It is needless here to go into the furious disputes that ensued-the accusations, the recriminations, the innuendoes! McClellan stoutly insisted that he had obeyed both the spirit and the letter of March thirteenth; that Washington was amply protected. His enemies shrieked that his statements were based on juggled figures; that even if the number of soldiers was adequate, the quality and equipment were wretched; in a word that he lied. It is a shame-less controversy inconceivable were there not many men in whom politics and prejudice far outweighed patriotism. In all this, Hitchcock was Stanton's trump card. He who had refused to advise McClellan, did not hesitate to denounce him. In response to a request from Stanton, he made a report sustaining Wadsworth. The Committee summoned Wadsworth before it; he read them his report to Stanton; reiterated its charges, and treated them to some innuendoes after their own hearts, plainly hinting that McClellan could have crushed the Confederates at Manassas if he had wished to.(24) A wave of hysteria swept the Committee and the War Office and beat fiercely upon Lincoln. The Board charged him to save the day by mulcting the army of the Potomac of an entire corps, retaining it at Washington. Lincoln met the Board in a long and troubled conference. His anxious desire to do all he could for McClellan was palpable.(25) But what, under the circumstances, could he do? Here was this new device for the steadying of his judgment, this Council of Experts, singing the same old tune, assuring him that McClellan was not to be trusted. Although in the reaction from his momentary vengefulness he had undoubtedly swung far back toward recovering confidence in McClellan, did he dare--painfully conscious as he was that he "had no military knowledge"--did he dare go against the Board, disregard its warning that McClellan's arrangements made of Washington a dangling plum for Confederate raiders to snatch whenever they pleased. His bewilderment as to what McClellan was really driving at came back upon him in full force. He reached at last the dreary conclusion that there was nothing for it but to let the new wheel within the wheels take its turn at running the machine. Accepting the view that McClellan had not kept faith on the basis of the orders of March thirteenth, Lincoln "after much consideration" set aside his own promise to McClellan and authorized the Secretary of War to detain a full corps.(26) McClellan never forgave this mutilation of his army and in time fixed upon it as the prime cause of his eventual failure on the Peninsula. It is doubtful whether relations between him and Lincoln were ever again really cordial.