Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [314]
“Our war on rebellion languishes,” a frustrated George Templeton Strong wrote on October 23. “McClellan’s repose is doubtless majestic, but if a couchant lion postpone his spring too long, people will begin wondering whether he is not a stuffed specimen after all.” The army’s inaction combined with conservative resentment against the Emancipation Proclamation to produce what Seward called an “ill wind” of discontent when voters headed to the polls for the midterm November elections. The results were devastating to the administration. Though Republicans retained a slight majority in Congress, the so-called “Peace Democrats,” who favored a compromise that would tolerate slavery, gained critical offices in Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana. Asked how he felt about the Republican losses, Lincoln said: “Somewhat like that boy in Kentucky, who stubbed his toe while running to see his sweetheart. The boy said he was too big to cry, and far too badly hurt to laugh.”
The following day, with the midterm elections behind him, Lincoln relieved McClellan of his command of the Army of the Potomac. Though the young Napoleon had finally crossed the Potomac, he had immediately stalled again. “I began to fear he was playing false—that he did not want to hurt the enemy,” Lincoln told Hay. “I saw how he could intercept the enemy on the way to Richmond. I determined to make that the test. If he let them get away I would remove him. He did so & I relieved him.”
McClellan received the telegram in his tent at 11 p.m., in the company of the man Lincoln had chosen to succeed him: General Ambrose Burnside. Known as a fighting general, Burnside had commanded a corps under McClellan on the Peninsula and at Antietam. “Poor Burn feels dreadfully, almost crazy,” McClellan told his wife. “Of course I was much surprised,” he admitted, but “not a muscle quivered nor was the slightest expression of feeling visible on my face.”
“More than a hundred thousand soldiers are in great grief to-night,” the correspondent for the National Intelligencer reported as General McClellan bade farewell to his staff and his troops. With all his officers assembled around a large fire in front of his tent, he raised a glass of wine. “Here’s to the Army of the Potomac,” he proposed. “And to its old commander,” one of his officers added. “Tears were shed in profusion,” both at the final toast and when McClellan rode past the lines of his troops. “In parting from you,” he told them, “I cannot express the love and gratitude I bear for you. As an Army you have grown up under my care…. The glory you have achieved, our mutual perils & fatigues, the graves of our comrades fallen in battle & by disease, the broken forms of those whom wounds & sickness have disabled—the strongest associations which can exist among men, unite us still by an indissoluble tie.”
Lincoln’s choice of Burnside proved unfortunate. Though he was charismatic, honest, and industrious, he lacked the intelligence and confidence to lead a great army. He was said to possess “ten times as much heart as he has head.” On December 13, against Lincoln’s advice, the new commander led about 122,000 troops across the Rappahannock to Fredericksburg, where General Lee waited on the heavily fortified high ground. Caught in a trap, the Union forces suffered 13,000 casualties, more than twice the Confederate losses, and were forced into a humiliating withdrawal.
Lincoln tried to mitigate the impact of the defeat, issuing a public letter of commendation to the troops: “The courage with which