that the appointment of Wadsworth was desirable for political reasons.  He added that it would be made whether McClellan liked it or not.  And made it was.(22) Furthermore, Wadsworth, who had previously professed friendship for McClellan, promptly joined the ranks of his enemies.  Can any one doubt, Stanton being Stanton, mad with distrust of McClellan, that Wadsworth was fully informed of McClellan’s opposition to his advancement?

On the second of April Wadsworth threw a bomb after the vanishing McClellan, then aboard his steamer somewhere between Washington and Fortress Monroe.  Wadsworth informed Stanton that McClellan had not carried out the orders of March thirteenth, that the force he had left at Washington was inadequate to its safety, that the capital was “uncovered.”  Here was a chance for Stanton to bring to bear on Lincoln both those unofficial councils that were meddling so deeply in the control of the army.  He threw this firebrand of a report among his satellites of the Army Board and into the midst of the Committee.2(3)

It is needless here to go into the furious disputes that ensued-the accusations, the recriminations, the innuendoes!  McClellan stoutly insisted that he had obeyed both the spirit and the letter of March thirteenth; that Washington was amply protected.  His enemies shrieked that his statements were based on juggled figures; that even if the number of soldiers was adequate, the quality and equipment were wretched; in a word that he lied.  It is a shame-less controversy inconceivable were there not many men in whom politics and prejudice far outweighed patriotism.  In all this, Hitchcock was Stanton’s trump card.  He who had refused to advise McClellan, did not hesitate to denounce him.  In response to a request from Stanton, he made a report sustaining Wadsworth.  The Committee summoned Wadsworth before it; he read them his report to Stanton; reiterated its charges, and treated them to some innuendoes after their own hearts, plainly hinting that McClellan could have crushed the Confederates at Manassas if he had wished to.(24)

A wave of hysteria swept the Committee and the War Office and beat fiercely upon Lincoln.  The Board charged him to save the day by mulcting the army of the Potomac of an entire corps, retaining it at Washington.  Lincoln met the Board in a long and troubled conference.  His anxious desire to do all he could for McClellan was palpable.(25) But what, under the circumstances, could he do?  Here was this new device for the steadying of his judgment, this Council of Experts, singing the same old tune, assuring him that McClellan was not to be trusted.  Although in the reaction from his momentary vengefulness he had undoubtedly swung far back toward recovering confidence in McClellan, did he dare—­painfully conscious as he was that he “had no military knowledge”—­did he dare go against the Board, disregard its warning that McClellan’s arrangements made of Washington