re to have its wishes speedily gratified, must somehow be
marshalled behind the government, unless the alternative was the
capture of power by the Congressional Cabal that was forming against the
President.

Entering upon the dark days of the first half of 1862, Lincoln had no
delusions about the task immediately before him. He must win battles;
otherwise, he saw no way of building up that popular support which alone
would enable him to keep the direction of policy in the hands of the
Executive, to keep it out of the hands of Congress. In a word, the
standing or falling of his power appeared to have been committed to the
keeping of the army. What the army would do with it, save his policy or
wreck his policy, was to no small degree a question of the character and
the abilities of the Commanding General.

XXI. THE STRUGGLE TO CONTROL THE ARMY

George Brinton McClellan, when at the age of thirty-four he was raised
suddenly to a dizzying height of fame and power, was generally looked
upon as a prodigy. Though he was not that, he had a real claim to
distinction. Had destiny been considerate, permitting him to rise
gradually and to mature as he rose, he might have earned a stable
reputation high among those who are not quite great. He had done well
at West Point, and as a very young officer in the Mexican War; he had
represented his country as a military observer with the allies in the
Crimea; he was a good engineer, and a capable man of business. His
winning personality, until he went wrong in the terrible days of 1862,
inspired "a remarkable affection and regard in every one from the
President to the humblest orderly that waited at his door."(1) He was
at home among books; he could write to his wife that Prince Napoleon
"speaks English very much as the Frenchmen do in the old English
comedies";(2) he was able to converse in "French, Spanish, Italian,
German, in two Indian dialects and he knew a little Russian and
Turkish." Men like Wade and Chandler probably thought of him as a
"highbrow," and doubtless he irritated them by invariably addressing
the President as "Your Excellency." He had the impulses as well as the
traditions of an elder day. But he had three insidious defects. At the
back of his mind there was a vein of theatricality, hitherto unrevealed,
that might, under sufficient stimulus, transform him into a poseur.
Though physically brave, he had in his heart, unsuspected by himself
or others, the dread of