rs within a few
hours from Porter's arrival, and in connection with a complaint made
by the latter.

McClellan and Burnside had slept in the same house the night after
the battle of South Mountain. Porter seems to have joined them
there. During the evening McClellan dictated his orders for the
movements of the 15th which were communicated to the army in the
morning. That Porter should be unfriendly to Burnside was not
strange, for it had by this time become known that the dispatches of
August 27th to 30th were relied upon by General Pope's friends to
show Porter's hostile and insubordinate spirit in that campaign. The
court-martial was still impending over Porter, and he had been
allowed to take the field only at McClellan's special request.
Although Burnside had not dreamed of doing Porter an ill service,
his transmittal of the dispatches to the President had made them
available as evidence, and Porter, not unnaturally, held him
responsible for part of his peril. The sort of favoritism which
McClellan showed to Porter was notorious in the army. Had the
position of chief of staff been given him, it would have sanctioned
his personal influence without offending the self-respect of other
general officers; but that position was held by General Marcy, the
father-in-law of McClellan, and Porter's manifest power at
headquarters consequently wore the air of discourtesy toward others.
The incident I have narrated of the examination of Lee's position at
Sharpsburg from the ridge near Pry's house was an example of this.
It was Porter who in the presence of the commandants of the wings of
the army was invited by McClellan to continue the examination when
the others were sent below the crest of the hill. Governor Sprague
testified before the Committee on the Conduct of the War to the
notoriety of this from the beginning of the peninsular campaign and
to the bad feeling it caused. [Footnote: C. W., vol. i. p. 566.]
General Rosecrans testified that in the winter of 1861-62, on his
visit to Washington, he found that Porter was regarded as the
confidential adviser of McClellan. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. vi.
(Rosecrans) p. 14.] It was matter of common fame, too well known to
be questioned by anybody who served in that army. Mr. Lincoln had
discussed it to some extent in his correspondence with McClellan in
the month of May, and had warned the general of the mischiefs likely
to ensue, even whilst authorizing provisional corps to be organi