judge of that matter, as the committee will see from what I have stated. I then said to General Halleck, "You must take my resignation." He said: "The Secretary of War has made this order, and I cannot change it." I replied: "You can go to the Secretary of War and say to him that this order does not express the facts of the case." I then went to the Secretary of War, and told him that I had preferred to resign, under the circumstances, and the issuing of this order confirmed me in that preference. He talked to me about the injury to the cause, and the injury to myself; I replied: "I don't care a snap about myself, for I feel that I am right, but I do not want to injure the cause." We had quite a talk upon the subject. Both he and General Halleck talked very kindly to me.a

With a patriotism that will ever commend him to the charity of history, he finally told them

Issue just what order you please; I will go off on my thirty days' leave of absence, and then come back and go wherever you say, even to command my old corps (the Ninth Corps) under General Hooker, if you desire, and I would do it.

APPOINTMENT OF GENERAL HOOKER TO COMMAND.

On the 26th of January, 1863, the day after General Hooker was assigned to the command of the Army of the Potomac, the President addressed to him the following remarkable letter:

Major-General HOOKER.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, D. C., January 26, 1863.

GENERAL: I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of course I have done this upon what appears to me to be sufficient reasons, and yet I think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to which I am not satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and skillful soldier, which of course I like. I also believe you to not mix politics with your profession, in which you are right. You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable if not an indispensable quality. You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm; but I think that during General Burnside's command of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did a great wrong to the country and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer. I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the Army and the Government needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain success can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship. The Government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. I much fear the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticising their commander and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall assist you as far as I can to put it down. Neither you, nor Napoleon if he were alive again, could get any good out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it. And now beware of rashness. Beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories.

Yours, very truly,

A. LINCOLN,

Marvelous as was this production, it contained statements which should not escape our attention. The relief of General McClellan had put an end to the differences in politics between the Administration and military commanders, but the advice

Do not mix politics with the military profession

was nevertheless wise. Like all great truths compressed in a sentence, it should be the maxim of every republican soldier.

The President was hardly in the right when he said that—

Only those generals who gain success can set up dictators.

There should be no fear of a dictator in times of military success.

a Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, vol. 1, pp. 721, 722. Frank Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. 14, p. 737.

As armies are engendered by war, so are dictators born of disaster. The defeat on Long Island, the capture of Fort Washington, the flight of the army across New Jersey, the almost total dissolution of the army at the moment the British drew near the Delaware, were the disasters which induced not the General, but Congress, to set up Washington as a dictator. It was the defeat at the Brandywine, the second approach of the British to the capital, and not a success, which prompted Congress a second time to invoke the protection of the Father of his Country. If we had a dictator twice during the Revolution, if Mr. Lincoln practically assumed the same office when, at the beginning of the Rebellion he raised and supported armies, let us not stultify ourselves by talking of the danger of an army, but rather reflect that the lack of one may at any time, in the space of less than two years, bring upon us even graver disasters than Long Island or Brandywine, or the two Bull Runs.

In settling the controversy which was brought to a close by the President's letter, history will be just. Tracing nearly all of our sacrifices to the want of a military system in 1861, and the abortive strategy of the War Department in 1862, it will lay down the axiom

That a nation which goes to war unprepared, educates its statesmen at more expense than its soldiers.

The attempt to dispense with a General in Chief after our armies had become disciplined and ready for battle, the detachment of McDowell, the establishment of the Departments of the Rappahannock and Shenandoah, the creation of the Army of Virginia, and the withdrawal of the Army of the Potomac from the Peninsula will be recognized as the dominating causes of a four years' war, the blame for which it will not place upon an individual, but upon a system which, in every war since the adoption of the Constitution, has permitted a civil officer below the President, to override military commanders and bring to naught their wisdom and counsels.

CHAPTER XXVI.

REVIEW OF MILITARY OPERATIONS IN THE WEST, FROM THE

BATTLE OF SHILOH TO THE BATTLE OF CORINTH.

In every country save our own, the inability of unprofessional men to command armies would be accepted as a self-evident proposition. Lest, however, the future Presidents and Secretaries of War may be tempted to commit the same blunders as their predecessors, let us glance briefly at the conduct of military operations in the West-first, during the fatal three months when there was no General in Chief, and lastly, till the close of the year.

In this great theater military commanders possessed the lucky advantage of being remote from the capital. None of them were accused of political aspirations. The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War declined to investigate their campaigns. It reported as late as April 6, 1863, that all the causes for the protraction of the war could be charged to the misconduct of the Army of the Potomac."

Military scapegoats might serve to divert public opinion from the real causes of disaster East of the Alleghenies, but in the West, free from political entanglements, nearly every reverse can be traced directly to a bad system.

It will be remembered that by the order of March 11, 1862, removing or deposing the General in Chief, all the territory west of Knoxville was constituted the Department of the Mississippi, under the command of Major-General Halleck.

The wisdom of this part of the order was instantly demonstrated. On the 6th of April, the Armies of the Tennessee and Ohio, under Generals Grant and Buell, effected a junction on the battlefield of Shiloh. The next day they completed the defeat of the enemy and drove him back upon Corinth. The Army of the Mississippi under General Pope, after its success at Island No. 10, was now wisely arrested in its triumphal march down the Mississippi and ordered to join the other two near Shiloh. Other troops were called from Arkansas and Missouri. The masterly concentration of 100,000 men having been effected, operations under the department commander were begun against Corinth, but the enemy saw that the odds were too great. Too slowly approached, he was permitted to decline the battle, and, abandoning the entrenchments on the 31st of May, he fled to central Mississippi. New Orleans had already been captured by the Navy. The army felt invincible. A demoralized enemy halted at Tupello and invited an attack. Officers high in rank had little doubt of the next order. Before them were two lines of railway leading to Vicksburg and

@This reference, contained in the report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War presented to Congress April 6, 1863, has already been quoted. -EDITORS.