To his own future he seemed to give no thought. It would be unjust to allow the dread of appearing to utter eulogy rather than historic truth to betray a biographer into overlooking this genuine magnanimity. * * * * * It was in December, 1861, that Congress created the famous Committee on the Conduct of the War, to some of whose doings it has already been necessary to allude. The gentlemen who were placed upon it were selected partly of course for political reasons, and were all men who had made themselves conspicuous for their enthusiasm and vehemence; not one of them had any military knowledge. The committee magnified its office almost beyond limit,--investigated everything; haled whom it chose to testify before it; made reports, expressed opinions, insisted upon policies and measures in matters military; and all with a dictatorial assumption and self-confidence which could not be devoid of effect, although every one knew that each individual member was absolutely without fitness for this business. So the committee made itself a great power, and therefore also a great complication, in the war machinery; and though it was sometimes useful, yet, upon a final balancing of its long account, it failed to justify its existence, as, indeed, was to have been expected from the outset.[155] In the present discussions concerning an advance of the army, its members strenuously insisted upon immediate action, and their official influence brought much strength to that side. The first act indicating an intention on the part of the President to interfere occurred almost simultaneously with the beginning of the general's illness. About December 21, 1861, he handed to McClellan a brief memorandum: "If it were determined to make a forward movement of the army of the Potomac, without awaiting further increase of numbers or better drill and discipline, how long would it require to actually get in motion? After leaving all that would be necessary, how many troops could join the movement from southwest of the river? How many from northeast of it?" Then he proceeded briefly to hint rather than distinctly to suggest that plan of a direct advance by way of Centreville and Manassas, which later on he persistently advocated. Ten days elapsed before McClellan returned answers, which then came in a shape too curt to be respectful. Almost immediately afterward the general fell ill, an occurrence which seemed to his detractors a most aggravating and unjustifiable intervention of Nature herself in behalf of his policy of delay.