that neighborhood, while his two other divisions, under Herron, had retired into Missouri. The latter, how

ever, being recalled, arrived in time to take part in the severe battle at Prairie Grove on the 6th of December, in which Hindman was beaten. This victory, as Blunt claimed in his report, "virtually ended the war north of the Arkansas River."

CHAPTER X.

1862.

Army of the Potomac Lingers - Lectures and Opportunities are Unimproved - Exit McClellan.

Ever since the preceding autumn many of the President's most earnest supporters had thought him too confidingly complacent toward the commander of the Army of the Potomac. Time had extended and intensified this discontent. But, though he had not been doing, or even attempting, all that was desired and hoped, might not General McClellan, after all, be preferable to an untried successor? People whose confidence in him had waned a confidence so universal at the first were divided in their conclusions about him. Some extravagantly fancied that he was less in sympathy with the President than with Jefferson Davis, and that he would have chosen the Confederate instead of the Federal service had the option been presented. This imputation, sustained only by a groundless rumor, was so manifestly unjust as to do him little harm. Others regarded him as well-meaning, but simply incapable of commanding a large army in the field. He was compared by some, not unkindly, with the great Roman delayer, Fabius.

According to the estimate of others, he was better paralleled by a more recent instance that of the Duke

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d'Urbino, who, "naturally slow and indecisive," was also restrained by partisan enmity from doing anything that might "aggrandize or add reputation" to his civil superior, so that he "overlooked opportunities of attacking the enemy or refused to improve them." Willing to believe McClellan not only a capable organizer, but a commander competent to strike effective blows with the large army he had in camp all the past autumn and winter, they became assured that he had fallen under the control of a political cabal, which aimed to make him a Presidential candidate, and which stimulated him to undertake a mastery over national affairs, civil as well as military to become an arbiter or mediator between North and South. In all the ups and downs of his war experience, it was noted that the Democratic Opposition ever favored him, kept in relation with him, and charged his failures, if they admitted any, to the lack of support from the Administration. He knew what it cost the treasury to maintain such an army; that every day's delay on his part added millions to a burden that might in no long time become unendurable; and hence was thought by many to be quite reconcilable to a state of things which, without much serious fighting, would incline both sides to make peace on terms that would secure to the South all they cared for, short of recognized separation. Such were believed to be the views of those in the army as well as out of it with whom he was personally most intimate.

That his mind actually settled on a scheme like this and undertook its execution can hardly be presumed of a man of such qualities as McClellan's, yet he appears all the while to have had at least a drifting tendency in

vol. ii.-9

ness.

that direction. He was not making war his sole busi"Whoso hath good stomach for fight findeth all times seasonable." When McClellan fought, it was rarely through his own initiative. He was acting on the defensive-offensive even at Antietam. His tactics after that engagement were of much the same order as before he was withdrawn from Harrison's Landing.

The President wanted a good, honest effort made to capture or destroy Lee's army. He did not wish the enemy to retire from his invasion of Maryland without at least an exemplary chastisement. He was much dissatisfied that (as he once said to the writer) "McClellan drove Lee to the river, and then just shoo-ed him across." Without earnestly attempting anything more, McClellan established his headquarters near Sharpsburg, on the Maryland side, remaining long quiescent, despite all suggestions from his superiors. Ten days after the battle he reported (September 27th): "This army is not now in condition to undertake another campaign, nor to bring on another battle, unless great advantages ale offered by some mistake of the enemy, or pressing military exigencies render it necessary."

Disturbed and anxious, the President again visited the General in camp, going to Sharpsburg on the 1st of October, and remaining for some days. Lincoln and the General together went over the battle-grounds of South Mountain and Antietam. The entire occasion was one of kindly intercourse, in the freedom of which there was presumably an earnest effort on the part of the President to persuade, without directly ordering, the General to enter at once upon such active measures as would justify his continuance in a command from which

so large a share of the supporters of the Administration insisted that he ought to be removed.

After Lincoln's return to Washington this dispatch was sent to McClellan by Halleck (October 6th):

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 operation, you can be reinforced with thirty thousand men. If you move up the valley of the Shenandoah, not more than twelve or fifteen thousand can be sent you. The President advises 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 reinforcements are to be sent. It is necessary that the plan of your operations be positively determined on, before orders are given for building 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.

Four days after, Stuart, with two thousand cavalry and a battery of artillery, crossed the Potomac, and made another raid quite around McClellan's army, committing depredations and destroying property in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and returning into Virginia without serious loss. On the 13th, a week after the order transmitted by the General-in-chief as above, the President made an urgent personal appeal to McClellan, in the following letter:

My Dear Sir:-You remember my speaking to you of what I called your over-cautiousness. Are you not overcautious when you assume that you can not do what the enemy is constantly doing? Should you not claim to be at least his equal in prowess, and act upon the claim?