No personal vilification was too absurd to be credited,
and no characterization was too ridiculous to be received as true to
the life. It was assumed that he had pledged himself to take
Richmond with an army of 40,000 men when McClellan had failed to do
so with 100,000. His defeat by Lee was taken to prove him
contemptible as a commander, by the very men who lauded McClellan
for having escaped destruction from the same army. There was neither
intelligence nor consistency in the vituperation with which he was
covered; but there was abundant proof that the wounded _amour
propre_ of the officers and men of the Potomac Army made them
practically a unit in intense dislike and distrust of him. It may be
that this condition of things destroyed his possibility of
usefulness at the East; but it would be asking too much of human
nature (certainly too much of Pope's impetuous nature) to ask him to
take meekly the office of scapegoat for the disastrous result of the
whole campaign. His demand on Halleck that he should publish the
approval he had personally given to the several steps of the
movements and combats from Cedar Mountain to Chantilly was just, but
it was imprudent.
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