“General, I have placed you at the head of the army of the Potomac.  Of course I have done this upon what appear to me to be sufficient reasons, and yet I think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you.  I believe you to be a brave and skilful soldier, which of course I like.  I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession, in which you are right.  You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable, if not an indispensable quality.  You are ambitious, which within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm; but I think that during General Burnside’s command of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did a great wrong to the country and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer.  I have heard in such a way as to believe it, of your recently Saying that both the army and the government needed a dictator.  Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command.  Only those generals who gain successes can set up dictators.  What I now ask you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship.  The government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders.  I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticizing their commander and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon you.  I shall assist you as far as I can to put it down.  Neither you nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good out of an army while such a Spirit prevails in it; and now beware of rashness.  Beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories."(10)

The appointment of Hooker had the effect of quieting the Committee for the time.  Lincoln turned again to his political scheme, but not until he had made another military appointment from which at the moment no one could have guessed that trouble would ever come.  He gave to Burnside what might be called the sinecure position of Commander of the Department of the Ohio with headquarters at Cincinnati.(11)

During the early part of 1863 Lincoln’s political scheme received a serious blow.  Seymour ranked himself as an irreconcilable enemy of the Administration.  The anti-Lincoln Republicans struck at the President in roundabout ways.  Heralding a new attack, the best man on the Committee, Julian, ironically urged his associates in Congress to “rescue” the President from his false friends—­those mere Unionists who were luring him away from the party that had elected him, enticing him into a vague new party that should include “Democrats.”  It was said that there were only two Lincoln men in the House.(12) Greeley was coquetting with Rosecrans, trying to induce him to come forward as Republican presidential “timber.”  The Committee in April published an elaborate report which portrayed the army of the Potomac as an army of heroes tragically afflicted in the past by the incompetence of their commanders.  The Democrats continued their abuse of the dictator.