THE

CHAPTER XIII.

HIS TRUE RELATIONS WITH MCCLELLAN.

HE character of no statesman in all the history of the world has been more generally or more completely misunderstood than that of Abraham Lincoln. Many writers describe him as a mere creature of circumstances floating like a piece of driftwood on the current of events; and about the only attribute of statesmanship they concede to him is a sort of instinctive divination of the popular feeling at a given period, and on a given subject. They do not thus dwarf Mr. Lincoln in set phrase or formal propositions, but that is the logic and effect of their narratives. Some of these writers go even further, and represent him as an almost unconscious instrument in the hands of the Almighty, about as irresponsible as the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night which went before the Israelites through the wilderness.

The truth is, that Mr. Lincoln was at once the ablest and the most adroit politician of modern times. In all the history of the world I can recall no example of a great leader, having to do with a people in any degree free, who himself shaped and guided events to the same extent, unless it was Julius Cæsar. Mr. Lincoln was not the creature of circumstances.

He made circumstances

to suit the necessities of his own situation. He was less influenced by the inferior minds around him than was Washington, Jefferson, or Jackson. His policy was invariably formed by his own judgment, and it seldom took even the slightest color from the opinions of others, however decided. In this originality and independence of understanding he resembled somewhat the great William of Orange.

Mr. Lincoln was supposed at the outset of his Administration to have placed himself, as it were, under the tutelage of William H. Seward; and later he was generally believed to have abjectly endured the almost insulting domination of Edwin M. Stanton. But I say without the slightest fear of contradiction, that neither Mr. Seward nor Mr. Stanton, great men as they both were, ever succeeded either in leading or misleading Mr. Lincoln in a single instance. The Administration was not a week old when Mr. Seward had found his level, and the larger purposes, dangerous and revolutionary, with which Mr. Stanton entered the War Department, were baffled and defeated before he had time to fashion the instruments of usurpation. Consciously or unconsciously, Mr. Seward and Mr. Stanton, like others, wrought out the will of the great man who had called them to his side to be appropriately used in furtherance of plans far greater and more comprehensive than they themselves had conceived.

I shall not linger here to present instances of this subordination of high officials and party leaders to Mr.

Lincoln; they may be gleaned without number from the published histories of the times. I shall content myself with recounting some of his relations with the illustrious, and at that time powerful, Democratic captain, George B. McClellan.

General McClellan was as bitterly disliked by the politicians of the country as he was cordially loved by the troops under his command. Whatever may be said by the enemies of this unsuccessful general, it must be remembered that he took command of the Army of the Potomac when it was composed of a mass of undisciplined and poorly armed men. Yet after fighting some of the hardest battles of the war, he left it, in less than eighteen months, a splendid military organization, well prepared for the accomplishment of the great achievements afterward attained by General Grant. At the time McClellan took command of that army, the South was powerful in all the elements of successful warfare. It had much changed when General Grant took command. Long strain had greatly weakened and exhausted the forces and resources of the South. There had come a change from the former buoyant bravery of hope to the desperate bravery of doubtful success; and it may well be questioned whether any commander could have crushed the rebellion in the time during which General McClellan was at the head of the army. That he lacked aggressiveness must be admitted by his most ardent admirers. His greatness as a defensive general precluded this quality.

At one time when things seemed at a standstill, and no aggressive movements could be induced by the anxious Washington authorities, Mr.

Lincoln went to General McClellan's headquarters to have a talk with him; but for some reason he was unable to get an audience with the general. He returned to the White House much disturbed at his failure to see the commander of the Union forces, and immediately sent for two other general officers, to have a consultation. On their arrival, he told them he must have some one to talk to about the situation; and as he had failed to see General McClellan, he had sent for them to get their views as to the possibility or probability of soon commencing active operations with the Army of the Potomac. He said he desired an expression of their opinion about the matter, for his was, that, if something were not done and done soon, the bottom would fall out of the whole thing; and he intended, if General McClellan did not want to use the Army, to "borrow" it from him, provided he could see how it could be made to do something; for, said he, "If McClellan can't fish, he ought to cut bait at a time like this."

Mr. Lincoln never regarded General McClellan with personal or political jealousy. He never feared him. He once profoundly trusted him, and to the very last he hoped to employ his genius and his popularity in the deliverance of their common country. His unfailing sagacity saw in him a rising general, who should be at once Democratic and patriotic, the readiest possible

instrument of harmonizing the North, unifying the sentiment of the army, crushing the rebellion, and restoring the Union. Having, then, no thought of imparting to the war any other object or result than the restoration of the Union, pure and simple, and this being likewise McClellan's view, the harmony and confidence that obtained between them were plants of easy growth. The rise of discord, the political intrigues, Democratic and Republican, which steadily aimed to separate these noble characters, who were as steadily, of their own impulses, tending toward each other, these are matters of public history. Through it all, Mr. Lincoln earnestly endeavored to support McClellan in the field; and the diversion of men and the failure of supplies were never in a degree due to a desire upon his part to cripple the Democratic general. The success of this Democratic general was the one thing necessary to enable the President to hold in check the aggressive leaders of his own party, to restore the Union with the fewest sacrifices, and to complete the triumph of his Administration without dependence upon interests and factions which he seriously and constantly dreaded.

One of the most striking instances of Mr. Lincoln's great moral courage and self-reliance occurred just after the second battle of Bull Run. The loss of this battle caused great consternation, not only in Washington, but throughout the whole country. Everything was thrown into confusion. All the Cabinet officers, except Secretary Welles and Secretary Seward (the latter being