Under these circumstances, General McClellan had an excellent opportunity to strike a heavy blow at Jackson, who seemed to invite that movement by crossing soon afterward, in accordance with directions from Lee, one of his divisions to the east side of the mountain on the Federal rear.  That General McClellan did not strike is not creditable to him as a commander.  The Confederate army was certainly divided in a very tempting manner.  Longstreet was in Culpepper on the 3d of November, the day after General McClellan’s rear-guard had passed the Potomac, and nothing would seem to have been easier than to cut the Confederate forces by interposing between them.  By seizing the Blue Ridge gaps, and thus shutting up all the avenues of exit from the Valley, General McClellan would have had it in his power, it would seem, to crush Jackson; or if that wily commander escaped, Longstreet in Culpepper was exposed to attack.  General McClellan did not embrace this opportunity of a decisive blow, and Lee seems to have calculated upon the caution of his adversary.  Jackson’s presence in the Valley only embarrassed McClellan, as Lee no doubt intended it should.  No attempt was made to strike at him.  On the contrary, the Federal army continued steadily to concentrate upon Warrenton, where, on the 7th of November, General McClellan was abruptly relieved of the command.

He was in his tent, at Rectortown, at the moment when the dispatch was handed to him—­brought by an officer from Washington through a heavy snow-storm then falling.  General Ambrose E. Burnside was in the tent.  McClellan read the dispatch calmly, and, handing it indifferently to his visitor, said, “Well, Burnside, you are to command the army.”

Such was the abrupt termination of the military career of a commander who fills a large space in the history of the war in Virginia.  The design of this volume is not such as to justify an extended notice of him, or a detailed examination of his abilities as a soldier.  That he possessed military endowments of a very high order is conceded by most persons, but his critics add that he was dangerously prone to caution and inactivity.  Such was the criticism of his enemies at Washington and throughout the North, and his pronounced political opinions had gained him a large number.  It may, however, be permitted one who can have no reason to unduly commend him, to say that the retreat to James River, and the arrest of Lee in his march of invasion toward Pennsylvania, seem to indicate the possession of something more than “inactivity,” and of that species of “caution” which achieves success.  It will probably, however, be claimed by few, even among the personal friends of this general, that he was a soldier of the first ability—­one competent to oppose Lee.