ommand swept
the North. The position of the Northern General was one of peculiar
weakness politically. He was an avowed Democrat. His head had been
turned by flattery and he had at one time dallied with the idea of
deposing Abraham Lincoln by the assumption of a military dictatorship.
Lincoln knew this. The demand for his removal would have swayed a
President of less balance.

Lincoln refused to deprive McClellan of his command but yielded
sufficiently to the clamor of the radicals of his own party to appoint
John Pope of the Western army to the command of a new division of troops
designed to advance on Richmond.

The generals under McClellan who did not agree with his slow methods
were detached with their men and assigned to service under Pope.

McClellan did not hesitate to denounce Pope as an upstart and a braggart
who had won his position by the lowest tricks of the demagogue. He
declared that the new commander was a military impostor, a tool of the
radical wing of the Republican party, a man who mistook brutality in
warfare for power and sought to increase the horrors of war by arming
slaves, legalizing plunder and making the people of the South
irreconcilable to a restored Union by atrocities whose memory could
never be effaced.

Pope's first acts on assuming command did much to justify McClellan's
savage criticism. He issued a bombastic address to his army which
brought tears to Lincoln's eyes and roars of laughter from Little Mac's
loyal friends.

He issued a series of silly general orders making war on the
noncombatant population of Virginia within his line. If citizens refused
to take an oath of allegiance which he prescribed they were to be driven
from their homes and if they dared to return, were to be arrested and
treated as spies.

His soldiers were given license to plunder. Houses were robbed and
cattle shot in the fields. Against these practices McClellan had set his
face with grim resolution. He fought only organized armies. He protected
the aged, and all noncombatants. It was not surprising, therefore, when
Lincoln ordered him to march his army to the support of Pope, McClellan
was in no hurry to get there.

Pope had boldly advanced across the Rappahannock and a portion of his
army had reached Culpeper Court House. He had determined to make good
the proclamation with which he had assumed command.

In this remarkable document he said:

"By special assignment of the President of the United St