Mr. Lincoln was willing to compromise upon a
slow advance upon Richmond, provided it were sure and steady.
Halleck's age and standing in the army were such that McClellan
himself could find no fault with his appointment, if any one were to
be put over him.
Everything points to the expectation, at the time of his
appointment, that Halleck would assume the personal command in the
field. He visited McClellan at Harrison's Landing on July 25th,
however, and promised him that if the armies should be promptly
reunited, he (McClellan) should command the whole, with Burnside and
Pope as his subordinates. [Footnote: McC. Own Story, p. 474;
Official Records, vol. xi. pt. iii. p. 360.] That he did not inform
Pope of this abdication of his generalship in the field is plain
from Pope's correspondence during the campaign. It is made
indisputably clear by Pope's letter to him of the 25th of August.
[Footnote: _Id_., vol. xii. pt. ii. pp. 65, 66.] He probably did not
tell the President or Mr. Stanton of it. He seems to have waited for
the union of the parts of the army, and when that came his prestige
was forever gone, and he had become, what he remained to the close
of the war, a bureau officer in Washington.
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