te to Lee: "No one but McClellan could have
hesitated to attack." 14 O. R., 416.

His despatches were a continual wailing for more men. Whatever went
wrong was at once blamed on Washington. His ill-usage had made him
bitter. And he could not escape the fact that his actual performance did
not come up to expectation; that he was constantly out-generaled. His
prevailing temper during these days is shown in a letter to his wife.
"I have raised an awful row about McDowell's corps. The President very
coolly telegraphed me yesterday that he thought I ought to break the
enemy's lines at once. I was much tempted to reply that he had better
come and do it himself." A despatch to Stanton, in a moment of disaster,
has become notorious: "If I save this army now, I tell you plainly I owe
no thanks to you or to any other persons in Washington. You have done
your best to sacrifice this army."(27)

Throughout this preposterous correspondence, Lincoln maintained the
even tenor of his usual patient stoicism, "his sad lucidity of soul."
He explained; he reasoned; he promised, over and over, assistance to the
limit of his power; he never scolded; when complaint became too absurd
to be reasoned with, he passed it over in silence. Again, he was
the selfless man, his sensibilities lost in the purpose he sought to
establish.

Once during this period, he acted suddenly, on the spur of the moment,
in a swift upflaring of his unconquerable fear for the safety of
Washington. Previously, he had consented to push the detained corps,
McDowell's, southward by land to cooperate with McClellan, who adapted
his plans to this arrangement. Scarcely had he done so, than
Lincoln threw his plans into confusion by ordering McDowell back to
Washington.(28) Jackson, who had begun his famous campaign of menace,
was sweeping like a whirlwind down the Shenandoah Valley, and in the
eyes of panic-struck Washington appeared to be a reincarnation of
Southey's Napoleon,--

"And the great Few-Faw-Fum, would presently come,
With a hop, skip and jump"

into Pennsylvania Avenue. As Jackson's object was to bring McDowell back
to Washington and enable Johnston to deal with McClellan unreinforced,
Lincoln had fallen into a trap. But he had much company. Stanton was
well-nigh out of his head. Though Jackson's army was less than fifteen
thousand and the Union forces in front of him upward of sixty thousand,
Stanton telegraphed to Northern governors imploring