at river
secure, and establishing a pressure on the South between this Western
army and the naval blockade which must slowly have strangled the
Confederacy. He was aware that public impatience might not allow a
rigid adherence to his policy, and in fact, when his view was made
public before Bull Run, "Scott's Anaconda," coiling itself round the
Confederacy, was the subject of general derision. The view of the
Northern public and of the influential men in Congress was in favour of
speedy and, as it was hoped, decisive action, and this was understood
as involving, whatever else was done, an attempt soon to capture
Richmond. In McClellan's view, as in Scott's, the first object was the
full preparation of the Army, but he would have wished to wait till he
had a fully trained force of 273,000 men on the Potomac, and a powerful
fleet with many transports to support his movements; and, when he had
all this, to move southwards in irresistible force, both advancing
direct into Virginia and landing at points on the coast, subduing each
of the Atlantic States of the Confederacy in turn. If the indefinite
delay and the overwhelming force which his fancy pictured could have
been granted him, it is plain, the military critics have said, that "he
could not have destroyed the Southern armies--they would have withdrawn
inland, and the heart of the Confederacy would have remained
untouched." But neither the time nor the force for which he wished
could be allowed him. So he had to put aside his plan, but in some
ways perhaps it still influenced him.

It would have been impossible to disregard the wishes of those, who in
the last resort were masters, for a vigorous attempt on Richmond, and
the continually unsuccessful attempts that were made did serve a
military purpose, for they kept up a constant drain upon the resources
of the South. In any well-thought-out policy the objects both of
Scott's plan and of the popular plan would have been borne in mind.
That no such policy was consistently followed from the first was partly
a result of the long-continued difficulty in finding any younger man
who could adequately take the place of Scott; it was not for a want of
clear ideas, right or wrong, on Lincoln's part.

Only two days after the battle of Bull Run, he put on paper his own
view as to the future employment of the three armies. He thought that
one should "threaten" Richmond; that one should move from Cincinnati,
in Ohio, by a pa