n at Harrison's Landing on July 25th,
however, and promised him that if the armies should be promptly
reunited, he (McClellan) should command the whole, with Burnside and
Pope as his subordinates. [Footnote: McC. Own Story, p. 474;
Official Records, vol. xi. pt. iii. p. 360.] That he did not inform
Pope of this abdication of his generalship in the field is plain
from Pope's correspondence during the campaign. It is made
indisputably clear by Pope's letter to him of the 25th of August.
[Footnote: _Id_., vol. xii. pt. ii. pp. 65, 66.] He probably did not
tell the President or Mr. Stanton of it. He seems to have waited for
the union of the parts of the army, and when that came his prestige
was forever gone, and he had become, what he remained to the close
of the war, a bureau officer in Washington. He had ordered the
transfer of the Potomac Army from the James to Acquia Creek,
intending to unite it with Burnside's at Falmouth, opposite
Fredericksburg, and thus begin a fresh advance from the line of the
Rappahannock. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xii. pt. ii. p. 5;
vol. xi. pt. i. pp. 80-84; _Id_., pt. iii. p. 337.] He believed, and
apparently with reason, that ten days was sufficient to complete
this transfer with the means at McClellan's disposal, but at the end
of ten days the movement had not yet begun. [Footnote: The order was
given August 3; the movement began August 14. _Id_., pt. i. pp. 80,
89.] He was right in thinking that the whole army should be united.
McClellan thought the same. The question was where and how.
McClellan said, "Send Pope's men to me." Halleck replied that it
would not do to thus uncover Washington. McClellan had said that
vigorous advance upon the enemy by his army and a victory would best
protect the capital. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xii. pt. ii. pp. 9, 10.]
Again he was right, but he seemed incapable of a vigorous advance.
Had he made it when he knew (on July 30) that Jackson had gone
northward with thirty thousand men to resist Pope's advance, his
army would not have been withdrawn. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xi. pt.
iii. p. 342.] He was then nearly twice as strong as Lee, but he did
not venture even upon a forced reconnoissance. The situation of the
previous year was repeated. He was allowing himself to be besieged
by a fraction of his own force. Grant would have put himself into
the relation to McClellan which he sustained to Meade in 1864, and
would have infused his own energy into the army