Yet the printing of such communications in widely read journals was likely to be as damaging as if it all were true.

My nomination as Brigadier-General of U.S.Volunteers was then before the Senate for confirmation, and "the pen" would probably have proved "mightier than the sword" but for McClellan's knowledge of the nature of the task we had accomplished, as he was then in the flood-tide of power at Washington, and expressed his satisfaction at the performance of our part of the campaign which he had planned.

By good fortune also, the injurious letters were printed at the same time with the telegraphic news of our occupation of Gauley Bridge and the retreat of the enemy out of the valley.

[Footnote: As one of these correspondents became a writer of history, it is made proper to say that he was Mr.William Swinton, of whom General Grant has occasion to speak in his "Personal Memoirs" (vol.ii.p.

144), and whose facility in changing his point of view in historical writing was shown in his "McClellan's Military Career Reviewed and Exposed," which was published in 1864 by the Union Congressional Committee (first appearing in the "New York Times" of February, March, and April of that year), when compared with his "History of the Army of the Potomac" which appeared two years later.