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Gen. McClellan's Skill as a Commander Placed Beyond Cavil.

When the wires, first flashed over the country the fact that Gen. McClellan, from necessity, was forced to change his base to one of security, and at the same time to one from which he could continue to operate successfully against the enemy, and succeeded in accomplishing it, there went up in every quarter a most enthusiastic acknowledgement of the power of his genius. His enemies look in vain for something to cavil at. The principal correspondent of the New York Tribune, writing from the late field of conflict, pays his respects to the war department in the following terms:

The movement will probably be successful, though its trail will be bloody. The world will regard it as a master stroke of policy. The army will so regard it, and will feel for its commander the admiration and gratitude that saviors of men ever enkindle in loyal hearts. But the brilliancy of this movement will not for a moment dazzle the eyes of the wronged and wrathful men of the army of the Potomac, nor will it dazzle the sight of the angry people so as for a moment to obscure their perception of the crime against the nation, which has made this change of base and front imperiously necessary. This crime is the refusal to reinforce McClellan. I don't care about the question — which legislators, soldiers and politicians have debated — of this general's fitness to command. The York and James River Peninsula was not the place for that discussion. The hour of the junction of Beauregard's and Jackson's forces to those of Johnston is not the time for such a debate. I care not for any criticism of Gen. McClellan's campaign on this Peninsula or on the Potomac. I have blows, but not a word, for the untimely casuist, in or out of administrative office, who, under the roar of rebel cannon sweeping our ranks with shot and shell, meets the demand for aid to this army with a chronological measure of delays at Fort Monroe, at Yorktown, at Williamsburgh, at Seven Pines. I don't care whether there were delays or no delays — whether they were McClellan's delays, the quartermaster-general's delays, or the delays of the elements! No man, no party, no interest, shall, with my assent or my silence, be permitted to mix up with the sacred right of an outnumbered American army to demand help from their countrymen, and to promptly receive it, collateral questions of fitness, of vigor, of fidelity in commanders.

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