The earliest display of this eagerness to see traitors in every bush concerned a skirmish that took place at Ball’s Bluff in Virginia.  It was badly managed and the Federal loss, proportionately, was large.  The officer held responsible was General Stone.  Unfortunately for him, he was particularly obnoxious to the Abolitionists; he had returned fugitive slaves; and when objection was made by such powerful Abolitionists as Governor Andrew of Massachusetts, Stone gave reign to a sharp tongue.  In the early days of the session, Roscoe Conkling told the story of Ball’s Bluff for the benefit of Congress in a brilliant, harrowing speech.  In a flash the rumor spread that the dead at Ball’s Bluff were killed by design, that Stone was a traitor, that—­perhaps!—­who could say?—­there were bigger traitors higher up.  Stone was summoned before the Inquisition.(6)

While Stone was on the rack, metaphorically, while the Committee was showing him every brutality in its power, refusing to acquaint him with the evidence against him, intimating that they were able to convict him of treason, between the fifth and the eleventh of January a crisis arose in the War Office.  Cameron had failed to ingratiate himself with the rising powers.  Old political enemies in Congress were implacable.  Scandals in his Department gave rise to sweeping charges of peculation.

There is scarcely another moment when Lincoln’s power was so precarious.  In one respect, in their impatience, the Committee reflected faithfully the country at large.  And by the irony of fate McClellan at this crucial hour, had fallen ill.  After waiting for his recovery during several weeks, Lincoln ventured with much hesitation to call a conference of generals.(7) They were sitting during the Stone investigation, producing no result except a distraction in councils, devising plans that were thrown over the moment the Commanding General arose from his bed.  A vote in Congress a few days previous had amounted to a censure of the Administration.  It was taken upon the Crittenden Resolution which had been introduced a second time.  Of those who had voted for it in July, so many now abandoned the Administration that this resolution, the clear embodiment of Lincoln’s policy, was laid on the table, seventy-one to sixty-five.(8) Lincoln’s hope for an all-parties government was receiving little encouragement The Democrats were breaking into factions, while the control of their party organization was falling into the hands of a group of inferior politicians who were content to “play politics” in the most unscrupulous fashion.  Both the Secretary of War and the Secretary of State had authorized arbitrary arrests.  Men in New York and New England had been thrown into prison.  The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus had been denied them on the mere belief of the government that they were conspiring with its enemies.  Because of these arrests, sharp criticism was being aimed at the Administration both within and without Congress.