Revolution, an alarming increase of resignations testified to the dissatisfaction among officers. Although the bonds of discipline still held sway, a total want of confidence existed. Before being placed in command of the Army of the Potomac, General Burnside had repeatedly informed the President and Secretary of War that he did not feel qualified for the position, an opinion which the battlefield at Antietam had sufficiently corroborated. Six days after the assault at Fredericksburg, December 19, 1862, he testified before the Joint ComImittee on the Conduct of the War, that when two of his staff officers urged him to accept the command, saying that he had no right as a soldier to disobey the order, he replied:

*

* I told them what my views were with reference to my ability to exercise such a command, which views were those I had always unreservedly expressed, that I was not competent to command such a large army as this; I had said the same over and over again to the President and Secretary of War.

In this state of affairs, when all that the Army needed was a leader, its commander again resolved to cross the Rappahannock.

At the beginning of the war, Mr. Lincoln, in explaining his assumption of dictatorial powers, convinced the country that in the absence of military preparation, there might be times when the spirit of the Constitution could not be preserved except by violating its letter. And so it sometimes happens with military law. A crisis had come when the literal observance of a rule of discipline might have destroyed the army and ruined the country. To prevent such a calamity two officers, Generals Newton and Cochrane, one of the Regular and the other of the Volunteer Army, resolved to visit Washington and give persons of influence there exact information as to the state of the army. The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War was regarded as the back door of the War Department, open to anyone who could give military information of importance.

General Cochrane first sought some of its members, but finding them absent from Washington during the holiday recess, he and General Newton went directly to the President in person. General Newton, as the officer of most military experience, acted as the spokesman. Fully aware that it was a military offense to criticise or decry his superior, he has described the interview in his testimony before the committee: "

I also found myself in a very delicate position in the conversation. I did not wish to tell the President, and I did not tell him at any one time, that the troops had no confidence in General Burnside. I could not tell him that, although, so far as I was concerned, it was my firm belief. But that was a most delicate thing for me to say, and therefore I had to go, as it were, around it indirectly, and that made the conversation very desultory, and there were a great many things said not necessary to the point in question.

*

I disclaimed to the President any intention to interfere with the military authorities in any way. I considered it my duty, if I was true to my country, to let somebody in authority know what were my convictions of the state of the army; for I felt that if that army should be again defeated at that point, or anywhere along the Rappahannock, it would not be a mere defeat, as before, but it would be a destruction. I felt that the very existence of the country was at stake, and that was the only motive I had in doing as I did.

The statements made by General Newton were confirmed by General Cochrane.

a Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, vol. 1, p. 731. Report of Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, vol. 1, pp. 731, 732.

The interview produced immediate results. Without consulting the General in Chief, the President immediately telegraphed to General Burnside:

I have good reason for saying that you must not make a general movement without letting me know of it.a

On the receipt of this despatch, the cavalry force which was to have made a raid across all the rivers of Virginia, finally coming out at Suffolk, was recalled, and the order for the general movement was suspended. Puzzled at the interference, General Burnside proceeded to Washington, and learning that some general officers had visited the President, he asked for their names, but Mr. Lincoln declined to disclose them.

Those who would shield free institutions from the dangers of civil war, cannot afford to blink at the history of this period. No commander in the East had thus far been a free agent. The perplexity of General Winder, when, amid the undisciplined levies of the War of 1812, he found himself surrounded by the President, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of War, all of whom tendered their advice or busied themselves in giving orders, was not greater than that which enveloped General Burnside. He had not, during his brief visit to the capital, been called before the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War. He had not disclosed his plans while absent from his command, except to the President, General Halleck, and the Secretary of War, and yet when he returned to his camp he learned that the details of his intended cavalry movement were known in Washington, to those who openly sympathized with the enemy; yet, when it came to the adoption of a third plan for crossing the Rappahannock, he could get no encouragement from any source.

He desired

distinct authority from General Halleck, or some one else in power here in Washington, to make a move across the river, b

The reply from the President was in the way of a caution

to run no great risk which might result in the defeat and the destruction of the Army of the Potomac.c

General Halleck, military adviser of the President and Secretary of War, answered

in general terms to the effect that I knew very well that he had always favored a forward movement of the Army, but that he could not take the responsibility of giving any directions as to when or how it should be made. He then laid down some general military rules that ought to govern an army. That letter was favorably indorsed by the President.d

The fact was, that while everybody in Washington desired a forward movement, they knew too much about the depressed condition of the army to issue any order or give any instructions which might end in disaster. As to the support in the field, General Burnside told the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War

that there was hardly a single general officer occupying a prominent position in my command who would favor a move of that kind. c

a Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, vol. 1, pp. 731, 732. Ibid., p. 717.

c Ibid., p. 718.

d Ibid., p. 719.

Notwithstanding the lukewarmness in Washington, the opposition of his generals, and the total want of confidence on the part of officers and men, the commander determined on another crossing, and on the 19th of January, gave orders for the movement to begin. Providentially, as was believed in the army, the move terminated in the fiasco known as the "mud march," after which the troops returned to their camps.

If, in the hours of disaster, Napoleon with all his genius could not suppress the croaking of his marshals, it ought not to surprise us that discontent again manifested itself in the Army of the Potomac.

That which the two generals concealed from the President was now talked openly among officers. The army had no confidence in its com mander, but unfortunately the latter refused to accept the verdict. On his visit to the President he expressed the opinion, which was concurred in by the General in Chief, that the two presidential informers ought to have been dismissed from the service. As a commentary on the management of the war, the Senate did not seem inclined to trust the constitutional Commander in Chief in dealing with the alleged breach of discipline.

On the 26th of January, 1863, it—

Resolved that the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War be instructed to inquire whether Maj. Gen. A. E. Burnside has, since the battle of Fredericksburg, formed any plans for the movement of the Army of the Potomac or any portion of the same; and if so, whether any subordinate generals of said army have written to or visited Washington, to oppose or interfere with the execution of such movements, and whether such proposed movements have been arrested or interfered with, and if so, by what authority."

The committee which had so often furnished valuable information to the enemy by laying bare official secrets was not long in getting at the fact. On the 9th of February, General Cochrane, as cautious as General Newton in not saying that the whole trouble lay in the lack of confidence in the commander, testified:

* * * The facts mentioned to the President were that I had at various times heard soldiers frequently express their decided opinion that the army could not cross the Rappahannock in the presence of the obstacies prepared by the rebels, and that it was a dangerous folly to undertake it; that they knew they could not succeed; that when any such effort should be made the soldiers would be oppressed with a sense of insecurity which I thought, especially as they were a volunteer army, would deprive them of a great portion of their vigor; that I was pained to say there was evidence to my mind of a relaxation of interest among the soldiers since the crossing at Fredericksburg, in the campaign of the Rappahannock, and a want of confidence in its success. That the evidence to my mind of the fact consisted in the alarming increase of desertions among the men and the unusual accumulation of resignations of officers.b

Hurt that his Congressional inquisitors should have construed his conduct either as unpatriotic or insubordinate, the next day he added with as much truth as sarcasm:

I desire to add that while I knew of no plan and interfered with none, yet if 1 had known any, I think it would have been little less than treasonable to have concealed or repressed, or to have neglected to communicate to the highest authority having cognizance thereof, any fact or facts, within my knowledge, which obviously and necessarily would have frustrated the plan and have involved the army attempting its execution and our cause in irretrievable and a common ruin. The geese sadly interfered with the plans of the Roman sentinels for a comfortable night's repose, when they made known, by their alarm, that the Goths were within the cit

a Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, vol. 1, p. 57. Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, vol. 1, p. 744.

adel; yet I have never heard that even the geese were censured or reprimanded; but on the contrary, I supposed they ever after have been held in esteem, and luxuriously entertained by the Roman people,«

The utter disregard which the committee showed for the secrets of military commanders was illustrated three days before, when General Burnside was summoned to explain the failure of the "mud march.” The record of February 7, 1863, stated:

The witness here stated that if he proceeded with his statement, he would be obliged to state some things which, if made public, would do harm, and he did not desire to do anything that would be of injury to the service. The chairman informed the witness that the committee desired a full and clear statement of everything connected with the subject, but they would not make public anything they should consider calculated to do harm.

The witness then continued:

But a very serious objection to attempting the crossing after this occurred, was the almost universal feeling among the general officers that the crossing could not be made there. Some of them gave vent to these opinions in a very public manner, even in the presence of my own staff officers, who informed me of the fact.

Had General Burnside known exactly what Newton and Cochrane had told the President, it is possible that he would not have proceeded to extreme measures, but resolving to suppress any tendency to insubordination he prepared, and, but for the prudence of a staff officer, would have published to the army, General Orders No. 8, dismissing from the service Generals Hooker, Brooks, Cochrane, and Newton, and relieving from their commands Generals Franklin, Sturgis, and Ferrero. The wise counsels of a faithful adviser having prevailed, General Burnside went to Washington and demanded of the President that he should approve his order or accept his resignation. Above the confusion and turmoil of the times, the spirit of the President again rose supreme. He did not act in haste, but taking time to advise and reflect, he relieved General Burnside, and for the third commander of the Army of the Potomac selected General Hooker, who was named first in the order of dismissal. The same order that appointed General Hooker, relieved General Franklin, the commander of the left grand division, who, in unison with General Smith, had recommended on the 21st of the preceding December, that the Army should again be transferred to the Peninsula.

No one who knew, or served in the Army of the Potomac, will doubt for an instant that it would have yielded implicit obedience to General Orders, No. 8, had the President been pleased to approve it, yet the order relieving General Burnside shows that the situation, either from a political or military point of view, was regarded at Washington as sufficiently critical to justify a resort to deception.

While General Burnside was conversing with the President, after the latter had refused to accept his resignation, the General in Chief and Secretary of War entered, and advised that he take a leave of absence. He replied that he would apply for thirty days, and then went to the War Department, where, in his own language, hefound an order there relieving me from the command of the Army of the Potomac, at my own request. I said to General Halleck that that was not a just order; that I did not want to appear before the country as a man who voluntarily gave up his command without some reason; that I certainly wanted to have the reputation of remaining as long as it was found advisable for me to remain. I had not made myself the

a Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, vol. 1, p. 745. Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, vol. 1, p. 719.

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."

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.