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triumphs in the West simply aroused the Confederates to a full sense of their danger. The great scheme of the war was broken up by them, and the nation expiated in more than a year of desperate and costly efforts to master the Mississippi, and open a way into Eastern Tennessee, the impatience which refused to recognize the infinite advantages of the delay which perfects concentration, over the desultory and incoherent energy which spends itself in ill-combined blows and in spasmodic effort.

The period during which General McClellan really held command of the armies of the Union, and was really in a position to enable him to plan and prepare a campaign proportionate to the area of the war, extended over but a little more than two months. He was called, as we have seen, to fill the post vacated by Lieutenant-General Scott in November, 1861. Incessantly occupied with the details of the organization of the main army, which was to be directly commanded by himself, General McClellan was at the same time burdened with the duty of supervising all the military preparations of the Union, and of elaborating the vast plan of campaign already sketched.

It is not surprising that while sparing neither body nor brain in this colossal task, the young commander-in-chief should have overtaxed even his vigorous constitution. Towards the middle of December he contracted a serious illness, which for a short time confined him to his headquarters at Washington.

During this time the political pressure upon the President for an advance of the armies became daily more and more vehement. The secretary of war, Mr. Cameron, left the cabinet, and was succeeded by Mr. Stanton, who, while he professed the warmest regard for the young general in command of the armies, gave his most strenuous efforts in support of the external clamor which was driving the President to

ward a practical nullification of his influence and his authority.

Before General McClellan had fully recovered his health, and without any consultation whatever had with him, the President finally, on the 27th of January, 1862, succumbed to these demoralizing forces, and assumed himself the command of the national forces.

On that day he issued from the Executive Mansion the following War Order:

"Ordered, That the twenty-second day of February, 1862, be the day for a general movement of the land and naval forces of the United States against the insurgent forces. That especially the army at and about Fortress Monroe, the army of the Potomac, the army of Western Virginia, the army near Mumfordsville, Kentucky, the army and flotilla at Cairo, and a naval force in the Gulf of Mexico, be ready to move on that day.

"That all other forces, both land and naval, with their respective commanders, obey existing orders for the time, and be ready to obey additional orders when duly given.

"That the heads of departments, and especially the secretaries of war and of the navy, with all their subordinates, and the general-in-chief, with all other commanders and subordinates of land and naval forces, will severally be held to to their strict and full responsibilities for prompt execution of this order. ABRAHAM LINCOLN."

From the moment of the promulgation of this most extraordinary order, the general, whom it so peremptorily and so insultingly superseded, ceased of course to be responsible for the conduct of any military operations not carried on directly under his own eyes, and specially committed to his own direct control.

It is necessary to remember here that the armies thus directed to be set in motion upon a given day, which was

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LIFE OF GEN. GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN.

thus publicly announced to foes and friends alike, were made up of many thousands of men entirely unfamiliar with war, and commanded for the most part by officers as inexperienced as themselves. The few "veterans" of this host were men whose nominal service under arms had a date of but from four to five months. As to the condition of those great branches of the military service, on which the practicability of moving such a force must have been absolutely dependent, had the troops been troops of the line, inured to war, no one could possibly form an intelligent notion excepting the commanding general under whom they had been organized, but who was not so much as consulted upon the subject.

Viewed in the light of these considerations this singular order would seem as unaccountable in itself as it is certainly unique in the history of human warfare, were not an adequate, if not a satisfactory, explanation of its origin and its intent furnished to us by one of the ablest and most intrepid defenders of Mr. Lincoln and of his administration.

In his Life of President Lincoln, Mr. Raymond, of New York, thus simply and clearly states the case:

"As winter approached without any indications of an intended movement of our armies, the public impatience rose to the highest point of discontent. The administration was everywhere held responsible for these unaccountable delays, and was freely charged by its opponents with a design to protract the war for selfish political purposes of its own, and at the fall elections the public dissatisfaction made itself manifest by adverse votes in every considerable State where elections were held."

From the moment when considerations of political and partisan expediency thus invaded the great question of the conduct of the war in the mind of the President all harmonious concert of action between that functionary and General McClellan necessarily came to an end. With such considerations General McClellan, as an honest and single-minded sol

dier, laboring for the defeat of the armed enemies of the Union, had and could have nothing whatever to do. It is by no means foreign to the course of our narrative to observe that the "public dissatisfaction" which "made itself manifest by adverse votes" in the fall elections of 1861 had its origin in many other causes besides the delays in the movement of our armies. The civil administration of the government had been conducted with an extraordinary recklessness alike of the laws of the land and of the liberties of the citizens, while the bare fact of the persistent existence of the civil war itself necessarily shook the public confidence in the statesmanship of a party whose leading representatives had openly laughed the possibility of such a war to scorn; and the "premier" of whose elected President had repeatedly predicted the complete restoration of order throughout the nation within "sixty days" from the passage of the ordinance of secession by the State of South Carolina. To concentrate this "public dissatisfaction" if possible upon the delays in the movement of our armies; to brand these delays as "unaccountable ;" and to fix the responsibility of them upon the commander of the forces, was perhaps a clever move in partisan tactics. Clever or foolish, it seems to have tempted the administration into entire forgetfulness of the fatal consequences which it must entail upon the public service and the welfare of the State.

It would appear, too, that a singular confidence in his own capacity as a military leader was at the same time growing up in the mind of the President. For, not content with assuming the general command, by proclamation, of the armies of the Union, Mr. Lincoln at once proceeded to assume the direct control of the campaign of the Army of the Potomac in particular.

On the 31st of January, 1862, appeared the President's Special War Order, No. 1, couched in the following terms:

“EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 31, 1862. “Ordered, That all the disposable force of the Army of the Potomac, after providing safely for the defence of Washington, be formed into an expedition for the immediate object of seizing and occupying a point upon the railroad southwestward of what is known as Manassas Junction, all details to be in the discretion of the commander-in-chief, and the expedition to move on or before the twenty-second day of February next. "ABRAHAM LINCOLN."

Had the civil war been suddenly brought to an end by the submission of the South before a single movement had been made in the campaign of 1862 this "Special War Order, No. 1" might doubtless live in history simply as the most grotesque document which ever emanated from a man elevated by his fellow-men to a position of great trust and grave responsibility.

The accredited biographer of Mr. Lincoln informs us that he distinguished himself in his early life by his bravery and skill in conducting the defence of a flatboat on the Mississippi River against an attack made upon it by seven negroes. The remembrance of the exploit does not seem to have impelled the president to relieve our naval commanders of the responsibilities of their profession; and it is highly improbable that it would ever have occurred to the President, had he found himself on board of the Monitor during her remarkable conflict with the Merrimac, to assume the command of that gallant little craft and prescribe manoeuvres of battle to Lieutenant Worden. Yet the brief land campaign against the Indians in which we are assured that Mr. Lincoln once took a creditable part as a captain of militia appears to have inspired him with the belief that he might reasonably and respectably undertake to handle one of the largest armies of modern times engaged in one of the most formidable and difficult invasions upon record.

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