to Grant, and of which the very simple facts must be stated, since it was the last of the occasions upon which severe criticism of Lincoln’s military administration has been founded.  General McClernand was an ambitious Illinois lawyer-politician of energy and courage; he was an old acquaintance of Lincoln’s, and an old opponent; since the death of Douglas he and another lawyer-politician, Logan, had been the most powerful of the Democrats in Illinois; both were zealous in the war and had joined the Army upon its outbreak.  Logan served as a general under Grant with confessed ability.  It must be repeated that, North and South, former civilians had to be placed in command for lack of enough soldiers of known capacity to go round, and that many of them, like Logan and like the Southern general, Polk, who was a bishop in the American Episcopal Church, did very good service.  McClernand had early obtained high rank and had shown no sign as yet of having less aptitude for his new career than other men of similar antecedents.  Grant, however, distrusted him, and proved to be right.  In October, 1862, McClernand came to Lincoln with an offer of his personal services in raising troops from Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa, with a special view to clearing the Mississippi.  He of course expected to be himself employed in this operation.  Recruiting was at a low ebb, and it would have been folly to slight this offer.  McClernand did in fact raise volunteers to the number of a whole army corps.  He was placed under Grant in command of the expedition down the Mississippi which had already started under Sherman.  Sherman’s great promise had not yet been proved to any one but Grant; he appears at this time to have come under the disapproval of the Joint Committee of Congress on the War, and the newspaper Press had not long before announced, with affected regret, the news that he had become insane.  McClernand, arriving just after Sherman’s defeat near Vicksburg, fell in at once with a suggestion of his to attack the Post of Arkansas, a Confederate stronghold in the State of Arkansas and upon the river of that name, from the shelter of which Confederate gunboats had some chance of raiding the Mississippi above Vicksburg.  The expedition succeeded in this early in January, 1863, and was then recalled to join Grant.  This was a mortification to McClernand, who had hoped for a command independent of Grant.  In his subsequent conduct he seems to have shown incapacity; he was certainly insubordinate to Grant, and he busied himself in intrigues against him, with such result as will soon be seen.  As soon as Grant told the Administration that he was dissatisfied with McClernand, he was assured that he was at liberty to remove him from command.  This he eventually did after some months of trial.