The patience of the President was at length so far exhausted that on January 27 he wrote his General War Order No.  I, which directed “that the 22d day of February, 1862, be the day for a general movement of all the land and naval forces of the United States against the insurgent forces,” and that the Secretaries of War and of the Navy, the general-in-chief, and all other commanders and subordinates of land and naval forces “will severally be held to their strict and full responsibilities for prompt execution of this order.”  To leave no doubt of his intention that the Army of the Potomac should make a beginning, the President, four days later, issued his Special War Order No.  I, directing that after providing safely for the defense of Washington, it should move against the Confederate army at Manassas Junction, on or before the date announced.

As McClellan had been allowed to have his way almost without question for six months past, it was, perhaps, as much through mere habit of opposition as from any intelligent decision in his own mind that he again requested permission to present his objections to the President’s plan.  Mr. Lincoln, thereupon, to bring the discussion to a practical point, wrote him the following list of queries on February 3: 

“MY DEAR SIR:  You and I have distinct and different plans for a movement of the Army of the Potomac—­yours to be down the Chesapeake, up the Rappahannock to Urbana, and across land to the terminus of the railroad on the York River; mine, to move directly to a point on the railroad southwest of Manassas.

“If you will give me satisfactory answers to the following questions, I shall gladly yield my plan to yours.

“First.  Does not your plan involve a greatly larger expenditure of time and money than mine?”

“Second.  Wherein is a victory more certain by your plan than mine?”

“Third.  Wherein is a victory more valuable by your plan than mine?”

“Fourth.  In fact, would it not be less valuable in this, that it would break no great line of the enemy’s communications, while mine would?”

“Fifth.  In case of disaster, would not a retreat be more difficult by your plan than mine?”

Instead of specifically answering the President’s concise interrogatories, McClellan, on the following day, presented to the Secretary of War a long letter, reciting in much detail his statement of what he had done since coming to Washington, and giving a rambling outline of what he thought might be accomplished in the future prosecution of the war.  His reasoning in favor of an advance by Chesapeake Bay upon Richmond, instead of against Manassas Junction, rests principally upon the assumption that at Manassas the enemy is prepared to resist, while at Richmond there are no preparations; that to win Manassas would give us only the field of battle and the moral effect of a victory, while to win Richmond would give us the rebel capital with its communications and supplies; that at Manassas we would fight on a field chosen by the enemy, while at Richmond we would fight on one chosen by ourselves.  If as a preliminary hypothesis these comparisons looked plausible, succeeding events quickly exposed their fallacy.