But once more the destiny that is in character intervened, and McClellan’s tragedy reached its climax.  His dread of failure hypnotized his will.  So cautious were his movements that Lee regained Virginia with his army intact.  Lincoln was angry.  Military amateur though he was, he had filled his spare time reading books on strategy, Von Clausewitz and the rest, and he had grasped the idea that war’s aim is not to win technical victories, nor to take cities, but to destroy armies.  He felt that McClellan had thrown away an opportunity of first magnitude.  He removed him from command.(5)

This was six weeks after the two proclamations.  The country was ringing with Abolition plaudits.  The election had given the Democrats a new lease of life.  The anti-Lincoln Republicans were silent while their party enemies with their stolen thunder rang the changes on the presidential abuse of the war powers.  It was a moment of crisis in party politics.  Where did the President stand?  What was the outlook for those men who in the words of Senator Wilson “would rather give a policy to the President of the United States than take a policy from the President of the United States.”

Lincoln’s situation was a close parallel to the situation of July, 1861, when McDowell failed.  Just as in choosing a successor to McDowell, he revealed a political attitude, now, he would again make a revelation choosing a successor to McClellan.  By passing over Fremont and by elevating a Democrat, he had spoken to the furious politicians in the language they understood.  Whatever appointment he now made would be interpreted by those same politicians in the same way.  In the atmosphere of that time, there was but one way for Lincoln to rank himself as a strict party man, to recant his earlier heresy of presidential independence, and say to the Jacobins, “I am with you.”  He must appoint a Republican to succeed McClellan.  Let him do that and the Congressional Cabal would forgive him.  But he did not do it.  He swept political considerations aside and made a purely military appointment Burnside, on whom he fixed, was the friend and admirer of McClellan and might fairly be considered next to him in prestige.  He was loved by his troops.  In the eyes of the army, his elevation represented “a legitimate succession rather than the usurpation of a successful rival."(6) He was modest.  He did not want promotion.  Nevertheless, Lincoln forced him to take McClellan’s place against his will, in spite of his protest that he had not the ability to command so large an army.(7)

When Congress assembled and the Committee resumed its inquisition, Burnside was moving South on his fated march to Fredericksburg.  The Committee watched him like hungry wolves.  Woe to Burnside, woe to Lincoln, if the General failed!  Had the Little Men possessed any sort of vision they would have seized their opportunity to become the President’s supporters.  But they, like the Jacobins, were