army comprised over two hundred thousand men, and when at last imperatively commanded to move, some-whither,—­at any rate to move,—­he left Washington not sufficiently defended, which necessitated the withdrawal of McDowell’s corps from him to secure the safety of the capital.  Without enumerating or describing the terrible battles on the Peninsula, and the “change of base,” which practically was a retreat, and virtually the confession of failure, it may be said in defence or palliation of McClellan that it afterwards took Grant, with still greater forces, and when the Confederates were weakened and demoralized, a year to do what McClellan was expected to do in three months.

The war had now been going on for more than a year, without any decisive results so far as the Army of the Potomac was concerned, but on the contrary with great disasters and bitter humiliations.  The most prodigious efforts had been made by the Union troops without success, and thus far the Confederates had the best of it, and were filled with triumph.  As yet no Union generals could be compared with Lee, or Johnston, or Longstreet, or Stonewall Jackson, while the men under their command were quite equal to the Northern soldiers in bravery and discipline.

The times were dark and gloomy at the North, and especially so to the President, as commander-in-chief of the army and navy, after all the energies he put forth in the general direction of affairs.  He was maligned and misrepresented and ridiculed; yet he opened not his mouth, and kept his soul in patience,—­magnanimous, forbearing, and modest.  In his manners and conduct, though intrusted with greater powers than any American before him had ever exercised, he showed no haughtiness, no resentments, no disdain, but was accessible to everybody who had any claim on his time, and was as simple and courteous as he had been in a private station.  But what anxieties, what silent grief, what a burden, had he to bear!  And here was his greatness, which endeared him to the American heart,—­that he usurped no authority, offended no one, and claimed nothing, when most men, armed as he was with almost unlimited authority, would have been reserved, arrogant, and dictatorial.  He did not even assume the cold dignity which Washington felt it necessary to put on, but shook hands, told stories, and uttered jokes, as if he were without office on the prairies of Illinois; yet all the while resolute in purpose and invincible in spirit,—­an impersonation of logical intellect before which everybody succumbed, as firm, when he saw his way clear, as Bismarck himself.

His tact in managing men showed his native shrewdness and kindliness, as well as the value of all his early training in the arts of the politician.  Always ready to listen, and to give men free chance to relieve their minds in talk, he never directly antagonized their opinions, but, deftly embodying an argument in an apt joke or story, would manage to switch them off from their track to his own without their exactly perceiving the process.  His innate courtesy often made him seem uncertain of his ground, but he probably had his own way quite as frequently as Andrew Jackson, and without that irascible old fighter’s friction.