"creed of creeds, The loveliness of perfect deeds." I would not seek to disclose the future to which God has consigned him in the mysterious order of his providence; but such virtue as his cannot die. It begins to live most in death. Of it may be said, as the laureate of England sang, that transplanted human worth will bloom, to profit, otherwhere. The distinguished gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. CRITTENDEN] has alluded to the fact that the mind of DOUGLAS expanded with his public service. It has been my own humble observation that he was one among the few public men who grew in moral height with mental breadth. Year after year inspired him with more of reverence and charity; while his "psalm of life" found expression in daily duty done. He never shrank from the dust and heat of active life. He most desired to live when dangers were gathering thickest. He would not ask from us to-day tears and plaints, but words which bear the spirit of great deeds, "tremendous and stupendous" efforts to save the Government he loved so well. We may toll the slow bell for his noble spirit; we may crape the arm in token of our woe; we may, while we think of the meannesses of our politics and the distractions of our country, congratulate him that he is wrapped in his shroud, forever safe in the memory of the just: but if we would worthily honor him, let us moderate the heats of party strife; enlarge our view of national affairs; emulate his clear-eyed patriotism, which saw in no section his country, but loved all sections alike; and hold up his life, so fruitful in wisdom beyond his years, for the admiration of the old; and picture him for the imitation of the young as that "Divinely gifted man Whose life in low estate began; Who grasped the skirts of happy chance, Breasted the blows of circumstance, And made by force his merit known; And lived to clutch the golden keys, And shape the whisper of the throne; From But, sir, no language, either in prose or verse, can portray the greatness of his loss. His fame is printed in the hearts of the people. the Green Mountains of his native State to the white tops of the Pacific Sierras, while the heavens bend above our land to bless it, the rivers roll and the mountains stand to unite it, or the ceaseless interchange of traffic and thought goes on by sea and rail, by telegraph or post-the people of America, from whose midst, as a poor boy, by his own self-reliance, he sprung, will preserve in the Pantheon of their hearts, to an immortal memory, the name of STEPHEN ARNOLD Douglas. VI. CIVIL WAR. REPLY TO HON. MR. GURLEY-BULL RUN DEPICTED-CONGRESSMEN ON THE FIELD-EAGLES AND DOVES-WARRIORS AND MINISTERS-VINDICATION OF GEN. MCCLELLAN-CONGRESSIONAL WAR CRITICS-PERVERSION AND PROLONGATION OF THE WAR. Delivered in the House of Representatives, January 31, 1862. Mr. CHAIRMAN: I obtained the floor on yesterday to give a prompt answer to the elaborate attack made by my colleague [Mr. GURLEY] on General McClellan. I was not aware that my colleague had thus prepared himself, although it was bruited about that we were to have a dissertation on the conduct of this war which would annihilate its present managers. I wish that my colleague could plead the impulse of the moment for his speech; but I give more significance to his labored effort because it betokens a plan-one in which my colleague plays his role-to get rid of the gallant Major-General in whom repose the hopes and the confidence of the people. If his speech had been made by a Democrat, it would have been said that it was an attempt to aid secession; to cripple our credit at home and our honor abroad; to undermine the popular faith in the power of the Government to conquer peace and restore the Union. It would have deserved, according to the practice, a prison in a sea-bound castle. I do not understand, nor will I attempt to analyze, the motives of my colleague. If I were to judge of his intent by the effect of his speech, he would discourage the army in their efforts, and the people in their payment of taxes. His speech will aid the rebellion, not so much because it was spoken by him, as because it seems to be a part of a plan, outside and inside of this House, to beget distrust and sow discord. I do not know, sir, how much weight will be attributed to my colleague's military strictures. If his facts are no better than his conclusions-and I will demonstrate that neither are correct-his speech will only go for what it is worth-the scolding of an unmilitary Congressman. My colleague began with the cry that generals are nothing; that if any general was incompetent, to take him away. He read from the Richmond "Dispatch" to show the errors which our generals had committed. The article read was so full of slan der and falsehood that he himself corrected a part of it. He charged the Commander-in-Chief with causelessly holding back our eager soldiers for months. He charged him with denying to them the victory which was in their reach. He said that no man living was fit to command over three hundred thousand. Mr. GURLEY. I said six hundred thousand. Mr. Cox. I have read the gentleman's speech in the "Globe," and I am right. He further said that it was not only anti-republican and unwise, but alarming to the last degree. He found fault with the General's planas he claimed to know it-to attack the enemy's whole line at once at all points. He said this was unwise because it was impossible. He did not approve of the General's "nice and precise adjustment of military affairs' before the army moved. He wanted the army to overwhelm the enemy without waiting for orders from Washington City. He then undertook, by a statement of facts as to the affairs at Romney, in Missouri, and Kentucky, to depreciate the character of the Commander-in-Chief. He demanded that the army should move at all hazards, unrestrained by a single hand. He thought he saw in the accession of Mr. Stanton a streak of sunlight, for he (Mr. Stanton) was like brave BEN WADE, of Ohio. He thought, if we did not move soon, our reputation as a military people would about equal that of the Chinese; and then my colleague wound up his speech by the figure of the anaconda, in which he tried to be humorous at the expense of General Scott, who originated the trope; and finally he was for stirring up the anaconda, even though, like the snakes from Tenedos in Virgil, it wound its coils around the most sacred of our hopes to crush them forever. This is the analysis of my colleague's speech. On the very eve, sir, of the most important movements, and when, too, our army in one section has already given earnest in carrying out successfully one part of General McClellan's scheme, we have this most inopportune display of impatience. I would rather have heard it from any other than an Ohio member. Ohio gave McClellan his first commission. I remember to have seen him when he came with alacrity to her capital to accept this mark of our Governor's trust. How well he repaid the confidence, Western Virginia can answer; and if all his plans there had been carried out by subordinates with a vigor equal to their wisdom, we would have had less trouble and more glory in that campaign. As to the advent of the new Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, whom my colleague hails as a "streak of light" in the gloom, I do not believe that he will delight in any such hailing, coupled with such railing at his friend, the General. It is too much like the "All hail!" of the witches to Macbeth. [Laughter.] There lurks a sinister object in this congratulation. It was intended as a depreciation of McClellan; as if the errors and incompetency of the late Secretary of War ought to be shared by the General. I, sir, as much and more sincerely than my colleague, welcome the new Secretary. But my colleague would hurry the army into a movement now "at all hazards," because foreign nations may soon interfere. I do not understand this logic. He would have us risk every thing for fear of trouble from abroad. We may have foreign war; but this nation should not hazard its own existence from a servile fear of England or France. If he had been a Democrat, he would not have been so 66 fearful of every movement abroad. Choate said he loved the old Democracy because they had a gay and festive defiance of foreign dictation." Mr. GURLEY. That is the party of which I was a member. Mr. Cox. Then my colleague has been a renegade to his ancient faith. I am sorry for it. We would be unworthy of our fathers and of our land did we fire our own house over our heads because we may fear that a neighbor will come some night to despoil it. My colleague objects to the organization of an army with one head. He wants a many-headed arrangement, with, I suppose, distracting counsels. Utterly unconscious of the absolute necessity of unity of movement by our armies, under one direction, my colleague, to strike at General McClellan, would change the military system which has obtained from the time war began or armies were levied. My colleague has a military wisdom beyond all human comprehension. Because our army is large we must, on this logic, dispense with its proper organization. There is the more need of one executive head to so vast an array as this army of half a million. My colleague, in this attack upon the general in command, meant to attack also the President, or he meant nothing. He knew that the President was General McClellan's superior officer; that all that McClellan had done or had not done was approved by the President. He was, however, gracious enough to say that the President would not set up his opinion in military matters in antagonism to his general-in-chief; and he would, no doubt, for this, commend the good sense of Mr. Lincoln, as I do. But if the President in thus acting was sensible, what sort of sense is it for a member of Congress, whose life has been passed, too, in thumping the pulpit desk [laughter], and whose thoughts have been less upon the eagle and more upon the dove, to set up his opinion against that of the general in command? If it were not bad sense, it would be nonsense. Why did not my colleague, if his motive was good, go to the President, and with his array of maps, telegraphs, deeds of omission and commission, lay before the President his military conceptions? Why does he have them delivered here, before the nation? Was it to display his military erudition? Or was it to gratify what he thinks was the popular prejudice and impatience, to which he would administer, regardless of consequences? Why did he not go to General McClellan and verify his facts before he used them for the public disservice? Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman had been a skilful commander, or had, like the gentleman from New York [Mr. ROSCOE CONKLING], the humane motive for investigating the confessed blunder at Ball's Bluff, in which many brave men were lost, I could tolerate this mischievous line of debate. But, sir, my colleague compels me to examine into his merits as a military critic particularly, and the propriety of military "movements" here in Congress and elsewhere by civilians. My colleague will admit that he is not a military man by education, nor a soldier, like Falstaff, on instinct. [Laughter.] His profession was that of a gospeller. [Laughter.] His studies do not fit him to discuss martial subjects. We do not go to a blacksmith to have our watch repaired, nor to a watchmaker to have our horse shod. We do not go to Carolina for cheese [laughter], nor to the Western Reserve for cotton. I can well imagine how a fine scholar, as is my colleague, might, like Beaumont's "Elder Brother," sit in his study, mount upon the wings of speculation, and But, sir, criticism on the art of war, to be valuable now, must be backed by specific study and experience. What has been the study and experience of my colleague? The country was thoroughly disgusted with the part Congressmen played at Bull Run. [Laughter in the galleries.] It may be remembered with what jocund levity the House adjourned to go over to see our army march upon Richmond. Not one of us ever got there, except my friend from New York [Mr. ELY] [laughter], who made his exile so conspicuously honorable in the use he made of it in behalf of his fellowprisoners. The House may remember that I opposed the adjournment then on the ground that, by going over the river, we would only get in the way of the soldiers. It turned out that the soldiers got in the way of the Congressmen. [Laughter.] I have a letter, written by a member of this House, and published in an Ohio paper, which details, with graphic accuracy, the part displayed by truculent Congressmen on that day. I will have it read at the Clerk's table. The Clerk read as follows: "Just as the dragoons turned back, a cry was raised that the Black Horse, a formidable body of the rebel cavalry (and these were part of them), were charging upon us, and it seemed as if the very devil of panic and cowardice seized every mortal soldier, officer, citizen, and teamster. No officer tried to rally the soldiers, or do any thing, except to spring and run toward Centreville. There never was any thing like it for causeless, sheer, absolute, absurd cowardice, or rather panic, on this miserable earth before. "Off they went, one and all; off down the highway, over across fields toward the woods, anywhere, everywhere, to escape. Whether it communicated back to the soldiers still in the woods, and so on back to the regiments who had just driven off the rebels, I do not know, but think it did to a part of them, for a share of our army seems to have been demoralized, if not broken up. "Well, the further they ran the more frightened they grew, and although we moved on as rapidly as we could, the fugitives passed us by scores. To enable them better to run, they threw away their blankets, knapsacks, canteens, and finally muskets, cartridgeboxes, and every thing else. "We called to them, tried to tell them there was no danger, called them to stop, implored them to stand. We called them cowards, denounced them in the most offensive terms, put out our heavy revolvers, and threatened to shoot them, but all in vain; a cruel, crazy, mad, hopeless panic possessed them, and communicated to everybody about in front and rear. "The heat was awful, although now about six; the men were exhausted-their mouths gaped, their lips cracked and blackened with the powder of the cartridges they had bitten off in the battle, their eyes starting in frenzy; no mortal ever saw such a mass of ghastly wretches. "As we came on, borne along with the mass, unable to go ahead or pause, or draw out of it, with the street blocked with flying baggage wagons, before and behind, thundering and crashing on, we were every moment exposed to imminent danger of being upset, or crushed, or of breaking down; and for the first time on this strange day I felt a little |