YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

McCLELLAN'S
LAST SERVICE TO
THE REPUBLIC,

TOGETHER WITH
A TRIBUTE TO HIS MEMORY.

BY
GEORGE TICKNOR CURTIS.

NEW YORK :
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
I, 3, AND S BOND STREET.
1886.

t y a i . r

x/ a />&

Copyright, 1885,
Bv GEORGE TICKNOR CURTIS.

Celt,

t i^

PREFATORY NOTE.

Three of the papers in this volume were orig
inally published in the " North American Review,"
for April, May, and June, 1880. They are now
republished by permission of the editor and pro
prietor of that magazine. The fourth paper is a
tribute to the memory of the late General McClel-
lan, which was first published in " The Star," at
New York, November 18, 1885. A few notes are
added to this edition, distinguished, as to the time
of their being written, by inclosure in brackets.
The entire contents of this volume are under the
protection of copyright.
Every statement of a fact, contained in these
pages, which was not founded on General McClel-
lan's official report of his campaigns, or derived
from some other public source, was given to me
orally by the General in the spring of 1880, and

4 PREFATORY NOTE.
was written down by me at the time. At my
request, he superintended the preparation of the
map which shows his position and that of the
Confederate troops on the 7th and 8th of Novem
ber, 1862, and compared it with the military maps
issued by the Government after the close of the
civil war. — General McClellan died at his home in
Orange, N. J., on the 29th of October, 1885.
G. T. C.
Washington, D. C, December 1, 1885.

MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
TO THE REPUBLIC.

PART I.
A FULL history of General McClellan's services
to the country, from the time when he led the
Army of the Potomac to a position of safety on
the James River at Harrison's Landing, to the
transfer of that army to General Pope's command,
and thence to the battle of Antietam, has never
been written. In that part of McClellan's official
report which covers this period, there is hardly
more than a skeleton of events, made up of dis
patches and letters, connected by a thread of nar
rative, in which the personal interviews, the oral
communications, the anecdotes, and the acts of in
dividuals, are for the most part wanting. That
singularly dramatic scene, which witnessed the
withdrawal of McClellan's army from the James,
the defeat and disorderly retreat of Pope, McClel-

6 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
lan's resumption of the command at the sudden and
unexpected request of President Lincoln, his resto
ration of order, his provisions for the safety of
Washington, his march into northern Maryland,
his repulse of Lee, his advance into Virginia, and
his recall at the moment when his preparations
had been so made that nothing could probably
have stayed his entrance into Richmond, is now
to be described. Of the four principal actors
in this remarkable drama, Lincoln, Stanton, Hal-
leck, and McClellan, the last alone survives.* In
what we shall say of the conduct of each of the
three others toward the general who saved the
capital, we may present to our readers unexpect
ed explanations of many things which they have
been accustomed to view differently, or which
have remained hitherto in obscurity. They will
understand, however, that we do not speak at
random, and that we do not ask for their belief
without having had ample means for forming our
own. The present narrative will commence at the
point of time when General McClellan delivered
personally into the hands of President Lincoln a
letter on the general subject of the war, which has
long been public, and which has been the subject
* Written and first published in April, 1880. General McClellan
died suddenly, October 29, 1885.

TO THE REPUBLIC. 7
of much criticism. The true history of that letter
we are able to give. While General McClellan
was encamped on the Chickahominy, in June, 1862,
awaiting the re-enforcements which he so much
needed for his advance on Richmond, he said in a
telegraphic dispatch to the President, relating to
other matters, " I would be glad to lay before your
Excellency, by letter or telegraph, my views as to
the present state of military affairs throughout the
whole country." The President answered on the
next day, as follows : " If it would not divert too
much of your time and attention from the army
under your immediate command, I would be glad
to have your views as to the present state of mili
tary affairs throughout the country, as you say you
would be glad to give them. I would rather it
should be by letter than by telegraph, because of
the better chance of secrecy." To this General
McClellan replied that under the circumstances he
would defer for the present the communication he
desired to make. It was, however, only deferred.
General McClellan felt that what he desired to say
to the President was too important to be forborne,
but he postponed the preparation of his letter until
a more convenient time.
On the 25th of June (1862), McClellan, closely
pressed by the enemy, whose force amounted, ac
cording to his best information, to two hundred

8 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
thousand men, telegraphed to Stanton, the Secre
tary of War, as follows :
Headquarters, Army of the Potomac,
Camp Lincoln, Jane 25, 1862— 6.15 p. M.
I have just returned from the field, and found your
dispatch in regard to Jackson.
Several contrabands, just in, give information confirm
ing supposition that Jackson's advance is at or near Han
over Court-House, and that Beauregard arrived, with
strong re-enforcements, in Richmond yesterday.
I incline to think that Jackson will attack my right and
rear. The rebel force is stated at (200,000) two hundred
thousand, including Jackson and Beauregard. I shall
have to contend against vastly superior odds if these re
ports be true. But this army will do all in the power of
men to hold their position and repulse any attack.
I regret my great inferiority in numbers, but feel that
I am in no way responsible for it, as I have not failed to
represent, repeatedly, the necessity of re-enforcements ;
that this was the decisive point, and that all the available
means of the Government should be concentrated here.
I will do all that a general can do, with the splendid army
I have the honor to command, and, if it is destroyed by
overwhelming numbers, can at least die with it, and share
its fate. But, if the result of the action which will probably
occur to-morrow, or within a short time, is a disaster, the
responsibility can not be thrown on my shoulders ; it must
rest where it belongs.

TO THE REPUBLIC. g
Since I commenced this, I have received additional
intelligence, confirming the supposition in regard to Jack
son's movements and Beauregard's arrival. I shall proba
bly be attacked to-morrow, and now go to the other side
of the Chickahominy, to arrange for the defense on that
side. I feel that there is no use in my again asking for
re-enforcements. G. B. McClellan, Major-General.
Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War.
On the 26th, the day upon which McClellan had
fixed for his final advance, although the re-enforce
ments which he had so earnestly and repeatedly
called for had been withheld from him, he was
attacked by the enemy in strong force on his right.
He was thus compelled to turn his attention to the
protection of his communications and depots of
supply. " This," he says in his report, " was a bit
ter confirmation of the military judgment which had
been reiterated to my military superiors from the
inception and through the progress of the Pen
insular campaign." Then followed The Seven
Days, through which he fought his way for a
change of base to the James River, in a series of
desperate conflicts, in every one of which the Con
federates were baffled, until, on the night of the 3d
of July, the last of the wagon-trains reached the
new base at Harrison's Landing, and the wearied
Army of the Potomac, which had battled with such

IO MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
heroic endurance under his skillful guidance, rested
in security, protected by their own batteries and
the gunboats which lay in the river. The three
following days were occupied by McClellan in
strengthening and guarding his position, and in a
fruitless telegraphic correspondence with the Presi
dent, to convince the latter that re-enforcements
ought to be sent to him, so that he could advance
on Richmond from the James. " To re-enforce you,"
said Mr. Lincoln, " so as to enable you to resume
the offensive within a month, or even six weeks, is
impossible. . . . Under these circumstances, the
defensive, for the present, must be your only care.
Save the army, first, where you are, if you can ;
and, secondly, by removal, if you must."
While the Army of the Potomac was thus rest
ing in the defensive at Harrison's Landing, General
McClellan wrote to the President, on the 7th of
July, the letter which he had obtained permission
to write. It is but fair to take his own account of
the motives which actuated him in making this
communication to the President. " While General-
in-Chief," he said in his report, " and directing the
operations of all our armies in the field, I had be
come deeply impressed with the importance of
adopting and carrying out certain views regarding
the conduct of the war, which, in my judgment,
were essential to its objects and success. During

TO THE REPUBLIC. u
an active campaign of three months in the enemy's
country, these were so fully confirmed that I con
ceived it a duty, in the critical position we then
occupied, not to withhold a candid expression of
the more important of these views from the Com
mander-in-Chief whom the Constitution places at
the head of the armies and navies, as well as of the
Government of the nation." This letter, conceived
in this spirit and privately delivered into the Presi
dent's own hands, is the one that has been so long
misrepresented as a political manifesto of General
McClellan, intended to promote his personal pros
pects for the next Presidency.
The letter having been completed and signed,
General McClellan was about to intrust it to the
hands of General Marcy, his chief of staff, who was
going to Washington, for delivery to the Presi
dent, when intelligence was unexpectedly received
that the President was coming down to Harrison's
Landing. He arrived on or about the 8th of July.
General McClellan went on board the steamer to
receive the President, and, after they had been to
gether a short time in the cabin, McClellan placed
his letter in the President's hands. Mr. Lincoln
read it through, folded it up, and, with no comment
save the two words " All right," put it in his pocket.
He remained at Harrison's Landing for forty-eight
hours, in constant intercourse with McClellan of

12 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
the most confidential nature, and never once alluded
to this letter with either commendation, criticism,
censure, or complaint.* How this letter, never in
tended for publication as its context shows, came
long afterward to be given to the newspaper press
is not known. It was not done by General Mc
Clellan, or by his permission.
Headquarters, Army of the Potomac,
Camp near Harrison's Landing, Virginia, July 7, 1862.
Mr. President : You have been duly informed that
the rebel army is in our front, with the purpose of over
whelming us by attacking our positions, or reducing us by
blocking our river communications. I can not but regard
our condition as critical, and I earnestly desire, in view of '
possible contingencies, to lay before your Excellency, for
your private consideration, my general views concerning
the existing state of the rebellion, although they do not
strictly relate to the situation of this army, or strictly
come within the scope of my official duties. These views
amount to convictions, and are deeply impressed on my
mind and heart. Our cause must never be abandoned ;
* While Mr. Lincoln was on shore at Harrison's Landing, the sol
diers exhibited no disposition to cheer him. In fact, the rank and file
of the army received him very coldly. General McClellan caused the
men to be told that the President should be cheered ; and then he was
cheered, but not with the slightest enthusiasm. The men felt too
deeply that the Government had left them to encounter terrible perils,
without proper support ; and they also felt that, after all their exertions
and endurance, they ought to be reinforced and allowed to resume the
offensive for which they ardently longed.

TO THE REPUBLIC.

13

it is the cause of free institutions and self-government.
The Constitution and the Union must be preserved, what
ever may be the cost in time, treasure, and blood. If
secession is successful, other dissolutions are clearly to be
seen in the future. Let neither military disaster, political
faction, nor foreign war shake your settled purpose to en
force the equal operation of the laws of the United States
upon the people of every State.
The time has come when the Government must deter
mine upon a civil and military policy covering the whole
ground of our national trouble. The responsibility of de
termining, declaring, and supporting such civil and mili
tary policy, and of directing the whole course of national
affairs in regard to the rebellion, must now be assumed
and exercised by you, or our cause will be lost. The
Constitution gives you power sufficient even for the pres
ent terrible exigency.
This rebellion has assumed the character of a war ; as
such it should be regarded, and it should be conducted
upon the highest principles known to Christian civiliza
tion. It should not be a war looking to the subjugation
of the people of any State, in any event. It should not
be at all a war upon populations, but against armed forces
and political organizations. Neither confiscation of prop
erty, political executions of persons, territorial organiza
tion of States, nor forcible abolition of slavery should be
contemplated for a moment. In prosecuting the war, all
private property and unarmed persons should be strictly
protected, subject only to the necessity of military opera-

14

MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE

tions. All private property taken for military use should
be paid or receipted for ; pillage and waste should be
treated as high crimes ; all unnecessary trespass sternly
prohibited, and offensive demeanor by the military toward
citizens promptly rebuked. Military arrests should not
be tolerated, except in places where active hostilities exist,
and oaths not required by enactments constitutionally
made should be neither demanded nor received. Military
government should be confined to the preservation of
public order and the protection of political rights. Mili
tary power should not be allowed to interfere with the re
lations of servitude, either by supporting or impairing the
authority of the master, except for repressing disorder, as
in other cases. Slaves contraband under the act of Con
gress, seeking military protection, should receive it. The
right of the Government to appropriate permanently to its
own service claims to slave-labor should be asserted, and
the right of the owner to compensation therefor should be
recognized. This principle might be extended, upon grounds of
military necessity and security, to all the slaves within a
particular State, thus working manumission in such State ;
and in Missouri, perhaps in Western Virginia also, and
possibly even in Maryland, the expediency of such a meas
ure is only a question of time.
A system of policy thus constitutional and conserva
tive, and pervaded by the influences of Christianity and
freedom, would receive the support of almost all truly
loyal men, would deeply impress trje rebel masses and all

TO THE REPUBLIC. 15
foreign nations, and it might be humbly hoped that it
would commend itself to the favor of the Almighty.
¦ Unless the principles governing the future conduct of ,
our struggle shall be made known and approved, the effort '
to obtain requisite forces will be almost hopeless. A dec
laration of radical views, especially upon slavery, will rap
idly disintegrate our present armies. i
The policy of the Government must be supported by
concentrations of military power. The national forces
should not be dispersed in expeditions, posts of occupa
tion, and numerous armies, but should be mainly collected
into masses, and brought to bear upon the armies of the
Confederate States. Those armies thoroughly defeated,
the political structure which they support would soon
cease to exist.
In carrying out any system of policy which you may
form, you will require a commander-in-chief of the army
— one who possesses your confidence, understands your
views, and who is competent to execute your orders by
directing the military forces of the nation to the accom
plishment of the objects by you proposed. I do not ask
that place for myself. I am willing to serve you in such
position as you may assign me, and I will do so as faith
fully as ever subordinate served superior.
I may be on the brink of eternity, and, as I hope for
forgiveness from my Maker, I have written this letter with
sincerity toward you, and from love for my country.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
G. B. McClellan.
His Excellency, A. Lincoln, President.

1 6 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
The President returned to Washington, carry
ing with him General McClellan's letter, on or
about the ioth of July, undecided as to the future
I military operations. The dispatches which fol
lowed his return are very important. On the 12th
5 McClellan telegraphed to him: "I am more and
more convinced that this army ought not to be
withdrawn from here, but promptly re-enforced
and thrown again upon Richmond. If we have
little more than half a chance, we can take it. I
dread the effects of any retreat upon the morale of
my men." Again, on the 17th he telegraphed to
the President : " I have consulted fully with Gen
eral Burnside, and would commend to your favor
able consideration the general's plan for bringing
seven additional regiments from North Carolina,
by leaving Newbern to the care of the gunboats.
It appears manifestly to be our policy to concen
trate here everything we can possibly spare from
less important points, to make sure of crushing the
enemy at Richmond, which seems clearly to be the
most important point in rebeldom. Nothing should
be left to chance here. I would recommend that
General Burnside, with all his troops, be ordered
to this army, to enable it to assume the offensive as
soon as possible." On the 18th he repeated this
advice, adding: "Am anxious to have determina
tion of Government, that no time may be lost in

TO THE REPUBLIC. \<j
preparing for it. Hours are very precious now,
and perfect unity of action necessary."
Ten days passed away, and still no decision had
been made at Washington. On the 28th McClel
lan telegraphed to Halleck, the General-in-Chief :
" My opinion is more and more firm that here is
the defense of Washington, and that I should be
re-enforced at once by all available troops, to enable
me to advance. Retreat would be disastrous to the
army and the cause. I am confident of that." On
the 30th he again telegraphed to Halleck : " I hope
it may soon be decided what is to be done by this
army ; and that the decision may be to re-enforce
it at once. We are losing much valuable time, and
that at a moment when energy and decision are
sadly needed."
We must pause here to explain that, at the time
of this indecision on the part of the Government,
the question was whether the enemy should be at
tacked by McClellan advancing on Richmond, and
be thereby confined to the defense of his capital, or
whether he should be allowed to advance on Wash
ington by way of Fredericksburg, thus compelling
the Federal Government to defend their capital.
As a military question, considering the compara
tive advantages of attack and defense, and the dan
gers that would follow from a defeat of the Federal
forces in the front of Washington, there was not

1 8 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
much room for doubt. If McClellan were to be re-
enforced and ordered to attack Richmond, the
troops of the Confederates would have to be con
centrated for its defense. If McClellan had been
defeated in this attempt, his defeat must have cost
the enemy so much that he could hardly have been
in a condition to seriously menace Washington be
fore a sufficient force could have been interposed
for its defense. McClellan, be it observed, did not
ask for all the forces that were at. the disposal of
his Government ; he asked for all that were " avail
able," which he explained to mean " everything
that we can possibly spare from less important
points " — a meaning that the military authorities in
Washington must have understood. On the other
hand, if McClellan's army were to be withdrawn
from the James, the enemy would be practically in
vited to advance on Washington ; and, if he should
defeat the Federal armies gathered in front of that
capital, it would be in a great peril. A vast deal,
too, would depend upon the commander who was
to be intrusted with the defense of Washington, in
case the Army of the Potomac should be with
drawn from the James, thus encouraging the enemy
to stake his utmost efforts upon a great battle, or a
series of battles, in front of the Federal capital.
At the time when this momentous decision was to
be made by our Government, they contemplated a

TO THE REPUBLIC. \g
reliance upon General Pope to encounter General
Lee ; and to encounter Lee, not after he had been
crippled by a previous contest with McClellan, but
in the full strength which would remain to him
without that contest. It is impossible, therefore, to
read McClellan's dispatches at this period of the
President's indecision, without being impressed by
the conviction that McClellan was right in his
military judgment, even if we do not look for
ward to what actually followed. The elements for
a sound determination were as patent to the au
thorities in Washington, between the ioth of July
and the 6th of August, as they were to McClel
lan. But, unfortunately, other counsels prevailed
over his.
Between the 30th of July and the 3d of August
the enemy made some attempts to feel McClellan's
position, by demonstrations with light batteries,
but they were driven back toward Petersburg, and
Coggin's Point, on the south side of the James, was
occupied on the same day by McClellan, and forti
fied. On that day also he sent forward a force of
cavalry on the south side of the river, which drove
back a body of five hundred of the enemy's cavalry
in confusion. His whole position on the James was
now therefore secure, and he was in a condition to
advance, if he could have Burnside, whom he again
asked for on the 2d of August. " Give me Burn-

20 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
side," he telegraphed to Halleck, " and I will stir
these people up."
On the 30th of July the Government was appar
ently still undecided, but, from the tenor of Hal-
leck's dispatches of that day and the next, McClel
lan had some reason to expect orders to advance
on Richmond. Thus on the 30th Halleck sent two
dispatches. The first said : " A dispatch just re
ceived from General Pope says that deserters re
port that the enemy is moving south of James
River, and that the force in Richmond is very
small. I suggest that he be pressed in that direc
tion, so as to ascertain the facts of the case." But
again, on the 30th, Halleck telegraphed, rather am
biguously : " In order to enable you to move in any
direction, it is necessary to relieve you of your sick.
The Surgeon-General has therefore been directed
to make arrangements for them at other places, and
the Quartermaster-General to provide transporta
tion. I hope you will send them away as quickly
as possible, and advise me of their removal." And,
on the 31st, Halleck telegraphed, "General Pope
again telegraphs that the enemy is reported to be
evacuating Richmond, and falling back on Danville
and Lynchburg." These were the only data Mc
Clellan then had, from which to form an opinion as
to the intentions of the Government. They had, in
fact, at this time, no fixed intentions, but the dis-

TO THE REPUBLIC. 21
patches looked as if McClellan might be allowed to
advance. On the 4th of August, General Hooker, by Gen
eral McClellan's orders, advanced with a large force
to Malvern Hill, a strong position of the Confeder
ates fourteen and three quarter miles distant from
Richmond, and drove the forces of the enemy back
toward New Market. Malvern Hill controlled the
direct approach to Richmond. It was equally ne
cessary to occupy it, for a time, whether Richmond
was to be attacked by McClellan from the James, or
whether he was to be ordered to abandon the Pen
insula. On the 5th McClellan was himself at Mal
vern Hill, and thence he telegraphed to Halleck at
1 P.M.: "This is a very advantageous position to
cover an advance on Richmond, and only fourteen
and three quarter miles distant, and I feel confident
that, with re-enforcements, I could march this army
there in five days." To this there came the answer
from Halleck, on the 6th, " I have no re-enforce
ments to send you."
The correspondence at this time shows the
utmost impatience on the part of Halleck to have
the retrograde movement begin, and the utmost
exertions of McClellan to comply with his or
ders. By day and by night McClellan carried on
his operations for the removal of the sick by all
the means of transportation at his command. On

22 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
the subject of the withdrawal of the army, it is
necessary to follow this correspondence carefully.
The determination of the Government to withdraw
the army from the Peninsula was made known by
a telegram which Halleck sent on the 3d and which
McClellan received on the 4th. In this dispatch
Halleck said : " You will take immediate measures
to effect this, covering the movement the best you
can. Its real object and withdrawal should be con
cealed even from your own officers. Your mate'riel
and transportation should be removed first. You
will assume control of all the means of transporta
tion within your reach, and apply to the naval
forces for all the assistance they can render you.
. . . The entire execution of the movement is left
to your discretion."
" I proceeded," says McClellan, " to obey this
order with all possible rapidity, firmly impressed,
however, with the conviction that the withdrawal
of the Army of the Potomac from Harrison's Land
ing, where its communications had, by the co-oper
ation of the gunboats, been rendered perfectly se
cure, would at that time have the most disastrous
effect upon our cause. I did not, as the command
er of that army, allow the occasion to pass without
distinctly setting forth my views upon the subject
to the authorities." The very impressive dispatch
in which McClellan, on the 4th, placed before the

TO THE REPUBLIC. 23
General-in-Chief the whole of the military argu
ment against the order for the removal of his army
is too lengthy to be quoted in full, but it was re
markable for the cogency of its reasoning and the
simple earnestness of its tone. It reads now like
prophecy, but like the prophecy of one who was
too sincerely anxious for the success of the cause
to be gratified in the end by the fulfillment of his
predictions. Yet he did not refrain, as a patriot
should not have refrained, from letting the Govern
ment understand plainly what he plainly foresaw.
" Your telegram of last evening," he said to Hal
leck, " is received. I must confess that it has
caused me the greatest pain I ever experienced,
for I am convinced that the order to withdraw this
army to Aquia Creek will prove disastrous to our
cause. I fear it will be a fatal blow. Several days
are necessary to complete the preparations for so
important a movement as this, and while they are
in progress I beg that careful consideration may be
given to my statements." He then enters into the
argument, showing that, with his army then in ex
cellent discipline and condition, he was only twen
ty-five miles from Richmond, and that the gunboats
could supply the army by water during its advance
to within twelve miles of that capital, whereas the
result of the retrograde movement that had been
ordered would be a march of one hundred and
2

24 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
forty-five miles to reach the same point, and with
out the aid of the gunboats and water transporta
tion.* He then concludes as follows :
Add to this the certain demoralization of this army
which would ensue, the terribly depressing effect upon the
people of the North, and the strong probability that it
would influence foreign powers to recognize our adver
saries, and there appear to me sufficient reasons to make
it my imperative duty to urge, in the strongest terms af
forded by our language, that this order may be rescinded,
and that, far from recalling this army, it be promptly re
inforced to enable it to assume the offensive.
It may be said that there are no re-enforcements avail
able. I point to Burnside's force ; to that of Pope,
not necessary to maintain a strict defensive in front of
Washington and Harper's Ferry ; to those portions of the
Army of the West not required for a strict defensive there.
Here, directly in front of this army, is the heart of the re
bellion ; it is here that all our resources should be col
lected to strike the blow which will determine the fate of
the nation. All points of secondary importance elsewhere
should be abandoned, and every available man brought
here. A decided victory here, and the military strength
of the rebellion is crushed ; it matters not what partial re
verses we may meet with elsewhere. Here is the true de-
* Aquia Creek would be seventy-five miles from Richmond, with
only land transportation all the way. From Harrison's Landing to
Fortress Monroe would be a land march of seventy miles.

TO THE REPUBLIC.

25

fense of Washington ; it is here, on the banks of the
James, that the fate of the Union should be decided.
Clear in my convictions of right, strong in the con
sciousness that I have ever been, and still am, actuated
solely by love of my country, knowing that no ambitious
or selfish motives have influenced me from the commence
ment of this war, I do now, what I never did in my life
before — I entreat that this order may be rescinded.
If my counsel does not prevail, I will with a sad heart
obey your orders to the utmost of my power, directing
to the movement, which I clearly foresee will be one of
the utmost delicacy and difficulty, whatever skill I may
possess. Whatever the result may be, and may God grant that
I am mistaken in my forebodings, I shall at least have
the internal satisfaction that I have written and spoken
frankly, and have sought to do the best in my power to
avert disaster from my country.
George B. McClellan,
Major-General commanding.
The answer of General Halleck was at first
communicated by telegram, on the 5th, saying that
the order would not be rescinded, and that it must
be executed with all possible promptness. He
promised, however, to reply more fully by mail ;
and on the 6th he wrote to McClellan a long letter,
which set forth in detail the opposite argument and
the reasons for the decision which had been made.

26 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
Without meaning to detract in any degree from
the earnestness of General Halleck's convictions,
and conceding that he had a difficult military pre
dicament to deal with, in consequence of the divis
ion of the Federal forces and the opportunity for
the enemy to fall upon McClellan or upon Pope, at
his pleasure — a difficulty which General Halleck
did not create — there is still one question that re
mains to be considered, and in reference to which
the Government must be held to have made a fatal
mistake.* When it had been determined to mass
the Federal armies in front of Washington, the
question of a commander, who was to be intrusted
with the defense of Washington and with the ad
vance upon Richmond, if haply a new advance of
the united armies should prove to be practicable,
was certainly one of the last importance. Why
was not this command given to McClellan? This
question may be asked, and it must be answered,
without reference to any wishes that he may be
supposed to have had on the subject. We do not
know that he had any. But we do know, that
when a government has a military command of the
utmost importance to bestow, it will, if it is swayed
* It is almost too plain to require suggestion that if, on the one
hand, the Confederates could fall upon McClellan and upon Pope
separately, so also it was equally in the power of the Federal Govern
ment to divide and attack the Confederates, in "separate masses by
ordering McClellan and Pope both to push toward Richmond.

TO THE REPUBLIC. 27
by the only motives that are fit to govern it, select,
of its own unprompted and unbiased accord, the
General who is most fit for the exigency. It may
be said with perfect truth that McClellan, at the
moment when it was determined to concentrate
both the Army of Virginia and the Army of the
Potomac in front of Washington, was the only Gen
eral within the reach of the Government who was
qualified to take such a command.
From the President down, through the various
ranks of politicians or soldiers by whom he was
surrounded, all knew in their hearts that the only
reason why McClellan had failed to reach Rich
mond, and been obliged to execute his flank move
ment to the James, was because McDowell, had
been arrested by express orders from Washington
on his march to effect a junction with McClellan's
right. Everybody knew that McClellan had han
dled his army with consummate skill, on that flank
movement, and had saved it from a vastly superior
force of the enemy ; that under him that army had
fought, on their perilous march, with almost unex
ampled bravery, preserving their discipline, and
never once breaking into disorderly retreat, thus
winning for their commander and themselves the
applause and admiration of the most competent
military judges at home and abroad. These were
the patent facts that were before Mr. Lincoln and

28 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
his advisers, in regard to McClellan's Peninsular
campaign. Previous to that campaign, they knew
what he had achieved in the West, before he was
called to Washington, and what he had done after
he came to the capital, in creating, organizing, and
disciplining the best army that the United States
had hitherto ever had. In addition to all this, the
Government at Washington had before them the
very important fact that there was no general in
their service who could inspire officers and men
with such an attachment to his person, and such
devotion to the cause for which they fought, as
McClellan could, and always had from the first.
They knew him also to be unselfish, never waiting
for arrangements that would promote his own am
bition, never making any conditions but such as the
good of the service demanded. Yet McClellan
was not asked to take this command.
Why was this ? Must this question be answered
by the suggestion that McClellan had written a
letter to the President which had displeased him ?
It must be remembered that, at the time of which
we are now speaking, the Harrison's Landing letter
had not been made public, and that it could have
been seen only by the few persons in Washington
to whom Mr. Lincoln ma)1' have shown it. As will
hereafter appear, there was at least one member of
Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet who knew nothing of the

TO THE REPUBLIC.

29

existence of this letter until the following winter.
This gentleman, the Hon. Montgomery Blair, was,
although not intimate with General McClellan, one
of his steadiest supporters. It is probable, too, that
Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State, who was always
understood to hold General McClellan's military
capacity and his patriotism in the highest estima
tion, knew nothing of this letter at this time. But
there were other members of Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet,
especially Mr. Chase and Mr. Stanton, who were
exceedingly hostile to McClellan, to whom the
President undoubtedly did show this letter, soon
after he received it. If we are to conclude that
Mr. Lincoln was personally displeased with General
McClellan because he had written to him a private
letter recommending a certain policy in the prose
cution of the war, and that this was the reason
why the command of the combined armies was not
offered to McClellan, we are irresistibly forced to
the conclusion that Mr. Lincoln allowed his per
sonal feelings to prevent him from availing him
self and the country of the services of a general, in
comparison with whom General Pope was not to
be named in the same century. On the other hand,
it is impossible to regard McClellan's earnest ad
vice, that the Army of the Potomac be permitted
to remain at Harrison's Landing and be re-enforced
for a new advance on Richmond, as any solid rea-

3°

MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE

son for not offering to him the command of the
combined forces when it had been determined to
withdraw that army from the Peninsula. Every
body, the President included, knew that McClellan
always did his whole duty, whoever shaped the
campaigns, or however contrary the military policy
of the Government might be to the dictates of his
own judgment.
One thing, however, will be found to be true as
we proceed, namely, that there was a malign influ
ence over the President's counsels — an influence
which had always been adverse to McClellan. We
believe that Mr. Lincoln himself was not indisposed
to place a very high degree of confidence in General
McClellan's military ability and his patriotic devo
tion to the cause of the Union ; but, having allowed
some of McClellan's bitterest enemies to see the
private letter which McClellan had written to him,
Mr. Lincoln put it in their power to do McClellan
great injury. Ample as were Mr. Lincoln's oppor-
nities for knowing McClellan, we do not think that
he ever appreciated the straightforward sincerity
"and guilelessness of McClellan's nature. The two
men were very unlike. The moral qualities which
won the admiration and confidence of other men,
and which were in so marked a degree united in
McClellan with rare military abilities, we believe
were not understood by President Lincoln. But

TO THE REPUBLIC. 31
we are not at all disposed to adopt the theory that
the Harrison's Landing letter gave Mr. Lincoln any
personal offense ; and, while we believe that he did
not wish to do General McClellan injustice, we feel
bound to relate the facts as they occurred, and to
give them all the bearing which they should have
upon a theory which has been suggested respecting
the removal of McClellan from the command of the
army after the battle of Antietam.
General McClellan remained at Harrison's Land
ing until the 16th of August, superintending and
providing for the removal of his army, with its
immense trains and equipage. On the afternoon
of that day, everything being arranged for the
departure of the different corps, he left with an
escort, and overtook the troops that were march
ing toward Fortress Monroe. He passed the col
umn, and arrived at that post on the 19th. On the
23d he proceeded with his staff to Aquia Creek,
where he arrived at daybreak on the 24th. Thence
he telegraphed to Halleck the position of his
troops, adding : " Please inform me immediately
exactly where Pope is, and what doing. Until I
know that I can not regulate Porter's movements ;
he is much exposed now, and decided measures
should be taken at once. Until I know what my
command and position are to be, and whether you
intend to place me in the command indicated in

32 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
your first letter to me, and orally through General
Burnside at the Chickahominy, I can not decide
where I can be of most use. If your determination
is unchanged, I ought to go to Alexandria at once.
Please define my position and duties." Halleck re
plied on the same day that he did not know where
Pope was, or where the enemy in force was ; he
said nothing about McClellan's future position.
But on the 26th he telegraphed to McClellan, " Per
haps you had better leave General Burnside in
charge at Aquia Creek, and come to Alexandria, as
very great irregularities are reported there." On
the 27th, therefore, McClellan sailed for Alexandria.
He left his cavalry escort at Fredericksburg for
General Burnside. Every part of the army which
he had lately commanded went forward to be under
Pope's command. McClellan took with him noth
ing but his personal staff, a few orderlies, and the
infantry guard of his headquarters, about five hun
dred men all told. He encamped with these at
Alexandria, in a field near the river, about half a
mile above the town, and reported for orders.
There he was employed in forwarding troops and
ammunition to Pope until the 30th. On the morn
ing of that day, heavy artiilery-firing was heard in
the direction of Fairfax Court-House. In the after
noon, McClellan telegraphed in answer to Halleck :
" I have no sharp-shooters except the guard around

TO THE REPUBLIC.

33

my camp. I have sent off every man but these, and
will now send them as you direct. I will also send
my only remaining squadron of cavalry [now] with
General Sumner. I can do no more. You now
have every man of the Army of the Potomac who
is within my reach."
Seated in his tent, with nothing more that he
could do, McClellan was left by the Government to
listen to the ominous preliminary sounds of the
great battle that was then commencing, separated
from the troops who had loved and obeyed him
with almost unparalleled devotion, and who now
terribly needed his guiding hand and his inspiring
presence. It needs no words of ours to figure to
the reader the situation of this faithful officer. As
in all the great trials of his life, so now in this, per
haps the greatest to which he was ever subjected,
his own feelings, expressed with his habitual frank
ness, are the best guide to his character. At half-
past ten o'clock of that evening (30th of August) he
telegraphed to Halleck as follows :
Camp near Alexandria, August 30, 1862 — 10.30 p. m.
I have sent to the front all my troops with the excep
tion of Couch's division, and have given the orders neces
sary to insure its being disposed of as you directed. I
hourly expect the return of one of my aides, who will give
authentic news from the field of battle.

34 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
I can not express to you the pain and mortification I
have experienced to-day in listening to the distant sound
of the firing of my men. As I can be of no further use
here, I respectfully ask that, if there is a probability of the
conflict being renewed to-morrow, I may be permitted to
go to the scene of battle with my staff, merely to be with
my own men, if nothing more ; they will fight none the
worse for my being with them. If it is not deemed best
to intrust me with the command even of my own army, I
simply ask to be permitted to share their fate on the field
of battle. Please reply to this to-night.
I have been engaged for the last few hours in doing
what I can to make arrangements for the wounded. I
have started out all the ambulances now landed. As I
have sent my escort to the front, I would be glad to take
some of Gregg's cavalry with me, if allowed to go.
G. B. McClellan, Major-General.
To this earnest appeal to be permitted to share
the fate of his own men, there came tardily on the
next morning from Halleck the cold reply, " I can
not answer without seeing the President, as Gen
eral Pope is in command by his order of the de
partment." Not one word of recognition of Mc
Clellan's patriotic and noble offer graced the dis
patch of the General-in-Chief. On the next day,
the 31st, Halleck sent the following dispatch, dated
at 10.7 P. M. : " Since receiving your dispatch relat
ing to command, I have not been able to answer

TO THE REPUBLIC. 35
any not of absolute necessity. I have not seen the
order as published, but will write to you in the
morning. You will retain the command of every
thing in this vicinity not temporarily to be Pope's
army in the field. I beg of you to assist me in this
crisis with your ability and experience. I am en
tirely tired out."
The " order " referred to in this dispatch was
one that emanated on the previous day from the
War Department, by direction of Secretary Stan
ton, who now thought it well to utter a sneer at
McClellan, while defining the commands of the dif
ferent generals. The order read as follows :
War Department, August 30, 1862.
The following are the commanders of the armies oper
ating in Virginia :
General Burnside commands his own corps, except
those that have been temporarily detached and assigned
to General Pope.
General McClellan commands that portion of the Army
of the Potomac that has not been sent forward to General
Pope's command.
General Pope commands the Army of Virginia, and all
the forces temporarily attached to it.
All the forces are under the command of Major-Gen-
eral Halleck, General-in-Chief.
E. D. Townsend,
Assistant Adjutant- General.

36 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
We have italicized the sting of this order, as
most persons who read it at the time italicized
it in their own minds. The whole country knew
that everything had been taken from McClellan's
late command and sent forward to Pope ; but the
public knew nothing of McClellan's earnest en
treaty to be sent into the field in any capacity
in which he could be of use. Mr. Stanton saw
fit, therefore, to say to the people of the Union,
" We have shelved McClellan, and, as he sits
there in his tent at Alexandria with a body-guard
of a hundred wounded men, you can look at him
if you like." But, in a few short and disastrous
hours, the eyes of all men were turned toward
the General who could not be permitted to risk
his life on the battle-field, in leading even a bri
gade or a regiment, because General Pope was in
command. On the morning of the ist of September, Mc
Clellan, appealed to by Halleck for assistance, rode
into Washington and went directly to Halleck's
office. He told Halleck that Pope had been beaten.
Halleck did not credit it. McClellan then told him
that he ought to go out and see for himself. Hal
leck answered that he was too busy to go. " How
can the General-in-Chief," said McClellan, " have
more important business than to ascertain the con
dition of the army that is so near?" Finally, Hal.

TO THE REPUBLIC.

37

leek said he would send his Assistant Adjutant-
General, Colonel Kelton. McClellan advised Kel-
ton to see the general officers and learn the exact
state of things. On the same afternoon, McClellan,
at the urgent request of Halleck, met the President
at Halleck's house. The President expressed a fear
that the Army of the Potomac was not cheerfully
co-operating with and supporting General Pope ;
that he (Mr. Lincoln) " had always been a friend "
of McClellan, and he now asked, as a special favor,
that McClellan would use his influence in correct
ing this state of things. McClellan assured the
President that his fears were groundless. Mr.
Lincoln was much moved, and he again request
ed McClellan to telegraph to " Fitz John Por
ter or some other of his friends," and try to do
away with any feeling that might exist, adding
that no one but McClellan could rectify this evil.
" I thereupon told him," says McClellan, " that
I would cheerfully telegraph to General Porter,
or do anything else in my power, to gratify his
wishes and relieve his anxiety; upon which he
thanked me very warmly, assured me that he
could never forget my action in the matter, etc.,
and left.
" I then wrote the following telegram to Gen
eral Porter, which was sent to him by the General-
in-Chief " :

38 MCCLELLAN S LAST SERVICE
Washington, September I, 1862.
Major-General Porter ; I ask of you for my sake,
and that of the country, and the old Army of the Poto
mac, that you and all my friends will lend the fullest and
most cordial co-operation to General Pope in all the oper
ations now going on. The destinies of our country, the
honor of our army, are at stake, and all depends now
upon the cheerful co-operation of all in the field. This
week is the crisis of our fate. Say the same thing to my
friends in the Army of the Potomac, and that the last
request I have to make of them is, that for their country's
sake they will extend to General Pope the same support
they ever have to me.
I am in charge of the defenses of Washington, and am
doing all I can to render your retreat safe, should that be
come necessary.
George B. McClellan.
PORTER'S REPLY.
Fairfax Court-House, 10 a. m., September 2, 1862.
You may rest assured that all your friends, as well as
every lover of his country, will ever give as they have
given to General Pope their cordial co-operation and con
stant support, in the execution of all orders and plans.
Our killed, wounded, and enfeebled troops attest our de
voted duty. F. J. Porter.
It was, to use a familiar expression, very natural
for the President to make this request, and equally

TO THE REPUBLIC. 39
natural for McClellan to comply with it, unneces
sary as he knew it to be. At such a time, a man
like McClellan could not stop to consider what im
plication he might leave to be made by his enemies
and the enemies of his lieutenants, by sending such
a dispatch to his friends in the Army of the Poto
mac. Porter's noble reply was characteristic. He
knew that McClellan could not have volunteered
to ask him to do his duty. It was just as plain to
him that McClellan had been asked to send this
dispatch as if the words "at the request of the
President" had been written at the top of it. When
Porter penned his answer, he was surrounded by
the proofs of what he and his officers and men had
done ; but, alas ! these proofs were not at that mo
ment visible at Washington, and, when the time for
investigation came, the dark clouds of prejudice,
passion, misconception, and misrepresentation shut
out the truth. It was reserved to a better day and
to discoveries almost providential, after long years
of unmerited obloquy, to give to General Porter
the most signal vindication that is recorded in the
military annals of any nation.
After his interview with the President, in the
afternoon of September ist, General McClellan went
to the house in Washington where his family then
resided, and remained there that night. At -half-
past seven o'clock in the morning of the 2d, the

40 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
door-bell rang, and the President and General Hal
leck were ushered into the parlor. They said that
Colonel Kelton had returned and reported a great
disaster ; that there were fifty thousand stragglers
already on the roads leading into Washington, and
that the city could not be saved. The President
was deeply moved. He asked General McClellan
if he was willing to take the command, in that state
of things. McClellan expressed his willingness to
take the command, and his belief that he could
save the capital. Both Mr. Lincoln and General
Halleck reiterated their fears that the enemy would
enter the city. McClellan said he would stake his
head on its safety. The President earnestly en
treated him to take the command, and he assented
without hesitation, without making a single condi
tion or asking for a single promise of any kind.
But what command did he then take ? The whole
arrangement was verbal only, made in a moment
of extreme peril. Not a scrap of written order was
made when the President left General McClellan's
house. Here, therefore, we must again pause to con
sider the unselfish devotion of the man to whom
this appeal was made, and to note the peculiar
magnanimity of his conduct. We will not ask our
readers to praise him for forgetting the injuries
and indignities that he had received from every

TO THE REPUBLIC.

41

member of the Administration who had it in his
power and was disposed to harm him. Patriotism
can help even an ordinary man to separate his
country from those who administer its affairs. But,
when a general is placed in such a situation as that
in which McClellan stood at that supreme moment,
does not a rational and allowable regard for his
own future demand that he make some provision
for his own safety against the chances of war?
" Will you," asked Mr. Lincoln, in his distress —
" will you, dare you, take the command in such a
dangerous crisis?" The question was a consider
ate one. It was meant to bring to McClellan's
mind the risk that he would run, and it was a kind
and thoughtful act to remind him of it. The peril
was instantly assumed by McClellan, without a
thought concerning himself. But why did he not
ask for a written order ? If he had no selfish con
ditions to make, no promises to exact, why did he
not ask for a written order, defining the command
which the President wished him to take? It could
have been written in three minutes. The question
which we have asked is very important, for two
reasons ; That he did not stipulate for a written
order, shows how little he was considering his own
safety. Again, as will appear hereafter, his want
of written orders from that time forth exposed him
to perils far beyond the loss of reputation that

42

MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE

would have followed his failure to save the capital
from falling into the hands of the Confederates.
Let him be blamed, if there are any who are dis
posed to blame him, for not exercising the average
prudence of one who owes it to himself to be made
as safe as, in a perilous enterprise, he can be. But
let no generous and just person fail to see what he
risked, or withhold from him the recognition of his
extraordinary forgetfulness of himself when he had
to confront a great danger for his country. That a
written order defining McClellan's command could
have been prepared on the spot, and that it must
have been given if he had asked for it, can not be
doubted. Both the President and the General-in-
Chief knew that Pope had been beaten, very badly
beaten, and that he could not be relied upon to
save the capital. They knew that he was in full
retreat, and that there was great disorder. Deli
cacy toward Pope, at such a moment, should not
have restrained them from superseding him, or
anybody else, by ordering McClellan to go to
the front and assume the supreme command, if
he had asked for such orders. Nor was there
afterward any good reason, whether McClellan
asked for them or not, for not giving him writ
ten orders defining his command and his duties,
before he marched into Maryland, fought the bat
tles of South Mountain and Antietam, and drove

TO THE REPUBLIC. 43
Lee back into Virginia. But we must return to
our narrative.
When the President and General Halleck left
General McClellan's house on the morning of Sep
tember 2d, the latter immediately sent for his staff
and got on horseback. He at once visited various
points in and around the city, and made provisional
arrangements for receiving and disposing of the
troops. It was his intention to go to the front and
take the command of the retreating army. But
in an hour or two a staff officer came to him from
General Halleck with a message that he was not
to go out and take the command, but that he was
to wait the arrival of the troops just in front of the
defenses of Washington. He then spent the morn
ing in perfecting the arrangements for receiving
the troops. The truth is, that many of the military
and civil authorities in Washington at that moment
believed the city to be in such peril that the Presi
dent did not dare to permit McClellan to go be
yond the immediate defenses of the capital. It was
believed that the Government would have to fly,
until McClellan's arrangements had, during that
night, restored something like confidence to the
officials and the inhabitants.
At about one o'clock on that day, McClellan
rode out to Upton's Hill, three or four miles on the
Virginia side of Washington. He arrived there

44 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
between two and three o'clock. At this spot he
met the first brigade of the retreating forces, some
what in advance of the main body. Generals Pope
and McDowell rode in the middle of a regiment of
cavalry. General McClellan said to General Pope
that he would relieve him of the command, and
asked for information of the roads on which the
different corps were then retreating. Nothing very
satisfactory was obtained. At that point heavy ar
tillery-firing was heard in the distance. General
Pope said that the attack was on Sumner's corps.
General McClellan asked if it was a severe attack,
and General Pope replied that he thought it was.
McClellan then said that he should go forward to
the scene of this cannonading. Generals Pope and
McDowell asked if they could go into Washington,
and, on being informed that they could, they rode
on. McClellan went forward with one aide and
three orderlies across the country in the direction
of the firing, to reach the troops engaged. He
struck the column on the Lewinsville road, about
six miles from Upton's Hill. At this point the first
body of troops of the regular service recognized
him, and instantly raised a great shout, which went
down the lines for miles back. The men who did
not see him inferred from the shouts of their com
rades that he was again in command. Those who
were about him insisted on his leading them back

TO THE REPUBLIC. 45
against the enemy. But no, it could not be ; his
orders restrained him. It was now evening, and
darkness had settled down upon the landscape.
McClellan pushed on toward Sumner's rear, and
found that the firing had ceased ; from which he
concluded that Sumner's corps could reach in safe
ty the position he had assigned for it. He then re
turned rapidly to Washington, and remained the
greater part of the night near the chain-bridge, re
ceiving reports and giving orders. During that
night the troops as they came in were posted, and
the next day, the 3d, was spent by McClellan in
rectifying their positions. During that day the
enemy disappeared from the front of Washington,
and McClellan's information satisfied him that he
intended to cross the upper Potomac into Mary
land. " This," he says in his report, " materially
changed the aspect of affairs, and enlarged the
sphere of operations ; for, in case of a crossing in
force, an active campaign would be necessary to
cover Baltimore, prevent the invasion of Pennsyl
vania, and clear Maryland." On the 3d McClellan
reported to Halleck in person that he had sent for
ward the Second, Twelfth, and Ninth Corps to va
rious positions on the roads north of Washington.
Halleck asked who had been put in command of
those corps. McClellan answered that he had des
ignated no one to command them, but if there

46 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
should be any necessity for them to act, in conse
quence of the enemy suddenly crossing the river,
he would command them himself. Halleck replied
that it had not been determined who should com
mand the troops sent out from Washington. Mc
Clellan therefore rejoined that he would not assign
any one to command those troops, but would look
out for them himself. At least on two or three
other occasions, Halleck repeated what he had said
about the command of troops sent out from Wash
ington as a thing not determined.
It is now necessary to return to the previous
day, the 2d of September, the day on which the
President and General Halleck ordered General
McClellan to take command and save the capital.
At some time during that day the following order
emanated from the War Department :
War Department, Adjutant-General's Office,
Washington, September 2, 1862.
Major-General McClellan will have command of the
fortifications of Washington, and of all the troops for the
defense of the capital. (By order of Major-General Halleck.)
E. D. Townsend, Assistant Adjutant-General.
Construed by the existing state of things on that
day, when it was expected that the fortifications of
Washington would be immediately assailed by the

TO THE REPUBLIC.

47

enemy, the meaning of this order was plain. Con
strued by the state of things on the following day,
when the enemy was moving north with an evident
purpose to cross into Maryland above Washington,
what did this order mean ? Where would then be
the defense of Washington ? Within its fortifica
tions, or beyond them? What would be the
"troops for the defense of the capital," with the
command of which General McClellan had been
invested ? Strange to say, this was the only writ
ten order, defining McClellan's command, that ever
proceeded from the War Department from that
day until after McClellan had driven Lee across
the Potomac. We have seen that General Halleck
on the 3d did not consider the command of troops
advancing beyond the immediate fortifications of
Washington as settled ; nor was it formally settled
at any time thereafter until McClellan was displaced
by Burnside. It was practically impossible for Mc
Clellan, while forwarding the troops, to busy him
self with the settlement of the precise limits and
scope of his command. He had consented, at the
earnest entreaty of the President and General Hal
leck, to undertake for the safety of the capital.
The rapidly-shifting scenes of this extraordinary
drama, enlarging every hour the sphere of defen
sive operations until they would have to pass into
offensive movements, left no time for McClellan to

48 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
ask for more expanded orders. It was the duty of
the Government to foresee and provide for the
moment when he would have to go out of the forti
fied defenses of the city, and defend it and Balti
more and Pennsylvania by aggressive attacks on
the advancing hosts of the Confederates. But for
this they never provided, by written orders, defin
ing McClellan's command. McClellan kept on for
four days, making movements of the troops on the
roads which led north from Washington. On the
7th, he ordered up his staff and escort and started
for the head of the moving columns. But, before
he rode out of Washington, he left his card as
major-general for the President, the Secretary of
State, and General Halleck. The President and
General Halleck he saw. Halleck did not object
to the movement of the troops. The President
asked General McClellan if he had seen the Secre
tary of War, and begged him to do so as a personal
favor. McClellan called upon Mr. Stanton, who
received him with exuberant expressions of affec
tion, said that he had always been McClellan's best
friend, that bad men had made mischief between
them, but that he should nevertheless always con
tinue to support him cordially. Embracing the
General with tenderness, Stanton bade him God
speed. But the General had not been gone from
the War Department five minutes, when the Secre-

TO THE REPUBLIC. 4g
tary spoke of him in terms of gross and shocking
abuse. Whether he trusted or distrusted the Secretary
at that time, there was nothing for McClellan to do
but to go forward and take the command. There
was no one else who could take it — no one else
who could handle that army. He could not stop
to make conditions. He could think of but one
thing— how to arrest the descent of Lee upon
Washington, and to drive him back into Virginia.
Shortly before the battle of South Mountain, which
occurred on the 14th, General Lee was seated in
his tent reading a dispatch that had been brought
to him at that moment. General Longstreet, who
was with him, asked for the news. " The worst
possible news," said Lee ; " McClellan is again in
command." We do not propose to describe battles, the de
tails of which are familiar to all who have read of
them. One thing, however, is not to be over
looked. During the first five days that followed
McClellan's return to active duty, there had been
no time to properly complete the re-equipment of
the troops which came pouring into Washington
after Pope's defeat. All military persons know
that whatever may be the spirit of an army, after
such fighting, such a defeat, and such a retreat, to
put it again in active and aggressive movement,

50 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE.
with the proper material for long marches and en
counters with the same foe, is a mighty work.
The best that McClellan could do, before he
marched out of Washington, was to restore in some
degree the shattered organizations of the different
corps, and to assign to them their lines of march.
His movements northward had to be made care
fully, so as not to uncover Washington before the
enemy's position and plans were developed. But
he was constantly impeded by General Halleck's
cautions not to be too precipitate. On the ioth he
learned from his scouts that Lee's army was proba
bly in the vicinity of Frederick. On the 13th an
order issued by General Lee on the 9th fell into
McClellan's hands. It revealed the whole of Lee's
plans. On the 14th the battle of South Mountain
occurred, in which the Confederates were defeated,
with a great loss in killed and wounded, and 1,500
prisoners were taken. The aggregate Federal loss
was 1,568. On the following day, this dispatch
came from the President to General McClellan :
War Department, Washington,
September 15, 1862 — 2.45 p. M.
Your dispatch of to-day received. God bless you,
and all with you. Destroy the rebel army, if pos
sible. A. Lincoln.
To Major-General McClellan.

TO THE REPUBLIC. 51
General McClellan pressed forward his army
in pursuit of the enemy, and on the 17th the
long and desperately contested battle of Antietam,
in which nearly the whole of the troops on both
sides were actively engaged, ended in the defeat of
the Confederates. On the night of the 18th the
Confederate army recrossed the Potomac into Vir
ginia, leaving 2,700 of their dead unburied on the
field. Thirteen guns, thirty-nine colors, upward of
fifteen thousand stand of small-arms, and more than
six thousand prisoners, were captured by the Fed
erals in the three battles of South Mountain, Cramp-
ton's Gap, and Antietam, without losing a single
gun or a single color. The grand aggregate of the
Federal killed, wounded, and missing, in the battle
of Antietam, was 12,469. The total number of the
Federal forces was 87,164 men. The enemy had
about 10,000 more.
On the night after the battle of Antietam, Mc
Clellan anxiously deliberated whether he should
pursue the enemy. If he had done so, and had
lost the next battle, Lee could have marched as he
pleased on Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia,
or New York. Nowhere east of the Alleghanies
was there another organized force that could have
arrested his march through an undevastated coun
try, levying tribute as he went along from popu
lous and wealthy cities. It would not do for Mc-

52 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
Clellan to risk another battle with less than absolute
assurance of success. The elements of even a prob
able assurance of success were entirely wanting.
The troops were overcome by the fatigue and ex
ertion of the prolonged and severe battle of the
17th, and the day and night marches of the three
previous days. The supply-trains were in the rear,
and the troops had suffered from hunger. They
required rest and refreshment. The means of
transportation, if the troops had been immediately
pushed across the Potomac, were inadequate to
furnish a single day's supply of subsistence in ad
vance. Ten general officers and many regimental
and company officers, and a great number of the
enlisted men, had been killed or disabled. Above
all, it should not be forgotten that this army which
had, under McClellan, thus fought and won these
two sanguinary battles, was the same army that
had come back to Washington disheartened by the
defeat which it had suffered under General Pope,
and that many of its organized bodies had left be
hind, lost, or worn out the greater part of their
clothing and camp equipage, which required re
newal before they could be in a suitable condition
again to take the field. General McClellan, there
fore, properly determined that the army should
rest and be refitted.
But now there broke forth from all the organs

TO THE REPUBLIC. 53
of the Administration the bitterest reproaches of
McClellan and accusations of his slowness and in
efficiency. Why did he not pursue Lee ? Why
did he not follow up the advantages he had gained?
Hesitation, too much deliberation, a total want of
" dash " — these were his supposed failings. The
people of the North did not know, or did not heed,
the fact, that McClellan held no orders but that one
which had invested him with the command of the
troops for the defense of Washington. It was only
by acting on the military principle of offensive-de
fensive war that he could lead his army sixty or
seventy miles from Washington in aggressive at
tacks upon Lee. When he had reached the Poto
mac and driven Lee beyond it, his order, upon the
broadest construction, was exhausted. But, while
a senseless clamor was incessantly dinned into the
public ear, General McClellan was constantly occu
pied in reorganizing, drilling, and endeavoring to
supply his army, and in watching and guarding all
the passes of the river for a long distance. While
this was going on, the President determined to
make a visit to the army, and to learn for himself
the real state of affairs. He arrived at General
McClellan's headquarters on the ist of October,
and remained there three days. He rode over the
field and made himself fully acquainted with the
details of the battle. To several of General Mc-

54 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
Clellan's officers he expressed in the strongest
terms his thanks for what had been done, spoke of
McClellan with great praise, and said that his con
fidence in him was entire. On the last day of his
visit he had a long conversation with McClellan
himself. They sat together on a rock in the neigh
borhood of the General's tent, some of the staff
standing near. The President said to McClellan
that the only fault he had ever had to find with
him was that he was too " slow " ; that he had
thought so heretofore, but that he now saw his
mistake ; that he was the only General in the serv
ice who could handle a large army ; that he had
his absolute and entire confidence ; that he must go
on and do what he thought right — move when he
was ready, and not before — and, when he moved,
do as he thought best ; that he must make his mind
easy, that he should not be removed from the com
mand, and that he should have his (Mr. Lincoln's)
full and unqualified support. The President had
seen the destitute condition of the army, and prom
ised that it should be remedied as quickly as prac
ticable. He then went away.
It appears to us that the President, after his re
turn to Washington, continued for a short time to
be as firm in his support of McClellan as it was in
his nature to be in regard to anything. But the
bad influences soon began to work anew ; and Mr.

TO THE REPUBLIC. 55
Lincoln apparently did not fortify himself against
those influences, by making known to the members
of his Cabinet who were unfriendly to McClellan
the pledges that he had given on the field of Antie
tam. On the 6th of October, about three days after
Mr. Lincoln's return, General Halleck sent the fol
lowing dispatch, which General McClellan received
on the 7th : Washington, D. C, October 6, 1862.
Major-General McClellan : I am instructed to
telegraph you as follows : 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 operations, you
can be re-enforced with, thirty thousand men. If you move
up the valley of the Shenandoah, not more than twelve or
fifteen thousand can be sent to you. The President ad
vises 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. You will immediately report
what line you adopt, and when you intend to cross the
river. Also to what point the re-enforcements are to be
sent. It is necessary that the plan of your operations be
positively determined on before orders are given for build
ing bridges and repairing railroads. I am directed to add
that the Secretary of War and the General-in-Chief fully
concur with the President in these instructions.
H. W. Halleck, General-in-Chief.

56 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
This order was, of course, entirely inconsistent
with what the President had said to McClellan
only three or four days previously — that he was to
move when he was ready and not before. But the
order is to be explained by the " pressure " of
which Mr. Lincoln often spoke, and which was
constantly brought to bear upon him whenever and
wherever McClellan was concerned. The last sen
tence of the dispatch shows the quarter from which
the pressure came. The Secretary of War and the
General-in-Chief had persuaded the President to
speak in this order as if he did not intend to leave
General McClellan to act on his own judgment as
the President had voluntarily promised to do. The
whole occurrence is a strong illustration of the folly
of giving such orders to a general in the field who
must know whether his army is in a condition to
march into the enemy's country better than his
government at home, unless he is entirely unfit for
his place. If he is, he should be at once super
seded. If he is not unfit for his position, his judg
ment should be followed, and everything should be
done for him that is needful. As we proceed, we
shall adduce not only the old but some entirely
new and conclusive proof that General McClellan
was right, and that the Secretary of War and the
General-in-Chief were wrong.
At the time of the receipt of this dispatch of the

TO THE REPUBLIC. 57
6th, notwithstanding the appearance of a peremp
tory direction to march which the Secretary and
the General-in-Chief had infused into its words, it
is apparent from the context that something was
left to General McClellan's discretion as to the line
of movement, and that the President could not be
persuaded to make the order peremptory in this
particular. Moreover, General McClellan had to
construe this order by the solemn assurance that
Mr. Lincoln had given him, only a few days before,
that he should not be required to move on the
enemy before he was ready. Whether he was to
invade Virginia by either of the two lines indicated
in the order, the fact of his being or not being in a
condition to make an aggressive movement into the
enemy's country remained exactly as it in truth
was. The condition of his army was a most essen
tial element in the problem, by whatever line he
was to move. That condition had not changed in
the three days that elapsed from the time when the
President himself saw what it was ; and, as we go
on, we shall show that it had not so materially
changed, for three weeks after the date of this
order, that the army could have been safely
marched upon a new and aggressive campaign in
the enemy's country.
General McClellan fought the battles of South
Mountain and Antietam without any written order

58 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
defining his command, excepting the ambiguous
one of September 2d — ambiguous, that is to say,
after the date on which it was issued from the War
Department. What, then, would have been his
fate if he had lost those battles, and especially the
last ? We must carry the reader back to a period
when mean rivalries, deep hatreds, and vengeful
prejudices had their sway. It can not be doubted
that, if McClellan had been defeated in the battle
of Antietam, he would have had to answer for it
before a court-martial, and that his blood would
have been demanded. We know what deeds were
done in that period under the forms and mockeries
of military justice. McClellan's bitterest enemies
were among those who, from their official stations,
would have had the power, which they would not
have scrupled to use, to arraign him for having
assumed a command to which he had not been
legally assigned. They could have pointed to the
narrow scope of the order of September 2d, and
they would have pointed to the lives of brave men
that had been lost and the public property that had
been destroyed beyond what, they would have con
tended, was the scope of the only authority that he
had received which could avail him as a legal order.
In suffering McClellan to be thus exposed, Presi
dent Lincoln would seem to have been unconscious
of what a strain might be brought upon his own

TO THE REPUBLIC. 59
sense of executive justice if any disaster should be
fall the General who had taken the command at
his earnest personal entreaty, and who had been
left without a proper legal authority for the acts
which he was expected to perform. Beyond all
doubt it would have cost Mr. Lincoln the deepest
pain if any misfortune had exposed one hair of Mc
Clellan's head to any danger. At the base of Mr.
Lincoln's statue which stands in the heart of this
metropolis, and is passed every day by half a mill
ion of people, there is inscribed a legend which im
putes to him that he had " charity for all, malice
toward none." We may believe that the ascription
is just. But what would Mr. Lincoln's amiable
qualities have availed against the hatreds, the
machinations, and the devices of McClellan's ene
mies if he had not been victorious in the battles
which he fought without other than an implied
authority for fighting them? When McClellan
overtook and gave battle to the enemy on the field
of Antietam, he may without exaggeration be said
to have twice taken his life in his hand.*
* General McClellan was under fire during the battle of Antie
tam several times, and on each occasion for a considerable period,
and with great exposure. His duties required him to expose him
self both to artillery and infantry fire, at many critical periods of
the day. At one time, he rode along the lines for the very purpose
of drawing the fire of a supposed concealed battery, in order to re
veal its position. It opened upon him and his staff as soon as they
were within range.

6o MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE

PART II.
The battle of Antietam had been fought and
won, on the 17th of September, 1862. General Lee
had retreated across the Potomac on the night of
the 1 8th. General McClellan, for reasons which
we have detailed in our former paper, had deter
mined that in the condition of his army after the
battle an immediate advance into the enemy's coun
try was impracticable ; and, moreover, he had
reached the utmost limit from which, according to
the only order that he then held, he could be justi
fied in offensive movements. He had fought the
battle of Antietam for the defense of Washington ;
in command of " the troops for the defense of the
capital," as the order of September 2d was framed ;
and even by this construction of his authority he
had taken upon himself a vast responsibility. The
President, on the ist of October, had visited the
scene of the battle, learned the exhausted and des
titute condition of the army, told General McClel
lan that he should not be ordered to move until he

TO THE REPUBLIC. 6 1
was ready, and voluntarily promised that he should
be continued in command.
There now arose a very extraordinary condition
of things. A general was in the field, at the head
of an army of nearly one hundred thousand men,
awaiting orders. But that army needed indispen
sable supplies, before it could be put in motion in
pursuit of the enemy, and many of its departments
required reorganization. It had, too, to perform
the duty of guarding the passes of a long reach of
the Potomac against a new invasion of Maryland
and a sudden descent upon Washington. The
higher officials at the seat of Government, who had
the control of military affairs, began at an early
period after the battle of Antietam to call in ques
tion the truth of General McClellan's representa
tions, that he was not receiving the supplies which
he needed to enable him to execute an order to ad
vance into the enemy's country, where he could
not anticipate that his march would not be op
posed. Under all ordinary circumstances, a gov
ernment would unhesitatingly accept the represen
tations of a general in the field, situated as McClel
lan then was, respecting the condition of his army
and the possibility of an advance. Of all the
military men who were in high commands during
any part of our late war, McClellan was peculiarly
fitted to know at all times the condition of his

62 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
troops. His accomplishments as an organizer were
very remarkable ; his habits of attention to the
wants of his troops were unceasing ; and he never
relaxed his vigilant oversight of details of a minute
character. Nor were his ability and judgment as a
strategist inferior to his powers as an organizer.
All this was well known to the authorities in Wash
ington. Without the existence, therefore, of some
very extraordinary reason, furnishing a motive,
good or bad, for not trusting General McClellan as
Mr. Lincoln had voluntarily promised on the field
of Antietam to trust him, it is very difficult to ac
count for the fact that an issue was gotten up in
the counsels at Washington respecting the truth of
General McClellan's representations of the condi
tion of his army.
From the nth to the 28th of October, General
McClellan constantly complained in his dispatches
that his requisitions for supplies had not been met,
so as to render it practicable for him to advance
into the enemy's country upon an aggressive cam
paign. It is well known that there has been an as
sertion, transmitted from that day to this, that
everything which he had asked for had been for
warded ; and it has been charged that it was in
consequence of a constitutional indecision and
want of vigor that he did not cross the Potomac
in pursuit of Lee at least as early as the ioth of

TO THE REPUBLIC. 63
October. Perhaps one half of the nation to-day be
lieve this to be true, because it was officially assert
ed. It is certainly untrue. The question is a ques
tion of fact, to be judged upon evidence ; and to be
judged upon principles of belief such as we apply
to any disputed matter of history. In that manner
we shall examine this assertion.
We have presented to our readers, from Presi
dent Lincoln's own lips, indubitable proof that the
army was in no condition to move on the ist of
October. We shall now descend into details, and
shall show that General McClellan was right in
saying, as he did in his report, that, down to the
28th of October, his army still lacked the very sup
plies which were essential to any general move
ment of its corps. The imperative wants of the
army, after the battle of Antietam, were very nu
merous. Persons who are not professionally ac
quainted with such matters can not easily conceive
of the kinds and quantities of things with which an
army in active operations must be constantly sup
plied. We conceive of the soldier as a man whose
wants have been systematically reduced to the
minimum that is consistent with his efficiency. He
stands before our imaginations well and appropri
ately clad, from the crown of his head to the sole
of his foot, and with his musket, his knapsack, his
ammunition-belt, and his canteen. All superfluities

64 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
are discarded, and he bears on his person nothing
that is not absolutely needful to his vocation, and
everything that is needful in the best possible con
dition. But the vast mate'riel with which the field
depots of an army must be constantly filled, in
order to keep this human machine, the soldier, in
marching or fighting condition, and provide for
him when he is wounded or sick, we can bring be
fore us only by an effort of the mind, applied to
practical details. We must think of the supply-
trains and the thousands of draught-animals re
quired to serve them, and to serve the artillery,
and of the horses of a higher class to remount the
cavalry. We must think of clothing, and food, and
forage; of hospital stores, of shelter-tents, of am
munition, of tools for intrenching purposes, of me
chanical implements for all the manifold uses of a
great multitude of men who can safely depend for
nothing that is wanted upon the country around
them. We must remember, too, that nothing is so
destructive as war; that in a single battle a well-
equipped army, even if victorious, may be reduced
to a state bordering on destitution ; and that a long
and hurried march of troops may strip them of in
dispensable supplies if they get beyond the base
from which their supplies are to come. Recollect
ing these things, we may be prepared to examine
the wants of General McClellan's army after the

TO THE REPUBLIC. 65
battle of Antietam, not forgetting the important
fact that it had been taken up by him after the de
feat at the second Bull Run, in a condition of great
derangement, and had been employed in marching
or fighting from the 3d to the 17th of September,
in which two weeks Maryland had been freed from
the presence of the enemy and Washington had
been saved.
The principal wants of this army, after the bat
tle of Antietam, consisted of horses and forage, am
munition and food, and shoes and clothing for the
men. Whenever an order might come to General
McClellan enlarging the sphere of his operations
and bidding him advance across the Potomac, he
could be in no condition to obey it unless these in
dispensable wants of his army had been supplied.
Horses, forage, ammunition, and food came for
ward slowly ; but without shoes and clothing no
army could be moved, and the deficiencies of this
army in shoes and clothing continued to be enor
mous down to a very late period after the order of
October 6th to cross the Potomac and give battle
to the enemy or drive him south was received.
The reports of the army quartermasters, made to
General McClellan's headquarters between the 15th
and the 25th of October, leave no possible room for
doubt that between those dates large bodies of the
army were so destitute of shoes, clothing, and other

66 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
indispensable supplies, that a general movement
was impossible before it commenced. The chief
quartermaster, Colonel Ingalls, reported on the
ioth, four days after the date of the President's
order to advance, " The suffering and impatience
are excessive " ; and unless we suppose that he and
the corps commanders, and the division and regi
mental quartermasters, were all engaged in a com
mon conspiracy with General McClellan to misrep
resent the condition of the troops, we must accept
their statements as true. Some of the corps com
manders sent their wagon-trains repeatedly on long
journeys to the depots where the supplies should
have been, and the wagons came back empty.
Even on the 30th, after the movement across the
Potomac began, some of the corps had not received
their supplies, and did not receive them until they
were crossing the river. Of course, it is entirely
immaterial what may have appeared on the books
or records of the Quartermaster-General's office in
Washington in regard to the supplies ordered for
the Army of the Potomac. The sole question is,
When were they delivered at the depots of the
army in Maryland, sixty or seventy miles from
Washington? No one must lose sight of and no
one must be permitted to obscure the issue : and it
must not be forgotten that it was the duty of the
authorities in Washington not only to order the

TO THE REPUBLIC. 67
supplies, but to cause them to be placed where
they were wanted.
General McClellan's report contains a tabular
statement of clothing and equipage received at the
different depots of the Army of the Potomac, from
the ist of September to the 31st of October. It
will be remembered that the battles of South
Mountain and Antietam had been fought before
the ist of October. In whatever condition the
army may have left Washington between the 3d
and the 7th of September, the supplies received be
fore or during those battles could not have made
up the deficiencies caused by the marching and
fighting of the two weeks prior to the 18th of Sep
tember, the day on which Lee's army was with
drawn into Virginia. The tabular statement above
referred to shows that by far the greater bulk of
most of the enumerated articles reached the depots
of the army between the 15th and the 25th of Octo
ber. But, from the 25th to the 31st there came in,
of the single article " boots," 20,040, being 6,240
more than were received prior to the 25th. Of
" bootees," there were received 52,900, between
October 15th and 25th, being 43,900 more than
were received before the 15th. Of "stockings,"
there came in, between the 15th and the 25th,
65,200; and between the 25th and the 31st, 30,000;
being 95,200 received since October 15th, and

68 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
amounting to 66,975 more than had been received
prior to the 1 5th. A comparison of the other arti
cles enumerated, "forage-caps," "cavalry-jackets,"
" canteens," " flannel shirts," " haversacks," " trou
sers," "coats," "shelter -tents," "camp -kettles,"
" mess - pans," " overcoats," " artillery - jackets,"
"blankets," "felt hats," "knit shirts and drawers,"
shows like results. There were, for example,
70,000 drawers received between the 15th and the
31st, being 42,300 more than all the supplies of this
article that reached the army from the ist of Sep
tember to the 15th of October. On these facts, if
we know how to deal with facts, we think our read
ers will concur with us in believing that Colonel
Ingalls might well say on the ioth of October that
the suffering and impatience were excessive ; for
let it be observed that these indispensable sup
plies, which came in so slowly, after the Presi
dent's order of the 6th of October had directed
a march, came, when they did come, to fill earnest
and pressing requisitions upon the authorities in
Washington, made continuously from the nth to
the 28th.
But we have not yet done with this branch of
our subject. During the period of General Mc
Clellan's reiterated complaints that he was not re
ceiving supplies indispensable to an advance into
Virginia, the President, supposing that something

TO THE REPUBLIC. 69
was wrong, caused a step to be taken by a gentle
man in whom he had entire confidence, and who
was in every way qualified to ascertain the ex
act state of General McClellan's army. This was
Colonel Thomas A. Scott, of Pennsylvania, who had
been Assistant Secretary of War at a former pe
riod. From him we have obtained, through a com-,
mon friend, the information given in a letter, dated
at Philadelphia on the 19th of February of the pres
ent year [1880], from which Ave are permitted to
take the following extracts :
I had been actively engaged, about the time of Lee's
[threatened] invasion of Pennsylvania, in locking after
the defenses of our own border, especially in connection
with the safety of our own lines of road. In the perform
ance of this duty, I was necessarily called to Washington
a number of times, and, while there, about the middle of
October, 1862, I had a conversation with Mr. Stanton,
Secretary of War, and President Lincoln, in regard to the
delay in the movement of General McClellan's army, and
its reported condition of inefficiency to effect a movement
without proper and greatly needed supplies. At the re
quest of the President and Secretary of War I went to
General McClellan's headquarters, near Harper's Ferry,
and stated to him the object of my visit. General Mc
Clellan then said that it was not a matter that required
discussion, but that he would have Major Myers, chief
quartermaster of his staff, or rather of the Army of the

70 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
Potomac,* show me the requisitions that had been made
for supplies, and also a statement of the amount received,
and that I could draw my own inferences from these data
as to whether his army had been properly supplied or was
in a condition to move. He stated that he was not only
short of shoes, clothing, and other necessaries for the
men, but he had not the horses to move his cavalry and
artillery, and, notwithstanding he had requested it, he
had not been authorized to procure his horses from the
country where his army lay, although he felt sure that he
could do so more promptly and more cheaply than the
horses could be furnished from Washington.
I said to General McClellan that both the President
and the Secretary of War were under the impression that
all supplies for which he had made requisitions had been
furnished him, and that they could not understand why
that should be given as a reason for his failing to move.
On learning the facts I have stated, I immediately re
turned to Washington, saw Mr. Stanton, General Halleck,
and the President, and told them the exact state of the case.
Both Mr. Stanton and General Halleck then repeated
their assurance that all General McClellan's requisitions
had been met ; and it was then suggested that, as the
troops in the forts around Washington constituted a part
of the Army of the Potomac, the supplies that were in
tended for General McClellan's army in the field, instead
of having been sent to him at Harper's Ferry, had by
some means or other been diverted for the use of the
* Major Myers was the assistant quartermaster with Colonel Ingalls.

TO THE REPUBLIC.

71

troops in the fortifications, and thus had failed to reach
him. This proved to be the explanation of the trouble,
and, in conference with the President, he requested the
Secretary of War to see that the supplies needed were
forwarded at once to General McClellan's army at Har
per's Ferry, and also that General McClellan was given the
necessary authority to make requisitions upon the country
for the horses needed for his army movement. Both of
those things were, of course, done instantly, and the
result was that General McClellan moved his army — I
think in less than a fortnight after the supplies had been
forwarded. It is apparent, from the internal evidence of the
dispatches, that Colonel Scott's visit to the army
and his report to the President must have occurred
at some time between the 20th and the 28th of
October. After the 20th there was an evident
change of tone in the dispatches which General
Halleck sent to General McClellan by order of the
President. Thus, on the 21st Halleck telegraphed
to McClellan: "Your telegram of 12 M. has been
submitted to the President. He directs me to say
that he has no change to make in his order of the
6th instant. If you have not been, and are not
now, in a condition to obey it, you will be able to
show, such want of ability. The President does not
expect impossibilities ; but he is very anxious that
all this good weather should not be lost. Tele-

72 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
graph when you will move, and on what lines you
propose to march." Now, although General Hal
leck in an official letter, which he wrote to the Sec
retary of War on the 28th, still said that in his
opinion there had been no such want of supplies as
to prevent General McClellan's compliance with
the orders to advance against the enemy, yet it is
apparent that the President knew on the 21st that
there must be reason to doubt the correctness of
this opinion, and that he would not then permit
McClellan to think that impossibilities were re
quired of him. We therefore date the return of
Colonel Scott from the army and his report to the
President at some time after the 21st of October;
and, from the fact that sufficient supplies had not
been received on the 28th, and that on the ist of
November the last body of the army crossed the
Potomac, we conclude that the supplies which
Colonel Scott caused to be forwarded from Wash
ington were dispatched on the 28th, 29th, or 30th
of October. The figures which we have given above, taken
in connection with Colonel Scott's statements,
show that between the 6th and the 25th of October
the forts around Washington must have been
gorged with supplies, while General McClellan's
army in the field was left destitute. Was this a
blunder of " red tape," or was it intentional ? Who

TO THE REPUBLIC.

73

caused it, or who was responsible for it ? Things
are sometimes allowed to occur without leaving
any trace by which the just responsibility for them
can afterward be fixed. Whether it was by acci
dent or design that General McClellan's requisi
tions were not filled until after the discovery was
made by Colonel Scott of the real state of affairs,
the detention of McClellan's army on the Maryland
side of the Potomac until after the 28th of October
is accounted for.*
* While these pages are passing through the press, we have re
ceived the results of a research which has been kindly made for us by
the officials of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, at their
depot in Washington. These results establish the following facts :
1. During the month of October, 1862, the shipments of supplies for
General McClellan's army, made from Washington, consisted chiefly of
regimental baggage, medical stores, ammunition, harness, hardware,
and iron. Some clothing was sent, but not in proportion to other arti
cles. 2. On the 28th, 30th, and 31st of October, no shipments of
clothing were made from Washington ; but on the 29th there were
seven packages and two boxes for the Fifth Regiment of New York
Volunteers, and one hundred and fifty-two boxes consigned to Captain
Alexander Bliss, at Harper's Ferry, accompanied by a special agent.
This was the supply of clothing spoken of by Colonel Ingalls, the
Chief Quartermaster, which was intended for Sumner's corps, and
which Colonel Ingalls in his report said came almost too late for issue,
as the army was then crossing into Virginia. (See McClellan's Re
port, p. 424.) 3. Everything intended for General McClellan's army
was dispatched from the Washington depot as soon as it was received
there and could be loaded. The large quantities of clothing, shoes,
and other supplies, embraced in the tabular statement given in Gen
eral McClellan's report, and which were received at the army depots
from the 25th to the 31st of October, were sent from Philadelphia, or
Harrisburg, to Hagerstown ; and a comparison of the dispatches sent
by Colonel Ingalls to Harrisburg and his report leave no room to

74

MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE

But we must for a moment retrace our steps,
and must again remind the reader that, from the 2d
of September until the 6th of October, McClellan
had no orders under which he could act otherwise
than on the defensive. It has always seemed to us
of the highest importance to ascertain, if possible,
what were the counsels of Stanton and Halleck,
and their compeers, which preserved intact that
inexplicable and unparalleled state of things — Mc
Clellan and his great army without definite orders
until the 6th of October. " General McClellan will
have command of the fortifications of Washington
and of all the troops for the defense of the capital,"
remained his sole order from the 2d of September
to the 6th of October. Mr. Lincoln knew that Mc
Clellan had no orders except to act on the defen
sive, and that he could not advance except at his
peril. How was it, and by whom was it, that Mr.
Lincoln was made to keep things in this condition
for the space of five weeks ? We can conceive of
but one rational explanation of his conduct, which
will relieve it from a criticism that we do not wish
to make. He may have considered, down to the
battle of Antietam, as McClellan did, that the order
doubt that the effect of Colonel Scott's visit to the army and his report
to the President was that, in the last days of October, there was the
same (although late) activity in sending supplies to Hagerstown from
Pennsylvania that was produced in sending supplies to Harper's Ferry
from Washington.

TO THE REPUBLIC. 75
of September 2d, to act on the defensive, ended at
the Potomac when McClellan had driven Lee across
that river. If so, the period between the date of
the battle of Antietam, September 17th, and the 6th
ot October was a period when McClellan was both
waiting for orders to advance and waiting for indis
pensable supplies. The order came to McClellan
on the 7th of October, and the supplies that were
absolutely necessary to enable him to execute it
came at the end of three weeks afterward.*
We have now to describe briefly the plans
which General McClellan had in view, after he
crossed the Potomac, for dividing the forces of the
enemy so that he could attack and beat them in de
tail. Six days sufficed for the march of fifty miles
from the Potomac to Warrenton, after the last
corps of the army had crossed ; notwithstanding
that heavy rains delayed the movement consider
ably in the beginning, and three of the corps had to
wait at least one day at the crossings to complete
their necessary supplies. At the end of the six
days, General McClellan had made the different
dispositions of his troops which his plans for ad-
* The cruel suffering inflicted upon the soldiers by this failure to
supply them with necessaries could be described by living witnesses in
terms that we can not command. It is a fact that many men, in a
corps led by a gallant officer who has depicted to us their condition,
marched from the Potomac to Warrenton with bare and bleeding feet,
and could not be shod until they reached that place.

76 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
vancing against the enemy contemplated. His
headquarters were at Rectortown on the 6th of
November. The main body of his infantry had
then reached Warrenton, and his advanced cavalry
lay some miles south of that place, toward Culpep
per Court-House. Although, in the order of Octo
ber 6th, the President had advised an interior line
of movement so as to place the army between
Washington and the enemy, yet he did not per
emptorily direct it, and on the 26th of October
General Halleck had telegraphed to General Mc
Clellan as follows : " Since you left Washington, I
have advised and suggested in relation to your
movements, but I have given you no orders. I do
not give you any now. The Government has in
trusted you with defeating and driving back the
rebel army in your front. I shall not attempt to
control you in the measures you may adopt for
that purpose ; you are informed of my views, but
the President has left you at liberty to adopt them
or not as you may deem best." Two observations
may be made here : First, that General McClellan
was to make his own plans for the campaign and to
be responsible for them ; second, that it was Gen
eral McClellan who had been intrusted with the
duty of defeating or driving back the enemy. Yet
General Halleck was then preparing in Washing
ton the evidence which was to be used to furnish

TO THE REPUBLIC. jj
the ostensible reason for removing General Mc
Clellan from the command, before he could encount
er the enemy by the plans which he had been left
at liberty to adopt. Our readers will observe, as
we proceed, that it could not have been on account
of his intended strategy that General McClellan
was to be removed ; but that the evidence, which
was to furnish a plausible ground for his removal,
related wholly to the unnecessary delay on the
field of Antietam which General Halleck and oth
ers in Washington falsely imputed to him.
The plan of campaign which General McClellan
had adopted before he reached Rectortown can be
best described in his own words :
The plan of campaign I adopted during the advance
was to move the army well in hand parallel to the Blue
Ridge, taking Warrenton as the point of direction for the
main body, seizing each pass in the Blue Ridge by de
tachments as we approached it, and guarding them after
we had passed, as long as they would enable the enemy to
trouble our communications with the Potomac. It was ex
pected that we would unite with the Eleventh Corps and
Sickles's division near Thoroughfare Gap. We depended
upon Harper's Ferry and Berlin for supplies, until the
Manassas Gap Railway was reached ; when that occurred,
the passes in our rear were to be abandoned, and the
army massed ready for action or movement in any direc
tion.

78 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
It was my intention, if, upon reaching Ashby's or any
other pass, I found that the enemy were in force between
it and the Potomac, in the valley of the Shenandoah, to
move into the valley and endeavor to gain their rear. I
hardly hoped to accomplish this, but did expect that, by
striking in between Culpepper Court-House and Little
Washington, I could either separate their army and beat
them in detail, or else force them to concentrate as far
back as Gordonsville, and thus place the Army of the Po
tomac in position either to adopt the Fredericksburg line
of advance upon Richmond, or to be removed to the Pen
insula, if, as I apprehended, it were found impossible to
supply it by the Orange and Alexandria Railroad beyond
Culpepper. He then gives in detail the positions in which
he had placed the different corps of his army, in
accordance with this plan, down to the 6th of No
vember, adding : " Had I remained in command, I
should have made the attempt to divide the ene
my, as before suggested ; and, could he have been
brought to battle within reach of my supplies, I
can not doubt that the result would have been a
brilliant victory for our army."
At this time, the distance between the advanced
pickets of General McClellan's cavalry and Long-
street's position at Culpepper Court-House was
hardly six miles; and, from the compact mass of.
Federal troops collected around Warrenton to

TO THE REPUBLIC.

79

Longstreet's position, the distance was not quite
eighteen miles. At the same time General Lee,
with the other half of his army, was about thirty
miles to the northwest from McClellan's advanced
position, and somewhat more than that from Long-
street. General McClellan might, therefore, have
well anticipated that he would be able to separate
the two wings of the Confederate army, beating
Longstreet separately, or forcing him at least to fall
back upon Gordonsville. In that event, to transfer
the Federal army to Richmond would have been
only a question respecting its base of supply. If it
could not have been supplied directly from Wash
ington, beyond Culpepper Court-House, it could
have been thrown upon the Peninsula and have
found its old base on the James, with all the advan
tages of water transportation. The accompanying
map shows the positions of the Federal and the
Confederate troops on the 7th and 8th of November.
At a late hour on the night of November 7th,
a special messenger from the War Department
reached General McClellan's tent at Rectortown,
bearing the following order :
Headquarters of the Army,
Washington, D. C, November 5, 1862.
General : On the receipt of the order of the Presi
dent sent herewith, you will immediately turn over your
command to Major-General Burnside, and repair to Tren-

80 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
ton, New Jersey ; reporting on your arrival at that place
for further orders.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
H. W. Halleck, General-in-Chief.
Major-General McClellan.
War Department, Adjutant-General's Office,
Washington, November 5, 1862.
General Orders No. 182.
By direction of the President of the United States, it
is ordered that Major-General McClellan be relieved from
the command of the Army of the Potomac, and that Ma
jor-General Burnside take the command of that army.
By order of the Secretary of War :
E. D. Townsend, Adjutant- General.
General Burnside arrived at General McClel
lan's tent with the messenger who brought the or
der. Having read the order, McClellan handed it
to his successor, saying quietly, " Well, Burnside,
you are to command the army." At an early hour
on the next morning, McClellan, accompanied by
his staff, rode toward Warrenton. The order chang
ing the command had not then been promulgated
to the army. As McClellan passed the columns on
the road to Warrenton, the men greeted him as
usual with their enthusiastic cheers, but they looked
inquiringly and anxiously into his face, for they

TO THE REPUBLIC. 8 1
had somehow, they knew not why, begun to fear
that something extraordinary was about to happen.
This foreboding, half-bewildered study of his coun
tenance met him at every step. If the troops had
known what he knew, what would have been their
feelings, their demonstrations, their fears ! He rode
on, giving no sign of what was in his thoughts,
but making his customary acknowledgments of the
affectionate greetings of the men. After he reached
Warrenton, a day was spent in viewing the posi
tions of the troops and in conferences with Gen
eral Burnside respecting future operations. In the
course of that day the order was published, and
General McClellan issued a farewell address to the
army. On the evening of Sunday, the 9th, there
was an assembly of officers who came to take leave
of him. On the ioth he visited some of the vari
ous camps, and, amid the impassioned cries and
demonstrations of the men, he took a last look of
the troops who had followed him with such unfal
tering devotion. ' History," he said to the officers
who crowded around him — " history will do justice
to the Army of the Potomac, even if the present
generation does not. I feel as if I had been inti
mately connected with each and all of you. Noth
ing is more binding than the friendship of com
panions in arms. May you all in future preserve
the high reputation of our army, and serve all as

82 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
well and faithfully as you have served me ! " On
the nth, at Warrenton Junction, he entered with
his staff a railroad train that was about to start
toward Washington. Here there was stationed a
detachment of two thousand troops. They were
drawn up in line, and a salute was fired. The men
then broke their ranks, surrounded the car in which
he was seated, uncoupled it from the train and ran
it back, insisting wildly that he should not leave
them, and uttering the bitterest imprecations against
those who had deprived them of their beloved
commander. The scene has been described to us
by an officer who was present as one of fearful ex
citement. The moment was critical. One word,
one look of encouragement, the lifting of a finger,
would have been the signal for a revolt against law
ful authority, the consequences of which no man
can measure. McClellan stepped upon the front
platform of the car, and there was instant silence.
His address was short. It ended in the memorable
words, " Stand by General Burnside as you have
stood by me, and all will be well." The soldiers
were calmed. They rolled the car onward, re-
coupled it to the train, and with one long and
mournful huzza bade farewell to their late com
mander, whom many of them were destined never
to behold again. General McClellan reached Wash
ington on the following day, and without tarrying

TO THE REPUBLIC. 83
for an hour proceeded at once to Trenton, where
he arrived at four o'clock in the morning of the
12th. From that time he never again saw Lincoln,
or Stanton, or Halleck.
It is not inappropriate to consider here what
was squandered by the Administration when they
took McClellan from the service of the country.
Aside from all his other powers, in which his use
fulness as a general far exceeded those of any other
man who was then on this side of the Alleghany
range, there can be no question that he possessed
the rare power of inspiring his troops with confi
dence in his abilities and attachment to his person,
to a very uncommon degree. What was the secret
of his power over men? Why was it that they
loved him and fought under him so bravely, so
steadily, oftentimes against odds that would have
made an army quail under another leader? Dur
ing the seven days of the perilous march to the
James, there was terrible fighting ; but the Army
of the Potomac saved its honor, although attacked,
through a whole week, by a far larger force, led
by some of the ablest generals in the Confederate
service. If McClellan, when he ordered that flank
movement, had been suddenly superseded by any
other general who can be named, that army would
have been annihilated. When the combined forces
under Pope were driven back upon Washington in

84 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
a disorderly rout, why, was it that, the instant Mc
Clellan's restoration to command became known,
the old enthusiasm, discipline, and order were re
stored, as if by magic? Why did the officers
and the troops fight at Antietam as we know they
did fight — no important movement in the battle,
save one, failing to be executed when the order
for it was first given?* What, we again ask,
[* The order here alluded to was an order given by General Mc
Clellan personally to General Burnside, on the night before the battle
of Antietam, to lead his command across a certain bridge at daylight
on the next morning, and to operate at once against the enemy on the
other side of the stream. How many times this order was repeated,
after General McClellan learned during the battle that General Burn
side had not moved, and what were the consequences of the order not
being obeyed when it should have been, can be accurately known only
when the surviving officers who are cognizant of the facts have been
heard from, and when other persons who received the facts orally from
General McClellan have repeated them. The Congressional " Com
mittee on the Conduct of the War " examined both General McClellan
and General Burnside in February and March, 1863, but the Commit
tee took very good care not to draw out from either of those generals
the important facts respecting the time when General Burnside first
received this order from General McClellan. General McClellan vol
unteered no testimony en the subject of this order. General Burnside
did not state when he first received the order to carry the bridge ; but
the inference from what he did state is that at ten o'clock on the day
of the battle he was awaiting an order from General McClellan to
make the attack on the bridge, and he stated that "the bridge was
carried about half-past one o'clock " ; that he received the order to
make the attack on the bridge at "about ten o'clock." It is within
the knowledge of persons now living that the carrying of that bridge
was a very important part of the plan of the battle which General Mc
Clellan settled on the previous night ; that he gave the order person
ally to General Burnside on that night ; that the order was to make
the attack at daybreak on the following morning ; that the order was

TO THE REPUBLIC. 85
was the secret of McClellan's power over an
army ?
It is worth while to analyze such a power if we
can, because, when it exists, it constitutes, for a
government that is at war, one of its dearest posses
sions. It is a public property, as valuable as any
other resources for successful warfare, and there
fore requiring the most careful and conscientious
husbandry. A government that throws away such
a moral power might as well cripple itself by de
stroying one half of its physical means. It has
often been said that an army is a machine, and that
the more nearly it approaches to the condition of
a physical machine, which is absolutely under the
control of an operator, the better army it is. But
this idea of an army, at least in modern times and
not executed then ; that it was repeated several times ; and that the
officer who carried it the last time (about noon) was directed to super
sede General Burnside on the spot, and lead the column himself, if
General Bumside did not instantly move. General McClellan was
summoned before and examined by the " Committee on the Conduct
of the War" long after the Administration had displaced him in the
command of the Army of the Potomac and made General Burnside his
successor, and after all the events had occurred in which General Mc
Clellan had any personal share. His reticence respecting this order
at the battle of Antietam was in accordance with his habitual delicacy
toward other officers. The members of the Committee, however, if
they meant to elicit the truth, and to ascertain why the Confederate
forces were not entirely crushed in that battle, were under no such re
straint. But they were under the influence of personal and political hos
tility to General McClellan, which made them both willing and eager to
throw all blame upon him, and to shield every one else at his expense.]

86 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
in wars in which a great public principle is at
stake, requires a good deal of modification. An
army is a machine, but it is a moral and conscious
machine, as well as a physical one. It has feelings,
passions, intelligence, quick perceptions, and a ca
pacity to understand what is required of it. That
impalpable essence which is called the esprit de
corps of an army, what is it but the aggregate feel
ing of a great body of men, into which are fused
for a time the moral existences of the individuals
that compose the mass? Take two soldiers from
the ranks, and compare their differences in cour
age, physical strength, power of endurance, intelli
gence, and spirit of obedience, and the differences
will often be found to be very great. But there is
a resultant of these qualities, when the average is
formed by the union of a great mass of individual
characters in one organization, and that resultant
of moral and physical forces is the complex ma
chine with which a commander has to deal.
In studying the careers of distinguished gen
erals who have possessed something more of power
over their armies than the mere authority of their
stations gave them, it will be found that the in
dividual character of the man has had a great deal
to do with his influence over his troops. There
have been commanders in whom the passion for
personal glory has been the strongest force in their

TO THE REPUBLIC. 87
natures ; and when the national character has been
one that feels national glory to be the greatest of
all objects, and that character has pervaded the
armies, deeds almost superhuman have been done.
When Napoleon I fulminated his bombastic ad
dresses to his troops, he touched a chord of the
national honor in their breasts, a feeling for the
honor of France, while he at the same time aroused
in them a passionate sympathy with his own glory.
When we turn to commanders of an entirely differ
ent moral character, we must still look to their
personal qualities for the secret of whatever ex
traordinary influence they may have exercised over
their troops, and must also take into consideration
the national character and the nature of the war.
In our late civil war there was a principle at stake
on both sides, which the masses of the armies on
both sides well understood, from the first. Per
haps there were greater numbers of soldiers of
foreign birth in the Federal than there were in the
Confederate armies, but this foreign element did
not prevent the national character and the national
feeling from predominating over and pervading the
whole. As a general thing, the soldiers of foreign
birth in the Federal service understood and be
lieved in the importance of the principle at stake
as well as the native Americans ; and, when the
Federal conscription took place, it was the popular

88 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
conviction of the necessity for re-establishing the
Union under one government that caused a general
submission of all classes to a measure that was un
questionably beyond the limits of constitutional
authority. General McClellan himself was a most conspic
uous embodiment of the national feeling for the
Union, which existed throughout the States that
adhered to the Federal Government, as he was of
the general conviction that the welfare of the whole
country required that State secession be sup
pressed. He had and he used a great power to
impart this feeling and conviction to his troops.
Officers and men who fought under him knew what
they were fighting for, and they knew it all the
better and felt it all the more intensely because of
the example given to them by a commander whom
they respected for his virtues, and loved for his
conscientious care of their lives. They knew that
he had a great heart as well as a wise head. They
knew that in executing his orders they were obey
ing a mind equal to any emergency that they had
to encounter ; and that for those who would have
to meet death, or wounds, or disease, there would
be that tender pity which is the soldier's greatest
consolation, and that this softer quality of human
nature was in McClellan blended with the most
robust manliness. Such was the feeling toward

TO THE REPUBLIC. 89
him, alike among officers and men ; but the former
regarded him with a larger recognition. They saw
in him a representation of the best attributes of our
national character — of its cultivation, its instructed
energy, its moral and religious principle, its capa
city to encounter difficulties, its devotion to duty,
its disdain of unworthy arts, its superiority to vul
gar ambitions, its power of self-control when in
juries, and injustice, and obloquy, are heaped upon
faithful and true-hearted service. To this we must
add the effect, upon all classes, of what it is difficult
to describe, but it is something that all can under
stand. It goes by the name of personal magnetism.
It is that charm of the personal presence, which is
compounded of what beams from the countenance
and is expressed in the manners, and what is in
tuitively felt to be the nature of the man. It is a
mysterious influence, but a very powerful one.
There have been highly distinguished military men
who have not had a particle of this power, and
whom one never cares to see a second time. But,
when this power is possessed, it is a great treasure.
The dying boy, on the field of Antietam, who raised
himself on his elbow as his general rode by in the
heat of the battle, shouted out the familiar name
with the most affectionate endearments, and then
dropped dead upon the turf, might have told the
great men at Washington what they would lose if

90 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
they should take this commander from the head of
that army.
We shall close our discussion of this subject in
the next number of the Review, with a considera
tion of the political reason which is supposed to
have operated upon President Lincoln, and to have
caused him to remove General McClellan from the
command of the Army of the Potomac. We have
' ' shown that the alleged unnecessary delay after the
battle of Antietam could not have been publicly as
signed by the President as a reason for this act.
The delay was known to the President, nearly two
weeks before the date of the order changing the
command, to have been occasioned solely by the
want of indispensable supplies. It remains for us,
therefore, to examine the political reason which has
been suggested as the explanation of the President's
course. This will bring us to the character and
purpose of the Harrison's Landing letter, which
General McClellan wrote to Mr. Lincoln just four
months before he was ordered to turn over the
command to General Burnside and to report at
Trenton.

TO THE REPUBLIC. gI

PART III.
There remains for us but one subject for dis
cussion in connection with the historical events
over which we have passed in the preceding pa
pers. This relates to one of those popular errors
which sometimes become so fixed as matters of
belief that they seem to have passed into history
as if they were not to be controverted. It has long
been assumed by many persons that General Mc
Clellan's Harrison's Landing letter to Mr. Lincoln
was intended as a political manifesto of his own.
The popular shrewdness in making such imputa
tions is always well satisfied with its own wisdom,
however little of intellectual or moral penetration
may be exercised in making them. And therefore,
to present a plain view of a virtuous man, acting
from motives in which self has no concern, often
seems to be a useless appeal against that which has
been popularly pronounced to be unquestionable.
But the power to appreciate sincerity and eleva
tion of character, the capacity to do justice upon

92 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
facts, the disposition to believe in the existence of
pure and disinterested aims, have not wholly fled
even from the present age. It was, therefore, with
entire confidence that we should not want an audi
ence, and a very large one, that we undertook to
give an account of some of the circumstances at
tending General McClellan's relations to the Ad
ministration of President Lincoln, and especially of
the strange occurrence of his removal from com
mand after the battle of Antietam. The approba
tion which we have received from many of the
wise and good has fully justified and rewarded our
labors. The breaking out of our civil war found Gen
eral McClellan in private life, and in a lucrative
employment which he could not surrender with
out great sacrifices. It is no disparagement of the
patriotism of any others of the distinguished sol
diers of whatever rank, on either side of that con
test, to say that McClellan was actuated by a pure
sense of duty, and not by political ambition, when
he tendered his sword to the Government of the
United States. He had been educated in its mili
tary service ; and he had so learned of its political
institutions that every conviction of his intellect
and every feeling of his heart bound him to the
preservation of the Union. He had had, at a very
early age, great opportunities for acquiring mili-

TO THE REPUBLIC.

93

tary knowledge in the war with Mexico. He had
been afterward sent, at the expense of the Govern
ment, while in the flower of his youth, to increase
that knowledge by personal observation of one of
the most gigantic wars of modern Europe. The
facilities which he there enjoyed, along with col
leagues who were much his seniors in age and mili
tary rank, had enabled him to accumulate a fund of
professional information which was even more ex
tensive than it could have been if he had held a
command in either of the contending armies. In
Mexico, under our own captain, Scott, he had
seen the teachings of his education confirmed —
that war is a science. In the Crimea he had seen
that science applied on the grandest scale, and in
the most exact methods, by the armies of three
nations. He had afterward been engaged in em
ployments that gave him an uncommon familiarity
with the geographical features, the resources, and
the peculiarities of vast regions of our own country.
So that, when our national conflict was culminating
to a territorial civil war and a struggle for the
supremacy of our national Constitution, he did not
feel himself at liberty to withhold from the service
of his country any part of that wealth of experience
and knowledge which his country had enabled him
to have. It was a simple case of paying back a
debt; and, from the time when he undertook to

94

MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE

discharge it to the moment when he was summarily
retired into complete inactivity and intended dis
grace, he never did an act, or uttered a word, or
wrote a line that was not inspired by a sense of
patriotic duty, or that any man can justly impute
to a selfish motive.
Probably in all military history there is no
sudden and unexplained removal of a commander,
who was on' the eve of a well-planned movement
against the enemy, which furnishes a parallel to
this case of General McClellan. Certainly there is
none for which it is so difficult to assign a respect
able motive. On the 7th of November, when Mc
Clellan is about to divide Lee's army, an order
suddenly reaches him, requiring him to turn over
the command to a general whom neither the army
nor the public had reason to regard, and who did
not regard himself, as competent to the position,
and to go into a disgraced retirement. So extraor
dinary an act demands investigation. It is one of
the unsolved points in the history of the late war,
on which the inquirer must enter with the expecta
tion of finding either an adequate or an inadequate
reason for the act.
We have for many years been seeking and di
gesting information on this subject, but, when we
began to write upon it, the first thing that oc
curred to us was the necessity for knowing whether

TO THE REPUBLIC. 95
the subject ol General McClellan's removal was
laid by Mr. Lincoln before his Cabinet, at any time
previous to the issuing of the order, and whether
any and what determination was then announced
by the President. In order to ascertain this we
recently addressed a note to the only surviving
member of Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet, and received
from him the following reply :
Washington, January 21, 1880.
My dear Sir: I have yours of the 19th, asking if
the removal of McClellan from command was discussed
in the Cabinet before the order was given, and in reply I
have to inform you that it was. The meeting was at
tended by Halleck, and it was stated by him that the
excuses given by McClellan for not moving were untrue.
I recollect particularly that in reference to a supply, I
think, of shoes, which General McClellan had written
were indispensable and had not been received, Halleck
undertook to show, by official statements of shipments
made, that McClellan had not stated the truth.
I opposed the removal violently, upon the ground that
Hooker, who was the person spoken of for the succession,
was entirely incompetent for the position. Burnside's
name was not mentioned, and I was utterly amazed when
I saw it announced. I had to accept as true the state
ment that McClellan had been making unnecessary de
lay, although, as it turned out afterward, the charge was
wholly unfounded. Governor Curtin was in McClellan's
5

96 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
camp at the time, and afterward stated that it was true
that McClellan had not the shoes required for his men to
move. Mr. Lincoln did not decide at that time to remove
McClellan, but I saw that he was coming to that conclu
sion, and I went out to Silver Spring for my father to go
that night to the Soldiers' Home, where Mr. Lincoln was
then staying, to endeavor to prevent the removal. He
accordingly went that night to see Mr. Lincoln, and spent
a long time in arguing against the proposal, telling Lin
coln that it would be both a military and political blunder
for him to take that step ; that the opposition to McClel
lan came from Chase and Stanton, who were hostile to
him (Lincoln), and that the man whom they wanted to
supersede McClellan with would be also adverse to him if
he succeeded ; and, if he failed, he (Lincoln) would have
to bear the reproach of it. Lincoln listened with atten
tion to all my father had to say, but was not communica
tive himself. But at the end of the conference he rose up
and stretched his long arms almost to the ceiling above
him, saying : " I said I would remove him if he let Lee's
army get away from him, and I must do so. He has got
the ' slows,* Mr. Blair ! "
It was manifest to me that there was something more
than I knew of, of which McClellan's opponents were
availing themselves against him. I had stood by McClel
lan as I did by Grant against the attempts made by Stan
ton and Chase, and other politicians, in their efforts to
overslaugh them, without being in the confidence of either

TO THE REPUBLIC. gj
of these generals. I did not know till McClellan visited
me, while attending the Porter trial the winter afterward,
and read me his Harrison's Landing letter, what it was
that made Lincoln so deaf to my own and my father's
efforts. But, when McClellan read that letter, I told him
at once that it was that letter which had enabled Stanton
and Chase to remove him. It had been used to make
Lincoln look upon him as a rival, and he had judged him
from that point of view ; and, while I believed Lincoln to
be as unselfish as any man, he was yet a man, and no man
could be told day by day that another was making use of
the place he gave him to supersede him in his own place,
without being afterward against him and ready to believe
that he was both unfriendly and unfit for his position.*
Yours truly,
Montgomery Blair.
George T. Curtis, Esq., New York.
* [Mr. Blair's explanation of Mr. Lincoln's feelings toward Mc
Clellan, and of the mode in which he allowed himself to be influenced
by McClellan's enemies, is quite plausible, perhaps it is quite true.
But what weakness does it not suggest ! General McClellan could not
possibly become a formidable political rival to Mr. Lincoln, in 1862,
unless he should succeed in crushing the rebellion. To end the war,
then and there, by defeating the Confederate forces in front of Rich
mond, in the summer of 1862, was McClellan's great object and aim ;
and presumably it was Lincoln's. But Mr. Blair suggests that Mr.
Lincoln was told "day by day" that McClellan was trying to "super
sede " him, and that this naturally made Mr. Lincoln hostile to Mc
Clellan. How lofty and comprehensive was the patriotism that could
not bear to be " superseded " by a brilliant and crowning service to the
country, if rendered by a general in the field? At this rate, Mr. Lin
coln must have gone on indefinitely selecting a series of incompetent

98 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
The Cabinet council to which Mr. Blair alludes
was held on the 5th of November. The order re
quiring General McClellan to turnover the com
mand to General Burnside was dated on the same
day. No reason for it was ever assigned by the
President to General McClellan or to the country.
In the absence, therefore, of any avowed reason,
coming from Mr. Lincoln himself, we are remitted
to the inquiry, what relation the Harrison's Land
ing letter may have borne to the determination of
the President to recall McClellan after the battle of
Antietam, and to reduce him to a condition of en
tire inactivity. We must ask the reader to "turn
commanders, because a competent one might become his political rival
by succeeding in ending the war ! Two years after the Harrison's
Landing letter was written, and two years after McClellan had been
put into a position in which he could gain no more successes in the
war, he was made by the Democratic party their candidate for the
Presidency, although he had not succeeded in crushing the rebellion.
But, as I have said in the text, what happened in 1864 does not throw
much light on the state of Mr. Lincoln's feelings toward McClellan in
1862, or upon the causes which may have produced them.
Nothing is more natural than for Presidents to desire a re-election.
But if it is to be understood that Mr. Lincoln, his leading friends and
advisers, and his party generally, considered in 1862 that for political
reasons it would not do to allow General McClellan to become too im
portant in the eyes of his countrymen, by reason of his success as a sol
dier in suppressing the rebellion, I do not know how there could be
sent down to posterity a severer condemnation of them all than is in
volved in this excuse. Yet this excuse has not been suggested by me.
I have only considered what has been suggested by others. If the
excuse has any validity at all, it necessarily implies a great deal that is
not creditable to those who took General McClellan from the service
of the Union.]

TO THE REPUBLIC. gg
back to the letter, in our first article, and to note
that it proposed to Mr. Lincoln a certain policy in
the prosecution of the war, to be adopted and fol
lowed out by him, and from which, if any credit or
benefit of a political nature was to accrue to any
one, it would accrue to Mr. Lincoln. For it is not
to be forgotten that this was a private letter. Its
existence was not publicly known ; and, if Mr. Lin
coln had shown it to any persons in Washington,
they had kept the secret well among themselves.
This remained the condition of things, as to the
letter, until long after McClellan's removal from
the command. Our readers have seen that one
very striking feature of the policy which General
McClellan suggested to Mr. Lincoln consisted in a
mode in which the emancipation of slaves could be
properly made to result from military measures
and operations. It was not the same plan that Mr.
Lincoln suddenly adopted nearly three months
after he received General McClellan's letter, and
five days after General McClellan had gained the
battle of Antietam. General McClellan's plan pro
posed that the Government should permanently
appropriate slave-property to its own use, recog
nizing the right of the owner to compensation — a
principle which he suggested " might be extended,
upon grounds of military necessity and security, to
all the slaves in a particular State, thus working

IOO MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
manumission in such State." Mr. Lincoln's subse
quent plan attempted to abolish slavery by an Ex
ecutive decree, without recognizing any right to
compensation. It is not necessary to consider here
which of these two plans was the wisest, or the
most practical. We are not dealing with the mer
its of either of them ; but we are dealing with the
historical fact that, in the month of July, 1862, Gen
eral McClellan, in a private letter to Mr. Lincoln,
proposed for his adoption a comprehensive policy
in the prosecution of the war, one important part
of which embraced a mode of effecting the extin
guishment of slavery as a legitimate measure of
war. While General McClellan remained at Har
rison's Landing, and had as yet gained no striking
successes excepting that he had saved the Army
of the Potomac from destruction, after which he
had been put into a kind of disgrace, his Harri
son's Landing letter, still an entirely private docu
ment in the hands of Mr. Lincoln, could not have
been regarded as a matter for any political anx
iety. But when he had saved Washington from
capture, and had defeated Lee at the battle of
Antietam, if his letter, written three months pre
viously, was suddenly recalled to the recollection
of Mr. Lincoln and those of his Cabinet who had
seen it, they must have especially remembered
his suggestion of a plan for the manumission of

TO THE REPUBLIC. 101
slaves, as a measure of military operations and
necessities. We now come, therefore, to a theory which has
been suggested to account for the removal of Gen
eral McClellan from command after the battle of
Antietam. This theory, when fully stated, is as
follows: That, with this letter from General Mc
Clellan in his possession, Mr. Lincoln was per
suaded to believe that, if the writer should succeed
in destroying Lee's army, he would become a for
midable rival for the next Presidency ; that this
letter would be McClellan's " platform '¦' ; that his
platform must therefore be anticipated by an Ex
ecutive proclamation that slavery was to be exter
minated by an Executive decree ; that circum
stances had compelled Mr. Lincoln, after Pope's
defeat at the second Bull Run, to restore McClel
lan to command, and to permit him to free Mary
land from the presence of the enemy ; but that,
when this had been done, it was politically neces
sary to prevent McClellan from becoming, by fur
ther successes, a competitor in the next Presiden
tial election, and a competitor who would be able
to show a prior claim to the policy of emanci
pation. This theory derives some color from the fact
that Mr. Lincoln suddenly changed his mind on the
subject of emancipation. On the 13th of Septem-

102 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
ber he told a deputation of clergymen from Chi
cago that an emancipation proclamation would be
no more effective than " the Pope's bull against the
comet " ; but on the 22d of September, after Mc
Clellan had gained the battle of Antietam, Mr.
Lincoln issued a proclamation announcing that on
the first of the succeeding January he should issue
another abolishing slavery in every State that ad
hered to the rebellion. The theory or explanation
of General McClellan's removal from the command
of the army, at a moment when he was on the very
eve of a great success, is that the Harrison's Land
ing letter was the moving cause. But, if this is a
true explanation of General McClellan's removal,
Mr. Lincoln made an enormous mistake in regard
to the character and purpose of the Harrison's
Landing letter, and the character and purpose of
the writer. Through every line of that letter there
breathes a manifest intention to present to Mr. Lin
coln's mind a comprehensive policy in the prosecu
tion of the war, which Mr. Lincoln was, if he should
adopt it, to appropriate to himself ; which was to
redound to Mr. Lincoln's benefit, so far as it could
redound to the personal benefit of any one. There
is not a word in the letter which can justify any
one in believing that the writer was seeking to lay
up political treasure for himself, in the archives ol
the Government, or in Mr. Lincoln's private reposi-

TO THE REPUBLIC. 103
tories. Among gentlemen, it is usually considered
an act of meanness to claim afterward the author
ship of a paper which one has given to another who
is in a high position of public trust, for adoption
as a measure of public policy ; and no man, who
ever knew General McClellan, can believe that he
deliberately planned to commit such an act of
meanness. His letter was the letter of one gentle
man to another. The writer, it is true, was a gen
eral in the service of the Government ; the recipi
ent was the head of that Government. But the
letter nevertheless was not an official letter ; it was
a private letter, suggesting to Mr. Lincoln's " pri
vate consideration " a certain line of policy for his
adoption. Mr. Lincoln desired, when in June he
assented to General McClellan's proposal to submit
to him his views respecting the whole conduct of
the war, that care should be taken to preserve
secrecy. Such care was taken. General McClellan
wrote the letter with his own hand in his tent at
Harrison's Landing, and placed it himself in the
hands of Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln need not have
shown it to a human being. He might have pro
pounded to his Cabinet the policy which it de
scribed, without saying that General McClellan
had recommended it. Public men in such posi
tions have often received the most important sug
gestions from some one else, and have not deemed

104 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
themselves bound to disclose their authorship. If
Mr. Lincoln had proposed this policy for the con
sideration of his Cabinet, without saying that it had
been suggested by General McClellan, there can be
no doubt that it would have had a fair considera
tion, and possibly it might have been adopted. If
it had been, there can be as little doubt that the
world never would have known from General Mc
Clellan that the suggestion came from him ; while
he would have been able to say that he concurred
in what the President had determined on, and
would do everything in his power as a general to
carry it out.
General McClellan may well have been aston
ished, therefore, as we know that he was, when he
heard it said, long after his removal from the com
mand, that his private letter to Mr. Lincoln had
caused the latter to regard him as having sought
by means of it to set his sails for the popular
breeze, and that out of his sails the wind had been
taken by Mr. Lincoln's proclamation. If ever a man
was intent upon anything that was unselfish, and
devoid of any purpose but to serve his official su
perior, it was General McClellan when he sketched
that great policy for Mr. Lincoln's private consid
eration. All that happened in the political world,
two years afterward, when General McClellan, by
no procurement of his own, was nominated as the

TO THE REPUBLIC. j.05
Democratic candidate in the summer of 1864, has
of course no relevancy to the cause or causes
which operated upon Mr. Lincoln's mind in No
vember, 1862, to make him recall General McClel
lan from the command of the Army of the Poto
mac, and to bid him report at Trenton, in the State
of New Jersey.
Among the members of Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet
in the summer and autumn of 1862, there were two
persons who were as unfriendly to Mr. Lincoln as
they were to General McClellan. Mr. Chase had
reasons of his own for representing to Mr. Lincoln
that the Democrats then had General McClellan in
training as their future candidate for the Presi
dency, although it would have been difficult for
him to show in what the training consisted. Any
one who remembers the condition of Democratic
sentiment on the subject of slavery and the proper
objects of the war, at the time when General
McClellan wrote his letter to Mr. Lincoln, and
even down to a much later period, can easily see
that the letter never was designed by the writer
as a means of recommending himself to that party
as their candidate for the Presidency. But Mr.
Chase — to borrow an old parliamentary phrase —
"took nothing" for his own advantage by his
efforts to undermine Mr. Lincoln's confidence in
McClellan. He may be dismissed to the innumer-

106 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
able company of those who " filed their minds "
and gained nothing by it for themselves. The
one redeeming part of Mr. Chase's conduct toward
McClellan is, that he never pretended to be any
thing but an enemy. But, in all that scene of in
fidelity to the military interests of the republic,
there stands forth one central figure, prominent in '
double-dealing, celebrated for duplicity, the arch-
hypocrite Stanton. The world does not now learn
his amazing insincerity for the first time, or from
us. Our proof of it is only cumulative. The char
acter to which that proof relates is one that no man
can explain, one that no party and no faction can
bear to defend. This man began at an early period
to fawn upon McClellan. It is not improbable that
the young General, in the frankness of his own na
ture, and in his readiness to accept all proffered
aid in the great public duties which devolved upon
him after he became general-in-chief by the advice
of General Scott, may have believed in the per
sonal devotion and attachment which this eminent
Pennsylvania lawyer professed to himself, to his
relatives, and to his friends in the army. But,
there was at first a jarring string in these strains of
flattery. The part was overacted, and the actor
did not, until he was warned, perceive where
in he " o'erstepped the modesty of nature." He
thought to recommend himself to McClellan by

TO THE REPUBLIC.

107

the grossest ridicule and abuse of Lincoln. He
found that McClellan's sense of propriety did not
approve this coarse disparagement of his official
superior. But, as Mr. Stanton was known to be a
man of high ability and distinction in his profes
sion, and as Mr. Lincoln was disposed to believe
that he would be a valuable Secretary of War,
both because of his energy and because of his
avowed friendship for McClellan, the latter, when
consulted, gave his influence with the President for
the introduction of Mr. Stanton into the Cabinet.
There is a saying — " something musty " — about
the displacement of ladders after an elevation has
been reached. As time went on, as Mr. Stanton's
ambition grew, and " his infant fortune came to
age " with the increase of his power, he came to
know how necessary McClellan was to Mr. Lincoln,
and how important to the country it was that the
best relations should exist between them. Know
ing this, he determined that McClellan should be
ruined. For Lincoln he had so much contempt
that he thought he could be trusted to ruin himself.
Yet to the last hour of his intercourse with Mc
Clellan, and down to the final consummation of his
purpose, Mr. Stanton professed to McClellan and
his friends an unalterable fidelity, and an unchange
able conviction of his importance to the public in
terests : while, at the very same time, the occasion-

108 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
al ebullitions of his hostility, bursting forth from
his arrogant temper, in the presence of others, and
his official acts, betrayed the object to which his
hatred was carrying him, long before it was finally
attained. The army saw it, if the people of the
Union did not. McClellan was to be destroyed by
making Lincoln distrust him. The scheme suc
ceeded — the deed was done. But what of the chief
conspirator ?
Dante, as he walks through the infernal realms,
protected by the. great Mantuan Spirit "whose
fame still lasts in the world, and will last as long as
time," tells us of the common herd, undistinguish-
able from one another, who are grouped in eternal
suffering according to the nature of their besetting
sin. These are they who are damned by classifica
tion. We do not learn their names or nations. We
only see them, in crowds, in a situation of dread
ful appropriateness to their peculiar transgression.
But, when the poet encounters one of those histori
cal personages on whom, because of the conse
quences which his acts have entailed upon his
country or mankind, there should be fastened all
the infamy that is his due, we have the individual
and his history touched by the master's stroke, and
the sufferer stands for ever alone in the awful
characterization of his fate. One of these ghastly
objects of retribution is that Bertran de Born who

TO THE REPUBLIC. 109
" gave the evil counsels " which separated those who
should have been united. The spectacle of this
false counselor to a prince, which the poet describes,
is too horrible to be transferred in detail to these
pages. But, if any one is disposed to wonder that
this image has risen up before us as we write of a
passage in our national annals, let him count, if he
can, the soldiers' graves, the widows' and the
orphans' tears, the treasure needlessly squandered,
the war needlessly prolonged, the whole vast sum
of misery and sorrow which must be charged to
the malice that one man bore to another. And,
when he sickens in the contemplation of these ac
cumulated woes, let him turn to the so-called his
torical literature of the country, and note how,
from the same source, it has been poisoned with
lies. We must thread this dreary maze of Stan
ton's treachery and Lincoln's weakness, until we
have reached conclusions on which it is fit that a
final judgment should rest.*
* An illustration of Mr. Stanton's character comes to us while we
write. On the 3d of April, 1862, General Franklin received an order
to embark his division for the Peninsula, to be under the command of
General McClellan in the advance upon Richmond. Calling at the
War Department on that evening, General Franklin met General Mc
Dowell. The following account is taken from the "Philadelphia
Times '' of April 28, 1877, in the words of General Franklin : " General
McDowell informed me that the Secretary of War had told him about
an hour before that General McClellan intended to work by strategy and
not by fighting, and that he should not have another man from his

IIO MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
It seems to us most remarkable, in all this con
catenation of conspiracies against the usefulness
Department ; that all of the enemies of the Administration centered
around him ; and the Secretary accused him of having political am
bition. Also, that he had not left the number of troops to defend
Washington that the President required ; in other words, that he had
disobeyed the President's orders. General McDowell remonstrated
against the step which was about to be taken, arguing that, if General
McClellan had political aspirations, they would be forwarded by the
very course which the Administration was taking in this case. He used
all the arguments which he could bring to bear, to convince the Secre
tary that he was making a mistake in ordering the detachment of his
corps. The result was, General McDowell's corps was detached from
the Army of the Potomac, and was marched to Catlett's Station on the
Orange and Alexandria Railroad, where it could do no possible good.
General McClellan's plan of turning Yorktown, by the movement of
McDowell's corps on the north bank of the York River, was utterly
destroyed. The Army of the Potomac was forced to stay a whole
month on the Peninsula uselessly, and the capture of Richmond, which
in all human probability would have been made in the month of May,
had General McClellan's plan been carried out, was deferred for three
years." General Franklin now writes to us as follows, inclosing a copy of
his paper in the " Philadelphia Times " : " On the evening of the ar
rival of General McDowell's corps at Catlett's Station (about April 8th
or 9th), my division, which then formed part of the corps, was ordered
to join General McClellan by way of Alexandria. While it was march
ing to Alexandria I went to the Peninsula, saw and conferred with the
General [McClellan], and returned to Alexandria to embark the divis
ion on the transports. When I was ready to start, I was informed that
the President and Secretary of War wished to see me. I first saw Mr.
Stanton. He was very cordial, was glad I was going to the Peninsula,
would at once determine a question of my rank which was before him.
He desired me to give his love to McClellan, and to say to him that he
had his best wishes for his success, and that any help to him which he
required that his Department could furnish would be most cheerfully
accorded. In fact, nothing could have been more satisfactory to any
friend of McClellan than this interview would have been to me, had
not the recollection of McDowell's interview with Stanton of April 3d

TO THE REPUBLIC. m
and success of a military man who was serving
the country with singleness of purpose and with
no ambition but to do his military duty, that Mr.
Lincoln, with his imputed shrewdness, did not see
to the very bottom of the hearts of men who
wished to put enmity between him and this faith
ful soldier. Mr. Lincoln should have had the wis-

been fresh in my mind. I never saw Stanton after this interview.
The interview with the President amounted to nothing."
We do not know where, in the history of any country, there is any
thing so grotesque as the fact that the destinies of a great war were to
a large extent in the hands of a mere lawyer who, apart from his pro
pensity to resort to duplicity when there was no need for it whatever,
was completely destitute of all military knowledge or judgment. Such
administrative faculty as Mr. Stanton had was due to the energy of an
imperious will. President Buchanan, who gauged Mr. Stanton accu
rately when he was his Attorney-General, has left the following brief
description of him, which now lies before us in Mr. Buchanan's hand
writing :
" Mr. Stanton was an able, astute, and somewhat overbearing, dog
matic lawyer. He had been eminently and deservedly successful at the
bar. His personal integrity has never been doubted. He was, how
ever, deficient in the knowledge of a statesman ; but he performed his
duties as Attorney-General in a respectable and satisfactory manner.
He had not the calmness and sober judgment that would have fitted
him for an important administrative office. He was rash and impetu
ous. It was his nature to act from the impulse of the moment, and he
did not stop to inquire into the remote consequences of his decision."
This was evidently written before Mr. Stanton became Mr. Lincoln's
Secretary of War. What it says of his personal integrity relates to all
matters of money. In that respect Mr. Stanton's character was with
out a stain. His personal duplicity, toward those who trusted him and
whom he professed to serve, is an enigma which those who knew him
best never could understand. He was as false to Buchanan as he was
to others, and it is to be hoped that Mr. Buchanan died without know
ing that he was so.

112 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
dom to remember that the Harrison's Landing let
ter, instead of affording even a political reason
for depriving the country of General McClellan's
military services, was entirely under his (Mr. Lin
coln's) own control ; for General McClellan had
not divulged its contents, and as a man of honor
he could never have divulged them for any pur
pose but to shield himself from an unjust impu
tation. After it had been imputed to him that he
wrote the letter for a selfish political purpose, he
included a copy of it in his report, that the whole
world might judge of its character. A portion of
his countrymen, knowing little of the facts, and
paying but little heed to the character of the let
ter, have permitted an unjust impression to remain
in their minds. It is time for them to correct their
impressions, and to observe that, if Mr. Lincoln
had looked into the letter, when McClellan's ene
mies were perpetually trying to awaken his jeal
ousy, he must have seen that, whatever else it was,
it was no " platform " for a Democratic politician
to put himself upon in the summer of 1862. But,
according to the theory on which we are com
menting, Mr. Lincoln, although he had it entirely
in his power, in the autumn of 1862, to recognize
the true character of that letter as a private sug
gestion of a policy to be adopted by him and made
his own if he should think well of it, could not,

TO THE REPUBLIC.

H3

nevertheless, resist the representations of McClel
lan's enemies that it was designed for a very differ
ent purpose. No man can read that letter now,
whether he knows General McClellan or not, and
find in it any trace of the design that was imputed
to him. No man who knows General McClellan,
and knows the political history of the time when
the letter was written, can believe that he ever had
such a design.*
On the night of the same day on which the
removal of General McClellan was considered in
the Cabinet, the elder Mr. Blair, as the reader has
seen, visited Mr. Lincoln, and patriotically endeav
ored to dissuade him from that step. At the meet
ing of the Cabinet on the 5th Mr. Lincoln made
* It must be remembered that the letter was written in July,
1862. One copy of it remained in manuscript In General McClel
lan's possession. In August, 1863, General McClellan transmitted
to the War Department his report on the military operations in
which he had been engaged. The report remained in the Adjutant-
General's office until it was sent into Congress at its next session,
which commenced in December, 1863. It contained a correct copy
of the Harrison's Landing letter. Soon after the report began to be
printed by the printer of public documents, the newspaper press began
to comment upon and to copy from it. An imperfect copy of the let
ter appeared in a New York paper in January, 1864 ; but how it was
obtained is not known. An edition of General McClellan's report was
published by Sheldon & Co., at New York, in the spring of 1864 ;
and from that edition the public obtained the first authentic copy of
the Harrison's Landing letter that was ever authorized by General
McClellan. He was removed from command and sent into retirement
in November, 1862. In the early part of November, 1864, he resigned
from the army.

114

MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE

no allusion to the Harrison's Landing letter, for
some of the gentlemen present did not know of its
existence. The discussion in the Cabinet turned
wholly on General McClellan's activity as a com
mander, and his alleged misrepresentation of the
actual condition of his army in respect to sup
plies, after the battle of Antietam. When Mr.
Blair saw the President on that evening, the lat
ter remarked that he had said he would remove
McClellan if he allowed Lee's army to get away
from him, and that he must remove him. When
Mr. Blair saw Mr. Lincoln on the next day, Mr.
Lincoln said, " Mr. Blair, I was obliged to play
shut pan to you last night." The order for the
change in the command had then come out, and
Mr. Lincoln felt obliged to account to Mr. Blair
for not having told him on the previous evening
that the matter had been decided. The question
arises, therefore, To whom had the President said
that he would remove McClellan if he allowed
Lee's army to get away from him ? Certainly he
never said so to General McClellan himself. On
the field of Antietam, twelve days after Lee's
army had recrossed the Potomac, Mr. Lincoln told
General McClellan that he did not intend to dis
place him, and that he was not to move on the
enemy until he felt that he was entirely ready.
On the 6th of October the President ordered him

TO THE REPUBLIC. 115
to pursue Lee ; but on the 21st the President knew
that it was at least doubtful whether he was in a
condition to do so, and a little later the President
learned that he certainly was not. If we go for
ward to the 5th of November, after McClellan,
properly supplied, had placed his army in the best
possible positions for dividing Lee's forces and
beating them in detail, we find the Cabinet coun
cil sitting at the White House debating the ques
tion of his removal from command. At that meet
ing the old story of unnecessary delay after the
battle of Antietam was again trumped up, and,
notwithstanding the information that had been ob
tained by Colonel Scott and communicated to the
President, the Secretary of War, and General Hal
leck, which made it certain that the delay had been
wholly due to the want of indispensable supplies,
at least one member of the Cabinet, who had been
a steadfast supporter of General McClellan upon
public grounds, was made to admit, on General
Halleck's " statements," that there had been un
necessary delay after the battle of Antietam. We
do not know how to characterize that scene at the
President's council-table. We were about to use
a word which we withhold. We can only point to
the fact that, at the very moment of that discus
sion on the proposal to remove General McClellan
from command, his headquarters were at Rector-

n6 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
town ; his army, in admirable discipline and spirit,
was disposed in position for successive attacks
upon Lee's divided troops ; and it was yet an un
decided question whether Lee was to escape, while
the chances were entirely against him. For Gen
eral Lee, however, that question was decided by
the change in the Federal command — a change
that was made upon a pretext which more than
one person around that council-board knew to be
false. Involved as Mr. Lincoln was in the toils laid for
him by Chase, Stanton, and Halleck, we do not be
lieve that he had it in his power to assign publicly
a reason for removing McClellan. The subject of
McClellan's allowing Lee's army to escape was not
discussed in the Cabinet. On the evening of the
day on which that discussion took place, Mr. Lin
coln had to say something to the elder Mr. Blair,
and he went back to an old promise which he had
given to somebody, that he would remove Mc
Clellan if he allowed Lee's army to get away from
him. But at that moment McClellan was about to
attack Longstreet, and the result, which had not
occurred, could not have been the reason why
Mr. Lincoln had already allowed the order to
be issued. At the Cabinet meeting, the reason
urged was a delay that had occurred on the field
of Antietam during the three weeks that ended on

TO THE REPUBLIC. Uy
the last days of October. After the Cabinet coun
cil broke up, there must have been a private con
ference between Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Chase and
Mr. Stanton, during which Mr. Lincoln consented
that the order should be issued, and that the name
of General Burnside should be inserted in it as the
successor of McClellan. But, if Mr. Lincoln had
ever been asked thereafter to assign the reason
why he allowed that order to be issued, we are
entirely unable to see what he could have said.
But, valuing McClellan highly, as we believe he
did, and knowing as he did that McClellan was at
that moment pursuing Lee's army by his orders,
Mr. Lincoln was so entrapped by McClellan's ene
mies that he could not extricate himself without
sacrificing McClellan ; for he knew that Halleck's
" statements," made and listened to at the Coun
cil-board, could be made elsewhere, and would be
made to the public if he allowed McClellan to
remain at the head of the army. This would have
produced a public issue respecting the mode in
which affairs had been managed by the War De
partment, in meeting or failing to meet General
McClellan's requisitions during the month of Oc
tober. There is another theory, less common than the
one which we have thus far considered, by which
some persons think that General McClellan's re-

Il8 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
moval from command is to be accounted for. This
theory is entertained by officers of the army, who,
while abstaining habitually from all party or politi
cal relations, were deeply interested in observing
the course of the Administration in the prosecu
tion of the war. It is this : That in the summer
and autumn of 1862, after the defeat of Pope, fol
lowed by McClellan's expulsion of the Confederate
troops from Maryland, the President's advisers,
who were represented by Mr. Chase and Mr. Stan
ton, did not desire further military successes in the
war until they should have made it a war for the
extermination of slavery. In support of this theory
those who entertain it point to the following facts :
That if McClellan had captured Richmond in
November or December, 1862, the proclamation
would have remained, as what Mr. Lincoln de
scribed it, a " bull against the comet " ; because, if
the rebellion had been crushed then and there, the
Constitution, notwithstanding the proclamation,
must have remained what it always had been ; that,
after McClellan, came Burnside and Hooker, who
were not more effectually sustained and supported
by the Administration than McClellan had been ;
and that when it was determined to remove Mc
Clellan, so that Richmond might not fall prema
turely, it was a sort of hap-hazard choice that at
the last moment of deliberation made Burnside his

TO THE REPUBLIC. Ug
immediate successor. This is not a theory which
has been the result of an afterthought. There were
intelligent and observing officers of that army who
knew that McClellan, on the one hand, was strain
ing every nerve to overtake and defeat the Confed
erate forces at the moment when he was displaced,
and who, on the other hand, believed, at that time,
that he was not permitted to succeed because the
Administration did not then desire success. It is
impossible, of course, to penetrate into the secret
counsels of those who then controlled the course of
the war. What we can see, however, is that the
removal of General McClellan entailed the frightful
slaughter at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville,
and the Confederate invasion of Pennsylvania. In
our last paper we presented to our readers an ac
curate sketch, from which they could learn with
what excellent strategy McClellan was operating,
to insure the fall of Richmond with the least ex
penditure of precious lives. We doubt if one
reader out of every hundred has ever before under
stood how the severance of the communications
between the two parts of Lee's army, and the forc
ing of Longstreet back upon Gordonsville — results
that were within McClellan's grasp on the 7th of
November, 1862 — would have opened to him an al
most unopposed march upon Richmond. Yet this
commander, thus arrested by his own Government

120 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
when he was about to achieve a great success— ar
rested from a motive of statecraft, or from a motive
of personal jealousy, or from a combination of both
— is the man whose reputation has been slurred be
cause he did not sacrifice his men by hecatombs,
from which nothing could be gained, but sought
to attain his object by occupying positions that
would make a battle and a victory worth what
they might cost.*
* At Warrenton, after the soldiers had learned that McClellan was
to leave them, as he rode through the ranks that lined the road for
miles, the men called out to him repeatedly, " Come back, Little
Mac ! " McClellan turned to an officer who rode by his side, and, with
tears gathering in his eyes, asked, " What do you think of all this ? "
" It is hard upon you, but best for us." " Why ? " " Because you are
not permitted to succeed, and, as the people in Washington do not in
tend that we shall fight at present, we shall be saved defeat and morti
fication. You will come back when you are wanted." Laying his
hand on the officer's shoulder, the General asked, " How did you learn
so much ? " Our informant adds that he did not think at the time how
soon he was to witness Fredericksburg.
A very fair writer on the " Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac "
(Swinton, New York, 1866) was at a loss to understand why Burnside
abandoned at Warrenton all of McClellan's plans, and, turning his
back on Lee's army, marched his own army to Fredericksburg. He
says that this project, although not approved at Washington, was as
sented to ; that is to say, the Administration abandoned the pursuit of
Lee's army, and allowed their own army to be transferred to Freder
icksburg, without one effort to carry out McClellan's plan of operations.
This could have been done only for the purpose of obtaining a new
base, where the Army of the Potomac could remain inactive until the
spring. But the swift pursuit of Lee, whose whole forces arrived on
the south bank of the Rappahannock, for the relief of Fredericksburg,
within a week after Burnside's army had reached the river, discon
certed the whole project of " winter quarters" at Fredericksburg, and
ended in conflicts which produced what Mr. Swinton justly calls " a

TO THE REPUBLIC. I2I
In reference to the political motives by which
Mr. Lincoln is supposed to have been influenced,
we have considered all the theories that have ever
been suggested. Whatever theory of political mo
tive is the one that ought to be adopted, the de
plorable fact remains that the country lost the serv
ices of General McClellan, and that great disasters
ensued. At Fredericksburg, in December, 1862,
under Burnside, the Federal losses, in killed,
wounded, and missing, were 12,321. At Chan-
cellorsville, under Hooker, in May, 1863, the killed
and wounded were 11,033. These losses were en
tirely uncompensated by any advantage or prestige.
In June the Confederates invaded Pennsylvania,
and were barely checked at Gettysburg. Remem
bering these consequences, we are forced also to
remember that, if anything in war can be pro
nounced to have been so highly probable as to
amount to a moral certainty, it is that, if McClellan
had been allowed to fight Lee again, there would
have been another victory, which would have in
sured the capture of Richmond before the end of
slaughter the most bloody and the most useless of the war.'' While
General Burnside must be considered to have been excessively rash in
attempting to carry Lee's positions by assault, it should be remem
bered that he was at Fredericksburg at all by the assent of the Govern
ment. The motive which led to the assent is believed, by many officers
of high intelligence, to have been a secret determination to let the
war in Virginia stand still until the effect of the emancipation procla
mation had been fully developed.

I22 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
the year 1862. The blood with which the Wilder
ness was afterward watered would have been
saved. We shall now close our review of this part of
General McClellan's military career with a sum
mary, which may assist our readers in forming an
opinion of the justice of a criticism which has long
been used to excuse the conduct of the Administra
tion. The criticism has most commonly been put
in this form : that while General McClellan had
great accomplishments as an organizer of armies
and as an engineer, yet as a general at the head of
troops he lacked decision, promptness, and vigor,
from a constitutional infirmity which made him re
luctant to strike a blow until he had accumulated
every possible advantage for delivering it. The
soundness of this criticism — supposing it to be
honestly made — may be tested by the history of
the period over which we have passed in these
papers. We have followed General McClellan for
the space of a little less than five months, from the
26th of June to the 7th of November, 1862. The
week extending from the 26th of June to the 4th of
July, in which there was more severe fighting than
any one of our armies in an equal period ever en
countered, ended in the rescue of the Army of the
Potomac from an extraordinary peril, into which it
was brought by the blundering folly of its own

TO THE REPUBLIC.

123

Government. No competent critic will deny that
the tactics, the force of will, the indomitable -perse
verance, and the admirable judgment displayed by
McClellan during the seven days' march to the
James, evinced the highest attributes of a military
commander; for no such critic will question that
to rescue an army, on such a march, from the
clutches of a superior force, is as great an achieve
ment as to fight and win a pitched battle with
equal or nearly equal numbers on the two sides.
From the 4th of July to the 5 th of August, a period
of comparative inactivity on the James necessarily
followed, in consequence of the indecision of the
Government as to what was to be done. From the
5th of August to the 16th, McClellan could do
nothing but execute the orders of his superiors to
remove his army to the front of Washington.
From the 16th of August to the 27th, he was en
gaged in transferring the different bodies of his
army to the command of General Pope. From the
27th of August until the morning of the 2d of Sep
tember, he was without the command of more than
a hundred men.
Into the next two weeks following the 2d of
September, when called upon to save the capital,
he crowded an amount of energy, skill, prompt
ness, and vigor, which should alone have made
a great reputation, if he had never done anything

124 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
else. If we break up those two weeks into their
important subdivisions, we have, first, the five
days which followed his resumption of command,
when he took a defeated and demoralized army
that was swarming toward the capital in the night,
immediately restored its discipline, posted it with
in the defenses of the city, reconstructed some of
its organizations, and then threw it forward on a
march to intercept an enemy flushed with his re
cent victory and preparing to come down upon the
Maryland side of the Potomac. During the week
that intervened between the 7th and the 13th of
September, McClellan was moving his columns on
five parallel routes, so that he might encounter Lee
before the latter could descend upon Washington
by an unoccupied and unguarded road, either next
to or away from the river. In one week this
march was accomplished, notwithstanding the cau
tions with which it had to be made. On the 13th,
Lee's plans were revealed ; and it affords abundant
proof of the sound judgment with which McClellan
had conducted his march, and of the spirit and effi
ciency which he had restored to the troops, that
the very first blow which he struck sent the whole
Confederate army into retreat. The blow that was
given at South Mountain was dealt on the twelfth
day after McClellan resumed the command, and on
the next day after that on which Lee's position be-

TO THE REPUBLIC. 125
came known ; and on the same day General Frank
lin, one of McClellan's most energetic lieutenants,
attacked and carried the pass called Crampton's
Gap, on the left, while the main body of McClel
lan's troops attacked the Confederates at South
Mountain. In three days after South Mountain,
the Confederate army was overtaken on the field of
Antietam, and on the night of the fourth day its
shattered forces were withdrawn into Virginia,
after a desperately fought battle which lasted for
fourteen hours.
Carping criticism, imputations of " slowness,"
charges of hesitation and want of vigor, vanish into
the realm of nonsense, in the face of such achieve
ments. When we look back upon what was ac
complished in the two weeks that followed McClel
lan's restoration to command, with an army which
he took off the hands of a general under whom it
had been shockingly beaten, and when we remem
ber that McClellan, as he marched out of Washing
ton, left behind him in high authority many offi
cials who wished him anything but success, we can
only wonder at the easy credulity of that portion
of the contemporary public who supposed him to
be either slow or inefficient as a commander. The
false impressions which one age derives from its
own prejudices, that have been industriously culti
vated for the transient policies of political or per-

126 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
sonal hostility, are a poor guide to the estimation
in which a man is to be held in history. Beyond
the range of their influence, even to-day, the mili
tary reputation of General McClellan among the
best European judges is so high that it has often
been said that he would have terminated the war
in November or December, 1862, if he had been
kept in the field and been supported and supplied
as other generals subsequently were. We have
heard, from a source that left us no reason to doubt
the authenticity of the anecdote, that General von
Moltke once expressed this opinion to an American
who in conversation gave him to understand that
" some of us in America do not estimate McClellan
so highly as we do some others of our generals."
" It may be so," said the great Prussian command
er, " but let me tell you that, if your Government
had supported General McClellan in the field as
they should have done, your war would have been
ended two years sooner than it was."
But it is not necessary to look abroad in order
to measure what we lost by the removal of Mc
Clellan from the public service. The history of the
war in Virginia, after Antietam and after the re
moval of McClellan from command, is a history of
the endeavor of our Government to re-establish the
Union armies in the position before Richmond
which they had occupied in June, 1862, when the

TO THE REPUBLIC.

127

Government withdrew from McClellan its prom
ised support, and left him to save his army by the
flank movement to the James. That subsequent
history embraces the battles of Fredericksburg,
Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, and other fierce
fights along the bloody overland route from Wash
ington to Richmond. With these before him, the
reader is compelled to ask himself whether, after
Antietam, there was any battle fought between
those two cities in which the Confederates were
beaten and driven from the field ; and why the
patriotic North was called upon for a lavish ex
penditure of treasure and of men to supply the
places of the countless dead who fell in the effort
to regain that old position before the capital of
Virginia. The enemy fell back before the over
whelming forces of the inexhaustible Union. In
1865 they were utterly crushed and subdued, on the
same ground from which, in 1862, the Army of the
Potomac was withdrawn, in disregard of the ear
nest appeals of its commander, who did not cease
to reiterate the memorable words of his dispatch to
General Halleck, of August 4, 1862 : " Here is the
true defense of Washington; it is here, on the
banks of the James, that the fate of the Union is to
be decided." Yet it was not for the glory snatched from Mc
Clellan that we have ever grieved. All talent,

128 MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE
power, accomplishment, knowledge, experience,
skill, and valor of the soldier form, when rightly
regarded, a trust for his country ; and we are sure
that General McClellan never has regretted and
never can regret that he so regarded and used the
gifts which it pleased Heaven to bestow upon him.
Among all the distinguished military men of this
or any other age, of whom the world knows so
much as it knows of McClellan, there has been no
man whose ambition was so perfectly unalloyed by
the base element of self-seeking at the expense of
others, and no man who has suffered so much in
justice from official superiors. Yet that injustice
has not caused him to challenge his detractors up
on the issues that were made against him. Not at
the time when that injustice was committed, not in
the long period of eighteen years that has since
elapsed, has he broken the reticence which is a part
of his nature when his own public conduct or that
of others is in question. That he will at some time
break this silence, so far as to relate facts which he
alone can tell, at least for those who are to come
after us, his contemporaries should, as we believe
they do, earnestly desire.*
* [As no official explanation was ever given by the Executive for the
removal of General McClellan from the command of the Army of the
Potomac after the battle of Antietam, one is obliged to discuss the un
official and conjectural explanations and theories which have been sup
posed to account for it. After it was done, a committee of Congress

TO THE REPUBLIC. ' \2g
was used as a means for producing throughout the loyal North a con
viction that it was done because General McClellan was incompetent.
This was the famous " Committee on the Conduct of the War " : a
body which, in addition to all the other mischief that it did, con
trived to produce and disseminate a monstrous amount of falsehood
for the enlightenment of the people. This joint-committee of the two
Houses of Congress, consisting of three members of the Senate and
four members of the House, was appointed in December, 1861, while
General McClellan was organizing the Army of the Potomac, and plan
ning the military operations that were to be undertaken throughout the
southern, western, and southwestern regions of the country. The
committee were " to inquire into the conduct of the present war."
They sat from the time of their appointment until April 3, 1863, a
period of eighteen months, and, at the end of that time, Mr. Benjamin
F. Wade, a Senator from Ohio, Chairman of the Committee, presented
their Report to the Senate. The Report began with the statement
that the Committee "could perceive no necessity for recommending
any particular legislation to Congress." They were of opinion that at
each succeeding session of Congress since July, 1861, all the need
ful legislation, required to meet the exigencies of the war, had been
enacted from time to time. This naive declaration rendered it certain
that the Committee was not raised for any legislative purpose. For
what, then, was it instituted ? To answer this question one must ascer
tain what they did. The Report, the journal of the Committee, and the
testimony taken, show that they occupied themselves, through eighteen
months, in interferences with the Executive duties, in examining
officers of the army about different battles and the conduct of cam
paigns, and occasionally taking the testimony of other officials on these
subjects. The Committee certainly rendered no aid to the Executive
in " the conduct of the war" ; and it is one of the singular proofs of
the confusion of functions then prevailing, that this intermeddling with
Executive duties by a committee of Congress was tolerated. But
while this Committee had no ostensible object that could be justified,
it became a machine that could be turned to political uses. The
animus of their Report toward General McClellan is apparent through
out. They made a document which, when printed and circulated
under the authority of Congress, would be useful in justifying his re
moval from command after the battle of Antietam, although they could
not, any more than the Executive, assign an official reason for displac
ing him, or an unofficial reason that would be consistent with justice.

130

MCCLELLAN'S LAST SERVICE.

truth, or public policy. Annoying as the doings of this Committee
must have been to the Executive, while they were going on, their Re
port was so shaped that it became serviceable in giving to an excuse
for the removal of McClellan the appearance of a solemn finding of
important facts by a Congressional Committee. Thus, after having
reviewed General McClellan's Peninsula campaign in a very unfair
way, upon testimony taken and arranged to suit themselves, the Re
port proceeded to say :
" Your Committee having gone so fully into the details of the Pen
insula campaign, do not deem it necessary to devote so much space to
the campaign in Maryland. The same mind that controlled the move
ments upon the Peninsula controlled those in Maryland, and the same
general features characterize the one campaign that characterized the
other. In each may be seen the same unreadiness to move promptly
and act vigorously ; the same desire for more troops before advancing ;
and the same references to the great superiority of numbers on the part
of the enemy. Your Committee, therefore, content themselves with re
ferring briefly to the leading operations of the campaign."
Will any reader now believe that this Report, pretending to refer
to the leading operations of the Maryland campaign, said not one word
about the battle of Antietam ! Incredible as it may seem, such is the
fact. The conclusions of this Committee respecting General McClellan's
characteristics as a commander could be reached only by suppressing
some, or by omitting to gather all, of the facts ; and, accordingly, the
Report, the journal, and the evidence, in reference to either of Mc
Clellan's campaigns, are utterly unreliable as sources of history, now
or hereafter. But as a political document, intended for a political pur
pose, they were efficient. Fifteen thousand copies of the Report and
the testimony were printed and circulated. No one need be surprised,
therefore, at the amount of prejudice and ignorance concerning Gen
eral McClellan that has been transmitted from that day to this.]

A TRIBUTE TO McCLELLAN.
Although but measurably recovered from the
shock which, in common with many thousands
throughout the country, I suffered when the sud
den death of General McClellan was announced,
I can not longer delay my tribute to his memory.
All of the very remarkable persons whom I have
known and lost in the course of my life were much
older than myself. In our earlier years the death
of men who were our elders, however distinguished
or important they may have been, seems in the
natural course of things. It does not affect us with
that sinking of the heart which we feel when, later
in life, we are called to mourn one who was much
younger than ourselves, and who we fondly hoped
would be among the few mourners at our own de
parture. In McClellan, I have lost all that the
country has lost and more ; for he was not only a
public man of great distinction and rare character,
but he was to me, as to very many others, a most
dear friend, whose presence was a benediction, in

1 32 A TRIBUTE TO MCCLELLAN.
whose society there was perpetual enjoyment of
the highest nature, and whose death has made a
void that can not be filled. As one stands over the
grave of such a man, and exclaims, with Milton
mourning for Lycidas,
" He hath not left his peer,"
it matters not whether others think that he had
peers or superiors. What he was to us is all that
we can think of — of the one irreparable loss that
afflicts us as no other ever has.
I first saw him soon after he had graduated
from West Point and had received his commission
as second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers.
This was in the year 1846. At this time he came
to Boston, where I then resided, to attend the wed
ding of his elder brother, Dr. McClellan of Phila
delphia, who married into a Boston family with
which I was distantly connected. The young lieu
tenant was a bright, round, alert youth, a little
under the ordinary height, with a highly intelli
gent expression of countenance and a quick eye.
He was perfectly simple in his manners, although
entirely self-possessed, and in every inch a gentle
man. As I remember him at this distance of nine-
and-thirty years, he was, as in his later life, quite a
muscular person, his frame giving promise of that
power of activity and endurance for which he was

A TRIBUTE TO MCCLELLAN. 133
afterward noted. His well-developed head was
set, by a short neck, above broad shoulders, and
firmness and character were about his mouth, tem
pered by a sweet smile. I do not think I deceive
myself when I recollect him as having, even at that
early age, much of the same winning attractiveness
which so many have felt in his riper years. Young
men who are just fledged from college or other
public institution of learning are not always very
interesting persons. McClellan at twenty was the
most interesting young fellow of his age that I ever
met, and I imagine that as a mere boy he must
have been a very manly person, without a particle
of what is often offensive in boys who affect manli
ness. There never could have been any sort of af
fectation in him at any time. He did not need the
attrition of the world to take out of him any native
or acquired nonsense, for his nature was the most
genuine and the freest from anything like conceit
that could be imagined.
I never saw him again until his name was in all
men's mouths, for praise or for detraction, long,
long years afterward. I had heard of him, indeed,
as a gallant young officer in the Mexican War, who
had greatly distinguished himself in whatever he
had to do. I was aware that he had afterward
been sent abroad, during the administration of
President Pierce, along with two older officers, to

I34 A TRIBUTE TO MCCLELLAN.
observe the operations of the contending forces in
the Crimea ; and I was also aware that he had made
a report which evinced how well he had studied
the art of war in the camps of those European ar
mies, and how much he had profited in his profes
sion by that opportunity. Of course I observed,
on the breaking out of our civil war, how he was
distinguishing himself in the West, and what effi
cient service he was rendering to the cause of the
Union, before he was called to Washington to take
a high command ; how he organized the Army of
the Potomac in the winter of 1861-62 ; how he led
it into Virginia upon a plan of campaign conceived
with the most admirable design, and wanting no
element of success save the steady co-operation and
loyal support of the Government that he left be
hind him in Washington, that had sent him into the
field at the head of an army for which the country
was indebted mainly to him, and to which that
Government owed a faithful support of its com
mander. I knew, as others knew, and lamented as
others did, how his plans had been more than once
frustrated by those who suffered a weak jealousy of
his rising reputation and popularity to obscure
their perceptions of his great importance to the
Union which he was so faithfully serving and his
importance to themselves ; how he became an ob
ject of distrust and dislike to one portion of the

A TRIBUTE TO MCCLELLAN. 135
people and their rulers, because of a fear that he
would become too dear to the majority of the na
tion. I saw, as every one saw, how the Army of
the Potomac was put into the greatest peril by suc
cessive blunders of the Administration ; how the
President was obliged to rely on McClellan to save
it from annihilation ; how he rescued it by the
bloody march to the James, without any loss of its
honor or its prestige ; how he was then refused the
re-enforcements which would have enabled him to
advance on Richmond ; how he was ordered to
withdraw his army toward Washington ; how he
was separated from that army and relegated to in
activity; how he was not allowed to lead even a
regiment when General Pope was about to be
driven in upon Washington. And then, when the
capital was in imminent peril, I knew, as every one
knew, that McClellan was called upon to save it,
and how nobly he responded to the call. Finally, I
saw, as every one saw, South Mountain and Antie
tam, the liberation of Maryland, the last advance of
McClellan into Virginia, the near probability of his
crushing the forces of the Confederates in detail,
his sudden and unexplained removal from the com
mand, and the attempt to disgrace him in the eyes
of his countrymen by directing him to report for
orders at a place remote from the scene of war and
from the seat of the Government. All this strange

136 A TRIBUTE TO MCCLELLAN.
course of events I followed with the deepest inter
est and the clearest conviction that the Govern
ment was only prolonging the war and rendering
necessary a then immeasurable expenditure of blood
and treasure.
General McClellan was sent into a forced re
tirement in November, 1862. I had shortly before
removed to the city of New York ; and when in
the course of that winter McClellan came to that
city and occupied a house which his friends pre
sented to him, busying himself, with the aid of his
staff, in preparing his report of his campaigns, I re
newed my acquaintance with him. I was anxious to
see the man who had risen to such high distinction
at so early an age, who was so differently regarded
by the two political parties, and who had been
made the most conspicuous instance, certainly in
our own history or indeed in any modern history,
of a general separated from the service of his
country when it was engaged in a great war for
the preservation of its national existence, when it
needed all his accomplishments and influence and
powers, and when it could not have them because
he might become an object of too much public
admiration ! Whatever other men might think,
my own conviction was clear that as a citizen of
the United States, deeply concerned for the preser
vation of the Union and the Constitution, I had

A TRIBUTE TO MCCLELLAN. 137
been wronged, as all other Union men had been
wronged, by the taking of General McClellan from
the public service. From the time of my first visit
to him to the day of his lamented death we have
been near friends.
Three-and-twenty years of close intimacy and
of constant observation of the man have given me
a right to speak of him to others. But I specially
desire to speak to the younger generations of the
republic. I shall speak of him in words that will
be measured, but they will not be stinted by any
fear of criticism.
I believe that I understood his feelings, his
principles, his unfailing sense of duty, his habitual
and unswerving fidelity to every obligation, his
rare charity toward others, his tenderness and
his manliness. In every relation of life, to his fam
ily and friends, to his fellow-men and to his God,
he was ever the same person, in whom the one
predominant trait was the completeness of his
moral and intellectual nature and the strength and
beauty of his character. The basis of his moral
character was a firm religious faith. The basis
of his intellectual character was a comprehensive
power to understand any question, subject or occa
sion on which he had to act. As a soldier he
should be rated very high. As a statesman I have
always rated him equally high. I have not known

138 A TRIBUTE TO MCCLELLAN.
any man not specially trained in the philosophy of
politics whose views of public and constitutional
questions were so sound and wise as his. His
reading was never confined to his profession, and
it was far ampler and more various than the world
knew of. He had traveled much, and his knowl
edge of mankind was wide and accurate. But,
highly as I have always estimated his intellectual
powers, his accomplishments and acquirements, I
dwell .with peculiar fondness and pride upon the
almost absolute perfection of his personal charac
ter, for it came as near to perfection as was possi
ble for human nature. He has gone to his grave —
a too early grave — with no shadow resting upon
his name. No unworthy act or word, no occur
rence in his whole life for which those who loved
him need blush, rises up to alloy our grief and to
add to it a bitter pang. There is nothing to be ex
tenuated or excused. It is for this that his fame
stands and will stand conspicuous — shall I not say
unrivaled? It was for this that vast crowds fol
lowed his bier with such touching reverence when
his remains were borne in grand and solemn sim
plicity to their last resting place, which overlooks
the Delaware at the capital of his adopted State.
Undoubtedly it was his strong religious nature
that gave such completeness to his moral charac
ter, and preserved him unspotted from the world,

A TRIBUTE TO MCCLELLAN. 139
although he lived constantly in the world of so
ciety, of affairs, and of many and various inter
ests. I speak of nothing that may not now be told
when I relate that in his household every morning
of his life began and every evening of his life ended
with a simple religious service, at which any guest
who was with him was always present ; and who
that ever heard the sweet confiding tones of his
voice in those unaffected petitions and thanks to
his Maker can ever forget them ?
It is not, in my judgment, premature to forecast
the estimation in which he will be finally held in
history. There are some things in regard to his
career as a general that are incontrovertible. That
success which the contemporary public thought
the only proof of greatness, which was not always
his, but the want of which can detract nothing from
his true renown, will not be the measure that those
who are to come after us will apply to him. They
will seek to know where rests the responsibility for
his not ending our civil war when and as he hoped
to end it. Their scrutiny must necessarily be turned
upon the conduct of those who were his official
superiors. They will be uninfluenced by the popu
lar clamor of the day for immediate victories ; a
clamor that was without any comprehension of the
means by which victories have to be won. They
will have to read of a general sent into the field at

140 A TRIBUTE TO MCCLELLAN
the head of the finest army the United States ever
had, which he had created out of raw and unorgan
ized levies, had disciplined into the utmost effi
ciency, and taught to obey and second him as
troops have rarely obeyed and seconded a leader.
They will have to read of a government remaining at
the seat of authority, composed of mere civilians, and
without a single military adviser whose judgment
was of high value. They will have to learn of this
general that he had for many months studied the
details of the campaign which he was to undertake,
and made all his plans with admirable forecast; that
his success depended, as under such circumstances
success must always depend, upon the prompt co
operation of the government at home in all that a
general has undertaken, and upon its wise absten
tion from all unnecessary interference. They will
give due heed to the difficulties and responsibilities
which surrounded and rested upon the head of that
government ; but, after all has been weighed and
sifted, there will remain the question whether this
general was sustained as he should have been. In
answering this question posterity will note that
it is utterly immaterial whether re-enforcements
that were withheld, or combinations that were
not allowed to be made, were expressly prom
ised. If they were not supplied and permitted
when they could have been, whether promised or

A TRIBUTE TO MCCLELLAN. I4I
not, there was a failure in the first duty of a gov
ernment. It may be said that the war was new ; that the
Administration had much to learn ; that the whole
North was impatient ; that Washington was always
in danger, or was assumed to be. But there were
some things that were not new. It was not new
that a general in the field, on a campaign which he
has mastered, so far as future movements in war
can ever be mastered, knows what is essential to
success far better than a government of civilians
can know it. This lesson could have been read on
many a page of history.
Not to look beyond our own national annals,
this lesson had been taught to our fathers and to
us in the case of the man who achieved our liber
ties in the War of the Revolution. There was a
time when the Continental Congress learned, from
sad experience, that if Washington were not left
untrammeled by cabals, were not supported with all
the resources that the country could furnish, and
made free to act upon his own judgment, the cause
of our Independence would be lost. Our Consti
tution, for many excellent reasons, makes the Presi
dent commander-in-chief of the armies and navies
of the United States. He may, therefore, lawfully
direct the movements of armies and of fleets ; and
when he directs he must be, and always is, obeyed.

142

A TRIBUTE TO MCCLELLAN.

But are we never to learn that war is an art which,
of all others, requires not only special aptitude,
but special training ? While no Executive is ever
to abdicate a single one of his constitutional func
tions, there are, and must be, junctures in every
great war, in which a wise President will exercise
no interference with military plans which he is not
personally competent to form, and in which his
judgment must necessarily be inferior to that of
the general whom he has selected and trusted to
conduct a campaign.
The official relations of President Lincoln with
General McClellan, through the whole period of
the latter's military service after he was called to
Washington and invested with a high command,
are filled with illustrations of the folly of overrul
ing plans which a general has formed, of dictating
his movements, and of refusing or omitting to sup
ply him with resources which could have been
furnished. To contend that McClellan, with what
the Administration chose to give him, and under
the conditions which they imposed upon him, al
though the latter may have been contrary to his
judgment, and the former unequal to his requisi
tions, ought to have succeeded, and must be pro
nounced wanting in the characteristics and abilities
of a great general because he did not accomplish
all that he undertook, is to reverse the only sensible

A TRIBUTE TO MCCLELLAN. 143
process of judging between him and his official
superiors. It is not so that he will be estimated in the
future ; nor is it so that he is even now likely to be
estimated by the generation which is already on
the stage of life, and which forms the connecting
link between those who lived through our civil
war and a distant posterity. There are already
grown men and women who were infants or were
unborn during that terrible struggle, who seek for
correct knowledge respecting its incidents and its
actors, who are not the slaves of prejudice, who
will learn the truth, and will transmit it to the
generations that are to come. To them, and to
those who are to succeed them, McClellan will be
an object of great interest, not only because of
his character, but because of the injustice that was
done him by his immediate contemporaries ; for
there is nothing that a generous and just posterity
is more prone or more solicitous to do than it is
to reverse an unmerited verdict in every case in
which contemporary judgment has been wrong.
It may, therefore, be confidently predicted that
those who are hereafter to review this portion of
our history will say of the Federal Administration
of i86i-'62 that, placed as they were, they should
have disregarded popular clamor, and should have
prevented its unreasonable demands from exacting
7

144 A TRIBUTE TO MCCLELLAN.
of a general things that he could not perform if he
were not properly seconded and supplied. Leav
ing out of the account all personal jealousies, as the
root of the whole hostility to McClellan on the part
of many of the official persons whom he left behind
him in Washington, there are two patent facts in
regard to his Virginia campaign which stand out
in glaring colors.
The first thing that McClellan had to do when
he landed upon the Peninsula was to take York-
town and to free the York River from the Confed
erate batteries. To this end it was essential that
McDowell's corps, the Fifth Army corps, should
move on the north bank of the river while McClel
lan was moving upon Yorktown on the south bank.
This plan, which was so absolutely indispensable
that the merest tyro ought to have comprehended
it, was fully settled before McClellan left Washing
ton. He has himself said that he was promised the
co-operation of McDowell's corps. But the prom
ise added nothing to its necessity. After all the
troops that McClellan was allowed to take with
him had been landed on the Peninsula, McDowell's
corps was detached by the Government and was
marched to a position where it could do no good,
and where it remained for some time inactive..
This rendered it necessary for McClellan to remain
a whole month on the Peninsula, and to invest

A TRIBUTE TO MCCLELLAN. 145
Yorktown by a regular siege, which resulted in his
driving the Confederates out of that important
position. If he had had McDowell's co-operation,
according to the original plan, Yorktown would
have been turned, and the Confederate troops
which held it, instead of escaping across the Isth
mus, would have been captured. Here, then, Mc
Clellan was frustrated in the very first step he had
contemplated when the Peninsula campaign be
gan — frustrated by the act of his own Govern
ment. Again, when McClellan was encamped on the
Chickahominy, preparing to advance upon Rich
mond, and with every right to expect that McDow-^
ell's corps, then pushed forward to within a few
miles of McClellan's outposts, would be placed un
der his control, orders came suddenly from Wash
ington to McDowell that he was not to effect the
junction with McClellan. McClellan was immedi
ately attacked by the Confederates, who, as he has
always asserted, were in greatly superior force.
Without McDowell, McClellan could not make an
aggressive advance, and when attacked he could
do nothing but rescue his army by the flank move
ment to the James, through the bloody conflicts of
the seven days. There is nowhere recorded in the
military history of any government more fatal blun
ders than these two, which were committed by the

j46 A TRIBUTE TO MCCLELLAN.
Federal Administration in the spring and summer
of 1862. General McClellan once said to me that Mr.
Lincoln was a man of a tender nature, to whom it
was very painful to witness suffering, but that he
had little vigor of imagination and could not de
pict to himself suffering that he did not see. Mr.
Lincoln's idea of an important battle, the general
said, was apt to be measured by the number of
men killed and wounded. Suffering in great mass
es, which he could not see, he did not feel as he did
the comparatively few cases which came under his
observation when he visited a hospital, where his
sympathetic kindness to the sick and wounded was
often very touching. It is easy, therefore, to un
derstand at least one reason why Mr. Lincoln did
not appreciate that quality in a commander which
seeks to accomplish important strategic results
with the least expense of life. It is true — too sadly
true — that successful warfare renders necessary
great destruction of human life. But that people,
or their rulers, who make light of the intellectual
and moral quality in a general which leads him to
shape his strategy so as to accomplish important
ends with the least sacrifice of precious lives, com
mit a great mistake which history must correct if
it can over the almost countless graves that are
scattered through the land.

A TRIBUTE TO MCCLELLAN. 147
It is singular, but it is probably true, that one
reason why many persons extend so little sym
pathy to any vindication of General McClellan's
reputation is the unavowed, perhaps unconscious,
feeling that the reputation of some other general
will be lessened, or that a comparison shows that
some other general was his superior. But such
persons should remember that there is no com
parison needful ; that there is no parallel to be
drawn between General McClellan and any one
else ; that all contrast between McClellan and
Grant, or between McClellan and any other com
mander in our late civil war, is entirely out of
place, because of a great difference of situation,
because McClellan was not, while subsequent com
manders were, cordially sustained by the Govern
ment, and because in their cases there was no
such political and personal hostility as there was
in his. It is not, in my judgment, difficult to sum up
General McClellan's true place in history. It will
be said of him, I think, finally, that he made it pos
sible for the cause of the Union to triumph in the
end. If he had not made the Army of the Poto
mac what it was and what it continued to be — and
no other man could at that time have organized
that army as he organized it — if his whole conduct,
from first to last, military and political, his example

148 A TRIBUTE TO MCCLELLAN.
and his precepts, had not been what they were, the
Union could not have been saved and the Constitu
tion would have been lost. Surely this detracts
nothing from the merits of any subsequent com
mander. It asserts nothing that every one should
not cheerfully concede, who remembers that Mc
Clellan not only rendered great military services,
but that he gave the key-note which rallied and
kept to the cause of the Union the Democratic
support without which the Southern States must
have obtained their separate nationality. " If se
cession is successful," he wrote to President Lin
coln, " other dissolutions are clearly to be seen in
the future. Let neither military disaster, polit
ical faction, nor foreign war, shake your settled
purpose to enforce the equal operation of the
laws of the United States upon the people of every
State." I do not see how any one can read his letter to
President Lincoln, now or hereafter, without being
impressed by the intellectual grasp of the whole
situation of the Union cause at the time when it
was written, which is exhibited in its weighty
paragraphs. Whether the comprehensive policy
so clearly conceived and so forcibly stated was in
all respects the true one is not now and will not
hereafter be the question. Men will differ about
the comparative merits of the course recommend-

A TRIBUTE TO MCCLELLAN. 149
ed by General McClellan and that pursued by the
Administration. But there should be no difference
of opinion, between persons of judgment, about
the statesmanlike power which this letter evinces.
When it first saw the light it was almost wholly
lost upon the contemporary public, because of the
miserable habit of imputing to every conspic
uous and important man some selfish object in
all that he does. I remember in the newspaper
press of that period, after this letter became pub
lic, but one serious discussion of the important
policy which it suggested, and this was in a jour
nal conducted by a gentleman who was an in
timate friend of General McClellan. The news
paper press of both political parties seemed, for
the most part, to take it for granted that the letter
was designed as a political " campaign document,"
without any reference to the circumstances under
which it was written, or to the time when it be
came public.
At the close of some papers on General Mc
Clellan's services to the Union, which I published
in the " North American Review " five years ago,
I expressed the hope that his personal memoirs
would soon be given to the world. It is known
that he had been for several years engaged upon
this important work, but it is not yet ascertained
in what state he left any part of it. It is un-

ISO

A TRIBUTE TO MCCLELLAN.

derstood, however, that everything now passes
into the hands of his accomplished and life-long
friend, Mr. William C. Prime*
Washington., D. C, November 14, /88j.
* Any one who desires to understand what made McClellan so suc
cessful in organizing the Army of the Potomac, and how fortunate it
was that that great work was intrusted to him, should examine the
volume published by Lippincott & Co., at Philadelphia, in October,
1861, under the title of " The Armies of Europe." McClellan's official
report of his observations in Europe was originally printed as a Gov
ernment document, in an inconvenient quarto form. It remained but
little known, excepting to military men, until it was brought out in the
Philadelphia edition, after he was called to Washington and invested
with a high command. It then appeared how immense and minute
was his knowledge of the whole art of war in all its multifarious de
tails. A reader who shall examine this work at the present day will
appreciate what the Government and people of the United States lost
when this officer was put into a condition in which the Union could
no longer have his military services.

THE END.

D, APPLETON & 00/8 PUBLICATIONS.

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THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION, AND OTHER POLITICAL
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11 A work that deserves to be widely and familiarly known. Its title, however,
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political sense, has very different significations in England and In this country.
With us it means a written instrument. The English have no such written docu
ment. By the national Constitution they mean their actual social and political
order— the whole body of laws, upases, and precedents, which havo been in
herited from former generations, and by which tho prnctlco of govornmont Is
regulated. A work upon tho English Constitution, therefore, brings us naturally
to the direct consideration of the structure and practical working of English
political institutions and social life. Mr. Bagehot is not so much n partisan or an
advocate as a cool philosophical inquirer, with largo knowledge, clear insight.
Independent opinions, and great freedom from the bias of what he terms 'that
territorial sectarianism called patriotism.* Taking up in succession the Cabinet,
the Monarchy, the House of Lords, the House of Commons, he considers them
in what may be called their dynamical inter-actions, and in relation to the
habits, traditions, cuiture, and character of the English people. We doubt if
there is any other volume so useful for our countrymen to peruse before visiting
England."— From the American Preface.
HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS FROM AUGUS
TUS TO CHARLEMAGNE. By William E. II. Leckt.
2 vols. 12mo. Cloth, $3.00; half calf, extra, $7.00.
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ndicate the line he follows. . . . The work is a valuable contribution to our
higher English literature, as well as an admirable guide for those who may care
to go in person to the distant fountains from which Mr. Lecky has drawn for
them so freely." — London Times.

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A IIISTOHY OF ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTUIIV. By William E. II. Lucky, author of "History of
the liise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe," etc.
Vols. I, II, III, and IV. Large 12mo. Cloth, $2.25 each ; half calf,
$4.50 each.
" Ou every ground which should render a history of eighteenth-century Eng
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materials accumulated in these volumes attest an industry more strenuous and
comprehensive than that exhibited by Fronde or by Macaulay. But It is his
supreme merit that he leaves on the reader's mind a conviction that he not only
possesses the acutcness which can discern the truth, but the unflinching purpose
of truth-telllug."— New York Sun.
"Lecky has not chosen to deal with events In chronological order, nor does
he present the details of personal, party, or military affairs. The work is rather
an attempt 'to disengage from the great mass of facts those which relate to the
permanent forces ot the nation, or which indicate some of the more enduring
features of national life.' The author's manner has led him to treat of the power
of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy ; of the history of political ideas ; of
manners and of beliefs, as well as of the increasing power of Parliament and of
the press."— Dr. C. K. Adams's Manual of Historical Literature.
HISTORY OF THE RISE AND INFLUENCE OF THE
SPIKIT OF RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. By Will
iam E. II. Lecky. 2 vols. Small 8vo. Cloth, $4.00; half calf,
extra, $8.00.
"The author defines his purpose as an attempt to trace that spirit which
'leads men on all occasions to subordinate dogmatic theology to the dictates of
reason and of conscience, flnd, as a necessary consequence, to restrict its influ
ence upon life' — which predisposes men, In history, to attribute all kinds of
phenomena to natural rather than miraculous causes ; in theology, to esteem
succeeding systems the expressions of the wants and aspirations of that religious
sentiment which is planted in all men; and, in ethics, to regard as duties only
those which conscience reveals to be such." — Dr. 0. K. Adams's Manual of
Historical Literature.
THE LEADERS OF PUBLIC OPINION IN IRELAND:
SWIFT, FLOOD, GRATTAN, O'CONNELL. By Will-
iam E. H. Lecky. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75.
"A writer of Lecky's mind, wilh his rich imagination, his fine ability to ap
preciate imagination in others, and his disposition to be himself an orator upon
the written page, could hardly have found a period in British history more har
monious with his literary style than that which witnessed the rise, the ripening,
and the fall of the four men whose impress upon the development of the
national spirit of Ireland was not limited by the local questions whose discussion
constituted their fame."— New York Evening Post.
HISTORY OF HENRY THE FIFTH : KING OF ENGLAND,
LORD OF IRELAND, AND HEIR OF FRANCE. By Geokgk M.
Towle. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50.

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RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE ENGLISH CONSTITU
TION. By Sir Edward S. Creasy. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
A very interesting subject, treated with great learning and skill. It should
take Us place in all libraries as a most useful commentary on English history.
As an account of the gradual development of free institutions in Kngland, it con
nects itself with our own hlBtory, especially with tho progress of opinion in tho
early part of our Revolutionary struggle.
"As a manual for tho use of the historical student while he Is laying Iho
foundation for a knowledge of tho English Constitution, this little book Is with
out a superior. It combines accuracy with vivacity, and should bo constantly
used by the student in the early period of his studies."— Dr. C. K. Adams's
Manual qf Historical Literature.
A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By Charles Dickens.
New Household Edition. With Illustrations. Square 8vo. Paper,
tS cents; cloth, $1.25.
THE ENGLISH REFORMATION: HOW IT CAME ABOUT,
AND WHY WE SHOULD UPHOLD IT. By Cunningham Geikie,
D. D., author of " The Life and Words of Christ." 12mo. Cloth,
$2.00.
"Dr. Geikie's work sustains the reputation which his ' Life and Words ' had
given him as a clear historical writer. It Is impossible to comprehend the con
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origln<in the past ; and there is no single volume which will better enable us to
do this than Dr. Geikie's ' History of the English Reformation.' "—New York
Christian Union.
"His grouping of facts Is often masterly, his Btyle Is bold and Incisive, and
his sketches of eventful periods or eminent personages are vivid and graphic."
—Harper's New Monthly Magazine.
ANECDOTAL HISTORY OF THE BRITISH PARLIA
MENT. From tho Earliest Periods to the Present Time, with
Notices of Eminent Parliamentary Men and Examples of their Ora
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"As pleasant a companion for the leisure hours of a studious and thoughtful
man as anything in book-shape since Selden." — London Telegraph.
"It would be sheer affectation to deny the fascination exercised by the
' Anecdotal History of Parliament.' "— Saturday Review.
YOUNG IRELAND : A FRAGMENT OF IRISH niSTORY, 1840
to 1850. By the Hon. Sir Charles Gav an Duffy, K. C. M. G. 8vo.
Cloth, $3.00; cheap edition, $1.50.
"Ably written, by one who has since had large and successful experience in
the British colonies in the South Pacific."— Dr. O. K. Adams's Manual qf His
torical Literature.

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CAMEOS FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. By Charlotte M.
Yonge. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00.
THREE CENTURIES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. By
C D. Yonge. 12mo. Cloth, $2.00.
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
FROM THE DISCOVERY OF THE CONTINENT TO THE ES
TABLISHMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION IN 1789. By George
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HISTORY OF THE FORMATION OF THE CONSTITU
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1 vol. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50.
This volume Includes tbo original two-volume edition of the work, with an
Appendix, containing (ho Constitution and Amendments. It is designed for
constitutional students, and is sold separately from the other volumes of Ban
croft's History.
HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED
STATES, FROM THE REVOLUTION TO THE CIVIL WAR.
By John B. MgMaster. 5 vols. 8vo. Vols. I and II now ready.
Cloth, $2.50 each.
Boors or the Work.— In tho course of this narrative much Ib written of
wars, conspiracies, and rebellions ; of Presidents, of Congresses, of embassies,
of treaties, of the ambition of political leaders, and of the rise of great partieB
in the nation. Yet the hlBtory of the people is the chief theme. At every stage
of the splendid progress which separates the America of Washington and Adams
from the America in which wo live, it has been the author's purpose to describe
the dress, the occupations, the amusements, the literary canons of the times ; to
note the cbango of manners and morals ; to trace the growth of that humane
spirit which abolished punishment for debt, and reformed the discipline of
prisons and of jails ; to recount the manifold Improvements which, In a thousand
ways, have multiplied the conveniences of life and ministered to the happiness
of our race ; to doscrlbe the rise and progress of that long scrleB of mechanical
Inventions and discoveries which is now the admiration of the world, and our
Just pride and boast; to tell how, under the benign influence of liberty and
peace, there sprang np, In the course of a tingle century, a prosperity un
paralleled In the annals of human affairs.

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> YALl

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