Lincoln was back in Washington the next day.  Another day, and by a sweeping order he created a new army for the protection of Washington, and placed in command of it, a western general who was credited with a brilliant stroke on the Mississippi.(31) No one will now defend the military genius of John Pope.  But when Lincoln sent for him, all the evidence to date appeared to be in his favor.  His follies were yet to appear.  And it is more than likely that in the development of Lincoln’s character, his appointment has a deep significance.  It appears to mark the moment when Lincoln broke out of the cocoon of advisement he had spun unintentionally around his will.  In the sorrows of the grim year, new forces had been generated.  New spiritual powers were coming to his assistance.  At last, relatively, he had found peace.  Worn and torn as he was, after his long inward struggle, few bore so calmly as he did the distracting news from the front in the closing days of June and the opening days of July, when Lee was driving his whole strength like a superhuman battering-ram, straight at the heart of the wavering McClellan.  A visitor at the White House, in the midst of the terrible strain of the Seven Days, found Lincoln “thin and haggard, but cheerful . . . quite as placid as usual . . . his manner was so kindly and so free from the ordinary cocksureness of the politician, and the vanity and self-importance of official position that nothing but good will was inspired by his presence."(32)

His serenity was all the more remarkable as his relations with Congress and the Committee were fast approaching a crisis.  If McClellan failed-and by the showing of his own despatches, there was every reason to expect him to fail, so besotted was he upon the idea that no one could prevail with the force allowed him—­the Committee who were leaders of the congressional party against the presidential party might be expected promptly to measure strength with the Administration.  And McClellan failed.  At that moment Chandler, with the consent of the Committee, was making use of its records preparing a Philippic against the government.  Lincoln, acting on his own initiative, without asking the Secretary of War to accompany him, went immediately to the front.  He passed two days questioning McClellan and his generals.(33) But there was no council of war.  It was a different Lincoln from that other who, just four months previous, had called together the general officers and promised them to abide by their decisions.  He returned to Washington without telling them what he meant to do.

The next day closed a chapter and opened a chapter in the history of the Federal army.  Stanton’s brief and inglorious career as head of the national forces came to an end.  He fell back into his rightful position, the President’s executive officer in military affairs.  Lincoln telegraphed another Western general, Halleck, ordering him to Washington as General-in-Chief.(34) He then, for a season, turned his whole attention from the army to politics.  Five days after the telegram to Halleck, Chandler in the Senate, loosed his insatiable temper in what ostensibly was a denunciation of McClellan, what in point of fact was a sweeping arraignment of the military efficiency of the government.(35)