one time placed at his disposal. No general since Napoleon
has ever so gained the love of his soldiers or so inspired them with
confidence in his will and ability to _take care of them and to
accomplish what he was set to do, if not interfered with_. Their
favorite reply to any suspicion of danger to any corps, was: "Little Mac
will take care of us!" and to any doubt of the success of the campaign:
"Little Mac knows what he is about!" Blind confidence, perhaps!--but
such confidence, or something approaching it, must be commanded by
personal qualities, or great operations in war can never be
accomplished.

[Footnote 12: February 16th, 1863.]

At no time during the Peninsular campaign has the commanding General so
fully commanded the confidence of the soldiers, as during all those
severe battles afterwards to be known as the Seven Days. His calm and
collected action had been of the very character to inspire that
confidence, and could not have wrought more effectually to that end had
it had no other purpose. Some men, jubilant and light-hearted when all
their plans are progressing favorably, permit their words to become few
and their manner sombre and abstracted when difficulties thicken,
creating fear and distrust in the minds of those around them, even when
they themselves have not lost confidence and are only absorbed in
thought. McClellan, always a silent man, displayed the very opposite.
One of his staff officers said of him on that terrible Friday afternoon
of the first conflict, when the result certainly seemed a most
threatening one for the Union arms: "Little Mac seems to have woke up! I
have not seen him look so happy before, since he received the news of
McDowell's falling back on Washington." And there had not been wanting
those to circulate throughout the army his confident and self-possessed
action on the morning before--that of White Oak Swamp, when he sat on
horseback at the cross-roads, with aid-de-camps dashing up with
unfavorable reports, and heads of divisions a little embarrassed if not
dispirited around him. "Gentlemen, take it easy! Only obey me, and I
will bring you out of all this without the loss of a man or a gun, God
willing!"

Such words had been like the pause of the Bruce to cut his armor-strap
when flying before the English enemy--they had inspirited the whole
command. He had remained, too, the whole of Monday, in the neighborhood
of the White Oak Swamp, personally superintending everyth