On the other hand, it is asked how the presence of McDowell would have enabled him to go to West Point without the aid of the navy, which he could not have.[13] [Footnote 13: See page 50.] How did it compel the adoption of another plan, inasmuch as the order for the troops to advance and attack the works at Yorktown was issued on the 3d, and they marched on the 4th, and were engaged with the enemy before General McClellan received the orders? It is claimed, therefore, that the issuing of the order was not a fatal error; that it did not compel the adoption of another plan; that no other plan was adopted; that it did not leave General McClellan incapable of continuing operations already begun; that it did not deprive him of the power of taking West Point, inasmuch as he never had had the power; neither did it compel an attack directly in front, for that had already begun; and that the President in making the change was only enforcing the conditions on which he accepted the plan of a movement to the Peninsula,--the retention of a force sufficient to cover Washington,--which General McClellan had not complied with. In the correspondence which passed between the President and General McClellan, the President has this explanation and vindication of his course:-- "My explicit directions that Washington should, by the judgment of all commanders of corps, be left entirely secure, had been entirely neglected. It was precisely this that drove me to detain McDowell. I do not forget that I was satisfied with your arrangement to leave Banks at Manassas Junction, but when that arrangement was broken up, and nothing was substituted for it, of course I was not satisfied. I was constrained to substitute something for it. "And now allow me to ask you: Do you really think I should permit the line from Richmond _via_ Manassas Junction to this city to be entirely open, except what resistance could be presented by less than twenty thousand unorganized troops? This is a question which the country will not allow me to evade."[14] [Footnote 14: President Lincoln's letter,--Testimony, p. 321.] It will be interesting to see how the situation was viewed by the commanders of the two armies on the Peninsula. General McClellan's troops in front of the enemy, present and fit for duty, numbered one hundred thousand strong.[15] He asked for reinforcements. He wrote thus to the Secretary of War:-- [Footnote 15: Adjutant-General's Report,--Testimony, p. 315.] "It seems clear that I shall have the whole force of the enemy on my hands, probably not less than one hundred thousand men, and probably more. In consequence of the loss of Blenker's division and the First Corps (McDowell's), my force is possibly less than that of the enemy, while they have the advantage of position."[16] [Footnote 16: McClellan's Report, p. 79.]