Lincoln’s relations with McClellan have already been touched upon.  There would not be space in this paper to refer in detail to the action taken by Lincoln with other army commanders East and West.  The problem that confronted the Commander-in-chief of selecting the right leaders for this or that undertaking, and of promoting the men who gave evidence of the greater capacity that was required for the larger armies that were being placed in the field, was one of no little difficulty.  The reader of history, looking back to-day, with the advantage of the full record of the careers of the various generals, is tempted to indulge in easy criticism of the blunders made by the President.  Why did the President put up so long with the vaingloriousness and ineffectiveness of McClellan?  Why should he have accepted even for one brief and unfortunate campaign the service of an incompetent like Pope?  Why was a slow-minded closet-student like Halleck permitted to fritter away in the long-drawn-out operations against Corinth the advantage of position and of force that had been secured by the army of the West?  Why was a political trickster like Butler, with no army experience, or a well-meaning politician like Banks with still less capacity for the management of troops, permitted to retain responsibilities in the field, making blunders that involved waste of life and of resources and the loss of campaigns?  Why were not the real men like Sherman, Grant, Thomas, McPherson, Sheridan, and others brought more promptly into the important positions?  Why was the army of the South permitted during the first two years of the War to have so large an advantage in skilled and enterprising leadership?  A little reflection will show how unjust is the criticism implied through such questions.  We know of the incapacity of the generals who failed and of the effectiveness of those who succeeded, only through the results of the campaigns themselves.  Lincoln could only study the men as he came to know about them and he experimented first with one and then with another, doing what seemed to be practicable to secure a natural selection and the survival of the fittest.  Such watchful supervision and painstaking experimenting was carried out with infinite patience and with an increasing knowledge both of the requirements and of the men fitted to fill the requirements.

We must also recall that, Commander-in-chief as he was, Lincoln was not free to exercise without restriction his own increasingly valuable judgment in the appointment of the generals.  It was necessary to give consideration to the opinion of the country, that is to say, to the individual judgments of the citizens whose loyal co-operation was absolutely essential for the support of the nation’s cause.  These opinions of the citizens were expressed sometimes through the appeals of earnestly loyal governors like Andrew of Massachusetts, or Curtin of Pennsylvania, and sometimes through the articles of a strenuous editor