Some things beside his natural attachment to Pennsylvania made the proposal an attractive one to him.

It was already evident that the army which might be organized near Washington would be peculiarly in the public eye, and would give to its leading officers greater opportunities of prompt recognition and promotion than would be likely to occur in the West.

The close association with the government would also be a source of power if he were successful, and the way to a chief command would be more open there than elsewhere.

McClellan told me frankly that if the offer had come before he had assumed the Ohio command, he would have accepted it; but he promptly decided that he was honorably bound to serve under the commission he had already received and which, like my own, was dated April 23.
My own first assignment to a military command was during the same week, on the completion of our estimates, when I was for a few days put in charge of Camp Jackson, the depot of recruits which Governor Dennison had established in the northern suburb of Columbus and had named in honor of the first squelcher of secessionism.

McClellan soon determined, however, that a separate camp of instruction should be formed for the troops mustered into the United States service, and should be so placed as to be free from the temptations and inconveniences of too close neighborhood to a large city, whilst it should also be reasonably well placed for speedy defence of the southern frontier of the State.