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MCCLELLAN AND KEY.'Was Their Intimacy Chargeable withthe Former’s Failures?Did Key by Insidious Flattery Contribute*to His General’s Failure?Analysis of the Relations Existing Between McClellan and the Government.Some Interesting Extracts lrom Donn Piatt's New War History. jSpecial to the Commercial Gazette.Washington, March 10.—A portion of theadvance sheets of Colonel Donn Piatt’s forthcoming military history have been received here. They show clearly that the book is certain to make a sensation. The appendix contains a review of McClellan’s ’‘True Story.” One portion of this will be read with great interest by the many Western acquaintances of Judge Thomas M. Key. McClellan's Judge Advocate General. This chapter is as follows:“McClellan would have been continued in command had he confined himself to his military duties. But he had an evil genius unknown to himself and unknown to both friends and enemies.“At Cincinnati, shortly after being called from civil life to the camp, McClellan selected the Hon. Stanley Matthews, then of the Superior Court of Cincinnati, now a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, to serve on his staff as Judge Advocate.Wnen this became known, and before Judge Matthews had accepted the place. Judge Thomas M. Key approached the newly-selected Judge Advocate with a request that he would decline in his iavor. Judge Matthews complied and Key was thus brought in personal contact witU the man he was to dominate. ■ • v ''V.: ' p. v1'“liow strange^ human events seem to turn on trifles. Had Judge Matthews refused to give way, McClellan would not have been saved the terrible defeats on tbe Chickahominy, but like all the others, save Thomas and Kosecrans, he would have been permitted to learn the art of war through defeat, instead of boing summarily dismissed for having tried the r61e of political oracle and dictator to the Administration. A native of Kentucky, Thomas M. Key, wasimbued from birtb with the peculiar traits of the South; but while impulsive in his ways, differed from his associates in being a student. To his naturally great ability, he added wide and varied stores of knowledge. Called to the Superior Court of' Cincinnati at an early age for such position, he won the respect of the Bar by the dignity of his bearing, his singular legal acumen and the courage of his decisions. He procured position on McClellan’s stuff, and not ouly won the confidence of his General, but, from an eccentricity of genius, sougnt to lose himself in the man. He seemed satisfied in this self-immolation, through the sense of power it gave and the strong assertion of tbe peculiar views with which theconfidential aid was penetrated.Geueral McClellan was a Democrat because he was a West Pointer. That little school on the Hudson was, as I have said elsewhere, more of a social than a military allair. As we copied the organization of our army from the English, whose born aristocracy furnished officers, we sought to make an aristocracy through a school, where the cadet-should graduate into a command and with a great gulf fixed between himself and the private soldier. As the south, before the late war, furnished us with our social aristocracy, and as the South was Democratic, the officer gravitated into that political condition. Of the traditions, teachings and principles of the Democratic party McClellan knew as little as any otner West Point graduate. ' j. ;.“A brilliant conversationalist, Key was at the same time a churming companion, two qualities seldom found in the same person. The suggestive mind given to expression in talk is apt to bore the listener with a persistency of views that either weary or ,of-feud. Key had the subtile flattery of a listening face. He practiced this on McClellan’, not because of McClellan’s superior rank, for at that time he was ouly a militia General, having been selected by the Governor of Ohio to organize the State volunteers. It was the practice of Key’s life to listen much and talk little. He felt the truth of the saying, attributed to Mirabeau, that to succeed in life one must be content to learn from those who know less on a given subject than tbe listener. Key soon possessed and controlled McClellan without the soldiers being aware of bis lost idientity. He died in this ignorance, and tbe man speaking through him, and who proved his ruin, was as unknown to his viotim as he is totfia world. i r t fJ“McClellan became a Key Democrat, and it was a strange mixture of abolitionism, -States rights, patriotism and a love of the South. Key wanted the Southern armies defeated and the States recognized as they were before the v/ar. He sought to free the slaves and compensate the masters. He upheld the Government, but despised Lincoln, Stanton and Seward; in a word, he bad a deep-seated contempt for the Administration. L- r“1 am giving from letters and memory the peculiar opinions of Key, and the reader can verify them byexamining 'McClellan’*! Own Story.’ He can find them, more especially, condensed in that extraordinary letter which the defeated General gave with hisown hand to the President at Harrison’s Bar. One reads of that incident and studies that letter with amazement, not uumingled with amusement. That a man of McClellan’s caliber should take upon himself the task of teaching Abraham Lincoln political duties fills one with a sense of the ludicrous, and laughter is ouly restrained by the gravity of the assumption ./The General, coming forth from fields of defeat, takes on himself ail the duties of the Government which he batto grievously embarrassed! This has but hue parallel in tbe history of the war, and that occurred when General Sherman, the hero of disaster, uudertook to settle all the complicated terms of reconstruction in accepting the surrender ofJohnson’s ajmy. ' j- i'“The press of the United States, always silly when excited, made McClellan a great man in the eyes of bis army. It was Kev, aided by McClellan’s military household, that supplemented this with a contempt and hatred for the Administration. The soldierswore taught to regard the authorities at Washingtonothing other than a nest of abolitionists, that bad abandoned them to disease and death upon the James: willing to consign them to destruction, that their beloved leader might be removed. Small wonder that these poor fellows scowled at President Lincoln, ana could scarcely be restrained from open insult, while they cheered to the echo their General, as tie dashed aloHg their ranks, physically a superb specimen of epauletled greatness.“Matters grew serious in this direction. Tbe reader who doubts has ouly to turn to ‘McClellan’s Jwn Story,’ and be will find every page bristling with assertions and assumptions in the way I indicate. Key himself grew alarmed. He told me, long ifter those days, that, while on the James, he and McClellan were riding in from a visit to i distant camp, where the soldiers, breaking ranks, had crowded about him filling ;he air with cheers, when, after a long silence, McClellan said: ‘How these brave fellows love me, ind what a power that love places in my hands! What is there to prevent my taking the Government inmy own hands?’ , j•’•Key was startled, and hastened to say, ‘General, don’t mistake those men. So long as you lead them igainst the enemy, they will adore and die for you; but attempt to turn them against their Government,ind you will be the first to suffer.’. ]“The answer irritated McClellan. He replied with his spurs, urging his horse into a gallop, and leaving Key, with his inferior mount, to follow as he might. Boih Key and the Government were unnecessarily alarmed. Crimes classify themselves not only by the inclination, but the ability of the criminals. A ueak thief is not a burglar, nor is a burglar intuitively a murderer. McClellan was not the sort of man to endanger the Government by treason, lor he uame near wrecking it through the very weakness that saved him from being a Catiline.“Kev was bis evil genius. He shut him out from the school of Ueueralship based on defeat, that in the end would probably have won him success. Looking back, it is astonishing to note the amount of important work accomplished by the man so unknown to history. All the time McClellan was organizing about Washington, Key was busy bringing ibout tne abolition of slavery in the District of Co-umbia. It seeius strange now that there shouldlave been any difficulty. But the Kepublicau party ivas new and exceedingly timid. It could enact a prohibitory tariff- and so offend all Europe, but it lare not free one slave, for fear of angering the democrats. The man who subsequently took to bim-self the credit ot accomplishing thisjmeasure^-Sena-or Wilson, of Massachusetts—was Its most bitter opponent. He gave way at the last moment, when the iuccess of the move was assured, and then, hurrying0 the front, led the majority, and claimed all the regard. , i“The work of making McClellan a political oracle vas overdoue. The Government at Washington took he alarm. As I have said, it was an unnecessary)»nic. The only officials who remained calui were Lincoln and Seward. The first did so because he \%d taken the measure of the young Napoleon, and be other for that he understood the elements at vork. and knew that, as Key had said, the volunteers :ould not be used against the Government they had snlisted to preserve. They represented the Ameri-tun people: and while the American people may uccumb, hopelessly, to an incorporated monopoly. r the con tin nation of such, they will never tolerate1 military dictator. McClellan was doomed. The treat characters at the Capital, called by a wise Provi-ience to the control of our Government, when that iovernmerit trembled on the verge of ruin, used Mc-.’lellan so far as he could be made useful and then luietly set him aside. The man who honestly sought o make him great made him a failure. ‘McClellan’s iwn Story’ should tell this; but the name of his evil tenius seldom appears.and when it does it is as that of m orderly. This obscurity suited Key. Had Ins :bief been’a great success, this shrinking from obser^ ration would have been the same. This was uot the esult of a morbid eonditiou. It seemed to be tbe lorrual and healthy nature of the man. When he eturned to Cincinnati to die from disease contracted m tne field of Antieum. be purchased a lot in SpringJrove Cemetery, and erected a monument upon vbich be would permit no inscription, not even his lame. Loving hatids have since supplied the necessary legend of birth and death, but in lieu thereof here should be inscribed upon the obelisk, ‘The 2vil Genius of George B. McClellan.’” h. v. b.:
Newspaper Details
Cincinnati Commercial Gazette
Cincinnati, Ohio, US
Fri, Mar 11, 1887
Page 5
Full Page
Clipped by
Library O.
MI, USA 07 Dec 2022
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