Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, major general , United States army : volume 1

Stonewall Jackson's interruption of well-conceived and well-ordered proposals caused such apprehension on all sides that the President gave the following order, which I have always wished he had not been worried into issuing:

To McDowell he wrote:

While cooperating with General McClellan, you obey his orders, except that you are to judge, and are not to allow your force to be disposed otherwise than so as to give the greatest protection to this capital.

This came from the President's anxiety for the protection of Washington. He could, however, have secured precisely that same protection by giving his instructions directly to McClellan. Mr. Lincoln evidently had begun to distrust McClellan; if so, it was not wisdom to keep him in command and at the same time plainly show distrust by telling a corps commander to obey his orders or not, according to that commander's judgment.

I am not surprised at McClellan's grievous complaint. “I may confess,” he said, “to have been shocked at this order which, with that of the 31st ultimo, removed nearly 60,000 men from my command and reduced my force by more than one-third after its task had been assigned, its operations planned, and its ”