History of the United States, v.4, by James Ford Rhodes, 1910 [c1892].

Chapter 19, Part 1: Buell’s Offensive through Emancipation Proclamation

CHAPTER XIX

When the President ordered Halleck to Washington, Grant succeeded him in command of all of the forces in West Tennessee and Mississippi, but it was on Buell and his Army of the Ohio that devolved the offensive movement which the government desired to have made in the West. Ever present in Lincoln's mind was the relief of the Unionists of East Tennessee, whose sufferings and whose claims were constantly pressed upon his attention. To impracticable projects of invasion1 had succeeded a plan, not only feasible,2 if the force were adequate, but one which promised great military as well as political advantage. Such was the proposed capture of Chattanooga, a railroad centre of consequence, the key to East Tennessee, a strategic position for offensive operations east and south, and almost as important for the West as Richmond for the East. This became the objective point of Buell's campaign. Alive to the advantages to be gained, the President and Secretary of War did not appreciate the obstacles and the force requisite for the movement. Their misapprehension arose probably from the idea that as the Confederates had abandoned Corinth, they would make no effort to save Chattanooga, although its situation within its mountain fastnesses invited them to strenuous exertion. Buell's offensive movement came to nothing. He had been put to a herculean undertaking and had been hampered by Halleck, who, while still in the West, had dictated to him a line of supply and communication which was against his own
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1 See p. 12, especially note 1.
2 Ropes's Civil War, part ii. p. 385.

1862 better judgment and proved very difficult to maintain.1 In July complaints of his slowness came from Washington. After the cavalry raid of John H. Morgan through Kentucky had given rise in southern Ohio to fears of an invasion, which, owing to the low water in the Ohio River, would have been an easy undertaking, the administration became so dissatisfied with him that they asked Halleck to recommend some officer to take his place.2 In the correspondence at this time Buell shows the courtesy, dignity, and ability of a soldier. "It is difficult to satisfy impatience," he said in one despatch, "and when it proceeds from anxiety, as I know it does in this case, I am not disposed to complain of it. My advance has not been rapid, but it could not be more rapid under the circumstances. I know I have not been idle nor indifferent." 8 His words and his action draw us to him in the sympathy which is due the man who, with an eye single to his duty, suffers misconstruction and injustice from his superiors. A despatch of Halleck, which we may be sure did not originate with him but simply reduced to words the meaning of Lincoln and Stanton, discloses the straits into which our great democracy had come in the process of learning the lessons of war under the discipline of misfortune. To General Horatio G. Wright, for whom the government in its policy of dividing authority had created a new department which encroached on Buell's, he said: "The President and Secretary of War are greatly displeased with the slow movements of General Buell. Unless he does something very soon, I think he will be removed. Indeed it would have been done before now if I had not begged to give him a little more time. There must be more energy and activity in Kentucky and Tennessee, and the one who first does something brilliant will get the entire command. I therefore hope to hear very soon of some success in your
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1 See Ropes's Civil War, part ii. pp. 385, 388.
2 "I have replied that I know of no more capable officer than yourself to recommend."—Halleck to Buell, Washington, August 12, O. R., vol. xvi. part ii. p. 314.
3 To Halleck, August 6, ibid., p. 266.

department. I can hardly describe to you the feeling of disappointment here in the want of activity in General Buell's large army. The Government seems determined to apply the guillotine to all unsuccessful generals. It seems rather hard to do this where the general is not in fault, but perhaps with us now, as in the French Revolution, some harsh measures are required." 1

Before Wright or Buell could do "something brilliant," they were thrown upon the defensive by an aggressive movement of the Confederates directed northward through Tennessee into Kentucky. Bragg and Kirby Smith, encouraged by the defeat of McClellan before Richmond and the inaction of Halleck's grand army,2 were operating in concert in an effort to retrieve the Confederate losses in the West.3 Bragg, who was the chief, had the same idea about the effect of an invasion into Kentucky, that Lee entertained of the advance into Maryland. He thought that the people would rise in his favor, and accordingly took with him 20,000 stand of arms for the Kentucky recruits he expected to enlist. Kirby Smith left Knoxville, marched into Kentucky, defeated the Onion force which opposed him,4 and occupied Lexington, the home of Henry Clay and the centre of the Blue-grass region, the garden of the State. "The loss of Lexington," telegraphed Governor Morton of Indiana to the Secretary of War, "is the loss of the heart of Kentucky and leaves the road open to the Ohio River." 5 Smith's army threatened Cincinnati and Louisville, causing great alarm.6 In Cincinnati martial law was declared, liquor shops were closed, all business was ordered to be suspended, every man who could fight or work was commanded to assemble at his voting place for the purpose of drill or labor. The street cars ceased to run, and long lines of men were drilled in the streets, among them
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1 August 25, O. R., vol. xvi. part ii. p. 421.
2 See vol. iii. p. 628.
3 Ibid., p. 698.
4 August 30.
5 September 2, O. R., vol. xvi. part ii. p. 475.
6 These circumstances were alluded to in the previous chapter.

prominent citizens, ministers, and judges, many beyond the age of forty-five. A newspaper alleged to be disloyal was suppressed. Tod, the governor of Ohio, hastened to Cincinnati, and called out for military service all the loyal men of the river counties. Meanwhile Kirby Smith pushed a detachment within a few miles of the city. Consternation reigned. Bells were rung in the early morning to summon men to arms, and hundreds of laborers were put to work in the trenches. Women were asked to prepare lint and bandages for the approaching battle. The war has come home to us, was the thought of all. The alarm spread through the State. The call of the governor for all the armed Minutemen met with a prompt response, and thousands with double-barrelled shot-guns and squirrel-rifles, known henceforward as Squirrel-hunters, poured into the city. The friction between Louisville and Cincinnati over the question which was in the more imminent danger and which should receive the greater attention, became intense. Frantic appeals were made to the President and Halleck to stop the withdrawal from Louisville of troops which had been ordered to Cincinnati by General Wright. Fortunately the Confederates did not deem themselves strong enough to attack either city. Before Smith could venture on further offensive operations he must await the junction of Bragg; and much to Cincinnati's relief he ordered the threatening detachment to withdraw.1

Bragg, having crossed the Tennessee River at Chattanooga, began, August 28, his march northward over Walden's Ridge and the Cumberland Mountains. Keeping to the east of Buell, he went through middle Tennessee unmolested, and on September 13 reached Glasgow in Kentucky. Buell, who had concentrated his army at Murfreesborough, followed. It now became a race between the two for Louisville, and Bragg, who had the shorter line of march, got ahead and placed
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1 The order is dated September 11. The withdrawal became known to Lew. Wallace, the general commanding at Covington, the 12th —O. R., vol. xvi. part ii. pp. 511, 812.

himself between Buell and the city. It is thought that if he had pressed on vigorously he might have captured it. Kirby Smith suggested a combined attack. "Louisville," he wrote, "is in my opinion the great point to be arrived at, and the destruction of the force now there can, I think, be accomplished without difficulty."1 Buell, cut off from telegraph and railroad communication with the North, thought that the city was certainly in danger.2 Robinson, the governor of the State, John J. Crittenden, and Senator Garrett Davis united in a telegram to Halleck. "The fate of Kentucky," they said, "is hanging in the balance, and the army of Buell is in imminent peril." 3 But Bragg lingered. He threw away time in the capture of the Union garrison at Munfordville, a success that by no means compensated for the delay. Then, overawed perhaps by the magnitude of his enterprise, he lost heart and would not press forward. Buell came up in his rear. The two armies confronted each other, and, while each commander was willing to fight if he had the advantage of position, neither would risk attacking the other on his chosen ground. It was a contest in manoeuvring. Buell feared that defeat would result in the fall of Louisville; Bragg, the serious crippling of his army. Both were short of supplies. Reduced to three days' rations, Bragg turned aside from the direct road north and marched to Bardstown. The way was left open for Buell; he moved rapidly to Louisville.

The Confederate campaign into Kentucky, like that into Maryland, had failed, and mainly for the same reason. Kentucky preferred the Union to the Southern Confederacy. Bragg had been informed by her senators and representatives in the Confederate Congress that a large majority of the people of the State sympathized with the South, and that the young men in a multitude would join his army.4 In this belief he issued a high-sounding proclamation. "Kentuckians”
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1 September 15, O. R., vol. xvi. part ii. p. 830; see, also, pp. 846, 850, 856, 859, 861.
2 September 14, ibid., p. 516.
3 September 19, ibid., p. 529.
4 Ibid., p. 771.

he said, "I offer you an opportunity to free yourselves from the tyranny of a despotic ruler."1 Eleven days sufficed to dispel the illusion that he would be regarded as a liberator. September 25 he wrote from Bardstown to Richmond: "I regret to say we are sadly disappointed at the want of action by our friends in Kentucky. We have so far received no accession to this army. General Smith has secured about a brigade, — not half our losses by casualties of different kinds. We have 15,000 stand of arms2 and no one to use them. Unless a change occurs soon, we must abandon the garden spot of Kentucky to its cupidity. The love of ease and fear of pecuniary loss are the fruitful sources of this evil." 3

September 25 Buell arrived in Louisville, insuring the safety of the city. So dissatisfied had been the administration with his slowness, to which they attributed largely the invasion of Kentucky and the threatened danger to Cincinnati and Louisville, so anxious had they been lest their nursing policy of this border slave State should be set at naught through military incompetence, that they determined on his removal from the head of the army. September 24 orders displacing him and giving the command to George H. Thomas were made out and sent to the army in charge of an aide-decamp. Three days later, when the safety of Louisville was assured, the administration repented of the step, and Halleck telegraphed the aide not to deliver these orders; but this despatch and a subsequent one failed to reach him before the orders had been handed respectively to Buell and to Thomas. The circumstance is notable inasmuch as it gave
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1 September 14, O. R., vol. xvi. part ii. p. 822.
2 In his report of October 12, he said: "With ample means to arm 20,000 men ... we have not yet issued half the arms left us by casualties incident to the campaign." —Ibid., part i. p. 1088.
3 Ibid., part ii. p. 876. When Kirby Smith was in the mountains of Kentucky, he wrote that the people were universally hostile, but he had better expectations from the blue-grass region (pp. 776, 780). As he advanced northward, many of the inhabitants fled before him. September 18 he wrote from Lexington: The hearts of the Kentuckians " are evidently with us, but their blue-grass and fat-grass are against us" (p. 846).

Thomas an opportunity to show his loyalty to his chief by asking respectfully that he be retained in command, and as it brought forth a vigorous protest from prominent Union citizens of Kentucky, asserting that " General Buell has in a very high degree the confidence of this State and of the army."1 Halleck had already suspended the order of removal.2

Buell had gone to work reorganizing his force, intermixing with his veterans the raw soldiers who had assembled for the defence of Louisville. October 1 he left the city with about 58,000 men in pursuit of the enemy, whose available forces were not far from the same number. Bragg himself had proceeded to Lexington to confer with Kirby Smith. Issuing orders for the movement of their troops, the two generals went to Frankfort, the capital, to assist in the farce of inaugurating the Confederate provisional governor of Kentucky. Buell meanwhile hunted for their army. The roads in this part of the State were good, but there had been a drought for several weeks and the Union soldiers suffered from the dust, the prevailing heat, and the lack of water. The battle of Perryville (October 8) was in the beginning a fight on their part for the possession of some pools of water, which resulted in a hot engagement. Both generals claimed the day. Misfortune attended Buell or he might have obtained a signal victory.3 He did not receive word that his left wing was sustaining a severe attack until four o'clock in the afternoon, when the battle had been on several hours, and, although his headquarters were but two and a half miles distant, the sound of the musketry firing was broken by the uneven configuration of the ground and by the heavy wind, and did not reach him. He had not expected a general
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1 Signed by J. J. Crittenden, Garrett Davis, R. Mallory, G. W. Dunlap. Davis was United States senator; the other three were representatives from Kentucky. "The balance of advantage was on October 1 decidedly with the Federals." — Ropes's Civil War, part ii. p. 405.
2 The correspondence will be found in O. R., vol. xvi. part ii. p. 538 etseq.
3 See Ropes's Civil War, part ii. p. 409.

engagement until the next morning, and, when the news of the fighting was finally brought to him, there was not left sufficient daylight for him to make the dispositions that might have prevented the action from being a disappointment to him and to the people of the North. The next day Bragg fell back, and soon afterwards took up his march southward. Buell's pursuit was not vigorous. He failed to overtake the Confederates and bring them to battle, but he drove them out of Kentucky.1

"I congratulate you and all concerned in your recent battles and victories," telegraphed Lincoln, October 8, to Grant, referring to the repulse of the Confederates' attack on Corinth2 (October 3, 4) in the Department of Tennessee, which was under the command of Grant. This was a diversion in favor of Bragg to prevent reinforcements from being sent to Buell.3 The fighting had been directed by W. S. Rosecrans, for neither duty nor any exigency had called Grant to Corinth. As Grant had not emerged from the cloud which had obscured him since Shiloh,4 this victory brought Rosecrans before the government and the public as the possible great general looked for.5

"The rapid march of your army from Louisville, and your victory at Perryville," telegraphed Halleck to Buell, "has
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1 My authorities for this account are the reports of Buell, Bragg, McCook, Rousseau, and Sheridan, the findings of the Buell commission and accompanying documents, O. R., vol. xvi. part i.; the Correspondence in part ii.; Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii.; Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi.; W. M. Polk, Life of Leonidas Polk, vol. ii.; Fry, The Army under Buell; J. D. Cox's review of the same, The Nation, October 2, 18S4; Cist, The Army of the Cumberland; Van Horne, The Army of the Cumberland; articles of Wheeler, Buell, and Gilbert, Century War Book, vol. iii.; Shaler, Kentucky; Moore, Reb. Rec., vol. v.; Pollard, Second Year of the War; Davis, Confederate Government. 2 Corinth was in Mississippi. See vol. iii. p. 628.
3 Grant had already sent Buell two divisions, which reached him September 1-12. —O. R., vol. xvi. part L p. 87.
4 See vol. iii. p. 627.
5 O. R., vol. xvii. part i. p. 154 et seq.; Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, vol. i. chap, xxix.; Grant to E. B. Washburne, November 7, Grant letters edited by Wilson, p. 22.

given great satisfaction to the government."1 In the same despatch he was urged to drive the enemy from East Tennessee. The next day the injunction, which was evidently put in Lincoln's own words, was more emphatic: "The capture of East Tennessee should be the main object of your campaign. You say it is the heart of the enemy's resources; make it the heart of yours. Your army can live there if the enemy's can. You must in a great measure live upon the country, paying for your supplies where proper, and levying contributions where necessary. I am directed by the President to say to you that your army must enter East Tennessee this fall, and that it ought to move there while the roads are passable. Once between the enemy and Nashville there will be no serious difficulty in reopening your communications with that place. He does not understand why we cannot march as the enemy marches, live as he lives, and fight as he fights, unless we admit the inferiority of our troops and of our generals." 2

The plan of living upon the country, although a favorite notion of the President, the Secretary of War, and the people of the North, was visionary. Lee could not do it in the rich country of Maryland, which before his invasion had been traversed by neither army. Bragg could not live in the bluegrass region of Kentucky when he had to concentrate his troops to confront Buell. "Why not . . . pursue the enemy into Mississippi, supporting your army on the country?" asked Halleck of Grant after the battle of Corinth. Grant, who never invented obstacles, promptly replied, "An army cannot subsist itself on the country except in forage;"3 and for good military reasons no system was desirable which should promote pillage in the smallest degree.4
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1 October 18, O. R., vol. xvi. part ii. p. 623. 2 October 19, ibid., p. 626. The internal evidence that the language is Lincoln's is confirmed by the inclusion of this despatch, although signed by Halleck, in the Complete Works of Lincoln edited by Nicolay and Hay.
3 October 8, O. R., vol. xvii. part i. p. 156.
4 On the pillage of Napoleon in his Italian campaign and its effect, see Lanfrey, tome L pp. 83-85, 95, 96.

Buell was asked to live upon a country which had been supporting Confederate armies most of the summer and early autumn, in the face of a hostile force equal to his own. The thing was impossible, but the President had made up his mind that it ought to be tried. Therefore the common-sense, intelligent, and logical answer of Buell1 to his despatch must have been unsatisfactory if not irritating, and was probably interpreted as an excuse for slowness, a subterfuge to avoid incurring a fair military risk. Yet this would not of itself have caused the removal of the general, for the despatches make it clear that his fate hung for some hours in the balance. The additional influence necessary to turn the scale was furnished by Oliver P. Morton, governor of Indiana.

Morton was the ablest and most energetic of the war governors of the Western States. Since the national administration had been from the first dependent on the State machinery for furnishing troops and to some extent for their equipment, the governors of the Northern States were larger factors in the conduct of the war than is easily made to appear in a history where the aim is to secure unity in the narration of crowded events. Owing to the location of his State and the bitterness of the Democratic opposition, no governor had so many obstacles to surmount, and no one threw himself into the contest with more vigor and pertinacity. Wishing to see displayed in military affairs the same force which he put into the administration of his State, he made no secret of his contempt for the generalship of Buell, whom he even charged in his communications with Washington with being "a rebel sympathizer." Morton was personally incorrupt, but selected his coadjutors from the vulgar and the shifty, making his test of fitness for civil and military office personal devotion and unscrupulous obedience to himself rather than honesty and high character. He and Buell became enemies, and he held
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1 Oct. 22, O. R., vol. xvi. part ii. p. 636; see Ropes's Civil War, part ii. p. 413.

it a duty to his country as well as an offering to his self-interest to crush the man whom he could not use.1

October 21 Governor Morton telegraphed the President: "Bragg has escaped with his army into East Tennessee. . . . The butchery of our troops at Perryville was terrible, and resulted from a large portion of the enemy being precipitated upon a small portion of ours. Sufficient time was thus gained by the enemy to enable them to escape. Nothing but success, speedy and decided, will save our cause from utter destruction. In the Northwest distrust and despair are seizing upon the hearts of the people." 2

Morton was backed by Governors Tod and Yates,8 whom Buell had offended by his lack of tact. The general was a strict disciplinarian, and lacked popularity with his soldiers, who were volunteers largely from Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. There was an interaction of opinion between the soldiers in the field and the people at home, so that the private letters written from the army and the editorials in the influential newspapers of the West were at one in their criticisms of him. All these manifestations of public opinion could not be disregarded by Lincoln. He craved popular support, and knew that the war could not go on long without it. Andrew Johnson, military governor of Tennessee, whose sturdy patriotism and brutal energy gave him influence with the President, was earnest for the displacement of Buell, while Stanton had been urging it for two months. The general himself had with magnanimity written that if it were deemed best to change the command of the army, now was a convenient time to do it.4 It is little wonder, then, that the President gave the word for his removal.5 Rosecrans was placed in command
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1 J. D. Cox on Buell, The Nation, October 2, 1884; The Army under Buell, Fry; Warden's Chase, pp. 496, 498; Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography.
2 O. R., vol. xvi. part ii. p. 634.
3 Of Ohio and Illinois.
4 October 16.
5 The orders were issued October 24. See the correspondence, O. R., vol. xvi. part ii.; also proceedings in the Buell commission, part i; Hollister, Life of Colfax, p. 199; J. D. Cox and Fry, hitherto cited. The injustice to Buell did not end with his removal. See remarks of Cox and Fry on the Buell commission and Buell's subsequent career. "I think Buell had genius enough for the highest commands." — Grant, J. R. Young, Around the World with General Grant, vol. ii. p. 289.

of the force, which now becomes known as the Army of the Cumberland. The action of Rosecrans was a tribute to Buell's sagacity. Halleck urged him "to take and hold East Tennessee." 1 It was impossible. He concentrated his troops at Nashville, a movement which the General-in-Chief had warned Buell not to make.2 In thirty-five days from his assumption of command, the government became impatient at his delay. December 4 Halleck telegraphed him, "If you remain one more week at Nashville, I cannot prevent your removal." 3 Rosecrans replied immediately: I am trying to do "my whole duty. ... To threats of removal or the like ... I am insensible." 4 He did not move from Nashville for twenty-two days, not until his preparations were complete, and he was not displaced. There is no reason whatever to believe that in the substitution of Rosecrans for Buell, aught was gained toward the capture of Chattanooga or the relief of the Unionists of East Tennessee. The scene changes to the banks of the Potomac, the leading actor is McClellan, the action is much the same: the general did not take the aggressive promptly enough to satisfy the President and the people of the North. Among radical spirits prevailed distrust of the future, which in a private letter of Sydney Howard Gay, the managing editor of the New York Tribune, finds apt expression. "Smalley," 5 he wrote, "has come back,6 and his notion is that it is to be quiet along the Potomac for some time to come. George [McClellan], whom Providence helps according to his nature, has got himself on one side of a ditch [the Potomac River], which
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1 October 24, O. R., vol. xvi. part ii. p. 640.
3 Ibid., p. 638.
4 Ibid., vol. xx. part ii. p. 118.
5 Ibid. 5 George W.
6 From the army.

Providence had already made for him, with the enemy on the other, and has no idea of moving. Wooden-head [Halleck] at Washington will never think of sending a force through the mountains to attack Lee in the rear, so the two armies will watch each other for nobody knows how many weeks, and we shall have the poetry of war with pickets drinking from the same stream, holding friendly converse and sending newspapers across by various ingenious contrivances." 1 October 1 Lincoln went to see McClellan, remained with the army three days, and as a result of the conferences and observations of his visit, issued through Halleck, after his return to Washington, the following order: "The President directs that you cross the Potomac and give battle to the enemy or drive him south. Your army must move now while the roads are good. If you cross the river between the enemy and Washington, and cover the latter by your line of operations, you can be reinforced with 30,000 men. If you move up the valley of the Shenandoah, not more than 12,000 or 15,000 can be sent to you. The President advises the interior line between Washington and the enemy, but does not order it. He is very desirous that your army move as soon as possible." 2

While giving his army the rest it needed, McClellan had begun the work of reorganization and the drilling of the new recruits. His native aptitude in matters of detail now commenced to spy out defects in equipment and to remedy them, to send complaints to Washington, and to clamor for shoes, blankets, clothing, and camp equipage. The correspondence between the army and Washington is unpleasant reading. It goes to the extent of mutual recrimination between Halleck
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1 September 25, to A. S. Hill, Hill papers, MS. On the disposition of pickets to fraternize, see Walker, 2d Army corps, p. 127 ; N. P. Hallowell, Memorial Day address, May 30, 1896, pamphlet ; also Caesar, De Bello Civili, Comm. iii. cap. xix. As to Chase's dissatisfaction, see Warden, pp. 484, 485.
2 October 6, O. R., vol. xix. part i. p. 10. McClellan at first decided to adopt the line of the Shenandoah. This was what Lee desired him to do. October 22 he changed his plan to moving on the interior line, and began the movement October 26. —Ibid., p. 11; part ii. pp. 464, 626.
and McClellan. One is surprised that this exchange of acrimonious despatches, this working at cross purposes, should have continued when the two were less than a day's journey apart and both had efficient subordinates, Meigs, the Quartermaster-General, and Ingalls, Chief Quartermaster of the Army of the Potomac. The prime cause of the disagreement was McClellan's procrastination. An energetic general would have made the best of his deficiencies, and, reflecting that the Confederates were worse off in every respect, would have moved boldly forward.1 "The men cannot march without shoes " 2 seems to be the summing up of McClellan's reasons for delay. Making due allowance for the higher standard of comfort which ought to have obtained and did obtain among Union soldiers, the contrast between the Army of the Potomac refusing shoes because the sizes were too large 3 and the plaintive utterance of Lee to Davis, "The number of barefooted men is daily increasing, and it pains me to see them limping over the rocky roads," i is significant of the difference between the two commanders, — the one ready to undertake any operation with insufficient means, the other aiming at an "ideal completeness of preparation."

The impatience of the country at the army's inaction was becoming intense. To prevent the people of the North from growing weary of the contest, to convince Europe that there was a prospect of the end of the war, and to guard against an interference of France and England, who were eager to get cotton, Lincoln felt that he had great need of victories in the field. This yearning, tempered by a common-sense view of means and chances, bursts out in a letter to McClellan which was "in no sense an order," and which cannot in fairness be compared to " the meddling interference " of the Vienna Aulio Council in the Napoleonic Wars.5
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1 See Ropes's Civil War, part ii. p. 436.
2 McClellan to Halleck, October 11, O. R., vol. xix. part i. p. 75.
3 Ibid., pp. 22, 23.
4 Ibid., part ii. p. 633.
6 See Sloane's Napoleon, vol. i. pp. 263, 266; vol. ii. pp. 105, 236.

"My dear Sir, — You remember my speaking to you," he wrote, "of what I called your over-cautiousness. Are you not over-cautious when you assume that you cannot do what the enemy is constantly doing? . . . Change positions with the enemy, and think you not he would break your communication with Richmond within the next twenty-four hours? You dread his going into Pennsylvania, but if he does so in full force, he gives up his communications to you absolutely, and you have nothing to do but to follow and ruin him. . . . Exclusive of the water-line, you are now nearer Richmond than the enemy is by the route that you can and he must take. Why can you not reach there before him, unless you admit that he is more than your equal on a march? His route is the arc of a circle, while yours is the chord. The roads are as good on yours as on his. ... If he should . . . move toward Richmond, I would press closely to him; fight him, if a favorable opportunity should present, and at least try to beat him to Richmond on the inside track. I say ' try;' if we never try we shall never succeed. . . . We should not so operate as merely to drive him away. As we must beat him somewhere or fail finally, we can do it, if at all, easier near to us than far away. If we cannot beat the enemy where he now is, we never can, he again being within the intrenchments of Richmond."1

McClellan complained that he could not advance because he was short of horses for his cavalry; then disease attacked them, and those which remained sound were broken down by fatigue. The much-enduring Lincoln thought of Stuart's cavalry raid around the Union army,2 and the ineffectual pursuit by the Federal troopers, and, irritated because he believed that McClellan conjured up difficulties, sent this sharp inquiry: "I have just read your despatch about sore-tongued and fatigued horses. Will you pardon me for asking what
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1 October 13, O. R., vol. xix. part I. p. 13.
2 October 9-12. Especially discreditable to McClellan because the raid was made on Union territory. "It is disgraceful that Stuart's cavalry are this morning in possession of Chambersburg." — Chase, October 11, Schuckers, p. 382.

the horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietam that fatigues anything?"1 While the correspondence on the part of the general remains respectful, the acerbity of the President does not abate, and makes it evident that if the army had not then commenced the advance he would have borne no longer with McClellan.2

October 26 the army, 116,000 strong, began to cross the Potomac, and six days later the last division was over. The Confederates fell back. Longstreet's corps, accompanied by Lee, marched to Culpeper Court-House, while Jackson remained in the Shenandoah valley.3 November 7 the Union army was massed near Warrenton. Lincoln had determined that if McClellan permitted Lee to cross the Blue Ridge and take position between Richmond and the Army of the Potomac, he would remove him from command.4 When he heard that Lee had accomplished this movement, he relieved McClellan and appointed Burnside the general of the army.5 It is not surprising that McClellan was relieved, but it is no less true that his removal was a mistake. Had there been a general of better ability to take his place, the President's action could be justified.6 Chase, fertile in military suggestions, had at different times proposed Hooker, Sumner, Burnside, and Sherman for the command, any one of whom in his opinion would do the work better than McClellan.7 Age and infirmity, if no other reason, put Sumner out of the question.8
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1 O. R., vol. xix. part ii. p. 485. 2 See despatch of October 27, ibid., p. 497. 'Longstreet and Jackson had been made lieutenant-generals, and their commands called respectively the 1st and 2d corps. 4 John Hay's Diary, Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. p. 188. 6 This order is dated November 5. It reached Burnside and McClellan two days later. —O. R., vol. xix. part ii. p. 545; McClellan's Own Story, p. 660. 8 "McClellan ought not to have been removed unless the Government were prepared to put in his place some officer whom they knew to be at least his equal in military capacity. This assuredly was not the case at this moment." — Ropes's Civil War, part ii. p. 442. 7 Warden, pp. 460, 492. 8 Walker, Second Army Corps, p. 130. Grant said, "A successful general needs health and youth and energy. I should not like to put a general in the field over fifty." — J. E. Young, Around the World with General Grant, vol. 11. p. 353. Sumner was sixty-five.

Had Sherman been the Sherman of 1864, his fitness would have indicated him for the place, but now it were better for him to remain in the West rather than to be elevated to a position on which so much depended and from which so much was expected. Burnside and Hooker were tried, and the army met with two crushing defeats such as it would never have suffered under its loved commander. It is worthy of note that Grant was not suggested.

We have no right to judge the President by our knowledge of the event, but even on turning back to the time itself, we may easily see that the substitution of Burnside for McClellan can in no wise be defended. Burnside had given no proof of his fitness, had refused the place twice, and had told the President and Secretary of War over and over again that he was not competent to command so large an army, and that McClellan was the best general for the position.1 His removal was indeed ill-timed. He had shown at Antietam that he could take the offensive and check the almost invincible Lee; since crossing the Potomac he had made a swift march and was troubling his adversary;2 he now had his army equipped and well in hand; and he retained in the fullest degree the love and devotion of his soldiers. With the frankness which distinguishes Lincoln, he seemed to admit nineteen days after he had signed the order for the removal of McClellan that he had made a mistake. "I certainly have been dissatisfied with the slowness of Buell and McClellan," he wrote Carl Schurz; "but before I relieved them I had great fears I should not find successors to them who would do better; and I am sorry to add that I have seen little since to relieve those fears." 3
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1 C. W., part i. p. 650.
2 "The march from the Potomac at Berlin to Warrenton . . . was a magnificent spectacle of celerity and skill." — Report of Rufus Ingalls, O. R., vol. xix. part i. p. 96. McClellan "is also moving more rapidly than usual, and it looks like a real advance." — Lee to Davis, November 6, ibid., part ii. p. 698. But see Ropes's Civil War, part ii. p. 446.
3 Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 258.

I shall not take issue with those who aver that McClellan would never have brought the war to a close. It was not Fabius1 but Scipio who overcame Hannibal, and Grant was needed to crush Lee. "Few men," writes General Cox, "could excel McClellan in strictly defensive operations. . . . He was . . . often compared to Marshal Daun, whose fair ability but studiously defensive policy was so in contrast with the daring strategy of the great Frederick. The comparison was a fair one. The trouble was that we had need of a Frederick."2 It may be added that the other side had the Frederick, and until we had developed an aggressive general it were well to hold fast to our Daun.3

In a democracy it is probably inevitable that politics should be brought into military affairs. Public opinion of McClellan and Buell turned therefore on their attitude towards slavery. These generals were conservatives, and their friends were among the conservative Republicans and the Democrats. When a man was heard denouncing them, he was sure to be a radical. Of course the radicals would have welcomed signal military success at the hands of McClellan and Buell,4 but as this success was not forthcoming they persistently minimized their achievements and the difficulties that stood in
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1 But Ennius wrote: "Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem."
2 Reminiscences, MS. Carlyle thus speaks of Daun: "A man that for caution and slowness could make no use of his victory." "The angry Vienna people [said to Daun] 'you loitered and haggled in your usual way.'" "A man slow to resolve and seeking his luck in leisure."
3 "Let military critics or political enemies say what they will, he who could so move upon the hearts of a great army as the wind sways long rows of standing corn, was no ordinary man; nor was he who took such heavy toll of Joseph E. Johnston and Robert E. Lee an ordinary soldier." — Walker, Second Army Corps, p. 138. "There are strong grounds for believing that McClellan was the best commander the Army of the Potomac ever had. . . . While the Confederacy was young and fresh and rich, and its armies were numerous, he fought a good, wary, damaging, respectable fight against it."—Palfrey, p. 135.
4 Joseph Medill, editor of the Chicago Tribune and a representative radical of the West, wrote A. S. Hill, September 20: "McClellan's star is in the ascendant. Let him go ahead. I am willing to accept success at the hands of any general." —Hill papers, MS.

their way. While McClellan believed that the war would result in the destruction of slavery, he thought the President's proclamation premature,1 and his order calling the attention of his army to it shows only a grudging compliance with the great edict.2 Lincoln was too wise to rate a man's military talent by his political opinions, and he was sincere when on the day of McClellan's displacement he wrote in a private letter, "in considering military merit, the world has abundant evidence that I disregard politics." 3

Expressions of hostility to the administration were common at the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac, and these at times assumed the color of treason. Officers and citizens assured McClellan that the devotion of the army would enable him to dominate the situation. While he was too true a patriot to do anything that was questionable, he was nevertheless so influenced by the conviction that the government had not shown him the gratitude and consideration which was his due that he did not rebuke these suggestions as a general subject to the civil power ought to have done. His enemies, in their pressure on the President for his removal, undoubtedly made the most of the reports of this factious hostility. The opposition of the radicals was intensified by the hold he had on the Democrats of the country. Some of the Democratic conventions had expressed by resolution their trust in him,4 and he began to be spoken of as their candidate for the presidency. There is no evidence that he maintained other than a passive attitude toward these political advances. His famous letter from Harrison's Landing was no partisan manifesto: indeed, until after his removal it had been seen only by the President and a few intimates of the White House. Its contents had not been imparted to his political
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1 J. D. Cox's Reminiscences, MS.
2 O. R., vol. xix. part ii. p. 395.
3 Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 252; see, also, his letter to Schurz, p. 258.
4 Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1862, pp. 557, 664, 565; Lord Lyons to Earl Russell, November 17,1862, British Blue Book.

friends.1 He loved a soldier's life, and cared more for military distinction than any other; he felt grieved at his removal.

We part with McClellan the soldier with regret. He was a gentleman of high character. No orgies disgraced his headquarters.2 If his promotion had not been so rapid, less would have been expected of him, and he would perhaps have been able to fill the measure of anticipation.3

With unfeigned grief, with sinking hearts, with expressions of love and devotion, the officers and soldiers of the army bade farewell to McClellan. Burnside accepted the command with great reluctance. Had he simply been asked to take it, he would have refused; but the promotion coming in the shape of an order, he deemed it his duty to obey.4 Would the President thus have forced on any general a command which he had declared repeatedly that he was incompetent to wield, had it not been for a weighty precedent significant of the modesty of the American soldier? "I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with," declared Washington to the Congress that had made him commander-in-chief of the American army. The parallel can go no further. Whether unconsciously or not we measure Burnside's first steps by his disastrous defeat at Fredericksburg, it
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1 McClellan's Own Story, p. 489. The note by the editor is supported by the fact that this letter is not mentioned in the contemporary literature.
2 Palfrey, p. 134.
3 Grant after his presidency thus expressed himself of McClellan: "I have entire confidence in McClellan's loyalty and patriotism. But the test which was applied to him would be terrible to any man, being made a major-general at the beginning of the war. It has always seemed to me that the critics of McClellan do not consider this vast and cruel responsibility— the war, a new thing to all of us, the army new, everything to do from the outset, with a restless people and Congress. McClellan was a young man when this devolved upon him, and if he did not succeed, it was because the conditions of success were so trying. If McClellan had gone into the war as Sherman, Thomas, or Meade, had fought his way along and up, I have no reason to suppose that he would not have won as high distinction as any of us."—J. E. Young, Around the World with General Grant, vol. ii. p. 216.
4 O. R., vol. xii. p. 101.

seems that incompetence attends his every movement. The reason of the change of commanders demanded that he should take the offensive immediately. On this point he and the President were at one, although he did not believe in the plan exposed by Lincoln in his letter to McClellan of October 13,1 but desired to advance on Richmond by the way of Fredericksburg. The President unwillingly relinquished his design, but in the end gave his assent to Burnside's plan.

A misunderstanding occurred between Burnside on one side, and Halleck and Meigs on the other, in reference to the celerity with which the army could be furnished with pontoons to effect their crossing of the Rappahannock River. The delay that ensued in the despatching of the pontoon trains, maintains the general, prevented his seizing the heights above Fredericksburg before their occupation by the enemy, and led to his defeat. Considering the lives and money at stake in large military operations, any one who had not discovered from previous study how costly it is for an industrial nation to learn the efficient management of war would be amazed, in reading the correspondence, reports, and testimony in this case, to note the lack of precision, the division of labor and responsibility, and the shifting of blame from one officer to another. It is repeatedly asserted that the failure of the campaign was due to delay in the arrival at the river of the pontoon trains. The truth is, that had everything in this respect worked as Burnside expected, he would not indeed have gone down at Fredericksburg, but would have had his columns shattered at the North Anna River, where Lee intended to retire had the Union army gained possession of the heights above Fredericksburg. The difference of capacity between Burnside and Lee, the determination of the Union general to attack the Confederates in any event, making an opportunity if the favorable one did not occur, allowed of no other result than defeat.

Some days were spent in marching. By the last week of November, Burnside with his army, 113,000 strong, was on the
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1 Vide ante, p. 187.

north bank of the Rappahannock opposite Fredericksburg, and his pontoons had arrived. Lee was with Longstreet at Fredericksburg, Jackson being within easy distance. Lee had under his command 78,000 men. There was the usual manoeuvring, in which Lee anticipated every move of his adversary with preparations to check it. The chance of a hoped-for surprise vanished; but Burnside, who had determined to fight, infused into his projects such impetuosity that the President, on visiting the army, was impelled to say a word of caution to him and to suggest a safer plan.1 Lincoln's plan was rejected by both Halleck and Burnside, for the reason that it involved "too much waste of time,"2 and the commander was left to his own devices, although, as the critical moment approached, he grew anxious and wished to submit to Washington for approval a detailed statement of his design.3 He proposed to cross the river and strike at the enemy in his chosen, strong position. No movement that was open to him could have given Lee greater satisfaction.

At Burnside's request the army had been divided into the Right, Centre, and Left grand divisions, under the command respectively of Sumner, Hooker, and Franklin. December 11, in the teeth of opposition, the bridges were thrown over the river, and the next day Sumner and Franklin crossed, Hooker remaining on the north bank to give his support where it would most be needed. The pictures of Burnside on the evening of December 12 are those of a general bewildered in the undertaking of a larger enterprise than he had the ability and nerve to carry through. It is impossible to discover that he had a well-defined plan of operation. It is now pretty well agreed that the only chance of success lay in an attack in force by Franklin's grand division on Jackson's corps, which formed Lee's right. Jackson had a strong though by no means impregnable position. According to Dabney, he had
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1 November 27, Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 259.
2 Ibid.
3 O. R., vol. xxi. p. 64.

no intrenchments in his front, since he had occupied the ground only during the night and early morning preceding the battle.1 Franklin and General William F. Smith2 relate that about five o'clock in the afternoon of December 12 Burnside visited the left of his army and had a conference with them and John F. Reynolds.3 Franklin, fortified by a previous discussion in which Smith and Reynolds had agreed with him, urged Burnside to let him attack the enemy's right with a column of at least 30,000 at daylight the next day; he further recommended that to make the necessary dispositions and to get the aid needed from Hooker, the orders should be issued as early as possible. Burnside neither approved nor disapproved Franklin's suggestion, but promised him his directions before midnight. Franklin passed the night in "sleepless anxiety," waiting for the order from his general, which came at about seven in the morning,4 and was interpreted by him to direct that he should make an armed reconnaissance with one division, while Burnside's real meaning was that he should attack the enemy with one division well supported. The order was indeed ambiguous, and especially so if taken in connection with the conversation of the evening before. Franklin sent Meade's division to the attack. It gained the crest of the hill, but not being strongly enough supported, although several other divisions had been sent into action, was driven back. It is thought that if the onset had been made with a large force Lee's right would have been turned.

On Burnside's right was lost forever his reputation as a general. He determined "to seize" Marye's Heights — a hill, at the bottom of which was a stone wall, "strengthened by a trench" and "heavily lined with the enemy's infantry," while the crest "was crowned with batteries."5 Where
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1 Life of Jackson, p. 604.
2 The commander of the Sixth Corps in Franklin's grand division.
3 The commander of the First Corps in Franklin's grand division.
4 December 13. See Ropes's discussion of this order, Civil War, part ii. 460.
5 Humphrey's report.

there were not cannon in earthworks, there were rifle-pits filled with sharpshooters. Couch and Hancock had told Burnside that the heights were fortified and that it would be difficult to take them. This caused him irritation, but did not induce caution.1 The day before the battle Couch sent Francis A. Walker of his staff to the commander, to tell him that the enemy would make a stand upon the hills in the rear of the town, "that a deep trench or canal ran around Fredericksburg, which would prove a serious obstacle to the passage of troops debouching from the town to assault the works on the hills behind." Nervousness and obstinacy caused Burnside, "the sweetest, kindest, most true-hearted of men, loving and lovable," to reply with asperity that "he himself had occupied Fredericksburg with the Ninth Corps the August before " — he knew the ground and Couch was mistaken.2

The order to be ready came in the early morning;3 the word of attack was received before noon. The Union soldiers advanced over the plain between the town and the stone wall, ground which Longstreet's superintendent of artillery said, "we cover so well that we will comb it as with a fine-tooth comb. A chicken could not live on that field when we open on it." 4 The canal interfered with their deployment, and the fire was therefore the more destructive. But generals and soldiers had their orders, and forward they went. No higher courage could be shown. Intelligent as brave, they felt their effort hopeless, yet did their very best to carry the stone wall. Hancock led a charge of 5000, and lost two out of every five of his veterans, of whom 156 were commissioned officers, "able and tried commanders."5 "Six times did the enemy," wrote Lee, "notwithstanding the havoc caused by our batteries, press on with great determination to within 100 yards of the foot of the hill, but here, encountering the deadly fire
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1 Century War Book, vol. iii. p. 108.
2 Walker, Second Army Corps, pp. 137, 155.
3 December 13.
4 Century War Book, vol. iii. p. 79.
6 Hancock's report.

of our infantry, his columns were broken."1 "Oh, great God!" cried Couch, "see how our men, our poor fellows, are falling." "It is only murder now."2 "Fighting Joe Hooker," who until that day had never seen fighting enough, felt that he could make no more impression upon the Confederate works than upon "the side of a mountain of rock." Putting spurs to his horse, he rode across the river and begged Burnside to desist from further attack. The commander was obstinate, and declared that the work of assault must go on.3 Humphreys, "the knight without reproach or fear,"4 then led a bayonet charge of 4500 troops who had never been in battle before. "The stone wall was a sheet of flame that enveloped the head and flanks of the column." In brief time over a thousand men were killed and wounded. "The column turned." The regiments retired slowly, and in good order, many of the soldiers "singing and hurrahing." 5

This ended the battle. The Confederate loss was 5377; the Union 12,653, of the flower of the army. The next day Burnside was wild with grief. "Oh, those men! those men over there!" he said, pointing across the river where lay the dead and wounded, "I am thinking of them all the time." 6 This anguish combined with his debility from loss of sleep to drive him to a desperate plan. He thought of putting himself at the head of his old corps, the Ninth, and leading them in person in an assault on the Confederates behind the stone wall. Sumner advised him against such an attack, as did Franklin and several corps and division commanders. He gave it up. On the night of December 15, his movement
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1 Lee's report. I do not cite the concluding clause, as the statement is disputed by Federal writers.
2 Century War Book, vol. iii. p. 113 ; Second Army Corps, p. 175.
3 C. W., part i. p. 668.
4 Walker's Hancock, p. 68.
5 Humphrey's report. When matters on his right were going so badly, Burnside sent this word: "Tell General Franklin that I wish him to make a vigorous attack with his whole force." This was not done. See the discussion of this incident by Palfrey, p. 174.
6 Century War Book, vol. iii. p. 138.

concealed by a violent storm of wind and rain, he successfully withdrew his army to the north side of the river.

Lee was not aware of the magnitude of his victory. Expecting that the Federals would renew the attack, he did not follow up his advantage. Pollard writes that the Southern public anticipated that their shattered foe, who was cut off from escape by the river in his rear, would be annihilated.1 The feeling in regard to Lee might have found expression in the words of Barcas, a Carthaginian, after the battle of Cannae: "You know, Hannibal, how to gain a victory, but not how to use it."

Burnside's loss in killed, wounded, and missing was heavy, but it was as nothing compared with the loss in the army's morale. Officers and soldiers, feeling that they had been put to a useless sacrifice, had lost confidence in their commander. At a review of the Second Corps he was received with such coldness that Sumner asked Couch2 to call upon the men for cheers. Couch and the division commanders rode along the lines and waved their caps or swords, but did not elicit a single encouraging response. Some soldiers even gave vent to derisive cries. Had McClellan appeared before them to take command once more, the air would have rung with joyful shouts.3 The Democrats and some of the Republicans clamored for his restoration to the head of the army,4 but Lincoln could not of course entertain seriously the proposal. Burnside remained its general, and the President sent to its officers and soldiers the best measure possible of congratulation. But the demoralization of the army was complete. Officers resigned and great numbers of men deserted.
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1 The Second Year of the War, p. 195. The weight of military authority is against the soundness of such an anticipation. Longstreet, Century War Book, vol. iii. p. 83 ; Allan, p. 513; Dabney, p. 628.
2 Now commander of the Second Corps.
3 Walker, Second Army Corps, p. 198.
4 Welles, Diary, Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. p. 267 ; W. P. Cutler's Diary, entry December 18; Boston Courier, December 23; New York Herald, January 10, 1863 ; see, also, Wright's speech in the House, January 30,1863, Globe Appendix, p. 76.

Although Burnside was weighed down with distress, the magnanimous nature of the man would not let go unchallenged the report gaining currency that he had been forced to the attack by orders of the President. The President, the Secretary of War, the General-in-Chief gave me no orders; the whole management was left in my hands; I am entirely responsible for the failure, he wrote in his first account of the battle.1 This was exactly true, but the laying bare of the whole correspondence has been necessary to convince many that this despatch in which he assumed the whole blame was not dictated to him from Washington.

Lincoln was much depressed at the disaster, the responsibility of which he must share with his general, since he had placed him in command. In the early part of December, Halleck had conceived that the paramount anxiety of the President for a victory was the necessity of counteracting the sentiment in Great Britain which favored joining France in an intervention in our contest.2 It was, indeed, true that the fear of foreign complications contributed to the solicitude born of the consciousness that he was losing rapidly his hold on the people of the North, which he then knew, as we all now know, was the requisite of success. "I have not so much of the confidence of the people as I had some time since," 8 he said, September 22, the day on which he submitted his proclamation of emancipation to his cabinet. Since then he had suffered defeat at the ballot-box and in the field; and the defeat in battle was aggravated in the popular estimation by his mistaken change of commanders, on which no more severe comment could be made than Burnside's testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War which was speedily given to the public.4
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1 December 17, O. R., vol. xxi. p. 67.
2 Ibid., vol. xx. part ii. p. 123.
3 Warden's Chase, p. 482.
4 Burnside's testimony (as to the nature of it, see p. 189) was taken December 19, and published in the New York Tribune December 24. See Boston Courier, December 25.

The hopes of the Confederacy were high. The correspondent of the London Times wrote from Lee's headquarters: December 13 will be "a memorable day to the historian of the Decline and Fall of the American Republic."1 Some such thought occurred to the people of the North when they came to know the story of the battle of Fredericksburg. Grief, as great as any told in epic, in drama, or in novel, wrung their hearts at the useless sacrifice of so many noble souls. Gloom followed. "This is a day of darkness and peril to the country. . . . Under McClellan nothing was accomplished; now Burnside fails on the first trial;"2 an elastic and stout-hearted people has been brought to the brink of despondency; the North has lost heart and hope; we do not absolutely despair of the Republic:3 such are the reflections of public opinion we meet with in the chronicles of the time. The feeling of those in the inner councils of the nation was undoubtedly expressed by Meigs. "Every day's consumption of your army," he wrote Burnside, "is an immense destruction of the natural and monetary resources of the country. The country begins to feel the effect of this exhaustion, and I begin to apprehend a catastrophe. ... I begin to doubt the possibility of maintaining the contest beyond this winter unless the popular heart is encouraged by victory on the Rappahannock. ... As day after day has gone, my heart has sunk, and I see greater peril to our nationality in the present condition of affairs than I have seen at any time during the struggle."4
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1 Issue of January 13,1863.
2 W. P. Cutler, M. C. from Ohio, in his diary entry of December 16, Biographical Sketch, p. 296.
3 New York World, December 24; New York Tribune, December 26; Boston Courier, December 29. Joseph Medill, editor of the Chicago Tribune, while penning or dictating hopeful leaders in his journal, thus wrote privately to Colfax: "Our people all have the 'blues.' The feeling of utter hopelessness is stronger than at any time since the war began. The terrible bloody defeat of our brave army at Fredericksburg leaves us almost without hope."—Hollister's Colfax, p. 203.
4 December 30, O. R., vol. xxi. p. 916.

Burnside's energy took an almost frenzied turn. In spite of the disaffection in his army, which extended from the highest generals to the privates, he decided to cross the river a few miles below Fredericksburg and again attack the Confederates. He had already commenced operations when the President, to whom had been brought home vividly the feeling in the army towards its commander, sent him this despatch: "I have good reason for saying that you must not make a general movement of the army without letting me know."1 He suspended the orders for the advance and went immediately to Washington. The knowledge that we have of his conferences with the President, the Secretary of War, and the General-in-Chief show us Burnside perturbed, Stanton and Halleck lacking judgment and decision and unequal to the responsibility that should have been theirs, and Lincoln in a state of painful perplexity which seemed to reach, on New Year's Day, 1863, a culmination. Burnside told the President that Stanton and Halleck "had not the confidence of the officers and soldiers," nor, in his belief, of the country at large. He intimated strongly that they ought to be removed, while he himself "ought to retire to private life." The President, harassed by doubts, wrote to Halleck with pardonable irritation, saying, in effect, Do come to some decision in regard to General Burnside's plan of advance. "Your military skill is useless to me if you will not do this." This resulted in an offer of resignation of his place by the General-in-Chief and the withdrawal of the letter by the President "because considered harsh by General Halleck."2

No determination was reached. Burnside returned to the army, where, in spite of the almost unanimous opposition of his general officers, he resolved upon another crossing of the river, and wrote the President to this effect, enclosing his resignation in case the movement were disapproved.3 Lincoln gave a qualified consent, adding an injunction different
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1 O. R., vol. xxi. p. 900.
3 January 5, 1863, ibid., p. 944.
2 Ibid., p. 940 et seq.

from that he had been accustomed to send McClellan: "Be cautious and do not understand that the government or country is driving you." He said further, "I do not yet see how I could profit by changing the command of the Army of the Potomac."1 Burnside prepared for an advance. Franklin said that success was impossible. Hooker, as free and emphatic in the criticism of his present commander as he had been of McClellan, declared that the projected movement was absurd, and the chances of failure nineteen to one. Officers and privates generally agreed with Franklin and Hooker. It was fortunate that the elements interfered in their favor. A severe storm occurred, and rain fell without ceasing. Burnside, tormented by lack of sleep, still persisted with desperate energy. The orders to march were given, but the deep mud made it impossible to move the artillery, the pontoons, the ammunition and supply wagons. The Confederates on the other side of the river bantered the Union pickets, asking if they should not come over and help build the bridges. The movement known in the annals of the army as the "mud campaign" was perforce abandoned, yet Burnside was still stubborn and his excitement did not abate. He prepared an order removing Hooker, Franklin, and many other officers of the army.2 He went to see the President, and asked for the approval of this order or the acceptance of his resignation as major-general. The President took time for reflection, and concluded to relieve Burnside and place Hooker in command of the Army of the Potomac.3
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1 January 8, 1863, O. R., vol. xxi. p. 954.
2 General Order No. 8, January 23, ibid., p. 998.
3 The same order relieved Sumner at his own request; and also Franklin. It was one of the unfortunate results of Fredericksburg that Franklin, who had undoubted military talent, was lost to the service. The Committee on the Conduct of the War injured him in the public estimation by reporting that if he had attacked the enemy in sufficient force, "the plan of General Burnside would have been completely successful." — C. W-, part i. p. 67. But see Palfrey, pp. 174-182. "The press has now killed McClellan, Buell, Fitz John Porter, Sumner, Franklin, and Burnside. Add my name and I am not ashamed of the association. If the press can govern the country, let them fight the battles." —General Sherman to his brother, February, 1863, Sherman Letters, p. 189. He had written, January 17, "I hope the politicians will not interfere with Halleck. You [the politicians] have driven off McClellan, and is Burnside any better? Buell is displaced. Is Rosecrans any faster? His victory at Murfreesboro [Stone's River] is dearly bought." — Ibid., p. 182.
My authorities for this account are the Union and Confederate correspondence, O. R., vol. xxi.; reports of Halleck, Burnside, Sumner, Hooker, Franklin, Couch, Hancock, Butterfield, Humphreys, Reynolds, Meade, Lee, Longstreet, Jackson, ibid.; testimony of Halleck, Burnside, Sumner, Hooker, Meigs, Franklin, Meade, Reynolds, Parke, Newton, Cochrane, C. W., part i.; Ropes's Civil War, part ii.; Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi.; Palfrey, Antietam and Fredericksburg; Allan, Army of Nor. Va.; Walker, Second Army Corps, Life of Hancock; Long, Life of Lee; Mrs. Jackson, Life of Jackson; Dabney, Life of Jackson; Taylor, Four Years with General Lee; articles of Longstreet, Couch, W. F. Smith, McLaws, Century War Book, vol. iii.; Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox; Franklin, Reply to Committee on Conduct of the War; Moore, Reb. Rec., vol. x.; Swinton, Army of the Potomac; Letter of London Times correspondent from Lee's Headquarters, December 12, 13, 1862; New York Tribune, December 16, 17, World, 17, 18, Times, 17, Herald, 17, 18; Chicago Tribune, December 17, 18; Boston Evening Transcript, December 17, 18, Advertiser, December 18, 1862.

The disaster of Fredericksburg caused a cabinet crisis, as it is described by the contemporary authorities, with deference to English political phraseology. But the procedure when a calamity of state seems to call for radical action shows the difference between the English and the American constitutions. Lincoln was the head of the administration, the commander-in-chief of the armies, and if any one other than Burnside was responsible for the defeat on the Rappahannock, it was he. So declared the Democrats without reserve. The Republicans too, in private conversation and confidential letters, expressed the same conviction, although in public they were cautious and reticent. Suppose English conditions to have obtained and Lincoln to have been prime minister. Congress would probably have voted a want of confidence in him and his ministry; his resignation or an appeal to the country would have followed. But as Lincoln said September 22 and might still have said: "I do not know that, all things considered, any other person has more" of the confidence of the people than I have; "and however this may be, there is no way
in which I can have any other man put where I am. I am here. I must do the best I can, and bear the responsibility of taking the course which I feel I ought to take." In view of this constitutional limitation a caucus of Republican senators, assuming to speak for a majority of their party and of the nation, reverted unconsciously to earlier English precedents, and gave as a formal opinion that the failure of a vigorous and successful prosecution of the war was due to the fact that the President was badly advised by his cabinet ministers. Most of these senators thought that the clog to the administration was Seward, and at their first meeting they passed, although not by a unanimous vote, a resolution declaring that the welfare of the country required his withdrawal from the cabinet. Later, in order to obtain practical unanimity, this resolution was reconsidered and a substitute adopted which asked such changes to be made among the President's constitutional advisers as would secure "in the present crisis of public affairs" better results in the war waged "to suppress a causeless and atrocious rebellion." The radical senators, a prey to long-continued irritation at Seward's conservatism of the last two years and especially embittered at a confidential letter of his to Adams,1 recently published, saw in the resolution nothing more than a demand for his dismissal, while the conservatives probably hoped that a reconstruction of the cabinet might result also in the retirement of one or both of the representative radical members, Chase and Stanton. From his friend Senator Preston King of New York, Seward heard of the action of the senatorial caucus and immediately sent his resignation to the President.

December 19 2 a committee of nine senators appointed by the
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1 "It seems as if the extreme advocates of African slavery and its most vehement opponents were acting in concert together to precipitate a servile war — the former by making the most desperate attempts to overthrow the federal Union, the latter by demanding an edict of universal emancipation as a lawful and necessary, if not, as they say, the only legitimate, way of saving the Union." — Letter of July 5, Message and Diplomtic Correspondence, p. 124.
2 I follow the date given by Nicolay and Hay. The Washington correspondent of the New York Tribune wrote that this interview took place the evening of the 18th, but the difference is not material.

caucus waited upon Lincoln, presented their formal conclusions, and urged that a change be made in the department of State. The pith of the interview was given in the report he made of it the same day to his cabinet. "While they seemed to believe in my honesty," he said, "they also appeared to think that when I had in me any good purpose or intention Seward contrived to suck it out of me unperceived."1 At this conference with his cabinet advisers, he asked them to meet him again in the evening, and having made a similar appointment with the committee of senators, the two parties came together with equal surprise. Seward of course was not of the company, and one of the senators was absent.2 A frank interchange of views took place. Feeling that the fate of the nation was perhaps at stake, the senators were open in their criticism of the cabinet and forcible in their attack upon Seward. The cabinet ministers made an energetic defence. The President acted as moderator, but, knowing that the maxim, the king can do no wrong, had no place in American politics, he understood that the prosecutors were indirectly finding fault with himself. The conference was stormy and lasted long. Finally Lincoln said: "Do you, gentlemen, still think Seward ought to be excused?" Sumner, Trumbull, Grimes, and Pomeroy said "Yes." Collamer, Fessenden, and Howard would not vote, and Harris [of New York] said "No." 3

The most important result of the meeting was that it induced Secretary Chase to resign his portfolio the next day.4 In conversation, in private correspondence, in the confidences to his diary, he had dealt censure unrestrained to the President's conduct of the war. At this conference he was therefore between two fires. To be consistent with his
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1 Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. p. 265; see, also, Joseph Medill to Colfax, Life of Colfax, Hollister, p. 200.
2 Wade.
3 Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. p. 266.
4 December 20.

hostile animadversions, which were undoubtedly well known to the senators, he should join in the attack; duty and honor in the execution of his office commanded him to take part in the defence. His position was embarrassing and untenable. The reflection of a night pointed to resignation as the only way out of the difficulty, and in the morning he placed the letter imparting his decision in the President's hands. Lincoln was pleased that his political shrewdness had effected, as a consequence of the resignation of the conservative chief, that of the head of the radicals. Believing, as he afterwards expressed it, "If I had yielded to that storm and dismissed Seward, the thing would all have slumped over one way, and we should have been left with a scanty handful of supporters," he saw that the resignation of Chase enabled him to win the game, and said to Senator Harris, "Now I can ride; I have got a pumpkin in each end of my bag."1 He immediately sent this word, " Secretary of the Treasury, please do not go out of town," and later in the day sent two identical letters: "Hon. William H. Seward and Hon. Salmon P. Chase: Gentlemen: You have . . . tendered me your resignations. ... I am apprised of the circumstances which may render the course personally desirable to each of you; but, after most anxious consideration, my deliberate judgment is, that the public interest does not admit of it. I therefore have to request that you will resume the duties of your departments respectively." 2 The next day Seward cheerfully resumed his office, and two days later Chase reluctantly returned to his post. The cabinet crisis was over. Its members remained the same.3
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1 Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. p. 271; Life of Seward, vol. iii. p. 148.
2 December 20, Warden's Chase, p. 508; Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. p. 268.
3 Smith, Secretary of the Interior, resigned about this time, but his resignation was in no way a result of the action of the senators.
My authorities for this account are Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. chap. xii.; Warden's Chase; Schuckers's Chase; Life of Seward, vol. iii.; Lothrop's Seward; Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv.; Washington corr. New York Tribune, December 20, 21, 23, January 9, 1863, editorials of December 22, 23; New York Evening Post, December 22; Wash, corr. New York Times, December 20, editorials of December 22, 23; New York World, December 22, 23, 27, Herald, December 21, 22; Boston Courier, December 22, 23; Chicago Tribune, December 24, 25.

Lincoln had displayed rare political sagacity in insisting on retaining in the service of the State the men who could best serve it notwithstanding the rude jostling of the cabinet and the opinion of Congress that the essential concord in judgment and action did not prevail among its members.1 His judgment that "the public interest does not admit" of the retirement of the secretaries of State and of the Treasury is confirmed by a study of the writings of the time in the light of succeeding events. In the misfortune and dejection which had fallen upon the country no voice could be slighted that would be raised for the continued prosecution of the war; and since Seward and Chase represented the diverse opinions of two large classes of men who were at least in concord on the one all-important policy, it was desirable that they should remain in the cabinet. The loss of either or both of them would have been a subtraction from the popular support of the administration that could in no other way be made good.

There were, too, other reasons why the President did not wish to part with his secretaries of State and of the Treasury. Since April, 1861, Seward had rendered a loyal support; he had sunk his ambition for the presidency; he had come to appreciate the ability of Lincoln and to acknowledge in him the head of the government in reality as in name. He had been an efficient minister. Even allowing for all the circumstances, that slavery in the Confederacy was a stumbling-block in the way of its recognition by England and France, and that the influence of Lincoln, Sumner, and Adams in foreign relations was of great weight, much credit is still due the Secretary of State, that affairs were so managed that there was no interference from Europe in our struggle.

Chase, on the other hand, was supreme in his own department, and wrote the part of the President's message of December 1, 1862, which related to the finances.2 Lincoln
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1 Letter of Chase of December 20, Warden, p. 510.
2 Warden, p. 507.

had no business training, and like many lawyers had little or no conception of the resources of revenue and of the outlay of money which the country could sustain. The confidence of Chase to his diary of September 12 is an exaggeration, as in his criticisms of the President he usually falls into extravagance, but with that qualification it may be read as evidence of the trials of Chase and of the lack of business capacity of Lincoln. "Expenses are enormous," he wrote, "increasing instead of diminishing; and the ill successes in the field have so affected government stocks that it is impossible to obtain money except on temporary deposit. ... It is a bad state of things; but neither the President, his counsellors, nor his commanding general seem to care. They rush on from expense to expense and from defeat to defeat, heedless of the abyss of bankruptcy and ruin which yawns before us. May God open the eyes of those who control us, before it is too late." 1 There is no evidence that Lincoln tried to grasp the principles of finance. He had no taste for the subject, and being obliged to master, as a layman may, the art of war and the art of diplomacy, he was wise to attempt no more. While he did not know finance, he knew men and selected and retained as his Secretary of the Treasury one whose inflexible honesty and assimilating mind entitle him to the popular reputation he has obtained as a strong finance minister. That the war had gone on for nearly two years with an immense expenditure of money, and that the government could still buy all it needed of food and munitions of war and could pay its soldiers, was due primarily to the patriotism and devotion of the people of the North; but honor should also be given to the manager of the country's finances.
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1 Warden, p. 470. Adams S. Hill, Washington corr. of New York Tribune, wrote about this time to S. H. Gay: "General Wadsworth [one of the military advisers of the President] says that in all the councils of war which he attended he never heard a word of economy, never from President, Secretary of War, Chief of Ordnance, or General Meigs. Millions of money were to them as to ordinary men star distances, whether two or three hundred billions of miles, what difference ?" — A. S. Hill papers, MS.

The Secretary of the Treasury was probably not a pleasant man at the council board. He and the President were so essentially different that sympathetic relations between them were impossible. Handsome, imposing, and careful in dress, Chase had the manners of a Chesterfield. A graduate of Dartmouth, he had a college man's knowledge of Latin and Greek and the reverence of an educated lawyer for the classics. At the age of twenty-three,1 while he was living in Cincinnati, he came forward as a lecturer before the Cincinnati Lyceum and as an essayist contributing to the North American Review. He had a comprehensive intelligence, and even in his busy life as member of the cabinet, found his recreation in the reading of good literature in English and French; he cared neither for cards nor for the theatre. A serious, thoughtful man in every walk of life, he brought to the business of his department a well thought-out method.

Lincoln, ungainly in appearance and movement, gave no thought to the graces of life, and lacked the accomplishments of a gentleman, as no one knew better than himself.2 He had no system in the disposition of his time and in the preparation of his work. During his term of office he confined his reading of books mainly to military treatises and to works which guided him in the solution of questions of constitutional and international law, although he occasionally snatched an hour to devote to his beloved Shakespeare, and displayed in his state papers an undiminished acquaintance with the Bible. He found recreation in the theatre, has left on record his pleasure at Hackett's presentation of Falstaff,3 and, as Hamlet had a peculiar charm for him, he doubtless experienced an unusual delight when he witnessed Edwin Booth's rare impersonation of the role. Possessed of a keen sense of humor, he was a master of the story-telling art, and must at times
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1 In 1831.
2 See his speech in 1858, vol. ii. p. 312. The expressions in his letter to Hackett the actor quoted by Hay in his article in the Century Magazine for November, 1890, are pathetic.
3 Letter to Hackett, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 392.

have grated on the serious disposition of his finance minister, who had no appreciation of humor and was a poor judge of men.

In going through Chase's private correspondence one is astonished to find him in friendly communication with so many cheap persons,1 mainly, it is true, political followers, on whose help he counted in attaining the much-desired presidency. This ambition, or rather the unseemly manifestations of it, became the greatest drawback to his usefulness. His opinion of Lincoln's parts was not high, and could hardly have remained unperceived by the President, who in return made no attempt to conceal his judgment that Chase was a very able man.

At this time the Secretary was by no means alone in his judgment of the President. In many senators and representatives existed a distrust of his ability and force of character which had been induced in those who met him frequently, by his lack of dignity, his grotesque manner and expression, and his jocoseness when others were depressed, all viewed in the damning light of military failure.2 While his popularity
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1 Warden, p. 521, speaks of the many "knaves or fools in whom [Chase] confided."
2 Richard H. Dana, on an official visit to Washington, wrote Thornton K. Lothrop, February 23,1863: "As for the country, I see no hope but in the army. Victory alone can help us. The lack of respect for the President in all parties is unconcealed."—Adams's Dana, vol. ii. p. 271. He wrote Charles Francis Adams, March 9,1863: "As to the politics of Washington, the most striking thing is the absence of personal loyalty to the President. It does not exist. He has no admirers, no enthusiastic supporters, none to bet on his head. If a Republican convention were to be held to-morrow, he would not get the vote of a State. He does not act, or talk, or feel like the ruler of a great empire in a great crisis. This is felt by all, and has got down through all the layers of society. It has a disastrous effect on all departments and classes of officials, as well as on the public. He seems to me to be fonder of details than of principles, of tithing the mint, anise, and cummin of patronage, and personal questions, than of the weightier matters of empire. He likes rather to talk and tell stories with all sorts of persons who come to him for all sorts of purposes than to give his mind to the noble and manly duties of his great post. It is not difficult to detect that this is the feeling of his cabinet. He has a kind of shrewdness and common sense, mother wit, and slipshod, low-levelled honesty, that made him a good Western jury lawyer. But he is an unutterable calamity to us where he Is. Only the army can save us. Congress is not a council of state. It is a mere district representation of men of district reputations. It has passed some good laws to enable the President to do the work, but the nation does not look up to it for counsel or lead." — Adams's Dana, vol. ii. p. 264.

was waning, he was stronger with the country than with the men at Washington. The people did not come in personal contact with him, and estimated him by his formal state papers and his acts. Posterity, that has seen his ultimate success, bends to the same judgment and looks with open admiration on the patience and determination with which he bore his burden during this gloomy winter. The hand that draws the grotesque trait of Lincoln may disappoint the hero worshipper, but the truth of the story requires this touch which helps to explain the words of disparagement that showered upon him, and serves as a justification for those who could not in the winter of 1862-63 see with the eyes of to-day. Had his other qualities been enhanced by Washington's dignity of manner, not so many had been deceived; but as it was we cannot wonder that his contemporaries failed to appreciate his greatness. Since his early environment in fostering his essential capabilities had not bestowed on him the external characteristics usually attributed to transcendent leaders of men, it was not suspected that in him had developed a germ of extraordinary mental power.

Seward, with his amiable and genial manners, was, I believe, a most agreeable man in council. Fertile in suggestion, he must, in spite of his personal failings, have been especially acceptable to Lincoln, whose slow-working mind was undoubtedly often assisted to a decision by the various expedients which his Secretary of State put before him. It is frequently easier for an executive to choose one out of several courses than to invent a policy. The members of the cabinet who filled the public eye were Seward, Chase, and Stanton, and they exact a like attention from the historian. It was either on Seward or on Stanton that the President leaned the most; and the weight of evidence, confirmed by the circumstance of his urbanity, points to the Secretary of State as the favorite counsellor.1

It will be remembered that the President's proclamation of emancipation of September 22, 1862, was in the form of a warning; it was a declaration that the slaves in States or parts of States whose people were still in rebellion, January 1, 1863, against the federal government should be free. The new year had come, and his purpose had been proclaimed one hundred days before. It remained for him to carry out the design that he had gravely announced. While the form and the words of the preliminary proclamation seemed to expect that the Confederates or some of them might lay down their arms to avoid incurring the threatened penalty, no such illusion was really entertained. It had become well understood that the States of the Southern Confederacy were earnest in their desire to secure their independence, and that their people were united in this aim. If therefore the proclamation had any effect at all on the Southern people, it made them more determined in their resistance by giving force to the argument that the war of the North was a crusade against their social institutions.

The President regarded the proclamation "as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing [the] rebellion," and notwithstanding the defeat of his party at the ballot-box and the defeat of his principal army in the field in the interim of the hundred days, he fulfilled his promise and promulgated, January 1, 1863, the complement of his preliminary edict. "I do order and declare," it ran, "that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States [a list of these is given in the preceding paragraph] are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons."

To obviate an objection that had been made by the Democrats
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1 See F. Bancroft, Polit. Sci. Quar., vol. vi. p. 722.

and to allay the not unreasonable dread that the blacks, incited by the proclamation, would rise against their masters and perpetrate the horrors of a servile revolt, this paragraph was added: "And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that in all cases, when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages."

In the next paragraph the President declared that the liberated slaves would be accepted as soldiers to garrison forts, positions, stations, and concluded with an invocation suggested by Chase: "And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution [upon military necessity], I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God."1

There was, as every one knows, no authority for the proclamation in the letter of the Constitution, nor was there any statute which warranted it. It imports much to see how Lincoln, who had the American reverence for the Constitution and the Anglo-Saxon veneration for law, justified this departure from the letter of the organic act and from sacred precedent. "I am naturally anti-slavery," he wrote. "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so think and feel, and yet I have never understood that the presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling. ... I did understand, however, that my oath to preserve the Constitution to the best of my ability imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by every indispensable means, that government — that nation — of which that Constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the nation and yet preserve the Constitution? By general law, life and limb must be protected, yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt that measures
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1 The three words in brackets are Lincoln's, the rest Chase's. See Warden's Chase, p. 513; on the making of the proclamation, see Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. pp. 405-430.

otherwise unconstitutional might become lawful by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution through the preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, I assumed this ground. ... I could not feel that, to the best of my ability, I had even tried to preserve the Constitution, if, to save slavery or any minor matter, I should permit the wreck of government, country, and Constitution all together. . . . When in March and May and July, 1862, I made earnest and successive appeals to the Border States to favor compensated emancipation, I believed the indispensable necessity for military emancipation and arming the blacks would come unless averted by that measure. They declined the proposition, and I was, in my best judgment, driven to the alternative of either surrendering the Union, and with it the Constitution, or of laying strong hand upon the colored element. I chose the latter." 1

With opponents who maintained that the emancipation proclamation was unconstitutional, he argued: "I think differently. I think the Constitution invests its commander-in-chief with the law of war in time of war. The most that can be said — if so much — is that slaves are property. Is there — has there ever been — any question that by the law of war, property, both of enemies and friends, may be taken when needed? And is it not needed whenever taking it helps us, or hurts the enemy? Armies, the world over, destroy enemies' property when they cannot use it; and even destroy their own to keep it from the enemy. Civilized belligerents do all in their power to help themselves or hurt the enemy, except a few things regarded as barbarous or cruel."2

The event manifested the wisdom of Lincoln's policy. The proclamation did not incite servile insurrection, although it completed the process, which the war had commenced, of making every slave in the South the friend of the North.

1 Letter of April 4, 1864, Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 508; Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. p. 430.
2 Letter of August 26, 1863, Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 397.

Every negro knew that if he got within the lines of the Federal armies, the aspiration of his life would be realized; he would become a free man. Before the close of the year there were in the United States military service 100,000 former slaves, "about one-half of which number actually [bore] arms in the ranks."1 Without the policy of emancipation, these negroes would probably have remained at the South raising food for the able-bodied white men, all of whom were forced into the Confederate army by the rigorous conscription. The proclamation, making clear as it did the real issue of the war, was of incontestable value in turning English sentiment into the right channel. It already had the approval of the House of Representatives,2 and, when enforced by victories in the field, received the support of the majority of the Northern people.

It does not appear that the preliminary proclamation could have been better timed. The trend of public sentiment makes it evident that it was issued soon enough, and that the President showed discretion in annulling the acts of Fremont, Cameron, and Hunter; and since it was conceded that the edict ought not to be promulgated except after a victory, there would have been danger in delay beyond September, 1862, for no military success as important in its results as Antietam was obtained until July 3, 1863, when Meade defeated Lee at Gettysburg.
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1 Lincoln, Annual Message, December 8, 1863
2 December 15, 1862, by a vote of 78 : 51.


Source: Rhodes, James Ford. History of the United States; from the compromise of 1850 to the final restoration of home rule at the south in 1877, v.4. New York: Macmillan, 1910 [c1892].