The next morning McClellan requested me to accompany him to the State Arsenal, to see what arms and material might be there. We found a few boxes of smooth-bore muskets which had once been issued to militia companies and had been returned rusted and damaged. No belts, cartridge-boxes, or other accoutrements were with them. There were two or three smooth-bore brass fieldpieces, six-pounders, which had been honeycombed by firing salutes, and of which the vents had been worn out, bushed, and worn out again. In a heap in one corner lay a confused pile of mildewed harness, which had probably been once used for artillery horses, but was now not worth carrying away. There had for many years been no money appropriated to buy military material or even to protect the little the State had. The federal government had occasionally distributed some arms which were in the hands of the independent uniformed militia, and the arsenal was simply an empty storehouse. It did not take long to complete our inspection. At the door, as we were leaving the building, McClellan turned, and looking back into its emptiness, remarked, half humorously and half sadly, "A fine stock of munitions on which to begin a great war!" We went back to the State House, where a room in the Secretary of State's department was assigned us, and we sat down to work. The first task was to make out detailed schedules and estimates of what would be needed to equip ten thousand men for the field. This was a unit which could be used by the governor and legislature in estimating the appropriations needed then or subsequently. Intervals in this labor were used in discussing the general situation and plans of campaign. Before the close of the week McClellan drew up a paper embodying his own views, and forwarded it to Lieutenant-General Scott. He read it to me, and my recollection of it is that he suggested two principal lines of movement in the West,--one, to move eastward by the Kanawha valley with a heavy column to co-operate with an army in front of Washington; the other, to march directly southward and to open the valley of the Mississippi. Scott's answer was appreciative and flattering, without distinctly approving his plan; and I have never doubted that the paper prepared the way for his appointment in the regular army which followed at so early a day. [Footnote: I am not aware that McClellan's plan of campaign has been published. Scott's answer to it is given in General Townsend's "Anecdotes of the Civil War," p. 260. It was, with other communications from Governor Dennison, carried to Washington by Hon. A. F. Perry of Cincinnati, an intimate friend of the governor, who volunteered as special messenger, the mail service being unsafe. See a paper by Mr. Perry in "Sketches of War History" (Ohio Loyal Legion), _vol. iii._ p. 345.]