Did ever a subordinate, even a general, administer to a superior a more astounding snub? To Lincoln in his selfless temper, it was Only a detail in his problem of getting the army into action. What room for personal affronts however gross in a mood like his? To be sure he ceased going to McClellan's house, and thereafter summoned McClellan to come to him, but no change appeared in the tone of his intercourse with the General. "I will hold McClellan's horse," said he, "if he will win me victories."(6) All this while, the two were debating plans of campaign and McClellan was revealing-as we now see, though no one saw it at the time-the deep dread of responsibility that was destined to paralyze him as an active general. He was never ready. Always, there must be more preparation, more men, more this, more that. In January, 1862, Lincoln, grown desperate because of hope deferred, made the first move of a sort that was to be lamentably frequent the next six months. He went over the head of the Commanding General, and, in order to force a result, evoked a power not recognized in the military scheme of things. By this time the popular adulation of McClellan was giving place to a general imitation of the growling of the Jacobins, now well organized in the terrible Committee and growing each day more and more hostile to the Administration. Lincoln had besought McClellan to take into account the seriousness of this rising tide of opposition.(7) His arguments made no impression. McClellan would not recognize the political side of war. At last, partly to allay the popular clamor, partly to force McClellan into a corner, Lincoln published to the country a military program. He publicly instructed the Commanding General to put all his forces in movement on all fronts, on Washington's birthday.(8)