It was Lincoln’s fate to see his policy once again at the mercy of his Commanding General.  That was his situation in the spring of 1862 when everything hung on McClellan who failed him; again in the autumn of the year when McClellan so narrowly saved him.  The spring of 1864 paralleled, in this respect, that other spring two years earlier.  To be sure, Lincoln’s position was now much stronger; he had a great personal following on which he relied.  But just how strong it was he did not know.  He was taking a great risk forcing a policy high-handed in defiance of Congress, where all his bitterest enemies were entrenched, glowering.  If his General failed him now—­

The man on whom this huge responsibility rested was Grant.  Lincoln had summoned him from the West and placed him at the head of all the armies of the Republic.  As to Halleck who had long since proved himself perfectly useless, he was allowed to lapse into obscurity.

Grant has preserved in his Memoirs his first confidential talk with Lincoln:  “He told me he did not want to know what I proposed to do.  But he submitted a plan of campaign of his own that he wanted me to hear and then do as I pleased about.  He brought out a map of Virginia on which he had evidently marked every position occupied by the Federal and Confederate armies up to that time.  He pointed out on the map two streams which empty into the Potomac, and suggested that an army might be moved on boats and landed between the mouths of those streams.  We would then have the Potomac to bring our supplies, and the tributaries would protect our flanks while we moved out.  I listened respectfully, but did not suggest that the same streams would protect Lee’s flanks while he was shutting us up."(6)

Grant set out for the front in Virginia.  Lincoln’s parting words were this note:  “Not expecting to see you again before the spring campaign opens, I wish to express in this way my entire satisfaction with what you have done up to this time, so far as I understand it.  The particulars of your plans I neither know nor seek to know.  You are vigilant and self-reliant; and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any constraints or restraints upon you.  While I am very anxious that any great disaster or capture of our men in great numbers shall be avoided, I know these points are less likely to escape your attention than they would be mine.  If there is anything wanting which is within my power to give, do not fail to let me know it.  And now, with a brave army and a just cause, may God sustain you."(7)

XXIX.  CATASTROPHE

If the politicians needed a definite warning, in addition to what the ground was saying, it was given by an incident that centered upon Chase.  A few bold men whose sense of the crowd was not so acute as it might have been, attempted to work up a Chase boom.  At the instance of Senator Pomeroy, a secret paper known to-day as the Pomeroy Circular, was started on its travels.  The Circular aimed to make Chase the Vindictive candidate.  Like all the other anti-Lincoln moves of the early part of 1864, it was premature.  The shrewd old Senators who were silently marshaling the Vindictive forces, let it alone.