success was a
ruling one with him on both public and private grounds. We are
forced, therefore, to conclude that he actually lacked faith in
success, and regarded the crossing of the Potomac as too perilous
until he should reorganize the army with the additional hundred
thousand recruits. In this we see the ever-recurring effect of his
exaggeration of the enemy's force. We now know that this
over-estimate was inexcusable, but we cannot deny that he made it,
nor, altogether, that he believed in it. It constituted a
disqualification for such a command, and led to what must be
regarded as the inevitable result,--his removal. The political
questions connected with the matter cut no important figure in it.
If he had had faith in his ability to conquer Lee's army, we should
never have heard of them.

Whilst I mean what I say in speaking of McClellan's exaggeration of
his enemy as constituting incompetence for such a command, it has
reference to the necessity in which we were that our army should be
aggressively handled. Few men could excel him in strictly defensive
operations. He did not lack personal courage, nor did his
intellectual powers become obscured in the excitement of actual war.
He showed the ordinary evidences of presence of mind and coolness of
judgment under fire. His tendency to see his enemy doubled in force
was, however, a constitutional one, and no amount of experience
seemed to cure it. Had it not been so he would have devised checks
upon the reports of his secret-service agents, and corrected their
estimates by those more reliable methods which I have already spoken
of. McClellan was, even in those days, often compared to Marshal
Daun, whose fair ability but studiously defensive policy was so in
contrast with the daring strategy of the great Frederick. The
comparison was a fair one. The trouble was that we had need of a
Frederick.

It may seem strange that his subordinates so generally accepted his
view and supported him in his conduct; but it was a natural result
of forces always at work in an army. The old maxim that "Councils of
war never fight" is only another way of saying that an army is never
bolder than its leader. It is the same as the old Greek proverb,
"Better an army of deer with a lion for leader, than an army of
lions with a deer for leader." The body of men thus organized relies
upon its chief for the knowledge of the enemy and for the plan by
which the enemy is to be taken at a disadva