“And the great Few-Faw-Fum, would presently come,
     With a hop, skip and jump”

into Pennsylvania Avenue.  As Jackson’s object was to bring McDowell back to Washington and enable Johnston to deal with McClellan unreinforced, Lincoln had fallen into a trap.  But he had much company.  Stanton was well-nigh out of his head.  Though Jackson’s army was less than fifteen thousand and the Union forces in front of him upward of sixty thousand, Stanton telegraphed to Northern governors imploring them to hasten forward militia because “the enemy in great force are marching on Washington."(29)

The moment Jackson had accomplished his purpose, having drawn a great army northwestward away from McClellan, most of which should have been marching southeastward to join McClellan, he slipped away, rushed his own army across the whole width of Virginia, and joined Lee in the terrible fighting of the Seven Days before Richmond.

In the midst of this furious confusion, the men surrounding Lincoln may be excused for not observing a change in him.  They have recorded his appearance of indecision, his solicitude over McClellan, his worn and haggard look.  The changing light in those smoldering fires of his deeply sunken eyes escaped their notice.  Gradually, through profound unhappiness, and as always in silence, Lincoln was working out of his last eclipse.  No certain record of his inner life during this transition, the most important of his life, has survived.  We can judge of it only by the results.  The outstanding fact with regard to it is a certain change of attitude, an access of determination, late in June.  What desperate wrestling with the angel had taken place in the months of agony since his son’s death, even his private secretaries have not felt able to say.  Neither, apparently, did they perceive, until it flashed upon them full-blown, the change that was coming over his resolution.  Nor did the Cabinet have any warning that the President was turning a corner, developing a new phase of himself, something sterner, more powerful than anything they had suspected.  This was ever his way.  His instinctive reticence stood firm until the moment of the new birth.  Not only the Cabinet but the country was amazed and startled, when, late in June, the President suddenly left Washington.  He made a flying trip to West Point where Scott was living in virtual retirement.(30) What passed between the two, those few hours they spent together, that twenty-fourth of June, 1862, has never been divulged.  Did they have any eyes, that day, for the wonderful prospect from the high terrace of the parade ground; for the river so far below, flooring the valley with silver; for the mountains pearl and blue?  Did they talk of Stanton, of his waywardness, his furies?  Of the terrible Committee?  Of the way Lincoln had tied his own hands, brought his will to stalemate, through his recognition of the unofficial councils?  Who knows?