Lincoln Part 40

Any chance for Lincoln's plan for a speedy restoration of the Union was lost on December 13. General Burnside, against the advice and warnings of the President, threw the Army of the Potomac across the Rappahannock into Fredericksburg. Then he ordered his soldiers to advance directly uphill toward Marye's Heights, where the Confederates lay waiting for them. By the end of the day one in ten of Burnside's soldiers was a casualty-dead, wounded, or missing; the Confederate losses were less than half as great. It was the worst defeat in the history of the American army.

News of Burnside's defeat was slow to reach the anxious President. Not until late at night did he learn of the outcome from Henry Villard. Lincoln grilled the journalist, who had come straight from the battlefield, about the extent of Union losses, the morale of the troops, and the chances for success if another attack was made. Fearing that the President did not fully understand the extent of the catastrophe, Villard stressed that every general officer he had encountered thought that success was impossible and that the army might suffer a worse disaster unless it was immediately withdrawn to the north side of the river. "I hope it is not so bad as all that," Lincoln said with a melancholy smile.

It was. As the news of Fredericksburg trickled out, a wave of anger swept the North. Little of it was directed at Burnside, who frankly admitted his incompetence and expressed willingness to a.s.sume all the responsibility. Halleck was the object of much of the abuse, as was Stanton, for they were charged with failing to support the army. But most of the blame was heaped on the Lincoln administration, for the b.l.o.o.d.y defeat at Fredericksburg seemed only a part of a larger pattern of failure and incompetence. As Joseph Medill of the Chicago Tribune declared, "Failure of the army, weight of taxes, depreciation of money, want of cotton ... increasing national debt, deaths in the army, no prospect of success, the continued closure of the Mississippi [River]... all combine to produce the existing state of despondency and desperation." Everybody, he concluded, felt that "the war is drawing toward a disastrous and disgraceful termination."

The notes of complaint and disillusionment with the Lincoln administration, clearly audible since the failure of the Peninsula campaign, now became deafening. A few critics blamed the President personally. One angry Wisconsin resident demanded that both Lincoln and "the traitoress Mrs. Lincoln" resign, and Senator Wilkinson of Minnesota, outraged at the leniency Lincoln showed toward the Sioux Indians, a.s.serted there was no hope for the country "except in the death of the President and a new administration."

But most critics were willing to admit Lincoln's good intentions even though they doubted his will. Recognizing that they could not replace a President who still had nearly half his term to serve, they looked for ways to give the administration backbone. Lincoln, said Senator Grimes, was only a "'tow string' of a President," who had to be bound up "with strong, st.u.r.dy rods in the shape of cabinet ministers."

Discontent with the administration, then, centered on the cabinet. Throughout the last half of 1862 newspapers frequently carried stories of impending cabinet reorganization. Most of the reports stressed the want of harmony in the cabinet, and in many cases they were true. Except for Seward, nearly every cabinet member complained of Lincoln's lack of system in consulting his ministers. There were, in theory, two cabinet meetings a week, but in actuality, as Gideon Welles reported, these sessions were "infrequent, irregular and without system." Seward often failed to attend, though there was general reluctance to discuss major issues in the absence of the Secretary of State; he preferred, as Welles said censoriously, to spend "a considerable portion of every day with the President, patronizing and instructing him, hearing and telling anecdotes, relating interesting details of occurrences in the Senate, and inculcating his political party notions." When Stanton attended, said Welles, it was only "to whisper to the President, or take the dispatches or the papers from his pocket and go into a corner with the President." The meetings were highly informal. Charles Sumner reported that at some of the cabinet sessions he was invited to attend, the President put his feet up on the table, his heels higher than his head, and the other members appropriated extra chairs to rest their legs on. Chase complained that the meetings followed no agenda and allowed no real exchange of views among the secretaries. Secretary of the Interior Smith added that, unlike other presidents, Lincoln decided the most important questions without consulting his cabinet, seeking their advice-as he did when he was about to issue the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation-"as critics only."

Members of the cabinet did not get along with each other. Welles and Chase distrusted Seward because they suspected his bland amiability and his perpetual optimism and believed that he failed to understand the seriousness of the nation's crisis. Stanton's irascible, secretive manner prevented other cabinet members from becoming his friends, though he generally managed to work amicably with Chase. Welles, wearing his ma.s.sive wig, was something of a figure of fun to his colleagues. Even Lincoln made gentle jokes about "Father Neptune," who was thought to be such an old fogy that he was "examining a model of Noah's ark, with a view to its introduction into the United States Navy." Nearly everybody agreed that Smith was a cabinet member of no consequence, and, as David Davis reported, a man with "neither heart nor sincerity about him." His resignation was eagerly awaited. And Montgomery Blair, the Postmaster General, was bitterly opposed to anyone who might stand in the way of his, or his family's, advancement; Chase and Stanton were the particular objects of his hatred.

Lincoln was not only aware of this dissonance; he was prepared to tolerate, and perhaps even to encourage, creative friction among his advisers. He understood that the conflicts among his cabinet members were not so fundamental as they seemed. The irritable clashes among the cabinet officers reflected differences in personality, not ideology; unconsciously they were rivals for the esteem and affection of the President. It was a problem that Lincoln, like other men of enormous personal magnetism, had to live with throughout his life; and he understood that the rivalry between Seward and Chase, or between Stanton and Welles, was much like that between Herndon and Mary Lincoln back in Springfield, or between Mrs. Lincoln and Nicolay and Hay during the White House years.

During the months when the President seemed to be on a radical course, it was the Conservative Republicans who demanded that he reorganize his cabinet. For instance, in early September, Samuel Galloway warned that the cabinet members' "selfish purposes [had] over-borne their patriotism" and tried to persuade Lincoln to drop Chase, whom he considered too radical on the slavery question. Even within the cabinet itself, Montgomery Blair, after consulting with Seward, went to the President with a report that the nation was "going to ruin for the want of a proper Head to the War Dept." and begged him to oust Stanton.

But after early November most of the demands for cabinet changes came from the Radical, antislavery wing of Lincoln's party. In calling for a reorganization of the cabinet, Radicals often hoped to oust Smith, who was "nothing but a doughface," and Bates, who was "a fossil of the Silurian era." But the chief focus of their attention was Seward, who had come to represent everything that was wrong with the Lincoln administration. The Secretary of State, they alleged, had never had his heart in the war: he had tried to negotiate with the Confederate envoys during the secession crisis; he had opposed making a stand at Fort Sumter; he had been McClellan's princ.i.p.al defender; he had opposed, and then delayed, the issuance of the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation; he and Thurlow Weed had undermined the candidacy of Radical General Wadsworth for governor of New York. The publication in December of Seward's diplomatic dispatches to Charles Francis Adams, the American minister in London, gave further evidence that the Secretary failed to understand the meaning of the American conflict; as late as July 5, Seward denounced both "the extreme advocates of African slavery and its most vehement opponents," the abolitionists, as being equally responsible for the Civil War. "Seward must be got out of the Cabinet," Joseph Medill of the Chicago Tribune announced. "He is Lincoln's evil genius. He has been President de facto, and has kept a sponge saturated with chloroform to Uncle Abe's nose."

Lincoln became aware of the full extent of the hostility to the Secretary of State on December 16, three days after the battle of Fredericksburg, when a messenger brought him a note from Seward: "I hereby resign the office of Secretary of State of the United States, and have the honor to request that this resignation may be immediately accepted." In identical language Frederick W. Seward, his son, resigned as a.s.sistant secretary of state. With a face full of pain and surprise the President turned to Senator Preston King of New York, who accompanied the messenger, and asked: "What does this mean?"

King reported that because of the immense popular excitement over the defeat at Fredericksburg there had been an extraordinary caucus of Republican senators that afternoon in order "to ascertain whether any steps could be taken to quiet the public mind and to produce a better condition of affairs." The real purpose of the caucus became clear when Senator Wilkinson accused Seward of exercising "a controlling influence upon the mind of the President" and predicted that "so long as he remained in the Cabinet nothing but defeat and disaster could be expected." Senator Grimes offered a resolution declaring a want of confidence in the Secretary of State and calling for his removal from office. The highly respected Jacob Collamer argued that "the President had no Cabinet in the true sense of the word," and sharp-spoken William Pitt Fessenden said that "there was a back-stairs influence which often controlled the apparent conclusions of the Cabinet itself." He refused to name Seward but declared that "senators might draw their own conclusions." Taken by surprise, the friends of the Secretary of State were nevertheless able to prevent unanimous adoption of Grimes's resolution of censure. Frustrated, Seward's opponents pressed for adjournment until the next day and, by a vote of 16 to 13, got their way.

King had not stayed for the final vote but went immediately to Seward's house, where he reported the proceedings to the Secretary. "They may do as they please about me," Seward declared, "but they shall not put the President in a false position on my account." He wrote out a letter of resignation.

That evening the President called at Seward's house but found the Secretary resolute in his determination to resign. He wired his family, who had been planning to join him in the capital, not to come, and he and his son began packing up their books and papers in preparation for a return to his home in Auburn, New York.

Keeping Seward's resignation secret during the next two days, the President anxiously awaited the outcome of the Republican caucus. For months the Radicals in this group had been in frequent contact with Secretary Chase, who fed them stories of Lincoln's failure to consult with his cabinet advisers. For instance, he told Zachariah Chandler that there was "at the present time no cabinet except in name"; though the heads of departments met now and then, "no reports are made; no regular discussions held; no ascertained conclusions reached." Chase was also the source of Fessenden's statement about Seward's "back-stairs" influence at the White House. Believing Chase's rumors, the caucus agreed on a resolution calling for "a change in and a partial reconstruction of the Cabinet." The senators then voted unanimously-with only two Republican senators absent, and Senator King not voting-to name a committee to present their views to the President.

Lincoln, who had a good idea of what went on in the caucus, was in anguish because of this new a.s.sault, coming so close after the devastating news from Fredericksburg. When he met Browning in the afternoon of December 18, he asked, "What do these men want?" And he answered himself: "They wish to get rid of me, and I am sometimes half disposed to gratify them." "We are now on the brink of destruction," he told Browning. "It appears to me the Almighty is against us, and I can hardly see a ray of hope."

But when the committee representing the Senate caucus called at the White House at seven o'clock that evening, he had regained his composure, and he greeted his visitors with what Fessenden called "his usual urbanity." Patiently he listened as Collamer, the chairman of the committee, read resolutions that the senators had agreed on, which, in very general terms and without mentioning any names, called for changes in the composition of the cabinet so that its members would agree with the President "in political principles and general policy" and urged that no important military command should go to anyone who was not "a cordial believer and supporter of the same principles."

Wade then bluntly censured Lincoln for entrusting the conduct of the war to "men who had no sympathy with it or the cause," and blamed Republican defeats in the recent elections on "the fact that the President had placed the direction of our military affairs in the hands of bitter and malignant Democrats."

After professing confidence in the integrity and patriotism of the President, Fessenden alleged "that the Cabinet were not consulted as" a council-in fact, that many important measures were decided upon not only without consultation, but without the knowledge of its members." Seward, he claimed, exerted an injurious influence upon the conduct of the war. Branching out in his indictment, he went on to say that the commanders of the armies were "largely pro-slavery men and sympathized strongly with the Southern feeling," and some of them, like McClellan, had used their position to blame the administration for failing to support them and their men.

At this point Lincoln interrupted. From his long experience in the courtroom he knew the value of a well-timed digression as a way of defusing hostility. If the occasion had not been so serious, he might have told the senators an anecdote. Instead, producing a large bundle of papers, he spent nearly half an hour in reading aloud his letters to McClellan, showing that the government had consistently sustained him to the best of its powers.

By the time the senators got back to their main subject, their tempers had cooled, and n.o.body got very excited about Sumner's charge that Seward had written offensive diplomatic dispatches, "which the President could not have seen or a.s.sented to."

After three hours the meeting broke up without taking any action. By the end of the session the President was, as Fessenden thought, "apparently in cheerful spirits," and he promised to give careful consideration to the resolutions submitted by the committee. As they left the White House, Radical Republicans were exultant "at the prospect of getting rid of the whole Cabinet" and Chandler rejoiced with "our best and truest men" that they were going to oust Seward, "the millstone around the Administration."

The President had other plans. The next morning at a cabinet meeting where all members except Seward were present, he reported on the resignation of the Secretary of State and on his visit from the committee representing the Republican caucus. He observed that they considered Seward "the real cause of our failures." "While they believed in the President's honesty," he said in his quaint language, "they seemed to think that when he had in him any good purposes Mr. S[eward]. contrived to suck them out of him unperceived." He then asked the cabinet members to meet with him again, "to have a free talk," that evening at seven-thirty.

The committee was invited for the same hour, and as senators and cabinet members met in the anteroom, they exchanged looks of wild surmise. The President began the meeting with a long statement, commenting "with some mild severity" on the resolutions presented by the senators the previous evening, admitting that he had not been very regular in consulting the cabinet as a whole, but arguing "that most questions of importance had received a reasonable consideration" and that he "was not aware of any divisions or want of unity." He then called on the members of the cabinet to state "whether there had been any want of unity or of sufficient consultation."

Most of the cabinet members unhesitatingly agreed that they had indeed been consulted on important matters, but Chase was in a very embarra.s.sing position. If he now repeated his frequent complaints to the senators, his disloyalty to the President would be apparent. If he supported Lincoln's statement, it would be evident that he had deceived the senators. Chase tried to get out of the trap by bl.u.s.tering "that he should not have come here had he known that he was to be arraigned before a committee of the Senate." But finding no escape, he swallowed both truth and consistency and averred "that questions of importance had generally been considered by the Cabinet, though perhaps not so fully as might have been desired" and that there was no want of unity in the cabinet.

The meeting went on for some time after that, as senators repeated all the familiar charges against Seward, but it was evident that Chase's forced admission had undercut the case against the Secretary of State. At one o'clock, when the senators and the cabinet officers left the White House, no conclusion had been reached, but there was a general feeling that there would be no changes in the cabinet.

Chase began to realize that his position was untenable and wrote out his resignation as Secretary of the Treasury. The next morning when Lincoln summoned him to the White House, he brought the letter with him. He, along with Stanton and Welles, was already in the executive office when the President arrived. Turning at once to the Treasury Secretary, Lincoln said: "I sent for you, for this matter is giving me great trouble." Chase stammered that he, too, had been painfully affected by the meeting the previous night and that he had prepared his resignation.

"Where is it?" asked Lincoln quickly. "I brought it with me," said Chase, taking a paper from his pocket. "I wrote it this morning."

"Let me have it," said Lincoln, his long arm and fingers reaching out for the doc.u.ment, which Chase was apparently reluctant to release. Evidently the Secretary intended to say more, but Lincoln took the letter and opened it. "This ... cuts the Gordian knot," he said with a triumphant laugh. "I can dispose of this subject now."

Then Stanton offered his resignation, but Lincoln brushed him aside. "You may go to your Department," he told the Secretary of War. "I don't want yours." Then he ended the interview abruptly: "I will detain neither of you longer."

Having both Seward's resignation and Chase's in his hand, the President declined to accept either and insisted that both men remain in his cabinet. They balanced each other, he told Senator Ira Harris of New York. Remembering how as a boy in Indiana he had worked out a way to carry pumpkins while he was on horseback, he told the senator: "I can ride on now. I've got a pumpkin in each end of my bag!"

By the end of the week the cabinet crisis was over. In one sense not much had been solved. Yet there were lessons from the crisis. Radicals learned that, no matter how carefully they planned and intrigued, they lacked the power to take control of the government from the President. Lincoln told Browning firmly that "he was master, and they should not do that." Chase's reputation had suffered a serious blow. When the crisis was over, senators asked Collamer how Chase, after alleging that the President had no system and failed to consult his advisers, could have told the group that the cabinet was harmonious. The blunt Vermont senator replied, "He lied." Fessenden accurately a.s.sessed the results: "He will never be forgiven by many for deliberately sacrificing his friends to the fear of offending his and their enemies." Seward's place was secure, and to some, like Nicolay, it seemed that the Secretary had "achieved a triumph over those who attempted to drive him out, in this renewed a.s.surance of the President's confidence and esteem." But reflection suggested that Seward now, more than ever, owed his place to the goodwill of the President, and in the months ahead the Secretary became more discreet in his utterances and meddled less in the affairs of other departments.

Lincoln, too, learned from the experience. He now realized that he had not been either very businesslike or even courteous about consulting his cabinet colleagues. For a time, he meticulously invited their opinions on controversial issues. For instance, at the very end of the year he requested all of them to submit to him in writing their opinions as to whether he should veto or approve the bill that carved the new state of West Virginia out of the territory of Virginia. At a cabinet meeting on December 30 he made a point of distributing copies of his draft of the edict of emanc.i.p.ation to be issued on January 1, asking each member to offer suggestions. Ignoring most of the substantive changes that cabinet members proposed, he accepted several stylistic improvements, and he added to his final Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation a concluding paragraph, embodying an idea Chase proposed at the instigation of Charles Sumner: "And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Const.i.tution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty G.o.d."

But more than anything else, the crisis taught Lincoln his own strength. Looking back on his handling of the affair nearly a year later, he told John Hay: "I do not now see how it could have been done better. I am sure it was right. 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. When Chase sent in his resignation I saw that the game was in my own hands and I put it through." Proud that he was able to keep together an administration dominated neither by Radicals nor by Conservatives, he confided his final a.s.sessment of the crisis to Leonard Swett: "I may not have made as great a President as some other men, but I believe I have kept these discordant elements together as well as anyone could."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

What Will the Country Say!

Throngs attended the White House reception on New Year's Day of 1863. First came the members of the diplomatic corps, in full court dress, who were presented to the President by the Secretary of State. Lincoln shook hands with everyone in a cordial but businesslike manner, which reminded some observers of a farmer sawing wood. Then he pa.s.sed the guests along to Mrs. Lincoln, who wore a rich dress of velvet, with lozenge tr.i.m.m.i.n.g at the waist; it was black since she was still in mourning for Willie. Members of the cabinet followed the diplomats, and then came officers of the army and navy. In their wake what young f.a.n.n.y Seward, daughter of the Secretary of State, called "people generally" pa.s.sed through the reception line. Not until after noon could Lincoln escape upstairs to his office, where Seward and his son Frederick, the a.s.sistant secretary of state, presently brought him the duly engrossed copy of the final proclamation of emanc.i.p.ation. Excepting Tennessee and portions of other Southern states that were already under the control of Union armies, it declared that all slaves in the states or portions of states still in rebellion "are, and henceforward shall be free." For this "act of justice, warranted by the Const.i.tution, upon military necessity," the President invoked "the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty G.o.d." "I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper," Lincoln remarked, but he added ruefully that his arm was so stiff and numb from so many handshakes that he was not sure he could control a pen. "Now, this signature is one that will be closely examined," he said, "and if they find my hand trembled, they will say 'he had some compunctions.' But, any way, it is going to be done!" Then, grasping the pen firmly, he slowly and carefully wrote his name at the end of the proclamation.

In the months ahead he would frequently need to exhibit the same care and firmness, for his administration was beset from all sides. Union armies were defeated or immobilized. Union naval expeditions were spectacular failures. The border states were in turmoil, and Missouri was the scene of a guerrilla war. Foreign powers offered to mediate the conflict between the Union and the Confederacy. Discontent was on the rise in the North, and confidential sources told the President that secret pro-Confederate societies were plotting to overthrow the administration. Within the Republican party factional lines sharpened, and both Conservatives and Radicals agreed that Lincoln was a failure as President. Whatever self-a.s.surance Lincoln had gained from the cabinet crisis of December 1862 was sorely tested during the first six months of 1863, for he found that the shrewdness, tact, and forbearance that had served him so well in face-to-face disagreements were not easily applied to large groups in conflict. In short, Lincoln still had much to learn about how to be President.

I

The year began with little good news from the armies. To be sure, in eastern Tennessee Rosecrans's army more than held its own against Bragg's in the protracted and costly battle of Stones River (December 30-January 2), and Lincoln praised the general's "skill, endurance, and da[u]ntless courage." But when the Confederates withdrew from the field, Union forces did not follow. For the rest of the winter Rosecrans remained immobile at Murfreesboro, ignoring the President's prompting to advance against Chattanooga. Like Buell, Rosecrans found the roads impa.s.sable, supplies too hard to collect, and his lines of communication with Nashville and Louisville too tenuous. When Lincoln gently pointed out that the Confederates faced similar difficulties but still were able to do much damage with small raids, "harra.s.sing, and discouraging loyal residents, supplying themselves with provisions, clothing, horses, and the like," and proposed mounting "counter-raids," Rosecrans ignored his letter, doubtless resenting civilian interference in military decisions. Instead of acting against the enemy, he brooded over perceived slights. He complained bitterly that he was outranked because Grant was issued a commission as major general that antedated his own. The President was finally obliged to tell him bluntly: "Truth to speak, I do not appreciate this matter of rank on paper, as you officers do. The world will not forget that you fought the battle of 'Stone River' and it will never care a fig whether you rank Gen. Grant on paper, or he so, ranks you." Still, Rosecrans would not move.

Farther west, the outlook for the Union forces was even bleaker. On January 1 the federal garrison at Galveston, Texas, surrendered to attacking Confederates. In Louisiana, General Benjamin F. Butler proved so rapacious that the President had to replace him, and the new commander, N. P. Banks, had yet to demonstrate his ability. Most serious of all was Grant's failure to capture Vicksburg. After an unsuccessful attempt to proceed overland through central Mississippi, Grant entrusted the offensive to W. T. Sherman, who led his troops on December 29 in a disastrous a.s.sault on the Chickasaw Bluffs defending Vicksburg that was reminiscent, on a smaller scale, of Burnside's fiasco at Fredericksburg. Recognizing how vital Vicksburg was, the President watched these operations closely, but in the months after Sherman's defeat he heard mostly complaints about Grant. The general, reported Murat Halstead of the Cincinnati Commercial, "is a jacka.s.s in the original package. He is a poor drunken imbecile. He is a poor stick sober, and he is most of the time more than half drunk, and much of the time idiotically drunk." Further controversy rose over Grant's ill-conceived order banning "Jew peddlers" from his lines. The President promptly revoked it "as it... proscribed an entire religious cla.s.s, some of whom are fighting in our ranks."

Most troubling of all was the situation of the Army of the Potomac, demoralized after Fredericksburg. Burnside gained some credibility from his manly acknowledgment that he alone, and not the President nor the War Department, was responsible for the defeat. Greatly pleased at this statement, because he was used to being blamed for his subordinates' failures, Lincoln told Burnside "he was the first man he had found who was willing to relieve him of a particle of responsibility." But the general had lost the confidence of his subordinate officers and his troops. Learning that Burnside was preparing another a.s.sault on the impregnable Confederate defenses at Fredericksburg, two of his major generals, William B. Franklin and William F. Smith, violated military protocol by writing directly to the President, warning that "the plan of campaign already commenced will not be successful." But when Halleck complained of the "very disheartening" inactivity of the Army of the Potomac, Burnside pushed ahead and began organizing a wide flanking movement to cross the Rappahannock River below Fredericksburg.

At this point discontent in the Army of the Potomac bubbled over. Many of the officers, convinced of Burnside's incompetence, were despondent almost to the point of mutiny. Antic.i.p.ating another disaster, Generals John Newton and John Cochrane on December 30 made a quick trip to Washington to alert the President of the danger. Though Lincoln distrusted the reports of all these subordinates, because he was convinced their real purpose was to restore McClellan to command, he ordered a halt to Burnside's advance: "I have good reason for saying you must not make a general movement of the army without letting me know."

On New Year's Day, before the public reception, Burnside came to the White House to explain and defend his plans. With an army of 120,000 men immediately confronting the enemy in Virginia, he thought it imperative to begin an advance, whether below or above Fredericksburg, but since not one of his division commanders supported his plan he was willing to give it up, and with it the command of the Army of the Potomac and even his commission in the United States Army. In announcing that he would "most cheerfully give place to any other officer," Burnside suggested that Lincoln ought to look not just at the ability of the commanding general but at the honesty and loyalty of both Secretary of War Stanton and General-in-Chief Halleck. He warned that they had not given the President the "positive and unswerving support in [his] public policy" or a.s.sumed "their full share of the responsibility for that policy."

Lincoln was in a quandary. Not knowing what else to do, he asked Halleck's opinion of Burnside's planned operation. The general declined to give one, making it clear, as he had on a previous occasion, "that a General in command of an army in the field is the best judge of existing conditions." Impatiently the President then directed Halleck to go to Burnside's headquarters, examine the ground, talk with the officers, and, after forming his own opinion, tell Burnside either that he approved or disapproved of his planned advance. "If in such a difficulty as this you do not help, you fail me precisely in the point for which I sought your a.s.sistance," he wrote sharply. "Your military skill is useless to me, if you will not do this."

Halleck's response was to offer his resignation as general-in-chief, on the ground that "a very important difference of opinion in regard to my relations toward generals commanding armies in the field" made it impossible to perform the duties of his office "satisfactorily at the same time to the President and to myself."