The Sun.
London, England, 1862-11-22 00:00:00

THE SUN.

LONDON, SATURDAY, NOV. 22, 1862

M'CLELLAN no longer commands the army of the
Potomac. This is the supplement to the great poli-

tical victory of the Democrats—the ballot and uni-
versal suffrage conservatives of America. Of course
we may mistake at such a distance, but the first
impression must be that Mr. LINCOLN means to act
more vigorously than ever on the policy of his own
party. M'CLELLAN is the Democratic General,
the next Democratic candidate for the Presidency,
according to Mr. JOHN VAN BUREN. Yet, in the
teeth of the triumphant Democrats, Mr. LINCOLN
relieves M'CLELLAN of his command ! It seems
impossible to reconcile the act with any fear of the
party which has elected a majority against him for
about this time twelvemonths. For a full year Mr.
LINCOLN has a clear field to administer the Govern-
ment as he pleases, to carry on the war in his own
fashion, and to make his proclamation its most
effective weapon. It cannot be denied that the re-
moval of the Democrat General, favourite, too, as
he is with the soldiers, looks as if he meant to take
counsel with his own judgment and his own party,
and not with the leaders of the Tory Democrats.

It is really very difficult to form an impartia
judgment of the military merits of NPCLELLAN,
long as he has been before us. We first heard of
him as the gallant young officer who, on the 12th
of July, 1860, and the two following days, drove
the rebels before him in Western Virginia : a week
after occurred the famous battle of Bull's Run, and
soon the popular demand placed M'CLELLAI at the
head of the army whose first business was to defend
the capital, and its next to prepare itself to invade
the South. His long inaction there is now abun-
dantly justified; the account, which is known to
have been compiled by the Orleans Princes, of the
move on Richmond, shows that he took not a day
too much for the work of drilling and disciplining
such self-willed recruits as the Northern volunteers.
To bring a hundred thousand " sovereigns" to be
subjects, paying implicit obedience to orders, was
no easy task—indeed, it was never thoroughly
accomplished ; and, to the fact that a regi•
ment was always disposed to think itself the
best judge of how long it ought to resist, many of
MCLELLAN'S difficulties in actual battle must be
attributed. MCLELLAN must, perhaps, be regarded
as an unfortunate general. His slow advance to
Richmond, his mistakes there, and his retreat, pro-
duced an impression, only imperfectly obliterated
by his more rapid march on the Confederates
who have invaded Maryland, and by the victory,
or, at least, the stubborn fight at Antietam
Creek. Even that success, however, was clouded
by the failure to relieve Harper's Ferry, and
by the immense loss sustained there in men and
materials of war. His movements since then
form, however, the ground of his dismissal.
HALLECK, the Commander-in-Chief, issued peremp-
tory orders to cross the Potomac, and to give battle
to the enemy, or to drive him south. Instead of
obeying, M'CLELLAN excused himself on the ground
of want of supplies. The Commander-in-Chief
retorts that all his demands were promptly re-
sponded to—so that the case became one simply of
military obedience or disobedience. If the version
furnished us be correct, MCLELLAN, in fact, was
guilty, though such a thorough soldier and disci-
plinarian, of the worst fault of his own volunteers—
he could not be relied on to carry out the orders of
i his superior, or even to attempt carrying them out.
It will be long before we know from authentic
information, if we ever know, the merits of
the case, as between M'CLELLAN and his
masters. The PRESIDENT
to give him
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emancipation proclamation was issued, he silenced
the Lnumitre of the democrats in the army, not by