Halleck answered
that the order of the 6th October remained unchanged. "If you have
not been and are not now in condition to obey it, you will be able
to show such want of ability. The President does not expect
impossibilities, but he is very anxious that all this good weather
should not be wasted in inactivity. Telegraph when you will move and
on what lines you propose to march." This dispatch was plainly a
notice to McClellan that he would be held responsible for the
failure to obey the order of the 6th unless he could exonerate
himself by showing that he could not obey it. In his final report,
however, he says that he treated it as authority to decide for
himself whether or not it was possible to move with safety to the
army; [Footnote: _Ibid_.] "and this responsibility," he says, "I
exercised with the more confidence in view of the strong assurance
of his trust in me, as commander of that army, with which the
President had seen fit to honor me during his last visit." Argument
is superfluous, in view of the correspondence, to show that orders
and exhortations were alike wasted.
The movement began in the last days of October, the Sixth Corps,
which was in the rear, crossing the Potomac on the 2d of November.
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