fused to advise McClellan, did not hesitate to denounce
him. In response to a request from Stanton, he made a report sustaining
Wadsworth. The Committee summoned Wadsworth before it; he read them
his report to Stanton; reiterated its charges, and treated them to some
innuendoes after their own hearts, plainly hinting that McClellan could
have crushed the Confederates at Manassas if he had wished to.(24)

A wave of hysteria swept the Committee and the War Office and beat
fiercely upon Lincoln. The Board charged him to save the day by mulcting
the army of the Potomac of an entire corps, retaining it at Washington.
Lincoln met the Board in a long and troubled conference. His anxious
desire to do all he could for McClellan was palpable.(25) But what,
under the circumstances, could he do? Here was this new device for the
steadying of his judgment, this Council of Experts, singing the same old
tune, assuring him that McClellan was not to be trusted. Although in the
reaction from his momentary vengefulness he had undoubtedly swung far
back toward recovering confidence in McClellan, did he dare--painfully
conscious as he was that he "had no military knowledge"--did he dare go
against the Board, disregard its warning that McClellan's arrangements
made of Washington a dangling plum for Confederate raiders to snatch
whenever they pleased. His bewilderment as to what McClellan was really
driving at came back upon him in full force. He reached at last the
dreary conclusion that there was nothing for it but to let the new wheel
within the wheels take its turn at running the machine. Accepting the
view that McClellan had not kept faith on the basis of the orders of
March thirteenth, Lincoln "after much consideration" set aside his own
promise to McClellan and authorized the Secretary of War to detain a
full corps.(26)

McClellan never forgave this mutilation of his army and in time fixed
upon it as the prime cause of his eventual failure on the Peninsula. It
is doubtful whether relations between him and Lincoln were ever again
really cordial.

In their rather full correspondence during the tense days of April, May
and June, the steady deterioration of McClellan's judgment bore him
down into amazing depths of fatuousness. In his own way he was as much
appalled by the growth of his responsibility as ever Lincoln had been.
He moved with incredible caution.*

*Commenting on one of his moments of hesitation, J.S.
Johnston wro