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General McClellan seems to have considered the President too careful of the safety of the capital; but he should measure the value of Washington by what he himself thought of the importance of taking Richmond. That, no doubt, would be a great advantage, but the loss of a recognized seat of government, with its diplomatic and other traditions, would have been of vastly more fatal consequence to us than the capture of their provisional perch in Virginia would have been to the Rebel authorities. It would have brought foreign recognition to the Rebels, and thrown Maryland certainly, and probably Kentucky, into the scale against us. So long as we held Washington, we had on our side the two powerful sentiments of permanence and tradition, some insensible portions of which the Rebels were winning from us with every day of repose allowed them by General McClellan. It was a clear sense of this that both excited and justified the impatience of the people, who saw that the insurrection was gaining the coherence and prestige of an established power,–an element of much strength at home and abroad. That this popular instinct was not at fault, we have the witness of General Kirby Smith, who told Colonel Fremantle “that McClellan might probably have destroyed the Southern army with the greatest ease during the first winter, and without much risk to himself, as the Southerners were so much over-elated by their easy triumph at Manassas, and their army had dwindled away.”

We have said that General McClellan’s volume is rather a plea in abatement of judgment than a report. It was perfectly proper that he should endeavor to put everything in its true light, and he would be sure of the sympathy of all right-minded men in so doing; but an ex parte statement at once rouses and justifies adverse criticism. He has omitted many documents essential to the formation of a just opinion; and it is only when we have read these also, in the Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, that we feel the full weight of the cumulative evidence going to show the hearty support in men and confidence that he received from the Administration, and, when there were no more men to be sent, and confidence began to yield before irresistible facts, the prolonged forbearance with which he was still favored. Nothing can be kinder or more cordial than the despatches and letters both of the President and Mr. Stanton, down to the time when General McClellan wrote the following sentences at the end of an official communication addressed to the latter: “If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you, or to any other persons in Washington. You have done your best to sacrifice this army.” (28th June, 1862.) We shall seek no epithet to characterize language like this. All but the most bigoted partisans will qualify it as it deserves. We have here a glaring example of that warping of good sense and good feeling which the consciousness of having a political stake at risk will produce in a gallant soldier and a courteous gentleman. Can General McClellan, after a year to grow cool in, either himself believe, or expect any one else to believe, that the President and the Secretary of War would “do their best to sacrifice” an army of a hundred and fifty thousand brave men, in order to lessen his possible chances as a candidate for the Presidency? It was of vastly more importance to them than to him that he should succeed. The dignified good temper of Mr. Lincoln’s answer to this wanton insult does him honor: “I have not said you were ungenerous for saying you needed reinforcements; I thought you were ungenerous in assuming that I did not send them as fast as I could. I feel any misfortune to you and your army quite as keenly as you feel it yourself.” Mr. Stanton could only be silent; and whatever criticisms may be made on some traits of his character, he is quite safe in leaving the rebuke of such an imputation to whoever feels that earnestness, devotion, and unflagging purpose are high qualities in a public officer.