hat, whatever other excellent
qualities he might have, this of being aquiline was wanting.

Disguise and soften it as we may, the campaign of the Peninsula was a
disastrous failure,--a failure months long, like a bad novel in weekly
instalments, with "To be continued" grimly ominous at the end of every
part. So far was it from ending in the capture of Richmond that nothing
but the gallantry of General Pope and his little army hindered the
Rebels from taking Washington. And now comes Major-General George B.
McClellan, and makes affidavit in one volume[1] octavo that he is a
great military genius, after all. It should seem that this genius is of
two varieties. The first finds the enemy, and beats him; the second
finds him, and succeeds in getting away. General McClellan is now
attempting a change of base in the face of public opinion, and is
endeavoring to escape the consequences of having escaped from the
Peninsula. For a year his reputation flared upward like a rocket,
culminated, burst, and now, after as long an interval, the burnt-out
case comes down to us in this Report.

[1] _Letter of the Secretary of War, transmitting Report on the
Organization of the Army of the Potomac, and of the Campaigns in
Virginia and Maryland under the Command of Major-General George
B. McClellan, from July 26, 1861, to November 7, 1862._
Washington: Government Printing-Office. 1864. 8vo, pp. 242.

There is something ludicrously tragic, as our politics are managed, in
seeing an Administration compelled to print a campaign document (for
such is General McClellan's Report in a double sense) directed against
itself. Yet in the present case, had it been possible to escape the
penance, it had been unwise, for we think that no unprejudiced person
can read the volume without a melancholy feeling that General McClellan
has foiled himself even more completely than the Rebels were able to
do. He should have been more careful of his communications, for a line
two hundred and forty-two pages long is likely to have its weak points.
The volume before us is rather the plea of an advocate retained to
defend the General's professional character and expound his political
opinions than the curt, colorless, unimpassioned statement of facts
which is usually so refreshing in the official papers of military men,
and has much more the air of being addressed to a jury than to the War
Department at Washington. It is, in short, a lett