McClellan stoutly insisted that he had obeyed both the spirit and the letter of March thirteenth;that Washington was amply protected.His enemies shrieked that his statements were based on juggled figures;that even if the number of soldiers was adequate,the quality and equipment were wretched;in a word that he lied.It is a shame-less controversy inconceivable were there not many men in whom politics and prejudice far outweighed patriotism.In all this,Hitchcock was Stanton's trump card.He who had refused to advise McClellan,did not hesitate to denounce him.In response to a request from Stanton,he made a report sustaining Wadsworth.The Committee summoned Wadsworth before it;he read them his report to Stanton;reiterated its charges,and treated them to some innuendoes after their own hearts,plainly hinting that McClellan could have crushed the Confederates at Manassas if he had wished to.[24]
A wave of hysteria swept the Committee and the War Office and beat fiercely upon Lincoln.The Board charged him to save the day by mulcting the army of the Potomac of an entire corps,retaining it at Washington.Lincoln met the Board in a long and troubled conference.His anxious desire to do all he could for McClellan was palpable.[25]But what,under the circumstances,could he do?Here was this new device for the steadying of his judgment,this Council of Experts,singing the same old tune,assuring him that McClellan was not to be trusted.Although in the reaction from his momentary vengefulness he had undoubtedly swung far back toward recovering confidence in McClellan,did he dare--painfully conscious as he was that he "had no military knowledge"--did he dare go against the Board,disregard its warning that McClellan's arrangements made of Washington a dangling plum for Confederate raiders to snatch whenever they pleased.His bewilderment as to what McClellan was really driving at came back upon him in full force.He reached at last the dreary conclusion that there was nothing for it but to let the new wheel within the wheels take its turn at running the machine.
Accepting the view that McClellan had not kept faith on the basis of the orders of March thirteenth,Lincoln "after much consideration"set aside his own promise to McClellan and authorized the Secretary of War to detain a full corps.[26]
McClellan never forgave this mutilation of his army and in time fixed upon it as the prime cause of his eventual failure on the Peninsula.It is doubtful whether relations between him and Lincoln were ever again really cordial.
In their rather full correspondence during the tense days of April,May and June,the steady deterioration of McClellan's judgment bore him down into amazing depths of fatuousness.In his own way he was as much appalled by the growth of his responsibility as ever Lincoln had been.He moved with incredible caution.**Commenting on one of his moments of hesitation,J.S.
Johnston wrote to Lee:"No one but McClellan could have hesitated to attack."14O.R.,416.
His despatches were a continual wailing for more men.Whatever went wrong was at once blamed on Washington.His ill-usage had made him bitter.And he could not escape the fact that his actual performance did not come up to expectation;that he was constantly out-generaled.His prevailing temper during these days is shown in a letter to his wife."I have raised an awful row about McDowell's corps.The President very coolly telegraphed me yesterday that he thought I ought to break the enemy's lines at once.I was much tempted to reply that he had better come and do it himself."A despatch to Stanton,in a moment of disaster,has become notorious:"If I save this army now,I tell you plainly I owe no thanks to you or to any other persons in Washington.You have done your best to sacrifice this army."[27]
Throughout this preposterous correspondence,Lincoln maintained the even tenor of his usual patient stoicism,"his sad lucidity of soul."He explained;he reasoned;he promised,over and over,assistance to the limit of his power;he never scolded;when complaint became too absurd to be reasoned with,he passed it over in silence.Again,he was the selfless man,his sensibilities lost in the purpose he sought to establish.
Once during this period,he acted suddenly,on the spur of the moment,in a swift upflaring of his unconquerable fear for the safety of Washington.Previously,he had consented to push the detained corps,McDowell's,southward by land to cooperate with McClellan,who adapted his plans to this arrangement.Scarcely had he done so,than Lincoln threw his plans into confusion by ordering McDowell back to Washington.[28]Jackson,who had begun his famous campaign of menace,was sweeping like a whirlwind down the Shenandoah Valley,and in the eyes of panic-struck Washington appeared to be a reincarnation of Southey's Napoleon,--"And the great Few-Faw-Fum,would presently come,With a hop,skip and jump"into Pennsylvania Avenue.As Jackson's object was to bring McDowell back to Washington and enable Johnston to deal with McClellan unreinforced,Lincoln had fallen into a trap.But he had much company.Stanton was well-nigh out of his head.
Though Jackson's army was less than fifteen thousand and the Union forces in front of him upward of sixty thousand,Stanton telegraphed to Northern governors imploring them to hasten forward militia because "the enemy in great force are marching on Washington."[29]
