forts to effect this
combination or unity in purpose, but Stanton gave no indication even of
understanding that it was desirable.

The other matter was the division of the army of the Potomac into four
army corps, to be commanded respectively by the four senior generals of
division, viz., McDowell, Sumner, Heintzelman, and Keyes. The propriety
of this action had been for some time under consideration, and the step
was now forced upon Mr. Lincoln by the strenuous insistence of the
Committee on the Conduct of the War. That so large an army required
organization by corps was admitted; but McClellan had desired to defer
the arrangement until his generals of division should have had some
actual experience in the field, whereby their comparative fitness for
higher responsibilities could be measured. An incapable corps commander
was a much more dangerous man than an incapable commander of a division
or brigade. The commander naturally felt the action now taken by the
President to be a slight, and he attributed it to pressure by the band
of civilian advisers whose untiring hostility he returned with
unutterable contempt. Not only was the taking of the step at this time
contrary to his advice, but he was not even consulted in the selection
of his own subordinates, who were set in these important positions by
the blind rule of seniority, and not in accordance with his opinion of
comparative merit. His irritation was perhaps not entirely
unjustifiable.

FOOTNOTES:

[146] A reconnoissance or "slight demonstration" ordered for the day
before by McClellan had been completed, and is not to be confounded with
this movement, for which he was not responsible.

[147] For example, see his _Own Story_, 82; but, unfortunately, one may
refer to that book _passim_ for evidence of the statement.

[148] N. and H. iv. 469.

[149] _Ibid._ v. 140.

[150] Letter to Lincoln, February 3, 1862.

[151] _Army of Potomac_, 97. Swinton says: "He should have made the
lightest possible draft on the indulgence of the people." _Ibid._ 69.
General Webb says: "He drew too heavily upon the faith of the public."
_The Peninsula_, 12.

[152] The Southern generals had a similar propensity to overestimate the
opposing force; _e.g._, Johnston's _Narrative_, 108, where he puts the
Northern force at 140,000, when in fact it was 58,000; and on p. 112 his
statement is even worse.

[153] The Southerners also had the same notion, hoping by one great
victory to