It was a pleasant march from Harper's Ferry to Warrenton. The roads were in excellent condition; dry and hard. The troops were in good spirits; living on turkeys, chickens, pigs, and mutton. They marched ten or twelve miles a day, built roaring fires at night, and enjoyed the campaign. The army was a week in reaching Warrenton. General McClellan was waited upon there by a messenger from Washington, who delivered him a sealed envelope containing orders relieving him of the command of the army and appointing General Burnside as his successor. The matter was soon noised abroad. There was much discussion upon the subject, relative to the cause of the removal. Some officers said that the Government wanted to destroy the army, and had begun with General McClellan; others that the President, General Halleck, and Secretary Stanton were afraid of General McClellan's popularity; others, that they were wearied with his delays, and that there were no political reasons for the change. The reasons for the removal undoubtedly have been truly stated by Mr. Montgomery Blair, who was at that time a member of the President's cabinet, that the President was friendly to General McClellan, but the military authorities at Washington and many of the officers of the army were hostile to him. They held that his delay to attack the Rebels at Manassas in the fall and winter; the delay at Yorktown; the keeping the army in the swamps of the Chickahominy; the operations on the Peninsula, showed conclusively that the command ought to pass into other hands. The President resisted all the importunities of those who desired his removal when the affairs were so disastrous in front of Washington. The success at Antietam gave the President new confidence, but the failure to renew the attack with his reserves; the refusal of McClellan to cross the Potomac and attack Lee; his long delay at Berlin and Harper's Ferry, gave great dissatisfaction. These were the causes of his removal.[84] [Footnote 84: Speech at Ellicott's Mills, 1864.] General McClellan was much loved by a portion of his troops. When he rode along the lines for the last time, they cheered him. Some could not refrain from shedding tears. They believed that he was a good man, and that he had been thwarted in all his plans by General Halleck, Secretary Stanton, the President, and members of Congress; and that if he could have had his own way, he would have won great victories.