GENERAL GEORGE B. McCLELLAN, COMMANDER OF THE ARMIES IN 1862.
satisfaction to everyone in the War Department.
As Mr. Stanton had no immediate need of my services, I returned to New York in August, where I was occupied with various private affairs until the middle of November, when I received a telegram from Assistant Secretary of War P. H. Watson, asking me to come immediately to Washington to enter upon another investigation. I went, and was received by Mr. Stanton, who offered me the place of Assistant Secretary of War. I said I would accept. "All right," said he, "consider it settled."
As I went out from the War Department into the street I met Major Charles G. Halpine (Miles O'Reilly) of the Sixty-ninth New York Infantry. I had known Halpine well as a newspaper man in New York, and I told him of my appointment as Mr. Stanton's assistant. He immediately repeated what I had told him to some newspaper people; it was reported in the New York papers the next morning. The secretary was greatly offended, and
