The result again did not reward him.  His choice of Burnside was a mistake.  There were corps commanders under McClellan who had earned special confidence, but they were all rather old.  General Burnside, who was the senior among the rest, had lately succeeded in operations in connection with the Navy on the North Carolina coast, whereby certain harbours were permanently closed to the South.  He had since served under McClellan at the Antietam, but had not earned much credit.  He was a loyal friend to McClellan and very modest about his own capacity.  Perhaps both these things prejudiced Lincoln in his favour.  He continued in active service till nearly the end of the war, when a failure led to his retirement; and he was always popular and respected.  At this juncture he failed disastrously.  On December 11 and 12, 1862, Lee’s army lay strongly posted on the south of the Rappahannock.  Burnside, in spite, as it appears, of express warnings from Lincoln, attacked Lee at precisely the point, near the town of Fredericksburg, where his position was really impregnable.  The defeat of the Northern army was bloody and overwhelming.  Burnside’s army became all but mutinous; his corps commanders, especially General Hooker, were loud in complaint.  He was tempted to persist, in spite of all protests, in some further effort of rashness.  Lincoln endeavoured to restrain him.  Halleck, whom Lincoln begged to give a definite military opinion, upholding or overriding Burnside’s, had nothing more useful to offer than his own resignation.  After discussions and recriminations among all officers concerned, Burnside offered his resignation.  Lincoln was by no means disposed to remove a general upon a first failure or to side with his subordinates against him, and refused to accept it.  Burnside then offered the impossible alternative of the dismissal of all his corps commanders for disaffection to him, and on January 25, 1863, his resignation was accepted.

There was much discussion in the Cabinet as to the choice of his successor.  It was thought unwise to give the Eastern army a commander from the West again.  At Chase’s instance [Transcriber’s note:  insistance?] the senior corps commander who was not too old, General Hooker, sometimes called “Fighting Joe Hooker,” was appointed.  He received a letter, often quoted as the letter of a man much altered from the Lincoln who had been groping a year earlier after the right way of treating McClellan:  “I have placed you,” wrote Lincoln, “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 that you do not mix politics with your profession, in which you are right.  You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable,