but McClellan is not a
Napoleon, and has neither a suggestive nor an executive staff around
him. A Marcy to suggest a plan of a campaign or of a battle, to watch
over its execution!

I spoke to McDowell about the positions of Occoquan and Brentsville.
He answered that perhaps something similar will be under
consideration, and that McClellan must show his mettle and capacity. I
pity McDowell's confidence.

Besides, the American army as it was and is educated, nursed, brought
up by Gen. Scott,--the army has no idea what are the various and
complicated duties of a staff. No school of staff at West Point;
therefore the difficulty to find now genuine officers of the staff.
If McClellan ever moves this army, then the defectiveness of his staff
may occasion losses and even disasters. It will be worse with his
staff than it was at Jena with the Prussian staff, who were as
conceited as the small West Point clique here in Washington.

West Point instructs well in special branches, but does not
necessarily form generals and captains. The great American Revolution
was fought and made victorious by men not from any military schools,
and to whom were opposed commanders with as much military science as
there was possessed and current in Europe. Jackson, Taylor, and even
Scott, are not from the school.

I do not wish to judge or disparage the pupils from West Point, but I
am disgusted with the supercilious and ridiculous behavior of the
clique here, ready to form praetorians or anything else, and poisoning
around them the public opinion. Western generals are West Point
pupils, but I do not hear them make so much fuss, and so
contemptuously look down on the volunteers. These Western generals
pine not after regulars, but make use of such elements as they have
under hand. The best and most patriotic generals and officers here,
educated at West Point, are numerous. Unhappily a clique, composed of
a few fools and fops, overshadows the others.

McClellan's speciality is engineering. It is a speciality which does
not form captains and generals for the field,--at least such instances
are very rare. Of all Napoleon's marshals and eminent commanders,
Berthier alone was educated as engineer, and his speciality and high
capacity was that of a chief of the staff. Marescott or Todleben would
never claim to be captains. The intellectual powers of an engineer are
modeled, drilled, turned towards the defensive,--the engineer's brains
concentrate