It would be incredible that he adopted such a mere
illusion, if he had not himself said it. It proves that some at
least of the strange additions to history which he thus published
had their birth in his own imagination brooding over the past, and
are completely contradicted by the official records. [Footnote: This
illusion, at least, is shown to be of later origin by his telegram
to his wife of September 7. "I leave here this afternoon," he says,
"to take command of the troops in the field. The feeling of the
government towards me, I am sure, is kind and trusting. I hope, with
God's blessing, to justify the great confidence they now repose in
me, and will bury the past in oblivion." O. S., p. 567.] The
consolidation of the armies under him was, in fact, a promotion,
since it enlarged his authority and committed to him the task that
properly belonged to Halleck as general-in-chief. For a few days,
beginning September 1st, McClellan's orders and correspondence were
dated "Headquarters, Washington," because no formal designation had
been given to the assembled forces at the capital. When he took the
field at Rockville on the 8th of September, he assumed, as he had
the right to do in the absence of other direction from the War
Department, that Burnside's and Pope's smaller armies were lost in
the larger Army of the Potomac by the consolidation, and resumed the
custom of dating his orders and dispatches from "Headquarters, Army
of the Potomac," from the command of which he had never been
removed, even when its divisions were temporarily separated from
him.
Pages:
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424