The President, in his anxious studies and exhaustive discussion with military experts in the recent conferences, fully comprehended that under McClellan’s labored strategical theories lay a fundamental error.  It was not the capture of a place, but the destruction of the rebel armies that was needed to subdue the rebellion.  But Mr. Lincoln also saw the fearful responsibility he would be taking upon himself if he forced McClellan to fight against his own judgment and protest, even though that judgment was incorrect.  The whole subject, therefore, underwent a new and yet more elaborate investigation.  The delay which this rendered necessary was soon greatly lengthened by two other causes.  It was about this time that the telegraph brought news from the West of the surrender of Fort Henry, February 6, the investment of Fort Donelson on the thirteenth, and its surrender on the sixteenth, incidents which absorbed the constant attention of the President and the Secretary of War.  Almost simultaneously, a heavy domestic sorrow fell upon Mr. Lincoln in the serious illness of his son Willie, an interesting and most promising lad of twelve, and his death in the White House on February 20.

When February 22 came, while there was plainly no full compliance with the President’s War Order No.  I, there was, nevertheless, such promise of a beginning, even at Washington, as justified reasonable expectation.  The authorities looked almost hourly for the announcement of two preliminary movements which had been preparing for many days:  one, to attack rebel batteries on the Virginia shore of the Potomac; the other to throw bridges—­one of pontoons, the second a permanent bridge of canal-boats—­across the river at Harper’s Ferry, and an advance by Banks’s division on Winchester to protect the opening of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad and reestablish transportation to and from the West over that important route.

On the evening of February 27, Secretary Stanton came to the President, and, after locking the door to prevent interruption, opened and read two despatches from McClellan, who had gone personally to superintend the crossing.  The first despatch from the general described the fine spirits of the troops, and the splendid throwing of the pontoon bridge by Captain Duane and his three lieutenants, for whom he at once recommended brevets, and the immediate crossing of eighty-five hundred infantry.  This despatch was dated at ten o’clock the previous night.  “The next is not so good,” remarked the Secretary of War.  It stated that the lift lock was too small to permit the canal-boats to enter the river, so that it was impossible to construct the permanent bridge.  He would therefore be obliged to fall back upon the safe and slow plan of merely covering the reconstruction of the railroad, which would be tedious and make it impossible to seize Winchester.

“What does this mean?” asked the President, in amazement.

“It means,” said the Secretary of War, “that it is a damned fizzle.  It means that he doesn’t intend to do anything.”