ln had besought
McClellan to take into account the seriousness of this rising tide of
opposition.(7) His arguments made no impression. McClellan would not
recognize the political side of war. At last, partly to allay the
popular clamor, partly to force McClellan into a corner, Lincoln
published to the country a military program. He publicly instructed the
Commanding General to put all his forces in movement on all fronts, on
Washington's birthday.(8)

From this moment the debate between the President and the General
with regard to plans of campaign approached the nature of a dispute.
McClellan repeated his demand for more time in which to prepare. He
objected to the course of advance which the President wished him to
pursue. Lincoln, seeing the situation first of all as a political
problem, grounded his thought upon two ideas neither of which was shared
by McClellan: the idea that the supreme consideration was the safety
of Washington; the resultant idea that McClellan should move directly
south, keeping his whole army constantly between Washington and the
enemy. McClellan wished to treat Washington as but one important detail
in his strategy; he had a grandiose scheme for a wide flanking movement,
for taking the bulk of his army by sea to the coast of Virginia, and
thus to draw the Confederate army homeward for a duel to the death under
the walls of Richmond. Lincoln, neither then nor afterward more than an
amateur in strategy, was deeply alarmed by this bold mode of procedure.
His political instinct told him that if there was any slip and
Washington was taken, even briefly, by the Confederates, the game was
up. He was still further alarmed when he found that some of the eider
generals held views resembling his own.(9) To his modest, still groping
mind, this was a trying situation. In the President lay the ultimate
responsibility for every move the army should make. And whose advice
should he accept as authoritative? The first time he asked himself that
question, such peace of mind as had survived the harassing year 1861
left him, not to return for many a day.

At this moment of crises, occurred one of his keenest personal
afflictions. His little son Willie sickened and died. Lincoln's relation
to his children was very close, very tender. Many anecdotes show this
boy frolicking about the White House, a licensed intruder everywhere.
Another flood of anecdotes preserve the stupefying grief of his father
after the child