The seeds of distrust had been sown and a bountiful crop of disaster was the natural growth.
The withdrawal of McDowell's corps was a fatal blow to McClellan.
Before a military court which was inquiring into the transaction, General McClellan stated under oath that he had "no doubt that the Army of the Potomac would have taken Richmond had not the corps of General McDowell been separated from it; and that, had the command of General McDowell in the month of May joined the Army of the Potomac by way of Hanover Court-House, we would have had Richmond a week after the junction." He added, with evident reference to Mr.Lincoln and Mr.Stanton, "I do not hold General McDowell responsible for a failure to join me on that occasion." STONEWALL JACKSON'S SUCCESSFUL RAID.
When General McDowell was turned back from Fredericksburg to take part in the fruitless chase after Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley, he was doing precisely what the President of the Confederate States would have ordered, had he been able to issue the orders of the President of the United States.

McDowell saw the blunder, but his directions were peremptory and nothing was left but to obey.
He telegraphed the Secretary of War, "The President's order is a crushing blow to us." Mr.Lincoln personally and immediately replied to General McDowell, "The change is as painful to me as it can possibly be to you or to any one." McDowell then ventured to argue the case with the President.

He distinctly told Mr.Lincoln that he could effect nothing in trying to cut off Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley.

"I shall," he continued, "gain nothing for you there, and I shall lose much for you here.

It is therefore not only on personal ground that I have a heavy heart in this matter, but I feel that it throws us all back, and from Richmond north we shall have all our large mass paralyzed, and shall have to repeat what we have just accomplished." Mr.Lincoln's order and the whole of this correspondence were by telegraph on the twenty- fourth day of May.