them." Stone reported in the evening that he had made a feint of crossing, and started a reconnoitering party towards Leesburg from Harrison's Island (in the Potomac River, between Poolesville and Leesburg); and that the party returned without meeting any enemy, but had come in sight of what they thought to be a small encampment. Colonel Devens was dispatched with three hundred men at midnight to surprise this supposed camp - which proved to be only an orchard or a twilight illusion. Devens was ordered to continue his observation in that quarter, if he found himself secure, and Colonel Raymond Lee was sent with part of his regiment to Ball's Bluff, on the Virginia side, to cover the return of Devens.

About II o'clock in the morning Stone reported to McClellan: "The enemy have been engaged opposite Harrison's Island; our men behaving admirably." Their unexpected assailants were the advance of Evans' brigade, four thousand strong, of the Confederate left, which had retired from Leesburg. Stone ordered Colonel E. D. Baker across from Harrison's Island, with reinforcements, to support Devens and to assume command the combined forces numbering nearly two thousand. McClellan and Stone were in close communication all the time that Baker and his slender force were fighting gallantly and desperately, unaided, on the verge of a steep bluff, with no adequate provision for recrossing the wide river below. Baker fell. His men were scattered and pursued with slaughter - many driven down the bluff, shot at its foot, or drowned. Nearly three hundred lost their lives here or on the field above, and many more were wounded or captured.

The Ball's Bluff calamity was keenly felt. Intensity was added to the feeling by the loss of Senator Baker not an inexperienced "political general," but one who had served with credit as commander of a regiment in the Mexican War - a popular orator, and one of the earliest Springfield friends of President Lincoln, whose grief was uncontrollable when news first came of this great personal loss. "I was much criticised and blamed for this unfortunate affair,' wrote McClellan, twenty-five years after, "while I was in no sense responsible for it."* In effect, the official responsibility was made to rest on General Stone, who was soon after arrested, under an order of Secretary Stanton, and finally released, after many months, without the trial for which he asked, or being informed as to the exact cause of this disfavor.

On the 22d, McClellan visited the camp at Poolesville, and after personal investigation of the situation, decided to withdraw from the Virginia side altogether, in that quarter, and the old positions were promptly resumed. The French Prince, Comte de Paris, who was later of McClellan's military household, said in his elaborate and faithful history of the war:

The check at Ball's Bluff cut short all the projects for the campaign which the organization of the army, the season, and the condition of the ground seemed to impose on General McClellan. That incident confirmed his mind in the false estimate he had formed of the strength of his adversary; notwithstanding the reports of all the reconnoitering parties he had sent out on the 20th, who had not seen the enemy in force anywhere, he did not dare to put his army in motion, and thus lost the best opportunity he ever had of beginning a successful and decisive campaign.

* McClellan's "Own Story," p. 190.

At this juncture, Lieutenant-General Scott, in a letter to the Secretary of War (October 31st), claimed his legal right to be placed on the retired list. He regretted to withdraw from the orders of a President who, he said, had always treated him with distinguished kindness and courtesy, and whom he knew, upon much personal intercourse, to be "patriotic without sectional partialities or prejudices, to be highly conscientious in the performance of every duty, and of unrivalled activity and perseverance.”

The Cabinet unanimously approved the President's selection of General McClellan as Scott's successor. With complimentary formalities and addresses - the President and Cabinet calling on the veteran Lieutenant-General at his residence for the purpose on the Ist of November his retirement was consummated. In apology for the inaction of the main army hitherto, it was alleged by particular friends of McClellan, and credited by Secretary Chase, that he had been hampered and obstructed by the Lieutenant-General. The President had shown a generous confidence in the young General, and hoped for speedy action. Yet the entire month of November, with constantly auspicious weather and roads, passed with the army of nearly two hundred thousand still in camp.

Adjourning in August, after providing the Executive with ample war resources, Congress little expected that, on returning in December, it would find the insurgent army still menacing the Capital. The President was blamed. It is as inconceivable that he should not have been as that he himself should have been fully satisfied with the conduct of his chief General. This

source of discontent and certain incidents of the disaster at Ball's Bluff led to the creation (in December) of a joint Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War, consisting of Senators Wade, Chandler and Andrew Johnson (the latter being soon succeeded by Senator Wright, of Indiana), and Representatives D. W. Gooch, J. Covode, G. W. Julian and M. F. Odell. It was not another Aulic Council, or in any sense its parallel. Attempting no control of military movements, it gave searching investigation to accomplished events. The testimony thus gathered, valuable to the historian, was from time to time submitted to the President.

Popular impatience with army inaction had found some relief in glorifying the activity of Commodore Wilkes in arresting Mason and Slidell; yet in his message the President says nothing of this naval exploit, or of its embarrassing sequel. After paying a high tribute to the retired Lieutenant-General, he continues:

With the retirement of General Scott came the Executive duty of appointing, in his stead, a General-in-chief of the army. It is a fortunate circumstance that neither in council nor country was there, so far as I know, any difference of opinion as to the proper person to be selected. The retiring chief repeatedly expressed his judgment in favor of General MClellan for the position, and in this the nation seemed to give a unanimous concurrence.

The Fremont trouble is not mentioned, or more nearly alluded to than (just after speaking of the blockade) in these words, among which "slavery" is not

one:

So, also, obeying the dictates of prudence, as well as the obligations of law, instead of transcending, I have adhered

to the act of Congress to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes. If a new law upon the same subject shall be proposed, its propriety will be duly considered. The Union must be preserved; and hence all indispensable means must be employed. We should not be in haste to determine that radical and extreme measures, which may reach the loyal as well as the disloyal, are indispensable.

He speaks more at length in an earlier part of the message of some provision for colored persons affected by this first confiscation act, and urges the policy of providing for the colonization, not only of the newly enfranchised, but of all their race in this country who might choose to join them. What he said of the relations of labor and capital was notable and especially suggestive in regard to that anomaly in economics, labor "owned" by capital.

One passage in Secretary Cameron's report as originally presented was quite summarily effaced by the President-namely:

If it should be found that the men who have been held by the rebels as slaves are capable of bearing arms and performing efficient military service, it is the right, and may become the duty, of this Government to arm and equip them, and employ their services against the rebels, under proper military regulations, discipline, and command.

Arming the blacks was a troublesome matter, to be for the present postponed. As to the war, the President said in his message that he had " thought it proper to keep the integrity of the Union prominent as the primary object of the contest on our part, leaving all questions which are not of vital military importance to the more deliberate action of the Legislature.' Events were tending "plainly in the right direction."