As to the troops, more baseless slander was
never uttered. Their march had been orderly. No wilful injury had
been done to private property, and no case of personal violence to
any non-combatant, man or woman, had been even charged. Yet the
printing of such communications in widely read journals was likely
to be as damaging as if it all were true. My nomination as
Brigadier-General of U. S. Volunteers was then before the Senate for
confirmation, and "the pen" would probably have proved "mightier
than the sword" but for McClellan's knowledge of the nature of the
task we had accomplished, as he was then in the flood-tide of power
at Washington, and expressed his satisfaction at the performance of
our part of the campaign which he had planned. By good fortune also,
the injurious letters were printed at the same time with the
telegraphic news of our occupation of Gauley Bridge and the retreat
of the enemy out of the valley. [Footnote: As one of these
correspondents became a writer of history, it is made proper to say
that he was Mr. William Swinton, of whom General Grant has occasion
to speak in his "Personal Memoirs" (vol. ii. p. 144), and whose
facility in changing his point of view in historical writing was
shown in his "McClellan's Military Career Reviewed and Exposed,"
which was published in 1864 by the Union Congressional Committee
(first appearing in the "New York Times" of February, March, and
April of that year), when compared with his "History of the Army of
the Potomac" which appeared two years later.
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