A collateral question was: What should be done next? McClellan,
tenacious and stubborn, was for persisting in the movement against Lee's
army and Richmond. He admitted no other thought than that, having paused
to gather reinforcements and to refresh his army, he should assume the
offensive, approaching the city by the south and southwest from the
James River base. Holding this purpose, he was impolitic in sending very
dolorous dispatches on July 4 and 7, intimating doubts as to his power
to maintain successfully even the defensive. Two or three days later,
however, he assumed a better tone; and on July 11 and 12 he reported
"all in fine spirits," and urged that his army should be "promptly
reinforced and thrown again upon Richmond. If we have a little more
than half a chance, we can take it." He continued throughout the month
to press these views by arguments which, though overruled at the time,
have since been more favorably regarded. Whether or not they were
correct is an item in the long legacy of questions left by the war to be
disputed over by posterity; in time, one side or the other may desist
from the discussion in weariness, but, from the nature of the case,
neither can be vanquished.

Whether McClellan was right or wrong, his prestige, fresh as it still
remained with his devoted troops, was utterly gone at Washington, where
the political host was almost a unit against him. The Committee on the
Conduct of the War had long been bitterly denouncing him; and he had so
abused the secretary of war that even the duplicity of Mr. Stanton was
unequal to the strain of maintaining an appearance of good
understanding. New military influences also fell into the same scale.
General Pope, the latest "favorite," now enjoying his few weeks of
authority, endeavored to make it clear to Mr. Lincoln that to bring
McClellan back from the Peninsula was the only safe and intelligent