d men have done the best you could. All accounts say better fighting
was never done. Ten thousand thanks for it." But when it came to
judgment and action the President could not alleviate duty with
kindness. To get information uncolored by passage through the minds of
others, he went down to Harrison's Landing on July 7, observed all that
he could see, and talked matters over. Prior to this visit it is
supposed that he had leaned towards McClellan's views, and had inclined
to renew the advance. Nor is it clearly apparent that he learned
anything during this trip which induced him to change his mind. Rather
it seems probable that he maintained his original opinion until General
Halleck had declared against it, and that then he yielded to General
Halleck as he had before yielded to General McClellan, though certainly
with much less reluctance. At the same time the question was not
considered wholly by itself, but was almost necessarily complicated with
the question of deposing McClellan from the command. For the
inconsistency of discrediting McClellan's military judgment and
retaining him at the head of the army was obvious.

Thus at last it came about that McClellan's plan lost its only remaining
friend, and on August 3 came the definite order for the removal of the
army across the Peninsula to Acquia Creek. The campaign against Richmond
was abandoned. McClellan could not express his indignation at a policy
"almost fatal to our cause;" but his strenuous remonstrances had no
effect; his influence had passed forever. The movement of the army was
successfully completed, the rear guard arriving at Yorktown on August
20. Thus the first great Peninsula campaign came to its end in
disappointment and almost in disaster, amid heart-burnings and
criminations. It was, says General Webb, "a lamentable failure,--nothing
less." There was little hope for the future unless some master hand
could control the discordant officials who filled the land with the din
of their quarreling. The burden lay upon the President. Fortunately his
good sense, his even judgment, his unexcitable temperament had saved him
from the appearance or the reality of partisanship and from any
entangling or compromising personal commitments.

In many ways and for many reasons, this story of the Peninsula has been
both difficult and painful to write. To reach the truth and sound
conclusions in the many quarrels which it has provoked is never easy,
and upon some poi