John A. McClernand to Edwin M. Stanton, November 10, 1862

Springfield, Ill., November 10, 1862.

Hon. KE. M. STANTON, Secretary of War:

I received your order on the 21st ultimo at Washington to proceed to Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa and take measures for the preparation of the Mississippi expedition.

Leaving Washington on the morning of the 22d I arrived at Indianapolis on the 23d, and on the same day had an interview with Governor Morton, who responded cordially to the project of the proposed expedition.

Leaving Indianapolis on the 24th I arrived at this place on the morning of the 25th, and immediately sought an interview with Governor Yates, who also responded with similar assurances.

As soon as the necessary dispatches could be prepared I immediately sent Major Scates, assistant adjutant-general, to Iowa, to see and confer with Governor Kirkwood, who also entered zealously into the project.

When I reached here the impendency of the late election in this State, and the interest felt in it by State officials, in some degree impeded my efforts to forward the troops remaining in the State.

I should also state in explanation of the tardiness attending eulistments that the scarcity of necessary labor caused by the very great number of troops sent from this State has hardly left any of the adult male population behind at liberty to leave their homes. Yet within the short space of sixteen days I have completed the organization, mustered, and forwarded from the different camps in Illinois six regiments of infantry and one six-gun battery to Columbus, Ky., and six regiments of infantry and one six-gun battery to Memphis, Tenn.

From Indiana I have forwarded five regiments of infantry, and from Iowa three, also to Columbus, Ky. In addition to these there is another regiment of infantry in Illinois now under marching orders, and three others in the same State will be mustered by the middle of the current week; and ten more in Jowa, as I am informed, are only lacking overcoats, which I hope soon to furnish. Besides these, probably by the 15th instant twelve or more regiments from Illinois and Iowa may

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be moved, making twenty regiments of infantry and two batteries gone and twelve nearly ready to go. Four other regiments of infantry, six of cavalry, and four companies of artillery are being enlisted in Illinois, and two other regiments of infantry in Iowa.

Although enlistments in Illinois are less tardy now than before the election, yet the probable delay that will attend the completion of the cavalry and artillery organizations has induced me to recommend to Governor Yates the consolidation of all such deficient organizations after the 20th instant, in order that such as may be completed by this process may be hastened to the field.

Passing from these details to a subject of a more prominent character, I wish to add that the avidity with which the Mississippi expedition is embraced by the people of the Northwest expose all who are charged with carrying it into effect to the consequences of popular fury if they should fail to do so. As for myself I hardly need reiterate the deep and absorbing interest I feel in the enterprise and my entire willingness to do all in my power to promote it. Yet if, from obstacles such as opposed you in the beginning or for other causes, the expedition has become an uncertainty or must be long delayed I trust you will cut my supposed connection with it and order me to other duty in the field at once. In the latter case my familiarity with the old troops of General Grant’s command and the country in which he is operating would decide me, if I might be allowed a discretion, to prefer duty with him.

The blockade of the Mississippi River has left to the people of the Northwest but one outlet for their immense surplus of grains and live stock, and that by the lakes and railroads alone, to the East. These channels are closed for the greater portion of the most favorable season for moving these articles to market, leaving the producers and traders at the discretion of exclusive monopolists.

By combinations or otherwise corporations controlling these outlets have raised freights to such high rates as either to stop shipments or sacrifice traders. This evil operates most oppressively upon the energies and enterprise of the people of the Northwest on the one hand and most advantageously to capitalists in the East owning those roads and the manufacturing establishments furnishing the various fabrics required for the use of the Army and Navy on the other. The latter in a pecuniary aspect are deeply interested in continuing it.

What is seen? A comparatively insignificant obstruction has served to continue the blockade of the Mississippi River now for five months, covering a space during which the products of its valley are usually borne upon its waters to market, and the period of the investment of Vicksburg by a strong flotilla of gunboats.

In view of these facts, and the great addition which has been made to our armies under the late calls for volunteers, and the present inertness of the Mississippi Flotilla, the people so deeply interested are illy disposed to receive any excuse for further delay in removing that obstacle. Indeed, any further delay must produce consequences which will seriously complicate our national troubles by adding another geographical question to the one which is now undergoing the arbitrament of arms.

Already are there those who are beginning to look beyond the pale of Federal authority for new guarantees for the freedom of the Mississippi River. The late election, in some instances, affords unmistakable indications of this fact. Not a few of the candidates preferred to office are represented to be opposed to the war and the policy that would continue it. Nor is this altogether surprising, since the earlier inhabitants of the Mississippi Valley, at one time despairing of the Government’s

willingness or ability to assert their right to a place for tl e deposit of their produce near the mouth of the Mississippi River, began to look with growing favor to the transferring of their allegiance to the Spanish Crown, then holding the outlet of that river.

I am conscious that if something is not soon done to reopen that great highway that a new party will spring into existence, which will favor the recognition of the independence of the so-called Confederate States, with the view to eventual arrangements, either by treaty or union, for the purpose of effecting that object.

The resentments of the people will be inflamed by demagogical appeals designed to array the people of the West against the people of the East upon the pretended ground that the latter are in favor of continuing the war and the blockade of the Mississippi, as a means of fostering the interest of their trade, their manufactures, and their capital invested in both. This sentiment is reprehensibly wrong; nay, criminal. Our first and highest duty under Heaven is to preserve the Union and the Government. This we must do; yet wise statesmen will not overlook the difficulties and dangers which surround them, but ‘ill avoid them by timely precautions.

In short, delay may bring another separation, and another separation will entail endless collisions, which, after wasting all the States, must sink them in anarchy and wretchedness, like that which drapes Mexico in misery and mourning.

Hence, in conclusion, let me appeal to you, and through you to the President, to do something, and that something quickly, to avert the rising storm, and insure a safe passage to our good and beloved Ship of State through the strait that now threatens her in the distance.

If I have spoken too freely, pardon my boldness. If I have said too much, charge it to an honest zeal for the welfare of my country, and forgive it.

Your obedient servant,

JOHN A. McCLERNAND,
Major-General, U. S. Volunteers.