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me, made out my orders.
But for some reason then unexplained they were not issued, and the expedition did not start.
Whenever a thing that I do not understand happens, I always investigate.
Anxious to know why the orders had not been issued, I looked the matter up. I found that General McClellan was very much averse to having the number of men I needed taken away from the army around Washington.
He very much wanted two hundred thousand men there, and he had but one hundred and ninety thousand.
He did not care with that force to move against the rebels, who had more than two hundred thousand men as he believed.
In fact, he had been peremptorily ordered to move against the enemy on the 22d of February, and disobeyed the order.
For all this, I could not understand why such an important movement as that assigned to me should remain unattended to for so many days.
I guessed what was the matter, and remained on the ground at Washington, leaving my troops with the Constitution at Fortress Monroe.
But I took care to have them disembark from the vessel and put them on land.
There was but one ear in Washington that was always open to me, the President's. He was then embarrassed, as I happened to know, from the fact that he could not get McClellan to move.
Even the President himself was doubtful about the number of troops on the other side of the river.
It so happened that I was a warm friend of Senator Wade, who was chairman of the Committee on the Conduct of the War. He was very anxious to have a movement, and was chafing under the inactivity very much.
He asked me my opinion about the rebel force opposite Washington.
He summoned me before the War Committee, and I had to give it under oath.
Not only that, but I was made to give my reasons for the opinion, and I happened to have some to give.
They were dated the 12th day of February, 1862, and appear in the report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War.
Following is my estimate, taken from the report:--
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
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