>35
to resume aggressive operations. On McClellan’s part notliing further wasattempted, till, on the 22d, he was summoned to Washington to assume com-mand of the army which had retreated to the capital after the panic of thefirst Bull Run battle.
The affair at Rich Mountain and the subsequent movements were amongthe minor events of a great war, and would not warrant a detailed descrip-tion, were it not for the momentous effect they had upon the conduct of thewar, by being the occasion of McClellan’s promotion to the command of thePotomac army. The narrative which has been given contains the “ unvar-nished tale,” as nearly as official records of both sides can give it, and it is acurious task to compare it with the picture of the campaign and its resultswhich was then given to the world in the series of proclamations and dis-patches of the young general, beginning with his first occupation of thecountry and ending with his congratulations to his troops, in which heannounced that they had “ annihilated two armies, commanded by educatedand experienced soldiers, intrenched in mountain fastnesses fortified at theirleisure.” The country was eager for good news, and took it as literally true.McClellan was the hero of the moment, and when, but a week later, his suc-cess was followed by the disaster to McDowell at Bull Run, he seemed pointedout by Providence as the ideal chieftain, who could repair the misfortune andlead our armies to certain victory. His personal intercourse with those abouthim was so kindly, and his bearing so modest, that his dispatches, proclama-tions, and correspondence are a psychological study, more puzzling to thosewho knew him well than to strangers. Their turgid rhetoric and exaggeratedpretense did not seem natural to him. In them he seemed to be composing forstage effect, something to be spoken in character by a quite different personfrom the sensible and genial man we knew in daily life and conversation. Thecareer of the great Napoleon had been the study and the absorbing admira-tion of young American soldiers, and it was, perhaps, not strange that whenreal war came they should copy his bulletins and even his personal bearing.It was, for the moment, the bent of the people to be pleased with McClellan’srendering of the role; they dubbed him the young Napoleon , and thephotographers got him to stand with folded arms, in the historic pose. Fortwo or three weeks his dispatches and letters were all on fire with enthusiasticenergy. He appeared to be in a morbid condition of mental exaltation.When he came out of it, he was as genial as ever, as can be seen by the con-trast between his official communications and that private letter to GeneralBurnside, written just after the evacuation of Yorktown, which, oddly enough,has found its way into the official records of the war.\ The assumed dash
\ Letter of May 21st, 1862. “My Dear Burn :Your dispatch and kind letter received. I haveinstructed Seth [Williams] to reply to the officialletter, and now acknowledge the kind privatenote. It always does me good, in the midst ofmy cares and perplexities, to see your wretchedold scrawling. I have terrible troubles to contendwith, but have met them with a good heart, likeyour good old self, and have thus far struggledthrough successfully. . . . The crisis cannot
arms, and rely far more on his goodness than I doon my own poor intellect. I sometimes think nowthat I can almost realize that Mahomet was sin-cere. When I see the hand of God guarding oneso weak as myself, I can almost think myself achosen instrument to carry out his schemes.Would that a better man had been selected.
Good-bye, and' God bless you, Burn.With the sincere hope that we may soon shakehands, I am as ever,
Your sincere friend, McClellan.”—J. D. C.