He was still more frank with his Secretaries. “’He has acted badly in this matter,’ Lincoln said to Hay, ’but we must use what tools we have.  There is no man in the army who can man these fortifications and lick these troops of ours into shape half as well as he.’  I spoke of the general feeling against McClellan as evinced by the President’s mail.  He rejoined:  ’Unquestionably, he has acted badly toward Pope; he wanted him to fail.  That is unpardonable, but he is too useful now to sacrifice.’"(12) At another time, he said:  “’If he can’t fight himself, he excels in making others ready to fight.’"(13)

McClellan justified Lincoln’s confidence.  In this case, Herndon’s theory of Lincoln’s powers of judgment does not apply.  Though probably unfair on the one point of McClellan’s attitude to Pope, he knew his man otherwise.  Lincoln had also discovered that Halleck, the veriest martinet of a general, was of little value at a crisis.  During the next two months, McClellan, under the direct oversight of the President, was the organizer of victory.

Toward the middle of September, when Lee and McClellan were gradually converging upon the fated line of Antietam Creek, Lincoln’s new firmness was put to the test.  The immediate effect of Manassas was another, a still more vehement outcry for an anti-slavery policy.  A deputation of Chicago clergymen went to Washington for the purpose of urging him to make an anti-slavery pronouncement.  The journey was a continuous ovation.  If at any time Lincoln was tempted to forget Seward’s worldly wisdom, it was when these influential zealots demanded of him to do the very thing he intended to do.  But it was one of the characteristics of this final Lincoln that when once he had fully determined on a course of action, nothing could deflect him.  With consummate coolness he gave them no new light on his purpose.  Instead, he seized the opportunity to “feel” the country.  He played the role of advocate arguing the case against an emancipation policy.(14) They met his argument with great Spirit and resolution.  Taking them as an index, there could be little question that the country was ripe for the new policy.  At the close of the interview Lincoln allowed himself to jest.  One of the clergymen dramatically charged him to give heed to their message as to a direct commission from the Almighty.  “Is it not odd,” said Lincoln, “that the only channel he could send it was that roundabout route by the awfully wicked city of Chicago?"*

* Reminiscences, 335.  This retort is given by Schuyler Colfax.  There are various reports of what Lincoln said.  In another version, “I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable that God would reveal His will to others on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed He would reveal it directly to me.”  Tarbell, II, 12.

Lincoln’s pertinacity, holding fast the program he had accepted, came to its reward.  On the seventeenth