When Pope's army was driven within the entrenchments of Washington,
General Banks was made military commander of the district. I was then
living in a house at the corner of G and Twenty-first Streets, which my
friend Mr. Hooper tendered me during the recess of Congress upon the
condition that I would retain, pay and maintain his servants. Among
them was his cook, Monaky, who had been cook for Mr. Webster. When
Fletcher Webster was killed, she was in great grief. I invited General
Banks to make his quarters with me, and I had thus some means of
knowing the condition of affairs in the army and around the district.
While he was with me, we called upon General Hooker at the asylum, the
Insane Hospital, on the east side of the east branch of the Potomac
River, to which place he had been sent to be treated for a wound in his
leg, which he had received at the Battle of Antietam. He was violent
in his denunciation of McClellan for not using his entire force, and
for not following the enemy--claiming that the whole body might have
been destroyed. Barring his violence of language, and the impropriety
of criticising his commander, there can be no doubt of the justice of
what he said. McClellan retained upon the left bank of the Antietam,
a body of men whose participation in the battle at the opportune moment
would have changed a qualified victory into a rout of the enemy.
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