days he might have added a magnificent chapter to his Vanity of Human Wishes? Charles XII, himself did not meet with a catastrophe better calculated to arouse the genius of the great moral post. A little more than five months ago, McC landed on the peninsula at the head of 158,000 men, equipped in a style surpassing that of any other modern army. He brought along with him a full regiment of flatterers and toad enters, to celebrate the deeds which it was supposed he was to perform. These men kept the en Northern press filled with his glory. The whole world was on tiptoe, expecting the destruction of the infant republic. The march began up the peninsula, and nations held their breath in suspense. At every step he issued proclamations full of sound and fury, boasting of himself and his deeds. At last he came in night of Richmond, the goal of all his hopes and all his aspiration. And what was the result? With a force reduced to half its original size, he was driven from his lines to a position on James river, where the remains of his army melted away by disease, until at last it dwindled down to a third of its original force, and forty thousand pale, fever stricken wretches, were all that were left to represent the ‘"Grand Army"’ of the Potomac. We have seldom read a score instructive history than his adventures make.
