breaking down with grief and anxiety, one of those secret conferences
of the high conspirators ended in a determination to employ all their
forces, direct and indirect, to bring about McClellan's retirement. They
were all victims of that mania of suspicion which was the order of
the day. "A majority of the Committee," wrote its best member, long
afterward when he had come to see things in a different light, "strongly
suspected that General McClellan was a traitor." Wade vented his spleen
in furious words about "King McClellan." Unrestrained by Lincoln's
anguish, the Committee demanded a conference a few days after his son's
death and threatened an appeal from President to Congress if he did not
quickly force McClellan to advance.(12)

All this while the Committee was airing another grievance. They clamored
to have the twelve divisions of the army of the Potomac grouped into
corps. They gave as their motive, military efficiency. And perhaps
they thought they meant it. But there was a cat in the bag which
they carefully tried to conceal. The generals of divisions formed two
distinct groups, the elder ones who did not owe their elevation to
McClellan and the younger ones who did. The elder generals, it happened,
sympathized generally with the Committee in politics, or at least
did not sympathize with McClellan. The younger generals reflected the
politics of their patron. And McClellan was a Democrat, a hater of
the Vindictives, unsympathetic with Abolition. Therefore, the mania of
suspicion being in full flood, the Committee would believe no good of
McClellan when he opposed advancing the elder generals to the rank of
corps commanders. His explanation that he "wished to test them in the
field," was poohpoohed. Could not any good Jacobin see through that! Of
course, it was but an excuse to hold back the plums until he could drop
them into the itching palms of those wicked Democrats, his "pets." Why
should not the good men and true, elder and therefore better soldiers,
whose righteousness was so well attested by their political leanings,
why should not they have the places of power to which their rank
entitled them?

Hitherto, however, Lincoln had held out against the Committee's demand
and bad refused to compel McClellan to reorganize his army against his
will. He now observed that in the council which cast the die against the
overland route, the division between the two groups of generals, what
we may call the Lincoln g