was illogical and dangerous. Matters had been allowed to reach a very
advanced stage upon the theory that McClellan's judgment was
trustworthy; then suddenly the stress became more severe, and it seemed
that in the bottom of his mind the President did not thus implicitly
respect the general's wisdom. Yet he did not displace him, but only
opened his ears to other counsels; whereupon the buzz of contradictory,
excited, and alarming suggestions which came to him were more than
enough to unsettle any human judgment. General Webb speaks well and with
authority to this matter: "The dilemma lay here,--whose plans and advice
should he follow, where it was necessary for him to approve and
decide?... Should he lean implicitly on the general actually in command
of the armies, placed there by virtue of his presumed fitness for the
position, or upon other selected advisers? We are bold to say that it
was doubt and hesitation upon this point that occasioned many of the
blunders of the campaign. Instead of one mind, there were many minds
influencing the management of military affairs." A familiar culinary
proverb was receiving costly illustration.

But, setting the dispute aside, an important fact remains: shorn as he
was, McClellan was still strong enough to meet and to defeat his
opponents. If he had been one of the great generals of the world he
would have been in Richmond before May Day; but he was at his old trick
of exaggerating the hostile forces and the difficulties in his way. On
April 7 he thought that Johnston and the whole Confederate army were at
Yorktown; whereas Johnston's advance division arrived there on the 10th;
the other divisions came several days later, and Johnston himself
arrived only on the 14th.

On April 9 Mr. Lincoln presented his own view of the situation in this
letter to the general:--