she.  ‘I hid myself behind the woodpile,’ said the old man, ’with the shot-gun pointed toward the hen-roost, and before long there appeared, not one skunk, but seven.  I took aim, blazed away, and killed one—­and he raised such a fearful smell I concluded it was best to let the other six alone.’” The Senators retired, and nothing more was heard from them about Cabinet reconstruction.

Of the character and abilities of Secretary Stanton, and the relations between him and the President, General Grant has admirably said:  “I had the fullest support of the President and Secretary of War.  No General could want better backing; for the President was a man of great wisdom and moderation, the Secretary a man of enormous character and will.  Very often where Lincoln would want to say Yes, his Secretary would make him say No; and more frequently, when the Secretary was driving on in a violent course, the President would check him.  United, Lincoln and Stanton made about as perfect a combination as I believe could, by any possibility, govern a great nation in time of war....  The two men were the very opposite of each other in almost every particular, except that each possessed great ability.  Mr. Lincoln gained influence over men by making them feel that it was a pleasure to serve them.  He preferred yielding his own wish to gratify others, rather than to insist upon having his own way.  It distressed him to disappoint others.  In matters of public duty, however, he had what he wished, but in the least offensive way.  Mr. Stanton never questioned his own authority to command, unless resisted.  He cared nothing for the feeling of others.”  In a further comparison of the two men, General Grant said:  “Lincoln was not timid, and he was willing to trust his generals in making and executing plans.  The Secretary [Stanton] was very timid, and it was impossible for him to avoid interfering with the armies covering the capital when it was sought to defend it by an offensive movement against the army guarding the Confederate capital.  He could see our weakness, but he could not see that the enemy was in danger.  The enemy would not have been in danger if Mr. Stanton had been in the field.”

With all his force of character, and his overbearing disposition, Stanton did not undertake to rule the President—­though this has sometimes been asserted.  He would frequently overawe and browbeat others, but he was never imperious in dealing with Lincoln.  Mr. Watson, for some time Assistant Secretary of War, and Mr. Whiting, Solicitor of the War Department, with many others in a position to know, have borne positive testimony to this fact.  Hon. George W. Julian, a member of the House Committee on the Conduct of the War, says:  “On the 24th of March, 1862, Secretary Stanton sent for the Committee for the purpose of having a confidential conference as to military affairs.  Stanton was thoroughly discouraged.  He told us the President had gone back to his first love, General McClellan, and that it was needless for him or for us to labor with him.”  This language clearly shows that Lincoln, not Stanton, was the dominant mind.