ordered General McClellan to turn over the command of the army to
General Burnside; and on November 7 this was done.

This action, taken just at this time, called forth a much more severe
criticism than would have attended it if the removal had been made
simultaneously with the withdrawal from the Peninsula. By what motive
was Mr. Lincoln influenced? Not very often is the most eager search
rewarded by the sure discovery of his opinions about persons. From what
we know that he did, we try to infer why he did it, and we gropingly
endeavor to apportion the several measures of influence between those
motives which we choose to put by our conjecture into his mind; and
after our toilful scrutiny is over we remain painfully conscious of the
greatness of the chance that we have scarcely even approached the truth.
Neither diary nor letters guide us; naught save reports of occasional
pithy, pointed, pregnant remarks, evidence the most dubious, liable to
be colored by the medium of the predilections of the hearer, and to be
reshaped and misshaped by time, and by attrition in passing through many
mouths. The President was often in a chatting mood, and then seemed not
remote from his companion. Yet while this was the visible manifestation
on the surface, he was the most reticent of men as to grave questions,
and no confidant often heard his inmost thoughts. Especially it would
be difficult to name an instance in which he told one man what he
thought of another; a trifling criticism concerning some single trait
was the utmost that he ever allowed to escape him; a full and careful
estimate, never.

Such reflections come with peculiar force at this period in his career.
What would not one give for his estimate of McClellan! It would be worth
the whole great collection of characters sketched by innumerable friends
and enemies for that much-discussed general. While others think that