sand eight hundred and sixty-two animals for ten days required seventeen thousand eight hundred and thirtytwo additional animals; and this forage would only supply the entire number (forty thousand six hundred and ninety-four) of animals with a small fraction over halfallowance for the time specified.

"It will be observed that this estimate does not embrace the animals necessary to transport quartermasters' supplies, baggage, camp-equipage, ambulances, reserve ammunition, forage for officers' horses, &c., which would greatly augment the necessary transportation.

"It may very truly be said that we did make the march with the means at our disposal; but it will be remembered that we met with no serious opposition from the enemy, neither did we encounter delays from any other cause. The roads were in excellent condition, and the troops marched with the most commendable order and celerity.

"If we had met with a determined resistance from the enemy, and our progress had been very much retarded thereby, we would have consumed our supplies before they could have been renewed. A proper estimate of my responsibilities as the commander of that army did not justify me in basing my preparations for the expedition. upon the supposition that I was to have an uninterrupted march. On the contrary, it was my duty to be prepared for all emergencies; and not the least important of my responsibilities was the duty of making ample provision for supplying my men and animals with rations and forage."

In regard to the supply of horses, and the conflicting views of General McClellan and the Administration thereupon, one or two points are worthy of notice. General Meigs, in a letter written on the 14th of October and addressed to the general

in-chief, states, "There have been issued, therefore, to the Army of the Potomac, since the battles in front of Washington, to replace losses, (9254) nine thousand two hundred and fifty-four horses." From this statement a reader would naturally infer that this number had been sent to the army under General McClellan; but it appears from a report of Colonel Myers, the chief quartermaster with that army, that only (3813) three thousand eight hundred and thirteen came to the forces with which General McClellan was ordered to follow and attack the enemy, and that these were not enough to supply the places of the animals disabled by sickness and overwork; and General McClellan distinctly states that on the 21st of October, after deducting the force engaged in picketing the river, he had but about a thousand serviceable cavalryhorses.

General Halleck, in a letter to General McClellan dated October 14, 1862, in reply to a despatch of the 12th, says,

"In regard to horses, you say that the present rate of supply is only one hundred and fifty per week for the entire army here and in front of Washington. I find from the records that the issues for the last six weeks have been eight thousand seven hundred and fifty-four, making an average per week of one thousand four hundred and fifty-nine."

The same charge is repeated in his letter to the Secretary of War of October 28, and is also found in General Meigs's letter of October 14. In the

original despatch to which General Halleck's letter is a reply, one thousand and fifty (1050), and not one hundred and fifty, is the number stated; and, as it was written out in letters in full, it is difficult to see how the telegraphic operator could have made a mistake in transmitting the message. The gross injustice done to General McClellan in thus holding him up to the public as guilty either of deliberate untruth or of enormous carelessness, need not be commented upon.

The question between the authorities at Washington and General McClellan was a question of fact. Neither the President nor the general-inchief nor the Secretary of War would have insisted upon the army's advancing without shoes, clothing, and horses; but it was charged, or at least intimated, that the army, in point of fact, was sufficiently supplied with them all, and that the alleged want of them was a mere pretext put forward by the general in command to excuse his slowness, indolence, or lack of zeal in the cause. Upon this issue we may repeat, what was said before as to the charge of needless delay in forwarding the troops from Harrison's Bar, that General McClellan stands upon the ground of knowledge and the Administration upon the ground of inference. The testimony of one credible witness swearing affirmatively to what he knows outweighs that of twenty who can only contradict him by a process of deductive reasoning. The case cannot be put more simply or more forcibly than has been done by General McClellan himself in his Report:

"The general-in-chief, in a letter to the Secretary of War on the 28th of October, says, 'In my opinion, there has been no such want of supplies in the army under General McClellan as to prevent his compliance with the orders to advance against the enemy.'

"Notwithstanding this opinion expressed by such high authority, I am compelled to say again that the delay in the reception of necessary supplies up to that date had left the army in a condition totally unfit to advance against the enemy; that an advance under the existing circumstances would, in my judgment, have been attended with the highest degree of peril, with great suffering and sickness among the men, and with imminent danger of being cut off from our supplies by the superior cavalry force of the enemy, and with no reasonable prospect of gaining any advantage over him.

"I dismiss this subject with the remark that I have found it impossible to resist the force of my own convictions, that the commander of an army, who from the time of its organization has for eighteen months been in constant communication with its officers and men, the greater part of the time engaged in active service in the field, and who has exercised this command in many battles, must certainly be considered competent to determine whether his army is in proper condition to advance on the enemy or not; and he must necessarily possess greater facilities for forming a correct judgment in regard to the wants of his men and the condition of his supplies than the general-in-chief in his office at Washington City."

In justice to General McClellan, and that it may be understood that he was not at all open to the charge of disobedience of orders, it should be stated that the President's peremptory instructions of October 6, to cross the Potomac and give battle to the

enemy or drive him south, were never distinctly repeated. From the moment of receiving them, General McClellan set himself diligently at work to get his army in condition to obey them; and from day to day, almost from hour to hour, he sent to Washington reports of his condition and progress. His telegraphic despatches between September 6 and November 7, mostly addressed to the general-in-chief, were one hundred and fiftyeight in number; and no stronger proof can be adduced of his attention to his duties, and of his earnest desire that the Government should be fully informed alike of the state of his own army, and of the movements of the enemy as far as he could learn them. As the orders to cross the river were not renewed, General McClellan had a right to suppose that the Administration were satisfied that he was straining every nerve to get the army in order for a forward movement, and on that account forbore to repeat the command. But the evidence on this point is not merely negative, but positive, as appears from the following extract from his Report:

66

Knowing the solicitude of the President for an early movement, and sharing with him fully his anxiety for prompt action, on the 21st of October I telegraphed to the general-in-chief as follows:—

666 'HEAD-QUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,

October 21, 1862.

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"Since the receipt of the President's order to move on the enemy, I have been making every exertion to get this army supplied with clothing absolutely necessary for marching.