r
experience, though valuable, was worth its cost. He does not seem to
have been among the number of those who expected that the great
insurrection would be put down in a few months. Like every one else,
he was at first smitten with that glamour which the Western soldiers,
led by Grant, soon learned to call "McClellanism." It was with genuine
admiration that he noticed the untiring industry and superb organizing
powers of "Little Mac;" who, whatever his later faults may have been,
was the man who transformed a mob of militia into that splendid
machine animated by an unquailing soul, "The Army of the Potomac." Yet
in the cool light of history, we must rate Gen. George B. McClellan as
the military Erasmus of this war of national reformation, while Grant
was its Luther.

Late in August, after ten days' rest at home to recruit exhausted
energies, Carleton was once more at his post in the "City of
Magnificent Distances--and big lies," attempting to draw out the truth
from whole maelstroms of falsehood. He writes: "Truly this is a city
given to lying." He had a habit of hunting down falsehoods, of tracing
rumors to their holes. Many an hour in the blazing sun, consuming his
strength, did this hater of lies spend in chasing empty breaths. Once
he rode forty miles on horseback, simply to confirm or reject an
assertion. Very early, however, he learned to put every report upon
the touchstone, and under the nitric acid of criticism. He quickly
gained experience, and saved much vexation to himself and his readers.
In this way his letters became what they are, like coins put in the
pyx, and mintage that survives the best of the goldsmiths. When read
thirty-five years after the first drying of the ink, we have a
standard of truth, needing correction, for the most part, only here
and there, in such details as men clearly discern only in the
perspective of time.

Under McClellan's strict orders, Washington became less of a national
bar-room. The camps were made models of cleanliness, hygiene, and
comfort, and schools of strict preparation for the stern work ahead.
Carleton often rode through them, and out on the picket-line. Among
his other studies, being a musician, he soon learned the various notes
and tones of round and conical bullet, of globular and case shot, of
shell and rocket, as an Indian learns the various sounds and calls of
birds and beasts. Never wearing eye-glasses, until very late in life,
and then only for reading,