THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
crying out the numbers of regiments at the top of their voices—and the men belonging to those regiments struggled out of the column with many kicks and curses, to be directed to their colors. It required many hours thus to disentangle the confused mass, and then to give the sorely jaded troops a short rest.
The next day, about the dusk of evening, my command reached the spot within the circle of entrenchments surrounding Washington, where it was to go into camp. Riding at the head of my column, I met on the road an officer in general's uniform, attended, if I remember rightly, by only one aide-de-camp and one orderly. Although I had never before seen him, I recognized General McClellan. I observed with some surprise how trim and natty he looked in his uniform. Even the yellow sash around his waist was not wanting. There was a strange contrast between him and our weather-beaten, ragged, and grimy officers and soldiers. In a pleasant voice he asked me to what corps I belonged and what troops I commanded, and then directed me to my camping place. And thus ended my part in the campaign of the “Army of Virginia.”
It is hard to describe the distress of mind which oppressed me when, in the comparative quiet of camp life, I thought over the calamity that had befallen us. How long would the people of the North endure such an accumulation of disappointments without any flagging of spirits? How long would the secretly hostile powers of Europe watch our repeated disasters without concluding that they could recognize the Southern Confederacy and interfere against us with impunity? The end of the war seemed further off than ever, and the prospects of its vicissitudes darker. The only consolation I could find was in the thought that the patriotic spirit of the North would not, after all, give way, and that the longer the war lasted, the more certainly it would bring about the utter destruction of slavery.
[ 379 ]
