offhand way, and Seward made a suggestion that instantly riveted Lincoln’s attention.  Seward thought the moment was ill-chosen.  “If the Proclamation were issued now, it would be received and considered as a despairing cry—­a shriek from and for the Administration, rather than for freedom."(4) He added the picturesque phrase, “The government stretching forth its hands to Ethiopia, instead of Ethiopia stretching forth her hands to the government.”  This idea struck Lincoln with very great force.  It was an aspect of the case “which he had entirely overlooked."(5) He accepted Seward’s advice, laid aside the proclamation he had drafted and turned again with all his energies to the organization of victory.

The next day Halleck arrived at Washington.  He was one of Lincoln’s mistakes.  However, in his new mood, Lincoln was resolved to act on his own opinion of the evidence before him, especially in estimating men.  It is just possible that this epoch of his audacities began in a reaction; that after too much self-distrust, he went briefly to the other extreme, indulging in too much self-confidence.  Be that as it may, he had formed exaggerated opinions of both these Western generals, Halleck and Pope.  Somehow, in the brilliant actions along the Mississippi they had absorbed far more than their fair share of credit.  Particularly, Lincoln went astray with regard to Pope.  Doubtless a main reason why he accepted the plan of campaign suggested by Halleck was the opportunity which it offered to Pope.  Perhaps, too, the fatality in McClellan’s character turned the scale.  He begged to be left where he was with his base on James River, and to be allowed to renew the attack on Richmond.1 But he did not take the initiative.  The government must swiftly hurry up reinforcements, and then—­the old, old story!  Obviously, it was a question at Washington either of superseding McClellan and leaving the army where it was, or of shifting the army to some other commander without in so many words disgracing McClellan.  Halleck’s approval of the latter course jumped with two of Lincoln’s impulses—­his trust in Pope, his reluctance to disgrace McClellan.  Orders were issued transferring the bulk of the army of the Potomac to the new army of Virginia lying south of Washington under the command of Pope.  McClellan was instructed to withdraw his remaining forces from the Peninsula and retrace his course up the Potomac.(6)

Lincoln had committed one of his worst blunders.  Herndon has a curious, rather subtle theory that while Lincoln’s judgments of men in the aggregate were uncannily sure, his judgments of men individually were unreliable.  It suggests the famous remark of Goethe that his views of women did not derive from experience; that they antedated experience; and that he corrected experience by them.  Of the confessed artist this may be true.  The literary concept which the artist works with is often, apparently, a more constant, more fundamental, more significant