distinct understanding.

Although McClellan, writing to Lincoln, condemned rather sharply the
method selected for giving to him the aid so long implored, yet he felt
that, even as it came to him, he could make it serve his turn. Though he
grumbled at the President's unmilitary ways, he afterward admitted that
the "cheering news" made him "confident" of being "sufficiently strong
to overpower the large army confronting" him. There was no doubt of it.
He immediately extended his right wing; May 24, he drove the
Confederates out of Mechanicsville; May 26, General Porter took position
at Hanover Junction only fifteen miles from McDowell's head of column,
which had advanced eight miles out of Fredericksburg. The situation was
not unpromising; but unfortunately that little interval of fifteen miles
was never to be closed up.

May 24, Mr. Lincoln wrote to McClellan, and after suggesting sundry
advisable movements, he said: "McDowell and Shields[14] both say they
can, and positively will, move Monday morning." Monday was the 26th. In
point of fact, McDowell, feeling time to be of great value, urged the
President to let him move on the morning of Sunday, the 25th; but Mr.
Lincoln positively refused; the battle of Bull Run had been fought on a
Sunday, and he dreaded the omen.[15] This feeling which he had about
days was often illustrated, and probably the reader has observed that he
seemed to like dates already marked by prestige or good luck; thus he
had convened Congress for July 4, and had ordered the general advance of
the armies for February 22; it was an indication of the curious thread
of superstition which ran through his strange nature,--a remnant of his
youth and the mysterious influence of the wilderness. But worse than a
superstitious postponement arrived before nightfall on Saturday. A
dispatch from Lincoln to McClellan, dated at four o'clock that
afternoon, said: "In consequence of General Banks's critical position, I
have been compelled to suspend General McDowell's movements to join you.
The enemy are making a desperate push upon Harper's Ferry, and we are
trying to throw General Fremont's force and part of General McDowell's
in their rear." The brief words conveyed momentous intelligence. It is
necessary to admit that Mr. Lincoln was making his one grand blunder,
for which there is not even the scant salvation of possible doubt. All
that can be said in palliation is, that he was governed, or at least
strongly im