of
earthly praise or blame, we may well honor their memory and credit each
with having done the best he could to serve his country.

McClellan was appointed to the command of the Union armies upon the
retirement of the veteran General Scott, in November of 1861. He had
been but a captain in the regular army, but his high reputation and
brilliant soldierly qualities had led to his being sent abroad to study
the organization and movements of European armies; and this brought him
into prominence as a military man. It was soon after McClellan took
command that President Lincoln began giving close personal attention to
the direction of military affairs. He formed a plan of operations
against the Confederate army defending Richmond, which differed entirely
from the plan proposed by McClellan. The President's plan was, in
effect, to repeat the Bull Run expedition by moving against the enemy in
Virginia at or hear Manassas. McClellan preferred a transference of the
army to the region of the lower Chesapeake, thence moving up the
Peninsula by the shortest land route to Richmond. (This was a movement,
it may be remarked, which was finally carried out before Richmond fell
in 1865.) The President discussed the relative merits of the two plans
in the following frank and explicit letter to McClellan:

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, D.C.,
February 3, 1862.

MAJOR-GENERAL MCCLELLAN.

MY DEAR SIR: You and I have distinct and different plans for a
movement of the Army of the Potomac; yours to be done by the
Chesapeake, up the Rappahannock to Urbana, and across to the
terminus of the railroad on the York river; mine to move directly
to a point on the railroad southwest of Manassas. If you will give
me satisfactory answers to the following questions, I shall gladly
yield my plan to yours:

1st. Does your plan involve a greatly larger expenditure of _time_
and _money_ than mine?

2d. Wherein is a victory more certain by your plan than mine?

3d. Wherein is a victory _more valuable_ by your plan than mine?

4th. In fact, would it not be _less_ valuable in this, that it
would break no great line of the enemy's communication, while mine
would?

5th. In case of a disaster, would not a retreat be more difficult
by your plan than mine?

Yours truly, ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

To this communication McClellan made an elaborate reply, discussing