dence had already made for him, with the enemy on the other, and has no idea of moving. Wooden-head [Halleck] at Washington will never think of sending a force through the mountains to attack Lee in the rear, so the two armies will watch each other for nobody knows how many weeks, and we shall have the poetry of war with pickets drinking from the same stream, holding friendly converse and sending newspapers across by various ingenious contrivances." 1 October 1 Lincoln went to see McClellan, remained with the army three days, and as a result of the conferences and observations of his visit, issued through Halleck, after his return to Washington, the following order: "The President directs that you cross the Potomac and give battle to the enemy or drive him south. Your army must move now while the roads are good. If you cross the river between the enemy and Washington, and cover the latter by your line of operations, you can be reinforced with 30,000 men. If you move up the valley of the Shenandoah, not more than 12,000 or 15,000 can be sent to you. The President advises the interior line between Washington and the enemy, but does not order it. He is very desirous that your army move as soon as possible." 2

While giving his army the rest it needed, McClellan had begun the work of reorganization and the drilling of the new recruits. His native aptitude in matters of detail now commenced to spy out defects in equipment and to remedy them, to send complaints to Washington, and to clamor for shoes, blankets, clothing, and camp equipage. The correspondence between the army and Washington is unpleasant reading. It goes to the extent of mutual recrimination between Halleck

1 Sept. 25, to A. S. Hill, Hill papers, MS. On the disposition of pickets to fraternize, see Walker, 2d Army corps, p. 127 ; N. P. Hallowell, Memorial Day address, May 30, 1896, pamphlet ; also Cæsar, De Bello Civili, Comm. iii. cap. xix. As to Chase's dissatisfaction, see Warden, pp. 484, 485. 2 Oct. 6, O. R., vol. xix. part i. p. 10. McClellan at first decided to adopt the line of the Shenandoah. This was what Lee desired him to do. Oct. 22 he changed his plan to moving on the interior line, and began the movement Oct. 26. — Ibid., p. 11; part ii. pp. 464, 626.

and McClellan. One is surprised that this exchange of acrimonious despatches, this working at cross purposes, should have continued when the two were less than a day's journey apart and both had efficient subordinates, Meigs, the Quartermaster-General, and Ingalls, Chief Quartermaster of the Army of the Potomac. The prime cause of the disagreement was McClellan's procrastination. An energetic general would have made the best of his deficiencies, and, reflecting that the Confederates were worse off in every respect, would have moved boldly forward. "The men cannot march without shoes "2 seems to be the summing up of McClellan's reasons for delay. Making due allowance for the higher standard of comfort which ought to have obtained and did obtain among Union soldiers, the contrast between the Army of the Potomac refusing shoes because the sizes were too large 3 and the plaintive utterance of Lee to Davis, "The number of barefooted men is daily increasing, and it pains me to see them limping over the rocky roads," 4 is significant of the difference between the two commanders, the one ready to undertake any operation with insufficient means, the other aiming at an “ideal completeness of preparation."

The impatience of the country at the army's inaction was becoming intense. To prevent the people of the North from growing weary of the contest, to convince Europe that there was a prospect of the end of the war, and to guard against an interference of France and England, who were eager to get cotton, Lincoln felt that he had great need of victories in the field. This yearning, tempered by a common-sense view of means and chances, bursts out in a letter to McClellan which was "in no sense an order," and which cannot in fairness be compared to "the meddling interference" of the Vienna Aulic Council in the Napoleonic Wars.5

1 See Ropes's Civil War, part ii. p. 436.

2 McClellan to Halleck, Oct. 11, O. R., vol. xix. part i. p. 75.

3 Ibid., pp. 22, 23.

4 Ibid., part ii. p. 633.

5 See Sloane's Napoleon, vol. i. pp. 263, 266; vol. ii. pp. 105, 236.

"MY DEAR SIR, You remember my speaking to you," he wrote, "of what I called your over-cautiousness. Are you not over-cautious when you assume that you cannot do what the enemy is constantly doing? . . . Change positions with the enemy, and think you not he would break your communication with Richmond within the next twenty-four hours? You dread his going into Pennsylvania, but if he does so in full force, he gives up his communications to you absolutely, and you have nothing to do but to follow and ruin him. . . . Exclusive of the water-line, you are now nearer Richmond than the enemy is by the route that you can and he must take. Why can you not reach there before him, unless you admit that he is more than your equal on a march? His route is the arc of a circle, while yours is the chord. The roads are as good on yours as on his. . . . If he should . . . move toward Richmond, I would press closely to him; fight him, if a favorable opportunity should present, and at least try to beat him to Richmond on the inside track. I say 'try;' if we never try we shall never succeed. . . . We should not so operate as merely to drive him away. As we must beat him somewhere or fail finally, we can do it, if at all, easier near to us than far away. If we cannot beat the enemy where he now is, we never can, he again being within the intrenchments of Richmond." 1

McClellan complained that he could not advance because he was short of horses for his cavalry; then disease attacked them, and those which remained sound were broken down by fatigue. The much-enduring Lincoln thought of Stuart's cavalry raid around the Union army,2 and the ineffectual pursuit by the Federal troopers, and, irritated because he believed that McClellan conjured up difficulties, sent this sharp inquiry: "I have just read your despatch about sore-tongued and fatigued horses. Will you pardon me for asking what

1 Oct. 13, O. R., vol. xix. part i. p. 13.

2 Oct. 9-12. Especially discreditable to McClellan because the raid was made on Union territory. "It is disgraceful that Stuart's cavalry are this morning in possession of Chambersburg."— Chase, Oct. 11, Schuckers, p. 382.

the horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietam that fatigues anything?" While the correspondence on the part of the general remains respectful, the acerbity of the President does not abate, and makes it evident that if the army had not then commenced the advance he would have borne no longer with McClellan.2

October 26 the army, 116,000 strong, began to cross the Potomac, and six days later the last division was over. The Confederates fell back. Longstreet's corps, accompanied by Lee, marched to Culpeper Court-House, while Jackson remained in the Shenandoah valley.3 November 7 the Union army was massed near Warrenton. If McClellan, Lincoln had determined, permits Lee to cross the Blue Ridge and take position between Richmond and the Army of the Potomac, I shall remove him from command. When he heard that Lee had accomplished this movement, he relieved McClellan and appointed Burnside the general of the army.

It is not surprising that McClellan was relieved, but it is no less true that his removal was a mistake. Had there been a general of better ability to take his place, the President's action could be justified. Chase, fertile in military suggestions, had at different times proposed Hooker, Sumner, Burnside, and Sherman for the command, any one of whom in his opinion would do the work better than McClellan. Age and infirmity, if no other reason, put Sumner out of the question.8

1 O. R., vol. xix. part ii. p. 485.

2 See despatch of Oct. 27, ibid., p. 497.

3 Longstreet and Jackson had been made lieutenant-generals, and their commands called respectively the 1st and 2d corps.

John Hay's Diary, Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. p. 188.

5 This order is dated Nov. 5. It reached Burnside and McClellan two days later. O. R., vol. xix. part ii. p. 545; McClellan's Own Story, p. 660. "McClellan ought not to have been removed unless the Government were prepared to put in his place some officer whom they knew to be at least his equal in military capacity. This assuredly was not the case at this moment." Ropes's Civil War, part ii. p. 442.

7 Warden, pp. 460, 492.

8 Walker, Second Army Corps, p. 130. Grant said, " A successful general needs health and youth and energy. I should not like to put a general

Had Sherman been the Sherman of 1864, his fitness would have indicated him for the place, but now it were better for him to remain in the West rather than to be elevated to a position on which so much depended and from which so much was expected. Burnside and Hooker were tried, and the army met with two crushing defeats such as it would never have suffered under its loved commander. It is worthy of note that Grant was not suggested.

We have no right to judge the President by our knowledge of the event, but even on turning back to the time itself, we may easily see that the substitution of Burnside for McClellan can in no wise be defended. Burnside had given no proof of his fitness, had refused the place twice, and had told the President and Secretary of War over and over again that he was not competent to command so large an army, and that McClellan was the best general for the position. His removal was indeed ill-timed. He had shown at Antietam that he could take the offensive and check the almost invincible Lee; since crossing the Potomac he had made a swift march and was troubling his adversary;2 he now had his army equipped and well in hand; and he retained in the fullest degree the love and devotion of his soldiers. With the frankness which distinguishes Lincoln, he seemed to admit nineteen days after he had signed the order for the removal of McClellan that he had made a mistake. "I certainly have been dissatisfied with the slowness of Buell and McClellan," he wrote Carl Schurz; "but before I relieved them I had great fears I should not find successors to them who would do better; and I am sorry to add that I have seen little since to relieve those fears." 3

in the field over fifty." -J. R. Young, Around the World with Gen. Grant, vol. ii. p. 353. Sumner was sixty-five.

1 C. W., part i. p. 650.

... was a

2 "The march from the Potomac at Berlin to Warrenton magnificent spectacle of celerity and skill."- Report of Rufus Ingalls, O. R., vol. xix. part i. p. 96. McClellan "is also moving more rapidly than usual, and it looks like a real advance." Lee to Davis, Nov. 6, ibid., part ii. p. 446.

p. 698. But see Ropes's Civil War, part ii. 3 Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 258.