“My dear General:  I do not remember that you and I ever met personally.  I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done the country.  I wish to say a word further.  When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you should do what you finally did-march the troops across the neck, run the batteries with the transports, and thus go below; and I never had any faith except a general hope that you knew better than I, that the Yazoo Pass expedition and the like could succeed.  When you got below and took Port Gibson, Grand Gulf and the vicinity, I thought you should go down the river and join General Banks, and when you turned Northward, east of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake.  I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right and I was wrong.

“Very truly,

“A.  Lincoln.”

XXVII.  THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE

Between March and December, 1863, Congress was not in session.  Its members were busy “taking the sense of the country” as they would have said:  “putting their ears to the ground,” as other people would say.  A startling tale the ground told them.  It was nothing less than that Lincoln was the popular hero; that the people believed in him; that the politicians would do well to shape their ways accordingly.  When they reassembled, they were in a sullen, disappointed frame of mind.  They would have liked to ignore the ground’s mandate; but being politicians, they dared not.

What an ironical turn of events!  Lincoln’s well-laid plan for a coalition of Moderates and Democrats had come to nothing.  Logically, he ought now to be at the mercy of the Republican leaders.  But instead, those leaders were beginning to be afraid of him, were perceiving that he had power whereof they had not dreamed.  Like Saul the son of Kish, who had set out to find his father’s asses, he had found instead a kingdom.  How had he done it?

On a grand scale, it was the same sort of victory that had made him a power, so long before, on the little stage at Springfield.  It was personal politics.  His character had saved him.  A multitude who saw nothing in the fine drawn constitutional issue of the war powers, who sensed the war in the most simple and elementary way, had formed, somehow, a compelling and stimulating idea of the President.  They were satisfied that “Old Abe,” or “Father Abraham,” was the man for them.  When, after one of his numerous calls for fresh troops, their hearts went out to him, a new song sprang to life, a ringing, vigorous, and yet a touching song with the refrain, “We’re coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more.”

But how has he done it, asked the bewildered politicians, one of another.  How had he created this personal confidence?  They, Wade, Chandler, Stevens, Davis, could not do it; why could he?