On the day after the battle of Bull Run General George B. McClellan was summoned to Washington, where he arrived on July 26. On the 25th he had been assigned to the command of the army of the Potomac. By all the light which President Lincoln had at the time of making this appointment, it seemed the best that was possible; and in fact it was so, in view of the immediate sphere of usefulness of a commanding general in Virginia. McClellan was thirty-four years old, of vigorous physique and fine address. After his graduation at West Point, in 1846, he was attached to the Engineer Corps; he served through the Mexican war, and for merit received a captaincy. In 1855 he was sent by Jefferson Davis, then secretary of war, to Europe to study the organizing and handling of armies in active service; and he was for a while at the British headquarters during the siege of Sebastopol, observing their system in operation. In January, 1857, he resigned from the army; but with the first threatenings of the civil war he made ready to play an active part. April 23, 1861, he was appointed by the governor of Ohio a major-general, with command of all the state forces. May 13, by an order from the national government, he took command of the Department of the Ohio, in which shortly afterward Western Virginia was included. He found the sturdy mountaineers of this inaccessible region for the most part loyalists, but overawed by rebel troops, and toward the close of May, upon his own sole responsibility, he inaugurated a campaign for their relief. In this he had the good fortune to be entirely successful. By some small engagements he cleared the country of armed Secessionists and returned it to the Union; and in so doing he showed energy and good tactical ability. These achievements, which later in the war would have seemed inconsiderable, now led to confidence and promotion.

In his new and exalted position McClellan became commander of a great number of men, but not of a great army. The agglomeration of civilians, who had run away from Manassas under the impression that they had fought and lost a real battle, was utterly disorganized and demoralized. Some had already reached the sweet safety of the villages of the North; others were lounging in the streets of Washington and swelling the receipts of its numerous barrooms. The majority, it is true, were in camp across the Potomac, but in no condition to render service. All, having been enlisted for three months, now had only a trifling remnant of so-called military life before them, in which it seemed to many hardly worth while to run risks. The new call for volunteers for three years had just gone forth, and though troops began to arrive under it with surprising promptitude and many three months' men reënlisted, yet a long time had to elapse before the new levies were all on hand. Thus betwixt departing and coming hosts McClellan's duty was not to use an army, but to create one.

The task looked immeasurable, but there was a fortunate fitness for it upon both sides. The men who in this awful crisis were answering the summons of President Lincoln constituted a raw material of a kind such as never poured into any camp save possibly into that of Cromwell. For the most part they were courageous, intelligent, self-respecting citizens, who were under the noble compulsion of conscience and patriotism in leaving reputable and prosperous callings for a military career. The moral, mental, and physical average of such a body of men was a long way above that of professional armies, and insured readiness in acquiring their new calling. But admirable as were the latent possibilities, and apt as each individual might be, these multitudes arrived wholly uninstructed; few had even so much as seen a real soldier; none had any notion at all of what military discipline was, or how to handle arms, or to manoeuvre, or to take care of their health. Nor could they easily get instruction in these things, for officers knew no more than privates; indeed, for that matter, one of the great difficulties at first encountered lay in the large proportion of utterly unfit men who had succeeded in getting commissions, and who had to be toilfully eliminated.

That the formation of this great complex machine was indispensable, and that it would take much time, were facts which the disaster at Bull Run had compelled both the administration and the people to appreciate moderately well. Accordingly they resolutely set themselves to be patient. The cry of "On to Richmond!" no longer sounded through the land, and the restraint imposed by the excited masses upon their own ardor was the strongest evidence of their profound earnestness. In a steady stream they poured men and material into the camps in Virginia, and they heard with satisfaction of the advance of the levies in discipline and soldierly efficiency. For a while the scene was pleasant and without danger. "It was," says Arnold, describing that of which he had been an eye-witness, "the era of brilliant reviews and magnificent military displays, of parades, festive parties, and junketings." Members of Congress found excursions to the camps attractive for themselves and their visitors. Glancing arms, new uniforms, drill, and music constituted a fine show. Thus the rest of the summer passed away, and autumn came and was passing, too. Then here and there signs of impatience began again to be manifested. It was observed with discontent that the glorious days of the Indian Summer, the perfect season for military operations, were gliding by as tranquilly as if there were not a great war on hand, and still the citizen at home read each morning in his newspaper the stereotyped bulletin, "All quiet on the Potomac;" the phrase passed into a byword and a sneer. By this time, too, to a nation which had not European standards of excellence, the army seemed to have reached a high state of efficiency, and to be abundantly able to take the field. Why did not its commander move? Amid all the drilling and band-playing the troops had been doing hard work: a chain of strong fortifications scientifically constructed had been completed around the capital, and rendered it easy of defense. It could be left in safety. Why, then, was it not left? Why did the troops still linger?

For a moment this monotony was interrupted by the ill-conducted engagement at Ball's Bluff. On October 21 nearly 2000 troops were sent across the Potomac by the local commander, with the foolish expectation of achieving something brilliant.^[146] The actual result was that they were corralled in an open field; in their rear the precipitous bank dropped sharply to the river, upon which floated only the two or three little boats which had ferried them across in small parties; in front and flank from the shelter of thick woods an outnumbering force of rebels poured a steady fire upon them. They were in a cruel snare, and suffered terribly in killed and drowned, wounded and captured. The affair was, and the country at once saw that it was, a gross blunder. The responsibility lay upon General Stone and Colonel Baker. Stone, a military man by education, deserved censure, but he was treated in a manner so cruel, so unjust, and so disproportionate to his deserts, that his error has been condoned in sympathy for his wrongs. The injustice was chargeable chiefly to Stanton, in part to the Committee on the Conduct of the War. Apparently Mr. Lincoln desired to know as little as possible about a wrong which he could not set right without injury to the public interests. He said to Stanton concerning the arrest: "I suppose you have good reasons for it, and having good reasons I am glad I knew nothing of it until it was done." To General Stone himself he said that, if he should tell all he knew about it, he should not tell much. Colonel Baker, senator from Oregon, a personal friend of the President, a brilliant orator, and a man beloved and admired by all who knew him, was a favorable specimen of the great body of new civilian officers. While brimming over with gallantry and enthusiasm, he was entirely ignorant of the military art. In the conduct of this enterprise a considerable discretion had been reposed in him, and he had, as was altogether natural, failed in everything except courage. But as he paid with his life on the battlefield the penalty of his daring and his inexperience, he was thought of only with tenderness and regret.

This skirmish illustrated the scant trust which could yet be reposed in the skill and judgment of subordinate officers. The men behaved with encouraging spirit and constancy under severe trial. But could a commander venture upon a campaign with brigadier-generals and colonels so unfit to assume responsibility?

Nevertheless impatience hardly received a momentary check from this lesson. With some inconsistency, people placed unlimited confidence in McClellan's capacity to beat the enemy, but no confidence at all in his judgment as to the feasibility of a forward movement. The grumbling did not, however, indicate that faith in him was shaken, for just now he was given promotion by Mr. Lincoln, and it met with general approval. For some time past it had been a cause of discomfort that he did not get on altogether smoothly with General Scott; the elder was irascible and jealous, the younger certainly not submissive. At last, on October 31, the old veteran regretfully but quite wisely availed himself of his right to be placed upon the retired list, and immediately, November 1, General McClellan succeeded him in the distinguished position of commander-in-chief (under the President) of all the armies of the United States. On the same day Mr. Lincoln courteously hastened out to headquarters to make in person congratulations which were unquestionably as sincere as they were generous. Every one felt that a magnificent opportunity was given to a favorite general. But unfortunately among all his admirers there was not one who believed in him quite so fully as he believed in himself; he lost all sense of perspective and proportion, and felt upon a pinnacle from which he could look down even on a president.^[147] Being in this masterful temper, he haughtily disregarded the growing demand for an advance. On the other hand the politicians, always eager to minister to the gratification of the people, began to be importunate; they harried the President, and went out to camp to prick their civilian spurs into the general himself. But McClellan had a soldierly contempt for such intermeddling in matters military, and was wholly unimpressible. When Senator Wade said that an unsuccessful battle was preferable to delay, for that a defeat would easily be repaired by swarming recruits, the general tartly replied that he preferred a few recruits before a victory to a great many after a defeat. But, however cleverly and fairly the military man might counter upon the politician, there was no doubt that discontent was developing dangerously. The people had conscientiously intended to do their part fully, and a large proportion of them now sincerely believed that they had done it. They knew that they had been lavish of men, money, and supplies; and they thought that they had been not less liberal of time; wherefore they rebelled against the contrary opinion of the general, whose ideal of a trustworthy army had by no means been reached, and who, being of a stubborn temperament, would not stir till it had been.

It is difficult to satisfy one's self of the real fitness of the army to move at or about this time,—that is to say, in or near the month of November, 1861,—for the evidence is mixed and conflicting. The Committee on the Conduct of the War asserted that "the army of the Potomac was well armed and equipped and had reached a high state of discipline by the last of September or first of October;" but the committee was not composed of experts. Less florid commendation is given by the Comte de Paris, of date October 15. McClellan himself said: "It certainly was not till late in November that the army was in any condition to move, nor even then were they capable of assaulting intrenched positions." At that time winter was at hand, and advance was said to be impracticable. That these statements were as favorable as possible seems probable; for it is familiar knowledge that the call for these troops did not issue until July, that at the close of November the recruits were still continuing "to pour in, to be assigned and equipped and instructed;"^[148] that many came unarmed or with useless weapons; and that these "civilians, suddenly called to arms as soldiers and officers, did not take kindly to the subordination and restraints of the camp."^[149] Now McClellan's temperament did not lead him to run risks in the effort to force achievements with means of dubious adequacy. His purpose was to create a machine perfect in every part, sure and irresistible in operation, and then to set it in motion with a certainty of success. He wrote to Lincoln: "I have ever regarded our true policy as being that of fully preparing ourselves, and then seeking for the most decisive results."^[150] Under favoring circumstances this plan might have been the best. But circumstances were not favoring. Neither he nor the government itself, nor indeed both together, could afford long or far to disregard popular feeling. Before the close of November that popular feeling was such that the people would have endured without flinching the discouragement of a defeat, but would not endure the severe tax of inaction, and from this time forth their impatience gathered volume until it became a controlling element in the situation. Themselves intending to be reasonable, they grew more and more convinced that McClellan was unreasonable. General and people confronted each other: the North would fight, at the risk of defeat; McClellan would not fight, because he was not sure to win. Any one who comprehended the conditions, the institutions of the country, the character of the nation, especially its temper concerning the present conflict, also the necessities beneath which that conflict must be waged, if it was to be waged at all, would have seen that the people must be deferred to. The question was not whether they were right or wrong. Assuming them to be wrong, it would still be a mistake to withstand them beyond a certain point. If yielding to them should result in disastrous consequences, they must be called upon to rally, and could be trusted to do so, instructed but undismayed by their experience. All this McClellan utterly failed to appreciate, thereby leading Mr. Swinton very justly to remark that he was lacking in "the statesmanlike qualities that enter into the composition of a great general."^[151]

On the other hand, no man ever lived more capable than Mr. Lincoln of precisely appreciating the present facts, or more sure to avoid those peculiar blunders which entrapped the military commander. He was very loyal in living up to his pledge to give the general full support, and by his conduct during many months to come he proved his readiness to abide to the last possible point. He knew, however, with unerring accuracy just where that last point lay, and he saw with disquietude that it was being approached too rapidly. He was getting sufficient knowledge of McClellan's character to see that the day was not distant when he must interfere. Meantime he kept his sensitive finger upon the popular pulse, as an expert physician watches a patient in a fever. With the growth of the impatience his anxiety grew, for the people's war would not be successfully fought by a dissatisfied people. Repeatedly he tested the situation in the hope that a movement could be forced without undue imprudence; but he was always met by objections from McClellan. In weighing the Northern and the Southern armies against each other, the general perhaps undervalued his own resources and certainly overvalued those of his opponent. He believed that the Confederate "discipline and drill were far better than our own;" wherein he was probably in error, for General Lee admitted that, while the Southerners would always fight well, they were refractory under discipline. Moreover, they were at this time very ill provided with equipment and transportation. Also McClellan said that the Southern army had thrown up intrenchments at Manassas and Centreville, and therefore the "problem was to attack victorious and finely drilled troops in intrenchment." But the most discouraging and inexplicable assertion, which he emphatically reiterated, concerned the relative numerical strength. He not only declared that he himself could not put into the field the numbers shown by the official returns to be with him, but also he exaggerated the Southern numbers till he became extravagant to the point of absurdity. So it had been from the outset, and so it continued to be to the time when he was at last relieved of his command. Thus, on August 15, he conceived himself to be "in a terrible place; the enemy have three or four times my force." September 9 he imagined Johnston to have 130,000 men, against his own 85,000; and he argued that Johnston could move upon Baltimore a column 100,000 strong, which he could meet with only 60,000 or 70,000. Later in October he marked the Confederates up to 150,000. He estimated his own requirement at a "total effective force" of 208,000 men, which implied "an aggregate, present and absent, of about 240,000 men." Of these he designed 150,000 as a "column of active operations;" the rest were for garrisons and guards. He said that in fact he had a gross aggregate of 168,318, and the "force present for duty was 147,695." Since the garrisons and the guards were a fixed number, the reduction fell wholly upon the movable column, and reduced "the number disposable for an advance to 76,285." Thus he made himself out to be fatally overmatched. But he was excessively in error. In the autumn Johnston's effective force was only 41,000 men, and on December 1, 1861, it was 47,000.^[152]

Such comparisons, advanced with positiveness by the highest authority, puzzled Mr. Lincoln. They seemed very strange, yet he could not disprove them, and was therefore obliged to face the perplexing choice which was mercilessly set before him: "either to go into winter quarters, or to assume the offensive with forces greatly inferior in number" to what was "desirable and necessary." "If political considerations render the first course unadvisable, the second alone remains." The general's most cheering admission was that, by stripping all other armies down to the lowest numbers absolutely necessary for a strict defensive, and by concentrating all the forces of the nation and all the attention of the government upon "the vital point" in Virginia, it might yet be possible for this "main army, whose destiny it [was] to decide the controversy,... to move with a reasonable prospect of success before the winter is fairly upon us." A direct assertion of impossibility, provocative of denial or discussion, would have been less disheartening.

In passing, it may be remarked that McClellan's prevision that the ultimate arbitrament of the struggle must occur in Virginia was correct. But in another point he was wrong, and unfortunately this was of more immediate consequence, because it corroborated him in his purpose to delay till he could make success a certainty. He hoped that when he moved, he should be able to win one or two overwhelming victories, to capture Richmond, and to crush the rebellion in a few weeks. It was a brilliant and captivating programme,^[153] but impracticable and undesirable. Even had the Southerners been quelled by so great a disaster,—which was not likely,—they would not have been thoroughly conquered, nor would slavery have been disposed of, and both these events were indispensable to a definitive peace between the two sections. Whether the President shared this notion of his general is not evident. Apparently he was not putting his mind upon theories reaching into the future so much as he was devoting his whole thought to dealing with the urgent problems of the present. If this was the case, he was pursuing the wise and sound course. In the situation, it was more desirable to fight a great battle at the earliest possible moment than to await a great victory many months hence.

It is commonplace wisdom that it is foolish for a civilian to undertake the direction of a war. Yet our Constitution ordains that "the President shall be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States, when called into the actual service of the United States." It is not supposable that the delegates who suggested this function, or the people who ordained it, anticipated that presidents generally would be men skilled in military science. Therefore Mr. Lincoln could not escape the obligation on the ground of unfitness for the duty which was imperatively placed upon him. It might be true that to set him in charge of military operations was like ordering a merchant to paint a picture or a jockey to sail a ship, but it was also true that he was so set in charge. He could not shirk it, nor did he try to shirk it. In consequence hostile critics have dealt mercilessly with his actions, and the history of this winter and spring of 1861-62 is a painful and confusing story of bitter controversy and crimination. Further it is to be remembered that, apart from the obligation imposed on the President by the Constitution, it was true that if civilians could not make rapid progress in the military art, the war might as well be abandoned. They were already supposed to be doing so; General Banks, a politician, and General Butler, a lawyer, were already conducting important movements. Still it remains undeniable that finally it was only the professional soldiers who, undergoing successfully the severe test of time, composed the illustrious front rank of strategists when the close of the war left every man in his established place. In discussing this perplexing period, extremists upon one side attribute the miscarriages and failure of McClellan's campaign to ceaseless, thwarting interference by the President, the secretary of war, and other civil officials. Extremists upon the other side allege the marvel that a sudden development of unerring judgment upon every question involving the practical application of military science took place on Mr. Lincoln's part.^[154] Perhaps the truth lies between the disputants, but it is not likely ever to be definitely agreed upon so long as the controversy excites interest; for the discussion bristles with ifs, and where this is the case no advocate can be irremediably vanquished.

It seems right, at this place, to note one fact concerning Mr. Lincoln which ought not to be overlooked and which cannot be denied. This is his entire political unselfishness, the rarest moral quality among men in public life. In those days of trouble and distrust slanders were rife in a degree which can hardly be appreciated by men whose experience has been only with quieter times. Sometimes purposes and sometimes methods were assailed; and those prominent in civil life, and a few also in military life, were believed to be artfully and darkly seeking to interlace their personal political fortunes in the web of public affairs, naturally subordinating the latter fabric. Alliances, enmities, intrigues, schemes, and every form of putting the interest of self before that of the nation, were insinuated with a bitter malevolence unknown except amid such abnormal conditions. The few who escaped charges of this kind were believed to cherish their own peculiar fanaticisms, desires, and purposes concerning the object and results of the struggle, which they were resolved to satisfy at almost any cost and by almost any means. While posterity is endeavoring very wisely to discredit and to forget a great part of these painful criminations, it is cheering to find that no effort has to be made to forget anything about the President. In his case injurious gossip has long since died away and been buried. Whatever may be said of him in other respects, at least the purity and the singleness of his patriotism shine brilliant and luminous through all this cloud-dust of derogation. By his position he had more at stake, both in his lifetime and before the tribunal of the future, than any other person in the country. But there was only one idea in his mind, and that was,—not that he should save the country, but that the country should be saved. Not the faintest shadow of self ever fell for an instant across this simple purpose. He was intent to play his part out faithfully, with all the ability he could bring to it; but any one else, who could, might win and wear the title of savior. He chiefly cared that the saving should be done. Never once did he manipulate any covert magnet to draw toward himself the credit or the glory of a measure or a move. To his own future he seemed to give no thought. It would be unjust to allow the dread of appearing to utter eulogy rather than historic truth to betray a biographer into overlooking this genuine magnanimity.

It was in December, 1861, that Congress created the famous Committee on the Conduct of the War, to some of whose doings it has already been necessary to allude. The gentlemen who were placed upon it were selected partly of course for political reasons, and were all men who had made themselves conspicuous for their enthusiasm and vehemence; not one of them had any military knowledge. The committee magnified its office almost beyond limit,—investigated everything; haled whom it chose to testify before it; made reports, expressed opinions, insisted upon policies and measures in matters military; and all with a dictatorial assumption and self-confidence which could not be devoid of effect, although every one knew that each individual member was absolutely without fitness for this business. So the committee made itself a great power, and therefore also a great complication, in the war machinery; and though it was sometimes useful, yet, upon a final balancing of its long account, it failed to justify its existence, as, indeed, was to have been expected from the outset.^[155] In the present discussions concerning an advance of the army, its members strenuously insisted upon immediate action, and their official influence brought much strength to that side.

The first act indicating an intention on the part of the President to interfere occurred almost simultaneously with the beginning of the general's illness. About December 21, 1861, he handed to McClellan a brief memorandum: "If it were determined to make a forward movement of the army of the Potomac, without awaiting further increase of numbers or better drill and discipline, how long would it require to actually get in motion? After leaving all that would be necessary, how many troops could join the movement from southwest of the river? How many from northeast of it?" Then he proceeded briefly to hint rather than distinctly to suggest that plan of a direct advance by way of Centreville and Manassas, which later on he persistently advocated. Ten days elapsed before McClellan returned answers, which then came in a shape too curt to be respectful. Almost immediately afterward the general fell ill, an occurrence which seemed to his detractors a most aggravating and unjustifiable intervention of Nature herself in behalf of his policy of delay.

On January 10 a dispatch from General Halleck represented in his department also a condition of check and helplessness. Lincoln noted upon it: "Exceedingly discouraging. As everywhere else, nothing can be done." Yet something must be done, for the game was not to be abandoned. Under this pressure, on this same day, he visited McClellan, but could not see him; nor could he get any definite idea how long might be the duration of the typhoid fever, the lingering and uncertain disease which had laid the general low. Accordingly he summoned General McDowell and General Franklin to discuss with him that evening the military situation. The secretaries of state and of the treasury, and the assistant secretary of war, also came. The President, says McDowell, "was greatly disturbed at the state of affairs," "was in great distress," and said that, "if something was not soon done, the bottom would be out of the whole affair; and if General McClellan did not want to use the army, he would like to 'borrow it,' provided he could see how it could be made to do something." The two generals were directed to inform themselves concerning the "actual condition of the army," and to come again the next day. Conferences followed on January 11 and 12, Postmaster-General Blair and General Meigs being added to the council. The postmaster-general condemned a direct advance as "strategically defective," while Chase descanted on the "moral power" of a victory. The picture of the two civilians injecting their military suggestions is not reassuring. Meigs is somewhat vaguely reported to have favored a "battle in front."

McDowell and Franklin had not felt justified in communicating these occurrences to McClellan, because the President had marked his order to them "private and confidential." But the commander heard rumors of what was going forward,^[156] and on January 12 he came from his sick-room to see the President; he was "looking quite well," and apparently was "able to assume the charge of the army." The apparition put a different complexion upon the pending discussions. On the 13th the same gentlemen met, but now with the addition of General McClellan. The situation was embarrassing. McClellan took scant pains to conceal his resentment. McDowell, at the request of the President, explained what he thought could be done, closing "by saying something apologetic;" to which McClellan replied, "somewhat coldly if not curtly: 'You are entitled to have any opinion you please.'" Secretary Chase, a leader among the anti-McClellanites, bluntly asked the general to explain his military plans in detail; but McClellan declined to be interrogated except by the President, or by the secretary of war, who was not present. Finally, according to McClellan's account, which differs a little but not essentially from that of McDowell, Mr. Lincoln suggested^[157] that he should tell what his plans were. McClellan replied, in substance, that this would be imprudent and seemed unnecessary, and that he would only give information if the President would order him in writing to do so, and would assume the responsibility for the results.^[158] McDowell adds (but McClellan does not), that the President then asked McClellan "if he had counted upon any particular time; he did not ask what that time was, but had he in his own mind any particular time fixed, when a movement could be commenced. He replied, he had. 'Then,' rejoined the President, 'I will adjourn this meeting.'" This unfortunate episode aggravated the discord, and removed confidence and coöperation farther away than ever before.

The absence of the secretary of war from these meetings was due to the fact that a change in the War Department was in process contemporaneously with them. The President had been allowed to understand that Mr. Cameron did not find his duties agreeable, and might prefer a diplomatic post. Accordingly, with no show of reluctance, Mr. Lincoln, on January 11, 1862, offered to Mr. Cameron the post of minister to Russia. It was promptly accepted, and on January 13 Edwin M. Stanton was nominated and confirmed to fill the vacancy.^[159] The selection was a striking instance of the utter absence of vindictiveness which so distinguished Mr. Lincoln, who, in fact, was simply insensible to personal feeling as an influence. In choosing incumbents for public trusts, he knew no foe, perhaps no friend; but as dispassionately as if he were manoeuvring pieces on a chessboard, he considered only which available piece would serve best in the square which he had to fill. In 1859 he and Stanton had met as associate counsel in perhaps the most important lawsuit in which Mr. Lincoln had ever been concerned, and Stanton had treated Lincoln with his habitual insolence.^[160] Later, in the trying months which closed the year 1861, Stanton had abused the administration with violence, and had carried his revilings of the President even to the point of coarse personal insults.^[161] No man, not being a rebel, had less right to expect an invitation to become an adviser of the President; and most men, who had felt or expressed the opinions held by Mr. Stanton, would have had scruples or delicacy about coming into the close relationship of confidential adviser with the object of their contempt; but neither scruples nor delicacy delayed him; his acceptance was prompt.^[162]

Edwin M. Stanton.
Edwin M. Stanton.

So Mr. Lincoln had chosen his secretary solely upon the belief of the peculiar fitness of the individual for the special duties of the war office. Upon the whole the choice was wisely made, and was evidence of Mr. Lincoln's insight into the aptitudes and the uses of men. Stanton's abilities commanded some respect, though his character never excited either respect or liking; just now, however, all his good qualities and many of his faults seemed precisely adapted to the present requirements of his department. He had been a Democrat, but was now zealous to extremity in patriotism; in his dealings with men he was capable of much duplicity, yet in matters of business he was rigidly honest, and it was his pleasure to protect the treasury against the contractors; he loved work, and never wearied amid the driest and most exacting toil; he was prompt and decisive rather than judicial or correct in his judgments concerning men and things; he was arbitrary, harsh, bad-tempered, and impulsive; he often committed acts of injustice or cruelty, for which he rarely made amends, and still more rarely seemed disturbed by remorse or regret. These traits bore hard upon individuals; but ready and unscrupulous severity was supposed to have its usefulness in a civil war. Many a time he taxed the forbearance of the President to a degree that would have seemed to transcend the uttermost limit of human patience, if Mr. Lincoln had not taken these occasions to show to the world how forbearing and patient it is possible for man to be. But those who knew the relations of the two men are agreed that Stanton, however browbeating he was to others, recognized a master in the President, and, though often grumbling and insolent, always submitted if a crisis came. Undoubtedly Mr. Lincoln was the only ruler known to history who could have coöperated for years with such a minister. He succeeded in doing so because he believed it to be for the good of the cause, to which he could easily subordinate all personal considerations; and posterity, agreeing with him, concedes to Stanton credit for efficiency in the conduct of his department.

It is worth while here to pause long enough to read part of a letter which, on this same crowded thirteenth day of January, 1862, the President sent to General Halleck, in the West: "For my own views: I have not offered, and do not now offer, them as orders; and while I am glad to have them respectfully considered, I would blame you to follow them contrary to your own clear judgment, unless I should put them in the form of orders.... With this preliminary, I state my general idea of this war to be that we have the greater numbers and the enemy has the greater facility of concentrating forces upon points of collision; that we must fail unless we can find some way of making our advantage an overmatch for his; and that this can only be done by menacing him with superior forces at different points at the same time, so that we can safely attack one or both if he makes no change; and if he weakens one to strengthen the other, forbear to attack the strengthened one, but seize and hold the weakened one, gaining so much."

In a personal point of view this short letter is pregnant with interest and suggestion. The writer's sad face, eloquent of the charge and burden of one of the most awful destinies of human-kind, rises before us as we read the expression of his modest self-distrust amid the strange duties of military affairs. But closely following this comes the intimation that in due time "orders" will come. Such was the quiet, unflinching way in which Lincoln always faced every test, apparently with a tranquil and assured faith that, whatever might seem his lack of fitting preparation, his best would be adequate to the occasion. The habit has led many to fancy that he believed himself divinely chosen, and therefore sure of infallible guidance; but it is observable far back, almost from the beginning of his life; it was a trait of mind and character, nothing else. The letter closes with a broad general theory concerning the war, wrought out by that careful process of thinking whereby he was wont to make his way to the big, simple, and fundamental truth. The whole is worth holding in memory through the narrative of the coming weeks.

The conference of January 13 developed a serious difference of opinion as to the plan of campaign, whenever a campaign should be entered upon. The President's notion, already shadowed forth in his memorandum of December, was to move directly upon the rebel army at Centreville and Manassas and to press it back upon Richmond, with the purpose of capturing that city. But McClellan presented as his project a movement by Urbana and West Point, using the York River as a base of supplies. General McDowell and Secretary Chase favored the President's plan; General Franklin and Postmaster Blair thought better of McClellan's. The President had a strong fancy for his own scheme, because by it the Union army was kept between the enemy and Washington; and therefore the supreme point of importance, the safety of the national capital, was insured. The discussion, which was thus opened and which remained long unsettled, had, among other ill effects, that of sustaining the vexatious delay. While the anti-McClellan faction—for the matter was becoming one of factions^[163] —grew louder in denunciation of his inaction, and fastened upon him the contemptuous nickname of "the Virginia creeper," the friends of the general retorted that the President, meddling in what he did not understand, would not let the military commander manage the war.

Nevertheless Mr. Lincoln, dispassionate and fair-minded as usual, allowed neither their personal difference of opinion nor this abusive outcry to inveigle into his mind any prejudice against McClellan. The Southerner who, in February, 1861, predicted that Lincoln "would do his own thinking," read character well. Lincoln was now doing precisely this thing, in his silent, thorough, independent way, neither provoked by McClellan's cavalier assumption of superior knowledge, nor alarmed by the danger of offending the politicians. In fact, he decided to go counter to both the disputants; for he resolved, on the one hand, to compel McClellan to act; on the other, to maintain him in his command. He did not, however, abandon his own plan of campaign. On January 27, as commander-in-chief of the army, he issued his "General War Order No. 1." In this he directed "that the 22d day of February, 1862, be the day for a general movement of the land and naval forces of the United States against the insurgent forces;" and said that heads of departments and military and naval commanders would "be held to their strict and full responsibilities for prompt execution of this order." By this he practically repudiated McClellan's scheme, because transportation and other preparations for pursuing the route by Urbana could not be made ready by the date named.

Critics of the President have pointed to this document as a fine instance of the follies to be expected from a civil ruler who conducts a war. To order an advance all along a line from the Mississippi to the Atlantic, upon a day certain, without regard to differing local conditions and exigencies, and to notify the enemy of the purpose nearly a month beforehand, were acts preposterous according to military science. But the criticism was not so fair as it was obvious. The order really bore in part the character of a manifesto; to the people of the North, whose confidence must be kept and their spirit sustained, it said that the administration meant action at once; to commanding officers it was a fillip, warning them to bestir themselves, obstacles to the contrary notwithstanding. It was a reveille. Further, in a general way it undoubtedly laid out a sound plan of campaign, substantially in accordance with that which McClellan also was evolving, viz.: to press the enemy all along the western and middle line, and thus to prevent his making too formidable a concentration in Virginia. In the end, however, practicable or impracticable, wise or foolish, the order was never fulfilled. The armies in Virginia did nothing till many weeks after the anniversary of Washington's birthday; whereas, in the West, Admiral Foote and General Grant did not conceive that they were enforced to rest in idleness until that historic date. Before it arrived they had performed the brilliant exploits of capturing Fort Henry and Fort Donelson.

On January 31 the President issued "Special War Order No. 1," directing the army of the Potomac to seize and occupy "a point upon the railroad southwestward of what is known as Manassas Junction;... the expedition to move before or on the 22d day of February next." This was the distinct, as the general order had been the indirect, adoption of his own plan of campaign, and the overruling of that of the general. McClellan at once remonstrated, and the two rival plans thus came face to face for immediate and definitive settlement. It must be assumed that the President's order had been really designed only to force exactly this issue; for on February 3, so soon as he received the remonstrance, he invited argument from the general by writing to him a letter which foreshadowed an open-minded reception for views opposed to his own:—

To these queries McClellan replied by a long and elaborate exposition of his views. He said that, if the President's plan should be pursued successfully, the "results would be confined to the possession of the field of battle, the evacuation of the line of the upper Potomac by the enemy, and the moral effect of the victory." On the other hand, a movement in force by the route which he advocated "obliges the enemy to abandon his intrenched position at Manassas, in order to hasten to cover Richmond and Norfolk." That is to say, he expected to achieve by a manoeuvre what the President designed to effect by a battle, to be fought by inexperienced troops against an intrenched enemy. He continued: "This movement, if successful, gives us the capital, the communications, the supplies, of the rebels; Norfolk would fall; all the waters of the Chesapeake would be ours; all Virginia would be in our power, and the enemy forced to abandon Tennessee and North Carolina. The alternative presented to the enemy would be, to beat us in a position selected by ourselves, disperse, or pass beneath the Caudine forks." In case of defeat the Union army would have a "perfectly secure retreat down the Peninsula upon Fort Monroe." "This letter," he afterward wrote, "must have produced some effect upon the mind of the President!" The slur was unjust. The President now and always considered the views of the general with a liberality of mind rarely to be met with in any man, and certainly never in McClellan himself. In this instance the letter did in fact produce so much "effect upon the mind of the President" that he prepared to yield views which he held very strongly to views which he was charged with not being able to understand, and which he certainly could not bring himself actually to believe in.

Yet before quite taking this step he demanded that a council of the generals of division should be summoned to express their opinions. This was done, with the result that McDowell, Sumner, Heintzelman, and Barnard voted against McClellan's plan; Keyes voted for it, with the proviso "that no change should be made until the rebels were driven from their batteries on the Potomac." Fitz-John Porter, Franklin, W.F. Smith, McCall, Blenker, Andrew Porter, and Naglee (of Hooker's division) voted for it. Stanton afterward said of this: "We saw ten generals afraid to fight." The insult, delivered in the snug personal safety which was suspected to be very dear to Stanton, was ridiculous as aimed at men who soon handled some of the most desperate battles of the war; but it is interesting as an expression of the unreasoning bitterness of the controversy then waging over the situation in Virginia, a controversy causing animosities vastly more fierce than any between Union soldiers and Confederates, animosities which have unfortunately lasted longer, and which can never be brought to the like final and conclusive arbitrament. The purely military question quickly became snarled up with politics and was reduced to very inferior proportions in the noxious competition. "Politics entered and strategy retired," says General Webb, too truly. McClellan himself conceived that the politicians were leagued to destroy him, and would rather see him discredited than the rebels whipped. In later days the strong partisan loves and hatreds of our historical writers have perpetuated and increased all this bad blood, confusion, and obscurity.

The action of the council of generals was conclusive. The President accepted McClellan's plan. Therein he did right; for undeniably it was his duty to allow his own inexperience to be controlled by the deliberate opinion of the best military experts in the country; and this fact is wholly independent of any opinion concerning the intrinsic or the comparative merits of the plans themselves. Indeed, Mr. Lincoln had never expressed positive disapproval of McClellan's plan per se, but only had been alarmed at what seemed to him its indirect result in exposing the capital. To cover this point, he now made an imperative preliminary condition that this safety should be placed beyond a question. He was emphatic and distinct in reiterating this proviso as fundamental. The preponderance of professional testimony, from that day to this, has been to the effect that McClellan's strategy was sound and able, and that Mr. Lincoln's anxiety for the capital was groundless. But in spite of all argument, and though military men may shed ink as if it were mere blood, in spite even of the contempt and almost ridicule which the President incurred at the pen of McClellan,^[164] the civilian will retain a lurking sympathy with the President's preference. It is impossible not to reflect that precisely in proportion as the safety of the capital, for many weighty reasons, immeasurably outweighed any other possible consideration in the minds of the Northerners, so the desire to capture it would be equally overmastering in the estimation of the Southerners. Why might not the rebels permit McClellan to march into Richmond, provided that at the same time they were marching into Washington? Why might they not, in the language afterward used by General Lee, "swap Queens?" They would have a thousand fold the better of the exchange. The Northern Queen was an incalculably more valuable piece on the board than was her Southern rival. With the Northern government in flight, Maryland would go to the Confederacy, and European recognition would be sure and immediate; and these two facts might, almost surely would, be conclusive against the Northern cause. Moreover, memory will obstinately bring up the fact that long afterward, when General Grant was pursuing a route to Richmond strategically not dissimilar to that proposed by McClellan, and when all the circumstances made the danger of a successful attack upon Washington much less than it was in the spring of 1862, the rebels actually all but captured the city; and it was saved not alone by a rapidity of movement which would have been impossible in the early stages of the war, but also by what must be called the aid of good luck. It is difficult to see why General Jackson in 1862 might not have played in fatal earnest a game which in 1864 General Early played merely for the chances. Pondering upon these things, it is probable that no array of military scientists will ever persuade the non-military world that Mr. Lincoln was so timid, or so dull-witted, or so unreasonable, as General McClellan declared him to be.

Another consideration is suggested by some remarks of Mr. Swinton. It is tolerably obvious that, whether McClellan's plan was or was not the better, the President's plan was entirely possible; all that could be said against it was that it promised somewhat poorer results at somewhat higher cost. This being the case, and in view of the fact that the President's disquietude concerning Washington was so profound and his distrust of McClellan's plan so ineradicable, it would have been much better to have had the yielding come from the general than from the President. A man of less stubborn temper and of broader intellect than belonged to McClellan would have appreciated this. In fact, it was in a certain sense even poor generalship to enter upon a campaign of such magnitude, when a thorough and hearty coöperation was really not to be expected. For after all might be ostensibly settled and agreed upon, and however honest might be Mr. Lincoln's intentions to support the commanding general, one thing still remained certain: that the safety of the capital was Mr. Lincoln's weightiest responsibility, that it was a matter concerning which he was sensitively anxious, and that he was perfectly sure in any moment of alarm concerning that safety to insure it by any means in his power and at any sacrifice whatsoever. In a word, that which soon did happen was precisely that which ought to have been foreseen as likely to happen. For it was entirely obvious that Mr. Lincoln did not abandon his own scheme because his own reason was convinced of the excellence of McClellan's; in fact, he never was and never pretended to be thus convinced. To his mind, McClellan's reasoning never overcame his own reasoning; he only gave way before professional authority; and, while he sincerely meant to give McClellan the most efficient aid and backing in his power, the anxiety about Washington rested immovable in his thought. If the two interests should ever, in his opinion, come into competition, no one could doubt which would be sacrificed. To push forward the Peninsula campaign under these conditions was a terrible mistake of judgment on McClellan's part. Far better would it have been to have taken the Manassas route; for even if its inherent demerits were really so great as McClellan had depicted, they would have been more than offset by preserving the undiminished coöperation of the administration. The personal elements in the problem ought to have been conclusive.

An indication of the error of forcing the President into a course not commended by his judgment, in a matter where his responsibility was so grave, was seen immediately. On March 8 he issued General War Order No. 3: That no change of base should be made "without leaving in and about Washington such a force as, in the opinion of the general-in-chief and the commanders of army corps, shall leave said city entirely secure;" that not more than two corps (about 50,000 men) should be moved en route for a new base until the Potomac, below Washington, should be freed from the Confederate batteries; that any movement of the army via Chesapeake Bay should begin as early as March 18, and that the general-in-chief should be "responsible that it moves as early as that day." This greatly aggravated McClellan's dissatisfaction; for it expressed the survival of the President's anxiety, it hampered the general, and by its last clause it placed upon him a responsibility not properly his own.

Yet at this very moment weighty evidence came to impeach the soundness of McClellan's opinion concerning the military situation. On February 27 Secretary Chase wrote that the time had come for dealing decisively with the "army in front of us," which he conceived to be already so weakened that "a victory over it is deprived of half its honor." Not many days after this writing, the civilian strategists, the President and his friends, seemed entitled to triumph. For on March 7, 8, and 9 the North was astonished by news of the evacuation of Manassas by Johnston. At once the cry of McClellan's assailants went up: If McClellan had only moved upon the place! What a cheap victory he would have won, and attended with what invaluable "moral effects"! Yet, forsooth, he had been afraid to move upon these very intrenched positions which it now appeared that the Confederates dared not hold even when unthreatened! But McClellan retorted that the rebels had taken this backward step precisely because they had got some hint of his designs for advancing by Urbana, and that it was the exact fulfillment, though inconveniently premature, of his predictions. This explanation, however, wholly failed to prevent the civilian mind from believing that a great point had been scored on behalf of the President's plan. Further than this, there were many persons, including even a majority of the members of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, who did not content themselves with mere abuse of McClellan's military intelligence, but who actually charged him with being disaffected and nearly, if not quite, a traitor. None the less Mr. Lincoln generously and patiently adhered to his agreement to let McClellan have his own way.

Precisely at the same time that this evacuation of Manassas gave to McClellan's enemies an argument against him which they deemed fair and forcible and he deemed unfair and ignorant, two other occurrences added to the strain of the situation. McClellan immediately put his entire force in motion towards the lines abandoned by the Confederates, not with the design of pressing the retreating foe, which the "almost impassable roads" prevented, but to strip off redundancies and to train the troops in marching. On March 11, immediately after he had started, the President issued his Special War Order No. 3: "Major-General McClellan having personally taken the field at the head of the army of the Potomac,... he is relieved from the command of the other military departments, he retaining command of the Department of the Potomac." McClellan at once wrote that he should continue to "work just as cheerfully as before;" but he felt that the removal was very unhandsomely made just as he was entering upon active operations. Lincoln, on the other hand, undoubtedly looked upon it in precisely the opposite light, and conceived that the opportunity of the moment deprived of any apparent sting a change which he had determined to make. The duties which were thus taken from McClellan were assumed during several months by Mr. Stanton. He was utterly incompetent for them, and, whether or not it was wise to displace the general, it was certainly very unwise to let the secretary practically succeed him.^[165] The way in which, both at the East and West, our forces were distributed into many independent commands, with no competent chief who could compel all to coöperate and to become subsidiary to one comprehensive scheme, was a serious mistake in general policy, which cost very dear before it was recognized.^[166] McClellan had made some efforts to effect this combination or unity in purpose, but Stanton gave no indication even of understanding that it was desirable.

The other matter was the division of the army of the Potomac into four army corps, to be commanded respectively by the four senior generals of division, viz., McDowell, Sumner, Heintzelman, and Keyes. The propriety of this action had been for some time under consideration, and the step was now forced upon Mr. Lincoln by the strenuous insistence of the Committee on the Conduct of the War. That so large an army required organization by corps was admitted; but McClellan had desired to defer the arrangement until his generals of division should have had some actual experience in the field, whereby their comparative fitness for higher responsibilities could be measured. An incapable corps commander was a much more dangerous man than an incapable commander of a division or brigade. The commander naturally felt the action now taken by the President to be a slight, and he attributed it to pressure by the band of civilian advisers whose untiring hostility he returned with unutterable contempt. Not only was the taking of the step at this time contrary to his advice, but he was not even consulted in the selection of his own subordinates, who were set in these important positions by the blind rule of seniority, and not in accordance with his opinion of comparative merit. His irritation was perhaps not entirely unjustifiable.