Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [279]
When most of the force had reached Fort Monroe, Stanton later recalled, “information was given to me by various persons that there was great reason to fear that no adequate force had been left to defend the Capital,” despite Lincoln’s “explicit order that Washington should, by the judgment of all the commanders of Army corps, be left entirely secure.” Stanton referred the matter to Lorenzo Thomas, the adjutant general, who, after surveying the circumstance, concluded that the president’s order had most definitely not been obeyed. McClellan had left behind “less than 20,000 raw recruits with not a single organized brigade,” a force utterly incapable of defending Washington from sudden attack. Enraged, Stanton carried the damning report to the president at midnight. Lincoln promptly withdrew General McDowell’s 1st Corps from McClellan’s command so that Washington would be protected. That withdrawal, Stanton later recalled, “provoked [McClellan’s] wrath, and the wrath of his friends.”
With immense forces still at his disposal, McClellan advanced from Fort Monroe to the outskirts of Yorktown, roughly fifty miles from Richmond. Once again, mistakenly insisting that the rebel force outnumbered his, McClellan kept his army in a state of perpetual preparation. His engineers spent precious weeks constructing earthworks so his big guns could quash rebel defenses before the infantry assault. On April 6, Lincoln telegraphed McClellan: “You now have over one hundred thousand troops…. I think you better break the enemies’ line from York-town to Warwick River, at once. They will probably use time, as advantageously as you can.” The following day, McClellan scorned the president’s admonition, informing his wife that if Lincoln wanted the enemy line broken, “he had better come & do it himself.”
Still, McClellan persisted in his baffling inaction. He notified Stanton that “the enemy batteries are stronger” than anticipated. Stanton was livid: “You were sent on purpose to take strong batteries,” he reminded McClellan. Later that day, Lincoln telegraphed the general, warning that further delay would only allow the enemy to summon reinforcements from other theaters. “It is indispensable to you that you strike a blow,” Lincoln advised his commander on April 9. “The country will not fail to note—is now noting—that the present hesitation to move upon an intrenched enemy, is but the story of Manassas repeated. I beg to assure you that I have never written you, or spoken to you, in greater kindness of feeling than now…. But you must act.”
Two more weeks passed without any sign of movement. “Do not misunderstand the apparent inaction here,” McClellan wired Lincoln; “not a day, not an hour has been lost, works have been constructed that may almost be called gigantic—roads built through swamps & difficult ravines, material brought up, batteries built.” In another letter to his wife, he rationalized his continuing delay with the dubious contention that the more troops the enemy gathered in Yorktown, “the more decisive the results will be.” A few days later, McClellan formulated yet another justification for postponement, arguing that he had been “compelled to change plans & become cautious” without McDowell’s 1st Corps that had been taken from him to protect Washington. This left him “unexpectedly weakened & with a powerful enemy strongly entrenched in my front.” Therefore, he was not “answerable for the delay of victory.”
As it happened, Confederate general Joe Johnston, after keeping McClellan at bay for a month with substantially inferior numbers, had decided in early May to withdraw twelve miles up the peninsula toward Richmond. Hearing that a fallback was under way, McClellan finally moved on Yorktown to discover