CHAPTER II

THE SECOND ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA

It is time now to return to the theatre of war in Virginia, where, it will be remembered, we left the Confederate forces in the act of rapidly withdrawing southward from the line of intrenchments which they had so long held at Manassas. This unexpected backward movement upon their part deprived the Urbana route, which McClellan had hitherto so strenuously advocated, of its chief strategic advantages, and therefore reopened the old question which had been discussed between him and Mr. Lincoln. To the civilian mind a movement after the retreating enemy along the direct line to Richmond, now more than ever before, seemed the natural scheme. But to this McClellan still remained unalterably opposed. In the letter of February 3 he had said: "The worst coming to the worst, we can take Fort Monroe as a base and operate with complete security, although with less celerity and brilliancy of results, up the Peninsula." This route, low as he had then placed it in order of desirability, he now adopted as the best resource, or rather as the only measure; and his judgment was ratified upon March 13 by unanimous approval on the part of his four corps commanders. They however made their approval dependent upon conditions, among which were: that, before beginning the advance along this line, the new rebel ram Merrimac (or Virginia), just finished at Norfolk on the James River, should be neutralized, and that a naval auxiliary force should silence, or be ready to aid in silencing, the rebel batteries on the York River. In fact, and very unfortunately, the former of these conditions was not fulfilled until the time of its usefulness for this specific purpose was over, and the latter condition was entirely neglected. It was also distinctly stipulated that "the force to be left to cover Washington shall be such as to give an entire feeling of security for its safety from menace." Keyes, Heintzelman and McDowell conceived "that, with the forts on the right bank of the Potomac fully garrisoned, and those on the left bank occupied, a covering force, in front of the Virginia line, of 25,000 men would suffice." Sumner said: "A total of 40,000 for the defense of the city would suffice."[4] On the same day Stanton informed McClellan that the President "made no objection" to this plan, but directed that a sufficient force should be left to hold Manassas Junction and to make Washington "entirely secure." The closing sentence was: "At all events, move ... at once in pursuit of the enemy by some route." Thus at last two important facts were established: that the route up the Peninsula should be tried; and that the patience of the administration was exhausted.

Though the enemy upon his retreat was burning bridges and destroying railroads behind him, and making his possible return towards Washington a slow, difficult process, which he obviously had no mind to undertake, still this security of the capital rested as weightily as ever upon Lincoln's mind. His reiteration and insistence concerning it made perfectly plain that he was still nervous and disquieted about it, though now certainly with much less reason than heretofore. But with or against reason, it was easy to see that he was far from resting in the tranquillity of conviction that Washington could never be so safe as when the army of Virginia was far away upon the Peninsula. Nevertheless, after the condition in its foregoing shape had been so strenuously imposed by Mr. Lincoln and tacitly accepted by McClellan, the matter was left as if definitely settled; and the President never demanded[5] from the general any distinct statement concerning the numerical or specific allotment of the available forces between the two purposes. The neglect was disastrous in its consequences; and must also be pronounced both blameworthy and inexplicable, for the necessity of a plain understanding on the subject was obvious.

The facts seem to be briefly these: in his letter of February 3, McClellan estimated the force necessary to be taken with him for his campaign at 110,000 to 140,000 men, and said: "I hope to use the latter number by bringing fresh troops into Washington." On April 1 he reported[6] the forces left behind him as follows:--

At Warrenton, there is to be 7,780 men At Manassas, there is to be 10,859 men In the Valley of the Shenandoah 35,467 men On the Lower Potomac 1,350 men ------------------------------------------------- In all 55,456 men

He adds: "There will thus be left for the garrisons, and the front of Washington, under General Wadsworth, 18,000 men, exclusive of the batteries under instruction." New levies, nearly 4,000 strong, were also expected. He considered all these men as properly available "for the defense of the national capital and its approaches." The President, the politicians, and some military men were of opinion that only the 18,000 ought to be considered available for the capital. It was a question whether it was proper to count the corps of Banks in the Shenandoah Valley. McClellan's theory was that the rebels, by the circumstances attendant upon their present retreating movement, had conclusively annulled any chance of their own return by way of Manassas. Banks greatly outnumbered Stonewall Jackson, who had only about 15,000 men, or less, in the Shenandoah Valley. Also Washington was now entirely surrounded by satisfactory fortifications. McClellan, therefore, was entirely confident that he left everything in good shape behind him. In fact, it was put into even better shape than he had designed; for on March 31 the President took from him Blenker's division of 10,000 men in order to strengthen Fremont, who was in the mountain region westward of the Shenandoah Valley. "I did so," wrote Mr. Lincoln, "with great pain.... If you could know the full pressure of the case, I am confident that you would justify it." It was unfortunate that the President could not stand against this "pressure," which was not military, but political. Fremont could do, and did, nothing at all, and to reinforce him was sheer absurdity.[7] Against it McClellan protested almost indignantly, but was "partially relieved by the President's positive and emphatic assurance" that no more troops "should in any event be taken from" him, or "in any way detached from [his] command."

Orders had been issued on February 27, to Mr. Tucker, assistant secretary of war, to prepare means of transporting down the Potomac, troops, munitions, artillery, horses, wagons, food, and all the vast paraphernalia of a large army. He showed a masterly vigor in this difficult task, and by March 17 the embarkation began. On April 2 McClellan arrived at Fortress Monroe. On the very next day he was disturbed by the revocation of the orders which had left him in command of that place and had allowed him to "draw from the troops under General Wool a division of about 10,000 men, which was to be assigned to the First Corps." Another and a serious disappointment also occurred at once; he found that the navy could not be utilized for assisting in an attack on Yorktown, or for running by it so as to land forces in rear of it. He must therefore depend wholly upon his army to force a way up the Peninsula. This he had stated to be an unsatisfactory alternative, because it involved delay at Yorktown. Nevertheless, having no choice, he began his advance on April 4. He had with him only 58,000 men; but more were on the way, and McDowell's corps was to be brought forward to join him as rapidly as transportation would permit. His total nominal force was smaller than the minimum which, on February 3, he had named as necessary; yet it was a fine body of troops, and he had lately said to them: "The army of the Potomac is now a real army, magnificent in material, admirable in discipline, excellently equipped and armed. Your commanders are all that I could wish."

In two days he was before the fortifications which the rebels had erected at Yorktown, and which stretched thence across the Peninsula to the James River. He estimated the force behind these intrenchments, commanded by General Magruder, at 15,000 to 20,000 men, easily to be reinforced; in fact, it was much less. Thereupon, he set about elaborate preparations for a siege of that city, according to the most thorough and approved system of military science. He was afterward severely blamed for not endeavoring to force his way through some point in the rebel lines by a series of assaults.[8] This was what Mr. Lincoln wished him to do, and very nearly ordered him to do; for on April 6 he sent this telegram: "You now have over 100,000 troops with you.... I think you better break the enemy's line from Yorktown to Warwick River at once." An entry in McClellan's "Own Story," under date of April 8, comments upon this message and illustrates the unfortunate feeling of the writer towards his official superior: "I have raised an awful row about McDowell's corps. The President very coolly telegraphed me yesterday that he thought I had better break the enemy's lines at once! I was much tempted to reply that he had better come and do it himself." Thus is made evident the lamentable relationship between the President, who could place no confidence in the enterprise and judgment of the military commander, and the general, who had only sneers for the President's incapacity to comprehend warfare. It so happened, however, that the professional man's sarcasm was grossly out of place, and the civilian's proposal was shrewdly right, as events soon plainly proved. In fact what Mr. Lincoln urged was precisely what General Johnston anticipated and feared would be done, because he knew well that if it were done it would be of fatal effect against the Confederates. But, on the other hand, even after the clear proof had gone against him, McClellan was abundantly supplied with excuses, and the vexation of the whole affair was made the greater by the fact that these excuses really seemed to be good. His excuses always were both so numerous and so satisfactory, that many reasonably minded persons knew not whether they had a right to feel so angry towards him as they certainly could not help doing. The present instance was directly in point. General Keyes reported to him that no part of the enemy's line could "be taken by assault without an enormous waste of life;" and General Barnard, chief engineer of the army, thought it uncertain whether they could be carried at all. Loss of life and uncertainty of result were two things so abhorred by McClellan in warfare, that he now failed to give due weight to the consideration that the design of the Confederates in interposing an obstacle at this point was solely to delay him as much as possible, whereas much of the merit of his own plan of campaign lay in rapid execution at the outset. The result was, of course, that he did not break any line, nor try to, but instead thereof "presented plausible reasons" out of his inexhaustible reservoir of such commodities. It was unfortunate that the naval coöperation, which McClellan had expected,[9] could not be had at this juncture; for by it the Yorktown problem would have been easily solved without either line-breaking or reason-giving.

Precisely at this point came into operation the fatal effect of the lack of understanding between the President and the general as to the division of the forces. In the plan of campaign, it had been designed to throw the corps of McDowell into the rear of Yorktown by such route as should seem expedient at the time of its arrival, probably landing it at Gloucester and moving it round by West Point. This would have made Magruder's position untenable at once, long before the natural end of the siege. But at the very moment when McClellan's left, in its advance, first came into actual collision with the enemy, he received news that the President had ordered McDowell to retain his division before Washington--"the most infamous thing that history has recorded," he afterward wrote.[10] Yet the explanation of this surprising news was so simple that surprise was unjustifiable. On April 2, immediately after McClellan's departure, the President inquired as to what had been done for the security of Washington. General Wadsworth, commanding the defenses of the city, gave an alarming response: 19,000 or 20,000 entirely green troops, and a woeful insufficiency of artillery. He said that while it was "very improbable" that the enemy would attack Washington, nevertheless the "numerical strength and the character" of his forces rendered them "entirely inadequate to and unfit for their important duty." Generals Hitchcock and Thomas corroborated this by reporting that the order to leave the city "entirely secure" had "not been fully complied with." Mr. Lincoln was horror-struck. He had a right to be indignant, for those who ought to know assured him that his reiterated and most emphatic command had been disobeyed, and that what he chiefly cared to make safe had not been made safe. He promptly determined to retain McDowell, and the order was issued on April 4. Thereby he seriously attenuated, if he did not quite annihilate, the prospect of success for McClellan's campaign. It seems incredible and unexplainable that amid this condition of things, on April 3, an order was issued from the office of the secretary of war, to stop recruiting throughout the country!

This series of diminutions, says McClellan, had "removed nearly 60,000 men from my command, and reduced my force by more than one third.... The blow was most discouraging. It frustrated all my plans for impending operations. It fell when I was too deeply committed to withdraw.... It was a fatal error."

Error or not, it was precisely what McClellan ought to have foreseen as likely to occur. He had not foreseen it, however, and nothing mitigated the disappointment. Unquestionably the act was of supreme gravity. Was Mr. Lincoln right or wrong in doing it? The question has been answered many times both Yea and Nay, and each side has been maintained with intense acrimony and perfect good faith. It is not likely that it will ever be possible to say either that the Yeas have it, or that the Nays have it.[11] For while it is certain that what actually _did_ happen coincided very accurately with McClellan's expectations; on the other hand, it can never be known what _might have_ happened if Lincoln had not held McDowell, and if, therefore, facts had not been what they were.

So far as Mr. Lincoln is concerned, the question, what military judgment was correct,--that is, whether the capital really was, or was not, absolutely secure,--is of secondary consequence. The valuation which he set on that safety was undeniably correct; it certainly was of more importance than McClellan's success. If he had made a mistake in letting McClellan go without a more distinct understanding, at least that mistake was behind him. Before him was the issue whether he should rest satisfied with the deliberate judgment given by McClellan, or whether, at considerable cost to the cause, he should make the assurance greater out of deference to other advice. He chose the latter course. In so doing, if he was not vacillating, he was at least incurring the evils of vacillation. It would have been well if he could have found some quarter in which permanently to repose his implicit faith, so that one consistent plan could have been carried out without interference. Either he had placed too much confidence in McClellan in the past, or he was placing too little in him now. If he could not accept McClellan's opinion as to the safety of Washington, in preference to that of Wadsworth, Thomas, and Hitchcock, then he should have removed McClellan, and replaced him with some one in whom he had sufficient confidence to make smooth coöperation a possibility. The present condition of things was illogical and dangerous. Matters had been allowed to reach a very advanced stage upon the theory that McClellan's judgment was trustworthy; then suddenly the stress became more severe, and it seemed that in the bottom of his mind the President did not thus implicitly respect the general's wisdom. Yet he did not displace him, but only opened his ears to other counsels; whereupon the buzz of contradictory, excited, and alarming suggestions which came to him were more than enough to unsettle any human judgment. General Webb speaks well and with authority to this matter: "The dilemma lay here,--whose plans and advice should he follow, where it was necessary for him to approve and decide?... Should he lean implicitly on the general actually in command of the armies, placed there by virtue of his presumed fitness for the position, or upon other selected advisers? We are bold to say that it was doubt and hesitation upon this point that occasioned many of the blunders of the campaign. Instead of one mind, there were many minds influencing the management of military affairs." A familiar culinary proverb was receiving costly illustration.

But, setting the dispute aside, an important fact remains: shorn as he was, McClellan was still strong enough to meet and to defeat his opponents. If he had been one of the great generals of the world he would have been in Richmond before May Day; but he was at his old trick of exaggerating the hostile forces and the difficulties in his way. On April 7 he thought that Johnston and the whole Confederate army were at Yorktown; whereas Johnston's advance division arrived there on the 10th; the other divisions came several days later, and Johnston himself arrived only on the 14th.

On April 9 Mr. Lincoln presented his own view of the situation in this letter to the general:--

"Your dispatches complaining that you are not properly sustained, while they do not offend me, do pain me very much.

... "After you left I ascertained that less than 20,000 unorganized men, without a single field battery, were all you designed to be left for the defense of Washington and Manassas Junction, and part of this even was to go to General Hooker's old position. General Banks's corps, once designed for Manassas Junction, was diverted and tied up on the line of Winchester and Strasburg, and could not leave it without again exposing the upper Potomac and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. This presented, or would present, when McDowell and Sumner should be gone, a great temptation to the enemy to turn back from the Rappahannock and sack Washington. My implicit order that Washington should, by the judgment of all the commanders of army corps, be left entirely secure, had been neglected. It was precisely this that drove me to detain McDowell.

"I do not forget that I was satisfied with your arrangement to leave Banks at Manassas Junction; but when that arrangement was broken up, and nothing was substituted for it, of course I was constrained to substitute something for it myself. And allow me to ask, do you really think I should permit the line from Richmond, via Manassas Junction, to this city, to be entirely open, except what resistance could be presented by less than 20,000 unorganized troops? This is a question which the country will not allow me to evade.

"There is a curious mystery about the number of troops now with you. When I telegraphed you on the 6th, saying you had over a hundred thousand with you, I had just obtained from the secretary of war a statement taken, as he said, from your own returns, making 108,000 then with you and en route to you. You now say you will have but 85,000 when all en route to you shall have reached you. How can the discrepancy of 23,000 be accounted for?

"As to General Wool's command,[12] I understand it is doing for you precisely what a like number of your own would have to do if that command was away.

"I suppose the whole force which has gone forward for you is with you by this time. And if so, I think it is the precise time for you to strike a blow. By delay the enemy will relatively gain upon you,--that is, he will gain faster by fortifications and reinforcements than you can by reinforcements alone. And once more let me tell you, it is indispensable to you that you strike a blow. I am powerless to help this. You will do me the justice to remember I always insisted that going down the bay in search of a field, instead of fighting at or near Manassas, was only shifting, and not surmounting, a difficulty; that we would find the same enemy, and the same or equal intrenchments, at either place. The country will not fail to note, is now noting, that the present hesitation to move upon an intrenched enemy is but the story of Manassas repeated.

"I beg to assure you that I have never written you or spoken to you in greater kindness of feeling than now, nor with a fuller purpose to sustain you, so far as, in my most anxious judgment, I consistently can. But you must act."

McClellan, in consternation and almost despair at the repeated pruning of his force, now begged for at least a part of McDowell's corps, which, he said on April 10, was "indispensable;" "the fate of our cause depends upon it." Accordingly Franklin's division was sent to him; and then, after all this palaver, he kept it a fortnight on shipboard, until Yorktown was evacuated!

On May 1 the President, tortured by the political gadflies in Washington, and suffering painfully from the weariness of hope so long deferred, telegraphed: "Is anything to be done?" A pitiful time of it Mr. Lincoln was having, and it called for a patient fortitude surpassing imagination. Yet one little bit of fruit was at this moment ripe for the plucking! After about four weeks of wearisome labor the general had brought matters to that condition which was so grateful to his cautious soul. At the beginning of May he had reduced success to a certainty, so that he expected to open fire on May 5, and to make short work of the rebel stronghold. But it so happened that another soldier also had at the same time finished his task. General Magruder had delayed the Union army to the latest possible hour, he had saved a whole valuable month; and now, quite cheerfully and triumphantly, in the night betwixt May 3 and May 4, he quietly slipped away. As it had happened at Manassas, so now again the Federals marched unopposed into deserted intrenchments; and a second time the enemy had so managed it that their retreat seemed rather to cast a slur upon Union strategy than to bring prestige to the Union arms.

McClellan at once continued his advance, with more or less fighting, the rebels steadily drawing back without offering battle on a large scale, though there was a sharp engagement at Williamsburg. He had not even the smaller number of men which he had originally named as his requirement, and he continued pertinaciously to demand liberal reinforcements. The President, grievously harassed by these importunate appeals, declared to McClellan that he was forwarding every man that he could, while to friends nearer at hand he complained that sending troops to McClellan was like shoveling fleas across a barnyard; most of them didn't get there! At last he made up his mind to send the remainder of McDowell's corps; not because he had changed his mind about covering Washington, but because the situation had become such that he expected to arrange this matter by other resources.

The fight at Williamsburg took place on May 5. McClellan pushed after the retiring enemy, too slowly, as his detractors said, yet by roads which really were made almost impassable by heavy rains. Two days later, May 7, Franklin's force disembarked and occupied West Point. This advance up the Peninsula now produced one important result which had been predicted by McClellan in his letter of February 3. On May 8 news came that the Confederates were evacuating Norfolk, and two days later a Union force marched into the place. The rebels lost many heavy guns, besides all the advantages of the navy yard with its workshops and stores; moreover, their awe-inspiring ram, the Merrimac, alias the Virginia, was obliged to leave this comfortable nestling-place, whence she had long watched and closed the entrance to the James River. Her commander, Tatnall, would have taken her up that stream, but the pilots declared it not possible to float her over the shoals. She was therefore abandoned and set on fire; and early in the morning of May 11 she blew up, leaving the southern water-way to Richmond open to the Union fleet.[13] It was a point of immense possible advantage. Later McClellan intimated that, if he had been left free to act upon his own judgment, he would probably have availed himself of this route; and some writers, with predilections in his favor, have assumed that he was prevented from doing so by certain orders, soon to be mentioned, which directed him to keep the northerly route for the purpose of effecting a junction with McDowell. But this notion seems incorrect; for though he doubtless had the James River route under consideration, yet dates are against the theory that he wished to adopt it when at last it lay open. On the contrary, he continued his advance precisely as before. On May 16 his leading columns reached White House; headquarters were established there, and steps were immediately taken to utilize it as a depot and base of supplies. The York River route was thus made the definitive choice. Also the advance divisions were immediately pushed out along the York River and Richmond Railroad, which they repaired as they went. On May 20 Casey's division actually crossed the Chickahominy at Bottom's Bridge, and the next day a large part of the army was in position upon the north bank of that stream. Obviously these operations, each and all, ruled out the James River route, at least as a part of the present plan. Yet it was not until they were well under way, viz., on May 18, that the intelligence reached McClellan, on the strength of which he and others afterward assumed that he had been deprived of the power to select the James River route. What this intelligence was and how it came to pass must now be narrated.

By this time, the advance along the Peninsula had so completely "relieved the front of Washington from pressure," that Mr. Lincoln and his advisers, reassured as to the safety of that city, now saw their way clear to make McDowell's corps, strengthened to a force of 41,000 men, contribute actively to McClellan's assistance. They could not, indeed, bring themselves to move it by water, as McClellan desired; but the President ordered McDowell to move down from Fredericksburg, where he now lay, towards McClellan's right wing, which McClellan was ordered to extend to the north of Richmond in order to meet him. But, in the words of the Comte de Paris, "an absurd restriction revealed the old mistrusts and fears." For McDowell was strictly ordered not to uncover the capital; also, with a decisive emphasis indicative of an uneasy suspicion, McClellan was forbidden to dispose of McDowell's force in contravention of this still primary purpose. Whether McDowell was under McClellan's control, or retained an independent command, was left curiously vague, until McClellan forced a distinct understanding.

Although McClellan, writing to Lincoln, condemned rather sharply the method selected for giving to him the aid so long implored, yet he felt that, even as it came to him, he could make it serve his turn. Though he grumbled at the President's unmilitary ways, he afterward admitted that the "cheering news" made him "confident" of being "sufficiently strong to overpower the large army confronting" him. There was no doubt of it. He immediately extended his right wing; May 24, he drove the Confederates out of Mechanicsville; May 26, General Porter took position at Hanover Junction only fifteen miles from McDowell's head of column, which had advanced eight miles out of Fredericksburg. The situation was not unpromising; but unfortunately that little interval of fifteen miles was never to be closed up.

May 24, Mr. Lincoln wrote to McClellan, and after suggesting sundry advisable movements, he said: "McDowell and Shields[14] both say they can, and positively will, move Monday morning." Monday was the 26th. In point of fact, McDowell, feeling time to be of great value, urged the President to let him move on the morning of Sunday, the 25th; but Mr. Lincoln positively refused; the battle of Bull Run had been fought on a Sunday, and he dreaded the omen.[15] This feeling which he had about days was often illustrated, and probably the reader has observed that he seemed to like dates already marked by prestige or good luck; thus he had convened Congress for July 4, and had ordered the general advance of the armies for February 22; it was an indication of the curious thread of superstition which ran through his strange nature,--a remnant of his youth and the mysterious influence of the wilderness. But worse than a superstitious postponement arrived before nightfall on Saturday. A dispatch from Lincoln to McClellan, dated at four o'clock that afternoon, said: "In consequence of General Banks's critical position, I have been compelled to suspend General McDowell's movements to join you. The enemy are making a desperate push upon Harper's Ferry, and we are trying to throw General Fremont's force and part of General McDowell's in their rear." The brief words conveyed momentous intelligence. It is necessary to admit that Mr. Lincoln was making his one grand blunder, for which there is not even the scant salvation of possible doubt. All that can be said in palliation is, that he was governed, or at least strongly impelled, by the urgent advice of the secretary of war, whose hasty telegrams to the governors of several States show that he was terror-stricken and had lost his head. Mr. Blaine truly says that McDowell, thus suddenly dispatched by Mr. Lincoln upon a "fruitless chase," "was doing precisely what the President of the Confederate States would have ordered, had he been able to issue the orders of the President of the United States." There is no way to mitigate the painful truth of this statement, made by a civilian, but amply sustained by the military authorities on both sides.[16]

The condition was this. The retention of McDowell's corps before Washington published the anxiety of the administration. The Confederate advantage lay in keeping that anxiety alive and continuing to neutralize that large body of troops. Strategists far less able than the Southern generals could not have missed so obvious a point, neither could they have missed the equally obvious means at their disposal for achieving these purposes. At the upper end of the valley of the Shenandoah Stonewall Jackson had an army, raised by recent accretions to nearly or quite 15,000 men. The Northern generals erelong learned to prognosticate Jackson's movements by the simple rule that at the time when he was least expected, and at the place where he was least wanted, he was sure to turn up.[17] The suddenness and speed with which he could move a body of troops seemed marvelous to ordinary men. His business now was to make a vigorous dashing foray down the valley. To the westward, Fremont lay in the mountains, with an army which checked no enemy and for the existence of which in that place no reasonable explanation could be given. In front was Banks, with a force lately reduced to about 5,000 men. May 14, Banks prudently fell back and took position in Strasburg.[18] Suddenly, on May 23, Jackson appeared at Front Royal; on the next day he attacked Banks at Winchester, and of course defeated him; on the 25th Banks made a rapid retreat to the Potomac, and Jackson made an equally rapid pursuit to Halltown, within two miles of Harper's Ferry. The news of this startling foray threw the civilians of Washington into a genuine panic, by which Mr. Lincoln was, at least for a few hours, not altogether unaffected.[19] Yet, though startled and alarmed, he showed the excellent quality of promptitude in decision and

## action; and truly it was hard fortune that his decision and his action

were both for the worst. He at once ordered McDowell to move 20,000 troops into the Shenandoah Valley, and instructed Fremont also to move his force rapidly into the valley, with the design that the two should thus catch Jackson in what Mr. Lincoln described as a "trap."[20] McDowell was dismayed at such an order. He saw, what every man having any military knowledge at once recognized with entire certainty, and what every military writer has since corroborated, that the movement of Jackson had no value except as a diversion, that it threatened no serious danger, and that to call off McDowell's corps from marching to join McClellan in order to send it against Jackson was to do exactly that thing which the Confederates desired to have done, though they could hardly have been sanguine enough to expect it. It was swallowing a bait so plain that it might almost be said to be labeled. For a general to come under the suspicion of not seeing through such a ruse was humiliating. In vain McDowell explained, protested, and entreated with the utmost vehemence and insistence. When Mr. Lincoln had made up his mind, no man could change it, and here, as ill fortune would have it, he had made it up. So, with a heavy heart, the reluctant McDowell set forth on his foolish errand, and Fremont likewise came upon his,--though it is true that he was better employed thus than in doing nothing,--and Jackson, highly pleased, and calculating his time to a nicety, on May 31 slipped rapidly between the two Union generals,--the closing jaws of Mr. Lincoln's "trap,"--and left them to close upon nothing.[21] Then he led his pursuers a fruitless chase towards the head of the valley, continuing to neutralize a force many times larger than his own, and which could and ought to have been at this very time doing fatal work against the Confederacy. Presumably he had saved Richmond, and therewith also, not impossibly, the chief army of the South. The chagrin of the Union commanders, who had in vain explained the situation with entire accuracy, taxes the imagination.

There is no use in denying a truth which can be proved. The blunder of Mr. Lincoln is not only undeniable, but it is inexcusable. Possibly for a few hours he feared that Washington was threatened. He telegraphed to McClellan May 25, at two o'clock P.M., that he thought the movement down the valley a "general and concerted one," inconsistent with "the purpose of a very desperate defense of Richmond;" and added, "I think the time is near when you must either attack Richmond, or give up the job and come to the defense of Washington." How reasonable this view was at the moment is of little consequence, for within a few hours afterward the character of Jackson's enterprise as a mere foray became too palpable to be mistaken. Nevertheless, after the President was relieved from such fear for the capital as he might excusably have felt for a very brief period, his cool judgment seemed for once in his life, perhaps for the only time, to be disturbed. The truth is that Mr. Lincoln was a sure and safe, almost an infallible thinker, when he had time given him; but he was not always a quick thinker, and on this occasion he was driven to think quickly. In consequence he not only erred in repudiating the opinions of the best military advisers, but even upon the basis of his own views he made a mistake. The very fact that he was so energetic in the endeavor to "trap" Jackson in retreat indicates his understanding of the truth that Jackson had so small a force that his prompt retreat was a necessity. This being so, he was in the distinct and simple position of making a choice between two alternatives, viz.: either to endeavor to catch Jackson, and for this object to withhold what was needed by and had been promised to McClellan for his campaign against Richmond; or, leaving Jackson to escape with impunity, to pursue with steadiness that plan which it was Jackson's important and perfectly understood errand to interrupt. It is almost incredible that he chose wrong. The statement of the dilemma involved the decision. Yet he took the little purpose and let the great one go. Nor even thus did he gain this lesser purpose. He had been warned by McDowell that Jackson could not be caught, and he was not. Yet even had this been otherwise, the Northerners would have got little more than the shell while losing the kernel. Probably Richmond, and possibly the Southern army, fell out of the President's hand while he tried without success to close it upon Jackson and 15,000 men.

The result of this civilian strategy was that McClellan, with his projects shattered, was left with his right wing and rear dangerously exposed. Jackson remained for a while a mysterious _bête noire_, about whose force, whereabouts, and intentions many disturbing rumors flew abroad; at last, on June 26, he settled these doubts in his usual sharp and conclusive way by assailing the exposed right wing and threatening the rear of the Union army, thus achieving "the brilliant conclusion of the operations which [he] had so successfully conducted in the Valley of Virginia."

Simultaneously with the slipping of Jackson betwixt his two pursuers on May 31, General Johnston made an attack upon the two corps[22] which lay south of the Chickahominy, in position about Seven Pines and Fair Oaks. Battle was waged during two days. Each side claimed a victory; the Southerners because they had inflicted the heavier loss, the Northerners because ultimately they held their original lines and foiled Johnston's design of defeating and destroying the Northern army in detail. The result of this battle ought to have proved to McClellan two facts: that neither in discipline nor in any other respect were the Southern troops more formidable than his own; also that the Southerners were clearly not able to overwhelm him with such superior numbers as he had supposed; for in two days they had not been able to overwhelm much less than half of his army. These considerations should have encouraged him to energetic measures. But no encouragement could counteract the discouragement inflicted by the loss of McDowell's powerful corps and the consequent wrecking of his latest plan. Nearly to the end of June he lay immovable. "June 14, midnight. All quiet in every direction,"--thus he telegraphed to Stanton in words intended to be reassuring, but in fact infinitely vexatious. Was he, then, set at the head of this great and costly host of the nation's best, to rest satisfied with preserving an eternal quietude,--like a chief of police in a disorderly quarter? Still he was indefatigable in declaring himself outnumbered, and in demanding more troops; in return he got assurances, with only the slight fulfillment of McCall's division. Every two or three days he cheeringly announced to the administration that he was on the verge of advancing, but he never passed over the verge. Throughout a season in which blundering seemed to become epidemic, no blunder was greater than his quiescence at this time.[23] As if to emphasize it, about the middle of June General Stuart, with a body of Confederate cavalry, actually rode all around the Union army, making the complete circuit and crossing its line of communication with White House without interruption. The foray achieved little, but it wore the aspect of a signal and unavenged insult.

In Washington the only powerful backing upon which McClellan could still rely was that of the President, and he was surely wearing away the patience of his only friend by the irritating attrition of promises ever reiterated and never redeemed. No man ever kept his own counsel more closely than did Mr. Lincoln, and the indications of his innermost sentiments concerning McClellan at this time are rare. But perhaps a little ray is let in, as through a cranny, by a dispatch which he sent to the general on June 2: "With these continuous rains I am very anxious about the Chickahominy,--so close in your rear, and crossing your line of communication. Please look to it." This curt prompting on so obvious a point was a plain insinuation against McClellan's military competence, and suggests that ceaseless harassment had at last got the better of Lincoln's usually imperturbable self-possession; for it lacked little of being an insult, and Mr. Lincoln, in all his life, never insulted any man. As a spot upon a white cloth sets off the general whiteness, so this dispatch illustrates Lincoln's unweariable patience and long-suffering without parallel. McClellan, never trammeled by respect, retorted sharply: "As the Chickahominy has been almost the only obstacle in my way for several days, your excellency may rest assured that it has not been overlooked." When finally the general became active, it was under the spur of General Jackson, not of President Lincoln. Jackson compelled him to decide and act; and the result was his famous southward movement to the James River. Some, adopting his own nomenclature, have called this a change of base; some, less euphemistically, speak of it as a retreat. According to General Webb, it may be called either the one or the other with equal propriety, for it partook of the features of each.[24] It is no part of the biographer of Lincoln to narrate the suffering and the gallantry of the troops through those seven days of continuous fighting and marching, during which they made their painful way, in the face of an attacking army, through the dismal swamps of an unwholesome region, amid the fierce and humid heats of the Southern summer. On July 1 they closed the dread experience by a brilliant victory in the desperate, prolonged, and bloody battle of Malvern Hill.

In the course of this march a letter was sent by McClellan to Stanton which has become famous. The vindictive lunge, visibly aimed at the secretary, was really designed, piercing this lesser functionary, to reach the President. Even though written amid the strain and stress of the most critical and anxious moment of the terrible "Seven Days," the words were unpardonable. The letter is too long to be given in full, but the closing sentences were:--

"I know that a few thousand more men would have changed this battle[25] from a defeat to a victory. As it is, the government must not and cannot hold me responsible for the result. I feel too earnestly to-night. I have seen too many dead and wounded comrades to feel otherwise than that the government has not sustained this army. If you do not do so now, the game is lost. If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you or to any other persons in Washington. You have done your best to sacrifice this army."[26] It was safe to write thus to Mr. Lincoln, whose marvelous magnanimity was never soiled by a single act of revenge; but the man who addressed such language to Stanton secured a merciless and unscrupulous enemy forever.

Though, at the close of this appalling week, the troops at last were conquerors on the banks of the James, they were in a position not permanently tenable, and before they could rest they had to fall back another march to Harrison's Landing. The rear guard reached this haven on the night of July 3, and the army, thus at last safely placed and in direct communication with the fleet and the transports, was able to recuperate,[27] while those in authority considered of the future. Certain facts were established: first, concerning the army,--that before it met the baptism of heavy fighting it had been brought into a splendid condition of drill and efficiency, and that by that baptism, so severe and so long continued, it had come as near as volunteers could come to the excellence of veterans and regulars; also that it was at least a match for its opponents; and, finally, strange to say, it was very slightly demoralized, would soon again be in condition for an advance, and felt full confidence and strong affection for its commander. Brilliant and enthusiastic tributes have been paid to these men for their endurance amid disease and wounds and battle; but not one word too much has been said. It is only cruel to think of the hideous price which they had paid, and by which they had bought only the capacity to endure further perils and hardship. Second, concerning McClellan; it was to be admitted that his predictions as to points of strategy had been fulfilled; that he had managed his retreat, or "change of base," with skill, and had shown some qualities of high generalship; but it was also evident that he was of a temperament so unenterprising and apprehensive as to make him entirely useless in an offensive campaign. Yet the burden of conducting a successful offense lay upon the North. Must Mr. Lincoln, then, finally accept the opinion of those who had long since concluded that McClellan was not the man for the place?

A collateral question was: What should be done next? McClellan, tenacious and stubborn, was for persisting in the movement against Lee's army and Richmond. He admitted no other thought than that, having paused to gather reinforcements and to refresh his army, he should assume the offensive, approaching the city by the south and southwest from the James River base. Holding this purpose, he was impolitic in sending very dolorous dispatches on July 4 and 7, intimating doubts as to his power to maintain successfully even the defensive. Two or three days later, however, he assumed a better tone; and on July 11 and 12 he reported "all in fine spirits," and urged that his army should be "promptly reinforced and thrown again upon Richmond. If we have a little more than half a chance, we can take it." He continued throughout the month to press these views by arguments which, though overruled at the time, have since been more favorably regarded. Whether or not they were correct is an item in the long legacy of questions left by the war to be disputed over by posterity; in time, one side or the other may desist from the discussion in weariness, but, from the nature of the case, neither can be vanquished.

Whether McClellan was right or wrong, his prestige, fresh as it still remained with his devoted troops, was utterly gone at Washington, where the political host was almost a unit against him. The Committee on the Conduct of the War had long been bitterly denouncing him; and he had so abused the secretary of war that even the duplicity of Mr. Stanton was unequal to the strain of maintaining an appearance of good understanding. New military influences also fell into the same scale. General Pope, the latest "favorite," now enjoying his few weeks of authority, endeavored to make it clear to Mr. Lincoln that to bring McClellan back from the Peninsula was the only safe and intelligent course. Further, on July 11, President Lincoln appointed General Halleck general-in-chief. It may be said, in passing, that the appointment turned out to be a very bad mistake; for Halleck was as dull a man as ever made use of grand opportunities only to prove his own incompetence. Now, however, he came well recommended before Lincoln, and amid novel responsibilities the merit of any man could only be known by trial. Halleck did not arrive in Washington till near the end of the month, then he seemed for a while in doubt, or to be upon both sides of the question as to whether the army should be advanced or withdrawn; but ultimately, in the contemptuous language of Mr. Swinton, he "added his strident voice in favor of the withdrawal of the army from the Peninsula." This settled the matter; for the President had decided to place himself under the guidance of his new military mentor; and, moreover, his endurance was worn out.

In the way of loyalty the President certainly owed nothing further to the general. All such obligations he had exhaustively discharged. In spite of the covert malicious suggestions and the direct injurious charges which tortured the air of the White House and vexed his judgment, he had sustained McClellan with a constancy which deserved warm gratitude. This the general never gave, because he could never forgive Mr. Lincoln for refusing to subordinate his own views to those of such a military expert as himself. This point, it is true, Lincoln never reached; but subject only to this independence of opinion and

## action, so long as he retained McClellan in command, he fulfilled toward

him every requirement of honor and generosity. The movement across the Peninsula, whatever construction might possibly be put upon it, seemed in Washington a retreat, and was for the President a disappointment weighty enough to have broken the spirit of a smaller man. Yet Lincoln, instead of sacrificing McClellan as a scapegoat, sent to him on July 1 and 2 telegrams bidding him do his best in the emergency and save his army, in which case the people would rally and repair all losses; "we still have strength enough in the country and will bring it out," he said,--words full of cheering resolution unshaded by a suspicion of reproach, words which should have come like wine to the weary. The next day, July 3, he sent a dispatch which even McClellan, in his formal report, described as "kind:" "I am satisfied that yourself, officers, and men have done the best you could. All accounts say better fighting was never done. Ten thousand thanks for it." But when it came to judgment and action the President could not alleviate duty with kindness. To get information uncolored by passage through the minds of others, he went down to Harrison's Landing on July 7, observed all that he could see, and talked matters over. Prior to this visit it is supposed that he had leaned towards McClellan's views, and had inclined to renew the advance. Nor is it clearly apparent that he learned anything during this trip which induced him to change his mind. Rather it seems probable that he maintained his original opinion until General Halleck had declared against it, and that then he yielded to General Halleck as he had before yielded to General McClellan, though certainly with much less reluctance. At the same time the question was not considered wholly by itself, but was almost necessarily complicated with the question of deposing McClellan from the command. For the inconsistency of discrediting McClellan's military judgment and retaining him at the head of the army was obvious.

Thus at last it came about that McClellan's plan lost its only remaining friend, and on August 3 came the definite order for the removal of the army across the Peninsula to Acquia Creek. The campaign against Richmond was abandoned. McClellan could not express his indignation at a policy "almost fatal to our cause;" but his strenuous remonstrances had no effect; his influence had passed forever. The movement of the army was successfully completed, the rear guard arriving at Yorktown on August 20. Thus the first great Peninsula campaign came to its end in disappointment and almost in disaster, amid heart-burnings and criminations. It was, says General Webb, "a lamentable failure,--nothing less." There was little hope for the future unless some master hand could control the discordant officials who filled the land with the din of their quarreling. The burden lay upon the President. Fortunately his good sense, his even judgment, his unexcitable temperament had saved him from the appearance or the reality of partisanship and from any entangling or compromising personal commitments.

In many ways and for many reasons, this story of the Peninsula has been both difficult and painful to write. To reach the truth and sound conclusions in the many quarrels which it has provoked is never easy, and upon some points seems impossible; and neither the truth nor the conclusions are often agreeable. Opinion and sympathy have gradually but surely tended in condemnation of McClellan and in favor of Lincoln. The evidence is conclusive that McClellan was vain, disrespectful, and hopelessly blind to those non-military but very serious considerations which should have been allowed to modify the purely scientific strategy of the campaign. Also, though his military training was excellent, it was his misfortune to be placed amid exigencies for which neither his moral nor his mental qualities were adapted. Lincoln, on the other hand, displayed traits of character not only in themselves rare and admirable, but so fitted to the requirements of the times that many persons have been tempted to conceive him to have been divinely led. But against this view, though without derogating from the merits which induce it, is to be set the fact that he made mistakes hardly consistent with the theory of inspiration by Omniscience. He interfered in military matters; and, being absolutely ignorant of military science, while the problems before him were many and extremely perplexing, he blundered, and on at least one occasion blundered very badly. After he has been given the benefit of all the doubt which can be suggested concerning the questions which he disposed of, the preponderance of expert authority shows a residuum of substantial certainty against him. It is true that many civilian writers have given their judgments in favor of the President's strategy, with a tranquil assurance at least equal to that shown by the military critics. But it seems hardly reasonable to suppose that Mr. Lincoln became by mere instinct, and instantly, a master in the complex science of war, and it is also highly improbable that in the military criticism of this especial campaign, the civilians are generally right and the military men are generally wrong. On the whole it is pleasanter as well as more intelligent to throw out this foolish notion of miraculous knowledge suddenly illuminating Mr. Lincoln with a thorough mastery of the art of war. It is better not to believe that he became at once endowed with acquirements which he had never had an opportunity to attain, and rather to be content with holding him as a simple human being like the rest of us, and so to credit our common humanity with the inspiring excellence of the moral qualities displayed by him in those months of indescribable trial.

How much of expectation had been staked upon that army of the Potomac! All the Northern people for nearly a year kept their eyes fastened with aching intensity upon it; good fortunes which befell elsewhere hardly interrupted for a moment the absorption in it. The feeling was well illustrated by the committee of Congress, which said that in the history of this army was to be found all that was necessary for framing a report on the Conduct of the War; and truly added that this army had been "the object of special care to every department of the government." It occurred to many who heard this language, that matters would have gone better with the army if the political and civil departments had been less lavish of care and attention. None the less the fact remained that the interest and anticipation of the whole loyal part of the nation were concentrated in the Virginia campaign. Correspondingly cruel was the disappointment at its ultimate miscarriage. Probably, as a single trial, it was the most severe that Mr. Lincoln ever suffered. Hope then went through the painful process of being pruned by failure, and it was never tortured by another equal mutilation. Moreover, the vastness of the task, the awful cost of success, were now, for the first time, appreciated. The responsibility of a ruler under so appalling a destiny now descended with a weight that could never become greater upon the shoulders of that lonely man in the White House. A solitary man, indeed, he was, in a solitude impressive and painful to contemplate. Having none of those unofficial counselors, those favorites, those privy confidants and friends, from whom men in chief authority are so apt to seek relief, Mr. Lincoln secretively held his most important thoughts in his own mind, wrought out his conclusions by the toil of his own brain, carried his entire burden wholly upon his own shoulders, and in every part and way met the full responsibility of his office in and by himself alone. It does not appear that he ever sought to be sustained or comforted or encouraged amid disaster, that he ever endeavored to shift upon others even the most trifling fragment of the load which rested upon himself; and certainly he never desired that any one should ever be a sharer in any ill repute attendant upon a real or supposed mistake. Silent as to matters of deep import, self-sustained, facing alone all grave duties, solving alone all difficult problems, and enduring alone all consequences, he appears a man so isolated from his fellow men amid such tests and trials, that one is filled with a sense of awe, almost beyond sympathy, in the contemplation.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] This language was too vague to make known to us now what Sumner's demand was; for one of the questions bitterly in dispute soon became: what forces were properly to be regarded as available "for the defense of the city."

[5] McClellan says that he offered to General Hitchcock, "who at that time held staff relations with his excellency, the President, and the secretary of war," to submit a list of troops, to be left for the defense of Washington, with their positions; but Hitchcock replied that McClellan's judgment was sufficient in the matter. McClellan's _Report_, 683. VOL. II.

[6] By letter to the adjutant-general, wherein he requested the transmission of the information to the secretary of war. _Report of Comm. on Conduct of the War_, ii. pt. i. 13. The addition in the _Report_ is erroneous, being given as 54,456 instead of 55,456.

[7] See Comte de Paris, _Civil War in America_, i. 626, 627.

[8] See discussion by Swinton, _Army of Potomac_, 108 _et seq._

[9] Perhaps he was not justified in counting upon it with such apparent assurance as he had done. Webb, _The Peninsula_, 37-42.

[10] General Webb says that this question is "the leading point of dispute in the campaign and may never be satisfactorily set at rest." But he also says: "To allow the general to remain in command, and then cut off the very arm with which he was about to strike, we hold to have been inexcusable and unmilitary to the last degree." Swinton condemns the withholding McDowell (_Army of the Potomac_, 104), adding, with fine magnanimity, that it is not necessary to impute any "really unworthy motive" to Mr. Lincoln!

[11] It seems to me that military opinion, so far as I can get at it, inclines to hold that the government, having let McClellan go to the Peninsula with the expectation of McDowell's corps, ought to have sent it to him, and not to have repaired its own oversight at his cost. But this does not fully meet the position that, oversight or no oversight, Peninsula-success or Peninsula-defeat, blame here or blame there, when the President had reason to doubt the safety of the capital, he was resolved, and rightly resolved, to put that safety beyond _possibility of question_, by any means or at any cost. The truth is that to the end of time one man will think one way, and another man will think another way, concerning this unendable dispute.

[12] General Wool was in command at Fortress Monroe. It had been originally arranged that General McClellan should draw 10,000 men from him. But this was afterward countermanded. The paragraph in the President's letter has reference to this.

[13] A slight obstruction by a battery at Drury's Bluff must have been abandoned instantly upon the approach of a land force.

[14] Whose command had been added to McDowell's.

[15] Colonel Franklin Haven, who was on General McDowell's staff at the time, is my authority for this statement. He well remembers the reason given by Mr. Lincoln, and the extreme annoyance which the general and his officers felt at the delay.

[16] "The expediency of the junction of this [McD.'s] large corps with the principal army was manifest," says General Johnston. _Narr. 131._

[17] Jackson used to say: "Mystery, mystery, is the secret of success."

[18] The Comte de Paris is very severe, even to sarcasm, in his comments on the President's orders to Banks (_Civil War in America_, ii. 35, 36, and see 44); and Swinton, referring to the disposition of the armies, which was well known to have been made by Mr. Lincoln's personal orders, says: "One hardly wishes to inquire by whose crude and fatuous inspiration these things were done." _Army of Potomac_, 123. Later critics have not repeated such strong language, but have not taken different views of the facts.

[19] Observe the tone of his two dispatches of May 25 to McClellan. McClellan's _Report_, 100, 101.

[20] The Comte de Paris prefers to call it a "chimerical project." _Civil War in America_, ii. 45. Swinton speaks of "the skill of the Confederates and the folly of those who controlled the operations of the Union armies." _Army of Potomac_, 122.

[21] Yet, if Fremont had not blundered, the result might have been different. Comte de Paris, _Civil War in America_, ii. 47.

[22] The Third, under Heintzelman, and the Fourth, under Keyes.

[23] Even his admirer, Swinton, says that any possible course would have been better than inaction. _Army of Potomac_, 140, 141.

[24] _The Peninsula_, 188. Swinton seems to regard it in the same light. _Army of Potomac_, 147.

[25] Gaines's Mill, contested with superb courage and constancy by the Fifth Corps, under Porter, against very heavy odds.

[26] McClellan's _Report_, 131, 132. See, also, his own comments on this extraordinary dispatch; _Own Story_, 452. He anticipated, not without reason, that he would be promptly removed. The Comte de Paris says that the two closing sentences were suppressed by the War Department, when the documents had to be laid before the Committee on the Conduct of the War. _Civil War in America_, ii. 112. Another dispatch, hardly less disrespectful, was sent on June 25. See McClellan's _Report_, 121.

[27] For a vivid description of the condition to which heat, marching, fighting, and the unwholesome climate had reduced the men, see statement of Comte de Paris, an eye-witness. _Civil War in America,_ ii. 130.

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