If they cannot help you, then bear your burden, as we all must, until this war is over.  Everything must yield to the paramount duty of finishing the war.”  Colonel Scott withdrew, crushed and overwhelmed.  The next morning, as he sat in his hotel pondering upon his troubles, he heard a rap at his door, and opening it found to his surprise the President standing before him.  Grasping his hands impulsively and sympathetically, Lincoln broke out:  “My dear Colonel, I was a brute last night.  I have no excuse for my conduct.  Indeed, I was weary to the last extent; but I had no right to treat a man with rudeness who had offered his life for his country, much more a man who came to me in great affliction.  I have had a regretful night, and come now to beg your forgiveness.”  He added that he had just seen Secretary Stanton, and all the details were arranged for sending the Colonel down the Potomac and recovering the body; then, taking him in his carriage, he drove to the steamer’s wharf, where, again pressing his hand, he wished him God-speed on his sad errand.

Such were Lincoln’s harrowing experiences; and thus did his noble and sympathetic nature assert itself over his momentary weakness and depression.

In August of 1862 General McClellan was ordered to withdraw his army from the Peninsula.  “With a heavy heart,” says McClellan, “I relinquished the position gained at the cost of so much time and blood.”  Without being removed from his command, his troops were taken away from him and sent to join General Pope, who had been placed in command of a considerable force in Virginia, for the purpose of trying the President’s favorite plan of an advance on Richmond by way of Manassas.  Either from a confusion of orders or a lack of zeal in executing them, the Union forces failed to co-operate; and Pope’s expected victory (Manassas, August 30) proved a disastrous and humiliating defeat.  His army was beaten and driven back on Washington in a rout little less disgraceful than that of Bull Run a year before.  This battle came to be known as the “Second Bull Run.”

Thus the autumn of 1862 set in amidst gloom, disorder, and dismay.  Our armies in and around the national capital were on the defensive; while the victorious Lee, following up his successes at Manassas, was invading Maryland and threatening Washington and the North.  The President was anxious; the Cabinet and Congress were alarmed.  The troops had lost confidence in General Pope, and there was practically no one in chief command.  The situation was most critical; but Lincoln faced it, as he always did, unflinchingly.  He took what he felt to be the wisest and at the same time the most unpopular step possible under the circumstances:  he placed McClellan in command of all the troops in and around Washington.  It was a bold act, and required no ordinary amount of moral courage and self-reliance.  Outside the army, it was about the most unpopular thing that could have been done.  McClellan was