e corps
were sent forward to Warrenton to join Pope. When Pope's
communication with Washington was cut, it was only through Burnside
that the government could hear of him for several days, and in
response to the calls for news he telegraphed copies of Porter's
dispatches to him. Like McClellan's private letters, these
dispatches told more of the writer's mind and heart than would
willingly have been made public. Burnside's careless outspoken
frankness as to his own opinions was such that he probably did not
reflect what reticences others might wish to have made. Perhaps he
also thought that Porter's sarcasms on Pope, coming from one who had
gained much reputation in the peninsula, would be powerful in
helping to reinstate McClellan. At any rate, the dispatches were the
only news from the battle-field he could send the President in
answer to his anxious inquiries, and he sent them. They were the
cause of Mr. Lincoln's request to McClellan, on September 1st, that
he would write Porter and other friends begging them to give Pope
loyal support. They were also the most damaging evidence against
Porter in his subsequent court-martial.

Before the Maryland campaign began, Mr. Lincoln again urged upon
Burnside the command of the army, and he again declined, warmly
advocating McClellan's retention as before. [Footnote: C. W., vol.
i. p. 650.] His advocacy was successful, as I have already stated.
[Footnote: _Ante_, p. 257.] The arrangement that Burnside and Sumner
were to command wings of the army of at least two corps each, was
made before we left Washington, and Burnside's subordinates, Hooker
and Reno, were, by direction of the President, assigned to corps
commands through orders from army headquarters. [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. pp. 188, 197.] McClellan did not publish
to the Army of the Potomac this assignment of Burnside and Sumner
till the 14th of September, though it had been acted upon from the
beginning of the campaign. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 290.] On the evening
of the same day Porter's corps joined the army at South Mountain,
and before the advance was resumed on the following morning, the
order was again suspended and Burnside reduced to the command of a
single corps. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 297.] I have already suggested
Hooker's relation to this, and only note at this point the
coincidence, if it was nothing more, that the first evidence of any
change in McClellan's friendship toward Burnside occu