Yours, very truly, A. Lincoln.”
The president wrote a third note on New Year’s Day, this one to McClellan. Someone had told him, perhaps during the reception in the Blue Room, that the bedridden general was, through the fog of his fever, quite nervous about the congressional joint committee. Eager to get his side of things on the record quickly, McClellan had planned to meet with Senator Wade’s inquisitors at the outset of their work. But then he had fallen ill, and now the committee was busy investigating the war effort without him—and not, McClellan feared correctly, with friendly intent. “My dear general,” Lincoln began, “I hear that the doings of the Investigating Committee, give you some uneasiness.” He continued soothingly: “You may be entirely relieved on this point. The gentlemen … were with me last night; and I found them in a perfectly good mood.”
This wasn’t exactly true, but even Abraham Lincoln would bend the truth when he absolutely needed to. And particularly at this point, he would say almost anything to spur his generals into action.
2
JANUARY
A cold front swept into Washington on the second day of January. Blustery winds rattled the canvas of the soldiers’ tents and raised the dust from dry streets. Behind the winds came freezing temperatures and, intermittently for the next month, every variety of wetness: snow, sleet, rain, fog. Roads around Washington, which seemed always to be in one miserable condition or another, changed from powder to mire, and drivers who had been licking grit from their teeth a few days earlier now found themselves bogged down in a foul, sticky mix of mud and manure. The bad roads were more than just an inconvenience. Mud made it nearly impossible to move the army, with its countless tons of artillery and supplies.
Lincoln braved that day’s chill wind to visit McClellan in his big house on Lafayette Park, taking with him the discouraging wire he had received from Halleck. The president was in a low mood; one adviser who spoke to him that day said that Lincoln permitted himself to wonder what it might mean to have the old United States split into “two nations.… He did not see how the two could exist so near to each other.” Reaching McClellan’s house, he was pleased to find that the worst of the typhoid—high fever, blackened tongue, foul breath—was past. His general in chief seemed “very much better.”
McClellan did not appear upset that Lincoln was dealing directly with the western commanders. Perhaps he was pleased to have the president “browsing” (as McClellan disdainfully referred to Lincoln’s amiable hunts for information) in places other than his own headquarters. For whatever reason, after Lincoln’s visit McClellan gathered his strength to dictate a message, the first he had sent in two weeks, endorsing the president’s advice to Halleck. “Not a moment’s time should be lost,” he wrote.
Lincoln’s communications with Halleck and Buell deepened over the next week. By chattering telegraph, the president and his western generals went back and forth over issues of how and where and especially when their armies would move. Halleck protested that he needed more men, and his men needed more guns. He criticized Buell’s Nashville strategy (“condemned by every military authority I have ever read,” he sniffed). For a time, Buell simply disappeared from telegraph range. “Delay is ruining us,” Lincoln protested, “and it is indispensable that I have something definite.” Exasperated, he ordered the generals to produce a timetable for joint action, but Halleck and Buell ignored him. “It is exceedingly discouraging,” Lincoln admitted to his secretary of war, Simon Cameron. “As everywhere else, nothing can be done.”
Three days after the president’s first visit to McClellan’s home, he traveled there again, this time carrying an infuriating telegram from Buell in which the general declared that he
The president wrote a third note on New Year’s Day, this one to McClellan. Someone had told him, perhaps during the reception in the Blue Room, that the bedridden general was, through the fog of his fever, quite nervous about the congressional joint committee. Eager to get his side of things on the record quickly, McClellan had planned to meet with Senator Wade’s inquisitors at the outset of their work. But then he had fallen ill, and now the committee was busy investigating the war effort without him—and not, McClellan feared correctly, with friendly intent. “My dear general,” Lincoln began, “I hear that the doings of the Investigating Committee, give you some uneasiness.” He continued soothingly: “You may be entirely relieved on this point. The gentlemen … were with me last night; and I found them in a perfectly good mood.”
This wasn’t exactly true, but even Abraham Lincoln would bend the truth when he absolutely needed to. And particularly at this point, he would say almost anything to spur his generals into action.
2
JANUARY
A cold front swept into Washington on the second day of January. Blustery winds rattled the canvas of the soldiers’ tents and raised the dust from dry streets. Behind the winds came freezing temperatures and, intermittently for the next month, every variety of wetness: snow, sleet, rain, fog. Roads around Washington, which seemed always to be in one miserable condition or another, changed from powder to mire, and drivers who had been licking grit from their teeth a few days earlier now found themselves bogged down in a foul, sticky mix of mud and manure. The bad roads were more than just an inconvenience. Mud made it nearly impossible to move the army, with its countless tons of artillery and supplies.
Lincoln braved that day’s chill wind to visit McClellan in his big house on Lafayette Park, taking with him the discouraging wire he had received from Halleck. The president was in a low mood; one adviser who spoke to him that day said that Lincoln permitted himself to wonder what it might mean to have the old United States split into “two nations.… He did not see how the two could exist so near to each other.” Reaching McClellan’s house, he was pleased to find that the worst of the typhoid—high fever, blackened tongue, foul breath—was past. His general in chief seemed “very much better.”
McClellan did not appear upset that Lincoln was dealing directly with the western commanders. Perhaps he was pleased to have the president “browsing” (as McClellan disdainfully referred to Lincoln’s amiable hunts for information) in places other than his own headquarters. For whatever reason, after Lincoln’s visit McClellan gathered his strength to dictate a message, the first he had sent in two weeks, endorsing the president’s advice to Halleck. “Not a moment’s time should be lost,” he wrote.
Lincoln’s communications with Halleck and Buell deepened over the next week. By chattering telegraph, the president and his western generals went back and forth over issues of how and where and especially when their armies would move. Halleck protested that he needed more men, and his men needed more guns. He criticized Buell’s Nashville strategy (“condemned by every military authority I have ever read,” he sniffed). For a time, Buell simply disappeared from telegraph range. “Delay is ruining us,” Lincoln protested, “and it is indispensable that I have something definite.” Exasperated, he ordered the generals to produce a timetable for joint action, but Halleck and Buell ignored him. “It is exceedingly discouraging,” Lincoln admitted to his secretary of war, Simon Cameron. “As everywhere else, nothing can be done.”
Three days after the president’s first visit to McClellan’s home, he traveled there again, this time carrying an infuriating telegram from Buell in which the general declared that he
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