t its
inactivity has left a deeper impression on Northern memories than the
shock of disappointment at Bull Run. Public men of weight had been
pressing for an advance in November, and when the Joint Committee of
Congress, an arbitrary and meddlesome, but able and perhaps on the
whole useful body, was set up in December, it brought its full
influence to bear on the President. Lincoln was already anxious
enough; he wished to rouse McClellan himself to activity, while he
screened him against excessive impatience or interference with his
plans. It is impossible to say what was McClellan's real mind. Quite
early he seems to have held out hopes to Lincoln that he would soon
attack, but he was writing to his wife that he expected to be attacked
by superior numbers. It is certain, however, that he was possessed now
and always by a delusion as to the enemy's strength. For instance
Lincoln at last felt bound to work out for himself definite prospects
for a forward movement; it is sufficient to say of this layman's effort
that he proposed substantially the line of advance which Johnston a
little later began to dread most; Lincoln's plan was submitted for
McClellan's consideration; McClellan rejected it, and his reasons were
based on his assertion that he would have to meet nearly equal numbers.
He, in fact, out-numbered the enemy by more than three to one. If we
find the President later setting aside the general's judgment on
grounds that are not fully explained, we must recall McClellan's vast
and persistent miscalculations of an enemy resident in his
neighbourhood. And the distrust which he thus created was aggravated
by another propensity of his vague mind. His illusory fear was the
companion of an extravagant hope; the Confederate army was invincible
when all the world expected him to attack it then and there, but the
blow which he would deal it in his own place and his own time was to
have decisive results, which were indeed impossible; the enemy was to
"pass beneath the Caudine Forks." The demands which he made on the
Administration for men and supplies seemed to have no finality about
them; his tone in regard to them seemed to degenerate into a chronic
grumble. The War Department certainly did not intend to stint him in
any way; but he was an unsatisfactory man to deal with in these
matters. There was a great mystery as to what became of the men sent
to him. In the idyllic phrase, which Lincoln once used of him