him, and whether he did so without
losing his broad view or surrendering his ultimate purpose. It is
really no small proof of strength that, with the definite judgments
which he constantly formed, he very rarely indeed gave imperative
orders as Commander-in-Chief, which he was, to any general. The
circumstances, all of which will soon appear, in which he was tempted
or obliged to do so, are only the few marked exceptions to his habitual
conduct. There are significant contrary instances in which he
abstained even from seeking to know his general's precise intentions.
At the time which has just been reviewed, when the scheme of the war
was in the making, his correspondence with Buell and Halleck shows his
fundamental intention. He emphatically abstains from forcing them; he
lucidly, though not so tactfully as later, urges his own view upon the
consideration of his general, begging him, not necessarily to act upon
it, but at least to see the point, and if he will not do what is
wished, to form and explain as clearly a plan for doing something
better.

2. _The War in the West Up to May, 1862_.

The pressure upon McClellan to move grew stronger and indeed more
justifiable month after month, and when at last, in March, 1862,
McClellan did move, the story of the severest adversity to the North,
of Lincoln's sorest trials, and, some still say, his gravest failures,
began. Its details will concern us more than those of any other part
of the war. But events in the West began earlier, proceeded faster,
and should be told first. Buell could not obtain from McClellan
permission to carry out his own scheme. He did, however, obtain
permission for Halleck, if he consented, to send flotillas up the
Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers to make a diversion while Buell, as
Lincoln had proposed and as McClellan had now ordered, marched upon
Eastern Tennessee. Halleck would not move. Buell prepared to move
alone, and in January, 1862, sent forward a small force under Thomas to
meet an equally small Confederate force that had advanced through
Cumberland Gap into Eastern Kentucky. Thomas won a complete victory,
most welcome as the first success since the defeat of Bull Run, at a
place called Mill Springs, far up the Cumberland River towards the
mountains. But at the end of January, while Buell was following up
with his forces rather widely dispersed because he expected no support
from Halleck, he was brought to a stop, for Halleck,