s retreat was burning bridges and destroying
railroads behind him, and making his possible return towards Washington
a slow, difficult process, which he obviously had no mind to undertake,
still this security of the capital rested as weightily as ever upon
Lincoln's mind. His reiteration and insistence concerning it made
perfectly plain that he was still nervous and disquieted about it,
though now certainly with much less reason than heretofore. But with or
against reason, it was easy to see that he was far from resting in the
tranquillity of conviction that Washington could never be so safe as
when the army of Virginia was far away upon the Peninsula. Nevertheless,
after the condition in its foregoing shape had been so strenuously
imposed by Mr. Lincoln and tacitly accepted by McClellan, the matter was
left as if definitely settled; and the President never demanded[5] from
the general any distinct statement concerning the numerical or specific
allotment of the available forces between the two purposes. The neglect
was disastrous in its consequences; and must also be pronounced both
blameworthy and inexplicable, for the necessity of a plain understanding
on the subject was obvious.

The facts seem to be briefly these: in his letter of February 3,
McClellan estimated the force necessary to be taken with him for his
campaign at 110,000 to 140,000 men, and said: "I hope to use the latter
number by bringing fresh troops into Washington." On April 1 he
reported[6] the forces left behind him as follows:--

At Warrenton, there is to be 7,780 men
At Manassas, there is to be 10,859 men
In the Valley of the Shenandoah 35,467 men
On the Lower Potomac 1,350 men
-------------------------------------------------
In all 55,456 men

He adds: "There will thus be left for the garrisons, and the front of
Washington, under General Wadsworth, 18,000 men, exclusive of the
batteries under instruction." New levies, nearly 4,000 strong, were also
expected. He considered all these men as properly available "for the
defense of the national capital and its approaches." The President, the
politicians, and some military men were of opinion that only the 18,000
ought to be considered available for the capital. It was a question
whether it was proper to count the corps of Banks in the Shenandoah
Valley. McClellan's theory was that the rebels, by the circumst