The results of his determination to
break a similar military stagnation in the East need now to be related.
The gloomy outlook at the beginning of the year has already been
mentioned. Finding on January 10 that General McClellan was still ill
and unable to see him, he called Generals McDowell and Franklin into
conference with himself, Seward, Chase, and the Assistant Secretary of
War; and, explaining to them his dissatisfaction and distress at
existing conditions, said to them that "if something were not soon done,
the bottom would be out of the whole affair; and if General McClellan
did not want to use the army, he would like to borrow it, provided he
could see how it could be made to do something."
The two generals, differing on some other points, agreed, however, in a
memorandum prepared next day at the President's request, that a direct
movement against the Confederate army at Manassas was preferable to a
movement by water against Richmond; that preparations for the former
could be made in a week, while the latter would require a month or six
weeks. Similar discussions were held on the eleventh and twelfth, and
finally, on January 13, by which date General McClellan had sufficiently
recovered to be present. McClellan took no pains to hide his displeasure
at the proceedings, and ventured no explanation when the President asked
what and when anything could be done.
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