So the committee made itself a great
power, and therefore also a great complication, in the war machinery;
and though it was sometimes useful, yet, upon a final balancing of its
long account, it failed to justify its existence, as, indeed, was to
have been expected from the outset.[155] In the present discussions
concerning an advance of the army, its members strenuously insisted upon
immediate action, and their official influence brought much strength to
that side.
The first act indicating an intention on the part of the President to
interfere occurred almost simultaneously with the beginning of the
general's illness. About December 21, 1861, he handed to McClellan a
brief memorandum: "If it were determined to make a forward movement of
the army of the Potomac, without awaiting further increase of numbers
or better drill and discipline, how long would it require to actually
get in motion? After leaving all that would be necessary, how many
troops could join the movement from southwest of the river? How many
from northeast of it?" Then he proceeded briefly to hint rather than
distinctly to suggest that plan of a direct advance by way of
Centreville and Manassas, which later on he persistently advocated. Ten
days elapsed before McClellan returned answers, which then came in a
shape too curt to be respectful. Almost immediately afterward the
general fell ill, an occurrence which seemed to his detractors a most
aggravating and unjustifiable intervention of Nature herself in behalf
of his policy of delay.
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