the
Republic, and in so doing he will not be considered by any
right-minded person as casting any reflection upon that loyalty and
good conduct which has been so fully illustrated upon so many
battle-fields.

In carrying out all measures of public policy, this army will of
course be guided by the same rules of mercy and Christianity that
have ever controlled its conduct toward the defenceless.

By Command of Major-General McClellan,
JAS. A. HARDIE,
Lieutenant-Colonel, Aide-de-camp, and Act'g Ass't Adj't Gen'l."]

I have always understood that the order was drafted by Colonel Key,
who afterward expressed in very strong terms his confidence in the
high motives and progressive tendencies of McClellan at the time he
issued it.

General Cochrane, some time after the close of the war, in a
pamphlet outlining his own military history, made reference to the
visit to McClellan which I have narrated, and states that he was so
greatly impressed by the anti-slavery sentiments avowed by the
general, that he made use of them in a subsequent effort to bring
him and Secretary Chase into more cordial relations. [Footnote: The
War for the Union, Memoir by General John Cochrane, pp. 29-31.] It
is possible that, in a friendly comparison of views in which we were
trying to find how nearly we could come together, the general may
have put his opinions with a liberality which outran his ordinary
statements of belief; but I am very sure that he gave every evidence
of sincerity, and that none of us entertained a doubt of his being
entirely transparent with us. He has since, in his "Own Story,"
referred to his taking counsel of Mr. Aspinwall of New York at about
the same time, and there is evidence that General W. F. Smith also
threw his influence against any opposition by McClellan to the
Emancipation Proclamation. [Footnote: Nicolay and Hay's Lincoln,
vol. vi. p. 180.] McClellan's letters show that his first impulse
was to antagonism; but there is no fair reason to doubt that his
action at last was prompted by the reasons which he avowed in our
conversation, and by the honorable motives he professed. He
immediately sent a copy of his order to Mr. Lincoln personally, and
this indicates that he believed the President would be pleased with
it.

The reference which he made to suggestions that the army would
follow him in a _coup d'e'tat_ is supported by what he formally
declared in his memoirs. He there tells us that in 1861 he was often