Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [247]
Mary was similarly distraught. She had named her second son, Edward, in honor of Edward Baker. Now both her child and his dear namesake were lost. Willie and Tad, who had likewise adored Baker, were heartbroken. For Willie, much like his father, writing provided some measure of solace. He composed a small poem, “On the Death of Colonel Edward Baker,” which was published in the National Republican. After two stanzas recalling Baker’s patriotic life and celebrated oratorical skills, he wrote:
No squeamish notions filled his breast,
The Union was his theme.
“No surrender and no compromise,”
His day thought and night’s dream.
His country has her part to play,
To’rds those he has left behind,
His widow and his children all,—
She must always keep in mind.
The child’s homage to a cherished friend reflected a depressingly common circumstance as the war left mounting casualties and desolation in its wake. Ten-year-old Willie’s words would be echoed in his father’s memorable plea in the Second Inaugural Address, when he urged the nation “to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan.”
McClellan straightaway denied responsibility for the defeat at Ball’s Bluff, characteristically insisting that the “disaster was caused by errors committed” by the leaders at the front. “The whole thing took place some 40 miles from here without my orders or knowledge,” he told his wife; “it was entirely unauthorized by me & I am in no manner responsible for it.” The person “directly to blame,” McClellan said, was Colonel Baker, who had exceeded General Stone’s orders by crossing the river. Rumors then began to spread that Stone himself would be court-martialed.
When frustrated congressional leaders, many of whom were longtime friends of Baker, decried the defeat at Ball’s Bluff and the general stagnation of the Union troops, the president defended McClellan. When these same leaders approached McClellan, he unleashed a diatribe against Scott, accusing him of placing obstacles at every step along his way. The congressional delegation left, vowing to remove Scott. “You may have heard from the papers etc of the small row that is going on just now between Genl Scott & myself,” McClellan wrote his wife, “in which the vox populi is coming out strongly on my side…. I hear that off[icer]s & men all declarethat they will fight under no one but ‘our George,’ as the scamps have taken it into their heads to call me.”
On November 1, Lincoln regretfully accepted the veteran’s request for retirement. The newspapers released General Scott’s resignation letter along with Lincoln’s heartfelt reply. The president extolled Scott’s “long and brilliant career,” stating that Americans would hear the news of his departure from active service “with sadness and deep emotion.” At the same time, Lincoln designated McClellan to succeed Scott as general-in-chief of the Union Army.
Two days later, his objective accomplished, McClellan confessed to conflicted emotions when he accompanied Scott to the railroad station for his departure from Washington. “I saw there the end of a long, active & ambitious life,” he wrote his wife, “the end of the career of the first soldier of his nation—& it was a feeble old man scarce able to walk—hardly any one there to see him off