out exposing your own. You seem to act as if this
applies against you, but can not apply in your favor. Change positions
with the enemy and think you not he would break your communications with
Richmond within the next twenty-four hours. . . .

"If he should move northward, I would follow him closely, holding his
communications. If he should prevent your seizing his communications
and move toward Richmond; I would press closely to him, fight him if a
favorable opportunity should present, and at least try to beat him to
Richmond on the inside track. I say 'try'; if we never try we shall
never succeed. . . . We should not operate so as to merely drive him
away. . . . This letter is in no sense an order."(4)

But once more the destiny that is in character intervened, and
McClellan's tragedy reached its climax. His dread of failure hypnotized
his will. So cautious were his movements that Lee regained Virginia with
his army intact. Lincoln was angry. Military amateur though he was, he
had filled his spare time reading books on strategy, Von Clausewitz
and the rest, and he had grasped the idea that war's aim is not to win
technical victories, nor to take cities, but to destroy armies. He felt
that McClellan had thrown away an opportunity of first magnitude. He
removed him from command.(5)

This was six weeks after the two proclamations. The country was ringing
with Abolition plaudits. The election had given the Democrats a new
lease of life. The anti-Lincoln Republicans were silent while their
party enemies with their stolen thunder rang the changes on the
presidential abuse of the war powers. It was a moment of crisis in party
politics. Where did the President stand? What was the outlook for those
men who in the words of Senator Wilson "would rather give a policy to
the President of the United States than take a policy from the President
of the United States."

Lincoln's situation was a close parallel to the situation of July, 1861,
when McDowell failed. Just as in choosing a successor to McDowell, he
revealed a political attitude, now, he would again make a revelation
choosing a successor to McClellan. By passing over Fremont and by
elevating a Democrat, he had spoken to the furious politicians in the
language they understood. Whatever appointment he now made would be
interpreted by those same politicians in the same way. In the atmosphere
of that time, there was but one way for Lincoln to rank himself as
a strict party