present conduct. He said it really seemed to him that McClellan wanted Pope defeated. He mentioned to me a dispatch of McClellan's in which he proposed as our plan of action "to leave Pope to get out of his own scrape, and devote ourselves to securing Washington." He spoke also of McClellan's dreadful panic in the matter of the Chain Bridge which he had ordered blown up the night before; and also his incomprehensible interference with Franklin's corps which he recalled when they had been sent ahead by Halleck's order, begged permission to recall them again, and only persisted after Halleck's sharp injunction to push them ahead until they whipped something or got whipped themselves. The President seemed to think him a little crazy. Envy, jealousy and spite are probably a better explanation of his present conduct.

It was charged against Lincoln afterward that by this time he had become intent upon making the war the occasion of the removal of slavery, that he did not wish the Confederates defeated. at this time; and that the Federal losses, not only under Pope but later at Fredericksburg under Burnside and at Chancellorsville under Hooker, and even those under Meade at Gettysburg, were fairly to be charged to this policy. This is the theory suggested and virtually avowed by George Ticknor Curtis, the biographer of Buchanan, and eulogist of McClellan.* But this charge is not only not supported by the facts, but is squarely opposed to what, on indubitable evidence, we now know to have been Lincoln's attitude toward McClellan, toward slavery and toward the saving of the Union.

For

If the Confederate Army had appreciated the full value to them of their victory at Bull Run and of their subsequent gains, they might have pressed on and captured Washington. tunately for the Union cause then and later, the Confederates were nearly as much demoralized as were the Union troops, and felt themselves in no condition to follow up their advantage. Washington, however, continued in a state of perpetual alarm.

*See his scarce pamphlet, McClellan's Last Service to the Public, together with a Tribute to His Memory, published by Appleton in 1886.

It was filled with Confederate spies and was at times within cannon shot of the Confederate cutposts. General Halleck was not unmindful of the value to the Union, which the capture of Richmond would involve; but he knew well that the Confederates could well afford at any moment to exchange Richmond for Washington. The seat of the Confederate Government was of no long standing, and having once been removed from Montgomery to Richmond, might be removed from Richmond to some other city, not indeed without loss but without irreparable loss. The capture of Washington, however, would have been a disaster beyond all computation. Its capture would almost certainly have been followed promptly by the recognition of the Confederacy by both England and France. It is quite possible that the Confederate Government itself would have been transferred from Richmond to Washington. The capture of Washington was a possibility so appalling that neither Halleck nor Lincoln could contemplate it with any degree of comfort. McClellan rested in his fatuous conviction that one successful battle fought by him would destroy the Confederate Army and end the Confederate Government. He is not to be blamed for desiring to be fully prepared for that battle. He demanded that all other interests be subordinated to the building up of his one great army. There was no disposition on Lincoln's part to deny to McClellan any reenforcements which the government could possibly spare to him; but it was felt most earnestly that a sufficient body of troops should be held in reserve for the protection of Washington.

We shall have occasion to consider McClellan's character and conduct again when we come to the battle of Antietam, and again when we come to the presidential campaign of 1864. For the present it is enough to remember that after the failure of Pope, McClellan resumed command, and that he fought and won at Antietam his first and only notable victory after his first successes in western Virginia.

CHAPTER VIII

LINCOLN AND STANTON

LINCOLN had accepted, with such grace as he could, Simon Cameron as secretary of war. On January 14, 1862, Cameron resigned this position. Lincoln made no pretense of regret when he accepted Cameron's resignation. He appointed Cameron Minister to Russia. The reason that was permitted to be given to the public was a difference of opinion which existed between the president and secretary of war concerning the arming of men who had been slaves. Cameron's report at the end of 1861 virtually committed the War Department to that policy, and Lincoln, so it was said, "was not prepared to permit a member of his Cabinet, without his consent, to commit the administration to so radical a policy at so early a date." This is the explanation given by John G. Nicolay. But a much more serious reason might have been given, which was that personal friends and political associates of the secretary of war were charged with profiting through dishonorable contracts, by means of which the government was robbed for their financial profit. Whatever the truth of the matter, the resignation of Cameron was very willingly accepted. He continued, however, a warm friend and supporter of Lincoln.

When Cameron resigned there was a strong demand upon Lincoln that others of his Cabinet be dismissed. It was felt that, as Lincoln had asserted himself in that one instance, the time was favorable for his removing some other members who were more or less unpopular. There were even those who advocated an entire new Cabinet. Certain Republican senators

earnestly advised him to make a clean sweep, and select seven new men, and so restore the waning confidence of the country.

The president listened with patient courtesy, and when the senators had concluded, he said, with a characteristic gleam of humor in his eye:

"Gentlemen, your request for a change of the whole Cabinet because I have made one change reminds me of a story I once heard in Illinois, of a farmer who was much troubled with skunks. His wife insisted on his trying to get rid of them.

"He loaded his shotgun one moonlight night and awaited developments. After some time the wife heard the shotgun go off, and in a few minutes the farmer entered the house.

"What luck have you?' asked she.

""I hid myself behind the wood-pile,' said the old man, 'with the shotgun pointed toward the hen-roost, and before long there appeared not one skunk, but seven. I took aim, blazed away, killed one, and he raised such a fearful smell that I concluded it was best to let the other six go.""

The senators laughed and departed, not questioning the president's logic.

At this time Lincoln called to the position made vacant by the resignation of Cameron, Edwin M. Stanton, a man of great industry and energy. He was no stranger to Lincoln. In 1855 they had met in Cincinnati in the McCormick Reaper case. Stanton is said to have described Lincoln as "a long lank creature from Illinois, wearing a dirty linen duster for a coat, on the back of which the perspiration had splotched wide stains that resembled a map of the continent." He did not permit Lincoln to plead in that case. Lincoln was humiliated and indignant. He said that no man had ever treated him as rudely as Stanton did.

Nothing can more finely illustrate Lincoln's lack of vindictiveness than his choice of Stanton as a member of his Cabinet. He knew that Stanton held him in contempt; that he was profane, abusive and a member of the Democratic Party. He had every

reason to believe that Stanton was a man in whose association he would have occasion to anticipate unhappy experiences; but Lincoln believed that Stanton was a man of courage, a man of integrity, a man of large organizing ability, and a man thoroughly loyal to his country. If it ever cost Lincoln a struggle to invite Stanton to this position, he never told of it.

Edwin M. Stanton was born at Steubenville, Ohio, December 19, 1814. He studied at Kenyon College, but did not graduate. He was admitted to the bar, and by industry and integrity he rose to a foremost position among the lawyers of his own state. In the Wheeling Bridge Case he established the principle of national sovereignty over all internal navigable waters, and by the Pennsylvania State Canal and Railway cases he settled the right of the people to control all methods of public transportation. He was sent to California to protect the interests of the Federal Government against an army of fraudulent claimants. An ardent Democrat, he accepted a position in Buchanan's Cabinet as attorney general when Jeremiah S. Black vacated that position to become secretary of state; and when John B. Floyd resigned his position as secretary of war to go with the South, Stanton succeeded him.

While secretary of war under Buchanan, Stanton entered into negotiations with the friends of the Union, and in the months that preceded the inauguration he may be said to have done more than any other one man in Washington, except Seward, to prevent a peaceable disruption of the Union. This loyalty to the Union did not, however, enhance his regard for Lincoln. He wrote to General John A. Dix concerning what he called "the imbecility of Lincoln." He habitually referred to Lincoln as a "gorilla." His criticism of Lincoln's first months as president was incessant and unsparing. He was McClellan's adviser and host at the time when McClellan was in virtual rebellion against Lincoln and General Scott. Several of McClellan's least admirable letters were written from Stanton's house.

Stanton entered the War Department with the declaration that