A BID FOR THE PRESIDENCY

9

The anti-war faction-formidable and dangerous nestled in the bosom of "the opposition," eliciting from its "presumptive candidate" no murmur that would injure his chances for its nomination, which two years later he received and accepted.

This pronunciamento, which so endeared McClellan to the enemies of the country when published by him some months later, necessarily operated in a contrary direction upon its friends. In it he had done his utmost to make it appear that the humane and otherwise creditable sentiments he uttered, as well as the proslavery opinions, were being antagonized by the party in power. He held himself up as one anxious to save the republic, not from the rebellion, but from the administration of Abraham Lincoln. This document was as audacious as it was mischievous. (It dealt with matters with which, as a military subordinate, he had no more right to interfere than he had with the legislation of Congress or the decisions of the Supreme Court, and it grossly misrepresented the course of the administration. He wrote it, not for effect on the President, but to be afterwards used as an appeal to those voters of the country whose support of the Union cause was too feeble to survive any appearance, in the conduct of the war, of an intention to weaken the hold of rebel slaveholders upon their slaves. It threatened a revolt in the army, if emancipation should be attempted. A copy of the document was sent to his wife with the request that it be preserved carefully "as a very important record."

1

1 Own Story, page 446.

The editor of McClellan's "Own Story" assures us that the letter never was seen by McClellan's friends "until after the general was finally relieved from command." 1 Of course it was not. It was not until then that it could be useful for the purpose for which it was written.

1 Own Story, page 489.

CHAPTER LXIII

Operations in Northern Virginia. - Defense of the Capital. Rebel Operations in the Shenandoah Valley. Pope's Command. - He corresponds with McClellan. The Latter demands 100,000 more Men.

THE President's order of March 11, 1862, which relieved General McClellan from the command of the armies of the United States, and limited his new command to the Department of the Potomac, designated no successor as general-in-chief. All commanders of departments were ordered to "report severally and directly to the Secretary of War." By this order the President virtually assumed command of all the armies, with the Secretary of War as his chief of staff.

On the 4th of April the Department of the Potomac was reduced in territorial extent by the creation of the Department of the Shenandoah under General Banks, and the Department of the Rappahannock under General McDowell. The first covered the Shenandoah Valley, and the latter embraced all the region east of the Blue Ridge and west of the railroad from Richmond to Acquia Creek, and west of the Potomac above that point, and also the District of Columbia and the counties of Maryland bordering on the Potomac.

This order followed immediately upon the discovery, April 2, by the Secretary of War that General McClellan

had ordered to the peninsula a large portion of the force he had been imperatively required by the President to leave for the defense of Washington. Its wisdom was amply vindicated by the necessity which constantly arose afterwards for forces sufficient to meet and repel the advances of the enemy under General Stonewall Jackson, whose energetic campaign in the Shenandoah Valley― threatening an invasion of Maryland and an attack on the capital-was for a time the cause of wellgrounded alarm throughout the country.

It being difficult to secure harmonious action by the three department commanders in northern Virginia, the President made an order on the 26th of June by which all the forces under Banks, McDowell, and Fremont, and under Sturgis commanding the defenses in Washington, were consolidated into one army, to be called the Army of Virginia, and placed under the command of Major-General John Pope, whose successful operations in the west notably against Island No. 10 in the Mississippi River-had brought him into prominence and favorable notice. He was to protect West Virginia and the capital, attack and overcome Jackson and Ewell, menace the enemy in the direction of Charlottesville, and aim to relieve McClellan and aid in the capture of Richmond. Simultaneously with the assignment of General Pope to this command, the Seven Days' battles commenced on the peninsula.

On the 4th of July, after McClellan's army had retreated to Harrison's Landing, General Pope wrote him of the extent and disposition of the Army of Virginia, assuring him of an earnest wish to coöperate with him in

the heartiest and most energetic manner. In this letter General Pope thus summarized the relative positions of the two armies under their respective commands:

Your position on the James River places the whole of the enemy's force around Richmond between yourself and Washington. Were I to move with my command direct on Richmond, I must fight the whole force of the enemy before I could join you, and at so great a distance from you as to be beyond any assistance from your army. If my command be embarked and sent to you by James River, the enemy would be in Washington before it had even accomplished the journey.1 Under these circumstances my position here is difficult and embarrassing, and whilst I am anxious to render you all the assistance in my power, the imperative necessity of insuring the safety of the capital must control my operations.

To this General McClellan replied approvingly. His own army was, he said, in admirable spirit and discipline, "it would fight better to-morrow than it ever did before." He was very persistent in his calls for reinforcements, and very strong in the opinion that his army was in the right place for a movement upon the rebel capital. In short, it was the old story. He had under his immediate command all but 75,000 of the entire forces of the East. He said he wanted 100,000 more men for any successful movement.

1 This view as to a movement by water is identical with that expressed by General Grant, when replying to critics of his campaign of 1864. He said: "If the Army of the Potomac had been moved bodily to the James River by water, Lee could have moved part of his forces back to Richmond, called Beauregard from the South to reinforce it, and with the balance moved on to Washington." Grant's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 141.