In his "Own Story" McClellan speaks of the campaign in Maryland as made "with a halter round his neck," [Footnote: O. S., p. 551.] meaning that he had no real command except of the defences of Washington, and that he marched after Lee without authority, so that, if unsuccessful, he might have been condemned for usurpation of command. It would be incredible that he adopted such a mere illusion, if he had not himself said it. It proves that some at least of the strange additions to history which he thus published had their birth in his own imagination brooding over the past, and are completely contradicted by the official records. [Footnote: This illusion, at least, is shown to be of later origin by his telegram to his wife of September 7. "I leave here this afternoon," he says, "to take command of the troops in the field. The feeling of the government towards me, I am sure, is kind and trusting. I hope, with God's blessing, to justify the great confidence they now repose in me, and will bury the past in oblivion." O. S., p. 567.] The consolidation of the armies under him was, in fact, a promotion, since it enlarged his authority and committed to him the task that properly belonged to Halleck as general-in-chief. For a few days, beginning September 1st, McClellan's orders and correspondence were dated "Headquarters, Washington," because no formal designation had been given to the assembled forces at the capital. When he took the field at Rockville on the 8th of September, he assumed, as he had the right to do in the absence of other direction from the War Department, that Burnside's and Pope's smaller armies were lost in the larger Army of the Potomac by the consolidation, and resumed the custom of dating his orders and dispatches from "Headquarters, Army of the Potomac," from the command of which he had never been removed, even when its divisions were temporarily separated from him. [Footnote: On August 31st Halleck had written to him, "You will retain the command of everything in this vicinity not temporarily belonging to Pope's army in the field;" and in the general order issued August 30, McClellan's command of the Army of the Potomac is affirmed. Official Records, vol. xi. pt. i. p. 103; _Id_., vol. li. pt. i. p. 775.] The defences of Washington were now entrusted to Major-General Banks, strictly in subordination, however, to himself. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xix. pt. ii. pp. 202, 214.] The official record of authority and command is consistent and perfect, and his notion in his later years, that there was anything informal about it, is proven to be imaginary. [Footnote: _Ante_, p. 257.] Halleck's direction, which I have quoted, to "let our troops move immediately," would be absurd as addressed to the commandant of the Army of the Potomac into which the Army of Virginia was consolidated, unless that commandant was to take the field, or a formal order relieved him of command as Pope was relieved. Certainly