The purely military question quickly became snarled up with
politics and was reduced to very inferior proportions in the noxious
competition. "Politics entered and strategy retired," says General Webb,
too truly. McClellan himself conceived that the politicians were leagued
to destroy him, and would rather see him discredited than the rebels
whipped. In later days the strong partisan loves and hatreds of our
historical writers have perpetuated and increased all this bad blood,
confusion, and obscurity.
The action of the council of generals was conclusive. The President
accepted McClellan's plan. Therein he did right; for undeniably it was
his duty to allow his own inexperience to be controlled by the
deliberate opinion of the best military experts in the country; and this
fact is wholly independent of any opinion concerning the intrinsic or
the comparative merits of the plans themselves. Indeed, Mr. Lincoln had
never expressed positive disapproval of McClellan's plan _per se_, but
only had been alarmed at what seemed to him its indirect result in
exposing the capital. To cover this point, he now made an imperative
preliminary condition that this safety should be placed beyond a
question. He was emphatic and distinct in reiterating this proviso as
fundamental. The preponderance of professional testimony, from that day
to this, has been to the effect that McClellan's strategy was sound and
able, and that Mr.
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