Letter to Karl Marx, June 4, 1862

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 4 June 1862


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 3, Berlin, 1930
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 41


ENGELS TO MARX[1]

IN LONDON

Manchester, 4 June 1862

Dear Moor,

I hope you got the POST OFFICE ORDER for £2 I sent off last Friday on Kentish Town POST OFFICE.[2]

So, at last we learn from Anneke's letter that on 26 April Halleck had rather more than 100,000 men and 300 cannon incl. Pope and Mitchel, and that he was awaiting the arrival of Curtis and Sigel with further reinforcements. Up till 29 April the state of the army appears to have been passable on the whole, nor does Anneke say anything about sickness. Hence, I consider the talk of sickness to be pure invention. Still, one is bound to admit that Stanton and Halleck have a way of making both press and public mistrustful; it should actually be easy enough to have one correspondent with each army who would write what the general tells him so that the public at any rate can get some sort of news.

The big battle, then, will doubtless be fought as soon as Sigel and Curtis arrive. Spence's estimate that 120,000 men are needed to keep the BORDER STATES in order is ludicrous;[3] in Kentucky hardly a man would appear to be under arms (apart, perhaps, from the recruits at the training camp at Louisville, from whom Sigel's corps will doubtless be formed) and in Nashville, according to Anneke, there are nothing but convalescents, etc.; otherwise, apart from Halleck's and McClellan's armies, the only ones still remaining in the BORDER STATES are Fremont (who apparently has no army at all yet), Banks (who must be very short of men) and McDowell, though they all count as part of the regular army. However, Spence errs in the other direction, 1. at this moment the armies of the FEDERALS certainly do not amount to a total of 500,000 men, 2. they have undoubtedly allocated more than 90,000 to the coast. My rough estimate is as follows:

On the coast 100,000 men Banks & Fremont 30,000 " Sigel & Curtis 30,000 men McClellan 80,000 »* At Washington 30,000 »» McDowell 30,000 " Halleck 100,000 >»

Hence a total of 400,000 men in the field, to which should be added approx. 60,000 recruits, convalescents and small detachments who are probably dispersed about Missouri, along each bank of the lower Ohio and Tennessee, and partly among the cities of the North-East; summa summarum 460,000 men. I am confirmed in this by the new draft of 50,000 men which will be followed very shortly by another of equal size; evidently, the intention is to maintain the army at its normal strength of 500,000 men.

It was a colossal blunder on Stanton's part, and sheer boastfulness, to put a stop to recruiting. Materially, it has done a great deal of harm and was the cause of all that waste of time at Corinth and Richmond; and morally the present revocation will do even more harm—aside from the fact that it will now be much more difficult to get recruits. It's not as though there weren't plenty of men available; as a result of immigration, the Northern States must have, in terms of total population, at least 3-4% more men aged between 20 and 35 than any other country.

In other respects in his letters Monsieur Anneke appears to be the same grumpy old FAULTFINDER and knowall he always was, who judges the army, not in accordance with circumstances or even the enemy, but rather with the old, trained European armies and not even these as they are, but as they ought to be. The blockhead would do well to reflect on the confusion he himself must have experienced often enough during manoeuvres in Prussia.

The comedy in Berlin is getting very funny indeed. The ministry assures the Chamber of its liberalism and the Chamber assures the King of its royalism. Embrassez-vous et que cela finisse![4]

In other respects, it is undoubtedly a sign of progress that people are getting so nicely and so rapidly embroiled in parliamentary intrigue; however, there'll be a conflict all right. Very fine, too, that nothing came of the whole Hesse-Cassel affair until the Elector[5] had personally insulted handsome William,[6] whereupon it really did come to nothing.[7]

How is little Jenny getting on?

Warm regards to your wife and the children. Eichhoff's thing[8] returned herewith.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ An extract from this letter was first published in English in: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Civil War in the United States, New York, 1937
  2. ↑ See this volume, p. 371.
  3. ↑ J. Spence's letter to the Times editor of 2 June 1862, The Times, No. 24263, 4 June 1862.
  4. ↑ Embrassez-vous et que cela finisse! (Embrace and have done with it!) is an allusion to an episode in the French Revolution: on 7 July 1792 Lamourette, a deputy to the Legislative Assembly, proposed ending all political strife by a fraternal kiss. Following his appeal, members of antagonistic groupings embraced each other. However, as was to be expected, this artificial attempt at a reconciliation proved a failure. The 'fraternal kiss' was forgotten the next day.
    Engels uses the dictum ironically, in reference to the debates in the Prussian Chamber of Deputies, which was elected on 6 May 1862 (see Note 408) and first met on 19 May.
  5. ↑ Ludwig III
  6. ↑ William I
  7. ↑ The Hesse-Cassel affair—the long conflict in Hesse-Cassel (1850-62) between Elector Ludwig III's reactionary government and the Chamber of Deputies, which demanded the reintroduction of the moderate liberal Constitution of 1831. The liberal party was supported by Prussia, which feared a strengthening of Austria in the struggle for hegemony in Germany. However, Prussia's attempts to influence the Hesse-Cassel government with a view to having the Constitution reintroduced were foiled by Ludwig III. The Prussian General Willisen sent to Hesse-Cassel in May 1862 with a message from William I was given an insulting reception. The Constitution of 1831 was reintroduced at the end of June 1862, after Prussia had presented Ludwig III with an ultimatum and mobilised two army corps.
  8. ↑ See this volume, p. 369.