[23] Even his admirer, Swinton, says that any possible course would have
been better than inaction. _Army of Potomac_, 140, 141.

[24] _The Peninsula_, 188. Swinton seems to regard it in the same light.
_Army of Potomac_, 147.

[25] Gaines's Mill, contested with superb courage and constancy by the
Fifth Corps, under Porter, against very heavy odds.

[26] McClellan's _Report_, 131, 132. See, also, his own comments on this
extraordinary dispatch; _Own Story_, 452. He anticipated, not without
reason, that he would be promptly removed. The Comte de Paris says that
the two closing sentences were suppressed by the War Department, when
the documents had to be laid before the Committee on the Conduct of the
War. _Civil War in America_, ii. 112. Another dispatch, hardly less
disrespectful, was sent on June 25. See McClellan's _Report_, 121.

[27] For a vivid description of the condition to which heat, marching,
fighting, and the unwholesome climate had reduced the men, see statement
of Comte de Paris, an eye-witness. _Civil War in America,_ ii. 130.




CHAPTER III

THE THIRD AND CLOSING ACT OF THE MCCLELLAN DRAMA


As it seems probable that Mr. Lincoln did not conclusively determine