y triumph at Manassas, and their
army had dwindled away."

We have said that General McClellan's volume is rather a plea in
abatement of judgment than a report. It was perfectly proper that he
should endeavor to put everything in its true light, and he would be
sure of the sympathy of all right-minded men in so doing; but an _ex
parte_ statement at once rouses and justifies adverse criticism. He
has omitted many documents essential to the formation of a just
opinion; and it is only when we have read these also, in the Report of
the Committee on the Conduct of the War, that we feel the full weight
of the cumulative evidence going to show the hearty support in men and
confidence that he received from the Administration, and, when there
were no more men to be sent, and confidence began to yield before
irresistible facts, the prolonged forbearance with which he was still
favored. Nothing can be kinder or more cordial than the despatches and
letters both of the President and Mr. Stanton, down to the time when
General McClellan wrote the following sentences at the end of an
official communication addressed to the latter: "If I save this army
now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you, or to any other
persons in Washington. You have done your best to sacrifice this
army." (28th June, 1862.) We shall seek no epithet to characterize
language like this. All but the most bigoted partisans will qualify it
as it deserves. We have here a glaring example of that warping of good
sense and good feeling which the consciousness of having a political
stake at risk will produce in a gallant soldier and a courteous
gentleman. Can General McClellan, after a year to grow cool in, either
himself believe, or expect any one else to believe, that the President
and the Secretary of War would "do their best to sacrifice" an army of
a hundred and fifty thousand brave men, in order to lessen his possible
chances as a candidate for the Presidency? It was of vastly more
importance to them than to him that he should succeed. The dignified
good temper of Mr. Lincoln's answer to this wanton insult does him
honor: "I have not said you were ungenerous for saying you needed
reinforcements; I thought you were ungenerous in assuming that I did
not send them as fast as I could. I feel any misfortune to you and your
army quite as keenly as you feel it yourself." Mr. Stanton could only
be silent; and whatever criticisms may be made on some traits of his