Men would not listen. They would not reason. They hated those who remained cool enough to reason. It was the human equation that, at some time or another, defies all the combination of man’s intelligence. _The President Goes to the Army_ No administration, however determined, could have ignored it. Secretly, a special train was made ready in Washington. Secretly, in the night, the President of the United States with his advisers and staff boarded it and were taken northward. No dispatches went ahead of it, except railroad orders to clear tracks. After passing Baltimore, it went by way of Harrisburg and Wilkesbarre, avoiding Philadelphia and the city of New York. Through the sad, black iron and coal country of Pennsylvania it passed to the New York State line without a welcome anywhere. “We might be fugitives,” said the President, looking out with sleepless eyes. At Jefferson Junction an armored train with machine guns and a 3-inch rifle slid in ahead of them from a siding where it had been waiting. An officer entered the President’s train and requested that all shades be kept down. Thus, furtively, the Nation’s ruler entered Albany. Army Headquarters had been a target, like the White House, for messages that had shaken those to whom they were addressed. More than once the Commanding General had felt that it was more than human men could bear. More than once, in council, officers, infuriated by the veiled accusations of cowardice in the dispatches, had spoken in favor of giving the army the fatal order to go into action. _What the Commander Faced_ The President, when he looked at the General’s deeply lined features, knew that the old soldier had more to gain from a battle, however disastrous, than from life. “If he does not interpose between the invader and New York City,” thought the Chief Magistrate, “he will live only to see his name blasted. There will be a thousand tacticians in future years who will assert that he was a blunderer, if not a traitor.” “The country demands a battle! I know!” The soldier laid before the President a sheaf of papers. “Some reports, sir, bearing on the matter.” The first sheet was a report from brigade headquarters. “Twenty batteries of 5.1 inch artillery moved westward through New Haven last night,” it said. “Our spy reports that these guns appear to be of the type that is known to have a range of seven miles, far outranging our field guns. Accompanied by heavy convoys of shrapnel and explosive shell.”[132] “They are bringing up heavier guns still,” said the General, selecting another report. “Between New London and Saybrook Junction flat cars were seen with 11.02 inch howitzers, which, we presume, must be the type that throws a 760-pound projectile. We have nothing near that type in our artillery to oppose them. As they have a range of 12,000 yards, they can be placed wherever it may please the enemy, and we might as well bombard them with roman candles as with our guns.”[133]