No maxim in war is better founded in experience than that a man who
believes that a plan is sure to fail should never be set to conduct
it. McClellan had written that Pope would be beaten before the Army
of the Potomac could be transferred to him, and Pope was beaten.
[Footnote: Halleck to McClellan, August 10 and 12, and McClellan's
reply: Official Records, vol. xi. pt. i. pp. 86-88. See also O. S.,
p. 466.] The only chance for any other result was for Halleck
himself to conduct the transfer. If Halleck meant that Franklin
should have pushed out to Manassas on the 27th of August, he should
have taken the field and gone with the corps. He did not know and
could not know how good or bad McClellan's excuses were, and nothing
but his own presence, with supreme power, could certainly remove the
causes for delay. He wrote to Pope that he could not leave
Washington, when he ought not to have been in Washington. [Footnote:
Official Records, vol. xii. pt. iii. p. 797.] He worked and worried
himself ill trying to make McClellan do what he should have done
himself, and then, overwhelmed with details he should never have
burdened himself with, besought his subordinate to relieve him of
the strain by practically taking command.
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