ut his phenomenal rise was fatal to
his usefulness. The dream that he was to be the sole savior of his
country, announced confidentially to his wife just two weeks after his
arrival in Washington, never again left him so long as he continued in
command. Coupled with this dazzling vision, however, was soon developed
the tormenting twofold hallucination: first, that everybody was
conspiring to thwart him; and, second, that the enemy had from double to
quadruple numbers to defeat him.

For the first month he could not sleep for the nightmare that
Beauregard's demoralized army had by a sudden bound from Manassas seized
the city of Washington. He immediately began a quarrel with General
Scott, which, by the first of November, drove the old hero into
retirement and out of his pathway. The cabinet members who, wittingly or
unwittingly, had encouraged him in this he some weeks later stigmatized
as a set of geese. Seeing that President Lincoln was kind and unassuming
in discussing military questions, McClellan quickly contracted the habit
of expressing contempt for him in his confidential letters; and the
feeling rapidly grew until it reached a mark of open disrespect. The
same trait manifested itself in his making exclusive confidants of only
two or three of his subordinate generals, and ignoring the counsel of
all the others; and when, later on, Congress appointed a standing
committee of leading senators and representatives to examine into the
conduct of the war, he placed himself in a similar attitude respecting
their inquiry and advice.

McClellan's activity and judgment as an army organizer naturally created
great hopes that he would be equally efficient as a commander in the
field. But these hopes were grievously disappointed. To his first great
defect of estimating himself as the sole savior of the country, must at
once be added the second, of his utter inability to form any reasonable
judgment of the strength of the enemy in his front. On September 8, when
the Confederate army at Manassas numbered forty-one thousand, he rated
it at one hundred and thirty thousand. By the end of October that
estimate had risen to one hundred and fifty thousand, to meet which he
asked that his own force should be raised to an aggregate of two hundred
and forty thousand, with a total of effectives of two hundred and eight
thousand, and four hundred and eighty-eight guns. He suggested that to
gather this force all other points should be lef