with all their subordinates, and the General-in-Chief, with all other commanders and subordinates of land and naval forces, will severally be held to their strict and full responsibilities for prompt execution of this order.”  This order, while it doubtless served to infuse activity into commanders and officials, did not result in any substantial successes to our arms.  The President, worn by his ceaseless activities and anxieties, seems to have been momentarily disheartened at the situation.  Admiral Dahlgren, who was in command of the Washington navy-yard in 1862, narrates that one day, at this period, “the President drove down to see the hundred-and-fifty-pounder cannon fired.  For the first time I heard the President speak of the bare possibility of our being two nations—­as if alluding to a previous suggestion.  He could not see how the two could exist so near each other.  He was evidently much worried at our lack of military success, and remarked that ’no one seemed ready.’”

It is difficult to portray the worry and perplexity that beset Lincoln’s life, and the incessant demands upon his attention, in his efforts to familiarize himself, as he felt compelled to do, with the practical operations of the war.  Admiral Dahlgren, who saw him almost daily, relates that one morning the President sent for him, and said, “Well, Captain, here’s a letter about some new powder.”  He read the letter and showed the sample of powder,—­adding that he had burned some of it and it did not seem a good article; there was too much residuum.  “Now I’ll show you,” said he.  So he got a small sheet of paper and placed some of the powder on it, then went to the fire, and with the tongs picked up a coal, which he blew, with his spectacles still on his nose; then he clapped the coal to the powder, and after the explosion, remarked:  “There is too much left there.”  There is something almost grotesque, but touching and pathetic as well, in this picture of the President of the United States, with all his enormous cares and responsibilities, engaged in so petty a matter as testing a sample of powder.  And yet so great was his anxiety for the success of the armies and navies under his control that he wished to become personally satisfied as to every detail.  He did not wish our armies or our war-vessels to lose battles on account of bad powder.  “At another time,” Admiral Dahlgren has related, “the President sent for me regarding some new invention.  After the agent of the inventor left, the President began on army matters.  ‘Now,’ said he, ’I am to have a sweat of five or six days’” (alluding to an impending battle, for the result of which he was very anxious).  Again:  “The President sent for me.  Some man in trouble about arms; President holding a breech-loader in his hand.  He asked me about the iron-clads, and Charleston.”  And again:  “Went to the Department and found the President there.  He looks thin, and is very nervous.  Said they were doing nothing at Charleston,