sage to Meade, and another agent to Sheridan, with the desired result. McClure says it was at Lincoln's special request that General Logan left his command and the march to the sea in order to stump Illinois and Indiana in this campaign. General Carl Schurz wished to perform a similar service, but he was a horse of a somewhat different color, and he was at first told on high grounds to remain with his command. Years later Grant said to McClure that he supposed no one would have doubted his desire for Lincoln's reëlection. "It would," he added, “have been obviously unbecoming on my part to have given a public expression against a general whom I had succeeded as commander-in-chief of the army." When Washburne of Illinois asked Grant to publish a letter in favor of Lincoln's election, the general replied that he thought that "for the President to answer all the charges the opposition would bring against him would be like setting a maiden to work to prove her chastity." Several acquaintances say that Lincoln felt hurt by Grant's aloofness, but this interpretation of whatever the President may have said is improbable, and in contradiction to his intellectual magnanimity. Grant at this period had a great distrust of politicians in general. Letters exchanged between him and Sherman show that both generals looked upon Washington as a hotbed of danger and corruption. When Grant

was appointed lieutenant general, Lincoln asked him to make a short speech in answer to his few words at the formal presentation, and in it to say something to prevent jealousy from any other generals, and to put the new commander on good terms with the Army of the Potomac. Grant made his little reply, and entirely ignored the President's suggestions, but on the contrary rather emphasized the fact that he felt the responsibility centred directly on himself and all the armies. There was nothing about other generals, and nothing about the Army of the Potomac. His reason for staying East was that he believed "no one else could probably resist the pressure that would be brought to bear upon him to desist from his own plans and pursue others." It has been said that he made a special stipulation against interference, particularly by Stanton, and that he was warned not to talk over his plans with Lincoln; but the way he treats both men in his own written words shows his sympathy with the President and his hostility to the Secretary. Lincoln's own position toward his new general is honestly set forth in this letter of April 30:

"Not expecting to see you again before the spring campaign opens, I wish to express in this way my entire satisfaction with what you have done up to this time, so far as I understand it. The particulars of your plans I neither know nor seek to know. You are vigi

lant and self-reliant; and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any constraints or restraints upon you. While I am very anxious that any great disaster or capture of our men in great numbers shall be avoided, I know these points are less likely to escape your attention than they would be mine. If there is anything wanting which is within my power to give, do not fail to let me know it. And now, with a brave army and a just cause, may God sustain you."

It is not likely that the man who, accustomed to exercise authority on generals who needed it, could treat in this manner the first commander who had an equally firm character of his own, would feel any real resentment if that general's distrust of political machinery made him give less assistance in the election than the President thought due to the cause. Lincoln knew how to treat each man. He let Grant alone but he put the screws on to many others. The Secretary of State of New York during this campaign gives this account of what befell him in one of his functions:

"A law was passed by the legislature, which was Republican, to take the soldier's vote. Well, ordinarily this duty would have devolved upon the governor. Because the legislature in this instance imposed it upon me, I spent much time in Washington endeavoring to get the data to send out the necessary papers enabling the New