THIS IS MORE THAN THE STORY OF "Little Mac." It is the story also of that dark center of intrigue, the nation's capital in 1862-of Washington shaking in its shoes for fear of an invasion by "gaunt hairy beings riding into Washington like Centaurs and perhaps setting fire to the Capitol"; a Washington dominated by politicians and partisans, where party strife and bitterness were so strong that some members of the government itself preferred Union defeat to a victory which might make a Democrat (McClellan) a national hero and a presidential possibility; a Washington in which even the President and his Cabinet showed a childish impatience because McClellan did not remove the threat to the capital overnight-in spite of a liquid terrain and "the greatest military combination in modern history, Lee and Jackson"; a Washington rotten with military gossip and spy-talk in back alleys….
