THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
ible hallucinations. He actually believed that they greatly outnumbered him. Indeed, if his information service had been ever so inefficient, the simplest reflection should have convinced him that the Confederacy, owing to its great inferiority in population and material resources, could not possibly have concentrated at any one point an army as large as his, and that their army could not possibly be as well equipped with the necessaries of warfare. But his mind was morbidly set upon the theory that the enemy was far superior in strength; that an attack from the rebels, which it would be difficult to withstand, might be expected at any time, and that, if he, General McClellan, were to save the Republic, as he felt himself ordained by Providence to do, he must have large reinforcements in men and materials. In fact, while reinforcements in every shape were flowing into Washington in an almost uninterrupted stream, and the government lavished upon the Army of the Potomac everything it could command, McClellan, with petulant persistency, asked for more, and more, and more, and, as subsequently turned out, denounced in his correspondence the President and his Cabinet as “imbeciles” because they would not give him the means and the authority he asked for to execute his “plans.”
The situation at last became actually inexplicable. The summer and autumn months, the season of healthful air and good roads, came and passed, but McClellan did not stir. The winter came, and in spite of snow and ice and bad roads, the Western armies marched and fought, but “all quiet on the Potomac.” The impatience of public opinion rose to something akin to exasperation. Mr. Lincoln, whom I visited from time to time, did not speak to me of the vain efforts he had made to urge General McClellan into action, but, when military affairs were mentioned, I could clearly perceive that he was very much
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