was ordered back. It was actually May 28, according to General Grant, when "the investment of Corinth was complete, or as complete as it was ever made." But already, on May 26, Beauregard had issued orders for evacuating the place, which was accomplished with much skill. On May 30 Halleck drew up his army in battle array and "announced in orders that there was every indication that our left was to be attacked that morning." A few hours later his troops marched unopposed into empty works.

Halleck now commanded in Corinth a powerful army, the forces of Grant, Buell, and Pope, combined, not far from 100,000 strong, and he was threatened by no Southern force at all able to face him. According to the views of General Grant, he had great opportunities; and among these certainly was the advance of a strong column upon Vicksburg. If he could be induced to do this it seemed reasonable to expect that he and Farragut together would be able to open the whole Mississippi River and to cut the last remaining east - and - west line of railroad communication. But he did nothing, and ultimately the disposition made of this splendid collection of troops was to distribute and dissipate it in such a manner that the loss of the points already gained became much more probable than the acquisition of others.

Early in July, as has been elsewhere said, Halleck was called to Washington to take the place of general-in-chief of all the armies of the North;

and at this point perhaps it is worth while to devote a paragraph to comparing the retirement of McClellan with the promotion of Halleck. Some similarities and dissimilarities in their careers are striking. The dissimilarities were: that McClellan had organized the finest army which the country had yet seen, or was to see; also that he had at least made a plan for a great campaign; and he had not suppressed any one abler than himself; that Halleck on the other hand had done little to organize an army or to plan a campaign, had failed to find out the qualities of General W. T. Sherman, who was in his Department, and had done all in his power to drive General Grant into retirement. The similarities are more worthy of observation. Each general had wearied the administration with demands for reinforcements when each already outnumbered his opponent so much that it was almost disgraceful to desire to increase the odds. If McClellan had been reprehensibly slow in moving upon Yorktown, and had blundered by besieging instead of trying an assault, certainly the snail-like approach upon Corinth had been equally deliberate and wasteful of time and opportunity; and if McClellan had marched into deserted intrenchments so also had Halleck. If

McClellan had captured "Quaker guns" at Manassas, Halleck had found the like peaceful weapons frowning from the ramparts of Corinth. If McClellan had held inactive a powerful force when it ought to have been marching to Manassas, Hal

leck had also held inactive another powerful force, a part of which might have helped to take Vicksburg. If the records of these two men were stated in parallel columns, it would be difficult to see why one should have been taken and the other left. But the explanation exists and is instructive, and it is wholly for the sake of the explanation that the comparison has been made. McClellan was "in politics," and Halleck was not; McClellan, therefore, had a host of active, unsparing enemies in Washington, which Halleck had not; the Virginia field of operations was ceaselessly and microscopically inspected; the Western field attracted occasional glances not conducive to a full knowledge. Halleck, as commander in a department where victories were won, seemed to have won the victories, and no politicians cared to deny his right to the glory; whereas the politicians whose hatred of McClellan had, by the admission of one of themselves, become a mania,1 were entirely happy to have any one set over his head, and would not imperil their pleasure by too close an inspection of the new aspirant's merits. These remarks are not designed to have any significance upon the merits or demerits of McClellan, which have been elsewhere discussed, nor upon the merits or demerits of Halleck, which are not worth discussing; but they are made simply because they afford so forcible an illustration of certain important conditions at Washington at this time. The 1 Geo. W. Julian, Polit. Recoll., 204.

truth is that the ensnarlment of the Eastern military affairs with politics made success in that field impossible for the North. The condition made it practically inevitable that a Union commander in Virginia should have his thoughts at least as much occupied with the members of Congress in the capital behind him as with the Confederate soldiers in camp before him. Such division of his attention was ruinous.

At and before the outbreak of the rebellion the South had expected to be aided efficiently by a great body of sympathizers at the North. As yet they had been disappointed in this; but almost simultaneously with this disappointment they were surprised by a valuable and unexpected assistance, growing out of the open feuds, the covert malice, the bad blood, the partisanship, and the wire-pulling introduced by the loyal political fraternity into campaigning business. The quarrelling politicians were doing, very efficiently, the work which Southern sympathizers had been expected to do.

CHAPTER XII.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

To the people who had been engaged in changing Illinois from a wilderness into a civilized State, Europe had been an abstraction, a mere colored spot upon a map, which in their lives meant nothing. Though England had been the home of their ancestors, it was really less interesting than the west coast of Africa, which was the home of the negroes; for the negroes were just now of vastly more consequence than the ancestors. So even Dahomey had some claim to be regarded as a more important place than Great Britain, and the early settlers wasted little thought on the affairs of Queen Victoria. Amid these conditions, absorbed even more than his neighbors in the exciting questions of domestic politics, and having no tastes or pursuits which guided his thoughts abroad, Mr. Lincoln had never had occasion to consider the foreign relations of the United States, up to the time when he was suddenly obliged to take an active part in managing them.

At an early stage of the civil dissensions each side hoped for the good-will of England. obvious reasons that island counted to the United

For