we never try, we shall never succeed. If he make a stand at Winchester, moving neither north nor south, I would fight him there, on the idea that if we cannot beat him when he bears the wastage of coming to us, we never can when we bear the wastage of going to him. This proposition is a simple truth, and is too important to be lost sight of for a moment. In coming to us, he tenders us an advantage which we should not waive. We should not so operate as to merely drive him away. As we must beat him somewhere, or fail finally, we can do it, if at all, casier 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. Recurring to the idea of going to Richmond on the inside track, the facility of supplying from the side away from the enemy is remarkable, as it were, by the different spokes of a wheel, extending from the hub towards the rim, and this whether you move directly by the chord, or on the inside arc, hugging the Blue Ridge more closely. The chord-line, as you see, carries you by Aldie, Haymarket, and Fredericksburg, and you see how turnpikes, railroads, and finally the Potomac by Aquia Creek, meet you at all points from Washington. The same, only the lines lengthened a little, if you press closer to the Blue Ridge part of the way. The gaps through the Blue Ridge I understand to be about the following distances from Harper's Ferry, to wit: Vestal's, five miles; Gregory's, thirteen; Snicker's, eighteen; Ashby's, twenty-eight; Manassas, thirty-eight; Chester, forty-five; and Thornton's, fifty-three. I should think it preferable to take the route nearest the enemy, disabling him to make an important move without your knowledge, and compelling him to keep his forces together for dread of you. The gaps would enable you to attack if you should wish. For a great part of the way you would be practically between the enemy and both Washington and Richmond, enabling us to spare you the greatest number of troops from here. When, at length, running to Richmond ahead of him enables him to move this way, if he does so, turn and attack him in the rear. But I think he should be engaged long before such point is reached. It is all easy if our troops march as well as the enemy, and it is unmanly to say they cannot do it. This letter is in no sense an order.

Major-General MCCLELLAN.

Yours, truly,

A. LINCOLN.

For over a fortnight longer General McClellan delayed any attempt to move his army in obedience to the President's order. He spent this interval in complaints of inadequate supplies, and in incessant demands for re-enforcements; and on the 21st inquired whether it was still the President's wish that he should march upon the enemy at once, or await the arrival of fresh horses. He was told in reply that the order of the 6th was unchanged, and that

while the President did not expect impossibilities, he was very anxious that all this good weather should not be wasted in inactivity." General McClellan states in his report that he inferred, from the tenor of this dispatch, that it was left to his own judgment whether it would be safe for the army to advance or not; and he accordingly fixed upon the first of November as the earliest date at which the forward movement could be commenced. On the 25th he complained to the Department of the condition of his cavalry, saying that the horses were fatigued and greatly troubled with sore tongue; whereupon the President addressed him the following inquiry :—

WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, October 25, 1862.

I have just read your dispatch about sore-tongue and fatigued horses. Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietam that fatigues any thing?

A. LINCOLN.

The General replied that they had been engaged in making reconnoissances, scouting, and picketing; to which the President thus rejoined :

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, October 20, 1862, Yours in reply to mine about horses received. Of course you know the facts better than I. Still, two considerations remain: Stuart's cavalry outmarched ours, having certainly done more marked service on the Peninsula and every where since. Secondly: will not a movement of our army be a relief to the cavalry, compelling the enemy to concentrate instead of "foraging" in squads everywhere? But I am so rejoiced to learn from your dispatch to General Halleck that you began crossing the river this morning. A. LINCOLN.

The General replied in a long dispatch, rehearsing in detail the labors performed by his cavalry, to which he thought the President had done injustice. This note elicited the following reply :

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, October 26, 1962. Yours of yesterday received. Most certainly I intend no injustice to any, and if I have done any I deeply regret it. To be told, after more than five weeks' total inaction of the army, and during which period we had sent to that army every fresh horse we possibly could, amounting in the whole to seven thousand nine hundred and eighteen, that the cavalry

horses were too much fatigued to move, presented a very cheerless, almost hopeless, prospect for the future, and it may have forced something of impatience into any dispatches. If not recruited and rested then, when could they ever be? I suppose the river is rising, and I am glad to believe you are crossing. A. LINCOLN.

The General next started, as a new topic of discussion, the extent to which the line of the Potomac should be guarded after he left it, so as to cover Maryland and Pennsylvania from further invasions. He thought strong garrisons should be left at certain points, complained that his forces were inadequate, and made some suggestion concerning the position of the rebel army under Bragg, which led General Halleck in reply to remind him that Bragg was four hundred miles away, while Lee was but twenty. On the 27th the General telegraphed to the President that it was necessary to "fill up the old regiments of his command before taking them again into action," to which the President thus replied:

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, October 27, 1802. Your dispatch of three P. M. to-day, in regard to filling up old regiments with drafted men, is received, and the request therein shall be complied with as far as practicable. And now I ask a distinct answer to the question, "Is it your purpose not to go into action again till the men now being drafted in the States are incorporated in the old regiments?"

A. LINCOIN.

The General, in reply, explained that the language of the dispatch, which was prepared by one of his aids, had incorrectly expressed his meaning, and that he should not postpone the advance until the regiments were filled by drafted men. The army was gradually crossed over, and on the 5th of November the General announced to the President that it was all on the Virginia side. This was just a month after the order to cross had been given-the enemy meantime having taken possession of all the strong points, and falling back, at his leisure, towards his base of operations. These unaccountable delays in the movement of the army created the most intense dissatisfaction in the public mind, and completely exhausted the patience of the Government. Accordingly, on the 5th of Novem

ber, an order was issued relieving General McClellan from the command of the Army of the Potomac, and directing General Burnside to take his place.

Thus closed a most remarkable chapter in the history of the war. For over fifteen months General McClellan had commanded the Army of the Potomac, the largest and most powerful army ever marshalled till then upon this continent consisting of one hundred and sixty thousand men, and furnished, in lavish profusion, with every thing requisite for effective service. Throughout the whole of this long period that army had been restrained by its commander from attacking the enemy. Except in the single instance of Antietam, where, moreover, there was no possibility of avoiding an engagement, every battle which it fought was on the defensive. According to the sworn testimony of his own commanders, General McClellan might have overwhelmed the rebel forces arrayed against him at Manassas, at Yorktown, after Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, Malvern Hill, and Antietam ; but on every one of these occasions he carefully forbore to avail himself of the superiority of his position, and gave the enemy ample time to prepare for more complete and effective resistance. It is no part of our present purpose to inquire into the causes of this most extraordinary conduct on the part of a commander to whom, more completely than to any other, were intrusted the destinies of the Nation during one of the most critical periods. Whether he acted from an innate disability, or upon a political theory—whether he intentionally avoided a decisive engagement in order to accomplish certain political results which he and his secret advisers deemed desirable, or whether he was, by the native constitution of his mind, unable to meet the gigantic responsibilities of his position when the critical moment of trial arrived, are points which the public and posterity will decide from an unbiased study of the evidence which his acts and his words afford. As the record we have given shows, President Lincoln lost no opportunity of urging upon him more prompt and decisive

action, while in no instance did he withhold from him any aid which it was in the power of the Government to give. Nothing can show more clearly the disposition of the President to sustain him to the utmost, and to protect him from the rapidly rising tide of public censure and discontent with his ruinous and inexplicable delays, than the following remarks made by him at a war meeting held at Washington on the 6th of August, after the retreat to the James River, and just before the withdrawal of the army from the Peninsula :

FELLOW-CITIZENS :-I believe there is no precedent for my appearing before you on this occasion, but it is also true that there is no precedent for your being here yourselves, and I offer, in justification of myself and of you, that, upon examination, I have found nothing in the Constitution against it. I, however, have an impression that there are younger gentlemen who will entertain you better, and better address your understanding than I will or could, and therefore I propose but to detain you a moment longer.

I am very little inclined on any occasion to say any thing unless I hope to produce some good by it. The only thing I think of just now not likely to be better said by some one else, is a matter in which we have heard some other persons blamed for what I did myself. There has been a very wide-spread attempt to have a quarrel between General McClellan and the Secretary of War. Now, I occupy a position that enables me to observe, that these two gentlemen are not nearly so deep in the quarrel as some pretending to be their friends. General McClellan's attitude is such that, in the very selfishness of his nature, he cannot but wish to be successful, and I hope he will-and the Secretary of War is in precisely the same situation. If the military commanders in the field cannot be successful, not only the Secretary of War, but myself, for the time being the master of them both, cannot but be failures. I know General McClellan wishes to be successful, and I know he does not wish it any more than the Secretary of War for him, and both of them together no more than I wish it. Sometimes we have a dispute about how many men General McClellan has had, and those who would disparage him say that he has had a very large number, and those who would disparage the Secretary of War insist that General McClellan has had a very small number. The basis for this is, there is always a wide difference, and on this occasion, perhaps a wider one than usual, between the grand total on McClellan's rolls and the men actually fit for duty; and those who would disparage him talk of the grand total on paper, and those who would disparage the Secretary of War talk of those at present fit for duty. General McClellan has sometimes asked for things that the Secretary of War did not give him. General