Abraham Lincoln

“He Defends McClellan Against The Supervision”

Posted on April 22, 2016

And McClellan? What is our handsome friend doing, mean- while, beside the Potomac? During the last three months he has been training and grouping one hundred and seventy thousand men. Will he not attack now? Will the President order an advance, or discuss the matter with the general? McClellan does not want advice from any one, and least of all from Lincoln. He complains in private that the President’s frequent visits to the camp are a nuisance. He writes :
“I am becoming daily more disgusted with this administration — perfectly sick of it. . . . I was obliged to attend a meeting of the cabinet, and was bored and annoyed. There are some of the greatest geese in the cabinet I have ever seen.”
This is the way in which the man of the sword is apt to gird at the philosopher — but then why the devil does he not use his sword? Is the enemy too strong ? Only one to three ! McClellan does not believe this. His Napoleonic reputation has been acquired without his ever having fought a battle, and he fears to fritter it away in defeats. He perpetually demands troops, troops, troops; remains entrenched facing the enemy week after week, so that the morale of his inactive forces cannot but suffer ; and when the Southerners, fearing a surprise attack, withdraw, evacuating Manassas, he is content to follow them only a little way, and then digs himself in once more, reporting daily, “All quiet upon the Potomac.” The mood of the nation passes from uneasiness to anger, from anger to derision, from derision to mistrust. Does this Democrat cherish political ambitions; would he fain make his way to the highest office upon the field of inaction, rather than with renown on the battlefield?
Impossible, for the President promotes him. When the veteran Scott is now dismissed into honorable retirement, young McClellan is appointed commander in chief. Why? Lincoln has no one else for the job ! He even puts up with discourteous treatment from the general, allows himself to be kept waiting in the anteroom, so that the matter gets into the papers, and arouses angry comment. Is the President himself put out of humor ? Not in the least ! He does not trouble about personal dignity, for his sole concern is to win the war. “I will hold McClellan’s stirrup for him, if he will only win us victories.” At length, one day, the general, on return- ing to his quarters, finds that Lincoln and Seward are waiting for him ; he goes up to his room and sends down a message, saying he is sorry but is too tired to see them to-day. The Secretary of State is in a great rage, but the President remains unmoved. He pays no more visits to the general, however, and thenceforward his orders are curter.
The two men’s relations assume a sinister tone, have a hollow ring, as if the foundations were being mined. “The Waleck River grows worse, the longer one looks at it,” writes the general, who for six months now has been magnetized by the Potomac and its tributaries. Lincoln, when more troops are continually demanded, only to be swallowed up in the void, says it is “like shifting fleas across a barn floor with a shovel — not half of them ever get there/ ‘ Again, he remarks, ” Unless something is done soon, the bottom will drop out of the whole affair; and if General McClellan does not want to use the army, I should like to borrow it, if I could only see how it could be made to do something.” Nevertheless he defends McClellan against the supervision committee of Con- gress.
In the West, at the same time, everything is at a standstill. The President, upon whom incessant demands for reinforcements, munitions, horses, etc., pour in, does not know what to make of the matter, feels that he is being humbugged in some way or other, but cannot see how to intervene. Here is a man in supreme com- mand who knows nothing of the art of war, and a couple of generals who won’t fight.

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