interpose between the severed divisions of the Confederate force; but this step he was prevented from taking by his sudden removal from the command of the Army of the Potomac, while on the march to Warrenton. Late on the night of November 7th, amidst a heavy snow-storm, General Buckingham, arriving post-haste from Washington, reached the tent of General McClellan at Rectortown. He was the bearer of the following dispatch, which he handed to General McClellan :

GENERAL ORDERS, No. 182.

WAR DEPARTMENT, ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE,
WASHINGTON, November 5, 1862.

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 Major-General Burnside take the cominand of that army.

By order of the Secretary of War.

E. D. TOWNSEND, Assistant Adjutant-General.

It chanced that General Burnside was at the moment with him in his tent. Opening the dispatch and reading it, without a change of countenance or of voice, McClellan passed over the paper to his successor, saying, as he did so: "Well, Burnside, you are to command the army."*

Thus ended the career of McClellan as head of the Army of the Potomac-an army which he had first fashioned, and then led in its maiden but checkered experience, till it became a mighty host, formed to war, and baptized in fierce battles and renowned campaigns. From the exposition I have given of the relations which had grown up between him and those who controlled the war-councils at Washington, it will have appeared that, were these relations to continue, it would have been better to have even before this removed McClellanbetter for himself, and better for the country. This, indeed,

Hurlbut: McClellan and the Conduct of the War.

was practically done, when, on the return from the Peninsula, his troops were sent forward to join Pope; but the disastrous termination of that campaign prompted the recall of McClellan as the only man who could make the army efficient for the trying emergency. Having accomplished his work of expelling Lee from Maryland, he entered, after a brief repose, on a new campaign of invasion; and it was in the midst of this, and on the eve of a decisive blow, that he was suddenly removed. The moment chosen was an inopportune and an ungracious one; for never had McClellan acted with such vigor and rapidity-never had he shown so much confidence. in himself or the army in him. And it is a notable fact that not only was the whole body of the army-rank and file as well as officers-enthusiastic in their affection for his person, but that the very general appointed as his successor was the strongest opponent of his removal.

The military character of McClellan will not be difficult to define, however much it is yet obscured by malicious detraction on the one hand, or blind admiration on the other. He was assuredly not a great general; for he had the pedantry of war rather than the inspiration of war. His talent was eminently that of the cabinet; and his proper place was in Washington, where he should have remained as general-inchief. Here his ability to plan campaigns and form large strategic combinations, which was remarkable, would have had full scope; and he would have been considerate and helpful to those in the field. But his power as a tactician was much inferior to his talent as a strategist, and he executed less boldly than he conceived: not appearing to know well those counters with which a commander must work-time, place, and circumstance. Yet he was improving in this regard, and was like Turenne, of whom Napoleon said that he was the only example of a general who grew bolder as he grew older.

To General McClellan personally it was a misfortune that he became so prominent a figure at the commencement of the contest; for it was inevitable that the first leaders should be sacrificed to the nation's ignorance of war.

Taking this into

account, estimating both what he accomplished and what he failed to accomplish, in the actual circumstances of his performance, I have endeavored in the critique of his campaigns to strike a just balance between McClellan and history. Of him it may be said, that if he does not belong to that foremost category of commanders made up of those who have always been successful, and including but a few illustrious names, neither does he rank with that numerous class who have ruined their armies without fighting. He ranges with that middle category of meritorious commanders, who, like Sertorius, Wallenstein, and William of Orange, generally unfortunate in war, yet were, in the words of Marmont, "never destroyed nor discouraged, but were always able to oppose a menacing front, and make the enemy pay dear for what he gained."

VII.

THE CAMPAIGN ON THE RAPPAHANNOCK NOVEMBER, 1862-JANUARY, 1863.

I.

CHANGE OF BASE TO FREDERICKSBURG.

To the general on whose shoulders was placed at this crisis the weighty burden of the conduct of the Army of the Potomac, the great responsibility came unsought and undesired. Cherishing a high respect for McClellan's military talent, and bound to him by the ties of an intimate affection, General Burnside naturally shrank from superseding a commander whom he unfeignedly regarded as his superior in ability. The manly frankness with which Burnside laid bare at once his feelings towards his late chief and his own sense of inadequacy for so great a trust was creditable to him, and absolved him in advance from responsibilities half the weight of which at least was assumed by those who thrust the baton into his unwilling hands.* To the public his modest shrink

* General Burnside in his testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War makes a very frank statement of his opinion touching his own unfitness for the command of the army. After getting over my surprise, the shock, etc., I told General Buckingham [the officer who brought the order from Washington assigning him to the command] that it was a matter that required very serious thought; that I did not want the command; that it had been offered to me twice before, and I did not feel that I could take it. * I told them [his staff] what my views were with reference to my ability to exercise such a command, which views were those I had always unreservedly

*