anized the largest and most
important of the Union armies, and was its first commander in the field.
He was one of the two out of the five commanders of the Army of the
Potomac, before Grant, who led that army to victory; the other three
having led it only to disastrous defeat. Great things were expected of
him; and when he failed to realize the extravagant expectations of those
who thought the war should be ended within a year, he received equally
extravagant condemnation. It is noticeable that this condemnation came
chiefly from civilians--from politicians, from Congress, from the press:
not the best judges of military affairs. His own army--the men who were
with him on the battlefield and risked their lives and their cause under
his leadership--never lost faith in him. Of all the commanders of the
Army of the Potomac, he was the one most believed in by his troops. Even
after his removal, at a grand review of the army by the President, after
the battle of Fredericksburg, it was not for the new commander,
Burnside, but the old commander, McClellan, that the troops gave their
heartiest cheers. It is worth remembering also that the war was not
ended until two and a half years after McClellan's retirement, and until
trial after trial had been made and failure after failure had been met
in the effort to find a successful leader for our armies. The initial
task of organization, of creating a great army in the field, fell upon
him--a task so well performed that General Meade, his first efficient
successor, said, "Had there been no McClellan there could have been no
Grant, for the army [organization] made no essential improvements under
any of his successors." And Grant, the last and finally victorious of
these successors--who was at one time criticized as being "as great a
discouragement as McClellan"--recorded in his Memoirs the conviction
(already quoted in these pages) that the conditions under which
McClellan worked were fatal to success, and that he himself could not
have succeeded in his place under those conditions.

It is not in the province of the present narrative to enter into a
consideration of the merits or demerits of McClellan as a soldier, but
to treat of his personal relations with President Lincoln. Between the
two men, notwithstanding many sharp differences of opinion and of
policy, there seems to have been a feeling of warm personal friendship
and sincere respect. Now that both have passed beyond the reach