to overwhelm much less than half of his army.  These considerations should have encouraged him to energetic measures.  But no encouragement could counteract the discouragement inflicted by the loss of McDowell’s powerful corps and the consequent wrecking of his latest plan.  Nearly to the end of June he lay immovable.  “June 14, midnight.  All quiet in every direction,”—­thus he telegraphed to Stanton in words intended to be reassuring, but in fact infinitely vexatious.  Was he, then, set at the head of this great and costly host of the nation’s best, to rest satisfied with preserving an eternal quietude,—­like a chief of police in a disorderly quarter?  Still he was indefatigable in declaring himself outnumbered, and in demanding more troops; in return he got assurances, with only the slight fulfillment of McCall’s division.  Every two or three days he cheeringly announced to the administration that he was on the verge of advancing, but he never passed over the verge.  Throughout a season in which blundering seemed to become epidemic, no blunder was greater than his quiescence at this time.[23] As if to emphasize it, about the middle of June General Stuart, with a body of Confederate cavalry, actually rode all around the Union army, making the complete circuit and crossing its line of communication with White House without interruption.  The foray achieved little, but it wore the aspect of a signal and unavenged insult.

In Washington the only powerful backing upon which McClellan could still rely was that of the President, and he was surely wearing away the patience of his only friend by the irritating attrition of promises ever reiterated and never redeemed.  No man ever kept his own counsel more closely than did Mr. Lincoln, and the indications of his innermost sentiments concerning McClellan at this time are rare.  But perhaps a little ray is let in, as through a cranny, by a dispatch which he sent to the general on June 2:  “With these continuous rains I am very anxious about the Chickahominy,—­so close in your rear, and crossing your line of communication.  Please look to it.”  This curt prompting on so obvious a point was a plain insinuation against McClellan’s military competence, and suggests that ceaseless harassment had at last got the better of Lincoln’s usually imperturbable self-possession; for it lacked little of being an insult, and Mr. Lincoln, in all his life, never insulted any man.  As a spot upon a white cloth sets off the general whiteness, so this dispatch illustrates Lincoln’s unweariable patience and long-suffering without parallel.  McClellan, never trammeled by respect, retorted sharply:  “As the Chickahominy has been almost the only obstacle in my way for several days, your excellency may rest assured that it has not been overlooked.”  When finally the general became active, it was under the spur of General Jackson, not of President Lincoln.  Jackson compelled him to decide and act; and the result was his famous southward movement to the James River.