The moment Jackson had accomplished his purpose,having drawn a great army northwestward away from McClellan,most of which should have been marching southeastward to join McClellan,he slipped away,rushed his own army across the whole width of Virginia,and joined Lee in the terrible fighting of the Seven Days before Richmond.
In the midst of this furious confusion,the men surrounding Lincoln may be excused for not observing a change in him.They have recorded his appearance of indecision,his solicitude over McClellan,his worn and haggard look.The changing light in those smoldering fires of his deeply sunken eyes escaped their notice.Gradually,through profound unhappiness,and as always in silence,Lincoln was working out of his last eclipse.No certain record of his inner life during this transition,the most important of his life,has survived.We can judge of it only by the results.The outstanding fact with regard to it is a certain change of attitude,an access of determination,late in June.What desperate wrestling with the angel had taken place in the months of agony since his son's death,even his private secretaries have not felt able to say.Neither,apparently,did they perceive,until it flashed upon them full-blown,the change that was coming over his resolution.
Nor did the Cabinet have any warning that the President was turning a corner,developing a new phase of himself,something sterner,more powerful than anything they had suspected.This was ever his way.His instinctive reticence stood firm until the moment of the new birth.Not only the Cabinet but the country was amazed and startled,when,late in June,the President suddenly left Washington.He made a flying trip to West Point where Scott was living in virtual retirement.[30]What passed between the two,those few hours they spent together,that twenty-fourth of June,1862,has never been divulged.Did they have any eyes,that day,for the wonderful prospect from the high terrace of the parade ground;for the river so far below,flooring the valley with silver;for the mountains pearl and blue?Did they talk of Stanton,of his waywardness,his furies?Of the terrible Committee?Of the way Lincoln had tied his own hands,brought his will to stalemate,through his recognition of the unofficial councils?Who knows?
Lincoln was back in Washington the next day.Another day,and by a sweeping order he created a new army for the protection of Washington,and placed in command of it,a western general who was credited with a brilliant stroke on the Mississippi.[31]No one will now defend the military genius of John Pope.But when Lincoln sent for him,all the evidence to date appeared to be in his favor.His follies were yet to appear.And it is more than likely that in the development of Lincoln's character,his appointment has a deep significance.It appears to mark the moment when Lincoln broke out of the cocoon of advisement he had spun unintentionally around his will.In the sorrows of the grim year,new forces had been generated.New spiritual powers were coming to his assistance.At last,relatively,he had found peace.Worn and torn as he was,after his long inward struggle,few bore so calmly as he did the distracting news from the front in the closing days of June and the opening days of July,when Lee was driving his whole strength like a superhuman battering-ram,straight at the heart of the wavering McClellan.A visitor at the White House,in the midst of the terrible strain of the Seven Days,found Lincoln "thin and haggard,but cheerful ...quite as placid as usual ...
his manner was so kindly and so free from the ordinary cocksureness of the politician,and the vanity and self-importance of official position that nothing but good will was inspired by his presence."[32]
His serenity was all the more remarkable as his relations with Congress and the Committee were fast approaching a crisis.If McClellan failed-and by the showing of his own despatches,there was every reason to expect him to fail,so besotted was he upon the idea that no one could prevail with the force allowed him--the Committee who were leaders of the congressional party against the presidential party might be expected promptly to measure strength with the Administration.And McClellan failed.At that moment Chandler,with the consent of the Committee,was making use of its records preparing a Philippic against the government.Lincoln,acting on his own initiative,without asking the Secretary of War to accompany him,went immediately to the front.He passed two days questioning McClellan and his generals.[33]But there was no council of war.
It was a different Lincoln from that other who,just four months previous,had called together the general officers and promised them to abide by their decisions.He returned to Washington without telling them what he meant to do.
The next day closed a chapter and opened a chapter in the history of the Federal army.Stanton's brief and inglorious career as head of the national forces came to an end.He fell back into his rightful position,the President's executive officer in military affairs.Lincoln telegraphed another Western general,Halleck,ordering him to Washington as General-in-Chief.[34]He then,for a season,turned his whole attention from the army to politics.Five days after the telegram to Halleck,Chandler in the Senate,loosed his insatiable temper in what ostensibly was a denunciation of McClellan,what in point of fact was a sweeping arraignment of the military efficiency of the government.[35]
