_Ibid._ 195.
[164] McClellan afterward wrote that the administration "had neither
courage nor military insight to understand the effect of the plan I
desired to carry out." _Own Story_, 194. This is perhaps a mild example
of many remarks to the same purport which fell from the general at one
time and another.
[165] See remarks of Mr. Blaine, _Twenty Years of Congress_, i. 368.
[166] _E.g._, McClellan, _Rep._ (per Keyes), 82; Grant, _Mem._ i. 322;
and indeed all writers agree upon this.
CHAPTER XI
MILITARY MATTERS OUTSIDE OF VIRGINIA
The man who first raised the cry "On to Richmond!" uttered the formula
of the war. Richmond was the gage of victory. Thus it happened, as has
been seen, that every one at the North, from the President down, had his
attention fast bound to the melancholy procession of delays and
miscarriages in Virginia. At the West there were important things to be
done; the States of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, trembling in the
balance, were to be lost or won for the Union; the passage down the
Mississippi to the Gulf was at stake, and with it the prosperity and
development of the boundless regions of the Northwest. Surely these were
interests of some moment, and worthy of liberal expenditure of thought
and energy, men and money; yet the swarm of politicians gave them only
side glances, being unable for many minutes in any day to withdraw their
eyes from the Old Dominion.
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