done since the battle of Antietam that fatigues anything?” And the next day, after receiving McClellan’s answer to his inquiry, he responded:  “Most certainly I intend no injustice to anyone, and if I have done any I deeply regret it.  To be told, after more than five weeks’ total inaction of the army, and during which period we had sent to that army every fresh horse we possibly could, amounting in the whole to 7,918, that the cavalry horses were too much fatigued to move, presented a very cheerless, almost hopeless, prospect for the future, and it may have forced something of impatience into my despatches.  If not recruited and rested then, when could they ever be? I suppose the river is rising, and I am glad to believe you, are crossing.” But McClellan did not cross; his preparations for a new campaign were not yet complete; and the President, at last losing patience, removed him from command, and put Burnside in his place, November 5, 1862.  And a disastrous step this proved to be.  Burnside was under peremptory orders from Washington to move immediately against the Confederate forces.  The result was the ill-advised attack upon Fredericksburg (December 12, 1862) and Burnside’s bloody repulse.  The movement was made against the judgment of the army officers then, and has been generally condemned by military critics since.  Secretary Welles thus guardedly commented upon it in his Diary:  “It appears to me a mistake to fight the enemy in so strong a position.  They have selected their own ground, and we meet them there.”  But it was McClellan’s unwillingness to do the very thing that Burnside is censured for having done, and that proved so overwhelming a disaster, that was the occasion for McClellan’s removal.

A good illustration of Lincoln’s disappointed, perhaps unreasonable, state of mind before McClellan’s removal is furnished by Hon. O.M.  Hatch, a former Secretary of State of Illinois and an old friend of Lincoln’s.  Mr. Hatch relates that a short time before McClellan’s removal from command he went with President Lincoln to visit the army, still near Antietam.  They reached Antietam late in the afternoon of a very hot day, and were assigned a special tent for their occupancy during the night.  “Early next morning,” says Mr. Hatch, “I was awakened by Mr. Lincoln.  It was very early—­daylight was just lighting the east—­the soldiers were all asleep in their tents.  Scarce a sound could be heard except the notes of early birds, and the farm-yard voices from distant farms.  Lincoln said to me, ’Come, Hatch, I want you to take a walk with me.’  His tone was serious and impressive.  I arose without a word, and as soon as we were dressed we left the tent together.  He led me about the camp, and then we walked upon the surrounding hills overlooking the great city of white tents and sleeping soldiers.  Very little was spoken between us, beyond a few words as to the pleasantness of the morning or similar casual observations.  Lincoln seemed to be peculiarly serious, and his quiet,